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Colin Todhunter discussed with Yohan Tengra of the Anarchy for India media platform on the GMO situation in India.
Watch the video below.
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Colin Todhunter is an independent writer and analyst specialising in development, food and agriculture based in Europe/India.
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
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The Covid-19 vaccination programme is well underway and governments around the world are continuing to push the jab agenda, aiming to achieve the worldwide 70 per cent inoculation threshold. However, not everyone is on board with the vaccine narrative as some countries have turned away from big pharma and their experimental injections.
Three countries on this planet have refused to accept the Covid-19 vaccine from the World Health Organisation (WHO), with each official to directly decline the jab being a president who each coincidentally ended up dead.
Is this just a coincidence? Or is there something more sinister taking place?
Tanzania
At the start of the Covid-19 vaccine rollout, Tanzania stated in early February that the country was going to reject the jabs and opt for alternative homoeopathic remedies. The health minister announced that the country had “no plans in place to accept COVID-19 vaccines” after President John Magufuli expressed doubt about vaccines sourced abroad, stating that he would only adopt vaccinations after they had been certified by Tanzania’s own experts.
Health Minister Dorothy Gwajima said at a press conference: “We are not yet satisfied that those vaccines have been clinically proven safe.”
Following this, Gwajima and other health officials drank a herbal remedy concoction including ginger, garlic, and lemons, and inhaled steam from herbs, promoting them as a treatment to boost the immune system and help kill off the virus. Gwajima then warned journalists about reporting unofficial figures on Covid-19 or any disease.
Tanzania did face lockdowns, however, as all schools and universities were closed in March 2020 to deal with a rise in cases. In April 2020, Tanzania stopped releasing Covid-19 statistics – the last public statistics stated that there had been 509 positive cases 21 deaths, and 183 recoveries. In June later that year, President Magufuli declared that the country was free from Covid-19.
At the end of January 2021, Magalufi said:
“You should stand firm. Vaccinations are dangerous. If the White man was able to come up with vaccinations, he should have found a vaccination for AIDS by now; he would have found a vaccination [for] tuberculosis by now; he would have found a vaccination for malaria by now; he would have found a vaccination for cancer by now.”
Following this, Matshidi Moeti, head of the WHO Regional Office for Africa, encouraged Tanzania to prepare for the vaccine rollout, to put in place preventative measures to protect its population, and to share data on the Covid-19 situation with WHO and neighbouring countries. Tanzania, however, stood firm and refused to sign up for the vaccine programme, and in February 2021, the country was not on the COVAX vaccine distribution list.
John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said:
“Tanzania is a sovereign country, we can’t go there and pull down data. Not cooperating will make it dangerous for everybody.
“We know what works”, he added, warning that all Africa’s instruments and targets for development will be compromised “if we don’t get this virus out of our way.”
In March 2021, just months after first rejecting the Covid-19 vaccine, President John Magufuli was reported to have died from heart complications aged 61. The mainstream media reported that the president died at a hospital in Dar es Salaam after he had not been seen in public in the weeks prior to his death.
At the time, opposition party members said that the president had contracted Covid-19, however, it was later confirmed by Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan that he had died at 6pm on 17th March 2021 from heart complications that were not connected to Covid-19.
Following President Magufuli’s death, Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan was sworn in as his replacement within 24 hours to serve the remainder of Magufuli’s five-year term which began last year.
Shortly after Magafuli’s death, President Hassan formed a committee of experts to look into the safety and effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines, leading to Tanzania joining the COVAX vaccine distribution list on 15th June.
The newly-appointed president then launched the country’s Covid-19 vaccination programme officially in July after receiving just over a million Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccines that were donated by the United States through the COVAX scheme.
President Hassan was the first to receive the vaccine on live television and encouraged others to get the jab, promising that they are entirely safe.
“I’m a mother of four, a grandmother of several grandchildren, and a wife, but most of all I’m the President and Commander in Chief. I wouldn’t put myself in danger knowing that I have all these responsibilities as the shepherd of the nation,” she said during a ceremony at State House in the city of Dar es Salaam.
Additionally, among those vaccinated was Health Minister Dorothy Gwajima, the doctor who promoted herbal remedies and alternative Covid-19 treatments in the previous year.
The live TV vaccinations were broadcast to combat alleged medical misinformation surrounding the vaccines which were apparently being shared on social media and from religious and political leaders.
Burundi
President Nkurunziza expelled WHO officials from the country for mismanaging the Covid-19 scare and refused to impose restrictions on the small African nation. In a letter dated May 12th 2020, addressed to WHO’s Africa headquarters, Burundi’s foreign ministry said the four officials – one of the country’s top WHO representatives and three other experts – were “declared persona non grata and as such, must leave the territory of Burundi” by Friday 15th May 2020.
WHO’s top official in Burundi, Dr Walter Kazadi Mulombo, the country’s coronavirus coordinator Dr Jean Pierre Mulunda Nkata, communicable diseases head Dr Ruhana Mirindi Bisimwa, and a laboratory expert in the testing for COVID-19, Professor Daniel Tarzy were expelled as a result of the directive.
A Burundian official told the media:
“It is the whole WHO team responsible for supporting Burundi in its response against COVID-19.
“They are expelled and the health minister has totally excluded WHO, accusing it of unacceptable interference in its management of the coronavirus.”
Although, just a month later in June 2020, President Pierre Nkurunziza died after reportedly suffering a cardiac arrest aged 55.
According to the mainstream media, the president was admitted to hospital on 6th June 2020 after he started feeling unwell, where his condition seemed to improve. However, just days later the president was reported to have suffered a cardiac arrest and was unable to be revived.
General Evariste Ndayishimiye replaced Nkurunziza as president shortly after his death.
Following in the footsteps of Tanzania, Burundi became the second African country in early 2021 to say that it didn’t need any Covid-19 vaccines. In February 2021, the health minister, Thaddee Ndikumana told reporters that prevention is more important, stating at the time that “since more than 95% of patients are recovering, we estimate that vaccines are not yet necessary.”
With Ndayishimye now as president, Burundi quickly changed their mind about the vaccines and announced in July 2021 that it would take Covax vaccines on the condition that Burundi does not sign a waiver that would commit the government to compensate victims of “undesirable” side effects from the jabs.
The health minister, Ndikumana, who originally opposed the vaccines said that the country accepted Covax vaccines offered by the World Bank, adding: “When the vaccines are here, any Burundian who wants to can go [and get a jab].”
Haiti
After the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced the vaccine rollout worldwide, the Haitian government declined to receive the AstraZeneca jabs. In April 2021, an estimated 756,000 vaccine doses were scheduled to arrive in Haiti in May, free of charge to the government, according to The Guardian.
Bloomberg reported that the Haitian government declined the jabs due to the side effects linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine. However, other mainstream media outlets reported a different story, stating that the government refused the initial Covax shipment due to lacking the infrastructure to properly store the vaccine. Although, UNICEF told The New Humanitarian that 80 percent of Haiti’s temperature-controlled supply chain storage had been upgraded in the last few years.
Despite this, the Health Ministry Director General Laure Adrien said: “When we decided to delay the 756,000 doses from the COVAX programme, we weren’t in the same situation as we find ourselves today.”
Not only were the new shipment of Pfizer vaccines set to come from the Biden administration, but they were also set to arrive in July – the same month that President Moïse was assassinated.
On the 7th July 2021, the Haitian President, Jovenel Moïse, was shot and killed in his home in Port-au-Prince. The official story states that during the early hours of the morning, a group of two dozen mercenaries, including two US-Haitian citizens and a number of Colombians, several of whom were former soldiers, stormed Moïse’s villa, pretending to be a US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) raid, overpowering staff, and security.
During the attack, Moïse was shot up to 12 times and his house was ransacked. In the hours that followed, a number of the alleged attackers were either killed in shootouts or captured, some at Haiti’s Taiwanese embassy where they had sought refuge.
However, this is simply just a coincidence that the vaccine rollout would begin after the president was shot to death at his home a week prior…
Mainstream Media Silence
Of course, the mainstream media have remained silent on the assassinations of the presidents, only speaking out on the stories to combat the “disinformation” that they were murdered for being against the vaccine. Fact-checkers have been forced to come out of the woods to “prove” that the deaths of the presidents can be explained.
However, for those with a brain, it does seem odd that the countries all quickly started accepting the vaccines once their anti-vaccine presidents were out of the picture.
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Comments Off on Several Anti-Covid-19 Vaccine Presidents Assassinated, Mainstream Media Silent, COVID-19 Jabs “Coincidentally” Rolled Out Just Days Later
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“Don’t be afraid of the virus. It’s nothing like as dangerous as you’ve been led to believe.”
“Be very terrified of your governments or bodies above those governments are doing.”
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Featured image: Dr Michael Yeadon, a former Pfizer vice president and co-founder of Doctors for COVID-19 Ethics The Last American Vagabond / Odysee
The original understanding was to hold a public discussion before approving the experimental mRNA gene therapy, falsely called vaccine, before that inoculation is fully approved as a vaccine.
As a tsunami of crocodile tears engulfs Western politicians, history is suppressed. More than a generation ago, Afghanistan won its freedom, which the United States, Britain and their “allies” destroyed.
During more than a year of painstaking and meticulous research, I unearthed a shocking story that obliterates the obsequious media’s spin on Dr. Fauci … and that will alarm every American — Democrat or Republican — who cares about democracy, our Constitution and the future of our children’s health.
As I predicted, the corrupt US Food & Drug Administration (FDA), allegedly a regulatory agency but in actuality an agent for Big Pharma and agri-business, has, according to news reports, given final approval to Pfizer’s Covid “vaccine.”
It is bad enough that the vaccines are causing over 50,000 deaths according to vaccine reporting systems in America, the European Union, England, and Scotland, which all have official vaccine reporting systems.
Christine Massey submitted Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to some 90 Health /Science institutions. Does the Virus Exist? The responses to these requests confirm that there is no record of isolation / purification of SARS-CoV-2 “having been performed by anyone, anywhere, ever.”
Over the past 18 months, COVID countermeasures have become increasingly tyrannical, and we now appear to have reached a new high (or low, depending on your perspective). The U.S. government is actually viewing citizens who exercise their Constitutional rights as domestic terrorists, enemies of the state.
The diabolical forces and powers that lied and misled the American people and the world with “False Flag Operations” more than a generation ago and plunged Afghanistan, the already liberated, emerging, women’s rights respecting Asian country into the dark barbaric Middle Ages, are again lying to the whole world and plunging it into misery with their devastating Corona measures – and the citizens of this world are largely putting up with it again.
In the course of the last 17-18 months starting in early January 2020, I have analyzed almost on a daily basis the timeline and evolution of the Covid crisis. From the very outset in January 2020, people were led to believe and accept the existence of a rapidly progressing and dangerous epidemic.
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).
The British Medical Journal [BMJ] announces that the FDA is set to grant full approval to the Pfizer vaccine without public discussion of data:
“Transparency advocates have criticized the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision not to hold a formal advisory committee meeting to discuss Pfizer’s application for full approval of its COVID-19 vaccine.”
The original understanding was to hold a public discussion before approving the experimental mRNA gene therapy, falsely called vaccine, before that inoculation is fully approved as a vaccine.
The approval of the Pfizer mRNA poison is a perfect precedent for approving all other mRNA poisonous potions – thereby making the attempt at reduction of human life (“depopulation”) on earth official – the eugenists have officially won the race.
Although this was predictable, there was hope that counter-voices and real science, as expressed by hundreds and thousands of scientists, might prevail.
So far, this diabolical agenda is overwhelming. It is overrunning the entire UN system, all 193 UN member countries, and foremost the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN-unit which people hope and trust will defend their interests.
Wrong: The WHO was never created to defend the health interests of the people. It was from the beginning, from its inception in 1948, an instrument to control people from a eugenist perspective, as the creation of WHO was a Rockefeller idea. The Rockefellers and Gates are among the world’s foremost protagonists of depopulation.
In the same vein, rather than an organization that seeks “preventive care”, the WHO was set up from the beginning as a “curative” body, meaning it is promoting pharmaceuticals to heal sick people, rather than preventing people from becoming sick. The curative means, pharmaceuticals, are based on petrochemicals – gradually killing traditional medicine.
Why? The Rockefellers were the owners of the largest hydrocarbon corporation Standard Oil, established in 1870 by John D. Rockefeller and Henry Flagler. It was broken up in 1911 in the guise of US antitrust regulations, just to be reassembled to become in 1999 ExxonMobile, still the world’s largest Hydrocarbon corporation.
The creation of WHO, as we see it today, was a brilliant idea – for the interest groups, Rockefellers, Gates, pharma-industry et al. The brilliance was exacerbated by making WHO a UN body, giving it worldwide authority about matters of health. Unlike other UN agencies which get the bulk of their budgets from the member country quotas, WHO receives 3 to 4 times more funding from the private sector, i.e. mostly pharma-corporations and from the Gates Foundation.
With this background, it becomes clear what role WHO is playing in the defense of human health.
One of the strongest programs is vaccination – a pharma bonanza – and also an obscure sector, because under the guise of vaccination in Africa, India and elsewhere, specific vaccination programs have resulted in rendering women infertile. (see this and this. Several other articles about WHO-consented infertility drives by vaccination, were “fact-checked” out of the internet – the usual.
Below are details on the WHO’s 1993 “Birth Control Vaccine” against Tetanus. Read abstract below
The Vaccine “CAUSES PREGNANCY HORMONES TO BE ATTACKED BY THE IMMUNE SYSTEM”
“Depopulation”?
Looking at today’s coerced COVID-19 mass vaccination with untested mRNA inoculations, makes the 2014 Kenya “tetanus” sterilization vaccines look like mere trials. They probably were and became precursors to the massive eugenist agenda launched upon the world in late 2019.
This pathological obscure cult, consisting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Gates Foundation, the Johns Hopkins Institute of Health as well as Big Pharma, entities within the UN system and the key international financial institutions, IMF and World Bank, have with Event 201 on 18 October 2019 in NYC, clearly subscribed to an agenda of “depopulation”.
There is no doubt about it. This explains the coercive blackmail style pressure to be “vaccinated” worldwide, the vaxx-passes, that eventually will segregate the vaxxed from the un-vaxxed and create a divided society.
Fear and the perspective of a ban on societal life for the un-vaxxed is the driving force to increase the level of jabbed people throughout the world to the highest level possible, e.g 80%.
Once that level has been reached, massive protests from people taking to the streets, won’t matter anymore.
The inoculated people have already been marked. According to former Pfizer Vice President, top-virologist and chief scientist, Mike Yeadon, most “vaxxed” people will experience devastating impacts on their health after having been injected with the mRNA poison.
Others, like German Drs. Sucharit Bhakdi and Wolfgang Wodarg, as well Canada’s Dr. Charles Hoffe – and many more – point to a trend in mortality and morbidity for the vaccinated. According to Dr. Bhakdi:
[The COVID injections] are in your bloodstream for at least a week, and they will seep into any organ. And when those [organ] cells then start to make the spike protein themselves, then the killer lymphocytes will also seek and destroy them …
What we are witnessing is one of the most fascinating experiments that could lead to massive autoimmune disease. When this will happen, God knows. And what this will lead to, God knows.”
The mRNA-type injections cause blood clotting, leading eventually to thrombosis. Dr. Hoffe found that 62% of his patients took the mRNA “experimental gene therapy” developed microscopic blood clotting shortly after vaccination. As time goes on, more mRNA-“vaccinated” people may develop similar blood irregularities:
“The blood clots we hear about which the media claim are very rare are the big blood clots which are the ones that cause strokes and show up on CT scans, MRI, etc.
The clots I’m talking about are microscopic and too small to find on any scan. They can thus only be detected using the D-dimer test.”
These people have no idea they are even having these microscopic blood clots. The most alarming part of this is that there are some parts of the body like the brain, spinal cord, heart and lungs which cannot re-generate. When those tissues are damaged by blood clots they are permanently damaged.”
“These shots are causing huge damage and the worst is yet to come.”
Thus, many of those Pfizer, Moderna and J&J vaccinated patients may die premature deaths – and in many cases tracing death back to the vaccine will be difficult and may most certainly be disguised as resulting from other causes.
Since “vaccination” started on 14 December 2020, double the number of people died from the COVID vaccines than from all vaccinations in the last 30 years together. And this is based only on the reported cases. It is known, especially in the US with the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), created in 1990, that reporting covers a mere 5% to 10% of all cases.
This proportion is possibly even lower in the case of COVID-19 vaccination, due to enormous pressure to hide real adverse effects figures, especially deaths, from the public at large. Therefore, the reported figures may only be a fraction of the real cases.
According to the latest figures (from government sources) for the EU, Britain and the US (combined), there are 34,052 Covid-19 injection related deaths and over 5.46 million injuries reported on 1 August 2021
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EU/EEA/Switzerland to 31 July 2021 – 20,595 Covid-19 injection related deaths and over 1.94 million injuries, per EudraVigilance Database.
UK to 21 July 2021 – 1,517 Covid-19 injection related deaths and over 1.1 million injuries, per MHRA Yellow Card Scheme.
USA to 23 July 2021 – 11,940 Covid-19 injection related deaths and over 2.4 million injuries, per VAERS database.
The “Satanic Cult” of the Ultra Rich
Less than two years ago, who would have thought that a satanic cult of ultra-rich corporate and banking oligarchs, may take over full control of all 193 UN member countries representing close to 8 billion people, with death threats and corruption, executing a plan that threatens the world’s population within the next ten years, coinciding with the infamous UN Agenda 2030.
Hardly anybody would have thought that humanity was capable of producing such criminal, sick monsters.
This is the author’s screenshot view. However, We, the People, are many, and they are few. They know it. That’s why they expediently and with haste.
If we act, we have to act fast and in solidarity – to stem against this monstrous project – by simply not falling into the trap of complacency, of promises and lies, but actively RESIST now, without hesitation.
Then we have a chance – and not only a chance – to overcome and restore humanity with human values and with a Reset that serves humanity and not the criminal globalist agenda.
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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.
Featured image: Raw photo from Pixabay, edited by Global Research
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Als ich heute den Artikel des großen Journalisten John Pilger „The Great Game of Smashing Countries“ in GlobalResearch (1) las, haben mich Entsetzen und Empörung gleichermaßen überfallen. Die diabolischen Kräfte und Mächte, die vor mehr als einer Generation das amerikanische Volk und die Welt mit „False Flag Operations“ belogen und in die Irre geführt und Afghanistan, das bereits befreite, aufstrebende, die Rechte der Frauen achtende asiatische Land ins dunkle barbarische Mittelalter gestürzt haben, belügen mit ihren verheerenden Corona-Maßnahmen auch heute wieder die ganze Welt und stürzen sie ins Elend – und die Bürger dieser Welt lassen sich das großenteils wieder gefallen. Wie ist das nur möglich?
Afghanistan ist ja nur ein Beispiel unter vielen: Erwähnt werden müssen in diesem Zusammenhang ebenso Vietnam, Irak, Jemen, Serbien und viele andere Länder und Schicksale. Als die afghanische Bevölkerung bereits aus vielen Wunden blutete, habe ich das Buch der iranischen Dokumentarfilmerin Siba Shakib gelesen „Nach Afghanistan kommt Gott nur noch zum Weinen. Die Geschichte der Shirin-Gol“ (2). Nur Erlebnisberichte aus Konzentrationslagern wie das Buch von Margarete Buber-Neumann „Als Gefangene bei Stalin und Hitler. Eine Welt im Dunkel“ (3) haben mich in gleicher Weise erschüttert.
Die Leserin und der Leser mögen meine Emotionalität entschuldigen. Aber wieder einmal appelliere ich an die Mitbürgerinnen und Mitbürger, doch endlich aufzuwachen, der Realität ins Auge zu sehen und dieses diabolische Spiel nicht mehr mitzuspielen.
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Dr. Rudolf Hänsel ist Diplom-Psychologe und Erziehungswissenschaftler.
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Opposing COVID measures now tops the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s list of potential terror threats.
Public officials and media pundits are seemingly intentionally fanning the flames of unveiled hatred against those who choose to not participate in the COVID jab experiment
The rhetoric now hurled at unvaccinated people would under normal circumstances be considered hate speech. Now, it’s promoted as virtuous, while reporting a statistic or medical finding that counters the official narrative is considered hate speech
By convincing everyone that unvaccinated people are to blame for the never-ending pandemic, the pandemic industrial complex prevents the masses from identifying and turning on the real culprits
The World Health Organization is working with an artificial intelligence tool called EARS. It mines blogs, news articles and online forums in 20 countries, analyzing narratives and anticipating information spread. In all likelihood, it can also predict which narratives would most effectively counter the concerns people express. These propaganda narratives can then be disseminated through bot farms
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When you think of potential terror threats, what comes to mind? Did opposing irrational and/or illegal COVID measures make your list? Well, it recently got top billing on the Department of Homeland Security’s list of potential terror threats as we approach the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
Over the past 18 months, COVID countermeasures have become increasingly tyrannical, and we now appear to have reached a new high (or low, depending on your perspective). The U.S. government is actually viewing citizens who exercise their Constitutional rights as domestic terrorists, enemies of the state.
Dehumanizing Discrimination Against Unvaccinated
As reported by Daisy Luther with The Organic Prepper,1 “Shocking and dehumanizing discrimination against the unvaccinated is about to make life VERY difficult.” She is, of course, referring to the media and government narrative that if anyone gets infected with SARS-CoV-2, it’s the fault of some germ-ridden disease-spreading unvaccinated person.
Public officials and media pundits alike are seemingly intentionally fanning the flames of unveiled hatred against those who choose to not participate in the world’s largest medical experiment and get a novel injection that programs your body to produce a disease-causing protein, the full ramifications of which won’t be known for years.
Getting the shot is a patriotic duty, we’ve been told, and opting out is nothing short of a traitorous act, according to some. This kind of narrative is extremely dangerous, yet no one seems to care — not even the departments responsible for keeping this the land of the free.
As noted by Luther, the rhetoric now hurled at unvaccinated people would under normal circumstances be considered hate speech. Now, it’s promoted as virtuous, and reporting a statistic or published medical finding that counters the official narrative that masks work, lockdowns are effective and the COVID shot is safe and effective is considered hate speech.
Can You See the Psychological Operation at Work?
It’s important to realize that this insanity is not accidental. It’s by design, and part of a sophisticated psychological operation to drive people mad. I wrote about this last week.
The article is no longer available, as all articles are removed after 48 hours, but you can still view the video I featured, which explains how mass psychosis is induced using fear, waves of increasing threat, isolation and other dehumanizing tricks of the psychological trade.
Once a population has sufficiently lost touch with reality and embraced a “magical rationale” where irrationality is justified, they become capable of unthinkable horrors and abuses against people believed to be responsible for their ongoing anxiety.
By convincing everyone that unvaccinated people are to blame for the never-ending pandemic, the pandemic industrial complex prevents the masses from identifying and turning on the real culprits — the string-pullers and beneficiaries of the psychological breakdown.
“It has happened many times in history: when human beings were used as slaves and property, when human beings were the subject of horrific experiments when the media and people in power deliberately manipulated human beings to believe that other humans weren’t like them, and therefore, it was permissible to mistreat or abuse them,” Luther writes.2
“As the saying goes, those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And repeat it, they are. I think, regardless of our stance, we can all agree that fervently wishing for bad things to happen to those who believe differently and dehumanizing them for their beliefs is pretty awful.
Don Lemon of CNN believes the unvaccinated should not be allowed to buy food or work. Does this mean he believes that they should starve to death? …
CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner says that unvaccinated people shouldn’t go to bars and restaurants. A doctor pondered the ethics of whether he could refuse to see unvaccinated patients in The New York Times.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s Big Kahuna of COVID, blames those not vaccinated for a new spike in cases … Alabama Governor Kay Ivey wants everyone to blame the unvaccinated for any cases of COVID that happen to occur …
That’ll really be helpful if someone unhinged loses a loved one to COVID and decides to seek vengeance on some ‘unvaccinated folk.’ After all, the governor said it was their fault. Speaking of which, Nick Cohen of The Guardian said that it was only a matter of time before ‘we turn on the unvaccinated.’”
Concerns for Lack of Vaccination Are Highly Irrational
Those who continue to pressure everyone to get vaccinated have simply failed to look at the most recent data, which clearly demonstrate that those who are vaccinated are actually FAR more likely to get COVID, and worse, contribute to the process of creating variants.
As recently reported by Israeli National News,3,4,5 recent data show Israelis who have received the COVID jab are 6.72 times more likely to get infected than people who have recovered from natural infection.
Among the 7,700 new COVID cases diagnosed so far during the current wave of infections that began in May 2021, 39% were vaccinated (about 3,000 cases), 1% (72 patients) had recovered from a previous SARS-CoV-2 infection and 60% were neither vaccinated nor previously infected. Israeli National News notes:6
“With a total of 835,792 Israelis known to have recovered from the virus, the 72 instances of reinfection amount to 0.0086% of people who were already infected with COVID.
By contrast, Israelis who were vaccinated were 6.72 times more likely to get infected after the shot than after natural infection, with over 3,000 of the 5,193,499, or 0.0578%, of Israelis who were vaccinated getting infected in the latest wave.”
Penalties Large and Small Are Being Proposed
In addition to the penalties for lack of vaccination already mentioned in the quote above, Luther lists a number of others in her article, such as requiring unvaccinated people to:
Get tested daily at their own expense
Charging students nonrefundable quarantine fees
Canceling private insurance or raising premiums by thousands of dollars a year
Denying medical care at hospitals
Denying access to loans
Docking people’s paychecks
Suspending gun permits and driver’s licenses
Withholding government assistance and federal benefits like Social Security, VA benefits, subsidized housing and pensions
As noted by Luther, “The rabid contempt for those who think differently can lead nowhere good. For those who believe we should all get vaccinated or not, are you okay with this kind of dehumanization?”
Project Veritas Exposes Doxing Double-Standard
In the video above, Project Veritas’ James O’Keefe exposes yet another double-standard that has become norm. Project Veritas has been accused of unethically doxing the rich and powerful, yet CNN a few weeks ago did the exact same thing to me.
CNN reporter Randi Kaye filmed herself ambushing staff at our corporate headquarters in Cape Coral, Florida, without blurring out the suite number. She then went to my home. As noted by O’Keefe, mainstream media routinely dox “the non-powerful” whose right to privacy is actually greater than government and media officials.
Project Veritas recently got banned from Twitter for publishing a video in which they confronted Facebook vice president Guy Rosen outside his home, asking questions about Facebook’s hate speech policy. So, to recap, Project Veritas got banned from Twitter for doing the exact same thing CNN did to me — but didn’t get banned for.
Artificial Intelligence Is Part of the New Battlefield
In mid-July 2021, surgeon general Dr. Vivek Murthy issued a public advisory,7,8 calling COVID misinformation “an urgent threat to public health” that undermines “our ongoing work to end the COVID-19 pandemic.” The advisory calls for software algorithms to be deployed by social media platforms to “avoid amplifying misinformation” and strengthening monitoring of misinformation.
Similarly, at a recent Health Information Management Systems Society conference in Las Vegas, Hans Kluge, Europe region director of the World Health Organization, called for the use of “digital health” and artificial intelligence to fight misinformation. Artificial intelligence could also be used to identify communities with low COVID jab rates so that “swift assistance” can be launched in those communities.
According to STAT News,9 Kluge has “established a WHO unit focused on behavioral and cultural insights to understand the drivers of vaccine hesitancy and develop programs to counteract it.” Such programs include community outreach programs and identifying “champions” for the COVID jabs within religious communities, youth communities and the media.
Already, Kluge’s team is working with an artificial intelligence tool called EARS (Early AI-supported Response with Social listening tool). It mines blogs, news articles and online forums in 20 countries and analyzes the narratives it finds.
It can then anticipate how the information will spread, and what the effects of the information might have. While not stated in the STAT article, it seems reasonable to assume EARS is also capable of predicting which narratives would most effectively counter the concerns people express on these mined platforms.
Chosen propaganda narratives can then be pumped out using bot farms, such as the one imaged below.10 It may be shocking to some to realize that many of the “people” who are in favor of the official COVID narrative are not real people at all.
There are tons of fake profiles run by bot farms on all social media platforms that generate massive amounts of propaganda, including accounts with blue checkmarks.
The blue checkmark is supposed to designate that a user’s identity has been verified by Twitter and is “of public interest,” but clearly, the authentication process lacks in some of the basics, such as making sure the user actually exists in physical form and has physical control over the account in question.
Anti-Digital Hate Group Promotes Digital Hate
A central cog in the network fanning the flames of hatred and attacks on people whose only sin is the desire to make decisions for themselves is a group called the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).
It’s founded by a British national and unregistered foreign agent named Imran Ahmed, who is also a member of the Steering Committee on Countering Extremism Pilot Task Force under the British government’s Commission for Countering Extremism.
According to Ahmed, anyone who questions the rationale behind lockdowns, mask wearing or the safety and necessity of a COVID-19 injection may be prone to violent extremism, and the reason CNN trekked hundreds of miles across central Florida in search of me is because Ahmed has labeled me a top COVID misinformer.
In the CCDH’s initial report, “The Anti-Vaxx Playbook,”11 I was identified as one of the six most influential “anti-vaxxers” online that must be silenced. This was followed by “The Disinformation Dozen”12 and “Disinformation Dozen: The Sequel,”13 in which the list of targets doubled from six to 12.
These last two reports are what everyone — politicians, attorneys general, social media platforms and “blue checkmark influencers” — are now using to “prove” I am the most-dangerous and prolific superspreader of misinformation on the net.14
Whose Interests Does CCDH Protect and Promote?
When you think about it, isn’t it rather curious that government officials are actually targeting and violating the Constitutional rights of American citizens based on the opinions of an unregistered foreign agent who runs a tiny little “pop-up group” funded by dark money?15 As noted in a July 20, 2021, Drill Down article:16
“When a report goes viral in the news cycle, it only makes sense to question where it came from — especially if that report has influence all the way up to the Oval Office, affecting public health policy, while also having dangerous implications for free speech.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate … released a bombshell report earlier this week. It was picked up everywhere and had the following revelation: The majority of COVID misinformation came from just 12 people … But could this be a wily gambit by outside interests to justify the Biden administration’s censorship partner-up with Big Tech?
According to The Federalist, ‘The Center for Countering Digital Hate is an obscure international group reportedly based out of the United Kingdom and Washington, D.C., that works as an adviser to multiple governments and elite-run institutions about digital technology and regulation.
According to its website, the left-wing Center for Countering Digital Hate prides itself on ‘researching, exposing, and then shutting down users and news sites it deems unacceptable in the digital sphere.’
Users and news sites it deems unacceptable? That seems potentially dangerous, considering we know very little about the CCDH.
Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) expressed his concerns on Twitter with the following post: ‘Who is funding this overseas dark money group — Big Tech? Billionaire activists? Foreign governments? We have no idea. Americans deserve to know what foreign interests are attempting to influence American democracy’ …
No one knows who funds them. No one knows who is driving their research. But their findings are being used in censorship efforts under the guise of controlling misinformation?”
Violating Bioethical Principles Puts Lives at Risk
The sad irony is that government officials are really the ones contributing to unnecessary death and suffering by not adhering to bioethical principles that are enshrined in law. These laws exist for a good reason. They protect people from unnecessary harm and unwanted medical risks.
As an experimental trial participant, which is what everyone is at the moment who accepts a COVID shot, you have the right to receive full disclosure of any adverse event risks. Based on that disclosure, you then have the right to decide whether you want to participate.
Adverse event risk disclosure should be provided at the level of detail disclosed in any drug package insert. However, the COVID shots have no such insert or detailed disclosure, and adverse event reports are even being suppressed and censored from the public.
Instead, as explained by the FDA,17 since the COVID shots are not yet licensed,18 rather than providing a package insert, the FDA directs health care providers to access a lengthy online “fact sheet” that lists clinical trial adverse events and ongoing updates of adverse events reported after emergency use administration to the public.
A shorter, separate, online fact sheet with far less information in it is available for patients — but, provider or patient, you still have to know where to look up each of the vaccines authorized for emergency use separately on the FDA website to access those fact sheets.19
Adverse event risks must also be communicated in a way that you can comprehend what the risks are. This means the disclosure must be written in eighth grade language. In clinical trials, researchers must actually verify participants’ comprehension of the risks.
Failure to disclose these adverse effects, which is likely occurring in nearly every COVID injection case, results in an inability to give true informed consent as the person was never informed of all of the already well-established risks.
As just one example of many, Marie Follmer, in an interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,20 said no one ever warned her there was a risk of myocarditis. Her athletic son, Greyson, took the shot and is now unable to do much of anything and she fears he might die.
She admits not doing any of her own research, blindly trusting what she was told. Now, she distrusts the whole process, including doctors, as all have so far refused to acknowledge that there might be a link to the shot, and no one knows how to make him better.
Most importantly, the acceptance of an experimental product must be fully voluntary and uncoerced. Enticement is forbidden. It’s downright impossible to argue that the public messaging and incentives ranging from free junk food to million-dollar lotteries do not constitute coercion.
At the end of the day, if you decide you want to participate in a medical experiment, whatever it might be, that’s up to you. But everyone else also has that same right to choose.
If you find aggression mounting against an unvaccinated friend or family member, thanks to the current indoctrination that encourages savage and irrational behavior, think of something you absolutely don’t want done to your body, and then imagine being forced to do it just to maintain your right to enter a grocery store, buy insurance or keep your job.
