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All over this world police forces physically abuse, rob, and kill innocent people on a daily basis. These appalling facts have been brought to light through court cases, news reports, videos, civil rights groups, special government commissions, scientific studies, and even other cops. Nevertheless, politicians continue to call for more police to fight a plethora of social ills while police departments continue to hide the brutality of their fellow officers behind the proverbial “blue wall of silence.”

How brutal the police are depends on the country. Some places are worse than others. But data reported by CNN in a June 2020 article shows that cops in my country, the US, are among the worst.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury For Economic Policy under Ronald Reagan and former associate editor of the “Wall Street Journal” summed it up best in a 2013 article:

“At the state and local level every American faces brutal armed psychopaths known as the police.The ‘law and order’ conservatives and the ‘compassionate’ liberals stand silent while police psychopaths brutalize children and grand mothers, murder double amputees in wheelchairs, break into the wrong homes, murder the family dogs, and terrify the occupants, pointing their automatic assault weapons in the faces of small children…If a person Googles ‘police brutality videos, he will discover that there are more videos that can be watched in a lifetime.”

Dr. Roberts isn’t exaggerating. Here are some examples:

March 14, 2005: a five-year-old girl was arrested and handcuffed by three cops for throwing a tantrum at her school in St. Petersburg, Fla. The whole disgusting incident along with the child’s screams were captured on video. If you acted up in class when I went to school you were sent to the principal’s office, given detention, or your parents were called. This and similar acts of child abuse are not unique events as reported in a 2013 article published in Mother Jones.

November 22, 2014: Tamir Rice, age 12 was killed by policeman Timothy Loehmann in Cleveland Ohio. Loehmann and training officer Frank Garmback were responding to a call about a guy pointing a gun at people. Turns out the weapon was a pellet gun and was tucked in Rice’s waistband when the cops pulled up, Loehmann got out the car and shot the kid. As the video shows, there was no reason for the cop to draw his gun. Loehman was fired, but no charges were brought against him. It also turned out that Loehmann had previously resigned from another police department rather than get fired. The other police department was going to fire him because he lacked the emotional stability to be a police officer. In June 2020, the peer review journal Nature reported that “officers who are fired for misconduct are frequently rehired.” Obviously, a practice that needs to end.

Cops Shooting family dogs has become an epidemic according to a 2019 article in Counterpunch and it doesn’t have to be a vicious dog. Friendly dogs, and even little dogs are all fair game. For example, a sheriff’s deputy shot a chihuahua, a tiny dog that usually weighs less than five pounds, for barking too much. The dog survived, but her jaw was shattered and had to eat out of a feeding tube. This story was also reported in the Washington Post. In this case the cop was fired, but usually nothing happens because cops can claim, as they do with humans, that they felt threatened so they had to shoot and the courts have upheld this nonsensical reasoning. Why do cops think that their safety is more important than the safety of the public? Imagine if firefighters thought this way and refused to rescue people from burning buildings.

July 5, 2011: Kelly Thomas, a homeless man diagnosed with schizophrenia, was beaten to death by three cops in Fullerton, CA. It was later described as “one of the worst beatings in (US) history.” The bones in Thomas’ face were broken, he choked on his own blood, and compression of the thorax made it impossible for him to breathe normally which deprived his brain of oxygen. He died five days later. The cops were charged with second degree murder and involuntary manslaughter—they were found not guilty in spite of a video of the beating which can be watched on CNN’s website.

Just the facts

A 2016 study in the American Journal of Public Health reported that each year 100,000 people are treated in hospital emergency departments for nonfatal injuries inflicted by police and from 2005-2012, 1,552 people were killed by police in 16 states alone. But as reported by the BBC back in 2016, “Official data on the number of people killed by the police turns out to be remarkably unreliable.” And grossly underreported according to a 2021 study published in The Lancet.

Armies and other factions like constables, slave patrols in the South, the Texas Rangers etc. have always performed some police actions over the centuries. But the first modern police force as we know it today, the “Bobbies,” were created in England by Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850) in 1829. Bobbie is a nickname for Robert. In 1838 my country created the first police force in Boston MA. In 1845 New York City created the NYPD. Today, virtually every recognized country has a police force.

The US has the world’s third largest police force behind China and India. There are over over 900,000 cops in about 18,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide. And that’s not even counting the several hundred thousand civilian personnel who also work in these agencies.

We have municipal police, county police, state police, federal police, transit police, college campus police, elementary, middle and high school police, and housing police. We have cops patrolling in cars, vans, trucks, and helicopters. We have cops on motorcycles, on horseback, on boats, on bicycles, and on foot. But do our gargantuan in-your-face-all-over-the-place police forces reduce crime?

For a one year period, 1972-1973, a study on the effectiveness of police presence reducing crime was conducted in Kansas City, Missouri. It was called the “Kansas City preventive patrol experiment.” The study can be read in detail here. It involved three different police beats in the city. One area received the normal level of police patrols, in another police patrols were doubled—sometimes tripled. In the third area routine police patrols were eliminated entirely. Officers only went into the area when called. Result: no difference in crime rates in any of the three sections of the city. The presence of police and the lack of police didn’t matter.

A November 2021 study by Washington University School of Law concluded:

“Day-to-day policing has remarkably little to do with crime, despite public perception to the contrary. The vast majority of police time is spent on noncriminal functions such as health, transportation, and public order…A recent survey of several cities who self-reported time spent by police revealed that only four percent of police time was spent working on violent crime. The bulk of police time was spent on calls about noncriminal matters…Most individuals who commit offenses are never held accountable for the crimes they commit.”

If cops spend so little time fighting crime why do we have so many of them? Why are cops at road construction sites just standing around or sitting in their cars? Why are cops used to direct traffic—especially on quieter streets? An elderly retired person with a handheld sign could do this. Why do cops usually show up for medical emergencies? Why are SWAT teams, originally created in the 1960s to handle violent crisis situations like like hostage taking and mass shootings, breaking into homes and businesses (no-knock raids) to bust up poker games, terrorize doctors for practicing alternative medicine, crack down on unlicensed barber shops, and serve petty warrants? SWAT raids have skyrocketed from around 3,000 per year in 1980 to as many as 80,000 a year in 2015.

The way I see it, one of the reasons for cops doing things that civilians could be doing and enforcing victimless crime laws is that we have too many cops so they have to invent stuff for them to do in order to justify their phony baloney jobs. But the main reason is to hide their true nature.

What the police really are

The police are first and foremost a standing army—they are professional soldiers.

It doesn’t matter if a cop is black or white, male or female. Once they put on that badge race and gender disappear. They become automatons of the state—trained to obey and trained to kill. The problem isn’t, as some argue, that there aren’t enough minority and women officers, or that not enough policemen come from the communities they work in, or that their education and training is inadequate: the problem is the police force itself. Like all professional soldiers, cops develop an us vs them mentality. Due to power that they wield which places them above and separate from the people, they become ticking time bombs waiting to explode.

Cops have always been brutal, corrupt, and oppressive. Anyone who doesn’t know this is either ignorant of history or delusional. To believe that a few reforms will stop police forces from behaving like every standing army that has ever existed throughout history is magical thinking.

In many ways our modern police forces are like the Praetorian Guard of the ancient Roman Empire. Praetorian Guardsmen didn’t fight in wars like the regular army nor endure its hardships. Instead, they were the Emperor’s private henchmen, carrying out whatever whims he dictated. But eventually the Emperors also feared them. During their 300 year reign of terror they assassinated 13 Roman Emperors and in some cases auctioned off the imperial throne to the highest bidder. The power of the Emperor depended on their good will.

In the same way, today’s cops enforce a litany of unjust laws and regulations that serve the interests of corrupt politicians and the special interest groups that finance them. Policemen are the hired thugs of the rich and powerful who rule this world. Wealthy people have always needed large military/police forces to protect what they have from the have-nots.

Police forces do not serve the interests of the poor and middle-class. Performing some protective functions doesn’t change the fact that their real purpose is to stifle dissent, to keep us in line, not to protect us. In cases like Warren v. District of Columbia, 1981 and Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 2005, the courts ruled that the police are under no obligation to protect anyone. “…the duty to provide public services is owed to the public at large.” For individual citizens, “no specific legal duty exists.”

My country’s Founding Fathers knew what it was like to be oppressed by a standing army which is why many of them were opposed to creating one. In addition to the great principles of liberty enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers also listed their grievances against the King of England which includes condemnation of the British troops who occupied the colonies. It states:

“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance…He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws…For quartering large bodies of troops among us: For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:”

Sounds a like our modern police forces doesn’t it?

There are some who argue that the police aren’t soldiers and thus are not a standing army. In the 2011 case of Mitchell v. City of Henderson in Nevada, police demanded that Mitchell allow them to use his home for a stakeout regarding domestic violence at a neighbor’s house. Mitchell refused and the police broke down his door, abused him and his dog, and arrested him and his father. The Mitchells rightly argued that the police violated the Third Amendment to the US Constitution which prohibits the quartering of soldiers without the owner’s consent. But Federal District Judge Andrew Gordon ruled that policemen are not soldiers and thus did not violate the Third Amendment.

Judge Gordon’s ruling is beyond absurd. Most cops wear uniforms, they have military ranks like sergeant and captain, and since the 1990s have been armed to the teeth with military equipment supplied free of charge by the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security. This kind of militarization doesn’t only apply to American cops, but to police forces worldwide. In addition to tanks, attack drones, grenade launchers, etc., modern police in many parts of the world are clad in an array of body armor that makes them look like Mutant Ninja Turtles. So, obviously, the police are soldiers. A standing army is a standing army no matter what you call it. No amount of Orwellian “DoubleSpeak” can change the obvious.

In 1776, American Founding Father Samuel Adams (1722-1802) warned us about “DoubleSpeak” long before George Orwell (1903-1950) did in his book Nineteen Eighty-Four:

“How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!”

Reforming the police won’t work

Better police training and putting limits on their power will save lives. There is no doubt about that.

One of the biggest problems with American cops is that they are trained to shoot first and ask questions later. According to a 2015 article in the Daily Kos, one of the architects of this mentality is Dr. William J. Lewinski, a psychologist and founder of Force Science Institute who trains police forces nationwide. He also charges a thousand dollars an hour to appear in court as an expert witness for cops who kill people. The Daily Kos reported that he will justify police killing people even if they were unarmed and even if they were shot in the back.

The ideology of people like Lewinski has caused the death of countless innocent people, such as 14-year-old Valentina Orellana-Peralta last December in a Los Angeles, CA clothing store. The New York Post reported that LAPD cops accidentally killed Valentina because a guy was running amok in the store assaulting customers with a bicycle lock. That’s all he had. Instead of just disarming the guy, the stupid cops open fire killing the guy which was completely unnecessary. And even more tragic, a stray bullet hit Valentina in the chest while she and her mother were hiding in a dressing room.

In contrast, here is a 2011 video of British police disarming a man with a machete without guns and without killing him.

 

Another problem with the police is that they are rarely punished for abusing and killing people as reported in a January 2021 article by the American Bar Association and an August 2020 report by Amnesty International. The reasons for this are police unions along with disastrous court rulings and state laws that give them way too much leeway as well as special rights like “qualified immunity.” Under this US Supreme Court concoction cops and other government agents are shielded from liability even when they break the law.

Do away with qualified immunity and limit police unions to negotiating better pay, medical, and pension benefits only. Federal and state laws need to be passed that will put cops in jail for 10-20 years without parole if they physically abuse or accidentally kill someone. If they intentionally murder someone they should get life in prison without parole.

If a cop even verbally abuses someone they should lose their job. And any cop who arrests or threatens a citizen for filming him or her should go to prison for at least 10 years. Don’t forget, cops have always abused people. But it is only since cell phone cameras that so many of their egregious acts of tyranny have been exposed for all the world to see.

And ponder this: Why do we call policemen “officer?” Does that make the rest of us privates? It would seem so. As is the case in the military, we are not permitted to disobey the officer, strike the officer, talk back to the officer, or to question the officer’s authority. If we do, we can be arrested, beaten, jailed, and executed. This must be changed. We must do away with laws like resisting arrest and eluding which allows the police to trump up charges. We also need to demilitarize them and take away their army surplus equipment and weapons of war.

In spite of all I just said, reforming the police won’t work because putting restraints on them goes out the window when they are weaponized against the people and execute their primary function: oppressing and terrorizing the civilian population. This danger will always remain as long as police forces exist.

Since COVID-19 none of us are safe

Traditionally, police forces have been used to control poor people and slaves and to target minority groups for abuse and harassment. But since COVID-19 all bets are off. It’s open season on everyone. Under the New World Order if globalists like Klaus Schwab get their way all of us will be poor and slaves. To quote Schwab’s 2015 World Economic Forum video:

“You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy.”

In his 2007 Oscar-nominated documentary film “Sicko” which compared America’s broken for-profit healthcare system with other countries, Michael Moore showed how Europeans went out and protested when they didn’t like something. Moore declared that unlike the US, European governments were afraid of the people. How wrong he was. European governments merely blunted the sword of tyranny. But with COVID-19 it has been sharpened and police all over Europe have bared their sadistic fangs as can be seen here, here, and here.

There is an alternative

Are there alternatives to modern police forces? The answer is yes. The first step is to realize that there are too many police and too many laws. We need to get rid of all the unnecessary laws that clutter our statutes books, clog our courts, overcrowd our prisons, and ruin our economy. Since too many cops are violent personalities to begin with, the more power they have and the more laws they enforce, the more violent confrontations with civilians will occur. This is even more blatantly obvious today due to the COVID-19 restrictions.

Take Australia where COVID restrictions have been particularly draconian. Here is a video of a cop choking a woman on the street for not wearing a mask. Here is another video of a man being pinned to the ground by a whole gang of cops for not wearing a mask. Brave, aren’t they?

And let’s not forget about what happened last month in Canada after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act against the trucker protest in Ottawa. Videos of police abusing protesters can be seen here and here. Without a standing army, Trudeau probably would have had to back off and end the vaccine mandates.

So, why not replace modern police forces with a citizen police force–a militia that serves for 30 days and then rotates back into their regular jobs. It would be like jury duty. But service would be voluntary and rigorous training would be provided so police academies would remain. But the training methods would have to change to better serve the public, such as emphasizing peaceful resolution rather than arrest and punishment for every petty offense. And a big part of their training should be to refuse to obey any orders or laws that are illegal and or unconstitutional. They shouldn’t be carrying guns nor walk around in body armor, but have access to them if needed as is the case with the Bobbies in England along with other countries where the police don’t carry guns.

A small squad of full time detectives could remain as well as county sheriffs with a small staff to investigate and handle murders, robberies, and other types of crimes like arson and fraud. But they cannot be used by politicians to stifle dissent so it is important that their numbers be kept small and what they can and cannot do clearly defined.

A militia has always been considered inferior to professional full time soldiers. But since cops deal with civilians and don’t fight in wars, a militia would be far superior when it comes to law enforcement. They are also less likely to develop the us vs them mentality of professional soldiers, get drunk with power, nor blindly obey oppressive orders.

When large groups of people exercise their First Amendment rights to peacefully protest against government polices they should just be there to keep things peaceful rather than obey the orders of government officials. If rioting occurs the National Guard which is mostly made up of part time soldiers can handle it.

Other situations that involve domestic violence, people with mental health issues, homelessness, and substance abuse could be handled by “trained professional emergency response teams.” As reported in a 2020 article in Detroit Michigan’s WDIV Local 4 News. Unlike cops, who are trained to arrest and punish, these trained professionals would get people the help and protection that they need.

However, since some people can’t handle having any kind of power even for a little while, the laws and controls I mentioned previously still need to be put in place.

The Preamble of my country’s Constitution says that one of its purposes is to “establish Justice.” One of the ways to do this is to replace full time state and federal prosecutors with private lawyers who, like a citizen police force, would serve for 30 days and then rotate back into their regular practice. This would avoid the cozy relationship full time prosecutors have with cops and would put the emphasis on justice instead of winning cases to get ahead politically. And in Grand Jury proceedings defense attorneys should always be allowed to participate. Under the current closed system prosecutors can manipulate jurors to the point where, as the saying goes, it’s possible to “indict a ham sandwich.”

For those who think what I’m suggesting wouldn’t work, step back and look at the big picture. Don’t get locked into the idea that there is only one way to do things. I know how difficult this can be. Lots of people have family and friends who are cops myself included. I grew up with positive images of cops as portrayed on television like Sheriff Andy Taylor, Officer Joe Bolton, and officers Reed and Malloy of Adam-12. Then there are the movies that idealize violent rogue cops like Dirty Harry. All of these factors along with believing that the cops are there to protect them combined with constant media hype about the fear of crime makes juries unwilling to convict cops even when the crimes they commit are captured on video. Don’t give in to fear and prejudice folks. Don’t hero worship cops. See them for what they really are.

Never forget

More than anything else, COVID-19 has demonstrated that the biggest mistake this planet ever made was creating standing armies to function as police forces. They have become a cancer on democracy, a festering sore that is eating away our freedom, a putrid mass of corruption that sees the public as mere objects to be pushed around, abused, and exploited.

Obviously, there are good policemen out there who save lives and don’t abuse their authority. But I have come to the inescapable conclusion that the existence of a massive standing army that has nothing better to do than harass people for the most minor infractions and that stands ready to enforce any law no matter how unjust is inherently evil. Such a military institution must have a dehumanizing and brutalizing effect on all who participate in it. No one’s life, liberty or property is safe as long as these horrible armies exist.

But understand this: in an imperfect world such as ours there are no ideal solutions—there are only choices between lesser evils. No matter how hard we try, we can’t get rid of all the idiots and psychopaths in power. All we can do is minimize the damage that they can inflict. But they will always be with us, lurking in the shadows, spinning their spider web of deceit, always trying to get around protecting the rights of the people, waiting for the right moment, the right opportunity to strike. We must always keep a watchful eye on them and never let down our guard if we want to maintain our freedom.

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Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg and Twitter at @crglobalization. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums, etc.

Michael J Talmo has been a professional writer for over 40 years and is strongly committed to the protection of civil liberties. He also did three music videos on COVID-19. The Masker Mash, COVID Vaccine Man, and The Corona Globalists. He can be reached at [email protected]

Featured image is by The Democracy Fund/Bob/Facebook

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.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg and Twitter at @crglobalization.

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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. 

Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

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In their desire to show solidarity with the embattled Ukrainians, the war in Ukraine has led some British commentators to slip the bounds of rationality — and none more so than the Chair of the Commons Defence Select Committee, Tobias Ellwood.

In a 2am tweet yesterday, Ellwood claimed:

“Pleased to see powerful voices joining my call for a humanitarian partial or total NO FLY ZONE. What scale of war crimes, what numbers of civilian deaths must we witness — before Nato, the most powerful military alliance in the world, is tasked to intervene?”

Pleased to see powerful voices joining my call for a humanitarian partial or total
NO FLY ZONE.

What scale of war crimes, what numbers of civilian deaths must we witness – before NATO, the most powerful military alliance in the world, is tasked to intervene? pic.twitter.com/O8YNpbkCbz

— Tobias Ellwood MP (@Tobias_Ellwood) March 1, 2022

While wars are not won by manic late-night tweets, they can nevertheless create much damage, in this case the risk of significantly escalating the conflict through creating unrealistic expectations among the British media class about what should be done, and among the Ukrainians about what will be done.

As the Biden administration’s spokeperson Jen Psaki very sensibly observed last night in her attempt to persuade journalists to tone down their rhetoric, a No-Fly Zone “would essentially mean the US military would be shooting down planes, Russian planes. That is definitely escalatory. That would potentially put us in a place where we’re in a military conflict with Russia. That is not something the President wants to do.”

Important.

White House @PressSec explains why the United States is not imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine and holds firm in saying that "a military conflict with Russia" is "not something the president wants to do." pic.twitter.com/qbUNaSsHR1

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) February 28, 2022

As Psaki continued:

“We are not going to have a military war with Russia with US troops. And [Biden] thinks it’s vitally important… to be direct with the public about that.”

Aside from dramatically increasing the risk of a nuclear exchange with Russia, the idea of a No-Fly Zone is a non-starter for many reasons. Even if it did not cause Russia to heighten its preparedness for a nuclear strike against us — which is surely reason enough — shooting down Russian jets would make Nato a military party to the conflict in a way that could soon spiral out of control. This ought to go without saying, but apparently it is now necessary to explain to Britain’s political class in very simple terms.

If Nato jets are flying from airbases in Central and Southeastern Europe to shoot down Russian aircraft, not only would the jets become military targets for Russia’s air defences, but those bases would themselves then become likely targets for Russian military retaliation, along with the basing locations of Nato air defence systems covering Western Ukraine. For all their diplomatic support of Ukraine and their supply of vital munitions to Ukrainian forces, countries such as Poland, Romania and Bulgaria will naturally shy away from a course of action likely to lead to Russian air and missile strikes on their own territory.

When advocates of a No-Fly Zone in Syria demanded such a course of action, it was before Russia entered the Syrian war, when Syrian airbases could reasonably be put out-of-action by long-range missile strikes without any serious risk of retaliation. This is not the case with the Ukraine war: is Ellwood seriously advocating that we strike the airbases in Russia and Belarus from which Russian aircraft are deployed? If so, then he should be explicit about what he is calling for, and the consequences that will ensue.

In any case, Russia has so far refrained from utilising its vast air superiority against Ukraine, for the possible reasons outlined in this excellent RUSI essay; namely, the lack of guided munitions to strike targets without causing widespread civilian deaths, the poor coordination of Russian air defence systems deployed in Ukraine which may cause jets to be downed by friendly fire, and the relative inexperience of Russian pilots when faced with competent opponents.

Monday was the first day in which Russian jets were visible in the conflict, flying close air support missions over the Kharkiv front. The only meaningful Russian air activity so far has been the use of helicopters to land airborne forces at the Hostomel airbase outside Kyiv in the war’s opening phase, to create a staging ground or potential bridgehead for the coming assault on the capital, and the limited use of attack helicopters to destroy Ukrainian ground positions and vehicles moving along the roads in convoy.

Instead, the most dreadful Russian bombardments of the war so far have been by ground-based artillery and long-range missile systems against the besieged city of Kharkiv on Monday and yesterday, causing great destruction and terrible civilian casualties among the city’s mostly Russian-speaking population, as well as on Ukrainian military installations elsewhere in the country.

The Russian way of war is based on heavy artillery barrages to soften up defences for a ground assault, unlike the Western approach in which aerial bombardment has become the dominant tool. A No-Fly Zone would do nothing to prevent this outcome, though rhetoric demanding one may well play a role in encouraging Russian decision-makers to intensify their artillery bombardment in search of a swift and overwhelming victory — one which would cause vast numbers of civilian casualties.

Our aim at this point should be to dissuade Putin as far as we can from deploying the artillery assets he has so far barely used, not in encouraging him to go all out before a Western response can realistically be organised. We do not want Putin to turn Kyiv into Nineties Grozny or Aleppo, and over-promising and under-delivering military support is an almost guaranteed way to speed up this outcome.

Perhaps Ellwood and others have had their expectations of what is possible or desirable raised by the NATO No-Fly Zone against Libya in 2011. Cautiously agreed to by Russia at the UN Security Council, it swiftly evolved into a close air support campaign against Libyan ground forces which allowed the rebels to defeat Gaddafi  — an outcome which enraged Putin, and shaped his attitude to the following Syrian conflict.

But Gaddafi’s decrepit Libya is not Putin’s Russia and such a campaign is simply not achievable. Does Ellwood want us to strike Russian tanks and artillery in Ukraine? Again, he should be honest about what he is calling for and about what the Russian response would look like.

We should sigh with relief that Johnson yesterday uled out the No-Fly Zone idea that America has already dismissed, telling a Ukrainian journalist, with painful but realistic frankness, that “Unfortunately the implication of a [No-Fly Zone] is that the UK would be engaged in shooting down Russian planes … and be in direct combat” with Russia, and with consequences “truly difficult to control.”

Britain, and other Nato countries are already doing about as much as we can, by supplying Ukraine with the munitions making the Russian advance so costly, and by imposing great financial and diplomatic costs on Russia for Putin’s invasion. Beyond this, there is little more we can do other than encourage Russia towards meaningful negotiations before Kyiv is encircled and Ukraine’s bargaining hand is dramatically weakened.

Unless he has genuinely taken leave of his senses, Ellwood’s “hold me back!” posturing is possible purely because he knows the course of action he is calling for is already out of the question. He can raise the stakes in this dangerous and irresponsible manner because it wins him attention for the forthcoming Tory leadership contest, and because there are no negative consequences for him doing so.

That must change: the risk of escalation is too great for this rhetoric to be permitted at so dangerous a moment for Britain and Europe. The Conservative party must get a grip on Ellwood and others’ irresponsible late-night interventions in an already fevered online discourse: the whip has been withdrawn for far less.

Nothing good will come of such insane talk, for Britain, or most acutely, for the Ukrainians seemingly about to suffer a devastating campaign of artillery bombardment. Raising their expectations with false hopes at this stage of the war will not help them. But raising Russia’s threat calculus may harm them a great deal, at a time when Putin seems already poised to take his gloves off after a so-far half-hearted campaign. That is too great a price to pay for Ellwood’s desire to raise his profile — and the party needs to step in soon.

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Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg and Twitter at @crglobalization. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums, etc.

Aris Roussinos is a former war reporter and a contributing editor at UnHerd.

Featured image is from UnHerd

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.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg and Twitter at @crglobalization.

 

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We are at a dangerous crossroads. What is happening in Ukraine has serious geopolitical implications. It could lead us into a World War III Scenario. The use of nuclear weapons are contemplated.

It is important that a peace process be initiated with a view to preventing escalation.

Global Research does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A  bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

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So a congregation of NATO’s top brass ensconced in their echo chambers target the Russian Central Bank with sanctions and expect what? Cookies?

What they got instead was Russia’s deterrence forces bumped up to “a special regime of duty” – which means the Northern and Pacific fleets, the Long-Range Aviation Command, strategic bombers and the entire Russian nuclear apparatus on maximum alert.

One Pentagon general very quickly did the basic math on that, and mere minutes later, a Ukrainian delegation was dispatched to conduct negotiations with Russia in an undisclosed location in Gomel, Belarus.

Meanwhile, in the vassal realms, the German government was busy “setting limits to warmongers like Putin” – quite a rich undertaking considering that Berlin never set any such limits for western warmongers who bombed Yugoslavia, invaded Iraq, or destroyed Libya in complete violation of international law.

While openly proclaiming their desire to “stop the development of Russian industry,” damage its economy, and “ruin Russia” – echoing American edicts on Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Cuba, Venezuela and others in the Global South – the Germans could not possibly recognize a new categorical imperative.

They were finally liberated from their WWII culpability complex by none other than Russian President Vladimir Putin. Germany is finally free to support and weaponize neo-Nazis out in the open all over again – now of the Ukrainian Azov battalion variety.

To get the hang of how these NATO sanctions will “ruin Russia,” I asked for the succinct analysis of one of the most competent economic minds on the planet, Michael Hudson, author, among others, of a revised edition of the must-read Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire.

Hudson remarked how he is “simply numbed over the near-atomic escalation of the US.” On the confiscation of Russian foreign reserves and cut-off from SWIFT, the main point is “it will take some time for Russia to put in a new system, with China. The result will end dollarization for good, as countries threatened with ‘democracy’ or displaying diplomatic independence will be afraid to use US banks.”

This, Hudson says, leads us to “the great question: whether Europe and the Dollar Bloc can buy Russian raw materials – cobalt, palladium, etc, and whether China will join Russia in a minerals boycott.”

Hudson is adamant that

“Russia’s Central Bank, of course, has foreign bank assets in order to intervene in exchange markets to defend its currency from fluctuations. The ruble has plunged. There will be new exchange rates. Yet it’s up to Russia to decide whether to sell its wheat to West Asia, that needs it; or to stop selling gas to Europe via Ukraine, now that the US can grab it.”

About the possible introduction of a new Russia-China payment system bypassing SWIFT, and combining the Russian SPFS (System for Transfer of Financial Messages) with the Chinese CIPS (Cross-Border Interbank Payment System), Hudson has no doubts “the Russian-China system will be implemented. The Global South will seek to join and at the same time keep SWIFT – moving their reserves into the new system.”

I’m going to de-dollarize myself

So the US itself, in another massive strategic blunder, will speed up de-dollarization. As the managing director of Bocom International Hong Hao told the Global Times, with energy trade between Europe and Russia de-dollarized, “that will be the beginning of the disintegration of dollar hegemony.”

It’s a refrain the US administration was quietly hearing last week from some of its own largest multinational banks, including notables like JPMorgan and Citigroup.

A Bloomberg article sums up their collective fears:

“Booting Russia from the critical global system – which handles 42 million messages a day and serves as a lifeline to some of the world’s biggest financial institutions – could backfire, sending inflation higher, pushing Russia closer to China, and shielding financial transactions from scrutiny by the west. It might also encourage the development of a SWIFT alternative that could eventually damage the supremacy of the US dollar.”

Those with IQs over 50 in the European Union (EU) must have understood that Russia simply could not be totally excluded from SWIFT, but maybe only a few of its banks: after all, European traders depend on Russian energy.

From Moscow’s point of view, that’s a minor issue. A number of Russian banks are already connected to China’s CIPS system. For instance, if someone wants to buy Russian oil and gas with CIPS, payment must be in the Chinese yuan currency. CIPS is independent of SWIFT.

Additionally, Moscow already linked its SPFS payment system not only to China but also to India and member nations of the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). SPFS already links to approximately 400 banks.

With more Russian companies using SPFS and CIPS, even before they merge, and other maneuvers to bypass SWIFT, such as barter trade – largely used by sanctioned Iran – and agent banks, Russia could make up for at least 50 percent in trade losses.

The key fact is that the flight from the US-dominated western financial system is now irreversible across Eurasia – and that will proceed in tandem with the internationalization of the yuan.

Russia has its own bag of tricks

Meanwhile, we’re not even talking yet about Russian retaliation for these sanctions. Former President Dmitry Medvedev already gave a hint: everything, from exiting all nuclear arms deals with the US to freezing the assets of western companies in Russia, is on the table.

So what does the “Empire of Lies” want? (Putin terminology, on Monday’s meeting in Moscow to discuss the response to sanctions.)

In an essay published this morning,  titled America Defeats Germany for the Third Time in a Century: the MIC, OGAM and FIRE conquer NATO, Michael Hudson makes a series of crucial points, starting with how “NATO has become Europe’s foreign policy-making body, even to the point of dominating domestic economic interests.”

He outlines the three oligarchies in control of US foreign policy:

First is the military-industrial complex, which Ray McGovern memorably coined as MICIMATT (military industrial Congressional intelligence media academia think tank).

Hudson defines their economy base as “monopoly rent, obtained above all from its arms sales to NATO, to West Asian oil exporters and to other countries with a balance-of-payments surplus.”

Second is the oil and gas sector, joined by mining (OGAM). Their aim is “to maximize the price of energy and raw materials so as to maximize natural resource rent. Monopolizing the Dollar Area’s oil market and isolating it from Russian oil and gas has been a major US priority for over a year now, as the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany threatened to link the western European and Russian economies together.”

Third is the “symbiotic” Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector, which Hudson defines as “the counterpart to Europe’s old post-feudal landed aristocracy living by land rents.”

As he describes these three rentier sectors that completely dominate post-industrial finance capitalism at the heart of the western system, Hudson notes how “Wall Street always has been closely merged with the oil and gas industry (namely, the Citigroup and Chase Manhattan banking conglomerates).”

Hudson shows how “the most pressing US strategic aim of NATO confrontation with Russia is soaring oil and gas prices. In addition to creating profits and stock market gains for US companies, higher energy prices will take much of the steam out of the German economy.”

He warns how food prices will rise “headed by wheat.” (Russia and Ukraine account for 25 percent of world wheat exports.) From a Global South perspective, that’s a disaster: “This will squeeze many West Asian and Global South food-deficient countries, worsening their balance of payments and threatening foreign debt defaults.”

As for blocking Russian raw materials exports, “this threatens to cause breaks in supply chains for key materials, including cobalt, palladium, nickel, aluminum.”

And that leads us, once again, to the heart of the matter: “The long-term dream of the US new Cold Warriors is to break up Russia, or at least to restore its managerial kleptocracy seeking to cash in their privatizations in western stock markets.”

That’s not going to happen. Hudson clearly sees how “the most enormous unintended consequence of US foreign policy has been to drive Russia and China together, along with Iran, Central Asia and countries along the Belt and Road initiative.”

Let’s confiscate some technology

Now compare all of the above with the perspective of a central European business tycoon with vast interests, east and west, and who treasures his discretion.

In an email exchange, the business tycoon posed serious questions about the Russian Central Bank support for its national currency, the ruble,

“which according to US planning is being destroyed by the west through sanctions and currency wolf packs who are exposing themselves by selling rubles short. There is really almost no amount of money that can beat the dollar manipulators against the ruble. A 20 percent interest rate will kill the Russian economy unnecessarily.”

The businessman argues that the chief effect of the rate hike “would be to support imports that should not be imported. The fall of the ruble is thus favorable to Russia in terms of self-sufficiency. As import prices rise, these goods should start to be produced domestically. I would just let the ruble fall to find its own level which will for a while be lower than natural forces would permit as the US will be driving it lower through sanctions and short selling manipulation in this form of economic war against Russia.”

But that seems to tell only part of the story. Arguably, the lethal weapon in Russia’s arsenal of responses has been identified by the head of the Center for Economic Research of the Institute of Globalization and Social Movements (IGSO), Vasily Koltashov: the key is to confiscate technology – as in Russia ceasing to recognize US rights to patents.

In what he qualifies as “liberating American intellectual property,” Koltashov calls for passing a Russian law on “friendly and unfriendly states. If a country turns out to be on the unfriendly list, then we can start copying its technologies in pharmaceuticals, industry, manufacturing, electronics, medicine. It can be anything – from simple details to chemical compositions.” This would require amendments to the Russian constitution.

Koltashov maintains that “one of the foundations of success of American industry was copying of foreign patents for inventions.” Now, Russia could use “China’s extensive know-how with its latest technological production processes for copying western products: the release of American intellectual property will cause damage to the United States to the amount of $10 trillion, only in the first stage. It will be a disaster for them.”

As it stands, the strategic stupidity of the EU beggars belief. China is ready to grab all Russian natural resources – with Europe left as a pitiful hostage of the oceans and of wild speculators. It looks like a total EU-Russia split is ahead – with little trade left and zero diplomacy.

Now listen to the sound of champagne popping all across the MICIMATT.

*

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This article was originally published on The Cradle.

Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at Asia Times and columnist for Consortium News and Strategic Culture in Moscow. Since the mid-1980s he’s lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, Bangkok. He has extensively covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia to China, Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East. Pepe is the author of Globalistan – How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War; Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad during the Surge. He was contributing editor to The Empire and The Crescent and Tutto in Vendita in Italy. His last two books are Empire of Chaos and 2030. Pepe is also associated with the Paris-based European Academy of Geopolitics. When not on the road he lives between Paris and Bangkok.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Ukraine’s willingness to engage in a war with Washington’s blessing, has industry analysts worried that the conflict could impact the global chip industry and exacerbate current chip shortages. The US government has warned that the global chip supply chain remained weak.

According to research firm Techcet, Ukraine supplies more than 90 percent of America’s semiconductor-grade neon – a gas integral to the lasers used for microchips.

Russia also supplies 35 percent of the US’s palladium supply, a rare metal often used to manufacture semiconductors.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) said “the semiconductor industry has a diverse set of key materials and gases, so we do not believe there are immediate supply disruption risks related to Russia and Ukraine,” but the long-term impact of the war remains unclear.

If the conflict continues, it could place pressure on an already struggling supply chain as the demand for microchips has increased across the board. Companies are increasingly seeing a demand for AI used in machine learning training, and the market is predicted to grow at over 50 percent annually across all computing categories for the next few years.

US Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo highlighted that the median inventory of chips fell from 40 days in 2019 to less than five days in 2022 with manufacturing running at more than 90 percent utilization.

There is already a shortage of legacy logic chips used in automobiles and medical devices as well as analog chips used in power management, image sensors, radio frequency and other applications. The war in Ukraine could greatly impact the shortage.

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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. 

Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

---

An EU plan to send fighter jets to Ukraine appears to be falling apart as each country that was reportedly going to deliver the planes is now denying involvement.

The plan announced Monday by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrel was meant to give Ukraine old Russian-made MiG-29 and Su-24 fighter jets, which Ukraine’s pilots are already trained to fly. Poland, Bulgaria, and Slovakia were reportedly lined up to transfer the planes, but officials from each country denied the plan.

“Slovakia will not provide fighter jets to Ukraine,” the Slovak Foreign Ministry told Newsweek on Tuesday. Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov said Monday that Bulgaria doesn’t have enough warplanes to guard its own airspace, let alone enough to send to Ukraine.

On Monday, Ukraine’s parliament claimed Poland planned on giving Ukraine MiG-29 fighters, but Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki denied the plans. “Poland doesn’t have such plans,” Mateusz said on Tuesday.

An unnamed EU diplomat told Politico that some EU countries were “outraged” after Borrel announced that the bloc would be giving Ukraine warplanes since his announcement came shortly after Russia’s nuclear forces were put on high alert.

“Making such announcements on the same day that Russian President Vladimir Putin announced to put his nuclear deterrence force on ‘high alert’ risks to escalate the situation further,” the diplomat said.

While the EU isn’t sending fighter jets, the US and its European allies have been busy pledging to send new weapons to Ukraine, including Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and Javelin anti-tank missiles. Ukraine has asked for the Western powers to establish a “no-fly zone,” but the request has been ruled out by the US and NATO since it would mean direct military confrontation with Russia.

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Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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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. 

Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

---

At this moment, the events in Ukraine are shrouded in the cloud of smoke that characterizes war propaganda. Official positions, rather than clarifying facts and reporting the progress of negotiations, aim to crush their opponents’ arguments and convince public opinion to back one side of the dispute.

To understand the role of each of the adversaries, what each of them wants, and how far they can go, we must explore the origins of what is now an extreme conflict.

Background

Most recently, it all started with two goals shared by the European Union and the United States. One is the economic expansion of the EU (led by its major powers, particularly Germany) to the east. The so-called Eastern Partnership aimed to draw into the European orbit countries as diverse as Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Belarus and Ukraine – all on Russia’s southern and western borders.

A second purpose is military expansion of the Western bloc, using NATO to complete the encirclement of Russia’s borders. And it is especially here that the interest of the U.S. as the hegemonic power, in this case, has led to a marriage with the economic ambitions of the EU.

A setback

When it comes to Ukraine, the Eastern Partnership suffered a setback when Russia offered economic advantages to the then-Kiev government which thwarted European advances. The EU and U.S. response was the 2014 coup d’état, backed by Ukrainian fascist militias, which brought a “collaborating” president to power, followed by a bloody persecution of the Russian-origin population.

In response, the Russian-populated Donbass region on the border with Russia refused to accept the authority of the new reactionary regime in Kiev. Instead, movements within Lugansk and Donetsk formed themselves into two, what they called “people’s republics” – Lugansk and Donetsk, with Moscow’s support.

Unfulfilled agreements

Following the Minsk agreements, supervised by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), military hostilities ceased. Ukraine (Kiev) committed itself to establishing a regime of autonomy for those republics within the Ukrainian state. However, neither the Ukrainian regime, nor the OSCE, nor even less the EU and the U.S., agreed to abide by the agreement. On the contrary, Ukraine has been armed and instructed to repress the resistance of the two republics, which have been branded as “separatists.”

Russia’s complaints

This is where one of the immediate origins of the escalation we are witnessing can be found. Russia perceived that the crushing of the Donbass Republics would signal the integration of Ukraine into NATO and the placement of troops and weapons on one more of its borders, with the aggravating factor of limiting its access to the Black Sea. This is why Russia’s demands center on negotiating a security agreement with the U.S. (and, inherently, NATO) that will halt the expansion of Western powers to the east and establish lasting terms of coexistence.

Who will benefit from a climate of war?

The efforts of the French president and the German chancellor to reach a conciliatory political agreement with Russia, however incipient, are not at all to the liking of the U.S. government, which fears that the EU will adopt a halfway position between the Russians and the U.S.

Biden’s campaign has therefore sought to quash all avenues for negotiation other than those he himself promotes. The U.S. even contradicted the statements of the Ukrainian leaders themselves, who called for appeasement and criticized the exaggeration of the Western propaganda. Several times, the “invasion” of the Ukraine has been said to be “imminent” (with a set date and everything), something that only makes sense for those who want to exacerbate a climate of war by force. The latest statement by the pathetic Biden, on Feb. 18, is yet another example of this.

Strategy and business

This climate of “imminent” war serves the interests of the U.S. alone. In two senses. One, which can be called strategic in nature, consists in keeping Russia under political and military pressure, while further subordinating the EU to U.S. political designs. The old specter of “the Russians are coming!” not only throws the blame for the tension on Russia, but naturally puts the European populations on the defensive and receptive to “protective aid” from the U.S. and NATO.

A second dimension is pure economic warfare. The U.S. wants to sell its fracked shale gas, which is accumulating without customers as production increases, and nothing could accomplish this better than ruining the Russian natural gas business that has supplied half of Europe for decades. This would be of double advantage to the U.S.: It makes good money (moreover, U.S. gas is much more expensive than Russian gas) and keeps Europe in a greater economic dependence on its transatlantic “ally.”

‘Liberating’ Europe

Politicians and commentators repeat at every turn the argument of “freeing” Germany and Europe from energy dependence on Russia. But they all take dependence on the U.S. for granted. They do not even see that, comparing the two dependencies, Germany and the EU are much better able to deal on an equal footing with Russia, whose economic strength is still weak, than to compete with the economic-political-military might of the U.S.

And it is this prospect of liberation – even a remote one, considering the umbilical link of European imperialism to Yankee imperialism – that puts U.S. power on alert and leads it to sabotage any initiative that goes in that direction.

Similar to Iraq

The recent declarations by the U.S. authorities recall the tone that preceded the invasion of Iraq: end of diplomacy, “unquestionable evidence” from the secret services, cancellation of the negotiation attempts made by third countries – all in order to demonstrate that the only remaining option is military force.

Everything leads one to believe, therefore, that the U.S. plan – with the usual henchman, be he Tony Blair or Boris Johnson – will be to take the conflict with Russia as far as possible, provoking it to the point of forcing it into military intervention. This would be the ideal situation to show the world just how “evil” Putin is and to quash any European attempts to conduct its own policy and seek compromises with Russia.

Different conditions 

The conditions, however, are different from those of 2003. The theater of the conflict is Europe and not Iraq, the adversary is Russia and not a weakened [Iraqi] army, collateral damage would affect not the Middle East but the U.S.’s own allies.

On the other hand, Merkel’s statements, when Trump showed his face, that the U.S. could not be trusted and that Europe would have to take care of itself, did not relax U.S. power, because the statements hold good beyond Trump’s term.

The same with current German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s statement, after conferring with Putin, that European security cannot be achieved against Russia – something that clashes with U.S. and NATO plans. These are mere statements, to be sure, but they show that the typical conflict between imperialist powers tends to come to the fore whenever a major crisis arises, as in this case.

Another proxy war

For the U.S., the solution then will be to subcontract the provocation: to push the Ukrainian army (where fascist militias have a strong presence) against the Donbass republics, subjecting the Russian populations to violence like that committed in 2014. This is what is happening with the weaponizing of Ukrainian forces and encouraging them to attack opposing positions in Lugansk and Donetsk.

While issuing constant warnings about the provocations that the Russians are allegedly preparing, in order to justify an invasion, the U.S. intelligence services are certainly not standing still – and it is legitimate to think, given their known practice, that they are themselves mounting the provocations that serve their purposes.

What does U.S. hope to gain?

Neither the Ukrainians nor the Europeans have any interest in a war at home or on their doorstep, which would contribute to plunging the Continent into a crisis of incalculable dimensions. Only the U.S. can see advantage in such a situation. What do they expect to gain from it?

• To add pretexts for tightening economic sanctions against Russia, calling on all of Europe to join the campaign, just as they did with Cuba, Venezuela or Iran.
• To constrain Russia’s political movements and business dealings in Europe and thereby block the influence of the Russia-China alliance in the West, including the expansion of the New Silk Road.
• Resign Europeans to accept and pay for the strengthening of NATO, and to put aside ambitions of “strategic independence” – an idea that clashes with dependence on the U.S. – which the Germans and the French have been timidly talking about.
• To dig even deeper the trench that separates the imperialist troika (U.S.-EU-Japan) from the China-Russia alliance, with the perspective that the future will bring more and more serious conflicts.

Against NATO

The willingness of the President of the Republic and the Portuguese government to follow the orders of the U.S. and NATO, without a trace of distancing; the prompt sending of military personnel to conflict zones; the media campaign to feed the climate of war and demonize the Russians – all repeat the practice that has always guided the behavior of the Portuguese authorities.

But the unfortunate example of the Lajes summit – which preceded the attack on Iraq in 2003 that was responsible for the destruction of the country, hundreds of thousands of deaths, and millions of refugees – deserves a special mention. More recently, the withdrawal from Afghanistan brought to light the debacle caused by 20 years of occupation in which Portuguese troops were also involved.

Whining about what should have been done, but wasn’t, is of little use – the issue is the involvement, as servants, in the war adventures of the United States. This is where we have to start: It makes perfect sense and is entirely up to date to renew a public opinion campaign for Portugal’s withdrawal from NATO and for the dissolution of the Alliance, which will leave the Portuguese authorities with their hands tied.

New confrontations on the horizon

We have entered an era in which the world is arming for war, taking a balance of forces. The euphoria of globalization, free trade, and the most festive liberalism has come to an end. The retreat of the great powers to their national strongholds, the protectionism with which they shield their economies, and their frantic search for alliances are signs that both the economic expansion of the past decades and the seemingly peaceful coexistence that accompanied it have come to an end.

Now is the time that world powers join forces and form blocs. These are preparations for a confrontation on a global scale to decide who will have supremacy in the world market.

It is in this concrete confrontation that the left has to play its distinct role – starting by denouncing the hegemonic and rlike goals of imperialism, attacking the governments and the media that support them, and striving to create a movement of opinion that lays the foundations of an independent, people-based political current. If it succeeds, it will make an important contribution so that the protest movements spread throughout the world move from the dispersion and defensiveness in which they find themselves to a progressive convergence of efforts and an offensive posture.

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Raposo is editor of the Portuguese website jornalmudardevida.net, which published this article on Feb. 20.

Translation by John Catalinotto.

Featured image is from Mudar Devida

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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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. 

Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

---

The Black Alliance for Peace emphatically declares that the conflict in the Ukraine emerges from the ceaseless and single-minded drive of the U.S., NATO, and the European Union for global economic and political dominance.

The genesis of the current crisis, as BAP has previously asserted, is in the 2014 US-backed coup of Ukraine’s democratically elected government – and in the determination of the U.S./EU/NATO “axis of domination” to convert Ukraine into a heavily-militarized NATO member nation, lurking on the border of the Russian Federation.

NATO’s expansion has been a well-known security concern for Russia since 1999, when Bill Clinton inaugurated the official process of growing NATO’s membership to include former nations of the Warsaw Pact. Today, as the conflict escalates, NATO’s expansion has become an existential threat to African people and all oppressed and colonized people around the world. For peace to arrive in the region and in the world, the expansion of this “axis of domination” must be halted and NATO must be dismantled.

But what is peace? For BAP, peace is not merely the absence of conflict. Peace means the achievement, through popular struggle and self-defense, of a world liberated from militarism and nuclear proliferation, imperialism and unjust war, patriarchy, and white supremacy. Indeed, the resurgence and celebration of Nazism in the Ukraine, as well as in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere, represents a global consolidation of white supremacy as part of the project of imperialism. This consolidation also appears through invocations of and appeals to white, “civilized” nations and peoples and the entrenchment of an unabashedly racist pan-European world. Peace also means dismantling a military-industrial complex that is clearly profiting from endless war and intervention and reinvesting bloated “defense” budgets into education, health and child care, housing, and the battle against global warming. We need to dismantle NATO for the same reasons we need to abolish the police: both serve the interests of capital and empire at the expense of the global working classes.

The Black Alliance for Peace is mindful of the loss of life in Ukraine, but also in Somalia, Yemen, and every nation suffering under NATO wars of domination. We offer our unwavering solidarity with the people of these places. As BAP Coordinating Committee member Rafiki Morris  argues:

“Our concern for the people of Ukraine must be added to our overarching concern for those in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya; coups in Egypt, Honduras, Ukraine, Bolivia, Brazil;  subversion in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba; coups across the African continent with soldiers trained by AFRICOM.”

We note, for example, that as the U.S. condemned the military actions of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, its armed drones bombed Somalia. Moreover, as Black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean were abandoned and mistreated in the Ukraine, the 200th deportation flight of the Biden administration sent 129 Haitians to Port-au-Prince, adding to the 21,000 already deported in one year.

To secure the interests of the Russian and Ukrainian people, there must be good faith negotiations between the Russian Federation, representatives of the peoples of Donbas, and the U.S.  The EU and the U.S. must end their continuous shipments of arms and other “lethal aid” to Ukraine. Ukraine and Russia must enter into serious discussions with the peoples of the Donbas in order to determine if the Minsk agreement, which was  unanimously approved by the United Nations Security Council in 2015, is still applicable.  And NATO must be disbanded.

A cloud of confusion has settled on many people, as the lusty calls for war with Russia grow louder and the propagandistic appeals to patriotism, racial nationalism, and the defense of “white civilization” intensify. For BAP, there is no confusion. The conflict in the Ukraine has only exposed the hypocrisy and contradictions of imperialism, war, and militarism – and the demand for peace means to fight against U.S. imperialism and the U.S./EU/NATO axis of domination.

On this strategic focus, BAP says once again that there will be No Compromise and No Retreat!

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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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---

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. 

Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

---

Kim Petersen is a scuba diver and former co-editor of the Dissident Voice newsletter. He can be emailed at: kimohp at gmail.com. Twitter: @kimpetersen.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg and Twitter at @crglobalization.

 

 

 

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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. 

Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

---

Jimmy Carter’s National Security Council adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski famously bragged about having induced a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 by supporting Islamic fundamentalists with the goal of “giving the Soviets their Vietnam.”

The collateral damage of the war—the destruction of Afghanistan and growth of al-Qaeda—was inconsequential to the “grand chess-master,”^[1] who told a reporter:

“what is more important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?”

Brzezinski died in May 2017, but his spirit lives on in the Biden administration which appears to have followed his blueprint, substituting Afghanistan with Ukraine.

Its strategy appears to have been to induce a Russian invasion of Ukraine with the goal of bogging Russia down into a quagmire while crippling its economy through sanctions that hold the prospect of bringing Vladimir Putin down.

The task is particularly urgent given

a) the growing geopolitical alliance between Russia and China which threatens to end the era of U.S. unipolar power definitively;

b) the growing financial crisis in the U.S. and West and prospect of economic decline or collapse.

Putin has been hated by the U.S. since he began to take back Russian control over Russia’s economy following a decade of privatization under his predecessor Boris Yeltsin that resulted in plunder by foreign capitalists and oligarchs tied to the West.

In February 2007, Putin gave a speech in Munich denouncing U.S. hyper-militarism, disdain for international law and its attitude of “might makes right,” which, he said, had left the rest of the world afraid.

Praised before in The New York Times as a “sober westernizing leader,” Putin subsequently became Public U.S. Enemy #1—a status enhanced when he confronted U.S. backed forces in Syria and saved the country from the fate of Libya and Iraq.^[2]

Poking the Russian Bear One Too Many Times

The U.S. media leaves the impression that Putin invaded Ukraine based on his own diabolical whims, leaving out the entire back story.

Future historians will recognize that the U.S. provoked the current war by:

(1) Refusing to abide by Putin’s legitimate demand that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) not be expanded to Ukraine or anywhere further to Russia’s border—going against a promise made in 1990 by U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker that NATO would not expand “one inch eastward.”

Source: statista.com

John J. Marsheimer of the University of Chicago noted that “my sense is that Putin…would not have invaded Ukraine if the Biden administration had given a written guarantee not to expand NATO into Ukraine,” and pledged to stop arming and training Ukraine’s military, which Biden refused to do.^[3]

(2) Supporting the Maidan Coup and Ukraine’s War on Eastern Ukraine.

In February 2014, the Obama administration supported the Maidan Square insurrection that resulted in the overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian leader Viktor Yanukovych after he spurned an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan that came with conditions detrimental to Ukraine. The post-coup regime—led by billionaire Petro Poroshenko who has been indicted on treason charges—triggered a conflict with Russia when they invaded Donetsk and Luhansk provinces with U.S. backing after they voted to secede.

(3) Supporting Ukraine as it violated the Minsk peace ceasefire protocols.

On Monday February 21, Russia reported that it had captured a Ukrainian soldier and killed five others after they crossed into Russian territory in Rostov, just over the border with Ukraine. Several hundred American mercenaries were reported to have arrived in Ukraine that week.

American mercenary in Donbass [Source: wprost.pl]

Photojournalist Patrick Lancaster provided photographic evidence of Ukrainian army shelling of a school in the Donbass in violation of the Minsk peace agreements signed by both Ukraine and Russia.

Lancaster’s report is corroborated by Organization For Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) maps, which show that shelings violating ceasefire arrangements indeed were carried out mostly by the Ukrainian government.

Source: consortiumnews.com

A resident of the Kyivsky district of the city of Donetsk whom Lancaster interviewed, Zoya Tumanova, said that the Ukrainians had shelled her village often since 2015 and burned half of it down. She asked Lancaster: “when will it end, when will Putin come? When will he come to save us?”

Tumanova’s viewpoint contradicts the Biden administration’s narrative about the origins of the war, which unfortunately has been embraced by all ends of the political spectrum in the U.S.^[4]

Map showing Ukrainian troops concentrations on Eastern Ukraine’s border on eve of Russian invasion of February 24^th, 2022. According to the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Ukraine had massed 122,000 troops on the border with Donbass, which was a direct threat to Russia. [Source: consortiumnews.com]

Mother of All Sanctions—Shutting Down Russia’s Economy

On Monday, the Biden administration announced an expansion of economic sanctions designed to “immobilize Russian central bank assets that are held in the U.S.” and which targeted the Russian Direct Investment Fund, a sovereign wealth fund that is run by a close ally of Putin.

The Biden administration also announced on Monday that, with numerous other countries, it was removing some Russian banks from the Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) financial messaging system, barring them from transaction.

Robert Menendez (D-NJ) called this “the mother of all sanctions.”

After the Russian invasion last Thursday, the Biden administration had imposed asset freezes on Russian government officials and banks and equity restrictions on critical Russian mining, transportation and logistics firms. Russian military and industrial companies were further blocked from buying critical technology such as advanced computer chips.

Senior Biden administration officials noted that as a result of the sanctions, the value of Russia’s ruble had already fallen more than 30 percent over the weekend and that Russia’s central bank more than doubled its interest rate to try to mitigate the fallout.

They also predicted that inflation would soon spike and economic activity would contract as Russia’s currency lost value and the country was cut off from its currency reserves.

George Lopez, a sanctions expert at Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs, stated that “everyone in the economic sphere, the banking sphere knows we’re in new territory—a coordinated shutdown of a country’s economy with the strongest arrow being in the heart of the banking sector.”

Overextending and Unbalancing Russia

The purpose behind the sanctions was made explicit in a 2019 report issued by the Rand Corporation, the leading Pentagon think-tank, entitled “Overextending and Unbalancing Russia,” which assessed how encouraging domestic protests, providing lethal aid to Ukraine and undermining Russia’s image abroad might weaken and destabilize the country.

The project’s researchers, headed by James F. Dobbins, the former U.S. Ambassador to the European Union (1991-1993) who installed Hamid Karzai as the puppet leader of Afghanistan at the 2001 Bonn conference, found that “economic cost-imposing measures” such as sanctions held particularly high likelihood of success and would “degrade Russia’s economy,” particularly if advanced with other countries.

Regime change could be achieved when the Russian population blamed Putin for their hardships and mounted a rebellion against him.

Punishment Rather Than Diplomacy

In late January, two senior Biden administration officials warned Putin that if he invaded Ukraine, harsh sanctions “would lead to an atrophying of Russia’s productive capacity over time. It would deny Russia the ability to diversify its economy.”

The goal of punishing Russia rather than averting conflict was apparent on February 26 when Ukraine’s President Volodymr Zelensky opted out of negotiations over neutral status with Russia and kept Ukraine fighting, possibly under U.S. pressure. (The State Department signaled opposition to a meeting between Putin and Zelensky to discuss a ceasefire)

German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz at this time was pressured to a) prevent the Nordstream 2 pipeline from becoming operational and b) to send Kyiv 500 “Stinger” anti-aircraft missiles in violation of Germany’s earlier pledge to hold back any lethal military aid.

The U.S. also began providing Stingers—the key weapon supplied to the Afghan mujahidin to fight the Soviets in the 1980s—while the White House was asking Congress to approve a $6.4 billion aid package to Ukraine.

Ukrainian soldiers move U.S.-made FIM-92 Stinger missiles and the other military assistance shipped from Lithuania to Boryspil Airport in Kyiv on February 13. [Source: marketwatch.com]

Original Sanctions Based on Fraud

When sanctions were first applied under the Magnitsky Act in 2012, Vladimir Putin called them a “provocation” designed to “undermine the future of American-Russian relations.” He also said that they were “shortsighted and dangerous” and an “overt interference into our internal affairs.”

The Magnitsky Act was named after Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Russian prison after allegedly trying to expose a $230 million tax scam targeting the company of an American hedge-fund investor in Russia, William F. Browder.

The grandson of former Communist Party chairman Earl Browder, Browder was convicted in Russian court of failing to pay 552 million rubles in taxes ($16 million) and illegally buying up shares in Gazprom (Russian natural gas company), for which he was sentenced in absentia to nine years in prison.

He provided financial support to Maryland’s Democratic Party Senator Ben Cardin, the original sponsor of the Magnitsky Act, through Ziff Brothers, which gave over $1 million to Democratic Party candidates in the 2016 election (Browder made stock trades for Ziff in Moscow and was using it to try to purchase shares of Gazprom).

That the sanctions policy was based on fraud was evident in the fact that Magnitsky specialized in off-shoring money and was a suspect in the $230 million tax scam, which Browder may have himself initiated.^[5]

Sergei Magnitsky and William F. Browder [Source: rt.com]

Will Putin Go the Way of the Soviets?

For all the blustery talk—Biden said he was intent on turning Putin into a “pariah” and “imposing severe costs on the Russian economy” through sanctions—Russia as of this writing is still able to sell Europe natural gas, with energy payments being exempted from the economic sanctions.

Global oil prices of $100 per barrel continue to produce large revenues.

The Putin government has planned to cushion the blow from the sanctions by building a “fortress economy” capable of producing vital goods domestically and which has amassed a huge foreign currency reserve, a lot of which Putin still has access to.

Russia’s military advantage in Ukraine is considerable compared with Afghanistan in the 1980s. Russia shares a border with Ukraine, has a major military base in the Crimea, and can count on the support of local allies and at least 15,000 separatist fighters in Donetsk.

In just five days, Russian troops have destroyed a dam blocking water into Crimea and established a land bridge between Crimea and Donbass, taken control of the area around Chernobyl, captured most of the city of Kherson at the mouth of the Dnieper River in the southeast and have begun to advance into the capital, Kyiv.

Russian convoy en route to Kyiv. [Source: bbc.com]

Russian convoy en route to Kyiv. [Source: bbc.com]

The war, however, may yet devolve into a quagmire if Ukrainian nationalist forces continue to stand up.

But if the Pentagon’s prediction of a Russian victory holds true, then the Russians will have vanquished the ghost of Zbigniew Brzezinski and thwarted the diabolical schemes of his heirs.

*

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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. Brzezinski was author of the book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (New York: Basic Books, 1997). 

2. New York Times quotes from Jeremy Kuzmarov and John Marciano, The Russians are Coming, Again: The First Cold War as Tragedy, the Second as Farce (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2018), 19. 
3. In a September meeting with Ukraine’s president Volodymr Zelensky at the White house, Biden instead pledged his “support for Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations” and American support for Ukraine’s “being completely integrated in Europe,” (ie. NATO expansion). 
4. The supposed radical firebrand Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), for example, rallied behind the Biden policy, tweeting: “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is indefensible. The U.S. is right to impose targeted sanctions on Putin & his oligarchs.” Bernie Sanders (D-VT) who also supported the institution of “serious sanctions” directed against Russia, said this: “”Vladimir Putin’s latest invasion of Ukraine is an indefensible violation of international law, regardless of whatever false pretext he offers. There has always been a diplomatic solution to this situation. Tragically, Putin appears intent on rejecting it.” However, as John Mersheimer pointed out, it was the Biden administration that rejected diplomacy by refusing to agree to halt NATO expansion in accordance with U.S. promises made 30 years earlier, or stop arms shipments to Ukraine. Former U.S. ambassador Michael McFaul called for censorship of viewpoints that challenged the official narrative of unfettered Russian aggression, tweeting: “there is a time and place for hearing two sides of an issue. This tragic moment in European history is not one of them. Do not give false equivalency to voices of evil and voices of good.” 

5. This section is drawn from Jeremy Kuzmarov, “Trying to Unbalance Russia: The Fraudulent Origins and Impact of US Sanctions on Russia” In Sanctions as War: Anti-Imperialist Perspectives on American Geo-economic Strategy, ed. Stuart Davis and Immanel Ness (Netherlands: Brill, 2021), chapter 17. 

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***

“Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest—forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries.”—Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

Let me tell you about the state of our nation: things are getting worse, not better.

Easily distracted by wall-to-wall news coverage of the latest crisis and conveniently diverted by news cycles that change every few days, Americans remain oblivious to the many governmental abuses that are still wreaking havoc on our freedoms: police shootings of unarmed individuals, invasive surveillance, roadside blood draws, roadside strip searches, SWAT team raids gone awry, the military industrial complex’s costly wars, pork barrel spending, pre-crime laws, civil asset forfeiture, fusion centers, militarization, armed drones, smart policing carried out by AI robots, courts that march in lockstep with the police state, schools that function as indoctrination centers, and bureaucrats that keep the Deep State in power.

These are dangerous times for America and the world.

Yet while you may hear plenty about the dangers posed by Russia and COVID-19 in President Biden’s State of the Union address, it’s still the U.S. government that poses the gravest threat to our freedoms and way of life.

Consider for yourself.

Americans have little protection against police abuse. The police and other government agents have been generally empowered to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts. It is no longer unusual to hear about incidents in which police shoot unarmed individuals first and ask questions later. What is increasingly common, however, is the news that the officers involved in these incidents get off with little more than a slap on the hands.

Americans are little more than pocketbooks to fund the police state. If there is any absolute maxim by which the federal government seems to operate, it is that the American taxpayer always gets ripped off. This is true, whether you’re talking about taxpayers being forced to fund high-priced weaponry that will be used against us, endless wars that do little for our safety or our freedoms, or bloated government agencies with their secret budgets, covert agendas and clandestine activities.

Americans are no longer innocent until proven guilty. We once operated under the assumption that you were innocent until proven guilty. Due in large part to rapid advances in technology and a heightened surveillance culture, the burden of proof has been shifted so that the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty has been usurped by a new norm in which all citizens are suspects. Indeed, the government—in cahoots with the corporate state—has erected the ultimate suspect society. In such an environment, we are all potentially guilty of some wrongdoing or other.

Americans no longer have a right to self-defense. While the courts continue to disagree over the exact nature of the rights protected by the Second Amendment, the government itself has made its position extremely clear. When it comes to gun rights in particular, and the rights of the citizenry overall, the U.S. government has adopted a “do what I say, not what I do” mindset. Nowhere is this double standard more evident than in the government’s attempts to arm itself to the teeth, all the while viewing as suspect anyone who dares to legally own a gun, let alone use one in self-defense. Indeed, while it still technically remains legal to own a firearm in America, possessing one can now get you pulled over, searched, arrested, subjected to all manner of surveillance, treated as a suspect without ever having committed a crime, shot at, and killed.

Americans no longer have a right to private property. If government agents can invade your home, break down your doors, kill your dog, damage your furnishings and terrorize your family, your property is no longer private and secure—it belongs to the government. Likewise, if government officials can fine and arrest you for growing vegetables in your front yard, praying with friends in your living room, installing solar panels on your roof, and raising chickens in your backyard, you’re no longer the owner of your property.

Americans no longer have a say about what their children are exposed to in school. Incredibly, the government continues to insist that parents essentially forfeit their rights when they send their children to a public school. This growing tension over whether young people, especially those in the public schools, are essentially wards of the state, to do with as government officials deem appropriate, in defiance of the children’s constitutional rights and those of their parents, is at the heart of almost every debate over educational programming, school discipline, and the extent to which parents have any say over their children’s wellbeing in and out of school.

Americans are powerless in the face of militarized police forces. With local police agencies acquiring military-grade weaponry, training and equipment better suited for the battlefield, Americans are finding their once-peaceful communities transformed into military outposts patrolled by a standing military army.

Americans no longer have a right to bodily integrity. The debate over bodily integrity covers broad territory, ranging from abortion and euthanasia to forced blood draws, biometric surveillance and basic healthcare. Forced vaccinations, forced cavity searches, forced colonoscopies, forced blood draws, forced breath-alcohol tests, forced DNA extractions, forced eye scans, forced inclusion in biometric databases: these are just a few ways in which Americans continue to be reminded that we have no control over what happens to our bodies during an encounter with government officials.

Americans no longer have a right to the expectation of privacy. Despite the staggering number of revelations about government spying on Americans’ phone calls, Facebook posts, Twitter tweets, Google searches, emails, bookstore and grocery purchases, bank statements, commuter toll records, etc., Congress, the president and the courts have done little to nothing to counteract these abuses. Instead, they seem determined to accustom us to life in this electronic concentration camp.

Americans no longer have a representative government. We have moved beyond the era of representative government and entered the age of authoritarianism, where all citizens are suspects, security trumps freedom, and so-called elected officials represent the interests of the corporate power elite. This topsy-turvy travesty of law and government has become America’s new normal.

Americans can no longer rely on the courts to mete out justice. The U.S. Supreme Court was intended to be an institution established to intervene and protect the people against the government and its agents when they overstep their bounds. Yet through their deference to police power, preference for security over freedom, and evisceration of our most basic rights for the sake of order and expediency, the justices of the Supreme Court have become the architects of the American police state in which we now live, while the lower courts have appointed themselves courts of order, concerned primarily with advancing the government’s agenda, no matter how unjust or illegal.

I haven’t even touched on the corporate state, the military industrial complex, SWAT team raids, invasive surveillance technology, zero tolerance policies in the schools, overcriminalization, or privatized prisons, to name just a few, but what I have touched on should be enough to show that the landscape of our freedoms has already changed dramatically from what it once was and will no doubt continue to deteriorate unless Americans can find a way to wrest back control of their government and reclaim their freedoms.

This steady slide towards tyranny, meted out by militarized local and federal police and legalistic bureaucrats, has been carried forward by each successive president over the past seventy-plus years regardless of their political affiliation.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Big government has grown bigger, and the rights of the citizenry have grown smaller.

We are walking a dangerous path right now.

Having allowed the government to expand and exceed our reach, we find ourselves on the losing end of a tug-of-war over control of our country and our lives. And for as long as we let them, government officials will continue to trample on our rights, always justifying their actions as being for the good of the people.

Yet the government can only go as far as “we the people” allow. Therein lies the problem.

The pickle we find ourselves in speaks volumes about the nature of the government beast we have been saddled with and how it views the rights and sovereignty of “we the people.”

Now you don’t hear a lot about sovereignty anymore. Sovereignty is a dusty, antiquated term that harkens back to an age when kings and emperors ruled with absolute power over a populace that had no rights. Americans turned the idea of sovereignty on its head when they declared their independence from Great Britain and rejected the absolute authority of King George III. In doing so, Americans claimed for themselves the right to self-government and established themselves as the ultimate authority and power.

In other words, in America, “we the people”— sovereign citizens—call the shots.

So when the government acts, it is supposed to do so at our bidding and on our behalf, because we are the rulers.

That’s not exactly how it turned out, though, is it?

In the 200-plus years since we boldly embarked on this experiment in self-government, we have been steadily losing ground to the government’s brazen power grabs, foisted upon us in the so-called name of national security.

We have relinquished control over the most intimate aspects of our lives to government officials who, while they may occupy seats of authority, are neither wiser, smarter, more in tune with our needs, more knowledgeable about our problems, nor more aware of what is really in our best interests.

The government has knocked us off our rightful throne. It has usurped our rightful authority. It has staged the ultimate coup. Its agents no longer even pretend that they answer to “we the people.”

Worst of all, “we the people” have become desensitized to this constant undermining of our freedoms.

How do we reconcile the Founders’ vision of the government as an entity whose only purpose is to serve the people with the police state’s insistence that the government is the supreme authority, that its power trumps that of the people themselves, and that it may exercise that power in any way it sees fit (that includes government agents crashing through doors, mass arrests, ethnic cleansing, racial profiling, indefinite detentions without due process, and internment camps)?

They cannot be reconciled. They are polar opposites.

We are fast approaching a moment of reckoning where we will be forced to choose between the vision of what America was intended to be (a model for self-governance where power is vested in the people) and the reality of what it has become (a police state where power is vested in the government).

We are repeating the mistakes of history—namely, allowing a totalitarian state to reign over us.

Former concentration camp inmate Hannah Arendt warned against this when she wrote:

“No matter what the specifically national tradition or the particular spiritual source of its ideology, totalitarian government always transformed classes into masses, supplanted the party system, not by one-party dictatorships, but by mass movement, shifted the center of power from the army to the police, and established a foreign policy openly directed toward world domination.”

So where does that leave us?

Aldous Huxley predicted that eventually the government would find a way of:

“making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.”

The answer? Get un-brainwashed. Stop allowing yourself to be distracted and diverted.

Learn your rights. Stand up for the founding principles.

Make your voice and your vote count for more than just political posturing.

Never cease to vociferously protest the erosion of your freedoms at the local and national level.

Most of all, do these things today.

Ultimately, I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we need to shift the center of power back to “we the people.”

*

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president The Rutherford Institute. His books Battlefield America: The War on the American People and A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State are available at www.amazon.com. He 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.

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***

My old boss Herman Kahn, with whom I worked at the Hudson Institute in the 1970s, had a set speech that he would give at public meetings. He said that back in high school in Los Angeles, his teachers would say what most liberals were saying in the 1940s and 50s: “Wars never solved anything.” It was as if they never changed anything – and therefore shouldn’t be fought.

Herman disagreed, and made lists of all sorts of things that wars had solved in world history, or at least changed. He was right, and of course that is the aim of both sides in today’s New Cold War confrontation in Ukraine.

The question to ask is what today’s New Cold War is trying to change or “solve.” To answer this question, it helps to ask who initiates the war. There always are two sides – the attacker and the attacked. The attacker intends certain consequences, and the attacked looks for unintended consequences of which they can take advantage. In this case, both sides have their dueling sets of intended consequences and special interests.

The active military force and aggression since 1991 has been the United States. Rejecting mutual disarmament of the Warsaw Pact countries and NATO, there was no “peace dividend.” Instead, the U.S. policy executed by the Clinton and subsequent administrations to wage a new military expansion via NATO has paid a 30-year dividend in the form of shifting the foreign policy of Western Europe and other American allies out of their domestic political sphere into their own U.S.-oriented “national security” blob (the word for special interests that must not be named). NATO has become Europe’s foreign-policy-making body, even to the point of dominating domestic economic interests.

The recent prodding of Russia by expanding Ukrainian anti-Russian ethnic violence by Ukraine’s neo-Nazi post-2014 Maiden regime was aimed at (and has succeeded in) forcing a showdown in response the fear by U.S. interests that they are losing their economic and political hold on their NATO allies and other Dollar Area satellites as these countries have seen their major opportunities for gain to lie in increasing trade and investment with China and Russia.

To understand just what U.S. aims and interests are threatened, it is necessary to understand U.S. politics and “the blob,” that is, the government central planning that cannot be explained by looking at ostensibly democratic politics. This is not the politics of U.S. senators and representatives representing their congressional voting districts or states.

America’s Three Oligarchies in Control of U.S. Foreign Policy

It is more realistic to view U.S. economic and foreign policy in terms of the military-industrial complex, the oil and gas (and mining) complex, and the banking and real estate complex than in terms of the political policy of Republicans and Democrats. The key senators and congressional representatives do not represent their states and districts as much as the economic and financial interests of their major political campaign contributors. A Venn diagram would show that in today’s post-Citizens United world, U.S. politicians represent their campaign contributors, not voters. And these contributors fall basically into three main blocs.

Credits:360b/Shutterstock By Fabian Res /Flickr; F-16 drops MK82 bombs (USAF photo); Child victim of attack in which MK82 bomb built by Lockheed Martin was dropped on his school bus Aug. 9, 2018. (VOA/Screengrab)

Three main oligarchic groups that have bought control of the Senate and Congress to put their own policy makers in the State Department and Defense Department. First is the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) – arms manufacturers such as Raytheon, Boeing and Lockheed-Martin, have broadly diversified their factories and employment in nearly every state, and especially in the Congressional districts where key Congressional committee heads are elected. Their economic base is monopoly rent, obtained above all from their arms sales to NATO, to Near Eastern oil exporters and to other countries with a balance-of-payments surplus. Stocks for these companies soared immediately upon news of the Russian attack, leading a two-day stock-market surge as investors recognized that war in a world of cost-plus “Pentagon capitalism” (as Seymour Melman described it) will provide a guaranteed national-security umbrella for monopoly profits for war industries. Senators and Congressional representatives from California and Washington traditionally have represented the MIC, along with the solid pro-military South. The past week’s military escalation promises soaring arms sales to NATO and other U.S. allies, enriching the actual constituents of these politicians. Germany quickly agreed to raise is arms spending to over 2% of GDP.

The second major oligarchic bloc is the rent-extracting oil and gas sector, joined by mining (OGAM), riding America’s special tax favoritism granted to companies emptying natural resources out of the ground and putting them mostly into the atmosphere, oceans and water supply. Like the banking and real estate sector seeking to maximize economic rent and maximizing capital gains for housing and other assets, the aim of this OGAM sector is to maximize the price of its energy and raw materials so as to maximize its natural-resource rent. Monopolizing the Dollar Area’s oil market and isolating it from Russian oil and gas has been a major U.S. priority for over a year now, as the Nord Stream 2 pipeline threatened to link the Western European and Russian economies more tightly together.

Nord Stream 2 (Source: InfoBrics)

If oil, gas and mining operations are not situated in every U.S. voting district, at least their investors are. Senators from Texas and other Western oil-producing and mining states are the leading OGAM lobbyists, and the State Department has a heavy oil-sector influence providing a national-security umbrella for the sector’s special tax breaks. The ancillary political aim is to ignore and reject environmental drives to replace oil, gas and coal with alternative sources of energy. The Biden administration accordingly has backed the expansion of offshore drilling, supported the Canadian pipeline to the world’s dirtiest petroleum source in the Athabasca tar sands, and celebrated the revival of U.S. fracking.

The foreign-policy extension is to prevent foreign countries not leaving control of their oil, gas and mining to U.S. OGAM companies from competing in world markets with U.S. suppliers. Isolating Russia (and Iran) from Western markets will reduce the supply of oil and gas, pushing up prices and corporate profits accordingly.

The third major oligarchic group is the symbiotic Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector, which is the modern finance-capitalist successor to Europe’s old post-feudal landed aristocracy living by land rents. With most housing in today’s world having become owner-occupied (although with sharply rising rates of absentee landlordship since the post-2008 wave of Obama Evictions), land rent is paid largely to the banking sector in the form of mortgage interest and debt amortization (on rising debt/equity ratios as bank lending inflates housing prices). About 80 percent of U.S. and British bank loans are to the real estate sector, inflating land prices to create capital gains – which are effectively tax-exempt for absentee owners.

This Wall Street-centered banking and real estate bloc is even more broadly based on a district-by-district basis than the MIC. Its New York senator from Wall Street, Chuck Schumer, heads the Senate, long supported by Delaware’s former Senator from the credit-card industry Joe Biden, and Connecticut’s senators from the insurance sector centered in that state. Domestically, the aim of this sector is to maximize land rent and the “capital’ gains resulting from rising land rent. Internationally, the FIRE sector’s aim is to privatize foreign economies (above all to secure the privilege of credit creation in U.S. hands), so as to turn government infrastructure and public utilities into rent-seeking monopolies to provide basic services (such as health care, education, transportation, communications and information technology) at maximum prices instead of at subsidized prices to reduce the cost of living and doing business. And Wall Street always has been closely merged with the oil and gas industry (viz. the Rockefeller-dominated Citigroup and Chase Manhattan banking conglomerates).

The FIRE, MIC and OGAM sectors are the three rentier sectors that dominate today’s post-industrial finance capitalism. Their mutual fortunes have soared as MIC and OGAM stocks have increased. And moves to exclude Russia from the Western financial system (and partially now from SWIFT), coupled with the adverse effects of isolating European economies from Russian energy, promise to spur an inflow into dollarized financial securities

As mentioned at the outset, it is more helpful to view U.S. economic and foreign policy in terms of the complexes based on these three rentier sectors than in terms of the political policy of Republicans and Democrats. The key senators and congressional representatives are not representing their states and districts as much as the economic and financial interests of their major donors. That is why neither manufacturing nor agriculture play the dominant role in U.S. foreign policy today. The convergence of the policy aims of America’s three dominant rentier groups overwhelms the interests of labor and even of industrial capital beyond the MIC. That convergence is the defining characteristic of today’s post-industrial finance capitalism. It is basically a reversion to economic rent-seeking, which is independent of the politics of labor and industrial capital.

The dynamic that needs to be traced today is why this oligarchic blob has found its interest in prodding Russia into what Russia evidently viewed as a do-or-die stance to resist the increasingly violent attacks on Ukraine’s eastern Russian-speaking provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk, along with the broader Western threats against Russia.

The Rentier “Blob’s” Expected Consequences of the New Cold War

As President Biden explained, the current U.S.-orchestrated military escalation (“Prodding the Bear”) is not really about Ukraine. Biden promised at the outset that no U.S. troops would be involved. But he has been demanding for over a year that Germany prevent the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from supplying its industry and housing with low-priced gas and turn to the much higher-priced U.S. suppliers.

U.S. officials first tried to stop construction of the pipeline from being completed. Firms aiding in its construction were sanctioned, but finally Russia itself completed the pipeline. U.S. pressure then turned on the traditionally pliant German politicians, claiming that Germany and the rest of Europe faced a National Security threat from Russia turning off the gas, presumably to extract some political or economic concessions. No specific Russian demands could be thought up, and so their nature was left obscure and blob-like. Germany refused to authorize Nord Stream 2 from officially going into operation.

A major aim of today’s New Cold War is to monopolize the market for U.S. shipments of liquified natural gas (LNG). Already under Donald Trump’s administration, Angela Merkel was bullied into promising to spend $1 billion building new port facilities for U.S. tanker ships to unload natural gas for German use. The Democratic election victory in November 2020, followed by Ms. Merkel’s retirement from Germany’s political scene, led to cancellation of this port investment, leaving Germany really without much alternative to importing Russian gas to heat its homes, power its electric utilities, and to provide raw material for its fertilizer industry and hence the maintenance of its farm productivity.

So the most pressing U.S. strategic aim of NATO confrontation with Russia is soaring oil and gas prices, above all to the detriment of Germany. In addition to creating profits and stock-market gains for U.S. oil companies, higher energy prices will take much of the steam out of the German economy. That looms as the third time in a century that the United States has defeated Germany – each time increasing its control over a German economy increasingly dependent on the United States for imports and policy leadership, with NATO being the effective check against any domestic nationalist resistance.

Higher gasoline, heating and other energy prices also will hurt U.S. consumers and those of other nations (especially Global South energy-deficit economies) and leave less of the U.S. family budget for spending on domestic goods and services. This could squeeze marginalized homeowners and investors, leading to further concentration of absentee ownership of housing and commercial property in the United States, along with buyouts of distressed real estate owners in other countries faced with soaring heating and energy costs. But that is deemed collateral damage by the post-industrial blob.

Food prices also will rise, headed by wheat. (Russia and Ukraine account for 25 percent of world wheat exports.) This will squeeze many Near Eastern and Global South food-deficit countries, worsening their balance of payments and threatening foreign debt defaults.

Russian raw-materials exports may be blocked by Russia in response to the currency and SWIFT sanctions. This threatens to cause breaks in supply chains for key materials, including cobalt, palladium, nickel and aluminum (the production of which consumes much electricity as its major cost – which will make that metal more expensive). If China decides to see itself as the next nation being threatened and joins Russia in a common protest against the U.S. trade and financial warfare, the Western economies are in for a serious shock.

The long-term dream of U.S. New Cold Warriors is to break up Russia, or at least to restore its Yeltsin/Harvard Boys managerial kleptocracy, with oligarchs seeking to cash in their privatizations in Western stock markets. OGAM still dreams of buying majority control of Yukos and Gazprom. Wall Street would love to recreate a Russian stock market boom. And MIC investors at happily anticipating the prospect of selling more weapons to help bring all this about.

Russia’s Intentions to Benefit from America’s Unintended Consequences

What does Russia want? Most immediately, to remove the neo-Nazi anti-Russian core that the Maidan massacre and coup put in place in 2014. Ukraine is to be neutralized, which to Russia means basically pro-Russian, dominated by Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea. The aim is to prevent Ukraine from becoming a staging ground of U.S.-orchestrated anti-Russian moves a la Chechnya and Georgia.

Russia’s longer-term aim is to pry Europe away from NATO and U.S. dominance – and in the process, create with China a new multipolar world order centered on an economically integrated Eurasia. The aim is to dissolve NATO altogether, and then to promote the broad disarmament and denuclearization policies that Russia has been pushing for. Not only will this cut back foreign purchases of U.S. arms, but it may end up leading to sanctions against future U.S. military adventurism. That would leave America with less ability to fund its military operations as de-dollarization accelerates.

Now that it should be obvious to any informed observer that (1) NATO’s purpose is aggression, not defense, and (2) there is no further territory for it to conquer from the remains of the old Soviet Union, what does Europe get out of continued membership? It is obvious that Russia never again will invade Europe. It has nothing to gain – and had nothing to gain by fighting Ukraine, except to roll back NATO’s proxy expansion into that country and the NATO-backed attacks on Novorossiya.

Will European nationalist leaders (the left is largely pro-US) ask why their countries should pay for U.S. arms that only put them in danger, pay higher prices for U.S. LNG and energy, pay more for grain and Russian-produced raw materials, all while losing the option of making export sales and profits on peaceful investment in Russia – and perhaps losing China as well?

The U.S. confiscation of Russian monetary reserves, following the recent theft of Afghanistan’s reserves (and England’s seizure of Venezuela’s gold stocks held there) threatens every country’s adherence to the Dollar Standard, and hence the dollar’s role as the vehicle for foreign-exchange savings by the world’s central banks. This will accelerate the international de-dollarization process already started by Russia and China relying on mutual holdings of each other’s currencies.

Over the longer term, Russia is likely to join China in forming an alternative to the U.S.-dominated IMF and World Bank. Russia’s announcement that it wants to arrest the Ukrainian Nazis and hold a war crimes trial seems to imply an alternative to the Hague court will be established following Russia’s military victory in Ukraine. Only a new international court could try war criminals extending from Ukraine’s neo-Nazi leadership all the way up to U.S. officials responsible for crimes against humanity as defined by the Nuremberg laws.

I expect Russia to withdraw this week. I can’t imagine that it has any intention of expending resources and lives on occupation. Its first task was to stop the attack on the Russian-speaking eastern provinces and to protect Crimea. Its second task was to wipe out the neo-Nazi military forces, capturing their leaders if possible and bringing them to trial for war crimes — and then proceeding up the ladder to their U.S. sponsors, NED etc.

It is of course possible that Europe will break away. In that case, Russia will turn toward China and its fellow SCO members. Europe will suffer severe supply chain issues, commodity-price inflation, and budget squeezes for its population and governments.

Did the American Blob Actually Think Through the Consequences of NATO’s War?

It is almost black humor to look at U.S. attempts to convince China that it should join the United States in denouncing Russia’s moves into Ukraine. The most enormous unintended consequence of U.S. foreign policy has been to drive Russia and China together, along with Iran, Central Asia and other countries along the Belt and Road initiative.

Russia dreamed of creating a new world order, but it was U.S. adventurism that has driven the world into an entirely new order – one that looks to be dominated by China as the default winner now that the European economy is essentially torn apart and America is left with what it has grabbed from Russia and Afghanistan, but without the ability to gain future support.

And everything that I have written above may already be obsolete as Russia and the U.S. have gone on atomic alert. My only hope is that Putin and Biden can agree that if Russia hydrogen bombs Britain and Brussels, that there will be a devil’s (not gentleman’s) agreement not to bomb each other.

With such talk I’m brought back to my discussions with Herman Kahn 50 years ago. He became quite unpopular for writing Thinking about the Unthinkable, meaning atomic war. As he was parodied in Dr. Strangelove, he did indeed say that there would indeed be survivors. But he added that for himself, he hoped to be right under the atom bomb, because it was not a world in which he wanted to survive.

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Seven Fake News Stories Coming Out of Ukraine

By Kit Knightly, March 01, 2022

In just the last 48 hours dozens of stories, images, narratives and videos have circulated as being taken from the fighting in Ukraine, a huge percentage of which are fake. Now, some of it could be attributed to misunderstandings, mistaken identity, misattribution…but many and most are likely deliberate deceptions designed to provoke a response. Let’s dive right in.

‘Deceitful Activities’: US Expands Its Intelligence and Military Presence in the UK

By Richard Norton-Taylor, March 01, 2022

Upgrading US air bases in the UK would enable Washington to intercept international communications and launch military strikes from Britain more quickly and with more devastating effect. This is what is taking place at Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire, the US National Security Agency’s biggest surveillance facility outside America, the US bomber base at Fairford in Gloucestershire, and the CIA base at Croughton in Northamptonshire.

Ukraine’s “Neo-Nazi Summer Camp”. Military Training for Young Children

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, March 01, 2022

Unknown to most Americans, the US government is channeling financial support, weapons and training to a Neo-Nazi entity –which is part of The Ukraine National Guard– The Azov Battalion (Батальйон Азов). Canada and Britain have confirmed that they also are providing support to the National Guard.

Will Ukraine See the Light, Restore its Sovereignty. Negotiations are the Solution

By Peter Koenig, March 01, 2022

President Putin had numerous times proposed talks, negotiations and set out Russia’s conditions, the first and simplest one is NO NATO base in Ukraine. The current US Biden Administration as well as all the previous ones have rejected that simple condition.

Western Reporting: News from Nowhere

By Stephen Sefton, March 01, 2022

In Ukraine, the massive deceit has been to ignore NATO country governments’ support for a fascist regime subordinate to followers of Nazism attacking its own Ukrainian citizens since 2014 with around 14,000 deaths, tens of thousands of wounded and hundreds of thousands people displaced.

The European Commission President Announces that the EU Is Joining the War Against Russia

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, March 01, 2022

The  European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced that, despite Putin’s warning, the EU is going to finance the purchase and delivery of weapons to Ukraine.  She also said the EU is going to include Belarus, which is not involved in the fighting, in the sanctions, because it is a Russian ally. She says the EU wants to ban Russian media because they don’t keep to the official war narrative. 

Democracy Is Shedding Its Skin

By Dr. Rudolf Hänsel, March 01, 2022

Excessive and moderate brutality is making its mark on our age, as it has in previous periods of our history. An epidemic of greed for power and brutality in politics and business repeatedly leads to catastrophes such as war and terror that kill millions of people, similar to the plague of the Middle Ages.

The History of Eugenics and the New World Order

By Matthew Ehret-Kump, March 01, 2022

After a eugenics-driven attempt at a new world order was aborted during WWII, Sir Julian Huxley (the grandson of Darwin’s bulldog and himself a life long member and even president of the British Eugenics Society) spearheads a re-organization of the British imperial grand strategy with the intent of repackaging eugenics under a new name but with the same effects as those outlined by Hitler earlier.

COVID Jab Deadlier Than COVID for Anyone Under 80

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, March 01, 2022

According to a cost-benefit analysis by Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., and independent researcher Kathy Dopp, the COVID jab is deadlier than COVID-19 itself for anyone under the age of 80. The cost-benefit analysis looked at publicly available official data from the U.S. and U.K. for all age groups, and compared all-cause mortality to the risk of dying from COVID-19.

One in 25 Germans Sought Medical Attention Due to Vaccine Injury

By Free West Media, March 01, 2022

While the war in Ukraine is raging, explosive information is also coming to the fore about vaccine injury. The German health insurance company BKK ProVita has published a report about side effects after the Corona jab.

Ukraine and the Orwellian “Ministry of Truth”: The Attack Was Launched by NATO Eight Years Ago.

By Manlio Dinucci, March 01, 2022

Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen announced that the EU is banning the Russian news agency Sputnik and the Russia Today channel so that “they can no longer spread their lies to justify Putin’s war with their toxic disinformation in Europe”.

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The inhuman manner in which the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) treats Rwandans who have been acquitted or who have been freed after serving their sentences obliges us to reexamine totally the body created by the UN Security Council in late 1994 (it is now known as the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, also referred to as the IRMCT or the Mechanism).

As in the time of penal colonies, the UN ships acquitted or freed Rwandans from one African country to another, where they are often held under house arrest with no travel documents, no hope of joining their families, and constantly in fear of being extradited to Rwanda or to some ‘Devil’s Island.’

How has this come to pass? Why has the UN not transferred them to The Hague where the UN International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court are located? Has the UN created its own system of judicial apartheid?

The eight Rwandans in Niger—and others

Eight Rwandans—Zigiranyirazo Protais, Nzuwonemeye François-Xavier, Nteziryayo Alphonse, Muvunyi Tharcisse, Ntagerura André, Nsengiyumva Anatole, Mugiraneza Prosper, and Sagahutu Innocent—including three acquitted and five freed after serving sentences, have spent more than two months under house arrest in Niamey, Niger. They are now awaiting transfer back to Arusha, Tanzania, where they will join former Rwandan Foreign Affairs Minister Jérôme Bicmamumpaka, another acquitted man who had refused to leave Arusha, Tanzania, where he has resided since being taken into the care of the ICTR Registry.

The eight in Niger had agreed under pressure to be transferred from Arusha to Niamey (the capital and largest city of Niger) on December 5, 2021, with the promise of obtaining permanent residence status, travel and identity documents (which Rwanda refused to provide) and a semblance of freedom.

Some had spent up to 25 years in Arusha, awaiting trial or after being acquitted or freed. They were also waiting to get permission to join their families in France, Belgium, Canada, the United Kingdom, or Denmark. Their wait has been in vain. These countries that constantly lecture others about justice and human rights, are now refusing to respect the rulings of a tribunal they had backed both financially and diplomatically.

At the same time, five other Rwandans living in Mali and freed after serving sentences imposed by the ICTR were recently informed that their residency permit in Mali would not be renewed. They too have become stateless and vulnerable to extradition to Rwanda or to transfer to another country, not of their choice.

Victor’s justice from the get-go

The loftiest of principles were invoked when the UN created the tribunal. Madeleine Albright, then United States Ambassador to the UN and future Secretary of State, declared that the new international court “will be no victor’s tribunal. The only victor that will prevail in this endeavor will be the truth.” Louise Arbour, chief prosecutor from 1996 to 1999, echoed her.

Yet it was victor’s justice from the very beginning. The reason is that the regime of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), victor of the war in 1994, held, and still holds, the power to indict people simply because it controls the facts and the territory where the alleged crimes took place.

The UN Security Council invested the chief prosecutor with the power to indict, arrest and prosecute suspects. Yet their power was more mirage than fact. To establish charges against people or prepare a defense, the prosecutor or defense counsel had to have the approval of the masters of Kigali.

The power given to those who determine who will be indicted should never be underestimated. In Rwanda, that power was effectively handed over to those who won the war. Inevitably, the only people indicted were the enemies of the victorious army. As Ramsay Clark pointed out, “it really is war by other means and it is very cruel.”

The RPF government made it very easy for witnesses for the prosecution to appear before the tribunal in Arusha. This gave rise to many cases of perjury. Defense witnesses on the other hand were very reticent to appear in court or file affidavits for fear of reprisals against them and their families by the Rwandan authorities.

This made it virtually impossible to indict military leaders of the RPF. The most serious crime attributed to the party, and specifically to Paul Kagame, was the shooting down of the plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi on April 6, 1994. Both presidents were killed. That assassination also killed the Arusha Peace Accord of August 1993 when the army of the RPF immediately resumed the war.

As early as 2000, Arbour’s successor as chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, declared that if it proved to be true that the RPF shot down the Rwandan president’s plane, the history of the Rwandan genocide had to be rewritten.

