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On August 10, United States President Joe Biden signed the PACT Act, aiding approximately 3.5 million American veterans with severe medical conditions linked to toxic exposure to burn pits during service, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. Open air pits of military waste, sometimes as large as football fields, are burned to destroy munitions, chemicals, plastics, and medical and human waste, typically using jet fuel. Used widely until at least 2010, burn pits were still permitted at least as of last year, when waste management facilities were not available.

Their impact, however, extends beyond the harm to those who were deployed and exposed to toxins in the short term. Fatal cancers. Birth defects that can cause infant death or lifelong disabilities. Malformations including a missing hand, cleft lip and paralysed club foot. Anencephaly — an underdeveloped brain and incomplete skull. These are just some of the devastating conditions plaguing Iraqi civilians following toxic exposure from the 2003 US invasion and occupation and 1991 Gulf War.

How is this a fair price for civilians to pay for simply residing in their homes while the US “war on terror” forcibly exposed them to burn pits and depleted uranium? When will the US fulfill international law obligations to compensate them for the toxic war zones that its military has left behind?

Biden’s signing last week was filled with fanfare and applause, and a moving appearance by the wife and young child of the late Ohio veteran in whose honour the act is named (full title: the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act). Indeed, the legislation is welcome: It covers numerous cancers and lung conditions, and marks progress toward addressing dire suffering similar to that of Vietnam veterans who were unjustly neglected (PDF) following Agent Orange exposure. In fact, the PACT Act addresses Agent Orange — 47 years after that war’s end.

Biden said this is “the least we can do” for veterans. Where is equivalent acknowledgment – and compensation – for Iraqi civilians, who have no escape from the kind of toxic surroundings the act aims to address for injured US veterans?

Benefit of doubt

Many of those paying the highest price are Iraqi infants born two decades after the start of the “war on terror”. According to Dutch peace organisation PAX, more than 780,000 rounds of depleted uranium were fired in 1991, and more than 300,000 rounds in 2003.

Diseases linked to genetic damage in Fallujah, which was contaminated with depleted uranium munitions, have been documented at higher rates than in Hiroshima.

The PACT Act provides “presumptive conditions” benefits that remove the burden of proof. Instead, veterans will be presumed eligible according to dates and locations of service. Previously, nearly four in five burn pits-connected Veterans Affairs (VA) claims were rejected.

This same benefit of the doubt must be extended to Iraqis through a presumptive benefits-style programme. The US must not delay clean-up and compensation for decades, as with Vietnam. There is more than enough data to justify reparations. Petty, minutiae-rooted arguments can be used to fixate on documentation of the precise dates and nature of civilians’ toxic exposure. Yet, there is ample evidence of what I call “toxic saturation” — the long-term, undeniable, accumulative encounters of Iraqi civilians with a variety of deadly toxins. As Iraqi novelist and poet Sinan Antoon asks: “Do we breathe to live? Or do we breathe to die?”

The law is clear. Article 91 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions says that violators of international humanitarian law are “liable to pay compensation.” The Environmental Modification Convention (ENMOD) forbids military “environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects as the means of destruction, damage or injury.”

There are abundant international regulations that are in conflict with US actions regarding toxins. Article 55 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions prohibits means of warfare that damage the environment and “prejudice the health or survival of the population”. The Rio Declaration calls for states to “develop national law regarding liability and compensation” for victims of environmental damage.

Members of the US Congress were not concerned with international law, however, when finally compensating veterans. They acted once they could not resist pressure any longer. US leaders likely fear that compensation would admit US culpability for Iraqi civilians’ injuries. The harm caused, however, is obvious and must be remedied.

History repeats

Sadly, Washington’s track record doesn’t inspire optimism.

The US left Vietnam veterans in the cold, before finally providing presumptive benefitsand benefits for Agent Orange-linked birth defects in veterans’ children. The US Court of Appeals ruled against Vietnamese people who sought to hold Dow Chemical, Monsanto and other companies accountable. The court justified this partly on the basis that dioxin was a defoliant to clear foliage, not intended to harm humans.

The US has spent roughly $400m to address Agent Orange’s environmental and health effects. USAID and Vietnam’s government have a 10-year plan costing up to $500m to clean Bien Hoa Air Base. A smaller amount, $14.5m annually, was allocated for health and disability programmes.

If this numbers game seems a bit obscure, this is because there have been many parcelled-out allocations of funding, none of which have fully ameliorated harm to Vietnam’s people. This becomes clearer when considered in relation to the US military budget of $753bn.

These precedents prove that US-funded clean-ups are possible, even as they underscore the grossly inadequate nature of projects to address the horrific, multigenerational effects of dioxin. Cancer and other crushing illnesses plague Vietnam’s survivors and their children.

The bad news? History is not simply repeating. Conditions are worsening as new benchmarks are continually set for how bad things can get.

As Vietnamese-American writer and professor Viet Thanh Nguyen writes, we can forgive the atrocities of the past but “the present is not yet finished. The present, perhaps, is always unforgivable.”

Way forward

When the Senate finally passed the PACT Act, it was in spite of Republicans who refused to support it — which was seen as retaliation for Democratic legislation on climate and healthcare. This dysfunction regarding compensating veterans provides a glimpse into how antagonistic many US lawmakers would be towards an Iraqi reparations proposal.

The US must take responsibility for toxins used by the military, and by for-profit contractors. Yet abandoning civilians abroad is horrifically consistent with the US approach to environmental racism domestically. Environmental injustice disproportionately impacts US minority communities who often live in sacrifice zones.

These realities make for an uphill struggle, though not an impossible one. The US’s recognition of veterans, while ignoring Iraqis, reveals a segregated outlook on justice. The public needs to stand in solidarity with victims of the “war on terror”. The US government must expeditiously provide reparations to Iraqis and fulfill international law obligations.

Anything less is environmental racism, and a dangerously hierarchical approach to justice.

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Carly A. Krakow is a writer, Scholar in Residence at NYU School of Law’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, and faculty member at the NYU Gallatin School.

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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“We want no Gestapo or Secret Police. FBI is tending in that direction.”—Harry Truman

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With every passing day, the United States government borrows yet another leaf from Nazi Germany’s playbook: Secret police. Secret courts. Secret government agencies. Surveillance. Censorship. Intimidation. Harassment. Torture. Brutality. Widespread corruption. Entrapment. Indoctrination. Indefinite detention.

These are not tactics used by constitutional republics, where the rule of law and the rights of the citizenry reign supreme. Rather, they are the hallmarks of authoritarian regimes, where secret police control the populace through intimidation, fear and official lawlessness on the part of government agents.

That authoritarian danger is now posed by the FBI, whose love affair with totalitarianism began long ago. Indeed, according to the New York Times, the U.S. government so admired the Nazi regime that following the second World War, it secretly and aggressively recruited at least a thousand Nazis, including some of Hitler’s highest henchmen as part of Operation Paperclip. American taxpayers have been paying to keep these ex-Nazis on the U.S. government’s payroll ever since.

If the government’s covert, taxpayer-funded employment of Nazis after World War II weren’t bad enough, U.S. government agencies—the FBI, CIA and the military—adopted many of the Third Reich’s well-honed policing tactics, and have used them against American citizens.

Indeed, the FBI’s laundry list of crimes against the American people includes surveillance, disinformation, blackmail, entrapment, intimidation tactics, harassment and indoctrination, governmental overreach, abuse, misconduct, trespassing, enabling criminal activity, and damaging private property, and that’s just based on what we know.

Compare the FBI’s far-reaching powers to surveil, detain, interrogate, investigate, prosecute, punish, police and generally act as a law unto themselves—powers that have grown since 9/11, transforming the FBI into a mammoth federal policing and surveillance agency that largely operates as a power unto itself, beyond the reach of established laws, court rulings and legislative mandates—to its Nazi counterparts, the Gestapo—and then try to convince yourself that the United States is not a totalitarian police state.

Just like the Gestapo, the FBI has vast resources, vast investigatory powers, and vast discretion to determine who is an enemy of the state.

Today, the FBI employs more than 35,000 individuals and operates more than 56 field offices in major cities across the U.S., as well as 400 resident agencies in smaller towns, and more than 50 international offices. In addition to their “data campus,” which houses more than 96 million sets of fingerprints from across the United States and elsewhere, the FBI has also built a vast repository of “profiles of tens of thousands of Americans and legal residents who are not accused of any crime. What they have done is appear to be acting suspiciously to a town sheriff, a traffic cop or even a neighbor.” The FBI’s burgeoning databases on Americans are not only being added to and used by local police agencies, but are also being made available to employers for real-time background checks.

All of this is made possible by the agency’s nearly unlimited resources (President Biden’s budget projections allocate $10.8 billion for the FBI), the government’s vast arsenal of technology, the interconnectedness of government intelligence agencies, and information sharing through fusion centers—data collecting intelligence agencies spread throughout the country that constantly monitor communications (including those of American citizens), everything from internet activity and web searches to text messages, phone calls and emails.

Much like the Gestapo spied on mail and phone calls, FBI agents have carte blanche access to the citizenry’s most personal information.

Working through the U.S. Post Office, the FBI has access to every piece of mail that passes through the postal system: more than 160 billion pieces are scanned and recorded annually. Moreover, the agency’s National Security Letters, one of the many illicit powers authorized by the USA Patriot Act, allows the FBI to secretly demand that banks, phone companies, and other businesses provide them with customer information and not disclose those demands to the customer. An internal audit of the agency found that the FBI practice of issuing tens of thousands of NSLs every year for sensitive information such as phone and financial records, often in non-emergency cases, is riddled with widespread constitutional violations.

Much like the Gestapo’s sophisticated surveillance programs, the FBI’s spying capabilities can delve into Americans’ most intimate details (and allow local police to do so, as well).

In addition to technology (which is shared with police agencies) that allows them to listen in on phone calls, read emails and text messages, and monitor web activities, the FBI’s surveillance boasts an invasive collection of spy tools ranging from Stingray devices that can track the location of cell phones to Triggerfish devices which allow agents to eavesdrop on phone calls.  In one case, the FBI actually managed to remotely reprogram a “suspect’s” wireless internet card so that it would send “real-time cell-site location data to Verizon, which forwarded the data to the FBI.” Law enforcement agencies are also using social media tracking software to monitor Facebook, Twitter and Instagram posts. Moreover, secret FBI rules also allow agents to spy on journalists without significant judicial oversight.

Much like the Gestapo’s ability to profile based on race and religion, and its assumption of guilt by association, the FBI’s approach to pre-crime allows it to profile Americans based on a broad range of characteristics including race and religion.

The agency’s biometric database has grown to massive proportions, the largest in the world, encompassing everything from fingerprints, palm, face and iris scans to DNA, and is being increasingly shared between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in an effort to target potential criminals long before they ever commit a crime. This is what’s known as pre-crime. Yet it’s not just your actions that will get you in trouble. In many cases, it’s also who you know—even minimally—and where your sympathies lie that could land you on a government watch list. Moreover, as the Intercept reports, despite anti-profiling prohibitions, the bureau “claims considerable latitude to use race, ethnicity, nationality, and religion in deciding which people and communities to investigate.”

Much like the Gestapo’s power to render anyone an enemy of the state, the FBI has the power to label anyone a domestic terrorist.

As part of the government’s so-called ongoing war on terror, the nation’s de facto secret police force has begun using the terms “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” interchangeably. Moreover, the government continues to add to its growing list of characteristics that can be used to identify an individual (especially anyone who disagrees with the government) as a potential domestic terrorist. For instance, you might be a domestic terrorist in the eyes of the FBI (and its network of snitches) if you:

• express libertarian philosophies (statements, bumper stickers)
• exhibit Second Amendment-oriented views (NRA or gun club membership)
• read survivalist literature, including apocalyptic fictional books
• show signs of self-sufficiency (stockpiling food, ammo, hand tools, medical supplies)
• fear an economic collapse
• buy gold and barter items
• subscribe to religious views concerning the book of Revelation
• voice fears about Big Brother or big government
• expound about constitutional rights and civil liberties
• believe in a New World Order conspiracy

Much like the Gestapo infiltrated communities in order to spy on the German citizenry, the FBI routinely infiltrates political and religious groups, as well as businesses.

As Cora Currier writes for the Intercept: “Using loopholes it has kept secret for years, the FBI can in certain circumstances bypass its own rules in order to send undercover agents or informants into political and religious organizations, as well as schools, clubs, and businesses…” The FBI has even been paying Geek Squad technicians at Best Buy to spy on customers’ computers without a warrant.

Just as the Gestapo united and militarized Germany’s police forces into a national police force, America’s police forces have largely been federalized and turned into a national police force.

In addition to government programs that provide the nation’s police forces with military equipment and training, the FBI also operates a National Academy that trains thousands of police chiefs every year and indoctrinates them into an agency mindset that advocates the use of surveillance technology and information sharing between local, state, federal, and international agencies.

Just as the Gestapo’s secret files on political leaders were used to intimidate and coerce, the FBI’s files on anyone suspected of “anti-government” sentiment have been similarly abused.

As countless documents make clear, the FBI has no qualms about using its extensive powers in order to blackmail politicians, spy on celebrities and high-ranking government officials, and intimidate and attempt to discredit dissidents of all stripes. For example, not only did the FBI follow Martin Luther King Jr. and bug his phones and hotel rooms, but agents also sent him anonymous letters urging him to commit suicide and pressured a Massachusetts college into dropping King as its commencement speaker.

Just as the Gestapo carried out entrapment operations, the FBI has become a master in the art of entrapment.

In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks the FBI has not only targeted vulnerable individuals but has also lured or blackmailed them into fake terror plots while actually equipping them with the organization, money, weapons and motivation to carry out the plots—entrapment—and then jailing or deporting them for their so-called terrorist plotting.

This is what the FBI characterizes as “forward leaning—preventative—prosecutions.” In addition to creating certain crimes in order to then “solve” them, the FBI also gives certain informants permission to break the law, “including everything from buying and selling illegal drugs to bribing government officials and plotting robberies,” in exchange for their cooperation on other fronts.

USA Today estimates that FBI agents have authorized criminals to engage in as many as 15 crimes a day. Some of these informants are getting paid astronomical sums: one particularly unsavory fellow, later arrested for attempting to run over a police officer, was actually paid $85,000 for his help laying the trap for an entrapment scheme.

When and if a true history of the FBI is ever written, it will not only track the rise of the American police state but it will also chart the decline of freedom in America, in much the same way that the empowerment of Germany’s secret police tracked with the rise of the Nazi regime.

How did the Gestapo become the terror of the Third Reich?

It did so by creating a sophisticated surveillance and law enforcement system that relied for its success on the cooperation of the military, the police, the intelligence community, neighborhood watchdogs, government workers for the post office and railroads, ordinary civil servants, and a nation of snitches inclined to report “rumors, deviant behavior, or even just loose talk.”

In other words, ordinary citizens working with government agents helped create the monster that became Nazi Germany. Writing for the New York Times, Barry Ewen paints a particularly chilling portrait of how an entire nation becomes complicit in its own downfall by looking the other way:

In what may be his most provocative statement, [author Eric A.] Johnson says that ‘‘most Germans may not even have realized until very late in the war, if ever, that they were living in a vile dictatorship.’’ This is not to say that they were unaware of the Holocaust; Johnson demonstrates that millions of Germans must have known at least some of the truth. But, he concludes, ‘‘a tacit Faustian bargain was struck between the regime and the citizenry.’’ The government looked the other way when petty crimes were being committed. Ordinary Germans looked the other way when Jews were being rounded up and murdered; they abetted one of the greatest crimes of the 20th century not through active collaboration but through passivity, denial and indifference.

Much like the German people, “we the people” have become passive, polarized, gullible, easily manipulated, and lacking in critical thinking skills.  Distracted by entertainment spectacles, politics and screen devices, we too are complicit, silent partners in creating a police state similar to the terror practiced by former regimes.

Had the government tried to ram such a state of affairs down our throats suddenly, it might have had a rebellion on its hands. Instead, the American people have been given the boiling frog treatment, immersed in water that slowly is heated up—degree by degree—so that they’ve fail to notice that they’re being trapped and cooked and killed.

“We the people” are in hot water now.

The Constitution doesn’t stand a chance against a federalized, globalized standing army of government henchmen protected by legislative, judicial and executive branches that are all on the same side, no matter what political views they subscribe to: suffice it to say, they are not on our side or the side of freedom.

From Presidents Clinton to Bush, then Obama to Trump and now Biden, it’s as if we’ve been caught in a time loop, forced to re-live the same thing over and over again: the same assaults on our freedoms, the same disregard for the rule of law, the same subservience to the Deep State, and the same corrupt, self-serving government that exists only to amass power, enrich its shareholders and ensure its continued domination.

Can the Fourth Reich happen here?

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, it’s already happening right under our noses.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

They are regular contributors to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Grayzone

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

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

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Our thanks to Al Jazeera for bringing this article to our attention, first published on August 19, 2013

The CIA orchestrated the August 1953 coup that toppled Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh after he tried to nationalize his country’s oil wealth, according to a document recently declassified by the agency. The ouster of the democratically elected Mossadegh and his replacement by the Western-backed autocracy of Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi set the context for the anti-American sentiment that followed the 1979 Iranian revolution and the mutual mistrust and resentment that continue to affect relations between Tehran and Washington.

The coup that overthrew Mossadegh and his National Front cabinet “was carried out under CIA direction as an act of U.S. foreign policy, conceived and approved at the highest levels of government,” the document said. It was obtained by George Washington University’s National Security Archive through the Freedom of Information Act.

“The military coup that overthrew Mosadeq and his National Front cabinet was carried out under CIA direction as an act of U.S. foreign policy, conceived, and approved at the highest levels of government,” the document, obtained by George Washington University’s National Security Archive through a Freedom of Information Act — said using an alternative spelling of Mossadegh.

“The coup was the beginning of a sequence of tragedies that dog the U.S. and its allies in the Middle East today. It was the key source of the anti-American resentment that exploded during the Iranian revolution of 1979,” Former CIA operative Robert B. Baer, author of “The Devil We Know: Dealing With the New Iranian Superpower,” told Al Jazeera.

Pahlavi, a close U.S. ally, was toppled in the 1979 revolution. Its leadership under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini made hostility toward the U.S. a cornerstone of Iran’s foreign policy. The most immediate traumatic expression of that hostility was the hostage crisis that saw a group of Iranian students take control of the U.S. embassy in Tehran and hold 52 Americans captive for 444 days.

“Iranians truly believe that if it weren’t for the CIA, the Shah would never have been brought to power,” Baer said. “And they believe that the CIA continues to operate as an evil force in their country.”

The CIA’s role in the coup has long been known: A heavily redacted version of the document was first released in 1981 and there are still documents related to the coup that have not been released. But those released on Sunday — the coup’s 60th anniversary — were the most explicit admission to date of involvement by the agency.

Reza Marashi, a former Iran analyst with State Department  who is now with the National Iranian American Council, told Al Jazeera that the release of the documents could serve as a “very small, but important step forward in un-poisoning things.”

“The first step toward fixing a problem is acknowledging it exists, and the problem that exists between Iran and the United States is historical – not just about centrifuges and everything else,” Marashi said, referring to the ongoing fracas over Iran’s nuclear program. “You have to acknowledge the past in order to focus on the future – both sides need to do that.”

Mossadegh had angered Britain by moving to take over the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company — the predecessor of modern-day BP. The British believed that control of Iranian oil was vital to reviving their economy from the destruction of World War II.

The internal CIA history offered a degree of understanding of Mossadegh’s position and rejected Western media depictions of him as “a madman” or “an emotional bundle of senility.”

Another internal history, authored by coup planner Donald Wilber and leaked to The New York Times in 2000, said that agents had arranged stories against Mossadegh in the press both in Iran and the United States aimed at setting the stage for the coup.

In 2000, as part of an effort to mend relations with Iran, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright admitted that the U.S. had “played a significant role” in overthrowing Mossadegh.

“The coup was clearly a setback for Iran’s political development, and it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs,” Albright said at the time.

President Barack Obama also made a similar admission after taking office in 2009 in another unsuccessful attempt at reconciliation with Iran, which has sought an explicit apology.

Historians often regard the 1953 coup in Iran as a first for the CIA, offering a template for government takeovers in Latin America and elsewhere during the Cold War.

Malcolm Byrne, deputy director of the National Security Archive, said that the CIA wrote the secret histories for internal use.

The histories “give people on the inside a sense of what happened and, presumably, give them a little context for whatever else they may be planning,” he said.

U.S. and British spies also tried to fan the flames against Mossadegh among the Iranian clergy, the documents said. The history also said that the CIA arranged to pay $5 million within days of the coup to the new government of Fazlollah Zahedi, a general appointed to succeed Mossadegh.

While recognizing that London needed the oil, the CIA history said that British policymakers had “little in their experience to make them respect Iranians, whom company managers and Foreign Office managers saw as inefficient, corrupt and self-serving.”

But the CIA history cast the decision in Cold War terms, fearing that the Soviets would invade and take over Iran if the crisis escalated and Britain sent in warships — as it would do three years later alongside France and Israel when Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal.

“The irony was that the coup was predominantly a British operation, undertaken on behalf of that country’s oil interests, into which the CIA was drawn in the name of anti-communism and fear that Mossadegh would hand the country over to the Russians,” Baer said.

As for the timing of the document release, Marashi said it may have been a small and subtle gesture to Iran’s new president Hassan Rouhani, who has vowed to shift relations with the West.

“Hopefully this can be the icing on the cake and then when the relationship between the two countries improves there can be a cherry on top where the United States will apologize for that and Iran will apologize for the hostage crisis and everybody can move on in a peaceful way,” he said.

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Philip J. Victor contributed to this report. With Al Jazeera and wire services.

Featured image: Mohammad Mosaddegh in court, 8 November 1953 (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

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 attack in Moscow that resulted in the death of journalist Daria Platonova was primarily aimed at her father, Alexander Dugin, philosopher, creator of the modern school of geopolitics, head of the Department of Sociology of International Relations at Moscow’s Lomonosov State University, and founder of the International Eurasian Movement.

This is not simply the criminal act of an individual or small group, but a political crime planned and carried out by Western intelligence services, particularly those of the United States and Britain, according to well-established procedures.

First, the choice of target. In his interview with Grandangolo last April, Alexander Dugin explains that the Russian military operation in Ukraine is not only a response to the U.S.-NATO escalation, which endangers Russia’s security, but a response to the West’s globalist plan to maintain a unipolar world under its own rule. As an alternative to the globalist agenda Dughin envisions the creation of a multipolar world through a historic planetary pact of all people of different cultures and traditions who reject the globalist agenda. What is needed is a universal alliance against the Soros, Schwabs, Bill Gates and the global liberal oligarchy, who threaten humanity with their insane plans.

Within this framework is the International Eurasian Movement. The growing economic integration of Eurasia, which encourages negotiated conflict resolution and cross-cultural dialogue, contributes concretely to the transition from the unipolar world to the multipolar world, which the United States and other major powers of the West are trying hard to prevent.

Daria Platonova – an expert on international relations, columnist and contributor to radio and television channels – had contributed to a few episodes of Grandangolo, and in the coming months her collaboration was to take on a periodic character. The news of her murder shocked but did not silence us. Daria will remain with us on Byoblu.

This article was originally published on byoblu. Translated from Italian.

Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

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The Russian FSB investigation

Latest Report from Zero Hedge  

The Russian Federal Security Service (“FSB”) has claimed that the assassination of Dugina was committed by a covert operative of Ukraine. The FSB has identified Natalia Vovk as the alleged assassin.

“As a result of a complex of urgent operational-search measures, the Federal Security Service has solved the murder of Russian journalist Darya Dugina, born in 1992,” the FSB announced, going on to emphasize the culpibility of the Ukrainian government by stating that “the crime was prepared and committed by the Ukrainian special services[.]”

According to the FSB’s investigation, Vovk entered Russia in July before situating herself in the same apartment building that Dugina resided in. Vovk would then follow Dugina to the festival in which the explosive device that led to her death was planted. Vovk, who was accompanied by her 12-year old daughter, fled to Estonia following the assassination, according to Russian intelligence. Following her identification, Russian law enforcement agencies declared their intent to seek her extradition.

Following Dugina’s assassination, Ukraine was naturally implicated as being behind the murder given her father’s significant, albeit enigmatic, reputation as one of Vladimir Putin’s most influential ideologues. Kiev urgently washed its hands of any involvement as advisor Mykhailo Podolyak stated “Ukraine, of course, has nothing to do with yesterday’s explosion[.]” Although Ukrainian officials denied any involvement in the attack, President Volodymyr Zelensky warned of his anticipation that Dugina’s murder would inextricably result in the intensification Russia’s military campaign.

Given the reports of Vovk’s escape to Estonia, the location of the alleged assassin places Russia in a conflict against a NATO member state even more directly than the proxy war in Ukraine has. In 2016, the European Court of Justice set precedent which would justify any extradition request for Vovk by Russia. The case law that set that standard occurred when the court found that any member state of the European Union is obligated to accommodate an extradition request of any third-party non-member state even if the subject of the request is not a citizen of the EU nation itself. This decision followed a case in which Russia requested to have Estonian national Aleksei Petruhhin extradited from Latvia for drug trafficking offenses.

The legal framework set by the European Court of Justice will place Estonia in a crucible if Vovk has indeed found safe haven in the Baltic state. In addition to joining the EU in 2004, Estonia joined NATO that same year. The potential conflict arising between Estonia and the Russian Federation has the potential to trigger Article 5 of the NATO Charter which puts forth a collective defense clause meaning that any military engagement with a NATO member state constitutes action taken against the entire trans-Atlantic body whether it occurs as far east as Tallinn or as far west as Hawai’i.

Article 5 has been constantly dangled before Russia as a Sword of Damicles of sorts designed to dissuade any escalation of the Ukrainian conflict. The veiled threat was most recently invoked in response to Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and increased military incursions by Ukrainian military forces into Crimea. “Any deliberate damage causing potential radiation leak to a Ukrainian nuclear reactor would be a breach of NATO’s Article 5,” said UK MP Tobias Ellwood. His sentiments were echoed by US Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R – IL) who followed Ellwood’s declaration by stating “This really isn’t even up for debate; any leak will kill people in NATO countries, that’s an automatic article 5[.]” just hours before Dugina’s assassination.

While Article 5 of the NATO Charter has been used to threaten Russia from intensifying any aggression, the officials who have constantly cited the collective defense policy have done so under the pretense of preventing any further aggression. The assassination of Darya Dugina is a drastically different circumstance as Russia will surely perceive any potential action it takes to have Vovk extradited from Estonia as entirely justified and as a response to the murder, not an offensive attack against a NATO member state. As the manhunt for Vovk ensures, Europe again finds itself in the political crucible that enveloped the continent following Gravrilo Princip’s assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. However, in this historical iteration, it is the European central powers who find themselves in a position of being the aggressor that could provoke a catastrophic conflict with Russia.

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“Tell Me, Mother, What Does Peace Look Like?”

By Dr. Rudolf Hänsel and Ellen Rohlfs, August 22, 2022

When I read in “Global Research” of 17 August 2022 (“Haaretz” 11 August 2022) the article by Gideon Levy “When Roger Waters Cried. “Has any Israeli Shed Tears for a Boy from Gaza?”‘” (1), I remembered the German peace activist Ellen Rohlfs (1927-2020), with whom I had a lively exchange in the mid-1990s.

Europe Quietly Abandoning Ukraine, as for the First Time, No New Military Pledges Have Been Made

By Uriel Araujo, August 23, 2022

According to Germany’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the six largest European countries gave Kiev no new military pledges last month, this being the first time such a thing has happened since the beginning of the conflict in February.

The Only Thing Keeping US and China From War Is Running Dangerously Thin

By Scott Ritter, August 23, 2022

American relations with China in regards to Taiwan have been dictated by years of ambiguous statements and commitments. Now this rhetoric is breaking down and armed conflict seems closer than ever – but is Washington ready to fight over Taiwan, or capable of winning?

The Hideous Assassination of Russian Journalist Daria Dugina, Designed to Enhance the Conflict?

By Stephen Karganovic, August 22, 2022

The appalling murder near Moscow a few days ago of Daria Dugina, daughter of the illustrious Russian philosopher and geostrategic thinker Alexander Dugin, ironically occurred precisely as the imbecilic solons of her country’s main geopolitical rival were contemplating legislation to designate Russia as a state “sponsor of terrorism.”

United Nations Recruited Over 100,000 ‘Digital First Responders’ to Push Establishment COVID Narrative

By Paul Joseph Watson, August 22, 2022

At the height of the pandemic, the United Nations recruited over 100,000 “digital first responders’ to push the establishment narrative on COVID via social media. The revelation actually slipped out in October 2020 during a World Economic Forum podcast called ‘Seeking a cure for the infodemic’, although it is only going viral on Twitter today.

The Sword of Bolivar Is Wielded Again by the People of Latin America. Gustavo Petro Inauguration as President of Colombia

By Daniel Kovalik, August 22, 2022

For the first time since the liberation of Colombia from Spain by Simón Bolívar, Colombia now had leaders who promised to radically transform Colombia, and with it, all of Latin America. I was fortunate enough to be present at the inauguration ceremony which was just as exciting as one could have hoped for.

Countdown to the New Iranian Nuclear Deal

By Steven Sahiounie, August 22, 2022

The world is inching closer to restoring a deal to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb. The US is examining the Iranian response to a ‘final’ accord tabled by the EU in the latest round of negotiation for the restoration of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (or JCPOA, as the deal between Iran, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Germany and the European Union is known).

The Destabilization of Pakistan: The Media Regulator’s Ban on Imran Khan’s Live Broadcasts

By Andrew Korybko, August 22, 2022

All that the latest development will do is exacerbate the growing generational divide within the country, turn more people against the “official narrative”, and further worsen the socio-political (soft security) situation. Considering this, there’s no doubt that the destabilization of Pakistan is being driven by those same political forces tasked with protecting it, not their opponents.

Subverting Medicine: The Role of the Federation of State Medical Boards

By Dr. Emanuel Garcia, August 22, 2022

The other day I received a link to this video, an appeal on behalf of an Irish General Practitioner, Dr. William Ralph, who is currently under investigation by the Medical Council of Ireland.  I learned of Dr. Ralph’s plight through his niece, Dr. Karen McDonnell, a psychiatrist who is on the verge of losing her job in New Zealand (where, incidentally there is a tremendous dearth of psychiatrists) because she refuses to receive a third Pfizer inoculation, thanks to New Zealand’s ill-considered and scientifically unfounded inoculation mandates for health practitioners.

Unlawful Pentagon Order Mandating mRNA Vaccine for Troops

By Jordan Schachtel, August 22, 2022

Lawyers representing America’s service members are beginning to produce victories defending the U.S. Armed Forces against forced compliance with biomedical gene therapy experiments, and suddenly, nobody in the Pentagon wants to take accountability for their legally dubious mRNA injection order.

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***

According to Germany’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the six largest European countries gave Kiev no new military pledges last month, this being the first time such a thing has happened since the beginning of the conflict in February. Besides Spain, France, Germany and Italy, not even the UK and Poland have made any new military commitments to Ukraine, which is quite surprising considering they had been such staunch supporters. In any case, European military support had been decreasing since April. It would seem Europe is quietly and silently “abandoning” Kiev.

Overall European aid to Ukraine is in any case but a fraction of the estimated €800 billion pandemic recovery fund thus far conceded in loans and grants, for example. Germany in turn is taking too long to implement tank swamps with its neighbors, so that they send their own Soviet-era tanks to Kiev.

There are many possible reasons for what appears to be a gradual “abandonment”, and the fact that Transparency International’s corruption index ranks Ukraine in the bottom third can certainly play a role. It is true that the huge flow of European weapons to Ukraine certainly had an impact, particularly the Javelin missiles, but it is also true that as much as 70% of the weaponry sent never reached the troops, while large parts of it ended up in the black market. Interpol secretary general Jürgen Stock warned about the dangers posed by such a situation, pertaining to international terrorism and organized crime.

Be it as it may, the Western weapons could never guarantee Ukraine victory, and a Russian victory, even if a partial one, remains the only possible scenario. Slowly but surely, Moscow keeps making progress in its military operations. Its withdrawal from Northern Ukraine does not matter much, as “conquering Ukraine” was never a Russian goal – Moscow’s main point was alway about keeping NATO out of its own geostrategic environment and stopping Kiev’s aggression against the populations of Donetsk and Luhansk as well as the humanitarian disaster that has been going on there since 2014.

The second phase of the Russian “special operation” is all about encircling and neutralizing Kiev’s forces in Southeastern Ukraine, and, to a large degree, this is being done very efficiently. The infamous far-right Azov Regiment, which until recently had such a strong presence in the city of Mariupol, has been largely neutralized, and many of its leaders have been captured. Azov forces were oppressing and persecuting ethnic Greeks in the region, among other atrocities, and even though Russian rhetoric about “de-nazification” goals was much ridiculed by Western analysts, as part of the whitewashing of Azov, today almost no one denies the “neo-Nazi problem” around the Regiment .

The conflict is admittedly taking much longer than initially thought for a number of reasons, one of them being the simple fact that Kiev has from the very beginning militarized residential areas as part of human shield tactics, as exposed by the latest Amnesty International report. Besides Russian concerns pertaining to civilian casualties and human rights, Ukrainians are, from a Russian perspective, a historically united people, as Russian President Vladimir Putin himself has for years stated several times. This partly explains the relatively slow Russian advances.

As the winter approaches Europe, accompanied by the coming recession and an unprecedented wage of Ukrainian refugees, amid inflation and political crises, one could expect the EU to largely “abandon” Kiev, as its elites now fear an “European spring”. In Germany, public intellectuals have already collected thousands of signatures in a petition to end the flow of weapons to Ukraine.

A recent article by New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman has exposed the fact that the White House distrusts Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky. Ukraine is nonetheless preparing for its counter-offensive in the Kherson region. It is true that the US has just announced it is sending a $755 million package of weapons and supplies to its ally, to fuel its immediate artillery fight. It includes, among other things, 40 armored vehicles, and 1,000 Javelin anti-tank missiles, as well as HIMARS rockets and  more high-speed anti-radiation missiles (HARMs). The number of HIMARS sent was limited to 16, though, so as to not burn the Pentagon’s own stockpile. A senior Pentagon official has admitted that the Ukrainians lack sufficient troops to drive Russians from their positions. This American package in any case is far from being sufficient.

As aid initiatives are drying up and Zelensky is becoming an inconvenience, not much trusted by Washington, it remains to be seen how long the US, which struggles with its own domestic crisis (and is already facing frictions with China over Taiwan), will have the political will to remain bearing mostly alone the “burden” of supporting Kiev. It also remains to be seen how Kiev will perform without the expected new weapons from Europe it so ardently has been claiming to need.

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Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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***

Dear Secretary General Antonio Guterres,

I am writing with grave concern about the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine.

I have been following this dangerous situation for many weeks. It is abundantly obvious to me that the US-installed Kiev government is doing the shelling of the nuclear plant.

Why would Russia want to contaminate the very region of Russian-ethnic citizens it is attempting to save from this out-of-control Kiev regime?

The fact that the Ukrainian plant personnel remain on their posts, and that Russia is trying to protect the plant from a disaster, indicates its good intentions in this matter.

I urge your offices to get the IAEA to the plant ASAP and you must publicly pin the blame for the shelling on the appropriate source – the Kiev regime that is clearly taking their marching orders from Washington.

Has the United Nations begun to also take their orders from the Biden administration? At this point one must surely wonder if that is the case as we face the possibility of a massive global disaster.

If you cannot perform your job appropriately, and protect the global population, then maybe it would be time for you to step aside and leave the post to someone more willing to speak truth to power.

The fate of much of humanity is at stake here.

In peace,

Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space

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***

There is no such thing as a “limited” nuclear war, a new study published in the Nature Food journal urgently warns us.

Led by Dr. Lili Xia of Rutgers University, this staggering report concludes that even a limited exchange of nuclear weapons between any two nuclear-armed states — using less than three percent of the global nuclear weapons supply — could lead to mass starvation and death of up to 2.5 billion people around the world. Even worse, they estimate that an all-out nuclear war between the United States and Russia would result in more than 5 billion deaths.

You read that right. Five. Billion. Deaths. This does not include the millions of people who would die immediately from the blasts, fires, and prompt radiation, nor those who would die in subsequent days, weeks, or years due to radiation exposure.

This is the latest scientific study in a string of reports dating back to the 1980s, with collaboration from climate scientists like Drs. Alan Robock and Brian Toon. Their previous studies reiterate the catastrophic consequences of the potential use of nuclear weapons, and further illustrate the dire need for nuclear abolition now.

Setting the Stage

Using the climate forecasting resource Community Earth System Model, Xia and co-authors sought to calculate how much sun-blocking soot would be injected into the atmosphere and stratosphere after firestorms following the detonation of nuclear weapons under six different scenarios. The scenarios largely focused on a potential nuclear war between India and Pakistan, mainly because the prior studies this report built off of used that scenario, and accuracy is fine-tuned when the models use the same context for each scenario. Given the long history of tension and rivalry, it is believed that India and Pakistan would be most likely to engage in a nuclear exchange.

The authors used population data from a 2010 population dataset, with the global population set at 6.7 billion. However, today’s global population is estimated to be around 8 billion, so it is likely that the amount of deaths would in fact be higher in the case of a nuclear war.

Unpacking the Data

So what exactly would lead to billions of deaths? When nuclear weapons are detonated over cities, they create smoke and soot from resulting firestorms. That debris would then rise high into the Earth’s atmosphere, up into the stratosphere, and stay there for years, blocking out the warmth of the sun.

What’s more, the climate models used were not built to account for another severe impact: damage to the ozone layer. In a companion report from International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), we learn that the soot is heated by the sunlight it is blocking. The heating of the soot (in the smallest exchange modeled) would destroy around 25 percent of the ozone, though up to 50-70 percent over the high northern hemisphere. This means the United States, Canada, Europe, and northern Asia, including parts of Russia and China, would be most impacted. A damaged ozone layer increases our exposure to ultraviolet radiation, which can lead to an increase of various health issues like sunburns, cataracs, and cancers.

With all the sunlight blocked by thick clouds of soot and ash, crop production will plummet. Combining the data from the Xia-led study and previous studies, depending on the size and amount of nuclear weapons detonated, global temperatures will drop anywhere between 1.3℃ in the most narrow case, to 6.5℃ in the most severe case. For context, climate scientists have been sounding the alarm for years that an abrupt rise in global temperatures by even 1℃ would have catastrophic consequences for humanity. Additionally, the last Ice Age that occurred was around 6℃ cooler than the temperatures we are experiencing today.

No matter the scenario, the drastic drop in temperatures would demolish crop production, and severely diminish livestock and aquatic food production as a result of overconsumption in the wake of crop depletion. In the smallest scenario of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, calorie production from crops would decrease seven percent within five years of the conflict, and up to 50 percent in the largest scenario. Mass starvation would ensue. To provide context, a mere seven percent global calorie decline would be unprecedented. This decline would surpass  the largest decrease ever recorded since the United Nations began tracking this information in 1961.

Again, those most directly impacted would be the United States, Canada, much of Europe, Russia, and China. However, many regions like the Middle East, Africa and East Asia rely on these regions for food imports, so the effects would undoubtedly ripple to the rest of the world. Interestingly, as this region can tolerate a darker, cooler planet better than others, global temperature declines wouldn’t largely affect Australia and New Zealand. It is important to note, though, that this doesn’t account for other effects like radioactive fallout or ozone layer depletion. Australia and New Zealand would also likely have to contend with a massive influx of refugees from Asia and elsewhere.

A Strong Case for Nuclear Abolition

Grounding the nuclear weapons abolition movement in hard science and data, this latest report makes it extremely difficult to argue against the dire need to get rid of these weapons. Critics will say that no leader of a nuclear-armed state would ever use these weapons so we don’t need to worry about the world-altering effects of a potential nuclear war.

While this argument is grounded in the false assumption that every leader will always be rational and level-headed in their role as arbiters of doom, all it takes is an accident or miscalculation to make the impossible possible. U.S. nuclear weapons currently exist under hair trigger alert, meaning a president has about six minutes to decide whether or not they want to launch a nuclear strike if they believe the United States is under attack. Combine this with the too-long list of accidents and incidents that have occurred over time since the dawn of the nuclear age, it is easy to see how a nuclear war could start by mistake.

Since the United States dropped atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, we have survived off a game of luck. To this day, no country’s public health infrastructure can survive a nuclear attack.

Yet the nine nuclear weapons states — the United States, United Kingdom, France, Israel, Russia, Pakistan, India, China, and North Korea — continue to modernize and increase their arsenals, despite knowing they hold the power to destroy modern civilization as we know it.

No Time to Waste

This latest study should urge us to take action so that nuclear weapons states stop this dangerous gamble. Russia can lift its suspension of New START inspections, given this undermines the effectiveness of the only remaining arms control agreement between the United States and Russia. The United States — and any other nuclear weapon states that implement a similar policy — should remove its nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert so that a president has time to actually engage in rational thinking before responding to a potential nuclear attack and risking nuclear war. Ending sole authority, implementing a No First Use policy, and focusing on building a robust multilateral arms control regime are further steps the United States and other nuclear weapon states can take to ease growing tensions between the nuclear weapon states.

Additionally, we must insist that our members of Congress sign on to H.R. 2850 and H.Res.1185, both calling for the United States to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), the first treaty to ban nuclear weapons. Moreover, H.Res.1185 calls on the United States to lead global efforts to prevent a nuclear war. This is extremely important, given the terrifying data on what would happen if such a scenario were to occur.

We all need to be working to abolish nuclear weapons so that none of these nuclear famine scenarios become reality. Because nuclear weapons neither discriminate nor recognize borders, our security is a matter of collective urgency. No one is safe until the last weapon is dismantled.

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“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   

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***

American relations with China in regards to Taiwan have been dictated by years of ambiguous statements and commitments. Now this rhetoric is breaking down and armed conflict seems closer than ever – but is Washington ready to fight over Taiwan, or capable of winning?

Assurances and commitments

Officially, US policy toward Taiwan is guided by three US-China Joint Communiques issued between 1972 and 1982, the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, and the so-called “Six Assurances” issued in 1982. In the Shanghai Communique of 1972, China asserted that “the Taiwan question is the crucial question obstructing the normalization of relations between China and the United States,” declaring that “the Government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government of China,” that Taiwan is a province of China, and that “the liberation of Taiwan is China’s internal affair in which no other country has the right to interfere.”

The US responded by acknowledging that “all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China,” something the US government did not challenge. The US also reaffirmed its interest “in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves.”

Before that, on January 1, 1979, the US and China had issued a “Joint Communique of the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations” in which the US undertook to recognize “the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal Government of China,” noting that, within the context of that commitment, “the people of the United States will maintain cultural, commercial, and other unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan.”

President Jimmy Carter, in announcing the communique, went out of his way to ensure the people of Taiwan “that normalization of relations between our country and the People’s Republic will not jeopardize the well-being of the people of Taiwan,” adding that “the people of our country will maintain our current commercial, cultural, trade, and other relations with Taiwan through nongovernmental means.”

Carter’s move to establish diplomatic relations with China did not sit well with many members of Congress, who responded by passing the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, in which it was declared that it is US policy “to preserve and promote extensive, close, and friendly commercial, cultural, and other relations between the people of the United States and the people on Taiwan, as well as the people on the China mainland,” and “to make clear that the United States decision to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China rests upon the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means.”

In this regard, the Taiwan Relations Act underscored that the US would “consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States,” and “to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character.” Finally, the Act declared that the US would maintain the capacity “to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan.”

The emphasis on arms sales contained in the Taiwan Relations Act led to the third joint communiqué between the US and China, released on August 17, 1982, which sought to settle differences between the two nations regarding US arms sales to Taiwan. The communique was basically a quid-pro-quo agreement where China underscored that it maintained “a fundamental policy of striving for a peaceful reunification” with Taiwan, over which it claimed sovereignty. For its part, the US declared that it “understands and appreciates the Chinese policy of striving for a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan question,” and, with that in mind, the US declared that it did not seek to carry out a long-term policy of arms sales to Taiwan, and that it would gradually reduce its sale of arms to Taiwan while working for a final resolution to reunification.

To mollify Taiwanese concerns about the third communique, the US agreed to what have become known as “the Six Assurances” between the US and Taiwan. These are 1) the US has not set a date for ending arms sales to Taiwan, 2) the US has not agreed to prior consultations with China about arms sales to Taiwan, 3) the US has not agreed to any mediation role between China and Taiwan, 4) the US has not agreed to revise the Taiwan Relations Act, 5) the US has not taken a position regarding the sovereignty of Taiwan, and 6) that the US would never put pressure on Taiwan to negotiate with China.

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***

After dropping two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945, US government officials lied to the media and Congress, claiming there was “no radioactive residue” in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that civilians did not face “undue suffering,” that it was “a very pleasant way to die.”

After dropping two atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945, killing between 100,000 and 200,000 civilians, top US government officials lied to the media and Congress, claiming there was “no radioactive residue” in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and that Japanese reports of deaths due to radiation were “propaganda.”

The US general overseeing the nuclear program told Congress that Japanese civilians did not face “undue suffering,” insisting that it was in fact “a very pleasant way to die.”

This information was revealed by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

On August 8, the archive published declassified documents exposing this shocking history. The archive wrote:

the head of the [Manhattan] project, Gen. Leslie R. Groves, was so worried about public revulsion over the terrible effects of the new weapon – which a Navy report later in 1945 called “the most terrible agent of destruction known to man” – that he cut off early discussion within the MED of the problem. Later, he misleadingly told Congress there was “no radioactive residue” in the two devastated cities.  In doing so, he contradicted evidence from his own specialists whom he had sent to Japan to investigate.  Groves even insisted that those who had been exposed to radiation from the atomic explosions would not face “undue suffering. In fact, they say it is a very pleasant way to die.”

The New York Times echoed these falsehoods on behalf of the US government, publishing an article on September 13, 1945 titled “No radioactivity in Hiroshima ruin.”

In this case, the newspaper of record was repeating the lies of another top US official, Brig. Gen. T. F. Farrell, chief of the War Department’s atomic bomb mission. Like Groves, Farrell ignored his own medical experts and publicly denied that Japanese civilians were dying of radioactive fallout.

Doctor James N. Yamazaki was the lead physician of the US Atomic Bomb Medical Team sent to Nagasaki in 1945 to investigate the effects of the nuclear attack.

In his website Children of the Atomic Bomb, published by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Yamazaki wrote:

The real mortality of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan will never be known. The destruction and overwhelming chaos made orderly counting impossible. It is not unlikely that the estimates of killed and wounded in Hiroshima (150,000) and Nagasaki (75,000) are over conservative.

Yamazaki added that the “bomb was a deliberate act of destruction that destroyed human bodies, brains, and genes for generations.”

Multipolarista further detailed this gruesome history in a report after the assassination of Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this July.

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Ben Norton is a journalist, writer, and filmmaker. He is the assistant editor of The Grayzone, and the producer of the Moderate Rebels podcast, which he co-hosts with editor Max Blumenthal. His website is BenNorton.com and he tweets at @BenjaminNorton.

