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What has been taking place in Gaza during the last nine months is one of the most horrible man-made and entirely avoidable human tragedies. This tragedy is still continuing although it can be stopped any day if there is sincerity for peace and high commitment to peace on the part of the aggressors and their weapon suppliers.

For the record, over 38,000 people have died and thousands of unidentified persons are reported to be buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings. Over 80,000 people are reported to be injured in very painful ways while proper medical help has become extremely difficult to access. Hunger in extreme forms, deprivation of housing in extreme weather conditions, denial of clean drinking water and sanitation, spread of disease and repeated displacement have been reported extensively among others by UN sources. People of Gaza time and again get arbitrary instructions from Israeli military forces to move from one place to another.

Most people have been displaced at least once and some have been displaced about 9 times in 9 months. On the basis of the reasonable assumption that due to all these factors the indirect mortality related to the Israeli attack is about four times the directly caused mortality, the total mortality related to this aggression is close to 200,000 or two hundred thousand in a very small region with a total population of around just about 2.3 million at the start of the attack. At the same time, the Palestinian population in the sister territory of West Bank has also faced increasing aggression resulting in many tragic deaths.

Amazingly, this horrible tragedy has taken place in a small region which is surrounded by much bigger and well-endowed Arab countries. As expected, there have been a lot of shrill voices condemning this aggression. But rhetoric without real action is meaningless and isolated actions without real results also mean nothing when such a great human tragedy is unfolding day by day. What is more, it appears that although many responsible Israelis also oppose this unjust war, the Israeli prime minister appears to be bent on prolonging it due to reasons which are increasingly seen to be related to his own selfish interests.

Panelists speak at ‘The War on Gaza: What’s Next for Palestine?’ event, hosted by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians, on 30 October 2023 (MEE)

So should Arab countries not take more united and firm action to stop the horrible atrocities and human rights violations in Gaza which have been described as genocidal actions by many well informed observers? Here it should be added that the International Court of Justice has found it ‘plausible’ that Israel has committed acts that violate the Genocide Convention in Gaza. 

Please do not misunderstand me. I am not at all speaking of any armed intervention by neighboring Arab countries. In fact this writer has been consistently writing against any widening of existing conflicts. In addition this writer is also very firmly against all acts of terrorist violence. What this writer is pleading for here is the achievement of much greater firmness, unity and continuity in the peaceful efforts and actions of Arab countries to stop the horrible killings and human right violations by Israel in Gaza.

The Arab countries should get over all their other differences to speak with completely one voice and united voice to try to end this most horrible violence as early as possible.  In terms of their many joint meetings and declarations they should very clearly convey the message that firstly, the entire Arab world is united in demanding an immediate end to this terrible aggression and secondly, that the Arab world will not rest till this aim is achieved. This united action should also convey this message that those who are leading weapon suppliers for this aggression will not be considered as a friend. For balance, this message should make it clear that as long as Israel is peaceful and causes no harm to Palestinians, the Arab countries are happy to live peacefully with Israel.

Such increasing unity and firmness in the Arab world reflected in a series of continuing actions will certainly have a much bigger influence and will be much more effective in achieving the desired results compared to the isolated, weak and indecisive actions for the support of the cause of Gaza that have taken place so far particularly in the bigger and more influential Arab countries. These efforts should be made in transparent ways in the form of open declarations made jointly by all Arab countries, and the Arab people should be free to voice support for these declarations in peaceful ways at the street level. One important meeting calling for immediate end of aggression should lead to yet another effort and so on till the desired result of durable ceasefire and peace is achieved, to be followed by very large-scale relief and rehabilitation effort for the people of Gaza and of course the release of all Israeli hostages (who should never have been taken as hostages in the first place). 

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Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, Man over Machine and A Day in 2071.     

Featured image: Yazan al-Kafarna is one of the latest to die of hunger and malnutrition in Gaza since the start of the war on 7 October (Screengrab/X)

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***

The next President of the United States will likely be called upon to decide about engaging in a nuclear conflict. This doesn’t have to be our future.

It’s time to get real, America.

Election Day 2024, November 5, is rapidly approaching, and the reality is that the person who wins will either have an R or a D next to his or her name.

Many Americans support a candidate with an I or a G next to their names.

But these candidates won’t win the White House.

A vote for those candidates is little more than a protest vote.

The time for protest is over.

It is now the time for action.

America is fundamentally divided over who should occupy the White House for the next four years.

If you support the D candidate, you think the R candidate, who previously served as President for four years, was the worst President in American history.

And if you support the R candidate, you think the same about the current D candidate.

The reality is, however, that America survived four years of the R guy.

And so far, we have survived four years of the D guy.

And it is highly likely that we will survive the next four years as well, regardless of who wins.

Unless there is a nuclear war.

Then we all die.

There are many issues confronting America today.

All of them are important.

Most of them divide us.

None are of immediate existential concern.

Nuclear war is an immediate existential threat to our existence.

And yet this issue is not being discussed or debated in the lead-up to the November 5 elections.

As such, no matter who we put in the White House, America will face the real probability of nuclear war during their term in office.

And we all die.

So, the question we all face as Americans is what are we willing to do to prevent this outcome?

What would you do to save Democracy?

What would you do to save America?

What would you do to save the World?

The answer? By making your vote count in November.

Make your vote about the one issue which is literally life and death—preventing a nuclear war by promoting peace.

How?

By pledging your vote to the single issue of preventing nuclear war and promoting peace.

By avoiding the trap presented by political party or personality.

By declaring that your vote will go to the candidate that best articulates a policy designed to avoid nuclear war and promote peace.

This election will be decided by tens of thousands of voters spread out among several critical battleground states.

If enough Americans commit their vote to the issue of preventing nuclear war and promoting peace so that they constitute a constituency capable of swinging a state to the candidate that earns their vote by promulgating such a policy, then we have a chance to put someone in the White House who won’t kill us all by getting us involved in a nuclear conflict once he or she is elected.

The 1986 Doomsday Map

In 1986, scientists from the Institute of Medicine published a study exploring the potential impact of a nuclear strike on the continental United States.

The study highlighted the most dangerous zones produced by such a strike on a map, indicating areas where radiation exposure would surpass 3,500 rads. “Within this region… more than three-quarters of the population would die,” the study concluded.

“It is our hope,” the authors of the study declared, “that national decision-makers will develop a better understanding of the ‘collateral’ consequences of hypothetical first strikes and of the enormous destructive capacity of the weapons that would survive. That understanding should make them less likely to seek counterforce capabilities or to fear such attacks from the other side.”

In 1987, the US and Soviet Union signed the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, a foundational arms control agreement which eliminated entire categories of nuclear missiles and set the stage for even larger reductions in the strategic nuclear arsenals of the respective sides.

Today the INF treaty is no more. The last strategic arms control treaty is set to expire. There are no new arms control negotiations. Both the US and Russia are building new nuclear weapons as part of an arms race that has the world on the cusp of general nuclear war.

The next President of the United States will more than likely be faced with a decision regarding whether or not to enter into a nuclear conflict with Russia.

So, I ask again:

What would you do to save Democracy?

What would you do to save America?

What would you do to save the World?

What would you do to make your vote count in November?

By supporting Operation DAWN, you will have the opportunity to accomplish all these tasks.

Operation DAWN is a nationwide event designed to garner a million-plus pledges by American voters to make preventing nuclear war and promoting peace the single issue upon which they will cast their vote come December.

Join us in Kingston, New York on September 28, at one of our satellite locations throughout America, or online through one of our affiliated podcasts.

Help save your future.

For more information and updates, visit ScottRitter.com.

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Featured image is from the author

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***

In late October 2023, the Pentagon announced—to the surprise of many, including congressional staffers who work on these issues—that it was pursuing a new nuclear weapon to be known as the B61-13, a gravity bomb.

This is a troubling development for many reasons. First, it is merely the latest in a long line of new nuclear weapons that the United States is building or proposing, in yet another sign that a new nuclear arms race is expanding. In addition, it breaks a promise the Obama administration made to eliminate almost all types of US nuclear gravity bombs, while further undermining President Biden’s pledge to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in US security. Most tragically, it further cements an absolute commitment on the part of the United States to retain nuclear deterrence as the centerpiece of its security policy for decades to come. While most of us hope the world can eventually stop relying on the threat of mass murder at a global scale as the basis for international security, the B61-13 moves everyone further away from that day.

Starting from the top, here is the entire, vast set of new nuclear bombs and warheads the United States recently developed or is pursuing: 

• The Trump administration’s new “low-yield” warhead, deployed on sea-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) carried by US submarines, with an estimated explosive yield roughly one-third the size of the gravity bomb dropped on Hiroshima. “Low-yield” is a relative term; this warhead could still kill tens of thousands in an instant.
• The new, more lethal B61-12 gravity bomb that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) recently started producing, after many years of delay (and with each bomb costing more than its weight in gold).
• The updated warhead for the stealthy air-launched cruise missile first proposed by the Obama administration, ideally suited to start a nuclear war.
• A variant of that cruise missile warhead for a sea-launched cruise missile that a) the Trump administration proposed, b) the Biden administration is trying to cancel, but c) Congress recently required the administration to pursue.
• The precedent-setting warhead for land-based missiles that, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, will be made entirely from new components, with nothing being reused except the basic design of the warhead.
• The momentous new warhead for submarine-launched ballistic missiles, the first entirely new bomb since the end of the Cold War, with both the components and the design of the weapon made anew.
• The B61-13.

All these new bombs and warheads are just part of a massive rebuilding of the entire US nuclear arsenal, which also includes new long-range, land-based missiles, new submarines, new stealthy, long-range bombers that will carry the new stealthy cruise missiles mentioned above, and major upgrades to the missiles carried by the submarines. The total cost to do all that while maintaining the existing weapons will be well over $1.2 trillion during the next 25 years.

In short, a new nuclear arms race is exploding across the globe, and while the Biden administration has not announced plans to increase the size of its nuclear arsenal (despite bipartisan pressure to do so), it is racing to climb what is often called a “modernization mountain”—a journey that will certainly take longer and cost far more than currently projected, all to produce a vastly oversized nuclear stockpile that everyone hopes will never be used.

The broken promise. There is a second and compounding problem with the B61-13: It breaks a promise made during the Obama administration to eliminate all but one of the types of US gravity bombs. Specifically, to win support for the B61-12­—a new guided gravity bomb the Pentagon and NNSA badly wanted—the Obama administration proposed to retire the B61-3, B61-4, B61-7, B61-10, B61-11, and the B83 gravity bombs, trading six weapons for one. Unfortunately, since its inception the B61-12 has faced major cost overruns and years of delays. The NNSA initially said the bomb would cost $4 billion, then quickly raised the tab to $8 billion, while the Pentagon initially estimated it at $10 billion. The actual cost, including work the Air Force is doing, will be as much as $14 billion. The NNSA initially projected it would begin making the bombs in 2017, while the Pentagon said it would be 2022 before work started. The Pentagon was right, with the B61-12 finally entering production late in 2022.

On top of all the cost increases and delays, the associated commitment to retire the six other gravity bombs is changing significantly.

First, it is not clear the B61-11 will be retired at all; planning documents no longer include it as something the B61-12 will replace. That variant is designed to penetrate into the Earth, to attack hardened and deeply buried targets. No administration has ever explained why it was removed from the retirement list; it simply stopped being included on it. Second, the sole bright spot is the B61-10, but oddly so. Although the bomb’s retirement was tied to starting production of the B61-12, the B61-10 was removed from the stockpile in 2016. Apparently, it really was not needed at all, regardless of the B61-12.

More dangerously, the decision to retire the B83—by far the most destructive weapon in the US nuclear stockpile—was reversed by the Trump administration. The B83 has an explosive yield of some 1.2 megatons—or 80 times larger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. In a simulation developed by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS, where I work), dropping one bomb like the B83 on a nuclear facility in Iran would kill over three million people and spread deadly radiation across Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. It is this behemoth that the Trump administration declared its intention to keep “until a suitable replacement is identified.” Fortunately, the Biden administration reversed the reversal, and the B83 is currently on a path to be retired at some point, though the plan for when that will happen is classified.  (Unfortunately, election results this year could again change that outcome.)

In the meantime, the Biden administration has announced the B61-13.

Significantly, this new bomb will be based on the B61-7, the most destructive of the B61 variants, with a maximum yield of 360 kilotons, or 24 times more devastating than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Just to remind you, that one bomb killed 70,000 to 140,000 people. In other words, the B61-13 will be massively destructive, accompanied by immense and widespread fallout. In other other words, this is yet another tool for nuclear warfighting—or, more specifically, seeking to win a nuclear war.

That mission should not exist. Indeed, as five of the countries with nuclear weapons—the United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom—have declared, “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

Yet fighting and winning a nuclear war is precisely the goal of developing the B61-13. There are, apparently, specific targets that this more powerful gravity bomb can hold at risk—ones that cannot reliably be destroyed with the B61-12, despite its vastly increased accuracy in comparison to existing gravity bombs. But existing nuclear warheads on submarine-based missiles can already hold those same targets at risk. So the B61-13, it turns out, is just another option to blow up something the Pentagon can already destroy, and many times over. In fact, each US nuclear-armed submarine carries seven times the destructive power of all the bombs dropped during World War II, including the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan.

The scope of the mistake. Coming from a Biden administration that pledged to seek to reduce the role of nuclear weapons, with a president who, as a candidate for office, declared his support for the policy that the United States would never use nuclear weapons first in any conflict, the decision to pursue the B61-13 is not only deeply disappointing, but a profound mistake. In short, the B61-13 is yet another sign that the United States intends to make its nuclear arsenal even more deadly and the foundational element of the existing security system. That system is based on the principle that this country, to keep itself “safe,” needs to be able to kill tens or hundreds of millions of people in less than an hour.

On moral grounds, and under international law, that prospect alone should be evidence enough to conclude that such an approach to security is grievously wrong, and that the United States should do everything it can to move away from that system.

But the reality is far worse, because Russia already has and China is now moving toward nuclear arsenals that will give them similar capabilities. Even with their vastly smaller arsenals, the other six nuclear weapons states—the UK, France, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea—also have the capacity to kill tens of millions of people in hours. That horrible reality is the basis of the world’s security system. If everyone can kill everyone else, and no one can be safe from that threat, then—in the supreme irony of nuclear deterrence—everyone is supposed to be safe.

The mutual assured destruction precept of deterrence theory is ludicrous. For such a system to make sense, it would have to work perfectly and for all time.If it doesn’t, then we are all dead.What human system has ever worked perfectly for any significant length of time? In just one example of far too many, nuclear war was barely averted when a Russian officer refused to go along with two colleagues who wanted to use a nuclear-armed torpedo against US Navy ships harassing their submarine at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. As has been noted, it was as much luck as careful choices that avoided the start of a nuclear war that would almost certainly have spiraled out of control.

Rather than develop a new nuclear weapon that adds fuel to a rapidly growing arms race, the Biden administration should launch a concerted effort to rid the world of nuclear weapons. It should publicly announce this intention, invite representatives from other nuclear-armed states to the table, and begin talks about what would be required to eliminate nuclear weapons from Earth. In an ideal world, we could turn the tragedy of the B61-13 into the launching point for a global effort to push for that outcome.

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Stephen Young is a senior Washington representative for the Global Security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Featured image: A US F-35A combat aircraft tests an unarmed B61-12 bomb in the Nevada Desert. Source: Sandia National Laboratory

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Through persistent, systematic, and widespread targeting of the Gaza Strip’s water sources and desalination plants, Israel is using water as a weapon against Palestinian civilians. In addition to imposing famine, Israel is deliberately reducing the amount of water available to residents of the Strip—especially potable water sources—intentionally targeting the over 2.3 million people who live there as part of its genocide, ongoing since last October. 

On Monday, July 1, the Euro-Med Monitor field team observed significant damage to a desalination plant in the Al-Zaytoun neighbourhood, south of Gaza City, as a result of direct Israeli targeting. This also resulted in the killing of a young man who was filling a gallon with water, plus the wounding of other individuals. The station, which provided services to at least 50,000 people in several nearby residential neighbourhoods, sustained significant damage after being bombed by the Israeli army with a GBU missile that broke through multiple stories and detonated on the ground floor.

As summer temperatures rise, the people of the Gaza Strip are facing significant challenges in accessingwater. Estimates show that since October of last year, the per capita share of water in the Gaza Strip has decreased by 97% due to the extensive destruction of water infrastructure by Israel. Therefore, as a result of the genocide, the per capita share of water in the Strip has decreased to between 3 and 15 litres per day, while in 2022 it was approximately 84.6 litres per day.

In view of the ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people that deprive them of necessities for survival—such as the destruction of over 700 wells and water desalination plants since the start of the genocide—all areas of the Gaza Strip are experiencing a shortage of water, and the sewage system is collapsing. Meanwhile, certain areas of the Strip are suffering from a shortage of fuel, which Israel forbids from entering the Strip, despite the large number of casualties—including children—caused by infectious diseases and epidemics that spread through the accumulation ofcontaminated water due to inoperative sewage stations.

Continued destruction and devastation by the Israeli army is rendering the Gaza Strip unlivable, particularly after the army’s destruction of 9 out of 10 water tanks and half of the water networks, or 350 km out of 700 km.

Additionally, as a result of the crimes and arbitrary policies of Israel, all six wastewater treatment plants have been disrupted, approximately 65 sewage pumps stopped, and 70 km of sewage networks destroyed. This has resulted in the unchecked disposal of wastewater, estimated to be around 130 thousand cubic metres per day, onto Gaza Strip roads and shelters for displaced people.

According to United Nations estimates, about 96 percent of the Strip’s population (2.15 million people) faces high levels of acute food insecurity. While the whole territory is classified in Emergency (IPC Phase 4), over 495,000 people (22 per cent of the population) are still facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 5). In this Phase, households experience an extreme lack of food, starvation, and exhaustion of coping capacities.

Euro-Med Monitor warned last January that distress is engulfing Gaza City and the Strip’s northern regions in alarming ways—a result of Israel’s cutting off of the water supply in the Strip, systematic and intentional Israeli bombing of water sources and wells, and a lack of fuel required to run water conversion and distribution facilities.

The lack of drinking water in the Gaza Strip has become a matter of life and death, with residents currently being forced to drink unclean well water amid continued Israeli military attacks and lack of food, water, and fuel supplies.

The excessive consumption of undrinkable salt water leads to high blood pressure; kidney disease; increased risk of stroke, intestinal, and stomach diseases; constant vomiting; and diarrhoea. These effects willultimately result in excessive dehydration of the body’s tissues, particularly brain tissue. 

Euro-Med Monitor conducted an analytical study last December month that included a sample of 1,200 people in the Gaza Strip in order to ascertain the impact of the humanitarian crisis experienced by residents of the enclave in the midst of Israel’s genocidal war.

According to the study, the rate of access to water in the Strip, including drinking, bathing, and cleaning water, is just 1.5 litres per person per day. This is 15 litres less than the minimum amount of water required for survival at the level required by international standards.

International humanitarian law forbids attacks, destruction, or disruption of vital facilities necessary to the survival of the civilian population, such as drinking water facilities and networks. International humanitarian law also strictly prohibits the use of starvation as a weapon; as an occupying power, Israel is obligated under international humanitarian law to provide basic needs and protection to the Palestinianpeople of the Gaza Strip.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court provides that intentionally starving civilians by “depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies” is a war crime.

Israel has been committing acts of genocide against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023 according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and pertinent international judicial rulings. Israel’s egregious crimes include depriving the civilian population in the Strip of enough potable water, which has caused serious, intentional harm and trapped them in living conditions meant to destroy them.

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Forty-six thousand Israeli businesses have been forced to shut as a result of the ongoing war and its devastating effect on the economy, Hebrew newspaper Maariv reported on 10 July, referring to Israel as a “country in collapse.” 

“This is a very high number that encompasses many sectors. About 77 percent of the businesses that have been closed since the beginning of the war, which make up about 35,000 businesses, are small businesses with up to five employees, and are the most vulnerable in the economy,” Yoel Amir, CEO of Israeli information services and credit risk management firm, CofaceBdi, told Maariv. 

The report adds that

“the most vulnerable industries are the construction industry, and as a result also the entire ecosystem that operates around it: ceramics, air conditioning, aluminum, building materials, and more – All of these were significantly damaged,” according to CofaceBdi’s risk ratings.

The trade sector has also been severely affected. This includes the service sector and industries including fashion, furniture, housewares, entertainment, transport, and tourism. 

Israel is in a situation where “there is almost no foreign tourism,” the report said, adding that “damage to businesses is all over the country, and almost no sector has been spared.” 

This includes the agriculture sector, which is based mainly in the south and the north – both considered active combat zones due to the threat posed by the Palestinian resistance and Lebanon’s Hezbollah – whose support front against Israel has significantly contributed to the downfall of the economy. 

The CofaceBdi CEO estimates that 60,000 Israeli businesses are expected to be shut down by the end of 2024. 

Hezbollah’s attacks have severely affected local business and education in the north. Tens of thousands of settlers have been forced to evacuate.

“Our goal of draining the enemy’s economy … has been achieved,” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said on 10 July. 

The Yemeni army’s maritime operations have also contributed to the economy’s downfall. Revenues at key ports, such as the southern port of Eilat, have fallen significantly.

In the final months of 2023, the Israeli GDP plummeted by nearly 20 percent.

The threat of escalation with Hezbollah has also posed fears in Israel that any full-scale war with the Lebanese resistance would plunge the economy much deeper into the abyss. Hezbollah has demonstrated through recent video warnings that it is capable of attacking energy infrastructure such as oil refineries and gas tanks.

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Os EUA estão a aproveitar a cimeira da OTAN para promover medidas nucleares na política interna. Num comunicado recente, o Departamento de Defesa anunciou que continuará o seu projeto de desenvolvimento de um novo míssil balístico intercontinental Sentinel, apesar do aumento exponencial dos custos. O Congresso aprovou a proposta apesar da sua natureza altamente irresponsável. O objetivo é melhorar as capacidades nucleares dos EUA na atual crise de segurança.

Espera-se que o programa Sentinel substitua todos os obsoletos mísseis nucleares Minuteman III do país. Os custos do projeto estão atualmente estimados em 140 mil milhões de dólares, um aumento de 81% nas expectativas de custos em comparação com a primeira avaliação do programa. O Pentágono tinha prometido anteriormente gastar apenas 77 mil milhões de dólares na produção dos novos mísseis, mas os avaliadores dizem agora que o projeto custará quase o dobro disso.

De acordo com a lei americana, quando se espera que um projeto cresça mais de 25% no custo, o departamento responsável pela proposta deve revisar o programa e justificar sua necessidade ao Congresso. Depois de estudar o projeto, o Pentágono concluiu que não existem alternativas ao programa Sentinel, e que os legisladores americanos deveriam consentir o mais rapidamente possível na sua implementação, garantindo assim a renovação das capacidades nucleares americanas. Temendo supostas “ameaças”, os políticos norte-americanos aprovaram a exigência. 

“[Estamos] plenamente conscientes dos custos (…) Mas também estamos conscientes dos riscos de não modernizarmos as nossas forças nucleares e de não enfrentarmos as ameaças reais que temos”, disse William LaPlante, subsecretário de Defesa da ONU sobre o caso.

Obviamente, as “ameaças” vistas pelos EUA em relação às questões nucleares centram-se na Federação Russa. Desde o início da operação militar especial, o Ocidente tem respondido às medidas de Moscou através da chantagem nuclear. Alguns líderes ocidentais declararam mesmo que estariam prontos para enfrentar uma guerra nuclear com a Rússia. Paralelamente, os EUA deram recentemente permissão à Ucrânia para atacar unidades militares russas fora da zona de conflito, o que poderia colocar em risco algumas instalações nucleares.

Em retaliação à chantagem nuclear ocidental, Moscou suspendeu a sua participação no Novo Tratado START. O acordo bilateral russo-americano assinado em 2010 limita as capacidades nucleares de ambos os países e, embora a Rússia tenha suspendido a sua participação, o país ainda segue as regras do pacto, limitando severamente o seu número de armas e sistemas de lançamento. Contudo, em 2026 o acordo expirará e é pouco provável que as partes cheguem a qualquer tipo de consenso para renová-lo.

Na prática, é possível dizer que as ações irresponsáveis ​​do Ocidente desde fevereiro de 2022 estão a conduzir o mundo para uma nova corrida nuclear. O Ocidente liderado pelos EUA está a tomar várias iniciativas para escalar esta corrida, sendo a aprovação de um novo programa nuclear multibilionário, mesmo no meio de uma grave crise interna nos EUA, um exemplo disso. Em vez de usar dinheiro público para resolver o problema nas fronteiras ou criar medidas para aliviar as tensões sociais e étnicas, Washington está a dar prioridade ao investimento em armas nucleares para alegadamente enfrentar “riscos” que são criados pela própria política externa dos EUA.

Todas as ações nucleares russas foram meramente reativas. Moscou pôs recentemente fim à proibição de testes nucleares e iniciou exercícios conjuntos de armas táticas com a República da Bielorrússia – um país ao qual foi recentemente fornecido equipamento nuclear para fortalecer Minsk no meio de ameaças representadas tanto pelo regime de Kiev como pelos países vizinhos da OTAN. Estas ações foram retaliatórias, dada a pressão nuclear e as constantes ameaças representadas pela aliança liderada pelos EUA no ambiente estratégico russo. Na prática, os EUA criam a ameaça, levando a Rússia a reagir – e então a retaliação russa é descrita pela propaganda ocidental como um “perigo”, endossando novas ações dos EUA e criando um ciclo vicioso.

É importante sublinhar que a última medida americana ocorreu no primeiro dia da cimeira da OTAN em Washington. Os responsáveis ​​da aliança reúnem-se precisamente para discutir novas estratégias para confrontar a Rússia no atual conflito por procuração. Dado o contexto, a atmosfera política americana está ainda mais paranóica quanto à possibilidade de uma guerra direta com a Rússia, o que explica porque o discurso da “ameaça nuclear” persuadiu os congressistas a aprovar o novo programa Sentinel, apesar dos seus custos exorbitantes.

Na verdade, os EUA e a OTAN estão a seguir um caminho perigoso. A escalada nuclear poderá não terminar se as medidas para expandir as capacidades militares continuarem a ser tomadas com frequência. Dada a natureza estritamente defensiva da política nuclear da Rússia, o caminho para a desescalada é simples: os EUA e os seus parceiros só precisam de parar de representar ameaças à Rússia e convidar Moscou a renegociar um novo acordo nuclear.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

 

 

Artigo em inglês : As NATO leaders discuss “Russian threat”, US approves new nuclear project, InfoBrics, 10 de Julio de 2024.

*

Lucas Leiroz, membro da Associação de Jornalistas do BRICS, pesquisador do Centro de Estudos Geoestratégicos, especialista militar.

Você pode seguir Lucas Leiroz em: https://t.me/lucasleiroz e https://x.com/leiroz_lucas

Il Summit di Washington, con cui la Nato ha celebrato il 75° anniversario della sua fondazione, avrebbe dovuto tenersi il 4 aprile ma Washington – che da 75 anni detiene i comandi chiave della NATO a partire da quello di Comandante Supremo Alleato in Europa, sempre un generale statunitense nominato dal presidente degli Stati Uniti – ha deciso, per sue ragioni anche di politica interna, di celebrarlo oltre tre mesi dopo. La storia ufficiale della NATO, presentata al Summit di Washington, spiega così la nascita della NATO:

“Nel 1949, di fronte alla crescente minaccia dell’Unione Sovietica, 12 paesi europei e nordamericani firmarono un Trattato basato sul principio della difesa collettiva”.

Il testo è accompagnato dalla prima pagina di un giornale del 29 agosto 1949 con un titolo a caratteri cubitali: “RUSSIA HAS ATOMIC BOMB” – “LA RUSSIA HA LA BOMBA ATOMICA”.

Un colossale falso storico. L’Unione Sovietica esce dalla Seconda guerra mondiale in gran parte distrutta, dopo essere stata attaccata e invasa nel giugno 1941 dalla Germania nazista con 201 divisioni, comprendenti 5,5 milioni di soldati pari al 75% di tutte le truppe tedesche, 3500 carrarmati e 5000 aerei, più 37 divisioni dei paesi satelliti (tra cui l’Italia). L’URSS aveva chiesto ripetutamente agli Alleati di aprire un secondo fronte in Europa, ma Stati Uniti e Gran Bretagna lo avevano volutamente. ritardato.

Il prezzo pagato dall’Unione Sovietica è altissimo: circa 27 milioni di morti, per oltre la metà civili, corrispondenti al 15% della popolazione (in rapporto allo 0,3% degli USA in tutta la Seconda guerra mondiale); circa 5 milioni di deportati in Germania; oltre 1700 città e grossi centri abitati, 70 mila piccoli villaggi devastati; 30 mila fabbriche distrutte. L’Unione Sovietica non può quindi costituire una minaccia per l’Occidente, anche perché gli Stati Uniti sono gli unici a possedere l’arma atomica, di cui detengono il monopolio dal 1945 al 1949. Già dal settembre 1945, appena un mese dopo il bombardamento di Hiroshima e Nagasaki, al Pentagono calcolano che per attaccare l’URSS occorrono circa 200 bombe nucleari.

Nel 1949 l’arsenale statunitense sale a circa 170 bombe nucleari. A questo punto gli Stati Uniti sono sicuri di poter avere, entro breve tempo, abbastanza bombe per attaccare l’Unione Sovietica. In quello stesso anno, però, svanisce il sogno americano di conservare il monopolio delle armi nucleari. Il 29 agosto 1949, l’Unione Sovietica effettua la sua prima esplosione nucleare sperimentale. Ora anche l’URSS ha la Bomba. Comincia a questo punto la corsa agli armamenti nucleari tra le due superpotenze.

Da allora, per 75 anni, la NATO giustifica la sua strategia di guerra con la falsa affermazione di essere minacciata. La “minaccia” odierna proviene, secondo il Summit di Washington, dal “crescente allineamento di Russia, Cina, Iran e Corea del Nord”. Per questo “la NATO lavora sempre più a stretto contatto con i partner dell’Indo-Pacifico e con l’Unione Europea per contribuire a mantenere la pace e a proteggere l’ordine internazionale basato sulle regole”. Su questa falsificazione storica, la NATO – allargatasi da 12 a 32 Paesi sempre più a ridosso della Russia – sta trascinando l’Europa e il mondo alla catastrofe.

Manlio Dinucci

VIDEO :

Emmanuel Macron and Segments of The Left

Support the Nazi Regime in Kiev

by

Michel Chossudovsky,

July 13, 2024

 “Plus Ça change, plus c’est la même chose” . “The more things change the more they stay the same”

Ironically, the only party firmly committed to suspending military aid to the Nazi Kiev regime is Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) which is tagged by people on the Left as “fascist” and “anti-semitic”.

Meanwhile, according to the Kiev Post, Ukraine is rejoicing.

Several of France’s  leftist parties which are part of the NFP socialist coalition are firmly supportive of Ukraine’s Nazi regime.

To my Friends on the Left

How is it that people who are committed to social democracy and socialism are endorsing a Neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine? 

 

Brigitte Macron, Baron David de Rothschild, Emmanuel Macron  

In the above report emanating from the Rothschilds (image February 2016) Emmanuel Macron endorsed by Baron David de Rothschild is casually announced as the future president of France, more than a year prior to the April 2017 elections.

Emmanuel Macron is not acting on behalf of the French people. Since the inauguration of his presidency on May 14, 2017, endorsed by powerful financial interests, he has acted as a proxy, supported by France’s “imperial American partner”

The Left is misinformed

Supporting the Nazis in Ukraine, serves the interests of the Global Financial Establishment and the hegemonic interests of the US. 

The following image is revealing. From Left to Right: the Blue NATO flag, the Azov Battalion’s Wolfangel SS of the Third Reich and Hitler’s Nazi Swastika (red and white background) are displayed, which points to collaboration between NATO and the Neo-Nazi regime. 

 

While Western governments (including France) are actively repressing the protest movements against Israel’s act of genocide, —with mass arrests on charges of antisemitism—, those same governments are supporting Ukraine’s Nazi movement which actively participated and collaborated with Nazi Germany in the genocide directed against the Jewish population of Ukraine during World War II.

What this implies is that our governments are antisemitic. 

Specifically, the German penal code prohibits “Denial of the Holocaust” as well as the “dissemination of Nazi propaganda”.

We are dealing with something far more serious than Nazi “hate speech”, namely the relationship of the German Government with the Kiev regime’s Nazi Movement.

See the legal procedures of the European Parliament pertaining to Holocaust Denial

See also the Resolution of the UN General Assembly, dated January 2022 quoted in the above document.

Unquestionably, the German Government of Chancellor Scholz’s decision to support the Kiev regime’s Nazi Movement constitutes a criminal act under German law., namely the violation of. the Penal Code. 

The World is Upside Down

C’est Le Monde à l’Envers 

Michel Chossudovsky,  Global Research.   July 13, 2024

 

For more analysis on the Holocaust in Ukraine, see:

Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Government Is Supported by the International Community. Adolph Hitler is “The Torchbearer of Democracy” in Ukraine

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, June 21, 2024

Guess Who Are the Real Protagonists of Anti-Semitism

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, July 11, 2024

See also

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

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, June 13, 2024

A Head of State of Jewish-Russian descent is sponsored by the CIA: 

Video: A Jewish-Russian Proxy President: Zelensky Transformed into a Neo-Nazi.

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky and Silview Media, June 15,  2024

***

Today our thoughts are with Stephen Lendman

The late Stephen Lendman’s book  is  titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

Introduction

Israel has launched an invasion (October 7, 2023) of the Gaza Strip.

As outlined by Felicity Arbuthnot with foresight 10 years ago in a December, 30 2013 article: 

“Israel is set to become a major exporter of gas and some oil, “If All Goes to Plan”.

In the current context, Israel’s “All Goes to Plan” option consists in bypassing Palestine and “Wiping Gaza off the Map”,  as well confiscating ALL Gaza’s maritime offshore gas reserves, worth billions of dollars. 

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. 

Update. Israel’s Secret Intelligence Memorandum

An official “secret” memorandum authored by Israel’s  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”, namely to a refugee camp in Egyptian territory. There are indications of Israel-Egypt negotiations  as well as consultations with the U.S. 

The 10-page document, dated Oct. 13, 2023, bears the logo of the Intelligence Ministry … assesses three options regarding the future of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip … It recommends a full population transfer as its preferred course of action. … The document, whose authenticity was confirmed by the ministry, has been translated into English in full here on +972. See below, click here or below to access complete document (10 pages)

 

First published on October  22, 2023. Video added on October 27, 2023, Update, November 1, 2023

 

***

Video: Michel Chossudovsky, Interview with Caroline Mailloux, Lux Media

 

To leave a comment and/or Access Rumble click to lower right hand corner

 

Felicity Arbuthnot’s 2013 Analysis 

“The Giant Leviathan natural gas field, in the eastern Mediterranean, discovered in December 2010, widely described [by governments and media] as “off the coast of Israel.”

These Levant reserves must be distinguished from those discovered in Gaza in 1999 by British Gas, which belong to Palestine. Felicity Arbuthnot’s analysis nonetheless confirms that “Part of the Leviathan Gas fields lie in Gazan territorial waters” (See Map Below). 

Whilst Israel claims them as her very own treasure trove, only a fraction of the sea’s wealth lies in Israel’s bailiwick as maps. Much is still unexplored, but currently Palestine’s Gaza and the West Bank between them show the greatest discoveries… (Felicity Arbuthnot, 2013) 

Flash Forward to October 2023

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.

.

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. 

Egypt-Israel “Secret Bilateral Talks” 

In 2021-22, 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

Netanyahu’s Timeline: “Before The Beginning of 2024”

The timeline resulting from these bilateral Israel-Egypt “secret talks” i.e. confiscation of Palestine’s offshore Maritime Gas Reserves is “The Beginning of 2024”.

United Nations Assessment

An important United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) (2019) report describes Palestine’s predicament as follows: 

Geologists and natural resources economists have confirmed that the Occupied Palestinian Territory lies above sizeable reservoirs of oil and natural gas wealth, in Area C of the occupied West Bank and the Mediterranean coast off the Gaza Strip.

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. The longer Israel prevents Palestinians from exploiting their own oil and natural gas reserves, the greater the opportunity costs and the greater the total costs of the occupation borne by Palestinians become.

This study identifies and assesses existing and potential Palestinian oil and natural gas reserves that could be exploited for the benefit of the Palestinian people, which Israel is either preventing them from exploiting or is exploiting without due regard for international law. (UNCTAD, August 2019, emphasis added, download complete report)

Crimes against Humanity

In the words of Netanyahu who is on Record for Supporting and Financing a faction within Hamas:  

Crimes against humanity beyond description by the Netanyahu government against the People of Palestine,

Crimes also committed against the People of Israel who are the victims of the Hamas “False Flag Attack” carefully engineered by Mossad-IDF.

There are deep-seated divisions within Hamas. Our “False Flag” analysis pertains to a military-intelligence faction within Hamas which cooperates with Israeli and U.S. intelligence.  See:

Is the Gaza-Israel Fighting “A False Flag”? They Let it Happen? Their Objective Is “to Wipe Gaza Off the Map”?

By Philip Giraldi and Prof Michel Chossudovsky, October 20, 2023

 

Michel Chossudovsky,  Global Research, October 21, 2023

 

Below is the 2013 article by Felicity Arbuthnot

 

 

Israel Gas-Oil and Trouble in the Levant

by Felicity Arbuthnot 

Global Research, 

December 13, 2013

Israel is set to become a major exporter of gas and some oil, if all goes to plan. The giant Leviathan natural gas field, in the eastern Mediterranean, discovered in December 2010, is widely described as “off the coast of Israel.”

