The African Union Chairperson is an important position within the African Union. The Chairperson serves as the head of the (AU) African Union elected by the assembly of heads of states and government. As the Africa Union stands at the crossroads and at the critical juncture, an effective leadership is essential for addressing the myriad challenges facing the African continent.

After several months of conscientious search for potential contestants to take over the African Union Commission chairperson’s position, which expires next February 2025, four (4) candidates have emerged representing Djibouti, Kenya, Madagascar and Mauritius.

With these candidates already confirmed following the deadline set for submission of applications and all the necessary supporting documents, four senior African politicians are engaged in an intensive campaign and strategic lobbying across Africa. The deadline for candidacies closed on August 6, at the African Union, which is headquartered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 

The African Union, a continental organization consisting of  55 African Member States, is scheduled to hold elections at its summit in February 2025 to choose a successor to Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairperson of the African Union Commission. The election is conducted by secret ballot, and the winner must secure a majority of two thirds of the vote among eligible member states.

By the stipulated guidelines, the chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC) is the chief executive officer exercising administrative, legal and financial functions. It also includes pursuing a leadership role for delivering the continental vision of an integrated transformative economy, consistently working for prosperous and peaceful Africa. The current geopolitical situation requires engaging in beneficial relations with external development partners for the continent.

Considered as Africa’s economic engine since its establishment as OAU and later transformed into AU, the head of the AUC, which is an executive body, is elected on rotational basis between the regions of the continent for every four years and the elected chairperson can be re-elected for two terms as incorporated in the constitution. Africa has five distinctive regions: northern, western, central, southern and eastern. Quite apart from regional origin, the candidates are required to have serious educational qualifications and, most important, experience to handle effectively the multiple tasks as the chairperson of the AUC. (See AU report: African Union Commission Elections 2025).

Contesting Candidates

From preliminary research and monitoring, the central, western, and southern regions of Africa have already served as chairpersons, this implies it is the turn of southern and eastern candidates of Africa. Concretely, it therefore includes Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. These countries are now, by geographical definition, can produce candidates for the position of chairperson. One of the basic key criteria is the candidate must be former presidents, former prime ministers, or former foreign ministers and to take up the job which mostly includes the undertaking of “measures aimed at promoting and popularizing the objectives of the Union” and the execution of “such other functions as may be determined by the Assembly or the Executive Council.”

According to African Union report, in early August 2024, the four confirmed candidates for this top AUC position, and to ultimately take over from the current chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat, are: Mahamoud Ali Youssouf of Djibouti, Raila Odinga of Kenya, Richard Randriamandrato of Madagascar and Anil Gayan of Mauritius.

(i) Raila Odinga is a veteran Kenyan opposition leader, who now at 79, has tried and failed five times to become president, most recently losing the 2022 election to William Ruto. Odinga spent his years in politics, fighting for democracy during the autocratic rule of President Daniel Arap Moi. “We are focused on bringing the seat home for Kenya and serving the African people,” Odinga said on X while announcing his formal candidacy.

A media report released in March 2024, titled “Museveni Endorses Raila Odinga’s AU Chairperson Bid” and circulated in the East African region showed the publicity campaign and erratic steps at promoting Kenyan Raila Odinga to take over as Chairman of the AU Commission. Interestingly, Raila Odinga, Kenya’s opposition leader, has readily accepted Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s endorsement of his candidacy for African Union Commission chairperson.

In a flagship statement posted via his social media platforms, Odinga said Museveni endorsed him during a joint meeting with President William Ruto. The Azimio alliance’s leader stated that the joint meeting with President Museveni and President Ruto was organized at the Ugandan president’s invitation. Odinga has an unmistakable political influence. Born into a modest political family and grew up in politics. His profound perspectives suggest he operates as a pivotal figure within power dynamics and his decision-making capacity is perceived as absolute pragmatic. Odinga, most observers say, possesses an assertive leadership style and always expresses steadfast interest in the complexity of a development-oriented society. These leadership skills echo his deep-seated affection for a genuine communal, regional, and continental tradition. Odinga as a suitable candidate underscores the perfect choice to embrace and settle for the best administrator for Africa.

(ii) Richard Mahitsison Randriamandrato studied in Paris, France. Randriamandrato was Madagascar’s foreign minister from March to October 2022, but was fired after voting at the United Nations to condemn Russia’s annexations of four Ukrainian regions. Madagascar has followed a non-aligned position on the war in Ukraine. He is a prominent Malagasy politician known for his role in the government of Madagascar.

He served also as a minister of economy and finance from 2019 until 2021 where he focused on economic policies aimed at stabilizing and developing Madagascar’s economy. Beyond his ministerial roles, he has been involved in strategic foresight and economic intelligence advising on regional infrastructure and development projects.

(iii) Anil Gayan, 76, served as foreign minister of the Indian Ocean island nation of Mauritius between 1983 and 1986, and again from 2000 to 2003. After this, he has since held other posts including at the tourism and health ministries. His biography says Anil Gayan’s ancestors migrated from India when the island was a British colony. He studied law at the London School of Economics and University of London until 1974. As a politician, he formed a political group called FNM (Front National Mauricien) in 2009. Along the line, in 2008, he was part of United Nations mediation in Guinea-Bissau. Gayan also led a 20-member African Union group of observers during the 2010 Rwanda elections.

(iv) Mahamoud Ali Youssouf, in April 2024, was nominated by Djibouti for the position of the chairperson. His biography says, between 1985 and 1990, he studied foreign languages at the Lumière University Lyon, and then studied business management at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom. He was, however, unsuccessful with his thesis at the Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. 

Nevertheless, as a staunch politician, Youssouf believes that although Djibouti is a small country with a sizable port, his government hopes to develop its economy along the same lines as Dubai. Its strategic location serves as a conduit to the whole world. “I am the only candidate capable of bridging the gap between the different regions of Africa, being French-speaking, but also English-speaking and Arabic-speaking,” said Djibouti’s Youssouf, the 58-year-old has been the foreign minister of the tiny but strategic Horn of Africa nation since 2005. “My primary objective if I am elected is to silence the guns” on the continent, he told AFP in an interview in July.

Employment Implications

Bridging the gap between different regions implies that this AUC leadership will address the development dynamics in the continent. That further emphasizes creating a conducive environment and atmosphere for potential external investors and stakeholders, within the geopolitical parameters, to the kind of a mixed economy, and speeding up the most industrialization processes and working towards technologically advancement in Africa. (See African Leaders Extraordinary Summit report, Feb. 2024)

Noticeably the republics of Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger and Mali have established governments, accused their previous political leaders’ manipulation by external powers, economic under-developments and the deepening instability (that is un-quantify-able failure to stem the Islamist insurgency) in the Sahel-Saharan region, an elongated landlocked territory located between North Africa (Maghreb) and West Africa, to the Atlantic coast of West Africa.

During series of summits, conferences and meetings that proliferated these years, the AUC reiterated the continuing growth of multiple democratic challenges with a wider negative impact across the continent, and particularly itemized military takeovers that have become a distinctive feature (or accepted norm) of regime change in West Africa. Some experts pointed to the rising neo-colonial tendencies perpetrated by the former colonies and their indiscriminate scramble for resources on the continent. In addition, there are also overarching narratives of growing crisis and explicit signs of weaknesses on the side of regional economic blocs in the continent, to say the least and appropriately under the direct confines of the African Union.

Researchers have reminded the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to invoke the African Convention for the Elimination of Mercenary, which went into effect in 1985, prohibiting states from allowing mercenaries into their territories. The researcher further called for addressing promptly ‘malign influences’ and ‘political manipulations’, and bring back the well-designed legislative measure broadly worded by the Assembly of the African Union which adopted as a strategic document known as the “AU Master Roadmap (AUMR) of Practical Steps to Silencing the Guns in Africa” in 2017. (See African Union report, April 2017)

A peaceful continent is possible. This aspiration inspired the ‘Silencing the Guns in Africa’ agenda, a flagship initiative of the AU Agenda 2063 that aspires to end all wars, conflict and gender-based violence, and to prevent genocide. As a long-standing partner, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), for instance, has seriously recommitted its partnerships and opportunities to furthering the Silencing the Guns agenda as a necessary condition for Africa’s transformative development. This focuses on the people, prosperity and peace as basis for its contributions to AU’s aspirations across Africa, according the UNDP’s report re-issued in February 2022.

Professor Sergiu Mișcoiu at the Faculty of European Studies, Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca (Romania), where he serves as a Director of the Centre for International Cooperation and as Director of the Centre for African Studies, noted in article to Global Research, that African countries are bound to wake up to a common understanding of the true meaning of their colonial past for the present, and determine their own future existence. And in fact, the leaders and the elites have to engage in development decision-making processes, and at the same time have to play their roles as autonomous actors instead of being pawns in global politics.

Mahamat’s Strengths and Weaknesses

In my view, analyzing most of the media reports and arguments, indicated this year the role is reserved for a representative from East Africa to replace Moussa Mahamat, a veteran politician from the Republic Chad in West Africa, who has served two terms since 2017. Prior to taking up this position, he was the foreign minister of Chad. As the history of the procedures indicates, the elected chairperson becomes the head of the African Union Commission. Mahamat, born on 21 June 1960, was for the first time elected as the chairperson on 30 January 2017 but assumed office in March 2017.  The chairperson is elected by the Assembly for a four-year term, renewable once. During his eight years’ leadership, holding executive powers, needed internal structural reforms that have popularly been called for were not simply carried out, and a record of publicly announced accomplishments grossly lacked probity and transparent accountability.

Despite that as mentioned above, the African Union under Moussa Mahamat has made several achievements including raising the continental external relations profile and its ascension into the Group of Twenty (G20). In September 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, chairing the G20 summit, the G20 nations agreed to grant the African Union permanent membership status in an appreciable move aimed at offering the continent a stronger voice on important questions and to uplift its unto the higher stage. In its final declaration in New Delhi, the G20 granted the African Union a full-fledged membership. The G20 consists of 19 countries and the European Union, making up about 85 percent of the global GDP and two-thirds of the world’s population.

Under administration of Moussa Mahamat, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), the single continental market has the potential to unite an estimated 1.4 billion people in a $2.5 trillion economic bloc. The AfCFTA opens up more tremendous opportunities for both local African and foreign investors from around the world. It aims at making Africa the largest common market in the world and accelerating continental integration. It is expected to reinforce the measures taken in terms of the free movement of persons, goods, and services across borders. But much depends on the collective determination and solidarity demonstrated, to face the challenges in a united and resolute manner, by the African leaders. It depends on the strong mobilization of African leaders and the effective coordination provided by the African Union.

Essential Leadership Attitudes

In mid-July 2024, Business & Financial Times wrote that the candidates were discreetly campaigning for the top position. The B&FT media indicated further that, despite the general qualification being former foreign ministers, and in the case of Odinga being an experienced politician and readily preferred by the majority of African leaders, some other distinguishing leadership attitude and approach are necessary and required of the candidate. Education is the cornerstone for awareness, but one of the crucial qualities that a leader must possess is the inherent positive notion of servitude, in addition to commitment to the organization’s future aspirations. 

As the incoming chairperson prepares to take on the baton, it is important to look forward with optimism, eager to continue making an impact in new ways, within the geopolitical context, and be ready to strategize broadly with key stakeholders and external powers. Pragmatism should be the catch-word, while ensuring pragmatic acknowledgement of the potential to drive progress and actionable initiatives. Step away from excessive symbolism and superficial (shallow) influence instead of an invaluable and impactful engagement or relations.

AU as a multilateral body, and in this critical moment for the continent plagued by high youth unemployment, weak institutions and political instability, the new leader must have the spirit of innovation, dynamism and a forward-thinking vision. Professor (Ambassador) Edward Boateng, business executive and politician, in an opinion article listed some the criteria for the ideal AU head as follows: (i) Inter-generational bridge: Capability to bridge generational divides within the AU, fostering inter-generational dialogue and including the perspectives of all age groups in policy-making processes.

(ii) Conflict resolution: Strong leadership in addressing conflicts and crises effectively, with a coherent strategy for conflict resolution across the continent.

(iii) Institutional reforms: Commitment to spearheading institutional reforms, enhancing financial sustainability and streamlining decision-making processes to address the AU’s bureaucratic challenges.

(iv) Economic development: Drive economic reforms, attract investment and foster a business-friendly environment to tap into Africa’s vast resources and young population.

(v) Empowerment of women and youth: Promotion of policies that enhance gender equality and provide opportunities for young people to participate in governance and economic activities.

Opening New Chapter

A new chapter characterizing plethoric changes is, however, expected under the next chairperson beginning March 2025. Arguments for several changes are necessary to make the continental organization work more effectively and produce tangible results especially now within the context of global reconfiguration. Africa is too diverse to fit together. But there are many more interests in uniting the continent. But the political, economic, and cultural diversities have to be transformed into continental strength to ensure development and growth, instead of a noticeable display of weaknesses and passive actions. It is often repeatedly claimed that the African Union needs urgent realistic reforms and some kind of rebranding its structure as an effective instrument for rapid development, new economic architecture, and for substantial growth.

In late January 2024, Rwandan President Paul Kagamé was appointed to lead the AU institutional reforms process. It was an important step towards implementing its institutional reforms, setting the Pan-African organization’s objectives under the leadership of the Heads of State who meet once a year at the Assembly. As Africa faces a multitude and multitude of crises, so also unstoppable debates have dominated inside Africa and on international platforms over the performance of the 55-member organization, its existing challenges, and the way forward in the fast-changing world.

Appropriately four candidates were short-listed for the position based on the fact the East and Southern Africa now have their turn. But at a glance, Odinga seemingly envisions to carve out a new distinctive image for the African Union. His high-value knowledge and experiences, corporate business entrepreneurialism combined with pragmatic new economic development thinking would probably save Africa. Narratives too indicated that Odinga would adopt a far-reaching overhauled approach and take unshakable measures toward most significant issues across Africa. These are essential conditions for re-imaging the AU’s future.

An in-depth analysis shows us that there should be four structural directions, in particular, to address by the next AUC chairperson: (1) investment in the economic sphere; (2) increased cooperation in the security field, and; (3) a shared vision of international and regional issues, and (4) on the social and humanitarian sphere. These representing the significant aspects of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Africa. Therefore, the AU has to take up the task of developing collective approaches to the problems of maintaining peace and security, strengthening democratic processes, developing human potential, and ensuring socio-economic growth.  

In a final summary, the AU’s vision is to accelerate progress, and spearhead development and integration in close collaboration with all members. These are incorporated into a single continental development program often referred to as the AU Agenda 2063.

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Professor Maurice Okoli is a fellow at the Institute for African Studies and the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is also a fellow at the North-Eastern Federal University of Russia. He is an expert at the Roscongress Foundation and the Valdai Discussion Club. As an academic researcher and economist with a keen interest in current geopolitical changes and the emerging world order, Maurice Okoli frequently contributes articles for publication in reputable media portals on different aspects of the interconnection between developing and developed countries, particularly in Asia, Africa and Europe. With comments and suggestions, he can be reached via email: [email protected].

Dr. Ken Onyeali Ikpe is the former Group CEO of Insight Redefini Group, a Sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest Marketing Communications & Consumer Consulting Group. He holds Ph.D and was trained at IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain.

Masoud Pezeshkian, who had vowed to form a “national consensus” (vefagh melli) government, could not deliver. Even though a few ministers are from the prior government, the key positions in his administration are given to those who had served in the reformist government of Hassan Rouhani until three years ago. That has angered the fundamentalists who thought they could share power in the new government. The pro-fundamentalist newspaper Kayhan wrote:

“Pezeshkian has selected reverse of national consensus government as the jobs in the new government were being divided among those individuals who do not have the slightest belief in the values and principles of the system and have created chaos in the past.”

Overall, the radical Islamists and the Revolutionary Guards were marginalized in the new administration.

In his speech before the Parliament, Pezeshkian frankly said the ministers’ nominees who were being introduced for confirmation had already been selected with coordination and approval from the Leader, Ali Khamenei. That was his tactic to prevent the rejection of nominees by the fundamentalists in the Parliament. About half of the parliament members are from fundamentalist groups, which include the Stability Front (Jebhe Paidari) and neoconservatives, whereas reformists and moderates constitute the other half. The parliament representatives had to yield to what had already been selected and approved by the leader behind the scenes.

Subsequently, the cabinet was almost unanimously approved with the help of Majles’ Head, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who is a close relative of Khamenei. Pezeshkian had previously helped Ghalibaf to be elected as the Majles’ head. So, Ghalibaf returned the favor by supporting the cabinet nominees who were put in for confirmation votes. Considering the leader had approved the nominees, the fundamentalists could not oppose the nominees’ confirmation. According to the Islamic Republic constitution, the Parliament must confirm the cabinet ministers before they can begin their job. The entire cabinet nominees of Pezeshkian received votes of confidence from the parliamentarians with an average of 237 votes out of 290 seats in the Parliament. Out of the 19 nominated ministers, most of them were able to win more than 200 votes of the representatives.

The fundamentalists had previously thought they could push Mohamad Javad Zarif out of the new administration, but they were wrong. Zarif is back to serve again as the Strategic Vice President and Head of the Presidential Strategic Studies Center. He is now the de facto president, as Pezeshkian lacks technocracy knowledge and experience. Pezeshkian, though not a cleric, seems to have the same ideology as them. He frequently quotes the Prophet Mohammad or the Shai Imams in Arabic. Pezeshkian said his first foreign trip would be to Iraq, where he would have a pilgrimage to Imam Ali’s shrine in Najaf.

Zarif’s colleagues from Rouhani’s administration now serve in the new administration. Abbas Araghchi is the minister of foreign affairs, and Majid Takht Ravanchi is his deputy. Araghchi wants to renegotiate the nuclear deal with the US at terms that please the United States. To please the West, Araghchi has indicated that Iran has no intention of providing its ballistic missiles to Russia.

These people had served under Rouhani’s government when Zarif was the foreign minister. According to the so-called JCPOA deal, this team gave away the crucial part of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure that cost the nation many billions of dollars for almost nothing in return. Khamenei wants to give away Iran’s resources and nuclear infrastructure to gain the West’s support for his regime. He has already stated that he is willing to negotiate with the West and has approved the same team that signed the previous deal to be in charge of the negotiations. So, should the impoverished nation of Iran look forward to another disastrous nuclear deal under this reformist government? Only the future will tell.

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One Month Before Global Research’s Anniversary 

Akbar E. Torbat is the author of “Politics of Oil and Nuclear Technology in Iran,” Palgrave Macmillan (2020). Farsi translation of the book is available here. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Argentine President Javier Milei has said that he will buy new submarines for the country, which has been left without operational capacity since the ARA San Juan tragedy in 2017 and will probably opt for French or German submarines. Despite this rearmament plan, Milei will unlikely attempt to capture the Falkland Islands from the British.

Argentina will seek to recover, at least in part, its diminished submarine capacity by purchasing new units, as the president confirmed in an interview. When consulted by the La Nación + channel, Milei said, “The purchases of submarines that we are going to be making” are within the list of actions promoted by his administration to improve the capabilities of Argentina’s Armed Forces. This also includes the purchase of F-16 fighter jets, acquiring ships and tanks and opening a naval base for the United States in Ushuaia, in the country’s extreme south.

The presidential announcement put the spotlight back on the Argentine Navy’s Submarine Force, a corps created in 1956 and hosted at the Mar del Plata Naval Base. At one time, four submarines operated simultaneously. However, the passage of time and the tragedy of the ARA San Juan in 2017, in which 44 crew members died, seriously diminished Argentine capabilities.

ARA Santa Cruz remains uncertain while work is being done on its mid-life repairs. At the same time, the ARA Salta is no longer in a condition to sail, so it is used in the port for educational purposes. Furthermore, the ARA San Luis submarine, famous for actively participating in the Falklands War, was decommissioned in 1997.

In this context, Juan José Roldán, editor of Zona Militar, recalled that the need to recover the submarine fleet is not recent but had already been handled by the previous administrations of Alberto Fernández (2019-2023) and Mauricio Macri (2015-2019). However, purchasing submarines is difficult to address since it is an investment that needs “a great amount of resources.” Roldán pointed out that purchasing 24 F-16 fighter planes cost Argentina more than $300 million, while acquiring new submarines will cost “billions of dollars.”

Submarines should be understood as a weapon of deterrence crucial to avoiding conflicts or possible actions by enemies. This is important because Argentina has a large maritime coastline. According to Roldán, submarines are key for Argentina in deterring illegal activities. The analyst also recalled how important submarines were during the Falklands War when British submarines prevented Argentine warships from operating in its maritime space.

“The strategic role of the submarine lies in the fact that it is a weapon that is very difficult to detect, even with the advances that exist in the anti-submarine field. It is a strategic and deterrent weapon because, beyond combat, which would not be the goal, you send a message to the adversary that you can deny them access to the sea,” he explained.

Roldán believes that Argentina should “rebuild its military capabilities,” looking towards the South Atlantic, under the hypothesis that “an eventual conflict between the US and China would automatically close the Panama Canal to ships that are not allied to the US.” In such a scenario, passages such as the Strait of Magellan or the Drake Passage at the southern end of South America could become critical.

Although no official information has been released regarding possible offers, amounts or terms for the possible new purchase of submarines, it is recalled that, since the Alberto Fernández administration, Argentina has considered France and Germany the two most likely possible suppliers.

In fact, Fernández’s Minister of Defence, Jorge Taiana, visited the shipyards of the French Naval Group and the German Thyssenkrupp in July 2022 to evaluate the possible purchase of some of their models. While the Naval Group offered its Scorpene submarines, ThyssenKrupp presented the 209 class submarines that Argentina already operates – ARA Salta and ARA San Luis.

These two options were ratified in a report by Nicolás Posse, Milei’s chief of staff until the end of May, and presented to the Senate in mid-May 2024. An article in the newspaper La Nación states that this report indicates that French and German offers for constructing three new submarines are being evaluated.

Milei’s geopolitical positioning favours the US, Israel, and the West in general. This will tip the balance definitively in favour of the French or German offers. Therefore, he will not allow other possible alternatives from China or Russia.

More importantly, France and Germany have enough influence and power to avoid possible pressures from London, which is concerned about Argentina’s rearmament in the South Atlantic. Nonetheless, it cannot be expected that Milei would challenge the UK for sovereignty over the Falkland Islands since he fully supports the Western liberal system.

According to the report, Milei’s government admitted that it is also thinking about a “transitional” submarine to use while the new ones are being built, which would take two to three years. Possible alternatives include the acquisition of used submarines from the Brazilian Navy or the Norwegian Navy, from whom Argentina has just bought P3 Orion surveillance planes.

Although Milei’s desire to purchase submarines is not to capture the Falkland Islands from the British under his leadership, their acquirement does open the possibility for Argentina to achieve this goal in the future. Nonetheless, the Argentine military has a long way to go in upgrading its capabilities before considering such an operation and challenging British sovereignty over the islands.

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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.

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Republicans called Obama a communist, when all his worst actions as president were continuations and expansions of Bush’s policies. Democrats called Trump a Nazi when his worst acts were continuations and expansions of Obama’s policies. Now we’re back to calling Harris a communist, while she supports a genocide that Republicans also support.

Calling Kamala Harris a communist isn’t wrong because it degrades Harris, it’s wrong because it degrades communism.

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The Biden-Harris administration is knowingly helping the Israeli government wage a campaign of extermination in Gaza that has shocked and horrified the entire world, so obviously the real villain we need to focus on here is Jill Stein.

 

 

No serious person believes a bunch of socialists and peaceniks are going to vote for a capitalist warmongering party. Democrats don’t bitch about the Green Party because of lost votes, they do it because they hate being reminded that their party’s a lie and their values are fake.

Democrats saying the Green Party steals their votes makes as much sense as Republicans saying the Green Party steals their votes. The Democratic Party is not a left wing party. It’s a warmongering capitalist party that is presently engaged in genocide and nuclear brinkmanship.

Democrats say the Green Party never gets anything done while the Democratic Party “getting things done” looks like committing genocide in Gaza, facilitating the exploitation and ecocide of capitalism, and promoting nonstop war and militarism. It’s not enough to get things done; the things you get done actually need to be good things.

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“If Trump becomes president the genocide will be way worse!” 

Oh yeah, how so? 

“It’ll be the BAD kind of genocide!”

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Does anyone actually believe Harris would win if she committed to an arms embargo on Israel? Or is that just something people are pretending to believe to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinians? Because I think the system is plainly much more corrupt than this.

If Harris pledged to stop sending weapons to Israel unless it ended its assault on Gaza, you’d see the entire pro-Israel faction and the entire military-industrial complex throw all its funding and all its narrative control into supporting Donald Trump. Wealthy donors who’d been lifelong Democrats would pivot Republican for this election. It would suddenly become a mainstream narrative that Harris hates Jews and loves terrorists. A large segment of the mass media would play along. Op-eds would be churned out by liberal Zionist Jews claiming they must now “reluctantly” vote Trump because Kamala Harris wants to kill them.

Does anyone honestly believe Harris could win an election in an information environment like that? Maybe she could, but it would be a lot harder than just continuing to toe the imperial line like she always has. Obviously a lot of people would switch to supporting Harris if she pledged an arms embargo, but would there be enough of them to compensate for all the voters she’d lose in a hysterical all-consuming information op claiming that she’s a closet Nazi? It wasn’t enough when this was done to Jeremy Corbyn.

Harris is a monster, and she’d happily strangle every Palestinian child to death with her own bare hands if it would win her the presidency. But she’s not the problem. She’s just one person. She’s just playing the tune and dancing the dance you need to in order to win a presidential election in the United States. If it wasn’t her it’d be some other monster playing the same tune and dancing the same dance. The real problem is a profoundly corrupt system which promotes the most evil agendas on earth and elevates the very worst people in society to positions of power and influence to ensure the facilitation of those agendas.

Harris isn’t the cause of Washington’s depravity, she’s a symptom of it, just like Trump, and just like Biden. Really the problem is the US empire itself, and all the corrupt mechanisms that keep its gears turning. The slaughter will continue, in one form or another, until the imperial machine is brought down.

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FYI it’s not okay to be a grown adult in September 2024 and still believe Israel’s actions in Gaza have had anything to do with trying to rescue hostages.

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Meanwhile things keep getting scarier and scarier in Ukraine. Reuters reports that the US is “close” to agreeing to give the Ukrainian military long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russia, at the same time Russia says that it will be altering its nuclear doctrine in response to western aggressions.

Report: US Close To Agreeing on Long-Range Cruise Missiles for Ukraine
US officials tell Reuters the US could start delivering JASSM missiles this fall
by Dave DeCamp@DecampDave #Ukraine #Russia #NATO #JASSM #militaryindustrialcomplex https://t.co/iveUmfYqyz pic.twitter.com/0aUFCLM33v

— Antiwar.com (@Antiwarcom) September 4, 2024

The more land and troops Ukraine loses the more eager Kyiv and Washington get to escalate to previously unthinkable levels against a nuclear superpower.

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We’re seeing free speech eroded in the west as authorities suppress critics of the genocide in Gaza, just as we saw a huge spike in censorship with the NATO proxy war in Ukraine. They say these wars are to protect the west and its values, while ruining the west and its values in order to protect their ability to manufacture consent for these wars. War, genocide and tyranny are the west’s real values.

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All art is political. It either opposes the madness of the status quo, supports it, or distracts from it. Creating vapid diversions for people to sedate themselves with in a genocidal brainwashed dystopia on a dying world is a political act, whether you call it political or not.

An artist who says they “avoid politics” while living in the heart of a murderous tyrannical empire is lying. They don’t avoid politics. They are directly participating in politics. And they are participating on the wrong side.

All art either helps open people’s eyes or helps close them. Almost all art in mainstream culture helps close them — either by normalizing and celebrating the madness of this civilization, or by numbing people to the discomfort of it. This is not just political, it’s on the front line of politics.

Politics are downstream from culture, and if the culture you are helping to create is mindlessly drifting along with the current of oligarchy and empire, then you have responsibility for where that stream ends up carrying us.

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Featured image: Official portrait of Vice President Kamala Harris. (From the Public Domain)

Below is an excerpt from CTV News:

A spokesperson for Alberta Health says that as of Aug. 31, all old-strain COVID-19 vaccines are no longer available, but neither is the new formula.

“To assist with the implementation of the newest COVID-19 vaccine formulation (KP.2) for the fall, the provinces and territories were directed by Health Canada to remove and destroy all current COVID-19 vaccine formulation(XBB) from all sites across their jurisdictions on August 31, 2024,” an Alberta Health statement said Wednesday.

Officials told CTV News the decision to withdraw the XBB COVID-19 vaccine was delivered by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) during a July 25 meeting .

Health Canada says their directive to provinces is that the swap should have happened so there is uninterrupted access to vaccines.

“The withdrawal of currently available COVID-19 XBB vaccines should be timed to align with authorization decisions of the new formulation vaccines to ensure Canadians have uninterrupted access to COVID-19 vaccines,” a Health Canada statement said.

The agency says it is reviewing submissions from Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax for updated COVID-19 vaccines on an expedited basis.

There is no timeline on when the new vaccines will be rolled out here.

Click here to read the full text.

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My Take…

They are destroying all COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine vials so they cannot be tested for DNA contamination (or other types of contamination).

The COVID-19 Vaccines are themselves evidence of a crime, and destroying evidence is a violation of the Criminal Code of Canada.

If Alberta Health is involved in destroying these vaccines, then is the Alberta Minister of Health committing a violation of the Criminal Code and can she be arrested for it? Food for thought.

There is another point I’d like to make. Once the evidence of the contents of all COVID-19 Vaccine vials is eliminated, it is then possible to proceed with a plan to blame all COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine injuries on something else, something new. Perhaps a new pathogen. Something that may even be accompanied by lockdowns in the near term.

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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 CHD

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Amid the Democratic National Convention (DNC), Kamala Harris has pledged to “stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies.” With the upcoming US presidential elections, all eyes are on the Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and on the Republican one Donald Trump. If one is to believe the (overwhelmingly pro-Ukrainian) Western press, the Republic candidate will just “abandon” Ukraine altogether thus ensuring its defeat, while the Democrats in turn will do everything they can to “save” the Eastern European country. Things are quite more complex than that, of course.

Firstly, and it is always important to highlight that, the US-led West bears, at the very least, a large part of responsibility for the ongoing crisis in Ukraine since 2014 – arguably most of it.

Secondly, Trump is no “pro-Russia agent” at all – and no “peacemaker” either.

And now to the Democrats. Starting with Kamala Harris, she famously described the conflict in Ukraine as

“Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So basically that’s wrong.”

Beyond this fourth-grade vocabulary utterance, Harris does not have much to offer on the issue, and on any other issue, for that matter. If the incumbent President Joe Biden no longer has had a clear picture of anything due to a senile dementia related condition (which the White House administration conspired to cover up), Harris in turn seems to similarly have no clear picture about most topics – for whatever reason.

Of course, Harris’ much mocked remarks on Ukraine, made in 2022, shortly after the current Russian military campaign began, were her way of responding (a little too literally) to a radio show host guest request to break it down “in layman’s terms”. Be it in layman’s terms or not, she has had not much to say on the matter beyond the usual clichés. With a plethora of her inscrutable aphorisms going viral, much has been made of the Democrat’s nominee logorrhoea (which could indeed be a sign of psychological and neurological disorders, according to experts), but the deeper issue is that the Democrat party itself does not seem to have a plan.

Emma Ashford (senior fellow with the Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy program at the Stimson Center), and Matthew Kroenig (senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security) have both recently questioned whether Harris has a foreign policy at all. To be honest, the Democratic Party 2024 policy platform does seem to pivot back to Europe (and partially away from the Pacific trend started by Hillary Clinton), but does not offer much more concrete clues beyond that.

As I wrote before, Washington’s foreign policy often reminds one of the swing of a pendulum. More often than not, it oscillates between the notion of “countering” either Russia or China – sometimes attempting to accomplish both things at the same time, as we have seen with  Joe Biden’s dangerous “dual containment” approach.

One thing we can infer from the Democrats platform is that they want to exert much pressure on Russia without engaging in talks and without worrying that much about their own transatlantic allies (we’ve all seen how post-Nord Stream is going, energy-wise). This is no recipe for any kind of peace.

Stephen M. Walt (a Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University) says that focusing excessively on official presidential platforms is a misplaced endeavor, arguing instead that, on foreign policy, when it comes to key decisions, the real power lies with “a small inner circle of aides and appointees.” Walt remarks on how the Republican platform is “vague to the point of uselessness”, while the Democratic one, albeit “long, earnest, wonkish, and kind of boring”, “doesn’t tell you all that much about what Harris will do if she’s elected.”

I’ve written before on the topic of the “secret government”, as the  Boston Globe called it in 2014. Michael J. Glennon, international law  scholar, calls it a “double government”, with an almost self-governing national security and defense apparatus operating without much accountability. John Kerry famously stated that much of it just runs “on auto-pilot”. In any case, one should not take the notion too literally. A strong President, for good or bad, can obviously leave his or her imprint on the course of foreign policy – up to a certain extent, at least.

However, the declining American empire has been short of such strong leaders, to the point of it even being unclear who currently governs or has governed the country for the last couple of years. And the global environment today is quite challenging. American Foreign policy on the auto-pilot (if that has been the case) gave us an unbalanced US-funded state of Israel committing genocide and setting the Middle East ablaze, a crisis in the Red Sea (which is a spill-off of the latter), unprecedented rising frictions with China over the issue of Taiwan and, of course, a disastrous unwinnable war in Eastern Europe. Simply put, a declining overstretched superpower is scary enough – but an overburdened superpower with no plan is nightmarish.

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

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Imagine if Israel had taken a more restrained and reasonable approach to October 7. Imagine if their focus had been on rescuing the hostages and bringing the perpetrators to justice instead of reducing the Gaza Strip to rubble creating an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe. Had Israel pursued that course of action instead of the one it chose; it would have garnered the empathy and support of people around the world. Instead, it obliterated an entire civilization inflicting irreversible reputational damage on itself while severely undermining its prospects for the future.

Donald Trump’s plan for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict contained two main elements:

1. Allow Israel to annex more Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank (aka—The Trump Peace Plan)
2. Assist Israel in forming alliances with Arab countries in the region to prevent them from supporting the Palestinian cause. (The Abraham Accords)

The combination of these two policies convinced Hamas’s leadership that the Palestinian people faced an existential crisis that could only be averted by launching a massive attack that would force the international community to get directly involved. This is the rationale that drove the October 7 attacks.

Bottom line: Trump’s makeshift “deal of the century”—which rejected 5 decades of official US policy and ignored a myriad of UN Resolutions, was the spark that ignited the October 7 attacks. According to the Financial Times: “Trump’s Israel-Palestine ‘deal’ has always been a fraud”.

It always looked like a smokescreen to mask the burial of the two-state solution — an independent Palestinian state on the occupied West Bank, and Gaza with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital living in peace alongside Israel — and greenlight the Israeli annexation of most of the West Bank.

The liberal Jewish group J Street drew the same conclusion as the conservative Financial Times:

It’s Not a Peace Plan, It’s an Annexation Smokescreen, “If there was ever any doubt that the Trump-Netanyahu ‘peace plan’ was anything other than a smokescreen for annexation, it was disabused just moments after the plan’s glitzy White House announcement.

Get the picture? Trump’s plan was so one-sided and so offensive that not one Palestinian participated in the White House’s unveiling on January 28, 2020. The only high-powered dignitary that attended was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who lavishly praised Trump for his efforts for peace.

The plan was authored by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner who regarded it as the first part of a two-pronged strategy aimed at extinguishing any prospect of a viable Palestinian state. Not surprisingly, during the inaugural press conference, “Netanyahu announced that the Israeli government would immediately annex the Jordan Valley and West Bank settlements….. U.S. Ambassador to Israel David M. Friedman claimed that the Trump administration had given permission for an immediate annexation, stating that “Israel does not have to wait at all” and “we will recognize it”. Wikipedia

How can we explain Trump’s bias in this matter other than to conclude that he was simply repaying his biggest supporters for their multi-million-dollar campaign donations? Is there a more compelling explanation?

The second prong in Kushner’s strategy was the Abraham Accords which were designed to throw the Palestinians under the bus by eliminating the support of their Arab neighbors. Ostensibly, the objective of the Accords was the “normalizing of relations” between Israel and other countries in the region. That sounds harmless enough, but the real goal was to integrate Israel into the broader region via bilateral agreements without making any concessions on issues related to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. That is a break with long-standing protocol that required Israel to comply with the demands of the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 as a precondition for normalizing relations. The Abraham Accords allowed countries to ignore those requirements.

The overall impact of this evolving two-pronged strategy was quite dramatic. The Palestinians saw more of their land lost to annexation while their Arab allies gradually succumbed to the security inducements offered by Washington. Palestinian issues were progressively swept under the rug while their people were being slow-marched to extinction. Palestinian leaders were left with no options; they had to act. As Hamas’s former prime minister Ismail Haniyeh said, ‘We must have an integrated plan to bring down normalization’. That plan was October 7.

It’s worth noting, that Joe Biden confirmed much of our analysis when he opined on October 25:

“I’m convinced one of the reasons Hamas attacked when they did… is because of the progress we were making towards regional integration for Israel and regional integration overall… ”

Biden is right; Trump’s “regional integration” plan made October 7 inevitable. This is from an article at Responsible Statecraft:

Indeed, the Biden administration remains focused on the goal of integrating Israel into the U.S.-led network of alliances and partnerships in the Middle East, just as it had been trying to do before October 7. Rather than trying to achieve a two-state solution that could bring an end to what one U.S. representative recently called “75 years of misery,” the administration is working to take advantage of the current crisis for the purpose of strengthening U.S. dominance, regardless of the consequences for the Palestinians. Don’t be fooled, push for normalization is about US dominance, Responsible Statecraft

As more people begin to understand the role that Trump played in igniting the conflagration that has engulfed Gaza and the West Bank, they will also begin to see that October 7 was not an expression of hatred towards Jews or even and attempt to coerce the Israeli government into loosening the blockade on Gaza. No. October 7 was a desperate “break-the-glass” operation aimed at exposing the vicious face of an ethno-nationalist state that will stop at nothing to expel the native population from its historic homeland. October 7 was more of a ‘cry for help’ than an act of aggression. How do we know that?

Because we heard it directly from the horse’s mouth, Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s political and military leader who released the following statement in a short video that can be found on Twitter:

🔻Sinwar warned them, they should’ve listened pic.twitter.com/q1EvKoVaqd

— Suppressed News. (@SuppressedNws) July 20, 2024

“Within a limited period of months—which I estimate will not exceed one year—we will force the occupation to face two options: Either we force it to implement international law, respect international resolutions, withdraw from the West Bank and Jerusalem, dismantle the settlements, release the prisoners, and ensure the return of refugees, achieving the establishment of a Palestinian state on the lands occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem; or we place this occupation in a state of contradiction and collision with the entire international order, isolate it in an extreme and powerful manner, and end its integration in the region and the entire world, addressing the state of collapse that has occurred on all fronts of resistance over the past years.” SuppressedNews @SuppressedNws

There it is in black and white. This is what Hamas hoped to achieve via the October 7 attacks.

Notice there is no mention of “hating Jews” or “pushing all Israeli Jews into the sea” or any of the other incendiary poppycock we typically read in the western media. This is a straightforward strategy designed to force Israel to either comply with international law or suffer the blowback.

Notice also that Sinwar explicitly agrees to “the establishment of a Palestinian state on the lands occupied in 1967”, which has been Hamas’s official position since the release of The Hamas Charter in 2017. Israel opposes a Palestinian state just as it opposes UN Security Council Resolutions 242 which “was adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council on November 22, 1967” and which requires the:

1. Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;
2. Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.”

In short, Israel has been in violation of international law for the last 57 years. (In contrast, Hamas is on the same side as ‘official US policy’ regarding a two-state solution.)

Finally, notice that Sinwar clearly states exactly what the strategic objective of the October 7 is: To force Israel to comply with United Nations resolutions or to use Israel’s defiance of international law to drive it deeper into isolation. So, the objective is not to defeat Israel in any type of military confrontation (which would be impossible) but to goad Israel into an overreaction that reveals the true face of a vicious, apartheid state that is committed to the annihilation of the indigenous population. This is Hamas’s clearly stated objective although the media has failed to report anything about it. (It’s obvious that most people aren’t curious enough to even ask themselves ‘what Hamas hoped to achieve by launching the attack.’)

So, did Hamas succeed in achieving its objectives or not?

Yes, it did, beyond its wildest imagination.

Is Israel more isolated than ever? Is Israel routinely condemned at meetings of the UN Security Council and General Assembly? Have a number of countries announced their acceptance of Palestinian statehood? Have various countries repudiated Israel’s Gaza operation as genocide? Does Israel find itself at odds with the ICC and ICJ? Are Israeli leaders likely to face arrest warrants issued by the International Court of Justice? Does the vast majority of humanity oppose Israel’s bloody rampage in Gaza? Have Israel’s atrocities increased the probability of a regional war in which Israel’s future is far from certain? Have a half a million Israelis fled the country in fear and despair? Are vastly fewer people moving to Israel? Is the BDS movement gaining momentum? Is the Israeli economy in severe and protracted recession? Has Israel’s massacre in Gaza generated more antisemitism? Is Israel still the safest place in the world for Jews?

By every metric, Sinwar appears to have achieved his objective, particularly in respect to the charge of Genocide which is an albatross that will be affixed to Israel’s neck until the end of time. At present, Israelis do not seem bothered by the onerous designation, but that will change. No one wants to be shunned by the majority and forced to go-it-alone. But that is the path that Israel has chosen.

Where Hamas has failed is also obvious. Yes, they have goaded Israel into a violent overreaction that has tarnished Israel’s reputation, damaged its economy and triggered an unprecedented outpouring of condemnation from people around the world. But the downside effects are also significant. All of Gaza lies in ruins, Israel is more unified in its opposition to a Palestinian state than ever, and the international community (represented by the UN Security Council) has been blocked at every turn by US vetoes. And while Russia and others are calling for enforceable measures to stop the relentless bloodletting, the Biden administration has derailed every effort to stop the fighting or to even reduce its supply of bombs and munitions delivered to Israel.

The glitch in Sinwar’s plan should be obvious; the United Nations cannot implement sanctions, cannot impose a blockade, and cannot deploy peacekeepers to Gaza as long as the US opposes such steps. But as the slaughter continues, and tempers rise in the Security Council, that could change. In recent meetings, various members have found it increasingly difficult to conceal their contempt for the United States in its role as “genocide enabler”. We are hopeful that the US delegation will eventually be removed from the Security Council on the grounds that it is a cobelligerent in the ongoing hostilities. That would allow the UNSC to do its job and apply the pressure on Israel that will bring the conflict to a swift end. Check out this seething presentation by Russia’s Chargé d’Affaires Dmitry Polyanskiy just last week:

Almost the entire population of the Gaza Strip has been forced to wander the enclave in search of any kind of shelter. But, as representatives of the UN “humanitarian wing” have repeatedly confirmed, there are no safe places in Gaza. Two million people are “trapped” and shelled; they have been enduring unthinkable suffering due to the lack of food, water, medicine and proper sanitation….

From the outset, we warned that all “humanitarian” resolutions, including resolution 2720, are doomed to remain dead letter as long as there is no unconditional and comprehensive ceasefire in the enclave….. I would like to recall that Russia was the first country to introduce a draft Security Council resolution with such a demand; we did it on October 16 of last year. But one delegation, shielding its main ally in the Middle East, has spent 10 months, as we know, blocking any tangible steps by the Council in this direction….