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A complaint against Ukraine was submitted to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) by the General Prosecutor’s Office of Russia because of Kiev’s decision to block the flow of water to Crimea from the Dnieper River in April 2014.
As the Dnieper flows through Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, Kiev violated the provisions of the 1992 Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes in response to Crimea’s reunification with Russia. Reacting to Crimea’s decision to reunite with Russia, Ukraine unilaterally cut off this source of fresh water without warning.
Ukraine’s decision to cut the supply of water to Crimea affected the living conditions of the entire population, especially the most vulnerable, such as the disabled, the elderly, children and pregnant women. Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office noted that the blocking of water flows was “revenge” for the “political position of hundreds of thousands of residents.”
In terms of water resources, Crimea is one of the poorest regions in Russia. There are 23 reservoirs with a volume of more than one million cubic meters, mostly built during the Soviet era. For the needs of Crimea’s 2.5 million people, 150 million cubic meters is required annually. Although it appears this should be enough water for the needs of the population, there are several issues:
water resources in Crimea are distributed very unevenly – the northern and eastern parts of the peninsula are experiencing an acute shortage of water supply sources.
significant volumes of fresh water go into the sand and the sea due to insufficient water retention during periods of flood and heavy rainfall (up to 80%), as well as due to the deterioration of equipment, pipelines and canals (up to 30%). However, this situation is typical for the entire infrastructure network on the peninsula.
risks of water shortage are associated with droughts and winters with little snow, which occur in Crimea quite often, as happened at the beginning of June when water reserves in reservoirs decreased to a critically low 79 million cubic meters.
Ukraine’s water blockade led to interruptions in the supply of drinking water to a part of the Crimean population and caused serious damage to agriculture. According to experts, the damage amounted to $2.7 billion in seven years. In this regard, Kiev’s cynical position is striking, especially when they claim to care for the Crimean population.
At the same time, due to the ill will of Ukrainian authorities, there is a flagrant violation of basic human rights due to intentional water shortages. Some Ukrainian politicians even argued that the water blockade is a “blessing” for Crimeans as it helps bring closer the “de-occupation” of the peninsula. This idea exists in Kiev despite the fact that the majority of Crimeans voted to reunify with Russia in a referendum that adhered to all international norms and standards.
Although the West, particularly the U.S., UK and EU, portray themselves as defenders of human rights, there has been mostly silence about the intentional cutting of water to Crimea from foreign countries, international organizations, human rights defenders and environmentalists.
Moscow of course does not need foreigners to defend the human rights of Crimea’s population anyway. A plan to ensure uninterrupted water supply to Crimea for 2021-2024 was approved. The plan includes 14 initiatives to be achieved by 2024, such as increasing the volume of daily water supply to Crimea by up to 300,000 cubic meters. According to the plan, construction of new water intakes, drainage systems and treatment facilities will be carried out. In fact, eight of the 14 initiatives are already being implemented.
The most ambitious project is the construction of two pipelines for eastern Crimea. It will have a length of 190 km and five pumping stations. The cost of this facility, which is considered one of the most complex infrastructure projects in Russia, will amount to about $270 million. The problem of providing water to cities in eastern Crimea will be resolved in 2023 when the project is complete.
Ukraine had hoped that water could be turned into a weapon against the overwhelming majority of Crimeans who voted for reunification with Russia. Although civilians did suffer, it only strengthened Moscow’s resolve to acknowledge the chronic infrastructural and economic issues of the peninsula that Ukraine has ignored since achieving its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
Featured image: Ukraine suspends water supply to Crimea. ITAR-TASS
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Today, Dr. Anthony Fauci is a household hero to half of America.
Drug companies, government officials and the pharma-funded corporate media invoke his name to justify lockdowns, masks and experimental vaccines.
A recent editorial in a leading medical journal urged Congress to make it a felony to publicly criticize Dr. Fauci.
Encouraging his own deification, Dr. Fauci has declared that all those who questioned his pronouncements are “anti-science.”
But who is Dr. Fauci really?
In my new book, I show that Dr. Fauci has done little to earn the sobriquet “America’s Doctor.”
Instead, he has survived 50 years as the J. Edgar Hoover of public health by consistently prioritizing Big Pharma profits over the welfare of his countrymen, and through mercenary homage to the chemical and agricultural industry, the military industrial complex, the intelligence apparatus and all the other pushers of pills, potions, powders, poisons, pricks and the police state.
During more than a year of painstaking and meticulous research, I unearthed a shocking story that obliterates the obsequious media’s spin on Dr. Fauci … and that will alarm every American — Democrat or Republican — who cares about democracy, our Constitution and the future of our children’s health.
In my book I reveal how Fauci:
has been the principal architect of “agency capture” — the subversion of democracy by a drug industry that manipulates regulators like sock puppets.
failed dismally over his 50-year career with the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to address the cause, to prevent or cure the exploding epidemics of allergies and chronic disease that Congress charged him with curtailing. The chronic disease pandemic is his enduring legacy. Those ailments now debilitate 54% of American children compared to 6% when he joined NIAD.
repeatedly used fraud, bullying, intimidation, dissembling and falsified science to win approval for worthless and deadly drugs and vaccines.
sabotaged safe and effective off-patent therapeutic treatments for AIDS while promoting deadly chemotherapy drugs that almost certainly caused more deaths than HIV.
transformed NIAD from a public health regulator into an incubator for pharmaceutical drugs for which he and his trusted deputies often file patents and collect royalties. Dr. Fauci has claimed Moderna vaccine patent rights worth billions of dollars for NIAD and hand-picked at least four of his NIAD underlings to receive $150,000 annually from royalties.
exercises dictatorial control over the army of “knowledge-and-innovation” leaders who appear nightly on TV to parrot his orthodoxies and “debunk” his opponents who run his crooked clinical trials globally and who populate the “independent” federal panels that approve and mandate drugs and vaccines — including the committees that allowed the Emergency Use Authorization of COVID-19 vaccines.
violated federal law to allow his pharma partners to sacrifice and kill hundreds of impoverished and dark-skinned children and orphans in the U.S and Africa as lab rats in deadly experiments with toxic AIDS and cancer chemotherapies.
repeatedly concocted and weaponized fraudulent pandemics, including bird flu (2005), swine flu (2009) and Zika (2015-2016), in order to sell novel vaccines.
partnered with the Pentagon and intelligence agencies to conduct “gain-of-function” experiments to breed pandemic superbugs in poorly regulated labs in Wuhan, China and elsewhere, under conditions that virtually guaranteed the escape of weaponized microbes like SARS-CoV-2.
That’s just the short list.
Dr. Fauci and his band of pharma and Silicon Valley profiteers — working with corrupted politicians, captured federal agencies and the bought and brain-dead mainstream media — have used the COVID pandemic to mint billions from vaccines and other profitable medicines.
His disastrous mismanagement ran up one of the biggest COVID death counts among all nations.
Dr. Fauci has led the crusade to suppress functional remedies like Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine which could have avoided 80% of the deaths and hospitalizations from COVID and ended the pandemic overnight.
We need to stop Dr. Fauci and the coup d’état against the Constitution, human rights and liberal democracy globally.
Because this book threatens their trillion-dollar vaccine enterprise, Dr. Fauci and his allies in the medical cartel, the media and military will hurl fierce criticism and use censorship — to debunk and silence “The Real Anthony Fauci.”
With your help, this book can play a transformational role in exposing Dr. Fauci as a charlatan and quack and in showing the world that Dr. Fauci, far from being a healer, is one the most noteworthy mass murderers in human history.
It is my hope that this book will motivate — and mobilize — millions more advocates for truth, health and democracy.
“The Real Anthony Fauci” publication date is Nov. 9. By pre-ordering your copy today, you’ll help push the book to bestseller status, diminishing the powers of the censors to silence me. Thank you.
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Don’t we have enough ways to cause death or kill people? So what kind of people are busy adding new ways of killing others? And will they someday pay the ultimate price? In his new book, Robert Kennedy fingers Dr. Anthony Fauci as perhaps the most successful mass murderer in history, the “principal architect of “agency capture” — “the subversion of democracy by a drug industry that manipulates regulators like sock puppets.” Not only has Fauci pushed the wrong potentially disastrous pandemic solution, he has also blocked the right ones.
It is bad enough that the vaccines are causing over 50,000 deaths according to vaccine reporting systems in America, the European Union, England, and Scotland, which all have official vaccine reporting systems. Many think those numbers are underreported and are 5 to 10 times higher. Do you know that there are people who do not care, even a little, how many people are being killed (murdered) by vaccines? Fauci is one of them.
The June 2021 edition of the International Journal of Infectious Diseases is entitled, “The first case of postmortem study in a patient vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2.” The most concerning part of their study was that tests found SARS-CoV-2 in nearly every organ tested, including the man’s brain, lungs, trachea, kidney, and heart. In short, his whole body was overrun with high loads of vaccine-induced spike proteins or viral RNA. The man’s body was overrun with vaccine-induced spike proteins.
New Ways To Cause Death
The death count from the pandemic will continue to go up, and not the least of the reasons is the firing of doctors and nurses because they refuse to take an experimental lethal genetic changing injection. There is a significant chance of a significant shortage of nurses starting on October 1, former New York Times journalist Alex Berenson has reported, because they are quitting their jobs rather than take experimental coronavirus vaccines.
October 1 is the proposed deadline for mandatory vaccinations for staff in many hospitals, Berenson said, and the situation is so severe that he warned, “if you need to get sick, do it before the mandates hit October 1.”
A cardiologist who treated a child suffering from myocarditis – an inflammation of the heart muscle – after getting vaccinated against the coronavirus (COVID-19) told the child’s mother that “no case of myocarditis is mild.”
The 150 nurses and other hospital workers at Houston Methodist Hospital who were fired for refusing to receive one of the experimental COVID vaccines were apparently regarded by administrators as disposable.
But two months later, the hospital is one of several in the area experiencing a severe shortage of medical personnel as media report local hospitals have reached a “breaking point” because of a flood of COVID-19 cases, noted the Foundation for Economic Education.
How many people have died since the pandemic began because they were afraid to go to the hospital or because cancer tests were not available?
How many people have been killed because of masks that diminish oxygen and increase CO2?
How many have died because of being locked down (sun and vitamin D deprivation) or socially distanced? We do know without a doubt that suicides have increased dramatically because of these public policies. Is it murder?
Fearmongering from journalists, scientists,
and politicians did more harm than the virus.
We know mental and emotional health has suffered, but to the people who do not count the mounting vaccine deaths as a concern, nothing matters but promoting vaccines even if informed consent and the Nuremberg Code are ignored.
How many eventually will die because of blood shortages? The vaccinated can no longer donate blood! How many will die from alterations to their blood after being vaccinated? It is not just the trillions of spike proteins but the stacking of red blood cells, which cuts down on oxygen delivery.
How many died because governments, the press, and social media have been denying early treatment of COVID with substances like Ivermectin? We should never forget that Dr. Fauci led the crusade to suppress functional remedies like Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, which could have avoided 80% of the deaths and hospitalizations from COVID and ended the pandemic overnight.
And they are still at it. On August 21, we read that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is urging people to stop taking veterinary drugs to treat or prevent Covid-19 after receiving multiple reports of patients who have been hospitalized after “self-medicating with ivermectin intended for horses,” according to the federal agency.
“You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it,” the FDA tweeted from its official account on Saturday, alongside a consumer update detailing why the drug can be unsafe for humans. When they give full approval this week, the FDA will prove for all time that they are the most devastating terrorist organization in the world, along with the CDC.
They are getting desperate to sell unwanted COVID vaccines. Millions anxiously wonder about the latent effects of those jabs as almost 40,000 are reported dead, and millions of adverse reactions to the vaccines are officially registered. The FDA is expected to fully approve the COVID Pfizer shot this week without public discussion, without transparency.
The agency does not mind maiming and killing Americans. The FDA is fully aware that vaccination does not protect but causes health injuries and deaths and spreads the virus.
“Billions of people injected with we know not what. The immorality of such a mass inoculation of an untested and unapproved experimental vaccine is a charge that the corrupt public health authorities intend to escape by granting the still untested vaccines full approval not only before the required tests are conducted but in the face of the vaccine’s failure.The illegitimate, corrupt President of the United States is serving as a hired voice both for pharmaceutical profits and a secret agenda,” writes Paul Craig Roberts.
“How can we possibly count the suffering and the deaths from a man who has “failed dismally over his 50-year career with the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to address the cause, to prevent or cure the exploding epidemics of allergies and chronic disease that Congress charged him with curtailing. The chronic disease pandemic is his enduring legacy. Those ailments now debilitate 54% of American children compared to 6% when he joined NIAD.”
“Dr. Fauci and his band of pharma and Silicon Valley profiteers — working with corrupted politicians, captured federal agencies, and the bought and brain-dead mainstream media — have used the COVID pandemic to mint billions from vaccines and other profitable medicines. His disastrous mismanagement ran up one of the biggest COVID death counts among all nations.”
Dr. Vanden Bossche, who has a Ph.D. degree in Virology from the University of Hohenheim, Germany, says, “Every person out there who is ‘partially’ or ‘fully’ vaccinated is a walking disease incubation system that puts everyone else at risk of contracting a deadly, vaccine-caused ‘variant’ that could kill them. The ‘vaccinated’ are walking murderers spreading disease to others. Getting injected for the Fauci Flu is not only foolish; it is also a form of murder in that unvaccinated people are now at risk of contracting the deadly diseases being manufactured inside the bodies of the vaccinated. If Trump had never introduced the vaccine in the first place, the pandemic would have fizzled out long ago. Since his vaccines continue to be pushed … however, the ‘Delta’ variant is spreading like wildfire, soon to be followed by other ‘variants’ as we enter the fall season.”
Dr. Luc Montagnier, a French virologist and recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine, refers to the mass vaccine program as an “unacceptable mistake” and are a “scientific error as well as a medical error.” He asserts that “The history books will show that…it is the vaccination that is creating the variants.” In other words: “There are antibodies, created by the vaccine,” forcing the virus to “find another solution” or die. “This is where the variants are created. It is the variants that “are a production and result from the vaccination.”
None of the World’s Worst People are in Prison
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts contends, “They are withholding cures from people so they can continue the vaccine profits. This is grounds for arrest and indictment of every one of them: Fauci, the Head of the FDA, the Head of the CDC, and everybody involved. This is legitimate evidence for arresting them, indicting them, and putting them on trial. They killed people for vaccine profits by withholding cures. The deaths from Covid, but they would not let them use HCQ, Ivermectin, and now they are blocking a cure from Eli Lilly. This, I think, is the only case we need to make. We have proof they withheld treatment. We know that. It’s not speculative and not a theory. It is an absolute known fact. They withheld treatment, and they are continuing to withhold treatment so they can sell a vaccine.”
Conclusion
At least a hundred million people in America love and trust a human beast. And at least a hundred million see Fauci for what he is. He is slick, and like many other doctors, can gain trust when it is not deserved.
We’ve all heard about the atrocities committed by doctors during the Nazi regime. These terrible deeds tend to be largely personified by Josef “Angel of Death” Mengele and a handful of other, lesser-known Third Reich physicians, such as Erwin Ding-Schuler. In addition, however, there is a whole host of virtually unknown Nazi doctors who committed unspeakable crimes against humanity throughout World War II and the events leading up to it.
Fauci will be remembered in time as the worst human being ever to walk our planet, along with Bill Gates, competing with the worst monsters of history. They can say anything they want, but their actions speak louder than their words. History will not be kind to them, and neither should we. The Gates Foundation is a significant investor in Pfizer.
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Dr.MarkSircusAC., OMD, DM (P) is Professor of Natural Oncology, Da Vinci Institute of Holistic Medicine, Doctor of Oriental and Pastoral Medicine, and Founder of Natural Allopathic Medicine.
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The FDA did not approve the vaccines but extended the Emergency Use of the vaccines. They are also trying very hard to have agencies force employers to compel everyone to vaccinate but at the same time leaving themselves as an escape clause which they can return to claiming they never approved the vaccines beyond emergency use.
This is getting really questionable as to why they are forcing vaccines that clearly do not work and CANNOT work for as long as COVID exists in animals, it will constantly evolve and mutate just like the seasonal flu that sometimes comes from Birds or even Swine. The real question is WHY are we being lied to for what is the real purpose of the vaccines? They obviously do not care about the Great Unwashed, they prefer to thin the herd.
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When I read the great journalist John Pilger’s article “The Great Game of Smashing Countries” in GlobalResearch (1) today, I was assailed by horror and outrage in equal measure. The diabolical forces and powers that lied and misled the American people and the world with “False Flag Operations” more than a generation ago and plunged Afghanistan, the already liberated, emerging, women’s rights respecting Asian country into the dark barbaric Middle Ages, are again lying to the whole world and plunging it into misery with their devastating Corona measures – and the citizens of this world are largely putting up with it again. How is this possible?
Afghanistan is only one example among many: Vietnam, Iraq, Yemen, Serbia and many other countries and fates must also be mentioned in this context. When the Afghan people were already bleeding from many wounds, I read the book by the Iranian documentary filmmaker Siba Shakib “After Afghanistan, God only comes to weep. The Story of Shirin-Gol” (2). Only accounts of experiences in concentration camps, such as Margarete Buber-Neumann’s book “Als Gefangene bei Stalin und Hitler. A World in Darkness” (3) have shaken me in the same way.
The reader may excuse my emotionality. But once again I appeal to my fellow citizens to finally wake up, face reality and stop playing this diabolical game.
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Dr. Rudolf Hänsel is a graduate psychologist and educationalist. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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Algeria and Morocco broke diplomatic ties this Tuesday due to new disagreements over the Western Sahara issue and accusations of espionage. The decision came from Algeria, which historically supports the Polisario Front, a paramilitary organization that fights the Moroccan government and seeks the independence of Western Sahara. Now it remains to be seen which country will mediate the bilateral dialogue in order to ease frictions.
The Algerian government decided to cut diplomacy with Morocco after alleged “hostile actions” by Moroccan officials on Algerian soil. In a short speech, these were the words of the Algerian Foreign Minister Ramdane Lamamra: “Algeria has decided to cut diplomatic relations with the Kingdom of Morocco from today (…) The Moroccan kingdom has never stopped its hostile actions against Algeria (…) [but] Algeria will remain firm in its positions on the issue of Western Sahara”. Little is known so far about the real nature of such “hostile actions”, but there are allegations of espionage and support for illegal movements that oppose the Algerian government.
The Moroccan government is commonly accused of supporting some political movements considered dangerous by Algiers, such as the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylia (MAK, in its French acronym) – a group founded in 2001 and that defends the formation of an autonomous republic in the province of Kabylia. In the year of its foundation, MAK was the protagonist of several protests and political unrest in Kabylia, which is why some of its main leaders were arrested and remain in exile. The movement founded the so-called “Provisional Government of Kabylia”, a self-proclaimed regional government with little relevance to local political reality. MAK’s main flag is the defense of the Berber ethnic groups which inhabit the province and, according to the movement’s discourse, do not have their interests represented by the central government (that serves the interests of the Arab population). Despite some episodes of unrest, the group is generally described as a peaceful, non-violent movement.
Another Moroccan-backed movement that is illegal in Algeria is the Rachad, an allegedly “moderate” conservative Islamist organization that advocates the overthrow of the Algerian government through peaceful demonstrations and the establishment of an Islamic democracy. The group was founded in 2007 and was involved in protests during the Arab Spring. Rachad’s headquarters are in London and the movement appears to have strong links with the British government, planning to serve the international interests of the UK.
These two movements, despite being considered peaceful, are being accused of actively participating in the spreading of fires in northern Algeria. The Algerian government accuses them of causing illegal wildfires to destabilize the country and provoke a social and economic crisis. The fires started on August 9 and have already killed nearly 100 people, in addition to having destroyed a large area of vegetation and agricultural cultivation. Olive plantations and chicken farms were destroyed, which will have a strong economic impact on the country in the near future. Interestingly, the fires started precisely in the region of Kabylia and there are indications that they were caused by human action – which leads the Algerian government to suspect an attack led by the MAK.
In light of these facts, the government has toughened its persecution against dissident movements, and this has certainly contributed to the aggravation of tensions with Morocco. In fact, the Moroccan government does not have a strong interest in supporting such movements, but it does so to retaliate for Algerian support for the Polisario Front, so it is possible that there is direct involvement of Moroccan officials in the fires, which is reason enough for the cutting of diplomatic ties.
Furthermore, it should be noted that Algeria also denounced Morocco’s involvement in alleged espionage activities against Algerian authorities. Apparently, officials based at the Moroccan embassy would be spying on members of the Algerian government, but obviously there is not much information available on this matter, as it is a sensitive topic and involves intelligence operations.
With this, a tense and very complicated scenario is growing. The escalation of hostilities and the alleged Moroccan involvement in criminal activities that are leading hundreds of Algerians to death is a very serious point and the consequences could be grave. Indeed, international mediation is needed to prevent the case from taking on any major proportions – perhaps on a military scale. Certainly, there will be Egyptian involvement, as this country has more and more stood out for its goal of expanding its power and consolidating itself as a military and diplomatic authority in North Africa. However, Egypt is also involved with the Polisario Front, which makes the situation even more complicated for Morocco and tends to make a neutral and impartial dialogue difficult.
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Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
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An Irish medical doctor who had just worked all night in the hospital took time to give an impassioned plea to stop the COVID-19 injections. She states that other than the children, for whom the shots are not yet authorized, almost everyone she treated had two doses of COVID-19 shots.
She states that she is seeing things that in all her years of practice she has never seen before, such as blood clots in the arm of a young girl in her 20s. Nobody is linking these injuries to the vaccines.
She states that the hospitals are short staffed because nurses are quitting, as they do not want to get the jab.
“The shots are killing people,” she states, and “We need to stop this!”
“I would take one of these vaccines, in fact all 4 of them, every hour on the hour, in all my four limbs, if they would just leave our children alone.”
NORTHERN Ireland’s most senior doctor last night said he was “personally appalled” by the anti-vaccine video posted by a Derry GP who has been suspended from practising medicine.
Dr Anne McCloskey, a former Aontú councillor, expressed concerns in a social media video about young people being given the vaccine.
Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Sir Michael McBride also warned of the “great distress” caused by comments made by Dr McCloskey on social media after she inferred vaccinations were causing young people to become seriously ill- and falsely claimed “unapproved” vaccines were an “experimental genetic therapy”.
Following complaints by GP colleagues about the weekend post, the Health and Social Care Board (HSCB) yesterday moved to suspend Dr McCloskey as a “precautionary measure” as an investigation continues into “complaints and concerns against this doctor”.
The veteran GP retired in 2019 after more than 30 years working in the Shantallow area of the city but returned to the health service last April in response to the pandemic workforce appeal.
Dr McCloskey has been based in an out-of-hours GP centre in Derry for more than a year. (Source.)
This is what happens when you expose the Globalists’ agenda. Now it’s time for the rest of us to follow her example, no matter what the cost!
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Buried in the fine print of Monday’s approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of the Pfizer Comirnaty COVID vaccine are two critical facts that affect whether the vaccine can be mandated, and whether Pfizer can be held liable for injuries.
The press reported that vaccine mandates are now legal for military, healthcare workers, college students and employees in many industries. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has now required the vaccine for all teachers and school staff. The Pentagon is proceeding with its mandate for all military service members.
But there are several bizarre aspects to the FDA approval that will prove confusing to those not familiar with the pervasiveness of the FDA’s regulatory capture, or the depths of the agency’s cynicism.
First, the FDA acknowledges that while Pfizer has “insufficient stocks” of the newly licensed Comirnaty vaccine available, there is “a significant amount” of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine — produced under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) — still available for use.
The FDA decrees that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine under the EUA should remain unlicensed but can be used “interchangeably” (page 2, footnote 8) with the newly licensed Comirnaty product.
Second, the FDA pointed out that the licensed Pfizer Comirnaty vaccine and the existing, EUA Pfizer vaccine are “legally distinct,” but proclaims that their differences do not “impact safety or effectiveness.”
There is a huge real-world difference between products approved under EUA compared with those the FDA has fully licensed.
EUA products are experimental under U.S. law. Both the Nuremberg Code and federal regulations provide that no one can force a human being to participate in this experiment. Under 21 U.S. Code Sec.360bbb-3(e)(1)(A)(ii)(III), “authorization for medical products for use in emergencies,” it is unlawful to deny someone a job or an education because they refuse to be an experimental subject. Instead, potential recipients have an absolute right to refuse EUA vaccines.
U.S. laws, however, permit employers and schools to require students and workers to take licensed vaccines.
EUA-approved COVID vaccines have an extraordinary liability shield under the 2005 Public Readiness and Preparedness Act. Vaccine manufacturers, distributors, providers and government planners are immune from liability. The only way an injured party can sue is if he or she can prove willful misconduct, and if the U.S. government has also brought an enforcement action against the party for willful misconduct. No such lawsuit has ever succeeded.
The government has created an extremely stingy compensation program, the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program, to redress injuries from all EUA products. The program’s parsimonious administrators have compensated under 4% of petitioners to date — and not a single COVID vaccine injury — despite the fact that physicians, families and injured vaccine recipients have reported more than 600,000 COVID vaccine injuries.
At least for the moment, the Pfizer Comirnaty vaccine has no liability shield. Vials of the branded product, which say “Comirnaty” on the label, are subject to the same product liability laws as other U.S. products.
When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices places a vaccine on the mandatory schedule, a childhood vaccine benefits from a generous retinue of liability protections.
But licensed adult vaccines, including the new Comirnaty, do not enjoy any liability shield. Just as with Ford’s exploding Pinto, or Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup, people injured by the Comirnaty vaccine could potentially sue for damages.
And because adults injured by the vaccine will be able to show that the manufacturer knew of the problems with the product, jury awards could be astronomical.
Pfizer is therefore unlikely to allow any American to take a Comirnaty vaccine until it can somehow arrange immunity for this product.
Given this background, the FDA’s acknowledgement in its approval letter that there are insufficient stocks of the licensed Comirnaty, but an abundant supply of the EUA Pfizer BioNTech jab, exposes the “approval” as a cynical scheme to encourage businesses and schools to impose illegal jab mandates.
The FDA’s clear motivation is to enable Pfizer to quickly unload inventories of a vaccine that science and the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System have exposed as unreasonably dangerous, and that the Delta variant has rendered obsolete.
Americans, told that the Pfizer COVID vaccine is now licensed, will understandably assume COVID vaccine mandates are lawful. But only EUA-authorized vaccines, for which no one has any real liability, will be available during the next few weeks when many school mandate deadlines occur.
The FDA appears to be purposefully tricking American citizens into giving up their right to refuse an experimental product.
While the media has trumpeted that the FDA has approved COVID vaccines, the FDA has not approved the Pfizer BioNTech vaccines, nor any COVID vaccines for the 12- to 15-year age group, nor any booster doses for anyone.
And the FDA has not licensed any Moderna vaccine, nor any vaccine from Johnson & Johnson — so the vast majority, if not all, of vaccines available in the U.S. remain unlicensed EUA products.
Here’s what you need to know when somebody orders you to get the vaccine: Ask to see the vial. If it says “Comirnaty,” it’s a licensed product.
If it says “Pfizer-BioNTech,” it’s an experimental product, and under 21 U.S. Code 360bbb, you have the right to refuse.
If it comes from Moderna or Johnson & Johnson (marketed as Janssen), you have the right to refuse.
The FDA is playing bait and switch with the American public — but we don’t have to play along. If it doesn’t say Comirnaty, you have not been offered an approved vaccine.
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Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s reputation as a resolute defender of the environment stems from a litany of successful legal actions.
Meryl Nass, MD, ABIM, is an internist with special interests in vaccine-induced illnesses, chronic fatigue syndrome, Gulf War illness, fibromyalgia and toxicology.
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).
As I predicted, the corrupt US Food & Drug Administration (FDA), allegedly a regulatory agency but in actuality an agent for Big Pharma and agri-business, has, according to news reports, given final approval to Pfizer’s Covid “vaccine.”(Why only Pfizer’s? Is there favoritism at the FDA?) The FDA congratulates itself declaring the “vaccine” a “milestone as we continue to battle the COVID-19 pandemic.”
In one of the worse and most transparent lies ever told by a US government agency, the FDA said:
“The FDA’s approval of this vaccine is a milestone as we continue to battle the COVID-19 pandemic. While this and other vaccines have met the FDA’s rigorous, scientific standards for emergency use authorization, as the first FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine, the public can be very confident that this vaccine meets the high standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality the FDA requires of an approved product,” said Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock, M.D. “While millions of people have already safely received COVID-19 vaccines, we recognize that for some, the FDA approval of a vaccine may now instill additional confidence to get vaccinated. Today’s milestone puts us one step closer to altering the course of this pandemic in the U.S.”
Notice the last two sentences to which I added emphasis.The purpose of the approval is to convince those resisting inoculation with an extremely dangerous and totally ineffective “vaccine” to submit and take the shot.
As so many experts, men and women with scientific and medical knowledge far beyond what the FDA, CDC, NIH, WHO can muster, have stressed, the scientific evidence that does exist proves beyond all doubt that the mRNA vaccines fail to protect and actually enable the virus to escape the immune response, thus creating variants that infect the vaccinated.No evidence exists that supports the FDA’s claims.
Consider Commissioner Janet Woodcock’s claim that millions of people have already safely received Covid-19 vaccines.The official vaccine adverse reporting systems of the US, UK, and EU as of mid-June, two months ago, report 22,821 vaccine-related deaths and 4,085,204 health injuries, some serious and permanent.Clearly, the vaccine was not safe for these 4,108,025 people.As it is known that only a small percentage of adverse vaccine reactions and deaths are reported, the actual number of people harmed by the vaccine is much larger.See this.
Notice that the FDA gave a “safe” approval to a “vaccine” that official government databases for the US, EU, and UK show has killed as of last June 22,821 people and injured 4,085,204 people.
In its approval letter to Pfizer the FDA says that its analysis confirms that Pfizer’s “vaccine” is 95% effective.This statement is contradicted by all known evidence.From all over the world evidence is available that the majority of those in hospitals stricken with Covid are the fully vaccinated.
If the “vaccine” is 95% effective how is it possible that Iceland with a 95% vaccination rate has a massive outbreak of Covid?How is it possible that Israel, which almost exclusively used Pfizer vaccine, reports from the Israeli health ministry that at the beginning of July the effectiveness of the Pfizer “vaccine” was 64% and fell to 39% by the end of July? See this.
The utterly corrupt FDA pulled 95% out of its ass.
Nowhere in the FDA’s letter of approval is there any mention that the vaccine produces Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE). ADE is a mechanism that increases the ability of a virus to enter cells and cause a worsening of the disease. The evidence is clear that the Pfizer “vaccine” and the rest of the mRNA “vaccines” produce virus variants that cannot be controlled by vaccines. See this.
It is totally and illegally impossible for any vaccine that has this result ever under any conditions being approved.
Why has the FDA broken the law?What is the FDA’s real agenda.It most certainly is not public health.
Why does the FDA want to destroy the health of all Americans and all others in the world? What is the real agenda?
What is really going on here?Incompetence alone cannot be the answer.The incompetence required is too vast to be possible especially when from all over the world the most distinguished scientists and medical experts of ourtime are issuing alarms that are censored by “official health authorities” and the media. See this.The corrupt dumbshits doing the censoring are not capable of carrying the books for the real experts who are being silenced.
Clearly, we are being set up for something very bad.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. explains another aspect of the FDA’s deception of the people, see this.
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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 frequent contributor to Global Research.
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Spain’s Supreme Court made waves last week by becoming the first judicial authority in Europe to rule against the use of covid passports to restrict access to public spaces — specifically hospitality businesses (bars, restaurants and nightclubs). It is not the first Spanish court to come out against vaccine passports but it is the most important. So far, only five of Spain’s 17 autonomous regions – the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla, Andalusia, Cantabria and Galicia – have proposed using vaccine passports to restrict access to public spaces. And all have been rejected by local judges.
The EU’s Green Pass is a one-piece QR-code document that can be issued to a traveller in both paper and digital format. It is intended to prove that the holder has either received one of the four vaccines authorised by the European Medicine Agency (BioNTech-Pfizer’s, Moderna’s, AztraZeneca’s and Johnson &Johnson’s), has tested negative for Covid-19 in the last 48 hours or has been infected with Covid in the last six months and therefore has natural immunity. However, some countries such as France have chosen only to allow entry to travellers that are fully vaccinated.
Many government are also using the documents to limit access for unvaccinated citizens to public spaces and services with their own countries. But so far Spanish judges have challenged this trend, on the grounds that it would infringe on certain constitutionally recognised individual rights, such as the right to physical integrity and privacy, while also having limited impact on public health. The Supreme Courts of Andalusia and Ceuta and Melilla said the measures were also discriminatory. When the Supreme Court of Andalusia sided with local hospitality businesses in their appeal against the region’s proposed vaccine passport measures, the regional authority took the case to the national Supreme Court. And lost.
Economic considerations may have also played a part in the courts’ decision. Spain’s hospitality sector generates a huge amount of money and a huge number of jobs, especially during the peak tourist season (i.e., right now). The sector has already been through the grinder of last year’s three-month national lockdown as well as sporadic regional lockdowns. Even with the introduction of vaccine passports, overseas visitors continue to arrive in dribs and drabs. As was the case last year, it’s domestic demand that is keeping many businesses alive. And limiting that demand is likely to create even more economic pain.