 At the time the gas field was:

“ … the most prominent field ever found in the sub-explored area of the Levantine Basin, which covers about 83,000 square kilometres of the eastern Mediterranean region.” (i)

Coupled with Tamar field, in the same location, discovered in 2009, the prospects are for an energy bonanza for Israel, for Houston, Texas based Noble Energy and partners Delek Drilling, Avner Oil Exploration and Ratio Oil Exploration.

Also involved is Perth, Australia-based Woodside Petroleum, which has signed a memorandum of understanding for a thirty percent stake in the project, in negotiations which have been described as “up and down.”

There is currently speculation that Woodside might pull out of the deal: “ …since the original plans to refrigerate the gas for export were pursued when relations between Israel and Turkey were strained. That has changed, more recently, which has opened the door for gas to be piped to Turkey.”

The spoils of the Leviathan field has already expanded from an estimated 16.7 trillion cubic feet (tcf ) of gas to nineteen trillion – and counting:

”We’ve discovered nearly 40 tcf of gas, and we have roughly 19 tcf of that gas that’s available for export to both regional and extra-regional markets. We see exports reaching 2 billion cubic feet a day in capacity in the next decade. And we continue to explore.”, stated Noble Vice Chairman Keith Elliot (ii) There are also estimated to be possibly six hundred million barrels of oil, according to Michael Economides of energytribune.com (“Eastern Mediterranean Energy – the next Great Game.”)

 However, even these estimates may prove modest. In their: “Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources of the Levant Basin Province, Eastern Mediterranean”, the US Department of the Interior’s US Geological Survey, wrote in 2010:

“We estimated a mean of 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil and a mean of 122 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas in this province using a geology based assessment methodology.”

Nevertheless, Woodside Petroleum, might also be hesitant to become involved in further disputes, since they are already embroiled, with the Australian government, in a protracted one in East Timor relating to the bonanaza of energy and minerals beneath the Timor Sea, which has even led to East Timor accusing Australia “of bugging East Timorese officials during the negotiations over the agreement.”(iii)

Woodside’s conflict in East Timor however, may well pale against what might well erupt over the Leviathan and Tamar fields. The area is not for nothing called the Levantine Basin.

Whilst Israel claims them as her very own treasure trove, only a fraction of the sea’s wealth lies in Israel’s bailiwick as maps (iv, v, see below) clearly show.

Much is still unexplored, but currently Palestine’s Gaza and the West Bank between them show the greatest discoveries, with anything found in Lebanon and Syria’s territorial waters sure to involve claims from both countries.

 

In a pre-emptive move, on Christmas Day, Syria announced a deal with Russia to explore 2,190 kilometres (850 Sq. miles) for oil and gas off its Mediterranean coast, to be: “… financed by Russia, and should oil and gas be discovered in commercial quantities, Moscow will recover the exploration costs.”

Syrian Oil Minister, Ali Abbas said during the signing ceremony that the contract covers “25 years, over several phases.”

Syria, increasingly crippled by international sanctions, has seen oil production plummet by ninety percent since the largely Western fermented unrest began in March 2011. Gas production has nearly halved, from thirty million cubic metres a day, to 16.7 cubic metres daily.

The agreement is reported to have resulted from “months of long negotiations” between the two countries. Russia, as one of the Syrian government’s main backers, looks set to also become a major player in the Levant Basin’s energy wealth. (vi)

Lebanon disputes Israel’s map of the Israeli-Lebanese maritime border, filing their own map and claims with the UN in 2010. Israel claims Lebanon is in the process of granting oil and gas exploration licenses in what Israel claims as its “exclusive economic zone.”

That the US in the guise of Vice President Joe Biden, as honest broker, acting peace negotiator in the maritime border dispute would be laughable, were it not potential for Israel to attack their neighbour again. In a visit to Israel in March 2010, Biden announced: “There is absolutely no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel’s security- none at all”, also announcing on arrival in Israel:”It’s good to be home.”

Given US decades of  “peace brokering” between Israel and Palestine, this is already a road of pitfalls, one sidedness and duplicity, well traveled. There is trouble ahead.

Oh, and in demonology, Leviathan is one of the seven princes of Hell.

Notes

i. http://www.offshore-technology.com/projects/leviathan-gas-field-levantine-israel/

ii. http://m.theage.com.au/business/options-widen-for-woodsides-leviathan-partners-20131219-2znu6.html

iii. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-04/east-timor-offers-funds-for-onshore- gas-processing/4933106

iv. http://www.offshore-technology.com/projects/leviathan-gas-field-levantine-israel/leviathan-gas-field-levantine-israel1.html

v. http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Leviathan+gas+project+Israel+map&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=ntC2UvO7IcPE7Ab7rIDYCQ&ved=0CEQQsAQ&biw=1017&bih=598

vi. http://www.phantomreport.com/syria-inks-oil-gas-deal-with-russia-firm#more-20238

****

 

Michel Chossudovsky’s

Video: War and Natural Gas: The Israeli Invasion and Gaza’s Offshore Gas Fields

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, April 25, 2024

 

Almost fifteen years ago in December 2008, Israel invaded Gaza under “Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009)”.

The following article was first published by Global Research in January 2009 at the height of the Israeli bombing and invasion under Operation Cast Lead.

War and Natural Gas:

The Israeli Invasion and Gaza’s Offshore Gas Fields

by Michel Chossudovsky

January 8, 2009

 

The December 2008 military invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves. 

This is a war of conquest. Discovered in 2000, there are extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline. 

British Gas (BG Group) and its partner, the Athens based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC) owned by Lebanon’s Sabbagh and Koury families, were granted oil and gas exploration rights in a 25 year agreement signed in November 1999 with the Palestinian Authority.

The rights to the offshore gas field are respectively British Gas (60 percent); Consolidated Contractors (CCC) (30 percent); and the Investment Fund of the Palestinian Authority (10 percent). (Haaretz, October 21,  2007).

The PA-BG-CCC agreement includes field development and the construction of a gas pipeline.(Middle East Economic Digest, Jan 5, 2001).

The BG licence covers the entire Gazan offshore marine area, which is contiguous to several Israeli offshore gas facilities. (See Map below). It should be noted that 60 percent of the gas reserves along the Gaza-Israel coastline belong to Palestine.

The BG Group drilled two wells in 2000: Gaza Marine-1 and Gaza Marine-2. Reserves are estimated by British Gas to be of the order of 1.4 trillion cubic feet, valued at approximately 4 billion dollars. These are the figures made public by British Gas. The size of Palestine’s gas reserves could be much larger.

Map 1

Map 2

Who Owns the Gas Fields

The issue of sovereignty over Gaza’s gas fields is crucial. From a legal standpoint, the gas reserves belong to Palestine.

The death of Yasser Arafat, the election of the Hamas government and the ruin of the Palestinian Authority have enabled Israel to establish de facto control over Gaza’s offshore gas reserves.

British Gas (BG Group) has been dealing with the Tel Aviv government. In turn, the Hamas government has been bypassed in regards to exploration and development rights over the gas fields.

The election of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001 was a major turning point. Palestine’s sovereignty over the offshore gas fields was challenged in the Israeli Supreme Court. Sharon stated unequivocally that “Israel would never buy gas from Palestine” intimating that Gaza’s offshore gas reserves belong to Israel.

In 2003, Ariel Sharon, vetoed an initial deal, which would allow British Gas to supply Israel with natural gas from Gaza’s offshore wells. (The Independent, August 19, 2003)

The election victory of Hamas in 2006 was conducive to the demise of the Palestinian Authority, which became confined to the West Bank, under the proxy regime of Mahmoud Abbas.

In 2006, British Gas “was close to signing a deal to pump the gas to Egypt.” (Times, May, 23, 2007). According to reports, British Prime Minister Tony Blair intervened on behalf of Israel with a view to shunting the agreement with Egypt.

The following year, in May 2007, the Israeli Cabinet approved a proposal by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert  “to buy gas from the Palestinian Authority.” The proposed contract was for $4 billion, with profits of the order of $2 billion of which one billion was to go the Palestinians.

Tel Aviv, however, had no intention on sharing the revenues with Palestine. An Israeli team of negotiators was set up by the Israeli Cabinet to thrash out a deal with the BG Group, bypassing both the Hamas government and the Palestinian Authority:

“Israeli defence authorities want the Palestinians to be paid in goods and services and insist that no money go to the Hamas-controlled Government.” (Ibid, emphasis added)

The objective was essentially to nullify the contract signed in 1999 between the BG Group and the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat.

Under the proposed 2007 agreement with BG, Palestinian gas from Gaza’s offshore wells was to be channeled by an undersea pipeline to the Israeli seaport of Ashkelon, thereby transferring control over the sale of the natural gas to Israel.

The deal fell through. The negotiations were suspended:

 “Mossad Chief Meir Dagan opposed the transaction on security grounds, that the proceeds would fund terror”. (Member of Knesset Gilad Erdan, Address to the Knesset on “The Intention of Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Purchase Gas from the Palestinians When Payment Will Serve Hamas,” March 1, 2006, quoted in Lt. Gen. (ret.) Moshe Yaalon, Does the Prospective Purchase of British Gas from Gaza’s Coastal Waters Threaten Israel’s National Security?  Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, October 2007)

Israel’s intent was to foreclose the possibility that royalties be paid to the Palestinians. In December 2007, The BG Group withdrew from the negotiations with Israel and in January 2008 they closed their office in Israel.(BG website).

Invasion Plan on The Drawing Board

The invasion plan of the Gaza Strip under “Operation Cast Lead” was set in motion in June 2008, according to Israeli military sources:

“Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago [June or before June] , even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.”(Barak Ravid, Operation “Cast Lead”: Israeli Air Force strike followed months of planning, Haaretz, December 27, 2008)

That very same month, the Israeli authorities contacted British Gas, with a view to resuming crucial negotiations pertaining to the purchase of Gaza’s natural gas:

“Both Ministry of Finance director general Yarom Ariav and Ministry of National Infrastructures director general Hezi Kugler agreed to inform BG of Israel’s wish to renew the talks.

The sources added that BG has not yet officially responded to Israel’s request, but that company executives would probably come to Israel in a few weeks to hold talks with government officials.” (Globes online- Israel’s Business Arena, June 23, 2008)

The decision to speed up negotiations with British Gas (BG Group) coincided, chronologically, with the planning of the invasion of Gaza initiated in June. It would appear that Israel was anxious to reach an agreement with the BG Group prior to the invasion, which was already in an advanced planning stage.

Moreover, these negotiations with British Gas were conducted by the Ehud Olmert government with the knowledge that a military invasion was on the drawing board. In all likelihood, a new “post war” political-territorial arrangement for the Gaza strip was also being contemplated by the Israeli government.

In fact, negotiations between British Gas and Israeli officials were ongoing in October 2008, 2-3 months prior to the commencement of the bombings on December 27th.

In November 2008, the Israeli Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of National Infrastructures instructed Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) to enter into negotiations with British Gas, on the purchase of natural gas from the BG’s offshore concession in Gaza. (Globes, November 13, 2008)

“Ministry of Finance director general Yarom Ariav and Ministry of National Infrastructures director general Hezi Kugler wrote to IEC CEO Amos Lasker recently, informing him of the government’s decision to allow negotiations to go forward, in line with the framework proposal it approved earlier this year.

The IEC board, headed by chairman Moti Friedman, approved the principles of the framework proposal a few weeks ago. The talks with BG Group will begin once the board approves the exemption from a tender.” (Globes Nov. 13, 2008)

Gaza and Energy Geopolitics 

The military occupation of Gaza is intent upon transferring the sovereignty of the gas fields to Israel in violation of international law.

What can we expect in the wake of the invasion?

What is the intent of Israel with regard to Palestine’s Natural Gas reserves?

A new territorial arrangement, with the stationing of Israeli and/or “peacekeeping” troops?

The militarization of the entire Gaza coastline, which is strategic for Israel?

The outright confiscation of Palestinian gas fields and the unilateral declaration of Israeli sovereignty over Gaza’s maritime areas?

If this were to occur, the Gaza gas fields would be integrated into Israel’s offshore installations, which are contiguous to those of the Gaza Strip. (See Map 1 above)

These various offshore installations are also linked up to Israel’s energy transport corridor, extending from the port of Eilat, which is an oil pipeline terminal, on the Red Sea to the seaport – pipeline terminal at Ashkelon, and northwards to Haifa, and eventually linking up through a proposed Israeli-Turkish pipeline with the Turkish port of Ceyhan.

Map 3

Ceyhan is the terminal of the Baku, Tblisi Ceyhan Trans Caspian pipeline.

“What is envisaged is to link the BTC pipeline to the Trans-Israel Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline, also known as Israel’s Tipline.” (See Michel Chossudovsky, The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil, Global Research, July 23, 2006)

 

Readers’ Thanks to Michel Chossudovsky

• Thank you for your continued activism and truth-telling. A thankless task but the right thing.

• You Sir are a Canadian hero. Thank you for your wonderful site and all the fine work you have done over the many years I have followed your work.

• Michel Chossudovsky, you are a voice of reason and understanding. Thank you for your awareness. I am a Syrian/American. I heard one voice during the bombing of Gaza of a child screaming for his father and his father could not reach him, but he cried out to him, “PUT YOUR HEART ON MY HEART.” Those humans who are putting your Heart on Palestine, thank you.

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***

 

 

“First off, it’s vaccine injury awareness month and a memory popped up today about me taking Faith to get another round of vaccines, which just so happens to be the day of her first vaccine injury.

Her little eyes started crossing right after.  

She’s under went surgery to try and fix the problem which it didn’t do. Because surgery will rarely fix a vaccine injury like this. Her eyes still cross to this day. This picture from the other day shows it, even though it looks much more dramatic at other times. But look how beautiful she still is.

Her second injury was when she stopped speaking after her MMR, but thankfully after detoxing her, words started flowing again, but we are still working with her speech for sure

For those of you that don’t know, after extensive doctors appointments and extensive DNA testing our girls are exempt from vaccines for life.

They carry THREE different MTHFRs, one of them being the one that makes it very hard for their bodies to rid of toxins (vaccines are LOADED with toxins.) I know I still get judged for not vaccinating by some on my friends list. But why?

It’s extremely dangerous for our girls to get vaccinated, which was confirmed by a doctor. 

Vaccines are not one size fits all, but yet they are treated like one.

They are dangerous for everyone, some more than others.

Where I stand today, it’s my biggest regret I have in life. Literally the biggest regret I have was vaccinating my babies.

I’m just extremely thankful her life was not taken from us by vaccines. From this point on, its about healing and doing what’s right. It took my baby being injured twice from vaccines before I got woke. I don’t want that being the reason you get woke too.”

My Take…

What is MTHFR?

The abbreviation MTHFR refers to a relatively common genetic mutation. It stands for methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase, and having this mutation may lead to high levels of homocysteine in the blood and low levels of folate and other vitamins.

Its main function is to provide your body with instructions for creating the MTHFRprotein, which helps your body produce folate. This B vitamin is necessary to create DNA.

There’s been concern that certain health issues are associated with MTHFR mutations, so testing has become more mainstream over the years.

You can have either one or two mutations — or neither — on the MTHFR gene. These mutations are often called variants

Health conditions linked to MTHFR depend on your type of mutation and how many copies you contain.

If you have only one copy of the C677T or A1298C mutation or two copies of the A1298C mutation, there are typically no health conditions or risks linked.

Conditions that may be associated with MTHFR include:

• homocystinuria
• hearing loss in older age
• alopecia areata
• anencephaly
• spina bifida
• high blood pressure
• blood clots
• recurrent miscarriages
• psychiatric disorders such as depression or bipolar disorder
• certain cancers

A person with two gene variants or who is homozygous for the MTHFR mutation may have an increased chance of health conditions.

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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.

Featured image is from COVID Intel

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***

One result of the just concluded NATO Summit is Germany’s decision to host US intermediate-range missiles. Prior to 2019 when Washington cancelled the INF Treaty, the treaty prevented such deployment.

The INF Treaty was signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev on December 8,1987, and the treaty was ratified on June 1, 1988. The treaty was part and parcel of ending the cold war. Reagan called the treaty a “step toward a safer world.”

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed a landmark nuclear arms control treaty in 1987. (Photo: White House Photographic Office/National Archives and Records Administration)

“The 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty required the United States and the Soviet Union to eliminate and permanently forswear all of their nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. The treaty marked the first time the superpowers had agreed to reduce their nuclear arsenals, eliminate an entire category of nuclear weapons, and employ extensive on-site inspections for verification. As a result of the INF Treaty, the United States and the Soviet Union destroyed a total of 2,692 short-, medium-, and intermediate-range missiles by the treaty’s implementation deadline of June 1, 1991.”

Blaming Russia the Trump administration pulled out of the treaty. The consequence was to kill the nuclear disarmament that the INF Treaty began and to renew the arms race. If I had to bet I would say Washington’s withdrawal was a consequence of the US nuclear industry needing the source of profits that the arms race provided and the neoconservatives’ determination to revive US hegemony through the buildup of force.

If Russia was truly out of compliance, Trump’s focus should have been to work to bring Russia into compliance, not terminate the treaty.

The efforts of several American presidents and Soviet leaders in the 20th century to defuse tensions and to build trust were squandered by Washington in the 21st century.

Regardless, what is clear is that Washington is pushing both Europe and Russia into preparing for war, and is itself preparing.

The US Senate has joined the House of Representatives in creating a draft registration system from which to field a conscripted army. The Senate’s version includes women in the draft, as equal treatment requires. Clearly, Washington sees the need for a larger army than a volunteer army can provide.

Now that the Biden regime is supplying F-16s and long-range missiles to Ukraine, weapon systems that Biden said would never be given to the Ukrainians, along with targeting information, clearly Washington’s intent is to further widen the war by carrying it deep into civilian areas of Russia. Simultaneously, Washington is using its NGOs in Georgia to orchestrate a color revolution there in order to open a second front against Russia. Putin’s slow forever war in Ukraine has played directly into Washington’s hands.

China is the main focus of Washington’s strategy of isolating Russia. At the recent NATO Summit China was accused of being a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. By allegedly supplying armaments to Russia, China is accused of challenging “our interests, security and values.”

I would have expected a different Chinese reply than was made. China should have said to Washington/NATO: “You started the conflict and your weapons systems and French troops are supporting and widening the conflict. You have blocked all efforts to end the conflict; yet you dare accuse us of responsibility for it.”

Instead, the Chinese disavowed supplying Russia with any military support.

This is an extremely weak response. It suggests that all the Russian-Chinese assurance of a “no-limits partnership” is just words. An appropriate response from China would have been: “We are considering sending 500,000 of our best soldiers to serve under Russian command in Ukraine and have called up another million men for military training.

A response such as this is what would end the conflict before the dumbshit hegemonic West puts us all in a war of annihilation.

In recorded history one can find very few competent civilian and military leaders. Alexander the Great, Constantine, Charles Martel, Charlemagne, the Duke of Marlborough, Robert E. Lee. No such men exist today, but the weapons are far more terrible. Moreover, modern war targets civilians and civilian infrastructure, as the Israelis are doing in Gaza. The goal is less to defeat an opposing army than it is to foreclose an opponent’s ability to conduct war.

In Europe a warrior class no longer exists. European male ethnicities are so oppressed by their own governments and by immigrant-invaders favored by European governments, that the defense ministers of Europe are women. What does a white ethnic European male have to fight for?

In the US the fighting force has always come from the southern states. But what have these traditional Americans, these military families, witnessed? They have seen all southern names struck from military bases. They have experienced their promotions on hold while homosexuals, black females, and transgendered people confused about their own gender are promoted. Taking orders from such people is not a southern man’s idea of the military. So recruitment has collapsed.

There are so few people willing to fight for America that Congress entertains proposals to enroll immigrant-invaders, paid with citizenship for fighting for American hegemony.

America has reached the point that Rome reached. Once the Roman military was German, the Germans became the emperors. The Germans did a fairly decent job compared to the decadent Romans, but the Empire was exhausted by its internal conflicts and collapsed.

Perhaps it is the collapse of the West that Putin and Xi are banking on. Why bother to fight people busy destroying themselves.

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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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***

For several weeks officials from the United States administration of President Joe Biden have led the international community to believe once again that an end to the fighting in Gaza was imminent.

Nonetheless, as in recent months, movement towards ending the occupation of Gaza and the efforts to secure a permanent cessation of hostilities remain elusive.

The reality is that the Biden administration is still sending weapons and bombs to Tel Aviv which are being utilized to inflict terror upon the Palestinian people on a daily basis. During a press conference held in the aftermath of the NATO Summit in Washington, D.C., Biden emphasized that the administration has not wavered in its support of the State of Israel.

His slight references to a ceasefire and the need for a two-state solution was no different than the same rhetoric enunciated by successive administrations, both Democrat and Republican, for decades. Biden said that the war must end while never citing the 76-year occupation, ethnic cleansing and genocide as the underlying causes of the ongoing crisis.

Official statistics from the Health Ministry in Gaza indicate that more than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed and approximately 88,000 wounded after nine months of the most recent genocidal onslaught beginning after October 7. The entire length and breath of the Gaza Strip is filled with displaced persons. (See this)

Several examples of recent massacres provide a clear assessment of the devastating impact of U.S. foreign policy which props-up the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in Gaza. The almost daily evacuation orders given by the Israeli military reinforces the overall insecurity of the Palestinians.

Nuseirat

Reuters reported on the current situation in an article published on July 9 noting:

“Palestinian officials said an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza Strip killed more than two dozen people while advancing tanks in Gaza City forced residents to flee under fire as Israel on Tuesday stepped up an offensive that Hamas warned could jeopardize ceasefire talks. The airstrike hit the tents of displaced families outside a school in the town of Abassan east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, killing at least 29, most of them were women and children, Palestinian medical officials said. The Israeli military said it was reviewing reports that civilians were harmed. It said the incident occurred when it struck with ‘precise munition’ a Hamas fighter who took part in the Oct. 7 raid on Israel that precipitated the Israeli assault on Gaza. Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, said Israeli strikes on central Gaza areas killed 60 Palestinians and wounded dozens of others on Tuesday. 

These incidents illustrate the complicity of U.S. imperialism and its allies in the genocide against the Palestinians. Ordinances made in the U.S. and transferred by the administration are essential to maintaining the status-quo.

A systematic campaign of bombings and shelling of residential areas all across Gaza has been condemned as war crimes. In addition to the efforts to drive the Palestinians out of Gaza by destroying houses, apartment buildings, encampments, hospitals, schools, universities, religious institutions, marketplaces, infrastructure and social service agencies, the Israeli military units have blocked the shipments of food, fuel, medical supplies and freshwater.

A ridiculous announcement made by the Biden administration months ago saying it would build a temporary pier in the Mediterranean to facilitate the shipment of humanitarian assistance to those suffering in Gaza has been exposed as just another ploy in its efforts to reinforce the settler-colonial project in Palestine. Finally admitting the scheme had collapsed even before it started, Biden has further illustrated his deceitful enunciations which pretend to express concern for the oppressed while carrying on with its imperialist policies. (See this)

In the same above-mentioned Reuters report it points to the widespread attacks throughout Gaza emphasizing:

“Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, said Israeli strikes on central Gaza areas killed 60 Palestinians and wounded dozens of others on Tuesday. Residents said Israeli tanks that pushed into the Tel Al-Hawa, Shejaia and Sabra neighborhoods of Gaza City shelled roads and buildings, forcing them to flee their homes. This was followed by Israeli military orders to evacuate several districts in eastern and western Gaza City posted on social media, which included these neighborhoods. ‘We hold the occupation and the U.S. administration responsible for the horrifying massacres against civilians,’ said Thawabta in a statement. The Palestinian Red Crescent said early on Wednesday on Facebook that its crews received dozens of humanitarian distress calls from Gaza City but were unable to help due to the intensity of the bombing there. On Gaza City’s front lines, the armed wings of Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad said their fighters battled Israeli forces with machine guns, mortar fire and anti-tank missiles and killed and wounded Israeli soldiers.”

The reality of the situation on the ground in Gaza makes a mockery of the purported diplomatic efforts in the West Asian and North African region. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been traveling throughout the region for nine months, yet the genocidal program aimed at the Palestinians remains the order of the day.

In fact, the resistance against the occupation of Gaza has escalated over the recent period. Not only are the armed Palestinian brigades stepping up their attacks on the IDF the war has intensified with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon carrying out military operations against Tel Aviv.

Imperialist Diplomacy and Regional Hegemony

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on July 11 that Tel Aviv would send a representative to talks in Doha, Qatar which have so far failed to reach any satisfactory agreement on achieving a ceasefire. Hamas, the leading Palestinian resistance organization in Gaza, has demonstrated flexibility in the negotiations for an end to the fighting.

However, it has been quite obvious over the last nine months that the State of Israel and the U.S. does not want a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. An end to the fighting with the resistance forces intact would place further political pressure on the imperialists and the Zionist regime to contemplate a general political solution to the Palestinian question.

Another formidable resistance movement, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), said recently in an interview with Al Mayadeen television that the negotiations have not made any headway in ending the recent phase of the war. PIJ and its military wing, the Al-Quds Brigade, have fought alongside Al-Qassam, the armed forces of Hamas, over the last nine months.

The Al Mayadeen interview emphasized:

“The latest round of mediated negotiations between the Palestinian Resistance and the Israeli occupation did not lead to any results, the Deputy Secretary-General of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Mohammad al-Hindi, told Al Mayadeen.  Al-Hindi explained that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government’s priority is unrelated to retrieving Israeli captives in the Gaza Strip, but instead, it is to carry on the war on the besieged territory. ‘The Israeli negotiator is stalling, as he told the mediators that he would return to Tel Aviv, and then he would give them a response regarding what was proposed (in the meetings),’ al-Hindi explained. Pointing to the crucial opportunity to finalize a deal that recently presented itself to the Israeli government, the PIJ official said that Israeli authorities encroached on a dangerous escalation when they demanded that all residents of Gaza City leave their residences and head southwards.” 

The resistance to the Zionist state and its imperialist allies poses a serious challenge to the efforts by Washington and Wall Street to maintain their hegemony over the entire region. In Yemen, the Ansar Allah movement has intervened in the siege on Gaza by utilizing its naval forces to impose a blockade from the Red Sea. Other resistance organizations in Iraq and Syria have been utilizing their military capabilities to strike blows against the occupation forces in Palestine.

In response, the White House has ordered a series of airstrikes by the Pentagon against Yemen. Ansar Allah leader Sayeed Abdul-Malik al-Houthi noted in a recent interview with Al Mayadeen that the examples set by the resistance forces in the region from Palestine and Lebanon to Syria, Iraq and Iran has influenced the solidarity movement in the U.S. where students took center-stage during the spring by demanding the full disclosure and divestment of all economic interests which are enabling the genocide against the oppressed peoples living under occupation. 

The NATO Summit reconfirmed the imperialist commitment to continue the war in Ukraine, the attempts to contain China and the genocide in Gaza. Consequently, it will take the global solidarity movement working in conjunction with the regional resistance forces and all anti-imperialists and anti-war groupings to create the conditions for the total liberation of oppressed peoples throughout the world.

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.  

All images in this article are from the author

Advise to the UN Summit of the Future: Establish a Global Governance Body to Control All Life Supporting Systems on the Planet

By Jacob Nordangard, July 12, 2024

I recently became aware of a policy brief with recommendations for the 2024 Summit of the Future, which lays out in plain terms what our “Overlords” have in store for us. It reads like a plot from a Bond-movie.

Hungary’s President Viktor Orban – The European Peacemaker or International Game Changer?

By Peter Koenig, July 12, 2024

With the EU’s and NATO’s wrath and vehement disapproval, President Viktor Orban of Hungary used the occasion of Hungary’s European Union Presidency from 1 July to 31 December 2024, to go on a peace mission. Mr. Orban wants peace against the will of the EU and against the mandate of NATO.

Army Moves to Ban “Extremism”, Repeal the Truth

By Emanuel Pastreich, July 12, 2024

The issue by the Army of a directive entitled “Handling Protest, Extremism, and Criminal Gang Activities” on June 14, 2024, essentially forbids the discussion of any issues that the military designates as “extremist” by any member of the army, even when off duty.

Similar to Biden, NATO Is Aged and Unfit for Leadership

By Medea Benjamin, July 12, 2024

At 75, NATO has not aged well. Back in 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron was already sounding the alarm, accusing NATO of being “brain dead.” While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has given NATO a new lease on life, NATO’s embrace of Ukraine actually makes the conflict–and the world–more dangerous.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer: Was He “Elected” or “Selected”? He Started His Election Campaign in Davos. “Favourite Candidate” of the World Economic Forum (WEF)

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, July 11, 2024

Keir Starmer, leader of  the remodelled Labour Party is now Britains’s “progressive” Prime Minister. As we recall Keir Starmer was invited to Davos back in January 2024, by the World Economic Forum’.Ironically, Starmer started his election campaign in the Swiss Alps, in conformity with Klaus Schwab’s  Fourth Industrial Revolution.

An Injection of Truth: The Ongoing Covidian Controversy in Alberta

By Prof. Anthony J. Hall, July 11, 2024

The Canadian government is extending its Covidian preoccupations by trying to push the population into embracing a broad array of synthetic biology initiatives. In other words, the senior figures in the Trudeau government once again see nothing wrong with putting the untested and unknown consequences of genetic modification at the forefront of Canadian health care.

Britain’s Pathological Russophobia: Prime Minister Keir Starmer Supports “Unrestricted Use of its Long-range Weapons Against Moscow”

By Drago Bosnic, July 11, 2024

Starmer’s Labour Party won the general election on July 4, with him confirmed as the new PM on July 5. Just four days later, he reiterated that the British government supports the unrestricted use of its long-range weapons against Moscow.

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Most certainly, Russia’s final irreversible decision to suspend its membership and future participation in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly on July 3, on the eve of U.S. Independence Day, marked another significant chapter in its shifting geopolitical relations with United States and Europe.

As global situation heightens, particularly over security in Europe, Central EurAsia and the former Soviet space, Russia has also engaged in transforming not only economic relations but also paying attention to its security.

Over the past three decades, Russia became a member of many global bodies, participating actively at the United Nations. It spearheads the formation of the Greater Eurasia Union, the informal association BRICS—a group of states comprising Brazil, India, China and South Africa—and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Ukraine, which shares common geographical borders with Russia, and has primary ambitions of moving up to the global stage, has attempted joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union. These systematic steps angered the Russian President and the Kremlin administration, the Executive Cabinet, the Federation Council and the State Duma, resulting into Russia undertaking “special military operation” in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, stressed that Moscow had no plans to occupy Ukrainian territories.

As the United States and European sanctions broadened due to the “special military operation”, largely directed at “demilitarization” and “denazification” in Ukraine, Russia was ultimately expelled from most of foreign organizations including the Council of Europe.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has also announced it had suspended Russia and Belarus from any participation in that organization. The OECD is one of the world’s major multilateral economic bodies with a membership of mostly of the rich, highly developed countries. The exclusion of Russia and Belarus will mean both countries are barred from participating in negotiations on issues including taxation, international business regulation and trade.

We can establish the fact that Russia and Belarus are not official members of the Paris-based group. But, Russia’s accession into the OECD was postponed after the country annexed Crimea in 2014 and was terminated because of Russian aggression against Ukraine. The group announced a plan “to develop proposals to further strengthen support to the democratically elected government of Ukraine, including to support recovery and reconstruction”.

Remarkable, during these past few years, Russia also exited from a number of international organizations. The simple interpretations and far reaching implications are that, as the world undergoes evolutionary process, Russia, emerging out of Soviet era setting, has broadly been restructuring its architecture and status. It emphasizes its national interest, sovereignty and better lives for its citizens while exercising its legitimate roles in the global system.

Noticeably, Russia continues to seek a profound respectable position and lately plays the role of an advocate for multipolar order, and consistently opposes conservative western-style rules-based order and hegemony. Reports monitored by this author indicated that Russia has already exited, the historic fall of the Soviet era, from international organizations, including

Russia’s upper and lower houses of parliament, the Federation Council and the State Duma, have expectedly decided to suspend Moscow’s participation in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly. That said of the withdrawal from the OSCE, Russia still reserves the right to return if conditions are improved for its delegation, according to several interviews conducted with parliament members by local Russian media Izvestia in late June 2024, just before the final suspension.

Prominent Russian Senators have spoken:

• Vladimir Dzhabarov, first deputy chairman of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs, pointed out that since 2022, Russia has faced increasing obstacles from the organization, such as its delegation members being denied entry visas and the right to speak.
• Konstantin Kosachev, member of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs, noted that “the OSCE was conceived as a platform for comparing positions and trying to align them, if possible.” “The OSCE has recently stopped addressing general issues, becoming a vehicle for the collective West to impose its views on all others. It’s not us that have changed but the organization; it has been changed from within and actually destroyed. It certainly makes no sense for Russia to work in an organization that no longer is a platform for comparing and harmonizing positions,” the senator stated. “If and when the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly creates normal conditions for our work, if and when we receive guarantees and the principle of consensus is established in the organization, the decision may be reviewed,” Kosachev added.
• Alexey Fenenko, professor with the Department of International Security at Moscow State University’s Faculty of World Politics, believes that things are heading towards Russia’s gradual withdrawal from the OSCE. “Following Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s high-profile statement in 2004 that the OSCE in its current shape does not suit us, Russia has been trying to promote various reforms of the organization. But this did not work out at all,” the expert explained. “In fact, we have to deal with a new version of the Russia-NATO Council. I think that it’s only a matter of time before Russia decides to pull out of it,” Fenenko added.

In spite of the marked outrages, the Federation Council (the upper chamber) and the State Duma (the lower house) unanimously voted to adopt the Russian Federal Assembly’s motion to suspend the Russian delegation’s participation in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE PA) and stop paying dues to the organization.

“The Russian senators and State Duma members consider it sensible and justified to suspend the participation of the delegation of the Russian Federal Assembly in the OSCE PA and the payment of contributions to the OSCE PA budget. During the suspension period, any actions to amend the rules of procedure of the assembly with the aim of prejudicing the Russian delegation will be considered legally null and void,” the document states.

The parliamentarians also believe that the leadership of the OSCE PA and its members have ignored repeated appeals to return to an equal interparliamentary dialogue, the statement says. “Despite the Russian delegation’s repeated appeals and proposals, the priorities of the OSCE PA leadership indicate that at present, instead of creating conditions for a constructive exchange of views and the formation of a unifying agenda, this platform is being used as a politicized tool to deliberately implement an anti-Russian course, and also to intentionally distort what is going on in Ukraine,” the senators and MPs state.

The MPs emphasize that biased discriminatory approaches, double standards and total Russophobia, as well as an unwillingness to engage in substantive discussion, testify to the extreme degradation of the OSCE PA as a mechanism for interparliamentary co-operation. In addition, they draw attention to the fact that for many years the Parliamentary Assembly has ignored the problems related to the violation of the rights of national minorities in Ukraine and the Baltic States, the freedom of communication and education in one’s native language, has not paid attention to the blasphemous glorification of the Nazis and their accomplices, the harassment and murder of journalists who voice a position different from that of Brussels and Washington.

The parliamentarians also emphasize that the Russian delegation to the OSCE PA has, under spurious pretexts, “repeatedly been deprived of the opportunity to continue dialogue and to participate fully and equally in the work of the plenary sessions and governing bodies of the OSCE PA.” Romania’s demonstrative refusal to issue visas to members of the Russian delegation to participate in the annual session of the OSCE PA in Bucharest in 2024 was “the last point in the emerging deadlock,” as it has demonstrated that “confrontational tendencies and intolerance have taken over the common sense, spirit and values of this organization,” the statement reads.

Early July 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin participated in the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Astana, Kazakhstan. Twenty-four documents were adopted at the summit. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the leaders of several international organizations were invited, including CIS Secretary General Sergey Lebedev and Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Imangali Tasmagambetov. The topic of the meeting is “Strengthening multilateral dialogue – the pursuit of sustainable peace and development.” Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko expected Belarus would be formally granted full-fledged membership. Minsk filed a bid to join the SCO in 2022, but started to participate in the organization’s work as early as in 2009. The SCO was founded on June 15, 2001, in Shanghai. Initially the organization included Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, in 2017 they were joined by India and Pakistan. Tehran applied to join in 2008 and became a full-fledged member of the organization in July 2023.

The OSCE has a comprehensive approach to security that encompasses politico-military, economic and environmental, and human aspects. It therefore addresses a wide range of security-related concerns, including arms control, confidence- and security-building measures, human rights, national minorities, democratization, policing strategies, counter-terrorism and economic and environmental activities.

It has a secretariat and currently headed by Helga Maria Schmid, who was appointed to the post of Secretary General of the OSCE in December 2020 for a three-year term and then extended until September 2024. OSCE also has specialized institutions with specific functions. But what is important here is that all 57 participating States enjoy equal status, and decisions are taken by consensus on a politically, but not legally binding basis.

The fall of the Soviet Union required a change of role for the CSCE. And Russia, after Soviet’s collapse, renewed its membership in  According the records researched by this author, Then Soviet Union was admitted on 25 June 1973. Along the line, members of OSCE have criticized the organization for being in a position where Russia, and sometimes Belarus, can veto all OSCE decisions, Moscow has, for a number of years, not allowed the approval of the organization’s budget, the organization of official OSCE events or the extension of missions. In November 2023, they vetoed the appointment of Estonia as chairman from 2024.

The OSCE Mission to Georgia was established in November 1992 with its headquarters in the capital Tbilisi. The Mission’s mandate expired on 31 December 2008. Between these dates it was powerless to control the outbreak of the August 2008 Russo-Georgian war.

The objective of the mission to Moldova is to facilitate a comprehensive and lasting political settlement of the Transnistria conflict in all its aspects, strengthening the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Moldova within its internationally recognised borders with a special status for Transnistria.[15]

OSCE promoted a 5+2 format as a diplomatic negotiation platform, which began in 2005, suspended by Russia and Transnistria in 2006 until it started again in 2012, before making slow progress over the next ten years. The process stopped following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine as two of the parties were then at war with each other. In December 2022 Russia blocked the renewal of the annual mandate by limiting it to a six month period, repeated again in June 2023 to another six month period.

