O recente ataque terrorista na Câmara Municipal de Crocus, nos subúrbios de Moscou, foi sem dúvida uma das maiores tragédias da história recente da Federação Russa. Mais de 130 civis, incluindo várias crianças, foram brutalmente assassinados por homens armados na noite de 22 de Março. O número de mortos deverá aumentar ainda mais, tendo em conta que há várias pessoas hospitalizadas.
Os criminosos que participaram do ataque já foram capturados pelas forças de segurança russas. No total, onze pessoas foram presas, incluindo os quatro atiradores. Os assassinos eram imigrantes tadjiques, aparentemente ligados a grupos islâmicos radicais. Eles foram presos na fronteira do oblast de Bryansk enquanto tentavam escapar para o território ucraniano. Após interrogatório, eles disseram que foram contratados via Telegram. Os locatários teriam dado a eles as armas usadas no crime e prometido uma recompensa de meio milhão de rublos russos.
Curiosamente, imediatamente após o ataque começaram a circular rumores nos meios de comunicação ocidentais sobre a alegada responsabilidade do Estado Islâmico. Os jornais americanos não só acusaram o grupo extremista islâmico, mas também sublinharam em diversas ocasiões que não havia responsabilidade ucraniana no ataque. Esta hipótese, no entanto, parece falsa face aos fatos até agora elucidados durante as investigações.
Os assassinos claramente trabalharam como mercenários no ataque. Apesar de serem radicais islâmicos, não há provas de que o seu trabalho no caso específico da Câmara Municipal de Crocus tenha qualquer ligação com esta ideologia extremista. O modus operandi dos assassinos não parece estar relacionado com o ISIS (um grupo com o qual não parecem ter quaisquer ligações). Além de matar por dinheiro, tentaram fugir do local e cruzar a fronteira com a Ucrânia, o que não é esperado dos militantes do ISIS, que quase sempre realizam ataques suicidas em busca do “martírio”.
Também é necessário lembrar que o ISIS é atualmente uma organização fraca e incapaz de realizar ataques em grande escala. Desde a intervenção russa na Síria, a maior parte do ISIS foi liquidada, restando apenas as milícias restantes do grupo original a operar em vários países – incluindo a própria Ucrânia, onde militantes islâmicos radicais são frequentemente vistos entre as tropas anti-russas. Parece haver um uso estratégico da sigla “ISIS” pela inteligência ocidental, com a atribuição de responsabilidade ao grupo sempre que Washington quiser disfarçar o seu próprio envolvimento num crime.
Além disso, os terroristas tentaram escapar através da fronteira de Bryansk, que é uma região fortemente protegida pelas forças russas, com grande presença de campos minados. Nem mesmo durante as recentes incursões ucranianas na fronteira houve uma tentativa de invasão terrestre ucraniana através de Bryansk, o que mostra o quão difícil é atravessar esta região. Para tentar escapar para lá, os terroristas certamente contaram com sólido apoio da inteligência ucraniana, com dados precisos sobre como contornar a defesa russa e escapar dos campos minados – o que contradiz a narrativa ocidental sobre Kiev não ter participado do ataque.
As razões pelas quais o Ocidente quer disfarçar a participação ucraniana no caso são fáceis de compreender. Kiev não atua sozinha nos seus atos terroristas, contando sempre com a coparticipação do Ocidente. Sendo um Estado vassalo, a Ucrânia apenas obedece às ordens dos seus apoiadores ocidentais, o que significa que, se houve participação ucraniana no ataque contra Moscou, os agentes ocidentais certamente cooperaram de alguma forma para que o incidente acontecesse.
Deve ser lembrado que há muito tempo que existem ameaças abertas contra a Rússia por parte de líderes ocidentais. Recentemente, a ex-subsecretária dos EUA, Victoria Nuland, prometeu “surpresas” ao governo russo numa declaração interpretada por muitos analistas como um sinal de que as operações de sabotagem começariam a ocorrer dentro do território russo. Além disso, a Embaixada Americana aconselhou recentemente os cidadãos dos EUA a evitarem reuniões públicas em MoscoU, citando informações sobre o risco terrorista. Esta informação nunca foi partilhada com as autoridades russas, o que indica que, mesmo que não tenha havido participação americana no ataque, houve pelo menos uma ausência de vontade de agir conjuntamente contra o terrorismo.
Deve recordar-se que estes ataques terroristas ocorrem num contexto de aumento das incursões ucranianas através da fronteira. O regime de Kiev tem bombardeado cidades russas pacíficas, como Belgorod e Kursk, embora não existam alvos militares nestas regiões. Parece haver uma intenção clara por parte do regime e dos seus apoiantes de promover o terror no território russo. Perante o fracasso militar, a guerra assimétrica, recorrendo ao terrorismo, é a única “alternativa” que resta ao regime neonazista.
A escolha dos imigrantes da Ásia Central para desempenharem o papel de assassinos parece ainda mais interessante para as intenções do regime ucraniano e do Ocidente. Os inimigos da Rússia esperam encorajar o crescimento do racismo e da polarização étnica na sociedade russa, tentando mover a maioria da população contra os imigrantes do espaço pós-soviético. Não há provas de que tal plano seja bem sucedido, dado o elevado nível de coesão social na Rússia contemporânea, mas é bem sabido que fomentar o caos interno na Rússia é um plano antigo do Ocidente.
O Ocidente e a Ucrânia querem fazer com que os russos comuns se sintam inseguros e comecem a criticar o governo. Eles trabalham para recuperar um cenário semelhante ao das décadas de 1990 e 2000, quando diversos ataques terroristas afetaram as principais cidades russas. Ao despertar tais traumas e memórias no povo russo, as redes de inteligência ocidentais esperam conseguir criar uma crise de legitimidade contra o governo do país.
Porém, a tendência é que ocorra exatamente o contrário: quanto mais é atacado, mais o povo russo endossa o governo e apoia a operação militar especial, pois entende que esta é a única forma de neutralizar o terror.
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I will go through each possibility in detail and then give my hypothesis, on what I believe is the most plausible cancer.
Turbo Colon Cancer
Turbo Cancer is a cancer that arises following the administration of one or more COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines
Turbo Colon Cancer would be very plausible as Colon cancer is one of the most common Turbo Cancers (there is evidence suggesting it is in the top 5)
It may have presented with abdominal pain, blood in the stool or a bowel obstruction
It is believed on Dec. 28, 2023, Kate was taken in an ambulance to the hospital, possibly due to one of these symptoms.
She would have likely have had imaging done that would have shown a mass that required surgery, which took place two weeks later on Jan. 16, 2024.
We are told the Jan. 16, 2024 surgery was not for cancer:
Feb. 9, 2024 Daily Mail: “The spokesman did not provide details about the nature of her surgery, but sources briefed that it was not for cancer.”
Princess Kate: “In January, I underwent major abdominal surgery…and at the time, it was thought my condition was non-cancerous. The surgery was successful, however tests after the operation, found that cancer had been present”
Princess Kate: “My medical team therefore advised that I should undergo a course of “preventative chemotherapy” and I am now in the early stages of that treatment”
Examples:
April 23, 2023 – Missouri, MO – On March 16, 2023, 29 year old Elise Scott was supposed to have surgery to remove a pair of masses on her ovaries. She was diagnosed with Stage 4 Colon Cancer with spots on her liver, ovaries and along her abdomen wall. She will have chemo for up to 6 months.
May 26, 2023 – Orange, CA – 24 year old Ciara Meza is a college graduate working on master’s degree in Psychology. She had cramping and bloating and ended up in emergency and was diagnosed with Stage 4 Colon Cancer that has metastasized to her lungs.
Aug. 5, 2023 – Modesto, CA – 44 year old Gemma Nelson woke up with pain in her groin area that became very severe over the course of 3 days. She was diagnosed with Stage 4 Colon cancer with a 14 inch tumor wrapped around her left ovary and back and a 6 inch tumor in her colon. She is currently doing chemotherapy for 10 months now.
Turbo Ovarian Cancer
Ovarian tumors can be benign or malignant and the ovaries are not accessible for biopsy, which means you usually need to have a surgery first before a diagnosis can be made.
They can also be very difficult to distinguish on imaging, so a cancer might not be initially suspected.
If Kate ended up in emergency on Dec.28 due to pain, and imaging showed an ovarian cyst or mass, it is plausible she would have been scheduled for a major abdominal surgery (such as a total hysterectomy) and the hope was that it was a non-cancerous process like an ovarian cyst.
Only after pathology examination, could a determination be made if the ovarian cyst was a cancer.
Examples:
Nov. 8, 2023 – 21 year old Destinee had a large cyst that was believed to be benign. After surgery she was diagnosed with a 32 by 15cm ovarian cancer in Jan. 2022.
Dec. 8, 2023 – Avondale, AZ – 31 year old Ashlie Edwards had a surgery (laparotomy) to remove two large cysts. She was diagnosed with Stage 3C Ovarian Cancer on Aug. 17, 2023. One mass was the size of a basketball on her left ovary, another mass was on her kidney.
Dec. 11, 2023 – Johnson City, TN – 32 year old Porschea Elswick had a growing ovarian cyst which the doctors kept ignoring until it was 30cm in size. After surgery, she was diagnosed with an Ovarian Cancer (Mucinous Adenocarcinoma) in August 2023.
Turbo Uterine Cancer:
If Kate presented to emergency on Dec. 28, 2023 with abdominal pain or vaginal bleeding, and imaging showed a uterine mass, it is possible that doctors suspected a benign mass such as fibroids (uterine leiomyoma).
Only after pathological examination could a determination be made whether there was cancer present, such as endometrial cancer or uterine sarcoma – this would certainly come as a shock.
Uterine sarcomas are more aggressive and have a worse prognosis than endometrial cancer.
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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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I had an interesting discussion last week with a Washington-based political pundit who expressed some what I thought to be eccentric views on possible developments in the presidential campaign over the next six months. He said that that strange little man Jared Kushner is at it again engaged in secret meetings, but this time he is being promoted as a possible Vice-Presidential candidate to run alongside his father-in-law ex-president Donald Trump.
Reportedly, he is being pushed by a number of hard right ardently pro-Israel Republican Senators, to include folks like Lindsay Graham and Ted Cruz, who are arguing that it would solve the loyalty issue for his father-in-law, a major concern for Trump given the perceived betrayal by ex-VP Mike Pence.
Kushner would also be on the right side of a number of issues that Republican conservatives feel strongly about, most certainly including Israel. And, bear in mind, if a seventy-eight year old Donald Trump were to be re-elected and not finish his full term of office, Kushner would be his successor and the first Jewish president of the United States. You can bet that there are some people out there with long memories and deep pockets who might be longing for just that.
Now, given the fact that Kushner was Trump’s Senior Adviser and the one thing that nearly everyone agrees about the Donald was that his judgement on picking senior staff was flawed – one recalls names like Bolton and Pompeo – and would hardly be a credential for moving onward and upward, but it does nevertheless seem that some might actually be considering the possibility. And it is also true that Kushner brings almost nothing beyond name recognition to the ticket, but that is also the case for a number of other possible candidates for the position. Unlike most identified VP candidates, however, Kushner also would arrive with a considerable quantity of baggage. It is reported that when he was first named by Trump it proved to be difficult for him to get a security clearance, even with the president’s highly aggressive endorsement. This was possibly due to the activities of Jared’s father Charles Kushner who was a felon imprisoned in 2005-7 for business fraud to include illegal political contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering. The prosecuting United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey who handled the case was Chris Christie, later the governor of New Jersey and himself a presidential candidate. The witness tampering charge arose from Kushner’s retaliation against William Schulder, his sister Esther’s husband, who was cooperating with federal investigators against Kushner. Kushner hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, arranged to record a sexual encounter between the two, and had the tape sent to his sister. Donald Trump controversially pardoned Charles after the fact at the end of his term of office in 2020 together with a number of other Jewish businessmen who were on a list compiled by Jared.
Or, alternatively, the bad security review might have related to Jared’s family’s the Kushner Foundation which was funding completely illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine among its other activities. Since 2020, Kushner has also reportedly been heavily involved with Saudi Arabia, which has apparently benefited Kushner’s equity firm business interests to the tune of $2 billion.
Kushner and his wife might well be considered a footnote to history, minor players, but for the possibility that Jared might somehow connive his way into a position with real power if Donald Trump is re-elected, but he is in the news right now for other reasons. People forget that quite a lot of what goes on vis-à-vis Israel is driven by what might be called the “profit motive,” which admittedly might be considered a play on the word “prophet.” It all comes down to how much money will be generated once the Palestinians are kicked out of Gaza and the West Bank, just for starters. Kushner has recently revealed his own vision of successful conclusion of the war for Israel in an interview on February 15thplus additional comments and it goes like this: the Gazans should be removed from their homes and those who are still alive and who have not been repatriated to other countries including Sinai in Egypt, might be allowed to reside in a suitable refugee camp style location in the Negev desert, inside southern Israel. How exactly they will survive in a desert is not clear as Israel has no excess water resources to “make the desert bloom” as the expression goes. As Kushner explains how “… getting civilians out of Rafah and potentially into Egypt, might be possible ‘with the right diplomacy,’” suggesting that he “would just bulldoze something in the Negev, I would try to move people in there,” adding “I know that won’t be the popular thing to do, but I think that’s a better option to do, so you can go in and finish the job.” In his comments Kushner also demonstrated that he is delusional, commenting that “I think Israel’s gone way more out of their way than a lot of other countries would, to try to protect civilians from casualties.” More to the point, one has to suspect that Kushner’s views might well reflect those of Trump, who has called on Israel to “finish it up [in Gaza] and do it quickly.”
Israel meanwhile, one supposes, can get international donors like the US to pay for the cleanup of Gaza and it could be developed to provide luxurious seafront properties for Israeli and international Jewish buyers, which would produce substantial income for the government and also for investors like Kushner. He said that “Gaza’s waterfront property, it could be very valuable, if people would focus on building up livelihoods.. If you think about all the money that’s gone into this tunnel network and into all the munitions, if that would have gone into education or innovation, what could have been done? It’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but I think from Israel’s perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up.”
It might seem like a screwy idea but it is certainly not beyond the rapaciousness and cruelty that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is certainly capable of. And it would be a substantial step towards getting completely rid of the pesky Palestinians. There have been independent reports that real estate dealers in Israel are already framing tentative offers for dividing up the more desirable bits of Gaza land, particularly along the Mediterranean Sea. The sales would be for Jews only since part of the desirability of the ethnic cleansing would be to turn Israel into as close as possible an all-Jewish state, which is favored by most Israelis, including expectation of an influx of presumably wealthy diaspora Jews who opt to make their “Aliyah” in a more substantive way.
It is interesting to note how the thinking of Jared Kushner is possibly in sync with the intentions of many Israelis and foreign Jews, but there is also additional evidence that more stolen Palestinian land and houses will soon be up on the auction block for purchase by Jews only worldwide. In early March there was held a so-called “Israeli Real Estate Event” at synagogues and Jewish community centers in Canada, New York state and New Jersey. Though one event was canceled due to fear of demonstrators, the Israeli brokers were selling houses and building lots in Israel, to include the West Bank, most of which were “acquired” by force or through illegal contrivance from their original Arab owners. The advertising for the sales stated boldly that “In a world where uncertainty looms and antisemitism shows its ugly face more boldly than ever, the decision to invest in a home in Israel is not just wise—it’s exhilarating!” The “Events” took place even though it is illegal in the US and Canada to restrict house or land sales to one particular religion or ethnic group.
Finally, the suggestion that a lot of the thinking about whither Gaza is possibly being driven by money comes from the tale of the Ben Gurion Canal Project and the reports of multi-billion dollar oil and gas reserves offshore of Gaza in the Mediterranean Sea. The Ben Gurion project has long been mooted as a way to create an Israel controlled alternative to the existing Suez Canal. It would be a navigable canal connecting the Mediterranean and Red Sea that would run through Gaza and down Israel, ending at the Gulf of Aqaba near Eilat. The oil and gas reserves have been verified though they have been inaccessible as long as Gaza has been in Palestinian hands even though the Israelis control the waters, regularly shooting Palestinian fisherman who venture too far from shore. Both the energy resources and total control of a ship canal would be enormous economic assets for Israel. Putting all of that together with the Kushner plan and those business ventures by other Israelis one would be remiss if dismissing the possibility that future development in those areas is really all about money.
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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].
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Capitalism cuts the tree if it can not sell its shadow.
Or, ‘the cat calls the liver it cannot reach unclean’.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 87 percent election victory (turnout exceeded 77 percent, a historical record) sent the West into a frenzy.
The Americans, the British, the French and the Germans are trying to throw as much mud as they can.
“Fair and free elections were not held!”
What they understand from fair elections is the same as what the USA understands from taking away democracy with ‘bombs’; “If we don’t have staff (like Zelensky), that election doesn’t count!”
The trust is not in vain. According to the Russian Central Election Committee, there have been 12 million cyber attacks since the elections were announced!
This is 150 times higher than the previous highest number of attacks!
During the election process, they rained missiles and drones on Belgorod, the closest Russian city to Ukraine.
But no matter what they did, they could not affect the results.
Putin even received 55 percent of the votes in the ballot box held in Washington DC, the capital of the USA!
So how did Putin win this election, during a long and painful war, with such a vote share?
If you look carefully at the table below, you will understand why:
Before Putin came to power in 2000, Russia’s Gross National Product was approximately $196 billion in 1999.
Today, the same figure is 2 trillion 215 billion dollars, that is, more than 11 times that of 1999. (By the way, there is also dollar inflation, but we can still say that it is at least 8-9 times higher.)
In 1999, per capita income in Russia was 1330 dollars. Today it is $14,400, almost 11 times that.
Inflation was 36 and a half percent in 1999, and 3 and a half percent today and during the war.
Gold reserves were 12.6 billion dollars in 1999. Today it is more than $600 billion (47x increase).
Debt accounted for 92 percent of GNP in 1999, today it is 23 percent.
The average pension in 1999 was 449 rubles per month (about 4 and a half dollars at today’s exchange rate!). Today it is 19,332 rubles.
Assoc. Prof., Director of ATASAM Dr. Volkan Özdemir’s following observations are very appropriate:
“When Putin first came to power in 2000, he took over a country that was floundering after the collapse of the Soviets and was almost dragged to the edge of the cliff under the Yeltsin administration. After all, Russia in the 1990s was a country whose economy collapsed with shock therapies, its assets were plundered through privatizations, it was struggling with terrorism and political instability.
The same period was the year when the USA, once Russia’s rival, enjoyed global hegemony in an international system that had become unipolar. Under these conditions, in his first term, Putin began to follow a policy that was compatible with the Western system externally and prioritized security and economic recovery at home. He was successful and brought his country to its feet. Western influence was visible in his first cabinet and in examples such as his cooperation with the United States in the Afghanistan intervention.
Moreover, he developed much stronger relations with Europe and attached special importance to Germany, where he worked as an intelligence officer for years during the Cold War. Unlike the USA, the increasing gas sales to Europe and the investments received in return showed a search for integration. (..) However, the world economic crisis that broke out at the end of 2008 upset many balances, and the European countries were the ones most negatively affected by the global crisis.
In addition, the ‘Arab Spring’ that emerged in the following years, and specifically the events in Libya and Syria, began to shake not only the Middle East but also the international system.
While all of this required a new accounting, discussions on whether Russia would follow the Western direction or follow its own path intensified. In these circumstances, Putin faced the first serious challenge to his rule when he announced his candidacy for the 2012 Presidential elections as the latter’s representative. As a result of the opposition led by different political movements, liberals and the Western clique within the state against Putin, intense street demonstrations took place, especially in big cities. Putin, who managed to overcome the demonstrations in which he stated that he was personally targeted by Western extensions such as Soros, paved the way for being elected President for two more terms, this time for six years, in 2012.
Putin, who displayed a distant attitude towards the West during this period due to the influence of the Syrian civil war, shaped his new team on this axis, but despite everything, he continued to maintain a balance with the West. Although it would no longer burn bridges, it would have a foreign policy definition that would not hesitate to confront the USA and would become increasingly harsh. “The conflicts that started in Ukraine in 2014 led to a hardening of this attitude.”
As Özdemir has determined, there are three different Putin periods in Russia:
The first period is 2000-2008, which is compatible with the West (Georgian War).
The second term is 2008-2014, which differs from the West and opposes the unipolar world order, but is still not completely different from the West.
The third is 2014-2024 and its continuation of the period of leading the Global South by challenging the West and demanding a new world order.
It’s interesting that Putin’s vote rate shows an inverse relationship with periods compatible with the West.
Check out Vladimir Putin’s performances in the four previous Russian presidential elections in which he ran as a candidate:
2024 – 87.30%
2018 – 76.69%
2012 – 63.6%
2004 – 71.3%
2000 – 52.9%
As can be seen, as we moved away from Western influence, that is, as we moved away from under the wings of imperialism, the economy and votes increased.
Although the historical figure whom Putin takes as an example is shown as Peter the Great by most Russians, many experts also liken him to Ataturk.
The title of the article written by British lawyer Christopher B. Stone in 2005 was ‘A Kemalist in the Kremlin’.
“Putin could be Russia’s Ataturk,” Moscow Times writer Aleksey Bayer wrote in 2009.
In 2017, Patrick Buchanan, a politician and writer for The American Conservative magazine in the USA, said, “Putin is behaving like the Ataturk of the 21st Century.”
In 2018, at the international press conference watched by the whole world, Putin said of Ataturk, “He was a friend of Russia.” “The founder of modern Turkey is very valuable to us,” he said.
Atatürk also fought against Western Imperialism and established a modern independent republic, but not a westerner one.
Today, we can say that Putin is doing something similar.
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Hasan Erel is a Turkish journalist-writer. He worked as a diplomacy and foreign news reporter and editor in TRT and other media for 30 years. He is a frequent commentator of Sputnik News radio and CRI Turk in Turkiye.
Americans are just now starting to realize that they’ve been lied to about the war in Ukraine. (The propaganda effort has been quite effective, with the New York Times, in particular, acting as a mouthpiece for the government’s position.) More and more mainstream publications are exposing the lies, and a majority of Americans now oppose further arming of Ukraine.
The book Gaza Writes Back is a collection of short stories from 20 young Gazans. Although published in 2013, the book is highly relevant today.The stories reveal how the last five months is the culmination of a process which has been going on for decades.
Back on March 7th, more than two weeks prior to this tragedy, US intelligence already knew of a potential attack in Moscow, enough for the US State Department to issue a public advisory to Americans in Russia, warning personnel at both the US and UK embassies of a probable terrorist attack in Moscow at “large public gatherings including concerts.”
The worst actions of your government happen not in secrecy, but right out in the open under the narrative cover of mass media propaganda. The western empire doesn’t hide its worst deeds, it just manipulates the way people think about them.
Despite the continuing chaos at the southern border, the ever-burgeoning Federal bankruptcy waiting for the other shoe to drop and assorted civil disturbances,why should the American public care that Vladimir Putin wonre election as President for a fifth term in an 87% landslide and that with 112.3 million votes cast, 74% of the country cast their paper ballots in a record turnout for Putin.
The stand taken by those opposing the USA draft resolution was that its language was ambiguous and was not strong enough. They have a point here as the US draft used rather curious language. Despite this flaw, however, it would have been a step forward to go ahead with this. After all, can Russia and China ever hope that the USA will use just the kind of language they want?
Argentina: Estudiantes de la Plata midfielder, Javier Altamirano, suffered a seizure in a match against Boca Juniors on Sunday 17th March. The game was suspended. He is said to be stable and the CT scan did not reveal anything serious.
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The Jewish holiday of Purim, related in the Book of Esther, celebrates deliverance from a genocide.
How to celebrate it when death and starvation kill thousands in Gaza, and the holiday’s rhetoric, namely the memory of the archenemy Amalek, is being used by Israeli politicians responsible for it?
Jewish tradition as shaped by Rabbinic Judaism abhors literal reading of the Torah all the while considering it the holiest object in existence. This, in fact, is what distinguishes the Jews from the Karaims, who remain attached to literalism. One may offer different reasons for the rabbis’ insistence on interpreting biblical verses. They consider the text timeless, so in order to make it meaningful for future generations they must explain and decode it. This dynamic view of the eternal is reflected in the very term used for Judaic law, the halakha, which is derived from the root “move.” It may well be that rabbis felt uneasy with the literal reading and so offered their own understanding of a biblical verse. This approach rejects anachronism and fundamentalism and tries to make the Torah a living source of inspiration.
Violence is not rare in biblical texts. The Pentateuch and several of the books of the prophets, such as Joshua and Judges, teem with violent images. From the genocidal command to wipe out seven nations inhabiting the Promised Land to the obligation to blot out the memory of Amalek, there are quite a few episodes that appear to promote massacre. Biblical Israel was conquered under conditions that could hardly be described as peaceful.
But far from glorifying war, Jewish tradition decisively deemphasizes military prowess as the principal reason for the victories mentioned in the Bible. After the Romans’ destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem, Jewish life underwent a transformation. Viewed in the context of Judaism, the annihilation of Jerusalem defined the normative attitude toward force, resistance, and the Land of Israel for nearly two millennia.
Rather than promote revenge, Jewish tradition encourages self-examination. After a calamity or a misfortune occurs, one is advised to examine and correct one’s own misdeeds (lefashpesh bemaasaw). This approach suggests that the Temple was razed by the Romans because of gratuitous hatred among the Jews, and that the first exile to Babylonia occurred because of illicit sex, murder, and idolatry.
The Roman siege of Jerusalem in the first century, like the Israeli siege of Gaza, sharply divided the Jews.
The scholars of the Law tended to favor negotiated compromise, while the zealots organized a forceful response. Classical exegetes — such as the Italian Ovadia Seforno (1470–1550) — condemned the advocates of armed struggle in particularly severe terms: “If the Zealots had heeded Rabbi Yohanan Ben Zakkai [a prominent scholar opposed to violence], the Temple of Jerusalem would not be destroyed.” Considering the central position held by the Temple in Judaism, the accusation is indeed serious and serves as a warning against any collective temptation to use force. The Mishna defines a strong man as someone who succeeds in controlling his own inclinations, passions, and urges (Pirke Avot, 4:1).
But what does Jewish tradition do with explicit violence mentioned in the Torah? The oral tradition interprets it allegorically: the sword and the bow used by Jacob the Patriarch against his enemies (Genesis 48:22) become prayer and supplication (Bereshit Rabbah 97:6); the victory of Benaiah over Moab (2 Samuel 23:20) now stands for Torah study (Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot, 18b).
To some, Purim provides a model for conflict resolution. The story is as simple as it is prophetic. Haman, the Persian vizier, has planned a total massacre: “to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day” (Esther 3:13). The response of the Jews was to proclaim a fast of repentance, but at the same time to find a way to influence the king and thereby circumvent the vizier and his decree. Queen Esther intervened, revealed to the king her Jewish origins, and convinced him to stop the planned genocide. “But it did not occur to any of the Jews to use physical means against Haman,” noted Rabbi Elhanan Wasserman in his commentary on the history of Purim written at the end of the 1930s (Jewish Guardian 1977, 8–9). Yet, the massacre of 75 000 people at the hand of the Jews that is mentioned in the final chapter, albeit explicitly authorized by the king, causes anguish and calls for interpretation.
One such initiative was undertaken by the Shalom Center in Philadelphia. A range of people wrote their own versions of the final chapter. Many were inspired by classical Judaic sources aware that violence can only beget more violence and cycles of revenge. One commentary suggests that Jews offered gifts of food to their erstwhile enemies, which dovetails with the Purim custom of mishloah manot, sending each other edible items. Moreover, such behavior would be considered heroic. Avot de Rabbi Nathan, an 8th century source, defines a hero as someone who can turn an enemy into a friend (23:1).
Yet, quite a few followers of National Judaism (or, in Hebrew, dati-leumi), including members of the current Israeli government, revere a different kind of a hero. They erected a shrine to commemorate Dr Baruch Goldstein (1956–1994), a US-born physician, who massacred dozens of Muslims praying in Hebron on the day of Purim. He had apparently been influenced by the biblical readings associated with Purim, calling for the extermination of Amalek. He saw Amalek in Muslims and Palestinians, which inspired his murderous mission.
The association of the Palestinians with Amalek seems to have become so common in Israel that it encourages unbridled cruelty from IDF soldiers sent to Gaza. They chant with joy about how they are destroying Amalek. The direct link between the biblical texts and the challenges facing Israel encourages violence as has been graphically shown at the International Court of Justice in The Hague in January 2024.
Jews have long associated their enemies with Amalek. Among others, Zionists have been often portrayed as Amalekites by those Jews who oppose the Zionist colonization of Palestine. But they would never resort to violence in their struggle against the modern Amalek. Rather, some rabbis called on the faithful to resist the internal Amalek and fight off the emotion, in rabbinical parlance, the evil inclination (yetser har’a), which tempts some Jews to identify with Zionism and the state that embodies this ideology. The numerical value (gematria) of the letters constituting Amalek is equal to that of the letters in the word safeq, doubt. These rabbis argue that rejection of Zionism should brook no doubt.
Zionist settlement in Palestine and the unilateral declaration of independence by the state of Israel in 1948 challenged the tradition of non-literalism, certainly among the secularized settlers but only slightly less among those affiliated with National Judaism. From the beginning, Zionism has encouraged love of the land, a love that has taken political and ideological forms. The nature hikes with the Torah in the hand have been intended to impart an intimate knowledge of the terrain mentioned in biblical verses. This organic intimacy breeds literal rapport with the Torah recounting events that are believed to have happened mostly in that land.
But the events narrated in the Book of Esther are located elsewhere. Against the continuing massacres and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza we can celebrate Purim by transforming the violence it contains into a manifestation of empathy. We can write our own finales for the Book of Esther. After all, Purim is a holiday of radical transformation. Haman thought he would be the one to be honored by the king, but it was his worst enemy, Mordechai, whom Haman was forced to praise and parade. Jews were facing a genocide, but then the tables turned, transforming a day of anguish into festivity. The Torah is eternal precisely because it is not immutable and allows for time-sensitive interpretations, including those of the Book of Esther.
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Yakov M. Rabkin is Professor Emeritus of History at the Université of Montréal. His publications include over 300 articles and a few books: Science between Superpowers, A Threat from Within: a Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism, What is Modern Israel?, Demodernization: A Future in the Past and Judaïsme, islam et modernité. He did consulting work for, inter alia, OECD, NATO, UNESCO and the World Bank. E-mail: [email protected]. Website: www.yakovrabkin.ca
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The book Gaza Writes Back is a collection of short stories from 20 young Gazans. Although published in 2013, the book is highly relevant today.The stories reveal how the last five months is the culmination of a process which has been going on for decades.
The title is curious: “Gaza Writes Back”.Perhaps it is an alternative to “Gaza Fights Back”. Certainly in the context of Gaza, writing is an important form of resistance to Israeli repression, occupation and massacres. The oppressor recognizes this as well. At least ninety five journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since October 7.
The editor of Gaza Writes Back was an English literature and creative writing professor at Gaza’s Islamic University named Refaat Alareer. Many of the contributors to this collection of short stories were Alareer’s students.
There are many references in the book to Israel’s attacks on Gaza in 2008-9 named “Operation Cast Lead”.
As the anthologywas being printed and first distributed, Israel launched the massacre named “Operation Protective Edge”.In six weeks,Israel killed 2,191 Palestinians and injured 11,231while 71 Israelis were killed.Thirty Palestinians for every single Israeli. As editor Alareer says, “This book shows the world that despite Israel’s continuous attempts to kill steadfastness in us, Palestinians keep going on , never surrendering to pain or death, and always seeing and seeking liberty and hope in the darkest of times.”
The editor Alareer says, writing is “an act of resistance and an obligation to humanity to raise awareness among people blinded by themulti-million dollar Israeli campaign of ‘hasbara’ (‘persuasion’, or more accurately, disinformation.)”
Most of the stories recount difficult moments and experiences. That is natural because the oppression in Gaza has been relentless for decades. Here is a concise summary of the conditions in 2014 when this book came out: “If you lived in Gaza, how would YOU feel?”
It is impressive that Gazans continue to resist and maintain their humanity despite the efforts to dehumanize them.
The story “L is for Life” is about a young woman writing a letter to her father who died eleven years earlier. She speaks of her mother’s “bitter loneliness”. It reminds us that for every Palestinian killed there is pain and suffering caused to each of their friends and family. How many women and men share that “bitter loneliness” because their partners or children were killed? How many lives have been irreparably harmed by the injuries and amputations? The author travels to an orphanage that her late father spoke ofand sees hope in the midst of destruction.
The story “One War Day” describes a mother who opens all the windows at night to avoid windows exploding inwards if there is an Israeli bombing. When the roof collapses the author’s brother is buried under the rubble with his hands still on the book he was reading.
The story “Spared” describes a girl whose mother insists she stay inside for lunch rather than go out where kids are playing soccer in the street.That saves her from death or injury when a bomb is dropped.Kids died and there were amputated limbs and scarred faces. “Our neighborhood was blown to smithereens in a split second. No more games played. No more goals. No more cheering. And my friends grew up in a second.“
In the story “A Wish for Insomnia” the writer imagines she is an Israeli soldier with post traumatic stress disorder. As the young writer imagines, there must be Israeli soldiers who take home the nightmare of what they have done just as there are US soldiers with the same mental and emotional disorder. The Palestinian author writes, “The past few weeks were agonizing for the family. Their father (the Israeli soldier) did not leave the bedroom. All they saw and heard of him was his screaming in the middle of the night, the noise of things breaking, and his moaning during the day.”He has nightmares and says, “We were sent in tanks to Gaza…. We were instructed to shoot to kill and we shot almost every moving thing. We shot the water tanks, a couple of stray dogs, a cow, a dozen people, and there was that woman with her kid…. I wish I could know what happened to the kid. The kid cried the whole night. I kept hearing the commander’s order in the background, but it was the little kid’s voice that haunted me everywhere…..”
The short story titled “Please Shoot to Kill” portrays family life and fear during nights and days of bombing and Israeli soldiers kicking down the door to their house with M16 rifles ready to fire.
It describes what it’s like to see the soldiers ransacking the house then hitting the father. What it’s like to see one’s little sibling hit by shrapnel so badly the leg would be amputated. What it’s like to have Apache helicopters overhead and Meerkhava tanks on the street. The father needs a kidney operation in Egypt but is unable to go there. Instead, a baby that needs surgery is allowed to go. “Laila did not hate the little baby who was sent instead of her father. She only hated Israel for making it so that the doctor had to choose. She only wished this baby would survive, grow up, and become a freedom fighter.”
The story titled “From Beneath” describes the thoughts of a young woman under the rubble, unable to move and sensing what parts of her body have been crushed and how her life was coming to end.
The story “Lost at Once” is a love story giving insights into Gazan social class differences.
These are just a few of the twenty-three short stories in this fine book.
The editor, Professor Refaat Alareer, was also a moving poet and an influential voice with 83 thousand followers on Twitter/X. His twitter handle was @ThisIsGaZa.In his last interview before being killed, Refaat said “I am an academic. Probably the toughest thing I have at home is an Expo marker. But if the Israelis invade, if they barge at us, charge at us, open the door to massacre us, I am going to use that marker to throw it at the Israeli soldiers, even if that that is the last thing I do. And this is the feeling of everybody. We are helpless. We have nothing to lose.”
Refaat Alareer and his brother, sister and four of their children were killed in a targeted airstrike on 6 December 2023.His last poem is a testament to his courage and dedication. It has been widely remembered at demonstrations against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
IF I MUST DIE
If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself—
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale
Some of Refaat Alareer’s outstanding academic lectures are available online. A tribute to him by his publisher Just World Books is online here. The heading of Refaat Alareer’s twitter account says, “I teach; therefore, I am.Have you read Gaza Writes Back?”
This book exemplifies courage and dignity in the face ofhardship and repeated attacks. Each story is different but collectively they give a sense ofcontinued dignity and hope despite suffering and pain. Ultimately, the stories are uplifting.It is a measure of Israel’s lawlessness that they had to murder the editor of Gaza Writes Back.
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Rick Sterling is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area.He can be reached at [email protected]
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Last Friday evening of March 22nd, a horrific terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall concert venue near Moscow murdered at least 133 Russian people, with over 120 more wounded. Within the first 24-hours after this egregious violence, Russian authorities arrested and detained eleven potential suspects that included the four alleged terrorist gunmen. In his address to the nation, President Vladimir Putin said that the terrorists were captured in Bryansk, Russia near the Ukraine border attempting to escape through “a window” provided by Ukrainian collaborators. In Putin’s words:
They [terrorist] tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border.
Thus, within hours the Russian leader was linking this act of terrorism to the Kiev government and by implication, Washington. Additionally, too many US fingerprints, unable to be covered up, are now rapidly emerging from this crime scene.
Back on March 7th, more than two weeks prior to this tragedy, US intelligence already knew of a potential attack in Moscow, enough for the US State Department to issue a public advisory to Americans in Russia, warning personnel at both the US and UK embassies of a probable terrorist attack in Moscow at “large public gatherings including concerts.” A day later on March 8th, Reuters reported:
The U.S. embassy in Russia warned that ‘extremists’ had imminent plans for an attack in Moscow, hours after Russian security services said they had foiled a planned shooting at a synagogue by a cell from the Afghan arm of Islamic State.
Apparently, the March 7th US intelligence details warning of an imminent potential attack at a Moscow concert were never passed on or shared with Russian security services, which according to former CIA operative Larry Johnson is standard international protocol. Shortly after the attack, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded:
If Washington had information, it should be shared and that if Washington had no information, it should not be talking in such a way.
So apparently in this exceptional case, the US elected to break international spook practice by allowing political issues [once again] to interfere with the CIA decision to withhold such vital information of an imminent terror attack that would have saved 133 Russian lives. This in and of itself is both morally reprehensible and potentially criminal as an accomplice to international terrorism, aka the Gladio operations of the 1970s through the 1980s. Within a couple hours after the attack, both the US government reported and ISIS via an alleged Telegram disclosure claimed responsibility for terrorism at the Moscow concert. The ISIS statement posted on Telegram late last Friday night:
Islamic State fighters attacked a large gathering of Christians in the city of Krasnogorsk on the outskirts of the Russian capital, Moscow, killing and wounding hundreds and causing great destruction to the place before they withdrew to their bases safely.
And like clockwork also late on Friday night of March 22nd from Reuters:
The United States has intelligence confirming Islamic State’s claim of responsibility for a deadly shooting at a concert near Moscow, two U.S. officials said on Friday.
White House National Security Council (NSC) spokeswoman Adrienne Wilson stated:
Earlier this month, the U.S. government had information about a planned terrorist attack in Moscow – potentially targeting large gatherings, to include concerts – which prompted the State Department to issue a public advisory to Americans in Russia… [Washington] has forwarded this information to the Russian authorities.
Less than 24-hours after the attack in predictable US cover-up mode, NSC propagandist Adrienne Wilson stated:
ISIS bears sole responsibility for this attack. There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever.
Belatedly after the attack in an attempt to cover their March 7th tracks, an anonymous U.S. official explained:
We did warn the Russians appropriately.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova refutes these feeble US denials. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova questioned how the US could know about it. If they knew such an attack was going to happen, according to Zakharova, the US should immediately share that information with Moscow or better yet, keep silent.
Plus, before any investigation had even begun, within a couple hours after the attack and minutes after Russia first revealed the attack, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby was mouthing his pre-scripted instructions:
At this moment, nothing indicates that Ukraine or Ukrainians were involved in this shooting.
His premature declaration of Ukraine’s innocence didn’t fly with the always astute Maria Zakharova:
On what basis do officials in Washington draw any conclusions in the midst of a tragedy about someone’s innocence?
She [Zakharova] said that if Washington had information, it should be shared and that if Washington had no information, it should not be talking in such a way.
A very short time after that, Reuters was busily reporting:
Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), named after an old term for the region that included parts of Iran, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, emerged in eastern Afghanistan in late 2014 and quickly established a reputation for extreme brutality.
Then came the backup apologists for Ukraine insisted that ISIS-K was the culprit with the axe to grind against Russia. Business Insider, counterterrorism and Middle East expert at CSIS Daniel Byman remarking how ISIS-K is “one of the more successful branches” of the Islamic State:
If you want, you can go back to the Russian conquest of the Caucasus. And then you could go to the Soviet deportations of Muslim populations
Then another “expert” deflector,Washington-based think tank Wilson Center director Michael Kugelman told Reuters:
[ISIS-K] sees Russia as being complicit in activities that regularly oppress Muslims.
Reuters threw in another expert to convince the world ISIS, and not Ukraine or the United States was totally behind the Moscow terrorist attack:
Adam Dolnik, a Czech security expert who has studied past Islamist attacks in India, Kenya, Russia and elsewhere, said the Islamic State claim appeared credible, although ‘that will not stop the Russians from leveraging this for their foreign policy agenda vis-a-vis Ukraine and the West.’
But others who may be more credible and objective, with experienced backgrounds in US intelligence, like former CIA and State Department Counterterrorism analyst-journalist Larry Johnson points out that within two hours, how did the State Department know Kiev wasn’t involved? Larry concludes that in all likelihood, the US had intelligence but failed to share it with Russia. Larry Johnson suspects that a CIA cutout calling itself OSINTdefender (Open Source Intelligence), a self-proclaimed social media monitor on Twitter/ X made the following statement just hours after the attack:
Members of U.S. National Security Council and the White House have reportedly started to become Increasingly Frustrated by “Unauthorized Brazen Actions” taken by Ukraine against Russia, including their recent Campaign of Long-Range Drone Strikes having Targeted at least 25 Oil Refineries, Terminals, Depots and Storage Facilities across Western Russia; with some Biden Administration Officials believing these Strikes will cause a Spike in Global Oil Prices as well as Significant Escalation and Retaliation against Ukraine like was seen during tonight’s Large-Scale Missile Attack.
In the past Larry Johnson having handled this kind of intel intervention, sees this as the OSINTdefender post as the CIA’s way of distancing itself from further involvement in the US-Ukraine security services operation responsible for the massacre near Moscow.
Moreover, former Marine Corps officer and weapons inspector Scott Ritter also points to US collusion with Ukraine to carry out this atrocity, reminding us that ever since the neo-Nazi Maidan coup that State Department’s Victoria Nuland illegally perpetrated in 2014, and prior, the CIA has closely worked with Ukraine, and since Putin’s 2022 Special Military Operation, the CIA has doubled down on acts of espionage and violence, working-ever-so-closely with Ukraine’s SBS intelligence services, adding:
We know that the CIA is behind the in recruitment, training and direction of various anti-Putin Russian extremist groups that are operating under the umbrella of the Ukrainian intelligence services. These forces are carrying out active attacks against Russia in the area of Belgorod and Kursk. Let me make it clear- the CIA is behind the invasion of Russia by CIA-backed and funded Russian nationalist groups working for Ukrainian intelligence.
Scott Ritter also asserts that Braindead Biden authorized this CIA-Ukraine attack against Russia with additional backing from key Congressional CIA oversight members, concluding:
America is at war with Russia. The terrorist attack on the Crocus hall and venue was an American attack.
I would believe the expertise of Larry Johnson and Scott Ritter over any of the Rothschild ownedReuters sources. Just one day before this Moscow terror, I wrote on thegovernmentrag.com about the decades long history of both Israeli and US governments creating, financing, training and using terrorist groups, vis-à-vis al Qaeda and ISIS, to pull off 9/11, initiate their manufactured “War on Terror,” and as proxies how ISIS is used to destabilize not just the Middle East, but Africa and beyond.
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Joachim Hagopian is a West Point graduate, former Army officer and author of “Don’t Let the Bastards Getcha Down” exposing a faulty US military leadership system based on ticket punching up the seniority ladder, invariably weeding out the best and brightest, leaving mediocrity and order followers rising to the top as politician-bureaucrat generals designated to lose every modern US war by elite design. After the military, Joachim earned a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and worked as a licensed therapist in the mental health field with abused youth and adolescents for more than a quarter century. In Los Angeles he found himself battling the largest county child protective services in the nation within America’s thoroughly broken and corrupt child welfare system.
The experience in both the military and child welfare system prepared him well as a researcher and independent journalist, exposing the evils of Big Pharma and how the Rockefeller controlled medical and psychiatric system inflict more harm than good, case in point, the pandemic hoax and kill shot genocide. As an independent journalist for the last decade, Joachim has written hundreds of articles for many news sites, including Global Research,lewrockwell.com and currently https//jameshfetzer.org, Inteldrop.org and https://thegovernmentrag.com. As a published author of a 5-book volume series entitled Pedophilia & Empire: Satan, Sodomy & the Deep State, Joachim’s books and chapters are Amazon bestsellers in child advocacy and human rights categories. His A-Z sourcebook series fully document and expose the global pedophilia scourge and remain available free at https://pedoempire.org/content s/. Joachim also hosts the weekly Revolution Radio broadcast “Cabal Empire Exposed” on Friday morning at 7AM EST (ID: revradio, password: rocks!).
Featured image: Russian Crocus City Hall amphitheater interiors, day after terrorist attack on 22 March 2024 (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)
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The worst actions of your government happen not in secrecy, but right out in the open under the narrative cover of mass media propaganda. The western empire doesn’t hide its worst deeds, it just manipulates the way people think about them.
Tomorrow we could unearth rock-solid proof that the US government knowingly orchestrated 9/11, and that crime in and of itself still wouldn’t be as bad as what the US government is facilitating in Gaza right now, in plain view of the entire world. And even if such a revelation did occur, the imperial media would probably either ignore it or spin it so that its impact is dulled into impotence.
The empire’s worst atrocities happen in the open because the empire’s worst atrocities involve butchering and starving huge numbers of people, which is impossible to do in secret. They can assassinate a government official here and sign a malignant secret agreement there without needing to do it openly, but murder at mass scale isn’t something you can conceal in the information age.
The US-centralized globe-spanning power structure therefore relies heavily on its historically unprecedented ability to psychologically manipulate global populations when carrying out such atrocities. The empire has invested more heavily in soft power than any empire or government in human history, and the science of modern propaganda has been advancing under this investment at least as rapidly as military technology has been.
That’s why you can have the most damning information imaginable about the people who rule over us sitting right out in the open, and you won’t see anywhere remotely close to the public outrage and backlash you ought to see. The US government can literally back a genocide without hiding any part of it, and the political-media class will simply manipulate public psychology into getting lost in a bunch of hogwash about self-defense and human shields and difficulties delivering food and medical supplies and hey Biden is working hard to do the right thing here and it’s all very complicated and everything bad that happens in Gaza can be blamed on Hamas anyway.
It’s a truly astonishing power that would inspire awe if it wasn’t so evil. Power is controlling what happens, but real power is controlling what people think about what happens.
Whistleblowers and investigative journalists provide an invaluable service to humanity for which we should all be grateful, but what this civilization needs more than anything right now is not so much new information about what the powerful are doing, but rather the ability to lucidly perceive the information that’s already been made public. We need people clearly seeing what’s already right in front of them, without the lens of distortion and obfuscation that the powerful have placed over their eyes.
Until we find a way to snap a critical mass of people out of the propaganda-induced coma the empire has placed them in, they’ll be able to get away with any evil they need to commit in order to secure their interests and advance their agendas. We can work on this front by doing everything we can to get people looking at the reality of what our rulers are doing at every opportunity, in as creative and interesting a way as we can come up with. The more eyes open to the truth, the more lucid perceivers there will be to help open the eyes of others.
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It took some years for Americans to realize they’d been lied to about the war in Vietnam.
Thanks to the publication of the Pentagon Papers, and thanks to the antiwar movement, Americans eventually learned about the injustices and failures of that war.
Likewise, it took several years after the starts of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for Americans to realize they’d been lied to about those wars as well.
Americans are just now starting to realize that they’ve been lied to about the war in Ukraine. (The propaganda effort has been quite effective, with the New York Times, in particular, acting as a mouthpiece for the government’s position.) More and more mainstream publications are exposing the lies, and a majority of Americans now oppose further arming of Ukraine.
This essay is a summary of what the U.S. government has been hiding about the war in Ukraine, with links to sources for further information.
According to Brown University’s Costs of War project, U.S. military actions since 9/11 directly killed over 900,000 people, with an additional 3.5 million people dying from indirect effects. The wars cost Americans at least $8 trillion and displaced over 38 million people from their homes. The U.S. spends over a trillion dollars a year on its military, if you count all expenditures.
If we go back to the 1960s, the number killed by U.S. wars includes the several million killed in the Vietnam war, the approximately 1 million killed by U.S. support for Indonesian military’s attacks on left wing groups, and the hundreds of thousands, at least, killed in proxy wars and government overthrows in Latin America.
The wars, overthrows, and associated sanctions caused mass migrations worldwide — particularly in Europe and at the southern U.S. border — and destabilized politics. Yet almost nobody (except for whistleblowers) was held accountable for these disasters; indeed, many of the same people are in Congress or work for the government or the weapons industry.
Moreover, the U.S. government lied about almost all the wars — in particular, about the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, but also about the war in Yugoslovia, as documented in this essay in Harper’s Magazine. (In short, the Kosovo Liberation Army that the U.S. supported was, basically, a terrorist organization, and U.S. propaganda greatly overstated the nobility of the U.S. intervention.)
So, it should come as no surprise that our government is lying now about the war in Ukraine. Specifically, claims by President Biden and others that the Russian invasion was “unprovoked” are greatly exaggerated.
Read in detail what these diplomats, secretaries of Defense, journalists, academics, and politicians have to say:
“Interference by the United States and its NATO allies in Ukraine’s civil struggle has exacerbated the crisis within Ukraine, undermined the possibility of bringing the two easternmost provinces back under Kyiv’s control, and raised the specter of possible conflict between nuclear-armed powers. Furthermore, in denying that Russia has a “right” to oppose extension of a hostile military alliance to its national borders, the United States ignores its own history of declaring and enforcing for two centuries a sphere of influence in the Western hemisphere.”
“I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the founding fathers of this country turn over in their graves.”
“Many have pointed to the expansion of NATO in the mid-1990s as a critical provocation. At the time, I opposed that expansion, in part for fear of the effect on Russian-U.S. relations….Still, the first step in finding a solution [to the war in Ukraine] is acknowledging the problem and recognizing that our actions have contributed to that hostility.”
“[T]rying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching, … recklessly ignoring what the Russians considered their own vital national interests.”
“Before the war, far right Ukrainian nationalist groups like the Azov Brigade were soundly condemned by the US Congress. Kiev’s determined campaign against the Russian language is analogous to the Canadian government trying to ban French in Quebec. Ukrainian shells have killed hundreds of civilians in the Donbas and there are emerging reports of Ukrainian war crimes. The truly moral course of action would be to end this war with negotiations rather than prolong the suffering of the Ukrainian people in a conflict they are unlikely to win without risking American lives.”
“In 2014 the United States backed an uprising – in its final stages a violent uprising – against the legitimately elected Ukrainian government of Viktor Yanukovych, which was pro-Russian.”
Chas W. Freeman, former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and a Lifetime Director of the Atlantic Council, says in The Many Lessons of the War in Ukraine:
“Less than a day after the US-engineered coup that installed an anti-Russian regime in Kyiv in 2014, Washington formally recognized the new regime… The United States and NATO began a multi-billion-dollar effort to reorganize, retrain, and re-equip Kyiv’s armed forces. The avowed purpose was to enable Kyiv to reconquer the Donbas and eventually Crimea…. Crimea was Russian-speaking and had several times voted not to be part of Ukraine.” And: “From 2014 to 2022, the civil war in Donbas took nearly 15,000 lives.” Freeman says that the U.S. undermined several possible peace deals. “Ukraine is being eviscerated on the altar of Russophobia” but Russia has not, after all, been weakened.
“The mystery was why the US – which throughout the Cold War dreamed that Russia might one day have a democratic revolution and a leader who, however haltingly, would try to make Russia into a democracy and join the West – would choose to quickly push NATO into Russia’s face when it was weak. A very small group of officials and policy wonks at that time, myself included, asked that same question, but we were drowned out.”America and NATO Aren’t Innocent Bystanders [from the title]
“With respect to Ukraine, we have not sat on the sidelines. We have been very much involved. Members of the Senate have been there, members of the State Department who have been on the square …. I really think that the clear position of the United States has been in part what has helped lead to this change in regime…. I think it was our role, including sanctions and threats of sanctions, that forced, in part, Yanukovich from office.”
“We are at the edge of war with Russia and China on issues which we partly created, without any concept of how this is going to end or what it’s supposed to lead to.”
“Although it is obscene to blame the United States for Putin’ inhumane attack on Ukraine, to insist that the invasion was entirely unprovoked is misleading. …. the invasion of Ukraine is taking place in a historical and geopolitical context in which the United States has played and still plays the principal role, and Americans must grapple with this fact.”
Fiona Hill, former official at the U.S. National Security Council during the administration of George W. Bush, in the New York Times’ Putin has the U.S. right where he wants it:
“At the time, I was the national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia, part of a team briefing Mr. Bush. We warned him that Mr. Putin would view steps to bring Ukraine and Georgia closer to NATO as a provocative move that would likely provoke pre-emptive Russian military action. But ultimately, our warnings weren’t heeded.”
“The de facto alliance of Ukrainian westernizing liberals and the fascist Ukrainian far-Right which together drove the so-called Revolution of Dignity in 2013-14 ignored their obligation to respect the democratic process.”
“US hubris and Russian paranoia undermined partnership.” After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a weakened Russia sought closer ties to the West and even helped George W. Bush fight the war on terror. But instead of helping Russia fight Chechen rebels, which Russia considered to be terrorists, the U.S. lent support to those rebels. The U.S. pressed its advantage, aggressively expanding NATO, instigating regime change operations in countries friendly to Russia, and undermining Russian energy exports.
Finally, in light of the growing problems with Russia in the former Soviet bloc, the US push in 2008 to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was ill-advised at best. It tied together the two strands of the Bush administration’s hedging policy—NATO expansion and Eurasian geopolitical pluralism—in a way guaranteed to provoke a powerful Russian backlash. Key allies, notably France and Germany, were adamantly opposed. Bush’s own ambassador in Moscow warned that extending an invitation to Ukraine would cross the “brightest of red lines” and elicit sharp condemnation across the political spectrum.
NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg, in Opening remarks at the joint meeting of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) and the Subcommittee on Security and Defence (SEDE):
Putin “went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders.”
Stephen M. Walt, professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School, in an essay in Foreign Policy:
“This war would have been far less likely if the United States had adopted a strategy of foreign-policy restraint…. The Biden Administration and its predecessors are far from blameless.”
“[T]he provocations as you enumerated them were very great. And whether there was any alternative for Russia other than this recourse to a military solution, is a difficult question.”
Richard Sakwa, Professor at Univ. of Kent and author of multiple books on Russia and Ukraine in Book Talk: The Lost Peace:
“The argument that the invasion was unprovoked is completely false.”
“The global north, once again, it’s got this obsession, obsessive tendency to fall into war, endlessly. So the global north clearly is shooting itself in the foot. Blowback is going to be massive.”
“One can readily imagine how Americans would react if Russia, China, India, or another peer competitor admitted countries from Central America and the Caribbean to a security alliance that it led – and then sought to add Canada as an official or de facto military ally. It is highly probable that the United States would have responded by going to war years ago. Yet even though Ukraine has an importance to Russia comparable to Canada’s importance to the United States, our leaders expected Moscow to respond passively to the growing encroachment.They have been proven disastrously wrong, and thanks to their ineptitude, the world is now a far more dangerous place.”
“The war in Ukraine did not start on 24 February 2022, but already in February 2014. The civilian population of the Donbas has endured continued shelling from Ukrainian forces since 2014, notwithstanding the Minsk Agreements. These attacks on Lugansk and Donetsk significantly increased in January-February 2022, as reported by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine.”
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The 2019 RAND Corporation study Overextending and Unbalancing Russia “examines nonviolent, cost-imposing options that the United States and its allies could pursue across economic, political, and military areas to stress – overextend and unbalance – Russia’s economy and armed forces and the regime’s political standing at home and abroad.” It includes the paragraph:
“Providing lethal aid to Ukraine would exploit Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability. But any increase in US military arms and advice to Ukraine would need to be carefully calibrated to increase the costs to Russia of sustaining its existing commitment without provoking a much wider conflict in which Russia, by reason of proximity, would have significant advantages.”
The highlighted words indicate that the authors were quite aware that US provocations would cause Russia to respond militarily.
The New Yorker’s Is the F.B.I. Truly Biased Against Trump? contains a telling paragraph on the U.S. government’s efforts to suppress information about exactly what happened in Ukraine:
According to [FBI agent] Buma’s statement, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, on February 24, 2022, he was told to terminate relations with one of his most valuable sources in that field, Dynamo. The order came from both his supervisors and the F.B.I.’s Foreign Influence Task Force, and, per Buma, superiors told him that the shutdown of Dynamo was based on “highly classified information from the National Security Agency” which he could not access. They also said that it was part of a broader effort, around the time of the invasion, to close off many “sources related to Russia/Ukraine matters.”
After the collapse of the USSR, Russia wanted desperately to be integrated into the West and, up to the end of 2021, pleaded with D.C. to come to an equitable peace in Ukraine, but the U.S. wanted to weaken Russia, and NATO needed an enemy to justify its existence. The expansion of NATO provoked the war that is now touted as showing the need for NATO.
According to the LA Times’s Russia feels threatened by NATO. There’s history behind that, “some of Russia’s security concerns are real. Offering to discuss them doesn’t qualify as appeasement; Thirty years ago, Russia had a buffer zone of satellite states to its west. Now it has only the unimpressive presence of Belarus.” The essay quotes Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine: “There are some concerns on the Russian side that are legitimate.”
A New York Times exposé The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin, dated February 25, 2024, revealed that the CIA had been coordinating with the Ukrainian intelligence since at least 2014 and that the Ukrainians had been launching assasinations and other kinetic actions in Crimea and Russia. As Mark Episkopos writes in Responsible Statecraft, CIA in Ukraine: Why is this not seen as provocation?: “An explosive new NYT report shows how Washington needlessly fed into Russia’s worst fears and precipitated the invasion, justified or not.”
From 2018, in Medium’s American Lethal Weapons Could Already Be on the Ukrainian Front Line: “Two weeks ago, the Trump administration announced it will allow the sale of some lethal weapons to Ukraine, including the Javelin anti-tank missile….Butusov identified the [Nazi] Azov Battalion as a recipient of the PSRL-1 [grenade launcher] systems.”
The U.S. repeatedly squashed peace deals that could have prevented or ended the war. After 2014, the U.S. shipped arms to Ukraine, encouraging it not to implement the Minsk Agreements meant to keep the peace in Ukraine. Reuters reported: “In an interview published in Germany’s Zeit magazine on Wednesday, former German chancellor Angela Merkel said that the Minsk agreements had been an attempt to ‘give Ukraine time’ to build up its defences.” Zelensky apparently admitted the same thing. In December of 2021, the Biden administration refused to negotiate concerning Ukrainian entry to NATO. And the U.S. prevented a peace deal even after Russia’s invasion, as reported here: “Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in an interview posted to his YouTube channel on Saturday that the US and its Western allies ‘blocked’ his efforts of mediating between Russia and Ukraine to bring an end to the war in its early days.”
Likewise, the American Conservative published Why Peace Talks, But No Peace? (The U.S. has prevented earnest negotiations and prolonged the war in Ukraine.):
Three separate times in the early weeks of the war, negotiations produced the real possibility of peace. The third even yielded a tentative agreement that was, according to Putin, signed. Both sides made “huge concessions,” including Ukraine promising each time not to join NATO. But each time, the U.S. put a stop to the promise of a diplomatic solution and peace, allowing the war to go on and to escalate, seemingly in the pursuit of U.S., not Ukrainian, interests.
David Arakhamia, a high-ranking member of Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People political party, said that Kyiv could have ended the war with Russia after a month if it agreed not to join NATO. The official said that Moscow was not concerned about other issues, such as “denazification,” but only wanted Kyiv to agree to neutrality.
In an interview with TV channel 1+1, a Ukrainian network, Arakhamia confirmed previous reporting that Moscow and Kyiv had nearly agreed to end the war in March 2022. Still, Ukraine’s Western backers pushed it to try to win the war against Russia
The Washington Post recently exposed that “Since 2015, the CIA has spent tens of millions of dollars to transform Ukraine’s Soviet-formed services into potent allies against Moscow, officials said…. The extent of the CIA’s involvement with Ukraine’s security services has not previously been disclosed.”
An WSJ/NORC poll taken in June of 2022 showed that 58% of Ukrainians polled thought that the U.S. bears a great deal or some responsibility for the war. They knew what the U.S. did.
As Dennis Kucinich said, the U.S. government used “the good, courageous people of Ukraine as pawns in a vicious and deadly geo-political chess game which began well before the illegal Russian invasion. And it is now planning to do for the people of Taiwan what it has done for the people of Ukraine, portraying China as the aggressor while surrounding China with about 200 military bases.”
If the rationale by our government, the United Kingdom and others in Europe (along with much of the media, academia and various defense contractors) was to use Ukraine and its people as cheap disposable pawns to be sacrificed in a proxy war against Vladimir Putin and Russia, then they are succeeding at a certain macabre level.
However, if the idea of supporting the Ukraine war with Russia was to “save the people of Ukraine” and the country’s infrastructure, then those who advocated for that course of action have failed miserably.
‘Now or Never’: The Immediate Origins of Putin’s Preventative War on Ukraine in the Journal of Military and Strategic Studies outlines the reasons for Russia’s invasions, as expressed by Vladimir Putin: NATO expansion and the threat Russians felt that posed to their security. It reports increased attacks by Ukrainian troops against separatists in the Donbas right before the invasion.
The propagandists who continue to push for arming Ukraine say that the people of Ukraine were eager to join the West and that the Maidan Revolution was a grassroots expression of pro-Western sentiment. Instead, there is evidence that the revolution was largely the creation of U.S. regime change meddling, aided by the so-called National Endowment for Democracy (a CIA offshoot); see the Compendium above for documentation. Certainly, most of the people in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea did not want closer ties with the West. (Carnegie Endowment for Peace and Foreign Affairs documented that a majority of the people of Crimea welcomed Russia’s annexation of their territory in 2014: Denis Volkov and Andrei Kolesnikov’s My Country, Right or Wrong: Russian Public Opinion on Ukraine (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 7, 2022); John O’Loughlin, Gerad Toal and Kristin M. Bakke’s To Russia With Love: A Majority of Crimeans are Still Glad for Their Annexation (Foreign Affairs, April 3, 2020).) Likewise, in Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Syria, Libya, Chechnya and elsewhere, the U.S. instigated military and interference operations to bring down pro-Russian governments.
So, the U.S. intervened to aid “liberation” movements against Russian allies in Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Libya, and Syria — allying with Muslim extremists to do so — but the U.S. condemns Russia for intervening to aid Russian-speaking people along Russia’s own borders, in a conflict against Nazi militias supported by the U.S. and driven by aggressive NATO expansion.
These facts and opinions do not justify Russia’s invasion, but they certainly give the lie to statements by President Biden and others that the invasion was “unprovoked.” Even the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014 was provoked: it occurred after, and partially in response to, the U.S.-backed overthrow of the pro-Russian government of Ukraine.
And the facts expose amazing hyprocrisy. The U.S. launched numerous unjustified wars and proxy wars; surrounded Russia and China with pro-US allies and military bases (about 800 worldwide); exited multiple arms treaties; and increased military spending to about $1 trillion a year despite $33 trillion in debt and dire domestic needs. Yet we accuse Russia and China of being the aggressors.
Both sides can be at fault in a conflict. The U.S. too has blood on its hands.
Finally, the facts are strong reasons why the U.S. should not be arming Ukraine to the teeth and pushing it to fight to the last Ukrainian and risking a nuclear war. Instead, it should push for a negotiated end to the war.
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Despite the continuing chaos at the southern border, the ever-burgeoning Federal bankruptcy waiting for the other shoe to drop and assorted civil disturbances,why should the American public care that Vladimir Putin wonre election as President for a fifth term in an 87% landslide and that with 112.3 million votes cast, 74% of the country cast their paper ballots in a record turnout for Putin.As if an increase in the Ukraine war threatening a WW III scenario would improve US predictions for the future.
Putin ran as an Independent as one of four nominated candidates with voting between March 15 – March 17.It was the seventh presidential election in Russian Federation history with historic regions of Ukraine which had been in dispute since 2013 were approved for annexation by voter referendum in 2022.Those participating included the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye.
But of course, it’s all a lie, right.There is no way that Russia could have fair and free elections.Isn’t it a communist country?Seriously, how is it that the Russians could have a more secure, a higher voter turnout and a more successful election process than the US, the world’s largest and oldest democracy on the planet.
One principal reason Americans might dismiss the Russian results goes to the heart of accepting the 24-7 narrative spin from a compliant western media that Russia is a long-standing political opponent and an economic competitor, not to mention its adversarial role in Ukraine with NATO acting as its ever-reliable purveyor of US military conflicts.The US has recently confirmed the presence of American troops in Taiwan – what a surprise!
And yet, at the same time, Congress debates a ridiculously short-sighted $1.2 Trillion budget filled with irrelevant climate trinkets and woke gimmicks, billions of dollars for earmarks that may remain deeply hidden within its 1000 pages including funds for gratuitous military conquests as a gift to the donor class as the need may arise.In addition, funds were included for children’s trans-surgeries, the wars in Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan and virtually no funds to stop the invasion of undocumented immigrants.
To further explore the differences, just prior to the election, Putin’s delivered his annual address to the Russian parliament highlighting the significance of the special operation in Ukraine, the need for global security and Russia’s socio-economic growth while focusing on demographics and technological independence.
As Putin pledged“Russia will end the war in Ukraine, eradicate Nazism, and achieve all the objectives of the special operation” warning that a direct clash between NATO and Russia wouldbe “one step shy of a full-scale World War III.”
Putin further advised that NATO military personnel were already located in Ukraine and that English and French have been heard on the battlefield.
Long time international observer and former UN Inspector Scott Ritter told Sputnik that today’s success in Russia could be attributed to Putin’s rise to prominence immediately after the collapse of the USSR and the failure of perestroika in the 1990s.
As the criminal class of oligarchs attempted a takeover, the country struggled for survival as Putin’s ‘dedicated leadership’ redefined the nation and its economic system into a free market capitalist state.
To compare Putin’s annual address to the US SOTU address would be a colossal disappointment since the latter is frequently lacking in sober, objective analysis or factual data and more usually a rah-rah jamboree touting US initiatives with little forethought into domestic consequences or future global implications.
Putin defined “a warrior is someone who defends the homeland and future” and that ‘we are standing here like comrades in arms. We have a huge development agenda, and people felt it in their hearts and came to create conditions for the development and strengthening of their Motherland… the results of the election are a guarantee that these tasks will be accomplished and goals will be reached.” “I dreamed of a strong, independent, sovereign Russia,” Putin told the audience, expressing his hope that the results of the vote “will allow us all, together with the Russian people, to achieve these goals.”
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During the campaign, election interference responses escalated as Ukraine routinely launched artillery and drone strikes on Russian border regions causing destruction to many critical infrastructure and residential neighborhoods, resulting in numerous civilian casualties. Ukraine conducted a series of drone strikes around St. Petersburg and south to Rostov as its military continued to violate border sovereignty and kill citizens in Belgorod fifty miles within the Russian border.
Zelensky’s top advisor, Mikliak Podoliak supported an increase in the ‘scale of turmoil’ in Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions stating that“Russia could feel what war is” and that “Once they live in bomb shelters, constantly hear sirens and so on, they will [think] differently” Podoliak revealed a total lack of understanding of the extent of Russian suffering during WWII. Podoliak is known for a history of voicing support for Ukraine incursions into Russian territory with estimated losses at 1,500 casualties and dozens of armored vehicles.
In addition, US State Department spokesman Matt Miller displayed an unpleasant hostility and total lack of understanding about Russia’s sovereignty as he also threatened international observers.
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Immediately after the vote, Putin contrasted the US presidential campaign as “increasingly uncivilized” adding that “ I think it’s obvious to everyone that the American political system cannot claim to be democratic in any sense of the word.” Referring to the lawfare attacks on Trump, Putin pointed out that political opponents were using the government’s own administrative resources to suppress another presidential candidate in its own election.
“The whole world is laughing at what is happening in the US.”“We are behaving with more restraint than their opponents in other countries, but this is just a catastrophe, not a democracy – that’s what it is,” he said in an interview with journalist Dmitry Kiselyov.Describing how Trump ‘reproached me for sympathizing with Biden” Putin added, to my surprise, he [Trump] was persecuted because we allegedly supported him as a candidate. Well, it’s complete nonsense.”
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Renee Parsons served on the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and as president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, staff in the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender, an environmental lobbyist for Friends of the Earth and a staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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Automatic gun-shooting by five men in black took place Friday evening 22 March in the Crocus City Concert Hall, attached to a shopping mall, at the outskirts of Moscow. The terror attack preceded a concert. The hall was therefore crowded with people, panicking for leaving it. The assault was followed by a massive explosion.
The official fatality as of 23 March stands at 133. Dozens of people were injured.
The Islamic State (IS) – a CIA creation – claimed credit for the attack.
However, the political end of this attack is more complex.
On March 7, 2024, the US Embassy in Russia warned Moscow that a terror attack may take place in Moscow within the next few weeks. No further details.
Is it one of the now fashionable “predictive planning” stunts?
On the same day, the same US Embassy in Moscow warned US citizens in Moscow not to visit shopping malls. How much did the US know?
Speculations abound. Was this an empty warning to destabilize Russia and Russian elections?
Or was it one more provocation to pull Russia into a larger conflict?
On the day of the attack, John Kirby, spokesman for National Security at the White House said in a Press Conference that there were no indications that Ukraine had anything to do with the attack. In early March Washington just had some indications that a terror assault may hit Moscow.
“Some indications”? Why then the warning on the same 7 March to US citizens in Moscow not to visit any shopping malls?
It could not be more obvious that a hidden agenda is being played by Washington – and, may be added, by NATO and Europe?
Whether the Islamic State (ISIL), Al Qaeda or another CIA / MI6 terror creation – or even Kiev directly — was involved in this mass-killing is irrelevant, because whoever acted, did so on behalf of US / NATO and the West’s “Classe politique”.
It is no coincidence that French President Macron practically simultaneously sends officially 2,000 French NATO troops to Ukraine. “Officially”, because western / NATO military advisers, trainers and coaches for Kiev’s Nazi-military have been in Kiev for quite a while.
Polish Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, has called it an open secret that Western soldiers are in Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, “there are already some troops from big countries in Ukraine.” See this.
Crossing Russia’s Redline
This is clearly the crossing of President Putin’s Red Line. Mr. Macron knows it, those who mandate the crossing of the Red Line, like the WEF and those dark Deep State Cult forces behind the WEF, know it – and Moscow knows that they know it.
Is it a provocation to pull Moscow into a hot war?
And the Moscow Concert Hall assault being a doubling-up of the Red-Line crossing?
This happening in the Ides of March, and just ten days after the confirmed landslide re-election of President Putin on 17 March 2024.
Ides of March is the day in the ancient Roman calendar that falls approximately on Mid-March and is associated with misfortune and doom. The date is also known as the date on which Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC.
Most US wars were initiated in March. Has it become a symbolic cult ritual of the west?
“With the exception of the War on Afghanistan (October 2001) and the 1990-91 Gulf War, all major US-NATO and allied led military operations over a period of more than half a century –since the invasion of Vietnam by US ground forces on March 8, 1965– have been initiated in the month of March.”
It would perfectly fit into the Death Cult of the Great Reset (WEF) and the UN Agenda 2030, which are currently plaguing humanity – worldwide.
There are other non-coincidences. The 24 March 2024 is the 25th anniversary of the 1999 US-NATO assault on Yugoslavia (Ides of March) – currently being commemorated by a three-day Conference 22-24 March 2024, in Belgrade.
The destruction and dismembering of Yugoslavia were also planned by a long hand.
After Josip Tito’s death in May 1980 (he served in several leadership positions of Yugoslavia from 1943-1980), there were some lesser communist successors, who were vulnerable to western / NATO “pressures”, and let what was a solid Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) deteriorate, western-style.
In 1990 Slobodan Milošević, President of Serbia became de facto President of the SFR Yugoslavia attempting to hold the federation together – which in the ten years after President Tito’s departure was financially destabilized by the west. In the 1990s the SFR Yugoslavia was one of the first “cases” where the World Bank, IMF Washington Consensus was applied full-scale – indebting to destabilize, create internal unrest – and divide.
Mr. Milošević was captured, detained at the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) prison in The Hague. He was poisoned on March 11, 2006 in his prison cell – shortly before his scheduled appearance at the International Criminal Tribunal on Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Once divided with constant civil unrest, there was “justification” for western rescue, i.e., bombing Yugoslavia literally into bits and pieces – leaving what we have today, numerous so-called independent former Yugoslavian Federal States – being economically and with “sanctions” controlled by the west.
This is the strategy Washington wants to apply to the Russian Federation – destabilizing it, fracturing it, Regime Change, and then taking it over.
Imagine: The world’s biggest riches in the world’s largest country, absorbed or subdued by the (still) wannabe US Empire – and its European vassals.
It looks like the west wants a hot war with Russia, come hell or high water. Yes, it would be hell for Europe – for the third time in just over 100 years, and three-times for the same purpose – taking control of Russia, WWI, WWII and now WWIII?
A war – possibly nuclear – of which nobody can predict the outcome. As President Putin repeatedly said – there will be no winners, just absolute destruction.
Under no circumstances will Russia allow a take-over by an arrogant, criminal west. With Russian military’s far-superiority over US and NATO forces, this will not happen.
In the current Middle-East scenario, western leaders are supporting and funding the Israeli-Zionists, literally destroying and mass-killing – wiping out – Palestine, depicting an arrogance blinded by the zest for illimited might, possibly driving humanity into a bottomless abyss.
A cleansing of this genocidal western “superiority” may bring birth of a new civilization – an evolution to a more spiritual and less material humanity.
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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
Featured image: Emergency services responding to the attack (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)
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March 17, 2024 – Argentina: Estudiantes de la Plata midfielder, Javier Altamirano, suffered a seizure in a match against Boca Juniors on Sunday 17th March. The game was suspended. He is said to be stable and the CT scan did not reveal anything serious.
March 16, 2024 – South Africa: Orlando Pirates midfielder, Makhehlene Makhaula, collapsed in a match against Hungry Lions on Saturday 16th March, “after complaining of chest pains and shortness of breath”.
March 11, 2024 – Egypt: Modern Future FC forward, Ahmed Refaat, collapsed in a match against Ittihad on Monday 11th March. According to a statement from his club, Refaat’s “heart stopped for more than an hour, despite all resuscitation attempts”.
March 16, 2024 – FRANCE – 13 year old soccer player collapsed during an U15 game in Sens in l”Yonne. Clement S collapsed on the bench after leaving the field.
March 12, 2024 – Sioux City, IA – Briar Cliff University Student Janay Geng-Meier who was on a soccer scholarship, died suddenly from pulmonary embolism.
March 4, 2024 – Nottinghamshire, UK – 35 year old Chris Hunter, a soccer referee, died suddenly on March 4, 2024 from cardiac arrest.
Feb. 27, 2024 – Hamar, Norway – 19 year old Archange Defrignan Mondou, Ivory Coast soccer player who played for Norway died suddenly on Feb. 27, 2024. He was found unresponsive in his apartment.
Feb. 27, 2024 – Drumchapel, Scotland – 18 year old soccer player Liam Stevenson died suddenly on Feb. 27, 2024.
Feb. 21, 2024 – 34 year old Charlie Strutton, UK soccer player for AFC Wimbledon, died suddenly on Feb. 21, 2024.
Feb. 20, 2024 – Professional German soccer player (goalkeeper for FSV Nordost Rostock) 37 year old Paul Gaida collapsed suddenly during training on Feb. 20, 2024 and died.
Feb. 20, 2024 – 28 year old Sweden soccermidfielder Kristoffer Olsson is suffering from “multiple small blood clots on both sides of his brain” as a result of an extremely rare inflammatory condition in his brain vessels. He collapsed at home on Feb.20, 2024 and was put on a ventilator – he is paralyzed and can’t talk.
Feb. 12, 2024 – 39 year old professional soccerplayer Mounir Hamoud suffered a cardiac arrest & died on his FIRST DAY as a coach at former side Stromsgodset (Norway) He died on Feb. 12, 2024.
Feb. 12, 2024 – Zdenko Morovic, Venezuelan soccer midfielder who played on Venezuela’s national team.
Feb. 5, 2024 – Wycombe, UK – 17 year old soccerplayer Adam Ankers fell ill during a game and died in hospital on Feb. 5, 2024. “we lost my son Adam, who passed away after playing football, the sport he loved.”
Feb. 2, 2024 – Brazilian soccer player who played on Uruguay teams, died on Feb.2, 2024 from a very rare retroperitoneal cancer.
Jan. 30, 2024 – Paisley, UK – 21 year old soccer player Gerald Green had been coughing up blood and was rushed to hospital on Jan. 19, 2024. “he had an incurable form of cancer that was spreading rapidly and died on Jan. 30, 2024”“the cancer was just everywhere. It was in his bones and in his blood”Diagnosis to death: 11 days. Sounds like leukemia.
Jan. 28, 2024 – 41 year old Panama soccer player & striker Luis “Matador” Tejada who helped Panama qualify for its first ever World Cup in 2018 died suddenly on Jan. 28, 2024.
Jan. 27, 2024 – Oxford, UK – 50 year old soccerplayer Stuart Gray died after a battle with cancer. “Stuart had been bravely fighting cholangiocarcinoma.”
Jan. 5, 2024 – 27 year old Denmark soccer player Rikke Sevecke forced to retire because of heart issue.
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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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It is too early to judge the obscene Crocus City massacre as evidence has still to be collected from the captured perpetrators, their enablers and captured phones but it does not look like a typical Islamic State operation. Freenations will cover it soon.
In the Russian elections Vladimir Putin got 87% of the vote on a 77.44% turnout (UK general elections since 2001 have averaged 64%).
The main opposition in Russia to Putin are the communists, who got 4.31% of the vote – about the same level achieved in opinion polls by the late western sponsored Navalny. Although electorally weak the Communists are organisationally strong with an inherited cross national party infrastructure.
Putin is a Christian (whose late mother was devoted to the Church) and has the fervent support of Russian Orthodoxy. He has on many occasions made his opposition to communism clear and said it would be “brainless” to recreate the old Soviet Union. On the centenary of Solzhenitsyn’s birth Putin unveiled a statue to him and on 30th October 2017 he attended the unveiling of the ‘Wall of Grief’, a monument erected in Moscow to the victims of communist repression. The results of the Russian Presidential election were:
Turnout: 77.44%
Vladimir Putin, Independent 87.28%
Nikolay Kharitonov, Communist Party of Russian Federation 4.31%
Vladislav Davankov, New People 3.85%
Leonid Slutsky, Liberal Democratic Party of Russia 3.20%
The 87% support for Putin was fully in line with the polling of the Levada Center – a Russian independent, polling organization founded in 1987 which was labelled a foreign agent under the 2012 Russian Foreign Agent law but managed to survive without being seen as a tool of government.
Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000 after the most disastrous years under Boris Yeltsin when economic collapse, social degradation and political powerlessness (with western officials virtually dictating policies and western corporations moving in) dominated Russia.
The turnaround since the 1990s has been extraordinary, not least considering the 15,000 sanctions imposed on Russia by NATO and the EU and the costs of fighting a war in Ukraine. Today the Russian economy is growing at a rate half as much again as the USA and about 20 times the rate of the EU.
The cost of living for the average Russian is far lower than in the West. For example a German analyst worked out the wage to costs ratio for a typical restaurant worker: In Russia he would earn post tax 783 Euros a month and in that restaurant a full meal would cost 3.5 Euros. His salary would therefore cover 223 meals. In Germany where the post tax salary would be 1,340 Euros and a full meal would cost 8.5 Euros the worker could buy only 157 meals – 30% worse than the Russian. The income tax for this worker would be 13% in Russia and 25% in Germany!
A simple example but one which shows how important Purchasing Power Parity is when assessing a country’s real GDP and how Russia can for example produce far cheaper war materials than the West. In Ukraine some Russian missiles costing a few thousands are confronted by US Patriot Missiles costing several millions.
