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One Turkish soldier was killed and 5 others were injured during clashes with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) in the region of Afrin, the Turkish Defense Ministry announced on June 26. According to the Defense Ministry, the clashes erupted following an attack on Turkish military positions.

The YPG-affiliated Afrin Liberation Forces (ALF) claimed responsibility for the attack saying that they had engaged Turkish forces in the village of Gilbara in the district of Sherawa. The ALF employed at least 2 anti-tank guided missiles against Turkish positions.

Since the occupation of Afrin by Turkey in early 2018, the ALF and the YPG, with assistance from the PKK, have killed and injured dozens of Turkish troops and pro-Turkish militants with ATGM, IED, sniper attacks and ambushes. This situation, as well as regular clashes between members of pro-Turkish groups, demonstrate Ankara’s inability to establish proper security in the occupied region.

One of the key problems is the essence of pro-Turkish “rebel factions”, which are mostly infiltrated by terrorist ideologies and involved in organized crime activities.

Militants killed 18 soldiers and officers of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in an attack on the town of Atshan in northern Hama, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on June 25. According to the SOHR, militants lost 6 fighters.

The “Wa Harid al-Muminin” operations room, a coalition of al-Qaeda-affiliated groups, claimed responsibility for the attack. The coalition is led by Horas al-Din. It is known for being a close ally of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda).

The June 25 incident became the biggest clash between the SAA and militants in northern Hama since the start of the Russia-Turkey-brokered ceasefire there last week.

According to local sources, the sides used this time to reinforce their positions and prepare for further battles. It remains unlikely that a political solution of the situation in Idlib can be found while the zone is primarily controlled by al-Qaeda-style terrorist groups.

Armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) launched by militants attacked the Russian Hmeimim airbase in the province of Lattakia in the early hours of June 26. Local sources revealed that Russian air defense systems intercepted the UAVs, which were approaching the base. Later, the Russian military confirmed this saying that 2 UAVs were eliminated. No damage or casualties were inflicted by the attack.

Ferhat Abdi Sahin, Commander-in-Chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said that Syria would be a “failed state” without the northeastern region, which is controlled by the US-backed group. The Kurdish commander made the remarks during a meeting of the administration controlling the occupied region.

Sahin claimed that Syria must fully recognize the SDF-controlled administration in northeastern Syria and the SDF as a legitimate armed force fully responsible for the area if it wants to settle the situation via a political agreement. The Kurdish commander stressed that the SDF is stronger than ever, and claimed that ISIS is not posing a serious threat to the northeastern region.

This kind of demand, which would mean a de-facto recognition of the split of Syria and would officially put an end to its territorial integrity, is not likely to be accepted by the Damascus government. SDF leaders and political representatives, who once wanted to negotiate with Damascus, returned to such demands once it appeared that US troops are not going to withdraw from Syria despite Trump’s public declarations.

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Read part I, II, III IV and V from the links below.

Part I – On Global Capitalist Crises: Systemic Changes and Challenges

Part II – On Global Capitalist Crises. Debt Defaults, Bankruptcies and Real Economy Decline

Part III – On Global Capitalist Crises: US Neocons and Trump’s Economic and Social Agenda

Part IV – On Global Capitalist Crises: The Destruction and Cooptation of the Trade Union Movement

Part V – On Global Capitalist Crises: Resisting US Financial Imperialism in Venezuela

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Mohsen Abdelmoumen: Why in your opinion does capitalism generate crises?

Jack Rasmus: Part of the reason is the failure of economic theory today to understand how global capitalism has been restructuring itself in recent decades. This restructuring has rendered much of traditional economic theory irrelevant, in so far as understanding and predicting the current trajectory of the global capitalist economy.

My view is not the typical mainstream (e.g. bourgeois) economics analysis of what causes (i.e. ‘cause’ here means distinguishing between what enables, or precipitates, or fundamentally drives) a crisis. There are different ‘forms’ of causation which mainstream economists do not distinguish between, but which I think are necessary. I would not characterize my view as a Keynesian, Schumpeter, Fisher, or even an Austrian (Von Mises-Hayek) economist view.None of these mainstream approaches to economic crisis analysis understand finance capital or how it determines, and is determined by, real (non-financial) capital. They don’t understand how financial and labor markets have both changed fundamentally since the 1980s.Their conceptual framework is deficient for explaining 21st century capitalism and its crises.Nor is my view what might be called a traditional Marxist approach. It too does not understand finance capital.It too tries to employ an even older conceptual framework, from the 19th century classical economics, to explain 21st century capital and crises.

Mainstream economics focuses only on short term business cycles and fiscal-monetary policy measures as solutions. But short term business cycle fluctuations aren’t really ‘crises’. A crisis suggests a fundamental crux or crossroad has been reached requiring basic changes in the system. Mainstream economics doesn’t even raise this as a subject of inquiry. Reality is just a sequence of short term events patched together. Or it attempts to apply business cycle analysis, and associated fiscal-monetary policy solutions, to what is a more fundamental, longer term, chronic instability condition. Consequently it fails both at predicting crises turning points and/or posing effective solutions to them. The two main trends in mainstream economics—what I call Hybrid Keynesians (which is not really Keynes) and Monetarists along with their numerous theoretical offshoots in recent decades—are both incapable of explaining longer term crises endemic in capitalism that have required the periodic restructuring of the capitalist system itself over the last century. That is, in 1908-17, 1944-53, and 1979-88.

Marxist economists have fared little better understanding or predicting 21st century capitalism. This is especially true of anglo-american Marxist economists, although the European and others outside Europe have been more open-minded. Marxist economists do consider the problem of longer term crises trends but attempt to explain it based on the conceptual economics framework of 18th-19th century classical economics, which is insufficient for analysis of 21st century capital. They assume industrial capital is dominant over finance capital, that only workers who produce real goods explains exploitation, and that finance capital and financial asset markets are ‘fictitious’. Hobson-Lenin-Hilferding and others attempted to better understand and integrate the relationship between industrial and finance capital at the turn of the 20th century. This led to an analysis of what’s sometimes called ‘Monopoly Capital’, a school of which still exists today. But subsequent capitalist restructurings of 1944-53 and 1979-1988 in particular have rendered such a view and analysis inaccurate.A century later, today in the early 21st, the relationships between finance capital and industrial capital have significantly changed from how Marx saw them in the 19th century, as well as how Hobson-Hilferding-Lenin envisioned them in the early 20th. In other words, contemporary Marxist economists don’t understand modern finance capital any better than do contemporary mainstream economists. Moreover, they still insist on employing classical economics concepts like the falling rate of profit, productive v. unproductive labor, and try to explain 21st century money and banking based on 19th century financial structures.Nor do they pay much attention to the new forms of labor exploitation today or explain why the unions and social democratic political parties have declined so dramatically in the 21st century.

My critique of all these mainstream (bourgeois) and Marxist economic ‘schools of analysis’, and their numerous spinoffs and offshoots, is contained in Part 3 of my 2016 ‘Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy’ book. That book also advances the analysis I originally began to develop in the 2010 book, ‘Epic Recession: Prelude to Global Depression’. My books published thereafter, 2017-2019, subsequent to ‘Systemic Fragility’, expand upon the key themes introduced in ‘Systemic Fragility’. Looting Greece: A New Financial Imperialism Emerges, August 2016, expands upon analysis in chapters 11, 12 in ‘Systemic Fragility’, addressing financial restructuring of late 20th century capitalism. Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes (August 2017)expands on ‘Systemic Fragility’, chapter 14, on monetary contributions and solutions to crises.So does ‘Alexander Hamilton and the Origins of the Fed’ (March 2019), which is a prequel to ‘Central Bankers’ as a 18th-19th century historical analysis of US banking.And my forthcoming, September 2019, The Scourge of Neoliberalism book,will expand on Chapter 15 in ‘Systemic Fragility’ addressing fiscal policy, deficits and debt.

So all my work is an attempt at a more integrated analysis of 21st century capitalist economy, its contradictions, its increasing financial—and thus general economic—instability, the profound changing relations between finance and industrial capital, its fundamental changes in production processes and both product and labor markets, the increasing failure of traditional fiscal-monetary policies to stabilize the system, and the growing likelihood of a crisis coming within the next five years, or even earlier, that could prove far more intractable and deeper than even that of the 1920s-1930s.

The Three Restructurings of US & Global Capitalism, 1909-2019

Thus far, American capital, the dominant and hegemonic form of global capital over the last century, has restructured itself successful on three occasions: the first in the period just prior to world war I (1909 -1918) and during that war, as US capital ascended in the 1920s as a global player more or less equal to British capital. British capital in this period was eclipsed as hegemonic and had to share hegemony with American capital. In the wake of the second world war British capital was displaced by American as hegemonic, starting 1944 with the Bretton Woods international monetary system created by US capitalists, for US capital, in the interests of US capital.That second restructuring (1944-1953) began to break down in the early 1970s as global capitalist stagnation set in once again. That 1970s decade witnessed a general crisis of global capitalism, especially in the US and throughout the British empire (or what was left of it). But elsewhere among advanced capitalist economies in Europe and Japan as well.

A third restructuring was launched in the late 1970s by Thatcher and Reagan.Thisis sometimes called ‘Neoliberalism’ (a term I don’t like but use since it is generally accepted but is somewhat ideological). The third, Neoliberal restructuring re-stabilize US and global capital and expanded US capital, from roughly 1979 to 2008. It underwent a crisis with the Great Financial-Economic crash of 2008-09 in the US, and subsequent European and Japan multiple recessions and general stagnation that followed 2010 in the ‘advanced capitalist economic periphery’ of Europe-Japan which is now the weak link of global capitalism. Trump’s regime should be understood as an attempt to restore and resurrect neoliberalism—as both a restructuring and a new policy mix—albeit in a more violent, aggressive and nasty form of neoliberalism (2.0? perhaps).

I do not believe Trump will be successful in the longer term with this restoration. He’s had definite success with tax restructuring favoring capital, but is still contending with restoring monetary system to neoliberal principles (i.e. free money/low rates/low dollar value),and is in the midst of a major conflict and resistance to restore US hegemony in international trade and money affairs, in particular from China. Should Trump fail in restoring a harsher, more aggressive Neoliberalism 2.0, it will almost certainly mean a ‘fourth’ major capitalist restructuring will follow in the 2020s. That fourth restructuring will be even more exploitive and oppressive than Neoliberalism, especially for working classes as well as for US capitalist competitors in the advanced capitalist economic periphery and emerging market economies.

My Basic Thesis On Capitalist Crises

Is that capitalism experiences periodic crises every few decades (not ‘business cycles’ that may occur in between the crises but are not crises per se) and it must, and does, restructure itself periodically in order to survive.It creates multiple imbalances within itself whenever its shorter term fiscal-monetary policy solutions no longer are able to re-stabilize a system that grows increasingly unstable over time—i.e. a system which inherently and endogenously tends toward crisis periodically. Each restructuring, however, proves to have limits. Its effect at resurrecting capitalism inevitably dissipates over time, typically 2-3 decades.As a consequence of periodic restructurings, stability and growth is restored for a couple decades, but the fundamental contradictions that lead to renewed crisis arise and intensify once again during the periods of apparent growth and stability. Thus even basic economic restructurings as solution are temporary. Think of fiscal-monetary policy as solutions for only the very short term in the case of business cycles that are due to policy errors or other non-financial forces that cause ‘normal’ recessions. Think of periodic restructurings as producing solutions for the medium term (2-3 decades). But the capitalist system’s longer term crisis is that even periodic restructurings don’t prevent the inevitable crises from reappearing.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Jack Rasmus.

Payments can happen cheaply and easily without banks or credit card companies. This has now been demonstrated – not in the United States but in China. Unlike in the US, where numerous firms feast on fees from handling and processing payments, in China most money flows through mobile phones nearly for free. In 2018 these cashless payments totaled a whopping $41.5 trillion; and 90% were through Alipay and WeChat Pay, a pair of digital ecosystems that blend social media, commerce and banking. According to a May 2018 article in Bloomberg titled “Why China’s Payment Apps Give U.S. Bankers Nightmares”:

The nightmare for the U.S. financial industry is that a technology company—whether from China or a homegrown juggernaut such as Amazon.com Inc. or Facebook Inc.—replicates the success of Alipay and WeChat in America. The stakes are enormous, potentially carving away billions of dollars in annual revenue from major banks and other firms.

That threat may now be materializing. On June 18, Facebook unveiled a white paper outlining ambitious plans to create a new global cryptocurrency called Libra, to be launched in 2020. The New York Times says Facebook has high hopes that Libra will become the foundation for a new financial system free of control by Wall Street power brokers and central banks.

But apparently Libra will not be competing with Visa or Mastercard. In fact the Libra Association lists those two giants among its 28 soon-to-be founding members. Others include Paypal, Stripe, Uber, Lyft and eBay. Facebook has reportedly courted dozens of financial institutions and other tech companies to join the Libra Association, an independent foundation that will contribute capital and help govern the digital currency. Entry barriers are high, with each founding member paying a minimum of $10 million to join. This gives them one vote  (or 1% of the total vote, whichever is larger)  in the Libra Association council. Members are also entitled to a share proportionate to their investment of the dividends earned from  interest on the Libra reserve – the money that users will pay to acquire the Libra currency.

All of which has raised some eyebrows, both among financial analysts and crypto activists. A Zero Hedge commentator calls Libra “Facebook’s Crypto Trojan Rabbit.” An article in FT’s Alphaville calls it “Blockchain, but Without the Blocks or Chain.” Economist Noriel Roubini concurs, tweeting:

It will start as a private, permissioned, not-trustless, centralized oligopolistic members-only club. So much for calling it “blockchain”. … [I]t is blockchain in name only and a monopoly to extract massive seignorage from billions of users. A monopoly scam.

Another Zero Hedge writer calls Libra “The Dollar’s Killer App,” which threatens “not only the power of central banks but also the government’s money monopoly itself.”

From Frying Pan to Fire?

To the crypto-anarchist community, usurping the power of central banks and governments may sound like a good thing. But handing global power to the corporate-controlled Libra Association could be a greater nightmare. So argues Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, who writes in The Financial Times:

This currency would insert a powerful new corporate layer of monetary control between central banks and individuals. Inevitably, these companies will put their private interests — profits and influence — ahead of public ones. . . .

The Libra Association’s goals specifically say that [they] will encourage “decentralised forms of governance”. In other words, Libra will disrupt and weaken nation states by enabling people to move out of unstable local currencies and into a currency denominated in dollars and euros and managed by corporations. . . .

What Libra backers are calling “decentralisation” is in truth a shift of power from developing world central banks toward multinational corporations and the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank.

Power will shift to the Fed and ECB because the dollar and the euro will squeeze out weaker currencies in developing countries. As seen recently in Greece, the result will be to cause their governments to lose control of their currencies and their economies.

Pros and Cons

In a June 9 review in Forbes, Caitlin Long, co-founder of the Wyoming Blockchain Coalition, agreed that Libra was a Trojan horse but predicted that it would have some beneficial effects. For one, she thought it would impose discipline on the US banking system by leading to populist calls to repeal their corporate subsidies. The Fed is now paying its member banks 2.35% in risk-free interest on their excess reserves, which this year is projected to total $36 billion of corporate welfare to US banks – about half the sum spent on the US food stamp program. If Facebook parks its entire US dollar balance at the Federal Reserve through one of its bank partners, it could earn the same rate. But Long predicted that Facebook would have to pay interest to Libra users to avoid a chorus of critics, who would loudly publicize how much money Facebook and its partners were pocketing from the interest on the money users traded for their Libra currency.

But that was before the Libra white paper came out. It reveals that the profits will indeed be divvied among Facebook’s Libra partners rather than shared with users. At one time, we earned interest on our deposits in government-insured banks. With Libra, we will get no interest on our money, which will be entrusted to uninsured crypto exchanges, which are coming under increasing regulatory pressure due to lack of transparency and operational irregularities.

UK economics professor Alistair Milne points to another problem with the Libra cryptocurrency: unlike Bitcoin, it will be a “stablecoin,” whose value will be tied to a basket of fiat currencies and short-term government securities. That means it will need the backing of real money to maintain its fixed price. If reserves do not cover withdrawals, who will be responsible for compensating Libra holders? Ideally, Milne writes, reserves would be held with the central bank; but central banks will be reluctant to support a private currency.

Caitlin Long also predicts that Facebook’s cryptocurrency will be a huge honeypot of data for government officials, since every transaction will be traceable. But other reviewers see this as Libra’s most fatal flaw. Facebook has been called Big Brother, the ultimate government surveillance tool. Conspiracy theorists link it to the CIA and the US Department of Defense. Facebook has already demonstrated that it is an untrustworthy manager of personal data. How then can we trust it with our money?

Why Use a Cryptocurrency at All?

A June 20^th CoinDesk article asks why Facebook has chosen to use a cryptocurrency rather than following WeChat and AliPay in doing a global payments network in the traditional way. The article quotes Yan Meng, vice president of the Chinese Software Developer Network, who says Facebook’s fragmented user base across the world leaves it with no better choice than to borrow ideas from blockchain and cryptocurrency.

“Facebook just can’t do a global payments network via traditional methods, which require applying for a license and preparing foreign exchange reserves with local banking, one market after another,” said Meng. “The advantage of WeChat and AliPay is they have already gained a significant number of users from just one giant economy that accounts for 20 percent of the world’s population.” They have no need to establish their own digital currencies, which they still regard as too risky.

Meng suspects that Facebook’s long-term ambition is to become a stateless central bank that uses Libra as a base currency. He wrote in a June 16 article, “With sufficient incentives, nodes of Facebook’s Libra network would represent Facebook to push for utility in various countries for its 2.7 billion users in business, investment, trade and financial services,” which “would help complete a full digital economy empire.”

The question is whether regulators will allow that sort of competition with the central banking system. Immediately after Facebook released its Libra cryptocurrency plan, financial regulators in Europe voiced concerns over the potential danger of Facebook running a “shadow bank.” Maxine Waters, who heads the Financial Services Committee for the US House of Representatives, asked Facebook to halt its development of Libra until hearings could be held. She said:

This is like starting a bank without having to go through any steps to do it. . . . We can’t allow Facebook to go to Switzerland and begin to compete with the dollar without having any regulatory regime that’s dealing with them. 

A Stateless Private Central Bank or a Publicly Accountable One?

Facebook may be competing with more than the dollar. Jennifer Grygiel, Assistant Professor of Communications at Syracuse University, writes:

. . . [It] seems that the company is not seeking to compete with Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. Rather, Facebook is looking to replace the existing global financial system with an all-new setup, with Libra at its center.

At least at the moment, the Libra is being designed as a form of electronic money linked to many national currencies. That has raised fears that Libra might someday be recognized as a sovereign currency, with Facebook acting as a “shadow bank” that could compete with the central banks of countries around the world.

Caitlin Long thinks Bitcoin rather than Libra will come out the winner in all this; but Bitcoin’s blockchain model is too slow, expensive and energy intensive to replace fiat currency as a medium of exchange on a national scale. As Josh Constine writes on Techcrunch.com:

[E]xisting cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum weren’t properly engineered to scale to be a medium of exchange. Their unanchored price was susceptible to huge and unpredictable swings, making it tough for merchants to accept as payment. And cryptocurrencies miss out on much of their potential beyond speculation unless there are enough places that will take them instead of dollars . . . . But with Facebook’s relationship with 7 million advertisers and 90 million small businesses plus its user experience prowess, it was well-poised to tackle this juggernaut of a problem.

For Libra to scale as a national medium of exchange, its governance had to be centralized rather than “distributed.” But Libra’s governing body is not the sort of global controller we want. Jennifer Grygiel writes:

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg . . . is declaring that he wants Facebook to become a virtual nation, populated by users, powered by a self-contained economy, and headed by a CEO – Zuckerberg himself – who is not even accountable to his shareholders. . . .

In many ways the company that Mark Zuckerberg is building is beginning to look more like a Roman Empire, now with its own central bank and currency, than a corporation. The only problem is that this new nation-like platform is a controlled company and is run more like a dictatorship than a sovereign country with democratically elected leaders.

A currency intended for trade on a national—let alone international—scale needs to be not only centralized but democratized, responding to the will of the people and their elected leaders. Rather than bypassing the existing central banking structure as Facebook plans to do, several groups of economists are proposing a more egalitarian solution: nationalizing and democratizing the central bank by opening its deposit window to everyone. As explored in my latest book, “Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age,” these proposals could allow us all to get 2.35% on our deposits, while eliminating bank runs and banking crises, since the central bank cannot run out of funds. Profits from the public medium of exchange need to return to the public, rather than enriching an unaccountable, corporate-controlled Facebook Trojan horse.

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This article was first posted under a different title on Truthdig.org.

Ellen Brown is an attorney, founder of the Public Banking Institute, and author of thirteen books. They include Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age, published by the Democracy Collaborative in June 2019; Web of Debt; and The Public Bank Solution.  She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 300+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

It all started with the Vladimir Putin–Xi Jinping summit in Moscow on June 5. Far from a mere bilateral, this meeting upgraded the Eurasian integration process to another level. The Russian and Chinese presidents discussed everything from the progressive interconnection of the New Silk Roads with the Eurasia Economic Union, especially in and around Central Asia, to their concerted strategy for the Korean Peninsula.

A particular theme stood out: They discussed how the connecting role of Persia in the Ancient Silk Road is about to be replicated by Iran in the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). And that is non-negotiable. Especially after the Russia-China strategic partnership, less than a month before the Moscow summit, offered explicit support for Tehran signaling that regime change simply won’t be accepted, diplomatic sources say.

Putin and Xi solidified the roadmap at the St Petersburg Economic Forum. And the Greater Eurasia interconnection continued to be woven immediately after at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Bishkek, with two essential interlocutors: India, a fellow BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) and SCO member, and SCO observer Iran.

At the SCO summit we had Putin, Xi, Narendra Modi, Imran Khan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani sitting at the same table. Hanging over the proceedings, like concentric Damocles swords, were the US-China trade war, sanctions on Russia, and the explosive situation in the Persian Gulf.

Rouhani was forceful – and played his cards masterfully – as he described the mechanism and effects of the US economic blockade on Iran, which led Modi and leaders of the Central Asian “stans” to pay closer attention to Russia-China’s Eurasia roadmap. This occurred as Xi made clear that Chinese investments across Central Asia on myriad BRI projects will be significantly increased.

Russia-China diplomatically interpreted what happened in Bishkek as “vital for the reshaping of the world order.” Crucially, RIC – Russia-India-China – not only held a trilateral but also scheduled a replay at the upcoming Group of Twenty summit in Osaka. Diplomats swear the personal chemistry of Putin, Xi and Modi worked wonders.

The RIC format goes back to old strategic Orientalist fox Yevgeny Primakov in the late 1990s. It should be interpreted as the foundation stone of 21st-century multipolarity, and there’s no question how it will be interpreted in Washington.

India, an essential cog in the Indo-Pacific strategy, has been getting cozy with “existential threats” Russia-China, that “peer competitor” – dreaded since geopolitics/geo-strategy founding father Halford Mackinder published his “Geographical Pivot of History” in 1904 –  finally emerging in Eurasia.

RIC was also the basis on which the BRICS grouping was set up. Moscow and Beijing are diplomatically refraining from pronouncing that. But with Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro seen as a mere Trump administration tool, it’s no wonder that Brazil has been excluded from the RIC summit in Osaka. There will be a perfunctory BRICS meeting right before the start of the G20 on Friday, but the real deal is RIC.

Pay attention to the go-between

The internal triangulation of RIC is extremely complex. For instance, at the SCO summit Modi said that India could only support connectivity projects based on “respect of sovereignty” and “regional integrity.” That was code for snubbing the Belt and Roads Initiative – especially because of the flagship China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which New Delhi insists illegally crosses Kashmir. Yet India did not block the final Bishkek declaration.

What matters is that the Xi-Modi bilateral at the SCO was so auspicious that Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale was led to describe it as “the beginning of a process, after the formation of government in India, to now deal with India-China relations from both sides in a larger context of the 21st century and of our role in the Asia-Pacific region.” There will be an informal Xi-Modi summit in India in October. And they meet again at the BRICS summit in Brazil in November.

Putin has excelled as a go-between. He invited Modi to be the guest of honor at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok in early September. The thrust of the relationship is to show to Modi the benefits for India to actively join the larger Eurasia integration process instead of playing a supporting role in a Made in USA production.

That may even include a trilateral partnership to develop the Polar Silk Road in the Arctic, which represents, in a nutshell, the meeting of the Belt and Road Initiative with Russia’s Northern Sea Route. China Ocean Shipping (Cosco) is already a partner of the Russian company PAO Sovcomflot, shipping natural gas both east and west from Siberia.

Xi is also beginning to get Modi’s attention on the restarting possibilities for the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCMI) corridor, another major Belt and Road project, as well as improving connectivity from Tibet to Nepal and India.

Impediments, of course, remain plentiful, from disputed Himalayan borders to, for instance, the slow-moving Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – the 16-nation theoretical successor of the defunct Trans-Pacific Partnership. Beijing is adamant the RCEP must go into overdrive, and is even prepared to leave New Delhi behind.

One of Modi’s key decisions ahead is on whether to keep importing Iranian oil – considering there are no more US sanctions waivers. Russia is ready to help Iran and weary Asian customers such as India if the EU-3 continue to drag the implementation of their special payment vehicle.

India is a top Iran energy customer. Iran’s port of Chabahar is absolutely essential if India’s mini-Silk Road is to reach Central Asia via Afghanistan. With US President Donald Trump’s administration sanctioning New Delhi over its drive to buy the Russian S-400 air defense system and the loss of preferred trade status with the US, getting closer to Bridge and Road – featuring energy supplier Iran as a key vector – becomes a not-to-be-missed economic opportunity.

With the roadmap ahead for the Russia-China strategic partnership fully solidified after the summits in Moscow, St Petersburg and Bishkek, the emphasis now for RC is to bring India on board a full-fledged RIC. Russia-India is already blossoming as a strategic partnership. And Xi-Modi seemed to be in sync. Osaka may be the geopolitical turning point consolidating RIC for good.

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This article was originally published on Asia Times.

The recent Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing regarding oversight of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) failed to shed any real light on  details of the proposed 5G network as it received less scrutiny than expected given its highly anticipated, ubiquitous role in American life.

While the Senate Committee would be the logical committee to hold 5G hearings, it was curious that the Committee’s website does not specifically identify The Internet or Digital Communication or any other broadband subject on its list of committee jurisdiction.  The closest mention is “all matters relating to science and technology” even though the Committee has held a series of related 5G hearings beginning in late 2017.

Perusing the Committee’s schedule of hearings, the question remains how and when did the genesis of the 5G project occur?  While there were no introductory or oversight hearings on the  project as a stand-alone entity, it was as if 5G was a done deal. There have been, however, hearings that address individual items specific to the 5G project.  So the question is how exactly did such a complex 5G move so far, so fast without public hearings and little public awareness?   Exactly how did this juggernaut get rolling?  If the 5G project and its massive diabolical offspring came out of Silicon Valley, it would be curious that no representatives appeared before the Committee to take credit for introducing such a sophisticated piece of malevolence.

While the digital revolution ostensibly began in America in 1975, Israel has hosted Intel’s largest and most advanced development and computer chip manufacturing center in the world since 1974 specializing in IOT devices, AIs and cyber security while China’s leading telecoms Huawei and ZTE were founded in 1987 and 1985; respectively.

An Intelpromotional essay entitled “Intel Lays the Groundwork for America’s 5G Future” appears to answer the question of origination when it states:

“In preparation for widespread 5G implementation, Intel released theindustry’s first 5G trial platform in 2016. This made it possible for Intel to test 5G wireless technology across multiple U.S. markets, working closely with telecom equipment manufacturers such as Ericsson and Nokia.”

The same document goes on to suggest that “the nation’s 5G needs to be built by American innovators” that the “groundbreaking technology should be supported by lawmakers” and that “US competitiveness in key 4G technologies is essential to US leadership in 5G.” 

One interpretation of the above is that once Israel/Intel put the product together, it was then up to the US to sneak this technological atrocity past a naturally suspicious public, sell it to stressed-out skeptical citizens, line up the infrastructure, take it to market and deal with the political blowback.

By September, 2018, Intel announced that Nokia and Ericsson would partner to deploy 5G globally describing that, according to an Ericsson spokesman “for 5G we’ve been collaborating since four years back.” In other words, while 5G has been a gleam in Israel/Intel’s eye for sometime, there has been a sort of shakedown cruise to work out the kinks prior to introducing the project to the gullible Americans.

Clearly, the Senate Committee (and 5G proponents) were intent on bamboozling the American public, assuring that discovery of the project would come only after it was too little, too late.

The following hearings, some with obscure sounding titles, were vague enough to deflect public attention and thus escape public scrutiny.  The intent was to avoid public hearings specifically identified as the Big Overall Picture which would have opened 5G to a massive interrogation.  Such hearings would have stirred the American public in furious national outrage and provided them an opportunity to mount an organized, coordinated opposition – and it is not too late.

Clearly, if 5G represented such a social boon, a true benefit to American life as the proponents allege, the Committee would have acted with more accountability, more openness and transparency, a willingness to fully inform the public of its intentions. They did not do so.  Clearly, the Committee and its 5G proponents meant to preclude exactly the kind of national debate as it was their job to have initiated.

2019

• June 25 – Optimizing for Engagement: Understanding the Use of Machine Learning and Internet Platforms
• June 12 – Oversight of the Federal Commerce Commission
• May 1 – Consumer Perspectives: Policy Principles for Federal Data Privacy Framework
• April 30 – Strengthening the Cybersecurity of the Internet of Things
• April 10 – Broadband Mapping:  Challenges and Solutions
• March 26 – Small Business Perspective on Federal Data Privacy Framework
• March 12 – Impact of Broadband investments in Rural America
• March 7 – China: Challenge for US Commerce
• February 27 – Policy Principles for Federal Data Privacy Framework in the US
• February 6 – Winning the Race to 5G and the Next Era of Technology Innovation in the US

2018

• October 12 – The Race to 5G: A View from the Field (South Dakota)
• October 4 – Broadband: Opportunities and Challenges in Rural America
• August 16 – Oversight of the FCC
• July 31- The Internet and Digital Communication:  Examining the Impact of Global Internet Governance
• July 25- The Race to 5G:  Exploring Spectrum Need to Maintain US Global Leadership
• July 11 – Complex Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities:  Lessons Learned from Spectre and Meltdown
• June 19 – Cambridge Analytica and other Facebook Partners: Examining Data Privacy Risks
• March 13 – Rebuilding Infrastructure in America: Investing in Next Generation of Broadband

2017

• December 12 – Digital Decision Making:  The Building Block of Machine Learning and AI
• November 7 – Advancing the Internet of Things in Rural America

Clearly the 5G campaign has been in the Intel pipeline prior to 2016 which explains the sense of urgency for the FCC’s adoption of ‘fast lane’ approval processes.  The US was tasked in January, 2018 by a National Security Council 5G presentation to provide the necessary infrastructure requirements within a three year period in order to not lose the global initiative.

The mega-mammoth project is being sold to the American public as essential to modern life and deliberately focused on increased broadband network speeds, improved reliability and greater capacity including a connectivity to all that can be connected.  The mostly worthless  connectivity of all things is little more than a sham, a talking point that offers no real merit to American consumers.  The slick PR focus on broadband speed is a not-so-clever smokescreen for the sinister Massive Internet of Things (MIOT) and its fiendish compatriot, Artificial Intelligence.  The pretense is that faster speeds are far superior and very desirable, as if the current 4G LTE speed is somehow inferior or as if the public has been clamoring for faster speeds – neither is the case.  The truth is that 5G is much more than an irrelevant connectivity opportunity that begins with a digital transformation but rather provides an opportunity to transform humanity and civilization into a profound grotesque distortion of reality.

This level of razzle-dazzle has not been seen since taming the ‘peaceful’ atom opened the door to a radioactive world of nuclear weapons, nuclear waste and creation of a monolithic military industrial complex.  In return, the American public was promised low cost, reliable, safe electricity, all of which proved to be a blasphemous scam spawned by the snake-oil salesmen and neocons of the day – not unlike the 5G PR campaign we are witnessing today.

The creators of 5G are pinning their hopes on enough wirelessly addicted, self indulgent humans being open to the opportunity for new digital bells and whistles to take over every personal and professional task.  The success of 5G depends on human being willingness to acquiesce those burdensome tasks of setting a timer on the coffee brewer or starting the washing machine so that humanity will have more time to escape into virtual reality toys rather than taking a hike in nature.  Without explicitly saying so, the ultimate objective is to free humanity from the burden of personal interaction with the rest of humanity in favor of interaction with computerized machines or gadgets.  As if the need for human relationship is a genetic weakness, the true existence of human beings becomes extraneous as increased surveillance and monitoring of all daily activity is recorded.  As the State will monitor all thought, our personal bathroom habits, whether to become pregnant (or not) or personal private choices, all will be entered into a personal data registry – not unlike China’s ‘social credit score’ evaluating each citizen’s loyalty.  There will be no on or off switch as opting out will no longer be permitted.

The human heart of kindness, love and compassion will be but a memory of the past when our neighbors were our friends and our friends were like family and our family a scant remnant of a poignant reminiscence that has no authenticity.  These are not exaggerated forecasts of the future but a creepy reality check of what the Silicon Valley and apparently Israel/Intel techno twits have in store as humanity becomes complacent to its own basic life decisions and that of future generations.

To be continued…

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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 is a frequent contributor to Global Research. 

She can be found on Twitter @reneedove31

This writer remembers one afternoon in the late 70s. My business partner and I went over to the local pub for a sandwich and a brew. As we sat at the bar, the pub manager Bob turned on the television and announced “Stooge Time!” The men sitting at the bar all applauded, and we had to sit through this nonsense that was only funny and cute when we were kids.

Fast forward 40 years and one still has to sit through the nonsense when viewing mainstream news shows OR the Congress on -Span. Stooge time is once again the choice of the masses. First and foremost you have the millionaire and mega millionaire (so called) journalists who push across the news only fit for an empire. Most of what they shovel your way is Republican VS. Democrat food fights, never on the most important issues we working stiffs should be concerned with.

No mention of this obscene militarism and military spending (over 50% of our federal taxes) that bankrupts our economy. No mention of the need for real National Health Care for ALL without the predatory private insurers being involved. (Please note: Why should the millionaire and uber rich journalists care when they can easily afford what are labeled ‘ Cadillac health insurance plans’?)

Why should the Congress people care when it’s on our dime that they get great health coverage?

Moving on, issues like having the uber rich pay what their class paid in the 50s , 60s and 70s when the top federal income tax bracket was anywhere from 90% to 78%, and not the current less than 40% one. (Of course, NO ONE actually paid or pays what their bracket dictates- that is why they have accountants to chip away through deductions.) All in all, the stooges we see on the boob tube news shows and the floor of Congress really do not have a clue about what we working stiffs deal with. Yes, sincere politicians like Ms. Ocasio Cortez and Bernie Sanders (to name a few) do care, but they still reside under that ‘Big Tent’ corrupt party. As for the other party, well, they are so far removed from working stiffs….

This empire loves to have their bought and paid for media make heroes of uber rich celebrities, including our sports stars and politicos. Most of these people, even the few who truly care about we working stiffs, do NOT live as we do. They all don’t have to worry about being a few paychecks from the street, or about deciding how to care for their bodies and teeth for lack of viable and full insurance coverage. These folks won’t worry about feeding their kids properly or making the next mortgage or rental payment. All any of we working stiffs can get from the uber rich is the usual LIP SERVICE! Thus, phony populist demagogues like Trump (Make Amerika Great Again for the Few) and Obama (Hope for the Change that never comes) travel in the same circles… insulated from the rabble who continually vote and support them. Why not? After all, it’s Stooge Time!!

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Philip A Farruggio is the 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].

Featured image is from TruePublica

Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) skeptically welcomes the Trudeau government’s announcement of its new anti-racism strategy, which includes a definition of Islamophobia. Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez unveiled “Building a Foundation for Change” yesterday, a plan that allocates $45 million to fight racism through community initiatives, public education campaigns and combatting online hate. While CJPME is encouraged to see the federal government take steps toward addressing racism in Canada, there are still significant gaps in the strategy, which ultimately fails to enumerate any concrete actions on the urgent problem of Islamophobia in Canada.

The government’s anti-racism strategy comes as a response to the Heritage Committee’s M-103 report and recommendations, which called for a national action strategy against racism and discrimination. While the M-103 study was initially commissioned as a result of growing Islamophobia in Canada, CJPME notes that the new anti-racism strategy deemphasizes the challenges facing Canada’s Muslim community today. Instead, the strategy speaks only generally of the need to fight anti-Black racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-Indigenous racism, Islamophobia and other discriminations. CJPME President Thomas Woodley responded, “While any steps toward combatting racism should be applauded, the government’s new anti-racism strategy seems to be a pre-election marketing pitch that seeks to make everyone happy, and avoids any concrete commitment to action.”

CJPME welcomes the definition of Islamophobia in the strategy, yet notes that it fails to mention the racialized aspect of Islamophobia. That is, people who are not Muslim but are perceived to be Muslim also suffer from Islamophobia in Canada. Moreover, whereas the government’s strategy adopted a definition of anti-Semitism that includes hate towards Jewish “community institutions or religious facilities,” there is no similar provision in the Islamophobia definition.

CJPME asserts that there are clear actions the government could implement to take a stand against growing racism in Canada. First, the government could vocally condemn the bigotry that Bill 21 has enshrined into Quebec law. Second, the government could easily implement the M-103 Report’s Recommendation #30, which calls for a “National Day of Remembrance and Action on Islamophobia and other forms of religious discrimination.” CJPME notes that the government already has several recommendations against discrimination that they could implement– from the M-103 report to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report. CJPME calls the government to stop equivocating, and to take concrete actions to protect Canada’s most vulnerable minorities.

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Yes, I believe the US may never attack Iran. It is based on past experience that the US never attacks a state where it has a fear of retaliation. Iraq war was a good example where Iraq was blamed for possessing “Weapons of Mass Destruction”.  UN inspectors traveled to Iraq and investigated thoroughly and once confirmed that Iraq has no capacity to retaliate then the US invaded Iraq.

Before the invasion, the US identified disgruntle Iraqi’s and through a media campaign, launched a hybrid war, fake news, disappointments, anti-Saddam sentiments, anti-state campaign, etc, were bombarded and psychological warfare was created before the actual attack. Bombed from very high altitude, where Iraq has no capacity to retaliate. The infrastructure, command, and control were destroyed. The military might of Iraq was totally dismantled. Once the country was almost destroyed, ground troops, almost without any resistance conquered Baghdad. 

Libya was also not so different, in the first attempt, force Libya to dismantle its nuclear program, then ensured, Libya should not have any capacity to retaliate, then, through hybrid war, created environments suitable for the US invasion. Once everything was guaranteed a smooth invasion, the US attacked Libya.

While North Korea, really have deterrence, the US may never attack North Korea (NK). North Korean society is very much conservative and the US could not find any local network to work for them. The media is under strict control in NK, and the US failed to launch any significant hybrid war on NK. Moreover, while attacked Iraq and Libya, Russia and China were not in the mood to offer any resistance. But in the case of North Kore (NK), the US failed to get consent from China or Russia. That is why, in spite of the fact, the US wanted to attack NK, but may never be able to attack.

In the case of Iran, which is not a nuclear state, but one of the most resilient nation and can survive under any crisis, may retaliate. Definitely, it cannot compare with the US military might, but must be able to offer some resistance. The US is not in a mood to suffer even a smaller resistance. On the other hand, geopolitics has evolved as a multipolar world, the US may not be allowed to take any action unilaterally. Russia and China are in a situation, where their consent may be required in advance. The Russians and Chinese have heavy stacks in Iran and strategic interests. The Russians and China may not accept the US hegemony in this region. In the case of escalation of the US-Iran war, Russia may involve actively and openly. China may resist in its own manner but definitely may not allow the US to maintain supremacy in the Middle-East.

Iran downed the US drone, is a signal to offer resistance to a huge extent. Crucial consultations among Russia, Israel, and the US, is of high significance. G-20 may be an important platform to formulate a strategy to resolve the issue. UN and International community is also concerned and may play their vital role. Japan and Europe have stakes with Iran and their economy relies on imported oil and gas from the Middle-East, as well as the export of consumer products and daily used items to Middle-East. I fact, any destabilization in Middle-East may adversely impact not only the European Economy, but the global economy may suffer a lot. Furthermore, some of the European nations may not stand with the US in case of full-fledge war with Iran. The US has gained economic benefits already by selling huge amount of weapons to Arab world, by scaring them from Iranian threat. By actual war, the US may destroy Iran, but gained nothing economic benefits.

The real tension started on unilateral withdrawal of the USA from Nuclear deal with Iran. Iran’s nuclear deal was signed in 2015 by seven nations known as “JCPOA”. The landmark nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers – the US, UK, France, China and Russia plus Germany – saw economic sanctions on Iran lifted the following confirmation from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that sensitive nuclear activities are restricted in the country. Under the deal, Iran had to halt its nuclear program and the West had to remove economic sanctions on Iran. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has confirmed that there has been no evidence of violation from the Iranian side. All other nations’ part of this deal was satisfied with Iran and confirmed the compliance by Iran. Even the US Congress has not confirmed any violations yet.

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a PowerPoint presentation that persuaded US President Donald Trump to withdraw from the deal, something he had promised during his election campaign too. It was unilateral withdrawal and an open violation of the international treaty. Any sanctions imposed by the UN must be respected, but imposed by any single country or small group of countries, may not be considered binding on all other nations. Bilateral relations, cannot be imposed on the whole world.

I believe, the UN and the International Community must be given a chance to avert the big disaster. One possible solution may be the restoration of – JCPOA. Be Optimistic! Be Positive! Join us to pray and wish for guidance, wisdom and a sense of responsibility and struggle to avert any big disaster to humanity.

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Prof. Engr. Zamir Ahmed Awan, Sinologist (ex-Diplomate), Non-Resident Fellow of CCG (Center for China and Globalization), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan. E-mail: [email protected])

The G20 summit in Osaka, Japan is bringing together all the contradictions of an interconnected but highly fragmented world. The Middle East, or West Asia, is still in turmoil, and international terrorism keeps being a disruptive issue in many regions of the world. Moreover, China is under attack from the US, and is getting more support from the international community, as demonstrated on Sunday in Rome by the election of Qu Dongyu as director general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. The Chinese candidate received 108 votes, the US nominee had to be satisfied with just 12.

The G20 is the most representative political group at the world stage and will turn 10 in September 2019. The group represents 80 percent of global GDP and is a sign of a road toward a multipolar configuration of the world order, overcoming the anachronistic conception of the G7.

Founded as a reaction to the 1990s financial crisis, it represents a step forward to a holistic reform of international governance, giving a wider representation to the most populous developing countries within the framework of the existing institutional architecture.

Unfortunately, the US with some of its major allies is working in the opposite direction, in an attempt to re-establish a unipolar world through policies characterized by protectionism, boycott, military threats and bullying.

The last example is the aggressive posture toward Iran. What will happen in Osaka? What are the prospects for global governance?

The agenda of the summit is extensive. It stretches over global economy, trade, employment, health, innovation, development and environmental issues. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will try to promote the “Osaka Track” to take advantage of the summit in view of the upcoming elections. His focus will be on innovation in order to build a Society 5.0 (post-industrial), namely, to support a fair use of digital data, on the back of Artificial Intelligence, Inernet of Things, robotics and big data. The idea is to develop these innovative fields for human development by promoting a people-centric approach.

Potentially, much more revolutionary is the will to discuss the cryptocurrency issue, where Abe’s Japan wants to start discussion on the international monetary system, moving beyond Bretton Woods.

The topic is no longer avoidable because it is an existing phenomenon, and is also being promoted by some states, by Facebook, and in the near future by other key global corporations. States are jealous of their control over fiat currencies, but technological changes have already paved the way to new systems of payment. There is the possibility that Osaka will be a watershed in this historic development of financial markets.

There is possibility of deals on the sidelines of the Osaka summit, but not much hope that China and the US will make progress in trade negotiations.

The recent US State Department Report on religious freedom strongly criticizes China’s policies in Xinjiang, and the new Chinese tech firms on the US trade entity list is another unfair step against China – but also goes against the interests of the US business community.

Furthermore, the US and Germany’s proposals to table the Hong Kong issue during bilateral talks are equally absurd. Is Hong Kong an international issue? Not at all.

Surely, China, Russia and India will reaffirm a strong commitment to a multipolar world which is against protectionism and unilateralism.

These three powers will be supported by many other countries, not only BRICS, and the US will stand even more isolated.

Major tensions stem not only from trade, technological and monetary issues, but also from interference in the internal affairs of other countries.

In this sense, the US is definitely working against international norms and UN principles of mutual respect.

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This article was originally published on the Global Times.

Fabio Massimo Parenti is associate professor of Geography/International Studies (ASN), teaching at the International Institute Lorenzo de’ Medici, Florence. He is also member of CCERRI think tank, Zhengzhou, and EURISPES, Laboratorio BRICS, Rome. His latest book is Geofinance and Geopolitics, Egea. Follow him on twitter @fabiomassimos

Featured image is from VCG

Mohamed Morsi and Muslim Brotherhood leaders in prison in Egypt were given an ultimatum by top officials to disband the organisation or face the consequences, Middle East Eye has learned.