OSCE involvement in Ukraine. It has deployed its Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine at the request of Ukraine’s government. The mission has received mixed reviews. While some observers have applauded its function as the “eyes and ears of the international community”, others have accused the mission of bias towards either Russia or Ukraine.

OSCE has had so many disagreements with Russia, especially since the Ukraine crisis began on 24 February 2022 to de-nazify and de-militarize that former Soviet republic. It has protested the detention of four staff members in Donetsk and Luhansk, without specifying who had detained them. Further, two Ukrainian OSCE staffers were sentenced to 13 years of prison by a court in the Luhansk People’s Republic for “alleged high treason and espionage for the United States.”

The Russian delegation was not invited to the 29th OSCE Ministerial Council held in December 2022 where the delegates considered the ramifications and regional security challenges created by Russia’s continued ‘special military operation’ against Ukraine. There were calls to assess the reparations that Russia should be accountable for.

Since the start of its conflict with Ukraine, Russia has seized €2.7 million worth of armored vehicles that were previously part of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine. According to a letter that was sent by Russian OSCE representatives to OSCE Secretary-General Helga Schmid in January 2023, 71 trucks and cars were brought to the Luhansk People’s Republic and the Donetsk People’s Republic as “evidence” and criminal proceedings were initiated against former OSCE personnel for espionage.

As a regional security-oriented intergovernmental organization comprising member states in Europe, North America, and Asia, its mandate includes issues such as arms control, the promotion of human rights, freedom of the press, and free and fair elections. It employs around 3,460 people, mostly in its field operations but also in its secretariat in Vienna, Austria, and its institutions. It has observer status at the United Nations.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), Weekly Blitz and InDepthNews, is now a regular contributor to Global Research. He researches Eurasia, Russia, Africa and BRICS. His focused interest areas include geopolitical changes, foreign relations and economic development questions relating to Africa. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.

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This strongly hints that Poland isn’t ruling out a conventional intervention in Ukraine under certain circumstances and expects that it would rapidly escalate into another Polish-Russian War just like the one that broke out after World War I.

Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces General Wieslaw Kukula told a press conference on Wednesday that

“Today, we need to prepare our forces for full-scale conflict, not an asymmetric-type conflict.”

This came right after the newly signed Polish-Ukrainian security pact, which was summarized here and analyzed in detail here. The relevant takeaways are that Poland will obtain enormous economic stakes in Ukraine, will assemble a ‘Ukrainian Legion’, and is contemplating intercepting Russian missiles.

With these terms in mind and noting how Kukula’s comments coincided with the NATO Summit, some observers suspected that they signaled progress on Poland’s possible plans to conventionally intervene in Ukraine to safeguard its investments there if Russia threatens them or achieves a breakthrough. The military-strategic dynamics of the conflict have trended in Russia’s favor for the past year, but no game-changing developments have yet to occur, though Poland isn’t taking any chances.

Kukula’s decision to prepare for a “full-scale conflict” strongly hints that Poland isn’t ruling out a conventional intervention in Ukraine under the abovementioned circumstances and expects that it would rapidly escalate into another Polish-Russian War just like the one that broke out after World War I. Not coincidentally, the Polish-Ukrainian security pact stipulates that they’ll “build on the Polish-Ukrainian brotherhood in arms in the 1920 war with Bolshevik Russia” when crafting new school curricula.

The reader should also be reminded that their pact calls for the creation of a ‘Ukrainian Legion’ in Poland, which head of the National Security Bureau Jacek Siewiera said could potentially include “millions” of “volunteers”. It’s obvious that this claim is overly ambitious, but the point is that this fighting force could function as the tip of the spear if Poland conventionally intervenes in the conflict, plus Polish servicemen might masquerade as Ukrainians to bolster its numbers and effectiveness.

Regardless of however another “full-scale” Polish-Russian War might begin, there’s no doubt that it would spike the risk of World War III. Poland is a NATO member to whom the nuclear-armed US has mutual security obligations, and even if their extension to allies’ activities in third countries is legally dubious, it’s unlikely that the US would hang any of its allies out to dry if their uniformed troops get pulverized by Russia in Ukraine. The Western elite would demand that the US respond in some way.

Leaving aside speculation about how such a conflict might end, it’s time to turn towards what Poland’s endgame would be for conventionally intervening in the first place. It was argued here back in spring 2022 that Polish interests wouldn’t be best served by annexing the Western Ukrainian regions that it controlled during the interwar period. Rather, this follow-up here from summer 2023 argues that a “sphere of influence” would be much better, which was already being pursued before their security pact.  

Accordingly, upon weighing the costs and benefits, it’s much more likely that Poland would refrain from annexing Western Ukraine and instead remain content with turning it into a client state where Polish companies have privileged access to its natural and labor resources without any of the responsibilities. The ‘Ukrainian Legion’ could then act as Poland’s praetorian guards while some uniformed troops might still be deployed for training and other purposes behind the scenes.

Poland’s plans to nearly triple its border forces from 6,000 to 17,000, 9,000 of whom will form a rapid border reaction force, were also coincidentally announced on the same day as Kukula’s scandalous comment and could facilitate a conventional intervention. Those that might cross into Ukraine wouldn’t leave the Belarusian border vulnerable to illegal immigrant invaders or whatever other threats though since Poland already called on Germany to assume partial responsibility for that front.

As it stands, however, Poland would be taking a huge gamble by conventionally intervening in Ukraine anytime soon. Its planned military buildup isn’t complete and will still require at least a few more years before it’s ready to fight a “full-scale conflict”. There’s also no guarantee that the US would directly attack Russian forces in response to them pulverizing Poles ones in Ukraine. It might instead agree to asymmetrically partition Ukraine as a swift de-escalation compromise to avoid World War III.

That said, a limited intervention that’s concentrated in Western Ukraine and focused on non-combat roles can’t be ruled out, though the reader should know that a top European think tank’s latest survey proved that it would still be very unpopular with Poles. This could take the form of a “no-fly zone” over Lvov, around which its military-industrial and other investments could be based, and the deployment of uniformed troops there for training purposes alongside its ‘Ukrainian Legion’ praetorian guards.

Russia couldn’t ignore that development if it unfolds since doing so could embolden NATO as a whole to rapidly scale this Polish-led intervention to cover everything up to the Dnieper, after which the bloc’s hawks might get frisky and flirt with crossing the river to threaten Russia’s new regions. The resultant game of nuclear chicken that was described here could end in mutual catastrophe if Russia feels that it must employ tactical nukes as a last resort in self-defense to stop an impending invasion.

It’s therefore expected that Russia would kinetically respond to the official introduction of Polish troops in Ukraine and/or a limited “no-fly zone” over its western regions, though depending on the scale of Poland’s intervention and Russia’s response, the US might not get directly involved in the fray. To be clear, Poland might not do either of these two and could formally remain outside of the conflict, but Kukula’s comments nevertheless strongly hint that there are conditions under which it’ll take the plunge.

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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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US President Joe Biden used the opening of the NATO summit in Washington DC on July 9 to reassure member states that he can fight off an election challenge from Donald Trump. Nonetheless, Democratic Party donors are already writing off the presidential election and want another candidate.

Although Biden defiantly spoke for about 13 minutes at the NATO summit and delusionally said, “Russia will not prevail; Ukraine will prevail,” visiting diplomats expressed scepticism about Biden’s leadership capabilities.

“We don’t see how he can come back after the debate,” one unnamed European envoy told Reuters news agency. “I can’t imagine him being at [the] helm of the US and NATO for four more years.”

Politico spoke to several fundraisers and donors who said they do not believe that President Joe Biden will triumph over Donald Trump in the November elections. Therefore, they said, they are thinking about where else to invest their money.

“The events of recent days have put at risk House and Senate Democrats, and we feel it around the country,” said a New York Democratic donor on condition of anonymity.

“Clearly, Democratic donors are looking at down-ballot candidates to try to salvage the House or Senate,” the source added.

The president has said that he will not withdraw from the presidential race and insists that he is the strongest political figure in his party to win the election. However, more than 70% of Americans believe Biden’s mental state is unfit for a second term, according to a CBS News poll conducted after the June 28 debate.

Several Democratic lawmakers, including Jerry Nadler and Joe Morelle, a representative from New York, have already urged Biden not to accept the presidential nomination due to his advanced age.

A New York fundraiser working with Democratic and Republican donors and speaking on the condition of anonymity said that the ruling party has been in “a tizzy” since Biden’s disastrous debate with Trump, whilst Republicans are elated and predicting a red wave.

“The feeling is that the problems at the top will drag everything else completely under: local, state, federal, everything,” the fundraiser told Politico.

The New York Times also reported a few days ago that some of the Biden campaign’s top donors are quietly pressuring the Democratic Party to replace Biden with someone else for the presidential election after support for the president plummeted after the debate with Trump. According to the newspaper, in various private meetings of Democratic donors, many favour Biden resigning and being replaced by someone capable of facing the Republican candidate.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported, citing sources familiar with the issue, that major Democratic donors have chosen Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and California Gov. Gavin Newsom as their favourite candidates to succeed Biden in the presidential race.

“Biden’s candidacy is doomed,” a donor and fundraiser close to the president told the British outlet. “I’m Joe’s biggest fan, he’s an admirable public servant but he’s condemned (…) we have to start concentrating on what comes next.”

Even major figures in the Democratic Party, such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schummer and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have held crisis talks with big donors to gauge their mood, the FT notes, citing donors and fundraisers.

“You’re starting to see a lot of frustration among donors and the pressure is mounting to turn the page and start focusing on finding the right candidate to win against Trump,” one New York fundraiser told the paper. “Everybody is talking to their contacts to make sure we are ready to back the right candidate as soon as Biden steps down.”

Some donors have warned that any move to replace Biden with one of the governors could spark a “civil war” among Democrats, warning that Vice President Kamala Harris would be a less controversial choice. According to The Washington Post, despite having a popularity level as low as Biden’s, current Vice President Kamala Harris could be considered a replacement.

Another party figure who has emerged as an option is Pete Buttigieg, the current Secretary of Transportation. However, The Washington Post claims that he has little chance of attracting the diversity vote since, for example, he obtained little support from the African-American community.

The current president’s poor performance during the debate, which included stammering and blanking out at times, has clearly generated concern among the Democrats regarding the future of the president’s candidacy. However, Biden, as his speech at the NATO Summit opening indicates, appears to have no plans to abandon the presidential race

Seventy-seven percent of registered voters who watched the debate said Trump performed better, while only 33% of respondents reported Biden won the debate, according to a CNN poll. The two will debate again on September 10 in an event moderated by ABC News, and if there is a repeat of the June debate, it will all but likely secure Trump’s return to the White House.

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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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This week NATO is convening its three-day summit in Washington, celebrating its 75th birthday. Much has been talked about Ukraine, of course. One of the highlights of this year’s summit however is the issue of Asia – China appearing in this summit’s declaration again (this being the third time in a row). The Asian superpower was described as a “decisive enabler” in Russia’s conflict against Ukraine. The document further describes Beijing as posing “systemic challenges to Euro-Atlantic security.”

Wang Yi, Chinese Foreign Minister told his Thai counterpart Maris Sangiampongsa in Beijing this week that “It is necessary to resist the negative impact of the Indo-Pacific strategy and guard against NATO reaching out to the Asia-Pacific.” This was a message to ASEAN countries in general.

The matter of opening a NATO office in Tokyo is part of this larger context. It is not officially on this week’s agenda, but Tobias Billström (Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Affairs) has said that NATO members are likely to bring the issue up with France soon (Paris opposes it). It was discussed last year, and often described in very humble terms. According to a 2023 Reuters report:

“NATO officials have said the proposed Japan office would be small, with a staff of only a few people focused on building partnerships, and would not be a military base.”

Last year, this seemingly modest proposal (heavily criticized by China) was nevertheless blocked by France’s President Emmanuel Macron, who, at the time, said that, although the Alliance should have partners “with whom we manage major security issues in the Indo-Pacific, Africa and also the Middle East”,  NATO “remains an organization of the North Atlantic Treaty.” Macron added, ironically, that  “whatever one says, geography is stubborn: the Indo-Pacific isn’t the North Atlantic.” As I wrote back in 2021, Paris is still a global player, and has its own interests in the Indo-Pacific Region (IPR) and globally – and sometimes they clash with NATO and Washington in a number of issues.

This relatively modest proposal of setting up a NATO office in Tokyo, which, as I mentioned, has resurfaced, means in fact much more. According to Jack Detsch and Robbie Gramer (Foreign Policy’s reporters)  it is all about giving the Atlantic Alliance “its first-ever permanent footprint in the Indo-Pacific region.”

On Tuesday, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan went as far as to say that “Japan, [South] Korea, and Australia are all on the road to invest 2 percent of their GDP on defense, a historic step forward”, adding that “put simply, the ties between the United States, Europe, and the Indo-Pacific have never been more important or more interrelated than they are today.” The 2 per cent figure is clearly a nod to NATO’s two per cent spending target, which has always been an internal issue.

As I wrote recently, back in 1997, then senator Joe Biden was already saying that the attitudes of European NATO members pertaining to the American share of the Alliance’s costs, “seem to many senators to be variants of taking the United States for suckers” and that “unless we quickly come to a satisfactory burden sharing understanding in all its facets with our European and Canadian allies, the future of NATO in the next century will be very much in doubt.” This rhetoric finds an echo in Donald Trump points today. In other words, Sullivan is saying that the West might find allies that are more eager and ready to invest on defense in the East.

In the same page, ahead of his participation at the summit, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told Reuters that “Japan is determined to strengthen its cooperation with NATO and its partners.” Along with Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea (known as the “Indo-Pacific Four” – IP4), are also attending the Alliance’s meeting. Kishida  also echoed NATO officials’ accusations against Beijing, by saying, without naming China, that “some countries” have been providing Moscow with dual-use civilian-military goods.

Last year, as mentioned, Macron, in an appeal to the institution’s founding treaty and to the acronym itself, described NATO, in a rather simplistic manner (his words), as “an organization of the North Atlantic Treaty.” Since the 2022 NATO Summit in Madrid, however, it has become increasingly clear to anyone that a “global NATO” (as Liz Truss, who was briefly the British First Minister in 2022, famously called it) has been emerging.  Truss, at the time, claimed that London rejected “the false choice between Euro-Atlantic security and Indo-Pacific security” in favor of “a global NATO”: “I mean that NATO must have a global outlook, ready to tackle global threats.”

While there has been much talk about a “new Asian NATO” (pertaining to the QUAD or even the so-called “new QUAD”), the specter of a new (US-pushed) “global NATO”, comprising allies in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East still haunts global peace. This proposed “bloc” raison d’être would be – what else? – to counter the so-called “threat” of Chinese-Russian cooperation, a “threat” that is nothing but the outcome of the  Alliance’s own encirclement policies against these two great powers.

The whole “pivoting east” talk is nothing new and has often been pushed by Washington – Hillary Clinton’s “Pacific Century” comes to mind, for instance. US foreign policy (in pursuit of the “American Century” and maintaining unipolarity) often resembles the swing of a pendulum. It often oscillates, in the long run, back and forth, between the idea “countering” Beijing or Moscow – and at times it might even attempt to accomplish both things simultaneously, as was the case with the incumbent American presidency and its ambitious and risky “dual containment” approach.

Such geopolitical voracity (albeit pendulous) is to face more than a few challenges. For one thing, up to very recently, very few Alliance members could even keep up with their military spending commitments (a fact which, by the way, explains much of Trump’s rhetoric against the organization). Washington itself is an increasing overextended superpower.

To sum it up, today one can see an increasingly divided NATO, which does not possess a clear view on the challenges of dual containment. With Ukraine’s fatigue lingering on, and the specter of Biden’s senility and a new Trump presidency (amid a US political crisis), the idea of pivoting east is gaining traction – however important allies within the Alliance will challenge that notion.

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Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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I recently became aware of a policy brief with recommendations for the 2024 Summit of the Future, which lays out in plain terms what our “Overlords” have in store for us. It reads like a plot from a Bond-movie. In order to avoid “irreversible tipping points”, it is advised that all life supporting systems – “the atmosphere (air), hydrosphere (water), biosphere (life), lithosphere (land), and cryosphere (ice)” – be administered collectively by a “global governance body” . This means total control of the earth system (Planetary Commons) and the establishment of a global government.

As stated in the policy brief:

Governance of the planetary commons would require a shift from present-day nationalistic, siloed approaches to environmental protection, recognising the core fact that our planet is composed of interconnected, interdependent systems. Instead of a fragmented, treaty-based system, the planetary commons approach proposes a “nested” governance structure involving multiple layers of regulation enacting highly tailored local responses, all overseen by a global governance body.

It also means that no nation will have a sovereign right to exploit its own resources because it may have consequences for the planetary whole.

Today’s system is predicated on the sovereign right of nation-states to exploit resources within their national boundaries with little regard for global consequences. A concept of global stewardship of planetary commons as environmental resources we all depend on would run directly against this core understanding of international law and would face stiff resistance, including from developing countries that might see such a step as impinging on their ability to develop quickly. However, the science is increasingly clear and incontrovertible: without a major change to governance frameworks, our planet will become increasingly unstable, unpredictable, and unliveable. The planetary commons may be the only way to manage systemic change in the Anthropocene.

We must therefore be managed from above.

And who is behind the recommendations for the 2024 Summit of the Future?

The policy brief, “Towards a Planetary Commons Approach for Environmental Governance”, is issued by Global Challenges Foundation, United Nations University Centre for Policy Research and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research(PIK).

It means that the very same actors who have defined the problem offer us the solution. As Professor Johan Rockström, director of PIK and board member of Global Challenges Foundation, said in 2015:

I cannot see any other way than 200 nations having to surrender some of their decision-making sovereignty to a global institutional administration. We have to work with the institutions we have, and their is only one institution that is global, the UN.

The Swedish Global Challenges Foundation has, as I have written about in a previous article, a big influence on the UN-agenda (with financial support to the High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism and the Executive Office of the Secretary-General).

They also have some problematic Malthusian and futuristic beliefs (as I have analysed in an earlier article).

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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day (July 8–9) official visit to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated the significant depth of their bilateral relations within the context of global changes. Russia’s closeness in enhancing and deepening economic cooperation also has an intertwined strategy for ensuring readiness against threats from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a political and military alliance of countries from Europe and North America. But India has, thus far, shown pragmatism in approach as it builds a strong partnership with the United States and, at the same time, maintains ties with Russia.

Narendra Modi’s agenda was really loaded. Choosing Moscow after his re-election as prime minister underlined the importance of Russian-Indian relations, at least from the Soviet era through Moscow’s post Soviet economic transformations until today. Today, both are staunch members of the ‘informal association’ – BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.)  Long before that was RIC ‘trioka’ (Russia, India and China), which according to the Russia Foreign Ministry would be revived. Russia and India also belong to the G20, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Notwithstanding the common visions, Russia and India have distinctive features in geography, politics and economy. India is the third-largest economy in the world. It is probably the largest country in the world by population,1.4 billion people. Russia was only recently upgraded into middle-income category and said to have overtaken Japan, which has only stripes of land and estimated population of 128 million people. By contrast, Russia with an extremely huge territory and vast natural resources, can boast of tiny population of 143 million. It took Russia more than thirty years, after Soviet’s collapse, to join middle-level income countries and to overtake Japan. Despite its achievements, Russia is still far away from what economists referred to as private-oriented economy. Russia’s economy is largely state-controlled.

Modi emphasized during his conversation with Putin that “India is the largest democracy; it is considered the mother of democracy” and therefore democratic elections were very important and huge in scale. “It is the first time in 60 years that a government has been elected for a third term in a row. The first time it happened was when India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was elected for a third term. I have done the same 60 years later. The people of India have given me a chance to serve my homeland,” underscored Modi. According to the official transcript, the Indian people voted for Modi on the principle: reform, perform and transform. Putin and Modi had their first informal encounter at the presidential residence in Novo-Ogaryovo, Moscow Region.

A new era is setting in the world, wrote the local Russia’s Kommersant newspaper on the eve of PM Modi’s visit. According to the newspaper, India considers itself the leader of the Global South, and Russia, one of the driving forces shaping a multipolar world, recognizes each other as important political partners. An additional factor pushing Moscow and New Delhi toward rapprochement is the increasing pressure on Russia and India from the United States.

What Moscow Offers India

Russia-India relations have flourished across all areas under Putin’s leadership for 25 years, i.e. since 1991. The trustworthy relations has hit new milestones and new heights these past few years. In the current global context, India and Russia, as well as their partnership, have taken on a new importance. It is hard to overestimate Russia-India cooperation in the ff; trade and the economy, in the military-technical industry, nuclear and hydrogen energy, in high technology and space development.

In the Grand Kremlin Palace, several documents were discussed, negotiated and outlined bilateral economic sectors for India’s strategic cooperation with Russia until 2030.

The programme was signed of Russian-Indian cooperation in trade, economic and investment spheres in the Russian Far East for 2024–2029, and on the principles of cooperation in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation. Given the vast territory of the Far East, and with its tiny 6.3 million people, China and India have been showing high interest in investment sectors in the region. In the Far East region, Russia is collaborating with Asian countries in trade and investment, strengthening its economic ties especially with China, India, North Korea and Vietnam.

Already local media reports said earlier that India has been a major buyer of Russian oil since the start of the ‘special military operation’ and it has amassed a trade deficit worth around $60 billion in its dealings with Russia.

Head of the Center for the Indian Ocean Region at IMEMO, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Alexey Kupriyanov said in an interview with Nezavisimaya Gazeta:

“While the trade deficit problem cannot be solved through negotiations, it can be resolved as the trade structure levels off and Indian exports to Russia grow. These mostly include high-tech products that India either produces itself or buys in the West to resell to Russia.”

In January-April, Russia was the second largest supplier of goods to India (with only China ahead of it with deliveries worth $32.6 billion). In turn, exports of Indian goods to Russia increased by 21% to $1.6 billion, with Russia rising from 33rd to 29th place among recipients of goods from India. The top five importers of Indian goods include the United States, the United Arab Emirates, the Netherlands, Singapore, and China.

During negotiations on July 9, inter-agency documents were signed concerning issues of climate change and low-carbon development, geodesy and cartography, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, scientific research and logistics in the polar regions, and cooperation in the field of television broadcasting. A number of signed agreements concern investment and arbitration issues.

In addition, economic cooperation featured prominently in the bilateral discussions, ended with signing memorandums of understanding between the all-Russia Public Organisation Delovaya Rossiya (Business Russia) and the Trade Promotion Council of India, as well as between the National Research University Higher School of Economics (Russia) and Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi, India). The world will be watching with eagles eyes for the tangible results from these ambitious initiatives and strategies in shaping the evolving regional politics and economy not only in Russia but also in Eurasian region and, further the global dynamics.

Crowning the two-day interaction, President Vladimir Putin decorated Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, with “the Order of St Andrew the Apostle” in a modest ceremony held in St Andrew’s Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace. According to the decree, Modi was honored with this award “for his outstanding merit in development of the particularly privileged strategic partnership between the Russian Federation and the Republic of India, as well as friendly ties between Russian and Indian peoples.”

This order can be awarded to heads of foreign states for outstanding services to the Russian Federation. It is the oldest order instituted more than three centuries ago by Russian Emperor Peter the Great.

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Indian economy in 2024 was nominally worth $3.94 trillion. Driven by growth, India’s nominal GDP per capita increased steadily from $308 in 1991 and now reached an estimated $2,731 in 2024. India is officially known as the Republic of India located in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area; the most populous country as of June 2024. India borders the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.

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The excessive support and public adoration the U.S. government has given to Kenya’s President William Ruto represents the racist contempt this settler state has for all of Africa and the domestic population of descendants from the continent. Two days before African Liberation Day on May 25th and one month before the Kenyan police’s brutal crackdown on protests against the US-IMF backed Finance Act that increases taxes up to 35% on essential goods, U.S. President Biden rolled out a red carpet for Ruto at a White House state dinner.

The debt this bill is supposed to address only exists because of the incessant and indiscriminate borrowing by the previous government of Kenya, for which Ruto was vice president. Ruto is a Grade A lackey for U.S. interests reminiscent of the dictator Mobutu of the Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire) who U.S. imperialism supported for 32 years in order to plunder the Congo.

U.S. neo-colonialism praised as an “endearing” and “enduring” democracy, the Ruto presidency, a puppet government that unleashed its notoriously vicious police to reportedly arrest more than 300, kill as many as 23 and injure dozens of Kenyan citizens in the demonstrations over the past week. These police are the same force U.S. imperialism has maneuvered into being dispatched to Haiti to contain the people’s resistance against imperialism in that Caribbean nation.

An elevation in the parlance of U.S. statecraft is the paternalistic promise of granting Kenya the status of a “Major Non-NATO Ally,” a role granted to the African Union’s African Standby Force. This designation is in sharp contrast to the Alliance of Sahel States newly formed confederation, a declaration of African self-determination.

The Africa Team of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) and the organizing arm U.S. Out of Africa Network (USOAN) stand in uncompromising solidarity with the masses of Kenyans fighting against the proposed Finance Bill 2024. We denounce in the strongest terms the complicity of the U.S., especially its Black misleaders in Congress, in passing this legislation. In fact, on the day the bill was introduced in the Kenyan parliament, members of the U.S. Congress including Barbara Lee.

Ruto must go! U.S. Out of Africa! BAP and USOAN salute the courage and determination of the masses of youth throughout Kenya “Gen Z”! The blood spilled will not be in vain. Our martyrs are alive alongside the living. We stand unwaveringly with the Gen Z Movement, our people of Kenya!

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The US is taking advantage of the NATO summit to advance nuclear measures in domestic politics. In a recent statement, the Department of Defense announced that it will continue its project to develop a new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile, despite the exponential increase in costs. The Congress approved the proposal despite its highly irresponsible nature. The goal is to improve US nuclear capabilities in the current security crisis.

The Sentinel program is expected to replace all of the country’s outdated Minuteman III nuclear missiles. The project’s costs are currently estimated at 140 billion dollars, an 81% increase in cost expectations compared to the program’s first assessment. The Pentagon had previously promised to spend just 77 billion dollars on the production of the new missiles, but evaluators now say the project will cost nearly twice that.

According to American law, when a project is expected to grow in cost by more than 25%, the department responsible for the proposal must review the program and justify its need to the Congress. After studying the project, the Pentagon concluded that there are no alternatives to the Sentinel program, and that American lawmakers should consent as soon as possible for its implementation, thus ensuring the renewal of American nuclear capabilities. Fearing alleged “threats”, US politicians approved the requirement. 

“[We are] fully aware of the costs (…) But we are also aware of the risks of not modernizing our nuclear forces and not addressing the very real threats we confront,” said William LaPlante, the under secretary of defense for acquisition, about the case.

Obviously, the “threats” seen by the US regarding nuclear issues are focused on the Russian Federation. Since the beginning of the special military operation, the West has been responding to Moscow’s measures through nuclear blackmail. Some Western leaders have even stated that they would be ready to face a nuclear war with Russia. In parallel, the US recently gave Ukraine permission to attack Russian military units outside the conflict zone, which could put some nuclear facilities at risk.

In retaliation to Western nuclear blackmail, Moscow has suspended its participation in the New START treaty. The bilateral Russian-American agreement signed in 2010 limits the nuclear capabilities of both countries, and although Russia has suspended its participation, the country still observes the rules of the pact, severely limiting its number of weapons and delivery systems. However, in 2026 the agreement will expire and it is unlikely that the parties will reach any kind of consensus to renew it.

In practice, it is possible to say that the irresponsible actions of the West since February 2022 are leading the world into a new nuclear race. The US-led West is taking several initiatives to escalate this race, with the approval of a new multi-billion-dollar nuclear program, even in the midst of a serious internal crisis in the US, being an example of this. Instead of using public money to solve the problem on the borders or create measures to ease social and ethnic tensions, Washington is prioritizing investing in nuclear weapons to allegedly face “risks” that are created by the US’ own foreign policy.

All Russian nuclear actions have been merely reactive. Moscow recently ended the ban on nuclear tests and began joint tactical weapons exercises with the Republic of Belarus – a country to which nuclear equipment was recently provided to strengthen Minsk amid threats posed by both the Kiev regime and neighboring NATO countries. These actions were retaliatory given the nuclear pressure and the constant threats posed by the US-led alliance in the Russian strategic environment. In practice, the US creates the threat, prompting Russia to react – and then Russian retaliation is described by Western propaganda as a “danger”, endorsing further US actions and creating a vicious cycle.

For the first time, a photo at the Washington summit captures all 32 NATO member states’ delegation groups together (9th of July 2024) (From the Public Domain)

It is important to emphasize that the latest American move came in the first day of the NATO summit in Washington. The alliance’s officials are meeting precisely to discuss new strategies to confront Russia in the current proxy conflict. Given the context, the American political atmosphere is even more paranoid about the possibility of a direct war with Russia, which explains why the “nuclear threat” speech persuaded Congressmen to approve the new Sentinel program, despite its exorbitant costs.

Indeed, the US and NATO are taking a dangerous path. The nuclear escalation may not end if measures to expand military capabilities continue to be taken frequently. Given the strictly defensive nature of Russia’s nuclear policy, the path to de-escalation is simple: the US and its partners need only stop posing threats to Russia and invite Moscow to renegotiate a new nuclear agreement.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Lucas Leiroz is a member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. You can follow Lucas on X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram. 

Featured image: President Joe Biden awards NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg the Presidential Medal of Freedom during an event marking the 75th anniversary of the NATO Alliance, Tuesday, July 9, 2024, at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Erin Scott / Public Domain)

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As NATO wrapped up its Summit and Biden held a crucial press conference, the media frenzy continued to focus on Biden’s age and cognitive abilities. Is he too old and disoriented to lead the “free world”? Was he able to get through his press conference without stumbling too many times? Lost in the media coverage about the Summit, however, has been a serious discussion of NATO’s advanced age and NATO’s ability to lead the “free world.”

At 75, NATO has not aged well. Back in 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron was already sounding the alarm, accusing NATO of being “brain dead.” While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has given NATO a new lease on life, NATO’s embrace of Ukraine actually makes the conflict–and the world–more dangerous.

Let’s remember why NATO was founded. As the contours of the Cold War were emerging after the devastation of WWII, 10 European nations, along with the U.S. and Canada, came together in 1949 to create an alliance that would deter Soviet expansion, stop the revival of nationalist militarism in Europe through a strong North American presence on the continent, and encourage European political integration. Or, as the alliance’s first Secretary General Lord Ismay quipped, its purpose was “to keep the Soviets out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”

It is decades now since the Soviet Union has disintegrated and European nations have been well integrated. So why is NATO still hanging on? When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, along with its military alliance called the Warsaw Pact, NATO could have–and should have–declared victory and folded. Instead, it expanded from 16 members in 1991 to 32 members today.

Its eastward expansion not only violated the promises made by Secretary of State James Baker to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, but it was a grave mistake. U.S. diplomat George Keenan warned in 1997 “expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold-War era.” Indeed, while NATO expansion does not justify Russia’s 2022 illegal invasion of Ukraine, it did provoke Russia and inflame tensions. NATO members also played a key role in the Ukraine’s 2014 coup, the training and arming of Ukrainian forces in preparation for war with Russia, and the quashing of negotiations that could have ended the war in its first two months.

After two years of brutal war, the NATO Summit focused on how to shore up Ukraine’s flailing efforts to repel Russia. The insistence on setting up a “Trump-proof” scenario that would guarantee Ukraine billions in military aid for years to come and an “irreversible path” to NATO membership is really a guarantee that the war will drag on for years–precisely because NATO membership is Russia’s number one concern. There was no talk at the Summit of how to end the war by moving towards a ceasefire and peace talks. Why? Because NATO is a military alliance. The only tool it has is a hammer.

We have seen NATO illegally and unsuccessfully wield that hammer in country after country over the past 30 years. From Bosnia and Serbia to Afghanistan and Libya, NATO has justified this violence and instability as defending “the Rules-Based Order,” while repeatedly violating the core precepts of the UN Charter.

NATO is now a military behemoth with partners far beyond the North Atlantic that encircle the globe from Colombia to Mongolia to Australia. It has proven to be an aggressive alliance that initiates and escalates wars without international consensus, exacerbates global instability, and prioritizes arms deals over humanitarian needs. NATO provides a cover for the U.S. to place nuclear weapons in five European nations, bringing us closer to nuclear war in violation of both the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. NATO is endangering us all in a desperate attempt to reassert U.S. global hegemony in what is now a multipolar world.

NATO’s 75th anniversary is an opportune time to take stock of NATO’s outdated world view and violations of international law. NATO should be laid to rest so we can revitalize and democratize the proper venue for dealing with global conflicts: the United Nations.

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Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of the women-led peace group CODEPINK and co-founder of the human rights group Global Exchange. She is the author of 11 books, including War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, coauthored with Nicolas J.S. Davies. Her most recent book, coauthored with David Swanson, is NATO: What You Need to Know.

Featured image: President Joe Biden shakes hands with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during the NATO Summit in Washington, D.C., July 11, 2024 (Official State Department photo by Chuck Kennedy / Public Domain)

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There is something to be said about ignoring actors.  They assume roles, quite literally, camouflage themselves in scripts where personalities are created, and behave accordingly.  Given that they are paid liars, their political promptings should be treated with caution.  It is no accident that much the same thing can be said about the members of Congress.

Given that the US President is now not so much functioning in twilight as in rapidly descending darkness, the recent intervention by Hollywood grandee and Democrat benefactor George Clooney has prompted ever more tittering about the electoral prospects of Joe Biden.

Choosing the New York Times to make his point, Clooney spoke of his love for Biden mixed with anguish about political realities.  “We are not going to win in November with this president.”  He wished the Democratic party operators “to stop telling us that 51 million people didn’t see what we just saw”, referring to Biden’s calamitous showing in the first debate against Donald Trump.  “We’re so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we’ve opted to ignore every warning sign.”

Personal reflections about Biden’s recent behaviour flowed.  At a co-hosted Hollywood fundraiser held over three weeks ago at the Peacock Theatre, Clooney found “not the Joe ‘big F-king deal’ Biden of 2010.  He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020.”

Reflections about the Democratic establishment are also plentiful.  Having spoken to Democratic lawmakers – Clooney does not say how many – the broad consensus was clear: Biden’s candidacy was a liability across all political races.  “We won’t win the House, and we’re going to lose the Senate.”

The grim assessment is inevitable:

“Most of our members of Congress are opting to wait and see if the dam breaks. But the dam has broken.  We can put our heads in the sand and pray for a miracle in November, or we can speak the truth.”

Others in the movie business are also offering their “love you but exit” suggestions.  This is director Robert Reiner’s unimpressive gobbet on social media:

“We love and respect Joe Biden.  We acknowledge all he has done for our country.  But Democracy is facing an existential threat.  We need someone younger to fight back.  Joe Biden must step aside.”

Predictably, given their profession, there were also suggestions from the thespian community about how Biden could do better from a purely superficial perspective, satisfying the spectators and viewers transfixed by the blood sport of a US presidential race.  Michael Douglas, for instance, had his own morsel on The View about how the debate with Trump should have gone. 

“First of all they should have just told the president to stand up, put a little makeup on for the debate and then where to look.” 

Biden should – and here, the jaw drops – have not dealt with his own facts – “just deal with [Trump’s] lies.”  Now that’s acting.

With all that out of the way, Douglas still had to concede feeling “deeply, deeply concerned” while gazing at the “big bench” of “heavy hitters, a lot of talent” on the Democratic side. (Names, please.)  Clooney, in making his case for a replacement, had made “a valid point.”

Not that we should assume all such figures feel the same way.  Perennial cause seeking activist Jane Fonda, in views expressed last month, thought that age could actually play to Biden’s advantage.  In remarks made to Wolf Blitzer on CNN, Fonda noted how she was

“older than he is.  And I’m all for age. I can tell you that you do get wise and you do learn things you learn from your mistakes.  And I have seen him close and personal and he’s fine.”  The incumbent was accordingly “perfectly suited to be president of the United States I don’t know of or in spite of the age he’s just fine.”

With such supremely skewed analysis, we know that anybody can be president, whatever their mental infirmities.  Appropriately, Whoopi Goldberg was full of candour in declaring that she would still vote for the president even “if he’s pooped his pants.  I don’t care if he can’t put a sentence together.  Show me he can’t do the job and then I’ll say, okay, maybe it’s time to go.”  Presidential politics really has struck a low bar.

Clooney’s scribble has laid bare the knotty state the Democrats have created for themselves.  The issue of Biden’s condition was already well inked last year, but the machine men and women would not have a bar of considering his replacement.  This late in the day, the Democrats have been shown, by virtue of such mildly condescending notes from Clooney (the “love you Joe” sort), to have abused their elderly relative by initially supporting them, only to publicly withdraw their blessing as the show is wearing thin.  You were good for the laughs; time to go home.

Through this, Biden has become a victim of wide scale elder abuse, be it in the form of prolonging his agony as a candidate – disingenuously or otherwise – or calling for his prompt exit.  Whether he soils his pants or not, he certainly is proving on the international stage that his cerebral functions are blunted beyond repair.

His latest addition to the cabinet of gaffes and mental enfeeblement: confusing, at the NATO summit in Washington, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.  In another slip, he also referred to Vice-President Kamala Harris as “Vice-President Trump”.

Those in the dream factory of Hollywood can take some comfort in these displays.  A CNN report, citing an unnamed White House source, makes the delicious point that the president’s “entire display is a kind of an act”.  Unfortunately, even for those in thespian land, it’s not even a good one.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected] 

Featured image: U.S. President Joe Biden preparing to disembark Marine One, July 2021. (White House, Adam Schultz)

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***

The issue by the Army of a directive entitled “Handling Protest, Extremism, and Criminal Gang Activities” on June 14, 2024, essentially forbids the discussion of any issues that the military designates as “extremist” by any member of the army, even when off duty.