Precisely one week ago, we heard in this hall more mendacious assurances of the US Permanent Representative that a ceasefire deal was supposedly about to be concluded, and that we all must exert pressure on Hamas for it to materialize. However, it turned out – and no one is surprised about it any longer – that these calls were as far from reality as was the US-sponsored resolution on Gaza adopted on June 10 to support the so-called “Biden plan”. …during all this time the USA never bothered to brief the Council about the parameters of the deal. It only demanded that the Security Council unconditionally approve this “pig in the poke” and exert pressure on HAMAS. As it turned out, Israel did not agree to this “deal” then, nor has it agreed now to end its operation. Instead, it continues to put forward more and more demands, which, among other things, threaten to undermine the entire system of agreements in the region. Far from putting the Israelis in their place, our American colleagues are unfortunately playing along by reconfiguring the parameters of the ceasefire in Gaza for the benefit of West Jerusalem. I recall that the Security Council did not consent to any reformatting of the parameters of the agreements set forth in resolution 2735…..

As a result, even the first phase of de-escalation, as set out in resolution 2735, cannot materialize in any way, not to mention the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and the restoration of the infrastructure of the enclave.
Thus, that document, which was initially premised on the misleading assertions and claims about Israeli consent, has become de facto irrelevant. And now we need to think what tangible steps the Council can take so as to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza, irrespective of whether Israel wants it or not, and to ensure its implementation. The Council has all the necessary tools at its disposal to reach this goal; what is needed now is the political will to use these tools. Otherwise, the UN Security Council will play the unenviable role of an extra in the Middle East geopolitical game, orchestrated by Washington, which is trying its hardest to supplant a full-fledged solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by destructive “deals of the century” under its sole cosponsorship. As we all remember, it is precisely the desire of the United States to “monopolize” the Middle East peace process and reshape it according to “templates” suited to Israel that led to the dramatic events that we are witnessing today.

We call upon the Council to act in accordance with its mandate and not to take the lead of the US and Israel. The paramount objective is to bring about a prompt and sustained cessation of the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip, which implies as well monitoring mechanisms under the mandate issued by the UNSC, and (if necessary) enforcement mechanisms to ensure the compliance with the ceasefire. This will help in the future to relaunch the process of peaceful settlement of the Palestinian issue on an internationally recognized basis in the interests of establishing an independent sovereign Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, coexisting in peace and security with Israel.

.…The situation can only be resolved through the immediate decisive action by the international community, through the UN Security Council. We are ready to cooperate with all parties who share embrace these approaches….
Everyone in this chamber is perfectly aware of the fact that it is the United States that bears the main responsibility for what is happening now in Gaza…. If my other colleagues do not have the courage to say this to your face, then I have no problem doing so. Statement by Chargé d’Affaires of the Russian Federation Dmitry Polyanskiy at UNSC briefing on the Middle East, including the Palestinian question, Russian Permanent Mission to the UN

Polyanskiy appears to be recommending that the United States be removed from the Security Council so the UNSC can do its job, enforce its resolutions, put an end to this senseless war, and bring justice to the Palestinian people. We think that is an idea whose time has come.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Michael Whitney is a renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace.

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

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The single case of polio in Gaza triggered a global outcry and an appeal by the UN, which obtained the agreement of the United States and Israel to send 1.2 million doses of vaccine (at our expense, of course).

But who are we kidding? Why vaccinate children at all costs whose main risk is to be victims of the ongoing war? Why vaccinate children against a disease that can be completely eradicated by drinking water?

Clean Water Is Enough to Eradicate Polio

The polio virus is transmitted only by the fecal-oral route. The virus excreted in the stools of a patient contaminates the water consumed by the population without being sanitized. The transmission of polio viruses is therefore made impossible by the distribution of drinking water and the treatment of wastewater. This explains why polio is no longer observed in countries that provide basic hygiene to their population and why epidemics occur in countries that do not.

Providing clean water to the people of Gaza would surely eradicate any new cases of polio.

cVDPV2 Vaccine-Derived Viruses Resurrect Polio

Like any active treatment, polio vaccines carry complications.

In India, vaccinations were followed by a dramatic increase in the incidence of non-polio flaccid paralysis statistically linked to vaccination campaigns.[1]

There were three strains of wild poliovirus: wild poliovirus type 1, wild poliovirus type 2, and wild poliovirus type 3. The latter two strains have not been reported for nearly 15 years. The only wild poliovirus type 1 in the world remains in circulation in two countries where clean water is critically scarce: Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But polio persists, mainly due to viruses derived from the cVDPV2 vaccine. This vaccine used an inactivated strain allowing its oral administration; but because it was a live virus, it could be transmitted from person to person like wild viruses in countries lacking drinking water; and by passing from one individual to another it sometimes regains its original virulence.

Since the oral polio vaccine (OPV) was first identified in 2000 as responsible for an outbreak of paralytic polio, vaccine-derived polioviruses (VDPVs) have been a challenge to polio eradication. In 2016, the serotype 2 component of the oral polio vaccine given to children was withdrawn from the market. Children around the world now have little immunity to serotype 2 poliovirus because the inactivated vaccine is much less effective and a new oral vaccine is not yet available.[2]

In 2020, 959 human cases of cVDPV2 and 411 environmental samples positive for cVDPV2 were reported globally[3] from 27 countries, including 21 countries in the African region and 6 countries in the Eastern Mediterranean region, European region and Western Pacific region.

The number of cases and environmental samples positive for cVDPV increased in 2020 compared to 2019, when 366 cases and 173 environmental samples positive for cVDPV2 were reported.

In 2020, the Sudanese Federal Ministry of Health informed WHO that circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 had been detected in the country. In 2023, Indonesia reported four cases of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2), including three cases in Aceh province and one case in West Java province .[4] In 2023, 13 cases of type 2 poliovirus variants were identified, distributed across two regions of Cameroon: Central (12 cases) and Far North (1 case).[5]

In the United Kingdom, Israel, and several counties in New York State, traces of PVDV have been detected in sewage. And in July 2022, a case of paralysis due to a vaccine-derived virus was identified near New York City[6,7] in a young man.

The United States has now met the criteria to be added to the list of countries where vaccine-derived polioviruses are circulating, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced.[8] ^“Genetic sequences of the virus from the Rockland County patient and sewage samples collected in New York City have been linked to sewage samples in Jerusalem, Israel, and London, United Kingdom, indicating community transmission .”

If polio eradication had been driven by widespread access to clean water, it would have been achieved by now.

In Gaza, War Is Far More Deadly Than Polio

The UN states that over the past ten months thousands of children have died, collateral victims of the war in Gaza and “beyond these tragic deaths, tens of thousands of other boys and girls suffer from injuries that have marked their bodies forever and caused immeasurable damage to their mental health.”

So why all the media coverage of a single case of polio, if not to ensure huge profits for the pharmaceutical industry?

Especially since providing them with drinking water would, in addition to preventing poliomyelitis, help them avoid cholera, hepatitis A, typhoid, etc.

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This article was translated from French via AI translation.

Notes

[1] Rachana Dhiman and al Correlation between Non-Polio Acute Flaccid Paralysis Rates with Pulse Polio Frequency in India International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health August 15, 2018

[2] GR Macklin Evolution of the epidemiology of poliovirus serotype 2 after withdrawal of oral poliovirus vaccine serotype 2 Science Vol. 368, No. 6489 p. 401 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3014-7447

[3] https://www.who.int/fr/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/circulating-vaccine-derived-poliovirus-type-2-global-update

[4] World Health Organization (11 January 2024). Disease Outbreak Newsletter; Circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) — Indonesia. Available at: https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/2024-DON500

[5] https://www.gavi.org/fr/vaccineswork/cameroun-fait-equipe-avec-voisins-contenir-polio

[6] https://www.20minutes.fr/sante/3346363-20220905-new-york-resurgence-polio-inquiete-autorites-population

[ 7] https://www.ouest-france.fr/monde/etats-unis/aux-etats-unis-un-premier-cas-de-polio-a-ete-detecte-depuis-pres-d-une -decennie-7d4b2cb4-09bd-11ed-89ff-d7b4632af60c

[8] https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2022/s0913-polio.html

[9] https://news.un.org/fr/story/2024/08/1147761

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Os esforços de desrussificação da Ucrânia parecem estar a atingir um nível absolutamente irracional de extremismo. Agora, Kiev planeja remover o “nome russo” da sua moeda, adotando uma nomenclatura “nacional” na língua ucraniana. A tentativa de cortar todos os laços históricos com a Rússia é um reflexo da mentalidade neonazi stae racista que se tornou hegemônica na Ucrânia desde o golpe de Estado de 2014.

O Banco Nacional da Ucrânia propôs recentemente renomear a menor unidade monetária ucraniana, atualmente chamada de “kopiyka”. A razão para a mudança seria a sua semelhança com o nome da moeda russa – “kopek”. De acordo com os membros do Banco Nacional, manter o nome atual da moeda seria contrário às diretrizes do país de substituição dos símbolos “russos” históricos – um processo que começou há dez anos, mas que tem avançado profundamente desde o início das hostilidades diretas com a Rússia em 2022.

O plano do Banco é renomear a moeda com a palavra “shag” (“step”). O termo foi usado em ucraniano no passado para se referir a uma moeda de prata polaco-lituana do século XVIII. A ideia ainda será colocada em votação dos parlamentares e submetida à aprovação do governo. No entanto, a iniciativa parece estar a receber um forte apoio dos políticos nacionalistas ucranianos e tem grandes probabilidades de aprovação. As medidas de desrussificação são facilmente aprovadas no atual cenário político da Ucrânia, uma vez que a oposição a Zelensky foi totalmente banida através de prisões e expurgos.

A proposta foi descrita na Ucrânia como uma “restauração da justiça histórica”. Do ponto de vista pragmático, a medida é absolutamente inútil, uma vez que a moeda quase não é utilizada na vida quotidiana dos ucranianos de hoje. Devido à desvalorização do hryvnia e às elevadas taxas de inflação, a menor unidade monetária ucraniana tem pouca utilidade prática para os cidadãos, razão pela qual a medida nem sequer seria notada pela maior parte da população. No final, seria um ato meramente simbólico, mas ao mesmo tempo bastante significativo em termos da mentalidade política ucraniana contemporânea.

É interessante ver quais são as prioridades da Ucrânia numa situação de guerra. Os países em guerra tendem a concentrar-se nos esforços militares, direcionando a atenção nacional para expandir as capacidades de combate. Em vez disso, a prioridade da Ucrânia parece ser usar a retórica do conflito para justificar medidas racistas que lhe permitirão “desrussificar” ainda mais o país. Mesmo que tais medidas não sejam apenas simbólicas, mas também dispendiosas e militarmente inúteis, Kiev está disposta a tomá-las apenas para alcançar o objetivo central de eliminar todos os laços históricos entre a Ucrânia e a Rússia.

Várias políticas racistas foram adotadas na Ucrânia desde o Maidan. A primeira destas políticas foi a proibição do regime de línguas co-oficiais, o que desencadeou uma revolta popular nas regiões de maioria russa. Kiev também iniciou uma onda de renomeação de cidades e ruas, bem como de destruição de monumentos históricos. Qualquer coisa que mencionasse a URSS ou o Império Russo tornou-se alvo do regime de Kiev. A intenção é simplesmente fingir que nunca houve um passado comum entre russos e ucranianos.

Todas estas ações são extremamente negativas para o próprio povo ucraniano. Entre as pessoas comuns na Ucrânia, a mentalidade russofóbica tornou-se forte entre os jovens, que foram educados nos últimos anos através da lavagem cerebral neonazista. No entanto, ainda existem milhões de russos que não pensam como as autoridades do país. A insatisfação popular está a crescer, como pode ser visto na recente onda de manifestações de fiéis ucranianos contra a proibição da Igreja Ortodoxa – que é acusada pelo regime de Kiev de promover os interesses russos.

No entanto, a opinião pública claramente não importa para a ditadura neonazista de Zelensky. O regime corre o risco de ser odiado pelo seu próprio povo enquanto seguir a agenda de desrussificação imposta pela OTAN. O principal objetivo é fazer com que as futuras gerações de ucranianos cresçam sem sequer conhecerem a verdadeira história do país, acreditando que ucranianos e russos são inimigos, não tendo laços comuns.

É pouco provável que tal agenda seja bem sucedida. Uma história milenar não pode ser apagada em alguns anos de medidas de desrussificação. É mais provável que o descontentamento popular na Ucrânia cresça ao ponto de gerar uma forte oposição interna ao regime de Maidan, criando grande instabilidade interna no país. Obviamente, medidas meramente simbólicas, como a mudança de nome da moeda, não terão qualquer impacto, mas toda a onda de desrussificação poderá ter um grande impacto na opinião pública, colocando os ucranianos comuns contra o regime.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

 

 

Artigo em inglês : Advancing de-Russification, Ukraine plans to rename its coin, InfoBrics, 4 de Setembro de 2024.

Imagem : InfoBrics

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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

Putin prefers dealing with the “devils that he knows” than risking a repeat of Trump’s unpredictability.  

Putin confirmed on Thursday during the Eastern Economic Forum’s plenary session that his previously stated support for Biden now extends to Kamala, yet friends like the famous dissident Kim Dotcom and foes like the BBC’s Russia Editor Steve Rosenberg don’t believe him. The first tweeted that it’s a “Grandmaster Chess” move on the Russian leader’s part while the second speculated that this is being done to discredit the Democrats. The reality though is that Putin is being sincere.

It was explained earlier this year that “It’s Reasonable For Putin To Prefer Biden Over Trump” because

“1) Biden has the support of the ‘deep state’s’ ruling liberal-globalists;

2) this faction is expected to remain in power even if Trump wins; and

3) they could carry out more anti-Russian provocations to discredit him in that case just like last time.”

This insight still holds true and accounts for why he now supports Kamala since nothing has changed in the six months since he publicly backed Biden.

Friends struggle to accept this since they favor Trump’s policy towards the Ukrainian Conflict, hence why they believe that Putin does too, while foes are convinced that Putin helped Trump win in 2016 and is therefore trying to help him again by discrediting the Democrats with his endorsement of Kamala. What neither can understand is that Putin is an old-school statesman who appreciates predictability, especially among his geopolitical adversaries, and doesn’t like the chaos that accompanied Trump’s first term.

The permanent members of the US’ military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) whose foreign policy interests are represented by Kamala’s platform explicitly prioritize containing Russia over China. Those whose interests are represented by Trump’s platform agree with him that China’s containment should be prioritized over Russia’s, but there are still quite a few “Republicans-In-Name-Only” (RINOs) among them who could once again sabotage his plans just like they did last time.

From Russia’s perspective, it’s better for the US to stay the course in attempting to contain it through Ukraine and then decisively foil this plot than to let the US retreat, lick its wounds, and then possibly resume hostilities at a later time once its national strength that’s been sapped by this conflict recovers. There’s no credible indication that Trump would force Ukraine to agree to Russia’s demands for ending the conflict either, thus meaning that the US would then put more pressure on Russia to compromise.

To be sure, Putin has signaled that he’s open to compromising, but what Trump has in mind is to coerce a compromise from both him and Zelensky.

It’s therefore possible that some of what he envisages won’t align with Russian interests and might even contradict them, in which case he could redouble support for Ukraine as punishment for Russia refusing to agree to whatever “deal of the century” he proposes. Putin would prefer to avoid that scenario and continue dealing with “devils that he knows” instead.

He and his country’s own “deep state” now understand America’s ruling liberal-globalist “deep state” much better than they do those members of the former who are more aligned with Trump’s thinking. Russia has accordingly formulated policy with the expectation that the US’ policies towards this conflict won’t change, and it doesn’t want to be caught off guard by whatever Trump’s proposed deal might be. He hasn’t articulated it in detail so it’s anyone’s guess what he wants to do or could be influenced to do.

It’s therefore much better for Russia keep everything the way that it is with the Democrats than to risk some sudden surprises from Trump that could result in either coercing Putin into an uncomfortable compromise or punishing his country for rejecting the deal that’s ultimately offered. None of this is to imply that Putin is against Trump per se, and he might even be able to reach a mutually acceptable compromise with him, but he’d rather not rock the boat while Russia is winning.

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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.  

Featured image is from Flickr

The document has eerie similarities with recent “recommended environmental governance actions” from Global Challenges Foundation

The third revision of the Pact for the Future was published August 27th. It is now under silent procedure until September 3rd. If nobody objects it will be accepted. The Pact, which is planned to be adopted at the Summit of the Future on Sunday 22 September, states in dramatic wording that:

We are at a time of profound global transformation. We are confronted by rising catastrophic and existential risks, many caused by the choices we make. Fellow human beings are enduring terrible suffering. If we do not change course, we risk tipping into a future of persistent crisis and breakdown.

According to the United Nations, the global governance system has to be updated to safeguard the interest of present and future generations, and be able to manage complex global shocks.

As a peculiar coincidence, the adoption will take place exactly 33 years after a disturbing document was distributed at a conference in Des Moines by United Nations Association of Iowa, in preparation of the UN’s environmental conference in Rio de Janeiro 1992.

The document, called “The Initiative for Eco-92 Earth Charter” by the Cobden Clubs Secretariat for World Order, claimed that the time was pressing, and put it bluntly that insufficient progress had been made in population reduction. This required immediate and decisive action:

The Security Council of the UN, led by the Anglo-Saxon Major Nation Powers, will decree that henceforth, the Security Council will inform all nations that its sufferance on population has ended, that all nations have quotas for REDUCTION on a yearly basis, which will be enforced by the Security Council by selective or total embargo of credit, items of trade including food and medicine, or by military force, when required.

The Security Council of the UN will inform all nations that outmoded notions of national sovereignty will be discarded and that the Security Council has complete legal, military and economic jurisdiction in any region of the world . . .

The Security Council of the UN will take possession of all natural resources, including the watersheds and great forests, to be used and preserved for the good of the Major Nations of the Security Council.

The Security Council of the UN will explain that not all races and peoples are equal, nor should they be. Those races proven superior by superior achievements ought to rule the lesser races, caring for them on sufferance that they cooperate with the Security Council. Decision making, including banking, trade, currency rates, and economic development plans, will be made in stewardship by the Major Nations.

The document was revealed by the business consultant George W. Hunt, whose companion managed to get in to a private meeting (no public allowed) with insiders at the conference and bring the document with her. According to Hunt, the Cobden Clubs was a think tank that promoted the British “Anglo-Saxon Race system”.

Although Hunt said he did not know whether the document was true or a joke, the statements bear some eerie similarities to recent “recommended environmental governance actions” for the Summit of the Future from the Global Challenges Foundation, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the United Nations University. Considering that the world’s population has increased from 5.4 billion to 8.2 billion since 1991, the tougher solutions have been brought back to the table.

For obvious reasons, their joint proposal is stripped of the crude and disturbing language of the Cobden Clubs and instead talks about “protecting” humanity from exceeding “dangerous tipping points” by expanding the “global commons” concept to include all life-supporting systems—“the atmosphere (air), hydrosphere (water), biosphere (life), lithosphere (land), and cryosphere (ice)”—and proposes that these “should be managed collectively”:

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.

This sounds very much like a capture of all of the world’s resources! As I wrote in a previous article, Global Challenges Foundation was founded by the billionaire financier László Szombatfalvy with the aim to develop “improved global decision-making models”.

Szombatfalvy wrote opinion pieces together with Club of Rome’s president Anders Wijkman about the “population problem”, and donated money to the Overpopulation Project, with its motto: “Too Many People Consuming Too Much”. One of their prescribed solutions was to:

Create a new global treaty to end population growth, with all countries choosing population targets every half decade with a plan on how to achieve them.[1]

This means that Szombatfalvy shared essentially the same Malthusian worldview as the “British Race Patriots” and “living sponsors of the will of the great Cecil Rhodes,” who claimed to be the authors of the document “The Initiative for Eco-92 Earth Charter” and who called for a New World Order, in which “all nations, regions and races will cooperate with the decisions of the Major Nations of the Security Council.”

It should be noted that the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) in UK and its American branch Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) were launched as front organisations of the Round Table Movement, which had been created to carry out British imperialist Cecil Rhodes’ will to federate the English speaking world and promote the values of the British elite. This was later expanded to the goal of a world federation of all the nations on Earth.[2]

As CFR-historian and Georgetown University professor Carroll Quigley wrote in Tragedy and Hope:

The chief aims of this elaborate, semi-secret organization were largely commendable: to coordinate the international activities and outlooks of all the English-speaking world into one (which would largely, it is true, be that of the London group); to work to maintain the peace; to help backward, colonial, and underdeveloped areas to advance toward stability, law and order, and prosperity along lines somewhat similar to those taught at Oxford and the University of London.

Quigley considered these men as “gracious and cultured gentlemen of somewhat limited social experience who were much concerned with the freedom of expression of minorities and the rule of law for all” but objected upon their wishes to remain unknown, and some of their methods.

The Stimson Center, which along with Global Challenges Foundation has been the main coordinators during the preparations for the Summit of the Future, was founded by CFR members Barry Blechman and Michael Krepon, and named after the “quintessential” CFR-member Henry Stimson, US Secretary of War 1940–45. Stimson was a lawyer at J.P. Morgan, the powerful banking dynasty that was the principal force behind CFR in its founding years.

CFR, chaired by David Rockefeller from 1970 to 1985, is also closely related with the Rockefeller-founded the Trilateral Commission think tank. Every CFR-chairman since David has been a member of TriCom. The current CFR chair, Carlyle Group chairman David Rubenstein, is also a board trustee of the World Economic Forum, the main official front for these groups’ activities.

The Fourth Wilderness Congress

George W. Hunt, who was a volunteer at the Fourth World Wilderness Congress in Colorado in 1987, had been shocked by what he saw and heard at the conference and began to warn about a complete takeover of the world through the guise of environmental protection.

Some of the attendees Hunt were surprised to encounter were Trilateral Commission members David Rockefeller, Edmond de Rothschild, William Ruckelshaus, Maurice Strong, IMF president Michel Camdessus, World Bank president Barber B. Conable, Jr. and Brundtland Commission secretary-general Jim MacNeill.

The discussions during the conference revealed some cynical and cold views. The Canadian investment banker David Lank said during one of the sessions:

I suggest therefore that this be sold not through a democratic process, that will take too long and devour far too much of the funds to educate the cannon fodder, unfortunately, which populates the earth.

David Rockefeller wrote in the conference book For the Conservation of Earth that:

To place all of the blame for unacceptable environmental behavior on industrialization or large corporations, however, is clearly grossly inaccurate. Much of the devastation of the world’s environment, especially in today’s world, is due to individuals who are without power and who are trapped in grinding poverty. Deforestation, for instance, is often more the product of actions taken out of desperation by the poor rather than through irresponsible exploitation by industrial giants. Some 70 percent of the world’s rapidly growing population currently relies on wood for energy to cook and heat. The consequences of this fact are little short of disastrous.

The ultra-rich superclass seems to show a deep contempt for the poor and want to rob them the right to use the resources of the world. They are not included in the game. They are instead blamed for the ills of the world and portrayed as the polluting carbon emitting enemy of the Earth. They thus need to be governed by the “enlightened philosopher kings” and serve as subjects in the elites envisioned sustainable utopia. It is the “sustainable business practices” of the ultra-rich, as outlined in the Trilateral Commission report Beyond Interdependence: The Meshing of the World’s Economy and the Earth’s Ecology, that will save the world from the poor people’s environmental destruction and illegal hunting of wildlife.

The first World Wilderness Congress was hosted by South Africa in 1977 with French-Swiss banker Edmond de Rothschild and South African conservationist Ian Player in leading roles. Player received the Order of the Golden Ark from Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands in 1981.

The controversial choice of location was probably not a coincidence, given that Cecil Rhodes, with the support from Rothschild & Co, created a monopoly on the world’s diamond trade through the South African diamond company De Beers.[3]

As Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, Rhodes expropriated land from black Africans and instigated the colonisation of the area later named Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He then used his large fortune to establish a “Secret Society, the true aim and object whereof shall be for the extension of British rule throughout the world”, with the end goal to lay “the foundation of so great a Power as to render wars impossible, and promote the best interests of humanity.”[4]

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Notes

[1] The Overpopulation Project, overpopulation-project.com/solutions/

[2] Carroll Quigley, Council on Foreign Relations (excerpt from Tragedy and Hope, A History of the World in Our Time, 1966; pp.950-955), cooperative-individualism.org/quigley-carroll_council-on-foreign-relations-1966.htm

[3] Rhodes’ legacy is so problematic that De Beers nowadays distances itself from its founder. The company is, however, very “sustainable”.

[4] Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, New York: Books in Focus, 1981

Featured image: A view of the Eduardo Kobra mural at UN Headquarters. (UN Photo/Rick Bajornas)

The Great Unraveling of the COVID-19 Global Psychological Operation

By Emanuel Pastreich, September 05, 2024

This letter from the Department of Health and Human Services [under a Freedom of Information (FOI) response to an unnamed “independent researcher”] is real, it represents a shift in the tide, and it is but one example, but a critical one.

Who Wants to Kill and Die for the American Empire?

By Nicolas J. S. Davies, September 05, 2024

The Associated Press reports that many of the recruits drafted under Ukraine’s new conscription law lack the motivation and military indoctrination required to actually aim their weapons and fire at Russian soldiers.

The Case of Reiner Fuellmich Is Representative for a New Nazi Germany

By Peter Koenig, September 05, 2024

For 11 months, Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, German Civil Rights lawyer, has been unjustly detained in prison, in pre-trial detention. Like a criminal, he may leave prison only in handcuffs and foot shackles and accompanied by two armed guards.

Pavel Durov Is an “Internet Freedom Fighter”

By Prof. Anthony J. Hall, September 05, 2024

The importance of Telegram’s solid and hackproof encryption is a big part of the reason for pressing the vexatious case brought against Durov. All signs point to the finding that France is one of several players in a case developed at the highest levels by the most aggressive enemies of privacy and free speech on the Internet.

Ukraine-Russia War Is Like Two Brothers Fighting to Bleed Each Other Just to Satisfy the Ambition of Someone Else

By Bharat Dogra, September 05, 2024

Seen from the perspective of the two countries and their people, there is absolutely no reason why Russia and Ukraine should be fighting each other. There is absolutely no rationale for the two neighboring countries to be enemies of each other. On the other hand there is every reason to be friends with each other, and to reap the immense benefits of many-sided cooperation, a fact which is rooted in geography.

They Are Making the Waters of the Pacific Dangerous

By tricontinental, September 05, 2024

RIMPAC is a live-fire military exercise. The most spectacular part of the exercise is called Sinking Exercise (SINKEX), a drill that sinks decommissioned warships off the coast of Hawai’i. RIMPAC 2024’s target ship will be the decommissioned USS Tarawa, a 40,000-tonne amphibious assault vessel that was one of the largest during its service period.

Namibia Blocks Vessel Carrying Explosives to Israel

By Abayomi Azikiwe, September 04, 2024

During late August the Republic of Namibia drew the attention of the international community by publicly announcing it would not allow a vessel carrying explosive materials to the State of Israel to dock at one of its ports.

The Associated Press reports that many of the recruits drafted under Ukraine’s new conscription law lack the motivation and military indoctrination required to actually aim their weapons and fire at Russian soldiers.

“Some people don’t want to shoot. They see the enemy in the firing position in trenches but don’t open fire. … That is why our men are dying,” said a frustrated battalion commander in Ukraine’s 47th Brigade. “When they don’t use the weapon, they are ineffective.”

This is familiar territory to anyone who has studied the work of U.S. Brigadier General Samuel “Slam” Marshall, a First World War veteran and the chief combat historian of the U.S. Army in the Second World War. Marshall conducted hundreds of post-combat small group sessions with U.S. troops in the Pacific and Europe, and documented his findings in his book, Men Against Fire: the Problem of Battle Command.

One of Slam Marshall’s most startling and controversial findings was that only about 15% of U.S. troops in combat actually fired their weapons at the enemy. In no case did that ever rise above 25%, even when failing to fire placed the soldiers’ own lives in greater danger.

Marshall concluded that most human beings have a natural aversion to killing other human beings, often reinforced by our upbringing and religious beliefs, and that turning civilians into effective combat soldiers therefore requires training and indoctrination expressly designed to override our natural respect for fellow human life. This dichotomy between human nature and killing in war is now understood to lie at the root of much of the PTSD suffered by combat veterans.

Marshall’s conclusions were incorporated into U.S. military training, with the introduction of firing range targets that looked like enemy soldiers and deliberate indoctrination to dehumanize the enemy in soldiers’ minds. When he conducted similar research in the Korean War, Marshall found that changes in infantry training based on his work in World War II had already led to higher firing ratios.

That trend continued in Vietnam and more recent U.S. wars. Part of the shocking brutality of the U.S. hostile military occupation of Iraq stemmed directly from the dehumanizing indoctrination of the U.S. occupation forces, which included falsely linking Iraq to the September 11th terrorist crimes in the U.S. and labeling Iraqis who resisted the U.S. invasion and occupation of their country as “terrorists.”

A Zogby poll of U.S. forces in Iraq in February 2006 found that 85% of U.S. troops believed their mission was to “retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9/11 attacks,” and 77% believed that the primary reason for the war was to “stop Saddam from protecting Al Qaeda in Iraq.” This was all pure fiction, cut from whole cloth by propagandists in Washington, and yet, three years into the U.S. occupation, the Pentagon was still misleading U.S. troops to falsely link Iraq with 9/11.

The impact of this dehumanization was also borne out by court martial testimony in the rare cases when U.S. troops were prosecuted for killing Iraqi civilians. In a court martial at Camp Pendleton in California in July 2007, a corporal testifying for the defense told the court he did not see the cold-blooded killing of an innocent civilian as a summary execution. “I see it as killing the enemy,” he told the court, adding, “Marines consider all Iraqi men part of the insurgency.”

U.S. combat deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan (6,257 killed) were only a fraction of the U.S. combat death toll in Vietnam (47,434) or Korea (33,686), and an even smaller fraction of the nearly 300,000 Americans killed in the Second World War. In every case, other countries suffered much heavier death tolls.

And yet, U.S. casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan provoked waves of political blowback in the U.S., leading to military recruitment problems that persist today. The U.S. government responded by shifting away from wars involving large deployments of U.S. ground troops to a greater reliance on proxy wars and aerial bombardment.

After the end of the Cold War, the U.S. military-industrial complex and political class thought they had “kicked the Vietnam syndrome,” and that, freed from the danger of provoking World War III with the Soviet Union, they could now use military force without restraint to consolidate and expand U.S. global power. These ambitions crossed party lines, from Republican “neoconservatives” to Democratic hawks like Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.

In a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in October 2000, a month before winning a seat in the U.S. Senate, Hillary Clinton echoed her mentor Madeleine Albright’s infamous rejection of the “Powell Doctrine” of limited war.

“There is a refrain…,” Clinton declared, “that we should intervene with force only when we face splendid little wars that we surely can win, preferably by overwhelming force in a relatively short period of time. To those who believe we should become involved only if it is easy to do, I think we have to say that America has never and should not ever shy away from the hard task if it is the right one.”

During the question-and-answer session, a banking executive in the audience challenged Clinton on that statement. “I wonder if you think that every foreign country– the majority of countries–would actually welcome this new assertiveness, including the one billion Muslims that are out there,” he asked, “and whether or not there isn’t some grave risk to the United States in this–what I would say, not new internationalism, but new imperialism?”

When the aggressive war policy promoted by the neocons and Democratic hawks crashed and burned in Iraq and Afghanistan, this should have prompted a serious rethink of their wrongheaded assumptions about the impact of aggressive and illegal uses of U.S. military force.

Instead, the response of the U.S. political class to the blowback from its catastrophic wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was simply to avoid large deployments of U.S. ground forces or “boots on the ground.” They instead embraced the use of devastating bombing and artillery campaigns in Afghanistan, Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, and wars fought by proxies, with full, “ironclad” U.S. support, in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and now Ukraine and Palestine.

The absence of large numbers of U.S. casualties in these wars kept them off the front pages back home and avoided the kind of political blowback generated by the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. The lack of media coverage and public debate meant that most Americans knew very little about these more recent wars, until the shocking atrocity of the genocide in Gaza finally started to crack the wall of silence and indifference.

The results of these U.S. proxy wars are, predictably, no less catastrophic than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. domestic political impacts have been mitigated, but the real-world impacts in the countries and regions involved are as deadly, destructive and destabilizing as ever, undermining U.S. “soft power” and pretensions to global leadership in the eyes of much of the world.

In fact, these policies have widened the yawning gulf between the worldview of ill-informed Americans who cling to the view of their country as a country at peace and a force for good in the world, and people in other countries, especially in the Global South, who are ever more outraged by the violence, chaos and poverty caused by the aggressive projection of U.S. military and economic power, whether by U.S. wars, proxy wars, bombing campaigns, coups or economic sanctions.

Now the U.S.-backed wars in Palestine and Ukraine are provoking growing public dissent among America’s partners in these wars. Israel’s recovery of six more dead hostages in Rafah led Israeli labor unions to call widespread strikes, insisting that the Netanyahu government must prioritize the lives of the Israeli hostages over its desire to keep killing Palestinians and destroying Gaza.

In Ukraine, an expanded military draft has failed to overcome the reality that most young Ukrainians do not want to kill and die in an endless, unwinnable war. Hardened veterans see new recruits much as Siegfried Sassoon described the British conscripts he was training in November 2016 in Memoirs of an Infantry Officer:

“The raw material to be trained was growing steadily worse. Most of those who came in now had joined the Army unwillingly, and there was no reason why they should find military service tolerable.”

Several months later, with the help of Bertrand Russell, Sassoon wrote Finished With War: a Soldier’s Declaration, an open letter accusing the political leaders who had the power to end the war of deliberately prolonging it. The letter was published in newspapers and read aloud in Parliament. It ended, “On behalf of those who are suffering now, I make this protest against the deception which is being practiced upon them; also I believe it may help to destroy the callous complacency with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share and which they have not enough imagination to realize.”

As Israeli and Ukrainian leaders see their political support crumbling, Netanyahu and Zelenskyy are taking increasingly desperate risks, all the while insisting that the U.S. must come to their rescue. By “leading from behind,” our leaders have surrendered the initiative to these foreign leaders, who will keep pushing the United States to make good on its promises of unconditional support, which will sooner or later include sending young American troops to kill and die alongside their own.

Proxy war has failed to resolve the problem it was intended to solve. Instead of acting as an alternative to ground wars involving U.S. forces, U.S. proxy wars have spawned ever-escalating crises that are now making U.S. wars with Iran and Russia increasingly likely.

Neither the changes to U.S. military training since the Second World War nor the current U.S. strategy of proxy war have resolved the age-old contradiction that Slam Marshall described in Men Against Fire, between killing in war and our natural respect for human life. We have come full circle, back to this same historic crossroads, where we must once again make the fateful, unambiguous choice between the path of war and the path of peace.

If we choose war, or allow our leaders and their foreign friends to choose it for us, we must be ready, as military experts tell us, to once more send tens of thousands of young Americans to their deaths, while also risking escalation to a nuclear war that would kill us all.

If we truly choose peace, we must actively resist our political leaders’ schemes to repeatedly manipulate us into war. We must refuse to volunteer our bodies and those of our children and grandchildren as their cannon fodder, or allow them to shift that fate onto our neighbors, friends and “allies” in other countries.

We must insist that our mis-leaders instead recommit to diplomacy, negotiation and other peaceful means of resolving disputes with other countries, as the UN Charter, the real “rules based order,” in fact requires.

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Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq, and War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, co-authored with Medea Benjamin.

Featured image: “It’s brave to admit your fears” – Ukrainian recruiting poster. Photo credit: Ministry of Defense, Ukraine.

When two brothers are fighting and hurting each other very badly just to advance the ambitions of a third party, what is the best possible advice for them?

Clearly it is to stop fighting immediately and to start making amends for the harm that has been already caused to both of them, to heal the wounds of both of them.

This is exactly what Russia and Ukraine should do today, stop fighting immediately and start their long walk together on the path of peace, healing and rehabilitation.

But, to go back to the example of two brothers fighting each other, what if the third party prevents the younger brother from giving up fighting? What if in the extended household of the younger brother most members want the path of peace but there are just one or two armed bullies, in collusion with the third party, who threateningly insist that the younger brother should go on fighting.

Then the most reasonable, most beneficial course of giving up fighting becomes difficult to achieve, the fighting continues, the two brothers continue to bleed and the third party is satisfied that it objective is being achieved.

However can the third party really afford to be pleased by instigating and prolonging the fight of the two brothers? The third party is actually acting like the monkey who ignites a fire and fools around with it without realizing that he himself can be burnt in this fire.

Seen from the perspective of the two countries and their people, there is absolutely no reason why Russia and Ukraine should be fighting each other. There is absolutely no rationale for the two neighboring countries to be enemies of each other. On the other hand there is every reason to be friends with each other, and to reap the immense benefits of many-sided cooperation, a fact which is rooted in geography. In addition there are many people on both sides united by ethnicity, family links, language, culture, faith and by memories of having lived and worked together.

When the USA and NATO started speaking of NATO membership of Ukraine, Russia opposed this for the obvious reason that the USA and NATO have been very hostile to Russia and prospects of very destructive weapon systems being installed very close to its very long borders with Ukraine were simply too dangerous for Russia. What is more, less than 20% of people of Ukraine supported Ukraine’s membership of NATO, as revealed in various polls from 1990s to 2013. Both the government and leading opposition leaders in Ukraine in 2013 were by and large agreed on not accepting NATO membership and remaining more or less neutral.

It was in 2014 that the situation changed drastically due to a coup in Ukraine instigated and supported by the USA and close allies like the UK. A democratically elected President and his government were ousted in this coup and a regime completely under US/west influence was installed. After this, starting with day one, only anti-Russia policies were allowed. To achieve this the small but militant minority of anti-Russian forces in Ukraine including the far right and neo-Nazi forces were strengthened, particularly in military terms. Even after elections held several years later, these forces ensured that even those elected on a platform of neutrality and peace with Russia would actually act in opposite ways.

Now the Ukraine government took strong steps against its own Russian language speaking people, leading to civil war like conditions. Thousands of people died. NATO and its members started providing large-scale military training and arms supply in Ukraine.

On the other hand European countries like Germany and France also moved in to help peace steps like Minsk accords but later leaders of both countries admitted that this was merely a disguise by them to provide time for Ukraine to be strengthened militarily. When this violence against Russian speaking people of Ukraine increased further in 2021-22, Russia invaded in early 2022.

However within a week of the invasion peace talks were initiated, getting a good response. Hence within six weeks of the invasion, peace efforts based in Istanbul and elsewhere had brought the two sides very close to clinching a peace agreement. Just then British PM Boris Johnson reached Kiev suddenly to sabotage the peace effort and now the war has completed nearly 30 months. Nearly 1.5 million persons have died from the direct and indirect impacts of this war. Nearly 9 million persons have been displaced for varying lengths of time, internally and externally. If most of the weapons given to Ukraine by the western countries are to be paid for, then the debt of Ukraine has reached extremely difficult levels. A lot of its farmland and other important assets are up for grabs by big business interests, particularly those based in western countries.

Several senior persons who have held responsible positions in the west have stated openly that this war suits them as they are harming Russia constantly without any harm being caused to their own soldiers. Some others have stated that the weapons help given to Ukraine comes back in the form of big contracts for their weapon manufacturers. In such analysis the reality of the several hundred thousand people of Ukraine dying in very painful ways is not even mentioned.

Many experts have raised the issue of the possibility of escalation of this conflict to a nuclear weapons war, and the consequences of this would be simply too disastrous to contemplate.        

Hence clearly a time has come for the two brothers to stop fighting and to embark on a process of peace, healing and rehabilitation. They should start with immediate ceasefire on the basis of the existing line of control and then soon start peace negotiations to resolve all contentious issues, determined that, whatever efforts the third party may make, the peace process will continue and there will never be another war between the two countries.

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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.

Featured image is from Andrew Korybko

Labour has reinforced the “special relationship” with Washington by agreeing to make Britain’s nuclear arsenal permanently dependent on the US.

In one of its first, but little-noticed foreign policy moves, Labour has amended the Eisenhower-era 1958 Mutual Defence Agreement (MDA) that is crucial to Britain’s Trident nuclear missile system.

Officials deleted a long-standing sunset clause that required it be renewed every ten years. 

All references to an “expiry date” have been removed “to make the entirety of the MDA enduring, securing continuing cooperation with the US”, according to a memorandum signed by defence secretary John Healey.

Kate Hudson from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) told Declassified:

“This spells farewell to even the smallest notion of parliamentary responsibility for Britain’s foreign and defence policies.” 

She added that at least nominally parliament has had the opportunity, once a decade, to debate and reconsider America’s role in Britain’s nuclear programme. 

“This amendment, introduced in the most undemocratic fashion by the government – at a time when it will be lost in the recess and party conference season – will eradicate those opportunities. This must not go unchallenged.”

The change was agreed by senior British and US officials on 25 July, three weeks after Keir Starmer became UK prime minister.

It comes as Starmer described Britain’s nuclear weapons as the “bedrock” of the country’s defence and amid concern about possible threats to the future of the MDA if Donald Trump wins back the White House.

During a visit to Washington shortly before the general election, David Lammy, now foreign secretary, told a centre-right think tank that Labour: “will always work with the United States, whatever the weather…”

The MDA enables the US to provide Britain with nuclear weapons materials and know-how without which Trident would not be able to function. 

It gives the lie to persistent claims by the Ministry of Defence that Britain’s submarine-launched nuclear arsenal is “operationally independent”. 

American Client

Trident missiles themselves are obtained from America and a cross-party report concluded that the life expectancy of Britain’s nuclear capability without US support could be measured in months.

US presidents have also alluded to this dependency, with George W. Bush saying in 2005 that the US helped Britain maintain a “credible nuclear force”.

Barack Obama declared it was in America’s interest to continue to help Britain “in maintaining a credible nuclear deterrent” when the MDA was renewed ten years ago.

As Declassified recently reported, British military aircraft regularly cross the Atlantic with highly radioactive ingredients supplied by the US. These ingredients are absolutely vital to the Trident missile system. 

The memorandum signed by Healey states:

“The MDA provides the necessary requirements for the control and transmission of submarine nuclear propulsion technology, atomic information and material between the UK and US, and the transfer of non-nuclear components to the UK.”

It continues:

“The MDA underpins the defence nuclear relationship between the UK and US.”

Above Democracy

The memo further states that the amendment does not require any change in the law. Although the MDA is incorporated in US law, it has no statutory basis in the UK. 

Astonishingly, despite its huge significance, it has never been the subject of a substantial debate in Parliament.

The government describes the MDA as covering the exchange of information on “sensitive nuclear technology” for developing “defence plans” and “military applications of atomic energy”.

Other aspects involve evaluating “the capabilities of potential enemies in the employment of atomic weapons”.

It also concerns the sale of “naval nuclear propulsion plants” and the transfer of materials like U-235 enriched uranium.

However, governments have long refused to provide information about how much nuclear material for British warheads the US has provided to the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston and the nearby Burghfield warhead factor, and at what cost.

The quantity is likely to be significant. Nearly 1,000 non-nuclear components for atomic weapons systems were exchanged between the US and UK in 2020-23 under the MDA, according to new research by the Nuclear Information Service.

A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said the removal of the 10-year renewal provision was decided “given the longstanding nature of this agreement”. She added that making the entirety of the MDA “enduring” was “the case with other international agreements.”

Peter Burt of Nukewatch UK which monitors the UK’s nuclear weapons programme commented:

“Every UK Prime Minister since the Second World War has been petrified about losing influence with the US, and in a large part this hinges around access to nuclear weapons technology and military intelligence.

“This is the main reason the UK government always aligns itself with US foreign policy and allows itself to be drawn into US military adventurism, even when it is clearly not in the interests of this country to follow America.”

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Richard is an editor, journalist, playwright, and the doyen of British national security reporting. He wrote for the Guardian on defence and security matters and was the newspaper’s security editor for three decades.

Featured image: Keir Starmer meets Joe Biden in the White House, 10 July 2024. (Photo: Simon Dawson / No 10 Handout)

The Great Unraveling of the COVID-19 global psychological operation has entered its final stage.

