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A closer examination of US and Russian history proves that US and European leaders were aware of the importance to the Soviet Union and its successor, the Russian Federation of a buffer zone against possible foreign aggression.  To that end, as early as December 1989 during the Malta summit President George H.W. Bush assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that the US would not take advantage of the revolutions in eastern Europe to harm Soviet interests (Savranskaya and Blanton 2017).

The first specific assurance from a Western leader came on January 31, 1990, from West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher during a major speech at Tutzing in Bavaria.  The US Embassy in Bonn confirmed to Washington that Genscher made assurances “that the changes in eastern Europe and the German unification process must not lead to an ‘impairment of Soviet security interests.’

Therefore, NATO should rule out an ‘expansion of its territory towards the east, i.e., moving it closer to the Soviet borders.”  The cable from the US Embassy also noted that Genscher’s proposal to leave the East German territory [German Democratic Republic] out of NATO military structures even in a unified Germany in NATO.  Genscher’s proposal regarding the German Democratic Republic territory became codified in the final unification treaty signed on September 12, 1990.

The assurances regarding “closer to the Soviet borders” was not included in any treaties, but it was confirmed in multiple memoranda among the Soviets and officials at the highest reaches of Western governments: Genscher, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, US Secretary of State James Baker, CIA Director Robert Gates, US President George HW  Bush, French President Francois Mitterrand, UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, UK Prime Minister John Major, NATO Secretary-General Manfred Woerner et al.  (Savranskaya and Blanton 2017).

On February 9, 1990, US Secretary of State James Baker mentioned three times the “not one inch forward” formula regarding NATO to Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev,  Baker also concurred with Gorbachev that “NATO expansion is unacceptable.”  Baker added, “Neither the President nor I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place.”

Additionally, the US acknowledged that “not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that is the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not one inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.”

Gorbachev remained confident that when the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991, the West and NATO were not a threat to the USSR.  Instead, he believed that the Soviet Union’s collapse was engineered by Boris Yeltsin  and his adviser Gennady Burbulis along with former party bosses of the Soviet republics, especially Ukraine.  Notwithstanding, the Western nation leaders repeated assurances to not expand NATO, released documents show that numerous national leaders were considering and rejecting NATO membership of central and eastern European nations beginning in early 1990 and continuing through 1991. (Savranskaya and Blanton 2017).

As the Warsaw Pact, the counterpart to the West’s NATO, dissolved and the Soviet Union crumbled, US National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft wrote to President George HW Bush that these events posed both “risks and opportunities.”  Scowcroft asserted that the opportunities for the US required that NATO remained “vital in these new circumstances.”  The National Security Advisor also intoned that the US could leverage a more “robust” role in central Europe—particularly by getting “between Germany and the USSR.”  US policymakers feared that a Germany-led western European axis could rise to dominate the region, including the Soviet Union and nascent Russian Federation (Puryear 2022).

Russia would be an enormous prize for imperialist nations like the United States, Germany, and other Western countries.  Russia is the largest country in the world; its landmass contains 6.6 million square miles spreading across two continents.  The next three countries in size are: Canada—3.8 million square miles; China—3.7 million square miles; the US—3.6 million square miles.  Russia claims 11 percent of the planet’s landmass (Black 2022).

Russia produces about 40 percent of the European Union’s natural gas, and nearly 12 percent of the world’s oil.  Russia has abundant stores of basic metals: iron, gold, silver, nickel, platinum, rare earth minerals, niobium, cobalt, graphite, lithium, among others.  It is a major producer of diamonds.  But perhaps most important is Russia’s so-called critical metals that are expected to be in great demand during the next two decades; these metals will be crucial to global and political hegemony in the twenty-first century.  The metals will be central to the expected explosion of high-tech gadgetry, and the development of renewable energy sources (Black 2022).

Throughout 1990 in the wake of the German reunification, high-level discussions occurred at the National Security Council and the State Department, as potential for NATO expansion increased among policymakers.  The US balked after considering the ramifications of such an aggressive move on the Soviet Union that could impede its dissolution of the Warsaw Pact.  The HW Bush administration chose a more cautious approach and began to downplay discussions of such a move by early 1991 that might heighten anxieties in Moscow and derail the end of the Soviet Union.  However, after the Soviet Union collapsed, memories of verbal assurances and written confirmations that NATO member states promulgated were quickly ignored as the US through its junior partners in NATO began its policies for seizing total dominance subsequent the end of the Cold War (Puryear 2022).

In the wake of the Soviet Union collapse, the US became alarmed at the actions of France and the newly minted German Democratic Republic to obtain stronger European alliances to the detriment of the US’s ability to impose its authority on the Continent.  National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft counseled President H.W. Bush in a memorandum that the US must avoid “an independent European security identity” that would “reduce our influence in Europe and weaken domestic support for our European presence.”

Scowcroft’s comments were emblematic of the US Defense Department’s “Defense Strategy for the 1990s” that was the public version of the infamous “Wolfowitz Doctrine.”  This instrument written in 1992 by undersecretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz proposed that the engagement of the Russian Federation and the former Soviet states was to “reduce their [military] forces” through “military budget cuts” and “conversion…[of] military industries,” and, more precisely, “demilitarization.”  This policy would ensure that no post-Soviet eastern European alliance might emerge to threaten US hegemony (Puryear 2022).

With the Bill Clinton administration that began in 1992, the US continued more earnestly the expansion of NATO, that had taken a more circumspect approach during the H.W. Bush administration.  During the first two years of his administration, Clinton couched NATO’s expansion as a framework for a “Partnership of Peace” with Russia.

By 1994, Clinton began waffling on his predecessor’s clear assurances by giving Russian President Boris Yeltsin flimsy excuses about his evident policy changes regarding NATO.  This disingenuous ploy stalled when the Russians made it plain that they were unwilling to play a junior position to the United States or its European allies.  Meanwhile, Russian President Boris Yeltsin who was instrumental in ushering in the Soviet Union’s demise was selling off the former USSR’s assets for pennies on the dollar.

Yeltsin naively believed that selling his own country’s assets at fire-sale prices to kleptocratic oligarchs would persuade the US to allow Russia to cooperate as “superpowers” in shaping the post-Soviet era.  In 1994, Yeltsin confided in writing to Clinton, “There should exist a basic understanding that Russian-American partnership constitutes the central factor in world politics,” and that he felt the relationship must exist “on the basis of equality.”

Of course, this notion was a nonstarter for the Clinton administration as it contradicted the 1992 Defense Strategy penned by Wolfowitz.  The Wolfowitz Doctrine called for the extirpation of the Russian military and allowed no provision for Russian participation in looting the treasure of the former Soviet Union.  In the bluntest terms, if the Russian Federation desired involvement with the United States, it would accept a subordinate position (Puryear 2022; Chomsky 2022).

On May 10, 1995, in a meeting at the Kremlin, Yeltsin told Clinton that a NATO expansion would result “in nothing but humiliation for Russia,” and could provoke another Cold War.  “How do you think it looks to us,” Yeltsin continued, “if one bloc [from the Cold War] continued to exist when the Warsaw Pact has been abolished?  It’s a new form of encirclement if one surviving Cold War bloc expands right up to the borders of Russia.” (Emphasis added.)

But the obvious was beginning to dawn on the Russians that the Clinton administration was misrepresenting US intentions for expanding NATO—even as Washington continued to send vague signals that no expansion would occur.  Meanwhile,  despite Clinton’s tepid assurances to Yeltsin to the contrary, Vice President Al Gore told Secretary of Defense William Perry that the president was “committed to a rapid expansion of NATO right after 1996, rather than taking the much slower route through the Partnership for Peace” (Puryear 2022; (Kuzmarov,”Clinton Attempts to Justify NATO) Expansion,” 2022).

Acting in contrast to the H.W. Bush administration’s reluctance to alarm the Soviet Union regarding NATO expansion, Clinton was eager to move forward, despite his predecessor’s explicit promises to expand NATO “not one inch forward” past the German Democratic Republic’s eastern boundary.

Nevertheless, in 1997, even as voices began to advise against the NATO expansion, Clinton invited the so-called Visegrád countries—Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania—to join NATO.

The Russians made weak protests but acquiesced to this blatant change in US posture.  Likewise, when the Baltic nations—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—joined, the Russians passively accepted this encroachment.  After the Baltic states joined NATO, military forces were fewer than 400 miles from Moscow.  When George W. Bush in 2008 sought the admittance of Georgia and Ukraine to NATO, Russia bristled.  It was common knowledge among US diplomats that Georgia and Ukraine were red lines for Russia.  Georgia and Ukraine are in Russia’s geostrategic heartland and Russia would not tolerate expansion into these states, as Noam Chomsky said in a May 12, 2022 interview (Chomsky 2022; Rasmus 2022).

In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, former US Ambassador to Soviet Russia from 1987 to 1991 Jack Matlock told the committee that the NATO expansion “would go down in history as the most profound strategic blunder made since the end of the Cold War,” and “could produce the most serious security threat to this nation since the Soviet Union collapsed.”  Later, Matlock added that he feared the possibility of a nuclear standoff (Puryear 2022).

Secretary of Defense Perry during Clinton’s drive to expand NATO recalled years later that during internal meetings that he voiced his opposition to the expansion.  Perry said that he considered resigning “in the strength of his conviction… [and] I regret I didn’t fight more effectively.”  On February 5, 1997, George F. Kennan, who was among the chief policymakers and author of the “Containment Doctrine” policy of Communism during the Cold War wrote in an op-ed that appeared in The New York Times that NATO expansion would amount to a “strategic blunder of epic proportions” and the “most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era. (Puryear 2022; Kuzmarov, “Clinton Attempts to Justify NATO Expansion,” 2022).

Robert M. Gates, who served in high-level positions in the H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama administrations wrote in Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (2015) recalled a meeting in 2007 with President George W. Bush after the Munich Security Conference that Russian President Vladimir Putin said the NATO expansion “represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust.  And we have a right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended?  And what happened to the assurances our Western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact?” (Puryear 2022).

In 2008, US Ambassador to Moscow William J. Burns presciently wrote in a cable to Washington:

“Russia would view further eastward expansion as a potential military threat.  NATO enlargement, particularly to Ukraine, remains an emotional and neuralgic issue for Russia, but strategic policy considerations also underlie strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia.  In Ukraine, these include fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence, or even, some claim civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene.”

Later, Burns wrote in a memorandum that Ukrainian entry into NATO as the “brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite” (Puryear 2022).

In a March 5, 2014, Washington Post op-ed titled “To Settle the Ukraine Crisis, Start at the End,”  Henry Kissinger noted, “Ukraine should not join NATO….”  He continued, “But if Ukraine is going to survive and thrive, it should not be either side’s [US or Russia] outpost against the other—it should function as a bridge between them” (Flood 2022).

Eight years later, Kissinger on March 21, 2022, spoke via a video link to the planet’s financial elites at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.  The 99-year-old veteran US policymaker delivered an ominous warning about the conflagration ongoing in Ukraine: “Negotiations need to begin in the next two months, before it creates upheavals and tensions that will not be easily overcome.  Ideally, the dividing line should be a return to the status quo ante….  Pursuing this war beyond that point would not be about the freedom of Ukraine, but a new war against Russia itself” (Whitney 2022) (Rolofson 2022).

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky retorted by blasting Kissinger as living in 1938 and not 2022.  Zelensky compared making peace with Russia as the same as making peace with Nazi Germany.  Zelensky’s adviser Alexey Arestovich was more stentorian and profane in his criticism of Kissinger’s admonishment that Ukraine yield lands to Russia: “Go fuck yourselves with such proposals, you dumb fucks, to trade Ukrainian territory a little bit!”  Arestovich continued, “… Our children are dying, soldiers are stopping shells with their own bodies, and they are telling us how to sacrifice our territories.  This will never happen,” he vowed (Rolofson 2022).

Prelude to US Proxy War in Ukraine 2000 to 2014

The controversial 2000 presidential election in the United States with the assistance of five of the nine justices of the US Supreme Court ushered into the Oval Office the George W. Bush administration.  Bush, the son of former president George HW Bush, claimed during his campaign that he was a “compassionate conservative” who was not interested in nation building.  Bush’s Democratic Party opponent was Bill Clinton’s vice president, Al Gore who conducted a lackluster campaign that showed little variation from the candidacy of the politically conservative Republican George W. Bush.  Bush along with Vice President Richard Cheney and a large cabal of neoconservatives would alter and expand US foreign policy in the twenty-first century.  Specifically, Bush and Cheney along with their political allies would lead the US into a dark era of “forever wars” and opened the door to almost one million of military and civilian deaths, torture, rendition, enemy detention, drone assassination, and domestic surveillance that forever altered civil liberties in the US and besmirched the nation’s reputation globally (Sjursen 2021, 613-614, 622).

As the Bush administration stumbled through its first year in the White House, a prominent neoconservative think tank called the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), whose principals contained many of the high-level members of the Bush administration including Cheney, future Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and future undersecretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz, published a 90-page report in September 2000 titled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses.” The report concluded that in the absence of a “catastrophic and catalyzing event”… like a “new Pearl Harbor’’… it would be difficult to implement the organization’s proposals for military modernization and “transformation.”

One year later, the “Pearl Harbor” event materialized in the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC.  Fueled by inflammatory rhetoric from the White House and Congress, these assaults on US territory, that were the result of decades of ill-advised foreign policies, had an enormous impact on the psyches of the American public (Sjursen 2021, 618-619).

Within three days the Bush administration with acquiescence of a cowed and fearful Congress rammed through the poorly written and open-ended Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF).  This document greenlighted the president to wage war on any nation, organization, or individual that Bush (and his successors) in his sole discretion deemed complicit in the September 11 attacks.  The AUMF would be applied not only in the Bush administration, but in the subsequent administrations of Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joseph Biden.  The AUMF is a cornerstone in the “forever wars” that the US has engaged for more than two decades in central Asia, the Greater Middle East, Africa, and the numerous and unreported proxy wars including the latest bonanza for the military-industrial-congressional complex, Ukraine (Sjursen 2021, 619-620; Turse 2022).

Since World War II, US imperialism has resulted in at least 36 million dead globally in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, the Congo, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Columbia, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Chad, Libya, East Timor, Grenada, Honduras, Iran, Pakistan, Panama, the Philippines, Sudan, Greece, Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, Somalia, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Palestine (Mapping Project (The) 2022).

More recently, US wars have resulted in between 1,168,540 and 1,199,948 dead in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.  But this number woefully undercounts the “true toll these wars have taken on human life” in those countries, according to co-author of the Costs of War project Neta Crawford.

The tally does not incorporate indirect deaths due to the consequences of war through the destruction of civilian infrastructure.  Moreover, the number does not account for the loss of life caused by disease, displacement, and the loss of food or clean drinking water caused by the ravages of war, Crawford acknowledged.  Co-author of the Costs of War project Catherine Lutz explained, “One has to multiply that direct death number… by an estimated two to four times to get to the total number of people—in the millions—who are dead today who would not have been dead if the wars had not been fought.”

A report issued by the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development and co-signed by 113 countries declared  that in “majority of conflicts since the early 1990s, for which good data is available, the burden of indirect deaths was between three and 15 times the number of direct deaths.”  The Geneva Declaration report concluded that “a reasonable average estimate would be a ratio of four indirect deaths to one direct death (4:1) in contemporary conflicts.”  By applying  the implied ratio 4:1 to the number of direct deaths to the number of indirect deaths, that is concluded to by the Geneva Declaration and supported by Catherine Lutz in the Costs of War project, a reasonable estimate of the deaths resulting from the post-911 United States’ wars would be around 5.9 million. (Ahmed 2021; Crawford and Lutz 2021).

The Bush administration, using the September 11 attacks as a pretext, ordered the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, a debacle that ended 20 years later with the humiliating withdrawal of US troops in defeat.  During his first State of the Union address, Bush proclaimed his doctrine of preemptive war that called for unilateral US attacks on countries the Bush administration deemed “potential” threats.  Preemptive war was ruled illegal under the precedents established during the post-World War II Nuremberg Tribunals.  The first targets that Bush identified were the “Axis of Evil” nations including Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.  Later the Bush administration would add Syria and Libya. All these nations had close relations with Russia (Martin 2022).

In March 2003, The US launched a flurry of cruise missiles and bunker-buster bombs followed by a ground assault based on the lie that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).  The Iraq war that Bush declared “made our country more secure” did nothing of the sort.  The Iraq War proved a distraction to the US military and intelligence agencies from their prime directive to kill Osama bin Laden and extirpate al Qaeda.  The outcome of the Iraq War proved to be another defeat for the US military, but the war created enormous profits for the military industrial-congressional complex (Ricks 2006, 116-117, 431).

The number of people displaced by the post-911 wars waged by the United States is very conservatively estimated at 37 million; this number could reasonably reach a range of 48 million to 59 million.  While the numbers reported are staggering, they cannot convey how it feels for the victims who lost their home, belongings, community, and more.  Displacement caused incalculable harm to families, towns, cities, regions, and entire countries physically, socially, emotionally, and economically.  While 25.3 million have returned after their displacement, this does not erase the emotional and physical trauma of displacement.  There is no guarantee that their original homes exist, or that they have returned to a secure life (Vine, et al. 2021).

The monetary cost of the wars post 9/11 in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater from FY 2001 to FY 2022 tallied $2.313 trillion; the Iraq-Syria theater reached $2.058 trillion during the same period.  The total cost of the US post-9/11wars topped $5.843 trillion between FY 2001 and 2022; when the estimated care for veterans’ medical and disability obligations through FY 2050 are added, the cost leaps to $8.043 trillion (Crawford and Lutz 2021).

The George W. Bush administration via the War on Terror accelerated US imperialism at the dawn of the twenty-first century with each subsequent administration continuing the US drive for complete world hegemony.  The proxy war in Ukraine threatened outright war with a nuclear-armed Russia.  But the events that the Biden administration claimed began in February 2022, as discussed above, have roots dating to the collapse of Soviet Russia in 1991.

Specific to the proxy war in Ukraine in 2022, this war can be traced to the “Orange Revolution” of November and December 2004.  During a national election in Ukraine drenched in fraud, pro-Russian candidate, Viktor Yanukovych and the anti-Russian candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, who was backed by a growing fascist element, each received 39 percent of the vote.  Support for Yanukovych was heavily concentrated in east and south Ukraine that was heavily populated by ethnic Russians.  Yushchenko supporters were in western Ukraine that has an extensive Nazi history that dates to before World War II.  While voting still continued, Yushchenko called for mass street demonstrations.  As the Yuschenko demonstrators threatened an assault on the Ukraine Parliament, Yuschenko illegally declared himself president before a large crowd of his supporters in Kyiv the next day, even as no quorum was on hand to legitimize the voting results.  He immediately called for widespread strikes, protests, and sit-ins to give substance and force acceptance of his illegitimate “victory” (Rasmus 2022).

To thwart growing political conflict in the streets, the Ukraine Supreme Court intervened to void the election that showed Yanukovych won with a one percent margin in early December.  The Court declared a runoff election for late December 2004.  Meanwhile, Yuschenko assembled a coalition of minority parties that included one led by Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to garner 52 percent of the vote to Yanukovych’s 44 percent in the runoff.

Since his loss in the 2004 election, Yanukovych curried favor and burnished his image in the eyes of the Western powers, especially the US.  Previously, the US considered Yanukovych unacceptably friendly to Moscow.  Later he sought to mend relations with Russia as he voiced support for ties with the European Union.  By 2006, Yanukovych had benefited from a slumping economy and falling prices for Ukraine’s industrial products, compounded by rising energy costs and fuel shortages.  President Yuschenko said that post-election talks would help “solve all the issues in Ukraine.”  This was considered to be an olive branch offered to Yanukovych’s party (Rasmus 2022; Niall Green 2006).

In the election held in 2010, Yanukovych prevailed in a vote that international observers declared was fair.  Fascist elements refused to accept the election results.  Then four years later in 2014 during the Obama administration, the fascists staged another uprising in Kyiv that was far more violent than in January 2005.  In February 2014, fascists murdered at least 100 in the streets.  The US and its subordinate allies organized and funded the insurrection that would be known as the Maidan Coup d’état, named for the Kyiv square where most of the demonstrations occurred.  In a public speech, Victoria Nuland, undersecretary of state for Eastern Europe openly boasted the US since 1991 had spent $5 billion funding grassroots organizations in promoting “democracy” that continued until the toppling of Yanukovych, the “fairly elected” pro-Russian leader of Ukraine who subsequently fled Ukraine in fear for his life.  The self-identified fascist organizations that had appeared on the scene in 2005 applied terrorism including assassinations, widespread murder of police and government officials in Kyiv and Odessa.  The fascist elements in Ukraine took control of the government in February 2014 (Rasmus 2022; Bryce Greene 2022).

During the runup to the Maidan Coup the US launched a propaganda campaign to sow antigovernment sentiments through CIA cutouts like USAID and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) that began as early as 2004. The NED is a major player in the US government’s cabal of “soft power” operations that pours $170 million a year into organizations that work to support or install regimes that kowtow to US dictates.

Reporter David Ignatius of The Washington Post observed that NED functions by “doing in public what the CIA used to do in private.”  NED’s board of directors include the notorious Elliot Abrams whose brutality and sadism came to light during Iran/Contra affair and the hideous US incursions in Central America during Ronald Reagan’s administration.  During Donald Trump’s administration, Abrams was central in failed attempts to overthrow the democratically elected government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela.  Nuland was also a member of NED’s board of directors before she joined the Joseph Biden administration in May 2021 as undersecretary of State for Political Affairs (Bryce Greene 2022).

On February 6, 2014, as antigovernment demonstrations intensified, an anonymous party leaked a recording of a telephone call between Nuland and US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt.  Nuland and Pyatt discussed which officials would assume positions in the proposed new US-friendly government in Ukraine.  The two conspirators agreed that Arseniy Yatsenyuk, whom Nuland nicknamed “Yats” should be in charge with close supervision from Nuland’s team.  Then Vice President Joseph Biden was to be brought in to ramrod the program (Bryce Greene 2022).

On February 22, in what appeared to be a false-flag operation snipers massacred police and civilians in Kyiv increased tensions in the Ukrainian Parliament.  The Parliament blamed Yanukovych, whom they ejected in a constitutionally questionable procedure.  Yanukovych called the overthrow a coup, and he fled the country.  On February 27, Nuland’s pick Arseniy “Yats” Yatsenyuk became Ukraine’s prime minister under President Petro Poroshenko.  When the Nuland-Pyatt call was leaked, media quickly picked up Nuland’s off-hand comment, “Fuck the EU,” that she uttered during the conversation that showcased her and the rest of the Obama/Biden administration’s arrogance and self-entitlement (Bryce Greene 2022).

Post-Maidan Ukraine until the Russian Invasion (2014-2022)

As the smoke cleared after the right-wing takeover of the Ukraine government, undersecretary of state for Eastern Europe Victoria Nuland was appointed “economic czar” for Ukraine.  Nuland’s business experience included owner of a prominent US Chicago financial firm.  The floodgates opened in Ukraine for US investors as they poured in to exploit the nation’s booty.  Figures like Vice President Joseph Biden used their political positions to establish lucrative financial posts for their friends and family members.  In 2014, Biden’s son Hunter would receive a high six-figure salaried position in one of Ukraine’s largest natural gas companies Burisma Holdings.  Others landed positions as a member of the board of directors for notable Ukrainian companies.  US imperialism rapidly became entrenched in the economic infrastructure of Ukraine (Rasmus 2022).

Beginning 2014, the US and its junior partners in NATO began shipping war matériel into the country, including advanced weaponry, military training, joint military exercises, moves to incorporate Ukraine into the NATO military command as a de facto member.  US policymakers knew that these aggressive actions in Ukraine, at the doorstep of Russia, would be correctly perceived as highly provocative in the Kremlin (Chomsky 2022).

Russia’s response to the overthrow of the democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych was to provide military support to the ethnic pro-Russian regions in the Donbass of eastern Ukraine.  As the fascist elements began to occupy major positions in Parliament and the government, Russia sent military forces to take over the strategic Crimean Peninsula that was home to the Russian’s Black Sea naval force.  The Crimean Peninsula provides Russia with access to the Black and the Mediterranean seas—a historically important maritime theater.  Control of the Crimea by a US-backed Ukraine posed an existential threat   Historically, Crimea was part of Russia until the Soviet Union “gave” it to Ukraine in 1954 in a government provincial reorganization.  In 2022, 82 percent of Crimea’s population was comprised of Russian-speaking households; two percent of the population spoke Ukrainian.  In March 2014, the peninsula held a plebiscite to determine whether or not Crimea should join Russia.  The pro-Russian faction won 95 percent of the vote.  The US-dominated UN General Assembly voted to ignore the referendum results, claiming it violated the Ukrainian constitution.  The very constitution that was ignored when the fascists ousted President Yanukovych (Rasmus 2022; Bryce Greene 2022).

Nazis Involved in the US-backed Overthrow

Extremist right-wing groups together with openly declared Nazi elements fueled the Washington-supported overthrow of the democratically elected Yanukovych government in Ukraine.  Nazi groups like the Right Sector and the Azov Battalion, a paramilitary militia comprised of neo-Nazi extremists were the tip of the spear for the anti-Yanukovych demonstrations.  Members of these groups appeared at political rallies at Maidan square alongside of US regime-change champions like Republican US Senator John McCain and Victoria Nuland.  After the bloody coup d’état in Kyiv, groups like the Right Sector and the Azov Battalion were later incorporated into the Ukrainian armed forces.  By February 2022, the US would have funded the Ukrainian government’s war machine with $2.5 billion.  The US largess to the bloody proxy war in Ukraine with Russia would balloon to $54 billion by June (Bryce Greene 2022; Ritter 2022; Damon 2022).

The Azov Battalion and other extremist groups proudly acknowledges their Nazi heritage and are the beneficiaries of US weapons and training.  The Azov Battalion. an  extremely violent paramilitary force has a cult-like hero worship for Stepan Bandera a Nazi collaborator during World War II.  Bandera was chief of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-Section B (OUN-B) who is now honored as a national hero in Ukraine.

Bandera led the slaughter of one million Jews, ethnic Russians, and Poles.  The Azov Battalion was formed in 2014 and later that year Azov was absorbed into the Ukrainian National Guard.  Along with other self-identified fascist groups, members of the Azov Battalion reached influential positions in the Ukrainian military. Since the 2014 US-backed coup d’état in Kyiv, neo-Nazi organizations, like the Azov Battalion and others have merged into the mainstream political scene in Ukraine.

These groups killed thousands of ethnic Russians in the Donbass as the Ukrainian government sought to crush the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine..  Azov and other neo-Nazi factions gained notoriety for their bellicose language and as an important part of Ukraine’s war against Russia supported breakaway republics of Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic.  Azov’s first leader was Andriy Biletsky who led the paramilitary national socialist group Patriots of Ukraine.  In 2008, Biletsky also founded the neo-Nazi organization called the Social-National Assembly (SNA).  Biletsky reportedly stated that Ukraine was meant to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade… against the Semite-led Untermenschen [subhumans]” (Whitney, Uncle Sam’s Nazi Warriors 2022; Ridenour 2022; Rolofson 2022).

In June 2015 the US House of Representatives approved a bi-partisan amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act that would block US training of the Azov Battalion and prevent transfer of shoulder-fired missiles to fighters in Ukraine. The Azov Battalion was slated to be among the first units that would be trained by 300 US military advisers under a training mission called “Fearless Guardian.”  The trainers on the ground ignored the amendment, claiming that the legislation failed to include mechanisms to enforce it.  Since the coup d’état the Ukrainian nationalist forces have been implicated in a wide variety of atrocities (Parry 2015; Greene 2022).

The most extreme right-wing layers of Ukrainian society have expanded their influence since the 2014 influx of US support.  The UN Human Rights council observed, “fundamental freedoms in Ukraine have been squeezed,” further repudiating the claims of US advocacy for liberal values in Ukraine.  Neo-Nazis in the US created a movement to encourage their brethren  to join the Azov Battalion to “gain actual combat experience” for the potential coming war within US shores.  A UN measure, that only the US and Ukraine voted against, on “combatting glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism” highlights the wide acceptance by US policymakers of Nazis in Ukraine (Bryce Greene 2022).

Poroshenko’s successor and the current Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky received an overwhelming 73 percent mandate to make peace with Russia in April 2019.  The US chose to back the extreme right wing and fuel war.  Zelensky ran on the promise of ending the Donbass conflict that began in 2014.  To end the war in Donbass required Zelensky to negotiate with US nemesis Russian President Vladimir Putin.  The neo-Nazis in Ukraine would not have that; they threatened Zelensky with removal and death, according to historian Stephen F. Cohen in an interview in October 2019 with journalist Aaron Maté (Cohen 2019).     Cohen observed that negotiations with Putin to end the conflict could have gone forward despite the neo-Nazi’s threats if the US supported this diplomacy.  “Zelensky has no chance of negotiating an end to the war,” Cohen said.  “So, the stakes are enormously high.”  Instead, the US had zero interest in supporting Zelensky’s peace agenda.  For the US fueling the war in Donbass was what Congress adamantly delivered to the corporate media with hardly any opposition.  The large population of ethnic Russians who live in the Donbass was expendable collateral damage (Cohen 2019).

During his inaugural address in May, Zelensky declared that that he was “not afraid to lose my own popularity, my ratings,” and was “prepared to give up my own position—as long as peace arrives.”  But the neo-Nazis threatened Zelensky’s life, “No, he would lose his life,” Dmytro Anatoliyovych Yarosh proclaimed.  “He will hang on some tree on Khreshchatyk—if he betrays Ukraine and those people who died in the Revolution and the War.”  Yarosh was the neo-Nazi group Right Sector’s co-founder and then commander of the Volunteer Army (Maté 2022).

Leader of the neo-Nazi group Democratic Ax, Yuri Hudymenko threatened Zelensky with a coup d’état.  “If anybody from the Ukrainian government tries to sign such a [peace] document, a million people will take to the streets and that government will cease being the government (Maté 2022).

Doubtless, the neo-Nazi threats and the lack of backing from the US thwarted a peace agreement that might have prevented the Russian invasion in February 2022.  Zelensky abandoned his calls for peace that he promised during his presidential campaign.  Instead, Zelensky has moved to the extreme right politically in lockstep with the neo-Nazis.  John Mearsheimer the University of Chicago professor who has warned for years that US policies in Ukraine were moving the country toward war with Russia.  “… Zelensky understands that he cannot take the Ukrainian right on by himself.  So, basically we have a situation where Zelensky is stymied,” Mearsheimer said (Maté 2022).

Russian Military Advances in Ukraine Foreshadow the US/NATO Proxy War Failure

On February 24, 2022, Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin delivered a major televised address  to announce the beginning of a “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine.   Putin opened his remarks to reiterate his earlier comments about “irresponsible Western politicians created for Russia… from year to year.  I am referring to the eastward expansion of NATO… ever closer to the Russian border.”  Putin charged that for the “past 30 years” Russia has attempted to reach “agreement with leading NATO countries….”  Putin continued, “… we invariably faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts at pressure or blackmail (Putin 2022).

“We can see that the forces that staged the coup in Ukraine in 2014… have abandoned the path of peaceful conflict settlement,” Putin said.  “Focused on their own goals, the leading NATO countries are supporting the far-right nationalists and neo-Nazis.  They will… bring war to Crimea just as they have done on Donbass…. [T]he showdown between Russia and these forces cannot be avoided…” (Putin 2022).

During a February 21 speech, Putin said that one of the Special Military Option’s goals was to bring to justice certain people in Ukraine.  This reference likely pertains to Right Sector neo-Nazis who burned alive at least 48 unarmed pro-Russian sympathizers after the fascists locked them in the trade-union hall in Odessa on May 2, 2014.  Putin said that Moscow knows who these perpetrators are.  Russia aims to destroy neo-Nazi brigades such as the Right Sector and the Azov Battalion.  These neo-Nazi groups that revere the World War II Nazi Germany collaborator Stepan Bandera figured prominently in the violent overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych. Russia’s goals do not include the occupation of Ukraine, but Putin did not set a date for Russia’s withdrawal (Lauria 2022; Goss 2022; Rolofson 2022).

In his speech, Putin said he would send Russian “peacekeepers” into the breakaway republics Donetsk and Lugansk that Russia recognized as independent of Ukraine.  Both Donetsk and Lugansk voted for independence from Ukraine during the 2014 coup d’état in Kyiv that ousted democratically elected Viktor Yanukovych in favor of the US-backed Viktor Yanochencko.  The Yanochencko fascist government launched a war to crush the bids for independence in Donetsk and Lugansk.  Ukraine shelled the breakaway republics daily for the eight years killing at least 14,000 prior to Russia’s intervention (Lauria, Why Putin Went to War 2022).

President Joseph Biden said, “President Putin has chosen a premeditated war that will bring catastrophic loss of life and human suffering.”  Biden continued, “Russia alone is responsible for the death and destruction this attack will bring, and the United States and its allies and partners will respond in a united and decisive way.  The world will hold Russia accountable (Lauria, Why Putin Went to War 2022).

Putin referred in his February 24 speech to NATO’s incessant expansion since the late 1990s that finally spurred the military operation that he ordered was a “question of life or death” for Russia.”  The policy of the US and its allies for “containing Russia” had “obvious geopolitical dividends.  For our country it is a matter of life and death, a matter of historical future as a nation…  It is not only a very real threat to our interests but to the very existence of our state and to its sovereignty.  It is the red line we have spoken about on numerous occasions.  They have crossed it” (Lauria, Why Putin Went to War 2022).

Putin linked the World War II Nazi attack of June 22, 1941 in Soviet Russia that claimed 27 million Russian lives to the threat NATO posed to Russia in the twenty-first century.  Putin vowed that this time there would be no appeasement.  Putin called the NATO expansion an existential threat and the main reason for military action.  While applying Biblical terms, Putin summed up the Western bloc by castigating the US’s European allies for not having the strength of principle or the moral fiber to reject the dictates issued from Washington (Lauria, Why Putin Went to War 2022):

“The United  States is still a great country and a system-forming power.  All its satellites not only humbly and obediently say yes to and parrot it at the slightest pretext but also imitate its behavior and enthusiastically accept the rules it is offering them.  Therefore, one can say with good reason and confidence that the whole so-called Western bloc formed by the United States in its own image and likeness is, in its entirety, the very same ‘empire of lies.’”

The motivation of the US for goading Russia into the war in Ukraine dates to the beginnings of the Cold War that emerged in the post-World War II era.  The unending expansion of NATO into eastern Europe along with the most recent threat of allowing Ukraine membership brought an aggressive posture from the US that compares to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.  Only now it is the US that is delivering the threat of missiles at Russia’s doorstep.  The war in Ukraine is the reprise of the decades old strategy that Zbigniew Brzezinski conjured up during the late 1970s to bleed Russia dry in Afghanistan by destroying its economy, while demonizing Russia as an imperialist on the world stage.  As in Afghanistan, the lives of Ukrainians squandered in the bloodletting in Ukraine is of little importance to US policymakers.  These Machiavellian actions would serve US purposes, but its prime directive is to overthrow the government of Vladimir Putin (Lauria, Biden Confirms Why the US Needed this War 2022; Sterling 2022; Kuzmarov, Repeating ’70s Strategy of Grand Chess-Master Brzezinski 2022).

On March 26, 2022, at the Royal Castle in Warsaw President Joseph Biden blurted out in a fleeting moment of candor, “For God’s sake, this man [Putin] cannot remain in power.”  Biden’s remark sent the White House and the State Department scurrying to explain away the president’s statement.  “The president’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors in the region,” a White House spokesperson said.  “He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change.”  The next day, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “As you know, and as you have heard us say repeatedly, we do not have a strategy of regime change in Russia, or anywhere else, for that matter” (Lauria, Biden Confirms Why the US Needed this War 2022).

The Ukraine War’s End Game

On May 31, 2022, the Council on Foreign Relations in New York held a videoconference titled Russia’s War in Ukraine: How Does it End?  Richard N. Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations led panelists: Stephen J. Hadley, former national security adviser to George W. Bush; Charles A. Kupchan, professor of international affairs at Georgetown University;  Alina Polyakova, an expert on European politics; and Stephen M. Twitty, former US Army deputy commander of US-European Command based in Stuttgart.  The discussion was dominated by the liberal internationalism that fosters the notion that NATO is the cornerstone of US national security. This policy is the hallmark of President Joseph Biden’s actions in Ukraine (Bhadrakumar, Next 100 Days of Ukraine War 2022).

What was of a particularly striking note was that former US Army General Stephen M. Twitty who has war combat experience stated without equivocation that there was no way Russia can be defeated in Ukraine.  Therefore, it is necessary to bring some clarity as to the stated endgame to “weaken” Russia.  Twitty’s observation was that the European unity pursuant to the Ukraine War was not holding together (Bhadrakumar, Next 100 Days of Ukraine War 2022).

There appears to be an awakening in Washington to the cold facts that Russia is dominating in the battles to control Donbass.  Moreover, an outright victory for Russia over Ukraine is well within a reasonable conclusion.  Georgetown Professor Kupchan set forth a heavy dose of realism (Bhadrakumar, Next 100 Days of Ukraine War 2022):

“The longer this [war] goes on the more the negative knock-on effects economically and politically. Including here in the United States, where inflation is… putting Biden in a difficult position.  We need to change the narrative [that anybody who talks about a territorial settlement is an appeaser] and begin a conversation with Ukraine and, ultimately, with Russia about how to end this war sooner rather than later.

“Where the front ends, how much territory the Ukrainians are able to take back remains to be seen.  I do think that the hot war aspect of this is more dangerous than many people perceive not just because of escalation but because of the blowback effects.

“I think we are starting to see cracks in the West… there will be a resurgence of “America-first Republicanism as we get near the midterms.  This all leads me to believe that we should push for war termination and have a serious conversation after that about a territorial disposition.”

None of the panelists posited any argument that the war must be won—or that winning is even possible.  Twitty observed that the Ukrainian army might be close to military exhaustion; Russia established naval dominance in the Black Sea, and “as you look at the DIME—diplomatic, informational, military, and economic—we’re woefully lacking on the diplomatic piece of this.  If you notice, there is not diplomacy going on at all to try to get to some type of negotiations,” Twitty said.  Intransigence from either US or Ukrainian policymakers in entering peace talks with the Russians will result in a greater loss of territory for Ukraine if the Russians prevail (Bhadrakumar, Next 100 Days of Ukraine War 2022).

Whether or not the trend to Russia’s victory continues to its conclusion, Ukraine will be left in the tatters of a failed state.  One need only to look at the remnants of the 20-year US occupation of Afghanistan to judge the future for Ukraine.  The purpose of Afghanistan’s occupation was for expanding US hegemony into central Asia.  Additionally, it was an enormous money grab by the military-industrial-congressional complex at the expense of not only the Afghan people, but also the American taxpayers.  As concluded by the Costs of War project, the tab for the US occupation in Afghanistan tops $2.313 trillion.  For the Afghan people, it left a failed state with the theocratic Taliban government reinstating its seventh-century religious doctrine.  A similar fate awaits the people of Ukraine if the US succeeds in its plan to string Russia out in a long-term, expensive slog.  The US is willing to fight a proxy war there until the last Ukrainian is dead.  Both of these US interventions were motivated to weaken Russia to the point that the US and its junior partners in NATO could sweep in to carve up Russia into several new puppet states for a wholesale exploitation of Russian natural resources and industry.  The fall of Russia would then be the catalyst for the US to turn its guns against China in the US vision for a unipolar world (Shaoul 2022; Crawford and Lutz 2021; Rolofson 2022).

As the late Madeleine Albright, US Secretary of State under Bill Clinton between 1997 and 2001 threatened in a New York Times piece on February 23, 2022, that if Russia invaded Ukraine,

“It would be far from a repeat of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014; it would be a scenario reminiscent of the Soviet Union’s ill-fated occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.”

Albright was referring the proxy war that the US initiated when it along with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan funded, trained Mujahideen fighters against the Soviet Union.  The US occupation in Afghanistan ended ignominiously in August 2022 with the US fleeing the country with the Taliban in hot pursuit (Shaoul 2022).

Albright represents the amorality of the cabal that rules in Washington as she callously told CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl on May 12, 1996 on 60 Minutes regarding the 500,000 children who died in Iraq because of US sanctions: “We think the price is worth it” (Shaoul 2022).

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Edward B. Winslow is a historian and freelance writer.  He can be reached at [email protected]. 

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Featured image: Ukrainian neo-Nazis from Azov receiving NATO weapons and training (Source: Multipolarista)

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The White House has confirmed that President Joe Biden will travel to the Middle East in mid-July. He intends to visit Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Saudi Arabia. The trip will be used to address outstanding bilateral and multilateral issues, including convincing the Saudis to pump more oil to bring down fuel prices. Among the key topics to be discussed will be the alleged Iran threat, a possible security alliance between Israel and Gulf states backed by Washington, the status of the US Consulate General in Jerusalem, and the future of the Palestinian Authority.

Biden has agreed to a controversial meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, in which he will ask the Kingdom to agree to “normalize” relations with Israel in addition to increasing its oil exports. There has also been considerable pressure on Biden to seek a commitment from the Prince to take steps to improve human rights in his country, but the subject is not likely to come up as it is Biden who is seeking concessions from the Saudis. The Prince, for his part, ordered the October 2018 killing of US resident and Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul. Khashoggi had been highly critical of the Saudi monarchy, particularly regarding its human rights record. Some in Congress and the media have described the private meeting as inappropriate given that fact.

Indeed, pumping more oil aside, the trip is largely about doing many things to help Israel, which is expected to produce favorable reporting in the US media preceding the November mid-term election. Biden even described the trip as being “for Israel” and that loud sucking noise you hear is his repeated pledges of loyalty to the Jewish state. He has described himself as a “Zionist” and has enthused “My commitment to Israel is known and engraved in rock.” Lest there be any confusion in spite of all that, the White House statement regarding the trip also made very clear that the president will “reinforce the United States’ iron-clad commitment to Israel’s security and prosperity.” That means that Israel will not be pressured over its appalling human rights record, worse even than Saudi Arabia’s, to include the recent assassination of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. On the contrary, Biden is bearing gifts to reward the Israelis for being such great friends, including a proposal that increases US financial and logistical support for the Jewish state’s air and missile defense systems, which are already largely funded by Washington.

Other aspects reflecting the Israeli dominance of US-Mideast foreign policy include Biden’s convincing the Saudis and also representatives of the Gulf States to step up their efforts to actively counter what is being described as “threats from Iran.” It is being suggested that this might include a security arrangement, not quite an alliance, but a commitment by many of Iran’s neighbors to act jointly if the Islamic Republic threatens anyone in the region. The arrangement would have to include Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Israel, backed up by the US military presence in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar. Israel is also demanding a Plan B response proposal if Iran and Washington fail to restart the stalled Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear monitoring program. Washington, under pressure from Israel, now appears to be reluctant to make the concessions that would reestablish the original plan and the Israeli government is seeking a commitment by the president to use force, if necessary, when Iran crosses an agreed upon “red line” by enriching uranium until it produces enough fissile material to put together a nuclear weapon. Of course, there is a trick to the demand as Israel claims that Iran already has enough enriched uranium to create one or more bombs.

Israel nourishes regional imperatives that might tempt it to steer the discussions in a direction that would be very favorable to itself at the expense of other US interests in the region. Israel’s leaders regularly boast about their ability to manipulate the American government. They might stage or manage an incident that takes place during the Biden visit to shift perceptions of the status quo in the Middle East. As Israel has demonstrated that at its most extreme it has little regard for American lives or property, one should not be surprised if something odd were to happen. Many credible observers credit the Israeli intelligence services with a whole series of attacks on American targets, possibly even including arranging the assassination of John F. Kennedy and instigating 9/11. And then there are also the Lavon Affair in 1954 which involved the bombing of US government buildings in Egypt, and the attack on the USS Liberty in 1967 which killed 34 American sailors. To be sure, Israel can be ruthless and its security services are very effective at assassinations and false flag attacks.

Israel wants very much to have two developments to emerge from the Biden visit. First is to effectively eliminate Iran as a potential threat by degrading its military and preventing any moves to go nuclear and second is to delegitimize the Palestinians as negotiating partners for some kind of two-state solution, which Biden claims to support even though Israelis routinely and generically refer to the Arabs as “terrorists.” To prevent blowback coming from any direct moves to confront the Iranians and Palestinians, Israel would also prefer to have the United States take the lead and do the heavy lifting. To accomplish that, it is first necessary to change Washington’s assessment of the threats in the Middle East, and that just might be doable by arranging something spectacular while the president in the region, like a bombing, or an act of sabotage or even creating what appears to be a terrorist attack. If done properly, whatever occurs would have false flag Iranian and/or Palestinian fingerprints all over it.

To be sure, America’s Secret Service will do a thorough job to protect the president and his entourage, but the Israelis would be operating on their own turf or in their own backyard and would be able to run rings around them. They would also have intimate knowledge of exactly what is being done to protect the American party.

I am not at all suggesting that the Israelis would resort to lethal violence against a group of traveling top level American officials, but I am merely examining what might happen if Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government were to get a bit adventurous in an attempt to change the playing field. Bear in mind that Bennett’s government is in trouble. It lost a confidence vote and has called for new elections to be held on October 25^th, which could mean a return to power of the truly ghastly Benjamin Netanyahu. What would be better than to stage an international crisis of some kind to rally the Israeli people behind the current government? That would be in addition to creating a mechanism for dealing effectively with the Iranians and Palestinians, which would be very popular among Israeli voters, if an election were to occur.

So, Joe Biden is heading into a crap shoot in the Middle East. Israel will be squeezing him hard and might even do something stupid, while the Saudis have little incentive to give the American president what he wants. The Palestinians meanwhile will wind up abandoned by everyone, once again. But one thing that is for sure is that when Joe returns the spin on how it was a fabulously successful trip will fill the newspapers and airwaves. And then everyone will sit back and hold their breaths to see if that ploy has worked. Come November we will know.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

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

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

With the success of Russia’s operations in Ukraine, we have to be concerned about NATO reacting to their strategic defeat by shifting their aggression not only to intense economic and propaganda warfare against Russia but also against Russia’s position in the Baltic region.

The blockade imposed on Kaliningrad on June 20th by Lithuania, a NATO member, and approved by the European Union, on the pretext of enforcing their illegal ‘sanctions,” is a direct act of war against Russia which will lead to immediate action by Russia to end the blockade, and follows the NATO logic which has been expressed openly for some time.

In February 2016, The Atlantic Council, the NATO think tank in the USA, issued a report called, “Alliance At Risk.”

In that report they stated,

“The Russian invasion of Crimea, its support for separatists, and its invasion of eastern Ukraine have effectively ripped up the post-Cold War settlement of Europe. Russia is now a de facto strategic adversary. Even more dangerously, the threat is potentially existential, because Putin has constructed an international dynamic that could put Russia on a collision course with NATO. At the center of this collision would be the significant Russian-speaking populations in the Baltic States…’

The document uses language that indicates that the NATO powers do not recognize Russia’s sovereignty over Kaliningrad that was established at the end of the Second World War, claiming that Russia “has ripped up” the post-Cold War settlement of Europe.

NATO has continuously increased its presence in the area. A multinational battle group, led by soldiers from the US Army’s 2nd Cavalry Regiment, was stationed in Poland, and is now joined by the 82nd Airborne Division not far from the country’s border with Kaliningrad. Canadian army units are now in Latvia, near Riga, along with other NATO forces. The unit is part of NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence, which is intended, they pretend, “to deter potential Russian aggression” and on June 19th the US journal Politico reported that 650 German soldiers had joined other NATO units and were now in Lithuania to protect it “from Russian aggression.”

This of course is exactly in line with the demands of the Alliance At Risk Report that called for a NATO force to be placed in Poland.

We have to wonder whether Biden’s visit to the US 82nd Airborne Division that was recently sent to Poland was really about events in Ukraine or something else, that being, to create another threat against Russia at Kaliningrad. The press restrictions on reporting the movements of the Division and their purpose are unusually secret. We can speculate that they are linked to the statement made in an interview on March 10th by General Waldermar Skrzpczak, former commander of Polish land forces, who stated that,

“The enclave has been under Russian occupation since 1945,” stressing that the territory historically belonged to Prussia and Poland, and that, “We have the right to have disputes over the territory occupied by Russia.”  There is no historical basis for such a claim but this statement did not come out of nowhere. It was clearly designed to provoke a Russian response and get people in the west used to the idea that Russia is“occupying foreign territory” in order to manipulate the western public into supporting a move to seize the oblast.

“Dealing with Kaliningrad first is imperative”

Several American think tanks have called for the seizure and stated that taking the region was key if the alliance wants to deprive Russia of local ground and air superiority, and use of the Russian Baltic Fleet’s homeport.

They stressed that NATO must work up “strong nerves” to invade Kaliningrad and pointing out that “Russian propaganda will trumpet the ‘sacred soil of the motherland,’ and Russian leaders will threaten nuclear retaliation.”

That report isn’t the first time a US think tank has proposed “neutralising” Russia’s Kaliningrad in a conflict.

In 2017, the RAND Corporation issued its own report on the prospects of a conflict in Kaliningrad, questioning whether Russia would even treat an attack on Kaliningrad as ‘an attack on the Russian homeland.’

Just days before Russia began its operations in Ukraine, a US B52H strategic bomber carried out a simulated bombing of the Russian Baltic Fleet’s Kaliningrad base. Previously, Russian and NATO aircraft have had encounters over local airspace, with one incident seeing a Russian jet fighter chasing away a Spanish Air Force aircraft that approached close to the plane carrying Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu as he travelled over the area.

On March 10, the same Jamestown Foundation again stated that the US and NATO should seize Kaliningrad, beginning with a blockade of the oblast by closing the road and rail links through Lithuania and Poland, as well as cutting the natural gas pipelines to it, hoping to cause unrest among the population A direct attack could follow.

On March 28th the Pentagon announced that,

In coordination with the German government, six US Navy EA-18G Growler aircraft are scheduled to arrive at Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany on that date in order to, “bolster readiness, enhance NATO’s collective defense posture and further increase air integration capabilities with our allies and partner nations.’

They stated,

“These Growlers …. specialize in flying electronic warfare missions, using a suite of jamming sensors to confuse enemy radars, greatly aiding in the ability to conduct suppression of enemy air defense operations.”

“They are not deployed against Russian forces in Ukraine.  They are being deployed completely in keeping with our efforts to bolster NATO’s deterrence and defense capabilities along that eastern flank.”

These aircraft clearly would be useful to them in the event of an operation against Kaliningrad to suppress Russian air defences and represent a direct threat against Russia.

All these American and NATO think tanks dress up their ideas for aggression as a response to “Russia’s hostile plans’ but the real reason is to push Russia out of its main naval base protecting Russia’s access to the North Sea and Atlantic, to threaten and control the approaches St. Petersburg itself, and to attempt a blockade of the city and exports and imports through it. Memories of the Nazi siege of Leningrad in WWII come quickly to mind.

With the success of Russia’s operations in Ukraine, and the inability of NATO to react except through economic warfare and propaganda, and, with the coming crisis in Europe with their refusal to pay for Russian gas and oil supplies we can expect them to try to shift the blame for their self-created crisis to Russia. The Kaliningrad Oblast is clearly a focus in their planning.

A day later, the Russian foreign ministry reacted, as reported in TASS, that

“On June 21, head of the EU mission in Moscow Markus Ederer was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry. A resolute protest was expressed to the EU representative over the introduction of unilateral anti-Russian restrictions on cargo transit between the Kaliningrad Region and the rest of the Russian Federation. The inadmissibility of such actions that violate the EU’s corresponding legal and political obligations and lead to the escalation of tensions was pointed out,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

“We demanded restoring the normal function of the Kaliningrad transit without delay. Otherwise, retaliatory measures will follow.”