Featured image is from Multipolarista

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***

The situation in Palestine can be summed up as follows: Rampant Settler violence and intimidation, state-sponsored racism and violence, modern, comfortable housing and living conditions for Jews only while Palestinians are denied basic services, killing of Palestinians across the board – activists, journalists, fighters, children and citizens of Israel. Palestinian organizations, even ones that are recognized internationally, have no protection and are subject to closure, arrests and confiscation of their property.

Nowhere in Palestine can Palestinians expect to be safe or to enjoy equality, justice or peace of mind. Be they citizens in El-Lyd or the Naqab, residents with limited rights in Jerusalem, or residents with no rights in ghettos across what used to be the West Bank. People living in Gaza, be they active or not, militant or not, men, women or children, Palestinian lives are expendable.

Services Denied

The misnamed and misunderstood phenomenon of murders within the Palestinian towns of 1948 – Palestinian citizens of Israel – is one example. The apartheid state and its media refer to it as “violence in the Arab society.” However, the violence is not initiated within the society but is skillfully directed and managed by the state and the various state agencies that are charged with overseeing Palestinian citizens. It should be referred to as “Violence directed at the Palestinian citizens of Israel,” but alas, that would recognize that they are Palestinians and that they are citizens who deserve to benefit from the services the state provides its Jewish citizens.

Services like trash collection, water supply, electricity, safe roads, general safety and policing are largely nonexistent in the Palestinian communities of 1948, communities made of Palestinian citizens of Israel. Furthermore, the phenomenon wrongly named “violence in the Arab community” lays the blame for the violence within these communities at the feet of the victims. The toll from this violence is enormous, with a higher rate of murder cases, the majority of which are never investigated, much less solved, is too high for any community.

Israel, of course, likes to place the blame for the violence on the victims themselves. As is well known by now, blaming the Palestinian victims is something that Israel does with great ability and success, thus absolving itself of any responsibility. However, the weapons, the criminals, and the lack of support for the community that is all but begging the authorities to collect the guns and arrest the criminals are all part of Israeli’s reckless disregard for Palestinian lives. All of this is now documented in an outstanding film called “Life in the shadow of Death,” made by Palestinian filmmaker and producer Bilal Yousef.

Daily Toll

Palestinians pay an almost daily toll of blood and pain demanded of them by Israel. “Clashes” is the word that the media likes to use when describing this levy, something that is always the result of Israeli forces attacking Palestinians. Perhaps those who publish in the corporate media are comforted by the thought that it was not a massive, immoral army blinded by hatred of Palestinians and love of killing that attacked civilians in their sleep. Perhaps they would rather think it was an actual clash in which Palestinian blood was spilled.

However, regardless of what the media and politicians decide to call it, Israel mobilizes numerically superior forces that are equipped with state-of-the-art weapons systems in order to engage in heavy shelling of residential areas and targeted killing of individuals, mostly remarkable young men. The purpose of the attacks is usually achieved and includes death and injuries to people who at most, were armed with a single semi-automatic rifle.

“Israeli forces kill two Palestinians in overnight Nablus raid.” Headlines like this can be seen almost daily, the name of the city may be Nablus or Jenin or Aida camp near Bethlehem, and the number of young men killed and injured changes. But the deadly spilling of young Palestinian blood is ongoing as the apartheid state tries to satisfy its unquenchable thirst for blood. On top of that, the new prime minister thinks he needs to spill Palestinian blood to boost his own political career so that we may expect more of the same.

The raids are always shown the following day on Israeli news channels. The so-called operations are described as “complex” and “heroic.” One of the recent raids resulted in the killing of an IDF-trained canine, and it too was mourned. According to The Jerusalem Post, when Israel went into Nablus to capture or kill Ibrahim Nabulsi, they surrounded his home, meaning that hundreds of special forces armed and paid for by U.S. taxpayer dollars were utilized to conduct raids and intimidation.

The toll paid by Palestinians this year alone is unthinkable. The latest assault on Nablus brings the casualty figures for the West Bank and Gaza close to 150 killed. Inside 1948 Palestine, the number of deaths is between 70-80 killed so far. The year is not yet over. And neither is the Israeli thirst for violence, which means more and more Palestinian mothers can expect to lose their children to Israeli bullets.

Palestinian Organizations Raided

As these words are being written, Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq reported that Israeli soldiers stormed its offices in Ramallah, confiscating items, and shutting down the main entrance with an iron plate. The army declared the organization unlawful.

Other groups that were raided this morning are Addameer, the Bisan Center for Research & Development, Defense for Children International-Palestine, the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees and the Union of Agricultural Work Committee and the Union of Health Workers Committees.

Palestinians are at a point where they can find no support anywhere, regardless of the severity of their conditions. Be they simply people who want to live their lives, fighters, activists or organizations dedicated to human rights, they will be killed and harassed.

*

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Miko Peled is MintPress News contributing writer, published author and human rights activist born in Jerusalem. His latest books are”The General’s Son. Journey of an Israeli in Palestine,” and “Injustice, the Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five.”

Featured image is from Jewish Voice for Labour

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*** 

It is a good thing indeed that no close relatives of Ivan Ilyin are on record as surviving, otherwise they also would undoubtedly be targeted today for systematic elimination, one by one, in car bomb “accidents” and other similar terrorist acts.

Such seems to be the destiny of intellectuals (and even members of their families) from whom Russia’s leaders are rumoured to draw their inspiration. The assassination of Stolypin in Kiev over a century ago was an early illustration of how that works.

The appalling murder near Moscow a few days ago of Daria Dugina, daughter of the illustrious Russian philosopher and geostrategic thinker Alexander Dugin, ironically occurred precisely as the imbecilic solons of her country’s main geopolitical rival were contemplating legislation to designate Russia as a state “sponsor of terrorism.” It is, of course, for investigators to establish with certitude the identity of the crime’s perpetrators as well as their ultimate goals, but whether the criminals are situated in Kiev or elsewhere, tentatively at least the outrageous initiative of the moronic superpower legislators remains a classic example of Freudian projection, the mental process by which people attribute to others what is in fact in their own minds.

The barbarism of the terrorist act which extinguished the life and charred the body of an innocent and talented young woman and a public figure in her own right, who was never associated with advocacy of violence against anyone, is abhorrent beyond description. Her “guilt”, if any, must have existed solely in the minds of her psychopathic assassins, and it could only have been by association with her father, Alexander Dugin, whose general views she articulately espoused. However, being just a philosopher, and obviously neither politician nor soldier, though the hit may actually have been aimed at him, in the penal and moral sense Dugin is just as blameless as his unfortunate daughter.

Image: Aleksandr Dugin, at the Civilizations of the Eurasian Area meeting on February 26, 2018 at the Faculty of World Studies, University of Tehran. (By Fars Media Corporatio, licensed under CC BY 4.0)

But engaging in such meticulous rationalistic analyses is quite useless in this particular case because of the peculiar circumstances in which this outrage was conceived and perpetrated. It has been well said that “hell hath no fury” like (to slightly paraphrase) a hegemon scorned. Both Alexander Dugin (right) and his progeny, personified by daughter Daria, have in that sense been notorious scorners, and for the boldness and intellectual defiance they consistently displayed they have now been made to pay a terrible price to the deservedly scorned.

It is irrelevant whether the murderers were direct agents of the pathetic puppet regime in Kiev, or trained operatives sent by its foreign sponsors, issuing instructions from beyond the regime’s shrinking borders. It is also of little consequence who was the intended victim, the father or the daughter, because symbolically either would have served the organisers’ malevolent purposes, though arguably a successful hit on A. Dugin would have been preferred for greater reverberation. The main point to remember, however, is that shifting the battlefield from contending armies to targeted non-military individuals, as has now apparently been done, visibly adds a new and complex dimension to this conflict. It foreshadows a no-hold-barred assault by the furious barbarians not only on Russia’s intellectuals but more broadly its innocent civilians, very likely soon also targeting vindictively the civilian infrastructure.

Regardless, as things currently stand this wicked murder is likely to inflame the Russian public to an extreme degree, provoking demands for a forceful retaliatory reaction.

A hasty and in particular indiscriminate reaction of that sort would however be a grave miscalculation.

The Russian and Ukrainian people will again converge and they have nothing to gain, and much to lose, from the exacerbation of the artificially concocted conflict. It is therefore imperative, firstly, that, its results published, and culprits named. Secondly, the foundational documents of the upcoming international war crimes tribunal must be shaped wisely and flexibly, to mirror where possible mechanisms already conveniently established but shamefully misused by Western-sponsored outfits such as the Hague Tribunal and the ICC. The objective should be to facilitate the creation of a legal dragnet capable of being cast as widely as possible to apprehend not just foot-soldiers and direct hitmen but also authors and ideologues of the criminal orders, no matter how remote, as well as all participants and inciters in the Ukrainian joint criminal enterprise, whoever and wherever they might be.

Only thus could justice be modestly served in the wake of this hideous assassination which was clearly designed to enhance a conflict that should have been confined to armed militaries by elevating it to a higher level of inhumanity, making it nothing less than a terroristic reconfiguration of Goebbels’ desperate concept of “total war” promulgated when the defeat of Nazi Germany had become a certainty. The good guys must put the bad guys, in Kiev and beyond, on notice that the sheriff will methodically identify and hunt them down using effective legal instruments, whoever and wherever they are, regardless of high office or geographical distance that they hope might shield them from criminal responsibility.

*

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Stephen Karganovic is president of “Srebrenica Historical Project,” an NGO registered in the Netherlands to investigate the factual matrix and background of events that took place in Srebrenica in July of 1995. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. 

L’attentato a Mosca, che ha provocato la morte della giornalista Daria Platonova, aveva come obiettivo principale il padre, Alexander Dugin, filosofo creatore della moderna scuola di geopolitica, capo del Dipartimento di sociologia delle relazioni internazionali all’Università Statale Lomonosov di Mosca, fondatore del Movimento Internazionale Eurasiatico.

Non si tratta semplicemente dell’atto criminale di un singolo o un piccolo gruppo, ma di un delitto politico programmato e attuato dai servizi segreti Occidentali, in particolare quelli statunitensi e britannici, in base a consolidate procedure.

Anzitutto la scelta dell’obiettivo. Nell’intervista a Grandangolo dello scorso aprile, Alexander Dugin spiega che l’operazione militare russa in Ucraina non costituisce solo la risposta alla escalation USA-NATO, che mette in pericolo la sicurezza della Russia, ma la risposta al piano globalista dell’Occidente per mantenere un mondo unipolare sotto il proprio dominio. In alternativa all’agenda globalista Dughin prospetta la creazione di un mondo multipolare, attraverso un patto storico planetario di tutte le persone di diverse culture e tradizioni che rifiutano l’agenda globalista. Occorre un’alleanza universale contro i Soros, gli Schwab, i Bill Gates e l’oligarchia liberale globale, che minacciano l’umanità con i loro folli piani.

In tale quadro si inserisce il Movimento Internazionale Eurasiatico. La crescente integrazione economica dell’Eurasia, che incoraggia la risoluzione negoziale dei conflitti e il dialogo interculturale, contribuisce in modo concreto al passaggio dal mondo unipolare al mondo multipolare, che gli Stati Uniti e le altre maggiori potenze dell’Occidente cercano con ogni mezzo di impedire.

Daria Platonova – esperta di relazioni internazionali, editorialista e collaboratrice di canali radiotelevisivi – ha collaborato ad alcune puntate di Grandangolo e nei prossimi mesi la sua collaborazione avrebbe dovuto assumere carattere periodico. La notizia del suo assassinio ci ha sconvolti ma non messi a tacere. Daria resterà con noi su Byoblu.

Byoblu è la TV dei cittadini e per questo vive solo di donazioni. La trasparenza per noi è importante. Da oggi, insieme alla richiesta donazioni, potrai verificare in maniera visiva, in tempo reale e giorno per giorno, quanti soldi sono entrati e quanti sono usciti dalle casse di Byoblu. Le uscite sono calcolate come media giornaliera dei costi fissi previsti in tutto il mese, più le spese extra, aggiunte giorno per giorno.

Quando la linea rossa è al di sopra di quella verde, significa che Byoblu è a rischio, e che il pericolo è tanto più reale quanto la distanza tra le due è ampia. Quando la linea verde è al di sopra di quella rossa, non significa che bisogna smettere di donare, ma solo che le cose stanno andando bene e non c’è motivo di preoccuparsi. Puoi visionare il dettaglio delle spese e delle entrate del mese qui.

Avere una televisione libera e indipendente è importantissimo per una democrazia, ed è tanto più importante tenerla in buona salute, perché sia pronta quando la situazione dei diritti civili e delle libertà individuali improvvisamente tracolla.

Per questo è importante essere responsabili ed avere cura della propria televisione. Teniamo d’occhio il grafico, tutti insieme, ogni giorno, e quando vediamo la linea rossa superare quella verde, allora è il momento di donare, e soprattutto di chiedere agli altri di fare altrettanto.

Video :

https://www.byoblu.com/2022/08/22/dietro-lassassinio-politico-di-daria-platonova-speciale-pangea-grandangolo/

Siamo milioni, se davvero crediamo che avere una televisione libera e indipendente sia importante, allora tenerla accesa sarà semplice come ordinare un caffè al bar. La libertà è come una tenue fiammella che va tenuta sempre accesa, pronta a divampare quando serve. Guai a lasciarla spegnere!

Manlio Dinucci

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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***

Als ich in „Global Research“ vom 17. August 2022 („Haaretz“ 11. August 2022) den Artikel von Gideon Levy „Als Roger Waters weinte: ‚Hat ein Israeli Tränen für einen Jungen aus Gaza vergossen?‘“ (1) las, erinnerte ich mich an die deutsche Friedensaktivistin Ellen Rohlfs (1927-2020), mit der ich Mitte der neunziger Jahre in regem Austausch stand.

Heute werde ich – in herzlichem Gedenken an diese vorbildliche Frau – allein aus ihrem Buch zitieren: „Sag, Mutter, wie sieht Frieden aus? Nachdenkliches und Frag-Würdiges zum Israel-Palästina-Konflikt mit einem Vorwort von Uri Avnery“. (2)

Buchcover, Vorwort, Widmung

Bereits das Buchcover mit dem in großen Buchstaben geschriebenen Wort „Frieden“ in mehreren Sprachen vermittelt den Inhalt des Buches: Es geht um Frieden, Verständigung und Versöhnung zwischen den beiden Völkern – den Israelis und den Palästinensern.

In „einer Art Vorwort“ schreibt der israelische Journalist, Schriftsteller, Politiker und Friedensaktivist Uri Avnery:

„Als Israeli möchte ich nicht mit anderen moralischen Maßstäben gemessen werden als jedes andere Volk. Zionismus bedeutet für mich das Verlangen, als normales Volk in einem normalen Staat zu leben.“

(…).

„Was mir an diesem Buch am meisten imponiert, ist, dass es für beide Seiten dieses tragischen Konfliktes Verständnis hat. Darauf kommt es an. Es ist meine tiefste Überzeugung, dass man nicht gegen Israel sein muss, wenn man mit den Palästinensern sympathisiert – und dass man nicht gegen die Palästinenser sein muss, wenn man Israel liebt. Das Gegenteil stimmt: Man kann und muss für Israel, für die Palästinenser, für die Menschlichkeit und für den Frieden sein. Ellen Rohlfs ist es.“ (3)

Im Anschluss an das Vorwort vier Zitate als Widmung:

„Motto: ‚Israel mus live – must others die?“ (Poster bei einer Peace-Now-Demonstration)“

„‘Ein Mensch, der ein Mensch ist, kann nicht schweigen zu dem, was geschieht.‘ Erich Fried (aus ‚Höre Israel!‘)“

„‘Wer schweigt, stimmt zu!‘ (aus dem Talmud und aus dem Appell israelischer Friedensgruppen an die Freunde Israels s. Anhang II)“

„‘Wer ist ein Held? Der aus Feinden Freunde macht.‘ Avot d’Rabbi Nathan“ (4)

Einleitung von Ellen Rohlfs

„Auch wenn auf diesem Band die Frage eines Kindes steht: ‚Sag, Mutter, wie sieht Frieden aus?‘ so ist diese Frage eine viel ernstere und schwerwiegendere als die ‚bedeutenden Fragen‘ des ‚kleinen Prinzen‘ (St. Exupéry) an die Welt der Erwachsenen. Die Frage des Kindes ist so ernst, weil sie – dem Kind natürlich nicht bewusst – nicht nur lokale, sondern aus bestimmten Gründen globale Bedeutung hat.

Seit Anfang dieses Jahrhunderts befassen sich weltweit verantwortliche Politiker, Staatsminister und Außenminister, jüdische und nichtjüdische, amerikanische und europäische, die UNO und der Weltsicherheitsrat, namhafte Persönlichkeiten, Nahostexperten, Wirtschaftsmanager, Historiker, Theologen, Friedensforscher und viele andere mit der Frage, wie in Nahost Frieden geschaffen werden könnte, wie der Frieden in diesem kleinen Land, in dem seit etwa 100 Jahren zwei Völker miteinander leben müssen, aussehen sollte.

(…).

Und es kann auch nur dann Frieden zwischen beiden Völkern werden, wenn ‚die Israelis die Palästinenser wie Menschen behandeln‘, wie kürzlich ein Jude uns gegenüber zum Ausdruck brachte. Genau dafür plädiere ich, dies klage ich ein, dafür schreie ich auf – und warte ungeduldig auf Frieden in diesem Land, auf Frieden zwischen den beiden Völkern, zwischen den Israelis und den Palästinensern. …sollten wir heute – nach dem 13. September 1993 – dem Frieden ein Stück näher gekommen sein? Renne ich inzwischen offene Türen ein? Ich wäre wirklich froh.“ (5)

„Sag, Mutter, wie sieht Frieden aus?“

Gegen Ende des Buches beschreibt Rohlfs, wie der Frieden auch in Israel und Palästina aussehen könnte

„Kinder malen ihre Welt. Sie malen sie so, wie sie sie erleben, so wie sie sie sehen, und mitten darin ihr kleines, großes Ich. Sie malen ihre Wünsche, ihre Träume…Zu den Träumen und Wünschen der Kinder Palästinas gehört die Sehnsucht, nicht ständig in Angst sein zu müssen: angstfrei zu spielen und angstfrei zu lernen, angstfrei sich auf der Straße zu bewegen, und angstfrei sich unter den Olivenbäumen zu tummeln und ohne Angst zwischen den Felsen ihres eigenen Landes herumzustreifen, ohne die Neugierde weckenden Objekte zu finden, die in ihren Händen explodieren.

Was für andere Kinder normal und selbstverständlich ist, angstfrei sich in den eigenen vier Wänden aufzuhalten mit Geschwistern, Eltern und Großeltern – und meistens sind die Räume sehr klein – auch angstfrei zu schlafen – ist seit langem für palästinensische Kinder nicht mehr selbstverständlich. Nächtliche Störungen durch rücksichtslose israelische Soldaten, die einen angeblich versteckten Terroristen suchen, sind an der Tagesordnung.

Kinder wollen auch nicht tage- und wochenlang wegen Ausgangssperre in ihren eigenen vier Wänden wie in einem Gefängnis eingesperrt sein – sie haben kaum Spielzeug. Den ganzen Tag vor dem Fernseher zu sitzen – wer hält das unbeschadet aus? Langeweile und Raufereien unter den Geschwistern gehören deshalb zum Alltag – auch Prügel von den Eltern; denn sie sind genauso gereizt und weniger geduldig; auch sie leben in ständiger Angst. Eines der vielen Kinder ist immer am Schreien. Die Spannung ist kaum zu ertragen.

Schlaf- und Essstörungen sind inzwischen normal, auch das Bettnässen…Niemand wundert sich mehr darüber. Die Ärzte haben resigniert – was sollen sie auch tun? Eine Reihe von Kindern sehen ihre Mutter sogar nur beim Besuch im Gefängnis, und nicht einmal hier dürfen sie von ihr in den Arm genommen werden. Warum ist Mutter eigentlich im Gefängnis? Hat sie sich nicht nur gegen die brutalen Soldaten zur Wehr gesetzt? Hat sie sich nicht nur vor den Bruder gestellt, damit ‚sie‘ ihn nicht mitnehmen? Mutter ist doch keine Verbrecherin.

Und immer wieder stehen die Kinder an einem offenen Grab, der große, tapfere Bruder wird hineingelegt oder ein kleines Geschwisterchen, das am Tränengas erstickte. Die Mutter weint, der Vater weint – das Kind aber versteht nicht, was los ist…Ist das das Leben? Und wenn die Kinder einmal zur Ruhe kommen, dann malen sie und stellen eine der tausend Fragen: ‚Sag, Mutter, wie sieht Frieden aus, ich möchte ihn malen.‘ Sie wissen nicht, was Frieden ist – sie haben nie Frieden erlebt.

(…).

Doch von einem etwa neunjährigen palästinensischen Kind habe ich eine schlichte, aber bewegende Zeichnung. Seine Eltern scheinen noch immer und trotz allem auf Versöhnung zu bauen – und nicht auf Hass. Ich beschreibe die Zeichnung:

Zwei Kinder stehen sich gegenüber. Das eine trägt auf seinem Kopf ein Käppchen, das andere ein schwarz-weißes Tuch, die Keffiye, und um es ganz deutlich zu machen, ist über dem mit dem Käppchen die israelische Flagge mit dem Davidstern, und über dem anderen Kind die palästinensische Fahne mit den vier Farben. Die Kinder reichen sich die Hände. Flankiert sind sie aber mit allerlei Waffen, Panzern, Flugzeugen und Gewehren – diese jedoch kräftig durchgestrichen. Sie wollen ohne bedrohende, todbringende Waffen leben. Sie wollen keine Angst mehr voreinander haben. Sie wollen mit- und nicht gegeneinander leben. Sie wollen miteinander spielen, miteinander feiern und fröhlich sein.

So sähe Frieden aus auch in Israel und Palästina. Aus einer ungewöhnlichen Mixtur von erlebter täglicher Angst, Naivität, Wünschen und Hoffnung entstand die Kinderzeichnung von Frieden und Versöhnung.“ (6)

*

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist Lehrer (Rektor a. D.), Doktor der Pädagogik (Dr. paed.) und Diplom-Psychologe (Schwerpunkte: Klinische-, Pädagogische-, Medien- sowie Individual-Psychologie). Viele Jahrzehnte unterrichtete er, bildete Hochschulabsolventen fort, gründete zusammen mit Kollegen eine Modellschule für ehemalige Schulversager, bildete Beratungslehrkräften aus und war schließlich Staatlicher Schulberater. 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.

Noten

1. https://www.globalresearch.ca/when-roger-waters-cried/5790446/

2. Rohlfs, Ellen (1993). Sag, Mutter, wie sieht Frieden aus? Nachdenkliches und Frag-Würdiges zum Israel-Palästina-Konflikt. Mit einem Vorwort von Uri Avnery. Tossens

3. a. O., S. 10

4. a. O., S. 11

5. a. O., S. 12 ff.

6. a. O., S. 178 ff.

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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***

When I read in “Global Research” of 17 August 2022 (“Haaretz” 11 August 2022) the article by Gideon Levy “When Roger Waters Cried. “Has any Israeli Shed Tears for a Boy from Gaza?”‘” (1), I remembered the German peace activist Ellen Rohlfs (1927-2020), with whom I had a lively exchange in the mid-1990s.

Today – in heartfelt remembrance of this exemplary woman – I will quote from her book alone: “Tell Me, Mother, what does peace look like?

Sag, Mutter, wie sieht Frieden aus? Dura Verlag Tossens 1993,

Thoughtful and question-worthy reflections on the Israel-Palestine conflict with a foreword by Uri Avnery”. (2)

Book cover, foreword, dedication

The book cover with the word “peace” written in large letters in several languages already conveys the content of the book: it is about peace, understanding and reconciliation between the two peoples – the Israelis and the Palestinians.

In “a kind of preface”, the Israeli journalist, writer, politician and peace activist Uri Avnery writes:

“As an Israeli, I do not want to be measured by different moral standards than any other people. Zionism for me means the desire to live as a normal people in a normal state.”

(…).

“What impresses me most about this book is that it has understanding for both sides of this tragic conflict. That is what matters. It is my deepest conviction that you don’t have to be against Israel if you sympathise with the Palestinians – and that you don’t have to be against the Palestinians if you love Israel. The opposite is true: One can and must be for Israel, for the Palestinians, for humanity and for peace. Ellen Rohlfs is.” (3)

Following the preface, four quotes as dedications:

“Motto: ‘Israel must live – must others die?” (poster at a Peace Now demonstration)”

“‘A man who is a man cannot be silent about what is happening.’ Erich Fried (from ‘Hear Israel!’)”

“‘He who is silent agrees!’ (from the Talmud and from the appeal of Israeli peace groups to the friends of Israel see Appendix II)”

“‘Who is a hero? He who makes friends of enemies.’ Avot d’Rabbi Nathan” (4)

Introduction by Ellen Rohlfs

“Even though this volume contains the question of a child: ‘Tell me, mother, what does peace look like?’ this question is a much more serious and grave one than the ‘significant questions’ of the ‘little prince’ (St. Exupéry) to the adult world. The child’s question is so serious because – of course, the child is not aware of it – it has not only local but, for certain reasons, global significance.

Since the beginning of this century, responsible politicians worldwide, ministers of state and foreign ministers, Jewish and non-Jewish, American and European, the UN and the World Security Council, renowned personalities, Middle East experts, economic managers, historians, theologians, peace researchers and many others have been dealing with the question of how peace could be created in the Middle East, what peace should look like in this small country where two peoples have had to live together for about 100 years.

(…).

And there can also only be peace between the two peoples if ‘the Israelis treat the Palestinians like human beings’, as a Jew recently expressed to us. This is what I plead for, this is what I complain for, this is what I cry out for – and I wait impatiently for peace in this land, for peace between the two peoples, between the Israelis and the Palestinians. …should we have come a little closer to peace today – after 13 September 1993? Am I knocking down open doors in the meantime? I would be really happy.” (5)

“Tell me, mother, what does peace look like?”

Towards the end of the book, Rohlfs describes how peace could also look in Israel and Palestine:

“Children paint their world. They paint it as they experience it, as they see it, and in the middle of it their little, big selves. They paint their desires, their dreams…Among the dreams and desires of the children of Palestine is the longing not to have to be in fear all the time: to play without fear and to learn without fear, to move in the streets without fear, and to romp among the olive trees without fear, and to roam among the rocks of their own land without fear, without finding the objects that arouse curiosity exploding in their hands.

What is normal and taken for granted for other children, to stay fearlessly within their own four walls with siblings, parents and grandparents – and usually the rooms are very small – also to sleep fearlessly – has not been taken for granted for Palestinian children for a long time. Nightly disturbances by ruthless Israeli soldiers looking for a supposedly hidden terrorist are commonplace.

Children also don’t want to be locked up in their own homes for days and weeks at a time like in a prison because of curfew – they hardly have any toys. Sitting in front of the TV all day – who can stand that unscathed? Boredom and scuffles among the siblings are therefore part of everyday life – also beatings from the parents; because they are just as irritable and less patient; they also live in constant fear. One of the many children is always screaming. The tension is almost unbearable.

Sleeping and eating disorders are now normal, even bed-wetting…No one is surprised about it any more. The doctors have resigned – what else can they do? A number of children even only see their mother when they visit her in prison, and not even here are they allowed to be held by her. Why is mother actually in prison? Didn’t she just defend herself against the brutal soldiers? Didn’t she just stand in front of her brother so that ‘they’ wouldn’t take him away? Mother is not a criminal after all.

And again and again the children stand at an open grave, the big, brave brother is laid in it or a little sibling who choked on the tear gas. The mother cries, the father cries – but the child does not understand what is going on…Is this life? And once the children get calm, they paint and ask one of the thousand questions: ‘Tell me, mother, what does peace look like, I want to paint it.’ They don’t know what peace is – they have never experienced peace.

(…).

But I have a simple but moving drawing of a Palestinian child of about nine years old. His parents seem still and despite everything to be building on reconciliation – and not on hatred. I describe the drawing:

Two children are facing each other. One wears a cap on his head, the other a black and white scarf, the keffiye, and to make it very clear, above the one with the cap is the Israeli flag with the Star of David, and above the other child the Palestinian flag with the four colours. The children are holding hands. They are flanked, however, by all kinds of weapons, tanks, aeroplanes and guns – but these are heavily crossed out. They want to live without threatening, deadly weapons. They no longer want to be afraid of each other. They want to live with each other and not against each other. They want to play together, celebrate together and be happy together.

This is what peace would look like in Israel and Palestine. From an unusual mixture of experienced daily fear, naivety, wishes and hope, the children’s drawing of peace and reconciliation emerged.” (6)

*

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel is a teacher (retired headmaster), a doctor of education (Dr. paed.) and a graduate psychologist (specialisations: He specialises in clinical, educational, media and individual psychology.) He taught for many decades, trained university graduates, founded a model school for former school failures together with colleagues, trained counselling teachers and was finally a state school counsellor. As a retiree, he worked for many years as a psychotherapist in his own practice. In his books and educational-psychological articles, he calls for a conscious ethical-moral values education and an education for public spirit and peace.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Notes

(1) https://www.globalresearch.ca/when-roger-waters-cried/5790446/

(2) Rohlfs, Ellen (1993). Say, mother, what does peace look like? Thoughtful and question-worthy reflections on the Israel-Palestine conflict. With a foreword by Uri Avnery. Tossens

(3) op. cit., p. 10

(4) op. cit., p. 11

(5) op. cit., p. 12 ff.

(6) op. cit., p. 178 ff.

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

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

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First published on July 12, 2022

***

As the saying goes, if you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The West has the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato), a self-declared “defensive” military alliance – so any country that refuses its dictates must, by definition, be an offensive military threat. 

That is part of the reason why Nato issued a new “strategic concept” document last week at its summit in Madrid, declaring for the first time that China poses a “systemic challenge” to the alliance, alongside a primary “threat” from Russia.

Beijing views this new designation as a decisive step by Nato on the path to pronouncing it a “threat” too – echoing the alliance’s escalatory approach towards Moscow over the past decade. In its previous mission statement, issued in 2010, Nato advocated “a true strategic partnership” with Russia.

According to a report in the New York Times, China would have found itself openly classed as a “threat” last week had it not been for Germany and France. They insisted that the more hostile terminology be watered down so as to avoid harming their trade and technology links with China.

In response, Beijing accused Nato of “maliciously attacking and smearing” it, and warned that the alliance was “provoking confrontation”. Not unreasonably, Beijing believes Nato has strayed well out of its sphere of supposed “defensive” interest: the North Atlantic.

Nato was founded in the wake of the Second World War expressly as a bulwark against Soviet expansion into Western Europe. The ensuing Cold War was primarily a territorial and ideological battle for the future of Europe, with the ever-present mutual threat of nuclear annihilation.

So how, Beijing might justifiably wonder, does China – on the other side of the globe – fit into Nato’s historic “defensive” mission? How are Chinese troops or missiles now threatening Europe or the US in ways they weren’t before? How are Americans or Europeans suddenly under threat of military conquest from China?

Creating enemies

The current Nato logic reads something like this: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February is proof that the Kremlin has ambitions to recreate its former Soviet empire in Europe. China is growing its military power and has similar imperial designs towards the rival, breakaway state of Taiwan, as well as western Pacific islands. And because Beijing and Moscow are strengthening their strategic ties in the face of western opposition, Nato has to presume that their shared goal is to bring western civilisation crashing down.

Or as last week’s Nato mission statement proclaimed: “The deepening strategic partnership between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation and their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut the rules-based international order run counter to our values and interests.”

But if anyone is subverting the “rules-based international order”, a standard the West regularly invokes but never defines, it looks to be Nato itself – or the US, as the hand that wields the Nato hammer.

That is certainly the way it looks to Beijing. In its response, China argued: “Thirty years after the end of the Cold War, [Nato] has not yet abandoned its thinking and practice of creating ‘enemies’ … It is Nato that is creating problems around the world.”

China has a point. A problem with bureaucracies – and Nato is the world’s largest military bureaucracy – is that they quickly develop an overriding institutional commitment to ensuring their permanent existence, if not expansion. Bureaucracies naturally become powerful lobbies for their own self-preservation, even when they have outlived their usefulness.

If there is no threat to “defend” against, then a threat must be manufactured. That can mean one of two things: either inventing an imaginary threat, or provoking the very threat the bureaucracy was designed to avert or thwart. Signs are that Nato – now embracing 30 countries – is doing both.

Remember that Nato should have dissolved itself after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. But three decades later, it is bigger and more resource-hungry than ever.

Against all advice, and in violation of its promises, Nato has refused to maintain a neutral “security buffer” between itself and Russia. Instead, it has been expanding right up to Russia’s borders, including creeping furtively into Ukraine, the gateway through which armies have historically invaded Russia.

Offensive alliance

Undoubtedly, Russia has proved itself a genuine threat to the territorial integrity of its neighbour Ukraine by conquering its eastern region – home to a large ethnic Russian community the Kremlin claims to be protecting. But even if we reject Russian President Vladimir Putin’s repeated assertion that Moscow has no larger ambitions, the Russian army’s substantial losses suggest it has scant hope of extending its military reach much further.

Even if Moscow were hoping to turn its attention next to Poland or the Baltic states, or Nato’s latest recruits of Sweden and Finland, such a move would clearly risk nuclear confrontation. This is perhaps why western audiences hear so much from their politicians and media about Putin being some kind of deranged megalomaniac.

The claim of a rampant, revived Russian imperialism appears not to be founded in any obvious reality. But it is a very effective way for Nato bureaucrats to justify enlarging their budgets and power, while the arms industries that feed off Nato and are embedded in western capitals substantially increase their profits.

The impression that this might have been Nato’s blueprint for handling Moscow is only underscored by the way it is now treating China, with even less justification. China has not recently invaded any sovereign territories, unlike the US and its allies, while the only territory it might threaten – Taiwan – is some 12,000 kilometres from the US mainland, and a similarly long distance from most of Europe.

The argument that the Russian army may defeat Ukraine and then turn its attention towards Poland and Finland at least accords with some kind of geographical possibility, however remote. But the idea that China may invade Taiwan and then direct its military might towards California and Italy is in the realms of preposterous delusion.

Nato’s new posture towards Beijing brings into question its whole characterisation as a “defensive” alliance. It looks very much to be on the offensive.

Russian red lines

Notably, Nato invited to the summit for the first time four states from the Asia-Pacific region: Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.

The creation of a Nato-allied “Asia-Pacific Four” is doubtless intended to suggest to Beijing parallels with Nato’s gradual recruitment of eastern European states starting in the late 1990s, culminating in its more recent flirting with Ukraine and Georgia, longstanding red lines for Russia.

Ultimately, Nato’s courting of Russia’s neighbours led to attacks by Moscow first on Georgia and then on Ukraine, conveniently bolstering the “Russian threat” narrative. Might the intention behind similar advances to the “Asia-Pacific Four” be to provoke Beijing into a more aggressive military stance in its own region, in order to justify Nato expanding far beyond the North Atlantic, claiming the entire globe as its backyard?

There are already clear signs of that. In May, US President Joe Biden vowed that the US – and by implication Nato – would come to Taiwan’s aid militarily if it were attacked. Beijing regards Taiwan, some 200 kilometres off its coast, as Chinese territory.

Similarly, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss called last week for Nato countries to ship advanced weapons to Taiwan, in the same way Nato has been arming Ukraine, to ensure the island has “the defence capability it needs”.

This echoes Nato’s narrative about its goals in Ukraine: that it is pumping weapons into Ukraine to “defend” the rest of Europe. Now, Nato is casting itself as the guardian of the Asia-Pacific region too.

‘Economic coercion’

But in truth, this is not just about competing military threats. There is an additional layer of western self-interest, concealed behind claims of a “defensive” alliance.

Days before the Nato summit, the G7, a group of the seven leading industrialised nations that form the core of Nato, announced their intention to raise $600bn to invest in developing countries.

This move wasn’t driven by altruism. The West has been deeply worried by Beijing’s growing influence on the world stage through its trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, announced in 2013.

China is being aggressive, but so far only in exercising soft power. In the coming decades, it plans to invest in the infrastructure of dozens of developing states. More than 140 countries have so far signed up to the initiative.

China’s aim is to make itself the hub of a global network of new infrastructure projects – from highways and ports to advanced telecommunications – to strengthen its economic trade connections to Africa, the Middle East, Russia and Europe.

If it succeeds, China will stamp its economic dominance on the globe – and that is what really worries the West, particularly the US and its Nato military bureaucracy. They are labelling this “economic coercion”.

This week, the heads of the FBI and MI5 – the US and UK’s domestic intelligence services – held an unprecedented joint news conference in London to warn that China was the “biggest long-term threat to our economic and national security”. Underscoring western priorities, they added that any attack on Taiwan would “represent one of the most horrific business disruptions the world has ever seen”.

Unilateral aggression

Back in the Cold War era, Washington was not just, or even primarily, worried about a Soviet military invasion. The nuclear doctrine of mutually assured destruction meant neither had an interest in direct confrontation.

Instead, each treated developing nations as pawns in an economic war over resources to be plundered and markets to be controlled. Each side tried to expand its so-called “sphere of influence” over other states and secure a larger slice of the planet’s wealth, in order to fuel its domestic economy and expand its military industries.

The West’s rhetoric about the Cold War emphasised an ideological battle between western freedoms and Soviet authoritarianism. But whatever significance one attributes to that rhetorical fight, the more important battle for each side was proving to other states the superiority of the economic model that grew out of its ideology.

In the early Cold War years, it should be recalled, communist parties were frontrunners to win elections in several European states – something that was starkly evident to the drafters of the Nato treaty.

The US invested so heavily in weapons – today, its military budget exceeds the combined spending of the next nine countries – precisely to strong-arm poorer nations into its camp, and punish those that refused. That task was made easier after the fall of the Soviet Union. In a unipolar world, Washington got to define who would be treated as a friend, and on what terms, and who a foe.

Nato chiefly served as an alibi for US aggression, adding a veneer of multilateral legitimacy to its largely unilateral militarism.

Debt slavery

In reality, the “rules-based international order” comprises a set of US-controlled economic institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, that dictate oppressive terms to increasingly resentful poor countries – often the West’s former colonies – in desperate need of investment. Most have ended up in permanent debt slavery.

China is offering them an alternative, and in the process it threatens to gradually erode US economic dominance. Russia’s apparent ability to survive the West’s economic sanctions, while those sanctions rebound on western economies, underscores the tenuousness of Washington’s economic primacy.

More generally, Washington is losing its grip on the global order. The rival BRICS group – of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – is preparing to expand by including Iran and Argentina in its power bloc. And both Russia and China, forced into deeper alliance by Nato hostility, have been seeking to overturn the international trading system by decoupling it from the US dollar, the central pillar of Washington’s hegemonic status.

The recently released “Nato 2030” document stresses the importance of Nato remaining “ready, strong and united for a new era of increased global competition”. Last week’s strategic vision listed China’s sins as seeking “to control key technological and industrial sectors, critical infrastructure, and strategic materials and supply chains”. It added that China “uses its economic leverage to create strategic dependencies and enhance its influence”, as though this was not exactly what the US has been doing for decades.

Washington’s greatest fear is that, as its economic muscle atrophies, Europe’s vital trading links with China and Russia will see its economic interests – and eventually its ideological loyalties – shift eastwards, rather than stay firmly in the western camp.

The question is: how far is the US willing to go to stop that? So far, it looks only too ready to drag Nato into a military sequel to the Cold War – and risk pushing the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation.

*

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Jonathan Cook is the the author of three books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His website and blog can be found at: www.jonathan-cook.net

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First published by Global Research on August 8, 2022

***

The steady unmasking of some nasty realities is finally infusing added intellectual oxygen into the public’s heightened awareness of the pervasive speciousness permeating the misnamed pandemic.

As we move towards the final months of 2022, many open veins of fraud are being unearthed.

A more accurate COVID narrative is being brought to light for many people previously trapped in closed catacombs of mass communications.

See video of Tucker Carlson here.

How many more lives will unnecessarily be lost or lessened in quality because of the lethal dangers still lurking in many dark dungeons of media censorship and thought control?

The increased awareness of COVID disinformation is helping to draw public attention to the onslaught of an extremely aggressive COVID crime spree directed against the largest part of the human species.

Dr. Peter McCullough speaks for a large and growing constituency when he explains the necessity of further investigations “to untangle and delineate” many violations of domestic and international law as well as of common decency. Again and again the COVID travesties are described as the basis of a deep and elaborate crime against humanity. See this.

The main objective of those that concocted the manufactured crisis is the unsurprising goal of amassing yet more control for themselves over political and proprietary power. The planned imposition of mandatory lockdowns on much of the global population was a particularly decisive move in the genesis of the power grab. The lockdown mandates broke new ground for many mandates to come.

Once the lockdown put the brakes on all manner of economic transactions, the COVID criminals were empowered to direct huge expansions in the money supply. With this change came the heightened capacity of central bankers to secretly steer the flow of the freshly-minted capital.

The COVID culprits accomplished many of their manipulations of debt-encumbered governments through the well-orchestrated machinations of the world’s biggest financial institutions. The upper echelons of these bastions of huge economic clout have been leading the charge in this war against the people.

The bankers in the COVID cabal asserted their financial muscle in the name of helping governments to respond to economic dislocations. By placing impediments on the activities of millions of workers and small businesses, the lockdowns were especially instrumental in rapidly transforming the nature of the global economy.

The distribution of pain and suffering—even of life and death— was largely an outcome of decisions made by governments about what did or not constitute “essential” activity. In making these life-and-death calls about what is or is not essential to the survival of society, governments were encouraged by their banking partners to explore and exercise their enlarged political influence. This augmented influence came from the widened capacity to engage in increased government spending, much of it hidden from public view.

Government leaders thereby gained widened discretion to direct flows of new money derived from soaring national debts. The objective, it seems, is to crash the existing system of assets and liabilities by encouraging captive politicians to pump patronage dollars out to those cronies and organizations most aligned with the interests and agendas of ruling parties.

The latest orgy of secretive money creation enabled COVID culprits to further enrich themselves and to purchase directly or indirectly the co-optation of all manner of professional people. Multitudes of technocrats, doctors, nurses, journalists, elected officials, administrators, judges, professors, teachers, preachers, and celebrities were paid off. They were essentially bribed into compliance.

Those who refused to go along with the injection mandates and the wholesale disinformation were often threatened with unemployment and social stigmatization. Those who remained steadfast were often severely punished for not blending in with the mental or moral sickness still sweeping over our colleagues and countries.

Beginning with the so-called “colleges of physicians,” the doctors’ professional organizations became especially ruthless. The licenses of many medical practitioners continue to be stripped away because of their unwillingness to parrot the now-fully-discredited claim that the COVID injections are safe and effective.

Many of the COVID accomplices were essentially mesmerized in the headlights of the media’s 24/7 fear porn. Often not realizing that they were buying into a plan of further aggrandizing those at the peak of power, they were hypnotized into obedience. They were intimidated and flattered into submission. They were inducted into a diabolical project that few of us could immediately grasp included plans to kill, cull, cripple, dispossess, sterilize, and enslave a diminished and enfeebled human family.

The beginning of the agenda to enslave the survivors of the eugenic depopulation scheme is becoming evident in the way top authorities have conducted themselves. By imposing mandatory masking, mandatory lockdowns, mandatory injections and many other restraints, they developed the habit of treating average people as subservient to their dictates. The theme of imposed subservience captures the experiences of many people.

It was a mass surge of unwillingness to adapt to the new extremes of mandated subservience that converged in the huge outpouring of popular and patriotic support for the cross-Canada pilgrimage to Ottawa of the Truckers’ Freedom Convoy.

Subservience

In the course of the early COVID lockdowns much of humanity was reduced in the eyes of their governments from the status of citizens to that of wards of the state. Adults were essentially infantilized in their relationship with governments.

Many governments took wide public submission to the lockdowns as signals that they could coercively bludgeon their constituents into giving up their bodily autonomy. With the threat of even more intrusive COVID restrictions, hundreds of millions were instructed that they would have to absorb untested injections if they wanted to retain employment as well as access to higher education and much else besides.

Most of humanity continues its subservience to supranational rulers so powerful that these lords of the money system were able to impose a common set of COVID policies on most national governments and on most of the world’s major media outlets. Nothing of this scale of global compulsion has ever happened before.

Now that high levels of injection-induced illness, debilitating injury, and death are starting to arouse greater public attention, what can be anticipated? Will the global community rise to the challenge freeing itself from the subservience to further impositions of tyranny planned for us?

Reckless Medical Experimentation imposed on Human Subjects. 

Especially since COVID injections were widely introduced in 2021, a significant portion of humanity has already been subjected to extermination, terminated fertility as well as the explosion of a massive array of other dire health disasters. These trajectories of disaster are probably still in the early stages. The catastrophic results were brought about by surreptitiously plunging humanity into the most massive saga of reckless medical experimentation ever imposed on human subjects.

It seems we are in the midst of an elaborate scheme combining many secretive medical experiments within the framework of one huge overriding medical experiment. The evidence continues to grow that the actions being done in the name of defeating COV-19, have more to do with studying new methods of killing and maiming humans rather than helping and healing them.

The bad news is becoming widely available. COVID injections actually stimulate, variate, intensify and spread the very infections they were supposed to cure. Moreover, repeated inoculations steadily annihilate natural immunity. Boosters mainly boost vulnerability to sickness! Recipients of multiple jabs are steadily stripped of their own innate capacity to fend off the full array of infectious diseases. They essentially take within themselves the same characteristics as AIDS.

No Remedies Allowed to Get in the Way of the Agenda of Mass Injections

A strong signal came in the spring of 2020 that the COVID crisis was not really about helping people to avoid and overcome illness. Rather the COVID circus was planned and covertly executed with the goal of advancing the interests of a few by exploiting the spread and intensification of harm to the largest part of the global population.

On the basis of an elaborate and well-funded “deadly fraud,” the principles of scientific method, peer review and academic publications were ruthlessly attacked. The scandal arose in mid-2020 when prestigious academic medical journals published the supposedly peer-reviewed results of a fake research project.

This event brought together a serial violation of professional ethics and law. The violators included the editors and peer reviewers of prestigious academic publishers, the kind of institutions that are supposed to bear major responsibilities for applying and safeguarding the scientific method. The elaborate scam was directed at discrediting a promising COVID remedy known as hydroxychloroquine.

The fake research project was attributed to a company known as Surgisphere. Expert readers of Surgisphere’s supposedly peer-reviewed publication recognized that the claims of its authors were simply not credible.

Subsequent investigation showed the actual Surgisphere was a shell operation that lacked the resources, personnel, talent and expertise to perform the study outlined in the now-discredited essay. As is the usual pattern in the COVID crime spree, no criminal proceedings have yet arisen from the fraud implemented to prevent any obstacles from being placed in the way of the agenda of mass injections.

The goal of those behind the Surgisphere scandal was to sideline a genuinely safe and effective remedy for an overhyped viral infection. The unearthing of the Surgisphere scandal provides one of the early smoking guns of the COVID crime spree. It points to the deep dishonesty and bad faith residing at the very heart of the scheme to impose a universal regime of mandatory jabs on the global population. See this.

