Global Research

India’s dispatch of naval and air assets to the Gulf in response to the latest US-provoked crisis there is anti-Iranian to the core and intended to serve as an exercise for improving the South Asian state’s interoperability with its new American military-strategic ally.

The Gulf has been thrown into crisis as a result of two possible false flag tanker attacks and Iran’s downing of an American spy drone shortly after the latest one, but an unlikely country has decided to urgently dispatch its naval and air assets to the region in response…India. The South Asian state claims that it’s doing so in order to “reassure” Indian-flagged vessels transiting to and from the region, but the real reason is most likely that it intends for this deployment to serve as an exercise for improving the country’s interoperability with its new American military-strategic ally. The two Great Powers are closely cooperating in “containing” China, and the US successfully pressured India to discontinue purchasing Iranian oil under the pain of sanctions despite New Delhi previously promising last year to only abide by UNSC sanctions in this respect. India has now replaced its previous Iranian imports with Saudi, Emirati, and American resources instead, thus meaning that the other purpose of this so-called “reassurance” mission is to send the signal that it supports the US-led multilateral militarization of this waterway because it tacitly agrees with Washington’s official narrative that Iran was responsible for the earlier tanker attacks.

It’s not known whether India’s naval assets will be equipped with the ship-based surface-to-air missiles that it jointly produced with “Israel” and recently tested last month, but the two parties are now officially UN allies after New Delhi unprecedentedly voted together with Tel Aviv to prevent a Palestinian NGO from being granted consultative status by the global body so it wouldn’t be surprising if it does so in order to further ingratiate itself with the self-proclaimed “Jewish State” and their shared American ally. In any case, India’s military deployment to the Gulf has a more practical component to it than just virtue signaling fealty to its new American, “Israeli”, and Saudi friends because of the ways in which it can finally put the LEMOA and COMCASA pacts to use in a real-life operational environment. These agreements enable the US and India to use some of each other’s bases  (such as the new ones that they established in the nearby Omani port of Duqm) on a case-by-case “logistical” basis and exchange sensitive military information, respectively, ergo the original assertion that this is intended to be an exercise to improve their interoperability.

Suffice to say, India’s moves are anti-Iranian to the core and might finally convince the Islamic Republic’s leadership to stop begging the South Asian state to reconsider its compliance with America’s unilateral sanctions regime after New Delhi so proudly showed off its implicit military support for Tehran’s American, “Israeli”, and Saudi enemies during the ongoing crisis. As is becoming the trend, the Indian rogue state‘s regionally destabilizing actions are increasing the geostrategic importance of the global pivot state of Pakistan, which has wisely remained neutral and is therefore best-suited for credibly mediating a peaceful resolution to the latest tensions. As such, Islamabad has proven its independence in foreign affairs and debunked the false claim that’s regularly propagated about it supposedly being nothing more than a Saudi puppet, with the true marionette of not just Riyadh but also Washington and Tel Aviv being revealed to be none other than India, which still unconvincingly clings to the discredited slogan of “multi-alignment” to justify its unipolar pivot.

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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.

Introduction by Dr. Gary Null

About a decade ago, my late colleague Dr. Martin Feldman and I were invited to be keynote speakers at a conference on anti-aging and alternative medicine in Chicago.

The hall was packed with several thousand clinicians, physicians, medical professors, scientific researchers and doctors of non-conventional medical disciplines who were interested in the latest anti-aging research. Marty and I presented a paper based upon a year-long clinical study we had conducted.

Following the presentation, a professor at a California medical school asked me to meet privately with some physicians in a separate conference room. I was only anticipating a handful of doctors; therefore I was taken aback to see several hundred MDs and PhDs crammed into the space.  The physicians and professors were likely board certified; what they held in common was their inclusion of non-toxic, non-drug therapies in their protocols to treat patients.  The professor who invited me had published dozens of papers in peer-reviewed journals, but she was unable to get her own clinical research using alternative medical therapies published.  This was despite the fact that there are already tens of thousands of studies in print supporting the scientific basis for what she and thousands of other physicians are doing.   

What I learned from listening to these doctors’ complaints is that they feared speaking out publicly about their personal successes. They worried that they would be attacked and could face interrogation from state medical boards for breaking rank with the status quo. One professor from the University of Chicago’s medical school stated that he and his colleagues felt as if they were being held silent in the closet.  However, what surprised me was their  knowledge about the causes of disease and non-toxic therapies that could reverse them. For the following hours Marty and I listened to in depth conversations for preventing, treating and reversing diseases their colleagues using orthodox protocols were unable to achieve. California professor made a remark I would never forget. He stated it was almost Orwellian that those of us who are able to use alternative medicine must apologize for the success of our treatments. We are attacked and punished for succeeding while they are rewarded for failing. The room burst into applause. A woman physician from Baylor University said she has never been able to discuss her accomplishments in treating childhood autism because she did not use an conventional therapy. One those occasions when she tried, she was confronted with disdain and rebukes. All the doctors in the room had similar stories to share. 

My advice was for these doctors was to start collaborating together and bring their results and protocols to public attention.  They argued it was too risky. Therefore nothing happened and alternative medicine’s acceptance in the mainstream continues to worsen.  The consequence has been that tens of thousands of trained medical practitioners have been forced to suffer, remain silent and practice quietly.  

The bitter irony is that with tens of millions of patients turning towards non-conventional medicine, and with this trend increasing rapidly as conventional drug interventions repeatedly fail, these are the real heroes who are being isolated and shunned from the mainstream. Yet they have the support of the scientific literature to back their health claims as well as countless patient testimonials. 

It cannot be emphasized enough that a significant proportion of modern medicine is a failure but nevertheless mythologized as a success. In the US, a 2012 National Health Interview Survey recorded that 2.1 percent representing over 6.5 million Americans use homeopathy. The website Homeobook estimates there are about 3,000 board certified American physicians incorporating homeopathy into their clinical practice. Twenty-seven million people turn to Chiropractic. Globally, 80 percent of the world’s population use traditional botanical medical therapies. There are no accurate estimates for traditional Chinese medicine and Indian Ayurveda users in the US; however there are over 6,000 practicing naturopathic physicians and more than 27,000 licensed acupuncturists. After we add other holistic therapies such as meditative behavior modification, hypnosis, energy medicine, various mind-body therapies, therapeutic massage, etc. we find a growing percentage of Americans resorting to alternative medicine whether or not they follow allopathic protocols as well. Unfortunately the real pioneers in these healing arts have no voice and more often than not they are ridiculed and damned. The message is clear: stay in your corner, remain silent and don’t bring attention to yourself. 

During the course of my career I have spoken with thousands of physicians who incorporate some form of alternative medicine into their clinical practice. It is fair to say many are terrified of the industrial medical complex and its henchmen in the government agencies and media. With very rare exceptions such as the groundbreaking work of Dr. Dean Ornish, will we ever read in medical journals the profiles of the men and women who are pioneering safer and more effective ways to prevent and reverse disease outside of the dominant matrix. The simple reason why a board certified physician would jump ship and turn to these alternative therapies is because they work and they have experienced first hand the trail of severe complications, injuries and deaths caused by conventional medicine. Even the AMA’s journal noted that iatrogenic death is the third leading cause of death in the US after cardiovascular disease and cancer. A conservative figure places the number at approximately 300,000 deaths annually.  Our own analysis suggests drug complications and medical error may be first. But if we multiply this figure over the course of the previous ten years, we are looking at 3 million people who have died at the hands of modern medicine. 

Those who are responsible for this medical genocide are never held accountable. In fact they are rewarded. This presents a double standard because these are the same leaders of the modern medical regime who most viciously attack safer natural protocols. They make every effort to contain alternative medicine, which they perceive as a threat to their control over the nation’s healthcare. We have discovered a term that describes this phenomenon well: Medical Apartheid. 

Many of the most innovative health practitioners and those speaking out about the risks of conventional medicine and the proven benefits of the alternatives, find themselves stuck in a medical gulag. Notable examples include Drs. Rupert Sheldrake, Deepak Chopra, Larry Dossey, Andrew Weil, David Perlmutter and hundreds more. The guards over this apartheid encampment are the CDC, the leading medical associations, mainstream media, radicalized Skeptic organizations espousing scientific materialism such as the Center for Inquiry and the Society for Science Based Medicine, social media platforms such as Wikipedia, and of course the pharmaceutical companies that bank their efforts. One is no less responsible than another. They work in unison for the sole purpose of advancing the pipelines of the drug makers while roping off the opposition. Consequently, the apartheid regime acts as a court that both charges and convicts without a jury. It plays the role of judge and executioner. And this apartheid is now being demonstrated everywhere. 

An excellent example is the career of Dr. Linus Pauling, one of the most prolific medical researchers in American history. Pauling had a distinguished career at Cal Tech University for over three decades, published over 1,200 scientific papers and books, and was the rare recipient of the Nobel Prize on two separate occasions. Yet despite his spectacular career, it was his discovery that large doses of Vitamin C could prevent and reduce the severity of colds and flu infections that turned him into a pariah within the medical establishment. His later discovery that mega-doses of Vitamin C could be used to treat terminal cancer further labeled him as a dangerous heretic. 

During a private conversation with Dr. Pauling, he shared with me his personal disappointment with the conventional medical community and predicted that in the future his entire career would be reduced to having been an advocate of pseudoscience. Indeed, his prophesy was fulfilled. Wikipedia describes Orthomolecular Medicine, a modality of alternative medicine co-founded by Drs. Pauling and Abram Hoffer, which is based upon maintaining optimal health with nutritional supplementation, as “food faddism” and “quackery.”  And despite the tens of thousands of peer-reviewed studies showing a wide range of health benefits for hundreds of different nutrients, Wikipedia only presents several dismal and poor quality studies that claim the opposite. Dr. Pauling’s case is a lesson to better understand why thousands of medical doctors and followers of non-conventional protocols are fearful that their work to heal patients may actually destroy their careers and reputations. And this identifies a tactic of the Medical Apartheid: frame alternative medical practitioners and its advocates as enemies of public health and detain them in a prison of anxiety so they are fearful to reach out beyond the barbed walls of their gulag. 

Dr. Gary Null

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Definitions for apartheid vary slightly. However what they all share in common is that apartheid is a form of discrimination sanctioned by the law of the state. Apartheid’s ultimate goal is to segregate a race, ethnicity, belief system or group in order to exclude them from the state privileges awarded to those to whom a regime holds in favor. The victims of apartheid find themselves entrapped in an open-air detention center. Although apartheid conjures images of Afrikaners’ discrimination against minorities in South Africa, the Australian government’s treatment of the Aboriginal peoples, the state of Israel’s vicious repression of Palestinians, and the southern states of the US during the days of segregation, and Native Americans being forced on ghettoized reservations, apartheid is an appropriate term to describe ideological repression, discrimination and segregation waged against  the followers of alternative points of view. The dominant medical paradigm’s unceasing offensive against all forms of natural and alternative medicine has been with us for over century.  This assault is being undertaken by a wide network of players in the pharmaceutical industrial complex, the federal health agencies, bought off politicians, universities, professional medical associations and journals, the mainstream media, and Silicon Valley firms including Wikipedia. 

What the medical establishment shares with repressive, racist governments is a mission to go beyond the boundaries of social and civil rights in order to establish its authority and control over its targeted victims.  In effect,  America’s Medical Apartheid against non-conventional medical practice is nothing less than institutionalized prejudice.  In effect, the non-conventional and natural medical disciplines are being corridored off into indentured serfdom. 

One feature of apartheid is that it permits the “other” to exist in isolation. In South Africa, apartheid was a rule of law that enabled Afrikaners and South African Blacks to development independently under segregated conditions. The ruling Afrikaner government was fully aware it could not extinguish minority groups altogether. Therefore a repressive system was created to sequester Black communities. Likewise, the conventional medical establishment is making every effort to quarantine alternative medical systems. More important are the efforts to smother the successes of its practitioners and the enormous body of peer-reviewed scientific literature indicating that these non-drug based therapies are far more effective and safe than the pharmaceutical model. 

One of the most nefarious federal laws on the books that perpetuates our nation’s Medical Apartheid is to forbid any health claims to be associated with foods, vitamins, supplements, and medicinal herbs that have not gone through the FDA’s regulatory hurdles for drug approval and licensing.  During the 2009 “fake” H1N1 epidemic, the FDA harassed and threatened Dr. Andrew Weil for his claims that the popular Asian herb astragulus could prevent and treat swine flu infection. The warning came despite an enormous body of research in the National Institute of Health’s database of peer-reviewed medical literature showing that the plant possesses powerful antibacterial and antiviral properties. The FDA has also led SWAT raids against the walnut and cherry industries for advertising these food’s health claims. The sole reason for this unwarranted harassment was because astragulus, walnuts and cherries are not licensed medications. Few are aware that the FDA employs armed goons eager to invade dairy farmers providing raw milk to their communities. As ridiculous as these examples might appear, it is regrettably the law of the land. And the pharmaceutical industry and its abettors at the highest levels of the CDC, FDA and HHS are determined to maintain this apparatus of surveillance, repression and persecution. 

Another characteristic of America’s Medical Apartheid is our healthcare system’s differential attitude towards basic human rights and its regressive policies that sustain medical discrimination. America’s healthcare now ranks at the bottom of the pack among developed nations. Not only is it incompetent and economically unsustainable, it is also thoroughly corrupt and biased by solely benefiting the pharmaceutical and insurance industries and their shareholders. You cant place your bets on the stock market for a potential boom in Chiropracic or Traditional Chinese Medicine or the discovery of a new effective natural treatment. The delivery of medical services solely within a private insurance-based dynasty intentionally refuses to cover most preventative and alternative medical practices, which are substantially cheaper and more effective than the drug and surgical interventions being covered. Again, we find money and power favoring and providing gratuitous privileges only to those who are fully obedient to the dominant medical paradigm. By excluding holistic medicine from insurance coverage, patients are forced to pay out of pocket if they wish to follow a natural and less risky course of treatment. Imagine if the US were more like Switzerland, which universally covers most alternative forms of treatment, including homeopathy?  We would surely have a much healthier citizenry. 

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration states,

“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and the family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services.” 

However, in a Medical Apartheid the ruling establishment controls the legislature and federal health agencies that determine what is accepted medical practice. If health and wellness are basic human rights, then this apartheid perverts the very definition of “health” within its warped parameters that exclude other definitions and the more scientific means to restore wellness.

Consequently, another characteristic of an apartheid is “structural discrimination.” Discrimination against alternative medicine filters down into additional laws limiting the public freedom of choice and access to vital health information. Examples are the recent flurry of laws being passed in a growing number of states that mandate vaccination and efforts to restrict all nutritional counseling, including advice concerning vitamins and supplements, to certified dietitians who follow only the system’s accepted guidelines. Any naturopath, alternative nutritionist, food counselor who follows a different medical model is presumed to be inferior. Therefore the apartheid makes every effort to hamper the influence of their practices. This is one reason why a Medical Apartheid is analogous to other forms of institutionalized racism. 

South African apartheid acknowledged completely the potential political strength in the non-Afrikaner communities. It fully realized its capacity to upset the status quo of White rule. Therefore, an apartheid will recognize the existence of the “other” while simultaneously denying and undermining its value to the nation or larger community. Simiiarly, a Medical Apartheid promulgates a culture of cognitive dissonance within the medical community. While acknowledging that there is a vast body of scientific literature to prove alternative therapies’ efficacy, at the same it is determined to never advocate on behalf of these therapies. Preference is given to drugs over safety and cost-savings. 

Finally, we should note the important role the powers of private lobbying play to enforce laws that in turn marginalize and limit the practice of non-conventional medicine. Lobbying favors our medical regime which has become increasingly defined by financial incentives rather than restoring the health of ill patients. By encircling alternative health systems with bad press, with vitriol and abuse on social media such as Wikipedia and Facebook, with regressive laws limiting public access to invaluable treatments, and by erecting prejudiced obstacles to bar non-conventional medical achievements from entering professional journals, conferences and medical schools, natural medicine has become imprisoned for the sole purpose to reduce its exposure to the public. Medical Apartheid is not an accidental development of a healthcare system in decline. Rather, similar to Israel’s strategic fragmentation of the Palestinian people, the dominant establishment oppresses its presumed competition by means of distinct laws, rigid policies, coordinated harassment and inequitable practices.

Once ensnared in the apartheid’s detention zone, there is no recourse unless a physician renounces his or her life’s work, repents to the medical authorities and publicly voices hostility against the very treatments used successfully to treat patients. This is the case of several prominent alternative health practitioners who converted to Skepticism, such as former Chiropractic Samuel Homola and more notably Edzard Ernst, a former professor of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter in the UK. Today Homola and Ernst are now regarded as heroes by Skeptics, given awards by Skeptic organizations and are often referenced as a proof-of-concept that non-conventional medicine simply doesn’t work, is dangerous, and therefore should be regarded as quackery. 

Wikipedia is the principal holder of the virtual keys to the internet’s Medical Apartheid. Wikipedia’s co-founder Jimmy Wales and his minion of militant Skeptics serve as the final arbitrators as to whether a physician will be awarded a laurel wreath or be condemned with a professional death sentence.  Our investigations during the past year have convinced us that there is no reason whatsoever to question that Wikipedia’s Skeptic editors have direct and/or indirect lines of collusion with the apartheid’s drug industry and enablers in government, universities and professional associations. Their critical role in denigrating alternative health professions can not be over-stated. Wikipedia is in fact the virtual face of the apartheid at its worse.  

By now, we should have learned the lessons of how our federal officials handle scientifically proven dangers to the public:  adverse effects of drugs that should have never been approved in the first place, the health risks of agricultural chemicals such as glyphosate, the probable escalation of autism and other neurological disorders by imposing mandatory vaccination upon the population, 5G technology’s peril to human health and the environment, the dietary and environmental factors associated with our epidemics in obesity, diabetes, autism, heart diseases, etc,. And of course there is the evisceration of consumer protection laws, such as the Clean Water and Clean Air acts, and the erosion of laws protecting our civil rights and freedom of medical choice. Rarely do we ever read an honest, truthful expose about any major media source about the institutions and organizations that hold power over our lives, such as the dilettantes in the drug and insurance industries, American Medical Association and other professional organizations, the CDC, FDA and the Department of Human Health Services. All of these entities are the architects and helmsmen of a medical regime that earned the reputation of being a major threat to the health of the nation. 

The culmination of Medical Apartheid brings us to the final step to denounce, ridicule and shame all alternative medical therapies and their practitioners.They are called quacks or in Jimmy Wales’s words “lunatic charlatans” on Wikipedia and they risk being banned from Google and Facebook. Consequently their careers are frozen forever in a virtual reality with no rights to sue or given recourse for removal. And finally, the major thought leaders of non-conventional medicine, as well as their patients who become activist voices for wellness, such as the countless mothers and fathers of vaccine-injured children, are labeled as a serious danger to pubic health. Hence they face endless harassment and even arrest or imprisonment. And sadly this strategy of the Medical Apartheid is succeeding.     

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Richard Gale is the Executive Producer of the Progressive Radio Network and a former Senior Research Analyst in the biotechnology and genomic industries.

Dr. Gary Null is the host of the nation’s longest running public radio program on alternative and nutritional health and a multi-award-winning documentary film director, including The War on Health, Poverty Inc and Silent Epidemic.

This Saturday, Winnipeggers will hold the city’s 38th annual Walk for Peace. The theme of this year’s march is to call for Canada to adopt a foreign policy that focuses on international peace, development and co-operation. The event is sponsored by Peace Alliance Winnipeg and the Winnipeg chapter of the Council of Canadians.

Background: Winnipeggers have held an annual Walk for Peace since 1982. The purpose then was to draw attention to the threat of nuclear war and to urge our political leaders to pursue peaceful options and to support nuclear disarmament.

In many ways the world situation is more dangerous than it was in 1982 and our need to remind our politicians of their responsibilities remains.

Canadians overwhelmingly support peace and disarmament. For example, polling conducted by Environics in 2008 indicated that almost 90 percent of Canadians support the abolition of nuclear weapons. Research reported by Environics in 2018 shows that Canadian opposition to nuclear weapons remains high. Despite this, the federal government has refused to support the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, approved by 122 countries at the United Nations on July 7, 2017.

Equally disturbing has been Canada’s increasingly belligerent relationship with Russia, participation in Middle Eastern wars, sales of arms to notorious human rights violators, such as Saudi Arabia and seeking the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Venezuela.

When: Saturday, June 22, 2019
Where: The west side of the Manitoba Legislative Building
What time: We assemble at 12:00 Noon. The march begins at 12:30 PM.
Where to: We will walk from the Legislative Building, south on Osborne to Stradbrook, east on Stradbrook to Scott, north on Scott to River, west on River to Osborne and back to the Legislative Building. Route map.

What else: refreshments and brief speeches after the march

Sponsors:

– Peace Alliance Winnipeg
– Council of Canadians – Winnipeg Chapter

As readers may recall, the USS Liberty was attacked by Israel during the six-day war in 1967, as it sailed at 5 knots in international waters off the Sinai coast. Of 294 crew members, 34 were killed and 171 wounded in the attack.[1] The Israeli government claimed and continues to claim that its military confused the Liberty with an Egyptian supply ship, the El Quseir, formerly used to transport horses.

The Israeli government apologized for this “tragic mistake” and agreed to pay compensation. Israel’s explanation for the “mistake” was at the time accepted at face value by the U.S. government.[2] The surviving crew members, however, consistently claim that the attackers knew they targeted an American ship they intended to sink, leaving no witnesses alive. One of the surviving crew members, James M. Ennes, Jr., published in 1979 the first book on this event, “Assault on the Liberty”, which demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that the Israelis deliberately attempted to sink the Liberty in the knowledge that it was an American ship and that the U.S. authorities, led by President Lyndon B. Johnson, intended to cover-up this fact. These two opposing views cannot be reconciled. Most writings on the Liberty case focus on this dispute.

Yet, in 2003, a book by British investigative journalist Peter Hounam (“Operation Cyanide: Why the Bombing of the USS Liberty Nearly Caused World War III”) and its accompanying BBC documentary film from 2002 (“USS Liberty: Dead in the Water”), changed the framework of debate.

In his book, the author

(a) puts to rest the legend that the attackers mistook the Liberty for an Egyptian ship;

(b) demonstrates that both the Israeli and the U.S. governments have colluded in covering up the facts;

(c) that both governments have used lies and obfuscation as part of the cover-up; and

(d) that the Liberty’s true mission was never revealed. Documents declassified since then not only support Hounam’s revisionist narrative but suggest that the White House intended for the Liberty to be attacked and its crew killed.