No RPF member has ever been indicted and any attempts to investigate the RPF have been either thwarted or abandoned.

To her credit, Arbour confirmed in 2016 that the ICTR worked like a victor’s tribunal. The Kagame government, she said to the Globe and Mail, “could turn on and off the co-operative tap at will, depending whether they were pleased or not with the work that was being done … The office of the prosecutor was sitting right in the middle of the country, where allegedly some of the leadership elements had to be investigated … That’s not, frankly, very doable.” The tribunal was “constantly in a conflictual position vis-à-vis President Kagame.” She added that the nothing could be done “without the full co-operation of the [Rwandan] government.”

Former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (second from left, front row) addresses the staff of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Official United Nations photo/Flickr.

Where do the acquitted and freed people go?

In the rush to create the tribunal in 1994-95, the planners, mainly Americans, failed to ask the most basic questions. This becomes evident in the case of the acquitted and freed Rwandans. Justice was obviously not the concern of those who set up the ICTR.

Where would those sentenced serve their time? The fact is that they have been sent to different African countries far away from their families. Then they have been transferred to other countries depending on the internal political situation of the host country. But never to The Hague, the headquarters of international justice.

What was to be done with the acquitted and wrongly accused? Did they even foresee the possibility? Where would they go? Who would provide the necessary identity documents? Who would indemnify them in case they were wrongly accused? Had the planners of the tribunal decided that there would be no acquittals?

Where would those freed after serving their sentences live?

Sacrificed to imperialist strategy

Twenty-eight years after the Rwandan tragedy, Canada, France, Belgium, the UK and the US maintain strong diplomatic and trade relations with the Rwandan regime. They turn a blind eye to all the devastating reports about its involvement in extra- and intra-territorial executions, disappearances, arbitrary imprisonment, and military incursions in other countries.

Does the establishment of good relations with the victors of the 1994 war grant them the right to flout the decisions of the ICTR even though they had been its most ardent supporters? Or is this just further proof that international criminal justice is no more than an instrument to advance the interests of major imperial powers?

If any doubts persist, David Scheffer, former US Ambassador for War Crimes Issues, provides an insight into how the tribunal was perceived in Washington:

[T]he tribunal was a potent judicial tool, and I had enough support from President Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, and other top officials in Washington to wield it like a battering ram in the execution of US and NATO policy.

The problems raised by an international criminal court did not begin in the 1990s. Former US Attorney General Ramsay Clark observed:

There would be no UN had it been implied in any way in the Charter that there would be a criminal tribunal. If it had been put in directly, the meeting would have been over. People would have packed their bags in Washington before the San Francisco meeting and left. The United States would have been the first to leave. Power does not like to be judged and if it has the power, it won’t be.

A ‘special’ regime for Africans?

The late Boutros Boutros-Ghali, former UN Secretary-General, admitted that he was responsible for putting the ICTR in Arusha and not in The Hague. He also admitted that it was a mistake in a 2002 interview he granted me. It was an error agreed upon by the members of the Security Council who therefore bear responsibility for the error.

When asked what the tribunal would do with the defendants, the people sentenced, and the acquitted, Boutros-Ghali replied,

“None of us, jurists included had given any thought to the parallel and paralegal aspects, such as political and material questions. So we convict somebody. Where is he to serve his sentence? Who is responsible for overseeing his imprisonment? Why? None of this has been studied seriously.”

The acquitted and freed Rwandans are thus paying for a serious error and gaping flaws in the ICTR that have been known since the tribunal began its work. It has created a sort of judicial apartheid for Africans characterized by a new form of penal colonization.

It is never too late to repair past errors. Through the Mechanism, the UN must take charge of the Rwandans acquitted, freed or still serving their sentences.

The UN must protect them from the whims of the imperial powers and their allies and ensure they are in safety and stability.

Finally, the UN must also see to it that the countries where their families live respect the decisions rendered by the ICTR, and not just those they agree with. Selectivity is the opposite of equality, which is the mother of justice.

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This article was originally published on Canadian Dimension.

Robin Philpot is the publisher of Baraka Books, a Québec-based English-language book publisher specialized in creative and political non-fiction, history and historical fiction, and fiction.

Featured image is by Rick Bajornas/United Nations/Flickr

 

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***

Upgrading US air bases in the UK would enable Washington to intercept international communications and launch military strikes from Britain more quickly and with more devastating effect.

This is what is taking place at Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire, the US National Security Agency’s biggest surveillance facility outside America, the US bomber base at Fairford in Gloucestershire, and the CIA base at Croughton in Northamptonshire.

All three bases are misleadingly described as Royal Air Force stations. While in theory the British government could veto US operations from these bases, the amount of money Washington continues to spend on them makes clear it does not expect any objections.

In its latest spending package, the US has earmarked $40 million to expand Menwith Hill, $300 million to Fairford and an undisclosed sum to Croughton. The figures on Menwith Hill and Fairford were given in response to a parliamentary question from the Labour MP Alex Sobel.

They are part of a £2.8 billion project to upgrade US military and intelligence-gathering bases in Britain. This includes expanding the US air force station at Lakenheath in Suffolk to enable American F-35 fighter/bombers to be based there.

GCHQ’s listening post in Cyprus, a facility whose product is shared with US intelligence agencies, is also being upgraded.

‘Concealed from your parliament’

The moves come as a former US intelligence officer based at Menwith Hill has accused US and British officials of carrying out “deceitful” activities at the base. In a conflict the base could be a “significant military target”, he says.

The warnings have come from Lee Baker, a former NSA satellite engineer and cryptologist in correspondence with a campaign group, the Menwith Hill Accountability Campaign (MHAC).

“I have found both the leadership of the National Security Agency and that of Menwith Hill Station (American and British) to be very deceitful and disloyal to their own respective citizens”, he says.

“They have certainly been concealed from your parliament, and thus your citizens as well.”

He calls for more accountability and “public awareness of the deceitful activities within the vast American Intelligence Complex at Menwith Hill”.

He adds that although those activities “are NOT [his emphasis] entirely unknown to your potential adversaries…they have certainly been concealed from your parliament, and thus your citizens as well”.

If the question, adds Baker, “is, do the intelligence activities at Menwith Hill Station, by the United States of America, in support of their unique and specific ‘Intelligence, Political or Economic’ goals, make that entire region a significant Military Target, the answer is yes”.

Directed against the British

Baker also makes it clear, in a memo to Martin Schweiger of the MHAC, that the US does not share with Britain some of the intelligence it collects from the base. Some of that intelligence could be used to target British citizens, he says.

“I am absolutely certain”, Baker continues, “that not all of the American intelligence collection activities at Menwith Hill Station have been or ever will be fully shared with the British government.”

“The US does not share with Britain some of the intelligence it collects from the base.”

He adds:

“Additionally it is absolutely possible, if not probable, that some intelligence collection activities directed against the British themselves, have been or will be conducted from British soil at Menwith Hill Station”.

Baker describes his comments as “merely my unclassified opinion” based on his experience of 36 years in the NSA.

He also says that he participated in operations that “actually thwarted several real-world threats to both the British and American people…some very bad players in the world would love to see NSA and GCHQ be totally wiped off the map”.

Gagging order

Baker’s suggestion that GCHQ and US intelligence bases in Britain are used to serve American rather than British interests was made clear in a GCHQ staff manual of 1994 I reported some years ago.

The manual told GCHQ staff that the agency’s contribution must be “of sufficient scale and of the right kind to make a continuation of the Sigint [signals intelligence] alliance worthwhile to our partners”.

It admitted: “This may entail on occasion the applying of UK resources to the meeting of US requirements.”

Baker’s concerns about the lack of accountability and scrutiny of this close US-UK intelligence relationship reflect those made by Dennis Mitchell, a senior cryptanalyst who resigned in 1984 in protest against the banning of trade unions at GCHQ.

GCHQ’s product is intelligence, he said. He added: “Intelligence imparts power; power which may be used to withstand a threat, or to apply one; to avert an ill, to bestow a benefit – or to exploit”.

The only real watchdog, said Mitchell, was the workforce. “It is they on whom the general public must rely if errors of judgment, excessive zeal or malpractices are to be averted in a department which has considerable discretion.”

Mitchell told the then cabinet secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong:

“I have arrived at the point at which I either make my concerns public, which means breaking the Official Secrets Act, or I fail to discharge my responsibilities to account for actions which I believe would be considered unacceptable by the general public were it aware of them.”

He was immediately served with a court gagging order preventing him from disclosing anything about his work at GCHQ.

Covert drone strikes

MPs rarely dip their toes into the realm of security and intelligence. Although in recent years it has questioned failures by MI5 and MI6, even the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, which meets in secret, has been loath to question the activities of GCHQ.

Menwith Hill has been expanding significantly with new radomes – “golf balls” housing surveillance satellite ground stations – and there are plans to construct what is described as a large “communications container compound” there.

The Menwith Hill Accountability Campaign noted in a recent report that according to documents  from whistleblowers, programmes developed at Menwith Hill have been used to support British and American troops in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and as part of covert missions in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and Lebanon.

It refers to leaked documents identifying Menwith Hill as providing intelligence used in “a significant number of capture kill operations”, including targeting information for US covert drone strikes.

Kept under wraps

What the British government allows the CIA and other US agencies to get up to in “RAF” Croughton is also kept under wraps.

Alba MP Kenny MacAskill last month asked the government what role RAF Croughton had in “facilitating US drone operations in the Middle East; and how that base is linked to the US military facility at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti”.

The defence minister, James Heappey, replied:

“RAF Crougton is part of a worldwide US Defence Communications network, and the base supports a variety of communications activity. For operational security reasons and as a matter of policy, neither the Ministry of Defence nor the US Department of Defense publicly discuss specifics concerning military operations or classified communications regardless of unit, platform or asset.”

Heappey added:

“Any details of US intelligence personnel are classified. It is Government practice not to disclose the information of personnel working in intelligence roles to protect national security.”

Anne Sacoolas, who claimed diplomatic immunity after she was charged over the death of a young motorcyclist, Harry Dunn, outside the Croughton base, has been described as being an American intelligence officer.

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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. 

Global Research does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

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As my time in Russia draws towards an end – just three days to go before I start the long journey home, after over three weeks here already – I want to share with readers of my Facebook page a few wrap-up thoughts. I know I will be trolled for this by people including some who in other respects I like and admire, but I will block them. I honestly don’t care any more – angry and ill-informed words no longer affect me.

By coincidence I have been travelling in northwestern Russia during the past tumultuous three weeks in world history: in the cradle of modern Russia, visiting important sites in Russia’s history as a nation-state and in her cultural heritage – Pskov, Pushkinskie Gory, and the major cities Saint Petersburg and Moscow. My evident growing physical weakness as a sole traveller of advanced years forced me to cancel more ambitious plans to visit Volgograd and Samara.

While I was here, the crisis in Ukraine and in East-West relations generally has escalated towards the current crunch moment in Kiev and Kharkov, which I hope and expect will find peaceful resolution within the next few days.

I was here under a special guest visa to give lectures in the Moscow Diplomatic Academy and the St Petersburg University of the Humanities and Social Sciences. I travelled at my own expense and according to my own plans.

It has been uniquely bizarre to watch from here, as someone who now feels personally very comfortable in Russia after three independent visits in 2016, 2018 and 2019, how Western elites have finally become so entrapped in their own false information warfare narrative on Ukraine that they can no longer see what is real and under their very noses: Russian military power, her determination, her moral strength that comes from knowing she is in the right.

After eight years of standing by and watching helplessly the vicious Ukronazi-driven cruelty towards the four million people of Donbass, and the Ukronazi intimidation of their many cowed and silent sympathisers across the rest of Ukraine, Russia finally acted on 24 February 2022. For Russians, this had been a running sore over eight years since the Maidan Square coup in Kiev in 2014, instigated by the United States.

The vicious artillery war started by the new President Poroshenko in May 2014 against the rebel mini states Donetsk and Lugansk went completely unreported in the West. What did western mainstream media editors think: that the great and proud cities of Donetsk and Lugansk with their four million Russian-speaking people and their memories of heroic defiance of Nazi invaders in 1941-45 were muddy little villages of no importance? And that their people’s sufferings did not matter in the larger scheme of things? 13,000 dead here, over 100,000 homeless refugees from bombed-out apartment buildings and houses? And every few days, more lethal shells randomly raining down on these cities and villages? Data carefully recorded by OSCE peace monitors, but not a word about this in Western media. Ever. Not even now. Not a word either in Western media about the growing infiltration and embedment in the Ukrainian National Army and national administration of people who can accurately only be defined as Ukronazis – people who glory and commemorate with statues, flags and torchlight parades of angry young head-shaven men, the crimes committed by their grandfathers during and after WW2 – by people like like Bandera who allied with Hitler in pursuit of their nationalist dreams, who seized the opportunity to murder Jews, Poles, political opponents, anyone who stood in the way of their mad dream of a cohesive Ukrainian-speaking Ukraine with all other human elements removed or suppressed. They reject Ukraine’s rich cultural heritage as the cradle of Russian Christianity and civilisation: they reject the rich diversity of today’s multicultural Ukraine, with its Greeks, Jews, Tatars, Turks, Romanians, Hungarians, Moldovans – and above all its native Russian speakers, making up at least half or more of the population.

Since 2014, with American help and money, Ukraine has been refashioned as a nationalistic state, a deadly weapon aimed against Russia. The Ukronazis, never spoken about on the West, have been given an easy road towards power. Other elements in the national makeup have been intimidated and suppressed as a Ukrainian national identity has been imposed on a multicultural people. The message from nationalists has been – become part of our dream of Ukraine, or leave. We have no use for you, this is our land now.

The Russian Orthodox Church was penetrated and turned against the church centre in Moscow. A tragic schism has taken place.

Terrible events – above all, the torching by Ukronazis of the Odessa Trades Union Building in April 2014, and the burning to death of 45 peaceful protesters who had taken refuge inside – drove home the deterrent message of suppression of human rights. Do not resist us, you will pay with your lives.

And the heroism of the people of Lugansk and Donetsk in saying no to such cruelty, in taking up arms to defend their vision of their homeland after Poroshenko in May 2014 ordered an all-out military assault on them – all this went unreported in the West.

For eight long years the Russian government tried to make the Minsk Accords peace process work. Kiev prevaricated and sneered, as the shells continued to rain down death on the rebel regions. And as the US and NATO pumped more and more weapons and instructors in terrorism and sabotage into Ukraine.

Finally in December last year, Russia had had enough. Putin tried to propose ambitious new principles for relations with the West, most importantly a pledge that Ukraine would never join NATO and the withdrawal of NATO weapons from Russia’s borders. All to no avail. The West prevaricated, cherry-picked and sneered at Russia’s peace proposals.

The west remains mired in its fantasy world of big bad aggressor Putin ruling his unhappy country with an iron fist. How totally untrue this narrative is, as I have tried to relate in my two books on Russia in 2017 and 2019.

Now, the real world of bombs and bullets, and the Western false narrative world of selective indignation and pointless ‘how does it feel’ fact-free journalism, finally have come together in jarring dissonance in Ukraine.

Colleagues Joe Lauria, Alexander Mercouris, Mark Sleboda, Scott Ritter and I spoke about this together in the excellent Consortium News panel broadcast on 25 Feb. We discussed the already blurring history of how this latest escalation began: on 18 February, with stepped up Ukrainian Army artillery shelling and advance to the line of contact with Donetsk and Lugansk with 60,000 battle-ready soldiers. With on 20 February the rebel leaders’ final desperate appeal to Russia for protection against a coming genocidal onslaught on them. With the Russian Government’s historic decision on 21 February to guarantee their military protection. Yet even then the shelling continued, and there was wild new talk from Kiev of acquiring their own nuclear deterrent weapons.

Finally, patience ended in Moscow. Something snapped. On 24 February, Putin announced the beginning of a limited special military operation to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine. Finally, there was no other way to lance the boil. NATO was determined to go on weaponising Ukraine against Russia. The Nazi-influenced regime in Kiev was determined to go on creating an anti-Russian national identity. Left unchecked, the strategic situation could only get worse in coming years. It had become a matter of Russia’s national survival.

Now, heavy city-destroying weapons were flooding into Ukraine from the US: Biden’s final provocative act of foolish irresponsibility. US and UK teams had come in, to train the Ukrainian Army in sabotage and terrorism: just as in Syria.

And the Western disinformation system now kicked into high gear its existing narrative settings, the fantasies of poor little democratic Ukraine under unprovoked – unprovoked! – attack by its big neighbour.

On 24 February, Putin carefully set out in the NSC the limits on the special operation: no attacks on Ukrainian civilians, US-supplied military systems the priority targets. Soldiers would be safe if they surrendered or remained in barracks. Ukronazi criminals would be brought to justice. Russia would cooperate with a new government made up of decent Ukrainians who had quietly endured suppression for the past eight years.

Our panel’s general view was that the war has gone well for Russia, with mercifully few casualties on either side. We considered that the real world will prevail in Kiev over the West’s fantasy world, and quite soon too.

Yesterday morning – it came out in TASS and on the President’s website late last night, but I watched and read it yesterday morning – came Putin’s stunning public denunciation on day two of the war, of the Ukronazis’ intent to use the army which they have infiltrated and civilians in Kiev and Kharkov residential areas as human shields in a Nazi style last stand. Putin said that foreign mainly American consultants are there advising them in such tactics. He said that the disciplined Russian Army would not let itself be put in the position of murderers of people who are in effect part of Russia’s family. He called on responsible Kiev army elements to defy their fanatical embedded commissars, to lay down arms and provide interlocutors for ending the fighting honourably.

I will leave Moscow to fly home on 2 March, with three days in Phuket to transition before getting home to family peace and obscurity on 7 March. Irony alert – a prophet has no honour in his own country: certainly not in Australia. Our national broadcaster ABC is running neck to neck with the BBC, the Guardian and the Economist in purveying inane and at times hysterical false narratives about Ukraine, Russia and Putin. It seems that our media believe – they certainly claim – that the people are rising up in Russia and Putin’s dictatorship will fall soon. They ignore facts that do not fit this stupidity. Which is now more real to them than reality.

Three days ago, after my essay on what was actually happening in Ukraine was published in Pearls and Irritations, ABC News interviewed me for fifteen minutes. They used none of my words, because these clashed with their fantasy narrative of the heroic democratic Ukrainian people rising up as one against, or bravely fleeing in their cars from, the brutal Russian invaders in tanks crushing all before them. It has quickly became a war of false or misrepresented horror memes and facile ‘how does it feel’ ‘war journalism’. Truth could not be allowed to interfere with the consolidating false narrative.

I have again been deplatformed by ABC. I am used to this now. It is a mark of a fearful lackey country that is too scared to stand up to Washington’s Russophobe narrative, no matter how implausible it has become.

Here in Moscow and St Petersburg I have seen in these past weeks people relaxed and getting on with their normal lives. No differences from my three previous visits, except a well founded natural anxiety and prudence about COVID risks is evident. People trust Putin and his National Security Council team to manage the Ukraine crisis. Yes, there were little symbolic demonstrations in Moscow and Saint Petersburg by a few dissident intelligentsia, but they gained no public purchase. Nor were the participants victimised.

Having said that, I have no doubt that the midnight candles are burning bright in the Kremlin as the NSC manage the crisis. It is very big, and what Putin said yesterday on new Ukronazi human shield tactics in Kiev and how Russia would respond was remarkable in its bluntness and emotional intensity.

Kiev and Kharkov are not Fallujah or Stalingrad, thank God. The Russian Army is not going to incinerate its own relatives and friends in these great, essentially Russian, cities. There will be a negotiated solution in coming days. There could be false flag operations before that, in which Ukronazis may kill people and try to blame the deaths on the Russian Army. Ukronazi artillery shells may hit residential buildings and kill people and Russia will be blamed, and the West will believe it, because it fits the universal narrative. Remember Douma in Syria. There is talk of White Helmets here, among the foreign advisers.

It will come to an end. Russia has already won the military war. The groundwork for denazification is being laid: there will be trials. As for the information war, this will go on, it has a life of its own. Prospects for Detente with the West have been set back, maybe for decades. Many including myself will grieve over this. But that is another big story to tell. I will end here.

What was done, had to be done. There was no alternative course of action left for Russia.

Tony Kevin is a former Australian career diplomat (1968-1998) who held diplomatic postings and ambassadorships in Moscow, UN New York, Poland and Cambodia. Since retiring from foreign service, he has been an active advocate for change in areas such as Australian asylum-seeker policy, border protection, and climate change.

He has written several books inspired by his career and life experiences, including A Certain Maritime Incident (Scribe 2004) which won the ACT Book of the Year Award and the NSW Premier’s Literary Award for Multicultural Writing in 2005; Walking the Camino (Scribe 2007), winner of the ACT Book of the Year Award 2008; Crunch Time (Scribe 2009), and Reluctant Rescuers (self-published 2012).

In 2012 Tony Kevin was awarded an Emeritus Fellowship at Australian National University, Canberra, for his four books.

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Tony Kevin, former Australian diplomat.

Featured image is from SouthFront

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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. 

Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

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Wars are never a solution to resolve a conflict. They only escalate misery and the killing of innocent people. But the West should not hypocritically forget when it condemns Russia, that it accepted, even supported, or at best, remained silent, when the US directly or via proxy invaded and devastated — unprovoked – Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Yugoslavia, Haiti, Somalia, Vietnam and many more…

One might argue that Russia is fighting for self-preservation, after 8 years of relentless US/NATO-led western aggressions since February 22, 2014 (the US-organized Maidan coup and massacre against a democratically-elected Ukrainian president and his regime), with steady threats of establishing yet another NATO base on Moscow’s doorsteps.

 War is not the Solution. But What is? Negotiations

President Putin had numerous times proposed talks, negotiations and set out Russia’s conditions, the first and simplest one is NO NATO base in Ukraine. The current US Biden Administration as well as all the previous ones have rejected that simple condition.

Just imagine, Russia setting up a military base in Mexico or in a Central American Country or, God forbid, in the Caribbean!

What has the West done for Ukraine other than organized the bloody Maidan Color Revolution in February 2014? Nothing.

The West never had an interest in Ukraine other than using and abusing this richest of all former Soviet Republics for its own Western/NATO purposes. Building one or several NATO bases on Ukraine’s grounds to get closer to Moscow’s doorsteps and exploiting the countries enormously rich natural resources and her fertile agricultural land.

Maybe this latest crisis will be the trigger for Ukraine’s true leaders to see the light and depart from its ties to NATO and assert its political independence.

After eight years of western abuse, stopping and reflecting may yield plenty of not even far-fetched reasons for such a move.

Not for nothing Ukraine was called the Soviet Union’s Bred Basket.

In addition to making Ukraine as a key NATO base in front of Russia’s doorsteps, Ukraine may also be useful for Europe’s food supply and territory for minerals and other natural resources exploitation.

Belonging to “The West” seemed to be an easy sell to the Kiev government, embedded by Nazi elements.

With the future prospective to become a European Union member, and, in the meantime being protected by NATO from evil Russia.

Since the Maidan coup, the vast majority of Ukrainians got poorer and poorer and more and more indebted, and so did the entire Ukraine, and ever increasingly dependent on western lies and promises, thereby losing ever more of her sovereignty.

For eight years the West has used Ukraine to provoke Russia, to threaten Russia, and within Ukraine, especially the eastern Donbas Region, the Donetsk (pop. 2.0 million) and Luhansk (pop. 1.5 million) Provinces, representing about 8% of Ukraine’s total population (41.65 million, 2021). More than 90% of the Donbas population is Russian.

 

Ever since the 2014 western planned and executed Maidan coup – remember Mme. Nuland, Deputy Secretary of State …”F*ck the EU”? – Donbas declared independence from the Nazi-dominated Kiev government. The region’s independence was however not recognized by anyone, until on 22 February 2022, when President Putin passed a Resolution through Duma (the Russian Parliament) to officially recognize the Donbas region as independent from the Kiev Government.

This was ultimately a move to save lives. The western NATO countries armed Ukraine and provided them with “technical military advisors”. All for the west’s own purpose, none to help the Ukrainian population that was cut off by Russia, after having allowed and facilitated the western led Maidan coup in February 2014. Russia’s intervention was a natural consequence to Kiev’s missile and rockets aggression on the Donbass region that resulted in several casualties.

After numerous warnings and failed attempts to dialogue with Kiev, Russia launched its ‘special military operation’ with the stated aim to “demilitarize” Ukraine on February 24. It means primarily, no NATO base, EVER. No western military intervention in Ukraine. Period.

The western-funded Kiev puppet government did not comply and was not interested in a dialogue. To the contrary, its unprovoked aggressions towards Donbas escalated to the point, where a Russian action was necessary to hopefully prevent an all-out war.

Similarly, in May 2020 western / NATO organized infiltrations in Belarus attempted, but failed, to prevent President Alexander Lukashenko from running again for reelection. The idea was to replace Lukashenko with a pro-western leader to gain access to Belarus for yet another NATO base at Russia’s doorstep. Despite all the high-paid propaganda through corrupted western news media several months of attempts and protests failed. President Lukashenko was reelected in August 2020.

In Ukraine, western aggression through the Nazi-led puppet Kiev Government amassed some 150,000 Kiev-Ukrainian troops at the eastern Russian and Donbass border. But western media reported only on the Russian response to post some 100,000 troops in the area, to be prepared, if necessary for an intervention in the Russian populated Donbas area.

“Recognition of the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics and ratification of treaties on friendship, cooperation, and mutual assistance should stop the slaughter, the death of our citizens and compatriots living there,” the speaker of the lower house, Mr. Vyacheslav Volodin, wrote in his Telegram channel.

The Kiev shelling of Donbas targets continued after Moscow’s declaring recognition of the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), had caused at least four deaths and many injured, plus destruction of the infrastructure. It was a stark provocation of the Bear.

Clearly, without Russia’s intervention, the situation for Donbas was fast becoming a humanitarian crisis.

This was the moment the West was waiting for to scream about Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, as usual, of course, without providing any precedents to this event. The western anti-Russia lie-propaganda was and still is – now ever more – running on overdrive and on steroids.

An entire western sanctions program has been put in place, led of course, as always by Washington, the zombie-empire, followed by its European puppets, who seemed rather wanting to commit suicide, than recognizing that it is high time to see reality and ally with the east, with Eurasia, the huge contiguous continent, where the future lays.

The sanctions are sheer propaganda for the ignorant western population. For example, blocking President Putin’s and Foreign Minister Lavrov’s assets in the west. It’s ridiculous to even think that they have assets in the west. Or to block them from traveling to the US. Why would they want to travel to the heartland of their aggressors?

The latest sanction is – which is still being considered at the time of this writing – taking Russia off SWFT. SWIFT is the privately out of Belgium managed international monetary transfer program. If the west is hesitant to make that decision, it is for their own interests. For example, how would Russia be able and willing to settle outstanding obligations to western creditors or suppliers?

Russia has longstanding and close relationships with China and with other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) which controls about 30% of the world’s GDP. Other than that, foreseeing this type of ultimate western “sanctions” aggression, Russia has fully dedollarized her economy and reserves.

Russia’s central bank has reoriented her economic activities towards the east, primarily China and the SCO; and in a larger sense throughout Eurasia, comprising about 55 million km2 – with some 70% of the world’s population and controlling about two-thirds of the world’s GDP. In addition, Eurasian countries are the first beneficiaries of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). See this.

One of the most incredible sanctions, includes the stop or non-acceptance by Germany under pressure from Washington, of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany which is close to 70% dependent on Russian gas for her energy requirements.

Incredible, because Germany accepts the imposition of such Washington / NATO imposed sanctions.

Germany may suffer at least temporary energy shortages and eventually be supplied with gas from the US at about double the price and from possibly other sources.

 

Russia, on the other hand has plenty of takers for her gas, not least China, with whom there are already vast energy trade agreements in place.

Back to the Ukraine conflict, President Putin has offered and maintains his offer to negotiate and talk with Ukraine’s leadership.

As reported by RT (26 February), the latest news is that after having first declined the Russian offer, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday (25.2.2022) that he was ready to sit down for talks with Russia in order to end hostilities between the countries.

The same day, President Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters that Moscow was ready to hold talks in Minsk, Belarus. He later claimed that the Ukrainian side first offered to move the meeting to Warsaw, Poland, and then stopped responding.

Russian-Ukrainian relations went downhill after the 2014 coup in Kiev. The Russian leader said Moscow aims to defend the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as to carry out “demilitarization and denazification” of Ukraine. President Putin further asserted that Ukraine must never join NATO, whose military infrastructure Moscow sees as a threat..

An interesting and logical thought is – what if a sovereign thinking, forward looking Kiev Government would decide to “surrender” – meaning to rejoin the Russian orbit?

After all, it is obvious that being associated with the east and being an ally of Russia, offers almost an illimited array of opportunities for growth and development, for recovery after the 8 years under the wests exploitative knell. The west would and could never offer Ukraine anything of the sort.

Just considering the measures and actions, including military, Russia is taking to protect Donbas from western-led Kiev aggressions, an enlightened Ukrainian Government might opt for the promising future associating with Russia and Eurasia, with the opportunity to benefit from the Belt and Road, rather than with an almost dead empire and its European allies.

Just a thought to reflect about which will also be to the benefit of the European Project which is being undermined by Washington.

A peaceful solution with a bright future.

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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 has worked for over 30 years on water and environment around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020)

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also is a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

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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There are three main senses in which practically no foreign affairs reporting by Western news media and NGOs is ever about the country ostensibly the subject of their reports. First, almost invariably the reporting is so selective and biased as to be in effect a fictional account of some notional place barely recognizable as the country in question. Secondly, any particular report is always and principally intended to serve the much larger false narrative of Western superiority and benevolence. Thirdly, the reports generally depend on some great comprehensive deceit offering false plausibility to other minor, more detailed untruths.

In Ukraine, the massive deceit has been to ignore NATO country governments’ support for a fascist regime subordinate to followers of Nazism attacking its own Ukrainian citizens since 2014 with around 14,000 deaths, tens of thousands of wounded and hundreds of thousands people displaced. Those same NATO country governments destroyed Libya and almost destroyed Syria, falsely accusing those countries’ leaders of “killing their own people”. In Latin America, the catch-all big lie is that Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela are incompetent brutal dictatorships, when in fact their people-focused policies put to shame the desperate social reality prevalent in the countries of US allies like Colombia, Guatemala, Haiti, or Honduras.

This reality is self-evident to anyone trying to report faithfully from any of the countries targeted as enemies by the ruling elites of North America and Europe, the respective government leaders they control and, too, their pscychological warfare media and NGO apparatus. Western media and NGOs systematically mislead their populations about international affairs based on three fundamental presuppostions:

• North American and European countries are highly morally principled
• The majority world generally benefits from Western good intentions
• Governments opposed to the West are bad and deserve to punished

Thus, accounts published in NATO country psychological warfare outlets like the New York Times, the Guardian, El País, Le Monde, Deutsche Welle, France 24, the BBC, CNN and so on and on, have barely anything to do with the region or country on which they feign to be reporting. Their role is to misinform Western populations about world events, criminalizing foreign governments so as to consolidate political support for North American and European crimes against the majority world. Domestically, their role is to suppress any trace of popular dissent threatening Western ruling elites’ power and control. Since at least the Iraq war, this inverse relationship has been very clear. Overseas, Western power and influence decline: at home, economic and political repression increase.

While events in Ukraine and elsewhere currently dominate global news, long standing Western aggression against smaller countries like, in Latin America, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela continues. Typical recent coverage of that aggression in the case of Nicaragua demonstrates how the negation of basic reporting integrity renders Western media and NGO accounts of foreign affairs practically worthless. Nicaragua’s Sandinista government has been under comprehensive assault from Western media and NGOs ever since taking office in January 2007.

Its president, Daniel Ortega has won election after election with massive majorities. Prior to 2018 Nicaragua stood out in the region for its achievements reducing poverty, its economic growth and its political and social stability. Unable to win power with popular support via elections, the US and EU funded opposition promoted a failed coup attempt in 2018 during which opposition militants and thugs with firearms burned down public buildings, businesses and private homes and even preschools. They killed over 20 police officers wounding 400 officers.

They installed roadblocks as bases from which to terrorize local people, demanding money, searching and stealing people’s personal effects, assaulting government supporters, abusing women and girls.Those responsible for organizing that violent failed coup attempt tried to repeat it around last year’s elections. Before they could do so they were arrested and put on trial. As usual, reporting of this reality by Western media, NGOs and institutions inverted what happened, casting the traitorous opposition criminals as innocent and peaceful while portraying the Nicaraguan government as brutal and illegitimate. That mendacious inversion has facilitated every kind of false account of subsequent events.

So, for example, most recently, the New York Times reports the Nicaraguan authorities’ closure of six private universities for failing to satisfy regulatory requirements as if the government is shutting down the country’s private university sector as a whole. The NYT omits that Nicaragua has over 50 universities, the great majority of which are private and the authorities immediately set up three new public universities to guarantee good quality university education for the affected students with lower fees and more scholarships. Likewise, the NYT reports that hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans now live in Costa Rica, without explaining that this has been the case for decades rather than being any kind recent migratory phenomenon, as their report implies.

Practically all Western media reporting on Nicaragua deploys this kind of systematic deceit, sourcing their reports exclusively on Nicaragua’s plentiful opposition media outlets, almost all of which are funded directly or indirectly by US and allied governments. The most notorious of these outlets is Confidencial, which, despite receiving US government funding, is invariably described in Western reporting as being independent. North American and European NGOs and institutions collude in this bad faith reporting, reinforcing the deceitful Western consensus, especially around human rights related issues.

For example, people interested in environmental or indigenous peoples’ issues will look to NGOs like the Oakland Institute or Mongabay for trustworthy reporting. Both these organizations receive large donations from corporate owned funders. The Oakland Institute has been funded by the Howard Buffet Foundation specifically to report on Nicaragua. Mongabay, although a non profit entity, is itself a corporation whose president and chief executive officer is paid US$234,000 a year. Its income reached over US$4 million in 2020 dropping to US$2.4 million the following year. Mongabay has received numerous donations of over US$100,000 from bodies like the Walton Family Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), for example.

The role of these NGOs reporting on Nicaragua is thoroughly dishonest. Nicaragua has the most innovative and advanced system of indigenous people’s self government anywhere. Distorting this reality, the Oakland Institute has been shown to have claimed falsely that cattle farming for beef exports was the cause of murderous conflicts on indigenous peoples lands. Likewise, Mongabay has claimed government policy in Nicaragua incites invasion of indigenous peoples’ lands despite elected indigenous peoples leaders themselves contradicting that falsehood. This kind of false reporting by media and NGOs feeds into US controlled institutions like the Organization of American States or UN human rights bodies, rendering worthless those influential institutions’ own reports.

Writers like Cory Morningstar and Whitney Webb have explained in detail the underlying rationale for this systematic legitimization of falsehood by Western controlled international institutions, media and NGOs.The relentless psychological warfare offensive undermines national governments, promoting the predatory corporate driven social and environmental agenda aimed at privatizing nature itself and imposing relentless digital control on all aspects of human life. Western media outlets, NGOs and institutions avow transparency and accountability but that too is a contemptible, cynical lie. Anyone challenging the false consensus is either attacked or suppressed.

Corporate NGOs like Mongabay or major institutions like the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights never engage well informed challenges publicly. In part, this clear ethical failure stems from fear of having their falsity and bad faith exposed, but linked to that is a deeply anti-democratic determination to prevent a wider public from having the chance to make up their own minds based on broadly sourced information. The test of good faith for any information is whether the reporting outlet is honest in declaring its own bias and interests and at least acknowledges competing information sources. Western foreign affairs reporting outlets almost invariably fail that test, consistently and comprehensively, reducing themselves to pathetic instruments of psychological warfare.

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This article was originally published on Tortilla con Sal.

Stephen Sefton, renowned author and political analyst based in northern Nicaragua, is actively involved in community development work focussing on education and health care. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image is from TCS

La commissaria Ursula von der Leyen ha annunciato che la Ue mette al bando l’agenzia di stampa russa Sputnik e il canale Russia Today così che «non possano più diffondere le loro menzogne per giustificare la guerra di Putin con la loro disinformazione tossica in Europa». La Ue instaura così ufficialmente l’orwelliano Ministero della Verità, che cancellando la memoria riscrive la storia. Viene messo fuorilegge chiunque non ripete la Verità trasmessa dalla Voce dell’America, agenzia ufficiale del governo Usa, che accusa la Russia di «orribile attacco completamente ingiustificato e non provocato contro l’Ucraina». Mettendomi fuorilegge, riporto qui in estrema sintesi la storia degli ultimi trent’anni cancellata dalla memoria.

Nel 1991, mentre terminava la guerra fredda con il dissolvimento del Patto di Varsavia e della stessa Unione Sovietica, gli Stati uniti scatenavano nel Golfo la prima guerra del dopo guerra fredda, annunciando al mondo che «non esiste alcun sostituto alla leadership degli Stati uniti, rimasti il solo Stato con una forza e una influenza globali». Tre anni dopo, nel 1994, la Nato sotto comando Usa effettuava in Bosnia la sua prima azione diretta di guerra e nel 1999 attaccava la Jugoslavia: per 78 giorni, decollando soprattutto dalle basi italiane, 1.100 aerei effettuano 38 mila sortite, sganciando 23 mila bombe e missili che distruggevano in Serbia ponti e industrie, provocando vittime soprattutto tra i civili.

Mentre demoliva con la guerra la Jugoslavia, la Nato, tradendo la promessa fatta alla Russia di «non allargarsi di un pollice ad Est», iniziava la sua espansione ad Est sempre più a ridosso della Russia, che l’avrebbe portata in vent’anni a estendersi da 16 a 30 membri, incorporando paesi dell’ex Patto di Varsavia, dell’ex Urss e della ex Jugoslavia, preparandosi a includere ufficialmente anche Ucraina, Georgia e Bosnia Erzegovina, di fatto già nella Nato (il manifesto, Che cos’è e perché è pericoloso l’allargamento a Est della Nato, 22 febbraio 2022), Passando di guerra in guerra, Usa e Nato attaccavano e invadevano l’Afghanistan nel 2001 e l’Iraq nel 2003, demolivano con la guerra lo Stato libico nel 2011 e iniziavano tramite l’Isis la stessa operazione in Siria, in parte bloccata quattro anni dopo dall’intervento russo. Solo in Iraq, le due guerre e l’embargo uccidevano direttamente circa 2 milioni di persone, tra cui mezzo milione di bambini.

Nel febbraio 2014 la Nato, che dal 1991 si era impadronita di posti chiave in Ucraina, effettuava tramite formazioni neonaziste appositamente addestrate e armate, il colpo di stato che rovesciava il presidente dell’Ucraina regolarmente eletto. Esso era orchestrato in base a una precisa strategia: attaccare le popolazioni russe di Ucraina per provocare la risposta della Russia e aprire così una profonda frattura in Europa. Quando i russi di Crimea decidevano con il referendum di rientrare nella Russia di cui prima facevano parte, e i russi del Donbass (bombardati da Kiev anche col fosforo bianco) si trinceravano nelle due repubbliche, iniziava contro la Russia la escalation bellica della Nato. La sosteneva la Ue, in cui 21 dei 27 paesi membri appartengono alla Nato sotto comando Usa.

In questi otto anni, forze e basi Usa-Nato con capacità di attacco nucleare sono state dislocate in Europa ancora più a ridosso della Russia, ignorando i ripetuti avvertimenti di Mosca. Il 15 dicembre 2021 la Federazione Russa ha consegnato agli Stati Uniti d’America un articolato progetto di Trattato per disinnescare questa esplosiva situazione (il manifesto, «Mossa aggressiva» russa: Mosca propone la pace, 21 dicembre 2021). Non solo è stato anch’esso respinto ma, contemporaneamente, è cominciato lo schieramento di forze ucraine, di fatto sotto comando Usa-Nato, per un attacco su larga scala ai russi del Donbass. Da qui la decisione di Mosca di porre un alt alla escalation aggressiva Usa.Nato con l’operazione militare in Ucraina.

Manifestare contro la guerra cancellando la storia, significa contribuire consapevolmente o no alla frenetica campagna Usa-Nato-Ue che bolla la Russia quale pericoloso nemico, che spacca l’Europa per disegni imperiali di potere, trascinandoci alla catastrofe.

Manlio Dinucci

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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. 

Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

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The  European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced that, despite Putin’s warning, the EU is going to finance the purchase and delivery of weapons to Ukraine.  She also said the EU is going to include Belarus, which is not involved in the fighting, in the sanctions, because it is a Russian ally. She says the EU wants to ban Russian media because they don’t keep to the official war narrative. 

So, the European Commission president announces that the EU is joining the war on the side of the Ukrainian Nazis, and Washington’s  UN Ambassador accuses Putin of escalating the war. 

We see here the results of Putin’s far too many years of keeping his patience with the West.  The West has grown accustomed to imposing punishment upon punishment on Russia with no consequences to itself.  Now suddenly there are consequences, and it is all Putin’s fault.

I have warned for a number of years that the policy of patience would fail in the end because the West would keep pushing until it blundered across a red line. That has now occurred, and the consequences will be far more serious than if Russia had put her foot down long ago.

Russophobic morons accuse me of being pro-Russian because I provide objective analysis instead of joining in the mindless denunciations.  I am the one who saw nuclear war coming because of the mistaken policies of both sides.  It is the Western Russophobes and the naive Russian trust in negotiations that have misfired.  Unfortunately, it is my analysis that is proving to be correct. I can’t say I am happy about it.

UPDATE: It is stunning that no one in the Western leadership or media understood that Russia was serious about her security concern. Whether the West regarded the Kremlin’s concern as warranted or not, everything should have been done to reassure Russia. Instead, the opposite was done.  Stoltenberg said “if the Kremlin’s aim is to have less NATO on its borders, it will only get more NATO.” What an arrogantly stupid thing to say.  This reckless statement is made by the secretary general of NATO. He should have been instantly removed from office. 

I pointed out 8 days ago that this extremely aggressive response to a sincere security concern of a major military power would have very serious consequences. It convinced the Kremlin that Russia’s security concern could not be settled by negotiation. It was Stoltenberg who set the Russians on the course of invasion.

The West no longer has any Russian experts. The West has people directly or indirectly on the military/security complex’s payroll who do nothing but excoriate Russia. The West has zero ability to see the other side. Moreover, the West to show its inclusiveness appoints females as  defense ministers, national security advisers and heads of European Commission. The women have to show they are as tough as men and consequently make even worse decisions.  

Indeed, we are on the point of ceasing to exist simply because the Western World is not capable of making a sensible decision. 

The West has done nothing but stir the flames of war and now is close to being consumed in these flames.

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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog site, PCR Institute for Political Economy, where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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“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.

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Niemand wird die Fortschritte der zivilisatorischen Entwicklung bestreiten; doch das Problem der Gewalttätigkeit und ihrer Bändigung hat die Menschheit bisher nicht gelöst. Maßlose wie gemäßigte Brutalität drücken unserem Zeitalter — wie schon vergangenen Epochen — ihren Stempel auf. Eine Epidemie der Machtgier und Brutalität in Politik und Wirtschaft führt immer wieder zu Katastrophen wie Krieg und Terror, die Millionen von Menschen dahinraffen, ähnlich der Pest des Mittelalters. Nicht nur die Ereignisse der vergangenen 120 Jahre mit zwei Weltkriegen und unzähligen weiteren Kriegen, sondern auch die Vorkommnisse der beiden letzten Jahre im Zusammenhang mit der Corona-Pandemie haben uns einen gründlichen Anschauungsunterricht über die geschichtliche Bedeutung der Macht und der Gewalttätigkeit gegeben. Ein neues warnendes Beispiel ist der gesellschaftliche Umbruch, der sich vor unser aller Augen in Kanada unter Premier Justin Trudeau ereignet: Aus einer Demokratie oder „stillen Diktatur“ wird in kürzester Zeit offener Despotismus. Und das deshalb, weil die Bürger der Regierung nicht mehr wie Untertanen blind gehorchen, sondern ihre Freiheit einfordern und ihr Recht auf Widerstand gegen die Tyrannei wahrnehmen.

Keinem die Macht übergeben!

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No one will deny the progress of civilization; but the problem of violence and its taming has not yet been resolved by mankind.

Excessive and moderate brutality is making its mark on our age, as it has in previous periods of our history. 

An epidemic of greed for power and brutality in politics and business repeatedly leads to catastrophes such as war and terror that kill millions of people, similar to the plague of the Middle Ages.

Not only the events of the past 120 years with two world wars and countless other wars, but also the events of the last two years in relation to the so-called “corona pandemic” have given us a thorough visual lesson on the historical significance of power and violence.

A new cautionary tale is the social upheaval that is happening before our very eyes in Canada under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: a democracy or “silent dictatorship” is rapidly becoming open despotism. And this is because the citizens no longer blindly obey the government like subjects, but demand their freedom and exercise their right to resist tyranny.

Don’t give power to anyone!

We have knowledge of humanity, and we know that human beings will always strive for a better life, for peace and freedom.

The focus is on peace: no war, no violence.

And as long as citizens remain silent, accept and puts up with everything imposed by the authorities, who pays taxes and enlists in the military at the prescribed time, we live in a certain way in a silent dictatorship.

But as soon as the citizen throws off his timidity and gives up his acceptance and obedience, that is, he no longer blindly obeys those in government, but has the courage to use his own understanding and trust in his common sense and then also demands his freedom rights and against everyone else.

When subjugation and tyranny is the object of rebellion, the silent dictatorship or fake democracy without any inhibitions very quickly turns into an open dictatorship or tyranny — as the example of Canada shows.

Anyone who has had problems with the fact that Leo N. Tolstoy, more than 100 years ago, described the ruling politicians as “the most cruel” people who often rule, will be reminded of the example of Justin Trudeau or the Australian government’s handling of tennis star Novak Teach Djokovic otherwise.

The question also arises as to where is the worldwide outcry of the governing politicians of other democracies and their distancing themselves from the brutal actions of the Canadian government against their citizens are staying?

Or does no one want to get on with his colleague Justin Trudeau — like many other Western politicians, a pupil of Klaus Schwab’s Davos cadre factory?

The problem begins with free citizens giving other people power over their lives.

In the western world, for example, corrupt politicians are elected to high government offices every four to five years and the citizens look up to them as children look up to respectable authorities.

But the politicians immediately associate this attribution with claims to power, create a relationship of superiority and subordination and enforce their will on the citizens — more precisely: the will or the instructions of their clients, a sinister global financial “elite”.

A glimmer of hope after Friedrich Schiller: “No, a border has tyrannical power!”

The free man, conscious of his human nature according to natural law and unwilling to be subjugated by any other being, will exercise his right to resist tyranny.