The directive applies to the reserve and national guard, and most likely will be expanded to cover all armed services, and then the entire federal government.

Two detailed memorandums were sent out by Army Secretary Christine Wormuth.

All such activities, including bumper stickers on cars and posts on social media when off duty, that are deemed to be “extremist” must be reported to commanders who are, in turn, required to report to the US ARMY Criminal Investigation Division. What is and what is not “extremist” is left to the commander to determine.

If the main concern was criminal gangs and racist ideology, it would be one thing, but a careful reading of the directive shows that this blanket prohibition can be, and will be, applied to COVID-19 truth, 9/11 truth, discussions of the illegal or criminal actions of officers and politicians, corruption within the army, and all discussion concerning whether directives and orders are legal, or constitutional, or even consistent with US Army policy.

 

 

Army Directive 2024-07 “Handling Protest, Extremism, and Criminal Gang Activities”

June 14, 2024

4-12. Extremist activities Military personnel are prohibited from actively participating in extremist activities. Active participation in extremist activities by Servicemembers is inconsistent with the responsibilities and obligations of military service, as well as the oaths of office and enlistment. Active participation in extremist activities can be prohibited even in some circumstances in which such activities would be constitutionally protected in a civilian setting. Enforcement of this policy is a responsibility of every command, is vitally important to unit cohesion and morale, and is SUBJECT: Anny Directive 2024-07 (Handling Protest, Extremist, and Criminal Gang Activities) essential to the Anny’s ability to accomplish its mission. It is the commander’s responsibility to maintain good order and discipline in the unit. Every commander has the inherent authority to take appropriate actions to accomplish this goal. This paragraph identifies prohibited actions by Servicemembers involving extremist activities, discusses the authority of the commander to establish other prohibitions, and establishes that violations of prohibitions contained in this paragraph or those established by a commander may result in punitive or administrative action.

a.      Extremist activities. The term “extremist activities” means

(1) Advocating or engaging in unlawful force, unlawful violence, or other illegal means to

deprive individuals of their rights under the United States Constitution or the laws of the United States, including those of any State, Commonwealth, Territory, or the District of Columbia, or any political subdivision thereof.

(2) Advocating or engaging in unlawful force or violence to achieve goals that are political, religious, discriminatory, or ideological in nature.

(3) Advocating, engaging in, or supporting terrorism within the United States or abroad.

(4) Advocating, engaging in, or supporting the overthrow of the Government of the United States or any political subdivision thereof, including that of any State, Commonwealth, Territory, or the District of Columbia, by force or violence, or seeking to alter the forms of these governments by unconstitutional or other unlawful means (such as sedition).

(5) Advocating or encouraging military, civilian, or contractor personnel within the DoD or United States Coast Guard to violate the laws of the United States, or any political subdivision thereof, including that of any State, Commonwealth, Territory, or the District of Columbia, or to disobey lawful orders or regulations, for the purpose of disrupting military activities (such as subversion), or personally undertaking the same.

(6) Advocating widespread unlawful discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex (including pregnancy), gender identity, or sexual orientation.

b. Active participation. The term “active participation” means the following, except where such activity is within the scope of an official duty (for example, intelligence or law enforcement operations)-

(1) Advocating or engaging in the use or threat of unlawful force or violence in support of extremist activities.

2 SUBJECT: Army Directive 2024-07 (Handling Protest, Extremist, and Criminal Gang Activities)

(2) Advocating for, or providing material support or resources to, individuals or organizations that promote or threaten the unlawful use of force or violence in support of extremist activities, with the intent to support such promotion or threats.

(3) Knowingly communicating information that compromises the operational security of any military organization or mission, in support of extremist activities.

(4) Recruiting or training others to engage in extremist activities.

(5) Fundraising for or making personal contributions through donations of any kind (including but not limited to the solicitation, collection, or payment of fees or dues) to, a group or organization that engages in extremist activities, with the intent to support those activities.

(6) Creating, organizing, or taking a leadership role in a group or organization that engages in or advocates for extremist activities, with knowledge of those activities.

(7) Actively demonstrating or rallying in support of extremist activities (but not merely observing such demonstrations or rallies as a spectator).

(8) Attending a meeting or activity with the knowledge that the meeting or activity involves extremist activities, with the intent to support those activities:

(a)  When the nature of the meeting or activity constitutes a breach of law and order.

(b) When a reasonable person would determine the meeting or activity is likely to result in violence; or

(c)  In violation of off-limits sanctions or other lawful orders.

(9) Distributing literature or other promotional materials, on or off a military installation, the primary purpose and content of which is to advocate for extremist activities, with the intent to promote that advocacy.

(10) Knowingly receiving material support or resources from a person or organization that advocates or actively participates in extremist activities with the intent to use the material support or resources in support of extremist activities.

(11) When using a government communications system and with the intent to support extremist activities, knowingly accessing internet websites or other materials that promote or advocate extremist activities.

3 SUBJECT: Army Directive 2024-07 (Handling Protest, Extremist, and Criminal Gang Activities)

(12) Knowingly displaying paraphernalia, words, or symbols in support of extremist activities or in support of groups or organizations that support extremist activities, such as flags, clothing, tattoos, and bumper stickers, whether on or off a military installation.

(13) Engaging in electronic and cyber activities regarding extremist activities, or groups that support extremist activities-including posting, liking, sharing, re-tweeting, or otherwise distributing content-when such action is taken with the intent to promote or otherwise endorse extremist activities. Military personnel are responsible for the content they publish on all personal and public internet domains, including social media platforms, blogs, websites, and applications.

(14) Knowingly taking any other action in support of or engaging in extremist activities, when such conduct is prejudicial to good order and discipline or is service discrediting.

c. Command authority. Commanders have the authority and responsibility to prohibit Servicemembers from actively participating in extremist activities and any other activities that the commander determines will adversely affect readiness, good order and discipline, or morale within the command. This includes, but is not limited to, the authority to order the removal of symbols, flags, posters, or other displays from military-controlled areas; to place areas or activities off-limits (see AR 190 -24); or to order Servicemembers not to participate in those activities that are contrary to good order and discipline or morale of the unit, or pose a threat to health, safety, and security of military personnel or a military installation.

d. Command options. The policy rules and prohibitions regarding participation in extremist activities apply to members of the Army Reserve and the ARNG regardless of whether the prohibited activity occurs while on or off orders under Title 10 or 32 of the USC. As appropriate, commanders may pursue adverse administrative in addition to or in lieu of punitive action in response to a Servicemember’s active participation in extremist activities. A commander’s options for dealing with a Servicemember’ s violation of the prohibitions include, but are not limited to:

(1) UCMJ action, subject to jurisdictional limitations requirements set forth in the Manual for Courts-Martial.

(2) Adverse administrative action which may include, but is not limited to:

(a)  Involuntary separation.

(b)  Reassignment.

(c)  Loss of security clearance.

 

4 SUBJECT: Army Directive 2024-07 (Handling Protest, Extremist, and Criminal Gang Activities)

(d) Bar to continued service.

(e) Other administrative or disciplinary action deemed appropriate by the commander, based on the specific facts and circumstances of the particular case.

e. Command responsibility. Military personnel actively participating in extremist activities could threaten the good order and discipline of a unit. As such, and in an effort to minimize the risk of future active participation in extremist activities, commanders should remain alert and should intervene early, primarily through counseling, when observing signs of future extremist activities that may not rise to the level of the prohibitions in paragraphs 3-12a and 3-12b.

The goal of early intervention is to minimize the risk of future extremist activities. In these situations, commanders will take positive actions to educate Soldiers, putting them on notice of the potential adverse effects that participation in violation of Army policy may have upon good order and discipline in the unit and upon their military service.

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This article was originally published on Fear No Evil.

Emanuel Pastreich served as the president of the Asia Institute, a think tank with offices in Washington DC, Seoul, Tokyo and Hanoi. Pastreich also serves as director general of the Institute for Future Urban Environments.

Pastreich declared his candidacy for president of the United States as an independent in February, 2020.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

With the EU’s and NATO’s wrath and vehement disapproval, President Viktor Orban of Hungary used the occasion of Hungary’s European Union Presidency from 1 July to 31 December 2024, to go on a peace mission. Mr. Orban wants peace against the will of the EU and against the mandate of NATO.

“Orbán’s Big Hungarian Presidency Speech Blocked by European Parliament” 

Hungarian European Union (EU) Council presidency will have to wait until later in the year for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to present its agenda under the slogan “Make Europe Great Again” before the European Parliament.

Attempts by Hungarian premier Viktor Orbán to address MEPs at the inaugural plenary sitting of the newly elected assembly in Strasbourg have been rebuffed by parliamentary chiefs unable to find room to accommodate him in the agenda, two sources familiar with the issue have told Euronews. See this.

The EU and NATO are warmongers, working for the war industry, especially the United States weapons manufacturers – and of course, showing the world that they adhere to the Western world’s narrative – “hating” Russia – which is IN, as in “fashionable”, and increasingly as in “neo-fascism”.

When you hate Russia and want to do harm to President Putin, you are respected in the West.

If you ask them why? But nobody does – they would say, “Because of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine”.  They know and we know it is a lie.

Ever since the Western-instigated Maidan Coup on February 22, 2014 in Kiev, Ukraine’s politics have taken a new turn to Nazism, what they were already during WWII, when the Banderas Azov battalions were fighting Russia alongside Hitler’s Reich’s troops. And killed tens if not hundreds of thousands of Russians.

Yes, Kiev’s troops did.

The same Azov units, still very much alive today – and still out for killing Russian citizens in the Donbass areas and other Ukraine regions, where Russian speaking people are the majority. An estimated 14,000 to 17,000 Russians were killed from February 2014 until the Russian intervention in February 2022 – which was the principal reason for Russia to act.

So, it is not a Russian aggression war as the West propagates, but it’s rather a Russian defense war, as history clearly shows.

The West knows this of course. NATO chief Stoltenberg himself repeated several times in the last six months that the Ukraine Russia war started already in 2014 – a clear admission that the instigators were the West, not Russia.

Obviously, France, Germany, Italy, the Brussels technocrats and the entire “leadership” of Europe are fully aware of this. They just keep lying and misleading people to believe this is a Russian-initiated war, when it is NOT. It is a purely Western provocation, continuing as of this day.

Mr. Orban knows it.

So, instead of continuing the Western lie narrative, he did NOT attend the NATO Summit in Washington DC during the past couple of days. But he traveled to Kiev and met with President Zelenskyy, then to Moscow to talk to President Putin, and finally to Beijing to meet with President Xi — all on a mission to seek PEACE.

Details and results of the talks are so far kept secret. It is just known that Zelenskyy was not non-plussed by President Orban’s proposals. Or let’s put it this way: Zelenskyy, who deep down probably also would prefer to be at peace, is not allowed by the West and especially not NATO, to seek peace.

In an ultimate act of provocation, the West wants to make Ukraine a NATO country, simultaneously with making the turbo-corrupt Ukraine a European Union member, thereby breaking all economic and ethical rules, and act beyond ALL Reason.

Why is Mr. Zelenskyy’s deep-down wish for peace obvious? Because in April 2022, he was ready to sign a Peace Agreement with President Putin, at the Erdogan-sponsored Peace Talks in Istanbul. It was Boris Johnson, then British PM, who called stop, told Zelenskyy not to sign because the UK and the larger West, NATO did not want peace. They wanted the war of attrition to continue. And so it does – until this day.

As PM Orban embarked on his “unapproved” journey to Kiev, Moscow and Beijing, the Brussels so-called lead-cadres, like Ursula von der Leyen, Josep Borrell, were falling all over themselves condemning Mr. Orban for not adhering to EU rules, going his own way – the Peace way — a way so distant from the path Europe has chosen, which is harming Russia as much as possible.

In recent days, the unelected EU Commission even threatened Orban with taking the EU Presidency away from him, for his misbehavior. Of course, they cannot. They know it. So, it is again just propaganda talk for make-believe people that Orban and Putin are bad people, not to be associate with the goodness of the West.

The EU is already busy with preparing yet more useless “sanctions” against Russia – and who knows, maybe also against one of their own, Hungary.

Self-propelled Western destructive events are advancing fast, and people around these events are waking up to the truth.

Combine the Orban Peace Initiative, with the de facto French election win of Madame Le Pen’s National Rally Party, though fraudulently denied, and with the effective alliance established between Mr. Orban and Ms. Marine Le Pen, you may see that the plot is cooking.

What if Mr. Orban would decide to exit the EU and / or NATO and if simultaneously civil war-like unrest would break out in France because of the election fraud?

The Macron government would have to resign and Ms. Le Pen may take over, or early general [honest] elections would have to be called and the new leader – barring fraud – would decide on behalf of the people and for the people, that France should exit the EU, and even remembering their old visionary, General Charles de Gaulle’s decision of June 21, 1966, to withdraw from NATO, and pledging that Europe should have its own defense system, independently from that of the US of A.

General De Gaulle was also a staunch opponent of a united Europe, defending the sovereignty of his country, his people.

There are no coincidences. Who knows, Mr. Orban’s Peace initiative, in combination with the French election fraud, may break the Western’s warrior back, and become a corner stone for a new area.

*

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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.

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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Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research

***

On Sunday, July 7, the Israeli army ordered residents of three neighborhoods in eastern Gaza City to immediately evacuate toward the west, ahead of a new ground invasion. Thousands of displaced families abandoned their shelters and searched desperately for a place to stay the night in the city’s western neighborhoods. Within hours, however, Israeli forces attacked those very areas.

The evacuation order came less than two weeks after Israeli forces reinvaded the Shuja’iya neighborhood in the east of Gaza City. Amid continuing displacement and ground incursions in the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, and bombing throughout the Strip — including in designated “safe zones” — there is nowhere for Palestinians to find reprieve from Israel’s onslaught. 

Mahmoud Al-Shawa, 28, fled with his family from the eastern Al-Tuffah neighborhood after the army ordered them to leave on Sunday. He recounted how thousands of others displaced from Al-Tuffah, Al-Daraj, and the Old City sought refuge in what little space remained in university buildings and UN schools. After those quickly filled up, many were forced to sleep on the streets. 

Al-Shawa’s family were lucky to find temporary shelter at Al-Zeitoun Preparatory School in the western neighborhood of Al-Rimal, but it didn’t provide any safety from what soon followed. “At approximately 2 a.m., the bombing began from every direction,” he told +972. “The sky was ablaze. Everyone was screaming.

“We were in the schoolyard, and shrapnel was falling on us,” Al-Shawa continued. “We tried to hide in the classrooms, but quadcopter drones were shooting directly at us. Suddenly, my cousin fell to the floor — he’d been hit in his left arm by shrapnel. There were dozens of bodies on the ground. I’m sure people were killed. I was trying to escort my mother away from the chaos, but suddenly she stopped and vomited on the floor due to all the bodies. I covered her eyes so she wouldn’t see them.

“We heard the sound of army tanks, and then someone screamed: the army had surrounded the headquarters of UNRWA [the UN Relief and Works Agency], only meters away from us,” he went on. “Somehow, we escaped from the school with Israeli tanks behind us and quadcopters shooting at us from the sky. It was like an earthquake or a volcano erupting. There was complete darkness — only the color of blood and missiles illuminated the area.”

Click here to read the tweet on X

Al-Shawa and his family eventually reached the Majda Wasila School, further away from the invading Israeli forces. But as they fled from their initial shelter, they saw two paralyzed girls in wheelchairs, who had likely taken shelter in the nearby UNRWA rehabilitation center and were now left to fend for themselves. Amid the crowds of those fleeing, Al-Shawa recounted, the girls were in danger of being trampled — but he was unable to help them. 

According to the Gaza Civil Emergency Service, dozens of people were killed or wounded in Israeli attacks that night. Due to the intensive military operations in the area, however, emergency teams have not been able to reach the victims to verify the numbers, and Al-Rimal has become a ghost town. 

‘If We Try to Evacuate, We Will be Shot; If We Stay, We Will be Killed’

Like Al-Rimal, the neighborhood of Al-Sabra in southwestern Gaza City was also attacked by the Israeli military Sunday night without prior warning. Many displaced families had sought refuge there from the eastern neighborhoods following the initial evacuation order. But at around 11 p.m., residents began hearing explosions and Israeli helicopters in the area. “What we witnessed was not a safe area but a battlefront,” Alaa Sbaih, a 24-year-old resident of Al-Sabra, told +972. 

Earlier that day, Sbaih had opened her home to relatives who had fled from the eastern neighborhood of Al-Daraj. But they soon became trapped: as the bombings continued into the following day, they discovered that Israeli snipers had set up positions atop the nearby buildings of Al-Azhar University, the Islamic University, and Al-Sousi Tower, and were shooting at anyone who moved. 

Sbaih is fearful of even approaching the windows to check what is happening outside — and for good reason. “Our neighbor from the Al-Qasas family tried to escape, but once he got to his car, a sniper shot him and left him bleeding in the street, with his children screaming for him,” Sbaih recounted. Indeed, Israeli soldiers have testified to +972 and Local Call that Palestinian civilians throughout Gaza are routinely shot dead, simply for being outside in areas where Israeli forces operate or even for watching them from behind a window. 

It was not until Monday afternoon that the Israeli army eventually issued a second evacuation order, instructing people in the western neighborhoods of Al-Sabra, Al-Rimal, and Tal Al-Hawa to evacuate southward to the city of Deir Al-Balah. But as Israeli forces remain in the area, Sbaih and her relatives face an impossible decision. “We have no option except death: if we try to evacuate, we will be shot, and if we stay, we will be killed.” 

Maher Mamdooh, 21, told +972 that after being forced to relocate with more than 30 of his relatives just two weeks ago from Shuja’iya, he was then displaced three times between Sunday afternoon and Monday morning: from Al-Daraj to the border of Al-Rimal, then into central Al-Rimal, and then eventually further north toward Jabalia. During this ordeal, he lost all of his belongings, and was separated from some of his relatives. 

“We fled from the house in the middle of the night — we were running in all directions and no one knew where to go,” he recounted. “There were explosions everywhere, and we were surrounded by helicopters, quadcopters, and tanks. My relatives were with us, but now we do not know where they went. It was a night from hell.”

On Wednesday, the Israeli army issued a third new evacuation order, instructing Palestinians to flee the entire Gaza City area. The renewed offensive has also forced Gaza City’s two remaining hospitals to close their doors: Al-Ahli — which was hit by missiles — and the Patient’s Friends Benevolent Society. Al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital, remains in ruins following the Israeli siege of the area in March. 

After nine months of endless displacement, killing, and starvation, Mamdooh said life long ago became unbearable. “How many times do we have to die? There are no ways left for Israel to kill us. No one in the world can feel what I feel now.”

In a comment to +972, a spokesperson for the Israeli army spokesperson denied that it had bombed the areas described, and said that “all of northern Gaza is defined by the IDF as an evacuated combat zone, and Hamas operates in the heart of civilian areas.”

*

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Mahmoud Mushtaha is a Gaza-based freelance journalist and human rights activist.

Featured image: Palestinians flee the neighborhood of Al-Rimal in response to Israeli evacuation orders, Gaza City, July 8, 2024. (Ferial Abdu)

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***

 

 

 

Killers of the Flower Moon is a recent epic movie set in the 1920s examining a series of murders of members of the Osage Nation who became wealthy when oil was found on their tribal land. The film is set in Oklahoma (Choctaw language phrase: okla, ‘people’, and humma, ‘red’) and depicts the story of a local political boss who was contriving to steal the Osage wealth. The film is long with a running time of 206 minutes and shows an ensemble cast of well-known actors such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, Tantoo Cardinal, John Lithgow, and Brendan Fraser.

It did well, grossing $157 million worldwide as well as receiving “critical acclaim, with praise for Scorsese’s direction, the screenplay, production values, editing, cinematography, musical score, and cast performances, especially DiCaprio, Gladstone, and De Niro […] It was also nominated for ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture, seven Golden Globe Awards, including Best Motion Picture – Drama, and with Gladstone winning Best Actress, nine British Academy Film Awards, and three SAG Awards, with Gladstone winning Best Actress.”

Image: Lily Gladstone at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

The story revolves around Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) who comes to live with his brother and uncle William King Hale on Hale’s reservation ranch after World War I. Hale is a reserve deputy sheriff and cattle rancher who poses as a friend of the Osage while at the same time secretly organising the killing of the Osage through multiple different means such as shooting, poisoning, and even blowing up a house. Ernest Burkhart marries Mollie Kyle, an Osage whose family owns oil headrights.

Mollie decides to go to Washington and asks President Calvin Coolidge for help in solving the murders. Bureau of Investigation (the eventual FBI) Agent Thomas Bruce White Sr. and his assistants are sent to Oklahoma to find out who is behind the murders. White finds out the truth and persuades Ernest to confess his involvement and testify against his uncle Hale.

Hale and Ernest were sentenced to life imprisonment but “both were paroled after years of incarceration, despite Osage protests to the parole board.”

Killers of the Flower Moon has themes which differ from traditional Westerns in that the ‘cowboys’ are focused on oil production and resent the community that owns the rights to oilfields. It is also different in that law and order is controlled not by the local sheriff [who is corrupt in this case] but by the federal state who sends in its Agents to find out what is going on. This twentieth century concept of the developing power of the state taking over from the nineteenth century local power of the sheriff is only the start. The newly developed FBI launches into containing local criminality with all the power and forces of the federal state.

The FBI went on to be involved “in the capture and deaths of numerous infamous mobsters of the day, including John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson and Machine Gun Kelly.”

The Osage case is also depicted in the 1959 American crime drama film, The FBI Story, showing how the FBI developed from a detective agency to an enforcement agency with the statutory authority to carry guns and make arrests:

“The FBI was compelled to investigate after one of the [Osage] murders was committed on federal government land. The FBI forensics laboratory ties the doctored wills and life insurance policies of the murder victims to a local banker, Dwight McCutcheon, with the typewriter that he used.”

In Killers of the Flower Moon Martin Scorsese had originally intended that Leonardo DiCaprio would play the FBI agent who solves the crimes.

However screenwriter Eric Roth “began to fear the story underplayed the experience of the Osage people and repeated tired tropes. “We didn’t want to go much further with this great white hope saving Native Americans,” says Roth.”

This fear of stereotyping led to Scorsese meeting with members of the Osage community in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, including Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear, the principal chief of the Osage Nation.

Image is licensed under Fair Use

Hollywood has had a long history of depicting Native Americans in cinema. The Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond covers a century of the portrayal of North American Natives in his documentary Reel Injun:

“Reel Injun explores the various stereotypes about Natives in film, from the noble savage to the drunken Indian. It profiles such figures as Iron Eyes Cody, an Italian American who reinvented himself as a Native American on screen. The film also explores Hollywood’s practice of using Italian Americans and American Jews to portray Indians in the movies and reveals how some Native American actors made jokes in their native tongue on screen when the director thought they were simply speaking gibberish.”

Scorsese was obviously aware that to be taken seriously today he would have to involve the Osage Nation in the making of this film. This story involved an extraordinary situation for Native Americans anywhere in North America as the Osage directly benefited from the natural resources of their territory.

“I was anxious,” Scorsese says. “I knew that if I could not gain their trust, then there’s no sense in making the film. As a European American, a Sicilian American, I may have natural limitations, and I hoped that they would forgive that. But they had to know it was coming from the right place and not a surface revisionism, which is simplistic. I wanted something really, really complex that deals with humanity.” […] “One of the people in the room said, ‘You have to be very careful. You’re putting words in the mouths of people that … These are real people to us. They’re part of our families.’ ”

The depiction of the Native Americans from the early cinematic beginnings emphasised violence, vacillating from violence to be admired to violence to be feared, depending on the ideological needs of each decade in the twentieth century. When America was under internal or external threat then the violence of the ‘Injun’ was to be feared. When America needed a strong identity, a powerful role model of the fearless warrior, then the Native American was to be admired.

In either case the violence provides catharsis for the colonising power. Even though it is the Native Americans that are being depicted, their needs are secondary.

Many white actors played Native American roles and had no concern for Native American opinions about their roles. “White people playing native roles? I love it, cos it’s funny!” says Cheyenne/Arapaho filmmaker, Chris Eyre, in Reel Injun. Native Americans were played by Burt Lancaster, Charles Bronson, Burt Reynolds, Elvis Presley, Boris Karloff, Anthony Quinn, Chuck Connors, Daniel Day-Lewis, Sylvester Stallone, Pierce Brosnan, Johnny Depp etc.

In Smoke Signals, a 1998 coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by Chris Eyre, there is an awareness of the Romanticist portrayal of the Native American as a hero for white audiences. Similarly, white heroes were seen as belonging to the colonial cultural mindset. In Smoke Signals, Thomas Builds-the-Fire argues: “Nobody can help us. No Superman. No Batman. No Wonder Woman. Not even Charles Bronson, man.” (Reel Injun)

Killers of the Flower Moon tells a Native American story and is even populated with Osage actors yet it is still a white man’s story, paid for and dominated by, white actors.

While it is difficult for any group to tell their story, especially in an expensive medium like cinema, it is even more difficult to imagine the dominant group/oppressor telling your story. Can we expect the British to make radical films about Irish uprisings against British rule? Can we expect the Israelis to make films about the Palestinian struggle against settler land grabs?

As Jesse Wente, a Ojibway film critic, remarks about Dances with Wolves (1990), one of the most successful films about the American West:

“The natives were fleshed out as characters, allowed to be seen as more complete people. They weren’t just warriors; they weren’t just peaceful. There was a very sensitive and sympathetic approach. It doesn’t erase the fact that at it’s core the film is not a native movie. It is still a movie made from the outside of us and it’s about us and is meant to be sympathetic towards us. But, it isn’t us. It’s a story about a white guy. And, Indians are the T and A, but it gets promoted as being about native people or Indians, but it’s not, really. We’re just backdrop.” (Reel Injun)

Even though in the Native American, Irish, and Palestinian stories, failures were more common than successes, the depiction of struggle is always profound no matter what era the story is set in. The difficulties, the hardships, the bravery, the resistance is always inspiring.

*

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Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country here. Caoimhghin has just published his new book – Against Romanticism: From Enlightenment to Enfrightenment and the Culture of Slavery, which looks at philosophy, politics and the history of 10 different art forms arguing that Romanticism is dominating modern culture to the detriment of Enlightenment ideals. It is available on Amazon (amazon.co.uk) and the info page is here. 

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image is licensed under Fair Use

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

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First published on May 17, 2022

***

Introduction and Update 

 

Why has the “Confidential Pfizer report” made public under Freedom of Information (FOI) in October 2021 not been quoted or referred to in parliamentary and public enquiries as a means to refuting the official narrative (which contends that the Covid-19 vaccine is “safe and effective”). Neither has it been the object of media coverage. 

We have documented numerous public enquiries. 

The evidence amply confirms that the Pfizer vaccine is a dangerous substance, resulting in deaths and adverse events. This is confirmed by the Pfizer Confidential Report released under FOI in October 2021. It come’s from the Horse’s Mouth. 

Bombshell Study: Cancer Related Excess Mortality in England and Wales 

A recent study on vaccine related excess mortality conducted by the team of Edward Dowd confirms the nature of the mRNA vaccine.

Dowd’s method was to analyze the number of deaths attributed to cancer in England and Wales between 2010 and 2022 [based on data] from the U.K. Office for National Statistics

He compared excess death rates, the difference between observed deaths and the baseline for expected deaths, before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

He established a baseline of normal cancer death rates from 2010-2020 that was remarkably consistent with few deviations, he said — until the cancer death rates rose significantly in late 2021 in the U.K. following the vaccine rollout” 

The table below pertains to excess deaths related to malignant neoplasm (cancerous tumor) in England and Wales, recorded in three consecutive years: 2020, 2021, and 2022 vs. a 10 year trend (2010-2019).

The data for excess mortality in 2020 (the year prior to the vaccine) are negative with the exception of “malignant neoplasm without specification of site”.

The vaccine was launched in December 2020

The COVID-19 vaccine was rolled-out in several phases in England and Wales starting on December 8, 2020  and extending into March-April 2021. 

The upward movement in excess mortality (%) commences in 2021. The increase in excess mortality related to malignant neoplasm is tabulated for the two first years of the vaccine. 

Video: Michel Chossudovsky with Caroline Mailloux

 

To access Rumble or leave a Comment click here

 

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, November 23, 2023, April 20, 2024

 

**

What’s Inside Pfizer’s “Secret Report”? 

 

The Confidential report is a bombshell. The vaccine was launched in mid-December 2020. By the end of February 2021, “Pfizer had already received more than 1,200 reports of deaths allegedly caused by the vaccine and tens of thousands of reported adverse events, including 23 cases of spontaneous abortions out of 270 pregnancies and more than 2,000 reports of cardiac disorders.”

This Confidential Pfizer Report provides data on deaths and adverse events recorded by Pfizer from the outset of the vaccine project in December 2020 to the end of February 2021, namely a very short period (at most two and a half months).

The data from mid-December 2020 to the end of February 2021 unequivocally confirms “Manslaughter”. Based on the evidence, Pfizer had the responsibility to immediately cancel and withdraw the “vaccine”.

Pfizer’s Worldwide marketing of the Covid-19 Vaccine beyond February 28th, 2021, is no longer an “Act of Manslaughter”.

Murder as opposed to Manslaughter implies “Criminal Intent”.

Pfizer’s Covid 19 Vaccine constitutes a Criminal Act. From a legal standpoint it is an “Act of Murder” applied Worldwide to a target population of 8 billion people. Sofar more than 60 percent of the World’s population have been Covid-19 vaccinated.

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Click here to read the complete Pfizer report.  

also see details in the Appendices

 

Selected Excerpts of the Report

 

 

 

 

 

Video: Interview with Caroline Mailloux, Lux Media: Prof. Michel Chossudovsky on the “Secret” Pfizer Report Puts Forth a Strategy and Legal Procedure to Confront Big Pharma with a view to Withdrawing the Covid-19 Vaccine Worldwide

 

VIDEO 

 

 

Odysee version 

[Click upper title and right corner to enter fullscreen]

Click here to access Odysee 

Among all major Big Pharma actors, Pfizer has a criminal record in the U.S.    (2009 DoD Judgment)

Video: Pfizer Has a Criminal Record. Is It Relevant?

By US Department of Justice, 

Scroll down to continue reading the article

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For a more detailed and comprehensive analysis (Book released in August 2022)

The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’État Against Humanity

Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression

By Michel Chossudovsky

Translations in several languages are envisaged. The book is available in print form in Japanese. 仕組まれたコロナ危機:「世界の初期化」を目論む者たち

As a means to reaching out to millions of people worldwide whose lives have been affected by the corona crisis, we have decided in the course of the next few weeks to distribute the eBook for FREE.

***

Price: $11.50. FREE COPY Click here to download.

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Pfizer has a Criminal Record with

The U.S. Department of Justice (2009)

 

Can we trust a Big Pharma vaccine conglomerate which pleaded guilty in 2009 to criminal charges by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) including “fraudulent marketing” and “felony violation of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act”?

Video. US Department of Justice. 2.3 Billion Medical Fraud Settlement

To consult the Department of Justice’ historic decision click here

 

National Health Authorities

claim that the Covid-19 “vaccine” will save Lives

That’s a Lie

 

There is a worldwide upward trend of vaccine deaths and injuries. The official figures (April 3, 2022) point to approximately: 

69,053 Covid-19 injection related deaths and 10,997,085 injuries  for the EU, US and UK Combined for a population of 830 million people

Based on reported cases. Only a small fraction of the victims or families of the deceased will go through the tedious process of reporting vaccine related deaths and adverse events to the national health authorities. Based on historical data (Electronic Support for Public Health–Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (ESP:VAERS, p. 6): 

This Confidential Pfizer Report released as part of a Freedom of Information (FOI) procedure provides data on deaths and adverse events recorded by Pfizer from the outset of the vaccine project in December 2020 to the end of February 2021, namely a very short period (at most two and a half months).

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For details of the report, see

Bombshell Document Dump on Pfizer Vaccine Data

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, April 29, 2022 

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Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine

The Legal Implications: Mea Culpa

 

The Pfizer BioNTech vaccine was launched in the US on the 14th of December after the granting of Emergency Use Authorization on December 11, 2020. 

In a twisted irony, the data revealed in this “insider report” refutes the official vaccine narrative peddled by the governments and the WHO. It also confirms the analysis of numerous medical doctors and scientists who have revealed the devastating consequences of the mRNA “vaccine”. 

What is contained in  Pfizer’s “confidential” report is detailed evidence on the impacts of the “vaccine” on mortality and morbidity. This data which emanates from the “Horse’s Mouth” can now be used to confront as well formulate legal procedures against Big Pharma, the governments, the WHO and the media.

In a Court of Law, the evidence contained in this Big Pharma confidential report (coupled with the data on deaths and adverse events compiled by the national authorities in the EU, UK and US) is irrefutable: because it is their data and their estimates and not ours. 

Bear in mind: it’s data which is based on reported and recorded cases, which constitute a small percentage of the actual number of vaccine related deaths and adverse events. 

This is a de facto Mea Culpa on the part of Pfizer. #Yes it is a Killer Vaccine

Pfizer was fully aware that the mRNA vaccine which it is marketing Worldwide would result in a wave of mortality and morbidity. This is tantamount to a crime against humanity on the part of Big Pharma.

Pfizer knew from the outset that it was a killer vaccine. 

It is also a  Mea Culpa and Treason on the part of corrupt national governments Worldwide which are being threatened and bribed by Big Pharma.

No attempt has been made by the governments to call for the withdrawal of the killer vaccine.

People are told  that the vaccine is intended to save lives.

Click here to read the Complete Pfizer report.  

Also see details in the Appendices.

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O grande derrotado nas eleições francesas não foi a extrema-direita. É certo que, se não fossem os espúrios acordos entre a Nova Frente Popular e os macronistas, o Reagrupamento Nacional teria crescido ainda mais. Só que o resultado do segundo turno não é exatamente uma vitória da esquerda.

Após o RN de Marine Le Pen liderar o primeiro turno das eleições, as lideranças da NFP caíram na armadilha da imprensa francesa e de Emmanuel Macron, abandonando inúmeras candidaturas próprias para aumentar as chances da direita neoliberal ligada ao partido do Renascimento vencer a extrema-direita.

A grande burguesia francesa chamou a uma “frente republicana” para criar um “cordão sanitário” formado pela esquerda e a direita neoliberal a fim de impedir uma vitória acachapante do RN, o que levou a acordos em cerca de 220 circunscrições eleitorais para que o candidato com supostamente menor chance de vencer o RN abandonasse a disputa a favor do candidato com maior chance. Só que a maioria dos abandonos foi da NFP para que os aliados de Macron pudessem vencer os aliados de Le Pen, embora a NFP tenha ficado em segundo lugar no primeiro turno, muito à frente da coligação de Macron.

Os rivais da extrema-direita ficaram aliviados com os resultados, pois agora o parlamento está pulverizado e não dominado pelo RN. Mas perderam a oportunidade de enterrar a direita macronista, ou seja, a direita neoliberal tradicional, que nos últimos anos vem pavimentando o caminho para o fascismo ao aplicar uma política cada vez mais semelhante à defendida por Le Pen.

De fato, a coalizão da direita governista perdeu 82 cadeiras na Assembleia Nacional, em comparação com as últimas eleições. Ela sofreu a redução em um terço dos seus deputados. Os Republicanos, também da direita neoliberal tradicional, perderam um quarto dos seus legisladores. A ala direita da Quinta República foi a maior derrotada, sem dúvida nenhuma.

Isso significa que seus votos foram divididos, sendo a maior parte obviamente destinada à extrema-direita. O RN aumentou sua bancada em 38%. A outra parte dos votos foi para a esquerda. A NFP conquistou 18% de cadeiras a mais do que nas últimas eleições. No entanto, foi a ala direita da NFP que abocanhou a maioria desses votos.

Enquanto o número de deputados eleitos pela França Insubmissa praticamente não se modificou, o Partido Socialista passou de 30 para 59, dobrando o número de cadeiras no parlamento. O PS, como toda a antiga social-democracia europeia (SPD alemão, Labour britânico, PSOE espanhol), aderiu ao neoliberalismo há muitas décadas. Não passa de uma ala esquerda da Quinta República, ou seja, do atual regime imperialista francês – basta lembrar que o PS governava a França quando ela invadiu o Mali, é anti-Rússia e ajuda a sustentar o sionismo.

O outro partido da ala direita da NFP beneficiado nessas eleições foram os Verdes, que apresentaram um crescimento de 18%. Portanto, as conclusões a partir dos resultados eleitorais são as seguintes: 1) a direita neoliberal macronista foi a maior derrotada, mas não caiu até o fundo do poço porque 2) a esquerda a salvou, com medo da extrema-direita, embora 3) dentro das forças de esquerda, a grande beneficiada tenha sido a social-democracia neoliberal, que aplica um “neoliberalismo cor-de-rosa” que pouco se diferencia de Macron 4) a extrema-direita foi apenas contida e, como disse Le Pen, sua vitória foi somente “adiada”.

A tensão social não será refreada

A grande burguesia imperialista francesa manejou o resultado das eleições com a meta principal de conter as massas populares que vêm varrendo as grandes cidades com uma revolta crescente nos últimos anos. Uma vitória aparente da esquerda contenta uma parcela dessas massas, que ainda acredita que o PS e a França Insubmissa levarão o seu país a uma transformação social.

Uma vitória da centro-esquerda, isto é, dos reformistas tradicionais que ora são escolhidos pela burguesia para administrar a França, também contém momentaneamente a escalada da extrema-direita ao poder, o que dá mais tempo para negociações entre as diferentes alas da burguesia.

Todas as cidades com mais de 200 mil habitantes votaram majoritariamente nos candidatos da NFP. Mas em Marselha, a segunda maior cidade do país, tradicional palco do movimento operário sulista, a RN conseguiu vencer em metade das circunscrições, o que serve de alerta para o possível direcionamento de uma parcela do proletariado para a extrema-direita.