The COVID Shots Are Subjecting Their Victims to the Invasion of Thousands of New Ailments

In the autumn of 2021 a similar campaign of smear and disinformation was directed at Ivermectin. Smear campaigns were also directed at Ivermectin’s leading proponents including Dr. Pierre Kory. His research led Dr. Kory and many of his medical colleagues to conclude with solid evidence behind them that the cheap and readily available drug in question provided a powerful cure and preventer of COVID-19.

The safety and effectiveness of Ivermectin was demonstrated in many countries where it was used with great effect to counter the incursions of the supposedly new coronavirus. This experience provides backing for the argument that many millions said to have died from COVID might have been saved. Moreover, unobstructed treatment with Ivermectin and other repurposed drugs would have created a global exit from mass deaths and injuries resulting from the toxic mass injections.

When seen in the larger context of business, law and politics, the campaigns to discredit hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin as well as many other viable COVID remedies had nothing to do with the advancement of science and public health. Rather it was all about protecting the legal space reserved for the injections. It was about keeping the way open for the granting and maintaining of a badly-abused legal procedure known as the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA).

This license to release the experimental injections to the public was granted in the first instance by the Federal Food and Drug Administration in the United States. A core feature of the EUA is that manufacturers of the COVID injections are legally protected against being sued for inadequacies in their medical products.

This exemption from being sued, however, only applies if no felonies were committed by the drug makers and their regulators in the course of producing and distributing their products. As David E. Martin regularly attests, the chances that COVID culprits could meet this test are very remote. See this.

The main condition for receiving this Emergency Use Authorization is that there must be no other readily-available remedies to prevent the spread of the designated contagion. This condition goes far to explain the hostility to the safe, effective, cheap and unpatented remedies championed by the likes of Dr. Kory, the late Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, and the much-maligned Dr. Didier Raoult.

The COVID fiasco epitomizes the ruinous exploitation by Big Pharma of the provisions of the Emergency Use Authorization and other features of the law providing vaccine makers with immunity against being sued. The time is long overdue to retract these extravagant government grants providing exemption from the usual cost of doing business.

Moreover, the time has come to prevent government employees like the notorious Dr. Anthony Fauci from being able to appropriate big portions of the exploding oil well of money derived from the governments’ sweetheart extension of liability-free status to the vaccine makers.

This conclusion is enormously strengthened by what we are learning from the fiasco generated by the negligent extension of Emergency Use Authorization to the COVID clot shots. Corrupt government regulators throughout the world participated in this crime against humanity whose devastating scale is becoming increasingly difficult to cover up an unrelenting campaign to sideline scores of unpatented remedies.

Dr. Pierre Kory has explained that the overall business model of the pharmaceutical industry is based on an unrelenting campaign to sideline scores of unpatented remedies, including repurposed drugs like Ivermectin. Some of these remedies including hydroxychloroquine emerge from the traditional knowledge of Indigenous peoples developed over thousands of years of human interaction with our natural environments. See this.

Dr. Kory puts great emphasis on Big Pharma’s blanket hostility to repurposed drugs and natural remedies that cannot be patented and sold at high prices. This hostility has led the drug cartels to some very dark places whose negative health impact on humanity is vast. Unfortunately the dominant part of the medical profession has accompanied the pharmaceutical industry on its wayward journey.

Dr. Kory explains his own experiences with the ruthlessness of an extremely powerful corporate lobby that learned from the tobacco industry how to deploy “disinformation” against their “competitors.” He develops the picture of a pharmaceutical cartel that has come to see sickness and ill health as its primary capital asset to be cultivated, grown and exploited for profit.

This destructive methodology seems to have been replicated on steroids with the COVID injections. Their ingredients, some of them still kept secret, seem well equipped to create a wide spectrum of thousands of so-called “adverse events.” These drug-induced ailments are already subjecting many victims of the clot shots with new invasions of ailments that will create much new business for the pharmaceutical industry and its captive medical profession.

The imposition of slow and excruciating deaths on many of the so-called vaccine injured can be very lucrative for drug companies and for their captive medical drug pushers.

Inventing New Syndromes to Cover Up for Injection Deaths and Injuries

A key to understanding the enormity of the current global debacle is contained in reports that the number of COVID shots given so far exceeds the world’s population. Every 100 people on the planet have already received an average of 156 COVID-19 jabs. The total number of global inhabitants who have received at least one COVID injection is said to be 5.3 billion. See this and this.

How many of the billions of people who have received COVID jabs have already been killed or maimed by the injections? How do these numbers compare with the casualties incurred in earlier cases of medical experiments on human subjects?

The purposely problematic nature of the range of flawed processes for reporting, collecting and disseminating injection deaths and injuries has been discussed in literally thousands of publications. The calculation controversies are emerging as one of the biggest number games of this era.

Whatever the numbers of the dead and injured, the COVID PR machine is going to great lengths to hide the extent of the grave damage being done. They have had to invent a new syndrome, SADS, to describe the plague of sudden deaths often televised in sports events and reported widely in countless newspaper reports. See this.

The likelihood is that the casualties flowing from the current medical experiment will turn out to be far in excess of all the casualties of all prior experiments on human subjects put together. Certainly the current case far exceeds the scale of the medical experiments attributed to medical practitioners of the Third Reich. It is these experiments that prompted the victors of the Second World War to initiate an investigation that led to the creation of the Nuremberg Code after the Second World War.

The Nuremberg Code unequivocally outlaws medical experimentation on human subjects imposed through coercion or without informed consent. Both these legal requirements are being conspicuously violated in the mad rush to, as Justin Trudeau has proclaimed, “get COVID injections out of the freezer and into people’s arms.” See this.

The injection mandates are unmistakably coercive. Moreover, the failure to create the conditions for genuinely informed consent is outrageous by every possible measure. Profoundly untrue is the constantly-repeated mantra that the COVID jabs are “safe and effective” and that they are made to stop the spread of the celebrity virus. The core myth of the COVID religion provides exactly the opposite message from what would have been required to obtain informed consent from the recipients of the experimental clot shots.

As Joseph Mercola asserts, “Celebrities, politicians, health agency officials, news anchors, doctors, nurses, academics and countless others pushed, shamed and threatened as many as they could into getting the shot.” See this.

Some of those willingly or begrudgingly complied with the enormous pressure to take the jabs faced undeniable proofs from their own gruesome experience that the injections they received are anything but safe and effective.

Many of those severely maimed and crippled by the injections regularly run into responses of denial, disbelief, condemnation and even spurning. The denial can be especially severe within medical systems whose executives, managers, practitioners and regulators have been instrumental in pushing the dangerous medical products on the public.

How many will atone for what will inevitably be seen in the light of future history as horrendous crimes?

The injection-injured continue to bear the burden of wholesale accusations that they are only imagining that their newly-acquired maladies have anything to do with the shots they received. Often they are denied appropriate medical treatment and are sent, for instance, to take tests to see if they are suffering from mental illness.

In the words of Dr. Mercola,

“The victims’ struggle. Their pain, their deaths deserve to be acknowledged for what they are — the result of medical malfeasance, regulatory corruption and societal “mass formation” insanity driven by media fear mongering and outright lies to support the shift to global tyranny and slavery.”

The Biggest Crime Ever Committed in History?

Since 2020 a seemingly never-ending accumulation of major catastrophes has provided cover for the COVID culprits. Theprecipitous loss of life and wellbeing through COVID injections is part of a growing array of menaces hitting humanity. These menaces include unfolding financial catastrophes, engineered food shortages, pathological extremism of climate change zealots, breakdowns in many different kinds of supply chains, and major rounds of domestic disharmony pointing in some cases towards possible civil war.

These calamities are all unfolding in the context of a steady global slide into hybrid warfare including outright military aggression augmented by ruthless forms of thought control and behavioral modification.

We can now add to this mix the “factual chaos,” accompanying the World Health Organization’s decision to do yet more bidding on behalf of the same cabal that manufactured the hysterical extremes fuelling the COVID crisis. This most recent example of the WHO’s regular accommodation of the agendas of corporatist elites came in the form of a declaration that monkeypox constitutes a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern.” See this.

All these trajectories of converging crises are pointing humanity towards a disastrous reset meant to culminate in the digitalized entrapment and enslavement of the survivors of depopulation. The only beneficiaries are meant to be a tiny percentage of the top 1%, people who joined together in a ruthless scheme to further monopolize the ownership of property as well as the exercise of political control over every facet of life on planet Earth.

One of the pivotal frauds committed by those that rolled out the COVID injections is that they put forward supposed “vaccines” rather than offering up products that their own manufacturers originally described as a “gene therapy.”

The misrepresentation of the favored COVID remedy as “vaccines” form a prominent part in the litany of lies woven into the manufactured COVID crisis. This promise of protective vaccines prompted many of those targeted to receive the untested products—basically everyone— to picture that they would be getting a variation of a fairly old and familiar technology. Many assumed that the COVID injections would be similar to the vaccines they had taken before, usually without obvious mishap.

The oxygenated intelligence of a growing portion of the now-unmasked public is starting to absorb the fact that the COVID jabs are the prime agents of the delivery into human bodies of a novel and untested mRNA technology. This new technology has dramatically failed to deliver what was promised. The catastrophe, however, goes farther, much farther.

While COVID Officialdom continues to do everything in its power to deny it, the revelations of principled and often learned whistleblowers have made it clear that the genetic-modification injections are very toxic to many people.

Thanks to the evaluation of genuine experts who by and large have nothing to gain and much to lose from their truth telling, the devastating news is getting out. There can no longer be any doubt that serious injection injuries as well as deaths are much more extensive than what governments and their partners in the regime media have been telling us.

The most determined and effective whistleblowers include Jessica Rose, Peter McCullough, Robert Malone, Michael Yeadon, Sucharit Bhakdi, Steve Kirsch, Edward Dowd, Christine Anderson, Robert F. Kennedy, Lee Merritt, Michel Chossudovsky, Peter Koenig, Charles Hoffe, Del Big Tree, Byram Bridle, Vernon Colemen, Mike Whitney, Roger Hodgeson, el gato malo, Tucker Carlson, Joseph Mercola, Pierre Kory, Paul Marik, and Reiner Fuellmich.

The combined research and conclusions of these and many more luminaries make it clear that we are in the midst of the most monumental medical cataclysm in recorded history.

Christine Anderson, a German Member of the European Parliament, goes farther. She declared that

“This vaccine campaign will go down as the biggest scandal in medical history. Moreover, it will be known as the biggest crime ever committed in history.”

“Biggest scandal in medical history.”

– @AndersonAfDMdEP pic.twitter.com/5DDd6tn5ZX

— Jennifer Arcuri (@Jennifer_Arcuri) July 24, 2022

A Crime Beyond Genocide

A recent study in Sweden indicates the distinct possibility that the mRNA injections may trigger through ‘reverse transcriptase’ permanent alterations of human DNA cells. See this.

The implication is that an irreversible alteration of the master genetic blueprint at the basis of all human life may be underway. Such an invasion of the natural and God-given integrity of the human genome would constitute a universal crime for which, in my view, we do not yet have an appropriate name.

Sometimes the word “genocide” is used to describe the current round of injected assaults on human life and wellbeing.

See this and this.

The term genocide, however, is defined in the main UN Convention on the subject as “acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” See this.

The worldwide assault embodied in the mass COVID injections is directed not at members of specific racial, religious or national groups. Rather it is directed at people belonging to all branches of the human family. Hence the crimes pointed against all of humanity go far beyond genocide as currently defined. See this.

Moreover, the charge of genocide does not begin to capture the essence of the violence that is quite likely being permanently done to the very genetic makeup of the entire human family. Has the time come to mount an international process to describe and codify the new variations of crime that have been emerging since the era of the Nuremberg trials, an event that included the formulation of the Nuremberg Code in 1947?

Nuremberg 2.0 as an Alternative to the Proposed Pandemic Treaty of the World Health Organization 

Before nailing down the chain of authority for dealing with future pandemics we need a process aimed at making international law conform to the new outlines of international crime especially when committed behind the veil of public health. The process could be part of the much-needed international investigation which some have described as Nuremberg 2.0. The investigators, judges, and juries of Nuremberg 2.0 would look at the origins, genesis and results of the COVID debacle.

The juridical dimensions of Nuremberg 2.0 would have to include trials of those suspected of playing significant roles in the international crimes against humanity. This process might include an assessment and revision of existing international criminal law in light of what has already been described as “the biggest crime ever committed in history.”

This course of action would provide humanity with a significant public service whereas the Pandemic Treaty presently being pushed by the World Health Organization (WHO) would impose on the global population more of the worst elements of the manufactured COVID crisis.

The WHO works closely with the corporatist operatives that gather in and around Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum. The WHO and the WEF are well integrated with an arsenal of weaponized agencies, many of them answering to “philanthropic” crime boss, Bill Gates. The close partnership between Gates and  Anthony Fauci centralizes much of the control over global funding for medical “research” to fill the coffers of the pharmaceutical industry. See this.

The WHO’s Pandemic Treaty is being designed to pre-empt many of the jurisdictions, laws, administrative mechanisms, and enforcement agencies facilitating many functions crucial to the viability of national governments. As Peter Koenig asserts,

“The Pandemic Treaty is a direct attack on the sovereignty of its member states, as well as a direct attack on your bodily autonomy. It will strip you of you and me of some of our most basic Rights and Freedoms.”

Building on this assessment, Michel Chossudovsky explains

“The Pandemic Treaty is the “Back Door” towards “Global Governance” and Digital Tyranny. It consists in constructing a Worldwide nexus of proxy regimes controlled by a “supranational sovereignty” (World Government) composed of leading financial institutions, billionaires and their philanthropic foundations.” See this.

Nuremberg 2.0 would provide humanity with a significant public service whereas the Pandemic Treaty presently being pushed by the WHO would extend and perpetuate the massive crime spree of COVID officialdom.

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Dr. Anthony Hall is editor in chief of the American Herald Tribune. He is currently Professor of Globalization Studies at University of Lethbridge in Alberta Canada. He has been a teacher in the Canadian university system since 1982. Dr. Hall, has recently finished a big two-volume publishing project at McGill-Queen’s University Press entitled “The Bowl with One Spoon”.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

As a result of western governments’ taking collective action under the auspices of a ‘climate change’ agenda, we are on the cusp of something happening with ramifications that no one has ever seen before.

Western governments’, specifically western Europe, North America (U.S-Canada) and Australia/New Zealand, are intentionally trying to lower economic activity to meet the intentional drop in energy production.

This is the core consequence of the Build Back Better agenda as promoted by the World Economic Forum.

Anyone who says there is a reference point to determine both the short-term and long-term consequences is lying. There is no precedent for nations’ collectively and intentionally trying to reduce economic activity.

Hiding behind the false justification that current inflation is driven by too much demand, central banks in Europe, the Bank of England, Bank of Canada and U.S. federal reserve are raising interest rates.  The outcome we are currently feeling is an intentional economic contraction and global recession.

The Build Back Better monetary policy is successfully shrinking western economic activity; however, the impacted nations that produce goods for markets in North America and Europe, specifically southeast Asia, Japan and China, are not raising interest rates in an effort to try and offset the drop in demand.  China has announced they are dropping their central bank rates in a desperate effort to lower costs and keep their export dependent economy working.

Underneath all of this, is a drop in energy production in the same nations trying to lower economic activity.  The political policymakers are attempting to manage this process without informing the citizens of the unspoken goal.   Shortages of oil, coal and natural gas are self-inflicted problems, all part of the BBB agenda.

Beyond the massive increases in energy costs, which is the true source of inflation and a direct/intentional outcome of the BBB effort, Europe is now facing a looming winter without the energy resources to heat homes and sustain people.  Things are going to be very uncomfortable in Europe this winter as roaming brownouts are now predicted.

As the collective west attempts to, using their words, “manage the transition,” they do not have mechanisms to control an outcome of this magnitude.  It is simply too big a situation to manage.  Where the rubber meets the road, the think-tanks and high-minded climate change ideologues do not have the ability to manage a transition and still meet the needs of people.  Beyond the esoteric thinking, there are real consequences from these actions.

Many people have discussed the potential for longer-term food shortages and recently, shorter-term winter heating.  However, beyond that, the downstream geopolitical consequences are seemingly being ignored.  Instead, what we see is an effort to keep pretending the climate change ends will justify the means (disruption of energy production).

In this connected world, when the western nations stop buying things, we find ourselves domestically with economic trouble.  Businesses fail, unemployment rises, financial stress ripples throughout the economy, dependency on government subsidy increases and real pain is felt.  However, beyond the domestic issues the supplier nations run into even bigger problems.

Unemployment in Malaysia, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and even China, creates an entirely different set of regional stability issues on a geopolitical level.

There is no precedent for this.  Never before in the history of industrialized nations has any government intentionally tried to lower its economic activity.  It has never been done with intent before because within the contraction nations get more poor, people suffer.

Not only has no single nation ever tried to intentionally shrink its wealth, but there is no precedent whatsoever for an alliance of nations to join together with the same purpose. While this might seem like an academic economic modeling exercise, unfortunately it is very real.  What I am describing is happening right now, and we had better start talking about it before the unforeseen consequences start to become a crisis.

In North America (U.S-Canada), Europe and Australia, there will continue to be massive increases in food prices as a result of the collapse in energy production.  Beyond the western nations there will be food shortages as a result of lowered harvest yields and less industrial food production.  This is not controversial.

It is also not controversial that regions with harsh winter climates are going to be paying much more for scarce heating resources.

That being accepted, what happens geopolitically, even militarily, when the entire global economy starts to feel the impacts from western nation economic contraction on a scale -created by collective action- that has never been seen before.

I have no idea what that big picture consequence looks like, but whatever “that” is, will be happening at the same time as people everywhere will be more desperate as an outcome of their economic position.  I don’t have the answers, but I sure as hell can see the problem coming.

Political leadership in the aforementioned western nations are seemingly, perhaps intentionally, keeping people distracted with domestic shiny things to occupy time.  However, someone needs to start talking about, and seriously challenging, the big picture consequence of this Build Back Better future, before it’s too late.

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***

At the height of the pandemic, the United Nations recruited over 100,000 “digital first responders’ to push the establishment narrative on COVID via social media.

The revelation actually slipped out in October 2020 during a World Economic Forum podcast called ‘Seeking a cure for the infodemic’, although it is only going viral on Twitter today.

In the podcast, Melissa Fleming, head of global communications for the United Nations, explains how the COVID pandemic and lockdowns created a “communications crisis” in addition to a public health emergency.

Fleming acknowledged that in order to fight so-called “misinformation” about the pandemic, the UN tapped up 110,000 people to amplify their messaging across social media.

“So far, we’ve recruited 110,000 information volunteers, and we equip these information volunteers with the kind of knowledge about how misinformation spreads and ask them to serve as kind of ‘digital first-responders’ in those spaces where misinformation travels,” Fleming stated.

That was nearly 2 years ago. It is not known how many ‘digital first responders’ have been recruited up to this point.

Similar efforts to create astroturf campaigns to push a specific message are nothing new, but when entities such as oil companies engage in it, they are lambasted for rigging the discussion.

However, when globalist technocrats at the UN or the WEF do it, apparently it’s fine.

Last year, it was revealed that the British government used “propagandistic” fear tactics to scare the public into mass compliance during the first COVID lockdown, according to a behavioral scientist who worked inside Downing Street.

Scientists in the UK working as advisors for the government admitted using what they later conceded to be “unethical” and “totalitarian” methods of instilling fear in the population in order to control behavior during the pandemic.

As we previously highlighted, the World Economic Forum is now advocating for the merger of human and artificial intelligence systems to censor “hate speech” and “misinformation” online before it is even allowed to be posted.

In what some dubbed “preemptive censorship,” the WEF is creating a system that would block posts from appearing if they fail the censorship filter.

Of course, the WEF, which is infamous for blocking its critics on Twitter, would never abuse such a system to shield itself from scrutiny.

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Another round of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests has been filled, this time for Moderna’s Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) “vaccine,” revealing that the mRNA (messenger RNA) shot causes birth defects and spontaneous abortions in pregnant women.

Towards the end of the 699-page document release in the toxicology section, it is stated that mRNA-1273, as the company calls the drug, lead to “significant increases in the number of F1 rats with 1 or more wavy ribs and 1 or more rib nodules.”

“Wavy ribs appeared in 6 fetuses and 4 litters with a fetal prevalence of 4.03% and a litter prevalence of 18.2%,” the section continues. “Rib nodules appeared in 5 of those 6 fetuses.” (Related: Pfizer’s covid injection is also linked to birth defects and infertility.)

While Moderna acknowledges the connection between these changes and its drug, the company claims that the structural changes observed in the bone structure of test rats “do not impact development or function of a developing embryo.”

“Maternal toxicity in the form of clinical observations was observed for 5 days following the last dose ([gestation day] 13), correlating with the most sensitive period for rib development in rats (GDs 14 to 17),” the company says.

All of this directly contradicts the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which in its authorization for “Spikevax,” another name for the Moderna shot, claimed that there was “no vaccine-related fetal malformations or variations and no adverse effect on postnatal development.”

Sasha Latypova, a former pharmaceutical executive with 25 years of experience in clinical trials and regulatory approvals, reviewed the documents and discovered the disparity between what Moderna’s clinical trials actually show and what the FDA claims about the drug.

More than half of all federally funded clinical trials are non-compliant with government guidelines

It turns out that the results of many clinical trials are blatantly misinterpreted by government regulators – if they even get submitted to the government for review in the first place.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) says the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is failing to do its job by ensuring that drug and vaccine companies meet the necessary requirements for federally funded trials.

More than half of the 72 trials that were supposed to be submitted and posted to ClinicalTrials.gov in calendar year 2019 and 2020 were either never submitted at all (25) or were submitted late (12).

Further, half were conducted internally while the other half were conducted externally – the external ones having a worse compliance rate than NIH scientists.

Rather than deal appropriately with all this, the NIH “took limited enforcement action when there was noncompliance,” we are told. At the same time, the NIH continued to fund “new research of responsible parties that had not submitted the results of their completed clinical trials.”

What this means is that pertinent information about adverse events is not making its way through the appropriate channels, resulting in the FDA and other agencies issuing false information about questionable drugs and vaccines being “safe and effective.”

According to Stanford University medical professor Jay Bhattacharya, co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, negative trial results never get published in journals because of this.

“So when the NIH doesn’t follow the rule, essentially, it’s painting an incomplete, biased picture” of how taxpayer money is being spent and what it is supporting, Bhattacharya contends.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is also complicit in the racket, having most recently removed information from its website falsely claiming that mRNA spike proteins leave the body after just a few days. It turns out that they persist inside the body for a long time.

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First published on July 11 2022

***

“Deglobalizing” and “dedollarizing” have been much in the news. Reducing dependence on the global supply chain and the U.S. dollar are trends that are happening not just internationally but locally. In the United States, we have seen movements both for local food independence and to divest from Wall Street banks. The burgeoning cryptocurrency movement is another push to “dedollarize” and escape the international bankers’ control grid. 

This article is a sequel to one discussing home gardens and community food co-ops as local counter-measures to an impending food crisis. The question to be addressed here is how to fund them. What sort of local currency could fund food co-ops independently of the credit dollars we get from banks?

But first, some framing of the problem. It’s not just about temporary food shortages. It’s about sovereignty from the sort of global control foreshadowed in Henry Kissinger’s notorious statement, “Control food and you control the people.”

The War on Food

Alarmed commentators are observing that our food systems seem to be under attack. In a June 14 article, ZeroHedge republished a list of 99 accidental fires hampering America’s food supply chain since January 2021. Meanwhile, many farmers are unable to get the supplies they need to produce food, from fertilizers to herbicides to tractor parts; and small trucking companies that deliver food to grocery stores are being driven into insolvency by unprecedented diesel gas prices. There has also been a surge of cyberattacks on agricultural companies during critical planting and harvest seasons. And an estimated 10,000 head of cattle died mysteriously in Kansas feedlots. The deaths were officially attributed to a heat wave but that explanation is disputed by farmers.

In July 2020, the Rockefeller Foundation published a white paper called “Reset the Table: Meeting the Moment to Transform the U.S. Food System.” It summarized discussions of over 100 leaders and experts brought together to design a “reset” of the food system. A skeptical Irish blogger notes:

The first question anybody should be asking is “How would the Rockefeller Foundation know about upcoming food shortages” in 2020. Naturally it was just a calculated guess on their part. Isn’t it also interesting that the title was “Reset the Table.”

Surely just another coincidence considering “The Great Reset” was announced on 3rd June 2020. Amazing how they can get all their ducks in a row lined up so quickly considering Covid had only officially been on the block for a few months.

The hunger problem in July 2020 stemmed from unemployment and Covid-19 lockdowns, which had just begun nationally at the end of March. A January 2022 meta-analysis from Johns Hopkins University concluded that “lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, [but] they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted. In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”

To the Rockefeller Foundation, however, the Covid crisis and policy response were an “opportunity” to make transformative changes in our food system, including “modernizing data and technology platforms.” The July 2020 white paper proclaimed:

Food is medicine … One of Covid-19’s legacies should be that it was the moment Americans realized the need to treat nutritious food as a part of health care …. By integrating healthy food into the health care system, doctors could prescribe produce as easily as pharmaceuticals and reduce utilization of expensive health services that are often required because of nutrition insecurity.

“Doctors could prescribe produce as easily as pharmaceuticals ….” Food can be prescribed, controlled and rationed. The Irish blogger wrote, “The plan is to centralize and control the food supply into one body, one single executive office.” In a May 2022 podcast, Christian Westbrook, the “Ice Age Farmer,” mused:

Where vaccine passports failed, food passports will now be eagerly accepted by hungry people who can’t afford rapidly inflating food prices. This is the realization of a longstanding agenda by the Rockefeller/UN/WEF crowd to, as Kissinger put it, “control food, and control people.”

That sort of control grid is what concerns preppers” and “survivalists” – people preparing for large-scale societal collapse. But we don’t need to go down that controversial rabbit hole for confirmation that a major food crisis is on the horizon. President Biden has said as much, and the head of the UN World Food Program has warned that we are heading into the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II.

The crisis is systemic, predating Covid. As Australian author Dr. Liz Elliott colorfully illustrates the problem in an as-yet-unpublished preface to her book “A New Way Now: Solutions to Financial and Climate Collapse”:

Corporations have become bigger than ancient countries, steamrolling over Life like invading armies.… Long supply chains are making food, machines and energy insecure. So much transport, needing so much oil, just to bring carrots and soap from cheap labour places. Third World people are realizing the money driven system is the extension of Colonialism; exploitation of their work and land by those who control money and weapons.…

These few then drive public policy towards more centralization, more scientific determinism, more technocratic “solutions,” more standardization, more war, more ideology.…

If large corporations and banks are the problem, then the solution is small and local.… The path to decentralization is already being forged in a million initiatives everywhere.

The solution is small and local, including growing food locally. But how to fund local food co-ops without pricey loans from big banks?

Food-backed Local Credit as Money

In a 2014 article titled “The Truth Is Out: Money Is Just an IOU, and the Banks Are Rolling in It,” the late David Graeber underscored the fact that money is basically just credit. What triggered his article was the Bank of England’s acknowledgment in its first  quarterly report that year that virtually all of the money we use in trade is simply created on the books of banks when they make loans. It is credit advanced by the bank against the borrower’s promise to repay it, preferably backed by some form of collateral. Local currencies and cryptocurrencies can work in the same way.

To be useful today as “money,” a currency is said to need these four main attributes. It should serve as:

• A medium of exchange
• A standard of deferred payment
• A store of wealth
• A measure of value or unit of account

A medium of exchange is something that people actually use and will accept in trade. Today, that would largely rule out both gold and blockchain cryptocurrencies on the model of Bitcoin (BTC). You can’t buy groceries with gold (the grocer wouldn’t know how to make change), and Bitcoin is little used in trade. It is too volatile to be a reliable measure of value and is held chiefly as a speculative asset. As one commentator puts it, “Can you imagine owning a small business and having to pay your employees’ salaries denominated in Bitcoin. The actual value paid could vary by 50% or more from paycheck to paycheck. No company would commit to this as the risk would be way too high.”

To retain its value, a currency should ideally be backed by some asset that has a stable value itself. Gold and silver have been used historically, but the gold-backed money system failed because the banks did not have enough of that precious metal to satisfy the liquidity needs of the economy. The result was periodic bank runs and banking crises.

What sort of asset would hold its value and be widely available as collateral in a local community trading system today?  With the threat of impending food shortages, food could satisfy that requirement. Garden co-ops can issue their own cryptocurrencies or community currencies, backed by the food they will produce. Sellers are often reluctant to accept unbacked community currencies in payment, because other sellers may not accept them in trade; but food-backed currencies hold their value. They are promises to pay in food, or advances against future productivity. They are paper or digital stores of food that can be reclaimed in the future, cashed in for fresh produce long after storage food in the refrigerator would have gone bad.

Grain-Backed Crypto Tokens

Grain-backed cryptocurrencies are already happening at the corporate level. In March 2022, banking giant Santander signed an agreement with an Argentinian company named Agrotoken, which has created a cryptocurrency to tokenize grain. Santander agreed to accept Agrotoken’s soy-, corn-and wheat-backed coins as loan collateral. Each token is backed by one ton of grain held in a storage facility. Farmers generate tokens by selling their crops to participating grain elevators, which validate the existence of the commodity. The loans will be made on a blockchain, with the tokens locked into smart contracts. Agrotokens were listed on an Argentinian commodities derivatives exchange, a key to getting the lending project started.

Santander called the project the first to use cryptocurrency tokens backed by agricultural commodities as lending collateral. It said in a blog post that the project uses an innovative digital solution that “will allow farmers and the agro ecosystem to have easy and fluid access to a new financing system, expanding credit capacity by using tokenized grains.”

Agrotoken was recently the subject of a case study by Accenture, which said it was bringing “new financial options to the multi-trillion-dollar agribusiness sector by letting farmers convert tons of soybean crops into a commodity-backed stablecoin that could be spent with merchants and investors.” Longer term, the company plans to move beyond grains into other agricultural commodities, offering Tokenization-as-a-Service (TaaS). The goal, Accenture said, is to develop “a token-collateralized loan system that would allow farmers easy, fluid access to a new system of credit at competitive rates.”

Holochain

Agrotokens are issued on a blockchain, the sort of distributed ledger technology involved in Bitcoin, Ethereum and Hashgraph. But an agricultural supply chain startup called Producers Token has rejected that technology in favor of a more localized peer-to-peer technology called Holochain. Holochain developer Arthur Brock says it is rooted in biomimicry (“how nature functions and scales”). Users are not buying coins created by wealthy “miners” in China but are creating their own money, simply by extending credit to other users.

According to Colin Stewart, Director of Agricultural Technology for Producers Token:

[Holochain’s] method of cryptographic accounting allows for the creation of asset-backed cryptocurrencies, and this is really interesting because what we’re designing and implementing in our platform is a method for agricultural producers to mint their own cryptocurrencies that are actually backed by their goods. So you can think of the cryptocurrency as a forward contract.

A typical “forward contract” might be an agreement between a wheat farmer and a grain processor for the sale of the farmer’s crop at a certain price on a certain date. The currency issued by the farmer would act as a receipt for future delivery of the wheat. A food-backed cryptocurrency tied to an asset with real value is considered to be more stable than blockchain-based tokens, which again are notoriously volatile.

For Stewart, another problem with blockchain technology involves its “consensus” feature. Most versions require the entire network to agree about the order of events. But Stewart asked, “If I’m an apple grower in Washington State… why should I have to know that the avocado grower in Michoacán sold his avocados?” He explained that Holochain, like blockchain, provides for transparency, accountability, and immutability, but without the inefficiencies of using one monolithic ledger that contains the history of all transactions in the network. Instead, Holochain is “agent-centric,” with users having their own individual hash-chains of data. For more on Holochain, see here.

Homegrown Food-backed Currencies

If all that sounds too high-tech for your friendly neighborhood food co-op, there are more modest local alternatives. Community currency expert Thomas Greco, author of “The End of Money,” maintains that a produce-backed currency could be issued without even creating a cryptocurrency. A group of local farmers could be organized to jointly issue farm currency as a paper or digital community currency, which could be spent into circulation to buy what the farmers needed to produce their crops. The currency would circulate in the local community and would be accepted back by the farmers in payment for the products they sell.

“So the currency has a beginning and an end, it’s created and it’s extinguished,” says Greco. “It’s created by the act of spending and it’s extinguished in the act of redemption, not in some other currency, but in goods and services that have been promised.”

Community currencies operate on the same sort of credit clearing system that banks use to create the “bank money” composing the majority of our money supply today, but they do it without manipulation by profiteering middlemen. Money is created as a debit in an account and is extinguished when the debt is repaid. No interest is charged, so there is no built-in imperative for growth. Community currencies also allow communities to make decisions about where capital should flow rather than giving decision-making power solely to banks, and they foster human relationships, building community and encouraging people to interact with one another.

Spreading Financial Sovereignty: From Communities to Cities to Countries

Local currencies don’t need to be printed on paper or issued as cryptocurrencies. “Mutual credit clearing systems” can keep track of credits and debits on a simple ledger. Participants of mutual credit clearing systems around the world can trade with each other, and this is already being done.

Cities and towns can also issue their own community currencies; and many have, particularly in times of depression. A major hurdle is getting sellers to accept the local currency, but this could be fixed by backing it with some public service. Tom Greco suggests “Solar Dollars” – credit instruments of a local utility company, spent into circulation by the company as credit against future electricity services. Other services the city could provide include fiber-optic broadband, circumventing the perceived hazards of 5G; and ethanol fuel generated by a community-owned still, processing not corn and other foodstuffs but weeds and other organic waste. The currency could be issued by the city through a publicly-owned bank.

Combining these possibilities, a global monetary system might be devised that is independent of the control grid manipulated by international financial megaliths. But that is a big subject, which will have to be addressed in another article.

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This article was first posted on ScheerPost.

Ellen Brown is an attorney, chair of the Public Banking Institute, and author of thirteen books including Web of Debt, The Public Bank Solution, and Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age. She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 300+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com. 

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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First published by Global Research on June 13, 2022

***

“Those of us who do understand the nefariousness of the empire, and the ever-increasing danger it represents, must be clear that the effective defense of life on planet Earth, including that of the human species itself, inexorably demands the existence of an independent and democratic world forum for a genuine and effective defense of the rights of Mother Earth and of humanity. That is why we insist, repeat and say time and again that the United Nations as it exists today is useless, inoperative, dysfunctional and an instrument of the empire. That is why it no longer enjoys any confidence or credibility whatsoever.

This situation is so serious that we can say, without fear of being wrong, that if the UN does not change radically, if we do not reinvent it, it will soon disappear. … [and] if we let the UN die, it will be almost impossible to create it again. We must wrest it from those who have usurped it so that we, the truly concerned for the future of the Earth, can inject new life, relevance and effectiveness into our world Organization.”

– Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann. M.M. [1], Managua, 28 February 2011

Now, more than at any time since its founding 76 years ago, the United Nations is in danger of disappearing.

Today the battle lines are being drawn between those who believe in the need for a universal organization, those who advocate an inclusive international system, based on the rule of law in relations between states and benefiting all, and those who seek to fragment the world into blocs, where a privileged warmongering alliance of nations, with like-minded values, i.e. the Club of so-called “democracies”, reserve the right of entry to their circle of elites under the supreme command of the United States of America. This Atlanticist project has been decades in the making, but has, so far, met with no formidable resistance.

As always, this struggle comes enveloped in a pervasive and sophisticated marketing campaign that would have us believe that it is they, the Atlanticists, the “reluctant defenders” of Democracy who are the champions of national sovereignty and the self-determination of peoples, currently under threat from expansionist and “anti-democratic” authoritarian regimes intent on restoring their lost imperial hegemony.

In this Orwellian language, the good guys are actually the bad guys who are forced to resort to “illegal but legitimate wars” to “save the world and free markets” (… one must never forget the markets).

Few understood the nature of the American Empire better than our own Padre Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, or have worked as hard to restrain “the apocalyptic beast”.

In April 2011, barely 20 months after concluding his tenure as president of the General Assembly, Father Miguel d’Escoto launched his ambitious Proposal for Reinventing the U.N.

Considered his magnum opus, it is the culmination of his life’s work as a revolutionary, diplomat, statesman, activist and, ultimately, as a priest and follower of Jesus of Nazareth.

The Proposal draws on more than four decades in the international arena, and in particular, it has its roots in the unsuccessful efforts to compel the United States to comply with the historic ruling of the International Court of Justice in 1986.

As Nicaraguans, we rightly take great pride for having the courage to file a lawsuit against the United States as an aggressor before the International Court of Justice, which rendered the strongest ever condemnation of the policy of any country in the history of world justice. But it would be a mistake to think that this ruling marked a higher trend in international law. Much has happened since the famous 1986 ruling to erode and weaken international law. Unfortunately for Nicaragua, that discouraging trend began with the complicity of its own government under Violeta Chamorro.[2]  Padre Miguel was well aware of this discouraging trend.

In his essay “Unmasking the Empire” (2004), written a year after the criminal U.S. invasion of Iraq[3], he wrote:

“In April 1984, when Nicaragua filed its suit in The Hague against the United States for the war that they had imposed upon us, what most motivated us to take that bold step was the conviction that somebody had to take the bull by the horns and do something forceful in defense of international law.

… [Today some states] are less and less inclined to act through international institutions such as the United Nations, to work cooperatively with other nations to achieve common goals, and are more skeptical of international law and more willing to operate outside its boundaries when they deem it necessary or, simply, ‘useful’.”

Certain that this trend would only become more pronounced in the future, Father urged the Member states to defend themselves, and also to educate the American people to join us as allies in the struggle for peace:

“Their offensive is multifaceted and, therefore, our defense must also be not only in the economic sphere, but also in the ideological, legal and United Nations spheres. In the struggle so that the American people wake up and understand the nefariousness of the behavior of their leaders, our denunciations of Washington’s violations of international law, of our self-determination and of the United Nations Charter itself may be more understandable to them and, therefore, more useful for advancing our cause. With dedication, imagination and coordination between us, we will win, for, we must never doubt, the truth is stronger than lies.”[4]

Gifted in the art of language and images, and as a priest, he exclaimed:

“Clearly, the Apocalyptic Beast is no longer just a horrendous biblical image.”[5]

The United Nations not only failed to prevent or stop the wars of aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq, but eventually joined them. And so on with Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere. The UN deployed humanitarian missions and post-conflict missions turning themselves into nothing more than the glorified janitor of the United States and the Western powers.

When I started writing this article, I intended to develop the somewhat in vogue subject of Security Council reform. But it seems out of place to be discussing the institutional arrangements contained in Father Miguel’s Proposal for Reinventing the UN when war is taking hold in Ukraine, NATO is gaining spine-chilling momentum and, above all, when the very consensus on which the United Nations was built no longer exists.

Surely what is most important, what weighs most heavily in the world right now is not the differences between Latin America and the United States. The battle today is between those who do NOT want a world Organization and those of us who DO.

On the opposing side are those who have opted for the division of the world into blocs, for the “New Order” as they call it, that is, the United States and its clique. This is, at the end of the day, what is behind the so-called ‘Summit of the Americas’ which, as we all know, is nothing more than a meeting of the pro-US “Club”, a meeting of a superpower with those States that swoon before it.

So, this is where we find ourselves. Consequently, the Proposal for Reinventing the UN, which continues to be innovative and revolutionary, must be viewed in the context of today’s world, [eleven years on], as surely Father Miguel would urge us to do if he were here.

At this moment, the issue of the Security Council reform is not the priority. The priority is to know whether the authority of the United Nations is actually going to be accepted in practice–in real life. What is the use of discussing reforms to the Security Council or the General Assembly… if the consensus with which the UN was created has disappeared? What is the use of the UN if what currently defines the world is the exercise of force and the threat of the use of force? What good is it to talk about reforming the Security Council when, even if there were 120 members on the Council, at the end of the day it is the great powers (the P-3, and the P-5) who will impose their will, either with the use of the ‘formal veto’ that now exists or with the ‘veto of force’ as the United States did in the invasion of Iraq.

At this juncture in which we find ourselves, I believe it is up to us as a Center,[6] as Nicaraguans, as revolutionaries and as citizens of the world, to take up this great challenge of Padre Miguel to fight with everything we have, to defend the existence of a world international forum, based on the rule of law, and to re-found our only universal Organization into one dedicated to the defense of Mother Earth and of humanity.

It’s now or never.

It is worth asking, how did we get here? So, let’s examine some inputs for our analysis, including factors that influenced Padre Miguel’s actions and Proposal and its continued relevance.

The presidency of the 63rd session of the General Assembly

When Father Miguel d’Escoto assumed office, he had an ambitious plan to democratize the United Nations. Three unforeseen events were to interrupt his agenda and take on special importance during his brief presidency.

The first big event, which would prove to be the most lasting, was the collapse of Lehman Brothers on 15 September 2008, which initiated a profound worldwide financial and economic crisis. Although the crisis interrupted his hefty agenda, the PGA-63[7] saw in it a historic opportunity to position the General Assembly at the center of a global conversation of vital importance.

He worked frenetically to obtain a mandate to hold a summit, and once he succeeded, he moved to establish a Panel of Experts of the President of the 63rd General Assembly, chaired by the Nobel laureate, economist Joseph Stiglitz, to assist Member States in formulating far-reaching responses to the crisis. The Conference, to be held in the Spring of 2009, would be presided over by the President of the General Assembly and entailed a gigantic effort and coordination on the part of Fr. Miguel and his Cabinet.

The PGA-63 traveled to Venezuela, Finland, Syria, China, Switzerland and Iran to enlist support. While the Outcome Document is widely regarded as one of the most far-reaching documents to come out of the UN in decades, the lack of high-level delegations, particularly from the ALBA countries (only President Rafael Correa of Ecuador attended the Conference)[8], was indicative of the low esteem in which Member States hold the Organization. Seeing such low expectations pained the President tremendously. Nor could he shake off the feeling that somehow “we had missed the boat”.

The second event occurred on 27 December when Israel began what it called “Operation Cast Lead,” an attack by Israeli forces on the Gaza Strip by land, sea and air preceded by massive shelling that immediately caused dozens of civilian casualties. The inaction of the Security Council, with its hands tied by the US, and unbelievably by the Palestinian delegation itself, was revealing and showed the priest the degree of putrefaction that existed within the Organization. Padre Miguel galvanized the Assembly to take action on the issue, but again, with unsatisfactory results.

The final major event, the coup d’état against President José Manuel Zelaya in Honduras, occurred on 28 June, before the Summit on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development had even ended. Despite the unanimous approval of a resolution calling for the immediate restoration of the legitimate president, very little actually changed on the ground. However, the peoples of the world followed live on TeleSur as Manuel Zelaya attempted to return to Tegucigalpa in a very small aircraft. Seated next to him was the president of the 63rd session of the General Assembly.

Even with his limited results, Padre Miguel was able to face world events with courage and leadership, pushing the General Assembly to a level of activism rarely seen in recent years.  He was well aware that time would be short, but he wanted to give the Member States, and the world, a small glimpse of what a proactive and reinvigorated General Assembly might look like.

In his closing speech he stated….

“During this year as President of the General Assembly, I have come to the conclusion that the time has already passed for reforming or mending our Organization. What we need to do is to reinvent it, and we need urgently to do it ad majorem gloriam Dei, which is to say, for the good of the Earth and of humanity.”

…[T]here is a need to proceed to translate this shared vision into a draft of a new Charter of the United Nations, in tune with the needs and knowledge of the 21st century.”

NATO

It is impossible to review the history of the United Nations in the 21st century without also reviewing the history of NATO; they are inextricably intertwined.

As a quick reminder, NATO was formed in 1949 with twelve founding members, and has added new members eight times, the first additions being Greece and Turkey in 1952. In May 1955, West Germany joined NATO, prompting the Soviet Union to form its own collective security alliance, known as the Warsaw Pact.

In 1990, the Soviet Union and NATO reached an agreement under which a reunified Germany would join NATO within the framework of West Germany’s pre-existing membership. The United States, for its part, undertook a (verbal) commitment not to extend the Alliance “one inch to the East”.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and with it the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact, called into question the need for the North Atlantic Alliance. The hope was, with the end of the Cold War, the world would enjoy the long-awaited ‘peace dividend’ that would foster better relations based on friendship and cooperation among all Europeans. Within the framework of the European Union talk began of forming a European army, which the United States saw as an impediment to the projection of its post-Cold War influence.

In 1996, Clinton called for the former Warsaw Pact countries and post-Soviet republics to join NATO, making NATO enlargement an official component of U.S. foreign policy. In an open letter to U.S. President Bill Clinton, more than forty foreign policy experts, including Bill Bradley, Sam Nunn, Gary Hart, Paul Nitze and Robert McNamara, expressed their concerns about NATO expansion as costly and unnecessary, given the absence of an external threat from Russia at the time.[9]

Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic became NATO members in 1999, which generated much debate within NATO itself and opposition from Russia.  Since then, 14 other countries have joined NATO. There are a number of ways to partner with NATO, within programs such as ‘Partners for Peace’, ‘Global Partners’, etc. At the 2008 Budapest Summit, NATO Allies “welcomed the Euro-Atlantic aspirations of Ukraine and Georgia”, seen by several political analysts as a blatant provocation of the Russian Federation.

Russia was especially concerned about the subsequent admission of three of the Baltic States, and has consistently opposed NATO expansion. As of February 2022, NATO has a total of 30 members, but there is talk (following the Russian operation in Ukraine) of expediting the incorporation of Finland and Sweden, both Partners for Peace, and even Ukraine.  All of them participate in interoperability exercises with NATO and have access to state-of-the-art armaments thanks to their partnership. There is now even talk of extending the Alliance to Latin America and Asia.

His certainty that NATO was, de facto, replacing the role of the UN in its role as guarantor for the maintenance of international peace and security led Father Miguel, during his last years, to translate and publish two books.

The first, written by political scientist-journalist Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, the priest aptly retitled – NATO: The Globalization of Terror[10], which was released in Spanish in 2015; and the second, written by economist-geopolitical expert Dr. Michel Chossudovsky entitled – Globalization of War: America’s “Long War” against Humanity[11], came out in Spanish in 2016.

Because of the importance Fr. Miguel attached to each book, he asked Atilio A. Boron from Argentina and Ricardo Alarcón from Cuba to write the respective forewords to the Spanish editions.

As Nazemroaya correctly argues, “the dismantling of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was an important step in opening the door to an eastward expansion of NATO and the European Union. It opened the way for the march towards the borders of Russia and the former Soviet Union. The former Yugoslavia was also a fundamental obstacle to a Euro-Atlantic project of NATO and the EU in Europe. Moreover, NATO’s war in Yugoslavia made it possible to prepare the logistics of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. [Interview by Silvia Cattori of Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, 2013.]