Constitutional Clashes
But this is not the first time that Spain’s government and regional authorities have clashed with the judiciary over the management of the public health crisis. Since Spain ended its state of alarm on May 9th, the high courts in the Valencia region, the Balearic islands, Catalonia, the Canary Islands and other parts of Spain have prevented regional authorities from applying a range of anti-Covid restrictions, including curfews and limits on social gatherings, on the grounds that it’s unconstitutional to breach fundamental rights when there’s no longer a state of alarm.
Then, on July 14, Spain’s top judicial body, the Constitutional Court, delivered another hammer blow, by ruling that Spain’s coronavirus state of alarm had been unconstitutional all along. The government, it said, should instead have called for a state of emergency – which requires prior parliamentary approval – to curtail fundamental rights for the nationwide lockdown.
In its August 18 ruling, against using the Digital Covid Certificate to grant or deny access to nightlife venues, the Supreme Court said there wasn’t enough “substantial justification” for the requirement of a health pass in bars and nightclubs across the entire region of Andalusia, seeing it more as a “preventative measure” rather than a necessary action. Instead, it said the measure “restrictively affects basic elements of freedom of movement and the right of assembly.”
Interestingly, the Supreme Court also said that using vaccine passports to control access to public spaces and services may not even help prevent infections. In fact, it may exacerbate them, given that recent research has shown that people who have been vaccinated or previously infected with Covid-19 can still catch and spread the virus. As such, implementing a vaccine passport system does not protect others from infection, including those who gain access to a public space by presenting a negative result of a PCR test. Such a document, the court said, “only proves that at the time of the test these people were not carrying the active virus”.
By now it is clear, as Yves laid out meticulously on Friday, that the vaccines are not what they were cracked up to be. Their efficacy fades quickly and is particularly depleted against the Delta variant. Research has also shown that the virus loads of the vaccinated and the unvaccinated are almost identical with regard to the Delta variant. As such, if a vaccinated person and an unvaccinated person have roughly the same capacity to carry, shed and transmit the virus, particularly in its Delta form, what difference does implementing a vaccination passport, certificate or ID actually make to the spread of the virus?
This is a question that many of the people who attended the Boardmasters’ Music Festival in the UK may now be asking themselves. To attend the event they needed to prove, with their NHS Pass, a recent negative test, full vaccination or Covid infection in the past 180 days — in other words, almost exactly the same conditions required by the EU’s Green Pass. The event’s organizers seem to have done everything by the book yet roughly one week after the festival, almost 5,000 Covid cases had been potentially linked to the event. The city where it was held, Newquay, became England’s “Covid capital”, registering up to 1,110 cases per 100,000 people in the week ending August 14 — nearly four times the average rate in the country.
Fierce Public Opposition
The Spanish Supreme Court’s ruling refers only to Andalusia. But there is probably little point in any of Spain’s other 16 regional governments even trying to use Covid health passes in their territories for any purpose other than travel abroad. If such measures were introduced, they would probably only be in force for a brief period before a court shelved them.
It’s a very different story across the rest of the EU. Even as the evidence grows that the current crop of vaccines are not very effective at limiting the spread of the Delta variant and that so-called “breakthrough cases” are not nearly as rare as the term would suggest, most governments are accelerating and expanding their use of vaccine passports and mandates. Twenty-two out of 27 EU Member States already require hospitality green passes or similar health passports to enter restaurants, bars, museums, libraries and other public places.
In France those without a pass are banned from the outside terraces of cafes, bars and restaurants. They are not even allowed to enter hospitals, apart from for emergency procedures. By the end of August many private-sector workers who serve the public have to be vaccinated. The jab will also become mandatory for all French health workers by Sept. 15. The government insists the pass is necessary to encourage vaccination uptake and avoid a fourth national lockdown. But for many protesters the new legislation represents everything a constitutional republic like France should stand against: authoritarian control, discrimination, denial of access to basic freedoms and services, education and healthcare.
Opposition among the vaccine hesitant remains fierce. For a sixth straight Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people turned out in towns and cities across France to vent their fury at the government’s increasingly repressive vaccine laws. If anything, the demonstrations are likely to intensify in the coming weeks, as students — often a vital cog in French protest movements — return to university and vaccine-reluctant public workers begin to contemplate life without an income.
Large demonstrations have also taken place in Italy, Greece and Germany. In Latvia’s capital, Riga, 5,000 people took to the streets on Wednesday night to protest government plans to make vaccination mandatory for certain professions and allow employers to fire workers who refuse to get jabbed. It was reported to be the largest demonstration in Latvia since 2009.
A Kafkaesque Twist
In Spain, meanwhile, everything is rather quiet. There are few protests against the vaccine passports, since their impact on daily life has not been felt. Most people over the age of 30 are quite happy to get vaccinated — so much so that Spain, with 67% of its population fully vaccinated, places fourth on Oxford University’s Our World in Data’s ranking of the world’s most vaccinated countries. What’s more, Spain is yet to see its vaccine campaign stall, as has already happened in countries such as the US, Israel, Germany and France.
Given that Spanish residents are getting vaccinated in such large numbers, there’s arguably even less need to use vaccine passports domestically. Fernando García López, the president of the Research Ethics Committee at the Carlos III Health Institute in Madrid, argues that is better to “convince rather than coerce, something that can polarize,” adding that in Spain, “there is no major anti-vaccination group against which we need to fight, as is happening in other places.
But that hasn’t stopped the passports from already creating a Kafkaesque nightmare for thousands of Spanish residents. During the latest wave of the virus, the country’s primary care service became so swamped that doctors and nurses in many parts of the country began using the much faster (and much cheaper) antigen tests to check patients for infection. The only problem is that to qualify for the EU’s health certificate on the grounds of natural infection, you need to have had a positive PCR test; the results of antigen tests are not recognised.
And that means there are now thousands of people in Spain who are in limbo. They have all had a recent Covid infection, which means they should have natural immunity. And that means they should qualify for the EU’s Green Pass. But because Spain’s health authorities used the wrong test on them (presumably by mistake), they don’t. According to the EU these people never had Covid. Unless Brussels makes an exception for them, which is looking pretty unlikely, they will now have more difficulty travelling to other parts of Europe.
It’s just one example of how arbitrary life can become in the “new normality” taking shape around us. As governments exert greater power and authority over our lives, all it takes is a simple administrative mistake for members of the public to suddenly find themselves unable to enter other European countries or even access public places and basic services in their home town. And as we’ve repeatedly seen since this pandemic began, governments and public authorities are prone to making mistakes pretty regularly.
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In recent years, the United States and its allies have unleashed a devastating blockade against Venezuela in hopes of triggering regime change. In this infographic, designed by Utopix‘s Kael Abello, we detail the measures and deadly consequences of this multi-pronged aggression.
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Featured image: Rally in rejection of the U.S. destabilizing plan against Venezuela, 2019. | Photo: Twitter/ @codepink
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And the least secret agent of all . . . Agent Orange!
On August 10, 1961, the United States, several years before it actually sent troops, started poisoning the forests and crops of Vietnam with herbicides. The purpose: to deprive our declared enemy, the commies of Ho Chi Minh, of food and ground cover that allowed them to trek from North to South. It was called, innocuously, Operation Ranch Hand.
Agent Orange, the most powerful of the herbicides used in Operation Ranch Hand, contained dioxin, one of the most toxic substances on the planet. We dropped 20 million gallons of this and other herbicides on Vietnam, contaminating 7,000 square miles of its forests. Half a century later, we are fully aware of the consequences of this strategic decision, not just for the Vietnamese, the Laotians, the Cambodians, but also for many American troops: hundreds of thousands of deaths and debilitating illnesses, horrific birth defects, unending hell.
History, in all its moral primness, has relegated our use of Agent Orange to the status of “controversial.”
Much to my amazement, I learned the other day that August 10 is now a day with official status. Numerous international organizations, many of them Vietnamese, have declared it Agent Orange Awareness Day.
I say, let’s keep this awareness alive and evolving at least for the next decade, which is how long the United States continued to wage its chemical warfare on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. And they didn’t wage it in ignorant innocence. Top military leaders, whose personal lives, of course, were unaffected by Agent Orange, were fully aware of its toxicity.
This raises what I choose to call The Question from Hell: How is it possible to make such a decision — to place short-term military strategy ahead of moral restraint and compassion for civilians? And this leads to a second, larger question: Why are military and political leaders so unwilling or unable to envision the long-term consequences of their decisions, that is to say, the consequences that utterly transcend the significance of the war they’re trying to win? Why are they so indifferent? Why are they so . . . stupid?
Pondering these questions was how I spent Agent Orange Awareness Day. Whether the U.S. won or lost the war, stopped or failed to stop the communist dominoes from tipping, the landscape would still be ravaged, the infected would still be dying, newborns would still have shocking birth defects (missing limbs, extra limbs, misplaced organs and so much more).
As the War Legacies Project notes on its website, the U.S. was trying to fight an “invisible enemy” who was hiding in the jungle, living off the land, by — what’s the big deal? — killing the jungle itself. As a result: “Ever since the war’s ending, the people of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have been saddled with an invisible enemy of their own.”
To sum it up as simply as possible, war is insane — and growing ever more so. The military establishment isn’t just brutal and cruel. It is so advanced in the technology of lethality that its capable of destroying the world. Hasn’t the time come to defund war — completely! — and rethink how we deal with conflict?
Well yes, of course, but we all know this isn’t going to happen. Nonetheless, the creation of Agent Orange Awareness Day could well be a moment of human awakening, a chance for there to be a collective focus on that Question from Hell: Why?
Here’s a starting place, thanks to psychologist Albert Bandura, as quoted by Russell P. Johnson in an essay published by the University of Chicago Divinity School. In essence, Bandura has sought an answer to the Question. What gives political leaders the wherewithal to violate basic human values — established moral standards — and perpetrate the inhumanity of war?
He calls the phenomenon of doing so “moral disengagement” and posits four forms that this behavior takes:
1. Euphemistic labeling: We may drop bombs and kill dozens or hundreds or thousands of civilians, including children, but the action is described by the lapdog media as, simply, an “airstrike.” We may torture Iraqi detainees but it’s not such a big deal when we call it “enhanced interrogation.” We may poison the jungles of Southeast Asia, but what the heck, there’s Jed Clampett leading the way in “Operation Ranch Hand.” The list of military euphemisms goes on and on and on.
2. Advantageous comparison. If the enemy you’re fighting is evil — and he always is — the actions you take to defeat him, whatever they are, are ipso facto justified. The alternative is doing nothing, a la Neville Chamberlain, appeasing Hitler. Violent response to evil — carpet-bombing Hamburg or Tokyo, nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki — is not simply justifiable but the essence of morally necessity.
3. Displaced responsibility. I was just following orders, cries the Buchenwald guard. I did what I was told. As Johnson writes: “Decisions are made and justified without anyone ever having the sense of a moral threshold being crossed.” Indeed, “an entire society can rely on displacement of responsibility to shield themselves from moral scrutiny.” A pernicious side effect of this is known as “moral injury.” Once a soldier is out of the military, the justification for killing someone may completely vanish; the result is a high suicide rate among vets.
4. Attribution of blame. They made us do it! “One’s actions are treated as mere reactions, caused not by one’s own decisions but by the actions of the enemy,” Johnson writes. “. . . If our actions are excessive or barbaric, it is the other side’s fault for driving us to such extremes.” When both sides in the conflict resort to this, which is almost always the case, Bandura calls the result “reciprocal escalation.” The war gets increasingly bloody.
Agent Orange Awareness Day, as I noted, was Aug. 10. I think we should spend the rest of the year honoring War and Dehumanization Awareness Day.
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In August 2021, the Biden Administration announced that it would acknowledge the danger to children and would ban the pesticide from agricultural use. Chlorpyrifos was banned from household use more than 20 years ago.
The new rule is slated to take effect in early 2022.
The decision comes after an order issued in April by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, directing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban farm use unless safety of the chemical could be proven.
History of chlorpyrifos
Chlorpyrifos insecticides were introduced by Dow Chemical in 1965 and have been used widely in agricultural settings. Commonly known as the active ingredient in the brand names Dursban and Lorsban, chlorpyrifos is an organophosphate insecticide, acaricide and miticide used primarily to control foliage and soil-borne insect pests on a variety of food and feed crops. Products come in liquid form as well as granules, powders, and water-soluble packets, and may be applied by either ground or aerial equipment.
Chlorpyrifos is used on a wide variety of crops including apples, oranges, strawberries, corn, wheat, citrus and other foods families and their children eat daily. USDA’s Pesticide Data Programfound chlorpyrifos residue on citrus and melons even after being washed and peeled. By volume, chlorpyrifos is most used on corn and soybeans, with over a million pounds applied annually to each crop. The chemical is not allowed on organic crops.
Non-agricultural uses include golf courses, turf, green houses, and utilities.
Human health concerns
The American Academy of Pediatrics, which represents more than 66,000 pediatricians and pediatric surgeons, has warned that continued use of chlorpyrifos puts developing fetuses, infants, children and pregnant women at great risk.
Scientists have found that prenatal exposures to chlorpyrifos are associated with lower birth weight, reduced IQ, the loss of working memory, attention disorders, and delayed motor development. Key studies are listed below.
See these comments to regulators from the Endocrine Society citing “ample evidence that chlorpyrifos has extensive effects on neurological and endocrine systems with demonstrated evidence of harm to humans and wildlife.”
Chlorpyrifos is also linked to acute pesticide poisoning and can cause convulsions, respiratory paralysis, and sometimes, death.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reached agreement with Dow Chemical in 2000 to phase out all residential uses of chlorpyrifos because of scientific research showing the chemical is dangerous to the developing brains of babies and young children. It was banned from use around schools in 2012.
In October 2015, the EPA said it planned to revoke all food residue tolerances for chlorpyrifos, meaning it would no longer be legal to use it in agriculture. The agency said “expected residues of chlorpyrifos on food crops exceed the safety standard under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.” The move came in response to a petition for a ban from the Natural Resources Defense Council and Pesticide Action Network.
In November 2016, the EPA released a revised human health risk assessment for chlorpyrifos confirming it was unsafe to allow the chemical to continue in use in agriculture. Among other things, the EPA said all food and drinking water exposures were unsafe, especially to children 1-2 years old. The EPA said the ban would take place in 2017.
Trump EPA delays ban
Following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, the proposed chlorpyrifos ban was delayed. In March 2017, in one of his first formal actions as the nation’s top environmental official, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt rejected the petition by environmental groups and said the ban on chlorpyrifos would not go forward.
The Associated Press reported in June 2017 that Pruitt had met with Dow CEO Andrew Liveris 20 days before halting the ban. Media also reported that Dow contributed $1 million to Trump’s inaugural activities.
In February of 2018, EPA reached a settlement requiring Syngenta to pay a $150,000 fine and train farmers in pesticide use after the company failed to warn workers to avoid fields where chlorpyrifos was recently sprayed and several workers who entered the fields were sickened and required medical care. The Obama EPA had initially proposed a fine nearly nine times larger.
In February 2020, after pressure from consumer, medical, scientific groups and in face of growing calls for bans around the world, Corteva AgriScience (formerly DowDuPont) said it would phase out production of chlorpyrifos, but the chemical remains legal for other companies to make and sell.
According to an analysis published in July 2020, U.S. regulators relied on falsified data provided by Dow Chemical to allow unsafe levels of chlorpyrifos into American homes for years. The analysis from University of Washington researchers said the inaccurate findings were the result of a chlorpyrifos dosing study done in the early 1970s for Dow.
In September 2020 the EPA issued its third risk assessment on chlorpyrifos, saying “despite several years of study, peer review, and public process, the science addressing neurodevelopmental effects remains unresolved,” and it still could be used in food production.
The decision came after multiple meetings between the EPA and Corteva.
Groups and states sue EPA
Following the Trump administration’s decision to delay any ban until at least 2022, Pesticide Action Network and Natural Resources Defense Council filed suit against the EPA in April 2017, seeking to force the government to follow through with the Obama administration’s recommendations to ban chlorpyrifos. In August 2018, a federal appeals court found that the EPA broke the law by continuing to allow use of chlorpyrifos, and ordered EPA to finalize its proposed ban within two months. After more delays, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced in July 2019 that EPA would not ban the chemical.
Several states have sued the EPA over its failure to ban chlorpyrifos, including California, New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Maryland, Vermont and Oregon. The states argue in court documents that chlorpyrifos should be banned in food production due to the dangers associated with it.
Earthjustice has also filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Court seeking a nationwide ban on behalf of groups advocating for environmentalists, farmworkers and people with learning disabilities.
On April 29, 2021, U.S. Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Ninth Circuit issued a decision, finding the EPA had engaged in an “egregious delay” that exposed a generation of American children to unsafe levels of chlorpyrifos.” He ordered the EPA to issue a final regulation within 60 days that modifies or revokes the registration for chlorpyrifos.
Medical and scientific studies
Developmental neurotoxicity
“The epidemiological studies reviewed herein have reported statistically significant correlations between prenatal exposures to CPF [chlorpyrifos] and postnatal neurological complications, particularly cognitive deficits that are also associated with disruption of the structural integrity of the brain…. Various preclinical research groups throughout the world have consistently demonstrated that CPF is a developmental neurotoxicant. The developmental CPF neurotoxicity, which is well supported by studies using different animal models, routes of exposure, vehicles, and testing methods, is generally characterized by cognitive deficits and disruption of the structural integrity of the brain.” Developmental neurotoxicity of the organophosphorus insecticide chlorpyrifos: from clinical findings to preclinical models and potential mechanisms. Journal of Neurochemistry, 2017.
“Since 2006, epidemiological studies have documented six additional developmental neurotoxicants—manganese, fluoride, chlorpyrifos, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, tetrachloroethylene, and the polybrominated diphenyl ethers.” Neurobehavioural effects of developmental toxicity. Lancet Neurology, 2014.
Childrens’ IQ & cognitive development
Longitudinal birth cohort study of inner-city mothers and children found that “higher prenatal CPF [chlorpyrifos] exposure, as measured in umbilical cord blood plasma, was associated with decreases in cognitive functioning on two different WISC-IV indices, in a sample of urban minority children at 7 years of age…the Working Memory Index was the most strongly associated with CPF exposure in this population.” Seven-Year Neurodevelopmental Scores and Prenatal Exposure to Chlorpyrifos, a Common Agricultural Pesticide. Environmental Health Perspectives, 2011.
Birth cohort study of predominantly Latino farmworker families in California associated a metabolite of organophosphate pesticides found in the urine in pregnant women with poorer scores in their children for memory, processing speed, verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning and IQ. “Our findings suggest that prenatal exposure to OP [organophosphate] pesticides, as measured by urinary DAP [dialkyl phosphate] metabolites in women during pregnancy, is associated with poorer cognitive abilities in children at 7 years of age. Children in the highest quintile of maternal DAP concentrations had an average deficit of 7.0 IQ points compared with those in the lowest quintile. Associations were linear, and we observed no threshold.” Prenatal Exposure to Organophosphate Pesticides and IQ in 7-Year-Old Children. Environmental Health Perspectives, 2011.
Prospective cohort study of women and their children findings “suggest that prenatal exposure to organophosphates is negatively associated with cognitive development, particularly perceptual reasoning, with evidence of effects beginning at 12 months and continuing through early childhood.” Prenatal Exposure to Organophosphates, Paraoxonase 1, and Cognitive Development in Childhood. Environmental Health Perspectives, 2011.
Prospective cohort study of an inner-city population found that children with high levels of exposure to chlorpyrifos “scored, on average, 6.5 points lower on the Bayley Psychomotor Development Index and 3.3 points lower on the Bayley Mental Development Index at 3 years of age compared with those with lower levels of exposure. Children exposed to higher, compared with lower, chlorpyrifos levels were also significantly more likely to experience Psychomotor Development Index and Mental Development Index delays, attention problems, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder problems, and pervasive developmental disorder problems at 3 years of age.” Impact of Prenatal Chlorpyrifos Exposure on Neurodevelopment in the First 3 Years of Life Among Inner-City Children. Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, 2006.
Longitudinal birth cohort study in an agricultural region of California extends “previous findings of associations between PON1 genotype and enzyme levels and certain domains of neurodevelopment through early school age, presenting new evidence that adverse associations between DAP [dialkyl phosphate]levels and IQ may be strongest in children of mothers with the lowest levels of PON1 enzyme.” Organophosphate pesticide exposure, PON1, and neurodevelopment in school-age children from the CHAMACOS study. Environmental Research, 2014.
“Our findings indicate that prenatal CPF [chlorpyrifos] exposure, at levels observed with routine (nonoccupational) use and below the threshold for any signs of acute exposure, has a measureable effect on brain structure in a sample of 40 children 5.9–11.2 y of age. We found significant abnormalities in morphological measures of the cerebral surface associated with higher prenatal CPF exposure….Regional enlargements of the cerebral surface predominated and were located in the superior temporal, posterior middle temporal, and inferior postcentral gyri bilaterally, and in the superior frontal gyrus, gyrus rectus, cuneus, and precuneus along the mesial wall of the right hemisphere”. Brain anomalies in children exposed prenatally to a common organophosphate pesticide. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012.
Fetal growth
This study “saw a highly significant inverse association between umbilical cord chlorpyrifos levels and both birth weight and birth length among infants in the current cohort born prior to U.S. EPA regulatory actions to phase out residential uses of the insecticide.” Biomarkers in assessing residential insecticide exposures during pregnancy and effects on fetal growth. Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology, 2005.
Prospective, multiethnic cohort study found that “when the level of maternal PON1 activity was taken into account, maternal levels of chlorpyrifos above the limit of detection coupled with low maternal PON1 activity were associated with a significant but small reduction in head circumference. In addition, maternal PON1 levels alone, but not PON1 genetic polymorphisms, were associated with reduced head size. Because small head size has been found to be predictive of subsequent cognitive ability, these data suggest that chlorpyrifos may have a detrimental effect on fetal neurodevelopment among mothers who exhibit low PON1 activity.” In Utero Pesticide Exposure, Maternal Paraoxonase Activity, and Head Circumference. Environmental Health Perspectives, 2003.
Prospective cohort study of minority mothers and their newborns “confirm our earlier findings of an inverse association between chlorpyrifos levels in umbilical cord plasma and birth weight and length…Further, a dose-response relationship was additionally seen in the present study. Specifically, the association between cord plasma chlorpyrifos and reduced birth weight and length was found principally among newborns with the highest 25% of exposure levels.” Prenatal Insecticide Exposures and Birth Weight and Length among an Urban Minority Cohort. Environmental Health Perspectives, 2004.
Lung Cancer
In an evaluation of over 54,000 pesticide applicators in the Agricultural Health Study, scientists at the National Cancer Institute reported that the incidence of lung cancer was associated with chlorpyrifos exposure. “In this analysis of cancer incidence among chlorpyrifos-exposed licensed pesticide applicators in North Carolina and Iowa, we found a statistically significant trend of increasing risk of lung cancer, but not of any other cancer examined, with increasing chlorpyrifos exposure.” Cancer Incidence Among Pesticide Applicators Exposed to Chlorpyrifos in the Agricultural Health Study. Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2004.
Parkinson’s Disease
Case-control study of people living in California’s Central Valley reported that ambient exposure to 36 commonly used organophosphate pesticides separately increased the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease. The study “adds strong evidence” that organophosphate pesticides are “implicated” in the etiology of idiopathic Parkinson’s disease. The association between ambient exposure to organophosphates and Parkinson’s disease risk. Occupational & Environmental Medicine, 2014.
Birth outcomes
Multiethnic parent cohort of pregnant women and newborns found that chlorpyrifos “was associated with decreased birth weight and birth length overall (p = 0.01 and p = 0.003, respectively) and with lower birth weight among African Americans (p = 0.04) and reduced birth length in Dominicans (p < 0.001)”. Effects of Transplacental Exposure to Environmental Pollutants on Birth Outcomes in a Multiethnic Population. Environmental Health Perspectives, 2003.
Neuroendocrine disruption
“Through the analysis of complex sex-dimorphic behavioral patterns we show that neurotoxic and endocrine disrupting activities of CPF [chlorpyrifos] overlap. This widely diffused organophosphorus pesticide might thus be considered as a neuroendocrine disruptor possibly representing a risk factor for sex-biased neurodevelopmental disorders in children.” Sex dimorphic behaviors as markers of neuroendocrine disruption by environmental chemicals: The case of chlorpyrifos. NeuroToxicology, 2012.
Tremor
“The present findings show that children with high prenatal exposure to chlorpyrifos were significantly more likely to show mild or mild to moderate tremor in one or both arms when assessed between the ages of 9 and 13.9 years of age….Taken together, growing evidence suggests that prenatal exposure to CPF [chlorpyrifos], at current standard usage levels, is associated with a range of persistent and inter-related developmental problems.” Prenatal exposure to the organophosphate pesticide chlorpyrifos and childhood tremor. NeuroToxicology, 2015.
Cost of chlorpyrifos
Cost estimates of exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the European Union found that “Organophosphate exposures were associated with 13.0 million (sensitivity analysis, 4.24 million to 17.1 million) lost IQ points and 59 300 (sensitivity analysis, 16 500 to 84 400) cases of intellectual disability, at costs of €146 billion (sensitivity analysis, €46.8 billion to €194 billion).” Neurobehavioral Deficits, Diseases, and Associated Costs of Exposure to Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals in the European Union. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 2015.
“In March 1972, Frederick Coulston and colleagues at the Albany Medical College reported results of an intentional chlorpyrifos dosing study to the study’s sponsor, Dow Chemical Company. Their report concluded that 0.03 mg/kg-day was the chronic no-observed-adverse-effect-level (NOAEL) for chlorpyrifos in humans. We demonstrate here that a proper analysis by the original statistical method should have found a lower NOAEL (0.014 mg/kg-day), and that use of statistical methods first available in 1982 would have shown that even the lowest dose in the study had a significant treatment effect. The original analysis, conducted by Dow-employed statisticians, did not undergo formal peer review; nevertheless, EPA cited the Coulston study as credible research and kept its reported NOAEL as a point of departure for risk assessments throughout much of the 1980′s and 1990′s. During that period, EPA allowed chlorpyrifos to be registered for multiple residential uses that were later cancelled to reduce potential health impacts to children and infants. Had appropriate analyses been employed in the evaluation of this study, it is likely that many of those registered uses of chlorpyrifos would not have been authorized by EPA. This work demonstrates that reliance by pesticide regulators on research results that have not been properly peer-reviewed may needlessly endanger the public.” Flawed analysis of an intentional human dosing study and its impact on chlorpyrifos risk assessments. Environment International, 2020.
Court Rules that EPA’s Delay “Exposed a Generation of American Children” to Brain-Damaging Pesticide Chlorpyrifos , by Sharon Lerner, The Intercept. “After 14 years of legal battles, a federal court ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to take actions that will likely force the neurotoxic pesticide chlorpyrifos off the market. The federal agency has for years been considering mounting evidence that links the pesticide to brain damage in children — including loss of IQ, learning difficulties, ADHD, and autism — but, as the court acknowledged, has repeatedly delayed taking action.”
Court Rules that EPA’s Delay “Exposed a Generation of American Children” to Brain-Damaging Pesticide Chlorpyrifos , by Sharon Lerner, The Intercept. “After 14 years of legal battles, a federal court ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to take actions that will likely force the neurotoxic pesticide chlorpyrifos off the market. The federal agency has for years been considering mounting evidence that links the pesticide to brain damage in children — including loss of IQ, learning difficulties, ADHD, and autism — but, as the court acknowledged, has repeatedly delayed taking action.”
Trump’s Legacy: Damaged Brains, by Nicholas Kristof, New York Times. “The pesticide, which belongs to a class of chemicals developed as a nerve gas made by Nazi Germany, is now found in food, air and drinking water. Human and animal studies show that it damages the brain and reduces I.Q.s while causing tremors among children.”
Protect Our Children’s Brains, by Sharon Lerner, New York Times. “The widespread use of chlorpyrifos does point to the fact that it’s not the kind of chemical that harms everyone who comes in contact with it — or causes them to drop dead on impact. Instead, the research shows increases in the risk of suffering from certain developmental problems that, while less dramatic, are also, alarmingly, enduring.”
Poison Fruit: Dow Chemical Wants Farmers to Keep Using a Pesticide Linked to Autism and ADHD, by Sharon Lerner, The Intercept. “Dow, the giant chemical company that patented chlorpyrifos and still makes most of the products containing it, has consistently disputed the mounting scientific evidence that its blockbuster chemical harms children. But the government report made it clear that the EPA now accepts the independent science showing that the pesticide used to grow so much of our food is unsafe.”
When enough data are not enough to enact policy: The failure to ban chlorpyrifos, by Leonardo Trasande, PLOS Biology. “Scientists have a responsibility to speak up when policymakers fail to accept scientific data. They need to emphatically declare the implications of policy failures, even if some of the scientific underpinnings remain uncertain.”
How Has This Pesticide Not Been Banned? by the editorial board of The New York Times. “The pesticide known as chlorpyrifos is both clearly dangerous and in very wide use. It is known to pass easily from mother to fetus and has been linked to a wide range of serious medical problems, including impaired development, Parkinson’s disease and some forms of cancer. That’s not entirely surprising. The chemical was originally developed by Nazis during World War II for use as a nerve gas. Here’s what is surprising: Tons of the pesticide are still being sprayed across millions of acres of United States farmland every year, nearly five years after the Environmental Protection Agency determined that it should be banned.”
This pesticide is closely related to nerve agents used in World War II. Trump’s EPA doesn’t care, by Joseph G. Allen, Washington Post. “What we know about chlorpyrifos is alarming. Perhaps the most well-known study is one done by researchers at Columbia University who performed brain imaging on young kids with high exposure to chlorpyrifos. The results are shocking and unambiguous. In the words of the researchers: “This study reports significant associations of prenatal exposure to a widely used environmental neurotoxicant, at standard use levels, with structural changes in the developing human brain.”
A Strong Case Against a Pesticide Does Not Faze E.P.A. Under Trump, by Roni Caryn Robin, New York Times. “An updated human health risk assessment compiled by the E.P.A. in November found that health problems were occurring at lower levels of exposure than had previously been believed harmful. Infants, children, young girls and women are exposed to dangerous levels of chlorpyrifos through diet alone, the agency said. Children are exposed to levels up to 140 times the safety limit.”
Babies Are Larger After Ban On 2 Pesticides, Study Finds, by Richard Pérez-Peña, New York Times. “Pregnant women in upper Manhattan who were heavily exposed to two common insecticides had smaller babies than their neighbors, but recent restrictions on the two substances quickly lowered exposure and increased babies’ size, according to a study being published today.”
Poisons Are Us, by Timothy Egan, New York Times. “When you bite into a piece of fruit, it should be a mindless pleasure. Sure, that steroidal-looking strawberry with a toothpaste-white interior doesn’t seem right to begin with. But you shouldn’t have to think about childhood brain development when layering it over your cereal. The Trump administration, in putting chemical industry toadies between our food and public safety, has forced a fresh appraisal of breakfast and other routines that are not supposed to be frightful.”
On your dinner plate and in your body: The most dangerous pesticide you’ve never heard of, by Staffan Dahllöf, Investigative Reporting Denmark. “The poisonous effect of chlorpyrifos on insects is not disputed. The unresolved question is to what extent the usage of chlorpyrifos is dangerous to all living organisms like fish in nearby waters or farm workers in the fields, or to anybody eating the treated products.”
Neurotoxins on your kid’s broccoli: that’s life under Trump, by Carey Gillam, The Guardian. “How much is your child’s health worth? The answer coming from the leadership of the US Environmental Protection Agency is: not that much… So here we are – with scientific concerns for the safety of our innocent and vulnerable children on one side and powerful, wealthy corporate players on the other. Our political and regulatory leaders have shown whose interests they value most.”
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Danish parliament recently decided in Copenhagen that all Corona measures should be ended from October 1. There will therefore no longer be a mask requirement and the test regime will be abolished. The Danes will then no longer have to provide evidence of whether they are vaccinated or unvaccinated, or whether they have tested positive or negative.
All Corona measures are being lifted in view of the increasing incidence figures in Denmark, reported RT Deutsch. Since the beginning of July this value has risen from 31 to 107.2 (as of August 8). At the same time, the upper limits of this Corona indicator has increased significantly.
At the same time, the incidence limits are increased significantly: In communities from 300 to 500 infected people within seven days, in the districts from 500 to 1000. However, the prerequisite is that an increasing number of Covid-19 patients does not overload the health care system.
Denmark’s SSI infectious diseases agency said it no longer relied on vaccination to achieve herd immunity in the country. Tyra Grove Krause, the SSI’s acting academic director, said a new wave of infections were expected after people return to work and school at the end of this summer, but it should not be cause for alarm. “It will be more reminiscent of the flu,” Krause said.
Overall, the current vaccination rate is just under 58,4 percent of fully vaccinated people in Denmark. In Germany, this value is only slightly lower at 54,5 percent (as of August 8) but vaccine advocates have been persistent in their fear-mongering and pressure on the unvaccinated.
Tyrolean lawyer Dr. Renate Holzeisen, meanwhile strongly recommended that all employers refrain from vaccination pressure or compulsory vaccination, because most of them were “obviously not even aware of the far-reaching legal consequences associated with it”.