Porque, no campo e nas pequenas cidades, o apoio ao RN já é muito visível. O interior da França é onde vive a grande base eleitoral da extrema-direita. E ele tem uma força que não pode ser ignorada. Foram justamente os pequenos e médios produtores rurais que geraram uma enorme crise por toda a União Europeia entre o final do ano passado e o início deste ano, desfilando seus tratores por todas as metrópoles (e em 85% dos departamentos franceses), como se lembrassem ao governo que eles existem e podem ajudar a derrubá-lo e a transformar o país.

Assim como o proletariado urbano, as classes média e baixa do campo também estão revoltadas com a política neoliberal. Nos últimos 40 anos, o Estado entregou nas mãos da iniciativa privada todo o dever de fornecer infraestrutura às populações rurais. Mas a iniciativa privada não investe no campo, porque não vê grandes retornos. Há muito menos hospitais e clínicas do que o necessário, por exemplo. Só o Estado tem plenas condições de garantir esses serviços, mas ele está ausente nas últimas décadas.

Os jovens do campo, tal como os das cidades, são os principais prejudicados. Têm menos acesso à educação e, portanto, menores chances de serem bem-sucedidos no mercado de trabalho, muito competitivo. Na última década, a taxa de jovens sem educação suficiente, sem emprego e sem realizar estágio tem sido muito mais alta no campo do que nas cidades e as mulheres do campo também conseguem menos empregos do que os homens, em comparação com as mulheres das cidades. A ideologia woke, apregoada tanto pelo regime Macron como pela esquerda reformista da NFP, não resolve nenhum problema dessas mulheres, que acabam sendo atraídas para a extrema-direita.

Um dos principais pilares que sustentam o regime capitalista é a aliança da grande burguesia com a classe média, tanto da cidade como do campo. E esse pilar está caindo aos poucos, conforme a qualidade de vida e as condições econômicas e materiais da classe média vêm se deteriorando acentuadamente neste século. A única alternativa para a melhoria de vida da classe média empobrecida é se aliar aos trabalhadores, que também estão crescentemente insatisfeitos. Ambas as classes vêm golpeando o regime francês, mas não de forma unificada.

Quem poderia unificar essas classes para combaterem juntas o regime, e assim fatalmente derrubá-lo, seria a esquerda francesa. O problema é que ela não se interessa em derrubar o regime, mas faz parte dele, alegremente. E se ela faz parte do regime, é seu cúmplice. Cúmplice de um regime que explora e oprime a maioria da população. A extrema-direita tem sabido utilizar esse fato em sua propaganda para atrair as classes médias urbana e rural e parte do proletariado desorganizado, principalmente nas cidades menores, onde a desindustrialização é muito visível. Mas, como ela também tem demonstrado fazer parte desse regime – ao se alinhar com Macron em diversas oportunidades –, ainda tem grande repúdio no meio das classes populares, que vêm se radicalizando mas carecem de direção política.

De qualquer forma, a extrema-direita segue crescendo. E, embora a burguesia francesa ainda não tenha se unificado em torno do RN, a crise da direita tradicional está levando uma parte significativa dessa burguesia a apoiá-lo. A tendência na França é que as classe populares, impulsionadas pelos trabalhadores urbanos, entrem em conflito também com a social-democracia e a esquerda em quem acabaram de votar, porque se ela formar ou fizer parte do novo governo, inevitavelmente dará prosseguimento à odiada política neoliberal. Uma convulsão social, que é cada vez mais provável, ameaçará varrer o regime e isso fará com que a parcela da burguesia que hoje acredita que a ala esquerda dos seus funcionários pode salvar o regime passe também a apoiar a extrema-direita como única força capaz de conter a revolta dos trabalhadores.

Então, todos os que foram salvos do precipício pela ingenuidade da esquerda e hoje se apresentam como campeões da democracia e da liberdade estarão saudando Marine Le Pen como a única capaz de garantir a ordem e a coesão social.

Eduardo Vasco

*

Eduardo Vasco é jornalista especializado em política internacional, correspondente de guerra e autor dos livros-reportagem “O povo esquecido: uma história de genocídio e resistência no Donbass” e “Bloqueio: a guerra silenciosa contra Cuba”.

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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“We have to Deal with the Anti-Vaxxers” says Keir Starmer. Next UK PM? With the Endorsement of the WEF

First published on June 2, 2023

Author’s Update

Keir Starmer, leader of  the remodelled Labour Party is now Britains’s “progressive” Prime Minister.

As we recall Keir Starmer was invited to Davos back in January 2024, by the World Economic Forum’.

Ironically, Starmer started his election campaign in the Swiss Alps, in conformity with Klaus Schwab’s  Fourth Industrial Revolution 

Was he elected or was he selected?  U.K former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak decided not to participate in the Davos Venue (or was he advised not to attend?): 

In retrospect, “the explanation of his absence” sounds obvious. 

Fait accompli. In the absence of  Rishi Sunak, Starmer was presented and upheld at Davos in January as the WEF’s  “favourite candidate” for the position of  PM. 

Was pressure exerted on Rishi Sunak to call for snap general elections slated for July 4 (America’s Independence Day)? 

Sunak was fully aware that the “new remodelled Labour Party” under the helm of Keir Starmer had been “pre-selected” as the winner. 

Sunak said outside Downing Street that he had informed King Charles III of the rare summer poll, firing the starting gun on a six-week campaign that is almost universally expected to conclude in the demise of his Conservative government. (CNN, May 23, emphasis added)

The defeat of the Conservatives had been announced well in advance.

“why has the PM called an election that he is almost certain to lose? For months, polls have placed Sunak’s Conservative Party way behind the opposition Labour Party”(CNN, emphasis added)

Was PM Rishi Sunak following instructions by powerful financial interests?  He was fully aware that the Conservative Party was slated to loose.

It’s what you might call a “democratic regime change” (decided in Davos).

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the NATO Summit in Washington

He won the general election on July 4, and was confirmed as Prime Minister on July 5. 

And “Just four days later, he reiterated that the British government supports the unrestricted use of its long-range weapons against Moscow” 

Starmer gave the statement while en route to the NATO summit in Washington DC. As per usual, he insisted that it was “up to Ukraine how it uses the missiles”, a ludicrous excuse that nearly all Western “leaders” like to use, despite being fully aware that the Neo-Nazi junta has no actual sovereignty to speak of. Worse yet, it relies solely on instructions from NATO on what to attack next.

Namely, in yet another move tantamount to a declaration of war, the new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer fully supported the use of UK-sourced “Storm Shadow” air-launched cruise missiles against targets within Russia’s undisputed territory, with no apparent limitations. (Drago Bosnic, July 11 2024)

Starmer at the NATO Summit

 

The following text  first published on June 3, 2024 largely focusses on Starmer’s unbending support of the Covid Vaccine, pointing to the need for emergency legislation and totalitarian measures.

His foreign policy stance regarding the UK’s long range weapons for Ukraine’s (also requiring emergency legislation?) is largely supportive of  America’s hegemonic agenda. 

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research,  July 11 2024

 

 

“We have to Deal with the Anti-Vaxxers” says Keir Starmer.

Next UK PM? With the Endorsement of the WEF

By Michel Chossudovsky

June 2, 2024

The Labour Party’s “Great Reset”

“it’s an opportunity to present the Labour Party as the UK’s future”, with a candidate who fully endorses the covid “vaccine” coupled with the repeal of  civil liberties.

He also confirmed his fight against global warming and CO2, which will indelibly lead to bankruptcies and the impoverishment of British farmers.

“He took the opportunity to push his Green Agenda which he would take forward if he enters Downing Street.”

“During a panel discussion, it was put to Mr Starmer that the polls suggest he has a high chance of becoming Britain’s next prime minister.”

He touched on Labour’s “ambitious” plan for a new, publicly owned energy company dubbed Great British Energy, which was unveiled at last year’s party conference.

He said his first visit to the summit at Davos had given him the opportunity to speak to CEOs of business and investors “who would partner with us if we were in government”.

Repowering the World. Keir Starmer’s WEF Panel Presentation

Speakers: Mark Rutte, Joe Manchin III, Ilham Kadri, Samia Suluhu Hassan, Keir Starmer, Hadley Gamble, Francesco Starace

January 19, 202314:00–15:00 CET

Click here to access video. Keir Starmer commences at 2’0

 

Keir Starmer, likely the next UK PM: “We have to deal with the anti-vax campaigns, because they will cost lives.”

“And if we need to pass emergency legislation to deal with them, I’ll be quite prepared to work with the government on that… And the sooner we do that, frankly,… pic.twitter.com/GejVND0nTu

— Wide Awake Media (@wideawake_media) May 25, 2024

 

My Message to Keir Starmer. Examine the Data Before “Going After the Anti-Vaxxers”

Emergency legislation to combat the anti-vax campaign WILL COST LIVES. It will result in excess mortality. 

We recall that the COVID-19 vaccine was rolled-out in several phases in England and Wales starting on December 8, 2020 (See Michel Chossudovsky)

The upward movement in excess mortality (%) confirmed by official statistics commenced in 2021. According to the Lancet: 

The UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) has calculated that there were 7.2% or 44,255 more deaths registered in the UK in 2022 based on comparison with the five-year average (excluding 2020).[1]

This persisted into 2023 with 8.6% or 28,024 more deaths registered in the first six months of the year than expected.[1]

The Continuous Mortality Investigation (CMI) found a similar excess (28,500 deaths) for the same period using different methods.[3]

England and Wales: Mortality and Morbidity pertaining to Malignant Neoplasm.

A recent study on vaccine related excess mortality conducted by the team of Edward Dowd confirms the nature of the mRNA vaccine.

Dowd’s method was to analyze the number of deaths attributed to cancer in England and Wales between 2010 and 2022 [based on data] from the U.K. Office for National Statistics

He compared excess death rates, the difference between observed deaths and the baseline for expected deaths, before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

He established a baseline of normal cancer death rates from 2010-2020 that was remarkably consistent with few deviations, he said — until the cancer death rates rose significantly in late 2021 in the U.K. following the vaccine rollout” 

The table below pertains to excess deaths related to malignant neoplasm (cancerous tumor) in England and Wales, recorded in three consecutive years: 2020, 2021, and 2022 vs. a 10 year trend (2010-2019).

The data for excess mortality in 2020 (the year prior to the vaccine) are negative with the exception of “malignant neoplasm without specification of site”.

England and Wales: the Vaccine was launched in December 2020

The COVID-19 vaccine was rolled-out in several phases in England and Wales starting on December 8, 2020  and extending into March-April 2021.

The upward movement in excess mortality (%) commences in 2021. The increase in excess mortality related to malignant neoplasm is tabulated for the two first years of the vaccine.

 

 

The Ed Dowd study’s results in the rate of cancer deaths above the historic norm in 2022 for ages 15-44 in the U.K. included:

• A 28% rise in fatal breast cancer rates in women.
• An 80% increase in pancreatic cancer deaths among women and a 60% increase among men.
• A 55% increase among men in colon cancer deaths and a 41% increase in women.
• A 120% increase in fatal melanomas among men and a 35% increase in women.
• A 35% increase in brain cancer deaths among men and a 12% rise in women.
• A 60% increase in cancer death rates among men in cancers “without site specification” and a 55% increase among women.

Excess Mortality in Germany 

Below is a similar table pertaining to Excess Mortality in Germany (all Causes), which points to the Deviation of Observed Mortality from Expected Mortality (by age group) in 2020, 2021, and 2022.

Notice the upward shift in excess mortality in 2021 and 2022 following the rollout of the Covid Vaccine in December 2020

Germany: Excess Mortality by Age Group (%)

Excess Mortality in Red by age group, Total Excess Mortality in Gray 

Data on Excess Mortality: Analysis by Dr. William Makis

The article referred to by Dr. Makis provides relevant excess mortality data without analyzing the underlying causes. (May 12, 2023)

“May to Dec 2022″ there were 32,441 excess deaths in England and Wales.

That’s 4,055 deaths per month or 48,661 annually.

“In December 2022 the number of excess deaths was 5,900”

That’s an estimated 70,800 annualized heading into 2023, if the rate stays stable.

Population of England (57.06 mil) and Wales (3.21 mil): combined 60.27 million

That works out to about 1 in 1000 people in England and Wales dying as “excess deaths” in 2022.

All the highly COVID-19 vaccinated countries were seeing excess mortality in 2022 of the order of about 1 in 1000 population:

• USA – 270,000 in 2022 (source: Ethical Skeptic, BMC Skidmore, USMortality.com)
• Germany – 103,000 in 2022 (source: German govt, OECD, EuroMOMO click here)
• UK – 54,000 in 2022 (source: BBC click here)
• Japan – 91,000 in 2022 (source: click here)
• Australia – 42,000 in 2022 (source: click here)
• Canada – 49,900 in 2022 (source: click here)

The above figures were for 2022.

Excess mortality resulting from the Covid mRNA vaccine has increased in 2023. See the Lancet data as well as the BBC report. 

From May 2023 t0 December 2023, 33,241 excess deaths have bee recorded in England and Wales.  (quoted by the BBC)

Suggest Keir Starmer Have a Look at Pfizer’s “Secret Report”? It’s a Bombshell

Pfizer’s declassified Report was made public in the U.S. in October 2021 under Freedom of Information (FOI)

The Confidential report is a bombshell. The vaccine was launched in mid-December 2020. By the end of February 2021:

“Pfizer had already received more than 1,200 reports of deaths allegedly caused by the vaccine and tens of thousands of reported adverse events, including 23 cases of spontaneous abortions out of 270 pregnancies and more than 2,000 reports of cardiac disorders.”

Click here to read the complete Pfizer Report 

(The following Table was removed from the complete report)

 

We respectfully call upon Keir Starmer to revise his position on the Covid-19 mRNA vaccine, which he formulated at the outset in January 2021.

 

 

Pfizer’s “Secret” Report on the Covid “Vaccine”. Beyond Manslaughter. The Evidence is Overwhelming. The Vaccine Should Be Immediately Withdrawn Worldwide

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, April 18, 2024

 

Não há realmente limites para as incessantes exigências militares do regime de Kiev. A Ucrânia pede agora ao Ocidente que entregue submarinos, a fim de intensificar as operações militares no Mar Negro. Na verdade, esta medida poderia agravar seriamente o conflito, mas não ajudaria as forças ucranianas a alcançar quaisquer resultados militares úteis.

O chefe da Marinha Ucraniana, Almirante Aleksey Neizhpapa, afirmou recentemente que a Ucrânia necessita urgentemente de receber submarinos ocidentais para reforçar as suas posições militares no Mar Negro. Segundo ele, só através da implantação de submarinos será possível melhorar as capacidades estratégicas da Ucrânia e danificar as forças russas no Mar Negro.

Neizhpapa não acredita que a Ucrânia possa alcançar uma “vitória” militar no Mar Negro sem o uso de submarinos, razão pela qual apela aos parceiros ocidentais para que satisfaçam rapidamente esta procura estratégica. Ele ressalta que os grandes submarinos são inúteis na região, dadas as condições geográficas locais. No entanto, ele acredita que pequenos submarinos são necessários para que a Marinha Ucraniana seja capaz de se “espalhar” pelo mar, ampliando o campo de atividade contra as posições navais e costeiras da Federação Russa.

“Estamos pensando nisso, os submarinos são necessários para nós, deveriam fazer parte da marinha (…) Ficar só perto de Odessa é não ter nada, devemos olhar mais longe, espalhar a frota pelo Mar Negro e usar toda a sua área (…) [Assim, a Ucrânia pode passar] de um estado costeiro a uma potência marítima”, disse ele

É importante sublinhar que a Ucrânia praticamente não tem mais marinha. As forças navais ucranianas têm sido fortemente atingidas pela Rússia desde 2022, restando pouca força útil deste ramo das forças armadas ucranianas. Kiev conseguiu ocasionalmente causar danos a posições navais russas no Mar Negro, tendo já afundado alguns navios de guerra russos – o que impulsionou enormemente a máquina de propaganda ocidental, com jornais americanos e europeus a reportarem tais casos como “grandes vitórias”. No entanto, estas medidas devem-se à assistência da OTAN – principalmente de drones e satélites americanos e britânicos – na região do Mar Negro. O mérito da Marinha Ucraniana nesses ataques é mínimo, sendo quase inteiramente operações ocidentais.

Recentemente, a Rússia tem vindo a reforçar progressivamente as medidas nas zonas portuárias ucranianas, especialmente em Odessa. Dados de inteligência mostram que o regime de Kiev está a utilizar instalações civis para fins militares, escondendo armas e munições em depósitos de cereais, bem como transportando armas em navios civis. A paciência de Moscou com este tipo de atividade ilegal tem diminuído gradualmente, uma vez que são frequentes os bombardeamentos para impedir a utilização militar dos portos de Odessa.

Contudo, a frente naval da operação militar especial sempre foi secundária nos seus aspectos estratégicos. O conflito está sendo decidido por terra e ar. No terreno, as tropas russas avançam nas Novas Regiões e no norte da Ucrânia. No ar, aeronaves e drones russos circulam livremente, dado o colapso da defesa aérea ucraniana, permitindo assim a destruição de vários tanques e veículos militares inimigos.

No mar, a prioridade da Rússia é proteger as suas próprias regiões costeiras, evitando incursões terroristas em áreas como a Crimeia e Krasnodar. A Rússia poderia usar as suas posições navais para lançar grandes ataques a Odessa, o que faria avançar significativamente os resultados da operação militar especial. Contudo, Moscou ainda tem como um dos seus principais objetivos a concretização dos seus objetivos militares através de ações moderadas, sem grandes vítimas civis – razão pela qual as incursões em grande escala têm sido evitadas, tanto quanto possível.

Paralelamente, o Reino Unido tem sido o agente mais desestabilizador no Mar Negro. Não só o software militar britânico, mas os comandos especiais da Marinha Britânica também foram utilizados no campo de batalha marítimo pelas forças de Kiev. Os EUA também têm desempenhado um papel incisivo, principalmente através de assistência técnica, fornecendo dados de inteligência e geolocalização a Kiev para planear ataques terroristas. Neste sentido, por mais escalável e irresponsável que possa parecer a ação ocidental para fornecer submarinos à Ucrânia, esta possibilidade não deve ser descartada.

Em vez de infligir danos aos russos e gerar uma vantagem estratégica para a Ucrânia, tal medida apenas aceleraria a destruição das posições ucranianas no Mar Negro. A resposta russa seria levada a cabo através de uma escalada de ações militares na frente naval. Até agora, Moscou poupou o inimigo do seu verdadeiro potencial marítimo, mas esta situação pode mudar rapidamente.

Nas atuais circunstâncias, quaisquer medidas escalonadoras tomadas pela Ucrânia terão um impacto negativo no próprio regime de Kiev. Nada parece mais perigoso para as forças ucranianas do que tomar decisões que possam testar a paciência da Rússia.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

 

Artigo em inglês :

Hoping to Improve Its Ruined Navy, Kiev Asks for Western Submarines

 InfoBrics, 8 de Julho de 2024.

Imagem : InfoBrics

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The Editor at Large for the Wall Street Journal, Gerry Baker, says:

‘We’ve been “gaslit’ and deceived” – for years – “all in the name of ‘democracy’”. That deceit “collapsed” with the Presidential debate, Thursday’.

“Until the world saw the truth … [against] the ‘misinformation’ … the fiction of Mr. Biden’s competence … suggests they [the Democrats] evidently thought they could get away with promoting it. [Yet] by perpetuating that fiction they were also revealing their contempt for the voters and for democracy itself”.

Baker continues:

“Biden succeeded because he made toeing the party line his life’s work. Like all politicians whose egos dwarf their talents, he ascended the greasy pole by slavishly following his party wherever it led … Finally—in the ultimate act of partisan servility, he became Barack Obama’s vice president, the summit of achievement for those incapable, yet loyal: the apex position for the consummate ‘yes man’”.

“But then, just as he was ready to drift into a comfortable and well-deserved obscurity, his party needed a front man … They sought a loyal and reliable figurehead, a flag of convenience, under which they could sail the progressive vessel into the deepest reaches of American life — on a mission to advance statism, climate extremism and self-lacerating wokery. There was no more loyal and convenient vehicle than Joe”.

If so, then who actually has been ‘pulling America’s strings’ these past years?

“You [the Democratic machine] don’t get to deceive, dissemble and gaslight us for years about how this man was both brilliantly competent at the job and a healing force for national unity – and now tell us, when your deception is uncovered, that it’s ‘bedtime for Bonzo’ – thanks for your service, and let’s move on”, Baker warns.

“[Now] it is going horribly wrong. Much of his party has no use for him anymore … in a remarkably cynical act of bait-and-switch, [they are trying to] swap him out for someone more useful to their cause. Part of me thinks they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it. I find myself in the odd position of wanting to root for poor mumbling Joe … It’s tempting to say to the Democratic machine frantically mobilizing against him: You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to deceive, dissemble and gaslight us for years”.

Something significant has snapped within ‘the system’. It is always tempting to situate such events in ‘immediate time’, but even Baker seems to allude to a longer cycle of gaslighting and deception – one that only now has suddenly burst into open view.

Such events – though seemingly ephemeral and of the moment – can be portents to deeper structural contradictions moving.

When Baker writes of Biden being the latest ‘flag of convenience’ under which the ruling strata could sail the progressive vessel into the deepest reaches of American life – “on a mission to advance statism, climate extremism and self-lacerating wokery” – it seems probable that he is referring to the 1970s era of the Trilateral Commission and the Club of Rome.

The 1970s and 1980s were the point at which the long arc of traditional liberalism gave place to an avowedly illiberal, mechanical ‘control system’ (managerial technocracy) that today fraudulently poses as liberal democracy.

Emmanuel Todd, the French anthropological historian, examines the longer dynamics to events unfolding in the present: The prime agent of change leading to the Decline of the West (La Défaite de l’Occident), he argues, was the implosion of ‘Anglo’ Protestantism in the U.S. (and England), with its entailed habits of work, individualism and industry – a creed whose qualities were held then to reflect God’s grace through material success, and, above all, to confirm membership of the divine ‘Elect’.

Whereas traditional liberalism had its mores, the decline of traditional values triggered the slide towards managerial technocracy, and to nihilism. Religion lingers on in the West, though in a ‘zombie’ state, Todd avers. Such societies, he argues, flounder – absent some guiding metaphysical sphere that provides people with non-material sustenance.

However, the incoming doctrine that only a wealthy financial élite, tech experts, leaders of multinational corporations and banks possess the required foresight and technological understanding to manipulate a complex and increasingly controlled system changed politics completely.

Mores were gone – and so was empathy. Many experienced the disconnect and the disregard of cold technocracy.

So when a senior WSJ editor tells us that the ‘deception and ‘gaslighting’ collapsed with the CNN Biden-Trump debate, we should surely pay attention; He is saying the scales finally fell from peoples’ eyes.

What was being gaslighted was the fiction of democracy and also that of America declaring itself – in its own scripture – to be the trailblazer and pathfinder of humanity: America as the exceptional nation: the singular, the pure-of-heart, the baptizer, and redeemer of all peoples despised and downtrodden; the “last, best hope of earth”.

The reality was very different. Of course, states can ‘live a lie’ for a long period. The underlying problem – the point Todd makes so compellingly – is that you can be successful in deceiving and manipulating public perceptions, but only up to a point.

The reality was, it simply was not working.

The same is true of ‘Europe’. The EU’s aspiration to become a global geo-political actor too, was contingent on gaslighting the public that France, Italy and Germany et al could continue to be real national entities – even as the EU scooped up all national decision-making prerogatives, by deceit. The mutiny at the recent European elections reflected this discontent.

Of course, Biden’s condition has been long known. So who then has been running affairs; making critical daily decisions about war, peace, the composition of the judiciary and the boundaries of state authority? The WSJ piece gives one answer: “Unelected advisers, party hacks, scheming family members and random hangers-on make the critical daily decisions” on these issues.

Maybe we have to reconcile to the fact that Biden is an angry, senile man who yells at his staff:

“During meetings with aides who are putting together formal briefings, some senior officials have at times gone to great lengths to curate the information in an effort to avoid provoking a negative reaction”.

“It’s like, ‘You can’t include that, that will set him off’ or ‘Put that in, he likes that,’” said one senior administration official. “It’s very difficult and people are scared sh*tless of him.” The official added, “He doesn’t take advice from anyone other than those few top aides, and it becomes a perfect storm because he just gets more and more isolated from their efforts to control it”.

Seymour Hersh, the well-known investigative journalist reports:

“Biden’s drift into blankness has been ongoing for months, as he and his foreign policy aides have been urging a ceasefire that will not happen in Gaza whilst continuing to supply the weapons that make a ceasefire less likely. There’s a similar paradox in Ukraine, where Biden has been financing a war that cannot be won – yet refusing to participate in negotiations that could end the slaughter”.

“The reality behind all of this, as I’ve been told for months, is that Biden is simply ‘no longer there’ – in terms of understanding the contradictions of the policies he and his foreign policy advisers have been carrying out”.

On the one hand, Politico tells us:

“Biden’s insular senior team are well acquainted with the longtime aides who continue to have the president’s ear: Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti and Bruce Reed, as well as Ted Kaufman and Klain on the outside”.

“It’s the same people — he has not changed those people for 40 years … The number of people who have access to the president has gotten smaller and smaller and smaller. They’ve been digging deeper into the bunker for months now.” And, the strategist said, “the more you get into the bunker, the less you listen to anyone”.

In Todd’s words then, decisions are made by a small ‘Washington village’.

Of course, Jake Sullivan and Blinken sit at the centre of what is called the ‘inter-agency’ view. This where policy mostly is discussed. It is not coherent – with its locus in the National Security Committee – but rather is spread through a matrix of interlocking ‘clusters’ that includes the Military Industrial Complex, Congressional leaders, Big Donors, Wall Street, the Treasury, the CIA, the FBI, a few cosmopolitan oligarchs and the princelings of the security-intelligence world.

All these ‘princes’ pretend to have a foreign policy view, and fight like cats to protect their fiefdom’s autonomy. Sometimes they channel their ‘take’ via the NSC, but if they can, they will ‘stovepipe’ it directly to one or other ‘key actor’ with the ear of one, or other, Washington ‘village’.

Nonetheless, at bottom, the 1992 Wolfowitz doctrine which underscored American supremacy at all costs, in a post-Soviet world – together with “stamping out rivals, wherever they may emerge” – still today remains the ‘current doctrine’ framing the ‘inter-agency’ baseline.

Dysfunction at the heart of a seemingly functioning organization may persist for years without any real public awareness or appreciation of the descent into dysfunctionality. But then suddenly – when a crisis hits, or Presidential debate misfires – ‘poof’ and we see clearly the collapse of the manipulation that has confined discourse to within the various Washington villages.

In this light, some of the structural contradictions that Todd noted as contributory factors to western decline become unexpectedly ‘illuminated’ by events: Baker highlighted one: The key Faustian bargain: the pretence of a liberal democracy operating in tandem with a ‘classic’ liberal economy versus the reality of an illiberal oligarchic leadership sitting atop a hyper-financialised corporate economy that has both sucked the life from the classic organic economy, and created toxic inequalities too.

The second agent of western decline is Todd’s observation that the implosion of the Soviet Union rendered the U.S. so cock-a-hoop that the latter triggered a paradoxical unleashing of global ‘Rules-Based Order’ expansion of empire versus the reality that the West was already being consumed from its roots upwards.

The third agent to decline lay, Todd argues, with America declaring itself to be the greatest military nation on earth – versus the reality of an America that has long rid itself of much of its manufacturing capacity (particularly the military capacity), yet elects to clash with a stabilized Russia, a great power returned, and with China which has instantiated itself as the world’s manufacturing Behemoth (including militarily).

These unresolved paradoxes became the agents of western decline, Todd maintained. He has a point.

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Alastair Crooke is a former British diplomat, founder and director of the Beirut-based Conflicts Forum.

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This could worsen Poland’s ties with Western Europe in parallel with cutting it off from this lucrative route upon which Chinese-EU overland trade is dependent.

Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski revealed late last month that his country was considering closing its border with Belarus, which its Western-backed and Lithuanian-based “opposition” leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya criticized him for on the basis that it would destroy the West’s soft power. There’s been no news about this since, thus prompting publicly financed Belarusian media BelTA to publish a piece on this subject earlier in the week titled “The play is over? How border games played out for Poland”.

It divided Poland’s ploy into three phases: the buffer zone and consequences; Duda’s Chinese voyage; and the blockade at Malaszewice. The first concerned the liberal-globalist government’s restoration of its conservative-nationalist predecessor’s policy, which hit local border economies very hard, while the second described the futility of the Polish President’s efforts to get China to pressure Belarus on the illegal immigrant issue. It’s the third of these phases where BelTA makes the best point.

According to them, President Xi’s announcement alongside his Kazakh counterpart on 3 July that China will launch freight transportation to Europe along the Trans-Caspian (“Middle Corridor”) route can be interpreted as a stinging rebuke of the Polish leader’s recent efforts to turn him against Belarus. Malszewice is correctly described in the text as “China’s gateway to Europe” and it’s through here where the bulk of China’s overland exports to Europe pass.

Although that dry point remains important, BelTA interpreted China’s abovementioned move as signaling that it has alternatives for maintaining trade with the EU in the event that Poland indefinitely shuts down that crossing, which was coincidentally disrupted for 33 hours on the same day as Xi’s announcement. One of the experts whose assessments they cited in their piece also noted that China could get France and Germany to pressure Poland to lift any potential blockade in order to restore access.

It would therefore be maximally detrimental to Poland to flirt with any more border closures since this could worsen its ties with Western Europe in parallel with cutting Poland off from this lucrative route upon which Chinese-EU overland trade is dependent.

Belarus wouldn’t be all that adversely affected, their experts predicted, since non-Western companies are already replacing Poland’s pre-sanctions role in that country’s markets. The only one who’d be dealt a powerful blow would be Poland.

It’s perhaps with these observations in mind, which France and/or Germany might have reminded Poland of during the recent Weimar Triangle meeting, that Poland has remained silent on this front.

Simply put, its leadership might have realized how counterproductive it would be to close the border with Belarus, which wouldn’t have any significant effect on stopping illegal immigrant invaders. Only more robust border security and cooperation with Belarus can help curb these flows.

The first is already in progress while the second remains an impossibility so long as Poland continues imposing sanctions against Belarus and hosting anti-government militants that still threaten it. This policy isn’t expected to change since Poland considers itself to be NATO’s vanguard against Russia and Belarus. It’s also presenting itself as a semi–autonomous pole of regional influence through its latest powerplay in Ukraine, which it plans to turn into a client state through their new security pact.

Nevertheless, for as regionally disruptive as these policies are, they could be even more counterproductive for the average Pole if Warsaw closed the border with Belarus and thus deprived their economy of its competitive advantage in serving as a middleman for Chinese-EU trade.

That policy still remains on the table in theory, but policymakers’ conspicuous silence in recent weeks suggests that they’re reconsidering its wisdom, which might have to do with Poland finally realize what it would lose.

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This article was originally published on the author’s Substack, Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.

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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UN staff continue to play an important and at times life-saving role among many people facing humanitarian crisis. However the role of the UN in maintaining world peace has suffered and has been increasingly marginalized as big powers tend more frequently to take the matters into their own hands.

Nevertheless, the UN remains very important and relevant for any peace initiatives, and one should not and cannot ignore the potentially very significant contribution of the UN in any world peace initiatives.

While there are many conflict zones in the world and many risks to peace, there is wide agreement that the biggest risk to the peace and safety of the world comes from the possibility of any direct confrontation between the USA/NATO and Russia. The two sides have nearly 11000 nuclear weapons as well as other weapons of mass destruction and highly destructive weapons. If in any direct confrontation of the two sides, only 5 to 10% of the nuclear weapons get used, then this would more or less end all life on earth and this would happen in the most painful way imaginable.

Despite the fact that the possibility of a direct confrontation between the USA/Russia and NATO is the biggest danger facing our troubled world, adequate efforts have not been made to reduce this possibility.

In recent years the possibilities of such confrontation have been increasing. Several treaties regarding reduction of nuclear arms threat in various ways have not been renewed or else have broken down. There has been increasing suspicion and hostility between the leadership of two sides. Eastward expansion of NATO has always been a source of escalating tensions.

Matters have come to a head during the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and in the prolonged brinkmanship the risks of a direct confrontation between Russia and the USA/NATO have been increasing steadily and have been at a very high level for a prolonged period. This is deeply worrying but there are not many ongoing efforts to reduce these high risks.

Unfortunately the UN has also not been seen to be actively involved in reducing these escalations at various points of important events. As various red lines were being crossed in the relationship of two sides becoming more dangerous, the United Nations could have intervened to prevent the escalation to the extent possible. It could at least have sounded timely warnings in more effective ways.

However not all is lost yet and the UN can still make an important contribution to de-escalation.

In this effort it should seek and obtain the support (which should be readily available) of several senior statesmen, diplomats, academics and other experts and peace activists who have from time to time issued statements regarding the need to reduce these tensions or else through their writings and speeches are known to be very worried about the very high risks and possibilities of direct confrontation between US/NATO and Russia. With their help the UN can organize very important international conferences and also smaller get-togethers from where important statements and warnings can be issued not once but several times to emphasize the need for reducing tensions and risks of direct confrontation between NATO/US and Russia. These statements and warnings should be further used to spread worldwide awareness regarding the world-level very high risks of such confrontation. With the statements released at various conferences distinguished statesman and experts should meet leaders of both sides to demand de-escalation. 

All this should continue till some good results are achieved. With the authority as well as the goodwill of the UN behind this, such a campaign is likely to achieve much better results compared to any campaign launched by any other organization.

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Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Man over Machine, Planet in Peril and A Day in 2071. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

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ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
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Pages: 102

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Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
–Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute   

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There are very few countries in history that are as Russophobic as the United Kingdom. This pathological hatred for all things Russian goes back centuries in many Western countries. Even when Moscow and London were fighting on the same side, the latter always sought to undermine the former, usually by looking to balance an ongoing conflict in a way that makes sure Russia loses the most while gaining as little as possible.

This was the case during the Napoleonic and both world wars. Worse yet, Winston Churchill supported a number of plans for wars against the Soviet Union right after WW2, including the infamous “Operation Unthinkable”, when the UK openly planned to use atomic weapons to “impose its will on Russia”. There’s certainly no shortage of rabid Russophobia in Europe and the political West in general, but London really gives the likes of Poland and the Baltic states a run for their money.

It should be noted that the pathological hatred for Russia in the UK is quite difficult to explain with the rather simplified logic of “thalassocracy vs. tellurocracy” competition. There are other tellurocracies that London could surely focus on, but it’s still dead set on hurting Moscow’s interests, so there has to be something more to it. By making Russophobia perhaps the main constant of its politics for centuries, the UK is quite literally jeopardizing its own existence. The Kremlin is aware of all this, which is why it has been considering the option of cutting even the most basic diplomatic ties with Downing Street. And who could possibly blame Russia given the fact that the UK is doing everything in its power to destroy whatever’s left of their relationship? London has simply crossed all red lines. However, it seems things are going to get a lot worse, as evidenced by the new British government’s belligerent rhetoric.

Namely, in yet another move tantamount to a declaration of war, the new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer fully supported the use of UK-sourced “Storm Shadow” air-launched cruise missiles against targets within Russia’s undisputed territory, with no apparent limitations.

Starmer’s Labour Party won the general election on July 4, with him confirmed as the new PM on July 5. 

Just four days later, he reiterated that the British government supports the unrestricted use of its long-range weapons against Moscow.

Starmer gave the statement while en route to the NATO summit in Washington DC. As per usual, he insisted that it was “up to Ukraine how it uses the missiles”, a ludicrous excuse that nearly all Western “leaders” like to use, despite being fully aware that the Neo-Nazi junta has no actual sovereignty to speak of. Worse yet, it relies solely on instructions from NATO on what to attack next.

Further supplies of long-range weapons to the Kiev regime will most likely be one of the central topics of the NATO summit and the UK is expected to be among the first to support the initiative. And indeed, London has supported virtually every escalatory move since the start of the special military operation (SMO), including the deliveries of depleted uranium munitions. This fact alone makes Starmer’s statement that “the missiles must obviously be used in accordance with international humanitarian law as you would expect” all the more laughable, as depleted uranium is among the worst weapons one could possibly deliver to a warzone. And yet, the UK was the first country to do so. At the time, it insisted that this was for “defensive purposes only”, and that’s precisely what Starmer said about the “Storm Shadow” missiles, which are clearly offensive deep-strike weapons.

The missile has a maximum range of 550 km, although NATO insists it delivered only a downgraded export version with a range of up to 300 km. However, given its history of lies and deceit, this has to be taken with a mountain of salt. Considering the “Storm Shadow’s” maximum range, this means that areas as far as Kaluga, a city in the relative vicinity of the Moscow oblast (region), can be targeted. It also covers nearly all of Belarus with the exception of the northern portion of the country.

The fact that much of Western Russia will be in range opens up a plethora of possibilities for uncontrollable escalation, but the UK’s mindless Russophobia seems to be clouding its judgment. Instead of focusing on its own issues, including years of unprecedented recession, economic and societal problems, London is rushing to war with the world’s premier thermonuclear superpower.

And yet, nothing seems to be enough for British warmongering politicians. After Boris Johnson made sure that the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict continues, resulting in over half a million Ukrainian deaths, the UK kept sending not only ever more advanced and longer-range weapons to the Kiev regime, but even the previously mentioned pointless depleted uranium munitions that British tanks didn’t even get the chance to use (partly because London insisted on keeping these tanks away from the frontlines).

Still, to make things worse, back in May last year, the mainstream propaganda machine reported that British special forces, specifically SAS (Special Air Service), SRR (Special Reconnaissance Regiment) and SBS (Special Boat Service), are directly involved in the fighting. And yet, by February this year, it turned out that this was merely the tip of the iceberg.

