Global Research

Carcinogenicity

The US President Donald Trump’s remarks at the Oval Office in the White House on August 20 regarding the Afghan peace talks and related issues exuded an overall sense of satisfaction that the “endless war” is finally ending —although issues still remain to be sorted out before the deal is closed.

This was also Trump’s first public assessment of the meeting he took last week with top officials, including the secretaries of state and defence, CIA director and US special representative on Afghanistan Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad who leads the American team of negotiators at the Doha talks with the Taliban.

Trump said more than once during his remarks to the media on Tuesday that the talks with the Taliban are going well, and he made it a point to acknowledge publicly that the Taliban genuinely want to stop fighting with the US troops. As he put it,

“I will say this: The Taliban would like to stop fighting us.  They would like to stop fighting us.  They’ve lost a lot.” 

Trump threw light on what to expect. Clearly, the status quo is untenable and Trump intends to withdraw troops. But he is also convinced that the US should “always have somebody there.” Trump left it vague. Is Eric Prince preparing to walk in through that door?

On the other hand, Trump didn’t mince words about the US having a a strong intelligence presence in Afghanistan. That is because, as he put it,

“Nobody can be trusted. Nobody can be trusted. In my world — in this world, I think nobody can be trusted.”

Trump has bought into the US military and security establishment’s plea that for ensuring that 9/11 type attacks do not repeat, a total American withdrawal from Afghanistan will be far too risky.

Interestingly, Trump taunted Russia (or any other country) to try to replace the US and NATO in Afghanistan, the graveyard of empires. He flagged that USSR shrunk to Russian Federation following its Afghan intervention. That was the nearest Trump came to admitting that the Afghan war cannot be won.

Significantly, in Trump’s estimation, Taliban does have the capability to prevent Afghanistan becoming a revolving door for international terrorists if it has the political desire to ply such a role. He seemed to imply that a peace deal that accommodates Taliban’s interests and concerns could incentivise the latter to be an ally in the fight against terrorism.

Trump never once disparagingly referred to the Taliban. On the contrary, Trump feels no particular commitment anymore to protect the Ashraf Ghani government. He even let it be known that he could “understand” why the Taliban has no respect for the Afghan government.

Does this mean that Trump may pull the plug on Ghani’s set-up? Most certainly, Trump’s remarks suggest that the US is distancing itself from the Kabul government and is gravitating toward neutral middle ground in the Afghan fratricidal strife.

This works fine for the Taliban and Ghani’s political opponents who have been demanding an interim government. Equally, the tenor of Trump’s remarks would suggest that the US no longer makes a fetish of “Afghan-led, Afghan controlled” dialogue between the Taliban and the Ghani government.

Trump carefully sidestepped any reference to Pakistan. But it goes without saying that Pakistani role is of crucial importance to his efforts in the coming weeks to reach a final agreement with the Taliban.

Looking ahead, it is inevitable that the US’ dependency on Pakistan is only going to increase, given the long-term American military and intelligence presence in Afghanistan and the imperative need to preserve good US-Taliban equations at the working level to counter terrorist threats.

Clearly, in Trump’s scheme of things, the US can learn to live with a Taliban government in Afghanistan.

In this backdrop of a US-Pakistan-Taliban triangle taking shape on the Afghan political chessboard, Pakistan is the big winner. No doubt, Pakistan will go the whole hog to instal a friendly government in Kabul. The US is unlikely to put roadblocks.

Conceivably, Pakistan’s agenda includes a settlement of the Durand Line question. The US and western allies as well as China and Russia (and Iran) will be supportive of the resolution of the dispute over Durand Line, without which the lawless Pakistan-Afghan border regions would continue to be a sanctuary for terrorist groups.

Pakistan can hope to leverage the preponderant hold of the Taliban in the southern and eastern provinces of Afghanistan. In turn, friendly, cooperative local governments in the Afghan border regions can be a factor of stability.

All in all, a favourable situation is at hand for Pakistan for the first time since independence in 1947. A big improvement in Pakistan’s internal security situation can be expected once a friendly government in Kabul stops promoting cross-border terrorism.

While big-power rivalries are a fact of life in world politics, the great game also allows convergence of interests between protagonists. The chances of China or Russia torpedoing the implementation of an Afghan peace settlement piloted and negotiated by the US under Trump’s watch are virtually zero.

In fact, Trump expressed no misgivings whatsoever on that score. On the other hand, the US is well aware that both China and Russia have direct links to the Taliban. The bottom line is that Afghanistan’s stabilisation is in everyone’s interests. Trump’s optimism is well-grounded that the endless war in Afghanistan is actually ending.

*

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.

Featured image is from Rare Historical Photos

by Michel Chossudovsky

ISBN Number: 9780973714715

List Price: $24.95

click here to order

Special Price: $18.00

In this new and expanded edition of Michel Chossudovsky’s 2002 best seller, the author blows away the smokescreen put up by the mainstream media, that 9/11 was an attack on America by “Islamic terrorists”.  Through meticulous research, the author uncovers a military-intelligence ploy behind the September 11 attacks, and the cover-up and complicity of key members of the Bush Administration.

The expanded edition, which includes twelve new chapters focuses on the use of 9/11 as a pretext for the invasion and illegal occupation of Iraq, the militarisation of justice and law enforcement and the repeal of democracy.

According to Chossudovsky, the  “war on terrorism” is a complete fabrication based on the illusion that one man, Osama bin Laden, outwitted the $40 billion-a-year American intelligence apparatus. The “war on terrorism” is a war of conquest. Globalisation is the final march to the “New World Order”, dominated by Wall Street and the U.S. military-industrial complex.

September 11, 2001 provides a justification for waging a war without borders. Washington’s agenda consists in extending the frontiers of the American Empire to facilitate complete U.S. corporate control, while installing within America the institutions of the Homeland Security State.

Macron’s Mediation

The dynamics of the New Cold War might undergo a dramatic transformation if the geopolitical game-changer of a “New Detente” between Russia and the West succeeds, which is becoming increasingly possible as proven by recent events.

President Putin’s meeting earlier this week with his French counterpart in Paris saw Macron repeatedly emphasizing Russia’s European identity in a clear sign that this rapprochement is making visible progress. Macron is motivated to play the role of mediator between the US and Russia for two main reasons, namely that he wants to position France as a possible replacement to inevitably post-Merkel Germany as the EU’s leading country and also to reach an accommodation with Moscow in Africa after the completion of the country’s “African Transversal” earlier this summer began to threaten Paris’ interests in the continent. Putin responded extremely positively and reminded Macron of their two Great Powers’ decades-long shared desire to forge “a common Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok”, reaffirming that Russia regards itself more as a European country than a “Eurasian” or Asian one, which has important implications for International Relations.

The Neo-NAM

“What The US Really Wants From Russia” is for it to recalibrate its recent “Eurasian” turn towards China in exchange for much-needed sanctions relief that could help it survive its two ongoing systemic transitions in the political (post-Putin 2024, or PP24) and economic (“Great Society“/”National Development Projects“) spheres, which was likely discussed during Pompeo’s trip to Sochi in May and thus enabled the author to “Predict The Possible Details Of A ‘New Detente’“. The US doesn’t have any unrealistic expectations about the Russian-Chinese Strategic Partnership and is very well aware that Putin announced earlier this year that the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union will work towards integrating with China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI), so a repeat of the Old Cold War-era “Sino-Soviet Split” probably isn’t in the cards, but what’s much more feasible is for the US to encourage Russia to become the leader of a new Non-Aligned Movement (Neo-NAM) that could “balance” between China and the West exactly like Mr. Oleg Barabanov — a programme director at Russia’s top think tank, the Valdai Club — suggested in his policy paper a few months ago titled “China’s Road to Global Leadership: Prospects and Challenges for Russia“.

“Politically Inconvenient” Truths

Both the Mainstream and Alternative Medias had hitherto exaggerated the nature of the Russian-Chinese Strategic Partnership for their own reasons, with the former wanting to portray it according to the paradigm of the so-called “Russian threat” in order to justify a more muscular American military buildup against them while the latter imagined that the two were “allies” jointly working together without any disagreements whatsoever in order to accelerate the emerging Multipolar World Order that would presumably be “anti-American”. The reality of their relations is a lot less sexy and it’s that Russia was pushed into reorientating its strategic focus as a result of the West’s anti-Russian sanctions following Crimea’s reunification, which served as the catalyst for Moscow’s decision to embrace Beijing. Russia probably wouldn’t have undertaken this move had it not been for American pressure, but it felt compelled to since it didn’t want to remain a “junior partner” in the US’ “New World Order”, instead endeavoring to return to its historical role as a Great Power among equals.

In pursuit of this, it’s much easier for Russia to simply reintegrate into a reformed “New World Order” than to build an entirely new one from scratch alongside China, which is why the possibility of a “New Detente” is so enticing to its leadership, though provided of course that the West is sincere in finally treating Russia as an equal Great Power. Trump already hinted as much when he said earlier this week following Putin’s successful summit with Macron that he’d support Russia’s return to the G8, which is hugely symbolic because of the effect that it would have on the country’s prestige and the international standing of its influential elites (including the “big business representatives” commonly referred to as “oligarchs”). In what certainly wasn’t a coincidence of timing, all of this is taking place just days before the upcoming G7 Summit in France, strongly suggesting that something serious is in the works behind the scenes. With this in mind, Macron’s repeated emphasis on Russia’s European identity and Putin’s reaffirmation of his country’s commitment to “a common Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok” takes on a new significance.

The Contemporary Russian-Chinese Context

It’s important to point out that all of this is happening right after the indisputable differences between Russia and China over Kashmir have become public, which debunked the Mainstream and Alternative Media assumptions about their strategic partnership by showing that it’s indeed possible for them to disagree about a very significant international issue contrary to what the global public was preconditioned to believe. That seemingly unimportant diplomatic development is actually a pivotal event in the larger context of what’s been discussed in this analysis since it proves that Russia’s “Eurasian pivot” isn’t as strong as it’s been portrayed as, thus throwing into question the working efficacy of related structures such as the SCO and BRICS. Speaking of which, those organizations’ next meetings will be held in late Octoberand mid-November respectively, prior to which Putin plans to visit “Israel” in September and Saudi Arabia the month after. It should be noted that both historically pro-American governments are Russia’s new strategic partners and possibly played a quiet role in helping to bring Moscow and Washington closer together, so even more progress might be made on reaching a “New Detente” during those trips.

Concluding Thoughts

What all of this means is that there’s a very high likelihood that Russia will continue recalibrating its approach to China before the SCO and BRICS summits later this year, which it’s presently in the process of doing as proven by its willingness to publicly contradict Beijing’s position towards Kashmir and the recent reaffirmation of its European identity as opposed to the “Eurasian” one that many observers had thought that it was finally embracing over the past half-decade since the West’s anti-Russian sanctions were first imposed. The grand strategic consequences that this could have for China are profound because the People’s Republic presumably never predicted that the scenario of Russia “balancing” it through its prospective leadership of a Neo-NAM was possible, though that might eventually come to pass and could even be inevitable. Russia independently has its own interests in fulfilling this role, whether it’s enticed by the West through the perk of sanctions relief in exchange or provoked by China in the event that Beijing clinches its own “New Detente” with Washington through a forthcoming trade deal that could then make Moscow a “junior partner” to both of them. In other words, Russian-Chinese relations will almost certainly change and enter a new era in the near future.

*

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.

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

“I’m not going to detail what we’re planning and what we’re doing, but we’re ready to implement policy decisions, and we’re ready to act … 

The United States Navy is the most powerful navy in the world.  …

If there is a political decision to deploy the Navy, I am confident that we will be able to do whatever is necessary, …

The two-week maritime operation off the coast of Brazil, involving more than 3,300 military personnel, “sends a message to Maduro and other partners that don’t share the same values,  …

Naval exercises send a message to the world of what democracies that work together can do across a range of complex threats,”

US Southern Command chief Admiral Craig Faller

***

Below are excerpts from the Al Arabiya report

His remarks [Faller] came just weeks after President Donald Trump said he was considering a “blockade or quarantine” of the Latin American country.

Trump subsequently intensified sanctions on Venezuela this month, ordering a freeze on all government assets in the United States and barred transactions with its authorities.

Faller said US sanctions against Maduro’s socialist regime were working and that the Venezuelan leader was isolated.

“The US government focus continues to be to place focused and targeted pressure on an illegitimate regime to ensure there’s a transition to a legitimate, democratic government,” Faller said.

“Part of that focus is to ensure that the right humanitarian assistance is allowed to get to the people who need it,” he added.

Asked how he thought Maduro would react to the exercises, Faller said:

“I don’t know how Maduro looks at anything.”

To read complete Al Arabiya article click here

*

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.

Featured image: U.S. Navy Adm. Craig Faller, U.S. Southern Command commander, speaks to 12th Air Force (Air Force Southern) Airmen at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., Jan. 9, 2019. U.S. Southern Command is responsible for all Department of Defense security cooperation in the 45 nations and territories of Caribbean and Central and South America. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Angela Ruiz)

Wet’suwet’en people have never ceded their land through treaty; like many Indigenous people they continue to practice relations of responsibility with the places and beings that give them life, including protecting them from ecological devastation. In January 2019, the RCMP raided Wet’suwet’en territories to end their blockade of the Coastal GasLink pipeline, which is meant to transport fracked gas from northern British Columbia to the west coast. Images of heavily armed RCMP forcibly removing and arresting land protectors in service of a planet-destroying fuel source was a stark reminder of how colonialism still reigns, even in an age of putative reconciliation. Immediately following the RCMP’s invasion, fierce protests powered by Indigenous people and settler allies sprung up across the country demonstrating solidarity with Wet’suwet’en land and water-protectors. Images of these solidarity events gesture toward real decolonization: honouring Indigenous law and governance over their lands.

Many of us who participated in these events – whether Indigenous or settler Canadians – don’t know that we are owners of the very company violating Wet’suwet’en law: TransCanada. We own this company as “beneficiaries” of the Canadian Pension Plan (CPP).

The CPP was first created in 1966. In 1997, the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) was established to move the plan toward financial markets. It is now the largest pool of investment capital in Canada, totalling approximately $392-billion. The longstanding goal of the plan is to help secure dignified retirements for Canadians. But as the TransCanada example reveals, the CPPIB values settler futures considerably higher than Indigenous ones. All of us who pay into the plan contribute to this painful continuation of colonial devaluation and dispossession.

Pattern of Vampiric Feeding

Almost simultaneously with the RCMP raids on Wet’suwet’en territories, people worldwide were horrified to learn of how Trump’s immigration policy pursued family separation and the imprisonment of children. In response, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau noted with disapproval that “obviously, this is not the way we do things in Canada.” And yet, this is precisely how we do things in Canada: we actively house children in immigrant detention centers and separate children from their parents who are detained there.¹ Until recently, the CPPIB also invested in private prison companies in the US that run immigrant detention centers. This practice only stopped after successful protest. In other words, the CPPIB sought to generate value for some Canadians from the devaluation of immigrant life.

CPPIB’s tobacco company investments (such as Philip Morris) exemplify another facet of this vampiric feeding on Indigenous, racialized, and poor people’s futures. The great majority of smokers are from low-income families, and this is partly because the companies target lower-income neighbourhoods (with product placement in a disproportionate number of retailers, for example). By staying invested in big tobacco, the CPP is securing some futures by diminishing others.

All working Canadians who contribute can draw from the plan, but contributions and payouts are determined by income. In other words, higher-income earners end up benefitting more (and the plan is no help to those – mostly women – who do unpaid care work). The CPPIB is supposed to be securing dignified retirement for all waged Canadians, but its portfolio tells a different story; currently the plan helps to secure futures for more affluent settler Canadians at the expense of immigrants, Indigenous people, and poor people. And these latter two groups are required to pay into a fund that invests their futures away.

Furthermore, the billions that CPPIB has invested in fossil fuels threatens to undermine the ecological foundation of every Canadian’s future. But of course, Indigenous, racialized, and poor people – whether in Canada or worldwide – already bear the brunt of intensifying climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) cautioned in their most recent report that “limiting global warming to 1.5°C, compared with 2°C, could reduce the number of people both exposed to climate-related risks and susceptible to poverty by up to several hundred million by 2050.” And yet the CPPIB has over $4-billion invested in 79 of the largest fossil fuel (oil, gas, and coal) companies. The CPPIB’s current fossil fuel investments are incongruent with the earth’s carbon budget – the amount of carbon that human society can burn before the 1.5°C limit is reached. Even if you personally support strong action on climate change, your pension contributions are eating away at the future they are meant to secure.

Democratic Accountability?

At first glance, the CPPIB’s unjust investments are little different from Trudeau’s Liberals using tax dollars to buy a pipeline that violates Indigenous sovereignty while intensifying climate change (even if you vigorously protested the Kinder Morgan expansion, you now own it). A key difference, however, is that government budgets remain bounded by some democratic accountability. The electorate can still vote governments out – though the electoral process is highly constrained by concentrations of corporate power that shape outcomes with lobbying, media control, and campaign contributions. In contrast, the CPPIB’s portfolio is entirely free from democratic accountability; beneficiaries pay in and receive benefits, but have limited say over investments. Indeed, the CPPIB presents their “investment-only” mandate as a significant advantage: “CPPIB’s decisions are not influenced by government direction; regional, social or economic development considerations; or any non-investment objectives.” In other words, unsullied by democratic accountability the CPPIB is freed up to maximize profits no matter the social or ecological cost. Unsurprisingly, those costs are disproportionately borne by Indigenous, racialized, and working-class people. It is only when a bright light is focused on the Fund, like with the recent protests over their private prison investment companies, that their investment practices begin to consider more than profit.

As the country’s largest pool of investment capital, the CPP is a crucial engine of racial capitalism, colonial dispossession, climate injustice, and working-class immiseration in Canada and abroad. This reality is especially dispiriting since public pensions were the product of working-class organizing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Now, worker retirement income is tied up in a system that undermines workers, Indigenous sovereignty, immigrants, and the ecological foundations of a generalized futurity.

It doesn’t have to be this way

The existential threat posed by climate change is reason enough to rethink many of our collective institutions, including pensions (which comprise over half of global investment capital). The Green New Deal being forwarded by the Sunrise Movement and Justice Democrats in the US is inspiring in this regard. Green New Deal visioning in Canada should include a definancialized and universal pension program that supplies dignified retirements for all – no feeding on some futures to secure others.

Kevin Skerrett (from the Canadian Union of Public Employees) and Sam Gindin (formerly from the Canadian Auto Workers) have done excellent work outlining the practicalities of such a plan, and their proposal for a new model does not rely on markets (shareholder returns from large corporations).² It also dramatically increases benefits while extending them to those who have performed vital care work outside of the waged labour market. Their plan is funded through taxation revenue and beneficiary contributions and is entirely achievable. It is important to recall that the CPP only started relying on financial markets to secure retirements in 1997, and this can be undone. These markets and their pursuit of shareholder returns are the primary drivers of colonial dispossession, climate injustice, and capitalist exploitation; those of us who contribute to the CPP are forced accomplices to these exploits. Let’s organize into existence an alternative that is truly accountable to the futurity of all.

*

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.

This article first published by the University of Toronto Mississauga Blackwood Gallery.

Online independent analysis of US-led wars, rampant corruption, corporate greed, civil rights and fraudulent monetary transactions is invariably relegated to the bottom rung of search engine results.

As a result we presently do not cover our monthly running costs which could eventually jeopardize our activities.

Do you value the reporting and in-depth analysis provided by Global Research on a daily basis?

Click to donate or click here to become a member of Global Research.

*     *     *

Kashmir and the US-Russia Power Play in South Asia

By Andrew Korybko, August 23, 2019

Russia is reluctant to jeopardize its ultra-profitable arms relationship with India by strategically “balancing” South Asia, which is why the US decided to play this irreplaceable role instead by actively seeking to cut deals in both Afghanistan and Kashmir since Moscow lacks the political will to do so.

Indian Assault on Kashmir in Third Week, Thousands Arrested

By Deepal Jayasekera and Keith Jones, August 22, 2019

Cell phone and internet access continue to be denied to many of the region’s 13 million residents; and tens of thousands of Indian Army troops and paramilitaries remain deployed in J&K’s cities, towns and villages to intimidate the population and brutally suppress any and all signs of opposition to New Delhi’s August 5 constitutional coup.

Kashmir and Palestine: Solidarity and Unity in Opposing Global Militarization

By Palestinian BDS National Committee, August 19, 2019

Introducing through presidential decree legally dubious changes to the Indian constitution, the right-wing government in Delhi has further undermined the internationally-recognized rights of the people of Kashmir, particularly their right to democratically decide on their future, without their knowledge or consent.

Hair-trigger Nuclear Alert over Kashmir

By Eric Margolis, August 12, 2019

Two of the world’s most important powers, India and Pakistan, are locked into an extremely dangerous confrontation over the bitterly disputed Himalayan mountain state of Kashmir. Both are nuclear armed.

India’s Kashmir Crackdown Poses Risk of War

By John Riddell, August 10, 2019

On August 5, India’s Hindu nationalist government unilaterally revoked the autonomy of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, while flooding the region with troops, imposing a curfew, and shutting down all communications.

Hong Kong, Kashmir: A Tale of Two Occupations

By Pepe Escobar, August 08, 2019

Curfew was imposed all across the Kashmir valley. Internet was cut off. All Kashmiri politicians were rounded up and arrested. In fact all Kashmiris – loyalists (to India), nationalists, secessionists, independentists, apolitical – were branded as The Enemy. Welcome to Indian “democracy” under the crypto-fascist Hindutva.

*

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.

Haven’t the critics worked it out yet?  US President Donald Trump chugs to the coal of nonsense that may come in the wrapping of some sense. Initial mad-cat comments, when cobbled together, might reveal some pattern in time.   

Take, for instance, the recent offer to purchase Greenland.  Considered laughable, purchasing territories has notable, historical precedent in US foreign policy.  Territorial aggrandizement through such means has been something of a US specialty, complementing the usual technique of brutal military conquest. 

The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 was a steal by President Thomas Jefferson, almost doubling the territory of the United States.  Alaska also went the way of purchase, being transferred by Russia to the US in 1867 for $7.2 million.  It was something the Russians would come to rue: within a half-century, that amount had been earned back a hundred times over.

That same decade saw US State Department officials turn their attention to Greenland.  An 1868 publication for the department compiled by Benjamin Mills Peirce casts more than a fleeting eye on the resources of both Iceland and Greenland, acknowledging the treaty with Denmark which was ostensibly meant to cede control of the islands of St. Thomas and St. John to the US.  (The US State Department describes this attempt on the part of Secretary of State William Henry Seward to acquire the Danish West Indies rather laconically as “peaceful territorial expansion”.)   

This observation in the report comes with its inaccuracies, largely based on premature optimism: the US Senate spitefully rejected the treaty, despite being ratified by the Danish parliament and its approval by the very limited suffrage plebiscite.  Anger was expressed at Seward’s persistent support for the troubled President Andrew Jackson during impeachment proceedings.  US interest persisted, though it was the turn of the Danish upper house to return the serve of repudiation in 1902 in refusing to ratify the agreement.  It took the winds of the First World War to encourage a formal transfer of the Danish West Indies on April 1, 1917.

The 1868 report uses rather familiar language to Trump’s, both in political and economic terms.  The Danish authorities are held to task for their great neglect of invaluable development opportunities.  Iceland is praised for “pasture and arable lands, its valuable mines, its splendid fisheries, and its unsurpassed hydraulic power”.  Fully developed (read, by US efforts), a population of one million might be sustained.  The population of Greenland is similarly “neglected by Denmark”, despite the island having vast quantities of fauna varieties for the kill, among them “whale, walrus, seal, and shark, cod, ivory-cod, salmon, salmon-trout, and herring”.  Obtaining it for the US would make good political and commercial sense: it would flank “British America on the Arctic and Pacific” and force her away from Britain “to become a part of the American Union.”

Enough seriousness was given to Trump’s offer to warrant copy across the media spectrum.  The Brookings Institution’s Scott R. Anderson was not hopeful that discussions would go anywhere. “Unfortunately for the president, buying and selling Greenland is, in all likelihood, a legal and political impossibility.” 

Anderson acknowledges a traditional acquisitiveness towards Greenland, being a gem of mineral and natural resource wealth. Furthermore, its proximity to Russia and the Arctic, in Anderson’s words,

“makes it a major strategic asset for staging various military and intelligence facilities.” 

This point is already noted by a US presence at the Thule Air Base, something maintained since the Second World War with Danish consent.  Admittedly, that presence was encouraged by Nazi Germany’s occupation of the kingdom in 1940, leaving Greenland to slide into the American orbit. Six years later, President Harry Truman wanted to formalise the move by suggesting a sum of $100 million for the island.

Given that the Danish government already permits a degree of US influence, it might have been more prudent of Trump to simply exercise it via traditional forms of seemingly benign encroachment.  That approach can be seen in Australia, where an increased US military presence is being felt by way of US marines on rotation in the Northern Territory.  But such a technique seems all too quiet for the Trump boardroom of hiring and firing.  On Wednesday, he cancelled a planned visit to Denmark, deeming the comments made by Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen “nasty”.   

Frederiksen’s degree of nastiness was simply one of puzzlement.  Talking about purchasing Greenland was “an absurd discussion”, even though the US did acquire the Danish West Indies through purchase and has kept a roaming eye, wallet at the ready, to expansion in the Atlantic.  On Sunday, she told a television reporter that, “Thankfully, the time when you buy and sell other countries and populations is over. Let’s leave it there.”  She did make one gentle concession.  “Jokes aside, we would naturally love to have an even closer strategic relationship with the US.”  Deeper cooperation “on Arctic affairs” is still on the table.   

Despite Frederiksen’s occasional asides at the United States, Danish foreign policy has been closely aligned with the United States since the attacks of September 11, 2001, bucking a long history of non-interventionism.  The Danish Parliament gave its unqualified approval to US actions in retaliation and committed troops to the warring enterprises in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.  Danish military casualties per capita are the highest of any of the coalition partners in those haphazard efforts.  This shedding of blood has led to such emetic observations as those of former Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, describing the kingdom as “America’s largest and smallest ally”. (An exhibition at the Museum of Danish America in 2017 proclaimed without reserve that the US and Denmark “have the longest unbroken diplomatic relationship in the world, beginning in 1801.”) 

There is also Denmark’s strained and blighted relationship with Greenland, making it susceptible to foreign influence.  The largely self-governing entity has capitalised on Danish indifference, attempting to lure Chinese investment to develop three airports to secure better connections to the US and Europe.  (Denmark reluctantly caved in last year in an effort to keep the PRC at bay.)  Greenland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has, however, drawn the line over a proposed sale.

“We’re open for business,” went an official tweet, “not for sale”. 

#Greenland is rich in valuable resources such as minerals, the purest water and ice, fish stocks, seafood, renewable energy and is a new frontier for adventure tourism. We're open for business, not for sale❄️🗻🐳🦐🇬🇱 learn more about Greenland on: https://t.co/WulOi3beIC

— Greenland MFA 🇬🇱 (@GreenlandMFA) August 16, 2019

The Greenland spat has revealed the obstinate ahistorical context of Trump’s world.  Allies, for one, are to be hectored, their efforts dismissed as paltry.  Despite Danish contributions to the foolhardy efforts of the US imperium, Denmark could still be scolded for spending a mere 1.35% of GDP on NATO. 

“They are a wealthy country,” tweeted Trump, “and should be at 2%”. 

The president had been insulted, his ego put down by the prime minister of a small state.  “You don’t talk to the United States in that way, at least under me,” he told reporters in Washington.  “I thought it was not a nice statement, the way she blew me off.”  The US was never blown off and remains the oversized fly in the ointment of Denmark’s foreign policy.  As for Greenland, Trump might have asked its own prime minister, Kim Kielsen.

*

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.

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]

Two world wars began because of unconditional pledges made by one country to come to assistance of another. On July 5, 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany pledged his country’s complete support for whatever response Austria-Hungary would choose to make against Serbia after the June 28^th assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria by a Serbian nationalist during an official visit to Sarajevo, Bosnia. This fatal error went down in history as Germany’s carte blanche or “blank check,” assurance to Austria that led directly to WW I.

In September 1939, World War II began when Great Britain and France came to the assistance of Poland after the German Army invaded, fulfilling a “guarantee” made in March of that year. What was a regional war, and one that might have been resolved through diplomacy, became global.

One would think that after such commitments were assessed by historians as the immediate causes of two world wars, no one would ever consider going down that road again. But that would be reckoning without Republican Senator Lindsey Graham who has been calling for a “defense treaty” with Israel since last April. In his most recent foray, Graham announced late in July that he is seeking bipartisan support for providing “blank check” assurances to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is hoping to be able to push a complete defense treaty through the Senate by next year.

In making his several announcements on the subject, Graham has been acting as a front man for both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and also for The Jewish Institute for the National Security of America (JINSA), which wrote the basic document that is being used to promote the treaty and then enlisted Graham to obtain congressional support.

Speaking to the press on a JINSA conference call, Graham said the proposed agreement would be a treaty that would protect Israel in case of an attack that constituted an “existential threat”. Citing Iran as an example, Graham said the pact would be an attempt to deter hostile neighbors like the Iranians who might use weapons of mass destruction against Israel. JINSA President Michael Makovsky elaborated on this, saying,

“A mutual defense pact has a value in not only deterring but might also mitigate a retaliatory strike by an adversary of Israel, so it might mitigate an Iranian response (to an attack on its nuclear facilities).”

JINSA director of foreign policy Jonathan Ruhe added that

“An Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear program would not activate this pact, but a major Iranian retaliation might. – An Israeli unilateral attack is not what the treaty covers, but rather massive Iranian retaliation is what we are addressing.”

Israel has long been reluctant to enter into any actual treaty arrangement with the United States because it might limit its options and restrain its aggressive pattern of military incursions. In that regard, the Graham-JINSA proposal is particularly dangerous as it effectively permits Israel to be interventionist with a guarantee that Washington will not seek to limit Netanyahu’s “options.” And, even though the treaty is reciprocal, there is no chance that Israel will ever be called upon to do anything to defend the United States, so it is as one-sided as most arrangements with the Jewish state tend to be.

As the agreement between the two countries would be a treaty ratified by the Senate, it would be much more difficult to scrap by subsequent administrations than was the Iran nuclear deal, which was an executive action by President Obama. And clearly the statements by Graham, Makovsky and Ruhe reveal this treaty would serve as a green light for an Israeli attack on Iran, should they opt to do so, while also serving as a red light to Tehran vis-à-vis an ironclad US commitment to “defend” Israel that would serve to discourage any serious Iranian retaliation. Given that dynamic, the treaty would be little more than a one-way security guarantee from Washington to Jerusalem.

Furthermore, in outlining what circumstances would trigger US intervention on Israel’s behalf, the JINSA/Graham document cites, inter alia, “the threat or use of weapons of mass destruction.” It also allows Netanyahu to call for assistance after defining as threatening any incident or development “that gives rise to an urgent request from the Government of Israel.” It appears then that Netanyahu could demand that the US attack Iran should he only perceive a threat, however vague that threat might in reality be.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been claiming Iran is “three to five years” and “possibly weeks” away from a nuclear weapons capability since 1992 and pushing Washington to attack Iran so he obviously would welcome such a treaty for strategic reasons as well as to shore up his upcoming re-election bid. President Trump, with whom Graham has discussed how the agreement would work, has a similar interest in appearing strong for Israel to help his own campaign in 2020.

It is worth noting that in 2010 Netanyahu ordered the Israel Defense Force (IDF) to prepare to strike Iran but ‘Israel’s security chiefs refused: Gabi Ashkenazi, the head of the IDF, and Meir Dagan, the head of the Mossad at the time, believed that Netanyahu and the Defense Minister Ehud Barak were trying to “steal a war” and the order was not carried out. The attacks were also rejected by two ministers, Moshe Yaalon and Yuval Steinitz, which left Netanyahu without the necessary majority to proceed.

Ashkenazi claimed in a 2012 interview about the episode that he was convinced that an attack would be have been a major strategic mistake. Meir Dagan said in 2012, after leaving his role as Mossad chief, that a strike would be “a stupid thing” as the entire region would undoubtedly be destabilized, requiring repeated Israeli and American interventions.

And there are other issues arising from a “defense treaty.” Defense means just that and treaties are generally designed to protect a country within its own borders. Israel has no defined borders as it is both expansionistic and illegally occupying Palestinian land, so the United States would in effect be obligated to defend space that Israel defines as its own. That could mean almost anything. Israel is currently bombing Syria almost daily even though it is not at war with Damascus. If Syria were to strike back and Graham’s treaty were in place, Washington would technically be obligated to come to Israel’s assistance. A similar situation prevails with Lebanon and there are also reports that Israel is bombing alleged Iranian supply lines in Iraq, where the US has 5,000 troops stationed.

The real problem is that the Trump administration is obsessed with regime change in Iran, but it has so far been unable to provoke Iran into starting a conflict. Graham’s proposed treaty just might be part of a White House plan to end-run Congress and public opinion by enabling Israel to start the desired war, whereupon the US would quickly follow in to “defend Israel,” obliged by treaty to do so. What could possibly go wrong? The correct answer is “everything.”

*

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.

Philip Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer and a columnist and television commentator. He is also the executive director of the Council for the National Interest. Other articles by Giraldi can be found on the website of the Unz Review. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

As we approach the 5G Crisis: Awareness & Accountability online summit, Dr. Debra Greene uncovers a crazy development in Hawaii, in her 4-min video above, or on YouTube here. Sign the petition to help stop the 5G drone development in Hawaii.

***

Massive football field sized drones flying in the stratosphere, beaming down toxic 5G radiation into the earth, into the ocean, into our homes, into our bodies. Sounds like something out of a science fiction nightmare.

But if the sponsors of the HAWK30 program, tech giant SoftBank of Japan, defense contractor AeroVironment of California and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, have their way that nightmare will become a reality this fall for some Hawai’i residents and eventually for much of the world’s population.

Screenshot from SoftBank HAPS concept video

The HAWK30 program, proposed by the Research Corporation of the University of Hawai’i (RCUH), wants to use the Hawaiian island of Lāna’i in Maui county as a launch pad for unmanned drones, HAPS (high altitude platform stations) flying at 65,000 to 80,000 feet carrying wireless communications relays and transmitting 5G signals into air, land and sea in a three-phase program.