As Father Miguel observed:

“The most astute minds in international relations agree that NATO, the “North Atlantic Terrorist Organization”, is the U.S. alternative to the United Nations.  If through idleness, abulia or whatever, we do not hurry to approve a sensible alternative that frees the United Nations and the world from the imperial clutches and guarantees peace, life, solidarity and complementarity, NATO will end up being imposed as the “de facto” alternative to the UN. The irony is that those responsible for that happening, should it come to pass, would be precisely those who claim not to want that to happen.”[12]

It was through Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya that we learned that in September 2008, Ban Ki-moon secretly negotiated and signed a cooperation agreement with NATO. “Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would express shock and the Kremlin would be angered by Ban Ki-moon’s collusion. R2P would be central to the cooperation agreement between NATO and the UN Secretariat. NATO’s “humanitarian intervention” was moved to a global level through the cover of a possible military intervention under the UN flag.” Such an agreement was never discussed or authorized by the Member States, but was listed on the NATO website. And so, the groundwork was laid for the upcoming intervention in Libya.

The US and its European accomplices have developed a series of procedural and institutional obstacles, along with political and economic coercion, to prevent the adoption of necessary institutional reforms within the UN.  This inflexible attitude contrasts sharply with NATO’s persistent renewal. Resources are never lacking for strategic updating, geopolitical analysis and institutional restructuring, just as they are never lacking for equipment, military exercises or coordination meetings to further consolidate its hegemonic military expansion.

According to the NATO website, “UN Security Council resolutions have provided the mandate for NATO operations in the Balkans and Afghanistan, and the framework for NATO’s training mission in Iraq.”

The war against Libya – “I came, I saw, he died.” [Hilary Clinton’s words]

In February 2011, while Fr. Miguel was putting the final touches to his Proposal, the United States, France and the United Kingdom were busy setting the stage to launch their war against Libya. Already in December the Obama administration had conducted its so-called “War games”, its rehearsal for a full-scale war against Libya. In less than two months the first reports began emerging about citizen uprisings in various parts of eastern Libya, thereby generating the necessary conditions for humanitarian intervention, the famous R2P, “to save the lives of civilians.”

The politically savvy priest carefully studied each of President Obama’s statements.  It was particularly disconcerting for the veteran Sandinista to observe the complicity of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in the U.S.’s maneuverings to block the accreditation and entry of Libyan diplomats to UN headquarters in New York.

Skilled in communications, Fr. Miguel was also sensitive to media spin. He understood how important it was to the US and its cohorts to ‘control the narrative’, in order to dupe or incite public opinion to support their military intervention. Fr. Miguel lost no time in addressing, himself, the media, generating indignation for denouncing the upcoming aggression.

The bombing of Libya, first by the United States, and later NATO, was something that the activist priest lived intensely. This experience, more than any other, convinced him that any genuine effort to transform our world Organization would have to be initiated outside the confines of the United Nations itself, away from the tentacles of the world’s warlords. At the same time, he was frustrated at how little resistance there was from the Member States.

Fr. Miguel wrote in the weeks preceding the US-NATO war operation:

“In the world today a great war in being unleashed and is in full swing against the most dispossessed, the billions of the poor, hungry, homeless, unhealthy, unemployed or out of school, but also against Arabs, Afro-descendants, Asians or Latin Americans who own oil, gas or strategic minerals.

Everything is aimed at the total and absolute control of the United States over the Earth.The empire has an open field. It moves without any effective resistance. The United Nations is no longer only dysfunctional and irrelevant to deter this imperialist aggression, we can already say that it has become an instrument of the empire. The main culprits are not so much the aggressors, as the timorous victims, who dare not organize to defend themselves as they should.”[13]

In prophetic words… Fr. Miguel stressed further:

“Both instances of regional coordination and cooperation, as well as those of global coordination and cooperation, are indispensable for the effective defense of life on Earth. I insist on this point so much because I am convinced that governments, even many of the most progressive, are not sufficiently convinced. The war by those who yearn for total and absolute planetary domination is more than declared and is advancing with a firmness and speed never before known. Either we begin to defend ourselves now or we will be crushed much sooner than we might suspect.”[14]

Mahdi Nazemroaya was one of the few truly independent journalists who covered the 2011 war in Libya in situ. We regularly followed his reporting in Global Research. Later in an extensive interview with Swiss journalist Silvia Cattori, he said:

“Hillary Clinton misled the Security Council on Libya where there was a vote to protect civilians in eastern Libya. And then France, the UK and the US took that and bombed the whole country. They bombed the Libyan army; they supported all the opposition forces in other places.

They completely forgot about Benghazi and started concentrating on Tripoli. They managed to overthrow the government that had cooperated with the West by disarming its nuclear capability. It is the only success story in disarming nuclear capability. And Libya had cooperated politically and had relations with Italy and France. But that didn’t matter. His government was overthrown and Muammar al Gadhafi was assassinated.”[15]

In the Foreword to the Spanish version of Nazemroaya’s book on NATO, Father Miguel, gives his own account:

“The global financial crisis covered up and facilitated the signing of a secret agreement, signed on 23 September 2008, between two Secretaries General, that of the UN and that of NATO. It was an agreement that affects the entire UN membership but which has never, then or now, been openly and transparently discussed in the General Assembly or the Security Council.

Since then, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has gone to great lengths to confer legitimacy on NATO, the most aggressive and largest military bloc in the history of the world; despite the fact that its mandate is contrary to the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, thus undermining the very Organization that he has a sacred duty to respect and defend. I myself have witnessed this when I was sent by President Daniel Ortega in February and March 2011 to New York to contribute to the search for a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Libya. Ban Ki-moon, for his part, toured Western Europe pushing Member States to participate in NATO military action against Libya and was very influential in denying a UN Member State its right to be present at Security Council deliberations on events in its country, a right that the Charter confers even on non-member states.”[16]

Some Preliminary Conclusions

This brief essay is a modest first step to shed light and start a conversation on the imperative to take back the United Nations and turn it into an organization at the service of Humanity, of We the Peoples and for the defense of Mother Earth.

There are many other issues that must be addressed, including the impunity granted to the P-5 of the Security Council, but most especially to the United States of America in its “long-war against Humanity”. We must address the doctrines of perpetual war and pre-emptive war, including the infamous “R2P”, and which divert the world’s resources and supersede the peoples’ agenda; the multiple converging crises that threaten the extinction of our own human species and transcend human boundaries; how to ensure the maintenance of international peace and security in a mind-boggling world infinitely more complex than that of 1945; and how to make the UN a functional organization, capable of dealing effectively with the great challenges of the XXI century for Mother Earth and humanity?

The COP negotiations on climate change are undermined by the reluctance of certain industrialized States to commit to binding agreements, leaving the most vulnerable and least responsible for climate change to their fate.

All Member States share part of the blame, whether by omission or commission, for the current crisis in Ukraine. We are all at fault for failing to address head-on the root causes, for failing to bring into the forefront and challenge the ‘lawfulness’ of NATO, and demonstrate the threat it constitutes to international peace and security by its’ insatiable expansion. Ignoring the legitimate security concerns of any State, harms the security of all.

We must not be mere spectators, but protagonists and subjects in the struggle for justice, security and well-being for all. And we must recognize that our own security is intertwined with the security of others. The wise words of Benito Juarez remain true: respect for the rights of others is peace.

Father Miguel would undoubtedly be bringing these issues before different fora.  The United Nations has held countless formal and informal meetings on ‘R2P’ and yet it has never held a single debate challenging the lawfulness of the NATO Alliance itself or its infringement on prerogatives of the Member States under the UN Charter; on the contrary, there are some who bump shoulders and elbows in their zeal to join, as ‘junior’ partners of the U.S., in the Alliance.

Father Miguel was a committed multilateralist and defender of the United Nations. He was never timid or cowardly. He knew that we are in for the fight of our lives, and in defense of life itself. This fight will take everything we have.

We must ask ourselves… How far we are willing to go to establish a universal Organization at the service of Mother Earth and of humanity? How far are we willing to go to defend the rule of law? How much are we willing to sacrifice to achieve it?  The battle lines are being drawn.

It’s now or never.

*

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This article is based on an original essay published in Spanish by the CEDMEB in Semanario on the fifth anniversary of the passing of our namesake, Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, on 8 June 2022.

Sofía M. Clark, Professor, political scientist and member of the collective of the Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann Center for Development Studies (known by its acronym in Spanish- CEDMEB) at the UNAN in Managua. She served as Deputy Chief of Staff during the presidency of Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann of the 63rd session of the UN General Assembly.

Notes

[1]  Father Miguel d’Escoto, Foreign Minister of Nicaragua from 1979-1990, was president of the 63^rd session of the United Nations General Assembly (2008-2009). He was also a Maryknoll priest known for his staunch commitment to creative nonviolence and liberation theology. This quote is taken from an Op-ed entitled “USA: The worst of all the crises that threaten our survival”, published in La Voz del Sandinismo on 28 February 2011, just weeks before the launch of the US-NATO war against Libya.

[2] On 7 September 1987, after unsuccessful attempts to arrive at a bilateral agreement with the United States on reparations, the Sandinista government conveyed its decision to the ICJ to seek the assistance of the Court in determining the amount of the reparations to be paid to Nicaragua by the U.S. The memorial of Nicaragua, contained in six thick volumes, was submitted on 29 March 1988.  The proceedings were entering their final phase when Violeta Chamorro and the UNO coalition won the elections in 1990. The following year, on 12 September 1991, the Chamorro government sent a letter to the Court notifying them of its decision to withdraw the case, disregarding the advice of its own counsel to temporarily suspend the proceedings. Nicaragua’s right to reparations, after the 1986 ruling, was a national right pertaining to the people of Nicaragua. It is worth mentioning that after the August 1990 invasion and annexation of Kuwait by the Iraq, the UN Security Council pressed Iraq for war reparations to Kuwait, as well as indemnification for damages caused to “Third States”. [Zamora R., Augusto, El Conflicto Estados Unidos-Nicaragua 1979-1990 (Fondo Editorial CIRA; 1996). pp. 515-526.]

[3] Published in El Nuevo Diario on 20 July 2004.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann Center for Development Studies, known by its acronym in Spanish—CEDMEB—at the UNAN-Managua.

[7]  UN vernacular for President of the General Assembly.

[8]  In the words of president Miguel d’Escoto… “On June 26, 2009, an extraordinary event occurred: the 192 Member States of the United Nations adopted by consensus a broad and exceptionally substantive statement on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development. The analysis and recommendations cover the gamut from short-term mitigation to deep structural change, from crisis response to reform of the global economic and financial architecture.” It should be mentioned that all 15 Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) attended the World Conference and two of which, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda joined ALBA on the 24 of June 2009, the very day the Conference opened. The Commonwealth of Dominica has been a member of ALBA since 2004.

[9]  Barnay, University of Texas (Austin), The Future of NATO Expansion: Four Case Studies (Cambridge University Press: 2003), pp. 16-18.

[10] Published originally in English under the title: The Globalization of NATO (Clarity Press, Atlanta: 2012).

[11] Published originally in English by Global Research, in Montréal, Quebec in 2015.

[12] Foreword by Miguel d’Escoto to the 2015 Spanish edition of the book by Mahdi D. Nazemroaya, OTAN: La globalización del Terror.

[13]   La Voz del Sandinismo el 28 febrero 2011.

[14]   Ibid.

[15] https://l-hora.org/en/interview-with-mahdi-darius-nazemroaya-nato-only-yields-destructions-insecurity-and-misery-it-must-be-abolished-silvia-cattori-03-19-2013/ y

https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-globalization-of-military-power-nato-expansion/5677

[16]   Nazemroaya, 2015 (Spanish version).

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***

On August 7, 2022, Gustavo Petro and his running mate, Francia Márquez, were inaugurated as the President and Vice-President of the Republic of Colombia. This was one of the most historic events in Latin America for at least a century.

For the first time since the liberation of Colombia from Spain by Simón Bolívar, Colombia now had leaders who promised to radically transform Colombia, and with it, all of Latin America. I was fortunate enough to be present at the inauguration ceremony which was just as exciting as one could have hoped for.

As I was told by Colombians while in Bogotá, this was the first time in memory that throngs of people came to Plaza Bolívar to celebrate the inauguration of a new President and Vice-President.

This makes sense, for after all, this was an inauguration of progressive leaders following years of right-wing rulers like Álvaro Uribe, Juan Manuel Santos and Iván Duque, all of whom were closely tied and beholden to the paramilitary death squads.

It was Gustavo Petro, as Senator, who exposed the “paramilitary scandal” which involved numerous Colombian politicians at all levels. This included politicians embedded with the paramilitaries that haunted Colombia and killed popular leaders—leaders who threatened the oligarchs’ hold on economic and political power. Now, Petro and Márquez are taking charge to try to break the oligarch/paramilitary hold over their country.

Photo Courtesy of Dan Kovalik

It was an uncharacteristically sunny afternoon in usually-cloudy Bogotá, and this added to the already-festive atmosphere of the event.

The thousands of people who came to Plaza Bolívar were boisterous and cheered as Francia Márquez and then Gustavo Petro and his family entered the Plaza.

The crowd had a mind of its own, cheering the guests they liked, like the newly-elected President of Honduras, Xiamora Castro; the leftist President of Bolivia, Luis Arce Catacora; and the wife of Mexico’s progressive President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (“AMLO”).

Meanwhile, they loudly booed the reactionary President of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, and then followed up the boos by chanting the last name of his left-wing predecessor, Rafael Correa.

Because the U.S. sent a low-level delegation headed by Samantha Power, the head of USAID, the U.S. delegation was not even announced from the podium and was not seated on the stage, and therefore, the crowd never got a chance to react to the guests from the U.S.

Quite symbolically, Spain sent its King—yes, Spain still has a King—instead of an elected official to represent the country at the inauguration. King Felipe VI would eventually be treated to a spectacle to which he reacted with great offense.

Gustavo Petro, the former M-19 guerrilla, was sworn in as President by the President of the Colombian Congress, Roy Barreras. And, to the great delight of the crowd, Petro was presented with the Presidential sash by María José Pizarro, the daughter of a former M-19 comrade who had been killed after being demobilized.

Petro then raised his fist in defiance to the crowd which reacted with resounding applause and with the chant, “No Mas Guerra!” (“No More War!”). Petro then swore in the new Vice-President and crowd favorite, Francia Márquez, an Afro-Colombian activist who started out as a domestic servant.

This was followed by a moving video presentation of photos taken by Colombia’s famous war photographer, Jesús Abad Colorado. The video was accompanied by the powerful singing of Afro-Colombian opera star, Betty Garces. By the end of the video presentation, there wasn’t a dry eye in the Plaza. The one notable part of the video which elicited happy applause from the audience was a photo of Manuel Marulanda, the founder of the FARC guerrillas.

After a speech by Roy Barreras, Gustavo Petro took to the microphone and did something never been done before—he called for the sword of the Liberator, Simón Bolívar, to be brought to the stage. Petro stated, “This is an order of the President and popular mandate.”

This was an incredibly symbolic gesture by Petro. First of all, this demand was made in spite of the opposition, and indeed in defiance, of the Colombian military which will certainly stand as a great obstacle to Petro’s attempt to transform Colombia.

In addition, Petro himself has a personal history with this very sword. Back in the day, he and his comrades in the M-19 guerrillas had stolen the sword from the National Museum as a symbolic protest of the Colombian government and military’s repression.

They stated back then that they would return the sword when Colombia was truly free and liberated. In the end, they returned it short of this when they signed a peace agreement with the government that allowed Petro to become the politician who would eventually be President. Now, Petro was calling for the sword back, demonstrating that liberation was now at hand.

And, after an unprecedented break in the proceedings to allow for Petro’s order to be carried out, four guardsmen in formal red attire were seen on the video screen outside the Plaza slowly carrying the glass case with the sword of Bolívar towards the proceedings.

The crowd cheered and then went wild as the sword was carried onto the stage and set in the center next to Petro. Everyone stood for this procession with the exception of King Felipe VI of Spain who remained seated to show his dismay at the sword, which had defeated Spain exactly 203 years before in the Independence Battle of Boyacá, being brought out as a symbol of this defeat. I can only speak for myself in saying that this was one of the most dramatic and moving political and historic events I have ever witnessed in my decades of travel.

Photo Courtesy of Dan Kovalik

Petro then gave his inauguration speech in which he set forth his ten-point plan for Colombia, and indeed for Latin America and the Caribbean. This plan, as he laid it out, is as follows:

1. Creating a true peace in Colombia and a new “Government of Life” to replace the current government of death;
2. Creating a “policy of care” for the elderly, children, people with disabilities and the most marginalized in society;
3. Creating a Ministry of Equality with Francia Márrquez as Minister to achieve gender parity in Colombia.
4. Dialoguing with everyone in Colombian society, “without exceptions or exclusions,” to unite the country and create a Great National Accord;
5. Governing the country by listening and being responsive to the Colombian people;
6. Defending Colombia from the violence which has haunted the nation for so many decades;
7. Fighting and having a “zero tolerance” for corruption;
8. Protecting the soil, subsoil, seas and rivers from environmental degradation and converting Colombia into a “world power of life.”
9. Developing national industry, the popular economy and the Colombian countryside while prioritizing peasant women, small entrepreneurs, farmers and artisans;
10. Complying with the Colombian Constitution, and especially Article 1, which states: “Colombia is a social State under the rule of law, organized as a unitary, decentralized Republic, with autonomy of its territorial entities, democratic, participatory and pluralistic, founded on respect for human dignity, on the work and solidarity of the people who make it up and on the prevalence of the general interest.”

I thought as I heard this plan being laid out how visionary this leader, Gustavo Petro, is as compared to the petty, divisive and mediocre politicians in my own country.

But I also thought how daunting this plan is; and how was it going to be carried out. Petro and Márquez will be opposed by the powerful Colombian military and it’s paramilitary allies, the entrenched right-wing political establishment and by the United States which fights tooth and nail to prevent Colombia–a NATO partner and the U.S.’s staunchest political and military ally in the region–from leaving its orbit of control.

Source: grid.org

Petro and Márquez need and deserve our solidarity to ensure that they will succeed.

And if they do, not only Colombia, but the entire Hemisphere will be transformed. The U.S.’s last beachhead will become an independent and liberated nation, united with its Latin American neighbors, just as Simón Bolívar had intended.

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Daniel Kovalik graduated from Columbia University School of Law in 1993. He then served as in-house counsel for the United Steelworkers, AFL-CIO (USW) until 2019. He has written extensively on the issue of international human rights and U.S. foreign policy for the Huffington Post and Counterpunch and has lectured throughout the world on these subjects. He is the author of several books including The Plot To Overthrow Venezuela, How The US Is Orchestrating a Coup for Oil, which includes a Foreword by Oliver Stone. Daniel can be reached at [email protected].

Featured image is from Dan Kovalik

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***

The world is inching closer to restoring a deal to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb. The US is examining the Iranian response to a ‘final’ accord tabled by the EU in the latest round of negotiation for the restoration of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (or JCPOA, as the deal between Iran, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Germany and the European Union is known). 

In mid-July, Kamal Kharrazi, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told Al Jazeera,

“In a few days we were able to enrich uranium up to 60% and we can easily produce 90% enriched uranium. … Iran has the technical means to produce a nuclear bomb but there has been no decision by Iran to build one.”

Uranium enriched at 90% is considered weapons-grade.

Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace recently told CNN that Iran does not want to build a nuclear bomb, but instead they want the capability to build one.  There’s a world of difference.

According to US intelligence agencies, US allies, and IAEA inspectors, by 2003 Iran had abandoned its military nuclear program.

In October 2003, Khamenei issued an oral fatwa, or religious edict, that forbade the production and using any form of weapon of mass destruction. Two years later, in August 2005, the fatwa was cited in an official statement by the Iranian government at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna.

“We do not need nuclear bombs. We have no intention of using a nuclear bomb,” Khamenei said in a November 2006 speech, according to a transcript from his office. “We do not claim to dominate the world, like the Americans, we do not want to dominate the world by force and need a nuclear bomb. Our nuclear bomb and explosive power is our faith.”

How many countries have nuclear bombs?

Nuclear weapons analysts estimate that the world’s nine nuclear states—China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—have around 13,000 nuclear warheads in total, according to the Arms Control Association.

Iran’s nuclear power station and compared to others

The Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant is the only nuclear power reactor in Iran, with a total of 42 199 million kilowatts of electricity generated from March 2011 to March 2020, which provided 1.84% of national electricity production in 2019.

According to Mohammad Eslami, the head of the Atom Energy Organization of Iran, the country has less than two percent of the global nuclear capacity but is subject to 25 percent of all inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Eslami feels that western powers use the threat of Iran’s nuclear program as a pretext to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear technology, which has nothing to do with atomic bombs but enables scientific achievements.

Currently, Iran does not possess weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and is a signatory to treaties repudiating the possession of WMDs including the Biological Weapons Convention, the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Benjamin Netanyahu at the UN

Israel views Iran as their enemy.  Iran is part of a global resistance movement against the occupation of Palestine.  The resistance movement, in its many forms, demands that the five million Palestinians, who are Christians and Muslims, be given their human rights and a homeland that guarantees their freedom and dignity.

In September 2012, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the UN General Assembly and used a hand-drawn caricature of a bomb to illustrate the threat of Iran developing a nuclear bomb.  His theatrical stunt was effective, and it got the attention of at least Donald Trump.

Why did Trump break the 2015 deal?

Iran reached its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which saw it receive economic sanctions relief while it drastically curtailed its nuclear program. Under the deal, Tehran could enrich uranium to 3.67%, while maintaining a stockpile of uranium of 300 kilograms (660 pounds) under the constant scrutiny of IAEA surveillance cameras and inspectors.

The 2015 deal was seen as an achievement of President Obama.  During the political campaign of Donald Trump in 2016, he promised he would break the Iran deal if elected to office.  Many of his campaign promises were directed at anti-Obama goals.

In 2018 Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord, saying he’d negotiate a stronger deal, but he never delivered on his promise.

Iran now enriches uranium up to 60% purity, which is a level it never reached before Trump broke the deal, and that is a short, technical step away from 90%, which is a level that can produce a bomb.

Trump broke the 2015 deal in 2018 to appease voters who were steadfast supporters of Israel.  While in office, Trump took more actions to support Israel than any previous US President.  Netanyahu urged Trump to break the deal, only to find that the Iranian nuclear program was greatly increased because of the break.

Who is the winner if a new deal is done?

China and India have remained loyal customers of Iranian crude, but if a new deal is signed, Iran’s crude oil production and exports could surge.

EU nations are still importing about 1.2 million barrels a day of Russian crude oil, which is two-thirds of the amount before the Ukrainian crisis.  In December, sanctions will stop that flow, and Iran is expected to fill that gap.

In 2016, Iran boosted its output to 3.8 million barrels a day within a year of restrictions being eased.  The onshore tanks stored huge volumes of crude oil and ships off Iran’s coast were quickly ready to sail as buyers placed orders.

According to Julian Lee, an oil strategist for Bloomberg First Word, and formerly a senior analyst at the Centre for Global Energy Studies, Iran may reach a new deal that will allow Iran to fill in the sanctioned Russian crude oil for European nations soon.

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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 fact that Daddy Dick was there, the dark eminence who soiled the Republic and inflated executive power with drugged glee, said it all.  This was the occasion of his daughter’s electoral defeat at the hands of another Republican, Harriet Hageman.  Neoconservative bumbler and part of an enterprise that loves war and cherishes the buccaneering free market, Liz Cheney was facing final judgment at the hands of voters in Wyoming for her belligerent position against Donald Trump.

Cheney had hoped to purge the GOP of Trumpist influence by simply reiterating her own toxic alternative, the very sort that did much to bring about the success of Trump in the first place.  All that mattered was reiterating her hatred of orange-haired ogre and his alleged role in the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.

This was a bit much given how she had done little by way of condemning Trump for any earlier misdeeds even as the GOP was being transformed.  As a matter of fact, her voting record for Trump’s proposals comes in at an astonishing, distinctly non-dissenting 93%.

Former Republican Rep. Justin Amash issued a strong rebuke last year regarding her newly fashioned image in the party.  She could hardly be seen as “some sort of hero”, having come to the anti-Trump show belatedly late.  She might have joined him in his earlier warnings that “the president’s approach could lead to things like violence, could lead to a lot of animosity and contempt and all sorts of things that would be harmful to our country.”

During her time in Congress, Cheney also showed hostility to raising the minimum wage, voted against the Equality Act and the Equal Rights Amendment, the Voting Rights Act, the George Floyd Act and the Build Back Better and Infrastructure bills.  And that’s just a modest sampling.

Cheney’s position as vice chair on the January 6 committee was purely decorative.  In getting her on board, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could leave an impression that the investigation into the former president was somehow bipartisan, bringing in both Democrats and the GOP.  In the meantime, Cheney could play the principled constitutional defender, enraging members of the party that never forgave her.

In losing her voter base, Cheney seemed to have won, inexplicably, a few admirers.  Former US Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, hoped she would not “disappear from public life.”  She had “displayed more courage and integrity than almost any other member of her party – indeed, given the pressure she was under, perhaps more than any lawmaker now alive.”

It is worth noting that Trump, for all his monstrous defects and vandalising tendencies, never took his country into an illegal war nor endorsed a massive, illegal warrantless surveillance program of citizens.  For all his Caesar-like pretensions, he was not an adventurist in the way President George W. Bush was, nor committedly Machiavellian in the manner of Dick Cheney.  Besides stealing the 2000 election, a point virtually no one sober enough after the fact amongst Democrats and Republican strategists can deny, Bush went on to destabilise and crater the Middle East and give a very complete account about how dismal the neoconservative cabal could be.

In due course, the neocons, with the Cheney mindset running the show, converted the US government into a forward base for forced democratisation even as they were destroying democracy – or an impression of it – at home.  (A plantation, property-minded republic with a constitution to match was never intended as a democracy.)  It made Dick Cheney’s plea for his daughter’s re-election darkly laughable.  “In our nation’s 246-year history,” went the campaign ad fronted by Father Dick, “there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.”

Daughter Liz is hoping for bigger, more ruinous things.  In her graceless non-concession speech, she promised that “our work is far from over”.  This project, she suggested, lay in the battle against “the conspiracy and the lies” regarding the 2020 elections.  She promised to “do whatever it takes” to deny any pathway for Trump’s return to the White House.

This immediately had commentators jotting down options.  Did that mean that Cheney would have a stab at the office herself?  (She subsequently revealed on NBC’s Today that she was toying with the idea.)  Any primary run against Trump would seem positively quixotic, though she did allude, irrelevantly, to one of the Republic’s most remarkable and devious minds as a source of inspiration.  “Abraham Lincoln was defeated in elections for the Senate and the House before he won the most important election of all.”

Nothing proved sacred to Cheney, who also mentioned Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, “That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.  That this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and a government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.”  Pity those last words seemed to have been ignored by her family.

In her dig through Civil War history, not even Ulysses S. Grant was spared.  The Union General, instead of heading back to the safety of Washington, decided to head to Richmond “and the heart of Lee’s army.  Refusing to retreat, he pressed on to victory.”

Bringing the spirits of Lincoln and Grant into play, along with the nonsense of the US being “the best hope of freedom on earth”, was in spectacularly poor taste.  The Cheney family has made a truly corking effort in shredding the Republic Lincoln tried saving.  Along the way, they managed to lose a constituency.  There was never much in the way of principle here – except the one that only ever matters for the Cheneys: power, and how to possess it.

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

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***

All that the latest development will do is exacerbate the growing generational divide within the country, turn more people against the “official narrative”, and further worsen the socio-political (soft security) situation. Considering this, there’s no doubt that the destabilization of Pakistan is being driven by those same political forces tasked with protecting it, not their opponents.

The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) decreed on Saturday that former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s speeches can no longer be broadcast live on satellite TV channels throughout the country. The supposed basis behind this dramatic decision is that he “is continuously alleging state institutions by leveling baseless allegations and spreading hate speech through his provocative statements against state institutions and officers which is prejudicial to the maintenance of law and order and is likely to disturb public peace and tranquility.”

This move was made immediately after the country’s former leader, who was deposed by a US-orchestrated but domestically driven post-modern coup in early April as punishment for his independent foreign policy (particularly its Eurasian dimensions), announced that he’d be filing court cases against the IG and DIG of the Islamabad Police as well as Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Zeba Chaudhry for what he claimed was their complicity in the alleged torture of his close associate Shahbaz Gill.

Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah claimed in response that this supposedly constituted a “threat” against state officials even though it was simply the public declaration of an intended court case that hasn’t yet been ruled upon. Most societies in the world, especially those that insist on being “democratic” like Pakistan’s post-modern coup authorities have argued that theirs has since become after allegedly defeating the so-called “fascism” that they accused the former premier of promoting, would never interpret such a declaration as a “threat” against anyone.

The very fact that Sanaullah’s claims resonated with PEMRA and in turn inspired them to decree that “the recorded speeches of the former PM would only be permitted to be aired after effective delay mechanism is put in place in order to ensure effective monitoring and editorial control in conformity with Pemra laws” contradicts his government’s own narrative about contemporary Pakistani society. In truth, this development actually extends credence to the one connected with former Prime Minister Khan and his supporters, who insist that their society has become fascist after the regime change.

Another point to be made is that the imported government, as the ousted leader and his supporters have taken to calling it, is more desperate than ever to stop the only truly national party in the country. PTI’s landslide victory in last month’s Punjab by-elections on the ruling PMLN’s own home turf proved that “The Power Of The Pakistani People Will Defeat Their Unpopular Imported Government”, which in turn prompted the authorities to censor ARY News and then arrest Gill on similar national security pretexts in a desperate bid to intimidate the population into accepting their subservience to the US.

Furthermore, the decision to no longer allow the live broadcast on satellite TV channels of former Prime Minister Khan’s speeches also confirms the generational divide between the post-modern coup authorities and the people in whose name they unpopularly rule. This South Asian state is mostly comprised of young people nowadays who get most of their information through online sources so it’s possible that some of them could simply livestream their former leader’s speeches through social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in order to get around this latest decree.

It’s clear that the post-modern coup authorities are so scared of the PTI chief that they’ve taken to twisting his public intent to file a court case against some of them as a supposed national security threat, which corresponds to the same basis upon which they censored ARY News and arrested Gill. The newfound focus on national security to justify their crackdown against PTI and those who sympathize with its narrative of events that challenges the “official” one also adds credence to claims that Pakistan is presently in a state of post-modern martial law.

The innuendo is that the former Prime Minister, his party, and those who support them all constitute grave national security threats that must be proactively thwarted by the post-modern coup authorities who are relying on the security forces to impose their self-interested political will upon the population. To be absolutely clear, those same forces and the structures that they represent are simply following the constitutional chain of command in carrying out their orders. The problem isn’t with them, but their elite echelons who are going along with this anti-democratic and fascist crackdown on society.

The tragic irony is that those victims of this witch hunt are extremely passionate about their patriotism, would never by any stretch of the imagination ever countenance carrying out any genuinely anti-state activity, and sincerely want to comprehensively improve everything about their beloved country after being convinced that it’s been pushed down a dangerous path by shadowy forces over the past four months. Neither Prime Minister Khan, PTI, their supporters, nor those who simply don’t ascribe to the “official narrative” of events since then objectively constitute bonafide national security threats.

The exploitation of national security pretexts for justifying the increasingly intensifying post-modern martial law in Pakistan speaks to how desperate those who carried out the post-modern coup have become in recent weeks. All that the latest development will do is exacerbate the growing generational divide within the country, turn more people against the “official narrative”, and further worsen the socio-political (soft security) situation. Considering this, there’s no doubt that the destabilization of Pakistan is being driven by those same political forces tasked with protecting it, not their opponents.

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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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***

In late April 2022, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas publicly revealed at a press conference the existence of a government Propaganda Department, euphemistically called the “Disinformation Governance Board” (DGB). Its mission is to suppress all viewpoints that disagree with what the government pronounces as correct. In other words, there will henceforth be a “party line” and those who oppose or even simply do not follow the party line can be punished.

It should seem obvious to even the room-temperature IQ people promoting this propaganda board that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution flatly prohibits the government from creating and running any disinformation governance board. Anyone in the government who has promoted this idea should be promptly thrown out of office and personally sued for violating the constitutional rights of American citizens.

A Boot in Your Face

James Howard Kunstler, in his recent article “’Disinformation’ is Just a Boot in Your Face,” noted that, “Now we have the Disinformation Governance Board to be run by a TikTok musical comedy star, Nina Jankowicz, an instant laughingstock, since retailing disinformation has been her main occupation in the scant years she’s been on the Deep State scene. Ms. Jankowicz is a notorious RussiaGate hoaxer and psy-op agent in the October 2020 emergence of Hunter Biden’s laptop. She has zero credibility as anything but a professional falsifier. Her Disinfo Governance Board has no authority to regulate anything. It’s just a lame charade that can only draw more attention to the Left’s hatred of truth and reality. The Left pretends that free speech is a threat to civilization because, as usual, they are projecting psychologically. Their world is a mirror. In fact, the Left is a threat to civilization.”

Yet, just three weeks after the announcement of its existence, and in the face of mounting opposition, the Biden Regime has announced that the DGB has been “paused.” By the time you read this, the DGB may even have been eliminated. I think that this trial balloon of Totalitarianism has been popped.

Of course, such an establishment rag as The Washington Post has claimed that Nina Jankowicz and the DGB have been unfairly maligned by “coordinated online attacks,” and that the Board would have no power to suppress speech. Right. Anyone who knows anything about government and its innate habit of “regulatory creep” or “mission creep” will recognize that even if that were true, it would certainly not remain true for long since the Board’s power and influence would quickly grow over time, and probably sooner rather than later.

Still, the situation is fluid. The Washington Free Beacon has reported that “The Biden administration is calling in backup to bail out its Disinformation Governance Board just days after a disastrous launch. Their ringer is a former government official who blamed Russia for the Hunter Biden laptop story.” So, the DGB could well be revived under the direction of another stooge.

NHF supporter and well-known financial advisor Catherine Austin Fitts puts another piece into the jigsaw puzzle of our probable future with her warning that the government most likely plans to marry the DGB’s pronouncements of what is truth and what is untruth with its current powers of asset forfeiture. In other words, any citizen spreading “disinformation” could have his or her assets seized by the government. Talk about what an Orwellian nightmare future that would be!

She was also one of few to correctly predict that our World would split into two, with two distinct realities. We have witnessed just this over the past few years with one part of society being awake and aware of, and consciously searching and creating solutions for free living, in stark contrast to the mainstream-media-programmed and programmable obeying half of propaganda subjects who are not yet aware where they are heading with their injections, chips, and digits on the screen. I believe that the former half is growing and will prevail despite all these mindless government attempts to control and subjugate its people.

My own take on this musical-chair change is that the Biden Regime realized that even amongst its team of silly circus performers Nina Jankowicz was a total disaster and could not stay as head of the DGB. Regardless, whether this new sprouting branch of the Disinformation Industry stays or not, the actual Disinformation Industry – run by the Intelligence agencies – will continue and maintain its Information Dominance until we are able to eliminate it entirely.

Novelist George Orwell Predicted This

George Orwell lived a short life and died in 1950, but not before he had written a number of books that are still in print today – 1984, Animal Farm, and The Road to Wigan Pier – as well as numerous articles and given a few rare interviews. He is often cited as one of the most prescient writers around, having predicted (1) governments’ constant surveillance of their populations, (2) never-ending war, (3) language manipulation, or “Newspeak” as he put it, and (4) a return to Roman-style “bread and circuses” to distract the lower classes. The current U.S. Disinformation Governance Board is a “Ministry of Truth” travesty plucked straight out of the pages of Orwell’s novel 1984. It almost gives the impression that our government is following his writings to the letter, and it is shocking to realize how easily it could pull off the next string of restrictions and impose controls over us.

Sadly, all of George Orwell’s “predictions” listed here have come true.

We already suffer under a high-tech censorship of any contrarian views, replete with so-called “fact-checkers” who suppress the truth about COVID-19, vaccination dangers, voter and electoral fraud, surveillance by intelligence agencies of ordinary citizens, and so much more. Just look at how popular opinions such as those of Dr. Joseph Mercola, President Trump, Del Bigtree, and many others have been shut out of Twitter and other social-media platforms. Consider, too, how Wikipedia routinely and comprehensively twists or entirely eliminates truthful entries in its so-called “People’s Dictionary” so as to support the mainstream propaganda efforts. NHF has been an ongoing target of Wikipedia’s brainwashing and I have written and spoken about this many times. Redefine words, as Wikipedia does, and people will soon enough forget that there was ever another, accurate definition of those words. Government will tell you what is right or wrong, true or false.

This Disinformation Governance Board is only the latest massive assault against our liberties. If the government can start telling us what we should think is “true” and what is “false” and then couple that with criminal charges leading to fines, asset seizures, and even imprisonment, then the United States and any other country with a similar Ministry of Truth are nothing other than totalitarian regimes.

The Higher the Monkey Climbs

Unfortunately, over the decades as government “Newspeak” has confusingly conflated “Democracy” with “Liberty,” people have begun to react with a Pavlovian response to any use of the word “Democracy,” completely forgetting, or not even knowing, that democracies with their mob rule can be just as totalitarian as an absolute monarchy or oligarchy!

For liberty to exist, there must be protection of individual liberties. Without the absolute protection of individual human rights, people in democracies are only voting for their jailers. To me, the word “Democracy” is no more synonymous with “Liberty” than are the words Fascism, Communism, Socialism, or any other failed system of tyrannical government that anoints itself as a God on Earth.

U.S. World War II General Joseph Stilwell once quipped that “the higher the monkey climbs, the more you see of its behind.” We are living witnesses to the truth of his remark as the democracies that we live in increasingly reveal their ugly sides as they climb the tree of power. And, unless we unite together to decisively fight this continuing climb into totalitarianism, our freedoms will soon be gone. It is up to all of us to commit to this fight. It is far too easy for us to think that someone else will save the day, and the government’s own disinformation efforts encourage this kind of thinking with false reports that “action is being taken” or “help is just around the corner.” No, the only help will be if we ourselves act, and act together. For those who are not yet members of NHF, I urge you to join us.

The Future of Government Propaganda

The 1836 Texas Declaration of Independence stated, among other things, that “unless a People are educated and enlightened, it is idle to expect the continuance of civil liberty, or the capacity for self-government.” The decades-long takeover of our public schools and universities by totalitarian thinking has tragically resulted in an army of well-indoctrinated but ignorant young totalitarians who look to a God-like government for every solution to every perceived slight and problem. So, as our personal liberties flicker on the edge of extinction, it is up to us to stop and reverse this trend.

One thing you can count on is that whether the Biden Regime pulls the plug or not on its Disinformation Governance Board, a similar but renamed propaganda board or entity will re-appear. It may have a different name with different faces, but it will appear again. The Totalitarians will not stop their efforts to control us, completely and forever.

The National Health Federation promises you that no matter what shape or form this Ministry of Truth takes, the NHF will act decisively against it and continue spreading the uncensored truth. We have no choice. Our backs are to the Wall. There is no more room for retreat.

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***

The other day I received a link to this video, an appeal on behalf of an Irish General Practitioner, Dr. William Ralph, who is currently under investigation by the Medical Council of Ireland.  I learned of Dr. Ralph’s plight through his niece, Dr. Karen McDonnell, a psychiatrist who is on the verge of losing her job in New Zealand (where, incidentally there is a tremendous dearth of psychiatrists) because she refuses to receive a third Pfizer inoculation, thanks to New Zealand’s ill-considered and scientifically unfounded inoculation mandates for health practitioners.

Dr. Ralph apparently had the temerity to be a good and decent GP, one who urged caution in the face of the relentless push to jab everyone in sight for an illness which, untreated, had low lethality and which, if treated, had virtually none. He respected his patients’ wishes to make their own decisions about medical interventions, he provided them with informed consent not only about the COVID inoculations but also about the consequences of the non-pharmacotherapeutic ‘health’ measures imposed, such as masking and social isolation, and he made home visits to those who did not have the wherewithal to travel for help. He provided those patients suffering from COVID with actual care, in opposition to the mystifying governmental health directives that provided none until a patient was so ill as to require hospitalization, at which point the measures then offered were detrimental if not dangerous.  As a result his practice, from 2020 through 2022, grew by approximately a thousand new patients.

To any thinking physician there is no mystery that people would flock to a doctor who honored his profession by adherence to very basic medical tenets:

1) not to harm

2) to respect the complexity of an individual’s medical needs and rights

3) to mitigate illness and prevent hospitalization by using effective medications and supplements

4) to engage in healthful activities such as exercise, nutrition, and

5) to foster ongoing connection with family and friends in a time of crisis

For these ‘sins’ Dr. Ralph is now under scrutiny by the Medical Council of Ireland, the organizational body charged with upholding medical standards and protection of the public weal, and his license to practice is in jeopardy.

Unfortunately Dr. Ralph is not alone.

Here in New Zealand a plethora of like-minded physicians have been hounded and persecuted by our Medical Council for these very same issues. Licenses have been suspended and revoked and virtually every physician who has dared to question directives that have mandated inoculations and actively suppressed  attempts to treat people who had contracted COVID has come under attack.

But we are fighting back.

I obtained my medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1986 (and at the same time I was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society). The education I received there was an education in critical thinking and clinical wisdom. Drugs and procedures come and go with the times, but the ability of a physician to glean from the complexities of a presenting illness and its effect on a patient a mode of healing, using knowledge and experience and respecting a patient’s uniqueness, is the hallmark of good medical practice.

Since 2020 this kind of medical practice, this kind of sensible and ethical medical approach, has been subverted and wholly undermined.  Honest medical councils that should have encouraged and honored the likes of Dr. Ralph have instead betrayed the profession whose ideals they claim to uphold.

Why?

An answer may lie in Texas, of all places, where the headquarters of two little known but connected organizations sit: the Federation of State Medical Boards and the International Association of Medical Regulatory Authorities, which share the very same address near Dallas: 400 Fuller Wiser Road, Euless, TX 70039.

Coincidence?

The Chair-Elect of the IAMRA, Joan Simeon, just happens to be the CEO of the Medical Council of New Zealand, and the Secretary of the IAMRA, Dr. Humayun Chaudhry, just happens to be the President and CEO of the FSMB.  The Medical Councils of Ireland and New Zealand are members of the IAMRA.

Recently Dr. Richard Amerling, Associate Medical Director of America’s Frontline Doctors, responded to a statement from the FSMB alleging that providing ‘misinformation’ about the COVID jab should result in disciplinary action against physicians. Dr. Amerling wrote that “Decertification for speaking out in favor of early outpatient treatment of COVID-19, or calling into question the monolithic vaccine narrative, is a gross abuse of authority and will generate a strong legal response.”

The outstanding question remains: Where does the FSMB derive its authority to regulate United States medical boards and, through its apparent international partner, the IAMRA, direct medical councils around the world to discipline doctors?

The FSMB is not a government agency. Founded in 1912, it appears to be a private entity that has accrued its power in ways that are essentially unknown. It is high time for a bona fide investigation of this agency, an investigation into its finances, its corporate status and its paymasters. In many ways it is akin to another non-govermental agency that has wielded immense power and was founded in 1913: the Federal Reserve.

In 59 BC, were a Roman peasant to voice concerns about the alliance of Caesar, Crassus and Pompey to create a hegemonic rule over the Republic, he would not have been considered a ‘conspiracy theorist’; he would instead have been describing generally accepted reality.

In casting an eye over the years since the dramatic introduction of the COVID pandemic, the near total shutdown of the world, the immense transfer of wealth from the middle and poorer classes upwards, the  universal imposition of an inadequately tested so-called vaccine, and the vehement suppression of critical early treatment, one cannot but conclude that there is indeed an agenda beyond health and welfare.  The FSMB and the IAMRA have shown by their actions that they are tools whose task is to further this agenda, and that this agenda is both anti-medical and inhumane.

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Dr. Garcia is a Philadelphia-born psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand in 2006. He has authored articles ranging from explorations of psychoanalytic technique, the psychology of creativity in music (Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Delius), and politics. He is also a poet, novelist and theatrical director. He retired from psychiatric practice in 2021 after working in the public sector in New Zealand.

Featured image is from Alliance for Natural Health

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Lawyers representing America’s service members are beginning to produce victories defending the U.S. Armed Forces against forced compliance with biomedical gene therapy experiments, and suddenly, nobody in the Pentagon wants to take accountability for their legally dubious mRNA injection order.

It all began on August 24, 2021, when Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued a memo mandating mRNA “vaccination” for the active military, but with the stipulation that this mandate only applied to fully licensed products. This was because, as The Dossier understands, it is illegal to force service members to take an EUA vaccine.

Sec Def Lloyd Austin memo

The Sec Austin memo and the guidance that followed created an issue, because, as The Dossier readers are well aware of by now, the FDA licensed versions of the mRNA shots never actually made it to market, rendering the initial vaccine mandate useless.

This is where the infamous September 14, 2021 memo comes into play.

Dr Terry Adirim, the woman who signed the memo, is a devoted democrat political activist and, as a medical doctor, advocates for “gender-affirming prescriptions” for “transgender” children. At the time, she was the acting assistant secretary of defense for health affairs (under a Biden political appointment). Adirim’s memo attempted to justify mandating EUA shots as if they were FDA approved.

Terry Adirim Twitter profile

Dr Adirim’s deceptive memo described the EUA and FDA licensed vaccines as “interchangeable,” adding that the Defense Department can “use doses distributed under the EUA to administer the vaccination series as if the doses were the licensed vaccine.” Adirim failed to note that the EUA vaccines were only administratively interchangeable, but not *legally* interchangeable, as made clear by the FDA. This should have rendered any mandate unenforceable.

In other documents and statements, she routinely made claims that FDA licensed vaccines were available to troops, when that was not in fact the case.

@DeptofDefense @SecDef @US_FDA Terry Adirim has made multiple claims that the DOD has licensed vaccines. CDC as of May 24 says they're ONLY orderable. A lot of separations from commanders issuing unlawful orders. Approved not available. A lot of insubordinate activity to me. pic.twitter.com/egqEgEmghn

— JanineG385 (@JanineG385) June 2, 2022

Following the mRNA injection order, untold thousands of service members were coerced — under threat of both administrative and criminal action — to take a “vaccine” that they wanted no part of. Unsurprisingly, this mandatory novel gene therapy injection has harmed combat readiness and produced widespread, serious, long term injuries throughout the armed forces.

As the CDC relaxes its COVID guidance, just reminding people of this report from 30 days ago…

US Military Might Lose $4 Billion Due To Pentagon’s COVID Vaccine Mandate, According To @RepMattGaetz https://t.co/NCleDiHe9x via @dailycaller

— Kristina Wong 🇺🇸 (@kristina_wong) August 15, 2022

The Pentagon’s unlawful order is being challenged in court by lawyers representing all branches of the military. On Thursday, the Marine Corps became the latest service branch granted a class wide injunction against the mandate.

Marines win classwide injunction against vaccine mandate discrimination! https://t.co/zVc6WLIlaZ

— Robert Barnes (@barnes_law) August 19, 2022

Since leaving the Pentagon, Adirim has sought to distance herself from the letter, claiming that “crazy” attempts to hold her accountable are misguided, because it was “The Secretary” (Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin) who “directed vaccinations.” Neither Austin nor the Pentagon has confirmed that the Secretary of Defense ordered Adirim to sign off on the unlawful mandate.