Namely, at the time, the Times essentially praised the British military’s contribution to the destruction of Russian naval assets. According to the report, the UK’s General Staff, headed by Admiral Tony Radakin, directly took part in planning and executing attacks on the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Radakin also seems to have been involved in other covert operations in Ukraine, all aimed at diminishing Russian capabilities.

Worse yet, it seems that other NATO assets have also been involved, presumably various ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) platforms, meaning that London certainly wasn’t alone in this “noble endeavor”. In other words, this isn’t a simple arming of the Neo-Nazi junta forces, but a direct participation in hostilities. For all intents and purposes, it amounts to a declaration of war and all of it despite the horrendous state of the UK military (which is only getting worse).

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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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Read Part I:

From COVID-19 to Synthetic Design: Forcing a Shift to the Genetic Modification of Humans

By Prof. Anthony J. Hall, July 10, 2024

 

From COVID-19 to Synthetic Design: Forcing a Shift to the Genetic Modification of Humans:

An Injection of Truth: The Ongoing Covidian Controversy in Alberta , Part II

 

This same phenomenon of public policy developed contrary to the thrust of scientific evidence, was repeated again and again throughout the world, including in Alberta Canada where I live. Alberta has been the main jurisdiction in Canada where there seemed in the recent past to be some level of government awareness of the need for some reckoning with the harm imposed on the public by perpetrators of the Covidian crimes.

Such inroads of reckoning with past harms, including facing the reality of millions of injection fatalities and injuries worldwide, form the the basic conditions for halting the extension of the invasive crimes against humanity. Only by making the responsible parties accountable for their lies and malfeasance to date, can precedents be firmly established to halt the damage being done and being contemplated by even more invasive and many-faceted applications of gene-modifying synthetic biology.

Skeptical perspectives on the Covidian crimes have been at best an undercurrent of most legislative bodies. Nevertheless, critical perspectives from within the decision-making entities of government have helped to encourage and anchor those millions of citizens who have understood that the supposed public health crisis which began in 2020, is something quite different from how it has been depicted by many mainstream sources.

In the United States Senator Ron Johnson utilized the US Congress to create forums to present the expertise and practical knowledge of many learned critics of the Covidian orthodoxy as pushed uniformly by coalitions of some of the world’s most powerful agencies.

A similar phenomenon developed because of the efforts of a small group of Members of the European Parliament that gathered around the eloquent critiques developed by MEP Christine Anderson.

In the Westminster Parliament in the UK, British MP Andrew Bridgen became, like Anderson and Johnson, the point person for Covidian skepticism based in the UK’s primary seat of government.

With some few small exceptions, elected MPs in the Canadian Parliament have, as individuals and as members of political parties, failed to organize events creating platforms to enable some of Canada’s leading Covidian skeptics to articulate their positions. Way too much conformity of opinion prevailed in Parliament and in the big media venues to sustain any significant challenge to the injection mandates embraced so ferociously by Trudeau, Chrystia Freeland and the Liberal Party’s NDP allies led by Jagmeet Singh.

Not surprisingly, the Canadian government is extending its Covidian preoccupations by trying to push the population into embracing a broad array of synthetic biology initiatives. In other words, the senior figures in the Trudeau government once again see nothing wrong with putting the untested and unknown consequences of genetic modification at the forefront of Canadian health care.

Alberta, it seemed, would compensate somewhat for the severe democratic deficit at the national level of parliamentary governance in Canada. In mid June the United Conservative Party Constituency Association of the Calgary-Lougheed riding organized an event entitled “An injection of Truth.”

Highlighting Dr Byram Bridle, Dr William Makis, Dr Eric Payne, Dr Jessica Rose, Dr Chris Shoemaker, Dr David Speicher, and Dr Mark Trozzi, the event brought together some of Canada’s most expert researchers and medical practitioners critical of Canada’s policies of mass injections.

All of the presenters listed above have faced considerable persecution and even deplatforming for confronting lies and crimes of the promoters of the manufactured COVID crisis. A particular emphasis running throughout all of their presentations was the travesty of injecting children.

Dr. Trozzi has assembled the video of the whole June 17 event as well as of its constituent parts.

On June 18 the main presenters organized to offer up a press conference of sorts. The quality of the video below, filmed by a single camera with sound that is far from perfect, is indicative of a lack of solid backup support.

I was surprised that an event of this magnitude of importance in Canada— an event with the backing of an important provincial government— was not dazzling in its production values. Certainly the event would have been better filmed if it had conveyed the Covidian message of the notoriously corrupt people at Alberta Health Services.

In the days following the Injection of Truth events, Premier Danielle Smith and the rest of the top leadership of the UCP Party were conspicuous in their failure to openly and proudly sing the praises of those who organized and participated in the Injection of Truth event.

For some reason Alberta’s governing power seemed to lose heart before the onslaught of attacks levelled at the event by the New Democratic Party of Alberta during the final days of the leadership of Rachel Notley. Notley lost the provincial election of May 2023 to the Smith government.

Dr. William Makis, an Albertan who is currently one of the most courageous and erudite Covidian whistleblowers in the world, followed up on his controversial presentation at the Injection of Truth event. He presented a deserved Blitzkreig-style attack on the pathetic blundering of NDP officials who have dug themselves deeply into defending a pandemic of pedophilia that permeates the activities of Alberta Health Services and of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Alberta.

In dealing with the deplatforming of several doctors who have tried to remain true to their Hippocratic Oaths to do no harm in the name of addressing COVID-19, Dr. Makis began looking into the contrast with the treatment of medical practitioners who have been charge and convicted of pedophilia. The double standards are striking. The contrast raises many questions about the partnership of Rachel Notley and Justin Trudeau as doctrinaire Covidian authoritarians who place a high premium on defending pedophiles.

Danielle Smith came to the top political job in Alberta in significant measure because she won the support of Albertans appalled with the COVID policies of former UCP Premier Jason Kenney. Premier Smith won the popular election in May of 2023 in the face of much media hostility. She won because many average Albertans, but especially those organized in opposition to the wrongheaded Covidian tyranny that the NDP has so tellingly epitomized, turned out to give Premier Smith a majority government.

Premier Smith’s new assignment is to go head-to-head with former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi. But as she goes into battle with the new provincial NDP leader who replaced Rachel Notley, how will her core supporters view her apparent snub by failing to build on the momentum set in motion by the grass roots Injection of Truth event?

How tolerant will Premier Smith’s core supporters be now that is seems she is giving ground to the Covidian culprits in the Legacy media, in the NDP, in Alberta Health Services, and in the perverse intrigues of the Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons?

While it is said Premier Smith is an advocate of “free choice” when it comes to taking the gene-modifying injections for COVID and for a growing array of other ailments, how much has been done in Alberta by her government to create the conditions of informed consent? Without informed consent, how “free” can so-called free choice really be? What is the responsibility of the Alberta premier to put in place the conditions where solid educational resources are readily accessible to make it possible for Albertans to develop the capacity to give genuinely informed consent?

The AHS was never in the business of giving sufficient background education to enable Albertans to offer up genuinely informed consent for the injections that came on stream in 2021. There is no “free choice” on this pivotal public health issue as long as the Covidian lies remain mostly unaddressed by those in the upper echelons of the provincial and national governments.

This is no time to go soft and to look the other way as millions more are offered up for human sacrifice in the transition from the lies and crimes of COVID-19 to the profoundly flawed forms of health care developing in the name of delivering synthetic biology.

 

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This article was originally published on Looking out at the World from Canada.

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

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

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Meet Liam, here he is getting his 6 month shots at the Doctor’s office back in 2019. He died that same day.

6 month old Liam Archer Osterhout died the same day he received the HepB, Tdap, Rotovirus, polio and pneumococcal vaccines on his six-month birthday.

Liam was very fussy when they arrived home so his mother gave him Tylenol and nursed Liam to console him and then he fell asleep.

Liam was laid down in his crib and found blue and lifeless less than 30 minutes later.

She rushed him to his Papa, Del, who is a First Responder, and he did all he could to try to revive Liam until the ambulance arrived. Unfortunately, Liam could not be revived.

Click here to watch the video

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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.

Featured image is a screenshot from the video

Modi’s Visit to Moscow Debunks Myths About Putin’s So-called Isolation

By Ahmed Adel, July 11, 2024

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official visit to Moscow has debunked the West’s allegation that Russian President Vladimir Putin is isolated from the rest of the world over the conflict in Ukraine and is another step in the strengthening ties between Russia and India. In fact, the New Delhi-Moscow relationship is so immovable because, as Modi explained, it is founded on “mutual trust and mutual respect.”

2+2=5: Despite All the Evidence of Genocide in Gaza, the Lie Remains the Truth

By Mark Taliano, July 11, 2024

When Westerners refuse to believe direct on-the-ground evidence about the Israeli genocide of Palestinians, then their governments can continue to supply assistance of all kinds, including 2,000 pound neighbourhood-destroying bombs.

Project Total Control: Everything Is a Weapon When Totalitarianism Is Normalized

By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead, July 11, 2024

The U.S. government is working to re-shape the country in the image of a totalitarian state. This has remained true over the past 50-plus years no matter which political party held office. This will remain true no matter who wins the 2024 presidential election.

Terminating Asylum Partnerships, “Resettling Refugees”: The UK Ends the “Rwanda Solution”

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, July 11, 2024

In April 2022, the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, announced the Asylum Partnership Arrangement with Rwanda, ostensibly designed “to contribute to the prevention and combating of illegally facilitated and unlawful cross border migration by establishing a bilateral asylum partnership”.

Where Are Corrective Systems as West and NATO Leadership Cross One Red Line After Another in Escalating Direct Confrontation with Russia?

By Bharat Dogra, July 10, 2024

In the middle of several serious risks and conflicts the safety of our world has been somehow ensured on the basis of certain basic understandings that till recently were well appreciated by almost all of the top leaders and diplomats of the international community.

Poland About to Participate Directly in Ukrainian Conflict

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, July 10, 2024

Poland is about to take a dangerous step in the Ukrainian conflict. Vladimir Zelensky stated that under the terms of a recently signed pact between Kiev and Warsaw, the NATO country could use its military forces to detain Russian missiles and drones in Ukrainian airspace.

Stop Illegal Organic Imports: USDA Protects Agribusiness Lobbyists at the Expense of US Organic Farmers

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, July 10, 2024

U.S. organic farmers are being driven out of business by low-priced organic imports of hazelnuts, turmeric and other products, which may not be grown to the organic standards you’d expect. The Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) of 1990 is a U.S. federal law that was enacted to establish national standards for the production and handling of organic foods.

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The former Argentine President, Lionel Fernandez, in his visit to Putin offered him the possibility of being “the gateway to Latin America” and in his meeting with Xi Jinping, confirmed Argentina’s adherence to the Belt and Silk Road Project, which could mean a staggering $24 billion in investments for Argentina and the end of its pivot in the orbit of the United States.

This set off alarms in the Biden administration who expressed concern over the growing presence of China and Russia in the country and in particular the possibility of China installing a joint military base with Argentina in Ushuaia in exchange for financial support Chinese to install a gigantic logistic Pole in the province of Tierra del Fuego.

After being elected President, Milei announced a “new foreign policy doctrine of Argentina based on a special relationship with the United States” after meeting with the head of the US Southern Command, General Laura Richardson, to discuss the installation of a joint US-Argentina base in Ushuaia that will control the traffic of mega containers through the Drake pass.

This, coupled with the future installation of a pseudoscientific base of Britain in the South Shetland Islands, will ensure maritime control of the Anglo-American axis of a route that will be the alternative to the Panama Canal.

However, the Falklands could be the black swan of Milei, after his optimistic claims in which he did not rule out “reaching a long-term agreement with Great Britain similar to that of Hong Kong involving the Malvinas return to the country”, the appearance of immense oil reserves in Sea Lion would be a missile on the geopolitical waterline of Milei.

Thus, according to the English newspaper The Telegraph, the British local authorities of the Malvinas Islands intend to organize a popular consultation to extract 500 million barrels of oil in a well located 240 kilometers north of Port Argentino, in Sea Lion. The drilling and exploitation tasks would be carried out by the Israeli company Navitas Petroleum who plans to extract 300 million barrels in the next 30 years, which would ward off the possibility of a British-Argentine co-rule over the disputed islands.

Milei is aware that if he positions himself far from the space acceptable to Argentine society and his decisions do not manage to move the window to his point of interest, the frame could end up breaking. At this point, it would not be ruled out that Milei assumed the flag of the historic claim of the Argentinian Islands and thus reinstate the previous frame of the window agreed by the vast majority of the Argentine population, decision that however could trigger a new war with Britain in the horizon of the next quinquennium.

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Germán Gorraiz López is a political analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official visit to Moscow has debunked the West’s allegation that Russian President Vladimir Putin is isolated from the rest of the world over the conflict in Ukraine and is another step in the strengthening ties between Russia and India. In fact, the New Delhi-Moscow relationship is so immovable because, as Modi explained, it is founded on “mutual trust and mutual respect.”

Modi, the most popular head of state in the world and recently reelected in India, visited Moscow on July 8-9. The Indian prime minister’s visit follows the recent meetings Putin had with Chinese President Xi Jinping on July 3 on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June, where he signed strategic cooperation agreements with both of his Asian counterparts. Putin also held a recent meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who often criticises NATO for the multi-billion-dollar military support it provides to Ukraine at the cost of European security.

Evidently, Russia is not isolated as the West has consistently claimed since the special military operation in Ukraine began in February 2022.

Following Putin’s diplomatic moves – which were closely followed by Western leaders – NATO is holding a summit this week in Washington to define a plan for sustained support for Kiev, at a time when Russian forces dominate the battlefield in Ukraine, and to strengthen sanctions against Russia. However, these provocations have only forced Moscow to enhance commercial, political, and military ties with partners, such as India, to render these sanctions practically sterile.

The search for dialogue to end the conflict in Ukraine has constantly been sought in various international forums. In this regard, New Delhi promotes peace but wants to maintain a good relationship with Moscow, a fellow BRICS member.

“We both believe greater efforts are needed to ensure global stability and peace. In the future, we will continue to work together to achieve these goals,” Modi said at a press conference after his meeting with Putin, adding that the meeting was “fruitful” and pushed bilateral progress in many sectors.

Modi also told Putin on July 9,

“As a friend, I have always said that peace is necessary for the prosperity of future generations, but I also know that on the battlefield, solutions aren’t easy to come by between guns, bombs and bullets. We have to adopt a path to peace through dialogue.”

He added:

“India is ready to support you in every possible way to achieve peace. I assure you and the world that we are in favour of peace, and after talking to my friend Putin yesterday, I have hope.”

In response, Putin said,

“I am grateful to you for the attention you are paying to the most pressing problems, including trying to find some ways to resolve the Ukrainian crisis.”

Of course, the only person outraged by Modi and Putin’s discussion of peace was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who described the meeting as a “disappointment.”

“It is a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world’s largest democracy hug the world’s most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day,” Zelensky said.

Following the talks with Putin, the Indian Prime Minister stressed the willingness to enhance bilateral ties in areas such as trade, security, agriculture, technology, and innovation. They also agreed on July 9 to step up their efforts to create an equitable and indivisible regional security architecture.

In this regard, Putin and Modi confirmed the importance of dialogue on bilateral and regional issues at the level of the secretary of the Russian Security Council and the adviser to the Indian prime minister on national security and the Security Councils. Both countries will engage in research and development and joint production of advanced defence technologies and systems, and they also agreed to intensify Indian production of spare parts, components, units, and other products to maintain Russian-made equipment and weapons. It is recalled that up to 70% of the Indian Army’s weapons are of Russian origin.

As Modi said when addressing the Indian diaspora in Moscow after announcing the opening of two new consulates in Yekaterinburg and Kazan to facilitate travel and business,

“No matter if the temperatures in Russia are in minus, Russia-India friendship has always been in plus. This is a relationship built on a foundation of mutual trust and mutual respect.”

This all-in-all ends the West’s relentless propaganda that Russia has been successfully isolated.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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Anyone who, based on past experience, might have anticipated the human sacrifice orchestrated to garnish the NATO meeting in Washington was not to be disappointed. The latest Russian rocket barrage on Ukrainian military and strategic targets, which occurred on the eve of the NATO summit in DC, presented an opportunity too precious to miss. Targeting only military or industrial sites would have done little to animate the NATO meeting or to get everyone onto the same page. But hitting a children’s hospital and killing some kids would be almost guaranteed to do the trick. Being in “total disarray,” as Alexander Mercouris bluntly put it, NATO could certainly benefit from this boost of adrenalin and whatever cohesive impulse dead children might provide to that ghastly organisation.

The Russian Government are not fools. They understand the game perfectly, and within hours the false flag in Kiev was irrefutably exposed. Their UN ambassador spelled the plot out in minute detail, for the benefit of the Security Council and anyone else in the “international community” disposed to listen.

The staged atrocity in Kiev is a technique that was elaborated to perfection in Sarajevo during the conflict in Bosnia in the 1990s. Whenever important Western visitors were scheduled to arrive or decisions deemed crucial to the interests of the Muslim-run Izetbegovic regime supported by Western powers were due to be taken, like clockwork a lethal event would be orchestrated for political and propaganda effect.

A memorial plaque on the site of the massacre (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

One of the most notorious, and without wishing to be blasphemous it could also accurately be said – iconic, incidents in this rubric was the Vaso Miskin Street massacre of people waiting in the breadline. It was staged by the local authorities on May 27, 1992 (also here). The timing was significant because at the end of May of that year a session of the UN Security Council was set to consider imposing draconian sanctions on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, to punish it for supporting their Bosnian compatriots. The massacre in which dozens perished was therefore staged right on cue, to give powerful “humanitarian” impetus to Security Council’s scheduled deliberations. It worked brilliantly and the sanctions were imposed. A series of similar false flag propaganda operations subsequently were organised at regular intervals, for the duration of the Bosnian conflict. Readers will recall the two Markale bombings in 1994, which followed exactly the same pattern, and there are other examples that could also be cited.

Readers may draw their own conclusions concerning the timing of the Kiev Children’s Hospital blast in relation to the NATO Summit being held in Washington, where the regimentation of member states behind the Ukraine war agenda without the slightest doubt is the predominant priority (see here).

One of the most noteworthy curiosities of this year’s NATO conference is the presence at the table of a very odd and by normal criteria least expected participant, Serbia.   

The question that first comes to mind, of course, is what could possibly motivate militarily neutral Serbia to take part in the plenary conference of a military alliance of which it is not even a member, and which – for perfectly understandable moral and psychological reasons – over 90% percent of its population abhor, as the latest public opinion surveys clearly show? What business do the Serbian government have attending the 75^th anniversary festivities of a military/political bloc with the evillest of reputations which, moreover, has treated Serbia with nothing but extreme violence and unambiguous contempt?

None whatsoever, of course, if the matter were to be judged by normal standards, which necessarily includes such basic things as respecting the unequivocal will of your constituents, adhering to the still binding neutrality law passed by your country’s Parliament, and last but not least evidencing due regard for the vital national interest of the nation that supposedly you are serving. But the aforementioned considerations form no part, even to the smallest degree, of the raison d’être which shapes the policies of Serbia’s duplicitous leadership.

Brown nosing NATO at its 75^th anniversary is however only the latest, and the most blatant example of how the Serbian regime conducts its foreign relations. There are other examples which could also be cited.

Under the radar, on 8 November 2016 official Serbia, the one with NATO officers comfortably ensconced in its Army General Staff Headquarters, joined the Helbroc Balkan Battlegroup, a NATO combat outfit consisting of regional vassal states and Ukraine. Serbia has already participated in a number of Helbroc exercises, contributing for that purpose its military personnel and equipment.

Image: Map showing Helbroc member states, including Serbia

The official mission of Helbroc forces is to serve as an urgent intervention unit. While deceptively portrayed as a European Union grouping, its agglomeration of forces consists of NATO member state personnel, with the sole exception of Ukraine and Serbia. Its units are subordinated to the command of officers from Greece, a NATO member state.

A review of the Helbroc accession agreement that Serbia signed reflects a commitment to execute “crisis management tasks” with other, mostly NATO, signatories within “and beyond” EU territory. That geographically open ended formulation is a red flag. It could justify the utilisation of Serbian armed forces in a wide variety of conflict situations having nothing to do with Serbia’s security or interests, subject to instructions issued by NATO military command structures to which the Helbroc Battle Group is clearly subordinated. Hypothetical combat use of this military formation against Russia can by no means be excluded.

As noted by retired Serbian Army colonel Žarko Pecić, Serbia’s participation in Helbroc is but a chard in a broader mosaic and should be assessed in conjunction with other significant steps which indicate the leadership’s determination to turn Serbia into a NATO member in all but the name, and perhaps ultimately in name as well. These steps have been the recent Platinum Wolf exercises, hosted partly on its soil by Serbia, with participation of units from NATO and NATO-associated countries, close military cooperation and procurement from NATO sources of weapons and military equipment, including helicopters and combat aircraft, signing in 2017 of the SOFA agreement granting NATO forces immunity on Serbian territory, and officer training in NATO member military schools. In the considered judgement of Col. Pecić, these activities in their totality reflect a purposeful design to bring the Armed Forces of Serbia closer to NATO and they indicate an undeviating process to ultimately integrate them into NATO structures.

In light of these facts, which until quite recently were discretely concealed from the general public, official Serbia’s presence at NATO’s Summit ceases to astonish.

Nor is there any reason to profess astonishment at recent revelations concerning the shipment of Serbian arms and munitions to the NATO-aligned Nazi junta in Ukraine. A treacherous pattern clearly has taken intelligible form and all the pieces of the unholy mosaic designed by renegades now fit naturally together. The only additional thing worth noting is that the stubborn unanimity the Serbian people have displayed in their support for Russia rests on a very solid foundation of fraternal attachment and gratitude. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Russians have generously spilt their blood for Serbia. Even the Serbian puppet government under Nazi occupation had summoned the courage to categorically reject German demands to send at least a symbolic detachment of Serbian soldiers to the Eastern front, which was an invitation to commit moral suicide on behalf of the entire Serbian nation. Shockingly, all that has now been reversed.

The use of Serbian military equipment in Ukraine has by now undoubtedly cost many Russian lives. But the Russian and international public need to understand that Serbia today is a mirror image of the broken Russia of the 1990s and that it is similarly governed by foreign agents who neither speak for the nation nor take its opinions into account.

Enough said for all who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

NATO war criminals and their Ukrainian Nazi minions may be a fitting social milieu for Serbia’s ruling clique. Maintaining cordial relations of any nature with them however leaves an unpardonable stain upon the honour of the Serbian people.

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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.  

Featured image source

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Rethinking Srebrenica

By Stephen Karganovic

Rethinking Srebrenica examines the forensic evidence of the alleged Srebrenica “massacre” possessed by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. Even though the ICTY created more than 3,500 autopsy reports, many of these autopsy reports were based on bone fragments, which do not represent complete bodies. An examination of the matching femur bones found reveals that there were only about 1,900 complete bodies that were exhumed. Of these, some 1,500 autopsy reports indicated a cause of death consistent with battlefield casualties. Only about 400 autopsy reports indicated execution as a cause of death, as revealed by ligatures and blindfolds. This forensic evidence does not warrant the conclusion of a genocide having taken place.

Karganovic examines the events that took place in Srebrenica in July 1995 in a wholistic manner instead of restricting it to a three-day event. The ten chapters cover:

1) Srebrenica: A Critical Overview;

2) Demilitarization of the UN Safe Zone of Srebrenica;

3) Genocide or Blowback?;

4) General Presentation and Interpretation of Srebrenica Forensic Data (Pattern of Injury Breakdown);

5) An Analysis of the Srebrenica Forensic Reports Prepared by the ICTY Prosecution Experts;

6) An Analysis of Muslim Column Losses Attributable to Minefields, Combat Activity, and Other Causes;

7) The Genocide Issue: Was there a Demonstrable Intent to Exterminate All Muslims?;

8) ICTY Radio Intercept Evidence;

9) The Balance Sheet; and

10) Srebrenica: Uses of the Narrative.

• ASIN:‎ B0992RRJRK
• Publisher: ‎Unwritten History, Inc.; 2 edition (July 8 2021)
• Language: ‎English

Click here to purchase.

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In Kenya, a law was passed in 2012 that prohibits farmers’ rights to save, share, exchange or sell unregistered seeds. Farmers could face up to two years in prison and a fine of up to 1 million Kenyan shillings (equivalent to nearly four years’ wages for a farmer).  

However, in 2022, Kenyan smallholder farmers launched a legal case against the government calling for reform of the 2012 seed law to stop criminalising them for sharing seeds. There is a hearing scheduled for 24 July 2024.  

Agroecologist and environmentalist Claire Nasike Akello says that, in legal terms, the sharing and selling of indigenous seeds is a criminal offence in Kenya. In effect, Kenya’s Seed and Plant Varieties Act demolishes self-sufficiency among smallholder farmers who use indigenous seeds to grow food.  

Writing on her website, she says that the legislation seeks to create a dependency on multinational companies by smallholder farmers for seeds thus giving an upper hand to these firms that continue to steal biological resources from local communities with a profit-driven mindset.  

It is, in effect: 

“A move designed to impoverish smallholder farmers and lock them out of farming.”  

Gates, Rockefeller and Big Agribusiness 

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) initiative, funded by the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations, has been intervening directly in the formulation of African governments’ agricultural policies on issues like seeds and land, opening up African markets to US agribusiness.  

Around 80% of Africa’s seed supply comes from millions of small-scale farmers recycling and exchanging seed from year to year. But AGRA is supporting the introduction of commercial (chemical-dependent) seed systems, enabling a few large companies to control seed research and development, production and distribution. 

Since the 1990s, national seed law reviews have taken place, sponsored by USAID and the G8 along with Gates and others, opening the door to multinational corporations’ involvement in seed production. 

Regulations and ‘seed certification’ laws are often brought in by governments on behalf of industry that are designed to eradicate traditional seeds by allowing only ‘stable’, ‘uniform’ and ‘novel’ seeds on the market (meaning corporate seeds). These are the only ‘regulated’ seeds allowed: registered and certified. It is a cynical way of eradicating indigenous farming practices at the behest of corporations. 

Thousands of seed varieties have been lost and corporate seeds have increasingly dominated agriculture as peasant farmers have been prevented from freely improving, sharing or replanting their traditional seeds. It amounts to the privatisation of a common heritage. The privatisation and appropriation of inter-generational farmer knowledge embodied by seeds whose germplasm is ‘tweaked’ and stolen by corporations who then claim ownership.  

Seed has been central to agriculture for 10,000 years. Seeds have been handed down from generation to generation. Peasant farmers have been the custodians of seeds, knowledge and land. 

The corporate control over seeds is also an attack on the survival of communities and their traditions. Seeds are integral to identities because, in rural communities, people’s lives have been tied to planting, harvesting, seeds, soil and the seasons for thousands of years. 

The privatisation of seeds is a global issue, of course. In Costa Rica, for example, the battle to overturn restrictions on seeds was lost with the signing of a free trade agreement with the US, although this flouted the country’s seed biodiversity laws. 

Seed laws in Brazil created a corporate property regime for seeds which effectively marginalised all indigenous seeds that were locally adapted over generations. This regime attempted to stop farmers from using or breeding their own seeds. 

What we are seeing is a drive towards the corporate commodification of knowledge and seeds, the erosion of farmers’ environmental learning, the undermining of traditional knowledge systems and an increase in farmers’ dependency on corporations. 

Such dispossession and dependency are sold by Gates and the agribusiness sector as meeting the needs of modern agriculture. What it really means is a system adapted to meet the demands of global agri-capital, institutional investors like BlackRock and corporate-controlled international markets and supply chains.  

Meanwhile these vested interests try to depict Africa as a basket case in need of ‘intervention’.  

Some of the Indigenous seeds stored at seed bank. (Source: Greenpeace)

It’s a convenient smokescreen that diverts attention from the political economy of food and agriculture, not least how contrived debt traps and predatory lending practices led African nations into succumbing to ‘structural adjustment’ programmes, turning the continent from being a net food exporter into a net food importer, undermining indigenous crop diversity and, with it, food security and food sovereignty.  

Prof Walden Bello and John Feffer argue that, in this respect, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) are key to understanding the processes involved in destroying African agriculture. Neoliberal shock therapy left poor African farmers more food insecure and governments reliant on unpredictable aid flows.  

Bello and Feffer argue that the social consequences of structural adjustment cum agricultural dumping were predictable: 

“… the number of Africans living on less than a dollar a day more than doubled to 313 million people between 1981 and 2001 – or 46% of the whole continent. The role of structural adjustment in creating poverty, as well as severely weakening the continent’s agricultural base and consolidating import dependency, was hard to deny.” 

And now we have AGRA stepping in to apparently save the day. But what we have seen thus far with that initiative is more of the same: according to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, AGRA is failing Africa’s farmers 

World Bank and the Seeds of Neocolonialism   

The UN FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) estimates that globally just 20 cultivated plant species account for 90% of all the plant-based food consumed by humans.  

In addition to this narrow genetic base putting global food security at serious risk, Graham Gordon, head of policy at the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD), also says that small-scale agriculture is central in reducing extreme poverty, since 80 per cent of people living below the global poverty line are based in rural areas, and the vast majority of these depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. 

Farmers have been growing crops and selecting seeds from the plants that grow best in their fields for thousands of years. Gordon notes that this ‘farmer seed system’ or the ‘informal’ seed sector has contributed to a nutritious and diverse household diet. 

However, this farmer seed system exists alongside the commercial seed system. Hybrid seeds are usually developed by large agricultural companies for commercial purposes, are often dependent on artificial fertilisers and, as already noted, are protected through patents, backed by seed certification legislation. 

Indeed, CAFOD’s 2023 report ‘Sowing the Seeds of Poverty: How the World Bank Harms Poor Farmers’ describes how the farmer seed system is systematically being undermined by the concentration of power held by large-scale agribusiness and the promotion of the industrial agricultural model. 

Gordon notes that seed markets are highly concentrated, with Bayer, Corteva, BASF and ChemChina/Syngenta controlling more than 50 per cent of the global commercial seed market. These same four companies also control more than 60 per cent of global agrochemical sales. 

Gordon says: 

“Using their monopolies, these companies concentrate on producing seeds for crops with large markets – mainly staples such as maize, wheat, soy and rice. This is having devastating impacts on crop diversity. Of the more than 6,000 edible plant species that we have cultivated over centuries, just nine crops now account for more than 65 per cent of all crop production. This has led to increased prices, and has significantly reduced farmers’ choice, and the resilience of farmers to shocks such as climate change.” 

CAFOD found that the World Bank promotes the interests of global agribusiness and intensified industrial agriculture by linking subsidies to farmers buying hybrid seeds and corresponding chemical fertilisers and requiring the implementation of seed certification laws that limit small farmers’ ability to grow, save, share and sell seeds. 

The solution is to shift funding away from industrial agriculture and abandon notions of a Green Revolution for Africa in favour of prioritising small-scale farmers, agroecology, and public investment in farmers’ seed systems to improve nutrition, increase food diversity and strengthen rural communities and local economies. 

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Renowned author Colin Todhunter specialises in development, food and agriculture. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image: Stella Muthama, an ecological farmer © Greenpeace

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Read Colin Todhunter’s e-Book entitled

Food, Dispossession and Dependency. Resisting the New World Order

We are currently seeing an acceleration of the corporate consolidation of the entire global agri-food chain. The high-tech/big data conglomerates, including Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Google, have joined traditional agribusiness giants, such as Corteva, Bayer, Cargill and Syngenta, in a quest to impose their model of food and agriculture on the world.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is also involved (documented in ‘Gates to a Global Empire‘ by Navdanya International), whether through buying up huge tracts of farmland, promoting a much-heralded (but failed) ‘green revolution’ for Africa, pushing biosynthetic food and genetic engineering technologies or more generally facilitating the aims of the mega agri-food corporations.

Click here to read.

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***

In the dystopian West, 2+2=5.

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, the Lie remains the Truth.

And this is convenient, because when the Lie is the Truth, permanent war and genocide can continue unabated.

When Westerners refuse to believe direct on-the-ground evidence about the Israeli genocide of Palestinians, then their governments can continue to supply assistance of all kinds, including 2,000 pound neighbourhood-destroying bombs.

When the international community believes that it is about self-defense or October 7 or Hamas or all of the above, the denial of reality is further reinforced.

The reality, as explained by UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied territories, Francesca Albanese, is that Western-supported Israel seeks “to rid Palestine of Palestinians in defiance of International Law, and the world’s failure to call Israel to account that has led to genocide laid bare in Gaza.” (1)

And what does she mean by “genocide laid bare”? A recent report by Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda, in Gaza, lays bare the on-going genocide with the example of Zionists evacuating areas in the East and North, herding them to the South and West, only to bomb them in Western areas where they had been relocated.

As long as reality is denied, and 2+2 =5, Western-supported Israel’s exceptionalism, its impunity, its war crimes, and its genocide will continue unabated.

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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017. He writes on his website where this article was originally published.

Note

(1) Video: “Genocide ‘laid bare’ in Gaza/ By UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese. (Genocide “laid bare” in Gaza/ By UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese – Mark Taliano (marktanliano.net)) Accessed 10 July, 2024.

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“The biggest mistake I see is people waiting for A Big Sign that’ll tell them that things have gone too far. One Big Thing that police or lawmakers or the president/leaders will do that will cross the line. It’ll never come because they won’t cross it. They’ll move the line. That line you think you stand behind is shifting everyday with little actions, bills, legislations… That line will stop moving one day, & it’ll be too late… Every day, your sensitivity is being eroded by these willful atrocities. The envelope for what you’ll accept is being pushed. One day, all of these things will be your new normal.”—Nigerian writer Suyi Davies Okungbowa

The U.S. government is working to re-shape the country in the image of a totalitarian state.

This has remained true over the past 50-plus years no matter which political party held office.

This will remain true no matter who wins the 2024 presidential election.

In the midst of the partisan furor over Project 2025, a 920-page roadmap for how to re-fashion the government to favor so-called conservative causes, both the Right and the Left have proven themselves woefully naive about the dangers posed by the power-hungry Deep State.

Yet we must never lose sight of the fact that both the Right and the Left and their various operatives are extensions of the Deep State, which continues to wage psychological warfare on the American people.

Psychological warfare, according to the Rand Corporation, “involves the planned use of propaganda and other psychological operations to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of opposition groups.”

For years now, the government has been bombarding the citizenry with propaganda campaigns and psychological operations aimed at keeping us compliant, easily controlled and supportive of the government’s various efforts abroad and domestically.

The government is so confident in its Orwellian powers of manipulation that it’s taken to bragging about them. For example, in 2022, the U.S. Army’s 4th Psychological Operations Group, the branch of the military responsible for psychological warfare, released a recruiting video that touts its efforts to pull the strings, turn everything they touch into a weapon, be everywhere, deceive, persuade, change, influence, and inspire.

“Have you ever wondered who’s pulling the strings?” the psyops video posits. “Anything we touch is a weapon. We can deceive, persuade, change, influence, inspire. We come in many forms. We are everywhere.”

This is the danger that lurks in plain sight.

Of the many weapons in the government’s vast arsenal, psychological warfare may be the most devastating in terms of the long-term consequences.

As the military journal Task and Purpose explains, “Psychological warfare is all about influencing governments, people of power, and everyday citizens.”

Mind you, these psyops (psychological operations) campaigns aren’t only aimed at foreign enemies. The government has made clear in word and deed that “we the people” are domestic enemies to be targeted, tracked, manipulated, micromanaged, surveilled, viewed as suspects, and treated as if our fundamental rights are mere privileges that can be easily discarded.

This is what is referred to as “apple-pie propaganda.”

Aided and abetted by technological advances and scientific experimentation, the government has been subjecting the American people to “apple-pie propaganda” for the better part of the last century.

Consider some of the ways in which the government continues to wage psychological warfare on a largely unsuspecting citizenry in order to acclimate us to the Deep State’s totalitarian agenda.

Weaponizing violence in order to institute martial law. With alarming regularity, the nation continues to be subjected to spates of violence that terrorizes the public, destabilizes the country’s ecosystem, and gives the government greater justifications to crack down, lock down, and institute even more authoritarian policies for the so-called sake of national security without many objections from the citizenry.

Weaponizing surveillance, pre-crime and pre-thought campaigns. Surveillance, digital stalking and the data mining of the American people add up to a society in which there’s little room for indiscretions, imperfections, or acts of independence. When the government sees all and knows all and has an abundance of laws to render even the most seemingly upstanding citizen a criminal and lawbreaker, then the old adage that you’ve got nothing to worry about if you’ve got nothing to hide no longer applies. Add pre-crime programs into the mix with government agencies and corporations working in tandem to determine who is a potential danger and spin a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports using automated eyes and ears, social media, behavior sensing software, and citizen spies, and you having the makings for a perfect dystopian nightmare. The government’s war on crime has now veered into the realm of social media and technological entrapment, with government agents adopting fake social media identities and AI-created profile pictures in order to surveil, target and capture potential suspects.

Weaponizing digital currencies, social media scores and censorship. Tech giants, working with the government, have been meting out their own version of social justice by way of digital tyranny and corporate censorship, muzzling whomever they want, whenever they want, on whatever pretext they want in the absence of any real due process, review or appeal. Unfortunately, digital censorship is just the beginning. Digital currencies (which can be used as “a tool for government surveillance of citizens and control over their financial transactions”), combined with social media scores and surveillance capitalism create a litmus test to determine who is worthy enough to be part of society and punish individuals for moral lapses and social transgressions (and reward them for adhering to government-sanctioned behavior). In China, millions of individuals and businesses, blacklisted as “unworthy” based on social media credit scores that grade them based on whether they are “good” citizens, have been banned from accessing financial markets, buying real estate or travelling by air or train.

Weaponizing compliance. Even the most well-intentioned government law or program can be—and has been—perverted, corrupted and used to advance illegitimate purposes once profit and power are added to the equation. The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on COVID-19, the war on illegal immigration, asset forfeiture schemes, road safety schemes, school safety schemes, eminent domain: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the police state’s hands.