In 2018, Joan Mellen published another book on the USS Liberty (“Blood in the Water: How the U.S. and Israel Conspired to Ambush the USS Liberty”). The author corroborates largely Hounam’s findings and complements these with new testimonies. She, too, concludes that the attack on the Liberty was a joint U.S.-Israel false-flag operation aimed at toppling the Nasser regime in Egypt.

While it is now generally accepted – including by former U.S. military leaders[3] – that the attack was no mistake but a deliberate attempt by Israel to sink an American ship, questions remain: Why was the USS Liberty sent to the zone of war and even denied military escort? What was the purpose of the attack on the USS Liberty? Why is this issue surrounded by such secrecy lasting until now? An attempt to shed some light on these questions will be made in this essay.

Initially, two motives were presented for Israel’s attempt to sink the Liberty: The first was that Israel wanted to eliminate witnesses to war crimes committed by Israeli forces in the Sinai.

The Liberty was supposed to have intercepted Israeli communications regarding these war crimes and had, therefore, to be eliminated. This explanation was based on three tenuous assumptions: One, that Israeli forces would discuss their war crimes over the radio; two, that the Liberty would not transmit such intercepted messages to Washington until later; three, that the United States, an ally, would be overly concerned by Israel committing war crimes against Egyptians.

In any case, as we will see, the Liberty was not tasked to intercept Israeli communications.

Another motive initially offered for Israel’s action was that it did not wish the United States to know about Israel’s plans to attack Syria. Admiral Thomas Moorer, for example, wrote in the July-August 1997 issue of The Link magazine:

Israel was preparing to seize the Golan Heights from Syria despite President Johnson’s known opposition to such a move…. And I believe [Israeli Defense Minister] Moshe Dayan concluded that he could prevent Washington from becoming aware of what Israel was up to by destroying the primary source of acquiring that information – the USS Liberty.[4]

Israel actually made no attempts to hide its plans to attack Syria. U.S. officials, such as U.S. Ambassador to Israel Walworth Barbour, reported on June 8, that he “would not, repeat not, be surprised if the reported Israeli attack [on the Golan] does take place or has already done so.”[5] Israeli Intelligence Chief Aharon Yariv told Harry McPherson, a senior White House aide who was visiting Israel at the time, that “there still remained the Syria problem and perhaps it would be necessary to give Syria a blow.”[6] Such suspicions were not based on interceptions by the USS Liberty but on direct contacts between the U.S. and Israel. In any case, the USS Liberty was not the only platform able to intercept Israeli communications. Such interception could be effectively be carried out from Cyprus.[7] And the Liberty was not tasked to intercept Israeli communications.

According to Michael B. Oren, former Israel Ambassador to the United States, whose article on the USS Liberty is posted on the Jewish Virtual Library, “there is no indication in the archives that the Israelis were troubled by the Liberty, much less considered it worthy of attack.”[8]

Even if we assume that Israel wanted to keep the U.S. in the dark about its war operations, it is difficult to believe that it would have attacked an intelligence ship of its main ally and benefactor, the United States of America, and murdered part of its crew of over 290 persons, without coordination with U.S. leadership. It is doubtful that any Israeli government would have taken such a huge risk for relatively minor gains.

Powerful actors in the United States pretended to criticize the President, Lyndon Johnson, and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara for having bowed to the Jewish lobby by accepting Israel’s contrived claim of having mistakenly attacked the Liberty. According to their theory, the U.S. simply authorized the attack on the Liberty in order to please Israel. As we will see, far more weighty reasons compelled the U.S. to accept Israel’s explanation. But first, some basic facts.

1. The lightly armed Liberty was sent without protection to a war zone

The Liberty’s intelligence operations were run by the NSA. But its security in the Mediterranean was under the responsibility of the Vice Admiral William Inman Martin.

The Liberty was ordered to sail from Abidjan (The Ivory Coast), where it had docked, first to Rota, Spain[9], and then toward the Sinai coast. The decision to send the Liberty to the Middle East was taken before the war broke out there on June 5, 1967.[10]

On the morning of June 5, the Liberty was already “steaming near its maximum speed of 13 knots and was midway between Rota and the Sinai Coast.”[11] Fearing for the safety of the ship and its crew, Dave Lewis of the Liberty formally requested from Vice-Admiral Martin a destroyer as an armed escort to accompany the ship.

The Liberty was essentially defenseless. It was not a warship. Martin denied Liberty’s request despite the fact that the war between Israel and Egypt had meanwhile broken out. The Liberty was to sail to a zone of war without protection. The official explanation given by Martin was that the Liberty was “a clearly marked United States ship in international waters” and “not a reasonable subject for attack by any nation.” In the unlikely event of an inadvertent attack, he said, “jet fighters from the Sixth Fleet carrier force could be overhead in less than ten minutes.”[12] When the Liberty was attacked, no jet fighters ever came to the ship’s rescue.

The reason for denying protection to the Liberty only later became transparent.

2. The Liberty was sent to the Middle East on a contrived mission

Immediately after the attack, the Navy’s Public Information Office issued a news release, indicating that the Liberty, dubbed a “technical research ship,” was sent “to assure communications for U.S. Government posts in the Middle East and to assist in relaying information concerning the evacuation of American dependents and other citizens from the Arab-Israeli war area.”[13] This news release was only meant to deceive the public for it could not deceive the Israeli, Russian and Egyptian navies, who knew that the Liberty was one of the most sophisticated spy ships of the United States, and would not be sent to a war zone for such trivial chores.

A different story was leaked to the Associated Press. In a AP wire story from 9 June 1967, written by Bob Horton from aboard the aircraft carrier America, he quoted an unnamed officer who told him:

“To put it bluntly, [the Liberty] was there to spy for the U.S. Russia does the same thing. We moved in close to monitor the communications of both Egypt and Israel. We have to. We must be informed of what’s going on in matter of minutes.”[14]

That story, published in the garb of a “credible source”, was also contrived. For, as transpired during various inquiries and testimonies, the Liberty did not carry Hebrew-speaking officers or linguists able to monitor Israeli communications.[15] According to US Marine Bryce Lockwood, cited by Joan Mellen, he was specifically told by David Lewis of the Liberty, that in the case they intercept Israeli communications, they were to drop those. They were not to intercept communications of their ally.[16] As for the Arab-speaking linguists on the Liberty, they found themselves virtually out of work, as by June 8, the Egyptian army was already defeated by Israel and there were no Egyptian combat communications to be monitored.

Robert L. Wilson, one of the Arab linguists on board said years later, that

“there weren’t a lot of communications emanating from Egypt at that time.[17] […] Once we got on station, the Egyptians were dead, practically. There was no voice communications at all that we could pick up, except for the Israelis.”[18]

As the Liberty neared its target, Lloyd Painter of the Liberty commented:

“So we come six thousand miles to watch the war, and we finally arrive just as it’s grinding to a close.”

His shipmate Philip Armstrong added:

“You can be glad we’re late. Out there all alone, we’re an easy target. I hate to think where we would be now if we had been sitting off the Gaza Strip when the war broke out.”[19]

They had no clue what awaited them.

3. Attempts to rescue the Liberty were stopped by the White House?

According to Liberty crew members, the first Mayday messages went out at 1:58 pm and 2:09 pm. Israel-time. While estimates on the duration of the attacks differ, it appears that they lasted until 3:15 pm, including series of attacks by aircraft and later by torpedo boats.

Joe Tully was the Captain of USS Saratoga (one of the aircraft carriers of the Sixth Fleet). According to Peter Hounam, Tully had kept personal copies of the Saratoga’s log and other records and confirmed that, at that time, 12 fighter-bombers and four tanker aircraft had taken off from his flight deck bound for the position radioed by the Liberty.[20] A minute after the aircraft were launched, Rear Admiral Lawrence Geis, Sixth Fleet carrier division commander, radioed Tully and ordered him to recall the planes.[21]

Tully was told by Geis he could launch again rescue aircraft in 90 minutes, only to have the aircraft recalled once more.[22] Until his death, Tully was furious that Washington prevented him from rescuing the Liberty but never discovered the reason for the recalls.[23]

What surprised Tully was that he and Captain Donald Engen, in charge of the carrier USS America, were never questioned about these issues.[24] Dave McFeggan, a Liberty survivor, who remains wary of speaking out about his role in the ship, was asked whether Vice Admiral Martin, the Commander of the Flagship of the Sixth Fleet, had foreknowledge of the attack. He said: “Of course he knew.”[25] This is a widely shared opinion of Liberty survivors.

Lt Commander David E. Lewis, surviving Liberty officer in charge of communications, said that when he was in hospital he was told to report to Admiral Geis.[26] Lewis learned that Geis had twice ordered the launching of aircraft to defend the Liberty. Each time he had received orders from the White House to recall them when they were already in the air. Lewis added:

“When the first were recalled by Robert McNamara, Geis thought McNamara was afraid that some of the aircraft might carry nuclear weapons. Geis immediately configured a flight with aircraft which could not carry nukes, relaunched and again notified Washington. Again McNamara ordered them recalled. Geis then requested confirmation of the order and the Commander-in-Chief, Lyndon Johnson, came on [the phone] and ordered them recalled, with the comment, ‘I will not embarrass our ally.’ Geis said that he was sure that ‘it would all be hushed and our conversation would be highly classified. With that, he asked me to keep it confidential, but [said] that he had to tell someone that he had tried to help us.’”

Hounam added that Lewis kept this story secret until Geis died 20 years later.[27]

Lewis’s account was corroborated by Julian ‘Tony’ Hart, who manned a U.S. Navy communications centre at Sidi Yahia, Morocco. He said that when the Liberty sent its Mayday message of being attacked, he relayed that message to Washington. Ten minutes later, after the identity of the Liberty was authenticated, another message to this effect was dispatched. At the same time Hart picked up a “flash message” from a carrier in the Sixth Fleet saying that they had launched ready aircraft [i.e. aircraft carrying nuclear weapons].[28] Hart added:

“Within three or four minutes – it was very, very quickly – we had a flash message come through from Washington to the Sixth Fleet commander saying to recall the aircraft. Sixth Fleet sent a message back to DC requesting authority to relaunch. There was then a period of maybe ten or 15 minutes, and then a voice communication link with Washington was brought up. The person identified himself on the phone as Secretary McNamara and wanted us to patch [him] through to Commander Sixth Fleet, [Rear Admiral Geis]. He was talking to McNamara and asking for permission to relaunch [any] aircraft and McNamara said no, that no aircraft were to be launched.[29] […] After 40, 45 minutes later there was a second voice communication with Washington DC to Com. Sixth Fleet. The person again identified himself as McNamara and the Admiral identified himself as being there. He was told to dispatch investigating aircraft in 30 minutes or 25 minutes.[30] He did not explain why such delay was necessary.

4. Israel’s task was to sink the USS Liberty and kill its entire crew?

The explanation for the delay in coming to the Liberty’s assistance may have been given by a person who only agreed to speak to Peter Hounam under the name of Steve. He said that in 1967 he was stationed at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, working in a highly secret vault at the Strategic Air Command headquarters. He was cleared to read and handle the most sensitive signals traffic intercepted by the NSA and other agencies. He decided to reveal his knowledge in April 2002, and contacted therefore Liberty veteran Jim Ennes.[31] According to Steve the Israelis were frustrated that they could not sink the Liberty immediately:

The [Israeli] ground station […] reiterated that it was imperative that the ship be sunk immediately. All the time we heard the command centre expressing annoyance that the attack […] was taking far too long. That was their only concern – that the ship was staying afloat.[32]

Another person, James Ronald Gotcher III, declared in 2003 under penalty of perjury that while serving as a Sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, assigned to the 6924th Security Squadron at Da Nang, Vietnam, his unit received on June 8, 1967, a CRITIC message saying that the USS Liberty was under attack by Israeli aircraft. He said he had a clear recollection of reading transcripts of conversations between pilots and controllers. He said it was clear to him from these statements that (a) “the aircraft were flying a planned mission to find and sink USS Liberty”, and (b) that “the Israeli pilots were making every effort possible to sink USS Liberty and were very frustrated by their inability to do so.” He added the following statements

Approximately ten days to two weeks thereafter, we received an internal NSA report stating, in no uncertain terms, that the attack was planned in advance and deliberately executed. The mission was to sink the USS Liberty. A few days later, another message came through directing the document control officer to gather and destroy all copies of both the rough and final intercept translations as well as the subsequently issued report. After the destruction of those documents, I saw nothing further on this subject.[33]

A statement by Petty Officer Lloyd Painter confirmed that Israel’s mission was to not only to sink the USS Liberty but to exterminate all its crew. After the ship’s rubber life-rafts had been inflated and lowered overboard, these were also attacked:

I looked at the stern of the ship and saw one of the torpedo boats methodically machine-gunning one of our life-rafts that had floated back… I knew that had there been anyone in there they certainly wouldn’t be alive. It happened so fast it didn’t seem real. […] I was bewildered. I couldn’t understand why they would do it to us. I just didn’t understand a thing at that point.[34]

Several crew members of the Liberty, including Bob Farley,[35] testified that their communications were jammed and their communications were knocked out early on[36] by the Israelis in order to prevent them from calling for assistance. Yet, when the ship’s radiomen reported the apparent jamming of Liberty’s radios, their testimony was classified “Top Secret” and was not followed up by the U.S. authorities.[37] This is strong evidence that the identify of the ship was known to the attackers and that the U.S authorities tried to cover-up this fact.

When Hounam interviewed former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara – long retired – for a BBC documentary and asked him to comment on the Liberty incident, McNamara said “I have nothing to say on the Liberty. I don’t recall it, but everything…well, I’m not going to go further. I’m not going to say anything on the Liberty.”[38] When Hounam pointed out that the surviving crew would like Congress to investigate the Liberty attack, McNamara looked annoyed and said:

I am not saying anything about the Liberty period. The reason I don’t…You’ve got to deal with me fairly on this, now. Don’t have any of this – anything about the Liberty – on the tape….because I don’t know what the hell happened and I haven’t taken time to find out. There are all of those claims that we sent planes, that planes were going out and we turned them around and that we intentionally allowed the Israelis to sink the Liberty. I know nothing about it. I don’t want to say I didn’t at the time, but today I have no knowledge of it.[39]

George Golden, the Liberty’s chief engineer, was informed of the following when the damaged ship reached Malta:

“We were hearing we were the guinea pigs, to get shot up, to make it look like Egypt was doing this so the United States could step in. […] We were told that the attack was supposed to have looked like it was the Egyptians, and that was going to give our country an excuse to get in there to help Israel.”[40]

Asked how he felt when he was told all this about being guinea pigs, Golden answered:

“I thought I was going to cry, because I couldn’t believe something like that would happen. I didn’t think our government was that way.”[41]

Asked if he was told that McNamara and [President] Johnson knew about that and that the orders not to help the Liberty came from as high as the President, he said “Yes.” He added:

Some of our people from the States came over when we came into Malta. I happened to know two of them. One of them was with me when we put the Liberty back in commission…and he said, “George, they really did it to you, old boy” and I said “What are you talking about?” And he said “You were a damned guinea pig.” And that’s all he would say.[42]

Golden said that two or three years before the Liberty’s Captain McGonagle’s death, he confided in Golden that it was the President and McNamara who sent the Liberty from over in Africa [to the Middle East], ”to have this happen.”[43] McGonagle refused all along to reveal what he knew about the real mission of the Liberty. He apparently left no record of what he knew of his own country’s role in the incident.[44]

5. What was Operation Cyanide?

According to several witnesses, the Liberty was entangled in a covert project involving United States submarines whose presence within the war zone has never been officially admitted.

Israeli Motor Torpedo Boats (MTBs) in formation, c. 1967. These were the MTBs that attacked USS Liberty. (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Although the identity of the submarines has not been definitely established, two particular submarines came in question: The USS Amberjack SS522 and a Polaris submarine, the USS Andrew Jackson, carrying nuclear weapons.[45] To the day of his death, the captain of the USS Amberjack, Augustine Hubal, refused to discuss what his submarine was doing out there so close to the Liberty.[46] Not only did the U.S. government never admit the presence of any submarines at this time and location, but the witnesses who admitted to have served in these submarines did not reveal the precise mission of their vessels. One of the Liberty survivors, Charles ‘Chuck’ Rowley, confided to his shipmate Jim Ennes that he was cleared for “a secret submarine project under codename Cyanide.”[47]

The likely presence of a submarine that shadowed the Liberty was repeatedly mentioned in James M. Ennes’ book. Someone on the Liberty charted a mysterious Contact X on the ship’s Coordination Chart. The “unidentified object had been tracked for days until it merged with Liberty’s track, when suddenly the plot was discontinued,” wrote Ennes. He wrote that he asked his shipmate Jim O’Connor, who was security-cleared, what X represented. O’Connor claimed ignorance. It was never revealed who charted the coordinates of Contact X on the Liberty’s and knew what Contact X represented. Ennes guessed that it was a submarine with which the Liberty had a rendezvous.[48] Ennes wrote that an unnamed crew member of the submarine blurted out a few weeks after the attacks in the cafeteria at Portsmouth Naval Hospital, that the commanding officer of the said submarine “activated a periscope camera that recorded Liberty’s trauma on movie film.” Ennes added that “three persons in positions to know have confirmed the story that a submarine operated near Liberty.”[49]

A highly secret document dated 10 April 1967 [that is, before the Liberty attack] and discovered by Jim Ennes in the Lyndon B Johnson Library in Austin, Texas, among papers filed about the USS Liberty, shows only one item from the minutes of a meeting held on 7 April 1967 by a group called the 303 Committee.[50] Richard Helms, at the time director of the CIA, explained after his retirement 35 years later the role of this committee. It was, he told Peter Hounam, “simply a device for examining covert operations of any kind and making a judgment on behalf of the President so he wouldn’t be nailed with the thing if it failed.”

The meeting of the 303 Committee was chaired by Walt Rostow, Johnson’s national security advisor. General Ralph D. Steakley attended the meeting and briefed the Committee about a sensitive military project called Frontlet 615. In the document, that particular item is encircled by a pen with a handwritten note saying: ‘Submarine within UAR waters.”[51] [UAR = United Arab Republic, the name given at the time by Egypt to itself] The document thus reveals the existence of a top secret project authorized by the White House and involving the future deployment of a submarine into Egyptian waters. Was the number 615 a short code for June 15th, the initially planned date for the war against Egypt?

Image below: Commander W.L. McGonagle in his damaged cabin after the attack (Source: Public Domain)

Presuming that the United States would inform its ally Israel about its military project Frontlet 615 or Operation Cyanide and about the movements of the USS Liberty to the area, there is no basis for the belief that Israel was kept out of the loop and attacked the USS Liberty by mistake.

Several Liberty survivors actually assumed in their testimonies that Israel, a U.S. ally, had been informed about their presence in the area. For that reason they were not concerned when they saw Israeli planes circling again and again over the ship for hours before the attack in an attempt to identify the ship.

The Liberty’s American flag was clearly visible in the breeze and the ship was marked. There was no way to mistake the ship for anything else. No other ships were at that time in the area. For unexplained reasons, the Liberty’s captain, McGonagle, was reluctant to report these repeated visits by the Israeli aircraft to the Sixth Fleet.[52] He later attempted to minimize the nature of the Israeli attack and was criticized by Liberty survivors for participating in the cover-up of the incident. Only before his death, he admitted having betrayed his crew.

When Peter Hounam asked Rafi Eitan, who was the head of Israeli Secret Service in 1967, if he had ever heard of an Operation Cyanide in 1967, Eitan asked, “Operation Cyanide? If I heard about it? I have. So?” Hounam then asked what it was. Eitan waited a while before saying: “I suggest we stop the interview here.” He then almost shouted: “What do you say? Why do you want it?“ Hounam: ”I just want to know what it was. Why won’t you be able to speak about Operation Cyanide? It’s 34 years since.” After a long pause Eitan said with emphasis: “Signature,” making a gesture with his hand as though he was signing the Official Secrets Act, “and loyalty to my country.”[53]

6. U.S. bombers on the way to attack Cairo were recalled in midair

Operation Cyanide and Frontlet 615 referred to a U.S. plan to bomb Cairo and topple the Nasser regime. Hard evidence comes from David Nes, at the time chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. In the afternoon of 8 June, he received a message notifying him that the USS Saratoga had launched bombers which were heading his way.[54] After his retirement he told Peter Hounam:

“We got one of those ‘flash’ messages saying Navy ship Liberty had been attacked, presumably by Egyptian planes, and that a retaliatory launch was under way. […] But within a very short period of time another ‘flash’ telegram came through saying that the attack [on the Liberty] had been identified as Israeli and that was the end of that.”[55]

The exact wording of the telegram bears noting. Nes said that the bombers were heading his way on the presumption that the Liberty had been attacked by Egyptian planes. It is, however, unthinkable that the U.S. military would make such a presumption without conclusive evidence and launch within minutes bombers to attack a sovereign state, without prior planning and without authorization from the White House.

Several witnesses who were on the USS Saratoga testified that planes which took off from that aircraft carrier appear to have carried nuclear bombs. Among them were Brad Knickerbocker, at the time a young aviator on the Saratoga;[56] Mike Ratigan, a center-deck catapult operator;[57] Jay Goralski, a U.S. reporter;[58] and b, correspondent for UPI.[59] 

Charles ‘Chuck’ Rowley, who survived the Liberty attack, said that a pilot from the USS America had told him that he had flown on that day a jet with nuclear weapons and was ordered to head for Cairo.[60] Joe Meadors, also a Liberty survivor, said that when he arrived in Crete on the way to be hospitalized for his injuries, some of the U.S. ground crew told him that they had refueled a U.S. fighter, which, to their amazement, had an atomic bomb underneath.[61] There is no apparent reason for these witnesses to invent their stories.

Moe Shafer, a Liberty veteran living in Marietta, Georgia, told Hounam that unlike most of the injured from the Liberty, he was flown by helicopter to the USS Davis. Shafer said that the next morning Vice Admiral Martin came to see him when he sat on his bunk with two or three other injured men. According to Shafer, Martin told him that “four [jets] were on their way to Cairo loaded with nuclear weapons”, that “we were three minutes from bombing them [the Egyptians]” and “that the jets could not land back on the carrier with nuclear arms and they had to land in Athens.”[62] There was no reason for Shafer to invent such a story.