This letter from the Department of Health and Human Services [under a Freedom of Information (FOI) response to an unnamed “independent researcher”] is real, it represents a shift in the tide, and it is but one example, but a critical one.

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These words are all true. But the next step will not be to become more weary about government, to be more careful about the Constitution and the rule of law, or to pass new laws and regulations. The next step is not to stop requiring so many foolish vaccines.

No, the next step must be, if we want to end this nightmare, to seize the assets, not only of the corporations that promoted these actions, but of the billionaires hiding offshore, or behind trusts and funds, who pushed for this war on humanity.

Moreover, all the classified documents, documents hidden by nondisclosure agreements, between corporations, governments, international organizations, and individuals, must be made public, without exception, so that everyone will know what happened and the responsibility, moral and financial, can be traced by anyone with ease.

The moral, legal and constitutional basis for such action is self-evident.

There is no other stance possible and the sooner people grasp this reality, the sooner we can bring an end to this nightmare. Those like Robert Kennedy Jr. who make some vague suggestions that something was not right, and can be solved by future laws and regulations, are not doing anyone any favors except the billionaires whom he counts among his closest friends.

No more!

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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.  

Featured image source\

The French government’s arrest on 25 Aug. of Telegram’s founder, builder and operating manager, Pavel Durov, is a telling sign of these tumultuous times. It is alleged that France’s problematic President, Emmanuel Macron, lured Durov to Paris with a mafia-style dinner invitation. Durov became a citizen of France six years ago after Macron tried unsuccessfully to woo Telegram and its founder to set up business in France.

Durov is native of Russia, the world’s largest country in which the criminalized Big Tech martyr continues to have citizenship. Durov’s first internet triumph was VK which became Russia’s equivalent to Facebook. Rather than accept censorship as the Putin government demanded, Durov sold the company to find greener pastures.

Durov also is a citizen of United Arab Emirates where he lives and manages Telegram with his genius brother in Dubai. France sells much military hardware to UAE as part of a military alliance whose showpiece is the French naval base at Abu Dhabi.

The governments of both Russia and UAE have both intervened sternly, indicating they are paying close attention to to the Durov case. Both governments are making it clear that they will be vigilant in this matter in the name of safeguarding the integrity of their own national sovereignties. Both governments say they will not countenance any maltreatment by France’s of one of their most luminary citizens. Macron himself has been a regular user of Telegram because of its encryption capacities for private communications.

The importance of Telegram’s solid and hackproof encryption is a big part of the reason for pressing the vexatious case brought against Durov. All signs point to the finding that France is one of several players in a case developed at the highest levels by the most aggressive enemies of privacy and free speech on the Internet.

The sturdiness of Telegram’s encryption system is reflected by the fact that the Armed Forces of both Russia and NATO’s puppet Ukraine, regularly do their secret messaging through Durov’s company. Durov and his brother have built up Telegram’s ramparts against all sorts of spy wear, but especially the invasions on data bases facilitated by so-called backdoors, the digital nuke of Internet integrity.

One of Durov’s supposed crimes is to have stood up to the security state’s most aggressive thugs in denying them backdoor access to Telegram. All the other major platforms, including that of the Israeli government’s servile puppet, Elon Musk, have by now handed over the security keys to the likes of Mossad-CIA-MI6, the FBI, the US Department of Justice and a host of other Internet predators, public and private. Durov, however, is the main holdout. He hasn’t complied in the past. What will he do now?

The prolific development and placement of many types of backdoors throughout the Internet is a story in itself. The story begins with Inslaw Corp’s development throughout the late 1970s and 1980s of the PROMIS software. The PROMIS system added many tools to the arsenal of weapons enabling Internet surveillance even in the era before home computers and the widespread public embrace of the new communications technology. This revolutionary technology emerged from US military research and development at DARPA.

The digital suite of the PROMIS software could read secret computer data bases running on a variety of computer languages. There were many computer languages in that era. The homogenized data could be integrated to make it readily comprehensible especially for those engaged in police investigations and spying.

Israeli security forces stole the PROMIS software and then added features that resulted in their ability to construct full-fledged digital backdoors. Then they proceeded to sell the revised PROMIS software to spying agencies. Without realizing what they were doing, the purchasers inadvertently opened up their own digital operations to covert surveillance through invisible forms of backdoor penetration.

With the involvement of the notorious Mossad agent and media mogul, Robert Maxwell, PROMIS spyware was sold to dozens of countries and corporations. As Mike Ruppert discovered, the Canadian government’s spy divisions were a particularly avid yet naive customers of the Israeli-revised PROMIS system.

The many purchasers were not informed that their jazzy new spyware included backdoors that covertly unlocked access to their own data bases’ to secret inspection and downloading. The spreading of this backdoor system created many strategic advantages for the security state in Israel and also in China, which was early into this saga of rigging software to spy on the spies.

As epitomized by the activities of Jonathan Pollard, the United States has long been a major target of Israeli spying. Of course the US security state has long since developed its own collection of backdoor capacities. This proliferation of digital backdoors has dramatically altered the nature of the Internet.

 

The rise of large-scale Internet spying has created huge gaps between those with the capacities to install and read the digital output of backdoors and those who are the objects and victim of digital spying. In this Internet culture, the heroic and enlightened refusal of Durov to allow the secret insertion of backdoors on Telegram is a very big deal.

Power and Wealth as an Unsound Basis for Controlling the Operation of the World Wide Web

The arrest of Durov is rightly being interpreted by the attentive as yet another act of war against the freedom and wellbeing of average people. People throughout the world have good cause to embrace voluntary Internet sharing while seeking to outlaw Internet spying.

We have ample cause to resist the culture of mass surveillance executed and exploited by our predatory governors. Some of them are connected to well-documented initiatives devoted to trying to kill us, control us, enfeeble us, impoverish us, enslave us and to transform us by altering the character of our genetic constitutions.

This power grab through the ongoing omniwar against the largest part of humanity, is giving rise to new orders of organized crime well integrated into the activities of many so-called intelligence and police agencies. Some of the battles in the omniwar are being waged by the predators through lawfare. The injustices of lawfare will probably be on ample display in the Durov case.

The citizens of the globe have cause to push for a return to the ideal of the Internet as a neutral platform, not a weapon of censorship and propaganda that adds to the repressive clout of the world’s most powerful cartels and individuals. Until quite recently, there was a broad consensus that the Internet should be equally available to competing advocates and antagonists.

Some content regulation is necessary, but this oversight should not be conducted as it is now. It should not be conducted by agents of interested parties with agendas to push in the service of increasing the wealth and power of authoritarian clients. It should not be conducted to systematically, monolithically and across-the-board favour one side and demean the other side in warfare and political contests.

The old system of propaganda between place-based enemies does not mix well with the global, transnational character of the Internet.

The regulatory conditions should reflect and protect the principle that people have a fundamental human right to freely express themselves without censorship. The implementation of something close to this ideal would make available on the net something approaching the expression of a full array of human perspectives.

The state of the Internet currently does not come anywhere near the ideal of a level playing field.

The Internet should be adding to the quality and scope of our discourse. Unfortunately, however, the opposite is happening. We are being force fed, often surreptitiously, massive doses of toxic mind candy designed to induce thought control and indoctrination in order to tighten the political grip of our corrupt and self-centred governors.

Part of the censorship of the Internet is to cover up the fact that many governments, corporations, cartels and religious front organizations are engaged in various forms of terrorism, drug dealing, kiddie porn, child trafficking and many other forms of profitable but illegal activities. These crimes are prominent among the all-purpose justifications cited for the application of large-scale censorship. Don’t do what I do! Do what I say you must do!

Criminality at the top continues to grow because those who sink to the bottom levels of depravity in order to get ahead, are most prone to rise to the top. Those who rise to the top tend to exploit their positions to benefit in various ways, including by skimming off some of the proceeds of illegal activities.

While Durov and Telegram may stand on the edge of such activities, some of the officials in the intelligence agencies are participants in, and major beneficiaries of, such crimes. They stand at the pinnacle of today’s most sophisticated forms of organized crime. Durov is being set up as their fall guy.

Durov has faced this kind of abuse when his VK web site in Russia was publishing material created by activists who were critical of the Putin government. Durov has related the story of the photoshopped image placed in his Russian passport and his struggle to replace it with an unaltered rendition of himself.

 

[Fake] Photoshopped “Russian Passport Photo” Prepared by his Enemies to Picture Durov as a “Terrorist”

 Passport Photo of Durov

 

“Net neutrality” is the term originally coined to identify the Internet principle of equal treatment of all content providers and recipients of information. Until 2017, the year when US President Donald Trump converted to Judaism, the principle of net neutrality was embedded into the public policy in the USA. 

[See Klint Finley, “The Wired Guide to Net Neutrality, Wired,” May 2020]

Trump’s Federal Communication’s Commission abruptly shut down the USA’s net neutrality policy, thereby overturning the principle of the Internet as a shared public utility that should be equally accessible to all its users. (click on the underlined word to view link)

The attack on the Internet as a public utility has been fast and furious. The outcome has proven to be devastating in terms of the ongoing assault on the principles of supposedly free and democratic societies.

This effort to undermine Durov and outlaw Telegram in its present form takes one step further the vandalism against a core public resource belonging to “we the people.” It is nothing but a kleptocratic abomination deployed by power junkies to assert that they can join together to declare the Internet the proprietary object of their own private ownership. This theft of a global public resource must be condemned and resisted at every turn.

The Internet is the shared domain of all people that use it and own parts of the infrastructure, however small, of the most formidable communications tool ever invented.

A Kafkaesque Saga 

Durov spent two days in a Parisian jail before he and his lawyers negotiated bail terms. The government of France is holding him captive in Paris while he faces a trial that will probably exceed the ornate absurdity of any litigation dreamt up by the Czech novelist, Kafka. Obviously the leadership of UAE is not pleased that one of its prize entrepreneurial citizens is being held hostage elsewhere.

The basis of the Kafkaesque charges against Durov is that the Telegramsite has hosted criminal transactions. Durov, it is alleged, has therefore made himself complicit in the crimes of drug dealers, sex traffickers, pornographers, money launderers and terrorists who transact illegal business by taking advantage of Telegram’s secure encryption capacities.

Such allegations beg many questions about the role of the Western intelligence agencies that are most likely behind the government of France’s decisions to press criminal charges. Why have the FBI-DOJ, Mossad-CIA and their counterparts in France decided to single out Durov for special attention.

Why have the behind-the-scenes accusers decided to make a show trial of Durov’s case, when the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and his fellow Big Tech executives are, for the present at least, exempt from the same kind of charge. Of course Facebook and Google have been developed and deployed as security state assets from their conception.

The new formula seems to be that those running Big Tech platforms whose managers accept massive censorship— whose managers allow copious backdoor leaks— get a pass from law enforcement. They are elevated to the realm of those above the law for helping to facilitate the criminality running rife in, for instance, the FBI that has made itself a Zionist servant of the Israel First Democratic Party

Once the public service principles of Internet usage were formally sabotaged, the takeover of the Internet quickly transformed it into a device devoted primarily to thought control in the service of power. Its main purpose seems to have made it a tool to facilitate the massive power grabs underway by some of world’s richest and most powerful cartels.

To be continued…

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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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This really should be one of the biggest public health scandals of the decade, but instead it’s given little attention – mainly because of the high-profile nature of the people and organisations involved.

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First published on September 7, 2020

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The United Nations has been forced to admit that a major international vaccine initiative is actually causing a deadly outbreak of the very disease it was supposed to wipe-out.

While international organisations like the World Health Organization (WHO) will regularly boast about ‘eradicating polio’ with vaccines—the opposite seems to be the case, with vaccines causing the deaths of scores of young people living in Africa.

Health officials have now admitted that their plan to stop ‘wild’ polio is backfiring, as scores children are being paralyzed by a deadly strain of the pathogen derived from a live vaccine – causing a virulent wave of polio to spread.

This latest pharma-induced pandemic started out in the African countries of Chad and Sudan, with the culprit identified as vaccine-derived polio virus type 2.

Officials now fear this new dangerous strain could soon ‘jump continents,’ causing further deadly outbreaks around the world.

Shocking as it sounds, this Big Pharma debacle is not new. After spending some $16 billion over 30 years to eradicate polio, international health bodies have ‘accidentally’ reintroduced the disease to in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and also Iran, as the central Asia region was hit by a virulent strain of polio spawned by the a pharmaceutical vaccine. Also, in 2019, the government of Ethiopia ordered the destruction of 57,000 vials of type 2 oral polio vaccine (mOPV2) following a similar outbreak of vaccine-induced polio.

The same incident has happened in India as well.

It’s important to note that the oral polio vaccine is being pushed by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), a consortium which is supported and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

All of this should be cause for concern, especially with western governments and transnational pharmaceutical giants all rushing to roll-out their new Gates-funded experimental coronavirus vaccine for the global population.

Currently, the first experimental COVID-19 vaccine is being tested on the African populationthrough GAVI Vaccine Alliance, another organization funded by the Gates Foundation. A large round of human trials is taking place in South Africa, run by the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg—another Gates-funded institution.

This latest revelation from Africa should prompt journalists and health advocates to ask harder questions about the efficacy and safety of the much-hype COVID ‘miracle’ vaccine.

AP News reports…

LONDON (AP) — The World Health Organization says a new polio outbreak in Sudan is linked to an ongoing vaccine-sparked epidemic in Chad — a week after the U.N. health agency declared the African continent free of the wild polio virus.

In a statement this week, WHO said two children in Sudan — one from South Darfur state and the other from Gedarif state, close to the border with Ethiopia and Eritrea — were paralyzed in March and April. Both had been recently vaccinated against polio. WHO said initial outbreak investigations show the cases are linked to an ongoing vaccine-derived outbreak in Chad that was first detected last year and is now spreading in Chad and Cameroon.

“There is local circulation in Sudan and continued sharing of transmission with Chad,” the U.N. agency said, adding that genetic sequencing confirmed numerous introductions of the virus into Sudan from Chad.

WHO said it had found 11 additional vaccine-derived polio cases in Sudan and that the virus had also been identified in environmental samples. There are typically many more unreported cases for every confirmed polio patient. The highly infectious disease can spread quickly in contaminated water and most often strikes children under 5.

In rare instances, the live polio virus in the oral vaccine can mutate into a form capable of sparking new outbreaks.

Last week, WHO and partners declared that the African continent was free of the wild polio virus, calling it “an incredible and emotional day.”

On Monday, WHO warned that the risk of further spread of the vaccine-derived polio across central Africa and the Horn of Africa was “high,” noting the large-scale population movements in the region.

More than a dozen African countries are currently battling outbreaks of polio caused by the virus, including Angola, Congo, Nigeria and Zambia.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, many of the large-scale vaccination campaigns needed to stamp out polio have been disrupted across Africa and elsewhere, leaving millions of children vulnerable to infection.

In April, WHO and its partners reluctantly recommended a temporary halt to mass polio immunization campaigns, recognizing the move could lead to a resurgence of the disease. In May, they reported that 46 campaigns to vaccinate children against polio had been suspended in 38 countries, mostly in Africa, because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Some of the campaigns have recently been re-started, but health workers need to vaccinate more than 90% of children in their efforts to eradicate the paralytic disease.

Health officials had initially aimed to wipe out polio by 2000, a deadline repeatedly pushed back and missed. Wild polio remains endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan; both countries also are struggling to contain outbreaks of vaccine-derived polio.

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Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) condemns Elle Canada’s decision to remove Ontario MPP Sarah Jama from its list of trailblazing women in an article titled “These Incredible Canadians Have Broken The Glass Ceiling.” The decision followed attacks from pro-Israel commentators over her support for Palestinians. Elle Canada removed the reference to Jama in the article and added an editor’s note claiming the decision was made to “protect everyone’s safety.” However, Sarah Jama herself clarified on X, writing, “I haven’t received any threats so it wasn’t for my safety.”

“Scrubbing an article, effectively unpublishing a portion about a pro-Palestine activist, is a serious violation of journalistic standards and an act of anti-Palestinian erasure,” said Jason Toney, Director of Media Advocacy for CJPME. CJPME points out that the “excluding […] Palestinian perspectives, Palestinians and their allies” is an explicit form of anti-Palestinian racism defined in the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association (ACLA) report, “Anti-Palestinian Racism: Naming, Framing and Manifestations. “The message sent by Elle Canada is that women will be disqualified from recognition as trailblazers if they stand up for Palestinian rights. It is shameful for Elle Canada to cave into the demands of bullies, especially at a time like this when Palestinians are facing genocide,” Toney added.

CJPME is alarmed that such decisions set a dangerous precedent in the Canadian media landscape, as they violate the recommendations of the Canadian Association of Journalists and their “Ethics of Unpublishing.” It is highly unethical to unpublish material, especially when the media is surrendering to political pressure and doing so in an explicitly racist fashion. The Toronto Sun published an article about Elle Canada’sdecision, effectively piling on to the censorship campaign and providing justifications for the decision. CJPME has already successfully challenged decisions by the CBC and the Kingston Whig Standardwhich sought to unpublish material following attacks from anti-Palestinian activists. In both cases, the outlets later restored the content.

CJPME urges Elle Canada to restore Sarah Jama to their article and to issue a public apology. The ethical failings of unpublishing are well-established, and editors at Elle Canada must not erase history to evade criticism.

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Read Part I:

Nuclear Civilization for Peace Science in a Harmonious Multipolar Future. Hiroshima and Nagasaki

By Prof. Bishnu Pathak, Mairead Maguire, Dr. Leo Semashko, Chaitanya Davé, and Dr. Rudolf Siebert, September 03, 2024

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The Nuclear Civilization Mysterious Paradoxes and Antinomies

How and why in this prosperous civilization of the “golden billion,” for 79 years of its existence, with all its brilliant achievements in each of its parts — branches, corporations, cities, and countries, with all their striving for the best, but as a whole for humanity, – objectively, against the will of all its parts, a general suicidal-genocidal result of the potential planetary HaN, prepared by 99%, was obtained? In the history of this civilization, there are practically equivalent testimonies of both its life and its death, determining the objective antinomy of its existence for 79 years. Its general situation is characterized by the well-known aphorism: “we wanted the best, but it turned out as always“, which, when decoded for this civilization, means: all its parts – branches, cities, and countries – wanted to live better, but as a whole, for everyone together, it turns out to be death, the end of life. We constantly hear the call to “make the world better“, but in fact we are moving it into the abyss. How can this be?

There is not enough space in a short article to resolve the philosophical paradox and macrosociological cognitive antinomy of “to be or not to be?” within humanity’s nuclear civilization. Our brief conclusion and answer to this question is as follows.

The nuclear civilization understands its individual components well: branches, corporations, cities, and countries. It has a strong command of them in its specific disciplinary organizations, sciences, politics, and diplomacy. However, it lacks knowledge of their inherent and eternal systemic-structural integrity and does not possess objective macrosociological laws that are unified and common to all parts and nations of humanity. Its historical knowledge and thinking have reached the substantial, systemic-structural understanding of the integrity of its parts.

For 79 years, there has been a limitation imposed by the sectoral and disciplinary focus on specific functions of different parts, as well as by partial and false ideologies that seek to justify the advantage and exclusivity of sectors, classes, parties, nations, or states. This limitation and fragmentation of knowledge and thinking within this civilization, as well as in previous ones, leads to an ongoing conflict between social elements that lack knowledge and understanding of a unified systemic-structural integrity. This conflict results in universal negative consequences, including the potential for a suicidal nuclear genocide of humanity.

Below is a brief explanation of key moments in the cognitive antinomy of nuclear civilization on the path towards a holistic, systemic-structural, and scientific resolution.

Einstein’s Cognitive Law: The Insolubility of the Nuclear Weapons Problem in Nuclear Civilization

For 79 years, Western nuclear civilization has been engulfed in the convulsions and chaos of uncontrolled violence. The globalization of HaN is institutionalized in all social spheres through various branches of militaristic institutions. This globalization of HaN alienates the civilization from the social principles of Kant’s “perpetual peace”, suppresses all fundamental peaceful alternatives, and strips away its only immunity for survival through peacemaking. Consequently, the civilization is doomed to inevitable nuclear suicide.

The criminal nuclear civilization initiated by the West, has effectively dismantled the key institution of international law that established fundamental norms in Nuremberg and beyond. These norms regulated the limitation and prohibition of genocidal nuclear weapons as crimes against humanity [1; 2: 3]. However, the actual collapse of international law was not solely due to ongoing Western militarism over the past 79 years, but also to the cognitive peacemaking shortcomings of traditional law. Traditional law lacks fundamental scientific, objectivity and universal recognition by all peoples and governments without exception.

The West’s complete militarism and its inability to make peace define the law of “the eradication and insolubility of nuclear weapons, which are considered absolute evil in nuclear civilization”. This law has been confirmed by the entire history and characteristics of this civilization for 79 years, as briefly outlined above. If the militarism of this civilization is exemplified by the HaN globalization, then its inability to make peace was defined by Albert Einstein at its inception 70 years ago in his holistic cognitive imperative. In his definition, he emphasizes the rational nature of homo sapiens in a society where everything begins and ends with thinking, including nuclear weapons and their civilization. According to Einstein, the cognitive imperative of nuclear civilization is formulated as follows: “the significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them [therefore] we shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive” [26].

We can assume that, in 79 years of its nuclear civilization, the West has been unable to understand and embrace “substantially new thinking,”. It seems that the West is unwilling and unable to live in any other way than through militarism, which ultimately leads to nuclear suicide. Or is it the other way around? By condemning itself to extinction through militarism, the West fails grasp and accepts “substantially new thinking,” preventing the possibility of transitioning to a fundamentally new, peaceful way of life that excludes militarism?

Only time will reveal the truth of this dilemma. However, one thing is certain: the destruction of nuclear weapons and the overcoming of a nuclear suicidal civilization require more than just traditional thinking: it demands a shift to a “substantially new” way of thinking.

The absolute evil of nuclear weapons is not eradicated by their planetary proliferation in the HaN era of globalization. Instead, it diminishes both national and global security. The more they are produced, the less secure we are at both the national and global levels. This evil is a result of narrow, disciplinary and fragmented thinking, which can only be overcome by embracing “substantially new thinking“. The key question is what this new thinking looks like, and what social forces drive it?  Throughout written history, humanity has developed rational insights and ideas about this complex, large-scale, and eternal nature over the last 3-4 millennia that must be separated and integrated.

The conscious and purposeful task of separating, verifying, and integrating true grains of “substantially new thinking” in global macrosociological Peace Sceince development was established and addressed in the GGHA for almost 20 years since its inception on February 15, 2005. During this time, the process of development by over 700 coauthors from more than 50 countries in the GGHA has been documented in numerous books, articles, and peacemaking projects [27].  The first of these should be recognized as our fundamental book “Global Peace Science” coauthored by 74 individuals from 34 countries in 2016 [28]. Naturally, its development is an ongoing process, which has only reached the initial stage in a minimal capacity at the GGHA volunteer academy, defined by us as “one percent“. However, as the saying goes, “the spool may be small, but valuable“, indicating unlimited potential for growth on this journey. What is the essence of its understanding today?

Peace Science: Its Substantial, Spheral Thinking and Its Institutionalization as the Common Way Out from Nuclear Civilization’s Genocidal Deadlock

The fundamental and verifiable macrosociological Peace Science, necessary and acceptable to all nations, was born within the nuclear civilization, despite and independently of it. It is based on the integration of key peacemaking and scientific achievements of the past. These include the discoveries of nonviolent varnas/spherons of humanity by Mahatma Gandhi, the noosphere of Vernadsky, Chardin, and Leroy, and the four necessary and sufficient societal resources of PIOT (below) Bertalanffy within the framework of humanity’s sphere. This involves, “substantially new thinking” for understanding and implementing Kant’s “perpetual peace“. Its most compressed expression over the decades today is the following engram in Figure 5 with brief definitions. Peace Science represents humanity’s interpretation of Kant’s “perpetual peace“, through a spheral lens, offering a fundamentally new way of thinking.

 

Fig. 5. Peace Science Engram

Peace Science has progressed through three historical stages of development. 1. The first stage is  Indian, which began with Mahatma Gandhi’s discovery of humanity’s spherons in 1927, known as “Gandhian“. 2. The second stage is Russian, which started with the development of spheral macrosociology (spheral approach and tetrasociology) in 1976. And 3. The third stage is the International stage, which commenced with the establishment of the international peacemaking GGHA in 2005, representing the informal institutionalization of the “substantially new thinking” in global civil society. These stages and their accomplishments are outlined in a comprehensive list of 1,500 publications, books, and projects [29, 28 & 27], along with various historical sources. In the most recent stage, over the past 20 years, more than 700 coauthors from over 50 countries, including Indian President Abdul Kalam and five Nobel Peace Laureates, have contributed to the advancement of Peace Science, leading to its modern form and publication in 1-12 languages [Ibid].

Today, the holistic outcome of Peace Science’s integrative nature is showcased in the diagram above. It illustrates the transdisciplinary genome of humanity’s societal structure at various levels beginning with the individual and the family, represented by the 16 constant spheres of society. These spheres embody the sociological laws that govern human social existence within a consistent framework providing a harmonious foundation for the transient historical changes that occur throughout stages of sociogenesis. [13, etc.]

Peace Science has been verified by world statistics and is accessible for verification within two hours for every literate person over the age of 10 who knows arithmetic and has access to a computer [30].

Peace Science develops and equips itself, along with its spheral, “substantially new thinking,” with appropriate new tools of spheral statistics and its digital technology of Spheral Artificial Intelligence (SAI) [31]. This is constructed within the system-spheral architecture, logic, and structure of humanity’s societal genome as shown in Fig.5. Its information content is divided into key segments: holistic, constant spheral knowledge that is accessible to humans and partial, changeable disciplinary knowledge that is inaccessible to humans as a whole due to the vast amount of big data.

In other words, it can be summarized by the well-known saying: “To Human/God – God’s things, and to machine/Caesar – Caesar’s things“, which ensures the harmonization of humans and “AI super-intelligence“, maintaining control and governance functions for humans, while assigning machines an auxiliary, instrumental role. This structure eliminates the fear of “machines dominating over humans” and becoming slaves to robots, as humans will never relinquish their social spheral logic of “substantially new thinking“, maintaining constant control over it as their highest intellectual property.

Peace Science, based on scientific truth, is essential, universal, acceptable, and everlasting for all nations and humanity as a whole. It must be recognized and understood through the promotion of a culture, mindset, and education focused on peace. In order to combat the violent nuclear civilization of “nuclear weapons absolute evil“, which is powerfully institutionalized in all four vital spheres of society, Peace Science, and its spheral concept of “substantially new thinking” must be integrated into all spheres of society globally and within each individual country. Through this global institutionalization in the humanity’s sphere objective logic, presented in the engram leads to the evolutionary nonviolent overcoming of the nuclear civilization. This, in turn, leads to the birth of a harmonious, spheral civilization within the nuclear one.

A harmonious and peaceful global community approach can replace military institutions of the nuclear civilization in all spheres, while preserving all the positive spheres, such as safe nuclear energy for peaceful purposes in building a new, non-violent civilization.

The primary peacemaking institution in each state should be a political and diplomatic “Department of Peace” within the government orgsphere, proposed by Benjamin Rush as a counterpart to the “Department of Defense/War” in the United States.. However, its militaristic nature has prevented its establishment despite 11 failed attempts to pass a bill in Congress over the span of 230 years.. This once again highlights the USA’s deep-rooted militarism, which has consistently prioritized conflict over peace throughout its history. After 230 out of 248 years marked by war, the US must recognize its alliance on other countries and their peace science to break free from its destructive nuclear civilization.

Unfortunately, throughout history, there has never been a state leader who was able to recognize the global need for Peace Science, as former Indian President Abdul Kalam did in 2012. He recognized it as essential “for the peace and prosperity of all nations on planet Earth” [32]. However, no leader has been able to move beyond mere words about peace and into practical, organizational institutionalization in all spheres of society. This process could begin with the establishment of a “Department of Peace.”

In the infosphere, rathe then having multiple military research institutes, there is a proposal for a similar institution called the “Academy of Peace and Accelerated Development“, for the BRICS plus countries [33]. This academy would be modelled after the independent “China Academy of Social Sciences” established by Deng Xiaoping, as well as the British and Pontifical Academies of Social Sciences. Naturally, this institutionalization should also incorporate and uphold all the positive experiences and accomplishments of military science that can contribute to peacebuilding.

In the sociosphere, rather than having multiple military educational academies, universities, and schools, there should be a Peace Science system that emphasizes essential peacemaking education. This system should start at the secondary school level and be incorporated into all civil education universities, while still including important spheres of military education that contribute to peace. The GGHA has formulated a roster more than ten educational projects over the span of nearly 20 years [27].

In the technosphere, within the economy, a similar institution is already present in all civil public production. This production simply needs to be separated from the military-industrial complex, while retaining positive elements necessary for peace. The key innovation of Peace Science in economic institutionalization lies in the spheral fractal organization of social production and governance at all levels. This organization ensures efficiency and significant increases in labor productivity. The “economic modernization” of Deng Xiaoping, which led to China’s unprecedented economic growth of over 15 percent annually for three decades, remains a unique and unsolved achievement [34 & 35]. Peace Science allows for the identification and separation of spheral surplus value at all levels of social production, making the peace economy highly attractive and profitable for businesses [36].

This outline represents institutionalization of Peace Science in its long evolutionary process of globalization, spanning at least half a century. Throughout this process, Peace Science will systematically replace the globalization of the HaN nuclear civilization in all spheres, while incorporating and preserving its beneficial spheres for peacebuilding.

Only through a similar evolutionary and revolutionary process, guided by a single spheral logic of Peace Science institutional globalization, but diverse in its local cultural and national manifestations, can be the genocidal nuclear civilization of HaN globalization by non-violently displaced and replaced by a harmonious civilization of a spheral multipolar future. This vision emerged at the beginning of our century [Ibid].

The Spheral Bridges to the Multipolar Future: Harmonious Civilization in Transition Period

The great historical transition from a nuclear to a harmonious civilization will take at least five to six decades, involving the changing of 2-3 generations of humanity. This transition began with the conscious design and construction of necessary bridges and tools in every sphere of human life. Many rational elements needed for this transition were discovered and prepared long ago, waiting for their integration into the Peace Science of the new civilization. The cognitive superiority of this science lies in its social nature characterized by a spheral, “substantial new manner of thinking“. This holistic and transdisciplinary approach, liberates traditional, partial, disciplinary, and sectoral thinking from its limitations and harmfulness, while still acknowledging its advantages and achievements.

Only through the framework of transdisciplinary, spheral thinking can these advantages and achievements be preserved and harmoniously integrated into the social whole, without exposing it to the risks of self-destruction, as seen in a nuclear civilization. Without a similar fundamental shift in thinking, there cannot be an equally profound change in civilization that guarantees global “perpetual peace” as the highest and unconditional security for all nations, along with their prosperity in sustainable historical development.

Only Peace Science and its comprehensive, spherical thinking have the capacity to ensure that all people can collaborate to build a future multipolar civilization in harmony for many decades. This approach avoids confrontation in all sectors and national realms, preventing conflicts through common, harmonious, and effective preventive solutions, similar to a harmonious family dynamic.

Peace Science plays a crucial role in creating innovative tools and revitalizing traditional pathways for moving away from the nuclear civilization towards a harmonious future civilization. The main tools and strategies have been outlined above with a focus on the most relevant and practical ones for today.

Renewal of international law is essential. Law and peace are inherently interlinked, as are their respective disciplines. Law plays a crucial role in maintaining peace, and special international laws are necessary in the realm of organization. For the past 79 years, no international law, separate from Peace Science, has been effective in halting the spread of the HaN “absolute evil” HaN globalization. The only solution lies in international laws grounded in this science with the foundational principles articulated by the brilliant Roman lawyer Gaius in his “Institutes” of Roman law in the second century AD [37]. Gaius systematic presentation of Roman private law encompassing both civil and praetorian spheres in his Institutes,  is guided by the principle: “Omne autem jus, quo utimur, vel ad personas pertinet vel ad res vel ad actiones” (“All law that we use relates either to persons, or to things, or to claims”).

This key holistic principle of law expresses three spheral social resources that are always and everywhere regulated by law people/persons, things, and claims. The latter defines the organization of relations between the former.  Over nearly two thousand years since Gaius, law has not only deepened and become more detailed in the relevant spheres, but has also expanded to include the sphere of information in copyright, publishing and similar segments of law. Therefore, law as a whole, much like international law, is actually based on the same spheral pillars of societal resources of PIOT, as outlined in Peace Science [Ibid].

The globalization of Peace Science institutions as norms of international law for the future harmonious civilization extends to family law [38 & 39]. It includes the constitutional right to peaceful resolution of territorial conflicts based on legal condominium between interested countries, such as Israel and Palestine [40]. Additionally, it encompasses the UN’s right to transform the global governance structure to ensure global peace and harmony in international relations [41 & 42].

Peace Science displaces disharmony, wars and the militarism that breeds them. Militarism, driven by the nuclear civilization, has escalated to the “absolute evil” of total genocide, posing a major threat to world security, particularly for the USA [43]. The concept of ​​the global danger of militarism for the future of humanity, especially for the USA is further supported by fundamental economic and social justifications [44].

What, other than Peace Science and its institutionalization, can provide humanity with a common, objectively necessary, and universally acceptable path out of a suicidal nuclear civilization?

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One Month Before Global Research’s Anniversary 

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 2 Sep 2024.

Dr. Bishnu Pathak from Nepal, is the Vice-President of GGHA and a former Senior Commissioner at the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP) in Nepal. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize from 2013 to 2019 for his discovery of the Peace-Conflict Lifecycle which he compares to an ecosystem. Dr. Pathak is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, Board Member of the TRANSCEND Peace University and holds a Ph.D. in interdsciplinary Conflict Transformation and Human Rights, earned over two decades in 2003. Despite the challenges, Professor Pathak has authored over 100 international books and papers, including “Politics of People’s War and Human Rights in Nepal” (2005), “Generations of Transitional Justice in the World” (2019), “The Nepal Compact: Potential for Cold War II” (2022), “Negotiation by Peaceful Means: Nepo-India Territorial Disputes” (2022), and “The Arts of Eastern Philosophy” (2023). Many of his publications have been used as references in universities in over 100 countries worldwide. Dr. Pathak’s work covers a wide range of topics, including Transitional Justice, Human Rights, Human Security, Peace, and Conflict Transformation. Web: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=910   

Mairead Corrigan Maguire, from the United Kingdom, is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment and a peace activist from Northern Ireland. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 alongside Betty Williams for their work as co-founders of Women for Peace. This organization later evolved into the Community for Peace People, dedicated to promoting peaceful resolutions to violence in Northern Ireland. Web: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=678

Dr. Leo Semashko, a Russian Orthodox, Philosopher, and Sociologist, is the founder of the Gandhian Global Harmony Association (GGHA) established in 2005. He also serves as the Honorary President representing Peace Science, along with over 700 coauthors, including Indian President Dr. Abdul Kalam and 5 Nobel Peace Laureates, from over 50 countries. Based in St. Petersburg, Russia, Dr. Semashko has been leading this initiative for almost 20 years. Web: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=253

Chaitanya Dave is the Vice-President of GGHA in the USA. He is a follower of Mahatma Gandhi and Hinduism’s Vedanta philosophy. Additionally, he is an entrepreneur based in California. Web: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1205

Dr. Rudolf Siebert, Vice-President of the GGHA in the USA, is a Catholic and Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan. He is a philosopher, antifascist, and a former child soldier in the Wehrmacht from 1943 to1945. Additionally, he is a theologian and the founder of the House of Mir in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Web: https://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=51

Notes

1. Boyle F. The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence/Terrorism. 2002: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=957
2. Boyle F. The Criminality Of Nuclear Deterrence. Chapter 2. The Lessons Of Hiroshima And Nagasaki. 2002: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=957
3. Francis Boyle et al. Nuclear Weapons and International Law. Draft Report. 1987: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1204

4. Mecklin J. Nuclear Сatastrophe: 90 seconds. 2024: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=924
5. Semashko L. and Siebert R. Gandhi, Putin and Bushnell: Resisting NATO’s Nazi Genocide with Force and Nonviolence Scientific Mobilization. 19-03-24: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1175
6. Lucas J. U.S. Regime Has Killed 20-30 Million People: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=816

7. Dave C. America Can be a Great Nation If …05-08-24: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1205

8. Dave C. America’s Most Criminal Act: The Atomic Bombings of Japan. 08-08-24: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1207
9. Hastings M. It’s Not Just Ukraine and Gaza: War Is on the Rise Everywhere. Bloomberg. 10-12-23: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-12-10/it-s-not-just-ukraine-and-gaza-war-is-on-the-rise-everywhere
10. Chossudovsky M. The Hiroshima Nagasaki “Dress Rehearsal”…to “Wipe the Soviet Union Off the Map”. 17-04-24: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1185
11. Fry S. The Terrifying $1.2 Trillion Plan That Could Kill 90% of Humanity. 2021: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spnJ5WDgZnY and here: https://peacefromharmony.org/plan

12. NATO. Washington Summit Declaration. July 10 2024: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_227678.htm and here in two languages: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1199

13. GGHA. Anti-NATO WWIII Manifesto. 21-07-24: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1201
14. Kant, I. Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch / I. Kant. – UK ed. : Hackett Publishing Company, 2015. – 64 p.
15. Avery J. Nuclear Weapons: An Absolute Evil. 2017: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=800
16. GGHA. Antinuclear Manifesto. 2020: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=908
17. Chossudovsky M. Hiroshima: A “Military Base” according to President Harry Truman. 10-08-24: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1208
18. Lindorff D. Recalling 3 World-Shaking Events of the Last 9 Days of WWII. 10-08-24 https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1210

19. Pathak, P. B. (2021). The Tokyo Tribunal: Precedent for Victor’s Justice II. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 8(8), 285–300. https://doi.org/10.14738/assrj.88.10666
20. Merlo F. What it means to survive an atomic bomb. Vatican News. 08-08-24: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1206
21. Siebert R. It was utter, Satanic blasphemy… 08-08-24: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1206
22. Hans Kristensen et al. Status of World Nuclear Forces. 29-03-24: https://fas.org/initiative/status-world-nuclear-forces/, and: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1211
23. SIPRI Yearbook 2024. Сhapter of SIPRI Yearbook 2024 on world nuclear forces. 17-06-24: https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/YB24%2007%20WNF.pdf

24. Ginzburg A.S., Samoylovskaya N.A. “Nuclear Winter” Hypothesis Research and Responsibilities in Nuclear Policy. Journal of International Analytics. 2023;14(4):149-160. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.46272/2587-8476-2023-14-4-149-160
25. Bivens, Matt. Nuclear Famine: Even a “Limited” Nuclear War Would Cause Abrupt Climate Disruption and Global Starvation. International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, 2022: https://www.ippnw.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/ENGLISH-Nuclear-Famine-Report-Final-bleed-marks.pdf.

26. Albert Einstein Quotes: https://www.sfheart.com/einstein.html
27. GGHA. Peacemaking Projects and Books List: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=472
28. Semashko, L. Global Peace Science…of Spherons / Semashko. L. [et al.]. – JD Group of Publication, New Delhi. 2016. – 624 p. – URL: https://peacefromharmony.org/docs/global-peace-science-2016.pdf.
29. ГГСГ. История Науки Мира, Сфероники. 01-09-22: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=ru_c&key=983
30. Semashko, L. Mahatma Gandhi. Nonviolence Starting Point. Spherons’ Genetics and Statistics. GANDHICA. / Semashko. L. [et al.]. – New Delhi. R.B.H. Media Design. 2019. – 242 p. – URL: https://peacefromharmony.org/docs/gandhi-nonviolence-of-spherons-gandhica-2019.pdf.
31. Semashko L. and Siebert R. Spheral Artificial Intelligence of Peace Science: Twelve Advantages. 28-05-24: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1189
32. Semashko L. and GHA 75 coauthors from 26 countries. The ABC of Harmony for World Peace, Harmonious Civilization and Tetranet Thinking. Global Textbook. New Delhi, Doosra Mat Prakashan, 2012, 334 pages, ISBN – 978-81-923108-6-2: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=489
33. Semashko L. and GGHA. Spheronics’ Macrosociology for BRICS+. 10-10-23: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1160
34. Semashko L. and Siebert R. China and Russia for world peace. Spheral logic of its promotion and institutionalization. 09-06-24: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1193 and in Chinese: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=ch_c&key=8
35. Glazyev S. The Chinese Economic Miracle. Lessons for Russia and the World. Moscow. 2023. In Russian. ISBN 978-5-7777-0891-5.
36. Semashko L. Peace Science and its Logic of Spheres to Accelerate Economic Growth, Investments and Business. WGF Interview. 12-05-24: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1190
37. The Institutes of Gaius. Part I. Text with Critical Notes and Translation By Francis De Zulueta. Oxford University Press. London. 1958: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=ru_c&key=1083
38. Semashko L. and DeWitt M. Children’s suffrage executed by parents. 2004: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=211
39. Семашко Л. и др. Семейный Кодекс России. 1981: https://peacefromharmony.org/docs/Semeynyy-kodeks-RSFSR-1991.pdf

40. Лев Семашко. БРИКС: дорожная карта мирного решения конфликта Палестина-Израиль в 2024-2025 годах на основе НМ и кондоминиума. 01-11-23: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=ru_c&key=1081
41. Semashko L. and GGHA. Network Spherons: The UN Harmony Replacing UN Disharmony. 2017: http://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=769
42. GGHA. Peace Science: “Pact for the Future” to Transform of the UN Charter and States Constitutions as Alternative to Nuclear Suicide. 12-02-24: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1172
43. Lindorff D. Time to call out US militarism for what it is: The key threat to America’s security. January 4, 2018: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=804
44. Glazyev S. The Last World War. The United States Begins And Lose. M. 2024. 585s. In Russian. ISBN: 978-5-6050696-9-0

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

by Michel Chossudovsky

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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   

No major western leader is ever again going to be able to speak about human rights or ethical values, without attracting howls of derision. They are turning on their own people in order to prevent protest at a genocide they actively support.

Keir Starmer stepped up the pressure on opponents of Zionist genocide on Thursday with the arrest of journalist Sarah Wilkinson and the charging of activist Richard Barnard, both under the draconian Section 12 of the Terrorism Act which carries a sentence of up to 14 years in prison.

The UK MSM has of course ignored these, but is universally carrying outrage at the conviction of two Hong Kong activists for sedition, which carries a maximum sentence of … 2 years.

But they tell us it is China and not the UK which is the authoritarian dictatorship.

(To be plain, I do view the Hong Kong convictions as also an unwarranted interference with free speech. I merely point out the incredible hypocrisy of the British Establishment and far worse laws here).

Richard Barnard has been charged and will face trial, apparently related to public speeches supporting the Palestinian right to armed resistance.

Sarah Wilkinson was released on bail after about 14 hours. Like the recent arrest and bailing of Richard Medhurst, the arrest and bailing is a device to chill her reporting and activism.

The harassment of dissident journalists at ports, using the extensive powers of the Terrorism Act for questioning and confiscation of communications equipment, has become routine. I myself suffered detention, interrogation and confiscation of equipment for “terrorism” last October.

But the Sarah Wilkinson case is an escalation, in that this is a raid on a journalist whose home was invaded by 16 policemen at 7.30am, while she was arrested and taken to the police station as her home was comprehensively turned over, presumably looking for gunmen under the bed.

More details of the raid have come out which are scarcely believable. Armed counter-terrorism police wearing balaclavas were used against a peaceful, female journalist. She was manhandled and physically hurt. The ashes in her mother’s funerary urn were desecrated in a “search”. And Sarah’s bail conditions include that she may not use a computer or mobile telephone.

It is a fascist government that sends 16 police to bust a peaceful journalist at home at 7.30am.