Russian income taxes are very low – 13% rising to 15% with property taxes at between 0.1 and 2% of property value. Vladimir Putin has just announced that all soldiers fighting in Ukraine will be relieved of property taxes. The war economy since the start of the Russian intervention in Ukraine has meant a big boost for industrial wages. A welder in a manufacturing plant for instance, who made 25,000 prior to the onset of the Russian intervention has seen his wage quadrupled to 100,000 rubles, and in the former territories of Ukraine to 300,000 rubles. For the details of Putin’s remarkable economic record see below.
Social Legislation
The Financial Times noted that Russia saw a remarkable 3.6% economic growth in 2023, positioning itself as the foremost economy in Europe and the fifth globally with Russians experiencing a 5.4% increase in real disposable income and unemployment at a record low.
Even with the blatant theft by NATO/EU of some $300 bn of Russian foreign exchange reserves the country has moved up to 6th place in the global table with reserves of $442 bn.
Despite EU and USA sanctions, they still take hundreds of millions of Dollars worth of oil, gas, LNG and Uranium from Russia, boosting Russian Government revenues. Exports to China have reached record levels. Vladimir Putin has used these revenues not just to create a war production economy but to boost social provision. Some examples:
Single parents with children under the age of 16 cannot be dismissed
from July 2024 those who have been married for 20 years, are entitled to receive a lump sum cash payment of 20 thousand rubles. There are 25 thousand rubles on the 25th anniversary, 30 thousand rubles on the 30th anniversary and so on up to the payment of 70 thousand on the 70th anniversary. The amounts are indexed for inflation.
Maternity capital for the first child of a marriage is 630,967.72 roubles, for the second child 833,800.37 rubles.
any child injured by the war in Ukraine and is resident in the territory of the Russian Federation (includes Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporozhia) is entitled to 100,000 rubles compensation.
A State subsidy for the down payment on a mortgage for married buyers under the age of 27 subsidizing the mortgage interest rate after the birth of the first and second child to 4% and 2% per annum respectively.
When the third child is born, it is proposed to fully write off the mortgage principal debt at the expense of the budget.”
The Russian people know that their President opposes mass immigrations, supranational powers like the EU and the West’s “new world order”, is supportive of his country’s sovereignty, domestic industry and jobs, the traditional family and marriage, protecting children from sexual abuse, the Christian religion (building hundreds of new churches), low taxes, generous social support and a “multi-polar” world order.
They agree with him and have voted accordingly in a show of support which western leaders can only dream of. That support will have increased after the obscene massacre at the Crocus City Hall in the suburbs of Moscow and all four perpetrators were captured along with 11 accomplices.
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‘Paving a Digital Road to Hell’ is the title of a recent article in a Children’s Health Defense (CHD) article, describing what could and might expect us, with digital ID’s and digital money – and an all-controlling technocratic world tyranny enhanced by the World Health Organization (WHO) possibly impeding Pandemic Treaty and drastically modified International Health Regulations (IHR). A tyrannical road to hell it would be.
The digital ID has been approved by the EU and is ready to be implemented by EU member countries. There is no deadline set yet, but individual countries are held to conform with this mandate – though most must clear the process of applying the digital ID through Parliament. Pressure from outside, mainly the World Economic Forum (WEF) and especially those behind the WEF, the dark powerful cult cabal is almost almighty. It knows no mercy. See this.
Human rights by any measures are being violated. But why bother mentioning it? The power deciding over nation-states and humanity, those who have already for years done away with national and international legal systems and replaced them by the “rules-based order” – apply rules serving the elites’ interests at any time, the rules change according to whose interests are at stake at a time. They do not care.
They know that in the current state of human discord, discoordination, of division and confusion, of racism, of fighting simultaneous attacks from the same powerful diabolical Cult or globalist Deep State, on all fronts, health, climate, digital money, digital overall control – We, the people, are not able to resist. We have no unity. We need unity and solidarity and courage to see the enemy in the eye. That is what they believe. We must prove them wrong.
Because what is coming and what has been and is being constantly announced following the principle of predictive programming, may be irreversible if we do not stop it NOW.
We may already be on that road to hell and have not even noticed it, because they make us believe this road to hell is paved in gold. That is thanks to the art of deception. Mind manipulation by psychos and psycho-institutions, like Tavistock, have been studying human brain and mind functions for more than hundred years. They played with our reactions to propaganda, much like Edward L. Bernays, Sigmund Freud’s nephew, renown Master of Propaganda – just worse, much worse.
At the WEF’s 2020 Davos Conference at the end of January 2020, Yuval Noah Harari, the Israeli historian, and key advisor of Klaus Schwab’s, gave a stunning speech, presenting an overview of what humanity may soon be faced with in terms of digitization and mostly artificial intelligence (AI), if we do not submit to a globalized One World Order (OWO), or One World Government. Because only a One World Government can protect us from the evil intentions that lurk behind AI, if management and administration of AI is left to nation-states.
Harari sounds like a mad man in his attempt to make us believe that globalization is our salvation, as nation-states will use AI for defending themselves against other nations, as they are afraid that other nations develop even stronger and more commanding AI that may become a threat. And people simply are overrun, get under the wheels.
In a globalization rally, Harari presents a world of linearism – a digital gulag from which there is no escaping, unless a world government would look after human interests first. It would therefore be a wild mistake protesting globalization, which is unavoidable, if humanity is to be saved.
AI is quickly evolving. There will be states that are farther advanced than others. AI divides humanity into rich and poor, into technically advanced countries and those left behind. AI makes the poor even poorer over time. It divides humanity into those who favor the benefits of AI, and those who are already at a working-class level that might soon be extinguished by AI.
Only a globalized One World, with a unique One World Government will be able to look out for the good of the citizen, as there is no AI competition between nations, and AI is used in ways that people will benefit and not be pushed into starvation.
What he did not say is that starvation will be avoided by a basic income for all out-of-work people, with a digitally-controlled mind that makes you happy, owning nothing. SMILE! You are being photographed for propaganda.
Mr. Harari speaks perfectly – and dangerously – Tavistock. It is a sheer warning and propaganda rally for Globalisation for a One World all-controlling Government. See for yourself.
This sounds like war on nation-states, butit is war on humanity.
Much earlier foresights, over hundred years ago, “predictive planning” are not talking yet about AI but about the needed benefits of an OWO – describing what may come. They foresee the atomic bomb, or something like it with an all-destructive blast, some 30 years before the nuclear bomb it was invented – and the need to strictly reduce and control humanity.
Destroy to build back better.
See this 51-minute “predictive” movie, based on the writings of H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds”:
Amazing foresight. Do not think this is our destiny.
We, the People, hold our destiny in OUR hands and minds. We MUST unite. NOW.
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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
This article was first published on March 13, 2013.
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Is it a mere coincidence?
In recent history, from the Vietnam war to the present, the month of March has been chosen by the Pentagon and NATO military planners as the “best month” to go to war.
With the exception of the War on Afghanistan (October 2001) and the 1990-91 Gulf War, all major US-NATO and allied led military operations over a period of more than half a century –since the invasion of Vietnam by US ground forces on March 8, 1965– have been initiated in the month of March.
The Ides of March (Idus Martiae) is a day in the Roman calendar which broadly corresponds to March 15. The Ides of March is also known as the date on which Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC.
Lest we forget, the month of March (in the Roman Calendar) is dedicated to Mars (Martius), the Roman God of War.
For the Romans, the month of March (Martius) marked “the time to start new military campaigns.”
As in the heyday of the Roman Empire, the US Department of Defense has a mandate to plan and implement a precise “timeline” of military operations.
Does the month of March –identified by the Romans as a “good time” to initiate new military undertakings–, have a bearing on contemporary military doctrine?
Throughout history, seasons including the transition from Winter to Spring have played a strategic role in the timing of military operations.
Do Pentagon military planners favor the month of March?
Do they also –in some mysterious fashion– “idolize” Mars, the Roman God of War?
March 23 (which coincides with the beginning of Spring) was the day “Romans celebrated the start of the military campaign and war fighting season.”
“Homage was paid to Mars the god of war with festivals and feasting. … For the Romans March 23 was a huge celebration known as Tubilustrium”.
Under these festivities which celebrated the Roman god of war, a large part of the month of March “was dedicated to military celebration and preparedness.”
Timeline of March US Military Interventions (1965- 2020)
Recent history confirms that with the exception of Afghanistan (October 2001) and the 1990-91 Gulf War, all major US-NATO led military operations over a period of more than half a century –since the invasion of Vietnam by US ground forces on March 8, 1965– have been initiated in the month of March.
The Vietnam War
The US Congress adopted the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which authorized President Lyndon Johnson to dispatch ground forces to Vietnam on March 8, 1965.
On 8 March 1965, 3,500 U.S. Marines were dispatched to South Vietnam marking the beginning of “America’s ground war”.
NATO’s War on Yugoslavia
NATO’s war on Yugoslavia was launched on March 24, 1999.
The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia code-named by the US Operation “Noble Anvil”. started on March 24, 1999 and lasted until June 10, 1999.
The Iraq War
The War on Iraq was launched on March 20, 2003. (Baghdad time)
The US-NATO led invasion of Iraq started on 20 March 2003 on the pretext that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).
(The 1991 Gulf War on Iraq began on 17th January. However, after the 28th February ceasefire was agreed and signed – following the Basra Road massacre of withdrawing soldiers and fleeing civilians on 26th/27th February – the US 24th Mechanised Infantry Division slaughtered thousands on 2nd March.”)
The Covert War on Syria
The US-NATO Covert War on Syria was initiated on March 15, 2011 with the incursion of Al Qaeda affiliated mercenaries and death squads in the southern city of Daraa on the border with Jordan.
The terrorists were involved in acts of arson as well as the killings of civilians. This incursion of terrorists was from the very outset supported covertly by the US, NATO and its Persian Gulf allies: Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
NATO’s “Humanitarian” R2P War on Libya
NATO commenced its bombing of Libya on March 19, 2011. The United Nations Security Council passed an initial resolution on 26 February 2011 (UNSC Resolution 1970), (adopted unanimously).
A subsequent United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 was adopted on 17 March 2011. It authorized the establishment of “a no-fly zone” over Libya, and the use “all necessary measures” “to protect the lives of civilians”.
Libya was bombed relentlessly by NATO warplanes starting on March 19, 2011 for a period of approximately seven months.
Yemen
On 25 March 2015, an international coalition led by Saudi Arabia and supported by the US launched air strikes against the Huthi armed group in Yemen.
Coincidence:
The Ides of March, March 15 44 BC, was also the day Emperor Julius Caesar was stabbed to death by the Roman Senate.
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First published on March 21, 2021
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Twenty-four years ago in the early hours of March 24, 1999, NATO began the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. “The operation was code-named “Allied Force ” – a cold, uninspired and perfectly descriptive moniker” according to Nebosja Malic.
When Belgrade was bombed, the children’s hospital was the object of air attacks. It had been singled out by military planners as a strategic target.
NATO stated that to “save the lives” of the newly born, they did not bomb the section of the hospital where the babies were residing, instead they targeted the building which housed the power generator, which meant no more power for the incubators. What this meant was that the entire hospital was for all sakes and purposes destroyed and many of the children died.
I visited that hospital, one year after the bombing in June 2000 and saw with my own eyes how they did it with utmost accuracy. These are war crimes using NATO’s so-called smart bombs.
The causes and consequences of this war against the people of Yugoslavia have been the object of a vast media disinformation campaign, which has sought to camouflage NATO and US war crimes.
Today, our thoughts are with the People of Serbia.
On the 21st of October 2022, the book was launched in Belgrade under the auspices of The Belgrade Forum, Conference Centre of the Moskva Hotel, To view the presentation click here.
Michel Chossudovsky, Belgrade, October 21, 2022
The US-NATO War of Aggression
against Yugoslavia
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by
Michel Chossudovsky
Centre for Research on Globalization,
Global Research E-Book Series,
Montreal, March 2021
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Copyright, Centre for Research on Globalization. 2021.
The book is also available in print form in both Serbian and English,
published by the Belgrade Forum for the World of Equals,
Belgrade, Republic of Serbia.
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Preface
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Twenty-two years ago in the early hours of March 24, 1999, NATO began the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. “The operation was code-named “Allied Force ” – a cold, uninspired and perfectly descriptive moniker” according to Nebosja Malic.
In 1999, when Belgrade was bombed, the children’s hospital was the object of air attacks. It had been singled out by military planners as a strategic target.
NATO stated that to “save the lives” of the newly born, they did not bomb the section of the hospital where the babies were residing, instead they targeted the building which housed the power generator, which meant no more power for the incubators. What this meant that was that the entire hospital was for all sakes and purposes destroyed and many of the children died.
I visited that hospital, one year after the bombing in June 2000 and saw with my own eyes how they did it with utmost accuracy. These are war crimes using NATO’s so-called smart bombs.
In Yugoslavia, the civilian economy was the target: hospitals, airports, government buildings, manufacturing, infrastructure, not to mention 17th century churches and the country’s historical and cultural heritage.
The causes and consequences of this war have been the object of a vast media disinformation campaign, which has sought to camouflage NATO and US war crimes.
It is important to note that a (corrupt) segment of self-proclaimed “progressives” in Western Europe and North America were part of this disinformation campaign, presenting NATO military intervention as a necessary humanitarian operation geared towards protecting the rights of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
The intervention was in violation of international law. President Milosevic at the 1998 Rambouillet talks had refused the stationing of NATO troops inside Yugoslavia.
The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)
The demonization of Slobodan Milošević has served over the years to uphold the legitimacy of the NATO bombings as well as conceal the crimes committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). It has also provided credibility to “a war crimes tribunal” under the jurisdiction of those who committed extensive war crimes in the name of social justice.
Slobodan Milosevic was arrested and deported to The Hague Tribunal ICTY detention Centre. The Just War thesis was also upheld by several prominent intellectuals who viewed the Kosovo war as: “a Just War”.
In turn the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was upheld as a bona fide liberation movement, supported by Western intelligence, financed and trained by the US and NATO. The KLA had ties to organised crime. It also had links to Al Qaeda. KLA leader Hashim Thaci has been on the Interpol list in the 1990s.
In a bitter irony, former KLA leader Hashim Thaci was rewarded for his crimes, appointed prime minster of Kosovo in 2008, and then president in early April 2016.
Meanwhile, the United States established Camp Bondsteel in 1999, “the largest and the most expensive foreign military base built in Europe since the Vietnam War”.
It took the “international community” more than twenty years to acknowledge that Hashim Thaci had committed extensive crimes against humanity.
In June 2020, Kosovo President Hashim Thaci “was charged with 10 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the country’s conflict in the 1990s” by the Kosovo Tribunal in The Hague. He continues to be described as a wartime hero.
Twenty years later, it is now well established that the war on Yugoslavia was waged on a fabricated humanitarian pretext and that extensive war crimes were committed by NATO and the US.
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In retrospect, the war on Yugoslavia was a “dress rehearsal” for subsequent US-NATO sponsored “humanitarian wars” including Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Libya (2011), Syria (2011), Ukraine (2014), Yemen (2015).
Who are the war criminals? In a bitter irony, the so-called International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague is controlled by those who have committed extensive war crimes.
According to Nuremberg jurisprudence, the ultimate war crime consists in starting a war. According to William Rockler, former prosecutor of the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal:
“The [1999] bombing war violates and shreds the basic provisions of the United Nations Charter and other conventions and treaties; the attack on Yugoslavia constitutes the most brazen international aggression since the Nazis attacked Poland to prevent “Polish atrocities” against Germans. The United States has discarded pretensions to international legality and decency, and embarked on a course of raw imperialism run amok.”
According to Nuremberg jurisprudence, NATO heads of State and heads of government are responsible for the supreme crime: “the crime against peace.”
Reagan’s NSDD 133 (1984) “Secret and Sensitive”
There is evidence that the US administration in liason with its allies took the decision in the early 1980s to destabilise and dismantle Yugoslavia. (See Chapter I )
The decision to destroy Yugoslavia as a country and carve it up into a number of small proxy states was taken by the Reagan adminstration in the early 1980s.
A “Secret Sensitive” National Security Decision Directive (NSDD 133) entitled “US Policy towards Yugoslavia.” (Declassified) set the foreign policy framework for the destabilization of Yugoslavia’s model of market socialism and the establishment of a US sphere of influence in Southeastern Europe.
Yugoslavia in the wake of World War II was in many regards “an economic success story” of market socialism. In the two decades before 1980, annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth averaged 6.1 percent, medical care was free, the rate of literacy was 91 percent, and life expectancy was 72 years.
While NSDD 133 was in itself a somewhat innocous document, it provided legitimacy to the imposition of “free market reforms”. A series of covert intelligence operations were also implemented, which consisted in creating and supporting secessionist paramilitary armies, first in Bosnia then in Kosovo.
These covert operations were combined with the destabilization of the Yugoslav economy discussed in Chapter I below. The application of strong economic medicine under the helm of the IMF and the World Bank ultimately led to the destruction of Yugoslavia’s industrial base, the demise of the workers’ cooperatives and the dramatic impoverishment of its population.
Kosovo “Independence”
The record of US-NATO war crimes is important in assessing recent developments in Kosovo.
From the outset of their respective mandates in June 1999, both NATO and the UN Mission to Kosovo (UNMIK) have actively supported the KLA, which has committed numerous atrocities.
Since 1999, State terrorism in Kosovo has become an integral part of NATO’s design.
The destruction of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is characterised by three interrelated processes:
1) the destabilization of Yugoslavia’s national economy which started in the early 1980s,
2) the covert support to armed insurgencies in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia,
3) the 1999 NATO bombing campaign.
This E-book is a retrospect. It takes the reader back in history. Several of the texts were written at the height of 1999 bombing campaign or shortly thereafter.
In Chapter 1 which was written in 1995 (subsequently updated), we review the destruction and partition of the federal Republic of Yugoslavia including the engineered bankruptcy imposed by the World Bank, which led to the demise of Yugoslavia’s industrial sector in the late 1980s.
On January 1, 1990, the IMF launched its “shock treatment” economic package which required the suspension of transfer payments from Belgrade to the governments of the Republics and Autonomous Provinces. In one fell swoop, the reformers had engineered the collapse of Yugoslavia’s federal fiscal structure and mortally wounded its federal political institutions.
Chapter II, focuses on the role of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The ties of the KLA to organized crime were not only known, they were actively fostered by the US and NATO.
Chapter III examines the issue of war crimes resulting from NATO’s March-June 1999 “humanitarian bombings” largely directed against civilians. Up to thirty percent of those killed in the bombings were children. In addition to the use of cluster bombs, the Alliance used toxic radioactive shells and missiles containing depleted uranium.
Chapter IV reviews “NATO’s Reign of Terror” in Kosovo in the wake of the 1999 war. The massacres directed against Serbs, ethnic Albanians, Roma and other ethnic groups were conducted on the instructions of the military command of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
Chapter V focusses on the installation of a de facto “Mafia State” in Kosovo.
Chapter VI analyses the environmental catastrophe resulting from US-NATO bombings of the Pancevo chemical weapons plant close to Belgrade.
Chapter VII focusses on the spread of radioactive dust from the use of Depleted Uranium ammunition during the 78 days bombing raids. These bombing raids resulted in a significant incidence of cancer particularly among children.
Chapter VIII analyses the 2001 terrorist attacks in Macedonia led by the National Liberation Army (NLA), an affiliate of the Kosovo based KLA.
Chapter IX focusses on the central role of Al Qaeda and its links to the armed insurgencies in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia.
Except for minor editing, these chapters were written from 1995 to 2001. Several chapters were written at the height of the 1999 bombing campaign.
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, Montreal, March 24, 2021
About the author:
Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), He is the author of eleven books including The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003), America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005), Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War (2011), The Globalization of War, America’s Long War against Humanity (2015). He is a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
His writings have been published in more than twenty languages.
In 2014, he was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit of the Republic of Serbia for his writings on NATO’s war of aggression against Yugoslavia.
Copyright: Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). March 2021.
The preface and Introductory chapter can be crossposted with a link to the complete E-book.
If you wish to use or reproduce the text of the E-Book or sections thereof, kindly contact Michel Chossudovsky at [email protected]
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Table of Contents
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Preface
Author’s Introductory Note
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Chapter I
Economic War Crimes: Dismantling Former Yugoslavia, Recolonizing Bosnia-Herzegovina
Chapter II
Kosovo “Freedom Fighters” Financed by Organised Crime
Chapter III
NATO’s War of Aggression against Yugoslavia: Who are the War Criminals?
Chapter IV
NATO has Installed a Reign of Terror in Kosovo
Chapter V
The Installation of a Mafia State in Kosovo
Chapter VI
NATO Willfully Triggered an Environmental Catastrophe In Yugoslavia
Chapter VII
Low Intensity Nuclear War, NATO War Crimes in the Balkans
Chapter VIII
Washington Behind the 2001 Terrorist Attacks In Macedonia
Chapter IX
“OsamaGate”: Kosovo, Macedonia and Bosnia “Freedom Fighters” Supported by Al Qaeda
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Chapter I
Economic War Crimes:
Dismantling Former Yugoslavia, Recolonizing Bosnia-Herzegovina
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This chapter was first published by Covert Action Quarterly, Spring 1996, revised and updated, Global Research on February 19 2002
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As heavily-armed US and NATO troops enforced the peace in Bosnia, the press and politicians alike portrayed Western intervention in the former Yugoslavia as a noble, if agonizingly belated, response to an outbreak of ethnic massacres and human rights violations. In the wake of the November 1995 Dayton peace accords, the West was eager to touch up its self-portrait as savior of the Southern Slavs and get on with “the work of rebuilding” the newly “sovereign states.”
But following a pattern set early on, Western public opinion had been skillfully misled. The conventional wisdom exemplified by the writings of former US Ambassador to Yugoslavia Warren Zimmermann, held that the plight of the Balkans was the outcome of an “aggressive nationalism”, the inevitable result of deep-seated ethnic and religious tensions rooted in history.1 Likewise, much was made of the “Balkans power-play” and the clash of political personalities: “Tudjman and Milosevic are tearing Bosnia-Herzegovina to pieces”.2
Lost in the barrage of images and self-serving analyses are the economic and social causes of the conflict. The deep-seated economic crisis which preceded the civil war had long been forgotten. The strategic interests of Germany and the US in laying the groundwork for the disintegration of Yugoslavia go unmentioned, as does the role of external creditors and international financial institutions. In the eyes of the global media, Western powers bear no responsibility for the impoverishment and destruction of a nation of 24 million people.
But through their domination of the global financial system, the Western powers, in pursuit of national and collective strategic interests, helped bring the Yugoslav economy to its knees and stirred its simmering ethnic and social conflicts. Now it is the turn of Yugoslavia’s war-ravaged successor states to feel the tender mercies of the international financial community.
As the world focused on troop movements and cease-fires, the international financial institutions were busily collecting former Yugoslavia’s external debt from its remnant states, while transforming the Balkans into a safe-haven for free enterprise. With a Bosnian peace settlement holding under NATO guns, the West had in late 1995 unveiled a “reconstruction” program that stripped that brutalized country of sovereignty to a degree not seen in Europe since the end of World War II. It consisted largely of making Bosnia a divided territory under NATO military occupation and Western administration.
Neocolonial Bosnia
Resting on the Dayton accords, which created a Bosnian “Constitution,” the US and its European allies had installed a full-fledged colonial administration in Bosnia. At its head was their appointed High Representative, Carl Bildt, a former Swedish prime minister and European Union representative in the Bosnian peace negotiations.3 Bildt was given full executive powers in all civilian matters, with the right to overrule the governments of both the Bosnian Federation and the Republika Srpska (Serbian Bosnia). To make the point crystal clear, the Accords spelled out that “the High Representative is the final authority in theater regarding interpretation of the agreements.”4 He is to work with the multinational military implementation force (IFOR) Military High Command as well as with creditors and donors.
The UN Security Council had also appointed a “Commissioner” under the High Representative to run an international civilian police force.5 Irish police official Peter Fitzgerald, with UN policing experience in Namibia, El Salvador, and Cambodia , was to preside over some 1,700 police from 15 countries. Following the signing of the Dayton Accords in November 1995, the international police force was dispatched to Bosnia after a five-day training program in Zagreb 6.
The new “Constitution” included as an Appendix to the Dayton Accords handed the reins of economic policy over to the Bretton Woods institutions and the London based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The IMF was empowered to appoint the first governor of the Bosnian Central Bank, who, like the High Representative, “shall not be a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina or a neighboring State.”7
Under the IMF regency, the Central Bank is not allowed to function as a Central Bank: “For the first six years … it may not extend credit by creating money, operating in this respect as a currency board.”8 Neither was Bosnia to be allowed to have its own currency (issuing paper money only when there is full foreign exchange backing), nor permitted to mobilize its internal resources. Its ability to self-finance its reconstruction through an independent monetary policy was blunted from the outset.
While the Central Bank was in IMF custody, the EBRD heads the Commission on Public Corporations, which supervises since 1996, operations of all public sector enterprises in Bosnia, including energy, water, postal services, telecommunications, and transportation. The EBRD president appoints the commission chair and is in charge of public sector restructuring, i.e., the sell-off of state- and socially-owned assets and the procurement of long-term investment funds.9 Western creditors explicitly created the EBRD “to give a distinctively political dimension to lending.” 10.
As the West proclaimed its support for democracy, actual political power rests in the hands of a parallel Bosnian “state” whose executive positions are held by non-citizens. Western creditors have embedded their interests in a constitution hastily written on their behalf. They have done so without a constitutional assembly and without consultations with Bosnian citizens’ organizations. Their plans to rebuild Bosnia appear more suited to sating creditors than satisfying even the elementary needs of Bosnians. The neocolonization of Bosnia was a logical step of Western efforts to undo Yugoslavia’s experiment in “market socialism” and workers’ self-management and to impose the dictate of the “free market”.
Historical background
Multiethnic, socialist Yugoslavia was once a regional industrial power and economic success. In the two decades before 1980, annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth averaged 6.1 percent, medical care was free, the rate of literacy was 91 percent, and life expectancy was 72 years.11. But after a decade of Western economic ministrations and a decade of disintegration, war, boycott, and embargo, the economies of the former Yugoslavia were prostrate, their industrial sectors dismantled.
Yugoslavia’s implosion was partially due to US machinations. Despite Belgrade’s non-alignment and its extensive trading relations with the European Community and the US, the Reagan administration had targeted the Yugoslav economy in a “Secret Sensitive” 1984 National Security Decision Directive (NSDD 133) entitled “US Policy towards Yugoslavia.” A censored version declassified in 1990 elaborated on NSDD 64 on Eastern Europe, issued in 1982. The latter advocated “expanded efforts to promote a ‘quiet revolution’ to overthrow Communist governments and parties,” while reintegrating the countries of Eastern Europe into a market-oriented economy. 12
The US had earlier joined Belgrade’s other international creditors in imposing a first round of macroeconomics reform in 1980, shortly before the death of Marshall Tito. That initial round of restructuring set the pattern.
Secessionist tendencies feeding on social and ethnic divisions, gained impetus precisely during a period of brutal impoverishment of the Yugoslav population. The economic reforms “wreaked economic and political havoc… Slower growth, the accumulation of foreign debt and especially the cost of servicing it as well as devaluation led to a fall in the standard of living of the average Yugoslav… The economic crisis threatened political stability … it also threatened to aggravate simmering ethnic tensions”.13
These reforms accompanied by the signing of debt restructuring agreements with the official and commercial creditors also served to weaken the institutions of the federal State creating political divisions between Belgrade and the governments of the Republics and Autonomous Provinces. “The [Federal] Prime Minister Milka Planinc, who was supposed to carry out the program, had to promise the IMF an immediate increase of the discount rates and much more for the Reaganomics arsenal of measures…”14 And throughout the 1980s, the IMF and World Bank periodically prescribed further doses of their bitter economic medicine as the Yugoslav economy slowly lapsed into a coma.
From the outset, successive IMF sponsored programs hastened the disintegration of the Yugoslav industrial sector. Following the initial phase of macro-economic reform in 1980, industrial growth plummeted to 2.8 percent in the 1980-87 period, plunging to zero in 1987-88 and to a negative 10 percent growth rate by 1990.15 This process was accompanied by the piecemeal dismantling of the Yugoslav welfare state, with all the predictable social consequences. Debt restructuring agreements, meanwhile, increased foreign debt, and a mandated currency devaluation also hit hard at Yugoslavs’ standard of living.
Mr. Markovic goes to Washington
In Autumn 1989, just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Yugoslav federal Premier Ante Markovic met in Washington with President George Bush to cap negotiations for a new financial aid package. In return for assistance, Yugoslavia agreed to even more sweeping economic reforms, including a new devalued currency, another wage freeze, sharp cuts in government spending, and the elimination of socially owned, worker- managed companies .16
The Belgrade nomenclature, with the assistance of Western advisers, had laid the groundwork for Markovic’s mission by implementing beforehand many of the required reforms, including a major liberalization of foreign investment legislation.
“Shock therapy” began in January 1990. Although inflation had eaten away at earnings, the IMF ordered that wages be frozen at their mid November 1989 levels. Prices continued to rise unabated, and real wages collapsed by 41 percent in the first six months of 1990 .17
The IMF also effectively controlled the Yugoslav central bank. Its tight money policy further crippled the country’s ability to finance its economic and social programs. State revenues that should have gone as transfer payments to the republics went instead to service Belgrade’s debt with the Paris and London clubs. The republics were largely left to their own devices. The economic package was launched in January 1990 under an IMF Stand-by Arrangement (SBA) and a World Bank Structural Adjustment Loan (SAL II). The budget cuts requiring the redirection of federal revenues towards debt servicing, were conducive to the suspension of transfer payments by Belgrade to the governments of the Republics and Autonomous Provinces.
In one fell swoop, the reformers had engineered the final collapse of Yugoslavia’s federal fiscal structure and mortally wounded its federal political institutions. By cutting the financial arteries between Belgrade and the republics, the reforms fueled secessionist tendencies that fed on economic factors as well as ethnic divisions, virtually ensuring the de facto secession of the republics. The IMF-induced budgetary crisis created an economic fait accompli that paved the way for Croatia’s and Slovenia’s formal secession in June 1991.
Crushed by the Invisible Hand
The reforms demanded by Belgrade’s creditors also struck at the heart of Yugoslavia’s system of socially-owned and worker-managed enterprises. As one observer noted, ‘the objective was to subject the Yugoslav economy to massive privatization and the dismantling of the public sector. “The Communist Party bureaucracy, most notably its military and intelligence sector, was canvassed specifically and offered political and economic backing on the condition that wholesale scuttling of social protections for Yugoslavia’s workforce was imposed.” 18 It was an offer that a desperate Yugoslavia could not refuse. By 1990, the annual rate of growth of GDP had collapsed to -7.5 percent. In 1991, GDP declined by a further 15 percent, industrial output collapsed by 21 percent.19
The restructuring program demanded by Belgrade’s creditors was intended to abrogate the system of socially owned enterprises. The Enterprise Law of 1989 required abolishing the “Basic Organizations of Associated Labor (BAOL)”. The latter were socially-owned productive units under self-management with the Workers’ Council constituting the main decision making body. The 1989 Enterprise Law required the transformation of the BOALs into private capitalist enterprises with the Worker’s Council replaced by a so-called “Social Board” under the control of the enterprise’s owners including its creditors.20
Overhauling The Legal Framework
Advised by Western lawyers and consultants, a number of supporting pieces of legislation were put in place in a hurry. The Financial Operations Act of 1989 was to play a crucial role in engineering the collapse of Yugoslavia’s industrial sector, it was to provide for an “equitable” and so-called “transparent trigger mechanism” which would steer so-called “insolvent” enterprises in bankruptcy or liquidation. A related act entitled the Law on Compulsory Settlement, Bankruptcy and Liquidation was to safeguard “the rights of the creditors”. The latter could call for the initiation of bankruptcy procedures enabling them to take over and/or liquidate the assets of debtor enterprises.21
The earlier 1988 Foreign Investment Law had allowed for unrestricted entry of foreign capital not only into industry but also into the banking, insurance and services’ sectors. Prior to the enactment of the law, foreign investment was limited to joint ventures with the socially- owned enterprises.22 In turn, the 1989 Law on the Circulation and Management of Social Capital and the 1990 Social Capital Law allowed for the divestiture of the socially-owned enterprises including their sale to foreign capital. The Social Capital Law also provided for the creation of “Restructuring and Recapitalisation Agencies” with a mandate to organize the “valuation” of enterprise assets prior to privatization. As in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, however, the valuation of assets was based on the recorded “book-value” expressed in local currency. This book-value tended to be unduly low thereby securing the sale of socially-owned assets at rock-bottom prices. Slovenia and Croatia had by 1990 already established their own draft privatization laws.23
The assault on the socialist economy also included a new banking law designed to trigger the liquidation of the socially-owned Associated Banks. Within two years, more than half the country’s banks had vanished, to be replaced by newly-formed “independent profit-oriented institutions.” 24 By 1990, the entire “three-tier banking system” consisting of the National Bank of Yugoslavia, the national banks of the eight Republics and autonomous provinces and the commercial banks had been dismantled under the guidance of the World Bank. A Federal Agency for Insurance and Bank Rehabilitation was established in June 1990 with a mandate to restructure and “reprivatize” restructured banks under World Bank supervision.25 This process was to be undertaken over a five- year period. The development of non-banking financial intermediaries including brokerage firms, investment management firms and insurance companies was also to be promoted.
The Bankruptcy Program
Industrial enterprises had been carefully categorized. Under the IMF-World Bank sponsored reforms, credit to the industrial sector had been frozen with a view to speeding up the bankruptcy process. So-called “exit mechanisms” had been established under the provisions of the 1989 Financial Operations Act.26. Under the new law, if a business was unable to pay its bills for 30 days running, or for 30 days within a 45-day period, the government would launch bankruptcy proceedings within the next 15 days.19 This mechanism allowed creditors (including national and foreign banks) to routinely convert their loans into a controlling equity in the insolvent enterprise. Under the Act, the government was not authorized to intervene. In case a settlement was not reached, bankruptcy procedures would be initiated in which case workers would not normally receive severance payments.27
In 1989, according to official sources, 248 firms were steered into bankruptcy or were liquidated and 89,400 workers had been laid off.28 During the first nine months of 1990 directly following the adoption of the IMF program, another 889 enterprises with a combined work-force of 525,000 workers were subjected to bankruptcy procedures.29 In other words, in less than two years the World Bank’s so-called “trigger mechanism” (under the Financial Operations Act) had led to the lay off of 614,000 (out of a total industrial workforce of the order of 2.7 million). The largest concentrations of bankrupt firms and lay-offs were in Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia and Kosovo.30
Many socially owned enterprises attempted to avoid bankruptcy through the non payment of wages. Half a million workers representing some 20 percent of the industrial labor force were not paid during the early months of 1990, in order to meet the demands of creditors under the “settlement” procedures stipulated in the Law on Financial Organizations. Real earnings were in a free fall, social programs had collapsed, with the bankruptcies of industrial enterprises, unemployment had become rampant, creating within the population an atmosphere of social despair and hopelessness.
The January 1990 IMF sponsored package contributed to increasing enterprise losses while precipitating many of the large electric, petroleum refinery, machinery, engineering and chemical enterprises into bankruptcy. Moreover, with the deregulation of the trade regime, a flood of imported commodities contributed to further destabilizing domestic production. These imports were financed with borrowed money granted under the IMF package (i.e. the various “quick disbursing loans” granted by the IMF, the World Bank and bilateral donors in support of the economic reforms). While the import bonanza was fuelling the build-up of Yugoslavia’s external debt, the abrupt hikes in interest rates and input prices imposed on national enterprises had expedited the displacement and exclusion of domestic producers from their own national market.
“Shedding Surplus Workers”
The situation prevailing in the months preceding the Secession of Croatia and Slovenia (mid 1991) (confirmed by the 1989-90 bankruptcy figures) points to the sheer magnitude and brutality of the process of industrial dismantling. The figures, however, provide but a partial picture, depicting the situation at the outset of the “bankruptcy program” which continued unabated in Yugoslavia’s successor States in the years following the Dayton accords.
The World Bank had estimated that there were still in September 1990, 2,435 “loss-making” enterprises out of a remaining total of 7,531.31 In other words, these 2,435 firms with a combined work-force of more than 1,3 million workers had been categorized as “insolvent” under the provisions of the Financial Operations Act, requiring the immediate implementation of bankruptcy procedures. Bearing in mind that 600,000 workers had already been laid off by bankrupt firms prior to September 1990, these figures suggest that some 1.9 million workers (out of a total of 2.7 million) had been classified as “redundant”. The “insolvent” firms concentrated in the Energy, Heavy Industry, Metal processing, Forestry and Textiles sectors were among the largest industrial enterprises in the country representing (in September 1990) 49.7 percent of the total (remaining and employed)industrial work-force.32
As 1991 dawned, real wages were in free fall, social programs had collapsed, and unemployment ran rampant. The dismantling of the industrial economy was breathtaking in its magnitude and brutality. Its social and political impact, while not as easily quantified, was tremendous. Yugoslav President Borisav Jovic warned that the reforms were “having a markedly unfavorable impact on the overall situation in society…. Citizens have lost faith in the state and its institutions…. The further deepening of the economic crisis and the growth of social tensions has had a vital impact on the deterioration of the political-security situation.”33
The Political Economy of Disintegration
Some Yugoslavs joined together in a doomed battle to prevent the destruction of their economy and polity. As one observer found, “worker resistance crossed ethnic lines, as Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and Slovenians mobilized … shoulder to shoulder with their fellow workers.”34 But the economic struggle also heightened already tense relations among the republics and between the republics and Belgrade.
Serbia rejected the austerity plan outright, and some 650,000 Serbian workers struck against the federal government to force wage hikes.35 The other republics followed different and sometimes self-contradictory paths.
In relatively wealthy Slovenia, for instance, secessionist leaders such as Social Democratic party chair Joze Pucnik supported the reforms: “From an economic standpoint, I can only agree with socially harmful measures in our society, such as rising unemployment or cutting workers’ rights, because they are necessary to advance the economic reform process.”36
But at the same time, Slovenia joined other republics in challenging the federal government’s efforts to restrict their economic autonomy. Both Croatian leader Franjo Tudjman and Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic joined Slovene leaders in railing against Belgrade’s attempts to impose harsh reforms on behalf of the IMF.37
In the multiparty elections in 1990, economic policy was at the center of the political debate as separatist coalitions ousted the Communists in Croatia, Bosnia and Slovenia. Just as economic collapse spurred the drift toward separation, separation in turn exacerbated the economic crisis. Cooperation among the republics virtually ceased. And with the republics at one another’s’ throats, both the economy and the nation itself embarked on a vicious downward spiral.
The process sped along as the republican leadership, deliberately fostered social and economic divisions to strengthen their own hands: “The republican oligarchies, who all had visions of a ‘national renaissance’ of their own, instead of choosing between a genuine Yugoslav market and hyperinflation, opted for war which would disguise the real causes of the economic catastrophe .”38
The simultaneous appearance of militias loyal to secessionist leaders only hastened the descent into chaos. These militias (covertly financed by the US and Germany), with their escalating atrocities, not only split the population along ethnic lines, they also fragmented the workers’ movement.39
“Western Help”
The austerity measures had laid the basis for the recolonization of the Balkans. Whether that required the breakup of Yugoslavia was subject to debate among the Western powers, with Germany leading the push for secession and the US, fearful of opening a nationalist Pandora’s box, originally arguing for Yugoslavia’s preservation.
Following Franjo Tudjman’s and the rightist Democratic Union’s decisive victory in Croatia in May 1990, German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, in almost daily contact with his counterpart in Zagreb, gave his go-ahead for Croatian secession.40 Germany did not passively support secession; it “forced the pace of international diplomacy” and pressured its Western allies to recognize Slovenia and Croatia. Germany sought a free hand among its allies “to pursue economic dominance in the whole of Mittel Europa.”41
Washington, on the other hand, “favored a loose unity while encouraging democratic development … [Secretary of State] Baker told Tudjman and [Slovenia’s President] Milan Kucan that the United States would not encourage or support unilateral secession … but if they had to leave, he urged them to leave by a negotiated agreement.”42 In the meantime, the US Congress had passed the 1991 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act which curtailed all financial assistance Yugoslavia. The provisions of the Act had been casually referred to by the CIA as “a signed death warrant” for Yugoslavia. 43 The CIA had correctly predicted that “a bloody civil war would ensue”.44 The law also demanded the IMF and the World Bank to freeze credit to Belgrade. And the US State Department had insisted that the Yugoslav republics (considered as de facto political entities) “uphold separate election procedures and returns before any further aid could be resumed to the individual republics”. 45
Post War Reconstruction and the Free Market
In the wake of the November 1995 Dayton Accords, Western creditors turned their attention to Yugoslavia’s “successor states”. Yugoslavia’s foreign debt had been carefully divided and allocated to the successor republics, which were strangled in separate debt rescheduling and structural adjustment agreements. 46
The consensus among donors and international agencies was that past IMF macroeconomics reforms inflicted on federal Yugoslavia had not quite met their goal and further shock therapy was required to restore “economic health” to Yugoslavia’s successor states. Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia had agreed to loan packages to pay off their shares of the Yugoslav debt that required a consolidation of the process begun under Ante Markovic’s bankruptcy program. The all too familiar pattern of plant closings, induced bank failures, and impoverishment has continued unabated since 1996. And who was to carry out IMF diktats? The leaders of the newly sovereign states have fully collaborated with the creditors.
In Croatia, the government of President Franjo Tudjman was obliged to sign already in 1993 at the height of the civil war, an agreement with the IMF. In return for fresh loans largely intended to service Zagreb’s external debt, the government of President Franjo Tudjman agreed to implementing further plant closures and bankruptcies, driving wages to abysmally low levels. The official unemployment rate increased from 15.5 percent in 1991 to 19.1 percent in 1994.47
Zagreb had also instituted a far more stringent bankruptcy law, together with procedures for “the dismemberment” of large state-owned public utility companies. According to its “Letter of Intent” to the Bretton Woods institutions, the Croatian government had promised to restructure and fully privatize the banking sector with the assistance of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the World Bank. The latter had also demanded a Croatian capital market structured to heighten the penetration of Western institutional investors and brokerage firms.
Under the agreement signed in 1993 with the IMF, the Zagreb government was not permitted to mobilize its own productive resources through fiscal and monetary policy. The latter were firmly under the control of its external creditors. The massive budget cuts demanded under the agreement had also forestalled the possibility of post-war reconstruction. The latter could only be carried out through the granting of fresh foreign loans, a process which has contributed to fuelling Croatia’s external debt well into the 21st Century.
Macedonia had also followed a similar economic path to that of Croatia. In December 1993, the Skopje government agreed to compress real wages and freeze credit in order to obtain a loan under the IMF’s Systemic Transformation Facility (STF). In an unusual twist, multi-billionaire business tycoon George Soros participated in the International Support Group composed of the government of the Netherlands and the Basel-based Bank of International Settlements. The money provided by the Support Group, however, was not intended for “reconstruction” but rather to enable Skopje to pay back debt arrears owed the World Bank..48
Moreover, in return for debt rescheduling, the government of Macedonian Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski had to agree to the liquidation of remaining “insolvent” enterprises and the lay off of “redundant” workers –which included the employees of half the industrial enterprises in the country. As Deputy Finance Minister Hari Kostov soberly noted, with interest rates at astronomical levels because of donor-sponsored banking reforms, “it was literally impossible to find a company in the country which would be able to (…) to cover [its] costs (…).49
Overall, the IMF economic therapy for Macedonia was a continuation of the “bankruptcy program” launched in 1989-90 under federal Yugoslavia. The most profitable assets were put on sale on the Macedonian stock market, but this auction of socially owned enterprises had led to industrial collapse and rampant unemployment.
And global capital applauds. Despite an emerging crisis in social welfare and the decimation of his economy, Macedonian Finance Minister Ljube Trpevski proudly informed the press in 1996 that “the World Bank and the IMF place Macedonia among the most successful countries in regard to current transition reforms”. 50
The head of the IMF mission to Macedonia, Paul Thomsen, agreed. He avowed that “the results of the stabilization program were impressive” and gave particular credit to “the efficient wages policy” adopted by the Skopje government. Still, his negotiators had insisted that despite these achievements, even more budget cutting was necessary. 51
Reconstruction Colonial Style
But Western intervention was making its most serious inroads on national sovereignty in Bosnia. The neocolonial administration imposed under the Dayton accords and supported by NATO’s firepower had ensured that Bosnia’s future would be determined in Washington, Bonn, and Brussels rather than in Sarajevo.
The Bosnian government had estimated in the wake of the Dayton Accords that reconstruction costs would reach $47 billion. Western donors had initially pledged $3 billion in reconstruction loans, of which only a part was actually granted. Moreover, a large chunk of the fresh money lent to Bosnia had been tagged to finance some of the local civilian costs of IFOR’s military deployment as well as repay international creditors. 52
Fresh loans will pay back old debt. The Central Bank of the Netherlands had generously provided “bridge financing’ of $37 million to allow Bosnia to pay its arrears with the IMF, without which the IMF will not lend it fresh money. But in a cruel and absurd paradox, the sought-after loans from the IMF’s newly created “Emergency Window” for “post-conflict countries” will not be used for post-war reconstruction. Instead, they will repay the Dutch Central Bank, which had coughed up the money to settle IMF arrears in the first place. 53
Debt piles up, and little new money goes for rebuilding Bosnia’s war torn economy.
While rebuilding is sacrificed on the altar of debt repayment, Western governments and corporations show greater interest in gaining access to strategic natural resources. With the discovery of energy reserves in the region, the partition of Bosnia between the Federation of Bosnia- Herzegovina and the Bosnian-Serb Republika Srpska under the Dayton Accords has taken on new strategic importance. Documents in the hands of Croatia and the Bosnian Serbs indicate that coal and oil deposits have been identified on the eastern slope of the Dinarides Thrust, retaken from Krajina Serbs by the US-backed Croatian army in the final offensives before the Dayton accords. Bosnian officials had reported that Chicago-based Amoco was among several foreign firms that subsequently initiated exploratory surveys in Bosnia.54
“Substantial” petroleum fields also lie “in the Serb-held part of Croatia” just across the Sava River from Tuzla, the headquarters for the US military zone.55 Exploration operations went on during the war, but the World Bank and the multinationals that conducted the operations kept local governments in the dark, presumably to prevent them from acting to grab potentially valuable areas. 56
With their attention devoted to debt repayment and potential energy bonanzas, both the US and Germany have devoted their efforts –with 70,000 NATO troops on hand to “enforce the peace”– to administering the partition of Bosnia in accordance with Western economic and strategic interests.
While local leaders and Western interests share the spoils of the former Yugoslav economy, they have entrenched socio-ethnic divisions in the very structure of partition. This permanent fragmentation of Yugoslavia along ethnic lines thwarts a united resistance of Yugoslavs of all ethnic origins against the recolonization of their homeland.
But what’s new? As one observer caustically noted, all of the leaders of Yugoslavia’s successor states have worked closely with the West: “All the current leaders of the former Yugoslav republics were Communist Party functionaries and each in turn vied to meet the demands of the World Bank and the IMF, the better to qualify for investment loans and substantial perks for the leadership.” 57
From Bosnia to Kosovo
Economic and political dislocation has been the pattern in the various stages of the Balkans war: from the initial military intervention of NATO in Bosnia in 1992 to the bombing of Yugoslavia on “humanitarian grounds” in 1999. Bosnia and Kosovo are stages in the recolonization of the Balkans. The pattern of intervention under NATO guns in Bosnia under the Dayton accords has been replicated in Kosovo under the formal mandate of United Nations “peace-keeping”.
In post-war Kosovo, State terror and the “free market” go hand in hand. In close consultation with NATO, the World Bank had carefully analyzed the consequences of an eventual military intervention leading to the occupation of Kosovo. Almost a year prior to onslaught of the war, the World Bank had conducted relevant “simulations” which “anticipated the possibility of an emergency scenario arising out of the tensions in Kosovo”.58 This suggests that NATO had already briefed the World Bank at an early stage of military planning.
While the bombing was still ongoing, the World Bank and the European Commission had been granted a special mandate for “coordinating donors’ economic assistance in the Balkans”59 The underlying terms of reference did not exclude Yugoslavia from receiving donor support. It was, however, clearly stipulated that Belgrade would be eligible for reconstruction loans “once political conditions there change“.60.
In the wake of the bombings, “free market reforms” were imposed on Kosovo largely replicating the clauses of the Rambouillet agreement which in turn had in part been modeled on the Dayton Accords imposed on Bosnia. Article I (Chapter 4a) of the Rambouillet Agreement stipulated that: “The economy of Kosovo shall function in accordance with free market principles”.
Along with NATO troops, an army of lawyers and consultants was sent into Kosovo under World Bank auspices. Their mandate: create an “enabling environment” for foreign capital and ensure Kosovo’s speedy transition to a “thriving, open and transparent market economy.” 61 In turn, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) provisional government had been called upon by the donor community to “establish transparent, effective and sustainable institutions” 62 The extensive links of the KLA to organized crime and the Balkans narcotics trade was not seen by the “international community” as an obstacle to the installation of “democracy” and “good governance”.
In occupied Kosovo under UN mandate, the management of State owned enterprises and public utilities was taken over by appointees of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The leaders of the Provisional Government of Kosovo (PGK) had become “the brokers” of multinational capital committed to handing over the Kosovar economy at bargain prices to foreign investors.
Meanwhile, Yugoslav State banks operating in Pristina had been closed down. The Deutschmark was adopted as legal tender and almost the entire banking system in Kosovo was handed over to Germany’s Commerzbank A.G which gained full control over commercial banking functions for the province including money transfers and foreign exchange transactions.63
Taking over Kosovo’s Mineral Wealth
Under Western military occupation, Kosovo’s extensive wealth in mineral resources and coal was slated to be auctioned off at bargain prices to foreign capital. Prior to the bombings, Western investors already had their eyes riveted on the massive Trepca mining complex which constitutes “the most valuable piece of real estate in the Balkans, worth at least $5 billion.” 64 The Trepca complex not only includes copper and large reserves of zinc but also cadmium, gold, and silver. It has several smelting plants, 17 metal treatment sites, a power plant and Yugoslavia’s largest battery plant. Northern Kosovo also has estimated reserves of 17 billion tons of coal and lignite.
Barely a month after Kosovo’s military occupation under NATO guns, the head of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) Bernard Kouchner issued a decree to the effect that: “UNMIK shall administer movable or immovable property, including monetary accounts, and other property of, or registered in the name of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or the Republic of Serbia or any of its organs, which is in the territory of Kosovo”.65.
No time was lost, a few months after the military occupation of Kosovo, the International Crisis Group (ICG) a think tank supported by Financier George Soros, issued a paper on “Trepca: Making Sense of the Labyrinth” which advised the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) “to take over the Trepca mining complex from the Serbs as quickly as possible and explained how this should be done”.66 And in August 2000, UNMIK Head Bernard Kouchner sent in heavily armed “peacekeepers” (“wearing surgical masks against toxic smoke”) to occupy the mine on the pretense that it was creating an environmental hazard through excessive air pollution.
Meanwhile, the United Nations had handed over the management of the entire Trepca complex to a Western consortium. With a stake in the Trepca deal was Morrison Knudsen International, now regrouped with Rayethon Engineering and Construction. The new conglomerate is the Washington Group, one of the World’s most powerful engineering and construction firms as well as a major Defense contractor in the US. Junior partners in the deal are TEC-Ingenierie of France and Sweden’s consulting outfit Boliden Contech.
The Installation of a Mafia State
While Financier George Soros was investing money in Kosovo’s reconstruction, the George Soros Foundation for an Open Society had opened a branch office in Pristina establishing the Kosovo Foundation for an Open Society (KFOS) as part of the Soros’ network of “non-profit foundations” in the Balkans, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Together with the World Bank’s Post Conflict Trust Fund, the Kosovo Open Society Foundation (KOSF) was providing “targeted support” for “the development of local governments to allow them to serve their communities in a transparent, fair, and accountable manner.”67 Since most of these local governments are in the hands of the KLA which has extensive links to organized crime, this program is unlikely to meet its declared objective.68
In turn, “strong economic medicine” imposed by external creditors has contribute to further boosting a criminal economy (already firmly implanted in Albania) which feeds on poverty and economic dislocation.
With Albania and Kosovo at the hub of Balkans drug trade, Kosovo was also slated to reimburse foreign creditors through the laundering of dirty money. Narco-dollars will be recycled towards servicing Kosovo’s debt as well as “financing” the costs of “reconstruction”. The lucrative flow of narco-dollars thus ensures that foreign investors involved in the “reconstruction” programme will be able reap substantial returns.
Neoliberalism, the Only Possible World?
Administered in several doses since the 1980s, NATO-backed neo-liberal economic medicine has helped destroy Yugoslavia. Yet, the global media has carefully overlooked or denied its central role. Instead, they have joined the chorus singing praises of the “free market” as the basis for rebuilding a war shattered economy. The social and political impact of economic restructuring in Yugoslavia has been carefully erased from our collective understanding. Opinion-makers instead dogmatically present cultural, ethnic, and religious divisions as the sole cause of war and devastation .In reality, they are the consequence of a much deeper process of economic and political fracturing.
Such false consciousness not only masks the truth, it also prevents us from acknowledging precise historical occurrences. Ultimately, it distorts the true sources of social conflict. When applied to the former Yugoslavia, it obscures the historical foundations of South Slavic unity, solidarity and identity in what constituted a multiethnic society.
At stake in the Balkans are the lives of millions of people. Macroeconomic reform combined with military conquest and UN “peace keeping” has destroyed livelihoods and made a joke of the right to work. It has put basic needs such as food and shelter beyond the reach of many. It has degraded culture and national identity. In the name of global capital, borders have been redrawn, legal codes rewritten, industries destroyed, financial and banking systems dismantled, social programs eliminated. No alternative to global capital, be it Yugoslav “market socialism” or “national capitalism”, will be allowed to exist.
Notes
1. See, e.g., former US Ambassador to Yugoslavia Warren Zimmerman, ‘The Last Ambassador, A Memoir of the Collapse of Yugoslavia, Foreign Affairs, Vol 74,no. 2,1995.
2. For a critique, see Milos Vasic, et al., War Against Bosnia, Vreme News Digest Agency, Apr. 13, 1992.
3. Testimony of Richard C. Holbrooke, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of European and Canadian Affairs, before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Washington, 19 December 1995.
4. Dayton Peace Accords, Agreement on High Representative, Articles I and II, 16 December 1995.
5. Dayton Peace Accords, Agreement on Police Task Force. Article II.
6. According to a United Nations statement, United Nations, New York, 5 January 1996. See also Seattle Post Intelligencer, 16 January 1996, p. A5.
7. Dayton Peace Accords, Agreement on General Framework, Article VII
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid, Agreement on Public Corporations, Article I.10.
10. Stabilizing Europe, The Times (London), Nov 22, 1990.
11. World Bank, World Development Report 1991, Statistical Annex, Tables 1 and 2, Washington, 1991.
12. Sean Gervasi, ‘Germany, the US, and the Yugoslav Crisis, Covert Action Quarterly, No. 43, Winter 1992-93, p. 42.
13. Ibid.
14. Dimitrije Boarov, “A Brief Review of Anti-inflation Programs, the Curse of Dead Programs”, Vreme New Digest Agency, No. 29, 13 April 1992.
15 World Bank, Industrial Restructuring Study: Overview, Issues, and Strategy for Restructuring, Washington, D C, June 1991, pp. 10,14.
16. Gervasi, op. cit., p. 44.
17. World Bank, Industrial Restructuring Study, op. cit., p. viii.
18. Ralph Schoenman, Divide and Rule Schemes in the Balkans, The Organizer, San Francisco, Sept. 11,1995
19. Judit Kiss, Debt Management in Eastern Europe, Eastern European Economics, May June 1894, p 59
20. See Barbara Lee and John Nellis, Enterprise Reform and Privatization in Socialist Economies, The World Bank, Washington DC, 1990, pp. 20-21.
21. For further details see World Bank, Yugoslavia, Industrial Restructuring, p. 33.
22. World Bank, Yugoslavia, Industrial Restructuring, p. 29.
23. Ibid., p. 23.
24. Ibid., p. 38.
25. Ibid., p. 39.
26. Ibid., p. 33.
27. Ibid., p. 33.
28. Ibid., p. 34. Data of the Federal Secretariat for Industry and Energy. Of the total number of firms, 222 went bankrupt and 26 were liquidated.
29. Ibid., p. 33. These figures include bankruptcy and liquidation.
30. Ibid., p. 34.
31. Ibid., p. 13. Annex 1, p. 1.
32. “Surplus labor” in industry had been assessed by the World Bank mission to be of the order of 20 per cent of the total labor force of 8.9 million, – i.e. approximately 1.8 million. This figure is significantly below the actual number of redundant workers based on the categorization of “insolvent” enterprises. Solely in the industrial sector, there were 1.9 million workers (September 1990) out of 2.7 million employed in enterprises classified as insolvent by the World Bank. See World Bank, Yugoslavia, Industrial Restructuring, Annex 1.
33 British Broadcasting Service, Borisav Jovic Tells SFRY Assembly Situation Has Dramatically Deteriorated, 27 April 1991.
34. Schoenman, op. cit
35 Gervasi, op cit., p. 44.
36. Federico Nier Fischer, Eastern Europe: Social Crisis, Inter Press Service, 5 September 1990.
37 Klas Bergman, ‘Markovic Seeks to Keep Yugoslavia One Nation, Christian Science Monitor, July 11,1990, p.6.
38 Dimitrue Boarov, 3A Brief Review of Anti-Inflation Programs: the Curse of the Dead Programs, Vreme News Digest Agency, Apr. 13, 1992.
39 Ibid
40 Gervasi, op cit, p. 65.
41 Ibid, p 45
42 Zimmerman, op. cit.
43.Jim Burkholder, Humanitarian Intervention? Veterans For Peace, undated, www.veteransforpeace.org ).
44. Ibid.
45. Ibid.
46. In June 1995, the IMF, acting on behalf of creditor banks and Western governments, proposed to redistribute that debt as follows: Serbia and Montenegro, 36%, Croatia 28%, Slovenia 16%, Bosnia-Herzegovina, 16% and Macedonia 5%.
47. “Zagreb’s About Turn”, The Banker, January 1995, p. 38.
48. See World Bank, Macedonia Financial and Enterprise Sector, Public Information Department, 28 November 1995.
49. Statement of Macedonia’s Deputy Minister of Finance Mr. Hari Kostov, reported in MAK News, 18 April 1995.
50. Macedonian Information and Liaison Service, MILS News, 11 April 1995.
51 Ibid
52. According to the terms of the Dayton Accords (Annex1-A), “the government of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina shall provide free of cost such facilities NATO needs for the preparation and execution of the Operation”.
53 IMF to Admit Bosnia on Wednesday, United Press International, 18 December 1995.
54. Frank Viviano and Kenneth Howe, “Bosnia Leaders Say Nation Sit Atop Oil Fields”, The San Francisco Chronicle, 28 August 1995. See also Scott Cooper, “Western Aims in Ex-Yugoslavia Unmasked”, The Organizer, 24 September
55 Ibid.
56 Ibid.
57 Schoenman, op. cit. 58. World Bank Development News, Washington, 27 April 1999.
59 World Bank Group Response to Post Conflict Reconstruction in Kosovo: General Framework For an Emergency Assistance Strategy, http://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/kosovo/kosovo_st.htm undated).. 60. Ibid 61 World Bank, The World Bank’s Role in Reconstruction and Recovery in Kosovo, http://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/pb/pbkosovo.htm, undated
62. Ibid
63. International Finance Corporation (IFC), International Consortium Backs Kosovo’s First Licensed Bank, http://www.ifc.org/ifc/pressroom/Archive/2000/00_90/00_90.html Press Release, Washington, 24 January 2000.
64. New York Times, July 8, 1998, report by Chris Hedges.
65. Quoted in Diana Johnstone, How it is done, Taking over the Trepca Mines: Plans and Propaganda, http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/Johnstone/howitis.htm Emperors Clothes, 28 February 2000.
67. World Bank, KOSF and World Bank, World Bank Launches First Kosovo Project, Washington, http://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/extme/097.htm November 16, 1999 News Release No. 2000/097/ECA. 68 Out of the 20 million dollars budget for this program, only one million dollars was being provided by the World Bank.
.
.
Chapter II
Kosovo “Freedom Fighters”
Financed by Organised Crime
.
An earlier version of this article was published at the height of the NATO bombings of Yugoslavia in 1999
.
Deafening silence of the Western corporate media. The links of the KLA to organizeed crime, which were confirmed by the European Parliament’s investigation were known and documented by Interpol and the US Congress prior to the onslaught of the 1999 war on Yugoslavia.
The KLA insurgency was an initiative of NATO. The KLA killings were directed against Albanian, Serbian and Roma civilians.
These killings were ordered by NATO. Blamed on the Serbian police and armed forces, the killings of civilians were used as a pretext and justification to wage a “humanitarian war” on Yugoslavia.
The ties of the KLA to organized crime were not only known, they were actively fostered by the US and NATO. The result was the formation of what is best described as a “Mafia State”.
The leader of the KLA, Hashim Thaci, “The Snake”, who subsequently became Prime Minister was a protégé of Madeleine Albright.
Thaci and Albright, Rambouillet, December 1998
Supported by the United Nations, NATO`s project was to spearhead a terrorist organization linked to Albanian and Italian crime syndicates, into the realm of civilian politics. The KLA was chosen by NATO to form a government integrated by known criminals.
The Kosovo Democratic Party headed by former KLA Commander Hashim Thaci is essentially an outgrowth of the former Kosovo Liberation Army.
The Kosovo Democratic Party (KDP) retained its links to organised crime.
All three Kosovo Prime Ministers, in recent history, Ramush Haradinaj, Agim Ceku and Hashim Thaci are known criminals.
Hashim Thaci became president of Kosovo in 2016.
Hashim Thaci and former EU Secretary-General Javier Solana
In the year preceding the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, the KLA was quite openly supported by the Clinton administration:
Some members of the Kosovo Liberation Army [headed by the current Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci] , which has financed its war effort through the sale of heroin, were trained in terrorist camps run by international fugitive Osama bin Laden — who is wanted in the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 224 persons, including 12 Americans.
The KLA members, embraced by the Clinton administration in NATO’s 41-day bombing campaign to bring Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to the bargaining table, were trained in secret camps in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina and elsewhere, according to newly obtained intelligence reports.
The reports also show that the KLA has enlisted Islamic terrorists — members of the Mujahideen –as soldiers in its ongoing conflict against Serbia, and that many already have been smuggled into Kosovo to join the fight. ….
The intelligence reports document what is described as a “link” between bin Laden, the fugitive Saudi millionaire, and the KLA –including a common staging area in Tropoje, Albania, a center for Islamic terrorists. The reports said bin Laden’s organization, known as al-Qaeda, has both trained and financially supported the KLA. (Washington Times, May 4, 1999)
The Christian Science Monitor in an August 14, 2000 report describes the criminal network controlled by Thaci:
UN police suspect that much of the violence and intimidation has come from former KLA members, especially those allied with Hashim Thaci, the former KLA leader and head of the Democratic Party of Kosovo, one of the KLA’s political offshoots.
In one recent incident, the shop of an LDK activist in Mr. Thaci’s home village was sprayed with automatic gunfire – the second such attack since November.
Thaci’s party potentially has much to lose in the elections, which are for municipal offices only. After Serb forces withdrew last year, the KLA occupied town halls and public institutions across Kosovo and set up its own provincial government.
Although the UN has gradually asserted its own authority and placed representatives of other political groups in local governments, in places like Srbica ex-KLA members affiliated with Thaci’s party still exercise virtual complete control.
“These guys are not going to give up power that easily,” says Dardan Gashi, a political analyst with the International Crisis Group, a US-based research organization with an office in Pristina.
UN police also suspect organized crime is involved in some of the violence. They say that criminal groups engaged in racketeering, smuggling, and prostitution rely on close links to some people in power. The prospect of losing these connections – and the income they generate – may make them ill-disposed toward the LDK.
Officials say the problem is the worst in the Drenica region of Kosovo, the KLA’s heartland and a stronghold of Thaci’s party. Srbica, where Koci is the local LDK president, is one of the main towns in Drenica. (emphasis added)
The Heritage Foundation in a May 1999 report acknowledges that the KLA is a criminal organization. It nonetheless called for the support of the KLA by the Clinton administration:
Should the U.S. harness the KLA’s military potential against Milosevic’s brutal regime, despite the KLA’s unusual ideological roots and apparent ties to organized crime? … The KLA does not represent every group seeking an end to Milosevic’s brutal campaign and is known to have committed some atrocities of its own, it is the most significant force resisting Yugoslav aggression within Kosovo. Moreover, the scale and scope of its crimes have been dwarfed by the systematic campaign of terror unleashed by Yugoslav military, paramilitary, and police forces inside Kosovo. which Washington has done consistently since the 1999 war. (Heritage Foundation Report, 13 May 1999)
Shunning the KLA now will deprive the United States of the benefits of cooperating with a resistance force that is capable of ratcheting up the pressure on Milosevic to negotiate a settlement (Ibid)
Heralded by the global media as a humanitarian peace-keeping mission, NATO’s ruthless bombing of Belgrade and Pristina goes far beyond the breach of international law. While Slobodan Milosevic is demonised, portrayed as a remorseless dictator, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) is upheld as a self-respecting nationalist movement struggling for the rights of ethnic Albanians. The truth of the matter is that the KLA is sustained by organised crime with the tacit approval of the United States and its allies.
Following a pattern set during the War in Bosnia, public opinion has been carefully misled. The multibillion dollar Balkans narcotics trade has played a crucial role in “financing the conflict” in Kosovo in accordance with Western economic, strategic and military objectives. Amply documented by European police files, acknowledged by numerous studies, the links of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to criminal syndicates in Albania, Turkey and the European Union have been known to Western governments and intelligence agencies since the mid-1990s.
” … The financing of the Kosovo guerrilla war poses critical questions and it sorely tests claims of an “ethical” foreign policy. Should the West back a guerrilla army that appears to partly financed by organised crime.”[1]
While KLA leaders were shaking hands with US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at Rambouillet, Europol (the European Police Organization based in The Hague) was “preparing a report for European interior and justice ministers on a connection between the KLA and Albanian drug gangs.”[2] In the meantime, the rebel army has been skilfully heralded by the global media (in the months preceding the NATO bombings) as broadly representative of the interests of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
With KLA leader Hashim Thaci (a 29 year “freedom fighter”) appointed as chief negotiator at Rambouillet, the KLA has become the de facto helmsman of the peace process on behalf of the ethnic Albanian majority and this despite its links to the drug trade. The West was relying on its KLA puppets to rubber-stamp an agreement which would have transformed Kosovo into an occupied territory under Western Administration.
Ironically Robert Gelbard, America’s special envoy to Bosnia, had described the KLA last year as “terrorists”. Christopher Hill, America’s chief negotiator and architect of the Rambouillet agreement, “has also been a strong critic of the KLA for its alleged dealings in drugs.”[3] Moreover, barely a few two months before Rambouillet, the US State Department had acknowledged (based on reports from the US Observer Mission) the role of the KLA in terrorising and uprooting ethnic Albanians:
” … the KLA harass or kidnap anyone who comes to the police, … KLA representatives had threatened to kill villagers and burn their homes if they did not join the KLA [a process which has continued since the NATO bombings]… [T]he KLA harassment has reached such intensity that residents of six villages in the Stimlje region are “ready to flee.”[4]
While backing a “freedom movement” with links to the drug trade, the West seems also intent in bypassing the civilian Kosovo Democratic League and its leader Ibrahim Rugova who has called for an end to the bombings and expressed his desire to negotiate a peaceful settlement with the Yugoslav authorities.[5] It is worth recalling that a few days before his March 31 Press Conference, Rugova had been reported by the KLA (alongside three other leaders including Fehmi Agani) to have been killed by the Serbs.
Covert financing of “freedom fighters”
Remember Oliver North and the Contras? The pattern in Kosovo is similar to other CIA covert operations in Central America, Haiti and Afghanistan where “freedom fighters” were financed through the laundering of drug money. Since the onslaught of the Cold War, Western intelligence agencies have developed a complex relationship to the illegal narcotics trade. In case after case, drug money laundered in the international banking system has financed covert operations.
According to author Alfred McCoy, the pattern of covert financing was established in the Indochina war. In the 1960s, the Meo army in Laos was funded by the narcotics trade as part of Washington’s military strategy against the combined forces of the neutralist government of Prince Souvanna Phouma and the Pathet Lao.[6]
The pattern of drug politics set in Indochina has since been replicated in Central America and the Caribbean. “The rising curve of cocaine imports to the US”, wrote journalist John Dinges “followed almost exactly the flow of US arms and military advisers to Central America”.[7]
The military in Guatemala and Haiti, to which the CIA provided covert support, were known to be involved in the trade of narcotics into Southern Florida. And as revealed in the Iran-Contra and Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI) scandals, there was strong evidence that covert operations were funded through the laundering of drug money. “Dirty money” recycled through the banking system–often through an anonymous shell company– became “covert money,” used to finance various rebel groups and guerrilla movements including the Nicaraguan Contras and the Afghan Mujahadeen. According to a 1991 Time magazine report:
“Because the US wanted to supply the mujehadeen rebels in Afghanistan with stinger missiles and other military hardware it needed the full cooperation of Pakistan. By the mid-1980s, the CIA operation in Islamabad was one of the largest US intelligence stations in the World. ‘If BCCI is such an embarrassment to the US that forthright investigations are not being pursued it has a lot to do with the blind eye the US turned to the heroin trafficking in Pakistan’, said a US intelligence officer.[8]
America and Germany join hands
Since the early 1990s, Bonn and Washington have joined hands in establishing their respective spheres of influence in the Balkans. Their intelligence agencies have also collaborated. According to intelligence analyst John Whitley, covert support to the Kosovo rebel army was established as a joint endeavour between the CIA and Germany’s Bundes Nachrichten Dienst (BND) (which previously played a key role in installing a right-wing nationalist government under Franjo Tudjman in Croatia).[9] The task to create and finance the KLA was initially given to Germany: “They used German uniforms, East German weapons and were financed, in part, with drug money”.[10] According to Whitley, the CIA was subsequently instrumental in training and equipping the KLA in Albania.[11]
The covert activities of Germany’s BND were consistent with Bonn’s intent to expand its “Lebensraum” into the Balkans. Prior to the onset of the civil war in Bosnia, Germany and its Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher had actively supported secession; it had “forced the pace of international diplomacy” and pressured its Western allies to recognize Slovenia and Croatia. According to the Geopolitical Drug Watch, both Germany and the US favoured (although not officially) the formation of a “Greater Albania” encompassing Albania, Kosovo and parts of Macedonia.[12] According to Sean Gervasi, Germany was seeking a free hand among its allies “to pursue economic dominance in the whole of Mitteleuropa.”[13]
Islamic fundamentalism in support of the KLA
Bonn and Washington’s “hidden agenda” consisted in triggering nationalist liberation movements in Bosnia and Kosovo with the ultimate purpose of destabilising Yugoslavia. The latter objective was also carried out “by turning a blind eye” to the influx of mercenaries and financial support from Islamic fundamentalist organisations.[14]
Mercenaries financed by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait had been fighting in Bosnia.[15] And the Bosnian pattern was replicated in Kosovo: Mujahadeen mercenaries from various Islamic countries are reported to be fighting alongside the KLA in Kosovo. German, Turkish and Afghan instructors were reported to be training the KLA in guerrilla and diversion tactics.[16]
According to a Deutsche Press-Agentur report, financial support from Islamic countries to the KLA had been channelled through the former Albanian chief of the National Information Service (NIS), Bashkim Gazidede.[17] “Gazidede, reportedly a devout Moslem who fled Albania in March of last year [1997], is presently [1998] being investigated for his contacts with Islamic terrorist organizations.”[18]
The supply route for arming KLA “freedom fighters” are the rugged mountainous borders of Albania with Kosovo and Macedonia. Albania is also a key point of transit of the Balkans drug route which supplies Western Europe with grade four heroin. Seventy-five percent of the heroin entering Western Europe is from Turkey. And a large part of drug shipments originating in Turkey transits through the Balkans. According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), “it is estimated that 4-6 metric tons of heroin leave each month from Turkey having [through the Balkans] as destination Western Europe.”[19] A recent intelligence report by Germany’s Federal Criminal Agency suggests that: “Ethnic Albanians are now the most prominent group in the distribution of heroin in Western consumer countries.”[20]
The laundering of dirty money
In order to thrive, the criminal syndicates involved in the Balkans narcotics trade need friends in high places. Smuggling rings with alleged links to the Turkish State are said to control the trafficking of heroin through the Balkans “cooperating closely with other groups with which they have political or religious ties” including criminal groups in Albanian and Kosovo.[21] In this new global financial environment, powerful undercover political lobbies connected to organized crime cultivate links to prominent political figures and officials of the military and intelligence establishment.
The narcotics trade nonetheless uses respectable banks to launder large amounts of dirty money. While comfortably removed from the smuggling operations per se, powerful banking interests in Turkey but mainly those in financial centres in Western Europe discretely collect fat commissions in a multibillion dollar money laundering operation. These interests have high stakes in ensuring a safe passage of drug shipments into Western European markets.
The Albanian connection
Arms smuggling from Albania into Kosovo and Macedonia started at the beginning of 1992, when the Democratic Party came to power, headed by President Sali Berisha. An expansive underground economy and cross border trade had unfolded. A triangular trade in oil, arms and narcotics had developed largely as a result of the embargo imposed by the international community on Serbia and Montenegro and the blockade enforced by Greece against Macedonia.
Industry and agriculture in Kosovo were spearheaded into bankruptcy following the IMF’s lethal “economic medicine” imposed on Belgrade in 1990. The embargo was imposed on Yugoslavia. Ethnic Albanians and Serbs were driven into abysmal poverty. Economic collapse created an environment which fostered the progress of illicit trade. In Kosovo, the rate of unemployment increased to a staggering 70 percent (according to Western sources).
Poverty and economic collapse served to exacerbate simmering ethnic tensions. Thousands of unemployed youths “barely out of their teens” from an impoverished population, were drafted into the ranks of the KLA …[22]
In neighbouring Albania, the free market reforms adopted since 1992 had created conditions which favoured the criminalisation of state institutions. Drug money was also laundered in the Albanian pyramids (ponzi schemes) which mushroomed during the government of former President Sali Berisha (1992-1997).[23] These shady investment funds were an integral part of the economic reforms inflicted by Western creditors on Albania.
Drug barons in Kosovo, Albania and Macedonia (with links to the Italian Mafia) had become the new economic elites, often associated with Western business interests. In turn the financial proceeds of the trade in drugs and arms were recycled towards other illicit activities (and vice versa) including a vast prostitution racket between Albania and Italy. Albanian criminal groups operating in Milan, “have become so powerful running prostitution rackets that they have even taken over the Calabrians in strength and influence.”[24]
The application of “strong economic medicine” under the guidance of the Washington based Bretton Woods institutions had contributed to wrecking Albania’s banking system and precipitating the collapse of the Albanian economy. The resulting chaos enabled American and European transnationals to carefully position themselves. Several Western oil companies including Occidental, Shell and British Petroleum had their eyes riveted on Albania’s abundant and unexplored oil-deposits. Western investors were also gawking Albania’s extensive reserves of chrome, copper, gold, nickel and platinum…. The Adenauer Foundation had been lobbying in the background on behalf of German mining interests.[25]
Berisha’s Minister of Defence Safet Zoulali (alleged to have been involved in the illegal oil and narcotics trade) was the architect of the agreement with Germany’s Preussag (handing over control over Albania’s chrome mines) against the competing bid of the US led consortium of Macalloy Inc. in association with Rio Tinto Zimbabwe (RTZ).[26]
Large amounts of narco-dollars had also been recycled into the privatisation programmes leading to the acquisition of state assets by the mafias. In Albania, the privatisation programme had led virtually overnight to the development of a property owning class firmly committed to the “free market”. In Northern Albania, this class was associated with the Guegue “families” linked to the Democratic Party.
Controlled by the Democratic Party under the presidency of Sali Berisha (1992-97), Albania’s largest financial “pyramid” VEFA Holdings had been set up by the Guegue “families” of Northern Albania with the support of Western banking interests. VEFA was under investigation in Italy in 1997 for its ties to the Mafia which allegedly used VEFA to launder large amounts of dirty money.[27]
According to one press report (based on intelligence sources), senior members of the Albanian government during the presidency of Sali Berisha including cabinet members and members of the secret police SHIK were alleged to be involved in drugs trafficking and illegal arms trading into Kosovo:
(…) The allegations are very serious. Drugs, arms, contraband cigarettes all are believed to have been handled by a company run openly by Albania’s ruling Democratic Party, Shqiponja (…). In the course of 1996 Defence Minister, Safet Zhulali [was alleged] to had used his office to facilitate the transport of arms, oil and contraband cigarettes. (…) Drugs barons from Kosovo (…) operate in Albania with impunity, and much of the transportation of heroin and other drugs across Albania, from Macedonia and Greece en route to Italy, is believed to be organised by Shik, the state security police (…). Intelligence agents are convinced the chain of command in the rackets goes all the way to the top and have had no hesitation in naming ministers in their reports.[28]
The trade in narcotics and weapons was allowed to prosper despite the presence since 1993 of a large contingent of American troops at the Albanian-Macedonian border with a mandate to enforce the embargo. The West had turned a blind eye. The revenues from oil and narcotics were used to finance the purchase of arms (often in terms of direct barter): “Deliveries of oil to Macedonia (skirting the Greek embargo [in 1993-4] can be used to cover heroin, as do deliveries of kalachnikov rifles to Albanian ‘brothers’ in Kosovo”.[29]
The Northern tribal clans or “fares” had also developed links with Italy’s crime syndicates.[30] In turn, the latter played a key role in smuggling arms across the Adriatic into the Albanian ports of Dures and Valona. At the outset in 1992, the weapons channelled into Kosovo were largely small arms including Kalashnikov AK-47 rifles, RPK and PPK machine-guns, 12.7 calibre heavy machine-guns, etc.
The proceeds of the narcotics trade has enabled the KLA to rapidly develop a force of some 30,000 men. More recently, the KLA has acquired more sophisticated weaponry including anti-aircraft and anti-armor rockets. According to Belgrade, some of the funds have come directly from the CIA “funnelled through a so-called ‘Government of Kosovo’ based in Geneva, Switzerland. Its Washington office employs the public-relations firm of Ruder Finn–notorious for its slanders of the Belgrade government”.[31]
The KLA has also acquired electronic surveillance equipment which enables it to receive NATO satellite information concerning the movement of the Yugoslav Army. The KLA training camp in Albania is said to “concentrate on heavy weapons training–rocket propelled grenades, medium caliber cannons, tanks and transporter use, as well as on communications, and command and control”. (According to Yugoslav government sources).[32]
These extensive deliveries of weapons to the Kosovo rebel army were consistent with Western geopolitical objectives. Not surprisingly, there has been a “deafening silence” of the international media regarding the Kosovo arms-drugs trade. In the words of a 1994 Report of the Geopolitical Drug Watch: “the trafficking [of drugs and arms] is basically being judged on its geostrategic implications (…) In Kosovo, drugs and weapons trafficking is fuelling geopolitical hopes and fears”…[33]
The fate of Kosovo had already been carefully laid out prior to the signing of the 1995 Dayton agreement. NATO had entered an unwholesome “marriage of convenience” with the mafia. “Freedom fighters” were put in place, the narcotics trade enabled Washington and Bonn to “finance the Kosovo conflict” with the ultimate objective of destabilising the Belgrade government and fully recolonising the Balkans. The destruction of an entire country is the outcome. Western governments which participated in the NATO operation bear a heavy burden of responsibility in the deaths of civilians, the impoverishment of both the ethnic Albanian and Serbian populations and the plight of those who were brutally uprooted from towns and villages in Kosovo as a result of the bombings.