The fact that the so-called Covid-19 vaccines, according to the official approval documents of the EMA and the European Commission were not developed and approved for the prevention of infection with the SARS-COV-2 virus, but solely to prevent a more severe course of the disease, were conditionally approved for this reason alone, Holzeisen underscored.
The official approval documents therefore show that these substances cannot interrupt the chain of infection because the people treated with them can become infected and thus be infectious. Practice also proves that people who are completely “vaccinated” become infected with the virus and even have the same viral load as “unvaccinated people” as the CDC, among others, has admitted. It is therefore clear that any Covid-19 “compulsory vaccination” actually lacks any justification.
All pressure, including moral pressure (alleged act of solidarity with one’s neighbor) is therefore illegal in terms of criminal and liability law based on the official approval documents.
“As a lawyer advising on corporate law, I strongly recommend that every employer stay away from Covid-19 vaccination pressure or compulsory vaccination, because most of them are obviously not even aware of the far-reaching legal consequences associated with it,” she said.
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Featured image: Folketing, Danish parliament. Wikipedia
August 25th, 2021 by Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War
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Thursday, August 26, 2021, marks the 1000th day of unjust incarceration by the Trudeau government of Meng Wanzhou. That’s 1000 days during which Mme. Meng has been denied her freedom, has not been able to be with members of her family, has not been able to carry on the duties of her very responsible position as Chief Financial Officer of Huawei Technologies, one of the world’s leading tech companies, with 1300 employees in Canada.
Meng’s ordeal began on December 1, 2018, the date on which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau kowtowed to the request of former USA President Donald Trump’s to extradite Meng. This was a colossal blunder on Trudeau part’s because it torpedoed fifty years of good relations between Canada and China, resulted in China curtailing major economic purchases in Canada (to the detriment of 1000’s of Canadian producers), and, because the Trudeau government dithered on the question of Huawei’s participation in the deployment of Canada’s 5G network, may have threatened the entire future existence of Huawei in Canada. Furthermore, Trudeau’s obsequiousness towards Trump embarrassingly called into question the very sovereignty of the Canadian state in front of the entire world, that it would sacrifice its own national interest in the service of its imperial neighbour.
Just six days after Meng’s arrest, Trump made it clear that her arrest was a political kidnapping and that she had become a bargaining chip. Indicating he would intervene in U.S. efforts to extradite Meng Wanzhou if it helped him win a trade deal with China, he said, “If I think it’s good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made, which is a very important thing — what’s good for national security — I would certainly intervene, if I thought it was necessary.” That statement, in itself, should have prompted Justice Minister Lametti to to reject the US extradition request because Section 4 of the Extradition Act clearly states that “When the offense in respect of which extradition is requested is of a political character… extradition shall not be granted.” Instead, Lametti approved Trump’s request.
There is no end in sight of Ms. Meng captivity because no matter how Justice Holmes rules on the US request for her extradition, there are likely to be appeals which may stretch on for years. The irony is that Justice Holmes is fully aware of the lack of legal substance in the US extradition request which was revealed in the trove of HSBC bank documents which the judge ruled to exclude during the final round of extradition hearings, which ended a few days ago. These documents prove Mme. Meng gave HSBC complete disclosure of transactions related to Iran and no fraud was committed.
We note that Justice Holmes remarked during the Crown’s final arguments earlier this month,
“Isn’t it unusual that one would see a fraud case with no actual harm many years later and one in which the alleged victim, a large institution, appears to have numerous people within the institution who had all the facts that are now said to have been misrepresented?”
In other words, it’s clear to Justice Holmes as well as Justin Trudeau, his entire cabinet, and indeed the whole world, that Meng Wanzhou has committed no crime, whether in Hong Kong, the USA, or Canada. Moreover, her company, Huawei Canada, has proved to be a good corporate citizen.
Our Cross-Canada Campaign to FREE MENG WANZHOU takes the position that Minister of Justice Lametti ought to use his discretionary power, as provided by s. 23 of the Extradition Act, to end this miscarriage of justice by terminating the extradition and pointless house arrest of Ms. Meng. We note that the 19 dignitaries who penned the Open Letter to Justin Trudeau in June 2020, calling on him to release Meng Wanzhou, also commissioned a prominent Canadian lawyer, Brian Greenspan, to write a legal opinion, which found that it was entirely within the rule of Canadian law for the Justice Minister to terminate the extradition of Meng.
For the record, we note that the US request to extradite Meng was based on the false premise of US extraterritoriality, that is to say, attempting to exert non-existent US jurisdiction over dealings between Huawei, a Chinese high-tech company; HSBC, a British bank; and Iran, a sovereign state, none of whose dealings (in this matter) took place in the USA, except the unilateral and totally unnecessary transfer of US dollars (unknown to Ms. Meng) by HSBC from its London, UK, office to its subsidiary in New York. By requesting Meng’s extradition from Canada to the USA, Trump was also sending a signal to global political and business leaders that the US would continue to enforce its unilateral and illegal economic sanctions on Iran which were supposed to have been lifted under UN Security Council Resolution 2231 when the JCPOA (Iran Nuclear Deal) came into effect on January 16, 2016. (The US withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 before the arrest of Meng.) Finally, Trudeau shouldn’t have collaborated with Trump because of Trump’s malicious intent to cripple Huawei and crush China’s high tech industry.
By releasing Meng today, Canada could show a measure of independence of foreign policy and begin to restore friendly political and economic relations with the People’s Republic of China, our second-largest trading partner, for the mutual benefit of the Canadian and Chinese peoples.
Our Campaign intends to participate in the federal election by challenging candidates on their stands about the immediate and unconditional release of Meng. Stay tuned at Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War for an upcoming cross-Canada online webinar laying out all the details of this glaring Canadian miscarriage of justice.
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(Virtual) Press Conference, Thursday, August 26th, 11 am EDT
Chair: Alan Freeman, ‘New Cold War’ website manager
Participants: Chris Black, international criminal lawyer, Toronto, and John Philpot, international criminal lawyer, Montreal
Issued by the Cross-Canada Campaign to FREE MENG WANZHOU. For further info, please contact Ken Stone at 905-383-7693 or 289-382-9008 or at [email protected].
The Zoom info for the press conference is below:
Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: 1000th Day Meng Wanzhou Press Conference
Time: Aug 26, 2021 11:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
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Where to start? The earthquake of last autumn? The floods in the winter? The impact of Covid? The heatwave this summer? The destructive fires of June? As ever those hit the hardest are the poorest on Samos. In common with the refugees here they live with the word WAIT ringing in their ears. They know it will be years before they get any state help with repairing their damaged houses and lands just as they wait for years to get their pensions. There is a general resignation to this reflected in the comment ‘this is Greece’.
But as is so often the case this is not the full picture. In many senses it is a lie endlessly recycled to induce acceptance of the unacceptable. Those Greeks at the bottom of the heap share a fundamental experience with the refugees. They count for nothing. It is an experience repeated daily. How do you live with this reality? How do you stay sane?
So ‘this is Greece’ reflects both a sense of powerlessness and a way of surviving cruelties, of living in enduring darkness with no glimmer of dawn. Our refugee friends suffer greatly. Most of them do not have networks of friends and family here in Greece who can sustain them. Their endless wait as others decide their future, never knowing when they will be told, is cruel. As one Somalian friend told us as he waits to hear whether he is to be deported to Turkey (now a safe country for Muslim refugees according to the Greek government!!!!) his mind is being ‘fucked up’. Many here are just about getting by, some are being destroyed and the majority are simply demoralised and exhausted. All of which make life easier for the powerful.
For both Greeks and refugees their agonies are made so much worse by the incompetence, corruption and lies of the authorities. The slump in tourism due to Covid has been presented as a major problem for Greeks. This year, despite Covid, tourism has improved with greater numbers coming to Samos. But for our friends who work in the cafes, bars, hotels and restaurants the return of tourists has meant a return to 7 day working weeks, long hours and poverty wages. At least last year they could get to the beach. Many now don’t even have that possibility.
In Samos alone millions of euros have flowed in to ‘deal’ with the refugee ‘problem’. But there is no accounting. But we all know that it has gone into the pockets of the parasites just as it is with much of the tourist industry here; “All for us and nothing for you.” This is a widespread understanding here. And be clear, there is much anger at the impunity of the thieves. The challenge here at least is not so much in revealing these truths – most know – but in doing something about it. How? What? Who?
Great swathes of the Greek population are ashamed of ‘their’ country and of the elites who press for their advantage in total disregard for the majority and this is sharply revealed in the current relationship between Israel and Greece. The Greek people have a long history of solidarity with and support for the Palestinians. But the Greek state has become one of Israel’s staunchest allies over the past decade as Israel has moved away from its earlier close relationship with Turkey and shifted its attention to Greece. Earlier this year Greece made its largest ever arms deal with Israel worth over $1.6 billion. This is in addition to other recent weapons deals including surveillance systems and drones for monitoring and defending the Greek borders from refugees. Now we are told that the Greek army is going to be modelled on the Israeli army. Joint air-force facilities between the 2 countries are now being built in Greece and the joint naval and air force exercises (Noble Dinaand Blue Flag) initiated a decade ago continue on an annual basis. On Friday August 20, 2021, Nikos Dendias foreign minister of Greece and his Israeli counterpart, Yair Lapid, affirmed in Jerusalem their countries’ close ties, “based on shared values….promotion of peaceful coexistence, moderation, prosperity, international law”. (Ekathimerini 23/8/2021)
Shameful words. The only reference Dendias made to the Palestinians was to condemn them for firing rockets from Gaza into Israel. At a time when Israel is haemorrhaging international and indeed internal support, precisely because of its brutal oppression of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and within Israel itself, the Greek government makes no comment.
In the past week the government has been pressing for more bilateral economic ties with Israel in addition to the already established consortium which includes Cyprus to extract gas from the east Mediterranean. Areas identified as ripe for Greek investment in Israel include food, wine and spirits and cybersecurity. It would appear that Greece’s obsession with its armed forces (it is one of very few NATO countries to spend over 2% of its GDP on the military) trumps all other considerations. The result is that whilst many across the globe are becoming more wary of investment in Israel as the boycott movement grows and mindful of the fate of apartheid South Africa, the Greek government is once again demonstrating its incompetence. Do they really believe that trumpeting your shared values with such a tainted country and by refusing to acknowledge the suffering of the Palestinians is going to succeed? Do they mind that such values attract the likes of Priti Patel the British Home Secretary (Interior Minister) to visit Samos for 2 days at the beginning of August. Patel’s antipathy to refugees is well known in the UK so it was no surprise that she spent her time on the island visiting the new camp/prison for refugees which is scheduled to be opened in late September and talking with those responsible for patrolling the sea border with Turkey and keeping refugees from landing on Samos. Her junior minister( Chris Philp) was also on Samos in June; activists in the UK are concerned:
“The Independent understands that Ms Patel was interested in seeing the centre to inform the implementation of her own plans to create “reception centres” for asylum seekers in Britain.Campaigners have described the structures as “prisons-like” and “inhumane”, and said the idea of them being replicated in the UK was “deeply concerning””. (Independent , 4 August 2021)
It was not so long ago that the Greek people had to endure the fascism of the Junta. There are many now predicting a similar drift to right wing oppressive authoritarianism in Israel given its current trajectory of international lawlessness, violent suppression of dissent and not least the widening divisions within the Israeli Jewish population. De-coupling Greece from Israel is a necessity but to do so needs support from without as within. As noted above, many here are feeling vulnerable and powerless. We need help and energy. But where from?
It is time now on Samos for us to think about what the refugees have brought to the island over the past decade. Now that arrivals have virtually halted and thousands of refugees have been moved off the island, it has become clear to many how much vitality they brought to Samos Town the island’s capital. Streets and squares that once buzzed with the presence of young refugees are now largely empty. Shops which flourished from the refugees now face closure. The play areas that were filled with the laughter of refugee children are now silent. The few refugees who remain in the town are soon to be shifted 9 kms away to a closed camp. There is no general delight in these developments although for years successive mayors and other leaders of the town were for ever demanding that the refugees be moved out of the town. Their message was ever consistent – they are alien, they pose multiple dangers, they simply don’t belong. But over time the presence of the refugees changed the perceptions of many locals. In a peaceful co-existence the locals ignored this clamour of their leaders as they saw the refugees as human beings with whom they shared a common place. They brought a vitality and energy to the town. Now they are missed. Although few in numbers, some refugees once granted asylum have decided to stay and make their lives here. It is struggle as they are given no help to rent a home and jobs are hard to find. But they want to try because they love living here. They feel safe. In these dark days such changes are to be celebrated.
Despite the problems facing the people on Samos the changes wrought by the presence of refugees is opening opportunities for new challenges. Myths and lies have been exposed as vacuous and harmful. The new camp built for 7000 refugees is simply seen here as a cesspool of corruption. When you live alongside refugees you directly see the way which the EU has been content to let Greece get away with lawlessness and coercion against refugees in return for holding the refugees at the EU borders. After all it is the EU’s insistence on deterrence that has created the context for the Greek state’s policies and practices. But neither the EU nor Greece are invulnerable.
Take tourism for example. As already noted, tourism is a huge part of the economy. It is been battered by the Covid pandemic and although there has been some revival in 2021 the figures are still well below those of 2019. There is now a growing recognition that climate change could pose an almost existential threat. These include the enduring threats of huge wild fires which this summer saw holiday villages evacuated. Then there is the weather. Record heatwaves this summer have exposed the tourist industry to new costs and problems, especially with respect to staying cool, needing to secure additional electricity for air conditioning and water security as people shower more to manage the heat. Can Greece continue as a major tourist destination especially if the countries who send the most tourists (northern Europe) warm up to make their summers attractive for holidays. This historic pillar of the Greek economy could soon become its Achilles heel.
Imagine then if tourists began to talk of Greece’s shameful alliances with Israel as giving them second thoughts about coming here. The same applies with respect to Greece’s treatment of refugees. One of the reasons there are few refugees now coming to Samos and the other frontier islands is because of the push-backs. This is against international law. But Greece learns from Israel; ignore and lie. So against a backcloth of video films (often shot using mobile phones) showing Greek coastguards attacking, intimidating and pushing refugees away from Greece we have the Greek minister of migration shouting that such accusations are utterly baseless and insulting. He lies. He is a liar. (See https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-57809909).Is this the place where you want to have a holiday? Is this a country which uses income raised from your visit to allay with Israel or to ensure that refugees face death or injury trying to get to the shores of Samos?
Say not a word about any of this, or the conditions of the workers who feed and care for you then you are complicit in on going cruelties. Even as a tourist you can try to do something. Tourism is a vulnerable spot for Greece. Boycott threats are sure to be taken seriously and may just do something positive for all those who live here. Surely it’s worth a go for all our sakes.
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The Taliban’s new control of Afghanistan isn’t going without a hitch.
Beginning on August 20th, reports surfaced that opposition fighters had retaken three northern districts from the Taliban.
Pro-Taliban social media accounts confirmed the military reversal in northern Baghlan province. They said at least 15 Taliban fighters were killed and 15 others injured.
This was deemed a “betrayal of the amnesty” for former government members.
The fighting took place in three districts — Pul-e-Hesar, Deh-e-Salah and Bano — that are about 100 miles north of Kabul but are only reachable by poor roads that wind through the mountains.
The uprising took place to the north of the Panjshir Valley, a strategic sliver of territory where a handful of Afghan leaders were organizing a force to resist the Taliban. The Taliban quickly recaptured the districts. Resistance leader Ahmad Massoud Jr. said that these areas were not captured by his supporters, but rather by local militia groups dissatisfied with the Taliban’s “brutal” rule.
While former Afghan officials and reports from witnesses on social media suggested the uprising was local and spontaneous, one of the main leaders of the Panjshir resistance movement claimed that “we are one.”
Former Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who recently made a stake of inheriting the presidency said that his forces and the fighters to the north were “under one command structure.”
Two days later, on August 22nd, Massoud Jr, who is the de-facto leader of Afghanistan’s last major outpost of anti-Taliban resistance said he hoped to hold peaceful talks with the Taliban, but was ready to fight.
The comments came as a statement on the Taliban’s Alemarah Twitter feed said hundreds of fighters were headed towards Panjshir “after local state officials refused to hand it over peacefully.”
Massoud said that if it came to fighting against the Taliban, international support would be needed. Whether any would come is quite unlikely.
If fighting started, the Taliban would potentially quell the uprising quite quickly, as the group recently received a significant upgrade from various elite weaponry and hardware left behind by the United States forces that are hastily departing.
The group paraded throughout Kabul with the spoils of the war, and even made a photograph raising the Taliban’s white flag in a mockery of the famous photo of US soldiers raising the US flag in Iwo Jima.
The Taliban claimed that “all Afghans” should feel safe and secure in the “new” Islamic Emirate, but so far the group appears to be unwilling to compromise and negotiate.
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Official sources, namely EudraVigilance (EU, EEA, Switzerland), MHRA (UK) and VAERS (USA), have now recorded many more Deaths and Injuries from the ‘Covid’ vaccine roll-out than from all previous vaccines combined since records began.
A preprint paper by the prestigious Oxford University Clinical Research Group, published Aug. 10 in The Lancet, found vaccinated individuals carry 251 times the load of COVID-19 viruses in their nostrils compared to the unvaccinated.
Let us be under no illusions, it’s not only “experimental”, it’s a Big Pharma “killer vaccine” which modifies the human genome. The evidence of mortality and morbidity resulting from vaccine inoculation both present (official data) and future (e.g. undetected microscopic blood clots) is overwhelming.
Member of America’s Frontline Doctors Dr. Ryan Cole provides a scientific clarification of what these injections do in the head and other organs of the vaccinated people.
The only way experimental vaccines could have been granted this status was in the absence of treatments. This led to the media-endorsed narrative that no early and effective treatments were available. People have died because of this fallacy that has been relentlessly presented to the public, day after day, by the media.
Today is a historic day in the United States, because no pharmaceutical product linked to so many deaths and injuries during its trial period has ever before been approved by the FDA.
If you want to know how the United States wound up with “government by stupid” one need only look no farther than some of the recent propaganda put out by members of Congress, senior military officers and a certain former president.
Right now the Australian people are being cruelly subjugated due to the fake pandemic. The police there have been given extraordinary powers beyond what would be considered rational. These measures can be implemented without police officers having to reveal their identity.
As sovereign human beings who possess the right and responsibility to think and use logic; we can only conclude that the FDA, like so many other institutions and governments, has lost all credibility.
Young people in America are now first in line to be searched, surveilled, spied on, threatened, tied up, locked down, treated like criminals for non-criminal behavior, tasered and in some cases shot.
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Since 2004, Amazon has been building a foothold on the African continent. In Cape Town, it already employs thousands in a global call centre and a range of data hubs. Its South African career portal is a busy place, with the vast majority of advertised jobs located in Cape Town. In April, as part of its aggrandising drive into the continent, the company announced that it would be opening its African headquarters as part of a new, multipurpose development.
The Cape Town development, worth R4 billion (US$284 million), is part of a broader enterprise spanning 15 hectares along a riverside area that promises a range of uses: a hotel, offices, shops, a gym, a number of restaurants, a conference space and affordable housing. Amazon is intended as the main tenant, with its headquarters covering 70,000 square metres (17.3 acres).
The project is not going ahead unopposed. The site had previously been given a two-year interim heritage designation, which expired in April 2020. It is distinguished by riverside, verdant space and the confluence of the Black and Liesbeek Rivers, considered of cultural significance to some descendants of the Khoi and San. To them historical parallels of this enterprise appear with ominous significance. The Khoi did valiant battle with cattle-raiding Portuguese in a famous encounter half a millennium ago, leaving Francis de Almeida, the first viceroy of the Portuguese Indies, dead.
In 1659, the Dutch followed, though on this occasion, the tribes were unable to prevail. The colonial administrator Jan Van Riebeeck had little time for a culture with no written title deeds for land or written records. An all too familiar pattern of conduct by a European power followed: appropriation, dispossession, a spate of armed uprisings. “You can trace the origins of our identity here, it is the footprint of our resistance against colonialism,” suggests Tauriq Jenkins of the Goringhaicona Khoi Khoin Indigenous Traditional Council (GKKITC). The development showed “a lack of sensitivity to our heritage”.
The Observatory Civic Association, a body representing residents from a nearby community, claims that upwards of 50,000 objections to the development have been lodged with city and provincial authorities.
This month, the GKKITC and the Observatory Civic Association filed an interdict in the Western Cape High Court seeking to halt the development upon the River Club site. The broader object of the campaign is to ultimately have the riverside area listed as a World Heritage Site.
A petition opposing the development has also attracted, to date, almost 57,000 names. Comprising “unique heritage and environmentally sensitive riverine area”, the development would negate “the history of resistance by indigenous Khoi peoples in the area and the deep cultural and spiritual links that they hold with the valley.” The petitioners also claim that flooding risks will be aggravated and destroy the means by which the aquifer on the site can be recharged, an essential part of Cape Town’s resilience before the effects of climate change.
Amazon, for its part, has left the task of answering any searching questions on the development to Zenprop, the main developer. Zenprop, in turn, has referred those queries to the Liesbeek Leisure Properties Trust, who claim, predictably, that milk honey will flow: jobs will follow (6,000 direct, 19,000 indirect), as will foreign investment and an improvement in Cape Town’s quality of life. It is also hoping that local support for the project will remain sufficiently strong.
LLTP’s blinkered Jody Aufrichtig finds little in the way of dissatisfaction. The appropriate approvals process was pursued, and the public consulted. “There is no groundswell of unhappiness,” she asserts. “The handful of vocal objectors who remain, who were given fair opportunity to participate, simply do not like the outcome.” As for cultural sensitivities, Aufrichtig outlined a few proposed measures, including designs for a heritage centre, an Indigenous medicinal garden, and a hiking trail. Descendants of the Khoi and San would also be involved in the project as educators and operators.
One of the groups cheering Amazon and the impending development is the First Nations Collective, which is also drawn from members of the Khoi and San. Its spokesperson, Zenzile Khoisan, felt that their various cultural needs had been addressed. “We have secured a place to memorialise and celebrate our cultural agency and belonging, where we can articulate our narrative in our own voice to the world.” He also approved of plans that “put First Nations at the centre of the project, right across the street from that building everyone is talking about, the Amazon building.”
Cape Town Mayer Dan Plato has also given his nod of approval. “We are acutely aware of the need to balance investment and job creation, along with heritage and planning considerations.” On this occasion, the balance overwhelmingly favoured tourism and jobs. The application, he claimed in a May statement skimpy on environmental impacts, “does not adversely affect the rights of surrounding properties and appropriate design mitigation will be required in the conditions of approval.”
Such an accommodating tone to Amazon should come as a worry, not only to those in South Africa, but farther afield on the continent. The company’s ruthlessness is a grand rebuke for all who think certain markets, as a rule, encourage diversity and healthy competition. The Amazon effect, as it is termed, has seen the company firmly, if not brutally, assert its kingly role in the e-commerce marketplace. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) has drawn attention to a tendency the company has made famous over the years: eliminating competition, absorbing industries and killing innovation.
In June 2021, the ILSR released a factsheet documenting the various sins of the company. The list is ugly and extensive including, among many things, the company’s policy of impairing the means small businesses have “to operate independently and blocking them from having direct relationships with their customers.” Amazon has also made a habit of pinching the “best ideas and innovations” from independent businesses. It blocks independent businesses from offering lower prices available on other sites. It shuns due process in eliminating small businesses and sells goods and services below cost “to harm rivals and take market share.”
Lawmakers in the United States have also shown interest in the company’s predatory practices. The US House Judiciary Committee, after a 15-month investigation, found that Amazon “has monopoly power over many small- and medium size businesses that do not have a viable alternative to Amazon for reaching online consumers.” Amazon, for its part, insists through lobbying and public relations efforts that its presence is a tonic for small businesses in what it calls “a mutually beneficial relationship”. The company, the claim goes, provides a valuable platform to enable them to thrive. “As many independent businesses across the country have struggled and even shuttered, smaller companies have continued to grow with Amazon.”
Small business owners in South Africa and beyond, including independent retailers, small consumer product manufacturers, and publishers, have been warned. As the great plundering founder Jeff Bezos himself observed, “When you are small, someone else that is bigger can always come along and take away what you have.” The door to a continent is being opened, and, with fitting darkness, it is taking place upon historically dispossessed land.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
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The Southern African Development Community (SADC) held the 41st Ordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government in Lilongwe, Malawi on 17 to 18 August 2021 with a limited number of participants. The modest symbolism associated with the gathering was to observe strictly the COVID-19 protocols.
The summit held under the theme “Bolstering Productive Capacities in the Face of COVID-19 Pandemic for Inclusive, Sustainable, Economic and Industrial Transformation” was preceded by a Council of Ministers meeting held in hybrid format whereby limited number of delegates attended physically, while others participated through virtual platforms.
The chosen theme seeks to review the past and explore further effective ways to accelerate the implementation of the SADC Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) 2020-2030, in particular, the Industrialization and Market Integration pillar.
During the summit, Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera, President of Malawi took over the chairpersonship of SADC from Filipe Jacinto Nyusi, President of Mozambique who assumed the topmost position of SADC on 17 August, 2020 during the 40th SADC Summit.
Dr. Chakwera, the new Chairman of SADC and the President of the hosting country, in his speech underscored a number of significant points. He reassured to pursue two key documents for the region: the SADC Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) 2020-2030 and the SADC Vision 2050, as well as the establishment of SADC Humanitarian and Emergency Operations Center (SHOC).
As the incoming leader, he indicated to work on the inequalities and disparities in accessing COVID-19 vaccines that are seriously hindering efforts to save the lives of millions within the SADC and the task must be tackled head on. The inequalities and disparities in the distribution and production of COVID-19 vaccines are symptomatic of an old geopolitical framework that is no longer working, no longer sustainable, and no longer acceptable. African countries are full members of the global community.
The time has come to work on the African Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), and to seek economic sustainability, especially at a regional level like SADC. It is necessary to utilize the productive capacities and turn the economies into engines for sustainable growth. It is necessary revitalizing the agricultural sector, enhancing value addition, facilitating
trade, and simplifying rules of origin. The African Continental Free Trade Area has availed SADC the opportunity to become the breadbasket and export basket of Africa.
“But we must seize the moment. We must fully implement the SADC Industrialization Strategy and Road-map, SADC Regional Agriculture Policy and SADC Regional Infrastructure Development Master Plan, among others,” he stressed in his speech.
In line with the new SADC theme, the Government of Malawi is currently implementing the Malawi 2063, a vision focused on three drivers towards middle-income status for the economy: Agricultural Productivity and Commercialization, Industrialization, and Urbanization.
In this regard, one of Malawi’s flagship projects is the Shire Valley Transformation Programme (SVTP) for the period 2018 to 2031 valued at $563 million. Its aim is increasing agricultural productivity and commercialization for targeted households in the Shire Valley, and to improve the sustainable management and utilization of natural resources.
The true potential of this project lies in the opportunities for private sector participation from member states, for value addition chains towards industrialization. Such initiatives also benefit greatly from the Annual SADC Industrialization Week, which facilitates business linkages and promotes trade opportunities between member states.
“These are the tools for regional integration I promise to push for during my tenure as chair, because the time has come to turn our talk on regional integration into our walk. That is why Malawi will ensure that the 5th SADC Industrialization Week is held here sometime this coming November to make this year’s theme a reality,” Dr McCarthy Chakwera said, taking over the mantle of leadership of SADC.
Filipe Jacinto Nyusi, President of Mozambique, in handing over speech highlighted the following points: revitalizing trade across borders, enhancing industrial production within southern borders, and accelerating recovery of key sectors such as tourism.
The revival of the economies depends on the collective ability and step up the efforts toward economic stability, overcoming serious challenges together to eradicate poverty, food insecurity, and infrastructural underdevelopment, and build our region back better.
“We must therefore tackle the roadblocks standing in the way of our quest to reach this goal. One critical roadblock we must confront is the toxic nationalism that is causing some nations in the world to hoard millions of vaccine doses and deny other nations access to the same. Similarly, we must confront the toxic nationalism that is causing some regions in the world to deny other regions like SADC the rights to produce vaccines for their own populations,” he said.
According to him,
“the key pillars of regional integration must be pursued and the goal of regional integration must be attained. We all agree that if we truly want inclusive and sustainable economic transformation across SADC, then regional integration is non-negotiable. We must enhance cross-border trade and investment in our region through the existing SADC mechanisms and where need be, introduce new ones.”
President Filipe Nyusi added:
“We must fully embrace industrialization as the most effective means of achieving the main goals of SADC namely: increased economic productivity; stronger regional integration; and reduced poverty for people living in the region. We must facilitate the free movement of our peoples in a manner commensurate with our shared conviction that we are truly a community of shared values and shared interests.”
Among other key highlights at the gathering, the Executive Secretary of SADC, Dr. Stergomena Lawrence Tax, bade farewell to the SADC Heads of State and Government after serving for 8 years and on other hand, welcomed a new SADC Executive Secretary. Coincidentally, Lawrence Tax was sworn in as the SADC Executive Secretary at the 33rd SADC Summit, which Malawi last hosted in Lilongwe in August, 2013.
In this position, her key responsibilities have been engaging all the members as an economic bloc, overseeing, and implementing various programmes and projects in the Southern African region.
In her farewell speech, she highlighted the achievements of SADC over the years, in terms of peace and security, consolidation of democracy, macro-economic convergence, industrialization, intra-trade, regional connectivity, access to energy, financial integration and inclusion, and mobile penetration.
The region remains stable and peaceful, notwithstanding, isolated challenges. This is attributed to solid systems and measures in place, such as our regional early warning, preventive and mediation mechanisms, which facilitate timely detection and redress of threats and challenges, and effective deployments of organization’s electoral observation missions.
The tail-end of my term of office encountered challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, which remains a major concern and a challenge globally, and in almost all SADC member states. That, however, SADC has exhibited determination, solidarity and has undertaken several coordinated regional responses and put in place various harmonized measures to fight the pandemic and to mitigate its socio -economic impacts.
Whereas, the region has progressed in terms of its objectives, it is yet to achieve its ultimate goal of ensuring economic well-being, improvement of standards of living and quality of life for the people of Southern Africa.
As a national of the United Republic of Tanzania, Lawrence Tax also expressed her gratitude to the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania for the trust, and for nominating her for this position in 2013. She particularly expressed satisfaction on the progress made in empowering women, both economically, and in leadership positions in the region, and called for sustained and accelerated progress in women empowerment, and there still grounds to be covered.
Notwithstanding some differences in political culture, national policies and approaches towards development issues, the history, shared principles and values, and common agenda have always enabled the region to find common grounds.
In general, SADC had come a long way since the days of the liberation struggles, and the Region owed its cooperation, unity and development to the founders of this great organization whose sacrifices have enabled the level of transformation and successes it is enjoying today.
The summit featured the following meetings and events: SADC Public Lecture under the theme: Promoting Digitalization for Revival of SADC Industrialization Agenda in the COVID era; Meeting of Standing Committee of Senior Officials and Finance Committee Meetings; Meeting of SADC Council of Ministers and SADC Organ Troika Summit.
The summit took stock of progress made in promoting and deepening Regional Integration in line with SADC’s aspirations as espoused in the RISDP 2020-2030 and Vision 2050, which envisage a peaceful, inclusive, competitive, middle- to high-income industrialized Region where all citizens enjoy sustainable economic well-being, justice, and freedom.
Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chairperson of the African Union Commission; Dr. Vera Songwe, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa; Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank; Heads of Regional and International Organization; and Head of Mission and Members of Diplomatic Corp were present at the summit in Malawi.
SADC in Brief: SADC is an organization of 16 Member States established in 1980 as the Southern African Development Coordinating Conference (SADCC) and later in August, 1992 transformed into the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
The mission of SADC is to promote sustainable and equitable economic growth and socio-economic development through efficient, productive systems, deeper cooperation and integration, good governance and durable peace and security; so that the region emerges as a competitive and effective player in international relations and the world economy.
Member States are Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. [….]
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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), is now a frequent and passionate contributor to Global Research.
Não somos nós que o dizemos, mas o Presidente dos Estados Unidos, Joe Biden:
Washington nunca teve o objectivo de ajudar os afegãos e, ainda menos, de construir o seu Estado.Tudo o que os nossos meios de comunicação nos contaram, durante vinte anos, não foi senão propaganda.
No seu discurso de 16 de Agosto, na Casa Branca, o Presidente Biden fez uma declaração lapidária: “A nossa missão no Afeganistão nunca teve como objectivo a construção de uma nação, nunca teve a intenção de criar uma democracia unificada e centralizada“. Uma pedra tumular, colocada pelo próprio Presidente dos Estados Unidos, na narrativa oficial que acompanhou, durante vinte anos, a “missão no Afeganistão”, na qual a Itália também dispendeu vidas humanas e dinheiro público no valor de biliões de euros. “O nosso único interesse nacional vital no Afeganistão permanece hoje, o que sempre foi: evitar um ataque terrorista à pátria americana“, explicou Biden. Mas as suas palavras são ensombradas pelo Washington Post que, desejando esvaziar o seu armário de esqueletos das ‘fake news’ espalhadas ao longo de vinte anos, emprega o título: “Os Presidentes e líderes militares dos Estados Unidos enganaram deliberadamente o público sobre a guerra americana mais longa, travada no Afeganistão durante duas décadas“.