Like the stopping of Richard Medhurst’s plane on the tarmac by police vehicles and his being dragged from the plane (which had just landed and was en route to the gate anyway) this is an authoritarian theatre of intimidation, a Nazi stamping of the violence of the state.

Richard Barnard is a co-founder of the brilliant Palestine Action, which has done so much to disrupt the Israeli arms industry in the UK as it continues to send vital equipment to carry out the mass destruction of civilians in Gaza.

BREAKING: After a targeted campaign by the zionist lobby, Palestine Action's co-founder Richard Barnard is facing three charges for two speeches.

He is accused of supporting a proscribed organisation under the Terrorism Act and encouraging 'criminal activity'. pic.twitter.com/cWq0qwk15v

— Palestine Action (@Pal_action) August 29, 2024

Richard has been charged under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act over two speeches he made supporting the Palestinian resistance.

I have of course said this before, but it bears repeating:

Palestine has the legitimate right of self-defence against the illegal occupation.

The occupying power Israel has no right of self-defence. That is the plain position in international law.

Yet in the UK, it is legal to offer full-throated support to Israel’s genocide and to wish that all Palestinians are exterminated.

IDF participants in genocide happily move between Israel and the UK with no legal consequences.

Yet it is illegal to support certain Palestinian organisations when engaged in legal acts of armed resistance.

The state’s actions against activists have been ramped up – as I predicted – since Starmer came to power.

Five young activists in Glasgow were ten days ago given sentences ranging from 12 months to 24 months in prison for direct action against Thales weapons plant in Govan, which makes parts for Israel’s Watchkeeper drones, widely used against civilians in Gaza.

The sentences from Sheriff Judge McCormick were savage – far higher than would normally be given on the specified charges, which were of breach of the peace, vandalism, disorderly conduct and acting in an abusive manner.

These normally would attract at most a suspended sentence on a first offence. McCormick also ignored the Scottish government guidelines not to give custodial sentences of 24 months or less but to seek alternatives.

More tellingly, McCormick completely ignored the elephant in the room: the genocide in Gaza, which Thales are supplying.

(The fact the action occurred before the genocide should be properly viewed as a commendable act of prescience.)

The Zionist Starmerite Establishment were quick to crow over the jailing – notably Luke Akehurst and John Woodcock (who is laughably called Lord Walney nowadays and is the Government Adviser on political violence) who said “Activists considering breaking the law to get their way need to see there will be consequences”.

This follows similarly harsh sentencing of climate change activists, including those who merely took part in Zoom calls discussing direct action.

The authoritarian reaction of the threatened Zionist ruling class is a worldwide phenomenon. Redoubtable Australian journalist Mary Kostakidis has been ludicrously charged under hate speech laws for retweeting mainstream pro-Palestinian tweets.

American activist Professor Danny Shaw was turned over by the FBI on return to the USA following a trip which included speaking on a panel alongside me at the Palestine International Film Festival.

Also in the United States my friend Scott Ritter has been raided by the FBI and all his electronics and other materials confiscated.

I have spoken to Danny Shaw and to Richard Medhurst. In all of these arrests and detentions, including my own, the emphasis has been on confiscating electronics and on questioning focusing very strongly on contacts, meetings and sources of finance.

The Five Eyes intelligence services are plainly building up Venn diagrams of the democratic opposition to Zionism and the neoliberal project. It is notable that many of those recently arrested over Palestine – including Mary Kostakidis, Richard Medhurst, Scott Ritter and myself – were active in the campaign to free Julian Assange.

I have always maintained that Keir Starmer’s record shows that he will be an even bigger danger to civil liberties than the Tories. It is worth noting that all of the Tory recent draconian legislation – The Public Order Act, The National Security Act and even the Rwanda Act – was not opposed or was supported by Starmer as the pretend “Leader of the Opposition”.

Starmer and Cooper are continuing the Tory policy of challenging a High Court ruling won by Liberty, that Suella Braverman acted illegally in tabling secondary legislation lowering the threshold to ban a demonstration on grounds of inconvenience to the public.

The forthcoming Online Safety Act will be truly chilling, including making it illegal to publish what the government deems misinformation.

Starmer has always been MI5-controlled. The fact that, while a Tory government was in power, the Crown Prosecution Service destroyed all the key documentation revealing Starmer’s involvement in the Assange, Savile and Janner cases (the last being far more important than generally appreciated), shows the extent to which Starmer is a protected Deep State asset.

If we are to survive this descent onto fascism as a society, we need to be prepared to dissent now, and each of us needs to be prepared to go to jail if necessary.

A last word to Craig Mokhiber, the senior UN international lawyer who resigned in protest at UN pusillanimity in face of genocide:

A dark evil has descended over the West. As the genocide in Palestine continues, the US, UK, Germany & other Western governments, instead of cracking down on those committing, aiding and inciting the genocide, are cracking down on those opposing the genocide. Human rights…

— Craig Mokhiber (@CraigMokhiber) August 31, 2024

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Featured image: U.K. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer upon his official appointment by the king in May. (Simon Dawson/ No 10 Downing Street, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

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First published on October 11, 2023

*** 

Author’s Introductory Note 

Early Saturday October 7, 2023, Hamas launched “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm.” On that same day, Netanyahu confirmed a so-called “State of Readiness For War.” A complete blockade on the Gaza Strip was initiated on October 9, 2023 consisting in blocking and obstructing the importation of food, water, fuel, and essential commodities to 2.3 million Palestinians. It’s an outright crime against humanity. It’s genocide. 

Was “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” a “surprise attack”?

Was it a “False Flag” Attack by a faction within Hamas (supported by Mossad and US intelligence) which was intent upon justifying Netanyahu’s all out war against Palestine? That Hamas faction was co-opted and bribed by Mossad.

In the words of Netanyahu: 

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas, …this is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”

(Benjamin Netanyahu, statement to his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “quoted by Haaretz, October 9, 2023, emphasis added)

At this stage we have scanty evidence regarding who was behind the Hamas attack. False flag agendas are carefully planned intelligence operations. 

The following article, which is of relevance to the Hamas Al Aqsa Storm attack, examines the logic of a “false flag agenda” formulated in 1962 by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff as a means to justify an invasion and all-out war against Cuba. 

The fundamental premise of Operation Northwoods was to trigger civilian deaths in the U.S. as a justification for military intervention (“on humanitarian grounds”). That same diabolical “false flag” premise largely characterizes Netanyahu’s all-out war against Palestine. 

Operation Northwoods was prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff with the support of US intelligence. The logic of this false flag plan was

“to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba”. 

“Casualty Lists Would Cause a Helpful Wave of Indignation”.

President John F. Kennedy refused to carry out “Operation Northwoods.” That happened a year before his assassination in November 1963.

The secret documents pertaining to Operation Northwoods were declassified more than 15 years ago.

Read them carefully. Netanyahu’s war on the People of Palestine is a “copy and paste” of “Operation Northwoods.”

While the implementation of Operation Northwoods was shelved, its fundamental (diabolical) premise of using civilian deaths (described by the Pentagon as a “massive casualty producing event”) as a justification for military intervention (“on humanitarian grounds”) remains of utmost relevance.

This article was first published in 2016.

We are solidarity with the People of Palestine.

It is crucial that the False Flag led by Israeli intelligence be recognized.

The false flag is using Israeli civilian deaths as a means to wage genocide against the People of Palestine.

Michel Chossudovsky, October 11, 2023, June 19, 2024, September 5, 2024

***

The Pentagon’s Secret “Operation Northwoods”(1962)

Directed Against Cuba.

“Casualty Lists Would Cause a Helpful Wave of Indignation”

by Michel Chossudovsky

Under a secret 1962 US Joint Chiefs of Staff entitled Operation Northwoods, civilians in the Cuban community in Miami were to be killed as part of a covert operation. The objective was to trigger a “helpful wave of indignation in US newspapers”.

The killings and “acts of terrorism” were then to be blamed on the Cuban government of Fidel Castro.

The objective of this sinister plan –which Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and  President J. F. Kennedy– refused to carry out, was to drum up public support for a  war against Cuba.

“In the early 1960s, America’s top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba. 

Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.

The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba’s then new leader, communist Fidel Castro.

America’s top military brass even contemplated causing U.S. military casualties, writing: “We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba,” and,“casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.” 

…. The documents show “the Joint Chiefs of Staff drew up and approved plans for what may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government,” writes Bamford. (U.S. Military Wanted to Provoke War With Cuba – ABC News emphasis added. This Secret Pentagon document was declassified and can be readily consulted (See Operation Northwoods, See also National Security Archive, 30 April 2001)

It was a false flag operation: kill civilians in US cities and blame it on the communist government of Fidel Castro with a view to providing a pretext to invade Cuba on humanitarian grounds.

Do the terror attacks in Brussels and Paris have a similar logic?  Civilian death used to buttress support for the implementation of police state measures against ISIS, an illusive enemy based in Raqqa, northern Syria?

 

The Northwoods 1962 document was titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba”. 

“The Top Secret memorandum describes U.S. plans to covertly engineer various pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba.

These proposals – part of a secret anti-Castro program known as Operation Mongoose – included staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States, 

developing a fake “Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington,” including “sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated),”

faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian jetliner, and concocting a “Remember the Maine” incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Cuban sabotage.” (National Security Archives, pdf, emphasis added)

(http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/doc1.pdf, To access all the declassified documents of Operation Northwoods click here

The underlying premise still prevails under the US sponsored war on terrorism.

While the implementation of Operation Northwoods was shelved, its fundamental (diabolical) premise of using civilian deaths (described by the Pentagon as a “massive casualty producing event”) as a justification for military intervention (“on humanitarian grounds”) or the implementation of far-reaching police state measures is still of utmost relevance.

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This carefully researched and timely article was first published on July 14, 2024

***

One of the outcomes of the alleged new SARS Covid virus that publicly emerged in 2019 is that the medical specialization of virology has been raised to a stature almost Godlike in the media. Few understand the origins of virology and its elevation into a leading role in today’s medicine practice. For this we need to look at the origins and politics of America’s first medical research institute, the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, today Rockefeller University, and their work on what they claimed was a polio virus.

In 1907 an outbreak of a sickness in New York City gave the director of the Rockefeller Institute, Simon Flexner, MD, a golden opportunity to lay claim to discovery of an invisible “virus” caused by what was arbitrarily called poliomyelitis. The word poliomyelitis simply means inflammation of the spinal cord’s grey matter. There were some 2,500 New Yorkers, mostly children, designated with some form of poliomyelitis, including paralysis and even death, that year.

Flexner’s Fraud

The most striking aspect of the entire polio saga in the USA during the first half of the 20th Century was the fact that every key phase of the business was controlled by people tied to what became the Rockefeller medical cabal. This fraud started with claims by the Director of the Rockefeller Institute, Simon Flexner, that he and his colleague, Paul A. Lewis, had “isolated” a pathogen, invisible to the eye, smaller even than bacteria, which they claimed caused the paralyzing sickness in a series of outbreaks in the US. How did they come to this idea?

In a paper published in 1909 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Flexner claimed he and Lewis had isolated the poliomyelitis virus responsible. He reported they had successfully “passaged” poliomyelitis through several monkeys, from monkey to monkey. They began by injecting diseased human spinal cord tissue of a young boy who had died, presumably from the virus, into the brains of monkeys. After a monkey fell ill, a suspension of its diseased spinal cord tissue was injected into the brains of other monkeys who also fell ill.

They proclaimed that the Rockefeller Institute doctors had thus proven poliomyelitis virus causality for the mysterious disease. They hadn’t done anything of the sort. Flexner and Lewis even admitted that:

“We failed utterly to discover bacteria, either in film preparations or in cultures, that could account for the disease; and, since among our long series of propagations of the virus in monkeys not one animal showed, in the lesions, the cocci described by some previous investigators, and we had failed to obtain any such bacteria from the human material studied by us, we felt that they could be excluded from consideration.”

What they then did was to make a bizarre supposition, a leap of faith, not a scientific claim. They took their hypothesis of viral exogenous agency and made it fact, with no proof whatever. They asserted: “Therefore, …the infecting agent of epidemic poliomyelitis belongs to the class of the minute and filterable viruses that have not thus far been demonstrated with certainty under the microscope.“ Therefore?

Simon Flexner simply asserted it “must” be a polio virus killing the monkeys, because they could find no other explanation. In fact he did not look for another source of the illnesses. This was not scientific isolation. It was wild speculation: “…not thus far been demonstrated with certainty under the microscope.” They admitted this in a December 18, 1909 follow up in JAMA, titled, THE NATURE OF THE VIRUS OF EPIDEMIC POLIOMYELITIS.

The so-called “virus” they were injecting into monkeys was hardly pure. It also contained an undetermined amount of contaminants. It included “pureed spinal cord, brain, fecal matter, even flies were ground up and injected into monkeys to induce paralysis.” Until Jonas Salk won approval from the US Government in April 1955 for a polio vaccine, no scientific proof of existence of a virus causing poliomyelitis, or infantile paralysis as it was commonly known, had been proven. That is the case to this day. The medical world all took Flexner’s word that it “must” be a virus.

Rockefeller Institute, Flexner and the American Medical Association

The Rockefeller Institute was founded from the Standard Oil fortune of John D. Rockefeller in 1901, to be America’s first biomedical institute. It was modelled on France’s Pasteur Institute (1888) and Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (1891). Its first Director, Simon Flexner, played a pivotal and most criminal role in the evolution of what became approved American medical practice. The Rockefeller goal was to completely control American medical practice and transform it into an instrument, at least initially, for promotion of medical drugs approved by the Rockefeller interests. By then they were looking to monopolize medical drugs produced from their petroleum refining, as they had done with oil.

Image on the right: Simon Flexner (Licensed under the public domain)

As Rockefeller Institute head, Simon Flexner, was publishing his inconclusive but highly acclaimed studies on polio, he arranged for his brother, Abraham Flexner, a school teacher with no medical background, to head a joint study by the American Medical Association (AMA), the Rockefeller General Education Board, and the Carnegie Foundation founded by Rockefeller’s close friend Andrew Carnegie.

The 1910 study was titled, The Flexner Report, and its ostensible purpose was to investigate the quality of all US medical schools. The outcome of the report was, however, predetermined. Ties between the well-endowed Rockefeller Institute and the AMA went through the corrupt AMA head, George H. Simmons.

Simmons was also the editor of the influential Journal of the American Medical Association, a publication delivered to some 80,000 doctors across America. He reportedly wielded absolute power over the doctors’ association. He controlled the rising ad revenues for drug companies to promote their drugs to AMA doctors in his journal, a highly lucrative business. He was a key part of the Rockefeller medical coup that was to completely redefine acceptable medical practice away from remedial or preventive treatment to use of often deadly drugs and expensive surgeries. As head of the AMA Simmons realized that the competition from a proliferation of medical schools, including then-recognized chiropractic, osteopathy, homeopathy and natural medicine, was lessening income of his AMA doctors, as the number of medical schools had increased from around 90 in 1880 to over 150 in 1903.

Abraham Flexner, former headmaster of a private school, toured various US medical schools in 1909 and recommended that fully half of the 165 medical schools be closed, as what he defined as “sub-standard.” This reduced competition from other approaches to healing diseases. They ruthlessly targeted then-widespread naturopathic medical schools, chiropractic ones, osteopaths as well as independent allopathic schools unwilling to join the AMA regime.

Then Rockefeller money went to the select schools with a proviso that professors be vetted by the Rockefeller Institute and the curriculum focus on drugs and surgery as treatment, not prevention, nor nutrition, nor toxicology as possible causes and solutions. They had to accept Pasteur’s germ theory of disease, which claims one germ to one disease reductionism. Rockefeller-controlled media launched a coordinated witch-hunt against all forms of alternative medicine, herbal remedies, natural vitamins and chiropractic–anything not controlled by Rockefeller patented drugs.

By 1919 the Rockefeller General Education Board and the Rockefeller Foundation had paid out more than $5,000,000 to Johns Hopkins, Yale and Washington University in St. Louis medical schools. In 1919 John D. Rockefeller granted another $20,000,000 in securities, “for the advancement of medical education in the United States.” That would be comparable to about $340 million today, a huge sum. In short the Rockefeller money interests had hijacked American medical education and medical researchby the 1920’s.

Creating Virology

This medical takeover, backed by the most influential doctors’ organization, the AMA, and its corrupt head, Simmons, allowed Simon Flexner to literally create modern virology under Rockefeller rules. The highly controversial Thomas Milton Rivers, as director of The Rockefeller Institute’s virology laboratory, established virology as an independent field, separate from bacteriology, during the 1920s. They realized they could manipulate far easier when they could claim deadly pathogens that were invisible germs or “viruses.” Ironically virus comes from Latin for poison.

Virology, a reductionist medical fraud, was a creation of the Rockefeller medical cabal. That highly important fact is buried in the annals of medicine today. Diseases such as smallpox or measles or poliomyelitis were declared caused by invisible pathogens called specific viruses. If scientists could “isolate” the invisible virus, theoretically they could find vaccines to protect people from harm. So their theory went. It was a huge boon for the Rockefeller cartel of pharmaceutical companies, which at the time included American Home Products which falsely promoted drugs with no proof of effect, such as Preparation H for Hemorrhoids, or Advil for pain relief; Sterling Drug,which took over the US assets including Aspirin of German Bayer AG after World War I; Winthrop Chemical; American Cyanamid and its subsidiary Lederle Laboratories; Squibb and Monsanto.

Soon virus researchers at the Rockefeller Institute, in addition to claiming discovery of the poliomyelitis virus, claimed to discover the viruses that caused smallpox, mumps, measles and yellow fever. Then they announced “discovery” of preventive vaccines for pneumonia and yellow fever. All of these “discoveries” announced by the Institute proved false. With the control of the research in the new area of virology, the Rockefeller Institute, in collusion with Simmons at AMA and his equally corrupt successor, Morris Fishbein, could promote new patented vaccines or drug “remedies” in the influential AMA journal that went to every member doctor in America. Drug companies refusing to pay for ads in the AMA journal were blackballed by the AMA.

Controlling Polio Research

Image below: Rockefeller University Main gates on York Avenue (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

Simon Flexner and the highly-influential Rockefeller Institute succeeded in 1911 in having the symptoms that were being called poliomyelitis to be entered into the US Public Health Law as a “contagious, infectious disease caused by an air-borne virus.” Yet even they admitted they had not proven how the disease enters the body of humans. As one experienced doctor pointed out in a medical journal in 1911, “Our present knowledge of the possible methods of contagion is based almost entirely upon the work done in this city at the Rockefeller Institute.” In 1951 Dr. Ralph Scobey, a critic of the Rockefeller rush to judgment on polio contagion, noted, “This of course placed reliance on animal experiments rather than on clinical investigations…” Scobey also pointed to the lack of proof poliomyelitis was contagious: “…children afflicted with the disease were kept in general hospital wards and that not a single one of the other inmates of the wards of the hospital was affected with the disease.” The general attitude at that time was summed up in 1911: “It seems to us despite the lack of absolute proof, that the best interests of the community would be conserved by our regarding the disease from a contagious standpoint.” (sic).

By having poliomyelitis symptoms classified as a highly contagious disease caused by an invisible, alleged exogenous or external virus, the Rockefeller Institute and the AMA were able to cut off any serious research for alternative explanations such as exposure to chemical pesticides or other toxins, to explain the seasonal outbreaks of illness and paralysis, even death, mostly in very young children. That was to have fatal consequences lasting to the present.

Enter DDT

In his 1952 statement to the US House of Representatives investigating the possible dangers of chemicals in food products, Ralph R. Scobey, M.D. noted,

“For almost half a century poliomyelitis investigations have been directed towards a supposed exogenous virus that enters the human body to cause the disease. The manner in which the Public Health Law is now stated, imposes only this type of investigation. No intensive studies have been made, on the other hand, to determine whether or not the so-called virus of poliomyelitis is an autochthonous chemical substance that does not enter the human body at all, but simply results from an exogenous factor or factors, for example, a food poison.”

Toxins as cause were not investigated, despite huge evidence.

During the 1930s with economic depression and then war, few new major outbreaks of poliomyelitis were noted. However, immediately after the end of World War II, notably, the polio drama exploded in dimension. Beginning 1945, every summer more and more children across America were diagnosed with poliomyelitis and hospitalized. Less than 1% of the cases were actually tested via blood or urine tests. Some 99% were diagnosed by merely the presence of symptoms such as acute pain in extremities, fever, upset stomach, diarrhea.

In 1938, with the support of presumed polio victim, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (March of Dimes) was founded to solicit tax-exempt donations to fund polio research. A German doctor and researcher, Dr Henry Kumm, came to the US and joined the Rockefeller Institute in 1928 where he stayed until joining the National Foundation in 1951 as Director of Polio Research. Kumm was joined at the National Foundation by another key Rockefeller Institute veteran, the so-called “father of virology,” Thomas M. Rivers, who chaired the foundation’s vaccine research advisory committee overseeing the research of Jonas Salk. These two Rockefeller Institute key figures thus controlled funds for polio research including developing a vaccine.

During the Second World War, while still at Rockefeller Institute, Henry Kumm was a consultant to the US Army where he oversaw field studies in Italy. There Kumm directed field studies for the use of DDT against typhus and malarial mosquitoes in the marshes near Rome and Naples. DDT had been patented as an insecticide by Swiss drug firm Geigy and their US branch in 1940, and first authorized for use on US Army soldiers in 1943 as a general disinfectant against head lice, mosquitoes and many other insects. Until war’s end almost all DDT production in the US went to the military. In 1945 the chemical companies looked eagerly for new markets. They found them.

Image on the right is from Beyond Pesticides

In early 1944, US newspapers triumphantly reported that typhus, “the dreaded plague that has followed in the wake of every great war in history,” was no longer a threat to American troops and their allies thanks to the army’s new “louse-killing” powder, DDT. In an experiment in Naples, American soldiers dusted more than a million Italians with DDT dissolved with kerosene (!), killing the body lice that spread typhus.

Rockefeller Institute’s Henry Kumm and the US Army knew that, as one researcher put it, “DDT was a poison, but it was safe enough for war. Any person harmed by DDT would be an accepted casualty of combat.” The US Government “restricted” a report on insecticides issued by the Office of Scientific Research and Development in 1944 that warned against the cumulative toxic effects of DDT in humans and animals. Dr Morris Biskind noted in a 1949 article, “As DDT is a cumulative poison, it is inevitable that large-scale intoxication of the American population would occur. In 1944, Smith and Stohlman of the National Institutes of Health, after an extensive study of the cumulative toxicity of DDT, pointed out, “The toxicity of DDT combined with its cumulative action and absorbability from the skin places a definite health hazard on its use.” Their warnings were ignored by higher officials.

Instead, after 1945, all across America DDT was promoted as the miracle new, “safe” pesticide, much like Monsanto’s Roundup with glyphosate three decades later. DDT was said to be harmless to humans. But no one in government was seriously scientifically testing that claim. One year later in 1945 as the war ended, US newspapers praised the new DDT as a “magic” substance, a “miracle.” Time called DDT “one of the great scientific discoveries of World War II.”

Despite isolated warnings of untested side effects, that it was a persistent, toxic chemical which easily accumulates in the food chain, the US Government approved DDT for general use in 1945. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), controlled by the Rockefeller-AMA-drug interests, established as “safe” a DDT content of up to 7 parts per million in foods, though no one had proven such. The DDT chemical companies fed the press with photos and anecdotes. Newspapers enthusiastically reported how the new miracle chemical, DDT, was being tested in the US against mosquitoes in the South believed carrying malaria, as well as “preserving Arizona vineyards, West Virginia orchards, Oregon potato fields, Illinois cornfields, and Iowa dairies.” DDT was everywhere in the USA in the late 1940s.

The US Government claimed DDT, unlike arsenic and other insecticides used before the war, was harmless to humans, even infants, and could be used liberally. Beginning 1945 cities like Chicago sprayed public beaches, parks, swimming pools. Housewives bought home aerosol spray DDT dispensers to spray the kitchen and especially childrens’ rooms, even their matrasses. Farmers were told to spray their crops and their animals, especially dairy cows, with DDT. In postwar America DDT was being promoted, above all by Rockefeller drug companies like American Home Products with its Black Flag aerosol DDT spray, and Monsanto. From 1945 through 1952 the US production of DDT increased tenfold.

As presumed cases of polio literally exploded across the USA after 1945 the theory was advanced, with no proof, that the crippling polio disease was transmitted, not by toxic pesticide chemicals like DDT, but by mosquitoes or flies to humans, most especially young children or infants. The message was that DDT can safely protect your family from the crippling polio. Officially listed polio cases went from some 25,000 in 1943 before US civilian use of DDT, to over 280,000 cases in 1952 at the peak, more than a tenfold increase.

In October 1945 DDT, which had been used by the US Army under supervision of Rockefeller Institute’s Henry Kumm as noted, was authorized by the US Government for general use as an insecticide against mosquitoes and flies. Dissenting scientists warning of toxic effects of DDT in humans and animals were silenced. Families were told DDT could save their children from the dreaded polio by killing the feared insects.

The US Department of Agriculture advised farmers to wash their dairy cows with a solution of DDT to combat mosquitoes and flies. Cornfields were aerial sprayed with DDT as well as fruit orchards. However it was incredibly persistent and its toxic effect on plants and vegetables were such it could not be washed off. Year-by-year from 1945 through 1952 the amount of DDT sprayed across the US increased. Notably, so too did the number of human cases of poliomyelitis.

Worst Polio Epidemic

By the beginning of the 1950s increasing attention was given in the US Congress and among farmers as to the possible dangers of such heavy pesticide use—not only DDT, but also the even more toxic BHC (benzene hexachloride). In 1951 Morton Biskind, a physician who had successfully treated several hundred patients with DDT poisoning, testified to the US House of Representatives on the possible link of paralytic polio to toxins, specifically DDT and BHC. He noted,

“The introduction for uncontrolled general use by the public of the insecticide “DDT” (chlorophenothane) and the series of even more deadly substances that followed, has no previous counterpart in history. Beyond question, no other substance known to man was ever before developed so rapidly and spread indiscriminately over so large a portion of the earth in so short a time. This is the more surprising as, at the time DDT was released for public use, a large amount of data was already available in the medical literature showing that this agent was extremely toxic for many different species of animals, that it was cumulatively stored in the body fat and that it appeared in the milk. At this time a few cases of DDT poisoning in human beings had also been reported. These observations were almost completely ignored or misinterpreted.”

Biskind further testified to Congress in late 1950,

“Early last year I published a series of observations on DDT poisoning in man. Since shortly after the last war a large number of cases had been observed by physicians all over the country in which a group of symptoms occurred, the most prominent feature of which was gastroenteritis, persistently recurrent nervous symptoms, and extreme muscular weakness…”

He described several case examples of patients whose severe symptoms including paralysis disappeared when exposure to DDT and related toxins was eliminated:

“My original experience on more than 200 cases which I reported early last year has since been considerably extended. My subsequent observations have not only confirmed the view that DDT is responsible for a great deal of otherwise inexplicable human disability…”

Also noted was the fact that polio cases were always most in summer months when DDT spraying against insects was maximum.

The Rockefeller Institute operatives and the AMA, via their agents in the US Government, created the 1946-1952 USA health emergency called polio. They did so by knowingly promoting the highly toxic DDT as a safe way to control the mythical insect spreaders of the feared disease. Their propaganda campaign convinced the American population that DDT was the key to stop spread of poliomyelitis.

Polio Suddenly Declines

Under leadership of the two Rockefeller Institute doctors, Henry Kumm and Thomas Rivers, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP) rejected critics such as Biskind and Scobey. Natural remedial treatment, such as using intravenous Vitamin C for the infantile paralysis, were rejected out of hand as “quackery.” In April 1953, leading Rockefeller Institute DDT consultant, Dr Henry Kumm, became Director of Polio Research for NFIP. He funded the polio vaccine research of Jonas Salk.

One courageous doctor in North Carolina, Dr. Fred R. Klenner, who had also studied chemistry and physiology, had the idea to use large doses of intravenous ascorbic acid—Vitamin C—on the hypothesis that his patients were victims of toxin poisoning and that Vitamin C was a powerful detox. This was well before Dr Linus Pauling’s Nobel Prize research on Vitamin C. Klenner had remarkable success within days for more than 200 patients in the summer epidemics of 1949 to 1951. The Rockefeller Institute and the AMA had no interest in the remedial prospects. They and the Rockefeller-controlled National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis were only funding polio vaccine development, based on the unproven Flexner claim that polio was a contagious virus, not a result of environmental poison.

Then beginning sometime in 1951-1952, as polio cases were at an all-time high, something unexpected began to appear. The number of cases diagnosed as polio in the US began to decline. The decline in polio victims was dramatic, year by year until 1955, well before the National Foundation and Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine was approved for public use and was widespread.

About a year before the sudden decline in polio cases, farmers, whose dairy cows were suffering severe effects of the DDT, were advised by the US Department of Agriculture to reduce DDT use. Rising public concern about how safe DDT was for humans, including publicized US Senate hearings on DDT and Polio in 1951 also led to a significant decline in DDT exposure into 1955, even though DDT was not officially banned in the US until 1972.

So-called “polio” cases fell by some two-thirds in that 1952-1956 time, in a remarkable parallel to the decline in DDT use. It was well after that decline, in late 1955 and 1956, that the Rockefeller-developed Salk polio vaccine was first administered in large populations. Salk and the AMA gave all credit to the vaccine. Deaths and paralysis as a result of the Salk vaccine were papered over. The Government changed the definition of polio to further reduce official cases. Simultaneously, cases of similar polio-like spinal cord nerve diseases– acute flaccid paralysis, chronic fatigue syndrome, encephalitis, meningitis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, muscular sclerosis—rose notably.

Why it Matters

Over a century ago the world’s richest man, oil baron John D. Rockefeller, and his circle of advisors set about to completely reorganize how medicine was practiced in the USA and the rest of the world. The role of the Rockefeller Institute and figures like Simon Flexner literally oversaw the invention of a colossal medical fraud around claims that an invisible contagious extraneous germ, the polio virus, caused acute paralysis and even death in young people. They politically banned any efforts to link the disease to toxin poisoning, whether from DDT or arsenic pesticides or even contaminated vaccine poisoning. Their criminal project included intimate cooperation with the leadership of the AMA and control of the emerging drug industry, as well as of medical education. The same Rockefeller group financed Nazi eugenics at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes in Germany in the 1930s as well as the American Eugenics Society. In the 1970s they financed the creation of patented GMO seeds which were all developed by the group of Rockefeller chemical pesticide companies—Monsanto, DuPont, Dow.

Today this control of public health and the medical industrial complex is exercised by David Rockefeller’s protegé and eugenics advocate, Bill Gates, self-appointed czar over the WHO and world vaccines. Dr Tony Fauci, head of NIAID, dictates vaccine mandates without evidence. The fraud behind the polio virus scandal after World War II has been refined with use of computer models and other ruses today, to advance one alleged deadly virus after the other, from Covid19 to Monkeypox to HIV. As with polio, none of those has been scientifically isolated and proven to cause the diseases claimed. None.

The same tax-free Rockefeller Foundation today, posing as a philanthropic charity, is at the heart of the global medical tyranny behind covid19 and the eugenics agenda of the World Economic Forum Great Reset.

Their poliomyelitis virus model helped them create this dystopian medical tyranny. We are told, “trust the science.”

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F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics.

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

Featured image is from NEO

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Seeds of Destruction: Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

Author Name: F. William Engdahl

ISBN Number: 978-0-9879389-2-3

Year: 2007

Product Type: PDF File

Price: $9.50

This skilfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. “Control the food and you control the people.”

This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.

The author cogently reveals a diabolical world of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.

This is seriously creepy.

Over a million doses of polio vaccine have been shipped to Israel in preparation for a mass vaccination campaign in Gaza. The vaccines are an emergency response to the first confirmed case of polio reported in Gaza last month. According to an article in the New York Times:

UNICEF, the U.N. children’s fund, said it was delivering the vaccines in cooperation with the World Health Organization… UNRWA; and other groups. UNRWA officials said they hoped to deliver the first vaccines to Gazan children starting on Saturday….

The Gaza Health Ministry confirmed that the vaccines had reached Gaza and that preparations to begin the campaign to inoculate children under 10 were underway…. the U.N. said on Monday that its already hamstrung humanitarian operations had been brought to a temporary halt after the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of Deir al-Balah, where the agency has its central operations.

But a senior U.N. official… said… that there was no change to plans to begin polio vaccinations, despite the fact that the temporary pause in the U.N.’s humanitarian mission. Polio Vaccines Arrive in Gaza, but Distributing Them Is the Next Challenge, New York Times

So, the UN is unable to distribute humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, but they are charging ahead with a mass vaccination campaign?

Doesn’t that sound a bit strange? Keep in mind, the Israelis have been preventing food, water and medicine from entering Gaza for months which has led to mass starvation and a sharp uptick in preventable diseases. But now we are expected to believe that they care about the physical well-being of the people they have been bombing to smithereens for the last 10 months?

I’m not buying it. Here’s more from the Times:

Speaking from Zawaida, in central Gaza, Mr. Rose, of UNRWA, said that more than 3,000 people would be involved in the vaccination campaign, about a third of them from UNRWA. Mobile health teams would help deliver the vaccines to shelters, clinics and schools, but he said a humanitarian pause was needed for parents and children to safely meet aid workers at those sites.

Aid workers “will do our absolute utmost to deliver the campaign because, without it, we know that the conditions will just be worse someday,” Mr. Rose said. “It is not guaranteed that it will be a success.”

For children who contract polio, he added, the prospects of receiving proper treatment remain “incredibly bad” while many of Gaza’s hospitals and health clinics are closed or only partly functioning as a result of the conflict. New York Times

Promotional Video for Polio Vaccine Campaign in Gaza

Polio vaccination campaign is starting in Gaza in a couple of weeks according to WHO. The Director-General of WHO emphasizes the need for humanitarian pauses during rounds of vaccines. #Gaza #PolioVaccine pic.twitter.com/WoF3mhxoUd

— Muslim Network TV (@MuslimNetworkTV) August 20, 2024

It just gets weirder and weirder.

So—according to the Times—aid workers will require a “humanitarian pause” (aka—A ceasefire) the likes of which Netanyahu has stubbornly refused for 10 months straight. But now—after just one confirmed case of polio—he’s expected to reverse the policy in order to save the same the people he’s been pulverizing for the last year? Isn’t that what the Times is saying?

And how do we explain Mr. Rose’s sudden concern for young Palestinians when he was nowhere to be found when these same children were having their arms and legs amputated without anesthesia, medication or even proper sanitation. It’s a real mystery. Here’s more:

The W.H.O. chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a statement on Thursday that a 10-month-old child in Gaza had contracted polio and had become paralyzed in one leg.(NYTimes)

One child? Is he kidding?

Hasn’t Tedros noticed the mountain of carnage piled up across the entire 25-mile Gaza hellscape or has he been in a vaccine-induced coma for the last year?

Everything about this mass vaccination campaign stinks to high heaven. The last thing Israel wants is more healthy Palestinians. We know that for a fact. Here’s more:

UNICEF and the W.H.O. have called on “all parties” in the conflict to put in place a weeklong humanitarian pause in Gaza to allow both rounds of vaccines to be delivered, saying that “without the humanitarian pauses, the delivery of the campaign will not be possible.”

COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry’s agency that oversees policy for the Palestinian territories, said in a statement on Monday that the vaccines had been delivered to Gaza through the Kerem Shalom border crossing with Israel. The agency added that the campaign would be conducted in coordination with the Israeli military “as part of the routine humanitarian pauses” that it observes, which, it said, would allow Palestinians to reach vaccination centers. (NYTimes)

Did you catch that last part? The campaign is going to be “conducted in coordination” with that great humanitarian organization, the Israeli Defense Forces. How does that square with the fact that Israel regards Palestinian children as Amalek? Are they planning to save them from polio so they can gun them down on the streets of Gaza sometime in the future? How does that work exactly?

And why in heaven’s name would Netanyahu agree to “a weeklong humanitarian pause in Gaza” when he brazenly rejected the Biden-backed ceasefire, the UN Security Council-supported ceasefire, and the relentless appeal for a ceasefire from the vast majority of countries around the world? How did the WHO persuade him to change his mind when all the others failed?

But rest assured, Netanyahu would never agree to a humanitarian pause unless it helped to advance his own political agenda, which is the total expulsion of the native population. That’s the only reason Bibi would change his policy. Which is why we suspect that there is more here than meets the eye.

Would it surprise you to know that vaccines have been used in Africa, Nicaragua, Mexico and the Philippines as anti-fertility drugs? Would it shock you to know that western elites have used vaccine campaigns to target people who didn’t realize that they were being used as lab rats in a nefarious eugenics experiment? This is from an article at Global Research:

“According to LifeSiteNews,… the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association is charging UNICEF and WHO with sterilizing millions of girls and women under cover of an anti-tetanus vaccination program sponsored by the Kenyan government…

… all six samples tested positive for the HCG antigen. The HCG antigen is used in anti-fertility vaccines, but was found present in tetanus vaccines targeted to young girls and women of childbearing age. Dr. Ngare, spokesman for the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association, stated in a bulletin released November 4:

“This proved right our worst fears; that t his WHO campaign is not about eradicating neonatal tetanus but a well-coordinated forceful population control mass sterilization exercise using a proven fertility regulating vaccine. This evidence was presented to the Ministry of Health before the third round of immunization but was ignored. Mass Sterilization”: Kenyan Doctors Find Anti-fertility Agent in UN Tetanus Vaccine?“, Global Research

RFK Jr on Polio Vaccine

Did You Know That There's a Federal U.S. Law That States the Polio Vaccine Can't Be Criticized?@RobertKennedyJr: "Criticism of it [polio vaccine] and safety concerns cannot be allowed or tolerated because of the threat that [criticism] will reduce the willingness of people to… pic.twitter.com/EUNcBNMjgu

— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) March 6, 2023

And here’s another article from Global Research titled UN Forced to Admit Gates-funded Vaccine Is Causing Polio Outbreak in Africa:

The United Nations has been forced to admit that a major international vaccine initiative is actually causing a deadly outbreak of the very disease it was supposed to wipe-out.

While international organisations like the World Health Organization (WHO) will regularly boast about ‘eradicating polio’ with vaccines—the opposite seems to be the case, with vaccines causing the deaths of scores of young people living in Africa. Health officials have now admitted that their plan to stop ‘wild’ polio is backfiring, as scores children are being paralyzed by a deadly strain of the pathogen derived from a live vaccine – causing a virulent wave of polio to spread.

This latest pharma-induced pandemic started out in the African countries of Chad and Sudan, with the culprit identified as vaccine-derived polio virus type 2. Officials now fear this new dangerous strain could soon ‘jump continents,’ causing further deadly outbreaks around the world.

Shocking as it sounds, this Big Pharma debacle is not new. After spending some $16 billion over 30 years to eradicate polio, international health bodies have ‘accidentally’ reintroduced the disease to in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and also Iran, as the central Asia region was hit by a virulent strain of polio spawned by the pharmaceutical vaccine. Also, in 2019, the government of Ethiopia ordered the destruction of 57,000 vials of type 2 oral polio vaccine (mOPV2) following a similar outbreak of vaccine-induced polio. The same incident has happened in India as well. UN Forced to Admit Gates-funded Vaccine Is Causing Polio Outbreak in Africa,Global Research

Joe Rogan on the African Polio Vaccine Scandal

Africa Is the Playground to Test Out Medicines for the Likes of Bill Gates & Company@JoeRogan: "Alex Jones was saying that they were giving kids the polio vaccine in Africa – and that Bill Gates was involved in this – they had to stop doing it because it was actually giving… pic.twitter.com/0pCPLSu6wX

— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) March 2, 2023

It’s worth noting that the World Health Organization is not a benign public health agency selflessly seeking to eradicate disease and sickness wherever they may be found.

Quite the contrary. It is a flock of power-mad internationalists who seek to push through a “global pandemic treaty…. that would grant it absolute power over global biosecurity, such as the power to implement digital identities/vaccine passports, mandatory vaccinations, travel restrictions, standardized medical care and more. (Children’s Health Defense ) In short, the WHO is a tyrannical global government accountable to no one. Sound familiar?

And if the WHO is teaming up with Netanyahu to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza, we can be reasonably certain that they’re up to no-good. In fact, we can be sure of it.

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One Month Before Global Research’s Anniversary 

This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Michael Whitney is a renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace.

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

Featured image is from TUR

Mais uma vez, a realidade europeia confronta-se com a loucura anti-russa fomentada pelos EUA. De acordo com dados recentes publicados pelos meios de comunicação alemães, Moscou ultrapassou Washington como o maior fornecedor de gás natural à UE. Isto mostra que a Europa, apesar de aderir às sanções, não conseguirá livrar-se tão cedo da cooperação energética com a Rússia, sendo o projeto de “isolar” Moscou absolutamente inviável.

Desde 2022, a UE mantém várias sanções contra a Federação Russa em retaliação ao lançamento da operação militar especial na Ucrânia. Bruxelas estabeleceu como objetivo eliminar qualquer dependência da energia russa o mais rapidamente possível, o que levou os países europeus a procurarem fontes de energia mais caras apenas para evitarem comprar gás russo.

Uma das principais alternativas encontradas pela Europa foi a compra do gás americano. O elevado preço da mercadoria e as graves dificuldades logísticas e de transporte têm sido problemas frequentes na cooperação energética entre a UE e os EUA. Contudo, a principal diretiva dos governos europeus é simplesmente não comprar quaisquer produtos russos, razão pela qual, embora não haja vantagem estratégica em comprar gás americano, a Europa tomou esta iniciativa.

A realidade econômica europeia, no entanto, coloca a UE num ciclo vicioso quando se trata de sanções anti-russas. Quanto mais necessita de comprar gás americano caro para manter a sua sociedade a funcionar, mais a Europa fica sem fundos – o que ameaça a própria continuidade da cooperação energética com os EUA. Assim, os europeus não têm outra alternativa senão contornar as suas próprias sanções anti-russas.

Segundo o think tank Bruegel, com sede em Bruxelas, no segundo trimestre de 2024, a Rússia foi responsável pelo fornecimento de 17% do gás consumido na Europa. Os países europeus receberam cerca de 12 mil milhões de metros cúbicos de gás russo, excedendo ligeiramente o fornecimento americano. A maior parte deste gás chega à Europa através da Bielorrússia ou da Ucrânia, mas uma parte significativa também flui através do gasoduto submarino TurkStream.

O regime de Kiev ameaçou recentemente proibir o fluxo de gás russo através do seu território, o que criou graves tensões com países como a Hungria e a Eslováquia – que, além de dependerem do gás russo para o seu abastecimento interno, têm mantido uma postura dissidente na Europa, condenando as irracionais sanções anti-russas. Mesmo que a proibição realmente ocorra, é provável que o fluxo de gás através da Bielorrússia e da Turquia aumente, além do fato de existirem rotas alternativas no Cáucaso que podem ser utilizadas com mais frequência.

É também importante sublinhar que os dados sobre a cooperação direta nem sempre refletem a realidade da cooperação energética. Além de o gás e o petróleo russos serem enviados diretamente para a Europa, os europeus também os compram através de agentes terceiros. Alguns países compram produtos russos e revendem-nos a preços mais elevados aos países europeus. É o caso da Índia, por exemplo, que lucrou com a revenda do petróleo russo à Europa. Na mesma linha, a Turquia está alegadamente a revender gás russo à Europa. Embora paguem mais neste tipo de esquema, alguns membros da UE preferem fazê-lo simplesmente para contornar as sanções e não negociar diretamente com Moscou.

Esta informação apenas confirma o que vários especialistas têm alertado desde 2022: a Europa nunca se tornará totalmente “independente” da Rússia. A geografia é o destino natural de um estado. Dado que a Europa e a Rússia estão geograficamente próximas, ambas precisam de aprender a lidar estrategicamente uma com a outra. Tentar “isolar” a Rússia – que é o maior país do mundo, além de ser autossuficiente em energia e alimentos – só prejudicará os próprios estados europeus.