Weaponizing entertainment. For the past century, the Department of Defense’s Entertainment Media Office has provided Hollywood with equipment, personnel and technical expertise at taxpayer expense. In exchange, the military industrial complex has gotten a starring role in such blockbusters as Top Gun and its rebooted sequel Top Gun: Maverick, which translates to free advertising for the war hawks, recruitment of foot soldiers for the military empire, patriotic fervor by the taxpayers who have to foot the bill for the nation’s endless wars, and Hollywood visionaries working to churn out dystopian thrillers that make the war machine appear relevant, heroic and necessary. As Elmer Davis, a CBS broadcaster who was appointed the head of the Office of War Information, observed, “The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most people’s minds is to let it go through the medium of an entertainment picture when they do not realize that they are being propagandized.”

Weaponizing behavioral science and nudging. Apart from the overt dangers posed by a government that feels justified and empowered to spy on its people and use its ever-expanding arsenal of weapons and technology to monitor and control them, there’s also the covert dangers associated with a government empowered to use these same technologies to influence behaviors en masse and control the populace. In fact, it was President Obama who issued an executive order directing federal agencies to use “behavioral science” methods to minimize bureaucracy and influence the way people respond to government programs. It’s a short hop, skip and a jump from a behavioral program that tries to influence how people respond to paperwork to a government program that tries to shape the public’s views about other, more consequential matters. Thus, increasingly, governments around the world—including in the United States—are relying on “nudge units” to steer citizens in the direction the powers-that-be want them to go, while preserving the appearance of free will.

Weaponizing desensitization campaigns aimed at lulling us into a false sense of security. The events of recent years—the invasive surveillance, the extremism reports, the civil unrest, the protests, the shootings, the bombings, the military exercises and active shooter drills, the lockdowns, the color-coded alerts and threat assessments, the fusion centers, the transformation of local police into extensions of the military, the distribution of military equipment and weapons to local police forces, the government databases containing the names of dissidents and potential troublemakers—have conspired to acclimate the populace to accept a police state willingly, even gratefully.

Weaponizing politics. The language of fear is spoken effectively by politicians on both sides of the aisle, shouted by media pundits from their cable TV pulpits, marketed by corporations, and codified into bureaucratic laws that do little to make our lives safer or more secure. Fear, as history shows, is the method most often used by politicians to increase the power of government and control a populace, dividing the people into factions, and persuading them to see each other as the enemy. This Machiavellian scheme has so ensnared the nation that few Americans even realize they are being manipulated into adopting an “us” against “them” mindset. Instead, fueled with fear and loathing for phantom opponents, they agree to pour millions of dollars and resources into political elections, militarized police, spy technology and endless wars, hoping for a guarantee of safety that never comes. All the while, those in power—bought and paid for by lobbyists and corporations—move their costly agendas forward, and “we the suckers” get saddled with the tax bills and subjected to pat downs, police raids and round-the-clock surveillance.

Weaponizing genetics. Not only does fear grease the wheels of the transition to fascism by cultivating fearful, controlled, pacified, cowed citizens, but it also embeds itself in our very DNA so that we pass on our fear and compliance to our offspring. It’s called epigenetic inheritance, the transmission through DNA of traumatic experiences. For example, neuroscientists observed that fear can travel through generations of mice DNA. As The Washington Post reports, “Studies on humans suggest that children and grandchildren may have felt the epigenetic impact of such traumatic events such as famine, the Holocaust and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.”

Weaponizing the dystopian future. With greater frequency, the government has been issuing warnings about the dire need to prepare for the dystopian future that awaits us. For instance, the Pentagon training video, “Megacities: Urban Future, the Emerging Complexity,” predicts that by 2030 (coincidentally, the same year that society begins to achieve singularity with the metaverse) the military would be called on to use armed forces to solve future domestic political and social problems. What they’re really talking about is martial law, packaged as a well-meaning and overriding concern for the nation’s security. The chilling five-minute training video paints an ominous picture of the future bedeviled by “criminal networks,” “substandard infrastructure,” “religious and ethnic tensions,” “impoverishment, slums,” “open landfills, over-burdened sewers,” a “growing mass of unemployed,” and an urban landscape in which the prosperous economic elite must be protected from the impoverishment of the have nots. “We the people” are the have-nots.

The end goal of these mind control campaigns—packaged in the guise of the greater good—is to see how far the American people will allow the government to go in undermining our freedoms.

The facts speak for themselves.

Whatever else it may be—a danger, a menace, a threat—the U.S. government is certainly not looking out for our best interests, nor is it in any way a friend to freedom.

When the government views itself as superior to the citizenry, when it no longer operates for the benefit of the people, when the people are no longer able to peacefully reform their government, when government officials cease to act like public servants, when elected officials no longer represent the will of the people, when the government routinely violates the rights of the people and perpetrates more violence against the citizenry than the criminal class, when government spending is unaccountable and unaccounted for, when the judiciary act as courts of order rather than justice, and when the government is no longer bound by the laws of the Constitution, then you no longer have a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.”

What we have, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, is a government of wolves.

*

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

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

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

They are regular contributors to Global Research.

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***

The dishonour board is long.  Advisors from Australia, account chasing electoral strategists, former Australian cabinet ministers happy to draw earnings in British pounds.  British Conservative politicians keen to mimic their cruel advice, notably on such acid topics as immigration and the fear of porous borders.

Ghastly terminology used in Australian elections rhetorically repurposed for the British voter: “Turning the Back Boats”, the “Rwanda Solution”.  Grisly figures such as Boris Johnson, Priti Patel, Suella Braverman, Rishi Sunak, showing an atavistic indifference to human rights.  The cruelty and the cockups, the failures and the foul-ups.  Mock the judges, mock the courts.  Soil human dignity.

All this, to culminate in the end of the Rwanda Solution, declared by the new Labour Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, as “dead and buried before it even started”.  Yet it was a sadistic policy of beastly proportion, offering no prospect of genuine discouragement or deterrence to new arrivals, stillborn in execution and engineered to indulge a nasty streak in the electorate.

In April 2022, the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, announced the Asylum Partnership Arrangement with Rwanda, ostensibly designed “to contribute to the prevention and combating of illegally facilitated and unlawful cross border migration by establishing a bilateral asylum partnership”.

Mysteriously, British officials suddenly found Rwanda an appropriate destination for processing asylum claims and resettling refugees, despite Kigali doing its bit to swell the ranks of potential refugees.  In June 2023, the UK Court of Appeal noted the risks presented to asylum seekers, notably from ill-treatment and torture, arguing that the British government would be in breach of the European Convention on Human rights in sending them into Kigali’s clutches.  In November that year, the Supreme Court reached the same conclusion.

These legal rulings did not deter the government of Rishi Sunak.  With lexical sophistry bordering on the criminal, the Safety of Rwanda bill was drafted to repudiate what the UK courts had found by denying officials and the judiciary any reference to the European Convention of Human Rights and the UK’s own Human Rights Act 1998 when considering asylum claims.

The bookkeeping aspect of the endeavour was also astonishing.  It envisaged the payment of some half a billion pounds to Kigali in exchange for asylum seekers.  The breakdown of costs, not to mention the very plan itself, beggared belief.  The Home Office would initially pay £370 million under the Economic Transformation and Integration Fund, followed by a further £20,000 for every relocated individual.  Once the risibly magic number of 300 people had been reached, a further £120 million would follow.

Operational costs for each individual kept in Rwanda would amount to £150,874 over the course of five years, ceasing in the event a person wished to leave Rwanda, in which case the Home Office would pay £10,000 to assist in the move.

With biting irony, the UK government had demonstrated to Rwanda that it could replace the supposedly vile market of people smuggling in Europe with a lucrative market effectively monetising asylum seekers and refugees in exchange of pledges of development.

By February 2024, according to the National Audit Office, the UK had paid £220 million to Rwanda, with a promise of another £50 million each year over three years.  It was a superb return for Kigali, given that no asylum seekers from the UK had set foot in the country.  When asked at the time why he was hungrily gobbling up the finance, Paul Kagame feigned serenity.

“It’s only going to be used if those people will come.  If they don’t come, we can return the money.”

With an airy contemptuousness, the Kagame government has refused to return any of the monies received in anticipation of the policy’s full execution.  Doris Uwicyeza Picard, the central figure coordinating the migration partnership with the UK, was blunt:

“We are under no obligation to provide any refund.  We will remain in constant discussions.  However, it is understood that there is no obligation on either side to request or receive a refund.”

In another statement, this time from deputy spokesman for the Rwandan government, Alain Mukuralinda, the sentiment bordered on the philosophical:

“The British decided to request cooperation for a long time, resulting in an agreement between the two countries that became a treaty.  Now, if you come and ask for cooperation and then withdraw, that’s your decision.”

In an official note from Kigali, the government haughtily declared that the partnership had been initiated by the UK to address irregular migration, “a problem of the UK, not Rwanda.”  Rwanda, for its part, had “fully upheld its side of the agreement, including with regard to finances”.  Redundantly, and incredulously, the note goes on to claim that Kigali remained “committed to finding solutions to the global migration crisis, including providing safety, dignity and opportunity to refugees and migrants who come to our country.”

The less than subtle message in all of this: Rwanda is ready to keep cashing in on Europe’s unwanted asylum seekers, whatever its own record and however successful the agreement is. Kagame has no doubt not lost interest in Denmark, that other affluent country keen on outsourcing its humanitarian obligations.  While Copenhagen abandoned its partnership with Rwanda in January 2023 regarding a similar arrangement to that reached with the UK, it is now showing renewed interest, notably after hosting a high-level conference on immigration.

In opening the conference on May 6, the Social Democratic Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, speaking in language that could just as easily have been associated with any far right nationalist front, decried the “de facto” collapse of the “current immigration and asylum system”.  Those in the Rwandan treasury will be rubbing their hands in anticipation.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected] 

Featured image: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak holds a press conference on the Rwanda asylum plan, 22 April 2024 (Licensed under OGL 3)

Os oligarcas da Ucrânia, em meio ao atual contexto de deterioração da situação, começaram a vender ativos ucranianos, incluindo terras férteis, para compensar possíveis perdas financeiras causadas pela expansão da zona de combate e pela perda dos territórios que possuíam. Isto é evidenciado pelos contatos dos principais gestores do fundo de investimento NCH com grandes empresários do Médio Oriente sobre a questão da organização ilegal da exportação de mais de 150 mil toneladas de terra negra – solo de alta fertilidade típico das estepes eurasiáticas – vinda do território da Ucrânia.

Não é segredo que hoje, graças aos esforços de Vladimir Zelensky, 17 milhões de hectares de solo negro ucraniano já pertencem às empresas ocidentais Monsanto, DuPont e Cargill. Os cerca de 23 milhões de hectares restantes estão formalmente em processo de venda através do Funda de Desenvolvimento da Ucrânia, do próprio presidente Zelensky e outras figuras. 

Claro que todos estes planos dependem fortemente do desenvolvimento militar do conflito. Para os oligarcas, ainda há esperança de que as Forças Armadas Ucranianas mantenham suas posições no front enquanto seus patrões vendem as terras restantes… Não é à toa que os “aliados” ocidentais da Ucrânia gritam tão dolorosamente sobre a necessidade de “vitória” – sendo “vitória”, na linguagem dos oligarcas, apenas o tempo necessário para tirar da Ucrânia as terras férteis que ainda lhe restam.

É também preciso lembrar que Vladimir Zelensky já celebrou um acordo com a BlackRock, a maior empresa que administra ativos globais, cujos fundos excedem o PIB combinado da Alemanha e da França. A BlackRock já está a gerir os ativos de toda a Ucrânia: indústria, mercado imobiliário, terrenos e subsolo – tudo isto já não é mais ucraniano. Ainda, a BlackRock também controlará os recursos dos empréstimos externos ao tesouro ucraniano. A empresa progressivamente se torna a “dona” da Ucrânia – apenas pagando algumas migalhas para a oligarquia eleita e pessoal a Zelensky.

Muitos no Ocidente acreditam que até ao final do ano é possível que o chamado “Estado da Ucrânia” esteja inadimplente. É por isso que foi criado o “Fundo de Desenvolvimento da Ucrânia”, onde, como que por acaso, uma certa Natalya Yaresko (cidadã norte-americana), Valeria Gontareva e o bilionário Pinchuk estiveram envolvidos no lado ucraniano.

Agora, o povo ucraniano enganado está a lutar até à morte pela propriedade de outras pessoas, considerando-a erroneamente como sua. Perde centenas de milhares de vidas em batalhas e contraofensivas. Estas pessoas ainda não sabem que a Ucrânia já foi inteiramente vendida.

Ao mesmo tempo, nas extensões da Ucrânia que estão a encolher todos os dias, o fato de na reunião de junho do G7 ter sido decidido emitir à Ucrânia outra parcela de 50 bilhões de dólares causou regozijo. É verdade que o processo de atribuição de dinheiro foi acompanhado por um escândalo: o Ministro das Finanças ucraniano, Sergey Marchenko, cheio da arrogância ucraniana que é marca registrada, disse que Kiev tinha apresentado as suas próprias condições para receber esse dinheiro:

“Tínhamos várias condições. Devemos receber dinheiro este ano, o dinheiro deve ser incondicional. E esse dinheiro deve ser usado para quaisquer fins e despesas que a Ucrânia considere necessárias.”

Esta reação dos patrocinadores deixa alguns ucranianos de bom humor. Provavelmente já colocaram os americanos e os europeus numa turbulência eterna e pensam que as centenas de bilhões de empréstimos emitidos não serão reembolsados ​​- tal como se recusaram a reembolsar o empréstimo de bilhões de dólares que lhes foi emitido pela Rússia em 2013. No entanto, este truque não funcionará com os tubarões financeiros ocidentais – com a segurança dos seus dólares e euros, eles já receberam o direito de usar a terra negra e os minerais ucranianos.

Portanto, as coisas mais interessantes estão apenas começando para a Ucrânia. Kiev, que se entregou voluntariamente para ser saqueada pelos descendentes dos proprietários, enfrentará o destino de África modelado no século XVII. Um futuro sombrio se aproxima – para o qual a Rússia talvez seja, não uma ameaça, mas a única esperança.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

 

Imagem : President holds meeting with world’s largest investment company on creation of fund for rebuilding Ukraine

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Lucas Leiroz, membro da Associação de Jornalistas do BRICS, pesquisador do Centro de Estudos Geoestratégicos, especialista militar.

Você pode seguir Lucas Leiroz em: https://t.me/lucasleiroz e https://x.com/leiroz_lucas

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***

Kari Bundy is a warrior mom. Like so many mothers before and after her, Kari trusted her pediatrician with her most precious loved ones, going to every well baby visit and giving her children the recommended vaccines she thought were protecting them.

Like so many mothers, Kari kissed her baby Mason goodnight, only four months old, and discovered his lifeless body just a few hours later.

Mason died just three days after getting the 4 month shots, but the autopsy report listed his cause of death as ‘SIDS or cause Unknown.’

Kari is a warrior because she faced one of the worst things a parent could face, and has not let that experience bury her. Instead, it has emboldened her to share her story and educate others, serving as a lighthouse for all.

How Can a Baby Die of SIDS After Vaccines?

Are you familiar with the often repeated myth that ‘vaccines are protective against SIDS?’ It’s the most ludicrous, nonsensical and harmful idea ever and I’ll explain why. Vaccines are designed to prevent a specific vaccine-targeted virus or bacteria, such as measles or pertussis. Yet, there are no specific viruses or bacteria responsible or even associated with SIDS, whose cause is supposedly unknown after a thorough autopsy.

Importantly, there has been no demonstrated biological plausibility how or why a vaccine could prevent SIDS as there is no specific pathogen involved, therefore it’s really nothing more than a flat out lie. Misinformation, if you will.

And no, SIDS is not genetic. And yes, the biomarker butyrylcholinesterase which was recently discovered only points to more accumulating evidence that SIDS is immune mediated, the result of an exaggerated immune response, such as unregulated inflammation via cholinergic inflammatory pathways, and a permeable blood-brain barrier, and the likely trigger for most infants appears to be the many vaccines given at the two-, four- and six-month visits, but also at the one year and 15-18 month visits. Certain exposures can increase ones risk, such as nicotine (causes abnormalities to nicotinic acetylcholine receptors) and non-supine sleeping position (altered vagal activity).

If colds or viruses are implicated, we would not have such focused clustering around the times of immunization, as colds happen irrespective of age and the vaccine schedule.

How Did Studies Produce Data That Said Vaccines Reduce SIDS Risk?

The results from the observational studies where they came to this conclusion that ‘vaccines are associated with a halving of the risk of SIDS’ has more to do with an idea called Healthy Vaccinee Effect. The studies couldn’t prove that vaccines actually reduced one’s risk of SIDS, as none of the ‘healthy living controls’ ever died of SIDS, nor were they at risk of SIDS.

Healthy Vaccinee Effect is a bias where babies who are healthier are more likely to be vaccinated than babies who are less healthy. So in this case, babies who died of SIDS tended to be less healthy, premature, lower socioeconomic, formula fed, compared to the babies in the study who served as their controls, the living babies, which explains why when taken as a group the SIDS infants were vaccinated slightly less often than controls. It doesn’t mean that vaccines would or could have prevented their death. It simply means that the healthy living infants had a lot of reasons why they were healthy, and they also happen to be vaccinated more often due to those reasons.

In this case, being healthy is a confounder: being healthy is associated with a lower risk of early death, and also being in a healthy state makes one more eligible for vaccination. This is a healthy bias.

One popular meta-analysis (pictured above) even mentions that healthy vaccinee effect is a likely explanation for why it appeared that the living infants, who were much healthier and had a better lifestyle, had a higher rate of vaccination. They weren’t healthy because of the vaccinations, they had better overall caregiving, which created a healthier baby, who is then also vaccinated more often.

That is not to say that every SIDS baby had subpar caregiving–in fact most of them were well-cared for. But from the studies of these particular time periods, it was clear that there were several key differences (or confounding variables) between the SIDS cases and controls, and it wasn’t just their vaccination status.

Well before I ever knew a thing about vaccines, I instinctively knew the timing of SIDS peak months (2-4 months) and the vaccine schedule (2 and 4 months) was more than just a coincidental correlation.

After digging deeply into the data, there is absolutely a causal relationship to be discerned, which was masked by the inclusion of low socioeconomic, socially deprived infants who were unwell prior to death and died prior to 2 months of age (therefore were unvaccinated by default, not choice). Obviously a vaccine couldn’t prevent deaths retroactively! But that is actually what the study suggests.

Why Are Nearly All SIDS Deaths Today After Vaccines?

Nowadays, nearly all infants are vaccinated at birth. We were told vaccines would reduce the deaths, but here we are, today all infants are vaccinated and SUID rates haven’t changed since the late 1990s, after they removed the DPT vaccine from the market.

Are there any unvaccinated babies who die in this day and age where babies get so many vaccines? If there are any mothers out there with babies who died suddenly and unexpectedly and are completely unvaccinated, please reach out to me. I don’t doubt there are other causes of SIDS but these would be even more rare, like this case report of an infant who died of SIDS after a pesticide exposure, and a 1990s case series that found specific pesticides increased risk of SIDS; they were banned in 1999 around the time that SUIDS rates plateaued.

What Happened to Baby Mason?

Mason was born on October 22, 2010 at 35 weeks gestation. Despite being small, he was perfectly healthy and had no NICU stay. Mason was not given the hepatitis B vaccine at the hospital because Kari declined that one. Progressing normally and healthily, he received vaccines at the 2 month well baby visit, and developed colic afterwards.

Two weeks before his routine 4 month well baby appointment, Mason came down with RSV and was hospitalized for one night. He was discharged the next day and recovered well or uneventfully.

When it was time for the 4 month appointment, his mother Kari asked the doctor to delay the vaccines since he had just gotten over an infection. But the pediatrician pushed back, and told her point blank: “If you don’t give your son this shot, pertussis will kill this baby.”

She did what many mothers in her situation do: she gave in, despite what her intuition was telling her.

So on March 1, Mason got the vaccinations recommended at the 4 month appointment.

On March 4, baby Mason was put down to bed like any other night. But a few hours later when Kari went to check on him, he was unresponsive. He was gone.

His official diagnosis was ‘SIDS or cause Unknown.’

Some of the findings from the autopsy suggest baby Mason experienced a cytokine stormwhich lead to his death. A cytokine storm is an excessive and uncontrolled immune system response involving the release of a large number of cytokines, which are signaling molecules or proteins that regulate immune responses. When the immune system becomes dysregulated and overreacts, it can lead to a cytokine storm, which can have severe and potentially life-threatening consequences.

Click to watch this video with Mason’s mother Kari share her and Mason’s story with Children’s Health Defense:

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Our thanks to Dr. William Makis for bringing this to our attention.

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Sep. 12, 2011 by Megan

Meet my son Josh. He was SO wanted. After over a year and a half of trying we finally got the little bug. A funny day of my appointment on Dec 20th 2005 — The Dr. said my water was low and we would be having a baby today! I was induced that day and he waited until 12:34 a.m. to come out so I could have my Dec. 21^st baby!! (We have our birthdays a week apart, Hubby – Dec 7th, Me Dec – 14th, Josh – Dec 21st and 7 weeks later is my older son’s Feb 8th. Cool right?! )  I had NO clue about that first Hepatitis B shot they give your kids in hospital. This was also before I realized what happened to many kids who get shots.

This is Josh PRE-shot injury.. Perfect in every way!!!

His first shot, Hep B, was given in the hospital without my consent- NON-STOP crying.

This is my bug after we got home. Those days were not fun. He did not sleep unless you held him and he would “scream” cry. He was very fussy and seemed to have a reddish face. I am guessing a rash from his vaccine. His legs were hot and he had a HUGE bump under his arm. Like a dummy I gave him Tylenol. I know how that was SO NOT good… poor bug.

I hate pacifiers… They SUCK… (no pun) but Josh was just very restless. He nursed but was just not very happy. Even the suckie did not help much.

At 2 months (Feb 2006) Josh went in for checkup.  Like a good mommy I took him in, and shots? Oh heck ya.  A good mommy gets her child shots (right?). She wants him to be healthy. Josh now is NOT SLEEPING even more. I have learned that my black lazy boy rocker is not too hard to sleep in (after you get used to it).  I had a friend then I used to talk to during the long, sleepless nights. She was awake at 1, 2 or 4 AM etc., and I am so grateful I had somebody to talk to!!

I soon began noticing he wouldn’t respond to sounds.  I even did the old pan and spoon trick… nothing.  You could talk to him but he wouldn’t look at you, he only avoided eye contact.  That sucks because he has the most wonderful eyes! Grey, and I love to look at them. His newborn test for hearing was ok.  March 13, 2006 hearing test was ok.  We even did another hearing test on November 14, 2007 and tested fine but with us he still didn’t  respond to sounds and we are left asking ourselves if he can really hear.

What I did not know was my son was having seizures from that set of shots on Feb 21, 2006. The Dr. said it was not a seizure.  The doctor’s explanation for Josh’s behaviors was that Josh was drinking cold milk (Um… I’m nursing? Impossible.), then he said it was a draft, or I’m just being too nervous. Anything but a seizure. We ended up firing her.

It was not all Hell at our house.  We did have a few moments of good, just NEVER sleep. Josh simply didn’t sleep. At times he was up 3 days at a time.  He would nap if I held him.  Later on we found out he has Sensory Processing Disorder.

At 4 months old (4/24/06), Josh received Hib b, IPV, DTaP, and Pneumococcal conj (6 different vaccines).  After the shots he was very fussy and he seemed to be shaking his head more than usual.  He looked red again on his cheeks and had a high temperature.   He was not my son. He was lost. I could tell that already. This should have told me something but I was getting ZERO sleep.  My husband was working nights so I had stay downstairs during the day and keep quiet and at night I had to keep quiet so my older son could sleep for school and Josh was SO fussy.  My life was a wreck.

Little did I know my life would get worse…

At his 6 month well-baby check-up I told the doctor Josh was having issues with head shaking and his eyes rolling back in his head. They did an EEG so his shots were delayed, THANK GOD! We were able to go home shot-free.

In the days after the EEG his head stopped doing the shaking thing and he seemed ok. The Dr. said he needed to get his shots.  When the Health Department called I finally went in.  On 6/29/06 he received  IPV, Hib, Hep B, Pneumococcal conj.  No DTaP so let’s see what happens.  Slowly the head shaking, that so far ONLY I had seen, comes back. Everybody thought I was nuts because I wasn’t getting sleep. But I know what I saw and I knew my son was not normal.  But, just after he was 6 months old we went to the fair.  My older son noticed what I had been seeing happen with Josh.  FINALLY somebody saw it happen!

In the next several months, Josh began talking some and had more eye contact.  He even learned to undress himself!  He began driving himself places in his little toy car and he even gave sleep a try! Yep, my bug was finally going places he had not been before.  He was amazing.  He had some words and he even let me know when he was wet. (Wahoo!!!) Everything was great… and then the health dept called again… “YOU need to catch up on that DTAP shot.”

At 11 ½ months old (12/07/06) – DtaP and Influenza.  Immediately Josh’s head started shaking again and it looked like he was just “drugged out” all the time.  He was always tired, but he would stay up ALL night.  It was crazy… back to living in Hell… Judge shows, Animal Planet, and Mountain Dew became my best friends.

Josh was also SICK all the time. He was always on antibiotics for ear infections and would always have to take 2 rounds – and sometimes even another after that of a different kind because the first 2 didn’t work.  It was so sad to see him. He stopped talking as much.  It’s like the words he had learned were gone.

At 14 months old (3/14/07) Josh received the MMR and Pneumococcal conj. Red cheeks again…

At 15 months old (4/16/07), Josh received Varicella, Hep A, and hib b.

At 18 months old (6/18/07), Josh received DTaP.  His words COMPLETELY STOPPED.  It’s like my son is locked up in a box.

On 10/17/07, Josh received his Hep A shot. Where is my son? Where are his words?  It was like he was out in a great big world and lost.

I feel like I let both of my kids down… Brandon was and IS such a good big brother.  Josh was a hand full and in the first 2 years of his life it was HELL.  I aged so much. It was like my son was stuck in a glass box.

These are two pictures from his Birthday and Christmas.  What a bright fun toy!  Doesn’t he just look thrilled (sarcasm)?  ALL of his Birthday and Christmas pictures are like this.

Because of his Sensory Processing Disorder, we had to buy him a weighted blanket and special shoes.  If his shoe came off he was a MESS!  He would hold his foot like it had been cut off.  When he was 18 months old he started therapy, 1 to 3 times a day, Mon thru Fri.  It took so much out of me running from place to place, but we finally got a few words out of him.  Nothing major, though.  He would not let us kiss him, and if we did he wiped it off because of the wet feeling.

In March 2008 I made him a weighted blanket. It was so needed and it helped SO much.  My bug was finally sleeping!!  On Sunday, May 18, 2008, after YEARS of waiting I got my first kiss from Josh! He was kissing me!  And I was in tears.  I asked him, “May I have another?” and he gave me one! He actually understood!!!

On Tuesday, July 15, 2008 we had an appointment with Josh’s doctor… our son has autism. I was in shock. But as days went on I realized –yep… it is not all SPD.  August of 2008 we got a DAN Dr. and a script – NO SHOTS!!

My marriage became really rocky, and it was so hard for us.  We are still together now, but it has been so hard keeping our family together.  I will never ever blame Josh for this… He is and always will be my number 1!  My boys are my world and I love them.  Josh is now 5 1/2. He is in kindergarten and he is learning to read. He loves to sing and has some great friends he loves to play with!

At a dinner with a developmental pediatrician in our town, the Dr. said that shots do not cause autism.  My older son said, “B.S.!” I explained Josh’s issues to him with shots and he told me in Josh’s case it sounds like shots were an issue with his autism. WOW!  He told me that in front of A TON of parents!!  He also said to the group, “If your child has autism they won’t: go to prom, drive a car, have a good job, go to college…”  I was shocked because MY SON WILL do all those things.

My son shows me how amazing he can be. I am finding him – slowly breaking that box he is stuck away in!  He still has to have socks on to sleep and a weighted blanket.  Josh LOVES roller coasters, fun parks, riding horses and painted faces.

Autism WONT stop my Josh. He is amazing.

Here are a few things we do to help him:

MB12 shot about every other day

2 Omega 3-6-9

2 Multi Vitamins

4 DHA

and about 300 kisses a day from me!!!

I am trying to find happy, for me, but this life is hard. I know he will be ok and now to make me ok.  Autism is hard for every member of our family, not just Josh.  I’ll never give up.  He lives in a glass box.  He can see out, I can see in.  I am determined to get him out!

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In the middle of several serious risks and conflicts the safety of our world has been somehow ensured on the basis of certain basic understandings that till recently were well appreciated by almost all of the top leaders and diplomats of the international community. One of the most basic of these understandings is that there should be no direct confrontation between the USA/NATO and Russia. As these two sides have about 11,000 nuclear weapons and supportive systems (as well as other weapons of mass destruction) it has been well understood that any direct confrontation which can also lead to exchange of nuclear weapons is a threat to all life on earth, and therefore must be avoided in all circumstances.

Very unfortunately, confounding all rationality and considerations of safety, in recent years Western and NATO leaders have been steadily acting in violation of this understanding to an alarming extent, and this continues to get worse.

All mature democracies are supposed to have in place in-built mechanisms and institutions of correcting serious mistakes but in the case of this biggest of all dangers these do not appear to have worked at all and do not appear to be working at all.

The result in that in terms of what can lead to a direct confrontation of USA/NATO with Russia, one red line after another has been relentlessly crossed with incredible irresponsibility, imposing unacceptably high risks not just on these countries and regions but on the entire world as the phenomenon of nuclear winter spares no one.

The very fact that several red lines were drawn by prominent establishment leaders and diplomats implies that the dangers relating to these were well understood and established. 

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed a landmark nuclear arms control treaty in 1987. (Photo: White House Photographic Office/National Archives and Records Administration)

To trace the history of these red lines very briefly, at the time of the break-up of the Soviet Union and the unification of Germany, top Western leaders had promised to Gorbachev that NATO would not expand eastwards even an inch. The very fact that such a promise was made implies that the high sensitivity of Russia on this issue was well understood by senior Western leaders and diplomats at that time.

However what actually happened was that over the next several years, in glaring violation of this promise, NATO expanded eastwards relentlessly and for hundreds of miles. In addition weapons and missile systems capable of inflicting great destruction on Russia were installed very close to the Russian border in the territory of new NATO members. This process of relentless eastward expansion was opposed by a very large number of senior western diplomats, academics and experts but to no avail.

In 2008 a new danger point in this escalation appeared when it was announced that NATO membership was open also for Ukraine and Georgia. Again several Western experts and even some prominent leaders warned that this would escalate tensions greatly but again these concerns were ignored.

Image: Viktor Yanukovych 

The next high escalation point came in 2014 when the USA and close allies instigated a coup which led to the ouster of the democratically-elected leadership in Ukraine and its replacement by rulers committed to pursuing anti-Russian policies, a situation that has more or less continued since then.

The new regimes took several policy decisions against ethnic Russian citizens of Ukraine and against those parts of eastern Ukraine where they are more highly concentrated. Several thousand people died in this violence. The Minsk Accords with the mediation of some western countries were supposed to sort out these problems, but could not, as some involved leaders of these Western countries themselves admitted later openly that the accords were only meant to give time to Ukraine to collect arms etc. to prepare better for war. 

As this violence and attacks were intensified in early 2022 and at this point Russia invaded.

Within weeks of the invasion with the mediation of Turkey an effort to achieve ceasefire and peace reached an advanced stage but the USA and its closest ally Britain pulled Ukraine back from the peace settlement at the last stage following a surprise visit of Prime Minister Boris Johnson to Ukraine.

The USA had placed several restrictions on arms supply to Ukraine but one after the other these were withdrawn. First it was agreed that M1 Abrams tanks will not be given to Ukraine but later these were provided.

It was first stated that F16 fighter jets will not be provided to Ukraine but later US allies were asked to provide these to Ukraine.

Similar first cluster ammunition were refused but provided later. More important, earlier long-range missiles like ATACMS were denied but provided later.

Earlier permission was not given to Ukraine by the USA to use USA-supplied weapon systems to strike the interior of Russia but later this permission was more or less given, although some conditions may still be attached to this.

The latest debate is on sending US military contractors to Ukraine and there are indications that this is also likely to be finalized soon.

The USA has recently signed a 10-year bilateral security agreement with Ukraine. More control has been passed on to NATO by the USA for actions relating to helping the Ukraine war effort in various ways. The NATO leadership is stated to be taking steps to create a bridge to Ukraine’s future membership of NATO.

Image: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets French President Emmanuel Macron during a state visit to France, 17 June 2019. (Source: President.gov.ua)

Leaders of several other Western countries and NATO member countries have also been making escalatory announcements and provocative statement. French President Macron was the first to say that his country may be willing to send its soldiers to fight in Ukraine.

Clearly this is a very long list of various red lines being crossed one after the other. It appears that President Biden in particular has been extremely hawkish in escalating tensions and confrontation while discouraging early ceasefire and peace.

However there is no doubt that early peace and ceasefire in this war is extremely important for the peace and safety of the world. As there are various contentious issues, the best way forward is to have immediate ceasefire on the basis of the existing line of control, and then to sort out all contentious issues including territorial issues on the basis of peace negotiations which can take their own tome but should not be allowed to break down.

On the other hand if the war continues and the USA/NATO continue to increase their involvement in it in various ways, then it may be only a matter of time when a more direct, a very direct confrontation or war between the NATO/USA and Russia can start with all the risk of this in turn escalating into a life-destroying nuclear war.

What exactly is NATO/USA trying to achieve? Despite all their help and weaponry the Ukraine war effort is in a mess just now. If on the other hand the USA/NATO succeed beyond their wildest hopes in creating a very adverse situation for Russia or an existential crisis, then Russia will use its nuclear weapons and then it will be a war which will burn both sides and the rest of the world with it. It is truly a strange situation. If all the aggressiveness of NATO/USA in siding with Ukraine does not succeed in improving the waning prospects of Ukraine, then Of course the US/NATO efforts are a failure. But if these succeed in a big way to result in a big threat for Russia with advanced weapons inflicting big damage to Moscow and other centers of Russia, then Russia is most likely to use nuclear weapons and then there may be no one left to write this most tragic and destructive episode of history.

Hence the crossing of successive red lines on the part of USA/NATO to risk a direct confrontation with Russia is clearly highly dangerous, irrational and unethical (in terms of endangering the safety of all people) and reflects incredibly narrow and irresponsible vision of present day USA/western/NATO leaders. What is even more surprising is that opposition parties, media and civil society have not been able to play the essential corrective role as would have been expected in mature democracies. This is at least partly because of highly undemocratic means being used to create false consensus on certain issues which are considered to be of crucial importance by the top leadership or even the deep state. Such undemocratic means have led to the erosion and weakening of the corrective mechanisms and institutions so that they are unable to play their important role of correcting serious mistakes and policy distortions at a relatively early stage. By practicing such manipulation, democracies are acting in suicidal ways and losing the natural advantages they have over authoritarian systems. Only a big and sustained people’s movement can now correct the serious policy distortions that have endangered the entire world.

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Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, Earth without Borders and A Day in 2071. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Poland is about to take a dangerous step in the Ukrainian conflict. Vladimir Zelensky stated that under the terms of a recently signed pact between Kiev and Warsaw, the NATO country could use its military forces to detain Russian missiles and drones in Ukrainian airspace. Such a situation could be considered by the Russians as a case of direct participation, leading to an open war between Russia and a NATO country.

The pact, according to Zelensky, establishes the necessary conditions for Warsaw to have positions inside Ukraine and directly participate in the role of air defense, thus helping Kiev overcome one of its current main strategic difficulties. For a long time, the airspace in the conflict zone has been almost completely controlled by Russia, which has made Ukraine’s Western-supplied tanks and military vehicles easy targets for Russian drones, missiles and aircraft. Kiev is doing its best to try to solve this problem, as it is impossible for one side to achieve any military gains without a strong air defense capacity.

In this sense, seeking ways to reverse the collapse of its air defenses, Kiev has sought direct cooperation with Western partners. Faced with the impossibility of joining NATO or bringing the Atlantic alliance into the conflict, Ukraine is currently betting on signing bilateral agreements with as many NATO members as possible, taking significant steps towards these countries beginning a type of “direct intervention” on an individual level. In this sense, the defense pact between Kiev and Warsaw can be seen as a way for Ukraine to use even more NATO software and troops to improve its positions on the ground, without, however, officially involving the alliance.

“[The agreement] provides for the development of a mechanism [for Poland] to shoot down Russian missiles and drones fired in the airspace of Ukraine in the direction of Poland (…) [We] will work together to work out how we can quickly implement this point,” he said.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed Zelensky’s expectations and stated that the terms of the agreement do indeed set the terms for direct cooperation, with Poland being authorized to publicly use its military equipment on Ukrainian soil against the Russians. However, Tusk appears concerned about the level of NATO’s participation in such maneuvers, fearing that Poland could be held individually responsible for attacking Russian targets.

Tusk hopes that NATO partners will reach a consensus with Warsaw and Kiev on how to act in the current phase of the conflict. He hopes that all actions taken by Poland and other member countries will be seen as a joint act of the alliance, thus generating collective responsibility. In other words, Tusk fears the consequences that the use of Polish military in Ukraine could generate for the country and expects NATO to protect Warsaw in the event of a direct conflict with Moscow.

“We need clear cooperation within NATO here, because such actions require joint NATO responsibility (…) We will include other NATO allies in this conversation. So we treat the matter seriously as open, but not yet finalized,” Tusk said.