They had until the end of Ramadan to decide. Morsi refused and within days he was dead.

Brotherhood members inside and outside Egypt now fear for the lives of Khairat el Shater, a former presidential candidate, and Mohammed Badie, the supreme guide of the Brotherhood, both of whom refused the offer.

The demand to Morsi and Brotherhood leaders to close the organisation down was first outlined in a strategy document written by senior officials around President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi which was compiled shortly after his re-election last year.

Middle East Eye has been briefed about its contents by multiple Egyptian opposition sources, one of whom had sight of it and who spoke about it on condition of anonymity.

The sources told MEE they were aware of the document and the secret negotiations with Morsi before his sudden death in prison last Monday.

‘Closing the file of the Muslim Brotherhood’

Some details of the protracted contacts between Egyptian officials and Morsi over the last few months have been withheld for fear of endangering the lives of prisoners.

Entitled “Closing the file of the Muslim Brotherhood”, the government document argued that the Brotherhood had been delivered a blow by the military coup in 2013, which was unprecedented in its history and bigger than the crackdowns the Islamist organisation faced under former presidents Nasser and Mubarak.

The document argued that the Brotherhood had been fatally weakened and there was now no clear chain of command.

It stated that the Brotherhood could no longer be considered a threat to the state of Egypt, and that the main problem now was the number of prisoners in jail.

The number of political prisoners from all opposition factions, secular and Islamist, is estimated to be about 60,000.

The government document envisaged closing the organisation down within three years.

It offered freedom to members of the Brotherhood who guaranteed to take no further part in politics or “dawa”, the preaching and social activities of the movement.

Those who refused would be threatened with yet further harsh sentences and prison for life. The document thought that 75 percent of the rank and file would accept.

If they agreed to close the movement down the leadership would be offered better prison conditions.

Pressure on Morsi

Huge pressure was applied on Morsi himself, who was held in solitary confinement in an annex of Tora Farm Prison, and kept away from lawyers, family or any contact with fellow prisoners.

“The Egyptian government wanted to keep this negotiation as secret as possible. They did not want Morsi to confer with colleagues,” one person with knowledge of events inside the prison said.

As negotiations dragged on, Egyptian officials became increasingly frustrated with Morsi, and the senior Brotherhood leadership in prison.

Morsi refused to talk about closing down the Brotherhood because he said he was not its leader, and the Brotherhood leaders refused to talk about national issues such as Morsi renouncing his title as president of Egypt and referred the officials back to him.

The deposed president refused to recognise the coup or surrender his legitimacy as elected president of Egypt. On the issue of ending the Brotherhood, he said he was the president of all Egypt and would not compromise.

“This continued for some time. Efforts were intensified in Ramadan. The regime became frustrated and they made it clear to other leaders that unless they persuaded him to give up and negotiate by the end of Ramadan, the regime would take other actions. They did not specify which,” sources with knowledge of the events told MEE.

For this reason, the sources who spoke to MEE believe Morsi was killed and that the other Brotherhood leaders who refused the demand to disband the organisation are now in mortal danger.

Morsi died aged 67 last Monday shortly after collapsing in court where he was facing a retrial on charges of espionage. Egyptian authorities and state media reported that he had suffered a heart attack.

But concerns that the conditions in which he was being held posed a threat to his health had been raised for years by his family and supporters, who said he had been denied adequate medical care for diabetes and a liver disease.

One Egyptian figure said:

“My analysis is that they decided to kill him at that particular time (the seventh anniversary of the second round of presidential elections). This explains the timing of his death. The main reason they decided to kill him was that they concluded he would never agree to their demands.”

The document was not the first offer that had been made to Brotherhood prisoners by Sisi’s government.

Before the 2018 document, there had been two offers made to them: release on condition of not engaging in politics for a specific time, and release on condition of not engaging in politics, but being allowed to continue with “dawa”, or the religious life of the community. Neither offer had been taken up.

Morsi’s death has sparked strong public criticism of his treatment. Ayman Nour, a former presidential candidate and political opponent, said Morsi had been “killed slowly over six years”.

“Sisi and his regime bear full responsibility for the outcome, and there is no other option but international arbitration into what he was subjected to, medical negligence and deprivation of all rights,” Nour, who now lives in exile, tweeted.

Secrets to share

In the final moments, Morsi urged a judge to let him share secrets which he had kept even from his lawyer, MEE reported.

Morsi said he needed to speak in a closed session to reveal the information – a request the deposed president had repeatedly appealed for in the past but never been granted.

Standing before the court, Morsi said he would keep the secrets to himself until he died or met God. He collapsed soon after.

Earlier in the same court session, fellow detainees Safwat al-Hejazi, an Islamist preacher, and Essam al-Haddad, who served as Morsi’s foreign affairs advisor, asked the judge to consider holding court sessions less frequently.

Haddad’s son Abdullah told MEE he fears his father and brother Gehad, who is also imprisoned, will share Morsi’s fate.

“There are many others who are on the verge of death and unless the international community speaks out and demands others to be released, many more will die, including my own father and brother,” he said.

MEE has contacted the Egyptian embassy in London to ask for comment on the document and the negotiations between the government and Morsi and senior Brotherhood officials in the months and weeks before his death.

The Egyptian foreign ministry last week condemned calls by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for an independent investigation into Morsi’s death.

A spokesperson for the foreign ministry said calls for an inquiry were a “deliberate attempt to politicise a case of natural death”.

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“Don’t criticize what you can’t understand.”– Bob Dylan

In his iconic anthem “The Times They Are A-Changin’” (1962), Minnesota’s Bob Dylan immortalized the totally logical imperative (“don’t criticize”) that admonishes those who want to express their thoughts about an issue to keep their mouths shut until they have done the thorough research into the available unbiased science or history that might make clear what their stance should be before they spout off or blog about it or vote for some politician who has spouted off on issues he doesn’t understand. (By unbiased I mean that the science and history has not been influenced or re-written by some profiteering corporation or by those that are under the influence of those corporations.)

This essay is only partially about the highly-profitable over-vaccination campaigns conducted by Big Pharma and Big Medicine that are highly promoted by the “vaccinology-illiterate”. Sadly most of those illiterates don’t realize that they aren’t even close to understanding the totality of the real science that they are criticizing.

In fact there are very few scientists on the planet that truly understand the entirety of what could be known about vaccinology – and I admit that I am not one of them. But I have spent hundreds of hours reading and studying many books on vaccinology (many of which are in my personal library). I have also studied a lot of the journal articles and testimony of many vaccinology experts, and I also know that the so-called investigative journalists and trolls that are writing about the subject are actually illiterate about real vaccine science. In the process of criticizing what they don’t understand (and accusing those serious researchers who understand a lot more than they do) they are embarrassingly exposing their ignorance.

The subject of how to recognize a vaccinology illiterate individual would take a book-length treatise, but here are a small handful of tip-offs:

1) “Vaccinology illiterates” never mention the fact that vaccine manufacturers, in their clinical trials that they are obligated to do before applying for FDA approval, never do any testing on the safety or efficacy of their new vaccines when they are intramuscularly injected simultaneously with other vaccines(!);

2) When corporate “vaccinology illiterates” want to stir up the demand for more over-vaccination efforts, they repeatedly and endlessly have their equally vaccinology-illiterate journalist colleagues write about the latest viral infection outbreak (the one in New York only amounted to 900+ people out of a population of 302,000,000 over a period of 6 months!), and never mention that many of the victims had already been fully vaccinated;

3) Vaccine illiterate journalists never listen to or interview the parents of the thousands of children that have been vaccine-injured, vaccine-killed or have been afflicted with vaccine-induced autoimmune disorders;

4) Vaccine illiterate journalists, editors and publishers never interview the real unbiased vaccinology experts for their radio or television shows (check the latest hit piece from the BBC’s Claudia Hammond (with anthropologist Heidi Larson who has been hired by Wellcome Trust (which was acquired by vaccine maker GSK years ago) to start the Vaccine Confidence Project in England. Can you guess what the subject matter will be?

The hit piece can be found here.

5) To back up their opinions and bloggings on the safety or efficacy of vaccines, vaccine illiterates naively (or intentionally) use discredited sources of information that are supplied by profiteering corporate entities, paid-off government agencies or medical lobbying groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics that have serious conflicts of interest that they try hard to hide.

6) Vaccine illiterates never point out the following over-vaccination schedule for American children for 2019 that some vaccinology literate scientists project will cause a 50% incidence of autism spectrum disorders in American boys in just a few decades, that is, unless the once sacred Hippocratic Oath, the Precautionary Principle and the principle of Fully Informed Consent is somehow resurrected and then applied by the pediatric and medical communities;

Study this chart and understand that there are toxins in each of them, some of which have synergistic adverse effects.

Below is a short list of untrustworthy corporate influences that have gradually acquired almost total control over the public conversations concerning the endlessly increasing number of neurotoxin-containing and auto-immunity-inducing vaccines. Sadly, the many internet trolls make gleeful use of the skewed disinformation from these sources (the many internet trolls are not listed, they can usually be found at the very top of Google’s lists):

1) profiteering corporations (like the hundreds of Big Pharma and Big Vaccine companies)

2) co-opted, non-elected, governmental oversight agencies that happily take enormous amounts of money from profiteering corporations that the agencies naively deny affects their decision-making

3) profit-minded and professional career-protecting medical lobbying groups that try to deflect any and all evidence of the current iatrogenic disease epidemic (even beyond the over-vaccination epidemic) that is going on all around us

4) the Big Pharma-/Big Vaccine-influenced mainstream media that takes 70% of its revenues from Big Pharma’s profiteers (thus self-silencing themselves when their investigative journalists should be doing deep explorations and revealing important, unwelcome truths about our often corruptible nation’s corporate and governmental leaders [like Watergate and the Pentagon Papers, for example]);

5) the many “charitable” foundations formed by billionaire investors or their families who kind of like the tax exemptions . These non-profit foundations surely own shares in pharmaceutical and vaccine corporations; and

6) assorted hedge fund managers and Wall Street investment firms that don’t really care about the corrupted, unethical, short-term, clinical trials that Big Pharma uses to so fool the (Big Pharma-infiltrated) FDA into approving its potential block-buster products without any concern for the long-term adverse consequences of their investment decisions.

In the case of the exceedingly complex science (and history) of vaccinology, very few laypeople (and very few physicians, nurse practitioners or nurses) have done the work, partly because they have not been able to find the hundreds of hours that it would take to even scratch the surface of the real science. Physicians are hopelessly over-booked and also heavily influenced by the propaganda groups listed above. Besides, unbiased vaccinology is NEVER taught in medical school.

One of the common denominators in the current totally preventable crisis is the large number of “vaccinology-illiterate” entities that are “criticizing what they don’t understand”.

Dylan’s powerful poetic truism mentioned at the top of this essay should be adopted by all good people. To remind readers of its power, here is the fourth verse of that song:

“Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand.
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command;
Your old road is rapidly aging
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changing.

Dylan also had some important words for the profiteering elites discussed above in his 1985 song “When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky”:

He wrote:

“I saw thousands who could have overcome the darkness, but for the love of a lousy buck I watched them die”.

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Since his retirement from his holistic mental health practice, Dr Kohls has been writing the weekly Duty to Warn column for the Duluth Reader, Minnesota’s premier alternative newsweekly magazine. His columns, which have been re-published all around the world for the last decade, deal with a variety of justice issues, including the dangers of copper/nickel sulfide mining in water-rich northeast Minnesota and the realities of pro-corporate “Friendly” Fascism in America, militarism, racism, malnutrition, Big Pharma’s over-drugging, Big Vaccine’s over-vaccinating, Big Medicine’s over-screening and over-treating agendas, as well as other movements that threaten human health, the environment, democracy, civility and the sustainability of the planet and the populace. Many of his columns have been archived at a number of websites, including the following four:

http://duluthreader.com/search?search_term=Duty+to+Warn&p=2;

http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/gary-g-kohls;

http://freepress.org/geographic-scope/national; and

https://www.transcend.org/tms/search/?q=gary+kohls+articles

Last week Iran’s President Rouhani concluded a trip to Tajikistan to attend CICA. The visit of the Iranian president to Dushanbe came after a period of four years. The last meeting between the Presidents of the two countries was in September 2014. This time there was a visible thaw in relations between Tehran and Dushanbe. Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif had visited Dushanbe last month and Tajikistan’s Foreign Minister Sirodjidin Mukhriddin made a trip to Tehran, where some security and political agreements were signed.

In recent years, however, relations between the two neighbours have not always been cordial. In 2015, the main opposition party to Rahmon, Islamic Renaissance of Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) was banned. The process of banning IRPT was started in 2011 by the classified protocol No. 32-20. Bobojon Qayumov, speaker of the IRPT party told the author that an official letter by the prosecutor general’s office was sent to the party and given a ten – day deadline to stop activities by 5^th September 2015. However, the incident involving former deputy defense minister, Abduhalim Nazarzoda, which Rahmon’s government called a coup and opposition considered a state-backed plot to purge IRPT supporters, made it easier for the Tajik state to ban IRPT.

Thus began the souring of relations between Tehran and Dushanbe. Iran was traditionally the main supporter of Tajik United Opposition in the civil war of the 1990s. On the Tajik Peace Accord which was identified and submitted by the UN, Iran was also a peacemaker and guarantor for the treaty on the opposition side. It means that the opposition expected Tehran to protect their interests against possible betrayal by the Tajik state. Of course, the Russian Federation was on the other side. So, apparently Iran would be considered as an obstacle to Rahmon’s plans.

That was why Rahmon took aim at Iran during the first step of the September 2015 incidents and issues of IRPT. When IRPT leader, Muhiddin Kabiri, invited to attend International Islamic Unity Conference in Tehran, had a short meeting with Iranian Supreme Leader Seyed Ali Khamenei, it enraged officials in Dushanbe. Relations had gone only downhill from there.

Iranian businessmen were on Dushanbe’s list. Trade dropped from $165 million in 2015 to $92 million in 2018. Many Iranian government organizations and charities were forced to suspend their activities in Dushanbe – including the Imam Khomeini Relief Committee and the Cultural Center of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The flights stopped and lots of Iranian companies forced to leave Tajikistan. Some fake documentaries was broadcasted on Tajik state television blaming Iran for Tajik civil war!

It didn’t stop there. Dushanbe went on to blame Iran for terrorist attacks on its soil. In 2018, Dushanbe blamed terrorists were led by an “active member” of the banned IRPT who “underwent training in Iran’s Qom and Mazandaran” for an attack on foreign tourists. ISIS had claimed the attack soon and then released a video of cyclist killers’ pledging allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. However, Tajikistan dismissed it and pinned the blame on IRPT and Iran, while they knew that Qom is a central Shia city of Iran which could not be related to any ISIS ideology. Tehran summoned the Tajik ambassador and strongly objected Interior ministry’s statement. It was the first time that Iran reacted sternly to Tajikistan.

Tajikistan also worked to halt Iran’s full membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. After Iran’s nuclear deal and United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231, while China and Russia supported Iran’s membership to SCO, Tajikistan was the one which objected.

At this time while Rahmon tried to keep distance from Tehran by getting more friendly with Saudi Arabia, Iran tried to be patient and overlook Tajik mischiefs to focus and deal with more pressing issues of JCPOA and the Middle East. At the same time, Tehran also didn’t escalate disputes with Rahmon. While Iran was a potential destination for banned IRPT members, Kabiri stated that Iran was not prepared for hosting Tajik opposition in 2015 as in the 1990s.

However, with Trump’s withdrawal from JCPOA, Iran has looked more precisely at Central Asian neighbors including Tajikistan. A process of rebuilding the relations has started. The direct flights of Mashhad- Dushanbe has resumed after an eight month halt, Presidents and Foreign Ministers has met, former Deputy Foreign Ministers appointed as new ambassadors and the companies are coming back to resume bilateral trade and business.

The new relations of Dushanbe and Tehran is on a new platform. IRPT have always been part of Iran-Tajikistan relations after the peace treaty. But now it seems that we are facing a more non-ideologic and interest-based approach from Tehran by ignoring traditional partner (IRPT). It would considerably affect the relations in political, security and economic aspects. A significant decline on the depth of relations would be expected, which is desirable for Rahmon. IRPT as an Islamic and pro-Iran group, has helped Tehran to make a good image in mostly rural and traditional society of Tajikistan, in which the government has tried to ruin it in recent years.

But Iran has not disassociated from the IRPT and that’s a dilemma for the new relations. After Mukhriddin’s meetings in Tehran, while Iran was in holidays of Eid al-Fitr, Tajik foreign ministry website published a report of the visit. At the report, the foreign ministry claimed “the Iranian side stressed that it will prevent on its territory the activities of members and supporters of terrorist and extremist groups and parties, including the Islamic Renaissance Party”. But just before Rouhani’s Central Asian tour, the name of the IRPT was removed from the report.

It seems that while the Tajik state has repeatedly requested for absolute severing of Iran- IRPT relations, Tehran has not agreed to do so. But regarding Rahmon’s concerns as a sign of confidence building, Tehran might have reduced relations.

The other point is about the shift in power in Tajikistan. Since 2015, by purging the country of any opposition and 2016, May 22 referendum which paved the way for young Rustam, there are signs of preparing for a shift in power. In this way, Rahmon wants Iran on a favourable position with Rustam. The experience of the 1990s’ shift in power from Soviet to independent Tajikistan, made Tajik president to care about Iran. Tehran has still a considerable influence over Tajikistan and if it decides so can put Rahmon’s succession plans in serious trouble. On the other hand, Iran would wait to deal with new president on traditional relations, considering IRPT. While IRPT is getting more active in the EU by making coalitions such as the National Alliance, the President’s family is getting more and more worried, and hence they are trying their best to purge the opposition completely.

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Omid Rahimi is a Fellow at the Institute for Central Asia and Afghanistan Studies, Mashhad, Iran. His work and comments are published in Eastern Iran, Fars News, Journal of Central Eurasian Studies and Atlantic Council. He tweets at  @0midrahimi

The G20 Summit in Japan is important in and of itself, but far more significant are the many meetings that will take place between several world leaders at this event.

The G20 is always a newsworthy event that has grown in importance ever since this format was used to help coordinate a response to the 2008 financial crisis. The world’s leading economies have a stake in the stability of the international economic system, but this year that very same system is under threat as a result of the escalating “trade war” between its two largest economies. The US wants to create the conditions for changing the global supply chain, hence its tariffs and possibly other measures that it’s taking in pursuit of this end, while China is seeking to entrench itself as the core of the global economy through its Belt & Road Initiative (BRI). These contradictory objectives have led to much friction over the past year and threaten to cause immense consequences for the world economy, which is why this year’s G20 is especially significant.

While the casual observer will be waiting for the actual multilateral meeting itself to take place over the weekend, those who have been closely following events will have their eyes peeled on the other meetings that are also scheduled to occur between several world leaders, chief among them the one between Presidents Trump and Xi. The former threatened his counterpart with the immediate imposition of $300 billion worth of tariffs if he didn’t agree to meet, which was an aggressive signal of intent simultaneously designed as a form of psychological warfare against the Chinese leader. Trump is eager to clinch a deal for ending the “trade war”, though not because he’s desperate but because he’d like his envisioned victory to take place before the eyes of the entire world. There’s no better place than the G20 for that to happen, but the prospects are still slim.

Both sides have dug in the heels for what appears to be a protracted struggle for control of the global economy. The US doesn’t want to cede its dwindling leadership in this respect, ergo the efforts that it’s undertaken through the “trade war” to stem its decline and disadvantage its Chinese rival in order to gain a relative advantage. The People’s Republic, meanwhile, knows that Trump is expecting nothing less than its full capitulation, even if it’s done in a “face-saving” way to avoid embarrassing President Xi at home. In addition, China’s continued growth is dependent on securing trade routes for selling its overproduced goods to existing (Western) and developing (“Global South”) markets, with the former being more difficult due to Trump’s pressure while the latter has to contend with the Damocles’ sword of Hybrid War.

Instead of surrendering, China is seeking a creative solution to the stalemate that it’s in with the US, which is why its leader plans to convene a meeting with his Russian and Indian counterparts. RIC, the Eurasian component of BRICS, is statistically impressive given its members’ collective economic potential and enormous populations, therefore making it capable of affecting real change in the global environment. While there are unavoidable challenges to their multilateral cooperation such as the US’ efforts to “poach” India as its new “Indo-Pacific” ally for “containing” China, there are also certain commonalities between these three Great Powers that can’t be ignored either. Each of them has an interest in reforming the global economy in order to increase their role and that of their national currencies, which is something that the US opposes.

Accordingly, it’s entirely feasible that RIC might reach a pragmatic agreement to intensify economic cooperation with one another and expand their existing projects, though predictably stopping short of India’s participation in BRI, which is leverage that its leader could skillfully apply during his bilateral meetings with Presidents Xi, Trump, and Putin. In fact, it’s actually these bilateral interactions between the American, Chinese, Russian, and Indian leaders that will probably end up being the most important aspect of this event. While the RIC get-together shouldn’t be underplayed, it also shouldn’t be overestimated either, since the US will do its utmost to divide and rule these Eurasian Great Powers through Trump’s bilateral meetings with their leaders. That doesn’t necessarily mean that he’ll succeed, but just that that’s most likely his strategic intention.

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Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that the Donald Trump Administration is considering requiring any telecommunications firms that want to sell their 5G equipment in the U.S. to move their production outside of China.

The article says that the basis for this possibly forthcoming decree is the Executive Order that President Trump signed last month, which gives the Commerce Department until October to issue new rules in this respect. If true, then this is nothing short of a scheme to shake up the global supply chain, a U.S. gamble which will fail.

It can be argued that the entire trade war was initiated on this basis, with the U.S. imposing high tariffs on Chinese-produced goods in order to encourage this development. The zero-sum expectation was that companies in a complex relationship of economic interdependence with one of the world’s largest marketplaces would leave China in order to protect the profits that they’re making in the U.S. From an American strategic standpoint, this plot was thought to reduce China’s economic growth if enough companies left the country, but that evidently hasn’t been happening at the scale that they predicted which is why the U.S. is reportedly considering imposing new rules on the import of certain categories of equipment.

The Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation is held in Beijing from April 25 to 27. /CGTN Photo

5G technology is being exploited as the example to roll out what might be a new far-reaching policy of restricting imports on unproven so-called “national security” pretexts, with the precedent that could be established then being applied against an untold number of other products as well.

In preparation for this, the U.S. is trying to clinch trade agreements with possible re-offshoring destinations like India in order to facilitate the export of these formerly Chinese-produced products into the American marketplace on favorable terms akin to the ones that China used to enjoy before the trade war. For as ambitious of a plan as this may be, it could not realize its ends.

Just as many companies are in a relationship of complex economic interdependence with the U.S., so too are many of them in the same one with China, and America’s efforts to force them into making an artificial zero-sum choice between the two are an unnatural manipulation of market forces via tariffs and the aforementioned new import rules that are reportedly being considered.

Ideally, all companies would like to maximize their profits by selling to both of these leading markets, which is why they’re trying to find workarounds to Trump’s plans in order to avoid a disruption of business with China. It’s here where the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) can play an important role in helping both companies and countries balance between the two.

China has reached preferential trade agreements with many of its BRI partners, most of which aren’t restricted from selling to the U.S. through the imposition of high tariffs and restrictive import rules such as the ones reported upon by The Wall Street Journal.

Image on the right: U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai delivers a keynote speech at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, February 26, 2018. /VCG Photo

As such, companies looking to avoid the U.S. economic penalties against Chinese-produced goods yet still wanting to continue conducting business with the country could conceivably re-offshore to these said BRI countries, which would allow them to trade with both the U.S. and China while simultaneously contributing to the development of the mostly developing countries into which they’d be investing.

Pakistan, which hosts BRI’s flagship project of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, might be an attractive destination since it enjoys excellent trading ties with both the U.S. and China, as could Kenya, for instance.

The Trump administration’s intent in the trade war is to inflict damage on China’s economic interests, but the invisible hand of the market and the profit-driven motivations of the pressured companies could see this scheme fail by the development of Beijing’s BRI partners and the resultant strengthening of its visionary Silk Road system instead of only benefiting the U.S. and its allies.

Therefore, the U.S. efforts to shake up the global supply chain might not succeed in the end.

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This article was originally published on CGTN.

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.

All images in this article are from CGTN

The Western media has been boasting over recent protests in Hong Kong. Western headlines have claimed the protests have “rattled” Beijing’s leadership.

The protests have been organized to obstruct Hong Kong’s elected government from moving forward with an extradition bill. The bill would further integrate Hong Kong’s legal system with that of mainland China’s, allowing suspects to be sent to the mainland, Taiwan, or Macau to face justice for crimes committed anywhere in Chinese territory.

Since taking office, Trump yielded to White House hawks on issues of war and peace, favoring the former, scorning the latter.

He breached his campaign promises to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan and Syria, escalating war instead, including in Iraq by the rape and destruction of Mosul.

He vetoed legislation to end US involvement in Yemen and OK’d terror-bombing of Somalia while waging all-out war by other means on Venezuela and Iran — wanting their legitimate governments replaced by US-controlled puppet regimes, along with gaining control over their vast resources.

Like most of his predecessors, he promotes peace while waging war in multiple theaters, threatening more against Iran, what the late Gore Vidal explained in his book titled: “Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We (the US) Got to Be So Hated.”

The Pentagon operates globally, using hundreds of bases in scores of countries on every continent as platforms for endless wars of aggression against nations threatening no one.

The cost of this adventurism is staggering, countless trillions of dollars down a black hole of waste, fraud and abuse at the expense of social justice fast eroding in the US to benefit Wall Street and the nation’s military, industrial, security, media complex.

Iran is in the eye of the storm, Trump, Bolton and Pompeo threatening war on the country.

Trump is a geopolitical know-nothing. He showed profound ignorance of the fallout from wars, telling Fox News on Wednesday:

If his regime wages war on Iran, it “would not last very long” and won’t involve invading the country, adding:

“We’re in a very strong position…(W)e’re (not) going to send a million soldiers. I’m just saying if something would happen, it wouldn’t last very long.”

He also tweeted:

“Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration.”

The Islamic Republic never preemptively attacked another country — what the US and its imperial partners do repeatedly. Iran may be next.

Its ruling authorities vowed that if attacked by the US, it’ll hit back hard in response, including against nations allied with US aggression.

If things unfold this way, protracted full-scale war would likely follow with devastating consequences, something potentially far more serious than other post-9/11 US wars of aggression.

Trump has no understanding of what wars are all about, the death and destruction toll, how millions of noncombatants are harmed, why aggression is considered the supreme high crime against peace.

DJT is ignorant of international, constitutional, and US statute laws. No nation may legally attack another country except in self-defense, never preemptively, how all US wars are waged.

He’s profoundly ignorant about the Islamic Republic, tweeting:

“The US request for Iran is very simple – No Nuclear Weapons and No Further Sponsoring of Terror!”

In their annual assessments of global risks, the US intelligence community affirms no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program or intention to have one.

The US, NATO, Israel, and their imperial partners are the world’s leading state sponsors of terrorism, a scourge Iran abhors and is aiding Syria combat it.

Most Americans know nothing about the horrors their country inflicted on many others throughout the post-WW II era.

They’re ignorant about ongoing US imperial wars, naked aggression against multiple countries, new ones threatened against Iran and perhaps other nations, nor possible catastrophic nuclear war if things are pushed too far.

Authorizing wars without declaring them is longstanding US policy. Big lies launch and perpetuate them, terror-bombing a key way the US wages them.

Millions were slaughtered during Harry Truman’s aggression against North Korea, much of the country turned to rubble. US pilots exhausted targets to bomb.

From 1965 – 1973, eight million tons of bombs were dropped, threefold WW II tonnage, around 300 tons for every Vietnamese man, woman, and child. Millions died, including from banned terror weapons, in Cambodia and Laos as well.

Post-9/11 US wars of aggression took countless millions of lives from terror-bombings, ground attacks, untreated diseases, environmental degradation, starvation, and overall deprivation.

If the Trump regime attacks Iran, something similar to the above would likely follow, the mother of all post-9/11 wars becoming the mother of all high crimes during this period.

America’s ugly past heads toward repeating, a geopolitical know-nothing president perhaps on the cusp of OKing it.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Gage Skidmore

Iran is not provoking but is provoked by a group that wants a war between the U.S. and Iran.  Recently, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, and CIA director Gina Haspel all favored a military attack on Iran, in response to the downing of a drone.  However, the Pentagon officials had cautioned against an attack which could trigger a regional war of monumental proportions.

Pres. Trump does not want to start a war, but there is a group that is pushing him towards a reaction that would spark a war.  In April, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was speaking before the “Asia Society” in New York.  In that address, he warned that a group could be organizing a provocative event in order to escalate tensions between the U. S. and Iran.  However, he said Iran was prepared to react with restraint and patience.

Behind the scenes in the White House, there is a sub-plot running with an international cast of characters. The “B-Team” consists of National Security Advisor John Bolton, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and the UAE’s Mohammed bin Zayed.  They are perceived to be intent on pushing the U. S, and others into a military conflict with Iran. Bolton asked the Pentagon about possible plans, and he proposed hitting Iran with 500 missiles per day.

Saudi Arabia sent its intelligence chief and senior diplomat Adel al-Jubeir to London in order to pressure the UK government to strike Iran militarily, in the wake of Pres. Trump’s decision to abort the U.S. attacks.  They claimed to have fresh evidence against Iran, but the unnamed UK officials were not impressed. The duo’s next stop was Jerusalem, where they will meet with the Israelis and John Bolton.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Saudi Arabia on Monday, for talks with Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, before flying on for talks with the UAE’s Mohammed bin Zayed, who are all part of a coalition in favor of military action against Iran.

Iranian Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh asserted the U.S. Global Hawk drone and Navy P-8 aircraft, with a crew of 35 onboard, were violating Iran’s airspace.  According to the Iranians, a decision was made to down the unmanned drone as a warning, but to spare the manned flight.  It is further claimed that several warnings were transmitted to both aircraft prior to action on June 20.   Lt. Col. Earl Brown, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command denied that either aircraft was in violation of Iranian airspace.  However, the Iranian military issued a precise map of the tracking of both aircraft, and it appears there was a slight deviation.

During the Six-Day War, on June 8, 1967, the Israeli military deliberately attacked the USS Liberty, an American ship that had been monitoring the conflict.  According to testimony given by U.S. officials, the radio transmissions were as follows:

Israeli pilot to ground control: “This is an American ship. Do you still want us to attack?”

Ground control: “Yes, follow orders.”

“But sir, it’s an American ship, I can see the flag!”

Ground control: “Never mind; hit it!”

While the deck was still being strafed by the Israelis, Seaman Terry Halbardier ran out onto the deck with a reel of cable and attached it to the antenna so a “Mayday” could go out to the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean.  Although badly wounded by Israeli fire, Capt. William McGonagle was able to keep the bombed, torpedoed, napalmed Liberty afloat. The death toll was 34 crewmen, and 174 wounded out of a total crew of 294.  The Israeli false flag attack was meant to have the U.S. believe that Eygpt had done it, and a massive U. S. attack on Egypt would follow.  If not for the American sailor’s bravery under fire, no one would have ever known the truth.  Israel is capable of any false flag event when it stands to benefit.

$ 259 million dollars was donated to the Trump 2016 campaign by Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, Paul Singer and Bernard Marcus.  The group has publicly stated they support military action against Iran; Adelson publicly suggested the use of nuclear weapons and led a campaign to remove H. R. McMaster and have him replaced with John Bolton.  Pres. Trump is now campaigning for re-election and will be mindful of those donors.

Donald J. Trump campaigned on promises of peace, a good economy, bringing troops home, and a new deal with Iran, which would prohibit Iran from ever making a nuclear weapon.  The previous deal was time-limited, but Trump wants a binding agreement for all time.  He makes his own decisions and is willing to go against the hawks surrounding him??

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This article was originally published on InfoRos.

Yuval Noah Harari is an Oxford graduate and professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has written Sapiens, a book about our history, we are the sapiens as in homo sapiens. He traces time from when it began with the big bang, to our planet’s origin, the start of life, the prehistoric era when we shared space with six other near human species like the Neanderthals and on to today. To him, we are just another species on this planet and species come and species go. Although he sees Sapiens as the rulers of the world at the moment, he expects we will be gone in a century or so.

He writes about how living on this planet affects us and how we affect it.  He looks at how evolution created who we are and how we function. In 2010 researchers found that up to 4% of DNA in a large percentage of us is still Neanderthal. It makes us wonder, what happened to them? Why did we dominate?

Harari notes how we evolved from animals of ‘no significance’ to thinking beings, farming beings, creative beings and now scientific beings. He credits part of our success to our inventions; buildings, laws, language, mathematics and money to name a few.

He describes what he calls the fraud of the agricultural revolution. That occurred when man changed from hunter gathering to farming some thousands of years ago. He contends that it made life worse not better for average people. Folks who had been happy spending a few hours a day foraging and hunting, as their diets changed to what they grew, had to work longer. In the process, ‘we did not domesticate wheat, it domesticated us.’ We worked harder but with more risk. Where once if there were crop failures we would move on, now we would starve. Also, with farming came private land ownership and eventually the capitalist system.

The reasons for this review are two; one is economics the other is fun.

Harari refers to the economy a lot. Two chapters are explicit; The Scent of Money and The Capitalist Creed. Trying to incorporate Western economic assumptions into the theory of how we have evolved is a stretch. His discussion about how man learned to trade and that with trade came travel internationally are wonderful. He refers to the market assumptions of Adam Smith that fit with life in Smith’s era. He neglects to mention that Smith was a professor of moral philosophy and assumed people would act decently. And he misses the growth of corporations, which have no understanding of ethics.

He writes about the invention and use of money which has had a profound impact on our development. He does that well and, in my experience, not everyone can. As I was finalizing the section in my book on money, I sent copies of the draft to two senior Chartered Accountants, people who reported on money for a living, for comment. One replied that he did not want to believe that’s how money is created! – out of thin air – as Harari explains. The other said that he believed he had read almost every book written about money and it was his belief that no one understood it. Harari understands and explains it well.

Trade, markets and money have been real factors in our evolution. They are real factors, they are part of but they are not economics. Harari seems to assume that economics is a science. In real science ideas build upon ideas to create a world view that allows us to make predictions. When the economic collapse of 2008 occurred, the largest collapse since the 1929 depression, it was unpredicted.

In 2008 economics was then over two centuries old yet still so inept that it missed the onset of the largest global economic meltdown of our lifetime. Perhaps that’s why Alfred Nobel never created a Nobel prize for economics. (The bank of Sweden created a prize in memory of Alfred Nobel which they give out annually to bank friendly economists to create the illusion that their work is science.) As John Kenneth Galbraith once said: ‘The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable’.

The other reason for this review is devilment! Harari includes a lot about religion and although he doesn’t say so explicitly, he makes it clear that God is another of man’s inventions! We didn’t find god or discover god, we invented god or at times several of them. I wish he had used ‘Man Created God’ as a chapter title! The idea is throughout chapter 12 The Law of Religion, where he looks how we evolved from animism (when we thought everything had a spirit), polytheism (when we believed in multiple gods) and monotheism (one god, albeit in many configurations).

“History began when humans invented gods and will end when humans become gods” wrote Harari. This provides some insight into his next book: Homo Deus; A brief history of tomorrow, which has since been published.

Harari’s book is delightful to read, sweeping in scope, full of interesting ideas of history, challenging and includes a mixed bag of conclusions.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog: AnInsidersMemoir.com.

When the US plans war on a targeted country, it fabricates pretexts and seeks world community, congressional, and public support — establishment media backing virtually automatic.

Congressional authorization for war hasn’t been gotten since December 8, 1941, following imperial Japan’s Pearl Harbor attack.

All US post-WW II wars have been and continue to be flagrantly illegal. UN Security Council members alone have legal authority to permit one nation to attack another.

It’s permitted solely in self-defense, never preemptively, how all US wars of aggression are waged.

Iran is in the Trump regime’s crosshairs for regime change, things moving ominously toward war on the country based entirely on Big Lies and deception about a nation threatening no one.

Most Republicans support Trump’s drive to war on Iran. GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he’s open to a war authorization vote.

He opposes a National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) amendment to prevent war on Iran without congressional approval, falsely claiming it’ll undermine Trump given crisis conditions that don’t exist.

The vast majority of Dems supported all US post-WW II wars of aggression. It remains to be seen how serious they are about what’s covered below.

Dem Senator Tom Udall and GOP Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee proposed an NDAA amendment to prevent attacking Iran without congressional authorization.

Udall said it’s supported by “every” Senate Dem, and “(it’s) gaining increasing bipartisan support,” adding:

“Our Iran policy is in chaos, careening towards war and to change course the president should immediately fire John Bolton.”

His “long campaign for violent regime change has now pushed us to the brink — and as these internal disagreements spill out into the open, we are only increasing the risk of grave miscalculation, confusing our allies, and reducing any possibility of de-escalation and diplomacy.”

“(T)he Senate cannot continue to duck a vote on a potential war with Iran,” calling for McConnell to permit it. With a 51 – 49 Republican majority and at least two GOP senators against attacking Iran without congressional authorization, the amendment is highly likely to be adopted.

On Tuesday, House members Matt Gaetz, Ro Khanna, and 17 bipartisan co-sponsors introduced an NDAA amendment similar to the Senate one.

House and Senate amendments call for prohibiting funds for attacking Iran unless Congress goes along, saying as well that the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) cannot be invoked to justify war on Iran.

House members will take up the amendment during NDAA debate in July. It’s unclear if the Senate will follow through.

If voted on by House and Senate members, it’ll likely be adopted. Will it give Trump pause about attacking Iran?

He ignored joint House/Senate Resolution 7 “to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities in the Republic of Yemen that have not been authorized by Congress.”

He also ignored Senate legislation, invoking the 1973 War Powers Resolution. It requires a congressional declaration of war, or a national emergency created by an attack on the US, its territories, possessions, or armed forces, for the executive to deploy troops to engage in foreign hostilities.

Congressional members have done nothing to cut off funding for US military involvement in Yemen. Nor have they countered US war in the country by other means.

Bipartisan House and Senate legislation to prevent war on Iran won’t likely deter Trump from launching it because no US president was ever held accountable for attacking another nation — not by Congress or the courts.

Dems are as belligerent as Republicans, large majorities in both houses supporting all US post-WW II wars of aggression.

Will things be different if Trump OKs attacking Iran? Based on the historical record, it’s highly unlikely.

Failure to enlist allies for war on Iran other than Israel, the Saudis, UAE, some other Gulf states, perhaps Britain, and a few small Pacific islands the US controls isn’t enough.

Pompeo and Bolton reportedly seek at least 20 coalition of the willing partners for US war on Iran.

Falling way short could prevent it, not congressional action, calling for its approval that hasn’t worked before.

Attacking Iran preemptively remains ominously possible. If Trump yields to Bolton and Pompeo, the mother of all post-9/11 quagmires could happen with potentially devastating consequences.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

This weekend, a group of us drove around the site of Glastonbury Festival in Pilton, Somerset UK). We had an electromagnetic field radiation detector that was continually bleeping alarmingly and flashing red, indicating that the EMFs it was detecting were way above World Health Organisation recommended safety levels. They were penetrating on to the main road which runs past the site, and there were several hotspots in the quaint little village of Pilton itself, including the village hall and the Working Men’s Club.

A couple of weeks before, I had attended a meeting of Pilton’s parish council. It was standing room only as residents packed in to express their dismay about a telecommunications mast that had been erected, without any consultation with them, in the children’s skate-board park. Engineers had informed one of them that it was going to be made “5G ready” at the end of May, in time for the music festival.

We are now beginning to receive reports from inside the site of dangerously high levels of EMFs. On-site workers have been reporting bad headaches, nose bleeds and digestive issues. And this is all before the bulk of the campers arrive on Wednesday. So one can only assume that matters will get far worse once hundreds of thousands of smart phones turn up.

5G technology was installed at Glastonbury Festival this year by EE as part of a governmental agenda called 5G Rural First. This is a promotional push dreamed up by urbanite marketeers that purports to be about giving better internet access to country dwellers. In reality, though, good folks have paid £250 a ticket to be used as guinea-pigs in a 1.4 square mile test bed for an untested technology that could have serious implications for their health.

Partners of 5G Rural First include US telecommunications giant Cisco, Microsoft, the BBC and British Telecom, the owners of EE who are bringing 5G to Glastonbury Festival.

5G Rural First also has testbeds on the Orkney Islands and Shropshire and it claims its technology will help dairy cows perform better.

But they are ignoring the evidence of 230 scientists and doctors who are appealing to the World Health Organisation to move the 5G wireless signal from a Group 2B carcinogen to a Group 1, the same as asbestos and arsenic.

They believe that the dangers to health from 5G include increased cancer risk, cellular stress, harmful free radicals, genetic damages, structural and functional changes to the reproductive system, learning and memory deficits, neurological disorders, and negative impacts on general well-being. And the damage goes well beyond the human race; there is growing evidence of harmful effects to plants, insects and animals.

So where are the protests to halt this threat to our health and wellbeing?

Well, we cannot turn to Extinction Rebellion for help. Last month’s state-organised protests by their “actorvists” against climate change, which brought central London to a standstill, were to provide “hearts-and-minds” support for the zero-carbon-by-2050 promises made by Theresa May in the dying days of her premiership that, unwittingly or not, will bankrupt the country over 30 years.

One of Extinction Rebellion’s founder directors, Gail Bradbrook, went on to head up Citizen’s Online as a “digital inclusion strategy specialist consulting with a wide range of clients such as EE, London Connects and the Cabinet Office.”  There is also a former head of Exxon Mobil on its board as well as Lord Anthony Tudor St. John, a senior consultant to Merrill-Lynch and legal counsel to Shell. Shell is heavily invested in the satellite and aerospace industries which will be involved in the roll-out of 5G.

So what about the Greens? Surely they will be concerned about a new technology that will require the culling of thousands of trees, to successfully transmit its signals? Well, Caroline Lucas and Co were very late to the party. As recently as September last year, she was supporting the “smart agenda”, although the Greens are now talking about conducting a moratorium while the safety risks are assessed.

Glastonbury Town Council, made up largely of Greens, has also been foot-dragging on the issue. It is only now making efforts to catch up with the local grassroots anti-5G movement which had been vigorously trying to draw their attention to the problem for months. However, it is too little, too late. One of the worse EMF hotspots we found on Sunday was when we drove past the entrance to the Chalice Well Gardens at the bottom of Coursing Batch, just before the town.

Glastonbury Town Council is not responsible for the festival site at Pilton, which is in its own parish, and that is why so many of us attended their parish council meeting a few weeks ago. However, it has made no difference.

Michael Eavis, the festival’s farmer founder whose daughter Emily now heads up the four-day event, was leafleted by a local campaigner in Tesco’s the other day.

She said he got annoyed with her and replied:

“Young people are the cause. I bet you have a phone.”

In response, she pulled out of her bag a decidedly unsmart, out-of-date Nokia that, she informed him, was only used for emergencies.

Eavis then told her that he didn’t own a mobile phone. Make of that what you will.

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A special report in the Observer newspaper in the UK on 23 June 2019 asked the question: Why is life expectancy faltering? The piece noted that for the first time in 100 years, Britons are dying earlier. The UK now has the worst health trends in Western Europe.

Aside from the figures for the elderly and the deprived, there has also been a worrying change in infant mortality rates. Since 2014, the rate has increased every year: the figure for 2017 is significantly higher than the one in 2014. To explain this increase in infant mortality, certain experts blame it on ‘austerity’, fewer midwives, an overstrained ambulance service, general deterioration of hospitals, greater poverty among pregnant women and cuts that mean there are fewer health visitors for patients in need.

While all these explanations may be valid, according to environmental campaigner Dr Rosemary Mason, there is something the mainstream narrative is avoiding. She says:

“We are being poisoned by weedkiller and other pesticides in our food and weedkiller sprayed indiscriminately on our communities. The media remain silent.”

The poisoning of the UK public by the agrochemical industry is the focus of her new report – Why is life expectancy faltering: The British Government has worked with Monsanto and Bayer since 1949.

What follows are edited highlights of the text in which she cites many official sources and reports as well as numerous peer-reviewed studies in support of her arguments. Readers can access the report here.

Toxic history of Monsanto in the UK

Mason begins by offering a brief history of Monsanto in the UK. In 1949, that company set up a chemical factory in Newport, Wales, where it manufactured PCBs until 1977 and a number of other dangerous chemicals. Monsanto was eventually found to be dumping toxic waste in the River Severn, public waterways and sewerage. It then paid a contractor which illegally dumped thousands of tons of cancer-causing chemicals, including PCBs, dioxins and Agent Orange derivatives, at two quarries in Wales – Brofiscin (80,000 tonnes) and Maendy (42,000 tonnes) – between 1965 and 1972.