While there are some initial comments in the Russian and other media that Kaliningrad could be supplied by sea, the difficulties of doing so and the insult of the blockade, which as I stated is an act of war by Lithuania, make it more likely that direct action will be taken against Lithuania by Russia, for what else can “retaliatory measures” mean otherwise. For this blockade is different from the general economic warfare being conducted against Russia. This is the beginning of a siege of a major Russian city and military base by NATO and is a direct threat to St. Petersburg. It cannot be tolerated.

Of course the danger is that this blockade is meant to provoke Russia into attacking a NATO member, which Russia has said it will not do, in order for NATO to invoke Article 5 of the NATO Treaty. But Russia can rightly argue that it was attacked by NATO, not only by the supply of weapons to Ukraine but also by using Lithuania to impose this blockade on a Russian city, and all bets are now off. We shall see.

We know that NATO was created with the objective of crushing the USSR. Its creation was a negation of the United Nations which it successfully pushed aside when it attacked Yugoslavia (and China) in 1999. It is the armed fist of western capital against all socialist nations and those capitalist nations or mixed economies of the world trying to maintain their independence, against Russia, and China and all the nations that try to maintain their sovereignty and the freedom of their peoples to determine their own destinies. It is our task to expose it for what it is so that the world can resist it before the NATO gang’s reckless and criminal aggression provokes a general world war, which the folly of the blockade of Kaliningrad can lead us to.

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***

The United States federal bodies responsible for the nation’s healthcare policies keep turning a blind eye to the devastating number of deaths and injuries associated with experimental gene therapeutics against Covid, aka Covid vaccines. All severe reactions to the shots are proclaimed “rare.” Steve Kirsch, California tech entrepreneur and founder of the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation (VSRF), has estimated that the shots have left as many as five million Americans unable to work, 30 million injured, and more than 750,000 dead, as of June 24, 2022.

According to the latest survey conducted by Pollfish on behalf of the VSRF, vaccines are associated with a very high number of adverse reactions, including lethal and life-altering ones. That means that the vaccinations should be halted immediately.

Writes Kirsch,

Our latest poll is devastating for the official narrative:

1. a 6.6% rate of heart injury,

2. 2.7% are unable to work after being vaccinated (5M people),

3. 6.3% had to be hospitalized,

4. you’re more likely to die from COVID if you’ve taken the vaccine.

5. Almost as many (77.4% to be more exact) households lost someone from the vaccines as from COVID.

He went on to remind that, according to the official data, more than one million Americans have died “from COVID,” even though it is unclear whether Covid was the primary cause of death, since Rochelle Walensky, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), admitted in January that 75 percent of Covid deaths occurred in people who had “at least four comorbidities.”

Kirsch continued:

This survey indicates that over 750,000 people died from the vaccine…. Surprisingly, the ever-vigilant CDC hasn’t found anyone who has died from the mRNA vaccines. Not a single person. So that’s a gap of 750,000 people. That’s a big gap. Someone isn’t telling you the truth.” [Emphasis in original.]

Presumably, Kirsch is being sarcastic, calling the CDC “ever-vigilant” in light of last week’s report revealing that the agency has not been analyzing its own database,  the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), specifically designed to detect safety signals for the vaccines.

The other key takeaways from the poll include the following,

1. Only 34 percent of Americans will be receiving more than two vaccine doses. That means that some 66 percent of the vaccinated are not listening to the government recommendation to stay “up-to-date” with the vaccination by taking additional doses, aka boosters.
2. Someone died from Covid in 2.63 percent of the households, as compared to 2.03 percent of the households reporting a vaccine-related death. “This is stunning because it shows that the vaccine has killed almost as many people as the COVID virus has,” concluded Kirsch, adding, “Computed another way, there are 123M households in the US. If 2% of those experienced just one vaccine death, then that is 2.4M deaths. Even if this is overestimated by a factor of 10X, this is devastating for the vaccine narrative.”
3. Of those over the age of 18 who received the vaccine, 2.7 percent have reported becoming unable to work. Extrapolated to the whole of the country, this translates to more than five million severely injured people. At the same time, 16.7 percent of respondents believe they have been harmed by vaccines. On a national scale, this means that there are more than 30 million vaccine-injured people.
4. The survey shows a 6.6-percent rate of heart injuries post-vaccine, or 13.3 million injured Americans. “This is 1,000X higher than the CDC told us.… How could the CDC underestimate this severe adverse event by 3 orders of magnitude?!!?” wondered Kirsch. Then, 3.7 percent reported a person in their household with a heart condition due to the vaccine. Since there are 123 million households, this may represent as many as 4.5 million new heart conditions.
5. Potentially 18 million people — 9.2 percent of vaccine recipients — required medical attention for injuries. Additionally, 6.3 percent, potentially representing 12 million Americans, had to be hospitalized.
6. The vaccines are associated with the increased risk of Covid. Vaccinated people appeared to be 17 percent more likely to become infected, and were 72 percent more likely to die after getting the vaccine. “We were told the opposite by the government,” lamented Kirsch.

Regarding the poll methodology, it is noted that 500 people participated in the survey and were selected entirely at random. With a 500-sample size, the results can vary by a factor of 2 or more, so the VSRF is planning to re-run it with a larger sample size of 8,000 participants.

“But even if the rates in this survey are off by a factor of 10, these results are still devastating,” observed Kirsch.

According to OpenVAERS.com, between the vaccines’ rollout for the general public in April 2021 and June 17, 2022, VAERS had received a total of 1,307,926 reports of adverse events associated with Covid shots. Of them, 29,031 were fatal. In 164,324 cases, the vaccinee required hospitalization, and 54,306 people were left permanently disabled as an alleged result of the Covid shot. According to the CDC’s parent entity, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), VAERS reflects only a “small fraction” of all adverse reactions to vaccines and “varies wildly.” Kirsch estimates the underreported factor is 42.

Even the sheer number of adverse events that are potentially linked to the vaccines is far more than enough for the decision-makers to halt the campaign until a thorough investigation is done, according to the latest report from the World Council for Health.

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Veronika Kyrylenko, Ph.D. is a linguist and a writer whose work has appeared at the Western Journal, American Thinker, The Hill and other publications. GETTR: @vkyrylenko LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nkyrylenko/

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***

A British pathologist and researcher has said that Pfizer’s clinical trial for its COVID jabs in babies as young as six months old contains so many egregious flaws and misrepresentations that “the trial should be deemed null and void.”

Diagnostic pathologist and co-chair of the Health Advisory and Recovery Team (HART) group, Dr. Clare Craig recorded a six-minute video analyzing the data from Pfizer’s COVID jab trial in children aged between six months and four years old.

Collating information from Pfizer’s June 15 Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) application with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use of the drug in young children, Craig discovered that the vaccinated cohort contracted the virus in greater numbers than the placebo group, but that the pharmaceutical giant misreported the data to instead show that the “vaccine” was marginally more effective at preventing infection than foregoing the shot.

“There’s an awful lot about this trial that has shocked me, and I think it will shock you too,” Craig said in opening.

The former NHS consultant noted that the trial had “recruited 4526 children aged from six months to four years old” but that “3000 of these children did not make it to the end of the trial.”

“That is a huge number, two-thirds of them,” Craig emphasized. “Why was there this drop off? That needs to be answered and without an answer to that on that basis alone, this trial should be deemed null and void.”

Craig explained – and appendix B of the EUA application confirmed – that the Pfizer trial appear to have lowered the bar for what the was considered to be a case of “severe COVID” in children, qualifying cases as such if participants expressed “a slightly raised heart rate or a few more breaths per minute.” Before the vaccine trial, however, a child was considered to have severe COVID if they required mechanical ventilation, dialysis, or other invasive treatments.

“What they did was to utterly twist the data,” Craig declared.

“There were six children aged 2 to 4 who had ‘severe COVID’ in the vaccine group but only one in the placebo group. So, on that basis, the likelihood that this vaccine is actually causing ‘severe COVID’ is higher than the likelihood that is isn’t,” she stated, highlighting that “there was actually one child who was hospitalized in this trial. They had a fever and a seizure. They had been vaccinated.”

The proposed regimen for children taking Pfizer’s COVID jab was three doses, the first two taken three weeks apart while the final dose of the “primary series” would be given after a further eight weeks.

Within the initial three-week period,

“34 of the vaccinated children got COVID and only 13 in the placebo group, which worked out as a 30 percent increased chance of catching COVID in that three-week period if you were vaccinated,” Craig said. “So they ignored that data, and then there was an eight-week gap between the second dose and the third dose, where again, children were getting plenty of COVID in the vaccine arm [group]. They ignored that data.”

Craig claimed that Pfizer trial scientists ignored further weeks of viral case data following the third dose, in total disregarding “97 percent of the COVID that occurred during the trial,” preferring to include the smallest COVID case samples.

Seven days after the second round of shots, vaccine efficacy was averaging around  24 percent among 3,954 children.

“[I]n the end they were comparing three children in the vaccine arm who had COVID with seven in the placebo arm” who did not have the virus after the third jab. Pfizer thus claimed an average efficacy of 78.9 percent from among just ten children “and they said that this showed that the vaccine was effective,” Craig stated.

The trial also accounted for children who contracted the novel coronavirus twice in the two-month follow-up period, the doctor explained, noting that “there were 12 children who had COVID twice and all but one of them were vaccinated, mostly with three doses.”

“You have to wonder what on earth they’re thinking when the claim of reduction in COVID only affected four children and here we have twelve children who got COVID twice, eleven of them vaccinated,” she said.

Recapping, Craig stressed that the trial had lost two-thirds of its participants before concluding that the COVID jab was only found to be effective against the virus on the basis of three COVID cases versus seven – a marginal difference – “and all of this on the backdrop of a disease which doesn’t affect children and with no long-term safety data.”

“Babies are not at risk from COVID, and now we have Pfizer who are presenting this as evidence to the FDA in order to apply for an EUA,” she continued before asking “how an ethics committee could have approved this trial in babies.”

“EUA is meant for a situation where there’s a risk of serious injury or death. Now, children under five are not at risk of serious injury or death from COVID. In fact, in their own trial they had to make up other ways of measuring the problem because there was no serious injury or death,” Craig remarked.

Craig found support from Dr. Michael Yeadon, a former vice president at Pfizer who has been an outspoken opponent of the “lies” of the pharmaceutical company and the mainstream media regarding the apparent safety of the jabs.

Writing on his popular Telegram channel, Yeadon said that Craig “exposes the utter corruption within the Pfizer clinical trial in young & very young children” in her six-minute video analysis. “You will struggle to believe they were permitted to conduct a trial of the design that Dr. Craig summarizes.”

“You’ll also struggle to believe,” he continued, “that based on this train wreck of a data package, the FDA committee voted unanimously for this agent to be administered to very young children from six months of age. It’s monstrous that anyone could contemplate injecting young children because they’re not at risk of severe outcomes & death from COVID-19”

Yeadon lamented that “parents have been lied to so consistently that sadly I do expect a lot of children are going to be poisoned & some even killed.”

Craig highlighted the backtracking already performed on the part of Pfizer and even the World Health Organization (WHO), both of which prematurely marketed the COVID jabs as reducing transmission of the virus before data soon confirmed that “vaccines” do not stop infection or transmission.

They do not even claim to reduce hospitalization, but the measurement of success is in preventing severe symptoms of COVID-19 disease. Moreover, there is strong evidence that the “vaccinated” are just as likely to carry and transmit the virus as the “unvaccinated.”

“If we turn to safety,” Craig continued, “what they did is they followed up the patients for six weeks before unblinding them and vaccinating them,” resulting in the children who had been given the placebo, thus acting as the control group, receiving the jab, “so that’s your safety control gone forever.”

According to Pfizer’s own trial data, the company recognized an increased rate of severe cases of heart inflammation pericarditis and myocarditis with the experimental mRNA shots.

“Post-EUA safety surveillance reports received by FDA and CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] identified increased risks of myocarditis and pericarditis, particularly within 7-days following administration of the second dose of the 2-dose primary series …The highest reporting rates have been in males 12 through 17 years of age,” the EUA application reads.

Concluding, Craig stated that “there are other issues” in the trial and EUA application which she did not touch on, yet “the fact that this trial existed at all is unbelievable.”

“Parents should be demanding that the decision makers explain themselves,” she said.

*

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***

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi welcomed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) on June 20 on his first stop of his Middle East tour that comes ahead of a visit from US President Joe Biden to Saudi Arabia next month.

During the two-day visit to Egypt, companies from both countries signed agreements worth a total of $7.7 billion.  MBS is a financial backer of the Egyptian government, with trade between Egypt and the kingdom up more than 62 percent last year compared with 2020, reaching $9.1 billion.

Egyptians working in Saudi Arabia are an important source of foreign currency as they send money back home to Egypt, which is struggling with inflation, huge infrastructure spending bills and a currency devaluation.

The Arab world’s most populous country, Egypt has a state budget of around $160 billion and is grappling with public debt reaching around 90 percent of gross domestic product.

The deals were related to infrastructure, logistical services, port management, agriculture, foods, the pharmaceutical industry, fossil fuels, renewable energy, and cybersecurity.

Jordan

Jordan’s King Abdullah II, a close ally of Saudi Arabia, welcomed MBS on his second stop of the tour.  Saudi Arabia and Jordan have close economic relations. Trade between the two countries amounted to roughly $4.4 billion dollars in 2021, up from around $3.1 billion in 2020. Saudi investments in Jordan are worth $14 billion, making Saudi Arabia the largest investor in Jordan.

Companies in the mining, construction, atomic energy, imports, exports, and other sectors signed cooperation deals. Saudi Arabia exports oil to Jordan, while the main Jordanian exports to Saudi Arabia are medicine and livestock.

The Jordanian economy is struggling with high unemployment, rising debts and weak investment.

Jordan-Saudi relations hit a rocky patch after allegations of Saudi Arabia’s involvement in Jordan’s royal feud last year. One of those arrested for the supposed plot against King Abdullah II is an adviser to MBS.

Turkey

On June 22, Turkish President Erdogan welcomed MBS, aiming to repair their ruptured relationship which followed the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Erdogan had visited Saudi Arabia in late April, which paved the way for MBS’s recent visit to Ankara.

The two countries emphasized their joint determination to usher in a new period of cooperation. Erdogan is seeking financial support that could help relieve Turkey’s beleaguered economy ahead of presidential elections slated for June 2023.

A Turkish official said the two countries had lifted restrictions on trade, flights and the screening of TV series, with negative media coverage between the two stopped.

Defense, energy and tourism sectors were the focus of improving cooperation in business, and Ankara invited Saudi investment funds to invest in Turkey.

Turkey’s economy is badly strained by a slumping lira and inflation soaring beyond 70 percent. Discussions about the possible sale of Turkish armed drones to Riyadh also took place.

A Saudi hit squad killed and dismembered Khashoggi in October 2018, according to a report by the CIA; however, MBS has denied any involvement in the murder.

Ankara halted its Khashoggi murder trial in April, and transferred the trial to Riyadh, while human rights groups have condemned the move.

Biden to visit MBS next month

Biden is set to visit Saudi Arabia next month, despite previously calling the kingdom a “pariah” state.  Biden’s administration has released conflicting statements concerning who his is willing to meet with there, and which hands he will shake, or shun.

MBS is acutely aware that the US military did not prevent the massive attack on the Aramco oil production facilities that knocked them off production for months, despite funding the American military presence in the kingdom.

Liv Golf

The LIV Golf Series is pioneered by LIV Golf Investments with former World No. 1 Greg Norman as its CEO. LIV Golf Investments are financially backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, which is chaired by MBS.  Assets included, it is said to be worth in excess of $620 billion.

The LIV Golf Invitational Series got underway at Centurion Club, near London, in June, with the second event due to be played in Portland, USA, from June 30.

Norman had previously said “I do not answer to Saudi Arabia. I do not answer to MBS [Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman],” in an interview with Sky Sports, where he said Saudi Arabia is “changing their culture within their country.”

MBS began his rise in 2015, and since then has led a comprehensive change aimed at opening up the kingdom’s economy and culture.

NEOM

In March, MBS, Chairman of the NEOM Company Board of Directors, announced TROJENA, the new global destination for mountain tourism, as part of NEOM’s plan developing the tourism sector.

Outdoor skiing is a unique feature of TROJENA that will provide a unique experience in NEOM with a ski village, ultra-luxury family and wellness resorts, retail stores and restaurants, in addition to sports activities, including a ski slope, water sports and mountain biking, as well as an interactive nature reserve. The project is set for completion by 2026 in Saudi Arabia’s north-western Tabuk region.

The NEOM project is funded primarily through $500 billion allocated by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and plans to welcome residents in 2024 and make the city home to millions by 2030.

Syria

In January, MBS met with Russian official, Alexander Lavrentiev, while discussing developments in Syria.

The United Arab Emirates, a close regional ally of Saudi Arabia, has called for Syria to return to the Arab League and has opened its embassy in Damascus.

Riyadh has been reluctant to restore relations with Syria because the US is opposed to normalizing relations with Damascus after the US-NATO attack for regime change has failed.

MBS has proven to be resilient to pressure from Washington, and may make a decision to bring Syria in from the cold.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

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

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***

The rate of COVID-19 associated hospitalization among children aged 5 to 11 is just 0.0008%. In real-world terms, that’s so close to zero you basically cannot lower it any further

Despite that, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory panel — the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) — on June 15, 2022, unanimously approved to grant Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to Pfizer’s and Moderna’s COVID shots for infants and young children

Pfizer’s EUA is for a three-dose regimen (3-microgram shots) for children 6 months to 5 years old; Moderna’s EUA is for a two-dose regimen (25-microgram shots) for children 6 months to 6 years

In granting this EUA, the FDA again ignored injury and death data and swept medical ethics aside

The drug companies need this last remaining age group to be included under the EUA, because once the emergency is finally declared “over,” the next phase of liability shielding requires that the shots receive approval by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Once the vaccine is on the childhood vaccination schedule, the vaccine makers are permanently shielded from liability for injuries and deaths that occur in any age group, including adults

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Statistics show the rate of COVID-19 associated hospitalization among children aged 5 to 11 is 0.0008%.¹ In real-world terms, that’s so close to zero you basically cannot lower it any further. Yet, despite such reassuring data, children in this age group are urged to get two to three doses of the COVID jab, even though side effects of the injection could harm them for life, or kill them.

As noted by the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation in the video below, myocarditis — one of the recognized effects of the COVID jab — “has a mortality rate of 25% to 56% within three to 10 years, owing to progressive heart failure and sudden cardiac death.”

Sudden cardiac death is what the media and public health agencies are now glibly referring to as “sudden adult death syndrome” or SADS. The older and more appropriate description for SADS is “sudden arrhythmic death syndrome,” but they don’t even want to use the word “arrhythmic” anymore, as that tells you what the death is really caused by, and many are now aware that the jab can cause heart inflammation.

By avoiding the word “arrhythmic,” it’s easier for them to pretend as though people are dying for no apparent reason, and certainly not because of the COVID shots. Still, real-world facts tell us that SADS didn’t take off until after the shots were rolled out, and the vast majority of young healthy people who suddenly die for no apparent reason have been jabbed.²

Also, understand that if your child or you are injured by the shot, you cannot sue the drug company for damages and, so far, the U.S. government has rejected all but one of the claims filed with the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).³ At the current pace of about 18 claims a month, it would take 38 years just to get through the current backlog, Reuters has noted.⁴ Basically, many may die before their case even gets through review.

COVID Jab Authorization Granted for Babies

As if the situation were not bad enough already, June 15, 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory panel — the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) — unanimously approved (21-0) to grant Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s COVID shots for infants and young children.⁵

Pfizer’s EUA is for a three-dose regimen (3-microgram shots) for children 6 months to 5 years old, while Moderna’s EUA is for a two-dose regimen (25-microgram shots) for children 6 months to 6 years.

In the video at the top of the page, Steve Kirsch, president of the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, interviews reporter Toby Rogers, who endured the entire nine-hour day of the recent VRBPAC meeting.

The day before that meeting, June 14, Rogers published⁶ a written summary of Pfizer’s trial on young children, which he referred to as “an embarrassment.” “Any VRBPAC member who votes Aye on this junk science application should be removed from his/her job,” he wrote. Apparently, they all need to go.

In the interview, Rogers laments the fact that the VRBPAC members remain “locked in their information bubble” and won’t allow any conflicting data to influence their preconceived biases.

As noted by Rogers, they have a sacred duty to protect public health, and they’re being flippant about it. They’re ignoring data, they’re ignoring the pleas of the vaccine injured, they’re ignoring serious questions, they’re ignoring everything except the flimsiest bits and pieces upon which their narrative is built. Rogers called the experience “heartbreaking.”

VRBPAC Refuses to Answer Lawmakers’ Questions

The VRBPAC members aren’t even swayed by concerns from lawmakers. They simply ignore their questions too. As reported by The Defender:⁷

“The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) ignored pleas from experts, the vaccine injured and a congressman representing 17 other lawmakers to halt authorization until questions about the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines for the nation’s youngest children could be properly addressed …

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said there are many unanswered questions … ‘I’m deeply concerned that the push to vaccinate these children is nothing more than a dystopian experiment with unknown consequences,’ Gohmert told the committee. ‘Some of us have outlined these questions in a letter⁸ to VRBPAC but have not received any answers, and I pose some of them here.’ Gohmert said:

‘Number 1, why has the FDA refused to release the hundreds of thousands of pages of data from preapproval manufacturer studies, post-approval adverse events data and other post-approval manufacturer data?

Number 2, what is the cardiac risk factor in administrating these COVID vaccines to children?

Number 3, world-renowned immunologists have raised concerns about potential antibody-dependent enhancement, or ADE, resulting from COVID vaccines, and since ADE was a problem in prior unrelated respiratory vaccine trials, we need to know what studies, if any, the FDA has that it’s used regarding ADE from COVID vaccines in children 5 and under or any age group. Can the FDA affirm there’s no risk of ADE for vaccinated children?

Number 4, if widely approved among children 5 and under, how many lives, if any, does FDA estimate will be saved next year? Given the injuries reported in the FDA’s VAERS [Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System] system, how will FDA evaluate serious vaccine injuries versus serious COVID outcomes?

Number 5, is it possible the proposed COVID vaccines in young children could create increased risk in future novel COVID variants?

Number 6, why has the FDA recently lowered the efficacy bar for COVID vaccines for youngest children? This change significantly lowers the expected benefits from any COVID vaccination for young children and it’s of particular concern given that over 70% of that age cohort already is seropositive.’

Gohmert said these questions and 13 other questions posed by lawmakers are critical and deserve answers from the FDA and VRBPAC prior to any EUA with the ‘accompanied protection for liability for all harm done.'”

Trial Showed COVID Jab Increases Infection Risk in Babies

Click here to watch the video.

In the video above, you can see Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, with a forced grin on her face, claiming “rigorous scientific review” has proven the shots to be safe and effective in infants and young children.

The video also features excerpts from a video in which Dr. Clare Craig, a diagnostic pathologist and “lover of data,”⁹ reviews what this “rigorous scientific review” actually found and what the FDA and CDC aren’t telling you. To hear Craig’s full summary of how Pfizer twisted its clinical data for young children, check out the video below.

Craig points out that of the 4,526 children, aged 6 months to 4 years, who participated in Pfizer’s trial, 3,000 didn’t make it to the end of the trial. Why did two-thirds of the children drop out? Oftentimes, this happens when side effects are too severe for the participant to continue. Here, we don’t know why two-thirds of the participants were eliminated, and “on that basis alone, this trial should be deemed null and void,” Craig says. Moreover:

Unscientific and Unethical Behavior

As reported by The Defender:¹¹

“Combining all ages together, Pfizer said its three-dose regimen for children 6 months to 5 years old was 80% effective at preventing illness from the Omicron variant based on preliminary data from its clinical trial.

The 80% number was calculated 30 days after the third dose. As noted by committee members, the efficacy number is likely to go down after 30 days and post-approval monitoring was suggested.

Moderna said its two-shot vaccine was about 51% effective against infection from Omicron in children under 2, and about 37% among kids 2 to 5 years old, citing different efficacy numbers than what was reported by the company in March.

In a March 23 press release, Moderna said its vaccine in the 6-month to 2-year age group was only 43.7% effective. In the older age group, the company said its vaccine was 37.5% effective. A top official at Moderna has already said a booster will be necessary.”

As noted by the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, vaccinating infants and children who have no need for the shots and don’t benefit from them, just to “protect” adults, violates medical ethics. And since those who are jabbed still readily transmit the virus, the children are actually put at risk for no reason at all.

It’s All About Securing Indemnification

So, how can we explain the irrational behavior of the FDA and CDC? Why don’t any of the data matter? Why doesn’t the science matter? Why don’t any of the red flags matter? And why are they handing out EUAs when the criteria for EUA are satisfied? Products must satisfy four criteria in order to get EUA:

1. There must be an emergency
2. A vaccine must be at least 30% to 50% effective
3. The known and potential benefits of the product must outweigh the known and potential risks of the product
4. There can be no adequate, approved and available alternative treatments (drugs or vaccines)

Unless all four criteria are met, EUA cannot be granted or maintained, yet here we are. COVID, by any reasonable measurement, is no longer an emergency, there are plenty of adequate alternative treatments, and the potential benefits in no way, shape or form outweigh the potential risks — especially not in infants and children under 5. That’s three out of four criteria that, clearly, are not met.

The short answer to the question, “Why are the CDC and FDA acting so irrationally?” is that both agencies are corrupt to the core and are no longer in the business of protecting public health. They are securing profits for the drug industry, and getting EUA for infants and young children is a crucial step toward securing permanent legal indemnity for the drugmakers.

As explained by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in the short video clip above, they need this last remaining age group to be included under the EUA, because once the emergency is finally declared “over,” the next phase of liability shielding requires that the shots receive approval by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

This is the group that decides which vaccines are to be added to the childhood vaccination schedule. Once the vaccine is on the childhood vaccination schedule, the vaccine makers are permanently shielded from liability for injuries and deaths that occur in ANY age group, including adults.

The only way to break that indemnity is by proving the vaccine maker knew about the safety issues and withheld that information. You can learn more about this indemnification process in “The Real Reason They Want to Give COVID Jabs to Kids.”

So, the end goal is permanent immunity against liability for injury and death from the COVID shots in all age groups, and to get there, they first need the EUA to cover all children. After that, the ACIP approval becomes more or less a matter of rubber stamping. This is why they’re playing Russian roulette with the health of infants and young children.

Murder Has No Statute of Limitation

That said, if fraud can be proven, all indemnity falls by the wayside, and there’s no statute of limitation when it comes to murder, which some insist is what’s happening here.

The video above features “To The Lifeboats” podcaster Sam Dodson’s comments to the FDA VRBPAC during its open public hearing session to approve the COVID jabs for children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years. In a rapid-fire manner, he reviews several data points that ought to have put a halt to these injections, but didn’t; several instances where the FDA knew harm was occurring from these shots, or would occur, and they did nothing.

Another public comment was submitted by an as-yet unidentified individual. The submitted comment was provided to and reposted on Coquin de Chien’s Substack. Here are some select pieces:¹²

“This comment is NOTICE of possible criminal liability to Lauren K. Roth and members of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee who owe duties of care, diligence, good faith, and loyalty in recommending ‘for’ or ‘against’ the EUA amendment for COVID-19 mRNA vaccine in children 6 months through 4 years of age.

Only two deaths are listed herein to establish knowledge. If the amendment is approved, it will have been done by committee members ‘knowing’ of felony crimes in context. Your investigation of these deaths should include death certificates, autopsy records, witness interviews, and immunization records.

Massachusetts Death Certificate 2022 SFN 5980 is a 7yo girl died January 18, 2022 listed as died from U071 ‘COVID-19,’ B49 ‘unspecified mycosis,’ J450 ‘predominantly allergic asthma,’ and R091 ‘pleurisy.’

VAERS_ID 2038120 is a 7yo girl in Massachusetts, who received her 2nd dose 1/13/2022 and was reported to VAERS 1/15/2022. PRIOR_VAX states, ‘Severe nausea and vomiting from 5 min post vaccination and for the next 8-10 hours.’

SYMPTOM_TEXT states, ‘Spiked a 103 fever, severe stomachache, has not had a bowel movement since the day before vaccination, which makes today 3 days without one. First vaccine caused severe nausea and vomiting from 5 minutes post injection and for the next 8-10 hours.’ This little girl suffered immeasurably 4 to 5 days as her intestines shut down due likely to impeded blood vessels servicing intestines.

Massachusetts Death Certificate 2021 SFN 56611 is a 48yo man died 11/16/2021 listed as died from U071 ‘COVID-19’ and E669 ‘OBESITY.’ SFN 56611 is known to have died less than 24 hours after inoculation.

In both cases, the Medical Examiners listed the cause of death as ‘COVID-19,’ when it was clearly not COVID-19. And in both cases, the Medical Examiners omitted listing causes Y590 ‘Viral vaccines’ and T881 ‘Other complications following immunization, not elsewhere classified,’ when these clearly were proximate and actual causes.

Death certificates from the state of Massachusetts are sent to the CDC, a federal entity. Thus, fraud on a state death certificate is a federal crime as it affects federal death records. Several federal felony crimes apply in this instance and are listed below.

If you dismiss this NOTICE and recommend the EUA amendment without first investigating these two deaths, you become liable for inchoate crimes and the felony crime of ‘misprision of felony.’ If a single person subsequently dies as a result of the amendment, all the elements will have been satisfied for you to face felony murder charges or involuntary manslaughter. Qualified immunity is not a valid defense …

There were found sixty likely C19 vaccine deaths in a 25-minute perusal of the 2021 and 2022 death certificates, which extrapolates to hundreds, probably thousands of C19 vaccine deaths in Massachusetts.

Refusal to investigate these fraudulent records is a crime that, because of the felony murder aspect, has no statute of limitations. Five, ten, or twenty years from now, if a federal prosecutor were to learn of this NOTICE, he or she would have significant evidence to bring charges for felony murder.

In summary, this NOTICE places you in a position requiring you to investigate these deaths prior to recommending the amendment. If you dismiss this NOTICE, you may be criminally liable for involuntary manslaughter, felony murder, and a list of federal crimes and inchoate crimes … Comment Tracking Number l4d-m52d-ge4m.”

Florida Bucks the Trend

My home state of Florida now stands out as the only U.S. state that is recommending AGAINST the COVID jab for 6-month-olds to 5-year-olds. Parents can still get their infants jabbed if they want, but the official state recommendation is not to do it, as there’s simply no scientific or logical rationale for doing so.

Florida also did not preorder any extra doses for this age group.¹³ In a June 18, 2022, Substack article, Dr. Robert Malone addressed the latest EUA authorization for infants and young children, and applauded Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to buck the trend. It’s hard to believe he is the only governor in the U.S. who resisted this murderous threat to the children:¹⁴

“Have you looked at the VAERS data lately? The CDC apparently has not. In the USA alone, there have been 831,801 adverse events, of which 12,776 are life threatening. There have been 63,978 hospitalizations. There have been 13,293 deaths and 14,232 permanent disabilities from these vaccines.

True, these are ‘unverified’ — but previous research has shown that the VAERS system under-reported adverse events associated with vaccines, not over-reported … Then there are the international post-vaccine adverse event summaries.¹⁵

The CDC, under Freedom of Information Act Request (FOIA) has now admitted¹⁶ that even though they had promised to analyze the VAERS data before advising about these vaccines for children, they did not.

The VAERS data were NOT taken into consideration before the authorization of these genetic agents for babies and young children. Frankly, this is shocking. So shocking, it is hard for me to even write about it.

Now, approximately 430 children with other severe illnesses have died with COVID in the last 2.5 years (that would be 172 per year). Plus there have been 2,600 hospitalizations of children, most with underlying conditions — over that 2.5 year period. These numbers show that even before Omicron, in the case of children, COVID is less severe than flu …

Omicron in children is much less severe. We know this. The scientific evidence is clear. Yet the FDA goes back to data from the DELTA variant when discussing the effects of this virus … Governor DeSantis again has it right. It is time to stop. Parents must stop. The time is now to just say no.”

Last but not least, if you’re still unsure whether the COVID shot is the “right” choice for your child, please read through Dr. Byram Bridle’s “COVID-19 Vaccines and Children: A Scientist’s Guide for Parents,”¹⁷ published by the Canadian Covid Care Alliance. It goes through how the shots work, what the known side effects are, results from the clinical trial, the effects of the spike protein and much more.

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Notes

¹ Rumble Vaccine Safety Research Foundation June 9, 2022

² Steve Kirsch Substack June 21, 2022

^3, 4 Reuters June 16, 2022

^5, 7, 11 The Defender June 15, 2022

⁶ uTobian Substack June 14, 2022

⁸ Letter to VRBPAC June 7, 2022

⁹ Twitter Clare Craig

¹⁰ Twitter Ben@USMortality June 16, 2022

¹² Coquin de Chien Substack June 13, 2022

¹³ New York Times June 16, 2022

¹⁴ Robert Malone Substack June 18, 2022

¹⁵ World Council for Health June 17, 2022

¹⁶ Jackanapes Junction Substack June 16, 2022

¹⁷ Canadian Covid Care Alliance, COVID-19 Vaccines and Children: A Scientist’s Guide for Parents

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

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From the announcement that Britain had voted to leave the European Union in June 2016, up until London finally departed the bloc in January 2020, the main criticism put forward by the mainstream media over Brexit was that it would result in violence erupting in the occupied north of Ireland, with border infrastructure being placed between the southern EU-member Irish state and the British-ruled north-east inevitably becoming a target for a resurgent Irish Republican movement.

Despite the 1998 Belfast Agreement being lauded worldwide as a ‘peace deal’ that ended 30 years of conflict, the Good Friday Agreement was effectively a surrender agreement between the British government and Provisional IRA, the culmination of years of infiltration at the highest level of the once revolutionary movement by British agents.

In the 24 years since the signing of the GFA however, many Republicans have sought to continue the IRA’s original goal of establishing a 32-County Independent Republic, with more than 40 Irish Republican prisoners currently languishing in British and Free State prisons, and sporadic attacks still taking place against British occupation forces, though not at the level of intensity that had occurred in the 70s and 80s.

This is where the prospect of a ‘hard border’ came into play in the mainstream media’s coverage of Brexit, with customs posts between both jurisdictions in Ireland manned by the 5,000 British troops that still remain in the occupied six counties, inevitably becoming a target for physical force Irish Republicans.

Therefore there is a sense of irony in the fact that two years on from Britain’s departure from the European Union, the most potent threat of violence from Brexit so far, has in fact emanated from pro-British Loyalists, the descendants of English and Scottish colonisers planted in the north Irish province of Ulster in the 17^th century.

Downing Street’s Irish Protocol, which effectively keeps the occupied six counties in the EU Customs Union via checks being carried out on goods coming into the region from Britain by sea, has been viewed by Loyalists as undermining the British occupation that they wish to remain under, and also as being a stepping stone towards Irish reunification.

Following the end of the withdrawal agreement last year, and Britain’s official departure from the EU single market, Loyalists would react to this newly-implemented Protocol by rioting across the region, attacking the pro-British colonial police force that they have traditionally supported, and bringing global attention to the occupied north of Ireland not seen in decades.

Indeed, tensions would rear their head again in March of this year when Foreign Minister of the southern 26-County Irish State, Simon Coveney, seen as an instrumental  figure in the implementation of the Protocol by Loyalists, had to be evacuated from an official event in Belfast following a bomb warning from Loyalist terrorist group, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).

Though low intensity at present, the current Loyalist campaign bears a grim similarity to the one that began in the mid-60s in response to the call for equal rights for Irish Nationalists living in the occupied six counties, a campaign of petrol bombing Nationalist-owned properties that would eventually escalate into 30 years of ethnic cleansing and atrocities carried out in collusion with British Military Intelligence.

With peaceful civil rights campaigners being batoned and teargassed by a pro-British police force every time they took to the streets of occupied Ireland, support for militant Republicanism was quickly growing.

In order to counter the threat from the emerging Provisional IRA, the Military Reaction Force (MRF) a clandestine British Special Forces unit, was deployed to occupied Ireland with the intention of triggering a civil war between Irish Republicans and Loyalists, thus taking the IRA’s focus away from the British troops that had been deployed to the region in 1969 in order to enforce Downing Street’s rule.

To this end, the MRF would employ the modus operandi of drive-by shootings of unarmed Nationalist civilians in the hope that the IRA would place the blame on Loyalists.

The unit would work directly with Loyalists in December 1971 however, when they allowed a UVF team clear passage to bomb McGurk’s Bar in the staunchly Republican New Lodge area of Belfast – leaving 15 civilians dead and marking the beginning of formal relations between British military intelligence and Loyalist death squads

Indeed, this relationship would rear its ugly head less than three years later when the UVF – under the direction of the MRF’s successor, the Special Reconnaissance Unit (SRU) – would detonate three no-warning car bombs in Dublin and one in the border county of Monaghan, resulting in 34 deaths in what was the largest loss of life in a single day in the 30-year period of conflict.

The bombing of the 26-County State’s capital was seen as a warning to Dublin to not dissent from its traditionally pro-British stance, weakened at the time by atrocities carried out by British troops in the occupied north.

Though no further attacks on the same scale as Dublin and Monaghan would ultimately be carried out in the 26 Counties as a result, Britain’s policy of operating with death squads in the north of Ireland would continue unabated, which, as the 1980s dawned, would also grow to accommodate the Ulster Defence Association (UDA).

Although not yet responsible for the same high-profile attacks as its counterpart, the UDA dwarfed the UVF in terms of membership, which reached 40,000 at its peak.

Taking this into account, as well as the fact the UDA was engaged in the same bloody ethnic cleansing campaign as the UVF, it was not long before London seen the group’s potential as a proxy, thus the Force Research Unit (FRU) was born.

A covert unit in the same vein as the MRF and SRU, the FRU’s purpose was to turn the UDA into a more ‘professional’ force, one that would target IRA members rather than engage solely in the traditional Loyalist tactic of killing unarmed Nationalist civilians.

To implement this strategy they would recruit Brian Nelson, a senior UDA member, to travel to South Africa in 1985 in order to source arms from the then-Apartheid state’s official defence contractor Armscor, a deal that would lead to a deadly escalation of the group’s genocidal campaign against the Nationalist population, and would ultimately result in the execution of human rights Lawyer, Pat Finucane.

Finucane, from Belfast, would become a thorn in the side of the British establishment throughout the 80s by defending several high-profile Republicans, including hunger striker Bobby Sands.

Placed firmly in London’s crosshairs, the final straw would come in November 1988 when he successfully had charges dropped against an IRA Volunteer in relation to the deaths of two British soldiers.

Three months later, a UDA unit smashed down Finucane’s front door as he had Sunday dinner with his family and shot him 14 times, his execution effectively sanctioned by Downing Street three weeks prior, when Thatcher Cabinet member Douglas Hogg stated in the House of Commons that there were solicitors ‘unduly sympathetic to the cause of the IRA’.

Both the UDA and UVF would continue this campaign of violence against the Nationalist community for a further five years, the official end coming in October 1994 when both organisations declared they would ‘cease all operational hostilities’ in response to the earlier Provisional IRA ceasefire in August of that year.

Though both groups continue to exist, in the years following the ceasefire they mainly turned their guns on each other in bouts of internecine feuding.

If recent mainstream media reports are to be believed that the UVF are preparing to re-arm in the event of the Protocol remaining unchanged however, the current Loyalist campaign may soon escalate to a level not seen in decades – with British military intelligence undoubtedly playing a part once again.

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Gavin O’Reilly is an activist from Dublin, Ireland, with a strong interest in the effects of British and US Imperialism. Secretary of the Dublin Anti-Internment Committee, a campaign group set up to raise awareness of Irish Republican political prisoners in British and 26 County jails. His work has previously appeared on American Herald Tribune, The Duran, Al-Masdar and MintPress News. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. Support him on Patreon.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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***

For the first time in U.S. history, the Supreme Court has retracted a fundamental constitutional right. “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Samuel Alito wrote for the majority of five right-wing zealots on the court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. They held that “procuring an abortion is not a fundamental constitutional right because such a right has no basis in the Constitution’s text or in our Nation’s history.”

Since the day Roe v. Wade was decided nearly 50 years ago, its opponents have executed a methodical campaign to overturn it. There is no reason, in fact or in law, to erase the constitutional right to abortion. The Constitution still protects abortion, and there have been no factual changes since 1973 that would support abolishing it. The only thing that has changed is the composition of the court. It is now packed with radical Christian fanatics who have no qualms about imposing their religious beliefs on the bodies of women and trans people, notwithstanding the Constitution’s unequivocal separation of church and state.

Alito was joined by Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett in stripping protection of the right to self-determination from half the country’s population.

In their collective dissent, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan said the majority “has wrenched this choice from women and given it to the States.” They wrote that the court is “rescinding an individual right in its entirety and conferring it on the State, an action the Court takes for the first time in history.”

Noting,

“After today, young women will come of age with fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers had,” the dissenters conclude: “With sorrow — for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection — we dissent.”

During the December oral argument, Sonia Sotomayor expressed concern about how the Supreme Court would “survive the stench” of the overtly ideological overruling of Roe. It will show, she said, that the Court’s rulings are “just political acts.”

By overturning Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the court’s majority confirmed the significance of Sotomayor’s query. While purporting to shift the restriction or abolition of abortion to the states, the court has engaged in a political act. It delegated the fate of a right that had been moored in the Constitution to the political process.

“This conservative court defers to the political process when it agrees with its results,” Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “but the deference vanishes when the conservative justices dislike the states laws.”

As Chemerinsky notes, “there was no deference to the political process earlier this week when the conservatives on the court declared unconstitutional a New York law limiting concealed weapons that had been on the books since 1911 or struck down a Maine law that limited financial aid to religious schools.”

Brett Kavanaugh insisted in his concurrence that the Constitution is “neither pro-life nor pro-choice.” Arguing that it is “neutral” on abortion, he claimed that the issue should be left to the states and “the democratic process.” But partisan gerrymandering and the Supreme Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act to the detriment of Democrats and people of color belie the court’s purportedly “democratic” and “neutral” delegation of abortion to the states.

The court held in Roe that abortion was a “fundamental right” for a woman’s “life and future.” It said that states could not ban abortion until after viability (when a fetus is able to survive outside the womb), which generally occurs around 23 weeks. Nineteen years later, the court reaffirmed the “essential holding” of Roe in Casey, saying that states could only place restrictions on abortions if they don’t impose an “undue burden” on the right to a pre-viability abortion.

Alito wrote in Dobbs that since abortion is no longer a fundamental constitutional right, restrictions on it will be judged under the most lenient standard of review — the “rational basis” test. That means a law banning or restricting abortion will be upheld if there is a “rational basis on which the legislature could have thought that it would serve legitimate state interests.”

At issue in Dobbs was Mississippi’s 2018 Gestational Age Act, which outlaws nearly all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, well before viability. The law contains exceptions for medical emergencies and cases of “severe fetal abnormality,” but no exception for rape or incest.

The majority said that Mississippi’s interest in “protecting the life of the unborn” and preventing the “barbaric practice” of dilation and evacuation satisfied the rational basis test so its law would be upheld. The court accepts the notion of protecting “fetal life” but nowhere mentions what the dissenters call “the life-altering consequences” of reversing Roe and Casey.

In both Roe and Casey, the court grounded the right to abortion in the liberty section of the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment, which says that states shall not “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The court in Roe relied on several precedents saying that the right of personal liberty prohibits the government from interfering with personal decisions about contraception, marriage, procreation, family relationships, child-rearing and children’s education.

The Dobbs majority said the Constitution contains no reference to abortion and no constitutional provision implicitly protects it. In order to be protected by the Due Process Clause, a right must be “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition” and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” According to the majority, there is no liberty interest because the law didn’t protect the right to abortion in the 19th century.

To his credit, John Roberts did not vote to overturn Roe and Casey, writing that the majority’s “dramatic and consequential ruling is unnecessary to decide the case before us.” Mindful of the threat this “serious jolt to the legal system” will pose to the legitimacy of the Roberts Court, the chief justice sought to split the baby, so to speak. He discarded the viability test and upheld the Mississippi law, leaving the issue of the constitutionality of abortion to a future case. Purporting to be a supporter of abortion rights, Roberts said women in Mississippi could choose to have an abortion before 15 weeks of pregnancy.

In order to justify their rejection of stare decisis (respect for the court’s precedent) to which the members in the majority had pledged fealty during their confirmation hearings, Alito wrote that Roe was “egregiously wrong.” He and the others in the majority had the nerve to compare abortion to racial segregation, drawing an analogy between the court’s overruling of Roe and its rejection of Plessy v. Ferguson in Brown v. Board of Education.

Nearly half the states have laws banning or severely restricting abortion. Almost one in five pregnancies (not counting miscarriages) end in abortion, which is one of the most frequent medical procedures performed today. Twenty-five percent of American women will end a pregnancy in their lifetime. Now that Roe has been overturned, it is estimated that 36 million women and others who can become pregnantwill be denied the fundamental right to choose whether to continue a pregnancy.

The dissenters observed that under laws in some states (like Mississippi) that don’t offer exceptions for victims of rape or incest, “a woman will have to bear her rapist’s child or a young girl her father’s — no matter if doing so will destroy her life.”

Alito wrote, “The Court emphasizes that this decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right. Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”

But the dissenters were not convinced. “No one should be confident that this majority is done with its work,” they warned. The dissent noted that the right to abortion enshrined in Roe is “part of the same constitutional fabric” as the rights to contraception and same-sex marriage and intimacy. “Either the mass of the majority’s opinion is hypocrisy, or additional constitutional rights are under threat. It is one or the other.”

Thomas didn’t pull any punches in his concurrence. He said that the court “should reconsider” other precedents based on substantive due process, including Griswold v. Connecticut (the right to contraception), Lawrence v. Texas (the right to same-sex sexual conduct) and Obergefell v. Hodges (the right to same-sex marriage).

In Alito’s draft opinion, which was leaked to Politico in May, he wrote that the rights protected by Lawrence and Obergefell are not “deeply rooted in history.” But the final majority opinion didn’t go that far. Kavanaugh would not have signed onto it. He wrote in his concurrence, “Overruling Roe does not mean the overruling of [Griswold, Obergefell, Loving v. Virginia (right to interracial marriage)], and does not threaten or cast doubt on those precedents.”

The dissenters frame the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organizationruling as a gross attack on the right to self-determination: “The Court’s precedents about bodily autonomy, sexual and familial relations, and procreation are all interwoven — all part of the fabric of our constitutional law, and because that is so, of our lives. Especially women’s lives, where they safeguard a right to self-determination.”

It is that right to self-determination that the five ultraconservative members of the court have wrenched away from half of the people in the United States.

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Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and a member of the national advisory boards of Assange Defense and Veterans For Peace, and the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Her books include Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues. She is co-host of “Law and Disorder” radio. 

Featured image is from Boise State Public Radio

Dangerous Crossroads, The Road to WW III? Congress Is Bringing Back the Idea of a ‘Limited’ Nuclear War

By Jeff Schogol, June 27, 2022

Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) recently added an amendment to the House version of the Fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act that would provide $45 million for the Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile, even though President Joe Biden’s administration has indicated it wants to stop the program.

The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics

By Edwin Black, June 28, 2022

Eugenics was the racist pseudoscience determined to wipe away all human beings deemed “unfit,” preserving only those who conformed to a Nordic stereotype. Elements of the philosophy were enshrined as national policy by forced sterilization and segregation laws, as well as marriage restrictions, enacted in twenty-seven states.

Will “Human Sense of Community” and “Spirit of Responsibility” Overcome “Greed for Power and Violence”?

By Dr. Rudolf Hänsel, June 28, 2022

The events of the last two months and years – the doom of arbitrary state measures, mass terror, dictatorship and war – have once again given us a thorough visual lesson in the historical significance of violence. Although progress in the development of civilization is undeniable, we seem to be still entirely at the beginnings of humanization as far as the taming of violence is concerned.

Hungary Pleads to EU: “We should stop sanctions; Russia still proceeds in Ukraine”

By Paul Antonopoulos, June 27, 2022

With anti-Russia hysteria spreading throughout the West, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán demonstrates that it is possible to pursue policies that serve national interests despite the supposed constraints of being in a supranational bloc like the European Union.

Former White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, Dr Deborah Birx, Shaking and Stammering, Says She Doesn’t Know If Government Was Lying About the Jabs

By Alexandra Bruce, June 27, 2022

Former White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, Dr Deborah Birx is looking pretty rough under questioning by Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan last Thursday. Looks like fear of the gallows. She testifies that she knew in December 2020 and January 2021 that people who were naturally infected with COVID-19 were experiencing reinfection based on data coming out of South Africa.

How Bad Will the Food Shortage Get?

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, June 27, 2022

Depending on where you live, you’re now starting to see shortages to a greater or lesser degree. But regardless of how things appear right now, expect changes, potentially drastic ones, over the coming months and into 2023, because that’s when the diminished yields from this current growing season will become apparent.

Explaining India’s Balancing Act Between BRICS & the G7

By Andrew Korybko, June 27, 2022

Pretty much, what India’s attempting to do is use its close geo-economic ties with the US-led G7 and unofficial BRICS leader China to balance its ties with both, all with a view towards maximizing its strategic autonomy in the New Cold War between the former’s Golden Billion and the latter’s Global South.

British “Watchdog” Journalists Unmasked as Lap Dogs for the Security State

By Jonathan Cook, June 27, 2022

The pretensions of the establishment media took a severe battering this month as the defamation trial of Guardian columnist Carole Cadwalladr reached its conclusion and the hacked emails of Paul Mason, a long-time stalwart of the BBC, Channel 4 and the Guardian, were published online.

Pilots Injured by COVID Vaccines Speak Out: ‘I Will Probably Never Fly Again’

By Michael Nevradakis, June 27, 2022

In interviews with The Defender, pilots injured by COVID-19 vaccines said despite a “culture of fear and intimidation” they are compelled to speak out against vaccine mandates that rob pilots of their careers — and in some cases their lives.

History: Rockefeller – Facing the Corporate Roots of American Fascism

By Richard Sanders, June 27, 2022

John Davison Rockefeller (1839-1937), the world’s first billionaire, was America’s most generous philanthropist, fascist financier and Nazi collaborator. Although Rockefeller’s wealth was based largely on a near global control of oil refining, he also had large interests in other monoplies.

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This was originally published on San Francisco Chronicle in September 2003.

***

Hitler and his henchmen victimized an entire continent and exterminated millions in his quest for a co-called “Master Race.”

But the concept of a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed master Nordic race didn’t originate with Hitler. The idea was created in the United States, and cultivated in California, decades before Hitler came to power. California eugenicists played an important, although little known, role in the American eugenics movement’s campaign for ethnic cleansing.

Eugenics was the racist pseudoscience determined to wipe away all human beings deemed “unfit,” preserving only those who conformed to a Nordic stereotype. Elements of the philosophy were enshrined as national policy by forced sterilization and segregation laws, as well as marriage restrictions, enacted in twenty-seven states. In 1909, California became the third state to adopt such laws. Ultimately, eugenics practitioners coercively sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of thousands, forcibly segregated thousands in “colonies,” and persecuted untold numbers in ways we are just learning. Before World War II, nearly half of coercive sterilizations were done in California, and even after the war, the state accounted for a third of all such surgeries.

California was considered an epicenter of the American eugenics movement. During the Twentieth Century’s first decades, California’s eugenicists included potent but little known race scientists, such as Army venereal disease specialist Dr. Paul Popenoe, citrus magnate and Polytechnic benefactor Paul Gosney, Sacramento banker Charles M. Goethe, as well as members of the California State Board of Charities and Corrections and the University of California Board of Regents.

Eugenics would have been so much bizarre parlor talk had it not been for extensive financing by corporate philanthropies, specifically the Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman railroad fortune. They were all in league with some of America’s most respected scientists hailing from such prestigious universities as Stanford, Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. These academicians espoused race theory and race science, and then faked and twisted data to serve eugenics’ racist aims.