It is evident that sending planes within minutes of the Liberty attack to bomb Cairo could not have been a considered reaction to the attack, but a planned operation using the Liberty attack as pretext. It was, of course, necessary to recall the attack planes when it transpired that Israel did not succeed in destroying the Liberty and its crew.

7. The Liberty’s crew members were warned not to talk about the incident with anyone

While Israeli officials claimed that Liberty had been attacked “by mistake” and the U.S. Government accepted this explanation, the Department of Defense and the Navy sternly warned the crew of the Liberty and others not to speak to anyone about the attack, ever. They were threatened with imprisonment or worse. The cover-up began even before the damaged Liberty arrived in port. Admiral Isaac Kidd was ferried aboard the limping Liberty to begin conducting the official inquiry.[63] Petty Officer Philip Tourney recalled:

“Admiral Kidd ordered me not to see (sic) what I had seen or I would be in the penitentiary of worse – meaning, I thought, death.”

CT Ronald Grantski recalled:

“I don’t know what kind of pressure the officers were under, but we were told over and over never to say anything about the attack to anyone, ever, and told never to think that time had run out, because it wouldn’t. And we were scared.”

Robert ‘Buddha’ Schnell was also debriefed by Admiral Kidd, then told not to talk to anybody and to be especially careful to avoid the press. He said that when he was debriefed on leaving the Navy in 1968,

“they said they would be checking on me and they also told me I could not leave the continental U.S. for ten years because of the attack.”

Richard ‘Larry’ Weaver, another Liberty survivor who was severely injured in the attack, sitting in a wheelchair in the hospital, was confronted by a three- or four-star Admiral.

“He took the stars off his collar and said, ‘Richard, do you know anything? Tell me everything you know.”

After he told him what he knew, the Admiral said

“Fine, Richard”, put his stars back on and said: “If you ever repeat this to anyone else ever again you will be put in the prison and forgotten about.”[64]

William LeMay was also badly wounded during the attack. He woke up in a hospital with a tag on his arm that said his name was Smith. LeMay asked for it to be corrected. He was told,

“That is your name for the time being and you never served on the USS Liberty.”[65]

To prevent unauthorized contact with the outside world, guards were stationed at each door of the Liberty men’s [hospital] ward, wrote James M. Ennes.[66]

Ken Ecker, a Liberty survivor, posted the following statement on the website of the USS Liberty veterans:

Immediately following the attack I was threatened with court-martial if I discussed the incident with the press or anyone else. One of the warnings was also not to discuss the attack even with my immediate family or friends. In my case these warnings were repeated upon my transfer from each duty station I left along with the standard security clearance de-briefing. I was also periodically taken aside and reminded of the original threat even when not being transferred.[67]

George Golden described to Peter Hounam how, periodically, he would be threatened and people would visit him, who he believed were from the CIA, demanding he hand over documents he had kept. Did he think the authorities would still try to silence him? “Yes, I do”, he said firmly, “because of some phone calls that I got.”[68]

Another person who feared for his security and was, therefore, unwilling to disclose what he knew about the case, was another Liberty veteran, CT David McFeggan, whom Peter Hounam discovered working as an accountant in Chicago. McFeggan declined a face-to-face meeting with Peter Hounam but spoke with him “very guardedly” on the phone. He told Hounam that it was hard for other people to understand why there was so much secrecy, but there was still danger for him in talking.[69] One of McFeggan’s concerns was that there was no one he could rely upon to support his story if he were to speak freely:

“The people who would back me up, Jim O’Connor and Dick Blue [sic], are both dead.”

When asked about Operation Cyanide, he said “I can answer nothing about that.” McFeggan said he was so deeply affected by his memories of what happened that he breaks down and cries like a baby.[70]

Patricia Blue, wife of NSA employee Allen Blue, who died in the attack on the Liberty, said she was picked up by NSA officials in Maryland immediately after the attack and taken to her home. She said:

”They [the NSA people] never left for six weeks. They answered the phones because they did not want me to talk to any reporters […] They did not want me speak…and I never did.”[71]

A Liberty seaman, Ronald Grantski, said:

“I don’t know what kind of pressure the officers were under, but we were told over and over never to say anything about the attack to anyone, ever, and told never to think that time had run out, because it wouldn’t. And we were scared.”[72]

In parallel with systematic efforts to muzzle Liberty survivors, officials attempted to generate deceptive counter-narratives. Chief Petty Officer Joseph A. Benkert of the Liberty, related to James M. Ennes how he was manipulated for such a deceptive act.

At first, Benkert was informed by his seniors that he could grant press interviews if he chose to. Benkert did not want, however, to be interviewed unless he was free to speak candidly and without restriction. So when reporter Clifford Hubbard of Norfolk’s Virginian-Pilot contacted him, he politely declined. He soon, however, received a call from Commander David M. Cooney, who ordered Benkert to “report promptly for a press briefing” at CINCLANFLT headquarters. Before this “press briefing”, with Rear Admiral Renken present, Benkert was asked every conceivable question about the ship and the attack and reminded that he could neither discuss the ship’s mission nor Vice Admiral Martin’s promise to provide jet fighter protection or the failure of such protection to arrive. He was not allowed to mention the machine-gunning of the life rafts nor that napalm was used in the attack. He was not permitted to mention that the American flag was flying and that the wind was blowing. His press interview was conducted in the presence of several “minders”, such as Commander Cooney, Admiral Renken and other Navy officials that Benkert didn’t recognize. After his interview was published, he said: “I don’t know where they got the quotes for that story. They didn’t come from me. They didn’t use what I said and they made up stuff I didn’t say. At least ninety percent of that story is bullshit.”[73]

8. Was an American involved in the attack on the Liberty?

George Golden revealed to Peter Hounam that after arriving with the limping Liberty to Malta, he met an American “four-striper”, who, to his astonishment, told him that he had been in the Israeli war room in Tel Aviv during the attack on the Liberty.

“I don’t remember his name”, he said. “I remember he was a big, fat person. They [the Israelis] all left the war room for a period of time; he stayed, and when they came back the planes and the boats were hitting [the Liberty]. What makes that stand out to me more than anything else was the fact that he said they should have sunk the whole ship, they had the power to do it, and the Liberty should not have gotten away. It was, to me, like he was on somebody else’s side, not America’s side when they were shooting up our ship.”

It was never established who this “four-striper” was and what role he played in the Israeli war room during the attack on the Liberty.

9. Why was the Liberty attacked?

Evidence that the U.S. was involved in both planning and executing the Six-Day war came from several witnesses interviewed by author Peter Hounam. One of them was Joe Sorrels, whom he found living in Naples, Florida, as a successful manager of golfing and leisure resorts. Sorrels told Hounam a story that may offer additional light on the Liberty issue. His testimony supports the view that the initiative for attacking the Liberty had not come from Israel, but from the United States.

Sorrels said his mission was named Operation Cyanide. Sorrels told Hounam that this was a “joint plan by elements of military intelligence in Israel and the United States to engineer a war with Egypt and depose its leader Gamal Abdul Nasser who, the U.S. believed, was a dangerous puppet of Moscow.”[74] Hounam admits that he initially had doubts about the credibility of this witness:

Was [Sorrels] telling the truth? It is difficult to fathom any motive for him making up the extraordinary story he told me in four telephonic interviews conducted over a period of 15 months. He sought no payment and did not want to meet face to face. He was reluctant to volunteer much in the way of detail, but he differentiated between what was speculation and what he knew from his direct experiences. Furthermore, what he disclosed match-es other evidence.[75]

Sorrels said he was secretly sent in August 1966 to Israel as an adviser to the Israeli Army. He discovered on arrival that he was part of a multi-national force of so-called ‘advisers’ from Australia and Britain. Senior officers from the U.S. were in charge:

“I had a briefing on a weekly basis. I made a weekly report directly to an individual but I cannot give you his name because he’s still wired [working for the U.S. intelligence]. They were equally tight-tipped […] I asked if that meant Britain was going to be involved in the forthcoming war. That was my read on it”, he said.[76]

Hounam:

“From [Sorrels’] viewpoint, it seemed the Israelis were responding to pressure from the United States to eradicate Nasser; Israel was not the prime mover.”[77]

When Hounam asked Sorrels how Operation Cyanide had come about, Sorrels’ language became more elliptical. Sorrels:

”My understanding was that there had been some commitments unfulfilled that were discussed. I was far beneath that echelon…It’s just that at the time we’d committed … we were selling a bill of goods as [regards] alliance, capability and commitment to the Israelis.”

Did the United States want to get rid of Nasser and engineer a confrontation, asked Hounam.

“Hell, yes. There were a lot of things going on to stimulate and provoke. We’ll never know exactly the root of where that came from.”[78]

Sorrels repeated that Operation Cyanide was a secret plan to start a war against Egypt. He said Israel’s only motive was to grab territory, nothing more, and it was elements in the U.S. who were pushing them to invade Egypt.[79]

Sorrels pointed out that not only the United States, but the United Kingdom too, was covertly involved in the 1967 war to topple the Egyptian regime. Evidence presented by Hounam, independently of Sorrels’ views, suggests that this was indeed the case[.80]

Like many others, Peter Hounam wondered what prompted Israel to suddenly halt its attack on the Liberty. He recalled what Liberty survivor David McFeggan had told him: “I won’t tell you who. The only name I’ll give you is Moshe Dayan. […] Dayan was the biggest patriot and the biggest saviour in Israel being a country.” This statement by a Liberty survivor puzzled Hounam. McFeggan wouldn’t elaborate. Was Dayan informed at the last moment that the United States was sending bombers to nuke Cairo on the contrived presumption that the Liberty had been attacked by Egypt? Was Dayan concerned that the Soviet Union could retaliate by bombing Israel? Did heorder to halt the assault on the Liberty? That might have been what went through McFeggan’s mind.[81] We do not know and will perhaps never know the reason for Israel to halt its attack, as the main protagonists are either dead or determined never, ever, to disclose what they know.

Concluding observations

The true story of the USS Liberty demonstrates the callousness of which political and military leaders are capable. It belies the widely held belief that “our leaders wouldn’t do such things to us.” Realizing the callousness of U.S. leaders not only toward citizens of other nations, but towards their own citizens, military as well as civilians, should help Americans shed illusions about the morality of their political and military leaders.

Realizing the degree of callousness of which they are capable may help to expose the mass-murder of 9/11. Such a conclusion is not meant to exculpate Israeli civilian and military leaders, who agreed to murder defenseless Americans as a hired guns of the United States. A few days after the 1967 war, the United States began negotiations with Israel for delivery of fifty Phantom F-4 fighters.[82]

In August 1989, Israel received her first consignment of these fighters.[83] State Department officials with whom James M. Ennes discussed, denied any connection between this military assistance and the Liberty attack.[84] Yet, it was in 1967 that France stopped its military deliveries to Israel and was replaced by the United States.

Another useful aspect of the Liberty story is to expose a widely held myth about the relation between United States and Israel.

It has become fashionable to argue that the Zionist lobby dominates U.S. foreign policy. Thus, Liberty veterans and well-meaning sympathizers contend that the cover-up of the Liberty attack by the U.S. administration derives from its fear of embarrassing Israel and losing American Jewish votes. The Liberty story, as presented in these pages, does not support this theory. The evidence confirms what some of the Liberty survivors suspected: That they were deliberately sent by the U.S. Government to die in a joint U.S.-Israeli false-flag operation. Presenting Israel or its lobby as those who determine or dictate U.S. foreign policy, is, however, a useful method used by the U.S. oligarchy to deflect public opinion from its own criminal activities. As for Israel, it apparently gains respect and fear by maintaining the fiction that it can dictate policy to the United States.[85]

 

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Elias Davidsson is an Icelandic citizen living in Germany. He is a composer, human rights and peace activist and author of several books on 9/11 and false-flag terrorism.

Notes

Where an end note is followed by a number preceded by the sign #, that source can be consulted on the internet address www.aldeilis.net/liberty/####.pdf (replace the #### by the number).

1. There is a wealth of literature on the case of the USS Liberty. A good starting point is the Wikipedia entry 13 on the Attack on the USS Liberty.
2. “U.S. military officials said Saturday that they were satisfied Israel’s attack Thursday on the U.S. communications ship Liberty was one of the tragic mistakes of warfare.” (UPI dispatch, June 10, 1967, cited in James M. Ennes, Assault on the Liberty, p. 155)
3. See Testimony by Rep. John Conyers, House of Representatives, Congressional Record, p. E1886-7, 11 October 2004, #2793; also Memorandum by Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, “Attack on the USS Liberty”, 8 June 1997, http://www.ussliberty.org/moorer3.htm
4. Cited by Michael B. Oren, The USS Liberty Incident: “The USS Liberty: Case Closed”, Jewish Virtual Library, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/quot-the-uss-liberty-case-closed-quot
5. LBJ, National Security File, Box 104/107, Middle East Crisis: Jerusalem to the Secretary of State, June 8, 1967; Barbour to Department, June 8, 1967; Joint Embassy Memorandum, June 8, 1967 (cited by Michael Oren, The USS Liberty Incident: “The USS Liberty: Case Closed”, Jewish Virtual Library, https:// www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/quot-the-uss-liberty-case-closed-quot)
6. Ibid
7. Peter Hounam, Operation Cyanide – Why the Bombing of the USS Liberty Nearly Caused World War II, Satin Publications, London, 2003, p. 110
8. Michael B. Oren, op. cit.
9. Operation Cyanide, p. 189
10. From a Press Statement issued by the White House on the day of the attack, cited in Operation Cyanide, p. 104
11. Operation Cyanide, p. 171
12. Ibid
13. Memorandum for the Record by Louis W. Tordella, Deputy Director of the NSA, 8 June 1967, #2786
14. Associated Press wire on the USS Liberty, 9 June 1967, #2780
15. Questions by General Carroll, Director, DIA, and Answers by G Group, 27 June 1967, #2787
16. Joan Mellen, Blood in the Water: How the U.S. and Israel conspired to ambush the USS Liberty, Prometheus Books, 2018, p. 118
17. Oral History Interview with Robert L. Wilson of the G Group, Doc. NSA-OH-15-80, 6 May 1980, p. 7, #2789
18. Ibid, p. 10
19. James M. Ennes, Jr., Assault on the Liberty, Ivy Books, 1979, p. 47-48
20. Operation Cyanide, p. 91
21. Ibid
22. Ibid
23. Operation Cyanide, p. 91
24. Operation Cyanide, p. 174
25. Joan Mellen, Blood in the Water, p. 223
26. Operation Cyanide, p. 175
27. Ibid
28. Operation Cyanide, p. 176; Assault on the Liberty, p. 89-90
29. Ibid
30. Operation Cyanide, p. 177
31. Operation Cyanide, p. 159
32. Operation Cyanide, p. 161
33. Declaration by James Ronald Gotcher III, 2 September 2003, www.aldeilis.net/liberty/gotcher.pdf
34. Operation Cyanide, p. 37; BBC Documentary “Dead in the Water”, minute 29’40”
35. Oral History Interview, Document NSA-OH-25-80 of June 13, 1980
36. Oral History. Interview of Henry L. Wilson, Document NSA-OH-15-80 of May 6, 1980
37. Assault on the Liberty, p. 184
38. Operation Cyanide, p. 237; BBC Documentary “Dead in the Water”, minute 28’40”
39. Operation Cyanide, p. 237-238
40. Operation Cyanide, p. 240
41. Operation Cyanide, p. 241
42. Ibid
43. Operation Cyanide, p. 242
44. Operation Cyanide, p. 246
45. Operation Cyanide, p. 124, 128
46. Joan Mellen, Blood in the Water, p. 115
47. Operation Cyanide, p. 113-114
48. James M. Ennes, Jr., Assault on the Liberty, p. 46-47
49. Ibid, p. 73-74
50. Operation Cyanide, p. 115; BBC Documentary “Dead in the Water”, minute 46’30”
51. Ibid
52. James M. Ennes, Assault on the Liberty, p. 63
53. Operation Cyanide, p. 224-225; and BBC Documentary “Dead in the Water”, minute 48:30”
54. Operation Cyanide, p. 184
55. Operation Cyanide, p. 185
56. Operation Cyanide, p 180-181, 184
57. Operation Cyanide, p 181-182
58. Operation Cyanide, p 182
59. Operation Cyanide, p 182-183
60. Operation Cyanide, p 183
61. Operation Cyanide, p 183
62. Operation Cyanide, p. 221
63. BBC Documentary “Dead in the Water”, minute 39’20”
64. Operation Cyanide, p. 46
65. Operation Cyanide, p. 47
66. James M. Ennes, Assault on the Liberty, p. 167
67. http://www.ussliberty.org/ecker.htm
68. Operation Cyanide, p. 243
69. Operation Cyanide, p. 192
70. Operation Cyanide, p. 193
71. Operation Cyanide, p. 43
72. Operation Cyanide, p. 46
73. James M. Ennes, Assault on the Liberty, p. 205-206
74. Operation Cyanide, p. 196
75. Operation Cyanide, p. 196-7
76. Operation Cyanide, p. 197
77. Operation Cyanide, p. 199
78. Operation Cyanide, p. 200
79. Operation Cyanide, p. 201
80. Operation Cyanide, p. 201-210
81. Operation Cyanide, p. 268-269
82. The New York Times, December 19, 1967
83. The New York Times, September 7, 1969
84. James M. Ennes, Assault on the Liberty, p. 241
85. Israel’s military power is highly exaggerated. As described by experts, even a non-state entity such as the Hezbollah (Lebanon) was able to challenge Israel’s military power. See, inter alia, Mark Perry and Alastair Crooke, “How Hezbollah Defeated Israel: II. Winning the Ground War”, Conflicts Forum, 27 October 2006

ISIS remnants, with the help of their US sponsors, are trying to create new posts for their terrorist operations close to the towns and villages secured earlier by the Syrian Arab Army and its allies, especially in the eastern deserts of Syria.

Vigilant SAA and security officers, with the help of the locals, discovered one of their command and control centers in Al-Quriyah town and found a large number of weapons and munition, they displayed part of it in this video report (English subtitles)

(English transcript below the video):

Click video still to watch.

Video report English translation transcript:

During the combing operations of the areas cleaned from terror in Deir Ezzor’s desert, security forces and the Syrian Arab Army units with the help of the locals discovered an ISIS quarter south of Al-Quriyah town, southern (Deir Ezzor) province’s countryside.

While chasing the remnants of the terrorists who fled this area after our armed forces liberated the areas of Deir Ezzor and its eastern countryside, we discovered a terrorist den being recently prepared by the terrorist groups in Al-Quriyah area, eastern Deir Ezzor countryside towards the desert, this area, in particular, has been secured by our armed forces and the residents returned to it where terrorists are trying hard to create an environment of chaos and to return their terrorist operations to this area.

Based on tips we received of some persons coming to a given quarter, our security forces secured the location and its perimeter completely, the time for the raid was carefully chosen after moving the civilians away from this area where we found it’s an integrated den recently created by the terrorists they were using it as a base for their terrorist operations, upon searching the quarter we discovered a large number of weapons, food supplies, communication devices, and flammable materials prepared to be used by the terrorists instead of using gas and other materials.

Among the items found searching this quarter were a number of projectiles, assorted weapons, some of which were of Israeli make also we found explosive devices like suicide vests and Israeli made bombs.

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Donald Trump forces illegally positioned in Syria, especially those operating from Al-Tanf military base, have been working on regrouping the remnant of ISIS terrorists, augmenting them with new members coming across the desert from Iraq in the east and Jordan in the south, in addition to new forced recruits from the Rukban Concentration Camp through the ISIS affiliate known as Maghaweer Al-Thawra.

Instead of draining the swamp he promised, Trump has become swamp-drunk himself and turned himself into a cheap tool in the hands of the cult in control of the so-called Deep State or as they like to call themselves in their media ‘The establishment’, who knew how to play the incumbent puppet at the White House and made him executing their commands while thinking he’s resisting them.

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We hear a lot about suicide when celebrities like Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade die by their own hand. Otherwise, it seldom makes the headlines. That’s odd given the magnitude of the problem.

In 2017, 47,173 Americans killed themselves. In that single year, in other words, the suicide count was nearly seven times greater than the number of American soldiers killed in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars between 2001 and 2018.

A suicide occurs in the United States roughly once every 12 minutes. What’s more, after decades of decline, the rate of self-inflicted deaths per 100,000 people annually — the suicide rate — has been increasing sharply since the late 1990s. Suicides now claim two-and-a-half times as many lives in this country as do homicides, even though the murder rate gets so much more attention.

In other words, we’re talking about a national epidemic of self-inflicted deaths.

Worrisome Numbers

Anyone who has lost a close relative or friend to suicide or has worked on a suicide hotline (as I have) knows that statistics transform the individual, the personal, and indeed the mysterious aspects of that violent act — Why this person?  Why now? Why in this manner? — into depersonalized abstractions. Still, to grasp how serious the suicide epidemic has become, numbers are a necessity.

According to a 2018 Centers for Disease Control study, between 1999 and 2016, the suicide rate increased in every state in the union except Nevada, which already had a remarkably high rate.  In 30 states, it jumped by 25% or more; in 17, by at least a third.  Nationally, it increased 33%.  In some states the upsurge was far higher: North Dakota (57.6%), New Hampshire (48.3%), Kansas (45%), Idaho (43%).

Alas, the news only gets grimmer.

Since 2008, suicide has ranked 10th among the causes of death in this country. For Americans between the ages of 10 and 34, however, it comes in second; for those between 35 and 45, fourth.  The United States also has the ninth-highest rate in the 38-country Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Globally, it ranks 27th.

More importantly, the trend in the United States doesn’t align with what’s happening elsewhere in the developed world. The World Health Organization, for instance, reports that Great Britain, Canada, and China all have notably lower suicide rates than the U.S., as do all but six countries in the European Union. (Japan’s is only slightly lower.)

World Bank statistics show that, worldwide, the suicide rate fell from 12.8 per 100,000 in 2000 to 10.6 in 2016.  It’s been falling in China, Japan (where it has declined steadily for nearly a decade and is at its lowest point in 37 years), most of Europe, and even countries like South Korea and Russia that have a significantly higher suicide rate than the United States. In Russia, for instance, it has dropped by nearly 26% from a high point of 42 per 100,000 in 1994 to 31 in 2019.

We know a fair amount about the patterns of suicide in the United States.  In 2017, the rate was highest for men between the ages of 45 and 64 (30 per 100,000) and those 75 and older (39.7 per 100,000).