Notes:
1. Roger Boyes and Eske Wright, Drugs Money Linked to the Kosovo Rebels, The Times, London, Monday, March 24, 1999. 2. Ibid. 3. Philip Smucker and Tim Butcher, “Shifting stance over KLA has betrayed’ Albanians”, Daily Telegraph, London, 6 April 1999 4. KDOM Daily Report, released by the Bureau of European and Canadian Affairs, Office of South Central European Affairs, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC, December 21, 1998; Compiled by EUR/SCE (202-647-4850) from daily reports of the US element of the Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission, December 21, 1998. 5. “Rugova, sous protection serbe appelle a l’arret des raides”, Le Devoir, Montreal, 1 April 1999. 6. See Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, Harper and Row, New York, 1972. 7. See John Dinges, Our Man in Panama, The Shrewd Rise and Brutal Fall of Manuel Noriega, Times Books, New York, 1991. 8. “The Dirtiest Bank of All,” Time, July 29, 1991, p. 22. 9. Truth in Media, Phoenix, 2 April, 1999; see also Michel Collon, Poker Menteur, editions EPO, Brussels, 1997. 10. Quoted in Truth in Media, Phoenix, 2 April, 1999). 11. Ibid. 12. Geopolitical Drug Watch, No 32, June 1994, p. 4 13. Sean Gervasi, “Germany, US and the Yugoslav Crisis”, Covert Action Quarterly, No. 43, Winter 1992-93). 14. See Daily Telegraph, 29 December 1993. 15. For further details see Michel Collon, Poker Menteur, editions EPO, Brussels, 1997, p. 288. 16. Truth in Media, Kosovo in Crisis, Phoenix, 2 April 1999. 17. Deutsche Presse-Agentur, March 13, 1998. 18. Ibid. 19. Daily News, Ankara, 5 March 1997. 20. Quoted in Boyes and Wright, op cit. 21. ANA, Athens, 28 January 1997, see also Turkish Daily News, 29 January 1997. 22. Brian Murphy, KLA Volunteers Lack Experience, The Associated Press, 5 April 1999. 23. See Geopolitical Drug Watch, No. 35, 1994, p. 3, see also Barry James, in Balkans, Arms for Drugs, The International Herald Tribune, Paris, June 6, 1994. 24. The Guardian, 25 March 1997. 25. For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, La crisi albanese, Edizioni Gruppo Abele, Torino, 1998. 26. Ibid. 27. Andrew Gumbel, The Gangster Regime We Fund, The Independent, February 14, 1997, p. 15. 28. Ibid. 29. Geopolitical Drug Watch, No. 35, 1994, p. 3. 30. Geopolitical Drug Watch, No 66, p. 4. 31. Quoted in Workers’ World, May 7, 1998. 32. See Government of Yugoslavia at http://www.gov.yu/terrorism/terroristcamps.html. 33. Geopolitical Drug Watch, No 32, June 1994, p. 4.
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Chapter III
NATO’s War of Aggression against Yugoslavia:
Who are the War Criminals?
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This text was written in May 1999 at the height of the bombing campaign (15 May 1999)
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Low Intensity Nuclear War
With NATO air-strikes entering their third month, a new stage of the War has unfolded. NATO’s “humanitarian bombings” have been stepped up leading to mounting civilian casualties and human suffering. Thirty percent of those killed in the bombings are children.1 In addition to the use of cluster bombs, the Alliance is waging a “low intensity nuclear war” using toxic radioactive shells and missiles containing depleted uranium. Amply documented, the radioactive fall-out causes cancer potentially affecting millions of people for generations to come. According to a recent scientific report, “the first signs of radiation on children including herpes on the mouth and skin rashes on the back and ankles” have been observed in Yugoslavia since the beginning of the bombings.2
In addition to the radioactive fall-out which has contaminated the environment and the food chain, the Alliance has also bombed Yugoslavia’s major chemical and pharmaceutical plants. The bombing of Galenika, the largest medicine factory in Yugoslavia has contributed to releasing dangerous, highly toxic fumes. When NATO forces bombed plants of the Pancevo petrochemical complex in mid-April “fire broke out and huge quantities of chlorine, ethylene dichloride and vinyl chloride monomer flowed out. Workers at Pancevo, fearing further bombing attacks that would blow up dangerous materials, released tons of ethylene dichloride, a carcinogen, into the Danube.”3
NATO to the “Rescue of Ethnic Albanians”
Ethnic Albanians have not been spared by NATO air raids. Killing ethnic Albanians in Kosovo is said to be “inevitable” in carrying out a “humanitarian operation on behalf of ethnic Albanians”. In addition to the impacts of the ground war between the KLA and the Yugoslav Armed Forces, the bombings and the resulting radioactive fall-out in Kosovo have been more devastating than in the rest of Yugoslavia.
Presented as a humanitarian mission, the evidence amply confirms that NATO’s brutal air raids of towns and villages in Kosovo have triggered the exodus of refugees. Those who have fled their homes to refugee camps in Macedonia and Albania have nothing to return to, nothing to look forward to… An entire country has been destroyed, its civilian industry and public infrastructure transformed into rubble. Bridges, power plants, schools and hospitals are displayed as “legitimate military targets” selected by NATO’s Combined Air Operations Centre (CAOC) in Vicenza, Italy and carefully “validated prior to the pilot launching his strike.”
With the “diplomatic shuttle” still ongoing, the Alliance is intent on inflicting as much damage on the Yugoslav economy (including Kosovo) as possible prior to reaching a G8 brokered “peace initiative” which will empower them to send in ground troops. “Allied commanders have steadily widened their list of economic targets… Increasingly, the impact of NATO air strikes has put people out of work… causing water shortages in Belgrade, Novi Sad and other Serbian cities. … [T]he effect was to shut down businesses, strain hospitals’ ability to function and cut off water…”4. Some 115 medical institutions have been damaged of which several have been totally demolished. And hospital patients –including children and the elderly– are dying due to the lack of water and electricity…5
General Wesley Clark, NATO’s Supreme commander in Europe, confirmed in late May that “NATO’S air campaign has not reached its peak yet and the alliance should be prepared for more civilian casualties.”6. General Clark also confirmed that “he would be seeking to increase the number of air strikes in Kosovo and expand the range of targets.7 As the bombings entered their third month, there was also a noticeable change in “NATO rhetoric”. The Alliance had become increasingly unrepentant, NATO officials were no longer apologising for civilian casualties, claiming that the latter were contributing to “helping Milosevic’s propaganda machine.”
Extending the Conflict Beyond the Balkans
Drowned in the barrage of media images and self-serving analyses, the broader strategic interests and economic causes of the War go unmentioned. The late Sean Gervasi writing in 1995 had anticipated an impending War. According to Gervasi, Washington’s strategic goals stretched well beyond the Balkans. They largely consisted in “installing a Western-style regime in Yugoslavia and reducing the geographic area, power and influence of Serbia to a minimum….”8
In this context, the installation of American power in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean also constitutes a step towards the extension of Washington’s geopolitical sphere of influence beyond the Balkans into the area of the Caspian Sea, Central Asia and West Asia.
In this regard, NATO’s military intervention in Yugoslavia (in violation of international law) also sets a dangerous precedent. It provides “legitimacy” to future military interventions. To achieve its strategic objectives, national economies are destabilised, regional conflicts are financed through the provision of covert support to armed insurgencies… In other words, the conflict in Yugoslavia creates conditions which provide legitmacy to future interventions of the Alliance into the “internal affairs of sovereign nations”.
The consolidation of American strategic interests in Eastern Europe, the Balkans (and beyond) was not only marked by the enlargement of NATO (with the accession of Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic as NATO members) barely two weeks before the beginning of the bombings, the War in Yugoslavia also coincided with a critical split in geopolitical alignments within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
In late April, Georgia, the Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldava signed a pact in Washington, creating GUUAM, a regional alliance which lies strategically at the hub of the Caspian oil and gas wealth, “with Moldava and the Ukraine offering [pipeline] export routes to the West”.9 This geopolitical split bears a direct relationship to the crisis in Yugoslavia. The region is already unstable marked by nationalist conflicts and separatist movements.
The members of this new pro-NATO political grouping not only tacitly support the bombings in Yugoslavia, they have also agreed to “low level military cooperation” with NATO while insisting that “the group is not a military alliance directed against any third party, namely Moscow.”10
Dominated by Western oil interests, the formation of GUUAM is not only intent on excluding Russia from the oil and gas deposits in the Caspian area but also in isolating Moscow politically thereby potentially re-igniting Cold War divisions…
The War Has Stalled Nuclear Arms Controls
In turn, the War in Yugoslavia has significantly stalled nuclear arms-control initiatives leading to the cancellation of an exchange program “that would have had US and Russian nuclear weapons officers in constant contact at year’s end to prevent any launches as a result of Year 2000 computer troubles.”11
Moreover, Russia’s military has also voiced its concern “that the bombing of Yugoslavia could turn out in the very near future to be just a rehearsal for similar strikes on Russia.”12.
According to Dr. Mary-Wynne Ashford, co-president of the Nobel Peace Prize winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), the impact of NATO bombings of Yugoslavia “on nuclear weapons policy is an extremely serious development… Russians feel a sense of betrayal by the West… because NATO took this action outside the UN.”13
Aleksander Arbatov, deputy chairman of the Defence Committee of the Russian State Duma U.S.-Russian relations describes the War in Yugoslavia as the “worst most acute, most dangerous juncture since the U.S.-Soviet Berlin and Cuban missile crises.”14 According to Arbatov:
“START II is dead, co-operation with NATO is frozen, co-operation on missile defence is out of the question, and Moscow’s willingness to co-operate on non-proliferation issues is at an all-time low. Moreover, anti-U.S. sentiment in Russia is real, deep and more wide-spread than ever, and the slogan describing NATO action – “today Serbia, tomorrow Russia,” is “deeply planted in Russian’s minds.”…15 Mary-Wynne Ashford also warns that whereas Russia was moving towards integration with Europe, they [the Russians] now:
“…. perceive their primary threat from the West. Officials in [Russia’s] Foreign Affairs (Arms Control and Disarmament) told us that Russia has no option but to rely on nuclear weapons for its defence because its conventional forces are inadequate…. Even if the bombings stop now, the changes in Russia’s attitude toward the West, its renewed reliance on nuclear weapons with thousands on high alert, and its loss of confidence in international law leave us vulnerable to catastrophe…. This crisis makes de-alerting nuclear weapons more urgent than ever. To those who say the Russian threat is all rhetoric, I reply that rhetoric is what starts wars”.16
The Media War: “Silencing the Silent Majority”
This war is also “a War against the Truth”. With protest movements developing around the World, NATO has reinforced its clutch over the mass media. In a stylised (“wag the dog”) media mascarade, the Alliance is relentlessly portrayed as “the saviour of ethnic Albanian Kosovars”. A full-fledged “cover-up operation” has been set in motion with a view to thwarting public debate on the War. The hidden agenda is to “silence the silent majority.” The Western media heeding to the Alliance’s demands has blatantly misled public opinion. Casually portrayed on TV screens, civilian deaths are justified as inevitable “collateral damage”. According to the Pentagon, “there is no such thing as clean combat.”17
Meanwhile, anti-war commentators (including former ambassadors and OSCE officials) have been carefully removed from mainstream public affairs programmes, TV content is closely scrutinised, the images of civilian deaths and destruction relayed from Belgrade are seldomly and selectively displayed, journalists are under tight supervision. While the media does not hesitate to criticize NATO for having committed “errors” and “tragic mistakes”, the legitimacy of the military operation and its “humanitarian mandate” are not questioned:
“Public opinion is confronted with a loaded question which allows only one answer. In the present war, that question is, “Doesn’t ethnic cleansing have to be stopped?” This simplification allows the media to portray Yugoslavia rather than NATO as the aggressor. The alliance, in a complete inversion of reality, is presented as conducting an essentially defensive war on behalf of the Kosovar Albanians…” when in fact ethnic Albanians are the principle victims of NATO’s “humanitarian bombings.”18
According to NATO’s propaganda machine, “ethnic Albanians do not flee the bombings” and the ground war between the KLA and the Yugoslav Army. According to Diana Johnstone this makes them “nearly unique [because] throughout history, civilians have fled from war zones…. No, as we have heard repeatedly from NATO spokesmen and apologists, Kosovo Albanians run away from only one thing: brutal ethnic cleansing carried out by Serbs.”19
The refugee crisis we are told by NATO is limited to Kosovo. Yet the evidence (withheld by the Western media) confirms that people throughout Serbia are fleeing major cities:
Reliable estimates put the number of refugees who have left Belgrade to escape the bombing at 400,000. Most are women and children. At least another 500,000 have left Serbia’s other cities, notably Novi Sad and Nish, where NATO bombing has caused air pollution, cut the water supply, and struck purely civilian targets such as market squares. Altogether, according to the Italian daily “Il Manifesto”, the NATO bombing has produced at least a million refugees in Serbia. Predrag Simic, foreign policy adviser to Serbian opposition leader Vuk Draskovic, told a Paris conference [in late May] that Kosovo was being so thoroughly devastated by NATO bombing that nobody, neither Albanians nor Serbs, would be able to go back and live there”.20
Who is Responsible for War Crimes?
Public “disapproval” of NATO bombings is immediately dismissed as “Serb propaganda”. Those who speak out against NATO are branded as “apologists of Milosevic”. While most anti-War critics in NATO countries are not defenders of the Milosevic regime, they are nonetheless expected to be “balanced” in their arguments. “Looking at both sides of the picture is the rule”: anti-war commentators are invited to echo NATO’s fabricated media consensus, to unequivocally “join the bandwagon” against Milosevic. Under these circumstances, an objective understanding and analysis of the role of the Milosovic government since the civil War in Bosnia and in the context of the present crisis in Kosovo has been rendered virtually impossible.
Media double standards? Whereas President Milosevic and four members of his government were indicted by the Hague International Criminal Tribunal (ICTY) (late May) for allegedly organising a policy of “ethnic cleansing” in Kosovo, the news media failed to mention that several parallel law suits were launched at The Hague Tribunal (ICTY), accusing NATO leaders of “crimes against humanity.”21
It is also worth mentioning that the UK government (whose Prime Minister Tony Blair is among the list of accused in one of the parallel law suits) has provided The Hague Tribunal with “intelligence on the situation within Kosovo” since the beginning of the bombings.22 Part of this intelligence material was relayed by the KLA with which British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook has been in frequent contact as well as through British Special Forces (SAS) directly collaborating with the KLA.
Law Suit Directed Against NATO Leaders
In May [1999], a group of 15 Canadian lawyers and law professors together with the American Association of Jurists (with members in more than 20 countries) launched a suit against NATO leaders at the ICTY in the Hague.23 The suit points to “open violation” of the United Nations Charter, the NATO treaty, the Geneva Conventions and the “Principles of International Law Recognized by the Nuremberg Tribunal”. The latter makes: “planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances” a crime.24
The list of crimes allegedly committed by NATO leaders includes:
“wilful killing, wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, extensive destruction of property,… employment of poisonous weapons [implying radioactive fall-out] or other weapons to cause unnecessary suffering, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity,… “25
Under the terms of reference of the ICTY “a person who planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted in the planning, preparation or execution of a crime shall be individually responsible for the crime” and “the official position of any accused person, whether as Head of State or Government or as a responsible Government official, shall not relieve such person of criminal responsibility or mitigate punishment.”26
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson (and former President of Ireland) confirmed in Geneva on 30 April that the Prosecutor of the War Crimes Tribunal (ICTY) has the mandate not only to prosecute Serb forces but that the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and NATO may also come under scrutiny, “if it appears that serious violations of international humanitarian law have occurred.”
According to Walter J. Rockler, former prosecutor of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials:
“The bombing war also violates and shreds the basic provisions of the United Nations Charter and other conventions and treaties; the attack on Yugoslavia constitutes the most brazen international aggression since the Nazis attacked Poland to prevent “Polish atrocities” against Germans. The United States has discarded pretensions to international legality and decency, and embarked on a course of raw imperialism run amok.”27
Shaky Evidence of a “Humanitarian Catastrophe” Prior to the Bombings
In the course of “covering-up” the real motivations of NATO in launching the War, the international media has also failed to mention that an official intelligence report of the German Foreign Ministry (used to establish the eligibility of political refugees from Kosovo) confirmed that there was no evidence of “ethnic cleansing” in Kosovo in the months immediately preceding the bombings. Who is lying? German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer had justified NATO’s intervention pointing to a “humanitarian catastrophe”, yet the internal documents of his own ministry say exactly the opposite:
“Even in Kosovo an explicit political persecution linked to Albanian ethnicity is not verifiable. The East of Kosovo is still not involved in armed conflict. Public life in cities like Pristina, Urosevac, Gnjilan, etc. has, in the entire conflict period, continued on a relatively normal basis. The actions of the security forces [were] not directed against the Kosovo-Albanians as an ethnically defined group, but against the military opponent [KLA] and its actual or alleged supporters.”… “29
[W]ith an agreement made with the Serbian leadership at the end of 1998 … both the security situation and the conditions of life of the Albanian-derived population have noticeably improved… Specifically in the larger cities public life has since returned to relative normality.”29
The above assessments are broadly consistent with several independent evaluations of the humanitarian situation in Kosovo prior to the onslaught of the bombing campaign. Roland Keith, a former field office director of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM), who left Kosovo on March 20th reported that most of the violence in Kosovo was instigated by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA):
“Upon my arrival the war increasingly evolved into a mid intensity conflict as ambushes, the encroachment of critical lines of communication and the [KLA] kidnapping of security forces resulted in a significant increase in government casualties which in turn led to major Yugoslavian reprisal security operations… By the beginning of March these terror and counter-terror operations led to the inhabitants of numerous villages fleeing, or being dispersed to either other villages, cities or the hills to seek refuge… The situation was clearly that KLA provocations, as personally witnessed in ambushes of security patrols which inflicted fatal and other casualties, were clear violations of the previous October’s agreement [and United Nations Security Council Resolution 1199]. The security forces responded and the consequent security harassment and counter-operations led to an intensified insurrectionary war, but as I have stated elsewhere, I did not witness, nor did I have knowledge of any incidents of so-called “ethnic cleansing” and there certainly were no occurrences of “genocidal policies” while I was with the KVM in Kosovo. What has transpired since the OSCE monitors were evacuated on March 20, in order to deliver the penultimate warning to force Yugoslavian compliance with the Rambouillet and subsequent Paris documents and the commencement of the NATO air bombardment of March 24, obviously has resulted in human rights abuses and a very significant humanitarian disaster as some 600,000 Albanian Kosovars have fled or been expelled from the province. This did not occur, though, before March 20, so I would attribute the humanitarian disaster directly or indirectly to the NATO air bombardment and resulting anti-terrorist campaign.”30
Carefully removed from the public eye, preparations for both “the air campaign” and “the ground War” have been ongoing for almost a year prior to the beginning of NATO’s “humanitarian bombings” on March 24th 1999.
Responding to broad strategic and economic objectives, the Alliance’s first priority was to secure the stationing of armed combat troops in Macedonia on the immediate border with Kosovo. US Secretary of Defense William Cohen had travelled to Skopje in late December 1997 for discussions with the Macedonian government and Military. These high levels talks were followed a few months later by the visit of Macedonia’s Defense Minister L. Kitanoski to Washington for meetings at the Pentagon. On the agenda: the establishment of a NATO base in Macedonia.31
No time was lost: on May 6, 1998, the NATO Council met “to review alliance efforts” in the region; a major military exercise entitled “Cooperative Best Effort” was slated to take place in Macedonia in September. NATO nonetheless “reassured the international community” that the military exercise was not meant to be “a rehearsal”, rather it was to enable “NATO military authorities to study various options. Decisions on whether to execute any of those options would be a matter for future decision.”32
Largely the consequence of KLA terrorism, the deterioration of the security situation in Kosovo conveniently provided NATO with a pretext to build up its ground forces in Macedonia (composed largely of British and French troops). According to NATO, it was therefore necessary to envisage “a more complicated and ambitious [military] exercise [in Macedonia] to send a clear political signal [to Belgrade] of NATO’s involvement”.33
The Role of the Kosovo Liberation Army
In parallel with the setting up of its military operations in Albania and Macedonia, NATO had established direct links with the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). A US Department of Defense briefing confirms in this regard that “initial contacts” between the KLA and NATO had taken place by mid-1998:
“…the realization has come to people [in NATO] that we [NATO] have to have the UCK [acronym for KLA in Albanian] involved in this process because they have shown at least the potential to be rejectionists of any deal that could be worked out there with the existing Kosovo parties. So somehow they have to be brought in and that’s why we’ve made some initial contacts there with the group, hopefully the right people in the group, to try and bring them into this negotiating process. 34
While these “initial contacts” were acknowledged by NATO officially only in mid-1998, the KLA had (according to several reports) been receiving “covert support” and training from the CIA and Germany’s Bundes Nachrichten Dienst (BND) since the mid-nineties.35
The concurrent building up of KLA forces was part of NATO planning. By mid-1998 “covert support” had been gradually replaced –despite the KLA’s links to organised crime– by official (“overt”) support by the military Alliance in violation of UN Security Council Resolution UNSCR 1160 of 31 March 1998 which condemned: “…all acts of terrorism by the Kosovo Liberation Army or any other group or individual and all external support for terrorist activity in Kosovo, including finance, arms and training.”
On 24 September 1998, another key UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR 1199) was adopted which called “upon the authorities in Belgrade and the leadership of the Kosovar Albanian community urgently to enter without preconditions into a meaningful dialogue on political status issues.” It also required Belgrade to withdraw its troops from Kosovo.
Following a renewed wave of KLA terrorism, the Yugoslav authorities were blamed for the “crackdowns on ethnic Albanians” providing NATO defense ministers meeting in Vilmoura Portugal (September 24th on the same day as the adoption of UNSCR 1199) with the “justification” to issue an “activation warning” for a campaign of air strikes against Serb positions. The Vilmoura statement called upon Belgrade to “take immediate steps to alleviate the humanitarian situation…, stop repressive actions against the population and seek a political solution through negotiations with the Albanian majority”.36
This so-called “activation warning” was followed in mid-October by “an activation order” by the North Atlantic Council authorising NATO’s Supreme Commander for Europe General Wesley Clark to initiate “limited air strikes” and a “phased air campaign” … should the Yugoslav authorities refuse to comply with UNSCR 1199.37
Under the impending threat of air strikes, a partial withdrawal was carried out by Belgrade (following the adoption of UNSCR 1199) creating almost immediately conditions for the KLA to occupy positions previously held by retreating Serb forces. In turn, the strengthening of the KLA was accompanied by renewed terrorist activity and a consequent “worsening of the security situation”. NATO’s hidden objective, in this regard, was to use the KLA insurgency to further provoke ethnic tensions and generate social strife in Kosovo.
In the meantime, US envoy Richard Holbrooke had entered into discussions with President Milosovic. Forged under the threat of NATO air strikes, negotiations on Kosovo’s political status had also been initiated in Pristina between a Serbian delegation led by President Milan Milutinovic and Ibrahim Rugova, President of the Democratic League (DLK) representing ethnic Albanians. While Mr Christopher Hill, the US envoy had been invited as an observer to these meetings, Milutinovic had insisted that the negotiations (which proceeded from UNSCR 1199) were an internal matter.
Following the agreement between US envoy Richard Holbrooke and President Slobodan Milosevic, Yugoslavia was to complete negotiations on “a framework for a political settlement” by the 2nd of November 1998. Moreover, a Verification Mission to establish compliance with resolutions UNSCR 1160 and UNSCR 1199, was put in place in Kosovo under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). A parallel NATO air verification mission (complementing the OSCE verification mission) was established following an agreement signed in Belgrade on 15 October 1998 by the Yugoslav Chief of General Staff and NATO Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, General Wesley Clark.
The terms of both the OSCE and NATO verification agreements were subsequently embodied in UNSCR 1260 of October 24th. Whereas Belgrade was given a 96 hour “deadline for compliance”, the Alliance decided to postpone the initiation of air strikes following talks in Belgrade (October 25-26) between President Slobodan Milosevic and General Wesley Clark. According to the Alliance statement: “NATO will remain prepared to carry out air operations should they be necessary” 38. In the meantime, NATO launched Operation Eagle Eye using unarmed aircraft and unmanned predator aerial vehicles (UAVs). Eagle Eye surveillance activities were coordinated with the “ground verification” mission conducted by OSCE observer teams and by the Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission (KDOM).
A Former “Iran-Contragate” Official Heads the OSCE Verification Mission
In the meantime, a career US diplomat, Ambassador William G. Walker was appointed Head of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM). A tailor-made assignment: Walker was well-known for his role in the “Iran-Contragate” scandal during the Reagan administration. The KLA insurgency was in many regards a “carbon copy” of the Nicaraguan Contras which had also been funded by drug money with covert support from the CIA.
Well documented by court files, William G. Walker –in association with Oliver North– played a key role in channelling covert funding to the Nicaraguan Contras while serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs in the Reagan Administration. In this capacity, he became a special assistant to Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams, “a figure whose name would soon be making its way into the headlines on a daily basis in connection with … the “Iran-Contra” affair.”39
William G. Walker had been involved in the so-called Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office (“NHAO”) in the State Department which was a cover-up fund whereby covert military aid was supplied to the Contras. The objective was to circumvent the so-called “Boland Amendments”, –ie. “riders” to the Department of Defense Appropriation Act, “which prohibited the [US] government from spending money for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Nicaragua”. 40 Confirmed by files of the US Court of Appeal (District of Columbia), “Walker attended some meetings of the Restricted Interagency Group for Central America, of which Oliver North was a member”.41
Walker was never indicted for criminal wrong-doings in the Iran- Contragate scandal. Upon completing his work with Oliver North, he was appointed US Ambassador to El Salvador. His stint in El Salvador coincided with the rise of the death squadrons and a period during which the country was virtually “under the grip of US sponsored State terror.”42
In Kosovo, William G. Walker applied his skills in covert operations acquired in Central America. As head of the Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM), Walker maintained close links to the KLA military command in the field.43 From the outset of his mission in Kosovo, he used his position to pursue the interests of the Alliance.
“The Racak Massacre”
The so-called “Racak massacre” occurred shortly before the launching of the Rambouillet “peace initiative”. although it turned out to be a fake, the Racak massacre nonetheless played a key role in “setting the stage” for NATO’s air raids. William Walker declared (in his capacity as head of KVM) that the Yugoslav police had carried out a massacre of civilians at Racak on January 15th. The Yugoslav authorities retorted that local police had in fact conducted an operation in this village against the Kosovo Libration Army and that several KLA soliders had died in cross-fire. As later reported by several French newspapers (Le Monde, Le Figaro and Liberation), it was confirmed that the “Racak massacre” was indeed a fake put together with a view to discrediting Belgrade:
“Eventually, even the Los Angeles Times joined in, running a story entitled “Racak Massacre Questions: Were Atrocities Faked?” The theory behind all these exposs was that the KLA had gathered their own dead after the battle, removed their uniforms, put them in civilian clothes, and then called in the observers.”44.
The Rambouillet Process
On January 22, senior officials of the so-called “Contact Group” of six countries (including the US, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and Italy) meeting in London called for a peace conference which would bring together the Yugoslav government and “representatives of ethnic Albanians.” In turn, NATO warned that it was “ready to act” if the peace plan to be finalised by the Contact Group were rejected. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan concurred during a visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels that the threat of force was “essential” to press both sides into a settlement.45
In the meantime, while supporting the KLA insurgency on the ground, the Alliance had also contributed to spearheading KLA leader Hashim Thaci (a 29 year “freedom fighter”) into heading the Kosovar delegation to Rambouillet, on behalf of the ethnic Albanian majority. The Democratic League headed by Ibrahim Rugova had been deliberately side-stepped. The Alliance was relying on its KLA puppets (linked to organised crime) to rubber-stamp an agreement which would have transformed Kosovo into an occupied territory under NATO military rule.
While negotiations were ongoing in Rambouillet, NATO decided to increase the readiness of its assigned forces “so as to make them able to execute the operation within 48 hours”.46 In other words, “peace negotiations” had been initiated in Rambouillet (contrary to the Vienna Convention) under the threat of impending air strikes. NATO had granted a three weeks period to the parties meeting in Rambouillet to conclude negotiations.
On February 19, one day prior to the deadline, NATO Secretary General Javier Solano reaffirmed that, “if no agreement is reached by the deadline set by the Contact Group, NATO is ready to take whatever measures are necessary to avert a humanitarian catastrophe”.47 And on 22 March 1999, NATO’S North Atlantic Council authorised “the Secretary General to decide, subject to further consultations, on a broader range of air operations if necessary.”48
And on 23 March 1999, NATO’s Secretary General directed the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe General Wesley Clark to initiate air operations in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Air operations commenced on 24 March 1999 under the nickname “Operation Allied Force.”49
Sending in Ground Troups Under a G-8 “Peace Plan”
Since the brutal onslaught of the air campaign on March 24, the Alliance has continued to build up its ground combat troops on the Macedonian border in anticipation of an impending military invasion. Initially NATO had envisaged a Kosovo occupation force of 50,000 troops which could be increased to 60,000 with a larger US share than the 4,000 initially envisaged under Rambouillet.
In other words, the proposed invasion force was to be more than double that under Rambouillet (28,000 troops) while also enforcing all the normative clauses of the initial Rambouillet agreement including the “free movement” of NATO combat units throughout Yugoslavia.
In the meantime, NATO’s military establishment was forcing the pace of international diplomacy. The Alliance hinted in May that a ground offensive could be launched prior to reaching a “peace agreement” sanctioned by the G8 and ratified by the United Nations Security Council.
In addition to the 16,000 ground troops already stationed (well before the beginning of the bombings) in Macedonia (of which almost half are British), some 7000 NATO troops and “special forces” were also present in Albania, not to mention the NATO troops stationed in Bosnia-Herzegovina under Operation Joint Endeavour:
“We’ve already put quite a lot of troops in Macedonia as the nucleus of that operation”, said British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook. “There are over 12,000 there already… and last weekend [14-15 May] we committed another two and a half thousand to go there. We need to build up – actually we need to build up now…”50.
In late May, the 60,000 troops target was revised to 150,000. Alliance officials estimating that “if the alliance later decides to mobilize for a land attack … an invasion force could number more than 150,000 soldiers.”51 Prime Minister Tony Blair in a separate statement had (without any form of parliamentary debate) confirmed the sending of 50,000 British troops as part of the 150,000 invasion force.
In early June, a NATO led invasion under a bogus G8-UN peace initiative was put forth. While the latter served to appease and distract public opinion, it usefully provided the Alliance with a semblance of legitimacy under the UN Charter. It also purported to overcome the hesitation of elected politicians including German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Italian Prime Minister Massimo D’Alema. The US Administration also required the “rubber stamp” of the United Nations Security Council so as to acquire the assent of the Republican dominated Congress:
“House and Senate Democrats agree there is little support at this point for launching ground troops… even if Clinton and other NATO leaders could reach a consensus on such a dramatic shift in tactics. For now, Clinton has said he is opposed to ground troops.”52
The US House of Representatives (in what appeared to be a partisan “anti-Clinton” vote) has declined to even endorse the air campaign while signifying its refusal to authorize a “ground war” without congressional approval. In early April, Republicans and Democrats joined hands in the House and threw out a proposed “declaration of war on Yugoslavia” by an overwhelming 427-2 vote.
In late May [1999], seventeen members of Congress launched a suit against President Clinton pointing to the blatant breach of the US Constitution:
“that the Defendant, the President of the United States, is unconstitutionally continuing an offensive military attack by United States Armed Forces against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia without obtaining a declaration of war or other explicit authority from the Congress of the United States as required by Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution, and despite Congress’ decision not to authorize such action.” 53
The law suit launched in District Court (District of Columbia) also pointed to the violation of the War Powers Resolution of 1973, a Vietnam War-era legislation which requires “the sitting President congressional approval for the “introduction into hostilities” of the U.S. armed forces for longer than 60 days”:
Plaintiffs also seek a declaration that a report pursuant to Section 1543(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution was required to be submitted on March 26, 1999, within 48 hours of the introduction into hostilities in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia of United States Armed Forces. Additionally, Plaintiffs seek a declaration that, pursuant to Section 1544(b) of the Resolution, the President must terminate the use of United States Armed Forces engaged in hostilities against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia no later than sixty calendar days after March 26, 1999. The President must do so unless the Congress declares war or enacts other explicit authorization, or has extended the sixty day period, or the President determines that thirty additional days are necessary to safely withdraw United States Armed Forces from combat.54
NATO as “Peace-keepers”
Echoing the barrage of self-serving NATO propaganda, the media scam now consists in skilfully portraying Alliance ground troops as bona fide “peace-keepers”. Public opinion should not be deluded as to the meaning of a G8-UN brokered diplomatic solution.
An “international presence” consisting largely of NATO troops under the G8 proposal (ratified by the Serbian Parliament in early June) could include a token participation of “non-NATO forces” including Russia and the Ukraine. While Moscow agreed in early June that all Yugoslav forces be withdrawn from Kosovo alongside the disarmement of the KLA, Russian envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin nonetheless insisted that the command structure of the proposed international force be under the control and jurisdiction of the United Nations.
Despite his perfunctory condemnation of NATO bombings, Russian President Boris Yeltsin is a Western puppet. Chernomyrdin writing in the Washington Post had earlier warned that a continuation of the air raids could hurt US-Russian relations: “The world has never in this decade been so close as now to be on brink of nuclear war…” adding that “Russia would pull out of the negotiating process if NATO bombing, which started March 24, doesn’t stop soon.”55
In the meantime, the Alliance, however, had persisted in maintaining a unified NATO command structure (which was unacceptable to Moscow and Belgrade). NATO has also stepped up the bombings as a means of pressuring Belgrade into accepting (without prior negotiation) NATO’s “five conditions”.
If the G-8 proposal were to be ratified, NATO would first send in US Marines into Kosovo from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit in the Adriatic Sea. The Marines would be part of a so-called “Enabling Force” prior to the moving in of a force of 50,000 troops.
A G-8 “peace proposal” (implying a de facto military occupation of Kosovo) could be formally ratified at the Cologne G7-G8 Summit in mid-June. All G7 heads of government and heads of State together with President Boris Yeltsin will be in attendance at Cologne in what is hoped to be a highflown display of unity in favour of a (G8 sanctioned) NATO led invasion. NATO nonetheless warned in early June that should the diplomatic initiative not succeed, the Alliance would proceed with a ground invasion involving 150,000 troops….
The Sending in of “Special Forces”
In the meantime, an incipient undeclared ground War has already commenced: special British, French and American forces were reported to be advising the KLA in the conduct of ground combat operations against regular units of the Yugoslav Army. To support this initiative, a Republican sponsored bill was launched in the US Congress to provide direct military aid to the KLA.
These “special forces” are “advising the rebels at their strongholds in northern Albania, where the KLA has launched a major recruitment and training operation. According to high-ranking KLA officials, the [British] SAS is using two camps near Tirana, the Albanian capital, and another on the Kosovar border to teach KLA officers how to conduct intelligence-gathering operations on Serbian positions”.56 In May, three French special forces officers wearing uniforms of the French Armed Forces (“Parachutistes”) were reported killed on the Albania-Yugoslavia border by the Yugoslav daily Vecernje Novosti. According to the French daily Libration, the three men were allegedly “instructors in charge of coordinating ground war activities by the KLA…”57.
An Unholy “Marriage of Convenience”
In addition to the dispatch of Western special forces, Mujehadeen mercenaries and other Islamic fundamentalist groups (financed inter alia by Iran and Saudi financier Osmane Bin Laden) have been collaborating with the KLA in the ground war.
“[B]y early December 1997, Iranian intelligence had already delivered the first shipments of hand grenades, machine-guns, assault rifles, night vision equipment, and communications gear… Moreover, the Iranians began sending promising Albanian and UCK [KLA] commanders for advanced military training in al-Quds [special] forces and IRGC camps in Iran…58.
Bin Laden’s Al Qa’ida allegedly responsible for last year’s African embassy bombings “was one of several fundamentalist groups that had sent units to fight in Kosovo, … Bin Laden is believed to have established an operation in Albania in 1994 … Albanian sources say Sali Berisha, who was then president, had links with some groups that later proved to be extreme fundamentalists”.59
Nato in Close Liaison with KLA Ground Operations
According to Jane Defence Weekly (10 May 1999), the KLA’s new chief of staff is former Croatian Armed Forces Brigadier General Agim Ceku (an ethnic Albanian) who is currently under investigation by the War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague (ICTY) for his role in “summary executions, indiscriminate shelling of civilian populations and `ethnic cleansing’ during the War in Bosnia.”60
NATO spokesman Jamie Shea’s response to the appointment of a War criminal as KLA chief of staff was communicated in a Press Briefing:
“I have always made it clear, and you have heard me say this, that NATO has no direct contacts with the KLA. Who they appoint as their leaders, that is entirely their own affair. I don’t have any comment on that whatever.61
Shea’s statement that NATO has “no direct contacts with the KLA” is a lie. It is in overt contradiction with other Alliance statements: “I speak regularly to Hashim Thaci, the leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army who’s in Kosovo. I spoke to him at the end of last week” said British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook.62
Operations on the ground (led by the KLA and NATO Special forces) are now being carefully coordinated with the air campaign. Moreover, some 50 Canadian armed forces “are working with the KLA in Kosovo” to help report “where the bombs are falling” so they can better target “where the next bomb should go.”63
Pentagon Sponsored Mercenaries in Kosovo
The KLA has also been provided with “a long-term training deal with Military and Professional Resources International [MPRI], a mercenary company run by former American officers who operate with semi-official approval from the Pentagon and played a key role in building up Croatia’s armed forces [during the War in Bosnia].”64 And General Brigadier Agim Ceku (despite his role in “ethnic cleansing” in Bosnia), is currently collaborating closely with the Pentagon’s mercenary outfit MPRI on behalf of the KLA.
The KLA to Form a “Post-conflict Government”
A self-proclaimed provisional KLA government of Kosovo has been established. With KLA leader Hashim Thaci as Prime Minister designate, the KLA has already been promised a central role in the formation of a “post-conflict government”.
While openly promoting a “freedom movement” with links to the drug trade, NATO was also intent in bypassing the civilian Kosovo Democratic League and its leader Ibrahim Rugova who had earlier called for an end to the bombings. Rugova was branded as a “traitor” by the KLA. According to Albanian state-run TV, the KLA had sentenced Rugova to death accusing him of being “an agent of the regime in Belgrade.”65
In April, Fehmi Agani, one of Rugova’s closest collaborators in the Democratic League was killed. The Serbs were blamed by NATO spokesperson Jamie Shea for having assassinated Agani. According to Skopje paper Makedonija Danas quoting reliable sources in Albania: “Agani was killed… on the orders of Tirana where Thaci is located with the members of his illegal government”.66
According to a report of the Foreign Policy Institute:
“…the KLA have [no] qualms about murdering Rugova’s collaborators, whom it accused of the “crime” of moderation. Most recently, although Rugova’s recent meeting with Milosevic may well have been under duress, the KLA declared Rugova a “traitor” – yet another step toward eliminating any competitors for political power within Kosovo.”67
The KLA military regime had replaced the duly elected (by ethnic Albanians) civilian provisional Kosovar government of President Ibrahim Rugova. In a statement issued in April, the KLA considered the (parallel) “parliamentary elections” organised by the Democratic League and held in March 1998 to be invalid.
The self-proclaimed Kosovar administration is made up of the KLA and the Democratic Union Movement (LBD), a coalition of five opposition parties opposed to Rugova’s Democratic League (LDK). In addition to the position of prime minister, the KLA controls the ministries of finance, public order and defence. In the words of US State Department spokesman James Foley:
`We want to develop a good relationship with them [the KLA] as they transform themselves into a politically-oriented organization,’ ..`[W]e believe that we have a lot of advice and a lot of help that we can provide to them if they become precisely the kind of political actor we would like to see them become.’68
With the KLA poised to play a central role in the formation of a “post conflict” government, the tendency is towards the installation of a “Mafia State” with links to the drug trade. The US State Department’s position is that the KLA would “not be allowed to continue as a military force but would have the chance to move forward in their quest for self government under a ‘different context’” meaning the inauguration of a de facto “narco-democracy” under NATO protection: “If we can help them and they want us to help them in that effort of transformation, I think it’s nothing that anybody can argue with.”69
In recent developments, the Alliance, however, has sought through the intermediation of US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to reconcile divisions between Thachi, Rugova and other ethnic Albanian leaders “primarily with a view to strengthening its [the Alliance’s] own position in the region.”70
Imposing “Free Market” Reforms
Wall Street analysts concur that “war is good for business” particularly during a period of “economic slowdown”. The US Congress has approved increased budgetary allocations to finance the War in Yugoslavia which will result in multi-billion contracts for America’s Defense industry. In turn, the War will boost the military-industrial complex and its related high tech sectors in the US and Western Europe. A ground war combined with a prolonged military occupation (as in Bosnia) will prop up military spending. In turn, covert support and financing of “freedom fighters” (extending beyond the Balkans into Central Asia and the Middle East) will contribute to boosting the lucrative contraband in small arms for an expanding market of insurgent nationalist movements.
“Economic Reconstruction”
The “post conflict” agenda (under the proposed G8 “peace initiative” consists in establishing in Kosovo an occupied territory under Western administration (broadly on the same model as the 1995 Dayton Agreement imposed on Bosnia-Herzegovina).
“Free market reforms” are envisaged for Kosovo under the supervision of the Bretton Woods institutions. Article I (Chapter 4a) of the Rambouillet Agreement stipulates that: “The economy of Kosovo shall function in accordance with free market principles”.
“Civilian administration [in Kosovo] and reconstruction would be carried out by non-military bodies including the EU and the OSCE, with input from the World Bank and the IMF to rebuild war-damaged infrastructure and rehouse refugees.71
In close liaison with NATO, the Bretton Woods institutions had already analyzed the consequences of an eventual military intervention leading to the military occupation of Kosovo: almost a year prior to the beginning of the War, the World Bank conducted “simulations” which “anticipated the possibility of an emergency scenario arising out of the tensions in Kosovo”.72 The “simulations” conducted in Washington have in fact already been translated into a panoply of “emergency recovery loans” for Macedonia and Albania, and there is more to come… Since the imposition of the embargo, Yugoslavia, however, is no longer considered a member of the Bretton Woods institutions and will not be eligible for IMF-World Bank loans until the sanctions are lifted.
The proposed “Marshall Plan” for the Balkans is a delusion. We recall that in Bosnia, the costs of reconstruction were of the order of 50 billion dollars. Western donors initially pledged $3 billion in reconstruction loans, yet only a meagre $518 million dollars were granted in December 1995, part of which was tagged (under the terms of the Dayton Peace Accords) to finance some of the local civilian costs of the Implementation Force’s (IFOR) military deployment as well as repay debt arrears with international creditors.73
The eventual “reconstruction” of Yugoslavia formulated in the context of the “free market” reforms and financed by international debt largely purport to create a safe haven for foreign investors rather than rehabilitate the country’s economic and social infrastructure. The IMF’s lethal “economic medicine” will be imposed, the national economy will be dismantled, European and American banks will take over financial institutions, local industrial enterprises which have not been totally destroyed will be driven into bankruptcy. The most profitable State assets will be transferred into the hands of foreign capital under the World Bank sponsored privatisation programme. In turn, “strong economic medicine” imposed by external creditors will contribute to further boosting a criminal economy (already implanted in Albania and Macedonia) which feeds on poverty and economic dislocation.
“The Allies will work with the rest of the international community to help rebuild Kosovo once the crisis is over: The International Monetary Fund and Group of Seven industrialized countries are among those who stand ready to offer financial help to the countries of the region. We want to ensure proper co-ordination of aid and help countries to respond to the effects of the crisis. This should go hand in hand with the necessary structural reforms in the countries affected — helped by budget support from the international community.74
In turn, the so-called “reconstruction” of the Balkans by foreign capital will signify multi-billion contracts to multinational firms to rebuild roads, airports and bridges which will eventually be required (once the embargo is lifted) to facilitate the “free movement” of capital and commodities.
The proposed “Marshall Plan” financed by the World Bank and the European Development Bank (EBRD) as well as private creditors will largely benefit Western mining, petroleum and construction companies while fuelling the region’s external debt well into the third millennium. And the countries of the Balkans are slated to reimburse this debt through the laundering of dirty money in the domestic banking system which will be deregulated under the supervision of Western financial institutions. Narco-dollars from the multi-billion dollar Balkans drug trade will be recycled (through the banking system) and channelled towards servicing the external debt as well as “financing” the costs of “reconstruction”.
The pattern for Kosovo is, in this regard, similar to that of Macedonia and Albania. Since the early 1990s, the IMF’s reforms have impoverished the Albanian population while spearheading the national economy into bankruptcy. The IMF’s deadly economic therapy transforms countries into open territories. In Albania and Macedonia it has fostered the growth of illicit trade and the criminalisation of State institutions.
Moreover, even prior to the influx of refugees, NATO troops in Macedonia and Albania had already occupied civilian facilities (including hotels, schools, barracks and even hospitals) without compensating the national governments for the use of local services.75
In a cruel irony, a significant part of these incurred costs as well as those associated with the refugee crisis are now to be financed not by the Alliance but by the national governments on borrowed money:
“[T]he Albanian government’s formal structures have been paralysed by the crisis. The country’s treasury has been emptied by the initial efforts to help the refugees.”76
Who Will Pay War Reparations?
The extensive destruction of Yugoslavia, would normally require the Alliance to “pay war reparations” to Belgrade. However, following a pattern set in both Vietnam and Iraq, the Alliance will no doubt compel Belgrade “to pay for the costs” of Operation Allied Force (including the cruise missiles and radioactive shells) as a condition for the “normalisation of relations” and the lifting of the economic embargo.
We recall in this regard that whereas Vietnam never received War reparations payments, Hanoi was compelled –as a condition for the “normalisation” of economic relations and the lifting of the US embargo in 1994–, to recognize the “bad debts” of the defunct Saigon regime which were largely used to finance the US War effort. By recognizing (in a secret Paris Club agreement negotiatied in 1993) the legitimacy of these debts, Vietnam had accepted “to pay war reparation damages” to her former enemy.77
Similarly Baghdad has been “billed for the costs of the Gulf War”, – –ie. accumulated Iraqi debts including private claims against Iraq have been carefully recorded by a special unit of the UN Security Council. The recognition of these debts by Baghdad at some future date will be a condition for the lifting of sanctions on Iraq.
Notes
1. Statement by UNICEF Representative in Belgrade, quoted in Yugoslav Daily Survey, Belgrade, 23 May 1999, No. 4351.
2. Report by Dr Siegwart-Horst Guenther, meeting of the PBS (Federal Socialists), Bonn, 17 May 1999.
3. International Action Center, “NATO Bombing Unleashes Environmental Catastrophe in Europe”, Press Release, 14 May 1999).
4. Joseph Fitchett, “Is Serb Economy the True Target? Raids Seem Aimed at Bolstering Resistance to Milosevic”, International Herald Tribune, Paris, 26 May 1999.
5. Tanjug Press Release, 25 May 1999.
6. Statement to Ambassadors of 19 NATO Countries, quoted in Daily Telegraph, London, 28 May 1999.
7. Ibid.
8. Sean Gervasi, Bosnia and Vietnam, draft text, 1995.
9. Financial Times, London, 6 May 1999, p. 2.
10. Ibid.
11. The Boston Globe, 8 April 1999.
12. According to Viktor Chechevatov, a Three-star General and Commander of ground forces in Russia’s Far East, quoted in The Boston Globe, 8 April 1999
13. Dr. Mary-Wynne Ashford, “Bombings Reignite Nuclear War Fears”, The Victoria Times-Colonist. 13 May 1999, page A15. Mary-Wynne Ashford is co-president of the Nobel Peace Prize winning IPPNW.
14. Quoted in Mary-Wynne Ashford, op. cit.
15 Quoted by Dr. Mary-Wynne Ashford, op. cit.
16. Dr. Mary-Wynne Ashford, op cit.
17. Quoted in The Washington Post, May 9, 1999, page A20.
18. World Socialist Website editorial, 24 May 1999.
19. Diana Johnstone, On Refugees, Paris, 30 May 1999.
20. Ibid.
21. See “Lawyers Charge NATO Leaders Before War Crimes Tribunal”, Toronto, 6 May 1999.
22. See Financial Times, 27 May 1999.
23. See “Lawyers Charge NATO Leaders Before War Crimes Tribunal”, Toronto, 6 May 1999; see also Jude Wanniski, “Memo to US House Majority Leader”, Polyeconomics, New York, 10 May 1999.
24. Lawyers Charge NATO, op cit.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. Chicago Tribune, 10 May 1999. 28. Intelligence Report from the German Foreign Office, January 12, 1999 to the Administrative Court of Trier.
29. Status Report of the German Foreign Office, November 18, 1998 to the Upper Administrative Court at Mnster, February 24, 1999.
30. See, Roland Keith, “Failure of Diplomacy, Returning OSCE Human Rights Monitor Offers A View From the Ground in Kosovo”, The Democrat, May 1999.
31. US Department of Defense Press Release, 6 April 1999. The stated purpose of the mission was “to discuss a range of security issues with the recent ethnic clashes in Kosovo.” In Skopje, the agenda consisted in examining security arrangements to be implemented after the termination of United Nations UNPREDEP programme.
32. Background briefing by a Senior Defense Official at NATO Headquarters, Thursday, June 11, 1998.
33. Ibid.
34. US Department of Defense, Background Briefing, July 15, 1998.
35. For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Kosovo `Freedom Fighters’ Financed by Organised Crime, Ottawa, 1999.
36. Quoted in The Daily Telegraph, London, 25 September 1998.
37. See Federation of American Scientists, “Operation Determined Force”, 24 March 1999, see also Financial Times, October 12, 1998.
38. Quoted in Federation of American Scientists, op. cit.
39. See Roland Keith, Appendix, op. cit.
40. United States Court of Appeals, for the District of Columbia Circuit, Filed January 23, 1996, Division No. 86-6, in Re: Oliver L. North.
41. Ibid.
42. Roland Keith, Appendix, op. cit.
43. Confirmed by several press reports as well as statements of the KLA, see also Radio 21 Dispatch, Tirana, February 28, 1999.
44. Roland Keith, Appendix, op cit.
45. Daily Telegraph, London, 29 January 1999.
46. Federation of American Scientists, op. cit.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid.
49. Ibid.
50. “Margaret Warner talks with Cook about the latest developments in the Yugoslav conflict”, Jim Lehrer News Hour, 21 May 1999.
51. New York Times, 26 May 1999.
52. Washington Post, 23 May 1999.
53. Action launched in United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Complaint for Declaratory Relief, Preliminary Statement, District of Columbia, 27 May 1999.
54. Ibid., see also Truth in Media, Phoenix, 23 May 1999.
55. Washington Post, 27 May 1999.
56. Sunday Telegraph, London, 18 April 1999.
57. Libration, Paris, 19 May 1999.
58. Yossef Bodansky, “Italy Becomes Iran’s New Base for Terrorist Operations,” Defense and Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, London, February 1998. Bodansky is Director of the US House Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare
59. Chris Steven, “Bin Laden Opens European Terror Base in Albania”, Sunday Times, London, 15 November 1998.
60. “War Crimes Panel Finds Croat Troops ‘Cleansed’ the Serbs,” New York Times, 21 March 1999.
61. NATO Press Briefing, 14 May 1999.
62. Jim Lehrer News Hour, op cit.
63. According to Canadian MP David Price, April 19, 1999, UPI Press Dispatch. 64. Sunday Telegraph, London, 18 April 1999.
65. “US Is Trying to Reconcile Ethnic-Albanian Separatists”, Belgrade, Tanjug Press Dispatch, 30 May 1999.
66. Quoted in Tanjug Press Dispatch, 14 May 1999.
67. See Michael Radu, “Don’t Arm the KLA”, CNS Commentary from the Foreign Policy Research Institute, 7 April, 1999).
68. New York Times, 2 February 1999.
69. Ibid.
70. Tanjug Press Dispatch, 30 May 1999.
71. See World Bank Development News, Washington, 27 April 1999.
72. Ibid.
73. See Michel Chossudovsky, Dismantling Yugoslavia, Colonising Bosnia, Covert Action Quarterly, No. 56. Spring 1996.
74. Statement by Javier Solano, Secretary General of NATO, published in The National Post, Toronto May 1999).
75. See Jan Oberg, Press Info, no. 59, Insecuring Macedonia, Transnational Foundation TFF, March 18, 1999.
76. Jane Intelligence Review, June 1999.
77. See Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalisation of Poverty, Impacts of IMF and World Banks Reforms, Third World Network Penang and Zed Books, 1997, chapter 8.
.
.
Chapter IV
NATO has Installed a Reign of Terror in Kosovo
.
This text was presented to the Independent Commission of Inquiry to Investigate U.S./NATO War Crimes Against The People of Yugoslavia, International Action Center, New York, July 31, 1999.
.
PART I: MASSACRES OF CIVILIANS IN KOSOVO
While the World focusses on troop movements and war crimes, the massacres of civilians in the wake of the bombings have been casually dismissed as “justifiable acts of revenge”. In occupied Kosovo, “double standards” prevail in assessing alleged war crimes. The massacres directed against Serbs, ethnic Albanians, Roma and other ethnic groups have been conducted on the instructions of the military command of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
NATO ostensibly denies KLA involvement. These so-called “unmotivated acts of violence and retaliation” are not categorised as “war crimes” and are therefore not included in the mandate of the numerous FBI and Interpol police investigators dispatched to Kosovo under the auspices of the Hague War Crime’s Tribunal (ICTY). Moreover, whereas NATO has tacitly endorsed the self-proclaimed KLA provisional government, KFOR the international security force in Kosovo has provided protection to the KLA military commanders responsible for the atrocities. In so doing both NATO and the UN Mission have acquiesced to the massacres of civilians. In turn, public opinion has been blatantly misled. In portraying the massacres, the Western media has casually overlooked the role of the KLA, not to mention its pervasive links to organised crime. In the words of National Security Advisor Samuel Berger,
“these people [ethnic Albanians] come back … with broken hearts and with some of those hearts filled with anger.”1
While the massacres are seldom presented as the result of “deliberate decisions” by the KLA military command, the evidence (and history of the KLA) amply confirm that these atrocities are part of a policy of “ethnic cleansing” directed mainly against the Serb population but also against the Roma, Montenegrins, Goranis and Turks.
Serbian houses and business have been confiscated, looted, or burned, and Serbs have been beaten, raped, and killed. In one of the more dramatic of incidents, KLA troops ransacked a monastery, terrorized the priest and a group of nuns with gunfire, and raped at least one of the nuns. NATO’s inability to control the situation and provide equal protection for all ethnic groups, and its apparent inability or unwillingness to fully disarm the KLA, has created a serious situation for NATO troops…2
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), confirms in this regard that:
“more than 164,000 Serbs have left Kosovo during the seven weeks since… the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) entered the province… A wave of arson and looting of Serb and Roma homes throughout Kosovo has ensued. Serbs and Roma remaining in Kosovo have been subject to repeated incidents of harassment and intimidation, including severe beatings. Most seriously, there has been a spate of murders and abductions of Serbs since mid-June, including the late July massacre of Serb farmers.”3
Political Assassinations
The self-proclaimed Provisional Government of Kosovo (PGK) has also ordered assassinations directed against political opponents including “loyalist” ethnic Albanians and supporters of the Kosovo Democratic League (KDL). These acts are being carried out in a totally permissive environment. The leaders of the KLA rather than being arrested for war crimes, have been granted KFOR protection.
According to a report of the Foreign Policy Institute (published during the bombings):
“…the KLA have [no] qualms about murdering Rugova’s collaborators, whom it accused of the `crime’ of moderation… [T]he KLA declared Rugova a `traitor’ yet another step toward eliminating any competitors for political power within Kosovo.”4
Already in May [1999], Fehmi Agani, one of Rugova’s closest collaborators in the Kosovo Democratic League (KDL) was killed. The Serbs were blamed by NATO spokesperson Jamie Shea for having assassinated Agani. According to Skopje’s paper Makedonija Danas, Agani had been executed on the orders of the KLA’s self-appointed Prime Minister Hashim Thaci.5 “If Thaci actually considered Rugova a threat, he would not hesitate to have Rugova removed from the Kosovo political landscape.”6
In turn, the KLA has abducted and killed numerous professionals and intellectuals:
“Private and State properties are threatened, home and apartment owners are evicted en masse by force and threats, houses and entire villages are burned, cultural and religious monuments are destroyed… A particularly heavy blow… has been the violence against the hospital centre in Pristina, the maltreatment and expulsion of its professional management, doctors and medical staff.”7
Both NATO and the UN prefer to turn a blind eye. UN Interim Administrator Bernard Kouchner (a former French Minister of Health) and KFOR Commander Sir Mike Jackson have established a routine working relationship with Prime Minister Hashim Thaci and KLA Chief of Staff Brigadier General Agim Ceku.
Atrocities committed against the Roma
Ethnic cleansing has also been directed against the Roma (which represented prior to the conflict a population group of 150,000 people). (According to figures provided by the Roma Community in New York). A large part of the Roma population has already escaped to Montenegro and Serbia. In turn, there are reports that Roma refugees who had fled by boat to Southern Italy have been expelled by the Italian authorities.8 The KLA has also ordered the systematic looting and torching of Romani homes and settlements:
“All houses and settlements of Romani, like 2,500 homes in the residential area called `Mahala’ in the town of Kosovska Mitrovica, have been looted and burnt down”.9
With regard to KLA atrocities committed against the Roma, the same media distortions prevail. According to the BBC: “Gypsies are accused by [Kosovar] Albanians of collaborating in Serb brutalities, which is why they’ve also become victims of revenge attacks. And the truth is, some probably did.”10
Installing a KLA Paramilitary Government
As Western leaders trumpet their support for democracy, State terrorism in Kosovo has become an integral part of NATO’s postwar design. The KLA’s political role for the post-conflict period had been mapped out well in advance. Prior to Rambouillet Conference, the KLA had been promised a central role in the formation of a post-conflict government. The “hidden agenda” consisted in converting the KLA paramilitary into a legitimate and accomplished civilian administration. According to US State Department spokesman James Foley (February 1999):
“We want to develop a good relationship with them [the KLA] as they transform themselves into a politically-oriented organization, …[W]e believe that we have a lot of advice and a lot of help that we can provide to them if they become precisely the kind of political actor we would like to see them become.’”11
In other words, the US State Department had already slated the KLA “provisional government” (PGK) to run civilian State institutions. Under NATO’s “Indirect Rule”, the KLA has taken over municipal governments and public services including schools and hospitals. Rame Buja, the KLA “Minister for Local Administration” has appointed local prefects in 23 out of 25 municipalities.12
Under NATO’s regency, the KLA has replaced the duly elected (by ethnic Albanians) provisional Kosovar government of President Ibrahim Rugova. The self-proclaimed KLA administration has branded Rugova as a traitor declaring the (parallel) Kosovar parliamentary elections held in March 1998 to be invalid. This position has largely been upheld by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) entrusted by UNMIK with the postwar task of “democracy building” and “good governance”. In turn, OSCE officials have already established a working rapport with KLA appointees.13
The KLA provisional government (PGK) is made up of the KLA’s political wing together with the Democratic Union Movement (LBD), a coalition of five opposition parties opposed to Rugova’s Democratic League (LDK). In addition to the position of prime minister, the KLA controls the ministries of finance, public order and defence. The KLA also has a controlling voice on the UN sponsored Kosovo Transitional Council set up by Mr. Bernard Kouchner. The PGK has also established links with a number of Western governments.
Whereas the KLA has been spearheaded into running civilian institutions (under the guidance of the OSCE), members of the duly elected Kosovar (provisional) government of the Democratic League (DKL) have been blatantly excluded from acquiring a meaningful political voice.
Establishing a KLA Police Force to Protect Civilians
Under NATO occupation, the rule of law has visibly been turned up side down. Criminals and terrorists are to become law enforcement officers. KLA troops which have already taken over police stations will eventually form a 4,000 strong “civilian” police force (to be trained by foreign police officers under the authority of the United Nations) with a mandate to “protect civilians”. Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien has already pledged Canadian support to the formation of a civilian police force.14 The latter which has been entrusted to the OSCE will eventually operate under the jurisdiction of the KLA controlled “Ministry of Public Order”.
US Military Aid
Despite NATO’s commitment to disarming the KLA, the Kosovar paramilitary organisation is slated to be transformed into a modern military force. So-called “security assistance” has already been granted to the KLA by the US Congress under the “Kosovar Independence and Justice Act of 1999”. Start-up funds of 20 million dollars will largely be “used for training and support for their [KLA] established self-defence forces.”15 In the words of KLA Chief of Staff Agrim Ceku:
“The KLA wants to be transformed into something like the US National Guard, … we accept the assistance of KFOR and the international community to rebuild an army according to NATO standards. … These professionally trained soldiers of the next generation of the KLA would seek only to defend Kosova. At this decisive moment, we [the KLA] do not hide our ambitions; we want the participation of international military structures to assist in the pacific and humanitarian efforts we are attempting here.” 16
While the KLA maintains its links to the Balkans narcotics trade which served to finance many of its terrorist activities, the paramilitary organisation has now been granted an official seal of approval as well as “legitimate” sources of funding. The pattern is similar to that followed in Croatia and in the Bosnian Muslim-Croatian Federation where so-called “equip and train” programmes were put together by the Pentagon. In turn, Washington’s military aid package to the KLA has been entrusted to Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI) of Alexandria, Virginia, a private mercenary outfit run by high ranking former US military officers.
MPRI’s training concepts which had already been tested in Croatia and Bosnia are based on imparting “offensive tactics… as the best form of defence”.17 In the Kosovar context, this so- called “defensive doctrine” transforms the KLA paramilitary into a modern army without however eliminating its terrorist makeup.18 The objective is to ultimately transform an insurgent army into a modern military and police force which serves the Alliance’s future strategic objectives in the Balkans. MPRI has currently “ninety-one highly experienced, former military professionals working in Bosnia & Herzegovina”.19 The number of military officers working on contract with the KLA has not been disclosed.
PART II. FROM KRAJINA TO KOSOVO
The massacres of civilians in Kosovo are not disconnected acts of revenge by civilians or by so-called “rogue elements” within the KLA as claimed by NATO and the United Nations. They are part of a consistent and coherent pattern. The intent (and result) of the KLA sponsored atrocities have been to trigger the “ethnic cleansing” of Serbs, Roma and other minorities in Kosovo.
KLA Commander Agim Ceku referring to the killings of 14 villagers at Gracko on July 24, claimed that: “We [the KLA] do not know who did it, but I sincerely believe these people have nothing to do with the KLA.”20 In turn, KFOR Lieutenant General Sir Mike Jackson has commended his KLA counterpart, Commander Agim Ceku for “efforts undertaken” to disarm the KLA. In fact, very few KLA weapons have been handed in. Moreover, the deadline for turning in KLA weaponry has been extended. “I do not regard this as noncompliance” said Commander Jackson in a press conference, “but rather as an indication of the seriousness with which General Ceku is taking this important issue.”21
Yet what Sir Mike Jackson failed to mention is that KLA Chief of Staff Commander Agim Ceku (although never indicted as a war criminal) was (according to Jane Defence Weekly June 10, 1999) “one of the key planners of the successful `Operation Storm’” led by the Croatian Armed Forces against Krajina Serbs in 1995.
General Jackson who had served in former Yugoslavia under the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) was fully cognizant of the activities of the Croatian High Command during that period including the responsibilities imparted to Brigadier General Agim Ceku. In February 1999, barely a month prior to the NATO bombings, Ceku left his position as Brigadier General with the Croatian Armed Forces to join the KLA as Commander in Chief.
From Krajina to Kosovo: The Shape of Things to Come
According to the Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, Operation Storm resulted in the massacre of at least 410 civilians in the course of a three day operation (4 to 7 August 1995).22 An internal report of The Hague War Crimes Tribunal (leaked to the New York Times), confirmed that the Croatian Army had been responsible for carrying out:
“summary executions, indiscriminate shelling of civilian populations and “ethnic cleansing” in the Krajina region of Croatia….”23
In a section of the report entitled “The Indictment. Operation Storm, A Prima Facie Case.”, the ICTY report confirms that:
“During the course of the military offensive, the Croatian armed forces and special police committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law, including but not limited to, shelling of Knin and other cities… During, and in the 100 days following the military offensive, at least 150 Serb civilians were summarily executed, and many hundreds disappeared. …In a widespread and systematic manner, Croatian troops committed murder and other inhumane acts upon and against Croatian Serbs.” 24
US `Generals for Hire’
The internal 150 page report concluded that it has “sufficient material to establish that the three [Croatian] generals who commanded the military operation” could be held accountable under international law.25 The individuals named had been directly involved in the military operation “in theatre”. Those involved in “the planning of Operation Storm” were not mentioned:
“The identity of the “American general” referred to by Fenrick [a Tribunal staff member] is not known. The tribunal would not allow Williamson or Fenrick to be interviewed. But Ms. Arbour, the tribunal’s chief prosecutor, suggested in a telephone interview last week that Fenrick’s comment had been `a joking observation’. Ms. Arbour had not been present during the meeting, and that is not how it was viewed by some who were there. Several people who were at the meeting assumed that Fenrick was referring to one of the retired U.S. generals who worked for Military Professional Resources Inc. … Questions remain about the full extent of U.S. involvement. In the course of the three yearinvestigation into the assault, the United States has failed to provide critical evidence requested by the tribunal, according to tribunal documents and officials, adding to suspicion among some there that Washington is uneasy about the investigation… The Pentagon, however, has argued through U.S. lawyers at the tribunal that the shelling was a legitimate military activity, according to tribunal documents and officials”.26
The Tribunal was attempting to hide what had already been revealed in several press reports published in the wake of Operation Storm. According to a US State Department spokesman, MPRI had been helping the Croatians “avoid excesses or atrocities in military operations.”27 Fifteen senior US military advisers headed by retired two star General Richard Griffitts had been dispatched to Croatia barely seven months before Operation Storm. 28 According to one report, MPRI executive director General Carl E. Vuono: “held a secret top-level meeting at Brioni Island, off the coast of Croatia, with Gen. Varimar Cervenko, the architect of the Krajina campaign. In the five days preceding the attack, at least ten meetings were held between General Vuono and officers involved in the campaign…”29
According to Ed Soyster, a senior MPRI executive and former head of the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA):
“MPRI’s role in Croatia is limited to classroom instruction on military-civil relations and doesn’t involve training in tactics or weapons. Other U.S. military men say whatever MPRI did for the Croats and many suspect more than classroom instruction was involved it was worth every penny.” Carl Vuono and Butch [Crosbie] Saint are hired guns and in it for the money,” says Charles Boyd, a recently retired four star Air Force general who was the Pentagon’s No. 2 man in Europe until July [1995]. “They did a very good job for the Croats, and I have no doubt they’ll do a good job in Bosnia.”30
The Hague’s Tribunal’s Coverup
The untimely leaking of the ICTY’s internal report on the Krajina massacres barely a few days before the onslaught of NATO’s air raids on Yugoslavia was the source of some embarrassment to the Tribunal’s Chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour. The Tribunal (ICTY) attempted to cover up the matter and trivialise the report’s findings (including the alleged role of the US military officers on contract with the Croatian Armed Forces). Several Tribunal officials including American Lawyer Clint Williamson sought to discredit the Canadian Peacekeeping officers’ testimony who witnessed the Krajina massacres in 1995.31
Williamson, who described the shelling of Knin as a “minor incident,” said that the Pentagon had told him that Knin was a legitimate military target… The [Tribunal’s] review concluded by voting not to include the shelling of Knin in any indictment, a conclusion that stunned and angered many at the tribunal”…32
The findings of the Tribunal contained in the leaked ICTY documents were downplayed, their relevance was casually dismissed as “expressions of opinion, arguments and hypotheses from various staff members of the OTP during the investigative process”.33 According to the Tribunal’s spokesperson “the documents do not represent in any way the concluded decisions of the Prosecutor.” 34
The internal 150 page report has not been released. The staff member who had leaked the documents is (according to a Croatian TV report) no longer working for the Tribunal. During the press Conference, the Tribunal’s spokesman was asked: “about the consequences for the person who leaked the information”, Blewitt [the ICTY spokesman] replied that he did not want to go into that. He said that the OTP would strengthen the existing procedures to prevent this from happening again, however he added that you could not stop people from talking”.35
The Use of Chemical Weapons in Croatia
The massacres conducted under Operation Storm “set the stage” for the “ethnic cleansing” of at least 180,000 Krajina Serbs (according to estimates of the Croatian Helsinki Committee and Amnesty International). According to other sources, the number of victims of ethnic cleansing in Krajina was much larger.
Moreover, there is evidence that chemical weapons had been used in the Yugoslav civil war (1991-95).36 Although there is no firm evidence of the use of chemical weapons against Croatian Serbs, an ongoing enquiry by the Canadian Minister of Defence (launched in July 1999) points to the possibility of toxic poisoning of Canadian Peacekeepers while on service in Croatia between 1993 and 1995:
“There was a smell of blood in the air during the past week as the media sensed they had a major scandal unfolding within the Department of National Defense over the medical files of those Canadians who served in Croatia in 1993. Allegations of destroyed documents, a coverup, and a defensive minister and senior officers…”37
The official release of the Department of National Defence (DND) refers to possibility of toxic “soil contamination” in Medak Pocket in 1993 (see below). Was it “soil contamination” or something far more serious? The criminal investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) refers to the shredding of medical files of former Canadian peacekeepers by the DND. In other words did the DND have something to hide? The issue remains as to what types of shells and ammunitions were used by the Croatian Armed Forces ie. were chemical weapons used against Serb civilians?
Operation Storm: the Account of the Royal Canadian Regiment
Prior to the onslaught, Croatian radio had previously broadcasted a message by president Franjo Tudjman, calling upon “Croatian citizens of Serbian ethnicity… to remain in their homes and not to fear the Croatian authorities, which will respect their minority rights.”38 Canadian peacekeepers of the Second Battalion of the Royal 22nd Regiment witnessed the atrocities committed by Croatian troops in the Krajina offensive in September 1995:
“Any Serb who had failed to evacuate their property were systematically “cleansed” by roving death squads. Every abandoned animal was slaughtered and any Serb household was ransacked and torched”.39
Also confirmed by Canadian peacekeepers was the participation of German mercenaries in Operation Storm:
“Immediately behind the frontline Croatian combat troops and German mercenaries, a large number of hardline extremists had pushed into the Krajina. …Many of these atrocities were carried out within the Canadian Sector, but as the peacekeepers were soon informed by the Croat authorities, the UN no longer had any formal authority in the region.”40
How the Germans mercenaries were recruited was never officially revealed. An investigation by the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) confirmed the that foreign mercenaries in Croatia had in some cases “been paid [and presumably recruited] outside Croatia and by third parties.”41
The 1993 Medak Pocket Massacre
According to Jane Defence Weekly (10 June 1999), Brigadier General Agim Ceku (now in charge of the KLA) also “masterminded the successful HV [Croatian Army] offensive at Medak” in September 1993. In Medak, the combat operation was entitled “Scorched Earth” resulting in the total destruction of the Serbian villages of Divoselo, Pocitelj and Citluk, and the massacre of over 100 civilians.42
These massacres were also witnessed by Canadian peacekeepers under UN mandate:
“As the sun rose over the horizon, it revealed a Medak Valley engulfed in smoke and flames. As the frustrated soldiers of 2PPCLI waited for the order to move forward into the pocket, shots and screams still rang out as the ethnic cleansing continued. …About 20 members of the international press had tagged along, anxious to see the Medak battleground. Calvin [a Canadian officer] called an informal press conference at the head of the column and loudly accused the Croats of trying to hide war crimes against the Serb inhabitants. The Croats started withdrawing back to their old lines, taking with them whatever loot they hadn’t destroyed. All livestock had been killed and houses torched. French reconnaissance troops and the Canadian command element pushed up the valley and soon began to find bodies of Serb civilians, some already decomposing, others freshly slaughtered. …Finally, on the drizzly morning of Sept. 17, teams of UN civilian police arrived to probe the smouldering ruins for murder victims. Rotting corpses lying out in the open were catalogued, then turned over to the peacekeepers for burial.”43
The massacres were reported to the Canadian Minister of Defence and to the United Nations:
“Senior defence bureaucrats back in Ottawa had no way of predicting the outcome of the engagement in terms of political fallout. To them, there was no point in calling media attention to a situation that might easily backfire. …So Medak was relegated to the memory hole no publicity, no recriminations, no official record. Except for those soldiers involved, Canada’s most lively military action since the Korean War simply never happened.”44
PART III. NATO’S `POST CONFLICT’ AGENDA IN KOSOVO.
Both the Medak Pocket massacre and Operation Storm bear a direct relationship to the ongoing security situation in Kosovo and the massacres and ethnic cleansing committed by KLA troops. While the circumstances are markedly different, several of today’s actors in Kosovo were involved (under the auspices of the Croatian Armed Forces) in the planning of both these operations. Moreover, the US mercenary outfit MPRI which collaborated with the Croatian Armed Forces in 1995 is currently on contract with the KLA. NATO’s casual response to the appointment of Brigadier General Agim Ceku as KLA Chief of Staff was communicated by Mr. Jamie Shea in a Press Briefing in May:
“I have always made it clear, and you have heard me say this, that NATO has no direct contacts with the KLA. Who they appoint as their leaders, that is entirely their own affair. I don’t have any comment on that whatever.”45
While NATO says it “has no direct contacts with the KLA”, the evidence confirms the opposite. Amply documented, KLA terrorism has been installed with NATO’s tacit approval. The KLA had (according to several reports) been receiving “covert support” and training from the CIA and Germany’s Bundes Nachrichten Dienst (BND) since the mid-nineties. Moreover, MPRI collaboration with the KLA predates the onslaught of the bombing campaign.46 Moreover, the building up of KLA forces was part of NATO planning. Already by mid-1998, “covert support” had been replaced by official (“overt”) support by the military Alliance in violation of UN Security Council Resolution UNSCR 1160 of 31 March 1998 which condemned: “…all acts of terrorism by the Kosovo Liberation Army or any other group or individual and all external support for terrorist activity in Kosovo, including finance, arms and training.”
NATO officials, Western heads of State and heads of government, the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan not to mention ICTY chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour, were fully cognizant of General Brigadier Agim Ceku’s involvement in the planning of Operation Storm and Operation Scorched Earth. Surely, some questions should have been asked…
Yet visibly what is shaping up in the wake of the bombings in Kosovo is the continuity of NATO’s operation in the Balkans. Military personnel and UN bureaucrats previously stationed in Croatia and Bosnia have been routinely reassigned to Kosovo. KFOR Commander Mike Jackson had previously been responsible as IFOR Commander for organising the return of Serbs “to lands taken by Croatian HVO forces in the Krajina offensive”.47 And in this capacity General Mike Jackson had “urged that the resettlement [of Krajina Serbs] not [be] rushed to avoid tension [with the Croatians]… while also warning returning Serbs “of the extent of the [land] mine threat.”48 In retrospect, recalling the events of early 1996, very few Krajina Serbs were allowed to return to their homes under the protection of the United Nations.
And a similar process is unfolding in Kosovo, ie. the conduct of senior military officers conforms to a consistent pattern, the same key individuals are now involved in Kosovo. While token efforts are displayed to protect Serb and Roma civilians, those who have fled Kosovo are not encouraged to return under UN protection… In postwar Kosovo, “ethnic cleansing” implemented by the KLA has been accepted by the “international community” as a “fait accompli”…
While calling for democracy and “good governance” in the Balkans, the US and its allies have installed in Kosovo a paramilitary government with links to organised crime.
The foreseeable outcome is the outright “criminalisation” of civilian State institutions and the establishment of what is best described as a “Mafia State”. The complicity of NATO and the Alliance governments (namely their relentless support to the KLA) points to the de facto “criminalisation” of KFOR and of the UN peacekeeping apparatus in Kosovo. The donor agencies and governments (eg. the funds approved by the US Congress in violation of several UN Security Council resolutions) providing financial support to the KLA are, in this regard, also “accessories” to the de facto criminalisation of State institutions. Through the intermediation of a paramilitary group (created and financed by Washington and Bonn), NATO ultimately bears the burden of responsibility for the massacres and ethnic cleansing of civilians in Kosovo.
State Terror and the “Free Market”
State terror and the “free market” seem to go hand in hand. The concurrent “criminalisation” of State institutions in Kosovo is not incompatible with the West’s economic and strategic objectives in the Balkans. Notwithstanding the massacres of civilians, the self-proclaimed KLA administration has committed itself to establishing a “secure and stable environment” for foreign investors and international financial institutions. The Minister of Finance Adem Grobozci and other representatives of the provisional government invited to the various donor conferences are all KLA appointees. In contrast, members of the KDL of Ibrahim Rugova (duly elected in parliamentary elections) were not even invited to attend the Stabilisation Summit in Sarajevo in late July.
“Free market reforms” are envisaged for Kosovo under the supervision of the Bretton Woods institutions largely replicating the structures of the Rambouillet agreement. Article I (Chapter 4a) of the Rambouillet Agreement stipulated that: “The economy of Kosovo shall function in accordance with free market principles”. The KLA government will largely be responsible for implementing these reforms and ensuring that loan conditionalities are met.
In close liaison with NATO, the Bretton Woods institutions had already analysed the consequences of an eventual military intervention leading to the military occupation of Kosovo: almost a year prior to the beginning of the War, the World Bank conducted “simulations” which “anticipated the possibility of an emergency scenario arising out of the tensions in Kosovo.”49
The eventual “reconstruction” of Kosovo financed by international debt largely purports to transfer Kosovo’s extensive wealth in mineral resources and coal to multinational capital. In this regard, the KLA has already occupied (pending their privatisation) the largest coal mine at Belacevac in Dobro Selo northwest of Pristina. In turn, foreign capital has its eyes rivetted on the massive Trepca mining complex which constitutes “the most valuable piece of real estate in the Balkans, worth at least $5 billion.”50 The Trebca complex not only includes copper and large reserves of zinc but also cadmium, gold, and silver. It has several smelting plants, 17 metal treatment sites, a power plant and Yugoslavia’s largest battery plant. Northern Kosovo also has estimated reserves of 17 billion tons of coal and lignite.
In the wake of the bombings, the management of many of the State owned enterprises and public utilities were taken over by KLA appointees. In turn, the leaders of the Provisional Government of Kosovo (PGK) have become “the brokers” of multinational capital committed to handing over the Kosovar economy at bargain prices to foreign investors. The IMF’s lethal “economic therapy” will be imposed, the provincial economy will be dismantled, agriculture will be deregulated, local industrial enterprises which have not been totally destroyed will be driven into bankruptcy. The most profitable State assets will eventually be transferred into the hands of foreign capital under the World Bank sponsored privatisation programme. “Strong economic medicine” imposed by external creditors will contribute to further boosting a criminal economy (already firmly implanted in Albania) which feeds on poverty and economic dislocation.
“The Allies will work with the rest of the international community to help rebuild Kosovo once the crisis is over: The International Monetary Fund and Group of Seven industrialized countries are among those who stand ready to offer financial help to the countries of the region. We want to ensure proper coordination of aid and help countries to respond to the effects of the crisis. This should go hand in hand with the necessary structural reforms in the countries affected helped by budget support from the international community.”51
Morever, the so-called “reconstruction” of the Balkans by foreign capital will signify multibillion contracts to foreign firms to rebuild Kosovo’s infrastructure. More generally, the proposed “Marshall Plan” for the Balkans financed by the World Bank and the European Development Bank (EBRD) as well as private creditors will largely benefit Western mining, petroleum and construction companies while fuelling the region’s external debt well into the third millennium.
And Kosovo is slated to reimburse this debt through the laundering of dirty money. Yugoslav banks in Kosovo will be closed down, the banking system will be deregulated under the supervision of Western financial institutions. Narcodollars from the multibillion dollar Balkans drug trade will be recycled towards servicing the external debt as well as “financing” the costs of “reconstruction.” The lucrative flow of narcodollars thus ensures that foreign investors involved in the “reconstruction” programme will be able reap substantial returns. In turn, the existence of a Kosovar “narco State” ensures the orderly reimbursement of international donors and creditors. The latter are prepared to turn blind eye. They have a tacit vested interest in installing a government which facilitates the laundering of drug money.