In the final phase of the surreal plan, tiny Lāna’i island becomes a drone manufacturing plant, launch pad and mission control center to fly massive drones throughout the equatorial belt.

Screenshot from SoftBank HAPS concept video

According to their Use Determination Application: “The purpose of the HAWK30 program is to develop new airborne overhead 5G communication, which would provide strong wireless service over a large area, including deep valleys, remote lands, and over the ocean.”

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted the project a COA2, a Certificate of Authorization, permitting the drones to operate for up to two years in a 150 square mile airspace that includes the islands of Lāna’i and Kaho’olawe, as well as Molokini crater, which sees over 300,000 visitors from around the world each year. With its calm, crystal clear waters and hundreds of species of tropical fish the crescent shaped islet is a highly popular visitor spot.

Photo by Debra Greene of slide from RCUH presentation at Lāna’i Planning Commission Meeting

Radiation harm is a concern as one HAWK30 drone broadcasts the equivalent of 1800 cell towers, albeit at a much lower power level, however, power is irrelevant to health effects except for tissue heating. Thousands of peer reviewed research studies document the non-thermal effects of wireless radiation on humans and other living things. In some experiments the lowest power levels caused the most leakage in the blood-brain barrier. An inverse relationship between power and health effects has even been shown. Wireless technology is not made safe by reducing the power.

Flying at 70 miles per hour in the stratosphere, the HAPS drone has a 260 foot wingspan and 10 propellers. It gains altitude after take off by flying in a huge spiral. The high altitude platform station can be used to carry a variety of payloads. According to SoftBank’s concept video, their HAPS operates as a cell site with coverage 124 miles in diameter, blanketing the entire ground.

Screenshot from SoftBank HAPS concept video

In addition to irradiating all life forms within range, this type of massive flying wing has a bad safety record. Two high altitude drones have been built by AeroVironment and they both fell from the sky and crashed. In fact, the drone is so experimental that almost no regulations exist to govern it. Project officials appear ready to take full advantage of this, having boasted about schooling the FAA and writing their own rules.

But a 1.5 ton HAWK30 falling from the stratosphere could have devastating effects. Only 2300 Newtons of force crush a human skull wearing a helmet. Falling from a height of 70,000 feet, a 1.5 ton object would impact with 266,756,000 Newtons of force!

The drone would encounter air resistance, of course, but if this massive experimental aircraft, with its lithium batteries and propeller blades, comes crashing down it could kill and maim people, dolphins, whales and other creatures. Surprisingly, the drone’s fly zone is in the middle of a Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary where whales come to give birth and frolic with their young.

Trust has been an issue from the start with this secretive project. A 16,500 square foot drone hangar to house two drones was erected on agricultural land without public notice and prior to a Lāna’i Planning Commission meeting, showing a lack of good faith.

Photo by Sally Kaye

In the Use Determination Application the drone is repeatedly referred to as an “airplane” or “aircraft” and an airstrip was created while, in Maui County, airports are not allowed on agricultural land.

A longtime traditional Hawaiian practitioner is intervening in the approval process based on the potential violation, requesting protection of his native Hawaiian traditional practices that involve gathering plants and other items on the undeveloped land. Approving agricultural land for industrial use could set a precedent. It could also pave the way for construction of a second airport.

Despite announcing as early as July 16 that, due to public outcry 5G was removed from the project, and then changing their story in a press release, as of this writing RCUH still has not amended their application to reflect this promise to the community.

Even if the application is amended to remove 5G, applicants have said 4G would be used instead, as if beaming 4G wireless radiation into land and sea is safe. It is not. Further, even if removed from the application, 5G can be brought back at any time.

Image from RCUH Use Determination Application prepared by Munekiyo Hiraga

RCUH has shown a lack of transparency by providing scant information about the elaborate project and pressuring for a rushed decision. Completely absent from the application, for example, is any mention of the specific frequency range of electromagnetic radiation the drone will transmit. Missing as well are a timeline for the project and a business plan.

What lies between approval and rejection of the project is the nine member Lāna’i Planning Commission, a body of volunteers, tasked with assessing the $120 million project to determine if 215 acres of former pineapple land should be used for the HAPS drones.

To justify an agricultural use RCUH has promised watershed characterization and a STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) program for Lāna’i youth. Wireless enabled probes, resembling PVC pipe bombs armed with sensors, would be inserted into the island’s watershed and tracked by the drones, potentially irradiating the waters as they collect data nonstop.

The 3100 residents of Lāna’i may be hesitant to speak out against the project because it could be seen as indirectly backed by billionaire Larry Ellison who owns 98% of the island. The Oracle founder appears determined to bring his high tech world to permanently change the culture of this small, rural island situated in the most remote landmass on the planet.

In the wake of the drone proposal the Hawaiian islands have been the target of Google’s huge high altitude helium balloon, LOON, which also flies in the stratosphere and is designed to bring high speed internet to inaccessible areas and to share connectivity with the HAPS. The LOON transmits wireless radiation to the ground extending signals over 3000 square miles.

The mysterious object, that the FAA had no knowledge of, was spotted by Maui residents, while the HBAL663 LOON was tracked online circling above Maui county for about a week (7/31/19 to 8/7/19) at around 60,000 feet. The tennis court sized balloon passed right over the designated drone flight strip area on Lāna’i, perhaps to collect weather and wireless communications data in preparation for the drone launch, since the two projects are partnered.

Screenshot from FlightRadar24.com

Having tech giants Google and SoftBank with their global corporate ambitions at your doorstep would be overwhelming for even the most seasoned, savvy corporate executives. The Lāna’i Planning Commission, whose members are volunteers, is ill equipped to deal with a complex project of this magnitude that has vast implications, far beyond the confines of the small island.

Final plans are to turn Lāna’i into a drone manufacturing plant and launch pad potentially flying thousands of massive drones over much of the world’s population forming a 5G mesh network for the Internet of Things (IoT) while blanketing the earth in wireless radiation.  

*

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.

Dr. Debra Greene is an author, presenter, educator and practitioner who specializes in energy therapies and mind-body integration. She combines the best of ancient wisdom with modern science in her private practice, writings, lectures and online courses. 

At 11:30pm on Sunday, August 18, the Iranian tanker Adrian Darya-1 left the shores of Gibraltar at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea. This ship had been detained about six weeks previous by British Royal Marines and Gibraltar officials. The British claimed that the ship, then named Grace 1, was taking its cargo of 2.1 million barrels of oil to Syria. There are European Union sanctions against trade with the Syrian government. It is based on these sanctions that the British seized the Iranian vessel.

Last Thursday, Gibraltar Chief Minister Fabian Picardo ordered the release of the ship after Iranian authorities said it would not be going to Syria. The immediate destination for Adrian Darya-1 is the Greek port of Kalamata.

Sanctions on Iran

The British, it is clear, seized the Iranian tanker at the urging of the United States. There was no previous British warning that it might venture in such a muscular way into the US attempt to suffocate Iran. Even the location of the seizure unnecessarily raised tensions for the United Kingdom. The waters around Gibraltar are contested between Britain and Spain, with the latter making noises about a formal complaint about the British action.

Gibraltar’s government has been trying to find a middle course between the claims of Britain and Spain. It seeks some form of independence, although with close ties with both its large neighbor and its formal occupant. When the UK asked Gibraltar’s authorities to get involved in the seizure of the Iranian tanker, Gibraltar’s government complied because the request was in line with European Union sanctions against trade with the Syrian government.

In Gibraltar’s courts, the British were largely silent. The case against the Iranian vessel was made by the United States, which changed the basis for the seizure. The US argued that the vessel had to remain impounded as part of its new and harsh sanctions regime against Iran. When Gibraltar was preparing to release the ship, the US District Court in Washington, DC, issued a warrant for the ship. This emergency warrant alleged that the ship was owned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and therefore must not be allowed to sail.

Gibraltar did not agree. The US tried to use its 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, and the new sanctions regime by the Donald Trump administration. None of this appealed to the judiciary in Gibraltar. The government of Gibraltar said it did not accept the new US sanctions regime on Iran. It had held the vessel based on the European Union sanctions on Syria, not on any EU sanctions on Iran. Therefore, it has allowed Adrian Darya-1 to sail.

Iran’s reaction

New statistics show that Iran’s economy has been decelerating at a rapid pace. The numbers from the Statistical Center of Iran show that gross domestic product shrank by 4.9% in 2018-19. Economic growth is slipping backwards, as the oil, industry and agriculture sectors post negative numbers. The inflation rate now is at the highest it has been in a quarter of a century. Iranian traders have been moving their goods to Iraq, which results in the rise of prices within Iran.

Most stunningly, the prices of non-trade goods and services, such as health and housing, are rising. All this has put enormous pressure on the government of President Hassan Rouhani, although his spokesman Ali Rabiei said on Monday that Iran’s economy was experiencing “positive signs.”

Confidence from the Iranian government is remarkable. Officials in Tehran refuse to be cowed by the pressure from Washington. When the Adrian Darya-1 left Gibraltar, senior Iranian parliamentarian Alaeddin Boroujerdi said that its release was a result of “the revolutionary diplomacy of resistance.” He pointed to the seizure by Iran of the British ship Stena Impero, which continues to be detained in Iran. The British ship, Boroujerdi said, was being held for its violation of basic maritime rules in the Strait of Hormuz, while the seizure of the Iranian ship “was an act of piracy by England.”

Based on this assessment that the UK had indulged in piracy at the urging of the United States, Iran’s chief judge Ebrahim Raeisi said the release of Adrian Darya-1 was not sufficient. Compensation must be paid to Iran. What compensation will be demanded from the UK is not clear, and it is further unclear where Iran will formally raise the issue of compensation. Iranian diplomats say they might approach the United Nations based on the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Will Greece hold the tanker?

Within the Trump administration there is appetite to block the passage of Adrian Darya-1 further, and make it a flashpoint toward war. That is what Trump’s adviser John Bolton indicated when Gibraltar held the ship. Make your move, he seemed to suggest to Tehran. Iran told the US through Swiss authorities that it must allow the ship free passage. If the Adrian Darya-1 is blocked, it would set a terrible precedent for international shipping.

When the tanker enters Kalamata, it will likely take on a new crew and then set its next destination. There is no indication as to what the ship will do with its 2.1 million barrels of crude oil. It is likely that it will unload its cargo on to another ship in international waters.

Last week, the US government asked Greece to contribute to its naval force in the Persian Gulf. Greece, with its new conservative prime minister, declined – as did France and Germany – to this new US initiative. The Greek government, led by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, is eager for a close relationship with Washington, but it is not willing to enter a frontal clash with Iran. Greece is already in a heated situation with Turkey. To rattle Iran would only further complicate Greece’s fragile dance in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Greece, unlike the US, has taken the position that Iran has “the right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes alone.” This is Iran’s position. The United States, as Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi told Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, opposes even a peaceful nuclear project for Iran. This is why Trump walked out of the 2015 nuclear deal. This is precisely why the US has been putting immense pressure on Iranian shipping. And this is what led us to the story of the Adrian Darya-1.

This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute, which provided it to Asia Times.

*

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.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He has written more than 20 books.

On August 21, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and the Tiger Forces liberated the town of Khan Shaykhun and the areas of Khazanat and Tal Taeri, thus fully encircling remaining militants in northern Hama.

The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham strong points of Kafr Zita, Lataminah, and Morek, as well as the nearby settlements of Lahaya, Markabah, Latmin and Sayad are now fully cut off from their radical counterparts in the Idlib zone. A Morek observation post, where Turkish troops are deployed, is also encircled.

Khan Shaykhun, located on a highway linking Damascus with Aleppo, is one of the biggest urban centers in southern Idlib. For years, it had served as the key stronghold of al-Qaeda-linked militants. Currently, SAA troops are working to secure their recent gains and preparing for a further push to clear the rest of northern Hama.

Watch the video here.

Reacting to the Syrian military advance, a Turkish presidential spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, saidthat all observation posts, including the one near Murak, will remain in their positions in Greater Idlib. He also revealed that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will speak with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the phone over the situation in Idlib in the next couple of days.

These remarks were accompanied with common Turkish media propaganda accusing the SAA of violating the ceasefire regime and oppressing so-called moderate rebels. But in fact, Turkey just admitted its tactical loss and inability to rescue militants in this part of Syria.

Another important point of Kalin’s statement was dedicated to the US-Turkish ‘safe-zone’ agreement on northern Syria. According to the Turkish side, joint partrols US and Turkish forces will soon be launched east of the Euphrates, within the area controlled by US-backed Kurdish groups. Ankara see these groups as terrorist organizations and has repeatedly shelled their positions. So, it will be interesting to look how this claim will be implemented if US-backed formations remain deployed in the areas of supposed joint patrols.

*

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.

We call upon Global Research readers to support South Front in its endeavors.

If you’re able, and if you like our content and approach, please support the project. Our work wouldn’t be possible without your help: PayPal: [email protected] or via: http://southfront.org/donate/ or via: https://www.patreon.com/southfront

The US under both extremist right wings of its war party is a rogue state by any definition.

It operates extrajudicially at home and abroad. It’s increasingly repressive and totalitarian, heading toward full-blown tyranny if the present trend continues unchecked.

It’s an outlaw state contemptuous of international and constitutional laws, human and civil rights, as well as the welfare of ordinary people everywhere.

It repeatedly breaches international treaties and agreements, proving it can never be trusted — why diplomacy with its ruling authorities accomplishes nothing, toughness the only language they understand.

It sponsors and proliferates terrorism worldwide, including domestically in inner cities turned into battlegrounds. 

It’s the only nation ever to use weapons of mass destruction in combat. Wherever US forces show up, mass slaughter, vast destruction and human misery follow.

It uses chemical, biological, radiological, and other banned weapons in all its wars of aggression — against nonbelligerent states threatening no one.

It spends countless trillions of dollars on militarism, maintaining a global empire of bases as platforms for war, waging them endlessly — despite facing no enemies or existential threats anywhere, so they’re invented to justify what’s indisputably unjustifiable.

It poses a greater threat to humanity’s survival than any other rogue state in history. NAZI Germany lasted 12 years, Stalinist Russia a few decades, imperial Japan about the same duration. 

US high crimes of war against humanity have been ongoing for hundreds of years, first against Native Americans, exterminating the vast majority of their numbers, today waging global wars on humanity at home and abroad.

In late June, right wing extremist/Trump envoy for regime change in Iran Brian Hook warned that nations (legally) buying Iranian oil will be (unlawfully) sanctioned by the US.

He falsely accused Tehran of violating maritime law. He falsely called legal Iranian exports “illicit.” He lied accusing its ruling authorities of “foreign adventurism” — a longstanding US-dominated NATO specialty, not how the Islamic Republic operates.

He turned truth on its head accusing Iran of “reject(ing) diplomacy (and seeking) to dominate the Middle East” — Washington’s longstanding aim, Israel as well as its junior partner.

Both wings of the US war party are hostile toward all nations the imperial state doesn’t control, wanting their ruling authorities replaced by puppet regimes, subservient to US interests.

That’s what US fury against Iran is all about, Trump regime hardliners more hostile toward the country than their predecessors — Pompeo and Bolton pushing things toward possible belligerent confrontation.

On Sunday, Iran’s Adrian Darya 1 super-tanker (formerly Grace 1) was freed by Gibraltar authorities to sail toward its intended destination — believed to be Kalamata, Greece, according to TankerTrackers.com.

Trump’s State Department warned Greece against accepting its cargo, falsely calling the purchase “material support to terrorism” — a bald-faced Big Lie.

Note: The US/NATO definition of terrorism applies to the exercise of sovereign rights by all independent states opposed by hegemonic USA — including the right to have normal relations with other nations, including trade.

On Monday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi warned the Trump regime against seizing or otherwise interfering with the country’s Adrian Dayra at sea.

“Should this measure be taken or even spoken of, it would constitute a threat against free shipping,” he stressed, adding:

“(N)ecessary warnings” were conveyed to the Trump regime “not to undertake this wrongheaded action because they will be faced with adverse consequences.”

Separately on Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif said Tehran “is not interested in negotiations with the United States to clinch a new nuclear accord,” adding:

“We had detailed negotiations with the United States and it was not us who left the negotiating table.”

Except for the US, Israel, the Saudis and UAE, the world community supports the JCPOA nuclear deal, concluded after years of talks, formally approved unanimously by Security Council members — making it binding international law.

The Trump regime killed the agreement by unlawfully pulling out. It wrecked anti-proliferation arms control by abandoning the INF Treaty, and threatened to kill it altogether by walking away from New START on expiration in February 2021 if still in power.

Zarif and President Rouhani stressed that future talks with the US won’t happen unless it rejoins the JCPOA and rescinds illegally imposed sanctions on Iran.

It’s clearly not forthcoming as long as Trump regime hardliners remain in power.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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 Elijah J. Magnier

It is inappropriate that the cost benefit analysis of the largest civil construction project in Europe, worth between £56 billion and £100 billion, is essentially in the hands of a newly appointed, inexperienced transport minister with a less than savoury business/ political background.  That background includes allegations of bullying that was then associated with the suicide of a young Conservative activist. There were also allegations of the use of false names to conduct anonymous ‘get rich quick’ online business schemes, etc.

The position of any Secretary of State should only be held by an experienced politician of proven integrity and loyalty to parliament and to the United Kingdom.  Unfortunately, there are two members of the Boris Johnson cabinet who fail to meet these fundamentally basic requirements; whose loyalty and/or integrity is suspect and who were respectively required to resign their former cabinet positions in previous governments owing to either breaking the Ministerial Code, maladministration or unsuitability.

Any review of the massive Northern Powerhouse, HS2 Rail Link project must be carried out by qualified professionals, not unqualified politicians with their own personal ‘get-rich-quick’ agendas. The stakes for the country are too high to allow dubious politicians with questionable backgrounds, or who have previously conspired with foreign governments, to determine the viability of multi-billion pound, UK national infrastructure projects that will affect the lives of millions of us, and our children, in decades to come.

The Boris Johnson Conservative cabinet is currently fatally flawed by incompetent incumbents, and that is dangerously problematical.

*

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.

Hans Stehling (pen name) is an analyst based in the UK. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

A new law passed on Monday in California and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom now allows police officers to only use lethal force when it is “necessary” in response to a threat instead of the existing “reasonable” standard.

Assembly bill 392 is being dubbed as one of the most restrictive laws in the country and will take effect in January. Under the stricter standards, according to the abstract of law published online, officers can only use lethal force as a last resort to “defend against an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to the officer or another person”. The law is linked to a pending Senate bill requiring officers be trained in de-escalating confrontations and finding alternatives to using lethal force.

Last March, Stephon Clark, 22, was shot eight times by cops while standing on his grandmother’s yard, unarmed with a phone in hand. Governor Newsom invited the Clark family to attend the signing ceremony. Stephon’s brother Stevante Clark said that

“the bill is watered down, everybody knows that” while not seeming too pleased with it.

I reached out to Joey Lankowski Host of ACAB Radio for a comment, he stated

“California is leading the way in police use of force legislation. AB392 is the best piece of legislation that I am aware of; however, it still leaves much to be desired. This was passed in response to the police murder of Stephon Clark, but under this new bill his killers would still walk free. I take issue with that, along with a lot of the verbiage used which still leaves too much room for individual interpretation. This is by design. The Police Union was able to squeeze too many concessions out of activists which I believe will continue to provide an out for their future killers in blue. I personally do not believe the solution is in legislation, but I do respect those who continue to fight that battle and I do consider this bill a small, much needed, victory for all of us in the fight. I understand that this fight must consist of a multi-pronged offensive and I applaud those that are putting in the work to get new, better laws passed. We are allies in this fight. However, it is my belief that changing this system from within will prove a fruitless endeavor. This system must be torn down and rebuilt by the people from the ground up and in the meantime, we must create alternative systems on the community level that will render these state institutions obsolete.”

Also on Monday, New York City Police Commissioner James O’Neill announced that officer Daniel Pantaleo has been fired, five years after using a prohibited lethal chokehold on Eric Garner who pleaded for his life while uttering the words “I can’t breathe” eleven times. Although many see this as a long over-due and extremely mild consequence for taking the life of an unarmed father of six, the largest police union in the city, Police Benevolent Association, accused the commissioner of siding with “anti-police extremists” in a furious statement that was released on Monday.

According to the Police Use of Force Project which is focused on how police use of force policies can help end police violence, they state that the current use of force policies lack basic common-sense limits. A list of the failures can be seen on their site.

Mapping Police Violence is another collaborative effort to research and collect comprehensive data on police killings nationwide in order to quantify the impact of police violence.  On their site it says,

“We believe the data represented on this site is the most comprehensive accounting of people killed by police since 2013.”

They state that in 2018 police have killed 1,164 people in the United States. They also state that there were only 23 days in 2018 where police didn’t kill anyone. They go on to say that black people are three times more likely to be killed by police than white people.

In one of the charts on their site they mention the correlation between where location and police killings, they use the example that black people in Oklahoma were seven times more likely to be killed by police officers than in Georgia.  In another chart they state that thirteen of the top one hundred largest U.S. city police departments kill black men at higher rates than the U.S. murder rate.

The site goes on to say that there is no accountability and that in 2015, in 99% of cases where officers were involved, they were not convicted of a crime.

Mapping Police Violence also believes that there are proven solutions and that police departments that have adopted use of force policies kill significantly fewer people, these solutions are the same as were mentioned earlier under the Police Use of Force Project.

The tightening of restrictions on police use of lethal force in California seems like a good step in the right direction and should be implemented across the nation. However, implementing new laws and regulations is only one part of the solution and simply not enough to fix the issue of unarmed civilians being killed by police officers, especially with such an unproportionate amount being young unarmed black men. According to new research 1 in 1,000 black men will be killed by a police officer during their lifetime. Unless these laws are paired with more training, holding officers accountable for their actions, and convicting them in cases where excessive force led to the death of a civilian, significant progress will not be made.

*

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.

This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Sarah Abed is an independent journalist and political commentator. For media inquiries please email [email protected].

Featured image is from InfoBrics

Russia is reluctant to jeopardize its ultra-profitable arms relationship with India by strategically “balancing” South Asia, which is why the US decided to play this irreplaceable role instead by actively seeking to cut deals in both Afghanistan and Kashmir since Moscow lacks the political will to do so.

South Asia’s “Deal Of The Century”

The state of play in South Asia was revolutionized by India’s “Israeli”-like unilateral move earlier this month to de-facto annex the half of Kashmir that it was occupying, which was veritably a game-changer in regional affairs but runs the risk of becoming the strategic blunder that Pakistani Prime Minister Khan warned about. India thought that it would get a head-start on its “Israeli” ally‘s so-called “Deal of the Century” by imposing its own variant of this in its home region ahead of time, encouraged as it was by the silence of most Arab countries to the seemingly impending sell-out of Palestine and the signal that the US has been sending that it’ll encourage such steps to resolve long-standing “frozen conflicts” so long as they’re accompanied by impressive investments in those areas. It was with that in mind that India centralized its control of Kashmir and removed any pretense of relative “autonomy”, arguing that it was doing so in order to bring “development” to the disputed territory that it promised would assuredly arrive after a forthcoming investors summit later this year.

Russia & America Reverse Roles

At first, it seemed like everything was going according to plan. Pakistan ruled out a military option to India’s move, and the international reaction was comparatively mild. China brought the issue to the UNSC in a closed-door meeting, but while this succeeded in drawing a lot of attention to Kashmir and was hugely symbolic, it failed to achieve anything tangible. In fact, if anything, China’s efforts also somewhat worked out to India’s favor since they provoked Russia to reaffirm its stance that Kashmir is a bilateral issue and therefore highlighted the first serious disagreement between Moscow and Beijing in the New Cold War. Russia was therefore forced to forfeit its efforts to “balance” regional affairs through its recent “Return to South Asia” after it chose its immediate economic interests with India (via their ultra-profitable arms relationship) over its long-term strategic one of replacing America’s role in this part of the world just like it successfully did in the Mideast over the past few years. This decision didn’t go unnoticed by the US, which quickly took advantage of its rival’s shortsightedness to fill the irreplaceable role of regional “balancer” that’s the need of the moment.

Trump Slaps India Twice In A Single Day

Trump shocked India twice in a single day by reminding reporters that he’s still interested in mediating the Kashmir Conflict between it and Pakistan, even going as far as to endorse the two-nation theory that would have naturally led to the region’s incorporation into Pakistan had it been followed to a tee by adding that “You have Hindus and you have the Muslims and I wouldn’t say they get along so great.” Trump also expressed his frustration at the US sacrificing its soldiers to serve Indian strategic goals in Afghanistan by complaining that “Look, India is right there. They are not fighting it. We are fighting it”, which confirms exactly what the author wrote about earlier this year in his analysis about “Reading Between The Lines: India Has Sour Grapes Over America’s Afghan Peace Talks“. To be fair, Trump continued by saying that Pakistan, Russia, Afghanistan (presumably the Kabul government in this context), Iran, Iraq, and Turkey should also get more involved in fighting terrorism there too, but it’s his remark about India that stood out and stung the most.

Playing “Hardball” With The Hindutvadis

This seemingly inexplicable development caught many by surprise but should have been foreseeable since the author has been arguing over the entire summer that the US and India are playing “hardball” with one another in a high-stakes gamble intended to take advantage of their new “ally”. Predictably, as the author wrote, “India’s Finding Out The Hard Way That It Isn’t America’s Exclusive Ally” after the US decided to go ahead with a $125 million F-16 deal with Pakistan despite India’s loud objections following Prime Minister Khan’s very successful summit with Trump last month, which Modi had nobody to blame for but himself. India overestimated its strategic importance and ignored the fact that Pakistan is the global pivot state, the latter of which evidently wasn’t lost on the US, which appreciates the role that Islamabad plays in this trans-regional space and is why Washington decided to send such mixed signals to New Delhi the other day. To the US’ credit, it has the political will to “balance” the region in a tangible way, unlike Russia.

Russia’s “Deep State” Divisions

Despite Russia’s best intentions in wanting to play this role, it ultimately wasn’t able to do so owing to both the comparatively disproportionate significance that arms sales to India have for the national budget and the influence that its partner’s “agents of influence” have on its “deep state”. The military-intelligence faction of Moscow’s permanent bureaucracy understands the strategic dangers of New Delhi’s pro-American pivot in recent years and the need to “balance” regional affairs by strengthening ties with Islamabad in response, though its diplomats are generally pro-Indian owing to the lasting legacy of the Soviet period, and it’s they who had the final say when it came to determining the country’s stance towards Kashmir at the UNSC. Afterwards, the more pragmatic/neutral military-intelligence faction was compelled to follow the diplomats’ lead once the die was cast and Russia came out in partisan support of India on this issue. As such, it therefore wasn’t surprising that Russian National Security Advisor Patruschev told his Indian counterpart Doval earlier this week that Moscow supports New Delhi’s “territorial integrity“, which is code for recognizing its moves in Kashmir.

Concluding Thoughts

With the diplomatic and military-intelligence factions of the Russian “deep state” both taking India’s side on Kashmir now, it’s much more difficult for Moscow to regain is credibility as a neutral actor in the region and return to trying to “balance” South Asian affairs. The US, however, wisely retained its strategic flexibility and was quickly able to replace Russia’s lost role, as seen by the game of increasingly intense “hardball” that it’s now playing with India, which reminds some of the “do more” mantra that it used to rely on for pressuring Pakistan. The difference, though, is that it’s now India that’s on the receiving end of the American stick while Pakistan’s eating all the carrots after the US realized how irreplaceably important Islamabad is for ensuring regional stability due to is dual stakes in both Afghanistan and Kashmir, to say nothing of its position vis-a-vis Chinese grand strategy in securing Beijing’s only reliable non-Malacca access route to the Afro-Asian (“Indian)” Ocean via CPEC. In hindsight, it all makes sense, both why Russia abandoned its regional “balancing” strategy and why the US rushed in to replace it, thus making South Asia the latest battleground in the New Cold War.

*

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.

This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

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.

A poem, (written by Emma Lazarus) that is highlighted on the base of the Statue of Liberty contains the following:

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tossed to me. I lift my light beside the golden door.”

What would our Miss Liberty say if she could speak? One imagines that she would have too much to say about the empire that now owns her tons of metal. How could she not?

If you’re a working stiff who is but a few paychecks from financial instability, then you are tired. Tired perhaps of working too many jobs to pay the man. Or tired of working a ‘dead end’ job for a bum paycheck. Maybe you are tired from having to trek too far for that job you need. Or a single mom (or dad) who is tired from having to work full-time in addition to being responsible for your children’s well being.

If you’re poor, well, you have way too many obstacles on the road to sustenance. The ‘safety net’ which was once called government services has been, decade by decade, cut beyond recognition. To rely on the ‘charity of others’ maybe worked well in some rural community of the far past. Not now.

If you live in a big city or near factories and plants that puke out pollution, then you are not breathing free. If you’re a convict placed in some ‘for profit prison’ due to a non violent crime, who knows how long you will be kept before able to ‘breathe free’. Or if you are one of those seeking to cross the border to find work and living accommodations, well, Uncle Donald is keeping you as ‘huddled masses’.

As far as ‘The wretched refuse of your teeming shore’, this doesn’t have to be about people, rather the tons of plastics and other ‘should be recycled’ items that poison our waters and our wildlife… especially fish. The waste that our government, and of course, the real culprits, BIG BUSINESS, do nothing about as it destroys our drinking water, our groundwater, and our lungs.

The poem says that ‘I lift my light beside the golden door.’ Well, the only way that can be accomplished is  if too many of us, the ones the poem describes, stand up and begin speaking ‘Truth to power’. Frederick Douglass said it best: Power concedes nothing without demand. It never has. It never will.

*

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.

Philip A Farruggio is a contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, World News Trust and Off Guardian sites. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 300 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid‘ radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at [email protected].

In Syria news briefs today, two children were injured in another landmine blast; a child fleeing from US ‘SDF’ criminal militia was shot to death; Reconciliation continues; an increase in olive production is expected.

Two children were injured by shrapnel from another exploding landmine left behind by terrorists in al Swaiaa, Deir Ezzor. They are expected to recover. Despite the UN Mine Action Service has signed an MoU to assist the Syrian government more than a year ago, terrorists’ buried landmines continue to kill and maim.

Also on 21 August, Syria continued with its Reconciliation program. In Homs, 115 men had their legal statuses settled, upon turning themselves in, and handing over their weapons, so they could “return to their normal lives.”

Syria’s Ministry of Agriculture announced the expectation of olive and olive oil production to be increased this year. Since last year, when crops were decreased because farmlands were injured by terrorists, the Ministry has engaged in rehabilitation and ongoing maintenance to return to normal production. The expected output is 830,000 tons of olives, and 150 tons of olive oil.

The vilest of news from Syria, on 21 August, will never be reported in Western media. The US-run ‘SDF‘ murdered a Syrian child who attempted to escape kidnapping. Three of his family members were also shot by these separatist-terrorists, trying to protect him.

The murdered child was 13 years old Osama Obeid, who lived in the village of al-Gharb in Hasaka. The ‘SDF‘ stormtroopers have been raiding homes in Hasaka countryside, to kidnap young men and children to incarcerate them in “coercive recruitment camps” — brainwash centers to force Syrian children to become armed terrorists. 

The YPG precursor to the ‘SDF’ criminals promised to end their war criminal activity of creating ‘child soldiers,’ back in 2014. NATO media swooned, then, and swooned again late June, when an ‘SDF commander’ was invited to the UN to sign an agreement to end the destruction of children’s psyches. How utterly shameless.

NATO media supporting the US-sponsored ‘SDF’ against Syria has a two-pronged effect: The ability to subsequently ignore more war crimes, and to feed into the wretched western colonial mindset, in support of he attempted destruction of the sovereignty of Syria.

This insidious propaganda permits western media to ignore the murder of Osama Obeid, 13, who tried to escape kidnapping, as they have ignored the ‘SDF’ torching thousands of hectares of wheat and barley farmland in Syria, and as they have ignored the attempt of ‘ethnic cleansing‘ of Syrians in Qamishli.

Do an internet search, “Syria news,” and you will not find a single western media report on Tuesday’s murder of the Syrian child, nor anything except ongoing, anti-Syria war propaganda.

The time is past overdue for westerners to stand upright, on hind legs, and to acknowledge that Syria continues to fight terrorism on behalf of humanity.

*

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.

All images in this article are from Syria News

The NATO missile site at Deveselu in Romania (photo), which is part of the US Aegis “defence missiles” system, has finished its “update”, begun last April. NATO’s communique assures that it has added “no offensive capacity to the system”, which remains “purely defensive, centred on potential threats from outside of the Euro-Atlantic region”.

The Deveselu is equipped (according to the official description) with 24 missiles, installed in vertical underground launchers, for the interception of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles. Another site, which is to become operational in 2020 at the Polish base in Redzikowo, will also be equipped with this system.

Launchers of the same type are installed aboard four cruisers of the US Navy, which, deployed at the Spanish base of Rota, cruise in the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea. The very deployment of these launchers shows that the system is not directed against the “Iranian threat” (as the US and NATO claim), but mainly against Russia.

The fact that this so-called “shield” is not “purely defensive”, is demonstrated by the very war industry which built it – Lockheed Martin. They document that the system is “designed to be installed for any missile in any launcher”, and therefore adapted to “any mission of war”, including “attacks on land-based targets”. Lockheed Martin specifies that the larger ramps are capable of launching “the largest missiles, like those intended for defence against ballistic missiles as well as those intended for long-distance attacks”. They therefore admit that the installations in Romania and Poland and the four warships of the Aegis system can be equipped not only with anti-missile missiles, but also with Tomahawk cruise missiles with nuclear warheads, capable of hitting objectives thousands of kilometres away.

As documented by the Congressional Research Service (24 July 2019), the four US warships which “operate in European waters to defend Europe from potential ballistic missile attacks”, are part of a flotilla of 38 Aegis ships which, in 2024, will rise to 59.

In the fiscal year of 2020, 1.8 billion dollars were allocated to the enhancement of this system, including the sites in Romania and Poland. Other land-based and sea-based installations of the Aegis system will be deployed not only in Europe against Russia, but also in Asia and the Pacific against China. According to the plans, Japan will install, on its own territory, two missile sites furnished by the USA, and South Korea and Australia will also buy warships of the same system from the USA.

Furthermore, during the three months in which the Deveselu equipment was taken to the USA in order to be “updated”, a battery of mobile THAAD missiles from the US land army was deployed in the Romanian site, with the capacity to “shoot down an extra-atmospheric ballistic missile”, but also to launch long-range nuclear missiles.