The rates in rural counties are almost double those in the most urbanized ones, which is why states like Idaho, Kansas, New Hampshire, and North Dakota sit atop the suicide list. Furthermore, a far higher percentage of people in rural states own guns than in cities and suburbs, leading to a higher rate of suicide involving firearms, the means used in half of all such acts in this country.

There are gender-based differences as well. From 1999 to 2017, the rate for men was substantially higher than for women — almost four-and-a-half times higher in the first of those years, slightly more than three-and-a-half times in the last.

Education is also a factor.  The suicide rate is lowest among individuals with college degrees. Those who, at best, completed high school are, by comparison, twice as likely to kill themselves.  Suicide rates also tend to be lower among people in higher-income brackets.

The Economics of Stress

This surge in the suicide rate has taken place in years during which the working class has experienced greater economic hardship and psychological stress.  Increased competition from abroad and outsourcing, the results of globalization, have contributed to job loss, particularly in economic sectors like manufacturing, steel, and mining that had long been mainstays of employment for such workers. The jobs still available often paid less and provided fewer benefits.

Technological change, including computerization, robotics, and the coming of artificial intelligence, has similarly begun to displace labor in significant ways, leaving Americans without college degrees, especially those 50 and older, in far more difficult straits when it comes to finding new jobs that pay well. The lack of anything resembling an industrial policy of a sort that exists in Europe has made these dislocations even more painful for American workers, while a sharp decline in private-sector union membership — downfrom nearly 17% in 1983 to 6.4% today — has reduced their ability to press for higher wages through collective bargaining.

Furthermore, the inflation-adjusted median wage has barely budged over the last four decades (even as CEO salaries have soared).  And a decline in worker productivity doesn’t explain it: between 1973 and 2017 productivity increased by 77%, while a worker’s average hourly wage only rose by 12.4%. Wage stagnation has made it harder for working-class Americans to get by, let alone have a lifestyle comparable to that of their parents or grandparents.

The gap in earnings between those at the top and bottom of American society has also increased — a lot. Since 1979, the wages of Americans in the 10th percentile increased by a pitiful 1.2%. Those in the 50th percentile did a bit better, making a gain of 6%.  By contrast, those in the 90th percentile increased by 34.3% and those near the peak of the wage pyramid — the top 1% and especially the rarefied 0.1% — made far more substantial gains.

And mind you, we’re just talking about wages, not other forms of income like large stock dividends, expensive homes, or eyepopping inheritances.  The share of net national wealth held by the richest 0.1% increased from 10% in the 1980s to 20% in 2016.  By contrast, the share of the bottom 90% shrank in those same decades from about 35% to 20%.  As for the top 1%, by 2016 its share had increased to almost 39%.

The precise relationship between economic inequality and suicide rates remains unclear, and suicide certainly can’t simply be reduced to wealth disparities or financial stress. Still, strikingly, in contrast to the United States, suicide rates are noticeably lower and have been declining in Western European countries where income inequalities are far less pronounced, publicly funded healthcare is regarded as a right (not demonized as a pathway to serfdom), social safety nets far more extensive, and apprenticeships and worker retraining programs more widespread.

Evidence from the United States, Brazil, Japan, and Sweden does indicate that, as income inequality increases, so does the suicide rate. If so, the good news is that progressive economic policies — should Democrats ever retake the White House and the Senate — could make a positive difference.  A study based on state-by-state variations in the U.S. found that simply boosting the minimum wage and Earned Income Tax Credit by 10% appreciably reduces the suicide rate among people without college degrees.

The Race Enigma

One aspect of the suicide epidemic is puzzling.  Though whites have fared far better economically (and in many other ways) than African Americans, their suicide rate is significantly higher.  It increased from 11.3 per 100,000 in 2000 to 15.85 per 100,000 in 2017; for African Americans in those years the rates were 5.52 per 100,000 and 6.61 per 100,000. Black men are 10 times more likely to be homicide victims than white men, but the latter are two-and-half times more likely to kill themselves.

The higher suicide rate among whites as well as among people with only a high school diploma highlights suicide’s disproportionate effect on working-class whites. This segment of the population also accounts for a disproportionate share of what economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton have labeled “deaths of despair” — those caused by suicides plus opioid overdoses and liver diseases linked to alcohol abuse. Though it’s hard to offer a complete explanation for this, economic hardship and its ripple effects do appear to matter.

According to a study by the St. Louis Federal Reserve, the white working class accounted for 45% of all income earned in the United States in 1990, but only 27% in 2016.  In those same years, its share of national wealth plummeted, from 45% to 22%.  And as inflation-adjusted wages have decreased for men without college degrees, many white workers seem to have lost hope of success of any sort.  Paradoxically, the sense of failure and the accompanying stress may be greater for white workers precisely because they traditionally were much better off economically than their African American and Hispanic counterparts.

In addition, the fraying of communities knit together by employment in once-robust factories and mines has increased social isolation among them, and the evidence that it — along with opioid addiction and alcohol abuse — increases the risk of suicide is strong. On top of that, a significantly higher proportion of whites than blacks and Hispanics own firearms, and suicide rates are markedly higher in states where gun ownership is more widespread.

Trump’s Faux Populism

The large increase in suicide within the white working class began a couple of decades before Donald Trump’s election. Still, it’s reasonable to ask what he’s tried to do about it, particularly since votes from these Americans helped propel him to the White House. In 2016, he received 64% of the votes of whites without college degrees; Hillary Clinton, only 28%.  Nationwide, he beat Clinton in counties where deaths of despair rose significantly between 2000 and 2015.

White workers will remain crucial to Trump’s chances of winning in 2020.  Yet while he has spoken about, and initiated steps aimed at reducing, the high suicide rate among veterans, his speeches and tweets have never highlighted the national suicide epidemic or its inordinate impact on white workers. More importantly, to the extent that economic despair contributes to their high suicide rate, his policies will only make matters worse.

The real benefits from the December 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act championed by the president and congressional Republicans flowed to those on the top steps of the economic ladder.  By 2027, when the Act’s provisions will run out, the wealthiest Americans are expected to have captured 81.8%of the gains.  And that’s not counting the windfall they received from recent changes in taxes on inheritances. Trump and the GOP doubled the annual amount exempt from estate taxes — wealth bequeathed to heirs — through 2025 from $5.6 million per individual to $11.2 million (or $22.4 million per couple). And who benefits most from this act of generosity?  Not workers, that’s for sure, but every household with an estate worth $22 million or more will.

As for job retraining provided by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, the president proposed cutting that program by 40% in his 2019 budget, later settling for keeping it at 2017 levels. Future cuts seem in the cards as long as Trump is in the White House. The Congressional Budget Office projects that his tax cuts alone will produce even bigger budget deficits in the years to come. (The shortfall last year was $779 billion and it is expected to reach $1 trillion by 2020.) Inevitably, the president and congressional Republicans will then demand additional reductions in spending for social programs.

This is all the more likely because Trump and those Republicans also slashedcorporate taxes from 35% to 21% — an estimated $1.4 trillion in savings for corporations over the next decade. And unlike the income tax cut, the corporate tax has no end date. The president assured his base that the big bucks those companies had stashed abroad would start flowing home and produce a wave of job creation — all without adding to the deficit. As it happens, however, most of that repatriated cash has been used for corporate stock buy-backs, which totaled more than $800 billion last year.  That, in turn, boosted share prices, but didn’t exactly rain money down on workers. No surprise, of course, since the wealthiest 10% of Americans own at least 84% of all stocks and the bottom 60% have less than 2% of them.

And the president’s corporate tax cut hasn’t produced the tsunami of job-generating investments he predicted either. Indeed, in its aftermath, more than 80% of American companies stated that their plans for investment and hiring hadn’t changed. As a result, the monthly increase in jobs has proven unremarkable compared to President Obama’s second term, when the economic recovery that Trump largely inherited began. Yes, the economy did grow 2.3% in 2017 and 2.9% in 2018 (though not 3.1% as the president claimed). There wasn’t, however, any “unprecedented economic boom — a boom that has rarely been seen before” as he insisted in this year’s State of the Union Address.

Anyway, what matters for workers struggling to get by is growth in real wages, and there’s nothing to celebrate on that front: between 2017 and mid-2018 they actually declined by 1.63% for white workers and 2.5% for African Americans, while they rose for Hispanics by a measly 0.37%.  And though Trump insists that his beloved tariff hikes are going to help workers, they will actually raise the prices of goods, hurting the working class and other low-income Americans the most.

Then there are the obstacles those susceptible to suicide face in receiving insurance-provided mental-health care. If you’re a white worker without medical coverage or have a policy with a deductible and co-payments that are high and your income, while low, is too high to qualify for Medicaid, Trump and the GOP haven’t done anything for you. Never mind the president’s tweetproclaiming that “the Republican Party Will Become ‘The Party of Healthcare!’”

Let me amend that: actually, they have done something. It’s just not what you’d call helpful. The percentage of uninsured adults, which fell from 18% in 2013 to 10.9% at the end of 2016, thanks in no small measure to Obamacare, had risen to 13.7% by the end of last year.

The bottom line? On a problem that literally has life-and-death significance for a pivotal portion of his base, Trump has been AWOL. In fact, to the extent that economic strain contributes to the alarming suicide rate among white workers, his policies are only likely to exacerbate what is already a national crisis of epidemic proportions.

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Rajan Menon, a TomDispatch regular, is the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Professor of International Relations at the Powell School, City College of New York, and Senior Research Fellow at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies. His latest book is The Conceit of Humanitarian Intervention.

After withdrawing from the nuclear deal with Iran last year and resuming sanctions last November, the White House in April announced that its goal was to “drive Iranian exports to zero.” To make this drive happen, the White House stopped allowing (my emphasis) countries like India, China, Japan, Turkey, and South Korea to import Iranian oil: dictating to sovereign countries whom they can trade with.

The dictating doesn’t stop there. Last December the United States had Canadian authorities detain and imprison a Chinese executive, the chief financial officer of telecom company Huawei. Meng Wanzhou is currently on trial in Canada, on the allegation that her company violated U.S. sanctions against Iran. Not content with having told China that it cannot trade with Iran, the United States has gotten a third country, Canada, to take a Chinese corporate executive captive in what Trump suggested was leverage for a trade deal:

“If I think it’s good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made, which is a very important thing—what’s good for national security—I would certainly intervene, if I thought it was necessary,” he told Reuters in December.

The trade deal with China didn’t come through, and a “trade war” has begun. Meng Wanzhou is still stuck in Canada. And the blockade against Iran is still tightening. Economist Mark Weisbrot assessed some of the damage to the Iranian economy in a recent segment on the Real News Network, noting that when sanctions were imposed in 2012, oil production dropped by 832,000 barrels per day and GDP by 7.7 percent; when they were lifted in 2016 in the nuclear deal, production increased by 972,000 barrels per day and GDP increased by 12 percent that year. In 2018 when sanctions were imposed, oil production fell dramatically again and inflation rose by 51 percent; shortages of dozens of essential medicines, according to a study at the University of California, have followed.

Some basic economics are in order here. A country that does not need to import or export is called an autarky, and in today’s global economy there are no autarkies. All national economies depend on trade: they export, earn foreign currency, and use that to import what they cannot produce. Driving a country’s exports to zero means destroying the country’s economy, and depriving the country’s people of necessities.

Sometimes billed as an alternative to war, sanctions are in fact a weapon of war. Far from precision-guided munitions, sanctions are weapons of starvation, which target the most vulnerable civilians for slow and painful death by deprivation of food and medicine. They are an alternative to war in the sense that unlike the invasion of ground troops or even the dropping of bombs, they pose little risk to the aggressor. This is their appeal to someone like Trump, who revealed the genocidal intent behind the Iran sanctions when he threatened (on Twitter) “the official end of Iran.”

In the 1990s, one focus of the antiwar movement was the impact of the genocidal sanctions against Iraq, which killed 500,000 children (a “price” that Madeleine Albright famously said was “worth it”). Antiwar activists feared that the sanctions were part of a military strategy that would end in even more devastating shooting war. Those fears proved true. Today’s sanctions seem to draw from the same playbook.

International law recognizes that sanctions are a form of warfare, and places the use of the sanctions weapon in the hands of the United Nations Security Council. And so it happened that between the 1990 and 2003 U.S. wars on Iraq, the UN played the shameful role of administering the Iraq sanctions. But today’s unilateral sanctions imposed by the U.S. circumvent any UN legalities. In the same Real News segment, UN Special Rapporteur on Unilateral Coercive Measures Idriss Jazairy noted that about one-quarter of the world’s population is under some form of unilateral sanctions. Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Cuba, Sudan and others are under various U.S. sanctions regimes. Yemen is fully blockaded by the U.S., UK, and Saudi Arabia; Gaza and the West Bank are completely sealed in by Israel; Qatar is blockaded by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and the list goes on.

U.S. sanctions against Venezuela have already killed 40,000 people between 2017 and 2018, according to a report by Mark Weisbrot and Columbia University’s Jeffrey Sachs. The more intense sanctions imposed in 2019 will kill still more. Venezuela’s electrical grid is damaged, most likely because of sabotage. Maintenance of potable water pumps has become impossible without imported spare parts, leaving millions without water. A Venezuelan professor of economics, Pasqualina Curcio, told a delegation of the End Venezuela Sanctions coalition that sanctions have cost the country $114 billion, “which is nearly equal to one year’s worth of Venezuelan GDP at a typical oil price, or 26 years’ worth of medical imports.”

One of the tactical arguments anti-sanctions campaigners sometimes make is that sanctions “don’t work.” And for their declared purpose of “regime change,” indeed they do not. But when a policy is so widespread, such a first resort, perhaps the declared purpose is not the real purpose. If the purpose is to destroy economies, isolate countries, coerce allies, keep tensions near boiling and maintain a constant threat of war, sanctions are successful. It has been shown time and again that torture “doesn’t work” for obtaining information. But torture is not a technique for obtaining information. It is a technique for breaking a person and, when practiced on a mass scale by an apartheid state or dictatorship, for breaking a society. Sanctions are similar: the point is to break the society, not “regime change.”

Sanctions are Trump’s favorite weapon, but good Democrats are no different. Obama oversaw the destruction of Syria, Clinton laughed about the murder of Gaddafi and the destruction of Libya, and Albright said that 500,000 Iraqi children’s deaths were “worth it.” For the empire, genocide, like aggression, is a normal part of politics. Nuclear planners plan how to commit it. Sanctions officials administer it. And for the most part, human rights organizations take no position on it.

It is possible that at some point sanctions could become self-limiting. If enough countries are sanctioned, they might of course decide to trade with one another. In attempting to isolate so many big countries, the United States could isolate itself, creating a kind of “coalition of the sanctioned.” But from the U.S. perspective, with Brazil, India, and Egypt (the biggest countries in Latin America, South Asia, and the Arab world) all utterly subservient, perhaps this looks like a good moment to try to pressure China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba. Trump’s planners can rest assured that it is not them, but millions of innocents in those countries who will pay for their power plays.

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

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Justin Podur is Associate Professor at York University’s Faculty of Environmental Studies. He is the author of Haiti’s New Dictatorship (Pluto, Between the Lines, and Palgrave-Macmillan 2012). His writings can be found at podur.org.

Featured image is from podur.org

Drone Wars UK began compiling details of military drone crashes in 2010. Our database cover crashes of large (Class II and III) military drones since 01 Jan 2007. It has been compiled from USAF Accident Investigation Board (AIB) Reports, the Wikileaks War Logs, The Washington Post US drone crash database and reports from the general and military press.

Although we always have more than one source for details of a crash we generally only link here to one source, except if other crucial information (such as the particular location of a crash) becomes available.

This list is almost certainly not complete. If you know of any other large drone crashes not mentioned please let us know.

Read full article here.

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In April 2017 in Damascus, BSNews co-ed Alison Banville filmed the wall (above), commemorating the Syrian journalists killed while reporting on the conflict.

Mike Raddie (co-editor) was being interviewed on Syrian national television that day and we both took the time to pay our respects to these brave people who exemplify what real journalism should be and who paid the ultimate price for their integrity and dedication.

All the more disgraceful then that our western corporate media ‘journalists’ – who are not fit to hold that title – disappear the true journalists whose work and tragic deaths are inconvenient to the government approved narrative they slavishly amplify.

You can view the video of the wall of commemoration at Facebook here. Please read Eva Bartlett’s shocking and heartrending document below and tell everyone you know the truth.  

Eva Bartlett, October 2014:

Who outside of Syria knows the names Yara Abbas, Maya Naser, Mohamed al-Saeed…? The corporate media has inundated us with news of the two American journalists allegedly beheaded, the first of whose execution video has been deemed faked. But what of the non-Western journalists and civilians beheaded and murdered by ISIS, al-Nusra, and associated terrorists in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine?

Why didn’t the August 2012 execution (which some reported as a beheading) of TV presenter Mohamed al–Saeed, claimed by the Nusra gang, create the same outrage? Or the December 2013 kidnapping and point blank execution in Idlib by ISIS of Iraqi journalist Yasser al-Jumaili?

Why wasn’t the murder of Yara Abbas—a journalist with al-Ikhbariaya, whose crew’s car was attacked by an insurgent sniper—broadcast on Western television stations? Or that of Lebanese cameraman for al-Mayadeen, Omar Abdel Qader, shot dead by an insurgent sniper on March 8, 2014 in eastern Syria.

Maya Naser, Ali Abbas, Hamza Hajj Hassan (Lebanese), Mohamad Muntish (Lebanese), Halim Alou (Lebanese)…all were media workers killed by the Western-backed insurgents in Syria. Their deaths were reported by local media, some even got a passing notice in corporate media, but none resulted in a media frenzy of horror and condemnations as came with the alleged killings of Westerners. Another at least 20 Arab journalists have been killed by NATO’s death squads in Syria in the past few years.

The killing of 16 Palestinian journalists in Gaza, at least 7 targeted while working, during the July/August 2014 Zionist Genocide of Gaza, also fell on deaf ears. Nor were the previous years of murdering Palestinian journalists noted, let alone whipped into a media frenzy. [see also: Silencing the Press, Sixteenth Report, Documentation ofIsraeli Attacks against Media Personnel in the opt ]

In Syria, there are thousands of civilians and Syrian soldiers who have been beheaded—and in far more brutal and realistic manner than the SITE videos insinuate—by the so-called “moderate” Free Syrian Army (FSA), al-Nusra, Da’esh (ISIS), and hoards of other Western-backed mercenaries. At the hands of the various NATO-gangs, tens of thousands more civilians have been assassinated and subjected to various sadistic practices—torture, mutilation, crucifixion, burning in ovens, throwing into wells, and a sick lot more. Thousands more, including children and women, remain missing after being kidnapped during mercenary raids and massacres.

Nidal Jannoud, a farmer from Banias (southwestern Syria), was one of the earlier victims of “moderate rebel” assassination. Jannoud was tortured and slaughtered by “peaceful demonstrators” in April, 2011. Omar Ayrout and Yahya Al Rayes confessed later that they aided a mob in killing Janoud. “I heard gunfire and saw a group of people detaining Jannoud….I took a knife from Taha al-Daye and stabbed Jannoud in his right shoulder…Then the group attacked him with knives and mutilated his body afterwards,” Yahya al–Rayyis confessed.

In the case of the organ–eating al–Farouq Brigade militant “Abu Sakkar,” who bit into the lung out of a Syrian soldier, there was corporate media notice and general horror. Yet, very quickly the corporate media rushed to justify his cannibalism (see: Face–to–face with Abu Sakkar, Syria‘s ‘heart–eating cannibal‘ and BBC whitewashes Syria ‘heart–eating cannibal‘ to justify armingal–Qaeda).

How the tides would have turned if the lung in question belonged to a Western soldier, or worse, an “Israeli”soldier… would the BBC have then humanized the perpetrator of this barbaric act? Would the world have so quickly moved on, forgotten? Of course not.

Apart from the thousands more individual slaughters, there are also numerous massacres, mostly overlooked or simply lied about in the media.

In Raqqa, overtaken by al-Nusra and the so-called FSA in March 2013, then two months later by ISIS, civilians have faced floggings (including whipping of women),executions and crucifixions…with bodies left on public display for days, usually for the “crime” of supporting President Assad and the Syrian army, and often for the “crimes” of not living up to the warped version of Islam by their executioners. [see also: Raqqais Being Slaughtered Silently]

With the May 2012 slaughter of 108 Houla civilians (including 49 children and 34 women)—among them patients in a hospital and entire families in their homes—most corporate media and political fingers pointed at the Syrian Arab Army as the culprits, without a shred of evidence. The BBC brandished Italian journalist Italian journalist Marco Di Lauro‘s image of dead Iraqi civilians in shrouds, claiming it to portray Houla victims. Upon demand of the aghast journalist, the claim was later retracted and corrected, an “accident”…but who was listening by that point? Once the trickery of the corporate media was revealed, the massacre was no longer newsworthy. [see: “Syria: Media Lies, Hidden Agendas and Strange Alliances” and “Syria : One Year After the Houla Massacre. New Report on Official vs. Real Truth” and “Syria’s ‘false flag’ terrorism, Houla and the United Nations”]

While later investigations into Houla revealed the culpability of the so-called insurgents, the MSM had already moved on, leaving the average person confused, or stuck with the initial lies. Investigative articles aside, there was the confession of aninsurgent member who was present that Friday in Houla:

“…we’d been asked by our supporters from outside to do something to inflame the situation…The planning came from outside…On Friday after prayers, a large number of armed men came…they didn’t enter the mosque or pray. …The goal was to attack an army checkpoint and to liquidate these families supportive of the government. There were men, like Haytham al-Hassan, who had weapons including a cleaver. They butchered families….They sent people to announce that ‘Shabbiha’ had entered the village and slaughtered everyone. I was there. There were no Shabbiha.”

The December 2012 slaughter in Aqrab of at least 150 Alawites was likewise misreported, in spite of survivor testimonies. The UK Channel 4’s Alex Thomson met Aqrab survivors whose separately-given accounts corroborated one another:

“…our eyewitnesses say Sunni rebels took hundreds of Alawite civilians as prisoner,” noted Thomson, also writing, “They all insist…rebels from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) corralled around 500 Alawite civilians in a large red-coloured two-storey house…” kept there for 11 days.

“They had long beards, and sometimes you couldn’t quite understand what they said. They were not dressed in the normal way,” said one survivor, Madlyan Hosin. A second interviewee, Hayat Youseh, said, “…they forced us out of our homes and set fire to them.”