Os EUA sempre lucraram com as sanções. Além de criarem fricções entre a Rússia e a Europa, os americanos conseguiram expandir os negócios das suas empresas energéticas, explorando a fraqueza da Europa. É tempo de a Europa compreender que esta é uma verdadeira armadilha geopolítica. A UE está a ser levada à falência por medidas suicidas adoptadas devido à influência de Washington – que alegadamente é um “parceiro” da Europa, mas na realidade boicota deliberadamente os estados europeus para proteger os seus interesses de hegemonia geopolítica.

Só a cooperação com a Rússia poderá conduzir a Europa a um futuro de estabilidade e prosperidade.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

 

 

Artigo em inglês : Europe still buying Russian gas, despite sanctions, InfoBrics, 3 de Setembro de 2024.

Imagem : InfoBrics

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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

 

During late August the Republic of Namibia drew the attention of the international community by publicly announcing it would not allow a vessel carrying explosive materials to the State of Israel to dock at one of its ports.

The ruling South-West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) stated that its actions were in line with international law where Tel Aviv has been found guilty of violating the Genocide Convention of 1948.

Namibia’s neighbor and longtime ally, the Republic of South Africa and its Government of National Unity (GNU) leading party, the African National Congress (ANC), has initiated a legal fight against the genocide being committed by the Israeli state since October 7. In December, South Africa took the Zionist entity before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the highest legal authority within the United Nations, demanding immediate action.

Both the ANC and SWAPO have been allies of the Palestinian liberation struggle for decades as all of them have a shared history of being dominated by settler-colonial regimes. The organized anti-colonial movements in South Africa, Namibia and Occupied Palestine have utilized mass demonstrations, general strikes and armed attacks in efforts to win their freedom from national oppression. Namibia gained its national independence in 1990 and four year later South Africa defeated the apartheid regime in 1994. However, the Palestinians are still fighting to break free from the Israeli state.

In January, the ICJ ruled that the charges of genocide leveled by Pretoria against Tel Aviv were plausible. Nonetheless, the settler-colonial regime occupying Palestine dismissed the ruling by the ICJ while continuing its shelling, bombing and killings in the Gaza Strip.

Since October 7, more than 40,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip as a direct result of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). With the backing of the United States and other western imperialist states, the government Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has destroyed residential areas, schools, hospitals, religious institutions and marketplaces in what could only be considered acts of genocide.

The entire population of Gaza, 2.3 million people, are imperiled by the U.S.-backed Netanyahu administration. No one living in Gaza can be considered safe from the atrocities being committed by the Occupation Forces. Since late August, the IDF has launched deadly raids into the West Bank under the same guise of combating “terrorism.”

Although the White House under President Joe Biden says it does not support the aggression in the West Bank, they have not halted the supply of arms to Tel Aviv. Just recently, Washington was reported to have approved the supply of an additional $20 billion in military assistance to the Zionist state.

Since October the Palestine solidarity movement has grown exponentially. International agencies such as the United Nations and others have been tracking the activities of shipping firms which conduct lucrative business with Israel and its allies. Students and mass organizations operating on college and universities campuses have staged demonstrations and encampments calling for the full disclosure and divestment from entities linked to the Zionist regime.

In an article reprinted by Radio Havana Cuba from Press TV it reports:

“A United Nations human rights expert has warned that a Portuguese-flagged ship is carrying tons of explosives to Israel, reiterating calls for an immediate arms embargo against the occupying entity to prevent further genocide in the besieged Gaza Strip. UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory Francesca Albanese sounded the alert in a post on X on Saturday, warning that based on the received information, ‘the vessel Kathrin, flying with Portuguese flag, is expected to deliver 8 containers of explosives to Israel.’” 

Imperialism Defies International Solidarity and Public Opinion

Despite the outrage exemplified by millions around the world against the genocide being perpetuated by the Israeli state and its supporters, the Zionist regime continues to operate with impunity. John Kirby, the National Security Advisor for the U.S., dismissed the legal actions taken by South Africa as being devoid of merit.

Biden along with Vice-President Kamala Harris have repeatedly said that they believe the Apartheid Israeli state has the right to exist. How can any government carrying out genocide within a settler-colonial state have any right to be accepted among the global community of nations and peoples?

The U.S. ruling class maintains that not only does this racist state have the right to exist they must be armed to defend themselves against the liberation movements seeking their overthrow. These liberation organizations such as Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in south Lebanon have been labeled as “terrorist” in efforts to justify the mass slaughter taking place within the communities in which they have emerged.

This same report quoted above went on to say that the weapons transfers to Israel represent a clear and present danger:

“These explosives are reportedly key components in the aircraft bombs and missiles that Israel is deploying against besieged Gaza and in its genocidal campaign against the Palestinians. As Namibia has rightfully denied port access to Kathrin, upholding international law, my hope is that Angola will follow Namibia’s example and not consent to harbor the ship. This could be a serious breach of the Genocide Convention,’ Albanese added. According to Vesselfinder ship tracking data earlier this week, the cargo ship, the MV Kathrin, which is sailing under the flag of Madeira, is currently anchored off the coast of Namibia, as the country in southwest Africa has refused to allow it to enter any of its ports.  Madeira, an autonomous region of Portugal, is an archipelago comprising four islands off the northwest coast of Africa.”

These efforts by Namibia not only coincides with developments on the campuses across North America, other efforts such as the attempts aimed at the blockade of Israeli-linked vessels in the Red Sea has also made a monumental contribution to solidarity with Palestine. The Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) have disrupted the flow of cargo in the region of the Red Sea, Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden.

Reports indicate that the Israeli-controlled Port of Eilat has been negatively impacted by the operations conducted by the YAF. Even though the U.S. and the United Kingdom have conducted aerial strikes against the people of Yemen and their infrastructure over the last several months, it has not curtailed their determination to enhance politico-military pressure on Tel Aviv. 

Namibian Justice Ministry Says Its Position Is Based Upon International Law

Although the U.S. and other imperialist states frequently claim that they are the genuine upholders of international law, their foreign policy towards Occupied Palestine proves otherwise. This also held true in regard to the former situation in South Africa, Namibia and throughout the sub-continent.

From the 1960s thru the 1980s there were numerous international decisions within the UN which gave credence to the struggle for the abolition of apartheid and settler-colonialism. However, it would take mass demonstrations, boycotts and educational projects conducted in conjunction with the struggle of the people of Southern Africa which turned the tide in favor of anti-colonialism and national independence.

Several months before, the now-deceased President Hage Geingob had denounced its former colonial power Germany for its unconditional support to the State of Israel. This declaration by Geingob was viewed as a means to compliment the legal efforts by South Africa while at the same time extending its historical legacy of international solidarity with all oppressed and exploited peoples around the globe.

The Minister of Justice of the Republic of Namibia articulated the reasoning behind its stance on Palestinian solidarity. She told the state-owned New Era newspaper that the refusal to allow the vessel to dock in Namibian ports was the only just decision in light of the existing laws and the political considerations in favor of the plight of the Palestinians.

Yvonne Dausab, the Minister of Justice said that:

“Yes, I have asked Namport (Namibian Ports Authority) via the line ministry to consider the request to not allow the vessel MV Kathrin to dock in our ports. As such, it was necessary to engage authorities in Namibia on issues of concern to ensure our decisions and actions domestically are aligned with our obligations in terms of international law and our policy stance of many years on Palestine. I addressed a letter to Cabinet, international relations ministry, works ministry, as well as the safety and security ministry, advising and reminding them of our international obligations, not only under the Genocide Convention but also as articulated in the recent advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). It is against this background that I requested the relevant authorities not to allow the vessel MV Kathrin to dock at the Walvis Bay port.” 

These principled views of the Namibian government add to the diversity of tactics within the Palestine solidarity movement. As in other national liberation struggles, this multiplicity of political forces and tactics have resulted in victory over injustice.

Irrespective of the incorrect policies of the imperialist states towards the Palestinian question, the masses of the people throughout the world are working feverishly on behalf of the colonized people. These contradictions will inevitably create the conditions which will prove favorable to the objectives of the Palestinians and other progressive forces throughout the entire West Asia region.

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

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The impact on mortality and morbidity of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine has been confirmed by a Pfizer Confidential Report — released and made public under Freedom of Information in October 2021. The confidential Pfizer Report –barely acknowledged by the media– was known to national governments and health authorities Worldwide. It confirms that the so-called Covid Vaccine is a killer.

Nicaragua Takes Germany to the World Court for Facilitating Israel’s Genocide

By Prof. Marjorie Cohn, September 04, 2024

As Israel’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinians in Gaza — which has killed more than 33,000 Gazans — enters its seventh month, Nicaragua sued Germany in the International Court of Justice (ICJ, or World Court) for facilitating genocide.

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For nearly eight decades, the West and its “nuclear alliance” of 32 NATO countries have perpetuated the threat of global nuclear catastrophe, leading to the potential of a “nuclear winter” that could impact the entire world. In order for humanity to survive in this nuclear age, a paradigm shift for change is necessary.

As Israel’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinians in Gaza — which has killed more than 33,000 Gazans — enters its seventh month, Nicaragua sued Germany in the International Court of Justice (ICJ, or World Court) for facilitating genocide.

Nicaragua charged that,

“Germany has provided political, financial and military support to Israel fully aware at the time of authorization that the military equipment would be used in the commission of great breaches of international law,” adding, “The military equipment provided by Germany enabling Israel to perpetrate genocidal acts and other atrocities, included supplies to the front line and warehouses, and assurances of future supplies such as ammunition, technology and diverse components necessary for the Israeli military.”

Nicaragua also cited Germany’s defunding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which “provides essential support to the civilian population.”

Germany is the second-largest arms supplier to Israel, accounting for 30 percent of imports between 2019 and 2023. The United States, Israel’s chief enabler, provided it with 69 percent of its arms imports during the same period.

On October 12, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stated,

At this moment, there is only one place for Germany: the place at the side of Israel. This is what we mean when we say that Israel’s security is a German raison d’État. Our own history, our responsibility arising from the Holocaust, makes it our perpetual duty to stand up for the existence and security of the State of Israel. This responsibility guides us.

 

Scholz with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv, Oct. 17, 2023. (Amos Ben Gershom / Government Press Office of Israel, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)

In a historic hearing on April 8 and 9, Nicaragua presented its case to the ICJ and Germany denied the charges. Nicaragua asked the World Court to order five provisional measures “as a matter of extreme urgency” for Germany’s alleged

“participation in the ongoing plausible genocide and serious breaches of international humanitarian law and other peremptory norms of general international law occurring in the Gaza Strip.”

Daniel Müller, a lawyer on Nicaragua’s legal team, reminded the ICJ that 10 days prior, when the court ordered additional provisional measures against Israel in South Africa’s case, it called the living conditions in Gaza “catastrophic” and the recent developments “exceptionally grave.” The court found “an imminent risk of irreparable harm to ‘the right of the Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide’.”

“Nicaragua is acting not only on its own behalf on the basis of the rights and obligations conferred by the peremptory norms invoked, but also on behalf of the Palestinian people that is being subjected to one of the most destructive military actions in modern history,” Carlos José Argüello Gómez, Nicaragua’s ambassador to the Netherlands, told the court.

Gómez said that although Nicaragua hasn’t been subjected to as much inhuman treatment and destruction as the Palestinians have suffered for more than 75 years, “it has also been subject to intervention and military attacks for most of its existence and feels empathy for the Palestinian people.”

In the 1984 case of Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicar. v. U.S.), the ICJ ruled against U.S. intervention in Nicaragua, which included the mining of ports, the destruction of oil installations, and the training, arming and equipping of the Contras (who were trying to overthrow the Nicaraguan government).

 

Dutch protest against U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s interference in Nicaragua, April 23, 1983. (Rob Croes for Anefo, Wikimedia Commons, CC0)

Gómez stated the Israeli government “should not be confused and equated with the Jewish people,” noting that Jewish victims of the Holocaust “would feel sympathy and empathize with the more than 30,000 civilians, including 25,000 mothers and children massacred so far in Palestine, and the 20,000 children orphaned and the two mothers being killed every hour.”

Germany Increased Military Aid to Israel and Cut Funding to UNRWA as Genocide Unfolded

The Genocide Convention imposes on third parties the obligation to prevent genocide from the time they become aware that genocide might be committed. Gómez told the court “there can be no question” that Germany “was well aware and is well aware of at least the serious risk of genocide being committed, most certainly after your Order of 26 January [for provisional measures].”

Gómez argued that Germany was on notice of Israel’s international lawbreaking, citing 32 statements made from October 9, 2023 to April 5, 2024, by hundreds of highly respected experts, authorities, organizations, legal scholars and practitioners accusing Israel of breaching or plausibly breaching the Genocide Convention.

“With all this undeniable knowledge of the situation,” Gómez declared, “Germany’s reaction was to increase its military assistance to Israel.” He also cited Germany’s announcement that it would intervene in favor of Israel in the case of South Africa v. Israel, which is pending in the ICJ. And, Gómez said, in spite of the ICJ’s January 26 finding that Israel was plausibly committing genocide, “Germany continued, and still continues to this day, to supply weapons and military assistance in general to Israel.”

For the year 2023, the German government authorized 326 million euros for exports of military equipment and weapons of war to Israel, Nicaragua’s attorney Müller told the court. Export licenses for war weapons worth 20 million euros included “3,000 anti-tank weapons — which according to one manufacturer in Germany are ‘a complete toolbox of shoulder-launched infantry weapon[s]’ used against tanks, but also vehicles, structures and buildings, and persons — 500,000 rounds of machine gun ammunition, 44 propellant charges — a key component in artillery ammunition — and 239 ignition charges.”

Müller said these weapons are “built to and aimed at destroying and killing, or to quote from Germany’s own definition, ‘objects [and] substances . . . capable . . . of causing destruction or damage to persons or property and of serving as a means of using force in armed conflicts between States.’”

In spite of the Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Germany continues to provide military assistance to Israel. Germany is facilitating or improving the provision of humanitarian aid in Gaza. But, Müller argued, “It is indeed a pathetic excuse to the Palestinian children, women and men in Gaza to provide humanitarian aid, including through air drops, on the one hand, and to furnish the weapons and military equipment that are used to kill and annihilate them — and to kill also humanitarian aid workers as most recently evidenced by the missile attack against vehicles and workers of World Central Kitchen, on the other hand.”

Gómez noted the involvement of German companies in the military industry which “are directly profiting from the situation as they have seen their share prices rise since October and they have substantially increased the joint development contracts for weapons with their Israeli counterparts.”

Nicaragua also cited Germany’s suspension of funding for UNRWA in Gaza the day after the ICJ’s January 26 order, “based on the sole say-so of the Israeli government,” as evidence of Germany’s facilitation of genocide. “UNRWA is the most important partner for providing assistance to the people in the Gaza Strip,” Germany’s federal minister admitted on November 7, 2023. The suspension of funding deprived UNRWA of $450 million.

Nicaragua Debunked Germany’s Argument That Israel Is Acting in Lawful Self-Defense

Nicaragua argued that Israel was confusing the right to protect its people with the right of self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, citing the 2004 ICJ’s advisory opinion in Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. In that case, the court held that Israel, as an occupying power, cannot claim self-defense in the territory it occupies. “Surprisingly,” Gómez stated, “Germany seems not to be able to differentiate between self-defense and genocide.”

 

ICJ courtroom on the second day of hearings of Nicaragua’s oral arguments against Germany for facilitating Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, April 9. (UN Photo/ICJ-Frank van Beek, courtesy of the ICJ)

Moreover, Nicaragua asserted that “the Palestinian people have the right to self-determination” which includes “the right to take up arms against alien occupation and against racist régimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination as enshrined in the [UN] Charter” and the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States.

Gómez noted that the events of October 7 “did not occur in a void, on the spur of the moment, without any provocation.” He quoted UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who said on October 24, “It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.”

“If the actions of Israel continue unrestrained as they have since its birth as a State, and they continue to receive the indiscriminate support of States like Germany, then a new generation of Palestinians will rise up again in the near future,” Gómez predicted.

Nicaragua Is Seeking Five Provisional Measures

Nicaragua asked the ICJ to order that Germany not make the situation in Gaza worse, by “providing or allowing the provision of munitions of war and other direct support for Israel at this juncture and by depriving UNRWA . . . of funding and of the ability to continue working in accordance with its mandate.”

These are the provisional measures that Nicaragua is requesting:

(1) Germany shall immediately suspend its aid to Israel, in particular its military assistance including military equipment, in so far as this aid may be used in the violation of the Genocide Convention, international humanitarian law or other peremptory norms of general international law such as the Palestinian People’s right to self-determination and to not be subject to a regime of apartheid;

(2) Germany must immediately make every effort to ensure that weapons already delivered to Israel are not used to commit genocide, contribute to acts of genocide or are used in such a way as to violate international humanitarian law;

(3) Germany must immediately do everything possible to comply with its obligations under humanitarian law;

(4) Germany must reverse its decision to suspend the funding of UNRWA as part of the compliance of its obligations to prevent genocide and acts of genocide and the violation of the humanitarian rights of the Palestinian People which also includes the obligation to do everything possible to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches the Palestinian people, more particularly in Gaza;

(5) Germany must cooperate to bring to an end the serious breaches of peremptory norms of international law by ceasing its support, including its supply of military equipment to Israel that may be used to commit serious crimes of international law and that it continue the support of the UNRWA on which this Organization has counted and based its activities.

Germany Claims It Can’t be Held Responsible Because Israel Isn’t a Party to the Case

Germany’s legal team raised two main defenses. First, the ICJ has no jurisdiction in the case because Germany’s responsibility is dependent on a finding that Israel is committing genocide and Israel is not a party to this case. Second, Germany has a “robust legal framework” to assess on a case-by-case basis whether export licenses comport with its domestic and international obligations and most of its exports since October 2023 have not been “war weapons.”

Agent Tania von Uslar-Gleichen argued on behalf of Germany that Nicaragua’s accusations “have no basis in fact or law. They are dependent on an assessment of conduct of Israel, not a party to these proceedings.” She said the case was brought to the court “on the basis of the flimsiest of evidence.”

Image: Uslar-Gleichen on April 9 at the World Court. (UN Photo/ICJ-CIJ/Frank van Beek, courtesy of the ICJ)

Samuel Wordsworth, also representing Germany, told the ICJ it had no jurisdiction to hear this case. He explained that Israel was not before the court and determinations about its conduct were a prerequisite to finding responsibility on the part of Germany. In South Africa v. Israel, the ICJ held it was “plausible” that Israel was committing genocide. A final determination on the merits will take a number of years. Before determining whether Germany is breaching its international obligations, “the Court must first determine that Israel has committed genocide,” Wordsworth maintained. “The responsibility of Germany is alleged, but in complete reliance on asserted wrongful acts of Israel.” Thus, he said, Israel is “an indispensable third party.”

But Anne Peters, another member of Germany’s legal team, admitted that if the court found it “plausible” that Israel is violating international law, it can then determine whether “plausible facts” establish “plausible violations” by Germany.

Germany Claims That Most of Its Exports to Israel Aren’t “War Weapons”

Peters said that Nicaragua hasn’t presented any evidence that “military equipment from Germany could have made a significant contribution to an alleged genocide or to breaches of international humanitarian law” in light of “Germany’s stringent licensing standards.”

 

Members of the German delegation during Nicaragua’s case against Germany for arming Israel as it commits a genocide, April 8, 2024. (UN Photo/ICJ-CIJ/Frank van Beek, courtesy of the ICJ)

Von Uslar-Gleichen told the court that since October 7, 2023, 98 percent of the licenses granted in Germany for exports to Israel were not for “war weapons,” but rather for “other military equipment.” Eighty percent of the volume approved for export was authorized in October 2023, she said.

Since October 2023, “we see no artillery shells, no munitions. Nearly all exports involve what is known as ‘other military equipment,’ typically of a subordinate or defensive nature,” she stated. This generally includes “defense equipment against chemical hazards, protective gear such as helmets or body protection plates, communication equipment, camouflage paint and components, parts and other equipment of a subordinate character.”

Von Uslar-Gleichen admitted, however, that Germany did license the export of war weapons to Israel four times in the past six months. Two licenses for “training” (not combat) ammunition, including 500,000 pieces of ammunition, were approved in November, and an additional 1,000 pieces were approved in early 2024. A third license was approved for propellant charge in connection with a joint project between German and Israeli industry but they were for test purposes. The fourth license was for the export of 3,000 portable anti-tank weapons “in the immediate context of Hamas massacres,” she said.

In 2023, Israel asked Germany for tank ammunition, but no license has yet been granted. One license has been granted for a submarine, but since it is a “war weapon” it requires two licenses for export so it has not yet been approved, Von Uslar-Gleichen told the ICJ. Nicaragua’s references to artillery shells and munitions to be used in Gaza “simply bear no relation to reality. Germany rejects them,” she stated.

Gómez argued on behalf of Nicaragua that

“it does not matter if an artillery shell is delivered straight from Germany to an Israeli tank shelling a hospital” or replenishes Israel’s stockpiles. “The fact is that the assurance of supplies and replacement of armaments is crucial to Israel’s pursuit of the attacks in Gaza,” he told the ICJ, adding that Germany is aware of “the serious risk of genocide being committed.”

The ICJ Case Is a Diplomatic and Organizing Tool

Although the United States is by far the largest provider of weapons to Israel, it hasn’t been sued in the ICJ because it won’t accept the court’s jurisdiction except in cases where the U.S. government explicitly consents. Germany has consented to full jurisdiction of the ICJ so it is an easier target than the U.S. for Nicaragua’s lawsuit.

“The ICJ is not going to end the war in Gaza, but it is a diplomatic tool that foreign policy uses to apply additional pressure on Israel,” Brian Finucane, senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, told The New York Times. “In the Nicaragua case, it further applies pressure on Germany.”

Civil society also stepped up the pressure to coincide with the ICJ hearing on Nicaragua’s case against Germany. CODEPINK delegations picketed, rallied and delivered petitions to German missions throughout the U.S. These actions were part of an international campaign of solidarity with Palestinian Germans who risk beatings and arrest when they demonstrate against Germany’s complicity in Israel’s genocide.

The ICJ will issue a ruling on Nicaragua’s request for provisional measures in Nicaragua v. Germany in the next few weeks.

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Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, dean of the People’s Academy of International Law and past president of the National Lawyers Guild. She sits on the national advisory boards of Assange Defense and Veterans For Peace. A member of the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, she is the U.S. representative to the continental advisory council of the Association of American Jurists. Her books include Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues.

Featured image: Nicaragua’s Carlos Argüello Gómez on April 8 during oral arguments against Germany for facilitating Israel’s genocide in Palestine. (UN Photo/Frank van Beek, Courtesy of the ICJ)

Nine-month-old babies must receive multiple doses of an unlicensed mRNA COVID-19 vaccine to be considered “up to date” with their COVID-19 vaccination, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC’s updated guidance, issued Aug. 30, states that children — as young as 6 months old — should get either two doses of the 2024-2025 Moderna vaccine or three doses of the 2024-2025 Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

If getting the new Pfizer shot, the baby is supposed to receive the first dose at 6 months, the second dose three weeks later and the third dose at least eight weeks after the second dose — meaning, that by 9 months old, babies are supposed to have received three Pfizer shots.

If getting the latest Moderna shot, the CDC recommends babies get the first dose at age 6 months and the second dose a month later.

The latest Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 shots for children under 12 are unlicensed in the U.S. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted only emergency use authorization (EUA) for the vaccines.

Children’s Health Defense (CHD) CEO Mary Holland told The Defender,

“The earlier COVID shots have been proven unsafe and ineffective. Now we’re asked to believe that newer versions are miraculously safe and effective?”

“This is an insult to people’s intelligence,” she said, “I pray that parents will have the good sense to say no to these dangerous and unnecessary shots for babies.”

As of July 28, 37,814 deaths following COVID-19 vaccination had been reported to VAERS, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, run by the FDA and CDC.

Of those, 187 reports were for children and teens under 18. Nearly 13,000 reports listed the age as “unknown.”

VAERS analyst and expert Albert Benavides recently told The Defender he believes VAERS is “throttling” and underreporting deaths of all ages following COVID-19 vaccination.

Meanwhile, the CDC continues to tell the public that COVID-19 vaccines are “safe and effective.”

CDC ‘Absolutely Misleading’ Public on Safety of EUA Vaccines

Holland said the CDC is “absolutely misleading” the public by asserting that COVID-19 EUA vaccines are safe and effective because EUA vaccines are not held to the same safety or efficacy standards as licensed vaccines.

“By law,” she explained, “EUA products ‘may be effective,’ and they have not undergone the safety testing required to permit licensing.”

“This is one more horrific example of the CDC putting profits before people and acting as an unethical arm of Big Pharma’s marketing operation,” Holland added.

CHD Chief Scientific Officer Brian Hooker agreed.

“It is criminal that these untested vaccines are being recommended to infants and children, especially given the fraudulent tactics to market them to an unsuspecting public,” Hooker told The Defender.

There’s No Licensed COVID Vaccine for Kids Under 12

There are still no licensed COVID-19 vaccines available for children under 12, Hooker said — so all COVID-19 vaccines given to young kids are EUA products.

The FDA’s website on EUA for medical products states that EUA vaccines only have to meet the standard of “may be effective” as long as if, “based on the totality of the scientific evidence, it is reasonable to believe that the product may be effective for the specified use.”

“The ‘may be effective’ standard for EUAs provides for a lower level of evidence than the ‘effectiveness’ standard that FDA uses for product approvals,” the website states.

Before a vaccine can be fully licensed, the vaccine maker typically is required to conduct numerous clinical trials to demonstrate that the product is safe. However, the safety requirements for EUA are more flexible.

According to the FDA:

“The amount and type(s) of safety information that FDA recommends be submitted as part of a request for an EUA will differ depending upon a number of factors, including whether the product is approved for another indication and, in the case of an unapproved product, the product’s stage of development.”

Despite this, the first statement on the CDC’s “6 Things to Know about COVID-19 Vaccination for Children” says, “COVID-19 vaccination for children is safe.”

Risks Outweigh Benefits for Kids

Hooker said the CDC’s actions are especially problematic as, historically, the meaning of “safe” has been interpreted by regulatory authorities as meaning that the benefits of a drug outweigh its risks.

“With the risk to children of dying from a COVID-19 infection being statistically zero, it is unclear if there is any benefit,” he said.

Meanwhile, the CDC still claims that “while adverse reactions are rare, the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh the known risks of COVID-19 and possible severe complications.”

Pfizer Fact Sheet More Forthcoming About Risks

For licensed vaccines, the CDC typically provides an official vaccine information statement (VIS) that describes the vaccine’s risks and potential benefits.

According to the CDC website,

“Federal law requires that healthcare staff provide a VIS to a patient, parent, or legal representative before each dose of certain vaccines.”

However, for EUA COVID-19 vaccines, the CDC directs people to “fact sheets” — produced by the vaccine manufacturer, not the CDC, and authorized by the FDA — which detail the product’s risks and benefits.

There is no federal law requiring healthcare providers to share these fact sheets with patients, or parents of minors, before a COVID-19 vaccination.

“Pfizer’s own ‘fact sheet’ for its latest COVID-19 vaccine appears to give a more accurate picture [of the vaccine’s risks] than the CDC’s own websites,” Hooker said. “Shouldn’t the CDC be more a watchdog than Pfizer?”

For example, Pfizer’s fact sheet states,

“A product authorized for emergency use has not undergone the same type of review by FDA as an FDA-approved product.”

The Pfizer fact sheet also acknowledges that its vaccine “may not protect everyone” and that reported side effects associated with the Pfizer vaccines include myocarditis and pericarditis.

Hooker pointed out that research has shown that vaccine-induced myocarditis, inflammation of the heart, and pericarditis, inflammation of the tissue surrounding the heart can be fatal.

He urged parents to “read between the lines” when assessing the CDC’s COVID-19 vaccination recommendation for babies and children.

“Most of all,” he added, “use common sense to decide if the CDC’s and the FDA’s logic is sound.”

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Ray Flores is a health freedom rights attorney. His interest in natural living started in the 1980’s when he began working in the burgeoning natural foods industry.

Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., is a reporter and researcher for The Defender based in Fairfield, Iowa.

Featured image is from CHD

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The political trial against civil rights activist Dr Reiner Fullmich reveals the motives and behaviour of a compromised constitutional state.

Open violation of the law and legal trickery are intended to secure the conviction of Dr Füllmich. The misconduct of the public prosecutor’s office and judges is documented. So is the involvement of malicious third parties. They are part of the conspiracy against the investigator, who has already been illegally deprived of his freedom for over six months.

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The history of the proceedings against civil rights activist Dr Reiner Füllmich is impressive evidence of the erosion of the rule of law in the Federal Republic of Germany.

From the preparations for Füllmich’s arrest to the final statement by the Göttingen district court presided over by judge Carsten Schindler at the end of April, a common thread runs through the trial. At every turn, the proceedings ooze the intention to bring about a conviction of the persecuted man at all costs. Right from the start.

While the conspiracy against the civil rights activist initially appeared to be the work of the public prosecutor’s office, the Federal Criminal Police Office and Füllmich’s former co-partners, it is now clear that the court also wants – or needs – to ensure the persecuted man’s unconditional conviction.

During the trial, some observers still hoped that the court was actually interested in establishing the facts and would soon realise that it had been deliberately misled by the prosecution and the complainants. However, the court’s statement of 26 April 2024 destroyed the last hope of a constitutional trial, even for the greatest optimists. Once again, Schindler and his accomplices fabricated new accusations against the civil rights activist. The contrived trial is now turning into a legal farce.

The Füllmich Thriller: In the Beginning Was the Lie

Even the beginning of Füllmich’s persecution could be the subject of a cheap Hollywood-thriller. The story went like this: the young public prosecutor Simon Philipp John sets up a persecution scenario with former co-partners of the victim. Their holey story: Reiner Füllmich had illegally appropriated money and gold from the Corona Committee and wanted to make off with it. The fact that neither money nor gold were in his possession was irrelevant. For the story to be relevant at all, the complainants (the renegade lawyers Justus Hoffmann, Antonia Fischer and Marcel Templin) and the public prosecutor had to deceive the prosecuting authorities (BKA) and the courts – or co-operate with them.

The grotesque play was initialised by Viviane Fischer, Füllmich’s assessor on the Corona Committee, who in turn is primarily responsible for the prosecution of Füllmich. She had insidiously thrown the head of the Corona Committee out of the committee on 2 September 2022. While she led Füllmich to believe that no committee meeting was taking place, she used the actual meeting to publicly execute Füllmich. Since that day, Fischer has been waging a private war against her mentor and doing everything she can to put him behind bars. As a partner of the people who filed the charges, she plays the most inglorious role in this conspiracy.

Conditions for Prosecution

In order for Dr Füllmich to be prosecuted at all, the public prosecutor’s office had to make up a number of lies. In the end, they had to apply for an arrest warrant. This is where prosecutor John and the renegade lawyers showed their creativity. In order to demonstrate the illegality of Füllmich’s behaviour, they simply claimed, by omitting important information, that Füllmich should never have had access to the committee’s funds. In doing so, they maliciously concealed the fact that all managing directors were exempted from the restrictions of § 181 BGB by a shareholders‘ resolution. Füllmich therefore acted lawfully at all times within the scope of the powers conferred on him when securing the committee’s funds.

The Illegal Deal: Public Prosecutor and Co-prosecutors Working Together

Public prosecutor Simon Philipp John and the renegade lawyers constructed the Füllmich case in close coordination with each other. The very nature of the cooperation between the prosecution and those involved in a civil dispute is remarkable. Antonia Fischer forwarded all negotiation correspondence between the shareholders of the Corona Committee to public prosecutor John and maintained a personal relationship with him in this exchange.

Not only that: they discussed the possibilities of prosecuting and imprisoning Füllmich. This happened while the negotiations between Füllmich and the other committee members about the loan repayment were still ongoing. During the trial, Antonia Fischer admitted that she had never been interested in a negotiated outcome. She only ever wanted to get Füllmich into prison. The other main accomplice in the Füllmich conspiracy, Justus P. Hoffman, made a similar statement. The renegade lawyers, in coordination with the public prosecutor’s office, prevented an agreement in order to maintain the claim that Füllmich had committed misconduct.

Füllmich had already taken the first steps to return secured funds in accordance with the agreement. However, it would have been a disaster for the desired imprisonment and elimination of the civil rights activist if an agreement had been implemented. The lawyer and doctoral supervisor of Justus P. Hoffmann, Professor Martin Schwab, was to receive a power of attorney to make the secured gold – with the joint signature of Viviane Fischer – available to the committee. However, Schwab refused. One can only speculate about the reasons.

Acts Planned Jointly by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Committee Traitors

Not all details of these agreements between public prosecutor John and his accomplices are documented. The construction of the prosecution of Dr Füllmich was largely secret and therefore also formally illegal. John failed to keep a record of the agreements and telephone calls or to make recordings. This is further unlawful behaviour on the part of the public prosecutor. However, the available evidence is sufficient to prove that a case was constructed here and that the illegal abduction of Dr Füllmich from Mexico was jointly prepared.

The Federal Criminal Police Office Abducts Dr Reiner Füllmich

In the course of the abduction of the civil rights activist, the complicity of the Federal Criminal Police Office in the illegal action was also revealed. The public prosecutor’s office and the renegade lawyers set a trap for Reiner Füllmich. He was to be lured to the German consulate in Tijuana under the pretence that a signature was still missing from a document. The subsequent arrest by the Mexican authorities was coordinated by the BKA field office. This is evident from the communication of the service.

Under the pretext of a visa offence, Füllmich was arrested by his Mexican „colleagues“, put on a plane to Germany and arrested there as planned. As agreed, Reiner Füllmich was denied the opportunity to appeal against his deportation. The fact that the „visa offence“ was also part of the plan and an illegal favour is shown by the fact that Dr Füllmich’s wife was not expelled from the country in the same situation as her husband. It was only ever about illegally deporting Füllmich to the FRG in order to bring him to trial there.

The Federal Criminal Police Office and a Ridiculous “Denial”

The involvement of the BKA in the abduction of the civil rights activist has been proven. It is clear from the communication between the BKA and the public prosecutor’s office. However, the BKA also appears elsewhere in this bizarre piece: Dr Füllmich’s co-counsel, the Cologne criminal defence lawyer Christof Miseré, was leaked information which could describe the activities of the services (BKA, BND and/or Verfassungsschutz). It describes Füllmich’s work and defines the aim of preventing him from continuing to be publicly effective or even holding public office.

In order to verify the “truthfulness“ of the dossier, the public prosecutor’s office questioned the Federal Criminal Police Office. Of course, no one seriously expects an authority to confirm that it is involved in the illegal persecution of political dissidents and is being instrumentalised against the investigation. On the contrary, one would expect a clear denial. In the sense of: This paper and its contents do not originate from our authority, either in whole or in part. That would be a denial. However, the office’s answer is different: “It is therefore very unlikely that this is a document written by the BKA.“

Dr Christof Miseré:

“As a public prosecutor, I ask an authority whether they keep a body in the cellar and receive the answer that this is rather unlikely because bodies are usually buried in the attic of history.“

Regardless of the degree of involvement of the Federal Criminal Police Office in the persecution of the civil rights activist, its involvement in the abduction of Füllmich is proven by the available communication. In doing so, the Federal Criminal Police Office has foregone a constitutional way of detaining Dr Füllmich within the framework of internationally valid extradition procedures. This would have involved applying for an international arrest warrant and co-operating with Interpol. The procedure is well known to the BKA. However, the fabricated allegations would never have been sufficient for an international prosecution. So the only remaining option was the illegal route of abduction coordinated with the Mexican authorities.

The Metamorphosis of the Accusations – Conviction at Any Price

Once it was clear that Reiner Füllmich was exempt from the restrictions of Section 181 of the German Civil Code (BGB), it could have been established that the original accusation was unfounded and that there were no unlawful dispositions. The proceedings could have been discontinued and the shareholders could have continued their negotiations, which had been interrupted by the kidnapping, to determine when and how the loan amounts protected from state access should be transferred back to one of the Corona Committee companies. Due to this deliberate deception by the public prosecutor’s office and its accomplices, the court wrongly assumed from September 2022 to November 2023 that Füllmich could already be accused of criminal behaviour solely because of the lack of exemption from Section 181 BGB.

Image: Lawyer Katja Wörmer und Dr. Reiner Füllmich. Photo: Swen Pfortner/dpa

In court, Füllmich’s lawyer Katja Wörmer submitted the following as part of a motion:

“At the time, the first shareholder resolution confirming the exemption from Section 181 BGB and the sole management of all shareholders was not submitted – most likely intentionally, in order to deliberately incriminate the defendant more severely and ensure that a criminal investigation was opened.“

For the court chaired by Carsten Schindler, the tricks and deceptions that constructed the case play no role. Although the public prosecutor and her accomplices had deceived the court in several ways, although the senior public prosecutor Dr Kutzner was not even able to read the email correspondence between Dr Füllmich and Viviane Fischer correctly and gave the impression in her statement that she had either not read the file or was mentally deranged, the judge seemingly went on his way without any irritation at these fatal errors. He enjoys playing the keyboard of arbitrariness and ignores all motions and evidence, as if he had been instructed to ensure a conviction of the civil rights activist at all costs.

Carsten Schindler is leading the proceedings against civil rights activist Dr Reiner Füllmich. While the lawyer initially gave the impression that he was interested in a constitutional trial, his latest „sleight of hand“ (quote from lawyer Dr C. Miseré) shocked trial observers, international human rights activists and lawyers alike. Schindler’s name will be remembered in the future with one of the most curious cases in German legal history: When the FRG illegally abducted a civil rights activist from Mexico in order to put him on a contrived trial.

When it could be proven on the basis of the shareholders‘ resolutions that Füllmich had effective sole power of representation, the court looked for new ways to incriminate the persecuted man. Füllmich’s lawyer Katja Wörmer commented:

“When this argument was no longer possible, the district court simply reinterpreted the justification for the criminal offence as an abuse of power of representation.“

This means nothing other than: First, the court claimed that the persecuted person was not authorised to make his orders. When it then turned out that he was, the court changed its view and said that he was authorised but had abused his power of representation.

The Second Trick Also Fails

However, the questioning of the witnesses by lawyer Katja Wörmer and the persecuted man himself quickly showed that there had been no misuse of the power of representation. Even his former partners on the Corona Committee confirmed Dr Füllmich’s statements. Füllmich and Viviane Fischer wanted to protect the committee’s funds from possible access by the state or make this access more difficult. The donations had to disappear from the current accounts. The state had already frozen the funds of critics too often.

Viviane Fischer and Reiner Füllmich took two steps: firstly, they bought gold, which could retain its value even in the event of an economic crisis. Secondly, Fischer and Füllmich shifted the committee’s funds into their private sphere by granting loans. The loans were recognised in the accounting records and contractually agreed. The parties involved agreed that the loan amounts should be repaid to the committee.

Things went wrong? No problem.

So the second prosecution trick, supported by Judge Carsten Schindler, was also dashed by reality. It was proven that the funds were transferred by way of loan agreements and were to be repaid. The persons involved were authorised to do so on the basis of the existing agreements and had documented the procedure. They adopted the regulations and their legal content as their own. The loan agreements were therefore validly agreed. Everyone agreed on this – which is why the dispute between the shareholders centred on the question of when and how the loans were to be repaid. In Dr Füllmich’s case, this was to take place after the sale of his private property. He had never stated otherwise.

The fact that Dr Füllmich’s loan amounts were not repaid was due to an equally illegal arrangement. In collaboration with the notary who notarised the sale of the Füllmich family’s property, one of the complainants, Marcel Templin, in coordination with the other accomplices (Justus P. Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer), appropriated further parts of the proceeds from the sale of the property without sufficient legal grounds. Piquantly, the public prosecutor’s office blocked the Füllmichs‘ accounts – but did not seize the illegally collected share of the sales proceeds from Templin. No investigations were initiated against Marcel Templin either. He is now suspected of being an employee of the authorities and of ensuring the persecution of the civil rights activist Füllmich on their behalf and making it impossible for him to repay the agreed loan.

The arsenal of obstruction of justice is vast.

After the public prosecutor’s office had failed to substantiate the allegations against Dr Füllmich despite all the illegal machinations and objective misrepresentations, the court now came to the prosecutor’s aid. This was a surprise for the defence and the prosecution: the agreed loan agreements, which had been intended, described and assessed as such by all parties involved, were suddenly – after several weeks of trial – simply reinterpreted by the court.

The court is now constructing a „fiduciary relationship“ in order to ensure that Dr Füllmich is convicted. In the court’s instructions read out by presiding judge Carsten Schindler, the court now prefers to assume that a „fiduciary safekeeping of the funds was agreed in such a way that these funds were to be available at all times in bank accounts on behalf of the pre-company“. The court relied solely on the statements made by Viviane Fischer, who also placed herself at the service of the prosecution.

Schindler achieves two things with this creative volte face. Firstly, Viviane Fischer is released from the previously assumed complicity in the joint offence with Reiner Füllmich. This means that a participant in the persecution of the civil rights activist has been removed from the focus of the prosecution. At the same time, the court will now attempt to construct a claim based on the breach of a duty to look after assets. Remember: up to now, the question was whether the agreed loans could have been repaid by Füllmich and whether he had intended to do so. Since both questions can be answered in the affirmative based on the investigation of the facts and the questioning of witnesses, no damage can be assumed either for the companies of the committee or the co-shareholders.

In the „opinion“ of the court, the arbitrary assumption of a fiduciary relationship should make it possible to construct a criminal offence. Schindler commented: „The defendant was already in breach of his duty to look after his assets by transferring sums of money from the previous company to his private account in the way he did.“

Under this ludicrous construction, it would therefore no longer matter that Füllmich wanted to repay the loan and had done so – the damage would now already lie in the constructed breach of fiduciary duty that Schindler and his comrades and/or clients had devised here. Despite the dramatic change it brings to the trial, the court’s statement causes bitter amusement among lawyers and human rights activists. The presiding judge Carsten Schindler explained:

„The defendant’s argument that he had „parked“ the money in his property and that this was in the interests of the previous company because the bank account could be more easily seized by arbitrary state measures than property assets is misguided in several respects. Firstly, legal protection against unlawful measures is always possible in court and, within the scope of the German Basic Law, it is not the defendant or Mrs Viviane Fischer, but the competent courts alone that decide what is unlawful and what is not.“

In recent years, the hijacked legal system of the FRG has stripped itself to the bone. Right up to the politically appointed head of the Federal Constitutional Court with its chairman, CDU grandee and Merkel friend Stefan Harbarth, who enabled all illegal measures and unconstitutional restrictions of fundamental rights as well as the abolition of parliamentarianism in the FRG, judgements have been handed down that are in every respect not of a constitutional nature. To this day, the unjust system punishes people who stand up for human rights, freedom and health.

And now a judge in a political trial based on illegal machinations of the state apparatus (kidnapping from abroad, falsification or misappropriation of evidence, illegal undocumented agreements between the public prosecutor’s office and accomplices, etc.) points out that „only the competent courts should decide what is unlawful“. The committee’s reserves were also to be kept safe from judges like Schindler. And the scope of the Basic Law could also be discussed.

Lawyer Dr Christof Miseré has clear words to say about the court’s instructions in his application to the court:

„This new, almost absurd construction also documents the fact that in the present case, at our discretion, we are dealing with a trial that is not oriented towards the objectively prescribed standards of law, but towards the final objective of convicting the defendant Dr Füllmich as a political opponent at all costs, and thus with a politicised trial influenced by political guidelines and constructs by various actors. Although I was already aware when I took over the mandate that this was more or less a political trial, including the incomparable empowerment of the accused in Mexico, I could not have imagined the legally untenable constructs that are now being used to try to realise this final objective.“

“The game is not over yet!“

Defence lawyer Dr Miseré remains optimistic. For him, the court’s behaviour is an arrogant violation of the law.