Since the Aegis system was recalibrated – according to NATO communications – the THAAD system was “redeployed”. NATO did not specify where, but we do know that the US army has settled missile batteries from Israel to the island of Guam in the Pacific.

In the light of these facts, at the moment when the USA tore up the INF Treaty in order to install intermediate-range nuclear missiles at the borders of Russia and China, we will not surprised by the announcement – delivered in Moscow by Senator Viktor Bondarev, President of the Defence Commission – that Russia has based Tu-22M3 nuclear attack bombers in Crimea.

But almost no-one is looking into this, since, in the EU, all this information is hidden by the politico-mediatic apparatus.

Source: PandoraTV

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published on Il Manifesto. Translated from Italian by Pete Kimberley.

Award winning author Manlio Dinucci is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

Featured image is from the author

The American criminal justice system has long been a sharp painful thorn in the nation’s consciousness as if to remind us of a major flaw in the American way of life.  Mostly, that awareness has focused on the inequities of prosecution and sentencing between the privileged upper class elites, the have-nots of the blue collar underclass and our nation’s minorities.

Since 2016 the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has had an increased national  presence  initially as it related to the discredited Russiagate collusion campaign and now, as long-standing corruption within the DOJ and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)  surfaces, the status quo can no longer be tolerated.

Only those with a childlike innocence would be surprised by the sudden, untimely death of Jeffrey Epstein while incarcerated in the US Federal prison system. Attorney General Bob Barr described himself as ‘appalled’ that the planet’s most politically connected trafficker of adolescent female flesh had ‘suicided’ out.  Epstein was also reported to be a valuable Mossad asset who used his unique position to blackmail a multitude of unsuspecting elite schmucks.

If Barr brings the same level of incredulity to the on going systemic investigations of the effort to disrupt the 2016 presidential campaign and to unseat a sitting US President, we might as well roll up the last copy of  the Constitution and use it for kindling.   Despite a history of prejudicial bias and unethical conduct that is incompatible with a free, open and democratic society, injustice including one’s demise at the hands of the American criminal justice system is nothing new.

Whether Epstein was mortally wounded or is sunning himself on an Israeli beach leads to the same conclusion:   it can no longer be denied that corruption of the nation’s law enforcement system is widespread (ie civil asset forfeiture) as its top officials and many of its privileged Federal judges are implicated.

While a Grand Jury Inquiry into 911 has been stalled by the US Attorney at the US Southern District since April, 2018, it is anticipated that the DOJ Inspector General’s report on FISA Court abuses will detail systemic criminal behavior at the highest levels of government perhaps reaching into the Obama White House.

Which brings us to the presidential campaign of Sen. Kamala Harris as walking-talking proof of why, as a prosecutor, she should be ineligible for election to any position of public trust. There is little reason to believe that Harris is an aberration but rather the product of an odious infection that Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals described as “an epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.”

Considering its hallowed beginnings with the Judiciary Act of 1789 which established the Supreme Court, created the nation’s  Federal Court system including the first US Attorneys and US Marshals and the first Circuit and District Courts, the nation’s law enforcement and judicial institutions are deeply embedded in the Constitutional roots of the Country. The Act also created the office of the Attorney General.

In particular, a Federal Prosecutor is an omnipotent, most powerful person in any legal proceeding and armed with an unlimited pot of taxpayer funds.  With high profile prosecutions as plum assignments, many prosecutors cannot resist the grandstanding and opportunity for fame and glory. They are in total control of the Grand Jury process with unfettered discretion to run roughshod over any defendant.   Losing sight of the fact that they are officers of the Court, they are  untouchable as they possess a legal immunity from their own criminal misconduct.

There is an outstanding opportunity for the American public to better understand the level of corruption at the DOJ with a Must Read  of  Sidney Powell’s“Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the US Department of Justice.”  Powell’s book reads like a political expose, leaving the reader profoundly disturbed and stunned by the level of unimpeded corruption in the absence of any checks and balances.

Reading more like a fast-paced crime novel with one tragic suicide and one suspected murder, all the indictments were based on fabricated criminal allegations, a unanimous Supreme Court reversal, repeated Constitutional violations of withholding evidence (ie Brady Rule) as well as wrongful imprisonments – all conducted by the highest levels of the country’s criminal justice system involving two US District Court Judges and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

All defendants were initially found guilty only to have their convictions reversed on appeal with one still guilty of perjury/obstruction and concluding with the politically- inspired prosecutorial promotions to increased positions of power and influence within the DOJ or the revolving door to some of the nation’s million dollar law firms.

The following summaries of the three cases outlined in Powell’s book do not do justice to the complexity and divergence from the Rule of  Law as so effectively detailed in Licensed to Lie:

Enron Task Force Targets Arthur Anderson

In March, 2002 with the GW Bush Administration in office, the DOJ began their investigation into the Enron collapse by indicting Arthur Anderson, the country’s leading accounting firm since 1913.   The entire company of AA was indicted rather than any single individuals responsible.  As the auditor representing Enron along with 2,300 other publicly traded companies, the immediate impact of the indictment forced Anderson to close its doors leaving its 85,000 worldwide employees unemployed.

One Enron witness who refused to testify and plead guilty was put in solitary confinement for months until he wilted and agreed to testify per DOJ’s instructions.  District Court Judge Melinda Harmon was cooperative of the government’s case amending jury instructions to lessen the prosecution burden to prove their case.  The jury found the company guilty with the conviction affirmed by the Fifth Circuit.

In 2005, the Supreme Court found  that AA had committed no criminal conduct andunanimously reversed the conviction 9-0.

DOJ Enron Task Force Targets Four Merrill Lynch Executives

In September, 2003, four Merrill Lynch executives were indicted under an ‘honest services’ charge for conspiring to defraud Enron of its CFO services even though no fraud was committed.  Defense Council Powell could find no precedent for  making the honest services claim a federal criminal offense.

The basis for the allegation was a five minute telephone conversation on December 23 regarding Enron ‘s guarantee to Merrill that they would buy back some Nigerian barges.

The Task Force assured Defense Counsel’s repeated requests that no Brady evidence existed. “Cooperative” prosecution witnesses included  Enron’s CFO Barry Fastow who was thecriminal master-mind of multiple mega million dollar thefts as compared to the four Merrill defendants who took no money and received no benefits.  Fastow served less than five years in prison.

As the jury returned a guilty verdict, District Judge Ewing Werlien denied all defense motions as the Task Force requested immediate incarceration forcing the defendants to report to prison that day.   The Task Force had requested a 24 year sentence although each received 3 -4 years

Always at issue was whether the DOJ prosecutors abided by the Brady Rule which constitutionally requires the prosecution to provide the defense with all exculpatory evidence that might benefit the defense.  Six years later, as one of the four defendants was still in appeals court, the Task Force accidentally revealed their withholding of evidence from Defense Council that would have exonerated the Merrill Four six years earlier.

DOJ Prosecution of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska)

In July of 2008, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) was indicted by a federal grand jury for failure to report gifts related to a home renovation and was found guilty on October 27^th.  Less than a week later, Stevens, a forty year member of the US Senate, lost his re-election bid which changed the balance of power in the Senate as Barack Obama was elected President and the Democrats assumed control of the Senate.

Soon after, in a rare display of ethical and moral fortitude, an FBI whistleblower  revealed that the Task Force attorneys had withheld exculpatory evidence from the Stevens defense, again violating the Brady Rule.  Newly appointed Attorney General Eric Holder was forced to dismiss the charges against Stevens with District Judge Emmett Sullivan overturning the Stevens conviction and ultimately appointed a special investigator to review the DOJ’s behavior.  The Schuelke Report targeted mid level FBI attorneys while vindicating its top supervisors.  The suggestion that the Steven’s indictment was ideologically driven remains a possibility.

***

It remains an imponderable curiosity as to how an incestuous group-think led to these stunning levels of abuse of political power.   Why would some of the highest ranking officials within the DOJ seemingly consciously destroy the Constitutional presumption of innocence; that is, that any citizen is innocent until proven guilty – even as the concept has been a political football since the 2016 election.

On Federal matters, the burden is always on the government to prove their case “beyond a reasonable doubt” and yet, the government never met that burden in all three of the cases cited above.   It is as if there was deliberate intent to devastate the reputation and integrity of the country’s leading law enforcement agencies thereby destroying its ability to ever again function as a credible advocate on behalf of the Bill of Rights.

The term ‘prosecutorial misconduct’ does not adequately sum up the damage done to the thousands of lives affected in the three cases;  livelihoods ruined, financial instability and  physical  well being destroyed due to an improper, excessive display of the politicization of justice.

What is equally astounding is that for the DOJ to have failed in all three cases with  prosecutorial misconduct, the unanimous Supreme Court reversal and repudiation of the Department’s legal prowess, any one of these cases were sufficient to merit a Congressional oversight hearing including what disciplinary action had been taken.

In addition, while Powell’s book should have been a NY Times best seller, that once authoritative “newspaper of record”  refused to  ‘review’ the book  just as the NY Post backed off a story when the DOJ refused to make comment and book distributors have been less than cooperative.

And lastly, given the multiple Brady Rule violations, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) introduced the “ Fairness in Disclosure of Evidence Act of 2012“ which failed to attract more than four co-sponsors.

*

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.

Renee Parsons has been a member of the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist with Friends of the Earth and staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She can be found on Twitter @reneedove31

Marshal Haftar made this statement when speaking at the LNA TV channel from Benghazi for the first time after a long break.

“The Libyan National Army will defeat any plot to build foreign bases that support and finance terrorism in Libya,” Haftar warned.

He confirmed the high command’s statement about the powerful and accurate air strike on the Turkish combat operations center located in one of the air force academy buildings in Misrata.

According to the Libyan military intelligence data, the Turkish center had about 60 officers and carried out missions of providing military and military-technical assistance to the police units of Fayez al-Sarraj’s Government of National Accord (GNA). The Turkish military have been agreeing on the organization of supplies to Libya of weapons, ammunition, equipment and other material means for waging a war. The center was equipped with modern electronics for conducting radio and electronic surveillance not only in the territory of Libya, but also in the neighboring Egypt.

Making his television appearance, Khalifa Haftar starkly illustrated a topographic map of the Turkish General Staff with the latest situation around Tripoli and the warring parties’ balance of forces and means plotted. The map is a real proof of the involvement of Turkish military experts in the Libyan armed conflict on the side of the GNA.

A civil war is underway in the country: the Libyans are fighting against their fellow citizens. One side of the conflict is represented by the Government of National Accord, which is officially recognized by the UN. It is also supported by numerous splintered Sunni radical police groups that adhere or are close to the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood organization banned throughout most of the world.

It was them who organized anti-government protests in Libya, overthrew and brutally massacred the country’s leader Muammar Gaddafi with the assistance of a number of Arab monarchical states (Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE), the United States, Turkey, France, Germany and others. Nearly all the militants had endured the suffering and hardships of the wars in Iraq and Syria, and answering the call of Ankara returned home to establish a Turkish-like theocratic regime.

Only in the wildest dreams can we imagine what sorts of unspeakable things did these thugs, who can only hold and use weapons against the unarmed population, do in their country!

A civil war does not and cannot have universally recognized rules and laws. There is only one law: justice is on the side of the stronger one. Robberies, senseless murders, looting and lawlessness, constant armed clashes between Muslim groups jockeying for power and financial influence have become routine reality for the Libyan civilians.

And vice versa, fighting against the rebel groups are units and parts of the former government army, which once betrayed its commander-in-chief. But now these former military have united under the command of former Gaddafi ally in order to prevent the spread of the “the 21st century plague” and to prevent Libya’s descend into the ignorant Middle Ages.

For this very reason does the Libyan National Army control more than 90 per cent of the country.

The war in Libya is a strange one. Combat activities are mainly conducted to control the capital city of Tripoli. Sometimes they are intense and then subside, having an incomprehensible static nature. Haftar’s supporter commanders explain this phenomenon as a desire to protect Tripoli from severe destruction and to minimize the casualties among civilians who have proved unable to leave their places.

But, perhaps, the reason lies in the fact that the advancing side lacks forces and means for decisive action to defeat the enemy. In this regard, Haftar is compelled to seek help from the leadership of third countries. He enjoys the support of the neighboring Egypt, which is also waging a relentless war against the local terrorists of the Muslim Brotherhood. The leaders of Algeria, the UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and a number of influential European countries also sympathize with Haftar.

Russia takes a restrained position and keeps on an even keel with both Fayez al-Sarraj and Marshal Khalifa Haftar, who has repeatedly visited Moscow over recent years. There is a good chance that the Russian leadership does provide assistance to the Libyans fighting for the liberation of their country from terrorists. And it does this wisely and skilfully.

*

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.

It used to be done regularly and it worked: The West identified a country as its enemy, unleashed its professional propaganda against it, then administered a series of sanctions, starving and murdering children, the elderly and other vulnerable groups. If the country did not collapse within months or just couple of years, the bombing would begin. And the nation, totally shaken, in pain, and in disarray, would collapse like a house of cards, once the first NATO boots hit its ground.

Such scenarios were re-enacted, again and again, from Yugoslavia to Iraq.

But suddenly, something significant has happened. This horrific lawlessness, this chaos stopped; was deterred.

The West keeps using the same tactics, it tries to terrorize independent-minded countries, to frighten people into submission, to overthrow what it defines as ‘regimes’, but its power, its monstrously destructive power has all of a sudden become ineffective.

It hits, and the attacked nation shakes, screams, sheds blood, but keeps standing, keeps proudly erect.

*

What we are experiencing is a great moment in human history. Imperialism has not yet been defeated, but it is losing its global grip on power.

Now we have to clearly understand ‘Why?’, so we can continue our struggle, with even greater determination, with even greater effectiveness.

First of all, by now we know that the West cannot fight. It can spend trillions on ‘defense’, it can build nuclear bombs, ‘smart missiles’ and strategic warplanes. But it is too cowardly, too spoiled to risk the lives of its soldiers. It either kills remotely, or by using regional mercenaries. Whenever it becomes clear that the presence of its troops would be required, it backs up.

Secondly, it, the West, is totally horrified of the fact that there are now two super-powerful countries – China and Russia – which are unwilling to abandon their allies. Washington and London do all they can to smear Russia and to intimidate China. Russia is being provoked continuously: by propaganda, by military bases, sanctions and by new and newer bizarre mass media inventions that depict it as the villain in all imaginable circumstances. China has been provoked practically and insanely, ‘on all fronts’ – from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet and the so-called ‘Uyghur Issue’, to trade.

Any strategy that could weaken these two countries, is applied. Yet, Russia and China do not crumble. They do not surrender. And they do not abandon their friends. Instead, they are building great railroads in Africa and Asia, they educate people from almost all poor and desperate countries, and stand by those who are being terrorized by both North America and Europe.

Thirdly, all the countries in the world are now clearly aware of what would happen to them, if they give up and get ‘liberated’ by the Western empire. Iraq, Honduras, Indonesia, Libya and Afghanistan, are the ‘best’ examples. Submitting themselves to the West, countries can only expect misery, absolute collapse and the ruthless extraction of their resources. The poorest country in Asia – Afghanistan – has totally collapsed under NATO occupation.

The suffering and pain of the Afghan and Iraqi people is very well known to the citizens of Iran and Venezuela. They are not giving up, because no matter how tough their life is under sanctions and the West-administered terror, they are well-aware of the fact that things could get worse, much worse, if their countries were to be occupied and governed by the Washington and London-injected maniacs.

And everyone knows the fate of the people living in Palestine or Gollan Heights, places which have been overrun by the closest ally of the West in the Middle East, Israel.

*

Of course, there are other reasons why the West cannot get any of its adversaries to kneel.

One is – that the toughest ones are left. Russia, Cuba, China, North Korea (DPRK), Iran, Syria and Venezuela are not going to run away from the battlefield. These are the most determined nations on earth. These are the countries that have already lost thousands, millions, even tens of millions of their people, in the fight against Western imperialism and colonialism.

If one is following the latest attacks of the West carefully, the scenario is pathetic, almost grotesque: Washington and often the EU, too, are trying hard; they are hitting, they are spending billions of dollars, using the local mercenaries (or call it ‘local opposition’), and then they quickly withdraw after wretched but anticipated defeat. So far, Venezuela has survived. Syria survived. Iran survived. China is fighting horrible Western-backed subversions, but it is proudly surviving. Russia is standing tall.

This is a tremendous moment in human history. For the first time, Western imperialism is being not only defeated, but fully unveiled and humiliated. Many are now laughing at it, openly.

But we should not celebrate, yet. We should understand what and why this is happening, and then continue fighting. There are many, many battles ahead us. But we are on the right track.

Let them try. We know how to fight. We know how to prevail. We have already fought fascism, in many of its forms. We know what freedom is. Their ‘freedom’ is not our freedom. Their ‘liberty’ is not our liberty. What they call ‘democracy’ is not how we want our people to rule and to be ruled. Let them go away; we, our people, do not want them!

They cannot overthrow our systems, because they are, precisely our systems! Systems that we want, that our people want; systems we are ready to fight and die for!

*

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.

This article was originally published on New Eastern Outlook.

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Four of his latest books are China and Ecological Civilization with John B. Cobb, Jr., Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism, a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter. His Patreon

During the first week of this month of August, the ex-ISIS commander and current head of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra) Abu Mohammad al-Golani held a press conference in the occupied northern city of Idlib. He declared himself unconcerned by the ceasefire established in the course of thirteen meetings between Turkey and Russia at Astana; he said that the Syrian Army was weak and needed a long time to catch its breath, hence no attack was expected soon. He rejected the outcome of the Sochi meeting (stipulating withdrawal to between 12 to 20 km from the demilitarised demarcation line); and finally, he confirmed that his jihadists would not withdraw one single fighter or weapon even if requested to do so by friends (Turkey). A few days later, the Syrian Army launched an attack to liberate northern rural Hama and in particular the city of Khan Shaykhoun and surroundings. The main M5 road goes through Khan Shaykhoun and is therefore included in the demilitarised agreement, signed  by Turkey and Russia.

The Astana agreement between Turkey and Russia, with the blessing of Iran and Syria, has also established static Turkish observation positions in Morek, south of Khan Shaykhoun, (now in the current Syrian Army military operational theatre). Turkey is showing uncharacteristic timidity in the way it is contesting the military operation against the al-Golani group and other rebels and jihadists. Sources close to decision makers in Syria said “Turkey was not at all surprised at the operation and its objectives. The Astana agreement is being imposed by fire on those contesting it.”

The Jihadist leader al-Golani was obviously misinformed about the capacities of the Syrian Army; he thought Damascus was on its knees and unprepared for battle. He also miscalculated his own strength when challenging Turkey, supposing that he could simply reject a deal agreed by Ankara and stand against it, unharmed. Refusing to withdraw his jihadists from the demarcation line has now cost him a strategic city, Khan Shaykhoun, together with the anger of the thousands of civilian inhabitants who fled to Idlib. Ankara has lifted its protection of al-Golani to help him realise who is running the show in the north-west of Syria- even if he is in command of thousands of jihadists. Al-Golani’s underestimation of the Syrian Army is costing him a strategic city.

Civilians in Idlib (Syria) burning the photo of al-Golani

Such shifting alliances and reshuffling of friends and enemies are not new to the Middle East, where the art of the impossible is well-practised. Indeed, intelligence officers from Ankara and Damascus continue meetings to talk and keep back-channels open between the two countries. Meetings between Turkish and Syrian officers have taken place in Moscow, Tehran and Kesseb on many occasions and in many circumstances. Syria’s allies Iran and Russia are fostering dialogue between Turkey and Syria whenever possible.

Russia and Iran are allies with Turkey against the US presence in Syria and its hegemony in the Middle East. However, Tehran and Moscow disagree with Ankara’s continuing role in Syria– its occupation of the north-west, and its plans to create a safe zone in the north-east in coordination with the USA.

Turkey doesn’t mind if the jihadist forces of al-Golani, the Turkistani group and al-Qaeda loyalists remain in Idlib and its rural area, along with the pro-American group of Jaish al-Izzah and other rebels under Ankara’s orders. These accommodations have been possible despite the internal struggle for dominance in the occupied northern city. Turkey allows Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham to control the borders and impose taxes on goods and merchandise for its finance and survival. Ankara also doesn’t mind when Russia bombs its allies and friends in Idlib when they attack the Russian base of Hmeymeem and violate the cease-fire agreed in Astana. However, Turkey aims to maintain a tranquil status quo and therefore will not consent to jeopardising its presence in the north-west of Syria if and when the jihadists refuse to abide by its agreement with Russia. Any lack of balance endangering this status quo pushes the Syrian Army to move closer to Idlib, since Damascus is determined to recover all its territory.

On the ground, the Syrian army now controls two thirds of Khan Shaykhoun, and its victory in the city is imminent. The departure of most civilians has exposed the jihadists and demoralised those remaining in the city, and in nearby villages like Latamnah, Kfarzita and Morek.

After many years of war, the Syrian Army has shown itself capable of liberating its territory without military help from Hezbollah, and of taking the military initiative and of moving fast under intense fire against jihadists, who have been occupying and fortifying cities for years (Khan Shaykhoun has been occupied since 2014).

Al-Golani may have forgotten what happened to al-Ghouta (Damascus) when Saudi Arabia and Turkey lifted their protection of thousands of jihadists and rebels, who were then defeated within a short time. In the Syrian quagmire small players like al-Golani cannot dictate terms to the big players.

In Syria, there is Turkey and the US in the north, and Russia, Iran and Damascus in the rest of the country. Turkey has an understanding with Russia and Iran, and another with the US that contradicts the Russian-Iranian goal of liberating all of Syria. All in all, liberating the whole of Syria is a priority- but it may have to wait until after the next US elections, in 2020.

*

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.

All images in this article are from the author

China is a major player on the world stage, geopolitical know-nothing Trump outclassed, outshined, and outwitted by its ruling authorities.

He’s an embarrassment compared to other major world leaders, a laughing stock geopolitical wrecking ball.

His regime’s unacceptable Indo/Pacific agenda made resolving major differences with China all the harder — notably US dirty hands all over months of disruptive protests in Hong Kong, along with selling F-16 warplanes and other heavy weapons to Taiwan.

Beijing’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying warned the Trump regime of “consequences,” stressing:

“China urges the US to fully recognize the highly sensitive and harmful nature of the relevant issue, abide by the one-China principle and the three China-US joint communiques, refrain from selling F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan and stop arms sales to and military contact with Taiwan.”

The sale of 66 F-16 warplanes was approved by the White House, supported by congressional leaders.

China considers Taiwan its sovereign territory, treating it as a breakaway province to be eventually reunited with the mainland. 

Its ruling authorities consider US arms sales to Taiwan a hostile act. Beijing earlier expressed outrage over the Trump regime’s approval to sell Abrams tanks, Hercules armored vehicles, heavy equipment transporters, and stinger anti-aircraft missiles to its military.

Since the early 1980s, one country, two systems has been official Beijing policy, part of its plan for eventual reunification of Taiwan with the mainland, the island state to be treated like Hong Kong and Macau, retaining their own administrative systems.

On January 1, 1979, the Joint Communique on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations agreed to by Jimmy Carter and Deng Xiaoping formally established bilateral relations, ending official recognition of Taiwan, announced by Carter in December 1978.

The (1992 Consensus) one China principle affirms US recognition of one China comprised of the mainland and Taiwan.

Trump earlier said “(e)verything is under negotiation including one China,” angering Beijing. Its ruling authorities consider this issue nonnegotiable.

On Monday, Beijing’s official People’s Daily broadsheet slammed US bullying, stressing that China’s ruling authorities will defend the nation’s “developmental rights and core interests” — on trade, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other issues.

The broadsheet slammed Washington’s “Cold War mentality,” aiming to “deprive China of its own development rights and to make sure China stays at the lower ends of the industry value chain.”

It criticized linking protests in Hong Kong to trade talks. Trump suggested the connection last week. 

On Monday, neocon hardliner Mike Pence said

“it would be much harder for us to make a (trade) deal if something violent happens in Hong Kong.”

Things have been violent for weeks, CIA and hostile to democracy National Endowment for Democracy (NED) dirty hands likely orchestrating and directing what’s going on — a US color revolution attempt against Beijing through Hong Kong.

US policy toward China aims to undermine its industrial, economic, financial, and technological development, along with weakening its political influence regionally and globally.

Unacceptable Trump regime demands and action make resolving major differences all the harder, China not about to subordinate its sovereign rights to US interests — what DJT fails to grasp.

Nor will its authorities tolerate US meddling in Hong Kong that have nothing to do with democracy, everything to do with destabilizing the city, China’s soft underbelly.

As long as Trump remains in power, heightened US/China tensions are more likely to increase than ease.

With the US economy softening, its freight shipments down eight straight months, industrial production slowing, bankruptcies rising, the inverted yield curve signaling weakness, and the Fed. Res. Bank of NY index showing a possible US recession in the next 12 months at its highest level since the 2008-09 great recession, chances are another is coming late this year or next.

Ongoing trade war with China, more US tariffs coming September 1, more likely by yearend or January, makes a global downturn all the more likely — maybe a stiff protracted one if wrongheaded US policies continue.

A Final Comment

Former White House council of economic advisers chairman under Obama Jason Furman believes “Trump’s China strategy is failing.” 

“His tougher approach has yielded no meaningful Chinese concessions but is increasingly damaging the US economy,” adding:

He “needs to change (his) strategy radically.” Based on the current trend, it seems unlikely.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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.

We are happy to offer you two important books from Global Research Publishers at discounted prices:

Seeds of Destruction, by F. William Engdahl

“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.

Engdahl’s carefully argued critique goes far beyond the familiar controversies surrounding the practice of genetic modification as a scientific technique. The book is an eye-opener, a must-read for all those committed to the causes of social justice and world peace.

Today more than ever, the world’s food resources are being hijacked by giant corporations that are turning farms into factories and replacing natural resources with genetically modified “food-like” substances.

Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation
by F. William Engdahl (Paperback)

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

Year: 2007

Pages: 341 pages with complete index

Global Research Price: US* $18.00 + shipping & handling
(List price: US $25.95)

CLICK TO BUY

Also available in PDF format: CLICK HERE

This title is also available via Amazon 

*For payment in $CAD please use the Donorbox payment option on the product page.

The Global Economic Crisis, Michel Chossudovsky and Andrew Gavin Marshall, Editors 

In all major regions of the world, the economic recession is deep-seated, resulting in mass unemployment, the collapse of state social programs and the impoverishment of millions of people. The meltdown of financial markets was the result of institutionalized fraud and financial manipulation. The economic crisis is accompanied by a worldwide process of militarization, a “war without borders” led by the U.S. and its NATO allies.

This book takes the reader through the corridors of the Federal Reserve, into the plush corporate boardrooms on Wall Street where far-reaching financial transactions are routinely undertaken.

The complex causes as well as the devastating consequences of the economic crisis are carefully scrutinized with contributions from Ellen Brown, Tom Burghardt, Michel Chossudovsky, Richard C. Cook, Shamus Cooke, John Bellamy Foster, Michael Hudson,  Tanya Cariina Hsu, Fred Magdoff,  Andrew Gavin Marshall, James Petras, Peter Phillips, Peter Dale Scott, Bill Van Auken, Claudia Van Werlhof and Mike Whitney.

The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century, Michel Chossudovsky and Andrew Gavin Marshall, Editors (Paperback)

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-3-9

Year: 2010

Pages: 416 pages with complete index

Global Research Price: US* $18.00 + shipping & handling
(List price: US $25.95)

CLICK TO ORDER

Also available in PDF format: CLICK HERE

This title is also available via Amazon

*For payment in $CAD please use the Donorbox payment option on the product page.

Click below to browse our other titles:

In a turbulent world, some things remain stable, even to an irrational degree. One example is the price of Boeing stock, which, at $329 a share as of midday August 16, has barely moved—down just 1.6 percent—from a year ago. 

As all the world knows, in the intervening 12 months, two Boeing 737 Max jets have crashed, killing a total of 346 people. We also know that the crashes were entirely thanks to corporate management rushing through a Rube Goldberg adaptation of a half century-old design, suborning the FAA to approve untested and incompetently programmed software control features along with other irresponsible shortcuts (such as cutting the company’s own test pilots out of MAX development planning and avoiding mention of the new control features in the airline pilots’ manuals).

Nevertheless, neither the slaughter of passengers nor the subsequent deluge of shocking revelations have had any long-term impact on the stock price. There have indeed been short-term fluctuations in the interim, notably a sharp climb in the months following the first MAX disaster in Indonesia last October, when management’s disgraceful PR spin ascribing blame to incompetent foreign pilots achieved some traction in the press.

The second crash, in March this year, and consequent worldwide grounding of the plane, led to a sharp downward move, which nonetheless leveled off at around current prices even as bad news of corporate culpability continued to seep out of the ongoing investigations. On the other hand, for anyone who cares to look, the bad news is clearly reflected in the balance sheet. The hallowed planemaker recently announced the largest quarterly loss in its history—$2.9 billion—thanks to a $5 billion charge relating to lost revenue on MAX sales. Overall, Boeing now owns a total equity of negative $5 billion, meaning that its liabilities exceed assets by that amount. That $5 billion charge was most certainly a drop in the bucket compared to the lawsuit settlements yet to come.

Even so, Wall Street appears unworried. Analysts still rate the stock a “strong buy” by a wide margin, with a consensus estimate that it will climb some 90 points from its currently stable position in the high $320s over the next 12 months. The $2.3 billion Boeing spent buying its own stock in the first three months of this year no doubt encouraged such bullish sentiment, part of the $43 billion splurged on price-propping buybacks since 2013.

In addition, other powerful forces are hard at work to save the corporate behemoth from going into a terminal stall. Boeing, for example, is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the 30-stock index generally if misleadingly cited as a bellwether of the market as a whole, and even the entire U.S. economy. Because the Dow is weighted by price, an upward or downward move in Boeing has a significant effect on the index, which makes it a particular object of interest for the trading desks at major Wall Street players. Hence the stock is traded very actively in the “dark pools,” otherwise known as “alternative trading systems,” with opaque names such as JP Morgan’s JPMX, operated by the big banks and major institutions as unregulated stock exchanges, courtesy of a toothless SEC.

These are ideal instruments for manipulating the market, since they don’t have to show their bids and offers to the general market place as is required on regulated exchanges. As analogy, think of carpet dealers in a bazaar negotiating prices privately among themselves behind the backs of ordinary customers.

The tender regard being exhibited by big players on Wall Street is not, of course, solely for the sake of propping up the Dow. There is a lot of money directly at stake, not least in the 67 percent of the Boeing stock owned by just five giant funds,including Vanguard ($5.3 trillion in total assets) and Blackstone ($6.8 trillion).  It’s a sign that Boeing must keep borrowing money to stay afloat. Fortunately, thanks to low interest rates and the river of cash generated by the Federal Reserve since 2008, supplies are ready to hand. Thus on July 31, for example, Boeing borrowed a total of $5.5 billion via notes of varying maturities and interest rates taken up by major banks, including JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs—and that was on top of $3.5 billion borrowed in late April.

Given that it may be quite a while before money starts to flow again from airlines shopping for 737s, there is undoubtedly a lot of Wall Street interest in the alternative source for emergency Boeing cash flow: a giant taxpayer bailout in the form of a Pentagon contract of suitable proportions. Fortunately, there is a vehicle for delivering the cash: the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, the Minuteman-replacement ICBM authorized by President Obama as part of his $1 trillion nuclear modernization program. It carries a price tag, gratifying to investors, of up to $100 billion—a sum that will quite certainly be exceeded down the road.

Until very recently, the competition for this lucrative (and totally unneeded) contract was between Boeing and Northrop Grumman. Given that Northrop is already enjoying a pot of modernization gold in the shape of the B-21 bomber contract, Boeing seemed a sure bet to land the deal, especially as the Air Force’s detailed requirements appeared tailored to favor Boeing rather than Northrop.

But in late July, Boeing abruptly announced that it was walking away from the bidding. This was not due to a sudden reluctance to service the nuclear arms race, but rather a high-stakes effort to prod the Air Force into rewriting the cost of the competition rules, officially termed “request for proposal,” so as to obviate the cost advantage enjoyed by Northrop thanks to its artful purchase last year of Orbital ATK, the only viable supplier of the solid fuel rocket engines required by the new missile. We cannot doubt that the Air Force will see the light before too long, the stakes for the system being what they are.

“Too big to fail” is a term customarily applied to the colossi of Wall Street, who thus escaped the consequences of their greed and incompetence following their shredding of the global economy in the 2008 crash. As the Boeing saga outlined above illustrates, the TBTFers stick together, secure in the knowledge that the taxpayers will always be there to pick up the tab.

*

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.

Andrew Cockburn is the Washington editor of Harper’s Magazine and the author of five nonfiction books, including Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins (2016). He has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Playboy, Vanity Fair, and National Geographic, among other publications. 

The UK government licensed £6.3bn ($7.6bn) worth of arms to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen in the four years of the group’s bombing campaign, according to a new report by Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT).

According to new government statistics, since March 2015 the UK has licensed £5.3bn worth of arms to Saudi Arabia, £657m to the United Arab Emirates, £85m to Egypt, £72m to Bahrain, and £40m worth to Kuwait.

The UK also licensed £142m worth of arms to Qatar prior to its withdrawal from the coalition in 2017.

The coalition has been targeting the Iran-aligned Houthi movement, which took control of the capital Sanaa in 2014.

The bombing campaign has resulted in what the UN has branded the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, with more than 20 million people across the country left food insecure and 3.2 million people suffering from acute malnutrition.

“Thousands of people have been killed in the Saudi-led bombardment of Yemen, but that has done nothing to deter the arms dealers,” Andrew Smith of CAAT said in a statement.

“The bombing has created the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the complicity and support of Downing Street. These arms sales are immoral and illegal.”

The UK Court of Appeal ruled in June that British arms sales to Saudi Arabia were unlawful because the government had illegally approved the sales without properly assessing the risk to civilians.

The government was ordered by the court not to approve any new licences and to retake decisions on current licences.

Last Thursday, legal and human rights activists submitted evidence to the UK government that the Saudi-led coalition had covered up human rights abuses in Yemen.

The report claimed the coalition had “whitewashed significant civilian harm” and that any internal Saudi investigations into allegations had not been credible despite the UK relying on such investigations to justify its sales of weapons to the Gulf kingdom.

