Global Research

If there comes a point when people will decide not to fly, the issue may well be less to do with any moral or ethical issue with climate change than the fact that commercial flights have become atrocious. They are naked money-making concerns with diminishing returns on quality.  The key factor that plays out here is what economists like to term inelastic demand.  Prices can be raised; service quality can be reduced, but customers will keep coming.  The demand remains, even if the supply leaves much to be desired. 

The phenomenon is distinct over the long-haul carriers, which have, at least until recently, been spared the stripping phenomenon.  Singapore Airlines, which prides itself for an almost aristocratic bearing towards its customers, proved skimp its Melbourne to Singapore leg.  An insulting sampling of “toasties” was offered as a starter, a culinary outrage that did not go unnoticed.  Indian passengers who had selected special meals in advance were on the money; pungent curries and dhal filled the cabin as this ridiculous excuse of a meal was handed out to customers.  A few desperate, and disgusted punters asked the flight attendants if there were spare vegetarian options.

Budget airlines may have something to explain in this regard.  The revolution of the cheap fare came with the reduction of expectations.  No frills travel came with a certain contempt on the part of the service providers: food and drink would no longer be gratis; seat allocations would have to be purchased in advance and check-in or carry-on luggage would have to be paid for.  A turning point was Dublin-based Ryanair’s attempt to go easy on toilet numbers – one per aircraft – and charge customers for their use.  As the company’s penny-pinching CEO Michael O’Leary said at the time, “We rarely use all three toilets on board our aircraft anyway.”  Bladders be damned.

Instead of aspiring to a higher level of service, the traditionalists have voted to go down a notch or three.  What budget airlines do badly, we can do worse.  The law of diminishing returns is pushing all air travel carriers downwards in what has been seen to be an exercise of “calculated misery”.  The experience is appalling and unpleasant, but need not necessarily be intolerable.  The result is a curious revision of the term “upgrade”.  As Alex Abad-Santos laments in Vox, passengers upgrade their seats, not to get a more spectacular service or experience, but “to avoid hell.” 

Managing such misery is hardly original, though Tim Wu of Columbia Law School can be credited for giving a good overview of it when writing in 2014 for The New Yorker.  “Here’s the thing: in order for fees to work, there needs to be something worth paying to avoid.  That necessitates, at some level, a strategy that can be described as ‘calculated misery’.  Basic service, without fees, must be sufficiently degraded in order to make people want to pay to escape it.  And that’s where the suffering begins.” 

Nothing says such suffering than crammed economy seats on a long-haul flight.  Shoulders and arms are jammed; legs can barely move.  The trend was such that Bill McGee, a writer with more than a passing acquaintance with the airline industry, would note, referring to the United States, that the most spacious economy seats “you can book on the nation’s four largest airlines are narrower than the tightest economy seats offered in the 1990s.”

Things are not much better in terms of the European market.  Mediocrity mixes with indifference, even on flights which are half-full.  A flight from London Heathrow to Copenhagen with Scandinavian Airlines was characterised by a certain snooty indifference on the part of the flight attendants.  Much babbling was taking place in Finnish – why would you want to assist passengers?  Little by way of interest in the customers was afforded.  Curt instructions were issued; requests for coffee were received with glacial stares.  Naturally, to receive a meal and drink that wasn’t water that had seen better days required forking out of the plastic fantastic.  Gone are the days when international airlines behaved as such, wishing to make matters decent, comfortable and even pleasantly bearable; the European air space finds itself populated by the stingy and the tight-belted.

Commercial airlines from SAS to Singapore Airlines have taken whole sheafs of extortion from the budget airline book of making customers pay for selecting seats.  The stress here is budget service at caviar prices.  This cheeky form of thieving imposes a cost on the act of jumping the queue for a better place on the flight.  And this is not all.  You book a ticket with a flight, only to find at the airport that you had purchased a “light” version, meaning that you have to pay for carryon luggage.    

High time for a customer revolt, but the industry is distinctly programmed.  Even when airlines have been well disposed to their customers, such as JetBlue, the corporate monsters of Wall Street have howled.  It’s bad form to provide decent service within reasonable expectations.  Efficiency, and filling the seats, is what matters, whatever the quality.  Fee-free services, being conscious of the brand and a “customer-focussed” approach was simply not on.  Eventually, JetBlue caved in and joined the market of calculated misery. 

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.  He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image is from Flickr

This week’s UK-Africa Investment Summit will send a clear signal. The UK government’s aid policy will not be driven by evidence about how to best fight global poverty, but instead by naked free market ideology and the interests of British business.  

Since coming to power, Boris Johnson’s new government has already threatened to scrap the Department for International Development (DFID) and its Secretary of State.

Now, the Conservative party is ramping up its long-standing policy of repurposing taxpayers’ aid funds away from helping the world’s poorest people. Instead they are redirecting it towards helping British bmentsusiness elites invest in – and of course, make returns from – Africa.

The ideological dogma is familiar and well-rehearsed: British investment and trade means more jobs at home and abroad. British businesses profit, but wealth generated in the recipient countries will also trickle down. Apparently, everyone wins.

The trouble is, the evidence simply does not bear this out. The UK government is unable to guarantee and demonstrate that the kind of investments it will use the summit to promote will help the world’s poorest – a clear requirement of Official Development Assistance (ODA).

Take the case of Feronia, one of Africa’s largest palm oil companies where the UK’s development finance bank, the CDC Group, has invested to the tune of $54 million since 2013. In December 2019, Feronia’s investors had to respond to a Human Rights Watch report alleging widespread abuses – including exposure to toxic pesticides and extreme poverty wages. This exposé came on top of an existing inquiry opened by the CDC Group in August 2019 after the alleged murder of Joël Imbangola Lunea, a local lands rights activist, by a security guard employed by Feronia in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Or take the example of Bridge International Academies, the controversial company running low-cost schools across Africa which has investments in excess of $10.4 million from the UK government.

International Development Secretary Alok Sharma wrote recently – to promote the upcoming summit, that investments like these in vital public services ‘gives young people the opportunity to shape their own futures and reach their potential’. Yet, amid allegations of poor teaching standards, squalid classrooms and fees that exclude the poorest, parliament’s own International Development Committee has argued that evidence of the company’s impact on poverty is likely too weak to justify continued investment.

Nor is it clear that the government is using the Africa Investment Summit – which is co-organized by the Department for International Development and the Department for International Trade – to target funds where it’s needed most, such as countries recovering from conflict or crisis, or to help develop vital public services.

According to BOND, the body representing the international development sector, in 2018 half of all foreign direct investment into Africa went into just five countries – South Africa, Morocco, Ethiopia, Egypt and Congo – leaving behind many of the continent’s poorest countries.

Blue Skies Fruits, on the other hand, a company highlighted by Alok Sharma as an inspiration for the upcoming summit, does benefit from investmentfrom the UK taxpayer. Yet the British company, which operates in seven countries importing fresh fruit to the UK, hit huge revenues of $130 million in 2018.

No-one denies that investment, trade, business and economic development have a part to play in fighting poverty. But using aid money to prop up multi-million-pound British businesses is a far cry from what’s needed to end global poverty.

The truth is, the role of government aid should be to channel scarce resources to where they are needed most. Our aid policy should aim to reverse centuries of damage wrought by the British Empire – and by British governments for many, many years after – rather than extracting resources, profit and wealth from Africa under the guise of ‘investment.’

DFID and the UK parliament should – at the very least – insist that investments of the kind the summit is promoting – especially those funded through ODA – are measured against a rigorous ‘development impact’ framework; that they demonstrably tackle poverty, inequality and the climate crisis, and that the money could not be spent better.

The British public deserve to see our aid budget used properly to fight poverty and inequality – not used to subsidize British business interests and the City of London to profit from some of the poorest countries in the world.

Alok Sharma claimed last week that the summit will be a ‘milestone for international relations’. If it proves so, then it will be for all the wrong reasons: just when we should be standing in genuine solidarity and partnership with people across Africa, this summit instead threatens to take Britain’s relations with countries in the Global South backwards, renewing a relationship of exploitation and extraction.

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Dan Carden is the UK’s acting Shadow Secretary of State for International Development.

Featured image is from Simon Berry/Flickr

The protests that started with the national strike called by Colombia’s central union on November 21 to protest pension reforms and the broken promises of the peace accords have persisted for two months and grown into a protest against the whole establishment. And the protests have continued into the new year and show no signs of stopping.

The end of the decade has seemed to bring an unstoppable march of the right wing in Latin America as elsewhere. The 2016 coup in Brazil that ended with fascist Jair Bolsonaro in power, the 2019 coup in Bolivia, the continuously rolling coup in Venezuela, all showcased the ruthlessness of the US in disposing of left-wing governments in the region. Right-wing victories at the ballot box occurred in Chile in 2017 and in Colombia in 2018, where the electorate rejected the left-wing Gustavo Petro and embraced Iván Duque, a protege of the infamous former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez. But with the new wave of protests, the unstoppable right-wing juggernaut is facing many challenges.

In Chile, three months of protests, still going, are demanding the resignation of President Sebastián Piñera and the reversal of a range of neoliberal policies. Even in the face of the police and army using live fire against protesters, they have not let up.

New Wave of Protests are Spreading

Ecuador is another peculiar case, in which Lenín Moreno ran as a candidate who would continue left-wing policies, but who promptly reversed course upon reaching power in 2017, including revoking the asylum of Julian Assange, who is now in a UK prison. Reopening drilling in the Amazon, opening a new US airbase in the Galapagos, getting rid of taxes on the wealthy, and doing a new package of International Monetary Fund austerity measures was enough to spark a sustained protest. Moreno’s government was forced to negotiate with the protesters and has withdrawn some of the austerity measures.

In Haiti, protests have gone on for over a year. Sparked in July 2018 by a sharp increase in fuel prices (the same spark as for the Ecuador protests), they have expanded to call for the president’s resignation. In Haiti, as the protests have dragged on, some of the country’s elite families have joined the call for the president’s resignation, which will make it even more difficult to find a constitutional exit from the crisis.

In Colombia, after winning the runoff in 2018, President Duque may have felt that he had a mandate to enact right-wing policies, which in Colombia have usually included new war measures in addition to the usual austerity. But combining pension cuts with betraying the peace process was simply stealing too much from the future: Young people joined the November 21 protests in huge numbers (the lowest estimates are 250,000).

The sustained nature of the protests is striking. Rather than one-offs, the protests have been committed to staying on until change is won. We may hear more this year from post-coup Brazil and Bolivia as well.

At the heart of Colombia’s protest is the issue of war and peace. To say Colombians are war-weary is an understatement. The war there that began (depending on how you date it) in 1948 or 1964 has provided the pretext for an unending assault on people’s rights and dignities by the state. Afro-Colombians were displaced from their lands under cover of the war. Indigenous people were dispossessed. Unions were smeared as guerrilla fronts and their leaders assassinated. Peasants and their lands were fumigated with chemical warfare. Narcotraffickers set themselves up inside the military and intelligence organizations, creating the continent’s most extensive paramilitary apparatus. Politicians signed pacts with these paramilitary death squads. The war gave the establishment an excuse for the most depraved acts, notably the “false positives” in which the military murdered completely innocent people and dressed their corpses up as guerrillas to inflate their kill statistics. Even though the guerrillas, with their kidnapping and too-frequent accidental killings of innocents, were never popular with the majority, Colombians have backed peace processes when given the chance. And Colombians didn’t look kindly at the major betrayals of peace processes in the past, like the one in the 1980s, when ex-guerrillas entering politics were assassinated by the thousand. From 2016, when the new peace accords were affirmed, until mid-2019, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) tallied 138 of their ex-guerrillas murdered; more than 700 other activists were killed in the same period, including more than 100 Indigenous people since Duque came to power in 2018.

At the end of August, a group of FARC members led by their former chief negotiator, Iván Márquez, announced that they were returning to the jungle and to the fight. They argued that the assassination of their members and the refusal of the government to comply with the other aspects of the accords demonstrated that there was no will for peace on the side of the government. Those FARCs who announced they were giving up on the accords were treated as having gone rogue: The government labeled them as criminal groups. Aerial bombardment (a war measure not normally the first recourse in dealing with “criminals”) quickly followed. When a bombing (also in August) by the Colombian air force of one of these rogue groups in Caquetá killed eight children and Duque labeled it “strategic, meticulous, impeccable, and rigorous,” he was greeted with much-deserved public revulsion. Duque was shaping up to deliver the same kind of war as always, only now under the flag of peace, its victims labeled criminals instead of guerrillas.

Eternal war does benefit some: those in the arms and security business especially, and those who want to commit crimes under the cover of war. But despite the many benefits of eternal war for the elite, normalcy also exerts a powerful draw. When Duque’s mentor Álvaro Uribe Vélez was elected president in 2002 and 2006, it was with the promise of normalcy – of peace – through decisive victory over the guerrillas. Instead, he delivered narco-paramilitarism, false positives, and, very nearly, regional wars with Ecuador and Venezuela.

One of Uribe’s early acts was to negotiate a peace agreement with the paramilitaries. Since the paramilitaries were state-backed, organized, and armed, this was a farcical negotiation of the government with itself. But when some of the paramilitary commanders began to speak publicly about their relationships with the state and multinational corporations, they found themselves deported to the US. At the time, the scandal was given a name – “para-política.” But to some of the investigators, it was better-termed “para-Uribismo.” Paramilitary commander Salvatore Mancuso – who had the temerity to talk about the Chiquita banana corporation and who is apparently going to return to Colombia sometime soon – is just the best-known name. Many others have found that being a paramilitary leads to a considerably shortened lifespan. Uribe, mayor of Medellín and governor of Antioquia during the heyday of the cartels, is named in numerous official documents as being close to both the narcotraffickers and the paramilitaries. The evidence keeps coming, as courts, now trying Uribe’s brother, keep getting closer to the man himself.

“Uribismo”

After the first round of “Uribismo,” it was time to try a peace process. The betrayal of that process, initiatedin 2012, and the new president Duque’s promise of yet another decade of “Uribismo,” has been a motivating force of the recent protests.

Uribismo entangles endless war with austerity and inequality. In a recent Gallup poll, 52 percent of Colombians surveyed said the gap between rich and poor had increased in the past five years; 45 percent struggled to afford food in the previous 12 months; and 43 percent lacked money for shelter. The social forces that typically fight for social progress and equality – unions and left-wing political parties – have traditionally been demonized as proto-guerrillas. With the government declaring the war over – and with great fanfare – people want the freedom to make economic demands without being treated as civil war belligerents.

But when faced with the November 21 protests, the government went straight to the dirty war toolkit, murdering 18-year-old protester Dilan Cruz on November 25, imposing curfew, detaining more than 1,000 people, and creating “montajes,” the time-tested use of agents provocateurs to commit unpopular and illegal acts to provide a pretext for state repression. Government officials have also tried to claim that Venezuela and Russia (of course) were behind the protests.

Part of the dirty war toolkit is to negotiate, and the government has been doing so with the National Strike Committee. No doubt hoping that the protests will exhaust themselves and any agreements can be quietly dropped as numbers dwindle, the government is dangling the possibility of dropping some austerity demands. Meanwhile, the negotiators are being threatened by paramilitary groups, and another mass grave of those murdered as military “false positives” has been unearthed. Uribismo has wormed its way into every structure of the state: Real change will have to be deep. By not giving up easily, the protesters have shown the way. These protests could be a crack in the walls of fascism that seem to have sprung up everywhere in the past decade.

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This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

At just a time when the world holds its collective breath over risk of a World War over the US assassination of Iran’s leading general and other provocations, Israel has chosen to sign a natural gas pipeline deal with Greece and Cyprus that is the equivalent of tossing a loaded hand grenade into the hyper-tense region.

Until some months ago it was doubtful whether Israel’s long-touted EastMed gas pipeline deal with Cyprus and Greece would see the light of day. Despite being backed by the US and the EU as an alternative to Russian gas, the EastMed as it is known, is dubious on many grounds, not the least its high cost compared with alternatives. The January 2 signing by the governments of Israel, Greece and Cyprus is directly connected to provocative moves by Turkey’s Erdogan to conspire with Libya to illegally declare almost all of the Eastern Mediterranean waters to be a Turkish and now Libyan Exclusive Economic Zone.

If Mideast tensions were not already at the breaking point, the Israeli move throws a huge monkey wrench into the region’s troubled geopolitics.

As recently as December, 2019 the Israeli companies involved in their offshore Leviathan gas field were openly discussing further options for export of the gas following an export agreement with Egypt and Jordan. The EastMed pipeline was not mentioned in Israeli media.

What has changed the situation was the announcement by Turkey’s President Erdogan that he was sending Turkish troops to defend the Tripoli UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli of Fayez al Sarraj, on their request, to counter the forces of General Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA).

Libya has the potential to become a major new explosion point in the rapidly-deteriorating Middle East terrain. Haftar is backed by Russia, Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and yes, France, and secretly since 2017 by Israel. Since April 2019 Haftar has been moving to take Tripoli from his stronghold in the oil-rich east. The GNA in Tripoli in turn is backed by Turkey, Qatar and Italy. The EU is desperately trying to mediate a truce between the GNA and Haftar after Putin failed some days ago.

The Mediterranean energy clashes

As Cyprus has discovered rich offshore fields of natural gas in addition to those of Israel at Leviathan, Turkey, who so far lacks its own major gas resources, began to aggressively interfere in Cyprus offshore waters. On January 1, 2020 Turkey and Russia opened the Black Sea Russian TurkStream with first deliveries of gas to EU member Bulgaria.

On December 11, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Çavuşoğlu hinted that Ankara could use its military to prevent gas drilling in waters off Cyprus that it now claims. “No one can do this kind of work without our permission,” he said. Since early 2019 Turkish ships have entered Cyprus exclusive waters claiming rights to drill. In December 2019, the Turkish navy intercepted Bat Galim, an Israeli ship in Cypriot waters and forced it to move out of the area. The ship was of the Israeli Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institution, doing research in Cyprus’s territorial waters in coordination with Cypriot officials. The US State Department warned Turkey to back off and the EU imposed sanctions on Turkish persons, to little effect so far.

Turkey’s recent interest in Libya is directly related to blocking Cyprus gas exploration and declaring vast Turkish offshore space legal for its drilling ships.

On November 27, 2019 Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signed a bilateral agreement on maritime boundaries in the southeastern Mediterranean. It would redraw existing recognized sea boundaries to give Libya exclusive rights for some 39,000 square kilometers of maritime waters belonging to Greece. The new joint zone of Tripoli-Turkey runs directly between the both countries and completely ignores the fact it violates Greek waters off Crete. Conveniently, it would cut directly across the planned Israel-Cyprus-Greece EastMed pipeline route. Without Turkey’s approval, Turkey has suggested the Greek EastMed pipeline would be a non-starter.

The ongoing war between Haftar and Tripoli’s GNA becomes even more complex, as Israel is also backing Haftar who now controls Benghazi and much of Tobruk along the Mediterranean coastline. Since 2017 the Israeli military have secretly been supporting Haftar in his attempt to gain control of Libya.

The EastMed Project

The just signed agreement between Israel, Greece and Cyprus is more fantasy than reality at this point. It calls for a hugely expensive $7 billion 1,900 km (1,180 mile) subsea pipeline, “the longest and deepest gas pipeline in the world,” that should initially bring up to 10 billion cubic meters of gas a year from Israeli and Cypriot waters to Crete and then on to the Greek mainland and ultimately to Italy. That would amount to roughly 4% of total EU gas consumption, far less than Russia’s present 39% share, let alone Gazprom’s increased share once NordStream 2 and TurkStream are fully completed in the coming months. TurkStream, where the first of two pipelines opened on January 1, 2020, will supply a total of more than 31 bcm, with half available for the EU gas market and NordStream2 will add another 55 bcm annually to the EU gas market.

It has been ten years since gas was discovered at Israel’s Leviathan. The first gas deliveries only began early this month to Egypt and to Jordan leaving 80% available for export following numerous delays. However prospects of finding finance for the huge project are grim at best. The EU, while greeting a rival to Russian gas, has made clear it has no money for the project. Greece financing is hardly possible after the 2010 Greek crisis and Cyprus is similarly depleted after its 2013 banking crisis. According to a statement from the Israeli Finance Ministry it will be financed by “private companies and institutional lenders.” To find private financing for such a politically risky undertaking at a time of growing risk aversion in finance is dubious. With a current glut of gas on the world market and the increasing availability of LNG sources it is not at all clear that a politically risky Israeli EastMed undersea pipeline makes economic sense.

Notably, Greek state television channel ERT refers to the EastMed project as a “protective shield against Turkish provocations.” That makes clear Greece sees it as a response to the recent rapprochement between Turkey and the government in Libya and Erdogan’s announcement he is sending troops to support the GNA in Tripoli to make pressure against Haftar. Were Haftar to ultimately take Tripoli, clearly the Turkish-Libya bilateral agreement on maritime boundaries would be repealed.

As if the conflict was not already messy enough, the Greek government just announced that it is willing to send Greek troops in order to monitor the ceasefire between the Libyan National Army (LNA) and the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA). The offer was put forward after Greek Foreign Minister Dendias met with LNA leader General Khalifa Haftar. This potentially pits NATO member Greece against NATO member Turkey in the widening geopolitical power plays over control of Eastern Mediterranean and other gas flows to the EU. And the prospect of a revived Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline has not even entered the calculus.

The EastMed gas pipeline of Israel, far from being a positive energy alternative, is rather a geopolitical intervention into an already conflicted region adding new levels of tension that only increase prospects for military escalation on all sides.

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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, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a Research Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Featured image is from NEO

Seeds of Destruction: Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

Author Name: F. William Engdahl

ISBN Number: 978-0-937147-2-2

Year: 2007

Pages: 341 pages with complete index

List Price: $25.95

Special Price: $18.00

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.

A new Wild West has taken root not far from Tombstone, Arizona, known to many for its faux-historical reenactments of the old West. We’re talking about a long, skinny territory — a geographic gerrymander — that stretches east across New Mexico and down the Texan Rio Grande to the Gulf of Mexico. It also runs west across hundreds of miles of desert to California and the Pacific Ocean. Like the old Wild West, this one is lawless, save for the law of the gun. But that old West was lawless for want of government. This one is lawless because of it.

The Department of Homeland Security, under authority conferred by Congress, has declared more than 50 federal laws inoperable along sections of the U.S. boundary with Mexico, the better to build the border wall that Donald Trump has promised his “base.” Innumerable state laws and local ordinances have also been swept aside. Predictably, the Endangered Species Act is among the fallen. So are the National Historic Preservation Act, the Wilderness Act, laws restricting air and water pollution, and measures protecting wildlife, landscapes, Native American sacred sites, and even caves and fossils.

The new Wild West of the border wall is an authoritarian dreamscape where the boss man faces no limits and no obligations. It’s as though Marshall Wyatt Earp, reborn as an orange-haired easterner with no knowledge of the actual West, were back in charge, deciding who’s in and who’s out, what goes and what stays.

Prominent on the list of suspended laws is the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, which, until recently, was the nation’s look-before-you-leap conscience. The environmental analyses and impact statements NEPA requires might not force the government to evaluate whether a palisade of 30-foot-high metal posts — bollards in border wall terminology — were really a better way to control drug smuggling than upgrading inspection facilities at ports of entry, where, by all accounts, the vast majority of illegal substances enter the country. They would, however, require those wall builders to figure out in advance a slew of other gnarly questions like: How will wildlife be affected by a barrier that nothing larger than a kangaroo rat can get through? And how much will pumping scarce local water to make concrete draw down shallow desert aquifers?

The questions get big, fast. One that might look easy but isn’t concerns the flashfloods that stream down desert washes. The uprights of the border wall are to be spaced only four inches apart, which means they’ll catch flood debris the way a colander catches spaghetti.

Let’s get specific. The San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge abuts the border in the far southeastern corner of Arizona. Black Draw, a gulch running through the middle of the refuge, is normally as dry as a hot sidewalk. When thunderstorms burst over the vast San Bernardino Valley, however, the floodwaters can surge more than 20 feet high.  Imagine a wall of chocolate water sweeping up tree trunks, uprooted bushes, the occasional dead cow, and fence posts snarled in wire. Imagine what happens when that torrent meets a barrier built like a strainer. The junk catches and creates a dam. Water backs up, and pressure builds. If the wall were built like the Hoover Dam, it might hold, but it won’t be and it won’t.

In 2014, a flood in Black Draw swept vehicle barriers aside, scattering pieces downstream. Local ranchers have shown me the pictures. You could say the desert was making a point about how wet it could be. In fact, there’s no mystery about what will happen when such a flood hits a top-heavy palisade. If a NEPA document were to evaluate the border wall, the passage discussing this eventuality might require its writer to invent a term for what a wall becomes when it lies flat on the ground.

On the other hand, if you leave gaps for floods to pass through, then smugglers and — for Donald Trump and his base — people of unacceptably dark skin color might come the other way. Not that they necessarily would. As local residents I talked to attest, active patrols, remote sensing, and improved coordination among law enforcement agencies have reduced illegal crossings in the San Bernardino Valley almost to zero, something current government officials don’t point out but a NEPA document would.

With NEPA out of the picture, the responsible parties only have to claim that they’ll figure out a solution later and, when “later” comes, maybe they’ll have conveniently moved on to other jobs.

Pittsburgh on the Border

Meanwhile, there’s another question that won’t have to be dealt with: How much water will the wall’s construction require? The answer matters in an area where water’s scarce. Again, the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge offers a useful vantage point for considering the question.

To get to the refuge, you drive east from the town of Douglas along the Geronimo Trail, an unpaved two-lane country road that earns its name honestly.  Nineteenth-century Apache leader Geronimo surrendered to the U.S. military in the mountains on the horizon just ahead of you. Shortly before you reach the refuge, you top a low rise overlooking what the local assessor initially mistook for a new industrial park.  It was as if a section of Pittsburgh or Youngstown had suddenly sprouted from the desert, with enough mesquite and creosote bush scraped away to accommodate a concrete-batching plant, office trailers, and a massive staging area and machinery yard.

Stacks of steel bollards stand taller than houses, covering the space of a neighborhood. A grid of steel rails for laying out those bollards and welding them into pre-fab wall sections occupies another acre or two, beyond which stacks of completed sections cover yet more acres. In front of those stacks, a few scraps of wall stand vertical but disjointed, like shrines to a metal god — probably practice erections, if you’ll pardon the phrase. Scattered through the site are forklifts, graders, loaders, bulldozers, excavators, pickup trucks, flatbeds, and cranes. Generators and floodlights on wheeled rigs are parked at the margins, ready to illuminate round-the-clock shifts. Close to the batching tower, which may rival the Gadsden Hotel in Douglas as the tallest structure in Cochise County, cement trucks cluster like a litter of puppies.

And more steel keeps arriving. An approaching cloud of dust on the Geronimo Trail signals a line of incoming semis loaded with still more bollards. They pass newly posted signs that say: “Be Aware: Equipment Has the Right of Way” and “Risk Takers Are Accident Makers.”

These details, however, are prelude to the main event. If you look toward Mexico, a half-mile of wall already stands in place, undulating with the hills. Think of it as a dark, linear Steelhenge, a monolith screening the shimmering Sonoran mountains to the south. You can see where the next sections will be raised. Construction has already reached the refuge.

Where the Deer and the Antelope Better Not Play

The surface and subsurface flow of water from nearly the entire San Bernardino Valley converges at the refuge, creating an oasis in the heart of the desert. If this were the Sahara, caravansaries would have stopped by its green pools for thousands of years. As it is, Apaches, Yaquis, Tohono O’odham, and their predecessors have used its waters since time out of mind, as did the Spaniards, Mexicans, and Americans who later strove to take the land from them and from each other. The ponds lie half-hidden amid jungles of reeds.

San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge is modest as refuges go — only 2,369 acres — but it was once part of the sprawling, 73,240-acre Slaughter Ranch, two-thirds of which lay in Mexico. Next to the refuge, the ranch headquarters, now a historic site, has its own big pond. From that pond or any of those on the refuge, a major-league slugger could knock a baseball out of the country.

Contractors building the wall have drilled three wells along the border and leased a fourth. Tanker trucks constantly shuttle between the wells and the concrete plant. Nobody is saying how much water wall construction will consume. The foundation for the wall will be — what? A yard wide and seven-feet deep? Ten-feet deep? Sorry, that’s privileged information, not for public consumption.

Anyway, the foundation just in this area will run for scores of miles, farther than you can see, and consume enough concrete to build a small town — and concrete requires water. Lots of it.

How much will the pumping deplete local aquifers? Nobody knows because, absent NEPA, nobody has had to figure it out. There’s been no modeling, no serious testing, no reliable calculations. Still, local ranchers would like to know the answer. They depend on wells and water tanks scattered through the desert scrub where their cattle drink.

Good luck to them. And good luck, as well, to the critters for which the refuge is supposed to provide… well, refuge.

I could print a list of the unusual fish, frogs, snails, snakes, and other living things that are found here and almost nowhere else on Earth, not to mention the rare plants, the itinerant mammals (some also rare), and the hundreds of species of birds that use this place. In the desert, reliable water is a kind of miracle that attracts and creates other miracles.

San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge, you might say, is a cluster of miracles. There are too many to list. And a long list of weird names would take up a lot of space and sound pinheaded. I care a lot about those creatures, but I don’t want to sound like that.

To be honest, I’m almost afraid to learn the names of some of the refuge’s creatures because then it would only hurt all the more if they decline to extinction. The wall will certainly nudge, or maybe shove, many of them in that direction. Nevertheless, I have to mention two of them. Their names suggest a kind of taxonomic poetry, a nature music. They aren’t necessarily the rarest, but they sound the best: Yaqui topminnow. Chiricahua leopard frog. The words fall on the ears like melodies, evoking the mystery of tender life in a harsh land. As members of a species, you and I are as common as coal. In the big biological scheme of things, creatures like these are rubies and sapphires.

Forget Policy, Follow the Metaphor

It’s impossible to understand the wall, at least in the San Bernardino Valley, in terms of policy. As one rancher put it to me over coffee at the Gadsden Hotel, “This [wall] may be needed someplace, but it isn’t needed here.”

If Trump’s wall were really about policy, its advantages and disadvantages would be weighed against other strategies requiring different kinds of investment. But this is the new Wild West, where rational judgment, laws, and procedures only get in the way.

The truth of the wall lies in metaphor. If Chiricahua leopard frog conveys a kind of poetic resonance to people like me, then for millions of others chanting “Build the Wall!” is like hitting a big bass drum. Everybody understands wall! Even if the structure doesn’t actually work in physical space, it works in your mind. It stands between you and everything bad you can imagine. The core truth that unites Trump and his supporters is that he hates who we hate — and the border wall stands for keeping out those unwanted people and all they represent.

This is why the wall can’t coexist with NEPA. Impact statements don’t do imagery. If you really want to crack down on drug smuggling, for example, you’d concentrate your efforts at established ports of entry, where billions of dollars of goods and millions of people cross from one country to the other every day. The bulk of the fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, and other hard drugs entering the U.S. is reportedly concealed among legitimate imports in railroad cars and trucks of every description. Or they get stashed in secret compartments in buses, vans, cars, and pickup trucks. (The U.S. mail is another major conduit.) Currently, it’s estimated that more than $4 billion in new scanners, inspection lanes, and the people to staff them are needed. Making that investment would have infinitely more impact on drug flow than using the same money to install bollards where they aren’t needed and won’t last. There are better ways to handle people, too, but let’s not get distracted from the real story.

Expenditures on wall construction in Fiscal Year 2019 ran to approximately $10 billion. Only a third of that amount was actually appropriated by Congress for border security structures. Delivering the rest of the money required masterful circumventions of constitutional intent.

Here’s one of them: each year Congress appropriates so-called 2808 funds to the Department of Defense for construction projects on military bases, including schools, clinics, roads, and other infrastructure. Such expenditures are restricted to military property and the international border with Mexico isn’t — or wasn’t — a military base. For the Trumpistas, however, not a problem.

In 1907, President Teddy Roosevelt reserved a 60-foot easement from the public domain along the southern border to keep it “free from obstruction as a protection against the smuggling of goods between the United States and Mexico.” Since then, the “Roosevelt easement” has been administered by the Bureau of Land Management, but last year the Trump administration transferred the easement to the Department of Defense, which obligingly assigned it as a real-estate asset to Fort Bliss, Texas.

Voilà! Now, the Roosevelt Easement is part of a military base and a tendril of Fort Bliss officially extends into Arizona, New Mexico, and California — but not Texas. (The Lone Star State reserved its public land for itself when it entered the union, so no Roosevelt Easement there.) Technically, border wall construction within the easement now constitutes an improvement to Fort Bliss, enhancing military preparedness, yadda, yadda, yadda. There’s more to it than that, including the president’s formal declaration of a national emergency last February, which enabled certain other steps, but you get the idea. Where there’s a will, there’s an imperial way.

As it happens, however, the Pentagon’s money for funding wall construction across the foot of the San Bernardino refuge itself comes from a different pot: “284” funds, intended for counter-narcotics work. Diverting $2.5 billion of these monies to the border wall was, to say the least, a stretch, so a coalition of humanitarian and environmental groups sued. A district court found in their favor and issued an injunction, halting the use of the funds for construction. A rapid series of appeals went to the Supreme Court and the Supremes said, Hmmm, interesting question, which will take time for the lower courts to resolve; meanwhile, the injunction is lifted. And so funding again flowed like a flash flood. If the courts ultimately decide that the transfer of funds is really not okay, the wall may already have been built. Thank you, Supremes.

Dollars and Nonsense

I forgot to mention something: in addition to suspending more than 50 laws protecting lands, wildlife, and the public interest, the government has also waived many procurement laws and also buried a lot of contract information. This means you and I will have a hard time learning what anything actually costs, even though our tax dollars are paying for it.

Example: the barrier to be built along the edge of the San Bernardino refuge, cutting off its terrestrial wildlife from the Mexican half of its world and quite possibly draining the ponds where some of the planet’s rarest creatures survive, is part of a contract for 63 miles of border wall awarded to Southwest Valley Constructors (SWVC), a subsidiary of Kiewit, a Fortune 500 company with $9 billion in annual sales.

The original May 2019 contract awarded $646 million to SWVC, putting the cost of the refuge wall at $10.25 million per mile, a veritable steal. But you would need to know someone who can log into the relevant government database to discover that the fifth modification of the original contract, signed on August 29th, added another $653 million to the kitty. Now, those 63 miles are going to cost $1.3 billion, or almost $21 million per mile.

And by the way, did I mention that construction will include a power line and floodlights on 60-foot masts to illuminate the wall all night long, every night of the year? I have friends in the San Bernardino Valley who just about weep — and they aren’t weepy people — when they think about the lights on that wall blazing away in what used to be the immense, holy darkness of their formerly unblemished land.

I can get pretty choked up about it myself, but you can be sure that smugglers won’t. Here’s where things get truly weird: believe it or not, darkness is an ally of the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP). Its people have night vision goggles and its drones and other sensors have infrared detectors. They don’t need light. Flood the border with light and, counter-intuitively, the CBP is blinded, losing an advantage. Whose idea was this? Nobody’s saying, but it seems to have come from, ahem, the highest level. Good thing NEPA doesn’t apply.

Let’s turn up the weirdness a little bit further: out in western Arizona, close to the California line, you come to the Barry M. Goldwater Range (BMGR). Here, young Air Force and Marine pilots learn to strafe and bomb. Migrants have been known to cross the international border at the BMGR but, according to court filings, over the past five years migrants have gotten in the way of only 195 of 255,732 air sorties – less than 0.1%.

An already existing pedestrian barrier along much of the range’s border possibly contributes to this low level of trespass — and the bombs and bullets may help, too. But the decisive factor is undoubtedly the range’s spectacular heat and aridity and the mortally long distances a migrant would have to walk to reach any possible pick-up or rendezvous spot. Nevertheless a second wall, backing up the first, is now slated for construction at BMGR, with a road sandwiched between the two walls, down which CBP patrols will race like hamsters on a flattened wheel.

Let’s just agree, as former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Joseph Dunford, Jr., did in a memorandum to then-acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, that double-walling the BMGR makes no sense in terms of policy. In terms of metaphor, however, double-walling a border where essentially nobody goes is perfectly logical. If the goal is to build miles of wall, costs and benefits be damned, you might as well build them where there’s nobody to get in the way. Build the wall!

And so it is indeed being built, at the cost of violating not just the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge, but Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, Organ Pipe National Monument, the Lower Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge, the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, the historic town center of Roma, Texas, and other sublime and exceptional places. One might ask why so much uniqueness and rarity lies along our southern border. The short answer is that the borderlands are the meeting place of biological communities as well as cultures. As Chicano performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña puts it, “The border is the juncture, not the edge.”

But an edge is exactly what President Trump’s wall would make it. Wall construction was and remains his foremost campaign pledge: 500 miles of wall by November of 2020, or 450 miles, or whatever the number du jourhappens to be. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Washington Post, and others have tried to deflate the president’s boasts by asserting that he’s actually built no new wall and his promises are empty.

In their calculations, substituting a 30-foot-tall wall for vehicle barriers is only “replacement” and therefore doesn’t constitute “new” construction. That’s like arguing that mooring an aircraft carrier where a rowboat used to be changes nothing because there’s still just one vessel in the harbor. Such semantic jousting only camouflages the pervasive damage already being done both to people and to the land on the border — and there’s no end in sight. The congressional budget agreement hammered out in December 2019 appropriates another $1.375 billion for wall construction for fiscal year 2020, while removing obstacles to yet more transfers of Pentagon funds. And Trump is not being shy about those transfers.  He evidently plans to divert $7.2 billion more from legitimate Pentagon projects to wall building this year.

The international drug cartels should be thanking us. The wall will not curb their principal business of smuggling and the Trump administration’s new immigration policies have turned what was formerly a minor sideline — kidnapping people for ransom — into a growth industry. Tens of thousands of asylum seekers to whom the U.S. has refused entry are now huddled in cardboard slums in Mexico’s border towns, vulnerable to human predators. Their relatives in the United States — the people they were trying to reach — will beg, borrow, or steal to pay the ransoms that the increasingly busy (and brutal) kidnappers in Mexico demand.

That, however, is just collateral damage in the land of the free. Of course, we treat asylum seekers as though they were an inferior variety of human being. They talk funny. They aren’t like us. And we treat the borderlands and its creatures with the same loyalty we showed the Kurds. After all, we are America. Behind our wall, we are great again.

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William deBuys, a TomDispatch regular, is the author of nine books, including The Last Unicorn: A Search for One of Earth’s Rarest Creatures and A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest.

Featured image: Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen speaks during a visit to President Trump’s border wall in the El Centro Sector in Calexico, California. © Reuters / Earnie Grafton

In The Secret Man, Bob Woodward’s book about his Watergate source Deep Throat, he notes, “Washington politics and secrets are an entire world of doubt.” And that was before Trump and cyberwar.

Even though Woodward knew the identity of his source — W. Mark Felt, then associate director of the FBI — what he could not be sure about was why Felt decided to gradually reveal the details of the Nixon administration’s illegal activities. Decades later, it is immeasurably more difficult to be sure about what motivates many sources of information, on and off the record, or to trust that what we hear and see via the media will turn out to be true.

One strategy was to insert psyops (psychological operations) specialists into newsrooms. In February 2000, a Dutch journalist revealed that CNN and the U.S. Army had agreed to do precisely that. The military was proud enough of this “expanded cooperation” with mainstream media to publicly acknowledge the effort.

As the Iraq War began, word leaked out that a new Pentagon Office of Strategic Influence was gearing up to sway leaders and public sentiment by disseminating sometimes-false stories. Facing censure, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld publicly denounced and supposedly disbanded it. But a few months later, he quietly funded a private consultant to develop another version. The apparent goal was to go beyond traditional information warfare with a new perception management campaign designed to “win the war of ideas.”

How does perception management work? One important tactic is to influence opinion by presenting theories as if they are facts. For example, “Bad as things are in Iraq,” began an Associated Press story in April 2004, “a quick U.S. departure would make them worse; encourage terrorists, set the stage for civil war, send oil prices spiraling, and ruin U.S. credibility throughout the Middle East.” Only two sources, both obscure Middle East scholars, were directly quoted in the story, plus unnamed “regional experts.”

Another approach is to “massage” the information, thus promoting the preferred spin. For example, stories that asserted the Iraq insurgency was losing momentum stressed the number of incidents during a specific period, but ignored data such as the number of wounded, civilian contractor deaths, and Iraqi military casualties.

Sometimes, though, the only approach that works is to fabricate the news.

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Greg Guma writes on his blog, For Preservation & Change, where this article was originally published. 

All images in this article are from the author

There’s overwhelming just cause to impeach and remove Trump from office for legitimate high crimes.  

The same is true for most of his predecessors, along with most current and former congressional members.

The Constitution’s Article II, Section 4 states “(t)he President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Evidence supporting the removal of Trump from office for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, rising to the level of impeachable offenses as constitutionally defined, is lacking — charges against him by undemocratic Dems politicized.

Unrelated to removing him from office by Senate trial, they’re all about wanting him delegitimized and weakened ahead of November 2020 elections.

Ahead of proceedings to begin on Tuesday, Trump’s legal team formally slammed what’s going on as a “brazen and unlawful attempt” to overturn results of the 2016 presidential election. More on this below.

How would Abraham Lincoln fare today. He illegally suspended the Constitution and habeas rights, forcefully closed courts, arbitrarily ordered arrests, conscripted US citizens without congressional consent, closed newspapers opposing his policies, and ordered generals to commit war crimes.

Under his command, General William Sherman’s march to the sea involved rape, pillaging and mass murder.

His Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free a single slave. He wanted them deported at war’s end to maintain America as a white supremacist society.

Glorifying him as one of the nation’s greatest presidents ignores his dark side.

History taught Americans in secondary school, college, graduate school and in doctoral studies conceals the US dark side.

Slave owners Washington, Jefferson, and other US presidents diminished their moral and ethical standing, clearly not believing that all Americans are created equal.

Despite his lofty rhetoric and intellectual pursuits, Jefferson knew slavery was wrong, but owned them anyway, never freeing them like Washington.

He had a slave as mistress and lied about it. He or Washington could have set an example by freeing the nation’s slaves, neither figure having the courage to do the right thing.

Samuel Johnson asked: “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty from the drivers of Negroes?”

According to historian Stephen Ambrose, “(o)f all the contradictions in Jefferson’s contradictory life, none is greater,” adding:

“Of all the contradictions in America’s history, none surpasses its toleration first of slavery and then of segregation.”

Ambrose omitted endless US wars throughout most of the nation’s history — from exterminating Native Americans to ongoing war on humanity.

Washington reviled the nation’s native people, calling them “wolves” and “beasts of prey.”

He dispatched General John Sullivan to attack noncombatant Onondaga people in 1779, ordering him to destroy their villages, homes, fields, food supplies, cattle herds and orchards, wanting as many as possible killed. He stole Indian land.

Dem Woodrow Wilson’s tenure was defined by US involvement in WW I — after pledging to keep America out of Europe’s war.

It was also disgraced by signing the 1913 Federal Reserve Act into law, giving Wall Street control of the nation’s money, the supreme power above all others.

Policies under Franklin Roosevelt pressured imperial Japan to attack the US, giving FDR the war he wanted.

US history isn’t pretty, Trump the latest in a long line of presidents whose policies supported wealth, power and privilege exclusively over peace, equity and justice, notions considered un-American — based on policies pursued by its ruling class throughout US history.

The Clinton co-presidency was anti-New Deal, anti-Great Society, pro-war, pro-business, anti-populist, anti-labor, anti-public welfare.

Bush/Cheney waged US war OF terror, not on it in Afghanistan, Iraq, and against Muslims in America, numerous police state laws enacted on their watch.

Obama bragged about terror-bombing seven countries in eight years.

He institutionalized indefinite detention, authorizing the military to indefinitely detain anyone anywhere without charge, including US citizens, based on suspicions or spurious allegations.

His disposition matrix kill list ordered the elimination of alleged enemies of the state.

Trump exceeded the worst of his predecessors’ domestic and geopolitical policies — filling the swamp he pledged to drain with neocon hardliners, militarists, and super-wealthy individuals like himself.

He broke virtually everyone positive promise made, operating in bad faith, never to be trusted, while waging war on humanity at home and abroad.

Yet none of his legitimate wrongdoing is included in impeachment charges against him.

On Saturday, his legal team led by White House counsel Pat Cipollone and personal attorney Jay Sekulow submitted a six-page response to impeachment charges against him — ahead of Senate trial proceedings to begin this week.

Rejecting charges by Dems, it said “articles of impeachment (they) submitted are a dangerous attack on the right of the American people to freely choose their president,” adding:

“This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election — now just months away.”

“Nothing in these Articles could permit even beginning to consider removing a duly elected President or warrant nullifying an election and subverting the will of the American people. They must be rejected.”

Rejection is virtually certain in the GOP-controlled Senate, trial proceedings likely to conclude in two or three weeks.

No president in US history was removed from office by impeachment, Trump highly unlikely to be the first.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from The Bullet

The US targeted assassination, via drone strike, of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, apart from a torrent of crucial geopolitical ramifications, once again propels to center stage a quite inconvenient truth: the congenital incapacity of so-called US elites to even attempt to understand Shi’ism – thus 24/7 demonization, demeaning not only Shi’as by also Shi’a-led governments.

Washington had been deploying a Long War even before the concept was popularized by the Pentagon in 2001, immediately after 9/11: it’s a Long War against Iran. It started via the coup against the democratically elected government of Mosaddegh in 1953, replaced by the Shah’s dictatorship. The whole process was turbo-charged over 40 years ago when the Islamic Revolution smashed those good old Cold War days when the Shah reigned as the privileged American “gendarme of the (Persian) Gulf”.

Yet this extends far beyond geopolitics. There is absolutely no way whatsoever for anyone to be capable of grasping the complexities and popular appeal of Shi’ism without some serious academic research, complemented with visits to selected sacred sites across Southwest Asia: Najaf, Karbala, Mashhad, Qom and the Sayyida Zeinab shrine near Damascus. Personally, I have traveled this road of knowledge since the late 1990s – and I still remain just a humble student.

In the spirit of a first approach – to start an informed East-West debate on a crucial cultural issue totally sidelined in the West or drowned by tsunamis of propaganda, I initially asked three outstanding scholars for their first impressions.

They are: Prof. Mohammad Marandi, of the University of Tehran, expert on Orientalism; Arash Najaf-Zadeh, who writes under the nom de guerre Blake Archer Williams and who is an expert on Shi’a theology; and the extraordinary Princess Vittoria Alliata from Sicily, top Italian Islamologist and author, among others, of books such as the mesmerizing Harem – which details her travels across Arab lands.