O público tem sido “deliberadamente enganado” desde que, em Outubro de 2001, os Estados Unidos, flanqueados pela Grã-Bretanha, atacaram e invadiram o Afeganistão com a motivação de caçar Osama bin Laden, perseguido como o instigador do ataque terrorista de 11 de Setembro (cuja versão oficial metia água por todos os lados). O verdadeiro objectivo da guerra era a ocupação deste território de importância geoestratégica primária, fazendo fronteira com as três antigas repúblicas soviéticas da Ásia Central (Turquemenistão, Uzbequistão e Tajiquistão) e com o Irão, o Paquistão e a China (a região autónoma de Xinjiang Uygur). Já nesta altura havia fortes sinais de uma aproximação entre a China e a Rússia: em 17 de Julho de 2001, os Presidentes Jang Zemin e Vladimir Putin assinaram o “Tratado de Boa Vizinhança e Cooperação Amigável“, descrito como um “marco” nas relações entre os dois países. Washington considerava a aliança emergente entre a China e a Rússia como uma ameaça aos interesses dos EUA na Ásia, num momento crítico em que os EUA tentavam preencher, antes dos outros, o vazio deixado pela desagregação da URSS na Ásia Central. “Existe a possibilidade de surgir na Ásia um rival militar com uma base de recursos formidável“, advertia o Pentágono num relatório de 30 de Setembro de 2001.
O que estava realmente em jogo foi demonstrado pelo facto de que, em Agosto de 2003, a NATO sob comando USA, ter subitamente assumido “o papel de liderança da ISAF”, a “Força Internacional de Assistência à Segurança” criada pelas Nações Unidas em Dezembro de 2001, sem nessa altura, ter qualquer autorização para fazê-lo. Desde então, mais de 50 países, membros e parceiros da NATO, participaram na guerra do Afeganistão, sob comando USA.
O balanço político e militar desta guerra, que derramou rios de sangue e queimou enormes recursos, é catastrófico: centenas de milhares de mortes de civis, provocadas pelas operações de guerra, mais um número incalculável de “mortes indirectas” devido à pobreza e às doenças provocadas pela guerra. Só os Estados Unidos – documentado no New York Times – já gastaram mais de 2,500 biliões de dólares nela. Para treinar e armar 300 mil soldados governamentais que, desbaratados em poucos dias perante o avanço dos talibãs, os Estados Unidos gastaram cerca de 90 biliões de dólares. Mais de 10 biliões de dólares, investidos em operações antidroga, resultaram na quadruplicação da superfície cultivada com ópio, tanto que o Afeganistão fornece hoje 80% do ópio produzido ilegalmente no mundo.
Emblemática é a história de Ashraf Ghani, o Presidente que fugiu para o exílio dourado. Educado na Universidade Americana em Beirute, seguiu uma carreira nas universidades de Columbia, Berkeley, Harvard e Johns Hopkins nos EUA, e no Banco Mundial em Washington. Em 2004, como Ministro das Finanças, obteve um “pacote de assistência” de 27,5 biliões de dólares dos países “doadores“, entre os quais a Itália. Em 2014, num país em guerra sob a ocupação USA/NATO, foi oficialmente nomeado presidente com 55% dos votos. Em 2015, o Presidente Mattarella recebeu-o com todas as honras no Quirinale, juntamente com a Ministra da Defesa, Pinotti, que se tinha encontrado com ele um ano antes em Cabul.
Esta experiência catastrófica vem juntar-se àquelas que a Itália já viveu como resultado de ter participado, em violação da sua própria Constituição, nas guerras da NATO desde os Balcãs até ao Médio Oriente e ao Norte de África. No entanto, nenhuma lição foi aprendida pelas forças políticas com assento no parlamento. Enquanto em Washington o próprio Presidente destrói o castelo de mentiras sobre os “elevados objectivos humanitários” com que se justificava a participação italiana na guerra do Afeganistão, em Roma, como no romance 1984,de Orwell, a História está a ser apagada.
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If you want to know how the United States wound up with “government by stupid” one need only look no farther than some of the recent propaganda put out by members of Congress, senior military officers and a certain former president. President George W. Bush, who started the whole sequence of events that have culminated in the disaster that is Afghanistan, is not yet in prison, but one can always hope.
Regarding the current crisis, former FBI special agent and 9/11 whistleblower Coleen RowleycitedRichard W. Behan who mused over “How perverse we have become. We chastise President Biden for a messy ending of the war in Afghanistan and fail to indict George Bush for its illegal beginning.” She then observed, in her own words on Facebook, “So Rehabilitated War Criminal Bush can maintain his legacy as stalwart statesman as he cutely dances with Ellen DeGeneris and Michelle Obama on television screens. Washington is just a big fact-free political show where the blame game winners are the best manipulators.”
I would add to that the hubris of the “Mission Accomplished” banner on the tower of an aircraft carrier as Bush, wearing a flight suit, inaccurately announced victory and an end of combat in Afghanistan, presumably so he could focus on his new war in Iraq. As the Taliban had not attacked or threatened America, had no means of doing so, and were even willing to turn over “their guest” Osama bin Laden to US justice after the bombing of the USS Cole in late 2000, they were hardly a formidable foe. The Bush Administration refused the offer to surrender bin Laden on four occasions before 9/11 and once more five days after the attack because it wanted a war. Given all of that backstory, what Bush and his posse of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Tenet, Feith, Powell and Libby did was indisputably a war crime. And they followed up with fake intelligence to justify a second war against Saddam Hussein, who had also sought to avoid war by offering to go into voluntary exile. The Nuremberg tribunals considered aggressive war against an unthreatening nation to be the ultimate war crime. That would make it an ultimate war crime times two, not to mention the killing of civilians and torture that went along with it. And President Barack Obama added to that toll by subsequently destroying an unthreatening Libya. Unfortunately, many of those war criminals from the Bush and Obama cliques who are still alive are sitting fat and pretty in retirement or in lucrative private sector positions while the only ones who have been punished are the whistleblowers who tried to stop the madness.
George W. Bush is not particularly good at apologies so it is not surprising that he did not deliver one regarding the war he unnecessarily started and even more unnecessarily prolonged through the US occupation. In his view, the US should now remain in Afghanistan and he claims to be worrying about what will happen to Afghan women in particular and to the growing number of refugees, who he opines should be allowed to enter the United States. His statement includes a tip of the hat to the armed forces: “Many of you deal with wounds of war, both visible and invisible… And some of your brothers and sisters in arms made the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror. Each day, we have been humbled by your commitment and your courage. You took out a brutal enemy and denied Al Qaeda a safe haven while building schools, sending supplies, and providing medical care. You kept America safe from further terror attacks, provided two decades of security and opportunity for millions, and made America proud. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts and will always honor your contributions.”
The delusional Bush makes it all sound like a mission of mercy which inter aliadestroyed a ruthless enemy preparing to strike and kept America free of terror, none of which is true but it certainly sounds nice. But what is really interesting is how the fall of Afghanistan is being used by some to hype Bush’s war on terror, making the case that it is now more important than ever to strengthen US counterterrorism efforts. Which is another way of saying, “keep the cash flowing!” Those who have a vested interest in the war on terror are warning that the Taliban’s rapid takeover of Afghanistan has raised concerns relating to a possible resurgence of terror groups that might once again use the country as a home base. The frequently wrong on every issue General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said that “the United States could now face a rise in terrorist threats from a Taliban-run Afghanistan.”
Of course, if that were the case, Afghanistan might well face a bout of heavy strategic bombing by the United States, so there is not exactly an incentive for them to do something that provocative. Nor do they have the resources to act outside their own borders and they presumably would not welcome any of their “guests” provoking another US invasion.
Milley’s dumb comments on Afghanistan, to include the astonishingly wrong claim that US intelligence did not report in extenso the sorry state of the Afghan Army and the imminent collapse of the government, demonstrate that ignorance on major issues relating to foreign policy is not limited to those who call themselves Republicans. Secretary of State Tony Blinken insists that the retreat from Kabul is not a replay of Saigon, nor were the withdrawal plans, such as they existed, “botched.” Word in Washington is that Blinken will be the designated fall guy for the disaster to protect his boss.
Apart from the Afghanistan fiasco, stupid extends to how the government operates, particularly in Congress. In a recent memo to supporters and constituents Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner, who heads the Senate Intelligence committee described his top priorities. Three of them are quite interesting. They are: “(1) Root out anti-government extremism, including the white nationalist militias who participated in the January 6th insurrection at our Capitol; (2) Rebuild intelligence community agencies and departments that were understaffed and under-resourced in the previous administration, and (3) Depoliticize our intelligence-gathering apparatus, so these tireless and patriotic public servants can stay above the partisan fray and focus on their jobs: defending the American homeland.”
Enough has been said about the Democratic Party’s obsession with putting white Americans in their proper place, which is some deep hole where they can be ignored and berated as necessary. Purges are already taking place at the Pentagon and at the Justice and Homeland Security Departments. But Warner’s stated “priority” to engage in the rebuilding of an intelligence community that has seen its budget grow year after year comes as somewhat of a surprise. Perhaps it needs the extra cash to root-out those pesky whites. And finally, “depoliticizing” intelligence gathering has to be something of a joke, coming as it does from the party that did the most to politicize it in the first place under President Barack Obama working hand-in-hand with the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign to promote the Trump-Russia collusion hoax. I suppose Senator Warner does not see the party in power using the CIA, NSA and FBI to discredit an opponent and destroy his campaign as politicization. Or you can always blame it on the Russians.
All in all, we have had a fine team working in harmony to protect the American people. Hopefully the time they spend in prison somewhere down the road will not discourage them and they will emerge with their brilliant insights fully intact. With leaders like Bush, Milley, Blinken and Warner, what could possibly go wrong?
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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 https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].
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After 1,517,211 injuries and 9,027 deaths following the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines recorded in the U.S. Government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), the FDA today gave full approval to the Pfizer COVID-19 injections for people over the age of 16.
Besides the U.S. VAERS, the British Yellow Card reporting system for injuries and deaths following COVID-19 vaccines reports 501 deaths and 293,779 injuries following Pfizer COVID-19 injections. (Source.)
EudraVigilance, the European Union database of suspected drug reaction reports for COVID-19 vaccines, reports 10,616 deaths and 833,498 injuries following Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines. (Tally here, source here.)
Today is a historic day in the United States, because no pharmaceutical product linked to so many deaths and injuries during its trial period has ever before been approved by the FDA.
Just from Europe and the U.S., official government reporting systems list a total of 20,144 deaths and 2,644,488 adverse reactions following Pfizer’s injections.
We know that these reported numbers, directly from official government health organizations, are severely under-reported, as doctors and other medical personnel are pressured to NOT link these deaths and injuries to the COVID-19 shots.
So do you still believe that a worldwide eugenics program in place to reduce the world’s population is a “conspiracy theory”?
All Eyes Now on the Military and Law Enforcement to Enforce Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccines
This regulatory action today by the FDA paves the way for private corporations and government agencies to now start mandating the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.
This full approval by the FDA will also now give some legal precedent for local health departments in every county of every state in the U.S. to start mandating COVID-19 vaccines as well.
But to enforce it, they will need armed support from law enforcement and/or the military, such as the National Guard.
Will they comply, or will America finally wake up and start resisting in mass?
I have seen little evidence for massive resistance to COVID mandates so far in the U.S., while in other countries people are now taking to the streets to protest.
One policeman in Canada has apparently gone public and stated that he would never enforce COVID vaccine mandates, and that there are “hundreds of thousands” of other law enforcement like him in Canada.
What about the United States??
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Until now, the experimental injections only had Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA. That was bad enough; and they marched forward with a criminal campaign violating the Nuremberg Code and coercing victims unknowingly into these nefarious experimental injections. The injections have smashed all preceding records for causing death and disease with anything ever called a “vaccine”. In the past drugs and vaccines were halted for tiny fractions of the current carnage, yet the FDA has now issued full approval for Pfizer’s dangerous nanoparticle genetic injection.
What version of reality does the acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock, M.D. subscribe to in her press release saying:
“While millions of people have already safely received COVID-19 vaccines, we recognize that for some, the FDA approval of a vaccine may now instill additional confidence to get vaccinated. Today’s milestone puts us one step closer to altering the course of this pandemic in the U.S.”
These liars are still calling it a “pandemic”, still calling the PCR a “valid test”, still calling these injections “vaccines” and now they are ignoring all the injected dead bodies, injuries, and mountain of scientific reality, to call it “safe”.
As sovereign human beings who possess the right and responsibility to think and use logic; we can only conclude that the FDA, like so many other institutions and governments, has lost all credibility.
Here is Dr. Jane Ruby with some great insights based on reality:
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A preprint paper by the prestigious Oxford University Clinical Research Group, published Aug. 10 in The Lancet, found vaccinated individuals carry 251 times the load of COVID-19 viruses in their nostrils compared to the unvaccinated.
A groundbreaking preprint paper by the prestigious Oxford University Clinical Research Group, published Aug. 10 in The Lancet, includes alarming findings devastating to the COVID vaccine rollout.
The study found vaccinated individuals carry 251 times the load of COVID-19 viruses in their nostrils compared to the unvaccinated.
Screenshot of the study published in The Lancet
While moderating the symptoms of infection, the jab allows vaccinated individuals to carry unusually high viral loads without becoming ill at first, potentially transforming them into presymptomatic superspreaders.
This phenomenon may be the source of the shocking post-vaccination surges in heavily vaccinated populations globally.
The paper’s authors, Chau et al, demonstrated widespread vaccine failure and transmission under tightly controlled circumstances in a hospital lockdown in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam.
The scientists studied healthcare workers who were unable to leave the hospital for two weeks. The data showed that fully vaccinated workers — about two months after injection with the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine (AZD1222) — acquired, carried and presumably transmitted the Delta variant to their vaccinated colleagues.
They almost certainly also passed the Delta infection to susceptible unvaccinated people, including their patients. Sequencing of strains confirmed the workers transmitted SARS-CoV-2 to one another.
This is consistent with the observations in the U.S. from Farinholt and colleagues, and congruent with comments by the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conceding COVID-19 vaccines have failed to stop transmission of SARS-CoV-2.
On Feb. 11, the World Health Organization indicated the AZD1222 vaccine efficacy of 63.09% against the development of symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection. The conclusions of the Chau paper support the warnings by leading medical experts that the partial, non-sterilizing immunity from the three notoriously “leaky” COVID-19 vaccines allow carriage of 251 times the viral load of SARS-CoV-2 as compared to samples from the pre-vaccination era in 2020.
Thus, we have a key piece to the puzzle explaining why the Delta outbreak is so formidable — fully vaccinated are participating as COVID-19 patients and acting as powerful Typhoid Mary-style super-spreaders of the infection.
Vaccinated individuals are blasting out concentrated viral explosions into their communities and fueling new COVID surges. Vaccinated healthcare workers are almost certainly infecting their coworkers and patients, causing horrendous collateral damage.
Continued vaccination will only make this problem worse, particularly among frontline doctors and nurses workers who are caring for vulnerable patients.
Health systems should drop vaccine mandates immediately, take stock of COVID-19 recovered workers who are robustly immune to Delta and consider the ramifications of their current vaccinated healthcare workers as potential threats to high risk patients and coworkers.
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Children’s Health Defense (CHD) Chairman Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. this week called on mainstream media to investigate and report on the many issues central to the COVID crisis that have been mischaracterized or suppressed.
Kennedy said:
“The cornerstone of any democratic society is freedom. The people of this country should have free speech and the freedom to decide what medical interventions they do or don’t want. Never in our nation’s history have those freedoms been as threatened as they are today.”
Here are just some of the facts Kennedy said are being inaccurately reported or swept under the rug:
The only way experimental vaccines could have been granted this status was in the absence of treatments. This led to the media-endorsed narrative that no early and effective treatments were available. People have died because of this fallacy that has been relentlessly presented to the public, day after day, by the media.
No healthy individual should die or be injured from a vaccine. We are now approaching a time when the injuries and deaths from COVID vaccines will likely surpass those from the virus. Between Dec. 14, 2020 and Aug. 13, 2021, a total of 595,622 total adverse events were reported to the government-run Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS).
Yet the media maintains a blackout on the topic. By comparison, when it became known that an estimated 50 people died after receiving the swine flu shot in 1976, that vaccination campaign was immediately shut down.
The COVID vaccine does not prevent transmission. As stated in the documentation upon which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted EUA status to COVID vaccines, and as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently acknowledged to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, COVID vaccines do not stop transmission of the virus, one of the chief goals of any vaccine. Shaming the unvaccinated for new COVID cases is baseless and dangerously divisive.
Children are at extremely low risk of death or hospitalization from COVID and there is no justification for recommending this vaccine to kids. The COVID survival rate across all age groups is 98.23%. In children it is even higher, at 99.985%.
These statistics call into question the need for widespread COVID vaccination of any age group, but especially children who are at such minimal risk from COVID.
COVID vaccines are not helping society reach herd immunity. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that the vaccinated are spreading the virus just as easily as the unvaccinated.
And while the vaccinated are still getting COVID, they will become sentenced to a lifetime of booster shots that will continue to cause injuries and deaths like those already reported to VAERS.
Yet the media perpetuates the falsehood that more boosters are the way out of the epidemic — especially now that it’s becoming apparent that the original COVID vaccines are failing.
The origins of COVID-19 remain shrouded in secrecy by the media. Even though Congress has launched an investigation, the media is still providing guidance on the epidemic and COVID vaccines based on Dr. Anthony Fauci’s recommendations.
As Fauci may well be responsible for funding this dangerous science at the Wuhan Lab, and his vaccine conflicts of interests have come into question, Fauci’s ability to lead the response to the epidemic has been compromised beyond repair.
“Human rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights are being decimated,” said Kennedy. “Mandates are morally and spiritually wrong for America and the world. No human should ever be forced or coerced by their employer, school or government to have a medical procedure, including vaccines, against their will.”
Kennedy added:
“Where is the outcry against this travesty from our leaders and the media? It’s time for the media and the public to break free from the Pharma-backed vaccine paradigm and instead embrace the liberty upon which this country was founded.”
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The air strikes which destroyed four high-rise buildings in Gaza in May violated international law and could amount to Israeli war crimes, a human rights group report revealed today.
The attacks also damaged neighbouring structures, made several dozen families homeless and shuttered scores of businesses that provided livelihoods to many people, Human Rights Watch said.
Between May 11 and 15, Israeli forces attacked the Hanadi, al-Jawhara, al-Shorouk and al-Jalaa towers in the densely populated al-Rimal neighbourhood of Gaza City.
Israel said that they warned tenants of the impending attacks in order to allow for evacuation. Three buildings were then immediately levelled while a fourth sustained extensive damage and is due for demolition.
While Israeli authorities claimed that Palestinian armed groups were using the towers for military purposes, they have not provided evidence to support the allegations.
Human Rights Watch crisis and conflict researcher Richard Weir said:
“The apparently unlawful Israeli strikes on four high-rise towers in Gaza City caused serious, lasting harm for countless Palestinians who lived, worked, shopped, or benefited from businesses based there.
“The Israeli military should publicly produce the evidence that it says it relied on to carry out these attacks.”
Between May and August, Human Rights Watch interviewed 18 Palestinians who were witnesses and victims of the attacks on the towers, including residents, business owners, employees and those in affected neighbouring structures.
The group also reviewed video footage and photographs taken after the attacks, and statements by Israeli and Palestinian officials and Palestinian armed groups.
Jawad Mahdi, 68, an owner of al-Jalaa tower who lived there with dozens of family members, said: “It was a place of living, safety, children and grandchildren, all our history and life — destroyed in front of our eyes.
“It’s like someone ripping your heart out and throwing it.”
The long-term effects of the attacks extend beyond the immediate destruction of the buildings, Human Rights Watch said.
Many jobs were lost with the closure of their companies and many families were displaced.
Human Rights Watch found no evidence that members of Palestinian groups involved in military operations had a current or long-term presence in any of the towers at the time they were attacked.
Even if there were such a presence, the attacks appeared to cause foreseeably disproportionate harm to civilian property, the group said, which is in breach of international humanitarian law.
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“Except for Palestine” is a remarkable little book. Within it, the authors Hill and Plitnick present the larger picture that the self proclaimed progressive “universal” values of the United States are argued for in many troubled spots of the world, except for Palestine. Their introduction lays out this idea, “The conditions mentioned here should be profoundly disturbing to American liberals and progressives, as they are clearly out of step with the values they claim to hold most dear.”
For the following chapters, “we examine Israel’s escalating authoritarianism and how U.S. policy has enabled it, and we demonstrate how it is anathema to universal liberal values.” There are four chapters each covering a distinct topic, and each succeeding strongly in supporting the authors’ perspective.
The Right to Exist
The first chapter, “The Right to Exist” presents the ongoing Israeli position that the Palestinians must recognize Israel’s right to exist before other negotiations begin. This demand is made of no other countries, and no other countries make the demand of any other country. Countries exist through recognition of their governance and boundaries, not by right. There is no similar ‘given’ by the Israelis that Palestine has a right to exist, and under international law it is not a requirement for sovereignty.
Yet international law does include the right of return, a law Israel simply ignores. The Israeli position comes from two sources: right of return implies the recognition that they are an occupying colonial-settler state; and it is acknowledged that the current demographic Jewish majority, slim as it is, would be overwhelmed by refugees returning to their homeland.
As for American progressive values, the demand for recognition “is a demand rooted in a “might makes right” ethos that demands the utter subjugation, even humiliation, of one’s rivals.”
Criminalizing BDS
The second chapter, “Criminalizing BDS” discusses arguments made concerning the supposed anti-semetic nature of its demands, but as presented here, it is a basic non-violent expression of civil rights. For the U.S. and its own internal arguments, “The Supreme Court has generally interpreted refusals to do business, including through boycotts, as conduct that may be permissibly regulated….when the motivation is political or social in nature, may have more of an expressive element, which according to Supreme Court Precedent, could qualify for First Amendment protection.”
The BDS movement is not organized by the PLO/PA governance currently in place over the Palestinain people. The BDS national committee has an explicit statement concerning anti-racism and non-violence which is “an unambiguous refutation of any association with violence or anti-semitism.”
In summarizing their arguments, the authors say “While Israel should never be unfairly isolated or targetted, it also cannot be shielded from principled and organized political pressure through boycotts, divestments, and sanctions. These tactics have always been critical tools for producing peace, freedom, and justice for the vulnerable. Palestine cannot be an exception.”
Trumped-up Policy
The four years of Trump’s governance made several important concessions to Israel and created the situation in which the U.S. “could no longer function as a mediator of the conflict, and diplomacy, already barely existent, went completely dark.”
Trump’s recognition of the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, and the transfer of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem were the two main actions invalidating any supposed mediating role. Mostly unrecognized was his decision to cut off aid to UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency set up to aid Palestinian refugees), and while generally unrecognized, it carries significant importance in consideration of international law and the desires of the Israeli state.
The UNRWA was set up to aid refugees, to provide social services and neither to settle them nor define who they are. UNRWA’s role is “to provide basic services…not to resettle the refugees.” The UNHCR (the UN High Commission for Refugees) does have the mandate to help refugees settle in areas other than their homes. With Trump defunding the UNRWA the Israeli hopes are to have the Palestinian refugees settled in the countries where they currently are. On the other hand if the funding is stopped Israel could “face a humanitarian crisis that could turn world opinion sharply against the country.”
Once again, the demographic factor comes into play – with the refugees settled outside Israel a very large portion of them would then stand outside the right of return. The Palestinians steadfastly refuse this, many holding the keys to their homes (whether demolished or occupied) and maintaining their international law right of return to a militarily occupied area.
It is international law that defines refugee status and “conveys refugee status to children of other refugee populations until permanent homes can be found.” This status has been conveyed in other instances – Afghanistan, Bhutan, Burma, and Somalia.
Trump himself “possesses a dangerous combination of ignorance of the issues he was faced with and complete indifference to that ignorance.” His policies however were not anomalous. He essentially acted on policies already in place, endorsed but not activated. Part of the reason was for future potential concessions for a peace deal with Syria or negotiations for the now dead two state solution. He did not “Write a whole new act in the play…but [stripped] the mask off the United States.” Rather than belonging to Trump these situations highlight “some of our most entrenched and dangerous progressive contradictions.” Trump was a “dangerous extension, not the source, of deeply rooted bipartisan policies….[positioning] Palestine as an exception to which core liberal American values are not applied.”
The Crisis in Gaza
The final chapter, “The Crisis in Gaza” is an excellent overview of the history of events in Gaza through its many encounters with the Israeli state (and Egypt) since the Nakba. Although Gaza “constitutes one of the most pressing humanitarian crises in the world”, they are pretty much the exception where the liberal progressives do not want to intervene [not that U.S. interventions ever do any good]. While liberal hearts “bleed” for Syrians, Afghans, Libyans et al, they do not for Palestinians.
As an open air prison fully controlled by Israel “forms the basis for the widely held position that Gaza remains under Israeli occupation to this day.” As for the U.S., they have not “merely been indifferent…but played an active, significant, and thoroughly bipartisan role in degrading the conditions.” For Gaza, “Americans share significantly in the blame….Our overwhelming silence is a betrayal of the noble, definitive ideals that liberals and progressives profess to hold dear.”
Beyond the Limits
In their conclusions Hill and Plitnick note that “support for Palestinain rights is no longer a fringe position.” Ironically, some of this is due to the hasbara attempts by Israel to counter the BDS information and to counter arguments about Palestinian rights to self defense under international laws on occupation. As a side bar for Canada, a large majority of Canadians – including a majority of Conservatives – now support ICC investigations of war crimes – while all official parties still support the defunct two state solution.
The “self titled progressives..contradict their beliefs by justifying or ignoring behavior by Israel that they oppose or at least treat gravely when it is at the hands of other state actors.” So called progressives need to recognize that Palestinians “are entitled to the same rights to freedom, justice, equality, safety, and self-determination as everyone else around the world.”
Conclusion
The first three chapters are mostly contemporary, while the final chapter on Gaza is a concise, clear account of Gaza’s history and why it is today such an important denial of all that progressives and liberals claim to be. This is an excellent short read to gain an understanding of current events in Israel/Palestine. The language is clear, the examples are few but very pertinent, and the footnotes are extensive and a good part of the read for more information. “Except for Palestine” should be read by anyone interested in events in Israel/Palestine – and obviously in particular, anyone claiming to be progressive and liberal.
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Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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“I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.” – Major General Smedley Darlington Butler (1881-1940) in his book “War is a Racket” (1935).
The ending of the 20-year-war in Afghanistan, the longest ever engagement in a single conflict by the United States armed forces, has been variously described as a “catastrophe”, a “disaster” and a “debacle”. Yet this national failure from which parallels have been drawn with the Vietnam War has not had the same ring of misfortune for some.
Indeed, long before the recent scenes of calamity and collapse in Kabul brought home with resounding finality the futility of a supposed nation-building exercise, the profit-motive for the initial US invasion and the preservation of an enduring occupation was an open secret to anyone who bothered to embark on the slightest inquiry.
The gravy train of American defence spending was in full effect, facilitated by the tentacles of what US President Dwight D. Eisenhower prophesied would become the Military Industrial Complex. For the last two decades have witnessed what has been described as a “wealth transfer from US taxpayers to military contractors”. But the war, apart from confirming Afghanistan’s reputation as the “Graveyard of Empires”, also validates the phrase coined by US Major General Smedley Butler that war is a racket.
The blame game currently being played out in the United States media by the political class risks obscuring one fundamental issue: the centrality of money and the profit motive in the waging of America’s two-decade-long war in Afghanistan.
The invasion of that country had been planned well in advance of the attacks of September 11th, 2001, the event which provided the impetus for mounting a military response including the country’s occupation. The United States has long coveted gaining access to the mineral and oil rich Caspian region and Central Asia, and the coming to power of the fundamentalist Islamic Taliban movement was not seen at the time by US policy makers as an impenetrable obstacle.
As the French writers Jean-Charles Briscard and Guillaume Dasquie wrote in their book Forbidden Truth:U.S.-Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy and the Failed Hunt for Bin Laden, which was published in 2002, the American government had been prepared to accept Taliban rule on condition that they agreed to the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia.
Thus, it was that in February 2001, the administration headed by George W. Bush entered talks with the Taliban, a group which along with al-Qaeda had germinated from the remnants of the local and foreign recruited anti-Soviet Mujahideen insurgents which had been supported by the Americans during the Afghan-Soviet War of 1979-1989. At one point during the negotiations, noted Briscard, the US representatives told the Taliban,
‘Either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs’.”
The invasion of Afghanistan which commenced in October 2001, and which led to the overthrow of the Taliban two months later formally inaugurated the war that was ended by this month’s American withdrawal and the swift capitulation of the US-trained Afghan military.
“Operation Enduring Freedom” was described as a “police action”, but it had decidedly mixed results. While the Taliban was overthrown and several Islamist training camps were overrun and their inhabitants apprehended, the main objective of the operation, the capture of Osama Bin Laden did not come to pass. Furthermore, the Taliban remained as a guerrilla force whose control of territory would increase with the passage of time.
It is against this background that the colossal waste of American taxpayer’s money and the corresponding enrichment of American military contractors, as well as members of the Afghan elite can be documented.
The cover for this was the stated goal of “nation building”. In other words, Afghanistan was to be transformed socially and economically into a modern progressive society which would exhibit the panoply of Western values through the creation of strong democratic institutions, the equal treatment of women, as well as a free market economy.
But evidence of the waste of American taxpayers’ money eventually surfaced.
In 2015 ProPublica, an independent investigative news concern unveiled a report which revealed that the United States had blown $17 Billion through a number of uncompleted projects. There was the story of patrol boats which never left the factory and of planes which could not fly. After the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) ruled that the planes, which cost $486 million, were a “death trap”, 16 of the planes were sold as scrap for a total of $32,000.
The report referred to many more including the $14.7 million spent on a storage facility for the military, which was never used, a $456,000 police-training facility that disintegrated owing to poor construction, as well as a $335,000 unused power plant. It is worth reminding that waste is not an uncommon issue with the Military Industry given the debacles surrounding the development of the F-35 fighter jet and the Zumwalt Class naval warships.
The issue of accountability of these wastages were never satisfactorily addressed by Congress, the Department of Defense, the State Department and SIGAR.
The following year, the fifteenth of the conflict, it was estimated that the war had cost the American taxpayer more than $737 billion and was consuming another $4 million per hour, every day that it continued. The most recent estimates put the total cost at $2.26 trillion which divides into $300 million per day over the 20-year period of occupation.
And who profited from all this? The answer is the Military Industrial Complex; the “network of individuals and institutions involved in the production of weapons and military technologies” that typically lobby lawmakers for increased military spending. They consist of former senior ranking members of the US armed forces, former defence secretaries and a range of companies including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northorp Grumman, and General Dynamics.
Needless to say, the value of stock in each of the corporations has increased to extraordinary levels given not only the duration of the Afghan war but also interventions in countries such as Iraq, Libya, Syria as well as the ongoing policy of expanding NATO and ratcheting tension with Russia after the departure of Boris Yeltsin and the coming to power of his successor Vladimir Putin.
For instance, a purchase of $10,000 worth of stock in 2001 is worth an estimated $133,559 in Lockheed Martin; $129,645 in Northrop Grumman; $107,588 in Boeing; $72,516 in General Dynamics; and $43,167 in Raytheon. Unsurprising among the board members benefiting financially from this are an array of admirals and generals who held positions such as the Chief of Naval Operations and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Many names may not be familiar to the public although the name of James Mattis, a former marine corps general who served as a Secretary of State for Defense stands out.
The interlocking and interdependent structure of interests results in a revolving door culture of former military men becoming paid lobbyists and media pundits. The industry is also aided by an array of think tanks and members of congress who receive campaign donations from military contractors and the energy industry.
It is not hard to see therefore why US military intervention has been consistently encouraged and why specifically the war in Afghanistan was allowed to endure for so long: it is clear that the war provided a corporate welfare program for both the defence and chemical industries. The contractors benefited from the numerous projects including those designated as white elephants, while the chemical industries were keen to benefit from the exploitation of Afghanistan’s rare-earth minerals.
When in 1961 President Dwight Eisenhower warned about the “unwarranted influence” by the then burgeoning Military Industrial Complex in his farewell address to the American nation, he might as well have been referring to the conduct the Afghan war. He clearly foresaw the threat it could pose to America’s “economic, political (and) even spiritual” wellbeing.
So far as the corruption of America’s political institutions is concerned, Michael J. Glennon, a Tufts University professor has identified what he terms the “Trumanite” institutions of government, in contrast to the “Madisonian” institutions of state governance prescribed by the American constitution, which consist of an unaccountable collection of former military, intelligence and law enforcement offices whose influence has been pervasive enough to guarantee that America’s national security policy, one of consistent militarism, has essentially remained unchanged through successive presidential administrations.
On the economic front, an earlier speech given by Eisenhower in April 1953 which was dubbed the “Chance for Peace” speech, gives illumination to the claim that the Afghan War can be characterised as a “wealth transfer from US taxpayers to military contractors”.
Eisenhower said that “every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
His words could be extrapolated to mean in present terms that the excesses of the military industry in its ruthless extraction of taxpayer’s money, has taken away the opportunity to get rid of student debt, to tackle homelessness, alleviate poverty, put young people through college and increase spending on scientific research.