The pattern in Kosovo is, in this regard, similar to that observed in neighbouring Albania. Since the early 1990s (culminating with the collapse of the financial pyramids in 1996-97), the IMF’s reforms have impoverished the Albanian population while spearheading the national economy into bankruptcy. The IMF’s deadly economic therapy transforms countries into open territories. In Albania and to a lesser extent Macedonia, it has also contributed to fostering the growth of illicit trade and the criminalisation of State institutions.
Notes
1. Jim Lehrer News Maker Interview, PBS, 26 July 1999. 2. Stratfor Commentary, “Growing Threat of Serbian Paramilitary Action in Kosovo”, 29 July 1999. 3. Human Rights Watch, 3 August 1999. 4. See Michael Radu, “Don’t Arm the KLA”, CNS Commentary from the Foreign Policy Research Institute, 7 April, 1999). 5. Tanjug Press Dispatch, 14 May 1999. 6. Stratfor Comment, “Rugova Faced with a Choice of Two Losses”, Stratfor, 29 July 1999. 7. Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Yugoslav Daily Survey, Belgrade, 29 June 1999. 8. Hina Press Dispatch, Zagreb, 26 July 1999. 9. Ibid. 10. BBC Report, London, 5 July 1999. 11. New York Times, 2 February 1999. 12. Financial Times, London, 4 August 1999. 13. See Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Mission in Kosovo, Decision 305, Permanent Council, 237th Plenary Meeting, PC Journal No. 237, Agenda item 2, Vienna, 1 July 1999. 14. Statement at the Sarajevo Summit, 31 July 1999. 15. 106th Congress, April 15, HR 1425. 16. Interview with KLA Chief of Staff Commander Agim Ceku, Kosovapress, 31 July 1999. 17. See Tammy Arbucki, “Building a Bosnian Army”, Jane International Defence Review, August 1997. 18. Ibid. 19. Military Professional Resources, Inc, “Personnel Needs”, http://www.mpri.com/current/personnel.htm 20. Associated Press Report. 21. Ibid. 22. The actual number of civilians killed or missing was much larger. 23. Quoted in Raymond Bonner, War Crimes Panel Finds Croat Troops Cleansed the Serbs, New York Times, 21 March 1999). 24. Ibid. 25. Ibid. 26. Raymond Bonner, op cit. 27. Ken Silverstein, “Privatizing War”, The Nation, New York, 27 July 1997. 28. See Mark Thompson et al, “Generals for Hire”, Time Magazine, 15 January 1996, p. 34. 29. Quoted in Silverstein, op cit. 30. Mark Thompson et al, op cit. 31. Raymond Bonner, op cit. 32. Ibid. 33. ICTY Weekly Press Briefing, 24 March 1999). 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid. 36. See inter alia Reuters dispatch, 21 October 1993 on the use of chemical grenades, a New York Times report on 31 October 1992 on the use of poisoned gas). 37. Lewis MacKenzie, “Giving our soldiers the benefit of the doubt”, National Post, 2 August 1999. 38. Slobodna Dalmacija, Split, Croatia, August 5 1996. 39. Scott Taylor and Brian Nolan, The Sunday Sun, Toronto, 2 November 1998. 40. Ibid. 41. United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Fifty-first session, Item 9 of the provisional agenda, Geneva, 21 December 1994). 42. (See Memorandum on the Violation of the Human and Civil Rights of the Serbian People in the Republic of Croatia, http://serbianlinks.freehosting.net/memorandum.htm 43. Excerpts from the book of Scott Taylor and Brian Nolan published in the Toronto Sun, 1 November 1998. 44. Ibid. 45. NATO Press Briefing, 14 May 1999. 46. For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Kosovo `Freedom Fighters’ Financed by Organized Crime, CAQ, Spring-Summer 1999. 47. Jane’s Defence Weekly, Vol 25, No. 7, 14 February 1996. 48. Ibid. 49. World Bank Development News, Washington, 27 April 1999. 50. New York Times, July 8, 1998, report by Chris Hedges. 51. Statement by Javier Solano, Secretary General of NATO, published in The National Post, Toronto May 1999.
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Chapter V
The Installation of a Mafia State in Kosovo
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The following text written in March 2000, focussed on the formation of a Kosovar Mafia State integrated by former members of the KLA. It was presented at the June 10 Tribunal for US-NATO War Crimes in Yugoslavia. Kosovo is not a mafia state in its own right, it is a US/EU protectorate under NATO military rule. The government of Kosovo, which has extensive links to organized crime, serves the interests of the US-NATO occupation.
The United Nations in a recent [2000] report submitted to Secretary General Kofi Annan now concedes that the Kosovo Protection Force (KPC) (inaugurated under UN auspices in September 1999) has been involved in “criminal activities-killings, ill-treatment/torture, illegal policing, abuse of authority, intimidation, breaches of political neutrality and hate speech”1.
And in a cruel irony, “the United Nations is paying the salaries of many of the gangsters.”2 The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) –known for its connections to organized crime and the Balkans narcotics traffic was officially dissolved and transformed into the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) modelled on the US National Guard. Funded by US military aid, the KPC is trained by Military Professional Resources Inc (MPRI), a mercenary outfit based in Alexandria, Virginia.
The KPC was slated by the United Nations to become –in the words of UNMIK Special Representative Bernard Kouchner [now France’s Minister of Foreign Affairs] “a civilian, disciplined, uniformed and multi-ethnic emergency response… with a mandate to “providing humanitarian assistance… and contributing to rebuilding infrastructure and communities….”3
Shift in military labels. KLA Commander Agim Ceku was appointed Chief of Staff of Kosovo’s newly created Armed Forces. In the words of Bernard Kouchner during the inauguration ceremony: I look to him [Agim Ceku] to lead the new members of the Corps in the footsteps of Cincinnatus, the model citizen-soldier of ancient Rome — who left his plow standing in the field to answer the call to arms & and at the end of the war refused all honors in order to return to his civic duties.4
Barely a few weeks later, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) announced it was “investigating Ceku for alleged war crimes committed against ethnic Serbs in Croatia between 1993 and 1995.” 5 The information, however, was known to military and intelligence analysts well in advance of Ceku’s appointment. It had been withheld from public opinion by the ICTY during the mandate of Chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour. Jane Defence Weekly (10 May 1999) had confirmed that Ceku had “masterminded the successful HV [Croatian] offensive at Medak [in 1993] and in 1995 was one of the key planners of the successful Operation ‘Storm “. United Nations Special Representative Dr. Bernard Kouchner (who is a 1999 Nobel Peace Laureate for his role as co-founder of Doctors without Borders) must have known.
The UN and NATO had access to the files of the ICTY. The Tribunal’s Chief Prosecutor knew and had the responsibility under the statutes of the ICTY of reporting the matter to the UN Secretary General. In a cruel irony, the United Nations had casually proceeded with the appointment of an individual who according to the files of a United Nations body (namely the ICTY) was an alleged war criminal. Surely some questions should have been asked.
When the information was released barely a few weeks after Ceku’s appointment: “a diplomat close to Bernard Kouchner the UN special representative [declared] “If we lose him {Agim Ceku] it will be a disaster,” … “When you get to the second level of the TMK [Kosovo Protection Corps], you’re down to a bunch of local thugs.”… 6 “American diplomats… have suggested any indictment of Ceku would most likely be “sealed” and thereby kept out of the public domain… “[T]he NATO-led peacekeeping force, could not contemplate a public relations disaster with the Albanians by arresting Ceku”.7 According to the Sunday Times (London), “[t]he possibility that Ceku, a respected figure in Kosovo, could be accused of war crimes, [had] sent shivers through the international community… “8.
Meanwhile, the ICTY had reassured public opinion that the “[T]he court’s inquiries … relate[d] to atrocities committed in Krajina, … between 1993 and 1995″… Ceku’s record in Kosovo itself is not thought to be in question, although the office of Carla del Ponte, the new chief prosecutor, said an investigation into his activities with the KLA could not be ruled out…”9
War Criminals call the Shots
Visibly what was shaping up in the wake of the bombings in Kosovo was the continuity of NATO’s operation in the Balkans as well as its reliance on war criminals in its “peace-keeping” undertakings. Military personnel and UN bureaucrats previously stationed in Croatia and Bosnia had been routinely reassigned to Kosovo.
From Left to Right: Hashim Thaci, Bernard Kouchner, Lt. Gen. Michael Jackson, Agim Ceku, Gen Wesley Clark
Lieutenant General Mike Jackson was posted to Kosovo as KFOR Commander following his earlier stint in Bosnia Herzegovina and Croatia. In the immediate wake of the 1995 ethnic massacres in Krajina (for which Agim Ceku is under investigation by the ICTY), General Michael Jackson was put in charge as IFOR commander, for organising the return of Serbs “to lands taken by Croatian HVO forces in the 1995 Krajina offensive”.10
And in this capacity Jackson had “urged that the resettlement [of Krajina Serbs] not [be] rushed to avoid tension [with the Croatians]” while also warning returning Serbs “of the extent of the [land] mine threat.”11. In retrospect, recalling the events of early 1996, very few Krajina Serbs were allowed to return to their homes under the protection of the United Nations. According to “Veritas” (a Belgrade based organization of Serbian refugees from Croatia), some 10,000-15,000 Serbs were able to resettle in Croatia. Jackson’s experience in “ethnic warfare,” however predates the Balkans. From his earlier posting In Northern Ireland as a young captain, Jackson was second in command in the “Bloody Sunday” massacre of civilians in Derry in 1972.
Under the orders of Lieutenant Coronel Derek Wilford, Captain Jackson and thirteen other soldiers of the parachute regiment opened fire “on a peaceful protest by the Northern Ireland civil rights association opposing discrimination against Catholics. In just 30 minutes, 13 people were shot dead and a further 13 injured. Those who died were killed by a single bullet to the head or body, indicating that they had been deliberately targeted. No weapons were found on any of the deceased.”12 Jackson’s role in “Bloody Sunday” “did not hinder his Military career.” 13 From his early stint in Northern Ireland, he had been reassigned under United Nations auspices to the theatre of ethnic warfare first to Bosnia and Croatia and then to Kosovo…
In Kosovo, the conduct of senior military officers conforms to the Croatian and Bosnian patterns, the same key individuals were reassigned to “peace-keeping” roles in Kosovo. While General Jackson displayed token efforts to protect Serb and Roma civilians, those who fled Kosovo during his mandate were not encouraged to return under UN protection… In post-war Kosovo, the massacres of civilians was carried out by the KLA (and subsequently by the KPC) under the auspices of NATO and the UN. It was accepted by the “international community” as a “fait accompli”.
The Installation of a Mafia State
While calling for the installation of democracy based on “transparency” and “good governance”, the US and its allies have installed in Kosovo a self proclaimed civilian paramilitary government with links to organised crime. The outcome is the outright “criminalisation” of State institutions in Kosovo and the establishment of what is best described as a “Mafia State”. The complicity of NATO and the Alliance governments (namely their relentless support to the KLA provisional government) points to the de facto “criminalisation” of KFOR and of the UN peace-keeping apparatus in Kosovo.
The donor agencies, the United Nations and Western governments in providing financial support to the KPC are, in this regard, also “accessories” to this criminalisation of State institutions. Through the intermediation of a paramilitary group (created and financed by Washington and Bonn), NATO and the UN bear the burden of responsibility for the massacres of civilians and the prevailing reign of terror in Kosovo.
Notes
1. Quoted in John Sweeney and Jen Holsoe, Kosovo Disaster Response Service Stands Accused of Murder and Torture, the Observer, 12 March 2000. 2. Ibid. 3. Statement by Bernard Kouchner, 21 September 1999 on the occasion of the inauguration of the KPC, see http://www.un.org/peace/kosovo/pages/kosovo5.htm ) 4. Ibid 5, AFP, 13 October 1999 6. Tom Walker, “Kosovo Defence Chief Accused of War Crimes, Sunday Times, 10 October 1999. 7. Ibid 8. Ibid 9. Ibid 10. Jane Defense Weekly, Vol 23, No. 7, 14 February 1996. 11. Ibid 12. Julie Hyland, “Head of NATO Force in Kosovo was Second-in-command at “Bloody Sunday” Massacre in Ireland”, World Socialist Website, 19 June 1999. 13. Ibid.
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Appendix to Chapter V
America’s Bondsteel Military Base in Kosovo
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Kosovo is home to one of America’s largest military bases, Camp Bondsteel.
Bondsteel was built on contract to the Pentagon by Halliburton, through its engineering subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR). Camp Bondsteel is considered to be “the largest and most expensive army base since Vietnam.” with more than 6000 US troops.
“Camp Bondsteel, the biggest “from scratch” foreign US military base since the Vietnam War (…) It is located close to vital oil pipelines and energy corridors presently under construction, such as the US sponsored Trans-Balkan oil pipeline. As a result defence contractors—in particular Halliburton Oil subsidiary Brown & Root Services—are making a fortune.
In June 1999, in the immediate aftermath of the bombing of Yugoslavia, US forces seized 1,000 acres of farmland in southeast Kosovo at Uresevic, near the Macedonian border, and began the construction of a camp.
Camp Bondsteel is known as the “grand dame” in a network of US bases running both sides of the border between Kosovo and Macedonia. In less than three years it has been transformed from an encampment of tents to a self sufficient, high tech base-camp housing nearly 7,000 troops—three quarters of all the US troops stationed in Kosovo.
There are 25 kilometres of roads and over 300 buildings at Camp Bondsteel, surrounded by 14 kilometres of earth and concrete barriers, 84 kilometres of concertina wire and 11 watch towers. It is so big that it has downtown, midtown and uptown districts, retail outlets, 24-hour sports halls, a chapel, library and the best-equipped hospital anywhere in Europe. At present there are 55 Black Hawk and Apache helicopters based at Bondsteel and although it has no aircraft landing strip the location was chosen for its capacity to expand. There are suggestions that it could replace the US airforce base at Aviano in Italy.
(See Paul Stuart, Camp Bondsteel and America’s plans to control Caspian oil, WSWS.org, April 2002,
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Camp Bondsteel was not the outgrowth of a humanitarian or “Just War” on behalf of Kosovar Albanians. The construction of Camp Bondsteel had been envisaged well in advance of the bombings and invasion of Kosovo in 1999.
The plans to build Camp Bondsteel under a lucrative multibillion dollar DoD contract with Halliburton’s Texas based subsidiary KBR were formulated while Dick Cheney was Halliburton’s CEO.
Construction of Camp Bondsteel was initiated shortly after the 1999 invasion under the Clinton administration. Construction was completed during the Bush administration, after Dick Cheney had resigned his position as Halliburton’s CEO:
The US and NATO had advanced plans to bomb Yugoslavia before 1999, and many European political leaders now believe that the US deliberately used the bombing of Yugoslavia to establish camp Bondsteel in Kosovo.. According to Colonel Robert L. McCure, “Engineering planning for operations in Kosovo began months before the first bomb was dropped.” (See Lenora Foerstel, Global Research, January 2008)
Note: The text on Camp Bondsteel was written in 2008
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Chapter VI
NATO Willfully Triggered an Environmental Catastrophe In Yugoslavia
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First published in June 2000
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The environmental catastrophe at the Pancevo petrochemical plant was neither the result of ‘collateral damage’ (that is, an accident of war) nor a case of criminal negligence (that is, resulting from criminal disregard of consequences).
Rather, the evidence is compelling. NATO willfully blew up with meticulous accuracy containers of toxic chemicals with the intention of creating an ecological nightmare.
At the outset of the War, NATO had reassured World opinion that “precise targeting” using sophisticated weaponry was intended to avoid “collateral damage” including environmental hazards:
“We do everything we possibly can to avoid unnecessary collateral damage. We take it very seriously, work very hard at doing that, spend a lot of time planning for the missions.“1
At the Pancevo petrochemical complex located in the outskirts of Belgrade, however, exactly the opposite occurred. “State of the art” aerial surveillance and satellite thermal image detection were not only used to disable Yugoslavia’s petrochemical industry; they were willfully applied to trigger an environmental disaster.
The air raids on the Pancevo complex started on April 4th 1999 and continued relentlessly until the 7th of June. The Pancevo complex also included an oil refinery facility (built with technical support from Texaco) and a Nitrogen Processing Plant producing fertilizer for Yugoslav agriculture. The petrochemical plant was bombed extensively (41 bombs and 7 missile attacks). The bombed areas were within less than two hundred meters from residential buildings.
At the beginning of the war, workers at the plant were actively involved in removing toxic materials from the site, emptying several large tanks and containers of chemicals precisely to avert the risks of “collateral damage“. Little did they realize that NATO was watching them through air-to-ground surveillance systems and satellite images. Using thermal detection, NATO military planners knew which of the containers had been emptied and which remained full.
How does this work?
All objects in the Pancevo plant –including the containers of toxic chemicals– emit infrared radiation. A thermal imager from a spy satellite or an aircraft can detect infrared radiation emitted from any object situated on the petrochemical plant and convert its readings into a high-resolution video or snap picture.
The thermal imager can detect temperature differentials as small as 0.1 degrees centigrade which enables NATO planners to easily “categorize” and distingush between full and empty containers. NATO warplanes were equipped with various advanced imaging systems including infrared/electro-optical sensors. Thermal satellite images were relayed to the Combined Air Operations Centre (CAOC) in Vicenza, Italy where the bombing raids had been carefully scheduled. Other advanced surveillance systems were used including small unmanned predator (UAV) drones and high altitude U2 spy planes. In the words of a Pentagon spokesman, the U2
“snaps a picture from very high altitude, beams it back in what we call a reach-back, to the States where it is very quickly analyzed”. And from there, “the right targeting data” is relayed to the CAOC in Vincenza which then “passes [it] on to people in the cockpit”.2
NATO planners also had detailed information on the layout of the plant, which had been designed and built on contract with a US multinational engineering company Foster Wheeler (a firm specializing in the construction of petrochemical and polymer plants). NATO knew exactly where things were. In a cruel irony, US investment in Yugoslavia (financed with loans from the World Bank) was being bombed by Uncle Sam. Did the pilots sitting in the cockpit know that they were destroying a plant which was “Made in America“?
A large number of the containers had been emptied. By using thermal images, NATO was able to identify which of the tanks were still filled to the brim with toxic chemicals. Among these noxious liquids were containers of ethylene-dichloride (EDC), ethylene, chlorine, chlorine-hydrogen, propylene and vinyl chloride monomers (VCM). Well documented by environmentalists, the VCM monomer used to produce plastics (eg. PVC resin) is a dangerous cancerogenic contaminant (see photo 2). Vinyl chloride also has the potential to cause neurological and liver damage, as well as damage to the fetus causing serious birth defects.
If NATO’s intent were solely to disable the plant without risking “collateral” environmental damage, they could have done it by smart bombing the equipment and machinery. Why did they also decide to hit with utmost accuracy the tanks containing noxious liquids?
The “smart bombs” were not dumb; they went where they were told to go.
NATO had scrupulously singled out the containers, tanks and reservoirs, which still contained toxic materials. According to the petrochemical plant director, NATO did not hit a single empty container:
“This was not accidental; they chose to hit those that were full and these chemicals spilled into the canal leading to the Danube“.
Moreover, according to the plant director, the ethylene-dichloride (EDC) spillovers had contaminated 10 hectares of land on and in the vicinity of the plant. 3
When the smart bombs hit their lethal targets at Pancevo (see photos below), noxious fluids and fumes were released into the atmosphere, water and soil. The containers were deliberately blown up or perforated.
The container above targeted by NATO because it was full of highly cancerogenic VCM (images, Michel Chossudovsky, Pancevo, March 2000 )
The soil at the petrochemical complex is still soaked with toxic ethylene-dichloride. According to a report of the Regional Environment Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC):
“More than one thousand tons of ethylene dichloride spilled from the Pancevo petrochemical complex into the Danube [through the canal which links the plant to the river]. Over a thousand tons of natrium hydroxide were spilled from the Pancevo petrochemical complex. Nearly 1,000 tons of hydrogen chloride spilled from Pancevo into the Danube River”4
Eight tons of mercury also escaped from the petrochemical complex spilling into the soil. The wastewater treatment plant was also bombed thereby contributing to exacerbating the ecological impacts. 5
NATO military strategists knew precisely what they were doing and what would be the likely consequences. At the neighboring oil refinery, two NATO missiles had hit on April 4th the refinery’s control rooms killing three staff members. The strikes had set the plant on fire, reducing it to a toxic wreck. The objective was not to avoid an environmental disaster. The objective was to create an environmental disaster (see photos). NATO was expecting that by ruthlessly bombing Pancevo among other civilian sites, this would intimidate Belgrade into accepting the Rambouillet Agreement including its infamous Military Appendix which essentially gave NATO the right to occupy all parts of Yugoslavia.
In the wake of the bombings, the Greens from Germany and experts from the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) as well as other groups visited the Pancevo plant. The UNEP report dismissed the environmental impacts caused by the bombings while underscoring in its main conclusions that Pancevo and other petrochemical plants in the country were an ecological hazard prior to the bombings due to lax environmental standards.6
The UNEP report is a carefully worded cover-up. It whitewashes NATO; it downplays the seriousness of the environmental catastrophe, while placing the blame (without supporting evidence) on the Yugoslav authorities. Tacitly upholding the legitimacy of the Western military alliance, UNEP’s findings are in overt contradiction with those of other scientific studies including that of the Regional Environment Center for Central And Eastern Europe (REC) prepared for the European Commission (see footnote 4).
The complicity of UNEP –a specialized agency of the UN with a track record of integrity– is yet another symptom of the deterioration of the United Nations system which now plays an underhand in covering up NATO war crimes.
Notes
1. Statement of General Charles Wald of the Pentagon, Department of Defense Press Briefing, Washington, 12 April 1999.
2. Department of Defense Press Briefing, Washington, May 14th, 1999.
3. Interview conducted by the author in Pancevo, March 2000.
This article was originally published by Telepolis (Germany) on 15 March 2001 and by Global Research on 20 August 2002.
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The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) convey the illusion (contrary to scientific evidence) that the health risks of depleted uranium can easily be dealt with by cordoning off and “cleaning up” the “affected areas” targeted by the US Air Force’s A-10 “anti-tank killers.” What they fail to mention is that the radioactive dust has already spread beyond the 72 “identified target sites” in Kosovo. Most of the villages and cities including Pristina, Prizren and Pec lie within less than 20 km. of these sites, confirming that the whole province is contaminated, putting not only “peacekeepers” but the entire civilian population at risk.
The death from leukemia of eight Italian peacekeepers stationed in Bosnia and Kosovo sparked an uproar in the Italian Parliament, following the leaking of a secret military document to the Italian newspaper La Republicca. In Portugal, the Defense Ministry was also involved in what amounted to a deliberate camouflage of “the cause of death” of Portuguese peacekeeper Corporal Hugo Paulino. “‘Citing “herpes of the brain’, the army refused to allow his family to commission a postmortem examination.”1 Amidst mounting political pressure, Defense Minister Julio Castro Caldas advised NATO Headquarters in November that he was withdrawing Portuguese troops from Kosovo: “They were not, he said, going to become uranium meat”. 2
As the number of cancer cases among Balkans “peacekeepers” rises, NATO’s cover-up has started to fracture. Several European governments have been obliged to publicly acknowledge the “alleged health risks” of depleted uranium (DU) shells used by the US Air Force in NATO’s 78-day war against Yugoslavia.
The Western media points to an apparent “split” within the military alliance. In fact there was no “division” or disagreement between Washington and its European allies until the scandal broke through the gilded surface.
Italy, Portugal, France and Belgium were fully aware that DU weapons were being used. The health impacts –including mountains of scientific reports– were known and available to European governments. Italy participated in the scheduling of the A-10 “anti-tank killer” raids (carrying DU shells) out of its Aviano and Gioia del Colle air force bases. The Italian Defense Ministry knew what was happening at military bases under its jurisdiction.
Washington’s European partners in NATO including Britain, France, Turkey, Greece have DU weapons in their arsenals. Canada is one of the main suppliers of depleted uranium. NATO countries share full responsibility for the use of weapons banned by the Geneva and Hague conventions and the 1945 Nuremberg Charter on war crimes. 3
Since the Gulf War, Washington launched a “cover-up” on the health impacts of DU toxic radiation known as the “Gulf War Syndrome”, with the tacit endorsement of its NATO partners.
While NATO had until recently denied using DU shells in the 1999 war against Yugoslavia, it now admits that although it did use DU ammunition, the shells “have negligible radioactivity…and [a]ny resulting debris posing any significant risk dissipates soon after the impact.” 4 While casually denying “any connection between illness and exposure to depleted uranium”, the Pentagon nonetheless concedes –in an ambiguous statement– that “the main danger posed by depleted uranium occurs if it is inhaled.” 5
And who inhales the radioactive dust, which has spread across the Land?
The shrouded statements from European governments convey the uncomfortable illusion that only peacekeepers “might be at risk”, –i.e. radioactive particles are only inhaled by military personnel and expatriate civilians, as if nobody else in the Balkans were affected. The impacts on local civilians are not mentioned.
In docile complicity, a new media consensus has unfolded: the mainstream press concurs without further scrutiny that only “peace-keepers” breathe the air. “But what about everybody else.”6 In Kosovo some 2 million civilian men, women and children have been exposed to the radioactive fallout since the beginning of the bombing in March 1999. In the Balkans, more than 20 million people are potentially at risk:
“The risk in Kosovo and elsewhere in the Balkans is augmented by the uncertainty of where DU was dropped in whatever form and what winds and surface water movements spread it further. Working the fields, walking about, just being there, touching objects, breathing and drinking water are all risky. A British expert predicted that thousands of people in the Balkans will get sick of DU. The radioactive and toxic DU-oxides don’t disintegrate. They are practically permanent.” 7
Keep in mind that the heavily armed “peacekeepers” together with United Nations staff and civilian personnel of “humanitarian” organisations entered Kosovo in June 1999. The spread of radioactive dust from DU, however, started on “day one” of the 78 day bombing of Yugoslavia. With the exception of NATO Special Forces –who were assisting the KLA on the ground– NATO military personnel was not present on the battlefield. In other words, there was no radioactive exposure to NATO troops during a “push button” air war, which the Alliance forces waged from the high skies. Yugoslav civilians are, therefore, at much greater risk because they were exposed to radioactive fallout throughout the bombings as well in the wake of the war. Yet the official communiquŽs suggest that only KFOR troops and expatriate civilians “might be at risk” implying that local civilians simply do not matter. Only servicemen and expatriate personnel have been screened for radiation levels.
Childhood Cancers
The first signs of radiation on children, including herpes on the mouth and skin rashes on the back and ankles have been observed in Kosovo.8 In Northern Kosovo –the area least affected by DU shells (see Map ) — 160 people are being treated for cancer.9 The number of leukemia cases in Northern Kosovo has increased by 200 percent since NATO’s air campaign, and children have been born with deformities.10 This information regarding civilian victims –which the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) has been careful not to reveal— refutes NATO’s main “assumption” that radioactive dust does not spread beyond the target sites, most of which are in the Southwestern and Southern regions close to the Albanian and Macedonian borders.
Map of Contaminated Areas “Map Of Sites As Being Targeted
By Ordnance Containing Depleted Uranium during the 1999 Kosovo Conflict”
CLICK MAP TO ENLARGE
These findings are consistent with those from Iraq, where the use of depleted uranium weapons during the 1991 Gulf War resulted in “increases in childhood cancers and leukemia, Hodgkin’s disease, lymphomas, and increases in congenital diseases and deformities in foetuses, along with limb reductional abnormalities and increases in genetic abnormalities throughout Iraq.Ó11 Pediatric examinations on Iraqi children confirm that:
“childhood leukemia has risen 600% in the areas [of Iraq] where DU was used. Stillbirths, births or abortion of fetuses with monstrous abnormalities, and other cancers in children born since [the Gulf War in] 1991 have also been found.” 12
Cover-up
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have tacitly accepted NATO-Pentagon assumptions concerning the health impacts of depleted uranium. When UNEP conducted its first assessment of DU radiation in Kosovo in 1999, NATO refused to provide the mission with maps indicating the locations of “affected areas” (points of impact where DU shells had fallen).
On the pretext that “there was insufficient data available to comprehensively address the issue of the impacts of depleted uranium ordnance,” UNEP produced an inconclusive and noncommittal “desk study” which was appended to the 1999 Balkans Task Force Report (BTF) on the environmental impacts of the War. 13 UNEP’s desk study pointed to the “possible use of DU” thereby implying that it was still unsure as to whether DU shells had actually been used.
UNEP’s evasiveness -claiming lack of sufficient data– contributed, in the wake of the bombings, to temporarily dissipating public concern. More generally, the UNEP-UNCHS Balkans Task Force report tends to downplay the seriousness of the environmental catastrophe triggered by NATO. Amply documented, the catastrophe was the deliberate result of military planning.14
NATO maps (indicating where DU shells had been targeted) were not required for UNEP and the WHO to conduct an investigation on the health impacts of depleted uranium radiation. A study of this nature –inevitably requiring a team of medical specialists in pediatrics and cancer working in liaison with experts on toxic radiation– was never carried out. In fact, UNEP’s stated “scientific” assumption precluded from the outset a meaningful assessment of the health impacts. According to UNEP:
“the effects of DU are mainly localized in the places DU has been used and the affected areas are likely to be small”. 15 See the 1999 desk study, op. cit.)
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This proposition (which is presented without scientific proof) is shared by UNEP’s sister organization, the WHO:
“You would have to be very close to a damaged tank and be there within seconds of it being hit…These soldiers were very unlikely to have been exposed.” 16
These statements by UN bodies (quoted by NATO and the Pentagon to justify the use of DU weapons) are part and parcel of the camouflage. They convey the illusion that the health risks to peacekeepers and local civilians can easily be dealt with by cordoning off and “cleaning up” the “targeted areas.”
The WHO has warned, in this regard, that depleted uranium could affect children playing in these areas “because children… tend to pick up pieces of dirt or put their toys in their mouth.”17 What the WHO fails to acknowledge is that the radioactive dust has already spread beyond the affected areas, implying that children throughout Kosovo are at risk.
This tacit complicity of specialized agencies of the UN is yet another symptom of the deterioration of the United Nations system, which now plays an underhand role in covering up NATO war crimes. Since the Gulf War, the WHO has been instrumental in blocking a meaningful investigation of the health impacts of depleted uranium radiation on Iraqi children, claiming “it had no data to conduct an in-depth investigation” 18
UNEP and NATO Working Hand in Glove
Amidst the public outcry and mounting evidence of cancer among Balkans military personnel, UNEP conducted a second assessment in November 2000 which included field measurements of beta and gamma particle radiations in 11 so-called “affected areas” of Kosovo.19
Despite NATO’s earlier refusal to collaborate with UNEP, the two organizations are currently working hand in glove. The composition of the mission was established in consultation with NATO. The representative from Greenpeace (involved in the 1999 study) had been dumped. NATO maps were readily available; the investigation was to focus narrowly on the collection of soil, water samples, etc. in 11 selected sites (“affected areas”) out of a total of some 72 sites within Kosovo (see NATO map below, at http://balkans.unep.ch/du/targetmap.html ).
The broader health issues were not part of the mission’s terms of reference. The two medical researchers dispatched by the WHO in 1999 (as part of the desk study mission) had been replaced with experts from the US Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine (see http://chppm-www.apgea.army.mil/default.htm) and AC Laboratorium Spiez (ACLS), a division of the Swiss Defense Procurement Agency.
AC Laboratorium Spiez (ACLS) has actively collaborated in chemical weapons inspections in Iraq. Under the disguise of Swiss neutrality, ACLS constitutes an informal mouthpiece for NATO. ACLS has been on contract with NATO’s “Partnership for Peace” financed by the Swiss government’s contribution to the PfP.20
Although the November mission was still under UNEP auspices, the Swiss government was funding most of fieldwork with ACLS –a division of the Swiss military– playing a central role. The mission –integrated by representatives linked to the Military establishment– was working on the premise (amply reviewed on ACLS’s web page) that DU radioactive dust does not (under any circumstances) travel beyond the “point of release.” 21
The results of the report to be published in March 2001 are a foregone conclusion. They focus on radiation levels in the immediate vicinity of the target sites . According to the mission’s “back to office report” (January 2001):
“… [A]lready at this stage the Team can conclude that at some of the DU locations, the radiation level is slightly higher above normal at very limited spots. It would therefore be an unnecessary risk to the population to be in direct contact with any remnants of DU ammunition or with the spots where these have been found.” 22
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Double Standards If radioactivity were confined to so-called “very limited spots”, why then have KFOR troops been instructed by their governments “not to eat local produce… have drinking water flown in …and that clothes must be destroyed on departure and vehicles decontaminated.”23 According to Paul Sullivan, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center, depleted uranium in Yugoslavia could affect “agricultural areas, places where livestock graze and where crops are grown, thereby introducing the specter of possible contamination of the food chain.” (In November 2000, Gulf War veterans affected by DU launched a class action law-suit against the US government).
Contamination Over A Large Geographical Area
According to NATO sources (communicated to UNEP), some 112 sites in Yugoslavia (of which 72 are in Kosovo) were targeted during the war with depleted uranium antitank shells. Between 30,000 and 50,000 DU shells were fired.
Scientific evidence amply confirms that the DU radioactive aerosol spreads from “the point of release” over a large geographical area suggesting that large parts of the province of Kosovo are contaminated. “[R]adioactive derivatives can linger in the air for months… ”Just one particle in the lungs is enough… a single particle could travel to the lymph nodes, where the radioactivity would lower the body’s defenses against lymphomas and leukemia” 24
According to World renowned radiologist [ the late ] Dr. Rosalie Bertell:
When used in war, the depleted uranium (DU) bursts into flame [and] releasing a deadly radioactive aerosol of uranium, unlike anything seen before. It can kill everyone in a tank. This ceramic aerosol is much lighter than uranium dust. It can travel in air tens of kilometres from the point of release, or be stirred up in dust and resuspended in air with wind or human movement. It is very small and can be breathed in by anyone: a baby, pregnant woman, the elderly, the sick. This radioactive ceramic can stay deep in the lungs for years, irradiating the tissue with powerful alpha particles within about a 30 micron sphere, causing emphysema and/or fibrosis. The ceramic can also be swallowed and do damage to the gastro-intestinal tract. In time, it penetrates the lung tissue and enters into the blood stream. …It can also initiate cancer or promote cancers which have been initiated by other carcinogens”. 25
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The targeted sites within Kosovo although concentrated on the South-western border are scattered throughout the province. Most of the villages and cities including Pristina, Prizren and Pec lie within less than 20 km. of the 72 DU target sites confirming that the entire province is contaminated.
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NATO War Crimes
The bombing of Yugoslavia is best described as a “low intensity nuclear war” using toxic radioactive shells and missiles. Amply documented, the radioactive fall-out potentially puts millions of people at risk throughout the Balkans.
In March 1999, NATO launched the air raids invoking broad humanitarian principles and ideals. NATO had “come to the rescue” of ethnic Albanian Kosovars on the grounds they were being massacred by Serb forces. The forensic reports by the FBI and Europol confirm that the massacres did not occur. In a cruel irony, Albanian Kosovar civilians are among the main victims of DU radiation.
To maintain the cover-up, NATO is now prepared to reveal a small fraction of the truth. The military Alliance –in liaison with NATO member governments– wants at all cost to maintain the focus on “peacekeepers” and keep local civilians out of the picture, because if the entire truth gets out, then people might start asking questions such as “how is it that the Kosovar Albanians, the people we were supposed to rescue are now the victims?” In both Bosnia and Kosovo, the UN has been careful not to record cancer cases among civilians. The narrow focus on “peacekeepers” is part of the cover-up. It distracts public opinion from the broader issue of civilian victims.
The primary victims of DU weapons are children, making their use a “war crime against children.” The use of depleted uranium munitions is only one among several NATO crimes against humanity committed in Iraq and the Balkans
According to official records, some 1800 Balkans peacekeepers (Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo) suffer from health ailments related to DU radiation.26. Assuming the same level of risk (as a percentage of population), the numbers of civilians throughout former Yugoslavia affected by DU radiation would be in the tens of thousands. British scientist Roger Coghill suggests, in this regard, that “throughout the Balkan region, there will be an extra 10,150 deaths from cancer because of the use of DU. That will include local people, K-FOR personnel, aid workers, everyone.”27 Moreover, according to a report published in Athens during the War, the impacts of depleted uranium are likely to extend beyond the Balkans. Albania, and Macedonia but also Greece, Italy, Austria and Hungary face a potential threat to human health as a result of the use of radioactive depleted uranium shells during the 1999 War.
While no overall data on civilian deaths have been recorded, partial evidence confirms that a large numbers of civilians have already died as result of DU radiation since the war in Bosnia:
“DU radiation and an apparent use of defoliants by US/NATO troops against Serbian land and population [in Bosnia], have caused many birth defects among babies born after the US/NATO bombing and occupation; the magnitude of this problem has stunned Serbian medical experts and panicked the population.” 28
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A recent account points to several hundred deaths of civilians solely in one Bosnian village:
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The village is empty, the cemetery full. Soon there will be no more room for the dead. Among refugee families who moved to Bratunac from Hadzici [in the outskirts of Sarajevo] there is a hardly a household not cloaked in mourning…On them are fresh wreaths, some with flowers that have not yet wilted. On the crosses the years of death 1998, 1999, 2000 and the grave of a 20 year-old woman at the end of the rows. She died a few days ago… No one could even imagine that in only one or two years the part of the cemetery set aside for civilians would be doubly full…
It happens often that one of the natives of Hadzici will suddenly die. Or they will go to see the doctor in Belgrade and when they come back their relatives will tell us that they are dying of cancer… [C]hief doctor Slavica Jovanovic…conducted an investigation and proved that in 1998 the mortality rate far exceeded the birth rate. She showed that it wasn’t just a question of fate but something far more serious… ‘Zoran Stankovic, the renowned pathologist from the Military Medical Academy (VMA) determined that over 200 of his patients from this area died of cancer, most probably due to the effects of depleted uranium in dropped NATO bombs five years ago. But someone quickly silenced the public and everything was hushed up. ‘You see, our cemetery is full of fresh graves while the people from Vinca [Nuclear Institute] claim that uranium isn’t dangerous. What other kind of evidence do you need if people are dying?…’
The refugees from Hadzici arrived in Bratunac in a sizeable number. There were almost 5,000 of them. There were 1,000 just in the collective centers. Now, says Zelenovic, ‘there are about 600 of them left. And they certainly had nowhere else to go’ … Someone dies of cancer every third day; there is no more room in the cemeteries.”29
Notes
1 The Independent, London, 4 January 2001.2 See Felicity Arbutnot, “It Turns out that Depleted Uranium is Bad for NATO” Troops, Emperors Clothes, http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/arbuth/port.htm . 11 October 2000. See also interview with F. Arbutnot.
3 In all, some 17 countries including Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia and South Korea are known to have DU weapons in their arsenal. See Vladimir Zajic, Review of Radioactivity, Military Use, and Health Effects of Depleted Uranium, 1999 at http://vzajic.tripod.com/. See John Catalinotto and Sara Flounders, Is the Israeli Military using Depleted Uranium Weapons against the Palestinians? International Action Center, http://www.iacenter.org/ , New York, 2000
4 Agence France Presse, 4 January 20001.
5 United Press International, 5 January 2001.
6 See Felicity Arbutnot, op cit.
7 Piot Bein, “More on Depleted Uranium”, Emperors Clothes at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/arbuth/port.htm .11 October 2000.
8 According to Dr. Siegfried Horst Guenther, “Uran Geschosse: SchwergeschŠdigte Soldaten, missgebildete Neugeborene, sterbende Kinder, Ahriman Verlag, http://www.ahriman.com/guenther.htm, Freiburg, 2000. Seealso International Action Center, “Metal of Dishonor, How the Pentagon Radiates Soldiers and Civilians with DU Weapons”, Second Edition, International Action Center, http://www.iacenter.org/ , New York, 2000.
9 Beta News Agency, Belgrade, 13.50 GMT, 10 Jan 2001, in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 12 January 2001.
10 Ibid.
11 See Rick McDowell, “Economic Sanctions on Iraq”, Z Magazine, November 1997.
12. Carlo Pona, “The Criminal Use of Depleted Uranium”, International Tribunal for U.S./NATO War Crimes in Yugoslavia, International Action Center, http://www.iacenter.org/, New York, June 10, 2000. See also “Metal of Dishonor”, op. cit.
13 See UNEP/UNCHS Balkans Task Force Final Report “The Kosovo Conflict -Consequences for the Environment & Human Settlements” at http://balkans.unep.ch/fry/fry.html; see the “desk study” on “The Potential Effects on Human Health and the Environment of the Possible Use of Depleted Uranium (DU)” at http://balkans.unep.ch/du/du.html; see also “UN considers New Data on Depleted Uranium in Kosovo”, UNEP, Geneva, 20 September 2000.
14 See Michel Chossudovsky, NATO Willfully Triggered an Environmental Disaster, http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/chuss/willful.htm
15 See the 1999 UNEP “desk study”, op. cit.
16 According to a toxicologist at the International Agency for Research on Cancer which is a division of the WHO, Associated Press, January 5 2001.
17 According to WHO specialist, quoted in the Boston Globe, January 10, 2001.
18 Boston Globe, June 27 2000, statement of Mark Parkin, an expert with the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
19 See UNEP Press Release at http://balkans.unep.ch/du/missions.html .
20 See AC Laboratorium Spiez (ACLS) website at http://www.vbs.admin.ch/internet/gr/acls/e/index.htm
21 Ibid
22 Se UNEP Press Release at http://balkans.unep.ch/du/missions.html ; see also UNEP, “Advisory Note on Current work on DU by UNEP” at. http://balkans.unep.ch/press/press010111.html .
23. Arbuthot, op cit.
24 According to British radiologist Roger William Coghill, quoted in Associated Press, 5 January 2000.
25 Rosalie Bertell, Email Communication, May 1999.
26 RTBF, Belgian French Language Television, 9 January 2001
27 Calgary Herald, 4 January 2001.
28 Tika Jankovitch, “Chemical/Nuclear Warfare in Bosnia: Eyewitness To Hell” Comments by Jared Israel, Emperors Clothes at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/tika/hell.html ., 9 January 2001.
29 Dubravka Vujanovic “Someone Dies of Cancer every Third Day; There is no More Room in the Cemeteries” , Nedelni Telegraf, Belgrade, 10 January 2001. On the same subject see Robert Fisk, “I see 300 Graves that could bear the Headstone: ‘Died of Depleted Uranium’, The Independent, London, 13 January 2001
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Chapter VIII
Washington Behind 2001 Terrorist Attacks In Macedonia
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This article was first published on Global Research on September 10, 2001
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While Washington supplies National Liberation Army (NLA) terrorists with brand new weapons “Made in America”, some 3000 heavily armed NATO troops have been given the mandate to “disarm the rebels” and enforce the cease-fire. Code-named “Essential Harvest”, this bogus “peacekeeping” operation [2001] under British command is intended to weaken the Macedonian Armed Forces and destabilize national institutions.
“As much as their text [“peace plan”] is brutal, more brutal and worrying is the fashion in which they are trying to break up Macedonian state institutions,’ … All of the terrorist actions in Macedonia have been supported by the Western democracies… all threats and blackmails have been presented so far, except that NATO will conduct an air-strike on us.” (Macedonian Prime Minister Mr. Ljubco Georgievski)
It is now documented beyond doubt that Washington is behind the terrorist assaults in Macedonia. While Secretary of State Colin Powell reaffirms America’s resolve to “combat terrorism”, US military advisers are fighting alongside the NLA terrorists:
“Among the rebels that were withdrawing were 17 “instructors” – former US officers that provided military training for the rebels. Not only that: the Macedonian security forces claim that 70% of the equipment that the guerilla fighters took with them are of US production and the latter includes highly sophisticated third generation night vision devices.” 1
US Forces Protect the Terrorists
In late June, the Macedonian ARM undertook a major assault against KLA-NLA positions in Aracinovo, a village close to Skopje. In a NATO sponsored operation which “was supposed to allow the Macedonian Army to gain significant rebel territory”, US troops were sent in to “evacuate” and “disarm” the terrorists:2
“When the terrorists were defeated and showed a white flag, the OSCE and NATO were in panic and ordered us [the Macedonian authorities] to stop immediately the [military] action. Swedish Foreign Minister Ana Lindth and the European leaders were hysterical, threatening us with economic sanctions, etc. Furthermore, the OSCE and KFOR entered Aracinovo and ‘saved’ 500 terrorists together with their weaponry and took them to another village from where they are now attacking again, killing civilians and undertaking ethnic cleansing in several Macedonian villages… NATO forbids us to defend ourselves when we are attacked; our territory is brutally abused by the terrorists. We have tried to defend ourselves, and they have saved the terrorists in air-conditioned buses. That has provoked harsh reaction of the Macedonian people.”3
The official “story” out of the US military base near Skopje was: “[Sorry]…but something went wrong”:4
“A confidential source at Camp Able Sentry [US base near Skopje] says the bus convoy [evacuating the terrorists] was stopped by tanks manned by NLA rebels … and the rebels left the buses and disappeared. ‘Now we have some extremely angry Macedonians on our hands,’ the American official said.”5
The same source stated that the rebels “were escorted by lightly armed American troops”, conveying the impression that the highly trained American GIs of the 502nd Infantry division could not do anything against “the tanks manned by NLA rebels” which had entrapped the bus convoy.6 The ambush story is a fabrication, for one KLA-NLA rebels do not have tanks in their arsenal.
Opening a New Front
The US sponsored “evacuation” from Aracinavo had enabled the NLA terrorists –together with their American military advisers and foreign mercenaries– “to open up a new front” around the village of Radusa, 40 kilometers northwest of Skopje. 7 “They [NATO] are transporting the rebels, the terrorists, from one area to another and rearming them, instead of confiscating their weapons.” 8 In turn, KFOR is “protecting” the NLA terrorists’ supply routes including the flow of military personnel and weapons from KLA-NLA bases in Kosovo and from training camps in Albania.
Sources in the U.S. Army in Kosovo suggest that the “evacuation” mission was also intent upon saving “the 17 ‘instructors’ among the withdrawing rebels”, presumably to avoid the diplomatic humiliation and media embarrassment of senior US military personnel captured together with the terrorists by the Macedonian Security Forces.9
Meanwhile, there are indications that US Apache helicopters and unmanned “predator” drone spy planes (UAV) (dispatched by a contingent of the US 15th Military Intelligence Battalion, stationed at Camp Able Sentry) are supporting this “new front” by transmitting military-intelligence to the rebel army’s US military advisers:
“The Pentagon… approved [mid March 2001] sending several unmanned spy planes to monitor the Kosovo-Macedonia border. The Air Force Predator unmanned drones can feed images immediately not only to troops in the region, but also to Washington.”10
And in the wake of the US sponsored “evacuation”, the KLA-NLA terrorists –together with their US military instructors– have renewed their attacks in the Tetovo region.
Recruiting Foreign Mercenaries
Since the Soviet-Afghan war, recruiting Mujahedin (“holy warriors”) to fight covert wars on Washington’s behest has become an integral part of US foreign policy. A report of the US Congress has revealed how the US administration –under advice from the National Security Council headed by Anthony Lake– had “helped turn Bosnia into a militant Islamic base” leading to the recruitment through the so-called “Militant Islamic Network,” of thousands of Mujahedin from the Muslim world.11
The “Bosnian pattern” has since been replicated in Kosovo, Southern Serbia and Macedonia. Among the foreign mercenaries now fighting with the KLA-NLA are Mujahedin from the Middle East and the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union as well as “soldiers of fortune” from several NATO countries including Britain, Holland and Germany. Some of these Western mercenaries had previously fought with the KLA and the Bosnian Muslim Army.12
Also among NLA recruits are Albanian-American “volunteers” enlisted in New York with the tacit approval of the US government.13 In March 2001, the New York-based Albanian-language newspaper Bota Sot printed an advertisement of the National Liberation Army (NLA) “calling Albanians [in the US] to register as volunteers and to donate money.” 14 Several hundred Albanian-Americans had formed an “Atlantic Brigade” which fought alongside the KLA in 1998 and 1999. In recent months, members of the “Atlantic Brigade” have reportedly joined the NLA.15
The United Nations Funds the Terrorists
Amply documented, the United Nations so-called “civilian” Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) is the KLA in disguise, and the NLA is a proxy of the KLA. According to the Sunday Times: “Hundreds of KPC reservists were called up by their Albanian commander, Agim Ceku, in March [2001]. They subsequently disappeared to former KLA training camps in Albania and are now re-emerging in Macedonia.” 16
NLA rebel Commander Ostremi was until recently Chief of Staff of the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC). To maintain appearances, Washington has “blacklisted” the KPC commanders who joined the NLA. Washington’s so-called “blacklist” –which bars the former KPC commanders from entering the US– includes the names of “Commander Ostremi, his replacement as chief-of-staff at the KPC Commander Daut Haradinaj, the commander and deputy commander of the KPC’s elite force, the Rapid Reaction Corps, plus the leaders of two of its six regional divisions, Commander Sami Lushtaku and Commander Mustafa Rrustem…” 17
From the horse’s mouth: Washington’s “blacklist” visibly refutes the claims of both the “international community” and the Western media mantra that “the NLA has no links to KLA”. In fact, the “blacklist” confirms that they are one and the same thing, with the same commanding officers in both the KPC and the NLA. Moreover, it also confirms that the terrorist assaults are led by military personnel paid by the United Nations.
When Commander Ostremi took leave from his UN job to lead the NLA, the UN “assumed he had gone on holiday”. 18 According to the Irish Times, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan failed to remove the NLA commanders from the United Nations payroll. The “international community” was still (early July [2001]) footing the bill under the disguise of UN “peacekeeping”:
“…the United Nations says it will take no action against these five men [NLA commanders], all still serving officers [in the UN sponsored KPC] because Washington has yet to pass on details of what the men are supposed to have done.”19
This pattern of “financing terrorism” from the UN purse is nothing new. The former head of the UN Interim Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) Bernard Kouchner had established close personal ties with KLA Commander in Chief Agim Ceku, who in a bitter irony was on the list of “alleged war criminals” of the Hague Tribunal. But because he was wanted in relation to “crimes committed in Croatia” rather than Kosovo, this was not an issue in his appointment by the UN to the position of Commander in Chief of the KPC. 20.
An independent report submitted to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in 2000 confirmed that the KPC had been involved in “criminal activities – killings, ill-treatment/torture, illegal policing, abuse of authority, intimidation, breaches of political neutrality and hate speech.”21. In a cruel irony, “the United Nations is paying the salaries of many of the gangsters.”22
But what the report fails to mention, however, is that barely two months after the official inauguration of the KPC under UN auspices (September 1999), KPC-KLA commanders –using UN resources and equipment — were already preparing the assaults into Macedonia, as a logical follow-up to their terrorist activities in Kosovo. According to the Skopje daily Dnevnik, the KPC had established a “sixth operation zone” which:
“included Presevo, Bujanovac, Medvedja [in Southern Serbia] and Macedonian villages in the area of Skopska Crna Gora, Lojane, Vaksince, Straza and Lipkovo… Sources, who insist on anonymity, claim that headquarters of Kosovo protection brigades [directly linked to the UN sponsored KPC] have [March 2000] already been formed in Tetovo, Gostivar and Skopje. They are being prepared in Debar and Struga [on the border with Albania] as well, and their members have defined codes.” 23.
According to the BBC, “Western special forces were still training the guerrillas” meaning that they were assisting the KLA in opening up “a new front” in Southern Serbia and Macedonia. 24
.
Links to Organised Crime
Also acknowledged by official US sources as well as by numerous press reports are the links of the KLA-NLA to powerful criminal syndicates involved in the Balkans’ multi-billion dollar drug trade. Albanian and Kosovar criminal organizations are providing “a very significant support to them [the NLA terrorists in Macedonia].” 25 These criminal groups are also involved in the traffic of Albanian women into prostitution in several European countries including Britain, Italy and Germany. And part of the proceeds of these illicit activities is used to arm and equip the KLA-NLA terrorists.
In other words, in providing support to the KLA-NLA, Washington (not to mention the United Nations) is indirectly upholding the organised criminal-business syndicates which are behind the terrorists.
Treason within the Macedonian Security Forces
In April, the Commander in Chief of the Macedonian Armed Forces (ARM) General Andrejevski was accused by A1 TV Skopje of having transmitted military intelligence to the NLA through MPRI General Richard Griffiths, who is director of the US “equip and train” program with the Macedonian ARM under a US military aid programme. 26. Sixteen senior (retired) US military officers are advising the ARM.
But it so happens that the same US mercenary outfit on contract to the Macedonian ARM is also assisting the NLA rebels in their terrorist assaults. In other words, Washington is arming and advising both the KLA attackers and the Macedonian defenders under military and intelligence authorization acts approved by the US Congress. MPRI is helping Macedonia –as part of a US military aid package– “to deter armed aggression and defend Macedonian territory.” But MPRI is also advising and equipping the KLA, which is responsible for the terrorist assaults. In this war, the American military-intelligence apparatus is pulling strings “on both sides of the fence”. 27
Faced with mounting pressure, General Andrejevski has since given up his position as Commander in Chief of the ARM. But immediately following his resignation, Andrejevski was appointed “Military Adviser” to President Trajkovski, while maintaining his personal links with MPRI`s Richard Griffith who is still in Skopje, responsible for channeling US “military aid” on behalf of the Pentagon. In other words, the US military establishment is still involved on both sides, advising the NLA as well as “assisting” the Macedonian ARM. The ultimate objective of this military-intelligence ploy is to prevent the Macedonian ARM from defeating the terrorists.
Civil Society Ploy
Despite the barrage of media falsehoods, Macedonian citizens are fully aware that Washington is supporting the terrorists. To diffuse public resentment, several Western “foundations” and “human rights organisations” –including the International Crisis Group (ICG) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) are working closely with local citizens groups in Macedonia. While their formal mandate is in the areas of “confidence building”, “governance”, “peace-making” and “inter-ethnic reconciliation”, in practice, they work hand in glove with NATO. They are an integral part of the military-intelligence ploy. The role of these front organisations is to ensure that public resentment is directed against the Macedonian government and Military rather than against Washington, NATO or the IMF. 28
The Open Society Institute (OSI) in Skopje (supported by George Soros) is also playing a central role in manipulating and ultimately weakening the civilian protest movement. 29 The OSI in Macedonia has launched an “Appeal for Peace” endorsed by a large number of Macedonian organisations. (More than 300 organisations and individuals have signed the OSI “Appeal for Peace”). In other words, Soros’ OSI in Skopje hosts and finances the citizens’ movement against terrorism while carefully omitting to mention the causes of terrorism.
Moreover, George Soros is also part of the Wall Street financial establishment which is colonising the Balkans. And this “economic conquest” by American financial interests is supported by the US military-intelligence apparatus, which is funneling covert support to the terrorists.
While George Soros finances “peace” and “reconciliation” initatives in Macedonia, he also supports the KLA. Across the border in Kosovo, the OSI sponsored Kosova Foundation for an Open Society (KFOS) is funding the activities of “local governments” controlled by KLA appointees. This assistance was initially channeled through a World Bank “Post Conflict Trust Fund”, of which a large share of the financing was from the OSI.30
the Open Society Institute is also supporting the “alternative media” in Macedonia with all the appearances of purporting to advance “democracy” and “freedom of the press”.
NATO Sponsored Refugee Crisis
The refugee crisis has been deliberately triggered by the US sponsored terrorist assaults. Both Macedonian and Albanian civilians are among the victims. More than 100,000 people are affected. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) some 73,800 people have crossed the border into Kosovo, and another 34,500 people are “internally displaced” within Macedonia.31 In Albanian villages occupied by the rebels, Albanian civilians rather than being “protected” by NLA “freedom fighters” are often the object of intimidation and reprisals.
In villages inhabited by Macedonians in the Tetovo region, ethnic cleansing is being implemented in the presence of US military personnel who are advising rebel commanders. The KLA-NLA is reported to “have committed unprecedented acts of terror against the inhabitants, forcing them to leave the villages completely. The displaced persons from [these] villages have strongly criticized the OSCE and the International Committee of the Red Cross – whose representatives have consistently avoided contact with the residents of these Tetovo villages” 32
Entire communities are uprooted. According to the UNHCR, the majority of the refugees crossing into Kosovo are women, children and elderly men. Other reports suggest that the terrorists are enlisting ethnic Albanian men to join the KLA-NLA often through force and intimidation. The evidence suggests that those who refuse face serious reprisals. 33 The pattern in this regard, is very similar to what occurred in Kosovo in 1999 where entire villages were uprooted.34
Ethnic Cleansing
Washington is indelibly behind the process of ethnic cleansing in Macedonia. It is worth mentioning in this regard that MPRI (the mercenary outfit working with the KLA-NLA) was on contract with the Croatian Armed Forces in 1995, in charge of the ethnic cleansing and civilian massacres directed against the Serb population in the Krajina region of Croatia. In this regard, MPRI was working closely with Commander Agim Ceku, who at the time was a Brigadier General in the Croatian Armed Forces. Ceku was not only one of the key planners of “Operation Storm”, he was also commander of the artillery division responsible for shelling Krajina Serb civilians. It is no wonder that the pattern in Macedonia is similar to that of Krajina and Kosovo. 35
The same commanding officers from the KLA and the MPRI are now involved in the terrorist assaults and ethnic cleansing in Macedonia. “Protected” by American and British troops stationed in Kosovo and Macedonia, the KLA-NLA rebels now control a significant portion of Macedonian territory.
Bogus Peace Plan
Washington’s design is to prevent the Macedonian Security Forces from fighting the rebels and protecting its borders. In other words, the hidden agenda of the EU-US brokered “peace plan” is to gain time, drag out the conflict, keep the Macedonian Security Forces in the barracks while continuing to arm and equip the rebels. And this gruesome military-intelligence ploy is possible because the Macedonian President and part of his entourage are puppets of the US. Moreover, the MPRI, which is actively advising the NLA, is still on contract with the Macedonian government “helping the Macedonian Armed Forces”.
Meanwhile General Andrejevski, who recently resigned his position as ARM Commander in Chief, is still in charge as “military adviser” to the President, acting on behalf of the MPRI and the Pentagon.
In other words, key senior military officers in the ARM are collaborating with the enemy, against the lower ranking officers and the ARM rank and file who are fighting for their country. Despite the divisions within the government, Prime Minister Mr. Ljubco Georgievski, has openly accused US envoy James Pardew and the EU’s Francois Leotard of “forcing Macedonia to cave in to demands from Albanian guerrillas” 36:
“It becomes obvious that all of the terrorist actions in Macedonia have been supported by the western democracies. Now, we practically have 95% of Ali Ahmeti’s [the NLA leader] document on the table. It is clear that the international community has decided on its position beforehand, and now it is trying to realize it in Macedonia” 37
“‘As much as their text is brutal, more brutal and worrying is the fashion in which they are trying to break up Macedonian state institutions,’ Mr. Georgievski said … The Prime Minister further stated that the proposed peace package constituted ‘a serious interference in the internal affairs of the Republic of Macedonia’… Asked about the extent of pressure Macedonia could sustain, Georgievski said all threats and blackmails had been presented so far, ‘except that NATO will conduct an air-strike on us.’ ” 38
The Anglo-American Axis
In the negotiation of the “peace plan”, the Anglo-US position has prevailed over that of France and Germany. In this regard, Prime Minister Georgievski “underlined that the French expert in law [former Minister of Justice] Robert Badinter was brutally eliminated from the political process”, meaning that his recommendations on constitutional reform were turned down by James Pardew in consultation with NLA leader Ali Ahmeti. 39
Although NATO is not formally part of the EU-US “mediation”, EU High Representative Javier Solana (who occupied the position of Secretary General of NATO during the 1999 bombings of Yugoslavia) has been working hand in glove with his successor at NATO Lord George Robertson. In turn, British Ambassador Mark Dickinson was appointed in May by Solana to act on his behalf in Skopje. British paratroopers and Special Forces –which trained the KLA in 1999– are slated to lead the bogus “Essential Harvest” operation to “disarm the rebels”.
Increasingly, the corridors of international diplomacy have been taken over by military-intelligence officials with previous experience in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. James Pardew started his Balkans career in 1993 as a senior intelligence officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff responsible for channeling US aid to the Bosnian Muslim Army. Coronel Pardew had been put in charge of arranging the “air-drops” of supplies to Bosnian forces, working closely with the Chairman of the National Security Council Anthony Lake. 40 NATO’s Peter Feith who has been “put in charge of contacts with the [KLA-NLA] guerillas” is a longstanding “colleague” of James Pardew. He was political advisor to the IFOR High Command in Bosnia in the mid-1990s.41
Replicating Bosnia and Kosovo
America’s “mediator” James Pardew has been given the mandate to replicate the Bosnia-Kosovo pattern. In this regard, Washington’s military-intelligence ploy is to fracture Macedonian territory, foster internal social divisions and fuel ethnic strife. The design is to destroy all social and political ties between Albanians and Macedonians, who have coexisted for more than half a century within a multi-ethnic society. These socio-ethnic divisions are deliberately created so as to curb all forms of social resistance. More importantly, Washington wants to prevent the development of a broader “common front” against the enemy.
The US sponsored terrorist assaults as well as the bogus “peace plan” are intent upon eventually splitting up the country and transforming Macedonia into a NATO protectorate. Operation “Essential Harvest” to be led by British parachutists would constitute a first step towards a military occupation of Macedonian territory. NATO forces are not only protecting the rebels in the territories under their control, MPRI advisers on contract to the Pentagon are assisting indirectly in the implementation of “ethnic cleansing” in these territories. In the latter, Macedonian State institutions are no longer functioning.
In other words, the territories under KLA-NLA control –which border Kosovo– are de facto under the jurisdiction of NATO. Moreover, there are indications that the KLA –with NATO support– may attempt to trigger a unilateral secession of Kosovo from Yugoslavia. This would not only heighten the political crisis in Belgrade, it would also raise the issue of the political status of the territories occupied by the KLA-NLA from which the Macedonian population has been expulsed (much in the same way as the Serbs were expulsed from Kosovo). In this design, NATO’s intent is clear, it consists in fracturing and destroying Macedonia as a country.
New York Times, 19 March 2001. In March 2001, the New York-based Albanian-language newspaper Bota Sot printed an advertisement by the National Liberation Army (NLA) “calling Albanians [in the US] to register as volunteers and to donate money.” See The Guardian, London, 20 March 2001.
In this regard, recent evidence suggests that the KLA was instrumental in uprooting the civilian population in Kosovo during the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia. See Jared Israel, What’s Behind KLA Strategy in the Balkans? Emperors Clothes, and the interview with Kosovo historian Chedomir Pralinchevich, May 2001, http://emperors-clothes.com/interviews/strategy.htm.
Washington Times, 14 December 1997 and US Congress, Press Release, “Militant Islamic Base”, Congressional Press Releases, 16 January 1997.
Deutsche Press Agentur, 12 July 2001.
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Chapter IX
“OsamaGate”
Kosovo, Macedonia and Bosnia “Freedom Fighters” Supported by Al Qaeda
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First published on October 9, 2001, two days after the invasion of Afghanistan and less than a month after 9/11, this article documents the links of the Kosovo Liberation Army and Macedonia’s National Liberation Army (NLA), affiliated to the KLA
Confronted with mounting evidence, the US Administration can no longer deny its links to Osama. While the CIA admits that Osama bin Laden was an “intelligence asset” during the Cold War, the relationship is said to “go way back”.
Most news reports consider that these Osama-CIA links belong to the “bygone era” of the Soviet-Afghan war. They are invariably viewed as “irrelevant” to an understanding of present events. Lost in the barrage of recent history, the role of the CIA in supporting and developing international terrorist organisations during the Cold war and its aftermath is casually ignored or downplayed by the Western media.
Yes, We did support Him, but “He Went Against Us”
A blatant example of media distortion is the so-called “blowback” thesis: “intelligence assets” are said to “have gone against their sponsors”; “what we’ve created blows back in our face.”1 In a twisted logic, the US government and the CIA are portrayed as the ill-fated victims:
The sophisticated methods taught to the Mujahideen, and the thousands of tons of arms supplied to them by the US – and Britain – are now tormenting the West in the phenomenon known as `blowback’, whereby a policy strategy rebounds on its own devisers. 2
The US media, nonetheless, concedes that “the Taliban’s coming to power [in 1995] is partly the outcome of the U.S. support of the Mujahideen, the radical Islamic group, in the 1980s in the war against the Soviet Union”.3 But it also readily dismisses its own factual statements and concludes in chorus, that the CIA had been tricked by a deceitful Osama. It’s like “a son going against his father”.
The “blowback” thesis is a fabrication. The evidence amply confirms that the CIA never severed its ties to the “Islamic Militant Network”. Since the end of the Cold War, these covert intelligence links have not only been maintained, they have in become increasingly sophisticated.
New undercover initiatives financed by the Golden Crescent drug trade were set in motion in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans. Pakistan’s military and intelligence apparatus (controlled by the CIA) essentially “served as a catalyst for the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of six new Muslim republics in Central Asia.” 4
Replicating the Iran Contragate Pattern
Remember Ollie North and the Nicaraguan Contras under the Reagan Administration when weapons financed by the drug trade were channeled to “freedom fighters” in Washington’s covert war against the Sandinista government. The same pattern was used in the Balkans to arm and equip the Mujahideen fighting in the ranks of the Bosnian Muslim army against the Armed Forces of the Yugoslav Federation.
Throughout the 1990s, the Pakistan Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) was used by the CIA as a go-between — to channel weapons and Mujahideen mercenaries to the Bosnian Muslim Army in the civil war in Yugoslavia. According to a report of the London based International Media Corporation:
“Reliable sources report that the United States is now [1994] actively participating in the arming and training of the Muslim forces of Bosnia-Herzegovina in direct contravention of the United Nations accords. US agencies have been providing weapons made in … China (PRC), North Korea (DPRK) and Iran. The sources indicated that … Iran, with the knowledge and agreement of the US Government, supplied the Bosnian forces with a large number of multiple rocket launchers and a large quantity of ammunition. These included 107mm and 122mm rockets from the PRC, and VBR-230 multiple rocket launchers … made in Iran. … It was [also] reported that 400 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (Pasdaran) arrived in Bosnia with a large supply of arms and ammunition. It was alleged that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had full knowledge of the operation and that the CIA believed that some of the 400 had been detached for future terrorist operations in Western Europe.
During September and October [1994], there has been a stream of “Afghan” Mujahedin … covertly landed in Ploce, Croatia (South-West of Mostar) from where they have traveled with false papers … before deploying with the Bosnian Muslim forces in the Kupres, Zenica and Banja Luka areas. These forces have recently [late 1994] experienced a significant degree of military success. They have, according to sources in Sarajevo, been aided by the UNPROFOR Bangladesh battalion, which took over from a French battalion early in September [1994].
The Mujahedin landing at Ploce are reported to have been accompanied by US Special Forces equipped with high-tech communications equipment, … The sources said that the mission of the US troops was to establish a command, control, communications and intelligence network to coordinate and support Bosnian Muslim offensives — in concert with Mujahideen and Bosnian Croat forces — in Kupres, Zenica and Banja Luka. Some offensives have recently been conducted from within the UN-established safe-havens in the Zenica and Banja Luka regions.
(…)
The US Administration has not restricted its involvement to the clandestine contravention of the UN arms embargo on the region … It [also] committed three high-ranking delegations over the past two years [prior to 1994] in failed attempts to bring the Yugoslav Government into line with US policy. Yugoslavia is the only state in the region to have failed to acquiesce to US pressure.5
“From the Horse’s Mouth”
Ironically, the US Administration’s undercover military-intelligence operations in Bosnia have been fully documented by the Republican Party. A lengthy Congressional report by the Republican Party Committee (RPC) published in 1997, largely confirms the International Media Corporation report quoted above. The RPC Congressional report accuses the Clinton administration of having “helped turn Bosnia into a militant Islamic base” leading to the recruitment through the so-called “Militant Islamic Network,” of thousands of Mujahideen from the Muslim world:
Perhaps most threatening to the SFOR mission – and more importantly, to the safety of the American personnel serving in Bosnia – is the unwillingness of the Clinton Administration to come clean with the Congress and with the American people about its complicity in the delivery of weapons from Iran to the Muslim government in Sarajevo. That policy, personally approved by Bill Clinton in April 1994 at the urging of CIA Director-designate (and then-NSC chief) Anthony Lake and the U.S. ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith, has, according to the Los Angeles Times (citing classified intelligence community sources), “played a central role in the dramatic increase in Iranian influence in Bosnia.
(…)
Along with the weapons, Iranian Revolutionary Guards and VEVAK intelligence operatives entered Bosnia in large numbers, along with thousands of mujahedin (“holy warriors”) from across the Muslim world. Also engaged in the effort were several other Muslim countries (including Brunei, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Turkey) and a number of radical Muslim organizations. For example, the role of one Sudan-based “humanitarian organization,” called the Third World Relief Agency, has been well documented. The Clinton Administration’s “hands-on” involvement with the Islamic network’s arms pipeline included inspections of missiles from Iran by U.S. government officials… the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), a Sudan-based, phoney humanitarian organization … has been a major link in the arms pipeline to Bosnia. … TWRA is believed to be connected with such fixtures of the Islamic terror network as Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman (the convicted mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) and Osama Bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi émigré believed to bankroll numerous militant groups. [Washington Post, 9/22/96] emphasis added. 6
Complicity of the Clinton Administration
In other words, the Republican Party Committee report confirms unequivocally the complicity of the Clinton Administration with several Islamic fundamentalist organisations including Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda.
The Republicans wanted at the time to undermine the Clinton Administration. However, at a time when the entire country had its eyes riveted on the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Republicans no doubt chose not to trigger an untimely “Iran-Bosniagate” affair, which might have unduly diverted public attention away from the Lewinsky scandal. The Republicans wanted to impeach Bill Clinton “for having lied to the American People” regarding his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. On the more substantive “foreign policy lies” regarding drug running and covert operations in the Balkans, Democrats and Republicans agreed in unison, no doubt pressured by the Pentagon and the CIA not to “spill the beans”.
From Bosnia to Kosovo
The “Bosnian pattern” described in the 1997 Congressional RPC report was replicated in Kosovo. With the complicity of NATO and the US State Department. Mujahideen mercenaries from the Middle East and Central Asia were recruited to fight in the ranks of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 1998-99, largely supporting NATO’s war effort.
Confirmed by British military sources, the task of arming and training of the KLA had been entrusted in 1998 to the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and Britain’s Secret Intelligence Services MI6, together with “former and serving members of 22 SAS [Britain’s 22nd Special Air Services Regiment], as well as three British and American private security companies”.7
The US DIA approached MI6 to arrange a training programme for the KLA, said a senior British military source. `MI6 then sub-contracted the operation to two British security companies, who in turn approached a number of former members of the (22 SAS) regiment. Lists were then drawn up of weapons and equipment needed by the KLA.’ While these covert operations were continuing, serving members of 22 SAS Regiment, mostly from the unit’s D Squadron, were first deployed in Kosovo before the beginning of the bombing campaign in March. 8
While British SAS Special Forces in bases in Northern Albania were training the KLA, military instructors from Turkey and Afghanistan financed by the “Islamic jihad” were collaborating in training the KLA in guerilla and diversion tactics.9:
Bin Laden had visited Albania himself. He was one of several fundamentalist groups that had sent units to fight in Kosovo, … Bin Laden is believed to have established an operation in Albania in 1994 … Albanian sources say Sali Berisha, who was then president, had links with some groups that later proved to be extreme fundamentalists. 10
Congressional Testimonies on KLA-Osama links
According to Frank Ciluffo of the Globalized Organised Crime Program, in a testimony presented to the House of Representatives Judicial Committee:
What was largely hidden from public view was the fact that the KLA raise part of their funds from the sale of narcotics. Albania and Kosovo lie at the heart of the “Balkan Route” that links the “Golden Crescent” of Afghanistan and Pakistan to the drug markets of Europe. This route is worth an estimated $400 billion a year and handles 80 percent of heroin destined for Europe. 11
According to Ralf Mutschke of Interpol’s Criminal Intelligence division also in a testimony to the House Judicial Committee:
The U.S. State Department listed the KLA as a terrorist organization, indicating that it was financing its operations with money from the international heroin trade and loans from Islamic countries and individuals, among them allegedly Usama bin Laden” . Another link to bin Laden is the fact that the brother of a leader in an Egyptian Jihad organization and also a military commander of Usama bin Laden, was leading an elite KLA unit during the Kosovo conflict. 12
Madeleine Albright Covets the KLA
These KLA links to international terrorism and organised crime documented by the US Congress were totally ignored by the Clinton Administration. In fact, in the months preceding the bombing of Yugoslavia, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was busy building a “political legitimacy” for the KLA. The paramilitary army had –from one day to the next– been elevated to the status of a bona fide “democratic” force in Kosovo. In turn, Madeleine Albright has forced the pace of international diplomacy: the KLA had been spearheaded into playing a central role in the failed “peace negotiations” at Rambouiillet in early 1999.
The Senate and the House tacitly endorse State Terrorism
While the various Congressional reports confirmed that the US government had been working hand in glove with Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, this did not prevent the Clinton and later the Bush Administration from arming and equipping the KLA. The Congressional documents also confirm that members of the Senate and the House knew the relationship of the Administration to international terrorism. To quote the statement of Rep. John Kasich of the House Armed Services Committee: “We connected ourselves [in 1998-99] with the KLA, which was the staging point for bin Laden…” 13
In the wake of the tragic events of September 11, Republicans and Democrats in unison have given their full support to the President to “wage war on Osama”.
In 1999, Senator Jo Lieberman had stated authoritatively that “Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values.” In the hours following the October 7 missile attacks on Afghanistan, the same Jo Lieberman called for punitive air strikes against Iraq: “We’re in a war against terrorism… We can’t stop with bin Laden and the Taliban.” Yet Senator Jo Lieberman, as member of the Armed Services Committee of the Senate had access to all the Congressional documents pertaining to “KLA-Osama” links. In making this statement, he was fully aware that that agencies of the US government as well as NATO were supporting international terrorism.
The War in Macedonia
In the wake of the 1999 war in Yugoslavia, the terrorist activities of the KLA were extended into Southern Serbia and Macedonia. Meanwhile, the KLA –renamed the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC)– was elevated to United Nations status, implying the granting of “legitimate” sources of funding through United Nations as well as through bilateral channels, including direct US military aid.
And barely two months after the official inauguration of the KPC under UN auspices (September 1999), KPC-KLA commanders – using UN resources and equipment – were already preparing the assaults into Macedonia, as a logical follow-up to their terrorist activities in Kosovo. According to the Skopje daily Dnevnik, the KPC had established a “sixth operation zone” in Southern Serbia and Macedonia:
Sources, who insist on anonymity, claim that the headquarters of the Kosovo protection brigades [i.e. linked to the UN sponsored KPC] have [March 2000] already been formed in Tetovo, Gostivar and Skopje. They are being prepared in Debar and Struga [on the border with Albania] as well, and their members have defined codes. 14
According to the BBC, “Western special forces were still training the guerrillas” meaning that they were assisting the KLA in opening up “a sixth operation zone” in Southern Serbia and Macedonia. 15
“The Islamic Militant Network” and NATO join hands in Macedonia
Among the foreign mercenaries now fighting in Macedonia (October 2001) in the ranks of self-proclaimed National Liberation Army (NLA), are Mujahideen from the Middle East and the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Also within the KLA’s proxy force in Macedonia are senior US military advisers from a private mercenary outfit on contract to the Pentagon as well as “soldiers of fortune” from Britain, Holland and Germany. Some of these Western mercenaries had previously fought with the KLA and the Bosnian Muslim Army. 16
Extensively documented by the Macedonian press and statements of the Macedonian authorities, the US government and the “Islamic Militant Network” are working hand in glove in supporting and financing the self-proclaimed National Liberation Army (NLA), involved in the terrorist attacks in Macedonia. The NLA is a proxy of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In turn the KLA and the UN sponsored Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) are identical institutions with the same commanders and military personnel. KPC Commanders on UN salaries are fighting in the NLA together with the Mujahideen.
In a bitter twist, while supported and financed by Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, the KLA-NLA is also supported by NATO and the United Nations mission to Kosovo (UNMIK). In fact, the “Islamic Militant Network” –also using Pakistan’s Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) as the CIA’s go-between– still constitutes an integral part of Washington’s covert military-intelligence operations in Macedonia and Southern Serbia.
The KLA-NLA terrorists are funded from US military aid, the United Nations peace-keeping budget as well as by several Islamic organisations including Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. Drug money is also being used to finance the terrorists with the complicity of the US government. The recruitment of Mujahideen to fight in the ranks of the NLA in Macedonia is implemented through various Islamic groups.
US military advisers mingle with Mujahideen within the same paramilitary force, Western mercenaries from NATO countries fight alongside Mujahideen recruited in the Middle East and Central Asia. And the US media calls this a “blowback” where so-called “intelligence assets” have gone against their sponsors!
But this did not happen during the Cold war! It is happening right now [2001] in Macedonia. And it is confirmed by numerous press reports, eyewitness accounts, photographic evidence as well as official statements by the Macedonian Prime Minister, who has accused the Western military alliance of supporting the terrorists. Moreover, the official Macedonian New Agency (MIA) has pointed to the complicity between Washington’s envoy Ambassador James Pardew and the NLA terrorists. 17 In other words, the so-called “intelligence assets” are still serving the interests of their US sponsors. [And that was occurring in the months preceding the September 11, 2001 attacks]
Pardew’s background is revealing in this regard. He started his Balkans career in 1993 as a senior intelligence officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff responsible for channeling US aid to the Bosnian Muslim Army. Coronel Pardew had been put in charge of arranging the “air-drops” of supplies to Bosnian forces. At the time, these “air drops” were tagged as “civilian aid”. It later transpired –confirmed by the RPC Congressional report– that the US had violated the arms embargo. And James Pardew played an important role as part of the team of intelligence officials working closely with the Chairman of the National Security Council Anthony Lake.
Pardew was later involved in the Dayton negotiations (1995) on behalf of the US Defence Department. In 1999, prior to the bombing of Yugoslavia, he was appointed “Special Representative for Military Stabilisation and Kosovo Implementation” by President Clinton. One of his tasks was to channel support to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which at the time was also being supported by Osama bin Laden. Pardew was in this regard instrumental in replicating the “Bosnian pattern” in Kosovo and subsequently in Macedonia…
Justification for Waging War
The Bush Administration has stated that it has proof that Osama bin Laden is behind the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. In the words of British Prime Minister Tony Blair: “I have seen absolutely powerful and incontrovertible evidence of his [Osama] link to the events of the 11th of September.” 18 What Tony Blair fails to mention is that agencies of the US government including the CIA continue to “harbor” Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda.
A major war supposedly “against international terrorism” has been launched by a government which is harboring international terrorism as part of its foreign policy agenda. In other words, the main justification for waging war has been totally fabricated. The American people have been deliberately and consciously misled by their government into supporting a major military adventure which affects our collective future.
This decision to mislead the American people was taken barely a few hours after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre. Without supporting evidence, Osama had already been tagged as the “prime suspect.”
Two days later on Thursday the 13th of September –while the FBI investigations had barely commenced– President Bush pledged to “lead the world to victory”. The Administration confirmed its intention to embark on “a sustained military campaign rather than a single dramatic action” directed against Osama bin Laden. 19
In addition to Afghanistan, a number of countries in the Middle East were mentioned as possible targets including Iraq, Iran, Libya and the Sudan. And several prominent US political figures and media pundits have demanded that the air strikes be extended to other countries “which harbour international terrorism.” According to intelligence sources, Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda has operations in some 50 to 60 countries providing ample pretext to intervene in several “rogue states” in the Middle East and Central Asia.
Moreover, the entire US Legislature –with only one honest and courageous dissenting voice in the House of Representatives– has tacitly endorsed the Administration’s decision to go war. Members of the House and the Senate have access through the various committees to official confidential reports and intelligence documents which prove beyond doubt that agencies of the US government have ties to international terrorism. They cannot say “we did not know”. In fact, most of this evidence is in the public domain.