„It is not for the court to make legally binding – retrospective – findings on a contract subject to private autonomy – in this case a validly concluded and intended loan agreement – and, what is more, to replace it with a different construction determined by the court. This could at best be possible if something is declared as a loan, but no repayment of the loan amount was intended. In this case, there is no loan at all, as the gift of the loan amount and the repayment of this loan amount are constitutive elements of a loan.

A fortiori, the court may not interpret the defendant Dr Füllmich’s consistently expressed view that this was a loan that he had to repay and that he would also use it for private purposes to mean that he had in fact wanted to agree a fiduciary agreement. That is precisely not what he wanted!

To then subsequently disregard the defendant’s personal idea and replace his intention to be bound by a contract with a construct that was not agreed – namely a fiduciary agreement – and then to convict him based on the reinterpretation of his clearly expressed idea, is an arbitrary violation of the law par excellence and blatantly contradicts a fair trial.“

Lawyer Katja Wörmer: “The defendant should be sentenced to prison in any case.“

Füllmich’s lawyer Katja Wörmer also finds clear words in her application for a stay of proceedings presented in court:

„It is more than clear that the chamber intends to sentence the accused for better or worse at any cost. The legal references almost give the impression that the accused has already been convicted in the eyes of the Chamber and that the intended judgement is already as good as written in the desk drawer.“

„This is because the chamber expressly assumes that the hearing of evidence can be concluded and that no further witnesses need to be heard. However, on 24 and 25 April 2014, the undersigned was urgently requested by the presiding judge to report possible conflicts of dates for the months of May and June, as further hearing dates were to be scheduled. Just one day later, on 26.04.24, the chamber suddenly sends the legal information, which was only read out on 03.05.24, via be a outside the main hearing, which is actually an anticipated assessment of the evidence, which is also expected to be included in the grounds for the judgement in the same form. The judgement is therefore apparently already written.„

„The defendant will be sentenced to prison in any case.“

Below is Dr. Fullmich’s statement on 01 September 2024:

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One Month Before Global Research’s Anniversary  

Featured image: More than 6 months in prison: the internationally renowned civil rights activist Dr Reiner Füllmich. Photo: Swen Pfortner/dpa

You can tell a lot about the health of a society by how it treats its warmongers and how it treats its peacemongers.

When those who push for war are elevated to positions of prominence in government and media while those who push for peace are smeared as antisemites and Russian agents, you know you are living in a wildly dysfunctional civilization.

When politicians who promote the interests of empire managers and war profiteers rocket to the top echelons of government while those who promote the interests of war victims and ordinary people have their homes raided and their devices seized by police under counter-terrorism laws, you know you are living in a profoundly sick society.

When those who spend their lives promoting mass military slaughter at every opportunity are rewarded with esteemed and lucrative punditry careers while those who call for an end to mass military slaughter have their influence relegated to increasingly marginalized online platforms, you know you are living in dystopia.

War is the most insane thing humans do. The most destructive. The most traumatizing. The most destabilizing. The least sustainable. The least morally defensible. The least conducive to human thriving. It is promoted by the very worst among us, and it is opposed by the very best.

In a healthy society, those who dedicated themselves to the task of getting as many human beings ripped apart by military explosives as possible would be reviled as monsters and caged for the health of the collective. In our society this is seen as a perfectly legitimate career path, from which someone can earn a very comfortable living.

In a healthy society, only those who promote the interests of ordinary human beings and spurn the influence of malign manipulators would ever be elevated to positions of leadership. In our society, it’s the best way to make sure you spend your life in perpetual obscurity.

This is what powerful manipulators have successfully duped us into accepting as normal. This is the insanity that mass media propaganda and mainstream culture-manufacturing have convinced us to regard as okay. But it is not okay. It’s about as far from okay as anything could possibly be.

And now here we are, our eyes full of genocide in the foreground and a looming global conflict between nuclear-armed states in the background, with those who decry this being shouted down and silenced while those who support this become millionaires and presidents.

There is no part of this that is acceptable. Every aspect of this civilization is a freakish abomination. We’ve got to wake up to what’s going on, and we’ve got to find some way to remove the people who have placed us on this trajectory from power.

So long as any part of this nightmare looks fine and normal to most people, we’ve got no chance at a healthy world.

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One Month Before Global Research’s Anniversary 

With tremendous foresight of what is happening now, this article by the late Professor Tanya Reinart was first published by Global Research in 2002 under the title The Penal Colonies.

Our thoughts are with Tanya Reinart. Her legacy will live. 

The Netanyahu government is no longer contemplating “Separation” or “Apartheid”. There is no longer a “Two State Solution”.

The October 7, 2023 Declaration of War against Palestine consists in invading and annexing Gaza and the West Bank, while excluding Palestinians from their homeland. It’s a crime against humanity. 

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research. June 22,2024, September 4, 2024

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Israel’s Vision of Separation

The Gaza strip is a perfect realization of the Israeli vision of “separation”. Surrounded with electric fences and army posts, completely sealed off from the outside world, Gaza has become a huge prison.

About one third of its land was confiscated for the 7,000 Israeli settlers living there (and their defense array), while over a million Palestinians are crowded in the remaining areas of the prison.

With no work or sources of income, about 80% of its residents depend, for their living, on UNRWA, or contributions from Arab states and charity organizations. Now Israel is considering the imprisonment there of families of suicide bombers from the West Bank (1). As a senior Israeli analyst stated, Gaza can now serve as “the penal colony” of Israel its “devils island, Alcatraz”. (Nahum Barnea, Yediot Aharonot June 21, 2002).

This is the future that Sharon and the Israeli army designate for the West Bank as well. While the external fence is presently being built, Israel’s current military operation is set to be the final step in the implementation the IDF plans for reestablishing full military rule (which was abolished in large parts of the West Bank during the Oslo process).

Though Israel describes everything it does as a spontaneous reaction to terror, the plan was fully spelled out in the Israeli media already back in March 2001, soon after Sharon entered office. Alex Fishman, military and strategic analyst of Yediot Aharonot, explained at the time that since Oslo, “the IDF regarded the occupied territories as if they were one territorial cell”, and this placed some constraints on the IDF and enabled a certain amount of freedom for the PA and the Palestinian population. The new plan is a return to the concept of the military administration during the preOslo years: the occupied territories will be divided into tens of isolated “territorial cells”, each of which will be assigned a special military force, “and the local commander will have freedom to use his discretion” as to when and who to shoot. (Yediot Ahronot weekend supplement, March 9.2001).

Operation Defensive Shield

The first stage of this plan the destruction of the institutions of the Palestinian Authority was completed in the previous ‘Operation Defensive Shield’ in April of this year [2002]. In practice, from that time on, the towns and villages of the West Bank have been completely sealed. Even exit by foot, which was possible up to that point, became blocked, and movement between the “territorial cells” now requires formal permits from the Israeli military authorities. Soldiers and snipers prevent any “unauthorized” walking to agricultural fields, to places of work and study, or for medical treatment.

However, unlike the pre Oslo period of Israeli military rule, the army makes it clear that there is no intention to construct any civil administration that will take care of the basic daily needs of the two million Palestinians, such as food supplies, health services, garbage and sewage. For these tasks, some form of a Palestinian Authority will be maintained, though in practice it will not be allowed to function.

As a ‘military source’ told Ha’aretz,

“Internal conclusions of the security echelons, following operation ‘Defensive Shield’, assessed that the functioning of the civil branches of the Palestinian Authority had reached an unprecedented nadir, mainly due to the destruction the IDF operation left behind in Ramallah (including the systematic destruction of computers and databases)… Combined with the severe restrictions on movement, the Palestinian population is becoming, as the military source defined it, ‘poor, dependent, unemployed, rather hungry, and extreme’… The financial reserves of the Palestinian authority are reaching the bottom… In a future not far off, the majority of Palestinians will only be able to maintain a reasonable life through the help of international aid.” (Ha’aretz Hebrew edition, June 23, 2002, Amos Har’el). Thus, the West Bank is being driven to the level of poverty of the Gaza strip.

Nevertheless, at the same time that Israel deprives the Palestinians of their means of income, it also makes a substantial effort to diminish or block international aid, under the pretext that the aid is used to support terrorists or their families. At the outset of its new ‘operation’, Israel “decided to stop the flow of foodaid and medicine from Iran and Iraq to Palestinians in the territories” (Ha’aretz, June 24, 2002, Amos Har’el). Iranian and Iraqi aid is an easy target for Israel, as these countries belong to the “Axis of Evil”. However, Israel started launching a more ambitious campaign: The EU the largest PA donor is under constant pressure from Israel to cut its aid, which is used, inter alia to pay the salaries of teachers and health workers. The tactics are always the same: Israel provides some documents presumably linking the PA to terror. Any aid to the PA is, therefore, aid to terror (2).

UNRWA’s aid is the next target. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinians in the Near East (UNRWA) has become a major source of food for Palestinians in the besieged territories. Its food supplies are now delivered not only to the refugee camps, but also in towns and villages. The amount of food UNRWA supplies has increased fourfold in two years (3). Recently,

“Israel has begun a campaign in the United States and the United Nations to urge a reconsideration of the way the UN Relief and Works Agency, which runs the Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza, operates. Israel charges that UNRWA workers simply ignored the fact that Palestinian organizations were turning the camps into terrorist bases and it is demanding the agency start reporting all military or terrorist actions within the camps to the UN…. Meanwhile, Jewish and proIsraeli lobbyists in the U.S. are waging a parallel campaign … American Jewish lobbyists are basing their efforts on the fact that the U.S. currently contributes some 30 percent of UNRWA’s $400 million a year budget, and is therefore in a position to influence the agency: A congressional refusal to approve UNRWA’s funding could seriously disrupt its operations. (Ha’aretz June 29, 2002, Nathan Guttman). The campaign is not yet demanding cutting UNRWA’s aid and presence altogether, but raising the impossible demand that UNRWA should serve as an active force in “the war against terror” (“reporting military or terrorist actions”) is the first step towards such a demand.(4)

Since September 11,[2002] Sharon has been constructing an analogy between the occupied territories and Afghanistan (with the PA as Al Qaeda). He keeps declaring that the solution to Palestinian terror, and the required ‘reforms’, should be along the lines set in Afghanistan. The analogy is frighteningly revealing: As it established the ‘reforms’ in Afghanistan, the US forced starvation upon millions of people. This is how Noam Chomsky described it:

“On Sept. 16, the New York Times reported that ‘Washington has also demanded [from Pakistan] a cutoff of fuel supplies…and the elimination of truck convoys that provide much of the food and other supplies to Afghanistan’s civilian population.’ Astonishingly, that report elicited no detectable reaction in the West, a grim reminder of the nature of the Western civilization that leaders and elite commentators claim to uphold. In the following days, those demands were implemented… ‘The country was on a lifeline,’ one evacuated aid worker reports, ‘and we just cut the line’ (NY times Magazine, September 30). According to the world’s leading newspaper, then, Washington demanded that Pakistan ensures the death of enormous numbers of Afghans, millions of them already on the brink of starvation, by cutting off the limited sustenance that was keeping them alive.” (Interview with Michael Albert, reprinted in Noam Chomsky, 911, Seven Stories, 2002). Arundhati Roy, summarized this at the time: “Witness the infinite justice of the new century. Civilians starving to death while they’re waiting to be killed” (Guardian, Sept. 29).

The new stage of Israel’s ‘separation’ can no longer be compared to the Apartheid of South Africa. As Ronnie Kasrils, South Africa’s Minister of Water Affairs, said in an Interview with Al Ahram Weekly, “the South African apartheid regime never engaged in the sort of repression Israel is inflicting on the Palestinians” (Issue of March 28 April 3, 2002). We are witnessing the daily invisible killing of the sick and wounded being deprived of medical care, the weak who cannot survive in the new poverty conditions, and those who are bound to reach starvation.

Nevertheless, the public debate in Israel revolves around questions of efficiency: Is it possible to stop terror in such methods. Let us suppose even that it is. Is it allowed? Is this what we (Israelis) want to be?

One people stole the ‘Lamb of its poor neighbor'(5): Gaza and the West Bank are 22% of the land of Israel Palestine, where the Palestinians lived in the past. On this small piece of land, three million people live, with hopes, needs and dreams, just like ours.

Since Oslo, they have been lured with promises that we are about to evacuate the settlements and give them back their land, at the very same time that we have been imprisoning them in Gaza, stealing more of their land in the West Bank, and leaving them no hope whatsoever. The Palestinian people are fighting for their freedom. The crimes of Palestinian terror do not remove our culpability for our own crimes.

Before Oslo, as well, there was a wave of horrible terror attacks. But at that time, after each such attack, the call was heard get out of the territories! Then it was still understood that when you leave people no hope, there is no way to stop the madness of suicide bombing. It is not too late to get out of the territories.

Notes

(1) In its meeting on Friday, June 21, 2002, the Israeli cabinet “decided in principle in favor both of the expulsion of families of suicide strikers from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip… The implementation of this expulsion policy depends upon the outcome of a legal review.” (‘IDF set to expel bombers’ families’ By Aluf Benn, Amos Harel and Gideon Alon, Ha’aretz June 23, 2002).

(2) Here is one example of the pressure on the EU: “The documents seized from PA offices in recent months, some of which were included in the document compiled by minister without portfolio 

Dan Naveh following Operation Defensive Shield, were presented last week to the EC delegation in Israel and representatives of the International Monetary Fund at a meeting with IDF intelligence officers. Naveh claims the documents prove European financial aid has been used to finance terrorism and incitement, and has also found its way into the pockets of senior PA officials.

The head of the EC’s delegation to Israel, Giancarlo Chevallard, told Ha’aretz that at the meeting, the delegation saw evidence that Arafat is financing terrorism, but added Israel had not provided evidence that European financial aid which is designated to pay the salaries of PA employees is being used to finance terrorist attacks. Another senior delegation official said he was extremely skeptical Israel had evidence to prove European aid is being used by the PA to finance terrorism…

Meanwhile, in the shadow of the Israeli accusations, the European Parliament’s budgetary committee last week delayed the transfer of 18.7 million euros in financial aid to the PA until the EC reports how the money is to be distributed…” (Ha’aretz, June 6, 2002, Yair Ettinger) This specific frozen amount was released in the meanwhile, however Israel’s pressure continues.

(3) Amos Har’el, ‘The IDF neutralizes the Palestinian Authority, and humanitarian organizations try to replace it’, Ha’aretz Hebrew edition, June 23, 2002. (Quoted before).

(4). The campaign against UNRWA started earlier: “In letters written to Annan in May, Republican U.S. Senator Arlen Specter and Democratic U.S. Representative Tom Lantos accused the U.N. agency of allowing and promoting terrorist activity in the camps. Specter said UNRWA schools promoted antiIsraeli and anti Semitic sentiments and Lantos said the agency allowed terrorists to organize in the camps.”(Inter Press Service, June 24, 2002)

(5) Bible, Samuel II, 12:11: “12:1The LORD sent Natan to David. He came to him, and said to him, “There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor. 12:2The rich man had very many flocks and herds, 12:3but the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and raised. It grew up together with him, and with his children. It ate of his own food, drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was to him like a daughter. 12:4A traveler came to the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man who had come to him, but took the poor man’s lamb, and dressed it for the man who had come to him.” (http://ebible.org/bible/hnv/2Sam.htm)

A good tiny step, a public relations ploy given the UN’s failure to stop the carnage — or something even more sinister: “Is Israel engaging in biological warfare against the Palestinians?”

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In October 2023, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared:

“No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.’”

In November 2023, Middle East Eye reported in “Former Israel general says ‘severe epidemics’ in Gaza would help Israel win the war”:

“A retired senior Israeli general has said that Israel should not ‘shy away’ from permitting the outbreak of severe epidemics amongst Palestinians in southern Gaza as it will bring Israel ‘closer to victory.’

“‘The international community warns us of a humanitarian disaster in Gaza and of severe epidemics,’ retired Major General Giora Eiland, the former head of Israel’s National Security Council, wrote Sunday.

“‘We must not shy away from this, as difficult as that may be. After all, severe epidemics in the south of the Gaza Strip will bring victory closer and reduce casualties among IDF soldiers.’

“Eiland went on to say that the Israeli government must take a ‘harder line’ against the US and rule out discussions about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza until all the hostages held in the besieged enclave are released.

“The opinion article elicited an endorsement from far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who said, ‘I agree with every word.’”

Zeiad Abbas Shamrouch, executive director of the Middle East Children’s Alliance, told me in November:

“Due to Israel cutting off some of the supply of water and destroying key water infrastructure and storage tanks, people are being forced to drink water from unsafe sources. Dehydration and waterborne diseases are spreading and medicine is running out. There are outbreaks of chickenpox, scabies and diarrhea due to the shortage of water.”

The BBC reported in May that “Half of Gaza water sites damaged or destroyed, BBC satellite data reveals.”

Drop Site News reported in July in “The IDF Just Destroyed a Key Rafah Water Facility Rachel Corrie Spent Her Last Month of Life Defending” about a video showing the “calculated demolition of a chief water facility in Rafah. The video, in three parts, shows Israeli soldiers planting explosives inside and around the water pumps of a facility in the occupied city. The video — which is captioned in Hebrew, ‘Destruction of the Tal Sultan water reservoir in honor of Shabbat’ — ends with footage of the water facility being blown up. The soundtrack is a song produced by soldiers of the 51st Golani Brigade with lyrics like, ‘We will burn Gaza… shake all of Gaza… for every house you destroy we will destroy ten.’ …

“For months, Israeli forces have been targeting vital water resources in the strip leading to starvation and, according to new reports, worsening access to clean water. Last week, the Israeli military and the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that Poliovirus has been found in Gaza’s sewage, further intensifying the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the occupied enclave.”

The Daily Mail in August reported on Israelis who had been held captive in Gaza:

“Blood tests also showed they had been exposed to a range of diseases, including typhus and spotted fever, during their 50 days in captivity. Many of them were also experiencing head lice due to poor hygiene conditions, including a lack of running water.”

The Vaccine

So, why is Israel reportedly agreeing to pauses to allow for administration of the polio vaccine? That may be hard to know for sure, but a few things that should be understood:

• The WHO is not what it seems to many people. There’s lots that can be said about that, but what I have examined is that the group’s chief scientist, Jeremy Farrar, who was a central figure, and perhaps the central figure, in the massive propaganda campaign which claimed in 2020 that Covid could not have a lab origin. It is simply not a credible organization just on that basis. Additionally, this gives a great deal of credence to arguments that the WHO is capable of making critical decisions with the aim of control, manipulation and publicity rather than the health and wellbeing of the global public.
• The vaccine being given to Palestinian children in Gaza is nOPV2, that is, novel oral polio vaccine, focusing on type 2 polio. Prior oral vaccines have been problematic. They contain attenuated (weakened) polio virus. This can be problematic since, as The Journal of Infectious Diseases noted in 2013: “With prolonged replication, attenuated polioviruses used in oral polio vaccine (OPV) can mutate into vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) and cause poliomyelitis [polio] outbreaks.”
• OPV was typically given in poorer countries. In rich counties like the US, what has been given is IPV which is made with inactive polio virus and given intramuscularly (an injection), not orally.
• According to the Polio Global Eradication Initiative (whose partners include the WHO, CDC and the Gates Foundation), the outbreak in Gaza is from Egypt. Curiously, the Initiative claims “the variant poliovirus could have been introduced in Gaza as early as September 2023” — that is, prior to Oct. 7. The Egyptian polio outbreak according to a recent article in BMC Infectious Diseases came from a “vaccine-derived polioviruses”. That is, the outbreak now in Gaza appears, according to these sources, to be the result of the negative effects of polio vaccines given in Egypt which mutated.
• In 2018, Science reported: “Alarming polio outbreak spreads in Congo, threatening global eradication efforts: Vaccine-derived virus spreads despite emergency response.”
• Neetu Vashisht and Jacob Puliye in 2012 wrote in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics: “It was hoped that following polio eradication, immunisation could be stopped. However the synthesis of polio virus in 2002, made eradication impossible. It is argued that getting poor countries to expend their scarce resources on an impossible dream over the last 10 years was unethical. … The charade about polio eradication and the great savings it will bring has persisted to date. It is a paradox, that while the director general of WHO, Margret Chan, and Bill Gates are trying to muster support for polio eradication (22) it has been known to the scientific community, for over 10 years, that eradication of polio is impossible.”
• Nature reported in 2023: “Vaccine-derived polio is undermining the fight to eradicate the virus: Wild polio has almost been eradicated, but vaccine-derived strains retain the potential to paralyse. Better vaccines have arrived — but they are only part of the answer.”
• nOPV2 is a relatively new vaccine. In March, the WHO noted that nOPV2 has been used since 2021 “under WHO Emergency Use Listing (EUL) approval”. A report posted on the CDC website notes that there have been cases of it causing polio as in Burundi and DRC, but apparently at a substantially lower rate than previous oral vaccines. But The BMJ reported in August 2023 in “Polio vaccines: hope, hype, and history repeating?” that despite a great deal of positive media spin: “Before it was approved for emergency use, scientists warned that nOPV2 would not solve the problem set for it: to stamp out vaccine-derived polio. So far, it has not done so. Instead there are unanswered questions about the vaccine’s performance, whether the decision to rely on it was right, and whether there’s a viable path to the dream of global eradication even with a full suite of modernised vaccines.”
• Some prior OPV disasters are outlined in Science from May, largely about the Gates Foundation: “‘Unqualified failure’ in polio vaccine policy left thousands of kids paralyzed”.
• It seems remarkable that the WHO and company can spot and prioritize a case of polio amid the carnage and devastation that Israel has wrecked on Gaza. It seems driven by ideology, control or interest rather than prioritizing the needs of the Palestinians in Gaza.
• nOPV2 requires another dose in four weeks. It is not clear to me what happens if someone gets one dose and not the second.
• While Israeli snipers are targeting children in the head, Israel is being depicted as agreeing to a truce to help save children from polio.
• Some have argued Israel’s goal is to ensure that there is not a polio outbreak in Gaza since that might threaten it — it’s an example of enlightened self-interest. However, this reasoning might be undermined by the fact that Israel has been giving its soldiers a polio vaccine. And they have been giving them the IPV vaccine, not the oral one given to Palestinians. This would indicate that they would be immune to it and Israel may effectively come off unscathed from a polio outbreak among the Palestinians. Also, IPV deals with all three types of polio. In 2022, Israel had cases of polio and the WHO reports IPA and OPV were used.
• The vaccines may be seen by some as a minimal help to Palestinians in Gaza, preventing yet another disaster. And the minimal pauses resulting may be seen as baby steps toward permanent ceasefire, but this seems quite optimistic, especially given Israel’s posture. It is quite possible that the nOPV2 vaccine is largely being done for public relations reasons. This was the case for the much hyped pier the US government was allegedly building to help the Palestinians in Gaza. Some thought that there was a diabolical plot around the pier — as a mechanism for mass expulsion for example. But it mostly served as a propaganda talking point to communicate alleged US government benevolence for months on end, giving cover for Israel to continue its genocide.
• Moreover, this is useful to distract from the failure of the UN to stop Israel’s carnage. Most especially the US-dominated UN Security Council has refused to implement orders from the International Court of Justice and virtually all states — with the notable exceptions of South Africa and Nicaragua — have failed in responsibilities under the Genocide Convention. The General Assembly has failed to take meaningful action using “Uniting for Peace”. So now, the WHO doing a hopefully minimally successful immunization effort is being used in various pronouncements to put a happy face for the UN system on the continuing catastrophe. See recent WHO/UN news conference.
• Perhaps most ominously however, it may be problematic to give attenuated oral polio vaccine to a population that is immunocompromised — which most certainly includes the Palestinians in Gaza. They desperately need food and clean water and basic medical care. A host of diseases are ravaging Gaza and reportedly, 100,000 people in Gaza have contracted acute jaundice syndrome, or suspected hepatitis A. From Options for Poliomyelitis Vaccination in the United States: “Those in whom OPV is contraindicated include individuals with immunodeficiency disorders…The risk of VAPP [Vaccine-Associated Paralytic Poliomyelitis] in immunodeficient children is 3,000 times that in normal children.”
• Israel is virtually alone among industrialized countries in not signing the Biological Weapons Convention. Professor Francis Boyle drafted the U.S. Domestic Implementing Legislation for the BWC, the Biological Weapons Anti-terrorism Act of 1989 that was approved unanimously by both Houses of the United States Congress and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush with the approval of the U.S. Department of Justice . He said the emergency authorization provisions “trigger the Nuremberg Code on Medical Experimentation [PDF] requiring that each recipient or their legal guardians be given informed and voluntary consent.. It does not appear that this is being done in Gaza. … They are giving the live polio virus to Gaza kids whose immune systems have been severely compromised already since October 8.” He warns you could have an “entire next generation of Palestinian Children in Gaza wracked and disabled by polio. … This implicitly raises and supports the question whether Israel is engaging in biological warfare against the Palestinians here by means of using the live polio virus.”

• As the top of this article indicates, Israel is effectively using biological warfare against the Palestinian people by virtue of knocking out the water facilities. The open question is if the polio rollout is part of that or simply a response by international institutions — perhaps following funding incentives and other pressures — unable or unwilling to do their actual jobs to stop the ongoing genocide.

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One Month Before Global Research’s Anniversary 

Featured image: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Bill Gates, during the World Economic Forum in Davos. (Photo by Kobi Gideon / GPO)

The world is at a dangerous crossroads. The United States and its allies have launched a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity.

This article entitled the The Globalization of War by Michel Chossudovsky was originally published on Global Research  (link)

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The world is at a dangerous crossroads. The United States and its allies have launched a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity.

The ultimate objective is World conquest under the cloak of “human rights” and “Western democracy”.

America’s hegemonic project in the post 9/11 era is the “Globalization of War” whereby the U.S.-NATO  military machine –coupled with covert intelligence operations, economic sanctions and the thrust of “regime change”— is deployed in all major regions of the world.  The threat of pre-emptive nuclear war is also used to black-mail countries into submission.

This “Long War against Humanity” is carried out at the height of the most serious economic crisis in modern history.

It is intimately related to a process of global financial restructuring, which has resulted in the collapse of national economies and the impoverishment of large sectors of the World population.

Michel Chossudovsky –in a GRTV video interview produced more than 10 years ago– describes with foresight the dangers of a Third World War.

The counter-terrorism narrative is bogus. This is not a war against the Islamic State (ISIL).

This is a War of Conquest sustained by extensive media propaganda.

Reveal the Lies.

We must disable the propaganda apparatus. 

Confront the War Criminals in high office.  

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Video: Michel Chossudovsky on the Globalization of War

click the lower right corner to access full screen  (Global Research, May 2014)

 

Directed and Produced by Julie Vivier and Jorge Zegarra. GRTV 2014

 

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The Globalization of War. America’s Long War against Humanity

The world is at a dangerous crossroads. The United States and its allies have launched a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity.

Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East.

The US military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.

The “Communist threat” of The Cold War era has been replaced by the worldwide threat of “Islamic terrorism”.

Whereas Russia and China have become capitalist “free market” economies, a first strike pre-emptive nuclear attack is nonetheless contemplated.

Ironically, China and Russia are no longer considered to be “a threat to capitalism”. Quite the opposite.

What is at stake is economic and financial rivalry between competing capitalist powers. The China-Russia alliance under the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) constitutes a “competing capitalist block” which undermines U.S. economic hegemony.

In Asia, the U.S. has contributed under its “Pivot to Asia” to encouraging its Asia-Pacific allies including Japan, Australia, South Korea, The Philippines and Vietnam to threaten and isolate China as part of a process of “military encirclement” of China, which gained impetus in the late 1990s.

Meanwhile, war propaganda has become increasingly pervasive. War is upheld as a peace-making operation. When war becomes peace, the world is turned upside down. Conceptualization is no longer possible. An inquisitorial social system emerges. The consensus is to wage war. People can longer think for themselves.

They accept the authority and wisdom of the established social order.

The Globalization of War

Click here to order directly from Global Research

List price: $24.95 / Special Offer: $15.00

Paperback version currently unavailable. Presently, the PDF version is available at a reduced price.

Global Research Publishers, Montreal 2015

REVIEWS:

“Professor Michel Chossudovsky is the most realistic of all foreign policy commentators. He is a model of integrity in analysis, his book provides an honest appraisal of the extreme danger that U.S. hegemonic neoconservatism poses to life on earth.” Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury

 

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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

 

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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.

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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

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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.

Important analysis by

Jonathan Cook: Elon Musk is not a saviour of free speech. Now He Decides Who’s Allowed. (important article, carefully documented scroll down)

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A Note by Global Research 

How Does Elon Musk’s X Affect Global Research Readers and Authors?

You might get the following “Warning” if you share a globalresearch.ca article with friends and colleagues who are committed to free speech and the criminalization of war. 

 

Scroll down to read the insulting and longer abusive text we received from X.  In Annex.

 

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Global Research presents “several points of view”

We are not aligned with party politics.

Global Research promotes dialogue among authors and readers committed to the Truth. 

Among our authors are distinguished journalists, award winning authors, scholars and university professors, scientists,  medical doctors, peace activists, Nobel laureates, politicians and members of the military and intelligence communities committed to World peace.

We have high regard for our authors and readers. We thank them for their unbending support. 

On the 9th of September 2024, we will be commemorating our 23d anniversary.

Starting in September 2001, Global Research has published the articles of 16,822 authors (September 3, 2024). The number of  published articles on Global Research is of the order of 100,000. (99,839, September 03 2024). We also publish in French and Spanish on Mondialisation.ca and Globalizacion.ca (as well as on an ad hoc basis in several other languages). Is this archive of articles what X wants to suppress?  

We are funded entirely by our readers to whom we are much indebted. 

I should mention that in course of the last few years, we have been the object of smear campaigns mainly by the Canadian media including CBC and Radio Canada (with which I collaborated for more than 20 years) as well as censorship by “the dominant search engine”.

We are casually accused without a shred of evidence of collaborating with the Russian media. We are also the object of a mountain of smears and lies by Wikipedia.

Dear Readers,

Contact X  and Elon Musk and ask them to support fundamental human rights and the antiwar movement.

When the Lie Becomes the Truth, There is No Moving Backwards

We have politely requested the removal of this hideous advisory directed against Global Research to no avail,

Our thanks to Jonathan Cook for his carefully documented article, 

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, September 3, 2024

Michel Chossudovsky: Biography 

One Month Before Global Research’s Anniversary  

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First, Elon Musk Made Us Pay for ‘Free Speech’.

Now He Decides Who’s Allowed It

by Jonathan Cook

September 2, 2024

The ‘saviour of free speech’ is cracking down on criticism of Israel’s genocide. What he calls the ‘faaaaar left’ is in his crosshairs. It’ll be erased so utterly, you won’t remember it was ever there.

Many users of X, formerly Twitter, seem deeply misguided. They imagine that Elon Musk is the saviour of free speech. He’s not. He is simply the latest pioneer in monetising speech. Which isn’t the same thing at all.

All the blue ticks on X – mine included – are buying access to an audience. Which is why Musk has made it so easy to get a blue tick – and why there are now so many of them on the platform. If you don’t pay Musk, the algorithms make sure you get minimal reach. You are denied your five seconds of fame.

That has particularly infuriated corporate journalists. On what used to be called Twitter, they got access to large audiences as a natural right, along with politicians and celebrities. They never paid a penny. They felt entitled to those big audiences because they already enjoyed similarly big audiences in the so-called “legacy media”. They did not see why they start competing with the rest of us to be heard.

Jonathan Cook, image right

The new media system was rigged, as the old media system has been for centuries, to ensure that it was their voices that counted. Or rather it was the voices of the ultra-wealthy paying their salaries who counted.

Independent journalists, including myself, have been some of the chief beneficiaries of Musk’s X. But I don’t for a minute make the mistake of thinking Musk is really in favour of my free speech – or anyone else’s – compared to his own.

A reminder that free speech in America is special and we need to do everything possible to preserve it https://t.co/yAvX1TpuRp

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 19, 2024

Being able to buy yourself an audience isn’t what most people understand as free speech.

Musk’s X is simply the latest innovation on the traditional “free speech” model from the bad old days. Then, only a handful of very rich men could afford to buy themselves lots of hired hands, known as journalists; own a printing press; and be in a position to attract advertisers.

Billionaires paid a small fortune to buy the privilege of “free speech”. As a result, they managed to secure for themselves a very big voice in a highly exclusive market. You and I can now pay a hundred bucks a year and buy ourselves a very, very small voice in a massively overcrowded, cacophonous marketplace of voices.

The point is this: Speech on X is still a privilege – it’s just one that you can now pay for. And like all privileges, it is on licence from the owner. Musk can withdraw that privilege – and withdraw it selectively – whenever he thinks someone or something is harming his interests, whether directly or indirectly.

Musk is already disappearing opinions, either ones he doesn’t like or ones he cannot afford to be seen supporting – most visibly, anything too critical of Israel.

As I said earlier this week, “decolonization”, “from the river to the sea” and similar euphemisms necessarily imply genocide.

Clear calls for extreme violence are against our terms of service and will result in suspension. https://t.co/1fCFo5Lezb

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 17, 2023

He has threatened users with suspension for repeating slogans such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” – in other words, for calling for an end to what the judges of the World Court recently decreed to be Israel’s apartheid rule over Palestinians. He is also against hosting on X the term “decolonisation” in reference to Israel, claiming perversely that “it implies a Jewish genocide” – itself an implicit admission that Israelis (not Jews) have long been colonising Palestine and ethnically cleansing Palestinians.

The Israel lobby is also pushing hard for a ban on the words “Zionism” and “Zionist”. It won’t be long before X, like Meta, cracks down on these terms too.

Note that banning these words makes it all but impossible to discuss the specific historical forces that led to Israel’s creation at the expense of the Palestinian people, or analyse the ideology that today underpins Israel’s efforts to disappear the Palestinian people, or explain how the West has been complicit in Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories for decades and is currently aiding the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

The loss of “Zionist” and “Zionism” from our lexicon would be a serious handicap for anyone trying to explain some of the major events unfolding in the Middle East at the moment. Which is precisely why the establishment, and Musk, are so keen to see such words discredited.

The Egyptian comedian Bassem Yousef, one of the most acute and acid critics of Israel, has suddenly disappeared from X. Many assume he has been banned. The Jerusalem Post highlights that, shortly before he vanished from X, he had written: “Are you still scared to be called an antisemite by those Zionists?”

Whatever the case, you will see Musk’s X getting a lot more censorious over the next months and years, especially against what he is terming the “faaaaaar left” – that is, disparate groups of people he has lumped together who hold opinions either he doesn’t like personally or that can damage his business interests.

From the standpoint of the faaaaaar left, this platform is far right, but it’s actually just centrist https://t.co/PUNAvdTKQS

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 20, 2024

Billionaires aren’t there to protect free speech. They got to be billionaires by being very good at making money – by seizing markets, by inflating our appetite for consumption, and by buying politicians to rig the system to protect their empires from competitors.

Musk understands that the only people against a world based on rapacious profit and material greed are the “faaaaaar left”. Which is why the “faaaaaar left” are in the crosshairs of anyone with power in our rigged system, from the centrists to the right wing, from “liberals” to conservatives, from Blue to Red, from Democrats to Republicans.

The right and the centrists disagree only on how best to maintain that rapacious, consumption-driven, environmentally destructive status quo, and on how to normalise it to different segments of the public. They are competing wings of a system designed by a single ruling cabal.

I am willing to serve pic.twitter.com/BJhGbcA2e0

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 20, 2024

Musk used to see himself as a liberal and now leans towards the Trumpian right. Trump used to see himself as a Clintonian Democrat but now sees himself as… well, fill in the blank, according to taste.

The point is that centrists and the right are, in essence, interchangeable – as should be only too clear from the rapid shift of free-speech liberals towards authoritarian censorship, and the rapid (pretend) reinvention of conservatives from moralising guardians of family values to the embattled defenders of free speech.

Neither’s posturing should be taken at face value. Both are equally authoritarian, when their interests are threatened by “an excess of democracy”. Their apparent differences are simply the competition for dominance within a system that’s been gerrymandered to their mutual benefit. We are their dupes, buying into their games.

JUST IN: 🇫🇷 🇪🇺 Emmanuel Macron's Liberal MEP threatens to shut down X in Europe .

"If Elon Musk does not comply with the European rules on digital services, the EU Commission will ask the continental operators to block X or, in the most extreme case, force them to completely… pic.twitter.com/8rbt4pjSPp

— BRICS News (@BRICSinfo) August 20, 2024

The two tribes are there to offer the pretence of a battle of ideas, of competition, of choice at election time, of freedom. They look hostile to each other, but when push comes to shove they are united in their support for oligarchy, and opposition to genuine free speech, to real democracy, to meaningful pluralism, to an open society.

The “faaaaaar left” are the true enemy of both the centrists and the right. Why? Because they are the only group struggling for a society in which money doesn’t buy privilege, where speech isn’t something someone can own.

That’s why, when Musk intensifies his crackdown, it will be the “faaaaar left” that’s erased so completely you won’t notice it’s gone. You won’t remember it was ever there.

One Month Before Global Research’s Anniversary  

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

See also the extensive Archive of Jonathan Cook’s articles on Global Research. He has been contributing to Global Research since 2007.

 

Featured image source

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ANNEX

 

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One Month Before Global Research’s Anniversary  

 

Abstract

This paper, written by co-authors from the Gandhian Global Harmony Association (GGHA), commemorates the 79th anniversary of the tragic actions of civilians that occurred in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (HaN). These cities were the first to experience the devastating and terrifying effects of US nuclear attacks, marking a dark moment in history.

For nearly eight decades, the West and its “nuclear alliance” of 32 NATO countries have perpetuated the threat of global nuclear catastrophe, leading to the potential of a “nuclear winter” that could impact the entire world. In order for humanity to survive in this nuclear age, a paradigm shift for change is necessary.

The launch of an alternative globalization of peace science is crucial to this transformation. This science offers a universal and verifiable framework for the global community, promoting peace, justifiable harmony, prosperity, an equitable society, and sustainable development. By embracing this paradigm, nations can move away from conflict and toward a future of lasting and justifiable peace, as envisioned by Kantian concept of “perpetual peace”, Gandhian “Non-violence movement” and Galtung’s “conflict transformation by peaceful means”. This shift is essential to avoid a cycle of fragile truce amidst ongoing informal-formal wars.

HaN: The Nuclear Criminal Civilization Birth and Its Globalization

HaN is the symbol of a deadly and criminal nuclear civilization. It was born in August 1945 and has since thrived, fueling, and escalating the nuclear arms race with top priority budgets for 79 years It shows no sign of letting go disregarding or suppressing all fundamental peaceful and scientific alternatives. This symbol is presented in Figure 1 showcasing all the objective parameters of this civilization’s emergence: source, process, location, timing, and the scale of historical nuclear terror and genocide.

Image: Fig. 1. Hiroshima/Nagasaki Symbol

The criminal nature of nuclear civilization and the falsehood of so-called “nuclear deterrence” are exposed in the monograph by the famous lawyer Francis Boyle. “The nuclear age was born from the original sins of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were crimes against humanity and war crimes…” [1]. The nuclear terror of HaN is the criminal creation of the USA, and the West as a whole, originating from Hitler in 1939 in the “German Nuclear Program“, which was provided with all necessary resources [Wiki] for racist, Nazi purposes. Therefore, the Western nuclear civilization that emerged from it is the criminal Western “nuclear age” and a criminal “suicidal civilization” [2 & 3]. This compelled other countries and civilizations of humanity, to respond with nuclear weapons for self-preservation and security against the existential Western threat, sparking a deadly, suicidal, and ecocidal global race that persists to this day.

Since the time of HaN, nuclear civilization has been marked by the ominous sign of its suicidal globalization, leading to an ongoing and accelerating nuclear arms race. This includes unlimited “modernization” and expansion in both genocidal potential power and the number of countries involved. This trajectory ultimately dooms this criminal civilization and all of humanity to an inevitable nuclear Armageddon and Auschwitz.

The potential for genocide in this civilization has reached an extreme level of risk surpassing 99%, as indicated by the symbolic “Doomsday Clock” set by American nuclear scientists [4]. This is accompanied by an intensification of military, psychological, and spiritual conflicts in areas like Gaza and Ukraine serving as a prelude to nuclear genocide in a new and potential world war. This dangerous situation was amplified by the protest self-immolation of US soldier, Aaron Bushnell, in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington on February 25, 2024, at 13:00 [5].

Image: Self-immolation of Aaron Bushnell (Licensed under Fair Use)

Today, nuclear civilization is at the peak of global genocide, a path first set by Adolf Hitler. The diligent students of genocide from the USA and NATO have followed in his footsteps for nearly 80 years. Their training in genocide of about 40 nations in the years after World War II with conventional weapons resulted in the deaths of 20 to 30 million civilians [6, 7 & 8]. Currently, the US and NATO continue to commit genocide against civilians in the Gaza Strip, Ukraine, and around the world. In 2023, there were 183 armed conflicts worldwide, according to Bloomberg [9]. The frantic nuclear arms race initiated by the US and NATO naturally led to increased production of these weapons in countries that were targeted to be the next victims after HaN in plans to “wipe them off the map” [10]. These countries have done everything to resist Western nuclear terror and avoid becoming victims of its crimes: the USSR, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, India, and Pakistan. One of the latest acts in this criminal race was the suicidal decision of the West to invest 1.2 trillion dollars in the “modernization of nuclear weapons” by 2030, “capable of killing up to 90% of humanity” with the involvement of Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and New Zealand in the new nuclear bloc AUKUS [11].

The globalization of nuclear civilization and its tool – nuclear weapons – is in complete contradiction to all norms of international law, ultimately destroying and rejecting it. “… Nuclear weapons have never been beneficial instruments of state policy, but rather have always constituted illegitimate instrumentalities of internationally lawless and criminal behavior first of all. » [1]. The design, research, testing, production, manufacture, -, transportation, deployment, installation, maintenance, storage, stockpiling, sale, and purchase of nuclear weapons, along with threat to use them and all their essential components are criminal under well-established principles of international law. Thus, government decision-makers in all nuclear weapons states with command responsibility for their nuclear weapons establishments are subject to personal criminal responsibility under the Nuremberg Principles for this criminal practice of nuclear deterrence and terrorism that they impose on all states and peoples of the international community. Four components of the threat to use nuclear weapons that are particularly reprehensible from an international law perspective: counter-ethnic targeting; counter-city targeting; first-strike weapons and contingency plans; and the first-use of nuclear weapons even to repel a conventional attack.”[1] “… Humankind must abolish nuclear weapons before nuclear weapons abolish humankind… as doctrine known as “nuclear deterrence,” which is truly a euphemism for “nuclear terrorism” [Ibid].

It is crucial to differentiate between Western nuclear aggressors who use nuclear weapons to dictate over objectionable states, and other countries that develop nuclear weapons for defense against nuclear aggressors. If humanity initially allowed one aggressor to create and use nuclear weapons, then what right does it have to deprive other countries of the right to adequate, nuclear defense, as the USSR did, in response to US aggressive plans to “erase it with a map of nuclear weapons” [10]?. It is immoral to equate the aggressor and its victims.

The NATO Washington Declaration on July 10, 2024 once again confirms the criminal nature of this nuclear alliance.

“As long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear alliance… NATO remains committed to taking all necessary steps to ensure the credibility, effectiveness, safety, and security of the Alliance’s nuclear deterrence mission, including by modernizing its nuclear capabilities, strengthening its nuclear planning capability, and adapting as necessary” [12].

Our general assessment of the “golden billion” criminal Western civilization is outlined in our “Anti-NATO Manifesto” with colleagues [13].