The same could be said of Afghanistan, the focus of a “nation building” project. Despite the colossal amount of money directed to the country, in 2015 the World Justice Project ranked the country at 111 out of 113 on the Rule of Law Index. Not only had the goal of creating a more ethical society with strong political institutions failed, it scored poorly in the areas of corruption and the operating of a criminal justice system.
Government services ranging from the prison system to the education system were found to be inadequate or poor. Roads were not built, sub-contractors not paid as indeed were a range of low-tier servants of the state including the police. This meant that to gain an income of sorts, members of the Afghan police were reduced to kidnapping people and then ransoming them to their families.
In Afghanistan, illiteracy and poverty reigned. The money pouring in from the United States stopped at the corrupt elites with a connection to the Afghan government and the US military. Fabulously wealthy Afghans who were invariably government officials of the US sponsored regime who owned ostentatious mansions and castle-like edifices in the upmarket districts of Kabul preferred to rent out the properties to expatriate contractors and corporate employees while they lived in parts of Pakistan and in Dubai.
“War is a racket”, wrote Smedley Butler. “It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope.” These words must surely resonate with any objective bystander when examining the US occupation of Afghanistan.
But any form of national self-examination must necessarily go further than the usual grind of political scorekeeping between the two major parties. For the wars waged by the United States have all had bipartisan approval. Those media figures identified with the “liberal left” are complicit in the militarism that has characterised the post-Cold War era. They subscribe to the doctrine of so-called “humanitarian wars” which fit hand-in-glove with the war agenda constantly pushed by the Military Industry.
This is also true of figures in the Democratic Party establishment. For while Democratic Party Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, theatrically tore up her copy of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address in 2020, she rose to applaud Trump’s expression of support for the US puppet Juan Guaido, the man who was being used by the US National Security State in an attempt to overthrow the legitimate government of Venezuela.
Given this background, it would be difficult to proffer that the expensive foreign adventures of the money-seeking Military Industry will end with the humiliating withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan. Some neoconservative figures are already calling for a redeployment of resources towards applying military pressure against Iran, while efforts aimed at confronting China in the Pacific have been steadily increasing. The American public must, as Eisenhower warned, “guard against” this constant promotion of a war agenda by the combination of Wall Street and military contractors’ who surely have long inherited the mantle of Basil Zaharoff, the notorious Greek arms dealer and industrialist who came to be known as the “merchant of death”.
As the political scientist Chalmers Johnson once noted:
When war becomes the most profitable course of action, we can certainly expect more of it.
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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Adeyinka Makinde.
Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England. he is aa frequent contributor to Global Research
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The Taliban’s lightning-fast takeover of Afghanistan ended the most important phase of the country’s civil war but hasn’t yet concluded that conflict completely. There still remain several variables that could continue to destabilize the country in the coming future. These are:
1. The US & NATO Extending Their Withdrawal Beyond The September 11th Deadline
Western leaders are under pressure from their people not to fully withdraw from Afghanistan until all of their citizens and ideally also their local allies are safely evacuated, but extending the deadline beyond September 11th would risk provoking Taliban attacks.
2. The US & NATO Bombing The Taliban’s Seized Military Equipment
The withdrawing forces are very concerned about the Taliban’s seizure of Western military equipment including warplanes and tanks, and there are already some efforts being made within some of their countries to encourage their leaderships to bomb those assets after they withdraw from Afghanistan.
3. The “Panjshir Resistance” Continuing To Militarily Oppose The Taliban
Although its prospects of long-term success are practically nil, the so-called “Panjshir Resistance‘s” continued military opposition to the Taliban could possibly provoke a disproportionate response from the group that could in turn be exploited by some members of the international community to delegitimize their rule.
4. Armed Ethno-Religious Minorities Resisting The Taliban
Whether inspired by the “Panjshir Resistance” or whatever else, some other armed ethno-religious minorities elsewhere in the country might also eventually end up resisting the Taliban with time, which could perpetuate the civil war as well as worsen average Afghans’ suffering.
The Taliban’s failure to respect minorities’ and women’s rights could provoke urban unrest among the people who re already distrustful of that group, as could deteriorating economic conditions brought about by the West’s attempts to isolate the Taliban in the event that they don’t eventually recognize its rule.
These five conflict variables can potentially be counteracted in the following ways:
1. Put International Pressure On The US & NATO To Withdraw By Their Deadline
The Taliban’s international partners like Russia and China (both of which still designate it as a terrorist group despite having pragmatic political and security relations with it) should make it clear that extending their withdrawal deadline will risk provoking another round of war and worsening the regional security situation.
2. Raise Global Awareness Of The Taliban’s Anti-Terrorist Credentials
Russia and China should also inform the international community of the Taliban’s genuine anti-terrorist credentials as the most formidable force against ISIS-K, which means that they require their seized Western military equipment in order to ensure regional stability and thus prevent another refugee crisis as well.
3. Russia & China Should Consider Mediating The Taliban-“Panjshir Resistance” Conflict
Russia and China should consider putting their diplomatic skills to use in mediating a political solution to this pressing issue in spite of Moscow’s earlier clarification that it doesn’t have any intent to do so since the “Panjshir Resistance’s” military defeat by the Taliban might delegitimize the latter’s rule.
4. Incorporate Regional Militias Into The New Afghan Security Forces
The Taliban must prioritize incorporating regional militias into the country’s new security structure together with resolutely rooting out the corruption that doomed its predecessor’s forces and eliminating the tendency towards warlordism in order to preempt the possibility of ethno-religious revolts.
5. Respect Promises & Court Foreign Investment
The Taliban must absolutely abide by its promise to respect minorities’ and women’s rights to ensure social stability while courting foreign investment from its regional partners in order to sustainably improve the economic situation by positioning Afghanistan as the crossroads of multipolar connectivity processes.
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This article was originally published on OneWorld.
Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: An Afghan man and children, suffering hardships from America’s longest war, pose for a portrait in Kabul, Afghanistan, on March 19, 2021. [Source: theintercept.com]
In this new and expanded edition of Michel Chossudovsky’s 2002 best seller, the author blows away the smokescreen put up by the mainstream media, that 9/11 was an attack on America by “Islamic terrorists”. Through meticulous research, the author uncovers a military-intelligence ploy behind the September 11 attacks, and the cover-up and complicity of key members of the Bush Administration.
The expanded edition, which includes twelve new chapters focuses on the use of 9/11 as a pretext for the invasion and illegal occupation of Iraq, the militarisation of justice and law enforcement and the repeal of democracy.
According to Chossudovsky, the “war on terrorism” is a complete fabrication based on the illusion that one man, Osama bin Laden, outwitted the $40 billion-a-year American intelligence apparatus. The “war on terrorism” is a war of conquest. Globalisation is the final march to the “New World Order”, dominated by Wall Street and the U.S. military-industrial complex.
September 11, 2001 provides a justification for waging a war without borders. Washington’s agenda consists in extending the frontiers of the American Empire to facilitate complete U.S. corporate control, while installing within America the institutions of the Homeland Security State.
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“Every day in communities across the United States, children and adolescents spend the majority of their waking hours in schools that have increasingly come to resemble places of detention more than places of learning.”—Investigative journalist Annette Fuentes
Once upon a time in America, parents breathed a sigh of relief when their kids went back to school after a summer’s hiatus, content in the knowledge that for a good portion of the day their kids would be gainfully occupied, out of harm’s way and out of trouble.
Those were the good old days, before the COVID-19 pandemic introduced a whole new level of Nanny State authoritarianism to our daily lives, locking down communities, forcing kids out of the schoolroom and into virtual classrooms, leaving vast swaths of the work force dependent on government welfare, while pushing other segments into a work-from-home model, and generally subjecting us to an increasingly obnoxious level of intrusion by the government into our private lives.
Now, after almost 18 months away from a physical classroom, students are heading back to school.
draconian zero tolerance policies that criminalize childish behavior,
overreaching anti-bullying statutes that criminalize speech,
school resource officers (police) tasked with disciplining and/or arresting so-called “disorderly” students,
standardized testing that emphasizes rote answers over critical thinking,
politically correct mindsets that teach young people to censor themselves and those around them,
and extensive biometric and surveillance systems that, coupled with the rest, acclimate young people to a world in which they have no freedom of thought, speech or movement.
Young people in America are now first in line to be searched, surveilled, spied on, threatened, tied up, locked down, treated like criminals for non-criminal behavior, tasered and in some cases shot.
Nowadays, students are not only punished for minor transgressions such as playing cops and robbers on the playground, bringing LEGOs to school, or having a food fight, but the punishments have become far more severe, shifting from detention and visits to the principal’s office into misdemeanor tickets, juvenile court, handcuffs, tasers and even prison terms.
Students have been suspended under school zero tolerance policies for bringing to school “look alike substances” such as oregano, breath mints, birth control pills and powdered sugar.
Look-alike weapons (toy guns—even Lego-sized ones, hand-drawn pictures of guns, pencils twirled in a “threatening” manner, imaginary bows and arrows, fingers positioned like guns) can also land a student in hot water, in some cases getting them expelled from school or charged with a crime.
Not even good deeds go unpunished.
One 13-year-old was given detention for exposing the school to “liability” by sharing his lunch with a hungry friend. A third grader was suspended for shaving her head in sympathy for a friend who had lost her hair to chemotherapy. And then there was the high school senior who was suspended for saying “bless you” after a fellow classmate sneezed.
These outrageous incidents are exactly what you’ll see more of now that in-person school is back in session, especially once you add COVID-19 mandates to the mix.
Having police in the schools only adds to the danger.
Thanks to a combination of media hype, political pandering and financial incentives, the use of armed police officers (a.k.a. school resource officers) to patrol school hallways has risen dramatically in the years since the Columbine school shooting.
Funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, these school resource officers (SRO) have become de facto wardens in elementary, middle and high schools, doling out their own brand of justice to the so-called “criminals” in their midst with the help of tasers, pepper spray, batons and brute force.
In the absence of school-appropriate guidelines, police are more and more “stepping in to deal with minor rulebreaking: sagging pants, disrespectful comments, brief physical skirmishes. What previously might have resulted in a detention or a visit to the principal’s office was replaced with excruciating pain and temporary blindness, often followed by a trip to the courthouse.”
Young Alex Stone didn’t even make it past the first week of school before he became a victim of the police state. Directed by his teacher to do a creative writing assignment involving a series of fictional Facebook statuses, Stone wrote, “I killed my neighbor’s pet dinosaur. I bought the gun to take care of the business.” Despite the fact that dinosaurs are extinct, the status fabricated, and the South Carolina student was merely following orders, his teacher reported him to school administrators, who in turn called the police.
In almost every case, these undeniably harsh methods are used to punish kids—some as young as 4 and 5 years old—for simply failing to follow directions or throwing tantrums.
Very rarely do the kids pose any credible danger to themselves or others.
Unbelievably, these tactics are all legal, at least when employed by school officials or school resource officers in the nation’s public schools.
This is what happens when you introduce police and police tactics into the schools.
Paradoxically, by the time you add in the lockdowns and active shooter drills, instead of making the schools safer, school officials have succeeded in creating an environment in which children are so traumatized that they suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, nightmares, anxiety, mistrust of adults in authority, as well as feelings of anger, depression, humiliation, despair and delusion.
These police state tactics have not made the schools any safer.
The fallout has been what you’d expect, with the nation’s young people treated like hardened criminals: handcuffed, arrested, tasered, tackled and taught the painful lesson that the Constitution (especially the Fourth Amendment) doesn’t mean much in the American police state.
Unfortunately, advocates for such harsh police tactics and weaponry like to trot out the line that school safety should be our first priority lest we find ourselves with another school shooting. What they will not tell you is that such shootings are rare.
As one congressional report found, the schools are, generally speaking, safe places for children.
There can be no avoiding the hands-on lessons being taught in the schools about the role of police in our lives, ranging from active shooter drills and school-wide lockdowns to incidents in which children engaging in typically childlike behavior are suspended (for shooting an imaginary “arrow” at a fellow classmate), handcuffed (for being disruptive at school), arrested (for throwing water balloons as part of a school prank), and even tasered (for not obeying instructions).
Instead of raising up a generation of freedom fighters—which one would hope would be the objective of the schools—government officials seem determined to churn out newly minted citizens of the American police state who are being taught the hard way what it means to comply, fear and march in lockstep with the government’s dictates.
So what’s the answer, not only for the here-and-now—the children growing up in these quasi-prisons—but for the future of this country?
How do you convince a child who has been routinely handcuffed, shackled, tied down, locked up, and immobilized by government officials—all before he reaches the age of adulthood—that he has any rights at all, let alone the right to challenge wrongdoing, resist oppression and defend himself against injustice?
Most of all, how do you persuade a fellow American that the government works for him when, for most of his young life, he has been incarcerated in an institution that teaches young people to be obedient and compliant citizens who don’t talk back, don’t question and don’t challenge authority?
As we’ve seen with other issues, any significant reforms will have to start locally and trickle upwards.
For starters, parents need to be vocal, visible and organized and demand that school officials 1) adopt a policy of positive reinforcement in dealing with behavior issues; 2) minimize the presence in the schools of police officers and cease involving them in student discipline; and 3) insist that all behavioral issues be addressed first and foremost with a child’s parents, before any other disciplinary tactics are attempted.
If you want young people who grow up seeing themselves as prisoners, run the schools like prisons.
If, on the other hand, you want to raise up a generation of freedom fighters, who will actually operate with justice, fairness, accountability and equality towards each other and their government, then run the schools like freedom forums.
Remove the metal detectors and surveillance cameras, re-assign the cops elsewhere, and start treating our nation’s young people like citizens of a republic and not inmates in a police state penitentiary.
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The crisis in Syria’s southern province of Daraa continues, as the Syrian Arab Army’s (SAA) elite 4th Division deployed heavy rocket launchers.
They brought the weapons near the southern part of Daraa city, known as Daraa al-Balad on August 20th
Syrian pro-government sources said that the rocket launchers were deployed to mount more pressure on the gunmen, who are still refusing to leave the area and conclude any sort of agreement.
Late on August 20th, Mohamed Hilal Zatima, a former rebel commander, was killed by SAA shelling in the area where the gunmen are dug in.
The killing of Zatima will likely lead to more escalation in Daraa al-Balad, which the SAA expects, as some local media report that an ultimatum was put forth, providing the former rebels with at most 15 days to surrender their weapons.
Less than a week earlier, Russia offered local leaders in Daraa al-Balad a roadmap that would fulfill the demands of Syrian authorities and guarantee the rights of the locals, which the former rebels rejected.
Meanwhile, Russia’s efforts in Greater Idlib are a bit less diplomatic towards Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and other al-Qaeda-affiliated factions.
On August 19th, Russian warplanes bombed a headquarters of HTS in the town of Ein Shib in the western Idlib countryside.
On August 20th, a series of airstrikes hit Ein Shib as well as the town of Qurqnia in the northern countryside of Idlib.
On August 21st, Russian airstrikes destroyed a compound located near the town of Hmeimat in the al-Ghab Plains in the northwestern countryside of Hama. The region is an infamous stronghold of HTS, the de-facto ruler of Greater Idlib, and the Turkistan Islamic Party.
On August 22nd, making it four days in a row, airstrikes struck the outskirts of the towns of Kansafra, Mareian and Almaouzrah in the al-Zawiya Mount in the southern countryside of Idlib.
These efforts are necessary because HTS and the factions with it continue to violate the ceasefire agreement in Greater Idlib, while Turkey does nothing but undermines it even further.
Ankara is mostly focused on fighting the Kurdish groups in Northeastern Syria.
Turkish combat drones continue to target areas held by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria’s northeastern region.
On August 21st and 22nd, Turkish drone strikes struck vehicles belonging to the SDF, no human losses were reported.
On August 20th, however, Turkey carried out two lethal drone strikes.
The first strike claimed the life of Saladin al-Shihabi, an Iranian Kurdish commander of the SDF.
The second strike claimed the lives of four personnel of the SDF, including a commander of the Tell Tamer Military Council.
The SDF blamed Russia of being unable to contain the ceasefire violations by Turkey and the terrorist factions it backs.
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The serial war criminality and immense cruelty of the US Alliance has been enabled by the extraordinary mendacity, genocidal racism and resolute exceptionalism of US Alliance governments and Western Mainstream media (MSM). Summarized below are the horrendous realities of the US Alliance-imposed Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide that are ignored by deeply racist, genocide-complicit and genocide-ignoring Western leaders and MSM.
(1) Massive US lyingenabled the 9/11 false flag excusefor the invasion and devastation of Afghanistan, Iraq and other Muslim countries. I.F. Stone: “Governments lie” and Gore Vidal: “Unlike most Americans who lie all the time, I hate lying”.
Numerous science, engineering, architecture, aviation, military and intelligence experts conclude that the US Government was responsible for the 9-11 atrocity (3,000 people killed) with some asserting Israeli and Saudi involvement, but US-beholden Western Mainstream media are united in blind belief in the “official version” of mendacious George W. Bush whose administration told 935 lies about Iraq between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq.
Detailed scientific reports from the University of Copenhagen and the University of Alaska Fairbanks reject the lying Bush “official version of 9/11” and evidence the explosive demolition of the 3 WTC skyscrapers on 9/11 (that necessarily implies US Government involvement in that atrocity). Asserted “terrorism” is to the Zionist-subverted US Alliance state terrorists as asserted “antisemitism” is to the genocidally racist, Islamophobic, anti-Arab anti-semitic, anti-Jewish anti-semitic, holocaust-complicit and holocaust-ignoring Zionists and Apartheid Israel. Re state terrorism, the British have invaded 193 countries, Australia 85, France 82, the US 72 (52 after WW2), Germany 39 and Canada 25, as compared to Japan 30, Russia 25, Apartheid Israel 12, China 2, Afghanistan zero since 1760, Iran zero since the 7th century CE, and India and nearly all of the Developing World zero (0).
(2) The Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide has been associated with 3.6 million under-5 infant deaths, 5.2 million avoidable deaths from deprivation , an estimated 1.6 million violent deaths, and 6.8 million deaths from violence and deprivation in US-, Australia- and NATO-occupied Afghanistan in 2001-2021. US-backed removal of a secular Afghan government in 1978 precipitated the Russian invasion and war involving US-backed Islamists (avoidable deaths from deprivation 2.9 million, 1979-1989) followed by civil war won by the Taliban (avoidable deaths from deprivation 3.3 million, 1989-1999). The variously US-implicated and US -imposed 1979-2021 Afghan Holocaust has been associated with 13.0 million untimely Afghan deaths.
(3) Global Opiate Holocaust. The US rapidly restored the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from 6% of world market share in 2001 back to 90% by 2007, and caused 5.8 million opiate-related deaths world-wide since 9/11. The US Government has been successively involved in the opiate scourge in Turkey, South East Asia, Afghanistan and Latin America. US-threatened and US-sanctioned Iran leads the world in interdiction of US-protected Afghan opiates that presently kill about 0.3 million people annually. For religious reasons the Taliban banned alcohol, prohibited smoking for government employees, and banned opium production. Each year smoking, alcohol and illicit drugs kill about 8 million, 2.8 million and 0.8 million people each year for total of about 11.8 million people worldwide. In contrast, 7.4 million people presently die annually from deprivation on Spaceship Earth with the First World, notably the US, in charge of the flight deck.
(4) The US-imposed Iranian Holocaust has been associated with 4 million Iranian deaths in the 4-decade US-imposed Iranian Holocaust, comprising 1 million Iranian deaths in the 1980-1988 US-backed Iran-Iraq War, and 3 million avoidable deaths from US sanctions from 1979 onwards. Iran suffered huge famines associated with British and Russian occupation in WW1 (up to 8-10 million dying in the 1917-1919 famine) and in WW2 (up to 3-4 million dying in the 1942-1943 famine). Following US withdrawal from devastated Afghanistan, a nervous world asks: which impoverished country is next? Iran heads the list followed by Venezuela and Cuba (all subject already to unsuccessful armed US invasions). Iran has zero (0) nuclear weapons as compared to the US (5,800-6,185), Russia (6.372-6.490), China (300-320), France (290), UK (200-215), Pakistan (160), India (150), Apartheid Israel (90), and North Korea (30-40).
(5) The post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust and American Holocaust. The 2001-2021 Afghan Genocide and Afghan Holocaust (6.8 million deaths from violence and imposed deprivation) is part of a US-imposed, post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide (32 million Muslim deaths from violence, 5 million, and imposed deprivation, 27 million, in 20 countries invaded by the US Alliance since the US Government’s 9/11 false flag atrocity that killed 3,000 people). 1.7 million Americans die preventably each year from “lifestyle choice reasons” and from “political choice reasons”. Thus 1.7 million per year x 20 years = 34 million Americans have died thus since 9/11. Since 9/11 Zionist-beholden US Administrations have spent $6 trillion on killing over 30 million Muslims abroad rather than trying to keep over 30 million Americans alive at home. 30% of Biden’s Cabinet are Jewish Zionists and the remainder are “moderate” Christian Zionists as opposed to the fervently Trumpist Evangelical Zionists.
(6) There have been 7,000 post-9/11 US combat deaths versus 146,000 US veteran deaths from suicide. About 7,018 American soldiers died in the post-9/11 US War on Terror in Occupied Iraq (4,566) and Occupied Afghanistan (3,452), but vastly more US veterans have died from suicide. The US Veterans Administration has found that an average of about 20 US veterans have suicided daily in the past few decades, and thus post-9/11 US veteran suicides have totalled (20 suicides per day) x (365.25 days per year) x 20 years = 146,100.
(7) China observes but the US Alliance grossly violates the Fourth Geneva Convention and the UN Genocide Convention. Killing in war occurs not just through violence (active killing) but also through avoidable deaths from imposed deprivation (passive killing). Mass mortality in a Subject population occurs in gross Occupier violation of Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (the Fourth Geneva Convention) that unequivocally demands that the Occupier must supply its conquered Subjects with life-sustaining food and medical requisites “to the fullest extent of the means available to it”. Infant mortality (under-1 infant deaths per 1,000 live births) is 12 ( China ), 16 ( Tibet ), 6 (USA ) and 111 (US Alliance-occupied Afghanistan). The Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) (maternal deaths per 100,000 live births) is 20-27 ( China ), 100 (Tibet ), 14 (USA ) and 400-1,200 (US Alliance-occupied Afghanistan).Contrary to US Alliance claims of a “Uighur Genocide”, in Xinjiang (50% Uighur and 50% Han Chinese) the maternal mortality rate was 27 per 100,000 in 2018, the infant mortality rate was 14 under-1 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, the average life expectancy was 74.8 years in 2015, and there has been no mass sterilization in the region. That said, China is legitimately criticized for harsh treatment of Uighurs (mass imprisonment of 1 million for re-education), dissidents and Hong Kong democracy protestors. Genocide is defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”. In relation to “the fullest extent of the means available to it” the GDP (nominal) per capita (US dollars, 2021) is as follows (in brackets) for Afghanistan ($592), China ($11,819), US ($68,309), UK ($46,344), Germany ($51,860), France ($44,995) and serial war criminal US lackey Australia ($62,723).
(8) Nazi and US Alliance Occupied/Occupier death ratios of 10 and 1,970, respectively. In 1944 the Nazi Germany dictator Adolph Hitler ordered reprisals involving 10 Italian men and boys executed for every German soldier killed by Partisans (effected in the subsequent Ardeatine Caves Massacre). The Occupied/Occupier death ratio for the 2001-2021 Afghan War is accordingly 6,800,000/ 3,452 = 1,970 or about 200 times greater than the 10 advocated by Nazi mass murderer Adolph. Hitler. Ignoring violent Afghan deaths, the Occupied/Occupier death ratio for the 2001-2021 Afghan War is 5,200,000/3,452 = 1,506 or about 1,500 and thus 150 times greater than the 10 advocated by Hitler. The post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust deaths/ 9/11 death toll = 32 million/3,000 = 10,667, 1,067 times greater than the Them/Us reprisals ratio of 10 ordered by Hitler.
(9) Vital post-war aid provision for tens of millions of Afghans versus extraction of tens of thousands of US Alliance personnel, collaborators and other anti-Taliban people fearing reprisals. Occupied Afghanistan was heavily dependent on international aid and Biden has threatened to hamper such aid and hence post-liberation recovery if the new regime doesn’t play ball. Biden has already frozen the assets of impoverished Afghanistan, a move that will entrench Afghan mass mortality from dire deprivation. The Taliban have declared Amnesty for its opponents and proper treatment of women “under Islamic law” but many remain fearful based on harsh Taliban rule 20 years ago. For Occupied Afghanistan in 2020, under-5 infant deaths totalled 76,000 and avoidable deaths from deprivation totalled 106,000. In 2020 the “under-5 infant mortality as a percentage of total population” for Afghanistan (0.1950%) was a shocking 118.5 times greater than for Japan (0.00145%), evidence of gross violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention by the occupying US Alliance countries. To this carnage we must add the infant mortality and avoidable deaths from deprivation among the circa 3.3 million internally displaced Afghans and the 2.5 million registered refugees in Iran and Pakistan from Afghanistan (present population 39 million, half requiring aid). Those rightly supporting all human rights for all as set out in the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) should also spare a thought for the undoubted right of millions of ordinary Afghan women to see the survival of their children.
(10) Exposure of the perpetrators of the Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide. This is an immense crime that demandswar crimes trials of the perpetrators before the International Criminal Court (ICC). That is not going to happen because the US does not recognize the authority of the ICC whereas the ICC cravenly accepts the authority of the US. However international and intra-national war crimes trials by eminent humanitarians are feasible and urgently required. Establishment of the truth is more important than punishment of the guilty (the more so since the latter is unlikely to ever happen). Inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in post-Apartheid South Africa, war crimes trials should be legislatively constituted on the basis that there should be no punishment for truth telling accompanied by sincere apology (see Gideon Polya, “Afghan Holocaust – The Awful Truth Versus US Alliance Lies”, Countercurrents, 22 August 2021).
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After 20 years and a staggering US$2.23 trillion spent in a “forever war” persistently spun as promoting democracy and benefiting the “Afghan people,” it’s legitimate to ask what the Empire of Chaos has to show for it.
The numbers are dire. Afghanistan remains the world’s 7th poorest nation: 47% of the population lives below the poverty line, according to the Asian Development Bank. No less than 75% of the – dissolved – Kabul government’s budget was coming from international aid. According to the World Bank, that aid was responsible for the turnover of 43% of the economy – one that was mired in massive government corruption.
According to the terms of the Washington-Taliban agreement signed in Doha in February 2020, the US should continue to fund Afghanistan during and after its withdrawal.
Now, with the Fall of Kabul and the imminent return of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, it’s becoming clear that applying financial soft power tactics may be even more deadly than a mere NATO occupation.
Washington has frozen $9.5 billion in Afghan Central Bank reserves and the International Monetary Fund has canceled its lending to Afghanistan, including $460 million that’s part of a Covid-19 relief program.
These dollars pay for government salaries and imports. Their absence will lead to the “Afghan people” hurting even more, a direct consequence of inevitable currency depreciation, rising food prices and inflation.
A corollary to this economic tragedy is a classic “take the money and run” caper: Former president Ashraf Ghani fled the country after allegedly packing four cars with $169 million in cash, and leaving $5 million on the tarmac of Kabul airport.
That’s according to two witnesses: one of his own bodyguards and the Afghan ambassador in Tajikistan; Ghani has denied the looting allegations.
Ghani’s plane was denied landing in Tajikistan and also Uzbekistan, proceeding to Oman until Ghani was welcomed in the UAE – very close to Dubai, a global Mecca of smuggling, money laundering and racketeering.
The Taliban have already stated that a new government and a new political and economic framework will be announced only after NATO troops are definitively out of the country next month.
The complex negotiations to form an “inclusive” government, as repeatedly promised by Taliban spokesmen, are de facto led on the non-Taliban side by two members of a council of three: former President Hamid Karzai and Ghani’s eternal rival, the leader of the High Council for National Reconciliation, Abdullah Abdullah. The third member, acting in the shadows, is warlord-turned-politician and two-time prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
Karzai and Abdullah, both vastly experienced, are regarded by the Americans as “acceptable,” so that may go a long way in terms of facilitating future, official Western recognition of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and restored multilateral institution funding.
Yet there are myriad problems including the very active role of Khalil Haqqani, who leads the Taliban Peace Council Commission while on a “terror watch list” and under UN sanctions. Not only is Haqqani in charge of Kabul’s security; he’s also side by side with Karzai and Abdullah in the discussions to form an inclusive government.
What makes the Taliban run
The Taliban have been operating outside of the Western banking system for two decades now. The bulk of their income comes from transit tax on trade routes (for instance, from Iran) and fuel levies. Profits from opium and heroin exports (domestic consumption not permitted) reportedly account for less than 10% of their income.
In countless villages across the deep Afghan countryside, the economy revolves around petty cash transactions and barter.
I received a copy of a high-level Pakistani academia-intelligence paper examining the challenges facing the new Afghan government.
The paper notes that “the standard route of development to be followed will be very pro-people. Taliban’s Islam is socialist. It has an aversion towards wealth being accumulated in fewer hands” – and, crucially, also an aversion to usury.
On the initial steps towards development projects, the paper expects them to come from Russian, Chinese, Turkish, Iranian and Pakistani companies – as well as a few government sectors. The Islamic Emirate “expects infrastructure development packages” at costs that are “affordable by the country’s existing GDP.”
Afghanistan’s nominal GDP in 2020 was $19.8 billion, according to World Bank figures.
New aid and investment packages are expected to come from Shanghai Cooperation Organization member nations (Russia, China, Pakistan) or SCO observers (Turkey and currently Iran – scheduled to become a full member at the SCO summit next month in Tajikistan). Inbuilt is the notion that Western recognition will be a Sisyphean task.
The paper admits that the Taliban have not had time to evaluate how the economy will be the key vector deciding Afghanistan’s future independence.
But this passage of the paper may hold the key: “In their consultations with the Chinese, they were advised to go slow and not rock the boat of the Western world system by talking too soon about state control of capitalism, interest-free economy, and de-linking from the IMF-based financial system. However, since the West has pulled back all the money from the Afghan exchequer, Afghanistan is likely to apply for short-term aid packages against their resource base.”
IMF-NATO as brothers in arms
I asked Michael Hudson, an economics professor at the University of Missouri Kansas City and Peking University, how he would recommend the new government to act. He answered, “For one thing, embarrass the hell out of the IMF for acting as an arm of NATO.”
Hudson referred to a Wall Street Journal article written by a former IMF advisor now with the Atlantic Council as saying that “now, since recognition is frozen, banks all over the world will hesitate to do business with Kabul. This move provides the US with leverage to negotiate with the Taliban.”
So this may be going the Venezuela way – with the IMF not “recognizing” a new government for months and even years. And on the seizure of Afghan gold by the New York Fed – actually a collection of private banks – we see echoes of the looting of Libya’s and seizure of Venezuela’s gold.
Hudson sees all of the above as “an abuse of the international monetary system – which is supposed to be a public utility – as an arm of NATO run by the US. IMF behavior, especially regarding the new drawing rights, should be presented as a litmus test” for the viability of a Taliban-led Afghanistan.
Hudson is now working on a book about the collapse of antiquity. His research led him to find Cicero, in In Favor of the Manilian Law (Pro Lege Manilia), writing about Pompeus’s military campaign in Asia and its effects on the provinces in a passage that perfectly applies to the “forever war” in Afghanistan:
“Words cannot express, gentlemen, how bitterly hated we are among foreign nations because of the wanton and outrageous conduct of the men whom in recent years we have sent to govern them. For, in those countries, what temple do you suppose had been held sacred by our officers, what state inviolable, what home sufficiently guarded by its closed doors? Why, they look about for rich and flourishing cities that they may find an occasion for a war against them to satisfy their lust for plunder.”
Switching from the classics to a more pedestrian level, WikiLeaks has been replaying a sort of Afghanistan Greatest Hits , reminding public opinion, for instance, that as far back as 2008 there was already “no pre-defined end date” for the “forever war.”
“The goal is to use Afghanistan to wash money out of the tax bases of the US and Europe through Afghanistan and back into the hands of a transnational security elite. The goal is an endless war, not a successful war.”
The “forever war” may have been a disaster for the bombed, invaded and impoverished “Afghan people,” but it was an unmitigated success for what Ray McGovern so memorably defines as the MICIMATT (Military-Industrial-Counter-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think Tank) complex. Anyone who bought stocks of Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and the rest of that crowd made – literally – a killing.
Facts are indeed dire. Barack Obama – who presided over a hefty Afghan “kill list” –throws a birthday party and invites the woke nouveaux riches. Julian Assange suffers psychological torture imprisoned in Belmarsh. And Ashraf Ghani mulls how to spend $169 million in the Dubai rackets, funds some say were duly stolen from the “Afghan people.”
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This article was originally published on Asia Times.
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.
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).
If you have been researching the Wuhan Virus and the global geopolitical situation, you have likely come across independent journalists from around the world, who have looked at many countries’ annual death statitstics, and noticed something unusual. What they have found is that while countries have reported many people dying from Covid-19 in 2020, the annual death totals for the countries have not generally increased. This is suprising. We have not found new profound cures for all the other things people die of like old age, heart disease, cancer, and lung disease; so if these things continue as usual, and there is a new thing (Covid) that is killing lots of people, then there should be more people dying in total. If not, this supports the observation that there has been a big push through much of the world to claim Covid-19 as the cause of death, when arguably, it was something else that caused death. There are many reports to support this, some of which are found on our site www.drtrozzi.com.