Using witness interviews and photographic evidence, the report by The Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and Yemeni group Mwatana for Human Rights placed blame on the coalition for air strikes it had claimed it was not responsible for and accused it of disproportionate use of force that harmed civilians.

“This evidence will assist the UK government in deciding whether to grant further arms sales licenses for Saudi Arabia,” GLAN Director Gearoid O Cuinn said in a joint statement with Mwatana.

“They can either continue to rely on discredited Saudi/UAE-led coalition assurances or listen to those who have painstakingly documented the constant civilian deaths caused by coalition air strikes.”

*

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.

Featured image is from Al-Masdar News

First published on April 30, 2019

July 3, 2019 marks the 40th anniversary of when the United States’ first military assault against Afghanistan with the CIA-backed Mujahideen began. It would be a mistake to treat the present-day conflict as being separate from the U.S. intervention that began in 1979 against the then-government of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan. Afghanistan was not always known as the chaotic, ‘failed state’ overrun by warlords as it is now; this phenomenon is a product of that U.S.-led regime change operation. The article below, originally published on March 30, 2019, summarizes and analyzes the events that transpired during and after the Cold War years as they relate to this often misunderstood, if not overlooked, aspect of the long war against Afghanistan. 

When it comes to war-torn Afghanistan and the role played by the United States and its NATO allies, what comes first to mind for most is the ‘War on Terror’ campaign launched in 2001 by George W. Bush almost immediately after the 9/11 attacks. And understandably so, considering that the United States and its allies established a direct “boots-on-the-ground” military presence in the country that year. Not only that, but during the Bush-Cheney years, there was an aggressive propaganda campaign being played out across U.S. media outlets which used women’s rights as one of the pretexts for the continued occupation. The irony of this, however, is not lost on those who understand that the conflict in Afghanistan has a long history which, much like Syria, stretches as far back as the Cold War era — especially when it was the United States that provided support for the Mujahideen in destabilizing the country and stripping away the modernizing, progressive economic and social gains, including Afghan women’s emancipation, which the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) had fought for. With the overthrow of the independent Soviet-aligned PDPA government, the Taliban emerged as a powerful faction of the Mujahideen; the U.S. would develop a working relationship with the Taliban in 1995. The war was never truly about women’s rights or other humanitarian concerns, as Stephen Gowans explains:

According to a Press TV  report: 

“The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has unveiled a warrant for the seizure of the Iran-operated Grace 1 supertanker a day after Gibraltar’s Supreme Court confirmed the release of the vessel. On Thursday, Gibraltar’s government announced it was releasing the supertanker seized by British Marines in the Strait of Gibraltar despite pressure from the US for the vessel’s continued detainment.”

According to the US warrant unveiled on Friday:

“A seizure warrant and forfeiture complaint were unsealed today in the US District Court for the District of Columbia alleging that Oil Tanker “Grace 1,” all petroleum aboard it and $995,000.00 are subject to forfeiture based on violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), bank fraud statute, and money laundering statute, as well as separately the terrorism forfeiture statute.”

The DOJ also alleged that there had been “a scheme to unlawfully access the US financial system to support illicit shipments to Syria from Iran.”

Britain’s naval forces unlawfully seized the Grace 1 and its cargo of 2.1 million barrels of oil in the Strait of Gibraltar on July 4 under the pretext that the supertanker had been suspected of carrying crude to Syria in violation of the European Union’s unilateral sanctions against the Arab country.

Tehran, however, rejected London’s claim that the tanker was heading to Syria, slamming the seizure as “maritime piracy.”

Following the incident, Spain’s Foreign Ministry reported that the UK had seized the vessel at the request of the US, which has been trying to trouble Iran’s international oil vessels as part of its campaign of economic pressure against the Islamic Republic.

The Gibraltar government had also said the US applied to seize the oil tanker after a report by British media that the vessel’s release was imminent.

Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization said Tuesday that Britain was expected to soon free the Grace 1, after the two sides exchanged certain documents to pave the way for the supertanker’s release.

*

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.

The 13th round of negotiations on Syria in Astana format was held in the capital of Kazakhstan on the 1st and 2nd of August. As the result, three guarantor states – Russia, Turkey and Iran – accepted a statement which pays special attention to security in Idlib province and initiates a ceasefire.

Moreover, Moscow, Tehran and Ankara highlighted that all agreements on Idlib must be executed. First of all, it’s about the memorandum signed by presidents Putin and Erdoghan on September 17th, 2018 in Sochi on establishing a safe zone in Idlib, elimination of “Hay’at Tahrir al Sham” (HTS) terrorist group and withdrawal of heavy weapons from the contact line.

But, as the proverb says, a contract with Idlib militants isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Despite the actual agreements they continue to pound the towns and villages of Northwestern Syria with rockets and mines. For example, on August 3rd jihadists shelled the town of Kardaha (Latakia village) violating the declared ceasefire. So, the silence hadn’t lasted more than a day.

It’s worth mentioning that despite Sochi agreements Turkey had not kept its promises regarding HTS and withdrawal of heavy weapons 15-20 km deep into the demilitarization zone. Moreover, HTS terrorists seized the power almost over the all Idlib province eliminating other factions including “Nour al Din al Zenki” and “Ahrar al Sham”.

It’s necessary to say that both Turkey and the USA have benefits from HTS’s presence in Idlib. According to the information published in the Egyptian electronic newspaper “Arabi 24” received from unnamed sources, Ankara and Washington signed a secret agreement which approves HTS’s presence in the region in order to keep armed balance against Russia and Syrian army.

However, Turkish and US plans aren’t supported by Syrian civilians – they are exhausted from HTS’ regular interference in all spheres of life including expropriation of private property. Sheikhs of HTS-held Western Aleppo areas asked the official authorities to deploy Syrian army in regions controlled by militants in order to lift the terrorism burden off civilians’ hearts. They also declare that Turkey ignores its obligations in the de-escalation agreement.

#EXCLUSIVE Last month, #Sheikhs of Western #Aleppo villages turned to the Government with a letter, where plead to send the #SyrianArmy in the South-Western regions of the Province in order to free the people of Syria under the oppression of #HTS and other pro-#Turkish militants. pic.twitter.com/CDWt2QLydu

— SMM Syria (@smmsyria) August 6, 2019

Systematic violation of the ceasefire, regular oppression of civilians and a threat of their death mean that Idlib’s problem is needed to be resolved. Syrian people actually ask to exempt them from the war. Isn’t it high time for Syrian authorities and participants of Astana process to hear their entreaties?

*

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.

Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.

Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes  the mainstream media narratives on Syria. 

Voices from Syria 

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-1-6

Author: Mark Taliano

Year: 2017

Pages: 128 (Expanded edition: 1 new chapter)

List Price: $17.95

Special Price: $9.95 

Click to order

The state of siege that India’s Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has imposed on Indian-held Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) is now well into its third week.

Cell phone and internet access continue to be denied to many of the region’s 13 million residents; and tens of thousands of Indian Army troops and paramilitaries remain deployed in J&K’s cities, towns and villages to intimidate the population and brutally suppress any and all signs of opposition to New Delhi’s August 5 constitutional coup.

On that day, the BJP government illegally stripped India’s only Muslim-majority state of its unique, semi-autonomous constitutional status by executive fiat, bifurcated it and downgraded the severed parts into two Union Territories, thus placing them under permanent trusteeship of the central government.

Despite New Delhi’s efforts to black out what is happening in Kashmir and silence all government opponents, information is leaking out that points to both the scale of the state repression and the strength and resilience of popular opposition.

It is now known that the Indian government has arbitrarily detained at least 4,000 people under a draconian, anti-democratic law that allows the state to imprison people it deems a threat to “public security” for up to two years without charge.

The detainees include “potential stone-pelters,” i.e., students and other young people previously active in anti-government protests, academics, lawyers and journalists. They also include—in an implicit admission of the lack of any support for New Delhi’s actions in the Kashmir Valley and among the Muslim population of Jammu—the top leadership and numerous cadre of the pro-Indian parties formed or traditionally supported by J&K’s Muslim elite.

Indian authorities have refused to reveal the names of those who have been detained or tell their relatives where they are being held. State-owned All-India Radio said last week that government officials had placed the number of detained at around 500.

This has now been exposed as disinformation.

A J&K magistrate has determined that at least 4,000 people have been detained, with most sent by military aircraft to jails outside J&K, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Sunday. The magistrate had covertly collected information on the number of detainees from colleagues using a special cell phone that had been given him because of his senior government post. His account, said AFP, has been corroborated by other government sources, including a police official who said that upwards of 6,000 people have been arrested.

Since then there have been further arrests. Thirty youth who clashed with police overnight were seized and transported to jails elsewhere in India, reported Reuters Tuesday.

Reporters from the Kolkata-based daily Telegraph who visited three villages in south Kashmir, Shaar, Khrew, and Mandankpal, said residents told them that hundreds of security personnel had been deployed there and that they had rounded up dozens of “potential stone-throwers.” The report, which was published Monday under the headline “‘Iron fist’ in rural Kashmir,” said Indian forces had frequently held hostage the fathers and brothers of those targeted for detention so as to force them to surrender. This, it went on to note, is “an aspect of the crackdown that has passed largely under the radar thanks to the information blackout.”

A relative of one young man, Sameer Ahmad, who surrendered to authorities to secure the release of his father, told the Telegraph, “For six days, we had no information about him. Yesterday, we found him at the central jail, booked under the PSA (Public Security Act). He told us he was thrashed and that there were hundreds of prisoners in the jail.”

Another establishment publication, the Quint, noting that many of the detained Kashmiri youth have been transported to jails in BJP-administered Uttar Pradesh pointed to a sinister purpose. “That (criminal gangs) have immense influence in these jails is hidden from no one,” said the Quint. “People have been murdered and assaults are commonplace. This would mean that Kashmiris are likely to have a tough time in these jails. The government’s strategy (is) to instill this fear into the stone-pelters.”

A report published Monday by the Indian Express lists the names of the most high-profile of the scores of mainstream political leaders and officials who have been detained and are now being held incommunicado. On the list are three former J&K Chief Ministers—Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah of the J&K National Conference, and People’s Democratic Party head Mehbooha Mufti; former J&K cabinet minister and People’s Conference head Sajad Lone; six other former J&K ministers; other legislators; and the mayor and deputy mayor of J&K’s largest city, Srinagar.

The Narendra Modi-led BJP, with the unabashed support of most of the corporate media, is trying to give the impression that normalcy is being gradually restored to J&K. But this is belied by its actions, which betray an enormous fear of popular opposition.

Since last Friday, the authorities have repeatedly announced that they were scaling back the blanket restrictions on people’s movements only to have to re-impose them after protests erupted.

Yesterday, Rohit Kansal, the principal spokesman for J&K’s New Delhi-imposed government, cited as proof that life is returning to “normalcy,” that “of 197 police stations across J&K, 136 stations have no daytime restrictions”—i.e., are not imposing daytime curfews. What he omitted to mention is that every inhabited part of the Kashmir Valley and much of Jammu are thick with security checkpoints, where residents must submit to questions and show identity papers, and that on a daily basis security forces are violently suppressing protests with tear gas, chili grenades and pellet-gun fire.

Some schools have been ordered reopened after a two-week government-imposed shutdown, but in Srinagar and much of J&K they are not functioning due to the absence of students. On Tuesday, Reuters correspondents visited three schools in Srinagar and found no students present. Nair Mir, an engineer in Srinagar told Al Jazeera,

“The government wants children in uniforms to be vidoegraphed for the media and sell it as normalcy in Kashmir.”

Safiya Tajamul also condemned the government’s actions.

“There is still 99 percent communications blockade in the region,” said the mother of two. “What if there are clashes” on children’s way to school? “Who will inform us and who will take responsibility for their safety?”

The BJP government’s assault on Kashmir—its illegal rewriting of the constitution and its imposition of an unprecedented security lockdown and information blackout on a region roughly equivalent in population to a mid-sized European country or a US state like Michigan—has huge domestic and geopolitical implications.

It is meant to initiate an all-out push to bring a quick and bloody end to the three-decade long, Pakistan-backed anti-Indian insurgency in J-K and force the Kashmiri population and elite to accept New Delhi’s unfettered domination. It is aimed at strengthening India’s hand against Pakistan and China, whose autonomous Tibet and Xinjiang regions border J&K to the east. Last but not least, it is aimed at shifting Indian politics sharply further to the right, by arrogating greater power for the Modi-led central government and whipping up bellicose nationalism and Hindu communalism.

Abrogation of J&K’s autonomy has been a key demand of the Hindu right since the early 1950s and is a key element of their agenda to transform India into a Hindu Rashtra, or state.

While India’s corporate media concedes the Modi government’s assault on Kashmir is a high-risk gamble that is further alienating the people of J&K and exacerbating tensions with Pakistan, it and the rest of India’s establishment have thrown their support behind it.

Twice last week, India’s Supreme Court curtly dismissed calls for it to at least curtail the security clampdown in J&K. On Friday, India’s highest court admonished the executive editor of the Kashmir Times and other complaints, saying they should have more confidence in the BJP government and security forces’ claims that the restrictions will ultimately be withdrawn.

Yesterday, India and Pakistan exchanged bellicose threats and artillery-fire across the Line of Control that divides Indian and Pakistan-held Kashmir, as they have every day since Aug. 5. As is the norm, the Indian and Pakistani militaries accused each other of initiating the artillery barrages and made conflicting casualty claims. New Delhi said one of its soldiers had been killed, but that in response it had inflicted “heavy” damage and casualties on Pakistan. Islamabad said three civilians had been killed by Indian fire, but that in a “befitting response” for India’s ceasefire violations it had killed six Indian soldiers.

Meanwhile, in what was clearly meant to be read as a threat, Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat boasted that he had informed the BJP government last February, when it was preparing an illegal military strike on Pakistan to “punish” it for a terrorist strike in J&K, that his forces were primed to repel any Pakistani counterattack “and take the battle into the enemy territory.”

India’s February 25 airstrike deep inside Pakistan prompted a Pakistani counterattack that resulted in a dogfight over disputed Kashmir and brought South Asia’s nuclear-armed rivals the closest to all-out war since the Indo-Pakistan war of December, 1971.

*

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.

Featured image is from Cafe Dissensus Everyday blog

The resort town of Beidaihe has just held one of the world’s most important, and secretive, political gatherings. Members of the public flock there in the summer months to relax on the beach gently lapped by the shallow waters of the Yellow Sea. But far from the madding crowd, the resort, 200 km north of Beijing, hosts an annual sealed-off conclave of Communist party luminaries, including President Xi Jinping, for a month from mid-July. The leaders set out the agenda for the year and prioritize the issues facing them. They were not short of topics for discussion. Though the annual event is held in the utmost secrecy, it is a racing certainty that US arms sales to Taiwan, a trade war, a stuttering economy, Beijing’s treatment of the Muslim Uighurs in the western region of Xinjiang and mass protests in Hong Kong as well as growing debt will have featured. So too would have planned celebrations marking the party’s 70 years in power on October 1.  Only one of these issues is considered a clear and present danger to those who gathered in the resort.

The mass detention of members of the Uighur community in Xinjiang, designated an autonomous region, in China’s west, has not met with loud international criticism, even among Muslim countries. Consequently, Beijing feels it has a free hand and will not face any real repercussions. Providing Beijing can keep the army out of Hong Kong, it, too, should be manageable. Certainly Washington will not make waves. In Trump’s White House, Greenland is held in higher esteem.  Brexit-preoccupied London can’t and won’t get involved.

There is no indication that the Hong Kong government wants troops to be sent in from across the border in Shenzhen.

Legally, the army stepping in must be initiated by the Hong Kong government, though the standing committee of the National People’s Congress in Beijing can declare a state of emergency in Hong Kong if turmoil “endangers national unity or security.”

In practice, any decision would be made by China’s leader, Xi, with the endorsement of the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, the highest level of political power in China.

Both geographically and politically, Xinjiang and Hong Kong are on the periphery. All bets are off should the Hong Kong protests seep across the border to Shenzhen, but that seems unlikely, providing there is no crackdown. In truth, Beijing knows there is little sympathy for Hong Kong on the mainland.

Taiwan? Nothing realistically Beijing can do. Protest to Washington. Done that. Boost the fleet presence near the Taiwan straits. Done that. Conflict is not an option.

Trade war? The United States launched it, China has responded, doesn’t want it but can live with it. Exports from China to the US are a relatively small part of its GDP.  The trade war with the US is a bad head cold, not a fatal disease.

Net exports as a percentage of China’s economy have shrunk sharply for years and now are under 1 percent of total GDP. China’s exports to the US make up just 5 percent of total exports. Even though China’s US exports fell nearly 8 percent in June, the result is not exactly a death blow to the nation’s $13.6 trillion economy.

Besides, blaming the US for targeting China and curtailing its growth could pay domestic dividends.

The real issue? A long time ago, in a faraway place from Beijing, it was the economy.

Same today for China. Especially debt. China is one of the most indebted countries in the world.  By one measure, China’s debt has already passed 300 percent of gross domestic product. The Washington-based Institute of International Finance said China’s total corporate, household and government debt rose to 303 percent of GDP in the first quarter of 2019, up from 297 percent over the year. This is mostly financed by Chinese banks and off-the record lending by financial institutions in the “shadow bank” sector to provincial governments. Banks in China have actually been pressured not to cut back but to lend more. Beijing has unveiled billions of dollars in tax cuts and infrastructure spending. The world’s second-largest economy had the weakest quarterly growth since 1992, though officially at 6.2 percent is still beyond the wildest dreams of most economies.  Universities and higher-education institutes churned out 8.3 million graduates into the job market in the summer. They need jobs, not just for their own welfare but to show that the “Chinese Dream” is still viable. An International Monetary Fund report in 2016 showed that of the 43 economies whose credit-to-GDP ratio grew by at least 30 percentage points in the previous five years, 38 “experienced severe disruptions, manifested in financial crises, growth slowdowns, or both’’. China’s total credit-to-GDP ratio from 2012-17 grew by 48.4 percentage points.

Deflating the debt bubble is difficult when global events such as recessions, and slow economic growth, demand another shot of stimulus. Much of the cash injection goes into the bloated veins of inefficient state-owned enterprises that are important for maintaining high employment levels.  Beijing then gets an ever-decreasing bang for their buck in terms of any lasting impact on the economy. Over-building has been one of the responses. It is estimated that more than 20 percent of homes, the vast majority apartments in high rise buildings, in China are empty.

The unwritten agreement in China is economic growth for obedience which is why the issue of debt, and how to eventually tackle it, strikes at the heart of the political system. No other dilemma facing those who gathered in Beidaihe comes close in its potential consequences.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Tom Clifford is an Irish journalist based in China.

Featured image is from Shutterstock

Hundreds of cancer-causing chemicals are building up in the bodies of Americans, according to the first comprehensive inventory of the carcinogens that have been measured in people. EWG released the inventory today.

EWG spent almost a year reviewing more than 1,000 biomonitoring studies and other research by leading government agencies and independent scientists in the U.S. and around the world. The nonprofit research group found that up to 420 chemicals known or likely to cause cancer have been detected in blood, urine, hair and other human samples.

Studies of the causes of cancer often focus on tobacco, alcohol and over-exposure to the sun. But the World Health Organization and many other scientists believe nearly 1 in 5 cancers are caused by chemicals and other environmental exposures––not only in the workplaces, but in consumer products, food, water and air.

EWG’s review bolsters the findings and ongoing research of the Halifax Project, a collaboration of more than 300 scientists from around the world who are investigating new ways in which combinations of toxic chemicals in our environment may cause cancer. While most cancer research focuses on treatment, the Halifax Project and EWG’s Rethinking Cancer initiative are looking at prevention by reducing people’s contact with cancer-causing chemicals.

“The presence of a toxic chemical in our bodies does not necessarily mean it will cause harm, but this report details the astounding number of carcinogens we are exposed to in almost every part of life that are building up in our systems,” said Curt DellaValle, author of the report and a senior scientist at EWG. “At any given time some people may harbor dozens or hundreds of cancer-causing chemicals. This troubling truth underscores the need for greater awareness of our everyday exposure to chemicals and how to avoid them.”

EWG estimated that a small subset of the chemicals inventoried in the report were measured at levels high enough to pose significant cancer risks in most Americans ––risks that generally exceed Environmental Protection Agency safety standards. But those estimates are only for individual chemicals and do not account for a question scientists and doctors are increasingly concerned about––how combined exposures to multiple chemicals may increase risk?

EWG’s inventory comes at an auspicious moment for the issue of cancer and chemicals. Last week Congress passed the first reform in 40 years of the nation’s woefully weak toxic chemical regulations, which President Obama is expected to sign soon.  In January, the president announced the establishment of the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative, a $1 billion program led by Vice President Joe Biden, “to eliminate cancer as we know it.”

But the law to overhaul the Toxic Substances Control Act falls far short of giving the Environmental Protection Agency the resources and authority to quickly restrict or ban chemicals known to cause cancer. And the only concrete agenda related to prevention in the Moonshot Initiative is for screening and vaccination. As demonstrated by the success of antismoking efforts, which have cut the rate of lung cancer by more than 25 percent in the last 25 years, to prevent and defeat cancer it is necessary to understand the environmental causes.

It is not clear how, or if, the new chemicals law will protect Americans from the hundreds of industrial chemicals that cause cancer.

“Many of the carcinogens this study documents in people find their way into our bodies through food, air, water and consumer products every day. Dozens of them show up in human umbilical cord blood—which means Americans are exposed to carcinogens before they’ve left the womb,” said EWG President Ken Cook. “We should focus on preventing cancer by preventing human exposure to these chemicals.”

Cook said the report should trigger outrage among Americans and urgent action by public health and elected officials. EWG called for the cancer “Moonshot Initiative” announced by President Obama in his state of the union address in January to include federal funding for investigation of the environmental causes of cancer and the development of prevention initiatives.

EWG has also published multiple health guides and online consumer tools to help people avoid toxic cancer-causing chemicals in their day to day lives.

*

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.

Featured image is from EWG

There have been wild reports over the past few weeks about Russia’s activities in the Iranian port of Chabahar, with some sources even alleging that Moscow plans to open up a naval base there.

***

This article was first published in January this year.

The Empire’s European castle of vassals is crumbling. Right in front of our eyes. But Nobody seems to see it. The European Union (EU), the conglomerate of vassals – Trump calls them irrelevant, and he doesn’t care what they think about him, they deserve to be collapsing. They, the ‘vassalic’ EU, a group of 28 countries, some 500 million people, with a combined economy of a projected 19 trillion US-dollar equivalent, about the same as the US, have submitted themselves to the dictate of Washington in just about every important aspect of life.

The EU has accepted on orders by Washington to sanction Russia, Venezuela, Iran – and a myriad of countries that have never done any harm to any of the 28 EU member states. The EU has accepted the humiliation of military impositions by NATO – threating Russia and China with ever more and ever more advancing military basis towards Moscow and Beijing, to the point that Brussels’ foreign policy is basically led by NATO.

It was clear from the very get-go that the US sanctions regime imposed on Russia and all the countries refusing to submit to the whims and rules of Washington, directly and via the EU, was hurting the EU economically far more than Russia. This is specifically true for some of the southern European countries, whose economy depended more on trading with Russia and Eurasia than it did for other EU countries.

The ‘sanctions’ disaster really hit the fan, when Trump unilaterally decided to abrogate the “Nuclear Deal” with Iran and reimpose heavy sanctions on Iran and on “everybody who would do business with Iran”. European hydrocarbon giants started losing business. That’s when Brussels, led by Germany started mumbling that they would not follow the US and – even – that they would back European corporations, mainly hydrocarbon giants, sticking to their contractual arrangements they had with Iran.

Too late. European business had lost all confidence in Brussels EU Administration’s feeble and generally untrustworthy words. Many breached their longstanding and, after the Nuclear Deal, renewed contracts with Iran, out of fear of punishment by Washington and lack of trust in Brussel’s protection. Case in point is the French-British petrol giant, Total, which shifted its supply source from Iran to Russia – no, not to the US, as was of course, Washington’s intent. The damage is done. The vassals are committing slow suicide.

The people have had it. More than half of the European population wants to get out of the fangs from Brussels. But nobody asks them, nor listens to them – and that in the so-called heartland of ‘democracy’ (sic). That’s why people are now up in arms and protesting everywhere – in one way or another in Germany, France, the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Hungary, Poland – the list is almost endless. And it can be called generically the ‘Yellow Vests”, after the new French revolution.

The latest in a series of the US attacking Germany and German business – and German integrity, for that matter – are the US Ambassador’s, Richard Grenell, recent threats to German corporations with sanctions if they work on Nord Stream 2, the 1,200 km pipeline bringing Russian gas to Europe, to be completed by the end of 2019. It will virtually double the capacity of Russian gas supply to Europe. Instead, Washington wants Europe to buy US shale gas and oil, and especially keeping Europe economically and financially in the US orbit, avoiding in any way a detachment from Washington and preventing the obvious and logical – an alliance with Russia. This attempt will fail bitterly, as various German Ministers, including Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, have loudly and with determination protested against such US hegemonic advances. Well, friends, you have bent over backwards to please your Washington Masters for too long. It’s high time to step out of this lock-step of obedience.

In France, this past weekend of 12 / 13 January, the Yellow Vests went into round 9 of protests against dictator Macron, his austerity program and – not least – his abject arrogance vis-à- vis the working class. A recent public statement of Macron’s is testimony of this below-the-belt arrogance: “Trop de français n’ont pas le sens de l’effort, ce qui explique en partie les ’troubles’ que connait le pays“ – Translated:

“Too many French don’t know the meaning of ‘effort’ which explains at least partially the trouble this country is in.”

The Yellow Vests and a majority of the French population want nothing less than Macron’s resignation. Protesters are consistently and largely under-reported by Christophe Castaner, the French Interior Minister. This past weekend the official figure was 50,000 demonstrators, countrywide, when in reality the figure was at least three times higher. The official French version would like the public at large, inside and outside of France, to believe that the Yellow Vest’s movement is diminishing. It is not. To the contrary, they are demonstrating all over France, and that despite the Macron regime’s increasing violent repression.

RT reports, on Macron’s orders the police are becoming more violent, using military suppression to control protesting French civilians. Thousands have been arrested, and hundreds injured by police brutality. Nevertheless, the movement is gaining massive public support and the ‘Yellow Vests” idea is spreading throughout Europe. This spread is, of course, hardly reported by the mainstream media.

In fact, 80% of the French back the Yellow Vests and their idea of a Citizen Initiated Referendum (RIC for “Référendum d’initiative citoyenne”), under which citizens could propose their own laws that would then be voted on by the general public. The RIC could effectively bypass the French Parliament, and would be enshrined in the French Constitution. A similar law exists since 1848 in Switzerland and is regularly applied by Swiss citizens. It is a way of Direct Democracy that any country calling itself a “democracy” should incorporate in its Constitution.

The UKis in shambles. Thousands are taking to the streets of London, organized by the People’s Assembly Against Austerity”, calling for general elections to replace the failing Tory Government. They are joined by the French Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests), out of solidarity. Many of the UK protesters are also wearing high-visibility yellow vests.

This is in direct correlation with the ever-growing louder debacle over BREXIT – yes, or no and how. At this point nobody knows what Britain’s future is going to be. Propaganda and counter-propaganda is destined to further confuse the people and confused people usually want to stick to the ‘status quo’. There is even a movement of pro “remain” propaganda, organized by some members of the European Parliament. Imagine! – Talking about sovereignty, if Brussels cannot even leave the Brits alone decide whether they want to continue under their dictate or not.

Hélas, the Brits are largely divided, but also past the stage of being swayed by foreign propaganda, especially in this delicate question of leaving the EU – which a majority of Brits clearly decided in June 2016. Prime Minister, Theresa May, has screwed-up the BREXIT process royally, to the point where many Brits feel that what she negotiated is worse than “no deal”. This has likely happened in close connivance with the unelected EU ‘leadership’ which does not want the UK to leave and under strict orders from Washington which needs the UK in its crucial role as a US mole in the European Union.

On 15 January 2019, the UK Parliament will vote on whether they accept the negotiated BREXIT conditions, or whether they prefer a ‘no deal’ BREXIT, or will request an extension for further negotiations under Article 50 of the “Treaty of Lisbon” (which was imposed by the heads of state of the 28 members, without any public vote, and is a false stand-in for a EU Constitution). Other options include a general election – and let the new leadership decide; or a second referendum which after two years is legally possible. The latter would likely cause severe public unrest, followed by atrocious police oppression – as already often witnessed in the UK – in which case, let’s just hope civil war can be avoided.

For weeks, the Yellow Vest movement has spread to Belgium and The Netherlands. For similar reasons – public discontent over austerity, EU dictatorship over Belgian and Dutch sovereignty. Last Friday, one of the Belgian Yellow Vests was overrun by a truck and killed. Authorities reported it as an accident.

Greece– The MS-media report all is ‘donkey-dory’, Greece is recovering, has for the first time in many years a positive growth rate and is able to refinance herself on the open capital market. Greece is no longer dependent on the irate and infamous troika (European Central Bank – ECB, European Commission and IMF). Reality is completely different, as about two thirds of the Greek population are still hovering around or below the survival level – no access to public health care, affordable medication, public schools – umpteen times reduced pensions, most public assets and services privatized for a pittance. Nothing has fundamentally changed in the last years, at least not for the better and for the majority of the people. The troika has allowed the Greek to go to the private capital markets – to boost falsely their, the Greek’s, image among the international public at large, basically telling the brainwashed populace, “It worked, we, the troika, did a good job”.

Nothing worked. People are unhappy; more than unhappy, they are indignant. They demonstrated against Angela Merkel’s recent visit to Athens, and their protests were violently oppressed by police forces. What do you expect – this is what has become of Europe, a highly repressive state of spineless vassals.

On Wednesday, 16 January, the Greek Parliament may hold a Vote of Confidence against or for Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. The official and make-believe reason is supposedly the controversy over the name of Macedonia, which in fact has long been settled. The real reason is the public’s discontent about the continuous and increasing blood-letting by never-ending austerity, sucking the last pennies from the poor. According to Lancet, the renowned British health journal, the Greek suicide rate is soaring. Nobody talks about it. – Will Tsipras survive a possible Vote of Confidence? -If not – early elections? – Who will follow Tsipras? – Don’t be fooled by the term ‘democracy’. – The elite from within and without Greece will not allow any policy changes. That’s when people à la Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) may come in. Civil unrest. Enough is enough.

In Italythe coalition of the 5-Star Movement and the small right-wing brother, Lega Norte, is pulled to the far right by Lega’s Matteo Salvini, Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister. Mr. Salvini is clearly calling the shots – and his alliance is firing strongly against Brussels and with good reason, as Brussels is attempting to impose rules on Italy’s budget, while the same rules do not apply equally to all EU member states. For example, Macron, France’s Rothschild implant, has special privileges, as far as budget overrun margins are concerned. Mr. Salvini’s anti-Brussels, anti-EU stance is no secret, and he has a lot of Italians behind him. An Italian Yellow Vest movement cannot be excluded.

The empire’s vassal castle is crumbling – and not even silently.

Then there are the former Soviet satellites, Hungary and Poland, turned right wing – don’t appreciate Brussels meddling with Hungary’s anti-immigration policy and in Poland over a controversial overhaul of the Judiciary system. Never mind whether you agree or not with individual country actions, both cases are clear interferences in these nations’ sovereignty. Though upon the European Court of Justice’s strong warning, Poland indeed blinked and reinstated the judges fired in the judiciary reform process. Poland’s love for NATO, and Brussels use of the NATO leverage, may have played a role in Poland’s reversal of decision. Nevertheless, discontent in Poland as in Hungary among the public at large remains strong. Migration and the Judiciary are just the visible pretexts. The legendary tip of the iceberg. Reality is on a deeper level, much deeper. These countries are both reminded of what they considered the Soviet Union’s handcuffs. “Freedom” is not being dictated by Brussels.

*

The triad of systematic and willful destabilization and destructionof what we know as the Greater Middle East and western world is what we have to be aware of. The east, mostly Russia and China, is a challenge being tackled simultaneously, impressively for the brainwashed westerner, but rather meekly for those who are informed about Russia’s and China’s military might and intelligence capacity.

This drive of destabilization cum destruction comes in three phases. It started with the Middle East which for the most part has become a hopeless hell-hole, a source of indiscriminate killing by the western allies, say, the emperor’s puppets and mercenaries, resulting in millions killed and in an endless flood of refugees destabilizing Europe – which is the second phase of the triad. It’s in full swing. It happens right in front of our eyes – but we don’t see it.

It’s the Yellow Vests, austerity, increasing inequality, unemployment, social sector’s being milked to zilch by the financial system, popular uprisings’ oppression by police and military forces; it’s reflected by the dismal powerlessness of the people – that leads to “enough is enough” in the streets. That’s the way it’s all wanted. The more chaos the better. People in chaos are easily controlled.

Now comes phase three of the triad – Latin America. It has already started three or four years back. Countries that have struggled for decades to eventually break loose with some form of ‘democracy’ from the fangs of empire, are gradually being subdued with fake elections and ‘internal’ parliamentary coups, back into the emperor’s backyard. The Southern Cone – Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay – is ‘gone’, except for Bolivia. Peru, Colombia, Ecuador all the way to Guyana are governed by neoliberal, even neonazi-shaded Lords of Washington. But there is still Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and now also Mexico that have not caved in and will not cave in.

In an extraordinary analysis, Thierry Meyssan describes in “The Terrible Forthcoming Destruction of the Caribbean Basin” – see this, how the Pentagon is still pursuing the implementation of the Rumsfeld-Cebrowski plan. This time, aiming at the destruction of the “Caribbean Basin” States. There is no consideration for friends or political enemies, Thierry Meyssan observes. He goes on predicting that after the period of economic destabilization and that of military preparation, the actual operation should begin in the years to come by an attack on Venezuela by Brazil (supported by Israel), Colombia (an ally of the United States) and Guyana (in other words, the United Kingdom). It will be followed by others, beginning with Cuba and Nicaragua, the ‘troika of tyranny’, as per John Bolton.

Only the future will say to what extent this plan will be implemented. At the outset, its ambitions exceed the crumbling empire’s actual capacity.