Stanford president David Starr Jordan originated the notion of “race and blood” in his 1902 racial epistle “Blood of a Nation,” in which the university scholar declared that human qualities and conditions such as talent and poverty were passed through the blood.

In 1904, the Carnegie Institution established a laboratory complex at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island that stockpiled millions of index cards on ordinary Americans, as researchers carefully plotted the removal of families, bloodlines and whole peoples. From Cold Spring Harbor, eugenics advocates agitated in the legislatures of America, as well as the nation’s social service agencies and associations.

The Harriman railroad fortune paid local charities, such as the New York Bureau of Industries and Immigration, to seek out Jewish, Italian and other immigrants in New York and other crowded cities and subject them to deportation, trumped up confinement or forced sterilization.

The Rockefeller Foundation helped found the German eugenics program and even funded the program that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to Auschwitz.

Much of the spiritual guidance and political agitation for the American eugenics movement came from California’s quasi-autonomous eugenic societies, such as the Pasadena-based Human Betterment Foundation and the California branch of the American Eugenics Society, which coordinated much of their activity with the Eugenics Research Society in Long Island. These organizations–which functioned as part of a closely-knit network–published racist eugenic newsletters and pseudoscientific journals, such as Eugenical News and Eugenics, and propagandized for the Nazis.

Eugenics was born as a scientific curiosity in the Victorian age. In 1863, Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, theorized that if talented people only married other talented people, the result would be measurably better offspring. At the turn of the last century, Galton’s ideas were imported into the United States just as Gregor Mendel’s principles of heredity were rediscovered. American eugenic advocates believed with religious fervor that the same Mendelian concepts determining the color and size of peas, corn and cattle also governed the social and intellectual character of man.

In an America demographically reeling from immigration upheaval and torn by post-Reconstruction chaos, race conflict was everywhere in the early twentieth century. Elitists, utopians and so-called “progressives” fused their smoldering race fears and class bias with their desire to make a better world. They reinvented Galton’s eugenics into a repressive and racist ideology. The intent: populate the earth with vastly more of their own socio-economic and biological kind–and less or none of everyone else.

The superior species the eugenics movement sought was populated not merely by tall, strong, talented people. Eugenicists craved blond, blue-eyed Nordic types. This group alone, they believed, was fit to inherit the earth. In the process, the movement intended to subtract emancipated African Americans, immigrant Asian laborers, Indians, Hispanics, East Europeans, Jews, dark-haired hill folk, poor people, the infirm and really anyone classified outside the gentrified genetic lines drawn up by American raceologists.

How? By identifying so-called “defective” family trees and subjecting them to lifelong segregation and sterilization programs to kill their bloodlines. The grand plan was to literally wipe away the reproductive capability of those deemed weak and inferior–the so-called “unfit.” The eugenicists hoped to neutralize the viability of 10 percent of the population at a sweep, until none were left except themselves.

Eighteen solutions were explored in a Carnegie-supported 1911 “Preliminary Report of the Committee of the Eugenic Section of the American Breeder’s Association to Study and to Report on the Best Practical Means for Cutting Off the Defective Germ-Plasm in the Human Population.” Point eight was euthanasia.

The most commonly suggested method of eugenicide in America was a “lethal chamber” or public locally operated gas chambers. In 1918, Popenoe, the Army venereal disease specialist during World War I, co-wrote the widely used textbook, Applied Eugenics, which argued, “From an historical point of view, the first method which presents itself is execution… Its value in keeping up the standard of the race should not be underestimated.” Applied Eugenics also devoted a chapter to “Lethal Selection,” which operated “through the destruction of the individual by some adverse feature of the environment, such as excessive cold, or bacteria, or by bodily deficiency.”

Eugenic breeders believed American society was not ready to implement an organized lethal solution. But many mental institutions and doctors practiced improvised medical lethality and passive euthanasia on their own. One institution in Lincoln, Illinois fed its incoming patients milk from tubercular cows believing a eugenically strong individual would be immune. Thirty to forty percent annual death rates resulted at Lincoln. Some doctors practiced passive eugenicide one newborn infant at a time. Others doctors at mental institutions engaged in lethal neglect.

Nonetheless, with eugenicide marginalized, the main solution for eugenicists was the rapid expansion of forced segregation and sterilization, as well as more marriage restrictions. California led the nation, performing nearly all sterilization procedures with little or no due process. In its first twenty-five years of eugenic legislation, California sterilized 9,782 individuals, mostly women. Many were classified as “bad girls,” diagnosed as “passionate,” “oversexed” or “sexually wayward.” At Sonoma, some women were sterilized because of what was deemed an abnormally large clitoris or labia.

In 1933 alone, at least 1,278 coercive sterilizations were performed, 700 of which were on women. The state’s two leading sterilization mills in 1933 were Sonoma State Home with 388 operations and Patton State Hospital with 363 operations. Other sterilization centers included Agnews, Mendocino, Napa, Norwalk, Stockton and Pacific Colony state hospitals.

Even the United States Supreme Court endorsed aspects of eugenics. In its infamous 1927 decision, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, “It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind…. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” This decision opened the floodgates for thousands to be coercively sterilized or otherwise persecuted as subhuman. Years later, the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials quoted Holmes’s words in their own defense.

Only after eugenics became entrenched in the United States was the campaign transplanted into Germany, in no small measure through the efforts of California eugenicists, who published booklets idealizing sterilization and circulated them to German officials and scientists.

Hitler studied American eugenics laws. He tried to legitimize his anti-Semitism by medicalizing it, and wrapping it in the more palatable pseudoscientific facade of eugenics. Hitler was able to recruit more followers among reasonable Germans by claiming that science was on his side. While Hitler’s race hatred sprung from his own mind, the intellectual outlines of the eugenics Hitler adopted in 1924 were made in America.

During the ’20s, Carnegie Institution eugenic scientists cultivated deep personal and professional relationships with Germany’s fascist eugenicists. In Mein Kampf, published in 1924, Hitler quoted American eugenic ideology and openly displayed a thorough knowledge of American eugenics. “There is today one state,” wrote Hitler, “in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception [of immigration] are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the United States.”

Hitler proudly told his comrades just how closely he followed the progress of the American eugenics movement. “I have studied with great interest,” he told a fellow Nazi, “the laws of several American states concerning prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny would, in all probability, be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock.”

Hitler even wrote a fan letter to American eugenic leader Madison Grant calling his race-based eugenics book, The Passing of the Great Race his “bible.”

Hitler’s struggle for a superior race would be a mad crusade for a Master Race. Now, the American term “Nordic” was freely exchanged with “Germanic” or “Aryan.” Race science, racial purity and racial dominance became the driving force behind Hitler’s Nazism. Nazi eugenics would ultimately dictate who would be persecuted in a Reich-dominated Europe, how people would live, and how they would die. Nazi doctors would become the unseen generals in Hitler’s war against the Jews and other Europeans deemed inferior. Doctors would create the science, devise the eugenic formulas, and even hand-select the victims for sterilization, euthanasia and mass extermination.

During the Reich’s early years, eugenicists across America welcomed Hitler’s plans as the logical fulfillment of their own decades of research and effort. California eugenicists republished Nazi propaganda for American consumption. They also arranged for Nazi scientific exhibits, such as an August 1934 display at the L.A. County Museum, for the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association.

In 1934, as Germany’s sterilizations were accelerating beyond 5,000 per month, the California eugenics leader C. M. Goethe upon returning from Germany ebulliently bragged to a key colleague, “You will be interested to know, that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought.…I want you, my dear friend, to carry this thought with you for the rest of your life, that you have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people.”

That same year, ten years after Virginia passed its sterilization act, Joseph DeJarnette, superintendent of Virginia’s Western State Hospital, observed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, “The Germans are beating us at our own game.”

More than just providing the scientific roadmap, America funded Germany’s eugenic institutions. By 1926, Rockefeller had donated some $410,000 — almost $4 million in 21st-Century money — to hundreds of German researchers. In May 1926, Rockefeller awarded $250,000 to the German Psychiatric Institute of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, later to become the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Psychiatry. Among the leading psychiatrists at the German Psychiatric Institute was Ernst Rüdin, who became director and eventually an architect of Hitler’s systematic medical repression.

Another in the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute’s eugenic complex of institutions was the Institute for Brain Research. Since 1915, it had operated out of a single room. Everything changed when Rockefeller money arrived in 1929. A grant of $317,000 allowed the Institute to construct a major building and take center stage in German race biology. The Institute received additional grants from the Rockefeller Foundation during the next several years. Leading the Institute, once again, was Hitler’s medical henchman Ernst Rüdin. Rüdin’s organization became a prime director and recipient of the murderous experimentation and research conducted on Jews, Gypsies and others.

Beginning in 1940, thousands of Germans taken from old age homes, mental institutions and other custodial facilities were systematically gassed. Between 50,000 and 100,000 were eventually killed.

Leon Whitney, executive secretary of the American Eugenics Society declared of Nazism, “While we were pussy-footing around…the Germans were calling a spade a spade.”

A special recipient of Rockefeller funding was the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics in Berlin. For decades, American eugenicists had craved twins to advance their research into heredity. The Institute was now prepared to undertake such research on an unprecedented level. On May 13, 1932, the Rockefeller Foundation in New York dispatched a radiogram to its Paris office:

JUNE MEETING EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE NINE THOUSAND DOLLARS OVER THREE YEAR PERIOD TO KWG INSTITUTE ANTHROPOLOGY FOR RESEARCH ON TWINS AND EFFECTS ON LATER GENERATIONS OF SUBSTANCES TOXIC FOR GERM PLASM.

At the time of Rockefeller’s endowment, Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a hero in American eugenics circles, functioned as a head of the Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics. Rockefeller funding of that Institute continued both directly and through other research conduits during Verschuer’s early tenure. In 1935, Verschuer left the Institute to form a rival eugenics facility in Frankfurt that was much heralded in the American eugenic press. Research on twins in the Third Reich exploded, backed up by government decrees. Verschuer wrote in Der Erbarzt, a eugenic doctor’s journal he edited, that Germany’s war would yield a “total solution to the Jewish problem.”

Verschuer had a long-time assistant. His name was Josef Mengele. On May 30, 1943, Mengele arrived at Auschwitz. Verschuer notified the German Research Society, “My assistant, Dr. Josef Mengele (M.D., Ph.D.) joined me in this branch of research. He is presently employed as Hauptsturmführer [captain] and camp physician in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Anthropological testing of the most diverse racial groups in this concentration camp is being carried out with permission of the SS Reichsführer [Himmler].”

Mengele began searching the boxcar arrivals for twins. When he found them, he performed beastly experiments, scrupulously wrote up the reports and sent the paperwork back to Verschuer’s institute for evaluation. Often, cadavers, eyes and other body parts were also dispatched to Berlin’s eugenic institutes.

Rockefeller executives never knew of Mengele. With few exceptions, the foundation had ceased all eugenic studies in Nazi-occupied Europe before the war erupted in 1939. But by that time the die had been cast. The talented men Rockefeller and Carnegie financed, the institutions they helped found, and the science it helped create took on a scientific momentum of their own.

After the war, eugenics was declared a crime against humanity–an act of genocide. Germans were tried and they cited the California statutes in their defense. To no avail. They were found guilty.

However, Mengele’s boss Verschuer escaped prosecution. Verschuer re-established his connections with California eugenicists who had gone underground and renamed their crusade “human genetics.” Typical was an exchange July 25, 1946 when Popenoe wrote Verschuer, “It was indeed a pleasure to hear from you again. I have been very anxious about my colleagues in Germany…. I suppose sterilization has been discontinued in Germany?” Popenoe offered tidbits about various American eugenic luminaries and then sent various eugenic publications. In a separate package, Popenoe sent some cocoa, coffee and other goodies.

Verschuer wrote back, “Your very friendly letter of 7/25 gave me a great deal of pleasure and you have my heartfelt thanks for it. The letter builds another bridge between your and my scientific work; I hope that this bridge will never again collapse but rather make possible valuable mutual enrichment and stimulation.”

Soon, Verschuer once again became a respected scientist in Germany and around the world. In 1949, he became a corresponding member of the newly formed American Society of Human Genetics, organized by American eugenicists and geneticists.

In the fall of 1950, the University of Münster offered Verschuer a position at its new Institute of Human Genetics, where he later became a dean. In the early and mid-1950s, Verschuer became an honorary member of numerous prestigious societies, including the Italian Society of Genetics, the Anthropological Society of Vienna, and the Japanese Society for Human Genetics.

Human genetics’ genocidal roots in eugenics were ignored by a victorious generation that refused to link itself to the crimes of Nazism and by succeeding generations that never knew the truth of the years leading up to war. Now governors of five states, including California have issued public apologies to their citizens, past and present, for sterilization and other abuses spawned by the eugenics movement.

Human genetics became an enlightened endeavor in the late twentieth century. Hard-working, devoted scientists finally cracked the human code through the Human Genome Project. Now, every individual can be biologically identified and classified by trait and ancestry. Yet even now, some leading voices in the genetic world are calling for a cleansing of the unwanted among us, and even a master human species.

There is understandable wariness about more ordinary forms of abuse, for example, in denying insurance or employment based on genetic tests. On October 14, America’s first genetic anti-discrimination legislation passed the Senate by unanimous vote. Yet because genetics research is global, no single nation’s law can stop the threats.

*

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Edwin Black is the author of “IBM and the Holocaust” and “War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race,”  from which the following article is drawn.

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***

Die Ereignisse der beiden letzten Monate und Jahre – das Verhängnis staatlicher Willkürmaßnahmen, Massenterror, Diktatur und Krieg – haben uns erneut einen gründlichen Anschauungsunterricht über die geschichtliche Bedeutung der Gewalttätigkeit vermittelt. Obwohl Fortschritte in der zivilisatorischen Entwicklung unbestreitbar sind, scheinen wir uns hinsichtlich der Bändigung der Gewalt noch gänzlich an den Anfängen der Humanisierung zu befinden.  Wir führen Krieg, aber keiner – keine Mutter, kein Vater, kein Professor – sagt der Jugend, dass sie nicht in den Krieg ziehen soll: „Geht‘s nicht!“

Was für die Menschheit seit jeher gilt, behält auch in den gegenwärtigen „Umbruch-Zeiten“ seine Gültigkeit: Das menschliche Gemeinschaftsgefühl und der Geist der Verantwortlichkeit werden diese unbeschreibliche Gewalttätigkeit beenden. Hätten unsere Vorfahren den Gemeinsinn und das Gefühl des Miteinanders nicht zum Leitmotiv ihres Handelns gemacht, gäbe es die Menschheit nicht mehr. Diese Idee muss auch an die Jugend durchdringen.

Wird es möglich sein, der Gewalt Herr zu werden?

Maßlose und gemäßigte Brutalität, historische Faktoren ersten Ranges, prägen auch unserer heutigen Zeit ihren Stempel auf. Machtstreben in Wirtschaft und Politik treibt uns immer wieder in Katastrophen hinein, in denen der Reichtum unserer Kultur verschleudert und die Ernten unserer Zivilisation zerstört werden. Die Machtgier derer, die innerhalb der Völker als Obrigkeit fungieren und durch ihre soziale Stellung vom Geist der Gewalt durchdrungen sind, führt zu schrecklichen kriegerischen Auseinandersetzungen, in denen die Völker zugunsten ihrer Herren und Ausbeuter verbluten. Diese verhängnisvollen Auswirkungen berühren zwar unseren Lebensnerv, aber wir sind lethargisch genug, um uns durch sie nicht aufrütteln zu lassen.

Deshalb drängt sich die Frage auf: Wird es möglich sein, der Gewalt Herr zu werden, sie auszuschalten aus den Beziehungen der Einzelnen und der Gemeinschaften? Oder sind wir dazu verurteilt, der periodischen Invasion der Barbarei machtlos zuzusehen? Philosophen, Psychologen, Soziologen und Geisteswissenschaftler, die hier nichts beizutragen haben, richten sich selbst: die Not der Menschen rührt nicht an ihr Herz. Und damit wird all ihre Weisheit und Wissenschaft degradiert zu einem selbstgefälligen Spiel des Verstandes, das keine Verbindlichkeit kennt.

Wenn wir in einer Welt leben, in der Krieg und Verbrechen an der Tagesordnung sind, sind wir doch auch Mörder und Verbrecher, denn die Welt ist so, wie wir sie eingerichtet oder – in Bezug auf bereits bestehende Verhältnisse – geduldet haben. Keiner kann sich der Verantwortung entziehen. Wir sind immer mitschuldig, selbst dann, wenn wir Opfer sind. Tausendfaches Unrecht geschieht auch in unserer nächsten Nähe, aber wir empören uns nicht, wir verteidigen nicht die Schwachen und helfen nicht dem Hilflosen. Und indem wir nicht gegen sie kämpfen, billigen wir die Gewalttätigkeit. Doch die Krankheit, die wir am anderen nicht versucht haben zu heilen, rafft uns eines Tages selbst hinweg.

Das Prinzip der „gegenseitigen Hilfe“

Die Forschung hat inzwischen erwiesen, dass im Tierreich nicht nur der „struggle for life“, sondern auch das Prinzip der „gegenseitigen Hilfe“ (Kropotkin) wirksam ist. Die höher organisierten Lebewesen leben in Verbänden, Gruppen und Herden; in ihnen hat sich ein Herdeninstinkt herausgebildet, der mitunter die Arterhaltung über die Selbsterhaltung stellt.

In der Menschenwelt spielen soziale Gefühle und gemeinschaftliche Verbundenheit sicherlich eine ebenso große Rolle wie der Wille zur Macht und der Eigennutz. Die Ideologie der Macht ist ein fürchterlicher Irrtum des Menschengeschlechts, der scheinbar unaufhaltsam die Atmosphäre unserer Kultur vergiftet. Doch es ist falsch, den Menschen als Raubtier zu definieren; denn der Mensch ist der Hingabe und der Selbstaufopferung fähig. Die Theorie des „Homo homini lupus“ ist irreführend und gefährlich. Sie zieht vor allem die Autokraten und das autoritäre Gemüt an, das in ihr die Rechtfertigung für sein Machtstreben erblickt.

Das Gemeinschaftsgefühl – ein Geschenk der Evolution

Die Kulturentwicklung besteht im Wesentlichen darin, dass sich die Stimme des Menschheitsgewissens mehr und mehr Gehör verschafft und dass der Geist der Verantwortlichkeit an die Stelle der Gewalttätigkeit tritt. Was wir als ethische Errungenschaften bezeichnen, als Aufschwung von Sitte und Recht, ist das Anwachsen des menschlichen Gemeinschaftsgefühls, das Wissen um die Zusammengehörigkeit aller, die Menschenantlitz tragen. Aus der Einsicht in diesen Zusammenhang erwuchsen die Lehren der sittlichen Führer der Menschheit, die Weisheit des Laotse, das Gebot der Nächstenliebe und die unzähligen Formen des gesellschaftlichen Lebens und Verhaltens, in denen sich der Gemeinsinn bekundet.

Die Menschheit steht unter dem Gesetz, dass wir zusammenhalten müssen und genötigt sind, einander die Hände zu reichen. Überall kommt es auf den Gemeinsinn an, auf das Gefühl der Zusammengehörigkeit, des Miteinanderseins. Der Abbau der Machtgier und des Gewaltstrebens ist nicht ein Postulat erbaulicher Moralpredigten: er ist die einfache Notwendigkeit des gemeinschaftlichen Lebens. Man kann die Mahnrufe des menschlichen Gemeinschaftsgefühls wohl unterdrücken; gänzlich ausmerzen kann man sie nie, denn das Geschenk der Evolution besteht im sittlichen Bewusstsein des Einzelnen, in der Einsicht in die Verantwortung aller gegenüber allen.

Unsere Aufgabe für die nahe und ferne Zukunft ist speziell unter dem Eindruck der gegenwärtigen „Umbrüche“ die Pflege und Verstärkung des Gemeinschaftsgefühls. „Gemeinschaftsgefühl“, „Sozialgefühl“ und „Verbundenheitsgefühl“ sind die Grundlage der Individualpsychologie von Alfred Adler. Kein Mittel darf uns zu gering sein, keine Anstrengung zu mühsam, um den Menschen besser in das soziale Gefüge einzuordnen, ihn zu lehren, dass Gewalt und Machtgier ihn nur ins Verhängnis führen können.

Aufklärung und Erziehung 

Da die Politik in den Köpfen und Herzen der Menschen vorbereitet wird und die Menschen morgen so handeln, wie sie heute denken, deshalb ist die Aufklärung ein weiteres Anliegen, dessen Wichtigkeit nicht überschätzt werden kann. Der Sinn der aufklärerischen Bemühungen ist die Reinigung des menschlichen Bewusstseins von individuellen und kollektiven Vorurteilen, die von den Massenmedien unaufhörlich geschürt werden. Der Verstand kann durch Furcht, Hoffnung und Interessen aller Art irregeführt werden und so zu Lebensfremdheit und Selbsttäuschung führen.

Die Zerstörung von Vorurteilen bedeutet deshalb mehr als ein bloß intellektuelles Unterfangen: der aufgeklärte Verstand ist fähig, gesunde Lebensziele ins Auge zu fassen. Die Zukunft unserer Kultur wird wesentlich davon abhängen, ob es genug „Aufklärer“ geben wird, die imstande sein werden, den breiten Volksmassen jene Vorurteile zu nehmen, die der ideologische Hintergrund der vergangenen und gegenwärtigen Menschheitskatastrophen sind.

In einer Zeit, in der die Bedrohung durch die Atombombe die Selbstvernichtung der Menschheit als möglich erscheinen lässt, bedürfen wir mehr denn je der freien Geister, die uns lehren, was Wahrheit und was Lüge ist. Somit hat der Intellektuelle eine viel größere Verantwortung als man gemeinhin wahrhaben möchte, denn seine Pflicht wäre es, für die anderen Menschen zu denken (Romain Rolland) und mit der Freiheit des Denkens die Freiheit überhaupt zu proklamieren.

Wichtiger noch als Aufklärung ist das Problem der Erziehung. Die tiefenpsychologische Einsicht hat uns die Erziehung in ihrer ungeheuren Tragweite deutlich gemacht. Das autoritäre Prinzip, jahrhundertelang als fraglos-gültige Grundlage des erzieherischen Verhaltens angesehen, drosselte bereits in den Kindheitsjahren das Gemeinschaftsgefühl der Menschen. Wir wissen heute, dass der Mensch in einem derartigen Maße das Produkt seiner Erziehung ist, dass wir die Hoffnung haben, durch psychologische Erziehungsmethoden Menschen heranbilden zu können, die gegen die Verstrickungen des Machtwahns gefeit sein werden.

Indem die Pädagogik in Elternhaus und Schule auf übertriebene Autorität und Gewaltanwendung verzichtet und sich mit wahrem Verständnis dem kindlichen Seelenleben widmet, wird sie einen Menschentypus hervorbringen, der keine „Untertanen-Mentalität“ besitzt und darum für die Machthaber in unserer Welt kein gefügiges Werkzeug mehr sein wird.

Beispiel selbstloser Hilfe während drückender Sanktionen

Die Regierung in Belgrad lehnt als einzige europäische Regierung Sanktionen gegen das befreundete Russland trotz erheblichem Druck aus Washington, Brüssel und Berlin ab. Die serbische Bevölkerung unterstützt diese Entscheidung voll. Ein wesentlicher Grund sind die leidvollen eigenen Erfahrungen mit Sanktionen während der 90er Jahre.

Nach Auskunft meiner Ehefrau waren zu jener Zeit alle Serben auf die Hilfe ihrer Mitmenschen angewiesen und boten sich gegenseitig Essen, Kleidung und Dinge an, die sie selbst nicht dringend benötigten. Da Hausfrauen am Telefon auch Rezepte austauschten, wurde die Geschichte des „Embargo-Kuchens“ zum Hit.

Ein weiteres Beispiel ist die Geschichte des 83-jährigen Großvaters, der mit der Familie befreundet war und in seinem Bauernhaus auf dem Land zwei Kühe hielt. Drei Jahre lang stand er zu jeder Jahreszeit morgens um vier Uhr auf, molk die Kühe und schickte zwei Liter frische Milch mit dem einzigen 5-Uhr-Bus zu den drei kleinen Ekelkindern seines Freundes in die nahegelegene Stadt, damit diese die schikanösen Sanktionen gesund überleben.

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist Lehrer (Rektor a. D.), Doktor der Pädagogik (Dr. paed.) und Diplom-Psychologe (Schwerpunkte: Klinische-, Pädagogische- und Medien-Psychologie). Als Pensionär arbeitete er viele Jahre als Psychotherapeut in eigener Praxis. In seinen Büchern und pädagogisch-psychologischen Fachartikeln fordert er eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung und eine Erziehung zum Gemeinsinn und Frieden.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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First published by Global Research on March 7, 2022

***

In the shadow of the Ukraine war, the WHO is preparing – unnoticed by the public – an “international agreement on the prevention and control of pandemics” binding under international law.

The negotiations in Geneva have already begun. Originally, the “transfer of power” was planned for 1 May 2022, i. e. all 194 member states of the WHO would then be forced to implement the measures decided by the WHO, such as lockdowns or general compulsory vaccination.

However, a new memorandum from Concilium Europa, dated 3 March 2022, has delayed the process considerably.

Meanwhile, a working draft of this new WHO “World Government Agreement” is planned to be ready for further internal negotiations on 1 August 2022. See this.

“An international treaty on pandemic prevention and preparedness“

According to the “Council of the European Union”, the official justification for this undertaking, which the WHO considers necessary, is the pretext that the international community must be even better prepared for possible future pandemics and their coordinated control (2). According to “Epochtimes” of 5 March, the EU as well as private actors such as the Rockefeller Foundation and Bill Gates seem to be the source of ideas (3). In view of the pandemic experiences of the past two years, this is an indication of what the world can expect.

The basis of the agreement is Article 19 of the WHO Statutes. This states that the WHO General Assembly can adopt agreements binding on all member states by a two-thirds majority. Nation states can then no longer decide sovereignly which pandemic control measures they want to introduce.

The abolition of the nation state means at the same time the loss of fundamental and civil rights.

The renowned German-British sociologist, publicist and politician Ralf Dahrendorf warned of this many years ago:

“Whoever abandons the nation-state thus loses the only effective guarantee of its fundamental rights up to now. Whoever today considers the nation state to be dispensable, thereby declares – however unintentionally – civil rights to be dispensable.” (4)

On such a far-reaching question, however, the people must have the last word: All citizens of a country entitled to vote must be given the right and the opportunity to express their opinion in a referendum.

Proposal of an expert to all state governments

Dr Stuckelberger, who has worked for WHO for over 20 years, made the following suggestion, according to “greatreject.org”:

• Every country should send a public letter of protest to WHO.
• The ‘governments’ should write a letter stating that the people do not accept that the signature of the Minister of Health can decide the fate of millions of people without a referendum. It is very important to send this letter from every country to the WHO in Geneva.
• The WHO is asking all countries to implement the measures by May 2022 [this demand has been pushed out to 2024 in the meantime, see this].
• So far, only the Russians had sent such a rejection letter (5).

International law does not allow for a UN regulation that is above the constitution of individual countries.

This is also true for the WHO – a UN organisation.

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Dr. Rudolf Hänsel is a retired rector, educationalist and graduate psychologist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he has worked for over 30 years on water and environment 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)

He 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.

Notes

(1) [Updated English version]

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/coronavirus/pandemic-treaty/

(2) https://www.consilium.europa.eu/de/policies/coronavirus/pandemic-treaty/

(3) https://www.epochtimes.de/politik/ausland/globaler-pandemievertrag-der-who-kann-nationale-verfassungen-aushebeln-a3744145.html

(4) https://weltwoche.ch/daily/im-schatten-des-uktaine-krieges-werkelt…ns-sollen-zum-neuen-instrument-der-internationalen-politik-werden/

(5) https://greatreject.org/who-is-world-government-power-grab/

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***

Last week, on June 23, a United States government agency under the name Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, better known as the Helsinki Commission, held a Congressional briefing titled “Decolonizing Russia”. Democrat representative from Tennessee (D-TN) Steve Cohen opened up the presentation, during which he claimed that the Russians “have in essence colonized their own country,” arguing that Russia is “not a strict nation, in the sense that we’ve known in the past.” Casey Michel, who authored an opinion piece in The Atlantic last month, titled “Decolonize Russia”, was also present at the meeting. His op-ed seems to have been the impetus for the highly controversial briefing. According to Michel, “decolonizing Russia” is not solely about “partitioning” and “dismembering” the Russian Federation, but about an “authentic commitment to anti-imperialism.”

The panel discussion participants urged the US to give more support (clearly implying actual support currently exists already) to separatist movements inside Russia and in the diaspora, and specifically mentioned Chechnya, Tatarstan, Dagestan, and Circassia as the possible candidates for “decolonization”. Siberia was discussed separately and, according to the Commission, it is to be divided into several republics. During the (First) Cold War, the US, a premier imperialist power, sponsored numerous separatist groups inside the USSR. Thus, this is most certainly not the first time prominent figures in the political West have adopted a hard line towards the Russian Federation, seeking ways to dismantle the Eurasian giant, just as the political West did the same to Yugoslavia over 30 years ago.

What is significantly different nowadays is the blatantly open and public call to do so. Apart from being highly controversial and dangerous, as Russia isn’t yet another helpless country the political West can destroy and kill millions of its inhabitants with impunity, but a military superpower which can easily turn its rivals into a radioactive wasteland in minutes, to suggest Russia should be “decolonized” is exceptionally hypocritical, especially coming from the pillar of (neo)colonialism, the US itself. Since its unfortunate inception, the belligerent imperialist thalassocracy invaded and dismantled numerous countries, reducing them to rubble and turning them into almost perpetually failed states.

After the dismantling of the Soviet Union, the infamous Bush-era Vice President Dick Cheney was seeking to carve up Russia and divide it into several smaller states. In 1997, former Reagan-era US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski even published an article in the Foreign Affairs magazine, proposing to create a “loosely confederated Russia — composed of a European Russia, a Siberian Republic, and a Far Eastern Republic.” Thus, once again, this isn’t a new state of affairs. Prominent political figures from the US have been advocating this for decades. The issue is, while they’ve been doing it on a personal basis, not in their capacity as government officials, in this particular case, we have a US government commission openly calling for war, as their blatantly bellicose statements can only be interpreted as such.

Michel, the author whose op-ed inspired the panel discussion, stated that “Russia continues to oversee what is in many ways a traditional European empire, only that instead of colonizing nations and peoples overseas, it instead colonized nations and peoples over land”. He lamented the US failed to use the break-up of the USSR to dismantle Russia itself, complaining Western support for separatist movements in the Russian Federation “did not go far enough”.

“These are colonized nations that we consider to be part of Russia proper, even though, again, these are non-Russian nations themselves that remain colonized by, as we’ve seen yet again, another dictatorship in the Kremlin,” Michel said.

Once again, he insisted that the meeting was not simply about advocating for the “dismemberment and partition” of Russia, but was supposedly motivated by “genuine opposition to colonialism and imperialism”. The very idea Michel supports “genuine opposition to colonialism and imperialism” is deeply comical, as he has spent years smearing the anti-imperialist movement in the US, while ridiculing and (ab)using the term to demonize the governments of Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia, all of which have spent decades fighting off a very real US aggression. Still, Michel brazenly styles himself one of the world’s most vocal supporters of a unique form of “anti-imperialism” that just so happens to advance the interests of the genuinely imperialist political West, in particular the US.

Naturally, none of the participants mentioned anything about the fact the Russian population, although mainly composed of ethnic Russians, still has around 20% of numerous other ethnic (Tatars, Buryats, Kalmyks, Bashkirs, etc) and regional identity (Cossacks) groups, who have been living side-by-side for well over a millennium, that is, several times longer than the US has existed.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

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***

With anti-Russia hysteria spreading throughout the West, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán demonstrates that it is possible to pursue policies that serve national interests despite the supposed constraints of being in a supranational bloc like the European Union. The latest warning from Budapest that sanctions on Moscow will do more harm to Europe than weaken Russia appears to still be dissident to EU officials. It is already mid-2022 and the war in Ukraine is not any closer to a conclusion, with fighting inevitably to continue right through the summer. However, as winter approaches, it will become clear to even the most ardent deniers in the EU that the anti-Russia sanctions are self-harming.

Speaking on the sidelines of an EU leaders summit on June 23, which granted EU candidature status to Ukraine, Balázs Orbán, a senior aide to the prime minister and with no relation to him, said to Reuters that:

“At the end of the day, Europe will be on the losing side of this war because of the economic problems. Our recommendation would be that we should stop the sanction process.”

“Right now, what we experience is that the more sanctions we accept, the worse shape we are in. And the Russians? Yes, it hurts them as well, but they survive. And what is even worse, they proceed in Ukraine,” he added.

Since the beginning of the Ukraine war, Budapest has maintained a balanced stance that primarily took care of Hungary’s national interests. Budapest has tried, as far as the circumstances allow, to achieve a special status when it comes to sanctions on the energy sector because of its dependence on Russian oil and gas. Despite the energy dependency, it does not diminish the sovereignty that Hungary chooses to exercise.

Budapest’s warnings are not new though and instead were ignored since European states have been under the hypnotic effects of Russophobic propaganda and unilateral reporting. It appears that sanctions are hitting citizens of the EU in equal measure to Russian citizens, if not worse. Prices of basic foods have skyrocketed, supermarkets have seen empty shelves, gas prices have reached unprecedented heights, and there are difficulties in supply chains.

The unexpected stability of Russia’s monetary and economic system, but also the political system, and at the same time the success of the second phase of the military operation in Ukraine, show to many in the EU, and not just Hungary, that the economic war against Russia has only hastened the reconfiguration of the Western-dominated global economic and financial system.

It is impossible to exclude Russia from the world’s economic and financial flows without affecting the world economy, unlike North Korea for example, as it is the eleventh largest economy and has a large share of the world’s energy sources, metals and grains, among other things. Hungary is more than aware of this reality, and it is only now that the rest of the EU are slowly coming to this realisation.

Instead of excluding Russia from economic flows through sanctions, the West has only further consolidated and mobilized the sovereign non-Western bloc to institutionalise a new international economic-political order, something that was discussed at the 14th BRICS Summit.

It must be clear to Western leaders now that they have failed to isolate Russia and that most of the world’s countries, including China and India, have not only refused to join the Western-led sanctions, but have in actual fact expanded economic cooperation with Russia during the war months. In fact, these countries have increased imports of Russian oil and coal.

By seizing Russian foreign currency reserves, the assets of Russian citizens and companies, and imposing unprecedented sanctions, the West has only helped the BRICS states (Brazil, Russia, China, India and South Africa) move faster in de-dollarizing the global economy. Nevertheless, it is impossible to hide in the long term from EU citizens that there is an obvious economic crisis that is the consequence of not only imposing sanctions on Russia, but also from the crippling but favored neoliberal ideology of Brussels.

Neoliberal ideology also demands globalism, something that is in direct opposition to Hungary’s policy of serving national interests. In this way, Budapest will continue to oppose self-harming sanctions against Russia, especially as the country has complained about abuses against the Hungarian minority in Ukraine for year – to the complete silence of the EU.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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***

Former White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, Dr Deborah Birx is looking pretty rough under questioning by Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan last Thursday. Looks like fear of the gallows.

She testifies that she knew in December 2020 and January 2021 that people who were naturally infected with COVID-19 were experiencing reinfection based on data coming out of South Africa.

She says that officials were likely “hoping” that infection or transmission would not reoccur once the vaccines came along, saying, “I think it was hope that the vaccine would work in that way.”

Then Jim Jordan asks her, “When the Government told us, told the American People that people who had been vaccinated ‘Couldn’t get it [COVID],’ were they guessing or were they lying?”

Birx, shaking and stammering, responds, “I don’t know. All I know is there was evidence from the global pandemic that natural re-infection was occurring and since the vaxxine was based on natural immunity, you cannot make a conclusion that the vaxxine will do better than natural infection.”

In short, she admitted that they were lying.

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***

Last Friday, home secretary Priti Patel gave her approval for the UK to send my husband, Julian Assange, to the country that plotted his assassination.

Julian remains imprisoned in Belmarsh after more than three years at the behest of US prosecutors. He faces a prison sentence of up to 175 years for arguably the most celebrated publications in the history of journalism.

Patel’s decision to extradite Julian has sent shockwaves across the journalism community. The home secretary flouted calls from representatives of the Council of Europe, the OSCE, almost 2000 journalists and 300 doctors for the extradition to be halted.

When Julian calls around the children’s bed time, they talk over each other boisterously. The calls only last 10 minutes, so when the call ended abruptly the other night Max, who is three, asked tearfully if it was because he’d been naughty, I absentmindedly said it wasn’t his fault, but Mike Pompeo’s. Five-year-old Gabriel asked: “Who is Mike Pompeo?”

Mike Pompeo had been on my mind, because while the home secretary in this country was busy signing Julian’s extradition order, in Spain a High Court judge was summoning Pompeo for questioning regarding his role as director of the CIA in their reported plots to murder my husband.

While at the helm of the CIA, President Trump’s most loyal supporter reportedly tasked his agents with preparing “sketches” and “options” for the assassination of their father.

The citation for Pompeo to appear before a Spanish judge comes out of an investigation into illicit spying of Julian and his lawyers through a company registered in Spain. Spanish police seized large amounts of electronic data, and insiders involved in carrying out the clandestine operations testified that they acted on instruction of the CIA. They had discussed abducting and poisoning Julian.

Gabriel was six months old at the time and had been a target too. One witness was instructed to obtain DNA swabs from a soiled nappy in order to establish that Julian was his father. Another admitted to planting hidden microphones under the fire extinguishers to tap legally privileged meetings between Julian and his lawyers.

The recordings of Julian’s legal meetings in the Ecuadorian embassy in London were physically transported to handlers in the United States on a regular basis. A break-in at Julian’s lawyers’ office was caught on camera, and investigators discovered photographs of Julian’s lawyer’s legal papers taken inside the embassy. The operations targeting his lawyers read like they are taken from a Soviet playbook.

Across the pond, ever since the Nixon administration’s attempted prosecution of the New York Times over the Pentagon Papers over half a century ago, constitutional lawyers had been warning that the 1917 Espionage Act would one day be abused to prosecute journalists.

It was President Obama’s administration that enlivened the creeping misuse of the Espionage Act. More journalistic sources were charged under the Act than all previous administrations combined, including WikiLeaks source Chelsea Manning; CIA torture whistleblower John Kiriakou; and NSA spying whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Following massive public pressure Obama commuted Chelsea Manning’s 35-year sentence. Obama declined to prosecute Julian for publishing Manning’s leaks because of the implications for press freedom.

After the Obama administration’s Espionage Act charging spree, it was just a matter of time before another administration expanded the interpretation of the Act even further.

That day came soon enough. Trump’s administration broke new legal ground with the indictment of Julian for receiving, possessing, and publishing the Manning leaks. Meanwhile in Langley, Virginia, Pompeo tasked CIA assassination plans.

Priti Patel’s decision comes amidst sweeping government reforms of an increasingly totalitarian bent – the plans to weaken the influence of the European Court of Human Rights and the decision to extradite Julian are the coup de grace.

The home secretary’s proposed reforms to the UK’s Official Secrets Act largely track the Trump-era indictment against Julian: publishers and their sources can be charged as criminal co-conspirators.

Julian’s extradition case itself creates legal precedent. What has long been understood to be a bedrock principle of democracy, press freedom, will disappear in one fell swoop.

As it stands, no journalist is going to risk having what Julian is being subjected to happen to them. Julian must be freed before it’s too late. His life depends on it. Your rights depend on it.

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***

It’s becoming increasingly clear that severe food shortages are going to be inevitable, more or less worldwide, and whatever food is available will continue to go up in price

The cost of agricultural inputs such as diesel and fertilizers is skyrocketing due to shortages — caused by a combination of intentional and coincidental events — and those costs will be reflected in consumer food prices come fall and next year

Mysterious fires, alleged bird flu outbreaks and other inexplicable events are killing off livestock and destroying crucial infrastructure. Since the end of April 2021, at least 96 farms, food processing plants and food distribution centers across the U.S. have been damaged or destroyed

The global food price index had risen 58.5% above the 2014-2016 average as of April 2022, due to a convergence of post-pandemic global demand, extreme weather, tightening food stocks, high energy prices, supply chain bottlenecks, export restrictions, taxes and the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Combined, all of these factors set us up for guaranteed food shortages, food inflation and, potentially, famine in some places, so now is the time to prepare

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Two years ago in May 2020, I predicted the COVID-19 pandemic would be followed by famine, thanks to the intentional shutdown of businesses and global supply lines.¹

Depending on where you live, you’re now starting to see shortages to a greater or lesser degree. But regardless of how things appear right now, expect changes, potentially drastic ones, over the coming months and into 2023, because that’s when the diminished yields from this current growing season will become apparent.

With each passing week, it’s becoming increasingly clear that severe food shortages are going to be inevitable, more or less worldwide, and whatever food is available will continue to go up in price.

The cost of agricultural inputs such as diesel and fertilizers is skyrocketing due to shortages — caused by a combination of intentional and coincidental events — and those costs will be reflected in consumer food prices come fall and next year.

On top of that, mysterious fires, alleged bird flu outbreaks and other inexplicable events are killing off livestock and destroying crucial infrastructure. Since the end of April 2021, at least 96 farms, food processing plants and food distribution centers across the U.S. have been damaged or destroyed by fire (see below).^2,3

An estimated 10,000 cattle also perished in Ulysses, Kansas, in mid-June 2022,⁴ under mysterious circumstances. The official claim is that the cattle died from heat stress, but that seems highly unlikely. Heat could conceivably kill some weaker cattle, but 10,000 on the same day?

Recorded temperatures were said to be around 100 degrees Fahrenheit at the time of the loss,⁵ but other states have also had 100-degree temperatures, with no recorded cattle deaths.

Combined, all of these factors set us up for guaranteed food shortages, food inflation and, potentially, famine in some places. If you’re still sitting on the fence, I would urge you to get off it and begin preparations. Those who fail to prepare are likely to find themselves in an incredibly difficult situation this fall and next year. Don’t let that be you.

How Bad Is It?

In May 2022, a number of experts started speaking out about the inevitability of coming food shortages. The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned of “the specter of a global food shortage in coming months” unless international action is taken,⁶ and The Economist featured “The Coming Food Catastrophe” on its cover.⁷

During the 2022 World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, told attendees that “the anxiety about access to food at a reasonable price globally is hitting the roof,”⁸ and President Biden, in March 2022, told reporters that food shortages are “going to be real.”⁹

A May 30, 2022, Reuters report¹⁰ showed the global food price index had risen 58.5% above the 2014-2016 average as of April 2022, due to a convergence of “post-pandemic global demand, extreme weather, tightening food stocks, high energy prices, supply chain bottlenecks … export restrictions and taxes” combined with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Together, Russia and Ukraine account for as much as 12% of all globally traded calories,¹¹ making the timing of the conflict a particularly perilous one for the world. Not surprisingly, countries that are heavily reliant on imports have seen the steepest food price increases.

In early April 2022, Rockefeller Foundation president Rajiv Shah and Sara Menker, founder of Gro Intelligence, published an op-ed¹² in The New York Times blaming “Putin’s war” for the looming food crisis but, clearly, we were already on the path toward global famine long before Putin entered Ukraine.

Weather, for example — whether natural or manufactured — plays an important role. As noted by Shah and Menker, “historic drought” plagues many parts of the world, including the U.S. Midwest, Brazil, Argentina, North Africa, the Middle East¹³ and India.¹⁴ Meanwhile, China’s agricultural lands are drowning under the “heaviest rains in 60 years.”¹⁵

How Bad Will It Get?

While it’s difficult to predict just how bad it will get in any given area, it seems safe to say that everyone should prepare for some degree of food shortages, regardless of where you live, as we’re staring at a perfect storm of confounding factors that are global in nature and therefore can cause far-reaching and somewhat unpredictable ripple effects.

As noted by David Wallace-Wells in a June 7, 2022, New York Times op-ed, referring to the price index charts published by Reuters and Shah and Menker:¹⁶

“… one thing charts like these do not obviously signal is mass starvation. And yet, according to David Beasley, the former Republican governor of South Carolina who now leads the U.N. World Food Program [WFP], that is what they imply:

[T]he possibility that, as a result of an ongoing food crisis exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, climate change and the continuing effects of the coronavirus pandemic, 323 million people are ‘marching toward starvation’ as we speak, with 49 million ‘literally at famine’s door’ …

[It] is worth keeping in mind that 49 million is not the number facing ‘acute food insecurity,’ to use the W.F.P.’s technical category distinction.

That number is the much higher one: at least 323 million, which is up, Beasley says, from 276 million before the war, 135 million before the pandemic and 80 million when he joined the W.F.P. in 2017 — a fourfold increase in a single leadership term. Forty-nine million is just the number of those at most immediate risk of death.

Before the war, ‘I was already warning the world that 2022 and 2023 could be the worst two years in the humanitarian world since World War II,’ Beasley says, speaking with me from Rome on last Friday.

‘I’m trying to tell everybody how bad it is — how bad it’s going to be. And then, the next week, I’m like, you know, wipe that clean — it’s worse than what I was saying’ … Beasley believes that 2023 could take a still darker turn.

This year’s price crisis could be succeeded by a genuine supply crisis, in which food is pushed out of reach for many millions not just by price but by ongoing structural conditions (including the failure to plant next year’s harvest in Ukraine and the surge in the price of fertilizer, which can be one-third or more of farmers’ total annual cost), and the world could experience the once-unthinkable: a true shortfall of food.”

According to Menker, the current problem is “not cyclical” but rather “seismic” — “It’s not a moment in time that’s going to pass.”¹⁷ Wallace-Wells writes:¹⁸

“She cites a longer list of causes, including not just the demand shocks caused by the pandemic and related supply-chain issues but ‘a record number of supply shocks’ that are ‘all climate related,’ such as the rebound of China’s pig population from swine flu and the resulting increase in demand for feed, the problem of public debt in poor countries, the spillover effect of the price of one commodity driving up another and that driving up a third, and so on.

‘Any one of those issues on their own would be considered a big market event. But when you have five of them happening at the same time, that’s what makes it seismic,’ she says.

Russia and Ukraine’s transformation into ‘bread baskets of the world’ was ‘the agricultural miracle of the last sort of 30 years,’ she says, invalidating cataclysmic predictions made by people like Paul Ehrlich and the Club of Rome.

To take that supply off the market — ‘it’s not an inconsequential fuel to the fire,’ she says. As for the ultimate scale of the impact? ‘I think it’s going to be as big as we make it.'”

Globalization Is a Failed Model

That said, Wallace-Wells points out that agricultural economists appear somewhat more optimistic, as “most food is consumed domestically, not traded on international markets.” So, in many areas, there may be substitutes available for shortages.

According to agricultural economists, “at baseline, there is no true global food shortage, only that unassuming-sounding ‘price crisis,'” Wallace-Wells says,¹⁹ and price problems are fixable. It can take time, however, that many won’t have. Personally, I’m not so sure relying on agricultural economists’ optimism is a good idea.

Even though a lot of food is produced and consumed locally, farmers everywhere are struggling with soaring overhead and shortages of required inputs. And, if local farmers can’t grow food because of it, there won’t be any substitutes available when imports lag.

As by Daniel Greenfield with the Gatestone Institute International Policy Council notes, globalization has left the United States extremely vulnerable, as globalization “globalizes the ineptitude of the global order”:²⁰

“Globalization advocates … just recreated Marxist central planning with a somewhat more flexible global model in which massive corporations bridged global barriers to create the most efficient possible means of moving goods and services around the planet …

What an interdependent world really means is Algerian Jihadists shooting up Paris, gang members from El Salvador beheading Americans within sight of Washington D.C., tampon and car shortages caused by a war in Ukraine …

The technocratic new world order of megacorporations consolidating markets and then doling out products with just-in-time inventory systems now flows through a broken supply chain. Rising inflation and international disruptions makes it all but impossible for even the big companies to plan ahead, and so they produce less and shrug at the shortages.

We’re in a wartime economy because our system has become too vast and too inflexible to adjust to chaos. Biden keeps trotting out the Defense Production Act for everything until, given time, the entire economy has been Sovietized. The more that the government tries to impose stability on the chaos, the less responsive and productive the dominant players become.

Market consolidation due to government regulations has left a handful of companies sitting atop the market. When one of them, like Abbott for baby formula, has a hiccup, the results are catastrophic …

Behind all the brands on the product shelves is a creaky Soviet system in which a handful of massive enterprises interconnected with the state lazily crank out low-quality products from vast supply chains that they no longer control and feel little competitive pressure to perform better …

Under stress, the failure points are all too obvious, and what is less obvious is that the system has no intention of repairing any of them … An out-of-touch elite responds to problems with meaningless reassurances, glib jokes and wokeness. Like Soviet propaganda, the only thing corporate statements communicate is the vast distance between the lives of those running the system and those caught inside its gears …

Biden and the Democrats have been eager to blame companies for ‘profiteering’ from the inflation created by federal spending … The Democrats were the biggest champions of globalization. Their regulations led to record market consolidation and domestic job cuts.

Corporations were pressured to export dirty Republican jobs to China and keep the ‘clean’ Democrat office jobs at home. The devastation wreaked havoc on the working class and the middle class, and rebuilt our entire economy to be dependent on China and a worldwide supply chain only globalists could believe was bulletproof … After selling off American economic sovereignty, globalists proved unable to maintain global stability.”

Don’t Panic. Prepare

While the prognosis is grim, panic is not the appropriate response. Taking clear-headed action to get prepared would be far better. Once you’ve shored up some basic supplies and backups, you’ll feel more at ease, knowing you’re prepared to handle whatever crises crop up next.

As for how to prepare and what to stock up on, that’s going to depend on your individual situation, location and financial means. A person living in the country surrounded by farmers and clean, freshwater brooks is facing a very different situation from someone living in a concrete jungle.

So, assess your surroundings and personal situation. Then, go through and determine how you can solve some of your most pressing needs, such as:

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***

Pretty much, what India’s attempting to do is use its close geo-economic ties with the US-led G7 and unofficial BRICS leader China to balance its ties with both, all with a view towards maximizing its strategic autonomy in the New Cold War between the former’s Golden Billion and the latter’s Global South.

Indian Prime Minister Modi is in Germany to attend the G7 as one of several partner countries invited by its host to participate in this year’s gathering, which comes a week after he took part in this year’s virtual BRICS Summit that saw over a dozen partners like Ethiopia and Iran attending as well. The first-mentioned bloc represents the US-led West’s Golden Billion while the second one clearly comprises the Global South, which are the two systemic rivals of the New Cold War. By keeping a foot in each camp, India is trying to balance between its geo-economic interests, all in pursuit of its desire to become a third pole of influence in the bi-multipolar intermediary phase of the global systemic transition to multipolarity.

While Russian Duma Speaker Volodin is correct in concluding that the “Big Eight” multipolar economies outcompete the G7, the latter is still nothing to scoff at. They’re much more closely integrated with one another and key nodes across the Global South, the last of which includes India, which Volodin also considers part of the Big Eight. The Indian diaspora has helped build very important bridges between their traditional and new homelands, which serve as the basis for more comprehensive geo-economic ties. So long as the G7 aren’t demanding that India unilaterally concede on issues that its leadership considers to be in their objective national interests, then it has no problem taking their trade and investment ties as far as possible.

As for BRICS, it’s the most meaningful multilateral engine of the emerging Multipolar World Order since its Russia-India-China (RIC) core has the potential to make serious contributions to gradually reforming the Western-centric model of globalization into one centered on the Global South. This grand strategic goal serves India’s objective national interests since it would strengthen its economic sovereignty by restoring balance to its ties with the G7 as a whole. China is also India’s top trade partner in spite of occasional geopolitical tensions between them stemming from unresolved territorial disputes along their shared frontier, yet India also hopes to leverage its economic relations with the G7 in order to also maintain a balance in this relationship as well.