Natural law, which man is entitled to because he is human, says that there is something that is by nature in indelibly right.

Freedom, equality and fraternity as well as bodily integrity and the inviolability of human dignity must be the inalienable basis of a free social order.

All citizens are called upon to restore the “ancient state of nature”! So Friedrich Schiller in the Rütli scene of his last drama “Wilhelm Tell”.

The man who stands up has nothing against the ruler.

The man in revolt has dedicated himself to transformation, to change.

He fights for a fairer order, a fairer coexistence between people.

He has nothing against the ruler, he does nothing to him.

He’s just fighting for his rights, while the other side – throughout the whole story – always acts brutally, without any sympathy.

If people do not claim their individual and collective rights to resist, Canada’s example could set a precedent in the western world.

Translation and editing by Global Research

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This article was originally published in German on Rubikon.

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

Featured image is from Rubikon

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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Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

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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. 

Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

 

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Despite brave words from western leaders, there is no doubt that the current old world globalist order is at a crossroads.

With its organized planetary bioweapon attack meant to usher in the Great Reset, the World Economic Forum’s ideology is now shattered as Russia has refused to abide by the old neo-con rules of US economic and military hegemony. With the birth of a new geo-political order, Russia’s pre-emptive strike as a response to Ukraine, heavily armed by NATO and US weapons as military escalation increased, the balance of power has irrevocably shifted.

With elements of a mini-replay of WWII with the Russians pitted against the Nazis, WW III may have begun but not yet in the most horrific way that had been anticipated. ‘The west’ led by the US and UK, using Ukraine as their whipping boy, believed it their God-given right to militarily and economically harass Russia, to challenge their right to exist as a free and unfettered nation of the world. Those days are forever over.

As expected, while the American corporate media proves itself genetically incapable of presenting an accurate picture of what is happening in Ukraine, Americans are no more able to have a rational thought about Russia or its president Vladimir Putin than their demonizing about Donald Trump.

Throughout much of the twentieth century, Americans have been unable to think for themselves as they continue to follow the prescribed script exactly as the discredited globalists dictate reality. Their impressions remain deeply ingrained and embedded that no amount of logic or rational facts can reach beyond an illogic hatred or a willingness to consider any other position. Given that Americans choose to remain ‘stuck’ in a baseless posture, they are forever lost to mature, intellectual, analytical reasoning.

The fact is that the Russian-Ukraine border dispute is no business of the US or any other government. As former US Rep. Tulsi Gabbard put it ‘all this could have been avoided if the Biden Administration had acknowledged Russia’s legitimate border security requests.”

On February 24, Putin announced a ‘special operation’ to “demilitarize and denazify” Ukraine with the intent to target and disable Ukraine’s military infrastructure, that the civilian population was not in danger (and remain able to leave the country) and that there is no intention to ‘occupy’ Ukraine but that NATO will not be allowed to establish military installations that threaten the Russian border.

Putin recently acknowledged the long time request for self-declared independence establishing the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk as he formally accepted their return to Russia. That declaration immediately conferred  military protection which allowed the Russian military to act in their defense.

Russia is being portrayed as if they are taking significant losses when in truth they have not yet committed a full strength Russian Army to the struggle. Russia is conducting the war with precision strikes not as the Pentagon which would totally irrevocably destroy every inch of Ukraine and its populated cities; to take every structure, every water plant, every electrical tower, every sign of civilization and culture to the ground. Putin is pursuing a strategy of encircling the adversary rather than wiping them out in one attack; it’s called a Siege. Putin’s goal is to take Ukraine intact and to create a functioning country that does not bully its neighbor.

Since 2014, when the Obama Administration provided the diplomatic muscle to overthrow Ukraine’s democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych who resisted EU and NATO membership, Russia had sought a security agreement that would protect its ancestral borders. He was attempting to ensure the earlier promise to Gorbachev that there would be no NATO move to the east. As former Eastern Block and Baltic countries were admitted to NATO, Ukraine remained neutral and non-militarized.

After the coup, the Azov Brigade, descendants of Nazi leftovers from WW II who remained in Ukraine after the war, took over the Kiev government as it sought to eliminate the indigenous Russian-speaking population by inflicting a steady barrage of violence and conflict with continued artillery and mortar shelling of schools in the Donbass province killing 14,000 people (UN estimate) including an estimated fifty victims who were trapped inside a locked union hall in Odessa. The people of Odessa recently celebrated the arrival of Russian forces in Ukraine by hoisting and cheering the Russian Flag.

In the intervening years since the 2014 coup, the US thumbed its nose as if it owned the world, its supremacy unparalleled as it dared any country to challenge its dominance. As events in Ukraine intensified, there has also been a history of US and UK naval destroyers repeatedly  traversing the Black Sea for no reason other than as a deliberate provocation and to intimidate Russia as they sail in violation of Russian sovereignty within ten nautical miles of its borders as if daring a military response.

Also of some urgency is confirmation that the US Embassy in Ukraine is home to as many as fifteen US-sponsored bioweapon labs under the Pentagon’s Biologic Threat Reduction Program which has a $2.1 Billion budget.

For a complete report on more than you ever wanted to know about the US bioweapon labs in Georgia and Ukraine, scroll down for “Pentagon Biolabs Spread Disease in Ukraine.”

Any inquiring mind might ask why would the US Pentagon choose to establish numerous bioweapon labs and conduct bioweapon experiments at obscure locations like the Ukraine and Georgia other than for that very reason.  They are obscure locations with an expendably insignificant population.  They are locations where few people know or care what experiments are being conducted or whether leaks are occurring or if any of the labs are conducting the highly controversial ‘gain of function’ experiment as at Wuhan, China.

Putin’s option has been to take the action he did to protect Russia’s history and sovereignty or to kneel before Klaus Schwab and relinquish every notion of a Russian nation just as the Biden Administration chose to open its southern border to any terrorists with an agenda other than getting a job.

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Renee Parsons served on the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and as president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, staff in the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender, an environmental lobbyist for Friends of the Earth and a staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She can be found at [email protected].

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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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Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

In this presentation delivered to the Day 6 proceedings of the Coronavirus Grand Jury hearing organized by Dr. Reiner Fullmich and his team of international lawyers, Canadian Patriot Review Editor-in-Chief Matthew Ehret was asked to deliver remarks elucidating the origins of the quasi-science of eugenics, and its role in mis-shaping the 20th century.

This exercise required a brief overview of

1) how the Malthusian science of population control as it arose in response to the spread of republican concepts of humanity and freedom in the late 18th century,

2) how Charles Darwin himself (under the control of Thomas Huxley) took his ideas directly from Malthus’ Essay on Population, and 3) how this in turn expressed itself in Francis Galton’s “new science” of eugenics.

It may be hard to believe but Galton himself had stated in 1904 that his new science (a repackaged Malthusianism) was always designed to be a new macro religion shaping the worldview of a new post-Christian managerial elite:

“[Eugenics] must be introduced into the national conscience, like a new religion. It has, indeed, strong claims to become an orthodox religious, tenet of the future, for eugenics co-operate with the workings of nature by securing that humanity shall be represented by the fittest races…. I see no impossibility in Eugenics becoming a religious dogma among mankind.”

After a eugenics-driven attempt at a new world order was aborted during WWII, Sir Julian Huxley (the grandson of Darwin’s bulldog and himself a life long member and even president of the British Eugenics Society) spearheads a re-organization of the British imperial grand strategy with the intent of repackaging eugenics under a new name but with the same effects as those outlined by Hitler earlier. This was most clearly outlined in Julian’s 1946 manifesto for UNESCO where he said:

“Even though it is quite true that any radical eugenic policy will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, it will be important for UNESCO to see that the eugenic problem is examined with the greatest care and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that much that is now unthinkable may at least become thinkable.”

What form did this repackaging of eugenics take in the post WWII era?

To answer this, we must review what organizations, and policies Julian set into motion, that derailed that positive momentum of history which had been lain by Franklin Roosevelt, and revived by John F Kennedy, Enrico Mattei, Charles de Gaulle and other great statesmen throughout the 1960s.

One disclaimer for those confused by the claims that Julian Huxley played a role in the establishment of the World Health Organization: While Julian created UNESCO serving as its first Director General from 1946-48, and openly played a key role in setting up the World Federation of Mental Health in 1948 alongside a group of Tavistock psychiatrists, his back channel role in establishing the World Health Organization has been obscured from public records making it difficult to establish smoking gun evidence on this particular point.

This presentation used research published in Matt Ehret’s 3 part trilogy which features extensive information which the short space of the live presentation did not permit be discussed.

Part 1: How the Unthinkable Became Thinkable: Eric Lander, Julian Huxley and the Awakening of Sleeping Monsters

Part 2: Eugenics, The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Clash of Two Systems

Part 3: From Russell and Hilbert to Wiener and Harari: The Disturbing Origins of Cybernetics and Transhumanism

Listen to the full 4 hour event here.

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This article was originally published on The Canadian Patriot.

Matthew Ehret is 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. In 2019 he co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from TCP

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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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. 

Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

 

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It should come as no surprise that many observers, from various political perspectives, are beginning to note that there is something seriously disconnected in the fumbling foreign policy of the United States. The evacuation failure in Afghanistan shattered the already waning self-confidence of the American political elite and the continuing on-again off-again negotiations that were by design intended to go nowhere with Iran and Russia provide no evidence that anyone in the White House is really focused on protecting American interests. Now we have an actual shooting war in Ukraine as a result, a conflict that might easily escalate if Washington continues to send the wrong signals to Moscow.

To cite only one example of how outside influences distort policy, in a phone call on February 9^th, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett advised President Joe Biden not to enter into any non-proliferation agreement with Iran. Biden was non-committal even though it is an actual American interest to come to an agreement, but instead he indicated that as far as the US is concerned, Israel could exercise “freedom of action” when dealing with the Iranians. With that concession has ended in all probability the only possible diplomatic success that the Administration might have been able to point to.

The Biden Administration’s by default global security policy is currently reduced to what some critics have described as “encirclement and containment.” That is why an overstretched US military is being tasked with creating ever more bases worldwide in an effort to counter perceived “enemies” who often are only exercising their own national sovereignty and right to security within their own zones of influence. Ironically, when nations balk at submitting to Washington’s control, they are frequently described as “aggressors” and “anti-democratic,” the language that has most particularly been used relating to Russia. The Biden policy, such as it actually exists, appears to be a throwback to the playing field in 1991-2 when the Soviet empire collapsed. It is all about maintaining the old American dream of complete global dominance coupled with liberal interventionism, but this time around the US lacks both the resources and the national will to continue in the effort. Hopefully the White House will understand that to do nothing is better than to make empty threats.

Meanwhile, as the situation continues to erode, it is becoming more and more obvious that the twin crises that have been developing over Ukraine and Taiwan are “Made in Washington” and are somewhat inexplicable as the US does not have a compelling national interest that would justify threats to “leave on the table” military options as a possible response. The Administration has yet again responded to Russian moves by initiating devastating sanctions. But Russia also has unconventional weapons in its arsenal. It can, for starters, shift focus away from Ukraine by intervening much more actively in support of Syria and Iran in the Middle East, disrupting feeble American attempts to manage that region to benefit Israel.

According to economists, Russia has also been effectively sanction-proofing its economy and is capable of selective reverse-sanctioning of countries that support an American initiative with any enthusiasm. Such a response would likely hurt the Europeans much more than it would damage the leadership in the Kremlin. Barring Russian gas from Europe by shutting down Nord Stream 2 would, for example, permit increased sales to China and elsewhere in Asia and would inflict more pain on the Europeans than on Moscow. Shipping US supplied liquid gas to Europe would, for example, cost more than twice the going rate being offered by the Kremlin and would also be less reliable. The European NATO members are clearly nervous and not fully behind the US agenda on Ukraine, largely because there is the legitimate concern that any and possibly all options being considered by Washington could easily produce missteps that would escalate into a nuclear exchange that would be catastrophic for all parties involved.

Apart from the real immediate danger to be derived from the fighting currently taking place in Ukraine, the real long-term damage is strategic. The Joe Biden Administration has adroitly maneuvered itself into a corner while America’s two principal adversaries Russia and China have drawn closer together to form something like a defensive as well as economic relationship that will be dedicated to reducing and eventually eliminating Washington’s assumed role as the global hegemon and rules enforcer.

In a recent article in the New Yorker foreign affairs commentator Robin Wright, who might reasonably described as a “hawk,” declares the new development to be “Russia and China Unveil[ing] a Pact Against America and the West.” And she is not alone in ringing the alarm bell, with former Donald Trump National Security Council (NSC) Russia watcher Anita Hill warning that the Kremlin’s intention is to force the United States out of Europe while former NSC Ukrainian expert Alexander Vindman is advising that military force be used to deter Russia now before it is too late.

Wright provides the most serious analysis of the new developments. She argues that “Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, the two most powerful autocrats, challenge the current political and military order.” She describes how, in a meeting between the two leaders before the Beijing Olympics, they cited an “agreement that also challenges the United States as a global power, NATO as a cornerstone of international security, and liberal democracy as a model for the world.” They pledged that there would be “No ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation” and a written statement that was subsequently produced declared that “Russia and China stand against attempts by external forces to undermine security and stability in their common adjacent regions, intend to counter interference by outside forces in the internal affairs of sovereign countries under any pretext, oppose color revolutions, and will increase cooperation.” Wright notes that there is considerable strength behind the agreement, “As two nuclear-armed countries that span Europe and Asia, the more muscular alignment between Russia and China could be a game changer militarily and diplomatically.” One might add that China now has the world’s largest economy and Russia has a highly developed military deploying new hypersonic missiles that would give it the advantage in any conflict with NATO and the US. Both Russia and China, if attacked, would also benefit because they would be fighting close to their bases on interior lines.

And, of course, not everyone agrees that nudging the United States out of its self-proclaimed hegemonic role would be a bad thing. Former British diplomat Alastair Crooke argues that there will be perpetual state of crisis in the international order until a new system emerges from the status quo that ended the Cold War, and it would be minus the United States as the semi-official transnational rules maker and arbiter. He observes that “The crux of Russia’s complaints about its eroding security have little to do with Ukraine per se but are rooted in the Washington hawks’ obsession with Russia, and their desire to cut Putin (and Russia) down to size – an aim which has been the hallmark of US policy since the Yeltsin years. The Victoria Nuland clique could never accept Russia rising to become a significant power in Europe – possibly eclipsing the US control over Europe.”

What is happening in Europe and Asia should all come down to a very simple realization about the limits of power: America has no business in risking a nuclear war with Russia over Ukraine or with China over Taiwan. The United States has been fighting much of the world for over two decades, impoverishing itself and killing millions in avoidable wars starting with Iraq and Afghanistan. The US government is cynically exploiting memories of old Cold War enemy Russia to create a false narrative that goes something like this: “If we don’t stop them over there, they will be in New Jersey next week.” It is all nonsense. And besides, who made the US the sole arbiter of international relations? It is past time Americans started asking what kind of international order is it that lets the United States determine what other nations can and cannot do.

Worst of all, the bloodshed in Ukraine has all been unnecessary. A little real diplomacy with honest negotiators weighing up real interests could easily have come to acceptable solutions for all parties involved.

It is indeed ironic that the burning desire to go to war with Russia demonstrated in the New York Times and Washington Post as well as on Capitol Hill has in fact created a real formidable enemy, tying Russia and China together in an alliance due to their frustration at dealing with a Biden Administration that never seems to know what it is doing or where it wants to go.

*

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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].

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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Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg and Twitter at @crglobalization.

 

***

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. 

Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

---

 

Racist Ukraine coverage in mainstream Western media. Notice the racist overtones. 

White Ukrainian Refugees Accepted by Nations Who Shut Out Others https://t.co/ETmFJha8mz pic.twitter.com/l1U0Km00Lj

— Consortium News (@Consortiumnews) March 1, 2022

1. BBC

“It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed”  – Ukraine’s Deputy Chief Prosecutor, David Sakvarelidze

2. CBS News

“This isn’t Iraq or Afghanistan…This is a relatively civilised, relatively European city” – CBS foreign correspondent Charlie D’Agata

3. Al-Jazeera [not exactly Western, but West-aligned]

“What’s compelling is looking at them, the way they are dressed. These are prosperous, middle-class people. These are not obviously refugees trying to get away from the Middle East…or North Africa. They look like any European family that you’d live next door to.” – Peter Dobbie, Al Jazeera news presenter.

4. BFM TV (France)

“We are in the 21st century, we are in a European city and we have cruise missile fire as though we were in Iraq or Afghanistan, can you imagine!?”

5. The Daily Telegraph

“They seem so like us. That is what makes it so shocking. Ukraine is a European country. Its people watch Netflix and have Instagram accounts… War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations. It can happen to anyone.” – Daniel Hannan

Ukrainian refugees (Source: @AM_Friedman/Twitter)

6. ITV (UK)

“The unthinkable has happened…This is not a developing, third world nation; this is Europe!”

7. BFM TV (France) (again)

“It’s an important question. We’re not talking here about Syrians fleeing…We’re talking about Europeans.”

8. NBC News

“To put it bluntly, these are not refugees from Syria, these are refugees from Ukraine…These are Christians, they’re white. They’re very similar [to us]”. – Kelly Cobiella, NBC News Correspondent, explaining why Poland, which was hesitant to take in refugees from West Asia and North Africa, is now accepting refugees.

Ukrainian refugees (Source: @PaxScotland/Twitter)

*

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***

Recent data analysis shows the COVID jab is deadlier than COVID-19 itself for anyone under the age of 80. For younger adults and children, there’s no benefit, only risk

All age groups under 50 years old are at greater risk of dying after receiving a COVID jab than an unvaccinated person is at risk of dying from COVID-19

For those under 18, the COVID jab increases their risk of dying from COVID-19. They’re also 51 times more likely to die from the jab than they are to die from COVID if not vaccinated

Only when you get into the 60 and older categories do the risks between the jab and COVID infection become about even. In the 60 to 69 age group, the shot will kill one person for every person it saves from dying of COVID, so it’s a tossup as to whether it might be worth it for any given person

Data suggest U.S. deaths reported to VAERS are underreported by a factor of 20

*

According to a cost-benefit analysis by Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., and independent researcher Kathy Dopp, the COVID jab is deadlier than COVID-19 itself for anyone under the age of 80. The cost-benefit analysis¹ looked at publicly available official data from the U.S. and U.K. for all age groups, and compared all-cause mortality to the risk of dying from COVID-19.

“All age groups under 50 years old are at greater risk of fatality after receiving a COVID-19 inoculation than an unvaccinated person is at risk of a COVID-19 death,” Seneff and Dopp conclude. For younger adults and children, there’s no benefit, only risk.

“This analysis is conservative,” the authors note, “because it ignores the fact that inoculation-induced adverse events such as thrombosis, myocarditis, Bell’s palsy, and other vaccine-induced injuries can lead to shortened life span.

When one takes into consideration the fact that there is approximately a 90% decrease in risk of COVID-19 death if early treatment is provided to all symptomatic high-risk persons, one can only conclude that mandates of COVID-19 inoculations are ill-advised.

Considering the emergence of antibody-resistant variants like Delta and Omicron, for most age groups COVID-19 vaccine inoculations result in higher death rates than COVID-19 does for the unvaccinated.”

Real-Life Risk Reduction Is Negligible

The analysis is also conservative in the sense that it only considers COVID jab fatalities that occur within one month of injection. Looking at the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), we’re now seeing that many of those who are dying got the jab around April 2021 or earlier, so we know the shots can significantly cut your life short even if they don’t kill you in the first month. As detailed in Seneff’s and Dopp’s paper:

“Absolute real-life risk reductions (ARRs) … from COVID inoculations vary from a low of negative 0.00007% (an increased risk of a COVID death from inoculation) for children under age 18 to a positive 0.183% (0.00183) risk reduction of a COVID death for persons over age 80 …

COVID vaccine inoculations increase risk of death and produce a net negative benefit, aka increased risk of death … for all age groups younger than 60 years old. In other words, the COVID inoculations cause a net increase, rather than decrease, in the likelihood of death for all persons under 60 years old.

For those over 60 years old, the benefit of COVID inoculations is negligible, ranging from a 0.0016% reduction in likelihood of death for a 60- to 69-year-old persons to a 0.125% reduction in likelihood of death for those over 80 years old. Because preventative treatments are often given to well persons, a vaccine is supposed to provide very small risk compared to benefit.

Thus, such high fatality risks (VFRs) versus low benefit of risk reduction (ARRs) from the COVID inoculations are not acceptable, especially considering that low-cost, effective treatments are available that would additionally reduce COVID-19 death rates by as much as 90% or more if provided as soon as symptoms appear in high-risk persons.”

Meanwhile, data from an analysis² by researchers Spiro Pantazatos and Herve Seligmann suggest U.S. deaths reported to VAERS are underreported by a factor of 20. Their analysis was used to calculate vaccine fatality rates (VFR), the number needed to treat/vaccinate (NNT) to prevent one COVID death, the expected number of vaccine fatalities to prevent one COVID death, and the expected number of vaccine fatalities compared to COVID fatalities by age group:³

Summary Findings

In summary, key findings in this paper include the following:

• For those under 18, the COVID jab increases their risk of dying from COVID-19; those under 18 are 51 times more likely to die from the jab than they are to die from COVID if not vaccinated.
• In those aged 18 to 29, the COVID jab is 16 times more likely to kill a person than save their life if they get COVID. They’re also eight times more likely to die from the jab than to die from COVID if not vaccinated.
• Those aged 30 to 39 are 15 times more likely to die from the COVID jab than prevent their death, and they’re seven times more likely to die from the inoculation than to die from COVID if not vaccinated.
• Those aged 40 to 49 are nine times more likely to die from the COVID jab than having it prevent their death, and they’re five times more likely to die from the jab than to die from COVID if not vaccinated.
• Those aged 50 to 59 are twice (2 times) more likely to die from the COVID inoculation than to prevent one COVID death, while their risk of dying from the jab or dying from COVID if unvaccinated is about the same.

Only when you get into the 60 and older categories do the risks between the jab and COVID infection even out. In the 60 to 69 age group, the shot will kill one person for every person it saves from dying of COVID, so it’s a tossup as to whether it might be worth it for any given person.

Cost-Benefit Analysis Must Drive Public Health Policy

Common sense tells us that COVID-19 vaccination policy ought to be rooted in a rational evaluation of the true costs and benefits, and to do that, we need to assess whether the jabs are beneficial or harmful, and to what extent. So far, governments have completely ignored the cost of this mass injection campaign, focusing solely on perceived or imagined (not proven) benefit.

As a result, we’re looking at the worst public health disaster in known history. The greatest tragedy of all is that none of our public health officials has bothered to protect even the youngest among us.

The OpenVAERS team recently started looking at injury reports in children aged 17 and younger, and to their shock, they found 34,223 U.S. reports involving this age group through February 11, 2022. You can find the Child’s Report here.⁴ This is a staggering number, considering the 12- to 17-year-olds have only been eligible for the shot since May 2021, and 5- to 11-year-olds since October 2021.⁵

Pfizer Withdraws EUA Application for Children Under 5

Interestingly, February 11, 2022, Pfizer abruptly withdrew its Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) application for children under 5.^6,7 The question is why? According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Pfizer, they want to collect more data on the effects of a third dose, as two doses did not produce expected immunity in 2- to 5-year-olds.⁸

Three days later, former FDA Commissioner and current Pfizer board member Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC⁹ the EUA application was pulled because COVID cases are so low among young children that the shot couldn’t be shown to provide much of a benefit.

But according in an email notice to subscribers, OpenVAERS stated, “None of these explanations suffice because all of that information was known prior to Pfizer submitting this EUA to the FDA on February 1 [2022]. It makes one wonder whether adverse events in the treatment group might be the factor that neither Pfizer nor the FDA want to talk about?”

Those Who Should Be in the Know Don’t Know a Thing

In related news, Jessica Rose, Ph.D., a research fellow at the Institute for Pure and Applied Knowledge in Israel, highlighted a February 5, 2022, Freedom of Information Request sent to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), the Australian equivalent of the FDA.¹⁰ The inquiry asked for documents relating to the TGA’s assessment of:

• The presence and risk of micro-RNA sequences within the Comirnaty mRNA active ingredient (the mRNA genomic sequence)
• The presence and risk of oncomirs (cancer-causing micro-RNA) in Comirnaty
• The presence and risk of stop codon read-through (suppression of codon activity) arising as a result of the use of pseudouridine in Comirnaty
• The composition of the final protein product (molecular weight and amino acid sequence) produced following injection of the Comirnaty mRNA product in human subjects
• The risk of the use of AES-mtRNR1 3’ untranslated region of the Comirnaty mRNA product in human subjects

As it turns out, the TGA has none of these documents, because they’ve not assessed any of these risks. Why does this matter? Well, as explained by Rose:

“Micro-RNA (miRNAs) are small (20-22 nucleotides) single-stranded non-coding RNA molecules that function to interrupt or suppress gene expression at transcriptional or translational levels to regulate gene expression.”

Considering micro-RNA can alter gene expression, wouldn’t we want to know if micro-RNAs are present in the shot, considering we’re injecting hundreds of millions of people, including teenagers and children? The same goes for oncomirs, the suppression of codon activity, protein products and the rest.

“Stephanie Seneff has warned¹¹ of two miRNAs that disrupt the type-1 interferon response in any cell, including immune cells: miR-148a and miR-590,” Rose continues.

“I don’t know what potential connections there are here yet, but it is safe to say that any tech that involves the introduction of foreign mRNA to be mass-produced by human cells must be thoroughly safety tested.

The fact that none of these documents ‘exist’ is proof positive that they either have no idea what the potential effects of what they made are because they did no bench work/investigations/studies, or, that they know and are hiding the results. Either choice is beyond criminal.”

The Critical Design Flaw

In an August 2021 Substack article,¹² British cybersecurity researcher Ehden Biber homed in on the potential risks of using pseudouridine to optimize the codon.

The COVID shots do not contain the identical mRNA found in the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The mRNA has been genetically manipulated in a process called “codon optimization,” and this process is actually known to create unexpected and detrimental side effects.

“How come Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Janssen etc. are using a technology that both they and the regulators know will cause unknown results?” Biber asked. The reason codon optimization was used is because it’s pretty difficult to get your body to produce a given protein by injecting mRNA.

It’s a slow and generally inefficient process. In order for the injection to work, they need higher levels of protein expression than is naturally possible. Scientists bypass this problem by making substitutions in the genetic instructions. They’ve discovered that you can swap out certain nucleotides (three nucleotides make up a codon) and still end up with the same protein in the end. But the increased efficiency comes at a terrible cost.

When substituting parts of the code in this way, the resulting protein can easily get misfolded, and this has been linked to a variety of chronic diseases,¹³ including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease and heart failure.¹⁴ As explained by Biber:¹⁵

“Turns out the protein which was manufactured when codon optimization has different ways it folds and a different 3D shape, and it ‘could cause immunogenicity, for example, which wouldn’t be seen until late-stage clinical trials or even after approval.’ This statement relates to the NORMAL approval cycle. The COVID vaccines went via an accelerated one.”

Now, the FDA has been fully aware of these problems since 2011, when Chava Kimchi Sarfaty, Ph.D., a principal investigator at the FDA, stated that “We do not believe that you can optimize codons and have the protein behave as it did in its native form.”

She went on to warn, “The changed form could cause immunogenicity, for example, which wouldn’t be seen until late-stage clinical trials or even after approval.”¹⁶

If the FDA knew all this back in 2011, why have they not raised objections against codon optimization being used in the making of the COVID jabs? The same question needs to be asked of the Australian TGA.

The FOIA requester was likely thinking of the March 2021 paper, “BNT162b2 Vaccine: Possible Codons Misreading, Errors in Protein Synthesis and Alternative Splicing Anomalies”¹⁷ when they put together that inquiry, because that paper highlights Pfizer’s extensive codon optimization using pseudouridine, which has known adverse effects, as well as the use of 3’-UTR sequence, the consequences of which are still unknown.

The fact that the TGA has no data on the risks of these modifications just goes to show that they, like the U.S. FDA, are not actually working to ensure these jabs are safe. They’re protecting the profits of the drug companies.

Pfizer even admits, in its BNT162b2/Comirnaty Risk Management Plan submitted to the FDA to get EUA, that the codon optimization they did resulted in elevated gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT),¹⁸which is an early marker of heart failure. Elevated GGT is also an indicator of insulin resistance, cardiometabolic disease,¹⁹ liver disease²⁰ and chronic kidney disease.²¹

That alone should have raised some questions, were the FDA actually looking out for public health. All in all, there’s more reason than ever to question the COVID jab mandates and the use of these shots in children.

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Notes

¹ COVID-19 and All-Cause Mortality Data Analysis by Kathy Dopp and Stephanie Seneff (PDF)

² COVID Vaccination and Age-Stratified All-Cause Mortality Risk (PDF)

³ COVID-19 and All-Cause Mortality Data Analysis by Kathy Dopp and Stephanie Seneff (PDF), Page 8, Table 2

⁴ OpenVAERS Child’s Report

⁵ Yale Medicine October 25, 2021, Updated February 11, 2022

⁶ New York Times February 12, 2022

⁷ USA Today February 11, 2022

⁸ CNN December 17, 2021

⁹ CNBC February 14, 2022

¹⁰ Jessica Rose Substack February 20, 2022

¹¹ Extremely American August 1, 2021

^12, 15, 16 Ehden Substack August 20, 2021

¹³ Nature Medicine December 6, 2011; 17: 1536-1538

¹⁴ Autophagy August 2008; 4(6): 821-823

¹⁷ Authorea March 25, 2021 DOI: 10.22541/au.161668243.35142344/v1

¹⁸ Nutr Metab. 2016;13:37

¹⁹ European Journal of Preventive Cardiology 2014 Dec;21(12):1541-8

²⁰ Disease Markers October 12, 2015; 2015: 818570

²¹ Disease Markers 2017; 2017:9765259

Featured image is from The Liberty Daily

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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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. 

Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

---

We’re only three days into Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, and yet the propaganda cogs are whirring fast as lightning, churning out “news”, opinion and content grist for the media mill.

In just the last 48 hours dozens of stories, images, narratives and videos have circulated as being taken from the fighting in Ukraine, a huge percentage of which are fake.

Now, some of it could be attributed to misunderstandings, mistaken identity, misattribution…but many and most are likely deliberate deceptions designed to provoke a response. Let’s dive right in.

1. “THE GHOST OF KIEV”

Early Friday morning it was reported that a single Ukrainian plane, a MiG-29, was patrolling the skies above Kiev. The English speaking press called the unnamed pilot “The Ghost of Kiev”, and claimed he had downed 6 Russian jets in air-to-air combat in less than 2 days, making him an official Fighter Ace, and probably one of the fastest to ever earn that title.

The trouble is there is almost no evidence this happened at all. To quote Newsweek:

There is zero evidence the “Ghost of Kyiv” exists”.

 

 

Please let the Ghost of Kyiv be real ✈️ 💀💀💀💀💀💀pic.twitter.com/Z4ryFRjd11

— @jason calacanis (@Jason) February 25, 2022

Neither side can confirm Russia has lost six planes in total, let alone to one man inside a single day. And a video alleged to be “the Ghost” in combat – shared by the Ukrainian Armed Forces – is confirmed to actually be footage taken from a video game.

Nevertheless, he already has his own Wikipedia page. A testament to how fast a lie can move while the truth is putting its boots on.

2. “RUSSIAN PLANES FLYING OVER KIEV”

A lot of people have been sharing a short video of Russian planes allegedly flying low over the city of Kiev. The Times used it a still from it in their story “Will sanctions stop a Russian shell?”:

The problem with that is it’s not Kiev, it’s Moscow. And it’s not today, it’s two years ago. It’s footage of what is likely a rehearsal for the 2020 Victory Day Parade flyover.

3. “ZELENSKIY VISITING THE TROOPS”

Possibly no politician in history has had a PR makeover quite as fast as Vlodomyr Zelenskiy. Last week he was just some guy, this week he’s a war hero, there’s talk of building statues of the man. A (not at all staged) “leaked” phone call had him turning down the US offer of an airlift to safety.

Twitter is dotted with people sharing photos of him in combat fatigues, comparing him favourably to Trump and Trudeau and asking “what other leaders would fight alongside their troops?”

This is President Zelensky. He is a brave man fighting shoulder to shoulder with his people. This man was blackmailed and extorted by Trump, who is a corrupt criminal and a coward. So yes, if I have to pay more for a gallon of gas, democracy is worth it. #UkraineStrong pic.twitter.com/4J8x8FnTZH

— Danielle Candela (@DanielleCandela) February 25, 2022

But the problem with that is the photos are all almost a year old, taken when he visited the troops last April:

4. “LUHANSK POWER STATION EXPLOSION”

Early on in the confrontation, this video started doing the rounds on social media:

Luhansk power plant in Ukraine pic.twitter.com/4LaI1uRxCe

— Oak Redhammer (@OakRedhammer) February 24, 2022

The video went viral, receiving 100,000s of views. Hundreds of accounts shared it, even major news networks used it, all claiming it shows a power station in Luhansk exploding after being hit with Russian missiles.

It does not, it’s a chemical plant exploding in Tianjin, China in 2015.

5. VIDEO GAMES. AGAIN.

This footage, claiming to show Ukrainian ground forces downing Russian aircraft, also went viral recently, even appearing on Spanish television news:

…It’s from the video game ARMA 3.

6. “RUSSIAN WARSHIP GO FUCK YOURSELF”

This was the first major propaganda narrative following Russia’s advance onto Ukrainian territory. Allegedly leaked audio showed Ukrainian border guards on tiny Snake Island in the black sea communicating with a Russian warship. Upon being told to surrender, the guards say “Russian warship go fuck yourself”.

The Western press reported that all 13 of the men were killed, and the Ukrainian government released a statement saying they would all be awarded posthumous honors.

However, while the supposedly fallen heroes were being canonised all over the western world, Russia was reporting that they had not been killed at all, but taken alive and unharmed back to the mainland.

A story both the press and the Ukrainian government have since reluctantly admitted is likely true.

7. SYRIAN DRONE STRIKES FOOTAGE

Another video doing the rounds, and again shared by official Ukrainian accounts, was drone footage supposedly showing the destruction of a column of Russian vehicles.

It’s actually footage of a Turkish drone strike in Syria from 2020.

Meanwhile, other accounts were sharing footage of combat from Libya or Israeli bombardments of Gaza under the hashtag #StandWithUkraine. Middle East Eye has compiled a list.

It’s somewhat beautiful irony that so many of the clips prompting outrage in Western liberals actually come from wars their governments started.

*

There we have it, seven stories about the war in Ukraine that are demonstrably fake, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

There’s tons of other fakes out there, not to mention fakes of fakes designed to discredit doubters or just spread chaos.

Ultimately, it’s all a timely reminder that propaganda is at its most potent at times where the news is moving fast and people are feeling emotional.

That is WHY the media whips up fear, anxiety and hatred, because people in that emotional state are less likely to think critically.

It should go without saying that this is equally true for both sides. We shouldn’t blindly accept claims from the Russian side, simply because we know NATO lies. Both sides propagandize, and one-eyed scepticism is only a different kind of bias.

In short, if you see something designed to provoke an emotional reaction, don’t let it. Never get swept along in the narrative, always hold yourself back, keep calm and ask rational questions.

Withhold belief, demand facts. It’s the only way to keep your mind free.

Or, to quote HL Mencken:

Never believe anything you hear, and only half of what you see.”

*

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***

This was originally published in 2017. Of relevance to the ongoing World crisis.

Filmmaker Regis Tremblay states what few others dare to say.

Humanity is on the brink of extinction!

Nuclear power is not safe. 48 of America’s nuclear power plants are leaking and there is no way to get rid of nuclear waste. America’s reckless provocations of both Russia and China, two nuclear-armed countries, risk a nuclear holocaust from which no one survives. Climate change and global warming, if not mitigated immediately, will end the human experiment on earth sooner rather than later.

A shocking documentary that traces the origins of U.S. genocides, military interventions and wars from the 15th century when the white, colonial explorers first came to the Americas to the very present. American Exceptionalism, Manifest Destiny, and the right to claim the earth and its resources as their own are the beliefs that are the foundation of American foreign policy in the 21st Century that has humanity on the brink of extinction.

Dr. Helen Caldicott, Ray McGovern, Chris Hedges, Ann Wright, Peter Kusnick, Bill McKibben, David Vine and other activists, scholars, and authors explain and clarify the crisis and threats to life on the planet.

The only real hope lies in the result of the epic battle for humanity’s survival between two contrasting world views. On one side is the unipolar, capitalist world-domination by the U.S. enforced by the most lethal military the world has ever seen.

On the other side is a view held by Russia, China and the BRICS nations built on a multi- polar world based on respect, the sovereignty of all nations, international law, the equal value of all people, and cooperation.

So here we are. Humanity’s epic battle for survival. An old paradigm based on white, colonial domination and empire versus the shared vision of others who are working for a peaceful world based on justice, international law and the prosperity of all people.

The only question is, will the crazed neocons in Washington, realizing they have lost, take the whole world down with them.

*

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Featured image is a screenshot from the video

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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

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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.

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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Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg and Twitter at @crglobalization.

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While the war in Ukraine is raging, explosive information is also coming to the fore about vaccine injury. The German health insurance company BKK ProVita has published a report about side effects after the Corona jab.

The numbers of vaccination side effects after Covid-19 vaccinations are truly catastrophic. These are not mild side effects either but moderately severe and severe. Massive underreporting of the treatment of these injuries is to be assumed.

Dutch information analyst Wouter Aukema and doctor Paul van Hoek have studied the matter extensively. In a Twitter thread, they write that the health insurer analysed claims for vaccine side effects due to the Corona jab and issued a warning to the German government.

According to the two, there is rock-solid evidence of underreporting by a factor of 10 on the German pharmacovigilance reporting system and the European Medicines Agency (EMA). It turns out that one in 25 people sought medical attention as a result of vaccine injury.

Aukema and Van Hoek compared the analysis and calculation of BKK ProVita with the figures from the Paul Ehrlich Institute, the German medicines authority, and EudraVigilance, the European database of reports on suspected side effects of medicines and came to the same conclusion as the German insurer.

They are concerned about the situation in the Netherlands in terms of side effects and underreporting to the Dutch pharmacovigilance reporting system Lareb. There are 194 475 reports for every 33,8 million shots. That is one report for every 175 shots.

Aukema and Van Hoek wanted to know when health insurers such as OHRA, Achmea or Vektis would publish their data and whether the RIVM would be examining mortality data.

BKK ProVita board member Andreas Schöfbeck checked the reports of over 10 million individuals for more than seven months. Of the 10,9 million people insured, 216 695 were treated for adverse effects. In comparison, the Paul-Ehrlich-Institute only reported 244 576 events out of 61,4 million people.

Schöfbeck spoke of an “alarming signal” and urgently called for more research. He estimated that in Germany some 2,5 to 3 million people have been treated for side effects following the Corona vaccine.

On February 21, 2022, the board of directors of BKK Pro Vita in Germany alerted the Paul Ehrlich Institute, the German Medical Association, the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians and the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds.

This warning specifically discloses the evaluation of the doctors’ billing data on Covid-19 vaccination side effects. For this purpose, the reported ICD codes of the German company health insurance companies for the diagnoses T88.0 (infection after vaccination/sepsis after vaccination), T88.1 (other complications after vaccination, skin rash after vaccination), Y59.9 (complications caused by vaccines or biological active substances) and U12.9 (Adverse reactions to the use of Covid‐19 vaccines).

According to their warning, the doctors’ billing data are available for the first half of 2021 and half of the third quarter of 2021. In extrapolating these figures for the year as a whole and for the population in Germany, it is very likely that up to 3 million people in Germany had to be treated medically because of vaccination side effects.

Extrapolated to the total population of Germany, these figures mean that approximately 5 percent of all Covid-19 vaccinated people had to receive medical treatment because of vaccination side effects. The injuries may be much higher, because in Germany only around two-thirds of the population took the jab.

According to Schöfbeck, “danger to human life cannot be ruled out”. This data analysis once again underscores the already known data on massive side effects of Covid-19 vaccinations. Only around 6-10 percent of vaccination side effects, i.e. only a very small fraction, are reported to the authorities and are therefore completely underestimated in the media.

These figures correspond with figures from 2021 noting a massive increase in diseases among soldiers in the US armed forces. It can therefore be assumed that around 5 percent of all vaccinated people worldwide suffer from vaccination side effects that require medical treatment.

Because the health insurance companies now have to pay for the treatment of this huge number of vaccination side effects, it threatens to collapse healthcare systems.

The latest data published by the UK Health Security Agency also confirmed that deaths were rising dramatically among the triple vaccinated population whilst declining steadily among the non-vaccinated.

These vaccine injuries may also be permanent: A Swedish study revealed that the mRNA in the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid injections infiltrate cells and transcribes its message onto human DNA within the span 6 hours, altering DNA. The study was conducted in vitro, but confirmed a previous study published in October 2021 which found that the spike protein entered the cells’ nuclei and impaired the mechanism that our cells have to repair damaged DNA.

Tal Zaks, chief medical officer of Moderna, confirmed in 2017 that the mRNA injection for COVID-19 can change a person’s genetic code or DNA. Moreover, scientists have discovered genetic material owned by Moderna in the spike protein of the virus.

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Glyphosate and Roundup lead to changes in gene regulatory microRNAs (miRNAs or miRs) linked with cancer, newly published data show. The analysis, of a type known as small RNA profiling, was conducted in liver tissue from rats exposed to glyphosate and Roundup MON 52276, an EU-approved formulation, over 90 days.

In the new results, Roundup MON 52276 was found to reduce the levels of miR-22 and miR-17, whereas glyphosate decreased the level of miR-30 and increased the amount of miR-10. These changes in miRNAs are important because they are known to alter the expression of crucial cell growth regulator genes, which can lead to the development of cancer.

A gene function that is central to multiple cellular processes, p53, is a particular target of these miRNAs. The miRNA changes can lead to alterations in p53 gene expression, as has been found in multiple types of cancer in humans.

The link between the changes in miRNAs and p53 gene expression is consistent with the findings within the same study showing gene expression changes in Roundup- and glyphosate-exposed rats. The gene expression changes strongly imply a p53 pathway DNA damage response. DNA damage is a major risk factor for cancer development.

Furthermore, increases in miR-10 have been found in other studies to be associated with leukemia, a blood cancer. The increase in mir-10 caused by glyphosate exposure in the experimental animals may provide one mechanism by which users of Roundup have succumbed to another blood cancer, known as non-Hodgkin lymphoma. These results could strengthen the legal cases of the cancer sufferers in the US who are suing Bayer/Monsanto because they believe that exposure to Roundup caused their disease. Three such cases have already been decided in favour of the plaintiffs.

Study lead Dr Michael Antoniou of King’s College London said,

“The new data showing changes in miRNA patterns add yet more evidence to the cancer-causing potential of glyphosate and Roundup. What is more, our results show that it is not just Roundup, which is a mixture of glyphosate with various additives, that has carcinogenic potential, but also glyphosate alone.”

Previously reported findings

The new data confirm and build on previously reported findings that were published as a pre-print in April 2021, which GMWatch reported on. The study with the additional findings has now passed peer review and is published in the prestigious journal, Toxicological Sciences.

The pre-print version of the study had reported that glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides such as Roundup activate mechanisms involved in cancer development, including DNA damage – and these effects occur at doses assumed by regulators to have no adverse effects. The data suggest that the DNA damage was caused by oxidative stress, a destructive imbalance in the body that can cause a long list of diseases. Oxidative stress is the likely cause of the damage seen to the liver, leading to an inflammatory (immune type) response, which in turn can cause DNA damage.

Crucially, the study found that the isolated active ingredient of Roundup – glyphosate – damaged DNA. This finding, according to the EU’s pesticide law, should result in a ban on glyphosate and all its formulations.

All these findings are carried over into the peer-reviewed version of the study.

How the study was done

The study builds on the findings of a previous one by the same authors. In the previous study, the researchers had compared the effects in rats of MON 52276 with those of its “active ingredient”, glyphosate, tested alone. The findings showed that glyphosate and Roundup herbicide, given at doses that regulators say are safe, resulted in the animals suffering gut microbiome disturbances and oxidative stress, with indications that the liver was affected and possibly damaged.

In the current followup study, the researchers analysed the liver tissue from the same rats to see if damage had indeed occurred.

The researchers carried out some of the standard tests that regulators require the pesticide industry to conduct to gain market authorisation for their products – namely blood biochemistry and kidney and liver histopathology (microscopic examination of tissue).

They also carried out in-depth tests (molecular profiling) that are not demanded by regulators or typically carried out by the industry. One type of test looked for adverse effects at a profound molecular level of biological functioning through analysis of gene expression (transcriptomics) and epigenetics (DNA methylation) in the liver and kidneys. Another type of test, using specialised genetically engineered cell lines, was intended to highlight changes in function linked with cancer formation.

In addition, the researchers carried out tests that can detect direct damage to DNA.

Roundup causes fatty liver disease – confirmed

The standard tests, histopathology and blood biochemistry analysis, found adverse effects from the Roundup treatment, namely a dose-dependent and statistically significant increase in fatty liver disease and liver cell death.

The finding of fatty liver disease from exposure to the MON 52276 formulation of Roundup confirmed the same researchers’ previous observation that an ultra-low dose of another Roundup formulation, Roundup Grand Travaux Plus, administered to the same strain of Sprague-Dawley rats over a 2-year period, caused non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

An increase in liver and kidney lesions was also detected in animals treated with glyphosate, although this did not reach statistical significance. However, the authors commented that an experiment of longer duration using more animals may have resulted in statistical significance.

Non-standard tests most revealing

Worryingly for public health, it was the non-standard molecular profiling tests that are not required by pesticide regulators that were most revealing.

First, Roundup was found to alter the expression of 96 genes in the liver specifically linked to DNA damage and oxidative stress, as well as disruption of circadian rhythms or “body clocks”. The most affected genes in liver also had their expression similarly altered in kidneys. Crucially, a core set of genes whose expression was altered by Roundup was similarly changed in the glyphosate-treated animals. This strongly suggests that the key changes in gene function reflective of oxidative stress and DNA damage was due to glyphosate and not the additional substances (adjuvants) present in the Roundup formulation.

Second, direct DNA damage to the liver was found to increase with glyphosate exposure.

These findings potentially constitute a bombshell that could end the authorisation of glyphosate in the EU. That’s because the EU pesticide regulation (1107/2009) has what’s known as hazard-based cut-off criteria. This means that if a pesticide active ingredient is shown to cause a certain type of harm to health at whatever dose, it must be banned. One of the named types of harm is damage to DNA. The discovery that glyphosate alone damages DNA in a living animal should, if regulators follow the law, result in a ban on the chemical.