Adirim remains in government as the program executive director of the VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration Office. As a government official, both she and the Secretary of Defense are easily accessible to testify via a congressional subpoena, should congress want to investigate their controversial memos. As Adirim’s memo has come under scrutiny, she has decided to lock her social media accounts.

Who, if anyone, will be held accountable?

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Featured image: Pfc. Shaniah Edwards, Medical Detachment, prepares to administer the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to soldiers and airmen at the Joint Force Headquarters, February 12, 2021. (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Sgt. Leona C. Hendrickson – Source.)

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This article was previously published November 15, 2020, and has been updated with new information.

There’s an entire school of research within public health on how to frighten people, known as “fear appeal”

Fear appeal is based on the premise that to successfully implement a public health measure, you must first highlight a threat. And, to work, the threat must be made personal, so that people fear for their personal safety

Next, you give people something immediate to do that will set them on the path of cooperating with the plan in its entirety. Examples during the COVID-19 pandemic included not leaving your house, wearing a mask, staying 6 feet apart, closing certain businesses and keeping children home from school

By adding confusion to the mix, you can bring an individual from fear to anxiety — a state of confusion in which you can no longer think logically. In this state, you are more easily manipulated

Eventually, when the fear and anxiety are great enough, desperation sets in, at which point people are willing to do just about anything to get relief

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Dr. Peter Breggin, a psychiatrist, has written more than a dozen best-selling books on psychiatry and the drug industry. He’s frequently referred to as “the conscience of psychiatry” because he was able to successfully reform the psychiatric profession, abolishing lobotomies and other harmful experimental psychosurgeries.

During the pandemic, he homed in on COVID-19 and the fears around it, which is the topic of this interview. He also started researching the history of Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has been the face of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, and learned more than he bargained for in the process.

“He just looked like this kindly gentleman, until I started to listen to what he was saying and to look into what he was doing,” Breggin says. “In early April, [my wife] Ginger brought this scientific article to me and said, ‘Honey, this looks like it’s impossible, it’s fake or something.’

It was a 2015 article by a big team from North Carolina [led by] Ralph Baric,¹ He’s the final author on it and the power behind it, although the lead author is Vineet D. Menachery.² This article is talking about making a coronavirus that’s going to be a new epidemic agent. They’re talking about it. They’ve actually accomplished it — and it’s a SARS coronavirus.

It’s a virus that will infect the lungs that comes from bats … And they’re checking it out and they find that it will infect human lung epithelium. They give it to mice and the older mice are getting very sick and ones that are compromised die.

And then I look who’s funding it. Well, China is funding it. And Fauci is funding it from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. I’m thinking to myself, ‘My God, we’re giving the Chinese a biomedical weapon’ … [The two Chinese authors] turn out to be two of the very, very top Chinese people in this, what is essentially a military lab. The Wuhan Institute, nothing like that is anything but military in China.”

What Is Fauci’s Role in the Bio-Assault on the World?

Breggin claims he was able to share the information with someone close to President Trump, and three days after sharing this finding, the president canceled the U.S.-Chinese research collaboration that was working on coronavirus gain-of-function research.

However, Fauci quickly took hold of the American research efforts and in October 2020 injected additional funding. Some of that funding will surely still end up in China, Breggin says, by way of the EcoHealth Alliance, which for years has subcontracted research work to the Wuhan Institute. Fauci also gave additional money to the University of Texas. Breggin explains:

“In Galveston, there is a Level 4 biosafety lab that can work with the most dangerous viruses. So, I decided to look into this. It’s not great magic to it, you have to use some search engines like DuckDuckGo. I [searched for] ‘China’ and ‘the Galveston Institute,’ and I got … a press release … bragging about their relationships with the Wuhan Institute, working on viruses.

So, no wonder he’s sending them money. I start digging deeper and I come across a letter from the education department to the University of Texas, saying they’ve not been forthcoming about their connections to China and the Communist Party (CCP), and in particular from the institute in Galveston.

So, I’m looking at this network of connections with China. They list them all. We have a blog out about that too now. And I realized there’s nothing stopping Fauci. Absolutely nothing is stopping him. He is going to carry on his assault on the world. And Fauci knew that the Wuhan Institute was unsafe.”

Breggin delves into some of the backstory that helps explain what’s been happening. In 2014, then-President Obama called for a moratorium on gain-of-function research [making harmless viruses virulent] in the U.S. He did not, however, mention collaborations with the CCP. To get around Obama’s moratorium, Fauci outsourced the gain-of-function research to the Wuhan Institute.

Indeed, a series of email exchanges between Jinping Chen of Guangdong Entomological Institute — who was working in collaboration with EcoHealth Alliance — surfaced after Judicial Watch successfully sued for records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in July 2021.³ In those emails, Dr. James LeDuc, head of the NIH-funded biosecurity lab at the University of Texas in Galveston, was outed:

“Leduc told Chen that he had been working on an initiative to ‘form long-term scientific and technical collaborations with the new BSL4 laboratory’ in Wuhan, under the direction of Dr. Yuan Zhiming, with whom Leduc had met “repeatedly,” Judicial Watch reports. And, Leduc adds, ‘we are already attempting to build the kind of partnership [with the Wuhan Institute of Virology] that I think is envisioned under the GHSA [Global Health Security Agenda].'”

Seeing that the same Judicial Watch report shows that Fauci’s National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases funded 490 out of 2,221 grants awarded to Chinese Collaborators between 2010 and 2018, based on the evidence, Fauci appears to play an important role in the global takeover by technocrats.

Technocracy is an economic system in which the world is ruled not by democratically elected politicians but by technocrats — a conglomerate of ultra-wealthy elites, scientists and technicians whose aim is to rule the global population and the allocation of resources through the use of technology.

Fear Is the Tool of Tyrants

Breggin was asked to be the medical legal expert in a lawsuit to put a stop to the never-ending emergency edict by the governor of Ohio. In his medical legal brief,⁴ Breggin detailed why shutdowns aren’t working, and the harm they inflict on the population.

This lawsuit has also stirred up other anti-lockdown projects around the U.S. You can find more information about all of this on Breggin.com. It’s important to recognize that the primary tool that enables local and state leaders to implement unconstitutional mandates such as universal mask wearing, business shut-downs and draconian stay-at-home orders is fear.

Unless people are terrified, they won’t agree to such freedom-robbing edicts. This is a well-known fact, and as noted by Breggin, there’s an entire school of research within public health on how to frighten people, known as “fear appeal.”

“What an odd name: Fear appeal. It’s a euphemism for scaring people to death. That’s how you ‘appeal’ to them. And it’s a very long standing [field of research].

The particular article [Ginger and I] studied together made several points. It said, first, you have to not only create something or have something that people are afraid of in order to get your public health measures imposed, but you have to make it personal to them, you have to make them afraid personally.

Then you have to give them something immediate to do to begin cooperating with the plans that you have. We have many examples of that. Things to immediately do [are]: Don’t leave the house; wear a mask; stay 6 feet apart; start closing down businesses and so on. Don’t let your kids go to school and on and on …

That got me into looking more deeply at the whole question of public health. And public health, sad to say, is essentially a totalitarian model. It does not raise issues of collateral damage, it doesn’t raise issues of the Bill of Rights, the constitution, of liberty, the right to people to die with their boots on, the American tradition of individuals and their own communities making decisions.

There is no such concept. It starts with the assumption that what public health officials think is true and must be applied regardless of the context. And we see this with this globalism.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re working in Africa or in Communist China, North Vietnam or America, these are the principles, they’re about politics above everything. It’s quite astounding. So, [public health] became something that was perfectly usable by the most extreme totalitarianism …

At the top is extraordinarily wealthy and powerful people and organizations. I see it as a kind of a cooperative but competing group that welcomed Communist China, which shows how little these people — like Fauci and the World Bank and our governments in the Western world — worry about anything except wealth and power.

Once they invited Communist China into this circle, China became a big, big player along these world predators and let each other be. Until Trump came along, no major figure stood up and said, ‘No, no, we’re going to go back to the [way things were].'”

The Psychology of Learned Helplessness

Fear is undoubtedly one of the most powerful motivating emotions for individuals, and the single most powerful intervention capable of controlling an entire population. It’s certainly hard to miss that fear has been used to control the masses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Governments now have access to incredibly sophisticated technologies, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, which is being used for all it’s worth to push this fear propaganda. The end goal is to push us into a state of helplessness, so that they can come in and “rescue” us. For decades, Breggin has studied learned helplessness and its remedies.

“When we’re born, we’re fundamentally helpless. All we can do to be taken care of is to express pain, we can cry, we can wiggle, we can express suffering. But we have no ability to take control of the environment other than by hopefully attracting our caregivers that cuddle us or look for a thorn in the side or whatever.

And that remains an aspect of humanity. That never leaves us. All of us can at some point be made to feel helpless again. And when we feel helpless, we become like the infant. We feel we have to be saved, basically. We look to other people, we look to drugs, alcohol, we look to authoritarian religions, we look to leaders of all kinds.”

From Fear to Anxiety to Desperation

As explained by Breggin, by adding confusion to the mix, you can bring an individual from fear to anxiety, a state of confusion in which you cannot think straight anymore. One of the characteristics of a panic attack or an anxiety attack is the loss of the ability to think. You become helpless and confused. Eventually, desperation sets in, at which point people are willing to do just about anything to get relief.

“So this, folks, is a web of fear,” Breggin says. “It’s all about scaring us, confusing us, making us helpless. I recently wrote a chapter that I may or may not put it in the book about my 85 years of looking at fear, because I was alive during World War II. I went down to the beach when I was 4 or 5 years old and would find remnants of our sailors’ life rafts where they sunk right off the water’s edge.

We were afraid of bombs called blockbusters, we hid under the tables and chairs and whatever we could find in school desks for fear of blockbusters. I went through the horrors of the polio [epidemic]. My closest friend died of polio two days after I was wrestling with him. I know fear, I know epidemics … the Vietnam War … 9/11.

And never until Fauci … have I seen leaders say ‘Be afraid.’ I couldn’t believe it when they found a comment made in private by Trump that he wanted to reassure and not scare the people. That was his supposed villainousness — not wanting to scare people.

That’s what Roosevelt did, that’s what every single person has done in great moments of crisis — they have said ‘Let us not be afraid,’ because we all know that a country that is unafraid and is doing as much of its normal activity as possible, is the strongest possible country.

That’s an actual public health principle — that we function best when we are living a normal life, unafraid, and we have ideals and goals like American liberty and freedom to strive for.”

The Biology of Fear

So, just what happens in your body when you experience fear? Importantly, it “quite literally scrambles our brains,” Breggin says. The good news is you have the power to control your mind and to calm down. The bad news is you don’t think you have any control over your mind.

“Anxiety overwhelms us, it makes us stupid, it makes us desperately want somebody to take over. But what we need is somebody who says you don’t have anything to fear, the anxiety won’t kill you; [someone who] will calm you down and tell you everything’s going to be fine, you don’t have to be helpless.

But we are getting the exact opposite message from Biden and Fauci … The pharmaceutical industry and the very wealthy need this fear because they’re making a fortune on this fear … getting all their drugs and vaccines ready.”

The Antidotes to Corruption Are Reason, Love and Liberty

Realizing the depth of the scientific corruption was part of why Breggin and his wife, Ginger, decided to take on this whole new field of investigation.

“We knew we had the research expertise and the scientific expertise. And I’ve got so many published books and scientific articles that I don’t think anybody can doubt I’m a researcher and a scientist,” he says.

“It was so mind-blowing to see the degree of corruption. I actually imagined standing in front of God, explaining why I didn’t do anything. That didn’t fly very well. I think the best antidote to looking at all this corruption is, first of all, to know this world has always been a corrupt place …

So, we need to learn to keep our own free will intact, and to love. We need reason and love. We can reason, we can love and respect the liberty of other people. Those are my three key words in life: Reason, love and liberty … You want to overcome your helplessness, [and you] do that with reason.”

What’s at Stake

Educating and supporting others are other strategies that can be helpful. Investigate things for yourself, and then share what you’ve learned with others. The way out of helplessness is to be of service to others, to contribute in some way. As noted by Breggin:

“We need to buckle up at this point and really see ourselves as an example of succeeding in the face of all this, and to spread it however far and wide we can … We weren’t promised an easy life.

There’s just no place that I know of that is a mammoth promise of an easy life. Life is difficult. Right now, I think the single most important thing is not the virus, it’s saving freedom in America.

One of the things I want to say to the progressive folks — and for a good chunk of my life, I was a very strong progressive — most of you are idealists, most of you would like to see the improvement of mankind. But that is not what’s going on in the world right now …

It is not about being a conservative, it is not about being a progressive. We are dealing with international predators that are just as happy to work with Iran, or North Korea, or North Vietnam or China. They are only interested in wealth and power. They have no real deep commitment to progressivism or capitalism. And … they haven’t got the slightest interest in free enterprise. Bill Gates is not a figure of free enterprise.

You got to get this straight. These people are not for liberty. This entire powerful international movement that I’m calling predatory globalists are motivated by wealth and power. They have reached the pinnacles of power, which are always corrupting.

Bill Gates has three people on his board of trustees: Himself, his wife and Warren Buffett — the No. 2 and No. 4 wealthiest people in the world. This is power beyond imagination. They are not wedded to anything except power and wealth. Wealth is a way to [power] and they’re using technocrats to do this.”

More Information

I agree with Breggin that the most important thing right now is to recognize that what we’re facing is an acute challenge to our society, our culture, that must be faced head-on. We need to aid our fellow human beings as best as we can with information, knowledge, that the conventional mainstream media is not telling them.

In fact, mainstream media are a significant part of the problem, because they’re being used as a tool to implement the technocrats’ agenda. For this reason, it has become imperative to seek out other channels of information, most of which are becoming progressively more censored and harder to find.

To stay on top of Breggin’s investigations, be sure to sign up for newsletter alerts on his website, breggin.com. He also has a radio and TV show that airs once a week. On his website, you’ll also find links to Breggin’s report⁵ on Fauci’s CCP connections, titled “Dr. Fauci’s COVID-19 Treachery,” and his legal report,⁶ “COVID-19 & Public Health Totalitarianism: Untoward Effects on Individuals, Institutions and Society.”

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Notes

¹ Ralph Baric, Ph.D.

² Nature Medicine, 21 (12), 1508-1514. December 2015. With follow-up letter included

³ Judicial Watch July 8, 2021

⁴ Breggin.com Legal Report to Stop Emergency Declaration in Ohio and Elsewhere

⁵ Dr. Fauci’s COVID-19 Treachery October 19, 2020 (PDF)

⁶ COVID-19 & Public Health Totalitarianism: Untoward Effects on Individuals, Institutions and Society August 30, 2020 (PDF)

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On August 4, Ukrainian army rockets struck the drama theater of Donetsk and a neighboring area, killing famed ballerina and teacher, Galina Vasilyevna Volodina, and one of her protégés, Katya Kutubaeva, 12, a rising young star with a brilliant future ahead of her.

According to Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett, Volodina, Kutubaeva and the latter’s grandmother were walking to the theater on Pushkin Boulevard when they were torn to pieces by the blast. See YouTube video:

Bartlett interviewed Vadym Pysarev, Art Director of Donetsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre, who was badly shaken by their deaths, saying that both were “very, very nice people.”

Pysarev worked closely with Galina, who he said had a very successful career as a dancer until she was about 35 and then became among the “best ballet teachers in the world.”

According to Pysarev, she had a “gift for dancers;” “training them from many different places including Germany, Moscow, Amsterdam, France,” and was “really something special.”

Because of her, they had developed a very successful dance school in Donetsk and the theater was always packed.

Pysarev said that Katya was an “incredibly talented ballerina who was destined for greatness—until Ukraine killed her.”

She was “very, very talented and very, very smart and had the possibility to be one of the best dancers—a star.”

Katya [Source: twitter.com]

Pysarev told Bartlett that “ballet is life, but war is horrible. For eight years the people of Donetsk have suffered terribly from the war and yet nobody has paid any attention or cared about us.”

Phoenix Program Redux

On August 18, The New York Times published a front page article about Ukrainian guerrilla fighters, or partisans, who carry out terrorist activity in violation of the international laws of war.^[1]

Andrew E. Kramer reported that the partisans “sneak down darkened alleys to set explosives…post leaflets and graffiti with dark warnings for collaborators as part of their psychological operations….gather intelligence….and identify Russian targets for Ukrainian artillery and long-range rockets provided by the United States. They blow up rail lines and assassinate officials they consider collaborators with the Russians.”

These latter activities are easily reminiscent of the Phoenix program in Vietnam along with the Operation Rollback in Eastern Europe at the dawn of the original Cold War, where the CIA trained Ukrainian nationalists with fascist leanings to carry out terrorist acts in an attempt to overthrow a pro-Russian government.^[2]

Anti-Soviet partisan fighters trained by the CIA to commit terrorist acts behind the Iron Curtain during the early Cold War as part of the Operation Rollback–whose exploits are being repeated in modern-day Ukraine. [Source: nationalwww2museum.org]

According to The New York Times, today’s partisans have become increasingly aggressive in “taking the fight against Russian forces into Russian controlled areas.”

The goal, said one guerrilla fighter, is to “show the occupiers [Russians] that they are not at home, that they should not settle in, that they should not sleep comfortably.”

Many Eastern Ukrainians, however, do not view the Russians as occupiers but rather liberators from eight years of Ukrainian army terror.

In a testament to the use of terrorist methods, one Ukrainan government official described a poisoning in the Zaporizhzhia region that killed around 15 Russian soldiers and the sabotage of a grain elevator in the Kherson region that prevented Russian forces from taking 60,000 tons of grain.

Partisans were also behind an explosion that disabled a railroad bridge connecting Melitopol to Russian-controlled Crimea.

The Ukrainian government made select partisans available to the media because they wanted to “highlight the partisans’ widening threat to Russian forces and signal to Western donors that Ukraine is successfully rallying local resources in the war, now nearly six months old.”

The partisans say they are civilians and thus their activity is regulated under Ukrainian law and not the international laws of war that prohibit, for example, a soldier from targeting a civilian officer.

One of the fighters, nicknamed Svarog, trained with a branch of the Right Sector and neo-Nazi Azov battalion.

After the Russian invasion in February, he was directed to a storage shed outside Melitopol, where he found slabs of high explosives, detonators, Kalashnikov rifles, a grenade launcher and two pistols equipped with silencers.

South eastern Ukraine and the Sea of Azov. [Source: ukrainetoday.org]

Svarog told Andrew Kramer that with little movement of the front lines, his group of partisans “strike stealthily in environs they know intimately using car bombs, booby traps and targeted killings with pistols—and then blend into the local population.”

One night this spring, Svarog and several members of his cell in Melitopol snuck through the town, and, by his own admission, planted a bomb into a wheel of a patrol car parked at the Russian-controlled police station.

When it went off the next day, a police officer was killed and another was wounded. “Anybody who would drive that car would be a traitor,” Svarog said. “Nobody there is keeping public order.”

Last week, Svarog’s cell booby-trapped the car of Oleg Shostak, a city official in Melitopol who joined United Russia (pro-Russian political party) and was targeted because he was suspected of “tailoring propaganda to appeal to local residents.”

After his car exploded, Shostak was badly wounded, though survived. Svarog was happy with the outcome because a signal had been sent to Russian collaborators: “you are never safe.”

Svarog and another partisan nicknamed Viking, said that the ranks of traitors whom the partisans have been hunting down include municipal and regional government employees and teachers who agree to work under the Russian educational curriculum—even when the majority of students in Eastern Ukraine are ethnic Russians from families opposed to the attempt to force Ukrainian language instruction and curriculum on them.

But according to Viking, “the Russians want to teach by their program, not the truth. A child is vulnerable to propaganda and if raised in this program, will become an idiot like the Russians,” he said. “A teacher who agrees to teach by the Russian program is a collaborator.”

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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. Andrew E. Kramer, “Ukrainians Behind Enemy Lines Tell Invaders: You’re Never Safe,” The New York Times, August 18, 2022, A1. 

2. See Douglas Valentine, The Phoenix Program (New York: William & Morrow, 1990); Peter Grose, Operation Rollback: America’s Secret War Behind the Iron Curtain (New York: Mariner Books, 2001). 

Featured image: Galina Vasilyevna Volodina (left), and twelve-year-old Katya Kutubaeva. [Source: slippedisc.com]

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***

Cancer begins when genetic changes interfere with the normal replication and replacement of cells in the body. Cells start to grow uncontrollably and may form a tumour. It is the No. 2 leading cause of death in the United States.

Unfortunately, it appears the disease may be on the rise thanks to the experimental Covid-19 injections. Because official U.S. Government data confirms the risk of developing cancer following Covid-19 vaccination increases by a shocking 143,233%.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) hosts a Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) which contains historical data on adverse reactions reported against every vaccine that has been administered in the United States of America.

A quick search of the CDC VAERS database on the number of cancer cases reported as adverse reactions to the Covid-19 injections since they were first rolled out in the USA, reveals that from December 2020 up to 5th August 2022, a total of 2,579 adverse events related to cancer were made in just 1 year and 8 months.

Covid-19 Vaccines (Source)

But performing a similar search of the VAERS database on the number of cancer cases reported as adverse events to all other available vaccines between 2008 and 2020, a period of 13 years, reveals there were just 791 adverse events related to cancer.

All other Vaccines (Source)

Many would simply argue without backing their claim up with any evidence, that this is just because of the volume of Covid-19 injections administered compared to all other vaccines. But unfortunately, anyone who argues this is wrong.

We can see this by looking at the number of doses administered.

The following chart shows the total number of flu vaccine doses administered in 13 full flu seasons all the way from the 2008/2009 flu season to the 2019-2020 flu season. The data has been extracted from the CDC info found here.

Source

In all between the 08/09 flu season and the 19/20 flu season, there were a total of 1,720,400,000 (1.7204 billion) doses of the flu jab administered in the USA.

The CDC also confirms that between 2008 and 2020, a period of 13 years, there were just 64 events related to cancer reported as adverse reactions to the influenza vaccines.

Flu Vaccines (Source)

Based on the number of adverse events related to cancer alone, we can see that there have been 40.3x as many cancer cases related to Covid-19 vaccination than there have been related to flu vaccination.

But whilst shocking, this statistic doesn’t properly represent the severity of the situation. To do that we need to know the number of cancer cases per 100,000 doses administered.

Based on the above numbers provided by the CDC, the number of adverse events related to cancer reported per 100,000 doses of flu vaccine administered equates to just 0.0003 per 100,000 doses.

According to ‘Our World in Data’, as of 9th August 2022, 606 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccines have been administered in the USA. This means there have been actually nearly 3x as many flu vaccines administered between 2008-2020 than Covid-19 injections since the end of 2020, let alone all of the other vaccines that have been administered.

Source

Therefore, the number of adverse events related to cancer reported per 100,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine administered equates to 0.43 per 100,000 doses.

This means Covid-19 vaccination is 1433.33x / 143,233.33% more likely to cause cancer than flu vaccination. It can be argued that because the numbers are so extraordinarily low for the flu vaccine, that flu vaccination does not cause cancer. Therefore, it can be argued that the risk of developing cancer following Covid-19 vaccination is 1433x greater than the background risk.

This should however not come as much of a surprise considering we already have scientific proof that the Covid-19 mRNA injections can cause cancer of the ovaries, pancreas and breast.

The homologous recombination DNA repair pathway is one of the mechanisms that the body uses to stop your cells from turning cancerous in response to environmental stress.

And in October 2021, two revered scientists, called Jiang and Mei, had a paper published, after peer review, in MDPI, showing that the SARS-Cov-2 spike protein obliterated the DNA repair mechanism in lymphocytes.

The viral spike protein was so toxic to this pathway that it knocked 90% of it out. If the whole spike protein got into the nucleus (in the ovaries), and enough of it was produced and hung around long enough before the body was able to get rid of it all, it would cause cancer.

Fortunately, in the case of natural infection, this is unlikely to occur. But the experimental mRNA “vaccines” induce spike protein to be produced in and around the cell nucleus and this occurs for at least 60 days and almost certainly longer.

This is probably why cases of ovarian cancer are now at an all-time high.

Official UK data published by Public Health Scotland, which can be found here, reveal the number of women suffering ovarian cancer from the introduction of the Covid-19 injection to the general population. Unfortunately, the known trend in 2021 was significantly higher than 2020 and the 2017-2019 average.

Ovarian Cancer – Source

The above chart shows up to June 2021, but the charts found on Public Health Scotland’s dashboard now show figures all the way up to December 2021 and unfortunately reveal that the gap has widened even further with the number of women suffering from Ovarian cancer increasing significantly.

Click here to enlarge.

If you still wish to get a jab that doesn’t stop you from getting Covid-19, doesn’t stop you from spreading Covid-19, increases your risk of mortality significantly (see here), and increases your risk of suffering cancer by 143,233% then that’s up to you. But perhaps you can now be a little more understanding of why many others simply refuse to do so.

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Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

The Collapse of America: What History Teaches Us About the Rise and Fall of Empires. Prof. Alfred McCoy

By Michael Welch and Prof Alfred McCoy, August 21, 2022

Afghanistan would only be the latest in a series of military accomplishments that have proved expensive both in terms of money and in terms of bloodshed. Iraq has proven to be a disaster where President George W Bush early on declared it victory.

Top Biden Official: US Would Overthrow Colombia’s New Left-wing President 40 Years Ago

By Ben Norton, August 22, 2022

Biden’s top Latin America advisor Juan González threateningly said of Colombia’s new left-wing president, “40 years ago, the United States would have done everything possible to prevent the election of Gustavo Petro” and “sabotage his government.”

After Data Show Vaccinated at Higher Risk of Dying from COVID, Canadian Province Ends Monthly Reports

By Dr. Julie Comber and Madhava Setty, August 22, 2022

After the Manitoba, Canada, public health agency reported data showing those fully vaccinated (not boosted) for COVID-19 are at higher risk of dying from the virus compared to unvaccinated individuals, health officials stopped reporting on the data — a trend seen in other countries, including Scotland, the U.K. and the U.S.

US Military Still Stealing Oil in Syria

By Steven Sahiounie, August 22, 2022

The US forces who invaded in 2014 are in control of the main oil and gas fields in Hasakah and Deir Ez Zor, and they are assisted by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who were US partners in the fight to eliminate ISIS.

A Letter to UK’s Chief Coroners Office on Disturbing COVID and COVID Vaccination Deaths

By John O’Looney, August 20, 2022

I have seen massive efforts made to deliberately inflate Covid death numbers by relabelling cancer patients and stroke victims and all manner of normal regular deaths as Covid, in fact virtually anyone getting into an ambulance, this effort has been deliberate and the methods used to do so were totally flawed, PCR tests for example being run on 45 cycles we all know to be worthless, yet people are being euthanised on this basis and sometimes only on the basis of a chest x-ray alone.

Life at the End of an Empire with St Augustine

By Matthew Ehret-Kump, August 19, 2022

It isn’t often that a generation lives through a systemic breakdown crisis. While many shallower minds are quick to lay blame to the cause of their troubles on a convenient scapegoat, the fact is that these sorts of systemic collapses take time and the root causes are to be found in something both more universal and more subjective.

An Apology to the Billionaires for My Irresponsible Comments

By Emanuel Pastreich, August 19, 2022

I have been subject to tremendous criticism from all sides over the last week for my recent comments concerning billionaires, and specifically concerning the man who put the “bill” in “billionaire,” none other than the “workingman’s hero” Bill Gates, the inventor of just about everything he can get his hands on.

Europe Decreasing Military Aid to Ukraine

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, August 19, 2022

Apparently, European countries are understanding that the path to peace in Ukraine requires stopping military aid. Data show that in July the six major European powers abstained from making new military agreements with Kiev.

Censorship and Global Information Control: Who Is Behind the “Trusted News Initiative”(TNI)?

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, August 19, 2022

What is the Trusted News Initiative (TNI)? As you may have discovered, Orwellian doublespeak is rampant these days, and many organizations are named in complete opposition to their intended purposes. Such is the case with the TNI as well.

44 Percent of Pregnant Women in Pfizer Trial Lost Their Babies; FDA and CDC Recommended Jabs for Expectant Mothers Anyway. Report

By Debra Heine, August 19, 2022

More than 40 percent of pregnant women who participated in Pfizer’s mRNA COVID vaccine trial suffered miscarriages, according internal Pfizer documents, recently released under court order. Despite this, Pfizer, and the Biden administration insisted that the vaccines were safe for pregnant women.

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Biden’s top Latin America advisor Juan González threateningly said of Colombia’s new left-wing president, “40 years ago, the United States would have done everything possible to prevent the election of Gustavo Petro” and “sabotage his government.”

The top Latin America advisor for US President Joe Biden, Juan Sebastián González, threateningly said of Colombia’s new left-wing president:

“40 years ago, the United States would have done everything possible to prevent the election of Gustavo Petro, and once in power it would have done almost everything possible to sabotage his government.”

González is the Western hemisphere director for the US National Security Council (NSC). He previously worked in the State Department and NSC in the Barack Obama administration.

González made these incendiary comments in Spanish in an interview with the Colombian media.

Obliquely acknowledging the long history of US meddling in Latin America’s sovereign internal affairs, González added,

“Those are the policies of the Cold War, that to a certain point today for some people are a justification from revisionist perspectives that characterize the policy of the United States in the context of a local manifestation of an empire.”

Petro is Colombia’s first ever left-wing president. He is a former revolutionary with socialist armed movement M-19, which signed a peace treaty and demilitarized. Petro subsequently established himself as a lawmaker and became mayor of the capital Bogotá.

Although he ran a center-left campaign harshly condemning the socialist governments in Venezuela and Nicaragua, Petro has tempered his criticism since entering office.

In the first vote by Petro’s administration at the US-dominated Organization of American States (OAS) on August 12, Colombia refused to join in the politically motivated condemnation of Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista government. Colombia was absent from the vote, alongside the governments of Mexico, Bolivia, Honduras, and El Salvador, which abstained.

Petro has also rapidly pursued the normalization of relations between Colombia and its neighbor Venezuela.

Just a few days after winning the election in June, then President-elect Petro held a phone call with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, discussing plans to reopen the border and establish peace.

The president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, announced on August 16 that the parliamentary body was coordinating with Colombia’s Senate in order to re-establish formal commercial and diplomatic relations.

Petro was inaugurated on August 7. The ceremony was full of important political symbolism. Petro requested that the sword of anti-colonialist leader Simón Bolívar be present.

Colombia's armed socialist and anti-imperialist group M-19 put down its weapons in 1990 after signing a peace treaty with the government

M-19 became a legal political party. Its leader Carlos Pizarro was a presidential candidate

But Colombia's intelligence agencies murdered him

— Benjamin Norton (@BenjaminNorton) August 16, 2022

At the inauguration, Petro was also given the presidential sash by María José Pizarro, a lawmaker from Petro’s left-wing Pacto Histórico party and the daughter of Carlos Pizarro.

Carlos Pizarro was the leader of the revolutionary socialist 19th of April Movement (M-19) that Petro had been involved in in his youth.

The M-19 demilitarized in 1990 after signing a peace agreement with the Colombian government. Having put down its weapons, M-19 became a legal political party, and Carlos Pizarro was its presidential candidate.

But just a few weeks after signing the peace deal, the Colombian state murdered Carlos Pizarro, in an operation organized by the feared Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS), a notorious intelligence agency that acted as a kind of secret police.

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After the Manitoba, Canada, public health agency reported data showing those fully vaccinated (not boosted) for COVID-19 are at higher risk of dying from the virus compared to unvaccinated individuals, health officials stopped reporting on the data — a trend seen in other countries, including Scotland, the U.K. and the U.S.

Manitoba, population 1.4 million, was the first Canadian province whose public health agency reported data showing those who are fully vaccinated (not boosted) for COVID-19 are at higher risk of dying from COVID-19 compared to unvaccinated individuals.

The age-standardized data are from May 2022, but last appeared in Manitoba’s August 3 report:

Credit: Manitoba Public Health

As the figure above indicates, for the month of May, Manitoba Public Health reported a 40% increased risk of death associated with COVID-19 in “fully vaccinated” individuals compared to unvaccinated.

The risk of death for those who were boosted was the same as for unvaccinated individuals.

Though three months old, the May data are, as of this writing, the last reported by the Canadian province.

Manitoba’s trending risk of severe outcomes by vaccination status

The May data on severe outcomes by vaccination status are part of a monthly trend suggesting reduced vaccine effectiveness over time.

By the end of December 2021, 74.7% of Manitobans were vaccinated for COVID-19 and 18.7% were not vaccinated, according to Manitoba Public Health’s weekly report for December 19-25, 2021.

At that time, Manitoba was not reporting on severe COVID-19 outcomes by vaccination status.

On Jan. 12, 2022, Global News reported that between Nov. 22, 2021, and Jan. 2, 2022, boosted individuals (purple bar) were 63 times less likely to die from COVID-19 than unvaccinated individuals (red bar):

Credit: Global News

Boosted individuals also were 26 times less likely to be hospitalized:

Credit: Global News

And boosted individuals were 139 times less likely to be admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) than unvaccinated individuals:

Credit: Global News

The Manitoba Public Health’s weekly reports did not report this data at the time.

Manitoba first reported severe outcomes by vaccination status in March 2022, and then updated the numbers each month for the next three months.

In those reports, the risk of a severe outcome was age-standardized and reported per 100,000 person days.

Age-standardization, also called age-adjustment, is a statistical procedure that allows for the comparison of groups with different age structures. It is used because the risks of death and severe outcomes are different depending on a person’s age.

With COVID-19, for example, it is well known that older adults are at a higher risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19. If older adults are more likely to opt for vaccination and boosting, then the vaccinated and boosted groups would have a greater proportion of older people, who are at higher risk of severe outcomes, than the unvaccinated group.

Without age-standardization, the statistics would not show the impact of vaccination independent of age.

Here were Manitoba Public Health’s first comparative data around COVID-19 age-standardized severe outcomes:

Credit: Manitoba Public Health

Though there were nearly 5 of 16 weeks that overlapped with the time window on which Global News reported, the vaccine’s effectiveness against severe outcomes had somehow plummeted.

Then in the subsequent report that covered the month of March only, vaccine effectiveness dropped more (notice the 3 times greater risk of ICU admission in the partially vaccinated):

Credit: Manitoba Public Health

And in the next report, vaccine effectiveness dropped further still:

Credit: Manitoba Public Health

Manitoba Public Health, without explanation, stopped reporting the rate of severe outcomes in the “partially vaccinated.”

Finally, the most recent report showed us results from May 2022:

Credit: Manitoba Public Health

For the month of May, Figure 6 (above) shows that unvaccinated individuals were 40% less at risk of COVID-19-associated death than fully vaccinated individuals, and their risk was the same as boosted individuals.

Unvaccinated people also were 30% less likely to require hospitalization than vaccinated people, and 10% more likely to be hospitalized than boosted people.

Unvaccinated people were more likely to require ICU admission — 20% more than fully vaccinated people and 80% more likely than boosted individuals.

Manitoba did not report on these outcomes for the month of June or any time period since.

Manitoba’s latest report, dated August 11, announced:

“Monthly updates about severe outcomes after vaccination have been discontinued starting Week 31 [July 31-Aug. 6]. Manitoba Health will continue to monitor COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness and report periodically when data allow.”

At the time of this writing, Manitoba Public Heath had not responded to a request to explain why it stopped reporting this data.

Despite their latest data showing an increased risk of death and hospitalizations in vaccinated individuals and no survival benefit in the boosted, the authors paradoxically summarize:

“COVID-19 vaccines continue to provide important protection against serious illness following infection due to all variants of concern (VOC) of COVID-19.”

Public health agencies stop reporting inconvenient data

Though independent journalist Alex Berenson brought attention to this official data, there have been no news reports in the mainstream media about this disquieting trend in Manitoba.

Nor have the media reported on why Manitoba suddenly stopped releasing this data. This appears to be part of a larger trend of public agencies ending reporting on severe COVID-19 outcomes by vaccination status.

For example, the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC), like Manitoba, for a time produced weekly reports that included age-stratified data on severe COVID-19 outcomes by vaccination status.

But at the end of July, the BC Centre for Disease Control website stated, “As of July 28, the Outcomes by Vax and Vax Donut Charts have been retired.”

CTV News Vancouver, a Canadian news station, asked the BC Ministry of Health for an explanation. An emailed response from a ministry spokesperson read, in part:

“As most of the population has now been vaccinated with at least two doses of vaccine and many more have been infected with COVID-19, the data became hard to interpret.”

Ontario, next door to Manitoba, also used to report weekly on severe COVID-19 outcomes by vaccination status.

However, the “COVID-19 Vaccine Data in Ontario” website now states that hospitalization by vaccination status data and cases by vaccination status data will no longer be published as of June 30, and that case rates by vaccination status and age group data will no longer be published as of July 13.

Ontario continues to report deaths by vaccination status, but as raw data in a CSV file that can be downloaded and that requires the person who downloads it to generate the graph.

Scotland stops reporting data due to ‘increasing risk of misinterpretation from growing complexities’

Scotland releases weekly reports and used to report severe COVID-19 outcomes by vaccination status.

In the weekly report released on March 2, Public Health Scotland (PHS) announced that severe outcomes by vaccination status “will no longer be reported on a weekly basis from 16 February 2022.”

Officials said:

“Due to the increasing risk of misinterpretation from growing complexities as the COVID-19 pandemic enters its second year (as described below), PHS has taken the decision to no longer report COVID-19 cases, hospitalisations and deaths by vaccination status on a weekly basis.”

If we examine Scotland’s last published comparative data, we see the unvaccinated enjoyed significant protection from infection compared to the vaccinated:

Credit: Public Health Scotland

The above table shows that the age-standardized case rate was growing in the fully vaccinated and boosted compared to the unvaccinated.

In other words, the vaccine effectiveness was negative and growing more negative as time went on.

With regard to severe outcomes like hospitalization, the fully vaccinated had a greater risk than the unvaccinated every week and approached nearly double of the unvaccinated by the end of the reporting period:

Credit: Public Health Scotland

PHS highlighted the advantage the boosted had over the unvaccinated in green. Was that the intent? Or was it to distract us from what was happening in the fully vaccinated?

Finally, with regard to COVID-19 mortality, once again the fully vaccinated were at a greater risk of dying:

Credit: Public Health Scotland

Boosted Scots remained at lower risk of dying than the unvaccinated as the green shading accentuates.

Nevertheless, the last time Scotland reported these numbers the fully vaccinated were doing worse against the very disease the vaccine was intended to protect them from.

UK stops publishing data because . . . no more free COVID testing?

The UK Health Security Agency’s weekly reports also once included a section called “Vaccination status in cases, deaths and hospitalisations.”

However, in the Week 14 report, released April 7, the agency announced, “Data on the vaccination status of COVID-19 cases, and deaths and hospitalisations with COVID-19, is no longer published.”

In the relevant section of the report, it states:

“From 1 April 2022, the UK Government ended provision of free universal COVID-19 testing for the general public in England, as set out in the plan for living with COVID-19.

“Such changes in testing policies affect the ability to robustly monitor COVID-19 cases by vaccination status, therefore, from the week 14 report onwards this section of the report will no longer be published.

“For further context and previous data, please see previous vaccine surveillance reports and our blog post.”

The agency provided no explanation for why ending free COVID-19 testing would affect reporting of hospitalizations and deaths associated with COVID-19.

The previous week’s report, released on March 31, still had the data in “Table 14. Unadjusted rates of COVID-19 infection, hospitalization and death in vaccinated and unvaccinated populations.”

But unlike the Canadian provinces, the data did not include fully vaccinated individuals, only those who received a booster.

Nonetheless, the data still tell a disappointing story about vaccine effectiveness. Here is the last data reported by the U.K. that compares the unvaccinated to the boosted population:

Credit: UK Health Security Agency

This table was stratified by age group, and three doses appeared to have little impact on the already very low death rate in people under 50 years old, while deaths in those 80 and older were halved in the boosted group.

What is most remarkable is that in every age group, the risk of contracting COVID-19 was 3 to 5 times higher in boosted individuals than in the unvaccinated. Given the inferior protection provided by full vaccination alone, we can surmise that the fully vaccinated fared even worse.

The United States

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does report deaths by vaccination status, but does not include boosted individuals.

The data also are nearly three months old, despite assurances that these numbers are updated monthly. There are too few deaths in the under-18 age category to report.

CDC data indicate that as of May 2022, in the 30 to 49 age group, about 1 million people needed to be vaccinated to prevent a single COVID-19 death per week.

That number is nearly 3 million for adults ages 18 to 29.

When will the CDC resume its reporting on COVID-19 deaths, if ever? And, why did the CDC stop comparing hospitalizations in the unvaccinated to those who completed the primary series (unboosted) back in November 2021?

As in the U.K., comparisons are made with the boosted only.

Unlike the Canadian provinces, Scotland and the U.K., the CDC has yet to make a formal announcement about ending reporting of COVID-19 outcomes between the vaccinated and unvaccinated.

Instead, the agency seems to have tacitly admitted that the available vaccines are essentially ineffective by issuing “streamlined” guidelines that do not differentiate by vaccine status as of August 11.

Though the CDC is signaling we can relax restrictions on the unvaccinated, let us not forget that the “latest data” from Manitoba, the U.K. and Scotland indicated COVID-19 outcomes were worse in the fully vaccinated and had been trending downward prior to the mysterious and concurrent decision by multiple public health agencies to end such reporting.

Some of the “latest data” were reported more than six months ago. How are the vaccinated doing now?

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Julie Comber is a freelance science reporter for The Defender.

Madhava Setty, M.D. is senior science editor for The Defender.

Featured image is from CHD

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With rising tensions and continued shelling at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) and nearby areas, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron have discussed the need to send UN monitors to assess the besieged facility. Both Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of planning provocations and false flags at the site, amid dire warnings of a possible nuclear catastrophe at Europe’s largest nuclear plant.

After a call between Putin and Macron on Friday, their first in three months, the Kremlin issued a statement reiterating the Russian offer to provide security for an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission. The statement said that Moscow “confirmed its readiness to provide the [IAEA] inspectors with the necessary assistance.”

Putin also emphasized that Ukraine’s shelling at the plant could cause a “large-scale catastrophe,” telling Macon that inspectors should visit the ZNPP “as soon as possible.” The French readout of the call said the two leaders “will speak about this subject again in the next few days following discussions between the technical teams and before the deployment of the mission.”

While Ukraine asserts that Russian forces are attacking the ZNPP, Moscow has controlled the plant and surrounding areas since March, giving it little reason to risk a major nuclear incident that would imperil ethnic Russians under its protection in the Zaporizhzhia oblast.

Though Russia controls the plant, it is still run by Ukrainian operators. Moreover, Russia has voiced ever-greater concern over the situation, calling for independent inspectors to review evidence they say will prove who is responsible for attacks at the site. For weeks, the area has seen frequent shelling, and a Russian-backed official in the oblast recently accused Kiev of attacking the power plant repeatedly with US-provided M777 howitzers. On Friday, Moscow submitted a letter to the UN Security Council warning of Kiev’s planned “provocations” at the ZNPP.

Ukraine’s Energoatom state nuclear company claims Moscow plans to switch off the functioning power blocks at the plant, cut it off from Ukraine’s power grid and reconnect it to the Russian grid in an attempt to deprive the country of a major power source. Petro Kotin, the head of Energoatom, told Reuters that decoupling and reconnecting the plant is a “technically difficult process,” and noted the Russian military is looking for diesel to keep the nuclear fuel cooling systems working once the external power supply is cut. While there are back-up diesel generators at the site, it remains unclear if the supplies are sufficient. Igor Kirillov, a Russian Defense Ministry official, said the ZNPP’s back-up support systems had been damaged as a result of attacks and might have to be shut down.

The Reuters report adds,

“If cooling systems failed, the nuclear reaction would slow but a reactor would heat up very swiftly. At such high temperatures, hydrogen could be released from the zirconium cladding and the reactor could start to melt down.”

Kiev claims Russian shelling earlier this month damaged three power lines connecting the plant to Ukraine’s power grid, though Moscow said the Ukrainians were behind the shelling, in line with conflicting narratives offered by both sides throughout the conflict.

Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev has also accused Washington of encouraging Kiev to attack the plant. He says if there is a “technological disaster, its consequences will be felt in every corner of the world,” adding “Washington, London and their accomplices will bear full responsibility for that.”

For its part, Moscow has defended its military presence at the facility, with Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov stating that troops are there to prevent a disastrous “Chernobyl scenario.”

On Wednesday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declared Russia is using “the ground around the nuclear power plant as a staging area, as a platform, to launch artillery attacks on Ukrainian forces,” but Moscow denied this claim. The Russian Defense Ministry said “Russian troops have no heavy weapons either on the territory of the station or in areas around it. There are only guard units.”

Russia has alleged that Washington and Kiev plan to trigger an accident at the ZNPP deliberately, citing a threat of the core overheating. Moscow’s Defense Ministry also said Kiev’s forces were being deployed in the area to hit the plant with artillery strikes from the city of Nikopol, adding “blame for the consequences (of the strikes) will be placed on the Russian armed forces.”

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry says the Russians are planning a “large-scale terrorist attack” at the ZNPP and plan to pin it on Kiev, while US State Department spokesman Ned Price argued that false flag operations would be right out of the “Russian playbook.” Even before the war began, however, Price and other US officials notoriously accused the Russians of planning false flags in Ukraine without providing evidence. Likewise, the Pentagon is squarely blaming Russia for the ordeal, with a senior defense official telling reporters that “we see Russia’s current actions in and around this plant as really the height of irresponsibility.”

Some residents in the area have begun to flee to neighboring European countries, though only women and children are being permitted to leave. Kiev has banned men aged 18-60 from leaving the country so that they may be conscripted to keep the war going.

While Russia has rejected UN proposals for the plant be demilitarized, Bruce K. Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, recently sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemning Kiev for the dire situation.

In part, the letter reads

 “I have been following this dangerous situation for many weeks. It is abundantly obvious to me that the US-installed Kiev government is doing the shelling of the nuclear plant. Why would Russia want to contaminate the very region of Russian-ethnic citizens it is attempting to save from this out-of-control Kiev regime? The fact that the Ukrainian plant personnel remain on their posts, and that Russia is trying to protect the plant from a disaster, indicates its good intentions in this matter. I urge your offices to get the IAEA to the plant ASAP and you must publicly pin the blame for the shelling on the appropriate source – the Kiev regime that is clearly taking their marching orders from Washington.”

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Connor Freeman is the assistant editor and a writer at the Libertarian Institute, primarily covering foreign policy. He is a co-host on the Conflicts of Interest podcast. His writing has been featured in media outlets such as Antiwar.com, Counterpunch, and the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. He has also appeared on Liberty Weekly, Around the Empire, and Parallax Views. You can follow him on Twitter @FreemansMind96.

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While Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz was launching his assault on seven Palestinian NGOs on Thursday, Prime Minister Yair Lapid was pressing the United States closer to an attack on Iran that could send the entire region into an unprecedented conflict. 