To demonstrate this, consider someone who has smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for fifty years and developed severe COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). They are very fragile, live short of breath, require numerous medications to survive, and live on supplemental oxygen. Any respiratory challenge could dramatically worsen their condition and even precipitate their death. This challenge could be inhaling some dust or other irritant, catching a cold, or even a change in the weather. When someone in this situation dies, the cause of death is COPD, or “years of smoking” if you like. The cause of their death is not attributed to dust, a cold, or a change in the weather; though these things may have been the proverbial ”straw that broke the camel’s back”. However recently we find in many places, such a person was reported as dying from covid. This is a mild example. There are many reports of deaths from cancer, heart disease, and even physical trauma such as a motorcycle accident, being recorded as “death due to covid-19”. The result of this abuse of statistics is that, though the same typical number of people are dying, more of them are being recorded as deaths due to Covid-19, and less are being reported as dying from other causes. In other words, deaths are being shifted from their appropriate and real category, to the political agenda’s category: Covid-19.
This is revealed not only by the numerous physicians and health care workers blowing the whistle on the pressure to over-diagnose Covid-19 as the cause of death; but also by the lack of an increase in nations’ total death numbers.
So let’s have a look at Canada’s annual total deaths statistics, and see if lots more people are really dying.
Here are the same numbers presented in graph form.
Observations and comparison to the Spanish Flu
Canada’s number of deaths per thousand increased gradually from 2012 until 2020 from 6.9 to 7.89. Globally number of deaths per thousand vary greatly between countries. Less than 2 is very low, and 15 is very high. Living conditions, as well as the age of the population, determine a country’s number of deaths per thousand. It is poor countries with poor nutrition, poor sanitary conditions, and other harsher challenges to survival that have the highest death rates.
Notice that there is no particular big rise in Canadian deaths in 2020, though the “pandemic” began early in 2020. How can this be if a new super fatal disease is killing large numbers of people? Is it possible that we have simultaneously cured much of the real causes of death such as heart disease, lung disease and cancer. Not likely. In reality, we know that many patients who needed treatments for major illnesses such as cancer, were neglected due to the closing of hospital services during 2020, and the mortality rates of these diseases therefore likely increased.
Incorporating the Wuhan virus, and the medical neglect of serious illnesses like cancer due to hospital closures, the Canadian 2020 total death per thousand rate was 7.89 and it was just 0.23 higher than 2019. This is not an impressive or unusual change; the same figure increased by more, 0.36 in 2015. For some context, let’s consider the very genuine Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918 which alone killed approximately 6 out of every thousand Canadians.
So how did Covid 19 justify the use of the term “Pandemic. “
When most of us think of a “pandemic”, we think of an infectious disease, spreading far and wide, and causing lots of death.
Up until 2009, the WHO organization followed this definition for a pandemic:
“An influenza pandemic is a worldwide epidemic caused by a new strain of virus which leads to infection rates and mortality rates which exceed seasonal but similarly heavy waves of influenza by several orders of magnitude. A precondition for an influenza pandemic is the appearance of a viral subtype which had not yet circulated amongst the human population or which had occurred so long ago that no residual immunity remains amongst the population, and which is capable of provoking severe illness and of disseminating effectively from one human to another.”
Now let’s look at some recent history. In 2009 the WHO declared Swine Flu H1N1 as a pandemic. This resulted in massive pre-orders of new vaccines for Swine Flu across many countries, with governments accepting liability for damages caused by the vaccines. The pharmaceutical industry had a gauranteed market with little or no risk or responsibility. However, when the “pandemic” officially ended in August 2010, it had caused only 18,449 deaths globally. Compare that with the annual global seasonal flu deaths of around 250,000. The Swine Flu “pandemic” had not caused orders of magnitude more deaths than the seasonal flu, rather it had caused only 7% as much death as a seasonal flu, so it was not a real pandemic. It did not satisfy the criteria: “mortality rates which exceed seasonal but similarly heavy waves of influenza by several orders of magnitude.”
So, in 2010, The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe launched an investigation into the undue influence of Big Pharma and the WHO for falsifying a pandemic to create a lucrative vaccine market.
However, the WHO changed it’s definition of “pandemic” to no longer require a high mortality rate; they just took that part out of the definition. This paved the way for new lucrative power grabbing enterprises like the Covid-19 “pandemic”.
So Canada and the rest of the world, how is covid-19 a “pandemic”. The answer is right out of the novel 1984. The WHO changed its definition of the word pandemic.
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As I posted this morning, Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis pulled the rug out from under the lying scum that constitutes the American medical establishment by establishing throughout Florida medical centers that cure Covid instead of spreading it with vaccination.Now it has happened again.This time in faraway India.
The Indian Bar Association is charging WHO chief scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan with the mass murder of Indians.Dr. Swaminathan spoke against the use of Ivermectin in the Tamil Nadu province with the consequence that Ivermectin’s use was blocked and Covid cases skyrocketed with deaths increasing ten-fold.
In the provinces where Ivermectin was used—Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Goa— Covid cases declined sharply by 98%, 97%, 94%, and 86%. This success, which cleared large areas of India from Covid, was kept from you by the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, AMA, Biden, Schumer, Pelosi, and the rest of the criminals who control the narrative.
Acting for the Indian Bar Association, Dipali Ojha said the WHO official is accused of misconduct because she used her position as a public health official to further the agenda of special interests to maintain an Emergency Use Authorization for the lucrative vaccine industry.
Dipali Ojha further stated that the Indian Bar Association is bringing action under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code against Dr. Soumya Swaminathan and others, for murder of each person who died due to obstruction of treatment of Covid patients with Ivermectin. Punishment under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code is death or life imprisonment.
Well, finally, the beginning of accountability for the orchestrated “Covid Pandemic.”As I have emphasized for some months, Dr. Fauci, NIH, CDC, WHO, FDA, the presstitutes, and the politicians have used Covid to kill and injure large numbers of people for the sake of billions of dollars in Big Pharma vaccine profits.The health authorities, whore media, and scum politicians have lied through their teeth and prevented the use of known, safe cures.Not a single person needed to die or have health impaired by the virus.They were murdered in order to generate fear and panic to drive vaccine profits, insure the destruction of civil liberty, and perhaps serve the darker agenda of population reduction.
Here is a report of the legal action taken against WHO officials.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the American Bar Association had the integrity and courage to bring charges against, or at least sue, Fauci, Walensky, FDA, NIH, CDC, the governor’s who criminally imposed lockdowns and harmful mask mandates, and the criminal medical organizations and associations that aided and abetted mass murder by blocking Ivermectin and HCQ and punished the doctors who saved lives by prescribing these totally safe medications.
We are faced with the situation in which official government and private organizations in the US, UK, and EU are greater mass murderers than Pol Pot!And nothing will be done about it.The West is so undemocratic that accountability is impossible.
The criminals in charge are about to illegally bestow final approval on the killer vaccines so that they can continue serving their agendas with mass inoculation with a vaccine that is known both to kill and to spread the virus.
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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 frequent contributor to Global Research.
All I have to say is wow! The following is an admission that the so-called vaccine is a disaster in the making especially for those who blindly rushed to become Big Pharma’s guinea pigs.
When two great minds come to similar conclusions about the current global push to vaccinate everyone with the COVID experimental vaccines, we should pay close attention. Both highly experienced scientists have a totally negative view of the vaccination effort.
Last year once I realized that the Covid campaign was a fear campaign and not a scientific or medical campaign, I understood that the operating agenda was not a public health agenda. It became clear that there was a profit agenda and also a control agenda in which civil liberties and their legal and constitutional protections were being cast aside.
Bill Gates is actively financing and promoting new untested vaccines supposed to keep us at least somewhat safe from a ‘ghastly” death from the novel coronavirus and supposedly allow us to resume somewhat “normal” lives.
The Pfizer vaccine is on a fast track for FDA approval, hearings possible today according to the NYTimes. I suspect the political pressures are enormous. Still, how can approval be possible when the safety record of this vaccine is far worse than any vaccine in the past, including many that were pulled from the market?
To direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to ensure that any individual traveling on a flight that departs from or arrives to an airport inside the United States or a territory of the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID–19, and for other purposes.
In a report on COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness released yesterday, Dr. Geoff Mitchell MD, JD determined the shots “neither safe nor effective,” and concluded “the best data tells us that the COVID-19 vaccines are failing.”
While the COVID injections have been characterized as being somewhere around 95% effective against SARS-CoV-2 infection, this claim is the product of statistical obfuscation. In short, they’ve conflated relative risk reduction and absolute risk reduction.
The Department of Defense will require all U.S. military troops to take the COVID-19 vaccine by September 15th. The Associated Press earlier reported on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s memo.
A Haiti disaster relief scenario had been envisaged at the headquarters of US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) in Miami one day prior to the January 12, 2010 earthquake.
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Right now the Australian people are being cruelly subjugated due to the fake pandemic. The police there have been given extraordinary powers beyond what would be considered rational. These measures can be implemented without police officers having to reveal their identity.
When the police are given total freedom to impose injustices on a compliant population for a pandemic that never was it reeks of totalitarianism, and is the modern-day equivalent of Franco’s Spain, Mussolini’s Italy, Stalin’s Russia and Hitler’s Germany. Powers the Australian police have been given include:
forcible entry into buildings
preventing people from moving about
quarantining people
making people take tests and undergo medical treatment
compelling people to give information
While the Australian government releases death statistics (allegedly from Covid) on a day-to-day basis it only releases vaccine-related deaths that are at least 90 days old. Thus we know that from the 6 days 18-23 August there were 17 so-called Covid deaths, those dying after having tested positive for Covid-19. It could be that every one of those 17 deaths were vaccine victims.
The latest figures we have show that there were 123 deaths by 1 May from the two vaccines. The Covid deaths as of 23 August stood at 984. We know that by 31 August 2020 there were 682 deaths claimed to be Covid-19 deaths. We also know that people vaccinated develop Covid from the spike protein. So every vaccine associated death is likely to be a Covid-19 statistic. The vaccines are killing people and this is being covered up with at least a 3 month lag in the release of figures.
Is it any wonder that the lorry-drivers have decided to do the job idle politicians, frightened medics and lawyers choose to ignore? On 31 August the truck drivers will bring Australia to a standstill until the government caves in. Clearly they do not want to be the victims of untested, unsafe vaccines. It is not just the lorry drivers. Militia groups are beginning to form ready to back up the lorry drivers. This blog has heard of two such groups on the ground in Australia.
And there are whispers of not just private militia organisations from veteran Australians but groups ready to support them from around the world. Their battle is everyone’s battle. Their war is our war. Join them. Give them your support.
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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, All the Goss.
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Our successor to This Week in the Guardian, This Week in the New Normal is our weekly chart of the progress of autocracy, authoritarianism and economic restructuring around the world.
1. UNIVERSITIES PUNISHING UNVACCINATED STUDENTS
Universities in the United States are issuing fines to any students who refused to take the Covid “vaccine”, according to a report from Zero Hedge.
West Virginia Wesleyan College, announced a few weeks ago that it will fine any unvaccinated student $750. Whilst Connecticut-based Quinnipiac University will fine them $100 per week increasing in $25 increments (equal to $2250 for the first semester).
Not only that, but unvaccinated students will also be denied internet access. In the modern age, attempting to function in an academic institution without access to the internet, emails or digital learning resources is almost impossible. So this is essentially a mandate under any other name.
Other campuses are instituting “testing fees” of over $1500, but only for the unvaccinated. This is in spite of the fact vaccinated people are capable of testing positive for Covid.
2. “THE GREAT JOBS RESET”
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is the big daddy when it comes to pushing out the Great Reset, it’s the brainchild of their Chairman Klaus Schwab after all, and this past week they have unveiled their latest project. It’s called the “Jobs Reset Summit”.
The summit discusses, among other things, the alleged “impact of the pandemic” on employment. Bemoaning the loss of an estimated 255 million full-time jobs from the global economy, without ever mentioning (naturally) that these job losses had nothing to do with Covid, and everything to do with lockdown policies which were never intended to stop the spread of any virus.
The most alarming position to come out of this summit, however, was definitely a tweet that stated:
Get your COVID-19 jab – or you could face consequences from your employer #COVID19 #JobsReset21
Clearly supporting the idea that unvaccinated people should face censure, or even termination, from their employers. Just like they did with their “You’ll own nothing and be happy” article, they deleted the tweet and re-titled the article after a somewhat negative reaction.
The march toward a cashless society continues apace. We’ve been told already that cash is bad for the environment, and also contaminated with germs and drugs. Now the press is simply treating the cashless future as a fait acompli.
It seems the totally real (and not-at-all agenda-driven) pandemic has accidentally facilitated the rise of a highly controlling government policy, which was around years before “Covid” even existed.
Weird how many times that’s happened in the last 18 months.
4. NO TRANSPLANTS FOR THE UNVAXXED
This week hospitals in both the USA and Ireland have admitted to removing unvaccinated patients from the donor organ waiting list.
Beaumont Hospital in Ireland sent out letters recommending doctors remove all unvaccinated patients from the kidney transplant waiting list. Whilst a man in Washington state was told he would not be considered for a heart transplant as long as he declined the Covid jab. Other patients in the same hospital, the University of Washington Medical Center, are reportedly in the same position.
The good news is that the public outcry was so intense, that the Beaumont hospital was forced to reverse its decision within days of the story breaking. But this policy will not go away, and just become more covert as it spreads.
BONUS: CREEPY SPEECH OF THE WEEK
Whoever runs the corporate puppet that lives inside Justin Trudeau’s skin has clearly decided it’s time for him to shake his rather ineffectual image and try and become a forceful public speaker. In a “strongman” speech in the run-up to the Canadian elections, Trudeau worked himself into a frenzy on vaccination:
"If you don't want to get vaccinated, that's your choice. But don't think you can get on a plane or a train beside vaccinated people and put them at risk!" #elxn44#cdnpolipic.twitter.com/SZHOlsxmEX
“If you don’t want to get vaccinated, that’s your choice. But don’t think you can get on a plane or a train beside vaccinated people and put them at risk!”
A tip for the future though – if you’re going to have the blandest man in the world try and excite a crowd, give him more than 80 people to work with. That said, however poorly delivered and however lukewarm the reception, the sentiment itself is very unsettling. Full on segregation in Canada. As someone remarked to us on Telegram, “instead of the back of the bus, it’s now no bus at all.”
IT’S NOT ALL BAD…
We’ve got the usual protests in France, Australia and all over the world to report this week. It’s also in the news that Denmark will be abandoning all Coronavirus measures from October first…but whether that’s truly good news remains to be seen.
Howver, this week’s main entry for INAB comes in the form of a music video that tells the whole story:
You can follow Lukas Lion on youtube or Instagram, and stream the song on Spotify, Apple music and other platforms.
We’d also remind everyone in the UK that next Saturday, the 28th August, is the Unite for Freedom “Freedom Carnival” protest in London (and maybe other cities around the country). You can also follow their telegram channel for updates.
There’s a lot of change in the air, a lot of agendas in the works, if you see a headline, article, post or interview you think is a sign of the times, post it in the comments, email us or share it on social media and we will add it to the next edition.
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Some have asserted the U.S. empire has reached its historic endpoint because of its defeat in Afghanistan. However, that call is as premature as political scientist Francis Fukuyama’s proclamation that history had “ended” in 1989 when Western liberalism won because the former Soviet Union was coming apart.
Afghanistan might have been the so-called “graveyard of empires” and of certain states at other points in history. But the U.S. defeat in Afghanistan had occurred years earlier, a fact verified by revelations found in the “Afghanistan Papers.” That defeat had no appreciative impact on U.S. foreign-policy makers, who continued their destructive path in places like Yemen, Libya and Syria. Only a handful of the U.S. population was still interested in continuing a war in Afghanistan up until the last week or so. But the rulers did not inform the U.S. public, so the masses did not know the war had been lost.
This point is important because one of the lessons that should be taken from understanding that the United States had squandered $2 trillion, murdered 500,000 Afghans, sacrificed 2,300 U.S. service members from the U.S. working class and wounded over 20,000 U.S. military personnel is the public finally understands these wars only benefit the ruling class and have nothing to do with the interests of the vast majority of the people.
Despite this new awareness, the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) warned in its latest Afghanistan News Update:
“While all eyes are on Afghanistan, the United States continues its other wars of aggression across the world, claiming to “fight terrorism”—the same excuse it used to invade Afghanistan 20 years ago. Biden recently authorized air strikes on Somalia, more U.S. Special Forces recently have moved into the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the United States is continuing its mission to further destabilize the Horn of Africa by pushing for so-called “humanitarian intervention” in Ethiopia. That country has been added to the nearly 40 that are under some form of deadly U.S. sanctions that deprive countries of food, fuel, and medicine. Meanwhile, the United States remains entrenched in Iraq, reportedly expanding its Ain al-Asad base despite calls for its withdrawal. All this while it claims to be withdrawing its combat forces from Iraq. Over in Syria, the United States continues the destabilization effort, as well as stealing Syrian resources. Meanwhile, Haiti struggles to effectively respond to yet another natural disaster because of the more than a century’s worth of U.S./Western imperialist aggression.”
As indicated above, while the earthquake in Haiti occurred right in the middle of the U.S.-made drama in Afghanistan, the disaster in Haiti is both a natural disaster and a human-made disaster that requires special mention.
After the devastating 2010 earthquake, billions of dollars flowed into Haiti to support reconstruction. Most of that money flowed right back out. More money went to the Washington Beltway and to the salaries and infrastructure of aid organizations than to reconstruction. Haitian organizations, and the Haitian state, were almost completely bypassed. In keeping with the nefarious logic of disaster capitalism, the so-called “poorest country in the hemisphere”—also known as “The Republic of NGOs”—made certain people rich. For example, the small local oligarchy, with properties to lease and businesses to serve foreigners, benefited. Meanwhile, the crisis in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake was used to cover imperialism’s expansion: The United States and the “Core Group” of Germany, Canada, Spain and a vassal state—Brazil—as well as the Organization of American States (OAS) were able to consolidate their power through the installation of neo-Duvalierist Michel Martelly and the Bald-Headed Party (PHTK).
Will history repeat itself in the wake of the latest earthquake?
Haiti, Afghanistan, Syria, mass incarceration in the United States, and illegal sanctions and corporate press agitation for more aggressive positions on China (simply because China is in the process of defeating Western capital at its own game) all demonstrate the repressive and lethal reality: The Pan-European colonial-capitalist white-supremacist patriarchy is not going to go away quietly. It must be decisively defeated if global humanity is to survive in a way that allows for the potential for real democracy and social justice. The work reflected in this newsletter reflects BAP’s commitment to that historic task.
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Featured image: Raider Brigade Soldiers with 2nd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division conduct a foot patrol in Afghanistan, Dec. 22, 2018, in support of Operation Resolute Support and Operation Freedom’s Sentinel. (defense.gov/army)
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The minute the first Covid case appeared the US Medical Establishment began lying through its teeth and is yet to utter one truthful word.
The entire big money vaccination campaign is based on the lie that there are no cures.The asserted absence of cures is the only reason for the emergency use of an untested and unapproved experimental vaccine.The use of HCQ and Ivermectin has been prevented by protocols established by NIH, CDC, and WHO.
By false assertion of “public health authorities”— read shills for Big Pharma—there are no cures.But President Trump was cured by one—monoclonal antibodies.As of August 21, 2021, Governor Ron DeSantis has opened 15 monoclonal antibody clinics in Florida with more opening this week. See this.
As evidence of cures pours in, the justification for emergency use of the experimental Covid Vaccine disappears.The panicked medical establishment with its imposed and false protocols is demanding full approval of the vaccine before the required testing is complete and despite the obvious failure of the vaccine.Otherwise, the vaccination marketing campaign grinds to a stop, leaving the secret agendas unserved.
We can’t have that, so the dangerous experimental vaccine must be approved so it can continue to be mandated and the secret health-unrelated agendas served.
By exposing the Covid Deception, DeSantis has painted a target on his back. A corrupt medical establishment, so determined to vaccinate all and follow up with endless booster shots that it denied sick and dying people known cures and fired and took away licenses of doctors who used the known cures to save lives, is not going to take lightly their exposure as frauds by DeSantis.Expect any day to have the presstitute scum at the Washington Post, NPR, or CNN produce women accusing DeSantis of sexual abuse, or the crazed New York Times to accuse DeSantis of being a Russian agent and working with Cuba to discredit the CDC and NIH, or the FBI to bring false corruption charges, or Democrats in the state legislature to open an investigation of misappropriation of funds.The American Establishment has ZERO tolerance for truth-tellers and for anyone who gets in the way of its self-serving agendas.
Are Floridians intelligent enough to protect their governor who kept their state open and free? Probably not.
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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 frequent contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
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The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, or MHRA, is meant to be a neutral body that is responsible for making sure that the medicine and medical devices used in the country are acceptably safe.
However, there are serious questions about the agency’s impartiality because they receive significant funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in what can only be considered a major conflict of interest. The foundation holds major shares in COVID-19 vaccine developers Pfizer and BioNTech.
Perhaps this explains why the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine was the first one to be authorized for use in children aged 12 and over back in June and remained the only one available to this age group until Moderna’s vaccine was approved this week.
The approval of Pfizer’s vaccine was particularly shocking when you consider that 86 percent of children who participated in the very short and small clinical study used to make the decision suffered from an adverse reaction.
In a Freedom of Information request posted on the website of the MHRA, a representative of the agency admitted that they do receive funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that mainly supports work on strengthening the regulatory systems in other countries. They added that most of their income comes from fees paid by the pharmaceutical industry.
The agency stated that the current level of grant funding that they receive from the foundation is roughly $3 million, which they say is spread across several projects and three to four financial years.
They added that they would not approve any COVID-19 vaccines until they demonstrate “safety, quality and efficacy through a robust clinical trial programme, as determined by the MHRA, and unless the evidence supports its use.” However, they go on to add that they carefully reviewed the clinical trial data for Pfizer’s vaccine in a study of just 2000 children. They said that the safety data in children was on par with that seen in young adults, which is hardly comforting.
They added that the immunogenicity results, which show how well a vaccine functions, showed that children aged 12 to 15 had similar neutralizing antibody levels to those aged 16 to 25, but they only studied 200 children to reach this conclusion.
Why would any legitimate government agency want to be associated with the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation?
In 2017, the MHRA announced a partnership worth more than £980,000 with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Health Organization aimed at improving safety monitoring of medicine in low and middle-income countries. Two years later, they announced a partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to research “medicine use which could impact the health of pregnant women around the world.”
This is deeply troubling to anyone who is familiar with the Gates’ track record. Bill himself has gone on the record in a TED conference as saying that vaccines, healthcare and reproductive services could be used to reduce the world’s population. The foundation has also been accused of giving vaccines with sterilization chemicals to unsuspecting Africans.
India’s National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization even went so far as to cut ties with the foundation after it was revealed that its vaccine “campaigns” being conducted on young Indian girls on the pretense of protecting them from cervical cancer were really a form of cloaked vaccine trials that used two highly controversial HPV vaccines linked to significant injury and death.
It’s hard to believe that medical regulators in any country would want any association with them, but the MHRA has been troubled for many years. In 2005, the agency came under fire from the UK’s House of Commons Health Committee for a lack of transparency, and they were accused of advancing the interests of pharmaceutical companies instead of the interests of the people by the same committee the year before.
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The Pfizer vaccine is on a fast track for FDA approval, hearings possible today according to the NYTimes. I suspect the political pressures are enormous. Still, how can approval be possible when the safety record of this vaccine is far worse than any vaccine in the past, including many that were pulled from the market?
Efficacy
Part of the answer is that CDC is not reporting the statistic most relevant to measuring efficacy. That is: Vaccination status of COVID patients. How many of the new infections and new deaths are in vaccinated individuals, and how many in unvaccinated? Of course, this information is known in CDC databases; it is scandalous that the numbers are not being made public. I do not know if they are being provided to FDA. Israel is more honest, and numbers from there are not encouraging.
Likewise, data about transmissibility, comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated populations, are not being reported, and were not part of the clinical trials last fall.
Safety
There are several systems for reporting vaccine reactions, including deaths, but the only one available to the public is VAERS. It is incomplete, because it relies on voluntary reporting, there is no incentive to report to VAERS, and it is a cumbersome process.
We may compare reports of the COVID vaccines to past years, when there were also hundreds of millions of vaccinations, including annual flu shots and childhood vaccine schedules. The comparison is dramatic.
There were more than twice as many deaths related to the COVID vaccines this year as the sum total of all vaccine deaths in the 30-year history of VAERS.
Given this safety record, how is there any possibility of approval? Here is where the statistical fraud comes in. [I am grateful to have been alerted to this situation by Matthew Crawford]
The safety criterion they have chosen is an obscure computation called PRR for Proportional Reporting Ratio. As the name implies, it is based on RATIOS of different event types and is utterly blind to the ABSOLUTE RATE of such events.
PRR measures the distribution of different kinds of adverse events, e.g. blood clots, heart attacks, and deaths. If those ratios are severely out of line with the great variety of vaccine reactions in the past, PRR would detect that. For example, if the new vaccines caused an extraordinary risk of myocarditis, but everything else was low, then PRR would flag that. But if myocarditis was just one risk among many that have been reported from past vaccines, then PRR would not pick that up.
The real scandal is that PRR is blind to the absolute risk numbers. PRR is defined in such a way as to look for unusual PATTERNS of adverse events, but it is completely insensitive to unusual RATES of adverse events. Of course, it is the rates and not the patterns that are of primary concern, and the PRR is designed NOT to reflect that.
For example, suppose we have 2 vaccines:
Vaccine A has 1 reported death per million vaccinations, 3 reported heart attacks per million, and 20 reported headaches per million.
Vaccine B has 1 reported death per hundred vaccinations, 3 reported heart attacks per hundred, and 20 reported headaches per hundred.
Vaccine A is quite safe, and vaccine B is extremely dangerous. And yet the formula for PRR will produce the same result for vaccine A and B!
Clearly, PRR is not an appropriate criterion for evaluating safety of any particular vaccine. Someone has arranged to cook the books.
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Driving the irrational and unscientific narrative about mask wearing is the censoring of truthful and factual information by tech platforms. YouTube recently banned a video by U.S. Sen. Rand Paul in which he stated that masks don’t work
In a 2020 email obtained via a freedom of information act request, Dr. Anthony Fauci stated, “The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material”
February 25, 2020, U.K. health authorities published guidance discouraging the use of masks even for health care workers in residential care facilities, as there’s no evidence that they prevent viral spread
Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have long been regarded as the gold standard in medical research, yet RCTs are now ignored when it comes to mask wearing
Of 14 RCTs that have tested the effectiveness of masks in preventing the transmission of respiratory viruses, 11 suggest masks are either useless or counterproductive. The remaining three suggest masks may be useful, but not to a statistically significant degree
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For more than 18 months, we’ve dealt with questionable advice on masking, ranging from head-scratching and mildly amusing to outright laughable, and there seems to be no end in sight, despite the lack of scientific underpinning for universal masking.
Driving this insanity is the censoring of truthful and factual information by tech platforms such as YouTube. In the Fox News report above, Tucker Carlson calls out YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki for censoring a video by U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, in which he pointed out that most masks cannot and will not protect you from the virus.
“Saying cloth masks work, when they don’t, actually risks lives,” Paul said in his banned video. Contrary to Wojcicki, Paul is an actual medical doctor, yet Wojcicki believes she’s capable of determining what is and is not medical misinformation.
Mask Recommendations Spiraled From Sensible to Irrational
Paul’s statement is far from controversial. In a 2020 email obtained via a freedom of information act request, Dr. Anthony Fauci stated, “The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material.”
In March 2020, Fauci also went on TV stating1,2 that “people should not be walking around with masks” because “it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is.”
Ditto for then-Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who February 29, 2020, tweeted: “Seriously people — STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus.”3 Adams has since deleted the tweet, but it lives in infamy all over the internet.4,5,6
“The point is there was nothing kooky or inaccurate about Rand Paul’s video about masks,” Carlson says. “It was … provably true, people who know what they’re talking about agree with it, including the people in charge of our COVID response, but it was censored anyway. And the fact that it was censored anyway is a scandal.”
Carlson goes on to point out that censorship always backfires because, eventually, the masses catch on to the fact that they’re being lied to, at which point they stop listening altogether. Heavy-handedness also backfires, and the COVID injection campaign is a perfect example.
Had we just been treated like adults, the vaccination rate would probably have been far higher than it currently is. The irrational push with ostentatious bribes followed by illegal implementation of vaccine mandates simply raised too many suspicions in too many people.
“Obviously, this can’t continue,” Carlson says. “You cannot have a self-governing country in which people aren’t allowed to read what they want. A free press is not an optional feature of a democracy; it’s the center of democracy. That’s obvious. It’s written down in our founding documents.”
How Did Health Authorities Get So Irrational on Masks?
In an August 11, 2021, City-Journal article,7 Jeffrey Anderson reviews the scientific evidence for universal masking, noting that February 25, 2020, U.K. health authorities published guidance discouraging the use of masks even for health care workers in residential care facilities due to the fact that they don’t prevent viral spread.
Although the guidance apparently has been wiped from the internet like Adams’ tweet, Anderson quotes it as saying, “During normal day-to-day activities facemasks do not provide protection from respiratory viruses, such as COVID-19 and do not need to be worn by staff.”
Similarly, March 30, 2020, the executive director for the World Health Organization’s Health Emergency Program stated “there is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any particular benefit.”8
Such guidance was truthful and logical. Surgical masks are not designed to protect the wearer or others against viral transmission, as the holes in the fabric are far larger than any virus. They’re merely meant to prevent a health care worker from inadvertently infecting a patient’s wound with bacteria-laden saliva or respiratory droplets. As reported by Anderson:9
“Public-health officials’ advice in the early days of Covid-19 was consistent with that understanding. Then, on April 3, 2020, Adams announced that the CDC was changing its guidance and that the general public should hereafter wear masks whenever sufficient social distancing could not be maintained.
Fast-forward 15 months. Rand Paul has been suspended from YouTube for a week for saying, ‘Most of the masks you get over the counter don’t work.’
Many cities across the country, following new CDC guidance handed down amid a spike in cases nationally caused by the Delta variant, are once again mandating indoor mask-wearing for everyone, regardless of inoculation status.
The CDC further recommends that all schoolchildren and teachers, even those who have had Covid-19 or have been vaccinated, should wear masks …
How did mask guidance change so profoundly? Did the medical research on the effectiveness of masks change — and in a remarkably short period of time — or just the guidance on wearing them?”
Why Is the CDC Using Inferior Science to Support Masking?
We’re routinely told to follow the science and that public health recommendations are based on just that. But are they really? Where is the evidence showing that masking has any impact on viral transmission?
Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have long been regarded as the gold standard in medical research, as they allow you to isolate a specific variable and reduce the ability of researchers to produce a preferred outcome. It’s still possible through a variety of tricks, but at least then you can see the bias. Curiously, RCTs are now routinely ignored when it comes to mask wearing. Why is that? Anderson reports:10
“It’s striking how much the CDC, in marshalling evidence to justify its revised mask guidance, studiously avoids mentioning randomized controlled trials …
In a ‘Science Brief’11 highlighting studies that ‘demonstrate that mask wearing reduces new infections’ and serving as the main public justification for its mask guidance, the CDC provides a helpful matrix of 15 studies — none RCTs.
The CDC instead focuses strictly on observational studies completed after Covid-19 began. In general, observational studies are not only of lower quality than RCTs but also are more likely to be politicized, as they can inject the researcher’s judgment more prominently into the inquiry and lend themselves, far more than RCTs, to finding what one wants to find.
A particular favorite of the CDC’s … is an observational (specifically, cohort) study12 focused on two COVID-positive hairstylists at a beauty salon in Missouri.
The two stylists, who were masked, provided services for 139 people, who were mostly masked, for several days after developing Covid-19 symptoms. The 67 customers who subsequently chose to get tested for the coronavirus tested negative, and none of the 72 others reported symptoms.
This study has major limitations. For starters, any number of the 72 untested customers could have had COVID-19 but been asymptomatic, or else had symptoms that they chose not to report to the Greene County Health Department, the entity doing the asking.
The apparent lack of spread of COVID-19 could have been a result of good ventilation, good hand hygiene, minimal coughing by the stylists, or the fact that stylists generally, as the researchers note, ‘cut hair while clients are facing away from them.’
The researchers also observe that ‘viral shedding’ of the coronavirus ‘is at its highest during the 2 to 3 days before symptom onset.’ Yet no customers who saw the stylists when they were at their most contagious were tested for COVID-19 or asked about symptoms.
Most importantly, this study does not have a control group. Nobody has any idea how many people, if any, would have been infected had no masks been worn in the salon.”
RCTs Show Masks Don’t Prevent Viral Transmission
Another piece of evidence leaned on by the CDC is a survey, which is even lower-quality evidence than an observational cohort study.
“Mask supporters often claim that we have no choice but to rely on observational studies instead of RCTs, because RCTs cannot tell us whether masks work or not. But what they really mean is that they don’t like what the RCTs show,” Anderson writes.
Indeed, you’d be hard-pressed to find even a single RCT showing mask wearing has a notable benefit. Anderson goes through 14 RCTs, conducted around the world, that have investigated the effectiveness of masks against respiratory viruses, discussing their findings.