A Syrian from a village three kilometers from Aqrab told me, “When Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya started saying that the Syrian Arab Army had attacked Aqrab, I went there to find out. I interviewed a lady from Aqrab who said that no army had come near there at the time of the massacre.”

Kassab, a predominantly Armenian Christian village near the Turkish border, came under heavy assault earlier this year by insurgents and Turkish soldiers. Kim Kardashian tweeted about Kassab…then, otherwise, the world largely forgot. In Latakia, some of Kassab’s internally-displaced spoke of the March 21, 2014 assault originating from Turkey. One young woman reported that the insurgents “raped our older women because they couldn’t find any girls.”

According to a Latakia resident, with friends and a home in Kassab, 88 Christians were murdered, 13 of whom were beheaded, others who were shot dead on the spot. Another 22 elderly were kidnapped and taken to Turkey where they were held for about three months before being released into Lebanon.

The fact that Christians were murdered by foreign mercenaries, let alone beheaded, should have created shock waves in the media. But, not surprisingly, it has had the exact opposite effect, because spotlighting those crimes doesn’t serve the West’s stated agenda to overthrow President Assad, to dismember Syria as the NATO-backed takfiris are dismembering Syrians.

It the case of the Kassab massacre, it became transparent that the lack of any governmental/political condemnation of the massacre and kidnappings was not due to lack of knowledge: Turkey helped commit the attack and housed the kidnapped [see: NATO and Turkey’s Genocidal War on Syria and Searching for casus belli:Turkey’s assault on Kassab?]; the West’s darling, Ahmed Jarba, visited soon after, sitting with “what appeared to be local rebel commanders in a house that was said to be in Latakia province,” the Daily Star reported, noting “Jarba also said ‘the Coalition has provided assistance to (fighters on) the front’, according to his office.”

Four months after it was liberated of the terrorists, most of the displaced from Kassab still have not returned to their desecrated and looted homes. According to a Latakia resident who keeps informed on Kassab, “The roads are fairly safe, but they have been targeted by short range missiles and mortars from Turkey. The ‘threat’ of attack and lack of money or resources to rebuild their homes and shops has kept most away. A handful will have enough money to repair, and those who are dirt poor may freeze this winter.”

The August 2013 insurgent massacre and kidnappings in the villages of Balouta, Hambushiya, and a number of other agricultural hamlets in the Latakia countryside did briefly receive some corporate media coverage…and also absolutely zero international outrage. That outrage was reserved for the falsified sarin gas attacks not long after, using the kidnapped children to stage their videos. [For a very detailed account of the Latakia massacre and its relation to FSA-falsified Sarin gas videos, see: “Combating the Propaganda Machine in Syria”]

In the nearly two weeks of attacks on these rural hamlets, 220 civilians were massacred (according to doctors in a Latakia hospital), including infants, children, women, and elderly—even a nonagenarian. At least one hundred were kidnapped (mostly children, some women), only 44 of which were nine months later released. These kidnap survivors spoke of torture at the hands of their “moderate rebel” captors. Al Akhbar reported that “according to another freed child, the fighters gouged out the eyes of one of the abducted children.”

The assault took place by roughly 20 coordinated factions, including ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra, and the so-called FSA (with the knowledge and approval of the SNC’s George Sabra).

But, there was no outcry by the humanitarian, would-be interventionalists and their public.

Two months after the fact, the Guardian’s Jonathan Steele reported on the attacks, including the insurgents’ move early on August 4 from their base in nearby Salma village to attack the Latakia countryside. Surprisingly, the article actually quoted Syrian Arab Army and National Defence Forces (NDF) officers’ testimonies:

Special forces officer Hassan told Steele, “I heard a rebel telling another rebel: ‘Kill this one, but not that one’. One rebel asked: ‘What do I do about the girls?’ The answer came: ‘I’m sending a truck to pick them up’. Several were taken and raped, and have not been seen again.”

NDF officer Shadi told Steele, “When we got into the village of Balouta I saw a baby’s head hanging from a tree. There was a woman’s body which had been sliced in half from head to toe and each half was hanging from separate apple trees.’”

SAA soldier Ali told Steele, “We found two mass graves with 140 bodies. They were not shot. They had their throats slit. About 105 people of different ages were kidnapped…Salafists from abroad were behind the attack.”

In a separate video interview, a resident of one of the villages (unnamed for his safety) testifies:

“There were Chechen, Libyan, Saudi, and Afghan terrorists among them….One group was killing people by swords. And the other group was running after those who had been able to escape and killing them by shooting them….They broke into house while people were sleeping and beheaded them. They removed the foetus of a pregnant woman. I lost 42 from my family. Some of them were killed and others arrested (kidnapped).”

In the face of mounds of evidence, eyewitness testimony, mass graves, doctor and coroner reports of death by throat slitting, the massacre in Latakia resulted again in none of the fervor that we’ve seen in recent months…in spite of 220 civilians being brutally massacred, another 100—mostly children—abducted by the West’s freedom-loving terrorists.

Twenty km north of Damascus, Adra industrial town suffered horrific atrocities that went largely unreported in the corporate media. The town came under Jabhat al-Nusra and Liwa Al-Islam insurgents attack on December 11, 2013, Russia Todayreported, massacring at least 80 residents.

In another report, Russia Today interviewed eyewitnesses, one of whom said:

“There was slaughter everywhere…The eldest was only 20 years old; he was slaughtered. They were all children. I saw them with my own eyes. They killed fourteen people with a machete. I don’t know if these people were Alawites. I don’t know why they were slaughtered. They grabbed them by their heads and slaughtered them like sheep.”

In addition to the massacre of entire families”, bakery workers were executed and “toasted…in ovens used to bake bread ,” an Adra resident told RT.

Professor Tim Anderson‘s report noted “Beheaded bodies from Adra were proudly displayed by the terrorists… Severed heads were also said to have been hung from trees.”

In Latakia city in April, 2014, I met refugees from Harem, a northwestern city 2 km from the Turkish border, who had fled after Harem came under attack by McCain‘smoderates, with the help of Turkey.

One man told me:

“The terrorists attacked us, terrorists from Turkey, from Chechnya, and from Arab and other foreign countries. They had tanks and guns, like an army, just like an army. For 73 days we were surrounded in the citadel of Harem. They hit us with all kinds of weapons. We had women and children with us. They showed no mercy. When they caught any of us, they slaughtered him, and then send his head back to us. They killed over 100 people, and kidnapped around 150… children, civilians, soldiers. Until now, we don’t know what’s happened to them.”

Image on the right: Harem refugee in Latakia centre speaks of atrocities committed by foreign insurgents. Photo by Eva Bartlett.

The first Turkish-backed attacks on Harem were in September, 2012, and by October 31, al Akhbar reported that 4,000 civilians were under siege in the town fortress, warning of a potential massacre by insurgents who are “known to have been supplied with Turkish-made short-range missiles and launchers mounted on four-wheel drive vehicles, as well as an abundance of mortars.” The report also noted Turkey’s role in treating the FSA terrorists: “the FSA wounded are transported across the border to Turkey in ambulances,” and in killing Harem residents: “Dozens of people were killed in Harem’s al-Tarmeh neighborhood after it was subject to a missile bombardment from a Turkish police station.”

Once again, the FSA and ISIS attack was misreported in the corporate media, and the kidnappings of Harem residents not reported period. The situation of occupied Harem has been non existent in the media since. Breaking that silence, on October 12, Twitter user “Nutsflipped @Nutsflipped_z_1 ” tweeted a series of updates on Harem:

“I just talked to someone from #Harem near the Turkish borders. 60 SAA held off 5000 Islamist all coming from #Turkey for 1 year.#Syria

They literally killed 1000s of attackers, until the Turks gave Islamist Grad MLRS and flooded the town with fighters from #Turkey. #Syria

#Kobani, #Kessab and #Harem, cities in #Syria near the Turkish border attacked in the same manner by Islamist coming from#Turkey.”

In a personal message, he explained further. His information, he said, is from a contact from Harem now displaced who has “lost many male relatives. Executed. He was almost executed himself fleeing.”

“ISIS is genociding the natives of Harem, throwing their bodies in caves, selling their women and children. This has been going on since 2012, it was first FSA but they were losing. Then Turkey unleashed ISIS. Now ISIS has stepped up the massacre. Turkey is behind this. The West turns a blind eye. Turkey did the same thing all across the border.”

Some of the most recent massacres and atrocities at the hand of the Western/NATO/Gulf-backed/financed/trained terrorists that have gotten scant notice or tears include:

• The August 28 and September 6 beheadings of Ali al-Sayyed and Abbas Medlej respectively, and the September 20 execution of MohammadHamiyeh, all Lebanese soldiers (captured with another 16 other soldiers) by ISIS and al-Nusra.
• The October 1 terrorist double-bombings just outside the Ekrima al-Jadida school, killing 33 (mostly children), and injuring 102 (many seriously). Syria‘sForeign and Expatriates Ministry denounced the “international community” on the failure “to issue a clear condemnation of the atrocities committed by terrorist organizations in Syria…” [photos]
• The relentless stream of mortar and missile attacks on civilian areas which SANA reports have killed 296 civilians and injured 1487 in August and September alone. [see my: The Terrorism We Support in Syria: A First–handAccount of the Use of Mortars against Civilians]
• The October 10 ISIS beheading of Iraqi cameraman Raad Mohamed al–Azaoui
• The October 13 ISIS execution of Iraqi journalist Mohanad al-Aqidi [disputed by family]
• Most recently, the highly suspect car crash death of American-Lebanese journalist, Serena Shim, whose timely “accident” occurred just days after she revealed on air with Press TV that she’d been accused by Turkish intelligence of spying, that she was afraid. Shim had extensively reported on Turkey‘s rolein supporting and funneling terrorists into Syria. [see: The Death of aReporter]

Shim’s suspect death went unnoticed by corporate media for at least a day; were she a Western journalist who died—accident or assassination—all the major media would have been broadcasting her death endlessly. [see: Journalists under attack, hypocritical Western media remains silent]

And this is the point. The murders of non-Westerners—whether in Syria, Palestine or elsewhere—doesn’t matter to the media and public, unless it serves an Imperialist or Zionist agenda.

In fact, supremacism and racism aside, the only reason the alleged-beheadings of the two Western journalists, among others, is really being trumpeted and shoved down our fear-mongered throats is that these questionable stories serve perfectly the Axis-of-Destruction’s agenda: a justification to bomb Iraq and Syria, to re-invade, to attempt to implement the Yinon Plan.

The murders of Syrians and other Arab journalists and civilians by NATO thugs are not forgotten, even if the corporate media would have it otherwise. And whereas the corporate media shirks their obligation to report these murders, let alone to report honestly on the real agenda to oust President Assad and destroy Syria as per Iraq, Libya, independent journalists, activists, and concerned pro-resistance people must fill the gap.

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Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist and activist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine. She is a recipient of the International Journalism Award for International Reporting. Eva recently returned from a visit to Venezuela. She will be speaking in Hamilton on Monday April 29th.

Visit her personal blog, In Gaza, and support her work on Patreon.

Featured image: The wall of commemoration outside Syria’s national tv station in Damascus showing Syrian journalists killed in the conflict (Source: Friends of Syria)

Talks broke down in early May over unacceptable US demands. Eleven rounds of talks since  China’s Xi Jinping met with Trump at his Mar a Lago, Florida estate in April 2017 failed to resolve major structural issues.

Blacklisting Chinese tech giant Huawei and its 70 affiliates by the Trump regime on the phony pretext of preventing the company from “potentially undermin(ing) US national security” widened the breach between both countries.

So did Trump’s refusal to drop tariffs while talks continue on unresolved issues. Major differences between both sides are more world’s apart now than when negotiations began a year ago.

Beijing stressed it won’t be pressured, bullied, intimidated or threatened to bend to Washington’s will. Agreements are reached when beneficial to all parties.

According to Trump’s trade representative Robert Lighthizer, both countries agreed to resume trade talks. He, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and China’s Vice Premier and chief negotiator Liu He will meet meet in Osaka, Japan next week, site of the G20 summit, he said.

On Tuesday, Trump said he and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet on the sidelines of the June 28-29 G20 summit for “an extended meeting,” adding “(o)ur respective teams will begin talks prior to our meeting.”

Talks are expected to cover a range of bilateral differences, an agenda for their meeting not announced by either country so far.

On Tuesday, Trump and Xi spoke by phone. According to China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang, both leaders will discuss bilateral relations with no further elaboration.

Former Chinese Commerce Ministry Vice Minister Wei Jianguo said Xi will stress Beijing’s core interests, including its sovereign, developmental, and territorial rights even though it’s unlikely a concrete agreement will be reached.

That’s for negotiators on both sides to work out, what’s been unattainable for the past year, nothing likely to change ahead as long as the Trump regime remains hardline.

During their last face-to-face meeting at the November 30-December 1 G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Trump and Xi agreed on a 90-day truce to continue discussing major world’s apart differences — no progress made in resolving them from then to now.

Both leaders will likely put a brave face on results of their Osaka talks despite no likely resolution of major bilateral differences on major issues.

On Tuesday, Xi reportedly told Trump he expects talks in Osaka to focus on “fundamental issues” affecting bilateral relations.

The US considers China a “strategic competitor” and major adversary, relations between both countries far from what mutual cooperation is all about.

Resolving major bilateral differences has been unattainable because of Washington’s rage to dominate all other nations, demanding they subordinate their sovereign rights to US interests, what’s clearly unacceptable to Beijing.

Bilateral differences are all about the US wanting to undermine China’s aim to become an economic, industrial, and technological powerhouse, matching or exceeding the US, the trade deficit a minor issue by comparison.

Will Xi/Trump talks in Osaka and resumption of talks between their chief negotiators resolve what’s been unresolvable so far?

China’s Global Times struck a hardline note, saying Beijing “must persist and not fear,” adding:

“China’s fearless attitude of over a month will not be in vain. It has sent a clear signal to Washington: China can never be daunted. If the US imposes unfair conditions on China, it must be prepared for a protracted trade war and bear the consequential losses together with China.”

“China is fighting for the country’s sovereignty (and) development…We should do our own things well and unite like a fortress. Persist in our stance and victory will be our only destination.”

China’s official People’s Daily broadsheet said

“(t)he root cause for the China-US trade war is not China’s high-profile publicity, but the US ambition to elevate the so-called ‘America First’ strategy above international justice,” adding:

“China does not want a trade war, but it is not afraid of one, and it will fight one if necessary.”

Impasse between both nations is highly unlikely to change from Xi/Trump talks in Osaka.

Resolving major bilateral differences between negotiators of both sides depends on the US softening its hardline position.

The jury is very much out on whether it’s coming in the weeks and months ahead.

What seemed likely months earlier is highly uncertain now.

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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: President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, with their wives, first lady Melania Trump and Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan are seated during a dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Thursday, April 6, 2017, in Palm Beach, Fla. Ivanka Trump, the daughter and assistant to President Donald Trump, and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner are seated at left. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Campaigners have welcomed a Court of Appeal decision to overturn a 2017 High Court judgment which allowed the UK government to continue licensing the export of arms to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen. The appeal hearing took place in April 2019. The judgment comes amidst global concern over the use of these weapons against civilians.

The legal action was brought by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), represented by solicitors Leigh Day, against the Secretary of State for International Trade. It was based on reports from numerous reputable sources that Saudi forces had violated International Humanitarian Law (IHL) in their ongoing bombardment of Yemen. Criterion 2c of the Consolidated EU and National Arm Export Licensing criteria says that export licences should not be granted if there is a clear risk the equipment to be exported might be used in a serious violation of IHL.

In their judgment, the Master of the Rolls, Rt Hon Sir Terence Etherton; Lord Justice Irwin; and Lord Justice Singh concluded that it was ‘irrational and therefore unlawful’ for the Secretary of State for International Trade to have made the export licensing decisions without making at least some assessment as to whether or not past incidents amounted to breaches of IHL and, if they did, whether measures subsequently taken meant there was no longer a “clear risk” that future exports might do so. The judges said:

“The question whether there was an historic pattern of breaches of IHL … was a question which required to be faced.”

The Secretary of State for International Trade must now reconsider the export licences in accordance with the correct legal approach.

Andrew Smith of Campaign Against Arms Trade said:

We welcome this verdict, but it should never have taken a court case brought by campaigners to force the Government to follow its own rules. The Saudi Arabian regime is one of the most brutal and repressive in the world, yet, for decades, it has been the largest buyer of UK-made arms. No matter what atrocities it has inflicted, the Saudi regime has been able to count on the uncritical political and military support of the UK.

The bombing has created the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. UK arms companies have profited every step of the way. The arms sales must stop immediately.

Rosa Curling, solicitor of law firm Leigh Day, said:

Our client is delighted with the judgment handed down today. The court has ruled the government’s procedure for granting licences to export arms to Saudi Arabia is unlawful. The Government has been forced to accept it must now stop granting new licences for arms exports to Saudia Arabia, for possible use in the conflict in Yemen pending any application to the Court of Appeal for a stay.

The horrors that the world has witnessed in Yemen can no longer be ignored by the UK government. When considering whether to grantlicences, the court has confirmed the Secretary of State must assess whether the KSA has breached international humanitarian law previously.

The pattern of serious violations do not simply need to be “taken into account” as the Divisional Court found; the Court of Appeal has ruled that the pattern has to be properly assessed and considered. An answer to the question of whether KSA has breached IHL has to be answered.

The government will now have to reconsider whether to suspend existing export licences and reconsider its decision to continue to grant licences. Our client hopes the government will reconsider quickly and will decide that no further licences should be granted.”

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Brazil’s long-running Hybrid War crisis never really went away, it just took a few months for it to change form and turn against its original initiators after they failed to close the Pandora’s Box of regime change protest potential that they opened at the US’ behest.

The Bolsonaro government is coming under intense grassroots pressure as two crises continue to converge within the country and threaten to spiral out of the authorities’ control. An estimated 45 million people just participated in a massive strike over the weekend against the proposed neoliberal pension reforms that would increase both the age of retirement and contributions for ordinary workers, which tens of millions of people feel is unfair but which the state says is needed in order to fix the failing system that it inherited as a result of its predecessors’ corrupt mismanagement. Brazil has a history of seemingly irreconcilable political polarization between the Left and Right like all Latin American countries do, but this fault line was exacerbated to the fullest extent throughout the course of the long-running Hybrid War on Brazil, which was waged via the NSA-facilitated “Operation Car Wash” that served as a pretext for carrying out a preplanned pro-American regime change that represented the crowning achievement of Obama’s “Operation Condor 2.0” and made Trump’s “Fortress America” hemispheric vision possible.

In layman’s terms, American intelligence agencies meddled in Brazil’s democracy by selectively leaking purported evidence of serious corruption by the then-ruling party, which predictably set into motion a self-sustaining inquisitional cycle that led to Rousseff’s impeachment, Lula’s imprisonment, and ultimately Bolsonaro’s “dark horse” victory after he was presented to the people as the only non-corrupt candidate capable of restoring order out of the chaos that the socialists were blamed for causing. This externally triggered regime change was intended to create the domestic political conditions that were thought to make a Leftist revival impossible in the future and thereby indefinitely perpetuate the restoration of US influence in Brazil, with the Right’s victory legitimized at the ballot after the majority of the population was successfully led by these foreign-manufactured events to conclude that Bolsonaro was the only person capable of changing the system. Upon entering office, he did exactly as he promised and began to push forward his controversial neoliberal reforms that provoked the latest strike.

Bolsonaro and his US buddies obviously underestimated the Left’s resilience and therefore weren’t prepared for the massive pushback that this move provoked, but the public’s anger last weekend was also fueled by The Intercept’s leaked revelations that “Operation Car Wash’s” top judge and the country’s current Justice Minister colluded with prosecutors to convict Lula and therefore prevent him from running for President (which in turn greatly facilitated Bolsonaro’s rise to power). Many Brazilians had long suspected as much, but this was the first time that messages from a private Telegram group consisting of the regime change collaborators were made public to corroborate this theory. It’s important to point out that the conversation was leaked and not hacked, strongly suggesting dissident within the deepest ranks of the regime change movement for reasons that can only be speculated upon at this time but which nevertheless motivated the whistleblower to share the evidence in their possession with society in order to catalyze grassroots pressure against the government.

It’s therefore not an exaggeration to say that Brazil’s long-running Hybrid War crisis never really went away, it just took a few months for it to change form and turn against its original initiators after they failed to close the Pandora’s Box of regime change protest potential that they opened at the US’ behest. Bolsonaro’s rise to power was shady from the get-go and only made possibly by Lula’s conviction and the consequent banning of the country’s most popular political candidate from the presidential race, which has now been proven without any reasonable doubt to have been part of an actual conspiracy by some members of the permanent bureaucracy (“deep state”) against him. This throws into question the electoral legitimacy of Brazil’s latest leader and therefore sets up the scenario of having every one of his political moves invalidated if he’s ever removed from office on this pretext, including the controversial pension reform that he’s trying to push through. Naturally, the labor crisis is merging with the political one and creating a critical mass of regime change unrest.

Although some of the protesters are employing classic Color Revolution tactics during their anti-government demonstrations, this political technology isn’t black and white because it could conceivably be used by anyone in pursuit of any end. In this case, the nascent movement has the same regime change objective as its pro-American antecedent and is similarly relying on overwhelming popular support to legitimize its goals, albeit the defining difference in this Hybrid War is that it isn’t tied to any foreign power (both in terms of its inception and development unlike “Operation Car Wash”) except if one cynically traces its origin to the US’ NSA meddling many years ago. In fact, what’s happening in Brazil right now is nothing less than blowback against Bolsonaro after his conspiratorial US-backed rise to power and the consequent pension controversy that he’s since caused. The protest organizers want to return the country to the pre-crisis status quo of being led by Lula and the Left, though they might also embrace some mild reforms to appeal to the moderate Right that arose in recent years if they ever end up succeeding in reversing the effects of the US’ Hybrid War on Brazil.

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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.

Five years before Robert Mueller was appointed Special Counsel to investigate the allegation that Russia interfered in the 2016 election and had conspired with the Trump campaign, the Pentagon had been waging secret cyberattacks against Russia’s electrical grid. The cyberwar against Russia began in 2012. The timing of the cyberwar against Russia is significant. It was thus not triggered by Russia’s intervention in Syria (2015) or the Crimea referendum in June 2014 that resulted in Crimea leaving Ukraine and rejoining Russia.