Lapid sent a message to the White House that “In the current situation, the time has come to walk away from the table. Anything else sends a message of weakness to Iran.” He said this in a meeting with outgoing uber-hawk Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides.

“Now is the time to sit and talk about what to do going forward in order to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” Lapid further stated. Given that Iran currently endures not only the sanctions that it suffered under before the 2015 JCPOA, or Iran Nuclear Deal, was struck but also the “maximum pressure” sanctions that Donald Trump placed on the country that current President Joe Biden never saw fit to lift, it is unlikely that Lapid has even more sanctions in mind.

Lapid was reacting to the latest turn in the JCPOA drama, a turn that, not coincidentally, has also brought closer than ever the possibility of a return to the deal that the United States unilaterally, and without any justification, abrogated in 2018.

On August 8, the European Union submitted what it considered to be a final draft of an agreement to fully re-establish the JCPOA, stating it could not be negotiated further. The United States immediately agreed that the draft could be the basis of an agreement; this was unsurprising as it was very similar to the deal the U.S. was prepared to embrace back in March.

Iran responded this week with a few reservations, but with a clear message that a few changes could make it a deal they could sign. Since the deal was presented to both Washington and Tehran as a “take it or leave it” offer, Israel is claiming that this is tantamount to an Iranian rejection. That’s a criminally flippant attitude about taking a course that is very likely to a regional war. But it’s important to understand that Iran has some legitimate concerns and this is not, as is being portrayed by some, just a delaying tactic.

Iran’s concerns

There are three issues that Iran feels must be addressed in the “final text;” a text which, it must be noted, few expect will be truly final as long as neither Tehran not Washington reject it outright or put irreconcilable demands on its completion.

The issue of the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) once seemed insurmountable. But Iran offered a compromise that could help address the economic effects of the FTO designations. The IRGC is an ubiquitous force in Iran, for better or worse, and the inability of its financial arms to function due to this designation would hamper Iran’s economic recovery.

Tehran therefore backed off the demand that the IRGC be de-listed and adjusted it to a demand that some of its subsidiary organizations be de-listed instead, primarily Khatam-al Anbiya Construction Headquarters, a large engineering firm. The company has been under U.S. sanctions since 2007.

Second, Iran wants an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) case against it closed. This case involves three unexplained incidents of nuclear material that the IAEA has detected. The draft text stipulates that the IAEA will close the case if Iran provides a credible explanation of the nuclear material detected.

Iran’s response to the “final draft” did not include anything, according to reports, about the IAEA case. This is notable because Iran was deeply concerned, understandably, that this issue could be used to moot at least some sanctions relief even if the JCPOA was restored, particularly if the IAEA referred the case to the UN Security Council. Tehran’s silence may indicate that it finds the formula of providing a credible explanation in exchange for dropping the case acceptable.

Finally, Tehran wants assurances that the United States will keep its word this time. This is largely about Trump’s unjustifiable withdrawal from the deal, but it also refers to the fact that American rhetoric, even during the Obama administration, was discouraging investment in Iran, limiting Iran’s economic recovery, and minimizing the benefits Iran was getting from the deal.

This is a trickier issue. On the first two, Iran says the U.S. has “shown flexibility,” implying that this issue of guarantees is the most difficult. Whether or not he wants to, Biden legitimately can’t promise that a future president won’t do exactly what Trump did. And there’s nothing he can do if a member of Congress, from either party, decides to make threatening statements toward Iran that any investor will take as a warning not to invest there.

The current thinking seems to be that the renewed JCPOA would include “indemnities” that would guarantee Iran “certain economic returns” even if the U.S. backs out again. Tehran seems to be indicating that this is acceptable, but they want it spelled out in the new deal, which, so far, it has not been.

All of these are sensible solutions to the remaining problems, and their very reasonableness explains Lapid’s bellicose reaction. Election season is not the time a sitting Israeli prime minister wants the specter of a nuclear Iran to diminish. After all the negative things that both Lapid and his chief rival, opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu have said about the Iran Deal its restoration will be seen as a major setback.

Israel lobby struggles to counter

While Lapid will certainly not try to undermine Biden to the extent that Netanyahu did to Barack Obama in 2015 by working with the Republicans openly, his reaching out to Deutch—who, though he is retiring, remains one of the more influential Democrats in Congress and is eager to show his worth to his next employers, the anti-Palestinian American Jewish Committee—indicates he is about to mobilize a full court press on Capitol Hill.

That makes this an “all hands on deck” moment. Recent polling indicates that a strong majority of U.S. citizens continues to support a return to the JCPOA. But opponents of the deal will seize on Lapid’s opposition, and that can be more potent than Netanyahu’s was back in 2015. Lapid and Biden have a much better relationship than Obama did with Netanyahu, and Biden is both considerably less committed to the JCPOA and much more cautious about, and sympathetic to, pro-Israel domestic forces than his former boss.

Yet the distaste for U.S. involvement in yet another Middle East conflict runs very deep. Moreover, while groups like AIPAC, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and other pro-war, pro-regime-change institutions carry considerable weight on Capitol Hill, they have absolutely no argument against the clear reality that Iran was complying with the JCPOA before we pulled out of it and has since moved significantly closer to nuclear breakout capability, whether or not it actually intends to build a bomb, something that is far less certain than the U.S. and Israel present it as.

Even Lapid is not offering a viable alternative to diplomacy. He is mouthing generic, warmongering platitudes. “The EU sent Iran a final offer, which does not comport with the principles to which the Americans committed, and established that the offer was ‘take it or leave it.’ Iran refuses the offer, and therefore the time has come to get up and go. Anything else sends a message of weakness.”

But he doesn’t know what to do if the U.S. does leave the table. “Now is the time to sit and talk about what to do going forward in order to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

Next week, Israel’s national security adviser will arrive in Washington to meet his U.S. counterpart. Ahead of that meeting, it is time to raise a voice loud and clear. Only 8% of Americans back a military option with Iran. Next to that kind of pro-diplomacy majority, what the prime minister of a foreign country, especially one running an apartheid state, wants means less than nothing. We need to make that clear to everyone in Washington.

*

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***

On August 16, 2022, the Syrian Arab News Agency reported that the US occupation forces have stolen 398 tankers full of Syrian oil in one week and transported the stolen oil to US bases in Iraq using an illegal route. 

The US forces who invaded in 2014 are in control of the main oil and gas fields in Hasakah and Deir Ez Zor, and they are assisted by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who were US partners in the fight to eliminate ISIS.  Previously, it was ISIS who stole the oil and sold it to President Erdogan of Turkey, and now the US has taken over from ISIS, while Turkey is not benefitting from the deal, and further aggravated by the US support of the SDF, who are partners with the YPJ, and are aligned with the PKK, a terrorist group who have killed thousands in Turkey over three decades.

The Syrian Oil Ministry said in a statement that the US and its mercenaries are stealing an average of 66,000 barrels of oil per day in Syria, about 80 percent of Syria’s oil production. The prolonged crisis has cost Syria’s oil industry direct and indirect losses of 105 billion US dollars.

Before 2011 petroleum output in Syria

In 2008, Syria produced 406,000 barrels per day (bpd), according to the British Petroleum Statistical Review of World Energy for 2019. In 2011, production dropped to 353,000 bpd and had plunged to just 24,000 bpd by 2018 – a reduction of more than 90%.

The Free Syrian Army (FSA) was the first large armed group fighting the Syrian Arab Army (SAA); however, the FSA was ineffective even though they were supported by the US. After a few years, it was the Al Qaeda branch in Syria, Jibhat al-Nusra which became the dominant force, and finally, ISIS appeared on the scene. All of these terrorist groups fought in the area where the main oil fields are in Syria, and at times the oil wells passed from one group to another. Today, they are in the possession of the US military.

Electricity production, factories, exports

Before 2011, Syria had full electricity on the national grid, which was supplied by burning oil and natural gas to generate electricity.  The factories in Aleppo were fully supplied with electricity and diesel fuel for production, and Syria also exported some petroleum products.

In late 2019, President Trump said,

“We’re keeping the oil. I’ve always said that — keep the oil. We want to keep the oil, $45 million a month. Keep the oil. We’ve secured the oil.”

However, a senior State Department official said to do so is a war crime. The oil in Syria belongs to their government, and according to US law and treaties it has ratified, seizing it would be pillaging, a technical term for theft during wartime that is illegal under the US and international law.

In late 2015, Russian President Putin accused Turkey of being business partners with ISIS while stealing and selling Syrian oil.  Putin said,

“IS has big money, hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, from selling oil. In addition, they are protected by the military of an entire nation. One can understand why they are acting so boldly and blatantly. Why do they kill people in such atrocious ways? Why they commit terrorist acts across the world, including in the heart of Europe.”

Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov also pointed at Turkey as he was addressing the press in Moscow.

“According to the information we’ve received, the senior political leadership of the country — President Erdoğan and his family — are involved in this criminal business. Maybe I’m being too blunt, but one can only entrust control over this thieving business to one’s closest associates. In the West, no one has asked questions about the fact that the Turkish president’s son heads one of the biggest energy companies, or that his son-in-law has been appointed energy minister. What a marvelous family business!”

In January 2013, the FSA were admitting they were corrupt.

“There has been a lot of corruption in the Free Syrian Army’s battalions – stealing, oppressing the people – because there are parasites that have entered the Free Syrian Army,” said Abu Ahmed, an engineer who headed a 35-man unit of the Tawheed Brigade in Aleppo province.

“The Free Syrian Army has lost its popular support,” said Abu Ahmed, while putting support for President Assad at 70 percent among an urban Aleppo population that includes many ethnic Kurds and Christians. He admitted that the looting of homes and resources had caused hatred among the community.  People had no electricity, but the FSA was profiting from selling the stolen oil to Turkey.

Once the FSA faded away, ISIS took control of the oil fields, and trucked the oil in tankers to Turkey, to be refined there and used domestically, or transported to tankers at the ports of Ceyhan or Dortyol for export to European markets that were well aware they were buying stolen Syrian oil from ISIS, but they were getting a low price.

In September 2014, US intelligence officials revealed that the Islamic State group was making millions every day from the illicit oil trade.  ISIS took control of the oil assets from the previous terrorist groups of the FSA and the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, Jibhat al-Nusra.  Today, the US military is occupying the oil fields.

In 1998, Richard N. Haass wrote about the US use of sanctions against countries as a tool of foreign policy.  He found that sanctions are unlikely to achieve desired results if the aims are large.  In the case of Syria, the US aim is to overthrow the government which has been in place for 22 years and institute a US-friendly Muslim Brotherhood leader, in the only secular state in the Middle East.  Is that large enough?

Haass said that sanctions can boost an authoritarian administration, trigger large-scale emigration, and hurt the middle class and civil society. In Syria, the government has withstood an armed revolution supported by the US and NATO, withstood a massive migration in the summer of 2015 which saw Syrians walking through Europe, and due to the economic collapse the middle class is now the newly poor.

Humanitarian exceptions are supposed to guarantee that medicines and medical supplies are allowed into Syria, but according to the former director of the WHO in Damascus, Elizabeth Hoff, the hospitals in Syria were not able to order replacement parts for medical machines from western manufacturers due to their fear of facing US sanctions.

Iranian oil tankers to Syria were hijacked by the US

In the darkest days of deprivation for the Syrian residents, they followed news reports of the US high-jacking of the Iranian ship bringing much-needed petroleum products to Syria to be used for electricity, diesel fuel for trucks, and gasoline for cars.

The US needs to leave Syria, lift the sanctions and allow the Syrian people to rebuild their homes and businesses. Humanitarian organizations say most Syrians live under the poverty line, but they fail to mention the US-EU sanctions which caused this poverty.

Syria today

Life in Syria today is difficult.  Most homes have only a few hours of electricity per day, and cooking gas is expensive and in short, supply, as is gasoline.  Soon students will be back in school and electricity needs increase with studying in the evenings, washing school clothes, and preparing healthy meals for building young minds.  With gasoline in such short supply and highly expensive, kids will be walking long distances to school this winter. Home heating is a distant memory, and wearing sweaters and ski caps indoors is the only way to stay warm.  The US-EU sanctions have caused immense hardship to the Syrian people who have fought against terrorism, chaos, and upheaval.

*

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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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First published on March 24, 2020, in the immediate wake of the Covid lockdown

***

I found this message scrawled on a single sheet of paper and crammed in a bottle that washed up on the coast. I present it to you for your reference exactly as I found it.

“Thanks for nothing, you citizens of that country formally known as the United States. Have a good life because now you are totally on your own.

“Sorry we had to borrow more than $2 trillion of your money in order to hold up the stock prices we had been inflating for the last five years with stock buybacks and other ‘instruments.’ But what can we say? We needed some time to set up untraceable offshore accounts around the world where we could transfer our loot without anyone even noticing.

“And we hope you understand that it took some time for us to quietly sell off our assets using fake front companies and other tools of the trade in a manner that did not shake things up too much. We are much obliged that you looked the other way.

Source: Emanuel Pastreich

“But the best part of the show was the media maelstrom that we whipped up for you over the last three weeks that has left you completely terrified.

“Are you terrified of climate change, of nuclear war, or of economic collapse? Are you staying up late worrying about the lead and the other deadly chemicals from runaway fracking that are in your drinking water? No? Excellent!

“Oh yes! You were up at nights worrying about COVID-19, or as we like to say back at the club, ‘COVID 911: The controlled demolition of the global economy.’ That sure was a pandemic from hell.

“Mission accomplished, and more.

“From now on, please do wear those pretty little white masks all you want, but they sure the hell are not going to protect you from the anomy coming down the pike. And feel free to message each other about those COVID19 old wives’ tales that we fed to you, to your heart’s content.

“It was sweet then, but now it is all completely and irreversibly over.

“We know that many of you thought that somehow something would trickle down to you. You thought that your Harvard degree meant that you too were somehow part of the party.

“Democrats? Republicans?

“There is only one party, but wow, what a hell of a party.

“We don’t know how to break this to you, but the radical concentration of wealth over the last 15 years has completely rewritten the rules of the game. Now, a lawyer, doctor or professor is closer to the homeless than he or she is to us, the rich. In fact, from our altitude, we cannot tell you guys apart at all. And to be honest, we cannot afford any of that trickle down any more either. We need that cash to pay for our private security details.

“Now that we have quarantine in place and can enforce ‘social distancing,’ a lawyer will be the same as a telemarketer for Amazon, a doctor will provide services over the internet from the Philippines, and a professor or teacher can be replaced by a cartoon character in most cases.

“If you are unhappy with this contract we signed for you in a classified form, feel free to email your ideas to the government. We are sure that the skeleton crew left there will get back to you sometime before Hell freezes over.

“All of our actions were done for the sake of the economy, or for reasons of national security. As the great philanthropist of the 19th century J. P. Morgan once said: ‘There are always two reasons: a good reason and a real reason.’

“Hugs and kisses to all you grade-A American chumps. We will be at Club Epstein (location classified).

“You have been left holding the bag. Hold your nose and keep your distance when you open it ’cause it sure don’t smell too good.”

*

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This article was originally published on The Korea Times. March 24, 2020

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***

(Originally published Nov 20, 2021)

“I wonder if the Emperor Honorius watching the Vizigoths coming over the seventh hill truly realized that the Roman Empire was about to fall. This is just another page in history isn’t it? Will this be the end of our civilization?”

– Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek the Next Generation [1]

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As thousands of civilian contractors and hundreds of soldiers hustled to get out of Afghanistan by August 31 of this year, and as the formerly defeated Taliban began to re-establish their toe hold in the locations they once inhabited, there is one inescapable conclusion one could come to. And I can assure you that after nearly two decades of the U.S. occupation there, over a trillion dollars in military spending, and over 100,000 civilians killed or injured, the first word out of a sane individual’s mouth will not be victory! [2]

Afghanistan would only be the latest in a series of military accomplishments that have proved expensive both in terms of money and in terms of bloodshed. Iraq has proven to be a disaster where President George W Bush early on declared it victory. They are still at it in Syria ten years after the beginning of the civil war there was initiated with U.S. help. U.S. – led NATO is still failing to set up a neo-colonial government in Libya, an advanced African country turned into a calamity of economic devastation, human rights abuses and gangster rivalry. In Latin America, Maduro is enduring in spite of years of sanctions and a failed attempt to sink the government with one of their sock puppets Juan Guaido.

There are accelerating tendencies in recent years to pick fights with Russia and China, however they seem to be surviving the sanctions, the increased war training, and the diplomatic rhetoric quite well.

This spectacular run of defeats suggest that the age of the U.S. dominating the world as its one remaining superpower is now at a cross-roads. It suggests that the fearsome spectre of violent military might is losing its fangs.

It seems the era of the U.S. Empire is coming to an end.

To get a more comprehensive understanding if what fate may befall the once mighty “City on a Hill” as it fades from glory, we need to put the story of their decline through the lens of history. How did other empires win the gold of imperialism and how did they ultimately lose it overtime? This will be the approach of this week episode of the Global Research News Hour.

Joining me for the duration of the program is Alfred W McCoy. A historian and educator based in Madison-Wisconsin, he will be guiding us through his book, in stores as of this past week, entitled To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change.

Professor McCoy will go back seven centuries to the Black Death and the rise of the Portuguese and Spanish empire and guide us through the British and later the American era of empire. He also points to the features these imperial ages had in common, the world orders of ethics that transcribed each separate age in transition. And he also points to the reality of climate change as the current catastrophe from which China, will make its debut as a successor to America.

Alfred W. McCoy is a TomDispatch regular and the Harrington professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade (Harper & Row,1972) and of In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power (Dispatch Books, 2017). His latest book is To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change (Dispatch Books, 2017). He is also published frequently at Global Research.

(Global Research News Hour Episode 333)

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The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM out of the University of Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca .

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. 

Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday afternoon from 3-4pm.

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. Star Trek the Next Generation (1990), ‘The Best of Both Worlds’
2. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-47391821

La rassegna stampa internazionale di Byoblu | 60° puntata

Sempre più evidente è il fatto che la guerra in corso non è solo tra Russia e Ucraina, ma tra Russia e NATO. Lo conferma la notizia data dal New York Times che migliaia di soldati ucraini vengono addestrati sul suolo britannico. Stati Uniti, Gran Bretagna, Canada, Danimarca, Polonia e altri paesi hanno addestrato e armato fin dal 2015 decine di migliaia di soldati ucraini, impiegati contro la Russia di fatto sotto comando USA-NATO.

Viene condotta allo stesso tempo una crescente campagna per diffondere l’odio contro la Russia. Nel Central Park di New York è stata installata, in un parco giochi, una statua di Putin di colore rosso sangue, seduto su un carrarmato, contro cui i bambini sparano con le loro pistole giocattolo. Si sta così diffondendo in Occidente il tipo di “educazione” attuato da anni in Ucraina nei campi scuola del battaglione Azov dove bambini e ragazzi ricevono una formazione improntata alle idee del suprematismo bianco e del neonazismo. Mentre il governo ucraino annuncia che manderà al rogo 100 milioni di libri russi (compresi tutti i classici della letteratura) considerati “fonte del Male”, l’Italia contribuisce a questo tipo di “istruzione” stanziando 200 milioni di euro, sottratti alla Scuola italiana, per il pagamento dei salari degli insegnanti delle scuole ucraine.

Il crescente impegno militare italiano sul fronte orientale e in altri scenari bellici comporta una crescente spesa militare. Mario Draghi, dal giorno dello scioglimento delle Camere (21 luglio) a oggi, ha trasmesso alle Camere 7 decreti per programmi di armamento il cui costo supera i 7 miliardi di euro. Tra questi l’armamento dei droni Predatori made in USA attraverso un accordo con il Governo USA. Continua così ad aumentare la spesa militare italiana, salita nel 2022 a 29 miliardi di euro annui, equivalenti a 80 milioni di euro al giorno, sottratti alle fondamentali spese sociali.

Video : https://www.byoblu.com/2022/08/19/fuori-litalia-dalla-guerra-grandangolo-pangea/ :

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***

On 10 August, Paul Craig Roberts wrote:

“People love the digital revolution.  It allows them to work from home and avoid stressful commutes and office politics.  The young love their cell phones that connect them to the world. For writers the Internet offers, for now, a far larger audience than a syndicated columnist could obtain.  But while we enjoy and delight in its advantages, the tyranny inherent in the digital revolution is slowly closing its grip on our lives.” 

He hits the nail on the head; couldn’t be more accurate.

Meanwhile, in Switzerland – host country and paradise of and for the WEF, WHO, BIS (Bank for International Settlements also called Central Bank of all Central Banks), as well as the hub of the international banking cartel and more – coming blackout scenarios are propagated on the media and desk-top simulated.

That’s on the news today – every hour on the hour. Fearmongering, or real? In any case, people debate the potential consequences of such a blackout, or several blackouts to come – in a predicted cold-cold winter.

Similar reports come out of Germany and France- and possibly most EU (European Union) countries. Could this be a concerted effort by the WEF? Let’s not forget, Ms. Ursula Von der Leyen, unelected President of the European Commission, is a member of the WEF’s Board of Trustees. And you should know, so are BlackRock, Vanguard, StateStreet, as well as many of the top private banking and financial institutions. Everything connects. Remember? No coincidences. See WEF Leadership.

Swiss electricity reserve capacity – 1 hour. They say.

Everything, infrastructure, public transport, internet, cellphone services, supermarkets, banking services, ATM-cash machines and not least electronic bank accounts would be “out of order” – or in the case of bank accounts, in the extreme, possibly wiped out, depending on who would be served by a wipe-out.

Hospitals and other vital services would be exempt from the blackout(s) – how is that? A managed blackout?

Now the struggle is on, at least in the simulated debate – who may be considered and wants to be considered as “vital service”.  It would be laughable, if it wasn’t so sad.

For the last week or so, the mainstream news is telling us how people are buying up home generators, hoping to become electricity-autonomous. Vendors of such machines are desperate. They are in short-supply and have long waiting lists…. Don’t know how to serve their new customers. Demand has apparently increased ten to twenty-fold over the year, depending whom you ask or listen to.

Many firewood suppliers are sold out for the year.

Doesn’t it occur to these people, that a home generator wouldn’t bring back internet, cellphone connections, ATM, digital bank accounts, transport systems, food supplies supermarkets, restaurants, and?

Home generators would need fuel to work. If there are energy shortages – let’s not forget, artificially, wantonly made shortages – one among many tools to dominate the masses, there would most likely also be shortages of oil, and gasoline, petrol, to operate the generators.

Why not, instead buy some candles, batteries, and non-perishable food and warm clothing?

There is literally a stampede to store up on potential sources of energy for individual use, at best for family use.

So far, there is hardly a trace of growing solidarity among people, to built up a common front against the energy tyrants.

The same Luciferian Cult that is creating food shortages through most likely weather engineered droughts, floods, fires — CLIMATE CHANGE, beware! And by oligarchs and financial giants buying up and destroying farm land around the globe, thus creating famine, misery and death.

Engineered weather is difficult to prove. Only circumstantial evidence, namely cui bono (who benefits) points to some very good reasons for these extended and extreme weather phenomena: prolonged waves of heat and drought, as well as life- and food-crop threatening and destroying flash floods, might indicate that there is an ulterior purpose in DARPA-style weather-weaponizing,

See this, this and this.

DARPA, a strategic military thinktank, is linked to the Pentagon. Wikipedia describes it as follows:

“The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [Darpa] is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.”

Weaponizing weather is one of the least visible, but deadliest armaments of recent history.

The dark cabal, or the Beast, as it were, counts with human egocentricity, everyone for himself, instead of a solidarity mass awakening and mass movement. That’s how they believe they will win the battle for global tyranny.

Such blackouts – false or real – may trigger an awakening in those young and “progressive”, misinformed people, who are delighted about digitization, QR coding everything, who would die for advancing Klaus Schwab’s 4^th Industrial Revolution even faster – they may finally see the light, the real awakening light in the imposed darkness, when their money and freedom disappears in a digital tyranny.

To top it all off, some high-level scientist-professors of Swiss Ivy League universities have apparently participated in an international rainwater study that concluded rainwater was toxic and should by no means be used as drinking water. There we go. Should there by any chance be a water shortage (artificial of course in Switzerland, considered the water castle of Europe), under no circumstances should you collect and drink rainwater. It’s dangerous.

Well, maybe they were thinking of the chemtrail pollutants….

Finally, if we, in solidarity, abandon the Dark Cult’s system, the Beast’s monetary system, let the Beast be Beast – while we occupy our agricultural land, and ascend as a massive human movement to the real light – far outshining their artificial fuel-based light in their eternal darkness. We may see into a bright future.

This may not be as difficult as it appears – as soon as we realize the strength of togetherness, of pulling on one solidarity string, a whole new panoply of opportunities may open up in harmony, inspiring new opportunities under the banner of Peace and Love.

*

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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and  co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also is a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

Featured image is from The Last American Vagabond

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).

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @crg_globalresearch.

***

First published October 29, 2021

.

Incisive analysis of Funeral Director John O’Looney 

***

Dear Sir,

My name is John and I run my own funeral home in Milton Keynes – this is me www.mkffs.co.uk.

I have been a funeral director for 15 years, ten of those were spent with the cooperative funeral care and the last five I have been running my own funeral home.

During this time I spent 7 years working as a coroners removal man, dealing with the recovery of deceased on behalf of the coroner in my area which was Northamptonshire.

I write to you with very grave concerns around these Covid vaccinations and Covid generally, over the last 20 months I have seen a series of very disturbing patterns and patterns in death rates and circumstance’s surrounding Covid.

I have seen massive efforts made to deliberately inflate Covid death numbers by relabelling cancer patients and stroke victims and all manner of normal regular deaths as Covid, in fact virtually anyone getting into an ambulance, this effort has been deliberate and the methods used to do so were totally flawed, PCR tests for example being run on 45 cycles we all know to be worthless, yet people are being euthanised on this basis and sometimes only on the basis of a chest x-ray alone.

I have heard the first hand testimony from those involved, nurses on wards have told me directly this is happening.

I have seen many deaths in care homes, especially March and April of 2020 at a time that huge amounts of Midazolam were purchased and used and I suspect that there has been a campaign of unlawful killings in these care homes for some time, again labelled as Covid deaths.

There has been no doctor present, no police present and no Covid test present – yet they were all labelled as Covid deaths? Why is this and why is it being ignored?

More concerningly I now see primarily vaccine recipient’s coming into my care, almost exclusively in fact.

Some pass away as little as a few hours after being injected and other up to 24 weeks after, the primary cause of death seem to be consistently thrombosis leading to heart attack or stroke.

Other deaths I see are shortly after a booster and consist of very sudden organ failure in previously very healthy people, people I suspect being damaged by these injections they are being scare-mongered, coerced and blackmailed into taking.

Now I know full well that coroners across the country will be seeing this and I question why alarm bells are not being raised, in fact I have had 80 other funeral workers in all positions, get in touch now to voice their own concerns as well as hundreds of families – but not a single coroner.

Why is this being ignored?

I know you guys are seeing this unprecedented thrombosis death rates, because I speak to a vast number of other funeral homes and these deaths will virtually all be in vaccine recipients.

I speak regularly to NHS Nurses and Doctors seeing this on their wards prior to these deaths and in fact one nurse told me of a ward with 12 patients with thrombosis in their arms – this is not normal, it’s criminal.

I write to you in the hope that these patterns will be acknowledged by you and addressed and that some effort will begin to stop what is happening as they target children in schools now, children not old enough to vote, drive a car, get married or place a wager, but apparently now old enough to be coerced behind their parents’ backs and without parental consent to consent themselves (illegally) to become part of an experiment using a gene therapy.

I also know that many of these children are now very sick and many are dying – I have spoken to the parents of some of these children personally.

Prior to children being injected, not a single child to my knowledge had died from Covid and again I have spoken to many other funeral homes globally to confirm this – they are dying now in numbers after these injections Sir and death rates in teenagers are on the rise, again you will be aware of this.

I have seen video testimony from one headmaster who explains he now has 14 of his pupils off and very ill after these injections, that is in a single school.

I also find a growing number of people coming into my funeral home very upset and the medical neglect they feel they have suffered over the last 20 months as GP’s work from the comfort of their sitting rooms, earning far more money NOT seeing patients and I can go into great detail about this, but I am sure you are aware of it.

As a man with a moral compass I want this to stop Sir and id like to think you feel the same way – it has to stop.

On September 21^st 2021 I met with Sir Graham Brady from the 1922 committee in a meeting in Birdcage Walk, Westminster.

We sat with Sir Graham and at least 16 of the very scientific and legal minds, it was disappointingly reported as a group of “anti vaxxers” in the times.

Let me be clear Sir that when you have the calibre of people like Dolores Cahill in a room that is anything but the truth.

Dolores is a wonderful woman who was advising the British government in her twenties, she has been in charge of running level 3 bio labs and has worked in level 4 bio labs. My point is this, she has built her career on vaccines, she is anything BUT anti Vax.

The room was full of people of the same calibre, myself excluded of course, people who actually care about human life and are experts in their respective fields.

We all gave testimony in our respective fields about out concerns and the science was delivered in heaps of papers submitted to him.

Sir Graham knew what we were saying was true and he left making no promises and nothing has changed.

There are grave concerns over cardio inflammation and sterilization in children receiving these injections – those concerns were raised, nothing has changed and we now see deaths in those children across the country.

I am sure that the people included in this email would be happy to support my concerns and supply with scientific data and credible evidence if asked to do so.

I look forward to hearing from you and I hope that you do what is right, please Sir will you engage with us to stop this madness before humanity is ruined.

I have CC’d in a large number of very well respected people into this email, people you will know, well respected and well qualified people, people who all feel the same way as me to see if we can collectively save lives instead of destroying them and ignoring it happening.

I write to you in the hope you are a force for good and i worry that I now conduct many funerals for people who are being unlawfully killed sir and this is why I speak out – and I am being joined daily by thousands who feel the exact same way.

Can you help us save lives please ? Children’s lives.

Thank you Sir.

John O’Looney

*

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***

Originally published March 26, 2022.

“Joe Biden looked Vladimir Putin in the eye last June and threatened him with massive sanctions should he act on Ukraine. Sanctions like you’ve never seen before! … He had months to sit down with his inner circle and say, “how do we prepare for this?” Nothing the U.S. and its allies are doing has taken the Russians by surprise. NOTHING! They anticipated EVERYTHING! And they have a plan in response.”

– Scott Ritter (from this week’s interview)

Today, the dangers of military escalation are beyond description.

What is now happening in Ukraine has serious geopolitical implications. It could lead us into a World War III scenario.

It is important that a peace process be initiated with a view to preventing escalation. 

It is absolutely essential that Freedom of Speech prevail as a means to resolving this crisis which potentially threatens the future of humanity.

Global Research,  March 4, 2022

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

s
The company BlackRock, Inc manages $10 trillion dollars in assets, and as such investors tend to place close attention to the views and opinions of chairman and CEO Larry Fink. Here is what he said in his recent letter to shareholders:

“the Russian invasion of Ukraine has put an end to the globalization we have experienced over the last three decades… Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and its subsequent decoupling from the global economy is going to prompt companies and governments worldwide to re-evaluate their dependencies and re-analyze their manufacturing and assembly footprints – something that Covid had already spurred many to start doing.”[1]

In other words, the spectacle of the last few weeks, and the response by NATO has had far-reaching ramifications beyond the aggression mustered by the United States as they invaded or devastated one country after another for years and years. Globalization is dead! A massive decoupling is taking place!

Indeed, the sanctions put in place to hurt Russia are hitting Americans, Canadians and the European communities too as we pull up to the gas station or watch our food prices start to escalate. [2][3]

Meanwhile, on Friday, President Biden, flanked by  European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced an agreement to lower the European Union’s dependence on Vladimir Putin’s oil and gas supplies. According to Biden:

“We’re going to have to make sure the families in Europe can get through this winter and the next while we’re building the infrastructure for a diversified, resilient and clean energy future.”[4]

So the stakes for the Ukraine literally go far beyond the bullets, bombs and bravery of troops in the Eastern European country. While NATO still won’t engage them on the battlefield (let us hope) the many other financial measures levelled against Russia that are having consequences potentially as devastating as an actual war.

With Saudi Arabia now pursuing talks allowing some of it’s oil to be priced in the Chinese currency the Yuan, the dominance of the American dollar as part of the standard for maintaining its power is in jeopardy. As well, 5 nations including Russia itself rejected the United Nations General Assembly vote to immediately end Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine. The 35 nations that abstained did so, in many cases as suspecting that the West incited the conditions that led to the conflict. So Russia is not exactly “isolated.” [5]

Is a new divided world part of the New World Order that has been unraveled in front of us? This week’s Global Research News Hour makes an attempt to peek at the future of this gawd awful war!

In our first half hour, we are joined once again by US military intelligence officer and strategist Scott Ritter. He will assess the longevity of the Russian mission in Ukraine (not long by his standards), the role of President Zelenskyy calling for help NATO can’t provide, and the sanctions war which will hurt the U.S. and Europe far more than Russia.

In our second half hour, we will be joined by the great economic thinker Prof. Michael Hudson. He will explain the true strategy of provoking Russia’s war, describe the accelerating slide of the US currency, and what the dynamics of this new separation of states is going to play out.

Scott Ritter is a U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence officer, former UN Chief Weapons Inspector from 1991 -1998, and is currently engaged as a commentator and columnist on Huffington Post, consortiumnews and the American Conservative.

Michael Hudson is President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, and Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. He is also the author of J is for Junk Economics from (2017), Killing the Host from (2015), and his 1968 classic Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire. His website is michael-hudson.com

(Global Research News  Hour Episode 349)

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

Transcript – Interview with Michael Hudson, March 24, 2022

Part One

Global Research: Great privilege to speak with you again Mr. Hudson. Welcome!

Michael Hudson: Thanks for having me on!

GR: Now, We’re seeing NATO unifying together behind the US call to sanction Russia, including removal from the SWIFT system. They’re being hit with sanctions to hurt, sanctions from hell as President Biden would say, and it doesn’t look as if it’s working. But the sanctions are boomeranging, and hitting the EU and the US pretty hard with soaring rates for food, fertilizer, oil and gas. They seem to provoke Russian aggression. He’s kind of compelled them to do that. We know it wasn’t the response, I mean it’s something they have been working on all along. But what really was the strategic goal of provoking Russia to go to sanctions war with Ukraine?  Do they foresee Russia begging for mercy or is there more going on here?

MH: I think it’s just the opposite of what you said. The war isn’t against Russia. The war isn’t against Ukraine. The war is against Europe and Germany. The purpose of the sanctions is to prevent Europe and other allies from increasing their trade and investment with Russia and China, because the United States saw that the centre of world growth is not in America now that it’s deindustrializing. Following neoliberal policies since the 1980s has ended up hollowing out the US economy. And how on earth can the United States maintain prosperity if it’s lost the ability to do wealth creation?

The only way of maintaining prosperity if you can’t create it at home is to get it from abroad. And the attempt, beginning a year ago, by President Biden and by the US neocons, was to block Nord Stream 2, and failing that, to block all energy trade and other trade with Russia. So that the United States could monopolize it itself. One of the main tools for the last hundred years of US control of the world economy has been by the oil industry. Controlling world energy trade. Energy is the key to the GDP, the productivity and every country, and the thought of energy trade passing out of US control into that of other countries threatened the United States’ ability to turn off other countries.

So the provocation of war in Ukraine and the provocation of a US response has enabled the US to say, look at how awful the Russian is doing, it’s defending itself. Defending itself against the United States is a declaration of war. Because it means that you are breaking away from the dollarized system, and so by the thought that other countries have the potential of becoming independent was viewed at the United States as a challenge to the United States’ ability to dictate their policies and to use dollar diplomacy to take control of their commanding heights.

The fear of the United States of course is that the environmental movement would be able to move to stop global warming by slowing the carbon fuels, oil and gas, and so by creating this crisis in Europe, the United States has greatly…it bases its foreign policy on accelerating global warming. Accelerating coal and oil as the fuels of the future. I think President Biden in Poland today is promising Polish coal to replace Russian oil. And American coal. That’s why President Biden has Senator Manchin from the coal industry lobby as head of the environmental and energy agency.

So what you’re seeing is not the US backfiring and shooting it in their foot by creating a world crisis. That’s the idea! Because it realizes that in the world crisis, energy prices are going to go way up, benefiting the US balance of payments. Not only as an energy exporter, but the oil companies that control the world oil trade, once they exclude Russia from it, agricultural crop prices will go way up, benefiting the United States as an agricultural exporter, especially if they prevent Ukrainian and Russian wheat exports, and this is going to create a debt crisis for third world countries whose debts are coming due. And the United States can use this debt crisis to force them, or attempt to force them, if they go along with it, to continue privatizing and selling off their public domain to US buyers so they can sell off their patrimony in order to get the money to pay the debts to pay for the higher oil and food imports.

The US strategy is to create exactly the world crisis that you are presented as being accidental. You can be sure that these people read the newspapers enough to know that this is the obvious result of what they’re doing. Look at what they’re doing as deliberate. Don’t assume they’re dumb. They’re smart, they’re evil, but they’re not dumb.

GR: You know it’s quite a bit there, but I want to point out that in one of your articles you talked about basically three areas, economic areas, that seemed to be dominating things in the US right now. There’s the oil and gas sector, there’s the military-industrial complex, and then there’s the FIRE sector, finance, industry, and real estate. And I think all three of those areas are benefiting from the current situation. You can see this clearly. The levels, the rates of Raytheon and Lockheed Martin going up…

MH: Well, I’m not sure about the banks. Where did the banks’ interest end up in all this? Banks, since the 13th century, have made the bulk of their money on trade financing. Receivables, if you’re an importer of oil, you get a letter of credit so that the bank promises to pay when the delivery is made. Trade financing is a huge banking activity, and now, the US banks are locked out of this trade financing as long as it concerns Russia, China and probably the Belt and Road Initiative countries. So it’s hard to see how the banks are benefiting. Especially if the third world countries, the global south countries, say we are not going to sacrifice our economies and impose austerity just to pay for bondholders. The loans have gone bad, they’re odious loans, we’re repudiating. We’re not paying them.

That is not going to help banks and investors. So the banks seem to have taken a… They’re a beat behind in all of this. The war doesn’t seem to be economic as much as neoliberal, a visceral hatred of Russia, and a hatred of Germany also, among the neocons. And I think that’s, it’s not understood, but there’s this non-economic, almost a racist hatred at work here when it extends to China for instance. And the United States is, you don’t know what’s going to happen in anarchy. If there’s a financial war, and, the world is splitting into two economic blocs, it’s very much like a military war. You really don’t know what’s going to happen in anarchy. It’s brad-bag. The United States thinks that it has enough power by bribery, by force, by assassination, if need be, as some of the senators have called for, to get its way, but I’m not sure that that’s going to be met with simple passivity on the part of everybody who the United States declares to be an enemy.

GR: Well, Saudi Arabia recently announced it would be pricing oil in the yuan. That means that the dollar now has a competitor, I guess, when it comes to buying oil.

MH: Oil trade with China. Other countries are not going to do their trade in dollars because the United States can simply grab whatever dollar assets they have. If a country does something independent, as when Chile became, wanted to take control of the copper trade, under Allende, the United States can simply grab its money. When Venezuela thought to undertake land reform in the popular policy, the United States simply seized its money, and the Bank of England seized Venezuela’s gold. The United States simply seized Afghanistan’s foreign reserves before it seized Russia’s foreign reserves.

So all of a sudden, countries or afraid to keep, are afraid to use US banks, afraid to use any connection with the dollar, or to have any, anything available for the United States to grab, because that’s its policy now. That is what’s really driving other countries away. Even America’s allies must be frightened, because Germany is asking for its gold supply to be sent back to it from the New York Federal Reserve Bank in airplane loads.

GR: Yeah, so you are seeing sort of like a domino effect, I mean is the American dollar, it was already in some difficulty, but now, you can see that really accelerating as we continue, and in all of those other global south countries and other places that you mentioned, they’re going to ditch that and go with the other currency?

MH: The crisis is political. It’s not going with another currency. President Putin, in his speeches, said this war is not about Ukraine. This war is about restructuring the international order. And what that means is an alternative to the IMF. An alternative set of institutions to the World Bank. An alternative to the World Court. And an alternative to the US rules-based order based on the United Nations rules for instance, but that can’t be done as long as the United States is a member of that group.

So it means that there’s going to be a new grouping of international organizations, of which the United States will not join because it won’t join any organization that it does not have veto power in. So you’re going to have to parallel paths. You’ll have a neoliberal financialized, debt-financed path in Europe and North America, and you’ll have an industrial capitalism evolving into socialism path in China and the Belt and Road Initiative, Shanghai Cooperation Organization Block.

– Intermission-

Part Two

GR: I think that resolving Ukraine is sort of like a short-term deal, but the longer term is going to be in fact shaking Europe away from NATO and the United States degree of influence.

MH: United States is thoroughly in control of European politicians. The only opposition to NATO and the US in Europe is the right wing. The nationalist wing. The left wing is fully behind the United States and has been ever since, really the National Endowment for Democracy and other US Agencies really took control of the left-wing parties throughout Europe. They’ve Tony Blairized the European left, the Social Democratic parties in Germany and the rest of Europe, the labour parties in England, these are not labour and not socialist, they’re basically pro-American neoliberal parties.

GR: I know that Russia is very rich in mineral deposits, its rich in oil and gas as well. Russia and Ukraine form part of the breadbasket of the world. And as they control the important minerals like lithium and palladium and so forth, so they’re dealing with Ukraine, part of that plan, as a result you’re going to see, as I mentioned, a lot of impacts worldwide including food, and we’re probably going to start to see even food shortages pretty soon.

MH: That is the intention, You have to realize that this was anticipated. Without gas, already German fertilizer companies are going out of business because fertilizer is made out of gas, and if they can’t get their Russian gas, they can’t make the fertilizer, and if you don’t have the fertilizer, the crops are not going to be as prevalent and abundant as they were before. So all of this, you have to assume that, it’s so obvious, they knew this would happen, and they expect the United States to benefit from the cost squeeze that it’s imposing on food importers to the US benefit.

GR: I just want to get a sense of what the United States has to fight back with. I mean, they had the prestige of the dollar in their ability to make up things, but they also have control, through using, confiscating, for example, the gold and the deposits of the Russian government, the Russian Central Bank. Are these efforts going to be, is that the sort of thing that they have, I mean we could also talk later on about the actual military, but could you talk about those sorts of tools that the United States has to fight back against Russia?

MH: Well, the obvious tool is that’s used for the last 75 years has been bribery. European politicians especially are very easy to bribe. And most countries, just simply paying them money, and backing their political campaigns, meddling in other countries by huge financial support of pro-US politicians is the obvious way. Targeted assassination ever since World War II when the British and Americans moved into Greece and began shooting all of the anti-Nazis because they were largely socialists, and England and America wanted to restore the Greek monarchy. You have Operation Gladio in Italy, you have the targeted assassinations from Chile all the way through the rest of Latin America and its wake. So, if you can’t buy them, kill them.

Then there are various military forces. And the main tool that the US has tried to use is sanctions. If they can’t get their oil, or finance it in gas or food from Russia, then America can simply turn off their food supply. And turn off critical raw materials and interrupt their economic processes because there are so many different components that you need for almost any kind of economic activity…

The United States was looking for pressure points. And it is going to try to work on the pressure points, sabotage certainly, is another tool that’s being used, as you see in Ukraine. So the question is whether this attempt on pressure points is going to force other countries to, certainly it’s going to cause suffering. In the short term for these countries.

Over the longer-term, they’re going to see, we’re going to have to become self-sufficient in the main pressure points. We’re going to have to produce our own food. Not import our wheat. We’re going to have to shift away from growing export plantation crops and have our own grain, maybe return to family size farming to do all this. We’re going to have to produce our own arms, we’re going to have to have our own fuel sources, and that would include solar energy and renewable energy to become independent of the American-dominated oil and gas and coal trade. So the longer-term, even medium-term effect of all of this is going to make other countries self-sufficient and independent.

There will be a lot of interruptions, even starvation, a lot of property transfers and disruption, but over the long term, the United States will, is destroying the idea of a single interconnected globalized order because it’s separated Europe and North America from the whole rest of the world.

GR: How is… When it comes to dealing with the oligarchs in Russia, and what they’re facing with these sanctions, do they want the sanctions to be ended so they can get involved with the United States, or are they taking to Putin and a “let’s do it on our own approach?”

MH: In the past, the oligarchs were very western oriented because when they transferred Russia’s oil and gas and nickel and real estate into their own hands, how did they cash out? There wasn’t any money in Russia because it was all destroyed in the, after 1991 in the shock therapy. The only way they could cash out was by selling some of their stocks to the west. And that’s what Khodorkovsky wanted to do when he wanted to sell Yukos to, I think, the Standard Oil Group. And now that they realize that the United States can simply grab their yachts, grab their British real estate, grab their sports teams, grab the assets they hold in the west, they’re realizing their only safety is to hold it within Russia and its allied economies, not US-based economies where whatever they have in the west can be grabbed.

So yes today, or yesterday, Chubais left Russia for good and went to the west, and you’re having the oligarchs choose. Either they remain in Russia and look at their wealth by creating Russian means of production or they leave Russia, they take their money and they run and hope that the west will let them keep some of what they stole.

GR: Among the countries that are not going to be supporting the sanctions against Russia or China, India, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kurdistan, I mean all those countries in the Central Asian region. And that seems to be benefiting the Belt and Road Initiative, I think.

MH: You’d think so. The big question mark is India. Because it’s so large. And India has already positioned itself to be the intermediary for a lot of financial trade financing with Russia. India is also prone to be pro-American. And Modi in the past politically has been very pro-American. But the fact is if you’re looking at India’s implicit national economic interests, its economic interests lies with the region it’s in. With Eurasia, not with the United States.

So the question is, I think within the Pentagon and the state department, their big worry is, how do we keep control of India in the US hands? That’s going to be the big crisis areas for the next few years.

GR: Maybe I’ll, maybe get you to put on your glasses to sort of looking ahead into the future. Maybe a couple of years from now. Given the prevailing trends, how is this going to play out? Is this, is it going to have one side advanced more than the other or is it going to be a nuclear husk? What is your thinking?

MH: I don’t think it’ll be nuclear, although it could, given the crazy neocons with their Christian fundamentalists in Washington, people like Pompeo thinking that Jesus will come if you blow up the world. I mean, these people are literally crazy.

I worked with National Security people 50 years ago at the Hudson Institute, and I couldn’t believe that human brains were as twisted as they were, wanting to blow up much of the world for religious reasons. And for ethnic reasons, and for personal psychology reasons. And these are the people that have somehow risen to a policy-making position in the United States, and they’re threatening not only the rest of the world, but of course the US economy as well.

But I don’t think atomic war is likely. I think that the United States is going to try to convince other countries that neoliberalism is the way that they can get rich. And of course, it’s not.

Neoliberalism impoverishes. Neoliberalism is a class war against labour by finance, primarily, and a class war against industry. A class war against governments. It’s the financial class really against the whole rest of society seeking to use debt leverage to control companies, countries, families and individuals by debt. And the question is, are they really going to be able to convince people that the way to get rich is to go into debt. Or are other countries going to say, this is a blind alley. And it’s been a blind alley really since Rome that bequeathed all the pro creditor debt laws to western civilization that were utterly different from those of the near east, that, where civilizations take off.