Third, both glyphosate and Roundup were found to cause epigenetic changes known as DNA methylation. Epigenetics describes layers of molecular structures associated with DNA that control the underlying function of genes. The defining feature of epigenetic changes is that they can alter how genes work but do not involve changes to the actual DNA sequence. These types of changes were found at over 5,000 genomic sites for glyphosate and over 4,000 for Roundup. This is a concern because such alterations are typically found at high frequency in cancer tissues.

All findings lead to same conclusion

The researchers performed further laboratory tests in mouse cell lines, which are designed to highlight effects that can lead to cancer formation. Glyphosate and three Roundup formulations were assessed in these tester cell lines. It was found that two formulations of Roundup herbicide, but not glyphosate, activated oxidative stress and misfolded protein responses, both clear markers of carcinogenicity.

Commenting on the totality of the data, Dr Antoniou said, “No matter what molecular measurements we undertook, they all led to the same conclusion: that is, both glyphosate and Roundup are potential carcinogens.”

Other studies, including the industry ones submitted to support regulatory approval of glyphosate, have also found that glyphosate causes cancer in experimental animals. Based on studies in animals and humans, as well as mechanistic data, in 2015 the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen.

Other implications of the new study

1. Ending animal testing is not yet feasible

Interestingly, in the new study, glyphosate was shown to damage DNA in living animals but not in the cell culture system. This shows that in vitro lab tests using isolated cells  cannot fully substitute for evaluations in a living animal because certain effects will be missed. This is because animals (including humans) are whole organisms whose complexity cannot be replicated in a flask, petri dish, or test tube. While many people (GMWatch included) would like to see an end to animal testing, as long as pesticides and other chemicals are allowed to be released into the environment, such a move would put public health at risk.

2. Roundup is more toxic than glyphosate

In summary, in general Roundup was found to be more toxic than glyphosate, confirming and building on previous observations. However, taken together, the results from the various assays conducted show that both glyphosate and Roundup herbicides activate mechanisms involved in cancer development, causing gene expression changes reflecting oxidative stress and DNA damage. Also, glyphosate alone was clearly able to induce DNA damage.

These findings directly challenge the global regulatory practice of only assessing the isolated declared active ingredient (glyphosate) and not the complete commercial formulations (Roundup) as sold and used.

The study further highlights the power of in-depth molecular profiling “omics” methods to detect changes that are missed by relying solely on conventional biochemical and histopathological measurements conducted in standardised industry tests on pesticide active ingredients. The study paves the way for future investigations by identifying gene expression changes and altered DNA methylation sites, which can serve as biomarkers and potential predictors of negative health outcomes resulting from exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides.

3. Results could allow survey of human population for glyphosate herbicide exposure

Commenting on the implications of the results for human exposure monitoring, study lead Dr Michael Antoniou said, “The biomarkers we identified (such as the miRNA and gene expression changes) can be tested for in people, but we don’t know if this particular pattern of biomarkers is unique to glyphosate-based herbicide exposure. Thus the biomarkers would need to be correlated with a history of exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides and measurements of glyphosate in urine.

“If high levels of glyphosate were found in the urine, and this correlated with the biomarkers identified in the new study and the person’s history of glyphosate herbicide exposure, this would indicate that exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides might be responsible for any health effects that are both indicated by our findings and found in the person. These findings should be tested first by investigations of herbicide applicators, as their exposure can be high and details of the particular herbicides used are often recorded, which would enable clearer results to be obtained.”

4. “Safe” and “no effect” doses were shown to be harmful

In the 90-day rat feeding study, different groups of animals were fed three different doses of glyphosate and the glyphosate-equivalent dose of Roundup MON 52276. The lowest dose was the concentration that regulators assume to be safe to ingest on a daily basis over a lifetime (the EU acceptable daily intake or ADI: 0.5 mg per kg of bodyweight per day). The middle dose was the dose that EU regulators concluded had no observable adverse effect (the “no observable adverse effect” level or NOAEL) in industry-sponsored rat feeding studies (50 mg per kg of bodyweight per day). The highest dose was 175 mg, the dose that US regulators concluded had no observable adverse effect.

Adverse effects were found from Roundup exposure at all dose levels in a dose-dependent fashion. These findings show that the glyphosate ADI for the EU – and that of the USA, which is even higher – is not safe to ingest. Likewise, it shows that the EU and US regulators were only able to conclude that glyphosate had “no observable adverse effect” at the levels mentioned above because the tests that they require industry to carry out are insufficiently sensitive.

Study supports plaintiffs in Roundup-cancer litigation

Summarising the implications of the study for the Roundup-cancer litigation in the US, Dr Antoniou said, “Our results are the first to simultaneously show glyphosate and Roundup toxicity in a whole mammalian animal model system and provide a mechanism – oxidative stress – by which DNA damage has been observed in other systems, such as mammalian tissue culture cells.

“These findings show that glyphosate and Roundup score positive in various tests of carcinogenicity – transcriptome/epigenome/miRNA changes, oxidative stress, protein misfolding, and DNA damage – in a living animal (rat) that is accepted as a surrogate for human health effects. In my view, this strengthens the argument that exposure to Roundup herbicides can lead to the type of cancer suffered by the plaintiffs in many of the court cases – non-Hodgkin lymphoma.”

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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. 

Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

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When the Bush Administration announced in 2008 that Ukraine and Georgia would be eligible for NATO membership, I knew it was a terrible idea. Nearly two decades after the end of both the Warsaw Pact and the Cold War, expanding NATO made no sense. NATO itself made no sense.

Explaining my “no” vote on a bill to endorse the expansion, I said at the time:

NATO is an organization whose purpose ended with the end of its Warsaw Pact adversary… This current round of NATO expansion is a political reward to governments in Georgia and Ukraine that came to power as a result of US-supported revolutions, the so-called Orange Revolution and Rose Revolution.

Providing US military guarantees to Ukraine and Georgia can only further strain our military. This NATO expansion may well involve the US military in conflicts unrelated to our national interest…

Unfortunately, as we have seen this past week, my fears have come true. One does not need to approve of Russia’s military actions to analyze its stated motivation: NATO membership for Ukraine was a red line it was not willing to see crossed. As we find ourselves at risk of a terrible escalation, we should remind ourselves that it didn’t have to happen this way. There was no advantage to the United States to expand and threaten to expand NATO to Russia’s doorstep. There is no way to argue that we are any safer for it.

NATO itself was a huge mistake.

When in 1949 the US Senate initially voted on the NATO treaty, Sen. Roberg Taft – known as “Mr. Republican” – gave an excellent speech on why he voted against creating NATO.

Explaining his “no” vote, Taft said:

… the treaty is a part of a much larger program by which we arm all these nations against Russia… A joint military program has already been made… It thus becomes an offensive and defensive military alliance against Russia. I believe our foreign policy should be aimed primarily at security and peace, and I believe such an alliance is more likely to produce war than peace.

Taft continued:

If we undertake to arm all the nations around Russia…and Russia sees itself ringed about gradually by so-called defensive arms from Norway and Denmark to Turkey and Greece, it may form a different opinion. It may decide that the arming of western Europe, regardless of its present purpose, looks to an attack upon Russia. Its view may be unreasonable, and I think it is. But from the Russian standpoint it may not seem unreasonable. They may well decide that if war is the certain result, that war might better occur now rather than after the arming of Europe is completed…

How right he was.

NATO went off the rails long before 2008, however. The North Atlantic Treaty was signed on April 4, 1949 and by the start of the Korean War just over a year later, NATO was very much involved in the military operation of the war in Asia, not Europe!

NATO’s purpose was stated to “guarantee the safety and freedom of its members by political and military means.” It is a job not well done!

I believe as strongly today as I did back in my 2008 House Floor speech that, “NATO should be disbanded, not expanded.” In the meantime, expansion should be off the table. The risks do not outweigh the benefits!

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The Israeli government has announced a plan to double the population of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights by 2030, thereby achieving a clear Jewish majority in light of the absence of any right of return for those driven out in 1967.

I wish that some journalist would have the career-risking courage to ask President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken or the White House or State Department spokespersons to explain the principle on which the U.S. government (i) condemns and refuses to accept or diplomatically recognize the Russian annexation of Crimea, while (ii) accepting and recognizing the Israeli annexations of expanded East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights (achieved by war and in defiance of the wishes of all the people who lived there prior to their conquests and occupations).

Of course, as always, what matters is not the nature of the act but, rather, who is doing it to whom. There are no principles involved.

—John Whitbeck, Paris, France

Few consequences for killers of Palestinian-American

This January in the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers dragged Omar Abdalmajeed As’ad, an 80-year-old Palestinian-American citizen from his car, handcuffed, gagged and blindfolded him and then beat him, leaving him to die on the ground while they drove away. It is an outrage that a foreign military that we give billions of dollars to every year can commit this atrocity against an American citizen and yet neither President Joe Biden nor U.S. Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides have condemned this murder nor called for a fair and thorough investigation. We must demand that the killers be brought to justice, tried, and if found guilty, spend the rest of their lives in prison. No more Israeli cover-ups. —Barbara Gravesen, Lady Lake, FL

In late January, the Israel Defense Forces released a statement on the incident saying, “The soldiers did not identify signs of distress or other suspicious signs concerning As’ad’s health. The soldiers assessed that As’ad was asleep and did not try to wake him. The investigation concluded that the incident was a grave and unfortunate event, resulting from a moral failure and poor decision-making on the part of the soldiers.” Two of the soldiers involved were fired and a third was “reprimanded.”

The Middle East Monitor was spot-on in noting, “The punishment issued is far more lenient than those handed down to Palestinians, including minors convicted of throwing stones. Even if no harm or damage is caused, they face penalties of up to 20 years in prison.”

Hold Israel accountable for its violence

The article by Dr. M. Reza Behnam in your Jan./Feb. 2022 issue about Palestinian life under Israeli Zionism was deeply moving. The article made clear the daily humiliation the Zionist regime imposes on Palestinians by naming public spaces after Zionist terrorists who have committed multiple atrocities, and proclaiming these racist terrorists national heroes.

Once again, secure in the knowledge that Western governments will not hold them accountable, the Israelis are accelerating their theft of Palestinian land and making more and more innocent indigenous people refugees in their own land.

I hope the Washington Report will continue to print strong articles like this to expose the truth and counter Israeli propaganda. The Palestinians continue to fight and we must join them in the name of justice, democracy and peace.

—Charles Dunaway, Portland, OR

Palestinians must not be deterred from non-violence

In response to Ramzy Baroud’s article in the Nov./Dec. 2021 issue on political prisoner Zakaria Zubeidi: Zubeidi’s disillusionment with both “peaceful diplomacy” and armed force for overcoming Israeli domination isn’t unique. When I advocated for non-violence at a local college forum, a young Palestinian responded that no matter what they try, Israel crushes them. But they haven’t given non-violent resistance a fair trial.

Though Palestinian leadership wanted the First Intifada to be non-violent, Palestinian violence increased as the Intifada wore on. Overall, 179 Israelis were killed and 3,100 were injured. This and greater subsequent Palestinian violence badly damaged their cause by obscuring the fact that they’re the victims and Israel is the aggressor in the overall conflict. Palestinian violence has allowed Israel to turn this on its head so it appears to be the victim and the Palestinians the aggressor. This is simple, because real-time overt violence overshadows long-term seemingly low-level violence by the colonizer, and because Israel generally tends to be viewed as the victim in the conflict.

Through this role reversal, Israel whitewashes its brutal repression of Palestinian violence—and all of its wrongs against the Palestinians—on the basis of security. By ceasing violence, the Palestinians can make it crystal clear that they’re the victims. This would greatly amplify international grassroots and governmental support for, and collaboration with, Palestinian strikes, boycotts, security de-cooperation and other non-violent resistance. When this solidarity becomes strong enough to generate sanctions upon Israel, its colonial apartheid enterprise will be finished. Free at last, the Palestinians will be able to determine their own future, be that two states, one democratic state, or some other alternative.

—Gregory DeSylva, Rhinebeck, NY

 In a 2011 TED Talk, filmmaker Julia Bacha addressed the topic of violent and non-violent Palestinian resistance. Her conclusion was that the media’s penchant for only covering violence gives legitimacy to aggression and undermines the work of non-violent movements in Palestine. She said: “I believe that what’s mostly missing for non-violence to grow is not for Palestinians to start adopting non-violence, but for us to start paying attention to those who already are [resisting non-violently]….Violent resistance and non-violent resistance share one very important thing in common—they are both a form of theater seeking an audience to their cause. If violent actors are the only ones constantly getting front-page covers and attracting international attention to the Palestinian issue, it becomes very hard for non-violent leaders to make the case to their communities that civil disobedience is a viable option in addressing their plight….I believe that the most important thing is to understand that if we don’t pay attention to these [non-violent] efforts, they are invisible, and it’s as if they never happened. But I have seen first hand that if we do, they will multiply. If they multiply, their influence will grow in the overall Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Another story of atrocious torture

The Supreme Court justices recently heard oral arguments on the CIA’s treatment of Abu Zubaydah, who is currently being held at Guantanamo Bay.  Two psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, crafted a torture program to render Abu Zubaydah’s life a living hell. Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded over 80 times while being held at a CIA black site in Poland.

All the justices on the Court described Abu Zubaydah’s treatment as “torture.” There were no euphemisms, no equivocation. Everyone understood that what happened to him was gut-wrenching torture.

Government cables obtained by the media confirmed waterboarding was almost benign compared to other more barbaric treatments the “good doctors” crafted. He was kept sleepless. They put him in a small coffin-sized box for hours, overnight. He couldn’t move. They hung him by the cell bars with his feet dangling off the ground.

The CIA’s determination to keep torture secret backfired and has brought great shame and dishonor to America. Abu Zubaydah should be released immediately and Guantanamo should be closed. We do not want our tax dollars to be used for such barbarism. The perpetrators of these monstrous crimes, including President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, must be prosecuted.

—Jagjit Singh, Los Altos, CA

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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. 

Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has underscored the warnings that the Kremlin has made for years that any attempt to give Kyiv membership in NATO or use Ukraine as a military asset would cross a dangerous red line. In December 2021, Moscow issued demands on the United States and NATO for security guarantees to preclude the possibility of Ukraine becoming a NATO pawn and to reduce NATO’s overall military presence in Eastern Europe. It is now clear that Vladimir Putin and other Russian leaders were deadly serious about their red lines. Using Ukraine as an arena for the projection of U.S. and NATO military power was never going to be acceptable to Moscow, since such a move automatically threatened Russia’s core security interests.

Numerous US foreign policy experts warned for more than 2 decades about the mounting dangers associated with NATO’s decision to expand eastward toward Russia. Their warnings went unheeded, and Ukrainians are now paying the price in treasure and blood. Meanwhile, stunned NATO leaders stand on the sidelines wringing their hands and posturing about “allied unity” in imposing (probably ineffectual) economic sanctions against Russia.

As Russian military columns advance deeper into Ukraine on multiple fronts, Putin has offered negotiations that could bring the war to an early end. Moscow has made 2 key demands of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. First, Kyiv must officially renounce any ambitions for NATO membership, as well as engage in a process of comprehensive “demilitarization.” The latter aspect would include a guarantee that NATO military forces will never be permitted to operate on Ukraine’s territory. Second, there must be a process of “de-Nazification” to eliminate all neo-Nazi and neo-fascist elements from Ukraine’s government and other institutions. The latter demand may ultimately prove to be the more difficult impediment to an agreement ending the war.

Putin seems to be offering Kyiv the “Finland option” as an alternative to a Russian conquest. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union established outright puppet regimes throughout Central and Eastern Europe. The Kremlin’s policy regarding Finland was noticeably different, however. Even under Joseph Stalin’s brutal reign, Moscow was willing to let Helsinki run the country’s domestic affairs with minimal interference. Finland remained a vibrant, mostly capitalist democracy, not a communist Soviet clone. With respect to foreign affairs, however, the limitations on the country’s options were emphatic and uncompromising. Finland had to toe the line on every aspect of the Kremlin’s policies. Not only did Helsinki have to renounce even the slightest flirtation with the Western powers regarding military and security issues, but the government even had to vote in lockstep with Moscow at the United Nations and other international bodies.

Those restraints may have been annoying – and even somewhat humiliating – to Finnish leaders, but the country’s fate was far better than Moscow’s satellites elsewhere in Eastern Europe experienced. During the 2014 crisis over Crimea, Henry Kissinger wrote in the Washington Post that Ukraine should pursue “a posture comparable to that of Finland.” Zbigniew Brzezinski asserted in the Financial Times that “the Finnish model is ideal for Ukraine.” Current Ukrainian officials need to ask themselves if a similar status of constrained independence might be the best option available to their country.

If the United States had not pushed blatantly to make Kyiv a Western military asset, an even better option likely would have been on the table. Moscow might have been willing to accept to approve the “Austrian model.” Austria stands out as the one exception during the Cold War when the Soviet Union and the Western powers were able to come to an agreement about the political status of a country in Central or Eastern Europe. In 1955, a treaty guaranteed Austria’s strict neutrality. One consequence was that the country enjoyed even greater independence regarding its domestic affairs than did Finland. The biggest difference, though, was in foreign affairs; Vienna did not have to follow Moscow’s policy lead with no deviation. Instead, it maintained a rigorous neutrality, but one with a noticeable allegiance to Western political and moral values.

Today’s Ukraine might have enjoyed that same status, if had not succumbed to the West’s siren song of someday becoming a full NATO partner. In the light of recent developments, though, the Kremlin likely will regard the Austria model as insufficient. The Finland version is about the best that Kyiv can hope for now.

If Zelensky and other Ukrainian leaders are wise, they will accept the basic features of Moscow’s first demand. (They also likely will have to accept a significant territorial amputation – the “independence” of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.) Formal membership in NATO was always unlikely, given the firm opposition of both France and Germany. Even when George W. Bush pushed hard for NATO to give Ukraine and Georgia Membership Action Plans (a key step toward imminent membership) in 2008, Paris and Berlin balked. Not only were they concerned about the endemic corruption in both countries, they worried that the move would be a dangerous provocation to Russia. French and German opposition to including Ukraine in NATO has not diminished with the passage of time.

By renouncing ambitions for NATO membership, Kyiv would be relinquishing a status that probably was not attainable to begin with. Meeting Moscow’s related demand – for demilitarization – should not be all that taxing either. It may have benefited certain elements in the United States (especially weapons manufacturers and other members of the notorious Military-Industrial Complex) for Ukraine to become a NATO military pawn, but it never served the legitimate interests of Ukraine’s government or people. Like it or not, Ukraine is at the mercy of its larger, much more powerful, Russian neighbor. It would require enormous levels of defense spending – and probably the acquisition of nuclear weapons, an option that is simply not available – to close the gap in capabilities. It is a futile quest, and Kyiv should accept its status as a largely disarmed country.

Putin’s other demand – that Ukraine agree to “de-Nazification” – is both the least reasonable and the least necessary. Yes, neo-Nazi and neo-fascist factions do exist in Ukraine – contrary to the country’s Western apologists. However, their presence and influence in the government is decidedly limited, despite the Kremlin’s propagandistic assertions. Putin’s willingness to greatly dilute that demand is a key test of Russia’s seriousness about reaching a reasonable agreement to end the war.

Washington led Zelensky down the primrose path with a cornucopia of US weapons and security funding, the prestige of Ukraine’s participation in joint military exercises with US and NATO forces, and the illusory prospect of NATO membership. Ukraine is now paying a bloody price for succumbing to such blandishments. Ukrainian leaders need to look to their own country’s best interests and strike the most favorable deal they can with Russia. The West is not coming to rescue Ukraine, and Ukrainians must face that bitter, disillusioning reality. The Finland option may be their only way out of a horrible situation.

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Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, is the author of 12 books and more than 950 articles on international affairs. His latest book is NATO: The Dangerous Dinosaur (2019).

Featured image: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (centre) attends the drills of the Ministry of Internal Affairs during his working trip to the Kherson region, Ukraine, Saturday, February 12, 2022

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The American truckers are gearing up for a massive protest in Washington DC in opposition to tyrannical COVID mandates.

Similar to the truckers in Ottawa, the US Convoy plans to disrupt traffic in DC over the coming days and weeks, beginning around the time of Joe Biden’s upcoming State of the Union Address that’s scheduled for Tuesday, March 1st.

Thousands of protesters are expected to arrive for the demonstration, with several groups departing from across the country daily.

One of the largest of these groups – The Peoples Convoy – is rapidly growing as it finishes day six of eleven of its cross-country journey to the DC swamp. On Monday morning, the convoy had grown to around 3,000 vehicles as it reached the state of Missouri, which is about double what it was just two days ago when the convoy passed through Texas.

Just like the other states on this journey, the truckers were greeted with a warm welcome in Missouri, with countless supporters showing up at several overpasses to demonstrate their support.

Watch, from El American:

HAPPENING NOW: | Day 6 of The Peoples Convoy, with OVER 3,000 vehicles headed to Washington D.C.

We are approaching Springfield MO. This is what the overpasses have looked like: pic.twitter.com/tfn5MvcOLm

— El American (@ElAmerican_) February 28, 2022

After picking up several more additions throughout the day, the convoy made camp for the night in Cuba, Missouri. Once again, a crowd was waiting to greet them when they arrived, bringing another round of donations, food, drinks, and supplies with them to be used in the upcoming protest.

The support that Americans have shown for the convoy has been overwhelming everywhere they have gone.

The Peoples Convoy arrives at It’s final destination in Cuba, MO for day 6.

Tomorrow, convoy heads to Indianapolis, IN where it will meet up with SIX other convoys, where the convoy is expected to triple.

Following is ==> @ElAmerican_ pic.twitter.com/LjdLroixqM

— El American (@ElAmerican_) March 1, 2022

Tomorrow, the people’s convoy will depart Missouri and make its way to Indianapolis, where several other groups of vehicles are expected to merge with the convoy as it enters the last leg of its journey to Washington DC. Convoy Organizers who spoke with El American explained that they have been speaking with at least SIX other convoys that are planning on meeting up with the main group on Wednesday.

When the groups merge, the convoy is expected to be over 10,000 vehicles strong.

EPIC!

🚨 BREAKING REPORT: ‘The Peoples Convoy’ organizer has told @ElAmerican_ that there are SIX more convoys on their way to Indianapolis to meet with The Peoples Convoy on Wednesday March 2nd.

Over 10,000+ vehicles expected.

Follow us ==> @ElAmerican_ pic.twitter.com/aVju3XS63Y

— El American (@ElAmerican_) February 28, 2022

If this keeps up like this, Biden and the DC Swamp won’t know what hit them – the convoy is already 3,000 strong, and that’s without the reinforcements from the other groups who are planning to join.  This protest is gearing up to be something truly historic.

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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. 

Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.  

The Israeli proposal to mediate is an important initiative.

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The world community is aghast over the acute tensions between the United States and its NATO allies on one side and Russia on the other, which is poised critically on the brink of a military confrontation, the like of which the world didn’t see in the entire Cold War era. 

The shocking part is that it has become a no-holds barred struggle that is being fought with tooth and claw, as hidden racial and religious prejudices  lying just below the surface have welled to the surface in the Western world. 

The amusing sight of western TV Channels openly discussing why an open door policy toward refugees from Ukraine is warranted in European countries underscores the subterranean cultural cross currents beneath the thin veneer of modernity. 

The western journalists have argued passionately that these refugees are not like those sub-humans from Muslim countries who knock on the doors of Europe seeking asylum, but these Ukrainian refugees are Christians — and that too, with blond hair and light eyes! 

It is when traumatic times come that the veneer of culture and modernity of the Europeans peels away and true human nature surfaces in all its naked crudity. This is not a matter of education or wealth. 

We have seen that even António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres is a changed man nowadays. He behaves more like a westerner from Portugal and a Roman Catholic than as the Secretary-General of the United Nations. After Dag Hammarskjöld, Guterres is the first secretary-general of the UN who has clashed with a permanent member of the Security Council — or, more precisely, identified totally with one of the UNSC members against another. 

Hammarskjöld’s clash with the US was not personal, but on principles and ideology. Whereas, Guterres’ motives are dubious. (Is it a coincidence that his special representatives in the trouble spots in the world wherever western interests are at stake — be it Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan or Venezuela — happen to be nominees from the Western countries?) 

Of course, Guterres won’t meet with the tragic fate of Hammarskjöld (whom the CIA eliminated) because Russia doesn’t do such ghastly things. But Guterres demeans his own organisation where the big majority of countries are from the non-western world. 

Not a single Muslim country has voiced support for Washington in its confrontation with Russia. Although they are stakeholders in a Third World War, they prefer not to think about it. The heart of the matter is that they think this is another crusade of the Christian countries — cloaked as values and ‘rules-based order’ — which they’ve experienced so often. They see that the Western countries are back to their bestial wars endemic to European history through centuries. 

If reports are to be believed, Saudi Arabia point blank refused to pay heed to the Biden Administration’s entreaties to break up its energy alliance with Russia known as OPEC+ which fine tunes the supply position in the world oil market. Saudi Arabia’s rival Iran and Syria have openly supported Russia. Turkey offered mediation between Russia and Ukraine and indeed had a hand in arranging the talks in Belarus. 

However, it is Israel that made the most memorable overture to Russia of a historical nature suffused with great poignancy. Israel prevented the US from transferring to Ukraine its Dome missile defence system which would have been a game changer in the present conflict on the plea that it did not want to act against Russia! 

Both Washington and Tel Aviv hushed up this spat until its disclosure recently by the media. Then came the request from the Biden Administration seeking support from Israel to co-sponsor its resolution in the Security Council regarding Ukraine. Israel refused! The US made its displeasure known. 

Following that, in a conversation at the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow, the Israeli ambassador was apparently asked by the Russian side whether his country wasn’t aware of what’s going on in Ukraine — where the calculus of power lies in the hands of Neo-Nazi groups acting with the support of the western countries. 

To be sure, Israel must be well aware of the situation. Ukraine is not like any other country for Israel. It was the country where the horrific massacres took place in late September 1941 when the invading Nazi army, SS and German police units and their auxiliaries perpetrated one of the largest massacres of World War II. 

It took place at a ravine called Babyn Yar (Babi Yar) just outside the Ukrainian capital city of Kiev. According to the Holocaust Encyclopaedia, “Germans continued to perpetrate mass murders at this killing site until just before the Soviets re-took control of Kyiv in 1943. During this period, Germans shot Jews, as well as Roma, Ukrainian civilians and Soviet POWs. In the decades after the war, Babyn Yar symbolized the struggle over the memory of World War II and the Holocaust in the Soviet Union.” 

We will never know the Israeli ambassador’s reaction to the Russian demarche, but Moscow had a pleasant surprise when Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday offering mediation on Ukraine. The Russian readout said briefly,

“In his turn, Naftali Bennett offered Israel’s mediation services in order to stop military actions.”

Putin of course briefed Bennett on the special military operation to defend Donbass and explained that Moscow

“is ready for talks with Kiev’s representatives, who have shown an inconsistent approach so far and have not yet used this opportunity.” 

Israel finds itself in a delicate situation. The US is Israel’s close ally and Bennett has been treading a careful line not to let differences with the Biden administration become disputes — unlike his abrasive, acerbic predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu. 

On the other hand, Israel has a very special relationship with Russia in terms of the fact that it also had suffered greatly at the hands of the marauding Nazi invaders. After all, over 20 million Soviet citizens perished during World War II. 

Equally, Israel is acutely conscious that Russia is deeply committed to the campaign against fascism at a time when the western world has turned its back on it and has decided to not only move on but also acquiesce with the recrudescence of Nazi ideology in the European societies lately.

Surely, German involvement with the Neo-Nazis in Ukraine must be known to the Israeli intelligence. But what can Israel do on its own? It is a deeply painful reality for both Israel and Russia that in the western political ecosystem, Nazi ideology is no longer reprehensible.  

Isn’t it amazing that two of the three Abrahamic religions are in a quandary over the war cries in the Christian world? The crisis over Ukraine indeed makes strange bed fellows. The UAE, a staunch ally of the US in the West Asian region, abstained twice in the recent days over the US-sponsored resolutions condemning Russia at the UN Security Council. 

Guterres has taken personal charge of marshalling support for the US at the special session of the UNGA today regarding Ukraine. American diplomats are pulling all stops. If a big chunk of UN members still choose to abstain, it will be a big blow for Guterres personally. Will he quit if that happens? Of course, that is too much to expect. Americans simply won’t let him, having retained him for a second term.    

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Featured image is from The Unz Review

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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. 

Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

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Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen announced that the EU is banning the Russian news agency Sputnik and the Russia Today channel so that “they can no longer spread their lies to justify Putin’s war with their toxic disinformation in Europe”.
The EU thus officially establishes the Orwellian Ministry of Truth, which by erasing memory rewrites history. Anyone who does not repeat the Truth transmitted by the Voice of America, the official agency of the U.S. government, which accuses Russia of “horrible, completely unprovoked and unprovoked attack against Ukraine” is outlawed. Outlawing myself, I report here in extreme synthesis the history of the last thirty years erased from memory.

 

In 1991, as the Cold War ended with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union itself, the United States unleashed the first post-Cold War war in the Gulf, announcing to the world that “there is no substitute for the leadership of the United States, which remains the only state with global strength and influence”.

Three years later, in 1994, NATO under U.S. command carried out in Bosnia its first direct action of war and in 1999 attacked Yugoslavia: for 78 days, taking off mainly from Italian bases, 1,100 aircraft carried out 38,000 sorties, dropping 23,000 bombs and missiles that destroyed bridges and industries in Serbia, causing victims especially among civilians.

While demolishing Yugoslavia with the war, NATO, betraying the promise made to Russia “not to enlarge an inch to the East”, began its expansion to the East more and more close to Russia, which would lead in twenty years to expand from 16 to 30 members, incorporating countries of the former Warsaw Pact, the former USSR and the former Yugoslavia, preparing to officially include Ukraine, Georgia and Bosnia Herzegovina, which were already part of NATO (Il Manifesto, Che cos’è e perché è perico-loso l’ampliamento a Est della NATO, 22 February 2022),

Passing from war to war, the US and NATO attacked and invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, demolished the Libyan State with war in 2011 and began the same operation in Syria through Isis, partly blocked four years later by Russian intervention. In Iraq alone, the two wars and the embargo directly killed about 2 million people, including half a million children.

In February 2014, NATO, which had seized key positions in Ukraine since 1991, carried out through specially trained and armed neo-Nazi-steal formations the coup d’état that overthrew the duly elected president of Ukraine. It was orchestrated according to a precise strategy: to attack the Russian populations of Ukraine in order to provoke a response from Russia and thus open a deep rift in Europe. When the Crimean Russians decided in a referendum to rejoin Russia, of which they had previously been a part, and the Russians in the Donbass (bombed by Kiev with white phosphorus) entrenched themselves in the two republics, NATO’s escalation of the war against Russia began. It was supported by the EU, in which 21 of the 27 member countries belong to NATO under US command.

In these eight years, US-NATO forces and bases with nuclear attack capabilities have been deployed in Europe closer and closer to Russia, ignoring Moscow’s repeated warnings. On December 15, 2021 the Russian Federation handed over to the United States of America an articulated draft treaty to defuse this explosive situation (The Manifesto, Russian “Aggressive Move”: Moscow Proposes Peace, December 21, 2021). Not only was it rejected but, at the same time, the deployment of Ukrainian forces began, under US-NATO command, for a large-scale attack on the Russians in the Donbass.

Hence Moscow’s decision to put a stop to the aggressive US-NATO escalation with the military operation in Ukraine.

Demonstrating against the war by erasing history, means to contribute consciously or not to the frantic US-NATO-EU campaign that brands Russia as a dangerous enemy, that splits Europe for imperial designs of power, dragging us to catastrophe.

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This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.

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

Stop the Possible World War III Scenario! International Peace Conference to Dissolve NATO and for Global Denuclearization. Prof. Francis Boyle

By Prof. Francis A. Boyle, February 28, 2022

This war must be immediately terminated before it expands and sucks in the European NATO States and the United States. Towards that end, President Biden must publicly announce that NATO Expansion is over for good  and that Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova will not be joining NATO as member States.

60 Years Too Long – End the US Blockade

By Cuba Solidarity Campaign, March 01, 2022

Successive US governments have carried out a campaign of destabilisation and subversion against the Cuban Revolution for more than six decades. Fundamental to this policy has been the US blockade.

Canada’s Freezing of Protesters’ Finances Shows How the “War on Cash” Ends

By Robert Fellner, February 28, 2022

The deputy prime minister announced that they will retain these so-called emergency powers permanently going forward and will also seek to implement additional measures to further restrict the ability of political protestors to raise funds or otherwise use the banking system.

The Mad Men of Washington

By Ben Schreiner, February 28, 2022

It’s hard to exaggerate just how energized the Washington elite has been by the outbreak of war in Europe. The resurgent Russian menace clearly portends a prosperous future of ever larger defense budgets, not to mention offering a much-needed reprieve from the domestic tumult of a fraying political system.

The Plandemic Enters Final Stage, Real Purpose Exposed

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, February 28, 2022

As noted by the National Review, we can already tell what the Canadian government will do with those expanded surveillance powers. We’re seeing their intentions in action. By invoking the Act, Trudeau has given himself the unilateral power to destroy the lives of Canadians who happen to disagree with him, regardless of the issue at hand.

How the U.S. Started a Cold War with Russia and Left Ukraine to Fight It

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, February 28, 2022

President Biden has called the Russian invasion “unprovoked,” but that is far from the truth. In the four days leading up to the invasion, ceasefire monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) documented a dangerous increase in ceasefire violations in Eastern Ukraine, with 5,667 violations and 4,093 explosions.

Locking Down Liberty

By Colin Todhunter, February 28, 2022

Remember how the notion of freedom was spun by the ideologues of neoliberalism for decades prior to COVID? The freedom to consume. The freedom to make money. The freedom to be plunged into poverty and debt.

Syrian UN Envoy Accuses US Occupation of Enabling Terror Groups and Controlling Food Supply

By The Cradle, February 28, 2022

Syria’s envoy to the United Nations Bassam al-Sabbagh accused the United States and other NATO members on 25 February of hindering efforts by the Syrian government to put an end to the 11 year-long war and rebuild the country.

Ukraine: The Mess that Nuland Made

By Robert Parry, February 28, 2022

Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs “Toria” Nuland was the “mastermind” behind the Feb. 22, 2014 “regime change” in Ukraine, plotting the overthrow of the democratically elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych while convincing the ever-gullible U.S. mainstream media that the coup wasn’t really a coup but a victory for “democracy.”

My Day in Palestine: The Stunning Beauty and Cruel Reality of an Occupied Land

By Miko Peled, March 01, 2022

The enormity of the process that is unfolding in Sheikh Jarrah is hard for people to grasp. Those of us who show up to express solidarity and to stand with the Palestinians who are victims of this crime against humanity cannot possibly feel the pain and fear that the Palestinians, who live through it and whose lives are being ruined, experience.

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In a country expert in killing off mammal species at a rate exceeding that of others (to be fair, there are so many more to destroy, with more to come), Australians now face the prospect that the koala, one of its most singularly recognisable animals, has its days numbered.

Divergent attitudes to such animal species, notably indigenous ones, has been a point of some despair for conservationists.  In 1995, Ron Green, the zoological director of Canberra’s Australian National Wildlife Sanctuary, put his finger on the matter by suggesting that Australians were “unique” in their “blasé” disposition.  “They’ll look at the white rhinoceros going into extinction on the TV, and become outraged but [have] an illusion that everything is fine in Australia; the ‘She’ll be right, mate’ syndrome, but we’ve wiped out the most mammals of any country in the world.”

Despite an emerging ecological awareness in Australia, the syndrome still stalks the halls of power. Last month, the Morrison government found itself in the unenviable position of having to declare the koala an endangered species in Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory.  In 2012, the species had been listed as “vulnerable” in the same jurisdictions.  As conservation scientist Stuart Blanch from WWF-Australia glumly observed, “Koalas have gone from no-listing to vulnerable to endangered within a decade.  This is a shockingly fast decline.”

The koala species has been savaged by an assortment of environmental changes, many of them of human making.  Through the 1920s, hundreds of thousands were shot for their fur.  Then came the devastating effects of tree-clearing in such states as Queensland and New South Wales for reasons of urban and agricultural development.  The effects were such that they led the Australian Koala Foundation in the mid-1990s to urge the Queensland government to place the species on the endangered list.

Over the vicious summer of 2019-2020, the Blackfire bushfires killed some 5,000 and affected 24% of the habitats in New South Wales alone.  The entire conflagration is said, according to WWF-Australia, to have “killed, injured or affected in some way” 60,000 koalas.

The endangered status imposes no obligation upon the government to actually take any measures, odd as that sounds, but Prime Minister Scott Morrison never misses a chance to advertise a funding spray.  At the end of January, a joint media release from his office and that of Environment Minister Sussan Ley announced that $50 million would be provided “to boost the long-term protection and recovery efforts for Australia’s koalas.”

The package would, in the Prime Minister’s words, aid in “restoring koala habitat, improving our understanding of koala populations, supporting training in koala treatment and care, and strengthening research into koala health outcomes.”

On February 11, Ley was tooting and hooting away with another announcement that levels of protection for the species would be boosted “under National Environmental Law.”  The government was “taking unprecedented action to protect the koala, working with scientists, medical researchers, veterinarians, communities, states, local governments and Traditional Owners.”

When struggling for answers, those in power find it best to defer matters to a committee or working group.  Not wishing to buck this tendency, Ley announced that the Threatened Species Scientific Committee would be considering “the status of the Koala.”

The language of the announcement was a jarring mix of promotion and doom, with the doom element – namely, declaring the koala as endangered in three jurisdictions – buried in over the rainbow promises of protection. “Together we can ensure a healthy future for the koala and this decision, along with the total $74 million we have committed to koalas since 2019 will play a key role in that process.”

Such empty displays of political theatre are acts of distraction and denial.  The koalas may have been offered “a nice new word,” huffed Deborah Tabart, veteran chairwoman of the Australia Koala Foundation, “but behind all the photo opportunities and political rhetoric they continue to approve the destruction of the koala habitat.”

Little is made of climate change, a phenomenon which Morrison has found hard to contend with.   There is also little in the way of teeth in the proposed actions.  Blanch makes the point that slapping an endangered status upon a species is one thing but, in this case, it “won’t stop koalas from sliding towards extinction unless it’s accompanied by stronger laws and landholder incentives to protect their forest homes.”

The Australian Koala Foundation also notes the absence of specific legislation across the country to protect koalas and their habitat.  It recommends the drafting and passage of the Koala Protection Act, with a focus on protecting the trees themselves.  “The reason we have been so clear about protection of trees is because if you are a Koala and lose your home, you have nothing to eat, and you are lost, leaving you more susceptible to threats such as cars and dogs.”

The organisation claims to have a “precise list of trees” covering the geographic scope of the koala and insists that the onus be placed on any developer to demonstrate that their actions “will be benign to the landscape.”

With such stewards of the environment as Ley, animal species are doomed.  This was predictable enough.  For decades, Australia’s environmental portfolio has been leased, if not bought outright, by fossil fuel and developer interests.  It was Ley who used her good offices to convince international officialdom that the world need not worry about the ailing health of the Great Barrier Reef.  It was yet another example of the odious “She’ll be right, mate” syndrome.

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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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***

Walking through the low hills of the Naqab as the sun sets and the moon comes up is an experience that allows us to imagine what Palestine was like before it was torn apart by Zionists and what can still be saved if we act fast.

The ruins of the Palestinian village of Sataf sit on the slope of a beautiful hill on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Today the area is a Jewish National Foundation (JNF) park called “Har Eitan,” or Mount Eitan. It is covered in pine trees that were planted by the JNF to hide the Zionist crime of ethnic cleansing, a crime that has been designated as a crime against humanity.

In 2021, massive fires broke out on the hills surrounding Jerusalem and countless pines were burned, including the ones around Sataf. There is an 8 kilometer trail that goes around the mountain and people use it to hike and jog and sometimes ride mountain bikes. Parts of this trail are very steep and in some cases these steep parts go on for a good mile.

When I am in Jerusalem, Sataf is where I like to run, and the day after my arrival here in mid-February I went on a run. I don’t always run the full 8 kilometer circle because those steep hills are a killer, but this time I did. Running through the mountain I saw burnt towering pine trees, standing like a monument to the arrogance and stupidity of British and Zionist settlers and colonizers who think they know what’s good for the “colony.”

As I ran, I saw laborers, mostly Palestinians, cutting down these tall burnt matchsticks and I could see for the first time that the ground was visible. The plain earth under the trees was visible after all these years, and there was Palestinian landscape right there alive and well.

The terraces that were built and cultivated by Palestinian farmers throughout the centuries are still there, as are the olive trees, the occasional fig, and countless almonds that are now in full bloom. It is cold and rainy in Jerusalem now and so the ground is covered with small pink cyclamens and tall pancratium with white flowers that grow everywhere this time of year.

Trees planted by the Jewish National Fund engulf the ruins of Palestinian homes in Sataf. Photo | Zochrot

Reality confronts nature

The Northern Naqab is also green this time of year. Vast green spaces that have not yet been spoiled by Zionist encroachment allow for a truly wonderful getaway for an afternoon. Walking through the low hills of the Naqab as the sun sets and the moon comes up is an experience that allows us to imagine what Palestine was like before it was torn apart by Zionists and what can still be saved if we act fast. The reality of life in Palestine could hardly be more frightening and less inspiring than the natural phenomena I was describing.

Better still to do this with young Palestinian Bedouins from the Naqab who know the land and appreciate its value and beauty in ways that privileged settlers could never comprehend. I had an opportunity to have a chat with some young Palestinian Bedouins in Bi’r Al-Saba. It was a small gathering organized ad-hoc by activist friends who reject Zionism, stand up to defend their lands, and demand their right to maintain their way of life.

An Israeli woman who happened to be present when I spoke stormed out of the meeting. She said that I and the organizers were poisoning the young minds of these Palestinians. This arrogance, which is sadly characteristic among Zionists, leads many to believe that the problem is not the crimes against humanity perpetrated against the Palestinians in the Naqab but rather their peers and people like me talking to them about it.

Sheikh Jarrah

In a moment of caring in the midst of madness and violence, like a lotus flower rising from the mud, a clown was walking among the crowd at the Sheikh Jarrah protest. I had seen her before many times; she gives out little heart-shaped stickers and in the summer she has a little spray bottle and she sprays people with cold water. The police brutalize her as they do anyone who dares to challenge them, even a clown.

In the protest that took place on Friday, February 18 she was there. The police acted with hate and brutality that matched the Amnesty International definition of Israeli crimes as Crimes against Humanity. At one point the clown, whose name I don’t know, stood in a row with other protesters facing the Israeli terror squads. They wanted the protesters to back off and immediately began to push.

When these guys push, they do it with the brutality of a herd of mad buffalos. The clown was pushed so hard it looked as though her entire torso was going to snap off. When the pushing and shoving begins, everyone runs or gets trampled. The violence was unprovoked, inexcusable and certainly unnecessary. The only violence during these protests comes from the police.

Sometimes empathy is all we have

Later in the evening, before I left the scene, I walked over to the clown to say thank you and see if she was alright. She was standing next to one of the older gentlemen, who lives in Sheikh Jarrah. Just as many of the other veteran residents of this neighborhood, he cannot wrap his mind around the reality that is unfolding around him. One cannot blame him, since it is a madness that no healthy mind can understand.

This gentleman was venting; then he went from venting to lecturing, then to expressing his rage and frustration, and then again confusion. The whole time I stood there she was present, listening to the man go on and on. She reached her hand out to me for a moment to say, “I know you’re here,” and she kept listening with her heart open to this man whose life is being terrorized by maniacal, racist, violent gangs who have the full weight of the Israeli state behind them. He clearly needed to speak out, even if it was to a clown.

The enormity of the process that is unfolding in Sheikh Jarrah is hard for people to grasp. Those of us who show up to express solidarity and to stand with the Palestinians who are victims of this crime against humanity cannot possibly feel the pain and fear that the Palestinians, who live through it and whose lives are being ruined, experience. To see this Palestinian gentleman stand before a clown and vent his feelings, and to see the heartfelt way in which she was listening, was a great way to end a very difficult day.

A stun grenade

About 10 minutes after I had left, while I was walking to my car, I heard two loud explosions. It was strange because the protest had ended, the police were just casually standing around and all that remained were people from the neighborhood singing and dancing. But that too needed to stop so they threw two stun grenades into the crowd.

The battle for Sheikh Jarrah could not be more important. The only way we can prevent the total destruction of the lives of the Palestinians in Jerusalem – and the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, in particular – is by demanding that governments and nongovernmental organizations around the world apply the recommendations of Amnesty International’s report on Israeli apartheid, including compelling Israel to grant Palestinians their human rights, guarantee their right of return, and provide them with reparation for the loss of land and property they have endured under Israeli occupation.

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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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“The human damage of the blockade is incalculable. No Cuban family is spared from the effects of this inhuman policy. Nobody could honestly state that it has no actual impact on the population…The blockade is a massive, flagrant and systematic violation of the human rights of all Cuba’s people. According to Article II c) of the Geneva Convention of 1948, it constitutes an act of genocide…This is an extraterritorial economic war against a small country, already adversely affected by the recession and global economic crisis caused by the pandemic that has deprived us of much needed income.”  – Bruno Rodríguez, Cuban Foreign Minister speaking at the UN, June 2021

Successive US governments have carried out a campaign of destabilisation and subversion against the Cuban Revolution for more than six decades. Fundamental to this policy has been the US blockade.

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TAKE ACTION
Dear President Biden, End the US blockade!

To mark the 60th anniversary of the US blockade, CSC has luanched an open letter calling on President Joe Biden to reverse Trump’s sanctions and end the US blockade.

Please add your name today.

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Sixty years ago on 3 February 1962 President John F. Kennedy formalised the US blockade of Cuba by signing ‘Proclamation 3447 – Embargo on All Trade with Cuba.’ The policy officially came into play a few days later, at midday on 7 February. There were already several acts of economic and physical aggression from the US government that preceded this date. In 1959 President Eisenhower approved a programme of raids and sabotage. By 1960 he had also cancelled Cuba’s sugar quota by 95 per cent; used the existing Trading with the Enemy Act to block most US exports; and pressured Latin American countries to cut ties with the island and expel it from the Organisation of American States. In the first year of his presidency, Kennedy gave the green light to the Bay of Pigs invasion and banned US citizens from visiting Cuba without a special licence in 1961.