Pretty much, what India’s attempting to do is use its close geo-economic ties with the US-led G7 and unofficial BRICS leader China to balance its ties with both, all with a view towards maximizing its strategic autonomy in the New Cold War between the former’s Golden Billion and the latter’s Global South. Each plays a distinct role in this paradigm but neither are necessarily at the expense of the other. After all, India truly seeks mutually beneficial trade with every one of its partners and doesn’t accept being anyone’s “junior partner” in any respect. Its trade ties with one partner don’t affect those with another, which is why it’s been able to balance between the G7 and China for as long as it already has and hopes to do so indefinitely.

The larger trend is that economic diplomacy is more confidently being wielded by India alongside its traditional, military, and energy variants to create a comprehensive toolkit for navigating the increasingly complex and ever-changing contours of the global systemic transition to multipolarity. It’s thus far succeeded in reaping mutual benefits from all partners and seems likely to continue along this trajectory. The way in which this trend has unfolded with respect to balancing between the G7 and unofficial BRICS leader China further heightens India’s importance in the evolving international environment since it’s impressively being courted by both geo-economic blocs of the New Cold War due to its irreplaceable role as a balancing force for all key players.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

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

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

The retreat of Ukrainian troops from Severodonetsk city in the Luhansk Oblast of the country is a pivotal moment in the ongoing conflict.

The Russian forces are now almost in total control over the Luhansk region. The latest reports from front lines say Russian forces entered the last remaining city of Lysychansk in Luhansk on June 25.

In a briefing today, Russian Ministry of Defence announced in Moscow:

“On June 25, the cities of Severodonetsk and Borovskoye, the settlements of Voronovo and Sirotino passed under control of the Lugansk People’s Republic. The localities liberated… are inhabited by about 108,000 people. Total area of the liberated territory is about 145 square kilometres.

“Success of the Russian army… considerably diminishes the morale and psychological condition of the Ukrainian army personnel. In 30th Mechanised Brigade deployed near Artyomovsk, there are mass cases of alcohol abuse, drug use and unauthorised abandonment of combat positions.”

However, peace is a long way off — several months away, perhaps. In the speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin last week at the SPIEF in St. Petersburg, he made no references to peace negotiations. Putin hardly referred to the fighting. 

Meanwhile, three highly provocative moves by the opposing side within the past week are significant markers indicating that the conflict may aggravate. If the missile strike at a Russian oil rig in the Black Sea has been an act of provocation, the US supply of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), a powerful long-range weapon system is intended as a potential game changer that can help Kiev turn the tide of the conflict, and, third, the bizarre move by Lithuania to block Russia’s rail transit to Kaliningrad is a reckless escalation of tensions. 

On the arrival of the HIMARS, Ukraine Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov ecstatically wrote on Twitter on Thursday,

“HIMARS have arrived to Ukraine. Thank you to my colleague and friend @SecDef Lloyd J. Austin III for these powerful tools! Summer will be hot for russian occupiers. And the last one for some of them.”

Washington claims it has received assurances from Kiev that HIMARS would not be used to attack Russian territory. Moscow has warned it will attack targets in Ukraine that it has “not yet been hitting” if the West supplies longer-range missiles to Ukraine for use in high-precision mobile rocket systems.

The Lithuanian move is a blatant violation of international law and Vilnius would only have acted on the basis of prior consultation with the US and NATO to test the Russian reaction. Kaliningrad is a major Russian base with nuclear missiles, where its Baltic Fleet is headquartered, apart being the only Russian port on the Baltic that is ice-free throughout the year. Evidently, there are some insane fellows in the NATO camp who are itching to climb the escalatory ladder.

For Russia too, there is “unfinished business” ahead insofar as it holds roughly the same amount of territory in Donetsk only as the separatists controlled in February before the special military operation began. Now, seizing the administrative territories of the Donbass is only Moscow’s minimal goal. There is going to be a sprawling battlefield in the next phase, stretching from Kharkiv in the northeast to Mykolaiv and Odessa in the southwest. Much fighting lies ahead.

The New York Times reported that “Pentagon officials expect that the arrival of more long-range artillery systems will change the battlefield in Donetsk.” Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters recently, “If they (Kiev) use it properly, practically, then they’re going to have very, very good effects on the battlefield.” 

The Russian military approach doctrinally is centred on attrition warfare, which aims to grind the way toward incremental territorial gains. Therefore, the advantage goes to the side which has greater staying power on the battlefield. In a sustained war of attrition, one military is ultimately going to be depleting the capability of the other. This is where the fault lines in the western unity come into play if the current traces of “war fatigue” in Europe turns into “solidarity fatigue.” 

Ukraine’s ability to shift the military balance depends critically on sustained military support from the US and other European countries. That, of course, hinges on political will and cohesiveness of the western allies. As for Russia, it is not only committed to a protracted war but also has the capacity to sustain it. 

Unlike the case with Ukraine, Russia is not dependent on any other country for boosting its military capability or training and advising its military. Also, historically speaking, a defining characteristic of the Russian military is its incredible endurance and ability to sustain prolonged attrition. 

The US is still betting that the Russian economy cannot hold out for a long time, since the full impact of sanctions and export controls is yet to be felt. In this calculus, the rebound of the ruble currency is seen as largely due to the strict government controls on capital flows and plummeting imports into Russia. Equally, the US has convinced itself that the restrictions on technology exports to Russia will gradually stunt the growth of its industries. Thus, the focus of the G7 summit in Germany currently under way (June 26-28) is on new plans to further “tighten the screws” on Russia’s economy.

But not much Russian budget data is available to make such daring assumptions and it is even harder to quantify how much Moscow is spending on the war in Ukraine. Certainly, there is no evidence to suggest that Kremlin’s ability to finance the war effort is coming under pressure from sanctions. 

While President Biden boasted in March that sanctions were “crushing the Russian economy” and that “the ruble is reduced to rubble,” the exact opposite has happened. Russian oil revenues have set new records and the ruble hit a 7-year high this week against the dollar. Expert opinion is also that Russia’s financial system is back to business as usual after a few weeks of severe bank runs. 

Going forward, Biden must retain control over the Congress in the midterm elections in which Republicans are sure to capitalise on the rising cost of living. As for Europe, cooler temperatures in the coming months will raise alarms about energy shortages as Moscow has cut  down natural gas supplies to Europe, which would aggravate the economic pressure they now are experiencing. 

Therefore, the big question is, whether the desire to resist Russia will be sustainable as the war itself grinds away. The matrix has changed. After all, Biden uttered the following about Putin as recently as in end-March: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” But in 3 months’ time, today, Biden only says he is striving to help Ukraine negotiate optimally with Russia for a settlement. Here too, Biden needs to make sure Russia is losing ground, while also constantly  weighing that new weapons do not escalate the conflict too fast.   

Admittedly, Biden is under little political pressure at home to back away. And the crack in western unity is, arguably, not to be construed as amounting to anything like a rift in the fundamental strategy towards Russia and the Ukraine conflict. That said, the bottom line is that this is also a perilous moment for the global economy. 

Post-pandemic economic recovery, supply-chain disruptions, rapid price increases, infrastructure investment, trade practices, global oil prices, world’s food supply, recession — these issues surely impact the western leaders’ standing in the polls. It means economic and political pain is coalescing.

*

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Featured image: Ukrainian troops retreat from Severodonetsk city in the eastern Luhansk Oblast after weeks of fighting, June 24, 2022 (Source: Indian Punchline)

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***

Nearly half of the Senate’s Democratic caucus has called on President Joe Biden to conduct an independent probe into the murder of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, a US citizen who was shot dead by Israeli troops while reporting from the occupied West Bank last month. 

A veteran Al Jazeera reporter, Abu Akleh was fatally shot in the head soon after arriving at a Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin on May 11, where Israeli forces were carrying out a raid. Though she and other journalists present were wearing vests and helmets indicating they were members of the press, they were fired upon regardless.

In a letter penned by 24 Democratic senators on Thursday, lawmakers argued there had been “no significant progress” toward launching an “independent, thorough and transparent investigation” in the month since the journalist’s death, adding that the United States must be “directly involved” in the probe given her American citizenship.

Today, 24 of us are calling upon @POTUS to ensure direct U.S. involvement in the investigation into the shooting death of American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, so that all parties can have confidence in the findings and to ensure accountability. pic.twitter.com/HqwOFm4zg0

— Senator Chris Van Hollen (@ChrisVanHollen) June 23, 2022

The senators went on to raise concerns over press freedoms for journalists in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, citing an Israeli military spokesman who claimed Abu Akleh and her colleagues were “armed with cameras” on the day she was killed. Fellow Al Jazeera reporter Ali al-Samoudi was also shot and wounded during the incident, but survived.

“Journalists must be able to perform their jobs without fear of attack,” the letter continued. “We believe that, as a leader in the effort to protect the freedom of the press and the safety of journalists, and given the fact that Ms. Abu Akleh was an American citizen, the US government has an obligation to ensure that a comprehensive, impartial and open investigation into her shooting death is conducted.”

Though Israel has not taken responsibility for the death and officials have suggested Palestinian militants may have fired the bullet that took the journalist’s life, reporting by several major news outlets indicates that Israeli forces likely killed Abu Akleh, including the Washington Post, the Associated Press, the New York Times and CNN.

The letter from senators comes less than a month before Biden makes a trip to the Middle East, where he plans to stop in Israel, the West Bank and Saudi Arabia. The White House claims the visit is meant to cement ties between Tel Aviv and a number of new-found Arab allies.

Saudi Arabia, like Israel, has come under fire for tolerating or directly committing violence against journalists. According to the CIA, the country’s de facto ruler, crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, ordered the assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. The gruesome murder was carried out by Saudi government agents at a diplomatic facility in Turkey, and led Biden – then a presidential candidate – to label Riyadh a “pariah” state. Since taking office, however, Biden has done little to change Washington’s warm relationship with the Saudi royal family, prompting criticism from rights groups demanding accountability for the repressive Gulf monarchy.

*

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Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com and news editor of the Libertarian Institute.

Will Porter is the assistant news editor of the Libertarian Institute and a staff writer at RT.

Kyle Anzalone and Will Porter host Conflicts of Interest along with Connor Freeman.

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***

The US dominates the Pacific Islands to an extent China can never hope to achieve. With Australia’s support, the US is now engaged in an arms build-up in its Pacific territories and de-facto colonies in a little known boost to its containment of China.

The US has three self-governing territories in the Pacific: Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands. Guam hosts some of the US’s most important bases the world. After a large scale military expansion on one of the main islands in the Northern Marianas, Tinian is expected to rival Guam in importance in coming years.

The US also has Compacts of Free Association with three countries covering thousands of islands in the Pacific – the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands. The compacts are a de-facto form of colonialism which gives the US exclusive military access to these countries’ land and maritime surrounds in return for defence guarantees and financial assistance.

The Federated States of Micronesia has a population of around 100,000. It has a land area of 702  square km on 607 islands amid 2,600,000 square km of ocean. The US will build a new base there. The residents are concerned about the impact of the base as their islands are often tiny and the landscape important to their identity. The US is also establishing a new military base on Palau, which has 340 islands and a total population of just over 18,000. The Marshall Islands landmass is 181 square km amid 466,000 square km of ocean. Although the Kwajalein atoll is only 15 square km, it is exclusively a military base with an extraordinary array of US activities; including a key role in US testing interceptors aimed ballistic missiles.

The Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi recently visited seven South Pacific countries and signed various agreements in some, including the provision of infrastructure and police training , but he failed to get support for a 10-country trade agreement. He did not seek permission to build a navy base in the Solomon Island or anywhere else. Nevertheless, some saw the visit as an act of Chinese aggression. It is an odd view of aggression compared to the damage done by US, British and French testing of thermonuclear (also called hydrogen) bombs on Pacific islands, or when Australia helped invade Iraq.

The US conducted 105 nuclear tests in the Pacific, mainly in the Marshall islands, between 1946 and 1962, as part oftits program to develop thermonuclear bombs. Operational weapons were sometimes tested, including a submarine-launched war head. One test in 1952 completely vaporised the island of Eluglab. In 1954, a thermonuclear bomb tested on Bikini atoll exploded with force of 15 megatons – over 1,000 times bigger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The radioactive cloud engulfed a Japanese fishing boat about 80 miles away in a white powder that poisoned the crew. One died from the exposure seven months later and 15 more in following years.

The radioactivity affected the drinking water and food. Children played in the ash-like powder. Some ate it. Marshall Islanders over a wide area were subject to abnormal radiological doses. In 2005, the US National Cancer Institute reported that the risk of contracting cancer for those exposed to the fallout was over one in three.

Nevertheless, in 1946, a US Navy Commodore had asked 167 people living on Bikini atoll to re-locate so their home could be used use “for the good of mankind”. They were resettled in 1969, but had to be evacuated again after high radiation levels were detected.

There has been some increase in the pathetically low initial compensation. But it is hard to compensate for the environmental damage and loss of cultural heritage, traditional customs and skills. In 2014, the Marshall Islands attempted to sue the US and eight other nuclear armed nations, for failing to move towards nuclear disarmament as required by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. A US Court dismissed the suit in 2017.

Britain tested 40 thermonuclear bombs on an islands in the Kiribati group between 1957 and 1962. Troops from Britain , Fiji (then a British colony), and New Zealand worked on the tests. Many were harmed by radiation and other causes. As usual, the locals were treated badly and their water and lands polluted.

France conducted 41 atmospheric nuclear tests between 1966 and 1974 in French Polynesia. It then conducted 140 underground, primarily of thermonuclear bombs, until 1996. One of the islands used was subject to cracking. In an act of state terrorism, French secret service frogman killed a photographer when they bombed a Green Peace protest ship in Auckland harbour on its way to the French nuclear testing area.

Labor’s defence minister, Richard Marles now refers to France as a Pacific county, despite the fact that it is a European country with a tenuous justification for holding onto its colonial possessions in the Pacific – New Caledonia and French Polynesia. Labor used to oppose colonialism. Now it seems it’s good if the colonial power opposes China.

The South Pacific Forum comprises 18 members: Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. Not all are normally considered to be in the South Pacific. The inclusion of three countries with Compacts of Free Association with the US and two French possessions basically guarantees they will vote for what the US or France wants.

However, the legacy of the contemptuous disregard for the indigenous residents during massive hydrogen bomb tests ensures that  nuclear issues, including the passage of nuclear submarines, remain sensitive.

At the time of the negotiation of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty in 1985 Paul Malone wrote that it was for a “partial nuclear free zone”, as it did not prohibit the “passage of nuclear-armed ships or aircraft through the region”. Malone reported that some Pacific Island countries wanted to be Treaty to prohibit access to nuclear-armed warships. The then Prime Minister Bob Hawke insisted on that omission which reflected the wishes of the US. However, nuclear issues have been revived by the creation of the 2021AUKUS pact in which Australia is committed to buying nuclear powered submarines.

A journalist and researcher based in the Pacific, Nic Maclellan says, “Any hope that Australia’s island neighbours will welcome further nuclearisation of the region is folly. Within days of the UKUS announcement, statements from Pacific leaders, community elders and media organisations highlighted the persistence of the deep antinuclear sentiment.

The general secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches, Reverend James Bhagwa tweeted

“Shame Australia, Shame.” The Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare told the UN General Assembly his nation “would like to keep our region nuclear-free . . . We do not support any form of militarisation in our region that could threaten regional and international peace and stability.”

The Kiribati President Taneti Maamau told the ABC, “Our people are victims of nuclear testing. We still have trauma. With anything to do with nuclear, we thought it would be a courtesy to discuss it with your neighbours”. He said he was especially concerned about Australia developing nuclear powered submarines which he said “puts the region at risk”

Fiji’s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama tweeted that his father was among the Fijian soldiers the British sent to help with their nuclear bomb tests. He said, “To honour the sacrifice of all those who have suffered due to these weapons, Fiji will never stop working towards a global nuclear ban.”

The New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern repeated that nuclear submarines “can’t come into our internal waters”. New Zealand and nine South Pacific Forum countries have ratified the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Australia hasn’t. The Samoa Observer wrote, “It is a relief seeing Prime Minister Ardern continuing to maintain the tradition of her predecessors by promoting a nuclear-free Pacific; probably she is the only true friend of the Pacific Islands.”

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Brian Toohey is author of Secret: The Making of Australia’s Security State.

Featured image: The US conducted 105 nuclear tests in the Pacific, mainly in the Marshall islands, between 1946 and 1962. Image: Wikipedia

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***

Events of the past few days suggest British journalism – the so-called Fourth Estate – is not what it purports to be: a watchdog monitoring the centers of state power. It is quite the opposite.

The pretensions of the establishment media took a severe battering this month as the defamation trial of Guardian columnist Carole Cadwalladr reached its conclusion and the hacked emails of Paul Mason, a long-time stalwart of the BBC, Channel 4 and the Guardian, were published online.

Both of these celebrated journalists have found themselves outed as recruits – in their differing ways – to a covert information war being waged by Western intelligence agencies.

Had they been honest about it, that collusion might not matter so much. After all, few journalists are as neutral or as dispassionate as the profession likes to pretend. But as have many of their colleagues, Cadwalladr and Mason have broken what should be a core principle of journalism: transparency.

The role of serious journalists is to bring matters of import into the public space for debate and scrutiny. Journalists thinking critically aspire to hold those who wield power – primarily state agencies – to account on the principle that, without scrutiny, power quickly corrupts.

The purpose of real journalism – as opposed to the gossip, entertainment and national-security stenography that usually passes for journalism – is to hit up, not down.

And yet, each of these journalists, we now know, was actively colluding, or seeking to collude, with state actors who prefer to operate in the shadows, out of sight. Both journalists were coopted to advance the aims of the intelligence services.

And worse, each of them either sought to become a conduit for, or actively assist in, covert smear campaigns run by Western intelligence services against other journalists.

What they were doing – along with so many other establishment journalists – is the very antithesis of journalism. They were helping to conceal the operation of power to make it harder to scrutinize. And not only that. In the process, they were trying to weaken already marginalized journalists fighting to hold state power to account.

Russian Collusion?

Cadwalladr’s cooperation with the intelligence services has been highlighted only because of a court case. She was sued for defamation by Arron Banks, a businessman and major donor to the successful Brexit campaign for Britain to leave the European Union.

In a kind of transatlantic extension of the Russiagate hysteria in the United States following Donald Trump’s election as president in 2016, Cadwalladr accused Banks of lying about his ties to the Russian state. According to the court, she also suggested he broke election funding laws by receiving Russian money in the run-up to the Brexit vote, also in 2016.

That year serves as a kind of ground zero for liberals fearful about the future of “Western democracy” – supposedly under threat from modern “barbarians at the gate,” such as Russia and China – and the ability of Western states to defend their primacy through neo-colonial wars of aggression around the globe.

The implication is Russia masterminded a double subversion in 2016: on one side of the Atlantic, Trump was elected U.S. president; and, on the other, Britons were gulled into shooting themselves in the foot – and undermining Europe – by voting to leave the EU.

Faced with the court case, Cadwalladr could not support her allegations against Banks as true. Nonetheless, the judge ruled against Banks’ libel action – on the basis that the claims had not sufficiently harmed his reputation.

The judge also decided, perversely in a British defamation action, that Cadwalladr had “reasonable grounds” to publish claims that Banks received “sweetheart deals” from Russia, even though “she had seen no evidence he had entered into any such deals.” An investigation by the National Crime Agency ultimately found no evidence either.

So given those circumstances, what was the basis for her accusations against Banks?

Cadwalladr’s journalistic modus operandi, in her long-running efforts to suggest widespread Russian meddling in British politics, is highlighted in her witness statement to the court.

In it, she refers to another of her Russiagate-style stories: one from 2017 that tried to connect the Kremlin with Nigel Farage, a former pro-Brexit politician with the UKIP Party and close associate of Banks, and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been a political prisoner in the U.K. for more than a decade.

At that time, Assange was confined to a single room in the Ecuadorian Embassy after its government offered him political asylum. He had sought sanctuary there, fearing he would be extradited to the U.S. following publication by WikiLeaks of revelations that the U.S. and U.K. had committed war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

WikiLeaks had also deeply embarrassed the CIA by following up with the publication of leaked documents, known as Vault 7, exposing the agency’s own crimes.

Last week the U.K.’s Home Secretary, Priti Patel, approved the very extradition to the U.S. that Assange feared and that drove him into the Ecuadorian embassy. Once in the U.S., he faces up to 175 years in complete isolation in a supermax jail.

Assassination Plot

We now know, courtesy of a Yahoo News investigation, that through 2017 the CIA hatched various schemes to either assassinate Assange or kidnap him in one of its illegal “extraordinary rendition” operations, so he could be permanently locked up in the U.S., out of public view.

We can surmise that the CIA also believed it needed to prepare the ground for such a rogue operation by bringing the public on board. According to Yahoo’s investigation, the CIA believed Assange’s seizure might require a gun battle on the streets of London.

It was at this point, it seems, that Cadwalladr and the Guardian were encouraged to add their own weight to the cause of further turning public opinion against Assange.

According to her witness statement, “a confidential source in [the] U.S.” suggested – at the very time the CIA was mulling over these various plots – that she write about a supposed visit by Farage to Assange in the embassy. The story ran in the Guardian under the headline “When Nigel Farage met Julian Assange.”

In the article, Cadwalladr offers a strong hint as to who had been treating her as a confidant: the one source mentioned in the piece is “a highly placed contact with links to U.S. intelligence.” In other words, the CIA almost certainly fed her the agency’s angle on the story.

Carole Cadwalladr says in her witness statement that "a confidential source in US" gave her the idea for her highly-speculative Farage/Assange story in 2017 about WikiLeaks' CIA leak.

The article's only official source was "a highly placed contact with links to US intelligence" pic.twitter.com/FYg4wqj9OJ

— Matt Kennard (@kennardmatt) June 13, 2022

In the piece, Cadwalladr threads together her and the CIA’s claims of “a political alignment between WikiLeaks’ ideology, UKIP’s ideology and Trump’s ideology.” Behind the scenes, she suggests, was the hidden hand of the Kremlin, guiding them all in a malign plot to fatally undermine British democracy.

She quotes her “highly placed contact” claiming that Farage and Assange’s alleged face-to-face meeting was necessary to pass information of their nefarious plot “in ways and places that cannot be monitored.”

Except of course, as her “highly placed contact” knew – and as we now know, thanks to exposes by the Grayzone website – that was a lie. In tandem with its plot to kill or kidnap Assange, the CIA illegally installed cameras inside, as well as outside, the embassy. His every move in the embassy was monitored – even in the toilet block.

The reality was that the CIA was bugging and videoing Assange’s every conversation in the embassy, even the face-to-face ones. If the CIA actually had a recording of Assange and Farage meeting and discussing a Kremlin-inspired plot, it would have found a way to make it public by now.

Far more plausible is what Farage and WikiLeaks say: that such a meeting never happened. Farage visited the embassy to try to interview Assange for his LBC radio show but was denied access. That can be easily confirmed because by then the Ecuadorian embassy was allying with the U.S. and refusing Assange any contact with visitors apart from his lawyers.

"Links to Julian Assange"? He asked to do an interview with LBC, his primary job, with his producer in tow, which was politely declined. It is endless fabrications like this that brings the Guardian into disrepute.

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) July 25, 2018

Nonetheless, Cadwalladr concludes: “In the perfect storm of fake news, disinformation and social media in which we now live, WikiLeaks is, in many ways, the swirling vortex at the centre of everything.”

‘Swirling Vortex’

The Farage-Assange meeting story shows how the CIA and Cadwalladr’s agendas perfectly coincided in their very own “swirling vortex” of fake news and disinformation.

She wanted to tie the Brexit campaign to Russia and suggest that anyone who wished to challenge the liberal pieties that provide cover for the crimes committed by Western states must necessarily belong to a network of conspirators, on the left and the right, masterminded from Moscow.

The CIA and other Western intelligence agencies, meanwhile, wanted to deepen the public’s impression that Assange was a Kremlin agent – and that WikiLeaks’ exposure of the crimes committed by those same agencies was not in the public interest but actually an assault on Western democracy.

Assange’s character assassination had already been largely achieved with the American public in the Russiagate campaign in the U.S. The intelligence services, along with the Democratic Party leadership, had crafted a narrative designed to obscure WikiLeaks’ revelations of election-fixing by Hillary Clinton’s camp in 2016 to prevent Bernie Sanders from winning the party’s presidential nomination. Instead they refocused the public’s attention on evidence-free claims that Russia had “hacked” the emails.

For Cadwalladr and the CIA, the fake-news story of Farage meeting Assange could be spun as further proof that both the “far left” and “far right” were colluding with Russia. Their message was clear: only centrists – and the national security state – could be trusted to defend democracy.

Fabricated Story

Cadwalladr’s smear of Assange is entirely of a piece with the vilification campaign of WikiLeaks led by liberal media outlets to which she belongs. Her paper, the Guardian, has had Assange in its sights since its falling out with him over their joint publication of the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs in 2010.

A year after Cadwalladr’s smear piece, the Guardian would continue its cooperation with the intelligence services’ demonization of Assange by running an equally fabricated story – this time about a senior aide of Trump’s, Paul Manafort, and various unidentified “Russians” secretly meeting Assange in the embassy.

The story was so improbable it was ridiculed even at the time of publication. Again, the CIA’s illegal spying operation inside and outside the embassy meant there was no way Manafort or any “Russians” could have secretly visited Assange without those meetings being recorded. Nonetheless, the Guardian has never retracted the smear.

One of the authors of the article, Luke Harding, has been at the forefront of both the Guardian’s Russiagate claims and its efforts to defame Assange. In doing so, he appears to have relied heavily on Western intelligence services for his stories and has proven incapable of defending them when challenged.

Harding, like the Guardian, has an added investment in discrediting Assange. He and a Guardian colleague, David Leigh, published a Guardian-imprint book that included a secret password to a WikiLeaks’ cache of leaked documents, thereby providing security services around the world with access to the material.

The CIA’s claim that the release of those documents endangered its informants – a claim that even U.S. officials have been forced to concede is not true – has been laid at Assange’s door to vilify him and justify his imprisonment. But if anyone is to blame, it is not Assange but Harding, Leigh and the Guardian.

Effort to Deplatform

The case of Paul Mason, who worked for many years as a senior BBC journalist, is even more revealing. Emails passed to the Grayzonewebsite show the veteran, self-described “left-wing” journalist secretly conspiring with figures aligned with British intelligence services to build a network of journalists and academics to smear and censor independent media outlets that challenge the narratives of the Western intelligence agencies.

Mason’s concerns about left-wing influence on public opinion have intensified the more he has faced criticism from the left over his demands for fervent, uncritical support of NATO and as he has lobbied for greater Western interference in Ukraine. Both are aims he shares with Western intelligence services.

Along with the establishment media, Mason has called for sending advanced weaponry to Kyiv, likely to raise the death toll on both sides of the war and risk a nuclear confrontation between the West and Russia.

In the published emails, Mason suggests the harming and “relentless deplatforming” of independent investigative media sites – such as the Grayzone, Consortium News and Mint Press – that host non-establishment journalists. He and his correspondents also debate whether to include Declassified UK and OpenDemocracy. One of his co-conspirators suggests a “full nuclear legal to squeeze them financially.”

Mason himself proposes starving these websites of income by secretly pressuring Paypal to stop readers from being able to make donations to support their work.

It should be noted that, in the wake of Mason’s correspondence,  PayPal did indeed launch just such a crackdown, including against Consortium News and MintPress, after earlier targeting WikiLeaks.

Statement from @MnarMuh:

Paypal banning myself and MintPress is blatant censorship of dissenting journalists & outlets. For the past decade MintPress has been unapologetically working as a watchdog journalism outlet to expose the profiteers of the permanent war state. pic.twitter.com/kCkfcWNGRN

— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) April 29, 2022

Mason’s email correspondents include two figures intimately tied to British intelligence: Amil Khan is described by the Grayzone as “a shadowy intelligence contractor” with ties to the U.K.’s National Security Council. He founded Valent Projects, establishing his credentials in a dirty propaganda war in support of head-chopping jihadist groups trying to bring down the Russian-supported Syrian government.

Clandestine ‘Clusters’

The other intelligence operative is someone Mason refers to as a “friend”: Andy Pryce, the head of the Foreign Office’s shadowy Counter Disinformation and Media Development (CDMD) unit, founded in 2016 to “counter-strike against Russian propaganda.” Mason and Pryce spend much of their correspondence discussing when to meet up in London pubs for a drink, according to the Grayzone.

The Foreign Office managed to keep the CDMD unit’s existence secret for two years. The U.K. government has refused to disclose basic information about the CDMD on grounds of national security, although it is now known that it is overseen by the National Security Council.

The CDMD’s existence came to light because of leaks about another covert information warfare operation, the Integrity Initiative.

Notably, the Integrity Initiative was run on the basis of clandestine “clusters,” in North America and Europe, of journalists, academics, politicians and security officials advancing narratives shared with Western intelligence agencies to discredit Russia, China, Julian Assange, and Jeremy Corbyn, the former, left-wing leader of the Labor Party.

Cadwalladr was named in the British cluster, along with other prominent journalists: David Aaronovitch and Dominic Kennedy of the Times; the Guardian’s Natalie Nougayrede and Paul Canning; Jonathan Marcus of the BBC; the Financial Times’ Neil Buckley; the Economist’s Edward Lucas; and Sky News’ Deborah Haynes.

In his emails, Mason appears to want to renew this type of work but to direct its energies more specifically at damaging independent, dissident media – with his number one target the Grayzone, which played a critical role in exposing the Integrity Initiative.

Mason’s “friend” – the CDMD’s head, Andy Pryce – “featured prominently” in documents relating to the Integrity Initiative, the Grayzone observes.

This background is not lost on Mason. He notes in his correspondence the danger that his plot to “deplatform” independent media could “end up with the same problem as Statecraft” – a reference to the Institute of Statecraft, the Integrity Initiative’s parent charity, which the Grayzone and others exposed. He cautions: “The opposition are not stupid, they can spot an info op – so the more this is designed to be organic the better.”

Pryce and Mason discuss creating an astroturf civil-society organization that would lead their “information war” as part of an operation they brand the “International Information Brigade”.

Mason suggests the suspension of the libel laws for what he calls “foreign agents” – presumably meaning that the Information Brigade would be able to defame independent journalists as Russian agents, echoing the establishment media’s treatment of Assange, without fear of legal action that would show these were evidence-free smears.

‘Putin Infosphere’

Another correspondent, Emma Briant, an academic who claims to specialize in Russian disinformation, offers an insight into how she defines the presumed enemy within: those “close to WikiLeaks,” anyone “trolling Carole [Cadwalladr],” and outlets “discouraging people from reading the Guardian.”

Mason himself produces an eye-popping, self-drawn, spider’s web chart of the supposedly “pro-Putin infosphere” in the U.K., embracing much of the left, including Corbyn, the Stop the War movement, as well as the Black and Muslim communities. Several media sites are mentioned, including Mint Press and Novara Media, an independent British website sympathetic to Corbyn.

Khan and Mason consider how they can help trigger a British government investigation of independent outlets so that they can be labeled as “Russian-state affiliated media” to further remove them from visibility on social media.

Mason states that the goal is to prevent the emergence of a “left anti-imperialist identity,” which, he fears, “will be attractive because liberalism doesn’t know how to counter it” – a telling admission that he believes genuine left-wing critiques of Western foreign policy cannot be dealt with through public refutation but only through secret disinformation campaigns.

He urges efforts to crack down not only on independent media and “rogue” academics but on left-wing political activism. He identifies as a particular threat Corbyn, who was earlier harmed through a series of disinformation campaigns, including entirely evidence-free claims that the Labour Party during his tenure became a hotbed of antisemitism. Mason fears Corbyn might set up a new, independent left-wing party. It is important, Mason notes, to “quarantine” and “stigmatize” any such ideology.

In short, rather than use journalism to win the argument and the battle for public opinion, Mason wishes to use the dark arts of the security state to damage independent media, as well as dissident academics and left-wing political activism. He wants no influences on the public that are not tightly aligned with the core foreign policy goals of the national security state.

Mason’s correspondence hints at the reality behind Cadwalladr’s claim that Assange was the “swirling vortex at the centre of everything.” Assange symbolizes that “swirling vortex” to intelligence-aligned establishment journalists only because WikiLeaks has published plenty of insider information that exposes Western claims to global moral leadership as a complete charade – and the journalists who amplify those claims as utter charlatans.

In part two, we will examine why journalists like Mason and Cadwalladr prosper in the establishment media; the long history of collusion between Western intelligence agencies and the establishment media; and how that mutually beneficial collusion is becoming ever more important to each of them.

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Jonathan Cook is a MintPress contributor. Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net. 

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***

In September 2002, then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu testified in front of Congress to support the Bush administration’s push for a US invasion of Iraq.

At the time, Netanyahu claimed that there was no doubt that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons and erroneously stated: “If you take out Saddam, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region.”

Six months later, the United States illegally invaded Iraq, found no weapons of mass destruction, and unleashed decades of violence and war in the region.

Now, Israel is using the same playbook to push for a military buildup against Iran, led by the US.

At the same time, hawkish voices in the US are pressing President Biden to break a campaign promise of accountability for Saudi Arabia and pursue greater security pacts contingent on “normalising” relations with Israel. Yet, this strategy ignores the need to include Iran – a central power within the region – in its security architecture and overlooks the important ongoing dialogue between these state actors and the progress made.

Rather than seeking an actual peace, these calls for pressure-only policies on Iran further risk an escalation that could entrench the US in another “forever” war.

Nearly 20 years after the invasion of Iraq, it is commonly understood as a historic mistake of US foreign policy. However, we do not need hindsight to understand that a war with Iran would be a far worse blunder, not only for its fallout but also because a clear peaceful alternative exists.

Stoking fears

Much like the case of Iraq, hawks in the US and Israel have tried to stoke fears of Iranian nuclear weapons in order to justify a possible war.

In fact, the public has been told that Iran is on the verge of building nuclear weapons for decades. Still, the supposed threat of Iran developing nuclear weapons was finally resolved through diplomacy.

Despite strong opposition from Israel and proponents of war in the US, under the Obama administration the US and Iran, along with the international community, reached a landmark agreement in 2015 known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or the Iran nuclear deal.

The JCPOA delivered unprecedented international oversight and access to Iran’s nuclear programme and imposed strict limits to guarantee Iran could not weaponise its programme, in exchange for economic relief from sanctions for Iran.

Not only did the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) repeatedly report that Iran was complying with the deal – even after the Trump administration backed out of the deal in May 2018 and violated it by reimposing sanctions – but President Biden also attested to the merits of the deal as a candidate in 2020 and emphasised that it was Trump that walked away from the deal, not Iran.

Despite this admission and the years Biden spent lambasting the former administration’s failed Iran policy, his administration has essentially maintained the policies of his predecessor, including sanctions that continue to impede the flow of humanitarian goods in a pandemic and the designation of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) on the US list of foreign terrorist organisations (FTO).

Another disastrous war

While as a presidential candidate Biden promised to repair the JCPOA, his administration squandered an early opportunity to restore the agreement before Iran’s June 2021 election. It ushered in a new hard-line administration in Iran and the US remains outside of the deal.

With Biden failing to restore the historic deal, Iran has continued to grow its nuclear programme by enriching uranium and producing a stockpile far beyond the limits they maintained under the JCPOA.

It is a point of irony that the very groups and individuals who worked to undermine the deal have used it in recent weeks as a measure of Iran’s expansion. Though opponents of the deal often claimed to want a “better deal”, the push for another disastrous war in the Middle East appears to be the real intention of hawkish voices.

The urgency of the current situation is stressed by recent IAEA reports stating that Iran, for the first time, now has enough medium-grade fissile material for one bomb. It is important to note that Iran would have to make the political decision to pursue a weapon and that this process would take one to two years itself.

However, the present circumstances will likely magnify calls for military action, especially once diplomacy is taken off the table. Given this prospect, Biden’s Iran policy and his administration’s posturing on the JCPOA is dangerously shortsighted.

Just consider the current war in Ukraine.

While US officials have consistently employed the rhetoric of international law to rebuke Russia’s illegal campaign, escalation to military conflict or bombing Iran would violate the same rules-based order and evoke the memory of a preemptive strike against Iraq.

Witnessing the death and devastation in Ukraine and concerns over nuclear escalation with Russia, it is all the more crucial to weigh the consequences of war.

This is not to mention the global impact of such conflicts, as can be seen in rising food and energy costs, a looming global food crisis that will starve many already facing food insecurity around the world, and inflation in the United States that is heavily impacting the lives of American workers.

A war with Iran will likely worsen these conditions, especially the significant flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf. Under such dire circumstances, the last thing we can afford right now is escalation or war with Iran.

A historic blunder

In fact, American public opinion is against more wars, which is why both the Biden and Trump administrations promised to “end endless war” in what has become a popular catchphrase in US political discourse.

Even in a war effort that Americans support, like Ukraine, the majority do not want the US to risk war with Russia. Additionally, a majority of Americans continue to support the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

This is not surprising given the failures of US militarism – most notably the swift takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban after 20 years of war – and the enormous cost of these conflicts to American taxpayers as many struggle at home.

A war with Iran – a country with a larger population than Iraq and Afghanistan combined and a stronger position in the region in the wake of US wars – would be another historic blunder with far worse outcomes than what we have already seen.

The merits and nonproliferation benefits of the JCPOA speak for themselves. However, the costs of the failure to restore the deal and the potential for conflict go beyond the limitations placed on Iran’s nuclear programme.

In a recent speech about the war in Ukraine by former President George W Bush, an ironic slip of the tongue revealed the truth of his own legacy: “…[T]he decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.”

Though he immediately corrected himself to say “Ukraine”, under his breath he added, “Iraq too”, prompting laughter from the audience. If Biden does not correct his current course on Iran soon – which undermines the successes of the administration he served for as vice president – his legacy may also be a war of his own making.

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

Dr. Assal Rad is the Research Director at the National Iranian American Council, where she works on research and writing related to Iran policy issues and U.S.-Iran relations. Her writing can be seen in Newsweek, The National Interest, The Independent, Foreign Policy and more. She has appeared as a commentator on BBC World, Al Jazeera, NPR, and others. She completed a PhD in Middle Eastern History from the University of California, Irvine in 2018 and has a forthcoming book titled, The State of Resistance: Politics, Culture, and Identity in Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

Featured image is from OneWorld

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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***

They were shooting directly at the journalists: New evidence suggests Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in targeted attack by Israeli forces”. Thus read a CNN headline on May 26, 2022, for an article describing what may have been a “targeted killing,” – that is, assassination – of Al Jazeera journalist Shirleen Abu Akleh, a 51-year-old highly esteemed Palestinian-American journalist who had covered Israeli repression of the Palestinian population for about 25 years before she was killed.

With this killing and its aftermath, one knows that it is all hands on deck for an Israeli government cognitive campaign in the perpetual cognitive war Israel wages against the world, as will be explained below.

According to the CNN article, Abu Akleh was killed by a bullet to the head at around 6:30 a.m. on May 11, while standing with a group of journalists near the entrance of Jenin refugee camp as they covered an Israeli raid. “We stood in front of the Israeli military vehicles for about five to ten minutes before we made moves to ensure they saw us. And this is a habit of ours as journalists; we move as a group and we stand in front of them so they know we are journalists, and then we start moving,” a Palestinian reporter, Shatha Hanaysha, told CNN, describing their cautious approach toward the Israeli army convoy before the gunfire began.

Video recordings of the surrounding area showed the killing shots could have come only from the Israeli soldiers in specially designed “sniper” vehicles that were in direct line-of-fire positions to Abu Akleh that morning. Eyewitnesses told CNN that they “believed Israeli forces on the same street fired deliberately on the reporters in a targeted attack. All of the journalists were wearing protective blue vests that identified them as members of the news media.”

“Lawful Targets” in a “Cognitive War”

The “blue vests” might have been what ensured the journalists would be targeted by Israeli forces, if Israeli forces see journalists as “lawful targets” in the war they continue to wage against the Palestinians, in what is in fact a continuation of the 1967 War. That is, an unrelenting military occupation in violation of international law, which constitutes a continuation of the “war.” And the evidence shows Israeli military/intel forces do see journalists as “lawful targets,” as part of the “Cognitive War” they wage against the Palestinians, but more particularly against the global population in an attempt to legitimize their military oppression of the Palestinians in their ongoing effort of “population expulsion” of the Palestinians from Palestinian territory. As Benjamin Netanyahu’s father, Benzion, proclaimed shortly before he died, this is the objective of Israel Zionists like him.

In fact, while Abu Akleh was the only journalist killed that day by Israeli forces, she wasn’t the only Palestinian journalist shot. A group of four Palestinian reporters was fired upon as well, with one also injured in the gunfire. That was not because Israeli forces had an obstructed view; footage showed a direct line of sight between the reporters and the Israeli convoy. That only one of the four was hit, besides Abu Akleh, is probably taken by military superiors as a sign that their marksmanship must be improved.

A firearms expert told CNN: “The relatively tight grouping of the rounds indicate Shireen was intentionally targeted with aimed shots and not the victim of random or stray fire.”

But an indication of how the Israeli military sees journalists, other than “reliable” Israeli press, was revealed on the day of the shooting by an Israeli military spokesperson, Ran Kochav. Kochav told Army Radio that Abu Akleh had been “filming and working for a media outlet amidst armed Palestinians. They’re armed with cameras, if you’ll permit me to say so.” And if they are “armed,” they are “lawful targets” in “war.”

In fact, the killing of journalists has been openly called for in the “flagship publication” of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, The Journal of International Security Affairs, by retired U.S. Army Officer Ralph Peters. The odious 2009 article – potentially a war crime in itself – stated: “Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts, and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media.”

The Power of “Cognitive Warfare”

The Israeli military said it was conducting an investigation into the killing of Abu Akleh, and added, “assertions regarding the source of the fire that killed Ms. Abu Akleh must be carefully made and backed by hard evidence. This is what the IDF is striving to achieve.” In fact, obfuscating that is what the IDF and its Cognitive Warfare component must be seen as “striving to achieve” – at least if Israeli Cognitive War theorists, one of whom is quoted at length below, are to be believed.

Leaving it to those few journalists who report honestly to provide more facts on this assassination – as Abu Akleh would have, giving motive to Israeli forces to particularly target her with lethal fire – “Cognitive Warfare” should be explained further.

The best source for understanding the concept is Israel’s own doctrinal statements about the “cognitive domain” of warfare. A clue to that was presented when an Israeli lawyer filed a lawsuit alleging that “Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs [is] carrying out a global propaganda campaign on behalf of the Israeli government that violates human rights and is acting without authority to do so… Attorney Schachar Ben Meir’s petition demands that the High Court of Justice order a halt to the activities carried out by the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, headed by Gilad Erdan.”

The substance of the claim was that the Israeli government had approved the payment of NIS 128 million ($38 million) to a private organization called Kela-Shlomo to carry out “mass consciousness activities” within the framework of what the Ministry of Strategic Affairs calls “extra-governmental discourse.” That is, publication of government propaganda on social networks and newspapers often carried out through private businesses and non-profit organizations operating in Israel and abroad.

But to determine the correct “messages” to promote or counter requires “surveilling citizens and conducting illegal operations intended to influence and manipulate public opinion.” That is what constitutes “mass consciousness activities” – a fascist type of governmental activity if there ever was one, but “updated” to utilize “private contractors” to conduct operations, in addition to governmental military/intel assets. This explains the proliferation of “private Israeli intelligence/influence” firms.

The Musings of a Cognitive Warfare Theorist

The current Minister of Diaspora Affairs, Nachman Shai, who in the past was a spokesperson for the Israeli military, explained and promoted the higher level to which cognitive warfare has been taken from its origins as mere “propaganda” or “hasbara,” in his book “Hearts and Minds: Israel and the Battle for Public Opinion.”

He explained that, in the expected 21st-century wars of Israel and the United States, the “principal effort will be the battle for consciousness.” He explained further:

[There] are various terms to describe the battle for consciousness. In Britain, it is called the fight for hearts and minds. The U.S. military uses the expressions psychological warfare, perception management, influence management, and information operation. The idea speaks about consciousness: the strategy of limited conflict is to win a decision of consciousness in the society with the help of military means. The battle is for the society’s consciousness and for national resilience.”

Furthermore, according to Shai: “Consciousness is not a natural and inherent concept but rather a structured process, continually shaped by interested parties and by those who wield wealth and power.” How this is done in its current terminology is described in a publication of the Israeli “Institute for National Security Studies” entitled: “The Cognitive Campaign: Strategic and Intelligence Perspectives.” Its Preface states:

It is important to distinguish between cognition and the cognitive campaign. Cognition is the set of insights that an individual or individuals have regarding the surrounding reality and the way they want to shape it, derived from the set of the values and beliefs through which they examine and interpret their environment and work to confront its inherent challenges, and even to change it. In contrast, the cognitive campaign involves the actions and tools that entities that are part of a certain campaign framework use to influence the cognition of target audiences or to prevent influence on them. The purpose of  the cognitive campaign is to cause target audiences to adopt the perception of reality held by the side wielding the effort, so that it can more easily advance the strategic and/or operational objectives that it sees as critical. The cognitive campaign can be negative, that is, prevent the development of undesirable cognitive states, or positive, with an attempt to produce the desired cognition.

That the “cognitive campaign can be negative, that is, prevent the development of undesirable cognitive states,” is why Julian Assange has been imprisoned for years now, with no likelihood he will ever be freed by the U.S. government and why Edward Snowden was forced to take refuge in a foreign country to avoid the same fate. The U.S. must silence them and other dissidents, lest an “undesirable cognitive state” develops in the U.S. population – as one eventually developed over the Vietnam War, and eventually forced the U.S. out of Vietnam.

Thus it is reasonable to believe that is why Israel has targeted so many journalists over the last couple of decades – as has the U.S. It would be foolish and/or naïve not to believe that when retired military officers openly call for “targeted killings” of journalists, that they aren’t already being targeted!

Making Our Own Reality

When Karl Rove was alleged to have said how the United States is now “an empire, we make our own reality,” he was not just making a hubristic statement. Rather, it can be seen as an indication that he was aware of how powerful a “cognitive campaign” is. In fact, such campaigns were always how the CIA conducted post-World War II coups, and it can be speculated that “cognitive campaigns” were introduced into U.S. political campaigns by Arthur Finkelstein and his “Six-Party Theory” in the 1972 Nixon campaign, down to the 2016 Trump campaign, based upon cognitive warfare principles drawn from CIA coups and the Israeli military occupation.

The authors of “The Cognitive Campaign: Strategic and Intelligence Perspectives” wrote:

The cognitive campaign is not new, and it is an inseparable aspect of every strategic and military conflict. In recent years, this struggle has played a much more important role than in past conflicts; at times it takes place without a direct military context and is not even led by military bodies. The cognitive campaign is a continuous campaign; thus, its prominence is greater in the period between wars (as a part of the “campaign between wars).”

In fact, as these authors know, there is no such thing as “between wars” in Israel or the United States, with both countries in “Perpetual War” regardless of the level of aggressive kinetic war they are waging at any given moment.

Carl von Clausewitz wrote in “On War” that two different motives make men fight one another: hostile feelings and hostile intentions. Inciting those “feelings” is done by both Israel and the U.S. continuously, by multifarious networks to “condition” their populations with “hostile feelings and hostile intentions.” As has been done in the U.S. to incite hatred of Russia, China, Iran, et al., so that a war with either one, or all, can explode at any moment. Israel does the same against Iran and the Palestinians. Mission Accomplished!

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Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, JA, USA (ret.) served in the U.S. military as a Judge Advocate defense attorney representing Guantanamo prisoners. Before that, he was trained as a Sr. PsyOps NCO, and initially trained as a U.S. Marine Corps Rifleman. 

Featured image: Carlos Latuff for MintPress News

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In interviews with The Defender, pilots injured by COVID-19 vaccines said despite a “culture of fear and intimidation” they are compelled to speak out against vaccine mandates that rob pilots of their careers — and in some cases their lives.

As a commercial pilot, Bob Snow had long looked forward to seeing his daughter follow in his footsteps by helping her learn to fly an airplane.

However, having received the COVID-19 vaccine “under duress,” this dream is no longer a possibility for Snow.

“I will probably never fly again,” Snow said in a video he made about his story. “I was hoping to teach my daughter to fly. She wants to be a pilot. That will probably never happen, all courtesy of the vaccine.”

Snow is one of a growing number of pilots coming forward to share stories of injuries they experienced after getting a COVID-19 vaccine.

Some of these accounts are “hair-raising and deeply disturbing,” according to Maureen Steele, a paralegal and head of media relations for the John Pierce Law Firm.

The firm represents U.S. Freedom Flyers (USFF), an organization opposing vaccine and mask mandates for pilots and airline staff, in a series of legal actions against the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and several airlines.

Josh Yoder, a pilot with a major commercial airline, Army combat veteran and former flight medic, is a co-founder of USFF.

In a recent interview with The Defender, Yoder said the FAA has been aware of cases of pilots suffering vaccine injuries since at least December 2021, when the California-based Advocates for Citizens’ Rights hand-delivered an open letter to the FAA, major airlines and their insurers.

Yoder said USFF “has received hundreds of phone calls from airline employees who are experiencing adverse reactions post COVID-19 vaccination,” describing the stories as “heartbreaking.”

According to Yoder, the warnings contained in the letter, including testimony by “world-renowned experts,” were “completely ignored,” adding that “we are now beginning to see the consequences.”

This is leading an increasing number of pilots to “come forward to expose the truth regarding these toxic injections,” Yoder said.

The Defender recently reported on a series of reports that have been submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, involving pilots who sustained severe injuries and side effects following the COVID-19 vaccine.

Congressional testimony from Cody Flint, an agricultural pilot who has logged more than 10,000 flight hours, was included in this letter.

“The FAA has created a powder keg and lit the fuse,” Flint said in an interview with The Defender.

“We are now seeing pilots experiencing blood clots, myocarditis, pericarditis, dizziness and confusion at rates never seen before. Pilots are losing their careers and having to call in sick or go on medical leave from medical issues developing almost immediately after vaccination.”

Vaccine-injured pilots share stories with The Defender

Several pilots, including Bob Snow, shared their stories with The Defender in a recent series of interviews.

Snow, a captain with a major U.S. airline, told The Defender he received the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine on Nov. 4, 2021, “as a result of an unambivalent company mandate to receive the vaccine or be terminated.”

According to Snow, he “began experiencing issues a little over two months” after receiving the vaccine. Due to a history of gastroenteritis, he underwent an endoscopy and an abdominal CT scan.

The results of the endoscopy were normal and Snow was awaiting the results of the CT scan when he suffered cardiac arrest on April 9, immediately after landing at Dallas-Forth Worth International Airport.

As Snow described it:

“I was very lucky to have collapsed when and where I did, as the aircraft was shut down at the gate post-flight and care was immediately provided.

“There was absolutely no warning preceding my collapse in the cockpit. It was literally as if someone ‘pulled the plug.’”

After receiving CPR and AED (automated external defibrillator) shocks to be revived, Snow spent almost a week in the hospital, where he was diagnosed with having sustained sudden cardiac arrest (SCA).

Medical studies indicate survival rates for out-of-hospital SCA cases are estimated at 10.8% to 11.4%.

Snow said:

“Needless to say, that’s not an encouraging number and I feel very, very lucky to have survived.

“Had this happened in a hotel, in flight, at home or almost anywhere else, I do not believe I would be here right now.”

Snow said prior to this incident, he had “no history of prior significant cardiac issues,” based on two EKGs (electrocardiograms) per year for each of the previous 10 years — none of which, according to Snow, “provided any indication of incipient issues that might lead to cardiac arrest.”