Monsanto stopped making PCBs in Anniston US in 1971 because of various scandals. However, the British government agreed to ramp up production at the Monsanto plant in Newport. In 2003, when toxic effluent from the quarry started leaking into people’s streams in Grosfaen, just outside Cardiff, the Environment Agency – a government agency concerned with flooding and pollution – was hired to clean up the site in 2005.

Mason notes that the agency repeatedly failed to hold Monsanto accountable for its role in the pollution (a role that Monsanto denied from the outset) and consistently downplayed the dangers of the chemicals themselves.

In a report prepared for the agency and the local authority in 2005 but never made public, the sites contain at least 67 toxic chemicals. Seven PCBs have been identified, along with vinyl chlorides and naphthalene. The unlined quarry is still leaking, the report says:

“Pollution of water has been occurring since the 1970s, the waste and groundwater has been shown to contain significant quantities of poisonous, noxious and polluting material, pollution of… waters will continue to occur.”

The duplicity continues

Apart from these events in Wales, Mason outlines the overall toxic nature of Monsanto in the UK. For instance, she discusses the shockingly high levels of weedkiller in packaged cereals. Samples of four oat-based breakfast cereals marketed for children in the UK were recently sent to the Health Research Institute, Fairfield, Iowa, an accredited laboratory for glyphosate testing. Dr Fagan, the director of the centre, says of the results:

“These results are consistently concerning. The levels consumed in a single daily helping of any one of these cereals, even the one with the lowest level of contamination, is sufficient to put the person’s glyphosate levels above the levels that cause fatty liver disease in rats (and likely in people).”

According to Mason, the European Food Safety Authority and the European Commission colluded with the European Glyphosate Task Force and allowed it to write the re-assessment of glyphosate. She lists key peer-reviewed studies, which the Glyphosate Task Force conveniently omitted from its review, from South America where GM crops are grown. In fact, many papers come from Latin American countries where they grow almost exclusively GM Roundup Ready Crops.

Mason cites one study that references many papers from around the world that confirm glyphosate-based herbicides like Monsanto’s Roundup are damaging to the development of the foetal brain and that repeated exposure is toxic to the adult human brain and may result in alterations in locomotor activity, feelings of anxiety and memory impairment.

Another study notes neurotransmitter changes in rat brain regions following glyphosate exposure. The highlights from that study indicate that glyphosate oral exposure caused neurotoxicity in rats; that brain regions were susceptible to changes in CNS monoamine levels; that glyphosate reduced 5-HT, DA, NE levels in a brain regional- and dose-related manner; and that glyphosate altered the serotoninergic, dopaminergic and noradrenergic systems.

Little wonder, Mason concludes, that we see various degenerative conditions on the rise. She turns her attention to children, the most vulnerable section of the population, and refers to the UN expert on toxicity Baskut Tuncak. He wrote a scathing piece in the Guardian on 06/11/2017 on the effects of agrotoxins on children’s health:

“Our children are growing up exposed to a toxic cocktail of weedkillers, insecticides, and fungicides. It’s on their food and in their water, and it’s even doused over their parks and playgrounds. Many governments insist that our standards of protection from these pesticides are strong enough. But as a scientist and a lawyer who specialises in chemicals and their potential impact on people’s fundamental rights, I beg to differ. Last month it was revealed that in recommending that glyphosate – the world’s most widely-used pesticide – was safe, the EU’s food safety watchdog copied and pasted pages of a report directly from Monsanto, the pesticide’s manufacturer. Revelations like these are simply shocking.

“… Exposure in pregnancy and childhood is linked to birth defects, diabetes, and cancer. Because a child’s developing body is more sensitive to exposure than adults and takes in more of everything – relative to their size, children eat, breathe, and drink much more than adults – they are particularly vulnerable to these toxic chemicals. Increasing evidence shows that even at “low” doses of childhood exposure, irreversible health impacts can result.

“… In light of revelations such as the copy-and-paste scandal, a careful re-examination of the performance of states is required. The overwhelming reliance of regulators on industry-funded studies, the exclusion of independent science from assessments, and the confidentiality of studies relied upon by authorities must change.”

Warnings ignored

It is a travesty that Theo Colborn’s crucial research in the early 1990s into the chemicals that were changing humans and the environment was ignored. Mason discusses his work into endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), man-made chemicals that became widespread in the environment after WW II.

In a book published in 1996, ‘The Pesticide Conspiracy’, Colborn, Dumanoski and Peters revealed the full horror of what was happening to the world as a result of contamination with EDCs.

At the time, there was emerging scientific research about how a wide range of man-made chemicals disrupt delicate hormone systems in humans. These systems play a critical role in processes ranging from human sexual development to behaviour, intelligence, and the functioning of the immune system.

At that stage, PCBs, DDT, chlordane, lindane, aldrin, dieldrin, endrin, toxaphene, heptachlor, dioxin, atrazine+ and dacthal were shown to be EDCs. Many of these residues are found in humans in the UK.

Colborn illustrated the problem by constructing a diagram of the journey of a PCB molecule from a factory in Alabama into a polar bear in the Arctic. He stated:

“The concentration of persistent chemicals can be magnified millions of times as they travel to the ends of the earth… Many chemicals that threaten the next generation have found their way into our bodies. There is no safe, uncontaminated place.”

Mason describes how EDCs interfere with delicate hormone systems in sexual development. Glyphosate is an endocrine disruptor and a nervous system disruptor. She ponders whether Colborn foresaw the outcome whereby humans become confused about their gender or sex.

She then discusses the widespread contamination of people in the UK. One study conducted at the start of this century concluded that every person tested was contaminated by a cocktail of known highly toxic chemicals that were banned from use in the UK during the 1970s and which continue to pose unknown health risks: the highest number of chemicals found in any one person was 49 – nearly two thirds (63 per cent) of the chemicals looked for.

Corruption exposed

Mason discusses corporate duplicity and the institutionalised corruption that allows agrochemicals to get to the commercial market. She notes the catastrophic impacts of these substances on health and the NHS and the environment.

Of course, the chickens are now coming home to roost for Bayer, which bought Monsanto. Mason refers to attorneys revealing Monsanto’s criminal strategy for keeping Roundup on the market and the company being hit with $2 billion verdict in the third ‘Roundup trial’.

Attorney Brent Wisner has argued that Monsanto spent decades suppressing science linking its glyphosate-based weedkiller product to cancer by ghost-writing academic articles and feeding the EPA “bad science”. He asked the jury to ‘punish’ Monsanto with a $1 billion punitive damages award. On Monday 13 May, the jury found Monsanto liable for failure to warn claims, design defect claims, negligence claims and negligent failure to warn claims.

Robert F Kennedy Jr., another attorney fighting Bayer in the courts, says Roundup causes a constellation of other injuries apart from Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma:

“Perhaps more ominously for Bayer, Monsanto also faces cascading scientific evidence linking glyphosate to a constellation of other injuries that have become prevalent since its introduction, including obesity, depression, Alzheimer’s, ADHD, autism, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, kidney disease, and inflammatory bowel disease, brain, breast and prostate cancer, miscarriage, birth defects and declining sperm counts. Strong science suggests glyphosate is the culprit in the exploding epidemics of celiac disease, colitis, gluten sensitivities, diabetes and non-alcoholic liver cancer which, for the first time, is attacking children as young as 10.

In finishing, Mason notes the disturbing willingness of the current UK government to usher in GM Roundup Ready crops in the wake of Brexit. Where pesticides are concerned, the EU’s precautionary principle could be ditched in favour of a US-style risk-based approach, allowing faster authorisation.

Rosemary Mason shows that the health of the UK populations already lags behind other countries in Western Europe. She links this to the increasing amounts of agrochemicals being applied to crops. If the UK does a post-Brexit deal with the US, we can only expect a gutting of environmental standards at the behest of the US and its corporations and much worse to follow for the environment and public health.

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

Featured image is from Consumer Safety

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“5G Ready”? UK Government’s “5G Rural First”: “Dangerously High” Levels of Electromagnetic Field Radiation (EMF) in Southern England.

By Annie Dieu-Le-Veut, June 26, 2019

Partners of 5G Rural First include US telecommunications giant Cisco, Microsoft, the BBC and British Telecom, the owners of EE who are bringing 5G to Glastonbury Festival. 5G Rural First also has testbeds on the Orkney Islands and Shropshire and it claims its technology will help dairy cows perform better. But they are ignoring the evidence of 230 scientists and doctors who are appealing to the World Health Organisation to move the 5G wireless signal from a Group 2B carcinogen to a Group 1, the same as asbestos and arsenic.

The Shameful “Deal of the Century”.

By Dr. Elias Akleh, June 26, 2019

The deal has been in development for two years and is eventually being unveiled this week in Manama, Bahrain after long periods of postponement.  It was headed by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, with the assistance of Jason Dov Greenblatt andDavid Melech Friedman.

NY Times Admits It Sends Stories to US Government for Approval Before Publication

By Ben Norton, June 26, 2019

The New York Times casually acknowledged that it sends major scoops to the US government before publication, to make sure “national security officials” have “no concerns.”

Reparations and the Liberation of the African American People

By Abayomi Azikiwe, June 26, 2019

154 years ago today in the state of Texas, Africans in this area of the United States were formally notified of their release from chattel enslavement, more than two years after the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation by the-then President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863.

How Evil Wins: The Hypocritical Double Standards of Political Outrage

By John W. Whitehead, June 26, 2019

No matter what the team colors might be at any given moment, the playbook remains the same. The leopard has not changed its spots. Scrape off the surface layers and you will find that the American police state that is continuing to wreak havoc on the rights of the people under the Trump Administration is the same police state that wreaked havoc on the rights of the people under every previous administration.

Canada: Lifting the Veil of Identity Politics

By Mark Taliano, June 26, 2019

Globalization does not serve public or human rights interests.  In fact, it erases nation-state sovereignty and democracy – fundamental preconditions for public interests and human rights — replacing both with totalitarian supranational diktats.  Sovereignty, democracy, and human rights are fabricated perceptions.

In Israel the Push to Destroy Jerusalem’s Iconic Al-Aqsa Mosque Goes Mainstream

By Whitney Webb, June 26, 2019

This ancient site that dates back to the year 705 C.E. is being targeted for destruction by extremist groups that seek to erase Jerusalem’s Muslim heritage in pursuit of colonial ambitions and the fulfillment of end-times prophecy.

Western Allies Terror-bombed 70 German Cities by 1945

By Shane Quinn, June 26, 2019

Hitler was in fact shaken by the devastation meted out upon the Reich by British and American aircraft – but what maintained his spirits during the war’s late stages was the great assault he was preparing to unleash mostly through Belgium: The Ardennes Offensive, which would send Allied armies careering back into the English Channel.

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Justin Trudeau is in over a barrel. In 2015, he made a deal with Alberta. He would get an oil pipeline built to a coast if the province joined his pan-Canadian climate plan. After his election this past April, Conservative Alberta Premier Jason Kenney ripped up Alberta’s side of the bargain and declared war on Trudeau’s climate plan.

What should Ottawa do now after being jilted by Alberta?

Should the Liberal government maintain its side of the bargain, and proceed with the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline from Edmonton to the Vancouver area and lose credibility as a climate warrior? Or should it kill the pipeline expansion now and say this was a bargain gone bad?

In the long run, the latter course would save Ottawa lots on further subsidies. But there’s that little short-run thing – the looming federal election on or before Oct. 21.

How could Trudeau explain taking a big loss of taxpayer money on a pipeline that no private sector investor would touch last year? Either choice will look bad. No good options is a predicament.

Kicking the can down the road beyond the federal election is one way out. But Natural Resources Minister Amarjeet Sohi promised a decision by June 18.

Remember Justin Trudeau’s grand entry onto the world stage at the Paris Climate Summit in November-December 2015? Canada is back, my friends. That was just six weeks after his stunning electoral upset, leapfrogging his party from third to first place, winning a solid majority.

In Paris, Trudeau and Environment Minister Catherine McKenna promised to catapult Canada from environment laggard under Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper to a global climate leader. While most rich countries at the Paris talks aimed to limit global warming to a 2 C rise above pre-industrial levels, Canada joined low-lying island states to champion a stricter 1.5 C global limit.

How then did Trudeau get stuck with a pipeline that makes no environmental or financial sense?

The pipeline is not going to change the fundamental disadvantages of Alberta’s oilsands. At $90 a barrel for new projects, their break-even cost is among the highest in the world. And their emission intensity is through the roof. Environment and Climate Change Canada scientists found that CO2 emissions were more than 60 per cent higher than industry had calculated.

The sands are in a remote part of a remote, landlocked province. Their main market – the U.S. – where 99.9 per cent of Canadian oil exports now head, is now their main competitor. The U.S. produces cheaper, lower-emissions oil.

The idea that the Trans Mountain expansion would open new markets in Asia is illusory. The price of heavy, sour crude oil in the Far East is $1 to $3 a barrel lower than on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Transport costs via the Trans Mountain line and tankers will be at least $2 a barrel higher to Asia. China does not have the capacity to refine bitumen. Besides, the world is swimming in light crude oil.

In recent years, only a few oil tankers have left Vancouver harbour. Most of that oil has gone to the U.S., not China. So the premise behind the Trans Mountain pipeline is faulty. The pipeline expansion will likely be a white elephant, owned or subsidized by taxpayers.

The pipeline expansion could cost up to $10 billion, in addition to the $4.4 billion purchase price that the auditor general said was $1 billion too much.

If by some miracle the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is built, gets filled to capacity and finds markets, it would encourage the production of 590,000 barrels a day more oil from Alberta’s sands. That would add another 13 to 15 megatonnes of carbon pollution.

So it doesn’t make environmental sense either.

The Trudeau government got a special exemption in the new NAFTA (USMCA) to enable it to subsidize the Trans Mountain pipeline.

Why would a government so publicly committed to climate action throw more good money at a dodgy pipeline expansion, especially when Alberta has torn up its side of the climate understanding? Better to cut your losses now.

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Gordon Laxer is a political economy professor emeritus at the University of Alberta and author of the Council of Canadians report “Billion Dollar Buyout. How Canadian taxpayers bought a climate-killing pipeline and Trump’s trade deal supports it.”

Featured image is from Canadian Dimension

A delegation of concerned downstream residents and elected leaders will be travelling from Minnesota to Toronto this week to raise concerns about a Canadian junior mining company’s plan to build a massive copper mine near a sensitive watershed in Duluth.

Amnesty International USA, the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, Duluth for Clean Water, Honor the Earth, and a Duluth city councillor are among the delegates travelling to Toronto for the PolyMet annual general meeting of shareholders on June 26.

PolyMet, a Canadian junior mining company traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange, has recently obtained the final permits to build the controversial NorthMet mine in northern Minnesota. The extractives company has faced community and Indigenous opposition, including several lawsuits aimed at stopping the risky proposal. The mine would be located near a sensitive watershed, upstream from Indigenous wild rice beds and from an ecosystem that connects to Lake Superior.

Among their concerns, the delegates fear a repeat of the Mount Polley mine disaster from 2014, when a tailings dam collapsed and destroyed B.C.’s pristine Quesnel Lake. The ongoing human rights impacts of this crisis – the worst environmental disaster in Canadian history – should serve as a warning for what could happen without adequate human rights due diligence and protections in place. PolyMet is also proposing to build on top of an existing 50-year-old mine tailings dam of the same design that recently collapsed in Brumadinho, Brazil.

WHAT: Rally, photo-op and interview opportunities with delegates travelling from Minnesota to raise awareness of PolyMet’s planned copper mine

LOCATION: Toronto Stock Exchange, 130 King St. West, Toronto, Ontario

DATE: Wednesday, June 26

TIME: 11 a.m.

*Delegates will also be available for interviews by phone or in-person while in Toronto June 25-27*

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Diplomacy has been seen historically as a practitioner’s art, nurtured in schools of learning, tested and tried in the boardrooms of mild mannered summitry.  Klemens von Metternich and Otto von Bismarck practiced it with varying degrees of ruthlessness and skill; the man who thought himself a modern incarnation of the Austrian statesman, Henry Kissinger, dedicated a text to the subject which has become the force-fed reading of many a modern student of international affairs. (Kissinger, for his part, was a pygmy shadow of his hero-worshipped subject.)

The Trump administration is supplying another version: diplomacy, not as subtle art but as childish outrage and pressings, brinkmanship teasingly encouraging of war.  The result of the latest round of bile-filled spats between Iran and the United States is that diplomacy has ceased to exist, becoming a theatrical show demanding the lowest admission fees.

On Monday, Washington announced that another round (how many will they be?) of sanctions would be imposed.  They are of a very specific, personal nature, though their effect is one of insult rather than tangible effect.  Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, deemed by Trump “ultimately responsible for the hostile conduct of the regime”, is the crowning glory of the list, as are his appointments and those in his office.  An important aspect of the sanctioning lies in the allegation that the Ayatollah has access to a vast fund that showers largesse upon the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps.

Some eight commanders of the Revolutionary Guard, including the commander of the unit responsible for shooting down the exorbitantly priced RQ-4A Global Hawk last Thursday, have also made the list. This effort was seen as proof that Iran’s air defences worked, a dastardly thing in the mind of any Pentagon wonk.  Jeremy Binnie of Jane’s Defence Weekly, throwing petrol on the fire, suggested on CNN that, “when the Iranians really make investment, it can really count”.

The response from Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani was one of seething displeasure, marked by a medical diagnosis.  The Ayatollah was a man of modest possessions, owning “a Hoseyniyyeh [prayer venue] and a simple house”.  Then came the snipe.

“You sanction the foreign minister simultaneously with a request for talks.  The White House is afflicted by mental disability and does not know what to do.”

Trump was obligingly apocalyptic.  “Any attack on Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force.  In some areas overwhelming means obliteration.”  Short of obliteration, US policy is designed to throttle, and, in so doing, create the pretext for war.

The tweets from Trump on Iran read like self-portraits of psychological affirmation, disturbed yet consistent.  Broadly speaking, they are also brief notes towards a character of the US imperium, suggesting the psychopath open to both sanctimonious violence and condescending dialogue.  “America is a peace-loving nation,” Trump assures us.  “We do not seek conflict with Iran or any other country.  I look forward to the day when sanctions can be finally lifted and Iran can become a peaceful, prosperous and productive nation.”  He insists that this could happen “tomorrow” or “years from now.”

Iran is the Rorschach inkblot, supplying the pattern upon which meaning can be imposed:  “Iran [sic] leadership doesn’t understand the words ‘nice’ and ‘compassion,’ they never have,” goes one remark.  “Sadly, the thing they do understand is Strength and Power, and the USA is by far the most powerful Military force in the world, with 1.5 Trillion Dollars invested over the last two years alone”.  The only thing Strength and Power comprehend in the shallow expanse of Trumpland are, naturally, Strength and Power.

This play of psychological mirroring also finds form in the utterances of US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, who seems to have turned purist on matters of budgeting and transparency.  Khamenei, he argues, “has enriched himself at the expense of the Iranian people.” His office oversees “a vast network of tyranny and corruption.”  No neater and concise description of Trump business practice could be possible, but here it is, being applied to a foreign power in terms more appropriate for an ascetic order of monks.

False empathy, doled out in spades, is also necessary: victims must be found, even as they are being victimised by the virtuous.  In one sense, Trump sticks to another traditional theme of US foreign policy, praising the people a policy punishes even as it seeks to distance them from the leadership.  Sanctions, blunt and broad, rarely find their mark, and usually fall indiscriminately upon the target populace.  “The wonderful Iranian people are suffering, and for no reason at all.”

The current round of sanctions, in any case, have been given the heave-ho in terms of effect by such figures as former Treasury sanctions specialist Elizabeth Rosenberg, who sees their application as being “in the realm of the symbolic.”  And what dangerous symbolism it is proving to be.

Wiped of history, the context of such sputtering is isolated, ignoring the bountiful US contribution to the creation of the Iranian theocracy.  The role of the Central Intelligence Agency in sending Iran’s Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadegh packing in 1953, assisted by their British cousins, leaving the way for a quarter century of byzantine, eccentric and occasionally cruel rule by Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, was deemed an exemplar of destabilisation.  Even then, the scribes of the CIA effort were alert enough to note that unintended consequences could arise from such enthusiastic meddling.  “Blowback” became intelligence argot, and after September 11, 2001, has become the signature term for the actions of aggrieved nations.  The effort to push Iran towards war even as tinfoil claims are made to embrace peace, sink under that realisation.

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

Much have been said and written about the so-called “Deal of the Century”, also called by different names depending on the perspective of different parties. The deal has been in development for two years and is eventually being unveiled this week in Manama, Bahrain after long periods of postponement.  It was headed by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, with the assistance of Jason Dov Greenblatt and David Melech Friedman.

Kushner is a young real-estate investor and developer, who was made Trump’s senior advisor. Kushner is still a young kid, a 38 years old kid maneuvering through adult world. He is politically inexperienced, and totally ignorant of the history of the Middle East. One wonders what kind of political experience he has to be nominated as senior advisor to president Trump. Kushner is an ardent Zionist Jew, who backs and finances Israeli settlements (colonies) in occupied West Bank. The Kushner family foundation contributed financial donations to the Israeli settlement Bet El.

Jason Dov Greenblatt was the personal lawyer for Donald Trump and The Trump Organization. After becoming president, Trump appointed Greenblatt as his advisor on Israel and assistant for international negotiations. Greenblatt is an ardent Zionist, who is a backer and financer of Israeli settlements (colonies) in occupied West Bank claiming that these colonies are not obstacles to peace.

David Melech Friedman was a bankruptcy lawyer and the chairman and president of The Trump Organization, who was appointed later by president Trump as the US Ambassador to Israel. Friedman is the son of a rabbi at Temple Hillel in North Woodmere, New York. He is an ardent Zionist Jew who supports and finances Israeli settlements (colonies) in occupied West Bank. In an interview with The New York Times June 8^th. Friedman stated that Israel has the right to annex parts of occupied West Bank.

Yet this Zionist Jewish team claims that it has an economic plan (Deal) to improve the lives of Palestinians by investing money (Gulf Arab money) to invigorate the Palestinian economy. They claim that this economic deal would eventually lead to a political deal that would lead to peace and prosperity. It is worth noting that this team does not include a Palestinian or even an Arab member, who would represent the Palestinian side. It is as if this Zionist team see themselves as “light onto nations” with their solutions believing that Palestinians are incapable of understanding or planning an economic plan for themselves.

Kushner’s team is approaching the issue with the mentality of a business transaction, where money can buy everything and the price depends on skillful negotiations. During a Reuter’s interview, whose reporter seems to boringly read questions from an already prepared transcript, Jared Kushner unveiled portion of his economic deal. He talked about “a global investment fund” of $50 billion used to lift the Palestinian and neighboring Arab States’ economies and a $5 billion fund to build a transportation corridor connecting the West Bank and Gaza.

Kushner explained that $25 billion would be spent in Palestinian territories over a 10-years period, while the rest of the money would be split between Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon to boost their own economies. Some of the projects would be in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, where Palestinians from Gaza Strip could benefit from.

The necessary funds for this plan, Kushner explained, would come from wealthy Arab Gulf States, nations from Europe and Asia (but not America), and from private investors. It is implied here that most if not all of the money would come from Saudi Arabia and UAE. Kushner explained that the international economic “workshop” in Bahrain on June 25^th and 26^th will bring together government and business leaders to launch the plan.

In this “Peace to Prosperity Workshop” or as Kushner called it “The Opportunity of the Century” compared to “The deal of the Century” Kushner gave a business presentation on developing the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Stating that Israel is not the problem he blamed the Palestinians for sabotaging previous political plans to solve the conflict due to their poor political decisions. Throughout his speech one detects that he believes that Palestinians are not well educated and are incapable of having a vision of prosperous future.

Kushner’s plan is built on the bases that building economy would lead to peace as he kept stressing in all his media interviews and in his presentation in Bahrain. Yet during his speech he contradicts this premise many times by sentences like “… if we have real peace and we don’t have fear of terrorism … then we can thin the borders and allow for much flow of goods and people”, and “… all these plans could be phased in real time if there is a real seize fire and real peace” and “ … how to make a safe environment so people can invest in the area” among others. Kushner’s economic plan puts the cart in front of the horse, for how a country’s economy would be developed if the government does not know where its political borders are?

The two business men: Mr. Stephen Schwarzman, chairman, CEO and co-founder of Blackstone Group, the world’s largest equity investment firm, and Mr. Mohamed Alabbar, the Emirati leading developer and chairman of Emaar Properties famous for building the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai, speaking as a panelist stated clearly that safety, security and the rule of law meaning peace are prerequisite for any investments. An independent country with secured border and a government are essential prerequisites for investment and building an economy.

Kushner kept pushing the statement of “help the Palestinian people” when what he really means is “help the Israelis”, who will eventually control all these projects as what had happened during all the previous peace agreements. This so-called economic plan (Deal of the Century) is the same as all previous economic and political peace agreements between Arab countries and Israel that promised peace and prosperity to the region. The 1978 Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, the 1994 Wadi Araba Treaty between Israel and Jordan, and the 1994 Paris Protocol and later 1995 Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO allowed Israeli goods through and in Arab countries improving Israeli economy but not the other way around. The Oslo Accords gave Israel total control of Palestinian economy; control over customs, taxes, agriculture, industry and all gates to the world economy.

To prevent Palestinian and Arab economies from competing with its own economy, Israel had violated all these treaties and had broken international laws. Israel would take control of all Kushner’s proposed economic projects built mainly by Arab Gulf states.

Kushner stated that his plan has two parts; the economic plan is the initial part followed by political part hoped to be released next November. Everybody knows that the political part had already preceded the economic plan when President Trump declared al-Quds (Jerusalem) as the capital of Israel, closed the PA office in Washington, withdrew support to UNRWA, recognized Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, and indirectly hinted that Israel should also annex large parts of the West Bank. This is Trump’s favorite mafia technique of imposing life threatening pressure in order to enforce his Deal of the Century.

Other leaked political plans for the region include forcing Jordan to give the fertile Baqoura area; where the Yarmouk River flows into the Jordan River, to Israel. In return Saudi Arabia would give Jordan part of its northern desert. Saudi and Emirati money would buy Al-Arish area in Sinai Peninsula south of Gaza Strip as well as Tiran and Sanafir islands at the mouth of Gulf of Aqaba leading to the Red Sea. According to Kushner’s plan a Saudi oil refinery and a water desalination plant would be built in al-Arish to benefit Palestinians living in Gaza. Tiran and Sanafir islands would be turned to and controlled by Israel, which gives Israel free access to the Red Sea. This territorial division will be the cause of even more future conflicts.

This Deal of the Century is similar to Sikes-Picot agreement, Balfour Declaration and all the other Arab/Israeli agreements, which in reality are progressive phases of implementing the Zionist Greater Israel Project. The main goals of this Deal are the elimination of the Palestinian refugee’s issue and the establishment and confirmation of the state of Israel as a legitimate state in the region, who could normalize relationships with some Arab countries and even become their military and intelligence partner against outside enemy; namely Iran. This also means the end of the two-state solution and making the PA an Israeli security apparatus keeping any Palestinian dissent into check.

The Deal of the Century was faced with strong rejection since its first inception by Palestinians as a whole including the PA and all the Palestinians factions. The Palestinian factions called for mass demonstrations in every city in the West Bank and in Gaza Strip starting on June 24^th and continue until the 26^th for the duration of Bahraini conference under banners calling “The Manama Workshop is Treason” and “Palestine is not for sale.”

The Deal was also rejected by all Arab countries and populations except by the leaderships of Saudi Arabia, its occupied Bahrain and the UAE. Mass protests have been taken place throughout the whole Arab world extending from the Persian Gulf all the way west through north African countries to Morocco on the Atlantic Ocean. In Bahrain, itself, every house raised the Palestinian flag in solidarity with Palestinians against Kushner’s economic workshop.

It is not just the Arabs who are giving the Deal of the Century the cold shoulder. The EU, who has always supported the two-state solution, had also rejected the Deal. High-ranking former European politicians; 25 former foreign ministers, six former prime ministers, and two former NATO secretary generals, signed a letter to the EU calling for the rejection of the Deal and the implementation of the two-state solution with Israel and Palestinian state living side by side.

This Deal is destined to fail. Even US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo acknowledged that the Deal will fail in a speech to Jewish leaders in New York calling it “a deal that only the Israelis could love” and admitted that the plan is “un-executable”, and “it may be rejected”

The economic conference will serve only to intensify the Palestinian and in general the Arab’s hatred to Saudi Arabia and UAE, who claim their goal is to help the Palestinians. If they really wanted to help they could have done so directly and without the American pro-Israeli mediation.

The Palestinians have learned the hard lesson not to depend on Arab leaders. The only method of liberating the whole Palestine and rebuilding their state is through armed resistance. They have done so generation after generation throughout the last 71 years. Last generation used stones and knifes, this generation is using rockets that could reach Tel Aviv.

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Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab American writer from a Palestinian descent born in the town of Beit Jala, Palestine. His family was first evicted from Haifa after the “Nakba” of 1948, then again from Beit Jala after the “Nakseh” of 1967. He lives now in the US, and publishes his articles on different websites. He writes mainly about Middle Eastern and Palestinian related issues.

Featured image is from The Unz Review

Anyone trying to understand what’s happening with the world’s energy systems right now can be forgiven if they are confused. On one hand, most people know about the climate emergency, and the need to move away from fossil fuels. On the other hand, we frequently see headlines about “record setting” levels of wind or solar power, how “coal is dead,” booming sales of electric vehicles, or how renewable energy is now cheaper than fossil fuels. Many stories in the second category suggest that the transition to a low-carbon economy is “inevitable,” or even “well underway.”

Sorting through all of this can be very daunting, especially for people who are not energy experts, but who are concerned about the climate crisis. For South Africans, understanding these issues is especially important given the country’s heavy reliance on coal, the serious problems facing the Electricity Supply Commission (Eskom), and the announced plans for its “unbundling” in order (among other things) to accelerate the shift to renewable energy sources. As my colleague Sean Sweeney has argued elsewhere, talk of “unbundling” Eskom is code for privatization: it is a well-established part of the privatization playbook of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

So what’s really going on? It is true that energy systems around the world are undergoing profound changes. Different countries are facing different challenges, and are tackling those challenges in different ways. But since the climate crisis requires global as well as local action, it is worth looking at the trends in order to understand the lessons.

Energy Demand is Growing Faster than Renewable Capacity

Despite “record setting” growth in renewables, the overall growth in demand for energy is larger still. In March 2019, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported that global energy demand grew by 2.3% in 2018 – the sharpest rise, and nearly twice the average rate, this decade. The surge was attributed to strong overall economic growth, as well as to record temperatures in many parts of the world, which raise demand for heating and cooling.

Electricity and Coal

While demand for all forms of energy is growing, what is happening with the power sector (electricity) is especially important. Moving away from fossil fuels will involve widespread electrification, dramatically increasing the need to generate electricity. Global demand for electricity grew even faster in 2018 than demand for energy overall, at 4%. And 42% of energy-related emissions last year came from the power sector.

Despite the closure of many coal plants around the world, coal remains the dominant fuel for generating electricity globally. On current trends, coal consumption is projected to remain at roughly current levels for many years. Although coal consumption declined for a few years, it actually rose in 2017, and again last year.

Coal consumption is growing dramatically in several large countries, mainly in Southeast Asia. China recently announced plans for at least 300 new coal-fired power plants – most of them outside China. Coal demand for power rose 2.6% last year, and CO2 emissions rose 2.5%, with coal accounting for 80% of the increase.

Where coal generation capacity has been replaced in the energy mix, it has mostly been replaced by natural gas rather than renewables. This is especially true for the world’s two largest emitters, the US and China.

From the perspective of climate change, this is bad news. Natural gas has been promoted as a “bridge fuel” between coal and renewables, because burning methane produces less CO2 than burning coal. But methane itself is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2 on shorter time scales – roughly 86 times more powerful on a 20-year time scale – and we are learning that methane leakage from fracking and other operations is significantly higher than previously recognized. It even exceeds any gains associated with burning gas rather than coal.

So what we are seeing is not a “transition to renewables,” but rather a reconfiguration of the world’s energy systems. Meanwhile, overall use of energy continues to grow, and no major fuel source is going away any time soon. In other words, not only are we not yet digging our way out of the hole, but we haven’t even stopped digging the hole deeper yet.

Time to Stop Digging and Inspect the Shovel?

How did we get here? In order to understand why the situation is so alarming, we need to look more closely at the policies that were supposed to drive the transition to a sustainable new “green” economy.

In March 2019, the IEA reported that the deployment of new renewable generation capacity “stalled” in 2018.

Why has this happened? As Bloomberg New Energy Finance reported in early 2019, investment in new clean energy capacity fell 8% in 2018 from 2017 levels – from $362-billion to $332-billion. This is very striking, given that we hear so frequently about “record low” prices for renewable generation, which we are told makes renewables more attractive than fossil fuels.

The problem is that the way these “falling prices” are typically reported ignores a crucial distinction: the distinction between the falling construction costs of the infrastructure, and the falling auction prices for the projects that are contracted.

It is true that the construction costs associated with building new renewable projects are falling; this is due to economies of scale, technological improvements, etc. But the competitive pressures of auction-based procurement are driving down the final auction prices even faster. This means profit margins are shrinking, and investors are turning elsewhere.

Crucially, this decline in investment has taken place at a time of very low interest rates. This is especially important because the cost of capital – the interest on money borrowed to build the projects – is by far the largest cost factor for renewable generation, accounting for three quarters or more of total project costs for wind and solar projects. So any rise in interest rates would act as a significant further brake on investment levels.

China to the Rescue?

We often hear that China has taken a different path, and indeed recent data from Bloomberg would seem to show that clean / renewable energy investment in China is continuing to grow (despite the fact that China is also building large numbers of coal plants):

Unfortunately, this apparent difference seems to be largely a matter of timing. In order to understand it, we need to back up a bit.

The initial boom in solar and wind capacity in Europe and elsewhere – the boom that has now stalled there – was largely due to generous, “come one, come all” subsidy schemes. These typically took the form of “feed-in tariffs,” where anyone who could afford to provide generation capacity could sign up and enjoy the guaranteed revenues. This generated a burst of deployment – so much in fact that it became impossible to accommodate all of the new capacity into existing grids.

It also led to exploding subsidy bills for governments. These costs were often passed on to users in the form of higher electricity bills, which led to skepticism about renewable energy and political pressure on government officials. This is why many governments shifted to “competitive bidding” systems, which allowed them to contain both capacity additions and costs – but also led to shrinking profit margins and the loss of investor interest.

That same pattern now seems to be emerging in China. On June 1, 2018, in an effort to contain ballooning subsidy bills and growing overcapacity, the country’s National Development and Reform Commission announced that, effective immediately, approvals for new projects had been “halted until further notice,” and tariffs for existing contracts would be lowered by 6.7 to 9 per cent (depending on the region). The announcement caused serious drops in share price values for Chinese solar companies, and industry observers slashed capacity growth forecasts for the year by as much as one-third.

“No Just Transition without a Transition”

The implications of these trends are profound. In order to have any chance of a just transition, we first need to ensure that there is a transition. The current, market-based approach to the energy transition has failed, and we cannot afford to wait any longer.

Unions and climate activists need to organize and mobilize for public and social ownership of energy, with real democratic accountability. Only such an approach can ensure a rapid but orderly transition to renewable energy – one that takes considerations of profit out of the equation, and puts workers and communities at the centre.

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Note: These following remarks were made by Abayomi Azikiwe at a public meeting held at the Cass Commons in Midtown on June 19 to celebrate the annual Cuba Caravan which arrived in the city at the invitation of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition. Rev. Dr. Luis Barrios of the Inter-religious Foundation for Community Organizations (IFCO) and a faculty member at John Jay College of the City University of New York (CUNY), was the featured speaker. 

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154 years ago today in the state of Texas, Africans in this area of the United States were formally notified of their release from chattel enslavement, more than two years after the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation by the-then President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863.

Africans were enslaved for 250 years in the areas now known as the United States of America.

The 13^th Amendment to the Constitution was introduced in Congress in January 1865 and ratified by the end of that year. The Civil War between the Confederate States of America (CSA) and the U.S. ended during the early days of April 1865.

The economic system of slavery connects Africans in the U.S. with Cuba, where involuntary servitude flourished for a period beyond what existed in the U.S. Slavery did not end in Cuba until October 1886. Slavery in Cuba had begun under the Spanish Crown in the 16^th century even prior to the advent of British colonization of Virginia beginning in the first decade of the 17^th century.

African people in Cuba and their counterparts in the U.S. have very much in common: a centuries-long struggle against slavery, colonialism, racism and imperialism.

Juneteenth and the Debate over Reparations

An historic hearing today on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. before the judiciary committee was illuminating. This debate on re-activating consideration for H.R. 40 comes at a time of much media focus on the upcoming 2020 national presidential elections.

This hearing came one day after comments by Kentucky Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell who said that he was opposed to any notion of reparations for the enslavement of African people in the U.S., since no one is alive today who were involved in the slave system which ended more than 150 years ago. McConnell went on to suggest that reparations had already been paid to African people in the U.S. throughout the passage of Civil Rights legislation during the 1950s and 1960s and the two-term presidency of Barack Obama.

McConnell continued by declaring that no reparations study legislation would pass as long as he was leader of the Senate. Consequently, the following day he was answered sufficiently by Ta- Nehisi Coats and Danny Glover who had addressed the hearings held earlier today.

Quite simply proponents of the passage of H.R. 40 noted that European Americans continued to benefit from the legacy of African enslavement. Other scholars over the previous decades of the 20^th century have chronicled the dialectal relationship between the super-exploitation of Africans and the rise of industrial capitalism.

All of the major sectors of capitalist enterprise including banking, commerce, shipping, steam technology and mass commodities production found their profitable origins within the economic system of involuntary servitude. Slavery laid the basis for colonialism in Africa and its contemporary iteration, neo-colonialism, is a direct by-product of the attempts by imperialism to maintain dominance over African land, resources and labor.

IFCO History and its Relationship to the Movement in Detroit

Image on the right: Cuban President Fidel Castro and Rev. Dr. Lucius Walker

IFCO has a long history in partnership with the activists’ community in Detroit. 50 years ago in late April 1969, the National Black Economic Development Conference (NBEDC) was held at Wayne State University. Organized by the late IFCO founder Rev. Dr. Lucius Walker along with local and national organizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers (LRBW), the conference set off alarm bells among the ruling class interests in the U.S. and internationally.

This conference was the backdrop for one of the first comprehensive calls for reparations in the modern era. Dr. James Forman, the former Executive Secretary and later International Affairs Director of SNCC issued the Black Manifesto at the NBEDC on April 26, 1969. The document issued by Forman was adopted by the NBEDC which demanded between $500 million to $3 billion in reparations from white Christian churches and Jewish Synagogues in order to establish a host of institutional projects aimed at the liberation of the African American people.

Image below: James Forman and Lucius Walker, 1969

Following the conclusion of the NBEDC, Forman on May 4, interrupted services at the Riverside Church in New York City to read the Black Manifesto. The events of April and May 1969 gained worldwide press coverage thrusting Forman into the media spotlight once again.

Recent Alliance Work with IFCO in Detroit

The late Rev. Dr. Walker was our guest at the annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Rally & March in January of 2008. Following the lead of the IFCO founder in cooperation with former City Councilwoman Jo Ann Watson, we formed the Doctors for Detroit Committee which provided assistance for a number of students from the city to study at the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM).

Just two years later in January of 2010, Rev. Thomas E. Smith of IFCO, who recently joined the ancestral realm, served as the keynote speaker for MLK Day in Detroit. This event paid tribute to the late Rev. Dr. Walker and his work on behalf of African and oppressed people worldwide from the U.S. to Central America, Palestine, Southern Africa and Cuba.

Earlier this year, in January 2019, the current IFCO Director Ms. Gail Walker, the daughter of Rev. Dr. Walker, served as our keynote speaker for MLK Day held at the Historic St. Matthews-St. Joseph’s Church in the North End section of Detroit. During this event we commemorated the legacy of MLK and the 50^th anniversary of the NBEDC along with the Black Manifesto.

Tonight we are honored to have Dr. Luis Barrios of New York City. As a board member of IFCO and professor at John Jay College at CUNY, he is well equipped to continue the legacy of Rev. Dr. Walker, Rev. Smith among others.

Abayomi Azikiwe with Moratorium NOW! Coalition members and supporters at the Cuba Caravan public meeting featuring Dr. Luis Barrios, June 19, 2019

The Cuba Caravan has come to Detroit every year as an act of solidarity and defiance. We here are committed to strengthening our work demanding the removal of the illegal and unjust blockade of Cuba by the U.S.

Cuba, only 90 miles off the coast of Florida, is a proud socialist country committed to building a better future for its people and the working and oppressed masses around the globe. Cuban internationalists were instrumental in the liberation of Africa from the nation of Algeria in the early 1960s to sending hundreds of thousands of its own military personnel to Angola in the struggle to defeat the racist South African Defense Forces (SADF) from 1975 to 1989.

In recent years Cuba has educated thousands of African and Latin American medical students creating the ability of these youth to serve their people on a scientific and principled basis in building independent and united continents. The intervention of Cuban medical personnel during 2014-2015 played a critical role in arresting the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) pandemic in three West African states: Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea-Conakry. These accomplishments have been recognized internationally including by the government of the U.S. Similar efforts have also been noted by the Republic of Mozambique when Cuban health specialists assisted in recovery work stemming from the devastating impact of Cyclones Idai and Kenneth earlier this year.

Therefore, we will continue in alliance with IFCO until the blockade is totally lifted and the people of the U.S. and Cuba are able to enjoy full and unprejudiced relations moving into the future.

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This text was presented by Abayomi Azikiwe at a public meeting held at the Cass Commons in Midtown on June 19 to celebrate the annual Cuba Caravan which arrived in the city at the invitation of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition. Rev. Dr. Luis Barrios of the Inter-religious Foundation for Community Organizations (IFCO) and a faculty member at John Jay College of the City University of New York (CUNY), was the featured speaker. Dr. Barrios is a board member of IFCO and a Puerto Rican national. He addressed the ongoing hostility of Washington towards Cuba and the necessity of solidarity with the Caribbean island-nation which provides a revolutionary example for oppressed and struggling peoples throughout the world. This meeting coincided with the African American national commemoration of Juneteenth Day.

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

All images in this article are from the author

Chronic human rights violator Saudi Arabia is using American-made weapons against civilians in the fifth-poorest nation in the world, Yemen. And make no mistake: U.S. defense contractors and their lobbyists and supporters in government are getting rich in the process.

“Our role is not to make policy, our role is to comply with it,” John Harris, CEO of defense contractor Raytheon International, said to CNBC in February.

But his statement vastly understates the role that defense contractors and lobbyists play in Washington’s halls of power, where their influence on policy directly impacts their bottom lines.

Since 2015, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have waged war against Yemen, killing and injuring thousands of Yemeni civilians. An estimated 90,000 people have been killed, according to one international tracker. By December 2017, the number of cholera cases in Yemen had surged past one million, the largest such outbreak in modern history. An estimated 113,000 children have died since April 2018 from war-related starvation and disease. The United Nations calls the situation in Yemen the largest humanitarian crisis on earth, as over 14 million face starvation.

The majority of the 6,872 Yemeni civilians killed and 10,768 wounded have been victims of Saudi-led coalition airstrikes, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). Nearly 90 coalition airstrikes have hit homes, schools, markets, hospitals, and mosques since 2015, according to Human Rights Watch. In 2018, the coalition bombed a wedding, killing 22 people, including eight children. Another strike hit a bus, killing at least 26 children.

American-origin munitions produced by companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Raytheon were identified at the site of over two dozen attacks throughout Yemen. Indeed, the United States is the single largest arms supplier to the Middle East and has been for decades, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.

From 2014 to 2018, the United States supplied 68 percent of Saudi Arabia’s arms imports, 64 percent of the UAE’s imports, and 65 percent of Qatar’s imports. Some of this weaponry was subsequently stolen or sold to al-Qaeda linked groups in the Arabian Peninsula, where they could be used against the U.S. military, according to reports.

The Saudi use of U.S.-made jets, bombs, and missiles against Yemeni civilian centers constitutes a war crime. It was an American laser-guided MK-82 bomb that killed the children on the bus; Raytheon’s technology killed the 22 people attending the wedding in 2018 as well as a family traveling in their car; and another American-made MK-82 bomb ended the lives of at least 80 men, women, and children in a Yemeni marketplace in March 2016.

Yet American defense contractors continue to spend millions of dollars to lobby Washington to maintain the flow of arms to these countries. 

“Companies like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, and other defense contractors see countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE as huge potential markets,” Stephen Miles, director of Win Without War, told TAC. “They see them as massive opportunities to make a lot of money; that’s why they’re investing billions and billions of dollars. This is a huge revenue stream to these companies.”

Boeing, Raytheon, and General Dynamics have all highlighted business with Saudi Arabia in their shareholder reports.

“Operations and maintenance have become a very profitable niche market for U.S. corporations,” said Richard Aboulafia, a vice president at Teal Group.