But it was Kennedy’s 1962 Proclamation that officially started the longest blockade in the world, and signalled the beginning of a hostile policy that his own legal advisors determined “could be regarded by Cuba and other Soviet bloc nations as an act of war.”

And it is a war: economic warfare intended to inflict the maximum suffering on the Cuban people. This was the explicitly stated goal of the policy as set out in a 1960 State Department memorandum which calculated that by “denying money and supplies to Cuba,” the US could “bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”

With the exceptions of President Carter, who briefly ended travel restrictions, and two years of rapprochement under Barack Obama’s presidency, successive US administrations have maintained and tightened the blockade.

In 1982 Regan placed Cuba on the US ‘State Sponsors of Terrorism’ list hindering international financial transactions. In 1992 Congress passed the Cuban Democracy Act, which included restrictions on US subsidiaries in other countries and prevented ships from travelling to the US for 18 months after docking in Cuba. Congressman Robert Torricelli who sponsored the Act said it was intended to “wreak havoc on that island.”

The 1996 Helms-Burton Act codified the extraterritorial nature of the blockade, providing measures to penalise any company that invested in properties nationalised by the Cuban government, and to give support to groups that sought a change in the Cuban government and economic system. Until President Trump, every US president for 23 years waived the part of this legislation (Title III) which enabled Cuban-American former owners of properties to sue for damages.

President Trump launched a draconian policy of “maximum pressure” against Cuba and in less than four years introduced 243 new sanctions and punitive measures – 90 of which cruelly came during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The impact of the blockade on the lives of Cubans has been brutal. In 1997 the American Association for World Health reported that it had “dramatically harmed the health and nutrition of large numbers of ordinary Cuban citizens” and “caused a significant rise in suffering — and even deaths — in Cuba” through “critical shortages of even the most basic medicines and medical hardware.”

Cuba estimates it has cost the economy more than $135 billion in the last six decades. Between April 2019 and March 2020, financial loses amounted to $5.570 billion. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the cruelty and immorality of the sanctions. In July 2020, a UN special rapporteur concluded the blockade was “obstructing humanitarian responses to help the country’s health-care system fight the COVID-19 pandemic.”

In June 2021, Oxfam joined US NGOs to blast the policy which they said “did nothing to help the Cuban people” and that “seeking to provoke hunger, especially during a global pandemic is unjust and immoral.” They called the Biden administration’s decision to defend their position at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) vote “a shameful embarrassment.”

30 years of UN votes

This year will also witness the 30th United Nations General Assembly vote on Cuba’s annual resolution demanding an end to the US sanctions. Since 1992 the UN has condemned the blockade, apart from in 2020 when the vote was postponed due to the pandemic. All along, the United States and Israel have opposed the resolution, alone on ten occasions. Only once have they abstained: in 2016, the year that Obama travelled to Havana following the all too brief rapprochement in Cuba-US relations. Twelve months later Donald Trump was in the White House and the US vote reverted to the norm. In June 2021, 184-2 countries voted in favour of Cuba. Only the US and Israeli governments stood against the rest of the world – Colombia, Ukraine and Brazil abstained.

The US blockade has not achieved its objective of overturning the Cuban Revolution. It has alienated the US government in Latin America, brought condemnation from around the world, and caused immeasurable pain to the Cuban people. The only people to have benefited from the failed policy are those exile groups in Florida, beneficiaries of a ‘regime change’ industry which has seen millions of dollars in US government funding channelled to them through USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy.

In 2011, describing the blockade policy, former US Senator Gary Hart said: “Though it started out to be a measure of an administration’s resistance to Castro’s politics, it very soon became a straitjacket whereby first-generation Cuban-Americans wielded inordinate political power over both parties and constructed a veto over rational, mature diplomacy.”

The same can be said today. Florida politicians wield undue influence on the White House. President Biden has maintained Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure”, even though its key architects and supporters – right-wing, Republican Cuban Americans in Florida – are unlikely to vote for him for doing so.

For the last few years, as a result of Trump’s extra sanctions and the pandemic, Cubans have faced an increasingly dire economic situation. Food shortages, long queues, and a lack of medicines have pushed the nation into the worst economic and humanitarian crisis it has faced in recent history.

In the midst of such hardship, Cuba has continued to inspire. It sent more than 4,000 medics to 40 countries to help fight COVID-19. It started to roll out its ambitious ‘Tarea Vida’ (Life Project) plan to confront global warming and rising sea levels on the island. And most impressively, it has developed homegrown COVID-19 vaccines which have saved countless lives in Cuba, and may provide a lifeline to countries in the global south.

Climate change and global pandemics bring real threats. Engaging with Cuba on these issues would be in the best interests of the US as well as Cuba. But first the White House needs to break away from an archaic blockade policy, born in the early days of the ‘Cold War.’

With the stroke of a pen, President Biden could reverse all of Trump’s measures, reopen negotiations with the Cuban government, and start working towards normalising relations and ending the blockade.

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TAKE ACTION
Dear President Biden, End the US blockade!

To mark the 60th anniversary of the US blockade, CSC has luanched an open letter calling on President Joe Biden to reverse Trump’s sanctions and end the US blockade.

Please add your name today.

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It’s hard to exaggerate just how energized the Washington elite has been by the outbreak of war in Europe. The resurgent Russian menace clearly portends a prosperous future of ever larger defense budgets, not to mention offering a much-needed reprieve from the domestic tumult of a fraying political system.

Of course, it all very well may foretell a calamitous global conflagration as well. But for many in Washington, that appears to be the point.

Appearing on CNN Saturday, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander of Europe Wesley Clark mused on the potential of catapulting the world into a nuclear war.

Speaking to Jim Acosta, Clark offered that “a lot of people are talking about a no-fly zone… I’m recommending we look at things like this.”

Clark, it must be noted, came to prominence leading the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in order to back separatist rebels in Kosovo. To be clear then: separatists in Kosovo, good–separatists in the Donbas, bad.

Russiagater’s favorite GOP lawmaker, Adam Kinzinger, has similarly advocated for the establishment of a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

Recall that the last no-fly zone NATO established led to scores of civilian deaths in Libya. But no matter that.

Thus, “all options are on the table,” including a no-fly zone apparently. So as Moscow puts its nuclear forces on high alert, there are those in Washington actually agitating for the shooting down of Russian warplanes. Although, as Clark bizarrely continued, “[Putin] has chemical weapons, maybe he has nuclear weapons.” Maybe?

Acosta didn’t challenge Clark on his absurd pronouncement on Russia’s nuclear status. Instead, Acosta opined on Putin’s mental state, recklessly asserting, “It seems like he’s gone mad. He’s gone mad!”

Image on the right: Adam Schiff (Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons)

One can imagine an American CNN viewer fed the Washington propaganda of Russia evil, Putin mad, wondering why the hell the force for good that is the US military just doesn’t go in already and take out this “next Hitler.” After all, as another prominent Russiagater Adam Schiff has asserted, the US must “fight Russia over there [so] we don’t have to fight Russia here.”

But maybe a no-fly zone is too much. Sanctions are needed instead. We need to make the Russian economy scream.

Officials in Washington are now reportedly looking at attempting to remove the Russian economy in its entirety from the SWIFT banking system, which they deem the “nuclear weapon of sanctions.” An apt name, given that such a move would likely do significant damage to the American economy as well. Amazing how Democrats in the Congress are so willing to risk their electoral lives for Ukraine’s NATO membership, but are never so willing to risk it on anything like addressing climate change or providing healthcare to all Americans.

The Russian sanctions are reported to be based on the Iran model. But what have the sanctions on Tehran done other than cause needless suffering for ordinary Iranians? Have sanctions turned the Iranian people against their government? No. The truth is that sanctions never work the way their proponents claim. They are not humane alternatives to war either; they are war.

Not only that, sanctions can easily lead to further escalation. There’s a direct line from the oil embargo of Imperial Japan and the start of the second world war in the Pacific. Are we really going to fall into a catastrophic global conflict over an attempt to fulfill the dream of easing the sale of American made weapons systems to a newly minted NATO regime in Kyiv?

Who is it that has gone mad?

But maybe we ought to pump the breaks on the WWIII talk for now. Clark went on in his CNN appearance to speculate that Russian generals will do the job for us and will eventually stand up to Putin and end this war.

Not likely, of course. If generals were to be counted on to stand up and stop illegal criminal wars the people of Afghanistan and Iraq would have been spared the hell of US imperialism. But US generals have a long and storied history of not standing up. Oh, well. But we shouldn’t conflate Iraq and Afghanistan with Ukraine. It’s all so different.

As CBS foreign correspondent Charlie D’Agata explained the difference, “this place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades…this is a relatively civilized, relatively European” place. One wonders what the people in Afghanistan and Iraq have to say about those “relatively civilized, relatively European” invading hordes who unleashed those conflicts that raged for decades. That would be the very same “civilized” people who now appear poised to play nuclear chicken with Russia.

But whether the Russian generals abandon their orders or not is ultimately a moot point. Rest assured; the fate of Ukraine is actually in American hands. As Clark asserted, it’s “up to us. It is about American leadership, ultimately.”

It was much the same across the Sunday shows this week. Military and political elites derided Moscow’s aggression against a sovereign state (a war crime for thee, not for me) and boasted about how the US and its NATO lackies were ultimately the ones with the power to shape events on the global stage.

The sun never sets on American hubris.

Let us pray Washington’s spiking war fever is in reality nothing but a reckless grift meant to help pump more money into the coffers of American arms manufacturers. But for an American leadership that has seemingly long since gone mad, there’s no telling where the grift ends and the barbarism begins.

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Ben Schreiner is an American writer.

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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.

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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. 

Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

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Scott Ritter, a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, discusses the military invasion of Ukraine by Russia with Richard Medhurst.

According to Ritter, this is a massive Russian operation that aims to “demilitarize” and “denazify” Ukraine which means two things. One, Ukrainian military will cease to exist. And two, Ukrainian government will be gone because President Putin says it is a Nazi government.

Watch the interview below.

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February 21, 2022, the Canadian Parliament approved Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s motion to invoke the Emergencies Act in response to the peaceful trucker protest against vaccine mandates

Under the Act, Canadian banks can seize the personal bank accounts of anyone suspected of participating in or supporting the protest, and these financial surveillance powers are intended to become permanent

February 14, 2022, Canadian finance minister Chrystia Freeland said the government was using the Emergencies Act to broaden Canada’s anti-money-laundering and terrorist financing rules to cover crowdfunding platforms and their payment service providers. The broadened surveillance power requires all digital transactions, including cryptocurrencies, to be reported to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Center of Canada. (Fintrac)

What’s happening in Canada should be a sobering wakeup call for the whole world. Governments intend to control dissent through financial blackmail, which is why they’re also pushing for programmable central bank digital currencies (CBDCs)

Programmable currency is digital cash programmed to ensure it can only be spent on essentials or goods that an employer or government deems to be sensible. In other words, the issuer of the money would have complete control over how you spend your own money, and could punish you for undesirable opinions or behavior by restricting your purchasing ability or seizing your funds altogether

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February 21, 2022, the Canadian Parliament approved Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s motion to invoke the Emergencies Act, with 185 votes for and 151 against, in response to the peaceful trucker protest against vaccine mandates.¹ While Trudeau in a February 14, 2022, press conference (above) promised the Act would be limited in time, geographical location and scope, he’s already reneging on that promise.

Financial Surveillance Powers Will Be Permanently Expanded

The act was invoked to allow the government to physically disperse the trucker convoy without actually listening to their complaint, and to punish anyone who has supported the protest.

Under the act, banks are empowered to seize the personal bank accounts of anyone suspected of participating in the protest, or supporting it with as little as a $25 donation. Disturbingly, the surveillance powers over financial transactions granted by the act are actually intended to become permanent. As reported by National Review:²

“In a February 14 news conference, Canadian finance minister Chrystia Freeland said that the government was using the Emergencies Act to broaden ‘the scope of Canada’s anti-money-laundering and terrorist financing rules so that they cover crowdfunding platforms and the payment service providers they use.’

That broadened power requires all forms of digital transactions, including cryptocurrencies, to be reported to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Center of Canada. (I.e., ‘Fintrac’).

‘As of today, all crowdfunding platforms and the payment service providers they use must register with Fintrac, and they must report large and suspicious transactions to Fintrac,’ Freeland said.

She justified the move as a way to ‘mitigate the risk’ of ‘illicit funds’ and ‘increase the quality and quantity of intelligence received by Fintrac and make more information available to support investigations by law enforcement’ …

Freeland said the trucker convoy, which had assembled to protest coronavirus restrictions, had ‘highlighted the fact’ that digital assets and funding mechanisms ‘weren’t captured’ by the Canadian government’s pre-existing surveillance powers.

As a result, she said, ‘the government will also bring forward legislation to provide these authorities to FinTrac on a permanent basis.’”

As noted by the National Review, we can already tell what the Canadian government will do with those expanded surveillance powers. We’re seeing their intentions in action. By invoking the Act, Trudeau has given himself the unilateral power to destroy the lives of Canadians who happen to disagree with him, regardless of the issue at hand.

Without court order or due process, the government can now freeze bank accounts, cancel insurance policies and revoke drivers’ licenses, and the victims have no recourse or remedy.

“All this, of course, flies in the face of Trudeau’s promise that the Emergencies Act powers would be temporary,” National Review notes, adding:³

“When he announced his invocation of the order, he promised the Canadian people that his expanded authorities would ‘be time-limited, geographically targeted, as well as reasonable and proportionate to the threats they are meant to address.’ Not a single part of that sentence has proved to be true.”

What’s happening in Canada should be a sobering wakeup call for the whole world. They’re showing us exactly what’s in store for all of us. Governments will basically control dissent through financial tyranny and blackmail.

The next step in that direction is the implementation of programmable digital currencies, worldwide. As reported by The Telegraph in June 2021, the Bank of England has already started moving on a programmable central bank digital currency (CBDC), and there’s no doubt that this is the plan of all central banks worldwide.⁴

Executive board member of the European Central Bank, Fabio Panetta, mentioned it in his December 10, 2021, lecture on the future of digital money in Rome, Italy.⁵

What’s meant by a “programmable” currency? As explained by The Telegraph,⁶ “Digital cash could be programmed to ensure it is only spent on essentials, or goods which an employer or government deems to be sensible.” In other words, the issuer of the money would have complete control over how you, the recipient, spend it.

“Tom Mutton, a director at the Bank of England, said during a conference … that programming could become a key feature of any future central bank digital currency …” The Telegraph reported.⁷

“He said … what happens if one of the participants in a transaction puts a restriction on [future use of the money]? There could be some socially beneficial outcomes from that, preventing activity which is seen to be socially harmful in some way. But at the same time it could be a restriction on people’s freedoms.’”

Absolute Control Through Financial Slavery

That programmable currency might restrict freedom is probably the understatement of the century. It’s an absolute given. Imagine your employer, your government and the central bank itself having the privilege to dictate how you spend your own money!

Imagine a third party deciding how much you’re allowed to spend on rent, what kind of food or clothing you’re allowed to buy, or what hobbies you’re allowed to spend money on and when. That’s the power they intend to obtain, and current events in Canada prove it.

The “socially beneficial outcomes” Mutton is hinting at are basically that an unelected cabal will have the ability to micromanage your personal finances, and hence dictate your behavior in every area of your life. As noted by British activist and radio presenter Maajid Nawaz in the Joe Rogan clip above, with a programmable CBDC, the British government would have complete control over anyone who disagrees with their policies or activities.

For example, with other surveillance, they could determine that he was planning to appear on Rogan’s show and simply reprogram his CBDCs with the click of a button, such that he would not be allowed to purchase a plane ticket. So much for that plan then.

Of course, CBDCs will exist by themselves. They’re designed to be used together with digital ID and a social credit score, like that in China. The COVID vaccine passports are one type of platform that could be used for this, but even if a state or country rejects vaccine passports, don’t for a moment think you’re out of the woods, not by a long-shot. Chances are, they’ll introduce a digital ID system instead, which will serve the exact same function.

Global Leadership Has Been Infiltrated

In the full Rogan interview, Nawaz goes on to discuss how governments around the world have been infiltrated by World Economic Forum (WEF) members whose agenda it is to implement global authoritarianism. As reported by Life Site News:⁸

“… the WEF has installed its members in national leadership roles around the world to further the organization’s sprawling authoritarian agenda. Explaining that government leaders worldwide have begun lifting COVID-19 mandates and restrictions while leaving in place an apparatus of digital tracking and identification that forms the embryonic stages of a digital social credit score.

Nawaz said the WEF under Schwab has worked on ‘embedding people in government who are subscribed to’ the Great Reset agenda. ‘That’s what they say themselves,’ Nawaz said, pointing out that the so-called Great Reset, whose advocates have famously asserted that by 2030 people will ‘own nothing and be happy,’ is explained in detail on the WEF’s website.⁹

In a 2020 book entitled ‘COVID-19: The Great Reset,’ Schwab openly argued that the COVID-19 response should be used to ‘revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions’ …

The WEF has clearly articulated¹⁰ its interest in pursuing a global digital ID system. ‘So this is going to be this never-ending process to slowly move the goal posts,’ Rogan surmised. ‘Towards more and more authoritarianism,’ Nawaz added. ‘Checkpoint society. It’s all there. They’ve told us this.’”

How exactly has the WEF infiltrated governments and leadership roles around the world? In part by getting members of its Young Global Leaders group elected or installed in key positions. Would it surprise you to learn that Trudeau went through Schwab’s Young Global Leaders program?

Other members whose dictatorial mindset cannot be disguised any longer are New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron. Bill Gates and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg have also gone through the program, and both are clearly supporting and promoting The Great Reset agenda through their respective business ventures.

Globalists Plan to Seize Control of Health Systems Worldwide

Your money isn’t the only thing the globalist cabal wants to control, however. In a February 18, 2022, article, Dr. Peter Breggin, author of “COVID-19 and the Global Predators: We Are the Prey,”¹¹warns that the next move in the globalists’ war on humanity is to seize control over the health care systems of the entire world:¹²

“We have discovered the next move of the global predators — already in progress — in their escalating assaults against individual and political freedom. The next big assault on human freedom involves a legalized takeover of national healthcare systems by the World Health Organization (WHO).

This stealth attack — with its initial plans already backed by many nations — will begin full implementation in 2024 if it is not quickly recognized and fought! … The Chinese Communist influence over WHO has been solid for more than a decade, and the party was able to install Tedros without any competition.

He became the first and only Director-General who is not a physician and instead is a communist politician. Now the Director-General of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus — known simply as Tedros — has unveiled plans to take charge of all global health.

While addressing the WHO Executive Committee on January 24, 2022, Director-General Tedros spelled out his global health plan, including his final priority for his enormous scheme: ‘The fifth priority is to urgently strengthen WHO as the leading and directing authority on global health, at the center of the global health architecture.’

Tedros’s closing words to his report to the executive committee are chilling in their grandiosity and echo Marxist exhortations to cheering mobs by a Stalin, Mao, or Xi Jinping: ‘We are one world, we have one health, we are one WHO.’ Tedros seeks to become super-Fauci for the world, and, like Fauci, he will do it on behalf of the global predators.”

Health Fascism

As explained by Breggin, the global health care takeover really began with Gates’ Decade of Vaccines, announced in 2010 at the WEF’s annual meeting in Davos. At that time, Gates installed Dr. Anthony Fauci on his vaccine advisory board, thereby guaranteeing his plans would receive support from the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which Fauci is the head of. Breggin continues:¹³

“A theme for the Decade of Vaccines was ‘Public-Private Partnerships Drive Progress in Vaccine Development, Delivery’ — essentially the precursor to the Great Reset establishing a world governance of public and private health united in the spirit of fascism.

By 2012, Gates achieved official UN approval for his scheme, establishing a broad network of global predators aimed at exploiting and dominating humanity through public health. Communist China would play a prominent role through its control over the UN and WHO and through its close relationships with global predators like Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab, Mike Bloomberg, Big Tech executives, and many other billionaires and world leaders.

A decade and more later, during COVID-19, WHO has proven its usefulness to the predators in orchestrating science, medicine, and public health in the suppression of human freedom and the generation of wealth and power for the globalists.”

Under the guise of a global pandemic, the WHO, the WEF and all of its installed leaders in government and private business, were able to roll out a plan that has been decades in the making. The pandemic was a perfect cover. In the name of keeping everyone “safe” from infection, the globalists have justified unprecedented attacks on democracy, civil liberties and personal freedoms, including the right to choose your own medical treatment.

Now, the WHO is gearing up to make its pandemic leadership permanent, and to extend it into the health care systems of every nation. “The idea is ‘the principle of health for all’ — universal health care organized by WHO as part of the Great Reset,” Breggin explains.

Pandemic Treaty Is Being Established

May 24, 2021, the European Council announced it supported the establishment of an international Pandemic Treaty, under which the WHO would have the power to replace the constitutions of individual nations with its own constitution under the banner of “pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.”¹⁴

“The world has already seen how any pandemic emergency, real or concocted, now or in the future, could then justify WHO taking over the entirety of government operations of sovereign nations, robbing all individuals of their freedoms, and fully crushing the democratic republics of the world,” Breggin warns.¹⁵

“The spirit of Communism can be felt throughout the document. We are told that the ‘purpose’ of the new strategy will be ‘guided by a spirit of solidarity, anchored in the principles of fairness, inclusion, and transparency.’ Notice, as in all pronouncements by global predators; there is no mention of individual rights, political liberty, or national sovereignty.

The great engine of human progress, human freedom, will be replaced by the great destroyer of humanity, collectivism, under the rule of the elite. Tucked into the report were the real goals … Here are three main purposes or goals of the proposed treaty:

The report adds, ‘More specifically, such an instrument can enhance international cooperation in a number of priority areas, such as surveillance, alerts, and response, but also in general trust in the international health system.’ Clearly, they were building support for Tedros’s January 24, 2022 announcement that WHO would take over the international health care system.”

Even Your Food Will Be Under Their Control

In addition to your finances and your health care, the global cabal also intend to control the food supply and dictate what you can and cannot eat, in the name of combating climate change and saving the planet. The Great Reset¹⁶ is indeed the reset of life and society as we know it. Not a single area will be left untouched.

Sustainable development, Agenda 21, the 2030 Agenda, the New Urban Agenda, the Fourth Industrial Revolution,¹⁷ “Build Back Better,”¹⁸ green economy, the Green New Deal, the Paris Climate Agreement and the global warming movement in general all refer to and are part of The Great Reset agenda and its resource-based economics.

The common goal of all these movements and agendas is to capture all of the resources of the world — the ownership of them — for a small global cabal that has the know-how to program the computer systems that will ultimately dictate the lives of everyone.

When they talk about “wealth redistribution,” what they’re really referring to is the redistribution of resources from us to them. The goal is for you to own nothing. Everything you need, from the shirt on your back to a roof over your head, you’ll have to rent from the globalist owners.

Even the food you put into your mouth is planned to be under their complete control. To this end, the WEF has partnered with the EAT Forum, which will set the political agenda for global food production. The EAT Forum was cofounded by the Wellcome Trust, which in turn was established with the financial help of GlaxoSmithKline.

EAT collaborates with nearly 40 city governments across Africa, Europe, Asia, North and South America and Australia, and maintains close relationships with imitation meat companies such as Impossible Foods, which was cofunded by Google, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.¹⁹ Gates has also been gobbling up farmland, becoming one of the largest private land owners in the U.S.²⁰

EAT has developed a “Planetary Health Diet” that is designed to be applied to the global population and entails cutting meat and dairy intake by up to 90%, replacing it largely with foods made in laboratories, along with cereals and oil.²¹

Not surprisingly, Gates is on record urging Western nations to stop eating real meat altogether,²²and articles have been published in the past three years insisting people need to get used to eating bugs and drinking reclaimed sewage,²³ all in the name of sustainability and saving the planet.

Being able to see the globalists’ plan as clearly as we can see it now, we have an obligation to future generations to resist, denounce and refuse any and all implementations of the technocratic agenda. We can win, for the simple fact that there are more of us than there are of them, but we have to be vocal about it — we need to join forces and present a united front, resisting peacefully, like the Canadian truckers.

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Notes

¹ Breitbart February 21, 2022

^2, 3 National Review February 20, 2022

^4, 6, 7 The Telegraph June 21, 2021 (Archived)

⁵ ECB Europa December 10, 2021

⁸ Life Site News February 21, 2022

⁹ WEF The Great Reset

¹⁰ WEF Digital Identity

¹¹ COVID-19 and the Global Predators: We Are the Prey

^{12, 13, 14, 15} America Out Loud February 18, 2022

¹⁶ Technocracy.news June 25, 2020

¹⁷ Gov.uk The Fourth Industrial Revolution

¹⁸ UN.org April 22, 2020

¹⁹ The Defender November 9, 2020

²⁰ Land Report, January 11, 2021

²¹ Eatforum.com The Planetary Health Diet

²² Forbes March 22, 2021

²³ The Conversation September 1, 2019

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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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. 

Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

---

The defenders of Ukraine are bravely resisting Russian aggression, shaming the rest of the world and the UN Security Council for its failure to protect them. It is an encouraging sign that the Russians and Ukrainians are holding talks in Belarus that may lead to a ceasefire. All efforts must be made to bring an end to this war before the Russian war machine kills thousands more of Ukraine’s defenders and civilians, and forces hundreds of thousands more to flee. 

But there is a more insidious reality at work beneath the surface of this classic morality play, and that is the role of the United States and NATO in setting the stage for this crisis.

President Biden has called the Russian invasion “unprovoked,” but that is far from the truth. In the four days leading up to the invasion, ceasefire monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) documented a dangerous increase in ceasefire violations in Eastern Ukraine, with 5,667 violations and 4,093 explosions.

Most were inside the de facto borders of the Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk (LPR) People’s Republics, consistent with incoming shell-fire by Ukraine government forces. With nearly 700 OSCE ceasefire monitors on the ground, it is not credible that these were all “false flag” incidents staged by separatist forces, as U.S. and British officials claimed.

Whether the shell-fire was just another escalation in the long-running civil war or the opening salvos of a new government offensive, it was certainly a provocation. But the Russian invasion has far exceeded any proportionate action to defend the DPR and LPR from those attacks, making it disproportionate and illegal.

In the larger context though, Ukraine has become an unwitting victim and proxy in the resurgent U.S. Cold War against Russia and China, in which the United States has surrounded both countries with military forces and offensive weapons, withdrawn from a whole series of arms control treaties, and refused to negotiate resolutions to rational security concerns raised by Russia.

In December 2021, after a summit between Presidents Biden and Putin, Russia submitted a draft proposal for a new mutual security treaty between Russia and NATO, with 9 articles to be negotiated. They represented a reasonable basis for a serious exchange. The most pertinent to the crisis in Ukraine was simply to agree that NATO would not accept Ukraine as a new member, which is not on the table in the foreseeable future in any case. But the Biden administration brushed off Russia’s entire proposal as a nonstarter, not even a basis for negotiations.

So why was negotiating a mutual security treaty so unacceptable that Biden was ready to risk thousands of Ukrainian lives, although not a single American life, rather than attempt to find common ground? What does that say about the relative value that Biden and his colleagues place on American versus Ukrainian lives? And what is this strange position that the United States occupies in today’s world that permits an American president to risk so many Ukrainian lives without asking Americans to share their pain and sacrifice?

The breakdown in U.S. relations with Russia and the failure of Biden’s inflexible brinkmanship precipitated this war, and yet Biden’s policy “externalizes” all the pain and suffering so that Americans can, as another wartime president once said, “go about their business” and keep shopping. America’s European allies, who must now house hundreds of thousands of refugees and face spiraling energy prices, should be wary of falling in line behind this kind of “leadership” before they, too, end up on the front line.

At the end of the Cold War, the Warsaw Pact, NATO’s Eastern European counterpart, was dissolved, and NATO should have been as well, since it had achieved the purpose it was built to serve. Instead, NATO has lived on as a dangerous, out-of-control military alliance dedicated mainly to expanding its sphere of operations and justifying its own existence. It has expanded from 16 countries in 1991 to a total of 30 countries today, incorporating most of Eastern Europe, at the same time as it has committed aggression, bombings of civilians and other war crimes.

In 1999, NATO launched an illegal war to militarily carve out an independent Kosovo from the remnants of Yugoslavia. NATO airstrikes during the Kosovo War killed hundreds of civilians, and its leading ally in the war, Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, is now on trial at The Hague for the appalling war crimes he committed under the cover of NATO bombing, including cold-blooded murders of hundreds of prisoners to sell their internal organs on the international transplant market.

Far from the North Atlantic, NATO joined the United States in its 20-year war in Afghanistan, and then attacked and destroyed Libya in 2011, leaving behind a failed state, a continuing refugee crisis and violence and chaos across the region.

In 1991, as part of a Soviet agreement to accept the reunification of East and West Germany, Western leaders assured their Soviet counterparts that they would not expand NATO any closer to Russia than the border of a united Germany. U.S. Secretary of State James Baker promised that NATO would not advance “one inch” beyond the German border. The West’s broken promises are spelled out for all to see in 30 declassified documents published on the National Security Archive website.

After expanding across Eastern Europe and waging wars in Afghanistan and Libya, NATO has predictably come full circle to once again view Russia as its principal enemy. U.S. nuclear weapons are now based in five NATO countries in Europe: Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Turkey, while France and the U.K. already have their own nuclear arsenals. U.S. “missile defense” systems, which could be converted to fire offensive nuclear missiles, are based in Poland and Romania, including at a base in Poland only 100 miles from the Russian border.

Another Russian request in its December proposal was for the United States to simply rejoin the 1988 INF Treaty(Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty), under which both sides agreed not to deploy short- or intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe. Trump withdrew from the treaty in 2019 on the advice of his National Security Adviser, John Bolton, who also has the scalps of the 1972 ABM Treaty, the 2015 JCPOA with Iran and the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea dangling from his gun-belt.

None of this can justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but the world should take Russia seriously when it says that its conditions for ending the war and returning to diplomacy are Ukrainian neutrality and disarmament. While no country can be expected to completely disarm in today’s armed-to-the-teeth world, neutrality could be a serious long-term option for Ukraine.

There are many successful precedents, like Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, Finland and Costa Rica. Or take the case of Vietnam. It has a common border and serious maritime disputes with China, but Vietnam has resisted U.S. efforts to embroil it in its Cold War with China, and remains committed to its long-standing “Four Nos” policy: no military alliances; no affiliation with one country against another; no foreign military bases; and no threats or uses of force.

The world must do whatever it takes to obtain a ceasefire in Ukraine and make it stick. Maybe UN Secretary General Guterres or a UN special representative could act as a mediator, possibly with a peacekeeping role for the UN. This will not be easy – one of the still unlearned lessons of other wars is that it is easier to prevent war through serious diplomacy and a genuine commitment to peace than to end a war once it has started.

If and when there is a ceasefire, all parties must be prepared to start afresh to negotiate lasting diplomatic solutions that will allow all the people of Donbas, Ukraine, Russia, the United States and other NATO members to live in peace. Security is not a zero-sum game, and no country or group of countries can achieve lasting security by undermining the security of others.

The United States and Russia must also finally assume the responsibility that comes with stockpiling over 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons, and agree on a plan to start dismantling them, in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the new UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

Lastly, as Americans condemn Russia’s aggression, it would be the epitome of hypocrisy to forget or ignore the many recent wars in which the United States and its allies have been the aggressors: in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti,Somalia, Palestine, Pakistan, Libya, Syria and Yemen.

We sincerely hope that Russia will end its illegal, brutal invasion of Ukraine long before it commits a fraction of the massive killing and destruction that the United States and its allies have committed in our illegal wars.

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Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher with CODEPINK and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. 

They are regular contributors to Global Research.

Featured image is from CODEPINK

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.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

 

From March 10-12, 1972, an estimated 7,000-10,000 African Americans gathered in Gary, Indiana for the National Black Political Convention (NBPC).

The confab was covered extensively in the Black, left and mainstream press due to the significance of the event which brought together a wide spectrum of political currents within the African American community from elected officials, functionaries of the Democratic and Republican parties to leaders of revolutionary grassroots organizations such as the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the Congress of African People (CAP).

One account of the event from the Indiana Historical Bureau says:

“Approximately 3,000 official delegates and 7,000 attendees from across the United States met at Gary’s West Side High School from March 10 to March 12. The attendees included a prolific group of Black leaders, such as Reverend Jesse Jackson, Coretta Scott King, Amiri Baraka, Muslim leader Minister Louis Farrakhan, Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale, and Malcolm X’s widow Betty Shabazz. Organizers sought to create a cohesive political strategy for Black Americans by the convention’s end.”

Gary, an industrial city known for the production of steel, was representative of the then emerging Black political movement sweeping urban areas throughout the United States. In 1967, Carl B. Stokes won the mayoral elections in Cleveland, Ohio against a white opponent who appealed to the racist sentiments of those feeling threatened by the Hough Rebellion of the previous year.

That same year, 1967, Richard Hatcher won the mayoral race in Gary which was by that time a majority African American city. Millions of African Americans between the First and Second World Wars flooded into the cities seeking employment in industry and to escape the violent institutional racism of the Jim Crow South. After World War II, more African American migrated into the urban areas of the North and West while those remaining in the South launched the independent Civil Rights Movement beginning with the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56), the sit-in movement and the Freedom Rides of 1960-1961.

A new radicalized African American political mood was in evidence by the early years of the 1960s, when organizations such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) took over the leadership of the mass struggle for the elimination of segregation and disenfranchisement. By 1963-64, urban rebellions accelerated making their mark on at least 200 cities from Los Angeles on the west coast to Chicago and Detroit in the Midwest all the way South to Birmingham, Cambridge, Nashville, Atlanta, Miami and Memphis to New Jersey, Philadelphia and New York City in the east.

The gains won through the mass struggles led to legislative reforms with the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, adopted as the flames of rebellions across the U.S. raged encompassing broader segments of the Black population.

However, the racist system struck back with repression including the killings of Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mark Clark, Fred Hampton, Medgar Evers, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, Carol Denise McNair (four African American girls in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham), among countless others. Hundreds of members of the Black Panther Party and the Republic of New Africa, and numerous organizations, were jailed, imprisoned and driven into exile by the early 1970s. The NBPC represented an effort to realign the African American struggle through the building of broader unity across ideological perspectives.

Outcomes of the NBPC

The strength of the Gary Convention was that it was able to mobilize such a broad-based collection of Black organizational leadership. At the same time, this very important advancement in the overall movement contained the elements which hampered its effectiveness. A myriad of issues and questions were before the African American people in 1972.

Image on the right: Shirley Chisolm Presidential Campaign, 1972 (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)

New York Congresswoman Shirley Chisolm, the first Black woman elected to the House of Representatives, had launched a presidential campaign during the primaries. Chisolm was an advocate of progressive social policies including the full rights for women. Her campaign for the Democratic Party nomination gained significant support including an endorsement from Huey P. Newton, former political prisoner and co-founder of the Black Panther Party.

At the same time, there were numerous organizations which called for the immediate formation of a mass Black political party independent of the Democrats and Republicans. This question was the subject of intense debate and saw formidable opposition from African American elected officials such as Congressman Charles Diggs of Detroit and then State Senator Coleman A. Young, who would be elected as the first Black mayor of the City of Detroit the following year of 1973. Resolutions related to the support for an independent party led to the walk out of some of the Michigan delegation including Diggs and Young.

The Indiana Historical Bureau said of the outcomes of the NBPC that:

“After intense debate, a steering committee tentatively adopted a National Black Agenda. The committee officially published the 68-page document on May 19, Malcolm X’s birthday. The resolutions included Black representation in Congress proportionate to the U.S. Black population, a guaranteed minimum income of $6,500 for four-person households, a 50% cut in the defense and space budgets, and an end to national trade with countries that supplied the U.S. drug market. The resolutions, designed to move Black Americans towards ‘self-determination and true independence,’ represented major, yet tenuous compromise among the Black community.”

The aftermath of the NBPC saw the formation of a National Black Political Assembly (NBPA) which held conferences in 1974 and 1976. By 1980, there was a call to transform the NBPA into the National Black Independent Political Party (NBIPP). This same year saw the eruption of a rebellion in Miami while the failure of the presidency of Jimmy Carter had further alienated many African American activists from the Democratic Party. The disillusionment of African Americans, a key demographic within the electoral framework of Democratic politics along with the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the subsequent seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran for more than a year, contributed to the ascendancy of President Ronald Reagan and the advent of a new era of imperialist militarism, political repression and economic recession.

Although the NBIPP was never able to consolidate into an effective fighting organization for various reasons which extend beyond the scope of this analysis, the presidential primary campaigns of Reverend Jesse Jackson during 1984 and 1988 mobilized African Americans, labor and some elements within the U.S. left into a coalition which was able to raise issues such as plant closings, Palestinian statehood and the liberation of South Africa and Namibia from the apartheid settler colonialism.

Lessons from Gary for Today

At present the legislative agenda of President Joe Biden is stalled within Congress largely due to the obstruction from moderate Democratic lawmakers. The progressive wing of the Democratic House and Senate are at variance with the moderates and conservatives. Republicans within the House and Senate are united in their opposition to all initiatives proposed by any faction of the Democratic Party.

Inflation is escalating rapidly while the social spending aspects of the Biden agenda has been largely abandoned as a legislative measure. While sinking rapidly within the polls, Biden has turned to provoking a military conflict with the Russian Federation over the status of Ukraine and the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

A convergence of the burgeoning economic crisis with the prospects for a protracted war in Eastern Europe could result in major setbacks for the Democrats in the 2022 midterms. Such a scenario does not bode well for the African American working class and impoverished.

In similar historical circumstances, African Americans have called their own independent conferences, conventions and congresses. Beginning in 1829 during the period of antebellum enslavement in response to the Ohio Exclusionary laws related to African people, a convention movement arose which lasted through the Civil War until the conclusion of the 19th century.

A resource website on this political history says of the convention movement that:

“Providing a powerful structure and platform for Black organizing, more than 200 state and national Colored Conventions were held between 1830 and the 1890s. Filling churches, city hall buildings, courthouses, lecture halls, and theaters, the well-attended Colored Conventions illustrate the diversity of cultural life and political thought among Black communities and their leaders. The meetings included the most prominent writers, organizers, church leaders, newspaper editors, educators, and entrepreneurs in the canon of early African American leadership—and tens of thousands more whose names went unrecorded. While most delegates were male, Black women participated through their newspaper work, entrepreneurial activism, political commitments, and especially their presence. They embodied the movement’s core values and challenged traditional beliefs about women’s place in public society.”

Although it is difficult to predict which form this independent political tradition will take in the 21st century, undoubtedly African Americans will assess their social situation and move towards new tactics and strategies aimed at achieving full equality and self-determination.

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Gary Mayor Richard Hatcher opening the NBPC, March 1972 (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)

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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Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

---

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. 

Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

---

 

In the weeks leading up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, those warning of the possible dangers of U.S. involvement were assured that such concerns were baseless. The prevailing line insisted that nobody in Washington is even considering let alone advocating that the U.S. become militarily involved in a conflict with Russia. That the concern was based not on the belief that the U.S. would actively seek such a war, but rather on the oft-unintended consequences of being swamped with war propaganda and the high levels of tribalism, jingoism and emotionalism that accompany it, was ignored. It did not matter how many wars one could point to in history that began unintentionally, with unchecked, dangerous tensions spiraling out of control. Anyone warning of this obviously dangerous possibility was met with the “straw man” cliché: you are arguing against a position that literally nobody in D.C. is defending.

Less than a week into this war, that can no longer be said. One of the media’s most beloved members of Congress, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), on Friday explicitly and emphatically urged that the U.S. military be deployed to Ukraine to establish a “no-fly zone” — i.e., American soldiers would order Russia not to enter Ukrainian airspace and would directly attack any Russian jets or other military units which disobeyed. That would, by definition and design, immediately ensure that the two countries with by far the planet’s largest nuclear stockpiles would be fighting one another, all over Ukraine.

Kinzinger’s fantasy that Russia would instantly obey U.S. orders due to rational calculations is directly at odds with all the prevailing narratives about Putin having now become an irrational madman who has taken leave of his senses — not just metaphorically but medically — and is prepared to risk everything for conquest and legacy. This was not the first time such a deranged proposal has been raised; days before Kinzinger unveiled his plan, a reporter asked Pentagon spokesman John Kirby why Biden has thus far refused this confrontational posture. The Brookings Institution’s Ben Wittes on Sunday demanded: “Regime change: Russia.” The President of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, celebrated that “now the conversation has shifted to include the possibility of desired regime change in Russia.”

Having the U.S. risk global nuclear annihilation over Ukraine is an indescribably insane view, as one realizes upon a few seconds of sober reflection. We had a reminder of that Sunday morning when “Putin ordered his nuclear forces on high alert, reminding the world he has the power to use weapons of mass destruction, after complaining about the West’s response to his invasion of Ukraine” — but it is completely unsurprising that it is already being suggested.

There is a reason I devoted the first fifteen minutes of my live video broadcast on Thursday about Ukraine not to the history that led us here and the substance of the conflict (I discussed that in the second half), but instead to the climate that arises whenever a new war erupts, instantly creating propaganda-driven, dissent-free consensus. There is no propaganda as potent or powerful as war propaganda. It seems that one must have lived through it at least once, as an engaged adult, to understand how it functions, how it manipulates and distorts, and how one can resist being consumed by it.

As I examined in the first part of that video discussion, war propaganda stimulates the most powerful aspects of our psyche, our subconscious, our instinctive drives. It causes us, by design, to abandon reason. It provokes a surge in tribalism, jingoism, moral righteousness and emotionalism: all powerful drives embedded through millennia of evolution. The more unity that emerges in support of an overarching moral narrative, the more difficult it becomes for anyone to critically evaluate it. The more closed the propaganda system is — either because any dissent from it is excluded by brute censorship or so effectively demonized through accusations of treason and disloyalty — the more difficult it is for anyone, all of us, even to recognize one is in the middle of it.

When critical faculties are deliberately turned off based on a belief that absolute moral certainty has been attained, the parts of our brain armed with the capacity of reason are disabled. That is why the leading anti-Russia hawks such as former Obama Ambassador Michael McFaul and others are demanding that no “Putin propagandists” (meaning anyone who diverges from his views of the conflict) even be permitted a platform, and why many are angry that Facebook has not gone far enough by banning many Russian media outlets from advertising or being monetized. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), using the now-standard tactic of government officials dictating to social media companies which content they should and should not allow, announced on Saturday: “I’m concerned about Russian disinformation spreading online, so today I wrote to the CEOs of major tech companies to ask them to restrict the spread of Russian propaganda.” Suppressing any divergent views or at least conditioning the population to ignore them as treasonous is how propagandistic systems remain strong.

It is genuinely hard to overstate how overwhelming the unity and consensus in U.S. political and media circles is. It is as close to a unanimous and dissent-free discourse as anything in memory, certainly since the days following 9/11. Marco Rubio sounds exactly like Bernie Sanders, and Lindsay Graham has no even minimal divergence from Nancy Pelosi. Every word broadcast on CNN or printed in The New York Timesabout the conflict perfectly aligns with the CIA and Pentagon’s messaging. And U.S. public opinion has consequently undergone a radical and rapid change; while recent polling had shown large majorities of Americans opposed to any major U.S. role in Ukraine, a new Gallup poll released on Friday found that “52% of Americans see the conflict between Russia and Ukraine as a critical threat to U.S. vital interests” with almost no partisan division (56% of Republicans and 61% of Democrats), while “85% of Americans now view [Russia] unfavorably while 15% have a positive opinion of it.”

The purpose of these points, and indeed of this article, is not to persuade anyone that they have formed moral, geopolitical and strategic views about Russia and Ukraine that are inaccurate. It is, instead, to highlight what a radically closed and homogenized information system most Americans are consuming. No matter how convinced one is of the righteousness of one’s views on any topic, there should still be a wariness about how easily that righteousness can be exploited to ensure that no dissent is considered or even heard, an awareness of how often such overwhelming societal consensus is manipulated to lead one to believe untrue claims and embrace horribly misguided responses.

To believe that this is a conflict of pure Good versus pure Evil, that Putin bears all blame for the conflict and the U.S., the West, and Ukraine bear none, and that the only way to understand this conflict is through the prism of war criminality and aggression only takes one so far. Such beliefs have limited utility in deciding optimal U.S. behavior and sorting truth from fiction even if they are entirely correct — just as the belief that 9/11 was a moral atrocity and Saddam (or Gaddafi or Assad) was a barbaric tyrant only took one so far. Even with those moral convictions firmly in place, there are still a wide range of vital geopolitical and factual questions that must be considered and freely debated, including:

1. The severe dangers of unintended escalation with greater U.S. involvement and confrontation toward Russia;
2. The mammoth instability and risks that would be created by collapsing the Russian economy and/or forcing Putin from power, leaving the world’s largest or second-largest nuclear stockpile to a very uncertain fate;
3. The ongoing validity of Obama’s long-standing view of Ukraine (echoed by Trump), which persisted even after Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014 following a referendum, that Ukraine is of vital interest only to Russia and not the U.S., and the U.S. should never risk war with Russia over it;
4. The bizarre way in which it has become completely taboo and laughable to suggest that NATO expansion to the Russian border and threats to offer Ukraine membership is deeply and genuinely threatening not just to Putin but all Russians, even though that warning has emanated for years from top U.S. officials such as Biden’s current CIA Director William Burns as well as scholars across the political spectrum, including the right-wing realist John Mearsheimer and the leftist Noam Chomsky.
5. The clearly valid questions regarding actual U.S intentions concerning Ukraine: i.e., that a noble, selfless and benevolent American desire to protect a fledgling democracy against a despotic aggressor may not be the predominant goal. Perhaps it is instead to revitalize support for American imperialism and intervention, as well as faith in and gratitude for the U.S. security and military state (the Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer suggested this week that this is the principal outcome in the West of the current conflict). Or the goal may be the re-elevation of Russia as a vital and grave threat to the U.S. (the above polling data suggests this is already happening) that will feed weapons purchases and defense and intelligence budgets for years to come. Or one might see a desire to harm Russia, as vengeance for the perception that Putin helped defeat Hillary Clinton and elected Donald Trump (that the U.S. is using Ukraine to “fight Russia over there” was explicitly stated by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA)).Or perhaps the goal is not to “save and protect” Ukraine at all, but to sacrifice itby turning that country into a new Afghanistan, where the U.S. arms a Ukrainian insurgency to ensure that Russia remains stuck in Ukraine fighting and destroying it for years (this scenario was very compellingly laid out in one of the best analyses of the Russia/Ukraine conflict, by Niccolo Soldo, which I cannot recommend highly enough).