*

When it comes all down to one single denominator, it’s the current western financial system that must go. It is private banking gone berserk. We are living in a financial system that has gone wild and running havoc, uncontrolled – a train of endless greed that is loosely speeding ahead and doesn’t know when it will hit an unyielding steel-enforced brick wall – but hit it will. It is a mere question of time. People are sick and tired of being milked no end by a fraudulent pyramid system – constructed by the US and her dollar hegemony and maintained by globalized private banking.

We are living in a private banking system that has nothing to do with economic development, but everything with a greed-driven domination of us, consumers, sold on debt and on money that we don’t control, despite the fact that we earned it with our hard labor; despite the fact that it is our added value to what we call the economy. No – this system is totally disrespectful of the individual, it is even ready to steal our money, if it needs to survive – our banking system. It takes the liberty of “administering” it and basically appropriating it. Once our money is in a private bank, we have lost control over it. And mind you and get it into your brains, private banks do not work for you and me, but for their shareholders. But through hundreds of years of indoctrination, we have become so used to it, that being charged interest for borrowing our own money, through an intermediary who does nothing, absolutely nothing but wait for profit to fall into its lap – has become the ‘normality’.

It isn’t. This system has to be abolished, the faster the better. Private banking needs to be eradicated and replaced by local public banking that works with local currencies, based on local economic output, way removed from globalized concepts that help steel resources, empty local social safety nets – all under the guise of austerity for progress. We should know better by now. There is no austerity for progress – has never been. This fraudulent IMF-World Bank concept has never worked, anywhere.

We have to de-dollarize our money, de-digitize our money and pool it through a public banking system for the purpose of people’s growth, hence a society’s or nation’s growth. There is currently one good example, the Bank of North Dakota. The BND has helped the US State of North Dakota through the 2008 and following years crisis, with economic growth instead of economic decline, with almost full employment, versus skyrocketing unemployment in the rest of the US and the western world. We need to build our common wealth with sovereign money, backed by our sovereign economies.

As the empire and its vassals are crumbling badly, they are shaking in their foundations, it is time to rethink what we have been taking for granted and for ‘normal’ – a fraudulent and deceptive monetary system, backed by nothing, no economy, not even gold – we are living on sheer fiat money, made by private banking by a mouse-click – and by letting us be enslaved by debt.

Enough is enough. The Yellow Vests have understood. They want to get rid of their “Macron” who keeps propagating the fraud. It is time to rethink and restart, as the crumbling is getting louder and louder. Empire’s European vassal state is falling apart and will pull Washington and its hegemonic war and money machine along into the abyss.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published on New Eastern Outlook.

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 21^stCentury; TeleSUR; The Vineyard of 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.

This article was originally published in December 2018.

The British Prime Minister’s Brexit has been so epically disastrous that it has trapped the EU into an ideal result for the UK. This is consistent with the upside down world she inhabits where virtually every statement about her Brexit is the opposite of the truth. Her Brexit failure could be the way to a clean clear Brexit with most of the negotiating power shifting to Britain.

It was the Chinese warrior Sun Tzu who wrote some 2,500 years ago in “The Art of War” that an over confident general should “not pursue an enemy who simulates flight” as the retreat could be leading to an ambush. The Spartans successfully used the feigned-retreat tactic at Thermopylae in 480 BC.

Of course Mrs May’s flight is not a feint but a genuine collapse. The EU is jubilant. The surrender document (Withdrawal Agreement) is too good to be true. They charge on and laugh at the failure of the British political class. But they forget they are dealing with the British people not their politicians. Ironically we can turn May’s genuine defeat into a real victory.

Accustomed to top down political power and public obedience the continental politicians (and especially the unaccountable EU Commissioners) did not reckon with:

• The automatic nature of the UK’s withdrawal
• The lack of time for another referendum
• The automatic default option of the “no deal” which is in fact a clear deal based on World Trade Organisation terms
• That those terms mean a big windfall for the British Treasury when we apply WTO tariffs to German and French exports to the UK
• That those costs would be on top of the very high price of those exports to the UK market after the Pound’s decline so EU manufacturers will have to reduce their prices and profits
• The UK keeps its £39bn + exit fee so other EU States will have to pick up the difference

So already the EU is coming up with agreements on citizens rights, air traffic, banking, customs checks, personal data, holiday makers and general transport between the UK and EU and – before March 29th – I am sure much else. Those planes will fly, there will be no problems with medicine recognition, no Mars bar or drinking water shortage, we will not lose our seat at the UN (although we would if we stayed in the EU).

And as the future of the May deal is constructed around the mythical Irish problem (although that is by far the least of its critical defects) we suddenly hear from the European Union that UK citizens will have to pay 7 Euros to go on holidays in the EU after Brexit. So much for the seamless border demanded by the EU between Northern Ireland and the Republic!

Suddenly we will find that what was a disaster and what were unsolvable problems can be solved surprisingly quickly. But only if there is pressure. Only if the UK has a political leader with the spine to assert no deal. Only if the 29th March looms ever closer. Only if French and German industry see the writing on the wall and start to order their politicians to stop playing politics and get a free trade deal done.

When we have left they will come begging to us. But only if we leave with “no deal” and exploit the brilliant incompetence of Theresa May which has caused the EU, with great hubris, to charge into the trap.

May’s Brexit Delusions

The British Prime Minister asserted that she had negotiated a good trade deal when there is no trade deal. There might be one after we are trapped in the EU for at least 2 years but her Withdrawal deal has nothing to do with a future trade deal. She said we need a “deal” to leave the EU but we do not. She said her deal means leaving the jurisdiction of the European Court, the end of free movement, the withdrawal from the customs union and the single market but her deal does none of that. Her deal even means that (unlike when she started) we would no longer have the unfettered right to leave at all!

When seeking votes in the confidence motion to remain leader of her party she lied to MPs by saying that the Democratic Unionist Party (on whom she relies to govern at all) was happy with her deal. They denied it. She said she would not be party leader going into the next election only for her words to be interpreted by her clique as the mere “intention” not to. Subsequently she went back on that and now is committed to going before the next election. Mrs May cannot even rely on her own deceptions!

First the Withdrawal Agreement was going to be put to parliament, then May cancelled at the last moment even as her allies were on the airwaves saying it was going ahead. She had previously told the EU that she would cancel the vote even before her Cabinet knew. Then she went on an ill-fated trip to demand changes to the Agreement but the EU said her ideas were “nebulous”.

• They did not know what she wanted from them
• They would not re-negotiate but would find a form of words
• Mrs May said those words would be legally binding even though the EU specifically said they were not
• The EU even deleted sentences of support for May from the communique.

But in mad May world she said she had made good progress! She still thinks she can get the deal through the House and that the E.U. is negotiating. That is “self delusion beyond repair” as the late Sir Alfred Sherman used to say – self delusion shared by her own MPs who have just confirmed her as leader!

Theresa May set out the principles for Brexit (because they were precisely what the British had voted for in the referendum) in her 2017 Lancaster House speech. The only way those promises can be fulfilled is by the defeat of her own Withdrawal Agreement and the “no deal” Brexit which she rejects.

The UK Is All Set to Go

Wages are rising, real wages after inflation are rising, employment has reached record levels – all as 132,000 fewer “EU citizens” work in the UK.

And the Pound? Well you have heard of these City economists saying how disastrous leaving the EU will be. But it seems when actually asked to predict the level of the Pound after Brexit next year the major banks all say it will rise from its present level of $1.26! Nomura says massively to just under $1.60. Barclays say around $1.30, JP Morgan and Citi bank say around $1.37 and the French Bank BNPP say $1.47.

While predicting chaos from a no deal Brexit the CBI has just published data of UK manufacturing success with orders growing for a second month in a row in December. The CBI’s monthly order book showed a positive reading of +8, after November’s +10 but well above average levels and a measure of expectations for the three months ahead rose to +14, its highest level since September.

If you want something more vox pop you might like to hear the lead singer of the very successful pop group Iron Maiden, Bruce Dickinson who has said that “Brexit will open the UK to the rest of the World”.

The UK has just announced it will stay in the Common Transit Convention giving “simplified cross border trade for UK businesses exporting their goods” and “provide cashflow benefits to traders and aid trade flow at key points of entry …….. traders will only have to make customs declarations and pay import duties when they arrive at their final destination.” As John Redwood MP says: “How about some apologies from all those who said border friction would be very damaging?”

So Armageddon it is not!

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published on Freenations.

Russia didn’t want the issue of Kashmir to be brought before the UNSC at all, though it allowed China to go forward with the meeting out of respect for their strategic partnership but then remained conspicuously silent about India’s threats against it in order to convey its disapproval towards Beijing.

***

Background Briefings

Russia’s UNSC stance towards Kashmir has generated a lot of discussion due to how differently it’s been interpreted, with some saying that Moscow sided with Islamabad by allowing the Beijing-initiated meeting to take place while others claim that it reaffirmed its support of New Delhi’s position by twice saying that it regards the issue as a bilateral one. The author takes the latter approach and extensively explained his views in the following analyses about the topic that were published within the last week:

• “Alt-Media Enters New Era: Russia & China Divided Over Kashmir”
• “What Explains Russia & China’s Differing Stances Towards Kashmir?”
• “It’s A Wrong Interpretation That Russia Supported Pakistan At The UNSC”
• “Interpreting Russia & China’s UNSC Stances Towards Kashmir & Crimea”
• “Confirmation Bias Explains The Misportrayal Of Russia’s UNSC Stance Towards Kashmir”
• “Russia’s Silence On India’s Anti-Chinese Threats Is Deafening”

Silence As A Statement

It’s the last one of the six aforementioned articles that’s the most revealing about what really influenced Russia’s position towards Kashmir. It wasn’t its relations with India or even Pakistan, but China, because Beijing brought the issue before the UNSC out of solidarity with Islamabad and due to its own national security stakes in the conflict even though Moscow would have preferred for this not to have been discussed at all in that format.

Russia allowed the meeting to go forward out of respect for its strategic partnership with China, but then remained deafeningly silent in response to India’s anti-Chinese threats, specifically the one made by Home Minister Amit Shah about how people “can die” over his country’s claims to Chinese-administered Aksai Chin and the overall concern that the Chinese Foreign Ministry officially expressed for its territorial sovereignty after India’s “Israeli”-like unilateral move in Kashmir earlier this month.

It’s very rare that the Russian Foreign Ministry misses an opportunity to opine about international matters, yet it chose not to make any comment whatsoever in response to a leading official in one of the world’s few nuclear-armed states threatening to kill people in its similarly nuclear-armed neighbor after his government made a move that infringed on their territorial sovereignty. This absence of action can be interpreted as an action in and of itself, namely one that conveyed the message that Russia is displeased with China.

The Limits Of The Russian-Chinese Strategic Partnership

At the very least, Russia is showing the world that it and China aren’t “allies” like many in the Mainstream and Alternative Media portray the two as being for their own separate reasons since it would have otherwise said something in Beijing’s defense had their relationship really been on that speculative level. Instead, Russia knew that saying the wrong word would ruin one of its two most important strategic partnerships, hence why it chose to stay silent and let India’s warmongering go unaddressed.

To be clear, it’s inconceivable that Russia endorses Shah’s statement or would in any way encourage Indian aggression against China’s territorial sovereignty so its silence shouldn’t be interpreted as support, the same way as its passive acceptance of China’s move to take Kashmir up with the UNSC shouldn’t be interpreted as support for the multilateralization of this issue either. Rather, Russia was forced into an unenviable strategic position due to events outside of its control and therefore sought to “balance” between all partners.

This, naturally, includes the global pivot state of Pakistan as well, with which Russia is currently engaged in a rapidly moving rapprochement that recently turned into a strategic partnership in its own right last year. That’s why Foreign Minister Lavrov accepted his counterpart’s invitation to talk about Kashmir last week and these two countries’ increasingly close military ties remain completely unaffected by Moscow’s UNSC stance towards the issue.

Triangulation

From the Russian perspective, each of the three states that are party to the Kashmir Conflict have their own roles in its grand strategy, which is why Moscow doesn’t want to offend any of them if it can help it. China is pioneering the Belt & Road Initiative(BRI) with which President Putin announced his plans to integrate the Eurasian Union, and it’s also a major customer for Russia’s resources. India, for its part, is a huge (but quickly declining) arms market, as well as a profitable partner when it comes to nuclear energy cooperation.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s importance derives from Russia’s diplomatic and military-intelligence cooperation with it mostly stemming from their shared interests in bringing peace to Afghanistan, as well as the fact that Islamabad is Beijing’s top international partner. Nevertheless, Russia does attempt to “triangulate” between the three in order to promote the regional “balancing” act that it’s practicing through its “Return to South Asia“. For instance, China and Pakistan help Russia hedge against the implications of India’s pro-American pivot.

Likewise, the Russian-Indian Strategic Partnership could serve to “balance” China all across the Eastern Hemisphere if taken to its maximum extent in the long-term future and especially if Moscow clinches a “New Detente” with Washington that ends up indirectly involving the US in this relationship to that end. As for the Russian-Pakistani relations, Moscow can learn a lot from Islamabad’s experience being a key transit state for BRI via CPEC, which could in turn help it take better advantage of its role in the Eurasian Land Bridge.

Concluding Thoughts

Considering all of this, Russia would have preferred not to have been placed in a position where it’s forced to choose between its partners, but this was impossible after India’s “Israeli”-like unilateral move infringed on China’s territorial sovereignty and triggered Beijing into bringing up Kashmir at the UNSC, something that it didn’t necessarily have to do but did so anyway partly on behalf of its “iron brother” in Islamabad. The complicated strategic triangle of the Kashmir Conflict therefore put Russia in a very tricky position.

Unlike how it’s widely seen by both friends and foes alike (again, each for their own reasons), Russia wasn’t calling the shots at all this time, but merely reacting to them, and in a purely defensive way at that with the utmost care to avoid offending its three partners’ sensitivities through any unexpected moves that would contradict their expectations. Pakistan was unable to bring Kashmir up at the UNSC, nor was India able to prevent China from doing so, which is why Russia’s response was influenced by its relations with China.

Not wanting to actively disrespect China in front of the rest of the world, Russia passively allowed the meeting to take place, though it also remained passive in the face of India’s threats against its partner too in order to signal its disapproval of Beijing bringing Kashmir to the UNSC. If Russia had the choice, it would have rather that Kashmir not been discussed at the global body, but there’s no changing the fact that it was, though this means that Russia’s “balancing” act between China, India, and Pakistan just got all the more difficult because of it.

*

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.

This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

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.

Goodness, how 50 years seemed to go like a blink in the eye of memory. Almost to the day, two sets of events harnessed the attention of our nation in August of 1969. On August 9th and 10th, what was later found out to be the work of Charles Manson’s crew of hypnotic, hepped up hippie dippies, Sharon Tate (with fetus inside of her) and friends were savagely murdered; the next night Leno LaBianca and his wife were also savagely murdered. A mere five days later, in an appropriately named Bethel, N.Y., the Woodstock Music Festival began. Hundreds of thousands of young people spent four days and nights in joyous communion with each other, listening to some of the best music groups around… with no violence. Meanwhile, this was perhaps the height of the Vietnam War, with two guys from my Brooklyn neighborhood coming home in caskets. To a nineteen year old like yours truly, my naivety was expressed in only being concerned with girls, girls, girls, along with some good pot and great music albums. Within one short year that all changed with Nixon’s illegal bombing/invasion of sovereign Cambodia and  the shootings of four protesting students at Kent State University by National Guard troops.

Yes, those were truly the ‘Dog days of summer’ that August of ’69. This writer’s ‘street smarts’ were fine tuned a bit by becoming a yellow cab driver during my summer break from college. Driving the day shift in Brooklyn and Manhattan revealed so much to me. Like Travis Bickell in the film Taxi Driver, the smell and sense of the Big Apple was eye (and ear) opening. From the businessmen in Manhattan to the hookers going from score to score, to the blue collar working stiffs of Brooklyn, this talkative young man learned so much about people.

It seemed that all the current issues of that heated summer came to the forefront of taxicab conversations. Of course, with the debacle of the Tet Offensive in 1968, when the Viet Cong attacked cities in the south, and almost took Saigon itself, public opinion was changing rapidly. Yet, too many of my fellow citizens still held the flag close to their hearts and minds as they believed the lies and BS that the government threw their way. It seemed to matter not whether it be a Democrat President Johnson or the newly installed Republican President Nixon who called the shots, or should I say followed the lead of the Military Industrial Empire. To them all the dominoes were falling into one another as this Cold War kept getting hotter. A girl I dated, Maureen D, had this dad, a Brooklyn bartender and ex Marine who would lecture me each time I went to pick her up. He was lobbying me to go out and ‘Join in the good fight’, with his crew cut hair and preverbal beer in hand while watching Lawrence Welk. Maureen did not last for long as my latest chick, because she had the same mindset as her dad.

Each afternoon, after I switched over to the night shift at the cab garage, the yard was filled with drivers waiting for the day shift cabs to return. If ever there was a complete ‘educational experience’ far surpassing anything one learned at college, this was it. The guys a few years older than myself seemed to be mostly, not always the case, but mostly of the anti war mindset. Most of the older cabbies, again not all but mostly, were on the side of Nixon and his war. The daily papers had both Pete Hamill and Jimmy Breslin’s daily columns, and many times they centered on the Vietnam War or tentacles of it affecting NYC life. Loud and sometimes boisterous arguments ensued, with shouts of ‘Commie bastard’ and ‘Nixon sucks’ shooting back and forth. Exactly one year later this writer would participate in those same ‘discussions’, but in August of ’69 I just sat and listened. Again, my chief concern was to earn enough bread to spend on girls, pot and discos… not always in that order. The ‘War’ could wait, because selfishly I had that student deferment.

They say that as things change nothing changes. Fifty years later and the only thing that changes is the music on the radio. The phony wars are constant and the mindset of many are still like Maureen’s dad. The license plates celebrating the military are plentiful, as are the flags held hostage hanging from garages and lapels. New presidents speak the same language as the old ones. Of course, the one guy who decided to stand up to the empire got blown away in Dallas, but that’s fodder for another column. The wrong people are elected to Congress and of course the White House… mostly serving the empire. All we baby boomers who still care have to comfort us is that music from Woodstock and elsewhere. So sad.

*

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.

Philip A Farruggio is a contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, World News Trust and Off Guardian sites. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 300 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid‘ radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at [email protected].

“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out … without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” — H. L. Mencken

The U.S. government is working hard to destabilize the nation.

No, this is not another conspiracy theory.

Although it is certainly not far-fetched to suggest that the government might be engaged in nefarious activities that run counter to the best interests of the American people, doing so will likely brand me a domestic terrorist under the FBI’s new classification system.

Observe for yourself what is happening right before our eyes.

Domestic terrorism fueled by government entrapment schemes. Civil unrest stoked to dangerous levels by polarizing political rhetoric. A growing intolerance for dissent that challenges the government’s power grabs. Police brutality tacitly encouraged by the executive branch, conveniently overlooked by the legislatures, and granted qualified immunity by the courts. A weakening economy exacerbated by government schemes that favor none but a select few. An overt embrace of domestic surveillance tactics if Congress goes along with the Trump Administration’s request to permanently re-authorize the NSA’s de-activated call records program. Heightened foreign tensions and blowback due to the military industrial complex’s profit-driven quest to police and occupy the globe.

The seeds of chaos are being sown, and it’s the U.S. government that will reap the harvest.

Mark my words, there’s trouble brewing.

Better yet, take a look at “Megacities: Urban Future, the Emerging Complexity,” a Pentagon training video created by the Army for U.S. Special Operations Command.

The training video is only five minutes long, but it says a lot about the government’s mindset, the way its views the citizenry, and the so-called “problems” that the government must be prepared to address in the near future through the use of martial law.

Even more troubling, however, is what this military video doesn’t say about the Constitution, about the rights of the citizenry, and about the dangers of locking down the nation and using the military to address political and social problems.

The training video anticipates that all hell will break loose by 2030—that’s barely ten short years away—but the future is here ahead of schedule.

We’re already witnessing a breakdown of society on virtually every front.

By waging endless wars abroad, by bringing the instruments of war home, by transforming police into extensions of the military, by turning a free society into a suspect society, by treating American citizens like enemy combatants, by discouraging and criminalizing a free exchange of ideas, by making violence its calling card through SWAT team raids and militarized police, by fomenting division and strife among the citizenry, by acclimating the citizenry to the sights and sounds of war, and by generally making peaceful revolution all but impossible, the government has engineered an environment in which domestic violence is becoming almost inevitable.

The danger signs are screaming out a message

The government is anticipating trouble (read: civil unrest), which is code for anything that challenges the government’s authority, wealth and power.

According to the Pentagon training video created by the Army for U.S. Special Operations Command, the U.S. government is grooming its armed forces to solve future domestic political and social problems.

What they’re really talking about is martial law, packaged as a well-meaning and overriding concern for the nation’s security.

The chilling five-minute training video, obtained by The Intercept through a FOIA request and made available online, paints an ominous picture of the future—a future the military is preparing for—bedeviled by “criminal networks,” “substandard infrastructure,” “religious and ethnic tensions,” “impoverishment, slums,” “open landfills, over-burdened sewers,” a “growing mass of unemployed,” and an urban landscape in which the prosperous economic elite must be protected from the impoverishment of the have nots.

Click here to watch the video.

And then comes the kicker.

Three-and-a-half minutes into the Pentagon’s dystopian vision of “a world of Robert Kaplan-esque urban hellscapes — brutal and anarchic supercities filled with gangs of youth-gone-wild, a restive underclass, criminal syndicates, and bands of malicious hackers,” the ominous voice of the narrator speaks of a need to “drain the swamps.”

Drain the swamps.

Surely, we’ve heard that phrase before?

Ah yes.

Emblazoned on t-shirts and signs, shouted at rallies, and used as a rallying cry among Trump supporters, “drain the swamp” became one of Donald Trump’s most-used campaign slogans.

Far from draining the politically corrupt swamps of Washington DC of lobbyists and special interest groups, however, the Trump Administration has further mired us in a sweltering bog of corruption and self-serving tactics.

Funny how the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Now the government has adopted its own plans for swamp-draining, only it wants to use the military to drain the swamps of futuristic urban American cities of “noncombatants and engage the remaining adversaries in high intensity conflict within.”

And who are these noncombatants, a military term that refers to civilians who are not engaged in fighting?

They are, according to the Pentagon, “adversaries.”

They are “threats.”

They are the “enemy.”

They are people who don’t support the government, people who live in fast-growing urban communities, people who may be less well-off economically than the government and corporate elite, people who engage in protests, people who are unemployed, people who engage in crime (in keeping with the government’s fast-growing, overly broad definition of what constitutes a crime).

In other words, in the eyes of the U.S. military, noncombatants are American citizens a.k.a. domestic extremists a.k.a. enemy combatants who must be identified, targeted, detained, contained and, if necessary, eliminated.

In the future imagined by the Pentagon, any walls and prisons that are built will be used to protect the societal elite—the haves—from the have-nots.

If you haven’t figured it out already, we the people are the have-nots.

Suddenly it all begins to make sense.

The events of recent years: the invasive surveillance, the extremism reports, the civil unrest, the protests, the shootings, the bombings, the military exercises and active shooter drills, the color-coded alerts and threat assessments, the fusion centers, the transformation of local police into extensions of the military, the distribution of military equipment and weapons to local police forces, the government databases containing the names of dissidents and potential troublemakers.

The government is systematically locking down the nation and shifting us into martial law.

This is how you prepare a populace to accept a police state willingly, even gratefully.

You don’t scare them by making dramatic changes. Rather, you acclimate them slowly to their prison walls.

Persuade the citizenry that their prison walls are merely intended to keep them safe and danger out. Desensitize them to violence, acclimate them to a military presence in their communities, and persuade them that there is nothing they can do to alter the seemingly hopeless trajectory of the nation.

Before long, no one will even notice the floundering economy, the blowback arising from military occupations abroad, the police shootings, the nation’s deteriorating infrastructure and all of the other mounting concerns.

It’s happening already.

The sight of police clad in body armor and gas masks, wielding semiautomatic rifles and escorting an armored vehicle through a crowded street, a scene likened to “a military patrol through a hostile city,” no longer causes alarm among the general populace.

Few seem to care about the government’s endless wars abroad that leave communities shattered, families devastated and our national security at greater risk of blowback.

The Deep State’s tactics are working.

We’ve allowed ourselves to be acclimated to the occasional lockdown of government buildings, Jade Helmmilitary drills in small towns so that special operations forces can get “realistic military training” in “hostile” territory, and  Live Active Shooter Drill training exercises, carried out at schools, in shopping malls, and on public transit, which can and do fool law enforcement officials, students, teachers and bystanders into thinking it’s a real crisis.

Still, you can’t say we weren’t warned about the government’s nefarious schemes to lock down the nation.

Back in 2008, an Army War College report revealed that “widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security.” The 44-page report went on to warn that potential causes for such civil unrest could include another terrorist attack, “unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters.”

In 2009, reports by the Department of Homeland Security surfaced that labelled right-wing and left-wing activists and military veterans as extremists (a.k.a. terrorists) and called on the government to subject such targeted individuals to full-fledged pre-crime surveillance. Almost a decade later, after spending billions to fight terrorism, the DHS concluded that the greater threat is not ISIS but domestic right-wing extremism.

Meanwhile, the government has been amassing an arsenal of military weapons for use domestically and equipping and training their “troops” for war. Even government agencies with largely administrative functions such as the Food and Drug Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Smithsonian have been acquiring body armor, riot helmets and shields, cannon launchers and police firearms and ammunition. In fact, there are now at least 120,000 armed federal agents carrying such weapons who possess the power to arrest.

Rounding out this profit-driven campaign to turn American citizens into enemy combatants (and America into a battlefield) is a technology sector that has been colluding with the government to create a Big Brother that is all-knowing, all-seeing and inescapable. It’s not just the drones, fusion centers, license plate readers, stingray devices and the NSA that you have to worry about. You’re also being tracked by the black boxes in your cars, your cell phone, smart devices in your home, grocery loyalty cards, social media accounts, credit cards, streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon, and e-book reader accounts.

All of this has taken place right under our noses, funded with our taxpayer dollars and carried out in broad daylight without so much as a general outcry from the citizenry.

And then you have the government’s Machiavellian schemes for unleashing all manner of dangers on an unsuspecting populace, then demanding additional powers in order to protect “we the people” from the threats.

Seriously, think about it.

The government claims to be protecting us from cyberterrorism, but who is the biggest black market buyer and stockpiler of cyberweapons (weaponized malware that can be used to hack into computer systems, spy on citizens, and destabilize vast computer networks)? The U.S. government.

The government claims to be protecting us from weapons of mass destruction, but what country has one the deadliest arsenals of weapons of mass destruction and has a history of using them on the rest of the world? The U.S. government. Indeed, which country has a history of secretly testing out dangerous weapons and technologies on its own citizens? The U.S. government.

The government claims to be protecting us from foreign armed threats, but who is the largest weapons manufacturer and exporter in the world, such that they are literally arming the world? The U.S. government. For that matter, where did ISIS get many of their deadliest weapons, including assault rifles and tanks to anti-missile defenses? From the U.S. government.

The government claims to be protecting the world from the menace of foreign strongmen, but how did Saddam Hussein build Iraq’s massive arsenal of tanks, planes, missiles, and chemical weapons during the 1980s? With help from the U.S. government. And who gave Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida “access to a fortune in covert funding and top-level combat weaponry”? The U.S. government.

The government claims to be protecting us from terrorist plots, but what country has a pattern and practice of entrapment that involves targeting vulnerable individuals, feeding them with the propaganda, know-how and weapons intended to turn them into terrorists, and then arresting them as part of an elaborately orchestrated counterterrorism sting? The U.S. government.

For that matter, the government claims to be protecting us from nuclear threats, but which is the only country to ever use a nuclear weapon in wartime? The United States.

Are you getting the picture yet?

The U.S. government isn’t protecting us from terrorism.

The U.S. government is creating the terror. It is, in fact, the source of the terror.

Just think about it for a minute: Cyberwarfare. Terrorism. Bio-chemical attacks. The nuclear arms race. Surveillance. The drug wars.

Almost every national security threat that the government has claimed greater powers in order to fight—all the while undermining the liberties of the American citizenry—has been manufactured in one way or another by the government.

Did I say Machiavellian? This is downright evil.

We’re not dealing with a government that exists to serve its people, protect their liberties and ensure their happiness. Rather, these are the diabolical machinations of a make-works program carried out on an epic scale whose only purpose is to keep the powers-that-be permanently (and profitably) employed.

It’s time to wake up and stop being deceived by government propaganda.

Mind you, by “government,” I’m not referring to the highly partisan, two-party bureaucracy of the Republicans and Democrats.

I’m referring to “government” with a capital “G,” the entrenched Deep State that is unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and has set itself beyond the reach of the law.

I’m referring to the corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials who are, in essence, running the country and calling the shots in Washington DC, no matter who sits in the White House.

Be warned: in the future envisioned by the government, we will not be viewed as Republicans or Democrats. Rather, “we the people” will be enemies of the state.

For years, the government has been warning against the dangers of domestic terrorism, erecting surveillance systems to monitor its own citizens, creating classification systems to label any viewpoints that challenge the status quo as extremist, and training law enforcement agencies to equate anyone possessing anti-government views as a domestic terrorist.

What the government failed to explain was that the domestic terrorists would be of the government’s own making, and that “we the people” would become enemy #1.

As I make clear in my book, Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we’re already enemies of the state.

You want to change things? Start by rejecting the political labels and the polarizing rhetoric and the “us vs. them” tactics that reduce the mass power of the populace to puny, powerless factions.

Find common ground with your fellow citizens and push back against the government’s brutality, inhumanity, greed, corruption and power grabs.

Be dangerous in the best way possible: by thinking for yourself, by refusing to be silenced, by choosing sensible solutions over political expediency and bureaucracy.

When all is said and done, the solution to what ails this country is really not that complicated: decency, compassion, common sense, generosity balanced by fiscal responsibility, fairness, a commitment to freedom principles, and a firm rejection of the craven, partisan politics of the Beltway elites who have laid the groundwork for the government’s authoritarian coup d’etat.

Let the revolution begin.

*

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.

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].

The main problem with the US economy is that globalism has been deconstructing it. The offshoring of US jobs has reduced US manufacturing and industrial capability and associated innovation, research, development, supply chains, consumer purchasing power, and tax base of state and local governments. Corporations have increased short-term profits at the expense of these long-term costs. In effect, the US economy is being moved out of the First World into the Third World.

Tariffs are not a solution. The Trump administration says that the tariffs are paid by China, but unless Apple, Nike, Levi, and all of the offshoring companies got an exemption from the tariffs, the tariffs fall on the offshored production of US firms that are sold to US consumers. The tariffs will either reduce the profits of the US firms or be paid by US purchasers of the products in higher prices. The tariffs will hurt China only by reducing Chinese employment in the production of US goods for US markets.

The financial media is full of dire predictions of the consequences of a US/China “trade war.” There is no trade war. A trade war is when countries try to protect their industries by placing tariff barriers on the import of cheaper products from foreign countries. But half or more of the imports from China are imports from US companies. Trump’s tariffs, or a large part of them, fall on US corporations or US consumers.

One has to wonder that there is not a single economist anywhere in the Trump administration, the Federal Reserve, or anywhere else in Washington capable of comprehending the situation and conveying an understanding to President Trump.

One consequence of Washington’s universal economic ignorance is that the financial media has concocted the story that “Trump’s tariffs” are not only driving Americans into recession but also the entire world. Somehow tariffs on Apple computers and iPhones, Nike footwear, and Levi jeans are sending the world into recession or worse. This is an extraordinary economic conclusion, but the capacity for thought has pretty much disappeared in the United States.

In the financial media the question is: Will the Trump tariffs cause a US/world recession that costs Trump his reelection? This is a very stupid question. The US has been in a recession for two or more decades as its manufacturing/industrial/engineering capability has been transferred abroad. The US recession has been very good for the Asian part of the world. Indeed, China owes its faster than expected rise as a world power to the transfer of American jobs, capital, technology, and business know-how to China simply in order that US shareholders could receive capital gains and US executives could receive bonus pay for producing them by lowering labor costs.

Apparently, neoliberal economists, an oxymoron, cannot comprehend that if US corporations produce the goods and services that they market to Americans offshore, it is the offshore locations that benefit from the economic activity.

Offshore production started in earnest with the Soviet collapse as India and China opened their economies to the West. Globalism means that US corporations can make more money by abandoning their American work force. But what is true for the individual company is not true for the aggregate. Why? The answer is that when many corporations move their production for US markets offshore, Americans, unemployed or employed in lower paying jobs, lose the power to purchase the offshored goods.

I have reported for years that US jobs are no longer middle class jobs. The jobs have been declining for years in terms of value-added and pay. With this decline, aggregate demand declines. We have proof of this in the fact that for years US corporations have been using their profits not for investment in new plant and equipment, but to buy back their own shares. Any economist worthy of the name should instantly recognize that when corporations repurchase their shares rather than invest, they see no demand for increased output. Therefore, they loot their corporations for bonuses, decapitalizing the companies in the process. There is perfect knowledge that this is what is going on, and it is totally inconsistent with a growing economy.

As is the labor force participation rate. Normally, economic growth results in a rising labor force participation rate as people enter the work force to take advantage of the jobs. But throughout the alleged economic boom, the participation rate has been falling, because there are no jobs to be had.

In the 21st century the US has been decapitalized and living standards have declined. For a while the process was kept going by the expansion of debt, but consumer income has not kept place and consumer debt expansion has reached its limits.

The Fed/Treasury “plunge protection team” can keep the stock market up by purchasing S&P futures. The Fed can pump out more money to drive up financial asset prices. But the money doesn’t drive up production, because the jobs and the economic activity that jobs represent have been sent abroad. What globalism did was to transfer the US economy to China.

Real statistical analysis, as contrasted with the official propaganda, shows that the happy picture of a booming economy is an illusion created by statistical deception. Inflation is undermeasured, so when nominal GDP is deflated, the result is to count higher prices as an increase in real output, that is, inflation becomes real economic growth. Unemployment is not counted. If you have not searched for a job in the past 4 weeks, you are officially not a part of the work force and your unemployment is not counted. The way the government counts unemployment is so extradinary that I am surpised the US does not have a zero rate of unemployment.

How does a country recover when it has given its economy away to a foreign country that it now demonizes as an enemy? What better example is there of a ruling class that is totally incompetent than one that gives its economy bound and gagged to an enemy so that its corporate friends can pocket short-term riches?