Two weeks ago, I was a guest of Princess Vittoria at Villa Valguarnera in Sicily. We were immersed in a long, engrossing geopolitical discussion – of which one of the key themes was US-Iran – only a few hours before a drone strike at Baghdad airport killed the two foremost Shi’a fighters in the real war on terror against ISIS/Daesh and al-Qaeda/al-Nusra: Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi Hashd al-Shaabi second-in-command Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

Martyrdom vs. cultural relativism

Prof. Marandi offers a synthetic explanation: “The American irrational hatred of Shi’ism stems from its strong sense of resisting injustice – the story of Karbala and Imam Hussein and the Shi’a stress on protecting the oppressed, defending the oppressed and standing up against the oppressor. That is something that the United States and the hegemonic Western powers simply cannot tolerate.”

Blake Archer Williams sent me a reply that has now been published as a stand-alonepiece. This passage, extending on the power of the sacred, clearly underlines the abyss separating the Shi’a notion of martyrdom from Western cultural relativism:

“There is nothing more glorious for a Moslem than attaining to martyrdom while fighting in the Way of God. General Qāsem Soleymānī fought for many years for the objective of waking the Iraqi people up to the point where they would want to take the helm of the destiny of their own country in their own hands. The vote of the Iraqi parliament showed that his objective has been achieved. His body was taken away from us, but his spirit was amplified a thousand fold, and his martyrdom has ensured that shards of its blessed light will be embedded in the hearts and minds of every Moslem man, woman, and child, inoculating them all from the zombie-cancer of the Satanic Novus Ordo Seclorum cultural relativists.”

[a point of contention: Novus Ordo Seclorum, or Saeculorum, means “new order of the ages”, and derives from a famous poem by Virgil which, in the Middle Ages, was regarded by Christians as a prophecy of the coming of Christ. To this point, Williams responded that “while that etymological sense of the phrase is true and still stands, the phrase was hijacked by one George Bush The Younger as representative of the New Worldly Order globalist cabal, and it is in this sense that is currently predominant.”]

Enslaved by Wahhabism

Princess Vittoria would rather frame the debate around the unquestioning American attitude towards Wahhabism:

“I do not think all this has anything to do with hating Shi’ism or ignoring it. After all the Aga Khan is super embedded in US security, a sort of Dalai Lama of the Islamic world. I believe the satanic influence is from Wahhabism, and the Saudi family, who are much more heretic than the Shi’a to all Sunnis of the world, but have been the only contact to Islam for the US rulers. The Saudis have paid for most of the murders and wars by the Islamic Brothers first, then by the other forms of Salafism, all of them invented on a Wahhabi base.”

So, for Princess Vittoria,

“I would not try so much to explain Shi’ism, but to explain Wahhabism and its devastating consequences: it has given birth to all extremisms as well as to revisionism, atheism, destruction of shrines and Sufi leaders all over the Islamic world. And of course Wahhabism is so close to Zionism. There are even researchers who have come up with documents which seem to prove that the House of Saud is a Dunmeh tribe of converted Jews expelled from Medina by the Prophet after they tried to murder him despite having signed a peace treaty.”

Princess Vittoria also emphasizes the fact that

“ the Iranian revolution and Shi’a groups in the Middle East are today the only successful force of resistance to the US, and that causes them to be hated more than others. But only after all other Sunni opponents had been disposed of, killed, terrified (just think of Algeria, but there are dozens of other examples) or corrupted. This is of course not only my position, but that of most Islamologists today.”

The profane against the sacred

Knowing of Williams’ immense knowledge of Shi’a theology, and his expertise in Western philosophy, I prodded him to, literally, “go for the jugular”. And he delivered:

“The question as to why American politicians are incapable of understanding Shi’a Islam (or Islam in general for that matter) is a simple one: unrestrained neoliberal capitalism engenders oligarchy, and the oligarchs “select” candidates that represent their interests before they are “elected” by the ignorant masses. Populist exceptions such as Trump occasionally slip through (or don’t, as in the case of Ross Perot, who pulled out under duress), but even Trump is then controlled by the oligarchs through threats of impeachment, etc. So the role of the politician in democracies seems not to be to try to understand anything but simply carry out the agenda of the elites who own them.”

Williams’ “go for the jugular” response is a long, complex essay that I’d like to publish in full only when our debate gets deeper – along with possible refutations. To summarize it, he outlines and discusses the two main tendencies in Western philosophy: dogmatists vs. skeptics; details how “the holy trinity of the ancient world were in fact the second wave of the dogmatists, trying to save the Greek city states and the Greek world more generally from the decadence of the Sophists”; delves into the “the third wave of skepticism”, which started with the Renaissance and peaked in the 17th century with Montaigne and Descartes; and then draws connections “to Shi’a Islam and the failure of the West to understand it.”

And that leads him to “the heart of the matter”:

“A third option, and a third intellectual stream over and above the dogmatists and the skeptics, and that is the tradition of the traditional (as opposed to the philosophical) Shī’a scholars of religion.”

Now compare it with the last push of the skeptics,

“as Descartes himself admits, by the ‘daemon’ which came to him in his dreams and which resulted in his writing his Discourse on the Method (1637) and Meditations on First Philosophy (1641). The West is still reeling from the blow, and it would seem has decided to put away its stilts of reason and the senses (which Kant tried in vain to reconcile, making things a thousand times worse and more convoluted and discombobulated), and just wallow in the self-congratulatory form of irrationalism known as post-modernism, which should rightly be called ultra-modernism or hyper-modernism as it is no less rooted in the Cartesian ‘Subjective Turn’ and the Kantian ‘Copernican Revolution’ than are the early moderns and the moderns proper.”

To summarize a quite complex juxtaposition,

“what all this means is that the two civilizations have two utterly different views of what the world order should be. Iran believes that the order of the world should be what it has always been and actually is in reality, whether we like it or not, or whether we even believe in reality or not (as some in the West are wont not to do). And the secularized West believes in a new worldly (as opposed to other-worldly or divine) order. And so it is not so much a clash of civilizations as it is a clash of the profane against the sacred, with profane elements in both civilizations arrayed against the sacred forces in both civilizations. It is the clash of the sacred order of justice versus the profane order of the exploitation of man at the hands of his fellow man; of the profaning of God’s justice for the (short-term or this-worldly) benefit of the rebels against God’s justice.”

Dorian Gray revisited

Williams does provide a concrete example to illustrate these abstract concepts:

“The problem is that while everyone knows that the 19^th and 20^th century exploitation of the third world by Western powers was unjust and immoral, this same exploitation continues today. The continuation of this outrageous injustice is the ultimate basis for the differences that exist between Iran and the United States, which will ineluctably continue as long as the US insists on its exploitative practices and as long as it continues to protect its protectorate governments, who only survive against the overwhelming will of the people they rule because of the bullying presence of the US forces that are propping them up in order for them to continue to serve their interests rather than the interests of their peoples. It is a spiritual war for the establishment of justice and autonomy in the third world. The West can continue to look good in its own eyes because it controls the reality studio (of world discourse), but its real image is plain for all to see, even though the West continues to see itself as Dorian Gray did in Oscar Wilde’s only novel, as a young and handsome person whose sins were only reflected in his portrait. Thus the portrait reflects the reality which the third world sees every day, whereas the Western Dorian Gray sees himself as he is portrayed by the CNN’s and the BBC’s and the New York Times’s of the world.”

“Western imperialism in Western Asia is usually symbolized by Napoleon Bonaparte’s war against the Ottomans in Egypt and Syria (1798–1801). Ever since the beginning of the 19^th century, the West has been sucking on the jugular vein of the Moslem body politic like a veritable vampire whose thirst for Moslem blood is never sated and who refused to let go. Since 1979, Iran, which has always played the role of the intellectual leader of the Islamic world, has risen up to put a stop to this outrage against God’s law and will, and against all decency. So it is a process of revisioning a false and distorted vision of reality back to what reality actually is and should be: a just order. But this revisioning is hampered both by the fact that the vampires control the reality studio, and the ineptitude of Moslem intellectuals and their failure to understand even the rudiments of the history of Western thought, be this in its ancient, medieval, or modern period.”

Is there a chance to smash the reality studio? Possibly:

“What needs to happen is for world consciousness to shift from the paradigm wherein people believe a maniac like Pompeo and a buffoon like Trump represent the paragon of normality, to a paradigm where people believe that Pompeo and Trump are just a couple of gangsters who go about doing whatever they please, no matter how disgusting and depraved, with almost complete and utter impunity. And that is a process of revisioning, and a process of awakening to a new and higher state of political consciousness. It is a process of rejecting the discourse of the dominant paradigm and of joining the Axis of Resistance, whose military leader was the martyr General Qāsem Soleymānī. Not least, it involves a rejection of the absurdity of the relativity of truth (and the relativity of time and space, for that matter; sorry, Einstein); and the abandonment of the absurd and nihilistic philosophy of humanism, and the awakening to the reality that there is a Creator, and that He is actually in charge. But of course, all this is too much for the oh-so-enlightened modern mentality, who knows better.”

There you go. And this is just the beginning. Input and refutations welcomed. Calling all informed souls: the debate is on.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Pepe Escobar is a frequent contributor to Global Research. 

Featured image is from The Unz Review

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.” — General Dwight D Eisenhower, Farewell address 1961

Congress just passed a near trillion dollar military budget at a time when the United States faces no evident state threats at home or abroad. Ike was right.

Illustrating Ike’s prescient warning, Brown University’s respected Watson Institute just released a major study which found that the so-called ‘wars on terror’ in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Pakistan have cost US taxpayers $6.4 trillion since they began in 2001.

The extensive study found that over 800,000 people have died as a result of these military operations, a third of them civilians. An additional 21 million civilians have been displaced by US military operations. According to the Pentagon, these US wars have so far cost each American taxpayer $7,623 – and that’s a very conservative estimate.

Most of this money has been quietly added to the US national debt of over $23 trillion. Wars on credit hide the true cost and pain from the public.

As General Eisenhower warned, military spending has engulfed the nation. A trillion annual military budget represents just about half the world’s military expenditures. The Pentagon, which I’ve visited numerous times, is bustling with activity as if the nation was on a permanent war footing.

The combined US intelligence budget of some $80 billion is larger than Russia’s total military budget of $63 billion. US troops, warplanes and naval vessels are stationed around the globe, including, most lately, across Africa. And yet every day the media trumpets new ‘threats’ to the US. Trump is sending more troops to the Mideast while claiming he wants to reduce America’s powerful military footprint there. Our military is always in search of new missions. These operations generate promotions and pay raises, new equipment and a reason for being.

Back in the day, the Republican Party of General Eisenhower was a centrist conservative’s party with a broad world view, dedicated to lower taxes and somewhat smaller government. It was led by the Rockefellers and educated Easterners with a broad world view and respect for tradition.

Today’s Republican Party is a collection of rural interests from flyover country, handmaidens of the military industrial complex and, most important, militant evangelical Christians who see the world through the spectrum of the Old Testament. Israel’s far right has come to dominate American evangelists by selling them a bill of goods about the End of Days and the Messiah’s return. Many of these rubes see Trump as a quasi-religious figure.

Mix the religious cultists – about 25% of the US population – with the farm and Israel lobbies and the mighty military industrial complex and no wonder the United States has veered off into the deep waters of irrationality and crusading ardor. The US can still afford such bizarre behavior thanks to its riches, magic green dollar, endless supply of credit and a poorly educated, apathetic public too besotted by sports and TV sitcoms to understand what’s going on abroad.

All the war party needs is a steady supply of foreign villains (preferably Muslims) who can be occasionally bombed back to the early Islamic age. Americans have largely forgotten George W. Bush’s lurid claims that Iraqi drones of death were poised to shower poisons on the sleeping nation. Even the Soviets never ventured so deep into the sea of absurdity.

The military industrial complex does not care to endanger its gold-plated F-35 stealth aircraft and $13 billion apiece aircraft carriers in a real war against real powers. Instead, the war party likes little wars against weak opponents who can barely shoot back. State-run TV networks thrill to such minor scraps with fancy headlines and martial music. Think of the glorious little wars against Panama, Grenada, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Libya. Iran looks next.

The more I listen to his words, the more I like Ike.

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On Dr. Martin Luther King’s day (January 20, 2020), we remember a global icon that has been an inspiration to men and women across the globe struggling for human rights for all. Despite all the serious human rights and civil rights challenges that are increasing nationally and internationally, we still believe that Dr. Martin Luther King’s vision continues to inspire around the around.

King’s dream continues to inspire all peace and justice loving people in America and across the world to continue the struggle to transform the dream to reality.

We in the human rights community cherish Dr. King’s legacy as one human rights hero and legend who left a lasting mark in America and the world. His dream is the dream of all the victims of racism, discrimination, hate, injustice and inequality.  Dr. King’s dream, just like America’s ideals, is universal and appeals to all who are committed to equality and justice regardless of their background.

What is remarkable and most relevant for us today as a nation is the civility of Dr. King. He did not demonize his adversaries. He called them brothers and sisters in humanity. It is civility that we miss most today. We have grown up politicians demonizing and mocking those they disagree with.

This year’s M. L King’s Day let us remember that despite massive indignities and hate, Dr. King and his friends and supporters, those who believed in his leadership, remained honorable and dignified.

In the spirit of this year’s M.L. King Day that we hope that our politicians, from both parties, as well as fellow citizens, restore civility to our national conversation. All are urged to rise above divisions and live up to the legacy of civility as lived by Dr. King. Let’s join hands and stand shoulder to shoulder building bridges of respect and understanding.

Dr. King’s struggle for equality and justice through peaceful means has universal appeal. It is as relevant and important today as it was when he started his struggle.

On this special day, let’s affirm our unwavering commitment to protecting and advancing human rights and helping create a culture of respect for human rights, human dignity and human respect for all.

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Imad Hamad is AHRC Executive Director.

“Our problem is civil obedience,” said the people’s historian Howard Zinn.

I kept thinking of this issue of obedience and disobedience as I was watching the musical play Matilda, based on the book by the impish writer Roald Dahl, at the University of Massachusetts. I kept thinking of how easily people are induced to obey authority figures, legitimate or illegitimate, and how servile and boot-licking many people are even when such passivity humiliates them and renders them accomplices in their own servitude.  Even when they have a small moment here and there where they stand up to authority figures – usually in insignificant matters – the tendency is to retreat quickly back into the social cocoon of insouciant subservience. Fear seems to dominate so many people’s lives, fear of those they have elevated to be their social masters.

It takes an inner core of spiritual sustenance to maintain a rebel’s stance throughout one’s life, as did MLK. Dostoevsky said it this way:

But the foolish children will have to learn some day that, rebels though they be and riotous from nature, they are too weak to maintain the spirit of mutiny for any length of time.

But there are exceptions.

Naturally I couldn’t help thinking of Dr. Martin Luther King since my play-watching was occurring on the weekend when his birthday is celebrated with a national holiday, while his death day disappears down the memory hole.  Across the country – in response to the King Holiday and Service Act passed by Congress and signed by Bill Clinton in 1994 – people will beencouraged to make the day one of service (from Latin, servus = slave).  Etymological irony aside, such service does not include King’s commitment to protesting a decadent system of racial and economic injustice or non-violently resisting the warfare state that is the United States.  Government sponsored service is cultural neo-liberalism at its finest.

This is lost on too many people who buy into the illusion created by the very government that killed MLK.

Didn’t Dr. King say that ‘Nothing is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

For these are the enemies that the young girl Matilda, the play’s central character, must fight – a battle that resonates very powerfully from the Bowker Auditorium stage with this inspiring production.  It is hard to believe that it is produced by an amateur theater company, so fantastic is the staging, the sets, the choreography, and the performances. One comes out of this production mesmerized, head swirling, a swing in one’s step as one realizes that Matilda is right:

If you sit around and let them get on top of you

You might as well be saying it’s okay

And that’s not right

So rebel against injustice.

Sometimes a musical can entertain and simultaneously send a powerful social message far more effectively than a thousand political tracts or the repeated admonitions of a teacher.  Oscar Hammerstein’s countless lyrics come to mind. Enchanted by Richard Rodgers’ music, the listener is instructed by Hammerstein’s words: “You’ve got to be taught to be afraid/Of people whose eyes are oddly made/ And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade/You’ve got to be carefully taught.”

Matilda is filled with such captivating lyrical moments.

“We’re told we have to do what we’re told, but surely sometimes you have to be a little bit naughty,” sings Matilda, as she leads her schoolmates in an uprising against the abusive headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, a sadistic monster who hates children.  Matilda’s parents are equally horrible morons who hate books and watch the “telly” constantly for their “reality,” as they mock Matilda’s interest in reading and deep thinking.  They wish she were never born and refuse to recognize that she is a girl, not a boy, because of her brilliance and love of learning. She fights them also, knowing that “nobody else is gonna put it right for me.”

She is sick of them all. She is thoughtful, introspective, philosophical, and an avid reader.  She has gumption, is fearless, and stands up to illegitimate authority figures.  She is an exemplary heroine for our historical moment when ignorance and functional illiteracy have become the norm and American society has devolved into a cacophony of stupidities flashing across electronic screens as cruelty and violence dominate the news.

Watching this play I felt I was taking a redemptive bath. As I left the theater, I felt cleansed and hopeful, filled with joy that revolt against ignorance and cruelty is possible and children can teach us this.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness,” said Dr. King, “only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

To say I loved this performance is an understatement.  It blew me away.

The entire large cast put on a rousing performance that is lively, funny, disturbing, sad, and deeply moving by turns. Love and rebellion filled the theater.

As in life itself, there are characters that are menacing and demented, dishonest and repulsive, sexist and shallow, timid but good, sparkling and spunky, fearful and brave.

But as so often in life, their bravery is evoked by that of a leader who rouses them to defiance, in this case the child Matilda, who leads them in revolt against Miss Trunchbull and her horrific parents, the latter an especially hard task for a child. Sometimes one’s enemies reside at home, the place where servility often is born.

At the heart of this production is the play’s star, the 11-year-old Sophie Michel, who gives an incandescent performance as Matilda, one that brought a lump to my throat.  The voice, the acting, the stage presence by Ms. Michel sent me out of the theater flying on a cloud.  She gives a luminous and dazzling performance, and whenever she takes center stage, I was transfixed.  She is spectacular.

And that she is my granddaughter fills me with gratitude and hope.

In these dark times, here is a beautiful production of a play that entertains, instructs, and sends the message that we need: Be naughty and revolt.

Or else, as Matilda reminds us:

You might as well be saying that you think it’s okay

And that’s not right

I think MLK would applaud.

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Distinguished author and sociologist Edward Curtin is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. Visit the author’s website here.

On the heels of new research showing that the world’s oceans are rapidly warming, scientists revealed Wednesday that a huge patch of hot water in the northeast Pacific Ocean dubbed “the blob” was to blame for killing about one million seabirds.

The peer-reviewed study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, was conducted by a team of researchers at federal and state agencies, conservation groups, and universities. They tied the mass die-off to “the blob,” a marine heatwave that began forming in 2013 and grew more intense in 2015 because of the weather phenomenon known as El Niño.

“About 62,000 dead or dying common murres (Uria aalge), the trophically dominant fish-eating seabird of the North Pacific, washed ashore between summer 2015 and spring 2016 on beaches from California to Alaska,” the study says. “Most birds were severely emaciated and, so far, no evidence for anything other than starvation was found to explain this mass mortality. Three-quarters of murres were found in the Gulf of Alaska and the remainder along the West Coast.”

Given that previous studies have shown “that only a fraction of birds that die at sea typically wash ashore,” the researchers put the death toll closer to a million.

“The magnitude and scale of this failure has no precedent,” lead author John Piatt, a research biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Alaska Science Center and an affiliate professor at the University of Washington, said in a statement. “It was astonishing and alarming, and a red-flag warning about the tremendous impact sustained ocean warming can have on the marine ecosystem.”

A New Study About the Death of 1 Million Seabirds Should Scare the Crap Out of You #ClimateReality #ClimateActionhttps://t.co/7A17ZEGV1x pic.twitter.com/OJ01VIGlxP

— CenterForTheBlueEconomy_MIIS (@CBE_MIIS) January 16, 2020

Piatt and study co-author and University of Washington professor Julia Parrish explained that the team believes the blob—which spanned hundreds of miles—limited food supply in the region, leading the birds to starve.

“Think of it as a run on the grocery stores at the same time that the delivery trucks to the stores stopped coming so often,” Parrish said. “We believe that the smoking gun for common murres—beyond the marine heatwave itself—was an ecosystem squeeze: fewer forage fish and smaller prey in general, at the same time that competition from big fish predators like walleye, pollock, and Pacific cod greatly increased.”

Piatt added that

“food demands of large commercial groundfish like cod, pollock, halibut, and hake were predicted to increase dramatically with the level of warming observed with the blob, and since they eat many of the same prey as murres, this competition likely compounded the food supply problem for murres, leading to mass mortality events from starvation.”

According to CNN, which reported on the study Thursday:

 The blob devastated the murres’ population. With insufficient food, breeding colonies across the entire region had reproductive difficulties for years afterward, the study said. Not only did the population decline dramatically, but the murres couldn’t replenish those numbers.

During the 2015 breeding season, three colonies didn’t produce a single chick. That number went up to 12 colonies in the 2016 season—and in reality it could be even higher, since researchers only monitor a quarter of all colonies.

Thomas Frölicher, a climate scientist at the University of Bern in Switzerland who was not involved in the new study, discussed the blob’s connection to the human-caused planetary emergency with InsideClimate News.

“It was the biggest marine heatwave so far on record,” said Frölicher, who noted that such events have doubled in frequency over the past few decades. “Usually, we are used to heatwaves over land. They are much smaller in size, and they do not last as long. In the ocean, this heatwave lasted two or three years.”

Frölicher warned that “if we follow a high-greenhouse-gas-emissions scenario, these heatwaves will become 50 times more frequent than preindustrial times” by 2100. He said that even if the international community achieves a low-emissions scenario in line with the Paris climate agreement, marine heatwaves would still be 20 times more frequent.

“What that means is that in some regions, they will become permanent heatwaves,” he added. “This gives us some insight into the future.”

A severe marine heatwave in the Pacific Ocean killed almost a million seabirds. Our survival depends on drawing down greenhouse gas emissions. https://t.co/F9r9xBtlyr

— Food & Water Watch (@foodandwater) January 17, 2020

The study—which its authors expect to inform research on other mortality events related to marine heatwaves—was published just weeks after University of Washington scientists found what some have called “the blob 2.0” forming in the Pacific. That discovery came as “quite a surprise” to those researchers.

University climatologist Nick Bond told local media that “the original blob was so unusual, and stood above the usually kind of variations in the climate and ocean temperatures, that we thought ‘wow, this is going to be something we won’t see for quite a while.'”

From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.

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Featured image: Dead common murres were found on the beach in Cochrane Bay, Prince William Sound on Jan 10, 2016. These birds were part of the large die-off of common murres across the Gulf of Alaska in 2015-2016. (Photo: Sarah Schoen/USGS Alaska Science Center)

The Court of Appeal of Turin confirms in a full judgment published on 13 January 2020 (904/2019 of 3.12.2019 , Romeo v. INAIL) the decision of the Tribunal of Ivrea of 2017. Judge Fadda considers that the worker’s acoustic neuroma (benign tumour of the head) was indeed caused by the use of the mobile phone.

According to the Court:

“there is protective scientific jurisprudence that supports the assertion of causation based on criteria of “more likely than not”. P.33.”

And to add:

“Epidemiological data, the results of experiments on animals (not contradicted, at present, by other experiments of the same type), the duration and intensity of exposure … which are particularly important in view of the dose-response relationship established – at the scientific level – between exposure to mobile phone radiofrequencies and the risk of acoustic neuroma, as well as the absence of any other factor which could have caused the disease”.

The scientific analysis by independent experts appointed by the Court confirms the causal link

All the scientific elements of the case were re-examined and re-analysed by two new experts appointed by the Court of Turin (Carolina Marino, Angelo D’Errico). The Court of Appeal fully accepted their conclusions and rejected INAIL’s* appeal, stating that CTU had provided:

“strong evidence to assert a causal role between the complainant’s occupational exposure, his exposure to radiation from mobile phones and the disease that occurred”.

This is the second Italian appeal judgment in favour of a worker after the Brescia judgment in 2010, which concluded with the confirmation of the Supreme Court in 2012, case of Marcolini v. INAIL. In this case, the Court of Bergamo had rejected the application in first instance.

A landmark judgment that will have international repercussions

The Romeo v. INAIL case is therefore historic. It is the first in world judicial history to have had two consecutive judgments in favour of the plaintiff. It is also historic because of the principles underlying this decision and particularly because it is written about the conflicts of interest of certain experts close to the mobile phone industry.

Conflicts of interest and the role of the ICNIRP pinpointed by the Tribunal

Indeed, the Tribunal recognizes that telephone industry-funded scientists, or members of the ICNIRP, are less reliable than independent scientists:

“Much of the scientific literature that excludes carcinogenicity from RF exposure, or at least argues that research to the contrary cannot be considered conclusive… is in a position of conflict of interest, which is not always asserted: see, in particular, on page 94 of the report, the Applicant’s defence (not contested by the other party) that the authors of the studies indicated by INAIL, who are mentioned by name, are members of ICNIRP and/or SCENIHR, which have received, directly or indirectly, funding from industry. P. 33.”

The Turin CTU states:

“It is considered that less weight should be given to studies published by authors who have not declared the existence of conflicts of interest. In this case, conflict of interest situations may arise in relation to the assessment of the effect of radio frequencies on health, for example :
1. cases where the author of the study advised the telephone industry or received funding for studies from the telephone industry
2. if the author himself is a member of the ICNIRP.”

For Dr. Marc Arazi, President of Phonegate Alert:

“Attorney Stefano Bertone’s determined fight to defend the victims of overexposure to our mobile phone waves and the consequences for their health is exemplary. He was one of the first lawyers to take the measure of the revelations linked to the Phonegate scandal. A year ago, together with his law firm and the Italian association APPEL, he and his firm condemned the Italian government to launch major information campaigns on the risks associated with the use of mobile phones. This new decision is all the more important and confirm the need for a moratorium on the deployment of 5G”.

Read the document here.

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Public opinion has its eyes riveted on USMCA, which is tagged as NAFTA 2.0. It is important at this stage to focus on the murky history of NAFTA 1.0  as well as the transition to NAFTA 2.0.

USMCA modifies the original North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) signed by President  George H.W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari in December 1992, which was ratified  by the US Congress,  Canada’s Parliament and Mexico’s National assembly in 1993. NAFTA was then launched on January 1, 1994 during the Clinton administration.

Was NAFTA 1.0 a legal agreement?

NAFTA: “A Hot Political Football.” 

There is evidence that one of the signatories of NAFTA 1.0 had  links to organized crime. The Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortiari had pervasive family ties to the Mexican Drug Cartel. In turn, the President of the United States had a long standing personal relationship to the Salinas family.

While this was known and documented prior to the signing of the agreement in 1992, the information was withheld. It was not an object of legislative debate nor was it revealed to the broader public until AFTER the official launching of NAFTA on January 1st 1994.

There was a coverup. Both the George H. W. Bush Senior administration as well as the incoming Clinton administration were fully aware of the links of the Salinas presidency to organized crime. This information was deliberately withheld. Public opinion in the US and Canada was never informed so as not to jeopardize the signing of NAFTA 1.0:

“Other former officials say they were pressured to keep mum because Washington was obsessed with approving NAFTA”.“The intelligence on corruption, especially by drug traffickers, has always been there,” said Phil Jordan, who headed DEA’s Dallas office from 1984 to 1994. But “we were under instructions not to say anything negative about Mexico. It was a no-no since NAFTA was a hot political football.” (Dallas Morning News, 26 February 1997)

In a bitter irony, it was only after this historical event, that Carlos Salinas’ family links to the drug trade through his brother Raul Salinas de Gortiari and his father were revealed.

In other words, at the time the NAFTA Agreement was signed, both Bush Senior and Mulroney were aware that one of the signatories of NAFTA, namely president Salinas de Gortiari  had links to the Mexican Drug Cartel.

Moreover, the personal relationship between the Bush and Salinas families was a matter of public record. Former President George Bush — when he worked in the oil business in Texas in the 1970s– had developed close personal ties with Carlos Salinas and his father, Raul Salinas Lozano who was a leading figure in narcotics dealings.

According to Andres Openheimer writing in the Miami Herald (February 17 1997):

“witnesses say former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortiari, his imprisoned brother Raul and other members of the country’s ruling elite met with drug lord Juan Garcia Abrego at a Salinas family ranch; Jeb Bush admits he met with Raul Salinas several times but has never done any business with him.”

According to a report published in The Dallas Morning News, Raul Salinas Lozano, the family patriarch and father of Carlos and Raul Junior was behind the scam.  The former private secretary of Raul Salinas Lozano:

“told [US] authorities [in testimony] that Mr. Salinas Lozano was a leading figure in narcotics dealings that also involved his son, Raul Salinas deGortiari, his son-in-law, Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, the No. 2 official in the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and other leading politicians, according to the documents. Mr. Ruiz Massieu was assassinated in 1994.” (Dallas Morning News, 26 February 1997).

According to former DEA Michael Levine, the Mexican Drug Cartel was a “family affair”. Both Carlos and Raul were prominent members of the Cartel. And this was known to then US Attorney General Edward Meese in 1987 one year prior to Carlos Salinas’ inauguration as the country’s president.

It is worth recalling that in the 1960s, the Minister of Commerce in charge of trade negotiations was held by Raul Salinas Lozano.

When Carlos Salinas was inaugurated as President, the entire Mexican State apparatus become criminalised with key government positions occupied by members of the Cartel.

And it is precisely during this period that the Salinas government launched a sweeping privatisation program under advice from the IMF.

The privatisation program became a multibillion dollar money laundering operation. Narco-dollars were channelled towards the acquisition of State property and public utilities.

Richard Barnet of the Institute for Policy Studies, testified to the US Congress (April 14, 1994) that

“billions of dollars in state assets have gone to supporters and cronies” (Dallas Morning News, 11 August 1994).

These included the sale of Telefonos de Mexico, valued at $ 3.9 billion and purchased by a Salinas crony for $ 400 million.(Ibid).

Raul Salinas was behind the privatisation programme. He was known as ”Mr. 10 Percent” “for the slice of bid money he allegedly demanded in exchange for helping acquaintances acquire companies, concessions and contracts [under the IMF sponsored privatisation program” (The News, InfoLatina, .Mexico, October 10, 1997).

In 1995 in the wake of the scandal and the arrest of his brother Raul for murder, Carlos Salinas left Mexico to take up residence in Dublin. His alleged links to the Drug Cartel did not prevent him from being appointed to the Board of the Dow Jones Company on Wall Street, a position which he held until 1997:

Salinas, who left Mexico in March 1995 after his brother, Raul, was charged with masterminding the murder of a political opponent, has served on the company’s board for two years. He was questioned last year in Dublin by a Mexican prosecutor investigating the murder in March 1994 of Luis Donaldo Colosio, who wanted to succeed Salinas as president. A Dow Jones spokesman last week denied that Salinas had been forced out of an election for the new board, which will take place at the company’s annual meeting on April 16… Salinas, who negotiated Mexico’s entry into the free trade agreement with the United States and Canada, was appointed to the board because of his international experience. He was unavailable for comment at his Dublin home last week.” (Sunday Times, London, 30 March 1997).

Washington had consistently denied Carlos Salinas’ involvement. “It was his brother Raul”, Carlos Salinas “did not know”, the American media continued to uphold Salinas as a model statesman, architect of free trade in the Americas and a friend of the Bush family.

In October 1998, The Swiss government confirmed that the brother of the former Mexican president had deposited some 100 million dollars in drug money in Swiss banks:

“They [Swiss authorities] are confiscating the money, which they believe was part of a much larger amount paid to Raul Salinas for helping Mexican and Colombian drugs cartels during his brother’s six-year term ending in 1994. Mr Salinas’ lawyers have maintained he was legally heading an investment fund for Mexican businessmen but the Swiss federal prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, described Salinas’ business dealings as unsound, incomprehensible and contrary to customary business usage. (BBC Report)“After [Carlos] Salinas left office in 1994, the Salinas family fell from grace in a swirl of drug-related corruption and crime scandals. Raúl was jailed and convicted on charges of money laundering and of masterminding the assassination of his brother-in-law; after spending 10 years in jail, Raúl was acquitted of both crimes.  …With the scandal unraveling, Jeb’s friendship with Raúl did not go unnoticed. Jeb has never denied his friendship with Raúl, who [now] keeps a low profile in Mexico.Kristy Campbell, spokesperson for Bush, did not respond to a request for comment. The Salinas family’s demise caught the Bushes by surprise. “I have been very disappointed by the allegations about him and his family. I never had the slightest hint of information that President Salinas was anything but totally honest,” Bush senior  told me in the 1997 interview. (Dolia Estevez, Jeb Bush’s Mexican Connections, Forbes, April 7, 2015, emphasis added)

“The Salinas family’s demise caught the Bushes by surprise”? (Forbes, April 2015) The Bushes knew who they were all along.

Former DEA official Michael Levine confirmed that Carlos Salinas’ role in the Mexican drug cartel was known to US officials. US President George H. W. Bush was  regularly briefed by officials from the Department of Justice, the CIA and the DEA.

In the Wake of NAFTA 1.0

US authorities waited until after Carlos Salinas finished his presidential term to arrest Mexican drug lord Juan Garcia Abrego, who was a close collaborator of the president’s brother Raul. In turn, Raul Salinas was an “intimo amigo” of Jeb Bush :

Juan Garcia Abrego, a fugitive on the FBI’s most-wanted list, was flown to Houston late Monday, following his arrest by Mexican police …  Garcia Abrego, the reputed head of Mexico’s second most powerful drug cartel, had eluded authorities on both sides of the border for years. His arrest is an enormous victory for the U.S. and Mexican governments. CNN, January 16, 2015

But there is more than meets the eye: while the Bushes and the Salinas had longstanding ties, Wall Street was also involved in the laundering of drug money:

A U.S. official said the Justice Department has made significant advances in its money-laundering investigation against Raul Salinas de Gortari and has identified several people who can testify that the former first brother received protection money from a major narcotics cartel.

Does that make it an illegal agreement?

The legitimacy of NAFTA has so far not been the object of a legal procedure or judicial inquiry. Nor was it an object for debate in the US Congress and Canada’s parliament.

Déjà Vu. The Legality of NAFTA 2.0

On November 30, 2018,  US President Donald Trump, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto signed USMCA or NAFTA 2.0.

Both NAFTA 1.0 and NAFTA 2.0 (USMCA) were signed under questionable circumstances.

“The Salinas NAFTA 1.0 Saga” was Repeated in November 2018

The Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto (signatory of NAFTA 2.0) also had links to Mexico’s Drug Cartel. But that information which was known to US  officials and the Western media was withheld until after the signing of the November 30, 2018 USMCA agreement.

Barely two months later in January 2019, the Western media reported that former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto had allegedly received a $100 million bribe from drug cartel kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán (according to  witness at Guzman’s trial in New York)

Continuity. “Copy and Paste”

1. Both NAFTA 1.0 and NAFTA 2.0 were signed by a head of state with links to organized crime.  Both Salinas de Gortiari and Peña Nieto had extensive links to the Mexican Drug Cartel.

2. In a bitter irony, both Enrique Peña Nieto and Salinas de Gortiari had been rewarded 100 million dollars.

3. In both cases, the media failed to address the issue prior to the signing of these two historical agreements. They “spilled the beans” (immediately) following the end of  Salinas de Gortiari and Peña Nieto’s terms of office (respectively) as Mexico’s head of state.

The USMCA (NAFTA 2.0) agreement was signed in Buenos Aires on November 30th 2018, on the sidelines of the G-20 meetings. It was Enrique Peña Nieto’s last day in office.

The NAFTA 2.0 agreement was signed in haste ONE DAY PRIOR to President Lopez Obrador’s inauguration on December 1, 2018.

The timing of this agreement was intended to exclude President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador from the process of negotiation and ratification of USMCA.

Moreover, it was understood that the new president (who had no links to organized crime) would not be allowed to question the legitimacy of the agreement signed by his predecessor Enrique Peña Nieto, despite his links to the Mexican Drug Cartel. 

BBC, 15 January 2019

In the words of award winning journalist Anabel Hernandez (2014 PRI interview): 

I believe that Enrique Peña Nieto is [2014] trying to make an old-style pact with drug traffickers. The issue is that he won’t be able to because organized crime is so pulverized and there are so many loose criminal cells that don’t take orders from anybody. What I can say is that the Sinaloa cartel is achieving under this administration [Peña Nieto] what it didn’t achieve in its best years under [former presidents] Fox and Calderon.What do you hope to achieve with your investigations? What should Mexico do, put former presidents in prison?What I have learned in nine years of investigation into drug trafficking is that a general, a public security secretary or a governor is more dangerous than Chapo Guzman himself. They are the ones that betray the country, that sell the state to organized crime and they should face exemplary punishments. … If there are no exemplary punishments against the Mexican political and business class who permit people like Chapo Guzman to exist, then nothing is going to change and we are just going to be repeating this story of death, sometimes with more violence, sometimes with less, but always with the Mexican state under control of drug traffickers. We have to break this cycle. (emphasis added)

Trump murdered Qassem Soleimani for “saying bad things” about the USG, according to The Hill. The president, gathered Friday at Mar-a-Lago with donors and supporters, also threatened Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader. 

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The so-called “Supreme Leader” of Iran, who has not been so Supreme lately, had some nasty things to say about the United States and Europe. Their economy is crashing, and their people are suffering. He should be very careful with his words!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 17, 2020

In other words, if the leader of Iran criticizes the USG for wrecking Iran’s economy and forcing hardship on the people through sanctions, he might find himself targeted by a Hellfire missile.

For Trump, however, criticizing the USG for its endless war crimes comes in second to personally insulting the stable genius. On the day Trump made this threat, Khamenei characterized Trump as a clown, and this prompted the president to basically say he will kill the leader of a foreign nation for saying bad things about him. 

Iran’s supreme leader said President Trump is a “clown” who only pretends to support the Iranian people but will “push a poisonous dagger” into their backs https://t.co/Yf8B1yKiVj

— POLITICO (@politico) January 17, 2020

This one got under #Trump's skin – 'vicious clowns' – “[Soleimani was] the anti-terrorist Commander of the whole region,” #Khamenei said. #Iran pic.twitter.com/YaETfBX3nM

— tim anderson (@timand2037) January 18, 2020

It should be noted Khamenei is not stranger to assassination attempts. In 1981, Mujahedin-e Khalq tried to kill him with an exploding tape recorder, which seriously injured Khamenei, who was Iranian president at the time. His right arm was paralyzed by the attack.  

MEK was delisted as a terrorist organization by Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State. The murderous organization, guilty of killing American citizens, is lauded on both sides of  the artificial political divide. For instance, the former Marxist terror cult has shared friendly relationships with the likes of Rudy Giuliani, John Bolton, Ed Rendell, R. James Woolsey, Porter Goss, Louis Freeh, Michael Mukasey, James L. Jones, Tom Ridge, and Howard Dean. 

Imagine the result if Trump was injured by an exploding tape recorder and the culprit was Iran. The exceptional nation, with its neocons running foreign policy, would waste no time bombing the hell out of Iran, killing thousands, and this would be cheered on by the American people, so easily hoodwinked and ready to believe lies. 

This is precisely why Iran has yet to seriously confront the USG despite its four decades of economic warfare and absurd propaganda pegging it as the world’s top international terrorist nation. However, if we step outside of Bizarro World for a moment and confront reality, we will discover that the USG is the number one terror organization in the world. 

Iran has to go because it is a symbol of resistance to bankster neoliberalism. Donald Trump is the current Mafia don for the financial elite. He is threatening to kill the top leader of Iran—its spiritual as well as political leader—and if he manages to do that, there will be serious blowback, not only against the USG military bases scattered around the Middle East, but quite possibly in the American heartland as well, including the targeting of neocons and others pushing for a war that would benefit Israel and further deplete America’s treasure (or rather, require more debt piled on future generations) and spill an incalculable amount of blood.

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Kurt Nimmo writes on his blog, Another Day in the Empire, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

“It just seems like people have really lost their way, severed ties with reality completely, where we’re listening to some pied piper online instead of really questioning authority. questioning the power structures like we should be all along!” – Abby Martin (from this week’s interview.)

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” – Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass [1]

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The year 2019 saw the unfolding of a number of dramatic events.

At the beginning of the year, the Venezuelan opposition orchestrated a coup, with dozens of countries including a number of South American countries recognizing opposition figure Juan Guaidó as president. This attempt appears to have failed miserably as the military and the bulk of the Venezuelan population appear to oppose an undemocratic  regime change.

In March, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) would release a report detailing the deaths of Palestinians at the hands of Israeli Defense Forces in the wake of the great March of Return protests at the Gaza-Israel perimeter fence would approach 200, with 29,000 injured.

In April, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was forcefully removed from the Ecuadorean Embassy in the United Kingdom where he had sought sanctuary from a wrongful and unjust prosecution at the hands of the U.S.

In June, U.S.- Iran tensions would escalate with attacks on oil tankers in Gulf of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz culminating in the drone killing in early January of high ranking Iranian military figure Qasem Soleimani.

Popular uprisings around the globe were unquestionably a feature of the year. The Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) movement endured throughout the entirety of the year with weekly demonstrations against the Macron government’s neoliberal reforms. Likewise, the uprisings in Hong Kong grabbed much of the media spotlight, And later in the year, the world would see popular eruptions in Ecuador, Chile, and other Latin American centres, in Haiti, in Sudan and in Lebanon.

On the climate change front, while Greta Thunberg and the youth climate activists took centre stage in unprecedented numbers, infernos light up the Amazon, California and Australia, scientists highlight the threat to global food supply from climate change, the world’s oceans are being depleted of oxygen, the melting of glacial and polar ice accelerates, and the UN’s World Meteorological Organization reports that the concentration of climate-heating greenhouse gases has hit another all-time high with “no sign of a slowdown, let alone a decline.”

And of course, the impeachment drama in Washington continues to transfix many Americans while poverty has increased in 30 percent of U.S counties, and while a bi-partisan consensus on Capitol Hill approved last August military spending exceeding what was spent at the height of the Cold War, even adjusting for inflation.

For independent media outlets like the Global Research News Hour, news stories are curated according to how they impact the broader population, not according to their service to the corporate and State interests that underwrite most press outlets. Through that lens, the show takes an overdue opportunity to evaluate some of the more important stories and developments of the past year.

Our first guest, Andy Lee Roth of Project Censored, discusses some of the Top 25 most censored stories of 2018-2019, and other themes from the publication Censored 2020. These include think tank partnerships which turn Facebook into a tool of U.S. Foreign Policy (2), high rates of unemployment among formerly incarcerated Americans (17), and a more equitable model for providing meals for schoolchildren in the U.S. (23).

In the final half hour, we present a wide-ranging conversation on the news stories and trends of 2019 featuring independent media icons Abby and Robbie Martin (Media Roots radio) along with Global Research News Hour co-hosts Michael Welch and Scott Price. Themes range from the marginalization of dissident viewpoints and analysis under the guise of controlling ‘fake news’ to the co-opting of ‘Deep State’ analysis and ‘conspiracy culture’ into a kind of partisan cudgel, to the growth of the U.S. empire under Trump, to the corporate and ecological elements missing from coverage of the fires raging around the planet.

Andy Lee Roth, is the Associate Director of Project Censored, a media research program which fosters student development of media literacy and critical thinking skills as applied to news media censorship in the United States.

Abby Martin is an investigative journalist and co-producer of Telesur’s the Empire Files. She also wrote and directed the 2019 documentary film Gaza Fights for Freedom. She co-hosts the Media Roots Radio podcast along with her brother Robbie Martin.

Robbie Martin is a writer, musician and film maker. He produced the three part documentary film series A Very Heavy Agenda, about the rise and persistent role of the neocons within the Washington establishment.

(Global Research News Hour episode 283)

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The Bush, Obama and Trump administrations all routinely lied to the American people about the success of the 18-year war in Afghanistan. They exaggerated progress and inflated statistics to create an illusion that that the war was winnable. But after the deaths of 157,000 people at a cost of $2 trillion, corruption is rampant and the carnage continues.

“There’s an odor of mendacity throughout the Afghanistan issue … mendacity and hubris,” John Sopko, special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, told the House Foreign Affairs Committeeduring his January 15 testimony. In the last few years, Sopko said, the Trump administration has been “lying by omissions,” classifying “everything that is bad news,” including Afghan troop casualties and calculation of Taliban strength.

Sopko was called to testify before the committee to explain The Washington Post’s explosive December 2019 series known as “The Afghanistan Papers.” Based on hundreds of interviews with leading U.S. officials, Sopko published “Lessons Learned,” seven reports about the secret history of the war. The reports omitted the names of more than 90 percent of the interviewees.

“The American People Have Constantly Been Lied To”

“Several of those interviewed described explicit and sustained efforts by the U.S. government to deliberately mislead the public,” the Post reported. “They said it was common at military headquarters in Kabul — and at the White House — to distort statistics to make it appear the United States was winning the war when that was not the case.” U.S. military officials took a page from the Vietnam War playbook, “manipulating public opinion.” As Sopko told the Post, “the American people have constantly been lied to.”

In September 2008, Army Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser declared in a news briefing, “Are we losing this war? Absolutely no way. Can the enemy win it? Absolutely no way.”

Meanwhile, U.S. troops didn’t know whether the enemy was al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Pakistan, Islamic State, foreign jihadists or warlords on the CIA payroll.

Indeed, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wrote in a 2003 memo, “I have no visibility into who the bad guys are.”

Lost Blood and Treasure: For What?

Since Bush illegally invaded Afghanistan in 2001, about 157,000 people have been killed, including 2,300 U.S. military personnel and 43,074 Afghan civilians. In 2018 alone, 3,804 Afghan civilians were killed, the highest yearly number since the United Nations began calculating casualties 10 years ago.

The cost of the United States’ longest war is over $2 trillion. That figure includes $1.5 trillion to wage war, $87 billion to train Afghan military and police, $10 billion for counter-narcotics, $24 billion for economic development, $30 billion for other reconstruction programs and $500 billion for interest.

Moreover, U.S. policies have exacerbated corruption in Afghanistan. “A toxic mix of U.S. government policies, under the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, directly contributed to Afghanistan’s descent into one of the world’s most corrupt countries,” the Post reported.

The massive amount of money Congress appropriated was distributed “with little oversight or recordkeeping,” according to the Post. “The ensuing greed and corruption undermined the legitimacy of the nascent government and helped make the ground more fertile for the Taliban’s resurgence.”

For example, a forensic accountant analyzed 3,000 Defense Department contracts from 2010 to 2012, totaling $106 billion. Approximately 40 percent of that money went to line the pockets of corrupt Afghan officials, criminal syndicates or insurgents.

A senior U.S. official reported, “[W]e were the most corrupt here, so had no credibility on the corruption issue.” One government contractor said he distributed $3 million per day for projects in an Afghan district the size of a county in the United States.

The Carnage Continues

On January 8, reportedly over 60 Afghan civilians and “dozens of militants” were killed in a U.S. drone attack in Herat Province. TOLO News, Afghanistan’s main 24/7 television news channel, cited local government officials and members of the Herat provincial council, who said “at least 60 civilians including women and children” were killed in the drone strikes.