   Jeff Rogg, historian of U.S. intelligence and an assistant professor in the Department of Intelligence and Security Studies at the Citadel, wrote in The LA Times this week that the CIA has already been training, funding and arming a Ukrainian insurgency, speculating that the model may be the CIA’s backing of the Mujahideen insurgency in Afghanistan that morphed into Al Qaeda, with the goal being “to weaken Russia over the course of a long insurgency that will undoubtedly cost as many Ukrainian lives as Russian lives, if not more.”

Again, no matter how certain one is about their moral conclusions about this war, these are urgent questions that are not resolved or even necessarily informed by the moral and emotional investment in a particular narrative. Yet when one is trapped inside a system of a complete consensus upheld by a ceaseless wave of reinforcing propaganda, and when any questioning or dissent at all is tantamount to treason or “siding with the enemy,” there is no space for such discussions to occur, especially within our minds. When one is coerced — through emotional tactics and societal inventive — to adhere only to one script, nothing that is outside of that script can be entertained. And that is all by design.

Besides 9/11 and the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, Americans have been subjected to numerous spates of war propaganda, including in 2011 when then-President Obama finally agreed to order the U.S. to participate in a France/UK-led NATO regime change operation in Libya, as well as throughout the Obama and early Trump years when the CIA was fighting a clandestine and ultimately failed regime change war in Syria, on the same side as Al-Qaeda, to overthrow Bashar al-Assad. In both instances, government/media disinformation and emotional manipulation were pervasive, as it is in every war. But those episodes were not even in the same universe of intensity and ubiquity as what is happening now and what happened after 9/11 — and that matters a great deal for understanding why so many are vulnerable to the machinations of war propaganda without even realizing they are affected by it.

One realization I had for the first time during Russiagate was that history may endlessly repeat itself, but those who have not lived through any such history or paid attention to it previously will not know about it and thus remain most susceptible to revisionism or other tactics of deceit. When Russiagate was first unveiled as a major 2016 campaign theme — through a Clinton campaign commercial filled with dark and sinister music and innuendo masquerading as “questions” about the relationship between Trump and the Kremlin — I had assumed when writing about it for the first time that most Americans, especially those on the left taught to believe that McCarthyism was one of the darkest moments for civil liberties, would instantly understand how aggressively the CIA and FBI disseminate disinformation, how servile corporate media outlets are to those security state agencies, how neocons are always found at the center of such manipulative tactics, and how potent this sort of propaganda is. The common theme is creating a foreign villain said to be of unparalleled evil or at least evil not seen since Hitler, then accusing one’s political adversaries of being enthralled by or captive to them. We have witnessed countless identical cycles throughout U.S history.

But I also quickly realized that millions of Americans — either due to age or previous political indifference — began paying attention to politics for the first time in 2016 due to fear of Trump, and thus knew little to nothing about anything that preceded it. Such people had no defenses against the propaganda narrative and deceitful tactics because, for them, it was all new. They had never experienced it before and thus had no concept of who they were applauding and how such official government/media disinformation campaigns are constructed. Each generation is thus easily programmed and exploited by the same propaganda systems, no matter how discredited they were previously.

Although such episodes are common, one has to travel back to the period of 2001-03, following the 9/11 attack on U.S. soil, and through the invasion of Iraq, in order to find an event that competes with the current moment in terms of emotional intensity and lockstep messaging throughout the West. Comparing that historical episode to now is striking, because the narrative themes deployed then are identical to those now; the very same people who led the construction of that narrative and accompanying rhetorical tactics are the ones playing a similar role now; and the reaction that these themes trigger are virtually indistinguishable.

Many who lived through the enduring trauma and mass rage of 9/11 as an adult need no reminder of what it was like and what it consisted of. But millions of Americans now focused on Ukraine did not live through that. And for many who did, they have, with the passage of two decades, revised or now misremember many of the important details of what took place. It is thus worthwhile to recall the broad strokes of what we were conditioned to believe to see how closely it tracks the consensus framework now.

Both the 9/11 attack and the invasion of Iraq were cast as clear Manichean battles: one of absolute Good fighting absolute Evil. That framework was largely justified through its companion prism: the subsequent War on Terror and specific wars (in Iraq and Afghanistan) represented the forces of freedom and democracy (the U.S. and its allies) defending itself against despotism and mad, primitive barbarism. We were attacked not because of decades of intervention and aggression in their part of the world but because they hated us for our freedom. That was all one needed to know: it was a war between enlightened democrats and psychotic savages.

As a result, no nuance was permitted. How can there be room for nuance or even questioning when such clear moral lines emerge? A binary framework was thus imposed: “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists,” decreed President George W. Bush in his speech to the Joint Session of Congress on September 20, 2001. Anyone questioning or disputing any part of the narrative or any of the U.S. policies championed in its name stood automatically accused of treason or being on the side of The Terrorists. David Frum, fresh off his job as a White House speechwriter penning Bush’s war speeches, in which Bush proclaimed the U.S. was facing an “Axis of Evil,” published a 2003 article in National Review about right-wing opponents of the invasion of Iraq, aptly titled: “Unpatriotic Conservatives.” Go look how cheaply and easily people were accused of being on the side of The Terrorists or traitors for the slightest deviation from the dominant narrative.

David Frum, National Review, Mar. 25, 2003

Like all effective propaganda, the consensus assertions about 9/11 and Iraq had a touchstone to the truth. Indeed, some of the fundamental moral claims were true. The civilian-targeting 9/11 attack was a moral atrocity, and the Taliban and Saddam really were barbaric despots (including when the U.S. had previously supported and funded them). But those moral claims only took one so far: specifically, they did not take one very far at all. Many who enthusiastically embraced those moral propositions ended up also embracing numerous falsehoods emanating from the U.S. Government and loyal media outlets, as well as supporting countless responses that were both morally unjustified and strategically unwise. Polls at the start of the Iraq War showed large majorities in favor of and believing outright falsehoods (such as that Saddam helped personally plan the 9/11 attack), while polls years later revealed a “huge majority” which now views the invasion as a mistake. Similarly, it is now commonplace to hear once-unquestioned policies — from mass NSA spying, to lawless detention, to empowering the CIA to torture, to placing blind faith in claims from intelligence agencies — be declared major mistakes by those who most vocally cheerlead those positions in the early years of the War on Terror.

In other words, correctly apprehending key moral dimensions to the conflict provided no immunity against being propagandized and misled. If anything, the contrary was true: it was precisely that moral zeal that enabled so many people to get so carried away, to be so vulnerable to having their (often-valid) emotions of rage and moral revulsion misdirected into believing falsehoods and cheering for moral atrocities in the name of vengeance or righteous justice. That moral righteousness crowded out the capacity to reason and think critically and unified huge numbers of Americans into herd behavior and group-think that led them to many conclusions which, two decades later, they recognize as wrong.

It should not be difficult, even for those who did not live through those events but who can now look back at what happened, to see the overwhelming similarities between then and now. The role of bin Laden and Saddam — as unhinged, mentally unwell, unrepentant mass murderers and despots, the personification of pure evil — is now occupied by Putin. “Putin is evil. Every American watching what’s happening in Ukraine should know that,” instructed Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), daughter of the author of the virtually identical 9/11 and Iraq morality scripts. Conversely, the U.S. and its allies are the blame-free, morally upright spreaders of freedom, defenders of democracy and faithfully adhering to a rules-based international order.

This exact framework remains in place; only the parties have changed. Now, anyone questioning this narrative in whole or in part, or disputing any of the factual claims being made by the West, or questioning the wisdom or justice of the role the U.S. is playing, is instantly deemed not “on the side of the terrorists” but “on the side of Russia”: either for corrupt monetary reasons or long-hidden and hard-to-explain ideological sympathy for the Kremlin. “There is no excuse for praising or appeasing Putin,” announced Rep. Cheney, by which — like her father before her and McFaul now — she means anyone deviating in any way from the full panoply of U.S. assertions and responses. Wyoming’s vintage neocon also instantly applied this accusatory treason matrix to former President Trump, arguing that he “aids our enemies” and his “interests don’t seem to align with the interests of the United States of America.”

Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone, Feb. 24, 2022

Everyone watching this week-long mauling of dissenters understood the messaging and incentives: either get on board or stay silent lest you be similarly vilified. And that, in turn, meant there were fewer and fewer people willing to publicly question prevailing narratives, which made it in turn far more difficult for anyone else to separate themselves from unified group-think.

One instrument of propaganda that did not exist in 2003 but most certainly does now is social media, and it is hard to overstate how much it is exacerbating all of these pathologies of propaganda. The endless flood of morally righteous messaging, the hunting down of and subsequent mass-attacks on heretics, the barrage of pleasing-but-false stories of bravery and treachery, leave one close to helpless to sort truth from fiction, emotionally manipulative fairy tales from critically scrutinized confirmation. It is hardly novel to observe that social media fosters group-think and in-group dynamics more than virtually any other prior innovation, and it is unsurprising that it has intensified all of these processes.

Another new factor separating the aftermath of 9/11 from the current moment is Russiagate. Starting in mid-2016, the Washington political and media class was obsessed with convincing Americans to view Russia as a grave threat to them and their lives. They created a climate in Washington in which any attempts to forge better relations with the Kremlin or even to open dialogue with Russian diplomats and even just ordinary Russian nationals was depicted as inherently suspect if not criminal. All of that primed American political culture to burst with contempt and rage toward Russia, and once they invaded Ukraine, virtually no effort was needed to direct that long-brewing hostility into an uncontrolled quest for vengeance and destruction.

That is why it is anything but surprising that incredibly dangerous proposals like the one by Rep. Kizinger for deployment of the U.S. military to Ukraine have emerged so quickly. This orgy in high dudgeon of war propaganda, moral righteousness, and a constant flow of disinformation produces a form of collective hysteria and moral panic. In his 1931 novel Brave New World, Aldous Huxley perfectly described what happens to humans and our reasoning process when we are subsumed by crowd sentiments and dynamics:

Groups are capable of being as moral and intelligent as the individuals who form them; a crowd is chaotic, has no purpose of its own and is capable of anything except intelligent action and realistic thinking. Assembled in a crowd, people lose their powers of reasoning and their capacity for moral choice. Their suggestibility is increased to the point where they cease to have any judgment or will of their own. They become very ex­citable, they lose all sense of individual or collective responsibility, they are subject to sudden accesses of rage, enthusiasm and panic. In a word, a man in a crowd behaves as though he had swallowed a large dose of some powerful intoxicant. He is a victim of what I have called “herd-poisoning.” Like alcohol, herd-poison is an active, extraverted drug. The crowd-intoxicated individual escapes from responsibility, in­telligence and morality into a kind of frantic, animal mindlessness.

We have seen similar outbreaks many times over the last couple of decades, but nothing produces it more assuredly than war sentiments and the tribal loyalties that accompany them. And nothing exacerbates it like the day-long doom scrolling through Twitter, Facebook and Instagram which so much of the world is currently doing. Social media platforms, by design, enable one to block out all unpleasant information or dissident voices and only feed off content and claims that validate what they wish to believe.

Kinzinger’s call for a US-imposed no-fly zone is far from the only unhinged assertion or claim spewing forth from the U.S. opinion-shaping class. We are also witnessing a radical increase in familiar authoritarian proposals coming from U.S. politicians. Two other members of Congress who are most beloved by the media, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), suggested that all Russians should be immediately deported from the U.S., including Russian students studying at American universities. The rationale is similar to the one that drove FDR’s notorious World War II internment of all people of Japanese descent — citizens or immigrants — in camps: namely, in times of war, all people who come from the villain or enemy country deserve punishment or should be regarded as suspect. A Washington Post columnist, Henry Olsen, proposed banning all Russia athletes from entering the U.S.: “No Russian NHL, football, or tennis players so long as the war and claims on Ukrainian territory exist.”

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), long a vocal advocate of requiring congressional approval for the deployment by the president of military forces to war zones, argued on Friday that Biden’s troop movements to Eastern Europe constitute war decisions that constitutionally necessitate Congressional approval. “President Biden’s unilateral deployment of our Armed Forces to the European theater, where we now know they are in imminent hostilities, triggers the War Powers Act, necessitating that the President report to Congress within 48 hours,” he said. Sen. Lee added: “The Constitution requires that Congress must vote to authorize any use of our Armed Forces in conflict.”

For this simple and basic invocation of Constitutional principles, Lee was widely vilified as a traitor and Russian agent. “Are you running for Senator of Moscow? Because that’s where you belong,” one Democratic Congressional candidate, the self-declared socialist and leftist Joey Palimeno (D-GA), rhetorically asked. Now-perennial independent candidate Evan McMullin, formerly a CIA operative in Syria, dubbed Lee“Moscow Mike” for having raised this constitutional point, claiming he did so not out of conviction but “to distract from the fact that he traveled to Russia and brazenly appeased Vladimir Putin for his own political gain.”

Other than calling Lee a paid Russian agent and traitor, the primary response was the invocation of Bush/Cheney’s broad Article II executive power theories to insist that the president has the unfettered right to order troop deployments except to an active war zone — as if the possibility of engaging Russian forces was not a primary motive for these deployments. Indeed, the Pentagon itself said the troop deployments were to ensure the troops “will be ready if called upon to participate in the NATO Response Force” and that “some of those U.S. personnel may also be called upon to participate in any unilateral actions the U.S. may undertake.” Even if one disagrees with Lee’s broad view of the War Powers Act and the need for Congress to approve any decisions by the president that may embroil the country in a dangerous war, that Lee is a Kremlin agent and a traitor to his country merely for advocating a role for Congress in these highly consequential decisions reflects how intolerant and dissent-prohibiting the climate has already become.

Disinformation and utter hoaxes are now being aggressively spread as well. Both Rep. Kinzinger and Rep. Swalwell ratified and spread the story of the so-called “Ghost of Kyiv,” a Ukrainian fighter pilot said to have single-handedly shot down six Russian planes. Tales and memes commemorating his heroism viralized on social media, ultimately ratified by these members of Congress and other prominent voices. The problem? It is a complete hoax and scam, concocted through a combination of deep fake videos based on images from a popular video game. Yet to date, few who have spread this fraud have retracted it, while censorship-happy Big Tech corporations have permitted most of these fraudulent posts to remain without a disinformation label on it. We are absolutely at the point — even as demands escalate for systematic censorship by Big Tech of any so-called “pro-Russian” voices — where disinformation and fake news are considered noble provided they advance a pro-Ukrainian narrative.

Western media outlets have also fully embraced their role as war propagandists. They affirm any story provided it advances pro-Ukrainian propaganda without having the slightest idea whether it is true. A charming and inspiring story about a small group of Ukrainian soldiers guarding an installation in a Black Sea island went wildly viral on Saturday and ultimately was affirmed as truth by multiple major Western news outlets. A Russian warship demanded they surrender and, instead, they responded by replying: “fuck you, Russian warship,” their heroic last words before dying while fighting. Ukraine said “it will posthumously honor a group of Ukrainian border guards who were killed defending a tiny island in the Black Sea during a multi-pronged Russian invasion.” Yet there is no evidence at all that they died; the Russian government claims they surrendered, and the Ukrainian military subsequently acknowledged the same possibility.

Obviously, neither the Russian nor Ukrainian versions should be accepted as true without evidence, but the original, pleasing Ukrainian version should not either. The same is true of:

• the equally inspiring story that the Ukrainian military shot down two Russian Il-76s transport planes (no evidence);
• a Russian tank purposely and randomly ran over a civilian car (the video suggests a possible accident and, more importantly, subsequent news accountsacknowledged: “it wasn’t immediately clear if the armored vehicle was Russian or Ukrainian hardware, or when this crash took place”);
• a mega-viral thread from a member of the EU Parliament claiming Russian oligarchs and Putin were screaming at each other in a bunker in desperation (pronounced “likely disinfo” by the US-intel-friendly and vehemently anti-Russia site Bellingcat);
• a gratifying story that Turkey told Ukraine that it informed Russia it was barred from using Turkish straits to enter the Black Sea (Turkey denied telling this to President Zelensky and said they could not and would not do that, then on Sunday said they had determined these events constitute a “war” such that they may have the power them to ban both Ukraine and Russia, but had not yet decided to so);
• a thrilling photo of Zelensky in body armor on the front lines against Russia (it was from months ago), and,
• claims that Russia targeted a civilian apartment building with a missile (it appears at least possible that the missile was a misguided Ukrainian air defense weapon).

But we are way past the point where anyone cares about what is or is not factually true, including corporate outlets. Any war propaganda — videos, photos, unverified social media posts — that is designed to tug on Western heartstrings for Ukrainians or appear to cast them as brave and noble resistance fighters, or Russians as barbaric but failing mass murderers, gets mindlessly spread all over without the slightest concern for whether it is true. To be on social media or to read coverage from Western news outlets is to place yourself into a relentless vortex of single-minded, dissent-free war propaganda. Indeed, some of the above-referenced stories may turn out to be true, but spreading them before there is any evidence of them is beyond reckless, especially for media outlets whose role is supposed to be the opposite of propagandists.

None of this means the views you may have formed about the war in Ukraine are right or wrong. It is of course possible that the Western consensus is the overwhelmingly accurate one and that the moral framework that has been embraced is the correct prism for understanding this conflict. All sides in war wield propaganda, and that certainly includes the Russians and their allies as well. This article is not intended to urge the adoption of one viewpoint or the other.

It is, instead, intended to urge the recognition of what the effects of being immersed in one-sided, intense and highly emotionalized war propaganda are — effects on your thinking, your reasoning, your willingness to endorse claims or support policies, your comfort with having dissent either banished or inherently legitimized. Precisely because this propaganda has been cultivated over centuries to so powerfully and adeptly manipulate our most visceral reactions, it is something to be resisted even if — perhaps especially if — it is coming from the side or viewpoint you support.

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Remember how the notion of freedom was spun by the ideologues of neoliberalism for decades prior to COVID? The freedom to consume. The freedom to make money. The freedom to be plunged into poverty and debt.      

Platitudes about ‘individual responsibility’ and ‘standing on your own two feet’. A relentless ideological attack on the state and collectivism. Ideologically, at least, the individual and ‘the market’ were paramount. But in reality, of course, there was no genuine rolling back of the state: its machinery was used differently to facilitate the needs of global capital while attacking the labour movement.

In all this ‘freedom’, there was never much talk in the mainstream political and media narrative about the plight of the poor or workers who felt the brutal effects of the brave new world of neoliberal capitalism.

Never sufficient analysis either about offshoring manufacturing and service-sector jobs to cheap labour economies to boost profits. This was merely presented as efficiency and job creation for poorer countries, as if the owners of industry were on some kind of humanitarian mission.

But it was only ever the old colonialist mentality passed off in new clothing.

Today, this mentality manifests by subjecting poorer nations to IMF-World Bank ‘structural adjustment’ directives and beating them into being ‘business friendly’ and compliant with the needs of Western capital. Spin it any way you like, whether ‘foreign direct investment’ or ‘liberalising’ the economy, it amounts to richer countries merely using or loaning back money to the poorer countries (with strings) that they stole from them over the centuries.

Courtesy of lop-sided trade deals, the WTO and the international financial institutions, we see a model of ‘development’ characterised by indebtedness, displaced populations resulting from ‘infrastructure projects’ (to facilitate the needs of capital) and a deliberate running down of indigenous models of agriculture.

There was not much talk about ‘freedom’ in relation to the subsequent state-corporate economic brutality experienced by society’s most marginalised, highlighted for instance by Arundhati Roy in ‘The Ghosts of Capitalism’ – the ‘invisible’ and shoved-aside victims of a rampant neoliberalism, with a good dose of state-backed violence always on hand to secure compliance.

Their ‘freedom’ never amounted to much in the first place.

Economic structural violence waged against people, economies and ecosystems courtesy of elite interests bent on monopolising energy, money, food, land and violence across the globe.

Yet the system now purports to care about the well-being of those it persistently regards as ‘collateral damage’ and ‘economic fodder’. A system that by its very nature concentrates money, control and power at the top of the pyramid.

Consider that prior to COVID, Pfizer was “the least trusted company in the least trusted industrial sector in the United States”, according to Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice.

But we are supposed to have faith in Pfizer and disregard its lengthy corporate rap sheet and its unscrupulous profiteering practices regarding its COVID vaccine rollout across the globe. We are supposed to trust its products and its vaccine data that it is trying so hard, with help from the US Food and Drug Administration, to keep from the public.

At the same time, to facilitate uptake of Pfizer’s injections, we hear a lot about ‘collective responsibility’. A much-maligned concept in a dog-eat-dog neoliberal regime. Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau and others spin vaccine sceptics’ talk of ‘freedom’ of choice regarding what is allowed to be injected into their own bodies as selfish and the domain of right-wing women haters and fascists.

The right to protest, to free speech, to associate and so forth were (and often continue to be) suspended as people were locked down waiting for ‘the vaccine’ thanks to a virus that mainly targets those over 80 and those with compromised immune systems due to existing (serious) morbidities.

We have seen all manner of state interference in the private lives of citizens over the past two years.

Political leaders like Macron, Trudeau, Biden, Merkel and Arden – the frontline managers and facilitators of private capital – have seemingly become so concerned about the public’s welfare that their freedoms and rights must be trampled on by the state.

Those who demand freedom and have questioned the mainstream COVID narrative have been labelled ‘anti-vaxxers’, ‘granny killers’, irresponsible and as prioritising their own selfish needs over those of the collective.

Even those who claim to be of the ‘left’ have become part of the ideological apparatus of the state: joining in the chorus and defending tyranny as well as Big Pharma’s rushed-to-market injections and its right to your body and right to make billions in the process.

Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine brought in $37bn in 2021. Nick Dearden calculates the NHS has paid a mark-up of at least £2bn – six times the cost of the pay rise the UK government agreed to give nurses last year.

Moreover, Dearden argues companies like Pfizer behave more like hedge funds, buying up and controlling other firms and intellectual property, rather than traditional medical research companies.

He says:

“The truth is, they aren’t the sole inventors of the vaccine. That was the work of public money, university research and a much smaller company, Germany’s BioNTech. As one former US government official complained, the fact we call it the ‘Pfizer’ vaccine is ‘the biggest marketing coup in the history of American pharmaceuticals’.”

Even though many on the ‘left’ have campaigned against the brutality of capitalism over the years, they bought into the fear propaganda from the start without question, helping to pave the way for pharma’s distorted profits, the destruction of small businesses and the loss of countless livelihoods due to lockdowns.

They stood by and watched the mega rich accrue enormous profits. Research by Oxfam has shown that the wealth of the world’s billionaires increased by $3.9tn between March and December 2020. The world’s 10 richest billionaires collectively saw their wealth increase by $540bn over this period. In September 2020, Jeff Bezos could have paid all 876,000 Amazon employees a $105,000 bonus and still be as wealthy as he was before COVID.

While lockdowns and restrictions were imposed on ordinary people and small businesses, the winners were the likes of Amazon, Big Pharma and the tech giants. The losers were small enterprises and the bulk of the population, deprived of their right to work and an entire panoply of civil rights.

A report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) stated that COVID-19 policies had severely disrupted economies and labour markets in all world regions, with estimated losses of working hours equivalent to nearly 400 million full-time jobs in the second quarter of 2020, most of which were in emerging and developing countries.

Among the most vulnerable were the 1.6 billion informal economy workers, representing half of the global workforce, who were working in sectors experiencing major job losses or had seen their incomes seriously affected by lockdowns. Most of these were self-employed and in low-income jobs in the informal sector.

For policies that were supposedly brought in to protect health, there has also been immense damage resulting in lengthy non-COVID healthcare waiting lists for all manner of life-threatening diseases and conditions.

A more logical approach to protecting public health would have involved the promotion of a targeted strategy based on risk along with early intervention treatments as set out in the Great Barrington Declaration. But this was not even up for debate. Censorship and smears were the norm.

Locking the global population in their homes, or in places like India compelling millions to walk huge distances or travel in crowded conditions to return to the countryside, until a vaccine was made available smacks of incompetence or worse – a predetermined agenda.

Writing in the Contemporary Voice of Dalit journal (31 October 2021), researchers Krishna Ram and Shivani Yadav note the effects of COVID policies in India:

“The economic tumult caused by the pandemic over the past two years has the potential to double the nation’s poverty… Our calculations show that around 150–199 million additional people will fall under poverty in 2021–2022; a majority of which are from rural areas, owing to the immiserate nature of the rural economy. Further disaggregation reveals that the SC/ST [Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes], casual labour and the self-employed are the most impacted groups.”

It is clear who was influencing the lockdown-COVID public health policy. In a report by Yohan Tengra of the Awaken India Movement, it is described how the Gates Foundation and Big Pharma have infiltrated and co-opted key public health institutions at the national level in India, not least the COVID-19 National Task Force.

Tengra says his report has exposed:

“… not just the names of those who are sitting in this task force but also how they are financially connected to the pharmaceutical industry and vaccine mafia. This task force has been responsible for the aggressive push to lockdown, mandatory mask requirements, forced testing of asymptomatics, dropping ivermectin and hcq from the national protocol, suppressing vaccine adverse events and a lot more!”

It was fitting that an MP recently asked in Canada’s parliament just who does the government serve: Klaus Schawb and the World Economic Forum (WEF) or Canadian citizens?

A pertinent question. But any enquiry should look beyond the WEF to include the wider digital-financial-industrial complex which has used COVID as cover for bailing out and restructuring capitalism and trying to manage its long-term falling rate of profit.

These issues are at the heart of the ‘Great Reset’ or ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ that Klauss Schwab and others talk of. Concepts that – like neoliberal globalisation in the 1980s – are given a positive spin and which supposedly symbolise a brave new techno-utopian future.

The WEF, Big Finance, Big Tech, the Gates Foundation and Big Pharma have been heavily promoting the COVID-Great Reset agenda from the start. This has to date resulted in the reinvigoration of an ailing pharma sector with a multi-billion-dollar windfall, the eradication of smaller firms and jobs and the injection of much-needed liquidity into what were by late 2019/early 2020 collapsing financial markets.

Former WEF-sponsored ‘young global leaders’ like Trudeau, Macron, Merkel and Arden rose to the political helm of various countries. Destined for the top, they were groomed for their future role to steer a corporate-led global agenda.

Given AI-related automation combined with the levels of unemployment manufactured via the lockdowns, it is debatable whether a mass labour force and the means to reproduce it (through mass education, healthcare, etc) will still be required.

Today’s ‘global leaders’ will continue to fulfil their roles by managing dissent through mass surveillance and clamping down on civil rights as the effects of inflation (induced by the liquidity injected into the system), joblessness and post-COVID austerity measures kick in.

They will of course still facilitate freedom: that of capital first and foremost.

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 Renowned author Colin Todhunter specialises in development, food and agriculture. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) in Montreal.

Featured image is from OffGuardian

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Read Colin Todhunter’s e-Book entitled

Food, Dispossession and Dependency. Resisting the New World Order

We are currently seeing an acceleration of the corporate consolidation of the entire global agri-food chain. The high-tech/big data conglomerates, including Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Google, have joined traditional agribusiness giants, such as Corteva, Bayer, Cargill and Syngenta, in a quest to impose their model of food and agriculture on the world.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is also involved (documented in ‘Gates to a Global Empire‘ by Navdanya International), whether through buying up huge tracts of farmland, promoting a much-heralded (but failed) ‘green revolution’ for Africa, pushing biosynthetic food and genetic engineering technologies or more generally facilitating the aims of the mega agri-food corporations.

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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. 

Global Research does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

---

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could lead to bread shortages across parts of the Arab world, including war-torn Yemen, where millions are already on the brink of starvation.

According to a special briefing by the US-based Middle East Institute (MEI) earlier this week, “the Ukraine crisis could trigger renewed protests and instability in several MENA countries.”

The region is heavily reliant on wheat supplies from both countries in the conflict, with half of Ukraine’s wheat exports make their way to the Middle East North Africa region and Russia also providing a significant amount of wheat.

“If a war causes disruptions to these supplies, this could hit food import dependent countries like Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Lebanon, and others hard,” the report added.

“Between rising energy and food prices, the Ukraine crisis could trigger renewed protests and instability in several MENA countries.”

Last year, findings published by the US Department of Agriculture noted that the Middle East imported more than 36 million metric tons of wheat, most of which came from Russia and Ukraine. The region is also forecasted to increase its dependence on foreign grain, exacerbated by below-average rainfall and high temperatures, impacting wheat yields in Iran, Iraq and Syria.

In Yemen, bread is considered a luxury for millions, where the seven-year war has led to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

“Most people can barely afford the basic foods,” and the war in Ukraine will only “make things worse”, Walid Salah, 35, a civil servant in the capital Sanaa, told AFP.

Meanwhile, David Beasley, the World Food Programme’s (WFP) executive director, said the Ukraine-Russia area provides half the agency’s grains. The war, he said, “is going to have a dramatic impact”.

According to the WFP, 12.4 million people in Syria are also struggling with food insecurity, which prior to the 2011 uprising and ensuing civil war, was self-sufficient in meeting the needs of its population but now has to import food, last year importing 1.5 million tonnes of wheat mostly from Russia.

On Thursday, Syria’s Council of Ministers announced that the country will begin rationing its reserves of wheat and other essentials and basic goods, amid shortages caused by the conflict in Ukraine.

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Syria’s envoy to the United Nations Bassam al-Sabbagh accused the United States and other NATO members on 25 February of hindering efforts by the Syrian government to put an end to the 11 year-long war and rebuild the country.

In an address to the UN Security Council, Sabbagh said the occupation of large tracts of Syrian territory by the US perpetuates the activities of the armed groups that are causing instability in the country and the entire region.

“The suffering of the Syrian people continues as a result of the practices of Western countries whose interests and agendas have prevailed over the lives of Syrians and the security and stability of the region,” the Syrian envoy charged.

Sabbagh also slammed the sanctions that the US government has imposed on Damascus. He said such coercive measures have significantly reduced the ability for the Syrian government to access the financial capital needed to rebuild the country and to resettle the millions of people who were displaced by the western-backed insurgency.

He appealed to the UN to speak out against the “blatant violations of international law and the UN Charter” by the US.

Sabbagh emphasized that his country was food self-sufficient before the US illegally wrested control of most of Syria’s wheat producing regions.

Prior to the US occupation, the envoy said, Syria produced over 2.5 million tonnes of wheat per year but is now forced to import most of the wheat needed for domestic consumption.

Washington has deployed its troops across much of eastern and northeastern Syria under the pretext of preventing the oil fields in the region from falling into the hands of ISIS.

Damascus has, however, accused the US of using its occupation to loot and plunder Syrian resources, such as wheat and oil.

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Featured image: Bassam al-Sabbagh (Licensed under CC BY 2.0)

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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. 

Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

***

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.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

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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. 

Global Research does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

---

This article was originally published on Consortiumnews in 2015.

As the Ukrainian army squares off against ultra-right and neo-Nazi militias in the west and violence against ethnic Russians continues in the east, the obvious folly of the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy has come into focus even for many who tried to ignore the facts, or what you might call “the mess that Victoria Nuland made.”

Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs “Toria” Nuland was the “mastermind” behind the Feb. 22, 2014 “regime change” in Ukraine, plotting the overthrow of the democratically elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych while convincing the ever-gullible U.S. mainstream media that the coup wasn’t really a coup but a victory for “democracy.”

To sell this latest neocon-driven “regime change” to the American people, the ugliness of the coup-makers had to be systematically airbrushed, particularly the key role of neo-Nazis and other ultra-nationalists from the Right Sektor. For the U.S.-organized propaganda campaign to work, the coup-makers had to wear white hats, not brown shirts.

So, for nearly a year and a half, the West’s mainstream media, especially The New York Times and The Washington Post, twisted their reporting into all kinds of contortions to avoid telling their readers that the new regime in Kiev was permeated by and dependent on neo-Nazi fighters and Ukrainian ultra-nationalists who wanted a pure-blood Ukraine, without ethnic Russians.

Azov Battalion members. ( Gianluca Agostini/Wikimedia Commons)

Any mention of that sordid reality was deemed “Russian propaganda” and anyone who spoke this inconvenient truth was a “stooge of Moscow.” It wasn’t until July 7 that the Times admitted the importance of the neo-Nazis and other ultra-nationalists in waging war against ethnic Russian rebels in the east. The Times also reported that these far-right forces had been joined by Islamic militants. Some of those jihadists have been called “brothers” of the hyper-brutal Islamic State.

Though the Times sought to spin this remarkable military alliance neo-Nazi militias and Islamic jihadists as a positive, the reality had to be jarring for readers who had bought into the Western propaganda about noble “pro-democracy” forces resisting evil “Russian aggression.”

Perhaps the Times sensed that it could no longer keep the lid on the troubling truth in Ukraine. For weeks, the Right Sektor militias and the neo-Nazi Azov battalion have been warning the civilian government in Kiev that they might turn on it and create a new order more to their liking.

Clashes in the West

Oct. 8, 2014: U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland at a Ukrainian State Border Guard Service Base in Kiev. (U.S. Embassy Kyiv, Flickr)

Then, on Saturday, violent clashes broke out in the western Ukrainian town of Mukachevo, allegedly over the control of cigarette-smuggling routes. Right Sektor paramilitaries sprayed police officers with bullets from a belt-fed machine gun, and police backed by Ukrainian government troops returned fire. Several deaths and multiple injuries were reported.

Tensions escalated on Monday with President Petro Poroshenko ordering national security forces to disarm “armed cells” of political movements. Meanwhile, the Right Sektor dispatched reinforcements to the area while other militiamen converged on the capital of Kiev.

While President Poroshenko and Right Sektor leader Dmitry Yarosh may succeed in tamping down this latest flare-up of hostilities, they may be only postponing the inevitable: a conflict between the U.S.-backed authorities in Kiev and the neo-Nazis and other right-wing fighters who spearheaded last year’s coup and have been at the front lines of the fighting against ethnic Russian rebels in the east.

The Ukrainian right-wing extremists feel they have carried the heaviest burden in the war against the ethnic Russians and resent the politicians living in the relative safety and comfort of Kiev. In March, Poroshenko also fired thuggish oligarch Igor Kolomoisky as governor of the southeastern province of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Kolomoisky had been the primary benefactor of the Right Sektor militias.

So, as has become apparent across Europe and even in Washington, the Ukraine crisis is spinning out of control, making the State Department’s preferred narrative of the conflict that it’s all Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fault harder and harder to sell.

How Ukraine is supposed to pull itself out of what looks like a death spiral a possible two-front war in the east and the west along with a crashing economy is hard to comprehend. The European Union, confronting budgetary crises over Greece and other EU members, has little money or patience for Ukraine, its neo-Nazis and its socio-political chaos.

America’s neocons at The Washington Post and elsewhere still rant about the need for the Obama administration to sink more billions upon billions of dollars into post-coup Ukraine because it “shares our values.” But that argument, too, is collapsing as Americans see the heart of a racist nationalism beating inside Ukraine’s new order.

Another Neocon ‘Regime Change’

Much of what has happened, of course, was predictable and indeed was predicted, but neocon Nuland couldn’t resist the temptation to pull off a “regime change” that she could call her own.

Her husband (and arch-neocon) Robert Kagan had co-founded the Project for the New American Century in 1998 around a demand for “regime change” in Iraq, a project that was accomplished in 2003 with President George W. Bush’s invasion.

As with Nuland in Ukraine, Kagan and his fellow neocons thought they could engineer an easy invasion of Iraq, oust Saddam Hussein and install some hand-picked client in Iraq, Ahmed Chalabi was to be “the guy.” But they failed to take into account the harsh realities of Iraq, such as the fissures between Sunnis and Shiites, exposed by the U.S.-led invasion and occupation.

In Ukraine, Nuland and her neocon and liberal-interventionist friends saw the chance to poke Putin in the eye by encouraging violent protests to overthrow Russia-friendly President Yanukovych and put in place a new regime hostile to Moscow.

Carl Gershman, the neocon president of the U.S.-taxpayer-funded National Endowment for Democracy, explained the plan in a Post op-ed on Sept. 26, 2013. Gershman called Ukraine “the biggest prize” and an important interim step toward toppling Putin, who “may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”

For her part, Nuland passed out cookies to anti-Yanukovych demonstrators at the Maidan square, reminded Ukrainian business leaders that the U.S. had invested $5 billion in their “European aspirations,” declared “fuck the EU” for its less aggressive approach, and discussed with U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt who the new leaders of Ukraine should be. “Yats is the guy,” she said, referring to Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

Nuland saw her big chance on Feb. 20, 2014, when a mysterious sniper apparently firing from a building controlled by the Right Sektor shot and killed both police and protesters, escalating the crisis. On Feb. 21, in a desperate bid to avert more violence, Yanukovych agreed to a European-guaranteed plan in which he accepted reduced powers and called for early elections so he could be voted out of office.

But that wasn’t enough for the anti-Yanukovych forces who led by Right Sektor and neo-Nazi militias overran government buildings on Feb. 22, forcing Yanukovych and many of his officials to flee for their lives. With armed thugs patrolling the corridors of power, the final path to “regime change” was clear.

Instead of trying to salvage the Feb. 21 agreement, Nuland and European officials arranged for an unconstitutional procedure to strip Yanukovych of the presidency and declared the new regime “legitimate.” Nuland’s “guy” Yatsenyuk became prime minister.

While Nuland and her neocon cohorts celebrated, their “regime change” prompted an obvious reaction from Putin, who recognized the strategic threat that this hostile new regime posed to the historic Russian naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea. On Feb. 23, he began to take steps to protect those Russian interests.

Ethnic Hatreds

Lviv (west Ukraine) during WWII. Inscription on Soviet poster says: Destroy German Monster. (Unknown/Wikimedia Commons)

What the coup also did was revive long pent-up antagonisms between the ethnic Ukrainians in the west, including elements that had supported Adolf Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union during World War Two, and ethnic Russians in the south and east who feared the anti-Russian sentiments emanating from Kiev.

First, in Crimea and then in the so-called Donbas region, these ethnic Russians, who had been Yanukovych’s political base, resisted what they viewed as the illegitimate overthrow of their elected president. Both areas held referenda seeking separation from Ukraine, a move that Russia accepted in Crimea but resisted with the Donbas.

However, when the Kiev regime announced an “anti-terrorism operation” against the Donbas and dispatched neo-Nazi and other extremist militias to be the tip of the spear, Moscow began quietly assisting the embattled ethnic Russian rebels, a move that Nuland, the Obama administration and the mainstream news media called “Russian aggression.”

Amid the Western hysteria over Russia’s supposedly “imperial designs” and the thorough demonizing of Putin, President Barack Obama essentially authorized a new Cold War against Russia, reflected now in new U.S. strategic planning that could cost the U.S. taxpayers trillions of dollars and risk a possible nuclear confrontation.

Yet, despite the extraordinary costs and dangers, Nuland failed to appreciate the practical on-the-ground realities, much as her husband and other neocons did in Iraq. While Nuland got her hand-picked client Yatsenyuk installed and he did oversee a U.S.-demanded “neo-liberal” economic plan slashing pensions, heating assistance and other social programs the chaos that her “regime change” unleashed transformed Ukraine into a financial black hole.

With few prospects for a clear-cut victory over the ethnic Russian resistance in the east and with the neo-Nazi/Islamist militias increasingly restless over the stalemate the chances to restore any meaningful sense of order in the country appear remote. Unemployment is soaring and the government is essentially bankrupt.

The last best hope for some stability may have been the Minsk-2 agreement in February 2015, calling for a federalized system to give the Donbas more autonomy, but Nuland’s Prime Minister Yatsenyuk sabotaged the deal in March by inserting a poison pill that essentially demanded that the ethnic Russian rebels first surrender.

Now, the Ukraine chaos threatens to spiral even further out of control with the neo-Nazis and other right-wing militias supplied with a bounty of weapons to kill ethnic Russians in the east turning on the political leadership in Kiev.

In other words, the neocons have struck again, dreaming up a “regime change” scheme that ignored practical realities, such as ethnic and religious fissures. Then, as the blood flowed and the suffering worsened, the neocons just sought out someone else to blame.

Thus, it seems unlikely that Nuland, regarded by some in Washington as the new “star” in U.S. foreign policy, will be fired for her dangerous incompetence, just as most neocons who authored the Iraq disaster remain “respected” experts employed by major think tanks, given prized space on op-ed pages, and consulted at the highest levels of the U.S. government.

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The late investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. He began Consortium News in 1995.

Featured image: Nuland in Ukraine in the aftermath of the Maidan coup. Image is from The Unz Review

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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. 

Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

---

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday ordered Russia’s nuclear forces to be put on “special” alert in response to Western sanctions and what he said were “aggressive statements” made by NATO countries.

“Top officials in NATO’s leading countries have been making aggressive statements against our country. For this reason, I give orders to the defense minister and chief of the General Staff to introduce a special combat service regime in the Russian army’s deference forces,” Putin said, according to Russia’s Tass news agency.

According to RT, Putin activated a “deterrent force,” which includes both nuclear and conventional strategic weapons that can be used offensively or defensively. The Russian military says the force is designed “to deter aggression against Russia and its allies, as well as to defeat the aggressor, including in a war with the use of nuclear weapons.”

Putin’s move comes after the US and its European allies announced that they are expelling some Russian banks from the SWIFT international financial system. The US and its allies have imposed a series of harsh sanctions on Russia since its assault on Ukraine began.

The Western powers are also taking steps to send more weapons to Ukraine to help them fight Russia. On Saturday, the US announced an additional $350 million in military aid for Ukraine. “This package will include further lethal defensive assistance to help Ukraine address the armored, airborne, and other threats it is now facing,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement on the new aid.

On Friday, the White House asked Congress for $6.4 billion for military and humanitarian aid to give to Ukraine and other countries in the region. At this point, it’s not clear how the US will deliver the aid since Ukraine’s airspace is not safe. Ukraine’s defense minister has suggested shipping the arms to Poland from where they can be taken across the border.

Putin has said that if Ukraine declares neutrality from NATO and agrees to demilitarize that the assault will stop. Ukraine and Russia have reportedly agreed to hold ceasefire talks, although there have been conflicting statements from each side as to where they will be held.

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Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.

Featured image is from Sputnik News/Alexey Nikolsky

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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.

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As everyone faces difficult times, the company which deals with the fulfillment of book sales on behalf of Global Research is no longer able to provide its services. We are unfortunately suspending the sale of print books until further notice.

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Today the Threat of Nuclear War Is Real: “Wipe the Soviet Union Off the Map”, 204 Atomic Bombs Against 66 Major Cities, US Nuclear Attack Against USSR Planned During World War II

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, February 27, 2022

The world is at a dangerous crossroads. The dangers of nuclear war are real.  In recent developments, President Putin has “ordered Russian nuclear deterrent forces to be on highest alert in response to “hostile” rhetoric by top NATO officials”.

Russia’s Advance Slowed Down. Ukrainian Forces Resist

By South Front, February 27, 2022

Throughout February 26, sporadic exchanges of fire occurred on the streets of Kyiv between groups of residents who had previously been given weapons, including SBU officers, militia from the territorial defense units, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU).

Francis: A Pope of the Poor? A Pope for the Environment? Or a Pope for the Global Elite?

By Matt Smyth, February 27, 2022

It is with Bayer-Monsanto and BP that Francis hopes to save the planet, with Bank of America as well as Big Pharma’s own Merck and Johnson & Johnson he fancies conjuring up an ethical capitalism. Would he be then more like the pope of a new marketing logic?

Ukraine Will Never be the Same Again

By Konrad Rękas, February 27, 2022

First of all, in the current situation, let’s demand seriousness, not cabaret. This is not the time, nor a place, for empty gestures and tearful “declarations of solidarity”. Responsible leadership should focus on the specifics. It is important not only how to de-escalate the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, but also how to limit its scope.

UK Commanders in Ukraine Met Neo-Nazi-linked National Guard to ‘Deepen Military Cooperation’

By Matt Kennard, February 27, 2022

Ukraine’s National Guard says that in meeting last year the UK military agreed to start training its forces, which include a thousand-strong neo-Nazi unit. The UK Ministry of Defence disputes the claim. Details and photos of the meeting in the capital, Kyiv, were posted in Ukrainian on the website of Ukraine’s National Guard (NGU) last year.

Think Carefully About Accepting the Concept of Vaccine Passports

By Sundance, February 27, 2022

Right now, as you are reading this, under the guise of enhancing your safety, the U.S. federal government is in discussions with multinational corporations and employers of citizens to create a more efficient process for you to register your vaccine compliance.

Video: Herding Human “Livestock” Under Elite Rule: Deep COVID Crisis History

By Kristina Borjesson, Reiner Fuellmich, and Alex Thompson, February 27, 2022

During a grand jury hearing held by an international group of attorneys, including Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, Alex Thompson, a veteran of Britain’s equivalent of the U.S.’s National Security Agency details how London is the power center of the world and how the handful of elites who control it—along with their Wall Street proxies in the U.S.—have been working to gather the world’s population, or “livestock” as they refer to the world’s people, under their rule, using wars, psychological operations and crises (manufactured or otherwise), like the pandemic, to further their one-world government agenda.

The Economic Consequences of the Ukraine War

By Dr. Jack Rasmus, February 27, 2022

A large collapse of financial markets is typically accompanied by a fall in the value of a country’s currency and Russia’s Ruble was no exception. It too fell. A currency collapse means a country must pay more for imports of goods. However, existing import contracts don’t change in price.

Immune to Irony: Nazi Collaborators and Authoritarian Personalities Denounce Russia

By Matthew Ehret-Kump, February 27, 2022

In response to Russia’s recognition of the East Donbass republics, Justin stated “Canada and our allies will defend democracy”. Referring to the wide array of sanctions and Canadian troop deployments to Latvia, Trudeau said “we are taking these actions to stand against totalitarianism.”

Ukraine: Understanding the Concern of the Other

By Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, February 26, 2022

The roots of the present conflict have to be traced back to the end of the Cold War in 1991. The leader of the Union of  Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Russia’s predecessor, Mikhail Gorbachev felt that if peace is to greet the demise of the Cold War then the military posturing that signified that era should be buried once and for all.

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#CPAC2022 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis spoke at the 2022 CPAC Conference on February 24, 2022 where he criticized President Joe Biden. 

The event was held in Orlando, Florida.

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Featured image is a screenshot from the video

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With Kyiv’s refusal to implement the Minsk agreement, coupled with threats of restarting a nuclear program from a production facility in the city of Dnipro, Russia lost patience with protracted negotiations that did not lead to a resolution on Ukraine’s NATO membership or resolve the situation in Donbass after eight years. Moscow then took the drastic step of pre-emptively striking Ukraine’s military capabilities to ensure the security of Russia and Donbass. Such an action could open the way for Turkey to reconcile with Washington after estrangement following Joe Biden’s ascendency to the White House.