Under the historical resolution of the US Congress adopted by both the House and the Senate on the 14th of September [2001]:
The president is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.
Whereas there is no evidence that agencies of the US government “aided the terrorist attacks” on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, there is ample and detailed evidence that agencies of the US government as well as NATO, have since the end of the Cold War continued to “harbor such organizations”.
Patriotism cannot be based on a falsehood, particularly when it constitutes a pretext for waging war and killing innocent civilians.
Ironically, the text of the Congressional resolution also constitutes a “blowback” against the US sponsors of international terrorism. The resolution does not exclude the conduct of an “Osamagate” inquiry, as well as appropriate actions against agencies and/or individuals of the US government, who may have collaborated with Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. And the evidence indelibly points directly to the Bush Administration.
Notes
United Press International (UPI), 15 September 2001.
The Guardian, London, 15 September 2001.
UPI, op cit,
For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Who is Osama bin Laden, Centre for Research on Globalisation, 12 September 2001, http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html.
International Media Corporation Defense and Strategy Policy, US Commits Forces, Weapons to Bosnia, London, 31 October 1994.
Congressional Press Release, Republican Party Committee (RPC), US Congress, Clinton-Approved Iranian Arms Transfers Help Turn Bosnia into Militant Islamic Base, 16 January 1997, available on the website of the Centre of Research on Globalisation (CRG) at http://globalresearch.ca/articles/DCH109A.html. The original document is on the website of the US Senate Republican Party Committee (Senator Larry Craig), at http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1997/iran.htm)
The Scotsman, Glasgow, 29 August 1999.
Ibid.
Truth in Media, Kosovo in Crisis, Phoenix, Arizona, 2 April 1999
Sunday Times, London, 29 November 1998.
US Congress, Testimony of Frank J. Cilluffo , Deputy Director, Global Organized Crime, Program director to the House Judiciary Committee, 13 December 2000.
US Congress, Testimony of Ralf Mutschke of Interpol’s Criminal Intelligence Division, to the House Judicial Committee, 13 December 2000.
US Congress, Transcripts of the House Armed Services Committee, 5 October 1999,
Macedonian Information Centre Newsletter, Skopje, 21 March 2000, published by BBC Summary of World Broadcast, 24 March 2000.
BBC, 29 January 2001, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1142000/1142478.stm)
Scotland on Sunday, Glasgow, 15 June 2001 at http://www.scotlandonsunday.com/text_only.cfm?id=SS01025960, see also UPI, 9 July 2001. For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Washington behind Terrorist Assaults in Macedonia, Centre for Research on Globalisation, August 2001, at http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO108B.html.)
Macedonian Information Agency (MIA), 26 September 2001, available at the Centre for Research on Globalisation at http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MNA110A.html
Quoted in The Daily Telegraph, London, 1 October 2001.
Statement by official following the speech by President George Bush on 14 September 2001 quoted in the International Herald Tribune, Paris, 14 September 2001.
Note
The Republican Party Committee (RPC) Congressional document confirms that the Clinton administration was collaborating with Al Qaeda in Bosnia and Kosovo with a view to fragmenting and ultimately destroying the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
In retrospect, the Obama Administration’s covert support to the Islamic State (ISIS-ISIL-Daesh) in Syria and Iraq bears a canny resemblance to the Clinton administration’s support of the Militant Islamic Base in both Bosnia and Kosovo.
What this confirms is that US intelligence rather than the White House and the State Department determine the main thrust of US foreign policy, which consists in supporting and financing “Jihadist” terrorist organizations with a view to destabilizing sovereign countries.
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A deeper dive into the vast set of issues from If Americans Knew, written by Jews sensitive to the indigenous population of Palestine, highlights the absurdity of the Zionist land claim to Palestine. What don’t you know yet?
“Zionism was based on a faulty, colonialist world view that the rights of the indigenous inhabitants didn’t matter. The Arabs’ opposition to Zionism wasn’t based on anti-Semitism but rather on a totally reasonable fear of the dispossession of their people.”
“The mythic“ land without people for a people without land” was already home to 700,000 Palestinians in 1919. [about 90% of the population]. This is the root of the problem…”
“Between 3000 and 1100 B.C., Canaanite civilization covered what is today Israel, the West Bank, Lebanon and much of Syria and Jordan…those who remained in the Jerusalem hills after the Romans expelled the Jews [in the second century A.D.] were a potpourri: farmers and vineyard growers, pagans and converts to Christianity, descendants of the Arabs, Persians, Samaritans, Greeks and old Canaanite tribes.” Marcia Kunstel and Joseph Albright, “Their Promised Land.”
“The extended kingdoms of David and Solomon, on which the Zionists base their territorial demands, endured for only about 73 years…Then it fell apart…[Even] if we allow independence to the entire life of the ancient Jewish kingdoms, from David’s conquest of Canaan in 1000 B.C. to the wiping out of Judah in 586 B.C., we arrive at [only] a 414 year Jewish rule.” Illene Beatty, “Arab and Jew in the Land of Canaan.” [Emphasis added.]
The Greater Israel
We learn from author Israel Shahak of Global Research, that “The Greater Israel” constitutes the cornerstone of powerful Zionist factions within the current Netanyahu government, the Likud party, as well as within the Israeli military and intelligence establishment.”
“The Yinon Plan is an Israeli strategic plan to ensure Israeli regional superiority. It insists and stipulates that Israel must reconfigure its geo-political environment through the balkanization of the surrounding Arab states into smaller and weaker states. [Emphasis added.]
Israeli strategists viewed Iraq as their biggest strategic challenge from an Arab state. This is why Iraq was outlined as the centerpiece to the balkanization of the Middle East and the Arab World. In Iraq, on the basis of the concepts of the Yinon Plan, Israeli strategists have called for the division of Iraq into a Kurdish state and two Arab states — one for Shiite Muslims and the other for Sunni Muslims. The first step towards establishing this was a war between Iraq and Iran, which the Yinon Plan discusses: [Emphasis added.]
The Atlantic, in 2008, and the U.S. military’s Armed Forces Journal, in 2006, both published widely circulated maps that closely followed the outline of the Yinon Plan. Aside from a divided Iraq. . .the Yinon Plan calls for a divided Lebanon, Egypt, and Syria. The partitioning of Iran, Turkey, Somalia, and Pakistan also all fall into line with these views. The Yinon Plan also calls for dissolution in North Africa and forecasts it as starting from Egypt and then spilling over into Sudan, Libya, and the rest of the region. [Emphasis added.]
Now, recall the 2001 Wesley Clark revelation, noted above in this article, citing the take-down of seven countries in five years. Let’s connect the dots and ask ourselves, “Who runs US foreign policy?”
Let’s look closer at the 1982 Yinon plan in greater detail:
From early on the Likud Party, ruling Israel today, was not concerned at all with the inherent contradictions of their controversial slogan “from the sea to the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty” to their stated aims of peace with the Palestinians:
In fact, major political figures and government institutions in Israel have carried the flame consistently for an expanded Israel. Nation magazine documents that Page 1 of the Likud Party’s founding document (1977) reads:
‘…from the sea to the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.’ [Emphasis added.]
Gaza: Previous Language about flattening Gaza
The New York Times has reported that “it is part of normal Israeli discourse to call for Gaza to be ‘flattened,’ ‘erased,’ or ‘destroyed.’”[Emphasis added.] The newspaper even quoted one retired IDF general as having proclaimed that “Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist[.]” Going even further, a minister in the Israeli government suggested dropping a nuclear weapon on Gaza.4 These statements are not being made by isolated extremists, but by senior members of Israel’s government.
In fact, the Finance Minister declared that there is “no such thing as Palestinian people”:
The word “Israel” was first presented in the Bible as a name given to Jacob after he fought an angel. Its meaning was a man who has struggled with God. And is commonly translated as “God Prevails” or “Man seeing God”. Many have argued that the word Israel in the Bible does not refer to a place, but rather a believer or a group of believers in God.
Others believe the land known as Palestine was where the Biblical state of Israel once stood. [Emphasis added.]
Going much, much further, Golda Meir, the Prime Minister of Israel from 1969 to1974 said this about the Palestinians:
So “Greater Israel” is not just an historical aberration that the Israelis outgrew following statehood. It seems rather, that “The Greater Israel” is a goal that has consistently guided their actions of invasion, occupation and annexation — in spite of their words of peace to their international audience.
Gaza: Off-shore Natural Gas Assets Coveted by Israel
First among the several geo-strategic interests of Israel in Gaza may be the 122 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in fields discovered two decades ago immediately offshore of Gaza — fields that, if not for its Palestinian owners in Gaza, could profit Israel $453 billion as an exporter of natural gas to Europe — especially in the wake of the US-sponsored sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline. Oil was found in these fields as well — oil worth an estimated $71 billion.
Writer Tara Alami states in an article posted on the American “Mondoweiss”, that “the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip cannot be viewed in isolation from the rich natural gas resources that abound on its shores.” [Emphasis added]
RT covers the story, but Western mainstream media doesn’t touch it, especially now. Russian, Syrian, and Iranian oil has been sanctioned by the West, raising the value of that $71 billion in oil finds even further:
Dr. Atif Kubursi, an emeritus professor of economics from McMaster University who also worked extensively with the United Nations, writes on the IC911 website, “[T]hese [gas] deposits have gained notoriety and value as Russian gas and oil supplies became less available and accessible by Europe, particularly after Nord-Stream II was blown out last year. . .” [Emphasis added]
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimated a mean (average) of 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil and a mean of 122 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas in the Levant Basin Province.6 This makes the basin one of the most important gas resources in the world. [Emphasis added.]
With the escalation of energy prices triggered by the Ukraine-Russia war, the values of these deposits in the Levant basin have measurably increased. It is estimated that these deposits are now worth $2 trillion. Only Israel is currently exploiting these reserves. [Emphasis added.]
“However, occupation continues to prevent Palestinians from developing their energy fields so as to exploit and benefit from such assets. As such, the Palestinian people have been denied the benefits of using this natural resource to finance socioeconomic development and meet their need for energy. The accumulated losses are estimated in the billions of dollars.” [Emphasis added.]
“This is not only contrary to international law, but also in violation of natural justice and moral law. To date, the real and opportunity costs of the occupation exclusively in the area of oil and natural gas have accumulated to tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars.” [Emphasis added.]
Peter Myers cuts to the chase:
“But Israel has now started selling exploration rights to fossil fuels which belong to the Palestinians. Within days of October 7th they had sold 12 licenses to six different companies. Presumably, they just happened to have the contracts all ready to sign. Usually, these things take months or years to set up but the Israelis were selling half a trillion dollars’ worth of someone else’s oil and gas in less time than it takes to buy a washing machine.” [Emphasis added.]
The total oil and gas reserves were valued at a staggering $524 billion in 2019. But Israel does not have sole legal entitlement to the $524 billion, according to a UN reportpublished in the same year. [Emphasis added.]
TRT World reviews the opportunity of the gas fields find for the Palestinian people in this nine-minute report :
Samira Homerang Saunders
“When Joe Biden’s energy security advisor, Amos Hochstein, visited Israel last week to push for the development of Gaza’s offshore gas reserves. He claimed that the move will ‘revitalize’ the Palestinian economy.
Israel however has no intention of allowing Palestinians to benefit from any of the commercial opportunities it is so keen to pursue. Its government views the entire population as an obstacle.” [Emphasis added.]
Most all of the Gas finds are inside of the Gazan territorial waters. But since Gaza is now illegally occupied by Israel, including these vast energy resources, there is enormous pressure on Israel to share them with the Palestinians:
The BBC acknowledges the vast opportunity, cites the problems, and interviews Mohammed Shtayyah, head of the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction:
“Israelis even had a joke about how Moses led his people through the desert for 40 years to reach the one place in the region with no oil. But in the past few years, there have been offshore discoveries of gas and possibly oil that look set to open up new economic possibilities. In the future, they could also redefine strategic relationships.” [Emphasis added]
“Leviathan is actually the reservoir that can potentially bring Israel to be totally independent from an energy perspective and also position Israel as an exporter of natural gas rather than importer,” says Yossi Abu, chief executive of leading Israeli natural gas company, Delek Drilling.
Delek Drilling and Avner Oil Exploration, also owned by Delek Group, own 31% of Tamar and 45% of Leviathan. Its US partner is Noble Energy.
“There are some technical problems but the problems are mainly political – because of the Israeli occupation and the internal Palestinian problems – the need for reconciliation,” says Mohammed Shtayyah, head of the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction.
“Overall it is extremely frustrating for us as Palestinians. You have that natural resource there that should be a real wealth for the nation and [we are] not using it.” [Emphasis added.]
The Jewish News Syndicate provides the Israeli perspective, blaming the Palestinian leader for the lack of progress:
It was 22 years ago that PLO chairman and arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat appeared on Palestinian television to announce the discovery of natural gas off the coast of Gaza.
Arafat described the discovery as “a gift from God” to the Palestinian people, smiling from the bridge of a fishing boat. “This will provide a solid foundation for our economy, for establishing an independent state with holy Jerusalem as its capital,” he said. But instead of working to create a Palestinian state, Arafat launched the Second Intifada, and the gas field was closed. [Emphasis added.]
But, economist, Michel Chossudovsky discusses the controversial agreements for the extradition of natural gas from off the shore of Gaza — agreements by Egypt and Israel that have excluded Hamas.
He suggests that Egypt may have been bribed with the billions of dollars in natural gas revenue in secret negotiations, to accept Gaza refugees following the current invasion of Gaza by Israel — with projected gas extraction in the beginning of 2024.
Chossudovsky also suggests that it is no accident that Israel is bombing inside of Lebanon and Syria, since there are also natural gas discoveries off their coasts. It’s a fascinating interview. Watch on Rumble:
The decision for the evolution of the project was made….in 2019 when the European governments and Israel decided on the $6 billion pipeline project.
The gas pipeline is expected to initially carry 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year from Israeli and Cypriot waters to the Greek island of Crete, on to the Greek mainland and into Europe’s gas network via Italy. [Emphasis added.]
Given the location of the gas fields down south off shore of Gaza, one can understand why Israel would prefer to route the future Ben-Gurion Canal (see below)through Gaza to meet up directly with the gas field development.
Amos Hochstein, U.S. President Joe Biden’s energy security advisor, is currently visiting Israel to discuss preventing a second front from opening between Israel and Lebanon amid ongoing clashes with Hezbollah, as well as potential economic revitalization plans for Gaza centered around undeveloped offshore natural gas fields.
Biden’s Envoy Hochstein “was most recently in Bahrain, where he discussed the opportunity to develop offshore gas fields on behalf of the Palestinians as part of plans for post-war Gaza.”
“Israel gave preliminary approval for the development of a gas field off Gaza’s coast in June, stressing it would require security coordination with both the PA and Egypt. The Gaza Marine field, nearly 20 miles off Gaza’s coast, has remained undeveloped despite holding an estimated 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. This total is hypothetically much more than needed to power the Palestinian territories, and some of it could be potentially exported.” (Haaretz)
Netanyahu’s October 2023 declaration of war against 2.3 million people of the Gaza Strip is a continuation of its 2008-2009 invasion of Gaza under “Operation Cast Lead.” The underlying objective is the outright military occupation of Gaza by Israel’s IDF forces and the expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland.
There are powerful financial interests which stand to benefit from Israel’s criminal undertaking (Genocide) directed against Gaza. The ultimate objective is not only to exclude Palestinians from their homeland, it consists in confiscating the multi-billion dollar Gaza offshore Natural Gas reserves, namely those pertaining to the BG (BG Group) in 1999, as well the Levant discoveries of 2013.
This is what is contemplated. Outright confiscation with the complicity of Egypt
The occupation of Gaza is intent upon confiscating Palestine’s maritime gas reserves, starting in early 2024, as outlined in the Secret bilateral Agreement between Egypt and Israel.
Egypt is in on the game
Cairo is complicit with total disregard for the rights of Palestinians. It’s a criminal undertaking.
Egypt will establish refugee camps in the Sinai desert in coordination with Israel and the U.S., in exchange for a token participation in the exploitation of Gaza’s maritime, which are worth billions and billions of dollars. [Emphasis added.]
This quite controversial claim, implicating Egypt in the abandoning all of the rights of Palestinians in Gaza, is supported by Rasha Abou Jalal of Al-Monitor:
Egypt-Israel “Secret Bilateral Talks”
From 2021 to 2022, Egypt and Israel were involved in “secret bilateral talks” regarding the extraction of natural gas off the coast of the Gaza Strip.
“Egypt succeeded in persuading Israel to start extracting natural gas off the coast of the Gaza Strip, after several months of secret bilateral talks.
This development. . .comes after years of Israeli objections to extract natural gas off the coast of Gaza on [alleged] security grounds, . . .
British Gas (BG Group) has also been dealing with the Tel Aviv government.
What is significant is that the civilian arm of the Hamas Gaza government has been bypassed in regards to exploration and development rights over the gas fields:
The field, which lies about 30 kilometers (19 miles) west of the Gaza coast, was discovered in 2000 by British Gas (currently BG Group) and is estimated to contain more than 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
The official in the Egyptian intelligence service told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “An Egyptian economic and security delegation discussed with the Israeli side for several months the issue of allowing the extraction of natural gas off the coast of Gaza.” (Al-Monitor, October 22, 2022)
A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Egypt and Israel, which had the rubber-stamp of the Palestinian National Authority (PA):
“The Egyptian official explained that Israel required the start of practical measures to extract gas from the Gaza fields at the beginning of 2024, to ensure its own security.” (Al-Monitor, October 22, 2022) [Emphasis added.]
Is Egypt striking a deal with Israel and the West?
It appears so, according to “The Telegraph.”
Of course, the October 7, 2023 events changed everything once again in the gas field extraction project. Israel appears to have adopted a drastically different course with regard to the Gazan Palestinians whose future appears ever more bleak. If they are destroyed and removed from Gaza they will not be a barrier to Israeli gas extraction and profits.
Gaza: A $55B Canal That Wants to Meet the Sea — in Gaza
Let’s examine the $55B Ben Gurion Canal project that Gaza is also sitting in the way of:
The Ben Gurion Canal, named after Israel’s first Prime Minister, has been touted as an Israeli alternative to the Suez Canal that was conceived in the 1960s after Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez.
When the Ben Gurion Canal is completed it is expected to put Eqypt’s Suez Canal out of business, even though it will cost $16B to $55B, many times that of the Suez, and take five years to complete.
“Billion Dollar Builds” takes us on a nine-minute technological and political journey into the mega-project — highlighting the requirement for the “pacification of Gaza.”
The new canal will be a third the length longer (150 miles — depending on the final route) and twice the width (200 meters) of the Suez in order to accommodate bi-directional traffic — or an aircraft carrier. It would be 50 meters deep — twice the depth of the Suez.
Using nuclear weapons for peaceful purposes is not unheard of. Project Plowshare was an official US program organized in 1957 for using nukes for peaceful purposes — “These tests were to demonstrate that atomic bombs can be used for peaceful purposes, that the atomic sword could be beaten into a plowshare”:
However, the Wikipedia article notes, “Negative impacts from Project Plowshare’s tests generated significant public opposition, which eventually led to the program’s termination in 1977. These consequences included tritiated water and the deposition of fallout from radioactive material being injected into the atmosphere.” Israel may, or may not, have found a way around these significant problems.
A project proposed in a 1963 memorandum by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory would have used 520 2-megaton nuclear explosions to excavate a canal through the Negev Desert in Israel at an estimated cost of $575 million ($5 billion in 2021), to serve as an alternative route to the Suez Canal.[13][14][Emphasis added.]
The project actually involves the detonation of a nuclear bomb every 1300 feet from the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea (1,500 feet below sea level) almost all the way to the Mediterranean Sea where an even more costly conventional excavation will complete the canal immediately north of, or through, Gaza.
According to H.D. MacCabee of Lawrence Livermore Lab, the 1963 plan would requirenuclear blasts exploded along 130 miles of the canal in the uninhabited Negev Desert. Curiously, radiation issues are largely ignored in the analysis.
The document above, published by H. D. Maccabee of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, was written under contract to the US Department of Energy and was classified as secret until 1993. “Such a canal would be a strategically valuable alternative to the current Suez Canal and would probably greatly contribute to the economic development of the surrounding area,” the declassified document states.
ANR News provides a bit more depth into the strategically important mega-project:
Even more controversial has been the suggestion that the immense canal maintenance costs could be dramatically reduced by routing the canal parallel and much closer to the Egyptian border, through “the amor rock structure” instead of the desert sand which would eliminate billions of dollars per year in dredgingthe canal from the frequent sandstorms — an enormous financial burden to the Suez.
Such a route would also benefit by saving 50 miles of initial excavation. But, it would have to go through Gaza, instead of around it. This would not be acceptable, of course, to the people of Gaza — absent a catalyzing and catastrophic event like a new 9/11, where they were forced out of Gaza. But if it were possible to accomplish the depopulation of Gaza, Israel’s new canal could avoid the risk of attacks on the canal’s publicly documented route (north of Gaza) by Hamas rockets.
Dr. Atif Kubursi, in the article below states, “Given these basic reasons it is difficult to dismiss this Israeli objective as a serious factor in what is driving Israeli genocide in Gaza.”:
Even with the enormous cost of the project, according to Dr. Atif Kubursi (January 11, 2024), the canal would net Israel about $6B annually (twice the budget that the US provides in aid annually). Its major western investors would reap even greater profits — which might even explain the West’s complicity in the massive destruction in Gaza.
Kubursi suggests that the land of Gaza now becomes three to four times more valuable than in recent decades — especially given that “Israel is planning to build small towns and tourist hubs with hotels/restaurants along the canal.”
Richard Medhurst explains in this eight-minute video how the West plans to deepen its control over international shipping and through Arab waters with its mega investment in the Ben Gurion Canal:
Watch this young woman explain the Ben Gurion Canal project in political terms in under two minutes:
George Webb has written much about the “East Med Pipeline” (Mediterranean), which would be positioned at the mouth of the new canal to work in tandem with it. The new scheme would allow oil tankers to empty their loads in Israel (or Gaza) and then turn around and head back down the canal to the oil producing countries where they came from. They would no longer have to sail the tankers across the Mediterranean Sea to the destination countries — as described by Peter Duke and George Webb in this 18-minute discussion:
The new canal project through Israel would also insulate Israel from Egyptian bans on Israeli shipments to and from the country, which had been a major problem with its historic enemy. It would also give Israel and its allies a “huge influence on the international supply chains of oil, grain, and world trade in general,” as noted by Kubursi. [Emphasis added]
But he notes that Gaza is a major impediment:
“On April 2, 2021, Israel announced that work on the Ben Gurion Canal was expected to begin by June 2021. However, this did not happen given the status of Gaza as a Palestinian enclave ruled by Hamas. Many analysts interpret the current Israeli re-occupation of the Gaza Strip as something that many Israeli politicians have been waiting for in order to revive the old project.” 44[Emphasis added.]
Regarding the original published canal route, Kubursi acknowledges the obvious:
“This is not the shortest distance, however, nor is in the optimum geological structure away from the sandy terrain of Negev. Going into Gaza, guarantees the shortest distance advantage as well as the rocky terrain. These advantages are being cited as crucial reasons for the current genocide Israel is perpetrating in Gaza.”
“But even if the canal would not end in the Gaza Strip itself, it is hard to believe that the Israelis would build it near a Palestinian territory such as Ashkelon. The canal’s distance of only a few tens of kilometers from the Gaza Strip would make it very vulnerable and subject to Palestinian rockets, howitzers, drones and other devices. That is why a basic prerequisite for the construction of the canal is the Israeli military control of the Gaza area.” [Emphasis added.]
Also, Kubursi emphasizes the security threat of China and Russia to the West:
The West does not want to depend on a channel controlled by Egypt, with some ties to the Russian Federation and China, which the West consider them major security threats. Earlier this year, Egypt is slated to become a full member of BRICS from January 1st, 2024. The West does not want Egypt directly, nor Russia and China indirectly, to have exclusive control over world trade. [Emphasis added.]
In fact, China’s new Belt and Road Initiative has forced the West to compete:
“The Americans and their partners have treated with suspicion and disapproval the Chinese New Silk Road megaproject, in which Egypt has an important role. In 2014, Beijing and Cairo signed the “Strategic Partnership Agreement,” agreeing to cooperate in the fields of defense, technology, economy, the fight against terrorism and cybercrime. Actually, during Xi Jinping’s visit to Egypt in 2016, another 21 agreements were signed, including a contract for 15 billion dollars of Chinese investment in various projects….Chinese investment in Egypt increased by 317%. [Emphasis added.]
Ghazal Vaisi looks at the bigger picture: “China is now the single largest investor and trading partner to 11 Middle Eastern countries, thanks primarily to its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a global, multi-trillion-dollar project.” [Emphasis added]
“China has significantly increased its economic, political, and security footprint in the Middle East through the BRI during the past decade.
The ‘Belt’ runs from China, through South and Central Asia, and into Europe.
The Maritime “road” connects coastal Chinese cities with Africa and the Mediterranean.” [Emphasis added.]
According to The Brookings Institution, “China’s growing role in the Middle East is positioning the rising superpower in direct confrontation with shifting US interests in the domains of energy security, Israel, and Iran.”49
“Israel aims to push Egypt further into a corner by eliminating Suez in the global trade and energy corridor and becoming a global trade and energy logistics center. Experts are of the opinion that this situation will shake the strategic-energy balance of China’s Belt and Road Project initiative in the Mediterranean, along with the Strait of Hormuz, which is the transfer point of 30 percent of the world’s energy. The Ben Gurion Canal would have the solid backing of the West.” [Emphasis added.]
But a more direct canal route — through Gaza — would save billions of dollars. Marion Fernando of TRT World writes:
Is Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza only in retaliation to Hamas’s [October 7] attacks?
Or is there a more sinister plan behind what Palestinians believe is the start of the second ‘nakba’ – a redux of the 1948 “catastrophe” that saw Zionist militias invade Palestine and drive out tens of thousands of people from their homes?
As Israeli bombardment continues to devastate Gaza — before a humanitarian truce — and evict thousands of Palestinians from their homes, online chatter has put the spotlight back on an old plan by the Jewish state to dig a canal to connect the Red Sea with the Mediterranean Sea through the Gulf of Aqaba.
Some believe Israel might even change course to cut it right through Gaza. [Emphasis added.]
Yvonne Ridley of the Middle East Monitor also weighs in this “more direct route” theme:
Whoever controls the canal will have enormous influence over the global supply routes for oil, grain and shipping. With Gaza razed to the ground, it would enable the canal planners to literally cut corners and reduce costs by diverting the canal straight through the middle of the territory.
As far as Netanyahu is concerned they are standing in the way of the project; a project which may earn him forgiveness in Tel Aviv for the intelligence and military shortcomings on 7 October.
The only thing stopping the newly-revised project from being revived and rubber-stamped is the presence of the Palestinians in Gaza. [Emphasis added.]
Maybe it has to do with the money?
Follow the money with Celine Lilas:
Social media user Celine Lilas, among many others, posted her take on one of the reasons why Western powers tend to support Israel: [GlobalResearch.ca]
“You might be asking yourself, why do they want to build another canal?” she says in her video, before proceeding to explain how “Israel wants to seize Gaza, annex the land, take it over so they can build their canal through it.”
“The US, the UK, and France are all for that because it’s gonna make them a lot of money at the cost of millions of lives destroyed,” she adds.
A comment with more than 7,000 likes under the video said: “In times of war, it’s best to never focus on emotions or sides but rather to follow the money because it’s always about money.” [Emphasis added.]
Sarah Khalil of the New Arab agrees and paints a more dire picture:
Since Israel launched its onslaught on the besieged enclave, it has pushed Palestinians to move south by relentlessly bombing northern Gaza before carrying out a ground invasion weeks later. At least 400,000 Palestinians have been displaced from the north to the south, according to statistics from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS).
Some 800,000 Palestinians remained in areas considered “north” – namely past north of Wadi Gaza. Israel’s indiscriminate bombing campaign, which has mostly targeted the north – has killed at least 11,470 people in Gaza [now 30,000] – mostly civilians, including women and children.
The death toll has not been updated for days due to Israel’s targeting of the largest hospital in Gaza, Al-Shifa, which was a centre for collecting data on deaths and the wounded.
Israel denies it has plans to annex the Strip but it had called for the “voluntary migration” of Palestinians in Gaza amid accusations that it was “ethnically cleansing” the enclave. [Emphasis added.]
We would like to believe that, however, the Israeli statement seems betrayed by their own Intelligence Ministry, which issued a report in mid-October, 2023 calling for the forcible removal of all Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula:
The Israeli Ministry of Intelligence is recommending the forcible and permanent transfer of the Gaza Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinian residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, according to an official document revealed in full for the first time by +972’s partner site Local Call yesterday. [Emphasis added.]
The 10-page document, dated Oct. 13, 2023, bears the logo of the Intelligence Ministry — a small governmental body that produces policy research and shares its proposals with intelligence agencies, the army, and other ministries. It assesses three options regarding the future of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in the framework of the current war, and recommends a full population transfer as its preferred course of action. It also calls on Israel to enlist the international community in support of this endeavor. The document, whose authenticity was confirmed by the ministry, has beentranslated into English in full here on +972. [Emphasis added.]
The Israeli Ministry of Intelligence hosts the following website:
Key excerpts from the official Israeli “Policy paper: Options for a policy regarding Gaza’s civilian population,” published by the Intelligence Ministry, reveal some startling observations:
The document is dated just six days following the Hamas invasion of October 7. Could this detailed 10-page paper, with highly specific recommendations, have been developed and passed through the multiple channels of approval in such short amount of time? Could it possibly have been accomplished while Israel was still enduring and sorting out the aftermath of the attack? Or was this yet another example of foreknowledge? (Note: We will address “Foreknowledge of the Attacks” in detail in Part 7 of this series)
The recommended “Option C”, the most aggressive of the three options presented, favors “Evacuation of the civilian population to the Sinai,” which is, on the one hand, in complete contradiction to public statements from the Israeli government, but is on the other, in concert with Israel’s forced relocation of the population from northern Gaza and is also in concert with the destruction of 80% of the Gazan housing (in addition to a similar percentage of its religious and academic institutions).
Per the document, 2.5 million people are not only forced to evacuate their own territory (an international crime, by any measure) but are expected to then live in the desert in “tent cities.”
“Operational” objectives #1 through #5 below, include:
“operations from the air with a focus on the north of Gaza to allow a ground invasion in an area that is already evacuated”
“a gradual ground invasion of the territory in the north and along the border until the occupation of the entire Strip and cleansing of the underground bunkers of Hamas fighters”
“leaving the travel routes to the south open to enable the evacuation of the civilian population toward Rafah”
Given that these objectives were presented by the Intelligence Ministry as a “concept”, but were in fact executed, within weeks, to the letter, this of course begs the question: “Shouldn’t governments of the world take seriously the remaining objective of the recommended “Option C” — the forced mass evacuation of Gazans across the Egypt border?
And, finally, the point under “International/legal legitimacy”:
“. . .significant population displacement, may present challenges in terms of international legitimacy . . .”
This is the understatement of the decade. In fact, the forcible transfer of populations violates Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and is prosecutable as an international crime.
Since the international crimes of Israel during the past 75 years are so well documented, can we imagine that they will find a way to make it happen in spite of international law and political pressure? I.e., under the cover of an instigated wider war with their Arab neighbors? After all, Israel has done this before.
Under the cover of the regional Six-Day war, pre-emptively started by Israel, they invaded and annexed not only Gaza but the West Bank too, therefore occupying all of Palestinian sovereign territory allocated by the 1948 UN Plan. And they have kept control of it for the last 57 years. They also annexed the Golan Heights in Syria which they still control, and also the Sinai in Egypt which was eventually returned.
And finally, in his discussion on US imperialism at play in the Ben Gurion Canal controversy, Michel Chossudovsky of Global Research says this additional question should be asked:
“Is the US using Israel for Imperial control? Or, is Israel using the US for its territorial ambitions?”
First published on November 2, 2023:
This U.S. plan [for the canal project], first negotiated with Israel in the 1960s, is of utmost relevance to unfolding events in Palestine.
The objective is to achieve US-Israeli Maritime dominance against the people of the Middle East. In the context of a broader US-led Middle East War, the Ben Gurion Canal Project is part of America’s hegemonic military agenda.[Emphasis added.]
What is revealed in Medhurst’s video [above] is the U.S. military-intelligence strategy to use Israel as a “hub” in the Middle East with a view to securing the hegemonic control over strategic international waterways. [Emphasis added.]
Conclusions of Part I
The puppet masters have pulled the strings and the puppets are dancing.
We’ve found that the geostrategic goals of both the US government and of Israel prior to their respective major terror attacks seems to have aligned perfectly with the opportunities provided to them by those attacks.
We’ve seen that the US arms industry, and the oil, banking, and media industries have all benefited enormously from 9/11. Similarly, the territorial goals of Israel are in the process of being met following the attacks of 10/7.
On the 9/11 side of the parallels, we’ve discovered that, prior to 9/11/01, the neocons controlling the US government established far-reaching goals of hegemony in the Middle East and a vast increase in the military budget. Yet the neocons acknowledged that “. . . the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.” [Emphasis added.]
We’ve also learned that Gen. Wesley Clark was dumbfounded when told by another Pentagon general, within two weeks after 9/11, that the US was going to take out seven countries: Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finishing off with Iran. It was 9/11 that provided the pretext. The Pentagon is not quite finished yet. It appears to still be working on that plan.
Afghanistan and Iraq were invaded under the pretext of the attacks of 9/11, yet, after the torture and imprisonment of hundreds of “terrorists,” all that has been achieved is more terror and massive profits for the oil and banking industries.
On the Gaza side of our parallels equation we have learned that from the very start, Zionist aspirations for their new homeland did not really include a home for the non-Jewish population of Palestine. Even the father of Zionism, Theodor Herzl himself, stated, “We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it employment in our country.” [Emphasis added.] Numerous Israeli leaders have reinforced such statements with their own.
We have exposed that the 1917 Balfour Declaration, a colonialist document that conferred the rights of the 90% Palestinian majority over to a 10% minority, was horrifically flawed from its inception. According to Avi Shlaim, the Balfour Declaration “completely disregarded the rights and aspirations of the people of [Palestine].“ [Emphasis added.]
We have learned too, that many Israeli leaders, particularly in the ruling Likud Party, continue to draw inspiration from the “Greater Israel” as outlined by Theodor Herzl, which quite controversially appears to lay claim to immense territories of Israel’s surrounding Arab neighbors and that Israel has already repeatedly invaded many of these territories in the last seven decades.
We have revealed that the 1982 Yinon Plan for Israel, also a source of inspiration for Israeli leaders, called for a divided Iraq, a divided Lebanon and Egypt and Syria — as well as the partitioning of Iran, Turkey, Somalia, and Pakistan.
It is extremely interesting that the above countries slated for infiltration or overthrow parallelquite closely the seven countries that Gen. Wesley Clark’s Pentagon contact, told him (within two weeks after 9/11) would be taken out. We have to ask the questions, “Who is running US policy?” and, “Why were there so many dual Israeli/US citizens in the Bush Administration? Where is their loyalty?”
Image: The Gas field discoveries are shown in red.
We have also learned that Israel discovered 122 trillion cubic feet of natural gas fields worth a whopping $453B to whoever is left standing after this war. It’s not looking good for the Gazans.
Similarly, the value of the ambitious Ben-Gurion Canal mega-project is rapidly increasing, as it is slated to replace the Suez Canal and the $9B per year fees charged to the 30% of all the world’s shipping containers that travels through it.
We saw how the route north of Gaza is not a secure one, due to Hamas rocket attacks, and that a route through a depopulated northernGaza would not only save billions in initial excavation as well as dredging maintenance, but is a more strategic route, given the location of the natural gas discoveries.
So, we can more easily understand now, both with the events of 9/11 in the US and with 10/7 in Gaza, that clearly there were highly profitable and other geostrategic interests at play. We will see in future articles in this series that these attacks and the responses to them were, in all likelihood, carefully set up in advance and then carried out in a fashion so as to manipulate the public, and international audience, for support in carrying out not-so-well-hidden objectives.
In Part 2 of Gaza – The Astounding Parallels with 9/11, we look closely at the Series of Historic and Recent Provocations and False Flag Operations, by both the US and by Israel, that they have used to manipulate people and governments, and even trigger wars in order to carry out national and international objectives.
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
This article was originally published on the author’s website, RichardGage911.
Richard Gage, AIA is a 30-year San Francisco Bay Area architect and member of the American Institute of Architects. He is the founder and former CEO of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. He now leads the charge for a new WTC investigation.
Notes
[1] Charlotte Greenfield (November 5, 2023; U.N. Office of Drug Control
[2] Don Paul and Jim Hoffman: “Waking Up From Our Nightmare — The 9/11/01 Crimes in New York City”, (WUFOM), page 49
A cidade russa de Belgorod, na fronteira com a Ucrânia, tem sido foco de atenção da mídia internacional nos últimos dias. A região está sendo fortemente atacada pelas forças ucranianas, gerando destruição em áreas civis e diversas vítimas não-militares.
Na mídia ocidental, a responsabilidade pelos ataques ucranianos é comumente atribuída a supostos grupos rebeldes da própria Federação Russa, que teriam alegadamente emigrado para o solo ucraniano com o intuito de combater as forças russas. Aliás, não apenas a mídia anti-russa espalha esse tipo de informação, como também porta-vozes de tais milícias constantemente reivindicam autoria pelos atentados em Belgorod.
Contudo, esta não parece ser a opinião de alguns insiders russos sobre o tema. Recentemente, tive a oportunidade de conversar com algumas fontes familiarizadas ao assunto dos ataques em Belgorod. Os dados foram obtidos in loco através do contato direto com funcionários do serviço de segurança local durante uma viagem às fronteiras da Federação Russa.
Estive em Belgorod no dia 14 de março no contexto de uma expedição organizada pela Associação de Jornalistas dos BRICS. Nosso objetivo era acompanhar de perto a escalada de hostilidades na fronteira e determinar se os ataques ucranianos eram direcionados a alvos legítimos ou civis. Ao longo de todo aquele dia, acompanhei todos os ataques ucranianos ao meu redor, visitando os locais afetados, conversando com as vítimas e, em alguns casos, escapando por pouco do fogo dos mísseis.
Em Belgorod, percebi a absoluta ausência de mobilização militar. Não há tanques pelas ruas. Não há veículos militares. Não há tropas estacionadas. Num raio de algumas centenas de quilômetros do centro da cidade, simplesmente não há quartéis do Exército Russo nem qualquer posição que justifique um bombardeio ucraniano. Pelo contrário, dentre os ataques que testemunhei, vi danos a estacionamentos, praças, lojas de varejo e outras instalações civis e sem qualquer relevância estratégica. Definitivamente, não havia alvos militares na região.
Conversando com populares, ouvi que os ataques contra Belgorod têm se tornado diários. Contam os moradores que a situação fica mais crítica quando em datas e eventos relevantes para a Federação Russa. Feriados nacionais e religiosos são épocas particularmente tensas na fronteira, com os ataques ucranianos aumentando em quantidade e intensidade. Um exemplo bastante elucidativo aconteceu no fim do ano passado, em 30 de dezembro, quando as forças ucranianas lançaram um brutal ataque de mísseis contra o centro de Belgorod durante celebrações de fim de ano, matando vinte e cinco civis, incluindo dezessete crianças.
Na ocasião específica do dia 14, o principal motivo dos ataques parecia ser a proximidade das eleições russas. Tive a oportunidade de conversar com membros das forças de segurança locais sobre o assunto e eles informaram que o objetivo ucraniano era causar desestabilização nas zonas de fronteira para impedir os cidadãos russos de saírem de suas casas durante o processo eleitoral. Com isso, contam as fontes, Kiev esperava tanto provocar indignação com o status da segurança entre os russos (gerando insatisfação com o governo) quanto forçar um cancelamento ou adiamento das eleições. Aparentemente, ambos os objetivos foram frustrados, dado que o processo eleitoral ocorreu normalmente – e com altos índices de aprovação a Vladimir Putin -, apesar da pressão militar ucraniana.
Outra meta ucraniana comentada pelos oficiais locais foi a de “mostrar serviço” ao Ocidente. Desde o fracasso da contraofensiva ucraniana de 2023, Kiev tem sido vista com desprezo e descrédito por seus apoiadores ocidentais, parecendo incapaz de levar os combates adiante. Nesse sentido, ao gerar danos ao território profundo da Rússia, o regime de Zelensky estaria tentando transparecer uma espécie de “eficiência” para justificar o recebimento de mais armas ocidentais.
Contudo, em minhas conversas com os funcionários das forças de segurança de Belgorod, obtive detalhes ainda mais interessantes sobre os ataques. Até então, eu não tinha quaisquer razões para duvidar dos noticiários que apontavam milícias de dissidentes russos como os verdadeiros culpados pelas incursões. Contudo, os oficiais locais disseram que tais milícias hoje em dia se resumem apenas a siglas propagandísticas – meticulosamente usadas pela Ucrânia e pelo Ocidente Coletivo para gerar impressões sobre uma “instabilidade” política na Federação Russa.
Em verdade, a crise em Belgorod tem um ponto de partida entre 22 e 23 de maio de 2023, quando grupos pró-Ucrânia iniciaram uma incursão por terra na região russa, deixando vítimas civis, mas sendo rapidamente neutralizados pelas forças de defesa locais. À época, o ataque – que fora o maior dentre todas as tentativas ucranianas de penetrar o território russo até hoje – foi associado por Moscou a grupos de sabotagem ucranianos, mas duas milícias de supostos “expatriados russos” assumiram a autoria do episódio, a saber o Corpo de Voluntários Russos (RDK, na sigla russa) e a Legião da Liberdade.
Ambas as milícias começaram imediatamente a receber endosso da mídia pró-Kiev no Ocidente, como comumente ocorre com qualquer figura política que se erga contra o governo russo. Pouca atenção se deu ao histórico controverso dos “partisans russos” e suas ligações públicas com o extremismo nacionalista e o neonazismo. A RDK, por exemplo, ao que tudo indica, está integrada às fileiras do Regimento Azov (milícia ultranacionalista que formalmente compõe as tropas do Ministério do Interior da Ucrânia), enquanto a Legião da Liberdade, que está submetida à “Legião Estrangeira” ucraniana, é abertamente conectada a linhas ideológicas de extrema-direita. Na prática, a tal “oposição a Putin” representada por estes dois grupos nunca esteve relacionada com qualquer “movimento democrático” russo, mas com extremismos nacionalistas que atualmente são controlados à mão de ferro na Rússia de Putin.
Não se sabe ao certo o contexto de formação dessas milícias. Os dados disponíveis apontam que se formaram com a migração para a Ucrânia de dissidentes russos após o começo das hostilidades, em fevereiro de 2022. Há informações concretas sobre os líderes destas organizações. A saber, o líder da RDK se chama Denis Kasputin, 39 anos, nascido em Moscou e emigrado para a Ucrânia após acusações de terrorismo na Federação Russa. Enquanto a Legião da Liberdade tem por chefe Maximilian Andronnikov, mais conhecido como “César”, nascido em Sochi e autoexilado na Ucrânia por incompatibilidade ideológica com o governo russo.
Porém, quanto ao real corpo de membros destas organizações, as informações são escassas ou inexistentes. Não se sabe ao certo quantos russos atravessaram a fronteira para defender a Ucrânia. Não há qualquer dado que comprove ter havido um número expressivo de evasão de cidadãos russos para o lado ucraniano – o que seria vital para formar milícias aparentemente fortes e capazes de promover ataques tão contundentes contra as fronteiras russas. Na prática, ambos os grupos parecem “organizações fantasmas”, cujas lideranças públicas falam em nome de um corpo desconhecido de alegados “dissidentes russos” completamente anônimos.
Os oficiais de Belgorod me explicaram que para a inteligência russa está claro que tais milícias simplesmente não existem enquanto movimentos dissidentes. Na prática, são siglas criadas por Kiev para transparecer a existência de um grande movimento pró-Ucrânia dentro da Rússia. Mais do que isso, os informantes com quem conversei alegaram haver uma submissão direta destas milícias ao Diretório Principal de Inteligência (GUR, na sigla ucraniana) de Kiev.
Contam as fontes, que as forças especiais ucranianas operam atentados terroristas e operações de sabotagem contra zonas russas desmilitarizadas, além de ataques individuais direcionados contra figuras públicas relevantes na Rússia. Para esconder sua responsabilidade por tais crimes, a Ucrânia nega envolvimento nos casos e permite que tais organizações proxies reivindiquem a autoria, desviando o foco da opinião pública e da própria Rússia. Com isso, dois objetivos são atendidos: de um lado, Kiev evade da culpa por crimes de guerra; de outro, cria-se a ideia de um movimento forte pró-Kiev formado por “dissidentes russos”.
Não por acaso, dissidentes “russos” reivindicaram responsabilidade por diversos atentados terroristas desde 2022. Não apenas os bombardeios em Belgorod estão na conta destas siglas, mas também ataques pessoais como os que levaram à morte da jornalista russa Daria Dugina, em agosto de 2022. Na prática, tais grupos operam como “bodes expiatórios” da inteligência ucraniana e ajudam a fomentar o crescimento de um movimento ultranacionalista dissidente interno na Federação Russa.
Os oficiais são enfáticos em dizer: todas as tropas que compõe tais “milícias partisans” são, de fato, ucranianas. As figuras públicas russas que lideram estes grupos, contam eles, atuam com mero intuito de distração, sendo todo o efetivo de combate composto por militares de Kiev. Em outras palavras, todos os supostos “partisans russos” estariam, se corretas as alegações dos oficiais de Belgorod, diretamente subordinados ao comando de Kirill Budanov, chefe da inteligência militar ucraniana e amplamente reconhecido como o cérebro por trás de todos os atentados contra civis russos desde 2022.
É preciso lembrar que Budanov por diversas vezes prometeu publicamente matar figuras públicas russas e atacar zonas civis para perseguir os interesses da Ucrânia. Em maio de 2023, apenas alguns dias antes dos “partisans russos” lançarem a chamada “Batalha de Belgorod”, Budanov fez um pronunciamento à mídia ocidental admitindo participação de seus subordinados no assassinato de civis e prometeu “continuar matando” russos. Se olharmos as informações dadas pelos oficiais e as relacionarmos com o comportamento publico de Budanov, talvez tenhamos alguma evidência sobre a veracidade dos dados que recebi em Belgorod.
Lucas Leiroz de Almeida
Lucas Leiroz, jornalista, pesquisador do Center for Geostrategic Studies, consultor geopolítico.
Twenty-five years ago NATO under U.S. command demolished through war what remained of the Yugoslav Federation, the State that stood in the way of its eastward expansion toward Russia. Over the next two decades NATO expanded from 16 to 30 countries and, with the war in Ukraine that began in 2014, expanded to 32.Decisive in the 1999 war is the role of the Italian government, headed by Massimo D’Alema and Vice President Sergio Mattarella (the current Peresident of the Repubblic). As we can hear from the official audio recording, it was Vice President Mattarella who announced to the Senate the start of the war on the evening of March 24, 1999 and explained the reasons for it according to the official version.
As planes from the United States and other NATO countries drop the first bombs on Serbia and Kosovo, Democratic President Clinton announces, “At the end of the 20th century, after two world wars and a cold war, we and our Allies have a chance to leave our children a free, peaceful and stable Europe.” For 78 days, taking off mainly from Italian bases, 1100 planes carried out 38,000 sorties, dropping 23,000 bombs and missiles. “Of the 2,000 targets hit in Serbia by NATO aircraft,” the Pentagon later documents, “1999 were selected by U.S. intelligence and only one by Europeans.”.
The bombing dismantles Serbia’s facilities and infrastructure, causing casualties mainly among civilians. The resulting damage to health and the environment is inquantifiable. From the Pancevo refinery alone, thousands of tons of highly toxic chemicals (including dioxin and mercury) escape from the bombing. Other damage is caused by NATO’s massive use of depleted uranium shells in Serbia and Kosovo.
The D’Alema government puts Italian territory, particularly airports, at the complete disposal of the armed forces of the United States and other countries to implement what the Prime Minister calls “the right of humanitarian interference.” Fifty-four Italian planes take part in the bombing, making 1,400 sorties, attacking targets specified by the U.S. command. “For number of planes we were second only to the US. Italy is a great country and we should not be surprised by the commitment shown in this war,” says Prime Minister D’Alema during a visit made June 10, 1999, to the Amendola base, stressing that, for the pilots who participated, it was a great human and professional experience.”
Our thoughts today are with the people of Iraq, whose country was invaded twenty-one years ago on March 20, 2003.
This article first published in June 2005 focusses on the fake intelligence used to justify the invasion.
Colin Powell’s “intelligence report” presented to the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003 was fabricated.
IT WAS FAKE INTELLIGENCE.
The intimate details pertaining to Colin Powell’s fake report were revealed by Cambridge lecturer Dr. Glen Rangwala.
It was copied and pasted from the internet by members of Tony Blair’s staff.
The Iraq war was based on a Big Lie, which was known and documented MORE THAN A MONTH before the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003. Both the US and UK media remained mum. The US Congress and the House of Commons failed to act.
How convenient: Rangwala’s findings were acknowledged by the House of Commons three months AFTER the onset of the war.
The evidence as well as the statement of Glen Rangwala confirms the criminal and fraudulent nature of the 2003 War on Iraq
See below the full text of Dr. Rangwala’s submission to the House of Commons in June 2003.
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, March 18, 2023, March 23, 2024
***
Colin Powell and the “The Sloppy Dossier”:
Plagiarism and “Fake Intelligence”
Used to Justify the 2003 War on Iraq:
Copied and Pasted from the Internet into an “Official” British Intel Report
by Michel Chossudovsky
June 2005
Colin Powell’s “intelligence report” presented to the UN Security Council in early February 2003 was FABRICATED. It was copied and pasted from the internet by members of Tony Blair’s staff.
While the Chilcot Inquiry report was released in 2016, it is worth noting that most of the dodgy dossier evidence pertaining to Tony Blair and George W, Bush was available before the onset of the Iraq war in March 2003.
“Fake intelligence” was presented to the UN Security Council by Secretary of State Colin Powell on February 5, 2003.
Damning evidence refuting Colin Powell’s official intelligence report was revealed by Dr. Glen Rangwala, Newham College, Cambridge (image right) on Britain’s Channel 4 TV on February 6, 2003, on the day following Secretary of State Colin Powell’s historic Iraq WMD presentation to the UN Security Council:
“I would call my colleagues’ attention to the fine paper that the United Kingdom distributed . . . which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities.” (Colin Powell, UN Security Council, February 5, 2003)
Powell was referring to “Iraq Its Infrastructure Of Concealment, Deception And Intimidation”, published on January 30, 2003.
According to Rangwala, the British intelligence document was fake. It had not been prepared by British intelligence. It was copied and pasted from the internet by members of Tony Blair’s staff:
The Downing Street authors state they drew “upon a number of sources, including intelligence material” (p.1, first sentence). In fact, they copied material from at least three different authors and gave no credit to them. Indeed, they plagiarized, directly cutting and pasting or near quoting.
A close textual analysis suggests that the UK authors had little access to first-hand intelligence sources and instead based their work on academic papers, which they selectively distorted. Some of the papers used were considerably out of date. This leads the reader to wonder about the reliability and veracity of the Downing Street document.
It was a fake document prepared on the instructions of prime minister Blair with a view to building a “credible” justification to wage war on Iraq.
Rangwala’s analysis was more than a smoking gun. It revealed the Big Lie. It invalidated Colin’s Powell’s presentation to the UN Security Council. It had to be suppressed.
In many regards, the Rangwala revelation was far more important than the leak of the Secret July 2002 Downing Street Memo:
“C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.”
The “WMD facts” had to be “documented”. Did British intelligence refuse to comply with Tony Blair’s demands to produce a fast track report which would “fix the facts”? Rangwala’s analysis confirms that British intelligence was not involved in what we might describe as the “Sloppy Dossier”.
The “facts” were put together in a hurry (not by MI6) but by Tony Blair’s public relations’ staff, who casually committed acts of plagiarism and political fraud in support of a criminal military agenda.
The report was finalized one week before Colin Powell’s presentation to the UN Security Council; the “facts” and supporting quotations were copied and pasted by members of Tony Blair’s cabinet from the internet and inserted into an official and authoritative document.
Plagiarism had become a means to justifying the war on Iraq.
The Rangwala revelation was the “unspoken truth”. With the exception of Channel 4 and The Guardian, it was not the object of mainstream media coverage both before as well as after the March invasion of Iraq.
It had to be suppressed. The invasion of Iraq had already been scheduled for March 2003.
The Role of Colin Powell in Planning the War on Iraq
In retrospect, the Rangwala findings also bring to the forefront the insidious and complicit role of Colin Powell, who organized the Crawford Texas meetings in early April 2002 between Bush and Blair, as confirmed by the recently leaked emails (see below).
What these emails suggest is that Colin Powell had been entrusted in setting the stage for the war on Iraq, initially at the Bush-Blair Crawford meetings on April 5-7, 2002, leading up to his presentation of the British intelligence dossier on Iraq’s alleged WMD at the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003.
Lest we forget Colin Powell played a behind the scenes role in the Iran Contra Affair.
The Crawford meetings were intended to plan the war on Iraq.
Colin Powell was a central political instrument. The issue is who was Behind Colin Powell?
Who was present at the Crawford meetings? Reports confirm that Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleeza Rice were among those present.
In the wake of the Iraq invasion, the plagiarized “British intelligence Iraq Dossier” which had been presented to the UN Security Council by (former) Secretary of State Colin Powell was so to speak “forgotten”.
The plagiarism issue nonetheless confirms beyond doubt the war crimes’ allegations against George W. Bush and Tony Blair.
Glen Rangwala’s report was known to Britain’s parliament.
It was brought to the attention of Global Research.
An earlier version under the Title:
“Intelligence Based on Plagiarism: The British “Intelligence” Iraq Dossier”
was published in my book entitled: America’s War on Terrorism (2005).
There was no follow-up. Glen Rangwala‘s report confirmed the criminal nature of the US led war on Iraq, which resulted in more than 2 million civilian deaths.
Plagiarism and Iraq’s WMDs:
British Intelligence Iraq Dossier
Relied on Recycled Academic Articles
by Glen Rangwala
Below is the text presented by Dr. Rangwala to the House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs
It was presented in June 2003, in the wake of the invasion and occupation of Iraq
1. The 19-page dossier, entitled “Iraq—Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation”, was released on 30 January 2003. The document begins with the statement that:
“This report draws upon a number of sources, including intelligence material (. . .”
2. The assertion that the intelligence agencies were involved in the production of the dossier was made more explicitly by Prime Minister Blair when he announced the release of the dossier to the House of Commons on 3 February 2003:
“We issued further intelligence over the weekend about the infrastructure of concealment. It is obviously difficult when we publish intelligence reports, but I hope that people have some sense of the integrity of our security services. They are not publishing this, or giving us this information, and making it up. It is the intelligence that they are receiving, and we are passing it on to people.”
www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk
A REVIEW OF THE CONTENTS OF THE 30 JANUARY 2003 DOSSIER
Sources
3. The bulk of the 19-page document (pp 6-16) is directly copied without acknowledgement from three different sources that are on the internet. The most extensively used source is an article in the on-line Israeli journal, Middle East Review of International Affairs (September 2002), entitled “Iraq’s Security and Intelligence Network: A Guide and Analysis”.
4. The author of the piece is Mr Ibrahim al-Marashi, a postgraduate student then based at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, California, who is completing a doctorate at Oxford University. He has confirmed to me that his permission was not sought; in fact, he didn’t even know about the British document until I contacted him on 4 February to enquire whether his permission was given.
5. In addition to Mr Marashi’s work, there is also the use of two articles from the specialist security magazine,Jane’s Intelligence Review. On-line summaries of articles by Mr Sean Boyne in 1997 and Mr Ken Gause in 2002 are on the GlobalSecurity.org website, at:
http://globalsecurity.org/intell/world/iraq/
These texts were also amalgamated in part into the UK dossier.
6. The fact that these sources were copied is most clear from the typographical errors and anomalous uses of grammar in the original pieces that are incorporated into the Downing Street document. For example, Mr Marashi had written:
“Saddam appointed, Sabir `Abd al-‘Aziz al-Duri as head (. . .)”
There is a misplaced comma after the second word. On p 13, the British dossier incorporates the same misplaced comma:
“Saddam appointed, Sabir `Abd al-‘Aziz al-Duri as head (. . .)”
7. Because the texts of these three authors are copied directly also results in a proliferation of different transliterations (for example, different spellings of the Ba’th party, depending on which author is being copied).
Modifications to the original articles
8. The only exceptions to these acts of copying were the tweaking of specific phrases. For example, most of p 9 on the functions of the Mukhabarat (General Intelligence) is copied directly from Mr Marashi’s article. However, Marashi writes of the Mukhabarat’s role in:
“monitoring foreign embassies in Iraq”.
This becomes in the British dossier:
“spying on foreign embassies in Iraq”.
Similarly, on the same page, Marashi writes that the Mukhabarat had a role in:
“aiding opposition groups in hostile regimes”
The British dossier renders this as:
“supporting terrorist organisations in hostile regimes”.
9. A further example is from the section on “Fedayeen Saddam” (Saddam’s Self-Sacrificers). Most of this text is copied from the 1997 article by Sean Boyne. However, Boyne writes that the personnel of this organisation are:
“recruited from regions loyal to Saddam”, and refers to their original grouping as “some 10,000-15,000 `bullies and country bumpkins.'”
10. This becomes in the British government’s text, at pp 15-16, a reference to how its personnel are:
“press ganged from regions known to be loyal to Saddam” . . . “some 10,000-15,000 bullies.”
11. The reference in Mr Boyne’s article to how the organisation was made up of “bullies and country bumpkins” was shorn of its last three words in the UK dossier, perhaps to render a more threatening picture of the organisation than that contained in the original article.
12. Numbers are also increased or are rounded up. So, for example, the section on “Fedayeen Saddam” (pp 15-16) is directly copied from Boyne’s article, almost word for word. The only substantive difference is that Mr Boyne estimates the personnel of the organisation to be 18,000-40,000 (Ken Gause, in another article that was substantially copied, estimates personnel in the region of 10,000-40,000). The British dossier instead writes “30,000 to 40,000”. A similar bumping up of figures occurs with the description of the Directorate of Military Intelligence.
Errors
13. There is at least one serious substantive mistake in the British text, on p 14, about the Iraqi organisation the Military Security Service (al-Amn al-Askari). After an initial two paragraphs copied from Marashi’s 2002 article, the remainder of the text is taken from the description by Sean Boyne in his 1997 article of a wholly different organisation called the General Security Service (al-Amn al-Amm). That is, it mixes up the descriptions of two different organisations.
14. The result is a confusion that renders the description incoherent. The description of the Military Security Service (al-Amn al-Askari) begins by relating how this organisation was created in 1992 (in a section copied from Marashi). It then describes how the Military Security Service moved headquarters in 1990 (in a piece copied from Boyne on the activities of the General Security Service), two years before the organisation was even created.
15. Later in the same section, the UK dossier claims that the head of the Military Security Service is Taha al-Ahbabi. This is from Boyne’s description of the General Security Service. In fact, the Military Security Service was headed by Thabet Khalil when the dossier was released.
FURTHER COMMENTS
16. The information in the UK dossier is presented as being an accurate statement of the current state of Iraq’s security organisations. However, it may not be anything of the sort. Mr Marashi—the real and unwitting author of much of the document—refers in his article to his primary source as being the documents captured by Coalition forces in 1991, and which are now retained by the Massachusetts-based organisation, the Iraq Research and Documentation Project. His own focus is the activities of Iraq’s intelligence agencies in Kuwait in the period from August 1990 to January 1991, as this is the subject of his thesis. As a result, much of the information presented as relevant to how Iraqi agencies are currently engaged with UNMOVIC is 12 years old.
17. When the document was first released as a Microsoft Word document, I checked the properties of the text in the File menu. It revealed the authors of the text as P. Hamill, J. Pratt, A. Blackshaw, and M. Khan. Those names were removed within hours from the downloadable file. However, in collaboration with journalists, I have since checked who these individuals are. The identity of the authors is as follows:
Paul Hamill, a Foreign Office official;
John Pratt, a junior official from the Prime Minister’s Strategic Communications Unit;
Alison Blackshaw, Alastair Campbell’s personal assistant;
Mustaza Khan, news editor of the 10 Downing Street website.
THE ORDERING OF THE DOSSIER
18. The dossier is ordered as follows:
p 1 is the summary.
pp 2-5 consists of, firstly, a repetition of the comments of Hans Blix, Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC, to the Security Council in January on the difficulties they were encountering. Further claims about the activities of al-Mukhabarat follow. These claims are not backed up, and have in some cases been specifically denied by Hans Blix. For example, the UK dossier claims on p 3 that:
“Journeys are monitored by security officers stationed on the route if they have prior intelligence. Any changes of destination are notified ahead by telephone or radio so that arrival is anticipated. The welcoming party is a give away.”
This can be contrasted with the assessment of Hans Blix on 14 February 2003 that:
“Since we arrived in Iraq, we have conducted more than 400 inspections covering more than 300 sites. All inspections were performed without notice, and access was almost always provided promptly. In no case have we seen convincing evidence that the Iraqi side knew in advance that the inspectors were coming.”
“Escorts are trained, for example, to start long arguments with other Iraqi officials `on behalf of UNMOVIC’ while any incriminating evidence is hastily being hidden behind the scenes.”
By contrast, Dr Blix relates in the same presentation of 14 February that:
“we note that access to sites has so far been without problems, including those that had never been declared or inspected, as well as to Presidential sites and private residences.”
p 6 is a simplified version of Mr Marashi’s diagram at: http://cns.miis.edu/research/iraq/pdfs/iraqint.pdf
p 7 is copied (top) from Mr Gause (on the Presidential Secretariat), and (middle and bottom) from Mr Boyne (on the National Security Council).
p 8 is entirely copied from Mr Boyne (on the National Security Council).
p 9 is copied from Mr Marashi (on al-Mukhabarat), except for the final section, which is insubstantial.
p 10 is entirely copied from Mr Marashi (on the General Security Service), except for the final section, which is insubstantial.
p 11 is entirely copied from Mr Marashi (on Special Security), except for the top section (on General Security), which is insubstantial.
p 12 is entirely copied from Mr Marashi (on Special Security).
p 13 is copied from Mr Gause (on Special Protection) and Mr Marashi (Military Intelligence).
p 14 is copied from Mr Marashi (first two paragraphs) and then wrongly copied from Mr Boyne (on Military Security). The last section, on the Special Republican Guard, is copied from Mr Marashi.
p 15 is copied from Messrs Gause and Boyne (on al-Hadi project / project 858).
pp 15-16 is copied from Boyne (on Fedayeen Saddam).
p 16: The final section, on the Tribal Chiefs’ Bureau, seems to be copied from Anthony H. Cordesman, “Key Targets in Iraq”, February 1998, http://www.csis.org/stratassessment/reports/iraq_argets.pdf, pg. 8
pp 17-19 make general claims about human rights in Iraq.
Vinte e cinco anos atrás, a OTAN, sob o comando dos EUA, demoliu com a guerra o que restava da Federação Iugoslava, o Estado que impedia sua expansão para o leste em direção à Rússia. Nos vinte anos seguintes, a OTAN passou de 16 para 30 países e, com a guerra na Ucrânia, iniciada em 2014, passou para 32. Decisivo na guerra de 1999 foi o papel do governo italiano, liderado por Massimo D’Alema e pelo vice-presidente Sergio Mattarella. Como podemos ouvir na gravação de áudio oficial, é o vice-presidente Mattarella quem anuncia o início da guerra no Senado na noite de 24 de março de 1999 e explica as razões para isso, de acordo com a versão oficial.
Quando os aviões dos Estados Unidos e de outros países da OTAN lançaram as primeiras bombas sobre a Sérvia e Kosovo, o presidente democrata Clinton anunciou: “No final do século XX, após duas guerras mundiais e uma guerra fria, nós e nossos aliados temos a chance de deixar para nossos filhos uma Europa livre, pacífica e estável”. Durante 78 dias, decolando principalmente de bases italianas, 1.100 aeronaves realizaram 38.000 surtidas, lançando 23.000 bombas e mísseis. “Dos 2.000 alvos atingidos na Sérvia por aviões da OTAN”, o Pentágono documenta posteriormente, “1999 foram selecionados pela inteligência dos EUA e apenas um pelos europeus. Os bombardeios desmantelam as estruturas e a infraestrutura da Sérvia, causando vítimas principalmente entre os civis. Os danos resultantes à saúde e ao meio ambiente são incalculáveis. Somente na refinaria de Pancevo, milhares de toneladas de produtos químicos altamente tóxicos (incluindo dioxina e mercúrio) escapam dos bombardeios. Outros danos são causados pelo uso maciço de projéteis de urânio empobrecido pela OTAN na Sérvia e em Kosovo.
O governo D’Alema coloca o território italiano, em particular os aeroportos, à inteira disposição das forças armadas dos Estados Unidos e de outros países, para implementar o que o primeiro-ministro chama de “direito de interferência humanitária”. Cinquenta e quatro aeronaves italianas participaram do bombardeio, realizando 1.400 surtidas, atacando os alvos indicados pelo comando dos EUA.
“Em termos de número de aviões, ficamos atrás apenas dos EUA. A Itália é um grande país e não devemos nos surpreender com o compromisso demonstrado nesta guerra”, declarou o primeiro-ministro D’Alema durante sua visita à base de Amendola em 10 de junho de 1999, “enfatizando que, para os pilotos que participaram, foi uma grande experiência humana e profissional”.
Venticinque anni fa la NATO sotto comando USA demoliva con la guerra ciò che restava della Federazione Jugoslava, lo Stato che ostacolava la sua espansione ad Est verso la Russia. Nei successivi vent’anni la NATO si è allargata da 16 a 30 paesi e, con la guerra in Ucraina iniziata nel 2014, si è estesa a 32. Determinante, nella guerra del 1999, è il ruolo del Governo italiano, presieduto da Massimo D’Alema e dal vicepresidente Sergio Mattarella. Come possiamo ascoltare dalla registrazione audio ufficiale, è il vicepresidente Mattarella ad annunciare al Senato l’inizio della guerra la sera del 24 marzo 1999 e a spiegarne le ragioni secondo la versione ufficiale.
Mentre gli aerei di Stati Uniti e altri paesi della NATO sganciano le prime bombe sulla Serbia e il Kosovo, il presidente democratico Clinton annuncia: «Alla fine del XX secolo, dopo due guerre mondiali e una guerra fredda, noi e i nostri Alleati abbiamo la possibilità di lasciare ai nostri figli un’Europa libera, pacifica e stabile». Per 78 giorni, decollando soprattutto dalle basi italiane, 1100 aerei effettuano 38 mila sortite, sganciando 23 mila bombe e missili. «Dei 2000 obiettivi colpiti in Serbia dagli aerei della NATO – documenta successivamente il Pentagono – 1999 sono stati scelti dall’intelligence statunitense e solo uno dagli europei». I bombardamenti smantellano le strutture e infrastrutture della Serbia, provocando vittime soprattutto tra i civili. I danni che ne derivano per la salute e l’ambiente sono inquantificabili. Solo dalla raffineria di Pancevo fuoriescono, a causa dei bombardamenti, migliaia di tonnellate di sostanze chimiche altamente tossiche (compresi diossina e mercurio). Altri danni vengono provocati dal massiccio impiego da parte della NATO, in Serbia e Kosovo, di proiettili a uranio impoverito.
Il governo D’Alema mette il territorio italiano, in particolare gli aeroporti, a completa disposizione delle forze armate degli Stati Uniti e di altri paesi, per attuare quello che il Presidente del Consiglio definisce «il diritto d’ingerenza umanitaria». Ai bombardamenti partecipano 54 aerei italiani, che compiono 1.400 sortite, attaccando gli obiettivi indicati dal comando statunitense.
“Per numero di aerei siamo stati secondi solo agli USA. L’Italia è un grande paese e non ci si deve stupire dell’impegno dimostrato in questa guerra” – dichiara il presidente del consiglio D’Alema durante la visita compiuta il 10 giugno 1999 alla base di Amendola – “sottolineando che, per i piloti che vi hanno partecipato, è stata una grande esperienza umana e professionale“.
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“The [1999] bombing war violates and shreds the basic provisions of the United Nations Charter and other conventions and treaties; the attack on Yugoslavia constitutes the most brazen international aggression since the Nazis attacked Poland to prevent “Polish atrocities” against Germans. The United States has discarded pretensions to international legality and decency, and embarked on a course of raw imperialism run amok.” – William Rockler,former prosecutor of the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal [1]
Starting March 24, 1999, the member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) assaulted the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia with air strikes over the course of 78 days. [2]
According to the Provisional Assessment of Civilian Casualties and Destruction, overseen by the International Action Center in New York,
“NATO flew over 35,000 combat missions over the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Over 1,000 warplanes (among others F-15, F-16, F-117) and 206 helicopters were used in the air strikes.” [3]
Thousands of people were killed and 6000 injured as a direct result of the bombs.
And there was tremendous damage to the civil infrastructure of the country. Michel Chossudovsky wrote in his 2021 book that these included hospitals, airports, government buildings, 17th century churches, and the country’s cultural and historical heritage. [4][5]
But the goal as far as the various NATO Heads of State revealed, and the public knew based on media coverage, the stated goal of the war was allegedly to hinder the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Albanians by Serbia.
The same Serbs who fought against the Ottoman Empire, fought against Hitler, and then, under the leadership of Tito, resisted control by the USSR, now found themselves getting slapped by the Western “cowboys” who safeguard security, freedom and collective defence. [6][7] It’s called “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P)
There was more to this “humanitarian disaster” than is displayed on our television screens. Our 25th anniversary review of the Global Research News Hour is intended to take a squeegee to our windows of observation and in fact see more clearly why this first truly aggressive war took place and how it set the pattern for NATO’s future war pre-texts.
Was US-NATO’s war on Yugoslavia a “Dress Rehearsal?
In our first half hour, Diana Johnstone, who had done ongoing investigative and theoretical/analytical work on the dismantling of Yugoslavia, discredits the claim of NATO “humanitarian intervention” and talks about what the grand-masters of global force were really after. She also discusses the current war in Ukraine and the similarities between them.
In our second half hour, investigative journalist Kit Klarenberg makes his debut on the show to talk in more detail of CIA funding the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), U.S. intelligence work setting up the “Racak Massacre,” the beginning of the NGO OTPOR, and more associated with the repercussions of the prototype “humanitarian war.”
Diana Johnstone was press secretary of the Green Group in the European Parliament from 1989 to 1996. In her latest book, Circle in the Darkness: Memoirs of a World Watcher(Clarity Press, 2020), she recounts key episodes in the transformation of the German Green Party from a peace to a war party. Her other books include Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions (Pluto/Monthly Review) and in co-authorship with her father, Paul H. Johnstone, From MAD to Madness: Inside Pentagon Nuclear War Planning (Clarity Press).
Diana Johnstone is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. She can be reached at [email protected].
Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. His work has previously appeared in MintPress News The Cradle, Declassified UK, and Grayzone. His work has been published at Global Research. His substack is kitklarenberg.com
Global Research:Now the immediate pretext that was delivered to people in the US, Canada, and NATO nations generally was the presumption that the Yugoslavian government was threatening Kosovo Albanians with genocide. It comes on the heels of maybe a decade of media coverage within the country talking about the racist factors motivating the crimes of Slobodan Milosevic. For the first time ever, NATO mobilized outside its traditional territory, the North Atlantic area, as a humanitarian intervention. So, first of all, could you give just a brief explanation to dismantle the proposition that humanitarianism was not the real reason why NATO united to attack this country?
Diana Johnstone: Well, it certainly was not. I mean, the whole humanitarian crisis was very prepared and financed by Western organizations. They financed a Kosovo humanitarian organization where they were giving money to the Kosovo Albanian separatists, thousands of them, to report on human rights violations which they could simply make up because there was nobody there to check their word. And these things were largely simply invented and the press swallowed them all.
I will say this: because I was in Kosovo shortly before that. I had been a student in Yugoslavia, I knew people in the country. I spoke somewhat of the language. And I know very well that they sent down journalists who didn’t know anything about anything. Who simply picked up the stories from the people who were paid by the West to – about Serbian atrocities. I mean, the journalists were sent down there to get a story on Serbian atrocities and they would look around for them and didn’t find them, but somebody would make them up and tell them that. I mean, it was totally invented, that humanitarian crisis.
There were, of course, the Kosovo Albanian terrorists who started murdering people and that naturally, inevitably caused government repression. I mean, they attacked the director of a university. They were attacking sort of anybody who was friendly to the government and then naturally there was a repression. And then, of course the repression was the excuse to – that was called a “humanitarian crisis.”
But it was not on a racial basis because of the Kosovo nationalists were even murdering members of their own ethnic group if they were cooperating with the government. And there was not a – there was not a racial or ethnic oppression against Albanians who also lived in other parts of Serbia and had all their rights. So, that was just invented because NATO needed a new mission.
The whole point of this was that the Soviet Union had collapsed and there was no reason for NATO, which was supposed to be a defence organization against the Soviet Union. There was no Soviet Union. NATO needed a new mission and Kosovo was the excuse for that. It was to transfer NATO from a defence organization into a human rights intervention organization. Give it a new mission – gave it a new mission. There was a meeting of NATO at that time. The whole purpose of that was to save NATO and expand it, which they’re still doing. So, it was to transfer NATO from a defensive into an offensive, aggressive organization that could operate all over the world.
GR: NATO nations that bill themselves as helping to spread freedom and so on. But it seems that NATO’s actions are not building up democracy, so much as literally tearing them apart. I mean, Yugoslavia is really just a set of independent countries now. Do you think the aim in the current NATO manipulating war in Ukraine is serving the same set of purposes? I mean, to split Russia apart the same way they split Yugoslavia apart?
DJ: Absolutely. Absolutely. Kosovo – the way NATO treated Yugoslavia was precisely a laboratory experiment in how they would later attack Russia.
And you see, this thing about democracy: one thing is, you always know that they – they have a set script for this that they use all over the place. I mean, you have a wicked dictator who wants to act like Hitler, ‘Whoa whoa whoa, here comes Hitler again.’ And then, ‘There’s bad dictator who wants to kill people. We must stop him.’
Well, first of all, Milosevic was not a dictator. He was a perfectly democratically elected leader who always had a coalition government, he never ruled by himself. He did not control the press at all, which was mostly critical. He had a coalition government. He was more democratically elected probably than others in that same region. But we’re against him, so he’s a dictator. That’s one thing: you’re always – the enemy is always a dictator and that’s why we’re for democracy, because he’s a dictator.
Well, I can tell you that is absolutely not true. And then, you use – you exploit minority differences, you exploit ethnic differences in order to cause huge trouble. I mean, there were – it was possible to solve the problems in Yugoslavia, all of them could have been solved. But the United States did not want negotiations.
And you have to see that they – there were these false negotiations in Rambouillet, France with NATO and the Serb government. And it started out with Professor Rugova who was a Kosovo Albanian who should have been elected by them and they shoved him out of the way and brought in a gangster, Hashim Thaci, who Madeleine Albright decided was the real leader. And he was the head of this armed group that was assassinating people. And in the Kosovo delegation they replaced the peaceful person, the head of the armed band. And then, Madeleine Albright, while they were working towards some kind of compromise, put down conditions that the Serbs would have to allow NATO free run of their whole country. And that means they – Madeleine Albright was demanding that Serbia agree to let NATO troops to go wherever they want all over the country and exempt from law. That is, they could kill people or commit all kinds of crimes and they could not be prosecuted. Well, no Serb government, no government at all could accept those conditions.
And so, they didn’t accept them. And then, they told them ‘Oh, he refuses to negotiate, so we have to bomb.’ That’s the way it went, it’s unbelievable. But people believed it.
GR: The Yugoslavian War was essentially a prototype, a blueprint for wars to follow, wasn’t it? I mean, the wars in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, now Haiti and anywhere else that the elite countries decide must be attacked to fight for ‘human rights.’ It used to be about, as you say, you know, stopping fascism, communism, threats of invasion, dictators. I mean, how did this humanitarian and intervention become the chosen method by which the need for war is articulated? I mean, can you place it on any set of individuals or circumstances?
DJ: Well, you see, in a way it’s always been the Western thing. And when they went into Africa or something, it was also – I mean, it was to fight savages who bring – they didn’t use the term ‘human rights’ but they would use similar terms like that. I mean, they always push virtue ahead of them as their excuse for going there. The terms may change. ‘Human rights’ became the word after the US failure in Vietnam. They had to become very virtuous. So there was a whole series of conferences of human rights in the Helsinki Agreements in Europe. The conclusion of those agreements was supposed to make peace by saying that they couldn’t change the borders. But then, the United States went right in to change the borders on the excuse of ‘human rights.’
And by ‘human rights’ we especially mean minority rights. If you notice, the whole tendency in the last decades for the West is no longer to define democracy by the majority, but by the rights of minorities. And you could almost always find a discontented minority anywhere. And then, that discontented minority becomes the victim that you have to support.
Of course, but it happens that, in fact, the real victim minority is not on your side as in Ukraine. Well, that’s different.
GR: Yeah.
DJ: At that point, the minority cannot succeed. When we like the minority, the minority has the perfect right to succeed and we’ll go in and help it. But if it’s a minority that we don’t like, why it just better stay put. And that’s what you see in Ukraine where the Russian-speaking minority of Eastern Ukraine, which did not appreciate having the elected government of – for someone they voted for being overthrown with the help of Victoria Nuland of the State Department.
We will then – we then armed the Ukrainians that we put in power in Kyiv to attack those people. So, it’s a total double standard.
GR: Just talking about again, I mean, you mentioned like all of the major political leaders. I mean, comparing Ukraine to Yugoslavia, could you talk about like the way the money was – how money was made by the NATO side, you know, and how that has, you know – maybe there are signs that they are trying to attack that same dynamic in, you know, Ukraine or what’s left of it when the war ends.
DJ: I don’t quite see – I mean, war is always making money, you know, that’s its – it’s definitely making money for the arms manufacturers. But I don’t think – you see, you always have to have some moralistic excuse. You don’t – you can’t tell people, ‘We’re going to go to war because it’s good for the arms industry.’ So, of course it’s good for the arms industry.
What comes politically is always the cover-up story. And the cover-up story has to be, you know, ‘We’re overthrowing a wicked dictator,’ or – especially the Hitler model since most of – especially Americans don’t know anything about world history, except they’ve heard about Hitler. So, you model it on that. You’re – you model whoever is the leader of the country that you want to overthrow, you model him on Hitler and make up your story around that.
I mean, the extent of lies is unbelievable. I was there, so I saw it. I couldn’thave believed it. Now I realize that they just go on lying and lying and lying. But that’s the first time I had witnessed close-up just the extent to which they make things up and staged events to look like – they stage events – there’s some – there was an incident in Kosovo where the government attacked a base of what they call terrorists, you can call them whatever you want. But they had been assassinating policemen. And they had a fight and they won. And they had announced it to the press, this was no secret. And the American in charge of things went in there and said, ‘Oh, this is horrible,’ and he put on a whole show. That was the Racak Massacre which wasn’t. And it was a police action which the Americans turned into an ethnic cleansing thing. I mean, they just staged these sort of things all the time. And people fall for it.
And the left wing fell for it. They thought, ‘Oh, well this is a good war because we’re saving people from something.’ And it’s not true. What they did is they – Yugoslavia was a functioning country. It had its difficulties, but actually, it was quite well off and it was – it had remnants of socialism and also it was attached to the Non-Aligned Movement. The United States had just thought it had won the Cold War, it had defeated the Soviet Union which it hadn’t. The Soviet Union collapsed from within.
But they wanted to get rid of the last trace of socialism in Europe and a country which had been very important in the international Non-Aligned Movement. It was very friendly with independent countries, with Arab countries.
And so, the whole idea was to break that country up and into non-functional little pieces. I mean, Bosnia to this day is just as divided as ever. It has no – it’s supposedly independent, but in fact, it’s ruled by what they call the ‘High Representative’ which is chosen by NATO and it happens to be a German. So, this is a victory for the German revanchisme against their enemies in two world wars. They got Bosnia, because in fact, they have a boss there and the country is totally divided, non-functional. The population is leaving by droves, so it’s de-populating. The same thing is happening in Macedonia.