Abdul Hakim told Stars & Stripes that U.S. bombers carried out a “double tap” in Herat, in which the drone or warplane bombs the people trying to rescue those hit by the first strike.

Two U.S. service members died on January 11, when their vehicle collided with an improvised explosive device. In 2019, 23 service members were killed during operations, the highest number in five years.

Withdraw All U.S. Forces From Afghanistan

The U.S. government has been negotiating with the Taliban. On January 16, the Taliban offered a brief period of reduction in the violence but it is not clear whether the U.S. has agreed. The two sides were on the brink of a peace agreement when Trump thwarted the negotiations in September 2019.

During the last Democratic debate, none of the candidates promised to pull all U.S. forces out of Afghanistan. Elizabeth Warren said she wants to bring combat troops home. Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden have also said they would withdraw combat troops. But, as Phyllis Bennis noted, “[C]ombat troops are not the ones who have been killing people probably since about 2011. The killing of civilians, in particular, is being carried out by Special Forces, by bombing, by drones.”

Both the progressive Veterans for Peace (VFP) and the conservative Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) support withdrawing all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. CVA has mounted a multimillion-dollar advertising operation, funded by the Koch family, in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Trump’s unfulfilled 2016 campaign promise to end the United States’ “endless wars” was favorably received in those three swing states.

Veterans for Peace said in a statement, “The U.S. military has destroyed countless villages and continues to create an atmosphere of fear and hatred with covert drone operations that kill thousands of innocent people.” VFP called for immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops, immediate release of all 300 names of those quoted in the Afghanistan Papers, a congressional tribunal at which Afghanistan veterans could testify, repeal of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force and reparations to all Afghan families who have lost a family member.

A majority of U.S. veterans thinks the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were not worth fighting, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. This mirrors the sentiment of the public at large.

After 18 years, it is long past time we contact our congressional representatives and Democratic presidential candidates, cite the Afghanistan Papers, and demand total withdrawal of all U.S. forces — including intelligence and Special Forces — from Afghanistan. It will save lives and money.

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Copyright © Truthout. Reprinted with permission.

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and a member of the advisory board of Veterans for Peace. Her most recent book is Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The Globalization of War: America’s “Long War” against Humanity

Michel Chossudovsky

The “globalization of war” is a hegemonic project. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-6-0

Year: 2015

Pages: 240 Pages

List Price: $22.95

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The first thing to understand is that it is not a trade deal.  It is Trump backing off his tariffs when he discovered that the tarrifs fall on US goods and American consumers, not on China.  Trump is covering his retraction by calling it a trade deal.  China’s part of the deal is to agree to purchase the US goods that it already intended to purchase.

The purpose of tariffs is to protect domestic producers from foreign competition by raising the price of imported goods.  What Trump, his administration, and the financial press did not understand is that at least half of the US trade deficit with China is the offshored goods produced in China by such corporations as Apple, Nike, and Levi.  The offshored production of US global corporations counts as imports when they are brought into the US to be sold to Americans.  Thus, the cost of the tariffs were falling on US corporations and US consumers.

Tariffs are not an effective way to bring offshored US manufacturing home.  If Trump or any US government wants to bring US manufacturing back to the US from its offshored locations, the way to achieve this result is to change the way the US taxes corporations.  The rule would be: If a US corporation produces in the US with US labor for US markets, the firm’s profits are taxed at a low rate.  If the corporation produces products for the US market abroad with foreign labor, the tax rate will be high enough to more than wipe out the labor cost savings.

As I have emphasized for years, the offshoring of US manufacturing has inflicted massive external costs on the United States. Middle class jobs have been lost, careers ended, living standards of former US manufacturing workers and families have dropped. The tax base of cities and states has shrunk, causing cutbacks in public services and undermining municipal and state pension funds.  You can add to this list.  These costs are the true cost of the increased profits from the lower foreign labor and compliance costs.  A relatively few executives and shareholders benefitted at the expense of a vast number of Americans.

This is the problem that needs to be addressed and corrected.

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

America’s “shadow president”, Mike Pompeo, has acknowledged that the assassination of Iran’s highest-ranking military general, Qassem Soleimani, was part of a broader strategy to restore “real deterrence” by eliminating presumed enemies of the United States. Pompeo’s comments at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute on January 13, put to rest earlier claims that the Iranian general had been killed to prevent “imminent attacks on U.S. targets.” Those claims have since been discredited by independent journalists and mainstream publications that have shown that the assassination was prepared months in advance. In truth, Soleimani was killed to roll back Iran’s influence in Iraq and to reverse the effects Washington’s catastrophic counterinsurgency operation that removed the mainly Sunni-Baathist party from power creating a vacuum that was filled by Iranian-backed militias. The Solemani assassination was just the latest transgression in a conflict that dates back 17 years.

Pompeo’s hand in the assassination is not really in doubt. As the New York Times noted in an article two weeks ago: “Pompeo was the loudest voice in the administration pushing President Trump to kill Iran’s most important general”. The Times also credits the blustery Pompeo as the “chief architect of the rising tensions between the United States and Iran”…”he is in the unusual role of shaping national security policy.” (“Pompeo Upended Middle East by Pushing Trump to Kill Iranian General”, New York Times)

Pompeo is the “chief architect” of the administration’s failed Iran policy. It was Pompeo who pushed Trump to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, and Pompeo who promoted the economic blockade that has strangled the Iranian economy. Pompeo has also been the biggest proponent of Trump’s extrajudicial assassination policy whose first notable trophy was Iran’s most decorated and revered general, Solemani. The incident has set the Middle East ablaze. Even so, Pompeo has never shown the slightest sign of remorse nor has he offered his condolences to the millions of people across the Middle East who poured out into the streets to mourn the passing of their beloved hero. Their anguish means nothing to Pompeo who believes he is carrying out “God’s work” by eliminating anyone who stands in the way US ambitions in the region.

At the Stanford confab, Pompeo announced that he intends to move ahead with his plan to reestablish “deterrence” to discourage Tehran’s “malign activity.” Regrettably, Pompeo’s grasp of deterrence bears no resemblance to the original political and military doctrine. Traditionally, deterrence is a strategy “under which one power uses the threat of reprisal effectively to preclude an attack from an adversary power.” In practice this means that Country A will build up its nuclear arsenal with the intention of “deterring” Country B from launching an attack. The strategy is aimed at preserving the peace and avoiding unnecessary bloodshed. Pompeo’s interpretation of deterrence is aimed at liquidating the enemy not deterring him. It is a form of aggression that bears no resemblance to the original military doctrine. Here’s more from Reuters:.

“President Trump and those of us in his national security team are re-establishing deterrence – real deterrence ‒ against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said. “Your adversary must understand not only that you have the capacity to impose cost but that you’re in fact willing to do so,” Pompeo added.” (“Pompeo says Soleimani killing part of new strategy to deter U.S. foes”, Reuters)

Once again, Pompeo is twisting words to confuse his audience. Sure, it’s true that “Your adversary must understand not only that you have the capacity to impose cost but that you’re in fact willing to do so.” But it’s also true that the goal of deterrence is to deter the enemy from engaging in hostilities to begin with. That is the polar-opposite of killing the enemy. Pompeo appears to be stuck on this point.

In any event, a gangland-style hit –that is illegal under US statutes and international law– is not an example of deterrence. It’s barbarism masquerading as foreign policy doctrine. Pompeo knows that, just like he knows that targeted assassinations are powerful provocations that lead to over-reaction, tit-for-tat retaliation, and eventually a full-blown regionwide conflagration. Which seems to be the point. Pompeo wants to confront Iran in the one area in which the US excels, war. Why else would he kill Iran’s most admired leader?

Here’s more from Pompeo’s speech:

“We saw, not just in Iran, but in other places, too, where American deterrence was weak. We watched Russia’s 2014 occupation of the Crimea and support for aggression against Ukraine because deterrence had been undermined. We have resumed lethal support to the Ukrainian military.

China’s island building, too, in the South China Sea, and its brazen attempts to coerce American allies undermined deterrence. The Trump administration has ramped up naval exercises in the South China Sea, alongside our allies and friends and partners throughout the region.” (“The Restoration of Deterrence: The Iranian Example”, US Embassy and Consulates)

Now we’re getting down to brass tacks. This isn’t about Soleimani at all. It’s about the long list of foreign policy challenges the US now faces as new centers of power emerge (primarily Russia and China) putting more pressure on the post-WW2 “liberal” world order and hastening the decline of an aging hegemon who is fast losing its grip on global power. That is why Pompeo is invoking a new and more vicious foreign policy. Washington powerbrokers seem to believe that they need to take more reckless and violent measures to reverse present trends that are steadily eroding US power clearing the way for an emerging multi-polar world order. Taking these things into account, the Soleimani assassination can be seen for what it really is, a desperate attempt to turn back the clock to the early 1990’s following the dissolution of the Soviet Union when America ruled supreme and think-tank pundits proudly boasted of the “end of history” and the beginning of a glorious “American Century”, none of which has worked out according to plan.

“The importance of deterrence isn’t confined to Iran,” Pompeo said. “In all cases, we must deter foes to defend freedom. That’s the whole point of President Trump’s work to make our military the strongest it’s ever been.” (Reuters)

Pompeo wants a stronger and most costly military. He wants to use all the tools at his disposal to maintain Washington’s dominant position in the world, especially the instruments of coercion that can used to force rivals to comply with Washington’s diktats. And, he has invoked a new doctrine, The Pompeo Doctrine, to provide ideological cover for the anticipated bloody assault on foreign leaders and dignitaries. So far, no one has challenged Pompeo’s alarming policy-shift. There appears to be consensus among elites that the only way to arrest America’s relentless decline is by escalating the hostilities, intensifying the violence and widening the wars.

Pompeo’s announcement puts the country on a path to bigger and bloodier confrontations but, as yet, no one has lifted their voice in opposition.

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Mike Whitney is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Why, after so many assurances to the contrary, have the three European Iran’s Nuclear Deal Partner’s – Germany, France, the UK – decided to go after Iran, to follow the US dictate again?

The short answer is because the cowards. They have zero backbone to stand up against the US hegemony, because they are afraid to be sanctioned – as Trump indicated if they were to honor the” Nuclear Deal”. Iran is absolutely in their right to progressively increase uranium enrichment, especially since the US dropped out unilaterally, without any specific reasons, other than on Netanyahu’s orders – of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also called Iran’s Nuclear Deal.

Just a few days ago Ms. Angela Merkel met with President Putin in Moscow, and BOTH pledged in front of a huge press crowd that the Nuclear Deal must stay, must be maintained and validated.

And now, because of Trump’s Barbarian threats, trade threats on Europe – an increase of up to 25% import taxes on European cars – and wanting a new deal with Iran, whatever that means, they, the Europeans – the three Nuclear Deal partners, back down. Why not call Trump’s bluff? As China did. This Barbarian Kingpin is lashing around his deathbed with tariffs and sanctions, it is only a sign of weakness, a sign of slowly but surely disappearing in the – hopefully – bottomless abyss.

This threesome is a bunch of shameless and hopeless cowards. They have not realized yet that the west, starting with the US empire, is passé. It’s a sinking ship. It’s high time for Iran to orient herself towards the east. Iran is already a Middle-Eastern key hub for the Chinese Belt and Road initiative (BRI), or the New Silk road. Iran can do without Europe; and the US needs Europe more than vice-versa. But the ‘chickens’ haven’t noticed that yet.

On the behest of Washington, the Trump clown, they, Germany, France and the UK, want to start an official dispute process, bringing Iran back to where it was before the Nuclear Deal, and reinstating all the UN sanctions of before the signature of the deal in July 2015. And this despite the fact that Iran has adhered to their part of the deal by 100%, as several times attested to by the Atomic Energy Commission in Vienna. Can you imagine what these abhorrent Europeans are about to do?
This reminds of how Europe pilfered, robbed and raped Africa and the rest of the now called developing world, for hundreds of years. No ethics, no qualms, just sheer egocentricity and cowardice. The European Barbarians and those on the other side of the Atlantic deserve each other. And they deserve disappearing in the same bottomless pit.

Iran may consider three ideas:

1) Call the European bluff. Let them start the dispute process – and let them drive it all the way to the UN Security Council. Their spineless British Brother in Crime, BoJo, also called the British Prime-Minister, Boris Johnson, will do the job for them, bringing the case “Iran Nuclear Deal – and Sanctions” to the UN Security Council – where it will fail, because Russia and China will not approve the motion.

2) Much more important, Dear Friends in Iran – DO NOT TRUST THE EUROPEANS FOR NOT EVEN ONE SECOND! – They have proven time and again that they are not trustworthy. They buckle under every time Trump is breaking wind – and

3) Dedollarize your economy even faster – move as far as possible away from the west – join the Eastern economy, that controls at least one third of the world’s GDP. You are doing already a lot in this direction – but faster. Join the SCO – the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, comprising half of Mother Earth’s population; ditch the dollar and the SWIFT payment system, join instead the Chinese Interbank Payment System (CIPS) – and be free of the sanction-prone western monetary fraud. Eastern monetary transactions are blocking out western dollar-based sanctions. Already your hydrocarbon trades with China, Russia, India and others are not carried out in US dollars, but in local currencies, Chinese yuans, Russian rubles and Indian rupees.

True – Iran will have to confront Iran-internally the western (NATO) and CIA trained, funded and bought Atlantists, the Fifth Columnists. They are the ones that create constant virulently violent unrest in the cities of Iran; they are trained – and paid for – to bring about Regime Change. That’s what Russia and China and Venezuela and Cuba are also confronted with. They, the Fifth Columnists have to be eradicated. It’s a challenge, but it should be doable.

Follow the Ayatollah’s route. He is on the right track – looking East.

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Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; Greanville Post; Defend Democracy Press, TeleSUR; The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

It came as the biggest shock of the day on Wednesday. The Russian government resigned. The day before President Vladimir Putin gave his State of the Nation address and outlined a slate of constitutional changes.

That speech prompted an overhaul of Russia’s government.

Putin’s plan is to devolve some of the President’s overwhelming power to the legislature and the State Council, while beefing up the Constitutional Court’s ability to provide checks on legislation.

From TASS:

In Wednesday’s State of the Nation Address, Putin put forward a number of initiatives changing the framework of power structures at all levels, from municipal authorities to the president. The initiatives particularly stipulate that the powers of the legislative and judicial branches, including the Constitutional Court, will be expanded. The president also proposed to expand the role of the Russian State Council. Putin suggested giving the State Duma (the lower house of parliament) the right to approve the appointment of the country’s prime minister, deputy prime ministers and ministers.

The bigger shock was that in response to this Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev dissolved the current government willingly and resigned as Prime Minister.

Within hours Putin recommended Federal Tax Service chief, Mikhail Mishustin as Prime Minister. The State Duma approved Putin’s recommendation and Mishustin was sworn in by Putin all within a day.

While this came on suddenly it also shouldn’t be a surprise. These changes have been discussed for months leading up to Putin’s speech. And it’s been clear for the past few years that Putin has been engaged in the second phase of his long-term plan to first rebuild and then remake Russia during his time in office.

The first phase was rescuing Russia from economic, societal and demographic collapse. It was in serious danger of this when Putin took over from Boris Yeltsin.

It meant regaining control over strategic state resources, rebuilding Russia’s economy and defense, stabilizing its population, getting some semblance of political control within the Kremlin and bringing hope back to a country in desperate need of it.

Hostile analysts, both domestic and foreign, criticized Putin constantly for his tactics. Russia’s reliance on its base commodities sectors to revive its economy was seen as a structural weakness. But, an honest assessment of the situation begs the question, “How else was Putin going to back Russia away from the edge of that abyss?”

These same experts never seem to have an answer.

And when those critics were able to answer, since they were people connected to monied interests in the West who Putin stymied from continuing to loot Russia’s natural wealth, their answer was usually to keep doing that.

Don’t kid yourself, most of the so-called Russia experts out there are deeply tied back to Wall St. through one William Browder and his partner Mikhail Khordokovsky.

Nearly all of them in the U.S. Senate are severely compromised or just garden variety neocons still hell-bent on subjugating Russia to their hegemonic plans.

Their voices should be discounted heavily since they are the same criminals actively destroying U.S. and European politics today.

In the West these events were spun to suggest Putin is consolidating power. The initial reports were that he would remove the restraint on Presidential service of two consecutive terms. And that this would pave the way to his staying in office after his current term expires in 2024.

That, as always when regarding Russia, is the opposite of the truth. Putin’s recommendation is to remove the word “consecutive” from the Constitution making it clear that a President can only ever serve two terms. Moreover, that president will have had to have lived in Russia for the previous 25 years.

No one will be allowed to rule Russia like he has after he departs the office. Because Putin understands that the Russian presidency under the current constitution is far too powerful and leaves the country vulnerable to a man who isn’t a patriot being corrupted by that power.

There are a number of issues that most commentators and analysts in the West do not understand about Putin. Their insistence on presenting Putin only in the worst possible terms is tired and nonsensical to anyone who spends even a cursory amount of time studying him.

These events of the past couple of days in Russia are the end result of years of work on Putin’s part to purge the Russian government and the Kremlin of what The Saker calls The Atlanticist Fifth Column.

And they have been dug in like ticks in a corrupt bureaucracy that has taken Putin the better part of twenty years to tame.

It’s been a long and difficult road that even I only understand the surface details of. But it’s clear that beginning in 2012 or so, Putin began making the shift towards the next phase of Russia’s strategic comeback.

And that second phase is about taking a stable Russia and elevating its institutions to a more sustainable model.

Once birth rates improved and demographic collapse averted the next thing to do was to reform an economy rightly criticized for being too heavily dependent on oil and gas revenues.

And that is a much tougher task. It meant getting control over the Russian central bank and the financial sector. Putin was given that opportunity during the downturn in oil prices in 2014.

Using the crisis as an opportunity Putin began the decoupling of Russia’s economy from the West. During the early boom years of his Presidency oil revenue strengthened both the Russian state coffers and the so-called oligarchs who Putin was actively fighting for control.

He warned the CEO’s of Gazprom, Rosneft and Sberbank that they were too heavily exposed to the U.S. dollar this way in the years leading up to the crash in oil prices in 2014-16.

And when the U.S. sanctioned Russia in 2014 over the reunification with Crimea these firms all had to come to Putin for a bailout. Their dollar-denominated debt was swapped out for euro and ruble debt through the Bank of Russia and he instructed the central bank to allow the ruble to fall, to stop defending it.

Taking the inflationary hit was dangerous but necessary if Russia was to become a truly independent economic force.

Since then it’s been a tug of war with the IMF-trained bureaucracy within the Bank of Russia to set monetary policy in accordance with Russia’s needs not what the international community demanded.

That strong Presidency was a huge boon. But, now that the job is mostly done, it can be an albatross.

Putin understands that a Russia flush with too much oil money is a Russia ruled by that money and becomes lazy because of that money. Contrary to popular opinion, Putin doesn’t want to see oil prices back near $100 per barrel.

Because Russia’s comparative advantage in oil and gas is so high relative to everyone else on the world stage and to other domestic industries that money retards innovation and investment in new technologies and a broadening of the Russian domestic economy.

And this has been Putin’s focus for a while now. Oil and gas are geostrategic assets used to shore up Russia’s position as a regional power, building connections with its new partners while opening up new markets for Russian businesses.

But it isn’t the end of the Russian story of the future, rather the beginning.

And the slow privatization of those industries is happening, with companies like Gazprom and Rosneft selling off excess treasury shares to raise capital and put a larger share of them into public hands.

Again, this is all part of the next stage of Russia’s development and democratizing some of the President’s power has to happen if Russia is going to survive him leaving the stage.

Because it is one thing to have a man of uncommon ability and patriotism wielding that power responsibly. It’s another to believe Russia can get another man like Putin to take his place.

So, Putin is again showing his foresight and prudence in pushing for these changes now. It shows that he feels comfortable that this new structure will insulate Russia from external threats while strengthening the domestic political scene.

Gilbert Doctorow has an excellent early reaction to this dramatic turn by Putin which I encourage everyone to read in full. The subtle point he makes is:

To understand what comes next, you have to take into account a vitally important statement which Putin made a few moments before he set out his proposed constitutional reforms. He told his audience that his experience meeting with the leaders of the various Duma parties at regular intervals every few weeks showed that all were deeply patriotic and working for the good of the country. Accordingly, he said that all Duma parties should participate in the formation of the cabinet.

And so, we are likely to see in the coming days that candidates for a number of federal ministries in the new, post-Medvedev cabinet will be drawn precisely from parties other than United Russia. In effect, without introducing the word “coalition” into his vocabulary, Vladimir Putin has set the stage for the creation of a grand coalition to succeed the rule of one party, United Russia, over which Dimitri Medvedev was the nominal chairman.

The end result of this move to devolve the cabinet appointments to the whole of the Duma is to ensure that a strong President which Putin believes is best for Russia is tempered by a cabinet drawn from the whole of the electorate, including the Prime Minister.

That neither opens the door to dysfunctional European parliamentary systems nor closes it from a strong President leading Russia during crisis periods.

Once the amendments to the constitution are finalized Putin will put the whole package to a public vote.

This is the early stage of this much-needed overhaul of Russia’s constitutional order and the neocons in the West are likely stunned into silence knowing that they can no longer just wait Putin out and sink their hooks into his most likely successor.

Sometimes the most important changes occur right under our noses, right out in the open. Contrast that with the skullduggery and open hostility of the political circus in D.C. and you can which direction the two countries are headed.

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Featured image is from Kremlin.ru

The people are angry with their government.  Where? Just about everywhere. So what makes ongoing strikes in France so special?  Nothing, perhaps, except a certain expectation based on history that French uprisings can produce important changes – or if not, can at least help clarify the issues in contemporary social conflicts.

The current ongoing social unrest in France appears to pit a majority of working people against President Emmanuel Macron.  But since Macron is merely a technocratic tool ofglobal financial governance, the conflict is essentially an uprising against policies that put the avaricious demands of financial markets ahead of the needs of the people.  This basic conflict is at the root of the weekly demonstrations of Yellow Vest protesters who have been demonstrating every Saturday for well over a year, despite brutal police repression.  Now trade unionists, public sector workers and Yellow Vests demonstrate together, as partial work stoppages continue to perturb public transportation.

In the latest developments, teachers in Paris schools are joining the revolt. Even the prestigious prep school, the Lycée Louis le Grand, went on strike.  This is significant because even a government that shows no qualms in smashing the heads of working class malcontents can hesitate before bashing the brains of the future elite.

However general the discontent, the direct cause for what has become the longest period of unrest in memory is a single issue: the government’s determination to overhaul the national social security pension system. This is just one aspect of Macron’s anti-social program, but no other aspect touches just about everybody’s lives as much as this one.

French retirement is financed in the same way as U.S. Social Security. Employees and employers pay a proportion of wages into a fund that pays current pensions, in the expectation that tomorrow’s workers will pay for the pensions of those working today.

The existing system is complex, with particular regimes for 42 different professions, but it works well enough. As things are, despite the growing gap between the ultra-rich and those of modest means, there is less dire poverty among the elderly in France than, for example, in Germany.

The Macron plan to unify and simplify the system by a universal point system claims to improve “equality”, but it is a downward, not an upward leveling. The general thrust of the reform is clearly to make people work longer for smaller pensions. Bit by bit, the input and output of the social security system are being squeezed. This would further reduce the percentage of GDP going into wages and pensions.

The calculated result: as people fear the prospect of a penniless old age, they will feel obliged to put their savings into private pension schemes.

International Solidarity

In a rare display of old-fashioned working-class international solidarity, Belgian trade unions have spoken out in strong support of French unions’ opposition to Macron’s reforms, even offering to contribute to a strike fund for French workers.  Support by workers of one country for the struggle of workers in another country is what international solidarity used to mean.  It is largely forgotten by the contemporary left, which tends to see it in terms of opening national borders.  This perfectly reflects the aspirations of global capitalism.

The international solidarity of financial capital is structural.

Macron is an investment banker, whose campaign was financed and promoted by investment bankers, including foreign investors.  These are the people who helped inspire his policies, which are all designed to strengthen the power of international finance and weaken the role of the State.

Their goal is to induce the State to surrender decision-making to the impersonal power of “the markets”, whose mechanical criterion is profit rather than subjective political considerations of social welfare.  This has been the trend throughout the West since the 1980s and is simply intensifying under the rule of Macron.

The European Union has become the principal watch dog of this transformation.  Totally under the influence of unelected experts, every two years the EU Commission lays out “Broad Economic Policy Guidelines” – in French GOPÉ (Grandes Orientations des Politiques Économiques), to be followed by Member States. The May 2018 GOPÉ for France “recommended” (this is an order!) a set of “reforms”, including “uniformization” of retirement schemes, ostensibly to improve “transparency”, “equity”, labor mobility and – last but definitely not least – “better control of public expenditures”.  In short, government budget cuts.

The Macron economic reform policy was essentially defined in Brussels.

But Wall Street is interested too.  The team of experts assigned by Prime Minister Edouard Philippe to devise the administration’s economic reforms includes Jean-François Cirelli, head of the French branch of Black Rock, the seven trillion-dollar New York-based investment manager. About two thirds of Black Rock’s capital comes from pension funds all over the world.

Larry Fink, the American CEO of this monstrous heap of money, was a welcome visitor at the Elysée Palace in June 2017, shortly after Macron’s election. Two weeks later, economics minister Bruno Le Maire was in New York consulting with Larry Fink. Then, in October 2017, Fink led a Wall Street delegation to Paris for a confidential meeting (leaked to Le Canard Enchaîné) with Macron and five top cabinet ministers to discuss how to make France especially attractive to foreign investment.

Larry Fink has an obvious interest in Macron’s reforms. By gradually impoverishing social security, the new system is designed to spur a boom in private pension schemes, a field dominated by Black Rock.  These schemes lack the guarantee of government social security. Private pensions depend on stock market performance, and if there is a crash, there goes your retirement. Meanwhile, the money managers play with your savings, taking their cut whatever happens.

There is nothing conspiratorial about this.  It is simply international finance at work. Macron and his cabinet ministers are eager to have Black Rock invest in France.  For them, this is the way the world works.

The most cynical pretext for Macron’s pension reform is that combining all the various professional regimes into a universal point system favors “equality” – even as it increases the growing gap between salaried people and the super-rich, who don’t need pensions.

But professions are different. At Christmas, striking ballet dancers illustrated this fact by performing a portion of Swan Lake on the cold stones of the entrance to the Opera Garnier in Paris. They were calling public attention to the fact that they cannot be expected to keep working into their sixties, nor can other professions requiring extreme physical effort.

The variations in the current French pension system perform a social function.  Some professions, such as teaching and nursing, are essential to society, but wages tend to be lower than in the private sector.  These professions are able to renew themselves by ensuring job stability and the promise of comfortable retirement.  Take away their “privileges” and recruiting competent teachers and nurses will be even harder than it is already.  At present, medical personnel are threatening to resign en masse, because conditions in hospitals are becoming unbearable as a result of drastic cuts in budgets and personnel.

Is There an Alternative?

The real issue is a choice of systems: to be precise, economic globalization versus national sovereignty.

For historic reasons, most French people do not share the ardent faith of British and Americans in the benevolence of the invisible hand of the market.  There is a national leaning toward a mixed economy, where the State plays a strong determining role.  The French do not easily believe that privatization is better, least of all when they can see it doing worse.

Macron is an ardent devotee of the invisible hand. He seems to expect that by draining French savings into an international investment giant such as Black Rock, Black Rock will reciprocate by pumping investment into French technological and industrial progress.

Nothing could be less certain.  In the West these days, there is lots of low interest credit, lots of debt, but investment is rarely creative.  Money is used largely to buy what is already there – existing companies, mergers, stock trading (massive in the U.S.) and, for individuals, housing. Most foreign investment in France buys up things like vineyards or goes into safe infrastructure such as ports, airports and autoroutes.  When General Electric bought out Alstom, it soon broke its promise to preserve jobs and began cutting back. It also is depriving France of control of an essential aspect of its national independence, its nuclear energy.

In short, foreign investment may weaken the nation in terms in crucial ways. In a mixed economy, profit-making assets such as autoroutes can increase the government’s capacity to make up for periodic deficits in social security, among other things. With privatization, foreign shareholders must get their returns.

The United States, for all its ideological devotion to the invisible hand, actually has a strongly State-supported military industrial sector, dependent on Congressional appropriations, Pentagon contracts, favorable legislation and pressure on “allies” to buy U.S.-made weaponry.  This is indeed a form of planned economy, one that fails utterly to meet social needs.

The rules of the European Union prohibit a Member State such as France from developing its own civil-oriented industrial policy, since everything must be open to unhindered international competition.  Utilities, services and infrastructure must all be open to foreign owners.  Foreign investors may feel no inhibition about taking their profits while allowing these public services to deteriorate.

The ongoing disruption of daily life seems to be forcing Macron’s government to make minor concessions. But nothing can change the basic aims of this presidency.

At the same time, the arrogance and brutal repression of the Macron regime increase demands for radical political change.  The Yellow Vest movement has largely adopted the demand developed by Etienne Chouard for a new Constitution empowering citizen-initiated referendums – in short, a peaceful democratic revolution.

But how to get there? Overthrowing a monarch is one thing, but overthrowing the power of international finance is another, especially in a nation bound by EU and NATO treaties. Personal animosity toward Macron tends to shelter the European Union from sharp criticism of its major responsibility.

A peaceful electoral revolution calls for popular leaders with a clear program. François Asselineau continues to spread his radical critique of the EU among the intelligentsia without his party, the Union Populaire Républicaine, gaining any significant electoral strength.  Leftist leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon has the oratorical punch to lead a revolution, but his popularity seems to have suffered from attacks even harsher than those unleashed against Corbyn in Britain or Sanders in the USA. With Mélenchon weakened and no other strong personalities in sight, Marine Le Pen has established herself as Macron’s main challenger in the 2022 presidential election, which risks presenting voters with the same choice they had in 2017.

Asselineau’s analysis, Yellow Vest strategic mass, Mélenchon’s oratory, Chouard’s institutional reforms – these are elements that could theoretically combine (with others yet unknown) to produce a peaceful revolution. But combining political elements is hard chemistry, especially in individualistic France.  Without some big surprises, France appears headed not for revolution but for a long frozen combat.

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Diana Johnstone is author of Circle in the Darkness: Memoirs of a World Watcher, Clarity Press, January 2020.

Organic radical inspiration Vandana Shiva has been couragely speaking out against the insidious ‘Great Reset’ being sprung on us by Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates and the rest of the global capitalist elite.

She warns in a new interview that “The Great Reset is about maintaining and empowering a corporate extraction machine and the private ownership of life”. (1)

Shiva has lately been drawing particular attention to the insidious role of Bill Gates in the technocrats’ assault on food and nature.

In October 2020 she warned:

“With his philanthro-imperialism, Gates is emerging as the Columbus of the digital age, the New Monsanto pushing failed GMOs and trying to introduce new GMOs based on gene editing”. (2)

Gates’ nefarious activity is the subject of a special report produced by Navdanya, the seed and food sovereignty movement founded by Shiva in 1987. (3)

Shiva commented:

“We have seen the Green Revolution and the industrial agriculture model fail, wiping out forests, transforming the land into a monoculture, causing pollution and illness, destroying natural resources and livelihoods. And it is now a major contributor of climate change and species and biodiversity extinction.

“In spite of this, while we are looking at better ways to farm, Gates has pushed the Green Revolution in Africa. He seems too impatient to look at the complexity of the natural world and biodiversity. He’s taking control of the worlds’ seed banks, pushing failed GMOs that we had rejected in India to other countries, taking control of gene traits through gene editing, trying to control the climate through geoengineering, and driving extinction through gene drives”. (4)

Shiva has also been strongly critical of The Great Reset, the global technocratic corporate coup promoted by Gates’ friend and associate Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum.

She told Jeremy Loffredo of The Defender:

“The Great Reset is about multinational corporate stakeholders at the World Economic Forum controlling as many elements of planetary life as they possibly can. From the digital data humans produce to each morsel of food we eat”. (5)

Shiva accused the WEF of “parading fake science” with its emphasis on GM food, lab-made proteins and pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals as “sustainable solutions”.

She added that “for Mr Schwab to promote these technologies as solutions proves that The Great Reset is about maintaining and empowering a corporate extraction machine and the private ownership of life”. (6)

Schwab’s WEF has partnered with an organization called EAT Forum, closely linked to the pharmaceutical industry.

Said Shiva:

“EAT’s proposed diet is not about nutrition at all, it’s about big business and it’s about a corporate takeover of the food system.

“EAT’s uniform global diet will be produced with western technology and agricultural chemicals. Forcing this onto sovereign nations by multinational lobbying is what I refer to as food imperialism”. (7)

Our updated profile of Vandana Shiva can be found here.

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Notes

1. Jeremy Loffredo, ‘Worl d Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’ Plan for Big Food Benefits Industry, Not People‘, The Defender, November 9, 2020.

2. Navdanya International, ‘Is philanthro-capitalism endangering sustainable development?’, Lifegate, October 26, 2020. lifegate.com/philantro-capitalism-sustainable-development

3. Navdanya International, ‘Gates to a Global Empire‘, 2020.

4. Manlio Masucci, ‘The Philanthro-capitalist empire of Bill Gates‘.

5. Loffredo.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

Featured image is from Sott.net

In early 2020, Libya became one of the main hot points in the Greater Middle East with stakes raised by Turkey’s decision to launch a military operation there.

On January 5, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Turkey had sent troops to Libya to support the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA). No Turkish soldiers will reportedly participate in direct fighting. Instead, they will create an operation center and coordinate operations. Erdogan pointed that “right now”, there will be “different units serving as a combatant force.” He didn’t say who exactly these troops would be, but it is apparent that these are members of Turkish-backed Syrian militant groups and Turkey-linked private military contractors.

Ankara started an active deployment of members of pro-Turkish Syrian militant groups in Libya in December 2019. So far, over 600 Turkish-backed Syrian fighters have arrived. According to media reports, the officially dispatched Turkish troops included military advisers, technicians, electronic warfare and air defense specialists. Their total number is estimated at around 40-60 personnel.

A day after the Erdogan announcement, on January 6, the defense of the GNA collapsed in Sirte and the GNA’s rival, the Libyan National Army (LNA), took control of the town. Several pro-GNA units from Sirte publicly defected to the LNA with weapons and military equipment, including at least 6 armoured vehicles. With the loss of Sirte, only two large cities – Tripoli and Misrata – formally remained in the hands of the GNA. Misrata and its Brigades in fact remain a semi-independent actor operating under the GNA banner.

From January 7 to January 12, when the sides agreed on a temporary ceasefire proposed in a joint statement of the Turkish and Russian presidents, the LNA continued offensive operations against GNA forces near Tripoli and west of Sirte capturing several positions there. The GNA once again demonstrated that it is unable to take an upper hand in the battle against forces of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.

The GNA formally requested “air, ground and sea” military support from Turkey on December 26^th, 2019, in the framework of the military cooperation deal signed by the sides in November. On January 2, 2020, the Turkish Parliament approved the bill allowing troop deployment in Libya. This move did not change the situation strategically. Even before the formal approval, Ankara already was engaged in the conflict. It sent large quantities of weapons and military equipment, including “BMC Kirpi” armoured vehicles, deployed Bayraktar TB2 unmanned combat aerial vehicles at airfields near Tripoli and Misrata, and sent operators and trainers in order to assist GNA forces.

Turkey could increase military supplies, deploy additional private military contractors, military advisers and special forces units, but it has no safe place to deploy own air group to provide the GNA with a direct air support like Russia did for pro-Assad forces in Syria. Approximately 90% of Libya is under the LNA control. Tripoli and Misrata airports are in a strike distance for the LNA. Tunisia, Algeria, Niger, Chad and Sudan refuse to play any direct role in the conflict, while the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is still too far away. Egypt, alongside with the UAE and Russia, is a supporter of the LNA. Therefore, deployment there is out of question.

Turkey operates no aircraft carriers. Its TCG Anadolu amphibious assault ship can be configured as a light aircraft carrier, but the warship isn’t in service yet. It is unclear how Ankara will be able to provide the GNA with an extensive air support without endangering its own aircraft by deploying them close to the combat zone.

Turkey could deploy a naval task force to support the GNA. Nonetheless, this move is risky, if one takes into account the hostile political environment, with Egypt, Cyprus, the UAE and Greece are strictly against any such actions. Additionally, this deployment will go against the interests of other NATO member states such as France and Italy that see the expansion of the Turkish influence as a direct threat to their vital economic interests, especially in the oil business. Warships near the Libyan coast will be put in jeopardy from modern anti-ship measures. Yemen’s Houthis repeatedly proved that missiles could be quite an effective tool to combat a technologically advanced enemy. In the worst-case scenario, the Turkish Navy can suffer notable losses, and the risk of this is too real to tangible to overlook.

Another unlikely option is a large-scale ground operation that will require an amphibious landing. Turkey has several landing ships, the biggest of which are the two Bayraktar-class amphibious warfare ships (displacement – 7,254 tons). There are also the Osman Gazi-class landing ship (3,700 tons), two Sarucabey-class landing ships (2,600 tons). Other landing ships, albeit active, are outdated. With 5 modern landing ships, any landing operation will endanger Turkish forces involved, keeping in mind the complex diplomatic environment and the LNA that will use all means and measures that it has to prevent such a scenario.

In these conditions, the most likely scenario of Turkey’s military operation was the following:

• Deployment of a limited number of specialists;
• Public employment of private military contractors’
• Redeployment of members of pro-Turkish proxy groups from Syria to Libya;
• Diplomatic and media campaign to secure Ankara’s vital interests and find a political solution that would prevent the LNA’s final push to capture Tripoli. Turkey sees the Libyan foothold and the memorandum on maritime boundaries signed with the GNA as the core factors needed to secure own national interests in the Eastern Mediterranean.

This is exactly what Ankara did. On January 8, Turkish and Russian Presidents released a joint statement in which they called for reaching cease-fire in Libya by midnight of January 12. The joint statement emphasized the worsening situation in Libya and its negative impact on “the security and stability of Libya’s wider neighborhood, the entire Mediterranean region, as well as the African continent, triggering irregular migration, further spread of weapons, terrorism and other criminal activities including illicit trafficking,” and called for the resumption of a political dialogue to settle the conflict. The LNA initially rejected the ceasefire initiative, but then accepted it. This signals that key LNA supporters agreed on the format proposed by the Turkish and Russian leaders. On January 13, the delegations of the GNA, the LNA, and Turkey arrived in Moscow for talks on a wider ceasefire deal. The deal was not reached and clashes near Tripoli resumed on January 14.

Russian and Turkish interests are deeply implicated. Some experts speculated the contradictions within the Libyan conflict could become a stone that will destroy the glass friendship between Ankara and Moscow. However, the joint Russian-Turkish diplomatic efforts demonstrate that the sides found a kind of understanding and possibly agreed on the division of spheres of influence. If the Moscow negotiations format allows de-escalating the situation and putting an end to the terrorism threat and violence in Libya, it will become another success of the practical approach employed by the both powers in their cooperation regarding the Middle East questions.

The 2011 NATO intervention led by France, Italy and the United States destroyed the Libyan statehood in order to get control of the country’s energy resources. Now, Egypt, the UAE, Russia and Turkey are driving France, Italy and the US out of Libya in order to put an end to the created chaos and secure own interests.

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Post-WW II, Washington transformed Western European countries into virtual US colonies — their presence status.

Judge them by their actions. Time and again, they subordinate their sovereign rights to US interests, even when harming their own.

It shows by imposing unlawful sanctions on Russia and other nations on the US target list for regime change, harming their economies from reduced trade, along with violating international law.

Since the Trump regime’s illegal May 2018 withdrawal from the JCPOA nuclear deal, European countries followed the US lead by breaching their mandated obligations.

Britain, France, Germany, and Brussels falsely blamed Iran for rolling back its voluntary commitments as permitted under JCPOA Articles 26 and 36 — bowing to Trump regime pressure, going along with its hostile anti-Iran agenda instead of forthrightly denouncing it.

According to the Washington Post on Wednesday, days before E3 countries Britain, France and Germany triggered the JCPOA dispute resolution mechanism — falsely accusing Iran of breaching the deal — the Trump regime threatened 25% tariffs on EU auto exports to the US if it failed to take this step.

Citing unnamed EU officials “familiar with the conversations…within days the (E3) countries…formally accuse(d) Iran of violating the deal…”

Triggering the dispute mechanism is step one toward unravelling the JCPOA altogether, the Trump regime’s aim.

Europe rhetorically supports the agreement, its actions aiming to undermine it because Trump regime hardliners demand it.

One unnamed EU official called US pressure “extortion,” WaPo saying what’s going on “underscore(s) the extraordinary tumult in the transatlantic relationship.”

What it really shows is EU subservience to US demands, the landmark JCPOA hanging in the balance.

If E3 countries follow dispute mechanism steps to conclusion, the agreement will be consigned to the dustbin of history.

Unacceptable Security Council sanctions will be reimposed on Iran, tensions more greatly heightening, the envelope pushed toward greater regional confrontation and instability than already.

WaPo quoted European Council on Foreign Relations research director Jeremy Shapiro, saying the Trump regime’s “tariff threat is a mafia-like tactic, and it’s not how relations between allies typically work.”

An unnamed EU official was quoted, saying: “We didn’t want to look weak, so we agreed to keep the existence of the threat a secret.”

The claim by E3 countries that they’re not part of the Trump regime’s “maximum pressure” against Iran is belied by their actions since DJT unlawfully withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018.

Separately on Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif slammed the E3, tweeting:

“Europe, EU, is the largest global economy. So why do you allow the United States to bully you around?”

“Appeasement confirmed.”

“E3 sold out remnants of #JCPOA to avoid new Trump tariffs.”

“It won’t work…You only whet his appetite. Remember your high school bully?”

“If you want to sell your integrity, go ahead. But DO NOT assume high moral/legal ground.”

“YOU DON’T HAVE IT.”

“E3 think they’re living in the 19th Century, when they dictated to countries, lied, & got away with it.”

“IRAN is NOT the one emptying the accord of its substance—the E3 is. Forget about compensating for US: fulfill your own obligations. EVEN JUST ONE.”

“Here’s what E3 HAS been busy w/since the US left JCPOA:”

“✔️Reality Check 2:”

“Issued empty statements. Violated its own laws by bowing to US extraterritorial sanctions. Ignored Iran’s 3 notifications of DRM activation.”

“Set up INSTEX w/o single transaction. Enough is enough.”

Russia slammed the E3’s action, its Foreign Ministry saying activation of the dispute mechanism makes returning to JCPOA implementation “impossible.”

Spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry Geng Shuang said the E3 move “will not help solve (outstanding) issues or ease current tensions.”

Triggering the JCPOA dispute mechanism by E3 countries Britain, France, and Germany was a hostile anti-Iran action.

If pursued to resolution as seems likely, their action will drive the final nail in the JCPOA.

What took years to agree on and be unanimously adopted by Security Council members in July 2015 will be undone in a matter of weeks — to please anti-Iran Trump regime hardliners, at the expense of Middle East peace, stability and security.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

At the June 2019 House Ways and Means Committee Hearing on Medicare for All, Texas Republican Kevin Murphy lamented, “That great health care plan that your union negotiated for you? It’s gone. Banned under Medicare for All.”

A right-wing congressman with a 7 percent lifetime voting score from the AFL-CIO crying crocodile tears for great union health care plans can be easily dismissed as just another absurdity of the increasingly dysfunctional American political system. But when Joe “the workingman’s friend” Biden repeats the charge almost word for word and when AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka insists—on Fox News no less!—that “if there isn’t some way to have our plans integrated into the system, then we would not support [Medicare for All],” something is certainly happening out there. Talking points, after all, don’t just come out of thin air. They are carefully crafted and disseminated by a coterie of lobbyists and publicists often working on behalf of shadowy corporate and political interests.

Trumka was shortly joined by American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, who just six months earlier had delivered a full-throated endorsement of the Medicare for All Act at a rally celebrating its introduction. In her September 23, 2019, Politico article, Weingarten walked back that support in favor of a fictitious system in which “employer-based insurance would be allowed to exist to the extent that plans met or exceeded the standards set by the Medicare plan.” Such a system “would allow people who like their current employer-based plan—which seven in ten Americans claim to (although it’s likely they like their doctor, not the plan itself)—to keep it, allow for a gradual transition from one plan to another when necessary, and effectively improve on the model originally created by the Affordable Care Act.”

The spectacle of national labor leaders defending a system that is the biggest cause of strikes, lockouts, and concession bargaining is mind-boggling. For an entire generation now, unions in the United States have traded wages and other benefits for shrinking coverage by employer-provided health insurance (or for the ever-increasing employer contributions required to maintain similarly shrinking benefits from union-sponsored health and welfare funds).

An Accident of History

The U.S. health care system’s linkage to employment is unique among industrialized countries. It emerged as an accident of history in the years just following World War II when Roosevelt’s promise to enact a “Second Bill of Rights” in the postwar period was stopped dead in its tracks by resurgent capital. In 1946, the American Medical Association led the fight to defeat the Wagner-Murray-Dingell Bill that would have created a publicly funded national health insurance program. The following year saw the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, which, combined with an orgy of anti-communism and race baiting, set the powerful postwar labor movement into a long retreat.

Unable to expand the social wage by treating public goods such as health care as a basic right available to all, labor helped craft a “second-best solution” of making access to health care a benefit linked to employment. Corporate America piled on and offered elaborate benefits to recruit and retain employees and to keep unions out. This system was flawed from the beginning. It created tiers of coverage that reinforced employment-based racial and gender disparities and massive amounts of “churn” that disrupted continuity of care for even the best insured. Particularly after the expansion of for-profit health insurance and health care providers beginning in the 1970s, more and more administrative inefficiency was built into the system to facilitate profit taking, until, by the early twenty-first century, the U.S. health care system was twice as expensive as the OECD average.

Nonetheless, in the post-World War II period of high union density and employment stability, many unions were able to negotiate a robust “private welfare state” that provided health care security for tens of millions of working-class Americans. These benefits were almost never handed to workers. Unions had to wage long and unremitting fights to expand and defend employer-based health care. By the 1980s, almost every contract negotiation was faced with employer demands for reductions in coverage and transfer of costs from the employer to the worker. Nonunion workers fared even worse as they were forced to accept whatever the employer offered. And, unlike attempts to cut social insurance benefits like Social Security or Medicare that almost always fail due to massive popular opposition, cuts to employment-based health care benefits take place company by company under cover of night and arouse little or no popular opposition. Today, even those few union members who have been able to preserve good benefits find themselves as islands in a sea of inadequate and precarious health care coverage.