We can’t blame this on Trump. He inherited the problem, and he has no advisers who can help him understand the problem and find a solution. No such advisers exist among neoliberal economists. I can only think of four economists who could help Trump, and one of them is a Russian.

The conclusion is that the United States is locked on a path that leads directly to the Third World of 60 years ago. President Trump is helpless to do anything about it.

*

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.

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.

Cathy Crowe’s book A Knapsack Full of Dreams: Memoirs of a Street Nurse comes out of decades of witnessing and challenging a growing blight of destitution and poverty in Toronto that has developed with the advance of the neoliberal agenda. In writing this review, I should make clear that I have known Cathy for a good part of that time, and in my years as an organizer with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) have dealt with her as an ally, tackling the same issues and confronting the same injustices. We have worked in different organizations and sometimes taken significantly different approaches, but a sense of common purpose has always existed. Doubtless, my appraisal of her book will reflect this.

Cathy’s role and focus are very much reflected in the term by which she describes herself, that of Street Nurse. As she mentions, this label stuck after “a homeless man across the street yelled out in a jovial manner, ‘Hey, Street Nurse’” (p.125). He was respectfully incorporating her into the ‘street family’ he was part of, but there are other elements to Cathy’s role that go beyond this. Her mother was a nurse who, in her time, came up against the “patriarchal origins of the organizational control of nurses” (p.55). Cathy found herself dealing with this same system of control, linked as it is to an effort to prevent nurses from speaking out against the social injustices they deal with in their work. At the heart of Cathy’s career has been a commitment to “a new nursing movement in Canada composed of politicized nurses” (p.55). I have no doubt that she would agree that this effort is, as yet, a work in progress and that nurses and other health providers who confront injustice still swim against the stream. When he was Mayor of Toronto, the late Rob Ford put things very clearly with his blunt assertion that “[d]octors should not be advocates for the poor.”

Homelessness and other glaring injustices in this society are ever present considerations in the book. However, it is not by any means an attempt to present a complete history of the development of the homeless crisis or the struggles that have been taken up in the face of it. Nor, for that matter, is it a comprehensive autobiography. Cathy’s memoirs tackle themes, draw from events and identify many of the people, historical moments and works of art, especially films, that have inspired and shaped her. The very title of the book is taken from a National Film Board film on the life of one of Canadian social democracy’s leading figures, Tommy Douglas, in which it is suggested that he was “a travelling salesman of sorts with a suitcase full of dreams” (p.23).

What comes through in Cathy’s book, with great force and considerable clarity, is her deep compassion for people facing an incredible and needless assault on their health and emotional well being in the form of homelessness. There is no hyperbole in her reference to “third-world conditions in our cities” (p.157) because the formulation comes from years of experience on the front lines dealing with the worst this neoliberal city has to offer. While her outrage is largely focused on the impacts of homelessness, a wide range of societal injustices lead her to seek a means to challenge them.

“I think it’s no accident that my awakenings around peace, disarmament and feminism occurred simultaneously,” she concludes (p.81).

The Political Nurse

Cathy draws a sharp and important distinction between those who provide health services to deal with the “downstream” effects of social injustice and those who venture “upstream” to deal with the causes (p.87). She has been inspired to choose the latter course, based not just on her own life experiences, but through the record left by others. She makes special note of the closing lines of the film on the life of the great Canadian revolutionary doctor Norman Bethune:

“The world we fight for will have peace and justice, it will be free of hunger and tyranny, of hatred and privilege and of arrogant use of power.”

She is motivated by the pioneer nursing work and social reform efforts of Florence Nightingale, even presenting an imagined conversation in which Nightingale comments on the assault on the health of homeless people that is tolerated in 21st-century Toronto (p.60).

A little further on, we find Cathy, in 1984, putting a resolution before the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario (RNAO) to endorse nuclear disarmament (p.76). This was adopted by their convention, but, no doubt, there were many nurses at the time who didn’t understand as readily as she did just why their representative body should adopt such a position. To her, however, disarmament was simply and clearly the ultimate public health measure, and therefore, nurses should be in the front ranks of the struggle to achieve it.

Cathy continued her development as a political nurse even as she was involved in the most hands-on forms of healthcare provision, as a clinic nurse at Toronto’s South Riverdale Community Health Centre and at several other agencies (p.122). The personal situations (p.129) of those she dealt with as a nurse only reinforced and further developed her understanding of and outrage at the political choices that allow such poverty to exist in a wealthy society.

Like all health and other service providers dealing with people in poor communities, the arrival of the Mike Harris Tory government in 1995 was a terrible moment for Cathy. The need for a political form of nursing was more acute than ever. In an open letter to the Premier in 1997, she set out the impacts of his agenda in the clearest terms (p.137). During these years, homelessness became an ever-more deadly experience, with struggles taken up to expose the situation (p.140). A major inquest into homeless deaths occurred, and every effort was made to ensure it would create momentum for change. Cathy was heavily involved in all this work. At this time, a Tent City of homeless people was established that survived for some three years. Cathy and the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee (TDRC) that she was part of worked to ensure its survival, and when it was finally closed by the authorities, to successfully press the demand that its residents be housed (p.152).

Undoubtedly, Cathy takes the most pride in the TDRC’s successful campaign to have the City of Toronto declare homelessness a national disaster (p.160). The closing words of the book deal with the passage of this resolution by the City Council. She says,

“This was the day that the crime of homelessness in Canada was named a disaster and the truth was told. I still hold onto my dream that it can be solved” (p.341).

The victory in Toronto led to a broader effort to campaign for housing across Canada (p.247). However, with governments embracing neoliberal austerity and facilitating a profit-driven process of upscale urban redevelopment, the effort was clearly a hard exercise in swimming against the stream. In the chapter on the so-called ‘Housing First’ approach, Cathy takes a principled and clear-minded position of opposition to the prevailing effort to close shelters and displace the homeless from the central areas of cities with a false promise of viable housing for them on the urban fringes (p.285).

The Role of Accuser

There are not a few politicians over the years who will have regarded Cathy Crowe in much the same way as Macbeth viewed Banquo’s ghost. She has played the role of relentless accuser, and there is no doubt that this has produced some very real results. People are alive who would be dead but for her work, and people are housed who would be on the streets. Social crimes against the poor that would have been buried have been dragged into full view. It’s true that the agenda that has fed the homeless crisis has not been turned back or even brought to a standstill, but the speed and intensity of the attack have been reduced because people have spoken out and organized acts of resistance. Cathy Crowe has long been one of the clearest and most consistent of those voices of opposition. As a long-standing OCAP organizer involved in many campaigns and actions against homelessness, I am painfully aware that if resistance has been far from futile, it has yet to emerge in a form and on a scale that can take the struggle from a defensive to an offensive undertaking. As A Knapsack Full of Dreams is put before us, the Ford government is busy making things far worse than they have been up to now. The homeless situation is becoming more dire with every passing month. The papers are full of accounts of global economic downturn. If the situation presented in Cathy’s book looks dreadful, the potential for things to become far worse is only too real.

In her chapter on homeless families, Cathy poses a question:

“In every community across the country there are research reports chronicling that the fastest growing demographic of people becoming homeless is families with children. Such data illustrates that we know the economic, health, education and social costs of not providing affordable housing for people – so why aren’t politicians and governments stepping up?”

Having posed this very important question, the chapter concludes with the simple observation that “[t]hey’re making other choices” (p.264). I feel, however, there is something that is missed here. Why are those socially destructive choices being made that consign families with children to homelessness?

In my view, the political system that places such decision makers in power is only a reflection of the fact that the society that it operates in is a capitalist one. Housing in such a society is not provided as a human right but is treated as a commodity, as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing, Leilani Farha, has argued. Behind the politicians and their choices is a whole profit-making system operated by bankers, developers, landlords and speculators. It is their power you are up against and not merely the limited social conscience of ministers of the Crown. Cathy has certainly broken the rules in the course of her political nursing, but she very much presents this as a last resort, taken when the bad faith of those in power have forced her hand (p.315). I would rather view disruptive collective action as the best and primary means of gaining ground against a system that serves the interests of the very people who are responsible for homelessness. For housing to be really treated as a human right, we must change this society very fundamentally. In the shorter term, however, the political decision makers will have to weigh their loyalty to the vested interests against a social mobilization they have no choice but to take seriously. Cathy talks of “speaking truth to power” (p.294), but the bigger question is to develop a social power of our own.

Having offered those few respectfully critical observations, I conclude by saying that before this book could be written, Cathy the Street Nurse had to be forged out of long years of relentless and dedicated work. They have been years that have made a difference in many lives and laid the basis for the challenges to the social crime of homelessness that will be taken up in the years ahead. A Knapsack Full of Dreams is described by one invited commentator as a “deeply personal journey” and in some ways it is. However, it is also, in another sense, the property of all those who ask why destitution is allowed to exist alongside great wealth and want to challenge and defeat this great injustice. Cathy’s book should be read by all those who share this objective.

A Knapsack Full of Dreams is available for purchase from Friesen Press. More information at cathycrowe.ca.

*

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.

Bee apocalypse has unfolded in four of Brazil’s southern states in 1Q19. More than half a billion bees died earlier this year, in a short period, experts are suggesting that pesticides are likely to be blamed, reported Bloomberg.

.

.

.

.

Around half a billion bees dropped dead in 4 of Brazil’s southern states in the first few months of this year. Samples showed most of the dead had been poisoned with Fipronil, a insecticide proscribed in the EU, classified as a possible human carcinogen by the U.S. EPA (thread)

— Bruce Douglas (@bruceecurb) August 19, 2019

Most of the dead bees had traces of Fipronil, an insecticide classified by the European Union and the US Environmental Protection Agency as a human carcinogen.

Since President Jair Bolsonaro took control in January, the Ministry of Agriculture has approved sales of a record 290 pesticides, up 27% YoY for the same period. There’s also a bill sitting in Congress that would dramatically decrease pesticide standards.

Brazilian companies such as Cropchem and Ouro Fino, as well as major international firms including Syngenta, Monsanto, BASF and Sumitomo,  have recently won new pesticide registrations.

Data from the United Nations discovered Brazil’s pesticide use jumped 770% from 1990 to 2016.

Brazil’s health watchdog Anvisa recently published a food-safety report which found 20% of samples contained pesticide residues above government accepted levels.

Why have more than 500,000,000 bees dropped dead in Brazil so far this year? pic.twitter.com/CKWMt4JABI

— Bloomberg TicToc (@tictoc) August 19, 2019

Bloomberg noted that Anvisa’s test didn’t even include glyphosate, one of Brazil’s best-selling pesticide, which is outlawed in at least a dozen countries around the world.

“The death of all these bees is a sign that we’re being poisoned,” said Carlos Alberto Bastos, president of the Apiculturist Association of Brazil’s Federal District.

At least 18% of Brazil’s economy is agriculture. And it makes sense why President Bolsonaro is relaxing pesticide rules; he’s trying to spark an economic boom by deregulating chemical standards for farmers.

“This is your government,” Bolsonaro told legislators from the agriculture caucus, and his administration has even allowed farmers this year to use whatever pesticides they want.

Greenpeace said 40% of Brazil’s pesticides are “highly or extreme highly toxic,” and 32% of them aren’t allowed in the European Union.

Marina Lacorte, a coordinator at Greenpeace Brazil, told Bloomberg that new approvals for pesticides are being rushed through without proper examination from experts.

“There isn’t another explanation for it, other than politics,” she said.

Making farmers great again was a campaign commitment for Bolsonaro. He even told farmers that he was going to ease pesticide restrictions.

Andreza Martinez, manager for regulation at Sindiveg, a group representing pesticide producers, told Bloomberg about half of the new approvals are ingredients, not final products. This is due to insects developing resistance to legacy formulas.

“It brings more tools to farmers, but that doesn’t mean an increase in the use of products in the field,” she said.

The increased, and sometimes untested chemicals, however, alarms toxicologists.

“The higher the number of products, the lower our chances of safety, because you can’t control them all,” said Silvia Cazenave, a professor of toxicology at the Catholic Pontifical University of Campinas.

It’s not just the bees who are being poisoned — it’s also humans, the health ministry said. More than 15,000 cases of agricultural pesticide were seen in 2018, a likely underreported figure.

President Trump has also been approving new pesticides that are dangerous to bees.

A new report showed US beekeepers lost 40% of their colonies in the past year, raising fresh concerns that pesticides are poisoning farmlands.

Making farmers great again not just in Brazil but also in the US could be an uphill battle, as the unintended consequences of deregulating pesticides have led to a global bee apocalypse.

*

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.

Featured image is from the author

The Center for Biological Diversity and Center for Food Safety sued the Trump administration today over its July decision to approve use of the bee-killing pesticide sulfoxaflor across more than 200 million acres of crops.

The approval was granted despite the fact that the Environmental Protection Agency’s own scientists concluded that sulfoxaflor is “very highly toxic” to bees. The decision expands the pesticide’s use to a wide range of crops that attract bees, including soybeans, cotton, strawberries, squash and citrus.

“Even for Trump’s EPA, which seems to measure success by pesticide-company profits, it’s stupefying to OK spraying a bee-killing poison across millions of acres of crops frequented by bees,” said Lori Ann Burd, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s environmental health program. “While leading scientists and countries across the globe are calling for eliminating harmful bee-killing pesticides like sulfoxaflor, Team Trump is cheerfully promoting its use like a corporate PR firm. It’s nauseating.”

Today’s lawsuit, filed in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, contends that before approving the sweeping new uses of sulfoxaflor, the EPA failed in its legal duty to compile “substantial evidence” required under theFederal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. FIFRA, as it’s known, is the federal law underpinning the U.S. system of pesticide regulation, designed to protect applicators, consumers and the environment.

The EPA also violated its duty to ensure that its approval of sulfoxaflor doesn’t jeopardize the continued existence of endangered species by consulting on the effects of its actions with wildlife experts at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service.

In addition to imperiling bees and butterflies, the EPA’s broad approval for sulfoxaflor also likely threatens endangered plants that rely on insect pollination.

Under the new approval, sulfoxaflor can be used on alfalfa, cacao, corn, cotton, grains, pineapple, sorghum, soybeans and strawberries as well as on tree plantations, ornamental crops and citrus orchards.

“This decision was pure pro-pesticide politics,” said George Kimbrell, legal director of the Center for Food Safety. “Trump’s EPA can’t justify throwing our already imperiled pollinators under the bus. That’s why the agency offered no chance for the public to comment. And that’s why we’re suing them.”

To achieve its goal of approving sulfoxaflor, the Trump EPA rejected the findings of a highly relevant study published in the scientific journal Nature — the world’s gold standard for peer-reviewed journals — that found even low doses of sulfoxaflor exposure had severe consequences for bumblebee reproductive success.

Instead the EPA chose to accept only the findings of a confidential, non-peer-reviewed Dow Chemical study that concluded sulfoxaflor is less harmful to bumblebees. But even the Dow study found that the level of sulfoxaflor considered safe for bumblebees to consume is five times lower than the dose the EPA had identified as safe for honeybees.

Independent studies have shown that honeybees are less susceptible to the effects of pesticides than other pollinators, especially native solitary bees, due to the resilience provided by living in highly structured hives. Yet the EPA failed to even consider the pesticide’s impacts on the nation’s more than 4,000 species of native bees.

The EPA ultimately concluded that the dose of sulfoxaflor considered safe for honeybees is safe for all insects.

At the request of industry, the EPA waived the legal requirement for a full-field study of the pesticide’s impacts on pollinators, saying it would “not add meaningful input to our conclusions,” indicating that the approval was a foregone conclusion.

The EPA also weakened the few restrictions in place on spraying sulfoxaflor designed to protect native pollinators and other wildlife, eliminating all requirements for buffers even during aerial spraying.

And the EPA approved spraying of crops with sulfoxaflor just before — or even during — bloom, exposing pollinators to a pesticide the agency knows harms them.

*

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.

Featured image: Rusty patched bumble bee, Eau Claire, by Tamara Smith/USFWS available for media use with appropriate credit. Image is available for media use.

During late September 1940, Japanese representatives like Saburō Kurusu flew to Berlin where they were greeted by the ruler of Europe, Adolf Hitler. Kurusu, an experienced career diplomat from Yokohama, could not help but notice the Nazi self-assurance at a time when the Third Reich appeared impregnable.

Kurusu entered the new Reich Chancellery building, on 27 September 1940, where he signed a significant military alliance with the Nazis and Benito Mussolini’s Italy, called the Tripartite Pact. This largely forgotten agreement was designed to be directed against the Soviet Union, and also the United States, as Moscow and Washington were surely aware.

However, Japan had reason to feel aggrieved, particularly so with America, easily the world’s strongest country. US business and military power had clearly encroached into east Asian territories, vast spaces in which the Japanese had burning ambitions of their own.

At the heart of the issue was: Japan constituted a proud nation which existed for many centuries, that had never been conquered throughout its history, and she now desired to be left unhindered in deciding her destiny, whatever it may be. Japan was rapidly industrializing and, as a resource-poor nation, began enlarging in search of badly needed mineral riches.

American administrations, not satisfied with control over the Western hemisphere, wished to subordinate Japan to Washington’s far-reaching aspirations in the Pacific. This was a recurring theme behind the diplomatic offensive aimed at Tokyo during the 1930s. Yasaka Takagi, a professor of US history, asked with some reason “why there should be a Monroe Doctrine in America and an Open Door principle in Asia”?

A separate stratagem of US diplomats in the early 1940s related to Japan’s membership of the Nazi-formulated Tripartite Pact, utilized as a propaganda tool for expected hostilities with Tokyo. Paul W. Schroeder, the US historian, realized this when he wrote,

“The Tripartite Pact was revived as an issue by the American diplomats, because it was expected to be useful in selling the anticipated war with Japan to the American people”.

With the Japanese surrounded by major foes, cut adrift and isolated, their leaders looked about them for solace, and saw in Europe the tempting allure of the seemingly unbeatable Nazis. Somewhere in the background lay Mussolini’s fascists. Japanese accession to the Tripartite Pact was based on a mixture of desperation and geopolitical reasoning, rather than from devious design.

In the hours preceding Japan’s signing of the Tripartite Pact, Washington had placed a total embargo of scrap iron against Tokyo. This was a troublesome issue indeed for Japan, which relied on scrap metals for their material and monetary value.

The scenario of a junior partnership with Washington was, in addition, a most intolerable one not only for Japan’s hardline militarists, but also to much of her moderate and nationalistic elements. They did not wish to be relegated to the status of “a peaceful, contented nation of merchants subcontracting with the United States”, which is what unfolded later.

The American pacifist thinker, A. J. Muste, envisaged the coming global clash with rival states “as a conflict between two groups of powers for survival and domination”. At one side Muste saw Britain, America and “free” France which “controls some 70% of the earth’s resources” while “On the other hand stands a group of powers such as Germany, Italy, Hungary, Japan, controlling about 15% of the earth’s resources”. It was a long-standing myth that the Axis nations held dominion over much of the world during the early 1940s.

In January 1940, Washington terminated the Japanese-American commercial treaty of 1911 – which shifted Japan’s focus to plans for occupation of French Indochina, the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) and the Philippines, all Western colonies within Tokyo’s realm of interest. The discontinuation of this treaty was a critical factor that led many Japanese moderates towards recognizing the need to support the Axis powers.

Hitler had been much reassured when welcoming Japan to the fold, but he was somewhat overestimating Japanese capacities. Tokyo’s decision in laying waste to Pearl Harbor, during late 1941, was akin to the response of a wild animal increasingly cornered. Particularly deadly to Japanese aims was that, four months prior to Pearl Harbor, the Roosevelt administration froze all Japanese assets across America, with Britain and the Dutch government-in-exile following suit – in one fell swoop, 90% of Japan’s oil imports were wiped out along with 75% of her foreign trade.

Donald J. Goodspeed, a Canadian historian who fought extensively in World War II, wrote that

“Roosevelt’s action was drastic indeed; it amounted to a declaration of economic war… By the end of the month [July 1941] Japan was forced to begin using her oil reserves, of which she had only an eighteen-month supply. Not surprisingly, therefore, when the Japanese cabinet considered the alternatives open to it, it discussed the possibility of war”.

Twelve months previously, in July 1940, Washington hit Tokyo with an embargo on aviation fuel which the latter could acquire from nowhere else – and just before the Tripartite Pact was endorsed, in an effort to ease her supply shortages, Japan invaded Northern French Indochina, a landmass situated about 1,000 miles south-west of Japanese territory.

Tokyo’s attack on the northern part of Indochina was in fact based on understandable fears. The American historian and activist Noam Chomsky wrote, concerning the Japanese position on north Indochina, that

“The goals were basically two: to block the flow of supplies to Chiang Kai-shek and to take steps towards acquisition of petroleum from the Dutch East Indies”.

China’s anti-communist figure, Chiang Kai-shek, was receiving continued backing from the West in his purportedly nationalistic desires. Chinese nationalism was a threat to Japanese imperialist claims, such as in north-east China, encompassing mineral-laden Manchuria.

Japan’s strategic outlook mostly came as a reaction to those policies enacted by the great powers, and thereafter Tokyo was hardly unique in its actions.

Chomsky outlined that,

“Japan had been opened to Western influence by a threat of force in the mid-nineteenth century, and had then undertaken a remarkably successful effort at modernization”; and subsequently that “Japan joined the other imperialist powers in the exploitation of East Asia and took over Formosa, Korea and parts of southern Manchuria. In short, by the late 1920s, Japan was what in modern political parlance is called a ‘democracy’ and was attempting to play the normal role of a great power”.

Tokyo’s attempt to play the normal role of a great power was consistently hampered by Western intrusion. In February 1922, Japan was deputized to US and British power with ratification of the Washington Naval Treaty; reinforced eight years later with the London Naval Treaty shortly after the Great Depression struck.

American and British elites were refusing to grant Japan hegemony in her own waters. The same governments insisted on complete control over their own spheres of course.

A very serious consequence of the Western stranglehold on Japan was that, from the early 1930s, it led in part to the growth of far-right factions within the Imperial Japanese Army. While the fascist forces in Tokyo strengthened their grip, Japan’s civilian hierarchy – seen as weak-willed – was beginning to wither through intimidation, assassination and public disenchantment.

Tokyo’s politicians were blamed for, among other things, acceptance of the above-mentioned naval treaties.

Japan’s political scientist Masao Maruyama noted that by 1932, “the energy of radical fascism stored up in the preparatory period now burst forth in full concentration” in Japan – aided by Japanese enlargement along with their decision to withdraw from the League of Nations in February 1933.

Throughout the 1930s, Western economic policies made an uncomfortable situation even worse for Japan. The 1932 Ottawa conference, held in the Canadian capital that summer, represented a considerable gathering of statesmen from the Commonwealth countries. A key outcome of their four-week long discussions “dealt a blow to Japanese liberalism”, as the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR) remarked, a well known Western-based NGO.

The IPR results showed that Japan was faced “with a serious shortage of iron, steel, oil and a number of important industrial minerals” as “the greater part of the supplies of tin and rubber, not only of the Pacific area but for the whole world are, by historical accident, largely under the control of Great Britain and the Netherlands”, while with advancing years, increasingly so America.

The Ottawa agreements established a closed system of economy, in effect blocking Japan from trading with the Commonwealth. Washington’s policy of strict independence proceeded in a similar vein, preventing Tokyo from attaining a slice of the action.

Japan sought to mimic these self-serving ends with regard Manchuria, an area vital to Japanese demands. Tokyo invaded Manchuria in mid-September 1931, and the following year changed its name when creating the puppet state of Manchukuo.
Manchuria, now Manchukuo, had been under growing threat by Western-backed Chinese nationalists like Chiang Kai-shek, who desired the region’s unity to China; and Manchuria featured too on the radar of a militarized Soviet Union to the north.

As the 1930s progressed, America was recovering well from the Great Depression. The Japanese were not quite so fortunate, however.

Tokyo’s effort, to continually augment its trade in the great state of India for example, had been cut off in 1933 due to Western coercion of the Indian government; which implemented a virtually prohibitive tariff on imported cotton goods to India. Japanese traders felt most keenly the imposition of these tariffs, with Tokyo’s markets until the early 1930s steadily growing in India, the “Jewel in the Crown” of Britain’s eroding empire.

Japan’s business community tried to make inroads into the Philippines, a resource-rich island nation. Having been granted little alternative the Japanese were compelled, in October 1935, to accept an agreement curtailing shipments of cotton textiles from

Japan to the Philippines for two years; as American imports to the Philippines remained duty-free.

William W. Lockwood, an American academic specializing in Japanese economic development, noted that US supremacy relating to Philippine trade was

“attributable in large degree to the Closed Door policy of the United States, which has established American products in a preferential position. Were Japanese businessmen able to compete on equal terms, there is no doubt but that Japan’s share of the trade would advance rapidly”.

It was not allowed to. Time and again Japanese objectives were denied to them through the unfair Western-engineered financial strategies. Moreover, American tariffs on numerous Japanese items exceeded 100%.

Japanese textile manufacturing, hit especially hard by discriminatory policies, produced almost 50% of the total value of her manufactured goods, and about 66% of the value of Japan’s full exports. The Japanese textile industry also employed around 50% of her entire factory force of workers.

Japan was certainly an industrialized state – that is, in an Asian context, as she still lagged well behind her Western rivals. From 1927 until 1932, Japan held about one seventh of the energy output per capita in comparison to Germany. Japan’s pig-iron production consisted of less than half that of Luxembourg’s total. Luxembourg even produced slightly more steel than Japan.
Tokyo was not in a position to accept a situation, through which the Western powers benefited most favourably from tariff barriers in countries they dominated, such as Malaya, Indochina, India and the Philippines.

By the mid-1930s, Japan was suffering further due to a steep decline in trade with America, mainly because of Depression-era tariffs signed into law in Washington. Japan’s attempt to continue trading with neighbouring China likewise regressed sharply, as Western business strength embedded itself in major Chinese cities like Peking and Nanjing.

The pressure was mounting on Tokyo. As a consequence it was not altogether surprising when, in the summer of 1937, Japan started to enlarge at the expense of China, a huge country rich in coal, oil and gas, just what was required.

The Japanese were alarmed too by the closer relationship emerging between China and the Soviet Union, borne out on 21 August 1937 with the Sino-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact signed in Nanjing. This accord was formulated against Tokyo, with Joseph Stalin in following months providing the Chinese with $250 million in aid “to be used primarily for the purchase of Soviet weapons”. The deliveries consisted of more than 900 Soviet aircraft, 82 tanks, large quantities of machine guns, rifles, bombs, etc., along with over 1,500 Soviet military advisers and around 2,000 members of the air force.

It is little wonder that Japan was fretting about “the Bolshevization of East Asia”. Faced with growing external problems, Japanese hopes went undimmed. On 22 December 1938 Japan’s prime minister, Fumimaro Konoe, said that

China “should recognize the freedom of residence and trade on the part of Japanese subjects in the interior of China, with a view to promoting the economic interests of both peoples”.

Contrary to perceptions, Tokyo’s long-term expectations regarding China were not to swallow the country alive, or even to absorb large parts of it.

Chomsky explained of Japanese intentions towards China,

“There were to be no annexations, no indemnities. Thus a new order was to be established, which would defend China and Japan against Western imperialism, unequal treaties and extraterritoriality. Its goal was not enrichment of Japan, but rather cooperation (on Japanese terms, of course). Japan would provide capital and technical assistance; at the same time, it would succeed in freeing itself from dependence on the West for strategic raw materials”.

One of Tokyo’s aspirations, to unshackle itself from material reliance on the West, was a cornerstone of her expansionist dreams. In the end, those dreams would descend to the worst of nightmares.

*

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.

Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree. He is interested in writing primarily on foreign affairs, having been inspired by authors like Noam Chomsky. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Nomura (left) and Kurusu (right) meet Hull on November 17, 1941, only three weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941) (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

I’m trying to remember when Israel wasn’t the fifty-first state. It receives my tax money and a blank check by the United States government to torture, ethnically cleanse, and murder Palestinians.

Israelis are apparently more important and cherished than Americans, who are here just to pay the bills and donate their children for the next war cooked up by the Israel-first neocons and their Demopublican allies in Congress. It is now approaching a time when criticizing Israel for its abhorrent behavior will be illegal, a punishable crime. 

I’m not fond of the identity politics pushed by Rep. Omar and Tlaib. However, they are one hundred percent spot on about Israel. 

Spot on 👌🏼

Rep. @IlhanMN says Israel is not an ally to America and is not a democracy. ✅

Omar goes even further, saying America should cut our foreign aid to Israel. ✅

Then she said Israel is occupying Palestinian land.. ✅ pic.twitter.com/mdrLYWOxwU https://t.co/HWaoTC7R5N

— María ⏳ (@ml_maria_) August 20, 2019

Rep. Omar is absolutely correct. Israel is not a democracy. It is more accurately described as a racist apartheid state where the indigenous inhabitants are compared to “drugged cockroaches in a bottle” (Gen. Raphael Eitan) and “beasts walking on two legs” (Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin). Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir told Zionist settlers in 1988 that Palestinians must be “crushed like grasshoppers,” while Ehud Barak dismissed them as hungry crocodiles. For the leaders of Israel, Palestinians are not even human. They’re insects, reptiles. 

This is not a problem or even a concern for our president, the geopolitical ignoramus and crude bully-boy buffoon Donald Trump, or for the majority of Congress, complicit in crimes against humanity and never miss a chance to praise racists who pretend to be our friends. In fact, the Zionists have nothing but contempt for the useful idiots in Congress. 

Good Morning @IlhanMN and @RashidaTlaib. @realDonaldTrump sends his blessings pic.twitter.com/M5VxTXkpjT

— Chef👨‍🍳🏄🏼‍♂️🎣 🇺🇸 (@WhopSpeaks) August 20, 2019

Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu didn’t know the cameras were rolling when he said,

“I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in [our] way.”

Most Americans are only vaguely aware of the vicious racism and religious intolerance practiced against the Palestinians. Zionists hate Islam and Christianity with equal vehemence. The state of Israel has passed laws discriminating against non-Jews. Only Jews have an exclusive right to national self-determination. 

"We cannot let Trump and Netanyahu succeed in hiding the cruel reality of the occupation from us." – Congresswoman Ilhan Omar https://t.co/fgO8SJUO2b

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) August 20, 2019

“The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was ‘given’ by a foreign power to another people for the creation of a new state,” Bertrand Russell noted. “The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently homeless. With every new conflict, their numbers increased. How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty?”

Endure? The average American finances this cruelty. And now he or she is told it is “antisemitic” to criticize Israel and may be fined or imprisoned for the crime of organizing a boycott or speaking out (the latter is not fully criminalized yet like it is in much of Europe). 

Finally, Trump has once again signaled he is more interested in the welfare of a small and vicious apartheid state. He has zero respect or regard for the people of Minnesota and Michigan, the voters who elected Tlaib and Omar. Maybe Trump believes the thousands of Americans who voted for Tlaib and Omar are terrorists and unworthy of consideration. 

Sorry, I don’t buy Rep. Tlaib’s tears. I have watched her violence, craziness and, most importantly, WORDS, for far too long. Now tears? She hates Israel and all Jewish people. She is an anti-Semite. She and her 3 friends are the new face of the Democrat Party. Live with it!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 20, 2019

This “relationship” with Israel is contributing to the demise of America. Not only is this “special relationship” smothering the Constitution, but it has also put the children or our children in hock to pay the tab for Israel’s wars against Iraq, Syria, and possibly before we know it Iran. None of these countries pose a threat to America. It’s not in our national security interest to attack them. 

The "ugly fact" is that the #FraudSquad's #taqiyya and GRANDSTANDING has exposed the hearts of politicians and reporters (or whatever you call yourself).#AntiSemitic lies.
You're no friend of @realDonaldTrump, @GeraldoRivera!!#WeStandWithIsrael#ReligionOfPeace is B.S. pic.twitter.com/dBQ0cRtjre

— PatriotAsAGunTotingMother 🇺🇸⭐⭐⭐ (@battleofever) August 20, 2019

It is, however, in the interest of the fifty-first US state, Israel. 

*

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.

Kurt Nimmo writes on his blog, Another Day in the Empire, where this article was originally published.

Featured image is from the author

We should all be cheering on some level.  So much in this age of cricket favours the pampered bat over the stifled ball.  The game of duration has suffered: five-day test matches are struggling before diminishing attention spans and ever shorter forms of the game. The tat of T20 has become the dull staple; the expertise and concentration for test cricket is sliding.

The second test match at Lords, where Australia have a near unblemished record against England, saw a glorious injection into the longer form of the game.  Australia’s Steve Smith again threatened a Bradmanesque feat, huffing his boyish invincibility before an increasingly wearing field of bowlers.  But he encountered a savage bouncer at the hand of England’s newest weapon, Jofra Archer.  Having turned awkwardly away from the rising delivery from the debutant, the back of his neck encountered the bruising cherry.  He was floored.  A few sharp intakes of breath were registered – at least initially: such a blow could be, as it tragically proved for Phillip Hughes in 2014, lethal.  Fans peered, consulted their media feeds, sought the good word. Smith got up, but had to leave the field.

On returning to the crease after 40 minutes, there was little in the atmosphere of Lord’s suggesting that a gladiator had returned, taking his deserved place at his mark.  The amber fluid had been flowing, and it was clear to some that jeering Smith was itself a sporting thing to do.

Not so, suggested Britain’s sports minister Nigel Adams.  Smith had served his suspension for ball tampering, done his time in cricket’s cold purgatory.

“The vast majority of the Lord’s crowd were on their feet applauding Steve Smith after his innings but a small amount of booing from a tiny element of the crowd has made the news.”

While he conceded that seeing Smith score a glut of runs might not be what he wanted, Evans found him “mesmerising to watch and as a genuine sports fan we should be applauding him, not jeering.”

As it turned out, Archer’s 148 km/hr blow was a test match debut call, rippling across the cricket world. There was exhilarating danger and a sort of admiration reserved for boxers.  Pakistan’s Rawalpindi Express, Shoaib Akhtar, was adamant about Archer’s value.  Those from the opponent side were also inclined to issue a note of praise.

“It’s quite rare to be able to bowl with pace and accuracy for such a long time,” reflected Australia’s most successful fast bowling titan Glenn McGrath. “His action doesn’t look too stressful, he has a nice, smooth run-up and goes through the crease really well.”  Beware those bowlers who make the mode of execution effortless, whatever effort they might be putting into their deliveries.