During the past year the attacks have accelerated “with the placement of potentially crippling malware inside the Russian system at a depth and with an aggressiveness that had never been tried before,” according to a new report published by the New York Times based on three months of private interviews with Pentagon officials.

Officials in the Pentagon decided to conceal the details of the operation from Donald Trump out of fear that he might not allow the more advanced offensive attacks to take place. Barack Obama, according to the report, had initially not allowed a full out offensive cyberwar. Obama signed off on the less aggressive cyberwar tactics against Russia but feared that an escalation would make the U.S. infrastructure too vulnerable to counter-attack.

Was Bolton in the Pentagon’s loop?

Trump was kept in the dark but one could reasonably conclude that war lunatic Bolton and Mike Pompeo, the religious zealot who occupies the post of top diplomat, are fully plugged in by the military cabal that now functions as the real power in Washington.

“Mr. Trump had not been briefed in any detail about the steps to place “implants” — software code that can be used for surveillance or attack — inside the Russian grid,” two unnamed Trump officials told the NY Times [because] “he might countermand it…” Who are those two officials?

An important backdrop for this alarming revelation is the Pentagon new military strategy/doctrine announced in December 2017 that profoundly reorients U.S. military and foreign policy so as to prepare the country for “major power” conflict with Russia and China in the coming years.

This is offensive not defensive war

The New York Times article makes explicit that the cyberattacks against Russia are an offensive, not defensive, operation. They are an act of war. Using Orwellian language the commander of United States Cyber Command, Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, characterized the operation as a “defend forward” measure against Russia penetrating “deep in an adversary’s networks,” according to the Times.

During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis President Kennedy barely held off the Pentagon brass who wanted to start a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. The world was at the brink. Those events should be studied. Kennedy told his closest advisors following the harrowing debates inside the government about how to deal with the crisis that the military leadership “was mad.”

Is it a democracy when the military makes the decisions?

The decision to not tell Trump that the Pentagon is waging offensive military operations against Russia’s infrastructure is one of the clearest signs, among many others, that the reins of power when it comes to matters of war and peace barely remain in the hands of the civilian government. The President is the commander in chief. This is the cornerstone of civilian rule demarcating democratic rule from a military regime. The conceit and arrogance of the uniformed brass’ decision to wage offensive operations against the infrastructure of a rival thermonuclear power – without informing the civilian commander in chief – indicates that they no longer fear accountability, much less retribution, for their seizure of powers that the Constitution insists belong to the elected representatives of the people and not unelected military strongmen.

Trump is such a vainglorious, insecure and ridiculous “leader” that he virtually invited this secret coup against his own authority. He surrounded himself with Pentagon generals in the Cabinet and green-lighted the “independence” of field commanders and their bosses in decision making about the issues of existential importance. “Mr. Trump issued new authorities to Cyber Command last summer, in a still-classified document known as National Security Presidential Memoranda 13,” according to the Times. Perhaps this buffoonish politician occupying the position of commander-in-chief didn’t expect or care those Pentagon commanders would make critical decisions, such as launching offensive cyberwar against Russia, without notifying him.

The Pentagon and Trump are not the only problem. The Democratic Party leadership too has done its part contributing to the looming debacle by spending the past three years whipping up the most vile hatred and demonization of Russia – even while the Pentagon was attacking Russia’s infrastructure — as a diversionary explanation for why such a scoundrel as Trump could win the electoral college. Meanwhile the craven politicians of both parties continue the looting of the national treasury for the enrichment and widening power of the U.S. war machine.

Before the Cold War there were real global wars

A crystal ball is not required to see that, unless the Pentagon war drive is stopped or curtailed, the future of the 21st century will look very much like the first half of the 20th century.

Venezuela is under attack. It’s electric grid crashed repeatedly and they accused the United States of sabotaging the system using its cyberwarfare capabilities. Cuba and Nicaragua are being targeted. Iran abided by an international nuclear deal only to see Trump shred the agreement and launch economic war against Iranians. The danger of another military conflict in the Middle East is threatened. And the Pentagon and all of its derivative D.C. think tanks are preparing the country for major power conflict – and it has already started. Congress is not a check nor is the so-called commander-in-chief.

“Major power conflict” is one of the mind numbing euphemisms used by the Pentagon to describe global conflict. This threat is real now and it has happened before. Capitalist powers prepared for such conflict and initiated it 1914-1918 and again between 1937-1945. The scourge of a third “major power conflict” has been avoided since 1945 largely because the Soviet Union developed a form of nuclear military parity that by the mid-1950s checked the Pentagon’s hyper-aggressive plans for unipolar domination.

When the Soviet Union suddenly collapsed in 1991, however, U.S. imperialism expected that the goal of uncontested global domination could be achieved without engaging in extensive ground operations and drawn-out occupations. As Russia got back on its feet in the last decade and as China emerged as a global power the Pentagon has returned to a game plan that is premised on defeating Russia and China through intensifying demonstrations of military threats in and around these countries and a campaign of systematic weakening of both countries on all fronts – both militarily and through a regime of sanctions and economic warfare. The stakes are high.

Militarism and U.S. capitalism are one and the same. The danger of catastrophic war emanates not from this or that politician but is rather rooted in the foundational structures of late-stage capitalism.

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Brian Becker is the National Director of the ANSWER Coalition.

Featured image is from Liberation News

When Israeli prime ministers are in trouble, facing difficult elections or a corruption scandal, the temptation has typically been for them to unleash a military operation to bolster their standing. In recent years, Gaza has served as a favourite punching bag.

Benjamin Netanyahu is confronting both difficulties at once: a second round of elections in September that he may struggle to win; and an attorney general who is widely expected to indict him on corruption charges shortly afterwards.

Netanyahu is in an unusually tight spot, even by the standards of an often chaotic and fractious Israeli political system. After a decade in power, his electoral magic may be deserting him. There are already rumblings of discontent among his allies on the far right.

Given his desperate straits, some observers fear that he may need to pull a new kind of rabbit out of the hat.

In the past two elections, Netanyahu rode to success after issuing dramatic last-minute statements. In 2015, he agitated against the fifth of Israel’s citizens who are Palestinian asserting their democratic rights, warning that they were “coming out in droves to vote”.

Back in April, he declared his intention to annex large chunks of the occupied West Bank, in violation of international law, during the next parliament.

Amos Harel, a veteran military analyst with Haaretz newspaper, observed last week that Netanyahu may decide words are no longer enough to win. Action is needed, possibly in the form of an announcement on the eve of September’s ballot that as much as two-thirds of the West Bank is to be annexed.

Washington does not look like it will stand in his way.

Shortly before April’s election, the Trump administration offered Netanyahu a campaign fillip by recognising Israel’s illegal annexation of the Golan Heights, territory Israel seized from Syria in 1967.

This month David Friedman, US ambassador to Israel and one of the chief architects of Donald Trump’s long-delayed “deal of the century” peace plan, appeared to offer a similar, early election boost.

In interviews, he claimed Israel was “on the side of God” – unlike, or so it was implied, the Palestinians. He further argued that Israel had the “right to retain” much of the West Bank.

Both statements suggest that the Trump administration will not object to any Israeli moves towards annexation, especially if it ensures their favoured candidate returns to power.

Whatever Friedman suggests, it is not God who has intervened on Israel’s behalf. The hands that have carefully cleared a path over many decades to the West Bank’s annexation are all too human.

Israeli officials have been preparing for this moment for more than half a century, since the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza were seized back in 1967.

That point is underscored by an innovative interactive map of the occupied territories. This valuable new resource is a joint project of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem and Forensic Architecture, a London-based team that uses new technology to visualise and map political violence and environmental destruction.

Titled Conquer and Divide, it reveals in detail how Israel has “torn apart Palestinian space, divided the Palestinian population into dozens of disconnected enclaves and unravelled its social, cultural and economic fabric”.

The map proves beyond doubt that Israel’s colonisation of the West Bank was never accidental, defensive or reluctant. It was coldly calculated and intricately planned, with one goal in mind – and the moment to realise that goal is fast approaching.

Annexation is not a right-wing project that has hijacked the benign intentions of Israel’s founding generation. Annexation was on the cards from the occupation’s very beginnings in 1967, when the so-called centre-left – now presented as a peace-loving alternative to Netanyahu – ran the government.

The map shows how Israeli military planners created a complex web of pretexts to seize Palestinian land: closed military zones today cover a third of the West Bank; firing ranges impact 38 Palestinian communities; nature reserves are located on 6 per cent of the territory; nearly a quarter has been declared Israeli “state” land; some 250 settlements have been established; dozens of permanent checkpoints severely limit movement; and hundreds of kilometres of walls and fences have been completed.

These interlocking land seizures seamlessly carved up the territory, establishing the walls of dozens of tightly contained prisons for Palestinians in their own homeland.

Two Nasa satellite images of the region separated by 30 years – from 1987 and 2017 – reveal how Israel’s settlements and transport infrastructure have gradually scarred the West Bank’s landscape, clearing away natural vegetation and replacing it with concrete.

The land grabs were not simply about acquisition of territory. They were a weapon, along with increasingly draconian movement restrictions, to force the native Palestinian population to submit, to recognise its defeat, to give up hope.

In the immediate wake of the West Bank’s occupation, defence minister Moshe Dayan, Israel’s hero of the hour and one of the architects of the settlement project, observed that Palestinians should be made “to live like dogs, and whoever wants to can leave – and we shall see where this process leads”.

Although Israel has concentrated Palestinians in 165 disconnected areas across the West Bank, its actions effectively won the international community’s seal of approval in 1995. The Oslo accords cemented Israel’s absolute control over 62 per cent of the West Bank, containing the Palestinians’ key agricultural land and water sources, which was classified as Area C.

Occupations are intended to be temporary – and the Oslo accords promised the same. Gradually, the Palestinians would be allowed to take back more of their territory to build a state. But Israel made sure both the occupation and the land thefts sanctioned by Oslo continued.

The new map reveals more than just the methods Israel used to commandeer the West Bank. Decades of land seizures highlight a trajectory, plotting a course that indicates the project is still not complete.

If Netanyahu partially annexes the West Bank – Area C – it will be simply another stage in Israel’s tireless efforts to immiserate the Palestinian population and bully them into leaving. This is a war of attrition – what Israelis have long understood as “creeping annexation”, carried out by stealth to avoid a backlash from the international community.

Ultimately, Israel wants the Palestinians gone entirely, squeezed out into neighbouring Arab states, such as Egypt and Jordan. That next chapter is likely to begin in earnest if Trump ever gets the chance to unveil his “deal of the century”.

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A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

After years of deprivation and financial turmoil farmers across the most fertile parts of Syria and Iraq were looking forward to a much-needed return on their investment. Unfortunately, before that could happen, their hard work went up in flames, literally. The devastation and pain that these fires have caused a countless number of families is heartbreaking and immeasurable.

Recently, tens of thousands of acres of agricultural land have been set on fire in the northern and eastern regions of Syria. 0ver 84,000 acres of wheat and barley crops have been destroyed, estimated losses are well over $3,000,000, as of June 17th. Over 20,000 acres of crops in a dozen Iraqi provinces have been destroyed as well.

I spoke with a Qamishli resident under the condition of anonymity, on June 17th about the recent wheat and barley crop fires in his region and he had the following to say, “If you were to come to Qamishli right now, you would not be able to smell anything but the fire. I get up in the morning and there’s ash covering my entire car, from the crop fires. The entire region has been affected, people’s livelihoods have been destroyed, people are confused and upset, and the fires are spreading beyond the fields and into towns, many families are suffering right now. Have you seen the size of the flames? They can’t be contained. There are birds that were killed, they couldn’t escape from the fire. Imagine that, they have been photographed sitting, some protecting their nests, completely burned alive.”

I asked about fatalities, he said “Over 25 people have been killed so far.”

When I asked who owns the land and who would have a motive to do this he answered,

“The majority of the lands that have been affected were owned by Arab families, not Kurds.” He also said, “75% of the people here think the Kurdish militias are responsible because”.

A new policy implemented by the self-proclaimed Kurdish administration prevents wheat from being sold to areas under the Syrian governments control. Farmers who were offered a better rate by the Syrian government for their crops were not allowed to sell and coincidentally, now their crops have been destroyed.

Laith Marouf, Senior Consultant of Community Media Advocacy Centre (CMAC) stated on June 14th,

“For the past month, Kurdish Contras in Syria implemented a scorched earth campaign against Arab and Assyrian farm lands, with 100s of acres of crops burnt to the ground in an effort to force the majority population to accept Kurdish minority rule and occupation by the Empire. Yesterday, as a follow up to this campaign, Saudi sent an envoy who has toured the areas along with the US ambassador offering money to Arab and Assyrian tribal leaders, now hungry and financially ruined after their annual harvest was destroyed, in return for their allegiance against their homeland.”

When I spoke to Laith on June 17th about allegations being made against Turkish militias for the fires on Turkey’s borders Laith stated

“Fires started first in regions close to the Euphrates and Khabour rivers. Only in past few days fires started in border regions with Turkey”.

In 2017, when Daesh lost a significant amount of territory in Iraq and Syria including Mosul, Palmyra and Raqqa, the terrorist group took on a campaign of mass destruction and sabotage. Their goal was to destroy anything of value including priceless artifacts, factories, buildings, oil wells, water wells, electricity, sugar and cement factories and burning crops. Their aim was to inflict as much economic turmoil as possible on not only the governments but the civilians that lived in these areas. This led to what has been referred to as Daesh’s “scorched earth policy”.  The idea is simple, if they can’t have something, then no one else can either.

With these recent crop fires however, there could be multiple culprits that are using this opportunity to further their own destructive plans while Daesh or sleeper cells takes the entire blame. Even though Daesh has claimed responsibility and has called for their followers to continue to burn crops and cause the “apostates” to suffer, other parties have motives as well.

The Kurdish self-administration has blamed the Syrian government along with Daesh, for the fires. Salman Barudo the head of Kurdish administrations agriculture committee stated,

“We cannot say the regime and ISIS are working together, but they share the same interest in not seeing the success of this area”.

Ironically, we have proof that SDF has not only worked with Daesh and other terrorist groups during the war, but has used Daesh war tactics such as kidnapping and forced conscription.

Some have alleged that Iran was responsible for the fires in Iraq, implying that they were trying to force the Iraqi government to buy Iranian wheat. Syrian Opposition groups have blamed the Kurdish led, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces or SDF. And the blame game continues.

Amidst all the allegations, (some more ridiculous than others) the simple fact that certain parties aside from Daesh, have much to gain from these terrible acts remains. They can only hide behind Daesh for so long before the responsible parties are fully exposed.

Earlier this month, Syria’s Ikhbariya state TV journalist and correspondent Muhammad as-Saghir was detained by the SDF after filming wheat fields on fire and obtaining evidence that the SDF was not in a hurry to put them out. He also stated that the SDF was seeking to destroy Syrian wheat stocks as a means of furthering the US economic war against Damascus.

Given this information, it appears that crop fires are part of Washington’s next phase of economic warfare/terrorism (in addition to the existing harsh sanctions), being imposed on war-ravaged Syrians who have courageously fought against western-supported global terrorism, within their borders for over eight years.

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This article was originally published on InfoRos.

Sarah Abed is an independent journalist and political commentator. Focused on exposing the lies and propaganda in mainstream media news, as it relates to domestic and foreign policy with an emphasis on the Middle East. Contributed to various radio shows, news publications and spoken at forums. For media inquiries please email [email protected].

Not a shred of credible evidence suggests Russia or its nationals had anything to do with downing Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) on July 17, 2014 in eastern Ukraine airspace, all passengers and crew members perishing at the time.

So-called Joint Investigation Team (JIT) member countries Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Ukraine (US sponsored Kiev regime) in cahoots with the US and NATO falsely claimed otherwise. Russia and Malaysia were excluded from the probe.

Based on its own investigation, Russia’s Defense Ministry earlier revealed that the serial number obtained from fragments of the Soviet-era Buk missile used to down the aircraft “indicate(d) that the engine was manufactured in the Soviet Union back in 1986.”

By 2011, missiles manufactured in that year “were withdrawn from service, written off or scrapped,” adding:

“The sole reason why the JIT stays quiet about the origin of the missile engine manufactured in 1986 is the missile more than likely belonged to the Ukrainian armed forces.”

Clearly Russia had nothing to do with downing MH17, nor did Donbass freedom fighters. The incident had US and Kiev fingerprints all over it.

A classic false flag, a longstanding US specialty, MH17’s downing occurred in Ukrainian airspace at a time regime forces waging war on Donbass were being soundly beaten.

Five years later, the Big Lie about what happened persists, ignoring what’s obvious. What possible reason would Russia have to down a commercial aircraft anywhere?

The Obama regime and Kiev putchists it installed clearly benefit from blaming Russia for what no credible evidence suggests it had anything to do with.

Yet on Wednesday, the JIT falsely blamed three Russian nationals — Igor Girkin (connected to its Federal Security Service), military intelligence officials Sergei Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov, along with pro-Moscow Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko for downing MH17.

Placed on an international want list, a show trial with them in absentia is scheduled for March 9, 2020, the above individuals falsely charged with murder.

A JIT spokesperson said

“(w)e are still gathering new data for investigation, because we will start prosecuting now, but the investigation will continue.”

Dutch chief prosecutor Fred Westerbeke said the following:

“Today, we will send out international arrest warrants for the four suspects that we will prosecute,” adding:

“They will also be placed on national and international wanted lists. Because of that, we (are) reveal(ing) their full names…show(ing) you their pictures” — despite no credible evidence of their involvement in what happened.

Russia categorically rejects the fabricated JIT accusations, calling them “absolutely baseless.” No credible evidence supports them.

Excluding Russia from the JIT probe let its member countries “fabricate evidence,” credible information Russian investigators uncovered separately excluded from JIT findings.

No Russian missile crossed the Ukrainian border, its Defense Ministry stressed, the missile used given to Ukraine in 1986, identified by its serial number, as explained above.

The above-named JIT suspects are convenient patsies, wanting them and Russia blamed for what the US and Kiev were responsible for.

Source: NYT

Russophobic NYT editors jumped on the falsified JIT accusations. Turning truth on its head, they said the following:

“In Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin, lying — willfully, methodically, shamelessly — is the default response to any accusations of wrongdoing” — a longstanding US, NATO, Israeli specialty, not how Putin’s Russia operates.

It’s also standard procedure for the Times and other establishment media, featuring managed news misinformation and disinformation, suppressing hard truths on major issues, especially geopolitical ones.

The Times: “Russia’s involvement  (in downing MH17) has long been clear” — a bald-faced Big Lie.

The Times: “(A) Russian missile launcher belonging to an active Russian military unit was driven into eastern Ukraine and used to fire a Buk missile at the Malaysian jumbo jet” — another bald-faced Big Lie.

Because of its global reach, the Times is the closest thing to an official US ministry of propaganda, carpet-bombing its readers with falsified official narrative rubbish in lieu of high journalistic standards the way they’re supposed to be.

The Times and other establishment media abandoned them long ago, giving yellow journalism they feature a bad name.

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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.

On Thursday, Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) said “the IRGC air force shot down an American spy drone, identified as RQ-4 Global Hawk, that had violated Iranian airspace in the Kuh Mubarak region located at Hormozgan province, south of the country, the IRGC’s public relations department said in a statement.”

The IRGC said further details of the intrusion will be announced later.

A Pentagon spy plane provocatively entering Iranian airspace when tensions between both countries are at a fever pitch was a hostile act, further heightening them.

Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Bill Urban claimed “(n)o US aircraft w(as) operating in Iranian airspace today.”

An unnamed Trump regime official claimed the RQ-4 Global Hawk was shot down in “international airspace” by an Iranian surface-to-air missile.

Ahead of the incident on Tuesday, head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani said the Islamic Republic will defend its airspace, territorial waters, and borders from hostile intrusions.

Days earlier, unnamed Western diplomatic sources told the Israeli Hebrew-language Maariv broadsheet that the Trump regime is planning a “tactical assault” on an Iranian nuclear facility in response to last week’s Gulf of Oman attacks on two tankers — no evidence suggests the Islamic Republic had anything to do with.

Source: IRNA

An unnamed Western diplomat was quoted saying “(t)he bombing will be massive but will be limited to a specific target” — an Iranian response in self-defense highly likely if this occurs, its legal right under international law.

The Pentagon hasn’t confirmed the downing of its spy drone so far, nor has the State Department commented on the incident.

On Wednesday, Pompeo continued his anti-Iran disinformation campaign, falsely claiming the Trump regime has “high confidence” that Gulf of Oman and weeks earlier regional incidents “were Iranian attacks…”

He, Bolton, and their hardline underlings are selling war on nonbelligerent Iran threatening no one.

Downing of the Pentagon’s spy drone came when Yemini Houthis reportedly struck a major Saudi power plant in the kingdom’s southern Jizan province with a cruise missile, according to Yemini al-Masirah television.

It followed a similar attack on the Abha International Airport in southern Saudi Arabia, injuring dozens and shutting down the facility.

According to AMN News on Thursday, Houthi forces made a “large-scale advance inside Saudi Arabia’s Najran Province near the Yemeni border, captur(ing) more than 20 military sites” in the kingdom, “inflicting heavy losses on the enemy troops.”

The US accuses Iran of supporting the Houthis, their latest actions likely to further heighten tensions with the Trump regime, pushing things closer to possible war Trump said he doesn’t want, but as his record shows, time and again he said one thing and went another way.

During Wednesday House Foreign Affairs Committee testimony, Dem Rep. Ted Deutch noted John Bolton’s history of “false or misleading” statements while holding State Department envoy for regime change in Iran Brian Hook’s feet to the fire about White House claims about the country.

“There are legitimate concerns about taking the administration at its word,” Deutch stressed, quoting former State Department official Greg Thielmann on Bolton’s earlier intelligence disinformation in the run-up to Bush/Cheney’s aggression on Iraq, saying last month:

“The pattern that I’ve seen with Bolton then and subsequently is that he has established quite a track record of cherry-picking intelligence information that serves whatever case he’s going to make.”

Deutch called Bolton “a long-time proponent of regime change in Tehran. He continually questions the utility of negotiating with Iran and frequently indicates that (its ruling authorities) will not be in power in the coming years.”

The congressman questioned Pompeo’s dubious claim about (nonexistent) Iranian support for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan “against American and allied interests” — no evidence whatever suggesting it.

Deutch also questioned Hook about whether the White House intends using the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) to wage war on Iran.

Clearly it provides no legal justification to attack any nation. Security Council members alone may authorize one country to attack another, permitted only in self-defense, never preemptively.