A System in Crisis

Like it or not, employment-based health care is simply unsustainable. The Milliman Medical Index reports that the 2018 total health care costs for a family of four with decent employment-based coverage exceed $28,000 per year. That is $14 per hour worked for a full-time employee—almost twice the federal minimum wage. The employer pays $15,000 of that, and $13,000 is paid by the worker through co-insurance, out-of-pocket charges, co-pays, deductibles, and all of the other myriad ways that the medical industrial complex extracts money from our pockets. These amounts already exceed the average hourly wage in food services and retail occupations and are increasing two times faster than the rate of wage increases for all workers, putting them on track to exceed average wages in manufacturing and other core industries within the next decade. The percentage of total health care costs paid by the worker has gone up nearly every year since it was first tracked in the 1990s. Employment-based health care is coming up upon the limits of Stein’s Law, formulated by economist Herbert Stein in 1985: “If something can’t go on forever, it will stop.”

Employment-based health care is also a major driver of wage stagnation. Every worker trades wages for health care. A recent Gallup poll found that 61 percent of Americans would be willing to trade 10 percent of future wage increases for a guarantee that their health care costs would not go up for five years. This puts workers and their unions at a huge bargaining disadvantage and goes a long way toward explaining why wages continue to stagnate at a time of low unemployment and growing corporate profits.

And even the best employment-based health care is not there when we need it the most: when we lose our jobs, change jobs, go on strike, or struggle with long-term illness.

What was once a source of pride in the “union advantage” has become an anchor around the necks of the U.S. working class. No union leader in their right mind can conjure a scenario where the system of employment-based health care could be stabilized in ways that could provide sustainable health care security for workers and their families. That is why unions representing a majority of organized workers now support HR 1384 – The Medicare for All Act of 2019 and why the AFL-CIO at its 2017 convention unanimously voted to support policies to “move expeditiously to a single-payer Medicare for All system.”

The Medicare for All Solution

Medicare for All would take health care off the bargaining table and increase union bargaining leverage in nearly every negotiation. It would allow union-sponsored health and welfare funds the opportunity to reallocate revenues currently sunk into the world’s most expensive and inefficient health care system. Savings could be applied to new “union advantage” programs such as enhanced disability benefits, supplemental unemployment benefits, tuition and training programs, legal services, child- and eldercare, and others. Some revenues could also potentially be reallocated to shore up endangered pension plans.

Medicare for All would also provide better coverage than any employment-based plan in existence today. Opponents of Medicare for All often conflate the constricted benefits offered under today’s Medicare program after more than 50 years of underfunding and privatization attempts with the greatly expanded and improved benefits proposed under Medicare for All. HR 1384—Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s Medicare for All Bill with 119 cosponsors—proposes to cover the following benefits without a single co-pay, deductible, or other out-of-pocket cost:

Hospital services, including inpatient and outpatient hospital care, including 24-hour-a-day emergency services and inpatient prescription drugs. (2) Ambulatory patient services. (3) Primary and preventive services, including chronic disease management. (4) Prescription drugs and medical devices, including outpatient prescription drugs, medical devices, and biological products. (5) Mental health and substance abuse treatment services, including inpatient care. (6) Laboratory and diagnostic services. (7) Comprehensive reproductive, maternity, and newborn care. (8) Pediatrics. (9) Oral health, audiology, and vision services. (10) Rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices. (11) Emergency services and transportation. (12) Early and periodic screening, diagnostic, and treatment services, as described in sections 1902(a)(10)(A), 1902(a)(43), 1905(a)(4)(B), and 1905(r) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1396a(a)(10)(A); 1396a(a)(43); 1396d(a)(4)(B); 1396d(r)). (13) Necessary transportation to receive health care services for persons with disabilities or low-income individuals (as determined by the Secretary). (14) Long-term care services and support (as described in section 204).

By comparison, the highly touted federal employees’ health benefit plan merely offers the choice of a number of fairly comprehensive private insurance products with the typical array of co-pays, deductibles, and narrow networks. For all of this, federal employees must kick in 28 percent of the weighted average premium for all plans.

Arguably, union employees working for the City of New York might have some of the best coverage of any working-class American. They can get fully employer-paid coverage in the default Emblem Health/HIP plan which has almost no co-pays or deductibles (workers may also choose other private insurance plans that do require employee contributions). They also receive generous dental, optical, and prescription coverage. But even here, workers must use a narrow provider network or face substantial co-pays, and the plan falls far short of HR 1384 in its coverage of long-term care, disability services, and community and home-based care. Moreover, every contract negotiation is held hostage to the imperative to hold on to these extraordinary benefits at almost any cost. I challenge any advocate of employment-based coverage to show me a plan that matches the level of comprehensive services, freedom of choice, and absence of out-of-pocket costs proposed by HR 1384. 

Like global warming, the case for replacing our dysfunctional, multipayer, for-profit health care system with a publicly funded, universal system with a single standard of care for all is so compelling that it has reached the level of scientific fact. Nonetheless, too many national labor leaders continue to sing the praises of employment-based health care benefits, while too many others give merely rhetorical support for Medicare for All—passing resolutions at conferences and conventions to please union activists while continuing to devote the bulk of their union’s mobilizing and legislative efforts to support for incremental and defensive policy fixes. Only a few national unions have begun to commit the kind of resources and organizing capacity that will be needed to defeat the concentrated political and economic power of the medical-industrial complex.

Union Backpedaling

As momentum for Medicare for All builds, we are witnessing more backpedaling within the labor movement. And not all of it is confined to national labor leaders (though it certainly is more pronounced at that level). In New York, a single-payer-style state bill—NY Health—has twice passed the State Assembly and is edging toward passage in the State Senate backed by a growing popular movement. While the bill does have considerable labor support, including from the state’s powerful hospital workers and nurses unions, a significant section of the labor movement has gone into open opposition. In June of 2018, James Cahill, the president of the New York State Building and Construction Trades Council, joined the CEO of the Business Council pf New York State in co-authoring an op-ed in Crain’s New York Business opposing the bill and “government-run health care.”

Taken by itself, this expression might be dismissed as another sign of the class collaborationism and conservatism than infects significant sections of the building trades. But they were joined by a number of other unions, including the 380,000-member Municipal Labor Council—whose affiliates include a number of “progressive unions”—which told Politico that they “dread the impact of the single-payer proposal in Albany.” It is true that, unlike national proposals, state-level single-payer-style plans are notoriously complex to design and difficult to fund. But this hostility goes beyond having legitimate questions about implementation. The fact that major sectors of the labor movement refuse to engage in an effort to make health care a birthright in a state with near-Canadian levels of union density is profoundly unsettling for those of us who believe that, in order to succeed, labor must be in the forefront of the fight to win Medicare for All.

So what is driving this opposition? Perversely, in New York some of it derives from precisely these high levels of union density. Unions still think they have a seat at the table and may sincerely believe that they can bargain better and more secure benefits that would not be subject to the precariousness of annual state budget debates. This parochial perspective ignores the reality that New York unions are only one election or economic downturn away from catastrophe. They only need to look across the Hudson to see what anti-union Governor Chris Christie did to New Jersey public sector workers’ ability to bargain for health care during his administration (aided and abetted, I would add, by Democratic political elements associated with some of the most politically influential building trades locals).

Putting aside the idiosyncrasies of New York labor politics, many union leaders may also believe that “the members aren’t ready” to support Medicare for All. Loss aversion plays a central part in shaping that belief. Behavioral scientists have observed that people are much more likely to be motivated by the fear of losing something they have than by the prospect of gaining something they want. Fear of loss of health insurance is a major driver of working-class insecurity in the United States. It is no surprise, then, that the lobbyists and publicists working on behalf of the medical-industrial complex would focus on this theme in their effort to scare the American people away from a just health care system. Some of that fear has infected union members. The failure to confront such fears, of course, is a classic mistake that anyone who’s ever been through an organizing campaign would know to avoid. The real problem here is union leaders who fail to articulate a vision of working-class politics that will inspire and unify union members.

These concerns are compounded in the wake of the Janus decision, which has made public sector union membership completely voluntary. Many public sector union leaders are convinced that the best way to persuade workers to maintain their union membership is to show how the union adds value in their workplace. Negotiating health insurance benefits that are much better than those enjoyed by most other working-class Americans is one way to do that without necessarily having to engage in risky internal organizing and mobilizing activities that may end up undermining existing union leadership.

Some unions have raised the specter of job loss as a reason to oppose Medicare for All. This is a legitimate concern. Studies have shown that close to two million workers will be displaced due to the administrative efficiencies of Medicare for All. While both the House and Senate bills provide funding for transition benefits for these workers, decades of working-class experience with bearing the cost of environmental-, trade-, and automation-related job losses have made workers rightly skeptical of any promises of economic security. The Labor Campaign for Single Payer has called for centering these worker concerns in the political and legislative battles to come and has warned that a failure to do so will give our opponents the opportunity to divide workers against each other.

Unions have also expressed concern that employers would reap the benefit of all of the sunken wages that unions have agreed to divert to maintain decent private insurance coverage. This would assume that, in the transition to Medicare for All, unions would be so weak and/or incompetent that they would be unable to recapture those already bargained monies. Even assuming a worst-case scenario, this objection is tantamount to someone opposing student loan forgiveness because they’ve already paid off a chunk of their loan.

There are also a number of institutional factors that can work to discourage union support for Medicare for All. Union health and welfare funds often have substantial brick-and-mortar investments in union facilities and provide a range of member services that often strengthen members’ union identification. A vast web of relationships also exists between union officials and health care vendors, brokers, intermediaries, attorneys, and various hangers on. Some are outright corrupt. Others are more benign, such as the insurance company that subsidizes their stewards training or the broker that they can call to get a member rapid placement in a substance abuse treatment program. Nonetheless, all of these relationships are ultimately corrupting because of the entailments of obligation that they engender with players who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

However, the biggest factor by far that drives union opposition to Medicare for All is many union leaders’ fear of disrupting their political relationships. Unions are multi-issue organizations, and many of their bargaining and organizing goals are impacted by local and national political concerns. The ascendancy of a right-wing, anti-labor political regime is an existential threat to the institutional labor movement as well as to a wide range of working-class concerns. Unions routinely pull their punches in the interest of maintaining these relationships. For example, with a few notable exceptions, unions were nowhere to be seen in the 2016 Democratic Party platform fight around Medicare for All and other issues of central concern to the working class led by Bernie Sanders supporters. Enmeshed in the two-party system and with diminishing leverage, unions often see no alternative. Every election cycle is the most important one in the history of the nation, and, whatever the outcome, unions nearly always emerge weaker from each round.

This political practice engenders cynicism and apathy among union members and provides the space for right-wing populism to take root within some sections of the working class. The past decade has seen the reemergence of a refreshing political independence in some of the most dynamic sections of the labor movement. By challenging the status quo, they have inspired their members to take risks and have forced important concessions from the political establishment. Medicare for All, because it seeks to reclaim a public good on behalf of the entire working class, can be an important wedge issue in building out an independent working-class politics.

The Path Forward 

Our experience in the Labor Campaign for Single Payer has shown that support for our cause is greatest at the front lines of the labor movement, where leaders and staffers have to deal on a daily basis with the consequences of private, for-profit health care. Our goal has been to work with those activists as they find ways to constructively engage with national labor leadership. After AFL-CIO President Trumka’s Labor Day appearance on Fox News, for example, we asked unionists to write him to remind him that support for Medicare for All is the official policy of America’s largest labor federation. Over 2,500 people answered the call. These are the leaders who will drive change in our movement and ultimately bring the formidable political and mobilization resources of institutional labor into the battle to make health care a right for everyone in America. When that happens, we will win.

As Washington State Labor Council President Larry Brown stated, “Unions do not serve their members well by trying to circle the wagons around an unsustainable model of employment-based health care.” Our labor movement will thrive when we express the aspirations of all workers and speak on behalf of the entire working class.

Union members should be justly proud of the long battle that unions have waged to protect their right to access affordable, quality health care, and the Labor Campaign for Single Payer stands in solidarity with all workers everywhere who fight to protect these hard-won gains. But our movement is at an historic juncture. Now is not the time to muddy the waters or bargain against ourselves. We need labor to lead as we work to make this a key issue in the 2020 elections and to hold politicians accountable in 2021 and beyond. And we have the right to expect that the union leaders who represent us and the politicians that we support will do more than just parrot the talking points crafted by health care industry lobbyists.

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Sources

1. Committee on Ways and Means, “Pathways to Universal Coverage,” June 12, 2019,
2. Ronn Blitzer, “AFL-CIO Head ‘Would Have a Hard Time Supporting’ ‘Medicare-For-All’ that Eliminates Union Plans,” Fox News, Sept. 1, 2019,
3. Labor Campaign for Single Payer, “AFT President Randi Weingarten Explains Why Teachers and Healthcare Workers Won’t Stop Organizing,”
4. Randi Weingarten, “The False Choice over ‘Medicare for All,’” Politico, Sept. 23, 2019,
5. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, “OECD Data,”
6. Milliman, Inc., “2018 Milliman Medical Index.”
7. Gallup, Inc., “The U.S. Healthcare Cost Crisis.”
8. Labor Campaign for Single Payer, “Medicare for All: Is Your Union on Board?”
9. Labor Campaign for Single Payer, “AFLCIO 2017 Endorses Medicare for All,” Dec. 13, 2017.
10. Labor Campaign for Single Payer, “Multiemployer Plans, Taft-Hartley Funds & Single-payer Healthcare,”
11. U.S. Congress, “H.R. 1384 – Medicare for All Act of 2019.”
12. EmblemHealth, “The HIP HMO Preferred Plan for City of New York Employees,”
13. Heather C. Briccetti and James Cahill, “New Yorkers Don’t Want to Pay for Single-payer,” Crain’s New York Business, June 5, 2018.
14. Sally Goldenberg, “City Unions Say They Dread Impact of Single-payer in Albany,” Politico, Nov. 29, 2018.
15. Robert Pollin, James Heintz, Peter Arno, Jeannette Wicks-Lam, and Michael Ash, Economic Analysis of Medicare for All, Political Economy Research Institute, 108-12.
16. 16. Larry Brown, “Let’s Take Health Care off the Bargaining Table,” The Stand,March 5, 2019.

Featured image is from New Politics

When the US places financial sanctions on one country, it de facto sanctions many other countries as well — including many of its allies.

This is because not all countries and firms are interested in participating in the US sanctions-based foreign policy. Sanctions, after all, have become a favorite go-to strategy for American policymakers who seek to isolate or punish foreign states that don’t cooperate with US international policy goals.

In recent years, the US has been most active in imposing new sanctions on Russia and Iran, with many consequences for US allies who are still open to doing business with both of those countries.

The US can retaliate against organizations that violate US sanctions in a variety of ways. In the past, the US has sued firms such as the Netherlands’s ING Groep and Switzerland’s Credit Suisse. Both firms have paid hundreds of millions of dollars in fines in the past. The US has been known to go after individuals.

US bureaucrats like to remind firms that penalties await them should they not buckle under the US sanctions plan. In November 2018, for example, US secretary of state Michael Pompeo announced:

I promise you that doing business in Iran in defiance of our sanctions will ultimately be a much more painful business decision than pulling out of Iran.

Fear of sanctions has caused some firms to stop work mid-project, such as when Swiss pipe-laying company Allseas Group abandoned a $10 billion pipeline that was nearing completion.

Not surprisingly, these firms — who employ people, pay taxes, and contribute to economic growth — have put pressure on their governments to protest the mounting interference from the US in private trade.

As a result, some European politicians are increasingly looking for ways to get around US sanctions. In a tweet last week, Germany’s deputy foreign minister Niels Annen wrote

Europe needs new instruments to be able to defend itself from licentious extraterritorial sanctions.

Another “senior German government official” concluded,

Washington is treating the EU as an adversary. It is dealing the same way with Mexico, Canada, and with allies in Asia. This policy will provoke counter-reactions across the world.

But how is the US so easily able to sanction so much of the world, including companies in huge and influential countries like Germany?

The answer lies in the fact that the US dollar and the US economy remain at the center of the international trade system.

SWIFT: How the US Sanctions the World

By the waning days of the Cold War, the US dollar had become the dominant currency in the noncommunist world, thanks to the Bretton Woods agreement, the petrodollar, and the sheer size of the US economy.

Once the Communist Bloc collapsed, the dollar was poised to grow even more in importance, and the world’s financial institutions searched for a way to make global trade and investing even faster and easier.

Henry Farrell at the National Interest describes what came next:

Financial institutions wanted to communicate with other financial institutions so that they could send and receive money. This led them to abandon inefficient institution-to-institution communications and to converge on a common solution: the financial messaging system maintained by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) consortium, based in Belgium. Similarly, banks wanted to make transactions in the globally dominant currency, the U.S. dollar.…In practice, the physical infrastructure, for a variety of efficiency reasons, tended to channel global flows through a small number of central data cables and switch points.

At the time, Europe was still years away from creating the euro, and it only seemed natural that a centralized dollar-transfer system be developed for all the world.

SWIFT personnel have always maintained that their organization is apolitical, neutral, and only interested in providing a service. But geopolitical realities have long intervened. Farrell continues:

The centralizing tendencies meant that the new infrastructure of global networks was asymmetric: some nodes and connections were far more important than others.…What this meant was that a few states—most prominently the United States—had the latent ability to transform the global economic infrastructures…into an architecture of global power and information gathering.

By 2001, the power of this centralized system had become apparent, and in the wake of 9/11, the US used the “war on terror” as an opportunity to turn SWIFT into an enormous international tool for surveillance and financial power.

In his book Treasury’s War: The Unleashing of a New Era of Financial Warfare Juan Zarate shows how the US Treasury officials pressured SWIFT and its personnel to provide the US government with the means to use this international financial “plumbing” to deprive the US’s enemies of access to markets.

This started out slow, and SWIFT officials were concerned it would become widely known that SWIFT was becoming politicized and largely a tool of the US and US allies. Nevertheless, the American regime pressed its advantage, and by 2012 “for the first time ever, SWIFT unplugged designated Iranian banks from its system, in accordance with a European directive and under the threat of possible US legislation.”

This only strengthened worries among both world regimes and the world’s financial institutions that the basic technical infrastructure of the international financial system was really a political tool.

The World Searches for Alternatives

Naturally, Russia and China have been highly motivated to find alternatives to SWIFT. But even perennial US allies have grown far more wary of leaving the financial system in a place where it can be so easily dominated by the US regime. If Iranian banks can be “unplugged” so easily from the global system, what’s to stop the US from taking similar steps against German banks, French banks, or Italian banks?

This, of course, is an implied threat behind US demands that European companies not try to work around US sanctions or face “punishment.” From the US perspective, if Germans refuse to kowtow to US policy, then there’s an easy solution: simply cut the Germans off from the international banking system.

Consequently, German foreign minister Heiko Maas announced in 2008,

We must increase Europe’s autonomy and sovereignty in trade, economic and financial policies.…It will not be easy, but we have already begun to do it.

By late 2019, the UK, France, and Germany had put together a workaround called INSTEX, designed to facilitate continued trade with Iran without using the dollar and the SWIFT system built upon it. Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden have joined the system as well.

As of January 2020, the cumbersome system remains unused. However, we remain in the very early stages of European efforts to get a divorce from the dollar-dominated financial system. The INSTEX system has been devised, for now, for a limited purpose. But there is no reason that it cannot be expanded in the future. The short-term prospects for a functional system are low. Longer term, however, things are different. The motivation for a long-term workaround is growing. The Trump administration has embraced showmanship that looks good in a short-term news cycle, but which encourages US allies to pull away. Farrell continues:

Unlike Obama, Donald Trump did not use careful diplomacy to build international support for [new sanctions] against Iran. Instead, he imposed them by fiat, to the consternation of European allies, who remained committed to the [Iran agreement put in place under Obama]. The United States now threatened to impose draconian penalties on its allies’ firms if they continued to work inside the terms of an international agreement that the United States itself had negotiated. The EU invoked a blocking statute, which effectively made it illegal for European firms to comply with U.S. sanctions, but without any significant consequences. SWIFT, for example, avoided the statute by never formally stating that it was complying with U.S. sanctions; instead explaining that it was regrettably suspending relations with Iranian banks “in the interest of the stability and integrity of the wider global financial system.”

All of this is viewed with alarm by not only Europe, but China and Russia as well. The near-constant stream of threats by the US administration to impose ever harsher limits and sanctions on both China and Europe has pushed the rest of the world to accelerate plans to get around US sanctions. After all, as of mid-2019, the US had nearly eight thousand sanctions in place against various states and organizations and individuals. The term now being used in reference to American sanctions is “overuse.” It was one thing when the US imposed sanctions in some extreme cases. But now the US appears increasingly fond of using and threatening sanctions regularly, without consulting allies.

This makes continued US dominance in this regard less likely as allies the world over pour more and more resources into ending the US-SWIFT control of the system. In a 2018 report, “Towards a Stronger International Role of the Euro,” the European Commission described US sanctions as a “wake-up call regarding Europe’s economic and monetary sovereignty.”

The effort still has a long way to go, but perhaps not as far as many think.

Source.

The dollar remains far ahead of the euro in terms of the dollar’s use as a reserve currency, but the dollar and the euro are more evenly matched when it comes to international payment transactions.

If the rest of the world remains sufficiently motivated, more can certainly be done to rein in dollar-based sanctions. Indeed, in 2019, former US Treasury secretary Jacob Lew admitted,

the plumbing is being built and tested to work around the United States. Over time as those tools are perfected, if the United States stays on a path where it is seen as going it alone…there will increasingly be alternatives that will chip away at the centrality of the United States.

If the US finds itself no longer at the center of the global financial system, this will bring significant disadvantages for the US regime and US residents. A decline in demand for the dollar would also lead to less demand for US debt.  This would put upward pressure on interest rates and thus bring higher debt-payment obligations for the US regime. This would constrain defense spending and the ability of the US to project its power to every corner of the globe. At the same time, central bank efforts to drive interest rates back down would bring a greater need to monetize the debt.  The resulting price inflation in either consumer goods or assets would be significant.

The fact none of this will become obvious next week or next month doesn’t mean it will never happen. But the US’s enthusiasm for sanctions means the world is already learning the price of doing business with the United States and with the dollar.

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Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) is a senior editor at the Mises Institute. Send him your article submissions for Mises Wire and The Austrian, but read article guidelines first. Ryan has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado, and was the economist for the Colorado Division of Housing from 2009 to 2014. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

On September 19, 2019, a panel of three professional judges in the Tokyo District Court acquitted three former executives of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). The defendants were former chairman Katsumata Tsunehisa (79), and former vice presidents Takekuro Ichiro (73) and Muto Sakae (69), who shared responsibility for the company’s nuclear energy sector. They had been charged with criminal negligence¹ for failing to prevent the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was precipitated by the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, which killed more than 18,000 people and forced 400,000 to evacuate their homes in order to escape the nuclear fallout (Hasegawa, 2013).²

The 3/11 earthquake was the most powerful ever recorded in Japan, and it was the fourth most powerful earthquake in the world since modern record keeping started in 1900. The tsunami it precipitated reached heights up to 40 meters (130 feet), and in some places the colossal swell traveled at 700 kmh (435 mph) and surged 10 kilometers (6 miles) inland. The only nuclear accident as serious as the meltdowns at the Fukushima plant was the 1986 disaster at Chernobyl in Ukraine. But while the Fukushima triple-disaster was severe, it was not precipitated by a low-probability event. The 3/11 earthquake was a “high-probability event,” for massive earthquakes and tsunamis have been assaulting the northeastern coast of Japan for centuries – in 869, 1611, 1793, 1896, and 1933 (Ramseyer, 2012). The size of the tsunami in 2011 was almost the same as the one in 1933.

There have been many legal and political reactions to the meltdowns in Fukushima (Samuels, 2013; Aldrich, 2019). Japan stopped using nuclear power for much of 2011 and 2012, and its usage has remained low since then, though the administration of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo seems determined to restart many of the country’s reactors. More broadly, several countries, including Germany, Italy, Belgium, and Taiwan, suspended or ended their use of nuclear power, and China suspended its plan to expand its use of nuclear power for half a year.

New nuclear safety laws were also established in Japan, China, and South Korea, though in most of East Asia, major changes in the field of nuclear power seem unlikely because of “nuclear power’s sunk-cost structure and embeddedness in national energy plans” (Fraser and Aldrich, 2019, p.58). As for administrative law, Japan’s lax regulatory system (Kingston, 2012) was reformed after 3/11, with the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) and the Nuclear Safety Commission (NSC) replaced by the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA). Government supervision of the nuclear industry was also transferred from the ministry responsible for promoting it (the Ministry of Economy, Trade, & Industry, or METI) to the Ministry of Environment (MOE), which might result in more emphasis on safety and less on profit and the production of power (time will tell). In civil law, about 30 collective actions have been filed against TEPCO and government officials, in addition to some 400 individual lawsuits filed nationwide by the victims of the Fukushima meltdown (Jobin, 2019, p.74). As of September 2019, eight of the collective actions had resulted in judgments – and all found TEPCO liable (Dooley, Yamamitsu, and Inoue, 2019).³

And then there is the legal process through which criminal sanctions can be imposed. Significant efforts were made to respond to the anti-social behavior of TEPCO executives and government officials by imposing punishment on those believed guilty of violating Japanese criminal law. The central question in this essay is this: what was the criminal process good for in the TEPCO case?

We argue that, despite the acquittal of the TEPCO defendants, Japan’s criminal process did some good in this case, and that when it failed it did so in ways that are common in other systems of criminal justice. The latter claim will be no consolation to the victims and survivors of 3/11, but it does reflect how hard it is to hold corporations and their executives criminally accountable for the harms that they cause, not only in Japan but in all countries. While we focus on the limits of criminal law and criminal procedure in a case that may be the biggest crime in postwar Japanese history, our point applies more broadly, for in many societies white-collar crime is “the greatest crime problem of our age” (Coleman, 2002, p. xi).⁴

Our essay proceeds in three parts. Part one describes the complicated process of criminal prosecution through which charges were filed against the three TEPCO executives. This part of our story involves a uniquely Japanese institution called the Prosecution Review Commission (kensatsu shinsakai), which was reformed in 2009 to enable panels of 11 citizens to override the non-charge decisions of professional prosecutors. Part two analyzes the reasoning of the Tokyo District Court and describes some of the reactions to its decision to acquit the executives. Many Japanese were harshly critical of that decision, but Japanese prosecutors essentially said “we told you so” after the Court concluded there was insufficient evidence to convict. In our view, the verdicts in this case are troubling but unsurprising, for impunity is common both in white-collar crime cases and in cases of “mandatory prosecution” (kyosei kiso) initiated by Japan’s PRCs. Part three of this article concludes by suggesting some lessons to learn from the TEPCO trial. Foremost among them is how difficult it is for criminal law and the institutions of criminal justice to control the conduct of corporations and their agents.

Important Study, incisive and carefully documented analysis:  To Read the Complete Article on Asia Pacific Journal Japan in Focus, click Here

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A common claim is that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are essential to agriculture if we are to feed an ever-growing global population. Supporters of genetically engineered (GE) crops argue that by increasing productivity and yields, this technology will also help boost farmers’ incomes and lift many out of poverty. Although in this article it will be argued that the performance of GE crops to date has been questionable, the main contention is that the pro-GMO lobby, both outside of India and within, has wasted no time in wrenching the issues of hunger and poverty from their political contexts to use notions of ‘helping farmers’ and ‘feeding the world’ as lynchpins of its promotional strategy. There exists a ‘haughty imperialism’ within the pro-GMO scientific lobby that aggressively pushes for a GMO ‘solution’ which is a distraction from the root causes of poverty, hunger and malnutrition and genuine solutions based on food justice and food sovereignty.

Last year, in the journal Current Science, Dr Deepak Pental, developer of genetically engineered (GE) mustard at Delhi University, responded to a previous paper in the same journal by eminent scientists PC Kesavan and MS Swaminathan which questioned the efficacy of and the need for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture. Pental argued that the two authors had aligned themselves with environmentalists and ideologues who have mindlessly attacked the use of genetic engineering (GE) technology to improve crops required for meeting the food and nutritional needs of a global population that is predicted to peak at 11.2 billion. Pental added that aspects of the two authors’ analysis are a reflection of their ideological proclivities.

The use of the word ‘mindlessly’ is telling and betrays Pental’s own ideological disposition. His words reflect tired industry-inspired rhetoric that says criticisms of GE technology are driven by ideology not fact.

If hunger and malnutrition are to be tackled effectively, the pro-GMO lobby must put aside this type of rhetoric, which is designed to close down debate. It should accept valid concerns about the GMO paradigm and be willing to consider why the world already produces enough to feed 10 billion people but over two billion are experiencing micronutrient deficiencies (of which 821 million were classed as chronically undernourished in 2018). 

Critics: valid concerns or ideologues?

The performance of GE crops has been a hotly contested issue and, as highlighted in Kevasan and Swaminathan’s piece and by others, there is already sufficient evidence to question their efficacy, especially that of herbicide-tolerant crops (which by 2007 already accounted for approximately 80% of biotech-derived crops grown globally) and the devastating impacts on the environment, human health and food security, not least in places like Latin America.  

We should not accept the premise that only GE can solve problems in agriculture. In their paper, Kesavan and Swaminathan argue that GE technology is supplementary and must be need based. In more than 99% of cases, they say that time-honoured conventional breeding is sufficient. In this respect, conventional options and innovations that outperform GE must not be overlooked or sidelined in a rush by powerful interests like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to facilitate the introduction of GE crops into global agriculture; crops which are highly financially lucrative for the corporations behind them.  

In Europe, robust regulatory mechanisms are in place for GMOs because it is recognised that GE food/crops are not substantially equivalent to their non-GE counterparts. Numerous studies have highlighted the flawed premise of ‘substantial equivalence’. Furthermore, from the outset of the GMO project, the sidelining of serious concerns about the technology has occurred and despite industry claims to the contrary, there is no scientific consensus on the health impacts of GE crops as noted by Hilbeck et al (Environmental Sciences Europe, 2015). Adopting a precautionary principle where GE is concerned is therefore a valid approach.

As Hilbeck et al note, both the Cartagena Protocol and Codex share a precautionary approach to GE crops and foods, in that they agree that GE differs from conventional breeding and that safety assessments should be required before GMOs are used in food or released into the environment. There is sufficient reason to hold back on commercialising GE crops and to subject each GMO to independent, transparent environmental, social, economic and health impact evaluations.

Critics’ concerns cannot therefore be brushed aside by claims that ‘the science’ is decided and the ‘facts’ about GE are indisputable. Such claims are merely political posturing and part of a strategy to tip the policy agenda in favour of GE.

In India, various high-level reports have advised against the adoption of GE crops. Appointed by the Supreme Court, the ‘Technical Expert Committee (TEC) Final Report’ (2013) was scathing about India’s prevailing regulatory system and highlighted its inadequacies and serious inherent conflicts of interest. The TEC recommended a 10-year moratorium on the commercial release of all GE crops.

As we have seen with the push to get GE mustard commercialised, the problems described by the TEC persist. Through her numerous submissions to the Supreme Court, Aruna Rodrigues has argued that GE mustard is being pushed through based on outright regulatory delinquency. It must also be noted that this crop is herbicide tolerant, which, as stated by the TEC, is wholly inappropriate for India with its small biodiverse, multi-cropping farms.

While the above discussion has only scratched the surface, it is fair to say that criticisms of GE technology and various restrictions and moratoriums have not been driven by ‘mindless’ proclivities.

Can GE crops ‘feed the world’? 

The ‘gene revolution’ is sometimes regarded as Green Revolution 2.0. The Green Revolution too was sold under the guise of ‘feeding the world’. However, emerging research indicates that in India it merely led to more wheat in the diet, while food productivity per capita showed no increase or actually decreased.  

Globally, the Green Revolution dovetailed with the consolidation of an emerging global food regime based on agro-export mono-cropping (often with non-food commodities taking up prime agricultural land) and (unfair) liberalised trade, linked to sovereign debt repayment and World Bank/IMF structural adjustment-privatisation directives. The outcomes have included a displacement of a food-producing peasantry, the consolidation of Western agri-food oligopolies and the transformation of many countries from food self-sufficiency into food deficit areas. And yet, the corporations behind this system of dependency and their lobbyists waste no time in spreading the message that this is the route to achieving food security. Their interests lie in ‘business as usual’.

Today, we hear terms like ‘foreign direct investment’ and making India ‘business friendly’, but behind the rhetoric lies the hard-nosed approach of globalised capitalism. The intention is for India’s displaced cultivators to be retrained to work as cheap labour in the West’s offshored plants. India is to be a fully incorporated subsidiary of global capitalism, with its agri-food sector restructured for the needs of global supply chains and a reserve army of labour that effectively serves to beat workers and unions in the West into submission.     

Global food insecurity and malnutrition are not the result of a lack of productivity. As long as these dynamics persist and food injustice remains an inbuilt feature of the global food regime, the rhetoric of GE being necessary for feeding the world will be seen for what it is: bombast.

Although India fares poorly in world hunger assessments, the country has achieved self-sufficiency in food grains and has ensured there is enough food (in terms of calories) available to feed its entire population. It is the world’s largest producer of milk, pulses and millets and the second-largest producer of rice, wheat, sugarcane, groundnuts, vegetables, fruit and cotton.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), food security is achieved when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.

Food security for many Indians remains a distant dream. Large sections of India’s population do not have enough food available to remain healthy nor do they have sufficiently diverse diets that provide adequate levels of micronutrients. The Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey 2016-18 is the first-ever nationally representative nutrition survey of children and adolescents in India. It found that 35 per cent of children under five were stunted, 22 per cent of school-age children were stunted while 24 per cent of adolescents were thin for their age.

People are not hungry in India because its farmers do not produce enough food. Hunger and malnutrition result from various factors, including inadequate food distribution, (gender) inequality and poverty; in fact, the country continues to export food while millions remain hungry. It’s a case of ‘scarcity’ amid abundance.

Where farmers’ livelihoods are concerned, the pro-GMO lobby says GE will boost productivity and help secure cultivators a better income. Again, this is misleading: it ignores crucial political and economic contexts. Even with bumper harvests, Indian farmers still find themselves in financial distress. 

India’s farmers are not experiencing financial hardship due to low productivity. They are reeling from the effects of neoliberal policies, years of neglect and a deliberate strategy to displace smallholder agriculture at the behest of the World Bank and predatory global agri-food corporations . Little wonder then that the calorie and essential nutrient intake of the rural poor has drastically fallen.

However, aside from putting a positive spin on the questionable performance of GMO agriculture, the pro-GMO lobby, both outside of India and within, has wasted no time in wrenching these issues from their political contexts to use the notions of ‘helping farmers’ and ‘feeding the world’ as lynchpins of its promotional strategy.

GE was never intended to feed the world

Many of the traditional practices of India’s small farmers are now recognised as sophisticated and appropriate for high-productive, sustainable agriculture. It is no surprise therefore that a recent FAO high-level report has called for agroecology and smallholder farmers to be prioritised and invested in to achieve global sustainable food security. It argues that scaling up agroecology offers potential solutions to many of the world’s most pressing problems, whether, for instance, climate change and carbon storage, soil degradation, water shortages, unemployment or food security.  

Agroecological principles represent a shift away from the reductionist yield-output industrial paradigm, which results in among other things enormous pressures on soil and water resources, to a more integrated low-input systems approach to food and agriculture that prioritises local food security, local calorific production, cropping patterns and diverse nutrition production per acre, water table stability, climate resilience, good soil structure and the ability to cope with evolving pests and disease pressures. Such a system would be underpinned by a concept of food sovereignty,  based on optimal self-sufficiency, the right to culturally appropriate food and local ownership and stewardship of common resources, such as land, water, soil and seeds.  

Traditional production systems rely on the knowledge and expertise of farmers in contrast to imported ‘solutions’. Yet, if we take cotton cultivation in India as an example, farmers continue to be nudged away from traditional methods of farming and are being pushed towards (illegal) GE herbicide-tolerant cotton seeds. Researchers Glenn Stone and Andrew Flachs note the results of this shift from traditional practices to date does not appear to have benefited farmers. This isn’t about giving farmers ‘choice’ where GE seeds and associated chemicals are concerned. It is more about GE seed companies and weedicide manufactures seeking to leverage a highly lucrative market.  

The potential for herbicide market growth in India is enormous and industry looked for sales to reach USD 800 million by 2019. The objective involves opening India to GE seeds with herbicide tolerance traits, the biotechnology industry’s biggest money maker by far (86 per cent of the world’s GE crop acres in 2015 contain plants resistant to glyphosate or glufosinate and there is a new generation of crops resistant to 2,4-D coming through).

The aim is to break farmers’ traditional pathways and move them onto corporate biotech/chemical treadmills for the benefit of industry. 

Calls for agroecology and highlighting the benefits of traditional, small-scale agriculture are not based on a romantic yearning for the past or ‘the peasantry’. Available evidence suggests that (non-GMO) smallholder farming using low-input methods is more productive in total output than large-scale industrial farms and can be more profitable and resilient to climate change. It is for good reason that the FAO high-level report referred to earlier as well as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Prof Hilal Elver, call for investment in this type of agriculture, which is centred on small farms. Despite the pressures, including the fact that globally industrial agriculture grabs 80 per cent of subsidies and 90 per cent of research funds, smallholder agriculture plays a major role in feeding the world.

That’s a massive quantity of subsidies and funds to support a system that is only made profitable as a result of these financial injections and because agri-food oligopolies externalize the massive health, social and environmental costs of their operations. 

But policy makers tend to accept that profit-driven transnational corporations have a legitimate claim to be owners and custodians of natural assets (the ‘commons’). These corporations, their lobbyists and their political representatives have succeeded in cementing a ‘thick legitimacy’ among policy makers for their vision of agriculture.

From World Bank ‘enabling the business of agriculture’ directives to the World Trade Organization ‘agreement on agriculture’ and trade related intellectual property agreements, international bodies have enshrined the interests of corporations that seek to monopolise seeds, land, water, biodiversity and other natural assets that belong to us all. These corporations, the promoters of GMO agriculture, are not offering a ‘solution’ for farmers’ impoverishment or hunger; GE seeds are little more than a value capture mechanism.

To evaluate the pro-GMO lobby’s rhetoric that GE is needed to ‘feed the world’, we first need to understand the dynamics of a globalised food system that fuels hunger and malnutrition against a backdrop of (subsidised) food overproduction. We must acknowledge the destructive, predatory dynamics of capitalism and the need for agri-food giants to maintain profits by seeking out new (foreign) markets and displacing existing systems of production with ones that serve their bottom line.  And we need to reject a deceptive ‘haughty imperialism’ within the pro-GMO scientific lobby which aggressively pushes for a GMO ‘solution’.

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Colin Todhunter is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research.

To understand where you are, it is necessary to know where you have been. To understand current Canadian policy towards the 18^th most populous country in the world, it is necessary to look at the history of Ottawa’s relations with Iran.

For the first 75 years after Confederation Canada’s foreign policy was largely shaped by the British Empire. For London during this period Persia was mostly a strategic geopolitical ally. Then came oil.

The first company to exploit Iranian oil resources was the Anglo Persian Oil Company. From that time on the Empire’s policy towards Iran was dominated by geopolitics (the new Soviet Union bordered Persia) and hydrocarbons.

In 1953 the US and Britain overthrew Iran’s first popularly elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh and Ottawa played a small part in this destruction of Iranian democracy.

Mossadegh wanted Iran to benefit from its huge oil reserves. Following the British lead, Canada’s external minister criticized the Iranians move to nationalize its oil. In May 1951 external minister Lester Pearson told the House of Commons the “problem can be settled” only if the Iranians keep in mind the “legitimate interests of other people who have ministered to the well-being of Iran in administering the oil industry of that country which they have been instrumental in developing.” Later that year Pearson complained about the Iranians’ “emotional” response to the English. He added: “In their anxiety to gain full control of their affairs by the elimination of foreign influence, they are exposing themselves to the menace of communist penetration and absorption — absorption into the Soviet sphere.”

In response to the nationalization, the British organized an embargo of Iranian oil, which Ottawa followed. The embargo weakened Mossadegh’s government, enabling the CIA’s subsequent drive to topple the nationalist prime minister.

Thirteen months before the coup Canada’s ambassador in Washington cabled Ottawa: “The situation in Iran could hardly look worse than it does at present. Mossadegh has been returned to power with increased influence and prestige and will almost certainly prove even more unreasonable and intractable than in the past, so that a settlement of the oil dispute will be harder than ever to arrange.”

Pearson did not protest the overthrow of Iran’s first elected prime minister. Privately, External Affairs celebrated. Four months after the coup, Canada’s ambassador in Washington cabled Ottawa about “encouraging reports from their [US] embassy in Tehran on the growing strength of the present [coup] government.”

Establishing diplomatic relations with Iran in 1955, Canada followed the lead of the UK and US in doing business with the brutal dictatorship of Mohammad-Reza Shah Pahlavi, which ruled for 26 years.

Throughout the Shah’s reign Canadian politicians visited regularly. Ontario Premier William Davis, for instance, went to meet the Shah in September 1978.

During the 1970s the Canadian government’s Defence Programs Bureau had a representative in Tehran and Canada sold about $60 million ($250 million today) worth of arms to Iran during the decade. This was during a time when Amnesty International reported “no country in the world has a worse record in human rights than Iran.” The Shah’s brutal SAVAK intelligence forces killed tens of thousands, which prompted little condemnation from Ottawa. In fact, in the early 1970s, $250,000 ($1 million today) worth of Canadian aid went to the University of Montréal’s International Center for Comparative Criminology (ICCC) whose advisors in Iran (as well as the Ivory Coast and Brazil), according to ICCC director Dennis Szabo, “trained police forces in the use of the most modern methods to suppress protest demonstrations and the causes of criminality.”

Canada did significant business with the Shah’s Iran. In 1978 Canadian exports to Iran reached nearly $600 million ($2.4 billion today). An October 1978 Globe and Mail article headlined “Canadians in Iran” described a massive Export Development Canada (EDC)-financed forestry project along with numerous other Canadian ventures in that country: “Acres International Ltd. of Toronto has been hired for $100-million worth of engineering on an irrigation-power project. Ircan of Montréal has won a $37-million contract to supply mobile training centres and 800 hours of videotaped vocational teaching. Two Canadian drilling companies help Iran explore for oil. A four firm consortium is bidding for a $1.2-billion thermal power plant. Keith Sjogren, the Bank of Commerce’s man in Tehran, actually lends money to the Shah’s government companies.”

By the time the Shah was overthrown in late 1979, there were 850 Canadians in Iran (along with thousands of Americans), most working for foreign owned oilrigs, power projects, etc. At the time of the revolution EDC had more than $100 million ($400 million today) in outstanding export insurance and Canadian banks held billions of dollars worth of loans to Iran’s Shah, which were put into doubt (the loans were eventually honoured). Not Long after the Shah’s departure, Canada closed its embassy in Tehran, which wouldn’t reopen for eight years.

Clearly, during the period from 1950-1985, Canadian policy towards Iran was motivated by the interests of British then American empire and profit-making opportunities for Canadian business. Equally as evident, Ottawa exhibited little concern for Iranian human rights or democracy.

As we shall see in part two, Canadian policy in recent years has sought to undermine Iran.

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The individuals who seized power after the military coup in Bolivia don’t constitute a so-called “interim government” because the radical policy changes that they’ve implemented since then go far and beyond simply presiding over the state until new elections are held later this year in May.

With a series of new US military deployments, Washington is escalating its preparations for a full-scale war with Iran. The buildup is continuing despite what has been universally described in the media as an easing of tensions following the January 3 US drone missile assassination of Iran’s Gen. Qassem Suleimani and a largely symbolic Iranian retaliation in the form of a casualty-free missile strike against two US-occupied bases in Iraq.

The Pentagon has dispatched a squadron of F15-E fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, the newspaper Stars & Stripes, which covers the US military, reported Thursday. Deployed at the Prince Sultan Air Base, the warplanes are in easy striking distance of ground targets inside Iran. Their deployment follows that of another F15-E squadron to the Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates last October. The US Air Force last month issued a statement announcing that its 378th Expeditionary Air Wing had resurrected what had been a major US air base in Saudi Arabia 15 years ago and that it “grows daily.” The head of the unit’s operations group, Col. Robert Raymond, said, “We turned what was just a patch in the desert to a full-up operating location.”

Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said on Wednesday that the Pentagon is preparing to ship new missile defense systems and other assets to the Middle East in preparation for a confrontation with Iran. “They’re a very capable enemy,” McCarthy said. “They have capabilities that can strike and kill Americans.”

He added, “It could be a variety of enablers, like missile defense and others, so we’re looking at that.”

Meanwhile, the Norwegian military has revealed that Washington has pulled some 3,000 troops out of war games dubbed “Cold Response” that are scheduled from March 2 to March 18, citing the need to shift forces toward the conflict with Iran. The biannual exercise, which includes Norwegian forces as well as soldiers from the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Belgium, Denmark, Latvia, Finland and Sweden, is aimed at preparing for war against Russia.

The Pentagon has already sent 4,000 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division into the region as well as deploying to the Persian Gulf 2,000 Marines aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan. This has been joined by the repositioning of a bomber strike force consisting of six B-52 heavy bombers to the US military base on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, a British colonial possession that is within striking distance of Iran but beyond the range of Iran’s longest-range missiles.

President Donald Trump said that the January 8 Iranian missile strike, which hit the Ain al-Asad Air Base in Iraq’s Anbar province and a second base at the Erbil airport in Iraqi Kurdistan without killing or wounding a single American, was a sign that Tehran was “standing down.” He responded by announcing a new round of draconian economic sanctions and demanding that Washington’s NATO allies become more involved in the campaign against Iran.

On the one hand, this approach was designed to intensify US imperialism’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, an effective economic blockade tantamount to war, and to enlist Washington’s erstwhile allies in Europe to ratchet up pressure on Tehran.

The governments of the UK, France and Germany—spurred on by fears of US military action as well as economic blackmail in the form of a threatened 25 percent tariff on automobile exports—fell into line this week, threatening to reimpose United Nations sanctions against Iran that were ostensibly lifted as part of Tehran’s 2015 agreement with the major powers to accept limits on its civil nuclear program in exchange for normalization of economic relations. In the face of the three European powers’ failure to counter the sanctions regime imposed by Washington after Trump unilaterally abrogated the nuclear accord in May of 2018, Tehran has progressively reduced its commitments under the accord. President Hassan Rouhani stated on Thursday that Iran is now enriching more uranium than before signing the 2015 agreement.

US imperialism seeks to exploit this gang-up against Iran to compel the country’s Shia cleric-led bourgeois nationalist government to capitulate and accept a new “Trump deal.” This would entail not only effectively ending Iran’s nuclear program, but also disarming the country by scrapping its ballistic missiles and rolling back its influence throughout the Middle East. Washington and its allies are calculating that they can manipulate divisions within Iran’s ruling establishment and, above all, the Iranian bourgeoisie’s fears of a social revolt from below, to force Tehran to capitulate.

At the same time, however, the Pentagon is actively preparing for the escalation of a war that has already been initiated with the murder of Suleimani together with nine other Iranians and Iraqis at Baghdad’s international airport, a killing spree that constituted both an act of war and a war crime.

It has since been revealed that the killing of Suleimani had been adopted as US policy last June, following the Iranian downing of an American spy drone over the strategic Strait of Hormuz. Trump’s order to execute this policy following the storming of the US embassy in Baghdad by Iraqi protesters, however, caught the US military unprepared for an uncontrolled spiral of retaliations and counter-retaliations. The latest deployments indicate that preparations for all-out conflict are now well underway.