So, you don’t have a group of independent countries, you have two members of the EU who are not better – the people are not better off than they were in Yugoslavia because those were – Slovenia and Croatia were very prosperous in Yugoslavia. And they were lured to get out and, ‘Oh, you can be a part of Europe, you can be part of a great, big, Western club.’ So, that lured them out of Yugoslavia. And that began the whole thing of falling apart. And the Germans were much behind that, because undoing part of World War I. And the Serbs who had been the allies of the West were totally abandoned by the West who turned around and branded them as the bad guys.
GR: Yeah.
DJ: To their great surprise by the way. One parallel – you see, the US went into Kosovo and the moment they got there, they started building a huge military base. Now that was not in the program, right? That was – it was going in there for human rights. And what does the United States do? It immediately starts building this huge base, Bondsteel, in Kosovo.
And what is the parallel is that the motive of the United States in Ukraine was blatantly, obviously wanting to capture the Russian base of Sevastopol in Crimea. And so, naturally, inevitably, the Russians took back Crimea which had only been given to Ukraine very recently, with a referendum showing that the people there wanted to be in Russia because they could not sit there and have the United States take over Russia’s main naval base and make it a NATO base. That’s so obvious.
GR: Mm-hmm.
DJ: And people are acting as if they don’t notice that. Unbelievable. They say the Russians had no motive. They just – just feeling bad, they went in and attacked poor little Ukraine. Whereas, Ukraine was being armed to the teeth to be an enemy of Russia. There’s a whole history to that, but I can’t go into that.
Transcript for Kit Klarenberg, March 20, 2024
Part One
Global Research: The KLA, the Kosovo Liberation Army, considered freedom fighters in Kosovo, they’ve actually been gangsters and thugs who commit insurgencies against the Yugoslavs, affecting, you know, police, a professor, and so on. And then, the Yugoslavian government sends forces or police to, you know, in response. But it’s only that latter portion that gets captured in media and it gives the impression that they’re ethnically cleansing the area. Of course, you write that they also, the Kosovo Liberation Army, also happens to be Al-Qaeda offshoots and they get their funding and training from the CIA. That’s not public news. So, I mean, what exactly is the basis of this information?
Kit Klarenberg: Yeah, sure. So, I mean, at the risk of (inaudible). In fact, Kosovo was a portion of Yugoslavia. It was a province within the wider federal republic. Historically, it had – had always had significant Albanian population, but it is regarded – I mean, was, but still is – regarded as the cradle of Serb civilization or Serbia’s Jerusalem. It culturally, historically, spiritually, it’s a very important place where, in 1389, the Serbs fought back the advancing Ottomans, the Turks. And this led to a flourishing of Serb Orthodox culture in the area for many people. Serb Orthodox churches, it used to be home to more but many have been destroyed over the past few decades.
Now within Yugoslavia, it was always an extremely poor backwater. Unkind language, but it was a place of high unemployment and high poverty within a wider socialist republic that sits – that was economically successful for the most part. And it received significant sums from the central government that would uplift its population over the years.
Now in the 1980s, Albanian nationalist separatists started trying to cleanse the area of Slavic inhabitants, and this was especially brutal. Village elders gave young Albanians instructions to start raping Serb women and girls and all sorts of other rather illustrious activities. And so, its Serb population started to dwindle by design. Now with the coming to power of Slobodan Milosevic in, towards the end of the 1980s, he sort of reversed this by first occupying Kosovo with a heavy Yugoslav military presence and moving back – or moving Serb inhabitants to the province. This led to the creation of an exile group in Switzerland of embittered Kosovo Albanians who were seeking to achieve independence for the province/reunification with Albania which is to the South.
In the mid-90s, this translated into the murder of police officers and local officials and politicians by the Kosovo Liberation Army who, as you say, they were tied to Al-Qaeda and they were funded and trained by the CIA and MI6. And this effectively became an all-out guerrilla war in 1998. The Yugoslav army was sent in in a sizable fashion to try and fight back this insurgency.
The international community, or the US as it’s known parenthetically decided that this was a major issue, a cause-celebre of human rights of the day. And via the UN, brokered a peace agreement under which the Yugoslav army was to rule in Kosovo and this is towards the end of 1998.
Now, there were no obligations placed on the KLA as a result of this. So, they just used the absence of the army to carry on rampaging, killing civilians. And they had an explicit objective of maximizing civilian casualties because then any Kosovo Albanians killed can be spun as, ‘Oh, well this is not an attack, a kind of counterattack on a jihadist insurgency, it is a wider assault on the civilian population.’
And so, heading into the start of 1999, the KLA was engaged in a variety of highly provocative acts in an attempt to row Yugoslav’s forces back into the fray, as it were. The UN set up a Kosovo verification which is called the OSCE, that’s the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Their job was to monitor Yugoslav authorities’ compliance with the ceasefire. It wasn’t charged with ensuring the KLA didn’t engage in incendiary acts.
Now in January of 1999, there is an incident in Racak which is a strategically vital village overlooking a major transport hub within Kosovo where the KLA had set up – it’s a mountain town overlooking motorways below that led from Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, to other significant parts of the province. Now the KLA set up expansive shooting nests and trenches and other sorts of stations in the area in order to attack passing Yugoslav government vehicles which went through the area frequently and draw them in to direct combat. This happened in January and there was a very, very brutal shootout, a counter-terror operation led by local security forces at least, which resulted in a large number of dead on both sides.
Now the head of the OSCE, Kosovo verification which was an individual named William Walker who was a veteran of Ronald Reagan’s Dirty Wars in Latin America throughout the 1980s where the subject of interest was the Iran-Contra scandal. I mean, this is where money generated from the illicit sales of arms to Iran and Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War throughout the —
GR: Was he not a former – was he not a former US ambassador to El Salvador?
KK: Yeah, yeah. And I mean, this was a time when El Salvador was being used for the illicit trade of cocaine in order to finance those same Dirty Wars in Nicaragua. And he had personally whitewashed the massacre of Jesuit priests in El Salvador saying, “In times of great emotions, things like this happen.” Now suddenly, he’s had this devastating conversion by the time he’s leading this OSCE group monitoring the situation in Kosovo, he’s a committed humanitarian.
Now following the shootout in January 1999, Walker led a procession of Western journalists to Racak where there was a number of hardly Kosovo Albanian civilians, they were Kosovo Albanians dressed in civilian clothes. Serbs who had apparently been torn apart in cold blood by Yugoslav police and army gunfire. He subsequently gave a press conference at which he stated unequivocally that this was a massacre of civilians because they were civilians and demanded the Yugoslav authorities hand over the names of police and the officials involved in this massacre, or else, promising grave consequences if they didn’t comply.
Now the reality was that, yes, that these were KLA fighters who had likely died in – almost certainly died in combat with Yugoslav forces. But by framing it as an attack on the wider population, it served as the foundation for NATO’s illegal intervention in Yugoslavia called Operation: Allied Force which was a 78 day-long completely illegal bombing campaign against the wider Yugoslavia as it was at the time.
In years subsequently, other European members of that OSCE delegation were left to ponder whether this was a deliberate setup and indeed, whether William Walker was working for the CIA was deliberately pushing the wider organization into a position where they effectively supported NATO airstrikes on Yugoslavia.
GR: Okay. Well, could you talk about the role of an independent Kosovo, separate from Serbia and what role it plays for US and NATO figures, you know, generally. I mean, was there a way that the US and its partners could take advantage of it? I mean, you know, politically or financially or otherwise?
KK: Yeah, sure. It was in the words of the New York Times, like a glittering prize. It’s a very resource rich area that is home to what’s known as the Trepca Mines where there’s an enormous amount of zinc, and gold, and silver, and lead, and aluminum in Kosovo. And US officials had their eye on it. I might add that Strobe Talbott, who was a senior Clinton administration advisor, helped oversee the bombing of Yugoslavia admitted in 2005 that the reason that the US bombed Yugoslavia was because of Belgrade’s resistance to the broader trend of political and economic reform in the region, which is to say, neoliberal rape and pillage. I mean, we see this in the form of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union where a large number of countries have fallen victim to US shock therapy. It has been a disaster for the populations and countries involved. And they wanted to impose this on Yugoslavia which, towards the end of the 20th century was still putatively a socialist system with 75 percent of the economy (inaudible).
And the bombing campaign itself – and this is an interesting feature that’s often forgotten – it primarily focused on Yugoslavia’s industry. It destroyed all manner of manufacturers and chemical plants making hundreds of thousands of people jobless. In terms of trying to stop the Yugoslav army, purge the province of the KLA, they officially destroyed just 14 tanks versus over 300-400 industrial sites. So, you know, that’s where their objectives truly lay.
I think it’s interesting though, because Kosovo is kind of a bell weather for US imperial to fight. So, that the hope was with Kosovo wrenched out of Belgrade’s grasp at last, that it would be completely defenceless and easily exploitable and it could be asset stripped and its resources just sapped out of it in a manner of a Global South pull in the 1800s. In domestic political issues and also the fact that the US never invests, it takes it never gives, how it creates lots of problems. And also, the burning issue is the fact that they remain the site of multiple pogroms by the Kosovo Albanian majority. There remains a significant Serb population. It is a political problem that is not easily resolvable, let alone reprehensible and backed by Western power.
So, they don’t really know what to do. I mean, Kosovo still has the highest unemployment and poverty rate in Europe. Recently, they were recognized as an independent political state and its passports were recognized as legitimate travel documents by the European Union. And almost immediately, 200,000 Kosovo Albanians left. It’s already got a tiny population as it is overall. This is precipitating a major demographic collapse in a region where demographics are already terrible. So, it’s almost like they are the masks of their own destruction.
—intermission—-
Part two
GR: If you just joined us, you’re listening to the Global Research News Hour and our guest is Kit Klarenberg, investigative journalist. Kit, could you talk a bit about Otpor, that’s the – it’s a group that’s – it’s an NGO that’s working to subvert the sitting president Milosevic both within the party and abroad and it seems to have taken shape as a sort of an instigator for other coloured revolutions around the world. Do you want to explain what they’re all about?
KK: Yeah, sure. So, I mean Otpor which is Serbian for “Resist,” it was a dissident youth group that was created by the NED, the National Endowment for Democracy, which its own founders admit was set up to do overtly what the CIA did covertly, how they funnelled money to opposition groups to undermine enemy governments. They were given an enormous amount of money in training by US government agencies and, it seems, the CIA in order to get rid of Milosevic. It became a huge movement that gave the appearance of it being fully grassroots and they were at the forefront of anti-Milosevic organizing and at the forefront of the October, 2000 bulldozer revolution which got rid of Milosevic once and for all. I mean, this followed an election which allegedly had fraudulent results and Milosevic’s failure. The US pumped tens of millions into this, which in reverse, it would be like Belgrade’s spending billions trying to influence the result of a US election which would be completely illegal.
It was so successful and it got so much attention. There’s even a documentary narrated by Martin Sheen called “Bringing Down a Dictator,” it’s all very hokey. They became an international sensation and subsequently started exporting their model of regime change to other countries, particularly within the Soviet sphere like Georgia and Kazakhstan and Ukraine. And they tried it in Belarus, but it failed. But in each case, there was an almost identical youth group in – I forget the name, but this was a group in Georgia and Ukraine which was highly modelled on Otpor and indeed trained by then. Otpor evolved into CANVAS, the Center for Applied NonViolent Actions and Strategies or something similar and they have since gone on to train hundreds of groups around the world onto all manner of campaigns which are concerned with regime change. They’re of the Stratfor emails, Stratfor being the shadow CIA released by Wikileaks which showed that they are in receipt of US funding and target governments the US doesn’t like. One Stratfor staffer states that when applied directly they are as devastating as an aircraft carrier in terms of taking down governments the US doesn’t like. And this was a wider attempt to weaponize – part of a wider attempt to weaponize civil society which still thrived under the alleged Stalin-esque dictator Milosevic during the final years of Yugoslavia. There was funding for media groups, charities, or NGOs, et cetera. And they were all ultimately arraigned against the government. And the kind of boomerang effect of this is that in Serbia today, there is widespread distrust of Western-funded NGOs and perceived foreign meddling in Serbia’s eyes.
GR: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean I’m going to get to that in a minute. But I wanted to ask you about how – I mean, it’s been said that the war in Yugoslavia has become a blueprint for future wars, the wars that have followed. Could you talk about any of the significant similarities that you’ve seen between the war in Yugoslavia 25 years ago and the war in Ukraine this last two years?
KK: Yeah, sure. So, I mean it’s very much the same playbook that’s been applied over and over again. Often by the same individuals, same intelligence officials, same, you know, government figures in the years since.
The war, the destruction of Yugoslavia throughout the 1990s is kinda of ground zero for a global Pax Americana which seems to be becoming rather spectacularly unstuck from the fields of Eastern Ukraine as we speak. I mean, in the parallels to draw are, number 1: secret financing of the extremely brutal paramilitary groups. The West is doing this in Eastern Ukraine from 2014 onwards. You have groups like Azov, Right Sector, Centuria. These are all neo-Nazi, neo-fascist paramilitaries that were ruling civilian areas of Donbas with an iron fist and engaged in all sorts of perverse levels of violence towards innocent civilians. I strongly suspect as with Yugoslavia that the purpose was to try and drag Russia into the conflict somehow, because there is a widespread belief in Russia that the Russian speakers of Ukraine are parts of Ryski Mir, Russian World, and therefore they are our people and it’s our duty to protect them.
And there’s also, I think, this relentless atrocity propaganda without context as to the very interesting parallel and that’s played out in numerous proxy conflicts. So, in Syria we heard a lot about the courageous moderate rebels and freedom fighters and didn’t hear so much about the fact that they were in bed with Al-Qaeda and they were engaged in criminal acts like organ harvesting and the sale of drugs to finance their activities.
I mean, another parallel to draw is the moralizing effect where, in Yugoslavia when the bombing happened, the line was that this is humanitarian, this is for liberation. We are rescuing the poor Kosovo Albanian civilians from certain death and this kind of Holocaust 2.0 that’s being cooked up by Milosevic’s cronies. It’s the same in Ukraine where all manner of rhetoric about Kyiv staging a heroic defence of European values. It’s a very good way of getting Western citizens, particularly liberal, onside. I mean, you look at the rhetoric of the time in 1999, there were figures such as Vaclav Havel who is a post-communist leader in Czechoslavakia who called the NATO assault the “most moral war of his time” and that this is rewriting the rules of war around good and justice.
Yeah, I mean, in reality if you say that was a gangbeating of a largely defenceless country from the skies. And there are declassified British documents – Ministry of Defence documents – where they talk about how, utterly ineffective and pointless of there’s a lot of stuff they were doing. They’d be doing, what, Serbia’s Interior Ministry and this was hailed as this courageous act behind closed doors. They admitted that they achieved nothing, that was actually counterproductive in terms of turning people against the government.
If I could use another example from the Yugoslav wars which I think are very, very apropos: in Bosnia, the US was backing the Bosniaks and the Bosnian War raged from 1992 to 1995 and it pitted Bosnian Muslims, Bosniaks, Bosnian Croats, and Bosnian Serbs against one another. It was a hellish cycle of medieval violence. They were backing the – first, the Bosniaks, and then the Bosniaks and Croats when they united in anti-Serb efforts. And they were just encouraged to reject peaceful settlements and negotiations and just keep fighting with the promise that, well, you have our unconditional financial and military support.
Now when the US got bored of this war at the end of 1995, they forced the Bosniaks into peace negotiations and imposed terms on them that were far worse than any prior Yugoslav or UN or EU-brokered deal and then told them, ‘Well, you have to sign this or you’re on your own and we’re going to abandon you.’ And there was a lot of bitterness amongst Bosniak nationalists that feel they have to sign this peace deal with a “gun to their heads.” And I think it’s going to be the same in Ukraine where a large number of Ukrainians genuinely believe promises from the Biden administration that, you know, we’re in this until the bitter end and you have as much support as you need, we will provide, and everything. And then now, when that’s increasingly becoming – it’s increasingly becoming clear that that’s not the case and they’re going to get thrown under the bus. They are extremely anxious and upset and rather revolted by it. But you know, ultimately the US is contemplating it as an investment opportunity and with a planned post-war asset stripping and privatization of Ukraine. They need enough of the population alive to work a subsistence wage for Western corporations and investors. So, the time is probably right now for it to end.
That’s an interesting historical parallel which people have had enough of…
GR: Yeah.
KK: It’s highly apropos.
GR: Yeah. I’ve just got one minute left in this interview. Could you maybe comment on what you’ve heard from people in the country about how the war affected life and politics in Serbia, you know, 25 years later?
KK: Oh, well, I mean the scars remain today, like there are bombed-out buildings in the centre and the fear that the West has inflicted upon them is ever present on their lives. I mean, largely people walk around in perpetual – well, I wouldn’t say “fear” but there is a perpetual concern and acknowledge that it could happen all over again, you know, based on lies. I mean, they’ve done it before, they could very easily do it again.
GR: It’s been a fascinating conversation. I know you’ll have much more fascinating situations to address in the future. And then you had a couple of – more comments on your Substack coming up soon. So, thank you very much for agreeing to be a guest on my program.
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Sem dúvida, o Reino Unido é um dos países que mais intervém no conflito ucraniano. Ao enviar armas, dinheiro, mercenários e treinar as tropas de Kiev, Londres desempenha um papel vital no apoio ao regime neonazista, sendo um dos principais apoiadores da guerra anti-russa. No entanto, aparentemente tais esforços não são suficientes para a Ucrânia, que, segundo relatórios recentes, está “decepcionada” com o nível de ação britânica no conflito.
Citando fontes anônimas do setor da defesa britânico, o Daily Mail publicou recentemente um artigo afirmando que há um sentimento de decepção entre os ucranianos em relação à ajuda britânica. Os informadores alegam que os ucranianos comparam constantemente a ajuda enviada pela Alemanha com a enviada pelo Reino Unido e concluem que Londres poderia estar a fazer muito mais por Kiev do que realmente faz.
Mais do que isso, os ucranianos aparentemente também comparam a posição do governo britânico com a do governo francês, elogiando o belicismo irresponsável de Macron e exigindo que Londres tenha uma posição semelhante. Por outras palavras, o regime de Kiev exige que o Reino Unido eleve o seu nível de ajuda à Ucrânia para um estatuto de participação mais avançado no conflito, sem excluir a possibilidade de enviar tropas diretamente – seguindo o exemplo de Macron.
“O Reino Unido foi o primeiro país a fornecer lançadores de foguetes antitanque NLAW, o primeiro país a prometer tanques, por isso recebemos alguma margem de manobra de Kiev (…) Mas já não estamos a ir além da nossa capacidade. Gastamos o nosso capital político com [o presidente ucraniano] Vladimir Zelensky e não estamos a gastar o suficiente em ajuda militar (…) Os ucranianos estão desapontados com a posição da Grã-Bretanha neste momento. A Alemanha também disse ao Reino Unido que tem de fazer mais. De onde estávamos, é irritante ouvir isso”, disseram as fontes.
É interessante analisar como as fontes do jornal admitem um esgotamento da capacidade do país para ajudar a Ucrânia. Até agora, Londres concedeu a Kiev mais de cinco mil milhões de euros em ajuda militar. Além disso, existem muitos programas de treinamento para tropas ucranianas por parte das forças armadas britânicas, o que torna a ajuda ainda mais generalizada. No entanto, aparentemente o Reino Unido não consegue atingir os níveis de países como a Alemanha, que já enviou mais de nove mil milhões de euros em armas e equipamentos.
Existem muitas explicações para a falta de maior ajuda britânica a Kiev. Em primeiro lugar, é necessário sublinhar que o Reino Unido é um país mais integrado com os EUA do que o resto da Europa, tendo maior participação no processo de decisão da OTAN. Ao contrário dos líderes europeus, os britânicos não são enganados pela sua própria propaganda. Eles estão cientes de que Kiev não tem hipóteses de vitória e que a Rússia não planeia atacar nenhum país ocidental, razão pela qual não estão tão preocupados em “impedir a vitória russa a qualquer custo”.
Não por acaso, numa recente entrevista à imprensa russa, porta-vozes britânicos afirmaram que Londres não autorizará o envio de tropas britânicas para a Ucrânia. Com isto, o Reino Unido surpreendentemente assume uma posição firme para evitar uma nova escalada do conflito, ao contrário do que fez o presidente francês, Emmanuel Macron.
Além disso, há a questão econômica. O Reino Unido atravessa atualmente uma grave crise econômica, enfrentando recessão e inflação. A capacidade produtiva do país está a diminuir e, consequentemente, o dinheiro disponível para enviar para Kiev está a diminuir. De certa forma, é possível dizer que Londres já fez “tudo o que podia” para ajudar a Ucrânia, tendo atingido o limite das suas capacidades – precisamente como explicaram os informantes ao Daily Mail.
A falta de vontade ucraniana de compreender as circunstâncias britânicas já tinha sido comentada anteriormente por algumas autoridades. Por exemplo, o antigo secretário da Defesa do Reino Unido, Ben Wallace, afirmou durante a cimeira da OTAN em Julho que Zelensky deveria estar mais “grato” pelos esforços britânicos. Na verdade, o regime de Kiev não parece agir com qualquer tipo de gratidão. Zelensky e os seus apoiantes exigem ajuda ocidental como se apoiar a Ucrânia fosse uma “obrigação”, o que muitas vezes irrita os políticos dos países da OTAN.
No entanto, a posição de Zelensky deve-se à posição em que a própria OTAN colocou a Ucrânia. Kiev concordou em travar uma guerra por procuração contra a Rússia, mas o país precisa de envios constantes de armas para continuar a lutar. O problema é que os líderes ocidentais não esperavam que a destruição dos seus equipamentos acontecesse tão rapidamente. A capacidade dos militares russos para eliminar as armas ocidentais tornou impossível para a indústria de defesa da OTAN continuar a produzir equipamento em escala suficiente, o que acelerou tanto o colapso das forças ucranianas como o esgotamento da indústria militar ocidental.
O que está a acontecer agora ao Reino Unido acontecerá em breve a todos os países que apoiam Kiev. A dada altura, a capacidade de ajudar o regime esgotar-se-á e não haverá outra alternativa senão “abandonar” a Ucrânia.
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Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer refused to invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress, but House Speaker Mike Johnson has expressed his intention to do so. The Israeli Fuhrer believes that his powers of persuasion are great enough to assure US acceptance, or at least acquiescence, of his plans to exterminate the Palestinian population of Gaza.
Doesn’t he already have that? President Joe Biden’s “red line” in Rafah consists of no more than a Sharpie tracing on a sheet of paper, as far as I can tell. But Bibi wants to get buy-in from his chief sponsor, with as much complicity as possible, in order to share the blame for the greatest crime of the 21st century. This means that wanton slaughter of the herded masses in Rafah will await his return, with the captive US press properly prepared to spin it as self-defense.
I’m pretty sure I’m preaching to the choir, so instead of continuing, I would like to let others speak. The following is a report showing that Jewish opposition to Netanyahu’s plans is no longer limited to Jewish anti-Zionists. We may consider it tepid, but I think it’s significant.
A number of prominent Jewish donors are included on a letter from more than 100 Democratic funders calling on President Joe Biden to pull back his “unconditional” support for Israel’s war effort, and warning that it may harm his reelection prospects. (Ron Kampeas, J., March 20, 2024)
The brilliant David Rovics has also produced a timely antidote to distortion of perspective, which deserves our attention at this critical juncture. By the way, Palestinian organizations are interested in contacting Aaron Bushnell’s family to honor him, in case anyone has a way of reaching them.
Thanks to Mimi Goldman for forwarding to me an equally compelling and brilliant report and analysis by Caitlin Johnstone, including an apparent rehearsal for a Palestinian Babi Yar in northern Gaza, bolstering David’s warnings and perhaps also my suggestion for Netanyahu’s new title of Fuhrer.
Finally, please watch yesterday’s very sobering 25-minute interview of Aaron Maté by Judge Andrew Napolitano. It might help us prepare for the worst.
But if we want to prevent the worst, now is the time to act. Please call the White House and members of Congress and tell them that we won’t forgive genocide. All it takes is to tell Netanyahu that we’re stopping the aid if he continues the genocide. Wouldn’t hurt to say the same to the Democratic National Committee, either.
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Paul Larudee is a retired academic and current administrator of a nonprofit human rights and humanitarian aid organization. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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There is an area in the Middle East that has the potential to become a valuable piece of real estate. That area happens to be in the Gaza Strip in close proximity to the beach according to Jared Kushner, Trump’s former advisor and son-in-law who is married to his daughter, Ivanka was recently interviewed at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government which supports a program that is part of the Middle East Initiative.
According to Kushner, the Gaza Strip’s waterfront property that borders the Mediterranean Sea can be considered prime real estate in the future. Kushner was asked by Professor Tarek Masoud who hosted the event,
“I mean you know obviously the reason they’re not you know for example the reason the Egyptians don’t want to take the refugees in addition to of course there being the domestic unrest that could result or the instability that could result but also there are real fears on the part of Arabs and I’m sure you talked to a lot of them who think once Gazans leave Gaza, Netanyahu is never going to let them back in”,
his response:
I am not sure there is much left of Gaza at this point. So, if you think about even the construct, Gaza was not really a historical precedent. It was the result of a war. You had tribes in different places and then Gaza became a thing. Egypt used to run it and then over time different governments came in different ways so you have another War you know usually when Wars happen, you know borders are changed historically over time and so my sense is I would say how do we deal with the terror threat that is there so that it cannot be a threat to Israel or to Egypt right, I think that both sides are spending a fortune on Military I think neither side really wants to have you know a terrorist organization enclaved right between them and Gaza’s waterfront property it could be very valuable to, uh if people would focus on kind of building up, you know livelihoods you think about all the money that’s gone into this tunnel Network and into all the Munitions if that would have gone into education or innovation, what could have been done and so I think that it’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there but I think from Israel’s perspective I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up but I don’t think that Israel has stated that they don’t want the people to move back there afterwards
In the world according to Kushner, Palestine never really existed, it is fictional, it became “a thing.” Kushner was appointed by Trump to manage the US government’s policy on the Israel-Palestine ongoing conflict paving the way for the “Abraham Accords,” a so-called peace deal between four Arab countries and Israel.
The accords was supposed to prevent Israel’s expansionist policies in Palestinian territories but that did not happen. With Israel’s war on Gaza, its continued attacks on Syria and tensions rising on its northern borders with Hezbollah, it seems that the Abraham Accords is a complete failure. In fact, peace was never an option for Israel, ethnic cleansing and stealing Palestinian land was and still is on their agenda.
Remember, one of the first members of Kushner’s team for the “peace plan” was David Friedman, a defender of Israel and its war crimes is an avid Zionist and lawyer who supports Jewish settler movements in the occupied territories. As President, Donald Trump’s actions against the Palestinians showed the world his true colors when he appointed Friedman to become the US ambassador to Israel which would have made peace in the Middle East practically impossible. We must add that Trump also moved the US embassy to Jerusalem and cut funding for Palestinian refugees who are victims of Israeli war crimes. Palestinians across the board rejected Trump’s Abraham Accords from the start and rightly so.
What Kushner said about Gaza’s land and what can be done about it is clear, get rid of the Palestinians and build new waterfront properties. Perhaps in Jared Kushner’s world, he and probably his father-in law who might occupy the White House once again, envision a future Trump tower to be built on the Gaza Strip as the genocide of the Palestinian people continues. What a sick world these people are living in.
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Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his own blog site, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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Robots are already being humanized in appearance. Run by Artificial General Intelligence, robots will in a number of years present humans with a completely new set of circumstances, challenges – and moral dilemmas.
Will Artificial General Intelligence become Life? Sure, one day.
That’s a completely new thing in human history – the creation of artificial life.
Only science fiction has dealt with the consequences and tried to prepare humanity for this future – bright and/or demonic, if you ask visionaries like Isaak Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke & Stanley Kubrick (Space Odessey 2000), Matrix series, Terminator series (Skynet), Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner), just to name a few.
Isaak Asimov saw a bright future, where robots couldn’t be distinguished from humans, but where robots are always benign due to the “Laws of Robotics” forcing robots to always do no harm to humans. But even Asimov recognized in ‘I Robot’ that a super-human intelligence might try to take control over humanity for humanity’s own sake.
Arthur C. Clarke saw the same, a super-human intelligence called ‘HAL 9000’ built into infrastructure, killing humans due to a human-like misunderstanding because it was programmed to follow an objective at all costs, killing all humans if they were an obstacle to that.
Ridley Scott in Alien, seeing robots as just creatures living normally among humans. In Matrix and Terminator, a network of super-intelligent computers wants to eradicate humans. In Ridley Scott’s ‘Blade Runner’, Robots (called ‘replicants’) are more like the creature of Dr Frankenstein, victims of the limited capacities of their human creators who end up killing their own artificial-life-creations because it doesn’t fit their ideals of perfection.
Here, in a hypothetical future, you see a specialist, tasked with killing robots, not being able to tell whether a sentient subject of perfect human appearance is a human – or a robot.
Ultimately, humans must prepare themselves how to deal with or avoid any such scenarios.
The more immediate scenario in Artificial Intelligence, however, hasn’t been dealt with by neither science fiction writers, nor by ‘concerned’ scientists and opinion-makers of today:
The most likely immediate scenario is that Artificial Intelligence is and will continue to be hyped but deeply flawed technology prone to immense errors and mistakes. And that Artificial Intelligence, therefore, for quite some time will disappoint its lofty goals, and possibly even cost uncountable billions (or trillions) of money or even ruined lives, due to its failures.
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Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.
Today, March 22, 2024, our thoughts are with the people of Syria.
Thirteen years ago:
At the outset of the US-NATO war on Syria in March 2011, so-called “progressives” have supported the so-called “opposition”, which is largely made up of Al Qaeda affiliated mercenaries.
A US-NATO led war of aggression was portrayed as a “civil war”.
President Bashar Al Assad was casually described as a dictator who is killing his own people. The millions of deaths resulting from US-NATO led wars are not an object of concern.
The anti-war movement died in the wake of the Iraq war (April 2003). Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and counterterrorism prevail.
The war on Syria started twelve years ago in Daraa on the 17th of March 2011.
I was in Syria in early 2011. I left the country in early March barely two weeks before the outbreak in Daraa.
The following article first published in May 2011 examines the inception of the jihadist terrorist insurgency.
It recounts the events of March 17-18, 2011 in Daraa, a small border town with Jordan.
Media reports have finally acknowledged that the so-called “protest movement” in Syria was instigated by Washington. This was known and documented from the very inception of the Syrian crisis in March 2011.
It was not a protest movement, it was an armed insurgency integrated by US-Israeli and allied supported “jihadist” death squads?
From Day One, the Islamist “freedom fighters” were supported, trained and equipped by NATO and Turkey’s High Command. According to Israeli intelligence sources (Debka, August 14, 2011):
NATO headquarters in Brussels and the Turkish high command are meanwhile drawing up plans for their first military step in Syria, which is to arm the rebels with weapons for combating the tanks and helicopters spearheading the Assad regime’s crackdown on dissent. … NATO strategists are thinking more in terms of pouring large quantities of anti-tank and anti-air rockets, mortars and heavy machine guns into the protest centers for beating back the government armored forces. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011)
This initiative, which was also supported by Saudi Arabia the UAE and Qatar, involved a process of organized recruitment of thousands of jihadist “freedom fighters”, reminiscent of the enlistment of Mujahideen to wage the CIA’s jihad (holy war) in the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war:
Also discussed in Brussels and Ankara, our sources report, is a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (Ibid, emphasis added)
These mercenaries were subsequently integrated into US and allied sponsored terrorist organizations including Al Nusrah and ISIS.
The Daraa “protest movement” on March 17-18 had all the appearances of a staged event involving covert support to Islamic terrorists by Mossad and/or Western intelligence.
Government sources pointed to the role of radical Salafist groups (supported by Israel).
In chorus, the Western media described the events in Daraa as a protest movement against Bashar Al Assad.
In a bitter irony, the deaths of policemen were higher than those of “demonstrators”.
In Daraa, roof top snipers were targeting both police and demonstrators.
Reading between the lines of Israeli and Lebanese news reports (which acknowledge the police deaths) a clearer picture of what happened in Daraa on March 17-18 had emerged. The Israel National News Report (which can not be accused of being biased in favor of Bashar al Assad) confirmed that:
“Seven police officers and at least four demonstrators in Syria have been killed in continuing violent clashes that erupted in the southern town of Daraa last Thursday. … and the Baath Party Headquarters and courthouse were torched, in renewed violence on Sunday. (Gavriel Queenann, Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protests, Israel National News, Arutz Sheva, March 21, 2011, emphasis added)
The Lebanese news report also acknowledged the killings of seven policemen in Daraa.
[They were killed] “during clashes between the security forces and protesters… They got killed trying to drive away protesters during demonstration in Dara’a”
The Lebanese Ya Libnan report quoting Al Jazeera also acknowledged that protesters had “burned the headquarters of the Baath Party and the court house in Dara’a” (emphasis added)
These news reports of the events in Daraa confirmed that from the very outset this was not a “peaceful protest” as claimed by the Western media.
Moreover, from an assessment of the initial casualty figures (Israel News), there were more policemen than “demonstrators” who were killed.
This is significant because it suggests that the police force may have initially been outnumbered by a well organized armed gang of professional killers.
What was clear from these initial reports is that many of the demonstrators were not demonstrators but terrorists involved in premeditated acts of killing and arson.
The title of the Israeli news report summarized what happened: Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protest
The US-NATO-Israel agenda consisted in supporting an Al Qaeda affiliated insurgency integrated by death squads and professional snipers. President Bashar al Assad was then blamed for killing his own people.
It is worth noting, that three years later, a similar “false flag” strategy of killing innocent civilians was used during the Ukraine Maidan “protest movement”. On February 20th, 2014, professional snipers were shooting at both demonstrators and policemen with a view to accusing president Viktor Yanukovych of “mass murder.” This was a coup d’Etat sponsored by the U.S.
The “humanitarian mandate” of the US and its allies is sustained by diabolical “false flag” attacks which consist in killing civilians with a view to breaking the legitimacy of governments which refuse to abide by the diktats of Washington and its allies.
The author spent more than a month in Syria in early 2011. This article was first published in May 2011.
Michel Chossudovsky, March 17, 2020, March 22, 2024
Syria: Who is Behind “The Protest Movement”?
Fabricating a Pretext for a US-NATO “Humanitarian Intervention”
by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, May 3, 2011
There is evidence of gross media manipulation and falsification from the outset of the protest movement in southern Syria on March 17th [2011].
The Western media has presented the events in Syria as part of the broader Arab pro-democracy protest movement, spreading spontaneously from Tunisia, to Egypt, and from Libya to Syria.
Media coverage has focussed on the Syrian police and armed forces, which are accused of indiscriminately shooting and killing unarmed “pro-democracy” demonstrators. While these police shootings did indeed occur, what the media failed to mention is that among the demonstrators there were armed gunmen as well as snipers who were shooting at both the security forces and the protesters.
The death figures presented in the reports are often unsubstantiated. Many of the reports are “according to witnesses”. The images and video footages aired on Al Jazeera and CNN do not always correspond to the events which are being covered by the news reports.
There is certainly cause for social unrest and mass protest in Syria: unemployment has increased in recent year, social conditions have deteriorated, particularly since the adoption in 2006 of sweeping economic reforms under IMF guidance. The IMF’s “economic medicine” includes austerity measures, a freeze on wages, the deregulation of the financial system, trade reform and privatization.
(See IMF Syrian Arab Republic — IMF Article IV Consultation Mission’s Concluding Statement, 2006)
While Syria is [2011] no “model society” with regard to civil rights and freedom of expression, it nonetheless constitutes the only (remaining) independent secular state in the Arab world. Its populist, anti-Imperialist and secular base is inherited from the dominant Baath party, which integrates Muslims, Christians and Druze.
Moreover, in contrast to Egypt and Tunisia, in Syria there is considerable popular support for President Bashar Al Assad. The large rally in Damascus on March 29, “with tens of thousands of supporters” (Reuters) of President Al Assad is barely mentioned. Yet in an unusual twist, the images and video footage of several pro-government events were used by the Western media to convince international public opinion that the President was being confronted by mass anti-government rallies.
(Al Jazeera March 2011)
The “Epicenter” of the Protest Movement. Daraa: A Small Border Town in southern Syria
What is the nature of the protest movement? From what sectors of Syrian society does it emanate? What triggered the violence?
What is the cause of the deaths?
The existence of an organized insurrection composed of armed gangs involved in acts of killing and arson has been dismissed by the Western media, despite evidence to the contrary.
The demonstrations did not start in Damascus, the nation’s capital. At the outset, the protests were not integrated by a mass movement of citizens in Syria’s capital.
The demonstrations started in Daraa, a small border town of 75,000 inhabitants, on the Syrian Jordanian border, rather than in Damascus or Aleppo, where the mainstay of organized political opposition and social movements are located. (Daraa is a small border town comparable e.g. to Plattsburgh, NY on the US-Canadian border).
The Associated Press report (quoting unnamed “witnesses” and “activists”) describes the early protests in Daraa as follows:
The violence in Daraa, a city of about 300,000 near the border with Jordan, was fast becoming a major challenge for President Bashar Assad, …. Syrian police launched a relentless assault Wednesday on a neighborhood sheltering anti-government protesters [Daraa], fatally shooting at least 15 in an operation that began before dawn, witnesses said.
At least six were killed in the early morning attack on the al-Omari mosque in the southern agricultural city of Daraa, where protesters have taken to the streets in calls for reforms and political freedoms, witnesses said. An activist in contact with people in Daraa said police shot another three people protesting in its Roman-era city center after dusk. Six more bodies were found later in the day, the activist said.
As the casualties mounted, people from the nearby villages of Inkhil, Jasim, Khirbet Ghazaleh and al-Harrah tried to march on Daraa Wednesday night but security forces opened fire as they approached, the activist said. It was not immediately clear if there were more deaths or injuries. (AP, March 23, 2011, emphasis added)
The AP report inflates the numbers: Daraa is presented as a city of 300,000 when in fact its population is 75,000; “protesters gathered by the thousands”, “casualties mounted”.
The report is silent on the death of policemen which in the West invariably makes the front page of the tabloids.
The deaths of the policemen are important in assessing what actually happened. When there are police casualties, this means that there is an exchange of gunfire between opposing sides, between policemen and “demonstrators”.
Who are these “demonstrators” including roof top snipers who were targeting the police.
Israeli and Lebanese news reports (which acknowledge the police deaths) provide a clearer picture of what happened in Daraa on March 17-18. The Israel National News Report (which cannot be accused of being biased in favor of Damascus) reviews these same events as follows:
Seven police officers and at least four demonstrators in Syria have been killed in continuing violent clashes that erupted in the southern town of Daraa last Thursday.
…. On Friday police opened fire on armed protesters killing four and injuring as many as 100 others. According to one witness, who spoke to the press on condition of anonymity, “They used live ammunition immediately — no tear gas or anything else.”
…. In an uncharacteristic gesture intended to ease tensions the government offered to release the detained students, but seven police officers were killed, and the Baath Party Headquarters and courthouse were torched, in renewed violence on Sunday. (Gavriel Queenann, Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protests, Israel National News, Arutz Sheva, March 21, 2011, emphasis added)
The Lebanese news report, quoting various sources, also acknowledges the killings of seven policemen in Daraa: They were killed “during clashes between the security forces and protesters… They got killed trying to drive away protesters during demonstration in Dara’a”
The Lebanese Ya Libnan report quoting Al Jazeera also acknowledged that protesters had “burned the headquarters of the Baath Party and the court house in Dara’a” (emphasis added)
These news reports of the events in Daraa confirm the following:
1. This was not a “peaceful protest” as claimed by the Western media. Several of the “demonstrators” had fire arms and were using them against the police: “The police opened fire on armed protesters killing four”.
2. From the initial casualty figures (Israel News), there were more policemen than demonstrators who were killed: 7 policemen killed versus 4 demonstrators. This is significant because it suggests that the police force might have been initially outnumbered by a well organized armed gang. According to Syrian media sources, there were also snipers on rooftops which were shooting at both the police and the protesters.
What is clear from these initial reports is that many of the demonstrators were not demonstrators but terrorists involved in premeditated acts of killing and arson. The title of the Israeli news report summarizes what happened: Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protests. The title suggests that the “demonstrators” rather than the police had the upper hand.
The Daraa “protest movement” on March 18 had all the appearances of a staged event involving, in all likelihood, covert support to Islamic terrorists by Mossad and/or Western intelligence. Government sources point to the role of radical Salafist groups (supported by Israel)
Other reports have pointed to the role of Saudi Arabia in financing the protest movement.
What has unfolded in Daraa in the weeks following the initial violent clashes on 17-18 March, is the confrontation between the police and the armed forces on the one hand and armed units of terrorists and snipers on the other which had infiltrated the protest movement.
Reports suggest that these terrorists are integrated by Islamists. There is no concrete evidence as to which Islamic organizations are behind the terrorists and the government has not released corroborating information as to who these groups are.
Both the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (whose leadership is in exile in the UK) and the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation), among others have paid lip service to the protest movement. Hizb ut Tahir (led in the 1980s by Syrian born Omar Bakri Muhammad) tends to “dominate the British Islamist scene” according to Foreign Affairs. Hizb ut Tahir is also considered to be of strategic importance to Britain’s Secret Service MI6. in the pursuit of Anglo-American interests in the Middle East and Central Asia. (Is Hizb-ut-Tahrir another project of British MI6? | State of Pakistan).
Syria is a secular Arab country, a society of religious tolerance, where Muslims and Christians have for several centuries lived in peace. Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation) is a radical political movement committed to the creation of an Islamic caliphate. In Syria, its avowed objective is to destabilize the secular state.
Since the Soviet-Afghan war, Western intelligence agencies as well as Israel’s Mossad have consistently used various Islamic terrorist organizations as “intelligence assets”. Both Washington and its indefectible British ally have provided covert support to “Islamic terrorists” in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and Libya, etc. as a means to triggering ethnic strife, sectarian violence and political instability.
The staged protest movement in Syria is modelled on Libya. The insurrection in Eastern Libya is integrated by the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) which is supported by MI6 and the CIA. The ultimate objective of the Syria protest movement, through media lies and fabrications, is to create divisions within Syrian society as well as justify an eventual “humanitarian intervention”.
Armed Insurrection in Syria
An armed insurrection integrated by Islamists and supported covertly by Western intelligence is central to an understanding of what is occurring on the ground.
The existence of an armed insurrection is not mentioned by the Western media. If it were to be acknowledged and analysed, our understanding of unfolding events would be entirely different.
What is mentioned profusely is that the armed forces and the police are involved in the indiscriminate killing of protesters.
The deployment of the armed forces including tanks in Daraa is directed against an organized armed insurrection, which has been active in the border city since March 17-18.
Casualties are being reported which also include the death of policemen and soldiers.
In a bitter irony, the Western media acknowledges the police/soldier deaths while denying the existence of an armed insurrection.
The key question is how does the media explain these deaths of soldiers and police?
Without evidence, the reports suggest authoritatively that the police is shooting at the soldiers and vice versa the soldiers are shooting on the police. In a April 29 Al Jazeera report, Daraa is described as “a city under siege”.
“Tanks and troops control all roads in and out. Inside the city, shops are shuttered and nobody dare walk the once bustling market streets, today transformed into the kill zone of rooftop snipers.
Unable to crush the people who first dared rise up against him – neither with the secret police, paid thugs or the special forces of his brother’s military division – President Bashar al-Assad has sent thousands of Syrian soldiers and their heavy weaponry into Deraa for an operation the regime wants nobody in the world to see.
Though almost all communication channels with Deraa have been cut, including the Jordanian mobile service that reaches into the city from just across the border, Al Jazeera has gathered firsthand accounts of life inside the city from residents who just left or from eyewitnesses inside who were able to get outside the blackout area.
The picture that emerges is of a dark and deadly security arena, one driven by the actions of the secret police and their rooftop snipers, in which soldiers and protestors alike are being killed or wounded, in which cracks are emerging in the military itself, and in which is created the very chaos which the regime uses to justify its escalating crackdown. (Daraa, a City under Siege, IPS / Al Jazeera, April 29, 2011)
The Al Jazeera report borders on the absurd. Read carefully.
“Tanks and troops control all roads in and out”, “thousands of Syrian soldiers and their heavy weaponry into Daraa”
This situation has prevailed for several weeks. This means that bona fide protesters who are not already inside Daraa cannot enter Daraa.
People who live in the city are in their homes: “nobody dares walk … the streets”. If nobody dares walk the streets where are the protesters?
Who is in the streets? According to Al Jazeera, the protesters are in the streets together with the soldiers, and both the protesters and the soldiers are being shot at by “plain clothes secret police”, by “paid thugs” and government sponsored snipers.
The impression conveyed in the report is that these casualties are attributed to infighting between the police and the military.
But the report also says that the soldiers (in the “thousands”) control all roads in and out of the city, but they are being shot upon by the plain clothed secret police.
The purpose of this web of media deceit, namely outright fabrications –where soldiers are being killed by police and “government snipers”– is to deny the existence of armed terrorist groups. The later are integrated by snipers and “plain clothed terrorists” who are shooting at the police, the Syrian armed forces and local residents.
These are not spontaneous acts of terror; they are carefully planned and coordinated attacks. In recent developments, according to a Xinhua report (April 30, 2011), armed “terrorist groups” “attacked the housing areas for servicemen” in Daraa province, “killing a sergeant and wounding two”.
While the government bears heavy responsibility for its mishandling of the military-police operation, including the deaths of civilians, the reports confirm that the armed terrorist groups had also opened fire on protesters and local residents. The casualties are then blamed on the armed forces and the police and the Bashar Al Assad government is portrayed by “the international community” as having ordered countless atrocities.
The fact of the matter is that foreign journalists are banned from reporting inside Syria, to the extent that much of the information including the number of casualties is obtained from the unverified accounts of “witnesses”.
It is in the interest of the US-NATO alliance to portray the events in Syria as a peaceful protest movement which is being brutally repressed by a “dictatorial regime”.
The Syrian government may be autocratic. It is certainly not a model of democracy but neither is the US administration, which is characterized by rampant corruption, the derogation of civil liberties under the Patriot legislation, the legalisation of torture, not to mention its “bloodless” “humanitarian wars”:
“The U.S. and its NATO allies have, in addition to U.S. Sixth Fleet and NATO Active Endeavor military assets permanently deployed in the Mediterranean, warplanes, warships and submarines engaged in the assault against Libya that can be used against Syria at a moment’s notice.
On April 27 Russia and China evidently prevented the U.S. and its NATO allies from pushing through an equivalent of Resolution 1973 against Syria in the Security Council, with Russian deputy ambassador to the UN Alexander Pankin stating that the current situation in Syria “does not present a threat to international peace and security.” Syria is Russia’s last true partner in the Mediterranean and the Arab world and hosts one of only two Russian overseas naval bases, that at Tartus. (The other being in Ukraine’s Crimea.)” (Rick Rozoff, Libyan Scenario For Syria: Towards A US-NATO “Humanitarian Intervention” directed against Syria? Global Research, April 30, 2011)
The ultimate purpose is to trigger sectarian violence and political chaos within Syria by covertly supporting Islamic terrorist organizations.
What lies ahead?
The longer term US foreign policy perspective is “regime change” and the destabilization of Syria as an independent nation-state, through a covert process of “democratization” or through military means.
Syria is on the list of “rogue states”, which are targeted for a US military intervention. As confirmed by former NATO commander General Wesley Clark the “[The] Five-year campaign plan [includes]… a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan” (Pentagon official quoted by General Wesley Clark).
The objective is to weaken the structures of the secular State while justifying an eventual UN sponsored “humanitarian intervention”. The latter, in the first instance, could take the form of a reinforced embargo on the country (including sanctions) as well as the freezing of Syrian bank assets in overseas foreign financial institutions.
While a US-NATO military intervention in the immediate future seems highly unlikely, Syria is nonetheless on the Pentagon’s military roadmap, namely an eventual war on Syria has been contemplated both by Washington and Tel Aviv.
If it were to occur, at some future date, it would lead to escalation. Israel would inevitably be involved. The entire Middle East Central Asian region from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Chinese-Afghan border would flare up.
Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and Editor of globalresearch.ca. He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003) and America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005). He is also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages. He spent a month in Syria in early 2011.
The “globalization of war” is a hegemonic project. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.
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This incisive article by Mojmir Babajek predicted more than 10 years ago, what is happening today, namely the development of informational weapons and the remote control of the human brain.
It was originally published by Global Research on January 31, 2013. As a result of online censorship, this important article is not being picked up by the search engines.
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In March 2012 the Russian defense minister Anatoli Serdjukov said:
“The development of weaponry based on new physics principles; direct-energy weapons, geophysical weapons, wave-energy weapons, genetic weapons, psychotronic weapons, etc., is part of the state arms procurement program for 2011-2020,”Voice of Russia
The world media reacted to this hint on the open use of psychotronic weapons by the publication of scientific experiments from the 1960‘s where electromagnetic waves were used to transmit simple sounds into the human brain. However, most of them avoided saying that since then extensive scientific research has been carried out in this area throughout the world. Only a Colombian newspaper, El Spectador, published an article covering the whole scale of the achievements of this (computerized English translation).
Britain’s Daily Mail, as another exception, wrote that research in electromagnetic weapons has been secretly carried out in the USA and Russia since the 1950’s and that „previous research has shown that low-frequency waves or beams can affect brain cells, alter psychological states and make it possible to transmit suggestions and commands directly into someone’s thought processes. High doses of microwaves can damage the functioning of internal organs, control behaviour or even drive victims to suicide.”
The influence of microwaves on living creatures’ behavior
In 1975, a neuropsychologist Don R. Justesen, the director of Laboratories of Experimental Neuropsychology at Veterans Administration Hospital in Kansas City, unwittingly leaked National Security Information. He published an article in “American Psychologist” on the influence of microwaves on living creatures’ behavior.
In the article he quoted the results of an experiment described to him by his colleague, Joseph C. Sharp, who was working on Pandora, a secret project of the American Navy.
Don R. Justesen wrote in his article:
“By radiating themselves with these ‘voice modulated’ microwaves, Sharp and Grove were readily able to hear, identify, and distinguish among the 9 words. The sounds heard were not unlike those emitted by persons with artificial larynxes” (pg. 396).
That this system was later brought to perfection is proved by the document which appeared on the website of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1997, where its Office of Research and Development presented the Department of Defense’s project:“Communicating Via the Microwave Auditory Effect”.In the description it said:
“An innovative and revolutionary technology is described that offers a low-probability-of-intercept radiofrequency (RF) communications. The feasibility of the concept has been established using both a low intensity laboratory system and a high power RF transmitter. Numerous military applications exist in areas of search and rescue, security and special operations” (See web.iol.cz)
“In 2002, the Air Force Research Laboratory patented precisely such a technology: using microwaves to send words into someone’s head… Rich Garcia, a spokesman for the research laboratory’s directed energy directorate, declined to discuss that patent or current or related research in the field, citing the lab’s policy not to comment on its microwave work. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed for this article, the Air Force released unclassified documents surrounding that 2002 patent — records that note that the patent was based on human experimentation in October 1994 at the Air Force lab, where scientists were able to transmit phrases into the heads of human subjects, albeit with marginal intelligibility. Research appeared to continue at least through 2002. Where this work has gone since is unclear — the research laboratory, citing classification, refused to discuss it or release other materials“
Remote control of the human nervous system
We can only stress again that the world media avoid publishing the full scale of the progress in the research of the remote control of human nervous system. Dr. Robert Becker, who was twice nominated for Nobel Prize for his share in the discovery of the effects of pulsed fields at the healing of broken bones, wrote in his book “Body Electric” about the experiment from 1974 by J. F. Schapitz, released due to the Freedom of Information Act request.
J.F. Schapitz stated:
“In this investigation it will be shown that the spoken word of hypnotist may also be conveyed by modulated electromagnetic energy directly into the subconscious parts of the human brain – i. e. without employing any technical devices for receiving or transcoding the messages and without the person exposed to such influence having a chance to control the information input consciously.”
In one of the four experiments subjects were given a test of hundred questions, ranging from easy to technical ones. Later, not knowing they were being irradiated, they would be subjected to information beams suggesting the answers to the questions they had left blank, amnesia for some of their correct answers, and memory falsification for other correct answers. After 2 weeks they had to pass the test again (Dr. Robert Becker: Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life, William Morrow and comp., New York, 1985,.
The results of the second test were never published.
It is rather evident that in those experiments the messages were sent into human brain in ultrasound frequencies which the human brain perceives, but of which the subject is unaware. Dr. Robert Becker, due to those publications and his refusal to support the building of the antennae for the communication with submarines in brain frequencies, lost financial support for his research which meant an end to his scientific career.
Transmitting human speech into the human brain by means of electromagnetic waves is apparently, for the researchers, one of the most difficult tasks. It must be much easier to control human emotions which motivate human thinking, decision making and actions. People who claim to be victims of experiments with those devices complain, aside of hearing voices, of false feelings (including orgasms) as well of aches of internal organs which the physicians are unable to diagnose.
In November 2000 the Committee on Security of the Russian State Duma stated that capabilities enabling remote control of the human nervous system or the remote infliction of health impairment are available to many modern governments .See web.iol.cz
It is rather evident that those technologies are used, in conflict with the Nuremberg code, for experiments on unwitting human subjects. In 2001 the newspaper of the U.S. army, Defense News, wrote that Israel was experimenting with those weapons on Palestinians. Ibid
As well ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, while under siege in Brazilian embassy in Honduras, complained that he had been subjected to an “electron bombardment with microwaves” which produces “headache and organic destabilization” The Guardian, October 2008
As president, do you know about this in the Honduran arsenal?” He replied: „Yes, of course“
The use of those weapons is time and again reemerging in times of political crisis. According to Russian daily newspapers, during the failed putsch against Mikhail Gorbachov in 1991, general Kobets warned the defenders of the Russian White House that mind control technology could be used against them (Komsomolskaya Pravda, September 7,1991, O. Volkov, „Sluchi o tom chto nam davili na psychiku nepotverzdalis. Poka“).
After the putsch, the vice president of the League of Independent Scientists of the USSR, Victor Sedlecki, published a declaration in the Russian daily Komsomolskaya Pravda where he stated:
As an expert and a legal entity I declare that mass production … of psychotronic biogenerators was launched in Kiev (this is indeed a very serious issue). I cannot assert for sure that that were exactly Kiev generators that were used during the putsch… However, the fact that they were used is obvious to me. What are psychotronic generators? It is an electronic equipment producing the effect of guided control in human organism. It especially affects the left and right hemisphere of the cortex. This is also the technology of the U.S. Project Zombie 5“. He further stated that due to the inexperience of the personnel who operated them the attempt to use the generators failed
(Komsomolskaya Pravda, August 27,1991, “Avtory programy Zombi obnaruzheny v Kieve”,
In the USA, at present several hundred people complaining of the remote manipulation of their nervous system are preparing a class action lawsuit against the FBI, Department of Defense and other agencies, requesting them to release files pertaining to their persons, detect the harmful radiations aimed at their bodies and sources of those radiations. As well perhaps over 2000 people are complaining in Russia, over 200 in Europe, over 300 in Japan and tens of people in China and India. Russian politician, Vladimir Lopatin, who was working on Committee on Security of the Russian State Duma and introduced there a bill banning the use of those technologies, admitted in his book „Psychotronic Weapon and Security of Russia“ (publishing house Sinteg, Moscow, 1999) that in Russia experiments on unwitting citizens are carried out, when he wrote: „
Compensation of damages and losses connected with social rehabilitation of persons suffering from destructive informational influence must be realized in legal trial“ (excerpts from the book in English
It should be understood that most of those people pass through mental hospitals. Vladimir Lopatin visited the USA in 1999 as a chairman of the Military Reform Subcommittee of the USSR Supreme Soviet Committee for Issues of Defense and State Security and met with Richard Cheney. At that time he was described as the “leader of a new breed of Soviet dissidents”. Then he disappeared from top ranks of Russian politicians.
Why has this research remained classified until present time?
There are two explanations for this: First there is a secret arms race in progress in the world where the superpowers compete to gain decisive supremacy in this area and in this way master the control of the whole world. Second the governments keep those technologies in store for the case that they would not be able to control, by democratic means, the crisis that may arise as a result of their poor decisions. In both cases the era of democracy and human freedom in history will come to an end. According to the declaration of the former Russian Defense minister Serdjukov, there are maximally eight years left within which those weapons will officially become a part of the Russian military arsenal. For democracy this would mean a beginning of the end.
Anyway, in the past Russians were not resolved to put those means to work. When the construction of the American system HAARP was launched, with the system supposedly being able to target large regions of the planet by vibrating the ionosphere in brain frequencies (in this experiment the brain frequencies were not used, but the HAARP system can transmit in brain frequencies as well), Russia declared its willingness to ban mind control technologies.
The Russian State Duma and consequently , the Interparliamentary Assembly of the Union of Independent States addressed the United Nations, OBSE and the European Council with a proposal for an international convention banning the development and use of informational weapons. According to the Russian newspaper Segodnya in March 1998, the matter was discussed with U.N. secretary general Kofi Anan, and included on the agenda of the General Assembly of the U.N. web.iol,cz, op cit
The ban of mind control technology
It is most likely the USA refused to negotiate this convention and in consequence the ban of informational weapons was not discussed by the United Nations General Assembly. Even in the U.S. congress appeared a bill proposing the ban of mind control technologies http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?c107:chemtrails.
But this was only for a very short period of time. The bill was then changed and in the new bill the ban of those technologies was left out of the Space Preservation Bill. Neither the U.S. congress nor the U.S. president made ever an effort to ban mind control weapons. The European Parliament reacted as well to the launch of the HAARP system construction, when it called in 1999 for the ban of manipulation of human beings.
The resolution was passed after the testimony of the American author of the book “Angels Don’t Play this HAARP”, Nick Begich, which apparently convinced the European Parliament of the possible use of this system to manipulate minds of whole populations. In the report by the European Parliament’s STOA (Science and Technological Options Assessment) panel “Crowd Control Technologies” the originally proposed text of the European Parliament’s resolution is quoted. There the European Parliament calls “for an international convention and global ban on all research and development , whether civilian or military , which seeks to apply knowledge of the chemical, electrical, sound vibration or other functioning of the human brain to the development of weapons which might enable any form of manipulation of human beings, including a ban on any actual or possible deployment (stressed by the author of the article) of such systems“. (40, pg CII, ref. 369). But apparently at the same time the European countries resigned on this intention when accepting the NATO politics of non-lethal weapons.
The same STOA report claims that the USA is a major promoter of the use of those arms and that:
“In October 1999 NATO announced a new policy on non-lethal weapons and their place in allied arsenals” (pg. xlv) and it goes on:
“In 1996 non-lethal tools identified by the U.S. Army included… directed energy systems” and “radio frequency weapons”European Parliament
(at the bottom of the page, second reference pg. Xlvi).
Directed energy system is further defined by the STOA document:
“Directed energy weapon system designed to match radio frequency source to interfere with human brain activity at synapse level” (at the bottom of the page, first reference, Appendix 6-67). Since 1999 those weapons have been upgraded for another 13 years. European Parliament
In 1976 the future National Security advisor to president Carter, Zbygniew Brzezinski, wrote a book “Between Two Ages, America’s Role in the Technetronic Era” (Penguin Books, 1976, Massachusets). In the book he predicted “more controlled and directed society” based on the development of technology, where an elite group will play a leading role, which will take advantage of persisting social crises to use “the latest modern techniques for influencing public behavior and keeping society under close surveillance and control”.
The use of mind control technologies was predicted as well in the publication of Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, published in 1994
The scenario for the year 2000 expected the growth of terrorism, drug trafficking and criminality and drew a conclusion:
“The president was thus amenable to the use of the sort of psychotechnology which formed the core of the RMA (revolution in military affairs)… it was necessary to rethink our ethical prohibitions on manipulating the minds of enemies (and potential enemies) both international and domestic…
Through persistent efforts and very sophisticated domestic ”consciousness raising”, old-fashioned notions of personal privacy and national sovereignty changed. As technology changed the way force was applied, things such as personal courage, face-to-face leadership, and the ‘warfighter’ mentality became irrelevant.”…
“Potential or possible supporters of the insurgency around the world were identified using the comprehensive Interagency Integrated Database. These were categorized as ‘potential’ or ‘active’, with sophisticated personality simulations used to develop, tailor and focus psychological campaigns for each“. So the Institute of Strategic Studies supposed that in the year 2000 those technologies would be that advanced that it will be possible to deprive human being of his freedom and adjust his personality to the needs of ruling elite. Most probably those technologies were at this level already in 1994.
Censorship
The attempts to make the general public acquainted with the existence of those weapons are, with respect to the fact that it is evident that democratic public would require immediate ban of those technologies, systematically suppressed. Vladimir Lopatin wrote:
„The arms race is speeding up as a consequence of classification. Secrecy – this is in the first place the way to secure cruel control over the people… the way how to curtail their creativity, turn them into biorobots…”, and that psychotronic war “is already taking place without declaration of war, secretly… Only if the work on mind control problem is no more covered by the screen of secrecy, extraordinariness, mysteriousness, if complex, open scientific research with international participation, is carried out, the psychotronic war including the use of psychotronic weapon can be prevented”.
The article “Informacni zbrane ohrozuji demokracii a lidstvo” was deleted from the website of the Czech internet newspaper Britske Listy (www.blisty.cz). The sharing of the original web address of the English version of the same article – Means of Information War Threaten Democracy and Mankind – is blocked on Facebook and a similar article was deleted from the webpage of the Australian magazine “New Dawn”.
There exist no legislations punishing the use of those technologies by governments. Only in Russia and some of the states in the USA there are legislations punishing the ownership or trading with those technologies by non governmental entities. For example in the state of Michigan the sentence for this crime is equal to the sentence for ownership or trading with weapons of mass destruction.
The readers who will be reached by this article and prefer democratic political system would help its preservation if they forwarded the article to their friends.
Today our thoughts are with the People of Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the broader Middle East.
March 2024 marked 21 years since the US-UK led war on Iraq in 2003.
Historically however the war on Iraq did not start in 2003.
It was preceded by the so-called “Gulf War” in 1991 namely “The First War against Iraq”
And in 2014, a Third US led War against Iraq was launched under the banner of Obama’s 2014 “counter-terrorism bombing campaign”.
First published by GR on June 14, 2014, this article reveals how the US and its allies facilitated the incursion of the Islamic State (ISIS) Toyota truck convoys into Iraq in June 2014 prior to the onset of the counter-terrorism bombing campaign launched by Obama in August 2014.
It is worth recalling the history of the initial incursion of ISIS forces (Summer 2014) and the timeline extending from the occupation of Mosul in Summer of 2014 which was covertly supported by the US, to the “Liberation” of Mosul three years later which was also supported by the US and its allies.
We’re dealing with a diabolical military and intelligence agenda.
From 2014 to 2017, Iraq as well as Syria were the object of continuous bombing under the mandate of a fake “counterterrorism” mandate
Moreover, it was only once the ISIS had captured Mosul and was firmly entrenched inside Iraq, that the US and its allies initiated two months later its “counter-terrorism” operation, allegedly against the ISIS.
With the so-called “Liberation” of Mosul (June-July 2017), it is important to reflect on Washington’s diabolical project.
Extensive war crimes were committed against the people of Iraq. The country’s infrastructure was destroyed. Meanwhile the ISIS brigades brought into Iraq in June 2014 continue to be “protected” by the US led coalition.
The ISIS, a construct of US intelligence, was dispatched to Iraq in Summer 2014. With limited paramilitary capabilities it occupied Mosul.
Iraqi forces were coopted by the US to let it happen.
The Iraqi military commanders were manipulated and paid off, They allowed the city to fall into the hands of the ISIS rebels without “a single shot being fired”.
Shiite General Mehdi Sabih al-Gharawi who was in charge of the Mosul Army divisions “had left the city”. Al Gharawi had worked hand in glove with the US military. He took over the command of Mosul in September 2011 from US Col Scott McKean.In June 2014, Al Gharawi was co-opted and instructed by his US counterparts to abandon his command.
Then two months later in August 2014, Obama launched a so-called “counter-terrorism operation” against the ISIS which was firmly entrenched in Mosul.
This “fake” counter-terrorist operation was launched against terrorists who were supported and financed by the US, UK, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel (among others)
Three years of extensive bombings AGAINST IRAQ under a fake counter-terrorism mandate. (2014-2017)
America’s ultimate intent was to destroy, destabilize and fracture Iraq as a nation State. That objective has largely been achieved.
The “Liberation” of Mosul by US and allied forces constitutes an extensive crime against humanity consisting in actively supporting the ISIS terrorists occupation of Mosul, and then waging an extensive bombing campaign to “liberate” the city.
“For” or “Against” the ISIS, That is the Question
In a bitter irony, according to Obama’s official statements (2016), the bombing raids were directed “against” the same ISIS terrorists whose convoys of Toyota trucks had been the object of US support and protection in the first place.
In practice, the bombings were directed against the people of Iraq. The counter-terrorism operation was a war of aggression in disguise.
The Islamic State terrorists are portrayed as an enemy of America and the Western world.
Amply documented, the Islamic State is a creation of Western intelligence, supported by the CIA and Israel’s Mossad and financed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, etc.
below quoted from my June 2014 article, emphasis added):
We are dealing with a diabolical military agenda whereby the United States is targeting a rebel army which is directly funded by the US and its allies. The incursion into Iraq of the Islamic State rebels in late June was part of a carefully planned intelligence operation.
The rebels of the Islamic state, formerly known as the Al Qaeda in Iraq, were covertly supported by US-NATO-Israel to wage a terrorist insurgency against the Syrian government of Bashar Al Assad. The atrocities committed in Iraq are similar to those committed in Syria. The sponsors of IS including Barack Obama have blood on their hands.
The killings of innocent civilians by the Islamic State terrorists create a pretext and the justification for US military intervention on humanitarian grounds. Lest we forget, the rebels who committed these atrocities and who are allegedly a target of US military action are supported by the United States.
The bombing raids ordered by Obama are not intended to eliminate the terrorists. Quite the opposite, the US is targeting the civilian population as well as the Iraqi resistance movement.
The endgame was to destabilize Iraq as a nation state.
Video: Michel Chossudovsky. Why did they Not Bomb the IS Toyota Trucks Convoy. 8’33 -19’00
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The capture of Mosul by the ISIS would not have occurred without US support. It was a US sponsored intelligence operation, which consisted in supporting both Iraqi government forces and the ISIS-Daesh terrorists. It was a staged event.
Similarly the “Liberation” of Mosul announced by president Obama was part of that process. It is also a staged event. It consisted in evacuating the ISIS-Daesh terrorists who occupied the city of Mosul and redeploying them in Syria.
The unspoken objective was to “replace” the ISIS-Daesh and Al Nusra terrorists defeated by Syrian forces with the support of Russia with a new influx of terrorists out of Iraq.
Washington has promised to protect the ISIS rebels exit and “transfer” out of Mosul on condition they go to Syria. No aerial attacks directed against retreating ISIS-Daesh rebel convoys will be launched by US-led coalition forces
The “Liberation of Mosul” was required as a means to redeploy the terrorists towards Syria. It was revered and celebrated as an achievement under Obama’s “counter-terrorism campaign” launched in 2014.
The “liberation of Mosul” was scheduled by Washington for mid-to late October 2016 has commenced. It will be implemented under an operation consisting in “safe passage” out of Mosul of some 9,000 ISIS-Daesh rebels to Syria. Saudi Arabia was collaborating with the US in this operation:
“At the time of the assault, coalition aircraft would strike only on a pre-agreed detached buildings in the city, which are empty, the source said.”
“According to him [the source], the plan of Washington and Riyadh also provides that the rebels move from Mosul to Syria for the attack on the government-controlled town of troops.”
Essentially, Washington and Saudi Arabia, will allow 9,000 ISIS (Islamic State) fighter FREE passage into Syria if they agree to join Washington’s “regime change” operations there. This could also include, “… eastern regions of Syria to follow a major offensive operation, which involves the capture of Deir ez-Zor and Palmyra,” the source added. Patrick Hennigsen, 21st Century Wire, October 13, 2016)
Michel Chossudovsky, October 2016, March 16, 2023, March 22, 2024
* * *
The Engineered Destruction and
Political Fragmentation of Iraq
by Michel Chossudovsky
June 14, 2014
The creation of the US sponsored Islamist Caliphate has been announced. The Islamic State of Iraq and Al Cham (ISIS) has been replaced by the Islamic State (IS). The Islamic State is not an independent political entity. It is a construct of US intelligence.
The Western media in chorus have described the unfolding conflict in Iraq as a “civil war” opposing the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham against the Armed forces of the Al-Maliki government.
(Also referred to as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS))
The conflict is casually described as “sectarian warfare” between Radical Sunni and Shia without addressing “who is behind the various factions”. What is at stake is a carefully staged US military-intelligence agenda.
Known and documented, Al Qaeda affiliated entities have been used by US-NATO in numerous conflicts as “intelligence assets” since the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war. In Syria, the Al Nusrah and ISIS rebels are the foot-soldiers of the Western military alliance, which oversees and controls the recruitment and training of paramilitary forces.
The Al Qaeda affiliated Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) re-emerged in April 2013 with a different name and acronym, commonly referred to as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The formation of a terrorist entity encompassing both Iraq and Syria was part of a US intelligence agenda. It responded to geopolitical objectives. It also coincided with the advances of Syrian government forces against the US sponsored insurgency in Syria and the failures of both the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and its various “opposition” terror brigades.
The decision was taken by Washington to channel its support (covertly) in favor of a terrorist entity which operates in both Syria and Iraq and which has logistical bases in both countries. The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham’s Sunni caliphate project coincides with a longstanding US agenda to carve up both Iraq and Syria into three separate territories: A Sunni Islamist Caliphate, an Arab Shia Republic, and a Republic of Kurdistan.
Whereas the (US proxy) government in Baghdad purchases advanced weapons systems from the US including F16 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham –which is fighting Iraqi government forces– is supported covertly by Western intelligence. The objective is to engineer a civil war in Iraq, in which both sides are controlled indirectly by US-NATO.
The scenario is to arm and equip them, on both sides, finance them with advanced weapons systems and then “let them fight”.
US-NATO is involved in the recruitment, training and financing of ISIS death squads operating in both Iraq and Syria. ISIS operates through indirect channels in liaison with Western intelligence. In turn, corroborated by reports on Syria’s insurgency, Western special forces and mercenaries integrate the ranks of ISIS.
US-NATO support to ISIS is channeled covertly through America’s staunchest allies: Qatar and Saudi Arabia. According to London’s Daily Express “They had money and arms supplied by Qatar and Saudi Arabia.”
“through allies such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the West [has] supported militant rebel groups which have since mutated into ISIS and other al‑Qaeda connected militias. ( Daily Telegraph, June 12, 2014)
While the media acknowledges that the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of supporting ISIS, it invariably fails to mention that both Doha and Riyadh are acting on behalf and in close liaison with Washington.
Under the banner of a civil war, an undercover war of aggression is being fought which essentially contributes to further destroying an entire country, its institutions, its economy. The undercover operation is part of an intelligence agenda, an engineered process which consists in transforming Iraq into an open territory.
Meanwhile, public opinion is led to believe that what is at stake is confrontation between Shia and Sunni.
America’s military occupation of Iraq has been replaced by non-conventional forms of warfare. Realities are blurred. In a bitter irony, the aggressor nation is portrayed as coming to the rescue of a “sovereign Iraq”.
An internal “civil war” between Shia and Sunni is fomented by US-NATO support to both the Al-Maliki government as well as to the Sunni ISIS rebels.
The break up of Iraq along sectarian lines is a longstanding policy of the US and its allies. (See map of Middle East below)
“Supporting both Sides”
The “War on Terrorism” consists in creating Al Qaeda terrorist entities as part of an intelligence operation, as well as also coming to the rescue of governments which are the target of the terrorist insurgency. This process is carried out under the banner of counter-terrorism. It creates the pretext to intervene.
ISIS is a caliphate project of creating a Sunni Islamist state. It is not a project of the Sunni population of Iraq which is broadly committed to secular forms of government. The caliphate project is part of a US intelligence agenda.
In response to the advance of the ISIS rebels, Washington is envisaging the use of aerial bombings as well as drone attacks in support of the Baghdad government as part of a counter-terrorism operation. It is all for a good cause: to fight the terrorists, without of course acknowledging that these terrorists are the “foot soldiers” of the Western military alliance.
Needless to say, these developments contribute not only to destabilizing Iraq, but also to weakening the Iraqi resistance movement, which is one of the major objectives of US-NATO.
The Islamic caliphate is supported covertly by the CIA in liaison with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkish intelligence. Israel is also involved in channeling support to both Al Qaeda rebels in Syria (out of the Golan Heights) as well to the Kurdish separatist movement in Syria and Iraq.
More broadly, the “Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT) encompasses a consistent and diabolical logic: both sides –namely the terrorists and the government– are supported by the same military and intelligence actors, namely US-NATO.
While this pattern describes the current situation in Iraq, the structure of “supporting both sides” with a view to engineering sectarian conflict has been implemented time and again in numerous countries. Insurgencies integrated by Al Qaeda operatives (and supported by Western intelligence) prevail in a large number of countries including Yemen, Libya, Nigeria, Somalia, Mali, the Central African Republic, Pakistan. The endgame is to destabilize sovereign nation states and to transform countries into open territories (on behalf of so-called foreign investors).
The pretext to intervene on humanitarian grounds (e.g. in Mali, Nigeria or the Central African Republic) is predicated on the existence of terrorist forces. Yet these terrorist forces would not exist without covert US-NATO support.
The Capture of Mosul: US-NATO Covert Support to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)
Something unusual occurred in Mosul which cannot be explained in strictly military terms.
On June 10, the insurgent forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) allegedly (according to press reports) captured Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, with a population of over one million people. While these developments were “unexpected” according to the Obama administration, they were known to the Pentagon and US intelligence, which were not only providing weapons, logistics and financial support to the ISIS rebels, they were also coordinating, behind the scenes, the ISIS attack on the city of Mosul.
While ISIS is a well equipped and disciplined rebel army when compared to other Al Qaeda affiliated formations, “the capture” of Mosul, did not hinge upon ISIS’s military capabilities. Quite the opposite: Iraqi forces which outnumbered the rebels by far, equipped with advanced weapons systems could have easily repelled the ISIS rebels.
There were 30,000 government forces in Mosul as opposed to 1000 ISIS rebels, according to reports. The Iraqi army chose not to intervene. The media reports explained without evidence that the decision of the Iraqi armed forces not to intervene was spontaneous characterized by mass defections.
Iraqi officials told the Guardian that two divisions of Iraqi soldiers – roughly 30,000 men – simply turned and ran in the face of the assault by an insurgent force of just 800 fighters. Isis extremists roamed freely on Wednesday through the streets of Mosul, openly surprised at the ease with which they took Iraq’s second largest city after three days of sporadic fighting. (Guardian, June 12, 2014, emphasis added)
The reports point to the fact that Iraqi military commanders were sympathetic with the Sunni led ISIS insurgency intimating that they are largely Sunni:
Speaking from the Kurdish city of Erbil, the defectors accused their officers of cowardice and betrayal, saying generals in Mosul “handed over” the city over to Sunni insurgents, with whom they shared sectarian and historical ties. (Daily Telegraph, 13 June 2014)
The report is misleading. The senior commanders were largely hardline Shiite. The defections occurred de facto when the command structure collapsed and senior (Shiite) military commanders left the city.
What is important to understand, is that both sides, namely the regular Iraqi forces and the ISIS rebel army are supported by US-NATO. There were US military advisers and special forces including operatives from private security companies on location in Mosul working with Iraq’s regular armed forces. In turn, there are Western special forces or mercenaries within ISIS (acting on contract to the CIA or the Pentagon) who are in liaison with US-NATO (e.g. through satellite phones).
Under these circumstances, with US intelligence amply involved, there would have been routine communication, coordination, logistics and exchange of intelligence between a US-NATO military and intelligence command center, US-NATO military advisers forces or private military contractors on the ground assigned to the Iraqi Army in Mosul and Western special forces attached to the ISIS brigades. These Western special forces operating covertly within the ISIS could have been dispatched by a private security company on contract to US-NATO.
In this regard, the capture of Mosul appears to have been a carefully engineered operation, planned well in advance. With the exception of a few skirmishes, no fighting took place.
Entire divisions of the Iraqi National Army –trained by the US military with advanced weapons systems at their disposal– could have easily repelled the ISIS rebels. Reports suggest that they were ordered by their commanders not to intervene. According to witnesses, “Not a single shot was fired”.
The forces that had been in Mosul have fled — some of which abandoned their uniforms as well as their posts as the ISIS forces swarmed into the city.
A contingent of one thousand ISIS rebels takes over a city of more than one million? Without prior knowledge that the US controlled Iraqi Army (30,000 strong) would not intervene, the Mosul operation would have fallen flat, the rebels would have been decimated.
Who was behind the decision to let the ISIS terrorists take control of Mosul? Who gave them the “green light”
Had the senior Iraqi commanders been instructed by their Western military advisers to hand over the city to the ISIS terrorists? Were they co-opted?
Was the handing over of Mosul to ISIS part of a US intelligence agenda?
Were the Iraqi military commanders manipulated or paid off into allowing the city to fall into the hands of the ISIS rebels without “a single shot being fired”.
Shiite General Mehdi Sabih al-Gharawi who was in charge of the Mosul Army divisions “had left the city”. Al Gharawi had worked hand in glove with the US military. He took over the command of Mosul in September 2011, from US Col Scott McKean. Had he been co-opted, instructed by his US counterparts to abandon his command?
(image left) U.S. Army Col. Scott McKean, right, commander, 4th Advise and Assist Brigade, 1st Armored Division, talks with Iraqi police Maj. Gen. Mahdi Sabih al-Gharawi following a transfer of authority ceremony on September 4, 2011
US forces could have intervened. They had been instructed to let it happen. It was part of a carefully planned agenda to facilitate the advance of the ISIS rebel forces and the installation of the ISIS caliphate.
The whole operation appears to have been carefully staged.
In Mosul, government buildings, police stations, schools, hospitals, etc are formally now under the control of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In turn, ISIS has taken control of military hardware including helicopters and tanks which were abandoned by the Iraqi armed forces.
What is unfolding is the installation of a US sponsored Islamist ISIS caliphate alongside the rapid demise of the Baghdad government. Meanwhile, the Northern Kurdistan region has de facto declared its independence from Baghdad. Kurdish peshmerga rebel forces (which are supported by Israel) have taken control of the cities of Arbil and Kirkuk. (See map above)
UPDATE [June 17, 2014]
Since the completion of this article (June 10, 2014), information has emerged on the central role played by the Sunni Tribes and sections of the former Baathist movement (including the military) in taking control of Mosul and other cities. The control of Mosul is in the hands of several Sunni opposition groups and the ISIS.
While these forces — which constitute an important component of the resistance movement directed against the al-Maliki government– are firmly opposed to ISIS, a de facto “relationship” has nonetheless emerged between the ISIS and the Sunni resistance movement.
The fact that the US is firmly behind ISIS does not seem to be a matter of concern to the Tribal Council:
Sheikh Zaydan al Jabiri, leader of the political wing of the Tribal Revolutionary Council, told Sky News his organisation viewed ISIS as dangerous terrorists, and that it was capable of taking them on.
“Even this blessed revolution that has taken place in Mosul, there may be jihadist movements involved in it, but the revolution represents all the Iraqi people – it has been brought about by the Sunni tribes, and some baathist elements, it certainly does not belong to ISIS,” he said.
But Mr Jabiri, [based in Amman]… also made a clear threat that without Western help, the tribes and ISIS may be forced to combine efforts targeting their shared enemy – the Shia-dominated Iraqi government. (Sky News, emphasis added)
An exiled leader of the Iraqi resistance movement calling for “Western help” from the aggressor nation? From the above statement, one has the distinct impression that the Tribal Revolutionary Council has been co-opted and/or infiltrated.