Using the AUMF to strike Iran would be naked aggression against a nation threatening no one. Hook declined to say if the Trump regime intends using it as authorization to wage war on the Islamic Republic.

Claiming “we will comply with the law” is belied by ongoing US aggression in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere, along with all-out war by other means on Iran and Venezuela, similar less extreme actions against Cuba and Nicaragua.

All of the above are illegal under international, constitutional, and US statute laws — never standing in the way of US actions against nations targeted for their sovereign independence and opposition to its imperial agenda.

On Wednesday, the State Department said Hook will visit Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other Gulf states to discuss (nonexistent) “Iran(ian) regional aggression.”

It’s a longstanding US, NATO, Israeli specialty, not how the Islamic Republic operates — not earlier, not now.

Claims otherwise are part of the Trump region’s disinformation campaign against the country, risking war that likely would be far more devastating than other post-9/11 conflicts — why it’s crucial to avoid.

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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.

Any sentient being should be offended.  Eventually, the casualisation of the academic workforce was bound to find lazy enthusiasts who neither teach, nor understand the value of a tenured position dedicated to that musty, soon-to-be-forgotten vocation of the pedagogue.  It shows in the designs of certain universities who confuse frothy trendiness with tangible depth: the pedagogue banished from the podium, with rooms lacking a centre, or a focal point for the instructor.  Not chic, not cool, we are told, often by learning and teaching committees that perform neither task.  Keep it modern; do not sound too bright and hide the learning: we are all equal in the classroom, inspiringly even and scrubbed of knowledge.  The result is what was always to be expected: profound laziness on the part of instructors and students, dedicated mediocrity, and a rejection of all things intellectually taxing.

Casualisation, a word that says much in of itself, is seen as analogue of broader outsourcing initiatives.  Militaries do it, governments do it, and the university does it.  Services long held to be the domain of the state, itself an animation of the social contract, the spirit of the people, have now become the incentive of the corporate mind, and, it follows, its associated vices.  The entire scope of what has come to be known as outsourcing is itself a creature of propaganda, cheered on as an opportunity drawing benefits rather than an ill encouraging a brutish, tenuous life. 

One such text is Douglas Brown and Scott Wilson’s The Black Book of Outsourcing. Plaudits for it resemble worshippers at a shrine planning kisses upon icons and holy relics.  “Brown & Wilson deliver on the best, most innovative, new practices all aimed at helping one and all survive, manage and lead in this new economy,” praises Joann Martin, Vice President of Pitney Bowes Management Services.  Brown and Wilson take aim at a fundamental “myth”: that “Outsourcing is bad for America.”  They cite work sponsored by the Information Technology Association of America (of course) that “the practice of outsourcing is good for the US economy and its workers.”

Practitioners and policy makers within the education industry have become devotees of the amoral dictates of supply and demand, underpinned by an insatiable management class.  Central to their program of university mismanagement is the casual academic, a creature both embraced and maligned in the tertiary sectors of the globe.    

The casual academic is meant to be an underpaid miracle worker, whose divining acts rescue often lax academics from discharging their duties. (These duties are outlined in that deceptive and unreliable document known as a “workplan”, as tedious as it is fictional.)  The casual academic grades papers, lectures, tutors and coordinates subjects.  The casual provides cover, a shield, and an excuse for a certain class of academic manager who prefers the calling of pretence to the realities of work.

Often, these casual academics are students undertaking a postgraduate degree and subject to inordinate degrees of stress in an environment of perennial uncertainty.  The stresses associated with such students are documented in the Guardian’s Academics Anonymous series and have also been the subject of research in the journal Research Policy.  A representative sample of PhD students studying in Flanders, Belgium found that one in two experienced psychological distress, with one in three at risk of a common psychiatric disorder.  Mental health problems tended to be higher in PhD students “than in the highly educated general population, highly education employees and higher education students.”

This is hardly helped by the prospects faced by those PhDs for future permanent employment, given what the authors of the Research Policy article describe as the “unfavourable shift in the labour-supply demand balance, a growing popularity of short-term contracts, budget cuts and increased competition for research sources”.

There have been a few pompom holders encouraging the casualisation mania, suggesting that it is good for the academic sector.  The explanations are never more than structural: a casual workforce, for instance, copes with fluctuating enrolments and reduces labour costs.  “Using casual academics brings benefits and challenges,” we find Dorothy Wardale, Julia Richardson and Yuliani Suseno telling us in The Conversation.  This, in truth, is much like suggesting that syphilis and irritable bowel syndrome is necessary to keep you on your toes, sharp and streamlined.  The mindset of the academic-administrator is to assume that such things are such (casualisation, the authors insist, is not going way, so embrace) and adopt a prostrate position in the face of funding cuts from the public purse.

Casualisation can be seen alongside a host of other ills.  If the instructor is disposable and vulnerable, then so are the manifestations of learning.  Libraries and research collections, for instance, are being regarded as deadening, inanimate burdens on the modern, vibrant university environment.  Some institutions make a regular habit of culling their supply of texts and references: we are all e-people now, bound to prefer screens to paper, the bleary-eyed session of online engagement to the tactile session with a book.

The casual, sessional academic also has, for company, the “hot-desk”, a spot for temporary, and all too fleeting occupation.  The hot-desk has replaced the work desk; the partitions of the office are giving way to the intrusions of the open plan. The hot-desker, like coitus, is temporary and brief. The casual academic epitomises that unstable reality; there is little need to give such workers more than temporary, precarious space.  As a result, confidentiality is impaired, and privacy all but negated.  Despite extensive research showing the negative costs of “hot-desking” and open plan settings, university management remains crusade bound to implement such daft ideas in the name of efficiency. 

Casualisation also compounds fraudulence in the academy.  It supplies the bejewelled short cut route, the bypass, the evasion of the rigorous things in learning.  Academics may reek like piddling middle class spongers avoiding the issues while pretending to deal with them, but the good ones at least make some effort to teach their brood decently and marshal their thoughts in a way that resembles, at the very least, a sound whiff of knowledge.  This ancient code, tested and tried, is worth keeping, but it is something that modern management types, along with their parasitic cognates, ignore.  In Australia, this is particularly problematic, given suggestions that up to 80 percent of undergraduate courses in certain higher learning institutions are taught by casual academics.

The union between the spread sheet manager and the uninterested academic who sees promotion through the management channel rather than scholarship, throws up a terrible hybrid, one vicious enough to degrade all in its pathway. This sort of hybrid hack resorts to skiving and getting casuals to do the work he or she ought to be doing.  Such people co-ordinate courses but make sure they get the wallahs and helpers desperate for cash to do it. Manipulation is guaranteed, exploitation is assured.    

The economy of desperation is cashed in like a reliable blue-chip stock: the skiver with an ongoing position knows that a casual academic desperate to earn some cash cannot dissent, will do little to rock the misdirected boat, and will have to go along with utterly dotty notions.  There are no additional benefits from work, no ongoing income, no insurance, and, importantly, inflated hours that rarely take into account the amount of preparation required for the task. 

The ultimate nature of the casualisation catastrophe is its diminution of the entire academic sector.  Casuals suffer, but so do students.  The result is not mere sloth but misrepresentation of the worst kind: the university keen to advertise a particular service it cannot provide sufficiently. This, in time, is normalised: what would students, who in many instances may not even know the grader of their paper, expect?  The remunerated, secure academic-manager, being in the castle, can raise the drawbridge and throw the casuals to the vengeful crowd, an employment environment made safe for hypocrisy.

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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]

Trump’s geopolitical record shows he yielded to regime hawks Pompeo, Bolton, and in the war department on escalating aggression in multiple theaters.

Bolton pushed for war on Iran long before he became Trump’s national security advisor. Pompeo largely favors war on the country by other means to make its economy scream and immiserate its people.

Patrick Shanahan replaced “Mad Dog” James Mattis as war secretary. Army secretary Mark Esper replaced him, the FBI investigating an earlier domestic abuse incident between him and his then-wife. Shanahan’s stepping down was likely to avoid a potentially nasty Senate confirmation hearing process.

Following the June Gulf of Oman incident and other regional ones in May, falsely blamed on Iran, with US and likely Israeli fingerprints all over them, Pompeo’s rhetoric sounded like he’s with Bolton for hot war on the country.

On Tuesday at CENTCOM headquarters in Tampa, Florida, he continued his hostile anti-Iran rhetoric, pushing the Big Lie about (nonexistent) Iranian “aggression in the region” — the US, NATO, Israel, and their imperial partners alone responsible for endless Middle East wars with more in mind.

Bipartisan hawks in Washington want Iran returned to US client state status, eliminating Israel’s main regional rival at the same time, along with gaining control over its vast oil and gas reserves.

On Monday, Time magazine interviewed Trump. “I would certainly go (to war on Iran) over nuclear weapons” (it doesn’t have or want), he said, adding:

“…I would keep the other a question mark.” While falsely blaming Iran for the Gulf of Oman and May regional incidents, he called them “very minor,” suggesting for him they’re not (false flag) enough to go to war over.

Ahead of stepping down as war secretary, Shanahan lied saying the following:

“The recent Iranian attacks (sic) validate the reliable, credible intelligence we have received on hostile behavior by Iranian forces and their proxy groups that threaten United States personnel and interests across the region (sic).”

No “credible intelligence” exist, nothing suggesting an aggressive Iran, just the opposite. Clear evidence shows the Islamic Republic is the region’s leading proponent of peace, stability, and cooperation with other nations — polar opposite how the US, NATO, the Saudis, UAE, and Israel operate.

Trump told Time that the Gulf of Oman “is less strategically important for the United States now than it used to be,” the publication said, quoting DJT saying:

“Other (countries) get such vast amounts of oil there. We get very little. We have made tremendous progress in the last two and a half years in energy,” adding:

“And when the pipelines get built, we’re now an exporter of energy. So we’re not in the position that we used to be in in the Middle East where…some people would say we were there for the oil.”

Fact: Henry Kissinger long ago explained that controlling oil is how to control nations. Its own energy needs aside, the US seeks control over energy reserves worldwide — especially in the Middle East, Venezuela, and the reserves of other oil-rich independent nations.

Asked if he’s considering war on Iran, Trump said “I wouldn’t say that. I can’t say that at all.”

His remark suggests he differs with Bolton and Pompeo on how tough to be on Iran. The neocon/ CIA house organ Washington Post earlier said the following:

“…Trump is frustrated with some of his top advisers, who he thinks could rush the United States into a military confrontation with Iran and shatter his long-standing pledge to withdraw from costly foreign wars, according to several U.S. officials,” adding:

“Trump prefers a diplomatic approach to resolving tensions and wants to speak directly with Iran’s leaders.”

He’s “angry…about what he sees as warlike planning that is getting ahead of his own thinking, said a senior administration official with knowledge of conversations Trump had regarding national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.”

Bolton especially is “in a different place” from Trump. (DJT) wants to talk to the Iranians. He wants a deal,” according to an unnamed White House official. “He is not comfortable with all this ‘regime change’ talk.”

If the above information is accurate, it’s a positive sign, stepping back from the brink of possible war that could be far more devastating than other US post-9/11 wars of aggression.

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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.

On this Juneteenth, we must confront the impacts of racism dating back to the founding of the United States with the slave trade of Black people brought from Africa, Jim Crow segregation, and policies that continue to this day that cause wealth inequality, disinvestment in Black communities, police violence, mass incarceration, and white nationalist violence.

A pre-eminent African historian, Basil Davidson, credits the initiation of the African slave trade to Columbus. The first license granted to send enslaved Africans to the Caribbean was issued in 1501, during Columbus’s rule in the Indies. Davidson labels Columbus the “father of the slave trade.” African slavery is as old as the European colonization of North America.

History of Juneteenth in the Context of the Legacy of US Racism

The nation typically celebrates Emancipation Day, January 1, as the end of slavery, when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Then what is Juneteenth? Juneteenth, Freedom Day, commemorates the true end of legalized slavery in the United States. It dates back to June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers came to Galveston, Texas and announced that all slaves were free and the Civil War had come to an end. This was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. There were 250,000 slaves in Texas and 4 million throughout the United States when the war came to an end and slaves were freed.

Emancipation was followed by the period of Reconstruction, during the term of President Andrew Johnson. The Johnson administration prioritized the return of the southern states to the Union and looked away while new southern state legislatures passed restrictive “Black Codes” modeled after slave laws designed to force Black people into labor for minor violations of law and restrict the freedom of former slaves. There was a backlash against these racist laws and in 1868, the Civil Rights Act became the first major bill to become law overriding a presidential veto. In February 1869, Congress approved the 15th Amendment which guaranteed that a citizen’s right to vote would not be denied “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Black people began to run and win elected office putting in place a series of progressive policies including the first state-funded public school systems in the South, more equitable taxation, and laws against racial discrimination in public transport and accommodations, until Jim Crow segregation was consolidated toward the end of the 19th century. While 20 Black people served in the US House and two in the US Senate between 1870 and 1901, none were elected until one in 1929. A few more served in the House until after passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

The racist backlash to this progress led by the Ku Klux Klan used violence to stop Black voters and forcibly overthrow Reconstruction state governments. The slogan of these Democratic Party “Redeemers” was White Supremacy. The era of Jim Crow segregation began, lynching Black people became a tactic of terror, and vagrancy laws were enacted across the south to force Black people into unpaid labor. This continued until the Civil Rights era which culminated in desegregation court decisions and Civil Rights laws in the 1950s and 60s.

But, racist policies still continue. Black people in the United States are 6.4 times more likely than whites to be incarcerated, suffer an unemployment rate that is consistently twice as high as white unemployment and can expect to die 3.5 years sooner than a white person.

In 1968, the Kerner Commission Report concluded: “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one Black, one white—separate and unequal.” It called for a sweeping set of reforms totaling some $80 billion. The federal government continued funding the Vietnam War instead and, beginning with the Nixon administration’s “war on drugs,” used arrests and mass incarceration to control Black communities.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, fifty years after the Kerner Commission, Black workers still make only 82.5 cents on every dollar earned by white workers, and African Americans are 2.5 times as likely to be in poverty as whites. A recent study found that the median White family now has 41 times more wealth than the median Black family and 22 times more wealth than the median Latinx family. Incarceration of African Americans tripled after 1980 and is currently more than six times the white incarceration rate.

From the first slave ship to the current racist economic, criminal justice and other policies, racism has created unequal opportunity and devastation in Black communities. The US needs a new approach to the economy that priorities racial equality as part of economic security for people of all races.

Race-conscious Programs to Remedy Race-conscious Injuries

Five hundred years of racial oppression requires the United States to face up to its history and correct historic and current injustices. The United States must enact HR 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act, to develop remedies for the impact of slavery and subsequent racial discrimination on Black people.

Even before a reparations program is developed, we can begin immediately repairing the damage by strengthening the enforcement of civil rights and anti-discrimination laws. We must take affirmative action to reverse the growing race and resegregation of housing and schools and to dismantle how systems of oppression manifest in the school-to-jailhouse pipeline track and in the proliferation of test-driven charter schools.

We must take power from racists who discriminate and exclude Black and other people of color by empowering racially- oppressed communities to practice self-determination through collective community ownership and control of public housing, schools, police, and businesses. Empowerment means democratic community control so that the masses of racially-oppressed people benefit, not merely a more “representative” professional-managerial class that simply replaces the white professional-managerial class in soaking up most of the funding in salaries, grants, and contracts.

Dr. King said in his “I Have a Dream” speech:

“It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.”

King’s speech at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was a call to implement the demands of the march, which amounted to an Economic Bill of Rights to jobs, income, housing, health care, and education. King and the other leaders of the march envisioned these the fulfillment of these economic rights as a down-payment on the promissory note that King referenced.

Special attention must be given to the criminal justice system. Communities must be empowered with ‘community control of police’ so the epidemic of racist police violence can be ended. The federal government must take action against police misconduct. Every step in the criminal justice process including arrest, prosecution, sentencing, and incarceration shows prejudice against people of color. We must end the war on drugs which disproportionately targets Black people by enacting legal adult use of marijuana, decriminalization of other drugs and harm reduction policies based on public health and treatment on request. Drug use is a health problem and should not be treated as a criminal problem. The drug war has been the engine of criminal justice racism and mass incarceration of Black people.

My campaign is calling for an Economic Bill of Rights as part of the Ecosocialist Green New Deal. This will provide universal programs for economic security for all but with a race-conscious emphasis on ending discrimination. This Bill of Rights would guarantee all people the rights of a living-wage job, an income above poverty, decent housing, comprehensive health care, a good education, and freedom from discrimination.

The Black freedom movement—including some of its leaders, Martin Luther King Jr., A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin —urged us to move “from civil rights to human rights.” With the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the 1966 Freedom Budget, and the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign, they demanded the implementation of FDR’s 1944 Economic Bill of Rights in a way that ended racial discrimination in education, employment, and housing. By linking racial justice to economic justice for all, we can build a majoritarian interracial movement of working people that can win these reforms. The Democrats have failed to do it for 75 years. The Greens will do it.

Finally, we must take federal action against white nationalist terrorism which President Trump has encouraged with his racist dog-whistling and incitements to violence. Actions must be taken to ensure that members of racist groups are prevented from making racist violent actions.

On this Juneteenth, we need more than anything else to demand an entirely new way of thinking about social, racial and economic issues. The US economy must prioritize economic security and racial equality. We must confront racism in the neglect of communities of color. Police enforcement and the criminal justice system, and many sectors of the US economy including healthcare, banking, housing, education, and employment must be re-made to put in place democratic control of these institutions, the fruit of which will be racial justice because self-determinant people will finally be in the driver’s seat. The United States needs to commit to undoing the damage of 500 years of racist policies and systems.

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Featured image is from the author

Morsi was Egypt’s only democratically elected president, serving from June 30, 2012 until the Obama regime orchestrated his ouster on July 3, 2013 — because he wasn’t subservient enough to US interests, wanting a ruler it controls.

His toppling was reminiscent of September 11, 1973 in Chile, replacing democratically elected Salvador Allende with despotic Augusto Pinochet rule.

Years of US-supported state terror and neoliberal harshness followed, the same thing going on in Egypt.

The Obama regime installed General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to replace Morsi, Egypt’s Pinochet, governing by junta rule. A US War College graduate, he maintains close ties to the Pentagon.

His regime bears full responsibility for Morsi’s premature death at age 67. He collapsed and died in a regime-controlled Cairo rubber-stamp court following years of medical neglect and mistreatment under what human rights advocate Gamal Eid called “brutal prison conditions” — despite his history of diabetes, high blood pressure, liver and kidney disease.

His end of life was similar to how Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic perished in March 2006. Framed for war crimes he didn’t commit by the Hague-based rubber-stamp ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia) in deference to the Clinton regime, he was wrongfully prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned.

Despite heart and other health problems, he was denied proper medical treatment. Days before his death, he wrote Russia’s Foreign Ministry, saying the ICTY wanted him dead. So did Washington and its key NATO partners.

Proper medical care could have saved him. Posthumously, the ICTY exonerated him, proving charges against him were fabricated.

Morsi was falsely charged with murder, treason, espionage, and supporting terrorism, accused of collaborating with Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and other Palestinian resistance groups.

In deference to Israel and Washington’s own interests, the State Department falsely designated them terrorist organizations. Both countries have been hostile to Iran since its 1979 revolution.

Guilt by accusation for Morsi was automatic. Coup d’etat rule replaced him. El-Sisi serves US imperial interests and his own, ruling by state terror, tolerating no opposition.

Last April by manipulated referendum, he empowered himself to rule unchallenged until 2030 — as long as he doesn’t run afoul of US interests and ends up like Morsi.

Turkey’s Erdogan called him a martyr.

“May Allah rest our brother Morsi, our martyr’s soul in peace,” he said.

London-based Muslim Brotherhood figure Mohammed Sudan called his death “premeditated murder,” explaining he was denied medical care, and information about his health was largely suppressed.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice party called Egyptian authorities responsible for his “deliberate slow death,” adding:

They “put him in solitary confinement…They withheld medication and gave him disgusting food…They did not give him the most basic human rights.” They wanted him dead and assured it by gross neglect.

Hamas issued a statement, praising Morsi for his solidarity with “the Palestinian cause.”

Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said

“(d)uring  his tenure as president, Mr Morsi showed courage and moral fortitude in his attempt to lead Egypt away from decades of authoritarian rule…”

Last year after visiting him in prison, UK lawmakers said he was subjected to torture-like mistreatment, including denial of medical care.

US officials largely ignored his death. Asked about it during a Monday State Department press briefing, spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus dismissively said “we saw that the death was reported” — with no further comment.

El-Sisi rules by iron fisted brute force, tolerating no opposition. Human rights workers, truth-telling academics, union heads, independent journalists, and Muslim Brotherhood members are on his target list for elimination.

During the 2013 coup and aftermath, security forces killed hundreds. Tens of thousands were arrested. Many others disappeared.

Egypt is a dictatorship, el-Sisi’s brutal rule supported and encouraged by Washington.

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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.

On June 18, the joint forces of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and Turkish-backed militant groups launched an assault on several positions of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in northern Hama.

The so-called “moderate opposition” reportedly used at least two suicide vehicle borne improvised explosive devices. One exploded near SAA positions in Jalamah. Another one was eliminated in the nearby area. At the same time, clashes were reported near Sheikh Hadid, Qiratah and Jub Suleiman.

By June 19, the militant attack had been fully repelled by the SAA. Despite this, pro-militant media outlets claimed that all devices had worked as intended and “Assad regime forces” had suffered dozens of casualties. According to pro-government sources, the militants lost up to 30 killed or injured fighters, and 6 pieces of military equipment, including a battle tank.

The militant advance also triggered a new round of Syrian airstrikes on their infrastructure in southern Idlib and northern Hama.

The SAA halted offensive actions in the area last week in the framework of the temporary ceasefire brokered by Turkey and Russia. However, this move does not seem to be appreciated by the so-called opposition.

Clashes between the SAA and ISIS erupted north of the town of al-Sukhna in the Homs province. ISIS cells reportedly ambushed at least one SAA checkpoint there. There are no confirmed reports regarding the casualties.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) detained nearly 100 people in the town of Tayaneh on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, according to Syrian state media. The SDF also stormed the village of Shwehan arresting 11 more people. Reports claim that the raids came in response to the locals’ refusal to hand over their crops of wheat and barley to the US-backed militias. Earlier reports appeared that SDF units were burning crops in farms that do not support the SDF’s administration policy. Pro-SDF sources deny this.