Whether achieved through “maximum pressure” or all-out war, US imperialism’s aims are the same: the imposition of a pliant puppet regime in a geostrategically critical country that links Europe and Asia, commands the crucial “choke point” of the Strait of Hormuz through which 20 percent of the world’s traded oil flows, and possesses the world’s fourth-largest proven reserves of oil and second-largest of natural gas. The conquest of Iran is viewed by Washington as an indispensable strategic preparation for direct conflict with its “great power” rivals, China and Russia.

The extent to which US imperialism is prepared to go to achieve this aim was indicated in a chilling article by longtime military analyst William Arkin published this week by Newsweek titled “With New Weapon in Donald Trump’s Hands, the Iran Crisis Risks Going Nuclear.”

Arkin cites previously classified information that in 2016, before Trump’s inauguration, the US military carried out an exercise dubbed “Global Thunder 17” that simulated a US nuclear response against Iran in retaliation for the sinking of an American aircraft carrier and the use of chemical weapons against US troops. He cites a government contractor who helped write the war scenario as saying that it was chosen because it “allowed the greatest integration of nuclear weapons, conventional military, missile defense, cyber, and space into what nuclear strategists call ‘21st Century deterrence.’”

Since those war games, Arkin writes, the Pentagon “has deployed a new nuclear weapon which increases the prospects for nuclear war. The new nuclear weapon, called the W76–2, is a ‘low yield’ missile warhead intended for exactly the type of Iran scenario that played out in the last days of the Obama administration.”

These weapons, deliverable by Trident II missiles fired from submarines, are considered a more “credible deterrent” because they are more “usable” than larger warheads.

“As the current nuclear war plans are written,” Arkin warns, “the use of such a weapon could also be justified almost Hiroshima-like, as a shocking thunderclap to forestall a wider and theoretically more destructive all-out war.”

Arkin’s article cites four unnamed senior military officers as expressing concern over a “Donald Trump” factor, i.e., “that there is something about this president and the new weapons that makes contemplating crossing the nuclear threshold a unique danger.”

The reality is that the doctrine providing for a “preemptive” nuclear strike against Iran was inherited by the Trump administration from the Democratic administration of Obama. The criminality of US imperialism, expressed in the Suleimani assassination and on a far wider scale in the threat of a “preemptive” nuclear strike against Iran, is a measure of the crisis of US imperialism, which is driven to offset the decline of its global hegemony by a resort to devastating military force.

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Last week, Trump called for a new Iran nuclear deal, claiming:

“(W)e must all work together toward making a deal with Iran that makes the world a safer and more peaceful place (sic).”

That’s precisely the JCPOA’s aim — even though the world community knows Iran’s nuclear program has no military component, never did, abhors nukes, wants them eliminated everywhere, and banned their development internally.

It’s well know that the Islamic Republic never attacked another country, threatening none except in self-defense if attacked, its legitimate right under international law.

The way to “make the world a safer and more peaceful place” is for the US to end its forever wars on one country after another.

Trump’s abandonment of the JCPOA jeopardizes regional peace, stability and security — including pressure on Britain, France, Germany, and the EU to breach their mandated obligations under the deal, effectively killing it.

Trump’s agenda toward Iran is all about wanting its sovereign independence replaced by pro-Western puppet rule, along with gaining control over its vast hydrocarbon resources and eliminating Israel’s main regional rival.

His notion of a new nuclear deal is something along the lines of unacceptable demands by Pompeo in May 2018.

His chief “diplomat” falsely called the JCPOA beset with “fatal flaws,” falsely accused Iran of “l(ying) for years about having had a nuclear weapons program,” falsely said “Iran entered into the JCPOA in bad faith (and) continues to lie” about its nuclear program (sic).

Calling “mechanisms for inspecting and verifying Iran’s compliance with the deal…not strong enough,” he falsely accused the IAEA of failing to do its job.

Iran’s nuclear program is the world’s most intensively monitored. It’s fully compliant with its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treat (NPT) and JCPOA obligations.

Israel prohibits inspections of its nuclear bomb development and production facilities. Nor does the US permit monitoring of its nuclear operations.

Pompeo lied claiming Iran’s “ballistic and cruise missiles (can) deliver nuclear warheads.” They’re not designed to carry them. No evidence suggests otherwise.

Iranian missile development, testing, and production comply fully with Security Council Res. 2231. They’re designed to carry conventional warheads exclusively.

Neither Security Council 2231 or any other SC resolutions prohibit Tehran’s legitimate ballistic missile development, testing and production.

Trump regime hardliners claiming otherwise want Iran’s defense capabilities weakened.

Its strength gives Pentagon and IDF commanders pause about attacking a nation able to hit back hard against an aggressor.

Pompeo falsely accused Iran of “spending its resources fueling proxy wars across the Middle East…perpetuat(ing) a conflict that has displaced more than 6 million Syrians” internally and millions more “outside its borders” — falsely blaming Iran for US aggression in Syria, using jihadists as imperial proxies, supported by Pentagon terror-bombing.

Iranian military advisors are involved in Syria and Iraq in combatting US-supported terrorism, not fostering it anywhere.

No “Iranian aggression” exists against any other country — a US, NATO, Israeli specialty.

Pompeo demanded Iran cease all uranium enrichment and pledge no plutonium processing ever. The JCPOA permits enough of the former for energy use and research.

Pompeo: Tehran must allow “unqualified access to all sites throughout the country,” including off-limits military ones under the JCPOA.

Its “government must cease its regional military activities.” Its advisors are solely involved in combating US supported terrorists in Syria on request of its government, aiding Iraq the same way.

Pompeo demanded Tehran cease  supporting legitimate entities Washington illegally declared terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Yemeni Houthis.

US citizens held by Iran must be released, no matter what offenses they’re accused of committing.

The Islamic Republic “must cease being a threat to Israel.” It never was and isn’t now, the Jewish state a major threat to regional and global security.

It “must end its…ballistic missiles…launching or development of nuclear-capable missile systems” – the latter something it doesn’t have or want, the former it has every right to develop.

It “must…permit the disarming, demobilization, and reintegration of Shia militias” in Iraq. Tehran supports what Washington rejects – Iraqi sovereignty and right to self-defense.

Iran must “cease harboring senior al-Qaida leaders” – a US specialty, the Islamic Republic strongly opposed to the scourge they represent.

“Iran…must end the IRGC Quds Force’s support for terrorists and militant partners around the world.” What Iran abhors, Washington supports.

Pompeo called for a Senate-ratified treaty replacing the JCPOA. He and the Trump regime want Iran transformed into a defenseless US vassal state, its sovereign independence eliminated.

They want what no responsible leadership would agree to anywhere.

Iranian officials rejected Pompeo’s unacceptable demands.

They refuse to deal with the Trump regime, especially in the wake of General Soleimani’s assassination by DJT OK’d terror-bombing.

His unlawful withdrawal from the JCPOA, abandonment of the INF Treaty, and unacceptable demands against Iran and other sovereign independent states is further evidence that the US can never be trusted.

Time and again breaching international treaties, Security Council resolutions, the UN Charter, and other international laws shows diplomacy with the US accomplishes nothing.

Whatever one US regime agrees to, a successor may abandon.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

In the two weeks since Washington violated Iraq’s sovereignty to assassinate Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) General Qassem Suleimani, major Canadian corporate media outlets and leading figures within the political establishment have voiced their support for such acts of state terrorism. To the extent that any criticisms have been made, they have revolved around the question of whether Suleimani’s killing was a tactical error that could undermine US imperialism’s position in the Middle East.

Providing implicit support for the US drone strike, Canada’s Foreign Ministry responded just hours after the illegal January 3 killing by issuing a statement denouncing Iranian “aggression” and calling for “de-escalation.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau avoided media appearances for several days thereafter, then remarked that he would have preferred that Canada had been informed in advance of the strike, given the large number of Canadian troops working alongside the US military in Iraq.

When on January 8 a reporter again solicited his government’s view of the assassination, which was illegal under both US and international law, Trudeau went even further in extending his government’s support. “Canada has long been aware of the threat posed by the IRGC on regional and global safety and security,” said Trudeau. “The Americans made a decision based on their threat assessment. It was a threat assessment the US was tasked with making and made.”

The Trudeau Liberal government has also welcomed Tuesday’s move by the major European imperialist powers—Germany, France, and Britain—to file a complaint charging Iranian noncompliance with the 2015 nuclear accord. This step puts the European powers on a 60-day fast track to joining the US in imposing and policing crippling economic sanctions on Iran, although Tehran, as verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and all the other signatories to the accord, fully adhered to its terms until Washington withdrew with the avowed intention of destroying it.

“Canada strongly supports the diplomatic engagement of France, Germany and the United Kingdom in pressing Iran to respect its commitments under the agreement, including through activating the Dispute Resolution Mechanism,” declared Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne in a statement.

Major media outlets have chimed in with full-throated endorsements of Trump’s targeted killing. In an op-ed piece bluntly titled “Donald Trump is right on Iran,” Globe and Mail columnist Konrad Yakabuski wrote of Suleimani, “At some point, he had to be stopped. The real question is why it hadn’t happened sooner.”

Turning to the justification Trump gave for the drone strike, Yakabuski all but argued that Washington should have a blank cheque to eliminate any military or political figure that gets in the way of its interests. “Even setting aside the threat of an imminent attack on U.S. targets being planned by Gen. Suleimani evoked by the Trump administration to justify the timing of last week’s strike,” he wrote, “there is no doubt that Iran’s top military strategist had plenty of American blood on his hands… He stoked a civil war in Yemen, propped up Bashar al-Assad’s butchering regime in Syria, funded and armed a Shia militia in Iraq and Hezbollah in Lebanon, … Eventually, someone in Washington had to stop Gen. Suleimani and put the theocrats in charge in Tehran on notice. It should have been done years ago.”

The breathtaking cynicism of such comments, reflected above all in their deliberate silence on the horrendous crimes of US imperialism and its allies in the Middle East over the past quarter century, can only be understood if one appreciates Canada’s deep involvement in Washington’s drive to establish unbridled domination over the world’s most important oil-exporting region.

Yakabuski portrays Suleimani as the evil genius responsible for pulling the strings behind the scenes in every major crisis in the Middle East over the past two decades to cover up the reality that American imperialism, with able assistance from its Canadian ally, bears responsibility for millions of deaths and the destruction of entire societies, from Afghanistan to Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen.

Yakabuski also stated his approval of Trump’s provocative May 2018 unilateral abrogation of the Iran nuclear accord. Parroting the lies of Trump and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and willfully ignoring Washington’s war threats against Iran and arming of its regional allies like the Saudis and Israel to the teeth, Yakabuski claimed, “Instead of encouraging Iran to abandon its terrorist activities across the Middle East, the sectarian regime in Tehran used the windfall it pocketed from the removal of sanctions to sow even greater chaos.”

The Globe, long considered the mouthpiece of the most powerful sections of Canada’s Bay Street financial elite, also published a comment endorsing the Suleimani assassination by Hugh Segal. A former chief of staff to Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and an influential figure within policymaking circles, Segal denounced Suleimani as the “most powerful and malevolent supreme commander of Iran’s terrorist and proxy forces.” He then proceeded to urge the Canadian government to step up preparations for war with Iran by organizing a NATO ministerial meeting to declare that the military alliance would interpret any Iranian attack on US military personnel as a violation of NATO’s Article 5, which requires all 28 member states to support military operations by a member if it comes under attack.

“[A] broader ministerial meeting to underline the reality of Article 5 would be broadly constructive,” stated Segal. “After all, it would be a serious path to restraint to make it perfectly clear that NATO would view a clear attack on the United States, its people, forces or homeland—be it kinetic, cyber or via terrorist proxy—as an act of aggression against all NATO members.”

Segal’s comments make clear that the Canadian ruling class is preparing to join the United States in a military assault on Iran should Washington’s campaign of “maximum pressure” on Tehran provoke all-out war. Such a conflict would rapidly engulf the entire Mideast and risks drawing in the other great powers.

The Trudeau government is already in the midst of a massive rearmament program, buying new fleets of warships and warplanes and implementing plans to hike military spending by more than 70 percent by 2026.

The Canadian ruling elite’s collective silence on the illegality of the Trump administration’s assassination of a foreign leader in a third country—an act that was manifestly both an act of war and a war crime—underscores that in pursuit of its global predatory imperialist ambitions, it will not allow legal niceties, let alone moral qualms, get in the way.

Despite Canada’s carefully choreographed image as a “peacekeeping nation” committed to international law and diplomacy, the ruling elite’s disdain for legal principles when it comes to enforcing its aggressive foreign policy interests is nothing new. In 2003, when the United States, in open defiance of the UN and international law, invaded Iraq on bogus claims of “weapons of mass destruction,” Prime Minister Jean Chretien brushed aside questions about the legality of Washington’s actions by declaring that such matters would be a matter for future historians to debate. While Chretien did not deploy Canadian troops to join the invasion, Canada played a supporting role behind the scenes, and bore an increased share of the military burden in Afghanistan to facilitate the deployment of more American troops to Iraq.

The cautious criticism issued from some quarters of the US assassination of Suleimani has nothing to do with opposition to war or concern about the legal and political implications of the most powerful imperialist country in the world adopting state terrorism as official government policy. Rather, these misgivings reflect, much like the comments made by leading Democrats in the US, the fears of a section of the ruling elite that Trump acted too hastily and does not have a broader strategy for the consolidation of US hegemony over the energy-rich and geostrategically critical Middle East.

The right-wing National Post summed this up in an editorial entitled “Suleimani deserved what he got, but we’ll see what comes next.” “The question at the heart of the attack on Iran’s Gen. Qassem Suleimani isn’t one of legality or justification,” asserted the Post. “The world is unquestionably better off without him. Whether it is safer is the key question. We’ve been in this situation before, and the outcome doesn’t bode well: In 2003 the administration of George W. Bush set out to make the world ‘safer’ by overthrowing Saddam Hussein.”

The Post ’s standpoint is clear. Trump’s lack of foresight and recklessness risks further destabilizing a region that is central to the geopolitical and economic interests of American and Canadian imperialism. What they want is a more considered, comprehensive diplomatic, economic and military strategy to push back Iranian influence and strengthen US imperialist control over the Middle East vis-a-vis its main strategic rivals, Russia and China.

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Featured image is from South Front

On January first of this new decade, 2020 the Dow Jones was at a record high; $28,634. What does that mean?

Since the great depression of 1929 there have been 13 severe downturns revealing time and again that the market is not stable.

Our most recent big down turn was in 2007-8 in what is now referred to as the Financial Crisis which then precipitated the Great Recession of 2009-2010. The Dow Jones dropped over 50% from an Oct. 2007 high of $14,164 to $6,594 in March 2009. Housing prices fell 33%, more than in the depression.

In November 2008 as the crisis was unfolding, the Queen was at the London School of Economics possibly for two reasons; first because of her duty as Queen and possibly because of her personal wealth which is estimated to be over $500 million. She asked a simple question about the crash; “Why did nobody notice it (coming)?”

The Queens question was valid. Prof Garicano of the London School said:

“She was asking me if these things were so large, how come everyone missed it.” He told the Queen: “At every stage, someone was relying on somebody else and everyone thought they were doing the right thing.” What nonsense!

However his answer does clarify the fact that economics is not a science. Not a science despite the fact that universities around the world offer economics courses as if it is. Every year they graduate people with economic degrees and many find work as economists, and although numbers vary, that is thought to be at least 50,000 people, possibly as high as over 100,000 worldwide. No matter what number is right, it’s a lot of people and almost all of them missed our last huge market crash.

But not everyone! Those in mainstream economics did… but I’ve found about a dozen people who didn’t and those are the people we need to learn from.

One is the economist Ann Pettifor (born 1947), she studied politics and economics in her native South Africa and now lives in Britain. In 2003 she predicted the 2007 crash in an article in The New Statesman magazine which she followed up in her 2006 book The Coming First World Debt Crisis. She has spent a lifetime campaigning to end the unjust debts we’ve imposed on poor nations and poor people.  Her most recent books are on how to create a green new deal and how to break the power of the bankers.

Another who predicted the melt down was Peter Schiff, a stock broker and advisor who has a degree in finance and accounting from UC Berkeley. He appeared in debates on Fox News in 2006 and was ridiculed by his fellow commentators for his bearish views. In August 2006, he declared that  “The United States is like the Titanic and I am here with the lifeboat trying to get people to leave the ship … I see a real financial crisis coming for the United States.” In later debates, he predicted crashing real estate prices in 2007 and a looming “credit crunch”.

The title of Schiff’s 2007 book, Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse, makes it clear that he too predicted the financial crisis. He described the US as a “house of cards: impressive on the outside, but a disaster waiting to happen beneath the surface”.

The 2007 financial crisis began because of the foolish practice of giving mortgages to unqualified borrowers… we’ve heard of them but not directly. We heard of subprime mortgages. The term was a smoke screen for the corrupt bank practice of lending to unqualified buyers. Subprime were the borrowers, not the mortgages.

In September 2007 the British bank Northern Rock was the first to go because they could not sell their mortgages. Lehman Brothers, the fourth largest investment bank in the United States with a 158 year history was next. It folded on September 15, 2008 because it couldn’t sell its sub prime mortgages. Then the Federal Reserve Bank stepped in and began what they called quantitative easing to save the banks and pass on the costs of doing that to the people.

But back to the story. Where should the Dow Jones be?

Below is a long term chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Not the clearest chart but it goes from 1928 to 2019. In about the year 1975, the market starts to deviate from its slow steady decades long growth and begin to soar and the soaring has not stopped. Two questions come up: why did it soar and is the increase real and sustainable.

Whatever changed, it was not in the real economy, that’s the world where people make things, grow things and distribute things. That ‘real‘ economy would have a projected value of about $5,000 today (take a ruler and extend the historic growth line to check for yourself.) Nothing phenomenal has happened in the real world to suggest otherwise.

So what happened in the seventies? The United States went off the gold standard, in 1971. In 1974 the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision came into being which, along with the Bank for International Settlements controls global money and both operate in secret. Both of these were huge changes.

What also began to change was the finance industry. In the 1940’s the finance ‘industry’ amounted to about 2% of United States Gross Domestic Product.  By 2005 it had reached 8.3%. An additional 6.3% doesn’t sound like much but 6.3% of $17 trillion dollars does: that’s $1,070,000,000,000! What extra value did we get from the added expense? In my view, none.

And by 2016 the Washington post reported that it had grown further to 20% of GDP which fits in with what we hear about the financialization of the economy. The problem is, that the extra billions don’t go go for making things or feeding or caring for people. They go to the rich and they falsely inflate the value of the stock market moving us into new territory mythically away from the real world. Do the people get any benefit from the extra 18% of GDP that has moved out of their grasp?

And to make matters worse, the FED continued and continues to pump money into the market with continued quantitative easy long after the crisis had ended.

So where will the markets go from here? When will the bubble burst again? No one knows.

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This article was originally published on An Insider’s Memoir.

With the announcement today, January 16, 2020 of the signing of the US-China Phase 1 ‘mini’ trade deal, and the US Senate’s simultaneous ratification of the USMCA ‘NAFTA 2.0’ trade agreement, Trump’s so-called ‘trade wars’ are at an end.  In election year 2020 nothing of additional significance will be achieved by Trump with regard to restructure US and global trade relations. While Trump himself will make further threats and claims, likely aimed at the Europeans, no country will agree to any changes this year when the possibility exists of Trump leaving the presidency next November 2020.  To repeat once again, the Trump trade wars are over. As the comedian once said: ‘what you see is what you get, baby’.

And what do we see in the much-hyped and grossly exaggerated Phase 1 US-China trade deal?

China Phase 1 Deal: A Feeble Deal on Trade

Behind the  typical Trump bombast, hyperbole, and outright lies, the China Phase 1 deal was perhaps best summed up in the front page of the Wall St. Journal on January 13, 2020, by the Ben Steil, Director for International Economics for the Council on Foreign Relations (i.e. the major think tank for the US capitalist class): “China is set to do little more than restore agriculture purchases and offer some nice words on financial services and intellectual property…Trump could have had that two years ago without the tariff damage”.

What’s really in the Phase 1 deal? What has Trump actually achieved through nearly two years of negotiations, tariffs, and threats and intimidation in the nearly two year long China trade negotiations?  And what have been the consequent negative impacts on US households, businesses, farmers, and the US and global economy?

(51% Majority Ownership)

First, in Phase 1 there’s the claim that US business, especially US bankers, now have more access to China markets. They can have 51% ownership control of their operations in China. Trump claims he achieved that.  But it’s just another Trump lie. The fact is China began implementing the 51% financial ownership rule back in 2018.  European banks have already set up full ownership operations there. So has Goldman-Sachs, the premier US investment (shadow) bank. Trump didn’t get anything there China already offered and gave to others.

(Currency Manipulation)

Trump says the deal means China has agreed to no longer ‘manipulate’ its currency. Trump this past week then officially removed the US declaration that China was a currency manipulator. The importance of currency manipulation is that Trump wants to block China’s potential to devalue its currency, the Yuan, which would offset any US tariffs easily.  But China has not been a currency manipulator at all. In fact, it has been entering global money markets to buy and sell its currency to ensure that it remains within a stable range of exchange to the US dollar no greater than 7.1 to the $. If anything China has committed significant resources to ensure the Yuan does not devalue. That’s the opposite of a currency manipulation to devalue and offset US tariffs. China could have easily done so throughout the last 22 months of trade negotiations with the US, but it didn’t. The claim of China as currency manipulator has been a lie from the beginning, used by Trump (and others before) to try to label China as the problem with the American media and public.  It’s worth noting as well that while China has spent billions to ensure its currency does not devalue or rise, the US dollar has been allowed to rise significantly the past two years. That has caused other global currencies, especially those of emerging market economies like Latin America, to devalue dramatically and plunge those economies into recession. The US has been the great currency manipulator and destabilizer—not China.

(IP and Tech Transfer)

Trump also claims the China Phase 1 deal means new limits on China forcing technology transfer of US companies doing business in China and on intellectual property. (Protecting intellectual property mostly means for the US that US pharma companies will enjoy better patent protection—i.e. prevent competition).

But whether IP or tech transfer, there have been no details released by the Trump administration as to how this is so. In fact, as if January 15, 2020 the text of the Phase 1 deal is still not available in either English or Chinese, according to the New York Times.

All we’ve got in the Phase 1 deal, according to those who have had access to date, is China’s promise to punish China firms that obtain sensitive tech information via acquisitions; or stop requiring that foreign companies turn over technology to China as a condition of doing business in joint ventures in China. 

But certainly in any joint venture tech information can be obtained by means other than formally turning it over to China government officials. And doesn’t a company that acquires another have legal right to all its product information? According to a Derek Scissors of the American Enterprise Institute, in the Phase 1 deal the Chinese “have committed to continue doing the same thing they have always been doing”. What China refused to agree to is to refrain from engaging in cybertheft of companies—since of course the US refused to agree to the same.

So forget about any big breakthrough in the Phase 1 deal associated with IP and/or tech transfer as well.

($100B in US Farm Goods Purchases?)

Trump’s big claim about Phase 1 is that China has agreed to buy $200b more in goods over the next two years, $100b a year roughly divided between $50b for farm and $50b nonfarm goods and services.  But was this a new gain from negotiations and tariff intimidation? And will it be actually realized over the next two years? And is it really $50b a year more in farm purchases?

First, China had already offered in 2018 to increase its purchases of US goods and services by $1 trillion over the next five years. So it already put that number, $200b a year, on the negotiating table. But that was two years ago.

But most economists today doubt that China will buy anything near $50b a year in additional farm products from the US. According to the January 15, 2020 New York Times, those who have actually seen the agreement indicate China has actually agreed to buy only $16b more a year over two years. The $50b claim by Trump thus quickly lowered to $40B. Furthermore, the $40B was not new additional purchases.

That $40b is comprised of $24B/yr in farm goods bought by China in 2017, plus the $16B more commitment per yr. for 2020 and 2021.  Farm purchases fell in 2018 and 2019. So the $32B just mostly makes up for the shortfall the last two years. At one point in spring 2019 China farm purchases were as low as $7B a year.

So the $16B more per yr. represents a restoration of what China was buying in 2017, adjusted to make for the declines while the trade war was underway, and it all expires after just two years.  So Trump’s boast of $100B in farm goods reduces to $32B in fact, which mostly makes up for reduced purchases the past two years, and returns to the pre-trade war 2017 level of $24B! Nearly two years of trade war to return to the status quo ante of 2017!

Moreover, trade experts are also saying that even the $16b more in farm good purchases will be difficult to achieve. During the last two years China has diverted its purchases of soybeans and other farm goods to Brazil and other countries. And China has said the Phase 1 will not mean any change in its prior contracts with other countries. It won’t cancel Brazil in order to fulfill US commitments under Phase 1.  So where’s the big surge in China purchases of US farm goods? It’s more like a restoration, with no commitment to increase after two years. And it leaves US farmers with a lot of uncertainty as to future sales plus not enough time, and thus greater risk, to invest in expanded production to meet China’s purchases.

Furthermore, China sees even Phase 1 farm purchases as a goal, not a firm absolute commitment. Its chief trade negotiator, Liu He, has been quoted as saying purchases will occur “according to the needs of the (Chinese) consumer and as market conditions determine”.  Think of the latter phrase “as market conditions determine” as a code word that means China may purchase more depending on whether Trump reduces US tariffs more in tandem.

(Trump $370B Tariffs Remain)

Trump has declared he won’t reduce tariffs on China any further. It now stands as 7.5% on $120B and another 25% on $250B. Trump says he needs to retain the tariffs in order to ensure China abides by the other terms of the agreement. But he can’t have his cake and eat it—i.e. China purchases $100B more a year but Trump keeps $370B. China has made it clear, more purchases are linked to lower tariffs.

So long as Trump’s $370B tariffs remain, it will become increasingly clear that China intends to purchase far less than the $100B a year. It just won’t happen regardless what Phase 1 says. Farm purchases in particular won’t come anything near to even the $32B more ($16B/yr), reported January 15 in the New York Times, let alone to Trump’s inflated claim of $40-$50B.

Trump may believe he needs the continued tariffs to enforce the agreement’s terms by China. But China’s quid pro quo enforcement ‘tool’ is to simply slow or delay its official purchases “as consumer demand and market conditions” dictate.  Its tariffs vs. not fulfilling purchase commitments due to ‘market conditions’.

(Manufacturing & Services)

In addition to the $32B more in farm purchases, reportedly Phase 1 calls for another $78B in manufacturing and $38B services purchases over next two years as part of the Phase 1 deal as well. But that too might not be realized. Most of China’s manufacturing purchases is for Boeing planes, now plagued with shipment cancellations worldwide due to the 737max; and the $38B in services purchases involve mostly Chinese purchase of US education services and tourism, both of which are being sharply cut back by Trump as the US policy now is to discourage Chinese students and research academics coming to the US, and as China tourism to the US slows as relations between the two countries continue to deteriorate.

US auto exports to China will not be affected much either. There’s a major slump in China auto sales, China is committed to rapidly building up its own auto industry, and US companies are racing to move production to China anyway, all of which would reduce the need for China to import autos from the US over the next two years.

Finally, there’s the commitment of China to buy $27B a year more in US energy products, oil and natural gas. The US benefits having an outlet for its rising glut of natural gas and oil, which it is betting on exporting in order to keep supply and prices high in the US market. But should a global recession occur in 2020 or after, China ‘market needs’ and demand for US oil and gas will certainly decline and the commitment to buy in this area will likely fall far short of the annual $27B as well.

(Nextgen Tech War)

Behind the trade was with China has always been the more important tech war between the two countries. The tech war is not be confused with IP or even with tech transfer by US companies in China. It’s much bigger. It’s about next generation technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, and 5G wireless. These are the technologies of the industries of the next decade. They are also the military technologies of the future.  Which country dominates these technologies achieves military hegemony by 2030. Both China and the US know it. And the ‘war’ between them has been occurring behind the cover of tariffs and trade war.

But with the Phase 1 trade deal it is clear that the tech war has been now decoupled from the trade war. It will be (and has continued to be) conducted by other means than tariffs. The US will continue to go after its allies with sanctions should they adopt China tech in these areas. The offensive against the giant China telecom company, Huawei, now the world leader in 5G, is the harbinger of a much greater, wider, and longer conflict between the US and China over nextgen tech.

The China-US tariff/trade war may be over, but the China-US tech war has just begun and will now accelerate.

Trump believes he can engage China over tech in Phase 2 negotiations. But Phase 2 is a fiction. It will not happen. Even if the two countries’ representatives meet it will be a fruitless discussion. Neither will ever come to an agreement. China will never trade next gen technology for tariff reduction. It won’t trade tech for anything the US can offer.

Artificially Intelligence and 5G are key to the development and functioning of next generation hypersonic missiles and hyper-smart torpedoes; for future military drone technology and targeting; and for future battlefield communication and coordination between machine and human. So far the US is ahead in AI but behind in 5G. It has no latter product of its own. Globally, its Huawei and Europe’s Ericsson that are leaders in the product development. The US once premier tech company, AT&T, is now preoccupied with investing in entertainment software and content, driven by its shadow bankers demanding more profits sooner than later. The US is thus forced to try to stop Huawei instead of out-competing it in tech development of 5G.

(Subsidizing State Owned Enterprises)

Not in the Phase 1 deal is the Trump-US complaint that China continues to subsidize its government owned enterprises by enabling low priced costs and inputs to production paid for by China government.  But the US engages in massive subsidization of US companies worldwide as well. It does so by other means. Consider the massive $5.5 trillion tax cut of 2018 for corporations, businesses and investors. The US subsidizes and aids US corporate competitiveness worldwide by tax relief. It also subsidizes the cost of financing exports with the US Export-Import bank. It provides business virtually free R&D from US taxpayer financed technology developed by DARPA, the NSA, National Institutes of Health, and many other means. So it’s really a joke for the US to charge China is engaging in uncompetitive subsidization of its government owned companies.

The Cost of China-US Trade War

Any proper assessment of the Phase 1 deal requires consideration not only of what has been gained (or not gained) but also what has been the cost of the 22 month trade war to the US economy.

Has the trade war actually reduced the US trade deficit—with China and with the rest of the world? Not really.

The deficit in goods with China was just under $350b when Trump assumed office, according to the US Census Bureau. It surged to about $410B by end of 2018. It has since come down to about $350B again. So Trump has merely reduced the trade deficit with China equal to the amount of the deficit increase he oversaw in 2017-18!  With the Phase 1 deal the deficit will almost certainly begin to rise once again.  

On a global scale, as the deficit with China  ballooned and then leveled off at pre-Trump levels, under Trump the US goods trade deficit with the rest of the world continued to accelerate rapidly under Trump and still continues to do so. From roughly $375B when Trump entered office in January 2017, the US deficit has surged beyond $500B by end of 2019. So much for Trump’s trade wars apart from China!

What was the cost of reducing the surge in the China trade deficit he created?

The US National Bureau of Economic Research estimated that Trump’s China tariffs were fully passed on to US companies in all industries except steel, where half were passed on. It cost US businesses $42 billion. And they passed most of it on to consumers and US households.

A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (authors Weinstein and Redding), “found that approximately 100 percent of import taxes fell on American buyers” (New York Times, January 7, 2020, p. B4).

US farmers took a big hit. Trump provided $28B to the farm sector in new subsidies, the cost of which added to the US budget deficit (now more than $1 trillion) and rising national debt (now more than $23 trillion). Most of the subsidy went to large farmers and agribusiness, however. Farm income contracted throughout 2018-19. Farm loan delinquency rates have now risen to a six year high, per the FDIC, and Chapter 12 farm bankruptcy filings are highest since 2012.

The trade war devastated US business confidence with the result that business investment in the US contracted throughout 2019.

US consumer households experienced a reduction of $806 dollars in real income spending due to the tariffs.

And estimates are that Trump’s trade wars have reduced global investment and GDP by as much as $700 billion.

Concluding Remarks

Trump administration spokespersons—Larry Kudlow Trump’s Economic Advisor and Steve Mnuchin, Treasury Secretary—are, per latest report, peddling the prediction that the US economy will grow by up to 0.75% more in GDP terms in 2020 as a result of the Phase 1 China deal. But that is based on the absurd assumption that China will buy $100B-$150B more in US imports in 2020—a misrepresentation which, as was explained above, is as ridiculous as it is false.

No doubt the media will continue to spin the exaggerations, although nearly all economists’ estimates of the Phase 1 deal conclude ‘there’s no there there’, at best.

As minimal are the gains from the Phase 1 agreement with China, Trump’s ‘other’ trade wars and deals, including the also much heralded USMCA (NAFTA 2.0), produce even less in net terms. Whether the US-South Korea free trade agreement, the Trump tariffs on steel and aluminum worldwide, Trump’s recent tariffs on European wine and spirits, or his verbal understandings with Japan on trade—all represent even less achieved than the minimal recent agreement with China.

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Dr. Rasmus is author of the just published book, ‘The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Economic Policy from Reagan to Trump’, Clarity Press, January 2020, where chapter 8 addresses the origins and evolution of Trump’s trade wars in further detail. The book is now available at jackrasmus.com, Clarity Press, Amazon, and other locations. Dr. Rasmus hosts the Alternative Visions radio show on the Progressive Radio Network, blogs at jackrasmus.com, and tweets at @drjackrasmus. His website is http://kyklosproductions.com

Iran attacked US forces stationed at two bases in Iraq with 15 missiles on January 8th, but it does not appear missile defense systems were used to counter them. Eric Gomez, a missile defense policy analyst at the Cato Institute, said the next day, “And from the reporting I’ve seen about last night, it doesn’t appear that the US had a Patriot battery actually stationed at either of these bases.” The bases hit are Iraqi bases that house US troops, who have now been asked to leave Iraq by a parliament resolution.  Iraqi officials are deeply concerned about the lack of air defenses in Iraq, in the wake of a proxy-war between Iran and the US, being waged while they sit sandwiched in the middle. 

The Iraqi ambassador to Iran, Saad Jawad Qandil, said that buying the Russian anti-aircraft and anti-missile system:

“is on the table of discussions between Russia and Iraq, and it is possible for Iraq to buy this system. Iraqi-Russian relations are very good in light of Baghdad’s keenness on good relations with all neighboring countries. Iraq is keen to diversify arms sources, and we have armament contracts with Russia.”

Iraqi parliamentary security and defense committee chair Mohammad Reza announced the resumption of Baghdad’s efforts to buy the Russian air defense system of long and intermediate-range.

Alexander Sherin, the first deputy chairman of Russia’s parliament, said “They, apparently, just realized there that they are an occupied country, which does not have the right to any independent actions,” and he added, “The attack on a high-ranking military leader on their own territory without any prior notice was a clear blow to their international authority.” He was referring to the recent assassination Trump ordered of the Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis at Baghdad airport.

In 2018 Iraq was reported in discussions with Moscow concerning buying the S-400 system.  Iraqi MP Hakim Al-Zamili, head of the Iraqi parliament’s security and defense committee, had said “Iraq has the right to own cutting-edge weapons to defend its territory and air space from air attacks. Terrorism targets our country abundant in places sacred for every Iraqi. There are signs and warnings that extremists might use aircraft for attacks on those shrines, which cause lots of worries and anxiety in the country, as it was after an attack on Samarra’s holy places. So Iraq intends to possess such a system as S-400 to defend the land, shrines and air space. We are serious about that.”

The S-400 was developed to destroy drones, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and fighter jets.  Russian media claims it is superior to French or American made alternatives, and UK military expert Richard Connolly at Birmingham University seems to agree, “The Russians and before them, the Soviet Union were always leading in missile technology. The reason for that was that the Americans and the West produced better aircraft.”

The American refusals

Even though Iraq has repeatedly asked to buy updated air defenses and weaponry from the US, they have been refused.  The US has also refused to leave Iraq.  Both refusals support the US position: never leave Iraq.  The US will not allow Iraq to be strong and independent. To support the US position to remain, Iraq must be kept in a weak military position, so that the US is justified in remaining an occupying force.  The Trumpstrategy is to keep Iran in check, regardless of the suffering of the Iraqi people who endure a proxy-war on their soil.

Lessons learned

Saddam Hussein was a US ally at one time. He bought US weapons and defenses. He had thought he was safe in invading Kuwait, as he thought he had the green-light from the US Ambassador, but was surprised to find he was under attack by the US in Operation Desert Storm in 1991.  The US military had no trouble defeating him because they had all the codes to the equipment he had bought from them.  The US ‘turned him off’.

Turkey insisted on buying the S-400 from Russia, even though they are a US ally and NATO member, but they wanted a non-American system of air defense.  President Erdogan of Turkey is convinced that the US was instigated and participated in the July 2016 attempted coup in Turkey that left more than 250 dead and 2,000 injured and resulted in significant property damage. Erdogan’s plane was chased by an F-16 US jet.

Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar told his American counterpart Mark Esper in July 2019, that buying the S-400 was “not a choice but a necessity.”

Iraq has learned from the experience of others that the US cannot be trusted.  Besides Turkey, China and India have bought the S-400 system.

Thank you, now go home!

Iranian Major General Esmail Qaani, General Soleimani’s successor, has pledged his support for regional militias to be used to confront the US, which is seen as an occupying force in Iraq as well as in neighboring Syria.

Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said Wednesday it was up to the government to fulfill parliament’s decision to expel the US troops. “I request that the president, parliament and political parties nominate a new prime minister, a new government that has full authority because these difficult, complicated circumstances, especially with pulling of the troops … that needs a government with full authority so it can go forward,” he said.  Abdul Mahdi asked US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to work out a timetable for US troop withdrawal, but Pompeo refused to acknowledge the parliament resolution or the formal request from the Iraqi Prime Minister.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a political commentator.

Featured image is from Mideast Discourse

The Raging Twenties started with a bang with the targeted assassination of Iran’s General Qasem Soleimani.

Yet a bigger bang awaits us throughout the decade: the myriad declinations of the New Great Game in Eurasia, which pits the US against Russia, China and Iran, the three major nodes of Eurasia integration.

Every game-changing act in geopolitics and geoeconomics in the coming decade will have to be analyzed in connection to this epic clash.

The Deep State and crucial sectors of the US ruling class are absolutely terrified that China is already outpacing the “indispensable nation” economically and that Russia has outpaced it militarily. The Pentagon officially designates the three Eurasian nodes as “threats.”

Hybrid War techniques – carrying inbuilt 24/7 demonization – will proliferate with the aim of containing China’s “threat,” Russian “aggression” and Iran’s “sponsorship of terrorism.” The myth of the “free market” will continue to drown under the imposition of a barrage of illegal sanctions, euphemistically defined as new trade “rules.”

Yet that will be hardly enough to derail the Russia-China strategic partnership. To unlock the deeper meaning of this partnership, we need to understand that Beijing defines it as rolling towards a “new era.” That implies strategic long-term planning – with the key date being 2049, the centennial of New China.

The horizon for the multiple projects of the Belt and Road Initiative – as in the China-driven New Silk Roads – is indeed the 2040s, when Beijing expects to have fully woven a new, multipolar paradigm of sovereign nations/partners across Eurasia and beyond, all connected by an interlocking maze of belts and roads.

The Russian project – Greater Eurasia – somewhat mirrors Belt & Road and will be integrated with it. Belt & Road, the Eurasia Economic Union, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank are all converging towards the same vision.

Realpolitik

So this “new era”, as defined by the Chinese, relies heavily on close Russia-China coordination, in every sector. Made in China 2025 is encompassing a series of techno/scientific breakthroughs. At the same time, Russia has established itself as an unparalleled technological resource for weapons and systems that the Chinese still cannot match.

At the latest BRICS summit in Brasilia, President Xi Jinping told Vladimir Putin that “the current international situation with rising instability and uncertainty urge China and Russia to establish closer strategic coordination.” Putin’s response: “Under the current situation, the two sides should continue to maintain close strategic communication.”

Russia is showing China how the West respects realpolitik power in any form, and Beijing is finally starting to use theirs. The result is that after five centuries of Western domination – which, incidentally, led to the decline of the Ancient Silk Roads – the Heartland is back, with a bang, asserting its preeminence.

On a personal note, my travels these past two years, from West Asia to Central Asia, and my conversations these past two months with analysts in Nur-Sultan, Moscow and Italy, have allowed me to get deeper into the intricacies of what sharp minds define as the Double Helix. We are all aware of the immense challenges ahead – while barely managing to track the stunning re-emergence of the Heartland in real-time.

In soft power terms, the sterling role of Russian diplomacy will become even more paramount – backed up by a Ministry of Defense led by Sergei Shoigu, a Tuvan from Siberia, and an intel arm that is capable of constructive dialogue with everybody: India/Pakistan, North/South Korea, Iran/Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan.

This apparatus does smooth (complex) geopolitical issues over in a manner that still eludes Beijing.

In parallel, virtually the whole Asia-Pacific – from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean – now takes into full consideration Russia-China as a counter-force to US naval and financial overreach.

Stakes in Southwest Asia

The targeted assassination of Soleimani, for all its long-term fallout, is just one move in the Southwest Asia chessboard. What’s ultimately at stake is a macro geoeconomic prize: a land bridge from the Persian Gulf to the Eastern Mediterranean.

Last summer, an Iran-Iraq-Syria trilateral established that “the goal of negotiations is to activate the Iranian-Iraqi-Syria load and transport corridor as part of a wider plan for reviving the Silk Road.”

There could not be a more strategic connectivity corridor, capable of simultaneously interlinking with the International North-South Transportation Corridor; the Iran-Central Asia-China connection all the way to the Pacific; and projecting Latakia towards the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.

What’s on the horizon is, in fact, a sub-sect of Belt & Road in Southwest Asia. Iran is a key node of Belt & Road; China will be heavily involved in the rebuilding of Syria; and Beijing-Baghdad signed multiple deals and set up an Iraqi-Chinese Reconstruction Fund (income from 300,000 barrels of oil a day in exchange for Chinese credit for Chinese companies rebuilding Iraqi infrastructure).

A quick look at the map reveals the “secret” of the US refusing to pack up and leave Iraq, as demanded by the Iraqi Parliament and Prime Minister: to prevent the emergence of this corridor by any means necessary. Especially when we see that all the roads that China is building across Central Asia – I navigated many of them in November and December – ultimately link China with Iran.

The final objective: to unite Shanghai to the Eastern Mediterranean – overland, across the Heartland.

As much as Gwadar port in the Arabian Sea is an essential node of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, and part of China’s multi-pronged “escape from Malacca” strategy, India also courted Iran to match Gwadar via the port of Chabahar in the Gulf of Oman.

So as much as Beijing wants to connect the Arabian Sea with Xinjiang, via the economic corridor, India wants to connect with Afghanistan and Central Asia via Iran.

Yet India’s investments in Chabahar may come to nothing, with New Delhi still mulling whether to become an active part of the US “Indo-Pacific” strategy, which would imply dropping Tehran.

The Russia-China-Iran joint naval exercise in late December, starting exactly from Chabahar, was a timely wake-up for New Delhi. India simply cannot afford to ignore Iran and end up losing its key connectivity node, Chabahar.

The immutable fact: everyone needs and wants Iran connectivity. For obvious reasons, since the Persian empire, this is the privileged hub for all Central Asian trade routes.

On top of it, Iran for China is a matter of national security. China is heavily invested in Iran’s energy industry. All bilateral trade will be settled in yuan or in a basket of currencies bypassing the US dollar.

US neocons, meanwhile, still dream of what the Cheney regime was aiming at in the past decade: regime change in Iran leading to the US dominating the Caspian Sea as a springboard to Central Asia, only one step away from Xinjiang and weaponization of anti-China sentiment. It could be seen as a New Silk Road in reverse to disrupt the Chinese vision.

Battle of the Ages

A new book, The Impact of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, by Jeremy Garlick of the University of Economics in Prague, carries the merit of admitting that, “making sense” of Belt & Road “is extremely difficult.”

This is an extremely serious attempt to theorize Belt & Road’s immense complexity – especially considering China’s flexible, syncretic approach to policymaking, quite bewildering for Westerners. To reach his goal, Garlick gets into Tang Shiping’s social evolution paradigm, delves into neo-Gramscian hegemony, and dissects the concept of “offensive mercantilism” – all that as part of an effort in “complex eclecticism.”

The contrast with the pedestrian Belt & Road demonization narrative emanating from US “analysts” is glaring. The book tackles in detail the multifaceted nature of Belt & Road’s trans-regionalism as an evolving, organic process.

Imperial policymakers won’t bother to understand how and why Belt & Road is setting a new global paradigm. The NATO summit in London last month offered a few pointers. NATO uncritically adopted three US priorities: even more aggressive policy towards Russia; containment of China (including military surveillance); and militarization of space – a spin-off from the 2002 Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine.

So NATO will be drawn into the “Indo-Pacific” strategy – which means containment of China. And as NATO is the EU’s weaponized arm, that implies the US interfering on how Europe does business with China – at every level.

Retired US Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s chief of staff from 2001 to 2005, cuts to the chase: “America exists today to make war. How else do we interpret 19 straight years of war and no end in sight? It’s part of who we are. It’s part of what the American Empire is. We are going to lie, cheat and steal, as Pompeo is doing right now, as Trump is doing right now, as Esper is doing right now … and a host of other members of my political party, the Republicans, are doing right now. We are going to lie, cheat and steal to do whatever it is we have to do to continue this war complex. That’s the truth of it. And that’s the agony of it.”

Moscow, Beijing and Tehran are fully aware of the stakes. Diplomats and analysts are working on the trend, for the trio, to evolve a concerted effort to protect one another from all forms of hybrid war – sanctions included – launched against each of them.

For the US, this is indeed an existential battle – against the whole Eurasia integration process, the New Silk Roads, the Russia-China strategic partnership, those Russian hypersonic weapons mixed with supple diplomacy, the profound disgust and revolt against US policies all across the Global South, the nearly inevitable collapse of the US dollar. What’s certain is that the Empire won’t go quietly into the night. We should all be ready for the battle of the ages.

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This article was originally published on Asia Times.

Pepe Escobar is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Iranian seamen salute the Russian Navy frigate Yaroslav Mudry while moored at Chabahar on the Gulf of Oman during Iran-Russia-China joint naval drills. The photo was provided by the Iranian Army office on December 27, 2019. Photo: AFP / HO / Iranian Army office

NATO terrorists continued their slaughter of Syrian civilians. Courtesy of mostly the US taxpayer, another residential neighborhood in Aleppo was bombed. Five persons were murdered. Fifteen persons were injured. Homes and other buildings were damaged.

The wounded were rushed to al Jame’a and al Razi hospitals, real Syrian hospitals, not the imaginary ones for which al Qaeda NGO’s and UN rabid hyena tripartite aggressors and their House Servant underlings wail imaginary tears.