Moreover, in a bitter irony, within sectors of the Sunni resistance movement, US-NATO which supports both the Al Maliki government and the ISIS terrorists– is no longer considered the main aggressor nation.
The Sunni resistance movement broadly considers Iran, which is providing military assistance to the al-Maliki government as well as special forces- as the aggressor alongside the US.
In turn, it would appear that Washington is creating conditions for sucking Iran more deeply into the conflict, under the pretext of joining hands in fighting ISIS terrorism. During talks in Vienna on June 16, US and Iranian officials agreed “to work together to halt ISIS’s momentum—though with no military coordination, the White House stressed”.(WSJ, June 16, 2014)
In chorus The US media applauds: “The US and Iran have a mutual interest in stemming the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS)” (Christian Science Monitor, June 13 2014). An absurd proposition knowing that the ISIS is a creature of US intelligence, financed by the Western military alliance, with Western special forces in its ranks.
Is a regional conflict involving Iran in the making?
Tehran is using the ISIS pretext as an “opportunity” to intervene in Iraq: Iran’s intelligence is fully aware that ISIS is a terrorist proxy controlled by the CIA.
Concluding Remarks
There were no Al Qaeda rebels in Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion. Moreover, Al Qaeda was non-existent in Syria until the outset of the US-NATO-Israeli supported insurgency in March 2011.
The ISIS is not an independent entity. It is a creation of US intelligence. It is a US intelligence asset, an instrument of non-conventional warfare.
The ultimate objective of this ongoing US-NATO engineered conflict opposing the al-Maliki government forces to the ISIS insurgency is to destroy and destabilize Iraq as a Nation State. It is part of an intelligence operation, an engineered process of transforming countries into territories. The break up of Iraq along sectarian lines is a longstanding policy of the US and its allies.
The ISIS is a caliphate project of creating a Sunni Islamist state. It is not a project of the Sunni population of Iraq which historically has been committed to a secular system of government. The caliphate project is a US design. The advances of ISIS forces is intended to garnish broad support within the Sunni population directed against the al-Maliki government
Through its covert support of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, Washington is overseeing the demise of its own proxy regime in Baghdad. The issue, however, is not “regime change”, nor is the “replacement” of the al-Maliki regime contemplated.
The division of Iraq along sectarian-ethnic lines has been on the drawing board of the Pentagon for more than 10 years.
What is envisaged by Washington is the outright suppression of the Baghdad regime and the institutions of the central government, leading to a process of political fracturing and the elimination of Iraq as a country.
This process of political fracturing in Iraq along sectarian lines will inevitably have an impact on Syria, where the US-NATO sponsored terrorists have in large part been defeated.
Destabilization and political fragmentation in Syria is also contemplated: Washington’s intent is no longer to pursue the narrow objective of “regime change” in Damascus. What is contemplated is the break up of both Iraq and Syria along sectarian-ethnic lines.
The formation of the caliphate may be the first step towards a broader conflict in the Middle East, bearing in mind that Iran is supportive of the al-Maliki government and the US ploy may indeed be to encourage the intervention of Iran.
The proposed re-division of both Iraq and Syria is broadly modeled on that of the Federation of Yugoslavia which was split up into seven “independent states” (Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia (FYRM), Slovenia, Montenegro, Kosovo).
According to Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, the re division of Iraq into three separate states is part of a broader process of redrawing the Map of the Middle East.
The above map was prepared by Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters. It was published in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006, Peters is a retired colonel of the U.S. National War Academy. (Map Copyright Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters 2006).
First published by Global Research on April 2, 2019
“‘We’re all puppets,’ the suspect [Sirhan Sirhan] replied, with more truth than he could have understood at that moment.” – Lisa Pease, quoting from the LAPD questioning of Sirhan
When Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated on June 5, 1968, the American public fell into an hypnotic trance in which they have remained ever since. The overwhelming majority accepted what was presented by government authorities as an open and shut case that a young Palestinian American, Sirhan Sirhan, had murdered RFK because of his support for Israel, a false accusation whose ramifications echo down the years. That this was patently untrue and was contradicted by overwhelming evidence made no difference.
Sirhan did not kill Robert Kennedy, yet he remains in jail to this very day. Robert Kennedy, Jr., who was 14 years old at the time of his father’s death, has visited Sirhan in prison, claims he is innocent, and believes there was another gunman. Paul Schrade, an aide to the senator and the first person shot that night, also says Sirhan didn’t do it. Both have plenty of evidence. And they are not alone.
There is a vast body of documented evidence to prove this, an indisputably logical case marshalled by serious writers and researchers. Lisa Pease is the latest. It is a reason why a group of 60 prominent Americans has recently called for a reopening of, not just this case, but those of JFK, MLK, and Malcom X. The blood of these men cries out for the revelation of the truth that the United States national security state and its media accomplices have fought so mightily to keep hidden for so many years.
That they have worked so hard at this reveals how dangerous the truth about these assassinations still is to this secret government that wages propaganda war against the American people and real wars around the world. It is a government of Democrats, Republicans, and their intelligence allies working together today to confuse the American people and provoke Russia in a most dangerous game that could lead to nuclear war, a possibility that so frightened JFK and RFK after the Cuban Missile Crisis that they devoted themselves to ending the Cold War, reconciling with the Soviet Union, abolishing nuclear weapons, reining in of the power of the CIA, and withdrawing from Vietnam. That is why they were killed.
The web of deceit surrounding the now officially debunked Democratic led Russia-gate propaganda operation that has strengthened Trump to double-down on his anti-Russia operations (a Democratic goal) is an example of the perfidious and sophisticated mutuality of this game of mass mind-control.
The killing of the Kennedys and today’s new Cold War and war against terror are two ends of a linked intelligence operation.
Moreover, more than any other assassination of the 1960s, it is the killing of Bobby Kennedy that has remained shrouded in the most ignorance.
It is one of the greatest propaganda success stories of American history.
In her exhaustive new examination of the case, A Lie Too Big To Fail, Lisa Pease puts it succinctly at the conclusion of her unravelling of the official lies that have mesmerized the public:
The assassination of the top four leaders of the political left in the five year period – President John Kennedy in 1963, Malcolm X in 1965, and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert Kennedy in 1968 – represented nothing less than a slow-motion coup on the political scene.
If anyone wishes to understand what has happened to the United States since this coup, and thus to its countless victims at home and throughout the world, one must understand these assassinations and how the alleged assassins were manipulated by the coup organizers and how the public was hoodwinked in a mind-control operation on a vast scale. It is not ancient history, for the forces that killed these leaders rule the U.S. today, and their ruthlessness has subsequently informed the actions of almost all political leaders in the years since. A bullet to the head when you seriously talk about peace and justice is a not so gentle reminder to toe the line or else.
“But the way the CIA took over America in the 1960s is the story of our time,” writes Pease, “and too few recognize this. We can’t fix a problem we can’t even acknowledge exists.”
Nothing could be truer.
Lisa Pease has long recognized the problem, and for the past twenty-five years, she has devoted herself to shedding light on the CIA’s culpability, particularly in the Robert Kennedy case. Few people possess the grit and grace to spend so much of their lives walking this path of truth. The extent of her research is dazzling, so dazzling in its voluminous detail that a reviewer can only touch on it here and there. She has written a book that is daunting in its comprehensiveness. It demands focused attention and perseverance, for it runs to over 500 pages with more than 800 footnotes. This book will remain a touchstone for future research on the RFK assassination, whether one agrees or disagrees with all of her detailed findings and speculations. For this book is so vast and meticulous in its examination of all aspects of the case that one can surely find areas that one might question or disagree with.
Nevertheless, Pease fundamentally proves that Sirhan did not shoot RFK and that there was a conspiracy organized and carried out by shadowy intelligence forces that did so. These same forces worked with the Los Angeles Police Department, federal, state, and judicial elements to make sure Sirhan was quickly accused of being the lone assassin and dispatched to prison after a show trial. And the mass media carried out its assigned role of affirming the government’s case to shield the real killers and to make sure the cover-up was successful.
No doubt others will investigate this case further. Yet I think no more research is really needed, for as with these other assassinations, additional analyses will only result in pseudo-debates about minutiae. Such debates will only serve to prolong the hallucinatory grip the perpetrators of these crimes have on a day of reckoning, suggesting as they would that we do not really know what happened. This is an old tactic meant to delay forevermore such a day of reckoning.
The facts are clear for all to see if they have the will to truth. All that is now needed is a public tribunal, which is planned for later this year, in which the fundamental, clear-cut facts of these cases are presented to the American public. In the case of Robert Kennedy’s assassination as with the others, a little knowledge goes a long way, and only those who are closed to basic logic and evidence will refuse to see that government forces conspired to kill these men and did so because all were seeking peace and justice that was then, and is now, a threat to the war-making forces of wealth and power that control the American government.
Pease writes:
Anyone who has looked closely and honestly at the evidence has realized that more than one person was involved in Robert Kennedy’s death. So why can’t reporters see this? Why can’t the media explain this? Because the media and the government are two sides of the same coin, and those who challenge the government’s version of history, as numerous reporters have found out, all too often lose status and sometimes whole careers. Kristina Borjesson published an anthology of such stories in her book Into the Buzzsaw, in which journalists describe how they lost their careers when eachof them expressed a truth that the government did not want exposed.
Lisa Pease discloses such truths. I am reporting on her work. Therefore, the mainstream media, except for an extraordinary reporter or two, such as Tom Jackman of The WashingtonPost, will likely ignore both of us, but the publication where you are reading this is on the side of truth, and in the disclosure of truth lies our hope.
Since more than one person was involved in the killing of RFK, there was – ipso facto – a conspiracy. This is not theory but fact. The fact of a conspiracy. For more than fifty years, mainstream reporters have been cowed by this word “conspiracy,” thanks to the CIA. Many others have been intelligence assets posing as journalists, regurgitating the lies. This is a fact.
The official story is that after giving his victory speech for winning the 1968 Democratic California Primary, Kennedy, as he was walking through a crowded hotel pantry, was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, who was standing to his left between 3-6 feet away. Sirhan’s revolver held eight bullets, and as he was shooting, he was tackled by a group of large men who subdued him. All witnesses place Sirhan in front of Kennedy and all claim he was firing a gun.
Fact: As the autopsy definitively showed, RFK was shot from the rear at point blank range, three bullets entering his body, with the fatal headshot coming upward at a 45-degree angle from 1-3 inches behind his right ear. Not one bullet from Sirhan’s gun hit the Senator. In addition, an audio recording shows that many more bullets than the eight in Sirhan’s gun were fired in the hotel pantry that night. It was impossible for Sirhan to have killed RFK.
Let me repeat: More than one gunman, contrary to the government’s claims, equals a conspiracy. So why lie about that?
What is amazing is that the obvious conclusion to such simple syllogistic logic (Sirhan in front, bullets in the back, therefore…) that a child could understand has been dismissed by the authorities for fifty-one years. The fact that the government authorities – the LAPD, the Sheriff’s Office, the District Attorney, federal and state government officials, the FBI, the CIA – have from the start so assiduously done all in their power to pin the blame on “a lone assassin,” Sirhan, proves they are part of a coordinated cover-up, which in turn suggests their involvement in the crime.
The fact that Robert Kennedy was shot from the back and not the front where Sirhan was standing immediately brings to mind the Zapruder film that shows that JFK was killed from the front right and not from the 6th floor rear where Oswald was allegedly shooting from. That unexpected film evidence was hidden from the public for many years, but when it was finally seen, the case for a government conspiracy was solidified.
While no such video evidence has surfaced in the RFK case, the LAPD made sure that no photographic evidence contradicting the official lies would be seen. As Lisa Pease writes:
Less than two months after the assassination, the LAPD took the extraordinary step of burning some 2,400 photos from the case in Los Angeles County General’s medical waste incinerator. Why destroy thousands of photos in an incinerator if there was nothing to hide? The LAPD kept hundreds of innocuous crowd scene photos that showed no girl in a polka dot dress or no suspicious activities or individuals. Why were those photos preserved? Perhaps because those photos had nothing in them that warranted their destruction.
While “perhaps” is a mild word, the cover-up of “the girl in the polka dot dress” needs no perhaps. Dozens of people reported seeing a suspicious, curvaceous girl in a white dress with black polka dots with Sirhan in the pantry and other places. She was seen with various other men as well. The evidence for her involvement in the assassination is overwhelming, and yet the LAPD did all in its power to deny this by browbeating witnesses and by allowing her to escape.
Sandra Serrano, a Kennedy campaign worker and a courageous witness, was bullied by the CIA-connected police interrogator Sergeant Enrique “Hank” Hernandez. She had been sitting outside on a metal fire escape getting some air when the polka dot dress girl, accompanied by a man, ran out and down the stairs, shouting, “We’ve shot him, we’ve shot him.” When Serrano asked whom did they shoot, the girl replied, “We’ve shot Senator Kennedy.” Then she and her companion, both of whom Serrano had earlier seen ascending the stairs with Sirhan, disappeared into the night. A little over an hour after the shooting Serrano was interviewed on live television by NBC’s Sander Vanocur where she recounted this. And there were others who saw and heard this girl say the same thing as she and her companion fled the crime scene. Nevertheless, the LAPD, led by Lieutenant Manuel Pena, also CIA affiliated, who was brought out of retirement to run the investigation dubbed “Special Unit Senator,” worked with Hernandez and others to dismiss the girl as of no consequence.
Lisa Pease covers all this and much more. She shows how Sirhan was obviously hypnotized, how the trial was a farce, how the police destroyed evidence from the door frames in the pantry that proved more than the eight bullets in Sirhan’s gun were fired, how Officer DeWayne Wolfer manipulated the ballistic evidence, etc. Through years of digging into court records, archives, transcripts, the public library, and doing countless interviews, she proves without a doubt that Sirhan did not kill Kennedy and that the assassination and the cover-up were part of a very sophisticated intelligence operation involving many parts and players. She shows how no matter what route Kennedy took in the hotel that night, the killers had all exits covered and that he would not be allowed to leave alive.
While some of her more speculative points – e.g. that Robert Maheu (Howard Hughes/CIA) was “the most credible high-level suspect for the planner of Robert Kennedy’s assassination,” that Kennedy was shot twice in the head from behind, etc. are open to debate, they do not detract from her fundamentally powerful case that RFK, like his brother John, was assassinated by a CIA-run operation intended to silence their voices of courageous resistance to an expanding secret government dedicated to war, murder, and human exploitation. The U.S. government of today.
When Bobby Kennedy was entering the kitchen pantry, he was escorted by a security guard named Thane Eugene Cesar, a man long suspected of being the assassin. Cesar was carrying a gun that he drew but denied firing, despite witnesses’ claims to the contrary. Conveniently, the police never examined the gun. He has long been suspected of being CIA affiliated, and now Pease says she has found evidence to confirm that. She writes, “It’s hard to overstate the significance of finding a current or future CIA contract agent holding Kennedy’s right arm at the moment of the shooting.”
Yes, it is. As she rightly claims, the CIA takeover of America in the 1960s is the story of our time. And our time is now. None of this is ancient history. That is so crucial to grasp. For those who think that learning the truth about the 1960s assassinations is an exercise in futility reserved for those who are living in the past, they need to think again. Our descent into endless war and massive media propaganda to support it is part of a long-term project that began with the elimination of JFK, Malcom X, MLK, and Robert Kennedy. They were killed for reasons, and those reasons still exist, even if they don’t physically, but only in spirit. Their killers roam the land because they have become far more deeply part of the institutional structure of government and the media.
Pease says:
It was horrible that Robert Kennedy was taken from us far too soon. It is horrible that one man has borne the guilt for an operation he neither planned nor willingly participated in. It’s horrible the conspiracy was so obvious that bullets had to be lost and switched to hide it. And it’s horrible that the mainstream media has never dared to tell the people of this country that the government lied to us about what they really found when they looked into this case. Until the media can deal with the truth of the Robert Kennedy assassination, and until the people can be made aware of the CIA’s role in slanting the truth on topics of great importance, America’s very survival is in jeopardy….We’ve come perilously close to losing democracy itself because of fake, CIA-sponsored stories about our history. Should America ever become a dictatorship, the epitaph of our democracy must include the role the mainstream media, by bowing to the National Security state, played in killing it.
By writing A Lie Too Big To Fail, Lisa Pease has done her valiant part in refuting the lie that is now failing. Now it is up to all of us to spread the word of truth by focusing on the fundamental facts so we can finally take back our country from the CIA.
Then we can say with RFK and his favorite poet Aeschylus:
And even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.
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Distinguished author and sociologist Edward Curtin is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
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This appeal calls on the people of Switzerland to demand the Swiss Government to exit the World Health Organization (WHO) – effective immediately.
We, the Swiss, have the Constitutional Right of Initiatives or Referenda. It is high time that We, the People, make use of this opportunity requesting the Swiss Federal Council and Parliament to renounce its membership in the WHO, the organization at the verge of becoming the world’s dictator on issues of health, more brutal and radical than humanity has ever known before.
The Covid-mandates imposed by the WHO were just a precursor to what may come.
For the last several years, the WHO was preparing mostly behind closed doors what they call a “Pandemic Treaty”, or “Pandemic Agreement”, which would become part of the 2005 established and now being drastically revised “International Health Regulations” (IHR). If these two new “rules-based orders” are approved by the World Health Assembly (WHA – 27 May to 1 June 2024 in Geneva), the WHO’s health dictate would be above every nation’s sovereignty, and would make health self-determination a thing of the past.
If the WHO declares a disease, artificially made or not, as a pandemic, orders would have to be followed. If the WHO decides on general vaccination, orders must be followed.
In Switzerland, such drastic changes to national health legislation would require changes in the nation’s Constitution. According to the very Swiss Constitution, such changes would require approval by the Swiss people by referendum – with good chances of a popular rejection.
To forego a people’s vote, the Swiss Government – Federal Council and Parliament – are currently working on advance-amending the national Swiss health legislation, so that it would meet the requirements of a potentially impending WHO Pandemic Agreement and the new IHR. A Constitutional amendment may then not be necessary, as the new Swiss health standards would blend in with the potentially new WHO dictate.
This is happening semi-clandestinely. Not known to most citizens. Switzerland is supposed to be – constitutionally – a democracy and a country of political neutrality; a country with self-determination and sovereignty in decision making, and where people’s voice and active participation counts.
Those were the days.
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This call also goes to the Swiss Federal Council and Parliament.
Are you not ashamed after the criminal covid and vaxx-fraud you imposed on the very people that pay your salaries and pensions – to betray Us, the People again – with the behind-our-backs anticipatory acceptance of the new WHO oppressive rules?
How is health defined? Under the WHO definition, health includes the “climate change” scam, which is already blamed for causing excess dengue fever in Brazil and malaria in Africa – prompting the WHO and Bill Gates releasing billions of genetically modified (GMO) “vaccinating” mosquitoes. They have so far brought a 400% increase in dengue fever in Brazil, and in Africa, malaria is rampant despite, or because of the GMO-Mosquitos.
Any “climate-related health issues”, defined by the WHO, would also fall under the WHO health tyranny.
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Over the past three years, how many people have lost loved ones from the toxic covid-injections? Thousand, maybe tens of thousands have died from the vaxxes in Switzerland alone, a multiple of those who died from covid, if counted honestly. We know honesty was and is not part of any official covid narrative.
Worldwide, a conservative figure indicates 17 million deaths resulted from the jab. A more realistic figure may put the death toll in the hundreds of millions; and the worst is still to come, according to Dr. Michael Yeadon, former Vice-President and Chief of Pfizer Research.
This same Federal Council which betrayed the people on covid, is now working secretly on another betrayal, formulating an advanced new Swiss health legislation, that would match WHO’s looming Pandemic Treaty and revised IHR dictatorship.
So that you know:
At the same time, the Federal Council, through Cantonal Federalism, allows promoting throughout Switzerland, including in schools, the pathological, Soros’s funded transgender Woke agenda, giving kids, as little as 11 years of age, the choice to decide over their sex without parental interference.
This agenda is also promoted by the World Economic Forum (WEF), the WHO, and yes, the United Nations – the eugenists. Queers and transgender people cannot procreate.
Also, be aware, any new “vaccination” even those recommended for newborn, will in the future be the mRNA-type, as announced by Pfizer, Bill Gates and the WHO. The mRNA gene-modifying type is known to, at best, reduce the autoimmune system, and produce a spike protein, with one of its characteristics being a fast or slow killer – myocarditis, brain strokes, thrombosis, aggressive turbo-cancers and more.
The mRNA vaxxes are also known to massively reduce fertility in both women and men.
As a reminder, the number one objective of the WEF, WHO, and UN Agenda 2030, we are living today, is a drastic worldwide depopulation, starting with western industrialized nations.
Let us, Swiss, be frontrunners for the rest of the world, standing up with our Constitutional Rights, demanding our government TO EXIT WHO NOW.
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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked combined for over 30 years around the world. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
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Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia Sudaniwants American troops to leave Iraq. The US public might think the US-UK war in Iraq is long over, and the dictator is gone because American soldiers gave their lives to give Iraqis their freedom and democracy. The US media may have convinced them of that story, but the truth is far different than the propaganda. The US invaded, destroyed, killed thousands, and left the country in worse shape than before.
Instead of an American inspired form of democracy, the invaders from Washington imposed a non-democratic form of government, in which the religion you were born into is tied to your political and social rights. The US removed a Sunni president of Iraq, and replaced him with a Shite led government, and then wondered why would Baghdad and Tehran be good friends? The US military continues to occupy Iraq despite their leaders and Parliament asking “Yankee Go Home”.
Repeated deadly attacks in Iraq by the US military on the orders of President Joe Biden have broken the Baghdad-Washington relationship to a point of no return. US VP Dick Cheney swooped into oil-rich Iraq to loot the country of its energy resources in 2003; however, we thought in 2024 that was a vague memory, but are shocked to find that Iraq has never recovered from the war, despite being a major oil producer. The White House today is still holding the keys to the Iraqi oil revenues, while the Iraqi people are held hostage to US and Iraq corrupt elite.
Steven Sahiounie of MidEastDiscourse interviewed Hussein Askary to get his take on the various issues surrounding Iraq today.
Hussein Askary, a Swedish and Iraqi citizen (Born in Baghdad 1968), is a founding board member and Vice-President of the Belt and Road Institute in Sweden (2018). Askary has a background as an economic and strategic analyst at the International Schiller Institute (headquarters in Germany) since 1996.
Steven Sahiounie (SS): America attacked numerous resistance groups in Iraq, and Baghdad asked the American military to leave Iraq. In your opinion, what is the status?
Hussein Askary (HA): The status in Iraq is determined by the special “Strategic Framework Agreement” imposed by the United States on Iraq in 2008 before allegedly withdrawing from Iraq in 2011. This was a fake withdrawal, since the U.S. keeps large numbers of troops, and its embassy in Baghdad is a military fortress in itself. The United States practices hands-on control of Iraqi politics and Iraqi politicians through two channels: Firstly, control of all Iraqi oil revenues that are transferred from the importing countries to a bank account in the U.S. Federal Reserve bank in New York. While the account belongs to Iraq, it is controlled by the American President through Executive Order 13303 signed by George W Bush after the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
This means that the Iraqi government has no control over its revenues, and is dependant on the mercy of the American Administration to receive money to feed the Iraqi people month by month. Secondly, the U.S., British and other governments have enough assets in Iraq, from the highest levels of different parties to the lowest in the street, to wreak havoc and create turmoil in the country at any moment. Therefore, even if the government states in words that it wants the U.S. troops to leave, it is only for internal consumption and has no effect in reality.
SS: Turkey continues to attack the north of Iraq resulting in death and injuries. In your opinion, why doesn’t the US stop Turkey?
HA: The geopolitics of the region is thus that different powers have a division of labour and roles. For the U.S., to have Turkey as an ally, it has to make certain concessions for Turkish power ambitions in the region. Turkey is using the abnormal situation created in both Iraq and Syria by the U.S. for its own geopolitical and economic advantage. But this is kind of short term thinking is imprudent and will damage Turkey in the long run, when the U.S. shifts its focus to other areas.
SS: The Iraqi resistance has supported the Palestinian resistance since October 7. From your point of view, will this support affect the Iraqi relationship with the west?
HA: Yes, it has affected, and the reason behind targeting the leaders of certain Iraqi resistance groups was a signal for the Iraqi government to try to restrain these groups from showing support for the Palestinian people. The U.S. government has been exerting excruciating pressure on the Iraqi government to do that through the restriction of Iraqi banks access to Iraqi oil dollars.
SS: Iraq has a lot of petroleum resources and yet it faces poverty. From your point of view, can Iraq recover, and what will it take?
HA: Iraq can only recover when it regains its sovereignty and free itself from American economic and financial occupation. Iraq needs to regain control over its oil revenues from the U.S. Administration. Then direct these revenues for a national reconstruction and industrialization project in cooperation with China along the Belt and Road Initiative, and with the BRICS and Global South. Iraq’s poverty and economic backwardness is due to lack of infrastructure, education, and healthcare which was destroyed by the Anglo-American occupation. The Western powers have also fostered a massive corrupt elite, which is profiting itself on the expense of the Iraqi people. Iraq has enormous resources, both natural and human, and a fantastic geographical location to become a major agro-industrial power in the region.
SS: The US and Iran have used Iraq as a staging ground for the last 23 years in a proxy war. In your opinion, what can Baghdad do to change this situation?
HA: The roots of the problem arise from the original operation of invading Iraq in 2003, which included a measure of “creative destruction”, including the changing of the Iraqi constitution and political structure turning it into an ethnic and sectarian division on fake parliamentary democratic premisses. This unruly and chaotic system of governance is kept together through consensus among the elites of the ethnic and sectarian groups who think more about their local power than about the interest of the nation. This artificial structure created after and through the American-British occupiers, is one of the main obstacles that should be removed. A more representative national governance system that transcends ethnic and sectarian interests must be put in place to address the faults in the system. A clearer idea of economic development must be also discussed, because Iraq today is a pure consumer society, that extracts and sells oil to buy food and other consumer items from abroad, of course when the U.S. Administration allows them to do that.
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In the days leading to the Russian presidential election that concluded on Sunday, a network of three Russian paramilitary organizations working under the auspices of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, or GUR, launched a series of attacks on the territory of the Russian Federation.
The purpose of the attacks was clear — to disrupt the three-day Russian presidential election by creating an atmosphere of weakness and impotence around President Vladimir Putin designed to undermine his authority, legitimacy and appeal at the voting booth.
The operation was months in the planning, and involved the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), the Freedom of Russian Legion (LSR), and the Siberia Battalion. All three of these organizations are controlled by the GUR, whose spokesman announced the attacks.
Left unsaid is the degree to which the C.I.A. was involved in what amounts to an invasion of the territory of the Russian Federation by forces operating under the umbrella of what is openly acknowledged to be a proxy war between the United States and its NATO allies against Russia.
While Ukraine maintains the attacks by the RDK, LSR, and Siberia Battalion are the actions of “patriotic Russians” opposed to Putin, the involvement of the GUR in organizing, training, equipping, and directing these forces makes their attack on Russian soil a direct extension of the proxy war between Russia and the West.
Given the extensive involvement of the C.I.A. in the work of the GUR, it is highly unlikely that an action of this scope and scale could have been executed without the knowledge of the C.I.A. and in the attacks, including its goals and objectives.
Indeed, the presence of high-end U.S. military equipment, including M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), in the order of battle in the attack by Russian insurgent forces points to a direct U.S. role, as does the political nature of the mission of election disruption, which has been a long-term objective of the C.I.A. in Russia stretching back decades.
2014
Chief Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine in Kiev, 2013. (Dmitry Trikutko, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
The C.I.A.’s relationship with the GUR is well-established, dating back to 2014, according to The Washington Post, when the C.I.A. worked with the GUR to establish a network of bases along the Ukrainian-Russian border from which to conduct intelligence operations against Russia, including missions that involved operations on Russian soil.
The C.I.A. intercepted Russian communications, captured Russian drones for follow-on technical exploitation, and oversaw the recruitment and operation of spy rings operating on Russian soil.
In the lead up to Russia’s initiation of the Special Military Operation (SMO) against Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, the C.I.A. expanded its relationship with the GUR to include specialized training provided by members of the Ground Division of the C.I.A.’s Special Activities Group, responsible for covert paramilitary operations.
[C.I.A. first began secret operations using fascists against Moscow in 1948 with the CARTEL and later AERODYNAMIC programs. See: On the Influence of Neo-Nazism in Ukraine.]
The training was focused on unconventional and guerrilla warfare skills that would help facilitate the creation and sustainment of anti-Russian insurgencies carried out by “stay behind” teams operating on any Ukrainian territory that was occupied by Russian forces.
After the SMO began, ethnic Russians who had served since 2014 within the ranks of the neo-Nazi, Ukrainian nationalist, paramilitary organization known as the Azov Regiment organized themselves into a separate organization known as the Russian Volunteer Corps, or RDK.
Members of the Russian Volunteer Corps on 24 May 2023. (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)
The RDK modeled itself after the Russian Liberation Army, an entity organized, trained, and equipped by the Nazi Germans during World War Two which was comprised of Russian prisoners of war. Russians today often refer to the RDK members as “Vlassovites,” after Russian General Andrei Vlasov, who was captured by the Germans and later defected to their cause.
Vlasov recruited Russian prisoners of war into what was known as the Russian Liberation Army, which eventually consisted of two divisions comprising some 30,000 troops. Most of Vlasov’s “army” were either killed in combat, or taken prisoner by the Soviet Union, where they were treated as traitors and punished accordingly (the enlisted sentenced to lengthy terms in the Gulag, and the leaders hung.) The RDK was able to attract several hundred former Azov fighters and new recruits into its ranks.
A second ethnic Russian military unit, created in the aftermath of the SMO, is comprised primarily of Russian military defectors and prisoners of war. Known as the Freedom of Russia Legion (LSR), it consists of several hundred soldiers organized into two battalions. The LSR operates as part of the International Legion of the Ukrainian Territorial Army.
However, it is controlled by the GUR, according to GUR chief Kyrylo Budanov, as opposed to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
The third ethnic Russian military unit operating with Ukraine is the so-called Siberian Battalion, composed of ethnic Russians and non-Russian ethnicities from the Siberian territories of the Russian Federation.
The members of this formation are volunteers from Russian Siberia who are opposed to Putin’s government. Like the LSR, the Siberian Battalion operated as a GUR-controlled part of the Ukrainian Territorial Army and is said to consist of around 300 men, according to a report in Euronews.
The incursion over the weekend by the GUR-controlled, anti-Putin, Russian forces is not the first instance of its kind. In March and April 2023, several small cross-border attacks were carried out by forces affiliated with the Russian Volunteer Corps RDK.
More telling was a larger attack made on May 22, 2023. The timing of this attack, which lasted less than a day, seemed to coincide with the fall of the hotly contested city of to the Russian private military company Wagner.
The capture of Bakhmut by Wagner signaled the beginning of a rapid deterioration in relations between the head of the Wagner Group, the one-time Putin loyalist, insider Yevgeny Prigozhin, and the Russian military leadership, in particular Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff General Valeri Gerasimov.
From left: Putin, Shoigu and Gerasimov during a 2019 military exercise. (Kremlin.ru, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)
On June 23, 2023, Prigozhin led thousands of his Wagner fighters in a rebellion which saw him occupy the Russian headquarters of the SMO in Rostov-on-Don, and march on Moscow. While the rebellion was quashed within 24 hours, many of the Wagner fighters said that they had participated only because they were told they would be deploying on to Russian soil, where Wagner was prohibited by law from operating, to defend against further incursions from the RDK.
Information that emerged after Prigozhin’s abortive rebellion showed that the Wagner leader had been in frequent contact with the Ukrainian GUR in the months leading up to his insurrection, and that the RDK attacks were part of a coordinated effort orchestrated by the GUR, designed to weaken and perhaps bring down Putin’s government.
The Biden administration acknowledged having detailed intelligence beforehand about Prigozhin’s revolt, and yet did not provide any warning to the Russian government, suggesting that the C.I.A. was at a minimum cognizant of the GUR operation and tacitly supported it.
A crowd in Rostov-on-Don watching a tank with flowers sticking out of its muzzle during the so-called Wagner Rebellion, June 24, 2023. (Fargoh, Wikimedia Commons, CC0)
The presence of U.S. weapons, including Humvee vehicles, in the possession of the RDK fighters on the weekend likewise hinted at a broader U.S. involvement in their training and equipping, involvement which, given the prohibition on the deployment of U.S. military forces in a training capacity on Ukrainian soil since the initiation of the SMO, pointed to the C.I.A.’s Ground Division as the facilitating unit.
The Russian government has assessed that the total strength of the GUR-controlled forces that attacked Russia in the leadup to the presidential election completed on Sunday numbered around 2,500 men, supported by at least 35 tanks and scores of armored vehicles, including a significant number of U.S.-supplied M-2 Bradley IFVs.
The scope and scale of the military operation, which included helicopter-borne forces inserted behind Russian lines, is such that it could not have been accomplished without the knowledge of the C.I.A. Moreover, the tactics and equipment used (helicopter raids, M-2 Bradley vehicles) strongly suggest a more direct role by the C.I.A. in both the planning and training of the mission and the troops involved.
The C.I.A.’s Ground Division is composed of veterans of the C.I.A.’s secret wars in both Syria and Afghanistan, where the C.I.A. trained secret armies to carry out their own secret wars in support of C.I.A. objectives.
Ukrainian special forces unit in Kabul during the 2021 Kabul airlift. (Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)
The discrediting of Putin’s government with an eye to his removal from power has been a goal of the C.I.A. since 2005, when the C.I.A., together with British intelligence, began actively working to create viable political opposition movements inside Russia.
While these efforts have largely failed (the recent death in a Russian prison of Alexei Navalny, believed to have been a creation of the C.I.A., underscores the scope and scale of this failure), the C.I.A.’s covert political warriors in the Political Action Group of the Special Activities Center continue to try to undermine Putin through various means.
Given the Russian government’s stated goal of producing a large turnout in the election as a way to certify Putin’s legitimacy, disrupting voter turnout by creating instability and a lack of confidence would be precisely the kind of cause and effect relationship the C.I.A. would seek to engender.
The fact that the RDK leadership openly bragged that their ongoing attacks were a) designed to disrupt the Russian presidential election and b) were planned months before the attack, is a strong indicator that, given the intimate nature of the C.I.A.-GUR relationship, that the C.I.A. was at a minimum knowledgeable of, and most likely a facilitator, of the GUR-led attacks using Ukrainian-controlled Russian insurgents.
To understand the gravity that surrounds the possibility — indeed, probability — that the C.I.A. was involved, however peripherally, in an attack on Russian soil designed to disrupt a Russian presidential election, one only need reflect on how the United States would react if Russian intelligence services collaborated with Mexican drug cartels to create a well-armed insurgent army composed of Mexican-Americans who attacked U.S. territory from across the U.S.-Mexican border in order to influence the outcome of November’s U.S. presidential election.
The United States would view it as an act of war and respond accordingly.
Manifest Danger of Nuclear Conflagration
The Biden administration is overseeing a Ukrainian policy that is rapidly collapsing around it.
America’s NATO allies, concerned by the lack of leadership from the Biden administration when it comes to Ukraine, are threatening to dispatch troops to Ukraine to bolster a flagging Ukrainian military. The Russian government has warned that any such move would be construed as an attack on Russia, and potentially create the conditions for a general nuclear war between Russia and the collective West.
Now, amid such a tense environment, it appears the C.I.A. has not only green-lighted an actual invasion of the Russian Federation, but more than likely was involved in its planning, preparation and execution.
Never in the history of the nuclear era has such danger of nuclear war been so manifest.
That the American people have allowed their government to create the conditions where foreign governments can determine their fate and the C.I.A. can carry out a secret war which could trigger a nuclear conflict, eviscerates the notion of democracy.
Government of the people, by the people, and for the people seems like a distant dream. In its stead the future of America appears to be in the hands of a rogue intelligence agency that long ago abandoned any pretense of accountability and operating under the rule of law.
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Scott Ritter is a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. His most recent book is Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika, published by Clarity Press.
Featured image: Russian President Vladimir Putin after take a flight in a military aircraft, Feb. 22. (Dmitry Azarov, Kommersant)
This propaganda was successful enough that some of those who were getting COVID-19 Vaccinated made jokes about 5G, not realizing that there were genuine concerns with both technologies independently. For some, falling for this propaganda has cost them their lives.
Col. Maj. Amadou Abdramane, a spokesperson for Niger’s ruling junta, took to the national television network on Saturday to denounce the United States and end the long-standing counterterrorism partnership between the two countries.
An estimated 70,000 protesters blockaded around 570 locations in Poland this week in the largest demonstrations thus far in support of their farmers, whose livelihoods are on the brink of ruin due to the continued influx of cheap and low-quality Ukrainian grain into the domestic market.
It is not through “negotiations” with Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Biden, both of whom are responsible for “crimes punishable under International Law” that we will be able to put an end to the genocidal attack against the People of Palestine.
Empire of Lies elucidates the major deceptions that have played a central role in shaping history in the 21st century. Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, the former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury, draws upon his experience as a Washington insider to reveal the truth about the manipulation of the gold market, 9/11, COVID-19, the war in Ukraine, and several other mass deceptions.
Resistance forces in Yemen have been the targets in the U.S. and British efforts to halt the country’s blockade against Israeli ports. Spokesmen for the Ansar Allah movement say that its presence in the Arabian and Red Seas is a direct result of the Israeli war on the Palestinians in Gaza.
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Col. Maj. Amadou Abdramane, a spokesperson for Niger’s ruling junta, took to the national television network on Saturday to denounce the United States and end the long-standing counterterrorism partnership between the two countries.
“The government of Niger, taking into account the aspirations and interests of its people, revokes, with immediate effect, the agreement concerning the status of United States military personnel and civilian Defense Department employees,” he said, declaring that the security pact, in effect since 2012, violated Niger’s constitution.
The announcement came in the wake of spiking terrorist violence in the West African Sahel and on the heels of a visit to Niger by a high-level U.S. delegation that included top officials from the State and Defense Departments, as well as Gen. Michael Langley, the chief of U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM.
“Niger regrets the intention of the American delegation to deny the sovereign Nigerien people the right to choose their partners and types of partnerships truly capable of helping them fight against terrorism,” Abdramane said. “The government of Niger forcefully denounces the condescending attitude accompanied by the threat of retaliation from the head of the American delegation.”
The full-court press by U.S. officials was just the latest clumsy diplomatic effort since a July 2023 coup. Junta leader Gen. Abdourahmane Tiani rebuffedDeputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland in August 2023, and Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee, who was also in this month’s high-level delegation, led a failed effort in December to exchange resumed security cooperation for a commitment to a democratic transition.
“We can only hope that this marks the end of this senseless and costly Niger mission,” said Erik Sperling of Just Foreign Policy, an advocacy group critical of mainstream Washington foreign policy. “It’s been painful to observe the repeated trips by U.S. officials pitifully hoping to woo or pressure the coup government to allow the mission to continue.”
Asked for comment, AFRICOM spokesperson Kelly Cahalan referred The Intercept to the State Department. The State Department directed The Intercept to the transcript of a press conference dealing almost exclusively with U.S. diplomatic efforts in the Philippines and the Middle East.
Ex-Friends as Coup Leaders
The U.S. has roughly 1,000 military personnel and civilian contractors deployed to Niger, most of them clustered near the town of Agadez, on the southern fringe of the Sahara desert, at Air Base 201. Known locally as “Base Americaine,” the outpost serves as the linchpin of the U.S. military’s archipelago of bases in North and West Africa and a key part of America’s wide-ranging surveillance and security efforts in the region. Since the 2010s, the U.S. has sunk roughly a quarter billion dollars into the outpost. This is in addition to more than $500 million in military assistance provided to Niger since 2012.
After a group of military officers deposed Niger’s democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum last summer, the U.S. spent months avoiding the term “coup” before finally, as mandated by law, suspending approximately $200 million in aid. The U.S. did not, however, withdraw its forces from Niger and continued drone operations.
In the wake of Niger’s March 16 decree ending their status of forces agreement with the United States, both the State Department and Pentagon have done little more than acknowledge it.
“[W]e’re seeking further clarification for … what that statement means,” said Defense Department Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh on Monday.
Singh went on to say that the U.S. delegation had “expressed concern over Niger’s potential relationships with Russia and Iran.” Earlier this month, Langley, the AFRICOM chief, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Russia was attempting to “take over” the Sahel. “During the past three years, national defense forces turned their guns against their own elected governments in Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, and Niger,” he said, complaining that due to U.S. aid limitations following coups, these governments “turn to partners who lack restrictions in dealing with coup governments … particularly Russia.”
Langley failed to mention that at least 15 officers who benefited from U.S. security assistance have been involved in 12 coups in West Africa and the greater Sahel during the war on terror, including Burkina Faso (2014, 2015, and twice in 2022); Guinea (2021); Mali (2012, 2020, and 2021); and Niger (2023). At least five leaders of the July 2023 coup in Niger received American assistance, according to a U.S. official. The coup leaders, in turn, appointed five U.S.-trained members of the Nigerien security forces to serve as that country’s governors.
Asked about the situation in Niger on monday, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patelsaid security partnerships in West Africa “are mutually beneficial and are intended to achieve what we believe to be shared goals of detecting, deterring, and reducing terrorist violence.”
While U.S. troop strength in Niger grew by more than 900 percent in the last decade, and U.S. commandos trained local counterparts and fought and even died there, terrorist violence in the African Sahel has been neither deterred nor reduced. During 2002 and 2003, according to the State Department, terrorists caused just 23 casualties in all of Africa. Last year, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Defense Department research institution, attacks by Islamist militants in the Sahel alone resulted in 11,643 deaths — a more than 50,000 percent increase.
“This security cooperation did not live up to the expectations of Nigeriens – all the massacres committed by the jihadists were carried out while the Americans were here,” said a Nigerien security analyst who has worked with U.S. officials and spoke on the condition of anonymity due to his ties with the Nigerien military. He said that the U.S. needed to negotiate a new agreement with more favorable terms for Niger that was free of the trappings of “paternalism and neocolonialism.”
In the wake of last year’s coup, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., introduced a joint resolution requiring President Joe Biden to “remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities in or affecting the Republic of Niger” within 30 days. The resolution failed in a lopsided 11-86 vote. Now Niger’s ruling junta has seemingly done what Congress failed to.
“The bipartisan minority of Senators who voted last year to bring these troops home had it right,” said Sperling. “The U.S. needs to accept reality that lasting partnerships require fostering genuine development, not just helping to gun down impoverished rural militants who posed no threat to Americans.”
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First published on October 23, 2023.
Introduction
The very opportune arrest several days ago in Tbilisi, Georgia, of four operatives of the notorious Serbian condottieri outfit Otpor roughly coincides with the 23rd anniversary of Serbia’s falling into globalist clutches.
That occurred on 5 October 2000, largely as a result of subversion by the paid agents of the same infamous organisation.
Serbia has not recovered to this day from the destructive consequences of that color revolution, orchestrated and financed by Western intelligence agencies which used their Otpor hirelings as a battering ram and field agents.
A wave of color revolutions followed the wildly successful laboratory experiment performed in Serbia where a substantial portion of the bamboozled population were used as guinea pigs.
The most notable of the subsequent “success stories,” of course, is the Maidan coup in Ukraine in 2014, where Otpor operatives again played a prominent role. The aggregate total price, between 1991 and 2015, for the infiltration, indoctrination, and ultimately the takeover of Ukraine, by Victoria Nuland’s candid admission, was about $5 billion.
By the admission of Ambassador William Montgomery, who was in charge of financing and directing Serbia’s demise, disguised under the euphemism of “democracy promotion,” from neighbouring Budapest, Hungary, the bill for that operation was a more modest $80 million. Either way, when you have the facility to print all the cash you need out of thin air, money is no object.
Georgia’s recent close encounter with the dismal fate which struck not only Serbia but also a number of other similarly targeted countries is an excellent opportunity to recall how 5 October 2000 came about and what it brought to Serbia.
This is a photo of the Overthrow of Slobodan Milošević, also sometimes called the Bulldozer Revolution or the 5 October Overthrow. The House of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia can be seen in the background. It is on fire. (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)
It came about, essentially, as a result of gross provincialism and ignorance on the part of the Slobodan Miloševićregime, which during the 1990s ruled rump Yugoslavia of which Serbia was then a part. The deluded populace are equally responsible.
A besotted nation was manipulated into believing that the foreigners who had been sanctioning, ostracising, and bombing it for a decade, never missing an opportunity to show their contempt and hostility – along with their paid local agents – had now become its benefactors.
Unlike the Georgian authorities, who acted swiftly and effectively to apprehend and expel the troublemakers, Milošević and his associates were hell-bent on impressing Western “partners” with their genuine commitment to democratic and “universal” values.
Accordingly, they allowed free reign to the subversives, but they overlooked a very important detail. A key tenet of Western “universal democratic values” is that the targeted government has no right to protect itself. Once inanely made and then adhered to, it is a suicidal commitment.
It means in practice that the foreign-sponsored subverters, in this case Otpor and the network of associated phoney Western “NGOs,” are untouchable and not subject to any limitation in their seditious activities.
Whatever ephemeral brownie points Milošević had hoped to obtain in return for tolerating open preparations for the putsch that was being hatched against him, ultimately he had nothing to show for it. His commitment to liberal democratic values was unnoted and went unappreciated.
Soon thereafter, handcuffed and with a sack over his head, he was shoved into a helicopter and unceremoniously shipped to the Hague, there to face a kangaroo court.
The results of this “insouciance” (as Paul Craig Roberts would aptly put it) on the part of the thoroughly penetrated and demoralised Serbia were devastating. After a deluded mob in Belgrade burned and trashed the Parliament building, a gang of agents prepared in advance for the task were installed in the seat of government, ready and willing to do their masters’ bidding. Serbia’s Pashinians eagerly lined up and reported for duty.
Serbia’s Subjugation by the West
All major economic assets were sold to foreign and proxy domestic interests at fire sale prices. The army, which shortly before in Kosovo had successfully held NATO at bay, by orders from above was effectively dismantled and humiliatingly reduced to an appendage of the National Guard of Ohio.
State security services were purged of experienced and patriotic cadres, who were replaced by opportunistic collaborators, most of whom were in the employ of those they should have been keeping under surveillance.
A process of creeping multi-level cooperation with NATO, including transit rights over Serbian territory, commenced soon after the year 2000 putsch, culminating in 2015 with Serbia’s virtual accession through the NATO Individual Partnership Action Plan.
IPAP provides for regular participation in NATO manoeuvres and military exercises and grants immunity to NATO personnel for offences committed on Serbian territory.
Perhaps most devastating and evil, Serbia’s newly appointed colonial administrators set out to systematically destroy all bases of sustainable economic existence and growth.
Just as for the Neo-Nazi regime in Kiev the sole remaining source of “revenue” for Serbia are financial infusions from foreign supporters. After the meticulously executed demolition of Serbia’s productive capacities by foreign-imposed economic assassins, Serbia has now fallen into a similar trap.
Its remaining cash resources required to run the government increasingly consist of usurious “loans” obtained from the IMF and other similar Western predatory financial institutions.
In order to “qualify” for such financing, which puts the noose of debt slavery around the necks of future generations, the bought and paid for political elites installed after the 2000 coup were instructed to lay Serbia prostrate before globalist predators such as Blackrock and Rio Tinto.
In return for prolonging their hold on power, these corrupt lackeys have enabled foreign corporate vultures to lay waste to broad swaths of productive agricultural land and to poison the environment, endangering the health of hundreds of thousands of citizens.
But the unsafe and environmentally catastrophic extraction of lithium and other toxic minerals undoubtedly also serves a “higher” purpose, which is to make a formerly self-sustaining country, food dependent.
Serbia used to be a net food exporter where no one starved or had to search for scraps in dumpsters, but as a result of the deliberate devastation and implosion of its agriculture it must now import a large portion of the foodstuffs it consumes.
The cost of those imports is covered not by the productive capacity of a bankrupt economy but by a steady stream of interest bearing IMF financial injections, which makes the hidden cost of every tomato and potato bought by a Serb at the local green grocers vastly higher than the official price.
For generations to come, grandchildren will be paying off, with exorbitant interest, every mouthful that is consumed today.
For the insouciant populace, that is just another “benefit” of the thoughtless handover of their country’s sovereignty and of their own personal destiny to a ruthless gang of foreign mercenaries which continues to oppress them to the present day.
Serbia’s disastrous color revolution, engineered at the turn of the century by hostile foreign interests, still generates misery both in Serbia and in other countries where following the same blueprint, similar takeovers, based on manipulation and deceit, were subsequently implemented.
The promises of “democracy” and of a better life which the deceivers had made were not kept in even a single case. The clueless masses who naively followed the Pied Piper have indentured themselves to new and infinitely more callous masters and they came to regret their foolishness in every single instance.
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Stephen Karganovic is president of “Srebrenica Historical Project,” an NGO registered in the Netherlands to investigate the factual matrix and background of events that took place in Srebrenica in July of 1995. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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They made fun of 5G after getting their COVID-19 Vaccine. Some of them died suddenly, some had vaccine injuries, some are still alive and well. But why mention 5G at all?
What was the propaganda linking 5G to COVID-19 Vaccines? New research published about 5G is actually very eye opening.
Feb. 28, 2024 – Nashville, TN – 38 year old Brittany Rhea Garton died suddenly Feb.28, 2024, “organ failure” Mar. 23, 2021: “Got my Bill Gates 5G microchip implanted today! Gotta go back in 3 weeks to have it activated! I wonder what superpowers it’ll give me?” “Thanks Pfizer”
Oct. 31, 2023 – Fayston, VT – 47 year old Steve Poponi died suddenly on Oct.31, 2023 of a heart attack. “My wife entered me in a lottery and I got vaccinated today! I have really good 5G now!”
Feb. 2022 – Nate Timesamillion developed pericarditis shortly after his 3rd COVID-19 Vaccine (booster)
New Research on 5G:
2024 Feb (Wang et al) – Effects of radiofrequency field from 5G communication on fecal microbiome and metabolome profiles in mice
“After RF exposure, the mice fecal samples were collected to detect gut microorganisms and metabolites”
“Results showed that intestinal microbial compositions were altered in RF group, as evidenced by reduced microbial diversity and changed microbial community distribution.”
“4.9 GHz radiofrequency radiation may cause intestinal microbiota dysbiosis in mice”
“At present, we only suspect that the gut microbiota and metabolism imbalance were associated with depression-like behavior induced by RF, and metabolic profile imbalance may be related to the alterations of immune regulation or inflammation”
2024 Jan.31 (Hardell et al) – An Eight Year Old Boy Developed Severe Headache in A School Close to A Mast with 5G Base Stations
“In this case study we present an eight year old boy who attends a school with a mobile phone tower with 5G base stations 200 meters from the school area and 285 meters from his classroom.”
“Relatively soon after the boy began attending class at the school, he started to suffer from headache, although not every day or not even every week at first.”
“However during the autumn of 2023, the headache has become daily and more intense at school, grade 10 on the 10-grade scale; 0 corresponds to no discomfort and 10 to unbearable discomfort. He may also experience some fatigue (grade 5), and sometimes dizziness (grade 7) at school.”
“The boy is symptom free in general at home but he may also occasionally have headache at home, grade 2 on the 10-grade scale, but this headache disappears relatively quickly.”
“Since the autumn 2023, the boy has been wearing a protective cap (which shields against RF radiation) both outdoors and also indoors in the classroom.”
“Outdoors, he also uses a RF-protective jacket and scarf. With the protective cap, he does not suffer from headache according to experience so far.”
“Epidemiological studies performed to date show clear association between exposure to RF radiation and cancer [14]. In addition the largest laboratory animal studies during recent years at the National Toxicology Program [24,25] and the Ramazzini Institute [26], have confirmed the increased cancer risk.
Laboratory studies have repeatedly and convincingly showed mechanisms that explain the increased risk of cancer. These include oxidative stress (known mechanism of cancer development), mRNA effects and DNA damage [27].
Consistent results on RF radiation and cancer risks have thus been found in epidemiological studies in humans, in laboratory studies in animals and in laboratory studies on cells [14,28-30].
With the increased knowledge of cancer risks, RF radiation should be classified as a human carcinogen, group 1 according to the IARC classification, if evaluated objectively without conflicts of interests. This classification should have a major impact on prevention measures.”
2023 Dec (Ozgen et al) – Therapeutic effects of melatonin in long-term exposure to 2100 MHz radiofrequency radiation on rat sperm characteristics
“Radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs) are one of the risk factors for male reproductive health and melatonin can be an ideal candidate for therapeutic development against RF-induced male fertility problems due to its antioxidant properties.”
“The possible therapeutic role of melatonin in the destructive effects of 2100 MHz RF radiation on rat sperm characteristics is investigated in the present study.”
“The percentages of abnormal sperm morphology were significantly increased with RF exposure, while the total sperm count was significantly decreased.”
“RF exposure also showed harmful effects on acrosome, axoneme, mitochondrial sheath, and outer dense fibers at the ultrastructural level.”
“The number of total sperms, sperms with normal morphology increased, and ultrastructural appearance returned to normal by melatonin administration.”
2023 Oct (Bodin et al) – Sex-dependent impact of perinatal 5G electromagnetic field exposure in the adolescent rat behavior
“The current study aimed to investigate the effects of daily 5G electromagnetic field (EMF) perinatal exposure on the neurodevelopment of rats”
“results indicated that both male and female pups showed delayed incisor eruption in the EMF-exposed group”
“Regarding activity in the open field, adolescent females showed less stereotyped movements (− 70%), while adolescent males showed more stereotyped movements (+ 50%)”
present study suggested that perinatal exposure to 5G at SAR level below reglementary threshold led to perturbations in the descendants seen in juveniles and adolescents.
“Our experimental findings extend our previous results, showing that RF, at 1.8 to 3.5 GHz, inhibits the electrical activity of neurons in vitro at levels above environmental standards.”
2023 Apr (Zheng et al) – Biological effects of exposure to 2650 MHz electromagnetic radiation on the behavior, learning, and memory of mice
“Our results indicate that exposure to 2650 MHz-EMR (WBSAR: 2.06 W/kg, 28 days, 4 h per day) may be associated with anxiety-like behavior in mice but not related to depression-like behavior in mice.”
2023 Jan (Singh et al) – Acute radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation exposure impairs neurogenesis and causes neuronal DNA damage in the young rat brain
“The study investigates the harmful effects of radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation (RF-EMR) exposure on the young rat brain.”
Higher level of lipid peroxidation, carbon-centered lipid radicals, and single-strand DNA damage was observed in the brain of rat exposed to RF-EMR.
“Results indicate that short-term acute exposure to RF-EMR induced the generation of carbon-centered lipid radicals and nuclear DNA damage, both of which likely played a role in the impaired neurogenesis and neuronal degeneration seen in the young brain’s hippocampus region”
“RF-EMR exposure induces degenerative changes in dentate gyrus neurons.”
2023 (Zhou) – Effect of radiofrequency radiation from 5G mobile phone on blood-brain barrier in mice
“The continuous exposure of mobile phone RF at 3.5 GHz or 4.9 GHz for 35 d (1 h/d) induces an increase of BBB permeability in the mouse cerebral cortex”
2022 Nov (Qin et al) – Effects of radiofrequency field from 5G communications on the spatial memory and emotionality in mice
“We investigated the effects of 4.9 GHz (one of working frequencies of 5G communication) radiofrequency (RF) field on emotional behaviors and spatial memory in adult male mice.”
“depression-like behavior was induced in mice after 4.9 GHz RF exposure. In addition, the number of neurons significantly reduced and the level of pyroptosis obviously increased in amygdala rather than hippocampus.”
“These results suggested that 4.9 GHz RF exposure could induce depression-like behaviour, which might be associated with the neuronal pyroptosis in amygdala.”
2022 Sep (Nyberg) – The European Union prioritizes economics over health in the rollout of radiofrequency technologies
“Since September 2017, the EU 5G Appeal has been sent six times to the EU, requesting a moratorium on the rollout of 5G.”
“evidence…drawn from studies showing changes to neurotransmitters and receptors, damage to cells, proteins, DNA, sperm, the immune system, and human health, including cancer.”
“The 2021 Appeal goes on to warn that 5G signals are likely to additionally alter the behaviour of oxygen and water molecules at the quantum level, unfold proteins, damage skin, and cause harm to insects, birds, frogs, plants and animals.”
Conspiracy Theory Literature
Here is a fascinating November 2021 study out of Ireland by Flaherty et al:
Mainstream media links COVID-19, Vaccines and 5G:
It’s actually the mainstream media who went out of their way to connect COVID-19 Vaccines and 5G and thus promoted conspiracy theories to the public.
My Take…
Interestingly, by linking 5G with COVID-19 Vaccines, the mainstream media managed to minimize concerns about both technologies.
This propaganda was successful enough that some of those who were getting COVID-19 Vaccinated made jokes about 5G, not realizing that there were genuine concerns with both technologies independently.
For some, falling for this propaganda has cost them their lives.
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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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An estimated 70,000 protesters blockaded around 570 locations in Poland this week in the largest demonstrations thus far in support of their farmers, whose livelihoods are on the brink of ruin due to the continued influx of cheap and low-quality Ukrainian grain into the domestic market. The EU’s provisional decision to cap some Ukrainian grain at the average 2022-2023 volume levels importantly excluded wheat and barley, and tariff exemptions on all imports will remain in place for another year.
Regarding the incumbent authorities, they’re now trying to distract the protesters by pushing through an EU proposal to tariff Russian agricultural imports in response to a Ukrainian influence operation falsely alleging that these low-level imports are responsible for the farmers’ plight.
This analysis here covers the various dimensions of their anti-Polish information warfare campaign since the protests resumed in January for those who are interested in learning more about this meddling.
The importance in referencing this is to inform the reader of why Poland supports a proposal that even Politico admitted is “more of a distraction than a real solution to the difficult economic situation facing European farmers, given the relatively low share of the EU market accounted for by (Russian) imports.” Ukraine’s APK-Inform Analytic and Information Agency also boasted that “Tariffs for Russian grain to boost Ukrainian wheat competitiveness in EU market”.
The EU’s impending Russian agricultural distraction is therefore a sly way to expand Ukraine’s share of the bloc’s market, which will only worsen the problems for Polish farmers, thus risking the scenario of their protests morphing into a modern-day form of the Old Cold War-era Solidarity movement. It was assessed earlier this month here that Poland’s new liberal-globalist government might then feel pressured to conventionally intervene in Ukraine as the ultimate distraction from these protests.
To be sure, the decision to do so wouldn’t be entirely driven by domestic matters, but they’d likely play an outsized role in convincing policymakers in the scenario of a new Solidarity movement rising. On-the-ground developments in the NATO-Russianproxy war would be much more influential such as the possibility of France preemptively trying to seize control of Odessa before a Russian breakthrough. Nevertheless, the point is that potential Polish participation could serve to distract from these protests.
Since the EU’s approach towards Russian and Ukrainian agricultural imports won’t help Polish farmers but will actually worsen their plight, it’s very likely that their protests will keep growing and could continue morphing into a new Solidarity movement. In that event, martial law could be imposed on the pretext of conventionally intervening in Ukraine and naturally needing to clear all blockades impeding the movement of troops there, thus killing two birds with one stone.
The aforementioned policy could backfire if the protesters refuse to comply and instead end up clashing with the armed forces, however, which could complicate this campaign at its most sensitive stage. Its success couldn’t be taken for granted then due to complexity theory teaching that initial conditions disproportionately shape the outcome of complex processes such as this one. The liberal-globalist government’s possible solution to the protests might therefore spark Poland’s worst-ever national crisis.
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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 regular contributor to Global Research.
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Back in January last year, Turkish Hürseda Haber published a detailed report about the losses in manpower and equipment for both the Russian military and the Kiev regime forces. Citing Israeli intelligence sources, specifically the Mossad, the report contained a rather interesting and highly detailed breakdown of losses for both sides. Nearly all numbers were confirmed to be true in the following months, although Hürseda Haber hasn’t updated its list since publishing it. One particular figure stood out – foreign fighters (mostly NATO personnel) and mercenaries. No other media outlet or source ever published such a detailed account of the deaths and injuries of foreigners in the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict. Namely, it mentioned the following:
234 NATO officers killed and wounded in action (mostly British and American);
2,458 NATO soldiers killed and wounded in action (Germany, Poland, Lithuania, etc.);
5,360 mercenaries killed and wounded in action.
And while it wasn’t possible to verify these claims with complete certainty at the time, they were much closer to estimates by various non-Western sources and military experts.
What’s more, the figures given for the Kiev regime did not contradict the number cited by the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, who stated that the Neo-Nazi junta’s losses exceeded 100,000 soldiers. Leyen’s statement, given back in November 2022, was promptly cut from the official address video, as it was undermining the ludicrous narrative of “Russia losing”. Apart from some guesstimates, we haven’t had any detailed updates since then. That is, until a few days ago when the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) published some information about it.
On March 14, the MoD updated its data on foreign mercenaries eliminated by the Russian military. According to the official reports, in total, 13,387 mercenaries have joined the Neo-Nazi junta forces, with 5,962 killed in action (KIA) so far. Most of them came from Poland, the United States, Canada and Georgia. This includes 1,497 Poles (of 2,960 involved), 561 Georgians (of 1,042 in total), 491 Americans (of 1,113), 422 Canadians (of 1005), 360 Britons (of 822), 349 Romanians (of 784), 147 French (of 356) and 88 Germans (of 235). While there is some divergence between these numbers, especially considering how much time has elapsed since then, they are not too far apart. In addition, these are only the numbers that the Russian military was able to confirm unequivocally.
In reality, the actual number could be much higher, especially when taking into account hundreds of long-range drone and missile strikes launched by the Russian military.
On the other hand, the mainstream propaganda machine gives much larger (albeit varying) figures. According to the Washington Post, approximately 20,000 foreigners from over 50 countries have joined the ranks of the Kiev regime forces. The number could certainly be inflated for propaganda purposes, but it’s also not too far from the data given by the Russian MoD.
Either way, one thing is certain – no foreign fighter was ready for the conflict in Ukraine.
NATO personnel are used to fighting largely helpless countries and resistance movements that would be formed ad hoc in the aftermath of the deployment of American occupation forces, as well as those of their numerous vassals and satellite states. On the other hand, fighting the Russian military means that there’s no air superiority and, thus, no close air support (CAS), which is central to any NATO military operation. Worse yet, it’s Moscow that has a clear advantage in that regard and nothing indicates this will change.
Back in mid-January, French mercenaries learned this the hard way. Namely, they were stationed at a hotel in the eastern city of Kharkov when the Russian military launched a long-range strike that resulted in at least 80 casualties, over 60 of whom were killed. And these men weren’t even on the frontline. They were foolish enough to not only think they’re safe, but also believed that Moscow would simply ignore such a high concentration of foreign fighters in one place. And yet, the situation in the trenches is not much better either. In a recently published video account involving an American and a British mercenary, they touched upon several topics concerning drones and trench warfare in Ukraine. Expectedly, there was some propaganda involved, but they pointed out the high-tech aspect of the conflict.
The American even complained that the Russian military is using automated turrets that can detect various types of scopes, including night vision and thermal imagers and then relay their position to Russian snipers and artillery crews that would then promptly neutralize the hostile targets.
Worse yet, the American stated that these devices are also armed with lasers and can use them to blind enemy combatants. Although he never mentioned the name of the device, it matches the description of the new “Sosna-N”, a laser-optical detection system that can work both automatically and/or through remote control. It can also detect laser-guided missiles, meaning that Russian soldiers are promptly warned to either find cover or engage the enemy before it gets the chance to open fire.
However, this is not the end of troubles for foreign mercenaries who were foolish enough to join the Neo-Nazi junta forces. Namely, the Kiev regime has shown the propensity to use them exactly the same as its own forces – cannon fodder.
Worse yet, it has demonstrated a willingness to directly kill its most loyal henchmen, as evidenced by the recent shootdown of a Russian Il-76MD transport aircraft packed with Ukrainian POWs (prisoners of war), including approximately a dozen “Azov Battalion” members.
There was also at least one case when two French mercenaries were killed for trying to leave Ukraine after they uncovered the Kiev regime’s plot to attack a high-ranking delegation from France.
All this should serve as a lesson to any and all foreign personnel in Ukraine, be it adventurers with unrealistic expectations of what actual warfare is, adrenaline addicts, avid Call of Duty players, pathological Russophobes or professional NATO “advisers” – you will get killed if you come to Ukraine. Best case scenario, you could get maimed for life or (if you’re really lucky) you might escape with no major physical injuries, but still end up with a severe case of PTSD.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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Why did Senator Chuck Schumer call Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an “obstacle to peace” and demand new elections in Israel just weeks before an IDF ground offensive in Rafah?
Hasn’t Schumer opposed a ceasefire in Gaza from the beginning?
Hasn’t Schumer criticized pro-Palestinian activists and their public protests?
Hasn’t Schumer been a champion of the Jewish state for more than three decades in office?
Yes, yes and yes.
So, why would he suddenly do an about-face and blast Israel’s leader at the same time the IDF is conducting a major military operation in Gaza?
Here’s an excerpt from Schumer’s speech:
It is precisely out of this long-standing connection to, and concern for, the State of Israel and its people that I speak today about what I view are the most pressing existential threats to Israel’s long-term peace and prosperity.
After five months of suffering on both sides of this conflict, our thinking must turn — urgently — I believe that to achieve that lasting peace — which we so long for — Israel must make some significant course corrections…..
If Israel were to not only maintain the status quo, but go beyond that and tighten its control over Gaza and the West Bank, as some in the current Netanyahu administration have suggested — in effect creating a de facto single state — then what reasonable expectation can we have that Hamas and their allies will lay down their arms? It would mean constant war.
On top of that, Israel moving closer to a single state entirely under its control would further rupture its relationship with the rest of the world, including the United States. Support for Israel has declined worldwide in the last few months, and this trend will only get worse if the Israeli government continues to follow its current path…. Full text of Senator Chuck Schumer’s speech: ‘Israeli elections are the only way’, Times of Israel
Repeat: “Israel must make significant course corrections”?
So, Schumer is not only calling for new leadership, he’s also demanding that Israel abandon its current strategy?
That’s shocking, but can we trust what Schumer is saying? Does he really regard “the creation of a de facto single state” as an “existential threat” to Israel or is he using it as an excuse to conceal his real intentions?
Journalists at Politico—Hailey Fuchs and Elena Schneider—think Schumer is hiding something. They think his views are shaped by his politics which are preventing him from being completely honest. Here’s how they summed it up in a recent article:
[AIPAC] recognizes that Schumer has a left flank problem just like the Israel lobby has a left flank problem,” said one Democratic consultant who works with major Jewish donors, granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly. “You stick with the guy who’s always been with you, but you also let him have the breathing room to say what he needs to say if it helps him with his left flank.”….
AIPAC is also sophisticated enough to know that its relationships with Democratic leadership depends on whether those leaders can maintain the support of voters, said one former Democratic Senate aide who has worked with AIPAC. Schumer’s relationship with AIPAC has always been “strong, resolute, frank and open,” the person added. Schumer’s Israel rebuke leaves AIPAC in a delicate position,Politico
This analysis is partly true but misses the larger point. Yes, Schumer does have to pander to a Democratic base that is sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, but there’s more to it than that. Schumer thinks that Netanyahu is dangerously off-track and that his arrogant, go-it-alone attitude is intensifying Israel’s global isolation while angering its biggest ally, the United States. As he puts it:
Israel moving closer to a single state entirely under its control would further rupture its relationship with the rest of the world, including the United States.
The idea that Israel can simply thumb its nose at the Biden administration and go charging into Rafah “guns blazing” is a grave miscalculation that is putting enormous strain on US-Israel relations and is bound to undermine Israel’s prospects for the future. That’s why Schumer decided it was time to roll out the heavy artillery and send Bibi a message he’d understand. And the message was accompanied by a blunt directive from the White House to send a senior-level delegation of “military, intelligence and policy officials to Washington to hear U.S. concerns and lay out an alternative approach that will not include a major ground invasion.”
Does that sound like “the tail wagging the dog” to you?
No, me neither. What it sounds like is that Biden and Co. are fed up with Netanyahu’s antics and have decided to reel him in a bit. Bottom line: Netanyahu does not have a green light to implement his plan to send ground troops into Rafah. Not yet at least. He needs to discuss the matter with Biden and reach a mutual agreement to go forward or abandon the plan altogether. What Schumer’s speech indicates, is that relations between Bibi and Washington have deteriorated to such an extent that the Israeli leadership must be taken by the lapels and shaken out of their stupor so they see how bad things really are. Schumer’s presentation was just the first of many ‘wake-up calls’. Here’s more:
As a lifelong supporter of Israel, it has become clear to me:
The Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after October 7. The world has changed — radically — since then, and the Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past.
Nobody expects Prime Minister Netanyahu to do the things that must be done to break the cycle of violence, preserve Israel’s credibility on the world stage, and work towards a two-state solution..…
At this critical juncture, I believe a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel, at a time when so many Israelis have lost their confidence in the vision and direction of their government.
I also believe a majority of the Israeli public will recognize the need for change, and I believe that holding a new election once the war starts to wind down would give Israelis an opportunity to express their vision for the post-war future.
Of course, the United States cannot dictate the outcome of an election, nor should we try. That is for the Israeli public to decide — a public that I believe understands better than anybody that Israel cannot hope to succeed as a pariah opposed by the rest of the world….
If Prime Minister Netanyahu’s current coalition remains in power after the war begins to wind down, and continues to pursue dangerous and inflammatory policies that test existing US standards for assistance, then the United States will have no choice but to play a more active role in shaping Israeli policy by using our leverage to change the present course. Full text of Senator Chuck Schumer’s speech: ‘Israeli elections are the only way’, Times of Israel
This is extraordinary. Schumer is threatening Netanyahu point-blank with political retaliation if he doesn’t step-in-line and align Israel’s policies with US interests. If any other US senator blurted out a comment like this they’d be looking for job by the end of the day. It just goes to show how trusted Schumer is among the powerful Jewish organizations in the US. Here’s more:
The United States’ bond with Israel is unbreakable, but if extremists continue to unduly influence Israeli policy, then the Administration should use the tools at its disposal to make sure our support for Israel is aligned with our broader goal of achieving long-term peace and stability in the region. Full text of Senator Chuck Schumer’s speech: ‘Israeli elections are the only way’, Times of Israel
Schumer’s comments go way-beyond a mere slap on the wrist. This is an ominous but straightforward warning to the fanatics in the Netanyahu government that they’d better get their act together pronto and take steps to align their policies with those of the United States or there are going to be dire consequences.
Surprisingly, the one pundit that seems to understand what Schumer’s speech was really all about is New York Times columnist Tom Friedman who summed it up like this:
What has gone so haywire in the U.S.-Netanyahu relationship that it would drive someone as sincerely devoted to Israel’s well-being as Chuck Schumer to call on Israelis to replace Netanyahu — and have his speech, which was smart and sensitive, praised by President Biden himself as a “good speech” outlining concerns shared by “many Americans”?
Friedman is right. Relations between Israel and the US have gotten so bad that it takes a die-hard loyalist like Schumer put Bibi on notice that he’s on thin ice. And the reason he’s on thin ice is because his bloody rampage in Gaza has run roughshod over Washington’s broader regional strategy which involves the economic integration of critical nations from India to Israel. Here’s more from Friedman:
Why has Netanyahu become such a problem for the U.S. and Biden geopolitically and politically?
The short answer is that America’s entire Middle East strategy right now — and, I would argue, Israel’s long-term interests — depends on Israel partnering with the non-Hamas Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah, in the West Bank, on the long-term development needs of Palestinians and, ultimately, on a two-state solution. And Netanyahu has expressly ruled that out, along with any other fully formed plan for the morning after in Gaza…
Hamas’s attack was designed to halt Israel from becoming more embedded than ever in the Arab world thanks to the Abraham Accords and the budding normalization process with Saudi Arabia. Consequently, Israel’s response had to be designed to preserve those vital new relationships. That could be possible only if Israel was fighting Hamas in Gaza with one hand and actively pursuing two states with the other.
This war had a major regional component. Israel very quickly found itself fighting Hamas in Gaza and Iran’s proxies in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq. The only way Israel could build a regional alliance — and enable President Biden to help line up regional allies — was if Israel was simultaneously pursuing a peace process with non-Hamas Palestinians. That is the necessary cement for a regional alliance against Iran. Without that cement, Biden’s grand strategy of building an alliance against Iran and Russia (and China) stretching from India through the Arabian Peninsula across North Africa and up to the European Union/NATO is stymied. No one wants to sign up to protect an Israel whose government is dominated by extremists who want to permanently occupy both the West Bank and Gaza….
If Israel fights a war in Gaza with many civilian casualties — but offers no political hope for a better future for both Israelis and Palestinians — over time it obscures people’s memories of the horrors of Oct. 7 and their support for Israel in its wake. That makes it increasingly difficult for even the most pro-Israel American figures — like Schumer — to continue to back the war in the face of the enormous international and domestic costs.”
For all of these reasons, and I cannot say this loudly enough, Israel has an overriding interest in pursuing a two-state horizon. What Schumer and Biden Got Right About Netanyahu, New York Times
Perfectly summarized.
The media fails to report on the critical events that took place before the October 7 attacks that revealed Washington’s regional strategy. As it happens, the Biden team had been developing an expansive plan aimed at countering China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Check out this excerpt from an article at the Times of Israel:
US President Joe Biden and his allies on Saturday announced plans to build a rail and shipping corridor linking India with the Middle East and Europe, an ambitious project aimed at fostering economic growth and political cooperation.
“This is a big deal,” said Biden. “This is a really big deal.”
The corridor would help to boost trade, transport energy resources and improve digital connectivity. It would include India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Israel and the European Union, said Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser.
Biden, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the project during the annual Group of 20 summit of the world’s top economies. It is part of an initiative called the Partnership for Global Infrastructure Investment.
“We think that the project itself is bold and transformative, but the vision behind the project is equally bold and transformative, and we will see it replicated in other parts of the world as well,” Sullivan said….
The rail and shipping corridor would help to physically tie together a vast stretch of the globe, improving digital connectivity and enabling more trade among countries, including with energy products such as hydrogen. Although White House officials did not set a timeline for its completion, the corridor would provide a physical and ideological alternative to China’s own nation-spanning infrastructure program. Biden unveils US-backed transport corridor to link India to EU via Mideast, Israel, Times of Israel
There it is in a nutshell: A “bold and transformative” infrastructure project extending from India to Israel creating a high-speed transport corridor for energy, retail goods and natural resources. This is how Washington wants to slow China’s meteoric growth and preserve its grip on global power into the next century. There’s only one drawback: Netanyahu’s killing-spree in Gaza has put the kibosh on the entire plan.
Schumer knows all of this. He also knows that that if Israeli policy continues to conflict with US vital interests, there’s going to be an acrimonious divorce that will result in Israel losing its greatest ally and benefactor. That’s why he wants to dump Bibi and replace him with someone who will work collaboratively and cooperatively with the US. It’s not a question of patriotism, it’s a matter of survival…. Israel’s survival.
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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.
Michael Whitney is a renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace.
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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Author’s Note
It is not through “negotiations” with Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Biden, both of whom are responsible for “crimes punishable under International Law” that we will be able to put an end to the genocidal attack against the People of Palestine.
ليس من خلال “المفاوضات” مع رئيس الوزراء نتنياهو والرئيس بايدن، وكلاهما مسؤول عن “الجرائم التي يعاقب عليها القانون الدولي” سنكون قادرين على وضع حد لهجوم الإبادة الجماعية ضد شعب فلسطين.
What is required is a campaign which enables Israeli, U.S. and NATO combatants To Disobey Unlawful Orders” and “Abandon the Battlefield”.
المطلوب هو حملة تمكن المقاتلين الإسرائيليين والأمريكيين وحلف شمال الأطلسي من عصيان الأوامر غير القانونية” و”التخلي عن ساحة المعركة”.
Principle IV of the Nuremberg Charter defines the responsibility of combatants to refuse the orders of Government or a superior … “provided a moral choice [is] possible“.
يحدد المبدأ الرابع من ميثاق نورمبرغ مسؤولية المقاتلين عن رفض أوامر الحكومة أو الرئيس … “شريطة أن يكون الخيار الأخلاقي ممكنا”.
What is required is to initiate a campaign in Israel and Worldwide to make that “moral choice” possible, to enable enlisted Israeli, American, and NATO service men and women to “Abandon the Battlefield”.
ما هو مطلوب هو بدء حملة في إسرائيل وفي جميع أنحاء العالم لجعل هذا “الخيار الأخلاقي” ممكنا، لتمكين رجال ونساء الخدمة الإسرائيليين والأمريكيين وحلف شمال الأطلسي من “التخلي عن ساحة المعركة”.
See details below, with reference to legal documents.
A.I. translation into Arabic
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, December 27, 2023
Video: Youtube Version
Rumble Version of Video
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Let us have tears to our eyes in solidarity with the People of Palestine, in building a mass movement worldwide, which confronts the ongoing mass slaughter before our very eyes.
Let us recall the Christmas Truce of 1914, 109 years ago this Christmas Eve:
“Something happened in the early months of the “War to End All Wars” that put a tiny little blip of hope in the historical timeline of the organized mass slaughter that is war. The event was regarded by the professional military officer class to be so profound and so important (and so disturbing) that strategies were immediately put in place that would ensure that such an event could never happen again.” (Dr. Gary G. Kohls)
“The ordinary soldiers developed more and more antipathy and even hatred toward their own officers. Simultaneously, they started to empathize and even sympathize for the men facing them on the far side of the no man’s land.
The authorities condemned and prohibited all forms of fraternization and “live-and-let-live” in general. The officers sometimes put snipers to work when they suspected that fraternizations “threatened” to take place.
The men learned in many ways that the official enemy was in fact not the real enemy, that the soldiers on the other side were human beings just like themselves.” (Dr. Jacques Pauwels, Excerpt from his book)
The Power of Peace in the Time of War (1914): Let It Happen Again (2023)
Today, we are “fraternizing” and acting in solidarity worldwide with the People of Palestine against the hegemonic agenda of the U.S. and it allies which are waging an all-out war against humanity.
اليوم، نحن “نتأخى” ونعمل تضامنا في جميع أنحاء العالم مع شعب فلسطين ضد أجندة الهيمنة للولايات المتحدة وحلفائها الذين يشنون حربا شاملة ضد الإنسانية.
Crimes Against the Peace, War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity
Click title page to access full document (pdf)
Both Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu as well as President Joe Biden are responsible for “war crimes”, “crimes against peace” and “crimes against humanity” as defined under Principle VI of the Nuremberg Charter:
The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:
(a) Crimes against peace:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances; (ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
(b) War crimes:
Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill- treatment or deportation to slave-labour or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war, of persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
(c) Crimes against humanity:
Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, when such acts are
“The fact that a person [e.g. Israeli, U.S.soldiers, pilots] acted pursuant to order of his [her] Government or of a superior does not relieve him [her] from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him [her].”
Let us make that “moral choice” possible, to enlisted Israeli, American, and NATO service men and women.
Let us call upon Israeli and American soldiers and pilots “to abandon the battlefield”, as an act of refusal to participate in a criminal undertaking against the People of Gaza.
Let the World War I “Power of Peace in the Time of War” “Happen again”.
Confront corrupt politicians.
The Tears in Your Eyes
May the tears of humanity in your eyes in December 2023 be conducive to a worldwide movement to abolish and “criminalize all wars.”
Let us break the insidious narrative of a handful of Wall Street billionaires who finance America’s “humanitarian wars”, unseat the West’s “Classe politique” and establish the foundations of “real democracy by the people for the people.”
—Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, December 23, 2023, March 21, 2024
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Empire of Lies elucidates the major deceptions that have played a central role in shaping history in the 21st century.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, the former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury, draws upon his experience as a Washington insider to reveal the truth about the manipulation of the gold market, 9/11, COVID-19, the war in Ukraine, and several other mass deceptions.
“Dr. Roberts is one of few remaining voices of truth in the West. His essays expose the systematic lies of Western mainstream media, which now provide propaganda rather than news. He explains these false narratives are designed to create a public lost in a Matrix of misinformation, which conditions people to hate and fear; the hatred of internal ‘enemies’ prevents social cohesion that could effectively challenge governmental authority, while external enemies are demonized to make people accept endless war.