For almost 80 years, the nuclear civilization, imposed by force and the threat of force by the West on humanity, has become a turning point in its history. Humanity will either end its existence, or radically change its strategic future towards planetary and scientific “perpetual peace” according to Kant [14] in all spheres of society, Gandhi’s nonviolence, and Galtung’s conflict transformation by peaceful means, as well as in all countries and institutions, including international law, as a common normative bridge to it. For this fateful turn, humanity needs to master the fundamental verified Peace Science, which can become its common mental base and a nonviolent instrument acceptable to all nations for the eradication of nuclear weapons as the West’s “Absolute Evil” [15]. The possibility of its eradication on a scientific basis was first considered by the GGHA in its collective “Anti-Nuclear Manifesto” of 46 coauthors from 26 countries with the participation of four Nobel Peace Laureates in 2020 [16].

Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the American Political Kitchen Inside in 1945

The American political kitchen of 1945, where the criminal strategic decision to destroy the civilian population of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was made in detailed in various works [8, 17, 18, 19, 20 & 21], from which we will highlight the most important and characteristic attributes.

1. The first attribute is the lie of the main official motive for the HaN atomic bombing that it was allegedly necessary to “stop the war” and that HaN had “military bases”, the destruction of which allegedly “prevented the death of up to half a million American soldiers”. All sources confirm that Japan was ready to surrender in order to end the war and there were no military bases in HaN, so there was no military need for their atomic bombing [Ibid].
2. The true reason for the atomic terror of HaN was the USA’s desire to establish its world hegemony. “The intentional targeting of civilian women and children in a highly populated urban area was intended to create the maximum psychological impact on the minds of the Japanese, the Russians, and the world.” [8] “Why did they commit such a crime? Well, more than anything, they wanted to show Russia the new weapon the United States possessed. They not only wanted to show Russia, but also to proclaim to the world that the United States would not hesitate to use any means to protect and guard its interests!” [Ibid].

Another source states, “In fact, the goal was clear: it was not just to destroy buildings but to instantly kill an unprecedented number of people,” in order to “send a message” to the Soviet Union that the United States now had a monopoly on nuclear weapons and would henceforth dominate the postwar world. To achieve this, almost half a million Japanese civilians had to die, including those who later became victims of the effects of the bombs; radiation [18]. This sentiment is echoed in all sources.

3. The immorality and barbarity of the HaN bombings are truly shocking. “Only the utter inhumanity and brutal ruthlessness of man can commit such crimes against civilians in any country! The crime exceeds all limits of barbarity when one realizes the entire tragedy could have been avoided!” [8].

The immorality of the criminal decision to bomb the innocent inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is revealed by the hypocritical detail of its satanic blasphemy. “It was utter, satanic blasphemy, when the first atomic bomb was called Trinity, the holiest name in all religions… It was blasphemy, when an army chaplain blessed the Hiroshima bomb with holy water. He even blessed the Nagasaki bomb, after he had seen the casualties produced by the Hiroshima bomb, a few days earlier” [21]. Hiroshima and Nagasaki became an atheistic desecration of all religions and of a nuclear civilization doomed by God to nuclear suicide unless an alternative paradigm is born within it.

The only bright and highly spiritual event in this vile political kitchen is when “Theodore Hall, a 19-year-old American Los Alamos scientist, the youngest physicist o­n the Manhattan Project and a Soviet spy, handed complete plans for constructing the “Fat Man” plutonium bomb” to an American spy courier working for the Soviet Union [18].

4. The extreme cruelty and immorality of America’s militaristic foreign policy are revealed by President Truman’s decision to exterminate hundreds of thousands of civilians in HaN in order to maintain US global dominance and intimidate the USSR. He became the second state-sanctioned mass murderer after Hitler, now known as the “atomic butcher” and a perpetual criminal against humanity in history for ordering the HaN atomic bombings, which had no military justification. His actions will forever tarnish his legacy with a shameful “Herostratus glory” of Western “satanic absolute evil” depicted in a posthumous portrait showing two nuclear explosions and the devastating aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing which instantly killed 80 thousand children, women, and elderly people in Figure 2.

 

Fig. 2. “Atomic butcher” Truman and his fruit

 

Truman continued the legacy of Hitler’s gas ovens in the “death camps” such as Auschwitz with sophistication and brilliance. This was done as means of furthering the racist ideology outlined in “Mein Kampf”, which will mark its 100th anniversary in 2025. This innovative Western policy has been globalizing genocidal HaN practices for 79 years, ultimately in the official policy of the “NATO nuclear alliance” which includes 32 European countries [12].

Globalization of HaN in Numbers for 79 Years: 1945 – 2024

The best illustration of the HaN Western globalization scale over 79 years is the map in Figure 3, created by self-critical Western scientists from the FAS [22].

 

Figure 3. Estimated Global Nuclear Warheads Inventories, 2024

Based on this map and additional sources, we have constructed a table HaN estimating the scale of Western nuclear globalization over 79 years. Why “estimated”? The authors rightly point out,

“The exact number of nuclear weapons in each country’s possession is a closely held national secret, so the estimates presented here come with significant uncertainty. Most nuclear-armed states provide essentially no information about the sizes of their nuclear stockpiles” [Ibid].

Another, important perspective, in contrast to the double standards of mainstream media, is that “the dangers of nuclear war are not a subject of debate and analysis by the mainstream media. Public opinion is carefully misled…  Nuclear weapons are portrayed as peace-making bombs” [17].

Despite the inevitable margin of error, the data from sources provide a general HaN overview of the trend unclear globalization over 79 years and the “constant growth of the number of nuclear warheads  towards the inevitable collapse of nuclear civilization in the global Hiroshima and Nagasaki context. This globalization is illustrated in the table in Figure 4.

 

Fig. 4. Table. HaN Globalization

Abbreviations:

HaN – Hiroshima & Nagasaki; NW – Nuclear Warheads; GG – Growth of HaN Globalization in %

1. NP – Nuclear Powers Producing Nuclear Weapons;
2. NNCD NW – Nuclear and Non-nuclear Countries Whose Military Bases May be Deployed NW;
3. NNW NP – Number of NW at NP;
4. NWCD – NW on Combat Duty;
5. HNNWTC – HaN NW Total Capacity 1945;
6. TCNW24 – Total Capacity of NW 2024;
7. NVHAN – Number of HaN Victims;
8. NPPV24 – Number of Population Potential Victims on 2024.

A few strokes on the table.

The modern “modeling results generally confirm the conclusions of simpler models from the 1980s that a full-scale nuclear conflict between Russia and the United States would lead to a “nuclear winter…” The “nuclear winter” hypothesis, which arose in a tense political situation, showed that the consequences of a nuclear war have not been sufficiently studied and are little considered in the decision-making process regarding the use of nuclear weapons… [The] inconsistency of the assertion that “the presence of nuclear weapons by two antagonists increases their restraint in the use of military force” has been proven at the distant approaches to the nuclear threshold.… Narrowing of strategic choice and short-term thinking in crisis situations cannot guarantee rational decision-making on the issue of using nuclear weapons. Justification of such a decision by national rivalry or the ideology of confrontation cannot be justified” [24].

“It has long been known that a major nuclear war could destroy modern ci1ilization and kill most of humanity… This report summarizes the latest scientific work, which shows that a so-called “limited” or “regional” nuclear war would be neither limited nor regional. On the contrary, it would be a planetary-scale event. In fact, it would be far more dangerous than previously understood. A war that detonated less than 1/20th of the world’s nuclear weapons would still crash the climate, global food supply chains and likely public order. Famines and unrest would kill hundreds of millions, perhaps even billions…Using less than 3% of the world’s nuclear weapons, a nuclear war between India and Pakistan could kill up to every third person on earth [~2,7 billions]”[25].

Potentially, there could be almost 10,000 times more victims HaN than in the Holocaust, a 1,000,000% increase. This is the supposed scale of HaN Western globalization today, stemming from only 3% of the world’s nuclear weapons. In more severe scenarios of “regional” nuclear war, considered by the author, the damage to humanity becomes even more devastating [Ibid].

Conclusions

1. 1.  The nuclear civilization of humanity is Western in its origin, center, and main driving force of the “golden billion” with its “nuclear alliance” NATO. This alliance has ensured the HaN globalization to a potential planetary nuclear winter with its inevitable probability over 99% for the past 79 years [4].
   2. This civilization was imposed on humanity through the use of force and the threat “nuclear weapons absolute evil”. The race for nuclear weapons has involved practically all countries in some way, making the new HaN danger universal for all nations. The nuclear civilization is signing its own death warrant with its global HaN threat, which is more than 99% ready for launch today.
   3. In a global nuclear war with the HaN billion-fold scaling of HaN in this civilization, humanity will be thrown back in its evolution by tens or hundreds of thousands of years to a stage of savagery and paleoanthrope. The remaining survivors will be doomed to radioactive extinction for many centuries, similar to the Chernobyl disaster zone.
   4. The history of nuclear civilization, spinning 79 years has revealed the increasing militarism of the West and NATO, despite some impressive achievements. This militarism has capacity to not only destroy itself and also most of humanity.
   5. Militarism has emerged as the “Achilles heel” of nuclear civilization, particularly for its “founding father” the West and NATO. For the past 79 years, it has failed to foster of a common, positive approach to science, and culture of peace, dismissing such efforts as “madness, crazy, dissidence and chimera”.
   6. The cognitive and ideological limitations imposed by militarism have prevented the West from creating a fundamental and verifiable scientific alternative to the inevitable nuclear suicide of its civilization.
   7. Militarism is a pathological attribute of social nature that is aimed at death rather than life. When combined with humanity’s holistic ignorance and impotence, it becomes an insurmountable source of eternal cognitive and ideological confrontation.
   8. Nuclear civilization will mark the final chapter in humanity’s history, crowning and completing a multi-thousand-year period of violent civilizations. The primary instrument of violence, weapons, has reached a level of self-destruction with nuclear weapons, pushing humanity to its planetary nuclear suicide ceiling. This is incompatible with life and our future.

To be continued…

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One Month Before Global Research’s Anniversary 

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 2 Sep 2024.

Dr. Bishnu Pathak from Nepal, is the Vice-President of GGHA and a former Senior Commissioner at the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP) in Nepal. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize from 2013 to 2019 for his discovery of the Peace-Conflict Lifecycle which he compares to an ecosystem. Dr. Pathak is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, Board Member of the TRANSCEND Peace University and holds a Ph.D. in interdsciplinary Conflict Transformation and Human Rights, earned over two decades in 2003. Despite the challenges, Professor Pathak has authored over 100 international books and papers, including “Politics of People’s War and Human Rights in Nepal” (2005), “Generations of Transitional Justice in the World” (2019), “The Nepal Compact: Potential for Cold War II” (2022), “Negotiation by Peaceful Means: Nepo-India Territorial Disputes” (2022), and “The Arts of Eastern Philosophy” (2023). Many of his publications have been used as references in universities in over 100 countries worldwide. Dr. Pathak’s work covers a wide range of topics, including Transitional Justice, Human Rights, Human Security, Peace, and Conflict Transformation. Web: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=910   

Mairead Corrigan Maguire, from Northern Ireland, is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment and a peace activist from Northern Ireland. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 alongside Betty Williams for their work as co-founders of Women for Peace. This organization later evolved into the Community for Peace People, dedicated to promoting peaceful resolutions to violence in Northern Ireland. Web: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=678

Dr. Leo Semashko, a Russian Orthodox, Philosopher, and Sociologist, is the founder of the Gandhian Global Harmony Association (GGHA) established in 2005. He also serves as the Honorary President representing Peace Science, along with over 700 coauthors, including Indian President Dr. Abdul Kalam and 5 Nobel Peace Laureates, from over 50 countries. Based in St. Petersburg, Russia, Dr. Semashko has been leading this initiative for almost 20 years. Web: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=253

Chaitanya Dave is the Vice-President of GGHA in the USA. He is a follower of Mahatma Gandhi and Hinduism’s Vedanta philosophy. Additionally, he is an entrepreneur based in California. Web: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1205

Dr. Rudolf Siebert, Vice-President of the GGHA in the USA, is a Catholic and Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan. He is a philosopher, antifascist, and a former child soldier in the Wehrmacht from 1943 to1945. Additionally, he is a theologian and the founder of the House of Mir in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Web: https://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=51

Notes

1. Boyle F. The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence/Terrorism. 2002: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=957
2. Boyle F. The Criminality Of Nuclear Deterrence. Chapter 2. The Lessons Of Hiroshima And Nagasaki. 2002: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=957
3. Francis Boyle et al. Nuclear Weapons and International Law. Draft Report. 1987: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1204

4. Mecklin J. Nuclear Сatastrophe: 90 seconds. 2024: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=924
5. Semashko L. and Siebert R. Gandhi, Putin and Bushnell: Resisting NATO’s Nazi Genocide with Force and Nonviolence Scientific Mobilization. 19-03-24: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1175
6. Lucas J. U.S. Regime Has Killed 20-30 Million People: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=816

7. Dave C. America Can be a Great Nation If …05-08-24: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1205

8. Dave C. America’s Most Criminal Act: The Atomic Bombings of Japan. 08-08-24: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1207
9. Hastings M. It’s Not Just Ukraine and Gaza: War Is on the Rise Everywhere. Bloomberg. 10-12-23: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-12-10/it-s-not-just-ukraine-and-gaza-war-is-on-the-rise-everywhere
10. Chossudovsky M. The Hiroshima Nagasaki “Dress Rehearsal”…to “Wipe the Soviet Union Off the Map”. 17-04-24: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1185
11. Fry S. The Terrifying $1.2 Trillion Plan That Could Kill 90% of Humanity. 2021: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spnJ5WDgZnY and here: https://peacefromharmony.org/plan

12. NATO. Washington Summit Declaration. July 10 2024: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_227678.htm and here in two languages: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1199

13. GGHA. Anti-NATO WWIII Manifesto. 21-07-24: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1201
14. Kant, I. Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch / I. Kant. – UK ed. : Hackett Publishing Company, 2015. – 64 p.
15. Avery J. Nuclear Weapons: An Absolute Evil. 2017: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=800
16. GGHA. Antinuclear Manifesto. 2020: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=908
17. Chossudovsky M. Hiroshima: A “Military Base” according to President Harry Truman. 10-08-24: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1208
18. Lindorff D. Recalling 3 World-Shaking Events of the Last 9 Days of WWII. 10-08-24 https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1210

19. Pathak, P. B. (2021). The Tokyo Tribunal: Precedent for Victor’s Justice II. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 8(8), 285–300. https://doi.org/10.14738/assrj.88.10666
20. Merlo F. What it means to survive an atomic bomb. Vatican News. 08-08-24: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1206
21. Siebert R. It was utter, Satanic blasphemy… 08-08-24: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1206
22. Hans Kristensen et al. Status of World Nuclear Forces. 29-03-24: https://fas.org/initiative/status-world-nuclear-forces/, and: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1211
23. SIPRI Yearbook 2024. Сhapter of SIPRI Yearbook 2024 on world nuclear forces. 17-06-24: https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/YB24%2007%20WNF.pdf

24. Ginzburg A.S., Samoylovskaya N.A. “Nuclear Winter” Hypothesis Research and Responsibilities in Nuclear Policy. Journal of International Analytics. 2023;14(4):149-160. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.46272/2587-8476-2023-14-4-149-160
25. Bivens, Matt. Nuclear Famine: Even a “Limited” Nuclear War Would Cause Abrupt Climate Disruption and Global Starvation. International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, 2022: https://www.ippnw.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/ENGLISH-Nuclear-Famine-Report-Final-bleed-marks.pdf.

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

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102

PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

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

Reviews

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

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

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

U.S. stocks fell sharply on Sept. 3 as weak manufacturing reports and a decline in construction spending fanned fears of an economic slowdown.

According to preliminary data at market close, the benchmark S&P 500 lost 118.64 points, or 2.10 percent, to end at 5,529.76 points, while the Nasdaq lost 576.06 points, or 3.25 percent, to 17,137.56. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 618.72 points, or 1.49 percent, to 40,944.36.

Treasury yields sank, suggesting investors were seeking refuge in the perceived safety of bonds, as factory data released by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) and S&P Global showed manufacturing mired in weakness and, as some analysts believe, pointing to sharply slowing economic growth.

“Investors are wondering are we heading into a recession quicker than was thought or does the Fed have this under control with rate cuts going forward,” said Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth in Fairfield, Connecticut. He added that the manufacturing data “certainly didn’t help.”

“Slower than expected sales are causing warehouses to fill with unsold stock, and a dearth of new orders has prompted factories to cut production for the first time since January. Producers are also reducing payroll numbers for the first time this year and buying fewer inputs amid concerns about excess capacity,” Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global, said in a statement.

“The combination of falling orders and rising inventory sends the gloomiest forward-indication of production trends seen for one and a half years, and one of the most worrying signals witnessed since the global financial crisis.”

“Demand remains subdued, as companies show an unwillingness to invest in capital and inventory due to current federal monetary policy and election uncertainty,” Timothy Fiore, chair of ISM’s manufacturing business survey committee, said in a statement.

Despite falling demand and a drop in production, factory costs increased, according to the S&P Global report. Rising wages and high shipping rates pushed up input costs, which rose in August at their fastest pace since April 2023, suggesting a possible stagflationary trend.

Analysts at ING said the manufacturing data suggests that economic output is poised for a significant slowdown.

“There is a worrying narrowing of the pockets of strength,” James Knightley, chief international economist at ING, wrote in a note. “Just 22 [percent] of industry is experiencing rising orders and just 17 [percent] are seeing rising production. Historically, this weakness in output and orders points to a sharp slowing in GDP growth.”

“The trend is certainly softening,” Knightley wrote. “The outlook for residential construction is not great given the weakness seen in home builders sentiment as a lack of affordability continues to constrain demand.

He said that two consecutive negative monthly prints suggest a “notable cooling” in nonresidential construction.

The ING analyst added that the construction spending report also suggests that support from the Inflation Reduction Act is running out, with construction activity tied to semiconductor manufacturing appearing to wane.

“So with manufacturing languishing and construction cooling, there is going to be an [increasing] reliance on the service sector to provide economic growth,” he said.

Besides Tuesday’s slump on Wall Street, European stocks also fell in their worst session in nearly a month, as the gloomy U.S. manufacturing data fanned concerns about a slowdown in global growth back to the forefront.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index ended the session down nearly 1 percent, with Germany’s DAX slipping by more than 0.9 percent from record highs touched earlier in the session. Stocks in France, Spain, and Italy dropped by between 0.9 percent and 1.3 percent.

Reuters contributed to this report.

O fornecimento a Ucrânia de armas de longo alcance parece estar ameaçada. De acordo com uma recente reportagem dos meios de comunicação social, citando fontes oficiais familiarizadas com o assunto, Washington deixou claro ao seu proxy que não poderá continuar a fornecer mísseis de longo alcance.

Existem duas explicações para este tipo de atitude americana. Por um lado, os EUA podem estar preocupados com a possibilidade de uma escalada na guerra, dadas as frequentes ações irresponsáveis ​​da Ucrânia. Por outro lado, Washington pode realmente estar numa situação fraca na sua indústria militar, incapaz de abastecer Kiev e continuar a produzir armas para reabastecer o seu arsenal interno.

A CNN publicou recentemente um artigo expondo o problema atual entre a Ucrânia e os EUA no que diz respeito ao fornecimento de armas de longo alcance. Segundo o jornal, os EUA deixaram claro a Kiev que não serão capazes de fornecer um número significativo de Sistemas de Mísseis Táticos do Exército MGM-140 (ATACMS) num futuro próximo. As palavras teriam sido ditas por um alto funcionário não identificado dos EUA durante uma reunião com representantes ucranianos.

O Ministro da Defesa de Kiev, Rustem Umerov, reuniu-se recentemente com o Secretário da Defesa dos EUA, Lloyd Austin, para discutir a possibilidade de a Ucrânia receber assistência adicional para alcançar objetivos militares específicos no conflito. Umerov mostrou a Austin uma lista de alvos de valor estratégico supostamente elevado no “território profundo” da Rússia. Para realizar estas manobras, a Ucrânia precisaria de mais armas dos EUA, bem como do fim de quaisquer restrições às operações do ATACMS.

Como é bem sabido, os EUA “autorizaram” recentemente ataques transfronteiriços ucranianos contra cidades russas. A medida parecia ser meramente simbólica e retórica, uma vez que Kiev tem atacado cidades russas pacíficas desde 2022. No entanto, pelo menos em teoria, Washington continua a proibir que mísseis americanos de longo alcance sejam usados ​​pelo regime neonazista para “ataques profundos”. Kiev implora que esta restrição seja removida, o que permitiria que alvos russos longe da fronteira fossem atingidos com armas altamente letais.

“Já dissemos que os ucranianos podem usar a assistência de segurança dos EUA para se defenderem de ataques transfronteiriços, por outras palavras, contra-ataques. Mas no que se refere a ataques de longo alcance e ataques profundos à Rússia, a nossa política não mudou”, disse o secretário de imprensa do Pentágono, major-general Pat Ryder.

Segundo Umerov, esta restrição deveria ser levantada porque a Rússia alegadamente utiliza bases aéreas no “território profundo” para lançar ataques à Ucrânia. Umerov tenta descrever os ataques ucranianos em território russo indiscutível como uma medida de “autodefesa” para evitar que “civis ucranianos” sejam mortos.

“Explicamos que tipo de equipamento precisamos para proteger os cidadãos contra o terror que os russos nos estão a causar, por isso espero que tenhamos sido ouvidos (…) Estamos a mostrar que os campos de aviação que eles usam para atingir as nossas cidades estão dentro dos territórios profundos (…) Eles estão matando os nossos cidadãos. É por isso que queremos detê-los, queremos detê-los, não queremos permitir que a sua aviação se aproxime das nossas fronteiras”, disse Umerov.

A retórica de Umerov é uma falácia. A Rússia tem obviamente o direito de utilizar qualquer base militar no seu território para qualquer fim legítimo, o que inclui as suas manobras no contexto da operação militar especial. A Ucrânia, estando oficialmente em guerra com a Rússia, tem de fato o direito de tentar atingir alvos militares russos, mas no mesmo sentido, os EUA, como proprietários das armas entregues à Ucrânia, têm o direito de impor quaisquer restrições à uso de seus equipamentos.

Além disso, é preciso ressaltar que a realidade do conflito é muito diferente do cenário descrito por Umerov. As forças armadas russas realizam ataques de alta precisão, evitando ao máximo a morte de civis ucranianos. Por outro lado, Kiev tem uma prática constante de matar civis russos – como se viu recentemente nos ataques a Kursk e Belgorod. Portanto, se os EUA permitirem estes ataques de longo alcance, os mísseis americanos certamente atingirão, não bases militares russas, mas hospitais, escolas e edifícios residenciais.

Washington teme obviamente que as práticas irresponsáveis ​​de Kiev conduzam a uma Terceira Guerra Mundial aberta, uma vez que a Rússia teria o direito de responder de forma decisiva aos ataques ao seu território profundo desmilitarizado. Oficialmente, autoridades dos EUA disseram à CNN que Kiev não receberá mais grandes quantidades de mísseis ATACMS devido ao “longo tempo de produção da arma”. No entanto, o receio de que a paciência russa se esgote é certamente um fator relevante na redução dos fornecimentos americanos à Ucrânia.

Lucas Leiroz De Almeida

Artigo em inglês : US about to decrease Ukraine aid, InfoBrics, 2 de Setembro de 2024.

Imagem : InfoBrics

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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

Ignoring the decades-old political roots of the Baloch Conflict, their new economic dimension over the past decade since CPEC, and the latest Taliban connections via its TTP partners leads to inaccurate assessments about its latest manifestations and impedes work on a sustainable solution.

An Outdated Explanation

Top Alt-Media influencer Pepe Escobar speculated in a post on Telegram that last week’s spree of terrorist attacks in Pakistan’s Balochistan Region, which included the targeted killing of ethnic Punjabis, was the work of “CIA-financed psychopaths disrupting CPEC.” That’s an outdated explanation though since the US no longer needs to rely on proxies to disrupt BRI’s flagship project after the consequences of April 2022’s post-modern coup against former Prime Minister Imran Khan already did that for it.

 

 

The Return of American Influence Over Pakistan

Pakistan shortly thereafter plunged into a major economic-financial crisis that prompted its new American-backed authorities to desperately seek IMF aid, which The Intercept reported last September was only granted in exchange for Pakistan clandestinely arming Ukraine.

It goes without saying that this crisis severely impacted CPEC’s viability, and the People’s Republic has since prioritized alternative connectivity routes through Central Asia and Iran for reaching the Indian Ocean instead.

CPEC is therefore no longer China’s BRI’s flagship project like it initially was in the strategic sense even if it remains one of the largest BRI investments anywhere in the world. The physical infrastructure and power plants that were built during its first phase were supposed to set the stage for unlocking Pakistan’s full economic potential, but the latter hasn’t yet happened and might very well never unfold. The problem is that its post-coup government is now financially indebted to the West with all that entails.

Iranian Chamber of Commerce official Amanollah Kahrazehi recently told local media that “US domination over the government of Pakistan” is responsible for blocking Pakistan’s energy payments to Iran, which observers can intuit also bodes ill for plans to build a long-delayed pipeline between them. This same American influence is also why Pakistan’s reported strategic roadmap for trade with Russia will likely fail to be implemented in full as explained here earlier this summer.

Although Pakistan remains semi-autonomous insofar as it’s refused to vote against Russia at the UN despite American pressure, this is only a superficial expression of sovereignty that shouldn’t mislead observers into ignoring the ways in which American influence has returned to Pakistan since April 2022. There’s also the issue of Pakistan’s deteriorating ties with the Taliban to consider too after its acting Defense Minister accused Pakistan that summer of facilitating US drone activity in Afghanistan.

The Role of Pakistani-Taliban Tensions

Their relations can now be characterized as stuck in a security dilemma that’s seen the Taliban support “Pakistani Taliban” (TTP) terrorists as an asymmetrical response to secretly revived Pakistani-US military cooperation in the aftermath of April 2022’s post-modern coup against its former multipolar premier. To be clear, terrorism can never be justified, but observers should still hear the other side of the story about why the Taliban turned against their decades-long patrons just one year after finally returning to power.

Moving along, it was observed in summer 2023 that “The TTP’s Terrorist Threat To Pakistan Is Metastasizing” after reports that it was allying with terrorist-designated Baloch separatists from the “Baloch Liberation Army” (BLA), who just so happen to be responsible for the latest spree of attacks. Pakistan launched a new counterterrorism operation two months before these tragic events, which this analysis here argued that it likely triggered by Chinese concerns about CPEC’s flagging viability.

BLA terrorist attacks against that megaproject’s terminal port of Gwadar prompted concern from the People’s Republic about whether their Pakistani partners are truly capable of pacifying this restive region, which were further amplified after late July’s large-scale political unrest in that town. Baloch activists marched in defiance of a prohibition on protest activity to draw attention to what they claimed were economic injustices and military abuses against their people.

The authorities implied that this was just a political ploy the BLA, perhaps to distract the security services in order to facilitate more terrorist attacks there or elsewhere in the region, but the fact is that this reminded observers that the decade-long Baloch Conflict is more complex than a simple CIA plot. To oversimplify, its origins relate to the controversial way in which Balochistan joined Pakistan shortly after the latter’s independence, which fueled an insurgency that eventually came to be foreign-backed in part.

The TTP’s Unholy Alliance with the BLA

Pakistan was a US ally during the Old Cold War, which is why there’s no basis to claims that the CIA was responsible for this conflict. Instead, evidence emerged over the years of Afghan, Indian, Iranian, and Soviet support, though all but the first have since ended. Whatever support India and Iran were giving to these groups ended after they revived the North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) with Russia in 2022 since neither wants instability in Pakistan to spill over into Iran and endanger this megaproject.

The USSR’s dissolution in 1991 ended Moscow’s support for such groups, while the US picked up where it left off in the mid-2010s in order to sabotage CPEC back during the time that it occupied Afghanistan and Pakistan was still on its multipolar trajectory that ended with April 2022’s post-modern coup. The Taliban’s TTP partners then allied with the BLA and associated groups over the next year as was earlier explained, thus leading to the present predicament that’s greatly worsened Afghan-Pakistani ties.

Just like the BLA doesn’t recognize Balochistan’s incorporation into Pakistan, nor does the TTP’s Pashtun ultra-nationalist base recognize the Durand Line between it and Afghanistan, with their shared territorial revisionist goals serving as yet another impetus behind their unholy alliance. Unholy is an accurate description too since these two ultra-nationalist groups have sharp differences over the presence of Pashtuns in northern Balochistan yet have still informally joined forces regardless.

They presumably agreed to disagree on this issue until after they defeat the Pakistani state, or so they expect will happen even though their foe has proven its resilience time and again despite the perceived odds. In any case, the BLA’s ultra-nationalism accounts for why it targeted ethnic Punjabis during their latest spree of terrorist attacks since this group is seen by them as representative of Pakistan’s de facto military rulers who they detest and blame for committing economic injustices against the Baloch people.

The New Pakistani-American Anti-Terrorist Partnership

It’s here where CPEC comes into play since this terrorist group believes that Balochistan won’t benefit much from this megaproject and will only see a fraction of its rich mineral wealth reinvested in the region after extraction. This “resource nationalism” figures prominently into the political and economic dimensions of the long-running Baloch Conflict, whose latest phase began after CPEC’s announcement. Suffice to say, US propaganda egged these groups on at the time, but now the US stands with Pakistan.

The State Department “strongly condemned” last week’s spree of attacks in a tweet and reaffirmed that “We stand with Pakistan in its fight against terrorism”. It should also be mentioned that the US officially designated the BLA as terrorists in 2019, and talk about those two’s former ties is now taboo in post-coup Pakistan, precisely because it could discredit the new authorities’ patrons. Instead, both Pakistan and the US now talk about the Taliban’s ties to terrorism, which serves their interests.

To be sure, there’s truth to their claims that anti-Pakistani terrorists are at the very least active in Afghanistan, if not patronized by the Taliban as an asymmetrical response to the Pakistani-US military cooperation that was secretly revived after April 2022’s post-modern coup. Nevertheless, this could be exploited by the US to justify making the aforementioned cooperation public, let alone possibly pushing Pakistan into initiating conventional cross-border hostilities that could plunge the region back into war.

Whatever may or may not happen, readers now know that the CIA isn’t responsible for the latest upsurge of terrorism in Pakistan’s Balochistan region like Pepe speculated per the outdated model that he relied upon in his post. Ignoring the decades-old political roots of this conflict, their new economic dimension over the past decade since CPEC, and the latest Taliban connections via its TTP partners leads to inaccurate assessments about its latest manifestations and impedes work on a sustainable solution.

Concluding Thoughts

Terrorist-designated forces need to either be disbanded or convinced to disavow violence in favor of political solutions to their region’s multifaceted problems, but the authorities also need to recognize the extent of such problems, only after which is an honest dialogue possible. Separatism isn’t the solution, but nor is the status quo, though a compromise is still a far way off. Well-intentioned observers can contribute to brainstorming a solution, but only if they truly understand this conflict’s origins and dynamics.

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One Month Before Global Research’s Anniversary  

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. 

The ongoing war in Ukraine has deeply divided international opinion, and the heavy involvement of European nations under the NATO umbrella has sparked significant debate. It is becoming increasingly clear that Europe’s decision to align itself with the United States’ approach to the conflict is not just questionable but borders on irrationality. This blind adherence to U.S. policy through NATO involvement presents numerous economic, political, and strategic risks for European countries—risks that could outweigh any potential benefits in the long run.

The Economic Impact on Europe

From an economic standpoint, the consequences of Europe’s participation in the war have already been disastrous. Europe is facing inflationary pressures, energy crises, and disruptions in trade, particularly with Russia, one of its key energy suppliers. Many European economies were already struggling to recover from the pandemic, and now, they find themselves plunged into further economic turmoil as a result of the sanctions imposed on Russia.

European energy security has been critically compromised. The war has led to skyrocketing energy prices across the continent, especially in countries heavily reliant on Russian natural gas. For instance, Germany, Europe’s economic powerhouse, saw significant economic setbacks as it scrambled to find alternative energy sources. The shift to more expensive and less reliable energy solutions, such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports from the United States, has strained industries and households alike.

For many Europeans, the rationale behind this economic self-harm is difficult to justify. Why should Europe sacrifice its economic stability and energy security to toe the line of U.S. policy, particularly when the U.S. faces far fewer immediate consequences of the conflict?

The Strategic Pitfalls of NATO’s Involvement

NATO’s role in the conflict further complicates matters for Europe. Originally formed as a defensive alliance during the Cold War, NATO’s current involvement in Ukraine has taken on a more offensive and interventionist stance, reflecting U.S. geopolitical interests rather than those of Europe. While the U.S. sees Russia as a primary adversary in its quest for global dominance, Europe shares a far more complex and intertwined relationship with its eastern neighbor.

Historically, Europe and Russia have shared deep economic, cultural, and security ties. For many European countries, particularly those in Eastern and Central Europe, Russia has been both a partner and a rival, and maintaining a balance has been crucial for regional stability. However, NATO’s militarization of the Ukrainian conflict risks turning Europe into a front line for U.S.-Russia rivalry, with devastating potential consequences.

Further escalation of the war could drag Europe into a broader conflict, one in which it has little to gain but much to lose. Europe’s close proximity to the conflict zone makes it more vulnerable to military retaliation, refugee crises, and economic disruption. Moreover, escalating tensions between NATO and Russia could lead to the very real danger of a nuclear confrontation—a scenario in which Europe would undoubtedly bear the brunt of the destruction.

The U.S., protected by an ocean and more distant from the conflict, faces far fewer immediate threats from a potential military escalation. Meanwhile, Europe, with its geographic proximity and historical vulnerabilities, is far more exposed to the dangers of this confrontation.

Political Dependency and Loss of Autonomy

In following the U.S.’s lead, Europe also risks undermining its own political autonomy. European leaders have long called for “strategic autonomy,” the idea that Europe should be able to act independently on the global stage, particularly in matters of defense and foreign policy. However, by following the U.S. line on Ukraine, Europe is essentially ceding control over its own security decisions to Washington.

This dependency on U.S. leadership through NATO diminishes Europe’s credibility as an independent global actor. The European Union, in particular, prides itself on being a diplomatic and economic powerhouse capable of mediating global conflicts. Yet, in the case of Ukraine, Europe has taken a backseat to the U.S., allowing NATO to shape the narrative and response to the crisis.

This loss of political autonomy is particularly troubling for countries like France and Germany, which have historically sought to balance relations with both the West and Russia14. These nations now find themselves caught in a geopolitical bind, unable to pursue independent policies that reflect their own national interests because of their commitment to NATO and, by extension, U.S. foreign policy.

A Call for Rationality and Independent Action

The decision to blindly follow the U.S. lead on Ukraine through NATO is increasingly proving to be a misguided one for Europe. While solidarity with Ukraine is important, it should not come at the expense of European economic stability, security, and political autonomy. Europe must recognize that its interests do not always align with those of the U.S. and that it has the right, and indeed the obligation, to pursue a more rational and independent approach to the conflict.

This could involve pushing for renewed diplomatic efforts, promoting negotiations, and seeking a peaceful resolution that prioritizes European security concerns over U.S. geopolitical ambitions. Europe must also reevaluate its dependence on NATO as the sole framework for its security and defense policies. While NATO has historically played a vital role in European defense, the current crisis has highlighted the need for a more flexible and autonomous European defense strategy—one that is less reliant on U.S. leadership and more reflective of Europe’s own unique geopolitical realities.

Conclusion

Europe’s decision to follow the U.S. through NATO into the war in Ukraine is a costly and potentially irrational course of action. The economic fallout, the strategic risks, and the loss of political autonomy are all clear indicators that Europe needs to rethink its approach. By continuing to toe the line of the U.S., European nations are undermining their own interests and exposing themselves to unnecessary risks. A more independent, rational, and Europe-centric approach to the Ukraine conflict is urgently needed—one that safeguards Europe’s long-term security, economic stability, and political autonomy.

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Prof. Ruel F. Pepa is a Filipino philosopher based in Madrid, Spain. A retired academic (Associate Professor IV), he taught Philosophy and Social Sciences for more than fifteen years at Trinity University of Asia, an Anglican university in the Philippines.

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Carnegie Europe. (2022). NATO’s Influence in European Security Decisions.

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European External Action Service (EEAS). (2023). Europe’s Role as a Global Diplomatic Power.

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Institute for the Study of War. (2022). Escalation Risks in the Ukraine Conflict.

Ivanov, A. (2022). The Erosion of European Sovereignty: U.S. Influence in NATO. Foreign Policy.

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Krickovic, A. (2022). Europe at Risk: Potential Outcomes of NATO’s Involvement in Ukraine. The Atlantic Council.

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Mearsheimer, J. J. (2022). Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault. Foreign Affairs.

NATO. (2022). NATO’s Role in the Ukraine Conflict.

Reuters. (2023). Germany Faces Economic Slowdown Due to Energy Crisis.

The Guardian. (2023). The Geopolitical Bind of Europe: NATO, Russia, and Autonomy.

The person who is most responsible for the attacks on October 7 is Donald Trump. It was Trump who launched the so-called Middle East Peace Plan that allowed for the “unilateral annexation of the Jordan River valley and existing settlements” in the West Bank.

Just as it was Trump who decided to move the US embassy to Jerusalem which effectively recognized the city as Israel’s capital. “Then on March 25, 2019”—according to veteran journalist Joe Lauria—“Trump recognized Israel’s illegal 1981 annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights” in violation of UN Resolution 242. Even Israel’s most ardent supporters, like the New York Times, were aghast at the sheer magnitude of Trump’s giveaway. Here’s what they said in an article in February, 2020:

President Trump on Tuesday unveiled his long-awaited Middle East peace plan with a flourish, releasing a proposal that would give Israel most of what it has sought over decades of conflict while offering the Palestinians the possibility of a state with limited sovereignty. Mr. Trump’s plan would guarantee that Israel would control a unified Jerusalem as its capital and not require it to uproot any of the settlements in the West Bank that have provoked Palestinian outrage and alienated much of the world.…

under the plan, those Palestinians would find themselves virtually encircled by an expanded Israel and living within convoluted borders reminiscent of a gerrymandered congressional district….

the Palestinians…. would not have a standing military and would be required to meet other benchmarks overseen by the Israelis, including a renunciation of violence and the disbandment of militant groups like Hamas…

President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority immediately denounced the plan as a “conspiracy deal”unworthy of serious consideration, making the decades-long pursuit of a so-called two-state solution appear more distant than ever. “We say a thousand times over: no, no, no,” Mr. Abbas said on Tuesday in Ramallah, in the West Bank.. Trump Releases Mideast Peace Plan That Strongly Favors Israel, New York Times

Keep in mind, Palestinian leaders were never consulted on the plan that was largely crafted by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his fanatical colleagues. As a result, the final copy is little more than an Israeli wish-list that garners the Trump administration’s blessing while sabotaging any prospect of a two-state solution. As one critic from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said, “Front-loading the annexation (of land in the West Bank) reaffirms the worst fears that this is more an annexation plan than a peace plan.”

Diana Buttu, a former Palestinian Authority spokeswoman, tweeted: “Netanyahu is clear: Trump is the first world leader to say it is alright for Israel to steal land.” NYTimes

President Donald J. Trump, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bahrain Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Foreign Affairs for the United Arab Emirates Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan signs the Abraham Accords Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2020, on the South Lawn of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead) 

But the Peace Plan was just the first of Trump’s attempts to torpedo Palestinian aspirations. The second, was Trump’s Abraham Accords that were designed to normalize relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors while marginalizing the Palestinian cause. Prior to the Abraham Accords, (which were the handiwork of Jared Kushner) Arab countries were expected to eschew diplomatic normalization with Israel until Israel had taken steps to comply with the central tenets of the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 which required the following:

1– Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.

2– Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194.

3– The acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

(After which, the Arab countries would) Establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace…. enabling the Arab countries and Israel to live in peace and good neighbourliness and provide future generations with security, stability and prosperity. Arab Peace Initiative 2002

Trump’s Abraham Accords were a way of sidestepping the requirements of the Arab Peace Initiative by consummating bilateral agreements that made no such demands. And the scheme worked, too. From 2000-on, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan all signed the Accords strengthening their economic and diplomatic ties with Israel while gradually integrating Israel into the broader Middle East region. At the same time, Israel continued to settle more Palestinian land on the West Bank while tightening its blockade of Gaza. Bottom line: The Abraham Accords were an effective way to “disappear” the Palestinian issue altogether while exempting Israel of any duty to implement UN resolutions or loosen the grip of its long-term military occupation. Naturally, the Palestinians saw this as an existential threat to their future as a people, a culture and a civilization. This is from an article at Aljazeera:

(The signing of the Abraham Accords) was “a stab in the back of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people”, Ahmad Majdalani, social affairs minister in the Palestinian Authority (PA), told AFP news agency.

In the besieged Gaza Strip, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said Bahrain’s decision to normalise relations with Israel “represents a grave harm to the Palestinian cause, and it supports the occupation”.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), based in Ramallah, occupied West Bank, called the normalisation “another treacherous stab to the Palestinian cause”.

Palestinians fear the moves by the UAE and Bahrain will weaken a long-standing pan-Arab position that calls for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory and acceptance of Palestinian statehood in return for normal relations with Arab countries. ‘Stab in the back’: Palestinians condemn Israel-Bahrain deal, Aljazeera

So—as far back as 2020—we can see that Hamas understood they faced a serious threat to their collective survival that had to be countered. That initial reaction evolved into the expansive military operation that was launched on October 7. Here’s how Hamas reacted at the time (2021). This is from News i24:

Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh says ‘We must have an integrated plan to bring down normalization’…. A senior leader in Hamas’ political wing urged on Thursday that the group must fight against the normalization agreements which neighboring states established with Israel.

Last year’s Abraham Accords brought a series of agreements between Israel and other nations in the region, where states agreed to establish full diplomatic relations with the country.

Hamas Political Bureau Charmain Ismail Haniyeh spoke out against the deals during a conference in Istanbul, Turkey, and called to take action to undermine them….“We must have an integrated plan to bring down normalization, which, unfortunately, has taken the character of military and security alliances with some countries,” he announced, according to a press release on Hamas’ website. Hamas calls for ‘plan’ to undermine Israel’s Abraham Accords, i24 News

Not surprisingly, President Joe Biden blabbed the truth about October 7 in a press conference just days after the attacks. His comments have been largely scrubbed by the media, but they can still be found in an article by Politico posted on October 21, 2023. Here’s what he said:

President Joe Biden said that Hamas’ attacks on Israel were intended in part to scuttle the potential normalization of the U.S. ally’s relations with Saudi Arabia.

“One of the reasons Hamas moved on Israel … they knew that I was about to sit down with the Saudis,” Biden said at a campaign event Friday night, according to pool reports. “Guess what? The Saudis wanted to recognize Israel,” the president added…. The normalization push began under former President Donald Trump’s administration and was branded as the Abraham Accords. Biden says Hamas attacks aimed to halt Israel-Saudi Arabia agreement, Politico

Is that an admission that Trump’s normalization policy provoked October 7?

It is.

Hamas saw the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia as the final nail in the coffin of a two-state solution. They understood that once the Saudis normalized relations with Israel—due to security and economic inducements provided by the US—Israel would be free to expand the settlements, strengthen the occupation or even expel the Palestinians from the country altogether. There would be nothing to stop them from asserting control over all the territory from the river to the sea. In short, Trump’s Abraham Accords forced Hamas to concoct a strategy that would be explosive enough to derail Washington’s normalization project. The plan they settled on was October 7. The rest is history. Here’s a brief recap from an article at The Intercept:

The de facto premise behind the accords, initiated under former President Donald Trump and led by his son-in-law Jared Kushner, was to “solve” the Israel–Palestine conflict by simply ignoring the Palestinians and treating their conditions as irrelevant. This weekend’s events show that this approach, premised on Palestinian invisibility, has now collapsed. Indeed, t he expectation that Palestinians would simply resign themselves to a slow death, an assumption evidently carried forth by Biden, was never realistic….