What would happen if London, Paris, or New York were hit by Grad missiles fired by al-Qaeda? This is what happened to us today in #Aleppo..! So far eight of our civilians were slaughtered in cold blood! Enough..! pic.twitter.com/KeONYAFmbC

— Fares Shehabi (@ShehabiFares) January 16, 2020

Today’s carnage was inflicted on the al Sukari neighborhood of Aleppo city. The coordinated rocket fire came from three areas of western and northwestern regions of Aleppo countryside. Dozens of civilians have been murdered and injured in the past week’s frenzied blood-thirst by NATO terrorists, while NATO stenographer-journalists engage in fake oblivion to the horrors, atrocities which would receive 24/7 media coverage, were westerners forced to endure them.

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Featured image is from Syria News

Back in 2003, an alternative media site based in Belgium – Indy Media, published a rather clever article titled “Why America Needs War” written by  renowned historian and political scientist, Dr. Jacques R. Pauwels.

Due to the fact that this article has recently been republished by a well-known and respected alternative media site Global Research, a lot of attention has been drawn to the topic of Washington’s never-ending wars. In the above-mentioned article it was stated that wars are a terrible waste of lives and resources, and for that reason most people are in principle opposed to wars.

However, with the US being locked in a state of perpetual conflict with other international players, it’s only natural to wonder what is wrong with American politicians? Are they all suffering from some mental disease?

The reason the events we’re observing on the global stage are actually taking place is the fact that the US has been relying on the thing that Dr. Pauwels describes as the “warfare economy” that the US has been relying on for over a century now. This economy allows wealthy individuals and corporations to profit from violence and bloodshed, which makes them prone to advocating wars instead of peaceful conflict resolution. Yet, the article states that without warm or cold wars, however, this system can no longer produce the expected result in the form of the ever-higher profits the moneyed and powerful of America consider as their birthright. It’s clear that the US couldn’t escape the cold grip of the Great Depression without entering WWII, however, as it’s been stated in the above-mentioned article:

During the Second World War, the wealthy owners and top managers of the big corporations learned a very important lesson: during a war there is money to be made, lots of money. In other words, the arduous task of maximizing profits — the key activity within the capitalist American economy — can be absolved much more efficiently through war than through peace; however, the benevolent cooperation of the state is required.

Yet, the people of the United States didn’t notice this change as they were mesmerized by the rapidly growing wages and booming corporations that needed an ever increasing number of new employees. That’s why there’s been no real opposition to America’s warmongering inside the US, which means that Washington will be looking for new enemies even when it has none. This results in the states like Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela, that were willing at one point or another to discuss their differences with the US, being antagonized and getting designated as a threat to the US and its national security.

That’s why the military expenditures in the US keep going through the roof, with research and development programs for the US military getting unprecedented funding. However, what is being presented as a race towards greater security represents a shameless siphoning of the money paid by American taxpayer into the pockets of the major defence contractors. It would be only logical if the US legal system, instead of investigating dubious reports of Russia’s alleged meddling in the US election, would take a closer look at the way blood money is shaping the world of US politics.

Let us recall that the US military budget for 2020 has for the first time reached the mind-numbing sum of 750 billion dollars! Over the past few decades, the United States has invested some 30 billion dollars in various weapons programs, all of which have to one degree or another failed, according to The National Interest.

There’s no shortage of media reports showing the complete failure of modern American weapons, which, in spite of the massive sums wasted on their development, cannot protect either the United States or its allies.

For instance, The National Interest has recently taken the effort to draw a comparison between the Russian Su-35 jet-fighter and a total of four American competitors: F-15s, F-16s, F-22s, and F-35s. The publication came to a disappointing conclusion that in spite of the massive advertisement campaign that accompanied the development of F-35, it cannot stand its ground against its Russian counterpart.

The ill-fated F-35 has recently been included in the list of the worst weapons ever produced by the US Army due to its unbelievably high cost and reliability issues, says the Business Insider. Therefore, it is not surprising that on top of Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan announcing his intention of buying Russian Su-35 and Su-57 fighters instead of siding with the US, Germany has also made it clear that it has no intentions of acquiring this overpriced winged catastrophe from the United States. To add insult to injury, the American portal We Are The Mighty has recently listed a total of three Russian fighters in the Top 5 list of the fastest jets in the history of military aviation.

At sea, the situation is no better. In the event of a hypothetical military conflict between the United States and Russia, even in the Black Sea, American aircraft carrier groups would get obliterated rather quickly by Russian diesel submarines, land mobile missile systems and small but dangerous missile boats. That’s even before land-based aviation units armed with hypersonic anti-ship missiles dubbed the Dagger would have something to say about it, says The National Interest. Another publication emphasizes that Russian missile corvettes, that go at a price of 30 million dollars a pop have four times the missile range of the latest US destroyers and cruisers that come with a price tag of 2 billion dollars.

But it was the American missile defense systems, especially the Patriot, that have recently covered themselves with scandalous shame. A year ago, US President Donald Trump announced that among the new priorities of the Pentagon the sale of US missile defense systems to its allies ranked really high. To achieve this goal, Washington tried to force those states that chose a far more effective solutions – Russia’s S-300 and S-400 to rethink their decision. These attempts resulted in Washington introducing sanctions against some of its closest allies, such as Turkey, India and Morocco.

Meanwhile, The National Interest admits that the new Russian S-500 is by far the most effective air defense system in existence, while The Hill acknowledges that Russia’s hypersonic weapons have rendered such US missile defense systems as Patriot and THAAD meaningless.

A year ago, the United States announced that a network of ground and surface missile interceptors, radars and communications lines at a price tag of 180 billion dollars could protect the country from a limited attack launched by the DPRK or Iran. However, shortly after this statement was made, US-produced air defense systems failed to repel a surprise drone attack on Saudi oil refineries, thus demonstrating their low efficiency. At the same time, it will not be out of place to recall that a grand total of 88 Patriot launchers cover the northern border of Saudi Arabia, with three more US NAVY destroyers armed with the Aegis system being stationed off shore in the same area. None of these systems responded to the attack.

Yet again, during a retaliatory strike launched by Iran, American air defense systems were powerless to shoot down a single missile launched against two US bases in Iraq.

That is why a number of Western military clients have recently taken steps to acquire Russian alternatives. This was the result of serious flaws in US-produced air defense systems, such as the Patriot, the repeated failures of which have recently become apparent in Israel, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. The last of these clients was South Korea, which has long shown strong interest in Russian military jets and air defense systems, but was unable to acquire them due to the pressure being applied on it from Washington.

Those facts show that the military vehicles and aircraft advertised by Western media are only good as scrap metal. Actually, this became clear to everyone, when Washington decided to show its rusty armored vehicles on the parade assembled in celebration of last year’s Independence Day.

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Vladimir Platov, an expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Featured image is from NEO

Russia’s repeated rejection of the US’ ‘Indo-Pacific’ concept that Foreign Minister Lavrov claims is a ruse for “containing China” highlights just how urgently it is that a more inclusive and non-hostile trans-regional integration alternative emerges, which can be embodied by the Afro-Eurasia proposal that brings together the Belt & Road Initiative, CPEC+, and the Greater Eurasian Partnership in a Community of Common Destiny.

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov harshly condemned the US’ “Indo-Pacific” concept as a ruse for “containing China” while speaking at India’s Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi, following up on comments that he made a year prior which were analyzed by the author at that time in his piece about how “Russia Regards The ‘Indo-Pacific Region’ As An ‘Artificially Imposed’ Pro-US Concept“. According to Sputnik, the Eurasian Great Power’s top diplomat said the following at the high-profile event on Wednesday:

“Our Western friends’ aim in using the term Indo-Pacific instead of Asia-Pacific in matters of cooperation is to contain China and Indian friends are smart enough to understand that. It’s not even hidden…We are not against terminology, but it should be understandable. When people say we want to develop cooperation in Asia-Pacific as Indo-Pacific strategy, we asked how it is different; we were told it is more democratic. We don’t think so. It is rather tricky. We have to be careful about the terminology which looks benign but is not. Terminology should be unifying, not divisive. Neither Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) nor BRICS is exclusionary.”

It’s clear from his words that the time has come to propose a more inclusive and non-hostile trans-regional integration alternative to replace the “Indo-Pacific”, and therein lies the relevance of the author’s proposal for the Afro-Eurasia. This not only refers to the integration of the two primary landmasses of the Eastern Hemisphere, but also carries with it dual connotations of both mainland and maritime cooperation, unlike the “Indo-Pacific’s” implied focus on mostly maritime connectivity.

The inclusion of Africa isn’t just for historic justice by simply not forgetting that it exists (as is regrettably the case whenever many discuss the future of International Relations), but also has more practical relevance as well which incorporates the continent’s growing role in world affairs by virtue of its geostrategic location, demographic trends, and expected economic growth. The “Indo-Pacific” by default excludes Africa and over-emphasizes the role of India, which is located at the northern-central part of its eponymous ocean.

The very presumption that the aforementioned body of water should even be described as “Indian” is a fallacy for several reasons, not least of which is that the country’s modern-day name refers to the Indus River that’s currently located mostly in Pakistan and is called Sindhu by the locals. That misnomer can be traced to the Persians but was continued by the British and went along with by the post-independence authorities, but regardless of their domestic political choice, it’s still inaccurate to call their southern ocean “Indian”.

The African continent has a longer coastline along that body of water than the Indian subcontinent does so a more accurate reconceptualization of it could be the “Afro-Asian Ocean” seeing as how that ocean lies between both of them. Building upon that, the Afro-Asian Ocean can then be broadened to become the Afro-Pacific instead of the “Indo-Pacific”, thereby giving Africa joint ownership over it and calling to attention that continent’s growing role in this trans-regional space.

Accepting that this century therefore won’t just be an Asian one but an Afro-Asian one given Africa’s predicted growth across the proceeding eight decades, though also not forgetting the lingering role that Europe is expected to continue playing during this time as well for a variety of reasons, one can therefore begin to speak of the Afro-Eurasian Century. As Lavrov said, “terminology should be unifying, not divisive”, and speaking about an “Asian Century” or the “Indo-Pacific” doesn’t pay credit to either Africa or Europe’s contributions.

Simply speaking about Afro-Eurasia won’t make it a strategic reality, however, which is why it’s important to point out the three main initiatives that are poised to unify the Eastern Hemisphere. First and foremost among them is China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) that’s linking together both continents through large-scale infrastructure projects funded by low-interest loans. Its flagship is the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the expansion of which along the northern, western, and southern vectors is referred to is CPEC+.

CPEC+ is strategically located in the central part of the Eastern Hemisphere and includes both mainland (N-CPEC+ to Russia via Afghanistan and the Central Asian Republics, and W-CPEC+ to the EU through Iran and Turkey) and maritime (S-CPEC+ to Africa) portions , thus making it the most crucial connectivity superstructure in BRI. As for Eurasia itself, Russia’s Greater Eurasian Partnership (GEP) aims to bring together the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), BRI, the SCO, ASEAN, and eventually the EU and even the Mideast.

Altogether, BRI, CPEC+, and GEP form the three complementary parts of China’s envisaged Community of Common Destiny, which Beijing believes will restore equality among nations, improve their socio-economic development, and reduce conflict by creating a hemispheric (and possibly eventually global) system of complex interdependence that deters all parties from unilaterally undermining the security of others. The end result would be the institutionalization of the emerging Multipolar World Order.

In pursuit of this, it’s incumbent on the three countries associated with each respective component (China’s BRI, Pakistan’s CPEC+, and Russia’s GEP) to jointly take the lead in conducting more research into the Afro-Eurasia proposal for replacing the US’ “Indo-Pacific” and exploring more effective modalities for cooperation among them such as the creation of a trilateral organization framework that could be abbreviated as CPR (China-Pakistan-Russia).

That would also be symbolic since CPR is given to breathe life into people during emergency situations the same as this variation of that concept would be breathing much-needed life into International Relations during the current emergency situation of widespread global uncertainty. Without a clear sense of vision that articulates an alternative future for global affairs, the three countries most negatively affected by the US’ “Indo-Pacific” concept will have difficulty countering it, potentially making that project a fait accompli.

Such a future would be detrimental to their individual and collective interests, hence the urgency with which they should pool their efforts to cooperate on bringing about Afro-Eurasia instead. The author is aware that his proposal is very ambitious and fraught with both organizational and other challenges but is confident that the three leading countries tasked with implementing it will be successful so long as they have the political will. The first step is to officially introduce the concept of Afro-Eurasia, after which everything else will follow.

By that, what’s meant is either one, some, or all three of those governments talking about this alternative in some capacity or another, whether through formal statements or via their academic-policymaking communities. Then, concerted research should be commenced upon all parties expressing interest in this concept, after which concrete policies can be proposed that make the best of their respective integration advantages.

The sooner that this process starts, the better, since time is of the essence after the US and its allies already had at least several years to work on the “Indo-Pacific” whereas Afro-Eurasia is only now just being introduced as a viable alternative. The CPR states must urgently prioritize this trans-regional integration replacement strategy in order for it to stand a credible chance of succeeding, but given their excellent relations with one another bilaterally and their growing multilateral strategic convergence, this game-changing goal is certainly attainable.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld. 

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from OneWorld

Ahead of this year’s Munich Security Conference, due to begin on February 14th, its chairman Wolfgang Ischinger praised what he called President Putin’s “method” concerning security-issues in the Middle East. Talking to the ZDF television channel on January 13th, Ischinger said that managing ME-security required “political power of persuasion, clever diplomacy and military support if necessary….This is the method that Putin is using to ensure his influence in Syria, Libya and certainly in the situation around Iran.”

Such remarks feature a highly practiced, polished level of banality. They are quite intentionally devoid of detail. In that regard, of course, they are not supposed to be read as analytical remarks, but as diplomatic signals.

Primarily, the most loud and clear signal contained above is a dig at President Trump.

This quickly follows Angela Merkel’s highly fruitful meeting with President Putin on January 11th, after which both leaders confirmed that the Nord Stream 2 project would press ahead in spite of US sanctions. Chancellor Merkel also said that she hoped Russian-Turkish attempts to broker peace-talks would be successful, and announced that Libyan ceasefire talks would soon take place in Berlin. She also said that it was an “important step” that the Iranian government had admitted that the January 8th crash of Ukrainian Airlines Flight 752 had been the result of an “unintentional human error” on the part of Iranian military personnel.

2 more clear signals, delivered like knives to Dim Donnie’s heart.

With the fallout from the Soleimani-assassination not yet settled, the temptation for European political and diplomatic figures to signal disdain for Trump by love-bombing Putin seems irresistible at the moment. It’s like watching a few 16 year-old kids setting jealousy-traps for each other in your garden-variety teenage love-triangle. It’s quite amusing.

“I think that Brandon’s new smartphone is cooler than Jimmy’s,” says Ashley….

Of course, we know it’ll all be different next week, but middle-aged dads still find the silliness of it all comedic.

It is almost impossible to overstate the seriousness of Trump’s miscalculation concerning the Soleimani assassination, and the manner that his stance toward Iran has unfolded since then. Even Benjamin Netanyahu took pains to publicly distance himself from that decision, stating that Israeli politicians should stay out of the discussion. Given that the United Kingdom is the United States’ most uncritically subservient ally, Boris Johnson’s public criticism of Trump’s threat to bomb Iranian historical and cultural sites was also noteworthy.

Was this another signal?

Not exclusively. While Johnson would not be in the least bit concerned about the prospect of a military skirmish around Hormuz resulting in fatalities, apart from its economic consequences, he is still proud of being a trained classicist – the prospect of bombing an ancient archaeological site probably offends his basic sense of human decency even more than the prospect of war itself.

Nonetheless, everyone is perfectly well aware that war with Iran could very well trigger a global economic depression, and that is the factor which principally determines the reactions of US-allies’ to Trump’s hair-brained belligerence toward Iran.

And, regardless of the highly publicized personal antagonisms which have characterized Merkel’s relationships with Putin in the past, Nord Stream 2 is still a no-brainer, with or without US sanctions. Liquefied natural gas exported from the US to the EU is 30% more expensive than Russian gas. It’s just not competitive. It’s that simple. The fact that the German government has decided to abandon nuclear energy, which currently accounts for 34% of German domestic electricity-production, makes this point even more crucial. In the long term, personal antagonisms are trivial – the bottom line will ultimately determine long-term policy.

In my younger days, I used to play chess in tournaments. Most ordinary, club-level, tournament chess-players will insist on the wisdom of the maxim that you should play the board, not the opponent. It doesn’t matter who your opponent is, or what kind of personality they have. Chess is mathematics, not psychology. Play the board-position on its strategic merits, and forget about absolutely everything else. Play the board!

The Ukrainian crisis was deliberately engineered, among very many other factors, in order to disrupt gas-transit through Ukraine. Nord Stream 2 circumvents that point of rupture, so the US tries to shut it down with sanctions. That doesn’t work either. The 30% price-differential is simply too wide for sanctions to disincentivize it.

Under the Obama administration, the US effectively lost geo-strategic control over Turkey and the Philippines. Those losses of territory were made possible only by massive blunders. Under the Trump administration, the US is in the process of gradually losing geo-strategic control over Germany, having already decisively alienated France, which will make it increasingly difficult to maintain any meaningful geo-strategic foothold in western Eurasia.

Who’s left? Poland? Banderastan?

But then again, until 2016, liberal universalism was the ideological glue which held the western alliance together. Trump’s election meant that it was always on borrowed time.

With these factors considered, we might ask how much difference the assassination of General Soleimani really made to US-EU relations. Yes, it was jaw-droppingly reckless and strategically pointless. Yes, it severely alienated many US-allies. However, from the perspective of the United States’ continental European allies, we have to ask, was it merely an incidental moment of realization? We have to expect that the macro-economic fundamentals would have forced an epiphany sooner or later. The Soleimani assassination, as fundamentally reckless as it was, essentially did nothing to change the positions of any on the pieces on the geo-strategic chessboard. It merely acted as an incidental cognitive trigger, whereupon some of the players woke up to the board-position a little sooner.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Padraig McGrath is a political analyst.

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Following the US assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Shiite Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis at Baghdad International Airport,  the Iraqi PM, the Iraqi Parliament Speaker and the Iraqi Parliament have demanded that the US Alliance forces leave Iraq. The US, UK, Australia, Canada and Germany have rejected the Iraqi Parliament’s Quit Iraq demand,  with the US threatening to instantly collapse  the Iraqi economy by a banking freeze if Iraq  insists on US Alliance withdrawal from its territory.

(1) US Alliance violates Iraqi sovereignty and rejects the Iraqi Parliament’s Quit Iraq demand.

Iraqis were outraged by the criminal murder by drone missile attack of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani (Iranian hero, commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps), Shiite Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis (deputy commander of the Shiite Popular Mobilisation Forces, PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi), and 8 other people by the Americans at Iraq’s Baghdad International Airport on 3 January 2020.   These blatantly criminal assassinations  were followed by international outrage  and massive demonstrations  by Iraqis  and Iranians. The Iranians launched missile attacks on 2 American air bases in Iraq  that were carefully designed as a retaliatory “slap on the face” without any American casualties that would have brought massively deadly and disproportionate  retribution from nuclear terrorist America – and indeed fortunately  nobody was killed.

Leading Iraqi Shiite politician and Iraqi PM  Abdul Mahdi stated (3 January 2020): “The assassination of an Iraqi military commander is an aggression on Iraq as a state, government and people” [1]. Iraq’s Speaker of Parliament,  Mohammed al-Halbousi (Iraq’s leading Sunni Arab politician) condemned the US assassinations as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty (4 January 2020): “Put an end to U.S. presence [in Iraq]… Yesterday’s targeting of a military commander in Iraq’s armed forces near Baghdad international airport is a flagrant breach of sovereignty and violation of international agreements. Iraq must avoid becoming a battlefield or a side in any regional or international conflict”[2]. The Iraqi Parliament passed the following resolution (5 January 2020): “The government commits to revoke its request for assistance from the international coalition fighting Islamic State due to the end of military operations in Iraq and the achievement of victory. The Iraqi government must work to end the presence of any foreign troops on Iraqi soil and prohibit them from using its land, airspace or water for any reason” [3]. The Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi protested continuing violations of Iraqi sovereignty by the Americans in a phone call to US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, the Iraq PM’s  office stating (9 January 2020): “The prime minister said American forces had entered Iraq and drones are flying in its airspace without permission from Iraqi authorities, and this was a violation of the bilateral agreements” [4].

The racist, anti-Arab anti-Semitic and exceptionalist Americans  rejected the foreign  withdrawal demands by the Iraqi PM, the Iraqi Parliament Speaker, and the Iraqi Parliament. Thus Mafia-style thug and serial war criminal, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, bluntly rejected the Iraqi demands,  indicating that  US troops would remain (9 January 2020): “We are happy to continue the conversation with the Iraqis about what the right structure is. Our mission set there is very clear. We’ve been there to perform a training mission to help the Iraqi security forces be successful and to continue the campaign against ISIS, to continue the counter-Daesh campaign.  We’re going to continue that mission but, as times change and we get to a place where we can deliver upon what I believe and what the president believes is our right structure with fewer resources dedicated to that mission, we will do so” [4].

Gangster Trump has justified  the assassinations on the basis of non-specific and non-disclosed security threats  against Americans, this being reminiscent  of George W. Bush’s (false) assertions (backed by UK PM Tony Blair  and Australia’s PM John Howard) in 2003 about Iraqi possession of (actually non-existent) “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (WMD). According to the New York Times (11 January 2020): “Mr. Trump issued bellicose threats to destroy Iran if it retaliated, including cultural treasures in violation of international law, touching off international outrage and forcing his own defense secretary to publicly disavow the threat, saying it would be a war crime. Mr. Trump was largely alone on the world stage. No major European power, not even Britain, voiced support for the drone strike, even as leaders agreed that General Suleimani had blood on his hands. As Le Monde, the French newspaper, put it, the rift signaled “a new stage in the trans-Atlantic divorce over the Middle East”” [5]. Predictably serial invader, serial occupier, serial war criminal, anti-Arab anti-Semitic and Islamophobic  Apartheid Israel supported the war criminal US attack on Iraq [5].

Trump was outraged by the Iraqi Parliament’s demand for  US Alliance withdrawals and declared: “[If US forces asked to leave] we will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before”[6]. The Americans have always used sanctions, theft and economic blackmail as adjuncts to the routine recipe of subversion, assassinations, coups, bombing, invasion and genocide. The US warned Iraq that it could block Iraqi access  to an  account that Iraq’s central bank holds with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and which   is economically vital for Iraq [6-8]. The Central Bank of Iraq’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank  was set up  in 2003 following the war criminal,  US-led invasion and all Iraqi oil revenues go to that account that presently sits at $35 billion. $1-2 billion is  withdrawn from this Federal Reserve Bank  account each month for Iraqi government and commercial transactions,  and accordingly blocked access would collapse the Iraqi economy [6-8].

While the war criminal US refuses to withdraw its forces from Iraq and serial war criminal and US lackey Australia  likewise refuses to withdraw its circa 300 troops (mainly in the Taji base near Baghdad, as well as some guarding diplomats in the Baghdad Green Zone), Germany has cut down its forces, the UK has relocated some 50  personnel out of the Baghdad Green Zone but still has about 400 troops in Iraq, and Canada has withdrawn “some” of its 500 soldiers in Iraq to Kuwait [9].

The deadly consequences of Donald Trump’s decision to launch (likely Australian-targeted )  missiles from drones at Baghdad International Airport can be summarized thus: 12 killed in the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, at least 56 killed in a stampede at the funeral of General Qassem Soleimani in the southeastern Iranian city of Kerman, and 176 passengers and crew killed (one third Canadians) in the Ukrainian passenger jet shot down in a terrible mistake by an Iranian-fired missile from a very  nervous Iranian defence Surface to Air Missile (SAM) battery defending Teheran in the context of acute and deadly  US threats to Iran [10, 11]. Canadian PM Justin Trudeau has quite  rightly expressed indignation and demands for transparency and justice over the plane tragedy [12]. However Zionist-subverted and US lackey Canada does not have diplomatic relations with Iran, has a long record of US- and Zionist-backed antipathy towards Iran, has emplaced sanctions against Iran and is likely to use the passenger jet tragedy and its forces in Iraq to support the US in a continuing, variously hot and cold and 4 decade US War on Iran [13]. Under criminal and deadly US Sanctions, presently an estimated 71,000 Iranians die avoidably from deprivation each year or 195 such deaths per day [14, 15].

Decent people around the world legitimately fear the horrendous consequences of a full-blown US and US Alliance military  attack  on Iran. However 4 million Iranians  have already died from violence, 1 million, or from sanctions-imposed deprivation, 3 million, in a 4-decade US War on Iran. Further, while Iran leads the world in interdiction of opiate drugs from US-occupied Afghanistan, this flood of US-protected opiates has killed 33,000 Iranians and the 5.2 million people who have died worldwide  in a US-imposed  Opiate Holocaust inescapably linked to US restoration of  the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from 6%  of world market share in 2001 to 90% in 2007 [16]. One notes that the WW2 Jewish Holocaust was associated with 5-6 million Jews killed by the German Nazis through violence or imposed deprivation.

(2) Serial war criminal and US lackey Australia refuses to Quit Iraq as demanded by the Iraqi Parliament – Australia’s 7th Iraq War in a century?

As UK lackeys  and thence US lackeys, gung-ho and racist White Australians have invaded 85 countries over the last  2 centuries [17]. By way of comparison, over the last 1,000 years  the British have invaded 193 countries, France 82, the US 72 (52 after WW2), Germany 39, Japan 30, Russia 25, Canada 25,  Apartheid Israel 12, Iraq 2 (both greenlighted by the US),  China 2, North Korea arguably zero (0) , and Iran zero (0) since the time of the Sasanian Empire 1,300 years ago [14, 17-22]. Australia has been involved in 6 Iraq wars, specifically (1) UK invasion of Iraq in WW1 (1914-1918), (2) UK operations in Iraq in WW2 (1939-1945), (3) the deadly Sanctions War against  Iraq (1990-2003), (4) the Gulf War (1990-1991), (5) invasion and occupation of Iraq (2003-2011), and (6) the war on ISIS in Syria and Iraq (2014-). War is the penultimate in racism and genocide is  the ultimate in racism. Australia’s refusal to accede to the Iraqi Parliament’s demand  that the US Alliance forces, including Australian forces,  leave Iraq  may mark the commencement of Australia’s 7th Iraq War since the genocidal British Empire’s invasion of Iraq in 1914.

British interest in Iraq came from discovery of oil in adjacent Iran in the 1900s. Western violation of Iraq commenced with the British invasion in 1914 during WW1.  Assuming excess mortality of Iraqis under British rule or hegemony (1914- 1948) was the same as for Indians under the British (interpolation from available data indicate Indian avoidable death rates in “deaths per 1,000 of population per year” of 37 (1757-1920), 35 (1920-1930), 30 (1930-1940) and 24 (1940-1950) [23]), one can estimate from Iraqi population data [24] that Iraqi avoidable deaths from deprivation under British occupation and hegemony from 1914-1950 totalled about 4 million.  UK lackey Australia was variously involved via its air force and navy in enforcement of British rule over Iraq in this period.

On the occasion of  US withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 the Australian ABC (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia’s equivalent of the mendacious UK BBC) reported that “The withdrawal ends a war that left tens of thousands of Iraqis and nearly 4,500 American soldiers dead” [25].  In contrast, the expert and eminent US Just Foreign Policy organization estimates, based on the data of expert UK analysts and top US medical epidemiologists, 1.5 million violent deaths in the Iraq War (2003-2011) [26-29] and UN data indicate a further 1.2 million Iraqi avoidable deaths from war-imposed deprivation in this period [14, 15]. Violent deaths and avoidable deaths from violently -imposed deprivation in the Gulf War (1990-1991) and Sanctions period (1990-2003) totalled  0.2 million and 1.2 million, respectively [30].   Accordingly, Iraqi deaths from violence (1.7 million) or war-imposed deprivation (2.9 million) in the period 1990-2011 totalled  4.6 million [31].

The US ostensibly withdrew from devastated Iraq in 2011 but returned with a vengeance in 2012 to help Syria, Iraq and Iran deal with ISIS  in Syria and Iraq that has been associated with about 0.1 million violent Iraqi deaths, most notably in devastated Mosul [32] and  twice US-demolished Fallujah, the City of Mosques [33]. One notes that the ruthless and barbarous ISIS subverted and took over the Sunni insurgency in Iraq against the corrupt, violent, US-installed Al Maliki Government, and similarly ISIS came to dominate the US Alliance-backed Sunni insurgency against the Assad Government in Syria [32, 33].   UN data indicate about 0.3 million avoidable Iraqi  deaths from deprivation in the period 2011-2020.

Thus ignoring Iraqi deaths associated with the US-backed Iraq-Iran War, one can estimate about 9 million Iraqi deaths from UK or US violence or imposed deprivation in the century after the 1914 invasion of Iraq by Britain, this constituting an Iraqi Holocaust and an Iraqi Genocide [31]. These terms are not used lightly. “Holocaust” means the death of a huge number of people. According to Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention: “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” [30, 34-38]. The ruler is responsible for the ruled.  The huge avoidable deaths of Iraqis under the British, Americans and the US Coalition is evidence of gross violation of Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War that state unequivocally that an Occupier must provide its conquered subjects with life-preserving food and medical requisites “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” [39].

(3) Australia’s war criminal refusal to leave Iraq as unequivocally demanded by the Iraqi PM, Parliamentary Speaker and Parliament.

As set out above, the Iraqi PM, Speaker and Parliament have unequivocally demanded that foreign troops leave their devastated land. However the serial war criminal Americans and their serial war criminal lackeys, the UK, Canada, Germany and Australia, refuse to leave. Australian PM Scott Morrison (8 January 2020): “The situation overnight has stabilised… The cessation of those immediate hostilities that we saw yesterday and the nature of the statement also issued [by US President Donald Trump] today, as well as the [US-supplied] intelligence that we have, means that we are in a position to continue to undertake the mission that we have set for ourselves in the Middle East” [40].

The Labor Leader of the Opposition, Anthony Albanese,  would not comment on any withdrawal of Australian forces from Iraq before getting  a [US-provided] security briefing (8 January 2020): “These things should not be done on the run. This is potentially a very serious matter. Indeed, I have said though, that there shouldn’t be a further escalation by any party” [40]. Since the US CIA-backed Coup that removed reformist Labor PM Gough Whitlam from power in 1975 [41], the craven, US lackey  Labor position has been “all the way with the USA” lest it anger the Americans or the king-making, US-owned Murdoch media empire that has captured 70% of Australian daily city newspaper readers.

The Labor Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Penny Wong (8 January 2020): “Labor notes the worrying reports of events currently unfolding in Iraq. These attacks are deeply concerning and we continue to call on all sides to exercise restraint. Labor will be seeking briefings, including on the safety of our ADF members and diplomatic staff who are operating in the Middle East. Tomorrow, Labor’s Shadow National Security Committee will meet to discuss the situation in the region. Whilst these tensions are ongoing it is essential that the Government takes all steps necessary to maximise the safety and security of all deployed Australian personnel” [42].

Interestingly  the Australian Foreign Minister, Marise Payne, evidently understands basic International Law about war crimes and has begged the Iraqi Government to permit Australian forces to stay (7 January 2020): “We urge the Iraqi government to ensure the coalition is able to continue its vital work with Iraq’s security forces in countering the shared threat of Daesh [ISIS]. We understand the resolution passed by Iraq’s Parliament is non-binding, absent formal approval by the government in Baghdad” [43].

The UN Charter is very clear about foreign forces being in another  country – it can only happen (1) through invitation by the country,  (2) in response to invasion of another country by that country, or (3) with the permission of the UN Security Council. In this instance the Iraqi PM, the Parliamentary Speaker and the Iraqi Parliament have unequivocally demanded that the foreign forces should leave.

In Australia’s 6 Iraq Wars  involving Australian and US Alliance forces in Iraq only three (3) met the standard defined by the post-WW2 UN Charter, specifically (1) the disgracefully  UN-approved and genocidal  Sanctions war against Iraq  (1990-2003; 1.7 million Iraqi deaths from imposed deprivation, half them children), (2) the UN-sanctioned Gulf War in response to the US greenlighted Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (1990-1991; 0.2 million violent Iraqi deaths), and (3) the War on ISIS in Iraq by invitation of the US-installed Al-Maliki Government (2014 onwards; the big cities of Mosul (population 2 million) and Fallujah (population 300,000) demolished by the US Alliance; about 0.1 million and 0.3 million Iraqi deaths from violence and deprivation, respectively [14, 30, 32, 34-38]. One notes that the estimates of 0.3 million Iraqi avoidable deaths from deprivation since 2011 is probably an underestimate since the US-installed Al Maliki Government has an appalling record of understating horrendous medical statistics e.g.  absurdly claiming that Iraqi infant mortality declined as a consequence of sanctions, invasion and devastation [44] and claiming that rates of spontaneous abortion, still births and congenital birth defects in devastated and toxin contaminated areas of post-invasion Iraq were normal, contrary to the shocking findings of expert non-Iraqi Health Ministry researchers [45, 46].

However the Iraqis have withdrawn that invitation and have unequivocally demanded the withdrawal of foreign forces. Yankee go home! US Coalition go home! Aussies go home! If they stay they are violating the most fundamental International law: do not  invade and occupy other counties. Indeed it was for such crimes that German leaders and generals were hung after the post-WW2  Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. One notes that the US lackey Germans and Canadians have responded to the situation by relocating “some” of their forces out of Iraq, notwithstanding the Iraqi Parliament’s demands. In 1945 the conquered Germans adopted what can be described as a CAAAA (C4A) protocol involving Acknowledgement of the crimes, Apology for the crimes, Amends for the crimes and Assertion “Never again” to anyone. Germany and Canada were not directly involved in the 2003 invasion and occupation of  Iraq  but have now evidently decided as US lackeys to join serial war criminal America, UK and Australia  in illegally occupying Iraq. Evidently the post-WW2 de-Nazification of Germany was insufficient.

As a cowardly,  degenerate, serial war criminal and genocidal US lackey, Australia has been involved in all post-1950 US Asian wars, atrocities that have been associated with 40 million Asian deaths from violence or war-imposed deprivation [14]. The Australian Liberal Party-National Party Coalition (that has egregiously mis-ruled Australia since 2013) supported Australian involvement in all of these atrocities  while Labor supported all but the Vietnam War and the 2003-2011 Iraq War.  This degenerate and war criminal collusion between serial war criminal America and serial war criminal Australia is continuing.

(4) Australian, US and UK  respect for parliamentary democracy and law at home but contempt for democracy and International Law abroad.

Australia  is one of the world’s oldest parliamentary democracies and has a splendid, world’s-best  system of compulsory, one-person-one-vote, preferential voting that ensures that a winning candidate must either receive over 50% of the vote, or failing that,  gain over 50% of the “2-party-preferred vote” based on counting the “second preferences” of all the unsuccessful candidates.  In contrast,  in first-past-the -post systems as in the UK and US, depending on how many people bothered to get out of bed and vote, a small proportion of the electorate, say 30%,  could elect  a government that was hated by most of the population. However, as with many things about Australia (and the US and UK), the surface of the rock appears very nice, but look underneath and one can be appalled [47, 48]. Thus Australia has an Upper House or  Senate that can veto decisions of the popularly-elected Lower House, or House of Representatives. However all the 6 States of Australia have the same number of Senators (12) and Tasmania (population 0.5 million) has the same number of Senators (12) as New South Wales (population 7.5 million) or Victoria (population 6.4 million), this prompting outspoken former Labor PM,  Paul Keating, to describe the Senate as “unrepresentative swill”.

Nevertheless there is great respect for parliamentary decencies and conventions. Thus the Australian  Speaker is appointed (usually from the dominant party)  to keep order in the House of Representatives and is prepared  to throw Government or Opposition MPs out of the House if they misbehave by being abusive, disruptive  or noisy. (I remember attending a big party with my dear late wife Zareena (née Zareena Lateef)  in a neighbouring country that was attended by the eminent and charming then Speaker of that country’s parliament – he had to phone for a taxi so we accompanied  him to the roadside to keep him company,  and were surprised and amused when he phoned for  a taxi and simply stated “This is the Speaker”).

However when the Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament , the Iraqi Prime Minister (PM) and indeed the Iraqi Parliament as a whole demanded that foreign troops get out of Iraq there was no such respect from Australia and the other Anglosphere or European members of the US Coalition (US, UK, Australia, Canada and Germany) who all simply refused (Canada and Germany only moving “some” forces from Iraq for security reasons).

The Australian Liberal Party-National Party Coalition and now to a significantly lesser extent Labor (collectively  known as the Lib-Labs) fervently support nuclear terrorist, racist Zionist-run, genocidally racist, democracy-by-genocide Apartheid Israel. Indeed Australia is second only to Trump America  and is just above Zionist-subverted Canada as a supporter of the Apartheid Israeli rogue state. Democracy-by-genocide Apartheid Israel determines that of its  circa 7 million Indigenous Palestinian subjects (who despite over 70 years of continuous ethnic cleansing and genocide by the Zionists now represent about 50% of Apartheid Israel’s subjects) 74% are prevented from voting for the government ruling them i.e. egregious, criminal  and intolerable Apartheid ) [47-58]. Australia respects one-person-one-vote democracy at home (or at least has done so since 1967 when Indigenous Australians were finally “counted” as citizens and thence able to vote). MPs and political candidates who support Apartheid Israel and hence the obscenity of Apartheid are simply unfit for public life in a one-person-one-vote democracy. This shows US lackey Australia’s utter contempt for democracy abroad as in a similarly fundamental way does Australia’s military involvement in all post-1950 US Asian wars (racist atrocities that  have been associated with 40 million Asian deaths from war-imposed deprivation) [14]. Indeed Australian Intelligence agents helped the US overthrow the democratically elected Chilean Government on 9-11 in 1973 (page 163 [59]).

(5) War is the penultimate in racism and genocide is the ultimate in racism. Why the ongoing US devastation  of Iraq?

War is the penultimate in racism and genocide is the ultimate in racism as illustrated by the ongoing Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide (9 million Iraqi deaths from violence or imposed deprivation since the British  invasion in 1914) [30].  Indeed the 21st century Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide [60] has  involved 32 million Muslims killed by violence, 5 million, or through imposed deprivation, 27 million, in 20 countries invaded by the US Alliance since the US Government’s 9-11 false flag atrocity that killed 3,000 people [44, 61]. Decent people may well ask why is it that America and its rich Anglosphere and Western European allies are still making war on Iraq and indeed on a swathe of other countries from West Africa to Pakistan?  Why not, for example, have Iraq invaded and occupied by  Switzerland that is closer to this war-torn region than the US and has a major  interest in these countries as banker to its rulers and establishments? Why not nearly 200 other countries for any number of possible inventive reasons? The US and its allies dress up exceptionalist American war making  in terms of the “war on terror”, “global security”, “bringing freedom and democracy”, and America’s  “onerous burden” as a “global policeman” etc.  The US always needs an excuse for war but the “terror” excuse is wearing thin because the US and the countries of the US Alliance have variously backed jihadi and other non-state terrorists around the world (e.g. death squads throughout Latin America, church-bombing gangs in Ecuador, Gladio in Europe and jihadis in Libya, Yemen, Kosovo, Syria, and Afghanistan. Indeed jihadi non-state terrorists are a great asset for US imperialism because every jihadi atrocity provides an excuse for disproportionately vastly more destructive  US violence against defenceless Muslim populations [62]. Indeed fundamentalist America has trashed secular governance, modernity, democracy, women’s rights and children’s rights in the Muslim World [63].

Why the ongoing US devastation of Iraq? The most succinct answer to the question is simply:  oil. Thus from the Right, Alan Greenspan (leading Republican economist,  chairman of the US Federal Reserve for almost two decades, and servant of  four US presidents): “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil” [64]. And on the Left, Professor Noam Chomsky (eminent linguistics expert  and anti-racist Jewish American human rights activist at 101-Nobel-Laureate Massachusetts Institute  of Technology (MIT) (2009): “There is basically no significant change in the fundamental traditional conception that if we can control Middle East energy resources, then we can control the world” [65].

US lackey Australia is helping the US occupy 2 devastated countries (Iraq and Afghanistan ), blockade Somalia  and bomb 7 countries  (Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan) by targeting illegal US drone strikes via  the joint Australia-US electronic spying base at Pine Gap in Central Australia [66]. Indeed it is quite possible that via Pine Gap US lackey Australia was involved in the deadly targeting of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani  and Shiite Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and their 8 associates at Baghdad International Airport that has brought the Middle East  the brink of another genocidal war and has already cost the lives of the 176 passengers and crew of Ukrainian Airways Flight 752.

The serial war criminal US subverts and perverts all countries and to that end has about 700 bases in over 70 countries, including my own country, Australia [67]. President Donald Trump has been impeached and now faces trial in the Senate over allegedly withholding a huge US arms supply to Ukraine in order to get a Ukrainian investigation into the conduct of his likely opponent for the presidency, Democrat  Joe Biden, and Joe Biden’s son.  This alleged “quid pro quo” – allegedly rewarding a foreign power for investigating possible “dirt” on a domestic American political opponent – is utterly trivial compared to the routine deadly bullying by the US of all countries  around the world. It is utterly trivial  in comparison  with the war criminal refusal of the US and its war criminal Anglosphere and European allies to leave devastated Iraq when asked to do so by the Iraqi PM, the Iraqi Parliament Speaker and the Iraqi Parliament , this refusal being accompanied by the US threat to instantly collapse  the Iraqi economy by blocking access to its Federal Reserve banking account if the Iraqi Government keeps on insisting on this withdrawal. What is utterly galling about the Impeachment is how the Americans (the serial war criminal Democrats in this instance) hypocritically cloak themselves with a veneer of “upholding the law”.   America carries a big stick.  Reformist Australian Labor PM  Gough Whitlam excited hatred from the US and its traitorous  Australian allies over the Pine Gap spying base in Central Australia and was rapidly removed in a CIA-backed Coup in 1975 [41, 59, 69].

Just as the world has responded massively to the “How dare you!” expostulation over the worsening Climate Emergency of 16-year old climate activist  Greta Thunberg at the UN, so  one hopes the world  will likewise respond to the words of 13-year old  Iraqi girl, Sarah, whose family were refugees to a Baghdad refugee camp from  the first US demolition of  Fallujah (2004): “What does America want from us? Why did they destroy our homes? This is not their home, this is our home. Why did they come here and force us to live like this? The bombing went all day and all night. They made us homeless, they made us wander from house to house to ask if anyone can help us. Why did they come here? I want them to go” (page 118 [33]).

Final comments

The US and its cowardly and war criminal allies have never been taken to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the invasion, occupation and genocidal devastation of Iraq that killed 2.7 million Iraqis through violence, 1.5 million, or war-imposed deprivation, 1.2 million [30]. My complaints to the ICC were of course ignored by that racist, holocaust-complicit and genocide-complicit organization (see [30]). However by refusing to leave Iraq the US and its war criminal allies are simply adding to the immense crime of the Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide . My  own country, Australia, was intimately involved in the war criminal invasion of Iraq in 2003. Indeed John Valder, former National President of the conservative Australian Liberal Party (the party of Australia’s present PM Scott “Scomo” Morrison aka Scam-o, Scheme-o, Skim-o or Scum-o)  declared (2004): “Bush, Blair, and Howard, as leaders of the three members of the coalition of the willing, inflicted enormous suffering on the people of Iraq. And, as such, they are criminals. I believe the only deterrent to a repetition of the Iraq situation is punishment in some form as war criminals” [70].

Anti-racist Jewish British writer Harold Pinter in his 2005 Literature Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech stated (2005): “The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading as a last resort all other justifications having failed to justify themselves as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people. We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it ‘bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East’. How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice” [71]. 2.9 million? More than enough, I would have thought.

Decent people around the world are fed up with the war criminal exceptionalism of the US and its degenerate, serial war criminal  Allies (Australia, UK, Canada, France, Germany and nuclear terrorist, democracy-by-genocide Apartheid Israel). Decent people throughout the world and in Australia will act by (a) informing everyone they can, (b) by urging and applying Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against a war criminal US and its war criminal allies, and (c) by declaring :”Yankee go home ” and an end to the presence of US Alliance forces in other nations. Decent Australians will  demand removal of  mother- and child-violating US forces from Australia, utterly reject the serial  war criminal, US lackey  Coalition, vote 1 Green and put the Coalition last.

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Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at a major Australian university for 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003). He has published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ).

Notes

[1].  Spencer Neale, “Iraqi Parliament vows to “put an end to US presence” in country”, Washington Examiner, 3 January 2020: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/iraqi-parliament-vows-to-put-an-end-to-us-presence-in-country .

[2]. “Iraqi Parliament Speaker condemns U.S. air strike: statement”, Reuters, 4 January 2020: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-security-blast-speaker/iraqi-parliament-speaker-condemns-us-air-strike-statement-idUSKBN1Z21BD .

[3]. Arwha Ibrahim, “Iraqi Parliament calls for expulsion of foreign troops. Vote comes after PM Abdul Mahdi recommended Parliament take urgent measures to expel foreign troops from Iraq”, Al Jazeera,  6 January 2020: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/iraqi-parliament-calls-expulsion-foreign-troops-200105150709628.html .

[4]. “US dismisses Iraq request to work on a troop withdrawal plan”, Hurriyet Daily News, 11 January 2020: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/us-dismisses-iraq-request-to-work-on-a-troop-withdrawal-plan-150825 .

[5]. Peter Baker et al, “Seven days in January: How Trump pushed U.S. and Iran to the brink of war”, New York Times, 11 January 2020: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/11/us/politics/iran-trump.html .

[6]. “Iraq warns of collapse if Trump blocks oil cash”, Bangkok Post, 13 January 2020:  https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1834699/iraq-warns-of-collapse-if-trump-blocks-oil-cash .

[7]. “Iraq warned to keep US troops o risk financial blow –WSJ”, Al Jazeera, 12 January 2020: https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/iraq-warned-troops-risk-financial-blow-wsj-200111164246245.html .

[8]. Ian Talley and Isabel Coles, “U.S. warns Iraq it risks losing access to key bank account if troops told to leave. Loss of access to New York Fed account, where international oil sale revenue is kept, risks creating cash crunch in Iraq’s financial system”, Wall Street Journal, 11 January 2011:  https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-warns-iraq-it-risks-losing-access-to-key-bank-account-if-troops-told-to-leave-11578759629 .

[9]. Patrick Wintour and Dan Sabbagh, “Germany cuts troop numbers in Iraq after Suleimani killing. Decision follows call by Iraqi parliament for withdrawal of US forces”, Guardian, 8 January 2020: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/07/germany-cuts-troop-numbers-in-iraq-after-suleimani-killing .

[10]. “Dozens killed in stampede at Qassem Soleimani’s funeral in Iran”, Al Jazeera, 8 January 2020: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/dozens-killed-stampede-soleimani-funeral-iran-state-tv-200107093406578.html .

[11].Martin Rivers, “The downing of flight 752 in Iran is a tragedy of complacency. Lessons from the 2014 Malaysian Airlines disaster were not heeded. Now 176 more people are dead”, Guardian, 14 January 2020: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/13/downing-flight-752-tragedy-complacency-airlines .