He added that defense contractors can make as much as 150 percent more profit off of operations and maintenance than from the original arms sale. U.S. weapons supply 57 percent of the military aircraft used by the Royal Saudi Air Force, and mechanics and technicians hired by American companies repair and maintain their fighter jets and helicopters.

In 2018 alone, the United States made $4.5 billion worth of arms deals to Saudi Arabia and $1.2 billion to the United Arab Emirates, a report by William Hartung and Christina Arabia found.

From the report:

“Lockheed Martin…was involved in deals worth $25 billion; Boeing, $7.1 billion in deals; Raytheon, $5.5 billion in deals; Northrop Grumman had one deal worth $2.5 billion; and BAE systems…had a $1.3 billion deal.”

“Because of the nature of U.S. arms control law, most of these sales have to get government approval, and we’ve absolutely seen lobbyists weighing in heavily on this,” Miles said. “The last time I saw the numbers, the arms industry had nearly 1,000 registered lobbyists. They’re not on the Hill lobbying Congress about how many schools we should open next year. They’re lobbying for defense contractors. The past 18 years of endless wars have been incredibly lucrative for the arms industry, and they have a vested industry in seeing these wars continue, and not curtailing the cash cow that…has been for them.”

The defense industry spent $125 million on lobbying in 2018. Of that, Boeing spent $15 million on lobbyists, Lockheed Martin spent $13.2 million, General Dynamics $11.9 million, and Raytheon $4.4 million, according to the Lobbying Disclosure Act website.

Writes Ben Freeman:

According to a new report…firms registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act have reported receiving more than $40 million from Saudi Arabia in 2017 and 2018. Saudi lobbyists and public relations professionals have contacted Congress, the executive branch, media outlets and think tanks more than 4,000 times. Much of this work has been focused on ensuring that sales of U.S. arms to Saudi Arabia continue unabated and blocking congressional actions that would end U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. …

Lobbyists, lawyers and public relations firms working for the Saudis have also reported doling out more than $4.5 million in campaign contributions in the past two years, including at least $6,000 to Trump. In many cases, these contributions have gone to members of Congress they’ve contacted regarding the Yemen war. In fact, some contributions have gone to members of Congress on the exact same day they were contacted by Saudi lobbyists, and some were made to key members just before, and even on the day of, important Yemen votes.

Over a dozen lobbying firms employed by defense contractors have also been working on behalf of the Saudi or Emiratis, efficiently lobbying for both the arms buyers and sellers in one fell swoop. One of these lobbying firms, the McKeon Group, led by former Republican congressman and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Howard McKeon, represents both Saudi Arabia and the American defense contractors Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Orbital ATK, MBDA, and L3 Technologies. Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman are the biggest suppliers of arms to Saudi Arabia. In 2018, the McKeon Group took $1,697,000 from 10 defense contractors “to, among other objectives, continue the flow of arms to Saudi Arabia,” reports National Memo.

Freeman details multiple examples where lobbyists working on behalf of the Saudis met with a senator’s staff and then made a substantial contribution to that senator’s campaign within days of a key vote to keep the United States in the Yemen war.

American Defense International (ADI) represents the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia’s coalition partner in the war against Yemen, as well as several American defense contractors, including General Dynamics, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon, L3 Technologies, and General Atomics.

Not to be outdone by the McKeon Group, ADI’s lobbyists have also aggressively pursued possible swing votes in the U.S. Senate for the hefty sum of $45,000 a month, paid for by the UAE. ADI lobbyists discussed the “situation in Yemen” and the “Paveway sale to the UAE,” the same bomb used in the deadly wedding strike, with the office of Senator Martin Heinrich, a member of the Armed Services Committee, according to FARA reports. ADI’s lobbyists also met with Congressman Steve Scalise’s legislative director to advise his office to vote against the congressional resolution on Yemen. For their lobbying, Raytheon paid ADI $120,000 in 2018.

In addition to the overt influence exercised by lobbyists for the defense industry, many former arms industry executives are embedded in influential posts throughout the Trump administration: from former Airbus, Huntington Ingalls, and Raytheon lobbyist Charles Faulkner at the State Department, who pushed Mike Pompeo to support arms sales in the Yemen war; to former Boeing executive and erstwhile head of the Department of Defense Patrick Shanahan; to his interim replacement Mark Esper, secretary of the Army and another former lobbyist for Raytheon.

The war in Yemen has been good for American defense contractors’ bottom lines. Since the conflict began, General Dynamics’ stock price has risen from about $135 to $169 per share, Raytheon’s from about $108 to more than $180, and Boeing’s from about $150 to $360, according to In These Times. Their analysis found that those four companies have had at least $30.1 billion in Saudi military contracts approved by the State Department over the last 10 years.

In April, President Donald Trump vetoed a resolution that would have ended American support for the Saudi-UAE coalition war against Yemen. Such efforts have failed to meet the 60-vote veto-proof threshold needed in the Senate.

There are a few senators who didn’t vote for the War Powers resolution “that will probably vote for the Raytheon sales,” Brittany Benowitz, a lawyer and former adviser to a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told TAC. “I think you’ll continue to see horrific bombings and as the famine rages on, people will start to ask, ‘Why are we a part of this war?’ Unfortunately, I don’t think that will start to happen anytime soon.”

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Barbara Boland is TAC’s foreign policy and national security reporter. Follow her on Twitter @BBatDC

Featured image: 360b/Shutterstock By Fabian Res /Flickr; F-16 drops MK82 bombs (USAF photo); Child victim of attack in which MK82 bomb built by Lockheed Martin was dropped on his school bus Aug. 9, 2018. (VOA/Screengrab)

US President Donald Trump has been roundly mocked for announcing sanctions on Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini… who died 30 years ago.

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President Trump has just signed an executive order to deny Iran's Supreme Leader and his associates access to key financial resources and support. pic.twitter.com/14qE9iUe61

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 24, 2019

Trump said in a video released by the White House: “Ayatollah Khomeini and his office will not be spared from the sanctions.”

He went on to say that the measures were a “strong and proportionate response.”

Khomeini served as Supreme Leader until his death in 1989.

Although he most likely meant current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini, confused Twitter users were quick to point out his mistake:

OMG. You can’t make this up. Trump says US is sanctioning Ayatollah Khomeini who died decades ago. He meant Khamenei, of course, but add this to the pile blunders! pic.twitter.com/uDIUrirYt5

— Bessma Momani (@b_momani) June 24, 2019

Trump said he's placing new sanctions on Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini — he died in 1989 pic.twitter.com/eyvenzcuNs

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) June 24, 2019

Today Trump idiotically hit Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini with sanctions even though he’s been dead for 30 years. To be fair, Trump has been dead inside for 30 years so it’s understandable that he would make that mistake.

— God (@thegoodgodabove) June 25, 2019

Others used the mistake to laugh at him:

Khomeini when he hears he’s been sanctioned (sorry) pic.twitter.com/WehCq6Xb9E

— Murtaza Mohammad Hussain (@MazMHussain) June 24, 2019

Saw Ayatollah Khomeini was trending, knew he's been dead a long time, and said to myself, "This has @realDonaldTrump 's stupidity written all over it." pic.twitter.com/cgO5QW1hyp

— Sheryle B. (@cadesmomsheryle) June 25, 2019

JUST IN: Ayatollah Khomeini responds to Trump's sanctions announcement pic.twitter.com/AMcAMnaN9T

— Mr Brick Housewall (@BrickHousewall) June 24, 2019

Others worried about other dead leaders who could also potentially face sanctions from beyond the grave:

Trump just sanctioned the Ayatollah Khomeini. Saddam Hussein must be shaking in his boots right about now.

— Ham on Wry (@realHamOnWry) June 24, 2019

What's next? Sanctions on Gaddafi, Saddam and Mussolini? Perhaps Santa, the Tooth Fairy and Bigfoot?

— TFA (@nitzafezet) June 25, 2019

This comes as Tehran accused the White House of being ‘afflicted with a mental retardation’, and called his sanctions “outrageous and idiotic.”

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“I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. … We had entire training courses.” That’s what Trump regime Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told students at Texas A&M University on April 15.

On June 14, Pompeo told reporters that “Iran is responsible for the attacks that occurred in the Gulf of Oman today.” On June 16 he told Fox News,“There’s no doubt. The intelligence community has lots of data, lots of evidence.” He didn’t give any.

The Trump regime is desperately escalating confrontation with Iran in coordination with Israel and Saudi Arabia. Why? The answer can be found in the headlines.

Not the headlines parroting Washington’s claim that Iran attacked tankers in the Gulf of Oman. The answer is in the headlines that bankers and CEOs worry about.

Headlines like these:

• “Oil Prices Are Falling Because Fears of a Glut in Supplies Are Growing,” Barron’s, May 22.
• “Oil Prices Tumble, U.S. Crude Slides Under $60, as Trade Wars Clip Global Demand,” The Street, May 23.
• “Gas Prices Could Fall Below $2 For Many Americans,” CNN Business, June 12.

On June 13, Barron’s financial weekly wrote, “Oil Prices Keep Falling, Something’s Got to Give.”

Something did. Later that day, explosions disabled two tankers in the Gulf of Oman. Within hours, Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Iran. On June 18, the Israeli press reported the U.S. was preparing air strikes on Iran.

This is the second attack reported on shipping in the Gulf region since May 7, when the Pentagon announced a military buildup there. At the request of the U.S. Central Command, British units also deployed to the Gulf. Among them were members of the Special Boat Service, which specializes in covert operations at sea.

Japan disputes U.S. version

One of the tankers attacked was Japanese-owned, one Norwegian. Both carried “Japan-related” cargo, according to Japan’s Foreign Trade Ministry. The attacks happened while Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in Tehran trying to defuse tension between Iran and the US.

Both the crew and the owner of the damaged Japanese ship, the Kokuka Courageous, contradict the Trump regime’s version of the attack. They say their ship was hit by a flying missile, not underwater mines as the U.S. claims. Japanese and European Union officials have said they are not ready to accept the U.S. version of events.

Japan and the EU have good reason to fear a U.S. attack on Iran. So do the majority of the world’s people, who live in oil and gas-importing countries. So do working-class and oppressed people in the United States. Some in the U.S. ruling class fear it as well.

The Arab-Persian Gulf holds 55 percent of the world’s known oil reserves. Thirty-five percent of the world’s seaborne oil shipments come from there. A regional war could push the price of oil up to $200 a barrel, analysts say. Some say more.

All that money wouldn’t go up in smoke. It would be a massive transfer of wealth into the vaults of U.S. oil companies and banks and hedge funds that speculate on oil. For the trillion-dollar U.S. fracking industry — and the big banks that finance it — this could be a lifesaver. Fracking companies are struggling to keep prices over the cost of production. Hundreds of billions in investments are at risk.

Pompeo, Bolton and the fracking Kochs

The Koch brothers, Charles and David, are big investors in the U.S. fracking industry. Before he was hired by the Trump regime, first as CIA director, then secretary of state, Mike Pompeo was called “the congressman from Koch.” He got $1.1 million in donations from the oil and gas industry during his six years in Congress. Over a third, $375,000, came from Koch Industries, which is based in his Wichita, Kan., home district.

Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, was a fellow at the Koch-funded American Free Enterprise Institute. As an undersecretary of state for the George W. Bush regime, he helped fabricate “evidence” to justify the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Sen. Tom Cotton, who is leading the charge against Iran in the Senate, has gotten over $1 million from oil and gas interests during his six years on the Hill.

Trump’s secretary of the interior, David Bernhardt, was a lobbyist for Noble Energy. Noble is the main U.S. investor in Israeli gas projects in stolen Palestinian waters.

The fracking industry is much bigger than the “new money” robber barons around Trump. “Chevron, ExxonMobil Tighten Their Grip on Fracking,” the Wall Street Journal reported on March 5. Those oil majors control much of Saudi Arabia’s output as well. Four giant banks, JPMorganChase, Wells Fargo, Citibank and Bank of America, have poured over half a trillion dollars into the industry.

The hydraulic fracturing — fracking — technology in use today was first tested in June 1998. In August of that year, the collapse of the Russian ruble dropped oil prices to $11 a barrel. That was despite the murderous sanctions and deadly bombing of Iraq by the U.S. It took the energy-price bubble created by the 2003 U.S. invasion and devastation of Iraq to make fracking profitable.

The “fracking revolution’ is slowly destroying North America’s water supply. But it has made the U.S. the world’s top oil and gas producer. It is central to the Trump regime’s proclaimed goal of “U.S. energy dominance.” It is the product of three decades of war, sanctions and covert operations, hundreds of thousands of deaths and nearly six trillion dollars spent on war. It can only be sustained by more war and destruction. Which is what we will get unless we build a people’s movement that can turn things around.

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Featured image: Two U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles and a B-2 bomber fly in formation. Photo: USAF

Former President of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, had finished his 15-minute discourse in a courtroom, while being locked inside a sound-proofed cage. He read a poem about his love for Egypt, and then collapsed, and died.

His demise sent shock-waves all over Egypt, the region and the Muslim world.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan refused to accept the official story, claiming that the former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi “did not die, he was murdered”.

More came from different corners of the world. According to Reuters:

“A British member of Parliament, Crispin Blunt, who had led a delegation of UK lawmakers and lawyers last year in putting out a report on Mursi’s detention, slammed the conditions of Mursi’s incarceration.

We want to understand whether there was any change in his conditions since we reported in March 2018, and if he continued to be held in the conditions we found, then I’m afraid the Egyptian government are likely to be responsible for his premature death,” he said in remarks to the BBC.”

Human rights organizations, heads of state, as well as the common citizens of Egypt, were outraged by the demise of Mohamed Morsi (also spelt as Mursi), a former Egyptian leader who governed the nation after winning the first democratic elections in the modern history of the country in 2012, just a year after the brutal pro-Western dictator, Hosni Mubarak, was deposed in 2011.

Mr. Morsi was overthrown in 2013, in a violent military coup just one year after he was sworn into the highest office.

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Let’s be clear: Mohamed Morsi was not a ‘good president’. In fact, he was not supposed to be a president at all: the original candidate from his party was disqualified from the elections on a technicality, and Mr. Morsi was asked to take his place. And he won, by a small margin.

He made some serious errors, politically, economically and socially.

He flooded tunnels between Gaza and Sinai.

And under his leadership, more than 40 people died during the violence in Port Said.

When he felt threatened, he used to give orders to fire poisonous gases at the protesters.

But he was not a murderer. And in ‘modern’ Egypt, that was quite an achievement.

He tried to improve the dire situation in his country, but he kept failing.

On the other hand, he separated his government from the gangrenous military embrace. The western-sponsored Egyptian military has been managing to infiltrate everything (under Mubarak’s rule as well as now), fully controlling all aspects of the Egyptian state.

Mr. Morsi tried to please everyone in the terribly divided Egyptian society. But in the end, nobody was satisfied.

Hard-liners in his Muslim Brotherhood hated him for not being radical enough. The anti-religious Left despised him for not pushing harder for social reforms, and for a secular state. He was both obeying the US and the IMF, while at the same time alienating them.

In the end, he appeared like an uncertain, confused and weak man.

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In 2012 and 2013, my friends, my left-wing comrades, were battling police in front of the Presidential Palace in Cairo. I was there, with them, filming, face covered with water-soaked rags in order to at least somehow protect myself from the highly poisonous teargas.

In those days, no one seemed to like Morsi.

The rallying cry during the anti-Morsi protests was:

“We sing to those who deserve to die;

Morsi-Morsi-Morsi!”

Protesters could not have known that 7 years later, their prophecy would come through.

After the military overthrew the democratically elected government (on 3 July 2013), massacres began. Officially hundreds, but most likely thousands of people lost their lives. Tens of thousands were arrested, disappeared, tortured, raped, and exiled.

Members of the Muslim Brotherhood were liquidated (soon after the coup it became a banned organization), but also various left-wing organizations and individuals, as well as all those people who were against the corrupt right-wing military and its dictatorship.

Several of my friends had to leave the country. Others are still in prison. Or in hiding.

Former dictator, Western puppet and assassin Hosni Mubarak, is now a free man again. He is 91 years old.

67-year-old Mohamed Morsi is dead.

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During the Morsi era, as well as during and after the 2013 coup, I was working in Egypt, making a documentary film for the Venezuelan television channel Telesur (“Egipto – El Fin de Una Revolucion” – “Egypt, End of the Revolution”).

First, I investigated and wrote about the crimes committed during the reign of President Morsi in the city of Port Said: “Notes from a Besieged City”.

And then, I was right there, in the middle of the battles, when the Egyptian military overthrew Morsi’s government and began liquidating both the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Egyptian left wing. I described the events in my essays “Egypt End of Hope” and “Egypt in the Eye of the Storm”. Many more essays from Egypt were then compiled in my book “Exposing Lies of The Empire”.

Once, while filming after the coup, I found myself facing 5 talks, all pointing their cannons at me. How I survived, I am not sure. Others did not. By the time I finished collecting footage for my film, my body was covered by scars and bruises.

From among those individuals who used to work with me on the film, and from those who used to protest against then President Morsi, there is hardly anyone now who would support the current rule of pro-Western military junta.

Rallies in 2012 and 2013 were all about improving Egypt; about forcing Morsi to deliver what millions of mostly young Egyptians hoped would be a just, secular and socialist society. Morsi was expected to deliver, or to resign, giving way to a better, more ‘progressive’ leader.

What came instead was a coup, a return of the fascist clique of Mubarak, supported by the US, Europe and Israel.

Looking back, I believe that Mohamed Morsi was a decent human being, but at the same time a bad, untalented, naive and confused ruler. That was still much, much better than what was before and after him.

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In her opinion piece for the New York Times, the Egyptian author Mona Eltahawy wrote about the demise of Mohamad Morsi:

“…He always looked like a man caught up in something much bigger than him. That he died in an Egyptian courtroom inside a soundproof cage designed to silence him, almost exactly six years to the day he took office and almost completely forgotten by all but his family and human rights activists, is a reminder of the bathos that surrounded him.”

Then, Ms. Eltahawy put his death into the context of the present-day Egypt:

“Decimated as it is, however, the Muslim Brotherhood is unlikely to be able to pull off mass protests in Egypt, where protests became all but impossible under a draconian law passed soon after Mr. el-Sisi came to power. This, too, is what Mr. el-Sisi has achieved: From July 2013, when Mr. Morsi was overthrown, and January 2016, when the Egyptian parliament reconvened, between 16,000 and 41,000 people, most supporters of the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood, were reportedly arrested or detained (Some were liberal or secular activists). Since then, a spike in death sentences and executions, extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances and a determined effort to wipe out any form of dissent have all but crushed the Brotherhood, as well as most other forms of opposition. Muslim Brotherhood supporters are insisting that Mr. Morsi be eulogized as a martyr at the same time that many state-owned media are reporting on his death without even mentioning that he was once president.”

Frankly speaking, the era of Morsi feels like the only period in modern Egyptian history, when ‘everything was possible’, and when one was at least allowed to dream and to fight for a much better future. Yes, of course, the fight was taking place through teargas, and people got injured, some even killed. But they dared, they were not broken and humiliated like now.

The so-called ‘Arab Spring’ was manipulated, and most likely ‘created’ by the West. But in 2011 to 2013, there was also a parallel, independent, left-wing upsurge of anti-establishment, anti-capitalist and anti-military movements. There was a struggle, and Egypt could have gone in any direction.

I will never forget that year; “the year of Morsi”. We were risking our lives, often suffering direct physical assaults. Different political factions were at each other throats. Steam was out. Passions were boiling. Nothing was certain, everything possible.

That year, while making my film, I was with a group of socialist doctors; true Marxists. They did not doubt that Egypt could go socialist, if they fought harder. I also worked with Wassim Wagdy, one of the leaders of Revolutionary Socialist Organization.

And then, everything collapsed, literally overnight. 3 July 2013.

When did I realized that everything was over? It happened in Heliopolis – in a affluent suburb of Cairo – in a park. Hundreds of rich families went to celebrate the coup, wearing T-shirts depicting el-Sisi and his cronies. It looked like some historic photos from 9-11-1973 – from the days when the coup perpetrated by General Pinochet against President Allende in Chile. It was different, of course it was; but it looked the same. US-sponsored coups always look the same. And so do the faces of the elites that support them!

I read about the demise of Morsi onboard MEA, from Istanbul to Beirut. I felt immense sadness. I did not know why, precisely. Certainly, it was not for the Mr. Morsi’s reign. But most likely it was for that time, for that hope that was now totally choked and abandoned. For the days when ‘everything was possible’; when people were ready and willing to fight for their country.

Egypt is a ‘failed’ state now. Scared, frustrated, poor and totally corrupt. A state that is devouring its own people.

When I go to one of countless slums of Cairo, these days, people look at me with open hate. They see me as a foreigner, as someone who helped to throw them back to hopelessness and misery. Of course, they don’t know that several years ago I fought for them, at least as a filmmaker, side-by-side with their nation’s socialist vanguard.

I also feel sadness for Morsi the man, if not Morsi the president. I somehow sense that the patriotic poem that he read before collapsing and dying, came straight from his heart.

In one single year when he governed, he did his best. His best was not good enough. He failed.

But he did not deserve to die like this, muzzled and humiliated, in a cage!

He deserved better. And his country, Egypt, deserves much, much better, damn it!

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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 Civilizationwith 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

“She was asked what she had learned from the Holocaust, and she said that 10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and that 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and that the remaining 80 percent could be moved in either direction.”—Kurt Vonnegut

Please spare me the media hysterics and the outrage and the hypocritical double standards of those whose moral conscience appears to be largely dictated by their political loyalties.

Anyone who believes that the injustices, cruelties and vicious callousness of the U.S. government are unique to the Trump Administration has not been paying attention.

No matter what the team colors might be at any given moment, the playbook remains the same. The leopard has not changed its spots. Scrape off the surface layers and you will find that the American police state that is continuing to wreak havoc on the rights of the people under the Trump Administration is the same police state that wreaked havoc on the rights of the people under every previous administration.

Brace yourselves.

While we squabble over which side is winning this losing battle, a tsunami approaches.

Case in point: in Charlottesville, Va.—home of Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, champion of the Bill of Rights, and the nation’s third president—city councilors in a quest for so-called “equity” have proposed eliminating Jefferson’s birthday as a city holiday (which has been on the books since 1945) and replacing it with a day that commemorates the liberation of area slaves following the arrival of Union troops under Gen. Philip Sheridan.

In this way, while the populace wages war over past injustices, injustice in the here and now continues to trample innocent lives underfoot. In Charlottesville, as in the rest of the country, little is being done to stem the tide of the institutional racism that has resulted in disproportionate numbers of black Americans being stopped, frisked, shot at, arrested and jailed.

Just recently, in fact, Phoenix police drew their guns, shouted profanities, assaulted and threatened to shoot a black couple whose 4-year-old daughter allegedly stole a doll from a dollar store. The footage of the incident—in which the cops threaten to shoot the pregnant, young mother in the head in the presence of the couple’s 1- and 4-year-old daughters—is horrifying in every way.

Tell me again why it’s more important to spend valuable political capital debating the birthdays of dead presidents rather than proactively working to put a stop to a government mindset that teaches cops it’s okay to treat citizens of any color with brutality and a blatant disregard for their rights?

It doesn’t matter that Phoenix and Charlottesville are 2100 miles apart. The lethal practices of the American police state are the same all over.

No amount of dissembling can shield us from the harsh reality that the danger in our midst is posed by an entrenched government bureaucracy that has no regard for the Constitution, Congress, the courts or the citizenry.

We’ve got to get our priorities straight if we are to ever have any hope of maintaining any sense of freedom in America. As long as we allow ourselves to be distracted, diverted, occasionally outraged, always polarized and content to view each other—rather than the government—as the enemy, we’ll never manage to present a unified front against tyranny (or government corruption and ineptitude) in any form.

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

This is the hidden face of a government that has no respect for the freedoms of its citizenry.

So stop with all of the excuses and the hedging and the finger-pointing and the pissing contests to see which side can out-shout, out-blame and out-spew the other. Enough already with the short- and long-term amnesia that allows political sycophants to conveniently forget the duplicity, complicity and mendacity of their own party while casting blame on everyone else.

This is how evil wins.

This is how freedom falls and tyranny rises.

This is how good, generally decent people—having allowed themselves to be distracted with manufactured crises, polarizing politics, and fighting that divides the populace into warring us vs. them camps—fail to take note of the looming danger that threatens to wipe freedom from the map and place us all in chains.

Anytime you have an entire nation so mesmerized by the antics of the political ruling class that they are oblivious to all else, you’d better beware. Anytime you have a government that operates in the shadows, speaks in a language of force, and rules by fiat, you’d better beware. And anytime you have a government so far removed from its people as to ensure that they are never seen, heard or heeded by those elected to represent them, you’d better beware.

The world has been down this road before.

As historian Milton Mayer recounts in his seminal book on Hitler’s rise to power, They Thought They Were Free:

Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had. There was no need to. Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about—we were decent people‑—and kept us so busy with continuous changes and ‘crises’ and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the ‘national enemies’, without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us.

We are no longer living the American Dream. We’re living the American Lie.

Indeed, Americans have been lied to so sincerely, so incessantly, and for so long by politicians of all stripes—who lie compulsively and without any seeming remorse—that they’ve almost come to prefer the lies trotted out by those in government over less-palatable truths.

The American people have become compulsive believers: left-leaning Americans are determined to believe that the world has become a far more dangerous place under Trump, while right-leaning Americans are equally convinced that Trump has set us on a path to prosperity and security.

Nothing has changed.

The police state is still winning. We the people are still losing.

In fact, the American police state has continued to advance at the same costly, intrusive, privacy-sapping, Constitution-defying, heartbreaking, soul-scorching, relentless pace under the current Tyrant-in-Chief as it did under those who occupied the White House before him (Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc.).

Police haven’t stopped disregarding the rights of citizens. Having been given the green light to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip, shoot and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts, America’s law enforcement officials are no longer mere servants of the people entrusted with keeping the peace. Indeed, they continue to keep the masses corralled, under control, and treated like suspects and enemies and slaves rather than citizens.

SWAT teams haven’t stopped crashing through doors and terrorizing families. Nationwide, SWAT teams continue to be employed to address an astonishingly trivial array of criminal activities or mere community nuisances including angry dogs, domestic disputes, improper paperwork filed by an orchid farmer, and misdemeanor marijuana possession. With more than 80,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year on unsuspecting Americans for relatively routine police matters and federal agencies laying claim to their own heavily armed law enforcement divisions, the incidence of botched raids and related casualties continue to rise.

The Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security haven’t stopped militarizing and federalizing local police. Police forces continue to be transformed into heavily armed extensions of the military, complete with jackboots, helmets, shields, batons, pepper-spray, stun guns, assault rifles, body armor, miniature tanks and weaponized drones. In training police to look and act like the military and use the weapons and tactics of war against American citizens, the government continues to turn the United States into a battlefield and “we the people” into enemy combatants.

Schools haven’t stopped treating young people like hard-core prisoners. School districts continue to team up with law enforcement to create a “schoolhouse to jailhouse track” by imposing a “double dose” of punishment for childish infractions: suspension or expulsion from school, accompanied by an arrest by the police and a trip to juvenile court. In this way, the paradigm of abject compliance to the state continues to be taught by example in the schools, through school lockdowns where police and drug-sniffing dogs enter the classroom, and zero tolerance policies that punish all offenses equally and result in young people being expelled for childish behavior.

For-profit private prisons haven’t stopped locking up Americans and immigrants alike at taxpayer expense. States continue to outsource prison management to private corporations out to make a profit at taxpayer expense. And how do you make a profit in the prison industry? Have the legislatures pass laws that impose harsh penalties for the slightest noncompliance in order keep the prison cells full and corporate investors happy.

Censorship hasn’t stopped. First Amendment activities continue to be pummeled, punched, kicked, choked, chained and generally gagged all across the country. The reasons for such censorship vary widely from political correctness, safety concerns and bullying to national security and hate crimes but the end result remained the same: the complete eradication of what Benjamin Franklin referred to as the “principal pillar of a free government.”

The courts haven’t stopped marching in lockstep with the police state. The courts continue to be dominated by technicians and statists who are deferential to authority, whether government or business. Indeed, the Supreme Court’s decisions in recent years have most often been characterized by an abject deference to government authority, military and corporate interests.

Government bureaucrats haven’t stopped turning American citizens into criminals. The average American now unknowingly commits three felonies a day, thanks to an overabundance of vague laws that render otherwise innocent activity illegal, while reinforcing the power of the police state and its corporate allies.

The surveillance state hasn’t stopped spying on Americans’ communications, transactions or movements. On any given day, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether it’s your local police, a fusion center, the National Security Agency or one of the government’s many corporate partners, is still monitoring and tracking your every move.

The TSA hasn’t stopped groping or ogling travelers. Under the pretext of protecting the nation’s infrastructure (roads, mass transit systems, water and power supplies, telecommunications systems and so on) against criminal or terrorist attacks, TSA task forces (comprised of federal air marshals, surface transportation security inspectors, transportation security officers, behavior detection officers and explosive detection canine teams) continue to do random security sweeps of nexuses of transportation, including ports, railway and bus stations, airports, ferries and subways, as well as political conventions, baseball games and music concerts. Sweep tactics include the use of x-ray technology, pat-downs and drug-sniffing dogs, among other things.

Congress hasn’t stopped enacting draconian laws such as the USA Patriot Act and the NDAA. These laws—which completely circumvent the rule of law and the constitutional rights of American citizens, continue to re-orient our legal landscape in such a way as to ensure that martial law, rather than the rule of law, our U.S. Constitution, becomes the map by which we navigate life in the United States.

The Department of Homeland Security hasn’t stopped being a “wasteful, growing, fear-mongering beast.” Indeed, this is the agency that is notorious for militarizing the police and SWAT teams; spying on activists, dissidents and veterans; stockpiling ammunition; distributing license plate readers; contracting to build detention camps; tracking cell-phones with Stingray devices; carrying out military drills and lockdowns in American cities; using the TSA as an advance guard; conducting virtual strip searches with full-body scanners; carrying out soft target checkpoints; directing government workers to spy on Americans; conducting widespread spying networks using fusion centers; carrying out Constitution-free border control searches; funding city-wide surveillance cameras; and utilizing drones and other spybots.

The military industrial complex hasn’t stopped profiting from endless wars abroad. America’s expanding military empire continues to bleed the country dry at a rate of more than $15 billion a month (or $20 million an hour). The Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety. Yet what most Americans fail to recognize is that these ongoing wars have little to do with keeping the country safe and everything to do with enriching the military industrial complex at taxpayer expense.

The Deep State’s shadow government hasn’t stopped calling the shots behind the scenes.Comprised of unelected government bureaucrats, corporations, contractors, paper-pushers, and button-pushers who are actually calling the shots behind the scenes, this government within a government continues to be the real reason “we the people” have no real control over our so-called representatives. It’s every facet of a government that is no longer friendly to freedom and is working overtime to trample the Constitution underfoot and render the citizenry powerless in the face of the government’s power grabs, corruption and abusive tactics.

And the American people haven’t stopped acting like gullible sheep. In fact, many Americans have been so carried away by their blind rank-and-file partisan devotion to their respective political gods that they have lost sight of the one thing that has remained constant in recent years: our freedoms are steadily declining. And it doesn’t really matter whether it’s a Democrat or a Republican at the helm, because the bureaucratic mindset on both sides of the aisle now seems to embody the same philosophy of authoritarian government.

So you can try to persuade yourself that you are free, that you still live in a country that values freedom, and that it is not too late to make America great again, but to anyone who has been paying attention to America’s decline over the past 50 years, it will be just another lie.

The German people chose to ignore the truth and believe the lie.

They were not oblivious to the horrors taking place around them. As historian Robert Gellately points out, “[A]nyone in Nazi Germany who wanted to find out about the Gestapo, the concentration camps, and the campaigns of discrimination and persecutions need only read the newspapers.”

The warning signs were definitely there, blinking incessantly like large neon signs.

“Still,” Gellately writes, “the vast majority voted in favor of Nazism, and in spite of what they could read in the press and hear by word of mouth about the secret police, the concentration camps, official anti-Semitism, and so on. . . . [T]here is no getting away from the fact that at that moment, ‘the vast majority of the German people backed him.’”

Half a century later, the wife of a prominent German historian, neither of whom were members of the Nazi party, opined: “[O]n the whole, everyone felt well. . . . And there were certainly eighty percent who lived productively and positively throughout the time. . . . We also had good years. We had wonderful years.”

In other words, as long as their creature comforts remained undiminished, as long as their bank accounts remained flush, as long as they weren’t being discriminated against, persecuted, starved, beaten, shot, stripped, jailed and turned into slave labor, life was good.

Life is good in America, too.

Life is good in America as long as you’re not one of the hundreds of migrant children (including infants, toddlers, preschoolers) being detained in unsanitary conditions by U.S. Border Patrol without proper access to food and water, made to sleep on concrete floors, go without a shower for weeks on end, and only allowed to brush your teeth once every 10 days.

Life is good in America as long as you don’t have to come face to face with a trigger-happy cop hyped up on the power of the badge, trained to shoot first and ask questions later, and disposed to view people of color as a suspect class.

Life is good in America as long as you’re able to keep sleep-walking through life, cocooning yourself in political fantasies that depict a world in which your party is always right and everyone else is wrong, and distracting yourself with bread-and-circus entertainment that bears no resemblance to reality.

Life is good in America as long as you’ve got enough money to spare that you don’t mind being made to pay through the nose for the government’s endless wars, subsidization of foreign nations, military empire, welfare state, roads to nowhere, bloated workforce, secret agencies, fusion centers, private prisons, biometric databases, invasive technologies, arsenal of weapons, and every other budgetary line item that is contributing to the fast-growing wealth of the corporate elite at the expense of those who are barely making ends meet—that is, we the 99%.

Life is good in America for the privileged few, but as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, it’s getting worse by the day for the rest of us.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  is available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

President Donald Trump and his treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, unveiled Monday what the US administration had touted as new “harsh” and “hard-hitting” economic sanctions against Iran in the wake of last week’s Iranian shoot-down of a sophisticated US drone spy plane over the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

The economic measures come in the wake of Trump’s decision, by his own account, to call off air strikes against Iranian missile and radar sites just 10 minutes before missiles were set to fly and with US warplanes already in the air. While Trump claimed he aborted the raids out of concern for Iranian loss of life, it is evident that the real issue was the likelihood that Iran would retaliate, threatening heavy US casualties and a spiraling escalation that could result in a full-scale regional and even global armed conflict.

Despite the advance promotion, the sanctions order signed by Trump at the White House Monday was largely symbolic. They target Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his appointees as individuals, blocking them from using the US financial system or accessing financial assets in the US.

The administration indicated that it would also add Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, to the list, a highly provocative action that would theoretically expose any world government hosting Iran’s principal foreign policy representative with secondary sanctions.

Trump claimed that his resort to a new round of sanctions, rather than bombarding targets in Iran, demonstrated that “a lot of restraint has been shown by us,” adding, “that doesn’t mean we’re going to show it in the future.” This followed his remark Sunday in an interview with NBC News that if the US were to go to war against Iran “it’ll be obliteration like you’ve never seen before.”

Tehran dismissed the latest sanctions. Iran does not “consider them to have any impact,” Abbas Mousavi told a press conference in Tehran. “Are there really any sanctions left that the United States has not imposed on our country recently or in the past 40 years?”

Indeed, the sanctions regime re-imposed and tightened by the Trump administration since May 2018, when it unilaterally abrogated the 2015 nuclear agreement reached between Iran and the US, China, Russia, the UK, France and Germany, is tantamount to a state of war.

Implementing what it boasts is a campaign of “maximum pressure,” Washington is attempting to drive Iranian energy exports, the country’s principal source of income, to zero. Last month it ended sanctions waivers for several major importers of Iranian oil. Reuters cited energy industry sources as reporting that Iranian crude exports this month have plummeted to just 300,000 barrels a day, a fraction of the 2.5 million barrels per day that it shipped in April 2018, before the US re-imposed sanctions.

Bearing the brunt of these sanctions are tens of millions of Iranian working people, who have seen their real income plummet and their jobs disappear.

The rial, Iran’s national currency, has lost 60 percent of its value, while the inflation rate has soared from 9 percent in 2017 to 31 percent last year, and is expected to reach 37 percent or more this year. The result has been the skyrocketing of prices for basic necessities of life. According to the government’s own statistics, in the year since Washington re-imposed sanctions, meat and poultry prices have risen by 57 percent; milk, cheese and eggs by 37 percent; and vegetables by 47 percent. The real increases are undoubtedly significantly higher.

The official unemployment rate for younger Iranians has risen to 27 percent, and for university graduates to 40 percent. Again, real unemployment is far higher, as the government counts anyone working as little as one hour a week as employed.

While medicine is theoretically exempt from US sanctions, in practice the punishing measures implemented by Washington are depriving millions of Iranians of needed drugs, undoubtedly sending many to early deaths.

European and other international banks and corporations are refusing to participate in financial transactions to allow pharmaceutical companies to ship drugs to Iran out of fear that they will be targeted for US secondary sanctions. And while Iran produces most of the country’s medicines, the raw materials used in making these drugs are often imported.

The Pentagon has continued to build up US military forces in the Persian Gulf, even as top administration officials have traveled to the Middle East in what is billed as a bid to strengthen a US-backed anti-Iranian “coalition.”

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on Monday that the USS Boxer, a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship carrying thousands of US Marines, a squadron of attack helicopters and AV-8B Harrier II strike aircraft, had arrived in the region. It is part of an assault group that includes the amphibious transport dock USS John P. Murtha and the amphibious dock landing ship USS Harpers Ferry.

The amphibious assault group joins the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group and a B-52 nuclear-cable bomber task force, along with 2,500 additional US troops sent to the region since early May under the pretext of “deterring” alleged Iranian threats to “US interests” in the region.

Even as the Trump administration claimed credit for calling off a catastrophic escalation of its assault on Iran in response to the downing of the spy drone, the New York Times and the Washington Post both cited unnamed Pentagon officials as reporting that the US military’s cyber command had carried out cyberattacks aimed at disabling Iranian rocket systems and disrupting an Iranian intelligence unit.

Iran dismissed the claims, insisting that it deflected the US attacks.

“They try hard, but have not carried out a successful attack,” Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, Iran’s minister for information and communications technology, said on Twitter. “Last year we neutralized 33 million attacks with the (national) firewall.”

An escalation of cyber warfare between the two countries also threatens catastrophic consequences—the bringing down of power grids or possible meltdown of nuclear reactors—spilling over into full scale war.

Meanwhile, the two leading advocates of war and regime-change, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, were in the Middle East promoting aggression against Iran. Pompeo visited Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, calling his conversations with the rulers of these two absolute Sunni oil monarchies the forging of a “global coalition.” Both the Saudi and the UAE ruling families have long advocated a US war to cripple Iran as a regional rival.

Pompeo’s trip to Riyadh came just a week after the United Nations released a report calling for sanctions against Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, for his responsibility in the brutal assassination of dissident journalist and US resident Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom’s embassy in Istanbul last October.

The report cited tape recordings in which members of the assassination squad sent by the monarchy referred to Khashoggi as the “sacrificial animal” and discussed how to chop up and dispose of his corpse.

A State Department official said that the assassination of Khashoggi, who was a columnist for the Washington Post, never came up in Pompeo’s talks with bin Salman. This followed Trump’s own brushing aside of his silence on the matter in his telephone conversation with the crown prince on Friday. “Saudi Arabia is a big buyer of product,” he said, referring to its multi-billion-dollar arms contracts “That means something to me.”

Meanwhile, Bolton was in Israel meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, another advocate of a US war against Iran. Today he is set to meet with both Israel’s and Russia’s national security advisers in Jerusalem to discuss the Middle East. Washington wants to pressure Moscow into turning against Iran, particularly in Syria, where the two countries have been the principal allies of the government of President Bashar al-Assad against the US-orchestrated war for regime-change.

Asked last Thursday whether Washington and Moscow could sign a deal on Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin responded: “What does ‘deal’ stand for? This is something about commerce, shares. We trade neither our allies, nor our interests, nor our principles. It is possible to agree with our partners about the solution of various urgent problems.”

Tensions between Washington and its “great power” rivals Russia and China are building over the US war threats against Iran in the run-up to the G-20 summit in Japan at the end of this week. On Monday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov denounced the new US sanctions as illegal and “a reflection of the deliberate and purposeful escalation policy.”

The Chinese newspaper Global Times published an editorial Monday stating that it is “only a matter of time before new war breaks out in the region” and quoting Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who accused Washington of “provoking” Iran and warned that miscalculations could lead to a “world war.”

The editorial stated that Washington’s demands that Iran entirely shut down its civilian nuclear program, give up its ballistic missiles and curtail its influence in the broader Middle East cannot be achieved by means of economic sanctions. “Unless the US destroys the Iranian regime and subverts Iran culturally, the demands are unrealistic.”

The editorial concluded,

“What is worrying is that Washington does not realize that its greedy pursuit of hegemony hides an inherent danger that will cost the world and itself.”

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

Michel Chossudovsky

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

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Feed a cold, starve a fever … mutate the flu?

A couple of labs in Wisconsin and The Netherlands have been given the green light to do controversial work with a deadly strain of avian flu that kills two thirds of the people it infects.

The scientific community and US government declared a moratorium on the experiments in 2014. Why? Because the virus has generally been confined to birds, and these labs are trying to make it transmissible to mammals. On purpose.

The researchers say making new strains of the H5N1 flu virus in a secure lab can help them see what might happen naturally in the real world. Sounds logical, but many scientists oppose it because the facts show most biosafety labs aren’t really secure at all, and experts say the risks of a mutated virus escaping outweigh whatever public health benefit comes from creating them.

But now the US government is funding these same labs again to artificially enhance potentially pandemic pathogens.

Say WHAT? 

In this installment of the Bulletin’s video series that provides a sharp view of fuzzy policy, Johns Hopkins University computational biologist Steven Salzberg explains why arguments by researchers in favor of risky viral research aren’t persuasive.

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Thomas Gaulkin is multimedia editor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Joining the Bulletin in 2018, he spent the previous decade working in communications at the University of Chicago, first for the Centers for International Studies and International Social Science Research, and later as Director of News and Online Content for the Division of the Social Sciences. From 1999-2002 and again in 2006 Gaulkin produced Worldview, Chicago Public Radio’s daily global affairs program. He received a BA with honors in political science from the University of Chicago.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s time-honored participation in Pride parades belies something much more sinister.

The Prime Minister’s recent statement that,  “(t)his message, that politicians of all different stripes are out to support them, that the country takes to the streets across Pride Month and at Pride events, to support our friends in the LGBT communities, that we are all allies, continues to be an important message here in Canada, and of course, around the world ever more so,”[1] reinforces the notion that human rights are important to Canada and to the globe itself.

The subterranean messaging is that globalized human rights are important to Canada.

“Perception Management” is all important to Canadian politicians.  Propaganda and political theatre are the message, and the message is a Big Lie.

Globalization does not serve public or human rights interests.  In fact, it erases nation-state sovereignty and democracy – fundamental preconditions for public interests and human rights — replacing both with totalitarian supranational diktats.  Sovereignty, democracy, and human rights are fabricated perceptions.

We’ve seen globalization at work.  So-called free-trade deals coupled with Investor State Dispute Settlement clauses — where fractious issues are “resolved” in secret tribunals outside the jurisdiction of Canadian laws[2] — offer freedom for companies to over-ride nation-state sovereignty.  “Sovereign”[3] corporations are “free” to accept public money, and then to relocate to low-wage, weak labour rights locales. Capital is “free” to impoverish and enslave the masses.

Globalism, imperialism, and predatory political economies are closely aligned. Imperialists destroy nation-states, with the utterly false and ridiculous pretexts of “humanitarian intervention”, with a view to imposing predatory political economies where masses of humanity become impoverished, displaced, and/or denizens of refugee/concentration camps, as is the case in Syria.

Human and all rights are obliterated where terrorist proxies rule, but also in society at large when national institutions and national governance is destroyed. Libya, which previously boasted the highest Standard of Living in all of Africa[4], is now an impoverished, looted, and plundered shadow of its former self, — and host to open market slave trading.

P.M Trudeau may well be progressive in his personal life, but the substance of the diktats ruling and ruining Canada are hardly progressive.  The same neoliberal political economies imposed on prey nations are hard at work in Canada as well.

Nation-state and human-rights destroying globalization, cloaked in veils of “perception management”, enabled and empowered by identity politics, is playing us all for fools.

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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017. Visit the author’s website at https://www.marktaliano.net.

Notes

[1] Geoff Zochodne, “ ‘We are all allies’: Trudeau delivers message of support at Pride parade.” National Post, 23 June, 2019. (https://nationalpost.com/business/w e-are-all-allies-trudeau-delivers-message-of-support-at-pride-parade/wcm/747675f5-acec-4049-ad16-ed54d4b57684) Accessed 25 June, 2019.