“I have no known family history to indicate a predisposition to developing significant cardiac issues at this point in my life,” Snow added.

Snow has been recuperating at home since April 15, while awaiting more tests that will provide a prognosis for his long-term survival.

However, it is likely that he will never fly again in any capacity.

Snow said, “[f]or now, it appears my flying career — indeed, likely all flying as a pilot —  has come to a rapid and unexpected conclusion as SCA is a red flag to FAA medical certification.”

This, according to Snow, has resulted “in a significant loss of income and lifestyle,” adding that he has a college student and high school student at home and a non-working spouse who relied on his livelihood.

‘Last thing I remember is . . . praying I would make it’

Like Snow, Cody Flint had no prior medical history to indicate he was at risk.

“I have been extremely healthy my whole life with no underlying conditions,” said Flint, adding:

“As a pilot that held a second-class medical [certification], I was required to get a yearly FAA flight physical to show I was healthy enough to safely operate an airplane.

“I have renewed my medical every year since I was 17. The last FAA medical I received was on January 19, 2021. The medical showed I was perfectly healthy just 10 days before receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.”

Flint got his first (and only) dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine on Feb. 1, 2021. He told The Defender:

“Within 30 minutes, I developed a severe burning headache at the base of my skull and blurred vision. After a few hours, the pain was constant, but didn’t seem to be getting worse. I thought the pain would go away, eventually. It did not.”

Two days later began his seasonal job as an agricultural pilot, which typically runs from February to October of each year, Flint said.

He said:

“Approximately one hour into my flight, I felt my condition starting to rapidly decline and I was developing severe tunnel vision. I pulled my airplane up to turn around to head home and immediately felt an extreme burst of pressure in my skull and ears.”

Flint initially considered landing on a nearby highway, unsure he’d make it back to the airstrip, but chose not to so as not to put the public in danger.

Instead, according to Flint:

“The last thing I remember is seeing our airstrip from a few miles out and praying I would make it.

“Later, my coworkers told me I landed and immediately stopped my plane. They described me as being unresponsive, shaking and slumped over in my seat … I do not remember landing or being pulled from the plane.”

Flint said various doctors, including his longtime hometown doctor, refused to consider that his recent COVID-19 vaccination caused his symptoms. Instead, he was prescribed Meclizine for vertigo and Xanax for panic attacks.

According to Flint, doctors told him he would be “completely better within two days.” But two days later, Flint “could barely walk without falling over.”

Seeking a second opinion, Flint visited the Ear & Balance Institute in Louisiana, where he was diagnosed with left and right perilymphatic fistulas (a lesion in the inner ear), and highly elevated intracranial pressure due to swelling in his brainstem.

As Flint described it,

“[m]y intracranial pressure had risen so high that it caused both of my inner ears to ‘blow out.’” Doctors told him this is usually caused by major head trauma.

“Obviously, I did not have head trauma,” said Flint. “What I did have, though, was an unapproved and experimental ‘vaccine’ just two days prior to suffering this bodily damage.”

“My doctors [at the Ear & Balance Institute] clearly stated my health issues were a direct result of a severe adverse reaction to the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine,” he added.

Flint says he now cannot receive renewed medical certification from the FAA due to the injuries he sustained, the physical condition he is currently in and “the fact that I will be on the FAA-unapproved medicine Diamox for the foreseeable future.”

Like Snow, Flint believes “it is … highly unlikely that I’ll ever be able to fly again,” adding, “On most days, I am too dizzy to even safely drive a vehicle.”

Greg Pierson, like Snow and Flint, shared a similar story. A commercial pilot with a major U.S. airline that is also a federal contractor, he was mandated to get vaccinated.

Pierson told The Defender:

“I felt extremely pressured to consider getting vaccinated, even though I am adamant against any mandates that violate personal freedom choices.

“I did research and consulted several medical professionals regarding the associated risks.

“I have never had a flu shot in my lifetime, so this was not something I wanted to do. I reluctantly received the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine on August 26, 2021.”

For Pierson, the onset of symptoms was almost immediate, beginning “approximately 14 hours” after receiving the vaccine, when he experienced “an extremely erratic and highly elevated heart rate.”

Pierson visited a local emergency room, where he was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. His condition was stabilized and he was soon discharged, though he remained on medication to help his heart return to a normal rhythm.

While Pierson says he has not experienced any further episodes, he nevertheless still has not been cleared to return to the cockpit.

“I successfully passed all the required protocols to re-obtain my certification that will allow me to return to work,” he said, adding the FAA has had his records and test results since Feb. 16, but he still hasn’t received a determination.

“I have been on disability since this occurrence, and combined with the leave, the personal and financial impacts have been significant,” Pierson said.

Pierson also described a similar experience to that of Flint, regarding the attitudes of some medical professionals regarding the possibility that his condition was brought on by the COVID-19 vaccine.

“When I brought the subject up to the ER cardiologist, that it was obvious what triggered my onset, she simply stated ‘s*it happens,’” Pierson said.

Widow describes husband’s last days

Snow, Flint and Pierson are fortunate in that they have managed to survive, even if their flying careers are in jeopardy.

But other pilots have not been so lucky.

American Airlines pilot Wilburn Wolfe suffered a major seizure following his COVID-19 vaccination, which cost him his life. Fortunately, Wolfe was not on duty when his seizure hit.

Claudia Wolfe, his widow, shared her late husband’s story with The Defender.

Wolfe, a former Marine just a few years from retirement, “was definitely against getting this vaccine but was put in the position to take it or lose his job as a captain,” Claudia Wolfe said.

He received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on Nov. 9, 2021.

Claudia Wolfe told The Defender:

“[The] first 10 days were without any event … [on] day 11, it started with a migraine-like headache which got better that afternoon after taking a couple of aspirin.

“Unfortunately, the migraine came back and he was hoping that it’s nothing else but a migraine.

“On November 22, 13 days after the COVID vaccine, he had a seizure. When paramedics arrived and my husband came out of the seizure, he was paralyzed on his right side, arm and leg, and was taken to the emergency room.”

At the emergency room, a CT scan showed he was experiencing brain bleeding, and he was admitted into intensive care. There, according to Claudia Wolfe, “he continued to have convulsions on his right hand … shortly after he was admitted, he had another seizure and doctors decided to sedate him and put him on a ventilator.”

“That was the last time I talked to my husband, before the seizure in the ICU,” Claudia Wolfe said.

Wolfe never regained consciousness and died on Nov. 26, 2021 — only 17 days after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. Even if he had survived, he likely would not have been able to work as a pilot again.

As Claudia Wolfe explained:

“Doctors told me that he couldn’t work as a pilot anymore because he would have to be on seizure medication.

“But as the bleeding continued to spread I was told that he probably would not recognize me or his family and he probably would need a 24-hour facility to help him.

“This man was so strong and never needed a doctor, he was never sick enough to need one, and [he] just had a physical a couple months prior for his job as a pilot.”

Pilots describe culture of fear and reluctance to come forward

Pilots who spoke to The Defender described a culture of intimidation that has led to many of their colleagues fearing professional or personal consequences if they speak publicly about injuries following COVID-19 vaccination.

According to Yoder, “Many pilots and other airline employees capitulated to the tactics of threats, harassment and intimidation perpetrated by the very companies they serve.”

Yoder described airlines, as well as aviation industry unions, as “state actors” illegally “working in lockstep with the U.S. government” to “enforce unconstitutional mandates via a culture of fear.”

Snow told The Defender several of his colleagues shared stories of vaccine injuries with him:

“Since my SCA I have heard from several other airline personnel regarding potential vaccine injuries up to and including cardiac issues (chest pain and myocarditis).

“Many crewmembers are very reluctant to divulge potential significant health issues for fear of losing their FAA medical certification and, potentially, their careers.”

According to Snow, such fear exists “due to both concern for one’s career and also the fear of being portrayed as a vaccine skeptic.”

“There seems to be genuine reluctance on the part of corporations, businesses, government and the medical community in general to acknowledge the potential for COVID vaccine injury,” Snow said.

Claudia Wolfe also shared her experience, stating that following her husband’s death, she learned “of others that died after the COVID vaccine,” adding that “not many talk about it or believe this vaccine can harm or kill you.”

Pierson also expressed concerns, telling The Defender, “Some things I have stated publicly could have consequences in this regard.”

This culture of intimidation appears to extend beyond just accusations of being a “vaccine skeptic.”

Steele described incidents of airline employees’ non-work and online activities seemingly being monitored by their employers, who are then using this as a justification to question or harass those employees.

“I believe the airlines have people on staff that must be trolling the social media of employees and when they find a conservative, or someone they believe to be, they attack,” Steele said.

Steele said female employees appear to be particular targets of the airlines, as they “appear to be isolated and intimidated for hours on end.”

Flint connected incidents such as those described above to political interests, telling The Defender the FAA approved COVID-19 vaccines for pilots just two days after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued its first Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for such vaccines, on Dec. 10, 2020.

“I thought to myself, how could the FAA analyze the data and determine it was safe for pilots in just two days, when it took the FDA months to go over the trial data?” Flint said.

Flint said that was an especially jarring development, in light of the increased risk that pilots and cabin crew face:

“I was also extremely curious to know how the FAA is so certain that this vaccine will be safe for pilots when it’s obvious that Pfizer did not do a trial solely on pilots to find out if it would cause some of the serious health problems that immediately started to show up once the mass vaccination campaign [began].”

In the process, Flint stated, the FAA violated its own regulations.

Under the Guide for Aviation Medical Examiners: Pharmaceuticals (Therapeutic Medications) Do Not Issue – Do Not Fly, the FAA has a long-standing rule that states:

“FAA requires at least one year of post-marketing experience with a new drug before consideration for aeromedical certification purposes. This observation allows time for uncommon, but aeromedically significant, adverse reactions to manifest themselves.”

Flint said it “became painfully obvious” the FAA issued this guidance based not on science or safety, but political reasons.

“Why did the FAA abandon its own rules by encouraging pilots to take a brand-new experimental drug?” Flint asked. “This action by the FAA was totally unprecedented and extremely dangerous.”

Providing an example of such danger, Flint said, “it is now widely reported that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines can cause blood clots,” adding that several peer-reviewed studies going back more than a decade “show pilots are approximately 60% more likely to experience blood clots due to the ‘nature of the job.’”

Supporting this assertion, on May 5, the FDA announced that it would restrict who could receive doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, due to the risk of blood clots.

Pierson also believes politics are at play in the medical community, telling The Defender even his longtime doctor told the FAA, in paperwork aimed at restoring Pierson’s suspended medical certification, that “it is impossible for the vaccine to have caused” his condition, though “he could not provide any explanation for an alternative hypothesis” — a stance Pierson characterized as “medical malpractice.”

Such politics are also found in professional organizations within the aviation industry, according to Pierson, who described his experience with one such entity:

“I approached the medical division of ALPA, the Air Line Pilots Association, to which I am a member, and presented them with data to substantiate my concerns.

“It was initially seemingly a concerned, open dialogue, which quickly was dismissed at the highest levels.”

Legal actions to follow against the FAA, federal agencies, airlines

The USFF, according to Yoder, is currently pursuing several legal actions related to the vaccine injuries that pilots and air staff are increasingly reporting.

He told The Defender:

“The U.S. Freedom Flyers have always taken a strong stance against the threats of government and corporate totalitarianism.

“We are filing massive, individual plaintiff lawsuits against the FAA, DOT [U.S. Department of Transportation] and commercial airlines to hold them accountable for the criminal and civil atrocities they’ve committed against our members.

“We will not rest until justice is served and constitutional American freedom is restored.”

Steele added:

“We are teeing up lawsuits for all the major airlines, with thousands of potential plaintiffs on our plaintiff lists.

“We also are going to be holding the FAA and the [U.S. Department of Transportation] accountable for their part in this atrocity.”

Steele said USFF “will be seeking retribution and restitution for these crimes against humanity,” mirroring remarks made by Pierson, who described the actions taken in the name of the pandemic as “nothing short of the highest crimes against humanity ever.”

According to Steele, unions are, in part, responsible for the injuries being sustained by pilots and other employees, as a result of their acceptance of vaccine mandates.

“Unfortunately the unions — from all industries — have let their members down,” Steele told The Defender. “They simply are rolling over and are in bed with the state and the corporations.”

Flint, in turn, assigned a significant amount of blame to the federal agencies:

“The FAA has failed at its duties in the most spectacular fashion, causing pilots to lose their lives, livelihoods and careers.

“The federal government, including the FAA, has not helped one single person injured by the COVID-19 vaccine.

“They [the federal agencies] have not publicly acknowledged there is a problem. They haven’t even so much as adjusted their ‘guidance’ to prevent this from happening in the future.”

Are passengers at risk from pilot vaccine mandates?

When Snow suffered cardiac arrest, it occurred only a few minutes after he had landed a commercial airliner, full of passengers, at one of the most heavily trafficked airports in the U.S.

This begs the question: Are passengers — and the public at large — at risk due to potential adverse effects that may impact vaccinated pilots during flight?

According to Pierson, there is indeed a risk of a “catastrophic” incident:

“I became an outspoken critic of the vaccines after my injury, and due to becoming much more knowledgeable of all the potential health and safety risks from the vaccines.

“It became very clear to me that the implications of having an immediate, severe adverse reaction could be catastrophic if actively piloting an aircraft.”

Flint believes such a disaster may be an inevitability.

“It is only a matter of time before a pilot has a medically significant event from an adverse reaction to this [COVID-19] vaccine and crashes an airliner, killing a few hundred American citizens in the process.”

He added:

“When will the FAA finally do the right thing by trying to adhere to its own mission statement, which is ‘to provide the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world’?

“How many more pilots have to die or be severely injured before the FAA acknowledges the horrible and dangerous problem it has created?”

In addition to the risk of a disaster involving casualties among passengers and the general public, the difficulties that pilots are experiencing as a result of vaccine-related adverse reactions are creating other disruptions for the airline industry and the flying public, such as flight cancellations and delays.

Yoder described this as a “ripple effect”:

“Vaccine mandates are having a ripple effect in the aviation industry that will continue for years to come.

“Pilot shortages were a concern pre-mandate, [and] have now been amplified due to early retirements and medical disqualification due to certain adverse vaccine reactions which prohibit pilots from maintaining medical certification.”

Pilots, advocates describe importance of speaking out

The pilots, legal professionals and advocates who spoke to The Defender all expressed their hope that by speaking out and sharing their stories and experiences, they will make a difference.

Snow said:

“I hope to shine the spotlight on the potential for significant safety issues that exist within the airlines, commercial vehicles/transportation, and other safety-sensitive work that might be affected by [the] sudden onset of health issues that could be attributed to the COVID vaccines.

“It is in our collective best interest that real research and data analysis be undertaken to address this potentially dangerous situation.

“Why is there such a reluctance to investigate these EUA COVID vaccines which are still being aggressively marketed to, if not outright forced upon, the global public?”

Snow went on to discuss the history of unsafe drugs and therapies that had initially received FDA approval and the importance of “clinical and scientific studies to evaluate the possibility of injuries and deaths” instead of “parroting the marketing mantra ‘safe and effective.’”

Flint described the FAA’s handling of the issue as “one of the most glaring instances of incompetence and corruption I have ever witnessed,” adding that “the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine has taken nearly everything from myself and my family … my health and my career have been taken from me.”

He added that due to his inability to fly, he is facing mounting debt and unpaid taxes, with an income “20% of what it was before vaccination.”

Steele, who also organized the People’s Convoy, expressed her view that “[t]he only way to push back on the government and corporate overstep is demanding accountability … to hold these policymakers unequivocally accountable.”

She specifically referenced the importance of pursuing legal claims, telling The Defender:

“The only way to ensure it never happens again is to hit them in the pocketbook … In doing so, the awarded damages will also assist the victims of these policies that have been so grievously harmed.”

Yoder described the resistance he has observed to such private and government mandates, saying that “Americans have rallied in defiance to the totalitarian dictators dubbed ‘government,’” adding that “American patriots will never succumb to totalitarianism.”

Steele drew upon her experience with the People’s Convoy to share her own observation of wide public opposition to such mandates, while expressing a message of hope:

“My greatest takeaway and the most refreshing finding on the Convoy was that patriotism is alive and well in our great country.

“The American people have had it with the nonsense with the overstepping, with the ‘PC police,’ the degrading of morality in our country. They are simply over it and looking for actionable items that they can do.

“They want to see accountability. They want to see our country restored … It is important for people to know they are absolutely not alone. In fact, we are the majority.”

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Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., is an independent journalist and researcher based in Athens, Greece.

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Lawmakers are betting $45 million that a nuclear war does not automatically mean the end of the world.

Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) recently added an amendment to the House version of the Fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act that would provide $45 million for the Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile, even though President Joe Biden’s administration has indicated it wants to stop the program.

Defense officials have not said publicly how powerful the Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile is, but Pentagon spokesman Oscar Seára described it as a “low-yield weapon.”

The missile would give the U.S. military a relatively small nuclear weapon that is meant to deter Russia and China from using their own low-yield nuclear weapons because they assume the United States would not respond with far more powerful strategic weapons.

“Expanding flexible U.S. nuclear options now, to include low-yield options, is important for the preservation of credible deterrence against regional aggression,” according to the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review. “It will raise the nuclear threshold and help ensure that potential adversaries perceive no possible advantage in limited nuclear escalation, making nuclear employment less likely.”

The Biden administration continues to stand by its decision to cancel the  Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile in the proposed Defense Department budget for fiscal 2023, a National Security Council spokesman said. That decision was based on the findings of the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review –  which the Pentagon completed earlier this year but has not yet released an unclassified version of the review – as well as an interagency process led by the Defense Department.

It is too early to tell whether funding for the missile will be included in the final version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which will likely be negotiated by lawmakers at a conference committee much later this year. Even if the $45 million is included in the final law, the House Appropriations Committee did not include any money for the missile in its version of the defense appropriations bill, which funds the U.S. military.

Still, the fact that money for the missile was included in the House version of the latest defense policy bill shows that several lawmakers believe the United States needs to be prepared to fight a limited nuclear war. Once you accept that there is such a thing as a “limited nuclear war,” it’s not much of a logical leap to assume it is possible for the United States to escape mutually assured destruction by limiting a nuclear exchange with Russia or China to low-yield weapons.

However, the purpose of having the Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile in the U.S. military’s arsenal is to deter adversaries from launching nuclear attacks rather than making it easier to wage limited nuclear conflicts, said retired Navy Rear Adm. Vic G. Mercado, who served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities from July 2019 to January 2021.

“To me, it is all about deterrence,” Mercado told Task & Purpose. “We need some capacity to be able to fill a deterrence gap. If we leave the gap, then we are at risk.”

The Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile is meant to fill that gap by providing the U.S. military with the types of weapons that Russia already has, he said.

“If deterrence has failed and they decide to use a low-yield weapon, then what’s our option: Accept it or go high,” Mercado said. “But you want to deter that in the future, and how can you deter that if you don’t have that option?”

Moreover, experts continue to debate whether the United States would launch a full-scale retaliation against any sort of nuclear attack, even those involving low-yield weapons, he said.

“If you were the decision-maker and the president and somebody pops an EMP [electromagnetic pulse] – a low-yield EMP, or something – then would you nuke an entire country?” Mercado said.

When discussing any gaps in the U.S. government’s deterrence posture, however, it is worth remembering the United States consistently overestimated the Soviet Union’s nuclear capabilities during the first decades of the Cold War. In the 1950s, the U.S. government feared the Soviets had more bombers than the Air Force, but the “bomber gap” turned out to be nonexistent. Beginning in 1958, future President John F. Kennedy argued that the Soviets had more nuclear missiles than the United States, but the “missile gap” also turned out to be a fantasy. The movie Dr. Strangelove famously parodied this type of thinking in a scene in which military advisers were discussing the need for underground fallout shelters ahead of a nuclear apocalypse and an Air Force general decried, “Mr. President, we must not allow a mineshaft gap!”

Then there’s the question of exactly how much deterrence value the Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile actually has.

“Critics have argued that the capabilities highlighted by advocates of SLCM-N deployment — regional presence, lower yield, and discriminate attack options — would lower the threshold for nuclear use and increase the likelihood of nuclear war,” according to an April report from the Congressional Research Service. “They argue that by adding those capabilities to its nuclear force posture, the United States would be adopting a war-fighting posture rather than pursuing a doctrine based on deterrence.”

The Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile may also prove to be redundant because the Air Force is developing the Long-Range Standoff Weapon, which could be capable of carrying warheads with yields ranging from five to 150 kilotons, said Hans M. Kristensen, of the Federation of American Scientists, a non-profit group that seeks to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world.

It is likely that the Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile would be equipped with warheads that would deliver similar yields that could be programmed to explode both in the air and on the ground, Kristensen told Task & Purpose.

As for the notion that nuclear war could be limited to low-yield weapons, Kristensen called the idea a “dangerous illusion.”

“There is no reason to believe that either side would back down after a few detonations but that all would escalate and seek to defeat the other side and win,” Kristensen said. “Limited scenarios are created by warfighters as tactical means of achieving certain war objectives but are over-sold by theorists and advocates who try to make nuclear weapons sound more acceptable.”

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Jeff Schogol is the senior Pentagon reporter for Task & Purpose. He has covered the military for 15 years. You can email him at [email protected], direct message @JeffSchogol on Twitter, or reach him on WhatsApp and Signal at 703-909-6488. Contact the author here.

Featured image: Photo illustration by Paul Szoldra/Task & Purpose.

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

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

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

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

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

Reviews

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

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

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

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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***

The Environmental Protection Agency released final biological evaluations today confirming that three widely used neonicotinoid insecticides likely harm roughly three-fourths of all endangered plants and animals, including all 39 species of amphibians protected under the Endangered Species Act.

The EPA’s assessments of clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam marked the first time the agency has completed biological evaluations of any neonicotinoids’ harms to the nation’s most imperiled plants and animals. Species found to be harmed by all three of the neonicotinoids include rusty patched bumblebees, whooping cranes, chinook salmon, northern long-eared bats and orcas.

“These deeply troubling findings leave no doubt that these dangerous pesticides are silencing the songs of frogs, the flutter of butterfly wings and the buzz of bees,” said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Many of the species harmed by neonicotinoids are experiencing precipitous declines, and this EPA’s choices may well determine whether or not they go extinct.”

Neonicotinoids, which are banned in the European Union, are the most popular insecticides in the United States. Hundreds of studies have shown they play a major role in population-level declines of bees, birds, butterflies and freshwater invertebrates. More recent studies are showing they cause significant harm to mammals as well.

The biological evaluations released today found that 67% of all endangered species — 1,225 different plants and animal species — are likely to be adversely affected by clothianidin and that the pesticide will likely adversely modify the designated critical habitats of 446 species.

For imidacloprid, 1,445 species, or 79% of all endangered plants and animals, are likely to be adversely affected. The pesticide will likely adversely modify the designated critical habitats of 658 endangered species.

Thiamethoxam was found to likely adversely affect1,396 species, or 77% of all endangered species. The pesticide will likely adversely modify the designated critical habitats of 644 species.

“We’re in the midst of a heartbreaking extinction crisis and neonicotinoids are playing an outsized role in driving it,” said Burd. “Now that the EPA has completed its analysis, the only question is whether it will muster the courage to stand up to Big Ag and ban these chemicals or will choose to facilitate extinction.”

Pollinator populations are declining nationwide. The American bumblebee, once the most common bumblebee species in the United States, has declined by an estimated 89% in just the past 20 years. The Center has petitioned for Endangered Species Act protection for the American bumblebee.

Neonicotinoids are used on hundreds of millions of acres of agricultural lands across the country. They can be directly sprayed or injected and are commonly used as coatings on seeds such as corn and soy, which are planted on hundreds of millions of acres each year.

The insecticides are “systemic,” meaning they are absorbed by plants, making the entire plant deadly toxic, including its nectar, pollen and fruit. Neonicotinoids are also highly persistent and can linger in soil for years, causing long-term harm.

Imidacloprid is also one of the two active ingredients in Seresto flea collars, which have been linked to the deaths of more than 2,500 family pets. A scathing report released Wednesday by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, chastises the EPA for ignoring evidence of the collar’s harm, and called for the agency to ban the pesticide-impregnated collar. Last year the EPA announced the Seresto collar was under consideration for cancellation following a petition from the Center.

Authors of a major scientific review of the catastrophic decline of insects have said that a “serious reduction in pesticide usage” is key to preventing the extinction of up to 41% of the world’s insects in the next few decades.

For decades the EPA has steadfastly refused to comply with its obligations under the Endangered Species Act to assess pesticides’ harms to protected species. The agency was finally forced to do these evaluation under the terms of legal agreements with the Center for Food Safety and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

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Featured image: California red-legged frog/Gary M. Fellers/USGS

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***

A common thread in postwar histories of WW2 was one that liked to paint Adolf Hitler as increasingly unhinged and detached from reality towards the end of the Third Reich. We were told stories of how he liked to indulge himself in flights of fancy, surveying architectural models of a new Berlin, one that was to be built after Germany won the war, despite the Allies already closing in on both sides. Delusions of future grandeur, while everything was collapsing all around him. A case of “cope”?

The feel of omnipotence after a string of great successes can often lead one to think of themselves as permanent victors, incapable of defeat. This enters the realm of delusion when the facts on the ground run counter to the perception of victory. This is the real estate currently occupied by a large segment of the US foreign policy community.

Yesterday, I was alerted to this “online briefing” that is taking place tomorrow:

Yes, you read that right: a discussion on the “need” to partition Russia for “moral and strategic” reasons.

Who is the Committee on Security and Cooperation in Europe, you ask?

The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the U.S. Helsinki Commission, is an independent commission of the U.S. Federal Government. For over 45 years, the Commission has monitored compliance with the Helsinki Accords and advanced comprehensive security through promotion of human rights, democracy, and economic, environmental, and military cooperation in the 57-nation OSCE region.

In short: it’s another of the zillions of committees run and financed by the US Government. The US Government held a panel earlier today on the “need” to partition Russia. Let that sink in for a bit.

This panel is being led by four women and one man, all of whom have cycled through the NGO Regime Change Complex, whether it be the International Crisis Group, Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, the German Marshall Fund, the Soros Foundation, and so on. There are too many groups in total that they have collectively worked for to list, so we won’t do that. Instead, here are their names and bios:

• Fatima Tlis(ova) – Fellow at National Endowment for Democracy (regime change central)
• Botakoz Kassymbekova – Oxus Society, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of History and Social Sciences at the John Moores Liverpool University
• Erica Marat – National Defense University (USA)
• Hanna Hopko – Chair, Democracy in Action Conference
• Casey Michel – Hudson Institute

These are your typical “analysts” who profit of the misery of those targeted by the USA for regime change. Their views always match up with the policies of the US State Department, regardless of how they couch their words. Pure coincidence, of course.

The Shift in Terms

Assange Put on Suicide Watch After Patel Decision, Father Says

By Joe Lauria, June 27, 2022

After British Home Secretary Priti Patel signed Julian Assange’s extradition order on Friday the authorities in Belmarsh prison stripped Julian Assange and threw him into a completely empty cell in an attempt to prevent his suicide, Assange’s father has said.

Guantanamo: Afghan National Released After 15 Years in Detention Without Charge

By Middle East Eye, June 27, 2022

An Afghan prisoner who was held in US custody for nearly 15 years without charge was released from the Guantanamo Bay detention centre on Friday and returned to his home country of Afghanistan.

The Brutality of “Bulldozer Justice” in India

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, June 27, 2022

It looks all too eerily similar as a method: the expulsion of individuals from their home, the demolition of said home and the punishing of entire families.  All excused by a harsh reading of local regulations.  But this method, used by Israeli authorities for years against vulnerable Palestinians, has become a weapon of choice for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Governance ‘E.S.G.’ Agenda: The Threat to Liberty You Haven’t Heard Of

By Tommy Salmons, June 26, 2022

In March of 2020 COVID-19 spread to the shores of the United States, introducing a medical threat that had all the signs of devastating families from sea to shining sea. But in the shadows, slipping in under the veil of a potentially deadly pandemic, another threat loomed. This threat, known as ESG, was not airborne or viral in the traditional sense. This threat was birthed in the imaginations of banks, corporations, and governments, and much like COVID, this threat is going to alter the life of millions of people worldwide.

Summer Preview: Rolling Blackouts, Higher Gas Prices, Natural Gas Rationing in Europe and a Historic Diesel Crisis

By Michael Snyder, June 26, 2022

For quite some time, the amount of oil that is being produced around the world each day has been lower than the amount of oil that is being used around the world each day, and as a result supplies have been getting tighter and tighter…

The US Government’s Plan to Partition Russia Into Small States. The Danger of A Broader War

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, June 26, 2022

Not only is the US going to bust up Russia into small states, but also, according to the US National Security Council, “Zelensky is going to get to determine what victory looks like” and to determine “when the conditions are met to build peace.”

Brzezinski’s Proxy War Playbook: “Regime Change in Moscow”

By Patrick MacFarlane, June 26, 2022

In 1998, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski told Le Nouvel Observateur that the CIA “knowingly increased the probability” that the Russians would invade Afghanistan by covertly supporting the Mujahideen before the Soviet invasion.

Syria Repairs Relationship with Arab Countries. Geopolitical Implications

By Steven Sahiounie, June 26, 2022

The leader of the group Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, recently stated that the dispute with Syria is over, and the relationship between Hamas and Damascus is starting a new phase.  He praised Syria for its unwavering support of the Palestinian resistance cause.

29,031 Covid-19 Vaccine Deaths, 240,022 Serious Injuries Reported to VAERS, as CDC Admits Not Monitoring System for Safety Signals

By Megan Redshaw, June 26, 2022

The CDC’s vaccine advisory panel unanimously voted 15 to 0 to recommend two doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 6 through 17 years old. Members of the panel acknowledged there is a risk of heart inflammation associated with both mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, but they said a follow-up survey suggests most fully recover.

Southern Ukraine is the Priority in NATO’s Planning. Snake Island in the Black Sea

By M. K. Bhadrakumar, June 25, 2022

On the night of February 24, when Russian forces crossed the western and northern borders of Ukraine, the world’s attention was riveted on the fate of Kiev. Hardly anyone paid attention to the far south in the Black Sea, some 140 kms from Odessa, when Russian Navy attacked that night and captured the entire Ukrainian garrison on Snake Island, an obscure small clump of rock with little obvious value, just 46 acres of rock and grass. 

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***

After British Home Secretary Priti Patel signed Julian Assange’s extradition order on Friday the authorities in Belmarsh prison stripped Julian Assange and threw him into a completely empty cell in an attempt to prevent his suicide, Assange’s father has said. 

It was just one more instance in which the prison humiliated his son, Shipton told a rally on Tuesday night at the offices of the junge Welt newspaper in Berlin. About 300 people attended, with an overflow crowd watching on close circuit TV in the courtyard.

“The ceaseless malice that has descended upon Julian,  a deluge of malice, the strip-searching of Julian … this is the latest humiliation,” Shipton said. “The staff of the jail, their concern after hearing he has to be extradited to the United States, thought he may commit suicide. Their solution was to strip him naked, and put him in a bare cell.”

Testimony was heard from expert defense witnesses during Assange’s extradition hearing that he might try to end his life in prison once he learned he was going to the United States.

It is not the end of the road for Assange legally, however. His lawyers have until July 1 to file for an appeal of Patel’s decision to the High Court. They also intend to apply for a cross appeal of issues such as the political nature of the charges, the threat to free speech and the reported C.I.A. plot to kidnap or kill Assange before his arrest.

Shipton and Gabriel Shipton, Assange’s brother, are in Berlin to lobby the German government to put pressure on the United States to drop the case against Assange.

On Monday, the Shiptons met with Tobias Lindner, the minister of state, at the German foreign ministry.

“It was a practical and appropriate step for Tobias to take, to welcome Julian Assange’s father and bother into the foreign ministry,” John Shipton said. “The invitation in itself and the meeting in the foreign ministry indicates that the German government is sincere in bringing about the freedom of Julian Assange.”

But Shipton said he would like to hear a public statement from Germany in support of his son. “We’d like Tobias to confirm what he’s said.”

A German government spokesman on Monday said however that Germany was unlikely to intervene with either the U.K. or the U.S. “This is a legal process that is already in motion, so I would be a little wary of political intervention,” he said, the French Press Agency (AFP) reported.

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Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and numerous other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times.  He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @unjoe  

Featured image: John and Gabriel Shipton at Berlin rally. (Joe Lauria)

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***

An Afghan prisoner who was held in US custody for nearly 15 years without charge was released from the Guantanamo Bay detention centre on Friday and returned to his home country of Afghanistan.

Assadullah Haroon Gul, held at Guantanamo under the name Haroon al-Afghani, departed the prison and flew on a US Air Force plane to Qatar, which for years has served as an interlocutor between the Taliban and the US.

Qatari officials then handed him over to Taliban government representatives in Doha, a senior US official told The New York Times.

Soon after this, Afghan government media released photos of Gul meeting with Taliban officials in Qatar.

As a result of IEA’s efforts, today, we are witnessing the release of Assadullah Haroon from Guantanamo prison and his reunion with his family years later. We would also like to thank our brother country Qatar for paving the
ground in this regard. 4/4

Zabihullah Mujahid pic.twitter.com/fSWmhwVTtD

— Zabihullah (..ذبـــــیح الله م ) (@Zabehulah_M33) June 24, 2022

Gul’s release was also announced by Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban-appointed deputy culture and information minister, who wrote on Twitter that Gul was one of the last two Afghan prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.

Gul was sent to Guantanamo in 2007, after the US accused him of being a member of Hezb-e-Islami (HIA), a militia that fought against the allied invasion of Afghanistan. HIA entered into a peace agreement with the then-US-backed Afghan government in 2016.

Following a decision to clear him for transfer out of the prison, a federal court ruled last October that his continued detention at Guantanamo was unlawful, the first time a Guantanamo detainee’s imprisonment has been ruled as such in a decade. The US on Friday complied with the court order, allowing his release.

“After 15 years imprisoned without charge or trial and after a Federal judge declared his detention illegal, Asad is finally free,” Mark Maher, Gul’s lawyer with the organisation Reprieve, said in a statement.

“Asad missed his daughter’s entire childhood and he will never get back what has been taken from him, but he is now at least able to rebuild his life with his family, who have waited so long to see him.

Gul’s departure from the prison leaves it with a population of 36 detainees, 19 of whom have been recommended for transfer but are waiting to be released.

“The Biden administration needs to take more urgent actions to actually put an end to this extralegal and abhorrent prison and system,” Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, said in a statement welcoming Gul’s release.

The Biden administration has stated it intends to close the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, but it continues to remain open more than two decades after it was created.

Earlier this month, Majid Khan, who completed a 10-year-sentence at the notorious detention centre, filed a federal suit against the US for keeping him in custody months after his scheduled release.

Middle East Eye reported earlier this week that at least four detainees had tested positive for Covid-19, creating concerns about the safety of the lives of Guantanamo’s ageing population.

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First published on June 21, 2022

***

In March of 2020 COVID-19 spread to the shores of the United States, introducing a medical threat that had all the signs of devastating families from sea to shining sea. But in the shadows, slipping in under the veil of a potentially deadly pandemic, another threat loomed. This threat, known as ESG, was not airborne or viral in the traditional sense. This threat was birthed in the imaginations of banks, corporations, and governments, and much like COVID, this threat is going to alter the life of millions of people worldwide.

ESG is an acronym that stands for Environmental, Social (Justice), and (Corporate) Governance. The goal of ESG, as World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab stated in Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, is to utilize investors to move corporations into a more socially progressive direction; moving technologies and businesses away from the current models of doing business to a new stakeholder method of business.

“Entrepreneurs and Investors are the vanguard when it comes to marrying a values-based approach to technological development…It makes sense that thinking about broader social impact at this stage would have significant cascading effects. Investors, on the other hand, have the carrot with which to direct the development of technologies…The values of entrepreneurs and organizational leaders have a tremendous influence on the workplace and how technologies are developed. Leading from the front can transform company culture and prioritize societal values.”

When Coca-Cola, Gillette, Disney, BP, and other multinational corporations act counter to good business practices to advance a political agenda antithetical to the beliefs of most of their consumer base it is an effort to improve the new value-based credit score known as ESG. As corporations respond to investors and the credit score used to determine societal value, they push agendas intended to move the Overton Window and cultural acceptance towards a more progressive agenda.

Proponents of ESG metrics utilize the famous libertarian mantra of private companies being able to do whatever they feel is best for their company and fiduciary responsibilities, but there’s nothing private about ESG.

In March of 2020 the SEC announced they would be forming an ESG Taskforce. The initiative has expanded to requiring publicly traded firms to make detailed disclosures on climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. As with all regulations ESG is being sold as serving the greater good at the cost of business, costing the consumer more money.

Proponents of ESG make a litany of arguments to justify their regulatory dreams:

1. “ESG is crucial because it offers a focused framework through which governments, businesses, and citizens can work consistently toward solving serious global challenges.”
2. “ESG, at its core, is a means by which companies can be evaluated with respect to a broad range of socially desirable ends.”
3. “ESG criteria can help investors avoid investment losses when companies engaged in risky or unethical practices are held accountable.”

But they will never address in any detail how ESG metrics will be utilized to make these changes to society. And if ESG is just a tool to help investors make decisions why is the SEC mandating ESG data disclosures? And who is considered an investor?

Chart published by the Ethics and Compliance Initiative

According to Investopedia an investor is any person or other entity who commits capital with the expectation of receiving financial returns. Unfortunately for 401k holders, Merrill Edge agrees. In 2018 Merrill Edge added ESG scores to their client’s dashboard, informing their customers whether or not they’re invested in reputationally hazardous companies.

401ks won’t be the only time average citizens find themselves in the crosshairs of ESG. After the trucker convoy in Canada earlier this year their government leveraged financial institutions to freeze the bank accounts of anyone involved in financing or participating in the protest in any capacity.

In 2021 Banks United closed Donald Trump’s accounts after he had left office.

Recently PayPal has cancelled the accounts of many people without explanation, and for further reference Justin Haskins has detailed several instances in which banks have cancelled or frozen bank accounts of politicians accused of wrong-think. Fitch Ratings released a white paper in 2021 detailing how they incorporate ESG to judge individual credit ratings. FICO also has determined that ESG will be taken into account when an individual applies for credit.

What factors could contribute to credit agencies giving you a low ESG score? Do you own a gas run vehicle rather than an electric vehicle? Do you own a firearm? Have you bought ammunition? Do you speak out about the injustices around the January 6 riot? Do you buy Bitcoin? Are you invested in an oil and gas company? Are you openly opposing the agenda to introduce children to the transgender lifestyle? Do you live in a red state? Do you grow your own food? What is your career?

All of these factors and more could lead to a situation where you find yourself being refused credit due to ESG.

As corporations, financial institutions, and governments around the world have introduced ESG standards many people and states have come out against ESG. Several of these states have introduced anti-ESG legislation to protect average Americans from these insane regulatory practices that are meant to advance an agenda.

In response, S&P Global has introduced a plan to track and maintain ESG scores for states. This will penalize states by strong-arming businesses into leaving states with bad ESG scores. If a corporation refuses to flee, they will be excluded from capital, loans, and resources. This will put an overwhelming burden on the people of the states that work for or depend on the corporations targeted.

And that is the plan.

In the past being business friendly—low taxes and minimal regulation—was a benefit to a state’s economy.

Under the rules of ESG the most regulatory happy state sets the rules for everyone.

If Hungary sets specific standards that are stricter than every other nation all corporations adhere to their standards, or they do not do business in Hungary. This may seem relatively unlikely, but in the world of virtue signaling this is how the dominoes fall. Hungary mandates stricter requirements than every other state, and, in an attempt to not be outdone by Hungary, other countries adopt similarly strict ESG requirements. A corporation may not be afraid of losing Hungarian business, but Hungarian, French, British, and Spanish business is a segment of the population worth concerning yourself with.

All hope is not lost. ESG is certainly an effective way for governments to control business and personal actions by weaponizing the financial industry, but as more people become aware of the evils of ESG, how it effects prices, the supply chain, jobs, and business they will become more and more outspoken about its consequences. Though the threat is global, the fight is local. Drawing attention to the ESG agenda is extremely important. The subject must be broached at the local levels of government. Legislation stopping the creep of regulatory capture and the discriminatory policies of multinational corporations must continue; all the while we should be actively seeking out startups and established corporations opposed to ESG before the war on our liberty is complete.

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Tommy Salmons is the host of Year Zero, a podcast focusing on government abuse of power.

Featured image is from TLI

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***

Almost everyone has heard about the rapidly growing global energy crisis by now, but most people assume that this crisis will eventually go away because they think that authorities have everything under control. 

Unfortunately, that is not true at all. 

This crisis has taken our leaders by surprise, and now many of them have shifted into panic mode because they realize that there will be no easy fixes. 

Decades of neglect and foolish decisions have brought us to the precipice of a nightmare, and many of us are going to be absolutely astonished by some of the things that happen in the months ahead.

Here in the United States, we have neglected to properly invest in our power grids for a very long time, and now they are at a breaking point.

We are being warned that there could be widespread “rolling blackouts” this summer, and the situation is particularly dire in Midwest states such as Michigan…

The Lansing Board of Water and Light, or BWL, warned in a press release on Tuesday that the company is preparing for potential ‘rolling black-outs’ this summer.

The Mid-Continent Independent System Operator, or MISO, is Michigan’s power grid regulator. MISO will have to ‘load-shed’ if they see expected energy shortages during peak usage times due to hot weather. Load-shedding is purposefully shutting down electric power in some areas of a power-distribution system to prevent the entire system from failing when it is strained by high demand.

Meanwhile, the price of gasoline is likely to continue to go up.

For quite some time, the amount of oil that is being produced around the world each day has been lower than the amount of oil that is being used around the world each day, and as a result supplies have been getting tighter and tighter…

Fast forward to today, and where are we? Intrinsic demand is thought to be around 103 million barrels a day now, owing to 1% per year global population growth, plus increased wealth–and demand should keep growing at roughly that pace. But supplies aren’t nearly keeping up. We’re currently producing around 100.6 million barrels (reflecting the loss of about a million barrels from Russia), and the resulting spike in prices is already constraining demand to around 101 million barrels, according to Majcher.

When demand is greater than supply, either prices go up or eventually you have shortages.

And sometimes both things happen.

Bank of America is telling us that oil inventories have reached a “dangerously low point”, and until that changes prices are likely to continue to rise…

The result is a market that for the second straight year is under-supplied, and drawing down inventories as a result–on top of the drawdown in strategic reserves approved by political leaders to try and lower prices. Bank of America is already warning that global oil inventories have fallen to a “dangerously low point,” with certain gasoline and diesel supplies in particular at “precarious levels” as we head into peak U.S. driving season. U.S. oil inventories are already 14% below their five-year average, BofA notes, while distillates (like diesel) are 22% below.

I wish that I could tell you that there is hope that things will turn around eventually.

But at this point the CEO of Exxon is actually warning us to expect “up to five years of turbulent oil markets”…

Consumers must be prepared to endure up to five years of turbulent oil markets, the head of ExxonMobil said Tuesday, citing under-investment and the coronavirus pandemic.

Energy markets have been roiled by the Ukraine war as Russia has reduced some exports and faced sanctions while Europe has announced plans to wean itself off dependency on Russian fossil fuels in coming years.

If you think that things are bad now, just wait until you see what happens after a major war erupts in the Middle East.

Then things will really start getting crazy.

Speaking of war, over in Europe a looming natural gas shortage due to the war in Ukraine is likely to cause immense economic problems in the months ahead.

Now that Russia has significantly reduced the flow of natural gas to Germany, it looks like the Germans will soon be forced to ration it, and the Wall Street Journal is telling us that authorities expect “a gas shortage by December”…

The German government moved closer to rationing natural gas on Thursday after Russia cut deliveries to the country last week in an escalation of the economic war triggered by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Berlin triggered the second of its three-step plan to deal with gas shortages after the Kremlin-controlled energy giant Gazprom, the country’s biggest gas exporter, throttled delivery via the Nordstream pipeline by around 60% last week. Germany’s gas reserves are at 58% capacity, and the government now expects a gas shortage by December if supplies don’t pick up, Economy Minister Robert Habeck said.

It would be difficult for me to overstate the seriousness of this problem.  Energy prices have already gone completely nuts in Europe, and one German official is actually comparing this crisis to the collapse of Lehman Brothers…

With energy suppliers piling up losses by being forced to cover volumes at high prices, there’s a danger of a spillover effect for local utilities and their customers, including consumers and businesses, Economy Minister Robert Habeck said Thursday after raising the country’s gas risk level to the second-highest “alarm” phase.

“If this minus gets so big that they can’t carry it anymore, the whole market is in danger of collapsing at some point,” Habeck said at a news conference in Berlin, “so a Lehman effect in the energy system.”

Needless to say, it isn’t just Germany that is being affected…

The crisis has spilled far beyond Germany, with 12 European Union member states affected and 10 issuing an early warning under gas security regulation, Frans Timmermans, the European Union’s climate chief, said in a speech to the European Parliament.

“The risk of a full gas disruption is now more real than ever before,” he said. “All this is part of Russia’s strategy to undermine our unity.”

If the war in Ukraine could be brought to a peaceful resolution, that would greatly help matters.

But we all know that isn’t going to happen any time soon.

On top of everything else, global supplies of diesel fuel get squeezed a little bit more with each passing day.  The price of diesel fuel is 75 percent higher than it was a year ago, and here in the United States we have been warned that the Northeast “is quietly running out of diesel”…

The upward pressure on diesel and jet fuel prices in particular is getting attention in the White House, Amrita Sen of Energy Aspects told Squawk Box yesterday. Diesel prices are up a whopping 75% from a year ago, and the spread between diesel and gasoline prices has also widened considerably. The high cost is creating huge strains on truckers and the supply chain; the Northeast “is quietly running out of diesel,” FreightWaves warned two weeks ago.

Even though there could be a historic supply crunch, we won’t completely run out of diesel fuel.

However, as I detailed in an article that has gone extremely viral, we are potentially facing really severe shortages of both diesel exhaust fluid and diesel engine oil if solutions cannot be found.

Urea is required to produce diesel exhaust fluid, and the U.S. doesn’t produce enough.  We are normally one of the largest importers of urea in the entire world, and Russia and China are two of the largest exporters.  Our leaders have decided that we don’t want urea from Russia, and China has restricted exports.

So that puts us in a really tough position.  If you have a diesel vehicle, I would highly recommend stocking up on diesel exhaust fluid while you still can.

As for diesel engine oil, there are several key additives that are in short supply right now due to major problems at several manufacturers.  An article that Mike Adams just posted goes into the details.  This is a very serious situation that is not going to be resolved any time in the near future.

The bottom line is that supplies of diesel fuel are going to get very tight, and there may be times when diesel exhaust fluid and diesel engine oil are not available at all.

All three are required in order for diesel vehicles to operate, and as I explained yesterday, the U.S. economy runs on diesel.

If we were suddenly unable to use our diesel vehicles, all of our supply chains would collapse and we would no longer have a functioning economy.

So hopefully our leaders are working really hard to find some solutions.

Because it looks like this summer could be quite difficult, and the outlook for the months beyond is even less promising.

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The United Nations (UN) has concluded that Israeli forces fired the fatal bullet that killed the Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the occupied West Bank last month, its findings showed on Friday. 

UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva that the organisation found that the shots that killed Abu Akleh came from Israeli forces.

“It is deeply disturbing that the Israeli authorities have not conducted a criminal investigation,” she said.

“We at the UN Human Rights Office have concluded our independent monitoring into the incident.

“All information we have gathered – including official information from the Israeli military and the Palestinian attorney-general – is consistent with the finding that the shots that killed Abu Akleh and injured her colleague Ali Sammoudi came from Israeli Security Forces and not from indiscriminate firing by armed Palestinians, as initially claimed by Israeli authorities.”

Multiple eyewitnesses, including Middle East Eye contributor Shatha Hanaysa, said the 51-year-old veteran Al Jazeera journalist was shot dead by Israeli snipers while reporting during a raid in the West Bank city of Jenin.

However, Israel quickly tried to suggest Palestinian gunmen were responsible, with both Israel’s military and its US embassy tweeting a video of Palestinian gunmen in Jenin firing down an alley.

‘Well-aimed bullets’

In response to the UN’s findings, Israel’s army said on Friday it was “not possible” to determine how Abu Akleh was killed.

“The IDF (Israeli army) investigation clearly concludes that Ms Abu Akleh was not intentionally shot by an IDF soldier and that it is not possible to determine whether she was killed by a Palestinian gunman shooting indiscriminately… or inadvertently by an IDF soldier.”

During the press conference, Shamdasani told reporters that the investigation examined multiple sources, including photos, videos, and audio material, visiting the scene, consulting experts, reviewing official communications and interviewing witnesses.

The findings showed that seven journalists arrived at the western entrance of the Jenin refugee camp soon after 6am.

At around 6.30 am, as four of the journalists turned into a particular street, when “several single, seemingly well-aimed bullets” were fired at them from the direction of the Israeli security forces, according to Shamdasani.

“One single bullet injured Ali Sammoudi in the shoulder, another single bullet hit Abu Akleh in the head and killed her instantly,” she said.

US senators call for investigation

UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet has urged Israel to open a criminal investigation into Abu Akleh’s killing and all other killings by Israeli forces in the West Bank and in the context of law enforcement operations in Gaza.

On Thursday, two dozen US senators called on President Joe Biden and the FBI to launch an “independent investigation under US auspices to determine the truth” about Abu Akleh’s death.

Led by Senator Chris Van Hollen, the letter read:

“the US government has an obligation to ensure that a comprehensive, impartial, and open investigation into her shooting death is conducted – on in which all parties can have full confidence in the ultimate findings.

“In order to protect freedom of the press, a thorough and transparent investigation under US auspices must be conducted to get to the truth and provide accountability for the killing of this American citizen and journalist.”

Several international news agencies that have looked into the shooting have also concluded that the fatal bullet was fired from Israeli forces.

While Al Jazeera has referred the case to the International Criminal Court and vowed to bring the killers to justice using international legal platforms, Israel has said it is not subject to the court’s mandate because it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, and that abuses in Palestinian territories cannot be investigated because Palestine is not a state.

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Jens Stoltenberg, Washington’s NATO puppet, says “peace negotiations,” not Russian victory, will end the conflict in Ukraine. So, Stoltenberg is counting on the Kremlin, whose leaders have said they will never again trust the West, to sit down again with the West and again agree to another worthless agreement. Considering the difficulty the Kremlin has in accepting reality, I suppose it is possible.

On the other hand, perhaps someone in the Kremlin has finally read the Wolfowitz Doctrine. If not, maybe someone in the Kremlin has seen the US Government’s Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe’s plan to break Russia up into a collection of independent small states. See this.

How is this to be done? Military conquest? A color revolution based on years of US financed NGOs permissively operating in Russia? Discrediting of Putin and his government?

The CSCE doesn’t say, but it has to be done as there is the need to break up Russia into smaller states for “moral and strategic” reasons.

When people whistling past the graveyard assure themselves that the Ukraine conflict won’t widen and that nuclear war is impossible because countries don’t commit suicide, they ignore the massive role of delusion that operates throughout the West that provides assurance of American hegemony.

Not only is the US going to bust up Russia into small states, but also, according to the US National Security Council, “Zelensky is going to get to determine what victory looks like” and to determine “when the conditions are met to build peace.” See this.

The war has already widened with the US and NATO countries falling under the Kremlin’s designation of combatants for supplying Ukraine with weapons and military intelligence.

The war has been widened to the extent that Lithuania now prevents Russia from supplying Kaliningrad, a part of Russia, and by NATO’s intended expansion into Finland, thus greatly lengthening NATO’s presence on Russia’s borders. People can fool themselves that this is not widening the conflict, but they forget that the conflict originated in the West’s refusal to acknowledge Russia’s legitimate security concerns. Now the West has greatly expanded the area of Russian concern.