Among them is a French study13 from 2010, which randomly placed sick patients and their household contacts into a mask group or a non-mask group. Adherence to the designated intervention was “good.”
Within one week, 15.8% of household contacts in the no-mask control group and 16.2% in the mask group developed an influenza-like illness. The 0.4% difference between the groups was statistically insignificant. According to the authors: “In various sensitivity analyses, we did not identify any trend in the results suggesting effectiveness of facemasks.”
The CDC’s own data14,15,16 also show 70.6% of COVID-19 patients reported “always” wearing a cloth mask or face covering in the 14 days preceding their illness; 14.4% reported having worn a mask “often.” So, a total of 85% of people who came down with COVID-19 had “often” or “always” worn a mask.
Handwashing Beats Masks and Mask-Plus-Handwashing Combo
A 2009 study17 funded by the CDC added hand washing to the mix to see if mask wearing would work better in combination with hand hygiene. One group was instructed on the use of hand hygiene only, a second group used both handwashing and face masks, and a third group did nothing.
While the mask-plus-handwashing group fared statistically better than the control group in one measure, the handwashing-only group beat the control group to a statistically significant degree in two measures.
This suggests handwashing alone was actually the most effective measure. According to the authors, “no additional benefit was observed when facemask [use] was added to hand hygiene by comparison with hand hygiene alone.”
The notion that handwashing alone beats even the combination of handwashing and mask wearing gained support in a 2011 study,18 which discovered that among those who washed their hands and wore face masks, the secondary attack rate of influenza-like illness was double that of the control group, which did nothing.
Multivariate analysis showed the same thing, leading the authors to conclude that relative to the control group, the odds of infection among those wearing masks and washing their hands was “twofold in the opposite direction from the hypothesized protective effect.”
COVID-19 Specific Mask Trial Failed to Prove Benefit
The first and to my knowledge only COVID-19-specific randomized controlled surgical mask trial,19,20published November 18, 2020, also undermined the official narrative that masking works. Interestingly, it found routine mask wearing may either reduce your risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection by as much as 46%, or it may increase your risk by 23%.
Either way, the vast majority — 97.9% of those who didn’t wear masks, and 98.2% of those who did — remained infection-free, so SARS-CoV-2 infection isn’t nearly as widespread as we think it is.
The study included 3,030 individuals assigned to wear a surgical face mask and 2,994 unmasked controls. Of them, 80.7% completed the study. Based on the adherence scores reported, 46% of participants always wore the mask as recommended, 47% predominantly as recommended and 7% failed to follow recommendations.
Among mask wearers, 1.8% ended up testing positive for SARS-CoV-2, compared to 2.1% among controls. When they removed those who did not adhere to the recommendations for use, the results remained the same — 1.8%, which suggests adherence makes no significant difference either.
Among those who reported wearing their face mask “exactly as instructed,” 2% tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 compared to 2.1% of the controls. So, essentially, we’re destroying economies and lives around the world to protect a tiny minority from getting a positive PCR test result, which we now know means nothing.
Another investigation21 that compared caseloads between states with mask mandates and those without showed states with mask mandates had an average of 27 positive SARS-CoV-2 “cases” per 100,000 people, whereas states with no mask mandates had just 17 cases per 100,000. This too suggests mask mandates have no positive impact to speak of.
More Science
If you’re still on the fence about whether masks are a necessity that must be forced on everyone, including young children, consider reading through some of the available medical literature. In addition to the research reviewed above, here’s a small sampling of what else you’ll find when you start searching for data on face masks as a strategy to prevent viral infection:
Surgical masks and N95 masks perform about the same — A 2009 study22 published in JAMA compared the effectiveness of surgical masks and N95 respirators to prevent seasonal influenza in a hospital setting; 24% of the nurses in the surgical mask group still got the flu, as did 23% of those who wore N95 respirators.
“No evidence” masks prevent transmission of flu in hospital setting — In September 2018, the Ontario Nurses Association (ONA) won its second of two grievances filed against the Toronto Academic Health Science Network’s (TAHSN) “vaccinate or mask” policy. This information also appears to have been scrubbed from the internet, but it is available in Wayback archives. As reported by the ONA:23
“After reviewing extensive expert evidence submitted … Arbitrator William Kaplan, in his September 6 decision,24 found that St. Michael’s VOM policy is ‘illogical and makes no sense’ …
In 2015, Arbitrator James Hayes struck down the same type of policy in an arbitration that included other Ontario hospitals across the province … Hayes found there was ‘scant evidence’ that forcing nurses to use masks reduced the transmission of influenza to patients …
ONA’s well-regarded expert witnesses, including Toronto infection control expert Dr. Michael Gardam, Quebec epidemiologist Dr. Gaston De Serres, and Dr. Lisa Brosseau, an American expert on masks, testified that there was … no evidence that forcing healthy nurses to wear masks during the influenza season did anything to prevent transmission of influenza in hospitals.
They further testified that nurses who have no symptoms are unlikely to be a real source of transmission and that it was not logical to force healthy unvaccinated nurses to mask.”
No significant reduction in flu transmission when used in community setting — A policy review paper25 published in Emerging Infectious Diseases in May 2020, which reviewed “the evidence base on the effectiveness of nonpharmaceutical personal protective measures … in non-health care settings” concluded, based on 10 randomized controlled trials, that there was “no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks…”
“No evidence” that universal masking prevents COVID-19 — A 2020 guidance memo by the World Health Organization pointed out that:26
“Meta-analyses in systematic literature reviews have reported that the use of N95 respirators compared with the use of medical masks is not associated with any statistically significant lower risk of the clinical respiratory illness outcomes or laboratory-confirmed influenza or viral infections …
At present, there is no direct evidence (from studies on COVID- 19 and in healthy people in the community) on the effectiveness of universal masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19.”
Mask or no mask, same difference — A meta-analysis and scientific review27 led by respected researcher Thomas Jefferson, cofounder of the Cochrane Collaboration, posted on the prepublication server medRxiv in April 2020, found that, compared to no mask, mask wearing in the general population or among health care workers did not reduce influenza-like illness cases or influenza.
In one study, which looked at quarantined workers, it actually increased the risk of contracting influenza, but lowered the risk of influenza-like illness. They also found there was no difference between surgical masks and N95 respirators.
Let’s Follow the Actual Science
If we are to follow the science — which is a good idea in general and particularly when it comes to public health mandates — we should not wear masks. As reported by Anderson:28
“In sum, of the 14 RCTs that have tested the effectiveness of masks in preventing the transmission of respiratory viruses, three suggest, but do not provide any statistically significant evidence in intention-to-treat analysis, that masks might be useful.
The other eleven suggest that masks are either useless — whether compared with no masks or because they appear not to add to good hand hygiene alone — or actually counterproductive.
Of the three studies that provided statistically significant evidence in intention-to-treat analysis that was not contradicted within the same study, one found that the combination of surgical masks and hand hygiene was less effective than hand hygiene alone, one found that the combination of surgical masks and hand hygiene was less effective than nothing, and one found that cloth masks were less effective than surgical masks.”
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We are rapidly approaching the crossroads of no return.
If and when we pass it either asleep, or thinking it will blow over – it’s going to be too late. Too late meaning – we are at the point of no return.
We are many, they are few. We can beat them.
But we must be fully conscious of what’s going on – and be absolutely non-complacent.
Complacency is the demise of everything.
We must be convinced in solidarity and We Shall Overcome!
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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.
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).
Last year once I realized that the Covid campaign was a fear campaign and not a scientific or medical campaign, I understood that the operating agenda was not a public health agenda. It became clear that there was a profit agenda and also a control agenda in which civil liberties and their legal and constitutional protections were being cast aside.
Having studied at four top universities in days gone by when education, not propaganda, was education’s purpose, I am able to comprehend most scientific reports sufficiently to understand the gist of the reports, but in the case of Covid when in doubt I rely on virologists and medical school professors to vet or correct my conclusions.
Having had famous professors including Nobel prize winners who were mocked in their earlier years by establishment opinion and having myself experienced resistance to my own innovative scholarship, I was aware that truth is often rejected until opponents are simply overwhelmed by the evidence.
For my Oxford University professor, Michael Polanyi, a physical chemist, it took a half century for his theory of chemical absorption to win over Einstein’s disapproval. In the meantime a number of his students had won the Nobel prize in science. E.P. Wigner in physics. Melvin Calvin in chemistry. His son John Polanyi in chemistry. Michael Polanyi was the most intelligent and civilized person I have ever known. He would certainly be disheartened to see the disregard of evidence in universities and media today and by public authorities.
Experiencing the Covid Deception, I am alarmed that today evidence itself has lost its authority.Throughout the Western World, agendas take precedence over truth.This is most certainly the case with Covid-19.
We are living under a Covid policy that has no evidence whatsoever in its support.Lacking any evidence for the ruling policy, suppression of the actual facts is the operating principle.The utterly corrupt public health authorities, dumbshit ignorant politicians, and scum presstitutes repeat lies over and over, relying on constant repetition to turn the lie into truth.The vast bulk of the world’s population, lacking the education and energy to think for itself, is satisfied to have the media tell them what to think.
The public health authorities, dumbshit politicians, and scum presstitutes censor the scientists and doctors who actually understand the health challenge and know what to do to get it under control, thus preventing information other than the controlled narrative from reaching the public.
Here is the known information that is suppressed:
The Covid vaccine does not protect against acquiring Covid, nor does it prevent vaccinated people from spreading the virus.
The Covid Vaccine has massive adverse effects and is on course to cause more illnesses and deaths than Covid. Among the adverse effects are infertility and spontaneous abortion.
The vaccine trains the virus to evolve variants that escape the immune response.
The lethality of the Covid virus has been massively overstated.
The number of Covid cases were massively overstated by a defective PCR test.
The outbreak of new cases ascribed to the Delta variant are worst in the countries with the most heavily vaccinated populations.
Known cures such as HCQ and Ivermectin are intentionally blocked from use by official protocol.
Large numbers of top level scientists and doctors are calling for a halt to Covid vaccination.These calls are suppressed by the scum presstitutes and ignored by official authorities.
Why?Is it just profit?Is it just control?Or is there a darker agenda?
Despite the known, clear, and incontestable failure of the vaccine to protect against infection and its known dangers, the authorities are pushing forward with more vaccination.This makes no sense whatsoever.Why have the authoritiessecured the cooperation of US employers, military, hospitals, and police forces to mandate Covid vaccination?
Why are public authorities using both government and the private sectors to coerce vaccination when the public authorities are fully aware that vaccination does not protect, but causes health injuries and deaths and spreads the virus?
Why is there no public debate about the serious threat that the Covid protocol presents to the world’s population?
How did scientific and medical truth become a “conspiracy theory”?
Today August 22 is a Sunday.Take an hour off the golf course, an hour off watching some sports event, an hour off whatever else you do to waste your time and remain ignorant and exploitable, and instead spend it watching the address by Dr. Simone Gold of Frontline Doctors to an educated audience. See:
Dr. Simone Gold is intelligent, compassionate, and overflowing with a sense of responsibility toward us. This most remarkable woman is what I remember once was the ideal American, the person we all wanted to be.
Dr. Gold’s presentation dates back to the beginning of this year.Everything that she suspected at the time but refused to assert as fact has been proven to be true.
Note that Dr. Gold stresses throughout her address the experimental status of the vaccine and the unprecedented use of an experimental, unapproved vaccine on the entire world population. Billions of people injected with we know not what.The immorality of such a mass inoculation of an untested and unapproved experimental vaccine is a charge that the corrupt public health authorities intend to escape by granting the still untested vaccines full approval not only before the required tests are conducted but in the face of the vaccine’s failure. The illegitimate corrupt President of the United States is serving as a hired voice both for pharmaceutical profits and a secret agenda.
Expect the ineffectual and extremely dangerous vaccine to be granted approval any day as an answer to Dr. Gold’s emphasis on its unapproved experimental status and as reassurance to the vaccine-hesitant that the extremely dangerous vaccine is safe.
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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 frequent contributor to Global Research.
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America’s rotting two decades of war and occupation in Afghanistan is oozing an awful stench from its bloated corpse, with the entire world an involuntary witness.
Quite a spectacle confronts us:–caches of arms and vehicles in the hands of burley, grim-faced victors; embassy staff hastily destroying ‘stuff’; a puppet president escaping, reportedly with hordes of cash; tens of thousands pleading for refuge; women disappearing behind barred doors; allies condemning the U.S.’s unilateral retreat; emergency troops arriving to secure Kabul airport while personnel, and more stuff are airlifted away.
Fears grow of how the Taliban might rule; Islamic warrior excesses from the past are recalled; rumors filter in about Taliban’s brutal takeover of outlying regions. Terror directed at minorities and woman is anticipated; assurances of mercy are disbelieved; fanatic pronouncements are expected.
American leaders claim surprise but accept no blame. Journalists are preoccupied with the drama of the mighty retreat. Few try to explain the origin and vicissitudes of this two-decade mess. News commentators turn to speculating what’s in store for those left behind —they suggest only grim scenarios —as they tally the cost: trusted leadership, countless lost and damaged lives, trillions of American tax dollars that could have improved the lives of American, or succored the world’s refugees.
(Emails arrive urging us to message Biden and congressmembers demanding no more war. How simple it seems.)
Humiliation is evident. Although no one uses the word. Defeat, rout and failure are unspeakable too, though they hover within the subtext of any discussion about this unnecessary and unwon war.
Remaining largely unaddressed is the immorality of America’s military license in Afghanistan:–tortured captives, bombed homes and farms, fabricated claims of progress, alliances with criminal warlords, gratuitous payouts for ‘ghost soldiers’, unaccounted funding for a plethora of humanitarian projects, manipulation of ethnic and religious factions. The excesses and mistakes by presidents, generals and advisors will be occupy analysts for many months.
But the odor of dishonor remains. And it’s repulsive.
Where can America direct this awful feeling of disgrace? (“It’s Your Fault”, one author facetiously argues.) I detect a displacement underway whereby this nation’s shame is transformed into a distorted sense of pride—pride in the high value Americans place on women’s rights, pride in the importance of allegiance among soldiers. Urgent appeals by women’s rights advocates jockey for media time with U.S. veterans of the war demanding asylum for their Afghan colleagues. Women and veteran advocates appropriate whatever moral space is available around the American retreat. Together they dominate the dialogue about American’s most urgent responsibility. Veterans report how their lives were saved by Afghan army partners. Women’s rights activists recall their courageous mission to liberate girls and restore dignity to Afghan women.
Who does not support frightened, imperiled Afghan women? Who would turn away Afghans who saved U.S. soldiers? Who does not feel compassion for girls who experienced the joy of school and dreamed of more enriching lives?
The real moral discussion needed is about military might: is any invasion justified by the dubious principle of the ‘responsibility to protect? (Decried in 2008 by Mahmoud Mamdani as simply “an assertion of neocolonial domination”.) Can any government intent on global dominance be trusted? The moral discussion Americans need is about budgeting war, how to control the obscene, voracious military industry. The moral discussion we need is about ways to live with alternatives to capitalism, to the American standard of a liberated woman. The moral discussion we need is about our cavalier demonization of religion and any independently-minded leader, about how through its global media power the U.S. arouses public fear in order to sanction its military ambitions.
Filmmaker Michael Moore recalls his fear as his countrymen overwhelmingly applauded the invasion of Afghanistan: “…we… are culpable in committing many acts of terror and bloodshed and we had better get a clue about the culture of violence in which we (are) active participants.” Add this Worker’s World reflection on Afghan women following their 1978 revolution, as it reviews the leadup to the 2001 U.S. invasion.
During these ‘Afghan decades’, the U.S., so arrogant with moral superiority, with its search for valor, commitment to capitalism, limitless right to world resources, complicity with fellow colonizing states, has ravaged swathes of the world; it plundered Iraq, leaving it a corrupt and floundering state; it ripped Libya into shreds; it ravaged and destabilized Syria; it applies war sanctions against proud, capable nations rendering them unstable and impoverished—fostering widespread hatred within the U.S. and abroad, all while it sucks up educated professionals and forlorn youths from those nations.
How we shouted on behalf of Afghan women 20 years ago; how we howled against fanatic religious fighters. And here we are. Again.
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A cardiologist who treated a child suffering from myocarditis – an inflammation of the heart muscle – after getting vaccinated against the coronavirus (COVID-19) told the child’s mother that “no case of myocarditis is mild.”
Fourteen-year-old Aiden Jo received his first dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine on May 12. On June 10, he woke up in the middle of the night complaining of chest pain and difficulty breathing. The boy’s mother, Emily, rushed him to the hospital where he was ultimately treated for myocarditis. Emily said she had been under the impression that the adverse effects of COVID-19 vaccines are rare and mild.
“What they didn’t explain is that mild means hospital care and follow-up care indefinitely,” she told activist group Children’s Health Defense. Emily adds: “They’re not explaining what mild myocarditis means. Aiden’s cardiologist told us no case of myocarditis is mild. That’s like saying a heart attack is mild.”
“Parents need to understand that myocarditis is not covered under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program,” Emily said. “And the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program only covers if you’re incapacitated, wheelchair-bound or dead. We have incurred thousands and thousands of dollars in medical bills. We have insurance but they don’t pay all. It does not account for tests down the road that we still have to get.”
Myocarditis reduces your heart’s ability to pump and can cause rapid or abnormal heartbeats. Severe cases of myocarditis can lead to heart attack, stroke, heart failure and sudden cardiac arrest. Signs of myocarditis in children include chest pain, breathing problems, abnormal heartbeats, rapid breathing, fever and fainting.
The condition occurred mostly in young boys. Heart inflammation was not identified as an adverse reaction during the safety trials for the vaccine, but the CDC announced in June that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would add a warning to the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines about a possible link to cases of myocarditis in teenagers and young adults.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), CDC’s vaccine advisory group, met in June to discuss cases of myocarditis in people aged 30 and younger who have received an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.
Pfizer and Moderna use mRNA technology in their COVID-19 vaccines, while Johnson & Johnson uses the more traditional virus-based technology.
The COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Technical (VaST) Work Group, which is part of ACIP, assessed the reported cases and noted that the risk of myocarditis following vaccination with the mRNA-based vaccines in adolescents and young adults is notably higher after the second dose, particularly in males.
Data suggests likely association of myocarditis with mRNA vaccines
In June, the CDC said a higher-than-expected number of young men had experienced heart inflammation after their second dose of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, with more than half the cases reported in people between the ages of 12 and 24.
The higher-than-expected rate of myocarditis cases among Americans below 30 is consistent with the data from Israel.
Israel’s Ministry of Health identified over 200 cases of myocarditis in men between 16 and 30 years old, a vast majority of those happening at the younger end of that range. That equates to a risk of between 1 in 3,000 and 1 in 6,000 of suffering from heart inflammation.
According to VaST, the data suggests a likely association of myocarditis with mRNA vaccination in adolescents and young adults.
As of July 16, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) received a total of 9,246 reports of adverse reactions among children. The 397 reports of heart inflammation made up 4.3 percent of the total. However, the system wasn’t designed to capture all cases of heart inflammation and only counted the reports which used the term myocarditis.
“While we won’t comment on internal meetings or discussions, we can say that FDA is absolutely committed to reviewing data as it becomes available to us,” the FDA said.
Pfizer, whose vaccine has been authorized for use in Americans as young as 12, previously said it had not observed a higher rate of heart inflammation than would normally be expected in the general population. Moderna said it also could not identify a causal association with the heart inflammation cases and its vaccine.
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The alleged “interim government” of Juan Guaidó is becoming more and more lonely in its abstentionist stand. The “special envoy” of the United States for Venezuela during Donald Trump’s administration, Elliott Abrams, stressed that the US government should support the Venezuelan opposition if it decides to participate in the regional elections on November 21.
“If the democratic forces in Venezuela decide to participate in the elections, we [the United States] must support them and vigorously organize international pressure to force Maduro to fulfill the promises he has made on electoral conditions,” Abrams said in an interview with The Hill. For US imperial bureaucrats, “electoral conditions” is an euphemism for Maduro/Chavismo not participating and letting the opposition win an election.
Likewise, Abrams expressed that he was in favor of eliminating or reforming the “interim government” of Juan Guaidó. “If the opposition leadership decides to change the form of the interim government, or even end it, we should also support that decision,” he said. However, he rejects the idea of the US administration reestablishing diplomatic relations with the government of President Maduro.
On the other hand, regarding the peaceful path that Venezuela has decided to undertake, starting a series of dialogues between part of the extreme sectors of the Venezuelan opposition and the government of President Nicolás Maduro, the gringo former official, known as “the butcher of Central America” for his role in supporting and financing some of the bloodiest terror regimes in the region, recommends that the Biden administration should continue to tighten the sanctions regime against the Venezuelan people.
“Unless the regime takes significant measures—unless it frees all political prisoners and stops arresting more of them, allows a free press, allows the return of political exiles, and returns democratic political parties to their elected leadership,” said Abrams, in the typical imperial interventionist stand in its endless failed attempts to oust President Maduro.
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Comments Off on U.S. Interventionism in Venezuela. Elliott Abrams: If Opposition Decides to Reform or Eliminate the ‘[ Juan Guaidó ] Interim Government,’ We Must Support It
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The Department of Defense will require all U.S. military troops to take the COVID-19 vaccine by September 15th. The Associated Press earlier reported on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s memo.
The AP reported that “the deadline could be pushed up if the vaccine receives final FDA approval or infection rates continue to rise.”
“I will not hesitate to act sooner or recommend a different course to the President if l feel the need to do so. To defend this Nation, we need a healthy and ready force,” the Defense Secretary added.
An Armed Forces member refusing to take the vaccine is subject to punishment under the U.C.M.J., the AP’s report noted. The punishment for refusal to obey an order may escalate up to court martial.
“Some unvaccinated service members have suggested they’d get the shot once it’s required, but others are flatly opposed,” the report said.
Now, some of those ‘flatly opposed’ soldiers are filing a lawsuit in court against the coming military vaccination mandate. Those listed on the lawsuit as defendants are Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin,Secretary of Health & Human Services Xavier Becerra, and Janet Woodock, Acting Commissioner of the Food & Drug Administration.
“Plaintiffs Staff Sergeant Daniel Robert, U.S. Army, and Staff Sergeant Holli Mulvihill, USMC, individually and on behalf of all other similarly situated active duty, National Guard, and Reserve servicemembers, as documented survivors of COVID-19, file this action against the Department of Defense (“DoD”), seeking a declaratory judgment that the DoD cannot force them to take a COVID-19 vaccination under existing military regulations, federal regulations, federal law, and the U.S. Constitution,” the plaintiffs’ legal complaint states.
“The Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin (the “SECDEF”) has publicly notified Plaintiffs, via Memo, that he will seek authorization from the President of the United States of America (the “President”), to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine on or about September 15, 2021,” the plaintiffs note. “Upon information and belief, the DoD is already vaccinating military members in flagrant violation of its legal obligations and the rights of servicemembers under federal law and the Constitution.”
“Army Regulation 40-562 provides documented survivors of an infection, a presumptive medical exemption from vaccination because of the natural immunity acquired as a result of having survived the infection,” the legal complaint added.
“General examples of medical exemptions include the following… Evidence of immunity based on serologic tests, documented infection, or similar circumstances,” the lawsuit cites.
“Plaintiffs also seek a declaratory judgment on the separate basis that the Emergency Use Authorization (“EUA”) DoD COVID-19 Vaccine mandate, which they have been notified is imminent, cannot be issued in violation of 10 U.S.C. §1107 [U.S. Code] and its implementing regulations, including DoD Directive 6200.2, the FDA regulation of biologics at 21 C.F.R. § 50 et seq., as well as the law regarding informed consent 50 U.S.C. 1520 (‘The Nuremburg Code’),” the lawsuit added.
Legal analysts cite prior situations that suggest that legal challenges to the COVID vaccine order may fail in court.
“Legally, vaccines under emergency use authorization require service members to grant ‘informed consent’ to receive one, which they are allowed to withhold,” U.S. News reports. “The law states a president may override that concern in the ‘interests of national security,’ according to an analysis from Duke University’s Lawfire blog in February.”
Robert Sanders, chair of the National Security Department at the University of New Haven, pointed to the case of troop vaccination to protect them from anthrax. A follow-on case found such orders did not violate troops’ constitutional rights because, “The requirement to place the needs of the nation above a service member’s personal welfare applies in peacetime as well as in war.”
Professor Sanders gave his assessment of legal challenges to the military vaccination order.
“I believe such challenges will fail on the merits under the history of the anthrax vaccine’s military litigation,” he said.
The plaintiffs are also submitting in their lawsuit expert testimony from Dr. Peter McCullough, M.D., who is board certified in internal medicine and was the Chief Fellow at William Beaumont Hospital. In addition to being a cardiologist, he also holds a Master’s Degree in Public Health from the University of Michigan. He is currently a Professor of Medicine at Texas Christian University and the University of North Texas Health Sciences Center School of Medicine.
The relevant portion of the doctor’s testimony is submitted in text image format below:
“To put it concisely and bluntly, people who have naturally created antibodies resulting from contracting and recovering from the Virus should not receive any inoculation against the virus or any family or variant thereof because it will do more harm than good,” Dr. McCullough is testifying.
The Pentagon has yet to formally issue the vaccine mandate, but the order is expected to be issued in September.
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It seems that those who have taken the Covid-19 experimental injections several months ago are starting to become seriously ill. Chicago’s WGN9 reported that “The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. and his wife, Jacqueline Jackson have both tested positive for COVID-19 and are hospitalized at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, according to a statement from Rainbow PUSH Coalition.” The report mentioned that he “was vaccinated against Covid-19 in early January.”
Jackson is a well-known activist in the US who believed in Big Pharma’s miracle cure against Covid-19 and now he is suffering from the consequences of not doing the research on the dangers of the experimental injections. In an interesting twist to the mainstream media’s reporting on the Covid-19 experimental injections, Bloomberg News headlined with a disturbing title for its readership, ‘The Vaccinated Are Worried and Scientists Don’t Have Answers’ said that the
“Anecdotes tell us what the data can’t: Vaccinated people appear to be getting the coronavirus at a surprisingly high rate. But exactly how often isn’t clear, nor is it certain how likely they are to spread the virus to others.”
This is what good doctors and scientists from all over the world have been warning us about since the experimental injection was released under Operation Warp Speed. But the mainstream media continues its relentless defense of the medical establishment as it makes the case that the experimental injection offers “powerful protections” against Covid-19 “it is evident vaccination still provides powerful protection against the virus”, then admits that “there’s growing concern that vaccinated people may be more vulnerable to serious illness than previously thought.”
All I have to say is wow! The following is an admission that the so-called vaccine is a disaster in the making especially for those who blindly rushed to become Big Pharma’s guinea pigs. A former director from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Dr. Tom Frieden can’t even give a clear answer to any questions for those who were already vaccinated on how they can protect themselves or if they will need a booster shot in the near future:
There’s a dearth of scientific studies with concrete answers, leaving public policy makers and corporate executives to formulate plans based on fragmented information. While some are renewing mask mandates or delaying office reopenings, others cite the lack of clarity to justify staying the course. It can all feel like a mess.
“We have to be humble about what we do know and what we don’t know,” said Tom Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the head of the nonprofit Resolve to Save Lives. “There are a few things we can say definitively. One is that this is a hard question to address.”
Absent clear public health messaging, vaccinated people are left confused about how to protect themselves. Just how vulnerable they are is a key variable not just for public health officials trying to figure out, say, when booster shots might be needed, but also to inform decisions about whether to roll back reopenings amid a new wave of the virus. On a smaller scale, the unknowns have left music lovers unsure if it’s OK to see a concert and prompted a fresh round of hang-wringing among parents pondering what school is going to look like
Mass confusion is coming soon as more people who have already taken the experimental injection are becoming sick. The authors of the article, Kristen V. Brown and Rebecca Torrence add several case studies of “breakthrough infections” that makes understanding the after-effects of the experimental injections a bit more confusing:
In lieu of answers, what has emerged is a host of case studies providing somewhat different pictures of breakthrough infections. Variables including when the surveys were conducted, whether the delta variant was present, how much of the population was vaccinated and even what the weather was like at the time make it hard to compare results and suss out patterns. It’s difficult to know which data might ultimately carry more heft.
“It’s quite clear that we have more breakthroughs now,” said Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco. “We all know someone who has had one. But we don’t have great clinical data”
The article does mention the Fourth of July celebrations in the beach town of Provincetown, Massachusetts where both the vaccinated and unvaccinated partied and found that “three-fourths of the 469 new infections occurred were among the vaccinated people”:
Authors of a CDC case study said this might mean that they were just as likely to transmit Covid-19 as the unvaccinated. Even so, they cautioned, as more people are vaccinated, it’s natural that they would also account for a larger share of Covid-19 infections and this one study was not sufficient to draw any conclusions. The incident prompted the CDC to reverse a recommendation it had issued just a few weeks earlier and once again urge the vaccinated to mask up in certain settings
Here is where they use Israel’s research that suggests that the experimental injections wane after several months:
Researchout of Israel seems to back the idea that protection from severe disease wanes in the months after inoculation, and more recently, that breakthrough cases may eventually lead to an uptick in hospitalizations. The information is preliminary and severe breakthrough cases are still rare, but it bolsters the case that some people will need booster shots in coming months.
Case studies and data from some states in the U.S. have similarly shown an increase in breakthrough cases over time. But with the delta variant also on the rise, it’s difficult to tell whether waning immunity to any type of coronavirus infection is to blame, or if the vaccinations are particularly ineffective against the delta variant. It could be both, of course. Changing behavior among vaccinated people could be a factor, too, as they return to social gatherings and travel and dining indoors
In typical propaganda fashion, the Bloomberg authors basically blame the unvaccinated for the uptick in breakthrough cases:
All that said, some facts are well established at this point. Vaccinated people infected with the virus are much less likely to need to go to the hospital, much less likely to need intubation and much less likely to die from the illness. There’s no doubt that vaccines provide significant protection. But a large proportion of the nation — almost 30% of U.S. adults — have not been vaccinated, a fact that has conspired with the highly contagious delta variant to push the country into a new wave of outbreaks
Well, the Reverend Jesse Jackson may disagree with that statement now since he and his wife are hospitalized with a new round of Covid-19 delta variant despite the fact that he allowed the medical establishment to convince him that new MRNA experimental injections would protect him and his family. Bloomberg’s article ends with a clear indication that the doctors and scientists that promoted the vaccine and in most cases, are in the pockets of Big Pharma such as Dr. Tom Frieden do not know what is going on:
For the time being, there are simply more questions than answers. Are breakthrough infections ticking up because of the delta variant, waning immunity or a return to normal life? Are vaccinated people more vulnerable to severe illness than previously thought? Just how common are breakthrough infections? It’s anyone’s guess.
“It is generally the case that we have to make public health decisions based on imperfect data,” Frieden said. “But there is just a lot we don’t know”
However, there are numerous good doctors and scientists who have not sold their souls to the devil that have sounded the alarm about the dangers associated with the experimental injections such as Doctors for Covid Ethics who wrote an urgent open letter to the European Medicines Agency in March 2021. Here is what they said:
As physicians and scientists, we are supportive in principle of the use of new medical interventions which are appropriately developed and deployed, having obtained informed consent from the patient. This stance encompasses vaccines in the same way as therapeutics.
We note that a wide range of side effects is being reported following vaccination of previously healthy younger individuals with the gene-based COVID-19 vaccines. Moreover, there have been numerous media reports from around the world of care homes being struck by COVID-19 within days of vaccination of residents. While we recognise that these occurrences might, every one of them, have been unfortunate coincidences, we are concerned that there has been and there continues to be inadequate scrutiny of the possible causes of illness or death under these circumstances, and especially so in the absence of post-mortems examinations.
In particular, we question whether cardinal issues regarding the safety of the vaccines were adequately addressed prior to their approval by the European Medicines Agency (EMA)
The warnings were loud and clear from the start, but Big Pharma, the mainstream media and the rest of the political establishment ignored those who predicted the consequences from their so-called “vaccines” because they wanted to control the narrative and the profits associated with it. There is just too much too loose for the establishment since the real agenda is not to make the world a healthy place for humanity, but to rule the entire planet through coercive measures and it is called medical tyranny.
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Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his blog site, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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Mr. Torres of New York introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Homeland Security
A Bill
To direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to ensure that any individual traveling on a flight that departs from or arrives to an airport inside the United States or a territory of the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID–19, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
(a) In General.—The Secretary of Homeland Security, acting through the Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, shall take such actions as are necessary to ensure that any individual traveling on a flight that departs from or arrives to an airport inside the United States or a territory of the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID–19.
(b) Exception.—In carrying out subsection (a), the Secretary shall ensure there is an exception to the requirement described in such subsection for an individual who is ineligible or medically unable to be fully vaccinated against COVID–19.
(c) Definition.—In this Act, the term “fully vaccinated against COVID–19” means receiving all recommended doses of a COVID–19 vaccine that is licensed under section 351 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 262) or authorized for emergency use under section 564 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. 360bbb–3).
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Patrick Wood is a leading and critical expert on Sustainable Development, Green Economy, Agenda 21, 2030 Agenda and historic Technocracy. He is the author of Technocracy Rising: The Trojan Horse of Global Transformation (2015) and co-author of Trilaterals Over Washington, Volumes I and II (1978-1980) with the late Antony C. Sutton.