[2] Mark Taliano,“HUPACASATH FIRST NATION SHINES LIGHT ON SECRETIVE CANADA-CHINA INVESTMENT DEAL.” Niagara At Large, 20 August, 2013; (https://www.marktaliano.net/hupacasath-first-nation-shines-light-on-secretive-canada-china-investment-deal/) Accessed 25 June, 2019, marktaliano.net 

[3] Mark Taliano, “Niagarians Join Thousands In Giant London, Ontario Rally Against Corporate Greed.” Niagara At Large, 22 January, 2012.( https://www.marktaliano.net/niagarians-join-thousands-in-giant-london-ontario-rally-against-corporate-greed/_Accessed 25 June, 2019, marktaliano.net

[4] Mark Taliano, “Terror Inc. and the War on Libya.” Global Research, 26 January, 2015. (https://www.marktaliano.net/terror-inc-and-the-war-on-libya/) Accessed 25 June, 2019.

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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

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Early in the morning of June 22, an orchestrated coup attempt was made against the executive leadership of Amhara Regional Government of Ethiopia, north of Addis Ababa.

A “hit squad” led by Amhara’s security chief Brig Gen Asaminew Tsige burst into a meeting in the state offices of Amhara’s capital, Bahir Dar, and shot Governor Dr. Ambachew Mekonnen and his adviser Ezez Wassie. The men were “gravely injured in the attack and later died of their wounds. Attorney General Migbaru Kebede also sustained serious injuries.

Several hours later, in what seemed like a coordinated attack, the Chief of Staff of National Defence Forces General Seare Mekonnen was killed in his home by his bodyguard in Addis Ababa as part of a ploy to seize power in the northern region of Amhara. Also shot dead was a visiting retired General Gezai Abera. Bodyguard shot himself but is being treated for his injuries.

The coup was masterminded by Brig Gen Asaminew Tsige (image on the right), who was serving as head of government’s Peace & Security Bureau, along with some others. He was given amnesty and released from prison last year after remaining in jail for nine years for allegedly plotting a coup.

It was stated that the coup was meant to create chaos and division in the military, and that the situation was under control and that there were no divisions within the military.

PM Abiy Ahmed urged Ethiopians to unite against “evil” forces set on dividing the country. Flags flew at half-mast after the government declared a day of mourning to mark the deaths of loyalists. Gen Seare and Amhara Governor Ambachew Mekonnen were close allies of the Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. The slain generals were laid to rest with full honors and during the funeral rites, the PM and the people wept bitterly.

Asaminew Tsige was killed on 24 June as he attempted to escape from his hideout in Amhara’s capital. 180 plotters have been arrested and hunt for the rest is going on.

The point to note is that the slain Gen Seare and Gen Gezai Abera hailed from the minority Tigray ethnic group, while Brig Gen Asaminew who hatched the coup plot was part of the second largest ethnic Amhara group. Ethnic rivalry seem to be the driving force behind the coup.

Since coming to power last year in April, Abiy Ahmed lifted martial law, and has initiated sweeping political and economic reforms, the opening of major state-owned sectors to private investment, and reining in the security services. He has released thousands of political prisoners, including opposition figures once sentenced to death, lifted bans on political parties and some outlawed separatist groups. He prosecuted officials accused of gross human rights abuses, but his government is battling mounting violence. He moved the country towards democratization.

His efforts have been directed to open up the once isolated, security-obsessed Horn of Africa country of 100 million people by loosening the iron-fisted grip of his predecessors like Afwerki.

Although Abiy’s reforms in Africa’s second-most populous country have won him widespread international praise, and are widely popular at home, some members of the previous regime are unhappy with the changes. His shake-up of the military and intelligence services has earned him powerful enemies, while his government is struggling to contain Ethiopia’s myriad ethnic groups fighting the federal government and each other for greater influence and resources.

Abiy has survived a number of threats and a grenade attack. Ethnic bloodshed – long held in check by the state’s iron grip – has flared up in many areas, including Amhara, where the regional government was led by Ambachew Mekonnen.

In Amhara State, the people have a feeling that they were marginalised, and individuals that were suspected to be behind the coup said that Amhara people have never been subordinated. So besides the ethnic factor, this sense of grievance and victimhood is driving the nationalist movement.

On external front, Abiy mended fences with neighboring Eritrea with which it was at war from 1998 to 2000 by accepting a peace agreement. He made a sincere effort to negotiate a truce between protestors and the military in Sudan but his plan was rejected by transitional military council in Khartoum.

Ethiopia is Africa’s oldest independent country and is also the continent’s second most populous after Nigeria, with 102.5 million inhabitants from more than 80 different ethnic groups. It has one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, but a vast number of young Ethiopians are without work.Ethiopia is a key regional ally of the U.S. in the restive Horn of Africa region.

Amhara, whose emperors ruled Ethiopia for over a century, struggled to accept the loss of power after the fall of the communist Derg military junta in 1991 which gave way to the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition of four parties that has ruled ever since. One of these is the Amhara Democratic Party (ADP), and with the EPRDF severely weakened after years of turmoil in the country, its members are finding themselves out-muscled by nationalist parties within the region.

Why did the coup take place?

Brig Gen Asaminew hails from Amhara, had a reputation for hardline ethnic nationalism and had previously called for the Amhara people to have greater autonomy. Earlier this month, in a video on social media, he had openly advised the Amhara to arm themselves. He had a bad relationship with the Tigray regional government as well. Since long he had been aspiring to seize power. The bigger motive was not to topple the government, since Asaminew didn’t have sufficient means and followers to do so, but his aim was to kill top Generals close to Abiy. And to cause further divisions in the military, which is the main source of power.

Challenges for Abiy

The coup attempt show the seriousness of the political crisis in Ethiopia, where efforts by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to push through reforms have unleashed a wave of unrest. These tragic incidents demonstrate the depth of Ethiopia’s political crisis.

Former army colonel Abiy is faced with a potentially explosive situation that could snowball if not handled correctly. The pernicious political atmosphere is symbolic of Ethiopia’s tough changeover from a one-party state to democracy and raises questions whether Abiy could bring lasting stability. Ethiopia has gargantuan societal divisions. Abiy’s wide ranging reforms haven’t eased the ethnic tension, economic challenges, and institutional corruption that has bedeviled the nation. As of April this year, an estimated 3.2 million people were displaced by conflict and drought.

107 political parties are divided between Ethio-nationalists and Ethno-nationalists. Both blame each other and are ripping apart the social fabric. Partisan media is adding fuel to fire. Due to stunted economy, problem of unemployment has not been overcome due to which the youth is frustrated. People dislike Abiy’s soft approach towards wrongdoers.

Abiy is focusing mainly on stabilizing macroeconomic imbalances by re-negotiating loan deals and taking stringent austerity measures. No meaningful headway has been made due to status quo loving non-cooperative bureaucracy, which scoffs at reforms. Politics driven by interests of elites at the cost of neglecting the masses, lack of justice, prevalent endemic of corruption and poverty are major causes of unrest.

Competition is especially heating up with the promise of holding national parliamentaryelections in 2020.Several opposition groups have called for the polls to be held on time despite the unrest and displacement.Abey remains the best hope for Ethiopia’s stability and prosperity. He needs to win elections with majority to be able to complete his reforms, unite the country and chart a common future.

Lessons learnt. Snakes will remain snakes; no mercy to snakes which are in the habit of biting the hand feeding them. Like Abey, we had committed this mistake of freeing Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and later milking the snakes. Some similarities can be seen between challenges faced by Abiy and Imran Khan

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Asif Haroon Raja is a retired Brig, war veteran, defence analyst, columnist, author of five books, Vice Chairman Thinkers Forum Pakistan, Director Measac Research Centre, member CWC and think tank Pakistan Ex-Servicemen Society, and member Council Tehreek Jawanan Pakistan. [email protected]

Whether it was the Big Bang, Midas or God himself, we don’t really need to unlock the mystery of the origins of gold when we’ve already identified an asteroid worth $700 quintillion in precious heavy metals.

If anything launches this metals mining space race, it will be this asteroid–Psyche 16, taking up residence between Mars and Jupiter and carrying around enough heavy metals to net every single person on the planet close to a trillion dollars.

The massive quantities of gold, iron and nickel contained in this asteroid are mind-blowing. The discovery has been made. Now, it’s a question of proving it up.

NASA plans to do just that, beginning in 2022.

Of course, says veteran miner Scott Moore, CEO of EuroSun Mining

“The ‘Titans of Gold’ now control hundreds of the best-producing properties around the world, but the 4-5 million ounces of gold they bring to the market every year pales in comparison to the conquests available in space.”

In the decades to come, if you want to be a gold titan, you’ll have to get your feet off the ground. The real titans will be far from Earth.

Moore should know: He heads up a junior mining company that is seeking a seat at the titan table with the biggest in-development gold mine in Europe.

The 21st-Century Gold Rush

Can we actually extract this space gold? That is the quintillion-dollar question, certainly.

Speaking to Outerplaces, Professor John Zarnecki, president of the Royal Astronomical Society, estimates that it would take around 25 years to get ‘proof of concept’, and 50 years to start commercial production.

Of course, it all depends on two key things: Economic feasibility and our advancement of space technology.

And then, we’re not alone, either. There are other world powers who would like to get their hands on that asteroid, as well. China definitively plans to dominate this race.

Mitch Hunter-Scullion, founder of the UK-based Asteroid Mining Company, tells the BBC that this is definitively the next industry “boom”.

“Once you set up the infrastructure then the possibilities are almost infinite,” he said. “There’s an astronomical amount of money to be made by those bold enough to rise to the challenge of the asteroid rush.”

EuroSun’s Moore agrees:

“What we’re doing on the ground now may be impressive, but like everything else, even gold exploration in space is only a matter of infrastructure. We’ll get to it, eventually.”

But it’s not just about the quintillion-dollar prospects of the Asteroid Belt, which is 750 million kilometers from Earth.

“This may be the Holy Grail of space exploration for gold, but it won’t be the first stop on this adventure,” Moore says.

There are also Near-Earth asteroids, which pass close to Earth and could be pushed into an orbit from which water and other elements could be extracted.

Then there’s the moon, which holds resources from gold and platinum group metals to Helium-3, water and rare earth metals. Even though mining operations require gravity and the Moon’s is only one-sixth of Earth’s, scientists say there is enough gravity to make it work.

The Global Asteroid Mining Market

Yes, there is already a global market for asteroid mining, and Allied Market Research estimates that it will top $3.8 billion by 2025.

They’re counting ongoing and future space missions, the rise in inflow of investments in space mining technologies, and the growing use of print materials obtained from asteroids in 3D printing technology.

According to Allied, while the spacecraft design segment of this market accounted for four-fifths of the total revenue in 2017 and is expected to continue to dominate through 2025, the big change here will be in the space mining segment, or the “operation segment”. That segment is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 29% by 2025 “due to a surge in investment by public and private stakeholders in space mining technologies for resource exploitation”.

“You can’t just think of space mining as something that will suddenly happen in 25 or 50 years,” says EuroSun’s Moore. “It’s already happening from an investment perspective. And the Asteroid Belt is just one aspect of this market. The entire global space market is worth hundreds of billions already.”

Indeed, Morgan Stanley estimates the global space economy to be worth $350 billion today. By 2040, it will be worth a cosmic $2.7 trillion.

Nor is the Psyche-16 Asteroid the only thing of interest in the Belt. Another small asteroid measuring 200 meters in length could be worth $30 billion in platinum.

Who Will Get There First?

China has vowed to dominate this race, and that’s an easier game for a country that controls all the major natural resource companies and maintains a tight leash on tech developers.

That’s not to say that the U.S. doesn’t have ambitions here. The difference, though, is stark. While NASA is focused on space exploration and scientific missions, China is focused on a space-based economy that is zeroing in on long-term wealth generation.

Even Europe, where EuroSun is developing a major goldmine in Romania, has its hand in the game. In January, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced a deal with ArianeGroup, the parent company of Arianespace, to study a prep mission to the moon in 2025. It’s got natural resources on its mind.

Even tiny Luxembourg has 10 space-mining companies registered since 2016, with some targeting space ventures to the Moon, and others eyeing near-Earth asteroids for mining.

Tokyo-based iSpace, for instance, is a private space exploration company that plans to complete a lunar orbit in 2020, and a soft landing in 2021.

For Moore, the prospect is daunting, even if it is the clear future reality, because mining in EuroSun’s Rovina Valley project in west-central Romania has been a cakewalk, both in terms of geology and infrastructure. Everything lines up for a large, low-cost project (the biggest in-development gold mine in Europe.) That won’t be the case in space, but it’s a big bill that governments will want to help foot or risk losing their place in space.

Whoever gets there first will become the new god of gold, and the competition is heating up.

A few companies that could vie for a spot in the space-race are majors like…

Seabridge Gold Inc. (NYSE:SA) (TSX:SEA)

Seabridge is an ambitious young company taking the industry by storm. It has a unique strategy of acquiring promising properties while precious metals prices are low, expanding through exploration, and then putting them up for grabs as prices head upward again.

The company owns four core assets in Canada; the KSM project, which is one of the world’s largest underdeveloped projects measured by reserves, Courageous Lake, a historically renowned property, and Iskut, a product of a recent acquisition by Seabridge.

Recently, Seabridge closed a major extension deal to continue expansion at its KSM project. CEO Rudi Fronk stated:

“We are pleased that our EA Certificate has been renewed until 2024 under the same terms and conditions, reaffirming the Government of British Columbia’s support for KSM and the robustness of the original 2014 EA.”

Teck Resources (NYSE:TECK) (TSX:TECK)

Teck could be one of the best-diversified miners out there, with a broad portfolio of Copper, Zinc, Energy,  Gold, Silver and Molybdenum assets. Its free cash flow and a lower volatility outlook for base metals in combination with a potential trade war breakthrough could send the stock higher in H2 of this year.

Teck’s share price stabilized last year and many investment banks now see the stock as undervalued. Low prices for Canadian crude and disappointing base metals prices weighed on Q4 earnings.

Despite its struggles, however, Teck Resources recently received a favorable investment rating from Fitch and Moody’s, and will likely benefit from its upgraded score.

“Having investment grade ratings is very important to us and confirms the strong financial position of the company,” said Don Lindsay, President and CEO. “We are very pleased to receive this second credit rating upgrade.”

Kinross Gold Corporation (NYSE:KGC) (TSX:K)

Kinross Gold Corporation is relatively new on the scene, founded in the early 90s, but it certainly isn’t lacking drive or experience. In 2015, the company received the highest ranking for of any Canadian miner in Maclean’s magazine’s annual assessment of socially responsible companies.

While Kinross posted a significant loss in the fourth quarter of 2018, the company is making strong moves to turn around its earnings, including the hiring of a new CFO, Andrea S. Freeborough.

“Andrea’s successful track record at Kinross and throughout her career, including accounting, international finance, M&A, and deep management experience, will be an excellent addition to our leadership team,” said Mr. Rollinson. “We have great talent at Kinross and succession planning is a key aspect of retaining that talent for the future success of our Company.”

Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. (NYSE:WPM) (TSX:WPM)

Wheaton is a company with its hands in operations all around the world. As one of the largest ‘streaming’ companies on the planet, Wheaton has agreements with 19 operating mines and 9 projects still in development. Its unique business model allows it to leverage price increases in the precious metals sector, as well as provide a quality dividend yield for its investors.

Recently, Wheaton sealed a deal with Hudbay Minerals Inc. relating to its Rosemont project. For an initial payment of $230 million, Wheaton is entitled to 100 percent of payable gold and silver at a price of $450 per ounce and $3.90 per ounce respectively.

Randy Smallwood, Wheaton’s President and Chief Executive Officer explained,

“With their most recent successful construction of the Constancia mine in Peru, the Hudbay team has proven themselves to be strong and responsible mine developers, and we are excited about the same team moving this project into production. Rosemont is an ideal fit for Wheaton’s portfolio of high-quality assets, and when it is in production, should add well over fifty thousand gold equivalent ounces to our already growing production profile.”

Eldorado Gold Corp. (NYSE:EGO) (ELD.TO)

This Canadian mid-cap miner has assets in Europe and Brazil and has managed to cut cost per ounce significantly in recent years. Though its share price isn’t as high as it once was, Eldorado is well positioned to make significant advancements in the near-term.

In 2018, Eldorado produced over 349,000 ounces of gold, well above its previous expectations, and is set to boost production even further in 2019. Additionally, Eldorado is planning increased cash flow and revenue growth this year.

Eldorado’s President and CEO, George Burns, stated:

“As a result of the team’s hard work in 2018, we are well positioned to grow annual gold production to over 500,000 ounces in 2020.  We expect this will allow us to generate significant free cash flow and provide us with the opportunity to consider debt retirement later this year. “

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Joao Peixe is a writer for Oilprice.com

This is what the Republican-elected, property-developer-president in the US White House in Washington has specifically threatened to do to the sovereign state of Iran: which action is presumably endorsed by the UK Conservative government – for it has said nothing to the contrary.

And the crime allegedly committed by Iran – to develop a nuclear deterrent such as that already possessed by Israel. In fact, Israel is estimated by American Scientists to have up to 400 nuclear weapons of mass destruction.  Iran has none.

The population of Iran – one of the world’s oldest civilisations – in 2019 is nearly 83 million – ten times that of Israel.  And Trump has threatened to kill every Iranian man, woman and child in the entire country whilst Britain and the world stay silent in the face of such openly threatened genocide. Never before in history has such a terrible threat of specific mass-murder been made.

What type of world do we now live in where a demented head of state and his family are in command of the most powerful military force on the planet and who has made a direct threat to liquidate over 80 million souls?  A world where the United Nations and the Security Council that represents the international community of nearly two hundred nation states, remain silent in the face of such a heinous threat?

Iran leadership doesn’t understand the words “nice” or “compassion,” they never have. Sadly, the thing they do understand is Strength and Power, and the USA is by far the most powerful Military Force in the world, with 1.5 Trillion Dollars invested over the last two years alone..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 25, 2019

….The wonderful Iranian people are suffering, and for no reason at all. Their leadership spends all of its money on Terror, and little on anything else. The U.S. has not forgotten Iran’s use of IED’s & EFP’s (bombs), which killed 2000 Americans, and wounded many more…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 25, 2019

….Iran’s very ignorant and insulting statement, put out today, only shows that they do not understand reality. Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration. No more John Kerry & Obama!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 25, 2019

Maybe it’s just a nightmare from which we will awake.  For if not, then our children have no future within a world gone mad. More insane even than in the extermination camps of Treblinka and Birkenau in the atrocities perpetrated by Germany in the Europe of World War Two, just over seventy years ago.

The threat by this demented American President must be countered by Europe, Britain and the entire international community.  The fact that he was democratically elected is of no consequence. Hitler was also elected to be Chancellor in the Germany of 1933, from which time he proceeded to obliterate large parts of Europe.  As a consequence, an estimated 50+ million people died, worldwide.

If that sounds familiar, it is.  There must be regime change urgently. If not, then this world will be no place for children, or anyone else, anywhere on the planet. For all that will be left will be a deserted Trump Tower with shattered glass in an otherwise obliterated and radiated New York, standing in mute testament to another elected dictator who was allowed to rule the world for an instant in time.

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

Featured image is from FAIR

The much-awaited trilateral meeting of the security chiefs of Russia, Israel and the United States delivered on expectations: no breakthroughs nor revelations of concrete proposals, but lots of mutual political signaling, diplomatic posturing and ground-setting for next engagements.

Iran predictably dominated the agenda of the talks in Jerusalem today, and the parties each took predictable stances on Tehran’s policies.

Speaking in at the morning session, Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolay Patrushev noted that Moscow and Tehran are “conducting joint activities in counter-terrorism.”

“We have the opportunity [with Iran] to mutually influence each other’s [policies] and have the opportunity to hear one another. We understand the [security] concerns that Israel has, and we want these threats to be eliminated so that Israeli security is guaranteed. It’s very important to us. There’re some two million Russian-speaking people living in this country and we should never forget that. At the same time, we should never forget about the national interests that other regional powers have. If we fail to acknowledge them, I doubt we can reach a meaningful result,” Patrushev stressed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shakes hands with US national security adviser John Bolton and Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council, as Israeli national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat stands nearby during opening statements of a trilateral meeting between American, Israeli and Russian top security advisers in Jerusalem June 25, 2019. (Source: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun)

The remarks reflect the core of the dilemma for Moscow in its pursuit of a compromise in the Israeli-Iranian stand-off. At the same time, the talking points used are meant to convey the rationale behind Russia’s own position. Thus, the reference to two million Russian-speaking Jews is aimed at Iran and Arabs rather than the Israelis themselves, some of which support President Vladimir Putin’s policies in the Middle East but many of whom are quite critical of them.

“I fully share Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu’s position on how he sees future Syria — peaceful and secure. I’d only add that it should be sovereign, independent, with its territorial integrity preserved — this is our ultimate goal,” Patrushev subtly noted, following the remarks by Netanyahu. “This cannot be done in one leap. Therefore, we need to plan our activities in the way to have on board the countries that have a stake in the process, have an interest to work towards the result.”

Prior to the Jerusalem meeting, the Russian Security Council stated the talks would focus on “steps that need to be taken to settle Syria, destroy the remnants of terrorists, facilitate humanitarian assistance and socio-economic reconstruction of the country.” The Russian delegation was said to be bringing “concrete ideas” on what could be done on all of these matters with the inclusion of key Middle Eastern countries.

Following the talks, Patrushev made another interesting statement, calling Israeli strikes on what it sees as Iranian assets in Syria “undesirable.” It’s nothing new, as Moscow has always complained about these actions, yet it’s important that the words came from the top level security official on his visit to Israel.

“Many instances of [Israeli] strikes [in Syria] could be prevented by non-military means in order to localize the situation that concerns Israel,” Patrushev noted, calling for better interaction between the Russian and Israeli militaries.

Patrushev made it clear Moscow deems the meeting in Jerusalem important both in itself and as a potential start of similar discussions on regional security. Russia’s insistence on acknowledging Iranian interests has to do with Moscow’s vision for real progress in such discussions and a starting point for depolarizing the political atmosphere in the Middle East. Russia also sees its attempt to find middle ground on Iran as a catalyst for its own engagement with Tehran: If not pressured, Moscow believes, Iran will be more prone to compromises in Syria and beyond.

Patrushev was mum on the issue of the departure of foreign forces from Syria, a point that Netanyahu brought up in his own remarks. Although it’s often believed that Moscow is not happy with the Iranian influence over Damascus, Russia sticks to the position that since the Iranians operate in Syria upon invitation by the official government, it’s for Damascus to discuss the terms of their departure. Even if the issue is to be addressed at other venues, Moscow argues, it should be negotiated with Iran rather than pushed upon it.

“We’ve agreed on most issues regarding what kind of Syria we’d want to see at the end of the day. But as far as specific ways are concerned on how to make this happen, well, we need to continue the dialogue. I hope given the spirit of the good will we’ve seen in these talks we can make it happen, eventually,” Patrushev said.

The meeting is also critical groundwork for the Putin-Trump encounter in Japan’s Osaka later this week. Details of the meeting between the two leaders and its agenda are not available, but the issues discussed in Jerusalem will definitely be raised. The challenge for Washington and Moscow in this interaction is to decouple the Syria-Iran agenda as part of a potential venue of joint activity from the bitter state of US-Russia’s own bilateral relationship.

“I don’t know, let them decide themselves whether they need to foster relations with Russia or not. Therefore, if they need dialogue — please, we are ready. If they don’t need it, we will wait until they mature,” Putin said over the weekend.

Putin expressed skepticism over prospects of normalization with the United States but spared Trump blame for it, saying, “We see that the system is so that many things, which [Trump] wants to do, cannot be done. Although, certainly, a lot depends on the political will.”

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Maxim A. Suchkov, is editor of Al-Monitor’s Russia / Mideast coverage. He is a non-resident expert at the Russian International Affairs Council and at the Valdai International Discussion Club. He was a Fulbright visiting fellow at Georgetown University (2010-11) and New York University (2015). On Twitter: @MSuchkov_ALM Email: [email protected]

Marianna Belenkaya writes on the Middle East for the Russian daily Kommersant. An Arab studies scholar with almost 20 years of experience covering the Middle East, she served in the Russian Foreign Ministry’s press pool from 2000 to 2007 as a political commentator for RIA Novosti and later became the first editor of the RT Arabic (formerly Rusiya al-Yaum) website, until 2013. She has written for the Nezavisimaya Gazeta, the Russian Profile Magazine and Al-Hayat and is now a regular contributor to the Carnegie Moscow Center. On Twitter: @lavmir

The Wall Street Journal is reporting in increasing detail on President Trump’s Thursday decision to not attack Iran, providing reports from aides that described Trump as very reluctant to be dragged into another war.

Trump reportedly told one of his confidants of his inner circle that “these people want to push us into war… it’s so disgusting.” He added that in his view “we don’t need any more wars.”

Signs are that much of the cabinet was pushing for a US attack, but Gen. Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered a more wary assessment of the outcome of such an attack. This is a surprising revelation since the Pentagon’s brass had been suggested to be hawkish as well.

Trump praised Dunford for calling for caution, calling him a “terrific man and a terrific general.” Trump added that he was happy to see division within his team on the matter, though some within his administration, notably those who didn’t get the war they wanted, are made about the internal schism.

On Thursday morning, when the attack was planned, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo summoned national security officials for a breakfast, and to talk about the US drone being shot down. Officials claimed that the group was “unanimous” in favor of attacking Iran, though others denied that Dunford, who was present, had supported the attack.

Trump is increasingly favoring Gen. Dunford on matters of foreign policy, and that likely put him in a better position to express opposition to the strike. Trump appears to have already been inclined against such a strike, especially if it killed anyone, which would’ve given Dunford the benefit of telling Trump what he wanted to hear.

Dunford’s opposition is also fueling allegations of military lawyers being the backchannel through which President Trump got the formal estimate of 150 killed in the attack, which he says is what made him decide against it.

Some reports claim the military’s lawyers sent the estimate to White House lawyers, who passed it along to Trump. Others are denying this, and accusing White House lawyers of inventing the whole estimate themselves. Trump confirmed being unhappy with the vague estimates he was initially offered on the attack plan, saying we “wanted an accurate count.”

This has fueled a lot of disputes within the administration that the estimate was too high, though Trump dismissed this as largely irrelevant to his decision, saying “anything is a lot when you shoot down an unmanned drone.”

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Jason Ditz is news editor of Antiwar.com.

Featured image is from Geopolitics Alert

There’s been heavy skepticism about Trump’s so-called “Deal of the Century” and the recently unveiled economic component didn’t generate much interest, but the secret to the possible success of this sell-out stratagem is the US’ ability to impose primary and secondary sanctions against the Palestinians in order to get them to agree to the political concessions that will be demanded from them later this year, failing which Washington will let Israel assassinate their leaders in advance of a bombing campaign aimed at forcing the rest of the population into submission.

Much of the world is mocking the underwhelming response given to the recently unveiled economic component of Trump’s much-touted “Deal of the Century” (DoC) that was just made public during this week’s conference in Bahrain, noting that the Palestinians and many of their Arab allies boycotted the event while the Israelis didn’t send any high-level representation given the sensitivity of rolling it out ahead of its unexpected second elections in September. Haaretz perfectly summed up the situation last weekend when one of its journalists wrote that

“Not much joy will come from this wedding, to which the Palestinian bride is absolutely refusing to come, the Israeli groom is sending low-ranking representatives and the guests are being asked to maintain as low a profile as possible.”

The Palestinians refuse to be bought off and won’t sell out their struggle, having refused to do so several times over the decades since the idea was first unofficially bandied about, but this is the first time that the US so overtly made it clear that it’s trying to bribe them and spent several years trying to make this a multilateral effort with regional stakeholders. Nevertheless, just because nobody seems to be too interested in this at the moment (or at least publicly) doesn’t mean that the DoC is DOA (dead on arrival) since the world needs to wait until its political element is made known later this year and the US officially demands certain concessions from the Palestinians. While nobody knows for sure what these might entail, a leaked document from early last month might offer some clues about what to expect.

As could have been predicted, it basically amounts to a capitulation by the Palestinians, but the most important detail is the enforcement measures that the US is reportedly putting forth. According to the report, the US will cut off all financial assistance to the Palestinians and make sure that nobody else is able to transfer funds to them either, strongly implying the imposition of primary and secondary sanctions. Furthermore, the document declares that the US will support Israeli attacks against the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad (a euphemism for assassinating them) in the event of a war breaking out if they refuse to sign the deal alongside the PLO. In other words, the US will worsen the already terrible humanitarian situation in Gaza and the West Bank in the hopes that this will compel the Palestinians to pressure their leaders to sell out and sign the deal for sanctions relief, as well as divide the various Palestinian factions in order to pick them off one by one.

It’s not to say that this strategy will necessarily succeed, but just that it appears to be the most likely that will be pursued if that detail of the leaked report proves true, which isn’t unbelievable since the Trump Administration’s policy-making trademark has been the weaponization of sanctions for political ends. The DoC is so important for Trump’s re-election campaign, international prestige, and ultimate legacy that it’s hard to think that he wouldn’t at least try going through with an interconnected sanctions and Israeli assassination strategy as a last-ditch effort to salvage his administration’s unrealistically hyped-up plan if it’s rejected by the Palestinians (which they’ve pledged to do). With that in mind, the economic component of the DoC can be seen in a new light as the developmental alternative to the death and destruction that the US and Israel will wreak.

There’s no “gentle” way to put it — the US will do its utmost to harm ordinary Palestinians even more than it already has through what might turn out to be the strictest sanctions regime on the planet if their leaders don’t agree to sell out their struggle, and should some of them dare to attack Israel or respond to any of its militant provocations, then Washington will fully support Tel Aviv’s assassination campaign against their top brass. The DoC therefore isn’t a “deal” at all, but an ultimatum for the Palestinians to either appreciate the little that they’re being promised and hope that the grandiose plans of turning Gaza into a “new Dubai” will materialize to some extent or face the unrestrained wrath of the US and Israel as they use fire and fury to force them to comply.

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Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Jerusalem Post

In an op-ed before joining Trump’s geopolitical team, Bolton outlined his strategy for eliminating the JCPOA, facilitating war on the country he seeks. More on this below.

The Iran nuclear deal, unanimously adopted by Security Council members, should have resolved the matter of its alleged nuclear ambitions — not extending beyond legitimate purposes all along.

The deal clearly affirmed that Iran’s use of the technology is solely for non-military purposes, its legal right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Regular monitoring by IAEA inspectors affirmed Tehran’s compliance with JCPOA provisions. No evidence suggests it seeks to develop nuclear weapons.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa, banning the acquisition, development, production, and use of nuclear weapons.

He earlier said the

US “created the myth of nuclear weapons in order to claim that the Islamic Republic is a source of threat. But the source of threat is America itself. Today, the greatest source of threat in the world is the regime of America.”

“We are not after nuclear weapons. And this is not because they are telling us not to pursue these things. Rather, we do not want these things for the sake of ourselves and our religion and because reason is telling us not to do so.”

“Lifting sanctions is one of the terms of the (JCPOA) agreement” the Trump regime breached, violating international law.

“There is no one in Iran who does not want the nuclear issue to be resolved through negotiations. What the people of Iran do not want is to accept America’s imposition and bullying.”

The US “knows that we are not after building a nuclear weapon, but they have used it as an excuse to exert pressures on the people of Iran.”

“(I)f we accept what they dictate to us on the nuclear issue, their destructive moves and sanctions will not be stopped and lifted. They will continue to create all sorts of problems for us because they are opposed to the essence of the Revolution.”

The whole world knows that Iran’s nuclear program is legitimate with no military component or a desire to have one. Claims otherwise by the Trump regime are red herring cover for actions it intends to try returning the country to US client state status.

When Washington wants to vilify a nation it marks for regime change, pretexts are easy to create. If Iran had no nuclear technology, other reasons would be invented to pursue hostile US policies against the country.

Dozens of nations operate nuclear power plants, Iran alone singled out by the US as wanting to develop nukes, despite no evidence suggesting it.

On Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif slammed the Trump regime’s call for renegotiating the JCPOA, calling it a “recipe for destroying the” agreement.

If the JCPOA dissolves, it’ll be much easier for Trump regime hardliners to claim Iran is unrestrained to develop nukes, facilitating their efforts to recruit coalition partners of the willing for war on the country — to eliminate a threat that doesn’t exist.

The Bolton War Scenario

In August 2017, ahead of his appointment as Trump’s national security advisor, John Bolton wrote a detailed op-ed blueprint for “get(ing) out of the Iran nuclear deal,” a roadmap to war, saying the following:

“Trump can and should free America from this execrable deal (sic) at the earliest opportunity.”

Its existence and IAEA affirmation of Tehran’s compliance with its principles makes it harder for Iranophobes to sell the notion of an Iranian threat.

Bolton: “The JCPOA is a threat to US national-security interests, growing more serious by the day (sic).”

“If (Trump) decides to abrogate the JCPOA, a comprehensive plan must be developed and executed to build domestic and international support for the new policy.”

“Like any global campaign, it must be persuasive, thorough, and accurate.”

“Opponents, particularly those who participated in drafting and implementing the JCPOA, will argue strongly against such a decision, contending that it is reckless, ill-advised, and will have negative economic and security consequences.”

“(W)e must explain the grave threat (the JCPOA poses) to the US and our allies, particularly Israel (sic).”

“(A) new ‘reality’ (must) be created” to pull out of the deal.

It must “assure the international community that the US decision will in fact enhance international peace and security (sic).”

Trump “should announce that (he’s) abrogating the JCPOA due to significant Iranian violations (sic), Iran’s unacceptable international conduct more broadly (sic), and because the JCPOA threatens American national-security interests (sic)” — no matter that all of the above are bald-faced Big Lies.

Selling the Trump regime’s arguments “must also demonstrate the linkage between Iran and (nuclear armed) North Korea.”

It must sell the notion that Iran acts “as the world’s central banker for international terrorism (sic)” — how the US and its imperial partners operate, not the Islamic Republic.

Bolton called for “(e)arly, quiet consultations with key” allies, convincing them of the Trump regime’s arguments — based on Big Lies and deception he failed to explain.

He said a “documented strategic case” should be prepared, selling the Trump regime’s scheme.

An “expanded diplomatic (anti-Iran) campaign” should be launched — selling Congress, the US public, and allied nations.

US embassies should be involved, making the Trump regime’s case to host countries. The same goes for enlisting UN support.

Russia and China should be excluded from all of the above discussions, to “be informed just prior to the public announcement…(W)e will move ahead with or without them.”

Convincing the world community of “Iran’s actual underlying intention to develop deliverable nuclear weapons…has never flagged” — no matter how untrue.

Bolton listed the following actions he’d recommend the Trump regime take against Iran as part of its campaign preceding war he’s long called for:

• “End all landing and docking rights for all Iranian aircraft and ships at key allied ports.
• End all visas for Iranians, including so called ‘scholarly,’ student, sports, or other exchanges.
• Demand payment with a set deadline on outstanding US federal-court judgments against Iran for terrorism (sic), including 9/11 (sic).
• Announce US support for the democratic Iranian opposition.
• Expedite delivery of bunker-buster bombs (to the region).
• Announce US support for Kurdish national aspirations, including Kurds in Iran, Iraq, and Syria.
• Provide assistance to Balochis, Khuzestan Arabs, Kurds, and others — also to internal resistance among labor unions, students, and women’s groups.
• Actively organize opposition to Iranian political objectives in the UN.”
• The Trump regime’s anti-Iran campaign should be its “highest diplomatic priority, commanding all necessary time, attention, and resources.”

Bolton never met a sovereign independent country he didn’t want to bomb. He’s been hostile to Iran for decades, claiming the country poses a “threat to our civilization.”

Bolton’s piece was long and detailed, a likely roadmap heading for war on Iran if he gets his way.

Iran’s Zarif stressed that the Trump regime is “plotting for war” on the country.

That’s where things are heading if the White House scheme for regime change isn’t strongly countered.

Sergey Lavrov warned of a “very bad scenario” unfolding against Iran…”We are concerned about what is happening,” he stressed.

It’s reminiscent of events preceding Bush/Cheney’s 2003 aggression on Iraq — based on the pretext of WMDs that didn’t exist.

“All of us know the (deplorable) result,” said Lavrov. “Draw your own conclusion on how (exported US) democracy (worked in the country) over the 16 past years.”

*

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

This ancient site that dates back to the year 705 C.E. is being targeted for destruction by extremist groups that seek to erase Jerusalem’s Muslim heritage in pursuit of colonial ambitions and the fulfillment of end-times prophecy.

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The iconic golden dome of the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque, located on the Temple Mount or Haram el-Sharif, is the third holiest site in Islam and is recognized throughout the world as a symbol of the city of Jerusalem. Yet, this ancient site that dates back to the year 705 C.E. is being targeted for destruction by increasingly influential extremist groups that seek to erase Jerusalem’s Muslim heritage in pursuit of colonial ambitions and the fulfillment of end-times prophecy.

Some observers may have noticed the growing effort by some Israeli government and religious officials to remove the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque from the Jerusalem skyline, not only erasing the holy site in official posters, banners and educational material but also physically removing the building itself. For instance, current Knesset member of the ruling Likud Party, American-born Yehuda Glick, was also the director of the government-funded Temple Institute, which has created relics and detailed architectural plans for a temple that they hope will soon replace Al-Aqsa. Glick is also close friends with Yehuda Etzion, who was part of a failed plot in 1984 to blow up Al-Aqsa mosque and served prison time as a result.

“In the end we’ll build the temple and it will be a house of prayer for all nations,” Glick told Israeli newspaper Maariv in 2012. A year later, Israel’s Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel stated that “[w]e’ve built many little, little temples…but we need to build a real Temple on the Temple Mount.” Ariel stated that the new Jewish Temple must be built on the site where Al-Aqsa currently sits “as it is at the forefront of Jewish salvation.” Since then, prominent Israeli politicians have become more and more overt in their support for the end of Jordanian-Palestinian sovereignty over the mosque compound, leading many prominent Palestinians to warn in recent years of plans to destroy the mosque.

In recent years, a centuries-old effort by what was once a small group of extremists has gone increasingly mainstream in Israel, with prominent politicians, religious figures and political parties advocating for the destruction of the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque in order to fulfill a specific interpretation of an end-times prophecy that was once considered fringe among practitioners of Judaism.

As Miko Peled, Israeli author and human-rights activist, told MintPress, the movement to destroy Al-Aqsa and replace it with a reimagined Temple “became notable after the 1967 war,” and has since grown into “a massive colonial project that uses religious, biblical mythology and symbols to justify its actions” — a project now garnering support from both religious and secular Israelis.

While the push to destroy Al-Aqsa and replace it with a physical Third Temple has gained traction in Israel in recent years, this effort has advanced at a remarkably fast pace in just the past few weeks, owing to a confluence of factors. These factors, as this report will show, include the upcoming revelation of the so-called “Deal of the Century,” the push for a war with Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and the Trump administration’s dramatic lenience in regards to the activity of Jewish extremist groups and extremist settlements in Israel.

These factors correlate with a quickening of efforts to destroy Al-Aqsa and the very real danger the centuries-old holy site faces. While the U.S. press has occasionally mentioned the role of religious extremism in dictating the foreign policy of prominent U.S. politicians like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, it has rarely shone a light on the role of Jewish extremism in directing Israel’s foreign policy — foreign policy that, in turn, is well-known to influence American policies.

When taken together, the threats to Al-Aqsa are clearly revealed to be much greater than the loss of a physical building, though that itself would be a grave loss for the world’s Muslim community, which includes over 1.8 billion people. In addition, the site’s destruction would very likely result in a regional and perhaps even global war with clear religious dimensions.

To prevent such an outcome, it is essential to highlight the role that extremist, apocalyptic interpretations of both the Jewish and Christian faiths are playing in trends that, if left unchecked, could have truly terrifying consequences. Both of these extremist groups are heavily influenced by colonial ambitions that often supersede their religious underpinning.

In Part I of this two-part series, MintPress examines the growth of extremist movements in Israel that openly promote the destruction of Al-Aqsa, from a relatively isolated fringe movement within Zionism to mainstream prominence in Israel today; as well as how threats to the historic mosque have grown precipitously in just the past month. MintPress interviewed Israeli author and activist Miko Peled; Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss of Neturei Karta in New York; Imam and scholar of Shia Islam, Sayed Hassan Al-Qazwini, of the Islamic Institute of America; and Palestinian journalist and academic Ramzy Baroud for their perspectives on these extremist groups, their growing popularity, and the increasing threats to the current status quo at Haram El-Sharif/Temple Mount.

The second part of this series will detail the influence of this extremist movement in Israeli politics as well as American politics, particularly among Christian Zionist politicians in the United States. The ways in which this movement’s goal have also influenced Israeli and U.S. policy — particularly in relation to the so-called “Deal of the Century,” President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and the push for war against Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah — will also be examined.

Two centuries in the cross-hairs

Though efforts to wrest the contested holy site from Jordanian and Palestinian control have picked up dramatically in recent weeks, the Al-Aqsa mosque compound had long been targeted prior to Israel’s founding and even prior to the formation of the modern Zionist movement.

For instance, Rabbi Zvi Hirsh Kalisher — who promoted the European Jewish colonization of Palestine from a religious perspective well before Zionism became a movement — expounded on an early form of what would later be labeled “religious Zionism” and was particularly interested in the acquisition of Haram el-Sharif (i.e., the Temple Mount) as a means of fulfilling prophecy.

As noted in the essay “Proto-Zionism and its Proto-Herzl: The Philosophy and Efforts of Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalisher” by Sam Lehman-Wilzig, Professor of Israeli Politics and Judaic Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, Kalisher sought to court wealthy European Jews to finance the purchase of Israel for the purpose of resettlement, particularly the Temple Mount. In an 1836 letter to Baron Amschel Rothschild, Kalisher suggested that the eldest brother of the wealthy banker family use his abundant funds to bring Jewish sovereignty to Palestine, specifically Jerusalem and the Temple Mount:

[E]specially at a time like this, when the Land of Israel is under the dominion of the Pasha… perhaps if his most noble Excellency pays him a handsome sum and purchases for him some other country (in Africa) in exchange for the Holy Land, which is presently small in quantity but great in quality… this money would certainly not be wasted… for when the leaders of Israel are gathered from every corner of the world… and transform it into an inhabited country, the many G-d-fearing and charitable Jews will travel there to take up their residency in the Holy Land under Jewish sovereignty… and be worthy to take up their portion in the offering upon the altar. And if the master (Ibrahim Pasha) does not desire to sell the entire land, then at least he should sell Jerusalem and its environs… or at least the Temple Mount and surrounding areas.” (emphasis added)

Kalisher’s request was met with a noncommittal response from Baron Rothschild, leading Kalisher to pursue other wealthy European Jewish families, like the Montefiores, with the same goal in mind. And, though Kalisher was initially unsuccessful in winning the support of the Rothschild family, other notable members of the wealthy European banking dynasty eventually did become enthusiastic supporters of Zionism in the decades that followed.

Kalisher was also influential in another way, as he was arguably the first modern Rabbi to reject the idea of patiently waiting for God to fulfill prophecy and proposed instead that man should take concrete steps that would lead to the fulfillment of such prophecies, a belief that Kalisher described as “self help.” For Kalisher, settling European Jews in Palestine was but the first step, to be followed by other steps that would form an active as opposed to a passive approach towards Jewish Messianism. These subsequent steps included the construction of a Third Temple, to replace the Second Temple destroyed by the Romans around the year 70 C.E., and the reinitiation of ritual animal sacrifices in that Temple, which Kalisher believed could only be placed on the Temple Mount, where Al-Aqsa then sat and still sits.

Kalisher wasn’t alone in his views, as his contemporary, Rabbi Judah Alkalai, wrote the following in his book Shalom Yerushalayim:

It is obvious that the Mashiach ben David [Messiah of the House of David] will not appear out of thin air in a fiery chariot with fiery horses, but will come if the Children of Israel bend to the task of preparing themselves for him.”

Though Kalisher wasn’t the lone voice promoting these ideas, his beliefs — aside from promoting the physical settlement of European Jews in Palestine — remained relatively fringe for decades, if not more than a century, as secular Jews were hugely influential in the Zionist movement after its official formation. However, prominent religious Zionists did influence the Zionist movement in key ways prior to Israel’s founding. One such figure was Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, who sought to reconcile Zionism and Orthodox Judaism as the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Palestine, a position he assumed in 1924.

Yet, Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss of Neturei Karta, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish group based in New York that opposes Zionism, told MintPress that many religious Zionists have since latched onto Kalisher’s ideas, which were widely rejected during his lifetime, in order to justify neocolonial actions sought by secular Zionists. “This rabbi, at the time, other rabbis ‘roared’ against him and his beliefs weren’t accepted,” Rabbi Weiss stated, “But now, the ones who are talking about building this Third Temple….these are Zionists and they have found some rabbi whose ideas benefit them that they have been using to justify Zionist acts” that are not aligned with Judaism “and make them kosher.”

Weiss further expanded on this point, noting that the participants of the modern religious Zionism movement that seek to build a new Jewish temple where Al-Aqsa currently stands are, at their core, Zionists who have used religious imagery and specific interpretations of religious texts as cover for neo-colonial acts, such as the complete re-making of the Temple Mount.