There was also the usual criticism, a moralist’s behavioural code that surfaces when the quicks get their man.  Archer did not compose himself properly in reaction, went this line of reasoning.  This proved harsh, as it tends to with most fast bowlers: tactics and determination are confused with predation and brute viciousness.  The next day, Archer would tell the BBC that he breathed “a sigh of relief” when Smith got up. To Sky Sports, he expressed some disorientation after the incident.  “Honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking at the time.”

While Archer’s praises were sung in a range of registers, the issue of safety had re-appeared.  There was a fear about delayed concussion doing its dirty deeds: should Smith had returned to the crease to continue his battles, or retire for a period of numbing tests and distracting convalescence?  The experts weighed in; a decision was made: Australia’s golden goose would have to exit.

This made way for some history to be made, namely, a “concussion replacement”, as commentators unflatteringly called it, a substitute cog left with an impossible task to right the run making machine.  Few in history have had to be saddled with such top-down discouragement.  But Marnus Labuschagne did not seem flustered, filling the vacancy with pluck.  “Cricket does not like substitutes,” observed Geoff Lemon for The Guardian, stating an ancient rule of sporting tribalism.  An exception was made on this occasion, though it was only so because of Labuschagne’s heroics.  “Asked to be Steve Smith for a day,” a laconic Lemon posed, “he had done enough.”  This included being struck by another Archer special.

Few spectacles in cricket quite match the hot-blooded bowler in stride, eyes glaringly focused on the batsman as he releases the ball.  Such a creature, venomous, striking, and sometimes gigantic, summons the collective blood, turning benign spectators into entranced representatives. Mass chanting hypnosis follows.  The seeds of terror are sown, and the opponents recoil. In Archer’s deliveries, the ghosts of Freddie Truman, Malcolm Marshall et al were thriving in their channelling powers.  Here was someone England could call their own, a magician, a terror wizard.

The dangerous zip off the pitch from Archer was telling, a respectful nod to the great family of speedsters that has brought ruin and misery to so many batsman, and joy to many a captain and audience.  The English captain, Joe Root, has looked deracinated and listless in his approaches to Australia in the past (the catastrophe of the tour of Australia remains).  Archer was deliverance and opportunity.

Reservations have been few, and the sceptics hard to find.  But there have been a few warnings.

Australia’s former quick bowler Mitchell Johnson wondered whether Archer was labouring too much for his country.  The means of exerting terror can be blunted by excessive labour and overly eager captains.  But whatever happens for the rest of series, history has been made.  We have a new demon fast bowler; a push making neck guards mandatory for batsmen is now underway; and the batsmen from both sides will be pondering their vulnerabilities in brittle line-ups set for the skittling.

*

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.

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 AFP

A future without independent media leaves us with an upside down reality where according to the corporate media “NATO deserves a Nobel Peace Prize”, and where “nuclear weapons and wars make us safer”.

.

.

If, like us, this is a future you wish to avoid, please help sustain Global Research’s activities by making a donation or taking out a membership now!

Click to donate or click here to become a member of Global Research.

*     *     *

Australian Investigative Journalist Exposes Mainstream Media Betrayal of Assange

By Oscar Grenfell, August 21, 2019

At a Sydney “Politics in the Pub” meeting on Thursday night, award-winning Australian journalist Mark Davis revealed new first-hand information exposing the extent of the betrayal of Julian Assange by the Guardian and the New York Times, and refuting the lies both publications have used to smear the WikiLeaks founder.

The MH17 Malaysian Airlines Tragedy, Blamed on Russia. NGOs Say They Will Seek PM Mahathir’s Support to Prevent the MH17 Trial of Four Men

By Ida Lim, August 21, 2019

Several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) today said they will soon ask for Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s help to prevent the trial of four individuals over the 2014 shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 from starting.

Jeffrey Epstein and the Spectacle of Secrecy

By Edward Curtin, August 21, 2019

When phrases such as “the deep state” and “conspiracy theory” become staples of both the corporate mainstream media and the alternative press, we know the realities behind these phrases have outlasted their usefulness for the ruling elites that control the United States and for their critics, each of whom uses them refutably or corrobatively.

Trump-Netanyahu: The Disgraceful President and the Contemptible Prime Minister

By Prof. Alon Ben-Meir, August 21, 2019

Much has been said and written about Trump’s disgraceful pointed “advice” to Prime Minister Netanyahu not to allow two duly elected Muslim Democrat congresswomen, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, to enter Israel. Netanyahu, like a poodle, simply obeys his master’s command without as much as giving it a second thought, while ignoring the far-reaching implications of his egregious act.

Russiagate: The Miserable Truth

By Barry Kissin, August 21, 2019

We do not want to further demonize Russia (or Iran). This is unwarranted and dangerous to human survival. Its purpose is to aggressively assert American Empire against all limitations and to justify the astronomical sums we spend on war and weapons.

Brexit – or Not? Fearmongering. Masters of Manipulating Public Opinion

By Peter Koenig, August 21, 2019

BREXIT deadline is 31 October 2019. On 23 June 2016, the British people voted 52% against 48% to leave the European Union. In England alone, the margin was somewhat higher, 53.4% for leaving the EU, against 46.6% for staying. In the meantime we know, that this result was influenced by Cambridge Analytica, the same as the Trump Presidency was apparently helped by CA – and according to CA’s own account, more than 200 elections or referenda worldwide during the last 5 years or so were decided by CA.

All Along the Watchtower: The Follies of History

By Pepe Escobar, August 19, 2019

Nothing beats the beguiling, stony smiles at the Bayon temple near Angkor Wat in Cambodia’s Siem Reap to plunge us back into history’s vortex, re-imagining how empires, in their endless pursuit of power, rise and fall, usually because they eventually get the very war they had sought to avoid.

*

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.

At a Sydney “Politics in the Pub” meeting on Thursday night, award-winning Australian journalist Mark Davis revealed new first-hand information exposing the extent of the betrayal of Julian Assange by the Guardian and the New York Times, and refuting the lies both publications have used to smear the WikiLeaks founder.

Davis recounted his experiences documenting Assange’s life in the first half of 2010 for programs screened on the Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). Using excerpts from the documentary “Inside WikiLeaks,” the journalist explained that he was present when WikiLeaks worked closely with media partners, including the Guardian and the New York Times, in the publication of the Afghan War logs.

The documents, leaked by the courageous whistleblower Chelsea Manning, comprised 90,000 incident and intelligence reports from the US military, between January 2004 and December 2009. They documented at least 200 civilian deaths at the hands of US and allied forces that had previously been hidden from the public, along with clear evidence of war crimes, including the existence of a secret “black unit” within the US military, tasked with carrying out illegal assassinations.

Davis said the assertions by Guardian journalists that Assange exhibited a callous attitude towards US informants and others who may have been harmed by the publication of the document were “lies.”

David Leigh and Nick Davies, senior Guardian journalists, who worked closely with Assange in the publication of the logs, have repeatedly claimed that Assange was indifferent to the consequences of the publication.

Their statements have played a key role in the attempts by the corporate media to smear Assange, and dovetail with US government claims that the 2010 publications “aided the enemy.” In reality, the US and Australian militaries have been compelled to admit that release of the Afghan war logs did not result in a single individual coming to physical harm.

Davis explained that he was present in “the bunker,” a room established by the Guardian to prepare the publication of the documents.

“Nick Davies made the most recurring, repetitive statement that Julian had a cavalier attitude to life. It’s a complete lie. If there was any cavalier attitude, it was the Guardian journalists. They had disdain for the impact of this material.”

The Guardian journalists, Davis added, had frequently engaged in “gallows humour,” but that Assange had not.

Significantly, Davis explained that despite the vast technical resources of the Guardian and the New York Times (NYT), it was left to Assange to personally redact the names of informants and other individuals from the war logs, less than three days before scheduled publication. Davis said Assange was compelled to work through an entire night, during which he removed some 10,000 names from the documents.

“Julian wanted to take the names out,” Davis said. “He asked for the releases to be delayed.” The request was rejected by the Guardian, “so Julian was left with the task of cleansing the documents. Julian removed 10,000 names by himself, not the Guardian.”

Assange in the Guardian “bunker” alongside Nick Davies [Credit: Journeyman Pictures, “Inside WikiLeaks”]

Davis refuted the attempts by the Guardian and the Times to downplay their central role in the publication of the leaks. He stated that the relationship between the corporate reporters and Assange was not that between journalists and their source. Rather, both outlets were intimately involved in preparing the publication of the documents.

This included, Davis said, the Guardian assigning a technical division to prepare the entire set of logs in a publishable and searchable format on the WikiLeaks website.

Davis explained that even in 2010, the Guardian and the NYT had employed “subterfuge” to shield them from any legal repercussions over the publication. Despite the explosive contents of the leaks, they had both insisted that WikiLeaks should publish first.

This, Davis stated, would allow them to claim that they were not primary publishers of the material, but were merely reporting material that had been released by WikiLeaks. This was the equivalent of the publications “pushing Julian out to walk the plank,” he said. “Julian’s in jail now because of that subterfuge.”

Tellingly, Davis stated that this plan was disrupted as a result of technical issues on the WikiLeaks website.

The Guardian and the Times nevertheless ran their scheduled stories, reporting on WikiLeaks’ supposed publication of the logs, despite the fact that they had not yet been placed on the WikiLeaks website. WikiLeaks published the documents two days after they had been reported by the corporate publications.

“WikiLeaks did not publish for two days,” Davis said. The Guardian and the Times had “reported a lie. They set Julian up from the start.”

Davis’s claim potentially has significant legal implications. The espionage charges, under which the Trump administration is seeking to extradite Assange to the US and prosecute him, include among their offenses WikiLeaks’ publication of the Afghan war logs.

Davis’ timeline, however, indicates that the Guardian and the New York Times were in fact the initial and primary publishers of the material. These publications, which are pillars of the media and political establishment, are “in the frame” for the supposed offenses that the Trump administration is seeking to prosecute Assange for. As Davis bluntly declared,

“If Julian’s in jail, they should be as well.”

Mary Kostakidis, a well-known Australian journalist and former SBS news anchor, who also spoke at the Sydney event, later tweeted on the significance of Davis’s revelation.

“Why aren’t the Guardian & NYT enjoined in the prosecution? The former used their technical resources to enable WikiLeaks online release, & the NYT published 2 days before WikiLeaks were able to go live with the docs due to a technical glitch,” she wrote.

In her address to “Politics in the Pub,” Kostakidis had declared:

“Julian is being destroyed for revealing war crimes. We need to stand up for his human rights.”

Kostakidis denounced successive Australian governments for refusing to take any action in defence of Assange, and condemned the establishment media for seeking to poison public opinion against him.

In response to a question from the audience about what could done, Professor Stuart Rees, a prominent fighter for civil liberties, who chaired the meeting, concluded that it was necessary to build a “mass movement in the streets” demanding freedom for Assange. This, he said, was the only way in which Australian politicians would be compelled to uphold their obligations to Assange as an Australian citizen and journalist by preventing his extradition to the US and securing his complete liberty.

*

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.

Featured image: Mark Davis addressing Politics in the Pub meeting in Sydney (Source: WSWS)

Government forces are rapidly advancing in southern Idlib inflicting large casualties to radical militant groups.

During the weekend, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), the Tiger Forces and their allies have liberated the villages of Khirbat Abidin, Hursh al-Tawilah, Mughr Hunta, the farms of Nijm, Nisr and al-Safar, and the Nar Hill. According to pro-government sources, at least 7 units of military equipment and 2 dozens of militants were eliminated in recent clashes.

In own turn, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its allies carried out several counter-attacks involving suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices in Madayah and northwest of Khan Shaykhun. Despite some tactical successes, they were not able to turn the tide of the battle and stop the SAA advance.

Government forces are currently aiming to cut off the M5 highway and encircle the town of Khan Shaykhun and other militant positions to the south of it.

Click here to watch.

On August 17, members of the Turkish-backed National Syrian Army (NSA) shelled positions of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) at the town of Tell Rifaat and the nearby villages of Zyuan, Nyrabia and Tell Madiq in northern Aleppo. According to pro-YPG sources, the shelling also targeted a positions of the Russian Military Police near Tell Rifaat. No casualties among Russian personnel were reported.

The NSA shelling started in response to an attack by YPG-linked Kurdish rebels in the Afrin Region. The rebels’ attack resulted in the deaths of 5 Turkish-backed militants. Tell Rifaat and its surroundings are under the joint control of the YPG and the SAA. YPG-linked cells use this area as a safe heaven to carry out attacks on Turkey-led forces in northern Aleppo thus provoking Turkish responses and increasing tensions between Damascus and Ankara.

Russian forces are establishing several positions in the southern Deir Ezzor countryside, pro-opposition media reported on August 16 citing local sources. The reports claimed that Russian units are working to establish new positions in the town of al-Jalaa.

Located less than 30km away from the border with Iraq, al-Jalaa is one of the largest towns in the western part of the Middle Euphrates River Valley. A highway leading to al-Qa’im border crossing passes through the town.

The deployment of Russian forces in al-Jalaa could be related to the near opening of the Syrian-Iraqi border as well as the ongoing security operations against the remaining ISIS cells in the region.

*

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.

We call upon Global Research readers to support South Front in its endeavors.

If you’re able, and if you like our content and approach, please support the project. Our work wouldn’t be possible without your help: PayPal: [email protected] or via: http://southfront.org/donate/ or via: https://www.patreon.com/southfront

Several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) today said they will soon ask for Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s help to prevent the trial of four individuals over the 2014 shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 from starting.

Chandra Muzaffar, president of NGO International Movement for a Just World (JUST), said the trial must not go on as the prior investigations were allegedly “flawed”.

“First and most urgent task emanating from this conference, we should do what we can to put a stop to the judicial process initiated by the Joint Investigation Team, the Dutch-led process that would in March 2020 see perhaps the beginning of the trial,” he said at the end of a full-day conference here on MH17.

“We have to try to stop this from happening, this is where what we have discussed and what we feel about this should be convened to Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad so he can take it up with the Dutch government, it has to be bilateral level perhaps prime to prime minister,” he added.

Chandra said Malaysia could also seek to inform other JIT members that it thinks the trial should not proceed, arguing that the JIT decides based on consensus.

The JIT had previously concluded that MH17 was shot down on July 17, 2014 by an anti-aircraft BUK missile originating from a Russian military brigade.

The JIT had on July 19 charged three Russians and one Ukrainian over the downing of MH17 where all 298 onboard were killed, and had said trial would start in March 2020.

Chandra was speaking at the “MH17: The Quest for Justice” conference, which was jointly-organised by JUST, the Perdana Global Peace Foundation (PGPF), and the Canada-based Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG) with the collaboration of the International Islamic University of Malaysia.

Chandra also outlined a few other proposals as part of the NGOs’ action plan, including setting up a committee with lawyers to examine legal alternatives to the MH17 trial such as filing civil lawsuits or setting up commissions of inquiry.

Chandra also proposed the creation of a citizens’ movement backing alternative views on the MH17 incident, as well as to set up a committee to focus on the media to promote an “alternative narrative” on MH17, and to liaise with governments on the matter.

Chandra today also claimed that the multi-national investigation’s findings of the MH17 being downed via a BUK missile was a “lie”.

“Let’s say we can discredit the judicial process, come up with alternatives, then I think more and more people will believe that the Buk missile theory has to be set aside,” he argued.

Other speakers at the conference today included Russian documentary filmmaker Yana Yerlashova, digital forensic investigator Akash Rosen, CRG founder Michel Chossudovsky, former pilot Peter Haisenko, Dutch author Kees Van der Pilj, and lawyers John Philpot and Gurdial Singh Nijar.

Among those who spoke were Colonel Mohd Sakri Hussin who handled a mission to retrieve the MH17 black boxes and Malaysia’s former ambassador to the Netherlands Datuk Fauziah Mohd Talib, JUST executive director Askiah Adam and PGPF trustee Zulaiha Ismail.

Some of the speakers presented their own alternative theories about the MH17 incident, disagreeing that BUK missiles were involved in the plane’s downing.

Two family members of those who were abroad MH17 were originally listed as speakers, but were noted by the organisers as having withdrawn from the session.

*

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.

Featured image: President of International Movement for a Just World Dr Chandra Muzaffar speaks at the ‘MH17: Quest for Justice’ forum at the International Islamic University Malaysia, August 17, 2019. — Picture by Firdaus Latif

When phrases such as “the deep state” and “conspiracy theory” become staples of both the corporate mainstream media and the alternative press, we know the realities behind these phrases have outlasted their usefulness for the ruling elites that control the United States and for their critics, each of whom uses them refutably or corrobatively. These phrases are bandied about so often that they have become hackneyed and inane.

Everything is shallow now, in our faces, and by being in our faces the truth is taking place behind our backs. The obvious can’t be true since it’s so obvious, so let us search for other explanations, and when the searchers search, let us call them “conspiracy nuts.”  It is a mind game of extraordinary proportions, orchestrated by the perverted power elites that run the show and ably abetted by their partners in the corporate mass media, even some in the alternative press who mean well but are confused, or are disinformation agents in the business of sowing confusion together with their mainstream Operation Mockingbird partners.  It is a spectacle of open secrecy, in which the CIA, which created the “conspiracy theory” meme to ridicule critics of the Warren Commission’s absurd explanation of the Kennedy assassination, has effectively sucked everyone into a game of to and fro in which only they win.

“When I make a word do a lot of work like that,” said Humpty Dumpty, “I always pay it extra.”

Only by stepping outside this narrative frame with its vocabulary can we begin to grasp the truth here in our Wonderland of endless illusions.

Death, sex, power, intrigue, murder, suicide – these are the staples of the penny press of the 19^th century, Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, Hearst’s New York Journal, the tabloids, today’s mass media, and the CIA.  People hunger for these stories, not for the real truth that impacts their lives, but for the titillation that gives a frisson to their humdrum lives. It is why post-modern detective stories are so popular, as if never solving the crime is the point.

To say “we will never know” is the mantra of a postmodern culture created to keep people running in circles. (Note the commentaries about the Jeffrey Epstein case.) Elusive and allusive indeterminacy characterizes everything in the culture of postmodernity. Robert Pfaller, a professor at the University of Art and Industrial Design in Linz, Austria and a founding member of the Viennese psychoanalytic research group “stuzzicandenti,” put it clearly in a recent interview:

The ruling ideology since the fall of the Berlin Wall, or even earlier, is postmodernism. This is the ideological embellishment that the brutal neoliberal attack on Western societies’ welfare (that was launched in the late 1970s) required in order to attain a “human”, “liberal” and “progressive” face. This coalition between an economic policy that serves the interest of a tiny minority, and an ideology that appears to “include” everybody is what Nancy Fraser has aptly called “progressive neoliberalism”. It consists of neoliberalism, plus postmodernism as its ideological superstructure.

The propagandists know this; they created it.  They are psychologically astute, having hijacked many intelligent but soul-less people of the right and left to do their handiwork.  Money buys souls, and the number of those who have sold theirs is numerous, including those leftists who have been bought by the CIA, as Cord Meyer, the CIA official phrased it so sexually in the 1950s: we need to “court the compatible left.”  He knew that drawing leftists into the CIA’s orbit was the key to efficient propaganda. For so many of the compatible left, those making a lot of money posing as opponents of the ruling elites but taking the money of the super-rich, the JFK assassination and the truth of September 11, 2001 are inconsequential, never to be broached, as if they never happened, except as the authorities say they did. By ignoring these most in-your-face events with their eyes wide shut, a coterie of influential leftists has done the work of Orwell’s crime-stop and has effectively succeeded in situating current events in an ahistorical and therefore misleading context that abets U.S. propaganda.

The debate over whether Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide or not is a pseudo-debate meant to keep people spinning their wheels over nothing. It attracts attention and will do so for many days to come. There are even some usually astute people suggesting that he may not be dead but might have been secretly whisked off somewhere and replaced with a dead look-alike. Now who would profit from suggesting something as insane as this?  The speculation runs rampant and feeds the spectacle. Whether he was allowed to kill himself or was killed makes little difference.

It’s akin to asking who pulled the trigger that killed President Kennedy.  That’s a debate that was intended to go nowhere, as it has, after it became apparent that Lee Harvey Oswald surely did not kill JFK.  John Kennedy’s murder in broad daylight in public view is the paradigmatic event of modern times. It is obvious to anyone that gives minimal study to the issue that it was organized and carried out by elements within the national security state, notably the CIA. Their message was meant to be unequivocal and clear: We can kill him and we can kill you; we are in full control; beware. Then they went on to kill others, including RFK and MLK.  It takes little intelligence to see this obvious fact, unless you wish not to or are totally lost in the neighborhood of make-believe.

As it was with Jack Ruby killing Lee Harvey Oswald, so it is with Epstein. There will be no trial.  Nothing is really hidden except the essential truth.  Guess, debate, wonder, watch, read to your sad heart’s content.  You will have gotten nowhere unless you step outside the frame of the reigning narrative.

A corollary example of another recent national headline grabber, the Mueller investigation, is apropos here.  Douglass Valentine, expert on the CIA and author of The CIA as Organized Crime, said in a recent interview that in all the endless mass media discussions of the Mueller investigation, one obvious question was never asked: What is the CIA’s role in it all?  It was never asked because the job of the corporate mass media is to work for the CIA, not to expose it as a nest of organized criminals and murderers that it is.

What is important in the Epstein case is the deep back story, a tale that goes back decades and is explored by Whitney Webb in a series of fine articles for the Mint Press. Read her articles and you will see how Epstein is just the current manifestation of the sordid history of the American marriage between various factions of the American ruling elites, whose business is sexual exploitation as a fringe benefit of being willing members of the economic and military exploitation of the world. A marriage of spies, mafia, intelligence agencies, sexual perverts, foreign governments, and American traitors who will stop at nothing to advance their interests.

It is a hard story to swallow because it destroys the fairy tale that has been constructed about American “democracy” and the decency of our leaders. Webb’s articles are not based on secret documents but on readily available information open to a diligent researcher. It’s known history that has been buried, as is most history in a country of amnesiacs and educational illiterates.  The average person doesn’t have Webb’s skill or time to pull it all together, but they can read her illuminating work. Often, however, it is the will to truth that is lacking.

While Webb places the Epstein matter in an historical context, she does not “solve” the case, since there is nothing to solve.  It is another story from a long litany of sex/espionage stories openly available to anyone willing to look.  They tell the same story.  Like many commentators, she draws many linkages to the Israeli Mossad’s long-standing connections to this criminal under and over world in the United States and throughout the world.  She writes:

Ultimately, the picture painted by the evidence is not a direct tie to a single intelligence agency but a web linking key members of the Mega Group [a secretive group of Jewish billionaires, including Epstein’s patron Leslie Wexner], politicians, and officials in both the U.S. and Israel, and an organized-crime network with deep business and intelligence ties in both nations.

If anything is obvious about the Epstein case, it is that he was part of a sexual blackmail operation tied to intelligence agencies.  Such blackmail has long been central to the methods of intelligence agencies worldwide and many arrows rightfully point to the Mossad.

However, while throughout Webb’s articles she draws linkages that lead to the Mossad, she only suggests CIA connections.  This is similar to but milder than a point made in an article written by Philip Giraldi, a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist, Did Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein Work for Mossad?  Giraldi writes that the CIA “would have no particular motive to acquire an agent like Epstein.”  This makes no sense.  Of course, they would.  The CIA and the FBI have a long record of such activities, and to hold such a club over the heads of presidents, senators, et al. to make sure they do their bidding is obviously a strong motivation.

Valentine’s point about not asking the question about the CIA’s involvement in the Mueller investigation pertains. Does Giraldi believe that the Mossad operates independently of the CIA? Or that they don’t work in tandem?  His statement is very strange.

The CIA is organized crime, and if Epstein is Mossad connected, he is CIA also, which is most likely.  No one like Epstein could have operated as he did for decades without being sustained and protected.  Now that he is dead there will be no trial, just as there will be no mainstream media or justice department revelations about the CIA or Mossad.  There will be a lot of gibberish about conspiracy theories and the open secret that is the spectacle of secrecy will roll on. There will, of course, be much sex talk and outrage. We will anxiously await the movie and the TV “exposés.” Most people will know, and pretend they don’t, that the country is ruled by gangsters who would pimp their mothers if it served their interests.

Those of us who oppose these criminals – and there are growing numbers all over the world – must avoid being sucked into the establishment narratives and the counter-narratives they spawn or create.  We must refuse to get involved in pseudo-debates that are meant to lead nowhere.  We must reject the language created to confuse.

If revolutionary change is to come, we must learn to tell a new story in language so beautiful, illuminating, and heart-rending that no one will listen to the lying words of child molesters, mass murderers, and those who hate and persecute truth tellers.

As John Berger said,

“In storytelling everything depends on what follows what.  And the truest order is seldom obvious.”

*

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.

Distinguished author and sociologist Edward Curtin is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Units of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and the Tiger Forces, backed up by the Syrian Air Force and the Russian Aerospace Forces, have liberated Umm Zaytunah and Kafr Tab, and advanced on Abedin and Madaya in southern Idlib.

Meanwhile, the SAA repelled an militants attack on its positions around Sukayk and Tell Sukayk. The attack was conducted by joint forces of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and Wa Harid al-Muminin, known for their links with al-Qaeda, and the Turkish-backed National Front for Liberation.

So-called ‘democratic rebels’ used a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device driven by a suicide bomber to blow up SAA positions near Sukayk, but were not able to develop this tactical success and turn the situation in the area to own favor.

The SAA liberated Sukayk last week. Since then, militants have undertaken several attempts to recapture it. All of them failed.

Two battle tanks, two up-armored vehicles and three pick-up trucks belonging to militants were eliminated by the SAA in recent clashes west of Khan Shaykhun.

Units of the Russian Military Police and the Turkish military conducted on August 14 a joint patrol around the key city of Tell Rifaat in northern Aleppo, chief of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Sides in Syria announced.

“On August 14, 2019, from 12:00 to 12:40, the Russian and Turkish military police units jointly patrolled the Tell Rifaat deconfliction zone,” Maj. Gen. Alexei Bakin said adding that the patrol’s route ran between the villages of Herbol and Shaykh Issa, east of Tell Rifaat.

Tell Rifaat is one of the biggest urban centers in northern Aleppo. It is jointly controlled by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the SAA. Units of the Russian Military Police have been deployed near the city for more than two years now.

At the same time, the Turkish military and Turkish proxies see the town as one of the high priority targets in the even of escalation in the area.

Last year, Russia and Turkey reached an initial agreement that would allow civilians to return to their houses in Tell Rifaat and de-escalate the situation. The recent developments may indicate that the sides have reached some kind of understanding on the situation in the Tell Rifaat area.

*

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.

We call upon Global Research readers to support South Front in its endeavors.

If you’re able, and if you like our content and approach, please support the project. Our work wouldn’t be possible without your help: PayPal: [email protected] or via: http://southfront.org/donate/ or via: https://www.patreon.com/southfront

Much has been said and written about Trump’s disgraceful pointed “advice” to Prime Minister Netanyahu not to allow two duly elected Muslim Democrat congresswomen, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, to enter Israel. Netanyahu, like a poodle, simply obeys his master’s command without as much as giving it a second thought, while ignoring the far-reaching implications of his egregious act. For whatever it’s worth, let me add my voice.

Here we have a president or a so-called one whose racism has long since been established.

Never missed an opportunity to demonstrate his loathing and disdain toward people of color—Hispanic, Black, and Muslim in particular.

His disgraceful behavior is always on display, as he engenders sick satisfaction from arousing hatred and division.

Though his enmity toward the Democrats is engrained to show this much disgrace goes beyond the pale of indignity and shame.

He has disgraced himself.

Disgraced the office of the Presidency.

Disgraced the House of Representatives.

Disgraced ordinary Americans and even many of his adherents.

Disgraced the Jewish community.

Disgraced all decent Israelis who hold high their democracy.

Disgraced our allies who believe in sovereignty.

And it all comes down to a man who throws his weight around, to cover for his own weakness, frailty and brazen audacity.

Image on the right: Photo from November 2018 of then congresswomen-elect Rashida Tlaib (left) of Michigan, and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. (Photo: Twitter/Rashida Tlaib)

Netanyahu would not have shown weakness by allowing Talib and Omar entry, but strength, dignity, and respect for the office they hold.

For the American Congress, whose unwavering backing of Israel stands unique in the annals of bilateral congressional support,

and stood fast by the country that shared their values.

A country that would have stood alone in adversity and existential threat.

But America—Democrats and Republicans alike, together never waver, hesitate, or vacillate, because Israel was not seen just an ally, but a partner.

A partnership that withstood the test of time.

A partnership that helped Israel to grow and prosper.

A partnership that made Israel safe and secure.

A partnership that has become a model for an inimitable relationship.

And here comes Netanyahu—a political animal, who would sell his mother (and deliver her) only to stay in power!

Now that he is running for his political life, he sees Trump as his savior.

Never mind that Trump does not really give a damn about Israel.

Never mind that Trump sees Netanyahu as a stooge to serve his sinister agenda.

Never mind that he set up Netanyahu against the Democrats.

Never mind that he broke all diplomatic protocols.

Never mind that he undermined Israel’s freedom to choose.

Never mind that he made Israel subservient to his whims.

But then, Netanyahu was not only happy but eager too to do Trump’s bidding.

This is how Netanyahu showed his contempt.

His contempt to what Israel stands for.

Contempt to the American Jewish community.

Contempt to the House of Representatives.

Contempt to political etiquette and culture.

Contempt to those with viewpoints that do not align with his.

Contempt to two Congresswomen who criticize Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians.

Contempt to people of color.

Contempt to the office of the Prime Minister.

This is the Netanyahu that has lost any sense of common decency.

For nothing matters to him, no country, no party and no civility.

Netanyahu and Trump are made of the same cloth Narcissists, self-absorbed, egomaniac, xenophobic, and yes, with insatiable lust for ever more power while selling their countries down the river.

Netanyahu has lost an invaluable opportunity to show hospitality—and welcome the two Congresswomen.

To listen to their grievances and concerns.

To explain the nature of the conflict with the Palestinians.

To elucidate why Israel opposes the BDS movement.

To demonstrate what Israel is all about.

To suggest how the Israelis and the Palestinians can live in peace and harmony.

To invite them to be a part of a process of reconciliation.

To become emissaries of peace and amity.

But then, this is not what Netanyahu stands for or believes in.

He is a nationalist who stains Israel’s reputation.

He is a racist and a bigot who has long since lost his bearings.

He is destroying Israel’s democracy brick-by-brick.

He is a criminal and soon to be tried for abuse of power and breach of trust.

He betrayed his countrymen, betrayed the state.

Betrayed the American Jewish community, while succumbing to the whims of a would-be a dictator.

And with deep sorrow, the once-cherished US-Israel relationship may never be the same.

Because these two wicked men have adopted disgrace and contempt that deservedly bonded them together.

*

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.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies. [email protected] Web: www.alonben-meir.com

Introductory Disclaimer: I have never voted Republican for Federal office and I deplore most of what Fox News has to offer. I am currently registered Democrat in order to vote in the Presidential primary for either Bernie Sanders or Tulsi Gabbard.

*

Going on three years ago, on Nov. 12, 2016, my local newspaper, the Frederick News-Post, published my letter that stated:

“Hillary Clinton was a terrible candidate. In an effort to deflect attention from the DNC rigging of her primary contest with Bernie Sanders, she resorted to somehow blaming the Russians. This was part of a pathological pattern, whose ultimate purpose was and is to remove the main obstacle (Russia under Putin) to neo-con schemes for global domination.”

We do not want to further demonize Russia (or Iran). This is unwarranted and dangerous to human survival. Its purpose is to aggressively assert American Empire against all limitations and to justify the astronomical sums we spend on war and weapons.

Hillary touted that all of our 17 intelligence agencies concluded with “high confidence” that the Russians meddled in our election for Trump’s benefit. False. The assessor was John Brennan, then spy-in-chief, who put together a secret panel of his choices from FBI, CIA and NSA in order to produce his miserable invention of the who, how and why the Russians did their dastardly meddling.

See Washington Post, June 23, 2017:

“CIA Director John Brennan first alerts the White House in early August [2016] that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered an operation to defeat or at least damage Hillary Clinton and help elect her opponent, Donald Trump” based on what Brennan claimed was some source “deep inside the Russian government that detailed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s direct involvement in a cyber campaign …” which source had supplied “Putin’s specific instructions on the operation’s audacious objectives …”

No evidence has ever been produced backing up any of this.

Enter Mueller, a “deep state” hack if there ever was one. (Parenthetically, Mueller is the grandnephew of Richard Bissel, second in command at the CIA when JFK fired him after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Mueller is married to the granddaughter of General Charles Cabell, third in command at the CIA when he was fired by JFK; Mueller’s wife is also a grandniece of Earl Cabell, Mayor of Dallas when JFK was assassinated there, who was recently officially uncovered to have been a CIA asset. Small world.) Mueller’s career is replete with the production of disinformation and cover-ups. My community, home of Fort Detrick, got a dose of Mueller at work in the Amerithrax investigation, the one in which Mueller framed Detrick scientist Bruce Ivins for sending the anthrax letters in order to cover up that the weaponization of the attack anthrax was a unique CIA technology.

On behalf of his current handlers, Mueller sang and danced his way into various indictments, most of which truly had nothing to do with Russiagate, but he couldn’t pull off even trying to nail Trump for collusion.

Of course, this isn’t the end of it. Pathetically, Democrats are pretending that Russiagate was nevertheless worthwhile (thus compounding the stupidity) on the basis that Trump obstructed justice, and also that we now know we have to protect our precious Presidential election from the Russians.

Obstructed what? Obstructed an investigation into the fabricated charge of collusion? Mueller just testified before Congress (on July 24) that whatever Trump did, it neither curtailed nor hindered his investigation, which after more than two years could neither find nor manufacture any evidence of collusion.

But now let’s drill down into this mantra of Russian meddling. According to the Mueller report, there were two facets: 1.) hacking of the DNC emails then sourcing to Wikileaks; and 2.) social media campaign. The social media campaign is a joke. The hacking story is more serious.

According to Mueller, it was the Russian company Internet Research Agency (IRA) that on behalf of the Russian government conducted the Facebook campaign. At page 25 of Vol. 1 of his report, Mueller informs us that this Russian company purchased 3,500 ads for a total expenditure of $100,000, which I ask you to compare to the $81 million spent on Facebook ads by the Trump and Clinton campaigns.