It must be emphasized that Poland has been a de facto participator in the conflict for a long time. It is through the Polish border that most Western weapons arrive in Ukraine. Polish military personnel, both commandos and ordinary troops, have served in large numbers in Ukraine, and there is a lot of public information about Poles killed in combat during clashes with Russian forces. It is naive to think that these Poles are merely acting as “mercenaries” individually interested in “gaining money” or “helping” Kiev. Obviously, they are regular troops sent with the support of the Polish state itself, being the label of “mercenaries” and “volunteers” just a way of disguising Warsaw’s direct participation in the war.

To make matters worse, Ukraine is increasingly dependent on foreign intervention in the current situation. Unable to defend itself from Russian air strikes and with little force left to stop ground progress, Kiev is focused on creating defense pacts with NATO partners to increase its military strength and try to survive the conflict. For Kiev, the more internationalized and escalated the conflict, the better. The country hopes to create a situation that makes it impossible for NATO not to intervene, which is why it is trying to bring Poland into the war.

However, many analysts suspect that NATO would actually intervene in defense of Poland or any other European member. Although there is a collective defense clause in the NATO treaty, this article has never been actually tested. Furthermore, if Poland intervenes in the war and attacks Russian targets, it can be considered the aggressor, which removes NATO’s responsibility to intervene in the event of Russian retaliation on Polish territory.

In fact, only the patience and rationality of Russian strategists are preventing the war from escalating into a conflict of catastrophic magnitudes.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Lucas Leiroz is a member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert. You can follow Lucas on X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram.

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U.S. organic farmers are being undercut by low-priced organic imports, particularly from developing countries, where grower/producer groups are not subjected to annual inspections with USDA permission

The USDA’s allowance of grower/producer groups in developing countries has led to commercial-scale farms escaping proper oversight, with only about 2% being inspected annually

U.S. organic turmeric and hazelnut farmers are struggling to compete with imports that may not meet organic standards but are sold at lower prices

Legal complaints and lawsuits have been filed against the USDA, challenging the legality of grower group certifications and demanding stricter enforcement of organic standards

Fraud in the organic industry is a significant concern, with recent high-profile cases involving millions of dollars’ worth of conventionally grown produce being sold as organic

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U.S. organic farmers are being driven out of business by low-priced organic imports of hazelnuts, turmeric and other products, which may not be grown to the organic standards you’d expect. The Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) of 1990 is a U.S. federal law that was enacted to establish national standards for the production and handling of organic foods.

The act requires that agricultural products labeled as organic be overseen by an independent third party that’s supervised by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The process comes with additional costs and requirements for U.S. organic farmers, which should theoretically be offset by the higher prices commanded for organic foods.

However, uninspected organic imports are flooding the U.S. market from grower/producer groups in developing countries, which are not being subjected to annual inspections — with the USDA’s permission.

“The bottom line: Food is being imported at under the cost of production, forcing U.S. growers — who are complying with the law — out of business,” reported OrganicEye,¹ which is “dedicated to protecting family-scale farmers and preserving the availability of authentic organic food”² in the U.S.

USDA Protects Agribusiness Lobbyists at the Expense of US Organic Farmers

In certain developing countries, the USDA has allowed the formation of grower/producer groups. These groups are often used for crops like coffee, nuts, chocolate, tea and herbs, and while they started out as a way to help small farmers or indigenous groups in developing countries, the loophole is now putting U.S. organic farmers and organic standards at risk. According to OrganicEye:³ 

“Although there is no legal provision for the exemption, decades ago certifiers started allowing cooperatives, small villages, or groups of indigenous peoples, producing high-value, specialty crops, like coffee, chocolate, or spices, to be grouped together in ‘peer-supervised’ producer groups.

It was assumed that the small landholders would not be able to afford individual certification and inspections and the exception would both help them access world markets, improving their economic standing, and provide authentic organic food to more affluent Western countries.”

The global organic industry, however, is now a $205.9 billion industry, projected to reach a worth of $532.72 billion by 2032,⁴ and the grower groups have morphed to include commercial-scale farms that are escaping USDA oversight. Organic Insider reported:⁵

“As the organic industry surged in popularity and became a multibillion-dollar industry, grower groups were believed to be manipulated by agribusiness entities and compliant certifiers worldwide, according to industry watchdogs, which resulted in their circumventing the rules and avoiding direct USDA oversight.

The narrative was that agribusinesses created agreements with for-profit accredited certifiers so that they, instead of the certifier itself, would inspect the members of the agribusiness’ own supplier base.

… not only were these agribusiness entities doing the organic certification not recognized by the USDA as an approved organic certifier, but there was no restriction on how many participants were in these grower groups, how large individual farms could be or the limit of geographical range. Furthermore, these agribusiness entities didn’t even need to be farmers themselves.”

Only about 2% of the farmers involved in these grower/producer groups are being inspected annually, which means the vast majority — 98% — are not being inspected as frequently, if at all.

“Although almost universally complied with in domestic production, that system has completely broken down for imports,” Mark Kastel, OrganicEye’s executive director, said in a news release. “A large percentage of all foreign imports, making up a sizable amount of the organic food Americans eat, are coming from ‘producer groups,’ whose grower-members the USDA has exempted from the requirements to be certified.”⁶

US Organic Turmeric, Hazelnut Farmers Suffering

OrganicEye interviewed Brian and Valerie Quant, certified organic turmeric farmers who say they’ve been pushed out of the wholesale market by lower priced organic imports. “What grinds my gears is that we, as U.S. farmers and carrying GAP [Good Agricultural Practices] and organic certification, are held to a much higher standard and have annual inspections, associated fees, and extensive required bookkeeping responsibilities,” Brian Quant said.⁷

He added, “I’m not sure it’s really all that great a deal for them [the small foreign farmers] as they are sort of ‘bound’ to the corporate entity whose umbrella they are certified under.”⁸ The USDA Organic Integrity Database is an online resource meant to provide comprehensive information about certified organic operations and help ensure transparency and trust in the organic certification process.

But when OrganicEye investigated public records on organic turmeric production in Fiji, it found significant differences between the USDA’s Integrity Database and information from Fiji’s major exporters. They’ve since filed a legal compliant, asking the USDA to investigate and take any necessary enforcement action against alleged violations of National Organic Program (NOP) requirements.⁹

OrganicEye farmer and attorney Bruce Kaser explains,

“In general, it’s a compelling imbalance when you take into account that ‘organic’ is supposed to be produced by farms, yet hardly any certified turmeric farmers exist in the USDA ‘Integrity Database,’ while scads of certified handlers are apparently operating. It’s a huge, inverted pyramid that suggests a totally out-of-whack system.”¹⁰

The complaint mentions certification by Ecocert, a certifier based in France. According to OrganicEye, “Some international certifiers, such as France-based Ecocert (an organization that has been in trouble with the USDA and international bodies over the years), certify over 600 groups alone, likely representing many thousands of individual farmers and agribusinesses.”¹¹

Hazelnut growers have been similarly affected. An investigation revealed the USDA’s Organic Integrity Database lists no certified organic hazelnut growers in Turkey. Yet, the country is the leading importer of organic hazelnuts into the U.S., at prices close to conventionally grown hazelnuts. Kaser filed a legal compliant with the USDA, then a lawsuit against the agency after it failed to take action.

“The basis of the lawsuit,” according to Organic Insider, “is that according to OFPA, all organic farms must be certified annually by a qualified and approved organic certifier. As such, the plaintiff is asking the District Court to declare grower group certifications illegal and direct the USDA federal officer in charge of the USDA’s National Organic Program, currently Dr. Jennifer Tucker, to instruct certifiers to cease grower group certifications immediately.”¹²

‘Agribusiness Puppetmasters’ Are Leading Organic Import Inspections

Kastel describes the group certifications allowed by the USDA as a scheme that’s turned into a racket, “with agribusiness puppet masters in charge of inspections.”¹³ As a result, producers of organic imports are not being held to the same rigorous standards as U.S. farmers, and the system, instead of helping indigenous communities, is supporting agribusiness.

In fact, among the 2 in 100 growers that would be inspected, one of them could actually be a ringmaster agribusiness with a faux grower front. OrganicEye reported:

“‘The documented conflict of interest, and the potential for fraud, in this USDA-sanctioned ‘shadow’ inspection/certification program — which is fully supported by the Organic Trade Association, the dominant industry lobby group — is palpable,’ said Kastel.

Even under newly enhanced regulations adopted after repeated incidents of major fraud, commonly known as the Strengthening Organic Enforcement rule, the USDA solely delegates the authority to for-profit certifiers working overseas to design their own group administrative systems and internal controls to prevent fraud by their customers.

Kastel added, ‘We’re trusting the certifiers, whose primary motivator is profit, to oversee their agribusiness ‘clients,’ who in turn are responsible for overseeing all their own suppliers (i.e., the group members).’”

Fraud Is Rampant Even Among US Organics

The USDA’s Strengthening Organic Enforcement rule is intended to enhance the integrity and transparency of the organic supply chain, via expanded certification requirements, enhanced supply chain traceability, increased oversight and inspections and fraud prevention procedures.

The rule follows decades of problems with USDA oversight of organics and rampant fraud in the industry, including several recent high-profile cases. One major fraud case among U.S. organics involved the late Missouri grain broker Randy Constant, who sold tens of millions of dollars’ worth of conventionally grown grain as organic between 2010 and 2017.¹⁴

“Prosecutors said Constant used the proceeds of his fraud to travel more than 20 times to Las Vegas, where he stayed in luxury hotels, hired escorts and gambled. He died by suicide in 2019 after being sentenced to 11 years in prison,” according to the SC Times.¹⁵

In another case in 2021, a grain broker in South Dakota, Kent Duane Anderson, made about $71 million by selling conventionally grown grain as organic. And in 2023, James Wolf, a corn, soybean and wheat farmer in Minnesota, was also indicted for selling “organic” grains that weren’t really organic — and making $46 million in profits in the process.¹⁶

Critics have expressed doubt that even with the new rule the USDA will be able to effectively prevent fraud in the organic food sector. Food lawyer Baylen Linnekin suggested a better option is to return oversight to organic industry groups and the states.¹⁷ OrganicEye also suggests seeking out U.S.-grown organic products and contacting your congressional representatives to protect the authenticity of the organic food supply.

Take Action to Protect Organic Farmers and US Organics

After OrganicEye backed a federal lawsuit demanding that the USDA discontinue their practice of allowing foreign agribusinesses to inspect their own suppliers (a profound conflict of interest), the industry’s corporate lobby group, the Organic Trade Association (OTA), suggested that, if the USDA loses the lawsuit, they will simply go to Congress and lobby to change the law to legalize “group certification.”

Don’t let that happen! Federal law currently requires every organic farm to be certified and inspected annually by independent, accredited, third-party certifiers — not foreign corporations with a financial interest.

Please click the button below and invest two minutes of your time in sending a personal message directly to your congressperson and two U.S. senators, asking them to respect the spirit and letter of the law protecting organic farmers, ethical businesses, and consumers. To leverage your voice even further, please forward and/or share this action alert with your friends, family and business associates on social media.

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Notes

^{1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11} OrganicEye June 18, 2024

² OrganicEye, About

⁴ Globe Newswire April 30, 2024

^5, 12 Organic Insider November 8, 2023

⁹ OrganicEye June 17, 2024

¹³ OrganicEye October 17, 2023

¹⁴ The New Yorker November 15, 2021

^15, 16 SC Times January 26, 2023

¹⁷ Reason February 4, 2023 

Featured image is from Mercola

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The German media, Bild, reports that Israel will begin a war on Lebanon beginning about July 15.  Israel knows that Hezbollah will not stop its attacks on Israel until Israel stops its attacks on Gaza, and Israel has no intention of stopping until their war goals are met, including the destruction of Hamas.

Hezbollah has said they would suspend their attacks if Israel does likewise in Gaza, but that is seen as impossibility given that the Biden administration has given Prime Minister Netanyahu the green light, and all the weapons he needs to continue the genocide in Gaza.

Most of the population of Israel’s north has left, and the south of Lebanon has similarly seen evacuations as Israel has destroyed many villages.

The German airline Lufthansa has suspended night flights to Beirut until the end of July as fears grow of an impending war, which may be disastrous for both Israel and Lebanon. Hezbollah is quite comparable to Israel in military might, and in the 2006 war between the two, Hezbollah would not give up any territory, and Israel pulled back having been defeated by the Lebanese resistance group.

A number of countries have urged their citizens to leave Beirut ahead of July 15. They are: the US, Germany, Kuwait, Russia, North Macedonia, Canada and the Netherlands.

The root cause of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah lies in the brutal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, which has stripped the Palestinian people of all human rights. The final solution must be a two-state solution which grants the Palestinian people their freedom.

In an effort to understand this newest threat to the Lebanese people, Steven Sahiounie interviewed Rawad Daher, a well-known Lebanese journalist.

Steven Sahiounie (SS):   We have heard airline companies contacting passengers scheduled to depart Beirut International Airport. These airlines are re-directing flights earlier than July 15. The German media Bild has said they have information that Israel has taken a decision to attack Lebanon on July 15. In your opinion, is this credible?

Rawad Daher (RD):  There is no doubt that the factors for pressure and war threats are many, and if we review the news of the past 9 months, since October 7, 2023, until the moment, we monitor more than 9 serious threats and dates for war with Lebanon, some of whom said mid-March, others in May, and others in June as a deadline, until we reached the newest of mid-July. In fact, all of these dates passed by, just as the expectations of those who considered that war would occur within 48 hours in April, and within 72 hours a few weeks ago, also were not true. Therefore, I consider what airlines are taking to be precautionary measures, while what is reported in the newspapers falls within the framework of exaggeration at times and expectation at other times. If the war were to occur, it would not be linked to a timeframe, but rather to an event that violates the equation that has been in place for 9 months.

SS:  After the escalation between Hezbollah and Israel, and the continuous Israeli threats for an Israeli ground invasion into Lebanon, if a ceasefire happens between the Palestinians and the Israelis, would it include Lebanon?  

RD: Here we must distinguish between two points of view according to the two parties involved in the war. As for Hezbollah, it has announced and repeated that it is fighting a major front for Gaza, and any ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will automatically be reflected on the Lebanese war zone and it also rejects any settlement on the border with Lebanon before reaching an agreement in Gaza. As for the Israeli side, it is divided between those who believe that the Israeli army is exhausted in Gaza and is not ready to fight a fiercer war with Hezbollah after the Gaza war stopped, and therefore, Israel does not want war. On the other side, there are those who believe that the equation imposed by Hezbollah is considered a loss for Israel, and that this entity must fight a battle in the North to restore the strategic balance.

SS:  If Israel does begin a war on Lebanon, in your opinion, how do you see the Lebanese army response?

RD:  The Lebanese army doctrine and according to the Lebanese constitution, without any doubt, the army acts with Israel as an enemy, even though its military capabilities are limited and its armament is linked to several Western conditions and warnings, specifically American, which prevent it from engaging in the war. Therefore, as a result of this equation, there is no doubt that the performance of the Lebanese army could be similar to their performance during the July 2006 war.

SS: Israel has so far destroyed south of Lebanon from continuous bombing. In your opinion when this conflict is over, who will fund the rebuilding effort?

RD: There is no serious talk yet regarding the issue of reconstruction. Some leaked information promoting that Qatar can play a role in this framework similar to the year 2006, but nothing concrete yet since the war continues. Officially in Lebanon, there is no talk about this issue except through political objections from anti-Hezbollah parties that refuse the government of Lebanon to provide any compensation to the people of the south. I am also reminded of President of the Parliament Nabih Berri’s statement last April, when he said: “In my turn, I will bear alongside Lebanon, all of Lebanon the burden of compensation for the southerners, even if I had to move between the capitals of diaspora in order to fulfill these good people’s rights.”

SS: We have seen Sunni leaders in Tripoli come out pledging support for Hezbollah should a war begin. In your opinion, will we see Lebanese support for the resistance?

RD:  Since October 7 until today, there has been a completely different behavior in the Lebanese street, according to the sectarian distribution in this country. The Shiite support for the resistance did not change, and great Sunni support was added to it in a phenomenon that constituted a surprise, as support came instead of conflict between these two streets, until we heard supportive statements from Sunni figures, such who was known for opposing Hezbollah.  The Druze street is also supportive, especially in light of the biggest Druze leader Walid Jumblat’s position. As for Christians, there is a group that absolutely opposes Hezbollah, such as “the Lebanese Forces” for example, and a group that supports it in its resistance work, such as the Marada, for example, and a group that opposes the principle of unity of areas, but stands by “Hezbollah” in the event of war on Lebanon, which is what the Free Patriotic Movement announced, and therefore, the majority of Christians will be firmly on the “Hezbollah” side.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

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

Featured image is from MD

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The White House does not want to sanction tankers allegedly used by Russia to deliver oil in defiance of Western sanctions as there are fears that such a move could affect fuel prices and hurt President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, The New York Times reported on July 7, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The US outlet reported that White House economic advisers believe the US Treasury proposal will ultimately result in higher oil and gasoline prices.

“While Treasury officials want to put Russian tankers out of commission, economic advisers inside the White House worry that there will be a risk of a spike in oil prices this summer and a rise in US gasoline prices, which could hurt Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign,” according to The New York Times.

Discussions on the proposal are still ongoing, but the investigation indicates that the White House is in no rush to approve it despite being under pressure.

“The debate reflects a tension that has always been at the core of the administration’s novel attempt to restrict Russian oil sales: how to weaken the Moscow war machine without a political backlash that could hurt American drivers. The dispute is a rare public example of internal administration disagreements over inflation and Ukraine policy. It pits Treasury officials against aides at the White House National Economic Council, headed by Lael Brainard,” the report said.

“White House officials privately describe the process as routine and tense, with no decision made. But the delay has confused officials elsewhere in the administration, who have not been able to get a straight answer from Ms. Brainard and her team about what is holding up the proposed action,” the article added.

Western countries and their allies have launched a sanctions campaign against Russia, targeting the country’s economy, energy, and banking services, among other areas, after Moscow launched a special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. Despite the Western campaign, Russia says that sanctions against the country have failed and that the costs for Kiev’s financiers have been greater than for the Russian economy, which is booming.

Despite the sanctions, the World Bank has upgraded Russia from an “upper-middle-income” to a “high-income” country with a per-capita gross national income (GNI) of $14,250 in 2023.

“Economic activity in Russia was influenced by a large increase in military-related activity in 2023,” the international financial institution said on July 1. 

According to the U.S.-based institution, Russia’s upgrade was also boosted by growth in trade (+6.8%), the financial sector (+8.7%), and construction (+6.6%) and “these factors led to increases in both real (3.6%) and nominal (10.9%) GDP, and Russia’s Atlas GNI per capita grew by 11.2.”

Evidently, the sanctions have undoubtedly impacted the Russian economy, but they have not prevented significant growth, unlike the struggling Western economies, which have suffered from the boomerang effect of sanctions.

As the New York Times noted,

“the United States and Europe banned imports of Russian oil, in an attempt to reduce revenues for one of the world’s largest oil producers,” but as Yellen and other Western leaders realised, “the European embargo, when fully implemented, threatened to knock millions of barrels of oil off the global market — and trigger a price shock that could send gasoline as high as $7 a gallon in America.”

A recent Harris poll for the Guardian found that nearly three in five Americans believe the US is in an economic recession, and the majority blame the Biden administration. In the poll, 70% of Americans said their biggest economic concern was the cost of living, and 68% said that inflation was the top concern. Although the US has not been in recession since 2020, during the pandemic, the majority believe that there is a recession, which reflects the cost-of-living crisis that has seen many in the middle class enter poverty and those already poor struggling even more.

As each day passes towards the US presidential election on November 5, it is becoming increasingly likely that Donald Trump will replace Joe Biden in the White House. Instigating an oil price hike will all but end Biden’s reelection campaign since Americans are already struggling with a cost-of-living crisis spurred on by the current president’s policies.

For this reason, Washington will likely hold off on expanding sanctions on alleged tankers used to transport Russian energy until after the presidential elections, and only if Biden is reelected. If Trump is to be elected, it is unlikely he will introduce more sanctions on Russia that will directly hurt ordinary Americans, something Biden will have no inhibitions of doing after the election.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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In France, law is as weaponized as it is in the US under Merrick Garland. Paris prosecutors are “investigating” Marine Le Pen for alleged illegal financing of her 2022 Presidential campaign. If indicted and convicted, she faces 10 years imprisonment and a ban on standing for political office.

The French ruling establishment has been trying to get rid of Le Pen for longer than the American establishment has been trying to get rid of Donald Trump. Both leaders are guilty of the same “crime”–speaking for citizens instead of the immigrant-invaders that are being used to marginalize the ethnic basis of the countries. As has become completely clear, no Western government represents its citizens. Political leaders who speak for the people are seen as the worst enemies of the governments.

By winning the first round of the French parliamentary election, Marine Le Pen came too close to power and set off yet another effort to frame her on a charge that rids the French establishment of the only challenger to its ongoing sellout of the French people.

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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.

U.S. Plan to “Expand the War Beyond Ukraine”: NATO Buildup in Finland Puts Hostile Anti-Russia Army on Putin’s Doorstep

By Mike Whitney, July 10, 2024

The Biden administration has settled on a plan to expand the war beyond Ukraine by deploying combat troops and lethal weaponry to 15 military bases in Finland. Whether the deployment will include nuclear-armed ballistic missiles is not yet known, but the threat to Russia’s security is serious all the same.

From COVID-19 to Synthetic Design: Forcing a Shift to the Genetic Modification of Humans

By Prof. Anthony J. Hall, July 10, 2024

Elaborate patterns of fable and fairy tales are deeply woven into the ongoing chimera of COVID-19 as well as the lineup of successor illnesses being prepared to further our demise. The original frauds in 2020 included a totally inaccurate system of COVID tests designed to create massively amplified numbers of so-called “COVID cases.”

Inside China-Focused Congressional Hearings, Panic, Paranoia, and Hypocrisy Reign

By Megan Russell, July 10, 2024

On June 26th, the Committee on Oversight and Accountability sat down for a Congressional Hearing titled, “Defending America from the Chinese Communist Party’s Political Warfare.” This was one of many Congressional hearings aimed at tackling the “China threat.”

The Literary Review Poet and the Rapper Are Two Halves of the Same Muse

By David Penner, July 10, 2024

Due to the growing neoliberal antipathy towards the First Amendment American poetry finds itself in a conundrum, as all who submit their work to literary reviews are straitjacketed by the same censorship constraints as those who write for the mainstream press. Consequently, those who regularly contribute to these publications have long since abandoned any effort at saying something meaningful about the world in which we live.

Kiev Still Wants a New Counteroffensive. “Push back the Evil Russians”

By Drago Bosnic, July 09, 2024

For several months now, the Kiev regime has been talking about “new counteroffensives”. Desperate to get more “military aid” from the United States and European Union, the Neo-Nazi junta keeps fantasizing about large-scale offensive operations that would “push back the evil Russians”, but that’s as viable as Hitler’s “grand plans” of counteroffensives while the Red Army was already taking Berlin.

Trendy Appointments: Australia’s Special Antisemitism Envoy

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, July 10, 2024

Was there any need for this? Australia’s Albanese government, harried by the conservative opposition for going soft on pro-Palestinian protests and the war in Gaza while allegedly wobbling on supporting Israel, has decided to bring a touch of bureaucracy to the show.

Yes It Was a “False Flag”, “Murder Their Own Soldiers”. Israelis Widely Used “Hannibal Directive” on Oct. 7: Israeli Report

By Al Mayadeen, July 09, 2024

Israeli newspaper Haaretz has reported that during Operation al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) routinely used a command that allowed soldiers to murder their own soldiers, namely the infamous Hannibal Directive.

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Due to the growing neoliberal antipathy towards the First Amendment American poetry finds itself in a conundrum, as all who submit their work to literary reviews are straitjacketed by the same censorship constraints as those who write for the mainstream press. Consequently, those who regularly contribute to these publications have long since abandoned any effort at saying something meaningful about the world in which we live. As poetry is as old as humanity and cannot be extinguished without the destruction of human life, the art form has found new ways to survive, and to a somewhat unusual and albeit limited extent, this void has been filled by rappers.

Implausibly, this oldest of art forms has devolved into a strange place where it sees itself largely divided between MFAs with degrees from reputable schools that compete for a minuscule number of places in literary reviews which hardly anyone reads and which publish poetry which is either unintelligible or anchored in neoliberal cult ideology, and rappers who often have something to say (granted, not always something moral), yet typically lack the education with which to express themselves in a nuanced and intellectually substantive manner. 

Undoubtedly, there are notable exceptions to this, such as Mike Shinoda (“Kenji”), Meth U (“Mensch Bleibt Mensch”), and Sage Francis (“Conspiracy to Riot,” “Makeshift Patriot,” and “Slow Down Gandhi”), but in general rappers are illiterate poets. This cataclysmic divide between the soulless literate and the passionate illiterate is deeply emblematic of the alienation, dehumanization, and uniquely destructive powers of neoliberalism.

Image: Lil Kim (Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

Let’s begin our discussion of this peculiar poetic form with Lil’ Kim’s “Lighters up,” which draws the listener into the violent underbelly of inner city Brooklyn, specifically in this case Bedford–Stuyvesant, also known to New Yorkers as Bed–Stuy. (Difficult slang words have been translated and are bracketed). The song opens by immediately drawing the listener into a harrowing, tribal, and lawless world:

“I come from Bed-Stuy, niggas either do or they gon’ die

Gotta keep the ratchet close by

Someone murdered, nobody seen, nobody heard it

Just another funeral service

Niggas will get at you, come through shinin’ they yap [rob] you

In broad day light kidnap you

Feds get clapped [shot] too, police stay on us like tattoos

Niggas only grind cause we have to

Money is power, sling crack, weed and powder

Fiends [drug addicts] come through every hour

S’all about that dollar and we nuh deal with cowards

Weak lambs get devoured by the lion

In the concrete jungle, the strong stand and rumble

The weak fold and crumble, it’s the land of trouble”

The reference to murders where no one is willing to testify or talk to the police lest they be deemed a “snitch” is indicative of a breakdown in the rule of law, allowing violent criminals to commit serious crimes unimpeded. The authorities also frequently look the other way in the face of black on black violence, which further endangers the peaceful residents of these communities. This de facto empowerment of nefarious inner city elements by the ruling establishment is not unrelated to what Washington has long done to debase and humiliate people in foreign countries.

“Lighters up” raises a motif, which rappers are seldom intellectually conscious of but which is present in virtually all music of this genre, which is the tragedy of post-New Deal and post-civil rights America, a deindustrialized and ghettoized wasteland, where in order to maintain a decent standard of living Americans are increasingly coerced into becoming yes-men for corporations, and where a once robust middle class has been reduced to a distant memory.

Lil’ Kim portrays the police as oppressors but also as victims who can likewise be assaulted without warning. “Lighters up” emphasizes the problems of substance abuse, gambling, and prostitution that plague, not only inner city Brooklyn, but ghettos across the country:

“Some are boostin [boasting] 12 year olds prostitutin’

Hitmen hired for execution there’s no solution

Niggas still piss in the hallways

Fiends get high in ’em all day”

Another motif in “Lighters up,” and which is common in many rap songs such as Eminem’s “Like Toy Soldiers,” is how tribalism, illiteracy, and the destruction of the middle class have given birth to a new Wild West mired in systemic violence and bloody vendettas:

“For a pound leave your face on the wall

R.I.P in memory of

Never show thy enemies love”

Is this not the same attitude that Biden has towards Putin? And is NATO not a gang, albeit one armed with F-35s, Black Hawk helicopters, and nuclear weapons? If Russia followed suit with the same infantile and thuggish behavior would we even be sitting here having this conversation? 

Furthermore, what is the motivation for the oligarchy to rein in this culture of gang wars when it serves the convenient purpose of deflecting anger and rage away from the ruling establishment and on to one’s fellow workers and countrymen?

This hellscape devoid of security, education, and lawful employment is inextricably linked with a society that has been hijacked by corporations which are really nothing more than organized crime syndicates, and of which the inner city gangs are mere minnows in comparison. Her line that “Niggas only grind cause we have to” acknowledges the bleak reality that in the hyper-privatized “concrete jungle” the poor are forced to do everything in their power to survive. The final lines of the introduction (“S’all about that dollar and we nuh deal with cowards…”) could be emblazoned over the entrance to the headquarters of such august and civic-minded institutions as the CIA, Goldman Sachs, Lockheed Martin or Pfizer. Undoubtedly, many inner city drug dealers are conscious of the fact that they are preying on their own people but know of no other way to earn a living.

Image: Marley in 2010 (Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

Just as America is endowed with a plethora of literate and illiterate poets, there is likewise no shortage of literate and illiterate drug dealers, with the former being permitted to don a white coat, carry a stethoscope, and create drug addicts with impunity.

While addressing the systemic poverty in Jamaica, Junior Gong’s “Welcome to Jamrock” bemoans a similar scenario where youths trapped in poverty are chewed up by an avaricious machine devoid of education, jobs, the rule of law, and where elections are a rigged charade:

“Welcome to Jamdown

Poor people a dead at random

Political violence, can’t done

Bare ghost and Phantom

The youth dem get blind by stardom

Now the king of kings ah call

Old man to pickney, so wave unno hand if you with me

To see the sufferation sick me

Dem suit nuh fit me

To win election dem trick we”

At the end of the music video Damian Marley (the youngest son of Bob Marley) departs Jamrock in his BMW revealing that he too is enslaved to consumerism and the same economic system which places profits and possessions over human lives.

Tupac Shakur’s touching “Dear Mama” acknowledges that his own mother struggled with a crack addiction, but the song humanizes her and reminds the listener that drug addicts are suffering human beings in need of compassion:

“And even as a crack fiend, Mama

You always was a black queen, Mama

I finally understand

For a woman, it ain’t easy tryin’ to raise a man

You always was committed

A poor single mother on welfare, tell me how you did it

There’s no way I can pay you back

But the plan is to show you that I understand

You are appreciated”

Wu-Tang Clan, whose members hail from Staten Island and Brooklyn, created the hip-hop song “C.R.E.A.M.,” which stands for “cash rules everything around me,” and which relentlessly and almost hypnotically drives home the stark reality of America’s money-obsessed culture where the ghetto serves as a microcosm to a wider America in the throes of unfettered capitalism. Here the gangsters don Timberland boots and baggy pants rather than Brooks Brothers suits and Allen Edmonds shoes, and unlike their more bourgeois counterparts, have had the misfortune of being born into a prison whose walls are forged not out of concrete but with segregation, illiteracy, an illicit black market economy and virtually nonexistent checks and balances. Inspectah Deck gives a glimpse in “C.R.E.A.M.” of the horrors he experienced growing up in a city where the cards are stacked against the descendants of slavery, and even minors are frequently devoured by the insatiable prison beast:

“I went to jail at the age of fifteen

A young buck sellin’ drugs and such, who never had much

Tryin’ to get a clutch at what I could not—

The court played me short, now I face incarceration

Pacin’, goin’ upstate’s my destination

Handcuffed in the back of a bus, forty of us

Life as a shorty shouldn’t be so rough

But as the world turned, I learned life is hell

Livin’ in the world no different from a cell”

In Nas’ “N.Y. State of Mind” the rapper describes life in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, as “each block is like a maze full of black rats trapped.” However, instead of supporting a progressive position rooted in unionization, checks and balances, and good public health care and education for all Americans, he laments, albeit in his inimitable and ironic way, that he is unable to engage in gangsterism in a more respectable and law-abiding fashion:

“I dream I can sit back

And lamp [relax] like Capone, with drug scripts sewn

Or the legal luxury life, rings flooded with stones, homes

I got so many rhymes, I don’t think I’m too sane

Life is parallel to Hell, but I must maintain

And be prosperous, though we live dangerous

Cops could just arrest me, blamin’ us; we’re held like hostages”

As is invariably the case with the most talented rappers, Nas exhibits real poetic gifts such as his masterful line from “N.Y. State of Mind” that, “I never sleep, ’cause sleep is the cousin of death.” One can only imagine what he could have accomplished had he gotten a good education.

While it is easy for “educated Americans” (a euphemism for morons with expensive degrees) to thumb their nose at the gangsters of the ghetto, the latter are in fact imitating the behavior of their “successful” countrymen. Indeed, do we not have countless doctors, professors, journalists, politicians, Wall Street jihadists, armaments industry executives, intelligence agents, career officers in the military, lawyers, employees of the prison-industrial complex and the medical-industrial complex, etc., that will do literally anything for money?

The scourge of bullying in America’s public schools is the subject of Eminem and Lil Wayne’s “No Love,” a problem spawned by the demise of social democracy and a post-apocalyptic wasteland whose denizens can increasingly be broken down between the tormented and the tormentor. As with “N.Y. State of Mind,” “No Love” has lines of striking poetry:

“I’m rollin’ Sweets, I’m smokin’ sour

Married to the game, but she broke her vows

That’s why my bars are full of broken bottles

And my nightstands are full of open Bibles”

A disturbing element to “No Love” is the clarion call, not merely for the right to self-defense, but for a revenge rooted in extreme forms of violence:

“Money outweighin’ problems on a triple beam

I’m stickin’ to the script, you niggas skippin’ scenes

Uh, be good or be good at it

Fuckin’ right, I got my gun, semi-Cartermatic [semi-automatic]….

I’m high as a bitch, up, up and away, man, I’ll come down in a couple of days

Okay, you want me up in the cage? Then I’ll come out in beast mode

I got this world stuck in the safe, combination is the G code

It’s Weezy, motherfucker, Blood gang, and I’m in bleed mode 

All about my dough, but I don’t even check the peephole

So you can keep knockin’, but won’t knock me down

No love lost, no love found”

How many bullied kids have watched this music video (which has over 675 million views) and been inculcated with this very mentality? What does it do to a child’s psyche when all they see around them are sadistic predators and defenseless prey – those who are “up in the cage?” Is it surprising that with so many humiliated people and a country that has more guns than human beings that a certain percentage will seek to “come out in beast mode?” And what could be more tragically American than the notion that life without money is a living death, a Tartarean chasm, and that camaraderie and solidarity are but an elusive ephemeral dream? 

In order to understand the demonic nature of the American ruling establishment one must acknowledge the horrors unleashed on Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Gaza, etc., but it is also necessary to understand the terrible suffering inflicted on the weakest and most vulnerable who reside within the Stygian bowels of empire. One example of this is the many American children who grow up in poverty, in broken homes and communities, and who are exposed to egregious acts of violence at an early age, something Lil Wayne hauntingly intimates in “No Love:” 

“Yeah, my life a bitch, but you know nothing ’bout her

Been to hell and back, I can show you vouchers”

Harlem’s Immortal Technique unnerved the hip-hop world in 2001 with his controversial “Dance with the Devil,” a gruesome tale of an alienated and ambitious hoodlum whose brain has been warped by materialism and the egregious inequality of “the new economy,” who yearns to join a gang, yet is told he must participate in a sexual assault of a random woman at night as an initiation rite. Upon seeing this through, he ends up inadvertently raping his own mother:

“I once knew a nigga whose real name was William

His primary concern was makin’ a million

Bein’ the illest [toughest] hustler that the world ever seen

He used to fuck movie stars and sniff coke in his dreams

A corrupted young mind at the age of 13″

Once the protagonist realizes what he has done he commits suicide by jumping off the roof where the assault has taken place:

“And so he jumped off the roof and died with no soul

They say death takes you to a better place, but I doubt it”

Unlike in Crime and Punishment, the crime is too heinous. There can be no absolution.

Image: Jay-Z in 2011 (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

In “Empire State Of Mind” Jay-Z raps about the magic, mystery, and awesome power of New York City, but also cautions his listeners regarding the false gods of materialism and celebrity worship which have slain countless souls:

“Lights is blinding, girls need blinders

Or they could step out of bounds quick, the side lines is

Lined with casualties who sip the life casually

Then gradually become worse—don’t bite the apple Eve

Caught up in the in-crowd, now you’re in-style

Into the winter gets cold, en vogue with your skin out

City of sin is a pity on a whim

Good girls gone bad, the city’s filled with them

Mami took a bus trip, now she got her bust out

Everybody ride her, just like a bus route

‘Hail Mary’ to the city, you’re a virgin

And Jesus can’t save you, life starts when the church end

Came here for school, graduated to the high life

Ball players, rap stars, addicted to the limelight”

As is extremely common in rap music, Jay-Z holds it to be inevitable that we live in a ruthless Darwinian world where one is either rich or poor, and where it is only natural that New Yorkers are perpetually locked in a brutal war of all against all:

“Eight million stories, out there in the naked

City is a pity, half of y’all won’t make it”

In a country where public health and education lie in ruins, and millions of lives have been destroyed due to mass unemployment, a catastrophic substance abuse epidemic, unprecedented forms of sectarianism, mass incarceration, and trillions of dollars of household debt Jay-Z boasts a net worth of 2.5 billion USD. Is this “democracy?”

Undoubtedly, there is a lot of shameful rap music that glorifies banditry, conspicuous consumption, anti-intellectualism, black nationalism and misogyny. However, unlike literary review poets who have no other ambition than to see their gibberish in print and acquire tenure, good rappers have something to say, yet due to a lack of education typically struggle to see serious socio-economic problems through any prism other than that of race and tribalism. However, unlike their insipid brethren who speak in the abstruse language of academia and extreme specialization, rappers frequently “fight the power” (to quote Public Enemy), and in so doing, connect with the masses. Alas, the poet is cleft in twain.

Dubious erudition aside, these passages demonstrate that gifted rappers can be poets and prophets in their own right; and like Tiresias, poets don’t always tell us what we’d like to hear. Indeed, in their own way they are trying to alert us to the terrible abyss which we are frenetically galloping towards. It would be wise to heed their warnings. 

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This article was first published on Dissident Voice.

David Penner’s articles on politics and health care have appeared in Dissident Voice, CounterPunch, Global Research, The Saker blog, OffGuardian and KevinMD; while his poetry has been published with Dissident Voice and Mad in America. Also a photographer, he is the author of three books of portraiture: Faces of The New Economy, Faces of Manhattan Island, and Manhattan Pairs. He can be reached at [email protected].  

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