“It’s like a wolf in a sheepskin…These people who want to incorporate the teachings of this rabbi [Rabbi Kalisher] are proudly saying that they are Jewish, but are doing things Jews are forbidden from doing,” such as ascending to and standing upon the Temple Mount, which Rabbi Weiss stated was “a breach of Jewish law,” long forbidden by that law according to a consensus among Jewish scholars and rabbis around the world that continued well beyond the formation of the Zionist movement in the 19th century.

Weiss also told MintPress:

There are only a few sins in Judaism — which has many, many laws, that lead to a Jew being cut off from God — and to go up to the Temple Mount is one of them…This is because you need a certain level of holiness to ascend and… the process to attain that level of holiness and purity cannot be done today, because [aspects of and the items required by] the necessary purity rituals no longer exist today.”

Rabbi Weiss noted that, for this reason, the Muslim community that has historically governed the area where Al-Aqsa mosque stands never had any problems with the Jewish community in relation to the Temple Mount, as it has been known for centuries that Jews cannot ascend to the area where the mosque currently sits and instead prayed only at the Western Wall. He also stated that the prophetic idea of a Third Temple was, prior to Zionism, understood as indicating not a change in physical structures on the Temple Mount, but a metaphysical, spiritual change that would unite all of mankind to worship and serve God in unison.

Rabbi Weiss asserted that the conflict regarding Al-Aqsa mosque started only with the advent of Zionism and the associated neo-colonial ambition to fundamentally alter the status quo and structures present at the site as a means of erasing key parts (i.e., Palestinian parts) of its heritage. “This [the use of religion to justify ascending to and taking control of the Temple Mount] is a trap for conning other people into supporting them,” concluded the Rabbi.

Nonetheless, Kalisher’s impact can be seen in today’s Israel more than ever, thanks to the rise and mainstream acceptance within Israel of once-fringe elements of religious Zionism, which were deeply influenced by the ideas of rabbis like Kalisher and have served in recent decades as an incubator for some of Israel’s most radical political elements.

Meanwhile, as the debate within Judaism over the Temple Mount has changed dramatically since the 19th century, its significance in Islam has remained steadfast. According to Imam Sayed Hassan Al-Qazwini, “Al-Aqsa is the third holiest mosque in Islam…it is considered to be the place where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven and has been mentioned in the Qoran, which glorifies that mosque and identifies it as a blessed mosque. All Muslims, whether they are Sunni or Shia, revere that mosque” — a fact that has remained unchanged for over a millennium and continues to today.

Religious Zionism gains political force

The modern rise of the religious Zionist movements that promote the destruction of Al-Aqsa mosque and its replacement with a Third Jewish Temple is most often traced back to the Six Day War of 1967. According to Miko Peled, who recently wrote a piece for MintPress Newsregarding the threats facing Al-Aqsa, “religious Zionism” as a political force became more noticeable following the 1967 war. Peled told MintPress:

After the ‘heartland’ of Biblical Israel came under Israeli control, the religious Zionists, who before then were marginalized, saw it as their mission to settle those newly conquered lands, and to be the new pioneers, so to speak. They took on the job that the socialist Zionist ideologues had in settling Palestine and ridding it of its native Arab population in the years leading up to Israel’s establishment and up to the early 1950s. They saw the “return” of Hebron, Bethlehem, Nablus, or Shchem and, of course, the Old City of Jerusalem as divine intervention and now it was their turn to make their mark.

It began with a small group of Messianic fanatics who forced the government – who at that point, after 1967, was still secular Zionist – to accept their existence in the highly populated areas within the West Bank. That was how the city of Kiryat Arba [illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank] was established. The government, it is worth noting, was happy to be forced into this. From a small group that people thought were fringe lunatics to a Jewish city in the heart of Hebron region.”

Peled further noted that this model, employed by the religious extremist groups that founded illegal West Bank settlements like Kiryat Arba, “has been used successfully since then and it is now used by the groups that are promoting the new Temple in place of Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.” He continued, pointing out that “whereas 20-30 years ago they were considered a fringe group, this year they expect more than 50,000 people to enter the compound to support the group and their goals. Religious Israeli youth who opt out of military service and choose national service instead may work with the [Third] Temple building organizations.”

Extremist settlers escorted by Israeli after they stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on July 22, 2018. Mostafa Alkharouf | Anadolu

Dr. Ramzy Baroud — journalist, academic and founder of The Palestine Chronicle — agreed with Peled’s sense that the Third Temple movement or Temple Activist movement has grown dramatically in recent years and has become increasingly mainstream in Israel. Baroud told MintPress: 

There has been a massive increase in the number of Israeli Jews who force their way into the Al-Aqsa mosque compound to pray and practice various rituals…In 2017 alone, over 25,000 Jews who visited the compound — accompanied by thousands of soldiers and police officers and provoking many clashes that resulted in the death and wounding of many Palestinians. Since 2017, the increase in Jews visiting the compound has been very significant if compared to the previous year when around 14,000 Jews made that same journey.”

Baroud also noted:

[The Temple Activist movement] has achieved a great deal in appealing to mainstream Israeli Jewish society in recent years. At one point, it was a marginal movement, but with the rise of the far right in Israel, their ideas and ideologies and religious aspirations have also become part of the Israeli mainstream.”

As a result, Baroud asserted:

[There is] an increasing degree of enthusiasm among Israeli Jews that is definitely not happening at the margins [of society], but is very much a part of the mainstream, more so than at any time in the past, to take over the Al-Aqsa mosque, demolish the mosque in order to rebuild the so-called Third Temple.”

However, Rabbi Weiss disagreed with Peled and Baroud that this faction presents a real threat to the mosque, given that the mosque’s destruction is widely rejected by Diaspora Jewry (i.e., Jews living outside of Israel) and that destroying it would not only cause conflicts with the global Muslim community but also numerous Jewish communities outside of Israel.

As Rabbi Weiss told MintPress:

Some of the largest and most religious [i.e. ultra-orthodox] Jewish communities outside of Israel, like the second largest community of religious [ultra-orthodox] Jews in Williamsburg, Brooklyn [in New York], and also in Israel … are opposed to this concept of taking over the Temple Mount and other related ideas.”

Weiss argued that many of these religious Zionists in Israel that are pushing for a new Temple “do not follow Jewish law to the letter and don’t come from the very religious communities, including the settlers…They don’t go to expressly religious schools, they go to Zionist schools. Their whole view is built on Zionism and [secondarily] incorporates the religion,” as opposed to the reverse. As a result, the destruction of the Al-Aqsa mosque, in Weiss’ view, could greatly alienate the state of Israel from these more religious and ultra-orthodox communities.

In addition, Rabbi Weiss felt that many Jewish and secular Israelis would also reject such a move because it would create even more conflicts, which many Israelis do not want. He described the Temple Activists as “a vocal minority” that represented a “fringe” among adherents to Judaism and a group within Zionism that has tried to use the Temple Mount “in order to be able to excuse their occupation and to try to portray this [the occupation of Palestine] as a religious conflict,” with the conflict surrounding the Temple Mount being an extension of that.

Weiss believed that the push to take over the Temple Mount was a “scare tactic” aimed at securing the indefinite nature of the occupation, and noted that many Israelis did not want a spike in or renewal of conflict that would inevitably result if the mosque were to be destroyed. He also added that he did not think there was a “real threat” of the mosque being targeted because international rabbinical authorities have stood fast in their opposition to the project promoted by the Temple Activists.

“Tomorrow might be too late”

It is hardly a coincidence that the growth of Temple Activism and associated movements like “neo-Zionism” have paralleled the growth in threats to the Al-Aqsa mosque itself. Many of these threats can be understood through the doctrine developed by Rabbi Kalisher and others in the mid-19th century — the idea that “active” steps must be taken to bring about the reconstruction of a Jewish Temple at Haram El-Sharif in order to bring about the Messianic Age.

Indeed, during the 1967 war, General Shlomo Goren, the chief rabbi of the IDF, had told Chief of Central Command Uzi Narkiss that, shortly after Israel’s conquest of Jerusalem’s Old City, the moment had come to blow up the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock. “Do this and you will go down in history,” Goren told Narkiss. According to Tom Segev’s book 1967, Goren felt that the site’s destruction could only be done under the cover of war: “Tomorrow might be too late.”

Goren was among the first Israelis to arrive at the then-recently conquered Old City in Jerusalem and was joined at the newly “liberated” Al-Aqsa compound by a young Yisrael Ariel, who now is a major leader in the Temple Activist movement and head of the Temple Institute, which is dedicated to constructing a Third Temple where Al-Asqa mosque currently stands.

Narkiss rejected Goren’s request, but did approve the razing of Jerusalem’s Moroccan quarter. According to Mondoweiss, the destruction of the nearly seven centuries old Jerusalem neighborhood was done for the “holy purpose” of making the Western Wall more accessible to Jewish Israelis. Some 135 homes were flattened, along with several mosques, and over 700 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed as part of that operation.

Following the occupation of East Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa has come under increasing threat, just as extremist movements who seek to destroy the site have grown. In 1969, a Christian extremist from Australia, Daniel Rohan, set fire to the mosque. Rohan had been studying in Israel and, prior to committing arson, had told American theology student Arthur Jones, who was studying with Rohan, that he had become convinced that a new temple had to be built where Al-Aqsa stood.

Then, in 1984, a group of messianic extremists known as the Jewish Underground was arrested for plotting to use explosives to destroy Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock. Ehud Yatom, who was a security official and commander of the operation that foiled the plot, told Israel’s Channel 2 in 2004 that the planned destruction of the site would have been “horrible, terrible,” adding that it could provoke “the entire Muslim world [into a war] against the state of Israel and against the Western world, a war of religions.”

One of those arrested in 1984 in connection with the bomb plot, former Jewish Underground member Yehuda Etzion, subsequently wrote from prison that his group’s mistake was not in targeting the historic mosque, which he called an “abomination,” but in acting before Israeli society would accept such an act. “The generation was not ready,” Etzion wrote, adding that those sympathetic to the Jewish Underground movement “must build a new force that grows very slowly, moving its educational and social activity into a new leadership.”

“Of course I cannot predict whether the Dome of the Rock will be removed from the Mount while the new body is developing or after it actually leads the people,” Etzion stated, “but the clear fact is that the Mount will be purified [from Islamic shrines] with certainty…”

Upon his release from prison, Etzion founded the Chai Vekayam (Alive and Existing) movement, a group that Al Jazeera’s Mersiha Gadzo described as aimed at “shaping public opinion as a prerequisite for building a Third Temple in the religious complex in Jerusalem’s Old City where Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are located.” Gadzo also notes that “according to messianic belief, building the Third Temple at the Al Aqsa compound — where the First and Second Temples stood some 2,000 years ago — would usher the coming of the Messiah.”

Six years later, another group called the Temple Mount Faithful, which is dedicated to building the Third Temple, provoked what became known as the Al-Aqsa massacre in 1990 after its members attempted to place a cornerstone for the Third Temple on the Temple Mount / Haram El-Sharif, leading to riots that saw Israeli police shoot and kill over 20 Palestinians and wound an estimated 150 more.

This was followed by the riots in 1996 after Israel opened up a series of tunnels that had been dug under Al-Aqsa mosque that many Palestinians worried would be used to damage or destroy the mosque. Those concerns may have been well-founded, given the involvement of then- and current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Third Temple activist groups in creating the tunnels and in subsequent excavations near the holy site, which were and continue to be officially described as “archaeological” in nature. During the 1996 incident, 80 Palestinians and 14 Israeli police officers were killed.

Some Israeli archaeologists have argued that these tunnels have not been built for archaeological or scientific purposes and are highly unlikely to result in any new discoveries. One such Israeli archaeologist, Yoram Tseverir, told Middle East Monitor in 2014 that “the claims that these excavations aim at finding scientific information are marginal” and called the still-ongoing government-sponsored excavations under Al-Aqsa “wrong.” When those “archaeological” excavations at Al-Aqsa resulted in damage to the Western Wall near Al-Aqsa last year, a chorus of prominent Palestinians, including the spokesman for the Fatah Party, claimed that Israel’s government had devised a plan to destroy the mosque.

Since 2000, Al-Aqsa mosque has been the site of incidents that have resulted in new state crackdowns by Israel against Palestinians both within and well outside of Jerusalem. Indeed, the Second Intifada was largely provoked by the visit of the then-Likud candidate for prime minister, Ariel Sharon, who entered Al-Aqsa mosque under heavy guard. Then-spokesman for Likud, Ofir Akounis, was later quoted by CNN as saying that the reason for Sharon’s visit was “to show that under a Likud government it [the Temple Mount] will remain under Israeli sovereignty.”

That single visit by Sharon led to five years of heightened tensions, more than three thousand dead Palestinians and an estimated thousand dead Israelis, as well as a massive and still continuing crackdown on Palestinians living under Israeli occupation and in the blockaded Gaza Strip.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud told MintPress that Sharon’s provocation in particular, and subsequent provocations, are often planned and used by Israeli politicians in order to justify crackdowns and restrictions on Palestinians. He argued:

[Some powerful Israeli politicians] use these regular provocations at Al Aqsa to create the kind of tensions that increase violence in the West Bank and to [then] carry out whatever policies they have in mind. They know exaclty how to provoke Palestinians and there is no other issue that is as sensitive and unifying in the Palestinian psyche as Al-Aqsa mosque.

Not only do we need to be aware of the fact that [provocations at] Al-Aqsa mosque are being used to implement archaic, destructive plans [i.e., destruction of Al-Aqsa and construction of a Third Temple] by certain elements that are now very much at the core of Israeli politics, but also the fact that this type of provocation is also used to implement broader policies pertaining to Palestinians elsewhere.”

Drums beating loud

While there have long been efforts to destroy the historic Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, recent weeks have seen a disturbing and dramatic uptick in incidents that suggest that the influential groups in Israel that have long pushed for the mosque’ s destruction may soon get their way. This reflects what Ramzy Baroud described to MintPress as how support for the construction of the Third Temple where Al-Aqsa currently sits is now “greater than at any time in the past” within Israeli society.

Earlier this month on June 2, a religious adviser to the Palestinian Authority (PA), Mahmoud Al-Habbash, took to social media to warn of an “Israeli plot against the Al-Aqsa Mosque,” adding that “If the Muslims don’t act now [to save the site]… the entire world will pay dearly.”

Al-Habbash’s statement was likely influenced by a disturbing event that occurred that same day at the revered compound when Israeli police provided cover for extremist Israeli settlers who illegally entered the compound during the final days of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Israeli police used pepper spray and rubber bullets to disperse Palestinian worshippers who had gathered at the mosque during one of Islam’s most important holidays while allowing over a thousand Israeli Jews to enter the compound. Forty-five Palestinians were wounded and several were arrested.

Though such provocative visits by Jewish Israelis to Al-Aqsa have occurred with increasing frequency in recent years, this event was different because it up-ended a long-standing agreement between Jordan’s government, which manages the site, and Israel that no such visits take place during important Islamic holidays. As a consequence, Jordan accused Israel’s government of “flagrant violations” of that agreement by allowing visits from religious nationalists, which Jordan described as “provocative intrusions by extremists.”

Less than a week after the incident, Israel’s Culture and Sports Minister, Miri Regev, a member of the Netanyahu-led Likud Party, called for more settler extremists to storm the compound, stating: “We should do everything to keep ascending to the Temple Mount … And hopefully, soon we will pray in the Temple Mount, our sacred place.” In addition, Regev also thanked Israel’s Interior Security Minister, Gilad Erdan, and Jerusalem’s police chief for guarding the settler extremists who had entered the compound.

In 2013, then-member of the Likud Party Moshe Feiglin told the Knesset that allowing Jewish Israelis to enter the compound is “not about prayer.” “Arabs don’t mind that Jews pray to God. Why should they care? We all believe in God,” Feiglin — who now heads the Zehut, or Identity, Party — stated, adding, “The struggle is about sovereignty. That’s the true story here. The story is about one thing only: sovereignty.”

In other words, Likud and its ideological allies view granting Jewish Israelis entrance to “pray” at the site of the mosque as a strategy aimed at reducing Palestinian-Jordanian control over the site. Feiglin’s past comments give credibility to Rabbi Weiss’ claim, referenced earlier on in this report, that the religious underpinnings and religious appeals of the Temple Activists are secondary to the settler-colonial (i.e., Zionist) aspect of the movement, which seeks to remove Palestinian and Muslim heritage from the Temple Mount as part of the ongoing Zionist project.

Feiglin, earlier this year in April, called for the immediate construction of the Third Temple, telling a Tel Aviv conference, “I don’t want to build a [Third] Temple in one or two years, I want to build it now.” The Times of Israel, reporting on Feiglin’s comments, noted that the Israeli politician is “enjoying growing popularity.”

Earlier this month, and not long after Miri Regev’s controversial comments, an event attended by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli mayor of Jerusalem, Moshe Leon, used a banner that depicted the Jerusalem skyline with the Dome of the Rock noticeably absent. Though some may write off such creative photo editing as a fluke, it is but the latest in a series of similar incidents where official events or materials have edited out the iconic building and, in some cases, have replaced it with a reconstructed Jewish temple.

US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman poses with a picture of the ‘Third Temple,’ May 22, 2018. Israel Cohen | Kikar Hashabat

The day before that event, Israeli police had arrested three members of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound’s Reconstruction Committee, which is overseen by the government of Jordan. Those arrested included the committee’s head and its deputy head, and the three men were arrested while performing minor restoration work in an Al-Aqsa courtyard. The Jordan-run authority condemned the arrests, for which no official reason was given, and called the move by Israeli police “an intervention in their [the men’s] reconstruction work.” According to Palestinian news agency Safa, Israeli police have also prevented the entry of tools necessary for restoration work to the site and have restricted members of the authority from performing critical maintenance work.

In addition, another important figure at Al-Aqsa, Hanadi Al-Halawani, who teaches at the mosque school and has long watched over the site to prevent its occupation by Israeli forces, was arrested late last month.

Arrests of other key Al-Aqsa personnel have continued in recent days, such as the arrest of seven Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, including guards of the mosque, and their subsequent ban from entering the site. The Palestinians were arrested at their homes last Sunday night in early morning raids and the official reason for their arrest remains unclear. So many arrests in such a short period have raised concerns that, should the spate of arrests of important Al-Aqsa personnel continue, future incidents at the site, such as the mysterious firethat broke out last April at Al-Aqsa while France’s Notre Dame was also ablaze, may not be handled as effectively owing to staff shortages.

Soon after those arrests, 60 members of a settler extremist group entered the al-Aqsa compound under heavy guard from Israeli police. Safa news agency reported that these settlers have recently been accompanied by Israeli intelligence officials in their incursions at the site.

All of these recent provocations and arrests in connection with the mosque come soon after the King of Jordan, Abdullah II, publicly stated in late March that he had recently come under great pressure to relinquish Jordan’s custodianship of the mosque and the contested holy site upon which it is built. Abdullah II vowed to continue custodianship over Christian and Muslim sites in Jerusalem, including Al-Aqsa, and declined to say who was pressuring him over the site. However, his comments about this pressure to cede control over the mosque came just days after he had visited the U.S. and met with American Vice President Mike Pence, a Christian Zionist who believes that a Jewish Temple must replace Al-Aqsa to fulfill an end times prophecy.

In May, an Israeli government-linked research institute, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, wrote that Abdullah II had nearly been toppled in mid-April, just weeks after publicly discussing external pressure to relinquish control over Al-Aqsa. The report stated that Abdullah II had been a target of a “plot undermining his rule,” which led him to replace several senior members of his government. That report further claimed that the plot had been aimed at removing obstacles to the Trump administration’s “Deal of the Century,” which is supported by Israel’s government.

Last year, some Israeli politicians sought to push for a transfer of the site’s custodianship to Saudi Arabia, sparking concern that this could be connected to plans by some Third Temple activists to remove Al-Aqsa from Jerusalem and transfer it piece-by-piece to the Saudi city of Mecca. On Thursday, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs published an article asserting that “tectonic shifts” were taking place in relation to who controls Al-Aqsa, with a Saudi-funded political group making dramatic inroads that could soon alter which country controls the historic mosque compound.

Sayyed Hassan Al-Qazwini told MintPress that, in his view, the current custodianship involving Jordan’s government is not ideal, as control over the Al-Aqsa mosque “should in the hands of its people, [and] Al-Aqsa mosque belongs Palestine;” if not, at the very least, a committee of Muslim majority nations should be formed to govern the holy site because of its importance. As for Saudi Arabia potentially receiving control over the site, Al-Qazwini told MintPress that “the Saudis are not qualified as they are not even capable of running the holy sites in Saudi Arabia itself. Every year, there has been a tragedy and many pilgrims have died during hajj time [annual Islamic pilgrimage].”

Once fringe, now approaching consensus

The threat to Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock compound, the third holiest site in Islam and of key importance to three major world religions, is the result of the dramatic growth of what was once a fringe movement of extremists. After the Six Day War, these fringe elements have fought to become more mainstream within Israel and have sought to gain international support for their religious-colonialist vision, particularly in the United States. As this article has shown, the threats to Al-Aqsa have grown significantly in the past decades, spiking in just the past few weeks.

As former Jewish Underground member Yehuda Etzion had called for decades ago, an educational and social movement aimed at gaining influence with Israeli government leadership has been hugely successful in its goal of engineering consent for a Third Temple among many religious and secular Israelis. So successful has this movement been that numerous powerful and influential Israeli politicians, particularly since the 1990s, have not only openly promoted these beliefs, and the destruction of Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, but have also diverted significant amounts of government funding to organizations dedicated to replacing the historic mosque with a new temple.

As the second and final installment of this series will show, this movement has gained powerful allies, not just in Israel’s government, but among many evangelical Christians in the United States, including top figures in the Trump administration who also feel that the destruction of Al-Aqsa and the reconstruction of a Jewish Temple are prerequisites for the fulfillment of prophecy, albeit a different one. Furthermore, given the influence of such movements on the Israeli and U.S. governments, these beliefs of active Messianism are also informing key policies of these same governments and, in doing so, are pushing the world towards a dangerous war.

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Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism

During late November 1944, the German armaments minister Albert Speer met with his leader, Adolf Hitler, at the Reich Chancellery in Berlin so as to debate the ongoing war effort. Much to Hitler’s incredulity, Speer had been overseeing what seemed like miracles for months on end.

In late 1944 German production of panzers, aircraft and munitions reached an all-time high, in spite of the now almost unchallenged Allied aerial attacks.

While Speer and Hitler convened for discussions, the Nazi leader gestured outside towards the ruins of Berlin. Hitler turned and said jokingly,

“What does all that signify, Speer? In Berlin alone you would have to tear down 80,000 buildings to complete our new building plan. Unfortunately, the English haven’t carried out this work exactly in accordance with your plans, but at least they have launched the project”.

Hitler was in fact shaken by the devastation meted out upon the Reich by British and American aircraft – but what maintained his spirits during the war’s late stages was the great assault he was preparing to unleash mostly through Belgium: The Ardennes Offensive, which would send Allied armies careering back into the English Channel.

The Ardennes itself – with its vast woodlands, rolling valleys and winding rivers – was a magical, mystical place for Hitler, and one he long associated with his crushing victory over France more than four years before; as the panzers and armoured vehicles somehow carved a path through the Ardennes’ “impenetrable” forests. It was no coincidence that in this dense, misty terrain, the dictator would launch a second major land incursion.

The Ardennes Offensive, beginning in December 1944, would not have been possible had Allied leaders directed their pilots more regularly towards bombardment of German industrial plants, communication signals and transportation lines.

Instead, from 1940 British and later American airmen were ordered to implement “area bombing”; in plain English, the destruction of cities and residential areas which entailed, as was known, the deaths of noncombatants like women, children, along with the elderly. This was a particular brand of Anglo-Saxon warfare, which had prior agreement in the highest levels of Allied government circles.

Shortly after becoming Britain’s prime minister in May 1940, Winston Churchill had said,

“this war is not against Hitler or National Socialism, but against the strength of the German people, which is to be smashed once and for all, regardless of whether it is in the hands of Hitler or a Jesuit priest”.

By the spring of 1945, Allied aircraft had terror-bombed a remarkable 70 cities across Germany – killing around 600,000 of the Reich’s civilians, the majority of whom were mothers and children, coupled with those too old to fight – along with destroying countless hospitals, schools and historical buildings. In contrast, the Luftwaffe’s Blitz of Britain killed less than 10% of the above total, about 40,000 people.

Of the 70 German cities firebombed, 69 of them endured the obliteration of 50% or more of their urban areas.

Civilians were indeed largely targeted. Over the war’s duration, more than 2.6 million tons of bombs were dropped on Germany or Reich-occupied territory; of this, less than 2% of the total bomb outlay fell upon the Nazis’ war-making factories. The vast majority of the rest were dumped over densely populated quarters and workers’ homes, separately killing large numbers of downtrodden POWs.

The Western media strongly backed the firestorming of German and Japanese cities, even demanding “more bombing of civilian targets”, whilst criticizing the few attacks restricted to military and industrial zones.

In Europe these actions were sometimes justified by claiming that every German was a supporter of Hitler, and therefore deserved their fate. Conveniently forgotten was that Hitler received little more than a third (36.8%) of the popular vote in the spring 1932  presidential elections; while Paul von Hindenburg took home more than half (53%) of all votes. In the July 1932 federal elections the Nazi Party, though now the largest in Germany, still fell far short of a majority, as they claimed just over a third (37%) of the entire vote – and Hitler’s support actually declined slightly to 33% in the November 1932 federal elections.

Later, the desire to smash “the strength of the German people” mostly spared the Nazis’ crucial weapons factories, rail networks and other resource lines. It was a great delusion on the part of Western political and military figureheads, to believe that hitting general populations would bring the enemy to their knees.

As Hermann Goering’s 1940-41 Blitz bore proof of, unloading bombs over heavily populated regions did nothing to break a people’s morale, but in fact bolstered a nation’s resolve. When relatives or friends are killed by enemy shells, the natural human reaction is to seek revenge, while the hardship brings people together.

Unlike British and American statesmen, Hitler recognized not long after the Blitz that aerial demolition of cities would not wreck the endurance of foreign populaces. During November 1944 Hitler was again telling Speer that,

“These air raids don’t both me. I only laugh at them. The less the population has to lose, the more fanatically it will fight. We’ve seen that with the English you know, and even with the Russians. One who has lost everything has to win everything… People fight fanatically only when they have the war at their own front doors. That’s how people are”.

Three months later, at the February 1945 Yalta Conference in the Crimea, Churchill was formulating the massive attack on Dresden with his advisers. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was terribly ill at this stage but he agreed at Yalta to pinpointing Dresden, in which over 500 American heavy bombers would partake, supported by smaller aircraft.

Dresden after the bombing raid (CC BY-SA 3.0 de)

As proceedings at Yalta concluded on 11 February 1945, the firestorming of Dresden began two days later against a city whose population had swollen to over one million people, including 400,000 refugees.

Today, it is still unknown how many innocents were killed, with numbers ranging from 100,000 dead up to an extravagant half a million. Hundreds of evacuee children lost their lives, while scores of American Mustang fighter-bombers returned to mow down beleaguered survivors crowding alongside river banks and in gardens. Compounding these war crimes, Dresden contained no significant armament facilities and was an undefended university town.

While Hitler was particularly brutal in the genocide he pursued primarily against Jewish populations, he was not a proponent of systematic annihilation of urbanized places – euphemistically titled “strategic bombing”. He had not prepared for it. Throughout the war, the Germans had no possession at all of four-engine heavy bomber aircraft.

Little known, and of some importance, is that the Luftwaffe’s Blitz of Britain came as a direct response to British aerial attacks over German cities. Initially, Hitler had issued strict orders that no bombs be released on London.

Liverpool city centre after heavy bombing (Public Domain)

RAF planes pounded Berlin almost every night from 25 August 1940 until 7 September 1940, the latter date heralding the Blitz’s commencement in riposte to British targeting of German populated regions. There can be little doubt that Britain started the air war against populated centres, and in fact London’s bombers had first attacked Berlin on 15 May 1940, during the Battle of France.

People in London look at a map illustrating how the RAF is striking back at Germany during 1940 (Public Domain)

For years before Hitler had come to power, influential Britons were espousing the dropping of bombs over civilian targets – dating to such men as Lord Hugh Trenchard, England’s esteemed First World War air commander and military strategist.

As far back as 1916, Lord Trenchard was expounding that, “The moral effect produced by a hostile aeroplane… is out of proportion to the damage it can inflict”. The following year, 1917, he pleaded with Britain’s War Cabinet in allowing him to “attack the industrial centres of Germany”; and in 1918 dozens of tons of British bombs were raining down from the skies over German cities, from Cologne to Stuttgart.

In May 1941, Lord Trenchard outlined to Churchill that the German achilles heel “is the morale of her civilian population under air attacks” and “it is at this weak point that we should strike again and again”.

Two months later, July 1941, Churchill told Roosevelt that “we must subject Germany and Italy to a ceaseless and ever-growing bombardment”. Roosevelt presumably agreed with this assertion, as the US president had reacted positively when hearing plans in November 1940 regarding proposed American firebombing attacks on Japan.

By the early 1940s, fascist Italy fell out of favour in Washington and London. Yet during the 1930s Roosevelt had been quite supportive of Benito Mussolini’s regime, with the new US leader writing in June 1933 that he was “deeply impressed by what he [Mussolini] has accomplished”, describing him as “that admirable Italian gentleman”.

The British and American capitalist business communities were generally benevolent to both Mussolini and Hitler, investing significant sums in the dictatorial states, and viewing them as bulwarks against Bolshevism.

US General Billy Mitchell, an instrumental figure often dubbed “the father of the American air force”, was an ingrained exponent of mass raids over city environments. In 1932, Mitchell wrote in an article relating to Japan that,

“These towns, built largely of wood and paper, form the greatest aerial targets the world has ever seen”.

Also keen supporters of attacking built-up centres were Cordell Hull, Roosevelt’s Secretary of State, and General George Marshall, the US Army Chief of Staff.

One need but glance at the array of four-engine heavy bombers dominating the British and American fleets: Such as London’s Short Stirling (introduced August 1940), the Handley Page Halifax (introduced November 1940) and Avro Lancaster (introduced February 1942); along with Washington’s Boeing B-17 (introduced April 1938) and the B-24 Liberator (introduced March 1941). These airplanes were undergoing design long before Germany’s invasion of Poland in September 1939, or indeed Japan’s December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

The above aircraft boasted flying ranges of over a thousand miles upwards past two thousand miles; while the Luftwaffe’s most widely known airplane, the one-engine Stuka divebomber, held a roaming distance of just 200 miles. Allied aircraft could fly far and wide so as to inflict widespread damage over concrete landscapes; while they were not created as such to aim at specific military installations or war-making facilities.

Britain’s Stirling and Lancaster bombers were designed to carry over 6,000 kilograms (14,000 pounds) of explosives, compared to the Stuka’s 700 kilograms (1,500 pounds). The Stuka’s most infamous feature was its howling, melancholic siren, which was personally devised by Hitler in order to induce maximum psychological damage on civilians, but not so much physical harm.

The aerial bombardment of German, and Japanese cities, had served to lengthen World War II by many, many months – as the raids often spared not merely industrial hotspots, but also enemy soldiers. The running joke was that the safest place to be is at the front.

Speer outlined, “The war would largely have been decided in 1943” if enemy aircraft “had concentrated on the centres of armaments production”. Yet in their bloodlust, the Allied commanders did not relent in their desire to decimate civilian areas.

Nazi Germany’s ball bearing and fuel depots, pivotal to various armaments in her war machine, were bombed sporadically at times and not at all mostly. From spring 1944, intermittent Allied air raids upon the ball bearing industry abruptly stopped.

Speer remarked that, “the Allies threw away success when it was already in their hands” while “Hitler’s credo that the impossible could be made possible” looked to be running true to form. “You’ll straighten all that out again” the Nazi leader assured Speer when war production was briefly reduced, and as the latter noted, “In fact Hitler was right – we straightened it out again”. Armaments manufacturing remained strong, giving Hitler hope that the German ability to recover from seemingly desperate predicaments could yet turn the war around.

As a consequence of the Allied fixation on turning populated centres into rubble, almost to the end of the war German construction of heavy armour and ammunition rose. Speer revealed “our astonishment” as the enemy “once again ceased his attacks on the ball bearing industry”.

Perhaps it was not as astonishing as it appeared. On 28 July 1942 Arthur “Bomber” Harris, leader of RAF Bomber Command, said that his pilots were bombing one German city after another “in order to make it impossible for her to go on with the war. That is our object; we shall pursue it relentlessly”.

Such was Harris’ desire to wreak vengeance on civilians that he opposed the introduction of other aircraft – like the RAF’s Pathfinder – that could have significantly improved precision of aerial assaults, potentially shifting Bomber Command’s focus towards military-related targets. Harris feared that the Pathfinder, introduced in the autumn of 1942, would lead to calls for an end to terror-bombing of cities, his specialty.

Harris portrayed the firestorming of Hamburg in July 1943 as “a relatively humane method”; raids which killed tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians.

The Western democracies and “defenders of civilization” – in opposition to fascist tyranny – pursued the most destructive and crude of methods in a supposed bid to quickly win the war.

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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.

It’s inevitable that the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) will eventually lead to it strategically expanding into the Gulf, so China and Pakistan should use Trump’s latest tweet urging countries to militarily protect their own oil tankers there to operationalize the Arabian dimension of an expanded W-CPEC+ and indirectly counter India’s (and possibly soon even its “Indo-Pacific” ally Japan’s) naval deployment to the region.

Trump is playing a Machiavellian trick with his latest tweet urging countries to militarily protect their own oil tankers in the Gulf, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t be outwitted and have this plan backfire against him. He told the world that “China gets 91% of its Oil from the Straight, Japan 62%, & many other countries likewise. So why are we protecting the shipping lanes for other countries (many years) for zero compensation. All of these countries should be protecting their own ships on what has always been a dangerous journey. We don’t even need to be there in that the U.S. has just become (by far) the largest producer of Energy anywhere in the world! The U.S. request for Iran is very simple – No Nuclear Weapons and No Further Sponsoring of Terror!” India already deployed its naval and air assets to the region in a provocative show of force against Iran and a sign of fealty to its new American, “Israeli“, and Saudi military-strategic allies, but Trump clearly wants to see the multilateral militarization of this waterway in order to put more pressure on the Islamic Republic.

China gets 91% of its Oil from the Straight, Japan 62%, & many other countries likewise. So why are we protecting the shipping lanes for other countries (many years) for zero compensation. All of these countries should be protecting their own ships on what has always been….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 24, 2019

Specifically calling on China and Japan to dispatch their maritime assets there is intended to create a naval free-for-all that could turn the Strait of Hormuz into what the Gulf of Aden was in the mid-2000s, namely a point of convergence for the world’s navies where each of them can gather intelligence about the other. Japan is India and the US’ “Indo-Pacific” ally for “containing” China and has accordingly been eager to expand its strategic influence in the Afro-Asian (“Indian”) Ocean to this end, which in turn invites China to do the same as it seeks to hedge against their plans. Predictably, the possible deployment of the People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN) in response would immediately be interpreted by the Indians as part of China’s so-called “String of Pearls” strategy for supposedly “encircling” it, thereby encouraging the South Asian state to clinch more weapons deals with the US such as the prospective $10 billion one that it’s reportedly in the process of negotiating. The resultant “security dilemma” is thought to play exactly into the US’ hands because it also gives the Pentagon the opportunity to improve the interoperability of its allies’ naval forces right on Iran’s doorstep.

Even so, that doesn’t mean that China can’t creatively respond by operationalizing the Arabian aspect of W-CPEC+ together with the global pivot state of Pakistan. To explain, it’s inevitable that CPEC‘s economic momentum will lead to it strategically expanding into the Gulf via a maritime connectivity corridor connecting the host state of Pakistan and its Chinese neighbor with Saudi Arabia’s planned Vision 2030 industrialization projects along its eastern coast. A supplementary western component will cross the mainland to connect to Iran, Turkey, and the EU, while the other CPEC+ branch corridors will head north (N-CPEC+) towards Central Asia & Russia and south (S-CPEC+) towards Africa. In the specific context of the present analysis, Trump’s relevant tweet could serve as a pretext for operationalizing the maritime portion of W-CPEC+ through the commencement of joint Chinese-Pakistani naval patrols in the Gulf, which would allow these allied navies to enhance their own interoperability through this real-life training exercise. It’s only a matter of time before this waterway needs to be protected by them anyhow, so it’s best to use this opportunity to begin doing so as soon as possible.

As an additional strategic benefit, China and Pakistan might be able to learn more about the Indian (and possibly soon also Japanese) navy, though so too could India learn more about theirs. Nevertheless, India already deployed its naval and air forces to the region, so the argument can be made that China and Pakistan should do too, especially after Trump invited the entire world to protect their own oil tankers there. Although this naval free-for-all veritably plays into the US’ hands to an extent, Pandora’s Box has already been opened by India’s decision to dispatch its forces there even before Trump publicly suggested it, so the failure to symmetrically respond might lead to a relative disadvantage for the Chinese and Pakistani navies if they allow New Delhi and its “containment” allies to maintain an uncontested long-term presence there. As such, it would be wise to begin brainstorming plans to operationalize W-CPEC+ and improve the Chinese and Pakistani navies’ interoperability since Trump unwittingly gave them the perfect pretext to do so.

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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.

Upon hearing the news that Palestinian diplomat Dr. Hanan Ashrawi had been denied entry to the United States on a speaking engagement, my husband wrote an e-mail to Indiana Senator Mike Braun titled, ‘Tell State Dept & Trump to give Ashrawi a visa now!’

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His letter was brief and to the point:

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Dear Senator Braun:

The State Department under President Trump is denying widely respected Palestinian leader Hanan Ashrawi a visa to visit the U.S.

Ashrawi has visited the U.S. frequently ever since she studied for her PhD here several decades ago. She has met with every Secretary of State since George Schultz and every President since President George Bush Senior.

Ashrawi has been critical of the Trump administration.

US law does not authorize the refusal of visas based solely on political statements or views. A State Department spokesman says: ‘Visas may be denied only on grounds set out in US law.’

Tell Trump to stop denying her a visa!

Sincerely,

J. Merriman

It took Senator Braun over a month to respond. His e-mail reads, in part:

“In May of 2019, Hanan Ashrawi claimed she was denied a visa to the United States. Visas cannot be denied based on political statements but may be denied only on grounds established by U.S. law.” (Bolded text mine)

We understood his response to mean that Dr. Hanan Ashrawi was lying about the reasons for the U.S. denying her a visa, and that means she must be in violation of some U.S. law.

Here is a news item that includes what Dr. Hanan Ashrawi herself has to say about the matter:

The US denies PLO Executive Committee Member Dr. Hanan Ashrawi a visa. She says this represents the overall denigration of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Watch the full discussion:

Senator Braun’s allusion to “grounds established by U.S. law” made me wonder about relevant laws. I asked my niece, a human rights attorney practicing in Chicago, who sent me the following information:

The State Department says,

“If denied a visa, in most cases the applicant is notified of the section of law which applies.” Since Dr. Ashrawi was apparently not provided a reason, we are forced to speculate.

My own speculation goes along the following lines:  Could it be the State Department has labeled Dr. Ashrawi a “terrorist supporter” based on the Immigration and Nationality Act, which states:

(IV) is a representative (as defined in clause (v)) of — (bb) a political, social, or other group that endorses or espouses terrorist activity;

That can’t possibly be true — despite the New York based Zionist journal The Algemeiner’s blaring in a headline that ‘MESA Demands US Welcome Palestinian Terror Apologist Hanan Ashrawi.’

Dr Ashrawi, founder of the Independent Commission for Human Rights and the recipient of numerous awards from all over the world, including the distinguished French decoration, “d’Officier de l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur”, is not politically affiliated with the Palestinian group the U.S. has labeled terrorist (Hamas), and the Trump administration has yet to declare the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) terror groups.

Another, more likely, reason for exclusion according to the Immigration and Nationality Act is:

© Foreign policy. — (i) In general. — An alien whose entry or proposed activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is inadmissible.

But how can Dr Ashrawi represent “serious adverse policy consequences” to U.S. foreign policy? Well, only if you understand the United States’ role in brokering a peace between Israel and the Palestinians to be so skewed in Israel’s favor, that it is reasonable for the State Department to prevent a well-spoken Palestinian representative from entering the United States and presenting the Palestinian cause to the American public.

And that is, indeed, the case. The U.S. has always been a “dishonest broker” when it came to its role in Israel/Palestine, as Naseer H. Aruri amply demonstrates in his 2003 book of that title.

Aruri writes:

Consequently, they have prolonged the occupation and obstructed the opportunity for peace with justice — the only peace that can promise an enduring coexistence between [Palestinian] Arabs and [Israeli] Jews, and the only peace capable of transforming the political landscape of the Middle East from a perpetual battleground to a terrain of dignity, reciprocity, mutuality, freedom, and self-determination.”

What’s more, the Immigration and Nationality Act cites other provisions for exclusion from the United States that, in fact, apply to the Israeli government, and by extension, to its diplomatic corps, rather than to the Palestinian Authority or the PLO — and by extension to Dr. Ashrawi:

(E) PARTICIPANTS IN NAZI PERSECUTION, GENOCIDE, OR THE COMMISSION OF ANY ACT OF TORTURE OR EXTRAJUDICIAL KILLING

(iii) COMMISSION OF ACTS OF TORTURE OR EXTRAJUDICIAL KILLINGS- Any alien who, outside the United States, has committed, ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in the commission of —
(I) any act of torture, as defined in section 2340 of title 18, United States Code; or
(II) under color of law of any foreign nation, any extrajudicial killing, as defined in section 3(a) of the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 (28 U.S.C. 1350 note), is inadmissible.

Genocide, acts of torture against Palestinian children as well as adults, and extrajudicial killings have all been documented against Israel. And yet, an Israeli prime minister is invited to address a joint meeting of Congress.

The outrageous attack on Palestinian freedom of expression that the United States has exercised in this case is only the latest assault on Palestinian rights carried out by the U.S. government — as well as by other similarly-minded governments — for example, in Germany, as Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network , an international network of organizers and activists working to build solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in their struggle for freedom, documents:

The repression of Palestinian rights advocacy in Germany continued last night, Saturday, 22 June, as Palestinian writer Khaled Barakat was banned by the Berlin authorities from delivering a speech on the so-called “deal of the century” spearheaded by Donald Trump and the Arab and Palestinian response. He was also banned from engaging in all political activities and events in Germany until 31 July, whether directly (in-person) or “indirectly” (over video.) This outrageous attack on freedom of expression is only the latest assault on Palestinian rights carried out by the German government.

The U.S. Department of State ought to be working closely with Palestinian leaders, legislators, activists, writers and scholars in order to fashion its foreign policy on Israel/Palestine. Instead, it is forcing “normalization” on Arab states without Palestine, something that will never, ever lead to justice and peace. The denial of a visa to Dr. Hanan Ashrawi simply highlights the outright U.S. rejectionist policy toward Palestinian participation and Palestinian rights.

By shutting down the much-needed debate on Zionist history and the nature of the Zionist state, the U.S. government and its allies continue to impose a Western imperial project on the Middle East.

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Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Os Ministros da Defesa da NATO (de Itália, Elisabetta Trenta, M5S, de Portugal, João Gomes Cravinho) foram convocados para reunir em Bruxelas, em 26 e 27 de Junho,  a fim de aprovar as novas medidas de “dissuasão” contra a Rússia, acusada, sem qualquer prova, de ter violado o Tratado INF.

Fundamentalmente, irão alinar-se com os Estados Unidos que, retirando-se definitivamente do Tratado, em 2 de Agosto, preparam-se para instalar na Europa, mísseis nucleares de alcance intermédio (entre 500 e 5.500 km) com base no solo, semelhantes aos da década dos anos 80 (os Pershing II e mísseis de cruzeiro) que foram eliminados (juntamente com os SS-20 soviéticos) pelo Tratado assinado em 1987 pelos Presidentes Gorbachev e Reagan.

As principais potências europeias, cada vez mais divididas dentro da UE, reúnem-se na NATO sob o comando USA para apoiar os seus interesses estratégicos comuns.

A mesma União Europeia – da qual 21 dos 27 membros fazem parte da NATO (assim como faz parte a Grã-Bretanha, de saída da UE) – rejeitou nas Nações Unidas, a proposta russa de manter o Tratado INF. Sobre uma questão de tal importância, a opinião pública europeia é deixada, deliberadamente,  no escuro pelos governos e pelos principais meios de comunicação mediática. Assim, não se avisa sobre o perigo crescente que paira sobre nós: aumenta a possibilidade que, um dia, se venha a usar armas nucleares.

Confirma-o, o último documento estratégico das Forças Armadas dos EUA, “Nuclear Operations” (11 de Junho), redigido sob a direcção do Presidente do Estado Maior reunido. Dado que “as forças nucleares fornecem aos EUA a capacidade de atingir os seus objectivos nacionais”, o documento salienta que as mesmas devem ser “diversificadas, flexíveis e adaptáveis” a “uma ampla gama de adversários, ameaças e contextos”.