My own view, to again state it, is that the combination of Western delusion with Kremlin toleration of provocations and belief in the value of negotiations, such as the 8 years the Kremlin wasted on the Minsk Agreement, the primary cause of Russian casualties today in Ukraine, guarantees war. There can be no other outcome.

If Russia succumbs yet again to trust in negotiation and makes a deal with Ukraine, the deal will not be kept any more than was the Minsk Agreement, the US pledge not to expand NATO to Russia’s borders, and the arms limitation agreements worked out over the decades, all abandoned by Washington.

The only result of a negotiated settlement will be that once again Russia will have given its enemies more time to demonize Russia, prepare more provocations, and beef up their military capability.

As I have said, the only thing that can prevent a wide war is a strong Russian foot that gives the lie to the US Government’s belief, as recently stated by the Department of State, that Russian red lines are merely “bluster.”

The West is so deluded that Russia is not taken seriously. Even tiny, insignificant, Lithuania is not afraid of Russia. Even countries heavily dependent on Russian energy repeatedly stick their fingers into Russia’s eyes. How much more can Russia take? This is a situation very ripe for a big war.

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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog site, PCR Institute for Political Economy, where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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We bring to the attention of Global Research this important article (translated from German, minor edits by GR) by renowned German author and geopolitical analyst  Wolfgang Effenberger 

See also his earlier article entitled:

Dangerous Crossroads: The World on the Brink of War. The New Cold War Goes Hot?

By Wolfgang Effenberger, January 04, 2022

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After EU Council President Charles Michel proposed to make Ukraine and Moldova candidates for EU membership, the draft final declaration of the June 23-24 EU summit in Brussels on June 21, 2022, stated,

“The European Council has decided to grant candidate country status to Ukraine and Moldova.”(1) (Georgia is to be granted candidate status as well.) It is assumed that the 27 heads of state and government will follow the EU Commission’s recommendation.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated that he believes Ukraine already belongs to Europe. The country attacked by Russia proves every day that it is already part of a united European value area, he said. 

Since June 21, the self-propelled howitzer 2000 promised by Germany “has finally become part of the 155-millimeter howitzer arsenal of the Ukrainian artillery,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Resnikov wrote on Twitter. In doing so, he thanked Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) “for all efforts” to support Ukraine.(2)

On the eve of June 22 – on this day in 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the then-Soviet Union (killing over 26 million people) – shells from Western-supplied guns hit Luhansk and Donetsk. In Russia, candles were lit to commemorate the Great Patriotic War.

This June 22 would have been an opportunity to pause once to remember the catastrophe of World War 2 and to look for ways to peace. But the opposite was the case. On that day, the German mainstream media again incited actioagainst Russia. 

While British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warns the West of a “long war” in Ukraine(3) in the Times, the Chief of the British Army Staff, General Sir Patrick Sanders, tunes soldiers to fight alongside their allies to defeat Russia: “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underlines our core mission to protect the United Kingdom – by being prepared to fight and win wars on the mainland,”(4) Sanders said on Sky News on June 19. 

British army chief warns ‘must prepare to fight in Europe'(5)

On the same day, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also expressed his concern in an interview with the Bild newspaper that the war could drag on for years; should support for Ukraine weaken, a heavy price would be paid.(6) 

The most incredible statement was made on Friday, June 17, 22 by Germany’s Air Force Chief Ingo Gerhartz (56) at the Kiel International Sea Powers Symposium:

“For credible deterrence, we need both the means and the political will to implement nuclear deterrence if necessary.”(7)

History

In view of the ever louder drums of war that can currently be heard, a reference to the parallels of the present situation to that before 1914 seems not only permissible but even necessary.

After the imperial wars of 1898 (USA against the great power Spain in Cuba and the Philippines), 1899- 1901 (UK against the Boers in Africa) and 1900 (the “value West” against China), tensions were building up in the world and especially on the part of Great Britain, France and Russia against Germany. From early December 1907 to February 1909, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt(8) had a large part of his new war fleet steam around the globe in sensational voyages, to the delight of naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan.(9) Sixteen modern armored battleships and cruisers demonstrated their superiority in striking power and mobility all around the world. 

Today, 11 nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carriers are in service on the world’s oceans along with their accompanying fleets.

In 2020, NATO and U.S. military spending totaled $1,102 billion, while that of China and Russia was $314 billion. Of this, Germany and Russia’s spending balanced out at about $60 billion.(10) 

Such an imbalance(11) was also evident before World War I(12):

Armament budgets 1880-1913 in U.S. Dollars (in thousands)

Only a few weeks after the assassination in Sarajevo on July 28, 1914, the time had come. On the morning of August 5, 1914, the New York Times ran the headline,

“ENGLAND DECLARES WAR ON GERMANY – 17,ooo,ooo MEN ENGAGED IN GREAT WAR OF EIGHT NATIONS.”

In the same issue, the NYT published a column by H.G. Wells in which he wrote that “the sword is now drawn for peace” and “never was a war so just as the war now against Germany.” Wells was convinced that Germany would be crushed and ripe for revolution in 2 to 3 months.(13)

Even before this issue of the NYT appeared, the British cut the German-American Atlantic cable in the early hours of the morning; thus, news from Berlin no longer reached the U.S. and vice versa.

With the beginning of the war, Russian news portals were blocked and further dissemination of Russian news was made a punishable offense. 

 One day after Woodrow Wilson’s pledge of neutrality on August 19, 1914, the naval blockade of Germany by Great Britain, which was contrary to international law, began without any major protest from the United States. This blockade was intended to isolate and economically strangle Germany. According to the official historian of the Royal Navy, Sir Julian Corbett, this blockade had been planned from 1908  by Lord Hankey in the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID) with “an orderly completeness of detail which has no parallel in our history”(14).

In fact, little is known to this day about “how and why a scant dozen leading U.S. investment bankers supported Britain from the beginning through illegal acts of war.”

With the election of a clueless U.S. president in late 1912 and the creation of the FED in 1913 (unlimited debt), the decision to go to war had been made.(15)

Realignments after World War I

Three times in the 20th century the international order was “reordered”(16) 

1) With the Versailles system of peace treaties and the creation of the League of Nations in 1920,

2) With the Potsdam Agreement and the creation of the United Nations in 1945, and

3) After the end of the Cold War in 1990 with the “Charter of Paris” and the creation of the OSCE.

With the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact (and the Soviet Union), the world hoped for a peaceful future.

US-NATO Wars of the Post Cold War Era

But after the victory of the “West” in 1990, “wars of order” [responsibility to protect] were instigated in many places in the world, such as the war against Iraq orchestrated by Bush Sr. in 1991. Some may still remember the unsavory Kuweit “incubator lie” that ultimately tipped the scales in favor of the UN’s blessing for that war.

When, on March 24, 1999, NATO launched the first war of aggression in its history without a UN mandate and thus in violation of international law against a sovereign country, it was immediately followed by a new doctrine permitting future interventions without a UN mandate. 

The wars of the so-called “Value West” [“Humanitarian West”, under “Responsibility to Protect”] in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan, Libya and Syria did not reorganize anything, but only led to “failed states”, i.e. into never-ending chaos – also a war crime. 

NATO’s war in Yugoslavia began on March 24, 1999 – 12 days earlier Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary had joined NATO. Was this just another war in the wake of the post-Yugoslav secession wars since the early 1990s? Certainly not, because 4 imperial motives of the USA can be identified(17)

1) A war of NATO Against the rest of Yugoslavia in order to insert it into the periphery of the West.

2) A war of the USA, in order to subjugate EU-Europe further to their subordination.

3) “A war whose long-distance effect was also aimed at further chastening Russia”; and

4) A war to demonstrate “NATO or US superiority over China”(18).

Color Revolutions

After the Yugoslav war, so-called “color revolutions” were concerted in Eastern Europe, most of which then led to regime change and desired EU and NATO accession.  

Canadian professor of economics, Michel Chossudovsky, drew attention in June 2015 to the fact that behind the Ukraine crisis lies a broad military strategy that goes far beyond Ukraine:

“NATO – and when we say NATO, we also mean the United States – is engaging in war games on Russia’s doorstep … Now they are threatening Russia with nuclear weapons, and it’s obvious that the nuclear option has been discussed in the U.S. Congress.”(19)

Then, in the summer of 2015, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law to that effect,(20) stating that deployment of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction on the soil of Ukraine would be legal “until the deployment target is reached.” Previously, this was ruled out by law.

From 2015, NATO’s maneuver frequency (such as DEFENDER 20/21) on Russia’s doorstep increased dramatically. In parallel, the military infrastructure road and rail from Antwerp/Bremerhaven/ Hamburg towards Görlitz, Krakow and Kiev was made fit for war. 

The Role of Germany 

Three days after the Russian attack on Ukraine – just as illegal under international law as all U.S. wars since the attack on Yugoslavia – Chancellor Olaf Scholz introduced his government’s statement on Feb. 27 with the words:

“February 24, 2022 marks a turning point in the history of our continent.”(21)

In a firm voice, Scholz castigated Vladimir Putin’s cold-bloodedness and ruthlessness over his war of aggression, which he said could not be justified by anything, and asked:

“May might break right?”. The rhetorical answer (with respect to Russia) is clearly no. However, different standards seem to apply to the United States. 

Furthermore, Scholz announced ambitious foreign and military policy goals to the applause of the Bundestag majority: Not only to increase the current German military budget to more than 70 billion euros, but in addition to that, to increase the striking power of the Bundeswehr, a so-called “special fund” of 100 billion euros from the current budget. As a reminder: Three days after the start of the war in 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm II convened the Reichstag on August 4 to vote on the war credits. At that time, the term “war loans” was used in all honesty, whereas today the term “special assets” is used to conceal from the public that this is once again a matter of debt. 

The fact that Scholz was able to announce within three days “a complete and detailed concept for a no-alternative swing to the foreign policy course of the U.S. and the abrupt transformation of the Federal Republic into a fiscal warfare state suggests that the state apparatus had drafts already at its disposal.”(22) 

It would be interesting to know who was involved in drafting Scholz’s speech and when Scholz first read it.

Two days before the governmental declaration, the SPD newspaper “Vorwärts” stated: 

“According to media reports, top U.S. diplomats – and also Foreign Minister [Secretary of State] Blinken himself – are engaged in these hours in direct talks to bring about the broadest possible condemnation in the General Assembly.”(23) In a speech to the United Nations that was celebrated as “emotional,” Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Alliance 90/The Greens) condemned Russia in a way “that elevates Germany, the old World War II loser, to the role of moral judge and demonstrates what “values-based foreign policy” means.”(24)

After three days of debate, 141 nations voted yes on March 2 to the UN General Assembly resolution condemning the Russian invasion, with five votes against (Russia, Belarus, Syria, North Korea, and Eritrea) and 35 abstentions (Including China, India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, which together make up about half of humanity). Twelve nations were absent from the vote. According to Michael von der Schulenburg, a former top diplomat working for the UN and OSCE, the support for the resolution by most of the small and medium-sized countries had the background that they wanted to strengthen the UN Charter and the ban on all military action as a whole for political reasons. So far, three other permanent members of the Security Council, the U.S., Britain and France, had also broken international law and waged illegal wars without consequences. 

In Asia, only the usual allies of the West, i.e. Japan, Australia and Singapore, participate in the comprehensive sanctions packages against Russia, while the other states in Asia, Africa and Latin America did not. For the Global South, this is again a white man’s war in the North, like the first and second world wars of the 20th century and the cold war.

The supposed winners of the Cold War had expected the loser to cave in, submit to its role as a “regional power” (Obama) and serve as a junior partner to the West. Even today, they are waiting for a coup by a Moscow elite that would rather be the junior partner of the U.S. than that of the Chinese.

With the attack on Ukraine on Feb. 24, the European order that had more or less held since 1950 had come to an end, said the two “European activists and publicists” Vincent-Immanuel Herr and Martin Speer on April 2 in the guest commentary 

“After the war of aggression: the birth of geopolitical Europe” in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. They demand that the EU must now develop into a “value superpower” capable of defense, and in their article they focus on two subjects in particular: “military and security policy issues” and the development of a “European we-feeling.”(25)

That this defensible “value superpower” allows whistleblower Julian Assange to languish in a British prison for years and soon even be extradited to the U.S., and refused asylum to Edward Snowden, so that he had to flee to Russia, is more than shameful. A real “value superpower” must be built on a different foundation than that of the military and a questionable “European we-feeling”. 

This foundation was laid more than 200 years ago by Immanuel Kant in his work “Perpetual Peace”, the formulations of which are the basis of our international law today. 

Concluding Remarks

At the moment, unfortunately, it looks like the ever-increasing bellicosity of government and media will expand the war and eventually lead NATO into active war participation as outlined in the U.S. long-term strategy TRADOC 525-3-1 “Win in a Complex World 2020-2040” (2014).

Meanwhile, the German people are being attuned to blood, sweat and tears. Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck predicted,

“We are all getting poorer”(26).

And Christian Lindner, Germany’s Minister of Finance declared on the memorable June 22 day that he expects: “three to five years of shortages”(27). The task now, he said, is to defend “the substance of the German economy in these times of uncertainty.”

So we should be prepared for a prolonged war – making a “A European security order encompassing the EU as well as Russia” a very distant prospect.

Notes

1)https://web.de/magazine/politik/russland-krieg-ukraine/ukraine-krieg-news-21-juni-2022-nachlesen-37039708

2)Ibid 

3)https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-british-troops-must-prepare-to-fight-in-europe-once-again-says-new-head-of-army-12636637 

4) Ibid

5)https://www.merkur.de/politik/ukraine-krieg-news-grossbritannien-armee-chef-warnung-kampf-europa-vorbereitung-91618815.html 20. Juni 2022

6)https://www.merkur.de/politik/ukraine-krieg-news-grossbritannien-armee-chef-warnung-kampf-europa-vorbereitung-91618815.html

7)https://www.bild.de/politik/inland/politik-inland/top-general-appelliert-an-nato-muessen-bereit-sein-notfalls-atomwaffen-zu-nutzen-80444834.bild.html

8)Als Imperialist der Mahan-Schule verfolgte Theodore Roosevelt eine offensive Außenpolitik mit zahlreichen Militäreinsätzen zum „Schutz amerikanischer Interessen“, so etwa in Dom.Rep., Honduras, Kolumbien, Kuba, Marokko, Syrien.

9)Vgl. Henry F. Pringle: Theodore Roosevelt, a Biography, New York 1931, S. 409 ff.; XX, pp. 535 ff

10) SIPRI Military Expenditure 2020 (April 2021)

11) Zahlen aus Engelbrecht, Helmut C./Hanighen, F.C.: MERCHANTS OF DEATH A Study of the International Armament Industry, Carter Lane 1934, S. 263

12) Da die Angabe für 1914 fehlte, wurde die von 1910 (348.032.000 )genommen. Die tatsächlichen Ausgaben dürften deutlich darüber gelegen haben.

13) Walter Millis: Road to War, America 1914 -1917, Boston/New York 1935, S. 47

14) Corbett, Julian: Official History. Naval Operations, London 1921,Vol. 1, p.18

15) Helmut Roewer: Unterwegs zur Weltherrschaft Warum England den Ersten Weltkrieg auslöste und Amerika ihn gewann. Zürich 2016, S. 16

16) Zeitschrift Marxistische Erneuerung, Nr. 130, Juni 2022, S. 16

17)Ibid, S. 15

18)Erhard Crome: In tempori belli, in: WeltTrends, Nr. 23, 1999, S. 138

19)Zitiert in Peter Orzechowski: Ist die Gefahr eines Atomkriegs real? KOPP exklusiv 24 /22, S. 7

20)„Gesetz Über die Bedingungen der Streitkräfte anderer Staaten auf dem Territorium der Ukraine“.

21) https://www.br.de/nachrichten/deutschland-welt/zeitenwende-im-bundestag,SyfVl4E

22)Zeitschrift Marxistische Erneuerung, Nr. 130, Juni 2022, S. 12

23)Zitat aus der SPD Zeitung “Vorwärts”. 25.02.2022

24)https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Was-die-Zeitenwende-von-Bundeskanzler-Scholz-bedeutet-6665130.html?seite-all

25)Zeit-Fragen  14. Juni 2022/ 30. Jahrgang , S. 4

26)https://www.fr.de/meinung/kolumnen/ein-einziger-satz-91456992.html

27)https://www.n-tv.de/mediathek/videos/wirtschaft/Lindner-warnt-vor-drei-bis-fuenf-Jahren-der-Knappheit-article23414488.html

Translated from German. Minor Editing by Global Research.

Wolfgang Effenberger, born in 1946, a former officer in the German armed forces, has been a committed peace advocate since his first book, “Pax americana” (2004). In April 2022, he published “Die unterschätzte Macht: Von Geo- bis Biopolitik – Plutokraten transformieren die Welt”. Other books by him on the subject: “Wiederkehr der Hasardeure” (2014, Koautor Willy Wimmer), die Trilogie „Europas Verhängnis 14/18“ (2018/19) sowie “Schwarzbuch EU & NATO” (2020).

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This was originally published in September 2020

***

The United Nations has been held hostage by 5 countries since 1945.

Can they still be allowed to dictate terms to rest of the world?

On GravitasPlus WION’s Palki tells you why it’s time to decolonise the global body.

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In 1998, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski told Le Nouvel Observateur that the CIA “knowingly increased the probability” that the Russians would invade Afghanistan by covertly supporting the Mujahideen before the Soviet invasion. Later in that same interview, Brzezinski claims that this covert intervention caused the end of the Soviet Union:

B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, essentially: “We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.” Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war that was unsustainable for the regime, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

In July 2014, almost six months after the Maidan Revolution and Russia’s subsequent annexation of Crimea, Brzezinski hinted at a similar plan for Ukraine, although he couched it in defensive terms. He wrote on the Atlantic Council’s blog:

If Ukraine has to be supported so that it does resist, the Ukrainians have to know the West is prepared to help them resist. And there’s no reason to be secretive about it. It would be much better to be open about it and to say to the Ukrainians and to those who may threaten Ukraine that if Ukrainians resist, they will have weapons. And we’ll provide some of those weapons in advance of the very act of invasion. Because in the absence of that, the temptation to invade and to preempt may become overwhelming. But what kind of weapons is important. And in my view, they should be weapons designed particularly to permit the Ukrainians to engage in effective urban warfare of resistance.

In September 2014, Brzezinski revisited the topic in an MSNBC interview:

Brzezinski: For the moment, the NATO alliance—as well as Europe and America jointly—have not been giving military aid to Ukraine. But I would not exclude the possibility of some defensive weaponry being given to the Ukrainians before too long, simply if the Russians, and particularly Putin, continue to try to intimidate Ukraine. That’s not the same thing as defending them; it’s helping them defend themselves.

MSNBC: Is that the middle path you think the United States is going to take—something more than economic sanctions, but less than proxy war?

Brzezinski: I think so. It seems to me that if we really are serious about Ukraine having the right to be an independent state with a friendly relationship with Europe, but not necessarily a member of NATO, and if Ukraine is not only threatened but actually victimized by Russia using force, then some defensive arms — publicly given — but only defensive weaponry, handed over to the Ukrainians makes eminent sense. It contributes to greater stability and it’s more likely to deter Mr. Putin than if he’s in effect given the green light to use as much force as he feels like.

Despite Brzezinski’s defensive framing in Ukraine, Washington’s support for the Ukrainian military bears many similarities to its support of the Mujahideen.

The first documented CIA support to the Mujahideen came in July 1979 when “a small political action program [was approved] to support the burgeoning [Afghan] insurgency through Pakistan.” After the invasion, Washington’s clandestine assistance to the Mujahideen sought to “get arms in [their] hands and keep them fighting.”

These efforts consisted of sales of military equipment through the Pakistani ISI. The most effective support included the transfer of Stinger missiles, which equipped the Mujahideen to destroy Russian helicopters. In the Reagan years, these transfers were facilitated by the deployment of “CIA Special Activities Division paramilitary officers.”

In early February 1980, Brzezinski visited Pakistan for a series of meetings with then-Pakistani President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq to discuss American support to Pakistan in the wake of the Soviet invasion. As a part of the delegation, Brzezinski made a “symbolic visit” to Afghan refugees in the Khyber Pass. Speaking of the Mujahideen, he told the refugees:

We know of their deep belief in God and we are confident that their struggle will succeed. That land over there is yours. You’ll go back to it one day because your fight will prevail. And you’ll have your homes and your mosques back again, because your cause is right and God is on your side.

In January 2022, a month before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was revealed by U.S. intelligence officials that the CIA had been providing covert assistance to the Ukrainian military since 2014. The program began under Barack Obama, was expanded under Donald Trump, and continued under Joe Biden. According to Yahoo News:

The multiweek, U.S.-based CIA program has included training in firearms, camouflage techniques, land navigation, tactics like “cover and move,” intelligence and other areas, according to former officials.

…The program has involved “very specific training on skills that would enhance” the Ukrainians’ “ability to push back against the Russians,” said the former senior intelligence official.

The training, which has included “tactical stuff,” is “going to start looking pretty offensive if Russians invade Ukraine,” said the former official.

One person familiar with the program put it more bluntly. “The United States is training an insurgency,” said a former CIA official, adding that the program has taught the Ukrainians how “to kill Russians.”

Although some of the cited intelligence officials denied the training aimed to “create an insurgency,” much of the training is dually applicable. The semantic squirming that Brzezinski and other intelligence officials employ in their attempts to distinguish defensive support from prepping an insurgency is literally in-credible. This is especially true considering the type of weapons that complimented this training: “sniper rifles, armed boats, RPGs, and Javelin anti-tank missiles[.]”

Further, in an address that is eerily similar to Brzezinski’s 1980 visit to the Khyber Pass, Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) spoke to the Ukrainian 36th Separate Marine Brigade. During the January 2, 2017 address, Graham and McCain praised the Ukrainian soldiers.

Graham: “I admire the fact that you will fight for your homeland. Your fight is our fight. 2017 will be the year of offense. All of us will go back to Washington and we will push the case against Russia. Enough of the Russian aggression. It is time for them to pay a heavier price…Our promise to you is to take your cause to Washington, inform the American People of your bravery, and make the case against Putin to the World.”

McCain: “I believe you will win. I am convinced you will win and we will do everything we can to provide you with what you need to win. We have succeeded not because of equipment but because of your courage. So I thank you and the world is watching because we [] cannot allow Vladimir Putin to succeed here, because if he succeeds here, he will succeed in other countries.”

In the 1980s, Brzezinski’s covert “bleeder” strategy was calculated to give the USSR “its own Vietnam,” which Brzezinski later claimed caused the end of the Soviet Union.

In Spring and early Summer 2022, the goal of Washington’s involvement in Ukraine became more openly stated: regime change in Moscow. Was this always the objective?

Unlike the debatable effect of Brzezinski’s 1980s Afghanistan intervention, Washington’s involvement in Ukraine was directly cited by Russian President Vladimir Putin as a casus belli. In his February 2022 speech, Putin stated:

Any further expansion of the North Atlantic alliance’s infrastructure or the ongoing efforts to gain a military foothold of the Ukrainian territory are unacceptable for us. Of course, the question is not about NATO itself. It merely serves as a tool of US foreign policy. The problem is that in territories adjacent to Russia, which I have to note is our historical land, a hostile “anti-Russia” is taking shape. Fully controlled from the outside, it is doing everything to attract NATO armed forces and obtain cutting-edge weapons.

Brzezinski’s influence on the foreign policy establishment is immense. Brzezinski was among the first to call for the end of Putin’s government. He was also among the first to compare Putin to Hitler. Brzezinski’s protégés include such figures as Barack Obama, Madeline Albright, Victoria Nuland, Jake Sullivan, and Antony Blinken.

Although Washington’s actual role in provoking the Soviet invasion is debatable, one must wonder: if the Russian invasion of Ukraine were to bring the end of Putin’s Russia, would Brzezinski’s ghost and its lineage of Straussian ghouls champion Washington’s role in exacerbating the conflict?

More importantly, if regime change is the goal, what cost must the world be made to pay?

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The leader of the group Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, recently stated that the dispute with Syria is over, and the relationship between Hamas and Damascus is starting a new phase.  He praised Syria for its unwavering support of the Palestinian resistance cause.

Hamas ideology is viewed by many as Muslim Brotherhood ideology, which is similar to the Radical Islamic political ideology followed by Al Qaeda and ISIS. Founded in 1987, Hamas opposed the secular approach of the PLO, and in 2001 the political bureau established new headquarters in Damascus, Syria.

One unnamed official said the Hamas and Damascus have held several “high-profile meetings to achieve that goal.”

Qatar sponsors Hamas

Haniyeh’s comments would not have been possible without approval from Qatar’s leadership.  Qatar has been one of the main sponsors of Hamas, the Palestinian resistance group based in Gaza, which is considered to be a terrorist organization by Israel and the US but is not classified as such by Brazil, China, Egypt, Iran, Norway, Qatar, Russia, Syria, and Turkey.

Qatar was one of the oil-rich Gulf monarchies which funded the US-backed terrorists fighting in Syria from 2011 to 2017.

In March, Qatar’s Emir Al Thani paid a visit to the White House, and US President Biden designated Qatar a major non-NATO ally, the same distinction that was bestowed on Israel.

Qatar and Saudi Arabia blockade

Saudi Arabia took a change in direction while President Trump was in office, and moved away from the Obama administration directive of funding the terrorists in Syria for regime change.  In 2017, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, and Bahrain cut off ties with Qatar and blocked all air and land traffic to the emirate due to its alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, while Qatar worked in tandem with Turkey, which is ruled by a Muslim Brotherhood AKP party, and their leader, President Erdogan.

Syria repairs relationship with Arab countries

Bahrain’s new ambassador to Syria formally took up his post in Syria on Sunday, the country’s first full diplomatic mission there in more than a decade as Damascus continues to improve its relations with Gulf Arab states. The Embassy of Bahrain was reopened in Damascus in 2018.

Syrian President Assad’s visit to the United Arab Emirates in March was the first such trip to an Arab country since Syria’s conflict erupted in 2011, as most Gulf countries seek warmer ties with Damascus. The Arab re-think of Damascus will head towards bringing Syria in from the cold based on realities on the ground and Arab national interests.

According to Dr. Shehata Al-Arabi, “In March 2021, the UAE and Saudi Arabia demanded restoring Syria to the Arab incubator. The Saudi Foreign Minister, Faisal bin Farhan, expressed Riyadh’s support for Syria’s return to its Arab surroundings, stressing that the solution in Syria “will only be political”. In April 2021, Iraq’s Prime Minister, Mostafa al-Kadhimi, declared in Baghdad, when he received the Arab League secretary general, Ahmad Abu al-Ghait, his country’s support for the return of Syria to the Arab league. In May 2021, the Syrian Minister of Tourism visited the KSA, which was the first visit of a Syrian government official to Riyadh since 2011. In the same month, the kingdom sent its intelligence chief to Damascus for talks with his Syrian counterpart.”

Al-Arabi added, “In September 2021, the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Sameh Shukri, met his Syrian counterpart, Faisal al-Meqdad, for the first time in more than a decade, during his participation in the UN General Assembly meetings in New York. After the meeting, the Egyptian minister announced his support for Syria’s return “as an active party in the Arab framework”.”

Will Qatar re-open its embassy in Damascus?

Recently, Engineer Moaz Hekmat Shaker, who is in charge of maintenance at the Embassy of Qatar in Damascus, said in a phone interview with Q Street Journal Syrian news agency, that he was asked to clean up the embassy, care for the garden and make all necessary repairs.

Qatar had been opposed to Syria’s return to the Arab League; however, a change in Turkey is taking place, Qatar’s former staunch ally, and with Turkey drawing closer to Saudi Arabia, Qatar may find it beneficial to repair ties with Syria.

Turkey and Saudi Arabia repair their relationship

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrived in Turkey for the first time in years on June 22 for talks with President Erdogan, while Erdogan has also been getting closer to Israel and Egypt.

Turkey has hosted the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, which was designated as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people and headquartered in Istanbul. However, the US has lost interest in the Obama-era regime change they sought in Syria and has generally abandoned all interest in finding a solution to the lingering Syrian conflict.

In 2017, President Trump cut the funding on the CIA program to support terrorists fighting in Syria, which effectively dropped US support of Erdogan’s role in supplying the Radical Islamic terrorists with weapons and cash from the CIA office in southern Turkey. Since then, the relationship between the US and Turkey has been steadily sliding downhill.

Syria returns to the Arab League

James Jeffrey, a former US envoy to Syria, told the Kurdish officials in the northeast of Syria, partners with the US, that it was in their interest to repair their relationship with Damascus, as it would be the Syrian Arab Army who could defend them against Turkish invasion and attacks.

Turkey and Syria may see a repairing of their former excellent relationship which would serve the purpose of preventing terrorist attacks on Turkey while promoting the departure of Turkish occupation forces from Syria.  Syria would possibly safeguard its northern border from all types of terrorist occupation, including those aligned with the PKK.

The Arab Summit in Algeria, in November, might see the decision taken to restore Damascus to the Arab League.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

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

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Diet is a key strategy that can make or break your health. Rather than attempting to list everything you need to include in a healthy diet, it’s far easier to identify and eliminate the dietary components that do the most harm

Linoleic acid (LA), an omega-6 fat, is by far the most damaging ingredient in the modern diet. Excessive LA intake — in the form of industrial seed oils — is responsible for most chronic diseases, including obesity, cancer and heart disease

As a general rule, anything over 10 grams of LA a day is likely to cause problems. The lower the better, but a reasonable goal for most people is to get your level below 5 grams per day

Fats to be avoided include cottonseed oil, canola, corn, soybean, safflower and sunflower oil. Use avocado oil and olive oil in moderation, and only if you can ensure it hasn’t been adulterated with industrial seed oil. Healthy cooking fats include coconut oil, tallow, organic grass fed butter, ghee, duck fat and organic lard

Conventional chicken and pork are both loaded with LA due to being fed high-LA grains. This is why I don’t recommend either as a protein source. Grass fed beef is relatively low in LA, but lowest of all are bison and lamb

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In the featured video, independent journalist Corey Lynn and I discuss tips on how to stay healthy and what we can do, at the individual and community level, to fight medical tyranny. The first question I address is how to address stress. After more than two years of pandemic pandemonium, most are “running on empty.”

This topic is covered in greater depth in a new book I’m writing, called “The New Take Control of Your Health,” which is an update of my 2017 book “Take Control of Your Health.” The update will hopefully be available later this year.

Essentially, the book will cover dozens of strategies that act as hormetic stressors, such that if you do them, you will develop natural resiliency against nearly every chronic degenerative disease. Most of these are very basic and foundational, such as optimizing your sleep and circadian rhythm. There’s really no single magic bullet for stress; rather, certain lifestyle choices act synergistically to create a higher level of stress tolerance.

How Diet Has Destroyed Our Health

Diet is, as you might expect, a key strategy that can make or break your health (and your tolerance for stress). The Paleo diet, which has gained popularity over the years, essentially strives to mimic the diet our ancestors ate during the Paleolithic era. But we don’t actually have to go that far back.

Merely turning back the dial about 150 years will do. That’s when industrial food processing began. That’s also when industrial processed seed oils (aka, vegetable oils) were introduced as a replacement to healthy animal fats like lard and tallow, which had previously been the norm.

The first commercial food seed oil to be introduced was cottonseed oil — a waste product from cotton production. That was the primary ingredient of Crisco. Prior to the 1900s, only 1% to 2% of daily calories came from omega-6 fats, the primary one of which is linoleic acid (LA). Today, the average intake is 10 times that.

Like omega-3, LA is a polyunsaturated fat (PUFA), but unlike omega-3, LA, when consumed in excess, acts as a metabolic poison. Anything above 4% of your daily calories is likely to cause problems.

Importantly, LA is in virtually all foods, so it’s near-impossible to be deficient. This is why I disagree with claims that LA is an essential fat. You need very little of it, and you’re getting it from most whole foods. If you eat processed foods made with seed oils, you’re bound to get far too much and will suffer adverse health consequences.

Before the 1900s, fewer than 10 Americans suffered heart attacks in any given year. Today, it’s the leading cause of death. Cancer deaths were also much lower. Pre-1900, fewer than 1 in 100 of Americans died from cancer, and today, cancer kills 1 in 3.

Most health-minded experts still believe the primary cause for these trends is sugar, but LA is far more dangerous than sugar, from a metabolic perspective. I’m convinced it’s really the massively excessive amounts of LA in our modern diet that drives these metabolic diseases.

Looking at statistics of seed oil consumption and chronic diseases such as obesity, cancer and heart disease, these trends all rise in tandem, even in areas where sugar consumption has remained extremely low well into the modern era. Another major difference between sugar and seed oils that demonstrate the superior risks of seed oils is this:

Sugar, when consumed in excess over time will result in insulin resistance and metabolic inflexibility. However, if you cut out sugar, you can rather rapidly restore both your insulin sensitivity and metabolic flexibility, because your body can only store about a day’s worth of glucose.

Not so with fat. Your body can store a lot of it, for long periods of time. LA is literally incorporated into and stored in your cell membranes, where it can remain for seven years. So, even if you go on a low-LA diet, it’ll take years to fully clear it out of your body. This also means you won’t notice improvements in your health as quickly as you do when cutting out sugar.

Damaging Fats to Avoid

So, which fats are high in LA and need to be avoided? Some of the most common ones to be avoided include:

While avocado oil and olive oil are known for their health benefits, they too are high in LA and should be used in moderation — and ONLY if you can ensure their quality. I recommend limiting them to 1 tablespoon a day. A primary problem with both of these is food fraud.¹

Most of the avocado and olive oil on the market have been adulterated with one or more or the cheaper oils listed above. Another pesky quality problem is that of rancidity. A 2020 Food Control report² found 82% of avocado oils went rancid before their expiration date.³

Healthy Fats

I recommend swapping all of the oils listed above with the following, all of which are great to cook with as they’re very stable and won’t oxidize when exposed to high heat:

• Coconut oil
• Tallow (fat from cows)
• Organic grass fed butter
• Ghee

Healthiest Protein Sources

In this interview, we also discuss protein sources. Conventional chicken and pork are both loaded with LA due to being fed high-LA grains. This is why I don’t recommend either as a protein source. Grass fed beef is relatively low in LA, but lowest of all are bison and lamb.

Fish is also a healthy choice, provided you stick with low-mercury alternatives, such as Alaskan salmon and smaller fish like wild mackerel and sardines. These, in addition to providing you with healthy omega-3 fats also contain resolvins and protectins — biomolecules that augment the benefits of omega-3. Neither of these are available in omega-3 oils, so you can’t get those from a supplement.

How to Calculate and Reduce Your LA Intake

The best way to ensure your LA intake is within a safe range is to use a nutritional calculator such as Cronometer. Ideally, it is best to enter your food for the day before you actually eat it. The reason for this is simple: It’s impossible to delete the food once you have already eaten it, but you can easily delete it from your menu if you find something pushes you over the ideal limit.

Once you’ve entered the food for the day, go to the “Lipid” section on the lower left side of the Cronometer app. To find out how much LA is in your diet for that day, just note how many grams of omega-6 is present. About 90% of the omega-6 you eat is LA. You can also move your cursor over the omega-6 field and the program will rank the order your largest contributors of LA, and tell you how much is in each food.

As a general rule, anything over 10 grams of LA a day is likely to cause problems. The lower the better, but a reasonable goal for most people is to get your level below 5 grams per day. So, how do you cut seed oils out of your diet? Top culprits to minimize or eliminate include:

The Potent Benefits of Sun Exposure

Beside cleaning up your diet, one of the most potent health strategies I know is to get sensible sun exposure. I have been fascinated with the effects of sun exposure on health for nearly three decades.

Over time, we’ve discovered more and more mechanisms by which sunlight influences health, and most recently, it was discovered that near-infrared radiation (NIR), which makes up 54.3% of sunlight,⁵ triggers the production of melatonin in the mitochondria inside your cells.⁶

This is a phenomenal benefit, as melatonin is a master hormone,⁷ a potent antioxidant⁸ and antioxidant recycler,⁹ and a master regulator of inflammation and cell death.¹⁰ (These functions are part of what makes melatonin such an important anticancer molecule.¹¹)

Your mitochondria are where oxidative stress ends up doing the most damage. So, by producing melatonin in your mitochondria, your body is literally making it right where it’s needed the most — and it does this in response to sunlight!

Ideally, you’d want to get an hours’ worth of sunlight on large portions of your body, every day. For men, this means going out wearing only shorts, and for women, wearing shorts and a sports bra or tank top.

If you go out around solar noon, without sunscreen, you also get the benefit of vitamin D production. I have not swallowed a vitamin D supplement since I moved to Florida nearly 15 years ago, and my serum vitamin D is in the optimal range year-round.

Time-Restricted Eating

Time-restricted eating (TRE) is a form of intermittent fasting, and in my opinion, the easiest to implement, as all you need to do is eat all your meals and snacks within a six- to eight-hour window each day. (You’ll want to make sure your last meal is at least three hours before bedtime). For the remaining 16 to 18 hours, you fast.

In the U.S., 90% eat across 12 hours. Some will even wake up in the middle of the night to eat, and this is a surefire recipe for ill health. One of the primary benefits of TRE is that it will make you metabolically flexible, so that you can burn both fat and carbs for energy.

If you’re constantly hungry, chances are you’re metabolically inflexible and cannot efficiently burn fat. Your body is basically just screaming for another quick energy fix, because carbs burn fast and when they’re gone, you need more.

Once your body can efficiently burn fat, hunger usually disappears. Without hunger pangs driving your search for food, you’ll also be able to simply not eat if you’re in a situation where you can’t find healthy food. This way, you’re not “forced” to eat junk that will deteriorate your health.

Are You Prepared for What’s Coming Next?

In the last third of the interview, we move on to discuss the now-constant attacks on our freedoms and liberties. I’ve interviewed a number of experts, all of whom agree that things are going to get far worse before they get better.

Some of my more important interviews include professor Mattias Desmet (the psychology of mass formation and totalitarianism), which has not yet been released, Dr. Mark McDonald (the psychology of fear addiction), Naomi Wolf (the stages of tyrannical takeover), Patrick Wood (the transhumanist, inhumane goals of technocracy) and Catherine Austin-Fitts (the financial takeover and theft of America).

The way things look right now, barring seemingly nothing short of a miracle, the ruling technocracy will indeed achieve their one world government, their New World Order (NWO), now openly discussed under the banners of The Great Reset, the fourth industrial revolution, the “build back better” plan, the Green New Deal, Sustainable Development and many others.

The control grid is being erected all around us; attacks are coming at us from every conceivable angle, all at once. And technological advancements give them advantages that no other tyrant in history had. They literally have the ability now to surveil, monitor and in various ways control the behavior and movement of most humans on the planet.

Already, we can see they’ve queued up more “emergencies” in the form of pandemics, climate change, famine and energy shortages, just to name a few. They have many tricks up their sleeve, and we have to be ready for them. How? Suggestions include but are not limited to:

• Getting out of densely-populated urban areas and forming parallel communities that aren’t dependent on the state
• Protecting your assets by investing in real assets that can’t be vaporized by grid failures or bank failures
• Investing in food. Learn to grow your own food, stock up on nonperishables, and befriend local farmers
• Securing alternative sources of energy and transportation

Post-collapse, we’ll eventually have to reinvent and rebuild basically everything — education, and the medical, financial and food systems. While some are trying, I do not believe we can change these systems while the old systems are still in operation. They’re too powerful.

This is particularly true for medicine. They destroy anyone who attempts to compete at scale. So, as illustrated in the book, “Atlas Shrugged,” the old system must essentially be allowed to self-destruct, and then the survivors can rebuild something brand-new. Knowing how to care for your health, then, becomes truly crucial, because that’s the only way you’ll make it through whatever’s coming.

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Notes

^1, 2 Food Control October 2020; 116: 107328

³ The Counter June 17, 2020

⁴ YouTube, Omega-6 Apocalypse 2, Chris Knobbe August 25, 2021, 15:01

⁵ Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology February 2016; 155: 78-85

⁶ Physiology February 5, 2020 DOI: 10.1152/physiol.00034.2019

⁷ Indian J. Exp Biol. May 1996; 34(5): 391-402

⁸ Frontiers in Pharmacology August 21, 2020 DOI: 10.3389/fphar.2020.01220

⁹ Allergy Research Group, Melatonin, the Antioxidant Recycler

¹⁰ Cell Death & Disease 2019; 10 article number 317

¹¹ Oncotarget June 13, 2017; 8(24): 39896–39921

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Britain will begin legislating for a new bill of rights on Wednesday, giving the government the authority to disregard European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) judgments, which last week thwarted ministers’ plans to transfer migrants to Rwanda.

Last Tuesday, the EHCR issued last-minute injunctions to prevent a handful of asylum seekers from being deported to the East African country, meaning Britain’s first scheduled deportation flight did not take place as planned.

The new bill of rights, which will be debated in parliament on Wednesday, would state unequivocally that Britain’s Supreme Court, which approved the Rwanda flights, had legal supremacy and that ECHR judgments did not necessarily have to be followed by British courts.

According to the Ministry of Justice, it would certify that injunctions ordered by the ECHR under Rule 39, which halted the Rwandan flight, were not binding.

“These reforms will reinforce freedom of speech, enable us to deport more foreign offenders, and better protect the public from dangerous criminals,” British Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab said.

According to the administration, the proposed bill would limit foreign criminals’ ability to utilize their right to family life to avoid deportation and would prevent “trivial” human rights issues from reaching court. It will also enshrine more journalistic freedom and expression in law, according to the statement.

However, lawyers and campaigners warned that the idea would weaken people’s rights and give ministers more control. As things are, British courts are not bound by ECHR decisions.

Stephanie Boyce, president of the Law Society of England and Wales, said it would create an acceptable class of human rights violations, while Sacha Deshmukh, Chief Executive of Amnesty International UK, said it was unsurprising that politicians held accountable by human rights laws wanted them removed.

Following last week’s decision, some Conservative lawmakers wanted Britain to withdraw entirely from the European Convention on Human Rights, but Raab indicated there were no plans to do so.

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Ever since U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel formally ordered the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the U.S. last week, press freedom advocates around the world have been mobilizing.

Assange Defense, on whose advisory board I serve, is organizing a national and international campaign to pressure U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and President Joe Biden to drop the extradition request and dismiss the charges against Assange. The stakes could not be higher.

The charges, which include 17 counts under the infamous Espionage Act, could result in 175 years in prison for the journalist who exposed U.S. war crimes.

Last week, Assange’s brother, filmmaker Gabriel Shipton, wrote in an email to Truthout,

“UK Home Secretary has decided today that any publisher who exposes national security information of an allied country may face extradition to two lifetimes in prison. Julian will appeal this decision and this once in a lifetime fight for freedom of the press continues.”

Assange’s indictment is based on WikiLeaks’s 2010-2011 disclosures of U.S. war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and the military prison at Guantánamo. Those revelations included 400,000 field reports about the Iraq War; 15,000 unreported deaths of Iraqi civilians; and systematic rape, torture and murder committed by Iraqi forces after the U.S. military “handed over detainees to a notorious Iraqi torture squad.” WikiLeaks also disclosed the Afghan War Logs, which are 90,000 reports of more civilian casualties by coalition forces than the U.S. military had admitted to. And its revelations additionally included the Guantánamo Files, 779 secret reports showing that 150 innocent people had been held there for years and documenting the torture and abuse of 800 men and boys in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

WikiLeaks also published the notorious “Collateral Murder” video, which documented how in 2007, a U.S. Army Apache helicopter gunship targeted and fired on unarmed civilians in Baghdad. At least 18 civilians were killed. They included two Reuters reporters and a man who came to rescue the wounded. Two children were injured. Then, a U.S. Army tank drove over one of the bodies, severing it in half. That video contains evidence of three separate war crimes that are prohibited by the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Army Field Manual.

As several civil liberties and human rights organizations declared in October 2021, when they asked Garland to dismiss the case against Assange, his prosecution poses a significant threat to First Amendment freedom of the press.

“The UK’s decision to extradite Julian Assange to the nation that plotted to assassinate him — the nation that wants to imprison him for 175 years for publishing truthful information in the public interest — is an abomination,” wrote Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg and Alice Walker — co-chairs of Assange Defense — in reaction to Patel’s extradition order. “The U.S. government argues that its venerated Constitution does not protect journalism the government dislikes, and that publishing truthful information in the public interest is a subversive, criminal act. This argument is a threat not only to journalism, but to democracy itself.”

Trevor Timm, executive director of Freedom of the Press Foundation, warned that if Assange is extradited to the United States and convicted of the charges against him, it “would potentially make receiving classified information, asking for sources for more information, and publishing certain types of classified information a crime.” Timm noted, “Journalists, of course, engage in all these activities regularly.”

Moreover, Assange has suffered psychological torture while confined in the U.K. for more than a decade, according to Nils Melzer, United Nations special rapporteur on torture. In December 2021, Melzer tweeted that the “U.K. is literally torturing him to death.”

On June 10, more than 300 doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists calling themselves “Doctors for Assange” wrote to Patel that Assange’s “deteriorating health” made it “medically and ethically unacceptable” to extradite him.

“Julian’s 13-year persecution culminates in a decision of ostentatious callous indifference,” John Shipton, Assange’s father, told Truthout.“Who amongst us would not burn with indignation and loathing?”

Stella Assange, who recently married Julian in prison, called Patel’s decision “a dark day for press freedom and for British democracy.” She told the Associated Press, “Julian did nothing wrong. He has committed no crime and is not a criminal. He is a journalist and a publisher, and he is being punished for doing his job.”

Yet U.K. officials disregarded Assange’s health and the injustice of his prosecution, insisting that the U.S. would treat him “appropriately.” In its June 17 statement ordering Assange’s extradition, the U.K. Home Office wrote:

In this case, the UK courts have not found that it would be oppressive, unjust or an abuse of process to extradite Mr Assange. Nor have they found that extradition would be incompatible with his human rights, including his right to a fair trial and to freedom of expression, and that whilst in the US he will be treated appropriately, including in relation to his health.

But after a three-week evidentiary hearing, U.K. District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled in January 2021 that if Assange were extradited to the United States, he would likely attempt suicide because of his mental state and the onerous conditions of confinement in U.S. prisons.

The United States later came forward with qualified “assurances” that Assange wouldn’t be kept in solitary confinement and the U.K. High Court reversed Baraitser’s decision in January 2022. The U.K. Supreme Court affirmed the High Court’s dismissal of Assange’s appeal in March, paving the way for Patel’s decision ordering extradition.

Amnesty International’s Agnes Callamard — former UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary execution — was skeptical of the so-called assurances that Assange would be treated humanely in U.S. custody. “Diplomatic assurances provided by the U.S. that Assange will not be kept in solitary confinement cannot be taken on face value given previous history,” Callamard said, referring to the U.S. reneging on past extradition assurances.

Assange now has until July 1 to appeal Patel’s decision and will apply to the High Court to reverse Baraitser’s rulings on other issues Assange raised at the extradition hearing. They include:

• The U.S.-U.K. extradition treaty prohibits extradition for a political offense and “espionage” is a political offense;
• Extradition is forbidden as the U.S. request is based on Assange’s political opinions;
• The request for extradition is an abuse of process as it was made for a political motive and not in good faith;
• Extradition would be oppressive or unjust because so much time has passed;
• The charges against Assange do not comply with the “dual criminality test” because they encompass acts that are not criminal offenses in both the U.S. and the U.K.; and
• Extradition would violate Assange’s rights to free expression and a fair trial, in addition to the prohibition against inhuman and degrading treatment in the European Convention on Human Rights.

Assange will also raise on appeal the CIA’s plot to kidnap and assassinate him while he was in the Ecuadorian Embassy under a grant of asylum.

If Assange loses his appeals to the U.K. High Court and Supreme Court, he could appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. The appeals could take several months or even years.

The indictment against Assange has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton, who jailed former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in 2019 for refusing to appear before a federal grand jury investigating Assange. The indictment charges that Assange conspired with Manning to gain access to a government computer.

This is the first time the United States has prosecuted a journalist or media outlet for publishing classified information. The extradition, trial and conviction of Julian Assange would have frightening ramifications for investigative journalism. On June 17, the editorial board of The Guardian wrote, “This action potentially opens the door for journalists anywhere in the world to be extradited to the US for exposing information deemed classified by Washington.”

*

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Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and a member of the national advisory boards of Assange Defense and Veterans For Peace, and the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Her books include Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues. She is co-host of “Law and Disorder” radio.

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

L’Italia, mentre chiede a Washington di essere ammessa alla Five Eyes, la più potente alleanza spionistica mondiale a guida Usa, boicotta il Forum economico internazionale di San Pietroburgo a scapito dei propri interessi nazionali.  

Due eventi – uno a Occidente e uno a Oriente – sono emblematici dei cambianti del quadro internazionale: a Washington la missione del Copasir (Comitato parlamentare per la sicurezza della Repubblica); a San Pietroburgo il Forum Economico Internazionale promosso dalla Russia, di cui ci riferisce la giornalista Daria Platonova, esperta di geopolitica.

Nella conferenza stampa a Washington il presidente del Copasir, Adolfo Urso, ha dichiarato che nessuno dei quattro rapporti dei servizi esaminati dal Copasir ha a che fare col dossier del Corriere della Sera sui “putiniani d’Italia”. La vicedirettrice del Corriere Fiorenza Sarzanini deve quindi spiegare se il dossier se lo è inventato oppure se lo ha redatto in base a “informazioni” ricevute sottobanco dai servizi segreti. Quale ulteriore contributo alla “sicurezza della Repubblica” il presidente del Copasir ha sollecitato l’ammissione dell’Italia alla Five Eyes, la più potente alleanza spionistica mondiale tra Stati Uniti, Canada, Gran Bretagna, Australia e Nuova Zelanda, perché l’Italia è “terra di frontiera e di cerniera rispetto alla proiezione russa, cinese, ma anche alla minaccia islamica e alle questioni inerenti potrei dire la sopravvivenza dell’Africa”.

Allo stesso tempo l’Italia ha boicottato il Forum Economico Internazionale di San Pietroburgo, dove, con una larga partecipazione anche dell’Africa, sono stati affrontati temi di primaria importanza. Come documenta anche il New York Times, la mossa dell’Occidente di bloccare le importazioni di petrolio e gas dalla Russia è un boomerang soprattutto per l’Europa, poiché Cina e India li acquistano a prezzi scontati aprendo alla Russia nuovi sbocchi ad Est. Escludendosi da un nuovo grande mercato internazionale che si sta formando nell’ottica di un mondo multipolare, l’Italia compromette i suoi stessi interessi nazionali. 

Tutto questo viene nascosto dal nostro mainstream politico-mediatico, il quale ci fa credere che tutto il mondo abbia condannato e isolato la Russia, mentre – come documenta l’importante Wilson Center di Washington – “i Paesi che hanno sanzionato la Russia per l’Ucraina rappresentano solo il 16% della popolazione mondiale”.  

Pangea Grandangolo è visibile anche in diretta TV su cellulare o computer nel sito 

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Dopo la prima trasmissione la puntata di Grandangolo è visibile, insieme alle precedenti, sul sito

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First published on June 23, 2022

***

On the night of February 24, when Russian forces crossed the western and northern borders of Ukraine, the world’s attention was riveted on the fate of Kiev. Hardly anyone paid attention to the far south in the Black Sea, some 140 kms from Odessa, when Russian Navy attacked that night and captured the entire Ukrainian garrison on Snake Island, an obscure small clump of rock with little obvious value, just 46 acres of rock and grass. 

But yet another massive attempt by Ukrainian forces on June 20 early morning to land troops on Snake Island signals that the Russian occupation remains under stiff challenge still. The Russians say they spotted a Global Hawk RQ-4 strategic reconnaissance UAV of the US Air Force at high altitudes near Snake Island,  apparently feeding coordinates to the Ukrainian combat positions.