GR: And just maybe a final thought, I mean, I’m based in Canada, and it seems when I’m hearing about de-dollarization at the sinking of the US economy and how things are going to go for ordinary individuals, and I’m wondering if Canada can somehow escape that trajectory next to me or are we kind of manacles at the wrists, where the United States goes, we’re going there too?

MH: Canada is completely controlled by the banking sector. I wrote an article for the government’s think-tank, Canada and the New Monetary Order, in 1978, detailing how Canada was dependant. It’s very debt-financed, financially controlled, and its government is utterly corrupt. The neoliberal party, the liberal party there is fairly corrupt, and so are most of the other parties, and they look at the United States as protecting the corruption and economic gangsterism that enables them to control Canada.

GR: Well, Michael Hudson, I guess we’ve got to go now, but thanks for that very large and interesting discussion on our survival, how we survive this war, and what the consequences will be. Thank you very much for being my guest on Global Research.

MH: It’s good to be here.

The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM out of the University of Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca .

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Notes:

1. https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/investor-relations/larry-fink-chairmans-letter
2. Polansek and Ana Mano(March 23, 2022), “As sanctions bite Russia, fertilizer shortage imperils world food supply,” Reuters; https://www.reuters.com/business/sanctions-bite-russia-fertilizer-shortage-imperils-world-food-supply-2022-03-23/
3. Dan Eberhart (March 23, 2022), “As sanctions bite Russia, fertilizer shortage imperils world food supply“, Reuters; https://www.forbes.com/sites/daneberhart/2022/03/23/expanded-sanctions-on-russian-oil-will-cause-economic-pain-for-everyone/?sh=300dec32bcb0
4. Emily Rauhala, Tyler Pager, Ashley Parker (March 25, 2022), “Biden, E.U. announce plan to reduce Europe’s reliance on Russian energy,” The Washington Post; https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/biden-eu-announce-plan-to-reduce-europe-s-reliance-on-russian-energy/ar-AAVtSsS?ocid=BingNewsSearch
5. Tom O’Connor (March 2, 2022), “The 4 Nations Who Back Russia’s War in Ukraine, and 35 Who Won’t Condemn It,”Newsweek; https://www.newsweek.com/4-nations-who-back-russias-war-ukraine-35-who-wont-condemn-it-1684250 

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First published on July 19, 2022

The White House keeps insisting that it will not directly involve American soldiers in the war in Ukraine, but it keeps taking steps that will inevitably lead to a large-scale open combat role for the US against Russia. Among the most recent moves to increase the pressure on the Kremlin, Biden revealed at a NATO summit meeting in Madrid on June 29^th that the US will establish a permanent headquarters in Poland for the Fifth Army Corps, maintain an additional rotational brigade of thousands of troops in Romania and bolster other deployments in the Baltic states. Also, the number of US troops in Europe, currently approaching 100,000, will be increased. Biden also was pleased to learn that Turkey had been enticed to drop its objection to Finland and Sweden joining NATO.

On the way to the NATO summit aboard Air Force One, Biden’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan advised that “By the end of the summit what you will see is a more robust, more effective, more combat credible, more capable and more determined force posture to take account of a more acute and aggravated Russian threat.” Presumably Sullivan was reading from a prepared script, but the objective surely seemed to be to heighten tension with Moscow rather than attempt to reduce it and come to some kind of diplomatic settlement.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also did his bit. In an astonishing display of derriere kissing, he responded that the new US force posture commitments were demonstrative of Biden’s strong leadership. What Stoltenberg did not mention was that Biden has been lying for some time about the presence of US military personnel in Ukraine. He let the cat out of the bag back in March, when he told troops belonging to the 82^nd Airborne division in Poland that they would soon be going to Ukraine, observing that “You’re going to see when you’re there, and some of you have been there, you’re gonna see —” It was an admission that US forces are already in place inside Ukraine even though the White House quickly did damage control, asserting that the president continues to be opposed to American soldiers being directly engaged in the fighting. Biden also claimed that the US was working to “keep the massacre [of Ukrainians] from continuing.” Again, the language was hardly designed to make some room for a possible accommodation with Russia to negotiate an end to the fighting.

And now there is a New York Times report entitled “Commando Network Coordinates Flow of Weapons in Ukraine, Officials Say: A secretive operation involving US Special Operations forces hints at the scale of the effort to assist Ukraine’s still outgunned military.”

The article describes a more active US role in Ukraine than the Biden Administration has been willing to admit publicly. Back in February, before intervened in Ukraine, the US reportedly withdrew its own 150 military instructors, many of whom were training Ukrainian soldiers on newly acquired American produced weapons. However, some Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) paramilitary operatives and special ops troops continued their service in the country secretly, directing most of the intelligence flow the US is sharing with Ukrainian forces. In addition to that, special ops soldiers from Washington’s NATO allies have been managing the movement of weapons and equipment into Ukraine and providing some specialized training. It has also been reported that British SAS commandos are actually guarding President Volodymyr Zelensky. The NYT specifies, citing American and other Western officials, that the soldiers and CIA officers are currently not on the front lines with Ukrainian troops. Also according to the Times, even though the US and NATO member states have not acknowledged the presence of their paramilitaries soldiers in operational roles in Ukraine, Russia and other intelligence services around the world are aware of this.

The New York Times report appears to be generally correct, though it does omit some details, some of which I have been hearing from former colleagues in the intelligence services. There has been considerable overt training at the Grafenwoehr German army base as well as at the Ramstein US Air Base to familiarize the Ukrainians with the new weapons arriving. Other NATO countries are also participating in the training. Meanwhile, the cadres of special operations soldiers and intelligence personnel operating primarily in western Ukraine are not in uniform and many of them are working under various contrived cover designations, including sometimes loose affiliations with foreign embassies and NGOs. There are also a conventional CIA Station, a group from the National Security Agency and a Military Attache’s office in the recently reopened US Embassy in Kiev.

All of the above means that Biden and other western leaders have been dissimulating regarding their active participation in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Apart from his possible gaffe, Biden will not admit that there are American boots already on the ground, but they are there and are playing a major role in both logistics and intelligence sharing. The potential downside for the president could come when some of these soldiers in mufti get killed or, worse, captured and start to talk about their role.

Retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, a former analyst for the US Department of Defense, observes that deploying plausibly deniable non-uniformed personnel “is completely typical of the initial stages of a US-backed long war, and for long-term political manipulation of the target country. This is the future that neoconservative ‘strategists’ in DC and their British and European allies imagine for Ukraine. Rather than a negotiated conclusion, with a new Ukrainian role as a neutral and productive country, independent of both Russian and US political influences, the US government and CIA see Ukraine as an expendable yet useful satrap in its competition with the Russian Federation.”

Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson sees the activity in stark terms, while also commenting that the CIA has not won a semi-clandestine insurgent war in forty years. He observes that “Ukraine is a proxy; the West is trying to destroy Russia, it’s that simple. It would be one thing if Russia was the most evil, oppressive, authoritarian regime in the world. It’s nowhere even close. Even though the West keeps trying to portray Russia as such. The fact of the matter is, the West wants the resources that Russia has and it wants to control Russia. [But] Russia is not about to be controlled.”

In other words, Washington might be seeking an unending war entangling Russia and limiting its options globally. The Biden Administration has staked its reputation and possible political future on enabling Ukraine to survive without succumbing to Russian territorial demands. It is a risky and even dangerous policy, both in practical terms and politically. The persistence of the Ukrainians in their defense is largely a product of US and Western Europe guarantees that they will do all that is necessary to support Zelensky and his regime, which is already seeking $750 billion in aid for “reconstruction.” If western military casualties begin to surface, the political support for the Ukraine war will begin to fade in Washington and elsewhere and there will be consequences in the upcoming midterm US elections in November.

A final comment on the Times piece is in response to the question why it has appeared at all at the present time.

The mainstream media has been a cheerleader for aggressive US support of Ukraine and Zelensky, but now it is beginning to step back from that position, as have also the Washington Post and other media outlets. Perhaps they are becoming convinced that the game plan being promoted by Washington and its European allies is unlikely to succeed at great cost to the respective economies. Larry Johnson puts it this way: “I think the purpose of this article coming out now is just to lay the groundwork for why we can’t put or shouldn’t put any more US military personnel or even CIA personnel inside Ukraine because continuing to put US personnel…inside Ukraine to train is becoming too risky because of Russia’s success on the battlefield.” One might also add that it is exceptionally dangerous. A misstep or even a deliberate false flag coming from either side could easily make the war go nuclear.

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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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It isn’t often that a generation lives through a systemic breakdown crisis. While many shallower minds are quick to lay blame to the cause of their troubles on a convenient scapegoat (1), the fact is that these sorts of systemic collapses take time and the root causes are to be found in something both more universal and more subjective.

Many generations of bad ideas must be embraced without self-criticism or correction before a foolish society unwilling to break from popular delusions faces the consequence of their folly. Machiavelli once noted in his Discourses on Livy (investigating the causes of the decay and collapse of Rome published in 1517 AD) that unless a wayward republic returns to its founding principles, it isn’t long for this world.

Such was the world of the late 4th century when a young Manichean teacher of Rhetoric hailing from North Africa had decided to convert to the new religion of Christianity in 386 AD under the influence of a powerful church leader named St Ambrose (340-397 AD).Augustine didn’t have much love for Christianity itself when he found himself first attending the lectures of Ambrose in Milan and found the religion to be a rather overbearing doctrine relying too much on blind faith and too little on reason.

Ambrose threw the young man’s presumptions out the window, and although he first found himself fascinated by the bishop’s use of rhetoric to persuade his audience, he increasingly found himself actually listening to the substance of the man’s words, soon realizing that for the first time, here was a Christian not preaching AT him, but actually using reason to explain why it were better to be good and virtuous than to hold onto the hedonistic ethos in Rome’s still Pagan-dominated cultural milieux.

Like Augustine, Ambrose had mastered the classics including the works of Plato and especially the writings of Cicero whose death ushered in the collapse of the republic into full blown empire four centuries earlier. These studies gave both men a powerful edge lacking in those Christians who chose to defend their position from a literalist reading of the text of their canonized works, transcending matters of dogma and activating powers of universal reason behind the surface appearance of church doctrine.

Speaking in his Confessions, Augustine writes:

“And to Milan I came, to Ambrose the bishop, famed through the whole world as one of the best of men, thy devoted servant… To him I was led by thee without my knowledge, that by him I might be led to thee in full knowledge. That man of God received me as a father would, and welcomed my coming as a good bishop should. And I began to love him, of course, not at the first as a teacher of the truth, for I had entirely despaired of finding that in thy Church–but as a friendly man. And I studiously listened to him–though not with the right motive–as he preached to the people. I was trying to discover whether his eloquence came up to his reputation, and whether it flowed fuller or thinner than others said it did. And thus I hung on his words intently, but, as to his subject matter, I was only a careless and contemptuous listener. I was delighted with the charm of his speech, which was more erudite, though less cheerful and soothing, than Faustus’ style. As for subject matter, however, there could be no comparison, for the latter was wandering around in Manichean deceptions, while the former was teaching salvation most soundly. But “salvation is far from the wicked,” such as I was then when I stood before him. Yet I was drawing nearer, gradually and unconsciously.”

A World on the Brink of Collapse

Even though Christianity had been adopted as a state-supported religion in 381 AD, old habits die hard, and just as the Roman elite often simply adapted their pagan rites and rituals into new Christian wineskins, the lessons of Christ were not necessarily high priorities even for many of the Roman converts within the general population who valued personal comfort and stability over the higher message of loving God and loving your fellow man as you love yourself outlined by Christ.

What made this more complicated is that Rome had over-extended itself several times over and had little capability to maintain its international concessions with a capital that had long found itself addicted to ever greater spoils of pillage and slave labor from the subdued peoples of the world. The governing class, military leaders and administrative managers had all glutted themselves in a corrupt system of governance which had grown fat with lethargy and arrogance over the centuries.

Amidst this decay, a growing armada of organized Germanic forces among the Goths, Huns and Visigoths were growing in influence pressing ever harder on Rome’s borders. With the death of Theodosius in 395 AD, any remnant of stabilizing influence in the Roman empire had disappeared, and the disorganized, undisciplined forces of Rome became increasingly incapable of organizing any resistance to the growing assaults of Alaric (leader of the Visigoths). After Theodosius died, Rome was divided into Eastern and Western segments with the west the least manageable.

By 410 AD, the walls of the capital were breached for the first time in history and the first sacking of Rome occurred with a ferocity that none had imagined possible.

From the moment of his conversion to his final breath, Augustine’s leadership skills, mastery of the Platonic method and power of rhetoric made him an organic leader within a beleaguered Church. Not only was Rome in an existential crisis on a geopolitical level, but the very church itself had faced an internal rot with splintered heresies breaking away as cults and sub-cults, each declaring themselves the one true heir to Christ’s mission.

After the first sacking of Rome in 410 AD, things were looking rather bleak and the desperate population was looking for a scapegoat to absorb their hate.

Were the gods punishing the people for having abandoned them when Rome stopped trying to wipe Christianity off the map and instead chose to embrace it as the official state religion? Augustine found himself doing battle with this trend and the City of God was his defense of Christianity which he began in 412 AD and finished in 426 AD. Its lessons have as much application in diagnosing today’s systemic crisis as they did 1600 years ago.

Augustine’s Defense of Christianity

In the City of God, Augustine described how the mob of Rome was quickly turning on the Christians in the following remarks:

“Rome having been stormed and sacked by the Goths under Alaric their king, the worshipers of false gods, or pagans, as we commonly call them, made an attempt to attribute this calamity to the Christian religion, and began to blaspheme the true God with even more than their wonted bitterness and acerbity. It was this which kindled my zeal for the house of God and prompted me to undertake the defence of the City of God against the charges and misrepresentations of its assailants.”

Within the City of God, Augustine argues that it isn’t Christianity that is to blame for the collapse of Rome, but rather Rome itself which had fallen from obedience to Natural Law upon whose adherence the survival of societies absolutely depends. While God allows for a certain degree of flexibility to his wayward children who fall into corruption- patience is not infinite and the disobedience to Natural law devoid of redemption can only be tolerated for so long.

Citing Cicero (106 – 43 BC), Augustine’s insight into the true causes of Rome’s downfall hinged on the positive conception of a healthy society which is in harmony with the mandate of the ideal City of God. This is a society which has wisely rejected the law of “might makes right” of empire.

In the case of Rome, Augustine makes the point that the seeds of her own destruction were sewn long before the birth of Christ.

Even before the debauched revelries normalized under the oversight of the Roman imperial cults of the Committee of 15 which interpreted the oracular gobbledygook in the Sibylline Books of Apollo, and before the hegemony of the cults of Cybele and Mithras which saw a total collapse of the minds and morals of both Roman plebians and elites alike, and before the age of bloodlust that the coliseum’s gore entailed as “popular entertainment”, Cicero perfectly diagnosed Rome’s spiritual self-destruction in his Commonwealth.

Citing Cicero, Augustine defines a healthy community saying “a community of commonwealth is not an association of units, but an association united by a common sense of right and a community of common interest”. Continuing to cite Cicero’s 64 BC opus, he writes “the morality has passed away and we are bound to be called to account for the disaster… for we retain the name of a commonwealth, but we have lost the reality long ago, and this was not through any misfortune, but our own misdemeanors”.

The key moment cited by both Cicero and Augustine that saw Rome embrace her tragic destiny was located in the events surrounding the Third Punic War of 149-146 BC.

How Rome Lost the Mandate of Heaven

The third Punic war with Carthage was a moment not unlike the choice which the American elite made to launch into the Vietnam War and the murder of Cicero was not unlike the same decision those same elite made to stay silent and coverup the truth of John Kennedy’s murder in 1963. It also saw parallels to the collapse of Athens into empire with the judicial murder of Socrates in 399 BC and her embrace of wars with the Delian league in the 5th century BC.

It was during this war that Rome’s once loyal ally Carthage found herself the target of total destruction as Roman ships landed on the coasts of today’s Libya in 149 BC. Rome’s General Scipio Aemilianus had one mission to carry out which was immortalized in his words “Carthage delenda est”… Carthage must be destroyed.

The Carthaginians were desperate to avoid another war, and quickly offered to lay down her weapons and engage in terms of surrender. Sadly, their placation fell on deaf ears and the oligarchy managing Rome had decided that her large territories stretching across Africa, the Mediterranean and Southwest Asia had to be consolidated. After two years of war, Carthage’s capital was sieged, ending with every last man, woman and child killed or sold into slavery. The oligarchical system of families and cults which had once used Persia as their enforcer of global controls had found a new host on whom to exert their influence, and once-proud Roman republic was set there upon a new and darker destiny.

Augustine writes: “After the destruction of Carthage and before Christ’s coming, the degradation of traditional morality ceased to be a gradual decline and became a torrential rush.”

Augustine makes the point that “if the values of Christ’s teaching had been practised rather than license, Rome would be prospering. But now there is despair and even the true Christians must submit to endure the wickedness of an utterly corrupt state and by that endurance to win themselves a place of glory in that holy and majestic assembly as we call it on the Heavenly Commonwealth whose law is the Will of God”.

Here it is important to note, that Augustine is not saying that Rome needed to convert to Christianity in order to be saved, for Rome did just that, and it was not saved.

More important than simply being Christian in name, Augustine makes clear that Rome could have redeemed herself even before Christ was born by following the universal values contained in Christ’s teachings both on the individual level and the broader governmental level.

Augustine’s City of God is in many ways his attempt to do what Plato laid out in his life’s work and especially his Republic (published in 375 BC) and also what Cicero did in his Commonwealth published in 64 BC. In both cases the great philosopher/statesmen laid out their solutions to their nations’ slide into empire. All three noted that whenever societies fall into decadence which empire entails, the love of wisdom is replaced for the love of hedonism and other ephemeral pleasures. Love of the other is replaced with love of the self and considerations of the wellbeing of the whole community are reduced to the wellbeing of the individual member with power to impose their will onto the masses.

What is needed for a society to break free of the cyclical collapses which such a corrupt society is destined to face? The solution offered by Plato, Cicero and Augustine amounts to simply recognizing that government exists to advance the happiness of a people. This simple concept is much deeper than it appears.

True Happiness and the Pursuit of Philosopher Kings

Augustine writes

“If Plato says that the wise man is the man who imitates, knows and loves God, and that participation in this God brings man happiness, what need is there to examine the other philosophers? There are none who come nearer to us than the Platonists… Plato defined Sovereign Good as the life in accordance with virtue and he declared that this was possible only for one who had the knowledge of God and who strove to imitate him; this was the sole condition of happiness.”

As you can see, this idea of happiness is much higher than the lowly notion of happiness among today’s popular philosophers who attempt to define the sentiment within narrow egotistical terms of “satisfying my desire to do what I want to do”. Instead, Plato, Cicero and Augustine raise the concept along with later thinkers like Thomas More and Erasmus, to a standard of spiritual pleasure contained in the pursuit, acquisition and sharing of truth (aka: wisdom).

All things are designed by God to have loves that are premised on their natures. Just as a plant yearns for water, nutritious soil and CO2 (sorry Greta), and just as a body yearns for food, water, warmth so too does the soul have its own loves towards which it yearns to be made more healthy. The absence of the loves of each thing cause pain, disease and decay for their subjects, and this is the case for the soul whose food is wisdom, without the which no durable happiness were ever attainable.

Here Augustine notes “in all cases where love is rightly bestowed, that love is itself loved even more. For we are justified in calling a man good not merely because he merely knows what is good but because he loves the Good.”

Hammering at the lessons of Paul’s 1 Corinthians 13 which emphasizes the importance of love’s substance over the mere shadows of behavior Augustine clarifies his position:

“When a man’s resolve is to love God and to love his neighbor as himself, not according to man’s standards but according to God’s, he is undoubtedly said to be a man of good will, because of this love. This attitude is more commonly called ‘caritas/agape’ in holy scripture; but it appears in the same sacred writing under the appellation ‘Love’. When the apostle is giving instructions about the choice of a man to rule God’s people, he says that such a man should be a lover of the Good… There is indeed a love which is given to what should not be loved and that love is hated in himself by one who loves the love which is given to a proper object of Love. For these can both exist in the same man and it is good for man that what makes for right living should increase in him and what makes for evil should die away until he is made perfectly sound and all his life is changed into good.”

This idea was expressed nearly a thousand years earlier at the other edge of the world island by none other than Confucius who wrote: “At 15 I set my heart on learning; At 30 I firmly took my stand; At 40 I had no delusions; At 50 I knew the Mandate of Heaven; At 60 my ear was attuned; At 70 I followed my heart’s desire without overstepping the boundaries of right.”

Even Christ’s golden rule was a focal point of Confucian thought as the old sage stated “do not unto others as you would not have them do unto you”. The Christian notion of Natural Law as outlined in Augustine’s City of God also finds its parallel expression in Chinese thought vis a vis the concept of Tianming (aka: Mandate of Heaven) whose disobedience by a ruler is sufficient cause for a people to overthrow said ruler in favor of a new government better suited to maintaining the general welfare.

Although Augustine never saw the redemption of society in his lifetime, having died in 430 AD amidst a siege held by the Vandals in the former colony of Hippo located in today’s Algeria, the infusion of Augustine’s Platonic Christian outlook provided the basis for several major renaissances in the centuries after his death.

A New Hope for Humanity

It was a young Augustinian monk named Patrick who successfully launched a major transformation of Ireland into a Christian nation as outlined in Thomas Cahill’s ‘How the Irish Saved Civilization’ and it was an Irish Augustinian missionary named Saint Columba who finally returned to mainland Europe after several generations of war, decay and famine had reduced the continent to squalor. Starting in 565 AD, St. Columba led the largest Christianizing movement far outside the clutches of the Holy See’s control in the form of the Hiberno-Scottish mission which used Scotland as a new springboard for a mass organizing campaign across all Europe.

When St. Columba arrived on the mainland in 590 AD there was very little of substance to be found within the highly fragmented world of Europe.

The entire domain of the former western Roman Empire had been ravaged by territorial warlords fighting for terrain in a similar pattern that was experienced by China during the 480 year dark age that came in the wake of the Han Dynasty’s fall in 200 AD.

Just as the rediscovery and application of Confucian principles animated the Tang Dynasty’s revival of the Silk Road and unification of the divided land in 680 AD, so too did the rediscovery of Plato via the Augustinian Christian movement then sew the seeds for the re-unification of Europe under the Frankish King Pepin the short and his son Charlemagne who ended the age of Europe’s warring states and established the Carolingian Empire. This story is covered extensively by Professor Pierre Beaudry in Charlemagne’s Ecumenical Principle.

Among the most celebrated and widely transcribed books in Charlemagne’s court were Augustine’s City of God and On Christian Education which were read to Charlemagne extensively by the grand strategist Alcuin.

Under Charlemagne, an age of internal improvements were launched the likes of which had not been seen since the days of Alexander the Great. Besides the canals, roads, schools and new cities, we also see a mass education of children, social welfare reforms, economic reforms and perhaps most importantly, peace treaties and commercial ties with the Abbasid Dynasty of Haroun al Rashid, and the northern Jewish empire of Khazaria. It was this northern kingdom that served as a key strategic gateway of the Steppes Silk Road between China and Europe.

This Confucian-Christian-Muslim-Jewish alliance set an example which the oligarchy has been desperate to scrub from humanity’s collective memory for 1300 years.

For anyone who thinks that this potential alliance only involved the western branch of Catholic Christianity, and ignored the eastern orthodox Christian movement dominant in the Byzantine eastern Roman Empire of the day, it is worth noting that after Charlemagne had made an important maneuver to avoid war with Byzantium in 801 AD by asking Empress Irene of Athens her hand in marriage.

The fact that Irene accepted the offer at this moment presents the mind of a historian with an incredible sense of the possibilities of a world united by all major civilizations under an ecumenical alliance of cooperation. Could Christianity have re-united under a policy of cooperation with both itself and with the diverse civilizations surrounding her instead of embarking upon a new age of Balkanization within and inter-civilizational wars without? Would the leading factions of the ruling Roman oligarchical families centered in Venice, Rome and Byzantium have been able to subvert such an alliance of the forces of humanity?

Sadly, with the palace coup that overthrew Irene in 802, such potentials were destroyed forever and the world will never have an answer to such questions.

From Dante to the League of Cambrai

Despite the eventual sabotage of the ecumenical alliance of great civilizations after the 10th century, the Augustinian current of Christianity again found its champion in the form of Dante Alighieri who did much to revive St. Augustine’s thesis in his De Monarchia published in 1312 AD. Augustinian Christian leaders around Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464 AD) organized a unification of the church during the 1438 Council of Florence (again, soon sabotaged with the 1452 destruction of Constantinople) and again Augustinian Christians regrouped and set the stage for the Golden Renaissance.

It were these same leaders who organized the 1509 League of Cambrai which nearly finished the job begun by Alexander the Great by wiping the central command of the oligarchy from the face of the earth.

Despite its eventual subversion, European philosophers continued to rise into positions of power who looked to Plato, Cicero, and Augustine as the basis of Europe’s moral salvation. It should be here noted that a perverse effort to restore Charlemagne’s empire in the form of an expansionist program of war and tyranny also grew across the centuries and justified the eventual creation of the European Union in the late 20th Century. This nasty movement should not be confused with the genuine heirs of Charlemagne who saw the basis of their power not on might-make-right, but on the opposing idea of right-makes-might.

Among the most noteworthy of these leaders were France’s King Louis XI, England’s King Henry VII, Sir Thomas More, Erasmus of Rotterdam, King Henry IV of Navarre, Cardinal Jules Mazarin of France, Finance Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert and the great scientist/statesman Gottfried Leibniz (1649-1716).

Leibniz’s Augustinian Vision

On top of organizing many of the greatest reforms in administration, law and science policy within both Prussia and Russia (serving as Privy Councillor to Peter the Great), Gottfried Leibniz organized to unify the splintered branches of Christianity around a renewed Augustinian reform, and a broader age of reason by looking beyond the limits of the corrupted European courts to… China and Russia.

Corresponding with leading missionaries and advisors to the Kangxi emperor of China, Leibniz created the first major journal on Chinese thought and politics called Novissima Sinica (News from China) in 1696 where he laid out his grand design writing:

“I consider it a singular plan of the fates that human cultivation and refinement should today be concentrated, as it were, in the two extremes of our continent, in Europe and in China, which adorns the Orient as Europe does the opposite edge of the Earth. Perhaps Supreme Providence has ordained such an arrangement, so that as the most cultivated and distant peoples stretch out their arms to each other, those in between may gradually be brought to a better way of life. I do not think it an accident that the Russians, whose vast realm connects Europe with China and who hold sway over the deep barbarian lands of the North by the shore of the frozen ocean, should be led to the emulation of our ways through the strenuous efforts of their present ruler [Peter I].”

It is no coincidence that we find in the works of Leibniz and the Augustinian Christian movement, the key to the strategic thinking of Confucian Platonist Benjamin Franklin who applied the practical and metaphysical insights of Confucius, Christ and Plato into a new system of governance which he defined as a “science of happiness”.

If you have made it this far and don’t yet see any of the keys to the salvation of our current society within the context of the rising multipolar alliance and Confucian renaissance which is animating China’s New Silk Road, I highly advise reading this essay again.

The author delivered a lecture on this topic which can be viewed here

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Matthew Ehret the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review , and Senior Fellow at the American University in Moscow. He is author of the ‘Untold History of Canada’ book series and Clash of the Two Americas trilogy. In 2019 he co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation.

Note

(1) be it immigrants, jews, Chinese boogeymen, Russians or right wing domestic terrorists, there are scapegoats catering to everyone

All images in this article are from TCP

The Clash of the Two Americas

Vol. 1 & 2

by Matthew Ehret

In his new two volume series The Clash of the Two Americas, Matthew Ehret introduces a new analysis of American history from the vantage point that the globally-extended supranational shadow government that managed the British Empire was never fully defeated and has acted within the USA itself since 1776 as a continuous multi-generational fifth column managing every significant event and assassination of American presidents for the next 250 years.

Click here to order.

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Squeezed between Western and European sanctions due to its “special military operation” in Ukraine since late February and its dilapidating effects on Africa’s economy on one side and its decades-old desire to regain part of the Soviet-era influence despite the weak economic presence and negative perceptions at the core among the public especially the youth and middle class, Russia is gearing up for the next traditional African leaders summit.

With preparations underway, Russia would have to begin preparing for and play different attractive rhythms at the second African leaders summit in 2023 at St. Petersburg, Russia.

Reports monitored by the author indicate that the modest economic gains are gradually eroding due to Covid-19 these past two years and the situation is turning complicated currently due to the Russia-Ukraine crisis. The Russia-Ukraine crisis has a strong immeasurable negative impact, generating social discontent across large spectrum of the population in Africa. Therefore, African leaders would indiscriminately have to cooperate with any foreign investors willing to invest and support their development process. Across Africa, more than 282 million people are food insecured – and that number is rising, according to the estimates by the World Bank.

Throughout Africa, the vulnerable groups of the population are displaying discontent and dissatisfaction due to unbearable rising prices for commodities and consumables. This latest food crisis, which did not originate in the continent, is reaching alarming dimensions especially in Africa. In fact, African leaders are confronted with these hurdles and emerging challenges. They are feverishly looking for both short-term solutions to calm down existing tensions among the people, and also long-term strategies to push sustainable development and make pace for growth.

The United States percieves most of the challenges and opportunities with a difference in Africa. It is constantly investing and its private investors are active exploring the continent. The United States is well-connected with its public outreach diplomacy. American institutions and organizations are linking up with the youth, women and the civil society.

After a peak in 2014, foreign direct investment (FDI) in Africa from the United States dropped to US$47.5 billion in 2020. During the pandemic, it provided more than 50 million doses to 43 African countries. It has further given more than US$1.9 billion in Covid-related assistance, for urgent needs like emergency food and other humanitarian support.

President Joe Biden has launched the Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience. The year, the Congress allocated US$3 billion every year by 2024 to finance climate adaptation projects, the largest commitment ever made by the United States to reduce the impact of climate change on those most endangered by it.

Through the Power Africa programme, the U.S. has connected more than 25 million homes and businesses across the continent to electricity, 80 percent of which is based on renewables. Development Finance Corporation supports renewable energy across Africa, including a solar project in Nigeria, wind farms in Senegal and Kenya. Nigeria marked a new chapter with the signing of a US$2.1 billion development assistance agreement that supports collaboration in the fundamentals: in health, in education, agriculture, good governance.

And then four U.S. companies are collaborating with the Senegalese Government on infrastructure projects; that’s the Institut Pasteur de Dakar, which is working toward Covid-19 vaccine production with American support and investment; and pushing innovation, technology and entrepreneurship with women and youth groups in Africa. The popular partnership between the United States and Africa is YALI – the Young African Leaders Initiative. With various useful programmes, it concretely focuses on the youth – the youth is the future of Africa.

The Prosper Africa initiative aims to increase two-way trade and investment.  The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act – known as AGOA – provides duty-free access to American markets, and most African countries have taken full advantage of it. U.S. investors are seriously leveraging unto the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Similarly, China, Japan and South Korea have started localizing production of automobiles and tech gadgets.

Despite some criticism, international development institutions and organizations are ready and offering support. In addition, external countries are stepping up efforts in that direction. The World Bank stands ready. Its latest three-year, US$93 billion global programme – about 2/3 of which will support Africa’s development agenda – delivered through the International Development Association (IDA). The IDA is the world’s largest source of concessional funds, including grants for low-income countries, helping them seize opportunities to reduce poverty and stimulate inclusive growth.

This latest IDA replenishment will support Africa to increase even more in the years ahead.  Africa has become the prime region benefiting from IDA resources – growing more than tenfold its annual program of about US$3 billion in 2000 to well over US$30 billion currently. This support, plus growing on the ground presence across Africa, is enabling to work hand-in-hand with governments, with the private sector, and civil society to implement the continent’s ambitious development agenda.

While in Dakar, capital of Senegal, meeting more than a dozen Heads of State from across Africa, Axel van Trotsenburg, World Bank Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean, said “African leaders have, through the African Union process, articulated clear goals – from digitalization to electricity to education – and we are committed to helping Africa translate these ambitions into strong programmes that can, within a short period of time, improve people’s lives and transform the continent.”

Foreign countries including the United States, European Union, Asian states such China, and from the Gulf and Arab states are, indeed, at the forefront in Africa. They offer all kinds of support for investments and credit lines for infrastructure projects and development programmes, while Russia seems ultra-hesitant to do. In March during the heat of Russia-Ukraine crisis, the United States and European Union supported Africa through the African Development Bank (AfDB), when the bank sought funds more than US$50 billion for curated bankable projects in key priority sectors identified in the Africa Investment Forum’s 2020 Unified Response to Covid-19 initiative.

According to the China-Africa Economic and Trade Relationship Annual Report (2021), while Covid-19 has shaken the global economy, Chinese investment in Africa has been climbing. The report says China invested US$2.96 billion in Africa in 2020, up 9.5% from 2019.  The turnover of Chinese enterprises’ contracted projects in Africa amounted to US$383.3 billion in 2020, that is a 16.7% drop from 2019.

In a media release, the U.S. Government’s lead development agency, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has renewed its partnership with many African countries. Quiye recently, it offered to fund various projects, including investment in health and education, women and youth, and infrastructures in a number of African countries. For instance, in April this year, it gave assistance funding of US$1.5 billion to promote a more peaceful, prosperous and healthy Mozambique.

The economic significance of Eurasian Union for Africa’s development here need not be over-discussed. Members of the European Union such as Britain, France, Germany and The Netherlands are playing visible roles in Africa. The European Union, as a substantial economic power bloc, has long-term working relations with African Union.

With its new Global Gateway Strategy, the EU is demonstrating the readiness to support massive infrastructural investment in Africa.  It also seeks to unlock new business and investment opportunities, including in the areas of manufacturing and agro processing as well as regional and continental value chains development. In a document entitled “Toward a Comprehensive Strategy with Africa” – the document sets forth the template of what the EU plans to do with Africa.

Valdis Dombrovskis, Executive Vice-President and Commissioner at the EU Secretariat pointed out that “In this new approach towards Africa, we can build a modern, sustainable and mutually rewarding partnership of equals. Of course, there will be challenges along the way but the EU stands ready to help. We want to share the lessons from our own process of economic integration, and with our new Global Gateway Strategy. We have demonstrated that we are ready to support massive infrastructural investment in Africa.”

That said, African leaders are exploring available possibilities and windows that have been opened after the last EU-Africa summit. The European Union has unveiled €300 billion (US$340 billion) alternative to China’s Belt and Road initiative – an investment programme the bloc claims will create links, not dependencies.

There great rivalry and keen competition among key global players now. And Africa is now seen from different perspectives, but more importantly, it has been described as the last investment frontier due to the current transformations taking place there. During the 35th Assembly of the Heads of State and Government of the AU in Addis Ababa in February, António Guterres argued that Africa was “a source of hope” for the world.

In November 2021, a report prepared by 25 Russian policy experts, titled ‘Situation Analytical Report’ explicitly noted that many external countries are using diplomacy in all ways to support their efforts in Africa. It further criticized the inconsistency of Russia’s current policy towards Africa. The intensification of political contacts is only with a focus on making them demonstrative. Russia’s foreign policy strategy regarding Africa needs to spell out and incorporate the development needs of African countries.

While the number of high-level meetings has increased, the share of substantive issues on the agenda remains small. There are little definitive results from such high-level meetings. Many bilateral agreements largely remain not implemented, and many pledges undelivered. It pointed to lack of coordination among various state and para-state institutions working with Africa. According to the report, Russia has to intensify and redefine its parameters as it has now transcended to the fifth stage in its relationship with Africa.

That report was also critical about public speaking. The report lists insufficient and disorganized Russian-African lobbying, combined with the lack of “information hygiene” at all levels of public speaking among the main flaws of Russia’s current Africa policy. In several ways, ideas and intentions are often passed for results, and worse Russia’s possibilities are overestimated both publicly and in closed negotiations.

Several reports monitored by this author show clearly that there has been little approach, in terms of government and institutional public relations, in Russia’s foreign policy in Africa. Understandably, after thirty years most of its institutions connecting Africa are still in transitional mode from the Soviet era. This author has written a lot about this, emphasizing the seriousness of using media networks – an ordinary calculated attempt to build an atmosphere of trust and confidence. Quite obviously, Russians have to devote a great deal of thought to creating strategic communication group that could highlight its diverse performance and practical genuine interests in Africa.

Opening a new stage of relations becomes important especially when analyzing the contradictions and confrontations posed by the Russia-Ukraine crisis and its multiple effects on future relations. Without doubts, African leaders complained bitterly that they have become direct victims of the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Overall Russia’s investment in economic sectors is still staggering there in the continent and comparatively, the fact still remains that the United States, the European Union and a number of Asian and Gulf States are investing heavily in Africa.

The Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Deputy Mikhail Bogdanov, most often show their crosshair of consistent criticisms for Western and European dominance and investment in Africa. While Russia boasts of bilateral agreements with African countries, it lacks strategies for implementing the oftentimes ear-deafening, resonating and forward-looking policy for Africa. The passion for repeating the same things in different ways in speeches has become a style in Russian diplomacy. In a general sense, their repetitive theme of Soviet-era support for political liberation and now efforts to help Africa fight neocolonialism are highly appreciated but Russia has to, in practical terms, show its latest concrete policy achievements in various sectors for the past two decades in Africa.

On another side note, Russia most probably needs to design its own template of communication strategy ahead of the 2023 summit, that has to largely win the hearts of African leaders to the emerging New World Order. As already promised, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Sergey Lavrov, indicated in a mid-June message that “in these difficult and crucial times the strategic partnership with Africa has become a priority of Russia’s foreign policy. The signed agreements and the results will be consolidated at the forthcoming second Russia-Africa summit.”

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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), is now a regular contributor to Global Research. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.

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Why has there been almost no coverage of U.S.-led naval maritime exercises in the South China Sea at the same time multi-millionaire Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was visiting Taiwan? 

Consider what is being said, as well as what is totally omitted, in the U.S. coverage of China’s naval action around Taiwan.

The U.S. naval command RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific Amphibious Assault Training) was carrying out maneuvers involving 170 aircraft, 38 ships, 4 submarines, and 25,000 military personnel from all the G7 imperialist countries.

Some 19 other Asia Pacific countries were pulled in for symbolic participation. RIMPAC is the world’s largest international maritime exercise.

This aggressive maritime action took place from June 29 to August 4. In other words, it was going on as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was visiting Taiwan.

The shaping of information is all-pervasive. Whether it is FOX News, CNN, AP, The New York Times or The Washington Post, the multibillion-dollar media are part of and totally intertwined with U.S. military industries.

They collaborate in hiding U.S. war plans and provocations.

They also neglect the history which suggests that the U.S. has never had the best interests of the Taiwanese people at heart.

Taiwanese rapper and anti-imperialist commentator Zhong Xiangyu explains:

“The U.S. government has never been a protector of Taiwan. The U.S. Navy was the first country to attack Taiwan with a warship in 1867. The U.S. Navy supported Japan in invading Taiwan in 1874. The U.S. government sold weapons to Japan during the Sino-Japanese War, leading to China’s defeat and forcing China to cede Taiwan to Japan in 1895.

“Today Taiwan separatism is not true independence. It just means serving U.S. interests in a hegemonic, unequal relationship.”

China’s right to self-defense 

The media coverage of China’s military drills around Taiwan never describe them as self-defense. The media display absolute unity, blocking any mention of China’s right to safeguard its national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Every statement or action taken by China is relentlessly described as “threatening,” “provocative” or “expansionist.” The same words are used again and again in news articles and politicians’ statements.

Typical CNN story that puts China as the aggressor and fails to provide proper context for the conflict over Taiwan. [Source: foxnews.com]

There is only one accepted political line. The media repeat that China is irrational, paranoid, belligerent, menacing and overreacting.

U.S. actions, even military maneuvers in which thousands of troops employ jet bombers and aircraft carriers, are described as “routine rotations” or normal schedules—that is, if the mainstream media report on them at all.

The Chinese media are always described as state-controlled propaganda. By comparison, the U.S. corporate media are always defined as free and democratic.

This is so relentless that it impacts even social forces who oppose U.S. militarism and endless U.S. wars.

Routine threats by U.S. Navy 

RIMPAC is planned and coordinated by the U.S. Navy’s Third Fleet. According to its commander, their massive training is meant to deter escalation by China’s military.

Only part of the Third Fleet is engaged in RIMPAC. The fleet’s total size comes to a combat-ready force of more than 68,000 people, 100 ships and 400 aircraft.

Vice Adm. Scott D. Conn delivers remarks during a change of command and retirement ceremony after relieving Vice Adm. John D. Alexander as Commander, U.S. 3rd Fleet, aboard Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) on September 27, 2019. [Source: news.usni.org]

Moving into place as Pelosi visited Taiwan was the even larger U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet, the largest of its forward-deployed fleets. At any given time, it amounts to 50 to 70 ships and submarines, 150 aircraft, and more than 27,000 sailors and Marines.

The Seventh Fleet is led by the USS Ronald Reagan, accompanied by guided-missile destroyers, nuclear submarines and jet aircraft. This ship has now been joined by aircraft carrier battle groups of the USS Nimitz and USS Theodore Roosevelt.

It is comparable to a scenario in which Chinese destroyers were to sail into the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of New Orleans and Houston.

The U.S. Pacific Fleet consists of approximately 200 ships/submarines, nearly 1,200 aircraft, and more than 130,000 sailors and civilians. The U.S. Navy maintains 11 carrier strike groups in international waters.

Hiding in plain sight 

Isn’t this aggressive and threatening? Yet this vast and deadly armada is hidden in plain sight. It is barely mentioned, but even when hundreds of ships and aircraft are involved, they are described as simply participating in “routine” or “business as usual” exercises.

These continuing assaults are not top news, but they are reported in military news media, such as the Navy Times.

When the guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold conducted its third transit through the South China Sea in a week, the Chinese government was prompted to label the move as a provocation.

The U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet has so far this year sent an average of one guided-missile destroyer per month through the Taiwan Strait as a challenge to China.

According to the Navy Times, China’s foreign ministry protested:

“The U.S. military’s actions have seriously violated China’s sovereignty and security, seriously undermined peace and stability in the South China Sea, and seriously violated international law and norms governing international relations.”

China’s long-held position is that “the two sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one China and should work together to seek national reunification.”

The Taiwan Strait is part of the South China Sea, and China has claimed the area as its territorial waters. However, the United States has consistently said that it considers the strait to be international waters.

Freedom of Navigation – imperialist piracy 

“Freedom of Navigation” is similar to the grand term “Free Trade.” It is not about freedom. Freedom of Navigation has meant unrestricted U.S., British, French and Japanese access to the looting of China.

Few people in the U.S. are aware of the fact that, more than a century ago, the U.S. Navy sent fleets of armored ships to patrol Chinese rivers and coastal waters.

c. 1932. [Source: frankstaylorhistoryandroyalnavyhistory.net]

Special fleets of gunboats of the U.S. Navy and Marines patrolled Chinese rivers up to 1,000 miles inland. They were there to enforce U.S. trade interests and suppress uprisings. Armies of occupation from the U.S., Britain, France, Germany and Japan were stationed in Chinese cities.

“Concessions” were forced on China by brutal gunboat diplomacy and enshrined by onerous unequal treaties that made China pay imperialist countries huge indemnities and grant such “concessions” as control of its cities, major ports and largest waterways.

Britain, with U.S. and French participation, fought two Opium Wars in China to enforce its “right” to sell opium. The merchants called this “defending free trade” and “protecting freedom of navigation.”

It was the 1949 victory of the Chinese Communist Party that finally ended these “Freedom of Navigation” invasions into China’s mainland, opening the opportunity to rebuild a strong, united China which is increasingly able to defend its coastal waters and resist U.S. imperialist demands.

The corrupt and defeated former military forces, defending the rights of the old landlord class, withdrew, with U.S. Navy protection, to the island province of Taiwan. This was hardly a democratic process. It was a totally militarized U.S. occupation of the island.

China has held a consistent, well-understood position on its sovereignty and territorial integrity that is recognized internationally in all world bodies. China has repeatedly asserted its right to resolve this unfinished national reunification.

U.S. violates signed agreements 

Washington is openly violating three different signed agreements—Joint Communiques it made with China in 1972, 1979 and 1982—affirming that China is one country and Taiwan is a province of China.

Any focus on these signed agreements of “One China” in the Western media today would expose that the U.S. has broken its promises not to interrupt China’s efforts to reunify the island peacefully.

Once in a while the truth slips in. Roger Waters, co-founder of Pink Floyd, an English rock band formed in London in 1965, is now on a final U.S. tour titled: “This is not a drill.” In an interview with CNN on August 7, Waters refuted the narrative about Taiwan.

When CNN host Michael Smerconish said in the interview that “China is too busy encircling Taiwan,” Waters immediately said, “They’re not encircling Taiwan, Taiwan is part of China, and that’s been absolutely accepted by the whole of the international community since 1948.”

Smerconish tried to interrupt Waters, saying that China is “on the top of the list of human rights offenders.” Waters immediately shot back: “The Chinese didn’t go to Iraq in 2003 and kill one million people.”

Pelosi and insider trading 

The U.S. corporate media are united in hostility to China. At the same time, different media can favor either a Democratic or Republican presidency.

For example, Fox News, guilty of a daily barrage of racist stereotypes against China, was at the forefront of exposing Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, for his multimillion-dollar insider stock trading in a semiconductor firm just before Congress voted to give $52 billion to chip manufacturers in the U.S., called the CHIPS Act.

Despite this scandal and her role as Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi met with the chairman of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturer and a beneficiary of the U.S. legislation.

TSMC plans to build a $12-billion chip factory in the U.S. The semiconductor industry is a priority for the U.S. “containment” of China. At the same time, the U.S. government is using various sanctions to suppress Chinese high-tech companies and break chip supply chains away from China.

Effort to reverse U.S. corporate decline 

Wang Peng, a research fellow at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, explained: “The U.S. is using the CHIPS Act to force companies in countries and regions of key status on the global chip supply and industrial chains to play by U.S. rules, as well as encircling and suppressing chip industries in emerging markets.”

The bill’s requirement is for companies to pick one of only two choices: business ties with China, or subsidies from the U.S. government.

The problem U.S. imperialists face is how to force countries in the region to act against their own economic interests.

Taiwan’s annual exports to China come to $126.2 billion, almost double its exports to the U.S. of $65.9 billion. South Korea’s exports to China, at $132.5 billion, far outweigh the $74.4 billion to the U.S. Japan’s exports to China come to $163.8 billion, compared to only $135.9 billion in exports to the U.S.

In order to force high-tech companies to decouple from the People’s Republic of China, U.S. imperialism needs a political/military crisis with China. Every U.S. plan for sanctions on China starts with a manufactured crisis over Taiwan.