Enquanto a Rússia adverte que mesmo o uso de uma única arma nuclear de baixa potência desencadearia uma reacção em cadeia que poderia levar a um conflito nuclear em grande escala, a doutrina dos EUA está-se orientando com base num conceito perigoso de “flexibilidade”. ‘Alvos (esclarece o mesmo documento) realmente escolhidos pelas agências de inteligência/serviços secretos, que avaliam a vulnerabilidade a um ataque nuclear,  prevendo também os efeitos da chuva radioactiva.

O uso de armas nucleares – sublinha o documento – “pode criar as condições para resultados decisivos: especificamente, o uso de uma arma nuclear mudará fundamentalmente o quadro de uma batalha criando as circunstâncias que permitem aos comandantes prevalecer no conflito”. As armas nucleares também permitem  aos EUA “salvaguardar os seus aliados e parceiros” que, confiando neles, “renunciam à posse das suas próprias armas nucleares, contribuindo para os propósitos de não-proliferação dos EUA”.

No entanto, o documento deixa claro que “os EUA e alguns aliados selecionados da NATO mantêm aviões de capacidade dupla capazes de transportar armas nucleares ou convencionais”. Admite, assim, que quatro países europeus não nucleares – Itália, Alemanha, Bélgica, Holanda – e a Turquia, violando o Tratado de Não-Proliferação, não só hospedam armas nucleares americanas (as bombas B-61 que, a partir de 2020, serão substituídas pelas B61-12, mais mortíferas ), mas estão preparados para usá-las num ataque nuclear sob comando do Pentágono.

Tudo isto é omitido pelos governos e parlamentos, televisões e jornais, com o silêncio cúmplice da grande maioria dos políticos e jornalistas, que, pelo contrário, nos repetem, quotidianamente, como é importante para nós, italianos e europeus, a “segurança”. Garantem-na os  Estados Unidos,  instalando na Europa, outras armas nucleares.

Manlio Dinucci

Article original en italien :

L’Europa nella strategia nucleare del Pentagono

ilmanifesto.it

Traduction de l’italien : Luisa Vasconcellos

Tensions continued to grow in the Persian Gulf region after the shoot-down of a $110 million U.S. RQ-4A Global Hawk surveillance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps over the Straight of Hormuz on June 20.

According to the Iranian side, the UAV was in Iranian airspace off the shores of the district of Kouhmobarak when it was hit by a surface-to-air missile launched by the Khordad-3 air-defense system. On June 21, Tehran showcased vestiges of the downed UAV. The fact that Iranian forces were able to detect and reach the crash site first might lend credibility to their version of events.

Despite this, Washington insisted that the UAV was shot down over international waters describing the incident as an act of aggression. The U.S. military revealed that the downed RQ-4A was a part of the U.S. Navy’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance program. Global Hawk variants developed under this program were designed to provide the Navy with real-time intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities over vast ocean and coastal regions.

On June 21, U.S. President Donald Trump claimed that he ordered a strike on Iranian targets, but called off the decision 10 minutes prior. On June 22, the President threatened Iran with additional sanctions adding that the possibility of military action “is always on the table.”

Anonymous sources told the Washington Post that Trump had approved a cyber attack on missile and rocket control systems of the IRGC. The supposed attack was reportedly conducted on June 20 by the U.S. Cyber Command in coordination with the military’s Central Command. According to the sources, the attack was in the works “for weeks if not months.” Nonetheless, there has been no evidence or official confirmation of such developments.

The US has few real options to demonstrate its military might in the region without the risk of provoking an open hot conflict which, according to recent US actions, Washington appears unwilling to commit to, at least for now.

At the same time, the Washington establishment and its local allies continue their diplomatic and propaganda campaign in order to justify increasing sanctions pressure upon Iran.

As reported by the Middle East Eye on June 21, speaking on condition of anonymity, a “senior British official” claimed that an unnamed Saudi intelligence chief and the Kingdom’s senior diplomat Adel al-Jubeir pleaded with British authorities to carry out limited strikes on Iranian military targets. According to the official, the failed Saudi lobbing effort took place only a few hours after U.S. President Donald Trump claimed to have aborted his planned attack against Iran.

The Saudi-led coalition showcased remains of the projectile Ansar Allah (the Houthis) used in the recent attack on Abha International Airport. The remains, which were inspected by U.S. envoy to Iran, Brian Hook, identified the projectile as being a cruise missile.

The characteristics of the fuselage and fins appear to be similar to that of the Soviet Kh-55 cruise missile. One of the photos shows the remains of the missile’s engine, identified as an TJ-100 turbojet, produced by Czech’s PBS Velká Bíteš.  This engine is not known to have been used in any other missile. While the cruise missile may have been designed after the Kh-55, it remains unclear if it was developed and manufactured by Ansar Allah without external support.

In 2017, Ansar Allah claimed to have launched what looked like an Iranian Soumar cruise missile, another missile developed after the Kh-55, at the Barakah nuclear power plant in the UAE. Irregardless, if Ansar Alalh’s claim is to be believed, it could make for an explanation as to how the Yemeni group and its backers gained familiarity with the design of the missile.

It’s possible that the US will increase support to the Saudi invasion of Yemen in the framework of its on-going standoff with Iran in the region.

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I confess to being mystified by those Americans who lean conservative, like myself, who continue to think that President Donald J. Trump is somehow doing a good job. To be sure, the economy continues to add mostly low paying jobs but claims that the new tax law benefits the middle class are a bit hard to swallow as the elimination of a whole category of deductions for state and local taxes means that I and many other middle-income types will be paying more.

And there are whole policy-categories where the Trump record is appalling, to include the federal deficit, trade disputes that are alienating friends and allies, and sheer obstinate idiocy regarding the environment and climate change. Meanwhile, the president’s unrelenting moronic tweets and ridicule of critics have demeaned the office that he holds and made him look like a buffoon.

But Trump was not elected necessarily to create jobs or provide clean water, to make international trade more fair, or to pay attention to the weather. He was elected on two issues. The first was immigration, which energized folks in working class communities who were watching the America they grew up and the jobs that sustained it disappear in a confrontation with an unassimilable wave of mostly Latin American illegal immigrants. Trump promised to put a stop to the flow of immigrants across the border by building a wall if necessary while also catching and deporting illegals currently in the country.

The second issue was foreign policy, and more specifically the termination of the never-ending war legacy that Trump inherited from George W. Bush and Barack Obama, which motivated people like myself to vote for him. He exploited legitimate concerns over “Hillary the Hawk” and promised to disengage from existing conflicts in Afghanistan and Syria while more-or-less pledging not to get involved in further democracy promotion or regime change.

To no one’s surprise, perhaps, after more than two years in office the border wall is not built and the United States is confronting an increased flow of refugees coming from Mexico, inclusive of Central Americans and even Africans who are now into the game of claiming asylum in the U.S. To be sure, much of the problem rests with Congress, which refuses to authorize money for increased border security or pass sensible legislation to change America’s awful immigration system. Indeed, Trump is in fact deporting more illegals, but the deportations cannot keep up with the numbers of new arrivals.

Regarding foreign policy, Trump has not started any new wars though he has twice attacked Syria and he came very close to a serious escalation last Thursday when, for reasons that remain obscure, he stopped a planned attack on Iran at the last minute. And he is still in Syria-Iraq and Afghanistan in spite of somewhat confused assertions that he would be drawing down the number of troops in both theaters. And the absence of new wars is demonstrably not for lack of trying, witness the constant belligerence expressed towards all competitor nations as well as the comic opera coup attempt orchestrated in Venezuela.

Whatever Trump’s better angels might be, if he has any, the appointments of Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State and John Bolton as his National Security Advisor would seem to confirm that the president is disdainful of diplomacy and inclined to threats of military responses to “contain” or change the behavior of countries counted as adversaries. But, at the same time, the president is painfully aware that another indecisive war in the Middle East could cost him re-election, so he is hesitant to pull the trigger.

Most disappointing of all, the relationship with Russia, which Trump pledged to improve, is worse than it was during the Cold War due to a complete failure to engage Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in an adult and serious fashion. But if there is one area of foreign policy where Trump has been unwavering, it is his expressed hatred for Iran, which was hinted at during his presidential campaign when he kept referring to the “terrible” nuclear agreement entered into in 2015 by President Obama with that country. Pundits have blamed his subsequent repudiation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on hostility for Obama and all his works, but the real reason more likely has to do with money. Israeli-American casino multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson pumped tens of millions of dollars into the Republican Party in 2016, effectively buying it for Israel.

Adelson is the most despicable type of Israel-firster, barely concealing his singular loyalty to the Jewish state. He served in the U.S. Army in World War 2 but has said that he is ashamed of that service and would have preferred to be in the Israeli Army. He has also advocated dropping a nuclear weapon on Iran to send a message. Adelson, unfortunately, has Trump’s ear as well as his wallet, the two men reportedly exchanging telephone calls on a weekly basis.

Trump’s argument for the withdrawal from the JCPOA adhered closely to the Adelson/neoconservative line that Iran has been cheating on production of a weapon and would, in any event, be “guaranteed” to develop one as soon as the agreement expires in 2030. Trump also opposed returning Iran’s own money, which had been frozen in U.S. accounts under sanctions, claiming that it would be a “windfall” used to buy and upgrade weapons. The new president insisted that he would be able to negotiate a “better deal,” but the White House walked away from the agreement even though nearly every high official at the Pentagon and State Department argued that it was beneficial to U.S. interests to continue. At the time of the withdrawal and still to this day, Iran was and is subject to an invasive inspection regime and has been reported to be fully compliant with the terms of the JCPOA.

The JCPOA withdrawal chiefly benefited Israel, and it is just possible that it actually was planned there, as a naïve Trump was consistently outmaneuvered and manipulated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Adelson. Once out of the nuclear agreement, the march towards a real, shooting war began and has been deliberately escalated ever since, particularly after Mike Pompeo and John Bolton became major players in the cabinet.

No one in the White House has ever made the effort to explain exactly how Iran threatens the United States, apart from repeated offhand comments about having to protect Israel or “send a message.” Urged on by Israel and Saudi Arabia, the United States has been playing the unwitting fool in its willingness to take the lead in denying Iran any legitimate role in the Middle East region. After pulling out of the JCPOA, the U.S. re-instituted punitive sanctions and then punished other countries for dealing with Iran or abiding by the JCPOA agreement. The Administration, including the president, boasted how the severe sanctions would cause the Iranian economy to collapse. Trump has also several times threatened to completely destroy Iran. As the punishment being meted out has increased, the Administration has also heated up its own rhetoric, claiming that it was Iran and not the U.S. that had become more aggressive and threatening.

Last month, the White House initiated a complete blockade on Iranian energy exports, also threatening secondary sanctions on anyone seeking to ignore the restrictions being unilaterally declared and coming out of Washington. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was also declared to be a foreign terrorist organization, leading to still more sanctions and the dispatch of an aircraft carrier and strategic bombers to the Middle East followed by still more troops last week to defend against Iranian “hostile behavior.”

The Administration has accused Iran of several recent attacks on tankers, but the lack of evidence has even made it difficult for media friends and many Iran-hating congressmen to believe the claims. But make no mistake, the situation is approaching the boiling point with Pompeo and Bolton reportedly driving the process behind the back of a largely disengaged Trump. Meanwhile, the Iranian shoot-down of a U.S. drone on Wednesday produced even more calls for a military response. The New York Times’ leading Zionist columnist Bret Stephens called for an attack by U.S. forces to sink the Iranian navy. Senator Tom Cotton, a Trump ally, urged a “retaliatory military strike,” while Pompeo warned that any killing of an American soldier or sailor in Syria or Iraq will be blamed on Iran and a U.S. military response will follow.

Those calling for action almost got what they wanted last week, but perhaps the most dangerous moves being made by the Administration relate to how the United States goes to war. The War Powers Act of 1973, passed after the fraudulent Gulf of Tonkin incident of 1964 which led to escalation in Vietnam, permits the president to respond with armed force against an imminent threat or an actual act of war by an adversary. But he must inform congress within 48 hours, detailing why he acted as he did, and between 60 and 90 days afterwards he must remove the troops or obtain a declaration of war by Congress to continue the conflict.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, obviously representing the Administration viewpoint, is now claiming that the War Powers Act is not relevant as Iran is covered under the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF). Pompeo sought to convince a group of congressmen that the AUMF, which contains a blanket approval to use force against al-Qaeda and associated groups, also includes Iran because it has connections to al-Qaeda. This is an argument that has been made in the past, but the congressmen and even the media covering the story were not convinced by it.

If the White House has its way in this instance, it will be able to start wars anywhere at any time just by citing the AUMF no matter how implausible the argument being made is. And worse still would follow even if Congress then does the right thing and impeaches Trump. That would make Mike Pence president.

And, of course, no one in the White House has any idea what comes next after the bombs begin to fall.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Unz Review

Subordinates rarely have a good time of dictating matters to their superiors. In the webbed power relations that pass as realpolitik, Australia is the well behaved child in the front of the room, yearning to be caned and spoilt in equal measure.  Ever since Australia’s Prime Minister John Curtin cast his eye to Washington in an act of desperation during the Second World War, fearing defeat at the hands of the Japanese and British abandonment, the United States has maintained its role, a brute to be relied upon, even as it careers into the next disaster.  An underlying rationale since then has been dangerously simple: With the United States, right or wrong, sober or drunk.

An important element in the relationship has been the forced belief that the US has no bases in Australia, preferring the untidy ruse of rotation.  A base implies permanency, garrisons with darkened influences on the local populace, followed by the all-too-predictable requirement for courts martial.  A rotation on exercise suggests a casual visit and a bit of sunny fun.

The US armed forces, as Lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, do this with callous freedom under the broader aegis of the alliance with Canberra, fucking the Oriental subject and departing, having impregnated the host, and propelling her to a despair that eventually kills.  The metaphor carries over for what sounds, promiscuously enough, a classic military strategy: rotation, not occupation; movement, not garrisoned entrenchment.  To that end, it follows that the US does not occupy Australia so much as penetrate it with convenience, use it, and discard if and when needed, all pimp, and occasionally reassuring plunderer.

In 2014, US President Barack Obama fluted his views about the Pacific and the future role of US forces on a visit to Australia, yet another notch on the belt of the imperium’s move into the Asia-Pacific.

“By the end of this decade, a majority of our Navy and Air Force fleets will be based out of the Pacific, because the United States is and always will be a Pacific power.”

In 2015, Admiral Jonathan Greenert did his little Pinkerton expedition to Darwin, hoping to find suitable environs to seed further.   The US, in his words, was “doing a study together with the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to see what might be feasible for naval co-operation in and around Australia which might include basing ships”.  (The horny Lothario must always sound cooperative and consultative.)

A new port facility, planned to be situated at the Glyde Point area, has been one part of this potentially dubious harvest.  The intention here is to broaden the scope of naval operations, with the port intended for amphibious war ships, while providing comfort to the rotating marine force.  The Australian Defence Department, as is its wont, refuses to confirm this, telling the country’s national broadcaster that it had, at present “no plans for the development of a new naval facility in the Northern Territory.”  The evidence suggests otherwise, given the completion of the recent $40 million road to Gunn Point, near Glyde Point.  (The road to militarism tends to have good paving.)

A few mutterings are available from the Australian Defence Force.  A spokesman explained, noting additions to the infrastructure, that,

“The [fuel storage] facility will support training and enable enhance cooperation between the Australian Defence Force and the US Marine Corps and US Air Force.”

It has been a touch under a decade since US marines began arriving in Darwin, all part of the Obama administration’s desire to pivot the imperium. In 2018, Washington sent a contingent of 1,500 soldiers as part of the US-Australian force posture agreement, an understanding said to continue till 2040.  The national interest analysis of the agreement reads like an authorising document for occupation, however described.  Weasel assurances are present to give the reader the false impression of Australian independence; there would be, for instance, “respect for Australian sovereignty and the laws of Australia”, the need to agree to consultation “and affirms that the initiatives will occur at Australian facilities, consistent with our long-standing policy that there are no foreign military bases on Australian soil.”

Such a position did not fool Nick Deane of the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network, an organisation that continues to promote the dangers of a continuing US military presence on the continent.

“Having foreign troops on home territory creates a potential breach in any sovereign nation’s defence.  The first criterion of independence has to be the nation’s capacity to look after itself by conducting its own defence.”

The presence of foreign troops should only be countenanced in “the most extreme of situations”. Those had hardly presented themselves, despite the usual psychic pressings posed by a rejigged version of the Yellow Peril.

Groups such as IPAN, along with a few defence contrarians such as Mike Gilligan, argue that Australia simply does not need this added presence for peace of mind, being more than capable of dealing with its own security.

Australia’s problems have been amplified by another player in the crammed boudoir.  The People’s Republic of China is also sniffing, perusing and seeking a foothold.  Darwin’s port was leased to Landbridge Industry Australia, a subsidiary of Shandong Landbridge Group in 2015, which might have been regarded as more than just a tease. Such foreplay did not impress various critics at the time, including the then federal treasurer, Scott Morrison.

“They didn’t tell us about it!” he is noted to have said. “Which Australian city controversially leased their port to a Chinese company in 2015?”

Strategy wonks were baffled; this move on the part of the Northern Territory government did not tally.

It would be convenient to deem the Northern Territory government a convenient whipping boy in this whole business.  Australia, thus far, is proving an erratic courtesan on all fronts, happy to provide coal to Beijing in abundance with a certain amoral confidence but abstinent and circumspect on technology.  (Its directions to remain firm against Beijing from Washington regarding Huawei and 5G are clear enough.)

Canberra is also rebuffing various efforts being made by the PRC in the Pacific.  The Australian heart remains firmly, perhaps suicidally, in Washington’s embrace, but its politics remains scrambled.  Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s recent megaphone tour of the Solomon Islands was meant to be a signal to China that the Pacific remained Canberra’s neighbourhood watch zone and, by virtue of that, a US playground by proxy.  Pinkertonism is a hard thing to shake.

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

Since June 2009 Americans have lived in the false reality of a recovered economy.  Various fake news and manipulated statistics have been used to create this false impression.  However, indicators that really count have not supported the false picture and were ignored.

For example, it is normal in a recovering or expanding economy for the labor force participation rate to rise as people enter the work force to take advantage of the job opportunities.  During the decade of the long recovery, from June 2009 through May 2019, the labor force participation rate consistently fell from 65.7 to 62.8 percent. See this.

Another characteristic of a long expansion is high and rising business investment. However, American corporations have used their profits not for expansion, but to reduce their market capitalization by buying back their stock.  Moreover, many have gone further and borrowed money in order to repurchase their shares, thus indebting their companies as they reduced their capitalization!  That boards, executives, and shareholders chose to loot their own companies indicates that the executives and owners do not perceive an economy that warrants new investment.

How is the alleged 10-year boom reconcilled with an economy in which corporations see no investment opportunities?

Over the course of the alleged recovery, real retail sales growth has declined, standing today at 1.3%. See this. This figure is an overstatement, because the measurement of inflation has been revised in ways that understate inflation. As an example, the consumer price index, which formerly measured the cost of a constant standard of living, now measures the cost of a  variable standard of living.  If the cost of an item in the index rises, the item is replaced by a lower cost alternative, thus reducing the measured rate of inflation. Other price increases are redefined as quality improvements, and their impact on inflation is neutralized.

Real retail sales cannot grow when “for most U.S. workers, real wages have barely budged in decades.” Se this.

For full-time employed men real wages have fallen 4.4% since 1973. See this.

Economic shills explain away the facts.  For example, they argue that people are working more hours, so their real earnings are up although their real wages are not.

Others argue that the declining labor force participation rate reflects baby boomer retirements.  Of course, if you look around in Home Depot and Walmart, you will see many retirees working to supplement their Social Security pensions that have been denied cost of living adjustments by the undermeasurement of inflation.

Other economic shills say that the low unemployment rate means there is a labor shortage and that everyone who wants a job has one.  They don’t tell you that  unemployment has been defined so as to exclude millions of discouraged workers who could not find jobs and gave up looking.  If you have not looked for a job in the past 4 weeks, you are no longer considered to be in the work force.  Thus, your unemployment does not count.

It is expensive to look for employment.  Scarce money has to be spent on appearance and transportation, and after awhile the money runs out.  It is emotionally expensive as well.  Constant rejections hardly build confidence or hope.  People turn to cash odd jobs in order to survive.  It turns out that many of the homeless have jobs, but do not earn enough to cover rent.  Therefore, they live on the streets.

The propagandistic 3.5% unemployment rate (U3) does not include any of the millions of discouraged workers who cannot find jobs.  The government does have a seldom reported U6 measure of unemployment that includes short-term discouraged workers.  As of last month this rate stood at 7.1%, more than double the 3.5% rate. John Williams of shadowstats.com continues to estimate the long-term discouraged workers, as the government formerly did.  He finds the actual US rate of unemployment to be 21%.

The 21% rate makes sense in light of Census Bureau reports that one-third of Americans age 18-34 live at home with parents because they can’t earn enough to support an independent existence. See this.

According to Federal Reserve reports, 40 % of American households cannot raise $400 cash. See this.

The US economy was put into decline by short-sighted capitalist greed.  When the Soviet Union collapsed in the last decade of the 20th century, India and China opened their economies to the Western countries.  Corporations saw in the low cost of Chinese and Indian labor opportunities to increase their profits and share prices by producing offshore the goods and services for their domestic markets.  Those hesitant to desert their home towns and work forces were pushed offshore by Wall Street’s threats to finance takeovers unless they increased their profits.

The shift of millions of high productivity, high value-added American jobs to Asia wrecked the careers and prospects of millions of Americans and severely impacted state and local budgets and pension funds. The external costs of jobs offshoring were extremely high. The cost to the economy far exceeded the profits gained by jobs offshoring. Almost overnight prosperous American cities, once a source of manufacturing and industrial strength, became economic ruins. See this. The “trade war” with China is an orchestration to cover up the fact that America’s economic problems are the result of its own corporations and Wall Street moving American jobs offshore and because the US government did nothing to stop the deconstruction of the economy.

The Reagan administration’s supply-side economic policy, always misrepresented and wrongly described, cured stagflation, the malaise of rising inflation and unemployment described at the time as worsening “Phillips curve” trade-offs between inflation and unemployment.  No one has seen a Phillips curve since the Reagan administration got rid of it.  The Federal Reserve hasn’t even been able to resurrect it with years of money printing.  The Reagan administration had the economy poised for long-run non-inflationary growth, a prospect that was foiled by the rise of jobs offshoring.

Normally a government would be protective of jobs as the government wants to take in tax revenues rather than to pay out unemployment and social welfare benefits.  Politicians want economic success, not economic failure.  But greed overcame judgment, and the economy’s prospects were sacrificed to short-term corporate and Wall Street greed.

The profits from jobs offshoring are short-term, because jobs offshoring is based on the fallacy of composition—the assumption that what is true for a part is true for the whole.  An individual corporation, indeed a number of corporations, can benefit by abandoning its domestic work force and producing abroad for its domestic market. But when many firms do the same, the impact on domestic consumer income is severe.

As Walmart jobs don’t pay manufacturing wages, aggregate consumer demand takes a hit from declining incomes, and there is less demand for the offshoring firms’ products. Economic growth falters.  When this happened, the solution of Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve Chairman at the time, was to substitute an expansion of consumer debt for the missing growth in consumer income.  The problem with his solution is that the growth of consumer debt is limited by consumer income.  When the debt can’t be serviced, it can’t grow. Moreover, debt service drains income into interest and fee charges, further reducing consumer purchasing power. Thus, the offshoring of jobs has limited the expansion of aggregate consumer demand.  As corporations are buying back their stock instead of investing, there is nothing to drive the economy.  The economic growth figures we have been seeing are illusions produced by the understatement of inflation.

Much of America’s post-World War II prosperity and most of its power are due to the US dollar’s role as world reserve currency.  This role guarantees a worldwide demand for dollars, and this demand for dollars means that the world finances US budget and trade deficits by purchasing US debt.  The world gives us goods and services in exchange for our paper money.  In other words, being the reserve currency allows a country to pay its bills by printing money.

A person would think that a government would be protective of such an advantage and not encourage foreigners to abandon dollars.  But the US government, reckless in its arrogance, hubris, and utter ignorance, has done all in its power to cause flight from the dollar.  The US government uses the dollar-based financial system to coerce other countries to accommodate American interests at their expense.  Sanctions on other countries, threats of sanctions, asset freezes and confiscations, and so forth have driven large chunks of the world—Russia, China, India, Iran—into non-dollar transactions that reduce the demand for dollars. Threats against Europeans for purchasing Russian energy and Chinese technology products are alienating elements of Washington’s European empire.  A country with the massive indebtedness of the US government would quickly be reduced to Third World status if the value of the dollar collapsed from lack of demand.

There are many countries in the world that have bad leadership, but US leadership is the worst of all.  Never very good, US leadership went into precipitous and continuous decline with the advent of the Clintons, continuing through Bush, Obama, and Trump.  American credibility is at a low point. Fools like John Bolton and Pompeo think they can restore credibility by blowing up countries.  Unless the dangerous fools are fired, we will all have to experience how wrong they are.

Formerly the Federal Reserve conducted monetary policy with the purpose of minimizing inflation and unemployment, but today and for the past decade the Federal Reserve conducts monetary policy for the purpose of protecting the balance sheets of the banks that are “too big to fail” and other favored financial institutions.  Therefore, it is problematic to expect the same results.

Today it is possible to have a recession and to maintain high prices of financial instruments due to Fed support of the instruments. Today it is possible for the Fed to prevent a stock market decline by purchasing S&P futures, and to prevent a gold price rise by having its agents dump naked gold shorts in the gold futures market.  Such things as these were not done when I was in the Treasury.  This type of intervention originated in the plunge protection team created by the Bush people in the last year of the Reagan administration.  Once the Fed learned how to use these instruments, it has done so more aggressively.

Market watchers who go by past trends overlook that today market manipulation by central authorities plays a larger role than in the past. They mistakenly expect trends established by market forces to hold in a manipulated economic environment.

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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

At the G20 in Japan, the leaders of the world’s leading economies will meet on the next 28 June. On the table there is the discussion on the reform of international trade. In a context in which the US aims to “separate” the world and its economy, the risk of plunging back into a new cold war is more than current. China’s moves to contrast this threat and to send a strong message of responsibility towards global leadership at a time when the US has decided to loosen the reins.

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Everything is ready for the start of the session of the G20 that will be hosted on 28 and 29 June in the evocative setting of Osaka and there are many reasons why this summit could be particularly interesting.

The first is given by the fact that Japan holds the presidency of the G20 for the first time, at a very particular moment of re-articulation of its foreign policy, starting from the “new phase” in which relations with China following the spirit expressed by Shinzo Abe during the state visit in Beijing last October. In that occasion the Japanese Prime Minister declared:

“Today Japan and China play an essential role for the growth not only of Asia, but of the whole world. The proliferation of unsolvable problems for a single country tells us that the time has come for Japan and China to think commonly about global peace and prosperity”, opening a new chapter in the relations between the two countries.

From a certain point of view, the instability in the foreign policy of the American President Donald Trump has ended up creating a completely new scenario for the continent to the point of pushing former rivals to cooperate, in order to contain an instability that threatens global peace and prosperity.

Secondly, the G20 summit was preceded by intense diplomatic activity by the major countries. Recently, for example, the state visit of Xi Jinping to North Korea was concluded, the last in a series of multilateral and bilateral meetings that the Chinese President had with Russia and Central Asian countries, with the purpose of supporting regional stability, including the Korean peninsula, after the failure of the summit between Kim and Donald Trump in Hanoi last February.

But it is not only diplomacy that occupies the stage of the meetings, whether official or not, scheduled in Osaka: it is above all the economy and trade, in a global context marked by the U.S. trade war against China (and in perspective against India), that holds the bench at the top among leaders, finance ministers and central bank governors, which therefore represents an opportunity for a debate on the need to reform global trade and the WTO and avoid the escalation of trade wars. This line has already been advocated by the Chinese Premier Li Keqiang during the meeting with the summits of the European Union last April 9 in Brussels. Indeed, on exactly at that time, China declared that the Osaka summit would be the time to clarify the areas of openness to investment, investigating the issue of “equal treatment” for companies, as requested by the EU and the USA.

With this feature we are touching the central point of the whole issue. Because these actions proposed by Beijing are not only a countermeasure to the tug-of-war in the game with America, but the beginning of a further stage of reform and opening up of its economy, which will mark the future of the Asian giant.

If the reforms promoted by Deng have allowed China to emerge from underdevelopment (more than 700 million Chinese have emancipated themselves from poverty) and have made it into a prosperous and modern country, the new phase of opening up and reforms aims to lead a further stage in the development of the country to transform it into a rich nation in occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic, in the middle of the century. For these reasons, the economic model is undergoing a transition and a further phase of world-wide integration of the Chinese economy is underway.

This topic was strongly emphasised during the second “Belt and Road” Forum, where I was privileged to participate last April in Beijing. There I have had the clear feeling that China will commit itself for the next few years not only to adopting an agenda of economic reforms, as announced, but also to building a permanent platform for dialogue, involving individuals as well as institutions, with the aim of building an international community that works to tackle global imbalances. When the Chinese president defended the globalisation during the Davos summit, only a few people had a clear idea of the deep meaning of his words, imagining a reversal of Xi’s speech, as if it was in favour of western economic doctrines and liberal capitalism. Today, on the contrary, everything seems clearer. In fact, a process of “decoupling” the economy is underway in the world. We are witnessing an increasingly marked trend of separation of America (and its block of allies) with the rest of the world and in particular with Asia and the emerging countries: we are moving towards a separation of the Internet, the supply chains and there is a drastic decline in investment, trade, data and institutions. Before the beginning of the tariffs war (trade), a campaign started in the USA against the Confucius Institutes (institutions), with the decision of several universities to dissolve the inter-university agreements with China. On the data front, the campaign against Huawei and Zte for supremacy over 5G, makes clear the effort to avoid agreements between the states historically allies of the United States and Chinese companies and thus keep separate the telecommunications infrastructure in order to prevent the interconnection between Europe and Asia. Finally, the tariffs have the double function of hitting Chinese trade (and its export) and of calling back home, above all, the companies of the silicon valley that have relocated their production to Asia (China, but also Korea and Vietnam). An attempt is therefore being made to impose a reshoring of high-tech companies and a shortening of the value chains or their relocation to countries considered “friends”, with the aim of blocking the transfer of technology to China.

If these economic trends will intensify in the next few years, the conditions will be placed for the beginning of a new cold war, with a harsh iron curtain to divide the West from the Eurasian region. Therefore, the initiatives put in place by China (and, therefore, the true meaning of the words spent by Xi Jinping in Davos against protectionism) to contrast the prospect of a new Cold War appear clearer, also through a radical reform of the international rules of trade and the strengthening and enlargement of the Belt and Road project, which, on the other hand, pushes for greater connectivity and integration of the economies as a driving force for a policy of peace and global stability.

In the light of these facts, Italy’s signing of the MoU with China and the joining in the club of BRI’s countries, has represented an important sign of countertrend, all politically, against the attempts to forge a new conflict with China and Asia, led by the USA. Now, however, is the time to be consequent and to move having in mind the place that the country must have in order to give its contribution to prevent the return of a new economic cold war. Not least because everyone in the world interpreted the visit of the vice-premier Salvini to the United States and the declarations he made, as a change of course in the country’s foreign policy.

The forthcoming G20 summit in Japan is an important opportunity to clarify the official position of the government. Otherwise, the effort being made and the credibility being gained in China will be quickly eroded and Italy will now risk to be viewed as the country of turntables. A terrible scenario that we can’t really afford.

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The pace of global warming has been grossly underestimated. As the world keeps increasing its carbon emissions rising in 2018 to a record 33.1 billion ton CO₂ per year, the atmospheric greenhouse gas level has now exceeded 560 ppm (parts per million) CO₂–equivalent, namely when methane and nitric oxide are included. This level surpasses the stability threshold of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The term “climate change“ is thus no longer appropriate, since what is happening in the atmosphere-ocean system, accelerating over the last 70 years or so, is an abrupt calamity on a geological dimension threatening nature and civilization. Ignoring what the science says, the powers-that-be are presiding over the sixth mass extinction of species, including humanity.  

As conveyed by leading scientists “Climate change is now reaching the end-game, where very soon humanity must choose between taking unprecedented action or accepting that it has been left too late and bear the consequences” (Prof. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber)…

“We’ve reached a point where we have a crisis, an emergency, but people don’t know that … There’s a big gap between what’s understood about global warming by the scientific community and what is known by the public and policymakers” Prof. James Hansen.

Rising greenhouse gases and temperatures

By May 2019 the level of CO₂(measured at Mouna Loa, Hawaii) has reached 414.66ppm, growing at a rate of 3.42ppm/year, well above the highest growth rate recorded for the last 56 million years. The total of CO₂, methane (CH₄) and Nitric oxide (N₂O), expressed as CO₂-equivalents, has reached at least 563 ppm (Table 1) (depending on the greenhouse forcing value of methane), the highest concentration since 34 – 23 million years ago, when atmospheric CO₂ ranged between 300-530 ppm.

Table 1. Total atmospheric CO₂e from CO₂, CH₄and N₂O

Total CO₂e: 414.7+46.6+99 = >560.3 ppm CO₂e

Plus: SF6, CHF3, CH2F2, CF4, C2F6, C3F8, C4F10, C4F8, C5F12, C6F1

Figure 1. Projected CO₂levels for IPCC emission scenarios

The current rise of the total greenhouse gas level to at least 560 ppm CO₂-equivalent, twice the pre-industrial level or 280 ppm, implies global warming has potentially reached +2^oC to +3^oC above pre-industrial temperature. Considering the mitigating albedo/reflection effects of atmospheric aerosols, including sulphur dioxide, dust, nitrate and organic carbon, the mean rise of land temperature exceeds +1.5^oC (Berkeley Earth Institute).

The threshold of collapse of the Greenland ice sheet is estimated in the range of 400-560 ppm CO₂ at approximately 2.0-2.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures, and is retarded by hysteresis (where a physical property lags behind changes in the effect causing it).The threshold for the breakdown of the West Antarctic ice sheet is similar. The greenhouse gas level and temperature conditions under which the East Antarctic ice sheet formed about 34 million years ago are estimated as ~800–2000 ppm at 4 to 6 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial values. Based mainly on satellite gravity data there is evidence the East Antarctic ice sheet is beginning to melt in places (Jones, 2019), with ice loss rates of approximately 40 Gt/y (Gigaton of ice per year) in 1979–1990 and up to 252 Gt/y in 2009–2017 (Rignot et al., 2019).

The cumulative contribution to sea-level rise from Antarctic ice melt was 14.0 ± 2.0 mm since 1979. This includes 6.9 ± 0.6 mm from West Antarctica, 4.4 ± 0.9 mm from East Antarctica, and 2.5 ± 0.4 mm from the Antarctic Peninsula (Rignot et al., 2019). Based on the above, the current CO₂-equivalent level of at least 560ppm closely correlates with the temperature peak at ~16 million years ago (Figures 2 and 5), when the Greenland ice sheet did not exist and large variations affected the Antarctic ice sheet (Gasson et al., 2016).

Figure 2. Updated Cenozoic pCO₂ and stacked deep-sea benthic foraminifer oxygen isotope curve for 0 to 65 Ma (Zachos et al., 2008)converted to the Gradstein timescale (Gradstein et al., 2004). ETM2 = Eocene Thermal Maximum 2, PETM = Paleocene/Eocene Thermal Maximum.

Transient melt events

As the glacial sheets disintegrate, cold ice-melt water flowing into the ocean ensue in large cold water pools, a pattern recorded through the glacial-interglacial cycles of the last 450,000 years , manifested by the growth of cold regions in north Atlantic Ocean south of Greenland and in the Southern Ocean fringing Antarctica (Figures 3 and 4).  The warming of the Arctic is driven by the ice-water albedo flip (where dark sea-water absorbing solar energy alternate with high-albedo ice and snow) and by the weakening of the polar boundary and jet stream. Penetration of Arctic-derived cold air masses through the weakened boundary results in extreme weather events in North America, Europe and northern Asia, such as the recent “Beast from the East” event.

Warming of +3^oC to +4^oC above pre-industrial levels, leading to enhanced ice-sheet melt, would raise sea levels by at least 2 to 5 meters toward the end of the century, and likely by 25 meters in the longer term. Golledge et al. (2019) show meltwater from Greenland will lead to substantial slowing of the Atlantic overturning circulation, while meltwater from Antarctica will trap warm water below the sea surface, increasing Antarctic ice loss. The effects of ice sheet-melt waters on the oceans were hardly included in IPCC models. Depending on amplifying feedbacks, prolonged Greenland and Antarctic melting (Figures 3 and 4) and a consequent freeze event may ensue, lasting perhaps as long as two to three centuries.

Figure 3.(A) Global warming map (NASA 2018). Note the cool ocean regions south of Greenland and along the Antarctic. Credits: Scientific Visualization Studio/Goddard Space Flight Center; (B) 2012 Ocean temperatures around Antarctica, (NASA 2012).

21st–23^rd centuries’ uncharted climate territory

Modelling of climate trends for 2100-2300 by the IPCC AR5 Synthesis Report, 2014 portrays predominantly linear models of greenhouse gas rise, global temperatures and sea levels. These models however appear to take little account of amplifying feedbacks from land and ocean and of the effects of cold ice-melt on the oceans. According to Steffen et al. (2018) “self-reinforcing feedbacks could push the Earth System toward a planetary threshold” and “would lead to a much higher global average temperature than any interglacial in the past 1.2 million years and to sea levels significantly higher than at any time in the Holocene”.

Amplifying feedbacks of global warming include:

A. The albedo-flip of melting sea ice and ice sheets and the increase of the water surface area and thereby sequestration of CO₂. Hudson (2011) estimates a rise in radiative forcing due to removal of Arctic summer sea ice as 0.7 Watt/m², a value close to the total of methane release since 1750.

B. Reduced ocean CO₂ intake due to lesser solubility of the gas with higher temperatures.

C. Vegetation desiccation and loss in some regions, and thereby reduced evaporation with its cooling effect. This factor and the increase of precipitation in other regions lead to differential feedbacks from vegetation as the globe warms (Notaro et al. 2007).

D. An increase in wildfires, releasing greenhouse gases.

E. Release of methane from permafrost, bogs and sediments and other factors.

Linear temperature models do not appear to take into account the effects on the oceans of ice melt water derived from the large ice sheets, including the possibility of a major stadial event such as already started in oceanic tracts fringing Greenland and Antarctica (Figure 3). In the shorter term sea level rises include the Greenland ice sheet (6-7 meter sea level rise) and West Antarctic ice sheet melt (4.8 meter sea level rise). Referring to major past stadial events, including the 8200 years-old Laurentian melt event and the 12.7-11.9 younger dryas event, a prolonged breakdown of parts of the Antarctic ice sheet could result in major sea level rise and extensive cooling of northern and southern latitudes, parallel with warming of tropical and mid-latitudes (Figure 4) (Hansen et al.. 2016). The clashes between polar-derived cold weather fronts and tropical air masses are bound to lead to extreme weather events, echoed in Storms my grandchildren (Hansen, 2010).

Figure 4.  Model Surface-air temperature (^oC) for 2096 relative to 1880–1920. Hansen et al 2016. The projection betrays major cooling of the North Atlantic Ocean, cooling of the circum-Antarctic Ocean and further warming in the tropics, subtropics and the interior of continents, including Siberia and Canada.

Summary and conclusions

 A. Global greenhouse gases have reached a level exceeding the stability threshold of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, melting at an accelerated rate.

B. The current growth rate of atmospheric greenhouse gas of 3.42 ppm CO₂/year is the fastest recorded for the last 55 million years.

C. Allowing for the transient albedo enhancing effects of sulphur dioxide and other aerosols, mean global temperature has reached about 2 degrees Celsius above per-industrial temperatures.

D. Due to hysteresis the large ice sheets outlast their melting temperatures.

E. Cold ice melt water flowing from the ice sheets at an accelerated rate will reduce the temperature of large ocean tracts in the North Atlantic and circum-Antarctic. Strong temperature contrasts between cold polar-derived air and water masses and tropical air and water masses, ensuing in extreme weather events, would result in extreme weather events, retarding agriculture in large parts of the world.

F. Humans will survive in relatively favorable parts of Earth, such as sub-polar regions and sheltered mountain valleys, where hunting of surviving fauna may be possible,

G. In the wake of partial melting of the large ice sheets, the Earth climate would shift to polarized conditions including reduced polar ice sheets and tropical to super-tropical regions such as existed in the Miocene (5.3 – 23 million years ago) (Figure 5).

Current greenhouse gas forcing and global mean temperature are approaching Miocene Optimum-like composition, bar the hysteresis effects of reduced ice sheets (Figure 5). Strong temperature polarities are suggested by the contrasts between reduced Antarctic ice sheet and super-tropical conditions in low to mid-latitudes. Land areas would be markedly reduced due to a sea level rise of approximately 40 ± 15 meters

Figure 5. Late Oligocene–Miocene inferred atmospheric CO₂ fluctuations and effects on global temperature based on Stromata index (SI) of 25 and 12 Ma (late Oligocene to late middle Miocene) fossil leaf remains; (A) Reconstructed late Oligocene–middle Miocene CO₂ levels based on individual independently calibrated tree species; (B) Modeled temperature departure of global mean surface temperature from present day, calculated from mean CO2 estimates by using a CO2–temperature sensitivity study. Red discontinuous lines: 2019 CO₂-e levels and 2019 temperatures (discounting the aerosol masking effects).

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Dr Andrew Glikson, Earth and Paleo-climate science, Australia National University (ANU) School of Anthropology and Archaeology, ANU Planetary Science Institute, ANU Climate Change Institute, Honorary Associate Professor, Geothermal Energy Centre of Excellence, University of Queensland. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Note

[1] A methane forcing value of 25 XCO2 is a conservative long-term value. Shorter term forcing values are significantly higher

The Secretary of State is on a tour of the Indo-Pacific region that will take him to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, India, Japan, and South Korea by the time it concludes next week, with the aim of this global voyage being to strengthen the US’ “containment” alliances against Iran and China.

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Rarely is a Secretary of State’s schedule as significant as Pompeo’s is this week, with the US’ top diplomat on a tour of the “Indo-Pacific” region that will take him to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, India, Japan, and South Korea by the time it concludes next week. This global voyage isn’t just for photo-ops and handshakes, but to strengthen the US’ “containment” alliances against Iran and China, with India having a doubly strategic role to play given its de-facto membership in both “Lead from Behind” proxy groupings. The first part of Pompeo’s trip has already finished after he visited the two GCC leaders and discussed their joint response to what the US claims was Iran’s recent attack against two oil tankers, though as is the norm with the secretive Trump Administration, details were scant and the press was left speculating about the content of their talks.

Even so, it’s a fair assumption to say that the reports about the US’ assembling an international coalition to ensure the safety of oil tankers in the Gulf probably figured high on the agenda, which brings one around to discuss the role that India is poised to play in this plot. The South Asian state has been rapidly intensifying its military-strategic alliance with the US over the past two years and just recently dispatched naval and air assets to the region even before Trump tweeted that all countries should do so instead of relying on the US’ free security services there. This was a sign of fealty towards its new American, Israeli, and Saudi allies if there ever was one, as was India’s decision to discontinue buying Iranian oil after the lifting of the US’ sanctions waiver in this respect in spite of previously promising last year to only abide by UNSC sanctions and not Washington’s unilateral ones.

Seeing as how India’s military mission to the Gulf preceded Pompeo’s visit, it might have also been an effort to make him more flexible on their expected trade and military negotiations. In that sense, India’s decision to tacitly side with the US and its allies against Iran might be a bargaining tactic to extract better benefits from its new military-strategic ally vis-a-vis their shared goal of “containing” China, thereby making India the indispensable player connecting these two otherwise separate “containment” coalitions. Foreign companies are already re-offshoring to India from China in response to the so-called “trade war“, and it’s imperative for American grand strategy that the US helps accelerate this trend and finds a way to directly profit from it as well, hence the interest in clinching a free trade agreement with India sometime in the future. On the military front, the US wants to facilitate India’s rise as a naval power that could keep Chinese submarines in check.

As for the East Asian countries that Pompeo will visit later this week, Japan is obviously the host of this year’s G20 Summit, and it’s here where the Secretary of State will meet up with his boss. The two will do their best to ensure that this global event somehow or another adds pressure to Iran and China, even if it’s only symbolic and through the partial participation of some of the participants. Japan is much more important than just that, though, since the US envisions it playing the most prominent role in the region when it comes to “containing” China, both in the economic and military senses. Per the former, Japan is India’s key partner in the US-backed “Asia-Africa Growth Corridor” (AAGC) that this new trilateral alliance believes could one day compete with China’s Silk Road and even replace its role in some countries, while the latter involves Tokyo’s revival as a naval power capable of challenging China in the global ocean.