The MOD in Moscow issued a lengthy account (in English) on Snake Island during the daily briefing on Tuesday by Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the chief spokesman. The statement said:

• “On June 20, at about 05.00 AM, the Kiev regime attempted to capture Snake Island.” 
• “The plan of the operation composed by the Kiev regime was supposed to launch massive air and artillery attacks at Snake Island, to disembark troops and capture it.”
• “The air attack involved more than 15 Ukrainian attack and reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) adjusted by two Bayraktar-TB2 UAVs.” 
• “Russian means detected a Global Hawk RQ-4 strategic reconnaissance UAV of the U.S. Air Force at high altitudes near Snake Island.” 
• “Ukrainian UAVs were supported in air by S-300 air defense systems from their combat positions near Tuzla and Ochakov (in Odessa Region).”
• “Missile and artillery attacks at Snake Island were launched by Ukrainian Tochka-U ballistic missiles, Uragan multiple rocket launchers and M777 155-mm howitzers from their combat positions to the west from Odessa and in Kubansky island.”
• “Russian air defence means (Pantsir air defense missile and cannon system and Tor air defense missile system) have destroyed all the destruction means of the enemy launched at Snake Island.”
• “The destroyed targets were: 13 UAVs, 4 Tochka-U missiles and 21 projectiles of Uragan multiple rocket launcher.”
• “No Ukrainian destruction means have reached their targets in Snake Island.”
• “The unsuccessful fire attack forced the enemy to abandon the landing to Snake Island.”

Control over Snake Island is of strategic importance. Located near the southern coast of Odessa, it is a necessary springboard for the expected Russian operation on that port city in a conceivable future. By the same token, the removal of the Russian control of Snake Island becomes important for Kiev. 

If the Ukrainian military regains control of the island, it can not only ensure the safety of the air and sea near Odessa, but can also be used for the supply of military equipment by NATO by sea. Although the Snake Island is only a fraction of a square kilometre in size, its importance for control of the sea lanes in western Black Sea is not in doubt. 

If Russians set up their long-range air-defence systems they will control the sea, land and air in the north-west part of the Black Sea and in the south of Ukraine. It would also give Russian troops the chance to break into Transnistria, Moldova’s breakaway territory under Russian control that lies next-door to Ukraine and not far from Odesa. The US is working feverishly to do “another Ukraine” against Russia in Moldavia which has a president and top officials with dual American citizenship who seek EU and NATO membership.

Snake Island is only 45km away from the coast of Romania, which is a member of NATO, where the alliance has deployed an estimated land force of upto 4,000 troops currently drawn from the US, Germany, France, UK, Poland, etc. Snake Island lies close to the mouth of the River Danube, which delineates Romania’s border with Ukraine. Military analysts have pointed out that Russian troops on Snake Island could be in a position to control traffic into the Danube delta, the gateway to south-eastern Europe. Romania’s Black Sea port of Constanta is not far south.  

Clearly, the involvement of the US and UK in the planning and conduct of Ukraine’s repeated attempts to regain control of the Snake Island shows that they have given the Snake Island a vital and almost mythical status in the war. Any Russian deployment of S-400 missile system in Snake Island would  of course endanger NATO’s southern flank.  

Suffice to say, the NATO’s permanent presence in the Black Sea and future expansion toward the Caucasus and the Caspian and Central Asian regions will remain problematic so long as Russia is in control of Snake island. 

Snake Island epitomises the hopelessness of the Ukraine war. Russia cannot end its operation even after a successful completion of the Battle of Donbass. Kiev is unlikely to sue for peace. Kiev is seriously preparing for a counteroffensive once the heavy weapons arriving from the US are deployed. 

Kharkiv is only 40 kms from the Russian border and Ukrainian forces are in no mood to give up there. In the south, Kiev vows to retake Zoporozhizhia, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions which the Russians plan to integrate. The Ukrainian forces are well ensconced in Odessa. Clearly, the NATO is preparing for a big fight for Odessa. The ongoing battle for Snake Island is symptomatic of that. 

The two US weapon systems that could be game-changers in an island fight are Harpoon anti-ship missiles and High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS). While Harpoons could help the Ukrainians cut off the Snake Island from seaborne resupply,  HIMARS could allow them to bombard the island at will.   

The Black Sea Fleet remains in control of the Black Sea and Russians apparently managed to ship a Tor air-defence system to Snake Island. But that may change once the US supply of truck-mounted launchers for Harpoon anti-ship missiles reach Ukraine. The Harpoon has a range of 150 kms or more. HIMARS can fire M30 rockets out to a distance of over 70 kms —more than enough to reach Snake Island.

To be sure, a long war lies ahead and it cannot really end without the collapse of the Ukrainian state and abject surrender. Most certainly, Ukrainians will renew their assault on Snake Island. It is evident that unlike eastern region, southern Ukraine is the priority in NATO’s planning.  

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

First published on March 8, 2021

***

“I have come to lead you to the other shore; into eternal darkness, into fire and into ice.” Inferno–Dante Alighieri

The problem with the mRNA Covid-19 vaccine, is not that it’s a vaccine. It’s that it’s not safe. That’s the issue: Safety.

This view is shared by a great many professionals who believe that these potentially-toxic concoctions pose a significant threat to the health and well-being of anyone who chooses to get inoculated.

Do you realize that the mRNA vaccine is a purely synthetic PEG-coated lipid nanoparticle that spreads throughout the body and brain creating conditions for debilitating ailments 3 or 4 years down the road? (More on this below)

Do you realize that these dubious vaccines have not been thoroughly tested, did not undergo critical animal trials, did not complete Phase 3 trials, and were waved through the regulatory process under the “Emergency Use Authorization (EUA)” provision?

What does it mean when we say: “The vaccines were waved through under the Emergency Use Authorization provision?”

It means that the vaccines were not required to meet the same rigorous standards or follow the same protocols as previous vaccines. It means that, by definition, these vaccines are not safe. It means that normal precautionary regulations were suspended in order to put these vaccines into service as fast as possible. Isn’t that worth mulling over before rolling up your sleeve?

There are a number of extremely promising treatments, therapies and medications for Covid, and many more are on their way. (See: Sharyl Attkisson: “Full Measure”, Vaccines and Treatments, You Tube)

But the mRNA vaccine is not among these promising medications. The mRNA vaccine is a grave threat to one’s health and safety. It should never have been “approved”.

And who is promoting these vaccines that do not stop the transmission of Covid, do not prevent Covid, and which will have no meaningful impact on the rapidly-declining fatality rate? Who is pushing these potentially-lethal injections?

Is it the reputable scientists, virologists, epidemiologists and other medical experts who don’t have a stake in the outcome and who base their judgements on the science alone, or is it the conflicted state bureaucrats, the public health toadies and the billionaire activists who control the media and whose shadowy and sinister motives are still not clear?

Most people know the answer to that question already. It’s obvious.

And why have the views of the naysayers, the contrarians and the critics been painstakingly scrubbed from the MSM and social media? If the efficacy and safety of these vaccines is so unassailable, then why must all public debate be prevented?

And yourself this: Has the Covid vaccine roll-out been the biggest and most extravagant Madison Avenue “product launch” in American history?

Indeed, it has. The media, Hollywood, the public health authorities, big pharma, global elites and the entire political establishment have joined the full-throated, public relations blitz that is aimed at cajoling every man, woman and child into doing something that could trigger an agonizing medical condition or dramatically shorten their lives.

Why are they doing this? Why have they quashed all debate and silenced their critics? Why are they taking advantage of public hysteria to intensify their mass-vaccination campaign? Why have they obfuscated the truth on so many issues related to Covid including masks, asymptomatic transmission, school closures, lockdowns etc? Is there even one part of the official Covid narrative that “rings true” or that can withstand the scrutiny of critical analysis?Does it all have to be lies? Can’t we at least mix some truth in with the vast mountain of flagrant fabrications and disinformation?

The truth is, we don’t need a vaccine. The case numbers and fatalities are already dropping precipitously around the world. The virus is on its way out. Here’s how Pfizer’s former Vice President and Chief Scientist for Allergy & Respiratory Disease, Dr. Michael Yeadon, summed it up some months ago:

“There is absolutely no need for vaccines to extinguish the pandemic… You do not vaccinate people who aren’t at risk from a disease. You also don’t set about planning to vaccinate millions of fit and healthy people with a vaccine that hasn’t been extensively tested on human subjects.”

He’s right, isn’t he? And, yet, even now– when the vast majority of people are fully aware that cases and deaths are falling like a stone– they’re still rushing-off to their local public health facility to get vaccinated. Explain that to me? Why would anyone willingly get vaccinated when the infection is already dying out and the number of susceptible hosts is rapidly decreasing? What sense does that make?

Do you realize that we have no data on the long-term adverse effects of these new mRNA vaccines? None. So, the question is: Why would a public health official put a vaccine into service without knowing what the long-term effects of that vaccine might be?

He wouldn’t, unless he was pressured into doing so, because that would be irresponsible and a violation of his oath to “Do no harm.”

Even so, these are the very same vaccines that well-known billionaire activists want to use on all 7 billion people on Planet Earth. Do these “do goodie” billionaires have any idea of the carnage and suffering their mass-vaccination campaign is likely to generate? Or is that the goal, a world with fewer people?

Let’s cut to the chase: What readers really want to know is how these vaccines will impact their health. “How is this going to affect me”, that’s the bottom line. But since we have no long-term data, (since there were no long-term trials) we have to depend on the analysis of professionals who have a sense of where the potential problems might arise. Check out this blurb from an article by Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, lung specialist and former head of the public health department, and Dr. Michael Yeadon, ex-Pfizer head of respiratory research. Here are some of their concerns:

“The formation of so-called “non-neutralizing antibodies” can lead to an exaggerated immune reaction, especially when the test person is confronted with the real, “wild” virus after vaccination.”

– The vaccinations are expected to produce antibodies against spike proteins of SARS-CoV-2. However, spike proteins also contain syncytin-homologous proteins, which are essential for the formation of the placenta in mammals such as humans. It must be ruled out that a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 could trigger an immune reaction against syncytin-1, as it may otherwise result in infertility of indefinite duration in vaccinated women.

– The mRNA vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech contain polyethylene glycol (PEG). 70% of people develop antibodies against this substance. This means that many people can develop allergic, potentially fatal reactions to the vaccination.

– The much too short duration of the study does not allow a realistic estimation of the late effects. As in the narcolepsy cases after the swine flu vaccination, millions of healthy people would be exposed to an unacceptable risk if an emergency approval were to be granted and the possibility of observing the late effects of the vaccination were to follow.” (“That Was Quick”, Lockdown Skeptics)

Let’s summarize:

The new messenger RNA vaccines could make recipients more susceptible to serious illness or death. (The vaccine could pave the way for autoimmune disease or ADE Antibody-dependent Enhancement.)

Spike proteins can “trigger an immune reaction” that will “result in infertility.”

The new vaccines contain polyethylene glycol (PEG) which can be “potentially fatal.”

The trials were not long enough to determine whether the vaccines are safe or not. FDA approval does not mean “safe”. Quite the contrary. The FDA is “captured” in the same way the FAA is captured.

Naturally, the analysis of Yeadon and Wodarg has appeared nowhere in the MSM. (Also, Yeadon was recently removed by Twitter.) Experts in their field of learning are no longer allowed to candidly discuss their concerns in a public forum if their conclusions do not jibe with the official narrative. The push to censor opposing points of view is greater now than any time in our 245-year history. The people who now insist that you get vaccinated, are the very same people who are doing everything in the power to prevent you from knowing the truth about their vaccines.

And what is the truth?

The truth is that ‘universal vaccination’ factors quite large in the elitist restructuring agenda that has nothing to do with global pandemic and everything to do with social control. At its heart, Covid is a political phenomenon more than it is a public health emergency. One is merely a fig leaf for the other.

Have you ever heard of Prion disease?

The CDC describes Prion diseases as “a family of rare progressive neurodegenerative disorders that affect both humans and animals. They are distinguished by long incubation periods, characteristic spongiform changes associated with neuronal loss, and a failure to induce inflammatory response.

The causative agents of TSEs are believed to be prions. The term “prions” refers to abnormal, pathogenic agents that are transmissible and are able to induce abnormal folding of specific normal cellular proteins called prion proteins that are found most abundantly in the brain….. The abnormal folding of the prion proteins leads to brain damage and the characteristic signs and symptoms of the disease. Prion diseases are usually rapidly progressive and always fatal.” (CDC)

Is this what the future holds for millions of recipients of the mRNA vaccine?

We think it is very likely.

In an earlier article, we posted an excerpt from an interview with Dr. Chris Shaw, Ph.D, Specialist in Neuroplasticity and Neuropathology. Shaw described this very condition that could emerge as a reaction to agents in the mRNA vaccine that find their way into the brain. Here’s what he said:

“The mRNA lipid-coated PEG-construct– by Moderna’s own study–does not stay localized but spreads throughout the body including the brain. Found in animal studies in bone marrow, brain, lymph nodes, heart, kidneys liver, lungs etc Doctors are saying that the vaccine does NOT cross the blood-brain barrier, but that is NOT true. …If it reaches the brain there will be an auto immune response that will cause inflammation What characterizes virtually all neuro-degenerative diseases is this misfolded protein that is characteristic to Lou Gerrigs disease, to Alzheimer’s, to Parkinsons to Huntington’s etc. They are different proteins, but they tend to form these sheets of misfolded proteins called Beta Sheets. Now you are asking cells in various parts of the body–including the brain– to make alot of these proteins and release them to the outside, and , are we sure that’s what’ it’s all doing? Are you getting clusters of misfolded proteins inside neurons? That would be a bad thing to do.. So, you’d like to know where it is, how much of it there is, and which groups of neuronal groups its targeted. .and those are the kinds of questions you like the companies to have solved long before they got authorization and discovered some years later that they have a problem.”

“This is a vast experiment that should have been done in the lab on animals and now it is being done on people ..The potential is that you are going to harm alot of people while you do this experiment.” (“NEUROSCIENTIST’S CONCERNS ABOUT COVID VACCINES”, Chris Shaw, Ph.D, Specialist in Neuroplasticity and Neuropathology)

Is this what we should expect in the future, a sharp uptick in neurological disorders like Lou Gehrig’s disease, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson?

Apparently, so. Check out this longer excerpt from a research paper by Dr. J. Bart Classen:

“Vaccines have been found to cause a host of chronic, late developing adverse events. Some adverse events like type 1 diabetes may not occur until 3-4 years after a vaccine is administered[1]…. Given that type 1 diabetes is only one of many immune mediated diseases potentially caused by vaccines, chronic late occurring adverse events are a serious public health issue....

RNA based vaccines offers special risks of inducing specific adverse events. One such potential adverse event is prion-based diseases caused by activation of intrinsic proteins to form prions. A wealth of knowledge has been published on a class of RNA binding proteins shown to participating in causing a number of neurological diseases including Alzheimer’s disease and ALS….

…In the current paper the concern is raised that the RNA based COVID vaccines have the potential to cause more disease than the epidemic of COVID-19. This paper focuses on a novel potential adverse event mechanism causing prion disease which could be even more common and debilitating than the viral infection the vaccine is designed to prevent. …….

The current analysis indicates … RNA based COVID-19 vaccine contains many of these RNA sequences that have …. have the potential to induce chronic degenerative neurological diseases....

Genetic diversity protects species from mass casualties caused by infectious agents. One individual may be killed by a virus while another may have no ill effects from the same virus. By placing the identical receptor, the spike protein, on cells of everyone in a population, the genetic diversity for at least one potential receptor disappears. Everyone in the population now becomes potentially susceptible to binding with the same infectious agent….

…The results indicate that the vaccine RNA has specific sequences that may induce TDP-43 and FUS to fold into their pathologic prion confirmations…The folding of TDP-43 and FUS into their pathologic prion confirmations is known to cause ALS,… Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological degenerative diseases. The enclosed finding as well as additional potential risks leads the author to believe that regulatory approval of the RNA based vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 was premature and that the vaccine may cause much more harm than benefit. (“Covid-19 RNA Based Vaccines and the Risk of Prion Disease”, J. Bart Classen, MD., Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.”)

Dr. Classen’s analysis is disturbing, but in no way, comprehensive. The new regime of mRNA vaccines fails on a great many levels which we will discuss in future articles. These “gene editing” vaccines are not medicine, they are strange and menacing hybrid cocktail that was created to achieve an elusive political objective of which we still know very little. If there was ever a time to stand back from the crowd, resist groupthink, and employ one’s own critical thinking skills to decide whether the risks of vaccination far outweigh the benefits; this is it. The choice is yours to make.

*

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Mike Whitney is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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***

“The color of the Statue of Liberty

Grows ever more deathly pale

As, loving freedom with bullets,

You shoot at yourself, America.”

– Yevgeny Yevtushenko, “The Freedom to Kill,” 1970.

On June 5, 1968, a few minutes after midnight, Robert Kennedy was shot and killed at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles while walking through a narrow serving area called “the pantry.” Kennedy had just won the California primary and was on his way to a room where print media reporters were waiting to hear him speak.

In early March, Lyndon B. Johnson had thrown open the race by announcing that he would not seek re-election because of the failure of his Vietnam policy. Kennedy emerged as a leading contender by energizing the youth wing of the party with his calls for sweeping social change.

Kennedy was in many ways a strange liberal icon because he grew up idolizing Herbert Hoover, was closest in his family to his father, Joseph, the millionaire business tycoon, began his career supporting Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist witch-hunt, called for victory against communism in Vietnam in the early 1960s.

Nevertheless, by the latter part of the 1960s, Kennedy had evolved into a crusader for the poor and dove on Vietnam who was trying to ride the wave of the protest movement into the White House.^[1]

Biographers Lester and Irene David wrote that Bobby was the Kennedy who “felt deepest, cared the most, and fought the hardest for humanity—crying out against America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, championing the causes of blacks, Hispanics, and Mexican-Americans, and crusading against the suffering of children, the elderly and anyone else hurt or bypassed by social and economic progress.”^[2]

After Kennedy’s death, the Democratic Party became a shadow of its former self, with six of the next nine presidents being Republicans. The Party in this period abandoned its core base—union laborers, minorities, and blue-collar workers—focusing instead on Wall Street.^[3]

Newspaper headline announcing Kennedy’s death. [Source: pri.org]

Official Version of Assassination

According to the official version, Kennedy was shot and killed by a lone gunman, Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian-born Jordanian citizen who was allegedly aghast by Kennedy’s recent decision to send 50 jet bombers to Israel to do harm to the Palestinians.

According to his mother, Sirhan had been traumatized as a child by the violence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His family home in East Jerusalem was destroyed by an Israeli bombing raid and he had witnessed the death of his older brother, who was killed by a Jordanian military vehicle that was swerving to escape Israeli gunfire.^[4]

Professional football player Roosevelt Grier and 1960 Olympic gold medalist Rafer Johnson were among several men who subdued and disarmed Sirhan after a struggle.

Subsequently, he was arrested and convicted of the murder.

The prosecution during his trial—led by World War II hero Lynn “Buck” Compton who was subsequently appointed by Governor Ronald Reagan as Justice of the California Court of Appeals^[5]—showed that Sirhan was seen at the Ambassador Hotel on June 3, two nights before the attack, to learn the building’s layout, and that he visited a gun range on June 4.

Alvin Clark, Sirhan’s garbage collector, testified that Sirhan had told him a month before the attack of his intention to shoot Kennedy—a fact seemingly confirmed by diaries that Sirhan kept which showed premeditation.

Sirhan initially confessed to the killing but later claimed to have no memory of it. After the events transpired, he had appeared calm, but not “in complete control of his mind.”

Sirhan’s death sentence was commuted to a life prison sentence and he was denied parole fifteen times, though recommended for release on August 27, 2021 after over fifty years behind bars.

RFK Jr. Believes Sirhan Is Innocent

In a 2018 interview with The Washington Post, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said that he traveled to meet with Sirhan at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional facility in San Diego County, and, after a relatively lengthy conversation, believed that Sirhan did not kill his father and that a second gunman was involved.

Kennedy Jr.’s view is shared by his sister, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, and by Paul Schrade, regional director of the United Auto Workers (UAW) and one of Bobby’s closest advisers, who was shot the night that he was killed.

In 2016, Schrade testified in support of Sirhan’s parole, stating his belief that a second shooter killed Kennedy and that Sirhan was intended to be a distraction from the real gunman by an unknown conspiracy.

Kennedy Jr. has pointed out that Sirhan’s appointed lawyer at his original trial, Grant Cooper, was Johnny Rosselli’s personal lawyer. “Roselli,” he said, “was the mobster who ran the assassination program for the CIA against Castro. Cooper pressured Sirhan to plead guilty so that there was no trial.”

Kennedy believes the real assassin was Thane Eugene Cesar, an employee of Lockheed’s Burbank facility—which manufactured the CIA produced U-2 spy plane—and previously Hughes Aircraft who was moonlighting as a security guard for Ace Security Services.

After the shooting, Kennedy Sr. was photographed with Cesar’s clip-on tie next to him, which he had apparently yanked off.

Cesar had told police that he had a hold of Bobby’s right arm when Sirhan began firing at him, and then pulled his gun and grabbed the Senator and fell backwards. Later, however, Cesar changed his story and said that he was shoved by an unknown individual after Sirhan opened fire and drew his gun only after he scrambled to his feet.^[6]

In one interview Cesar said he did not see Kennedy get shot and in another—given right after the shooting when doctors had not yet examined Kennedy or issued any statements—stated that he saw Kennedy get shot four times, in the head, chest and shoulder.^[7]

Cesar considered the Kennedys “the biggest bunch of crooks that ever walked the earth” and worked for the presidential campaign of Alabama’s segregationist Governor, George C. Wallace.^[8]

Before the killing, he had been seen in Las Vegas in the company of a Florida hit man. The man who saw him said Cesar was “owned by Howard Hughes” and was “as tough as they come.”^[9]

Hughes was the owner of a major aerospace company and “godfather of Las Vegas” with deep connections to the Republican Party and CIA.^[10]

Jim Yoder, who bought the alleged assassination weapons from Cesar after Kennedy’s death, claimed that Cesar worked in off-limits areas at Lockheed, to which only special personnel had access. These areas were under the control of the CIA.

RFK Jr. believes that Cesar was the one that shot his father in the back of the head after hiding in the pantry and waiting for his appearance in the pantry or, alternatively, that he held his father and shot him three times under the arm, while another assassin—a man dressed in a busboy outfit, fired the two shots to Kennedy’s head that killed him—with a gun that was disguised or small enough to remain hidden.^[11]

Planning at one point to visit Cesar in the Philippines until he demanded a payment of $25,000, RFK Jr. stated: “With 77 people in the pantry, every eyewitness said Sirhan was always in front of my father at a 3-6 feet distance. Sirhan fired two shots toward my father before he was tackled. From under the dog pile, Sirhan emptied his 8-chamber revolver firing 6 more shots in the opposite direction 5 of them striking bystanders and one going wild.”

“Cesar was a bigot who hated the Kennedys for their advocacy of Civil Rights for blacks. By his own account, Cesar was directly behind my dad holding his right elbow with his own gun drawn when my dad fell backwards on top of him. Cesar repeatedly changed his story about exactly when he drew his weapon.”

“According to the Coroner, Dr. Thomas Noguchi, all 4 shots that struck my father were ‘contact’ shots fired from behind my dad with the barrel touching or nearly touching his body. As my dad fell, he reached back and tore off Cesar’s clip on tie.”

“Cesar sold his .22 to a co-worker [Yoder] weeks after the assassination, warning him that it had been used in a crime. Cesar lied to police claiming that he’d disposed of the gun months before the assassination.”

Kennedy Jr. concluded, “Police have never seriously investigated Cesar’s role in my father’s killing,” adding that the LAPD unit which investigated his dad’s assassination was “run by active CIA operatives” who “destroyed thousands of pieces of evidence.”^[12]

A Lie Too Big to Fail

The case against Sirhan being the lone gunman can be summarized in six key points:

1. More Bullets Were Fired Than Were in Sirhan’s Gun

Sirhan’s gun had eight bullets in it. According to officials, three of Sirhan’s bullets hit Kennedy (a fourth went through his coat), and five bullets struck the other victims.

But one bullet was also lost in the ceiling space. And crime scene photos show investigators pointing to bullet holes circled in doorframes and a ceiling panel.

Investigators found twelve points of entry in the six victims, with three bullet holes photographed in the ceiling.^[13] LAPD criminalist DeWayne Wolfer said “it’s unbelievable how many holes there are in the kitchen ceiling.”^[14]

An audio tape made by Polish journalist Stanislaw Pruszynski recorded thirteen shots. Analysis of the tape found that it showed the gunshots to be coming from two separate directions.^[15]

2. Kennedy’s Killer Shot Him from the Back, Not the Front

L.A. County Coroner Thomas Noguchi’s report—which mysteriously went missing from the LAPD’s final report—found that Kennedy had been hit by three bullets from the rear, including one in his head behind his right ear. This conclusion rules out Sirhan who was identified by all witnesses as having shot at Kennedy from the front.

3. Kennedy’s Killer Shot Him from Close Range—Sirhan Was Too Far Away

Noguchi, Wolfer and Pasadena criminalist William Harper, drawing on forensic and eyewitness evidence, all concluded that the shots which killed Kennedy came from close range—a point of near direct contact.^[16] Sirhan never got anywhere near that close—he was at least three feet away.^[17]

4. Two Guns and Two Shooters

Sirhan’s gun was never matched to the bullets that killed Kennedy. William Harper, who survived an assassination attempt on the eve of his scheduled testimony before a grand jury investigating the handling of firearms evidence, concluded that two .22 caliber guns were involved in the assassination.^[18]

Evan Freed, a photographer who was standing near Kennedy when the shooting started, said that another man besides Sirhan—who looked like Sirhan but was wearing darker clothing—fired the first shot at Kennedy and that a man made a failed attempt to grab him afterwards and he ran out of the pantry.^[19]

Other witnesses confirm the same story, observing a man with a gun under a newspaper and a woman with a polka-dotted dress running out of the room.^[20]

Donald Schulman, a runner for Los Angeles TV station KNXT, reported on the air minutes after Kennedy’s assassination that, after Sirhan fired his gun, a security guard—referring to Cesar—fired back and struck Kennedy three times.

Schulman also stated that he spotted two revolvers other than Sirhan’s and that both had been fired—an observation confirmed by testimony and statements introduced at an official hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court.^[21]

5. Karl Uecker

One of the most important witnesses was, Karl Uecker, a maitre d’ at the Ambassador Hotel, who was the first one to grab Sirhan during the shooting in an attempt to subdue him. He told filmmaker Ted Charach that Sirhan could not have been the killer. He stated:

“Sirhan at no time was firing from behind Senator Robert Kennedy. No! No! Not an inch from Kennedy’s head—I don’t believe that it was Sirhan’s gun firing back from an upward direction. I think I would have seen it. I was the closest one. In order for Sirhan to get that close to Senator Kennedy from behind he would have had to pass me and didn’t pass me at that point. I had him very tight, pushed against the steam table while Senator Kennedy staggered back and Mr. Schrade dropped to the floor first. So this does not fit with what Mr. Fitts [prosecuting attorney later promoted by Governor Reagan to California’s Superior Court] told the jury.”^[22]

Uecker also said that he saw a guard—Thane Cesar—who brandished a gun which was odd. He testified that he had grabbed Sirhan after the second shot, not the fourth shot—which would further prove the existence of a second shooter because Kennedy was shot three times under the arm and twice in the head, and seven bullets were recovered from six victims.^[23]

Investigator Lisa Pease wrote that, “if Uecker had grabbed Sirhan after the second shot, then someone else had to have shot Kennedy at least twice, as Kennedy had provably been shot four times from near-contact range.”^[24]

6. Kennedy Was Killed from an Elevated Position

Not only was Kennedy shot from the back, but witnesses saw someone shooting at him from an elevated position twelve to sixteen inches above Kennedy’s head, with knee or body on a steam table.

This could not have been Sirhan who was identified by four credible witnesses, including Uecker, as shooting at Kennedy from the floor on a slightly upward trajectory, which made sense since Sirhan was four inches shorter than Kennedy.^[25]

Uecker specified further that he pushed Sirhan up on a table after he grabbed him in a headlock; he was not on a table before.

Richard Lubic, a 31-year-old television producer and campaign aide, heard a voice—“Kennedy you son of a bitch”—and then heard two shots from what sounded like a starter pistol at a track meet.

The shots came from a man who had his knee on a small table or air conditioning vent and lifted himself up on his knee to obtain elevation while shooting. He had bare arms when firing; Sirhan was wearing long sleeves.^[26]

Sirhan As “Magician’s Assistant”

Some witnesses thought Sirhan was firing a cap gun. The real assassins appear to have waited until Sirhan fired the first shot and people focused on him, and then moved quickly to get the job done.

Sirhan’s function was that of a “magician’s assistant.” He provided the distraction by firing blanks—which were designed to deceive the mind and eye.^[27]

The fact that the shooter was elevated would have also been part of the plan, since people’s natural instinct in a crisis is to look around them and not upward.

The Girl with the Polka-Dot Dress

After the shooting, Sandra Serrano, a 20-year-old Pasadena City College student, observed a twenty-something “Hispanic-looking” man wearing a gold sweater and a dark-haired Caucasian girl with a “good figure” and “funny nose” wearing a white dress with black polka dots. The two were running down a hallway to a fire exit.

Serrano had seen the pair with Sirhan earlier in the night, while Vincent Di Pierro said he saw Sirhan and the girl in the polka-dot dress just before Kennedy was shot with wicked smiles.

As the girl was running to the fire exit, she turned to Serrano, laughing, and said. “We shot him! We shot him.” Astonished, Serrano asked “who did you shoot?” and she replied “Senator Kennedy!”

An elderly couple named Bernstein witnessed this exchange and told LAPD Sergeant Paul Sharaga, who put out an all-points bulletin on the pair.

At that point, however, a police radio blackout commenced which, according to Sharaga, lasted between fifteen and twenty minutes.^[28]

Afterwards, Detective Inspector John Powers ordered a cancelation of the description of the two suspects, saying that “we don’t want to make a federal case out of it. We’ve got the suspect in custody.”^[29] These comments suggest a police cover-up that was planned beforehand.

“Criminal Equivalent of a Potemkin Village”

Tim Tate and Brad Johnson, authors of the 2018 book The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: Crime, Conspiracy and Cover-Up—A New Investigation, wrote that the LAPD:

“constructed the criminal equivalent of a Potemkin Village [Soviet model villages that masked underlying brutality of the Soviet system]—a Hollywood style set whose façade concealed the truth that evidence was overlooked, destroyed or suppressed, and witnesses were ignored or intimidated into silence. After which L.A. law enforcement locked the whole sorry saga away, hiding their misdeeds and incompetence behind impenetrable walls of official secrecy for two full decades.”^[30]

As an example of police malfeasance, no effort was made to perform a ballistics test on Thane Cesar’s .22 caliber gun to see whether the bullets matched those that killed Kennedy.

In addition, a) bullets were planted in Sirhan’s car; b) the crime scene area was never properly roped off; c) hotel employees were allowed to mop up blood from the kitchen floor right after; and d) the LAPD burned more than 2,400 photographs from the crime scene and investigation in a medical waste incinerator before Sirhan’s trial.^[31]

The LAPD task force set to investigate the killing—the “Special Unit Senator” (SUS)—was headed by 22-year LAPD veteran Lt. Manuel Pena, who reportedly killed eleven people in the line of duty—more than any other officer in the history of the department.^[32]

In November 1967, Pena temporarily retired from the LAPD to work with USAID’s Office of Public Safety in South America, a CIA front headed by known CIA agent Byron Engle.^[33]

One of his colleagues was Daniel Mitrione, an Indiana police officer who was kidnapped and killed by left-wing guerrillas in Uruguay in retaliation for his promotion of torture techniques among the U.S.-trained police.^[34]

Charles A. O’Brien, California’s Chief Deputy Attorney General, told William Turner that USAID was being used as an “ultra-secret CIA unit” that was known to insiders as the “Department of Dirty Tricks” and that it was involved in teaching foreign intelligence agents the techniques of assassination.^[35]

To help oversee the RFK investigation, Pena selected another CIA compatriot, Sgt. Enrique “Hank” Hernandez, a polygraph specialist who was subsequently promoted to lieutenant in recognition of his performance on the SUS.

Hernandez had played a key role in the CIA’s “Unified Police Command,” a training operation for Latin American countries and received a medal from the Venezuelan government for his efforts in helping prevent Fidel Castro’s exportation of the Cuban revolution onto its soil.^[36]

Source: survivorbb.rapeutation.com

Under Hernandez and Pena’s direction, SUS became what authors William Turner and Jonn Christian termed a “kind of Bermuda triangle” into which reports and major leads on the case—including any that pointed to CIA or FBI involvement—disappeared.”^[37]

The SUS at one point requested that the FBI report “any attempts to write stories regarding the assassination which might tend to suggest a conspiratorial aspect.”^[38]

The SUS did question the woman with the polka-dot dress, though the tape was made blank and witnesses who had seen her—most notably Sandra Serrano—were intimidated, coerced and smeared.^[39]

When Paul Sharaga, the LAPD officer who put in the all-points bulletin, prepared a report, the SUS disposed of it, and it never again surfaced.^[40]

The SUS further tried to have Coroner Noguchi commit perjury.

When he refused to comply, it questioned his competency and character and had him suspended—with his findings never seeing the light of day.^[41]

Documents assembled by New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison that pointed to a connection with the JFK assassination were among those—perhaps not surprisingly—ignored.^[42]

The LAPD took no action additionally when Roy Donald Murray, a prosperous cotton rancher in the northern California town of Earlimart who hated Kennedy and Cesar Chavez, was overheard by a local police officer in May 1968 boasting about pledging $2,000 to his mafia friends in Las Vegas for an assassination fund.^[43]

The FBI also did not follow up on a report by Edward Hugh Pole, who served time with Jimmy Hoffa in the Lewisburg penitentiary and said that Hoffa had boasted to fellow prisoners that he had put a hit out on Bobby Kennedy—who had been the one during his stint as Attorney General to put him in jail.^[44]

Show Trial

Lisa Pease referred to Sirhan’s trial as a “show trial.” Key witnesses were never asked to testify, ballistics tests were never ordered, and discrepancies in the LAPD’s story and shoddy investigation went unchallenged by Sirhan’s defense team.

Remarkably, Coroner Noguchi’s report, which detailed the existence of two shooters and specified that Sirhan could not have been the one to deliver the lethal shots, was not entered into evidence at the trial and Sirhan’s lawyer, Grant Cooper, cut short Noguchi’s testimony.

Cooper also cut short the testimony of LAPD criminalist DeWayne Wolfer, who was cited in later probes to have been negligent in his conduct, and who had been photographed pointing to bullet holes in the walls which he now said were not genuine.^[45]

Cooper had had a felony indictment hanging over him during Sirhan’s trial, which was withdrawn once the death sentence was passed.^[46]

William Pepper, who took over Sirhan’s case in 2010 after serving as the Martin Luther King family lawyer, said that “there can be no reasonable doubt that this conflict influenced, more precisely directed Cooper’s lamentable trial performance.”^[47]

Secret Team

In her 2018 book A Lie Too Big to Fail, Lisa Pease suggests that the hit team included a 21-year-old bookstore clerk named Michael Wayne and the girl in the polka-dot dress, who collected press badges which enabled members of the team to go anywhere in the hotel.

Wayne later helped provide a diversion while the assassin(s) got away. Suspiciously, he was found with the business card of Duane Gilbert, a right-wing extremist and militant involved in a previous theft of dynamite.

Throughout the night, the hit teams communicated through radio—with different teams likely prepared for Kennedy in different rooms of the hotel.

One of the team members manned the southwest fire escape so the girl in the polka-dot dress could sneak Sirhan into the hotel that way. A man in a maroon coat stood next to the door all night holding a radio.^[48]

When the woman in the polka-dot dress shouted “we shot him” as she and the assassin were making their escape, she may have been trying to alert her cohort at the back door.

Markings of a CIA Special-Op

The secret team appears to have been part of a highly sophisticated intelligence operation that required a large support team and compliance with the with LAPD, L.A. County’s Sheriff’s Department and District Attorney’s Office, state government, the media and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

The operation additionally required control of Sirhan’s defense team, access to trained assassins, and access to a patsy that could be hypnotized—which only the CIA could provide.^[49]

An Irish filmmaker, Shane O’Sullivan, identified two men photographed at the Ambassador Hotel on the night Kennedy was killed as Bulova Watch Company sales managers attending the company’s convention. O’Sullivan stated that Bulova was a “well-known CIA cover.” One of the men bore some resemblance to CIA agent George Joannides, chief of the CIA’s psychological warfare branch in Miami during the early 1960s who served later as a CIA liaison to the House Select Committee on Assassination.

CIA agent Bradley Ayers and diplomat Wayne Smith, who worked with him at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, identified CIA assassin David Sanchez Morales as the man in a photo taken at the Ambassador Hotel on the night of Kennedy’s killing—though others who knew Morales said it was not.^[50]

O’Sullivan featured an interview with Morales’s former attorney Robert Walton, who quoted Morales as having said, “I was in Dallas when we got the son of a bitch and I was in Los Angeles when we got the little bastard.”^[51]

Another important potential CIA connection emerges with the mysterious girl in the polka-dotted dress. Witnesses believe she may have been Patricia Elayn Neal, a high-school drop-out from Red Bluff, California.

In 1973, she married Jerry Capehart, a Korean War veteran who managed Hollywood musical star Rosemary Clooney as well as country singer Glenn Campbell and 1950s rock star Eddie Cochran, with whom he co-wrote some famous songs.

Capehart’s son, Ray, told researchers that his father told him he had at one time worked for the CIA—and that he had been involved in mind-control experimentation.^[52]

Not coincidentally, Sirhan appears to have been subjected to mind-control experiments and programmed to be part of the assassination plot.

Real Life Manchurian Candidate?

In 2010, attorneys acting for Sirhan filed a motion in the United States District Court for the Central District of California which argued that he was “an involuntary participant” in the shooting in the Ambassador Hotel pantry because he had been “subjected to extensive and sophisticated hypno-programming and mind control”—which had turned him into a robot assassin—a real-life “Manchurian Candidate.”

The latter is a reference to a 1962 film made by John Frankenheimer in which an American soldier is programmed in captivity during the Korean War to assassinate a U.S. presidential candidate.^[53]

The Manchurian Candidate film dovetailed with a CIA disinformation campaign that helped convince the public that the North Koreans and Chinese had brainwashed U.S. POWs during the Korean War.

This belief justified the CIA’s efforts to develop truth drugs and advance brainwashing techniques under Operations Artichoke, Bluebird and MK-ULTRA—and to hire hypnotists with the goal of programming people.^[54]

One Bluebird memo asked: “Can we create by post-H control an action contrary to an individual’s basic moral principles? Could we seize a subject and in a space of an hour or two by post-H control have him crash an airplane, wreck a train, etc.? Can we alter a person’s personality?”^[55]

The answers appear to be yes.

In May 2008, Sirhan was examined by Dr. Daniel Brown, a professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and expert on hypnosis, who revealed evidence of hypnotically induced altered personality states.

Brown observed Sirhan switch into a personality state that responds in robot-like fashion to certain cues and adopting the behavior of firing a gun at a firing range. While in this state, Sirhan showed a loss of executive control and complete amnesia.^[56]

After the assassination, LAPD officers had noticed in Sirhan an eerie calm—as if he did not genuinely know what he had done. Two of the men who had overpowered him during the shooting observed in Sirhan a tranquil look, with his eyes appearing peaceful. When asked by an NBC reporter whether he had planned to kill Senator Kennedy, Sirhan replied “only in my mind. I did it, but I was not aware of it.”^[57]

The girl in the polka-dotted dress may have played the role of the queen of diamonds in The Search for the Manchurian Candidate—she was there to trigger Sirhan’s trance.^[58]

Dr. Eduard Simson-Kallas, a San Quentin psychologist who worked extensively with Sirhan in 1969, described Sirhan’s comments about Arab-Israeli politics relating to the assassination as “very repetitious” and “spoken like an actor playing a role, reading a script.”^[59]

Simson-Kallas believed that Sirhan was indeed a Manchurian Candidate who was “prepared by someone, hypnotized by someone.”^[60]

Sirhan revealingly had no memory of writing his diary in which he expressed outrage about Kennedy’s sending jet bombers to Israel two days before he learned about it by reading an article in the newspaper.^[61]

There were also statements in the diary denouncing capitalism and pointing to Kennedy as a reactionary, when Sirhan was not known to espouse left-wing views or to even have an interest in politics.

Walter Crowe, Sirhan’s closest friend at Pasadena City College (PCC), had once tried to form a Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) group at the college, but Sirhan was “apathetic” and would not participate.^[62]

His diary—written under hypnosis—appears to be a key part of the conspiratorial plot whose aim was not only to have Kennedy killed but also to discredit left-wing views.

Before the assassination, Sirhan had disappeared for a three-month period after falling off a horse (he had wanted to be a jockey).^[63]

He made frequent trips at the time to Corona—where there was a huge Naval Surface Warfare Center, implying work for the U.S. government.^[64] Sirhan’s name appeared at the Corona Police Department firing range, where he was training for his special mission.^[65]

Herb Elfman reported to police that Sirhan belonged to a secret hypnosis group and referred them to a local radio station employee, Steve Allison, who managed a radio show that interviewed Dr. William Joseph Bryant (1924-1977) of the American Institute of Hypnosis.

Bryant was a pioneer hypnotist who served as chief of all medical survival training for the U.S. Air Force, or brainwashing section in South Korea during the Korean War.

A consultant on The Manchurian Candidate film, he had a long history of hypno-programming with the CIA.

Within hours of Kennedy’s shooting, he told listeners to a Los Angeles radio station that the suspect had “probably acted under post-hypnotic suggestion.”^[66]

Bryant’s possible connection to Sirhan is reflected in a reference that Sirhan made in his diaries to the Boston Strangler, Albert DeSalvo, with whom Bryant had worked. Afterwards, Sirhan had no memory of ever writing about DeSalvo and did not appear to have any knowledge about him.^[67]

Researcher Jonn Christian interviewed two prostitutes who claimed Bryant had confessed to them to programming Sirhan.^[68]

In March 1977, Bryant was found dead at the age of 51 in the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas right after he was summoned to appear before the House Select Committee on Assassinations. He was said to have died of natural causes—as he was obese—though no autopsy was performed.^[69]

Was CIA-Mob Liaison Robert Maheu the Mastermind?

Two different insider sources told author Lisa Pease that Robert Maheu was the mastermind of the assassination.

A lifelong Republican, Maheu was a top adviser to Howard Hughes. He had mob contacts through Johnny Roselli and ran assassination plots for the CIA. When the CIA leadership decided to recruit the Mafia to murder Fidel Castro, they turned to Maheu.^[70]

His company, Robert Maheu Associates—the inspiration behind the Mission Impossible television series—fronted for CIA activities and provided a cover to CIA employees.

Maheu furthermore had friends in the LAPD and Sheriff’s Department, and had run CIA operations in conjunction with the LAPD.^[71]

He knew Thane Cesar, who worked for Bel Air Patrol, which Maheu owned. Cesar was listed as a CIA contract agent in a CIA database.

John Meier, a top aide to Howard Hughes from 1966 to 1970, recounted a meeting between Maheu and Don Nixon, Richard’s brother, at the Desert Inn Country Club in Las Vegas on June 6, 1968.

Maheu was all smiles and Don Nixon walked in all smiles. They embraced each other and Don Nixon said “well that prick is dead,” and Maheu said, “well it looks like your brother is in now.”^[72] Maheu then joked that they should now be calling Don Nixon “Mr. Vice President.”

This conversation does not prove Maheu was behind Kennedy’s killing, but provides a clear motive—one he shared with his former boss, Howard Hughes.

Hughes wrote to Maheu after the assassination that “the Kennedy family and their money influence have been a thorn that has been relentlessly shoved into my guts since the very beginning of my business activities … I hate to be quick on the draw, but I see here an opportunity that may not happen again in a lifetime. I don’t [sic] aspire to be President, but I do want political strength … And it seems to me that the very people we need have just fallen smack into our hands.”^[73]

LBJ’s Suspicious Behavior

After Kennedy was shot, Lyndon B. Johnson—then a lame duck president who had announced he would not seek reelection because of the debacle in Vietnam—repeatedly phoned the Secret Service to ask if Kennedy had died, pacing the floor for hours, phone in hand, muttering “I’ve got to know. Is he dead? Is he dead.”

Johnson also instructed his aide Joseph Califano to call Larry Levinson, another aide, to get an update from the Secret Service. Levinson in turn asked Califano if this was something Johnson wished to have happen—which appears to have been the case.

According to Ted Van Dyk, an aide to Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, when Humphrey got the Commanding General of the U.S. Air Force to dispatch a plane for a top Boston brain surgeon who was to be flown immediately to Los Angeles to operate on Kennedy (who was then still alive), Johnson canceled the plane, claiming that Humphrey had no authority to send it.

Johnson had long hated Kennedy and would have been humiliated by his nomination for president. After Kennedy’s death, Johnson instructed his aide to develop a “draft Johnson movement.” He hoped to arrive as a surprise guest at the Democratic national convention to great acclaim as the man capable of saving the Democratic Party—but alas it was not to be.

A SAVAK Hit Job?

Author Robert Morrow, in his 1988 book The Senator Must Die, suggests that Kennedy’s assassin went under the pseudonym Ali Ahmand and worked for Iranian intelligence under the Shah of Iran who had also recruited Sirhan as part of the plot.^[74]

According to Morrow, the Kennedys had become enemies of the Shah—who had been installed in power in a CIA-backed coup—when as a Senator, John F. Kennedy uncovered the Shah’s misuse of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funds and launched an attack on him from the Senate floor.

Bobby Kennedy subsequently snubbed the Shah by bypassing Iran on a goodwill trip around the world, and Kennedy threatened to cut off all aid after his election as president before his father, Joseph, interceded.^[75]

When JFK was assassinated, the Shah privately was delighted. In the 1968 election, he poured in millions of dollars in support of Nixon.^[76]

Alex Goodaryi, the Shah’s liaison to the U.S. mafia, said that “the mob claimed with Nixon as president, the Shah would be in a position to eventually raise oil prices. Then, with U.S. backing, control the whole Middle East. However, if [Robert] Kennedy won, the Shah would be totally isolated from any further U.S. aid and military support and be subject to worldwide censure.”^[77]

According to Morrow’s hypothesis, the Shah ordered Colonel Mansur Rafizadeh, the head of SAVAK, the Shah’s secret police that had been created by the CIA, to eliminate Kennedy, and Rafizadeh recruited Sirhan and the other main culprit, Ali Ahmand, aka Khalid Iqbal.^[78]

Iqbal was pictured in a photo at the Ambassador Hotel next to Jesse Unruh, the Speaker of the California State Assembly who was then managing Kennedy’s presidential campaign, wearing a yellow sweater with a camera hanging from a strap around his neck.

Morrow believes that the camera was a disguised gun, and that Sirhan was there to provide a distraction that would enable Iqbal to carry out the killing and afterwards get away with the girl in the polka-dot dress who was his accomplice.^[79]

Sirhan fired two shots at Kennedy, was tackled and drew attention, giving space to Iqbal to rapidly pull the lethal camera up behind Kennedy’s ear and shoot him four times behind the ear.

With the crowd turning on Sirhan and pandemonium breaking out, Iqbal then motioned to his accomplice and found his way through the crowd and down a corridor to an exit, after which they jumped into a shiny black car and sped down Wilshire Boulevard away from the hotel.^[80]

Although Iqbal’s description matched some eyewitness accounts of the man accompanying the girl in the polka-dotted dress, proof for Morrow’s theory has not been established. Iqbal, whose real name was Khalid Iqbal Khewar, sued The Boston Globe for libel for publishing Morrow’s account and was awarded damages of $1.2 million after winning his case.^[81]

Allard Lowenstein

Allard K. Lowenstein was the former Director of the National Student Association (NSA) and Democratic Congressman from Nassau County, New York, from 1969 to 1971, who had led the “Dump Johnson” movement because of Johnson’s support for the Vietnam War.^[82]

Anguished by Kennedy’s death, he was able to review Noguchi’s autopsy report specifying that Kennedy had been hit from behind by bullets fired at point-blank range. Lowenstein also scrutinized the trial records, searching for testimony that placed Sirhan’s gun to the rear and within inches of Bobby, and finding that there was none.

Lowenstein followed up by interviewing eyewitnesses who pointed to Sirhan being several feet—rather than inches—removed from Bobby, and to him having been subdued after firing two shots. He found that their stories were consistent with their earlier testimony.

The official response to Lowenstein’s queries by the LAPD was one of stonewalling, and he realized that a propaganda campaign was being fabricated to deliver information that was the exact opposite of the facts.

In March 1980, Lowenstein was shot and killed in his office by a former protégé Dennis Sweeney, who claimed among other crazy things that he had received messages in his head broadcast by a CIA transmitter. After Sweeney shot Lowenstein, Sweeney calmly waited in Lowenstein’s office to be arrested. He was deemed insane and sentenced to a mental hospital.

At the time of the shooting, Lowenstein was on the verge of getting a commitment from President Jimmy Carter to reopen the investigation into the Sirhan case if Carter were re-elected to a second term that November. But as writer Robert Vaughn put it: “Al died, Carter lost to Reagan, and the official veil of silence over the RFK murder has remained intact.”^[83]

Kamala Harris and the Continuing Government Cover-Up

In 2012, while serving as California’s Attorney General, Vice President Kamala Harris had Sirhan’s request for a retrial dismissed.

She argued that “overwhelming evidence” existed against Sirhan’s claims that he was hypno-programmed to fire a gun as a diversion.

Harris stated in federal court that “(Sirhan) cannot possibly show that no reasonable juror would have convicted him if a jury had considered his ‘new’ evidence and allegations, in light of the overwhelming evidence supporting the convictions and the available evidence thoroughly debunking Sirhan’s second-shooter and automaton theories.”

In fact, as this essay has displayed, there is overwhelming evidence supporting—not debunking—Sirhan’s second-shooter theory.

This evidence ranges from eyewitness accounts to the autopsy report to the fact that more bullets were fired than was the capacity for Sirhan’s gun.

There is also circumstantial evidence about the automaton theory which begs for further investigation.

Had Kennedy Lived…..

Harris’s stance is part of a 50+ year effort by government authorities to cover up the truth about Kennedy’s assassination and to protect the powerful persons who coordinated it.

Had Kennedy lived, American history would have turned out differently.

For one thing, the major riots outside the Party convention following the nomination of Hubert Humphrey –which divided and destroyed the Democratic Party—would never have taken place.^[84]

Kennedy might then have replicated his brother’s defeat of Nixon in 1960, and as president ended the Vietnam War, expanded the War on Poverty and scuttled the War on Drugs.

Instead of imploding under the weight of Nixonian repression, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) might have evolved into an influential left-wing caucus in the Democratic Party or a new social democratic party equivalent to the Canadian New Democratic Party (NDP).

This was the nightmare scenario for American conservatives and the corrupt elements of “the deep state,” who in carrying out Kennedy’s assassination, destroyed the hope for a better America that he and his supporters represented.

*

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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

1. See Larry Tye, Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon (New York: Random House, 2017); Lester David and Irene David, Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Folk Hero (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1986); Edward R. Schmitt, President of the Other America: Robert Kennedy and the Politics of Poverty (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2011). Kennedy to be sure had some neoliberal views, suggesting not long before his death that welfare had “destroyed self-respect and encouraged family disintegration.” 