Russian strikes reportedly destroyed Ukraine’s fleet of Bayraktar drones, something that will surely anger the Turkish military industrial complex and war hawks in Ankara.

As recently as February 3, Ankara and Kyiv agreed to co-produce the Turkish-made drone at a production site in Ukraine. Ukrainian Defense Minister Olesii Reznikov told reporters in Kyiv at the time that the coproduction compound would also include a training center where Ukrainian pilots would be trained. This agreement comes as in September last year, the Ukrainian government announced that it was planning to buy 24 more Turkish drones.

Reznikov said that the coproduced drones would be dubbed the Turkish-Ukrainian Bayraktar. However, it appears that hopes for the Turkish-Ukrainian Bayraktar were dashed even before they could be mass produced as Russian forces allegedly destroyed the production facility in Ukraine.

It is recalled that the distribution of Bayraktar drones to Russia’s borders were welcomed by the US and it was naively expected that it would be a gamechanger or tip the balance of power. In one instance, Senior Hudson Institution fellow Michael Doran audaciously tweeted in May 2021 that: “Turkish drones are slowly beginning to surround Russia. Ukraine and Poland to the west, Turkey and Azerbaijan to the south and possibly Kazakhstan to the east. That’s how you contain Russia.”

The prevailing idea was that because of the success of Bayraktar drones against impoverished militias from Ethiopia or a country like Armenia, whose population is four times smaller then Moscow’s alone, it would be replicated against the Russian military, which is ranked second out of the 140 countries considered in the annual Global Fire Power review. Russia achieved a “perfect score” of 0.0000 according to their 2022 index.

According to Dr Spyros Plakoudas, a professor on security studies at Rabdan Academy, Turkish-Ukrainian drones “were destroyed on the ground most likely. The Russian military forces targeted not only the bases of the Bayraktar but also the factory of Motor Sich (supplier of the engines for Bayraktar and Akinji UAVs).”

Effectively the Russian military destroyed in a single night the Turkish-Ukrainian coproduction that was many years in the making. For now, it is likely that Ankara will remain silent on the destruction of its coproduction with Ukraine, including the drones, as the Bayraktar failure to defend Ukraine damages the reputation of Turkey’s military industrial complex. It is reminded that this author received a seize and desist order or face a Turkish court for just merely publishing images of destroyed Turkish drones in Libya.

None-the-less, Ukraine is still pinning its hopes on Turkey to reverse Russia’s operation. Ukraine’s Ambassador to Ankara Vasyl Bodnar personally relayed to the Turkish Foreign Ministry the request to close “the Dardanelles and Bosporus for Russian ships.”

According to the 1936 Montreux Convention, Turkey has control of the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits leading from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. The Montreux Convention allows Black Sea states unlimited access to the Black Sea but imposes strict limitations on naval vessels from other states. Restricting Russian warships will inevitably lead to a major crisis as Moscow will certainly not tolerate being locked in the Black Sea and its Mediterranean fleet being isolated.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hypocritically described Russia’s operation “contrary to international law” and a “heavy blow to the peace, tranquillity and stability of the region.” Ankara justifies its occupation of northern Cyprus and Syria for lesser pretexts, and it could be assumed that if Greece or Syria were to state its goal of acquiring nuclear weapons, Turkey’s response would be just as proportionate as Moscow’s.

Given Turkey’s isolation from the West, Ankara could use the war in Ukraine as an opportunity to reconcile with the US. The Turkish economy is under huge strain, something that has plummeted Erdoğan’s popularity, and although Turkey is unlikely to close the Straits to Russian ships, using this as a threat could be the first step in reconciliation with Washington.

It is not forgotten that Ankara continues to make fake allegations of Russia’s persecution of Crimean Tartars, and over the course of the war, we could see Turkey advocating for Turkic Tartars in Ukraine as another way to pressure Moscow.

Although Turkey has fostered areas of close cooperation with Russia, such as building nuclear plants and the S-400 deal, Moscow and Ankara are not strategic allies.

However, Ukraine and Turkey certainly are strategic allies, and if Ankara is given an opportunity to reconcile with the West by strongly supporting Kyiv against Moscow, then it may certainly take it.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

This article was first published almost eight years ago on May 4, 2014, less than three months after the February 2014.  EuroMaidan.

This is what I wrote eight years ago:

“The killings of civilians in Eastern and South Eastern Ukraine by Neo-Nazi mobs and members of the civilian militia opens up the possibility of a broader conflict within Ukraine, which could potentially lead to escalation. Moreover, prevailing divisions within Ukraine’s  armed forces could lead to military action directed towards unseating the Kiev Neo-Nazi regime.

Known and documented, escalation is part of a longstanding scenario of military confrontation directed against the Russian Federation”

Today, the dangers of military escalation are beyond description.

We must understand the history of the Ukraine crisis and the role of  Neo-Nazi mobs which have been supported by US-NATO.

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.

Global Research does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A  bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

***

The US-NATO sponsored Kiev coalition government is responsible for the killings perpetrated by Neo-Nazi Right Sector mobs and security forces in Odessa in which at least 43 people were killed. 

In Odessa, Right Sector thugs set fire to the city’s Trade Union building leading to countless deaths of innocent civilians who were burnt alive within the building which had been set ablaze.

“Such actions are reminiscent of the crimes of the Nazis,” said Russia’s Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin.

The “international community” has turned a blind eye, the Western media has described the Neo-Nazi Brown shirts as “freedom fighters”. In the words of Eric Sommers:

“May 2, 2014 –  the date that fascist forces supported by the U.S. government attacked and murdered helpless civilians in the Ukraine – is a day which will live in infamy”. 

In recent developments, Obama has granted full support to the crackdown on so-called “pro-Russian” activists. This movement against America’s fascist regime in Kiev is widespread. It is not limited to “ethnic Russians” as conveyed by the media. The leaders of this movement are Ukrainians.

The Neo-Nazi mobs bear the hallmarks of  US sponsored terrorism (e.g Syria) trained to commit atrocities against civilians.  America’s Neo-Nazi Government in Kiev is a reality. Confirmed by Germany’s Bild: “Dozens of specialists from the US Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation are advising the Ukrainian government”

“Citing unnamed German security sources, Bild am Sonntag said the CIA and FBI agents were helping Kiev end the rebellion in the east of Ukraine and set up a functioning security structure.”

Escalation

The killings of civilians in Eastern and South Eastern Ukraine by Neo-Nazi mobs and members of the civilian militia opens up the possibility of a broader conflict within Ukraine, which could potentially lead to escalation. Moreover, prevailing divisions within Ukraine’s  armed forces could lead to military action directed towards unseating the Kiev Neo-Nazi regime.

Known and documented, escalation is part of a longstanding scenario of military confrontation directed against the Russian Federation.

“The Anti-Terrorist Operation”

The killings are part of the so-called “anti-terrorist operation” initiated by the Kiev government with the support of the Pentagon.

The “anti-terrorist operation” is coordinated by the National Security and National Defense Committee (RNBOU). (Рада національної безпеки і оборони України), which is controlled by Svoboda and Right Sector. Dmytro Yarosh, Neo-Nazi leader of the Right Sector delegation in the parliament, oversees the National Guard, a loyal civilian militia created in March with the support of Western military advisers. Paramilitary training of the National Guard commenced in mid-March, north of Kiev.

While the media has presented the crisis as a confrontation between “pro-Russian” and “Ukrainian nationalists”, the grassroots movement in Eastern Ukraine has widespread support. It is largely directed against the Neo-Nazi Kiev regime supported by the West.

The National Guard

In the wake of the Coup, divisions have emerged within Ukraine’s regular military forces and police, which “can not be trusted” in carrying out an “anti-terrorist operation” on behalf of the Kiev regime directed against civilians:

Concerns over the loyalty of the Ukrainian army and security agencies have pushed Kiev to start forming an additional armed branch, which it will fully control.

The National Guard is designed to be 60,000-strong and completely independent from the country’s military and police.

Recruitment across Ukraine began on March 13, with around 20,000 people already joining the new uniformed service. RT

In eastern Ukraine, the National Guard has been given the mandate to “reinforce regular military units defending against a feared Russian invasion… it it is intended to act as a counterinsurgency force.”

Members of this civilian militia operating alongside Neo-Nazi mobs have been set loose in Eastern Ukraine and Odessa.

Right Sector can be identified by its members openly wearing Nazi insignia, as well as carrying crimson and black banners. Mobs supporting the Svoboda party are also present among recent clashes, wearing yellow armbands with the Nazi wolfangel symbol upon them. Odessa Massacre Pushes Ukraine to the Edge. Towards a Larger Destructive Conflict? By Tony Cartalucci, May 03, 2014

The actions of the National Guard are coordinated by the RNBOU. In turn, the riot police and units of the armed forces are also overseen by RBOU, which is controlled by the two Neo-Nazi parties.

These killings of civilians are part of a carefully planned military agenda involving both the National Guard as well organized armed Neo-Nazi mobs, casually described by the media as pro-Ukrainian activists. These are the foot soldiers of the Western military alliance.  The Odessa killings bear the fingerprints of a US-NATO led intelligence operation, with both National Guard and Right Sector militants trained in paramilitary combat skills including the killings of innocent civilians.

Ironically, the Israeli media, while largely supporting the Kiev regime, has tacitly acknowledged that the threat of civil war emanates from the Neo-Nazi elements within the government: “Neo-Nazi Militia Leader Threatens ‘Civil War'” according to Israel National News.

Meanwhile, NATO has scheduled military exercises in Poland “as part of NATO reassurance measures in response to the Ukraine crisis”.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has pointed to an extensive and unprecedented buildup of NATO forces within proximity of Russia’s  borders.

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What is 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.

Global Research does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A  bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

***

Throughout February 26, sporadic exchanges of fire occurred on the streets of Kyiv between groups of residents who had previously been given weapons, including SBU officers, militia from the territorial defense units, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). The armed groups have no system of identification of their friends or foes. The actions of armed looters and criminal gangs instigate the chaos. Dozens of civilian casualties are reported as a result of such exchanges of fire.

Russian forces near Kiev:

Ukrainian policemen detained an SBU employee

In the first half of the day, the large settlement of Stanytsia Luhanska came under the control of LPR forces. Along with Stanytsia Luhanska, the LPR units occupied Krymskoye and Markovka in the same direction. However, it was not possible to pass through the AFU units at their positions north of Luhansk. No breakthroughs of the LPR units succeeded. The AFU withdrew its troops from the Starobelsk and will now be able to engage them to stabilize the front line near Severodonetsk and Izyum.

The LPR corps did not receive the necessary support from the Russian Armed Forces to accomplish the constraining offensive task. This significant miscalculation by the Russian command may lead to a change in the situation in other parts of the front.

The DPR People’s Militia took control of Novoapostolovka, 6 km east of Volnovakha, and other locations in the vicinity of Volnovakha. At the same time, the successes of DPR and Russian forces in this direction are purely tactical in nature. Volnovakha has not been taken, and they have not even been able to get close to it.

Despite the continuing offensive of the DPR units in the Mariupol direction and the occupation of Pavlopol and Pischevik, there is no “blockade” of Mariupol yet. The information on the complete blockade of the city does not correspond to the reality as on 8 p.m. local time. The Ukrainian units are resisting relatively successfully and in an organized manner, which threatens the likelihood of a breakthrough from the encirclement if the “Crimean” group’s offensive slows down.

The exit of civilians from Mariupol is blocked by fighters of nationalist battalions. There is video evidence of civilians being shot, when they were trying to leave the city, including women and children.

There are battles with the use of MLRS, artillery and tanks in the Kharkiv direction. This is currently the most difficult battlefield for the Russian Federation. The Russian Armed Forces suffered significant losses there, and several columns of equipment were destroyed. Sources familiar with the situation near Kharkiv report that there is poor coordination of the Russian units, communication failures and errors of command.

By the afternoon of February 26, it became known that the AFU had regained control of Kherson. In the afternoon, fighting in the outskirts of the city continued.

Near the city of Zhytomyr, the AFU air defense forces reportedly shot down a Russian Air Force aircraft.

In turn, over the Chernihiv region Russian air defense shot down 2 Bayraktars.

The AFU blew up a bridge between the Odessa and Mykolaiv regions. On the evening of February 26, Russian units began to enter Nikolaev.

The Russian military is strengthening its position in Melitopol, Zaporizhia region. The city of Melitopol is completely under Russian control. In this direction, the Russian grouping is developing success in the direction of Molochansk and Tokmak, as well as in the direction of Mariupol. Near Molochansk, an AFU column was destroyed. At the same time, the advancing Russian units encounter strong resistance.

The Russian Defense Ministry reported that 16 Ukrainian naval boats, using “swarm tactics”, attempted yesterday to attack Russian Black Sea Fleet ships, which had evacuated 82 surrendered Ukrainian servicemen from Zmeiniy Island.

Part of the attacking boats acted under the cover of civilian vessels. The purpose of the attack was primarily to retaliate against the laid down soldiers and to accuse the Russian army of destroying prisoners, the report said. Six Ukrainian boats were destroyed. None of the 82 Ukrainian servicemen from Snake Island were injured.

When the Ukrainian boats attacked the Russian ships near the Snake Island, the US strategic drones RQ-4 Global Hawk and MQ-9A Ripper were barreling over the area of provocation. It is highly probable that it was the American drones that guided the Ukrainian boats to the ships of the Russian fleet.

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Pope Francis. A pope of rupture. A pope for ecology. Inimical to capitalism, but compassionate to the poor and the migrant.

The gay friendly pope. Lenient with divorcees, but hostile to traditionalists and conservatives.

The reformer of the corrupt Roman curia, the destroyer of sexual abuse perpetrated by clerics…

Or rather the pope of paradoxes?

It is with Bayer-Monsanto and BP that Francis hopes to save the planet, with Bank of America as well as Big Pharma’s own Merck and Johnson & Johnson he fancies conjuring up an ethical capitalism.

Would he be then more like the pope of a new marketing logic?

As it happens, it is precisely in the name of defending the environment, inclusivity, equity or social justice, that the corporate ‘stakeholders’ of the global governance are trying to enforce their agenda — which is nothing less than converting the whole planet and every human dwelling on its surface as assets tradable on the stock market. 

Bergoglio, in that respect, is a case study

In the wake of Davos’ World Economic Forum (WEF), he has restructured the Vatican as a spokesperson of the global governance.

Meanwhile, the policymakers of this very governance, since they are no longer willing to exploit the consumerist lust for happiness of the mass, but would now rather bet on coercion, have wrought a new marketing strategy.

They hide their old endless yearning for power behind a fresh storytelling: the need to part radically with individualistic, energy intensive, neoliberal capitalism. The global elite accumulates all the goods they are still short of, confiscates civil liberties and concentrates all the power in its own hands, however this coup is staged within a new narrative concerned about climate change and biodiversity, dedicated to the common good, hostile to individual freedom, and negative when it comes to free market. Otherwise stated: communitarian. As a matter of fact, Francis’ message to the world epitomizes this new kind of ‘responsible capitalism’ PR. To every single catchword.

The pope of lockdowns, contact tracking, forced medical experiments and segregation

Pope Francis emerged, at the end of winter 2020, as one of the major public voices in favor of the so-called sanitary restrictions that were implemented around the globe at the time by national public health agencies and governments, in accordance with the WHO’s guidance.

When, to the great dismay of many Catholics, governments began to outlaw religious gatherings, the pope didn’t lose time to add all his own clout to these policies.

For the first time in history, a Successor of Peter, together in this with the secular powers, forbad Catholics to go to Mass, nor to any other ceremony, even Easter Vigil, calling for people to stay ‘obedient’ to their governments’ lockdown measures.

The few bishops, such as Bp Schneider, who dared to oppose these restrictions would get scolded or ignored —as they were conservatives whose words were easy to spurn in the eyes of mainstream media.

For instance, Abp Viganò was quick to expose publicly this collusion between the present papacy and the corporate global governance, but mainstream medias made sure his message wouldn’t get through.

His Polish predecessor’s favorite phrase had been ‘Be not afraid’, but the Argentinian pope had no qualm joining his voice to the choir of all those who sung, like the former British health secretary Hancock or his French counterpart Véran, the antiphon composed by ‘health experts’: Be afraid! An antiphon which verse could have been: Until we have a vaccine, we have no other option to curb the infection rate than XI Jinping’s brand-new approach.

In November 2020, Francis took upon himself to defend the Chinese tactic from the general public’s skepticism in the so very consensual New York Times:

‘As if measures that governments must impose for the good of their people constitute some kind of political assault on autonomy or personal freedom!’ People are stuck in home detention, families can’t be reunited, collective rites are banished, elderlies die in isolation, family business are wrecked, thousands of youngsters are pushed to commit suicide, but it’s for their own good. The few governments that dare not to give in to panic, and would not comply with the directives from the CCP and the WHO, were severely chastised by Bergoglio as: ‘governments that shrugged off the painful evidence of mounting deaths, with inevitable, grievous consequences.’

Since then, he has become the staunch advocate of the universal genetic experimentation campaign known as vaccination.

Not a word on the success of early treatments trialed in poor countries. Not a word on the extremely low lethality of SARS-CoV2.

And, of course, not a word on the highly experimental nature of the injections concocted by Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson.

Again, Bergoglio falters not one iota from the official narrative relentlessly hammered within the mainstream medias: the world is confronted with a daunting threat; stay home or at least practice ‘social distancing’, abide contact tracking and wear a mask; universal vaccination is the one and only road to salvation.

In his interview book Oltre la tempesta, Francis, along with MSM and politicians, preaches the public to ‘Believe in science.’ The Successor of Peter sets his faith and hope into the triumphant announcements of Pfizer or Moderna, just as his predecessors would have done with the articles of the Christian Creed: ‘We need to regain our hope and faith in science today: thanks to the vaccine, we shall slowly find back our way to the light.’

We cannot, even for a second, presume that he chose this wording ‘faith and hope’ by accident. Out of the mouth of a pope, such words can only refer to the first two Christian virtues known as the theological virtues.

Francis exerts all his clout to foster the global policy implemented by (more or less) all the G20 governments (and quite a few more). Like the other heads of state, he wishes to enforce on every human a genetic experimentation, be that through marketing, blackmail or simple coercion.

In a famous video, the pope doesn’t refrain from describing the injection as a ‘moral duty’, and even as an ‘act of love’ (the third theological virtue, as it happens). The potential dangerousness of the said injections doesn’t seem to worry him in the least. Nor what the outcome might be for the children, since he wishes to see them all getting the injection, even the very young ones. And the Vatican has now a vaccine mandate.

Even more surprising: the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith —the former Holy Inquisition— published a document in order to remove any reluctance the faithful might have felt to the idea of being injected with a product developed from cells derived from aborted human fetuses. Rome, thus, and all the episcopal conferences in the rest of the world, in order to conform with the official vaccinal orthodoxy preached by the likes of Bill Gates, did not back down from breaching a two thousand years taboo of Catholic orthodoxy on abortion. Because of the public health emergency. Again, Francis had only to deal with a handful of dissenting bishops.

It is no surprise then that Francis is very much in favor of the health passport. He imposed the said passeport within the Vatican territory and within some seminaries. Furthermore, as I mentioned, the genetic experimental injection is now compulsory at the Vatican. In its wake, some zealous dioceses, notably in Canada, have begun to require proof of ‘vaccination’ from churchgoers. The blackmail, violation of privacy, digital universal surveillance and social segregation that the health passport implies don’t seem to bother very much our Argentinian pontiff.

A pope to the global partnership

Is this simply another example of an institution swimming with the stream? After all, the pope is merely singing the same tune as all the other Western heads of state. But there is more to it: Francis Bergoglio sees himself as an active partner of the great social and economic upheaval instigated by the global governance in the wake of the CoVid crisis, and advertised by the WEF under the ‘Great Reset’ brand name.

As it happens, this global governance is supposed to gather the world’s public and private ‘stakeholders’ inside a ‘partnership’. The latter, which is more like a subservience of the state to the corporate global elite, is meant to allow the technocratic managerial ruling class to decide the planet’s future afar from any democratic process. This is what they call the Global Public-Private Partnership (GPPP or G3P).

‘Stakeholder capitalists’ as they fancy calling themselves represent the senior partners. Basically, these are mainly the financial and Info Tech complex, that is to say the finance industry (BlackRock, Vanguard and the SIFI international investment banks) in collusion with Info Tech (Big Tech), under the clout of the central banks (BIS, Fed, ECB and BoE), while good old Big Oil carries on standing in the background. All of those consider themselves to be responsible for global public common good in a decisive and vital way.

These CEOs and chairmen are the real policymakers.

The junior partners are the governments and their respective state apparatus (with the exception of China which holds a specific position in the food chain). States are some kind of ‘middle-management’ to the global corporate oligopoly… The global governance also relies heavily on international institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, WTO or OECD, NGOs such as the WHO, and, of course, the main private NPOs such as the Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust or Rockefeller Foundation… 

And then come the stakeholders’ global assemblies (for want of a better word), among which the Vatican looks forward to hold rank. The task of these particular NPOs is to think over the agenda conducted by the senior partners, and to coordinate the decisions of those in charge of implementing the policies derived from this agenda. Right now, the main one is undoubtedly the World Economic Forum (WEF), whose lifelong chairman Klaus Schwab managed over time the Davos Forum to become the inescapable ‘hub’ of the said global partnership. Contrarily to the low-profile clubs such as the central banker’s Group of Thirty, the public-private Bilderberg Group and Trilateral Commission, or the older Chatham House and Council for Foreign Relation, the WEF takes on with a lot of publicity the mission which it is endowed with, by virtue of the stakeholders it serves.

The global governance does not need to hide any longer. Actually, the WEF is in charge of its public relation, and is therefore at the helm of a huge marketing campaign designed to push ‘civil society’ to welcome the governance new policies: the Great Reset and the subsequent 4^th Industrial Revolution. Upon the wreckages left by the COVID crisis and thanks to the narrow ‘window of opportunity’ the latter offers, stakeholder capitalists will be able to implement a new ‘responsible capitalism’ transcending both Keynesianism and Neoliberalism. Or so they say.

This glorious future, dreamed by the stakeholders for ‘those who are nothing’, as French president and WEF’s Young Global Leaders Macron likes to say, is genially described by WEF own Ida Auken now famous words as an era where you ‘own nothing, have no privacy and life has never been better’

(https://medium.com/world-economic-forum/welcome-to-2030-i-own-nothing-have-no-privacy-and-life-has-never-been-better-ee2eed62f710).

Such a paradisiac lifestyle will be generously endowed to the plebeians by the great financial cartel in control of the multinational corporations’ oligopoly.

The latter will exploit a global captive market, after the planned disappearance of most of the independent small companies. Such an absolute concentration of wealth and power in the hand of the technocratic elite will be achieved for good when fully controlled digital currencies, digitalization of manufactured objects (IoT: Internet of Things) and digitalization of human activities (IoB: Internet of Bodies) are implemented, allowing for continuous human data-mining through blockchain technology.

That’s why this new era will entail the complete ending of our privacy to the benefit of total digital surveillance. In this ideal future, humans will be locked up in ‘smart —but sustainable— cities’ to fight climate change and defend biodiversity. They will eat synthetic but eco-responsible food (produced by our eco-friendly agro-business giants), and they will welcome the modifications allowing them to become ‘augmented’…

This planetary coup, which could also be summarized as the grab and monetization of every natural good, is to be rolled out —needless to say— for ‘our own good.’ Hence, the governances’ insistence on establishing a responsible, ethical net-zero, ‘green’ capitalism, willing to give everyone its chance in life, and ready to offer optimal health for everyone. This is how the gigantic financial and industrial corporations, whose infinite greed has so for made such a good job at methodically destroying the planet and ruin our health, intend to seize —so they are better protected of course— the last ‘assets’ (as they call them) that escape them (green plan to transform the global financial system). Our bodies, our freedoms and the ‘commons’…

Well, the Vatican, as I mentioned, is really keen to hold its rank among the stakeholders’ global assemblies, under the aegis of the financial titans such as BlackRock, along with the WEF or the Chatham House. But with a subtle ‘religious’ and ethical dimension adorned by a venerable heritage. Such a prestigious patina is more than ‘bankable’ in the eyes of all these technocrats standing on the cutting edge of modernity. Very much like the ‘Mindfull Meditation’ popularized by Jon Kabta Zinn, since blessed by the Davos managerial elite. Francis is able to grant the latter an ethical guarantee that is both televisual and ancient. 

These are assets the global governance is not willing to disdain, just as much as it doesn’t disdain the prestige of showbiz celebrities. Francis doesn’t quite compare with Davos’ figures such as Leonardo Di Caprio or Greta Thunberg, but he enjoys some kind of planetary popularity, notably outside his Church. To be sure, Catholicism is going through a sharp decline, even in its African or Latin-American past strongholds, within which Evangelical Churches are leaving deep dents. However, the pope remains the one and only religious leader whose clout extends to the entire world. No other religion is able to boast about such a global leadership. Thanks to an amiable papacy, the global governance is able to reach out to the entire world from the height of the See of Peter (and at least to what remains of the Catholic flock). I bet Klaus Schwab, who sees himself as the vicar of the world elite’s parish, appreciates.

The pope of the Great Reset

In addition to his role as a moral guarantee, Francis — but not quite as raucously — plays the same part in the game as poor Greta Thunberg with whom the Davos Forum likes to show up. In the same fashion as her, the present pope is a staunch critic of the actual economic system, and a champion for a net-zero sustainable world. As I mentioned, this is precisely the kind of narrative that the global policymakers, such as  BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, have decided to highjack in order to sell us the great transformation they wish to implement.

Unsurprisingly, the Vatican is tightly linked with the international financial world: since 2006, the APSA (Amministrazione del Patrimonio della Sede Apostolica, the entity in charge of managing the Vatican’s huge stock exchange and real estate portfolios) could rely on Peter Sutherland as a Special Advisor. A loud champion of the ‘open border’ policy, he was also given to preside over the International Catholic Commission on Migrations from 2015 to his death in 2018. This father of globalisation was the GATT’s former chairman, then the WTO’s co-founder, but also a chairman of BP and Goldman Sachs, and needless to say a member of the WEF’s Foundation Board, among many other things… 

Similarly, in 2021, Pope Francis appointed a WEF’s Agenda Contributor, the very Malthusian economist Jeffrey Sachs, to the same Pontifical Academy of Social Science (Jeffrey Sachs who happens to be the director of the Lancet’s Committee on CoViD and also to be a friend of Peter Daszak chair of Ecohealth-Alliance, whom Sachs nominated at the head of the Lancet commission on the origins of the pandemic, the same Daszak who supervised the financing of the coronavirus’ ‘Gain of Function’ research in Wuhan, because it’s indeed a small world).

As for Francis himself, the WEF was able to make use of his planetary image, since Francis sent no less than four times a message to the annual Davos Summit. Furthermore, a roundtable is presided at Davos by a Vatican delegate every year. 

Again, he appears to be a faithful spokesperson of the WEF’s storytelling. He hopes to be one of the communicators of the great transition packaged by Klaus Schwab under the ‘Great Reset’ brand. The introduction of the encyclical Fratelli Tutti (October 2020) is quite telling in this respect:

‘…the Covid-19 pandemic unexpectedly erupted, exposing our false securities. Aside from the different ways that various countries responded to the crisis, their inability to work together became quite evident. For all our hyper-connectivity, we witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all. Anyone who thinks that the only lesson to be learned was the need to improve what we were already doing, or to refine existing systems and regulations, is denying reality’.

According to Bergoglio, the crucial element of this mutation is precisely the establishment of such a global public-private partnership governance. In his 2021 message to the World Bank and IMF, framed with all the communitarian pathos, he states that the present genetic experimentation rollout opens a perfect window to this global partnership (devoid of too many democratic constraints):

‘we especially need a justly financed vaccine solidarity, for we cannot allow the law of the marketplace to take precedence over the law of love and the health of all.

“Here, I reiterate my call to government leaders, businesses and international organizations to work together in providing vaccines for all, especially for the most vulnerable and needy (Urbi et Orbi Message, Christmas Day 2020). It is my hope that in these days your formal deliberations and your personal encounters will bear much fruit for the discernment of wise solutions for a more inclusive and sustainable future.  A future where finance is at the service of the common good, where the vulnerable and the marginalized are placed at the center, and where the earth, our common home, is well cared for.’

It is a leitmotif. John XXIII (encyclical Pacem in terris), the Second Vatican Council (Constitution Gaudium et spes), and also Benedict XVI (encyclical Caritas in veritate) all shared the belief that there is ‘urgent need of a true world political authority’ (Caritas in veritate § 67).

However, Bergoglio, in his encyclical Laudato Si’ of 2015, or in his message to the UN the same year For an Integral Ecology, relentlessly calls upon a stronger global governance, notably in face of climate change. This call to policymakers for a mobilization against global warming is an aspect of a more general denunciation of free market economy, along with the consumerism and commercial competition that are integral part of it. Again, this ‘progressive’ narrative is fully in line with the global elite’s agenda: consumerism and competition do not fit with a captive market in the hands of an oligopoly; while the climate or infectious threats that are supposed to be our current nemesis are the closing stage of the Westphalian nation-states’ history.

Quite logically, Francis calls upon the birth of a new world order out of the ruins left by the ‘pandemic’:

‘Let us all keep in mind that there is something worse than this crisis: the drama of wasting it. We cannot emerge from a crisis the same as before: we either come out better or we come out worse.’

It is difficult to fail to recognize the now familiar storytelling of the WEF’s chairman Klaus Schwab

‘The pandemic represents a rare window of opportunity rare to reflect, reimagine and reset our world.’

Furthermore, pope Francis joined the choir of world leaders (or ex leaders), Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock, Justin Trudeau, Mark Rutte, Jacinda Ardern, Bill Gates, Tony Blair, Prince Harris, Antonio Gutteres, Obama, Hilary and Bill Clinton, Sadiq Khan, pleading to ‘build back better’ once the ‘pandemic’ is over. For instance, according to Francis, ‘The path to humanity’s salvation passes through the creation of a new model of development, which unquestionably focuses on coexistence among peoples in harmony with Creation’ (God and the World to Come), and, therefore, it passes through the policies advocated by global governance, such as Universal Basic Income (in the wake of the COVID crisis of course).

The pope of Bayer-Monsanto: a historical turning point  

Internal crises are not a new thing to the papacy. Rome, for a long while, became a tool in the hands of power-hungry pontiffs filled with earthly ambitions, or on the contrary a tool in the hands of a prince in need of apostolical standing. The Holy See is known to have, once or twice, sought some rather embarrassing external help or compromise. In 1830, Pie VIII condemned the Polish Catholic insurgents to please the Czar.

In 1888, Leo XIII excommunicated Irish Catholic protestors to gain the favor of the British Empire. Since then, the Vatican would enter lengthy negotiations with Lenin, strike a deal with Mussolini and sign a concordat with Hitler… However, this is a turning point: never had the pope been tempted to embrace the ideologies of the regimes with whom he had pursued an arrangement. Never had the papacy been driven by the ambition to spread their agenda.

Today, nonetheless, an institution that proclaims its universal jurisdiction over Christians endeavor at the same time to become partner with a technocratic global governance thriving under the aegis of big corporations. Rome sees itself as some kind of ‘spiritual’ partner of the corporate elite aspiring to completely dominate the planet.

This affiliation to the global agenda was formally acknowledged when Lynn Forester de Rothschild launched the Council for Inclusive Capitalism with The Vatican, under the ‘guidance’ of pope Bergoglio and Cardinal Turkson.

Around the pope, and around the smaller fellowship of ‘Guardians for Inclusive Capitalism’, the Council gathers ‘world’s business and public sector leaders’, notably CEOs in search of a ‘sustainable’, ‘resilient’, ‘inclusive’, ‘responsible’, ‘equitable’ and ‘fair’ capitalism (I hope I didn’t miss a catchword), such as the CEOs of Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Bank of America, BP and Bayer-Monsanto (whose ethical and environmental expertise is recognized worldwide).

By their side, we find the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations chairmen, and the herald of the Net-Zero finance industry, the ubiquitous Mark Carney. The Council ‘is an historic collaboration of CEOs and global leaders inspired by the moral guidance of His Holiness Pope Francis. Ours is a moral and market imperative to make economies more inclusive and sustainable with a movement of bold, business-led actions that span the economic ecosystem.’ 

The founder and chairwoman of ‘The Council’ (as they say), Lynn Forester de Rothschild, herself managing partner of Inclusive Capital Partners, states that ‘Capitalism has created enormous global prosperity, but it has also left too many people behind, led to degradation of our planet, and is not widely trusted in society. This Council will follow the admonishment of Pope Francis to listen to “the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” and answer society’s demands for a more equitable and sustainable model of growth.’ Unsurprisingly, their website (‘commitments’) is patterned along that of the seventeen UN’s and WEF’s Global Goals for 2030.

Our ‘inclusive capitalists’, in the wake of the WEF, hope to display a narrative that is intended to be perceived as ‘leftist’ or at least communitarian: they insist that modern big economical movers should be held accountable for their impact on the environment, notably about climate; for their choice to be inclusive with all kind of minorities; for their will to give everyone his chance; for what they do to welcome refugees… In the same fashion Francis, the smiling and benevolent fatherly figure of ‘responsible capitalism’, wishes to be perceived as the ‘green pope’, the gay friendly pope, a friend to the migrants, and a hardcore militant against climate change. In other words, pope Bergoglio is orchestrating a marketing campaign for the global governance’s agenda.

The same narrative —with all its catchwords— is displayed within the documents of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development created in 2016 with the merging of various other Roman commissions, and presided by the same Cardinal Turkson from the Council of Inclusive Capitalism. ‘The Dicastery […] expresses the Holy See’s concern for issues of justice and peace, including those related to migration, health, charitable works and the care of creation.’ Notably, the Dicastery is asked by the pope ‘to express the Church’s solicitude and care for the whole human family facing the COVID-19 pandemic.’ Indeed, since ‘The COVID-19 pandemic is the defining crisis of this generation.’ Thus, the Dicastery supervises ‘research and studies of the present COVID-19 epidemic and its related issues and to think about a post Covid-19 society and world, especially in areas of ecology, economics, labor, healthcare, politics, communications and security’ (vatican-covid-19).

The pope of the 4th Industrial Revolution and Transhumanism

With whom should we reflect on this future ‘post-Covid society and world’? Well, for instance, with the Roman NPO humanity2-0.org, ‘Developed’ by Father Philip Larrey, 

‘Developed in collaboration with the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development at the Holy See and a consortium of leaders and luminaries, Humanity 2.0 seeks to unite humanity in the common cause of realizing a better world for our children’. And since

‘Humanity 2.0 is a vehicle for facilitating collaborative ventures between the traditionally siloed public, private and faith-based sectors,’ CEOs such as the ones of CISCO, Virgin or Publicis, have joined in to bless this partnership with their corporate power. No reference to Christianity on its website, watched by a figure of the Goddess Athena, but a brief quote from Thomas Aquinas.

Its chairman, Father Larrey, is a priest and the dean of Faculty of Philosophy at the Latran University, but also an apostle of the 4^th Industrial Revolution (actoninstitute.it), dear to the heart of Klaus Schwab. He is the author of Artificial Humanity, a book where he displays his faith in future Artificial Intelligence —as an entity endowed with real intelligence—, but hopes that it remains human. 

Francis, while proclaiming his faith in what he believes to be tomorrow’s technology and AI in particular, seems to be quoting father Larrey almost ad verbatim, adding only his own personal communitarian tone. In a short videoclip, the pope invites Christians to

‘pray for a “human” AI.’ Because ‘robotics can make us a better world possible if it is joined to the common good. […] Let us pray that the progress of robotics and artificial intelligence may always serve humankind. We could say: may it “be human”.’

At the Davos Summit, but in the context of growing unemployment due to automation, he declared that ‘Artificial intelligence, robotics and other technological innovations must be so employed that they contribute to the service of humanity and to the protection of our common home, rather than to the contrary’ (Davos Forum 2018). We are not very far from the transhumanist creed advocated by its mainstream media spokespersons such as Yuval Noah Harari. AI might actually be dangerous, however for the plebs to be protected from its potential evils, we need the technocratic elite to be in charge …

Transhumanist ideology, notably its belief in the future advent of a Great Biodigital Convergence, is a key point of the 4th Industrial Revolution preached by the WEF.

The human and the machine will have to merge through data-mining, with the help of genome editing and digital implants, so that we can give birth to an ‘augmented human.’ The barrier between random biological entities and programmable digital technologies will be removed. The very idea of life as well as that of freedom are obsolete: life and notably the human soul are but extremely complex algorithms drawn from chemical and electromagnetic reactions. He who will master the data of these algorithms will thus be able to ‘hacker’ human beings, as Yuval Noah Harari puts it, in a speech delivered to his Davos masters in 2018. Furthermore, even the transhumanistic hope in an eternal life fulfilled through, either through cellular ageing prevention, either through “Whole Brain Emulation”, is starting to attract large investments from big companies. But, even with a lot of imagination, it seems rather difficult to reconcile these dreams with the teaching of Francis predecessors.

This didn’t stop Father Larrey presiding over two meetings given in Rome at the Tutonic College, along with Carlos Moreira and David Ferguson, under the patronage of a mysterious Elite Global Leaders Conference. Both Moreira and Ferguson are famous for being advocates of  transhumanism, for having co-authored the Transhumancode, and created the oiste Think Tank which is part of the WEF’s galaxy. The first, held in July 2019, dealt precisely with the Transhuman Code. The same zealous apostles of the future technocratic utopia came back in October 2021 to discuss the ‘Technology that Empowers Humanity’…

‘For things to remain the same…’

How could the papacy transform itself so radically? It is a challenging question to the historian. The various ecclesiastical scandals with which Bergoglio is personally involved might provide us with the beginning of an explanation. This pope is known for covering up to the bitter end the crimes perpetrated by high prelates (McCarrick, Zanchetta, Maradiaga and many more), although all of them were facing grave and well documented accusations of sexual abuse or financial corruption, or even both. Only full public exposure made possible their dismissal. Bergoglio emerged as what he really is: a bureaucrat ready to protect his fellow collaborators at all price. On the other hand, it is the same man who was trying to please public opinion while strengthening Rome’s policy against sexual abuses committed by ordinary priests. Held by a strong esprit de corps, a decent communicator as are most modern top managers, he is always ready to spin himself out of trouble with a well-practiced storytelling.

Religious conservatives who are worried with the exposition of Pachamama statuettes in a church nearby the Vatican, need not to be. Such displays do not constitute a statement of syncretism nor of ecological neopaganism. No more than the loud public pledges to the ‘defense of the planet’, nor ‘against climate change,’ nor ‘in favor of the environment’ » staged by the financial or industrial stakeholders. Francis doesn’t worship Mother-Earth any more than his private sector partners, hellbent on a massive grab of what natural goods are left. This is pure spin.

However, the world is indeed changing and Rome is changing too. Clearly, the top of the Catholic hierarchy doesn’t want to take a counter-cultural stand: it would rather follow dominant ideology, even to the price of swallowing a certain amount of transhumanism. Was the Jesuit Bergoglio once under the influence of the mystical scientism of Teilhard de Chardin S.J.? Maybe. However, there is another simpler reason for this move. The papacy is now in reality extremely weak and Francis cannot accept this. All over the world, churches are empty or emptying, like in Latin-America. The only communities that survive are tiny, scattered, and display a fair amount of conservatism, even sometimes traditionalism. The Vatican, as such, has become a terribly outdated institution, not very well suited to the size and reach of the communities it is meant to supervise. The pope, although he carries on to do so, and despite official statistics, doesn’t have the means to speak to humanity as if he were still some spiritual and moral authority followed all over the world by more than a billion of faithful. The only card left in his hand in front of a secularized world, is what he still represents in theory, but not in reality: a certain aura associated with his white cassock, Saint Peter’s Plaza and Basilica, the Vatican palace, the Sistine Chapel, the Swiss Guards (provided they are  ‘vaccinated’ of course!) and the pontifical universities. 

Bergoglio’s entire existence is a life of compliance to hierarchical structures to which he identified. His career is built upon a constant and faithful conformity to the successive dominant narratives he went through: from Peròn’s populist narrative (pope Francis the Dictator) to Schwab’s elitist narrative. Catholicism is now too weak to be able to provide him with a socially hegemonic ideology, while at the same time his deepest bureaucratic instinct prevents him to turn away from contemporary groupthink. Furthermore, if Francis had opted to dedicate himself to the tiny catholic minority that still exists, he would have taken the risk to push the old pontifical Rome into oblivion and anonymity in the eyes of the general public. That was not a choice a man of the apparatus like him could have made. His wish was to remain faithful to Rome as he sees it: a world leading institution —like it was before. Francis, therefore, has chosen to try and become one of the stakeholders of the global governance. Thus, he is willing to impart what’s left of the ageless cachet of his position to their new gigantic corporate partners. Thus, he is willing to actively cooperate enforcing a global totalitarian system, ultimately based on digital surveillance and genetic experimentations that are killing millions of people. ‘Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga come è, bisogna che tutto cambi!’

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What is 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.

Global Research does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A  bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

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First of all, in the current situation, let’s demand seriousness, not cabaret.  This is not the time, nor a place, for empty gestures and tearful “declarations of solidarity”.  Responsible leadership should focus on the specifics.  It is important not only how to de-escalate the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, but also how to limit its scope.  Another set of issues will be finding oneself and facing the challenges of the political reconstruction of Ukraine (or perhaps its decomposition), and the new international order that is being shaped before our eyes.

Sicilian Defence

We must also be fully aware that a politician such as Vladimir Putin would never have taken such a determined action – if he had not been forced to do so.

And it is by no means a question of “absolving” anyone, as politics does not recognise such a concept.  Simply, the real President Putin (not his media caricature) is an emblematic representative of a defensive strategy.  Heir to Kutuzov, certainly not Suvorov. 

The order could only be issued when the Russian side had reliable information about the expected enemy attack.  And not only against Donbass, but probably the Russian Federation itself.  Vladimir Putin attacks only when this is the absolutely only form of… defence.  And it is hardly surprising that the Russians, instead of defending themselves just few miles from Moscow again or worrying how to feed people of Leningrad – preferred to land near Kharkov.

Of course, there were probably other factors and concerns.  Over the past few months, it has been hard to resist the impression that the United States and the United Kingdom in particular are outright encouraging and almost forcing Russia to an invasion.  And all this with an unequivocal rejection of Russian attempts to return to negotiations on the Donbass question, i.e. giving a real shape to the Minsk format, effectively sabotaged by Kiev.  On the other hand, President Volodymyr Zelensky, also because of his original profession, should remember that when staring in the camera mirror, none should call out three times “Putin! Putin! Putin!” – because a wish can come true and the called will come…

Don’t play of chick with Russians!

The Kiev junta screamed “Wolf, wolf!” so many times that nobody treated it seriously anymore, of course except in the sphere of media propaganda.  Thus, the six-month-long threat of a Russian invasion took on the power of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Yet Vladimir Putin clearly, openly and publicly presented the Russian position.  In the face of the Westerner’s désintéressement with the Minsk format – i.e. the peaceful denazification and federalisation of Ukraine – Russia has thrown another lifeline to the other side.

The recognition of the sovereignty of the Donbass People’s Republics has clearly delineated the Russian sphere of interest.  Let’s admit – really cautious concerning the accusations against Moscow.

It was also decided not to respect this.  “Putin is running away! Putin is over!” – they shouted, although the Russian president had not even started yet, as it turned out.  The media offensive was also intensified, with a clear message: “Do not dare to defend yourself, because we will say that you started it!”.  Well, straight – there was an attempt to play a game of chick with Russia.  And already a few months ago I warned that Putin is not the one to swerve first.

So since Russia had sanctions against itself anyway, since she was accused of aggression and invasion anyway, without doing anything, and the fact that the next step of the West would be a direct attack – a pre-emptive strike was the only option.  Elementary, when the costs are the same and delay would only be fatal.

What peace?

In fact, the Ukrainian-Russian conflict itself should concern us as little as possible, in contrast to its potential consequences.  Of course, the natural position of neighbours is to keep problems away from their own borders, looking for solving everything as soon as possible.

This is what Belarus is doing by proposing talks in Minsk again.

Also in the West, for example in France, there are voices about the need for urgent NATO-Russia talks (Éric Zemmour, who is running for the presidential election, supported French initiative in this matter, of course adding a ritual condemnation of the Russian intervention).

The Hungarian Prime Minister, Victor Orban, also took a balanced position.  Unfortunately, we can be sure that most of the US Central European vassals, led by Poland and Lithuania, will not follow the path of reason and will not propose anything sensible.  Reaching instead to the proven arsenal of appeals, summons, speeches, highlights, FB overlays and screams.  And also spending taxpayers’ money to support the policy of a collapsing Nazi-oligarchic Ukrainian state.

Meanwhile, regardless of the result of the Russian intervention, Ukraine will not be the same anymore.

We do not yet know the scope or assumptions of the denazification announced by President Putin.

However, if we take it seriously, and the presence of the Russian troops adds the seriousness to such a declaration – it can be concluded that the Russians do again the whole dirty job for other Europeans, as during WW2.

Because getting rid of the Nazi Banderites from Ukraine is indisputably in the common interest.

We also do not know what the assumed military range of the operation is and whether it is assumed to cover the entire Ukrainian state within its current borders.

Above all, however, we should remember that anyone who repeats “this is not the moment to demand anything from Ukraine” is a TRAITOR or a fool.  Now is the time to make demands from Ukraine denazification, expulsion of the U.S. biological and chemical weapons laboratories, ban on GMOs, blacklisting terrorists in the service of Washington, and other U.S. garbage. Unfortunately, we can be sure that no one will do it. Of course – except for Russia.

If a decentralised, federal and, above all, denazified Ukraine is created – ethnic minorities will regain their language rights, Nazi symbols will disappear from the public space, and poverty and hopelessness could someday stop to be everyday challenge for Ukrainians.

In turn, the complete disintegration of the Ukrainian state, or its division into a Western and Eastern-Southern part – would raise the question of who would rule the Western one: then mainly oligarchs and thieves or mainly Nazis and murderers.  Or both, as is it now.  If the Russians do not operate beyond the pre-WW2 border of Poland, all of Europe will become a forced neighbour of the Bandera’s Ukrainian Nazi Reich.  With all the consequences.  The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation progresses as quickly as possible – are therefore in the European absolutely basic interest.  And after that – final, righteous and just peace.

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Konrad Rękas is a renowned geopolitical analyst and a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Sputnik News/Alexey Nikolsky