South Korea, meanwhile, is proverbially the “toughest nut to crack” since it’s on equally excellent terms with the US and China, therefore making it the most difficult to incorporate into an anti-Chinese “containment” coalition, let alone one regionally managed by Seoul’s historic Japanese enemy. As such, that last leg of Pompeo’s trip will probably just see him and Trump focusing more on the peninsular country’s role in the North Korean denuclearization process during their joint visit to the South Korean capital after the G20 this weekend. The example being set by South Korea is that it’s possible to “balance” between both “superpowers”, which is obviously more applicable when it comes to countries’ relations between the US and China than the US and Iran, of course, so there could be a lesson for others to learn from Seoul’s example if they have the political will.

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Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The communist playwright Bertolt Brecht once wrote, “The individual can be annihilated/But the Party cannot be annihilated” (1977, 29). And yet, in the neoliberal era, the Party has been annihilated – only the individual remains. Or so it seemed until a few years ago. Communist parties have become insignificant political forces, or, as in China, are establishing capitalism.

Meanwhile, social democratic parties everywhere have abandoned any attempt to achieve socialism through gradual reforms. At the most, they are resigned to preserving a more humane capitalism the permanence of which they do not doubt. Furthermore, for significant parts of the radical left, these experiences of ‘state socialism’ have not discredited the need for an alternative to capitalism, only the idea that it can be achieved through taking state power. For them, the annihilation of the Party is not an obstacle, but an opportunity.

This strategy persuaded many within the ‘New Left’ and the ‘new social movements’ since the late 1960s; the anti-globalization, alter-globalization, or global justice movements from the 1990s; the World Social Forums since the early 2000s; and the ‘Occupy’ and ‘Squares’ movements from the late 2000s and early 2010s. The spirit of this diverse political tendency is best captured by the radical left theorist John Holloway and his slogan, ‘Change the world without taking power’ (2010). Since 2015, however, much of the radical left has given renewed prominence to participation within, and debates about, political parties, electoral politics, and taking state power.

This shift has occurred for various reasons. The 2015 election of Syriza in Greece, so far the only radical left party to be elected to national government since the financial crisis of 2007-8, inspired much optimism, and then provoked much consternation as it sacrificed much of its programme and party vitality with its increasing co-optation into the institutions of the Greek state and the European Union. A similar dynamic has occurred with the election of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the Labour Party, who has put democratic socialism on the agenda in the U.K., but has become mired in immense difficulties navigating potential exit from the Eurozone. The new radical left parties in Spain, Portugal, and Germany confront these issues while also debating whether to join coalitional governments in order to temper the austerity with which their parties might then become associated (Lafrance and Príncipe 2018).

The new radical left party in Turkey, the Halkların Demokratik Partisi (People’s Democratic Party), has, despite the Erdoğan government’s repression, achieved considerable electoral victories, but its increasing influence relative to the local neighbourhood assemblies, from which the party emerged, creates tensions throughout these allied institutions (Yörük 2018). The left governments in Latin America, and, in particular, the ‘21st century socialism’ of Chavismo in Venezuela, face familiarly 20th century challenges with the ebbing of the Pink Tide through complex combinations of internal shortcomings, defeats, and outright coups (Chiasson-LeBel 2018). In the U.S., the candidacy of Bernie Sanders fostered dramatic increases in the membership of the Democratic Socialists of America, but, in the midst of its modest electoral successes, there are fraught discussions about how they should relate both to those self-described democratic socialists elected in the Democratic Party and to that party as a whole.

These developments have revitalized debates about political parties and the capitalist state. Widespread rejections of the political party as a form of organization are often based on the optimistic assertion that, in the age of globalization, nation-states and national struggles are of diminishing importance. Those who espouse, ‘Think globally, act locally,’ correctly expose the constraints on democratic spaces imposed by international institutions, trade agreements, currency zones, and new forms of imperialism. Nevertheless, nation-states are not superseded by globalization; rather, they facilitate it (Panitch 1994, 63). The prevalent depictions of globalizing capitalism as ‘post-industrial’ or ‘post-materialist’ attempt to transcend in thought the social relations we have been unable to transcend in practice. The recent waves of technological and social innovations are staggering, but they remain developments within capitalism (Albo 2007, 12). An eroding collective memory and the obsession with academic novelty tend to neglect the extent of historical continuity in our era. Indeed, the only things new under the sun are the carbon emissions that disastrously trap its rays.

An aspect of this continuity is that contemporary debates about parties and the state often feature tensions between two broad tendencies that have divided the radical left throughout the history of its resistance to capitalism. We can describe these two long-standing tendencies as ‘parliamentarism’ and ‘extra-parliamentarism.’

On the one hand, for the parliamentarist tendency, to the extent that the state is democratic, it embodies universal liberties, not the power of the capitalist class and elite groups. This tendency argues that the radical left can use this state to fully realize these liberties in ways that preserve the continuity between the partial democracy permitted under capitalism and the full democracy allowed by socialism. For the parliamentarist tendency, the most important factor is a sufficiently strong and long-lasting governing majority that can fundamentally transform the hindrances to full democracy in civil society. Nevertheless, the parliamentarist tendency, historically exemplified by the social democrats, has been completely absorbed by the state. It can reform capitalism, but not transform it.

On the other hand, the extra-parliamentarist tendency believes that even the most democratic of states is essentially controlled by the capitalist class and ruling groups. Therefore, instead of attempting to win the already existing state-power, this tendency builds alternative institutions in its shadows. Rather than being co-opted into the inferior forms of merely representative democracy, it attempts to create qualitatively different forms of participatory, deliberative, and direct democracy.

Ultimately, this tendency envisions long preparations for what will be a sudden and total break with capitalist institutions, whether their goal is violently ‘smashing’ the state, mass withdrawals from the state through actions like prolonged general strikes, or some combination of both. Those in the former sub-tendency, exemplified by the Leninist and Maoist communist parties, have typically remained dependent on, and lacked real control over, the state they have ‘conquered.’ Thus, they resort to recruiting the former state officials and administrators of the ruling classes. This, among other causes, has meant that they tend to replace the capitalist state with a command economy that is just as undemocratic, if not more so. Those in the latter sub-tendency are exemplified by some anarchist currents and more recently by the ‘anti-power’ politics that seeks to change the world without taking power. They altogether refuse to operate on the terrain of the state, which, when it can no longer ignore them, easily crushes them. Despite all of their differences, these two sub-tendencies meet a similar fate. They can oppose capitalism, but not transcend it.¹

A purely extra-parliamentary politics has proven as unable to challenge capitalism from outside of the state as is any predominantly parliamentary politics from the inside.

Indeed, it has been the case historically that both of these tendencies have not sufficiently heeded each other’s critiques, bending the stick so far in their own directions that they turn it into a dull boomerang capable only of glancing the arguments of the other side before returning to their own. Surely, this is the most narcissistic of weapons.

In what follows, I will first discuss the shortcomings of purely extra-parliamentary politics. Then I will explore the flaws of the narrowly parliamentarist approach. Finally, I will introduce some of the general issues of how to begin reconciling the best aspects of both of these equally one-sided tendencies.

The Limits of Extra-Parliamentarism and ‘Dual Power’

In general, the extra-parliamentarist tendency on the radical left argues that founding an egalitarian society requires creating and expanding institutions that are ‘autonomous’ from the states that they will eventually replace. These parallel institutions include popular assemblies, cooperatives, ‘free zones,’ ‘social centres,’ councils in workplaces, schools, barracks, and neighbourhoods, and in the Leninist and Maoist traditions, political parties that are skeptical of taking elected office in any circumstances that do not provide a reasonable prospect for a total rupture from capitalism. In this essay, I will refer to these currents as the ‘dual power’ strategy (Lenin 1970), although they have also been described as ‘counter-power,’ ‘diarchy,’ or ‘autonomism.’ There are several, likely insurmountable practical problems for dual power strategies. These problems will arise for extra-parliamentarists whether they seek to ‘smash’ the state or to ‘exodus’ from it.

Those who espouse the dual power strategy often treat it as a general model that is applicable to every capitalist country. But when genuinely autonomous institutions have actually competed with their national states for political legitimacy and sovereignty, it has been under the most exceptional and temporary circumstances. It occurs amid defeat in war, as was the case for the Paris Commune, Russian Soviets, and the councils in post-WWI Germany and Austro-Hungary, or defeat in colonial war, as was the case for Portugal in the 1970s. It also arises in response to direct attacks by fascist forces, as with Spain in the 1930s. In all of these cases, parliamentary institutions were non-existent or much weaker and more corrupt than is typical (Sirianni 1983, 91-8; Bensaid 2007). In every other case, autonomous institutions have been tolerated by the central state because they exist in single neighborhoods or in rurally isolated areas that do not directly encroach upon its power, as is true of the significant achievements of the Zapatistas. To paraphrase Wainwright, there is a lot of autonomy on the margins (2006, 52).

Beyond these rare cases, dual power organizations are confined to local levels and limited scales. The bulk of their activities have been focused on supervising governmental agencies and providing basic necessities, such as food, fuel, and housing. Where they have grown beyond local levels and when they are established in more urban, populous, and politically central locations, they are short-lived. Therefore, these parallel institutions do not last long enough to show the majority of people that they are a legitimate alternative to the claim to sovereignty by the national state. While the case of the Russian Soviets before the Bolsheviks took power is an important inspiration for projects to develop dual power, it is even more exceptional. It was aided by the collapse of Russia’s outdated state, its relative isolation from the rest of Europe, and the length of time that its dual power organizations lasted, which was comparatively lengthy, but still less than a year (Sirianni 1983, 109-10; 117). Although there has been a widespread erosion of parliamentary institutions and practices since the 1970s (Mair 2013), even if similar conditions emerge again, there are other profound obstacles to dual power strategies.

The most frequent criticism of attempts to build parallel institutions is that, wherever they gain much significance, they will face constant state repression (Bensaid 2006, 10; Callinicos 2006, 63-4). This not only includes outright coercion. It also has more subtle forms. Agencies comprised of volunteers who deliver important services like health and education are harassed by the state over things like licensing. To be clear, this problem is not unique to the extra-parliamentarist tendency, as is shown by the 1973 coup against Salvador Allende’s parliamentary socialism in Chile. The point is that the proposed alternatives to political parties, such as unions, workers’ councils, and neighbourhood councils, have often benefitted from the election of sympathetic political parties, which have a better chance of holding back the coercive state apparatuses and creating supportive legislation (Sirianni 1983, 111-3). Nevertheless, even if state repression is somehow overcome, there are a number of other significant shortcomings to dual power strategies.

If parallel institutions grow beyond the local scale they could not mobilize the resources necessary to meet society-wide needs. Consequently, these institutions would face permanent fiscal crisis. Governments will not grant taxation powers to organizations that are not connected to existing state institutions. Furthermore, it would be impossible to organize a disciplined withdrawal from tax-collection, not only because this would be difficult to coordinate, but also due to widespread fears of interrupting the public services upon which workers, the poor, and the marginalized especially depend. Furthermore, it would be quite difficult for dual power institutions to coordinate and fund their activities beyond local scales for an extended period of time. Among other things, they would have to contend with elected municipal governments that control services above the local level and are backed by fiscal reserves from provincial, state, and national governments (Sirianni 1983, 112-4; Albo 2007).

This proved difficult even in Red Vienna in the 1920-30s and Red Bologna in the 1970s, where a variety of councils were supported by radical left municipal governments. For example, when Bologna dramatically expanded schooling and established parent-teacher councils, the central government in Rome interfered by allocating a mere 25 teachers for its afternoon schools in 1972-3 compared to the 2,000 it sent to Milan in 1974 (Jäggi, Müller, and Schmid 1977, 124). Furthermore, some radical left governments have provided conditional institutional and financial support to civic initiatives like councils and services while also prioritizing their autonomy, even from these left governments themselves. Take, for example, the ways in which the Australian ‘femocrats’ in the 1970s and the Greater London Council in the 1980s supported and greatly expanded women-led childcare cooperatives and rape crisis centres (Findlay 2018; Wainwright 2018).

Any attempt to fundamentally transform capitalist society also needs to form alliances with state workers, especially the front-line providers of public services (Therborn 1978, 279-30). But attempts to create dual power institutions on large scales will not win support from otherwise sympathetic state workers. Since their jobs depend on the public sector, they “would support the democratization of administrative apparatuses, but hardly their decomposition” (Sirianni 1983, 114). It is not merely that disaffected state workers are capable of wide-ranging sabotage of revolutionary efforts. More importantly, public sector unions can also be positive, active participants in democratizing state structures and empowering egalitarian social movement and labour movement organizations. This is possible even in some of the more coercive institutions of the state. For example, Toronto immigration officers in the late 1980s who were fed up with the lousy services they were forced to provide, formed coalitions with immigrant rights groups, and, in coordination with them, engaged in a work-to-rule campaign for more resources, boycotted overtime and excessive caseloads, and dealt only with those clients who could be reasonably seen during the working day. The joint picket-lines of these producers and users of public services garnered such significant community support that the government was forced to respond by hiring 280 new immigration officers (McElligott 2018). Indeed, establishing councils between the producers and users of public goods would go beyond specific reforms and begin to transform the state.

Another reason why alliances must be formed with state workers is that dual power institutions have never managed highly integrated and complex administrative systems above local scales. The knowledge necessary to plan and run industry on national scales cannot be cultivated merely through improvisation (Sirianni 1983, 118). Furthermore, a sum of autonomous institutions linked by a system of mandates likely cannot develop a ‘collective will,’ a spirit of compromise within the bounds of a generally recognized solidarity. For example, during popular participation in urban planning, if a town opposes having a waste collection centre that they would rather pass off to their neighbours, this will require some form of centralized arbitration to distribute benefits and burdens between legitimate interests (Bensaid 2007). Indeed, this would be crucial for, among other things, ending the environmental racism that locates undesirable facilities in racialized communities.

During the crucial early period of any revolutionary transition, it is likely that there would need to be in place an already existing nation-wide infrastructure. This long-term and widespread cultivation of democratic capacities, of both the skill and the will, is crucial not only to prevent major societal disorganization and disintegration. It is also necessary to account for the fact that, when dual power institutions reach a certain scale, they have often prioritized their own survival and become quite competitive with each other. Take, for example, the Russian case: “the soviet system was continually plagued by problems with credentials, forged mandates, co-optation of outsiders into executive organs, violation of formal divisions of authority, highly uneven representation due to the lack of consistent formal regulations, and the disproportionate influence of the more powerful, strategically located, or politically favored factories, unions, garrisons, and local soviet bodies” (Sirianni 1983, 104-5). In other similar cases of dual power, such as the Spartacists in Germany, the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo in Spain, and the Hungarian council government, these problems occurred to the extent that they attempted to displace the existing state institutions. During revolutionary transitions, this often provoked attempts to counter the widespread disorganization and competition through authoritarian centralization (Sirianni 1983, 106-7; 117-8). Thus, autonomous institutions are susceptible to becoming precisely that which they intend to avoid.

These are some of the major problems that will confront any attempt to change the world without taking power or by ‘smashing’ power. Although the state cannot be thought of as an instrument that lays ready to hand, there is some truth in Louis Blanc’s refrain, “Not to use it as an instrument is to encounter it as an obstacle” (1964, 232). The risks of potential co-optation inherent to the struggle for public office are profound, but they entail fewer difficulties than altogether refusing to operate on the terrain of the state. This attempt to cut the Gordian Knot forgets that the state holds the sword. It substitutes an impossible strategy for one that is merely excruciatingly difficult.

Even if dual power strategies face insurmountable challenges, however, we must also admit that socialist political parties have often become thoroughly absorbed by the state. Before we can attempt to reconcile the salvageable aspects of both the parliamentarist and extra-parliamentarist tendencies, we must first detail the shortcomings of previous strategies for changing the world by taking state power.

The Limits of Parliamentarism and the ‘Social Democratic Trap’

Many on the radical left reject parliamentary politics because they believe that it will inevitably lead to what is called the ‘social democratic trap.’ In general, this is the idea that, when socialist parties achieve political power during periods of social crisis, their attempts to transform capitalist society through the state often do little more than improve living conditions under capitalism. When leftist governments fail to transition from reform to revolution, they fall into the social democratic trap by “carrying out ‘better than the right’ the same policies as the right” (Gorz 1968, 114). Ultimately, these socialist governments save capitalism from itself.

The misgivings of many radical leftists are certainly warranted. The parliamentarist tendency, throughout its history, has been regularly co-opted into the standard practices of state institutions. Amid the onset of WWI, the socialist parties of the Second International did not call for proletarian solidarity and revolution across nations, but rather, voted to support their respective countries in the hostilities. In the post-WWII era, social democratic parties suppressed their members’ militant struggles and demands for greater popular control of workplaces and banking institutions. Most recently, the Syriza government in Greece accepted the austerity memorandum of the European ‘Troika’ (the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund) despite the unprecedented opposition in the national referendum of July, 2015.

Indeed, the parliamentarist tendency has fallen into this social democratic trap so often that we cannot explain it merely as the betrayal of socialism by individual socialists. Neither can we explain it simply in terms of an abstract ‘institutional logic’ of the state.² We should critique ‘functionalist’ theories that argue that state actors pursue specific policies and strategies because the state’s function is to reproduce society as a whole. This is circular reasoning. These explanations argue that the capitalist state promotes certain policies because they functionally reproduce capitalist society, and that these policies functionally reproduce capitalism because they are supported by what is obviously a capitalist state. This is not particularly illuminating. Every state action that does not lead to the total collapse of capitalism is deemed functional to capitalism (Albo and Jenson 1989, 209, n. 55). Instead, our explanations must strike the right balance between, on the one hand, the systemic obstacles to transforming capitalist society, and on the other hand, the failure of socialist strategies to sufficiently account and prepare for these obstacles amid circumstances over which we have had some control.

In the standard liberal theories, modern society is comprised of a plurality of interests between which the state is a more or less neutral arbiter. If the government tends to favour certain interests more than others, it is because they have organized into interest-groups capable of mobilizing the citizens, resources, and practices necessary to influence government. Conversely, the best critical theories of society and the state contend that capitalism is the scene of systemic inequalities between different classes and groups (Clarke 1991; Aronowitz and Bratsis 2002). Ours is a capitalist society because a minority of people, the capitalist class, has private ownership and control over ‘capital,’ the property necessary for production, including the land, worksites, instruments, materials, financial assets, and labour-power. The capitalist class also attempts to maintain its rule through mutually reinforcing alliances with those privileged groups whose power is based on co-constituting forms of oppression, including patriarchy, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, racialization, ethnic persecution, colonialism, and imperialism (Bannerji 1995; Ferguson 2016). Furthermore, this ruling bloc absorbs and cultivates ‘representatives’ and ‘leaders’ from the upper strata of oppressed groups. For these reasons, the government is not simply a state in capitalism, but rather, is a capitalist state. It is systemically biased toward the capitalist class and allied elites.

The capitalist state has three levels of bias (Wright 1994, 93). Each successive level is an ever deeper trench by which the ruling class defends its control over the state. It is only when democratic socialist governments and movements begin to traverse the final trench that we will have any chance of fundamentally transforming capitalist society. Until that point, no matter how profound our achievements, we remain within a capitalist state.

The first level of bias is interpersonal. Most state officials come from the capitalist class or have been recruited and educated by its organizations: the private schools, the exclusive clubs, the corporate boards, and the galas. Therefore, state officials tend to share social networks and worldviews. Whereas the children of the working class are raised, in the ruling class they are groomed.

The second level of bias in the capitalist state is institutional. Getting elected and influencing those who have been elected typically require significant resources, institutional connections, and the insider’s knowledge of state structures and governmental practices. Given that the capitalist class has private control of productive property, they and their allies tend to have more of these than other groups. This includes the think tanks, the expert advisors, the electoral machines, the elite lawyers, the seasoned lobbyists, the senior bureaucrats, and the opulent fundraisers. As Levins and Lewontin note, “Hundred-dollar-a-plate dinners sustain the body politic, not the body physical” (1985, 262). Indeed, that figure, laughable by today’s standards, would have to be adjusted not only for inflation but also for the ever higher concentration of wealth.

The interpersonal and institutional levels of bias within the capitalist state are significant, but they cannot sufficiently explain the social democratic trap. For this, we must turn to the final trench. The third level of bias in the capitalist state is systemic. In order to continually reproduce itself, the state requires tax-revenues. These are derived from incomes, which depend on continuing investment and economic growth. Since the capitalist class controls most economic production as their own private-property, they are free to refrain from investing when they deem the circumstances unprofitable, unpredictable, or politically unpalatable. When a government attempts reforms that encroach upon the power of the capitalist classes, they often respond with ‘capital strikes,’ the refusal to reinvest profits in continuing and expanding production. They also engage in ‘capital flight’ by pulling their financial resources out of the country and reinvesting them elsewhere. This lack of private investment by the capitalist class reduces economic growth, incomes, and tax-revenues, which thereby hinders the ongoing activities of government. That is why, systemically, the state is a capitalist state.

This is the paradox of socialist governments in capitalist states. Socialist parties are typically brought to power by alliances within and beyond the working classes between the exploited and the oppressed. These socialist governments initiate their promised reforms, such as expanding redistributive measures and the welfare state; affirmative action and other equity policies; environmental regulations; nationalization of strategic economic sectors; extending public control of financial institutions; and so on. Then, the capitalist class reacts with, among other counter-measures, investment strikes and capital flight. This reduces the funds by which socialist governments can implement their programmes and provokes society-wide economic downturns and crises that hurt those with the least resources. When these burdens become too much to bear, the diverse constituencies of workers and their allies vote their own parties out of office (Bowles, Edwards, and Roosevelt 2005, 521-3). Socialist parties have often stumbled upon the first two trenches of the capitalist state, but for socialist governments, the third trench, which is by far the deepest, is the classic source of the social democratic trap.

Any democratic socialist government must recognize from the outset that, because productive property is privately-owned, substantive reforms will necessarily provoke confrontations with the capitalist class and economic crises. Governments can pressure capitalist enterprises, but cannot force them to invest against their interests. It is impossible to transform capitalism while cooperating fully with it (Panitch 1986, 79). If radical left governments are unable or unwilling to follow through with the conflicts that their initial successes will inevitably ignite, they will create their own obstacles (Gorz 1968, 118). Therefore, democratic socialist parties and movements must campaign for government office by explicitly promoting their intentions to use these crises to extend and deepen democratic institutions and practices in the economy and broader society. When corporations engage in investment strikes and capital flight, they annul their responsibilities over the economic production upon which the whole society depends to meet our needs. Among other things, this justifies bringing that otherwise unused productive property under the public control, and more importantly, the democratic control of workers and their communities.

The only way to traverse the third trench is through simultaneous challenges to the multiple sources of power of the capitalist classes and ruling groups. This not only requires democratic transformations of the state through which they wield political coercion. We must also confront their systemic sources of power in other significant social spheres, including our families, communities, and economies. In particular, it requires challenging their private ownership of productive property through which they wield economic coercion against a state even when they do not directly control it as the ruling political parties. We cannot defer a strategy for appropriating and democratizing privately-owned productive property. It must inform our practice from the very beginning because transforming the systemic biases of the state will require not merely parallel, but interconnected transformations in the state and in the broader society.

Despite the disagreements between the extra-parliamentarist critics and the parliamentarist supporters of taking power, both tend to conflate it with taking office. For example, when Holloway (2010) asserts that we should ‘change the world without taking power,’ he does not explain what is entailed by taking power as distinct from merely taking office. Therefore, he does not establish the strongest possible argument for his opponents’ theory before trying to refute it. What, then, is the distinction between taking office and taking power? Whereas taking office only surmounts the interpersonal and institutional biases of the state, taking power begins to transform its systemic bias. This requires a series of interconnected democratizations in both the state and in the broader society. Otherwise, the lack of it in one realm will leave a bastion of strength from which ruling classes can ultimately stifle it in the others. It is not that we must move from the streets to the state, but that our movements must extend from the streets to the state. This is why we must try to reconcile the best aspects of both the parliamentarist and extra-parliamentarist tendencies.

In, Against, and Beyond the Capitalist State

Since we must challenge the ruling classes and groups on various fronts, both in the state and in their manifold sources of power in the realms of social reproduction, production, and culture, the radical left cannot simply bring together the extra-parliamentary and parliamentary tendencies. We must genuinely reconcile them. If parties and movements remain satisfied with tenuous balances between these two tendencies, there will be a lack of mutual transformations and their extra-parliamentary and parliamentary wings will persist in their equally one-sided tendencies.

On the one hand, the extra-parliamentary wing will likely fail to develop the influence and the democratic mechanisms within the political party that are necessary to check those party leaders and members who would attempt to take government office in premature, opportunistic, or strategically problematic ways. Furthermore, they will likely remain detached from political activities within state institutions, which can perpetuate a moralizing purity that condemns as co-optation any of the party’s maneuvers and compromises, even those that genuinely pave the way for further democratizations. Finally, there will not be enough actively engaged party members who remain outside of the state offices and ensure that the party and the affiliated organizations have a life independent of the government (Akuno 2018). Therefore, the extra-parliamentary wing will not become, as Lafrance and Príncipe (2018) put it, a ‘loyal opposition’ to the party-in-the-state. They will be unable to push those party-members who are the elected officials, advisors, administrators, and state workers toward ever greater democratizations of the state.

On the other hand, the parliamentary wing will likely become distant from their allies in the party and the movements as well as from their broader constituencies. Their positions within the party will strengthen, making it unbalanced, because they hold the promise of getting elected, and thus, access to state resources and influence. This can only intensify the myopia of those within the state who are constantly attempting to navigate the institutional balance of forces, make principled compromises, engage in necessary ‘horse-trading,’ and win the crucial votes. Since the parliamentary wing will be those who most frequently and directly interact with state officials, unless there are counterweights within their own party and affiliated organizations, they are likely to be increasingly influenced by this governing elite. Indeed, they will begin to listen to the state administrators and advisors who say, “Wonderful, Minister, you’re putting all this Party thing behind you, and really working for the Department – that’s so fine of you” (Crossman 1972, 63). As they narrow their horizons, they could begin orienting the party toward a ‘national interest’ above the struggles between classes and social groups. Consequently, they will tend to prioritize ‘moderation’ and social harmony rather than the agonistic social conflicts that are necessary for egalitarian change. Furthermore, they will tend to accept the existing structures of the state, overemphasize parliamentary debates and timetables, and focus mobilizations around the next election (Panitch 1986, 92).

All of this will perpetuate the divisions of labour between, on the one hand, the parliamentary organizations of the party, and on the other hand, their allied organizations in the egalitarian labour movements and social movements. Struggles in workplaces, communities, and families will not be politicized in ways that can transcend their fragmentation, and indeed, their sectionalism. Meanwhile, government reforms will be achieved through elite-power brokerage in bureaucratic, legal, or parliamentary back-channels. This stifles attempts to bridge these divides by opening the conceptualization, deliberation, and implementation of radical reforms to a more active popular control in ways that develop our democratic capacities (Magri 1970, 116; 127-8; Hammond 1988, 259-60; Panitch, 1986, 64). Indeed, we must go beyond a more equal balancing between the extra-parliamentarist and parliamentarist tendencies, which, “in practice, might boil down to a compromise between ‘below’ and ‘above’ – in other words, crude lobbying by the former of the latter, which is left intact” (Bensaid 2007). Mutual transformations toward a more collective will and common strategy require the interpenetration of these elements.

We are in the wake of two successive eras from which emerged two different forms of political organization, neither of which have proven adequate. The ‘industrial age,’ which gave us Lenin’s ‘party of iron,’ was pervaded by these metallic metaphors, including Goethe’s ‘great, eternal iron laws’; Marx’s ‘iron laws of history’; Lassalle’s ‘iron law of wages’; Bismarck’s ‘through blood and iron’; Weber’s ‘iron cage’; and, of course, Michels’ ‘iron law of oligarchy.’ Conversely, the fluidity of our so-called ‘post-industrial age’ is saturated with a more liquid language, including Berman’s ‘perilous flow of modernity,’ which floods into Foucault’s post-modern preference for ‘flows over unities’; Barthes’ ‘power flows’; Deleuze and Guattari’s ‘economy of flows’; Castells’ ‘spaces of flows’; Leitch’s ‘local effects and global flows’; and Hardt and Negri’s ‘global informational flows.’ This culminates in Holloway’s praise for anti-power politics as the “social flow of doing” (2010, 28). With a mere diversity of strategies devoid of genuine reconciliation, however, the hierarchy of The Party and the horizontalism of the Movement of Movements sit uneasily beside each other. Instead of a genuine synthesis between the best aspects of both, this only builds the solid structures of the ‘party of iron’ in the dynamic current of the ‘flow of doing.’ But then the structure corrodes and collapses into water that has become too toxic to nourish. This combines the worst of both worlds.

For the kind of politics that can reconcile the best aspects of the extra-parliamentary and parliamentary tendencies, we can look to campaigns for free and accessible mass transit. These campaigns can unite diverse groups in common struggle, especially those who are most dependent on public transit, including women, people of colour, youth and the elderly, people with disabilities, and workers. Furthermore, since mass public transit is much more energy-efficient and ecologically sustainable than many other forms of travel, it is crucial for the collective issue of our time, climate change. Indeed, because these campaigns require a broad range of knowledge, skills, and actions, they will result not in a diversity of tactics, as it is sometimes called, but in a disparity of tactics, unless they are connected to a broader political strategy. Otherwise, establishing mass transit could have unintended consequences, such as gentrification. Therefore, these campaigns need to go beyond attempts to address the overlapping interests of a broad and diverse patchwork of groups. Rather, the strategy must be even more co-constituting than the many oppressions against which we struggle. Identifying and combatting not only each and every oppression but also their dynamic enmeshing and blending is the condition of overcoming all oppression. Free and accessible mass transit will also strengthen and expand the public sector. Eliminating transit fares removes the policing-function of transit workers and shifts public services from disciplining users toward providing for social needs. Furthermore, these campaigns could foster councils between the providers and users of public services, between the unions of transit operators and transit riders, thereby bridging the struggles of social movements, labour movements, and state workers.

In fact, these kinds of political strategies not only offer a tangible and relatively immediate campaign, but if the dramatic expansion of public goods is combined with the democratization of their production, distribution, and consumption, they also point toward longer-term goals and strategies. For example, when Lisbon transit workers went on strike, instead of withholding their labour, they refused to accept fares. This ‘good work strike’ not only put financial pressure on their government employer, but also won the support of the public who relied on the service. Indeed, these transit workers offered a glimpse of a totally de-commodified future, a vision of transcending capitalism and the state.

Furthermore, developing mass public transit will not only require progressive taxes, but also industrial strategies based on the ‘green transition’ of our economies. The scale of these transformations demands political parties in government with mandates to nationalize and democratize key industries and financial institutions. This could expand public participation in the economy through long-term planning mechanisms that are based on collaborations between public banks and enterprise boards. For example, certain regions could convert their declining automobile industries toward producing mass transit infrastructures and vehicles. This will bring sustainable and socially-useful jobs to areas devastated by de-industrialization and high unemployment, including those places that have become the focus of far-right, xenophobic movements and parties. Finally, egalitarian attempts to win and fundamentally transform state power are likely premature unless there have also been massive campaigns for workers’ control in order to develop the capacities, strategic relationships, and confidence necessary to democratize production on a mass-scale.³

We should be equally wary of the conviction that ‘The Party cannot be annihilated, only the individual can be annihilated,’ and the aspiration for ‘More than a movement, but less than a party.’ Network politics, coalition-building, and a movement of movements are as one-sided as is any party that would attempt to become the only significant base of struggle. Nevertheless, if the fundamental transformation and transcendence of capitalist society must occur not wholly, but substantively, in, against, and beyond the state, how can we develop a democratic socialist politics that has a strategy for preventing co-optation into government institutions and ruling classes? The mutually transformative collaborations between the new radical left parties and the egalitarian social movements demonstrate what our principle could be: More than a movement, more than a party.

*

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This essay is a shorter, updated version of my introduction to the recent edited volume, From the Streets to the State: Changing the World by Taking Power (State University of New York Press, 2018).

Paul Christopher Gray is a professor in Brock University’s Department of Labour Studies in St. Catharines, Ontario.

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Notes

1. This paragraph is influenced by Luxemburg 2004, 301-8 and the analysis in Geras 1985, 133-93.
2. For example, this is the kind of explanation often offered by Sitrin and Azzellini (2014).
3. This example is inspired by an actual campaign (Socialist Project 2013) as well as by Costello et al. 1989, 255-61 and Stanford 1999, 397-402.

On Monday at the Trump regime’s request, Security Council members met in closed session on the mid-June Gulf of Oman and earlier hostile incidents last month.

Iran was barred from attending to stress it had nothing to do with what happened. No credible evidence suggests it. More on this below.

The US is again up to its dirty tricks in the Middle East and elsewhere — manufacturing consent for war based on Big Lies and deception.

We’ve seen it all before numerous times against one nonbelligerent country after another threatening no one.

This time Iran is in the eye of the storm because of its sovereign independence, opposition to US imperial wars, support for Palestinian rights, and other geopolitical policies conflicting with Washington’s aim to rule the world unchallenged.

And by the way, it’s the oil stupid. Iran has the world’s fourth largest proved reserves after Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Canada. It has the second largest known natural gas reserves after Russia.

It also has valued coal, chromium, copper, iron ore, lead, manganese, zinc and sulphur reserves. Its resources are worth hundreds of billions, maybe trillions of dollars — a prize the US covets for Big Oil and other corporate American interests to plunder.

Iranian UN envoy Majid Takht Ravanchi reacted sharply to being excluded from Monday’s closed Security Council session, saying:

“As a country whose airspace has been violated by two US spy drones, Iran was entitled to participate in the council’s meeting today. This is our right under the UN Charter,” adding:

“We expressed our readiness and request to participate in that meeting. However, unfortunately, we were denied of exercising this right.”

“Today the council is being briefed unilaterally by one party: the US, who is abusing its position as the council’s permanent member to misguide this body in order to advance its anti-Iran policy.”

“We have irrefutable information on the incident to provide to the council,” referring to downing of the US spy drone.

“According to our credible, detailed and precise technical information on the path, location, and point of intrusion, and impact of the US spy drone, there is no doubt that when targeted, the drone was flying over the Iranian territorial sea.”

Following Monday’s session, acting US UN envoy Jonathan Cohen falsely accused Iran of what he called an “unprovoked attack against a US intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft in international airspace (sic).”

He blamed what he called “a sophisticated state actor” for the regional May and June tanker incidents, adding:

“The only state actor with the capabilities and the motive to carry out these attacks is Iran (sic).”

Clearly the Islamic Republic had everything to lose and nothing to gain from the incidents no credible evidence suggests it had anything to do with.

The US, Israel, and their imperial partners benefitted greatly by falsely blaming Iran for what happened.

False flags are a longstanding US tradition, dating from the mid-19th century, 9/11 the mother of them all. The latest regional incidents have US fingerprints all over them, maybe Israeli ones as well.

So-called evidence the Trump regime claims it has about Iranian involvement doesn’t exist. It’s no more credible than fake news about nonexistent Iraqi WMDs, a phony pretext for Bush/Cheney’s aggression against the country.

A Monday statement by Kuwait’s UN envoy Mansour al-Otaibi, presiding over the session, said:

SC “members condemn the attack on oil tankers which represent a serious threat to maritime navigation and energy supply, contravening international rules on freedom of navigation and maritime transport, as well as a threat to international peace and security” — short of laying blame where it belongs, clearly not on Iran.

No mention was made of the US spy drone’s downing. Britain, France, and Germany issued a separate joint statement, saying increased regional tensions “risk miscalculation and conflict,” calling for “deescalation and dialogue,” affirming their JCPOA support short of fulfilling their obligations required by its provisions.

Russian UN envoy Vassily Nebenzia slammed hardline US tactics, saying “Iranian officials recently said that you cannot have a dialogue with a knife against your throat,” adding:

“What kind of dialogue (is possible) if you are introducing the worst kind of sanctions ever?”

Separately in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov slammed hostile US actions against Iran, saying attempts to isolate the country won’t work.

On Friday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov stressed his country’s readiness to help Iran’s energy and banking sectors.

On Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif slammed the Trump regime’s B-Team “thirst for war” while “despis(ing) diplomacy” the way it should be.

His infamous B-Team members include John Bolton, Saudi and UAE crown princes, and Israel’s Netanyahu.

“You (Pompeo) continue to do the same thing at State,” Zarif added, responding to his remark when CIA director, saying: “We lied. We cheated. We stole.”

On Monday, the Trump regime imposed (symbolic) sanctions on Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and “those closely affiliated with him,” including FM Zarif coming later this week.

In response, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi tweeted:

“Imposing useless sanctions on Iran’s Supreme Leader and the commander of Iran’s diplomacy (Zarif) is the permanent closure of the path of diplomacy” with the Trump regime, adding:

He annihilat(ed) all the established international mechanisms for keeping peace and security in the world” it disdains.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said US sanctions against Iran show the regime’s “despair,” adding Trump’s White House is “mentally retarded.”

Khamenei, Zarif, and other Iranian officials are highly unlikely to have assets abroad to sanction.

On Monday and Tuesday, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, John Bolton, and his Israeli counterpart Meir Ben-Shabbat discussed Syria, Iran, and other geopolitical issues in Jerusalem.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Bolton and Ben-Shabbat aim to shift Russia away from supporting Iranian interests — a futile effort, adding:

They’re pushing Russia to “convince Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to curtail Iran’s presence in Syria” — what Netanyahu failed to get Putin to agree to, despite several attempts trying.

Invited by Damascus to help combat US-supported terrorists, Iranian military advisors are in Syria, not combat troops as Israel and the US falsely claim.

Putin and Trump are expected to meet on the sidelines of the Osaka, Japan G20 summit later this week.

Russia seeks Middle East peace and stability, an objective the US opposes. Talks between their officials won’t change a thing.

Permanent war is official US policy — all sovereign independent countries on its target list for regime change, including Russia, China, and Iran.

Sergey Lavrov stressed that

“(j)ust like us, Iran is legitimately present on Syrian territory to help fight terrorists, invited by the legitimate Syrian government.”

Separately according to Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, reports of significant declines in Iranian oil exports are greatly exaggerated, saying “(t)he news is absolutely wrong,” without further elaboration, adding:

“Giving a figure is not in our interests.” In late May, Deputy Director of Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization (PMO) Hadi Haqshenas said crude oil loadings and exports from the country’s ports have not been halted, adding:

“Perhaps the destinations of oil cargoes from our ports have changed but the legal exports are ongoing.”

“Of course, it cannot be denied that the loading of oil and products has fallen compared to the past, but the shipping of oil cargoes from our ports has definitely not stopped.”

Russia, China, Turkey, and other countries oppose US efforts to isolate Iran and crush its economy.

The Islamic Republic withstood 40 years of US toughness. Sacrificing its sovereign rights to its imperial interests is not in its vocabulary.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

At the front of a protest against Haiti’s president last week a demonstrator carried a large wooden cross bearing the flags of Canada, France and the US. The Haiti Information Project tweeted that protesters “see these three nations as propping up the regime of President Jovenel Moïse. It is also recognition of their role in the 2004 coup.”

Almost entirely ignored by the Canadian media, Haitian protesters regularly criticize Canada. On dozens of occasions since Jean Bertrand Aristide’s government was overthrown in 2004 marchers have held signs criticizing Canadian policy or rallied in front of the Canadian Embassy in Port-au-Prince. For their part, Haiti Progrès and Haiti Liberté newspapers have described Canada as an “occupying force”, “coup supporter” or “imperialist” at least a hundred times.

In the face of months of popular protest, Canada remains hostile to the protesters who represent the impoverished majority. A recent corruption investigation by Haiti’s Superior Court of Auditors and Administrative Disputes has rekindled the movement to oust the Canadian-backed president. The report into the Petrocaribe Fund accuses Moïse’s companies of swindling $2 million of public money. Two billion dollars from a discounted oil program set up by Venezuela was pilfered under the presidency of Moïse’s mentor Michel Martelly.

Since last summer there have been numerous protests, including a weeklong general strike in February, demanding accountability for public funds. Port-au-Prince was again paralyzed during much of last week. In fact, the only reason Moïse — whose electoral legitimacy is paper thin — is hanging on is because of support from the so-called “Core Group” of “Friends of Haiti”.

Comprising the ambassadors of Canada, France, Brazil, Germany and the US, as well as representatives of Spain, EU and OAS, the “Core Group” released another statement effectively backing Moise. The brief declaration called for “a broad national debate, without preconditions”, which is a position Canadian officials have expressed repeatedly in recent weeks. (The contrast with Canada’s position regarding Venezuela’s president reveals a stunning hypocrisy.) But, the opposition has explicitly rejected negotiating with Moïse since it effectively amounts to abandoning protest and bargaining with a corrupt and illegitimate president few in Haiti back.

In another indication of the “Core Group’s” political orientation, their May 30 statement “condemned the acts of degradation committed against the Senate.” Early that day a handful of opposition senators dragged out some furniture and placed it on the lawn of Parliament in a bid to block the ratification of the interim prime minister. Canada’s Ambassador André Frenette also tweeted that “Canada condemns the acts of vandalism in the Senate this morning. This deplorable event goes against democratic principles.” But, Frenette and the “Core Group” didn’t tweet or release a statement about the recent murder of journalist Pétion Rospide, who’d been reporting on corruption and police violence. Nor did they mention the commission that found Moïse responsible for stealing public funds or the recent UN report confirming government involvement in a terrible massacre in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of La Saline in mid-November. Recent Canadian and “Core Group” statements completely ignore Moise’s electoral illegitimacy and downplay the enormity of the corruption and violence against protesters.

Worse still, Canadian officials regularly promote and applaud a police force that has been responsible for many abuses. As I detailed in a November story headlined “Canada backs Haitian government, even as police force kills demonstrators”, Frenette attended a half dozen Haitian police events in his first year as ambassador. Canadian officials continue to attend police ceremonies, including one in March, and offer financial and technical support to the police. Much to the delight of the country’s über class-conscious elite, Ottawa has taken the lead in strengthening the repressive arm of the Haitian state since Aristide’s ouster.

On Wednesday Frenette tweeted, “one of the best parts of my job is attending medal ceremonies for Canadian police officers who are known for their excellent work with the UN police contingent in Haiti.” RCMP officer Serge Therriault leads the 1,200-person police component of the Mission des Nations unies pour l’appui à la Justice en Haïti (MINUJUSTH).

Une des meilleures parties de mon travail consiste à assister à des cérémonies de remise de médailles aux policiers canadiens reconnus pour leur excellent travail dans le contingent de police de l'ONU en Haïti. C'était le cas aujourd'hui et la majorité étaient des femmes! Bravo!! pic.twitter.com/gO2o1jK0uU

— André Frenette (@AndreFFrenette) June 19, 2019

At the end of May Canada’s ambassador to the UN Marc-André Blanchard led a United Nations Economic and Social Council delegation to Haiti. Upon his return to New York he proposed creating a “robust” mission to continue MINUJUSTH’s work after its planned conclusion in mid-October. Canadian officials are leading the push to extend the 15-year old UN occupation that took over from the US, French and Canadian troops that overthrew Aristide’s government and was responsible for introducing cholera to the country, which has killed over 10,000.

While Haitians regularly challenge Canadian policy, few in this country raise objections. In response to US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s recent expression of solidarity with Haitian protesters, Jean Saint-Vil put out a call titled “OH CANADA, TIME TO BE WOKE LIKE ILHAN OMAR & MAXINE WATERS!” The Haitian Canadian activist wrote: “While, in Canada, the black population is taken for granted by major political parties who make no effort to adjust Canadian Foreign policies towards African nations, Haiti and other African-populated nations of the Caribbean, where the Euro-Americans topple democratically-elected leaders, help set up corrupt narco regimes that are friendly to corrupt Canadian mining companies that go wild, exploiting the most impoverished and blackest among us, destroying our environments in full impunity… In the US, some powerful voices have arisen to counter the mainstream covert and/or overt white supremacist agenda. Time for REAL CHANGE in Canada! The Wine & Cheese sessions must end! We eagerly await the statements of Canadian party leaders about the much needed change in Canadian Policy towards Haiti. You will have to deserve our votes, this time around folks!”

Unfortunately, Canadian foreign policymakers — the Liberal party in particular — have co-opted/pacified most prominent black voices on Haiti and other international issues. On Monday famed Haitian-Canadian novelist Dany Laferrière attended a reception at the ambassador’s residence in Port-au-Prince while the head of Montréal’s Maison d’Haïti, Marjorie Villefranche, says nary a word about Canadian imperialism in Haiti. A little discussed reason Paul Martin’s government appointed Michaëlle Jean Governor General in September 2005 was to dampen growing opposition to Canada’s coup policy among working class Haitian-Montrealers.

Outside the Haitian community Liberal-aligned groups have also offered little solidarity. A look at the Federation of Black Canadians website and statements uncovers nothing about Canada undermining a country that dealt a massive blow to slavery and white supremacy. (Members of the group’s steering committee recently found time, however, to meet with and then attend a gala put on by the anti-Palestinian Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.)

A few months ago, Saint-Vil proposed creating a Canadian equivalent to the venerable Washington, D.C. based TransAfrica, which confronts US policy in Africa and the Caribbean. A look at Canadian policy from the Congo to Venezuela, Burkina Faso to Tanzania, suggests the need is great. Anyone seeking to amplify the voices from the streets of Port-au-Prince should support such an initiative.

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