2. David and David, Bobby Kennedy, 4. 
3. Lisa Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail: The Real History of the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy (Los Angeles: Feral House, 2018). 
4. Tim Tate and Brad Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: Crime, Conspiracy and Cover-Up—A New Investigation (London: Thistle Books, 2018) ,101; Mel Ayton, The Forgotten Terrorist: Sirhan Sirhan and the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy(Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2007), 49-73. 
5. Compton served as an LAPD detective in the 1950s and was connected to the LAPD’s red squad. See Tom O’Neill, with Dan Piepenberg, Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2019), 233. 
6. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 230. 
7. William Turner and Jonn Christian, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: The Conspiracy and Coverup (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1993), 167, 168. 
8. Cesar stated that he “never would have voted for Bobby Kennedy because he had the same ideas as John did, and I think John sold the country down the road. He gave it away to the commies … he literally gave it to the minority.” Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 231. In the 1980s, Cesar supported Ronald Reagan. 
9. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail. According to researcher Alex Botus, Cesar was connected to the California mobster John Alessio. Robert Melanson, Who Killed Robert Kennedy?(Berkeley, CA: Odonian Press, 1993), 42. Cesar told journalist Dan Moldea about diamond purchases he had made for the Chicago mob between 1968 and 1974. 
10. Robert Maheu and Richard Hack, Next to Hughes: Behind the Power and Tragic Downfall of Howard Hughes by His Closest Advisor (New York: HarperCollins, 1992). 
11. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail, 483. 
12. Chris Spargo, “Robert F Kennedy was assassinated by Thane Eugene Cesar, declares RFK Jr, who says it was the security guard who fatally shot his father from behind after planning the murder with Sirhan Sirhan,” Daily Mail, September 12, 2019, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7456521/Robert-F-Kennedy-assassinated-Thane-Eugene-Cesar-Sirhan-Sirhan-says-RFK-Jr.htm
13. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail, 256; Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 138; Mikko Alanne, “Why the RFK Assassination Case Must Be Reopened,” The Huffington Post, April 4, 2012, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/rfk-sirhan_b_1251410. Pease suggested that the number of bullets could be as high as 17. 
14. Melanson, The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination, 41. Two ceiling tiles were allegedly removed, including several outside of Sirhan’s range of fire. 
15. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 191, 195, 196. Nina Rhodes-Hughes, a Kennedy fundraiser, stated that she heard 12-14 shots fired, though the FBI quoted her falsely as having heard eight shots, which she explicitly denied is what she told them. Some claim the sound of shots in Pruszynski’s audio tape may have been sounds of people fumbling or microphones bumping into things. Ayton, The Forgotten Terrorist, 133, 
16. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 86, 87; Philip Melanson, The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination: New Revelations on the Conspiracy and Cover-Up, 1968-1991 (New York: Shapolsky, 1991), 34, 35. 
17. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail, 183. Wolfer interestingly later became president of Ace Security Services, the same company which Thane Cesar had worked for on the night of RFK’s assassination. 
18. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail; Lisa Pease, “Sirhan Says ‘I Am Innocent,’” in The Assassinations: Probe Magazine on JFK, MLK, RFK, and Malcolm X, James DiEugenio and Lisa Pease, eds. (Los Angeles: Feral House, 2003), 532; Turner and Christian, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 158. 
19. William Klaber and Philip H. Melanson, Shadow Play: The Unsolved Murder of Robert F. Kennedy (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2018) 106, 107. Freed related that he was contacted by the FBI afterwards but that they “seemed to be avoiding asking me questions about the 2^nd gunman.” According to most witnesses, the second shooter was taller than Sirhan, 
20. Klaber and Melanson, Shadow Play, 108, 109; Robert Blair Kaiser, “R.F.K. Must Die!”: Chasing the Mystery of the Robert Kennedy Assassination, rev ed. (Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press, 2008), 73. 
21. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail; Turner and Christian, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, xxiv, 161, 165; Klaber and Melanson, Shadow Play, 98. Schulman specified that the security guard behind Kennedy had fired his gun. He said Kennedy had been shot three times, but the FBI insisted to him that he had been shot twice which was wrong. Curiously, there is no record of him having been interviewed by the LAPD. 
22. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail, 213. 
23. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail, 213. [NOTE: Should 23, 24 and 25 be “Idem.”? They are identical to note 22.] 
24. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail, 213. 
25. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail, 213. 
26. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail, 280. 
27. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail. 
28. Robert D. Morrow, The Senator Must Die (Santa Monica, CA: Roundtable Publishing, 1988), 203, 204, 211; Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 248, 249, 250; Melanson, The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination, 183, 244. Strangely, the LAPD’s log omits reference to the girl in the polka-dot dress. One witness, Earnest Ruiz, thought he saw the man later come back into the pantry as Sirhan was being removed and was the first to yell “let’s kill the bastard.” An alternative scenario with the woman in the polka-dotted dress is presented in Ayton, The Forgotten Terrorist, 154. 
29. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 211. For a reporter’s quest for the truth about the woman in the polka-dot dress, see Fernando Faura, The Polka Dot File on the Robert F. Kennedy Killing: The Paris Peace Talks Connection (Walterville, OR: Trine Day, 2016)
30. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 360. 
31. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 360; Ayton, The Forgotten Terrorist, 142; The Assassinations, Pease and Di Eugenio, eds., 533. The LAPD also “lost” the records from Sirhan’s blood test and destroyed the doorframes from the crime scene that possessed the bullets. 
32. Turner and Christian, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 64. LAPD chief of detectives Robert Houghton, in his book Special Unit Senator: The Investigation of the Assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy (New York: Random House, 1970), boasted that Pena had commanded detective divisions, supervised a bank robbery squad, spoke French and Spanish and had connections with various intelligence agencies in several countries. 
33. On the OPS, see Jeremy Kuzmarov, Modernizing Repression: Police Training and Nation Building in the American Century (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012). 
34. See A.J. Langguth, Hidden Terrors: The Truth about U.S. Police Operations in Latin America (New York: Pantheon, 1979). Mitrione’s motto was “the right pain, in the right place, at the right time.” 
35. Turner and Christian, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 65. FBI agent Roger LaJeunesse claimed that Pena had been carrying out CIA special assignments for at least ten years. This was confirmed by Pena’s brother, a high school teacher, who told television journalist Stan Bohrman a similar story about his CIA activities. 
36. Morrow, The Senator Must Die, 210. Hernandez had claimed to have administered a polygraph test to Venezuelan dictator Marco Jimenez who was replaced by CIA favorite Romulo Betancourt. Hernandez died in 1972 at age 40. At the time of his death, he had begun to express doubt about the Sirhan lone gunman theory. 
37. Turner and Christian, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, xxiii. 
38. Melanson, The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination, 134, 135. 
39. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 276; Morrow, The Senator Must Die, 213; Turner and Christian, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, xxiv. 
40. Morrow, The Senator Must Die, 212. Scharaga subsequently was forced to leave the LAPD. 
41. Morrow, The Senator Must Die, 223. Thomas Noguchi, Coroner (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983). 
42. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 211, 212, 213. The Garrison documents included one obtained from a raid on the right-wing National States Rights Party which had the initials of three people to be eliminated: JFK, MLK, RFK. 
43. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 214, 216, 216, 217. 
44. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 221, 222. 
45. Klaber and Melanson, Shadow Play, 91, 92, 93. 
46. Klaber and Melanson, Shadow Play, 38, 235. Cooper’s strategy in the trial had been to try to avoid the death penalty by pursuing an insanity defense. Cooper stunningly admitted to onetime New York Congressman Allard Lowenstein that, “had he known during the trial” what he had since learned, “he would have conducted a different defense.” The felony was for possessing stolen transcripts of the grand jury proceedings in the Beverly Hills Friar’s Club card cheating case in which Johnny Roselli was one of the defendants. 
47. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 346. Famed forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht stated that “any first-year law student would have done a better job than Sirhan’s counsel [Cooper].” 
48. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail; The Assassinations, Pease and Di Eugenio, eds., 599. 
49. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail, 487. Researcher Philip Melanson identified the LAPD as one of the police forces that indeed maintained a clandestine relationship with the CIA. Melanson, The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination. Prosecutor Lynn “Buck” Compton and District Attorney Evelle Younger both had verifiable intelligence ties.
50. Manny Chavez, a former U.S. Air Force Intelligence officer who served in Venezuela as a military attaché in 1957-59 while David Morales was assigned to the CIA Station there for a year, said that, after careful study, he was convinced that the person in the photo was not Morales as he knew him up until 1963. Ayton, The Forgotten Terrorist, 169. 
51. Smith said that, if Morales was there the night Kennedy was killed, he had to have something to do with it. Morales died of a “heart attack” before he was slated to testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978. After Morales fell ill, it took the medics five hours to get him to a hospital and did not provide him any oxygen. His friend Ruben Carbajal told filmmaker Shane O’Sullivan that “the people who killed Morales were the same people he had worked for—the CIA—he knew too much.”Carbajal, however, does not believe that the man identified by Ayers and Smith as Morales was in fact Morales. 
52. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 286, 287, 288, 291, 292. Neal died in February 2012 at age 63 from cirrhosis due to her alcoholism. She had dropped out of high school after becoming pregnant and marrying the father, her first husband, who was then shipped off to Vietnam, and may have worked at one time as a prostitute. She moved to Missouri with Capehart after their marriage in 1973 and divorced him after 11 years. Neal’s kids remembered that their mother had been haunted by something in her past and expressed fears about being followed. She maintained an obsession with a polka-dotted dress she kept stored away in her home. Capehart once told the kids that she was the famous girl in the polka-dotted dress, though expressed anger when she put the dress on and was going to wear it in public at a church service.See also Fernando Faura, The Polka Dot File: On the Robert F. Kennedy Killing(Walterville, OR: Trine Day, 2016). Faura, then a reporter for The Hollywood Reporter, interviewed John Fahey, who worked at a chemical company and had breakfast with the woman in the polka dot dress at the Ambassador hotel and spent the day with her. She told him of connections to Anna Chennault, the wife of Flying Tiger Clare Chennault and a confidante of Richard M. Nixon. Faura had been spied on and harassed by the LAPD, whihc falsified records regarding his involvement in the investigation.
53. Frankenheimer ironically drove Robert Kennedy to the Ambassador Hotel on the night of his death in his Rolls-Royce after Kennedy stayed at his Malibu mansion. 
54. See Jonathan Marks, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control, rev ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991). 
55. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 303. 
56. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 235, 324. 
57. Turner and Christian, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 194; The Assassinations, Pease and Di Eugenio, eds., 533. Two waiters observed Sirhan smiling. Earlier in the evening, a witness observed Sirhan staring at a teletype machine, as though transfixed. 
58. Turner and Christian, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, xxix. 
59. Melanson, Who Killed Robert Kennedy? 65. 
60. Turner and Christian, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 199. 
61. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 334. All the other candidates in the 1968 election supported military aid to Israel, marking Sirhan’s motive as generally suspect. 
62. Melanson, Who Killed Robert Kennedy? 65. 
63. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 330, 331. 
64. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail, 409. 
65. Ibid. Some researchers suspect that Sirhan was hypnotized at the Santa Anita racetrack where he worked as a jockey. Sirhan worked there with Thomas Bremer, whose brother Arthur shot presidential candidate George C. Wallace in 1972 in an attempted assassination that also benefited Richard M. Nixon’s election chances. 
66. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 331; Melanson, The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination, 202. 
67. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 332. 
68. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 334. 
69. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 334; Philip Melanson, The Robert Kennedy Assassination: New Revelations on the Conspiracy and Cover-Up, 1968-1991 (New York: Shapolsky, 1991). 
70. Maheu, Next to Hughes, 108-34. 
71. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail. One of these operations was the manufacture of a pornographic film allegedly showing Indonesia’s socialist leader Sukarno in a compromising position with a female Russian agent. On Maheu’s CIA ties, see also Bayard Stockton. Flawed Patriot: The Rise and Fall of CIA Legend Bill Harvey, (Virginia: Potomac Books, 2006), 17
72. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail, 493. 
73. Maheu, Next to Hughes, 206-207. After Kennedy’s death, Maheu assisted Hughes in giving Hubert Humphrey a donation of $50,000. 
74. Morrow, The Senator Must Die. [NOTE: Should there be page numbers here?] 
75. Morrow, The Senator Must Die, 176, 177. 
76. Morrow, The Senator Must Die, 178. 
77. Morrow, The Senator Must Die, 178. 
78. Morrow, The Senator Must Die, 178. 
79. Morrow, The Senator Must Die, 186. 
80. Sirhan expected to be arrested but accepted the reward of a sizeable check deposited into his bank account. He believed that he would be regarded as a hero in Jordan and the Arab World. 
81. Ayton, The Forgotten Terrorist, 159, 160. 
82. David and David, Bobby Kennedy, 280.
83. Robert Vaughn, A Fortunate Life (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008), 258.

84. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who spearheaded the repression of the protests, supported Kennedy. 

Featured image: Source: washingtonpost.com; collage courtesy of Steve Brown

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This preprint paper, Serious Adverse Events of Special Interest Following mRNA Vaccination in Randomized Trials, was written by a team of highly credible authors and is now undergoing peer review. It points out that the vaccines carry more risk than benefit.

Big whoops. That’s not what the CDC and FDA have been saying. This is really embarrassing for them that now others are starting to discover what I’ve been saying for over a year now.

Don’t expect the mainstream media to cover this or ask any questions. That’s not the way it works.

Tennessee and Publix Super Markets get it

Woo hoo!

And this just in from Tennessee:

… but California is completely clueless. Instead of following “the science,” in California doctors will “follow the herd”

Once this paper is published, it then becomes “misinformation” according to the State of California (assuming they pass AB-2098 which seems likely). That means that any physician relying on this paper to counsel their patients could have their license to practice medicine taken away.

That’s how things work in California. It’s not about “follow the science” anymore. That is not a defense. As a doctor you must “follow the herd.” If you disagree with the masses, even if you are right, kiss your medical license good-bye!!

But there is a hidden feature of AB-2098 that nobody is talking about: it is IMPOSSIBLE for doctors to shift position on a topic like vaccine safety. Either 100% of the doctors are for it, or 100% will be against it. There can’t be a middle ground or you get your license revoked so everyone has to stick with the initial narrative. That means the vaccines will always be safe and effective in California even when they aren’t.

If that doesn’t enforce conformity, I don’t know what will.

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“A British subject I was born; a British subject I will die”

– John A Macdonald, primary founder of Confederation and Canada’s first Prime Minister. (Quoted in his last election campaign speech before his death in 1891.) [1]

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Canada, like many other democratic countries, is held aloft among its citizenry as a source of pride. A beacon of freedom! A respecter of international law! Willing to carry its weight in repelling an evil force waging war and unspeakable terror on the world stage, as it supposedly did in World War I and World War II.

And typical Canadians will display their pride by waving the national flag, and turning up in massive numbers wearing the national maple leaf symbol, gathering for evening fireworks, and celebrating the anniversary marking their great nation’s creation  – July 1, 1867.

As has been documented on this program a number of times, the image many Canadians have about Canada upholding justice on the world stage, being a champion of human rights, upholding democracy and so forth is considerably out of step with the reality of our foreign policy. And this is a phenomenon that has haunted us really since the confederation.

As our 155th birthday is arriving in a few short days, it is compelling to think of how the nostalgic fog surrounding us on that occasion blinds us and shields us from seeing darker moments illuminating its very existence. Domestic racism against Blacks, Asians and Indigenous people come to mind of course. But foreign policy, where we are less sure of the facts, incidents of shocking news about wars, trade, and other engagements really underscore the powerful people who are utilizing the influence of public gatherings, media and other tools to works the minds and hearts of decent people.

With Canada Day in the headlights, the Global Research News Hour will profile a bit about the misguided direction the general public in Canada has been driven to embrace and begin to formulate how this condition is conceivably rooted in the fraudulent maneuver that was the signing of the British North America Act.

Our first guest, lawyer, activist and journalist Dimitri Lascaris returns to the show to talk about his reasons for not re-seeking the leadership of the Green Party of Canada, the hypocrisy underlying Canada’s position on Ukraine and several other causes, and the tendency on the part of media to increasingly portray dissident views to government policy as “dangerous,” “conspiracy theory,” and “disinformation.”

Our second guest, Matt Ehret, also returns to the show. He reveals the myth of Canadian National Policy, its origin not rooted in national origin and not permitted by the British Empire to be a sovereign nation. He will also talk about the entities who tasked the “Independent Canada” enterprise, how it would evolve over the course of the twentieth century and how independent Canadians could and should revisit the future of our country and seize a new vision for its place in our world.

Dimitri Lascaris is a lawyer, a journalist and an activist. From 2004 to 2016 he was a member of Canada’s leading class action law firm Siskinds LLP. He now works pro-bono legal cases. In 2020, he ran for the leadership of the Green Party of Canada and placed second with  45.5% of the membership.

Matthew J.L. Ehret is a journalist, lecturer, and founder of the Canadian Patriot Review.  He is a contributing author with The Duran, Strategic Culture Foundation, and Fort Russ.  Matthew has also published the book “The Time has Come for Canada to Join the New Silk Road” and three volumes of the Untold History of Canada.

(Global Research News Hour Episode 361)

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Other stations airing the show:

CIXX 106.9 FM, broadcasting from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. It airs Sundays at 6am.

WZBC 90.3 FM in Newton Massachusetts is Boston College Radio and broadcasts to the greater Boston area. The Global Research News Hour airs during Truth and Justice Radio which starts Sunday at 6am.

Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in  Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 7pm.

CJMP 90.1 FM, Powell River Community Radio, airs the Global Research News Hour every Saturday at 8am. 

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Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 9am pacific time.

Notes:

1. https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/british-subject-status

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• Russia continues to earn more than $100 million per day from gas exports to Europe.
• Russian revenues from gas exports are believed to be equal to the revenue last year.
• Moscow decided to cut deliveries to large customers in Germany and Italy last week.

Russia is to be earning more than $100 million every day from the gas it sells to Europe despite the slashed deliveries to major EU consumers in the past week, according to data from Independent Commodity Intelligence Services (ICIS) cited by Bloomberg.

Due to the rallying natural gas prices, Russian revenues from gas exports are believed to be equal to the revenue last year, when Moscow wasn’t limiting gas flows to Europe and wasn’t (yet) on a collision course with the EU.

“It’s shocking to see that, despite the 75% cut in daily supply by Gazprom to Europe, the daily receipts are still in line with where they were a year ago, and certainly higher than pre-Covid times,” Tom Marzec-Manser, head of gas analytics at ICIS, told Bloomberg.

Over the past week, Russia has significantly lowered supply to major European consumers, including the biggest customers, Germany and Italy, despite the fact that their buyers bowed to Putin’s demand to open accounts in rubles at Gazprombank for processing of the payments the way Russia wanted to. Moreover, the annual maintenance at Nord Stream is coming and will completely halt deliveries through the pipeline for two weeks in July, leaving Europe further scrambling to fill gas storage sites to adequate levels before the winter.

Despite the EU embargo on Russian seaborne oil, to take effect by the end of the year, and the drastically reduced pipeline gas supply, Russia continues to benefit from the high oil and gas prices. Despite Western sanctions designed to hurt Russia’s oil revenues and war chest, Moscow is still getting a lot of additional billions of U.S. dollars in oil and gas revenues.

In June alone, Russia expects to receive as much as $6.37 billion in additional oil and gas revenues in June, its finance ministry said earlier this month, as energy commodity prices have rallied since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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Much of the world was horrified in early May when Shireen Abu Akleh, a renowned Al Jazeera reporter, was shot in the head by Israeli troops while on assignment in Jenin in the Occupied West Bank.

Not long before, the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) President Liz Shuler had been photographed with Labor Party Chair Merav Michaeli, a strong supporter of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, along with Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). None of the three raised any outcry subsequently after Akleh was killed.

Shuler moreover sent a letter to the San Francisco Labor Council stating that its delegates could not discuss a boycott of Israel.

The AFL-CIO’s current support for Israel fits a long historical pattern. For decades now, it has allied with and sheltered the Histadrut, the Israeli trade union federation, and the Israeli state from any criticisms.

Handmaiden of the Israeli State

The Histadrut is the handmaiden of the Israeli state, and the Israeli state is a junior partner to American imperialism. The Histadrut has billed itself as a labor union and thus the defender of the Israeli working class but, if one examines it honestly, without the Histadrut, Israeli capitalism would have had a hard time getting off the ground.

The early founders of the Israeli state concur that without the Histadrut, there would likely have been no Israeli state. It does not have any semblance of independence because it is part of the state apparatus. While the Histadrut is in no way a labor union, the AFL-CIO pretends that it is.

In the March 2009 Electronic Intifada article “Histadrut: Israel’s racist ‘trade union,” Tony Greenstein pointed out that Golda Meir explained in 1928, “I was put on the Histadrut Executive Committee at a time when this big labor union wasn’t just a trade union organization. It was a great colonizing agency.” Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, contended that, without Histadrut, “I doubt whether we would have had a state.”

Trade unions often function as a bridge between the needs of the bosses and those of the workers, but with a trade union such as the Histadrut, with its lack of any semblance of independence, it is virtually impossible to call this a trade union.

The fascists of both the Mussolini and Hitler stripes led states that were corporatist states, that is everyone who participated in the economy was “represented” by the state as opposed to having independent organizations that could pressure the government to bend to their needs.

The unions were not independent, they sat on the corporate boards. In the case of Italy, the unions were completely smashed and what remained was a representative, but in the case of Israel, the Histadrut is part of the capitalist class itself.

It helped to organize capitalism and helped to drive out the indigenous peoples, that is, they helped to colonize Palestine.

In a series of strikes that were either mixed, that is Palestinian and Jew, or were organized by Palestinian workers alone, the Histadrut sent in strikebreakers.

Therefore, if we examine the remarks of the two most influential persons in the Israeli project, that is Golda Meir and David Ben-Gurion, it is clear in an unabashed explanation that the Histadrut is an arm of the Israeli state, not only an organizer of industry, and is part of the settler colonial project and, unlike the sellout politics and class collaborationist politics of the AFL-CIO, the very purpose of the Histadrut was to get this project under way.

Histadrut was the owner of 25% of the capitalist industries which often employed strikebreakers so that any independent activity of the working class would be shut down. Thus, any well-respected capitalist nation wishes and needs to expand its economic and political influence in the rest of the world, but for the moment, the Israelis decided that the Middle East was its back door.

Imperialism thus became the driving force of the Israeli economy.

Tony Greenstein also argues that, “in 1958, the International Institute for Development, Cooperation and Labor Studies was established as a means of furthering Western interests in the Third World. Half of its graduates came from The Asian Institute for Labor Studies and Cooperation funded by the CIA through the AFL-CIO. It operated on behalf of the U.S. in African countries such as Zaire and Kenya.” It thus operated as an arm of Israeli and U.S. foreign policy.

Israel and Apartheid South Africa

Israel has often been described as an apartheid state because of its mistreatment of the Palestinians. It is not that well known, however, that Israel was actively committed to supporting the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Not seeing this as a morally repugnant nation, Israel armed the white South African regime, modeling its own policies on South African apartheid, suppressing the Palestinian people.

Tony Greenstein wrote: “Iskoor steel company, 51 percent owned by Histadrut’s Koor Industries and 49 percent by the South African Steel Corporation, manufactured steel for South Africa’s armed forces. Partly finished steel was shipped from Israel to South Africa, enabling the apartheid state to escape tariffs.”

Greenstein continued: “Other Histadrut companies such as Tadiran and Soltam were equally complicit in supplying South Africa with weaponry. [It] also helped build the electronic wall between South Africa/Namibia and neighboring African states.”

In the early 1960s, the Histadrut was a conduit for CIA and Mossad in Africa and later cooperated with the AFL-CIO’s AIFLD program and the CIA to undermine rural cooperatives in El Salvador.

Suppressing Class Struggle and Discriminating Against Arabs

Histadrut is recognized by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions as the representative of all Israeli workers, even though its very nature is to discriminate against Arab workers. However, class struggle was anathema to the Histadrut generally.

In 1951, seamen who were on strike were drafted into the army with Histadrut support. This goes back as far as the 1920s when the Gdud Avodah workers went on strike and were starved into submission by Ben-Gurion.

The organization’s class collaborationism has not only undermined Arab workers, but it has undermined Jewish workers as well, with the inevitable outcome that we are witnessing now, that is with the utter racism that is being displayed by many of the Jewish working class.

This is how a capitalist arrives at implanting a colonial settler state. The Jewish working class, at the beginning of this project, believed that it was setting up a socialist society; the Jewish capitalists thought differently and used this desire for liberation as a battering ram against Palestinians who are the indigenous peoples.

All the evidence points to the criminality of people such as Ben-Gurion who explicitly said that class struggle meant struggle against Arab labor.

Ben-Gurion argued that “the role of the working class was a national one, to construct the Jewish state: “Socialism was never an aim in itself but a tool for the advancement of national objectives.” It was Ben-Gurion who “coined the slogan from class to nation…both perspectives saw the role of labor as a nationalist role.”

This perspective was one that was very much supported by fascist governments such as Mussolini’s Italy.

The Histadrut founded Haganah, the Zionist terrorist group, in the 1920s and Mapai, which became the Israeli Labor Party, in the 1930s. Greenstein wrote that Ben-Gurion was “Histadrut’s first secretary-general, became in 1935 chairman of the Jewish Agency, the Zionist government-in-waiting, and in 1948 prime minister of the State of Israel.”

Ben-Gurion made it clear that there was no reason to respect Palestinian rights and that it was also clear that the Palestinians, understandably, would not give up their land without a fight.

He stated that “we do not recognize the right of the [Palestinian] Arabs to rule the country, since Palestine is still undeveloped and awaits its builders.”

And so the Labor Party was created and, it too pretends that it is somehow championing the cause of labor.

The list of Israeli crimes has been documented in thousands of books, but it is the pretend nature of its support for workers, that is, it is a labor union of some sort, which allows the AFL-CIO to pretend as well.

The list of crimes of the Israeli state and its partner the Histadrut is much more extensive, but having limited space, the focus of this article is on the relationship between the AFL-CIO and the Histadrut and the Israeli state.

On the Side of the Oppressor

So why is the AFL coming down on the side of the oppressor?

The history of the AFL has been one of racism and sexism and elitism from the very jump. It historically worked and continues to work with management, protecting white male workers, and thus they have been able to win contracts more effectively for the aristocracy of labor, but in the process, it has sold out everyone else. Therefore, they are no stranger to organizations such as the Histadrut and will thus lend a hand to the bosses.

After the killing of Palestinian-American reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, the San Francisco Labor Council tried to entertain a resolution over Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).

National AFL-CIO Western Region Field Director Fernando Losada said: “Expressions of solidarity [are] always good, But in terms of setting international policy, that is the purview of the national AFL-CIO through our organizational processes. There’s an existing policy in solidarity with working people in the Holy Land. It does not include BDS.”

According to The Intercept, AFL-CIO leadership cited a procedural rule to tell the San Francisco Labor Council it could not even debate a resolution on BDS.

I am of the opinion, and it is the opinion of others in the Labor Education Project on AFL-CIO International Operations (LEPAIO), that the AFL-CIO is complicit in the murder of Shireen and so many others since Shuler and Weingarten met with the leader of the Israeli Labor Party and Shuler sent a letter to the San Francisco Labor Council stating that delegates could not discuss a boycott of Israel.

Let us not forget that the Interior Minister of Israel is a member of the Labor Party who supported the murder of the journalist, and the Labor Party supports the apartheid state and Liz Shuler supports the State of Israel.

Thus, instead of being in solidarity with the Palestinians, U.S. labor has taken the side of the oppressor.

Every time members of any union have attempted to defend the rights of the Palestinians, the AFL-CIO has stepped in to defend the Israeli state and has either sidelined Palestinian rights or has forcefully defended the actions of the Israelis and have prevented any dissent among its members.

This is clearly demonstrated in a manual written by the Jewish Labor Committee in 2008 for pro-Israel lobby groups. It blatantly advises:

“Please DO NOT discuss with union members, representatives of the press or others, guesstimates of the value of State of Israel Bonds held by unions. ‘Divest from Israel’ activists have used such information in their arguments and have quoted figures found in Jewish newspapers and/or provided by Jewish communal representatives.”

Randi Weingarten, the President of the AFT, is a member of this organization.

Since the 1950s, the U.S. labor movement has continued to invest in Israeli bonds using their pension funds. The American labor unions collectively hold millions in Israeli bonds. The AFT alone reported to the DOL that the union has invested $200,000 in State of Israel bonds. Richard Trumka, the former head of the AFL-CIO, absolutely opposed support for BDS.

                                Richard L. Trumka [Source: obamawhitehouse.archives.org]

Change Gonna Come?

But now, things are decidedly changing, that is, there is more of an awareness among American workers that the situation in Israel is untenable and they will no longer support the repression of the Palestinians.

More recently (2010), members of the Connecticut AFL-CIO successfully got the state labor federation to dump its $25,000 in Israeli bonds and, five years later, the Connecticut federation passed a resolution calling on the national AFL-CIO to support BDS. (This vote was later annulled by Trumka.)

But just recently, major unions and labor federations in Oregon passed unprecedented resolutions calling for divestment from an Israeli company over its human rights abuses.

In Oregon, the AFL-CIO and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), collectively representing more than 300,000 workers in the state, passed a resolution calling for the state to divest from the fund that owns Israeli spyware firm NSO.

And finally, in my union, the Professional Staff Congress, the International Committee, along with the Academic Freedom Committee and the Anti-Racism Committee, passed a resolution on Palestine (May 2021) which passed almost unanimously at the Delegate Assembly.

Almost immediately afterwards, the Zionists in the union went on the attack and the resolution has all but been suppressed. The Zionists, as we can see, hold tremendous sway in the unions.

American workers are far ahead of our “leaders” and, with a different leadership, we could make headway fighting for the democratic rights of oppressed peoples; but if we don’t break, not only on this issue, but similar ones such as a women’s right to choose, Black rights, etc., we will be moving closer and closer to a fascist society.

The economy is breaking down and right before our eyes, the society is disintegrating. Workers need a new leadership. Victory can only be won with a conscious, organized working class that is willing to build a movement that will knock down the barriers that capitalism sets up to divide us and that means we must start by dumping our “leaders” and replacing them with a socialist leadership, since they are the main obstacle standing in the way of this effort.

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A nonprofit group is suing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in an effort to obtain documents relating to the FDA’s approval of Moderna’s Spikevax COVID-19 vaccine after the agency told the group there was “no compelling need” to expedite the release of the documents.

Dallas, Texas-based Defending the Republic on June 7 filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

This is the same court that previously ordered the release of the FDA’s documents pertaining to the approval of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, rejecting the FDA’s proposed release schedule that would have meant those documents would be made public over a period of 75 years.

The FDA granted full approval of Spikevax on Jan. 31. Just a few days later, on Feb. 3, Defending the Republic filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FDA, “seeking the expedited production of records relating to the FDA’s approval of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.”

According to the lawsuit, Defending the Republic:

“… is a public interest group committed to the rule of law and the principles on which this country was founded.

“It defends victims of unlawful governmental actions, informs Americans on matters of public concern, and works tirelessly on behalf of those who are subject to unlawful government actions and mandates.”

The lawsuit notes the organization previously filed an amicus brief relating to the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for private businesses.

Two FDA rejections led to Defending the Republic’s lawsuit

According to Defending the Republic’s lawsuit:

“On February 3, 2022, Defending the Republic made a FOIA request for all documents, data, and records submitted by Moderna to the FDA concerning the approval of Spikevax. Defending the Republic asked for expedited processing for this request.

“The request was made consistent with, and in furtherance of, Defending the Republic’s mission to ensure public access to essential information relating to COVID-19.”

The original FOIA request made the following request:

“Please provide all data and information submitted by Moderna relating to the FDA review and approval of Spikevax.

“This includes, but is not limited to, all safety and effectiveness data and information; all data and information in the biological product file; and all ingredients.”

The FDA on Feb. 9 refused this initial request for expedited production of the Spikevax records, arguing the group had not demonstrated “urgency” or a “compelling need” for the swift release of the documents.

Sarah Kotler, director of the FDA’s Division of Freedom of Information, wrote:

“I have determined that your request for expedited processing does not meet the criteria under the FOIA.

“You have not demonstrated a compelling need that involves an imminent threat to the life or physical safety of an individual. Neither have you demonstrated that there exists an urgency to inform the public concerning actual or alleged Federal Government activity.

“Therefore, I am denying your request for expedited processing. The responding agency office will process your request in the order in which it was received.”

Defending the Republic appealed the decision, stating in its lawsuit:

“The public deserved to know the requested information when making life-altering decisions including whether and when to vaccinate, and which vaccine—if any—to take, considering facts such as vaccine mandates affecting millions of Americans and the waning effectiveness of the Moderna vaccine.”

The Feb. 9 appeal also claimed:

“It is without question that the public and the medical community have an urgent and compelling interest in analyzing the data and information underlying the FDA’s approval of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine. There is no debate that COVID-19 has touched every single American life.

“The FDA promises ‘Spikevax meets the FDA’s rigorous standards for safety, effectiveness and manufacturing quality required for approval.’

“The American people deserve to know whether that statement is true, especially since there are legitimate issues with Spikevax. And Americans deserve to have that information now, not years down the road.”

In their appeal, Defending the Republic also described evidence about the “waning protection” of the COVID-19 vaccines and their “decreased effectiveness” against certain variants, such as Omicron.

The group also addressed the “serious risks of myocarditis and pericarditis,” acknowledged by the FDA, and “insufficient” data regarding “vaccine-associated risks in pregnancy.”

However, the FDA on June 6 again denied Defending the Republic’s appeal, claiming:

“After conducting a thorough review of your appeal, we have determined that you have not demonstrated a compelling need for expedited processing.

“Therefore, we have decided to uphold the FDA’s decision to deny the request for expedited processing.

“You have not demonstrated that there is an “urgent need for the requested information and that [it] has a particular value that will be lost if not obtained and disseminated quickly.”

The FDA claimed it is already providing a sufficient amount of information about the Spikevax vaccine, stating:

“Since approval of the product, the following records are available on FDA’s website — Spikevax information approval package and reviews, advisory committee documents and a host of related information, including Frequently Asked Questions for Spikevax, information sheets for healthcare providers, regulatory information, and media materials.

“The website even includes translations of certain information in multiple languages, including Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Tagalog.”

According to the FDA, Defending the Republic had “not shown that receiving data and information not already posted to the FDA webpage regarding this approved product has particular urgency,” nor had it “demonstrated that these records have a particular value that would be lost if not obtained and disseminated quickly.”

As a result, the FDA determined that Defending the Republic’s request “does not satisfy the ‘urgency to inform the public’ standard.”

The group’s FOIA request was placed “in the complex queue” by the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, with a response to be expected from the FDA “within approximately 18-24 months.”

Rejections lead to lawsuit

In response, Defending the Republic sued the FDA, asking the court to “order expedited briefing and proceedings in this matter” and to “order the FDA [to] produce all documents responsive to Defending the Republic’s FOIA request on an expedited schedule,” in addition to attorney fees and any other relief the court may deem appropriate.

In the lawsuit, Defending the Republic said “COVID-19 and the approval of COVID-19 vaccines is a matter of current exigency to the American public.”

The lawsuit cites Public Health & Medical Professionals for Transparency v. Food & Drug Administration — the case that led to the release of the Pfizer vaccine documents by the FDA — in justifying its lawsuit against the agency:

“The information requested — just like the data the FDA reviewed to approve Comirnaty — is information the American people need to know now. It is an urgent matter of public health.

“The FDA declined the appeal, leaving Defending the Republic with no choice but to file this action seeking a court order requiring the FDA produce the requested records on an expedited schedule — just as those who obtained a court order for the expedited production of records relating to the FDA approved Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.”

The lawsuit also refers to various judicial precedents and legal statutes which the group argues support its claim.

In reference to its FOIA request, Defending the Republic said federal statute states, “FOIA allows for the ‘expedited processing of request for records’ where there is shown to be a ‘compelling need.’”

In turn, the term “compelling need,” according to federal statute, means “with respect to a request made by a person primarily engaged in disseminating information, urgency to inform the public concerning actual or alleged Federal Government activity.”

Defending the Republic claims “a closer inspection of the Spikevax approval reveal there may be glaring issues in the approval process,” including insufficient data related to the vaccine’s risks for pregnant women.

The organization further argued the FOIA request should be expedited in light of federal and local vaccine mandates.

Plaintiffs’ attorney: FDA wants to control what the public sees and doesn’t see

Travis Miller, one of the lawyers representing Defending the Republic, told The Defender:

“The FDA has the audacity to claim there is no ‘compelling need’ for the expedited processing of the data underlying the FDA’s approval of Moderna’s Spikevax COVID-19 vaccine.

“In doing so, the FDA ignored our arguments that a Fort Worth federal court had already found there to be a compelling need for the expedited production of the Comirnaty records. The FDA just pretended that the court order to produce the Comirnaty records didn’t exist.”

According to Miller, by denying Defending the Republic’s FOIA request, the FDA is seeking to obfuscate data related to the Spikevax vaccine and its own actions:

“They don’t want outside experts or the common man looking through this data for themselves.

“The FDA would rather control what the public sees — and doesn’t see — by repackaging data or otherwise hiding information that might just cast doubt on FDA actions.”

When asked whether the FDA might have been influenced by Moderna in issuing its denials, Miller said, “We’ve seen no response from Moderna. But it’s possible that Moderna attempts to intervene in this lawsuit,” adding that Pfizer had done something similar previously.

“Pfizer moved to intervene in the Comirnaty FOIA lawsuit ‘for the limited purpose of helping FDA and the court ensure expeditious production,’” Miller said.

Ultimately, Miller hopes the court will decide in favor of a release schedule for the Spikevax documents that would be similar to that of the Pfizer documents, stating:

“We hope that the production timeline will be similar to the timeline issued in the Comirnaty FOIA case.

“That court ordered 12,000 pages to be produced in January 2022, and then rolling production of 55,000 pages every 30 days beginning March 1, 2022 until production was complete.”

If and when the FDA provides the Spikevax documents, Defending the Republic intends to make them available to the public, just as Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency, a group of doctors and public health professionals that filed the lawsuit against the FDA concerning the Pfizer vaccine documents, has publicized those documents on its website.

As stated in Defending the Republic’s lawsuit, it will “publicly disseminate” any information that is revealed about the Spikevax vaccine as a result of its FOIA request.

According to the lawsuit:

“Any delayed response to the FOIA request would compromise and otherwise inhibit Defending the Republic’s recognized interest to inform the public of the Moderna vaccine. It would also compromise the significant recognized interest of the American public, including parents, physicians, independent experts, and policy makers, in reviewing and analyzing the Moderna data for themselves.

“Millions of Americans would be subject to vaccine requirements for vaccines they are prevented from fully understanding. Stale information will not serve Defending the Republic or the American public.”

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Covid 19 ist keine Krankheit, sondern eine Waffe, mit der die erneute Auslösung der sogenannten „Vorerkrankungen“ der je betroffenen Person mittels einer unbekannten Technik sowie oft eine Beschädigung der Lunge, des Gehirns oder eines anderen Organs erfolgen. Wie diese Waffe beschaffen ist, in den Körper kommt, ob sie dort bleibt, ob und wie sie wieder entfernt werden kann, und was ihre eigentliche, womöglich längerfristige Aufgabe ist, ist unbekannt.

Die Tatsache, dass das neue Corona-Virus nicht nachgewiesen wurde, sollte also nicht weiter dazu verleiten anz8unehmen, es gäbe mit der sog. Covid 19 „Erkrankung“ kein Problem.

Covid fühlt sich so an als ob:

Ein Programm in deinem Körper abgespult wird.

1. Es beginnt z.B. mit einer Art Mind Control und zwar der Zerstörung der psychischen Kraft zusammen mit der physischen und der Durchsetzung einer selbstmordnahen Gleichgültigkeit dem Leben, auch dem eigenen, gegenüber. Es geschieht eine extreme Schwächung auf allen Ebenen und das Eintreten des Gegenteils jeder Lebensfreude, ein elendes Gefühl des Endes, das sich in dir ausbreitet. Das dauert die ersten 4 Tage, ca. Frage: Hat das etwa mit einer Lungenschwächung zu tun, die u.U. auch ohne Vorerkrankung der Lunge stattfindet? (Zusammenhang Lunge und Trauer)
2. Innerhalb des Körpers wird der Reihe nach an Schwachstellen angedockt, als ob ein Software- Programm abläuft, das alle Organe, Körperteile, ja die Knochen betreffen kann und das ganze Leben, bis hinunter zur Geburt streift, und natürlich bei jedem anders ist. Das verursacht Fieber und zum Teil große und langanhaltende Schmerzen. Es weckt sog. Vorerkrankungen, von denen wir nicht immer etwas wissen. Sie werden zum Teil wieder aktiviert, als hätte es keine Heilung gegeben und als hätte es die Heilerinnerung des Leibes nicht gegeben. Die Weisheit des Leibes wird ausgeschaltet. Alle alten Krankheiten, Verletzungen und sogar unbekannte Traumata können wieder auftauchen. Dieser Prozess dauert ca. 4 Tage, wobei die meisten Beschwerden dann abklingen und nur die hartnäckigsten übrigbleiben.

Inwieweit die Lunge oder das Gehirn ein besonderes Angriffsziel sind, und in welchen Formen, ist zu fragen. Da die Älteren automatisch mehr „Vorerkrankungen“ haben, sind sie gefährdeter – „vulnerabler“ – und könnten damit eher auch im Krankenhaus landen. Kinder dagegen bekommen Covid selten, weil sie meist noch keine nennenswerten Vorerkrankungen haben, oder weisen eben solche Effekte auf, die zusätzlich produziert werden.

In der Klinik sterben die an sich selbst Erkrankten dann „an und mit Corona“, d.h. also an und mit den durch die Covid-Waffe unter anderen ausgelösten Vorerkrankungen, nebst der Art der dortigen Behandlung, insbesondere der Lunge. So erklärt sich die neue Sprache, die darum herum verwendet wird.

Es sind daher gerade die diversen Formen der Lungen- und anderer Organerkrankungen zu untersuchen, die nicht unbedingt mit Vorerkrankungen zu tun haben. Vaskuläre Erkrankungen, Sauerstoffmangel usw. Bisher werden diese in den Kliniken aber auf die gleiche Weise behandelt bis zur Intubation und dem Erstickungstod. Warum? (WHO-Patent)

3. Am 5. Tag ist auf diese Weise wohl kaum jemand bereits „negativ“ und kann sich freitesten, falls er wirklich von Covid angegriffen wurde und nicht nur eine Grippe hatte. Es muss im Gegenteil damit gerechnet werden, dass das Programm im Körper, also eine Art programmierte Nanomaschine, weiterhin da ist und erneut eingesetzt werden kann. Diese Maschine muß eine Kombination aus Nano-, KI- und eventueller Bio- sowie EM-Technik sein, jedenfalls ein Spitzenprodukt der 4. industriellen Revolution im Bereich der Mikrotechnologien, die den anerkannten Zweck haben, den Menschen und seinen Körper zu verändern. Es ist ein 1. Schritt zum Transhumanismus.
4. Hierbei geht es also nicht (nur) um Spike-Proteine oder eine Vergiftung, etwa auch mit Schlangengift. Sondern es handelt sich um einen technologischen Angriff mit einer „Bio“-Waffe in dem Sinne, dass sie u.a. die Biologie des Körpers angreift, als sei er maschinelle Hard- und Software (Psyche), und in seine je spezifischen Komponenten zerlegt, also mortifiziert, dort, wo es schon mal ein Problem/Verletzung/Wunde/Krankheit gegeben hat, bei Älteren also mehr. Die Mobilisierung von Vorerkrankungen verdeckt dann auch die Gemeinsamkeiten sowie zusätzlichen Effekte/Zerstörungen, die sich u.a. in „Long Covid“ äußern.

D.h., Covid ist insofern keine eigene Krankheit, als sie die durchgemachten Krankheiten des Jeweiligen zwangsweise wieder hervorholt, als hätte es keine Heilungen gegeben. Der Körper wird also gezwungen, sich noch einmal mit alten Erkrankungen auseinanderzusetzen, als hätte er das nicht schon erfolgreich getan. Sein Heilgedächtnis wird dabei entfernt und erst einmal gelöscht.

Aber Covid bewirkt eventuell neue Erkrankungen darüber hinaus und sogar auf Dauer, hat also noch andere „Aufgaben“ zu erfüllen bzw. solche, um die es eigentlich geht.

Ohne ein gutes Immunsystem kann der Körper diesen überfallsartigen Angriff nicht bewältigen. Daher ist es zentral, sofort die richtigen Mittel einzunehmen, wenn die Symptome einsetzen. Die Frage bleibt, was mit dem Fremdkörper in den Covid-Patienten auf die Dauer passiert, und ob er „ausleitbar“ ist, oder ob er von außen später wieder „angeworfen“ werden kann, z.B. bei 5G Einschaltung (EM).

Covid ist eine Verhöhnung sondergleichen. Denn jeder „erkrankt“ zunächst an seinen eigenen Krankheiten. Er ist dadurch an allem selbst „schuld“. Welch eine Moral! Das verdeckt die eigentlichen Schäden/Veränderungen, die mit dieser Waffe eingeleitet werden (sollen).

5. Ein Beweis, dass es so ist, ist derzeit seitens der Betroffenen nicht möglich. Daher gilt es zunächst Erfahrungen zu sammeln und zu sichten, die ja bei jedem anders sind. Da das neue Corona Virus nicht bewiesen- „isoliert“ -wurde, denken die meisten, es gäbe auch keine Krankheit bzw. nur „leichte“ Verläufe. Das Gegenteil ist der Fall.
6. Was auch zu geschehen hätte, ist ein Vergleich mit Impf-Wirkungen und -substanzen. Ist Covid bereits eine Vorform der Impfung oder etwas anderes?

Die Impfung beginnt oft mit einer Euphorie danach… Geimpfte sind zu befragen. Inwiefern ist es das Gegenteil zu Covid oder ähnelt sich? Vergleich der angewandten Technik. Vergleich der resultierenden Erkrankungen. Bei der Impfung sind es neue, bei Covid oft erst einmal alte.

7. Es sind die Resultate der ersten irreversiblen globalen Menschenversuche mit Produkten der 4. industriellen Revolution im Bereich alchemistischer Mikrotechnologien, die mortifizieren und neu zusammensetzen zum Kranken, Toten oder Transhumanen….

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Dr. Claudia von Werlhof is Prof. Emerita of Political Science and Women’s Studies at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. She is the author of many books and has worked hard to make Rosalie Bertell’s important book Planet Earth: The Latest Weapon of War on Geoengineering available in German, Spanish, Italian, French and English again. Claudia was the founder of the Planetary Movement for Mother Earth (PMME) in 2010.

She is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). 

Featured image is from Zero Hedge

This text was first published on March 8, 2015 at the outset of Obama’s second term.

The Islamic State is not only protected by the US and its allies, it is trained and financed by US-NATO, with the support of Israel and Washington’s Persian Gulf allies.  

Al Qaeda Affiliated Entities are “Intelligence Assets. Instruments of US Intelligence. The Global War on Terrorism is a fabrication used to justify a war of conquest. The Jihadist terrorists are “Made in America”. They are instruments of US intelligence, yet they are presented to public opinion as “enemies of America”.

Introduction

The Obama administration has embarked upon the ultimate war crime, a Worldwide military adventure, “a long war”, which threatens the future of humanity. 

The Pentagon’s global military design is one of world conquest. 

This military deployment of US-NATO forces is occurring in several regions of the world simultaneously, resulting in millions of civilian deaths and countless atrocities. More recently, U.S. and NATO ground forces have been deployed in Eastern Europe including Ukraine on Russia’s immediate doorstep. 

Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theatre operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.

In turn, Israel in liaison with the US, is threatening Iran with nuclear weapons. And the U.S. and its allies are threatening China and North Korea under President Obama’s “Pivot to Asia”. 

Under a global military agenda, the actions undertaken by the Western military alliance (U.S.-NATO-Israel) in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, Ukraine, Syria and Iraq are coordinated at the highest levels of the military hierarchy.  

In turn, military undertakings are closely coordinated with a process of economic warfare which consists not only in imposing sanctions on sovereign countries but also in deliberate acts of destabilization of financial and currencies markets, with a view to undermining the enemies’ national economies.

The Criminalization of War

What is at stake is a global criminal undertaking in defiance of international law. In the words of the late William Rockler:

The United States has discarded pretensions to international legality and decency, and embarked on a course of raw imperialism run amok.” (William Rockler, Nuremberg Tribunal prosecutor)

The US-NATO led war applied Worlwide is a criminal undertaking under the disguise of counter-terrorism. It violates the Nuremberg Charter, the US constitution and the UN charter. According to former chief Nuremberg prosector Benjamin Ferencz, in relation to the 2003 invasion of Iraq:

“a prima facie case can be made that the United States is guilty of the supreme crime against humanity — that being an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation.”

Ferenz was referring to “Crimes against Peace and War” (Nuremberg Principle VI): which states the following:

“The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:

(a) Crimes against peace:

(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;

(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).

(b) War crimes:

Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the Seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.

(c) Crimes against humanity:

Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.”

“(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;

(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).”

It should be noted that Nuremberg Principle III relates directly to president Obama and the heads of State and heads of government of the US-NATO led coalition:

The Kuala Lumpur Initiative to Criminalize War

Following in the footsteps of Nuremberg, the objective of the December 2005 Kuala Lumpur initiative led by Tun Mahathir Mohamad was to criminalize war and eventually abolish war.

Let us recall the fundamental principles contained in the Kuala Lumpur Initiative to Criminalize War under the helm of Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, the fourth and longest serving prime minister of Malaysia.

“Killings in war are as criminal as the killings within societies in times of peace. 

Since killings in peace time are subject to the domestic law of crime, killings in war must likewise be subject to the international law of crimes.

This should be so irrespective of whether these killings in war are authorized or permitted by domestic law.” (See full text of the Kuala Lumpur Initiative below)

Since the adoption of the KL Initiative to Criminalize war in December 2005, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal (KLWCT) has passed two important  judgements:

against George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, et al for war crimes in Iraq,

and against the State of Israel on charges of genocide against the people of Palestine.

More than ever the Kuala Lumpur Initiative launched almost ten years ago in December 2005 by Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad should be widely understood and applied.

What is at stake is the universal recognition of the value of human life, solidarity and understanding between nationalities, ethnic groups and religions, as well as respect for national sovereignty. These are preconditions for World peace. As outline in the Kuala Lumpur declaration: “peace is the essential condition for the survival and well-being of the human race”.

In contrast tothese broad principles which define human values, the US military and financial establishment and its allies are intent upon destroying and destabilizing sovereign countries as part of an imperial agenda, through acts of war and economic plunder, the end result of which is the transformation of sovereign nations into open economic territories, under the jurisdiction of US approved proxy regimes.

To no avail, since 2008, President Obama has followed in the footsteps of George W. Bush. Together with America’s NATO allies, his administration has not only supported terrorist organizations, it has covertly supported terrorist insurgencies and has waged an extensive bombing campaign against Libya (2011), Syria and Iraq (2014-), drone attacks and targeted assassinations against Pakistan (2004-) among other military-intelligence operations.

Under the Kuala Lumpur Initiative to Criminalize War which was adopted under the helm of Tun Mahathir,

“All national leaders who initiate aggression must be subjected to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.”

Let us be crystal clear: Consistent with Nuremberg, the above statement applies to president Barack Obama and the heads of State and heads of government of NATO countries which endorsed the extensive carpet bombing operations directed against Libya, Syria and Iraq, resulting in the death of countless civilians.

Under Nuremberg and Kuala Lumpur, Barack Obama, France’s president Francois Hollande, Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron et al are war criminals.

War Propaganda and the Demonization of Muslims: A Criminal Undertaking under International Law