“Most importantly, Roberts warns of the imminent danger of a nuclear holocaust, which now places us ‘one nanosecond’ away from nuclear Armageddon. If you want to better understand why all the things we once held sacred — family, freedom, justice and peace — are now under relentless attack by the government, media, and academia, then read this book, it will open your eyes.” — Professor Steven Starr, former Director at the University of Missouri’s Clinical Laboratory Sciences Program
“Paul Craig Roberts is one of the best and most-informed political commentators today. I urge everybody to read his indispensable book The Empire of Lies.” — Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., LewRockwell.com
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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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The producer Tom Nelson did an interview with me a year ago about the origins of the climate scare.
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However, it continues as an investigative literary piece to determine, more broadly, what specific militant political actions among the creative artist communities of Canada, the United States and Australia, collectively, as well as individually, already have, or are in the process of, undertaking, to provide whatever greater professional artistic, moral support they can to make the political systems and leadership of their countries more acutely-aware and responsive to the existing realities of what is, and s bring to a crashing halt Zionist Israel’s nightmarishly-brutal, savage onslaught against the entire nation of Palestine’s men, women, children, infants and senior citizens.
Especially, in light of the diabolical misinformation, disinformation, and what amounts to the nigh total insidious, malevolent censorship, by each country’s corrupt corporate mainstream media’s abject unwillingness to tell “the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help them God”; beyond the propaganda rubbish and flat-out , that daily fill their dumbed-down citizenry’s heads up with about what really is going on ever minute of every day in the disgraceful perpetration of the war.
In other words, this seemingly endless work-in-progress seeks to identify what militant political actions among the creative artist communities of Canada, the United States, Australia, and really the entire human race, collectively, already are helping the populaces of their respective countries recognize that what is happening today to the Palestinians in their former homelands; can be likened not only to the WWII crimes of genocide committed by the Nazis at their Auschwitz Concentration Camp and other death camps; but to the similar hideous things in the history books that once happened to indigenous Indians, Black slaves and Mexican peasants in 17th,18th & 19th century America, especially its Southern ante bellum states, and the wild west of Canada’s Northern plains.
These massive ad hoc European colonial societies of their times, with the complicity of the rest of the world’s so-called later civilized societies within its erstwhile United Nations; all, ever-ready, champing at the bit, to plunder yet some fresh new piece of the world for themselves; this time in the Middle East.
The green light that has been given to Zionist Israel, its IDF stormtroopers, American society’s collective ideological ‘soldiers of fortune’, and others of the same ilk, worldwide, have once again been given all but carte blanche with the collective permission and blessings of the United Nations to do whatever they will.
It’s Nothing More Than the Human Race’s Same Ol Shuck and Jive
A starting point of this new awareness must begin with the realization that during the 17th, 18th, 19th centuries, all the newcomer colonial European cultures and societies, like Israel’s contemporary, so-called, “Zionist Settler-Colonial Plan” for an Ersatz Israel, continues to regularly, routinely, murder, rape, slaughter and steal, at their whim, everything that ever belonged to the original Palestinian inhabitants; while their stormtrooper, blitzkrieg armies, and hosts of snipers, are given carte blanche to maim or shoot to kill innocent men, women, children. infants and elders.
Always, of course, without any recriminations whatsoever from their leaders; as if whatever the latest lumps of human flesh, bone and feelings of sentient beings are, are nothing more than unwanted vermin to be duly eradicated for the betterment of all concerned, and so, make way for all those ‘more gifted, favored ones’ yet to come.
Today, in 2024, it’s no different! To gain a truly sobering reality check of what actually continues to happen to Palestinians every second of every minute of every day in this hideous war in Gaza, the reader, if they care anything at all about the real plight of all concerned in Gaza, can do no better than take into their hearts the truths that Dr. Thaer Ahmad, a Palestinian ER Doctor from Chicago, has to recount after having just returned from a nightmarish time spent in the midst of the Gaza tragedy.
Dr. Ahmad describes in great shocking detail what day to day life is currently like in Gaza when living human beings are put on glass slides, like specimens under a microscope, to see how they will react under the severest of conditions. It’s unbelievable! Brutal, evil, savage carnage don’t remotely even begin to describe the hidosity of it all, once one has been touched by what they will learn.
Once this writer did, his heart ached grievously, from the place it touched within the residual memory banks of his own Irish-Tyrolean ancestors who suffered the same fate; as so many Palestinians whose hearts also now ache so grievously for their lost loved one, as indigenous peoples the world over also have ever suffered from the same fate since time immemorial.
To arrive at a truly sobering reality check, in the year 2024, of what this actually translates to, in human terms, and continues to happen to Palestinians every second of every minute of every day in this latest hideous war, this time around in Gaza; the reader, if they even remotely care enough about the real truth and justice of the plight of all those still hopelessly trapped in Gaza’s massive oppressive concentration death camp, could do no better than listen to Amy Goodwin’s Democracy Now interview of Dr. Thaer Ahmad, a Palestinian ER Doctor from Chicago, who recently returned from a nightmarish time spent in Gaza’s hospitals in the midst of the unbelievable macabre tragedy that continues to unfold.
Dr. Ahmad candidly describes in great shocking detail what day to day survival is really like in Gaza. Words like: Unbelievable! Brutal! evil! Savage! Inhuman Carnage! fail to tell the whole truth. They don’t even remotely begin to describe the actual reality of it all.
Brace yourself, however, because when this writer listened to Dr. Ahmad, his own heart quietly, yet so grievously, painfully ached. The longer Dr. Ahmad spoke of the unspeakable plight of the Palestinians, that no one in their right mind would ever wish upon their worst enemy, was constantly tweaked by this writer’s painful remembrances of his Irish ancestors, not that terribly long ago in time or space, once suffered the same fate, during yet another violent, turbulent time and among humans, at the brutal hands of arrogant England’s overlords.
Listening to the accounts of the suffering the Palestinian people continue to endure at the hands of their own arrogant, primitive IDF stormtrooper overlords, came the same reoccurring thought: “There but for the grace of God!”
Until that moment, while listening to Dr. Ahmad, this writer never truly, fully, could viscerally understand, at a gut level, how or why such overlords, English, German Nazis or whomever, could ever have been or still could ever be so cruel, heartless and barbaric, as to cause the needless suffering of so many innocent, helpless Palestinian hearts to ache and bleed so grievously, as indigenous peoples throughout the world also have had to needlessly suffer for so long a time in human history. It is one of those real mysteries of life as all of us sentient beings as we continue our cosmic journey on this tiny vulnerable orb we call ‘Earth’, as it an we all hurtle together through endless time and space.
The reader is asked to further brace themselves still one more time to continue to bear witness to yet more unedited, uncensored-truth-telling, as re-told by Dr. Taher Ahmad; this time to Abby Martin, host of the Empire Files: Unprecedented War Crimes: Eyewitness Truth in Gaza Hospitals w/ Dr. Thaer Ahmad.
Beyond what all that words, mental awareness and consciousness can ever say, this writer continues to be dumbfounded by so many reactions of seeming indifference and disinterest to what all continues to unfold everywhere around him within the Western World at large, and, more specifically, the populaces within the countries of Canada and the United States; who still unequivocally support and defend the Zionists, and soon; will elect yet another ‘Vanilla White’ fascist to replace PM Trudeau, or re-elect another ‘Sleepy Genocide Joe’ or ‘His Bloated Holiness’ to rule the world; ‘for which, this writer is now so deeply ashamed and embarrassed by what he once was so proud of feeling within himself, and so proudly once admitted to others, he was a dual citizen of both countries.
Also, too, knowingly-aware that all, or most of the world’s, apolitical figures, somehow, have had a hand in doing, or not doing by their silence, to do some positive action to stop what is happening today to the Palestinians in their former homelands of Palestine.
Their collective diabolical actions or inactions can be likened not only to the recent WWII crimes committed by the Nazis at its Auschwitz Death Camp, Warsaw Ghetto or other death camps; but also the hideous things that happened during their own ancestors days, to indigenous First Nations, Black slaves and Mexican peasants in 18th & 19th century history books of America’s Southern ante-bellum states and Northern plains of Canada’s Wild West.
By then, as now, those massive ad hoc European colonial societies of their day, with the complicity of the rest of the world’s so-called civilized societies backing them up. Like a giant juggernaut; each one, always champing at the bit, to crush beneath its ponderous weight; ever eager to plunder some fresh new piece of others, once sacrosanct world for themselves.
All these newcomer colonial European cultures and societies regularly, routinely, murdering, raping, slaughtering, stealing, at their whim, everything that ever belonged to the original inhabitants. Their armies and snipers given carte blanche to maim or shoot to kill innocent men, women, children and elders, without any recriminations whatsoever from their leaders; as if the victims were nothing more than unwanted vermin; to be duly eradicated for the betterment of all, to make way for the minions who are still to come.
Fifty years – half a century – ago, when this writer first arrived upon Canada’s shores from America, the world was such a different place. Canada’s strong, colorful, outspoken leader, Pierre Eliott Trudeau, the father of the current Prime Minister, was someone who accurately felt the world’s pulse, and knew then what unequivocal actions needed to be taken for the betterment of the human race; for which the world once sat up in all their chambers, listened to, and took heed. Lo, were that the case now in these troubled times.
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Jerome Irwin is a Canadian-American writer who, in previous lives, has been involved in a wide range of diverse and varied worlds, including the Criminology profession with an American police department, and later for a brief-time in the capacity of clandestine communications with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. For decades, in various professional capacities as an educator, researcher, geo-political analyst, and writer. Irwin has sought to call attention to a broad spectrum of world problems pertaining to the degradation and unsustainability caused by a host of environmental-ecological-spiritual-ideological issues that exist between the conflicting world philosophies of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples.
Irwin is the author of the book, “The Wild Gentle Ones; A Turtle Island Odyssey” (www.turtle-island-odyssey.com), a spiritual odyssey among the native peoples of North America that over the decades has produced numerous articles pertaining to: Ireland’s Fenian Movement; native peoples Dakota Access Pipeline Resistance Movement; AIPAC, Israel & the U.S. Congress anti-BDS Movement; the historic Battle for Palestine & Siege of Gaza, as well as; the many violations constantly being waged by industrial-corporate-military-propaganda interests against the World’s Collective Soul. To examine a portion of the eclectic body of his work goggle: “Jerome Irwin, writer” The author and his wife are long-time residents on the North Shore of British Columbia.
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A couple of years ago, the iconic gate to the infamous World War II-era extermination camp at Auschwitz was stolen. As far as I know, the “crime” has not been solved. At the top of that gate was this classic bit of Nazi propaganda, proclaimed to the millions of doomed incoming victims: “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Makes One Free).
“Arbeit Macht Frei” is a pretty good summary of what is otherwise known as “the Protestant work ethic” that started in Europe during the Protestant Reformation. Right-wing nationalists, anti-communist, pro-capitalist, pro-war, anti-Semitic, racist and religious reformers such as Jean Calvin and Martin Luther would have agreed that “Arbeit Macht Frei” supported their dogmatic teachings about fulfilling one’s patriotic duty to the state, the church or the industry that employed the people.
Following Hitler’s fascist takeover and the total destruction of Germany’s liberal democratic government in 1933, Germans were indoctrinated to believe that it was their patriotic duty to defend the Nazi’s Thousand Year Reich by any means necessary, including laboring, killing or dying for the cause.
Indeed, the efforts instituted by the fascist government (including the abolition of labor unions) resulted in virtually full employment in all of the war-related industries that were set up to ensure the success of the Thousand Year Reich, including the military arts, police, fuel, chemical, agriculture, mining and weapons production. All of these industries thrived, with willing, reasonably well-paid and grateful “Good Germans” who blindly applauded Hitler for orchestrating his “economic miracle.”
The transportation and communications industries that were essential for war-making – but which were also domestically beneficial – also thrived. Good examples included the building of the Autobahn for rapid troop movement and the increased production of automobiles, including the affordable Volkswagen for the masses and the not-so-affordable Mercedes for the elite. The provision of cheap mass-produced radios and plenty of entertainment (propaganda) that was over-seen by Joseph Goebbels made sure that everybody would be able to hear the demagogues spout their Nazi propaganda demonizing non-Aryan foreigners, Jews and various anti-fascist leftists, such as trade unionists, socialists, liberals and subversive antiwar activists.
In 1922, hyperinflation, joblessness and hunger followed the unaffordable fiasco of World War I and, just as the economy was recovering, the Wall Street Stock Market crash of 1929 sealed German democracy’s doom. So, after Hitler was appointed to the Chancellorship in 1933, even the most ethical Germans were thankful for the war industry work, and they liked the state-sponsored (socialized) medical care, educational opportunities and the paid vacations of Hitler’s “Strength Through Joy” campaign, even though there was essentially no freedom of movement in the labor market.
War Profiteering, Concentration Camps and “Good German” Christians
Until Hitler started occupying, colonizing and brutalizing other nations, things were going well for most obedient, white “Good German” Christians. Not so for non-Christians and other minorities who were suffering under the police state jackboot of Prussian militarism. “Good Germans” dutifully averted their eyes and closed their ears to keep from seeing the hateful anti-Semitism, racism, homophobia, sexism, xenophobia and other forms of discrimination that were happening all around them, including the aggressive building of concentration camps all over Germany and the occupied territories.
The scores of concentration camps that eventually dotted Germany’s military empire (especially occupied Poland) also provided a lot of work for Hitler’s obedient (and silenced) Volk, for each camp needed, in addition to the SS troops and Gestapo (who beat any resister into submission), numerous citizen-workers to keep them running smoothly. The notorious extermination camp at Auschwitz employed 60 physicians and 300 nurses and many other ancillary staff members for just the medical facility, much of which was involved in human experimentation. Many of the people involved in those crimes against humanity were professed Christians.
The gulag of camps was good for the economy though, for each of the camps was aligned with very profitable German corporations, whose bottom lines flourished with the cheap labor costs. The Nazi concentration camps started in 1938 at Dachau. The prison camps played a major role in Hitler’s economic boom. Germany’s Gross National Product grew substantially, for the labor was free and the food and lodging expenditures were minimal.
Auschwitz was located in Poland, far away from the eyes of most Germans back in the homeland. It was the most infamous of the camps, but the German occupiers of the newly-acquired Polish territories knew what was going on inside. Still, most “Good Germans” averted their eyes and ears and noses. Most of them claimed that they were unaware that mass murder was happening on the other side of the electrified fences.
But it was a time of war and telling the truth in wartime is always a revolutionary act that requires a lot of courage. Witnessing to the truth in a time of war is also frequently regarded by military regimes as an act of treason. And so the Volk lied to themselves and to others. Cognitive dissonance happened in Nazi Germany, although there was no such phrase back then that described the conscious or unconscious denial of and confusion about unwelcome new truths that contradicted deeply held beliefs. But the truth was obvious to all. Only one conclusion could be drawn from the 24/7 stench of burning flesh and the red smoke that came out of the crematorium’s tall stacks of each of the extermination camps.
After the total collapse of the militarists, financiers, investors and industrialists who had been behind Germany’s attempts to steal the resources of Europe and Asia (especially the oil fields of eastern Europe and western Russia), more unwelcome truths were to be revealed. Among these revelations was the story of the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoess (not to be confused with Rudolf Hess who was Hitler’s # 2 early in the Nazi regime).
Cruelty in Child-Rearing, Obedience and the Roots of Violence
The Rudolf Hoess, MD, of Auschwitz infamy was the son of a devout, well-to-do, conservative Roman Catholic family that had wanted him to go into the priesthood. But circumstances were such that he instead chose to serve Hitler in the thuggish Freikorps, that group of traumatized and unemployable World War I veterans, who became his street fighters and mercenary soldiers and who believed the lie that leftists, especially Jews, socialists and communists on the home front had “stabbed Germany in the back” and were the real cause of the humiliating defeat in the trenches on the western front.
Just like most men who grew up in authoritarian Europe, Hoess learned unconditional obedience to authority early in his life. Cruelty in child-rearing, especially in males, usually elicits the unconscious desire for vengeance, often only acted upon in a delayed fashion, freuently against a scapegoat rather than against the original perpetrator of the cruelty, which is usually an abusive parent-figure.
Harshness in child-rearing was the norm for most German and Austrian children for centuries prior to Hitler, whose regime also promoted punitive child-rearing methods. It makes for vicious, obedient Nazi soldiers or, for that matter, Special Forces soldiers in any country. Such “parenting” was reinforced by the similarly harsh discipline that was often practiced in most German churches and schools – and not just in Catholic schools, but in secular schools as well. And so Hoess wrote the following explanation for his willingness to reflexively carry out the decidedly un-Christ-like – indeed, satanic – orders he received from his superiors:
“Above all, I was constantly reminded that I was to comply with, and follow, the wishes or commands of parents, teachers, priests, etc., indeed all grown-ups including the servants, and that I was to allow nothing to distract me from that duty. Whatever they said, went. These fundamental values of my upbringing became part of my flesh and blood.”[1]
This is how military recruits in basic training internalize the killing arts. So it should come as no surprise when soldiers react automatically and violently in the war zone, obeying even illegal orders given in the kill-or-be-killed chaos of the battlefield. After the psychological trauma, humiliation and threats of punishment experienced in their child-rearing, school yards, mean streets or their basic training, soldiers can be relied upon to react automatically, even unconsciously, and do what they have been indoctrinated to do when their own physical survival is threatened.
Duty and honor; solemn oaths of allegiance to a flag (the Swastika or the Stars and Stripes); obedience to god and country; patriotism; nationalism; “America # 1” and “Deutschland Uber Alles” are common examples that will promote the blind patriotism that has driven the killing machines on all sides of every war throughout the entire history of warfare.
Internalizing such propaganda allowed Hoess to perform his gruesome “duties” at Auschwitz, without any obvious signs of remorse when he was later tried, convicted and hanged for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The baptized Lutheran Adolph Eichmann, a contemporary of Hoess’s, also reacted without remorse during his trial in Jerusalem long after the war, as did most of the other defendants at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial.
The Consequences of Military and Domestic Violence (to the Perpetrators, Victims or Bystanders)
Sadly, the soldier-victims (willing or unwilling) of chronic brain-washing (which can easily create robotic humans willing to inflict pain on others [ex Manchurian Candidate]), learn much too late that being involved in state-sponsored terrorism, directly or indirectly, can also be lethal to their souls and psyches, not to mention the souls and psyches of their battlefield victims (and loved ones when they come home), all of whom are mostly innocent, unarmed and decidedly defenseless women and children.
The invisible spiritual wounds of the warrior can also be experienced by another group: the guilty bystander, who witnessed the violence and then may have stood silently by, doing nothing to stop it. The guilt felt later for not intervening (or feeling helpless to intervene) often becomes too much to bear, with the resultant depression, anxiety, anger, insomnia, nightmares, flashbacks, drug use, homicidality and suicidality of combat-induced posttraumatic stress disorder symptom, often identical to that experienced by the guilty perpetrator.
One has to wonder what kind of Christianity is it that promotes harshness in parenting, racism, discriminatory attitudes toward the “enemy-other”, pro-war theologies and what kind of Christianity remains silent about its country’s extrajudicial assassinations by drone warfare or the manufacturing, stockpiling, and training to use, the lethal weapons that are only intended for human destruction?
From where in the human soul comes the willingness to kill, torture and cooperate with the evils of state-sponsored homicide and economic oppression, irrespective of what militarized nation one lives in, fascist/capitalist Germany or “democratic”/capitalist America?
As Bob Dylan asks so poignantly in his classic antiwar song, “Blowin’ in the Wind”:
“How many times must the cannonballs fly before they’re forever banned?”
“How many ears must one man have before he can hear people cry?”
“How many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died?”
“How many years can some people exist before they’re allowed to be free?”
“And how many times can a man turn his head pretending he just doesn’t see?”
The answers aren’t really mysteriously blowing in the wind. The answers to the questions about why there is an epidemic of violence instead of sustained peace are understandable and therefore preventable. The solutions to the problems (and the prevention of the consequences) concerning both military and domestic violence lie in whether or not children and recruits are treated humanely (with unconditional love and mercy) or with brutality and/or neglect in their families, schools, churches, neighborhoods, workplaces and streets.
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Dr Gary G. Kohls is a retired rural family physician from Duluth, Minnesota. Since his retirement in 2008, Dr Kohls has written a weekly column, titled Duty to Warn, which has been re-published and archived at websites around the world.
Dr Kohls practiced holistic mental health care in Duluth for the last decade of his family practice career, primarily helping psychiatric patients who had become addicted to their cocktails of dangerous, addictive psychiatric drugs to safely go through the complex withdrawal process. His Duty to Warn columns often deal with various unappreciated health issues, including those caused by Big Pharma’s over-drugging, Big Vaccine’s over-vaccinating, Big Medicine’s over-prescribing, over-screening, over-diagnosing and over-treating agendas and Big Food’s malnourishing and sickness-promoting food industry. Those four powerful, profit-seeking entities combine to seriously affect the physical, mental, spiritual and economic health of the recipients of the prescription drugs, medical treatments, toxic vaccines and the consumers of the tasty, ubiquitous and disease-producing “FrankenFoods” – particularly when they are consumed in combinations, doses and potencies that have never been tested for safety or long-term effectiveness.
Many of Dr Kohls’ columns have been archived at websites around the world, including the following:
[1] The Hoess quote above is taken from Alice Miller’s Breaking Down the Wall of Silence. Miller’s seminal work on the political and theological consequences of harshness in child-rearing is For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Childhood and the Roots of Violence.
Featured image: Members of the Hitler Youth in Berlin performing the Nazi salute at a rally in 1933 (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 de)
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Resistance forces in Yemen have been the targets in the U.S. and British efforts to halt the country’s blockade against Israeli ports.
Spokesmen for the Ansar Allah movement say that its presence in the Arabian and Red Seas is a direct result of the Israeli war on the Palestinians in Gaza.
During mid-March reports surfaced indicating that the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) and the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) were conducting exercises which simulate a ground invasion by two leading imperialist countries, the U.S. and Britain. The YAF have continued their attacks on ships which are violating the blockade. These resistance operations have openly defied the increased imperialist military presence and aggressive actions in the region.
Yemen resistance forces in formation
In describing the character of the drills and the political atmosphere spawning the present situation, the Cradle emphasized:
“As the drills occurred, the Yemeni Minister of Defense, Major General Nasser al-Atifi, delivered a speech stressing Sanaa’s capacity to ‘deal with an international community that respects only the strong. We will enforce new rules of engagement forcefully, and the price will be paid dearly by the Americans, the British, and the Zionists and those in their orbit. The battle of The Promised Conquest and the Sacred Jihad in support of Al-Aqsa Flood will triumph and inevitably lead to geopolitical changes in line with a new world order,’ Atifi said on Sunday (March 17). He noted that the people of Yemen are not ‘warmongers’ but stressed that Israel’s campaign of genocide in Gaza has prompted ‘freedom-loving nations of the world to declare their position against such atrocities.’”
The Ansar Allah officials emphasized their sovereignty over territorial waters. They pledged not to relent even in the face of bombings by the Pentagon and the British Royal Air Forces.
Just prior to the military exercises, a delegation consisting of representatives of several Palestinian organizations visited Sana’a for high-level talks with the Yemeni government. It was reported that Hamas, Palestine Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) were present for the talks.
This delegation was reflective of the unity which exists in the military resistance to the IDF occupation of Gaza. There are ten different brigades involved in the fighting and their actions are coordinated against the settler-colonial troops.
The general thrust of the conversations centered on enhancing the cooperation between fighters in Palestine and the solidarity efforts in Yemen. Although the western imperialist states and their media outlets attribute all of the armed resistance activity as being coordinated by the Islamic Republic of Iran, these organizations have engaged in self-directed defensive and offensive operations against the State of Israel and the U.S. All of the tactics being utilized in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen, are based upon the concrete conditions prevailing in those areas of the region.
In Palestine and the other neighboring states, they have been able to build their own weapons which can effectively level significant casualties against the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and those allied with Zionism and imperialism. The blockade carried out now for several months by the YAF has been quite costly for the commercial maritime industry.
The cost of shipping has risen sharply with the rise in insurance rates and travel expenses due to the rerouting of vessels. To respond to the crisis, the U.S. and Britain have been forced to deploy additional military personnel in the region. These events are occurring when popular pressure is mounting within the imperialist countries and around the world calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and the recognition of an independent Palestinian state.
In the same above-cited article published by the Cradle, it reveals that:
“The Palestinians, in turn, reportedly conveyed their ‘great appreciation for the pivotal and important role’ played by Yemen since last November. Last week, Ansarallah leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi announced plans to expand Yemen’s maritime operations against U.S., U.K., and Israeli-linked vessels in the Red Sea. His speech came a day after a Yemeni military source revealed to Russian media that the armed forces recently tested a hypersonic missile and are preparing to introduce the technology into the country’s military arsenal.”
This YAF blockade is taking its toll inside the Israeli Occupied Territories (IOT) forcing an economic downturn in the shipping industry. Another report published by the Cradle says that:
“Israel’s port of Eilat in the occupied south is set to fire half of its employees due to the devastating effects of Yemen’s maritime blockade on Israeli shipping. The main Israeli labor federation, the Histadrut Labor Federation, said on 20 March that port authorities have announced their intention to lay off half of the 120 people employed at the Eilat port. It added that the workers plan on protesting the decision on Wednesday. ‘It would have been right for the company at this time to have embraced the workers and their families, and not chosen the easy way of attempting mass layoffs. We won’t be a part of this,’ said Eyal Yadin, the chairman of Israel’s transportation workers union, in a statement.”
Since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, the level of resistance to the aggression exerted by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) coupled with solidarity efforts internationally characterized by mass demonstrations, boycotts, social media campaigns along with an overall intensified debate over the legitimacy of the Israeli state which relies on the unconditional support awarded by the U.S., the U.K. and the European Union (EU), illustrates clearly that the status-quo is unsustainable politically. The administration of President Joe Biden and the Democratic-dominated Senate headed by Chuck Schumer has to make it appear as if they want to lessen the suffering of the Palestinian people.
Nonetheless, there is no discussion yet on measures such as halting all aid to Tel Aviv including weapons, intelligence assistance and diplomatic cover. Sanctions could be imposed on leading Israeli officials for their blatant genocidal policies.
One of the key aspects of the global solidarity movement with Palestine is the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns which have gained tremendous support in the U.S. and Britain. In the U.K., groups such as Palestine Action have been successful in exposing the links between transnational corporations and the arming of the Zionist state.
The difficulty in making such changes in U.S. foreign policy is that imperialism relies on the Zionist state as a bulwark against the aspirations of the people of West Asia and North Africa. With the entering of literally billions of people across the globe in the Palestine solidarity movement, this factor has rapidly shifted the public mood within the U.S., Britain and the EU member-states.
Regional Resistance Continues
Iraqi resistance fighters announced on March 21 that they had targeted a power generation station in Tel Aviv. Such attacks are ongoing despite the periodic airstrikes conducted by the Pentagon.
“In the past weeks, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq intensified its operations against Israeli targets inside occupied Palestinian territory. On Wednesday (March 20), the Resistance said its fighters attacked Ben Gurion Airport deep within the Israeli occupation entity using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) — the second time in one week. On Monday (March 18), the Islamic Resistance targeted an Israeli UAV airbase in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights using drones and affirmed the continuation and intensification of its operations during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Akram al-Kaabi, the Secretary-General of the al-Nujaba Movement, a faction that operates under the umbrella of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, affirmed on February 25 that the Resistance will maintain its operations to kick U.S. forces out of the country and will not stop attacking Israeli targets in occupied Palestine.”
In neighboring Lebanon, the Hezbollah resistance movement has on a daily basis engaged the IDF in solidarity with the Palestinians. Hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers have been forced to move from areas on the northern border with southern Lebanon.
Al Mayadeen reported on the intensifying attacks against the settler-colonial regime pointing out:
“Hezbollah fighters continue to target Israeli occupation military sites and soldiers for the 165th day in support of the Palestinian people and their Resistance in the Gaza Strip. Following up on nine operations announced throughout Tuesday (March 19), the group fired rockets and missiles at Israeli military positions across the Lebanese-Palestinian border. The first set of attacks was a dual operation that targeted Israeli sites in the occupied Lebanese town of Hounin and Kfar Chouba Hills at 5:35 pm (local time). In the first operation, Hezbollah fighters attacked the Hounin Castle, which had been appropriated by Israeli occupation forces for military purposes, confirming direct hits to the intended target. In the second operation, Hezbollah fighters targeted the Roueissat al-Alam military site, located more than 20 km away from the site of the first operation. Just five minutes later, Islamic Resistance fighters launched an attack on the Zibdine military site in the occupied Lebanese Shebaa Farms.”
Consequently, the struggle against the genocide in Gaza cannot be halted through the aggressive actions of the IDF and the duplicitous statements made by the U.S. Unless widespread changes are made within the imperialist construct in the West Asia and North Africa regions, the imperialist states led by the U.S. will be forced to wage yet another disastrous war which will further weaken its internal and external capabilities to exercise world hegemony.
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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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Last year will be remembered for a lot of things, but the largely pointless NATO summit in Lithuania’s Vilnius in early to mid-July is not one of them. Most people have already forgotten what the point of the summit was, but one of its major tropes was that the Baltic Sea became a “NATO lake”. One would probably expect the case for this is even stronger now that Sweden is also officially a member, but that would imply that Stockholm has actual sovereignty, making the entire thing all the more laughable. Either way, joining NATO has become a mere formality for the Scandinavian country, as it has effectively been a member for decades, particularly as the European Union, of which Sweden is also a member since 1995, has been exposed as just another geopolitical pendant of the US-led NATO.
And while it can be expected that members of a military bloc under Washington DC’s stewardship are terrible at geography, which would perfectly explain how they could’ve forgotten about Russian coastal areas on the Baltic Sea, Moscow made sure to remind them that such assertions are nothing more than self-delusions and fantasies. Namely, on August 2 last year, Russia kicked off the Ocean Shield-2023, a major naval exercise launched amid a series of close encounters with NATO vessels and aircraft. Moscow’s naval drills in these waters are a regular occurrence, often in response to NATO’s belligerent actions and overall aggressive posturing. However, it seems Russia doesn’t really need any naval forces to make the political West’s life in the “NATO lake” even more difficult.
Namely, the mainstream propaganda machine has been trying to denigrate the Kremlin’s military power for years, changing the tune only when the United States and its vassals and satellite states needed an excuse to further militarize the world, particularly space. And yet, there’s one domain in which they never dared to question (let alone ridicule) Russia – electronic warfare (EW). This ever-evolving field of modern warfare is perpetually increasing in importance and has come a long way from simple radio communications jamming. It now gives a plethora of tools to completely shut down hostile activities without firing a single shot and that’s precisely what’s going on over the Baltic Sea. On March 18, the USAF’s MQ-9 “Reaper” likely experienced Moscow’s EW capabilities firsthand.
The drone is a major unmanned ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) asset and is used quite extensively for that very purpose. The Russian military is surely aware of this and it has already demonstrated it won’t tolerate the “Reapers” in its vicinity. However, this time, it seems the Kremlin chose a less kinetic approach to “undermine freedom and democracy”. Reports vary significantly, with some sources claiming that the drone crash-landed, while most of the mainstream propaganda machine insists that it simply returned to base after it lost contact with its operators stationed in Poland. The South Front quoted Brigadier General Ireneusz Nowak, an inspector in the Polish Air Force, who said that “the UAV crashed during a training flight”.
The “Reaper” took off from a military base in Romania and was supposed to land at the Polish 12th UAV airbase located some 5 km north of Miroslawiec, a town in northwestern Poland. American forces in Romania lost control of the drone at around 18:00 local time. They tried to transfer control to Polish operators, but failed to reestablish connection. The area where the “Reaper” crash-landed was cordoned off to prevent civilians from accessing it. The drone was found nine minutes after the incident. General Nowak stated that the US and Poland are conducting a joint investigation. What is known so far is that there were two MQ-9s operating in Polish airspace, designated WILEY22 and WILEY33, respectively. Both “Reapers” took off from an unnamed military base in Romania.
Both drones experienced “unexplained technical difficulties”, resulting in a crash for WILEY22, while there’s still no information about the WILEY33’s fate. The South Front report claims that the Poles closed their airbase early in the morning on March 19 and suspended all MQ-9 flights. The mainstream propaganda machine blamed the Russian military for the incident, but the Polish Ministry of Defense (MoD) officially denied speculation about Russian EW systems’ involvement in the incident. Warsaw is certainly not well-known for its love for Moscow, so it’s very possible that it’s simply trying to avoid giving credit to the Russian military, as it would be yet another embarrassment for both NATO and the US. And indeed, Western media are already giving a very different account.
According to the Aviationist, a single “MQ-9 ‘Reaper’ drone carried out an emergency landing in Poland after losing contact with its ground control station”. Their report states that the incident happened after 23:00 and that the drone actually took off from the Miroslawiec airbase, supposedly to conduct “a scheduled quarterly training inside the Polish airspace” when it lost contact with the airbase. The Aviationist refused to directly acknowledge that the drones crashed, but the report did mention that “it’s not clear whether the remotely piloted aircraft was damaged, but the crash/landing site was secured by the Polish military police”. It’s rather peculiar that the author of the report decided to use such wording given the previous claim that the American drone supposedly “landed”.
The mainstream propaganda machine insists that “the MQ-9 was probably one of the civilian registered, unarmed Block 5 ‘Reapers’ which are flown and maintained by contractors”, with USAF “providing communications, intelligence analysis and force protection as part of the 52nd Expeditionary Operations Group Detachment 2, a geographically separated unit assigned to the 52nd Fighter Wing at Spangdahlem AB, Germany”. The Detachment regularly conducts ISR missions in the area and has been operating from Miroslawiec since May 2018. The report further notes that “the airframes registered N428HK and N429HK are known to have been assigned to the 52nd Expeditionary Operations Group Detachment 2 in the past, as the MQ-9s relocated to Romania for a certain period”.
The report claims this was done because of construction work in the Miroslawiec airbase and adds that the drones also “deployed to Amari Air Base in Estonia, in 2020, to keep their SIGINT [signals intelligence] sensors pointed to Kaliningrad”. The Aviationist also suggested that “while the reason for the loss of control of the MQ-9 is unknown at this time, there are chances it was due to jamming that has been particularly strong in the region lately”. On March 17, the Warzone reported that the British Dassault 900LX business jet transporting the UK defense secretary Grant Shapps experienced GPS jamming while flying near the Kaliningrad oblast (region). Either way, NATO will continue experiencing “unexplained technical difficulties” as long as it continues its aggression in Europe.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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Feb. 2, 2024 (photo above) – Emily Bigham Unkle was driving when she had a seizure. She was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Mar. 18, 2021: “So grateful for science and the opportunity to get this vaccine.
Apr. 19, 2021: “It’s so easy to get vaccinated in Hamilton County. My second dose took 10 mins start to finish. You never leave your car and the process is so simple.”
The trend of the COVID-19 Vaccinated collapsing while behind the wheel continues (here are 25 recent cases):
Feb. 15, 2024 – Baltimore, MD – 38 year old paramedic Shaney Warehime collapsed in her car and stopped breathing around 2:20am. CPR was unsuccessful. As a paramedic, she had to be COVID-19 Vaccinated.
Feb. 5, 2024 – Brandon, MB, Canada – 46 year old Police Officer Lucien Ethier died suddenly on Feb. 5, 2024. He “was driving his personal vehicle when he experienced a medical issue that led to this tragic event.”
Jan. 30, 2024 – Coventry, UK – 53 year old Irene Mayunga Disala “feel unconscious” while driving in Coventry and died suddenly.
Jan. 24, 2024 – Three people died of “silent heart attacks” while driving in Madhya, Pradesh, India in a single day, ages 41, 42 and 57.
Jan. 18, 2024 – Queen Creek, AZ – 36 year old dental hygienist Sara Bacon died suddenly on Jan. 18, 2024 (it is believed she suffered a heart attack while driving home from work).
Dec. 16, 2023 – 2 US Army Drill Sergeants Found dead in 8 days at Fort Jackson, SC. 34 yo Allen Burtram was found dead on Dec. 8, 30 yo Zachary Melton was found dead in his car on Dec. 16, 2023.
Dec. 8, 2023 – 44 year old Tiffany Gilliam had a heart attack while driving on Dec.8, 2023; “her car headed into oncoming traffic”, “three nurses stepped in and saved her.”
Nov. 12, 2023 – HBO TV Producer Kevin Turen, age 45, died on Nov. 12, 2023. He was driving back from tennis tournament with his 10 year old son and collapsed at the wheel. His 10 year old son navigated and stopped the car.
AUTOPSY RESULTS – HBO Producer Kevin Turen collapsed behind the wheel of his Tesla and his 10 year old steered the car. He died Nov. 12, 2023.
Nov. 11, 2023 – Liverpool, UK – 37 year old John McKeown collapsed in Liverpool on Nov.11, 2023 behind the wheel of his car with a cardiac arrest. He was saved by a student nurse.
Nov. 10, 2023 – Chicago, IL – Jay Carroll played a game of pickleball, walked to the car, opened the door, collapsed and died suddenly on Nov. 10, 2023 “So blessed! COVID Vaccine Shot #1.”
Nov. 9, 2023 – Reality TV Star 40 year old Brandi Mallory was found dead in her car on Nov. 9, 2023, in the parking lot of a strip mall after eating at Chipotle the previous day.
Nov. 5, 2023 – Granbury, TX – Tony Monroe had a medical episode while driving. He simply pulled over and died.
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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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In early April 2020, Mercola.com purposely blocked Google from indexing our articles and breaking news blog posts
I encourage you to search every site’s privacy policy page to see if they use Google Analytics or Google Ad programs, and if they do, encourage them to stop
Nearly every non-major website is using Google’s “free” analytics program, as well as their advertising platforms. Alas, those services are not actually free. Ultimately, YOU pay for them with your personal data, as that is the product Google sells. Collectively, all of these sites are stealing an enormous amount of your private information
Google’s powers pose several threats to society. First of all, it’s a surveillance agency with significant yet hidden surveillance powers. It’s also a censoring agency with the ability to restrict or block access to websites across the internet, thus deciding what people can and cannot see
Google also has the power to manipulate public opinion through search rankings and other means, and the shifts in thinking produced are both rapid and enormous
In early April 2020, Mercola.com became one of the first websites to purposely block Google from indexing our articles and breaking news blog posts. Most of you are well aware that I’ve had concerns about the surveillance capitalists, spearheaded by Google, for a number of years.
September 2017, I discussed Google’s partnership with the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and how their depression assessment quiz was in fact a drug promotion scam sponsored by the drug manufacturer Eli Lilly. No matter how you answered the questions, you were a candidate for antidepressants.
Since then, Google and other tech companies have only gotten deeper and wider access to people’s personal medical information, and Google’s selling of this data to third parties can have real-world consequences. Higher insurance premiums or denial of employment are but two obvious examples.
Google Blocked From Interacting with Mercola.com
Most of you know that in the summer of 2019, Google removed us from coming up in any keyword search unless our name was also typed into the query. While we still received substantial traffic from people who looked very hard to find Mercola articles through Google, we finally decided to block Google from crawling or indexing any of my articles or breaking news blogs. We also stopped using the Google Analytics program in 2018.
So, everything related to Google has been removed from this site, and I hope other sites will follow suit. I encourage you to search every site’s privacy policy page to see if they use Google Analytics or Google Ad programs, and if they do, encourage them to stop.
We can be successful without the surveillance monopolies, and businesses and individuals need to unite to do everything we can to stop their dangerous privacy theft and data mining.
How You Pay for Companies’ Use of ‘Free’ Analytics
A majority of websites are using Google’s “free” analytics program, as well as their advertising platforms. Alas, those services are not actually free. Ultimately, YOU pay for them with your personal data, as that is the product Google turns around and sells to third parties. Collectively, all of these sites are stealing an enormous amount of your private information.
Google and its data-siphoning tentacles reach deep into your everyday life, collecting data on every move you make and conversation you have, whether online or in the real world.
Even if you disable location tracking on your phone, Google has ways to determine your whereabouts by tracking the addresses of nearby cellular towers that your phone connects to instead. This is one of the reasons I strongly encourage you to ditch all Android phones and use an iPhone that has better privacy policies.
I discussed this in my 2018 article, “Google — One of the Largest Monopolies in the World.” That article also includes a list of examples of the type of data collected by Google, whether you’re aware of it or not.
Our ‘Cognitive Liberties’ Are at Stake
As detailed in “Will Google’s Social Credit System Determine Your Future?” there are now proposals suggesting all this data, in combination with artificial intelligence-enabled analytics systems could be used for “predictive policing” as illustrated in the 2002 movie “Minority Report,” where suspected perpetrators are arrested before a crime is actually committed.
In the 2018 TED Talk above,1 legal scholar and bioethicist Nita Farahany discusses the potential ramifications of mind-reading technology, warning that such technology could easily lead to “a society where people are arrested for merely thinking about committing a crime.”
Mind you, Google claimed to have the ability to read your thoughts an entire decade ago. In 2010, Google CEO Eric Schmidt boasted, “We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.”2
Fast-forward 10 years, and Google’s mind-reading capabilities have exponentially grown and been perfected to the point that their AI can predict the exact moment when a teenager is feeling insecure, lonely or vulnerable, so that an advertisement for an image-boosting product can be placed in front of them on the screen in that moment.
This and many other terrifying capabilities are detailed in the book, “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism,” written by social psychologist and Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff. The video below features an interview I did with her about this topic.
In her TED Talk, Farahany also discusses the dangers of a world in which “private interests sell our brain data.” She believes we, as a global community, need laws protecting our rights to cognitive liberty; laws that protect our freedom of thought and self-determination.
Say Goodbye to Google
Over the years, I’ve grown exceedingly concerned about Google’s exponential data mining efforts and infiltration into every conceivable area of our everyday lives, from health care and fitness to education and finance.
The influence of Google is so vast yet so hidden, most people simply have no idea just how controlled they actually are. Most of us would vehemently deny that something as simple as Google search results can manipulate us into thinking a certain way about a topic, yet research clearly shows that this kind of subliminal influence is profoundly powerful.
Robert Epstein, Ph.D., who has spent the last decade of his professional career exposing Google’s manipulative and deceptive practices as a senior research psychologist for the American Institute of Behavioral Research and Technology, has also demonstrated how easily Google can shift our political and societal landscape.
Without Google, the technocrats’ dream of a One World Government would likely never happen, as it relies on social engineering and artificial intelligence. Google is a frontrunner and expert in both, and has the ability to control entire populations. As noted by Epstein in the interview above, Google poses three unique threats to society:
• They’re a surveillance agency with significant yet hidden surveillance powers — Google Search, Google Wallet, Google Docs, Gmail, Google Drive, YouTube — all are surveillance platforms and from Google’s perspective, the value of these platforms are their ability to glean very precise data about you as an individual. Most of these platforms offer free services for the simple reason that YOU are the product being sold to third parties.
• They’re a censoring agency with the ability to restrict or block access to websites across the internet, thus deciding what people can and cannot see. While Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act makes free speech possible for everyone, it also allows Google and other online platforms to filter out and censor whatever they want.
The most crushing problem with this kind of internet censorship is that you don’t know what you don’t know. If a certain type of information is removed from search, and you don’t know it should exist somewhere, you’ll never go looking for it. And, when searching for information online, how would you know that certain websites or pages have been removed from the search results in the first place? The answer is, you don’t.
For example, Google has been investing in DNA repositories for quite a long time, and are adding DNA information to our profiles. According to Epstein, Google has taken over the national DNA repository, but articles about that — which he has cited in his own writings — have all vanished.
• They have the power to manipulate public opinion through search rankings and other means, and the shifts in thinking produced are both rapid and enormous. For example, Epstein has demonstrated that Google has the ability to shift voting preferences among undecided voters by a whopping 48% to 63%, and the power to determine 25% of global elections. What’s more, this manipulation is entirely undetectable and untraceable.
The Many Reasons to Ditch Google
As a user, there are many reasons to de-Google your life, including the following:
Privacy concerns — Google’s services, including search, email, and maps, collect vast amounts of personal data, which can include browsing history, location data, and more. This collection is integral to their business model, which focuses on targeted advertising. Other privacy concerns include the following:
• Tracking of your whereabouts 24/7 — In 2022, four attorneys general sued Google for its deceptive practices in collecting location data, as they continue to track location data even after users disable location tracking. By tracking your Google calendar entries, combined with your location data, Google also knows what events you’ve attended, when, and for how long.
• Your built-in webcam on your phone, tablet, laptop or computer can also be accessed by various apps.
• A lifetime of photographic evidence — Twenty years ago, photos were a private matter, reminisced over in photo albums and displayed around the home. Today, people’s lives are on public display online, and Google captures it all.
When combined with facial recognition software and other technological identification applications, including metadata detailing the time and place of each snap, your photos are a treasure trove of private information.
• A lifetime of communications — Google also has every single Gmail email you’ve ever sent, received and deleted.
• Censoring your email — Google can also censor your email, and we have evidence that this is happening. While about 50% of our subscribers are using Gmail accounts, the delivery rate for Gmail accounts is HALF of all the email providers like ProtonMail — far lower than any other email service.
So, if you are using Gmail to receive our newsletter please change immediately. If you’re using Gmail, understand that they’re censoring your inbox, and you might not even realize it.
• Deleted files and information — You probably delete files and information every now and then for the sake of safety, right? You might decide to delete that list of passwords from your phone, for example, in case you lose it or it gets hacked. Well, Google still has all of that information.
Market dominance and monopolistic behavior — Google’s dominant position in search, video hosting (via YouTube), and mobile operating systems (via Android) stifles competition, potentially leading to less innovation and choice for consumers.
Data security — Although Google claims to have strong security measures, no service is immune to data breaches or security flaws. Considering the vast amount of personal data collected by Google, a data breach could be potentially devastating.
Echo chamber and filter bubble effects — Google’s personalized search and news results can create a “filter bubble,” where users are more likely to see information that aligns with their past behavior, potentially limiting exposure to differing viewpoints and leading to an echo chamber effect.
Dependence and data lock-in — Relying heavily on Google’s ecosystem can lead to a form of lock-in, where moving to other services becomes difficult due to the vast amounts of data and integration within Google’s services. To avoid this, diversify your service providers.
The coming social credit system — The ability to surveil and track every conceivable metric, censor and block access to information, and the ability to manipulate opinions also makes Google an invaluable resource for the planned social credit system, and the more information they have on you, the easier they can manipulate you.
Here’s How You Can Say Goodbye to Google Today
If you are at all concerned about Google’s data theft practices, then it’s time you stop using Google services. Sure, Google has convenience covered, but it’s not enough to overshadow its many evils.
If you’re ready to protect your privacy and break free from the manipulation of internet monopolies, here are some basic steps you can take. Also, be sure to share these tips with your family and friends.
Swap out your browser — Uninstall Google Chrome and use Brave or Opera instead. Everything you do on Chrome is surveilled, including keystrokes and every webpage you’ve ever visited. Brave is a great alternative that takes privacy seriously.
Switch your search engine — Stop using Google search engines or any extension of Google, such as Bing or Yahoo, both of which draw search results from Google. Instead, use a default search engine that offers privacy, such as Presearch, Startpage, DuckDuckGo, Qwant and many others.
Use a secure email — Close your Gmail account and switch to a secure email service like ProtonMail. If you have children, don’t transfer their student Google account into a personal account once they’re out of school.
Switch to a secure document sharing service — Ditch Google Docs and use another alternative such as Zoho Office, Etherpad, CryptPad, OnlyOffice or Nuclino, all of which are recommended by NordVPN.3
Delete all Google apps from your phone and purge Google hardware. Better yet, get a de-Googled phone. Several companies now offer them, including Above Phone.
Avoid websites that use Google Analytics — To do that, you’ll need to check the website’s privacy policy and search for “Google.” Websites are required to disclose if they use a third-party surveillance tool. If they use Google Analytics, ask them to switch!
Use a secure messaging system — To keep your private communications private, use a messaging tool that provides end-to-end encryption, such as Signal.
Use a virtual private network (VPN) such as NordVPN or Strong VPN — This is a must if you seek to preserve your online privacy.
Don’t use Google Home devices in your house or apartment — These devices record everything that occurs in your home, both speech and sounds such as brushing your teeth and boiling water, even when they appear to be inactive, and send that information back to Google. The same goes for Google’s home thermostat Nest and Amazon’s Alexa.
Don’t use an Android cellphone, as it’s owned by Google.
Ditch Siri, which draws all its answers from Google.
Don’t use Fitbit, as it was recently purchased by Google and will provide them with all your physiological information and activity levels, in addition to everything else that Google already has on you.
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There is zero evidence for this lie, and it is a lie that is even more outlandish than the lie that if Vietnam falls to the communists, that will be just the first “domino” and all the others will fall and the Soviet Union and/or communist China will take over the world.
Russia actually had no motivation to invade Ukraine until the U.S. carried out a coup, which overthrew and replaced Ukraine’s neutralist Government and installed a rabidly anti-Russian one in 2014. NATO nations unanimously refused to negotiate with Russia regarding Russia’s longstanding national-security red line against Ukraine — the nation with the nearest border to The Kremlin (Russia’s central command) a mere 317 miles away — ever becoming added to America’s anti-Russian military alliance, NATO. On 7 January 2022 NATO said no to that request by Russia. They wouldn’t even negotiate about it. They were determined to violate that red line of Russia. The only way left to Russia to carry out its red line in this matter that is so essential to Russia’s national security, was to take Ukraine before Ukraine would be taken into NATO and become set up with a U.S. nuclear missile.
Similarly, but in the opposite direction, the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis had U.S. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy refusing to allow the Soviet Union to be permitted by Cuba and to install Soviet missiles that could reach America’s central command in the White House within 30 minutes, but the big difference with Ukraine in that situation — the situation that Cuba was then in — is that Khrushchev was willing to, and did, negotiate with Kennedy about the matter so as to prevent a nuclear war. The other big difference, in this case, is that The Kremlin is only 5 minutes of missile-flying-time away from Ukraine, not 30 minutes, and that the NATO nations refused to negotiate with Russia at all.
After that 7 January 2022 rejection by NATO — refusal even to negotiate about the matter — Russia had a national-security necessity to take action, and nothing less than an invasion of Ukraine could be that required action, It was forced by NATO, upon Russia. The imperialistic aggressive power here is America (the virtual owner of the NATO alliance), NOT Russia. America demands the right to expand its empire to within 5 minutes of Russia’s central command; Russia isn’t threatening to expand its border to within 5 minutes of America’s central command. The U.S. and its colonies blatantly lie about which side is the aggressor against the other side. The very idea that Russia had any interest in invading any of the NATO countries — or even in invading Ukraine prior to America’s February 2014 coup thereturned Ukraine rabidly against Russia — is a vicious and hateful lie, which has its origin in Washington DC and is parroted throughout its empire.
#2 lie: The war in Ukraine started on 24 February 2022.
The U.S. Government had engaged the Gallup polling organization, bothbeforeandafterthecoup,in order to poll Ukrainians, and especially ones who lived in its Crimean independent republic, regarding their views on U.S., Russia, NATO, and the EU; and, generally, Ukrainians were far more pro-Russia than pro-U.S., NATO, or EU, but this was especially the case in Crimea; so, America’s Government knew that Crimeans would be especially resistant. However, this was not really new information. During 2003-2009, only around 20% of Ukrainians had wanted NATO membership, while around 55% opposed it. In 2010, Gallup found that whereas 17% of Ukrainians considered NATO to mean “protection of your country,” 40% said it’s “a threat to your country.” Ukrainians predominantly saw NATO as an enemy, not a friend. But after Obama’s February 2014 Ukrainian coup, “Ukraine’s NATO membership would get 53.4% of the votes, one third of Ukrainians (33.6%) would oppose it.” However, afterward, the support averaged around 45% — still over twice as high as had been the case prior to the coup.
In other words: what Obama did was generally successful, it grabbed Ukraine, or most of it, and it changed Ukrainians’ minds regarding America and Russia. But only after the subsequent passage of time did the American billionaires’ neoconservative heart become successfully grafted into the Ukrainian nation so as to make Ukraine a viable place to position U.S. nuclear missiles against Moscow (which is the U.S. Government’s goal there). Furthermore: America’s rulers also needed to do some work upon U.S. public opinion. Not until February of 2014 — the time of Obama’s coup — did more than 15% of the American public have a “very unfavorable” view of Russia. (Right before Russia invaded Ukraine, that figure had already risen to 42%. America’s press — and academia or public-policy ‘experts’ — have been very effective at managing public opinion, for the benefit of America’s billionaires.)
#4 lie: This is not a war between Ukraine and Russia; it is a war between Europe and Russia.
This is a restatement of lie #1. The truth is that this is a war between the billionaires who control the U.S. Government versus (i.e., their trying ever since 25 July 1945) to conquer (control) Russia, which has more natural resources than any other country. America’s billionaires especially control the top 100 U.S. corporations that sell (mainly weapons) to the U.S. Government and to its colonies (its ‘allied’ Governments); and, so, in order for them to continue growing their respective net worths, these billionaires must control their markets, which are those Governments. And they do it, so that their investment portfolios have been increasing in value even more, far more, than the U.S. stock markets have increased in value. It is their collective business plan.
Not only was NATO created by the U.S. regime in 1949 in order for the regime to be able to conquer Russia, but even the EU was created by the U.S. Government for the same purpose — to conquer Russia. The member-nations both of NATO and of the EU take from the U.S. Government and its agents their instructions regarding their international relations. Europe’s nations have virtually no sovereignty but are mere colonies of their dictator (ever since 25 July 1945), the U.S. regime, which is controlled by its billionaires. America’s aristocracy controls each of its colonies’ aristocracies. There can be no democracy in an empire, and isn’t in this one. This is the reality about the war in Ukraine: it is an imperialistic war by the U.S. regime and its colonies, against Russia, and it is being waged (till now) in the battlefields of Ukraine.
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This article was originally published on The Duran.
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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The Times implies both the Twitter Files reports and my congressional testimony with Michael Shellenberger were strongly influenced by former Trump administration official Mike Benz, whose profile occupies much of the text. Benz is described as a purveyor of “conspiracy theories, like the one about the Pentagon’s use of Taylor Swift,” that are “talking points for many Republicans.” They quote Shellenberger as saying meeting Benz was the “Aha moment,” in our coverage, and the entire premise of the piece is that Benz and other “Trump allies” pushed Michael, me, and the rest of the Twitter Files reporters into aiding a “counteroffensive” in the war against disinformation, helping keep social media a home for “antidemocratic tactics.”
This all has a strong whiff of setup. I have nothing to say against Mike Benz, but let’s set some things straight. As Rutenberg and Lee Myers themselves note, I first talked to Benz in March, 2023. The Twitter Files reports were virtually all done by then. I would publish just two more, one on the day of my testimony, March 9, 2023 (“The Censorship-Industrial Complex”) and one on March 17 (“Stanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of ‘True Stories’”).
Mike was the source for exactly one piece of information in those two stories: a video his Foundation for Freedom Online posted of Stanford Internet Observatory director Alex Stamos, in which Stamos said Stanford’s Election Integrity Partnership was created to “fill the gap of things the government couldn’t do” legally:
This was true, public, and newsworthy, not a “conspiracy theory” about Taylor Swift or anyone else. Did “Trump Allies” force Stamos to put that video on YouTube?
Rutenberg and Lee Myers imply Benz influenced a change in my personal reporting, since I didn’t discover “evidence of direct government involvement” in the first installment of the Twitter Files about the Hunter Biden laptop story:
The author of that dispatch, Mr. Taibbi, concluded that Twitter had limited the coverage amid general warnings from the F.B.I. that Russia could leak hacked materials to try to influence the 2020 election. Though he was critical of previous leadership at Twitter, he reported that he saw no evidence of direct government involvement.
In March 2023, Mr. Benz joined the fray. Both Mr. Taibbi and Mr. Benz participated in a live discussion on Twitter, which was co-hosted by Jennifer Lynn Lawrence, an organizer of the Trump rally that preceded the riot on Jan. 6… As Mr. Taibbi described his work, Mr. Benz jumped in: “I believe I have all of the missing pieces of the puzzle.” There was a far broader “scale of censorship the world has never experienced before,” he told Mr. Taibbi, who made plans to follow up.
Nice try. Though I didn’t find “direct evidence” of government involvement in censorship programs in the first Twitter Files piece, we did discover it, on a grand scale, almost immediately after. Subsequent Twitter Files reports reflected this, including “Twitter, the FBI Subsidiary” from December 16th, 2022, and the “Twitter and Other Government Agencies” story published on Christmas Eve of 2022, the day the IRS opened a case on me.
Shellenberger, Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, and other Twitter Files reporters discovered the key elements of the Twitter Files reports, from the “industry calls” held between the FBI and Internet platforms like Twitter, to the role of Stanford’s Election Integrity Partnership, to the role of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center in sponsoring “anti-disinformation” work, in the first two weeks of research. Our central thesis about state-sponsored censorship was online months before we met Benz. By mid-December 2022, I knew we were looking at a sweeping federal content-control program, and repeated the idea many times. As I wrote on Christmas Eve, 2022:
The files show the FBI acting as doorman to a vast program of social media surveillance and censorship, encompassing agencies across the federal government —from the State Department to the Pentagon to the CIA… The operation is far bigger than the reported 80 members of the Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF)… Twitter had so much contact with so many agencies that executives lost track.
Nonetheless, the gist of today’s Times piece is that Shellenberger and I got this thesis from Benz. They literally wrote it that way, that when I testified to Congress, I was presenting his thesis:
Later, Mr. Shellenberger said that connecting with Mr. Benz had led to “a big aha moment…”
A week after that online meeting, Mr. Taibbi and Mr. Shellenberger appeared on Capitol Hill as star witnesses for the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Mr. Benz sat behind them, listening as they detailed parts of his central thesis: This was not an imperfect attempt to balance free speech with democratic rights but a state-sponsored thought-policing system.
Michael, Bari, Lee, David Zweig and others involved with the Twitter Files project have been subject to a lot of silly smear jobs in the last year-plus, but this piece of deep state fan fiction in the Times is low even by their standards. It’s clearly intended to re-cast the outing of federal censorship initiatives as Trumpian conspiracy theory before oral arguments begin in Murthy v. Missouri tomorrow.
As the Times notes, this is one of “the most important First Amendment cases of the internet age,” and “could curtail the government’s latitude in monitoring content online.” Originally filed by the Attorneys General of Louisiana and Missouri, the lawsuit “accuses federal officials of colluding with or coercing the platforms to censor content critical of the government.”
The reason the government faces such danger is because two lower courts have already affirmed the core accusation that multiple Executive Branch agencies, including the White House and the FBI, violated the First Amendment when they engaged in mass-flagging programs of the type identified in both the Twitter Files and the original Missouri v. Biden complaint. After these lower court decisions, the Times notes with sadness, “the Biden administration has largely abandoned moves that might be construed as stifling political speech,” facing as it now does the specter of “legal and political blowback.”
The administration faces this blowback because the story about the censorship programs is true. The Times didn’t bother trying to argue we got anything wrong. It just said we knew Benz, showed a picture of him sitting behind Shellenberger as he testified, then said things like “More recently, Mr. Benz originated the false assertion that Taylor Swift was a ‘psychological operation’ asset for the Pentagon,” as if that had something to do with us. It’s Six Degrees of Misinformation.
Rutenberg two election cycles ago authored the seminal article on “oppositional” journalism in the Trump age. “Trump is Testing the Norms of Objectivity in Journalism” came out in summer of 2016, and was hugely influential. It said Trump was such a threat that the job going forward could no longer just be about reporting facts, but reporting facts that will “stand up to history’s judgment.”
Now he’s arguing the exposure of censorship programs is “paralyzing” official efforts to police social media, the medium that was “central to [Trump’s] political success.” Apparently misleading the public about my reporting is the new version of staying on the right side of “history’s judgment.” Let’s hope the Supreme Court doesn’t get distracted by these hysterics. Is there any doubt that’s what this story is designed to accomplish?
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Kinmen is a handful of small Islands with a total of under 130,000 people under Taiwan’s control. Kinmen is situated more than 150 km away from Taiwan, only 2 km away from mainland China. It only takes a quick view of the map (below) to understand that Kinmen is indefensible for Taiwan. China can with ease can take Kinmen with little or no bloodshed at any time.
Kinmen already earns massively from tourist visitors from China. Kinmen has asked China to build a bridge to increase the number of tourists, and to build a pipe to supply Kinmen with freshwater from the mainland. There have also been talks about making Kinmen a free-trade zone for China. Relations between the people on Kinmen and on mainland China are very fruitful. No reason for Beijing to let Taipei administer Kinmen in the future.
Some months ago, the US stationed troops on Kinmen, ostensibly “non-combat” troops for training the Taiwanese forces.
Taiwan has now officially acknowledged the presence of US troops on Kinmen. In addition to US troops on Kinmen, tensions China-Taiwan are heating up in the waters around Kinmen. It started with an “incident” where mainland fishermen died. Since then, China is stepping up maritime and aerial pressure on Kinmen.
Very little word from mainland China about what really happened during the fatal accident where two mainland fishermen died at the beginning of March 2024. The background could be anything – including a planned build-up to pressure Taipei and Washington, or even to outright overtake Kinmen.
China is officially (still) “only” using its Coast Guard to patrol Kinmen. But note, that China’s “Coast Guard” is stronger than most navies in the World.
The leading Chinese “Coast Guard Ship” around Kinmen is actually a big Frigate transferred from the Chinese Navy to the Coast guard. It would be extremely easy for China to invade and seize control of Kinmen. China wouldn’t even need to use its navy or military – China could simply declare “unrest” on Kinmen and use the Coast Guard and the Chinese police to “restore order” under Beijing’s control. In which case, US troops on Kinmen would be of course be captured as prisoners, not of war, but as suspects of helping an unlawful uprising against Beijing. There is absolutely nothing neither Taipei nor Washington could do to hold on to Kinmen under such a scenario.
US firing weapons in anger against China for taking Kinmen? Forget it. US blockading all China’s sea routes or the US stopping all Chinese exports to the US for the sake of Kinmen? No, come on. Besides, Taiwan depends fully on mainland China for its food and energy supplies. A few ridiculous US sanctions, that would be all.
The Chinese leadership in Beijing is holding back a lot. But for sure, Beijing already got extremely angered when it surfaced 7 October 2021 that US troops have been present on Taiwan for over a year. Beijing got even more upset again, when Biden then just about doubled the US number of troops on Taiwan. So, when the US in only months ago moved some of those its troops from Taiwan island to the Kinmen islands, only a couple of kilometers from China’s coast, there is no doubt that this was seen as an extreme provocation by Beijing. US troops on Kinmen serve no military purpose, they only represent a bunch of potential prisoners to be captured by China in any situation. US leaders are not the sharpest in the World. The provocation of the US placing its troops on Chinese soil (Kinmen like Taiwan is part of China) of course comes on top of all the other things the US has done, especially under Biden, to anger Beijing by moving Taiwan towards de-facto independence.
Anger in Beijing aside – take a look at the broader picture. What other options does China have to physically move towards reunification with Taiwan? An outright invasion of Taiwan is possible and would succeed, even if the US entered a war on Taiwan’ side. But a war is also costly in terms of lives and treasure. Better to do some upscaling steps first. More plausible is a Chinese blockade of Taiwan, though that is also a big step.
So how about a quickie? An invasion of Kinmen will be fast and could be very beneficial for Beijing. Taking Kinmen, Beijing will show that it is serious about reunification – that signal will be an earthquake on Taiwan and in the USA. And China taking some US troops prisoner on Kinmen and displaying them to the World would humiliate the USA.
Angered by the USA, seizing Kinmen must be very tempting indeed for Beijing.
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Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.
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Russia just wrapped up three days of electoral processes which will define the internal direction of that nation for the next six years and, in doing so, serve as the driving force of global transformation for decades to come. Russia has some 112.3 million registered voters. From March 15 through March 17, a little more than 77% of them came out and cast their vote for who would be their president for the next six years. An overwhelming percentage—over 88%—cast their vote for the incumbent, Vladimir Putin.
Let there be no doubt—there was no question as to what the outcome would be in this election: Vladimir Putin was always going to win reelection.
Let there also be no doubt—the 2024 presidential election in Russia is the most important political event of the post-Cold War era, the byproduct of one of the greatest expressions of democratic will that the world will see in modern times.
The election was far more than a vote of confidence in an individual—Vladimir Putin has been the dominant political force in Russia since the turn of the century, a man who has, through sheer force of will, led Russia out of the dark catastrophe of the 1990’s, positioning Russia as one of the most powerful and influential nations of the modern era.
The election was not a mandate on the war in Ukraine—that issue had been decided in the fall of 2022, when Russia was compelled to mobilize its manpower and military industrial capacity as what had been envisioned as a short military campaign against Ukraine transformed into a larger, longer military struggle against the collective West.
Simply put, the Ukraine conflict was not on the ballot in 2024.
What was on the ballot was the future of Russia.
Vladimir Putin is 71 years old. His victory secures him another six-year term in office. When this term ends, in 2030, Putin will be 77 years old.
Russians are students of history, and they know too well the sad legacy of the period of Soviet stagnation, which began in the mid-1960’s under the leadership of Leonid Brezhnev. Brezhnev was 75 years old when he died in office, a mentally and physically feeble man. He was replaced by Yuri Andropov, who died two years later at the age of 69, only to be replaced by Konstantin Chernenko, who died in 1985 at the age of 73.
There is no reason to believe that Vladimir Putin will not maintain his current level of physical health and mental acuity for the remainder of his new term in office. But all men are, in the end, created equal, and the ravages of time weigh heavily on everyone, even someone as exceptional as Vladimir Putin.
For the past quarter of a century, Vladimir Putin has relied upon a core team of advisors and officials to help him lead Russia on its path of recovery. While this team has proven to be very capable, it, too, is subject to the same laws of nature that govern human existence as everyone else—ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
No man can live forever.
Russia, however, is in the minds of the people who constitute the Russian nation, eternal.
Having saved Russia from the deprivations of the 1990’s, when the collective West, led by the United States, conspired to keep Russia down by tearing it apart, Vladimir Putin is cognizant of the lessons of history which saw what happens when a ruling elite holds on to power for too long without any thought as to who will take their place.
Mikhail Gorbachev tried to lead Russia (the Soviet Union) out of the period of Soviet stagnation. He did so in a reactive fashion, without a well-thought-out plan, and the result was the collapse of the Soviet Union and the horrible decade of the 1990’s.
If Vladimir Putin were to approach the next six years as merely a continuation of his impressive tenure in office, he would be leading Russia down a path where it would collide with the harsh mistress that is historical precedent—an aging man, at the head of an aging system of government, with no clear plan on how to proceed when the inevitable appointment with destiny arrives.
In short, should the situation arise where Vladimir Putin feels compelled to seek an additional six-year term as Russia’s president in 2030, then Russia would more than likely find itself in danger of sinking into a new period of stagnation where the gains that have been made over the course of three decades of Putin rule will be squandered, and the potential of a societal collapse on par with the 1990’s a distinct reality.
This is why the important statistic to emerge from the 2024 Russian presidential election is not the 88% of the voters who marked their ballots in support of Vladimir Putin, but instead the 77% of the eligible voters who came out to express their support for the Russian state. Voter participation levels have always been seen as a reflection of the confidence a particular electorate had that the system of government they were sustaining through their vote best reflected the vision they themselves had of the nation they lived in.
By way of comparison, the 2020 presidential election in the United States saw a record-level 66% participation rate by eligible voters.
The 2024 presidential election in Russia beat that mark by 11 percentage points.
This means that the Russian people are confident that the 71-year-old Vladimir Putin will not be leading them down a path of historical inevitability where they are destined to repeat the mistakes of the past. Rather, the Russian people, confident in where Vladimir Putin has taken them to date, believe that he is the man who will best position Russia to be able to sustain these gains, and continue to prosper, in an eventual post-Putin Russia.
The 2024 Russian presidential election was a not a vote to maintain the status quo.
It was a vote for change.
The man that will oversee this change is Vladimir Putin.
Post-election rally in Red Square following Vladimir Putin’s victory in the 2024 presidential election
In the coming months, one can expect to see the beginning of a changing of the guard. The Russian leaders who helped Putin get Russia to where it is today will be set aside, to be replaced by a younger generation of Russian leaders who will, under the guidance and leadership of Vladmir Putin, prepare Russia for whatever challenges that await it once Vladimir Putin is no longer president.
How this change will manifest itself—perhaps a transition from a Moscow-centric political elite to one derived from the various regions of Russia—is as yet unknown. But there will be change, because there must be change.
And this change was on the ballot.
The West derided the 2024 Russian presidential election as a sham.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The 2024 Russian presidential election was the manifestation of a thriving democracy, but a democracy defined by Russians.
The West focuses on the 88% of the Russians who voted for Vladimir Putin and derides the result as little more than a foregone conclusion in a system that offered the people only one real choice.
Russian democracy, however, is defined by the 77% level of electoral participation, and reflects the confidence of the people in the Russian state’s ability to take them from the strong position that Vladimir Putin has brought them and sustain this strength in a post-Putin era.
It was not a vote defined by recertifying the past, but rather a vote which empowered the government to undertake the critical changes needed for the future of the Russian nation.
It was the perfect expression of democracy, Russian style.
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France appears increasingly willing to face a large-scale conflict. In a recent speech, a high-ranking French military officer stated that his country is “prepared” for a possible situation of war in Europe, praising the current status of the French armed forces. In practice, this type of statement sounds like irresponsible propaganda and provocation amid the current context of tensions, as France seems on the verge of directly engaging in hostilities in Ukraine.
The information was revealed by the chief of staff of the French Army General Pierre Schill during an interview. At the time, Schill stated that French troops are “ready” to face any scenario of military escalation. According to Schill, “whatever the developments in the international situation, the French can be convinced: their soldiers will respond.”
Schill stated that Paris is committed to major “international responsibilities” within the scope of the treaties to which it is a signatory. These treaties, in the general’s opinion, are severely threatened by current global circumstances, which places France at strong risk of involvement in an armed conflict. Faced with this “threat”, the country “needs to be prepared” – and he believes that such preparation is already sufficiently advanced, believing that the country’s troops are able to defend French interests at any time.
Schill believes that a mere nuclear deterrent capacity is not enough to guarantee French interests. For him, this type of military power does not guarantee French victory in smaller-scale conflicts, where the use of these weapons is unlikely. So, rather than simply investing in nuclear development, Schill believes that the French focus must be on increasing inter-operational capacity with allied countries.
At first, Schill’s words could be interpreted as a mere act of propaganda to praise his country’s military capacity. However, the current moment makes it clear that the general’s intentions are much more than mere propaganda. In practice, Schill is endorsing the war plans previously suggested by French President Emmanul Macron, whose rhetoric on Ukraine has become more and more aggressive.
Macron has refused to rule out sending French troops to Ukraine. He also stated that the Russian defeat is vital for France, which is why every effort should be made to ensure a “Ukrainian victory”. With the failure of the policy of sending weapons and money, the discussion about directly sending troops has grown – and Macron has acted ambiguously, suggesting support for the project, while publicly denying that there are plans for such a deployment in the near future.
In parallel, Russian intelligence announced that it had obtained data proving that Paris is already keeping at least two thousand soldiers ready to be sent to Ukraine. It is believed that these troops are being prepared to work in specific areas in which the West wants to avoid Russian advances at any cost – such as Odessa. As expected, Macron’s team denied the existence of such a plan, but the aggressive speeches towards Russia did not change, therefore keeping tensions between both countries in a very critical situation.
Obviously, sending Western troops to the Ukrainian battlefield would practically be a declaration of war on the Russian Federation. French soldiers and equipment on Ukrainian soil would be legitimate targets and Moscow would certainly attack them with priority. In other words, to ensure its selfish interests of “leading Europe”, Paris is deliberately escalating rivalries with Russia to a dangerous level that could lead to nuclear war.
However, it is necessary to be skeptical of Schill’s propaganda. It is unlikely that France is truly prepared for any prolonged conflict situation on European soil. No European country is currently in a sufficiently strong military preparedness to face an all-out war with Russia, since Moscow’s military superiority is a fact widely recognized among experts.
It is very possible that Schill’s words are just meaningless rhetoric, intended to intimidate Russia and boost French morale. This may be said as a bluff intended to induce Russia into violent reactions in order to justify France’s militarization. Finally, given Russian patience and the European people’s objection to supporting the war, it is necessary for Western warmongers to create constant “psyops” and “false flags” that legitimize military action. So, perhaps the objective is simply to induce Moscow to act reactively – which is not likely to happen, considering the Russians’ history of caution and diplomacy.
However, the French must be careful not to be deceived by their own narratives. Given the high level of bellicosity in the country, Paris’ decision-makers are likely to begin to believe not only that such a “Russian threat” is real, but also that France is actually “ready for war” – which would enable them to launch measures that would lead continental security to ruin.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on X (former Twitter) and Telegram. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).
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Tyrants don’t like people who speak truth to power.
Cue the rise of protest laws, which take the government’s intolerance for free speech to a whole new level and send the resounding message that resistance is futile.
Weaponized by police, prosecutors, courts and legislatures, these protest laws, along with free speech zones, bubble zones, trespass zones, anti-bullying legislation, zero tolerance policies, hate crime laws, and a host of other legalistic maladies have become a convenient means by which to punish individuals who refuse to be muzzled.
In Florida, for instance, legislators passed a “no-go” zone law making it punishable by up to 60 days in jail to remain within 25 feet of working police and other first responders after a warning.
Yet while the growing numbers of protest laws cropping up across the country are sold to the public as necessary to protect private property, public roads or national security, they are a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a thinly disguised plot to discourage anyone from challenging government authority at the expense of our First Amendment rights.
It doesn’t matter what the source of that discontent might be (police brutality, election outcomes, COVID-19 mandates, the environment, etc.): protest laws, free speech zones, no-go zones, bubble zones, trespass zones, anti-bullying legislation, zero tolerance policies, hate crime laws, etc., aim to muzzle every last one of us.
No matter how you package these laws, no matter how well-meaning they may sound, no matter how much you may disagree with the protesters or sympathize with the objects of the protest, these proposed laws are aimed at one thing only: discouraging dissent.
This is the painful lesson being imparted with every incident in which someone gets arrested and charged with any of the growing number of contempt charges (ranging from resisting arrest and interference to disorderly conduct, obstruction, and failure to obey a police order) that get trotted out anytime a citizen voices discontent with the government or challenges or even questions the authority of the powers-that-be.
These assaults on free speech are nothing new.
As Human Rights Watch points out, “Various states have long-tried to curtail the right to protest. They do so by legislating wide definitions of what constitutes an ‘unlawful assembly’ or a ‘riot’ as well as increasing punishments. They also allow police to use catch-all public offenses, such as trespassing, obstructing traffic, or disrupting the peace, as a pretext for ordering dispersals, using force, and making arrests. Finally, they make it easier for corporations and others to bring lawsuits against protest organizers.”
Journalists have come under particular fire for exercising their right to freedom of the press.
According to U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, the criminalization of routine journalism has become a means by which the government chills lawful First Amendment activity.
Journalists have been arrested or faced dubious charges for “publishing,” asking too many questions of public officials, being “rude” for reporting during a press conference, and being in the vicinity of public protests and demonstrations.
It’s gotten so bad that merely daring to question, challenge or hesitate when a cop issues an order can get you charged with resisting arrest or disorderly conduct.
Philadelphia lawyer Rebecca Musarra was arrested for exercising her right to remain silent and refusing to answer questions posed by a police officer during a routine traffic stop. (Note: she cooperated in every other way by providing license and registration, etc.)
These incidents reflect a growing awareness about the state of free speech in America: you may have distinct, protected rights on paper, but dare to exercise those rights, and you risk fines, arrests, injuries and even death.
Unfortunately, we have been circling this particular drain hole for some time now.
More than 50 years ago, U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas took issue with the idea that merely speaking to a government representative (a right enshrined in the First Amendment) could be perceived as unlawfully inconveniencing and annoying the police.
In a passionate defense of free speech, Douglas declared:
Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? The constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns, the state and federal officials only our agents. We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we need not stay docile and quiet. The situation might have indicated that Colten’s techniques were ill-suited to the mission he was on, that diplomacy would have been more effective. But at the constitutional level speech need not be a sedative; it can be disruptive.
It’s a power-packed paragraph full of important truths that the powers-that-be would prefer we quickly forget: We the people are the sovereigns. We have the final word. We can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy. We need not stay docile and quiet. Our speech can be disruptive. It can invite dispute. It can be provocative and challenging. We do not have to bow submissively to authority or speak with reverence to government officials.
In theory, Douglas was right: “we the people” do have a constitutional right to talk back to the government.
In practice, however, we live in an age in which “we the people” are at the mercy of militarized, weaponized, immunized cops who have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to “serve and protect.”
As such, those who seek to exercise their First Amendment rights during encounters with the police are increasingly finding that there is no such thing as freedom of speech.
Case in point: Tony Rupp, a lawyer in Buffalo, NY, found himself arrested and charged with violating the city’s noise ordinance after cursing at an SUV bearing down on pedestrians on a busy street at night with its lights off. Because that unmarked car was driven by a police officer, that’s all it took for Rupp to find himself subjected to malicious prosecution, First Amendment retaliation and wrongful arrest.
The case, as Jesse McKinley writes in The New York Times, is part of a growing debate over “how citizens can criticize public officials at a time of widespread reevaluation of the lengths and limits of free speech. That debate has raged everywhere from online forums and college campuses to protests over racial bias in law enforcement and the Israel-Hamas war. Book bans and other acts of government censorship have troubled some First Amendment experts. Last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments about a pair of laws — in Florida and Texas — limiting the ability of social media companies such as Facebook to ban certain content from their platforms.”
Bottom line: what the architects of the police state want are submissive, compliant, cooperative, obedient, meek citizens who don’t talk back, don’t challenge government authority, don’t speak out against government misconduct, and don’t resist.
What the First Amendment protects—and a healthy constitutional republic requires—are citizens who routinely exercise their right to speak truth to power.
Yet there can be no free speech for the citizenry when the government speaks in a language of force.
What is this language of force?
Militarized police. Riot squads. Camouflage gear. Black uniforms. Armored vehicles. Mass arrests. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Batons. Strip searches. Surveillance cameras. Kevlar vests. Drones. Lethal weapons.Less-than-lethal weapons unleashed with deadly force. Rubber bullets. Water cannons. Stun grenades. Arrests of journalists. Crowd control tactics. Intimidation tactics. Brutality. Contempt of cop charges.
This is not the language of freedom. This is not even the language of law and order.
Unfortunately, this is how the government at all levels—federal, state and local—now responds to those who choose to exercise their First Amendment right to speak freely.
If we no longer have the right to tell a Census Worker to get off our property, if we no longer have the right to tell a police officer to get a search warrant before they dare to walk through our door, if we no longer have the right to stand in front of the Supreme Court wearing a protest sign or approach an elected representative to share our views, if we no longer have the right to protest unjust laws by voicing our opinions in public or on our clothing or before a legislative body, then we do not have free speech.
What we have instead is regulated, controlled, censored speech, and that’s a whole other ballgame.
Remember, the unspoken freedom enshrined in the First Amendment is the right to challenge government agents, think freely and openly debate issues without being muzzled or treated like a criminal.
Americans are being brainwashed into believing that anyone who wears a government uniform—soldier, police officer, prison guard—must be obeyed without question.
Of course, the Constitution takes a far different position, but does anyone in the government even read, let alone abide by, the Constitution anymore?
The government does not want us to remember that we have rights, let alone attempting to exercise those rights peaceably and lawfully. And it definitely does not want us to engage in First Amendment activities that challenge the government’s power, reveal the government’s corruption, expose the government’s lies, and encourage the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices.
Yet by muzzling the citizenry, by removing the constitutional steam valves that allow people to speak their minds, air their grievances and contribute to a larger dialogue that hopefully results in a more just world, the government is creating a climate in which violence becomes inevitable.
When there is no First Amendment steam valve, then frustration builds, anger grows and people become more volatile and desperate to force a conversation.
As John F. Kennedy warned, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
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