[12]. “Canada-Iran relations”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93Iran_relations .

[13]. Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel bombing Syria & Iraq – hotting up deadly  4-decade US war on Iran”, Countercurrents, 14 August 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/apartheid-israel-bombing-syria-iraq-hotting-up-deadly-4-decade-us-war-on-iran .

[14]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, that includes a succinct history  of every country and is now available for free perusal on the web: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ .

[15]. “UN Population Division. World Population Prospects 2019”: https://population.un.org/wpp/DataQuery/ .

[16]. Gideon Polya, “US-imposed Opiate Holocaust – US protection of Afghan opiates has killed 5.2 million people since 9-11”, Countercurrents, 10 August 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/us-imposed-opiate-holocaust-us-protection-of-afghan-opiates-has-killed-5-2-million-people-since-9-11  .

[17]. Gideon Polya, “As UK Lackeys Or US Lackeys Australians Have Invaded 85 Countries (British 193, French 80, US 70)”, Countercurrents, 9 February, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya090215.htm .

[18]. Gideon Polya, “The US Has Invaded 70 Nations Since 1776 – Make 4 July Independence From America Day”, Countercurrents, 5 July, 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya050713.htm .

[19]. Gideon Polya, “British Have Invaded 193 Countries:  Make  26 January ( Australia Day, Invasion Day) British Invasion Day”, Countercurrents, 23 January, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya230115.htm .

[20].Gideon Polya, “President Hollande And French Invasion Of Privacy Versus French Invasion Of 80 Countries Since 800 AD”, Countercurrents, 15 January, 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya150114.htm  .

[21]. “Stop state terrorism”: https://sites.google.com/site/stopstateterrorism/ .

[22]. “State crime and non-state terrorism”: https://sites.google.com/site/statecrimeandnonstateterrorism/  .

[23]. Gideon Polya, “Economist Mahima Khanna wins Cambridge Prize”, MWC News, 20 November 2011: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/14978-economist-mahima-khanna.html .

[24]. “Iraq Population”: http://www.populstat.info/Asia/iraqc.htm  .

[25].  “US military marks end of its Iraq war”, ABC News,  16 December 2011: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-15/us-military-marks-end-of-its-war-in-iraq/3733982  .

[26]. “Just Foreign Policy”: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq .

[27]. ORB (Opinion Research Business), “January 2008 – Update on Iraqi Casualty Data”, January 2008: http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=88 .

[28]. Les Roberts, “Les Roberts: Iraq’s death toll far worse than our leaders admit”, Uruqnet: 14 February 2007: http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=30670&s2=16 .

[29]. G. Burnham, R. Lafta, S. Doocy and L. Roberts, “Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey”, The  Lancet 2006 Oct 21;368(9545):1421-8: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17055943 .

[30]. “Iraqi Holocaust Iraqi Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/ .

[31]. Gideon Polya, “12th Anniversary Of Illegal Iraq Invasion – 2.7 Million Iraqi Dead From Violence Or War-imposed Deprivation”, Countercurrents,  23 March, 2015: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya230315.htm

[32]. Gideon Polya, “Mosul Massacre latest in Iraqi Genocide”, Countercurrents, 24 July 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/07/mosul-massacre-latest-in-iraqi-genocide-us-alliance-war-crimes-demand-icc-bds

[33]. Ross Caputi, Richard Hil and Donna Mulhearn, “The Sacking of Fallujah. A people’s history”, University of Massachusetts Press, 2019.

[34]. UN Genocide Convention: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html .

[35]. “Genocide in Iraq Volume I . The case against the UN Security Council and member states” by Dr Abdul-Haq Al-Ani and  Tarik Al-Ani (foreword by Professor Joshua Castellino; Clarity Press, Atlanta).

[36]. Gideon Polya ““Genocide in Iraq, The Case Against UN Security Council And Member States”. Book review”,  Countercurrents, 8 February, 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya080213.htm .

[37]. Abdul-Haq Al-Ani and Tariq Al-Ani, “Genocide in Iraq Volume II. The Obliteration of a Modern State” (Clarity Press, 2015).

[38]. Gideon Polya, “Review: “Genocide in Iraq Volume II. The obliteration of a modern state” By Abdul-Haq Al-Ani & Tariq Al-Ani”, Countercurrents, 15 March 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya150315.htm .

[39]. Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War: https://www.icrc.org/ihl/INTRO/380 .

[40]. Jack Snape, “Scott Morrison confirms Australian troops will remain in Iraq after Iran’s missile attack on US bases”, ABC News, 9 January 2020: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-09/scott-morrison-australia-military-mission-iraq-iran/11855490 .

[41]. John Pilger, “The British-American Coup that ended Australian independence”, Guardian, 23 October 2014: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/23/gough-whitlam-1975-coup-ended-australian-independence .

[42]. Penny Wong, 8 January 2020: https://www.pennywong.com.au/media-releases/safety-of-our-adf-and-diplomatic-personnel-in-iraq/ .

[43]. Bevan Shields, “”Don’t throw us out”: Australia plans to stay in Iraq but plans for the worst”,  Sydney Morning Herald, 7 January 2010: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/don-t-throw-us-out-australia-pleads-to-stay-in-iraq-but-plans-for-the-worst-20200106-p53pcy.html .

[44]. Gideon Polya, “Paris atrocity context: 27 Million Muslim Avoidable  Deaths From Imposed Deprivation In 20 Countries Violated By US Alliance Since 9-11”, Countercurrents, 22 November, 2015: https://countercurrents.org/polya221115.htm .

[45]. Chapter 6, Aftermath” in  Ross Caputi, Richard Hil and Donna Mulhearn, “The Sacking of Fallujah. A people’s history”, University of Massachusetts Press, 2019.

[46]. Neel Mani (Director of the World Health Organisation’s Iraq programme between 2001-2003 ,  “Iraq: politics and science  in post-conflict health research”, Huffington Post, 15 October 2014: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/neel-mani/iraq-politics-and-science_b_4098231.html.

[47]. John Dugard, “International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the crime of Apartheid”, Audiovisual Library of International Law: http://untreaty.un.org/cod/avl/ha/cspca/cspca.html .

[48]. “Boycott Apartheid  Israel”: https://sites.google.com/site/boycottapartheidisrael/.

[49]. Gideon Polya, “70th anniversary of Apartheid Israel & commencement of large-scale Palestinian Genocide”, Countercurrents, 11 May 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/05/11/70th-anniversary-of-apartheid-israel-commencement-of-large-scale-palestinian-genocide/ .

[50]. Gideon Polya, “Democratic One-State Solution (Unitary State, Bi-National State) for post-Apartheid Palestine”, Countercurrents, 22 December 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/12/22/democratic-one-state-solution-unitary-state-bi-national-state-for-post-apartheid-palestine/ .

[51] “Palestinian Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/ .

[52]. Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel’s Palestinian Genocide & Australia’s Aboriginal  Genocide compared”, Countercurrents, 20 February 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/02/20/apartheid-israels-palestinian-genocide-australias-aboriginal-genocide-compared/  .

[53]. Gideon Polya, “Israeli-Palestinian & Middle East conflict – from oil to climate genocide”, Countercurrents, 21 August 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/08/21/israeli-palestinian-middle-east-conflict-from-oil-to-climate-genocide/ .

[54]. Gideon Polya, “End 50 Years Of Genocidal Occupation & Human Rights Abuse By US-Backed Apartheid Israel”, Countercurrents,  9 June  2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/06/09/end-50-years-of-genocidal-occupation-human-rights-abuse-by-us-backed-apartheid-israel/ .

[55]. Gideon Polya, “Universal Declaration of Human Rights & Palestinians. Apartheid Israel violates ALL Palestinian Human Rights”, Palestine Genocide Essays, 24 January 2009: https://sites.google.com/site/palestinegenocideessays/universal-declaration-of-human-rights-palestinians .

[56]. United Nations, “Israel’s settlements have no legal validity, constitute flagrant violations of international law, Security Council reaffirms.   14 delegations in favour of Resolution 2334 as United States abstains”, 23 December 2016: https://www.un.org/press/en/2016/sc12657.doc.htm .

[57]. Gideon Polya, “Is UN Security Council Resolution 2334 the beginning of the end for Apartheid Israel?””, Countercurrents, 28 December 2016: http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/28/is-un-security-council-resolution-2334-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-apartheid-israel/ .

[58]. Gideon Polya, “Anti-racist Jewish humanitarians oppose Apartheid Israel & support UN Security Council resolution 2334”, Countercurrents, 13 January 2017: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/01/13/anti-racist-jewish-humanitarians-oppose-apartheid-israel-support-un-security-council-resolution-2334/ .

[59]. Brian Toohey, “Secret. The making of Australia’s security state”, Melbourne University Press, 2019.

[60]. “Muslim Holocaust Muslim Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ .

[61]. “Experts: US did 9-11”: https://sites.google.com/site/expertsusdid911/ .

[62]. Gideon Polya, “US Profits From Jihadist Terrorism”, Countercurrents, 19 November, 2004: http://www.countercurrents.org/us-polya191104.htm .

[63]. Gideon Polya, “Fundamentalist America Has Trashed Secular Governance, Modernity, Democracy, Women’s Rights And Children’s Rights In The Muslim World”, Countercurrents,  21 May, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya210515.htm .

[64]. Peter Beaumont and Joanna Walters, “Greenspan admits Iraq was about oil, as deaths put at 1.2m”, The Observer, 16 September 2007: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/sep/16/iraq.iraqtimeline .

[65]. Noam Chomsky quoted in Sherwood Ross, “Chomsky: Iraq invasion “major crime” designed to control Middle East oil”, The Public Record, 3 November 2009:  http://pubrecord.org/nation/5953/chomsky-invasion-major-crime/ .

[66]. Philip Dorling, “Australian intelligence “feeding data” for deadly US drone strikes”, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 May 2014:http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australian-intelligence-feeding-data-used-for-deadly-us-drone-strikes-20140526-38ywk.html .

[67]. David Vine, “Where in the world is the US military”, Politico, July/August 2015: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/us-military-bases-around-the-world-119321 .

[68]. Jules Dufour, “The worldwide network of US military bases”, Global Research, 1 July 2007: https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-worldwide-network-of-us-military-bases-2/5564 .

[69]. William Blum, “Rogue State”.

[70]. “Howard is a war criminal,, says former colleague”, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 July 2004: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/18/1090089035899.html .

[71]. Harold Pinter, “Art, Truth and Politics”, Countercurrents, 8 December 2005: http://www.countercurrents.org/arts-pinter081205.htm .

Featured image is from Mideast Discourse

There’s little doubt that Iran’s “deep state” struggle will intensify after a senior IRGC commander from the country’s “principalist” faction took responsibility for his country accidentally shooting down UIA-752 and thus exposing the “reformist” government’s previous efforts to cover up what happened, especially since his press conference revealed that the authorities were made aware of this accident right after it occurred and that the military’s earlier request for a no-fly zone which could have prevented this tragedy was rejected.

The USG Mafia hit on Qassem Soleimani is part of a larger murder campaign, according to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. 

For the former tank commander, murder—not simply double-tapping the target with a firearm, but blowing him into meaty chunks with a Hellfire missile—is “real deterrence.” 

Pompeo said during a speech at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute “there was ‘a bigger strategy’ behind the killing of Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, Iran’s elite foreign espionage and paramilitary force.

The USG Mafia Hit Strategy on steroids is not confined to threatening Iran, however. Pompeo eluded to Russia and China’s leaders being assassinated. 

Pompeo didn’t come out and say Trump’s government will steer Hellfire missiles specifically at Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, or even Kim Jung-un. The message, however, is inescapable, especially for folks opposed to neoliberal crony capitalist domination of their national economies, industries, public services, and natural resources

Iran wants a nuke to prevent an attack by the USG in collaboration with the Zionist government in Israel. Ditto, North Korea. It remembers when the USG bombed virtually every city, town, and hamlet in the country and killed a third of the population. No doubt the mullahs in Tehran vividly recall Muammar Gaddafi’s fate. They also remember how the CIA colluded with the Brits to overthrow the democratically elected government of Iran and installed a monarchial tyrant. 

It is entirely rational to seek the most effective deterrent to foreign invasion and mass murder campaigns waged relentlessly by the crony capitalist neolib USG and its little vicious client, Israel, the racist state where only Jews are considered first-class citizens and Arabs are tortured and killed—or at best maimed (during anti-occupation protests, Israel snipers are instructed to aim for the eyes). 

For neocons, Trumpsters, and Fox News teleprompter readers, “taking out” Soleimani in Mafia hit fashion “was a brilliant move.”

.@jockowillink says President @realDonaldTrump's gamble ordering the strike that killed Soleimani was a brilliant move that killed an enemy of America and the Iranian people on #TheBrianKilmeadeShow @foxnation @foxnewsradio https://t.co/2w4S5n3yC8

— Brian Kilmeade (@kilmeade) January 14, 2020

Yes, of course, murdering leaders of recalcitrant nations is considered a “brilliant move” by psychopaths. The Italian-Jewish Mafia killed opponents one-by-one or in small groups while the USG kills opponents in the thousands, even the millions. The Gambino family and Kosher Nostra founded by Arnold Rothstein (who was himself assassinated) would have loved to take out their opponents with Reaper drones and Hellfire missiles, courtesy of witless US taxpayers and debt-serfs. 

State Department officials involved in U.S. embassy security were not made aware of imminent threats to four specific U.S. embassies, two State Department officials said, further undermining Trump's claims that Soleimani posed an imminent threat. https://t.co/sG9ZXyxOa3

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 13, 2020

USG embassies were not and are not under threat by Iran. In Iraq, the people protesting outside the embassy are Iraqis. They want the USG and its contractors out of their country which is still reeling from Bush the Lesser’s invasion, a follow-up on more than a decade of child-killing (over 500,000) sanctions and a previous invasion by Junior’s father, the former CIA boss who would become president. 

Corporate war propaganda media is pushing the narrative that Trump impulsively decided to slaughter Soleimani, as if it simply came to him out of the blue. 

.@douglaslondon5, who retired from CIA at the end of 2018, writes that he and his team “often struggled in persuading the president to recognize the most important threats” because of Trump’s “focus on celebrity, headlines, and immediate gratification.” https://t.co/1SlVDNb44l

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) January 15, 2020

Hardly. This is simply another anti-Trump gimmick. If you look beyond this one-dimensional pre-election circus, you’ll see Trump’s orthodox Jewish son-in-law, Sheldon Adelson, and a cast of Zionist characters steering the president into war with Israel’s enemies. Indeed, Trump is driven by a pathological need for attention and this has been successfully exploited by neocons in the service of a tiny nation based on racial and religious superiority. 

The basic method Trump used to kill Soleimani was developed by the Israelis >30 years ago. Here's a screen shot from “Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations,” by Israeli author Ronen Bergman, here describing Israeli developments in late 1980s pic.twitter.com/MWKifPPjPF

— James Perloff (@jamesperloff) January 14, 2020

The neolib USG with its Israel-first neocon faction is the largest and most deadly Mafia organization in the world.

The US government has killed millions since the end of FDR’s war under false pretense and has overthrown countries far and wide. It trains and enables sadistic paramilitaries, has armed crazed Wahhabi jihadists, and is the only country to have used a nuclear weapon against innocent civilians. 

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Kurt Nimmo writes on his blog, Another Day in the Empire, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Another Day in the Empire

Quentin Tarantino’s new film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, is a 2019 comedy-drama set in 1969 Los Angeles and features a large ensemblecast led by Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt. The story centres around veteran actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), star of the 1950s Western television series Bounty Law, and and his stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). Dalton is worried that his career is in decline and is reticent to take advice to travel to Italy to make Spaghetti Westerns. Cliff Booth also struggles to get work in Hollywood due to rumors that he murdered his wife on a boating trip.

In Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Tarantino re-emphasizes many of the bugbears, cliches and and myths of US elites with his checklist portrayal of misogynist violence against women, negative depictions of Chinese, Mexicans and Europeans, and the negative association of cult-following hippies with youth opposition to the Vietnam war. And all this happens during a period of much political activity and public demonstrations against the Vietnam war which is barely noticeable during the length of this film.

Doppelganger

Dalton gets a big opportunity when he is cast to play the villain in the pilot of Lancer, a new American Western series broadcast from 1968 to 1970. He tries hard to toughen up for his new cowboy role yet fluffs his lines and has a minor breakdown in his trailer. The softer side of Dalton is also still visible when he shows concern for a child actress he has thrown on the floor in a ‘tough’ acting scene. Following in an old cinematic tradition Cliff appears to be Dalton’s doppelganger or alter ego as he represents the tough side of Dalton off screen. Within the film they merge on screen as they play one character when Cliff plays Dalton’s body double. The reality of Dalton is that off screen he is shown to be a sensitive and anxious person, particularly about his declining fame.

Dalton’s new role also shows that the cowboy as a symbol of the tough American individualist undergoes changes from old style hero to gritty realism, while also being caricatured in Spaghetti Westerns.

The fact that Dalton plays a famous hero cowboy role during the 1950s but becomes a tougher character in Lancer in the 1960s mirrors the changing perception and role of the USA, which changes from a simple positive force post WW2, to a more complex position during and after the Vietnam war.

Because many of the veterans and demonstrators against the Vietnam war became hippies and were fundamentally opposed to state warmongering, Cliff dislikes all hippies. Tarantino then portrays the hippies in the film as cultists who blindly follow their violent leaders.

Image on the right: Bruce Lee, portrayed in the film by Mike Moh

Cliff discovers that hippies have taken over the farm where earlier cowboy movies where filmed during Dalton’s heyday, and they seem to do nothing but laze around all day watching TV. This ruination of such an important site of American cowboy symbolism only confirms Cliff’s negative attitude towards them.

Mexicans and Chinese

The negative portrayal of Mexicans and Chinese as somehow ‘lesser’ beings is stoked up in two other scenes from the film. In Hollywood, Cliff gets thrown off a set after a scene when he provokes Bruce Lee into a fight. Lee is depicted making ridiculous cat wailing noises as he enters into a fight with Cliff, reminiscent of the worst Kung Fu movie cliches and turns the scene into a comedic parody of Bruce Lee’s own films. Cliff smashes Lee into the side of a car leaving a huge dent as if it was a superhero movie without superheros, symbolically demonstrating the ‘natural’ strength and power of the Westerner without the tutoring of Eastern martial arts. The unspoken supremacy of the white male is also depicted as Cliff shields Dalton from Mexican workers who might see him crying. The tough male hero cannot be seen to be upset before lesser mortals.

Women and Europeans

The final scenes of absolute brutality and misogyny depict Cliff slamming a can of dog meat into a female hippie’s face, then slams her face into the mantelpiece and then onto the marble floor are only equaled by the scene of Dalton roasting her alive in the swimming pool with a flame thrower from an earlier film set. Clearly Dalton has got his ‘toughness’ back after being ‘impoverished’ by his European wife and sacking his alter ego Cliff.

The effete men of Europe are represented in his depiction of Roman Polanski and the European distortions of the cowboy genre which Dalton eventually agrees to act in. Following the Italian director Sergio Leone’s success, many Spaghetti Westerns were filmed at Cinecittà studios and various locations around southern Italy and Spain between 1964 and 1978.

Like in Inglourious Basterds (where Tarantino has Americans assassinate Nazi Germany’s leadership), Tarantino gives an alternate history of the Manson Family murders when the members decide to instead kill Dalton as a representative of Hollywood which had ‘taught them to murder’ according to the ‘hippie’ logic of one of the Family members, Sadie. This symbolically turns the anti-Vietnam peace-loving hippies into the perpetrators of violence, creating more right-wing prejudice against them.

Classical Hollywood

The greatest irony of Tarantino’s nostalgic view of Classical Hollywood is that Hollywood of the time followed a code of ethics agreed by the filmmakers themselves (which would have rejected Tarantino’s movies outright). During the Classical Hollywood period American toughness was tempered with respect for women, the body, foreign nationals and countries. This code of ethics, called the Motion Picture Production Code, was applied to most United States motion pictures released by major studios from 1934 to 1968. It had a quite comprehensive set of guidelines, a selected few of which are described here:

“Resolved, That those things which are included in the following list shall not appear in pictures produced by the members of this Association, irrespective of the manner in which they are treated:

• The illegal traffic in drugs;
• Willful offense to any nation, race or creed;[…]

That special care be exercised in the manner in which the following subjects are treated, to the end that vulgarity and suggestiveness may be eliminated and that good taste may be emphasized:

• International relations (avoiding picturizing in an unfavorable light another country’s religion, history, institutions, prominent people, and citizenry);
• Brutality and possible gruesomeness;
• Technique of committing murder by whatever method;
• Third-degree [torture] methods; […].”

Image below: Clint Eastwood as the Man with No Name in a publicity image of A Fistful of Dollars, a film by Sergio Leone.

Thus we can see that one of the reasons why the Classical period was so successful is because of its upstanding and humanistic approach to the narratives of the time. People (and their political, cultural and ethnic backgrounds) were treated more respectfully within the films and the audiences were spared the gross bone-breaking, blood spurting violence of many films made since the relaxation of the code. Directors like Tarantino have turned cinema into a modern gladiators’ ring where the audience catharsis of thumbs up or thumbs down prevails.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country here. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. 

Featured image: 1937 Louisville, Kentucky. Margaret Bourke-White. There’s no way like the American Way

The world breathed a sigh of relief when Iran undertook to give the Americans a symbolic ‘slap in the face’ as a response to the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani.  Stepping back from the precipice of war, President Trump responded by intensifying economic sanctions rather than choosing military escalation of the conflict.  The ‘slap’ was more than symbolic however.  It was a bold demonstration that Iran could hit any U.S. base in the Middle East where American troops are sitting ducks.  More significantly, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei took the historical long view by stating that Iran’s ultimate goal was the ejection of U.S. troops from the entire region.

The first troop ejection may begin in Iraq as the parliament recently voted to remove all U.S. forces from the beleaguered country in light of the grim assassinations of General Soleimani and an Iraqi commander of popular militia forces, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, that took place on Iraqi soil.

With the potential withdrawal of troops from Iraq, those stationed in Syria would be placed on thin ice and despite the promises of Defense Secretary Esper to maintain their deployment to protect Syrian oil from ISIS, common sense would dictate that those troops should be withdrawn sooner rather than later for their own protection.

A similar logic would indicate that the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan is also a matter of time due to the tenacious and unceasing guerrilla war waged by the Taliban.  As in Vietnam, a segment of the political leadership in the United States may come to the realization that America’s longest war cannot be won.

But logic, let alone common sense, does not always prevail when vested interests are at stake, especially the material interest coveted by imperialism.  Secretary Esper has already indicated that U.S. troops will remain in Iraq indefinitely to ‘fight ISIS’ and President Trump has threatened Iraq with loss of access to key U.S. Federal Reserve bank accounts and economic sanctions if the troops are ejected.  It should also be noted that Esper’s rationale for keeping troops in Syria to ‘protect Syrian oil from ISIS’ is a transparent lie meant to justify illegal occupation of territory in a sovereign nation for the purpose of stealing its resources.

The American ruling class will never relinquish any portion of the empire unless forced to do so by popular struggle at home and abroad.

Consequently, the removal of U.S. troops from the Middle East becomes a monumental issue facing the American people.  How long will they fuel the empire with their blood and taxes?   Judging from recent presidential elections a significant portion of the population is plainly tired of foreign wars.  Presidential candidates recognize this sentiment and manipulate it to their advantage.

Candidate Bush received enough votes to steal the 2000 election from Al Gore by promising a realistic foreign policy that would restrain the United States from engaging in nation building only to break that promise once elected by launching major conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of a ‘war on terror’ that spilled a sea of blood, unleashed an ocean of tears and wasted trillions of dollars.

Candidate Obama skillfully parleyed the anti-war sentiments generated by Bush’s obscene wars to his advantage by successfully giving voters the impression that he was an anti-war candidate only to proceed as president to expand those wars to seven Muslim countries.  Obama was so successful at spinning pacifist illusions, that he actually won a Noble Peace Prize before proceeding to launch a secret program of drone warfare in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.

Although he formally ended Bush’s mis-named ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’, Obama maintained 5,000 troops in Iraq to ‘fight ISIS’.  At the same time that he was drawing down troop levels in Iraq, Obama  ordered a 30,000 troop surge in Afghanistan in 2009.  The Noble Laureate also destroyed Libya with the help of his NATO puppets in 2011 and waged proxy war in Syria beginning in 2012.  Additionally, Obama increased defense spending for the ‘war on terror’ and allocated $1 trillion to modernize America’s nuclear weapons over the next 30 years.  Quite a commitment to militarism for someone who gave the appearance of opposing war.

When attempting to understand the division of labor that exists between America’s Republican and Democratic rulers, it is important to fully appreciate the latter’s role of shock absorber in the homeland of imperialism, an undertaking that is designed to co-opt dissent thereby stabilizing the dominant social relations of class and race inequality.  Obama performed the task superbly as evidenced by the fact that during his entire two terms in office there was not one major anti-war protest in the streets of the United States despite the fact that his administration waged war every single day of his presidency.  That is no small accomplishment in a country that spends on average $1 Trillion a year on the military while allowing its public and industrial infrastructure to deteriorate to levels that are beginning to resemble those found in third world countries.

Exit Obama stage left, enter Trump stage right.  Candidate Trump, recognizing the mass discontent that exists in the land of shrinking opportunities, promised rather explicitly to stop waging unnecessary wars in the Middle East whose cost in lives and treasure has become too costly to ignore.  Social reality has a way of eventually invalidating lies and illusions, even in a country that the persistently irreverent and sorely missed writer Gore Vidal once referred to as the “United States of Amnesia”.  Once elected, President Trump discovered to his dismay, that American presidents are not allowed to make peace with Russia or summarily withdraw troops from Syria or Afghanistan without serious push back from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the national security autocracy and even the Democratic party.  Russia-gate, Ukraine-gate and a looming impeachment trial in the U.S. senate stand as prominent examples. Nevertheless, Trump loves the military as evidenced by his advocacy for the third largest sequential increase in defense spending since World War II, Reagan’s being first and Bush Jr.’s being second.

Another question arises with Trump.  How would the United States respond to a lethal attack on its military forces in the Middle East?  Despite sharing many similarities with former President Reagan, not the least of which is the ability to brush off criticism, the current president lacks the pragmatic realism of his predecessor and instead demonstrates a lethal combination of ignorance and arrogance that may, in a time of crisis, override his impulse to avoid war.  It should be recalled that Reagan ordered all U.S. troops out of Lebanon in 1984, several months after a truck bomb attack killed 241 marines in Beirut in October 1983.  Trump’s ego, his tendency to personalize political attacks and massive pressure from the entire military, security and foreign policy establishments, not to mention the militarists in his own party and that of the Democrats, would not allow him to exercise Reagan’s flexibility.  Massive retaliation would be in order.  The stakes are high in a unipolar world where the U.S. hegemon is constrained by asymmetrical warfare.

Turning to those Democrats who currently pose as pacifists, we have presidential candidate Bernie Sanders who, after wandering for months in the never-never-land of media marginalization, sees his campaign beginning to surge after forcefully condemning Trump’s assassination of Soleimani.  For his part, Sanders says the right things by promising to stop war with Iran, bring the troops home from Afghanistan, end the war in Yemen and effect an orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East.

Yet, when the proverbial push comes to shove, he does the opposite by consistently lending support for imperialist war.  As an ‘independent’ senator from Vermont, he voted for the ‘Iran and Libya Sanctions Act’ in 1996, the ‘Iraqi Liberation Act’ in 1998 and the U.S. bombing of Kosovo in 1999.  He voted for the Authorization for Unilateral Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF) in 2001 that gave Bush a congressional blank check to wage the ‘war on terror’ in Afghanistan.  Although he voted against the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution in 2002, he consistently voted for the annual military budgets needed to fight the war.  In 2011 he voted for a Senate resolution condemning human rights violations by Libya and demanded the resignation of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi whom he called a “thug” and a “murderer.”  The Senate resolution also requested the United Nations Security Council to freeze Libya’s assets and establish a no-fly zone over the country to protect civilians.  NATO’s subsequent enforcement of this no-fly zone and its slaughter of Libyan civilians it meant to ‘protect’ is a matter of historical record. In this particular drama, Sanders played the soft cop to Hillary Clinton’s hard cop.  It was Clinton who openly advocated military intervention in Libya to accomplish the same result that Sanders advocated by diplomatic and economic means, namely, regime change.  In the occupied territories of Palestine, Sanders periodically criticizes Israel’s behavior but votes to give military aid to the apartheid state.  Most significantly, he voted for resolutions of support for Israel during its’ wars in Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2014.  And so it goes with Sander’s historically.

Candidate Elizabeth Warren made similar noises by criticizing what she called Trump’s “dangerous” and “reckless” action in Iraq by ordering the assassination of General Soleimani so that she could woo progressive voters.  She was of course, careful to identify Soleimani as a “murderer” who was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans thereby properly genuflecting before the alter of the national security state.  She made no mention of how those ‘Americans’ were functioning as an army of occupation in Iraq in the same way that Trump made no mention of the fact that the “American citizen” recently killed in Iraq was a military contractor.  Once upon a time in this country, there was recognition of the fact that some of our countrymen were not behaving nicely in foreign lands.  Hence, the concept of the ‘Ugly American’ was recognized and condemned.  No more.

The United States is a militarized warfare state with a permanent war economy as Seymour Melman demonstrated decades ago.  The U.S. military empire protects the U.S. corporate empire and the 51^st state of Israel.  The problem is systemic.   In a militarized state, the rhetoric of peace always gives way to the reality of war. Why?  Institutionalized power.  The military industrial complex, the national security autocracy, the Israel lobby and most fundamentally, the American corporate plutocracy all exert powerful influences that determine the use of state power.

One thing is certain.  American troops will be coming home from the Middle East.   The question is whether they will be returning in body bags, with seriously injuries, or with body and mind fully intact.  Will they be brought home as the result of war or will they arrive as the result of a peace initiative?

There is an even more profoundly vexing existential question facing the American people.  Will American troops have a country to come home to?  Given the hysterical Russophobia and demonization of Vladimir Putin that exists in this country, how long will it be before a U.S. provocation, possibly in the Middle East, pushes the world to hypersonic nuclear war?

The monumental questions of peace and war in the United States are not going to be decided by electoral politics. They will ultimately be decided by the revolutionary politics of anti-imperialism.  The game of American politics, namely, the use of populist rhetoric to conceal plutocratic governance underscores the urgency of resurrecting a militant anti-war movement that will confront an American imperialist system that fights perpetual wars for perpetual profits.

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Donald Monaco is a political analyst who lives in Brooklyn, New York.  He received his Master’s Degree in Education from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1979 and was radicalized by the Vietnam War.  He writes from an anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist perspective.  His recent book is titled, The Politics ofTerrorism, and is available at amazon.com

Featured image is from Massoud Nayeri

Europe could have saved the Iran nuclear agreement. Instead, it abused the rule of law by inappropriately triggering its dispute mechanism, all but ensuring the agreement’s demise.

With tensions mounting between Iran and the United States after the latter assassinated Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in Iraq, Baghdad has now been pushing to free itself from American domination by calling for foreign troops to leave the country and announcing its intensions in buying the Russian S-400 missile defense system. The complete destruction of the U.S. military base in Anbar province earlier this month demonstrated to Iraqi leaders that it certainly needs to strengthen its air defences since not even American air defense systems could protect their base from the barrage of Iranian missiles. The Iraqi government’s intention to buy the S-400 air defense systems from Russia has been talked about since May last year, when the country’s ambassador to Moscow said Baghdad had decided to buy the systems. However, no roadmap to purchase the systems have been made yet.  

Karim Elaiwi, an Iraqi member of parliament who sits on the security and defense committee, said last week that

“We are talking to Russia about the S-400 missiles but no contracts have been signed yet. We need to get these missiles, especially after Americans have disappointed us many times by not helping us in getting proper weapons.”

It appears the Iraqis will no longer tolerate U.S. occupation and demands in its country, with parliamentarian and security and defense committee member Abdul Khaleq Al Azzawi, defiantly saying

“We authorized the prime minister to get air defense weapons from any country he wants and we authorized him to spend the money for it, from any country. From Russia or anyone.”

This comes as hostilities between Iraq and the U.S. increase, with U.S. President Donald Trump threatening to cut Baghdad’s access to its key account at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York if they follow through with the Iraqi Parliament’s decision to expel the U.S. military from their country. Not only has there been a threat to cut Iraq from its own money based in the U.S., but there are now threats of $250 million in military aid to Iraq being cut.

Although these are tactics to force Baghdad into maintaining ‘permission’ for the U.S. military to remain in Iraq, the clearest sign that this is an American occupation of the West Asian country was with White House National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien comments last week that the U.S. will leave Iraq on its “own terms.” The U.S. are not even trying to hide the fact that they are occupying Iraq and rebelling against the government.

Despite the clear occupation, Iraq continues to defy the U.S., and the willingness to purchase the S-400 system is a clear indication of this. It is for this reason that Joey Hood, the U.S. State Department’s principal deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, said on Tuesday in an appearance at the Middle East Institute, an extremely influential Washington think tank, that “A purchase [of the S-400] would probably trigger sanctions, so we advise our partners not to make such purchases.”

This was an expected response considering the continued threats of sanctions the U.S. has put against Turkey for its own acquisition of the S-400. Iraq wants to strengthen its air defense and the S-400 systems are considered the best in the world. It must also be remembered that Iraq is already buying modern weapons from Russia, such as the Mi-28 fighter helicopters and T-90 tanks. However, it is likely that Washington considers the purchase of the S-400 from Russia as an indication that the U.S. is losing political and military support in the country – but this was already consolidated by the assassination of Soleimani, an extremely popular figure in Iraq.

Baghdad is already in negotiations for the S-300, the older generation of the S-400. However, it is the S-400, the newest model available for foreign markets, that will provoke resistance in Washington, especially as the U.S.-made Patriot missile defense system has proven to be a failure by not being able to defend U.S. bases in Iraq or Saudi oil facilities, if we remember the Houthi-led Ansarullah Movement’s attack on the ARAMCO site in September last year.

The question then becomes how will Iraq will pay for Russian weapons if their accounts in the U.S. are frozen. Delivery is not so much of an issue despite the U.S. occupation, it is more a matter of how payments will be made. Although Iraqi parliamentarians are boldly declaring their intentions for the S-400 to be purchased, there are significant problems that Baghdad must first be able to overcome, including the extremely strong pressure being applied by the U.S. against Iraq not to buy them. If Baghdad did successfully defy Washington and purchase the systems, it will certainly weaken the U.S.’ image in the region, something the North American country will unlikely want to risk.

Will Iraq boldly defy the U.S.? This remains to be seen now.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is a Research Fellow at the Center for Syncretic Studies.

Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance commits all members to participate in the defense of any single member that is attacked. An attack on one is an attack on all. Forged in the early stages of the cold war, the alliance originally included most of the leading non-communist states in Western Europe, as well as Turkey. It was intended to deter any attacks orchestrated by the Soviet Union and was defensive in nature.

Currently NATO is an anachronism as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, but the desire to continue to play soldier on an international stage has granted it a measure of life support. Indeed, the alliance is regularly auditioning for new members. Its latest addition is Montenegro, which has a military consisting of 2,000 men and women, roughly one brigade. If Montenegro should be attacked, the United States is obligated to come to its assistance.

It would all be something like comic opera featuring the Duke of Plaza Toro but for the fact that there are certain things that NATO does that are not really defensive in nature but are rather destabilizing. Having expanded NATO right up to the border with Russia, which the U.S. promised to do and then reneged, military exercises staged by the alliance currently occur right next to Russian airspace and coastal waters. To support the incursions, the myth that Moscow is expansionistic (while also seeking to destroy what passes for democracy in the West) is constantly cited. According to the current version, Russian President Vladimir Putin is just waiting to resume control over Ukraine, Georgia, Poland and the Baltic States in an effort to reconstitute the old Soviet Union. This has led to demands from the usual suspects in the U.S. Congress that Georgia and Ukraine be admitted into the alliance, which would really create an existential threat for Russia that it would have to respond to. There have also been some suggestions that Israel might join NATO. A war that no one wants either in the Middle East or in Europe could be the result if the expansion plans bear fruit.

Having nothing to do beyond aggravating the Russians, the alliance has gone along with some of the transnational abominations initially created by virtue of the Global War on Terror initiated by the loosely wrapped American president George W. Bush. The NATO alliance currently has 8,000 service members participating in a training mission in Afghanistan and its key member states have also been parts of the various coalitions that Washington has bribed or coerced into being. NATO was also actively involved in the fiasco that turned Libya into a gangster state. It had previously been the most developed nation in Africa. Currently French and British soldiers are part of the Operation Inherent Resolve (don’t you love the names!) in Syria and NATO itself is part of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.

NATO will now be doing its part to help defend the United States against terrorist attack. Last Wednesday the alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg spoke with President Donald Trump on the phone in the wake of the assassination of Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani at the Baghdad International Airport. The killing was apparently carried out using missiles fired by a U.S. Reaper drone and was justified by the U.S. by claiming that Soleimani was a terrorist due to his affiliation with the listed terrorist Quds Force. It was also asserted that Soleimani was planning an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and would have killed “hundreds” of Americans. Evidence supporting the claims was so flimsy that even some Republicans balked at approving the chain of events.

Nine Iraqis also died in the attack, including the Iraqi General who headed the Kata’Ib Hezbollah Militia, which had been incorporated into the Iraqi Army to fight against the terrorist group ISIS. During the week preceding the execution of Soleimani, the U.S. had staged an air attack that killed 25 Iraqi members of Kata’Ib, the incident that then sparked the rioting at the American Embassy in Baghdad’s Green Zone.

Bearing in mind that the alleged thwarted terrorist attacks took place seven thousand miles away from the United States, it is hard to make the case that the U.S. was directly threatened requiring a response from NATO under Article 5. No doubt the Mike Pompeo State Department will claim that its Embassy is sovereign territory and therefor part of the United States. It is a bullshit argument, but it will no doubt be made. The White House has already made a similar sovereignty claim vis-à-vis the two U.S. bases in Iraq that were hit by a barrage of a dozen Iranian missiles a day after the killing of Soleimani. Unlike the case of Soleimani and his party, no one was killed by the Iranian attacks, quite possibly a deliberate mis-targeting to avoid an escalation in the conflict.

In spite of the fact that there was no actual threat and no factual basis for a call to arms, last Wednesday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg spoke by phone with President Donald Trump “on developments in the Middle East.” A NATO press release stated that the two men discussed “the situation in the region and NATO’s role.”

According to the press release “The President asked the Secretary General for NATO to become more involved in the Middle East. They agreed that NATO could contribute more to regional stability and the fight against international terrorism.” A tweet by White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere later confirmed that Trump had “emphasized the value of NATO increasing its role in preventing conflict and preserving peace in the Middle East.” Prior to the phone call, Trump had announced that he would ask NATO “to become much more involved in the Middle East process.”

As the Trumpean concept of a peace process is total surrender on the part of the targeted parties, be they Palestinians or Iranians, it will be interesting to see just how the new arrangement works. Sending soldiers into unstable places to do unnecessary things as part of a non-existent strategy will not sit well with many Europeans. It should not sit well with Americans either.

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Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in December 2001. Phil is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

In emulating the American economic raison d’etre, China has attempted to develop its unique capitalist model while ignoring that it too will soon suffer the same fate for the same reason: Unsustainable debt.  When examining the recent realities of Chinese banking and finance over the past year it seems the steam that president Xi Jinping touts as powering the engine of his purported economic miracle of a master-planned economy is only a mirage, now almost completely evaporated before his eyes.

Like the many other similarly foolish western nations, China seeks only one path out of this fiscal death spiral, one that will likely spell doom and/or revolution in many countries soon: More debt.

China is becoming increasingly unable to continue to pay into the base of the world’s largest pyramid scheme of an economy and the cracks in the bubble are showing. This past year, saw three of the 4,279 Chinese lenders almost fail, if not for the massive intervention by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) of immediate liquidity via more debt. The Chinese economic miracle is built on unsustainable debt-based infrastructure projects over the past two decades that have provided China with a face of prosperity to show the world, but this is only a mask to hide the limited countrywide success of the Chinese miracle into the rural areas. The injection of $Trillions in capital has seen China distribute these sums across the base of its economy creating a GDP that hit a high of 14.2 % in 2007 then averaged nearly 9% for the next decade before dropping yearly to 6.1% in 2018. All this growth had produced a personal affluence to a sub-set of Chinese society that has stoked this appearance of a flourishing economy.

This Chinese economic Keynesian trick of interjection of liquidity into national infrastructure is somewhat similar to the TVA and national works projects funded under Roosevelt’s depression-era New Deal. In this approach employment and therefore a growing tax base accelerated year after year as workers and corporations received the short-lived benefits of this massive windfall of available liquidity.

China’s method of stimulus is of course distinguished from today’s American model that merely shovels the injection of its own manufactured $Trillions by using multiple fiscal tricks to by-pass the citizenry and instead shovel the cash straight into the wallets of the already super-wealthy. Meanwhile, the US peasant once again pines in the “Hope”of yet another election.

The Metrics of a Failing Economy

Many analysts have for nearly a decade opined that China’s belief in national fixed-asset investment, the biggest engine of China’s economy, has long been the fundamental contributor to Chinese GDP growth, which was directly proportional to an ongoing increase in public and private debt. “China has relied on export and debt-financed fixed asset investment for growth for over two decades,” said Ho-Fung Hung, Professor in political economy at the Johns Hopkins University.

But as the world economy slows while the metrics show a recession looming China’s economy is already cooling rapidly. “And as the central government and banking system keeps producing new loans to absorb the debt, it leads to the continuous debt buildup,” Maximilian Kärnfelt, an analyst with the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies, told news service DW, adding that infrastructure investment still largely drives China’s economic growth since fixed investment contributed to 45 per cent of China’s GDP in 2016.

In a sign of the disaster to come, the first Bank to almost fail was Baoshang Bank Co. in May 2019. In this instance, for the first time in twenty years, the government took over control and seized the bank. This progression next took form when Chinese regulators took a different approach by ordering three state-owned financial institutions to buy significant stakes in Bank of Jinzhou Co. When, Shandong-based Heng Feng Bank, which had failed to disclose its financial statements for two straight years, required a bail-out, the bank sold new shares for about $14 billion to a group of investors including a unit of China’s public sovereign wealth fund and a local government-backed asset management firm.

Although these were some of the smaller rural banks, as shown this past month in Chinese reports, their economy is following the world in a quantified slowdown that has seen GDP slip yearly since 2012. Making the matter worse a similar world slow-down in purchasing is already affecting China’s manufacturing-based economy. The three bank failures were only the tip of a huge iceberg.

China’s $40 Trillion banking system dwarfs the American system at double the size, with over 4,000 small, medium and massive, state-owned banks. The world’s four largest banks, including behemoth ICBC ($4TN), are all Chinese.

The failure of just three banks was important enough that Chinese regulators submitted Chinese banks to a stress test and the results were shocking. China’s central bank admitted that China’s banking sector is “showing signs of strain.” The stress tests had revealed that over 13% of China’s 4,379 lenders were designated “high risk” by the central bank’s report. With this amounting to over 570 banks, and thus multiplied by the three existing examples of bank bail-out funding, with the Chinese economy following the world into recession, the financial numbers and likelihood of any future series of bail-outs are truly biblical. If not, fiscally impossible.

Separately, the PBOC also stress-tested 30 medium- and large-sized banks in the first half of 2019. In the base-case scenario, assuming GDP growth dropped to 5.3% – or well above where China’s real GDP is now – nine out of 30 major banks failed and saw their capital adequacy ratio drop to 13.47% from 14.43%. In the worst-case scenario, assuming GDP growth of 4.15%, or just 2% below the latest official Chinese GDP report, seventeen out of the thirty of these major banks failed the test. Separately, a liquidity stress test at 1,171 banks, representing nearly three-quarters of China’s banking sector by total assets, showed that ninety failed in the base-case and 159 in the worst-case scenario. The metrics of any collective bail-out indicates that  China has upwards of an insurmountable $20 trillion problem rapidly approaching.

In reaction to these first three bank failures, the stress tests and poorer economic news China did what centrally planned economies do: Chinesepolicymakers focused on strengthening oversight and regulation by the PBoC and gave it authority to write new rules for much of the financial sector. The China Banking Regulatory Commission and the China Insurance Regulatory Commission will now be merged as part of an overhaul aimed at resolving existing problems such as unclear responsibilities and cross-regulation as well as closing regulatory loopholes and curbing risk in the $40-43 trillion (€34.78 trillion) banking and insurance industries.

With the metrics of China’s banking system already pause for considerable concern to the tune of $20 Trillion, this huge obligation is as much a mirage as the economy since it fails to add to the account the very large and un-tabulated Shadow Banking loans which would add $Trillions in debt to China’s already highly leveraged systemic banking risk.  The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which provides- despite its predatory legacy- some excellent yearly analysis of worldwide economic developments has warned China’s problems could lead to “financial distress” in the world’s second-biggest economy. China is seen as one of the economies most vulnerable to a banking crisis, although Beijing has repeatedly assured that the risks are under control. In response to the PBoC reports, Chinese Finance Minister Xiao Jie echoed that the situation “was under control.”

China’s Economic Tricks of Sustainability

As the world economic body politic runs out of any remaining gas to keep a pilot light under the rapidly cooling metrics that show their long forestalled recession is near and certain, China is also contracting.

The national debt of China, which is the total amount of money owed by the Chinese government and all organizations and branches stands at nearly CNY 38 Trillion ( $5.4 TN) and 54.44% of GDP.

Chinese debt has been accumulating ever more rapidly. The Institute for International Finance (IIF) reported that year-on-year, in Q1 of 2019 China’s corporate, household and government debt increased 6% more from 297% of GDP to an incredible 303%. However, this is also more than a 100% increase since 2008 and amounts to 15% of all global debt.

These figures do not include the off-the-books “Shadow Banking loans that some estimates predict would triple that debt percentage to much closer to $16 Trillion. The problems are most serious in China’s rural banking sector where an ever nervous public has reacted with two late-2019 bank runsat China’s Henan Yichuan Rural Commercial Bank and then at Yingkou Coastal Bank.

At the end of 2018, the budget deficit of the Chinese government was close to five per cent. However, if the off-balance-sheet (“shadow”) financing of local governments is taken into consideration, the budget deficit rises to over 11 per cent. However, at the end of 2014, the official government deficit stood at  less than one per cent, but an accounting which includes local “shadow” funding was around five per cent.

China’s shadow banking system is so-called since this myriad of endemic lending trickery is believed to be massive in total and kept off the books. These risky, undisclosed loans entered China’s financial system in 2009 throwing open the doors to debt for a Chinese population hungry for investment in order to pay for all those Chinese and internationally made western goods.

The main kind of shadow deposit is generally offered as a wealth management product (WMPs). Chinese banks offer these via aggressive marketing of high-interest-rate accounts as their alternative to savings accounts which are regulated to a maximum return of 3 %. Since these sanctioned shadow loans advertise a return of as much as 8% or more, normal banking customers have been throwing their miraculously large paychecks into these funds by the billions.