U.S. imperialism’s strategy of restructuring and distorting the global economy to serve its own short-term interests of maximizing immediate profits has led to an aggressive U.S. expansion of NATO and provocations in Ukraine.

The immediate threat to U.S. hegemony was the EU trade with Russia of $260 billion a year—10 times its trade with the U.S. The EU has also been the largest investor in Russia.

Breaking this growing economic integration of the EU with Russia, and at an even greater level with China, serves the long-term strategic interests of U.S. corporate domination that have been in place since World War II.

In 2021 China’s GDP was roughly 10 times larger than Russia’s. China is the world’s top trading economy and the number-one exporter of manufactured goods. It is in an increasingly strong position to resist U.S. demands.

The desperate imperialist strategy to reverse the declining global position of the U.S. will be far more disruptive to the global economy.

This information on U.S. provocations must be dragged into the daylight by all the forces determined to prevent another imperialist war.

The role of the U.S. corporate media is to make imperialist threats seem palatable and entirely reasonable. This is possible only by blocking all past history of U.S. wars while using racism to smear and demonize China’s legitimate, reasonable and lawful responses and countermeasures.

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Sara Flounders is an American political writer active in progressive and anti-war organizing since the 1960s. She is a member of the Secretariat of Workers World Party, as well as a principal leader of the International Action Center. Sara can be reached at [email protected].

Sara Flounders is a regular contributor to Global Research

Featured image: Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer Benfold conducts routine underway operations in the Philippine Sea on June 24, 2022. [Source: navytimes.com/no copyright infringement intended]

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***

Apparently, European countries are understanding that the path to peace in Ukraine requires stopping military aid. Data show that in July the six major European powers abstained from making new military agreements with Kiev. It was the first month without European aid pledges to Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian special military operation, in February. In fact, this indicates that Western support is on decline, leaving only Kiev to decide whether or not to continue with the conflict.

The news was announced by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy – more specifically through Ukraine Support Tracker, which operates within the Institute. According to the researchers, European authorities have become unable to keep up with the speed with which the US, UK and Poland send military aid. This situation has led to a slow decline in the supply of money, weapons and equipment, resulting in July’s absolute absence of support contracts.

The decline has been occurring since April. Looking from a realistic point of view it is possible that the Russian advance may have discouraged European leaders from maintaining high spending on the conflict, considering it as simply “lost”. Also, the discouragement may have been intensified especially after the Russian victory at the battle of Azovstal in May, when Western analysts finally began to admit that Kiev is losing the conflict.

More than geopolitical realism, there is also the direct pragmatic factor: Europe cannot promise Kiev more than it currently promises simply because it cannot give Kiev more than it currently does. Americans, British and Poles are managing to fulfill their promises because they have taken the Ukrainian situation as a national emergency and are mobilizing their productive forces to meet this demand. However, the EU has many other priorities that make it impossible to give more help to Kiev. In other words: whatever is happening at the front, Europe is not promising Kiev any more aid simply because it can no longer help.

Obviously, the situation will not lead to an abrupt interruption of aid, but a gradual decline. Certainly, the end of support will not be definitive or linear, having expectations for modest resumptions and new interruptions again. For example, at the beginning of August, there was a meeting between European authorities in Copenhagen to re-discuss aid strategies. It was decided that an amount of 1.5 billion euros would be sent. Although the act somehow means that Europeans still “care” about Ukraine, the number is far lower than previous conferences’ packages.

Commenting on the topic, Christoph Trebesch, head of the team compiling the Ukraine Support Tracker, said: “Despite the war entering a critical phase, new aid initiatives have dried up. (…) When you compare the speed at which the checkbook came out and the size of the money that was delivered, compared to what is on offer for Ukraine, it is tiny in comparison (…) I would say [current European support is] surprisingly little considering what is at stake (…)“.

Trebesch believes that the correct European stance would be to invest in the Ukrainian conflict the same amount of money invested in overcoming previous events, such as the eurozone crisis and the new coronavirus pandemic. Trebesch’s opinion reiterates that of many other pro-Kiev activists, who believe that a Russian victory would be an absolute disaster for the entire Europe and lead to the bloc’s collapse, which is why every possible effort should be made now in order to prevent Moscow from reaching its goals.

And even though political realism is growing among Europeans, many authorities still think like Trebesch. For example, Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks asked: “If we are wanting the war to end as soon as possible, they need to ask themselves, are they doing enough?”.

In fact, realism may overcome ideological or humanitarian arguments. The EU certainly has other priorities to address. The conflict itself brings with it many problems, such as the energy and food supply crisis. Thinking about solutions to problems that affect Europeans should be a priority over thinking about strategies to reverse the military scenario.

Furthermore, the argument that the current crisis should receive the same investment funds from previous crises is unfounded. The pandemic has killed thousands of Europeans, requiring direct state intervention. The conflict in Ukraine, as much as it worries the EU, is a foreign matter and cannot be a priority now. If the US, UK and Poland keep Ukraine as a priority, it is because these countries maintain a geopolitical and ideological rivalry against Russia, which is not the case in Europe.

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

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The Trusted News Initiative (TNI) was founded by the BBC in July 2019. While TNI claims to promote democracy and freedom, its purpose for being is global information control.

Partners in the initiative include global media outlets such as The Washington Post, Reuters, The Associated Press, AFP, the Financial Times and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), and Big Tech partners such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft

TNI was formed mere weeks after a Reuters Institute report revealed trust in U.S. media had slipped to an all-time low of just 29% — the lowest of the 46 countries included. Clearly, people were going elsewhere for the facts, and that probably had everything to do with the creation of TNI. They have no control over alternative media, so they needed a comprehensive way to shut them all down

By suppressing information about early treatment and the adverse effects suffered from the COVID shots, TNI partners have played a direct role in the destruction of lives. In short, TNI is the converse of “trusted news.” It is the very “fake news” it claims to combat

In addition to TNI, Google also has a similar program going on, called the Google News Initiative, which includes a $300 million funding commitment to the future of the news industry. The Google News Initiative is partnered with advertising agencies in a program called Trusted News for Trusted Advertising (TNTA), to ensure advertisers don’t have their ads associated with “false or misleading news,” thereby allowing them to “regain control of the media on which they publish the advertising”

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What is the Trusted News Initiative (TNI)? As you may have discovered, Orwellian doublespeak is rampant these days, and many organizations are named in complete opposition to their intended purposes. Such is the case with the TNI as well.

As explained in the video above, created by Steve Kirsch’s Vaccine Safety Research Foundation (VSRF), TNI is an organization created for the purpose of global information control. It was founded by the BBC in July 2019,^1,2,3 mere months before the COVID pandemic shattered all semblance of free speech rights.

Partners in the initiative include global media outlets such as The Washington Post, Reuters, The Associated Press, AFP, the Financial Times and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), and Big Tech partners such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft, just to name a few.^4,5

TNI Formed as Trust in Mainstream Media Hit Rock Bottom

As astutely noted by Elizabeth Woodsworth in The Liberty Beacon,⁶ TNI was formed mere weeks after a Reuters Institute report revealed trust in U.S. media had slipped to an all-time low of just 29% — the lowest of the 46 countries included. Canadians trust in mainstream media was only slightly better at 45%.

Also supporting the distrust in the media is an even more appalling recent Gallup Poll.⁷ Just 16% of U.S. adults now say they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in newspapers and 11% in television news. Jimmy Dore goes into more details below.

This massive slip “can only mean that people are going elsewhere for their news,” Woodsworth said. And that probably had everything to do with the creation of TNI. They realized people didn’t trust mainstream media anymore and were looking elsewhere for the facts.

This presented a serious problem, as they had no control over alternative media. How then would they shut down undesirable facts and theories that might jeopardize the smooth transition into the New World Order? Enter TNI and a new cadre of “fact checking” organizations to wrangle the unruly masses back into the brainwashing line.

Promoting ‘Freedom and Democracy’ Through Censorship

According to TNI, its first order of business was to “promote freedom and democracy” by preventing foreign interference in the 2020 election. However, TNI’s mission didn’t end there. Its Big Pharma backers had a vaccination agenda right from the start, and TNI has been instrumental in promoting that agenda and upholding their financial interests.

In 2019 — before we knew anything about the COVID shots to come — TNI warned that “anti-vaxxers are gaining traction” and that online platforms would need to intervene using algorithms to suppress the growing anti-vaccine movement.

In addition to suppressing undesirable vaccine content, TNI also floods online users with pro-vaccine messages to drown out what little opposition is left. As noted by VSRF, from the start, TNI sought to normalize the use of this experimental gene transfer technology, despite a mountain of unanswered questions about the safety and efficacy of mRNA technology.

Suppressing early treatment successes was also part of the vaccine agenda, as early treatment options posed a direct threat to the Emergency Use Authorization of these experimental shots.

To that same end, TNI also fueled hatred against the unvaccinated, and hired so-called “fact checkers” to publish false fact checks and hit pieces on those who questioned the sanity and safety of pandemic countermeasures, such as masks and lockdowns, or raised concerns about the experimental shots.

We’re Made to Pay for Our Own Destruction

Hundreds of outspoken doctors and scientists — including experts from Harvard, Stanford and Oxford — have been banned and deplatformed over the past two and a half years.

No matter how prestigious their careers, they’ve been labeled “dangerous” and targeted for neutralization. Many have lost their careers. They’ve been ousted from professional associations and stripped of their medical licenses.

Thousands of vaccine-injured people have also been accused of spreading “misinformation” and have been targeted for elimination from social media, while mainstream media (MSM) have roundly ignored their plight and pleas for recognition and help.

As noted by VSRF, by suppressing information about early treatment and the adverse effects suffered from the shots, TNI partners have played a direct role in the destruction of lives. In short, TNI is the converse of “trusted news.” It actually creates and promotes mis- and disinformation. It is the very “fake news” it claims to combat.

And “Who’s paying for this harmful suppression of science?” VSRF asks. The answer: YOU are. We all are, through our taxes. Government has spent billions of tax dollars to promote the experimental COVID jabs, which benefits no one but Big Pharma, various patent holders and investors.

Legacy Media Is on the Wrong Side of History

In a June 25, 2021, article, unidentified staff at TrialSite News commented on the shocking censorship that was already becoming apparent:⁸

“Since time immemorial, those with power have used it to control those without. In the modern world, big government and big tech represent the seats of power when it comes to who is allowed to say what. Of course, many think that ‘private companies’ can regulate speech in any way they see fit. But from either an ethical or legal point of view, this is false …

Legally, the Supreme Court has long held that when a private company creates something that functions as a public square (think of a company town), the First Amendment comes into play.

Way back in April 2020, it was already clear that the then-existing online socio-political censorship was going to expand into the world of science, medicine, and academia in the new COVID-19 era. On April 1 of that year, early in the pandemic, Foreign Policy took a look at these questions in a piece titled, ‘Coronavirus Has Started a Censorship Pandemic’⁹ …

[D]isallowing good-faith medical information because the public can’t be presumed to properly weigh claims is infantilizing said public, along with dismantling the free speech culture …

The efforts now underway to completely suppress positive data associated with early-onset treatment prospects such as ivermectin or the squelching of any discussion of vaccine safety issues is completely unacceptable in a civilized, democratic market-based society. Those perpetuating such offenses are in fact on the wrong side of history.”

And who are the ones perpetuating these offenses? The TNI, for sure. TNI partners have censored and tried to ruin the reputations and careers of fully qualified and licensed public health experts, doctors and scientists — all in the name of protecting you, the audience, from the life-saving information these experts are trying to share. In her closing remarks, Woodsworth says:¹⁰

“Regarding COVID-19, Dr. Piers Robinson, co-director of the Organization for Propaganda Studies, has judged, ‘It wouldn’t be an underestimation to say that this is probably one of the biggest propaganda operations that we have seen in history,’ concluding ‘what happens is down to how people resist and how much force and coercion the authorities use.’

Indeed, the very foundation of democracy is that public wisdom should be consulted and given its head in self-rule. The public has the constitutional right to full information to form and express its own conclusions and does not need a coordinated TNI to corral and contain it.

It is utterly outrageous that the voices the public needs from the top public health figures at its best universities are being denied to its hearing. A far superior job of investigative reporting is being done by the hard-working alternative media researchers without Big Pharma’s blood-stained advertising dollars.”

Organized Control

The reason the TNI has been so effective in shutting out opposing views is because all of the partners work together in a highly-organized manner. When one identifies a piece of “misinformation,” the order to quash it is shared across platforms. The same goes for the official narrative. Everyone supports and promotes it, no matter how illogical.

A debunking piece by one legacy media partner is used as “proof” by another, and Big Tech platforms, of course, have unprecedented ability to suppress unwanted content and push “official” or approved content to the front using algorithms alone.

As for who actually decides what the official narrative is supposed to be, your guess is as good as mine. What we do know is that wealthy and powerful interests control media worldwide.

Two major media controllers are BlackRock and the Vanguard Group, which combined own a vast majority of the world’s assets, including media companies. Another is Bill Gates, whose self-serving “donations” ensure media treat him like a medical expert (or climate expert, or nutritional expert, or agricultural expert) when, in reality, he’s just promoting ideas that will make him a ton of money.

TNI’s Not-so-Trustworthy Sources

And what about TNI’s “trusted sources”? Aside from other TNI partners and their fact checkers, trusted sources are the public health agencies, such as the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Every one of these agencies has a long “rap sheet” when it comes to corruption and errors in judgment, and their unreliability have been highlighted time and again over the course of the COVID pandemic. They’ve broken a long list of rules and regulations intended to ensure public safety, and rewritten others on the fly — again without following proper protocols.

Time and again, people have scratched their heads, saying, “How can they do that? That’s not lawful. They CAN’T do that!” Well, the reality is, they used to be merely corrupt, but now they’re completely lawless. And no one is stopping them.

Decisions made by the FDA, CDC, NIH and the WHO over the course of the pandemic have been downright shocking in their absolute absence of any moral compass. They’ve repeatedly deferred to Big Pharma and blatantly ignored even the most basic of safety protocols, putting even babies lives at risk.

In the past, we’d expect the Fourth Estate — journalists with integrity — to expose the kind of fraud and lawlessness these agencies are engaging in. But sadly, legacy media, just like nearly every federal regulatory agency, has been captured by the military industrial complex.

Legacy media is no longer the “free press.” It certainly is in no way shape or form your trusted source of news. Those days are long gone. They are completely captured; hardly a sentence is uttered that isn’t directed to them by the government and repeated parroting by all of legacy media in all their varied forms.

Google News Initiative

In addition to TNI, Google also has a similar program going on, called the Google News Initiative, which includes a $300 million funding commitment to the future of the news industry.

The Google News Initiative is partnered with advertising agencies in a program called Trusted News for Trusted Advertising (TNTA),¹¹ to ensure advertisers don’t have their ads associated with “false or misleading news,” thereby allowing them to “regain control of the media on which they publish the advertising.”

This is wrong on so many levels. Advertising and news/editorial departments are not supposed to be mixed, period. They are intended to operate independently, not as complements or supporting helpmates. The very fact that newspapers are failing and ad revenue is dropping makes the entire press corps susceptible to doing whatever the advertisers want.

And, online, advertisers include the CDC and NIH, as evidenced by their many ads on social media. So, the TNTA program is really all about building revenue. It has nothing to do with providing trustworthy news.

Several other copycats also exist that have nearly the same name as TNI. There’s the Trusting News Initiative, the Trust Project, the News Integrity Initiative, the Journalism Trust Initiative, you get the idea.¹² Some share partners with the TNI, further widening the media network of controlled news.

Add to that NewsGuard and scores of fact-checking organizations, all of whom work in tandem to promote the official narrative while suppressing opposing views. As I’ve stated before, NewsGuard received startup funds¹³ from the Publicis Groupe, one of the largest PR companies in the world, which serves the needs of several of the largest drug companies in the world.

Last but not least, there’s a tightly woven web of interlocking “fact-checking” agencies that work for advertisers in an effort to manipulate the news in favor of the advertisers or other entities with vested interests, such as governments and health organizations.

This web of fact-checkers is funded by hundreds of millions, possibly billions, of dollars. I believe this was planned long before the pandemic, and their goal is to steer the news into a second horn for advertisers. Not surprisingly, the drug industry has one of the largest advertising budgets, which is part of why you can’t get the truth about drugs and health from the legacy media or any of these fact-checkers.

TNI and Hitler’s Principles

In his Substack article, “Propaganda, Corporatism and the Hidden Global Coup,” Dr. Robert Malone describes the TNI thus:¹⁴

“The TNI uses advocacy journalism and journals to promote their causes. The Trusted News Initiative is more than this though; if you go back to Hitler’s basic principles, the members of the TNI are using these core principles to control the public.”

Hitler’s basic principles are described in the book, “Propaganda and Persuasion,” and are listed as:¹⁵

• Avoid abstract ideas — appeal to the emotions
• Constantly repeat just a few ideas. Use stereotyped phrases
• Give only one side of the argument
• Continuously criticize your opponents
• Pick out one special “enemy” for special vilification

I believe Dr. Malone is onto something. These principles have certainly become media norms over the past couple of years. Who knows — perhaps I was picked to be a “special enemy for special vilification” because the TNI and those who pull their puppet strings are all Nazis. I didn’t expect it to be that simplistic, but who knows?

We’re all getting an education in psychopathy these days, and there’s nothing normal about psychopathic logic. Their brains are wired differently and you won’t be able to understand their motivations no matter how hard you try. Is this perhaps why so many decisions handed down to us make no rational sense, either from a scientific, medical or humanitarian perspective?

If it’s true that many of those who are trying to take over the world in a global coup are in fact on the psychopathic spectrum, then our response needs to be suitably appropriate.

Appropriate responses when faced with a psychopath include keeping your emotions in check (as they seek to manipulate your emotions); standing your ground in an assertive manner; not buying into their stories (especially not victim stories); and paying attention only to their actions, not their words.^16,17

To be more precise, most experts have one primary suggestion for dealing with a psychopath, and that is, “Don’t.”¹⁸ Since we’re talking about media here, that’s a fairly simple action item. Just turn them off, and find alternative news sources that aren’t tainted by blood money and an overt attempt for global slavery.

You owe it to yourself and your family to take control of your health and avoid these propaganda tools and restrict your information to truly trusted and vetted sources.

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Notes

¹ Parispeaceforum TNI

² BBC TNI

^3, 6, 10 The Liberty Beacon August 13, 2021

⁴ Media Space TNI

⁵ EBU July 13, 2020

⁷ Gallup July 18, 2022

⁸ TrialSite News June 25, 2021

⁹ Foreign Policy April 1, 2020

¹¹ Google News Initiative TNTA

¹² Nieman Lab A Guide to the New Efforts Fighting for Journalism

¹³ CrunchBase NewsGuard

^14, 15 RW Malone Substack February 28, 2022

¹⁶ INC How to Deal With a Psychopath

^17, 18 Bakadesyo How to Deal With Psychopaths

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The Hybrid War waged by the US on multiple fronts against El Salvador had escalated by November 2018 as punishment for establishing relations with China, accepting that Taiwan is only a province. Now, within the context of the New Cold War, the Northamerican empire is redoubling efforts to limit the growing sovereignty that El Salvador and its democratically elected government have shown in recent years. In August 2018 the country severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan to establish them with China, and in 2022 followed a principled neutrality regarding the Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine that began in February.

Since then the US has expanded its New Cold War defense mechanism against this Central American country, seeking to limit and obstruct the government of Nayib Bukele through NGOs and Salvadoran government officials. The pressure exerted on the country by the US Hybrid War continues through threats, ultimatums and sanctions, despite the fact that “Chinese-Salvadoran cooperation poses no threat to US interests” as Andrew Korybko pointed out in an article in 2021.

A bitcoin ATM in El Zonte. (By Karlalhdz, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

The Bukele government in 2021 made Bitcoin legal tender along with the dollar. Soon after that the International Monetary Fund and the rating agencies — the West’s usual economic warfare institutions — expressed concern about the currency move. Months later, in February 2022, U.S. Senators Bob Menéndez and Jim Risch called for an investigation into El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin. Global South countries becoming sovereign is something that terrifies the US, they prefer that their Centralamerican vassals know their place and their limits so their behavior does not divert from those ends enshrined by their government and their oligarchies. Central America’s role under US rule is to be a servant state, whose purpose is to satisfy the economic and political needs of foreign states and not its own national needs, exemplifying the most basic definition of neocolonialism just as it occurs in other countries of the region.

On July 28, 2022, Democratic Senator Bob Menéndez in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee while interviewing the candidate for U.S. ambassador to El Salvador made a series of comments that demonstrate the seriousness of the Hybrid War against El Salvador. As if that weren’t enough, Menéndez also compared President Nayid Bukele to Hitler, and accused him of making pacts with organized crime. Here are the most significant excerpts from the recordings of the interview:

Senator Bob Menéndez: In Nicaragua Daniel Ortega has become what he once fought to overthrow a ruthless dictator his disdain for democracy and decency are attest to the international community as we confront the rising global tide of authoritarianism. In El Salvador President Bukele is wielding populism and new digital tools to perpetuate a cult of personality even as he undermines El Salvador’s democratic institutions at an alarming rate. […] Our Renacer Act lays out congressional guidance on suspending Nicaragua from the CAFTA (Central America Free Trade Agreement) trade agreement and I know it’s a powerful tool, the same thing with El Salvador. […] Mr Duncan I was a little surprised at your response to Senator Rubio about president Bukele’s popularity, Hitler was popular, Putin is popular in Russia, it doesn’t mean that because a person is popular in their country that in fact we don’t press extremely hard on violations of human rights and democracy […] So we have an increasingly challenging situation in El Salvador, one that threatens both the future democracy and the country in bilateral relations with the United States. Over the last two years president Bukele has presided over a number of alarming setbacks for democratic governments, undermining judicial independence intimidating opposition lawmakers by using security forces to occupy the legislature negotiating political pacts with gangs regularly attacking journalists and media outlets and in addition to these actions Bukele has also repeatedly used his network of Twitter trolls to attract and to attack and threaten not only government critics within El Salvador but also United States officials including my colleague in the house of representatives congresswoman Norma Torres. It’s amazing what he is doing directing against a member of the United States congress and former ambassador Gene Manz […] What other steps do you believe the United States needs to take to prevent further democratic backsliding in El Salvador?

Nominee Duncan: Senator […] I agree with you there have been a number of developments in El Salvador over the last two years that are concerning. When it comes to the strength and the health of El Salvador’s democracy I think we have made judicious use of the various sanctions tools that congress has given us to highlight some of those problems whether it’s the removal of the supreme court magistrates in the constitutional chamber, the gang truce that you referred to or other acts of either corruption or acts that tend to undermine democracy and I think we need to continue using those tools appropriately judiciously but we need to keep using them to send the message that El Salvador’s best future lies on the path of democracy.

Indeed, there are several elements to unpack from what was said in the committee proceedings, I would like to draw attention to how these US elected officials — as well as their NGO complex — use the words corruption and democracy as a shield and as code to disguise what they are really interested in, which is to neutralize the growing sovereignty of countries in the Global South like El Salvador whose government is increasingly sovereign in seeking to progress in order to strengthen their interests. Senator Menéndez openly threatens both Nicaragua and El Salvador with punishment if they continue their sovereign behavior, insisting that he wants to exclude them from DR-CAFTA. This treaty between the United States and Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua regulates numerous trade issues, and controlled by the U.S. simplifies the neocolonial administration of the economies of several countries at the same time. This in turn serves the commercial interests of the United States which controls the awarding of contracts from afar. This makes the Central American countries that signed the treaty vulnerable, since it profoundly overexposes their economies to manipulation by US corporate power as their inclusion or exclusion from the treaty is conditioned.

At a July 2022 press conference, Patrick Ventrell, who is the director of Central American Affairs for the US State Department, announced new sanctions against Nayib Bukele’s government officials, which were accompanied by sanctions against Honduras and Nicaragua in an expansion of the Engel List.

The Enhanced US-Northern Triangle Engagement Act was passed in 2020 to sanction actors involved in acts of corruption or attacks on democracy in the Central American region, but it is more than a list, it is a nexus for the information they receive from their different proxy elements within El Salvador, meaning that the list contains their own networks of information and action, this without counting related NGOs that are part of this infrastructure of deception. According to Ventrell

“It is a very serious list and obviously the sanction of not being able to enter the United States is something serious for many people, but as I mentioned we have other tools […] We are always investigating and receiving information, these decisions are based on a lot of information that we obtained through our missions abroad and all the information that the US government has”.

The list facilitates the synchronization of the networks of pro-U.S. officials, lawyers and NGOs that are responsible for gathering it. Understand the Engel List as a device by which the US can regulate the severity and logistics of Hybrid War economic sanctions. The government of El Salvador, while not a supporter of leftist revolutionary ideologies like Venezuela, Cuba or Nicaragua, is considered somewhat dangerous — though not to the degree of the others mentioned — because the Northamerican empire fears the economic, political and security sovereignty of countries in the Global South.

In September 2021 it included five El Salvadoran judges on its sanctions list for allegedly “undermining democracy”, however the real reason is that they interpreted the Salvadoran Constitution in such a way that President Bukele could run for presidential reelection after his current term ends in 2024 — a blatant foreign attempt to impact El Salvador’s internal presidential-related processes.

In December 2021, the U.S. sanctioned two El Salvador officials for alleged negotiations with Salvadoran gangs, for which they offer no tangible evidence in addition to unsubstantiated accusations by U.S. proxies inside the Central American nation. However, this accusation is somewhat ominous because Bukele’s government has done so much to neutralize gang members, pacify regions, and economically rehabilitate areas rescued from the terror of organized crime. Nevertheless, under Bukele’s leadership and his Territorial Control Plan more than 40,000 elements of organized crime have been arrested, freeing the population from captivity and dismantling the defacto system of drug trafficking and criminal protection money that was paid as a form of taxation. Entire populations of citizens as well as immigrants lived under a second government of criminal overlords. President Bukele declared a state of exception strategically designed to strengthen Democratic Security, while Western media, NGOs and other US proxies inside and outside the Central American nation have been protecting the gang members from the Salvadoran state in a macabre synchronization of efforts.

The Hybrid War of Terror fueled by terrorist criminal gangs complements the economic Hybrid War of sanctions and infowar through pro-US NGO networks and US-dominated international institutions like the UN and the OEA. The NGOs as well as the governments and the press of the ‘Golden Billion‘ countries synchronize Hybrid Warfare tools that impact the flow of information and news by confusing the population about what is really going on. This sinister indirect support for criminal factions follows — albeit on a smaller scale — a modus operandi used by the media to cover the Syrian conflict since 2013 to protect terrorist forces ravaging the Arab country. When Russian and Syrian forces managed to push back the US and EU-backed mercenary forces, there was a media spectacle of those same powers humanizing the terrorists so that sanctions against the Assad government would be put in place. Likewise, when the government of El Salvador makes significant advances in Democratic Security, the ‘Golden Billion‘ press cries.

The Territorial Control Plan has been vital to winning the war against the gangs because since its launch it has achieved a sustained reduction in homicides, the state regained control of the prisons, as well as the training of thousands of new elements. Without this work in democratic security it would not have been possible for El Salvador to leave the list of the most dangerous countries in the world, something it achieved in 2021, nor to have the personnel and equipment necessary to win the war against the gangs and maintain peace with the following phases, making security sustainable in the long term, preserving the peace and productivity lost for so many decades so it is very difficult for the Salvadoran people to deny all the good created with Bukele’s Territorial Control Plan along with the neutralization of the gangs, it was achieved in three years what past governments of El Salvador did not achieve in three decades.

Fully realizing that the state of El Salvador is already besieged and infiltrated by various strata of Hybrid War agents and that there is no way to neutralize them by verbally insisting naively that El Salvador is pro-US or pro-capitalism — or that it is not Nicaragua. Since the global transition to multipolarity accelerated, the US is operating under its New Cold War, in which it divides the world into two camps. For the US-led West it is routine to call for the total surrender of sovereignty and independence to the nations of the region, as a sort of inter-american death cult. The state of El Salvador is already in the process of creating the basis for full Democratic Security in the territory by neutralizing organized criminal elements that were effectively operating as a mercenary army over the population. The Hybrid War will continue to intensify in the foreseeable future, as the sovereignty shown by the Central American country — although quite limited in comparison with sovereign countries of the Global South — clashes directly with the United States prerogatives, which has entered fully into the New Cold War as a defense mechanism against the global systemic transition to multipolarity.

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More than 40 percent of pregnant women who participated in Pfizer’s mRNA COVID vaccine trial suffered miscarriages, according internal Pfizer documents, recently released under court order. Despite this, Pfizer, and the Biden administration insisted that the vaccines were safe for pregnant women.

Out of 50 pregnant women, 22 of them lost their babies, according to an analysis of the documents.

In a January court ruling, U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman of the Northern District of Texas, ordered the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to release around 12,000 documents immediately, and then 55,000 pages a month until all documents were released, totaling more than 300,000 pages.

The nonprofit group, Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency, sued the FDA last September, after the agency denied its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to expedite the release of mRNA vaccine review documents. In a November 2021 joint status report, the FDA proposed releasing only 500 pages of the documents a month, which would have taken up to 75 years.

Trial documents released in April revealed that Pfizer had to hire 1,800 additional full-time employees in the first half of 2021 to deal with “the large increase” of adverse reactions to its COVID vaccine.

The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine was made available under the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) on Dec. 11, 2020. By February of 2021, the company was seeing so many safety signals, including in pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, it had to immediately hire 600 employees to process the data.

A batch of documents released in late July showed that 44 percent of women who were pregnant during the trial suffered miscarriages, feminist author and journalist Dr. Naomi Wolf revealed on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast. Wolf has been spearheading research and analysis of the Pfizer documents through her website Daily Clout.

In the past, only 10 to 15 percent of known pregnancies ended in miscarriage.

“Pfizer took those deaths of babies—those spontaneous abortions and miscarriages—and recategorized them as recovered/resolved adverse effects,” Wolf told Bannon. “In other words, if you lost your baby, it was categorized by Pfizer as a resolved adverse event, like a headache that got better,” she added.

Wolf said adverse event cutoff report showing the miscarriages was March 13, 2021, and the FDA received the report on April 1, 2021.

Therefore, the FDA had this data nearly a year and a half ago, and instead raising an alarm, they, along with the CDC, went ahead and recommended the experimental injections for expectant mothers anyway.

“Over a year ago, the FDA received this report that out of 50 pregnant women, 22 of them lost their babies, and they did not say anything,” Wolf said, choking back tears. “Thus the FDA was aware of the horrifying rate of fetal death by the start of April 2021 and were silent.”

The CDC, as recently as last month, still recommended the experimental mRNA vaccines for pregnant and breastfeeding “people.”

“COVID-19 vaccination is recommended for all people 6 months and older. This includes people who are pregnant, breastfeeding, trying to get pregnant now, or might become pregnant in the future,” the CDC claims in a July 2022 post on its website. “CDC also recommends COVID-19 vaccines for infants 6 months and older who’s mother was vaccinated or had a COVID infection before or while pregnant.”

The FDA and CDC could conceivably claim they were unaware of high rate of miscarriages in the trial because Pfizer attempted to obscure the data.

“Pfizer notes the miscarriages as serious adverse events with moderate or severe toxicity ratings,” Wolf explained. “However, all of them were recategorized, by Pfizer, in the internal documents under the category of adverse events that were ‘recovered’ or ‘resolved.’”

Wolf noted that the Pfizer trial data correlates with the massive increase in miscarriages seen worldwide since the vaccine rollouts.

“If you extrapolate, globally, to all the pregnant women who are injected, it could explain what we’re seeing now of a baby die-off. 200 percent rise in neonatal deaths or spontaneous abortions and miscarriages in Scotland,” she said, adding, “86 babies died in Ontario when they usually have five or six [per quarter], and in Israel, a 34 percent rise of spontaneous abortions and miscarriages to vaccine.”

Back in January, three military doctors who had access to vaccination data in the DoD’s Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) disclosed that miscarriages and cancers among members of the US military had increased by about 300 percent in 2021 over the five year average.

These alarming safety signals were among several others brought to light by Thomas Renz, a member of America’s Frontline Doctors’ legal team, during a panel discussion convened by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) in January.

The CDC, however, still maintains on its website that “evidence continues to build showing that: COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy is safe and effective.”

The agency also claimed “there is currently no evidence that any vaccines, including COVID-19 vaccines, cause fertility problems in women or men,” despite recent studies showing otherwise.

Dr. James Thorp, an physician MD board-certified in obstetrics and gynecology, as well as maternal-fetal medicine, said in a recent interview that he has seen a massive spike in fetal death and adverse pregnancy outcomes after the mass vaccination campaign began.

Dr. Thorp told Epoch Times he has practiced obstetrics for over 42 years and sees 6,000–7,000 high-risk OB patients a year.

The obstetrician declared that the use of the experimental COVID vaccines on expectant mothers “broke all the rules.”

“We have always been guided by that principle, that longstanding, six millennia principle—the golden rule of pregnancy—you never, ever use an investigational drug, a new substance, a new drug, a new vaccine—even if there’s a potential benefit,” he said. “You don’t ever use a new substance in pregnancy.”

Thorp said that in his practice, he’s seen a “significant increase” in problems, including “extraordinarily abnormal menstrual periods” before pregnancy.

“The vaccine I’m very concerned about and I do believe that in pregnancy, it’s contraindicated,” he said.

He said that his attempts to disclose these adverse events have been hampered by the imposition of gag orders on physicians and nurses that were imposed in September 2021.

In September of 2021, the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ABOG) put out a statement in support of the Federation of State Medical Boards’ (FSMB) contention that “providing misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine contradicts physicians’ ethical and professional responsibilities.” The ABOG said physicians disseminating “misinformation” would be subject to “disciplinary actions, including suspension or revocation of their medical license.”

The ACOG, like the CDC, recommends the experimental injections for “pregnant people.”

“The fact that ABOG would recommend this “vaccine” in pregnancy is an abomination and may well be the greatest disaster in the history of obstetrics,” Thorp wrote in an article in the Gazette of Medical Sciences (GMS), titled: Patient Betrayal: The Corruption of Healthcare, Informed Consent and the Physician-Patient Relationship.

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Debra Heine is a conservative Catholic mom of six and longtime political pundit. She has written for several conservative news websites over the years, including Breitbart and PJ Media.

Featured image is from LifeSiteNews

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On 18 August, Israeli troops forcibly shut down the offices of several Palestinian civil society and human rights NGOs in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

At dawn, occupation forces stormed Ramallah and began breaking into the offices of the organizations, confiscating their equipment and welding their doors shut.

The organizations targeted are Al-Haq, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP), Bisan Center for Research and Development, the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC), the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), and the Union of Health Work Committees (UHWC).

In October of 2021, Israel’s Defense Ministry designated the NGOs — with the exception of UHWC — as “terrorist organizations,” over alleged links to Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a leftist Palestinian resistance movement.

In July of this year, however, the foreign ministries of nine EU countries issued a joint statement rejecting Tel Aviv’s designation of the Palestinian NGOs, to which the concerned EU states serve as donors.

“They raided our offices at dawn, broke the doors, they took documents, computers, we are still assessing what’s gone. They wrecked the place and welded the doors shut with metal,” the head of UHWC’s board of directors, Mazen Rantisi, told media.

“The goal is to put obstacles in the way of civil society so that it doesn’t develop, it is part of destroying Palestinian society, and to make people feel defeated,” he added.

Several hours after the raid, a group of Palestinian activists held a demonstration in front of Al-Haq’s offices in order to protest Tel Aviv’s unlawful closure of the NGOs.

Just a few hours before the raids, Israel clamped down on the Palestinian rights groups, Israeli troops raided Nablus to secure the entrance of Joseph’s Tomb and facilitate the entry of extremist settlers into the Islamic holy shrine.

According to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), 18-year-old Palestinian Waseem Nasr Khalifa was killed, and another 36 were injured during intense clashes in the vicinity of the tomb.

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The writing is on the wall for Europe in terms of this coming winter – It’s going to get ugly.  With natural gas imports from Russia cut by 80% through Nord Stream 1 along with the majority of oil shipments, the EU is going to be scrambling for whatever fuel sources they can find to supply electricity and heating through the coming winter.  Two sources that were originally suggested as alternatives were Iran and Venezuela.

Increased Iranian oil and gas exports to the west are highly dependent on the tentative nuclear deal, but as Goldman Sachs recently suggested, such a deal is unlikely anytime soon as deadlines on proposals have not been met and the Israeli government calls for negotiators to ‘walk away.’

Venezuela had restarted shipments to Europe after 2 years of US sanctions under a deal that allows them to trade oil for debt relief.  However, the country’s government has now suspended those shipments, saying it is no longer interested in oil-for-debt deals and instead wants refined fuels from Italian and Spanish producers in exchange for crude.

This might seem like a backwards exchange but Venezuela’s own refineries are struggling to remain in operation because of lack of investment and lack of repairs.  Refined fuels would help them to get back on their feet in terms of energy and industry.  Some of Venezuela’s own heavy oil operations require imported diluents in order to continue.  The EU says it currently has no plans to lift restrictions on the oil-for-debt arrangement, which means Europe has now lost yet another energy source.

Sanctions on Venezuela along with declining investments have strangled their oil industry, with overall production dropping by 38% this July compared to a year ago.  Joe Biden’s initial moves to reopen talks with Maduro triggered inflated hopes that Venezuelan oil would flow once again and offset tight global markets and rising prices.  Europe in particular will soon be desperate for energy alternatives, which will probably result in a scouring of markets this autumn to meet bare minimum requirements for heating.

If this occurs and no regular sources of energy can be found to fill the void left by Russian sanctions, prices will rise precipitously in the EU.  Not only that, but with European countries buying up energy supplies wherever they can find them, available sources will also shrink for every other nation including the US.  Get ready for oil and energy prices to spike once again as winter’s chill returns.

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Featured image is from ZH

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Since the beginning of the COVID vaccine rollout, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have made false and unsubstantiated claims that have misled and harmed many people. For over a year, the CDC contended that the mRNA quickly degrades in the body after it is injected. They also claimed that the translated spike proteins stay in the deltoid muscle, where they are quickly neutralized by immune-responsive cells. These vaccine-encoded spike proteins were heralded as a “safe and effective” immunization, preparing the body to fight SARS-CoV-2. However, the entire process has made vaccinated individuals more susceptible to future strains of the virus. Even worse, the persistence of spike proteins in the blood causes blood clots and inflammation of other organs, especially the heart.

CDC silently retracts “settled science” after misleading millions of people

Scientists, doctors and researchers who questioned or challenged the CDC’s assertions were blocked across social media and accused of spreading “misinformation.” Many have lost their jobs or had their license threatened. Now, the CDC is silently retracting “settled science” they once demanded the public worship. The CDC quietly altered its website, confessing that the mRNA and the spike proteins persists in the body for an extended duration of time. Also, the CDC finally admitted that there is no logical reason to treat vaccinated people differently than unvaccinated people because both can readily contract and transmit coronavirus variants. Even worse, the vaccine subverts the initial surveillance immune cells, leading to inferior intracellular T-cell response.

The CDC once claimed that “our cells break down mRNA from these vaccines and get rid of it within a few days after vaccination.” Now the CDC says, “Scientists estimate that the spike protein, like other proteins our bodies create, may stay in the body up to a few weeks.” Additionally, the CDC recently removed this statement from their website: “mRNA and the spike protein do not last long in the body.” The vaccine manufacturers drastically underestimated the replication force of the mRNA. The regulatory agencies never fully understood how the immune responsive cells would react to these foreign proteins.

Runaway spike protein synthesis has serious implications for human health. If the mRNA does not degrade quickly, it can force human cells to replicate inflammatory spike proteins for a longer duration, causing cardiovascular and organ damage. This would inevitably block the production of natural proteins that the body needs in order to function properly. If the spike proteins are not being properly neutralized by the immune system, they may colonize in distant organs, causing inflammation in unpredictable locations throughout the body.

Another CDC lie debunked: COVID vaccines DO negatively affect human DNA

Under a tab titled, “Facts About mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines, the CDC also claims that the shots “do not affect or interact with our DNA.” “[The] mRNA from these vaccines do not enter the nucleus of the cell where our DNA (genetic material) is located, so it cannot change or influence our genes,” the CDC contends. However, a study out of Sweden finds evidence that the SARS-CoV-2 spike enters the nuclei of the cell and impairs the DNA damage repair process. The study, SARS–CoV–2 Spike Impairs DNA Damage Repair and Inhibits V(D)J Recombination In Vitro, confirms that the COVID vaccines interfere with human DNA just hours after vaccination. The spike proteins that are translated by the mRNA vaccines were found to enter the nuclei of cells, blocking the cell’s ability to repair damaged DNA.

The researchers found that the mRNA vaccines impede important DNA repair proteins (BRCA1 and 53BP1). In essence, the COVID vaccines are altering DNA through a molecular mechanism that damages adaptive immunity. Breached cell nuclei could also spell further harms in the long term. “Our study shows that [Pfizer’s mRNA injection] … can be reverse-transcribed to DNA … and this may give rise to concern if BNT162b2-derived DNA may be integrated into the host genome and affect the integrity of genomic DNA, which may potentially mediate genotoxic side effects,” wrote the researchers.

The CDC is collapsing, and every lie emanating from the vaccine industry will be exposed.

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In the wake of the record-breaking heatwave and intense drought, China has been trying to induce rains in some parts of the nation’s central and southwest areas. According to the CNN report, Chinese planes are shooting rods into the sky to increase rainfall as certain places of the Yangtze River begin to dry up. It is worth mentioning that Asia’s longest river, the Yangtze, is currently at record low levels. Although some Yangtze River regions have started weather modification initiatives, several drought-stricken areas of the river’s basin have stayed on standby due to insufficient cloud cover. 

In addition to this, on Wednesday, the Ministry of Water Resources cautioned in a notice that the Yangtze River basin’s drought has been negatively “affecting drinking water security of rural people and livestock, and the growth of crops.” Further, the Hubei province in central China announced on Wednesday that it will use ‘silver iodide rods’ to create clouds and induce rainfall.

According to the CNN report, the silver iodide rods which are basically the size of cigarettes, are fired into existing clouds to aid in the formation of ice crystals. The cloud is subsequently given a boost for producing rains by the crystals, further increasing the amount of moisture in the cloud and its likelihood of release.

Notably, China has the largest system in the world and has been using the cloud seeding technique since the 1940s. This technique may also be used to soften hail or create snowfall.

China is facing severe drought condition

As per Hubei’s Provincial Emergency Management Department, a severe drought has afflicted nearly 4.2 million people in Hubei since the month of June. Approximately 400,000 hectares of crops have been harmed by the heat and drought, and over 150,000 people there have trouble getting access to drinking water, CNN reported.

Moreover, large areas of China are experiencing unexpectedly high temperatures and a persistent drought, which are impacting agriculture output and drinking water supplies. Chinese authorities have issued alerts for temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius, and many regions of the nation have already surpassed previous records for high temperatures in 2022, Associated Press reported.

The droughts in provinces like Hubei, Anhui, Jiangxi, and Sichuan have been brought on by sustained high temperatures and a lack of precipitation since July, according to state television CCTV, which on Wednesday aired clips of dried-up soil and crops in southern China. In the meantime, temperatures in Sichuan and other regions have surpassed 40C, as per a BBC report.

Furthermore, factories in China’s southwest have closed as a result of hydropower reservoirs running low due to an intensifying drought. According to news reports published on Wednesday, businesses in the Sichuan Province, including those that produce solar panels, cement, and urea, shut down or decreased output after receiving orders to ration electricity for up to five days. That happened as reservoir levels dropped and the demand for electricity for air conditioning rose amid sweltering heat.

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Featured image: Dusk on Chang Jiang (Yangtze) (By Andrew Hitchcock – Flickr, licensed under CC BY 2.0)

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In January 2021, FranceSoir interviewed Canadian lawyer Michael Swinwood regarding COVID-19 and his filing of lawsuit on genocide and crime against humanity. 

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Featured image is a screenshot from the video/no copyright infringement intended

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The Biden administration’s latest reckless anti-China escalation is playing out on the economic front with newly-unveiled negotiations for a trade deal with Taiwan. The Chinese government said today that it “firmly opposes” the talks, which were announced yesterday by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. 

The negotiations aim to reach agreements in key areas to boost the volume of trade between the two countries by minimizing regulations and making it more difficult to do business with China. The official announcement from the U.S. Trade Representative stated that the two sides would seek accord on “ways to address distortive practices of state-owned enterprises and non-market policies and practices.” This is clearly a reference to China, whose state-owned enterprises play a key economic role and which pursues socialist policies that could broadly be defined as “non-market”. Despite the extremely tense political situation, China is still Taiwan’s most important trading partner – something the U.S. government and secessionist Taiwanese leaders want to change.

This new economic initiative comes just two weeks after Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s high-profile visit, a profoundly provocative move that raised the specter of all-out war. Pelosi is the most senior U.S. political leader to visit the island in decades, a level of recognition that China considers a clear signal to those who want to permanently sever Taiwan from the mainland. The Biden administration made Pelosi’s visit possible through a major show of naval and air power aimed at ensuring her safe arrival and departure.

The Chinese armed forces held large-scale military drills in the waters and airspace surrounding Taiwan in response to Pelosi’s trip. But even still, another delegation of U.S. politicians led by Senator Ed Markey visited Taiwan this week. The political elite in the United States remains determined to move even further down the path towards catastrophic confrontation between the two major world powers.

China is right to view Taiwan as part of its sovereign territory. Taiwan only has a separate government because the forces of dictator Chiang Kai-Shek retreated to the island after being defeated in 1949 in the Chinese Civil War, and massive U.S. military and political support allowed him to consolidate a lasting regime on the island. Taiwan is not ethnically distinct from the rest of China, its population speaks Chinese, and the Taiwanese government calls itself the “Republic of China”. The conflict is purely about politics – with the Taiwanese authorities representing the capitalist, pro-western forces that were long ago defeated in the civil war. This division of their homeland is of course considered to be unacceptable by China.

The new trade talks with the United States take aim at one of the only remaining avenues of positive interaction between Taiwan and the mainland. While Taiwan and the rest of China are geopolitically at odds, the two became increasingly commercially connected over the years as China emerged as an economic powerhouse. Trade between the two totaled over $328 billion in 2021 – double what it was in 2011. Taiwan gets 21 percent of its imports from the mainland, and 56 percent of its exports go to the mainland. Deepening economic ties with the United States, and taking action against “non-market policies”, could reduce this proportion and remove one of the few remaining barriers to escalation.

Authorities in Beijing are concerned that any agreement that comes out of these negotiations could serve as a stepping stone towards a full-scale free trade agreement between Taiwan and the United States. Free trade agreements in general are aimed at protecting the interests of big business at the expense of the working class in all of the countries involved. Moreover, a U.S.-Taiwan FTA could be seen as essentially de facto recognition of Taiwan as an independent country – something that has the potential to trigger a war.

The Biden administration and the U.S. ruling class as a whole is addicted to escalation as it pursues its dangerous “new Cold War” policy against China. The people of the world need to force them to change course before it’s too late.

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Featured image: Protest in Boston Aug. 8 against U.S. provocations towards China. Credit — Pivot to Peace