It’s sillier than that. According to Facebook’s testimony before Congress, most of the ads the IRA purchased were after the election and most said nothing about either Hillary or Trump.  (But they tended to promote “divisiveness” according to Mueller. Absurd.) We also now have a recently unsealed ruling by the U.S. District Court for D.C. that ordered Mueller to cease and desist from claiming that IRA was acting on behalf of the Kremlin – his linchpin claim — supported by no substantive evidence.

The most credible analyst of the hacking story has been completely (and deliberately) ignored by mainstream media. The implications of his analysis are so unsettling (dangerous) that even most alternative media avoid acknowledging him. But I believe “unsettling” is necessary to the process of waking up from the fairy tales Americans rely on, so I will lay out the truth about the stolen emails. This truth is simple and clear and unsettling.

The “most credible analyst” is named William Binney. He is a 32-year veteran of the NSA who, when he left the NSA in 2001, was the “Technical Leader” for intelligence, the senior technical analyst at the NSA. Binney resigned and blew the whistle when he discovered that his surveillance program was being used to spy on Americans without probable cause. Binney went on to co-found Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) comprised of our smartest and bravest intelligence veterans whose very first effort in Feb., 2003 was to debunk Colin Powell’s UN presentation and to warn against “a war [upon Iraq] for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.”

The VIPS forensic analysis of the hacking story in all of its painstaking detail can be accessed at ConsortiumNews.com. Here is a takeaway: On July 5, 2016, the intrusion into the DNC emails transferred data at an average speed of 22.7 megabytes per second, a speed that far exceeded the capability of the Internet as of July 2016. The speed of that data transfer corresponds with the speed of copying to a thumb drive (memory stick). Thus, there was no hack via the internet; it was a leak by someone with physical access to a DNC computer or server, most probably an insider.

We know who that insider was. His name, Seth Rich; a 27-year old DNC staffer who supported Bernie Sanders, and who was murdered in Washington, D.C on July 10, 2016. Two gun shots in the back. D.C. police said Rich was the victim of a “random burglary,” but nothing was taken, not his expensive watch, nor his money, nor his credit cards, nor his cell phone.

On August 9, 2016, Julian Assange was interviewed on Dutch TV in a segment available on youtube (watch below). Without violating the Wikileaks cardinal rule of never revealing sources, Assange came as close as he could to identifying Seth Rich as the source of the DNC emails. On that same date, Wikileaks offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of Rich’s killer or killers.

William Binney informs us that in response to a FOIA request seeking records of communications between Seth Rich and others including Julian Assange, the NSA revealed that it has 15 documents, 32 pages of relevant records, but that it is all classified.

Next witness, Seymour Hersh. Wikipedia:

“Hersh first gained recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. During the 1970s, Hersh covered Watergate for The New York Times and revealed the clandestine bombing of Cambodia. In 2004, he reported on the US military’s mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison. He has won two National Magazine Awards and five George Polk Awards. In 2004, he received the George Orwell Award.”

More recently, Hersh uncovered that Obama followed by Trump blamed chemical attacks in Syria on Assad as a pretext for bombing Syria when in fact the chemical attacks were staged by the “rebels” the U.S. supports.

In Nov. 2016, when Hersh did not realize he was being recorded, the recording became available months later on youtube (watch below), here’s what Hersh said: “All I know comes off an FBI report.” Paraphrasing: The D.C. police got a warrant to search Rich’s apartment. They seized his computer and turned it over to the FBI’s cyber unit. “What the [FBI] report says is that sometime in late spring/early summer, [Seth Rich] makes contact with Wikileaks. That’s in his computer … [Rich] had submitted … some juicy emails from the DNC … He offered an extensive sample … and said, ‘I want money’ … Anyway Wikileaks got access.”

Hersh goes on to say: “Brennan’s an asshole. I’ve known all these people for years … I have somebody on the inside who will go and read a file for me. This person is unbelievably accurate and careful. He’s a very high level guy … It’s a Brennan operation. [Russiagate] was an American disinformation operation …”

Seth Rich had to be eliminated before Russiagate could be perpetrated.

*

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.

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 Consortium News, Op-ed News and recently Global Research.

BREXIT deadline is 31 October 2019. On 23 June 2016, the British people voted 52% against 48% to leave the European Union. In England alone, the margin was somewhat higher, 53.4% for leaving the EU, against 46.6% for staying. In the meantime we know, that this result was influenced by Cambridge Analytica, the same as the Trump Presidency was apparently helped by CA – and according to CA’s own account, more than 200 elections or referenda worldwide during the last 5 years or so were decided by CA.

CA is said to have disappeared, however the knowledge on how to manipulate voters’ opinions – the algorithm to do so – is by now well known by Google, social media and, of course, by the world’s key secret service agencies, foremost CIA, NSA, MI6, Mosad, DGSE (France), BND (Germany) – and others, therefore beware of believing even in a shred of democracy in upcoming elections, anywhere in the world.

Will BREXIT actually happen? –  Chances are it will not. Almost three and a half year after the UK vote, and two and a half years after the UK started the exit process, the BREXIT “soap opera”, as it is often called – leave or stay – continues.

Both, Theresa May and Boris Johnson – and so far, also the opposition Labor Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, have assured British people they will respect their choice; no new referendum, no Parliamentary vote; and instead, they foresaw negotiating a “deal” with Brussels. If there is “no deal”, then BREXIT will take place as a “No Deal, or Hard BREXIT” – so the erstwhile verdict – which could change, of course, as just about everything that has been said and agreed upon in the BREXIT saga. But what exactly is meant by a “deal”, or a “no-deal”, for that matter?

Though, the definitions of a “deal” are vague, a “deal” refers basically to a UK exit from the EU under as smooth as possible conditions for both business and individuals, meaning that current relationships, i.e. business licenses, trading relations, residency permits, free exchange of labor, would not stop at once, but a transition period would allow to work out specific conditions. In fact, this is precisely included in the Withdrawal Agreement (WA). However, the WA has not yet been ratified by the House of Commons. Why not? – Is there a hidden agenda? Once the WA is ratified, there is no way back? Is that it? – The Parliament’s holdout for a 180-degree change from “leave” to “stay” – despite the popular vote?

The WA provides for a period up to 31 December 2020 after BREXIT actually happens, or longer, if negotiated, to hammer out the post-BREXIT details of trade, future tariffs, business licenses, transit of labor and capital – and more – before the new UK – EU divorce rules would enter into force. This is plenty of time to negotiate individual trade and peoples (free movement) agreements with EU partner countries. Everything – the current UK-EU relations agreements – would stay in place during the transition period, i.e. for at least another 15 months (or longer, if more time is negotiated as necessary), if BREXIT would take place on 31 October 2019.

Some of the possible post-BREXIT bilateral negotiations have already started behind the scenes, notably with China and the US and most likely with others, like Germany and France. The UK could, for example, look at the Swiss model. Switzerland, not a member of the EU, is de facto a EU member, just without voting rights. Switzerland has currently more than 120 multi- and bilateral agreements with Brussels and the 28 EU members. And this despite a three- time direct popular rejection of EU membership by referenda (1992 – against joining the European Economic Area – 50.3% against; in 1997 – EU membership referendum – 74.1% against; and in 2001 on “EU access negotiations” – rejected by 76.8%). Yet, Switzerland is still looked upon as a model for ‘democracy’ – where people decide.

So, everything is possible, direct negotiations with a selection (or all) of EU countries, following the Swiss model, and / or a wider scale of by- and multilateral negotiations with countries or trading blocks around the world.  Actually, Brussels has already hinted to the UK leadership at starting bilateral negotiations with EU members, even though the official line is “leave” or “stay”. No doubt, Brussels as well as Washington would like to do everything possible to keep the UK within the EU bureaucracy. The UK has an implicit reputation of being Washington’s mole in the EU, representing Washington’s wishes in crucial decisions – like when 10 new Eastern European member candidates had to be admitted – or not.

Therefore, why the hype about a “no deal” BREXIT? – Do people even understand what “no deal” means?  That it literally means – all doors are open for negotiations during the transit period – and that nothing changes during that period, which is even extendable, and, of course, that a myriad of options to negotiate new deals with new partners are open after the transit period, in the post-BREXIT phase.

It’s all fearmongering, manipulation of public opinion, the stock market will crash, UK’s GDP will contract by between 2% and 4% – depending whom you ask, and who pretends having had all the details to calculate such nonsensical numbers; that unemployment will soar, especially as UK citizens will be expulsed from their EU host countries and come home to look for work – and so on. These treats emanating from Brussels, as well as from the UK elite, have of course only one goal in mind – No BREXIT; find a way to reverse the people’s opinion and Referendum decision.

Entering the realm of intimidation, the British Government warns in a “clandestine report” – “leaked” to the Sunday Times – that a Hard Brexit (a “No Deal” BREXIT) will hit the UK with food, fuel and medicine shortages. RT reports, this much-feared prospect is becoming increasingly likely since the changing of the guard in Downing Street. Yes, this is clearly part of spreading fear to coerce public opinion against BREXIT. However, this could all be prevented by the British Parliament voting for the Withdrawal Agreement which is part of the sovereign deal – no approval from Brussels necessary – for any country wanting to leave the EU. How come, this is never mentioned in the media, thus preventing the public from knowing what the government could do to avoid a Hard Brexit havoc?

There are also other economic predictions, contradicting the fearmongers, and by all accounts of logic, more plausible ones, namely that the UK would do much better after BREXIT, free to deal and trade with whomever, no looking over the shoulders by Brussels, no impositions of complex – and often very costly – rules – frequently mere rules for the sake of rules – by the European Commission. Regaining full sovereignty would do the UK good, both economically and socially.

The UK could also continue maintaining a relation at a distance with a body that is often mentioned in the same breath as corruption; a body that has shown little sympathy for solidarity among member countries. Examples abound, Greece, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Portugal – were all “sanctioned” with troika-imposed rescue packages (troika = EC, European Central Bank – ECB, and IMF). It is also clear that Brussels favors a set of nations, unofficially, of course, stronger, mostly northern nations that do not have to follow the strict ECB debt limitation rules imposed by the ECB and mostly applied to southern EU members. This amounts to an unspoken two-tier arrangement.  But these voices of reason, who would promote BREXIT for the sheer long-term socioeconomic betterment of the British citizenry, are not allowed to come to the fore. The media are controlled by the “Stay” proponents.

BREXIT, stay or leave, is a delicate matter. Labor, hence Jeremy Corbyn, has a tendency to favor “stay” – oddly, along with some of the conservative Tories, for all the false, scare-evoking reasons propagated – unemployment, reduction in GDP, gap in trading partners, and so on. Then there is the extreme right, represented by Nigel Farage, the boss of the very BREXIT party, who supports BREXIT for the wrong reasons, anti-immigration, racism, bordering on xenophobia, a similar reasoning as is used by Madame Le Pen in France, who also would like to exit the EU for stricter border control – anti-immigration and racism. Ditto, for Italy’s right-wing Lega Norte Deputy PM, Matteo Salvini. This controversy of reason is confusing to the general public – and possibly even to Jeremy Corbyn, who does not want to be associated with Nigel Farage, has to vouch for “stay” – perhaps against his better understanding of BREXIT’s socioeconomic advantages for Great Britain.

Of course, there are plenty of ways to reverse the promises of former PM Teresa May’s and today’s PM, Boris Johnson’s, assurances that the 2016 vote’s result will be respected. The easiest one would be for the British Parliament to revoke Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon, which gives member states the unilateral right to quit EU membership. That’s precisely what the UK did, trigger Article 50 by the Prime Minister’s decision after the BREXIT Referendum. Once this process was set in motion, it was understood that it couldn’t be stopped – except by a Parliamentary vote, canceling application of Article 50.

Today, that option is fully on the table. It can be done equally unilaterally and sovereignly by the UK, without the approval of the remaining 27 EU member states. Should that happen – the status quo would win, the UK would remain a EU member. No change.

Labor Leader, Jeremy Corbyn has recently hinted about introducing a no-confidence vote against PM Johnson. If Parliament accepts it, and if he wins, he would become interim PM, calling for new elections which he expects to win. His support base in the UK is growing, despite increasing – false – accusations of anti-Semitism. If he would become PM, he could indeed call for a new BREXIT referendum, or simply call for a vote against Article 50. Bingo. And the UK would remain a EU member. Knowing about Cambridge Analytica’s coercive methods applied to swing public opinion, a new BREXIT Referendum would likely be manipulated in favor of “stay”.

By the way, since CA’s admitted interference in the BREXIT vote, it is totally conceivable that the 2016 Referendum result could be annulled as invalid, and a new referendum be launched. It’s a miracle that so far, no politician, no media, nobody, has talked about it.

In summary, might it be possible that the outcome of the June 2016 Referendum came as a surprise for the British Authorities and elite? Hence, the result was simply not acceptable? Therefore, to preserve the illusion of “democracy”, could it be possible that an entire complex construct had be conceived and built over a period of some three years, in which public opinion had to be confused to the point of losing track of the details and of specific conditions for exiting the European Union – so that it could be more easily swayed into the direction of the Master’s wishes, while still pretending to be democratic? – Let’s wait and see, but no surprise, if BREXIT doesn’t happen.

*

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.

This article was originally published on New Eastern Outlook.

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 21^st Century; 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 Pixabay

Militants’ defense in southern Idlib and northern Hama has collapsed.

On August 19, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), the Tiger Forces and their allies backed up by Syrian and Russian air power cut off the M5 highway north of Khan Shaykhun capturing several hills and checkpoints in the area. Late on the same day, government forces overrun militants’ fortifications entering the town.

On August 20, units of the SAA and the Tiger Forces continued clashing with militants in the area. The town is about to fall into the hands of government forces.

According to pro-government sources, militants are currently fleeing their positions in Kafr Zita, Lataminah, Moerk and nearby areas.

Click here to watch.

Turkey attempted to prevent this scenario by sending a large military convoy (28 pieces of military equipment, including at least 7 battle tanks) accompanied by Turkish-backed militants towards Khan Shaykhun. The plan was to establish so-called observation point near Khan Shaykhun and use Turkish troops as human shields to defend militants there. However, the convoy was not able to reach the target.

The Syrian Air Force carried out several strikes on the convoy path near Heish killing at least one militant field commander and destroying a vehicle armed with machine gun. The Turkish Defense Ministry officially condemned the strikes claiming that 3 civilians were killed and 12 others were injured as a result of the action. Ankara claimed that the convoy was initiated to ensure the safety of Observation Point No. 9, to keep supply routes open and prevent civilian casualties in the region.

Turkey even sent F-16 warplanes to Syrian airspace to defend the convoy, but they were welcomed by Russian fighter jets hovering over the same area and retreated.

The deep cooperation of so-called moderate opposition with terrorist groups like Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and their unwillingness to participate in a proposed peace process predetermined a new round of escalation in the Idlib zone. In the near future, government troops will likely focus on clearing northern Hama.

*

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.

We call upon Global Research readers to support South Front in its endeavors.

If you’re able, and if you like our content and approach, please support the project. Our work wouldn’t be possible without your help: PayPal: [email protected] or via: http://southfront.org/donate/ or via: https://www.patreon.com/southfront

A instalação de mísseis da NATO em Deveselu, na Roménia, que faz parte do sistema Aegis americano de “defesa anti-mísseis”,  terminou a “actualização” que começou em Abril passado. Comunica a NATO, assegurando que “não conferiu nenhuma capacidade ofensiva ao sistema”, que o mesmo “permanece puramente defensivo, concentrado em ameaças potenciais provenientes do exterior da área euro-atlântica”.

A unidade de Deveselu está dotada (de acordo com a descrição oficial) com 24 mísseis, instalados em lançadores verticais subterrâneos, para a interceptação de mísseis balísticos de curto e médio alcance. Outro local, que ficará operacional em 2020, na base polaca de Redzikowo, também será equipado com este sistema. Lançadores do mesmo tipo estão a bordo de quatro navios da Marinha dos EUA que, localizados na base espanhola de Rota, navegam no Mediterrâneo, no Mar Negro e no Mar Báltico.

A própria instalação dos lançadores mostra que o sistema é dirigido não contra a “ameaça iraniana” (como declaram os EUA e a NATO), mas, principalmente, contra a Rússia. Que o designado “escudo” não é “puramente defensivo”, explica a própria indústria de guerra que o produziu, a Lockheed Martin. Ela documenta que o sistema é “projectado para instalar qualquer tipo de míssil em qualquer tubo de lançamento”, portanto, está adaptado para “qualquer missão de guerra”, incluindo “ataque a alvos terrestres”. A Lockheed Martin especifica que os tubos de lançamento maiores, podem lançar “mísseis maiores, como os de defesa contra mísseis balísticos e os destinados a ataques de longo alcance”. Assim, admite, fundamentalmente, que as instalações na Roménia e na Polónia e os quatro navios do sistema Aegis podem ser armados não só com mísseis anti-mísseis, mas também com mísseis de cruzeiro Tomahawk de ogivas nucleares capazes de atingir alvos a milhares de quilómetros de distância.

Como documenta o *Serviço de Pesquisa do Congresso (24 de Julho de 2019), os quatro navios dos EUA que “operam em águas europeias para defender a Europa de potenciais ataques de mísseis balísticos” fazem parte de uma frota de 38 navios  Aegis, que  em 2024, aumentarão para 59. **No ano fiscal de 2020, é atribuído 1,8 biliões de dólares para actualizar esse sistema, incluindo os instalados na Roménia e na Polónia. Outras instalações terrestres e navios do sistema Aegis serão instalados não só na Europa contra a Rússia, como também na Ásia e no Pacífico contra a China.

De acordo com os planos, o Japão instalará no seu território duas instalações missílisticas fornecidos pelos EUA; a Coreia do Sul e a Austrália, irão adquirir navios USA do sistema Aegis. Mais ainda, nos três meses em que o equipamento de Deveselu foi levado para os EUA para ser “actualizado”, foi colocada na instalação da Roménia, ***uma bateria de mísseis móveis Thaad do Exército USA,  capaz de “derrubar um míssil balístico tanto dentro, como fora da atmosfera”, mas também capaz de lançar mísseis nucleares de longo alcance. Reposto em funcionamento o sistema Aegis – comunica a NATO – ****o Thaad foi “retirado”. Não especifica para onde. Sabe-se, no entanto, que os militares dos EUA instalaram baterias de mísseis deste tipo, de Israel para a ilha de Guam, no Pacífico.

À luz destes factos, no momento em que os Estados Unidos destroem o Tratado INF para instalar mísseis nucleares de médio alcance perto da Rússia e da China, não espanta o anúncio – feito em Moscovo pelo Senador Viktor Bondarev, Chefe da Comissão de Defesa – que a Rússia instalou bombardeiros de ataque nuclear Tu-22M3 na Crimeia.

No entanto, quase ninguém está preocupado, porque em Itália e na União Europeia tudo isto é ocultado pelo aparelho político-mediático.

Manlio Dinucci

Artigo original em italiano :

Sotto lo «scudo» missili nucleari Usa in Europa

Tradução por Luisa Vasconcellos

ll sito missilistico Nato di Deveselu in Romania, facente parte del sistema statunitense Aegis di «difesa missilistica», ha terminato «l’aggiornamento» iniziato lo scorso aprile. Lo comunica la Nato, assicurando che «esso non ha conferito alcuna capacità offensiva al sistema», il quale «rimane puramente difensivo, focalizzato su potenziali minacce provenienti dall’esterno dell’area euro-atlantica».

Il sito di Deveselu è dotato (secondo la descrizione ufficiale) di 24 missili, installati in lanciatori verticali sotterranei, per l’intercettazione di missili balistici a raggio corto e intermedio. Un altro sito, che entrerà in funzione nel 2020 nella base polacca di Redzikowo, sarà anch’esso dotato di tale sistema. Lanciatori dello stesso tipo sono a bordo delle quattro navi della US Navy che, dislocate nella base spagnola di Rota, incrociano nel Mediterraneo, Mar Nero e Mar Baltico.

La dislocazione stessa dei lanciatori mostra che il sistema è diretto non contro la «minaccia iraniana» (come dichiarano Usa e Nato), ma principalmente contro la Russia. Che il cosiddetto «scudo» non sia «puramente difensivo», lo spiega la stessa industria bellica che lo ha realizzato, la Lockheed Martin. Essa documenta che il sistema è «progettato per installare qualsiasi missile in qualsiasi tubo di lancio», per cui è adatto a «qualsiasi missione di guerra», compreso «l’attacco a obiettivi terrestri». La Lockheed Martin specifica che i tubi di lancio di maggiori dimensioni possono lanciare «i più grandi missili come quelli di difesa contro i missili balistici e quelli per l‘attacco a lungo raggio». Ammette quindi, nella sostanza, che le installazioni in Romania e Polonia e le quattro navi del sistema Aegis possono essere armate non solo di missili anti-missile, ma anche di missili da crociera Tomahawk a testata nucleare capaci di colpire obiettivi a migliaia di km di distanza.

Come documenta il Servizio di ricerca del Congresso (24 luglio 2019), le quattro navi Usa che «operano in acque europee per difendere l’Europa da potenziali attacchi di missili balistici», fanno parte di una flotta di 38 navi Aegis che nel 2024 saliranno a 59. Nell’anno fiscale 2020 vengono stanziati 1,8 miliardi di dollari per il potenziamento di tale sistema, compresi i siti in Romania e Polonia. Altre installazioni terrestri e navi del sistema Aegis verranno dislocate non solo in Europa contro la Russia, ma anche in Asia e nel Pacifico contro la Cina.

Secondo i piani, il Giappone installerà sul proprio territorio due siti missilistici forniti dagli Usa, Corea del Sud e Australia acquisteranno dagli Usa navi dello stesso sistema. Per di più, nei tre mesi in cui le attrezzature di Deveselu sono state portate negli Usa per essere «aggiornate», è stata dislocata nel sito in Romania una batteria missilistica mobile Thaad dell’Esercito Usa, in grado di «abbattere un missile balistico sia dentro che fuori dell’atmosfera», ma anche in grado di lanciare missili nucleari a lungo raggio. Rimesso in funzione il sistema Aegis – comunica la Nato – la Thaad è stata «ridispiegata». Non specifica dove.  Si sa però che l’esercito Usa ha dispiegato batterie missilistiche di questo tipo da Israele all’isola di Guam nel Pacifico.

Alla luce di questi fatti, nel momento in cui gli Usa stracciano il Trattato Inf  per installare missili nucleari a medio raggio a ridosso di Russia e Cina, non stupisce l’annuncio – fatto a Mosca dal senatore Viktor Bondarev, capo della Commissione Difesa –  che la Russia ha dispiegato in Crimea bombardieri da attacco nucleare Tu-22M3.

Quasi nessuno però se ne preoccupa dato che, in Italia e nella Ue, tutto questo è nascosto dall’apparato politico-mediatico.

Manlio Dinucci

As mudanças de regime no Iraque e na Líbia, a guerra na Síria, a crise na Venezuela, as sanções a Cuba, Irão, Rússia e Coreia do Norte reflectem o novo imperialismo global imposto por um núcleo de nações capitalistas em apoio a triliões de dólares em riqueza acumulada pelos investidores. Esta nova ordem mundial do capital massivo tornou-se num império totalitário de desigualdade e repressão.

Os 1% do globo, constituídos por mais de 36 milhões de milionários e 2.400 bilionários, aplicam o seu excedente de capital em empresas de gestão de investimentos como a BlackRock e o J.P. Morgan Chase. As dezassete principais empresas de gestão destes triliões de dólares controlavam 41,1 triliões de dólares em 2017. Estas empresas investem todas directamente umas nas outras e são geridas por meras 199 pessoas que decidem como e onde investir este capital global. O seu principal problema é possuírem mais capital do que as oportunidades de investimentos seguros actualmente existentes, o que dá azo a arriscados investimentos especulativos, a um aumento com os custos de guerra, à privatização dos bens públicos e a pressionar para que se criem novas oportunidades de investimento deste capital por intermédio da mudança de regimes políticos.

As elites do poder que apoiam o investimento de capitais estão colectivamente imiscuídas num sistema de crescimento obrigatório. O falhanço do capital em continuar a atingir um crescimento contínuo leva à estagnação económica, o que pode resultar em depressão, em quebras bancárias, em colapsos de moeda e desemprego em massa. O capitalismo é um sistema económico que inevitavelmente se autoajusta por intermédio de contracções, recessões e depressões.

As elites do poder estão encurraladas numa rede de crescimento forçado que requer uma gestão global constante e a formação de oportunidades de investimento de capital em constante crescimento. Este crescimento forçado tornou-se num destino manifesto a nível mundial que procura o domínio total do capital em todas as regiões da Terra e além.

Sessenta porcento do núcleo duro dos 199 gestores da elite do poder global são naturais dos EUA, sendo este balanço arredondado por pessoas de vinte nações capitalistas. Estes gestores da elite e os um porcento que lhes estão associados participam activamente nos grupos de políticas globais e nos governos. Trabalham como conselheiros do FMI, da Organização Mundial do Comércio, do Banco Mundial, no Banco de Pagamentos Internacionais, na administração da Reserva Federal, nos G7 e G20. A maior parte deles participa no Fórum Económico Mundial. As elites do poder envolvem-se activamente nos conselhos privados para a política internacional, tais como o Grupo dos Trinta, a Comissão Trilateral e o Conselho Atlântico. Muitos dos membros da elite global dos EUA são membros do Conselho para Relações Estrangeiras e da Business Roundtable. O foco crucial destas elites do poder é proteger o investimento de capitais, assegurar o pagamento da dívida e criar oportunidades para aumentar o seu retorno financeiro.

A elite do poder global está ciente da sua existência como minoria numérica no vasto mar da humanidade empobrecida. Cerca de 80% da população mundial vive com menos de dez dólares por dia e metade desta vive com menos de três dólares diários. A concentração do capital global tornou-se no alinhamento institucional que levaram os capitalistas transnacionais a transformarem-se num imperialismo global facilitado pelas instituições económicas/de comércio e protegidas pelo império militar dos EUA/NATO. Estas concentrações de riqueza trouxeram-nos uma crise na humanidade, na qual a pobreza, a guerra, a fome, a alienação em massa, a transformação da comunicação social em propaganda e a destruição ambiental atingiram níveis que ameaçam o futuro da humanidade.

O ideal de Estados-nação independentes e soberanos foi durante muito tempo considerada como sacrossanto nas economias liberais capitalistas convencionais. Contudo, a globalização impôs um novo conjunto de exigências ao capitalismo que requerem que os mecanismos transnacionais apoiem o crescimento perpétuo do capital que está cada vez mais para lá das fronteiras dos Estados individuais. A crise financeira de 2008 foi um reconhecimento da ameaça ao sistema do capital global. Estas ameaças encorajam o abandono por atacado dos direitos dos Estados-nação e a formação de um imperialismo global que reflicta os prenúncios da nova ordem mundial para proteger o capital transnacional.

As instituições no seio dos países capitalistas, entre elas os ministérios governamentais, as forças de defesa, as agências de espionagem, o sistema judicial, as universidades e os corpos representativos, reconhecem em vários graus que as exigências cada vez maiores do capital transnacional ultrapassam as fronteiras dos Estados-nação. O novo alcance mundial motivou uma nova forma de imperialismo global que se evidencia pelas coligações das nações do núcleo duro capitalista que se envolveram e envolvem nos actuais esforços para mudanças de regime por via de sanções, acções encobertas, coacções e guerra com as nações não cooperantes – Irão, Iraque, Síria, Líbia, Venezuela, Cuba, Coreia do Norte e Rússia.

A tentativa de golpe na Venezuela demonstrou o alinhamento dos Estados que apoiam o capital transnacional no reconhecimento das forças da elite que se opõe à presidência socialista de Maduro. Está aqui em acção um novo imperialismo global, no qual a soberania da Venezuela é abertamente minada por uma ordem imperial do capital mundial que procura não só controlar o petróleo da Venezuela, mas também a plena oportunidade para atingir investimentos amplos por intermédio de um novo regime.

A disseminação em massa da negação do presidente eleito da Venezuela por parte da comunicação social empresarial demonstra que essa comunicação social é propriedade de, e controlada pelos ideólogos da elite do poder global. A comunicação social empresarial actual encontra-se extremamente concentrada e é completamente internacional. O seu principal objectivo é a promoção da venda de produtos e da propaganda pró-capitalista por intermédio do controlo psicológico dos desejos, emoções, crenças, receios e valores humanos. A comunicação social empresarial atinge isto através da manipulação das emoções e da percepção dos seres humanos à escala global, e ao promover o entretenimento como distracção das desigualdades globais.

Reconhecer que o imperialismo global é uma manifestação da concentração de riqueza, gerida por umas parcas centenas de pessoas, é crucial por parte dos activistas democráticos e humanistas. Temos que nos basear na Declaração Universal dos Direitos Humanos e desafiar o imperialismo global, os seus governos fascistas, a sua propaganda mediática e os exércitos do império.

Peter Phillips

A imagem que ilustra este artigo é da Images.com/Corbis

Artigo original em inglês:

Wealth Concentration Drives a New Global Imperialism, 14 de Março de 2019.

Tradução: Flávio Gonçalves

Peter Phillips, investigador associado do Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), é professor de Sociologia Política na Universidade Estatal de Sonoma. Giants: The Global Power Elite, 2018, publicado pela  Seven Stories Press é o seu 18º livro. Dá aulas nos cursos de Sociologia Política, Sociologia do Poder, Sociologia da Comunicação Social, Sociologia das Conspirações e Sociologia de Investigação. Foi director do Project Censored entre 1996 e 2010 e presidente da Media Freedom Foundation entre 2003 e 2017. 

Time and again, hard evidence shows the US is a nation run by hawkish right-wing extremists, dismissive of the rule of law and democratic values they abhor and don’t tolerate.

Operating exclusively by their own rules, they maintain that UN Charter principles and other international law applies to other nations, not imperial USA.

All nations the US doesn’t control are on its target list for regime change, part of its longstanding plot to rule the world unchallenged, control its resources, and create ruler-serf societies everywhere — enforced by Pentagon-run NATO, operating as a global police force.

Since its 1979 revolution, ending a generation of US-installed fascist dictatorship, Iran has been a key target to transform back to US client state status — by brute force it that’s what it takes.

On July 4, on orders from the Trump regime, Britain unlawfully seized Iran’s Grace 1 super-tanker in international waters, a clear act of maritime piracy.

Despite pressure from Trump’s justice department, Gibraltar’s Supreme Court ordered the vessel released, letting it sail to its intended destination.

Trump regime hardliners consider the ruling unacceptable, temporarily foiling their plot to steal the vessel and its oil cargo, an action perhaps intended to provoke confrontation with Iran, clearly part of its “maximum pressure” agenda.

Following the Gibraltar court ruling, Trump’s State Department warned of “serious consequences for any individuals associated with the Grace I.”

On Friday, Trump’s justice department unsealed an anti-Iran warrant — in clear breach of international and US constitutional law, stating the following:

“A seizure warrant and forfeiture complaint were unsealed today in the US District Court for the District of Columbia alleging that Oil Tanker ‘Grace 1, all petroleum aboard it and $995,000.00 are subject to forfeiture based on violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), bank fraud statute, and money laundering statute, as well as separately the terrorism forfeiture statute.”

All of the above claims are bald-faced Big Lies. Iran violated no laws, committed no bank fraud or money laundering, nor has it committed terrorist acts.

These rule of law breaches and countless more serious ones are specialties of the US, NATO, Israel, and their imperial partners in high crimes of war and against humanity.

It’s not how the nonbelligerent Islamic Republic operates, the region’s leading proponent of peace and stability, fully complying with international laws, norms and standards — what the US and its imperial partner breach daily.

The so-called (1976) National Emergencies Act (NEA) empowers the president to invoke certain special powers during a crisis.

Existing ones worldwide are made in the USA, invented to pursue its hostile to peace and stability imperial agenda.

Executive powers under the NEA have been largely invoked for political reasons, many related to sovereign independent states designated for regime change.

Clearly no national emergency exists for anything related to Iran. Trump regime hardliners invented one as part of their “maximum pressure” on the nation, its ruling authorities and people.

The justice department falsely accused Iran of “a scheme to unlawfully access the US financial system to support illicit shipments to Syria from Iran by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a designated foreign terrorist organization,” adding:

“The scheme involves multiple parties affiliated with the IRGC and furthered by the deceptive voyages of the Grace 1. A network of front companies allegedly laundered millions of dollars in support of such shipments.”

None of the above fabricated claims would hold up in a legitimate international tribunal.

Issuing the unjustifiable warrant is part of upping the stakes and escalating Middle East tensions more than already by anti-Iran Trump regime hardliners.

If Iran’s super-tanker, renamed the Adrian Darya, is seized by US warships in international waters or anywhere else in port or in transit, it’ll be another flagrant UN Convention for Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) breach — apparently what the White House intends.

On Friday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said the following:

“For the release of the Grace 1 oil tanker, Iran has made no commitment that the ship would not go to Syria because form the early hours of the tanker’s detention, we announced that Syria was not its destination and we have upheld the same,” adding:

“(I)t was nobody’s business even if it was Syria.” Iran is legally entitled to export oil and other products to any nations eager to buy them.

Unilaterally imposed US sanctions on the country and all others violate the UN Charter and other international law.

No nation may legally interfere in the internal affairs of others — what the US does repeatedly against virtually all other nations, seeking dominance over them.

Mousavi stressed that Iran “support(s) Syria in all areas, including oil and energy. This is legal and has nothing to do with any third country.”

All nations should support the Syrian Arab Republic’s struggle against US aggression, illegal occupation of its territory, terror-bombing of its infrastructure, and support for ISIS and other jihadists, used as imperial foot soldiers.

After Friday’s ruling by Gibraltar’s High Court, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif tweeted the following:

“Having failed to accomplish its objectives through its #EconomicTerrorism — including depriving cancer patients of medicine — the US attempted to abuse the legal system to steal our property on the high seas.”

“This piracy attempt is indicative of Trump admin’s contempt for the law.”

On the same day, Tehran’s envoy to Britain Hamid Baeidinejad said:

“The US, with its desperate, last-minute efforts, intended to prevent the release of the (Iranian) oil tanker from detention, and was faced with humiliation,” adding:

“The vessel will soon leave the Gibraltar region.”

It remains to be seen if Trump regime hardliners intend a high-seas showdown once the vessel sails.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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.