Under Biden, the U.S. has devoted little effort to seeking even tactical détente, let alone peace, between Israel and the Palestinians, preferring instead to continue the Trump administration’s approach of ignoring the Palestinians to seek quid pro quo diplomatic deals between Israel and foreign Arab and Muslim countrieswith whom Israel has no direct conflict.

Even as the massive bloodshed began around Gaza this week, with Hamas militants massacring Israeli civilians and Israel apparently indiscriminately bombing the Gaza Strip, the administration has rushed to try and salvage its approach to the region. The New York Times reported on Sunday that top Biden aides were scrambling to “reaffirm their commitment to the idea of potential normalization of diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel.” This shoddy simulacrum of real diplomacy — which inevitably requires resolving tough differences between enemies — has now collided with horrifying reality in Gaza and southern Israel. Biden Doubled Down on the Abraham Accords — to “Devastating Consequences”, Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept

It doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots linking the Trump Peace Plan, the Abraham Accords and the October 7 attacks. The three are inseparable. Trump’s Zionist-friendly policies have backfired catastrophically triggering a genocide in Gaza and likely plunging the entire Middle East into a regional war.

Trump is every bit as responsible for the ongoing bloodbath as his accomplice, Benjamin Netanyahu.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Michael Whitney is a renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace.

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

Featured image: President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walk along the Colonnade, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2017, back to the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Shealah D. Craighead)

On the Arrest of Telegram’s Founder, Pavel Durov: How to Fight Censorship as Globalists Expand their War on Truth

By Timothy Alexander Guzman, September 03, 2024

Any information or opinion on Israel’s genocide on the Palestinians, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, human rights issues around the world, Covid-19 vaccines, the dangers of GMO food, agendas of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and so on, Big Tech is there to censor the story. 

Hezbollah Replies to Israel While Preventing Netanyahu’s Plan for a Regional War

By Steven Sahiounie, September 03, 2024

The Israeli military is attempting to pull Hezbollah into a full-scale regional war, through the massive and continuous airstrikes across the south of Lebanon and into the Bekaa Valley. Only Netanyahu benefits from this plan so that he can remain in power and stay out of jail due to being found guilty of corruption.

Zelensky Faces Backlash in Ukraine After Kursk Raid Weakened Donetsk Frontline

By Ahmed Adel, September 03, 2024

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has faced a barrage of criticism from soldiers, lawmakers, and military analysts over the rapid advances made by the Russian army in Donbass since Kiev launched its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, the Financial Times reported.

Is Russia on the Brink of Reviving the Grain Deal with Ukraine with the Support of Turkey?

By Andrew Korybko, September 03, 2024

Foreign Minister Lavrov revealed on Monday that Russia was on the brink of reviving the grain deal this spring as a result of Turkish mediation until Ukraine suddenly dropped out of the talks. This disclosure is surprising since that same deal was much-maligned by Russia’s supporters at home and abroad after Russia refused to extend it last summer.

Germany Elections and Its Growing Economic and Political Crisis

By Dr. Jack Rasmus, September 03, 2024

The declining condition of Germany’s economy as the ‘economic engine’ of Europe reveals that perhaps the ‘Plan B’ purpose of Biden/US Russia sanctions on Russia has been to make Germany/EU more economically dependent on the USA.

On a Highway to Hell: Nuclear Weapons Offer an Illusion of Security. Scott Ritter

By Scott Ritter, September 03, 2024

Once he became president, Biden was immediately confronted with two major challenges for which he was ill-equipped to handle — the Russian-Ukraine crisis, and China’s assertion of its national interests over Taiwan and the South China Sea. Both involved the potential of military escalation leading up to direct force-on-force conflict between the U.S. military and their Russian and Chinese counterparts, both of which included the possibility of nuclear war.

The National Security State Is Killing Free Speech. Dr. Philip Giraldi

By Philip Giraldi, September 02, 2024

The Biden administration has taken the incestuous relationship with its law enforcement and intelligence agencies even farther. It sought to establish a “Disinformation_Governance_Board” at the Department of Homeland Security which would have been empowered to denounce the credibility of citizens who were complaining about what the government was doing based on the fiction that what was taking place was deliberate disruption of the government using false information.

It’s wild when you realize that nobody can actually articulate a reason why Israel should be supported that is both logically coherent and morally defensible.

Westerners grow up being indoctrinated with the understanding that this tiny country in the middle east is super duper important and needs to be supported and defended at all cost, but if you examine the reasons given for why this is so as an adult, you find that none of them really hold water.

“Israel is the only place where Jews can be safe!”

This is clearly false. A Jewish person in New York City is self-evidently much, much safer than a Jewish person in Tel Aviv. Forcefully creating a brand new apartheid ethnostate dropped on top of a pre-existing civilization naturally means that Israel can only ever exist in perpetual violence, which places everyone who lives there in danger.

“The Jews deserve a homeland!”

Why? Why does any religion deserve to have a country of their own where members of that religion are in charge of everyone else and receive preferential treatment? There are more Mormons in the world than Jews, and they don’t have their own country. There are more Sikhs in the world than Jews, and they don’t have their own country. There’s no logically coherent reason why every religion should have its own nation state, and there’s no logically coherent reason why such a principle should apply to Jews but not to Scientologists.

“Israel is the only liberal democracy in the middle east.”

This one’s just silly. A genocidal apartheid regime which actively disenfranchises and abuses the Palestinian population is the exact opposite of “liberal” and “democratic”. But even if that was not the case, there is no logically coherent and morally defensible reason why any given region should have a representative of a particular political ideology in it, no matter how many people need to be murdered and oppressed to make it so.

“I support Israel’s existence but I oppose the mistreatment of Palestinians.”

This one is quite popular with the liberals, but it’s nonsensical and self-contradictory. Israel has been abusive to Palestinians throughout the entirety of its existence from its very inception; only in the imaginary fairy tales of liberal Zionists has it ever existed without tyranny, theft and murder, and only in their imaginary fairy tales can a Jewish ethno-state be dropped on top of a civilization of non-Jews in a way that could ever be without nonstop tyranny, theft and murder.

The only choices are a two-state solution which Israel is openly doing everything it can to prevent, and a one-state solution where everyone has equal rights which would per definition not be a Jewish state. Liberal Zionists pretend they live in a fairy fantasyland alternate timeline where this is not the reality. This is how liberals try to square the circle of supporting Israel when it’s morally indefensible; they simply invent an imaginary world in which it is moral, and pretend it’s a real possibility.

Netanyahu now just nonchalantly indicating the annexation of the West Bank while the Biden administration continues to insist that he’s a good faith partner and the Two-State Solution is still on the table. https://t.co/P8mLz2zcaT

— derek davison (@dwdavison) September 2, 2024

“Israel is essential for protecting our interests in the region.”

This one is logically coherent from a certain point of view, but it’s certainly not morally defensible.

There’s not even any logically coherent reason for any normal westerner to say that Israel protects “our” interests in the middle east. It is only logically coherent for the managers of the western empire to say that helping Israel wage the nonstop violent force necessary for its existence helps sow the chaos, tyranny, destabilization and division necessary to ensure their geostrategic domination of a resource-rich region and keep middle eastern nations from uniting into a superpower bloc who use their resources to advance their own interests around the world.

Contrary to what some people believe, Israel isn’t responsible for the existence of western warmongering — western warmongering is responsible for the existence of Israel. If there wasn’t an Israel they’d just invent another excuse to maintain a military presence in the middle east and keep sowing violence and chaos. Biden himself has acknowledged this, saying “Were there not an Israel the United States would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.”

So from that perspective it does make logical sense to say that the western empire would have a harder time advancing its unipolarist objectives on the world stage without a destabilizing agent whose existence is wholly dependent upon constant western backing. And if you really want to go whole hog in siding with the imperialists’ reasoning for supporting Israel, you can also argue that Israel provides the perfect narrative cover for maintaining a military presence in the middle east.

For many years the final debate-ending argument against western military withdrawal from the middle east has been that it would ensure Israel’s destruction, because Israel’s neighbors would simply eliminate it without the deterrence of the US war machine there to protect it.

And if you take it as a given that Israel must continue to exist in its present iteration, it really is a debate-ending argument. If you take it as a given that Israel must be permitted to exist as an apartheid ethnostate which was artificially forced into existence in the mid-20th century, then of course there is no way it can exist without nonstop violence, and of course there is no way it can come out on the winning side of all that violence without the backing of the US-centralized empire.

What this means is that if you accept that Israel must continue to exist as it presently exists, you are necessarily accepting that the US and its western allies must retain a military stranglehold on the middle east. There is no way to maintain this artificially created astroturf state without nonstop violence, so you have to remain in a position to help inflict that violence at all times.

Which is mighty convenient for the US-centralized power structure, to say the least. But it is, of course, not morally defensible. It is not morally defensible to keep killing middle easterners year after year, decade after decade, in order to rule the world. It might be logically coherent, but it is also profoundly evil.

All arguments for supporting Israel fail either logically, morally, or both. Which is why so much propaganda goes into manipulating us into supporting this murderous regime, and why voices who oppose it are getting increasingly suppressed by establishment power structures. 

It’s why the mass media have been demonstrably wildly biased toward the advancement of Israeli information interests in their reporting, and it’s why critics of Israeli atrocities like Richard Medhurst, Sarah Wilkinson and Mary Kostakidis have been outrageously persecuted in the UK and Australia. 

They have no argument, so they are increasingly resorting to the blunt instrument.

When you peel away the layers, the arguments for keeping the Israel project going are all about domination and control, which is why more and more domination and control is being used to protect that project from scrutiny. 

Israel, ultimately, is nothing but a nonstop war. And, like all wars, its existence depends on hiding the truth from the public.

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Featured image source

Foreign Minister Lavrov revealed on Monday that Russia was on the brink of reviving the grain deal this spring as a result of Turkish mediation until Ukraine suddenly dropped out of the talks. This disclosure is surprising since that same deal was much-maligned by Russia’s supporters at home and abroad after Russia refused to extend it last summer. Here are Lavrov’s exact words on the matter as reported by TASS:

“This spring Turkey attempted to renew the agreement on the protection of food supplies in a modified format. We were ready. At the last minute, the Ukrainians said: ‘Let’s write a clause – add to the obligations not to touch merchant ships the need to respect the safety of nuclear power plants.’ It seems out of place, but we also said: ‘Let’s do it.’

[Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan really convinced us that this would be a step forward, he was completely sincere and tried to be helpful. We agreed, but then the Ukrainians, who proposed it themselves, said they were not happy with it. Apparently, at that time they already had plans to bomb nuclear power plants.

There’s no reason to doubt what he said since he’s Russia’s top diplomat so all that can be done is to try to make sense of this unexpected news. The grain deal’s main criticism was that it was superficial after only around 3% of Ukrainian grain went to the Global South according to Putin himself. He also added that the West never implemented its part of the deal by removing obstacles to Russia’s own agricultural exports.

Russia’s worsening relations with Ukraine and the West since then suggest that neither of them had any intention of making good on their promises if the deal was revived. Moreover, while the nuclear power plant element might have sounded like a promising addition to the practically symbolic grain pact, there wouldn’t have been any guarantee that it too wouldn’t have been violated. Ukraine might have even used that to get Russia’s guard down ahead of a major preplanned drone attack against such facilities.

If that was the case, then it’s a blessing in disguise that this hybrid grain-nuclear deal fell through, but these observations still don’t answer the question of why Russia was even considering it. One possible explanation is that Putin sincerely thought that it could have advanced his diplomatic goal of laying the basis for resuming peace talks modeled off of their draft peace treaty from 2022. The reason why this can’t be ruled out is due to him bringing that up once again on Monday at a separate event.

He conditioned this upon the expulsion of Kiev’s forces from Kursk, but he also added that

“The current authorities are clearly not ready for this, they have little chance of being re-elected. That is why they are not interested in ending the fighting, that is why they tried to carry out this provocation in Kursk Region, and before when they tried to carry out the same operation in Belgorod Region.” He might therefore have been hoping that the West would force Ukraine to do this after more so-called ‘goodwill gestures’.

Time and again, he seems to continue placing faith in the West becoming fatigued with this conflict the longer that it drags on for and the more that Russia continues gradually gaining ground in Donbass, which it’s continued to do since the start of the year and has recently picked up the pace. Putin still won’t radically respond to the spree of provocations against Russia over the past two and a half years out of fear that he’d inadvertently spark the Third World War that he’s thus far worked so hard to avoid.

Agreeing to another grain deal, a hybrid grain-nuclear one, or a reportedly Qatari-mediated partial ceasefire might thus be seen as a costless means to the end of politically resolving this conflict. So long as he remembers what he admitted regarding his naivete about the West and doesn’t let his guard down after more ‘goodwill gestures’, then perhaps this plan will succeed. Russia’s supporters should therefore brace themselves for this just in case so that they’re not disappointed if any such deals are agreed to.

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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.  

Featured image is from South Front

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has faced a barrage of criticism from soldiers, lawmakers, and military analysts over the rapid advances made by the Russian army in Donbass since Kiev launched its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, the Financial Times reported.

Although many Ukrainians celebrated their army’s invasion of Kursk on August 6, hoping that the gamble would force Moscow to divert resources to the new front and the conflict would change course, according to the London-based outlet, a breach in the frontline in the Donetsk region this week has triggered a backlash against the leadership in Kiev, with critics arguing that Ukraine’s positions have been weakened by the redeployment of thousands of Ukrainian troops experienced in the Kursk operation.

Russian forces are closing in on the strategically important city of Pokrovsk, liberating several nearby towns this week and forcing undermanned Ukrainian units to retreat from prepared defensive positions. Pokrovsk is one of two major rail and road junctions in the Donetsk region, and its loss would threaten the Ukrainian military’s entire logistics in the region, according to Frontelligence Insight, a Ukrainian analytical group cited by the newspaper.

Satellite imagery analysed by open-source researchers at the Finland-based Black Bird Group shows that Russian forces are now just eight kilometres from Pokrovsk. In response, local authorities have ordered residents of the area to evacuate.

Aleksandr Kovalenko, a military analyst with the Kiev-based Information Resistance group, called the situation a “complete defensive failure.”

“It’s not the fault of ordinary soldiers holding positions. The problem lies with those who make decisions for these soldiers,” Kovalenko wrote in a Telegram post, cited by the outlet.

Ukrainian army commander Aleksandr Syrsky said in a statement on August 29 that he had visited the Pokrovsk area and was working “to strengthen the defence of our troops in the most difficult areas of the front, to provide the brigades with a sufficient amount of ammunition and other material and technical means.”

Indeed, Russian forces have advanced more rapidly in Donetsk since August 6 compared to previous months, according to several military analysts, including Deep State, a Ukrainian group with close ties to Ukraine’s Defence Ministry that monitors frontline movements, the FT says.

Over the past three weeks, Moscow’s forces have quickly liberated more than two dozen cities and towns with minimal resistance, including the former stronghold of Niu-York.

“Ukraine committed reserves to Kursk, leaving fewer options to plug gaps elsewhere. Some of the more experienced brigades have been replaced by newer, less experienced units,” Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, told the FT.

Soldiers in artillery units near Pokrovsk also highlighted a deficit of shells and a large mismatch in firepower compared to Russian forces.

“Our shells are running out. We just don’t have enough,” said an artillery commander, noting that many resources had been redirected north to Kursk. For about the past month, his unit has had one shell for every six to eight fired by the Russians.

Stanislav Aseyev, a Ukrainian journalist and soldier currently on the eastern front, warned of the possible “destruction of the entire southern group of forces in the region, not just Pokrovsk,” citing “a complex of internal reasons: from the planting of flowers instead of fortifications to the lack of understanding on the part of high command of the problems evident to every soldier in the trenches.”

“What can be done for Pokrovsk?” he asked rhetorically. “Unfortunately, the only option is to evacuate as many people as possible. I think the town will soon cease to exist.”

According to the FT, during a press conference in Kiev on August 27, Zelensky described the situation on the frontline near Pokrovsk as “extremely difficult.” However, the difficulties are not only in Pokrovsk but also in Kursk, with Ukrainian forces being eliminated at an alarming rate.

The Russian Defence Ministry announced on August 30 that more than 7,800 Ukrainian servicemen and 75 tanks were eliminated by Russian forces in the border areas of the Kursk region.

“In total, during the military operations in the Kursk direction, the enemy lost more than 7,800 servicemen, 75 tanks, 36 infantry fighting vehicles, 64 armoured personnel carriers, 507 armoured combat vehicles, 235 vehicles, 53 artillery pieces, 15 multiple launch rocket system launchers,” the ministry said in a statement.

Considering the Ukrainian military is already suffering from major manpower shortages and the Kiev regime continues to plea to its Western partners to send more equipment, soldiers, lawmakers, and military analysts have every right to criticise Zelensky for the Kursk operation since it is effectively nothing more than a PR campaign that has already been exposed just a few weeks after its launch. As previously reported, it is impossible for Ukraine to hold onto the areas captured in Kursk and instead has allowed the Russian army to continue its march to liberate Pokrovsk from Kiev regime forces, therefore bringing Russia’s ultimate victory one step closer.

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One Month Before Global Research’s Anniversary 

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: CRIMEA, RUSSIA – FEBRUARY 24, 2022: A column of armoured vehicles approaches the Perekop checkpoint on the Ukrainian border. Early on February 24, President Putin announced a special military operation to be conducted by the Russian Armed Forces in response to appeals for help from the leaders of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Sergei Malgavko/TASS

The Middle East sat on a razor’s edge on August 25, when Israel attacked the south of Lebanon with over 40 airstrikes, and minutes later the Lebanese resistance organization, Hezbollah, struck Israel with 340 missiles and tens of drones.

Israel claimed to have destroyed several thousands of missiles that were ready to be launched on Israel. This exaggerated claim by Israel was made to cover up the Israeli military failure to protect its residents of the north, who have suffered destroyed homes, lost incomes, and general chaos because of the faulty decisions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and his right-wing religious extremist cabinet ministers, Ithmar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

The Israeli military is attempting to pull Hezbollah into a full-scale regional war, through the massive and continuous airstrikes across the south of Lebanon and into the Bekaa Valley. Only Netanyahu benefits from this plan so that he can remain in power and stay out of jail due to being found guilty of corruption. This is the same reason why Netanyahu has continued to refuse a ceasefire in Gaza, despite the massive losses of Israeli military personnel, equipment, and the economy.

Netanyahu has ignored the domestic pressure from the families of the Israeli hostages in Gaza, and international pressure to end the war in Gaza, which would end the Hezbollah attacks from Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s reply to the Israeli assassination of Foud Shukr, which was carried out by a targeted attack in Beirut on July 30, was calculated and bold. They chose targets specifically designed to prevent Netanyahu from igniting a regional war. Netanyahu was hoping Hezbollah would be so reckless as to hit strategic Israeli infrastructure and civilians, which would allow Netanyahu to be justified in a whole-scale attack on Beirut.

The targets of Hezbollah were military bases and not civilians.

The US had sent to the eastern Mediterranean numerous ships and military assets and had sent Amos Hochstein, a US special envoy, to Lebanon several times to threaten the Lebanese government and the resistance organizations.

Netanyahu knows he can’t fight a regional war alone, and he needs the US military to achieve the military victories he seeks. The US has continued its blind support of the Israeli war in Gaza, despite the UN and others calling it genocide.

Netanyahu cannot be stopped. His citizens, critics, the UN, humanitarian groups, and the US administration have all been unsuccessful in persuading Netanyahu to focus on a ceasefire and hostage release. The US is the only force that can stop Netanyahu, but they will not stop him because the US military complex is benefiting from the Gaza war, and keeping the region in chaos.

The US has sent more than 50,000 tons of weapons and ammunition to Israel since October 7, 2023. Over 500 cargo planes and over 107 ships have delivered the military supplies to keep Netanyahu at war in Gaza, which has pulled in Hezbollah and other allies of the resistance, who stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people living under military occupation in Gaza, the Occupied West Bank, and East Jerusalem.

Two possible scenarios could play out in the Middle East. Firstly, a regional war may break out with the axis of resistance united on one side, against Israel and the US on the opposing side. Secondly, the tension will continue in the region as it is currently until after the US election in November.

In my opinion, the US was attempting to end the war in Gaza until the day Biden decided to withdraw his re-election bid. Biden saw delivering a ceasefire in Gaza as a vote boost on Election Day. Netanyahu coordinated with AIPAC to reinforce Biden’s image as old and senile, which resulted in Biden pulling out of the race. Netanyahu is betting on VP Kamala Harris winning, after which she will continue the Netanyahu plan.

The Netanyahu plan is to annex Gaza, the occupied territories in the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. This action would close the book on the two-state solution, and keep the desire for freedom burning as a flame in the hearts of Palestinians, and everyone who rejects colonialism.

The two-state solution remains an internationally recognized solution to the 70 years of Middle Eastern conflict, and the only hope for the freedom of the Palestinian people.

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One Month Before Global Research’s Anniversary 

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.

After the bodies of six more Israeli hostages of Hamas were found in the Gaza Strip, pressure in Israel is mounting on the government to secure a ceasefire deal and free the remaining hostages and soldiers taken captive on October 7. The announcement Sunday that the captives, including a dual citizen of the U.S., were discovered in a tunnel in Rafah has further fueled the rage toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, particularly from the families of those held in Gaza. They have accused the prime minister of sabotaging deals to free their loved ones, saying “their blood is on his hands.”

Senior Israeli officials, most prominently the defense minister, have joined the public demands for Netanyahu to stop obstructing ceasefire negotiations, while Hamas has said they will not participate in any process until the U.S. convinces Israel to accept a negotiating framework Hamas agreed to in early July. Both Hamas and the families of Israeli captives still held in Gaza have stated that Netanyahu bears responsibility for continuing the war and preventing the exchange of prisoners.

The White House clearly hopes the events of the past 24 hours alter the current course. After being briefed on Saturday evening on the hostages found in Rafah, President Joe Biden, who is vacationing in Delaware, said,

“I think we’re on the verge of having an agreement,” adding, “We think we can close the deal, they’ve all said they agree on the principles.”

By Sunday afternoon, street protests were staged throughout parts of Israel and the mayor of Tel Aviv announced a municipal strike for Monday. “[W]e will allow all employees to go out and support the families’ struggle,” he wrote on Twitter/X.

עדן, כרמל, הרש, אורי, אלמוג ואלכס היו צריכים להיות עכשיו בבית. בחיים.
ממשלת ישראל הפקירה אותם, אבל מדינת ישראל היא אנחנו.
לאות הזדהות עם החטופים ומשפחותיהם, עיריית תל אביב-יפו מצטרפת לשביתה.
מחר, החל משעות הבוקר ועד לצהריים לא תהיה קבלת קהל ונאפשר לכל העובדות והעובדים לצאת ולתמוך…

— רון חולדאי (@Ron_Huldai) September 1, 2024

Following a meeting Sunday with an association of family members of Israeli captives, the head of the Histadrut labor federation, Israel’s largest trade union, announced a general strike. If that action extends beyond a symbolic strike of one or two days, it could cascade into a formidable crisis for Netanyahu.

“Netanyahu abandoned the hostages. This is now a fact,” the family association said in a statement. “We call on the public to prepare. We will bring the country to a halt. The abandonment is over.”

Vice President Kamala Harris released a statement endorsing Israel’s version of events on the captives discovered in Rafah and echoed Netanyahu’s pledge to eliminate Hamas.

“Hamas is an evil terrorist organization. With these murders, Hamas has even more American blood on its hands,” she said, referring to the death of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a dual citizen whose parents spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago earlier this month.

Goldberg-Polin was abducted from the Nova music festival on October 7 and lost part of his arm after a grenade exploded in a shelter he was hiding in.

“The threat Hamas poses to the people of Israel—and American citizens in Israel—must be eliminated and Hamas cannot control Gaza.”

Hamas has not yet offered a detailed response to Israel’s accusation that Hamas fighters murdered the six captives, but blamed Israel for their deaths.

“We hold the criminal terrorist Benjamin Netanyahu and the biased American administration responsible for the failure of the negotiations to stop the aggression against our people and to release the prisoners in an exchange,” the group said in a statement. “We also hold him fully responsible for the lives of the prisoners who were killed by his army’s bullets.”

The White House has, in recent weeks, portrayed its efforts at achieving a ceasefire as boiling down to resolving a handful of technical details, and Harris has said she is “working tirelessly” with Biden “around the clock” to achieve a ceasefire in the Gaza war. But as U.S. negotiators have worked to placate Netanyahu, the Israeli leader has waged a relentless two-month campaign aimed at thwarting a deal and Hamas has denounced the process and asserted that the U.S. framework it agreed to in early July should be respected.

A Hamas official involved with the ceasefire negotiations told Drop Site News that the vice president and other U.S. officials have deliberately misled the public about the process out of concerns that the Gaza war will hurt the Democrats’ chances of victory in November.

“Kamala Harris is now obsessed with how to defeat Trump, how to win the election, and she knows that the genocide in Gaza and these massacres are a crucial element in the campaign,” said Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau. “She wants to create a delusional image that there is something in process, which is not right.”

In an interview, Naim said that while the U.S.—for political purposes—wants to achieve a temporary truce that facilitates the release of Israelis held captive in Gaza and allows aid to reach the besieged Strip, it has given no indication it would insist on Israel ending its war against the Palestinians of Gaza.

“They are looking for a ceasefire, but they are not for ending the war permanently,” Naim said. “There is a tactical discussion how to achieve [Israel’s] goals in a different way which cannot damage the American image internationally while they are supporting genocide, because they know that it is damaging their chances to win the election.” 

He believes that the U.S. also recognizes that Israel’s wars have made it a pariah in the eyes of much of the world, threatening the viability of a nation central to U.S. domination of the region.

“The strategic interests of America to preserve Israel as an advanced base on the front line here are at risk,” Naim said.

Establishing a Framework 

In May, Biden laid out what he characterized as “a roadmap to an enduring ceasefire and the release of all hostages” that had been proposed by Israel itself.

“This is truly a decisive moment. Israel has made their proposal,” Biden said on May 31. “Hamas says it wants a ceasefire. This deal is an opportunity to prove whether they really mean it. Hamas needs to take the deal.” 

On June 10, the UN Security Council approved a resolution affirming the framework. On July 2, Hamas announced that it had agreed to restart ceasefire talks based on the framework.

“We are ready for negotiations that achieve a cessation of aggression and a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip,” said senior negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya, a deputy of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. “We are ready for genuine negotiations if Netanyahu adheres to the principles outlined by President Biden.”

At the time, Hamas negotiators indicated they were open to a three-phase deal that would not require an immediate commitment to a permanent ceasefire and complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza as a precondition to move forward with the process. Prior to this, Hamas had insisted any agreement must include clearly defined steps that ensure an end to Israel’s war.

Drop Site News has reviewed internal documents from the negotiations showing that on July 2 Hamas formally informed international mediators that it had accepted the framework, which Hamas says it was told had been amended by the U.S. and approved by Israel on June 24. This amendment removed language Hamas had previously insisted on that called for negotiations no later than 14 days into the first phase of a deal on the “necessary arrangements for the return of a sustainable calm (permanent ceasefire),” according to a draft seen by Drop Site News. Hamas believed this compromise was strong evidence of their desire to reach a deal.

“If you draw a timeline for the negotiations along the last 10 months, you will observe a consistent pattern of the Israelis: each time we are near to reach an agreement, either they commit new massacres or backtrack from the deal and add new conditions,” said Naim.

The Israeli government did not respond to a request for comment.

Netanyahu’s “Coup” Against His Own Ceasefire Proposal

Since early July, Netanyahu has intensified Israel’s attacks in Gaza, repeatedly added new terms to the framework, and assassinated Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political leader and its lead negotiator, in Tehran. Among the new demands put forward by Netanyahu is the right to continue occupying the Philadelphi corridor along the border with Egypt, to maintain control of the Rafah border crossing and to position Israeli troops in central Gaza along the Netzarim axis where IDF forces would establish checkpoints to search Palestinians seeking to return to their homes in northern Gaza. 

Egypt has objected to Israeli proposals to remain in the Philadelphi corridor. Israel asked Cairo to amend a 2005 agreement, a security annex to the Camp David Treaty signed in 1979, barring Israel from stationing its forces there. Egypt rejected this, saying,

“Opening a discussion about amending the Camp David Treaty may lead to new crises that the treaty may not withstand, especially in light of the growing anger in Egypt over the Israeli practices [in Gaza].”

Meanwhile, the independent Egyptian news site Madr Masr recently published satellite imagery showing Israel has fortified its presence along Netzarim. The IDF began bulldozing areas along that axis five months into the war and insists it wants to maintain a presence there as part of any agreement with Hamas.

“No one in Hamas can accept any form of Israeli presence in the Netzarim corridor and investigating the people while they are returning home. And no one accepts this and accepts the military presence in the Philadelphi corridor and the Rafah crossing,” said Naim. “I think the only way to reach a deal is to lift these points from any deal,” otherwise “it means that we are accepting a permanent occupation of the Gaza Strip.”

Naim also said that Israel was insisting on new veto powers over the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, which would prevent the release of high value political prisoners, including those from Hamas and other resistance groups serving multi decade prison sentences.

“[Netanyahu] totally changed the terms about the prisoner exchange, which has already been agreed upon and negotiated for months,” said Naim. “I think it would be shameful for any Palestinian to accept such a deal.”

Rather than insisting on upholding what Biden said was Israel’s own proposal in May, the U.S. has appeased Netanyahu’s efforts to allow an indefinite presence of Israeli forces in Gaza and an open-ended campaign of military attacks. Since Haniyeh’s assassination and the selection of Sinwar, the Gaza leader of Hamas, to replace him, Hamas has said it will not participate in what it has described as a rigged process masquerading as negotiations.

“The new conditions [Netanyahu] is adding is a coup against his own proposal,” Naim said.

Blinken’s Loss of Credibility 

In early August, the White House insisted that a ceasefire was within reach and had put forward what it called a “final bridging proposal” to resolve outstanding issues.

“We are closer than we’ve ever been,” Biden said on August 16. Four days later, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Tel Aviv meeting with Netanyahu. “He supports it,” Blinken told reporters after their meeting. “It’s now incumbent on Hamas to do the same.”

Within hours of Blinken departing Israel, Netanyahu’s people were leaking stories contesting those assertions and saying the Israeli prime minister had in fact convinced Blinken to accept Israel’s continued occupation of parts of Gaza. The U.S. denied that happened. 

“Blinken has damaged the whole process because he lost all his credibility as a serious mediator,” said Naim. “We see today the worst example of a secretary of state of a superpower. Very weak, very weak. He’s a big failure.”

Naim said that the so-called bridging proposals largely advocated for Hamas to accept some aspects of the new demands Netanyahu inserted after Hamas agreed to the Biden and UN framework. 

“We are ready to sit for negotiations if we are discussing an executive plan to implement what we have agreed upon on July 2,” said Naim. “We are not ready to negotiate a new proposal because [Netanyahu] added new conditions which has nothing to do with the old.”

The White House insists it is making progress.

“Senior level talks in Cairo over recent days have been constructive and were conducted in a spirit on all sides to reach a final and implementable agreement,” said a State Department official in a statement to Drop Site News. “The process continues through working groups to further address remaining issues and details. We underscore the urgency of an agreement for all sides.” 

Hamas maintains it has not directly participated in any negotiations or “working groups,” only receiving updates from Egyptian and Qatari mediators and then offering their responses.

“We weren’t part of the negotiations,” Naim said. “The last round of negotiations, it was only between the mediators, the Americans and [Israel].” 

He added that mediators have told Hamas that the Israeli delegations do not appear empowered by Netanyahu to make any decisions and that often, when progress appears possible, Netanyahu vetoes the suggestions of his own delegation.

“They are not authorized to negotiate seriously [on] any point,” Naim said. “It is only negotiations between the mediators and the Israelis. Or to be more accurate, it is negotiations between the mediators, the Americans and Netanyahu. And in this case, the mediator is the Israeli delegation.”

On Thursday, the Israeli security cabinet voted to support Netanyahu’s insistence that its forces remain entrenched along the Philadelphi corridor between Gaza and Egypt. According to media reports on the meeting, Netanyahu’s own defense minister Yoav Gallant objected.

“The significance of this is that Hamas won’t agree to it, so there won’t be an agreement and there won’t be any hostages released,” Gallant reportedly said. “You’re running the negotiations on your own,” he added, “we hear everything after the fact.” Netanyahu’s proposal was approved with only Gallant voting against it.

Naim said that the optimism expressed recently by U.S. officials for a deal that ends the war is an attempt to obfuscate an increasingly dire reality, the stakes of which have been devastatingly punctuated by Israel’s violent invasion of parts of the West Bank, which began Wednesday. 

“What’s happening in Gaza and what’s happening in the West Bank is a clear sign, a clear indication that this conflict needs a political solution. And Palestinians have all the rights to achieve their national goals of dignity, freedom and independence, self sovereignty,” Naim said. “Leaving these fascist leaders in Israel, they will destabilize not only the situation here, but the situation in the whole region. Because day after day, they are converting this political conflict into a religious conflict.”

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One Month Before Global Research’s Anniversary   

Featured image is from Drop Site

As we all now, Telegram’s founder, Pavel Durov was arrested in Paris-Le Bourget Airport in France based on specific allegations that his platform is being used for “drug trafficking and the distribution of child sexual abuse images.”  I must say, how convenient to accuse Durov of these charges as censorship on a global scale is out of control. 

Mainly the US, UK, the European Union, and Israel’s political establishment has been at the forefront with Big Tech companies such as YouTube, Vimeo, META (formally Facebook), X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Google are all on a war path against free speech advocates who are considered a threat to the establishment. There are even new platforms and search engines who are following in the same footsteps as Big Tech so that they can become part of the gang such as DuckDuckGo and to no surprise, Microsoft’s Bing which of course is owned by Bill Gates.   

One of the newest members of the Globalist cabal, Elon Musk and his X platform has started to censor articles or opinions that are critical of Israel. 

British writer and a freelance journalist, Jonathan Cook wrote a critical article about the pattern of censorship on X especially when it comes to the so-called “anti-Semitism” online and said that

“Many users of X, formerly Twitter, seem deeply misguided. They imagine that Elon Musk is the saviour of free speech. He’s not.” Cook says beware that those who criticize Israel on X because, “Musk is already disappearing opinions, either ones he doesn’t like or ones he cannot afford to be seen supporting — most visibly, anything too critical of Israel.”

So, any information or opinion on Israel’s genocide on the Palestinians, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, human rights issues around the world, Covid-19 vaccines, the dangers of GMO food, agendas of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and so on, Big Tech is there to censor the story. 

Big Tech is targeting journalists, websites, blogs, anti-war and pro-Palestine activists, anti-vaxx and anti-GMO groups because if their stories expose any globalist agenda, you can bet, it will be censored. 

There are numerous examples of censorship that have taken place by Big Tech companies over the years, and it seems that the situation will get worse as more people are waking up to what is happening around them. 

The globalists are frightened because their project of brainwashing the public for decades through the mainstream media, public education, Hollywood movies and sitcoms is clearly not working anymore, so their last weapon of choice is of course, censorship.

Political Censorship on Steroids

Ben Norton’s ‘Meet the Nicaraguans Facebook Falsely Branded Bots and Censored Days before Elections’ exposed Facebook, Instagram and Twitter’s mass censorship on Sandinista activists during Nicaragua’s elections in 2021.  Norton said that

“Facebook and Instagram – both of which are owned by the newly rebranded Big Tech giant Meta – suspended 1,300 Nicaragua-based accounts run by pro-Sandinista media outlets, journalists, and activists in a large-scale crackdown on October 31.” 

It was a collaborated effort by Big Tech to censor the Sandinista movement, a long-time enemy of the US and right-wing political elites of Latin America:

“On November 1, Sandinista activists whose accounts were suspended by Facebook and Instagram responded by posting videos on Twitter, showing the world that they are indeed real people. But Twitter suspended their accounts as well, seeking to erase all evidence demonstrating that these Nicaraguans are not government bots or part of a coordinated inauthentic operation.”

“Twitter’s follow-up censorship was effectively a double-tap strike on the freedom of speech of Nicaraguans, whose apparent misdeed is expressing political views that challenge Washington’s objectives..”

It is interesting that the Big Tech giants did not censor anyone or group from the right-wing opposition who is supported by Washington, “Zero right-wing opposition supporters in Nicaragua were impacted.”

Another example of Big Tech censorship was against Russia especially since it began its Special Operation in Ukraine which was provoked by the US-NATO alliance to destabilize Russia.  Big Tech companies who have been in the frontline against Russia and have banned it’s state media news channels on cable TV such as RT News and they even went as far as to ban their private media companies that are based in Russia and are labeled as “fake news stories” produced by Russian bots.  Big Tech has also targeted one of the most popular alternative news websites, Global Research on a massive scale:

As you may all know, Global Research has been unduly censored by the search engines, not to mention the recurrent smears by the “fact-checkers” and mainstream media platforms. In the past weeks, we have experienced a significant drop in our daily readership following a coordinated DDoS (“distributed denial of service”) cyber-attack emanating simultaneously from five countries consisting of millions of so-called “malicious requests”

These are just a few examples of how far Big Tech is willing to go to censor independent voices whether from an adversary country like Nicaragua or Russia, or any media network, group or individual journalist that expose their multiple agendas. 

Big Tech Censorship for Big Pharma

When it came to the Covid Pandemic, YouTube was one of the first platforms to censor the anti–Vaxx movements pertaining to the dangers of Covid-19 vaccines brought to you by Big Pharma heavyweights such as Pfizer and Merck.  RT news published ‘YouTube bans ALL anti-vax videos, ramping up Covid-era censorship campaign’ and stated that “YouTube will ban all “harmful vaccine content” from its platform, including claims that vaccines are ineffective at reducing disease transmission. The ban comes after a year of escalating censorship by the Google-owned company.”  In a blog post, YouTube justified its censorship campaign,

“We’ve steadily seen false claims about the coronavirus vaccines spill over into misinformation about vaccines in general, and we’re now at a point where it’s more important than ever to expand the work we started with Covid-19 to other vaccines.” 

According to Robert F. Kennedy’s Children’s Health Defense, Del Bigtree, a Covid vaccine skeptic was banned on YouTube, “On July 29, YouTube terminated Del Bigtree’s “The Highwire” account after he posted a video of Del and me discussing my debate with Alan Dershowitz on vaccine mandates. YouTube also purged hundreds of other truthful videos on vaccines.”  RFK Jr called Google a vaccine company, “YouTube’s owner, Google, is effectively a vaccine company. Two subsidiaries of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, market and manufacture vaccines: Calico and Verily. Arthur Levinson, Genentech’s former CEO, runs Calico, an anti-aging drug company while Verily teams with Pharma to conduct drug and vaccine clinical trials.”

Big Tech is a partner of Big Pharma and censorship has been a weapon to silence vaccine skeptics and the anti-vaxx movement.  Google uses algorithms to censor information about Big Pharma’s vaccines by labeling it as “misinformation.”  Google and Facebook (now META) and other Mainstream media outlets even hired so-called “FactCheckers” to help censor articles and opinions on the dangers of Covid-19 vaccines and other forms of alternative medicines that can actually help cure Covid and other diseases because it was all considered “misinformation.”  

Google was one of the main corporations that orchestrated a censorship campaign by using its search algorithms to change the results on what you are looking for.  In fact, in most cases, you can’t find what you are looking for. 

Google uses an array of weapons against truth tellers which includes blacklisting websites and blogs, using algorithms to place articles, images and opinions at the bottom of a search and even resorted to hiring contractors to be the judge and jury to make decisions on what you see online. 

What We Can Do to Fight Big Tech Censorship?

Regardless of what is happening with Big Tech corporations, Western governments and others who are hellbent on censorship, there is plenty of hope and optimism.

Truth can never be contained no matter how hard they try.  You may ask, how is this possible since they control everything on the internet including social media, newspapers and so on?  Yes, Big Tech is working with special interests’ groups and certain governments whether to hide the truth or to just crush the competition for financial reasons, but I have news for you, there are good people around the world who are fighting back in one way or another and one of them is Telegram’s Founder, Pavel Durov.  One thing that Pavel Durov proved is that there can be alternatives to Big Tech platforms and that’s why he created Telegram.  But there are other platforms worth mentioning that are trying to get the word out. 

Here is a list of alternative social media platforms and search engines that journalists, activists, websites, bloggers, social media personalities and every other truth-teller or truth seeker can use:

Alternatives to X formally known as Twitter:

• telegram.org – Telegram is described as a “cloud-based, cross-platform, social media and instant messaging service” created by Pavel Durov. 
• joinmastodon.org – Mastodon is described as a “free and open-source software for running self-hosted social networking services” which was created by Eugen Rochko and is crowdfunded.  It is currently registered as under the German non-profit Mastodon gGmbH. 

Alternative Search Engines other than Google:

*These search engines are not under the control of Google or Bill Gates ‘Microsoft Bing’

• yandex.com – Based in Russia, the search engine “provides local search results in more than 1,400 cities. Yandex Search also features “parallel” search that presents results from both main web index and specialized information resources, including news, shopping, blogs, images and videos on a single page.” 
• search.brave.com – is a search engine developed by Brave Software, Inc., and is the default search engine for its web browser in certain countries, it is a decent search engine so far.

Alternative Video Platforms other than YouTube:

• rumble.com  – An alternative to YouTube, is an online video platform, web hosting, and cloud services business based in Toronto, Ontario.
• odysee.com – Created by LBRY, “a blockchain-based file-sharing and payment network that powers decentralized platforms, primarily social networks and video platforms.” LBRY/Odysee is described as a “decentralized, fringe alternatives to YouTube.”
• bitchute.com – An alt-tech video hosting service launched in January 2017 and it is described as a platform for the freedom of speech.  Although you will find Right-Wing talking points, there is freedom of expression in many of the videos in the past.
• tiktok.com – an app hated by the US government since they can’t really control it, just ask its CEO, Shou Zi Chew.  TikTok, is described as a short-form video hosting service owned by China’s internet company ByteDance which hosts numerous videos from all sides of the spectrum that can be easily accessed with a smart phone app.

Alternatives to Print Media rather than Time Magazine or book publishers such as Simon & Schuster:

• newdawnmagazine.com – Since 1991, New Dawn Magazine has been a great alternative to Western print media and newspapers it features many real stories on wars, vaccines, Globalism, the economy, and much more.   
• claritypress.com – an independent book publisher who “is committed to international legal standards on justice issues, seeing in international human rights law a unique combination of positive law and universal ideals which serve to promote, guide and legitimize the efforts of individuals, groups, peoples and states worldwide on behalf of political freedom, collective justice, global peace, and human-centered development.  All human beings, irrespective of ethnicity, religion, gender or language, have been endowed with these rights, simply by virtue of having been born human.”

Well, you get the picture.  The truth can never be sealed or stored away, it’s sort of like a wild animal that can never be domesticated. 

The list of alternative social media, video platforms and search engines may not be perfect, but they are a start to something bigger and better.  In fact, they are inspiring no matter how you look at it.  There will be other free speech platforms that will be created one way or another.  There will be creators and developers with a conscience who are tired of the relentless lies and propaganda and will help humanity seek the truth.  They will be on the right side of human history just like Julian Assange and now Pavel Durov. 

So, if you are an investor, a web developer, a journalist, a writer, a blogger or anyone else who believes in humanity, who believes in the truth, develop an app, a video platform, an alternative magazine or newspaper, anything that will get the truth out because there is a market of truth seekers who want a better future not only for themselves, but for their children and the future generations that follow. 

Let’s continue the fight against the endless lies and propaganda from these psychotic globalists and help us get the truth out so that we can change the course of this chaotic planet.     

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One Month Before Global Research’s Anniversary  

Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his own blog site, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from SCN