One reason WMPs offer higher rates is that they are based on much riskier bank loans, much like the precursor to the late ’80s, early ’90’s American savings and loan meltdown. Incredibly, banks don’t hold these loans on their balance sheets or set aside capital against their potential defaults. Instead, they typically extend this debt via intermediaries called trust companies—firms that are not allowed to accept deposits or formally loan out money but are allowed to manage it. The trust companies create investment products like WMPs, which banks market for them in return for a commission.

With some smaller Chinese banks having already found themselves either getting bailed out or the subject of a bank run, one reason is that, like America, China’s interbank/repo rates have surged amid growing counterparty concerns of the many banks seeking depleting available liquidity. This has forced many banks to rely almost entirely on new deposits to fund themselves, forcing them to hike their deposit rates to keep their funding levels stable. Like any Ponzi trick in banking, new cash is required to sustain these thousands of lending pyramids. With the economy in decline, this need has lead to some desperate regional banks offering incentives for depositor’s cash that would make the long-ago American “free toaster”seem ordinary.

China has a massive pork famine that has seen disease wipe out 40% per cent of its pig population in 2019. With China being the world leader in pork consumption these bank’s desperations have created some interesting incentives to attract depositors. The SCMP reports that new clients who deposited 10,000 yuan (US$1,430) or more in a three-month time deposit at the Linhai Rural Commercial Bank in Duqiao in Zhejiang province were then eligible to enter a lottery to win a portion of pork ranging from 500 grams (18 ounces) to several kilograms.Other rural commercial banks in northern China’s Hebei province and western China’s Guizhou province have also launched similar pork rewards programs. Dushan Rural Commercial Bank, located in the remote mountainous county in Guizhou, offered a coupon for 10 yuan (US$1.4) worth of pork for every 10,000 yuan of new deposits.

This solution has been touted as uniquely beneficial to these banks since,instead of offering higher rates which only accelerate the bank’s insolvency due to requiring higher payouts on deposits, the bank is instead making a one-time payment, and the unusual incentive is enough to garner substantial new deposits.

PBoC cuts in its key lending rates in August ’19 designed to stimulate a slowing economy have only exacerbated net interest margin pressures on these banks. With less income from returns on their loans and without the many funding options available to China’s much larger banks, these increasingly high-interest rates that China’s smaller banks have to offer in order to attract new cash deposits could further lead to their insolvency.

It’s been over four years since the last official Chinese benchmark rate cut. With America leading the way across the globe with rate cuts aplenty and China still having a base rate of far higher than the US rate of < 1.5%, it was only a matter of time for China to also drop rates.

With the new authority given to the PBoC, this key Loan Prime Rate (LPR) has become the new Benchmark Reference Rate to be used by banks for lending. This, like most recent decisions are designed to interject further liquidity in the form of debt once again into a still failing economy by lowering borrowing costs for small businesses. This rate will be now set monthly (20th of every month) and will be linked to the Medium-term Lending Facility rate. The current 1 year LPR stands at 4.15% after its latest cut on Nov 30 versus the Benchmark Rate of 4.35%. This number is sure to continue to shrink and can be considered a key indicator of Chinese frustration at retaining needed annual GDP growth since the result of this one move lowered the costs of the roughly 152 trillion yuan ($21.7 trillion) in yuan-denominated outstanding loans held by financial institutions (that are actually on the books) in a further hopeful attempt to again boost economic growth.

Just mere days after the 20 bps cut the PBoC further highlighted its desperate need for capital, announcing that it will be lowering the required reserve ratio (RRR) – or the amount of money banks are required to have on hand – by 50bps for commercial lenders. Currently, the required reserve ratio is 13% for large banks and 11% for small banks. The cut, which is the first since September, will bring the blended reserve ratio for Chinese banks to the lowest level since October 2007.  In doing so PBoC effectively released about 800 billion yuan ($115 billion) in instant liquidity from out of the already cash-strapped financial system.

All these adjustments by China and the PBoC do little to control or pay-off increasing debt and are designed to maintain the Chinese miracle of TVA style infrastructural improvements that has been the employment engine of its economic growth. China’s new development of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), although a masterstroke in Eurasian commerce, also serves to continue the illusion.

As traditional monetary policy becomes ineffective to boost the economy, Chinese President Xi has installed twelve former executives at the state-run financial institutions across the country who will support the communist government’s ability to combat banking and debt difficulties, reported Taipei Times.

These appointments are in response to growth collapsing to a three-decade low in 2019. New manufacturing orders did increase but this was in large- and medium-sized enterprises. Small enterprises continued deeper into contraction and new non-manufacturing orders slowed, pushing employment further into quantified contraction.

An easier to understand recessionary metric, passenger car vehicle sales, fell yet again in December, plunging 3.6% to 2.17 million units, according to the China Passenger Car Association. This marks the 18th drop in the past 19 months for the country.Sales fell 7.5% in 2019 and 6% in 2018. GM said that its sales were down 15% in China and said that pressure into 2020 would likely continue.

Meanwhile, local Chinese manufacturers’ numbers are also down. BYD Co. posted an 11% drop in 2019 sales and SAIC Motor reported a “similar decline”.

Worse, exports to the United States were down 23% from the prior year.

Running from the Piper’s Call

But, it seems that China has no choice but to carry on with the façade of financed infrastructure projects as the only path to survival.  Said Victor Shih, an associate professor of political economy at the University of California in San Diego:

“Because it [infrastructure investment] already is a large contributor to growth, the slowing investment will substantially reduce growth rates. This is not what the leadership wants.”

Shih’s assertion seemed confirmed when last year, President Xi said Chinese banks would lend 380 billion yuan ($55.09 billion) to support Belt and Road cooperation, and Beijing would also inject 100 billion yuan into a Silk Road Fund. Some observers view the project as an instrument designed to help the Chinese economy, with state-owned companies in specific sectors expected to profit massively from its implementation.

But they still need funding and Chinese banks on their own volition may be reluctant to get involved when already having troubles of their own. Andrew Collier, managing director at Orient Capital Research, says

“The banks [may] remain leery of these projects because they doubt they will be profitable and they will be stuck with bad loan. In the end, we are going to see increasing defaults among smaller institutions, the collapse of private loans via wealth management products, and growing layoffs in areas of the country with less political power.”

Making matter worse, a study conducted by the Center for Global Development estimates that the initiative could increase debt sustainability-related banking problems in eight countries also involved in the BRI.

 “I still think that if growth falls below a certain level, the top leadership will order a stimulus, which involves acceleration in debt growth,” said Victor Shih. “That is the only viable tool in China’s arsenal if the economy slows too much.”

As noted in a recent article by University of Helsinki economics professor Tuomas Malinen,  China has stimulated its economy aggressively in Q1 and Q3 2019 but interestingly has not continued its past emphasis on infrastructure investments as in 2015/2016. Q3 of 2019 saw record-breaking stimulus programs, however, China concentrated instead on providing loose credit to enterprises through both conventional and “shadow” banks.

As Malinen forewarns:

“What is notable is that even with this record stimulus, China has kept its economy growing barely above the ‘official rate’. This tells us that the Chinese economy has reached or is very close to reaching the point of debt saturation, where households and corporations simply cannot absorb any more debt, and any new debt-issuance fails to stimulate the economy.”

Though a massive infrastructure-spending program could revive growth, the ability of China to issue fiscal stimulus is starting to be seriously limited. This effectively means that China is fiscally unable to underwrite massive infrastructure projects and so any new world-economy-saving stimulus from China, as in 2015/2016, will be practically impossible. New infrastructure initiatives- if recessionary metrics continue to deteriorate- could only be realized if those costs are directly monetized by the PBoC. This would be the weapon of last resort for China but , when considering a declining economy, may soon be inevitable.

As Goes China…?

China is just one more working example of the failure of the many globalist economies worldwide that are already similarly suffering in the grip of massive unsustainable- if not orchestrated- debt. Which country becomes the first to trigger the almost certainly pending domino effect of global economic collapse, is merely a rhetorical question at this point. As goes China…?

This week in an interview, former Reagan OMB director David Stockman highlighted the global economic link to China, saying,

“The world economy would be not nearly as good as it looks had the Chinese not been borrowing like there’s no tomorrow and building regardless of whether its efficient or profitable.”

Stockman added, in summation,

“The whole global economy is really dependent on China piling even more debt onto the $40 trillion pile they already have.”

China economically continues to play the financial role of Kenneth Lay to its American mentor’s Bernie Madoff. But in the last few months China has shown, like so many other so-called first world economies, that it too is now all-in at the casino and using only borrowed money in a desperate effort to stay at the table…or starve.

Worldwide, many countries already burn in political turmoil of their own debt-ridden making as their own  primal forces of nature squeeze their populations with the resultant new mantra of ever increasing austerity while the IMF and World Bank waits in the wings, salivating to gobble-up the carcass.

Alas, when it comes to unsustainable national endemic debt one primal truth is now being heard clearly in China, as in other Central bank boardrooms across the globe, and the empty dinner plates of their public…

When the time comes to pay the piper, that debt willbe paid, no matter…but the Piper will take, in lieu of payment, pork, flesh, blood, or… dreams!

(Special thanks to Tracy Turner for providing additional research for this article.)

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Brett Redmayne-Titley has published over 180 in-depth articles over the past ten years for news agencies worldwide. Many have been translated and republished. On-scene reporting from important current events has led to his many multi-part exposes on such topics as the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, NATO summit, Keystone XL Pipeline, Porter Ranch Methane blow-out, Hizbullah in Lebanon, Erdogan’s Turkey and many more. He can be reached at: live-on-scene ((at)) gmx.com. Prior articles can be viewed at his archive: www.watchingromeburn.uk

Consider some of what the Reverend MLK proclaimed about American militarism:

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”

“A few years ago there was a shining moment in the struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor — both black and white — through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube.”

The assassination of Qassem Soleimani and seven others including a top Iraqi commander was “mad on war.” Soleimani was both an Iranian general and an Iranian diplomat at the highest level, a hero throughout the mid-east for defeating ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Literally millions of Iranians demonstrated in four different Iranian cities in mourning and in solidarity against the U.S.

Soleimani did not pose an “imminent danger,” the only possible way to justify the murders under international law. Just another bold-faced lie to justify American aggression. On Jan. 13, NBC News reported that Trump authorized the killing seven months ago.

The drone attack on Soleimani happened at Baghdad Airport – without notice to, much less permission from the Iraqi government. Two days later, the Iraqi Prime Minister addressed the Iraqi Parliament stating that Soleimani was in Baghdad to meet with him at Trump’s request so as to discuss a Saudi proposal to de-escalate the volatile situation between Saudi Arabia and Iran; in other words, Trump lured Soleimani to Baghdad on a mission of peace.

The Iraqi Parliament thereupon voted to expel all American troops from Iraq. Sec. of State Pompeo’s response? We’re staying anyway. So much for the cause of freedom and democracy.

This illegal, self-defeating, counter-productive, barbaric attack put us right back on the brink of a tit-for-tat escalation with no end in sight.

Pompeo, former CIA director, “the loudest voice pushing Trump to kill Soleimani” (NY Times, 1/7/20), identifies himself as an “evangelical Christian.” Pompeo has stated that the Bible “informs everything I do” and that Trump just might be selected by God to “save the Jewish people from the Iranian menace, just like Queen Esther [in the Bible].” Evangelicals believe in the prophecy that the gathering of Jews in Israel will be followed by apocalyptic “end times” and the “rapture,” which is the ascent of true Christians into the kingdom of God.

Also, see “Mike Pompeo Is the Most Dangerous Man in the World Right Now” (Adam Weinstein, New Republic, 1/6/20):

“For more than a year now, [Pompeo] has systematically led Trump and the Pentagon onto a war footing with Iran with shocking, unprecedented moves. These include designating a foreign government arm as a terrorist group; taking trips without his Pentagon counterpart to consult with America’s Mideast combatant commanders; defying Congress to arm the Saudis and other Iranian antagonists in the region; and publicly blaming regional attacks on Tehran with little evidence but heavily edited, ambiguous videos.”

More MLK:

“We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation … Before it is too late, we must narrow the gaping chasm between our proclamations of peace and our lowly deeds which precipitate and perpetuate war … There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.”

The problem is not just Trump. The problem is systemic. Both parties cater to the military-industrial complex. MLK was protesting a Democratic administration. Three days after Soleimani’s murder, Jesse Jackson issued a statement in which he acknowledged that “Obama added to the mess, seeking regime change in Syria and in Libya, spreading the chaos.”

Most telling is the consistent support of both parties in Congress for funding preposterous Pentagon budgets, half of which now enrich profiteering contractors, what MLK referred to as a “demonic destructive suction tube.

” The Pentagon eats up more of the federal government’s discretionary budget … than all other discretionary spending combined … At the same time, the Pentagon is unable to pass an audit …  The result is that we are wasting hundreds of billions of dollars, fueling endless war and diverting money from other vital needs.” (Robert Weissman, Pres. of Public Citizen, 1/11/20)

“Some 140 million Americans are living in poverty or on the brink, while more than a third of us report not getting health care because it costs too much. Our infrastructure, with $2 trillion in unfunded needs, gets a D+ from the American Society of Civil Engineers. A poll last fall found that three-quarters of Americans — Democrats and Republicans alike — don’t want a war with Iran.” (Lindsay Koshgarian, Institute for Policy Studies, 1/10/20)

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Barry Kissin is a retired attorney, dedicated peace activist and columnist who resides in Frederick, Maryland, home of Fort Detrick, headquarters of the American biodefense/bioweapons program. He is regularly published in his local newspaper, The Frederick News-Post, as well as in alternative media, including Global Research, Consortium News, Op-ed News and International Clearing House.

Featured image is from Mr. Fish/Truthdig

The phase one deal leaves major bilateral differences unresolved. Further talks could continue intermittently for years without resolution.

The US aims to weaken China economically, financially, industrially, technologically and militarily, part of its Indo/Pacific strategy to dominate the region.

China’s President Xi Jinping was noticeably absent from Wednesday’s signing ceremony, declining Trump’s invitation, Vice Premier Liu He representing Beijing in the White House East Room.

Beijing long ago agreed to much of what’s included in the phase one deal. Negotiations could have been concluded in 2018 if the Trump regime accepted then what’s agreed on now.

According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP), details of the deal weren’t available in China for over eight hours after Wednesday’s signing ceremony.

According to the official People’s Daily broadsheet, the phase one deal “came 22 months after trade tensions flared between the world’s top two economies in March 2018,” adding:

Wednesday’s signing ceremony temporarily “reduce(s) uncertainties that have dampened business investment moods in both countries and beyond.”

Resolving the toughest issues lies ahead. China clearly won’t bend to US interests at the expense of its longterm development goals.

Under terms of the deal,

“China will increase imports of US agricultural products, and the US will gradually eliminate its tariffs on Chinese goods,” the People’s Daily explained, adding:

“The deal covers intellectual property rights, technology transfers, food and agricultural products, financial services, exchange rates and transparency.”

According to China Center for International Economic Exchanges vice president Wei Jianguo, both countries will likely “step on each other’s feet” ahead, but further dialogue will follow the agreement reached.

The official Xinhua news agency said the phase one deal is only “a good start” in a dispute that’s “longterm, complicated and arduous.”

Wednesday’s signing ceremony came at a time when the Trump regime is preparing new restrictions on Chinese telecom giant Huawei’s access to US technology, along with pressuring Britain, Germany, and other European countries to distance themselves from the company.

According to academic Wang Heng, phase two negotiations “may involve more difficult domestic regulatory issues such as subsidies, state-owned enterprises, and internet supervision,” adding:

“Due to the complexity of the negotiations, it remains to be seen whether the two parties can reach a second-stage agreement.”

“If market competition rules such as subsidies are not agreed upon, economic and trade frictions may continue and affect the two countries and the international economy.”

Economist Shen Jianguang stressed that considerable obstacles lie ahead, future disputes likely, adding:

“Since the trade war started, the strategic mutual trust between China and the United States has retrogressed.”

“Frictions and disputes in other areas have also occurred frequently. We need to prepare comprehensively for the complexity of Sino-US relations and long-term battle.”

What both countries agreed to and what unfolds ahead may diverge greatly, depending on how major bilateral differences between both countries are handled and global economic conditions.

According to the US released phase one text, China agreed to buy increased amounts of US soybeans, oilseeds, beef, pork, grains, cotton, other agricultural products, as well as billions of dollars worth of US oil, gas, coal, nuclear power equipment, other manufactured goods, and services.

Under terms of the phase one deal, China will buy $32.9 billion worth of US manufactured goods this year and $44.8 billion in 2021; $12.5 billion in US agricultural goods this year and $19.5 billion in 2021; $18.5 billion in US energy products this year and $33.9 billion in 2021; and $12.8 billion in US services this year and $25.1 billion in 2021.

The total amount of Chinese purchases are to be at least $200 billion more from January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2021 than the amount of US goods bought in 2017.

Beijing earlier said its imports will depend on internal needs. Its ruling authorities also have commitments with other trading partner nations they likely wish to maintain.

The US and China recognized the importance of establishing a legal system to protect intellectual property.

Both countries agreed not to engage in competitive currency devaluation.

US-based Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch is skeptical about how Sino/US trade will play out ahead, tweeting:

“Trump believes his phase one #China deal will yield great benefits for US farmers, producers and other exporters. But his deal may not amount to more than a hill of soybeans.”

What’s officially called “fully enforceable” may not turn out as expected.

The US and China are rivals, not partners. Growing prominence of other nations on the world stage conflicts with US geopolitical aims.

Its rage to dominate other nations, fueling distrust in Beijing and elsewhere, may be the greatest obstacle in the way of resolving major differences ahead.

Despite agreement on a phase one deal, major irreconcilable differences between both countries may remain unresolvable no matter how many more rounds of talks are held.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

In groundbreaking news President Putin announced today, 15 January, in his annual address to the Nation, major changes in his government. First, he announced that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and his entire cabinet resigned and will eventually be replaced by a new PM and a new cabinet. A timeline was not given. In the meantime, they would carry on with their functions as ‘normal’. Well, how normal can this be for a group of “lame ducks”?

A second important point of Mr. Putin’s speech focused on shifting power away from the Presidency to the Duma, or Parliament. The Duma shall have more power in a better balancing act between the Presidency and the voice of the people, i.e. the Parliament. A move towards more ‘democracy’. Some interpret this as a reaction to western criticism of Russia being a dictatorial state and this move should alleviate Russia from this accusation. I don’t think so. Western accusations are random, when it suits them, never based on facts.

For example, the change in government power foresees some changes in the Russian Constitution, but not a rewrite at all, as Mr. Putin stressed. The term-limitation of the Presidency should also not change, no more than two. It appears the “no more than two “in a row” – should be amended, and the “in a row” deleted. That would mean, that President Putin would have to leave the Presidency definitely in 2024, when his current term is up. This may be one of those Constitutional areas to be confirmed by the Duma – or not.

But could Mr. Putin become PM and still run Russia from behind the scene? As he did from 2008 – 2012, under then President Dmitry Medvedev. This was not discussed.

When PM Medvedev explained his resignation, he referred to Article 117 of the Russian Constitution, which states that the government can offer its resignation to the president, who, in turn, can either accept or reject it. Mr. Putin, of course, accepted it, thanking PM Medvedev and his Ministers for their good work and service to Russia. Although there was no visible hostility between Putin and Medvedev, this move has most likely been discussed and negotiated months ago.

Mr. Medvedev was offered to post of deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, a job that first had to be created, according to Mr. Putin. This is clearly a few steps down from Prime-Minister. PM Medvedev and President Putin are both members of the United Russia Party, but Medvedev had the reputation of being an Atlantist, meaning, leaning strongly towards the west, western political philosophy. The Russian financial sector is still infiltrated with Atlantists, some may call them Fifth Columnists.

All the while seeking to improve relations with Europe – a logical step – President Putin is adamant to detach from the US-dollar dominated “sanction-prone” economy. And rightly so. Might this explain the departure of PM Medvedev? – As of this morning, there was no mention of a favored replacement as PM. This may take a while. Seemingly no problem, as all the key activities are still covered by the “caretaker” government. The entire change of government was presented as “relaxed”, “no big deal”, a natural process for improving the functioning of the Russian government. Yet, this has never happened in “modern” Russia, in the last 20 years, under Mr. Putin’s leadership.

Duma members interviewed saw it generally as positive move. They will now have more power, and more responsibility. They will have a say in key appointments, including of the Prime-Minister and his cabinet, while the final decision rests still with the President.

What is important to notice, is that the present “democratization” of the Russian government comes at a time when Mr. Putin’s public approval is still around 70%, a slight drop since his reelection in 2018 with 77%.

The Duma with its new powers, will be asked to look at some aspects of the Constitution (as of yet no details are officially defined) with a view of possibly modifying them. Given Mr. Putin’s high popularity and Russia’s economic and political stability – despite the constant western interference, or attempted interferences – preserving that stability and continuous economic prosperity is important, i.e. continuity in the Presidency and the Government is crucial. Thus, wouldn’t it be conceivable that the Duma might lift the term-limit for the Presidency altogether?

Although, at this stage much of this is speculative. But assuming that some of the strategy behind this change – the “power equalizing move” – goes in this direction, then the timing is perfect. A new Decade, a new Era. And Putin remains the key player – the one who has made of Russia what she is today – a proud, independent, autonomous nation, that has despite all sanctions and western demonization – not only prevailed, but come out on top brilliantly as a sovereign world super power. – Why would the Russian people want to risk giving up this hard-deserved privilege?

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Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; Greanville Post; Defend Democracy Press, TeleSUR; The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Timely article first published by Global Research on June 25, 2016

The war on cannabis that began in the 1930s seems to be coming to an end. Research shows that this natural plant, rather than posing a deadly danger to health, has a wide range of therapeutic benefits. But skeptics question the sudden push for legalization, which is largely funded by wealthy investors linked to Big Ag and Big Pharma.

In April, Pennsylvania became the 24^th state to legalize medical cannabis, a form of the plant popularly known as marijuana. That makes nearly half of US states. A major barrier to broader legalization has been the federal law under which all cannabis – even the very useful form known as industrial hemp – is classed as a Schedule I controlled substance that cannot legally be grown in the US. But that classification could change soon. In a letter sent to federal lawmakers in April, the US Drug Enforcement Administration said it plans to release a decision on rescheduling marijuana in the first half of 2016.

The presidential candidates are generally in favor of relaxing the law. In November 2015, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced a bill that would repeal all federal penalties for possessing and growing the plant, allowing states to establish their own marijuana laws. Hillary Clinton would not go that far but would drop cannabis from a Schedule I drug (a deadly dangerous drug with no medical use and high potential for abuse) to Schedule II (a deadly dangerous drug with medical use and high potential for abuse). Republican candidate Donald Trump says we are losing badly in the war on drugs, and that to win that war all drugs need to be legalized.

But it is Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein who has been called “weed’s biggest fan.” Speaking from the perspective of a physician and public health advocate,Stein notes that hundreds of thousands of patients suffering from chronic pain and cancers are benefiting from the availability of medical marijuana under state laws. State economies are benefiting as well. She cites Colorado, where retail marijuana stores first opened in January 2014. Since then, Colorado’s crime rates and traffic fatalities have dropped; and tax revenue, economic output from retail marijuana sales, and jobs have increased.

Among other arguments for changing federal law is that the marijuana business currently lacks access to banking facilities. Most banks, fearful of FDIC sanctions, won’t work with the $6.7 billion marijuana industry, leaving 70% of cannabis companies without bank accounts. That means billions of dollars are sitting around in cash, encouraging tax evasion and inviting theft, to which an estimated 10% of profits are lost. But that problem too could be remedied soon. On June 16, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved an amendment to prevent the Treasury Department from punishing banks that open accounts for state-legal marijuana businesses.

Boosting trade in the new marijuana market is not a good reason for decriminalizing it, of course, if it actually poses a grave danger to health. But there have been no recorded deaths from cannabis overdose in the US. Not that the herb can’t have problematic effects, but the hazards pale compared to alcohol (30,000 deaths annually) and to patented pharmaceuticals, which are now the leading cause of death from drug overdose. Prescription drugs taken as directed are estimated to kill 100,000 Americans per year.

Behind the War on Weed: Taking Down the World’s Largest Agricultural Crop

The greatest threat to health posed by marijuana seems to come from its criminalization. Today over 50 percent of inmates in federal prison are there for drug offenses, and marijuana tops the list. Cannabis cannot legally be grown in the US even as hemp, a form with very low psychoactivity. Why not? The answer seems to have more to do with economic competition and racism than with health.

Cannabis is actually one of the oldest domesticated crops, having been grown for industrial and medicinal purposes for millennia. Until 1883, hemp was also one of the largest agricultural crops (some say the largest). It was the material from which most fabric, soap, fuel, paper and fiber were made. Before 1937, it was also a component of at least 2,000 medicines.

In early America, it was considered a farmer’s patriotic duty to grow hemp. Cannabis was legal tender in most of the Americas from 1631 until the early 1800s. Americans could even pay their taxes with it. Benjamin Franklin’s paper mill used cannabis. Hemp crops produce nearly four times as much raw fiber as equivalent tree plantations; and hemp paper is finer, stronger and lasts longer than wood-based paper. Hemp was also an essential resource for any country with a shipping industry, since it was the material from which sails and rope were made.

Today hemp is legally grown for industrial use in hundreds of countries outside the US. A 1938 article in Popular Mechanics claimed it was a billion-dollar crop (the equivalent of about $16 billion today), useful in 25,000 products ranging from dynamite to cellophane. New uses continue to be found. Claims include eliminating smog from fuels, creating a cleaner energy source that can replace nuclear power, removing radioactive water from the soil, eliminating deforestation, and providing a very nutritious food source for humans and animals.

To powerful competitors, the plant’s myriad uses seem to have been the problem.Cannabis competed with the lumber industry, the oil industry, the cotton industry, the petrochemical industry and the pharmaceutical industry. In the 1930s, the plant in all its forms came under attack.

Its demonization accompanied the demonization of Mexican immigrants, who were then flooding over the border and were widely perceived to be a threat. Pot smoking was part of their indigenous culture. Harry Anslinger, called “the father of the war on weed,” was the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, a predecessor to the Drug Enforcement Administration. He fully embraced racism as a tool for demonizing marijuana. He made such comments as “marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others,” and “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.” In 1937, sensational racist claims like these caused recreational marijuana to be banned; and industrial hemp was banned with it.

Classification as a Schedule I controlled substance came in the 1970s, with President Richard Nixon’s War on Drugs. The Shafer Commission, tasked with giving a final report, recommended against the classification; but Nixon ignored the commission.

According to an April 2016 article in Harper’s Magazine, the War on Drugs had political motives. Top Nixon aide John Ehrlichman is quoted as saying in a 1994 interview:

The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. . . . We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.

Competitor or Attractive New Market for the Pharmaceutical Industry?

The documented medical use of cannabis goes back two thousand years, but the Schedule I ban has seriously hampered medical research. Despite that obstacle, cannabis has now been shown to have significant therapeutic value for a wide range of medical conditions, including cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, glaucoma, lung disease, anxiety, muscle spasms, hepatitis C, inflammatory bowel disease, and arthritis pain.

New research has also revealed the mechanism for these wide-ranging effects. It seems the active pharmacological components of the plant mimic chemicals produced naturally by the body called endocannabinoids. These chemicals are responsible for keeping critical biological functions in balance, including sleep, appetite, the immune system, and pain. When stress throws those functions off, the endocannabinoids move in to restore balance.

Inflammation is a common trigger of the disease process in a broad range of degenerative ailments. Stress triggers inflammation, and cannabis relieves both inflammation and stress. THC, the primary psychoactive component of the plant, has been found to have twenty times the anti-inflammatory power of aspirin and twice that of hydrocortisone.

CBD, the most-studied non-psychoactive component, also comes with an impressive list of therapeutic benefits, including not against cancer but as a super-antibiotic. CBD has been shown to kill “superbugs” that are resistant to currently available drugs. This is a major medical breakthrough, since for some serious diseases antibiotics have reached the end of their usefulness.

Behind the Push for Legalization

The pharmaceutical industry both has much to gain and much to lose from legalization of the cannabis plant in its various natural forms. Patented pharmaceuticals have succeeded in monopolizing the drug market globally. What that industry does not want is to be competing with a natural plant that anyone can grow in his backyard, which actually works better than very expensive pharmaceuticals without side effects.

Letitia Pepper, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, is a case in point. A vocal advocate for the decriminalization of marijuana for personal use, she says she has saved her insurance company $600,000 in the last nine years, using medical marijuana in place of a wide variety of prescription drugs to treat her otherwise crippling disease. That is $600,000 the pharmaceutical industry has not made, on just one patient. There are 400,000 MS sufferers in the US, and 20 million people who have been diagnosed with cancer sometime in their lives. Cancer chemotherapy is the biggest of big business, which would be directly threatened by a cheap natural plant-based alternative.

The threat to big industry profits could explain why cannabis has been kept off the market for so long. More suspicious to Pepper and other observers is the sudden push to legalize it. They question whether Big Pharma would allow the competition, unless it had an ace up its sleeve. Although the movement for marijuana legalization is a decades-old grassroots effort, the big money behind the recent push has come from a few very wealthy individuals with links to Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company and producer of genetically modified seeds. In May of this year, Bayer AG, the giant German chemical and pharmaceutical company, made a bid to buy Monsanto. Both companies are said to be working on a cannabis-based extract.

Natural health writer Mike Adams warns:

[W]ith the cannabis industry predicted to generate over $13 billion by 2020, becoming one of the largest agricultural markets in the nation, there should be little doubt that companies like Monsanto are simply waiting for Uncle Sam to remove the herb from its current Schedule I classification before getting into the business.

. . . [O]ther major American commodities, like corn and soybeans, are on average between 88 and 91 percent genetically modified. Therefore, once the cannabis industry goes national, and that is most certainly primed to happen, there will be no stopping the inevitability of cannabis becoming a prostituted product of mad science and shady corporate monopoly tactics.

With the health benefits of cannabis now well established, the battlefield has shifted from its decriminalization to who can grow it, sell it, and prescribe it. Under existing California law, patients like Pepper are able to grow and use the plant essentially for free. New bills purporting to legalize marijuana for recreational use impose regulations that opponents say would squeeze home growers and small farmers out of the market, would heighten criminal sanctions for violations, and could wind up replacing the natural cannabis plant with patented, genetically modified (GMO) plants that must be purchased year after year. These new bills and the Monsanto/Bayer connection will be the subject of a follow-up article. Stay tuned.

Ellen Brown is an attorney, Founder of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books, including the best-selling Web of Debt. Her latest book, The Public Bank Solution, explores successful public banking models historically and globally. Her 300+ blog articles are at EllenBrown.com. She can be heard biweekly on “It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown” on PRN.FM.

The government is causing irreversible harm to vulnerable child refugees living in Britain by denying them the chance of being reunited with their close families. Their mums, their dads, their sisters and brothers – the people they need the most. This is a deliberate act. It flagrantly breaches international law.

The Home Office allows adult refugees who have been granted international protection in the UK to apply to be reunited with their families, but it chooses to treat children differently. A new report by the Refugee Council, Amnesty International and Save the Children lays bare the fact that there is no justification for this discrimination. In applying this restriction, the UK is set apart from every other country in the EU. In France, Germany and Sweden, for example, they do the opposite and are active in enabling separated child refugees to be joined by their families.

Frustratingly, this is a policy the home secretary could change in an instant, with the simple stroke of a pen. To date, neither she nor her predecessors have chosen to do so.

The situation begins like this. Persecution and conflict fracture families and tear loved ones apart, no matter how hard they try to stay together. Parents lose contact with their children and partners in the mayhem and chaos of a war zone. As a result they end up in different countries, even continents. They’re physically safe, but isolated, lonely, terrified and disturbed.

Splitting up your family in the hope that at least the children escape harm and find safety is a desperate decision that no-one can plan or prepare for. It’s sometimes the young ones who are targeted – press-ganged as child soldiers or trafficked for exploitation. That’s one of the reasons that urgent flight is sometimes non-negotiable.

Children therefore arrive in the UK alone and in desperate need of support. Recent evidence from the UNHCR shows these children often have no idea where they are, let alone what rights they can expect in their new countries.

Though the UK government recognises that separated, unaccompanied children can be granted refugee status, these children are denied the right to apply to be reunited with their families. They’re condemned to a future that we’d never visit upon any child of our own.

Kids like Habib, one of the 12 children interviewed for the research, are experiencing this first-hand. He was 17 when he fled Sudan after being tortured and imprisoned at just 15-years-old. He travelled to Libya, leaving behind his mother and younger siblings. He was treated so badly there he still spoke of his flashbacks several years later. He finally found safety in the UK but remains separated from his family.

“I haven’t seen my family for nearly three years now,” he said. “It is a long time and I miss my mum. It is really hard. It is something that you cannot forget about. You can cover it, but you can’t forget. Being without your family, it is like you have a body without a soul.”

Social workers and other professionals featured in the report speak of their distress at witnessing the children for whom they care having to cope without their families.

Our research also highlights the criticism that this policy has been subject to, from senior judges to specialist parliamentary committees and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

We are doing all we can to try to minimise the pain children like Habib suffer. In 2018, we promoted a private member’s bill calling for these harmful rules to be changed which attracted the support of over 130 MPs, drawn from across the political spectrum. But the government looked the other way, neglecting to address the issue and choosing instead to block any changes, citing safeguarding concerns about children outside of this country without supporting evidence.

In the light of the compelling evidence contained in this report of the immense and lasting harm that enforced separation causes children, we believe, as do the thousands of people who support our call, that the home secretary should see reason and change these rules immediately.

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Maurice Wren is chief executive of the Refugee Council.

Kate Allen is director at Amnesty International UK.

Daniela Reale is lead on Child Protection and Children on the Move at Save the Children.

Featured image is from iStock

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” – The Second Amendment to the US Constitution

We never learn.

In the right (or wrong) hands, benevolent plans can easily be put to malevolent purposes.

Even the most well-intentioned government law or program can be—and has been—perverted, corrupted and used to advance illegitimate purposes once profit and power are added to the equation.

The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on illegal immigration, asset forfeiture schemes, road safety schemes, school safety schemes, eminent domain: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the police state’s hands.

Mark my words: gun control legislation, especially in the form of red flag gun laws, which allow the police to remove guns from people suspected of being threats, will only add to the government’s power.

These laws, growing in popularity as a legislative means by which to seize guns from individuals viewed as a danger to themselves or others, are yet another Trojan Horse, a stealth maneuver by the police state to gain greater power over an unsuspecting and largely gullible populace.

Seventeen states now have red flag laws on their books.

That number is growing.

As The Washington Post reports, these laws “allow a family member, roommate, beau, law enforcement officer or any type of medical professional to file a petition [with a court] asking that a person’s home be temporarily cleared of firearms. It doesn’t require a mental-health diagnosis or an arrest.”

In the midst of what feels like an epidemic of mass shootings (the statistics suggest otherwise), these gun confiscation laws—extreme risk protection order (ERPO) laws—may appease the fears of those who believe that fewer guns in the hands of the general populace will make our society safer.

Of course, it doesn’t always work that way.

Anything—knives, vehicles, planes, pressure cookers—can become a weapon when wielded with deadly intentions.

With these red flag gun laws, the stated intention is to disarm individuals who are potential threats… to “stop dangerous people before they act.”

While in theory it appears perfectly reasonable to want to disarm individuals who are clearly suicidal and/or pose an “immediate danger” to themselves or others, where the problem arises is when you put the power to determine who is a potential danger in the hands of government agencies, the courts and the police.

We’ve been down this road before.

Remember, this is the same government that uses the words “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” interchangeably.

This is the same government whose agents are spinning a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports using automated eyes and ears, social media, behavior sensing software, and citizen spies to identify potential threats.

This is the same government that keeps re-upping the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which allows the military to detain American citizens with no access to friends, family or the courts if the government believes them to be a threat.

This is the same government that has a growing list—shared with fusion centers and law enforcement agencies—of ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that could flag someone as suspicious and result in their being labeled potential enemies of the state.

For instance, if you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution (namely, your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share your political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), you could be at the top of the government’s terrorism watch list.

Moreover, as a New York Times editorial warns, you may be an anti-government extremist (a.k.a. domestic terrorist) in the eyes of the police if you are afraid that the government is plotting to confiscate your firearms, if you believe the economy is about to collapse and the government will soon declare martial law, or if you display an unusual number of political and/or ideological bumper stickers on your car.

Let that sink in a moment.

Now consider what happened in Maryland after a police officer attempted to “enforce” the state’s new red flag law, after it went into effect in 2018.

At 5 am on a Monday, two police officers showed up at 61-year-old Gary Willis’ house to serve him with a court order requiring that he surrender his guns. Willis answered the door holding a gun.

Mind you, in some states, merely answering the door holding a gun is enough to get you killed by police who have a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later.

Willis initially set his gun aside while he spoke with the police. However, when the police attempted to serve him with the gun confiscation order, Willis reportedly became “irate” and picked up his gun again. At that point, a struggle ensued, causing the gun to go off. Although no one was harmed, one of the cops shot and killed Willis.

According to the Anne Arundel County police chief, the shooting was a sign that the red flag law is needed.

What the police can’t say with any certainty is what they prevented by shooting and killing Willis.

Therein lies the danger of these red flag laws, specifically, and pre-crime laws such as these generally where the burden of proof is reversed and you are guilty before you are given any chance to prove you are innocent.

Red flag gun laws merely push us that much closer towards a suspect society where everyone is potentially guilty of some crime or another and must be preemptively rendered harmless.

Where many Americans go wrong is in naively assuming that you have to be doing something illegal or harmful in order to be flagged and targeted for some form of intervention or detention.

In fact, U.S. police agencies have been working to identify and manage potential extremist “threats,” violent or otherwise, before they can become actual threats for some time now.

In fact, all you need to do these days to end up on a government watch list or be subjected to heightened scrutiny is use certain trigger words (like cloud, pork and pirates), surf the internet, communicate using a cell phone, limp or stutter, drive a car, stay at a hotel, attend a political rally, express yourself on social media, appear mentally ill, serve in the military, disagree with a law enforcement official, call in sick to work, purchase materials at a hardware store, take flying or boating lessons, appear suspicious, appear confused or nervous, fidget or whistle or smell bad, be seen in public waving a toy gun or anything remotely resembling a gun (such as a water nozzle or a remote control or a walking cane), stare at a police officer, question government authority, appear to be pro-gun or pro-freedom, or generally live in the United States.

Be warned: once you get on such a government watch list—whether it’s a terrorist watch list, a mental health watch list, a dissident watch list, or a red flag gun watch list—there’s no clear-cut way to get off, whether or not you should actually be on there.

You will be tracked wherever you go.

You will be flagged as a potential threat and dealt with accordingly.

This is pre-crime on an ideological scale and it’s been a long time coming.

The government has been building its pre-crime, surveillance network in concert with fusion centers (of which there are 78 nationwide, with partners in the private sector and globally), data collection agencies, behavioral scientists, corporations, social media, and community organizers and by relying on cutting-edge technology for surveillance, facial recognition, predictive policing, biometrics, and behavioral epigenetics (in which life experiences alter one’s genetic makeup).

To that noxious mix, add in a proposal being considered by the Trump Administration for a new government agency HARPA (a healthcare counterpart to the Pentagon’s research and development arm DARPA) that will take the lead in identifying and targeting “signs” of mental illness or violent inclinations among the populace by using artificial intelligence to collect data from Apple Watches, Fitbits, Amazon Echo and Google Home.

It’s the American police state’s take on the dystopian terrors foreshadowed by George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and Phillip K. Dick all rolled up into one oppressive pre-crime and pre-thought crime package.

If you’re not scared yet, you should be.

Connect the dots.

Start with the powers amassed by the government under the USA Patriot Act, note the government’s ever-broadening definition of what it considers to be an “extremist,” then add in the government’s detention powers under NDAA, the National Security Agency’s far-reaching surveillance networks, and fusion centers that collect and share surveillance data between local, state and federal police agencies.

To that, add tens of thousands of armed, surveillance drones that will soon blanket American skies, facial recognition technology that will identify and track you wherever you go and whatever you do. And then to complete the picture, toss in the real-time crime centers being deployed in cities across the country, which will be attempting to “predict” crimes and identify criminals before they happen based on widespread surveillance, complex mathematical algorithms and prognostication programs.

Hopefully you’re starting to understand how easy we’ve made it for the government to identify, label, target, defuse and detain anyone it views as a potential threat for a variety of reasons that run the gamut from mental illness to having a military background to challenging its authority to just being on the government’s list of persona non grata.

This brings me back to those red flag gun laws.

In the short term, these gun confiscation laws may serve to temporarily delay or discourage those wishing to inflict violence on others, but it will not resolve whatever madness or hate or instability therein that causes someone to pull a trigger or launch a bomb or unleash violence on another.

Nor will these laws save us from government-instigated and directed violence at the hands of the American police state or the blowback from the war-drenched, violence-imbued, profit-driven military industrial complex, both of which remain largely overlooked and underestimated pieces of the discussion on gun violence in America.

In the long term, all these gun confiscation laws will do is ensure that when the police state finally cracks down, “we the people” are defenseless in the face of the government’s arsenal of weapons.

Now you can largely determine where a person will fall in the debate over gun control and the Second Amendment based on their view of government and the role it should play in our lives.

Those who want to see government as a benevolent parent looking out for our best interests tend to interpret the Second Amendment’s “militia” reference as applying only to the military.

To those who see the government as inherently corrupt, the Second Amendment is a means of ensuring that the populace will always have a way of defending themselves against threats to their freedoms.

And then there are those who view the government as neither good nor evil, but merely a powerful entity that, as Thomas Jefferson recognized, must be bound “down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” To this group, the right to bear arms is no different from any other right enshrined in the Constitution, to be safeguarded, exercised prudently and maintained.

Unfortunately, while these three divergent viewpoints continue to jockey for supremacy, the U.S. government has adopted a “do what I say, not what I do” mindset when it comes to Americans’ rights overall.

Nowhere is this double standard more evident than in the government’s attempts to arm itself to the teeth, all the while treating anyone who dares to legally own a gun, let alone use one, as suspicious and/or on the road to being an outlaw.

In Virginia, for instance, legislation has been introduced that would “require background checks on all firearms purchases, allow law enforcement to temporarily remove guns from individuals deemed a risk to themselves or others, let localities ban weapons from certain events and government buildings, and cap handgun purchases at one per month.”

To those who subscribe to George Orwell’s views about gun ownership (“That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer’s cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there”), these legislative attempts to regulate and control gun usage among the citizenry is nothing short of tyranny.

Not surprisingly, then, in Virginia and a growing number of states across the country, momentum is building for 2A “sanctuary” cities that adopt resolutions opposing any “unconstitutional restrictions” on the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

Personally, I’m all for any attempt by the citizenry to nullify government actions that run afoul of the Constitution.

Certainly, there’s no denying that there is a huge double standard at play when it comes to the debate over guns in America: while the government continues to crack down on the citizenry’s right to own and bear arms (merely owning a gun can now get you treated as a suspect, searched, arrested, subjected to all manner of surveillance, shot at and killed despite ever having committed a crime), the government’s own efforts to militarize and weaponize its agencies and employees has reached epic proportions.

Ironically, while various state and federal agencies continue to adopt gun control legislation that includes bans on military-style assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and armor-piercing bullets, expanded background checks, and tougher gun-trafficking laws, local police agencies are being “gifted” military-grade weaponry and equipment designed for the battlefield.

“We the people” have been so focused on debating who or what is responsible for gun violence—the guns, the gun owners, or our violent culture—and whether the Second Amendment “allows” us to own guns that we’ve overlooked the most important and most consistent theme throughout the Constitution: the fact that it is not merely an enumeration of our rights but was intended to be a clear shackle on the government’s powers.

When considered in the context of prohibitions against the government, the Second Amendment reads as a clear rebuke against any attempt to restrict the citizenry’s gun ownership.

As such, it is as necessary an ingredient for maintaining that tenuous balance between the citizenry and their republic as any of the other amendments in the Bill of Rights, especially the right to freedom of speech, assembly, press, petition, security, and due process.

Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas understood this tension well.

“The Constitution is not neutral,” Douglas remarked, “It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.”

In this way, the freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights in their entirety stand as a bulwark against a police state.

To our detriment, these rights have been steadily weakened, eroded and undermined in recent years. Yet without any one of them, including the Second Amendment right to own and bear arms, we are that much more vulnerable to the vagaries of out-of-control policemen, benevolent dictators, genuflecting politicians, and overly ambitious bureaucrats.

You can eliminate all of the guns, but it will not necessarily eliminate violence. Those same individuals sick enough to walk into an elementary school or a movie theater and open fire using a gun can and do wreak just as much havoc with homemade bombs made out of pressure cookers and a handful of knives.

It’s also not even a question of whether Americans need weapons to defend themselves against any overt threats to their safety or well-being, although a study by a Quinnipiac University economist indicates that less restrictive concealed gun-carry laws save lives, while gun control can endanger lives.

In fact, journalist Kevin Carson, writing for CounterPunch, suggests that prohibiting Americans from owning weapons would be as dangerously ineffective as Prohibition and the War on the Drugs:

[W]hat strict gun laws will do is take the level of police statism, lawlessness and general social pathology up a notch in the same way Prohibition and the Drug War have done. I’d expect a War on Guns to expand the volume of organized crime, and to empower criminal gangs fighting over control over the black market, in exactly the same way Prohibition did in the 1920s and strict drug laws have done since the 1980s. I’d expect it to lead to further erosion of Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure, further militarization of local police via SWAT teams, and further expansion of the squalid empire of civil forfeiture, perjured jailhouse snitch testimony, entrapment, planted evidence, and plea deal blackmail.

Truly, the debate over gun ownership in America is really a debate over who gets to call the shots and control the game.

In other words, it’s that same tug-of-war that keeps getting played out in every confrontation between the government and the citizenry over who gets to be the master and who is relegated to the part of the servant.

The Constitution is clear on this particular point, with its multitude of prohibitions on government overreach. As author Edmund A. Opitz observed in 1964:

No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words “no” and “not” employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights.

In a nutshell, then, the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms reflects not only a concern for one’s personal defense but serves as a check on the political power of the ruling authorities. It represents an implicit warning against governmental encroachments on one’s freedoms, the warning shot over the bow to discourage any unlawful violations of our persons or property. As such, it reinforces that necessary balance in the citizen-state relationship.

Certainly, dictators in past regimes have understood this principle only too well. As Adolf Hitler noted, “The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing.”

It should come as no surprise, then, that starting in December 1935, Jews in Germany were prevented from obtaining shooting licenses, because authorities believed that to allow them to do so would “endanger the German population.”

In late 1938, special orders were delivered barring Jews from owning firearms, with the punishment for arms possession being twenty years in a concentration camp.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Yet as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, it is a history that we should be wary of repeating.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  is available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].