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Trump’s 2020 budget proposal reflects another significant increase in military spending along with corresponding cuts in spending by Federal agencies tasked with the responsibility for providing critical services and income support policies for working class and poor people. Trump’s call for budget cuts by Federal agencies is mirrored by the statutorily imposed austerity policies in most states and many municipalities. Those cuts represent the continuing imposition of neoliberal policies in the U.S. even though the “A” word for austerity is almost never used to describe those policies.

Yet, austerity has been a central component of state policy at every level of government in the U.S. and in Europe for the last four decades. In Europe, as the consequences of neoliberal policies imposed on workers began to be felt and understood, the result was intense opposition.  However, in the U.S. the unevenness of how austerity policies were being applied, in particular the elimination or reduction in social services that were perceived to be primarily directed at racialized workers, political opposition was slow to materialize.

Today, however, relatively privileged workers who were silent as the neoliberal “Washington consensus” was imposed on the laboring classes in the global South — through draconian structural adjustment policies that result in severe cutbacks in state expenditures for education, healthcare, state employment and other vital needs — have now come to understand that the neoliberal program of labor discipline and intensified extraction of value from workers, did not spare them.

The deregulation of capital, privatization of state functions — from road construction to prisons, the dramatic reduction in state spending that results in cuts in state supported social services and goods like housing and access to reproductive services for the poor — represent the politics of austerity and the role of the neoliberal state.

This materialist analysis is vitally important for understanding the dialectical relationship between the general plight of workers in the U.S. and the bipartisan collaboration to raid the Federal budget and to reduce social spending in order to increase spending on the military. This perspective is also important for understanding the imposition of those policies as a violation of the fundamental human rights of workers, the poor and the oppressed.

For the neoliberal state, the concept of human rights does not exist.

As I have called to attention before, a monumental rip-off is about to take place once again. Both the Democrats and Republicans are united in their commitment to continue to feed the U.S. war machine with dollars extracted — to the tune of 750 billion dollars — from the working class and transferred to the pockets of the military/industrial complex.

The only point of debate is now whether or not the Pentagon will get the full 750 billion or around 733 billion. But whether it is 750 billion or 733 billion, the one sector that is not part of this debate is the public. The attention of the public has been adroitly diverted by the absurd reality show that is Russiagate. But this week, even though the budget debate has been disappeared by corporate media, Congress is set to begin debate on aspects of the budget and specifically on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Raising the alarm on this issue is especially critical at this moment. As tensions escalate in the Persian Gulf, the corporate media is once again abdicating its public responsibility to bring unbiased, objective information to the public and instead is helping to generate support for war with Iran.

The Democrats, who have led the way with anti-Iran policies over the last few decades, will be under enormous pressure not to appear to be against enhancing military preparedness and are likely to find a way to give Trump and the Pentagon everything they want.

Support for Human Rights and Support for Empire is an Irreconcilable Contradiction

The assumption of post-war capitalist order was that the state would be an instrument to blunt the more contradictory aspects of capitalism. It would regulate the private sector, provide social welfare support to the most marginal elements of working class, and create conditions for full employment. This was the Keynesian logic and approach that informed liberal state policies beginning in the 1930s.

The idea of reforming human rights fits neatly into that paradigm.

As seen, a state’s legitimacy was based on the extent to which it recognized, protected and fulfilled the human rights of all its citizens and residents. Those rights included not only the right to information, assembly, speech and to participation in the national political life of the nation but also the right to food, water, healthcare, education, employment, substantial social security throughout life, and not just as a senior citizen.

The counterrevolutionary program of the late 60s and 70s, especially the turn to neoliberalism which began in the 70s, would reject this paradigm and redefine the role of the state. The obligation of the state to recognize, protect and fulfill human rights was eliminated from the role of the state under neoliberalism.

Today the consequences of four decades of neoliberalism in the global South and now in the cosmopolitan North have created a crisis of legitimacy that has made state policies more dependent on force and militarism than in any other time, including the civil war and the turmoil of the 1930s.

The ideological glue provided by the ability of capitalism to deliver the goods to enough of the population which guaranteed loyalty and support has been severely weakened by four decades of stagnant wages, increasing debt, a shrinking middle-class, obscene economic inequality and never-ending wars that have been disproportionately shouldered by the working class.

Today, contrary to the claims of capitalism to guarantee the human right to a living wage ensuring “an existence worthy of human dignity,” the average worker is making, adjusted for inflation, less than in 1973; i.e., some 46 years-ago. 140 million are either poor or have low-income; 80% living paycheck to paycheck; 34 million are still without health insurance; 40 million live in “official poverty;” and more in unofficial poverty as measured by alternative supplemental poverty (SPM).  And more than half of those over 55 years-old have no retirement funds other than Social Security.

In a report, Philp Alston, the UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, points out that: the US is one of the world’s wealthiest countries. It spends more on national defense than China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United Kingdom, India, France and Japan combined.

Source: The Guardian

However, that choice in public expenditures must be seen in comparison to the other factors he lays out:

• US infant mortality rates in 2013 were the highest in the developed world.
• Americans can expect to live shorter and sicker lives, compared to people living in any other rich democracy, and the “health gap” between the US and its peer countries continues to grow.
• US inequality levels are far higher than those in most European countries
• In terms of access to water and sanitation the US ranks 36th in the world.
• The youth poverty rate in the United States is the highest across the OECD with one quarter of youth living in poverty compared to less than 14% across the OECD.

For African Americans in particular, neoliberalism has meant, jobs lost, hollowed out communities as industries relocated first to the South and then to Mexico and China, the disappearance of affordable housing, schools and hospital closings, infant and maternal mortality at global South levels, and mass incarceration as the unskilled, low-wage Black labor has become economically redundant.

This is the backdrop and context for the budget “debate” and Trump’s call to cut spendings to Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Education, Labor, Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency, and even the State Department.

The U.S. could find 6 trillion dollars for war since 2003 and 16 trillion to bail out the banks after the financial sector crashed the economy, but it can’t find money to secure the human rights of the people.

This is the one-sided class war that we find ourselves in; a war with real deaths and slower, systematic structural violence. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans can be depended on to secure our rights or protect the world from the U.S. atrocities. That responsibility falls on the people who reside at the center of the Empire to not only struggle for ourselves but to put a brake on the Empire’s ability to spread death and destruction across the planet.

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Resistance to 5G is rapidly increasing, especially in Europe where many are unwilling to roll over for a 5G rollout. Fifth generation wireless threatens to massively increase electromagnetic radiation, affecting people and the planet.

On March 31, Brussels (Belgium) became the first major city to stop a 5G pilot project because of health concerns. Refusing to increase allowable radiation limits, Celine Fremault, Environment Minister for the Brussels-Capital Region, told the press:

“I cannot welcome such technology if the radiation standards, which must protect the citizen[s], are not respected, 5G or not. The people of Brussels are not guinea pigs whose health I can sell at a profit.”

A scientific NGO called the Planetary Association for Clean Energy (PACE) – which has “special consultative status” at the United Nations Economic and Social Council – submitted a statement to the UN in February, revealing that allowable international “radiation limits will have to be increased by 30 to 40%” in order to make 5G deployment technologically feasible.

This move by Brussels was one of a number of steps taken in Europe to stop 5G during a recent three-week period.

Other actions include:

• Florence, Italy applies the precautionary principle, refusing permissions for 5G
• A district in Rome votes against 5G trials
• The Russian Ministry of Defence refuses to transfer spectrum frequencies for 5G use
• The Belgian Environment Minister announces that Brussels is halting its 5G rollout plans.
• Germans sign a petition en masse to force the Bundestag to debate 5G.
• Dutch Members of Parliament insist that radiation research must be carried out before approval of 5G
• Four Swiss cantons adopt resolutions calling for a pause on 5G, pending an environmental report

These events may have been influenced by major petitions that have received attention in Europe since 2015.

But in an extraordinary move, telecom giant Swisscom defied local Swiss ordinances and on April 17 began activating 5G antennas in 102 locations. PACE’s Main UN Representative in Geneva, Olivier Vuillemin, told me by email that Swisscom’s action has caused “a huge backlash against 5G” across the country.

Guinea pigs?

In February 2019, US Senator Richard Blumenthal grilled wireless industry representatives during a Senate hearing. Industry spokesmen admitted that the industry “has done no health and safety studies on 5G.” Senator Blumenthal memorably concluded: “We’re kind of flying blind here, as far as health and safety is concerned.”

In January the FCC removed the public notice requirement – 5G would be installed “without public notice, hearings or appeals”

PACE considers this “an experiment on humanity that constitutes cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” in violation of more than 15 international treaties and agreements.

In the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has taken extraordinary steps to ram through 5G over the past year. First, its unelected officials amended FCC rules in March 2018 so that deployment decisions regarding 5G infrastructure would no longer require public participation and environmental review.

Then in September 2018, the FCC voted to grant itself more power to

1) overrule all local and state governments in terms of siting 5G infrastructure,
2) enforce strict time limits on municipal approval, and
3) determine the (very low) fees that municipalities can collect from the telecom industry for the use of public infrastructure (streetlights, bus stops, sidewalks, buildings, utility poles).

These moves unleashed widespread resistance from the National Governors Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the US Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, and the Government Finance Officers Association.

Then in January 2019, the FCC removed the public notice requirement – meaning that 5G infrastructure would be installed “without public notice, hearings or appeals.” But on April 5, the California Supreme Court unanimously upheld a 2011 San Francisco ordinance requiring the telecom companies to get municipal permits before placing antennas on city-owned infrastructure.

Popular resistance in the US has likely been fueled by the fact that President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and his billionaire Palm Beach, Florida neighbours have obtained a key exemption from 5G rollout plans. Palm Beach Daily News (May 3, 2017) reported that Palm Beach obtained an exemption “from legislation that would limit local control on the installation of 5G transmission equipment … welcome news in Palm Beach, where [Town Manager Tom] Bradford and Mayor Gail Coniglio have warned the new law would be an aesthetic disaster.”

In Canada, such local decision-making has already been ruled out by the Supreme Court.

Rogers vs. Chateauguay

In 2007, Rogers Communications Inc. wanted to erect a cell phone tower within a residential area of the City of Chateauguay, Quebec. Because the tower was to be taller than 15 ft., by law Rogers had to hold a public meeting. Some 100 residents expressed health concerns about electromagnetic fields (EMF) and radiation, so Chateauguay City Council established a land reserve on the site, while offering to buy a different property for use by Rogers.

But Rogers insisted on its original site. Backed by a powerful legal team of Torys (Toronto) and Fasken Martineau DuMoulin (Montreal), Rogers took the issue all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled on June 16, 2016 that since the telecom industry comes under the jurisdiction of the federal government – specifically, the Canada Radio-television & Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) as regulator – municipalities have no say in the placement of cell phone towers or antennas.

A US expert on wireless radiation and health effects, has called 5G “the stupidest idea in the history of the world”

Charles O’Brien, a lawyer familiar with Rogers vs. Chateauguay court history, told me by email that federal jurisdiction over telecommunications “is certainly not unbounded. Its exercise should respect the ‘Public Trust Doctrine’ as well as the Canadian and Quebec Charters,” which “guarantee the right to life, security of person, privacy, and the rights of the handicapped. The Quebec Charter further protects flora and fauna. The telecommunications power may not justify radiation poisoning of humans and the environment. That would also breach the Radiation Emitting Devices Act, and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.”

But for Canadians, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and constitutional right to privacy may be most pertinent in challenging 5G.

Spying on Canadians

5G will expand “smart cities” and the Internet of Things (IoT). But a recent expose by CBC’s Marketplace revealed how easily “smart” home devices can be hacked to spy on residents.

In Toronto, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has recently filed a court application to stop (Alphabet/Google subsidiary) Sidewalk Labs’ “smart city” project as “unconstitutional” because it would allow “historically unprecedented, non-consensual, inappropriate mass-capture surveillance and commoditization of personal data.”

Sidewalk Labs’ proposed development of the eastern Toronto waterfront includes self-driving cars, robotic deliveries and garbage collection, snow-melting digital streets and sidewalks, and multiple sensors throughout the region to hoover up personal data from residents and pedestrians. In December 2018, Ontario’s Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk said the project “raises concerns in areas such as consumer protection, data collection, security, privacy, governance, anti-trust and ownership of intellectual privacy.”

Complicating the issues is the wireless industry’s insistence on the use of satellites for 5G.

New Space Race

The 5G network will blanket the earth via 20,000 low and high-orbit satellites. Elon Musk’s SpaceX project “Starlink” has received federal approval to launch 12,000 satellites. Other companies involved in the new space race for 5G include OneWeb (4,560 satellites), Boeing (2,956 satellites) Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Project Kuiper (3,000 satellites), and Telesat Canada (512 satellites).

The Economist (Dec. 8, 2018) has stated: “With a network of [5G] satellites encircling the planet, humans will soon never be off-line. High-quality Internet connections will become more widespread than basic sanitation and running water.” As Wendell Berry observed in his 1996 book The Unsettling of America (i.e. before even 4G wireless was introduced), the human body is becoming “marginal.” 5G takes us the next step.

Dr. Martin Pall, a US expert on wireless radiation and health effects, has called 5G “the stupidest idea in the history of the world.”

The Watershed Sentinel (April/May 2019) reports that many communities in North America (800+) are eschewing wireless (and the big telecoms) and building and operating their own “fiber-to-the-premises” wired networks, or “municipal broadband.”

This may be the best way to gain local control, unless you’re a Palm Beach billionaire.

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Featured image is from Watershed Sentinel

Nuclear treaties (mainly between the USA and Russia) have formed the cornerstone of world peace, stability and safety for decades. They have been an essential mechanism in the international security architecture. Nuclear treaties gave assurance to the world that the human race would cease to be drawn into a never-ending and extremely dangerous arms race – a nuclear arms race at that. However, recent developments threaten this stability. For years, the US has been steadily provoking many nations, especially Russia, with a variety of tactics, including false flag operations, sanctions, coups and importantly by pulling out of key nuclear treaties. Now, there is only one nuclear treaty left (the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, known in Russian as START III) that the US has not withdrawn from … and this is set to expire in 2021, with no signs of US interest in renewing it.

US History of Withdrawal from Nuclear Treaties

In 2002, the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972. On February 2nd, 2018, in the document Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), the Trump Administration revealed that the US was changing its nuclear policy. It was specifically retaining the right of nuclear first use (NFU)(meaning pre-emptive strikes) as well as embracing the development of low-yield nuclear warhead for submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Later in 2018, Trump announced the US intention to withdraw in 6 months from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty of 1987, which he made official in a written statement on February 1st, 2019. Some reports state that National Security Advisor and notorious warhawk John Bolton was the force behind the INF withdrawal – the same Zionist neocon warmonger itching for war with Iran, Venezuela, North Korea and any other nation not already under the heel of the US-led NWO.

A study of the NPR by Seyom Brown explains:

“Blurring the distinction between non-nuclear and nuclear war, the 2018 NPR reverses the commitment in the Obama administration’s 2010 NPR to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in US grand strategy … [the] NPR fails to show why modernized nuclear capabilities are better able to deter and defend against potential enemy aggression than technologically advanced non-nuclear capabilities. Its presumption of controllable nuclear exchanges will reduce the calculations of risk and increase the likelihood of conflicts escalating to nuclear war.”

How the US Tricked Russia into Dissolving the Soviet Union

In the above linked White House statement, the US tries to claim Russia is the one violating the INF, when actually it is the US itself. This kind of mendacity is typical of US behavior. History repeats itself. It is reminiscent of how then President George H. W. Bush lied to then Soviet Chairman Gorbachev, promising him that NATO would not extend “one inch eastwards” and goading him into dissolving the Soviet Union. That turned out to be a giant whopper, as NATO has constantly expanded eastwards, gobbling up Baltic, Slavic and former Soviet states. For a deeper background to all this, read How America Double-Crossed Russia and Shamed the West by Eric Zuesse:

“The conditionality of the Soviet Union’s agreement to allow East Germany to be taken by West Germany and for the Cold War to end, was that NATO would not expand “one inch to the east.” This was the agreement that was approved by the Russian President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev … He trusted American President George Herbert Walker Bush, whose friend and Secretary of State James Baker made this promise to Gorbachev … Russia kept its part of the bargain. It ended the Berlin Wall, allowed East Germany to join with West Germany; ended the Warsaw Pact; and ended communism. Russia ended its entire Cold War against the U.S., not just the ideology but the Soviet Union and its alliances. But, in contravention of the promise that had been made to Gorbachev, the U.S. and its allies did not end their war against a now free and democratic Russia. Instead, over the years, the NATO alliance absorbed, one by one, the former member-nations of the Warsaw Pact — and yet refused to allow membership to Russia.”

Who’s Violating the INF?

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently warned journalists of the US-withdrawal trend that has been happening – and the dire and urgent situation humanity subsequently now faces, given that there are less and less treaties to prevent another nuclear arms race. Putin said:

“When in reality, it was the first step taken to the dismantling of the entire ‘carcass’ of the system of international security … It was a very serious step to have been taken … Now, the US is wanting to withdraw from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty [1987], also in a unilateral manner. At least in the first instance, they were honest about it. They just withdrew, in a one-sided manner. This time, recognising full well that someone will have to be held responsible, they’re attempting to blame Russia [for alleged violations of the INF Treaty] … why don’t you … go and open the INF Treaty text? Go and read it.

It says in clear text you cannot install land-based missile launchers for missiles of short and medium range. It says so in plain sight. But no – they have placed missile launchers in Romania, and soon in Poland. It’s a direct violation. Go and look at the definition of short and medium range missiles – and then compare them to the capabilities of [missile carrying] drones. It’s the same thing.”

– Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation

Putin goes on to say that Russia is looking to extend the New START / START III Treaty (which ends on February 5th, 2021) but they don’t ‘have’ to. The US has neither initiated renewal talks, nor shown any interest in conducting them:

“Our defense capability is such that it will absolutely guarantee the safety of Russia [against nuclear attack] for quite some time in the future. I have to be direct and say that we have overtaken our opponents in the creation of [defensive] hypersonic weapons. If no one is interested in extending the START-3, ok then we won’t. We have said 100 times already that we are ready to begin the work. No one is talking to us. There are no formal talks being had … And in 2021 – everything will end. Let me focus your attention – there will not be a single instrument that can regulate a [nuclear] arms race. No tool to curtail the imposition of weapons in outer space.”

Putin went on to dramatically spell out the implications:

“It means that we will have [the] constant presence of nuclear weapons above our heads. It will always be up there, constantly. Is this not where we are headed, and very quickly at that? Is anyone going to think or talk about this at all? Does anyone care? No – it’s just radio silence. What about the creation of low-power nuclear weapons? Or regulating strategic missiles without a nuclear warhead [which can be quickly refitted with nuclear ones] … Do you seriousness of the issue and how dangerous it can be?”

Indeed. The situation is very dangerous. If nuclear proliferation continues, combined with the new technological military advances of drones and space-based weapons, it is conceivable that we will have the metaphorical Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads at every living moment, only one millions of times more destructive.

Putin went on to make an appeal to have an open, transparent, professional dialogue with all people of the world, especially including all nuclear countries, declared or not. This is an obvious allusion to the rogue nation of Israel, which harbors some 100-400 nuclear weapons, but adheres to a policy of nuclear ambiguity and refuses to state the obvious about its nukes. He ended with a note of optimism, that both Trump and US Secretary of State Pompeo have expressed concern about US defense war spending, and so perhaps the US and Russia could work together.

Nuclear Treaties: Going Forwards … Or Backwards?

All this very much reminds me of the situation in 1962-63, when JFK and Khrushchev were at the helm of their respective nations. After the tense Cuban Missile Crisis nearly ended in nuclear catastrophe, JFK came to the realization that we must choose cooperation and peace, and stop stockpiling and engaging in an arms race out of fear. He spoke about this in an inspirational speech in July 1963. Sadly, with all the Russophobia, we seem to have broken trust and gone back to the fear-filled days at the height of the Cold War. That is only good for the Military Industrial Complex, the warmongers and the NWO manipulators … and horrible for everyone else.

It’s the media – whether mainstream, alternative or independent – focused on this highly important issue. The future of humanity is at stake.

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This article was originally published on The Freedom Articles.

Makia Freeman is the editor of alternative media / independent news site The Freedom Articles and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com, writing on many aspects of truth and freedom, from exposing aspects of the worldwide conspiracy to suggesting solutions for how humanity can create a new system of peace and abundance. Makia is on Steemit and FB.

Sources

“Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest—forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries.” ― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

How do you persuade a populace to embrace totalitarianism, that goose-stepping form of tyranny in which the government has all of the power and “we the people” have none?

You persuade the people that the menace they face (imaginary or not) is so sinister, so overwhelming, so fearsome that the only way to surmount the danger is by empowering the government to take all necessary steps to quash it, even if that means allowing government jackboots to trample all over the Constitution.

This is how you use the politics of fear to persuade a freedom-loving people to shackle themselves to a dictatorship.

It works the same way every time.

The government’s overblown, extended wars on terrorism, drugs, violence and illegal immigration have been convenient ruses used to terrorized the populace into relinquishing more of their freedoms in exchange for elusive promises of security.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Case in point: on June 17, the same day President Trump announced that the government would be making mass arrests in order to round up and forcibly remove millions of illegal immigrants—including families and children—from the country, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a ruling in Gamble v. United States that placed the sovereignty (i.e., the supreme power or authority) of federal and state governments over that of the citizenry, specifically as it relates to the government’s ability to disregard the Constitution’s Double Jeopardy Clause.

Source: The Washington Post

At first glance, the two incidents—one relating to illegal immigration and the other to the government’s prosecutorial powers—don’t have much to do with each other, and yet there is a common thread that binds them together.

That common thread speaks to the nature of the government beast we have been saddled with and how it views the rights and sovereignty of “we the people.”

Now you don’t hear a lot about sovereignty anymore.

Sovereignty is a dusty, antiquated term that harkens back to an age when kings and emperors ruled with absolute power over a populace that had no rights. Americans turned the idea of sovereignty on its head when they declared their independence from Great Britain and rejected the absolute authority of King George III. In doing so, Americans claimed for themselves the right to self-government and established themselves as the ultimate authority and power.

In other words, in America, “we the people”— sovereign citizens—call the shots.

So when the government acts, it is supposed to do so at our bidding and on our behalf, because we are the rulers.

That’s not exactly how it turned out, though, is it?

In the 200-plus years since we boldly embarked on this experiment in self-government, we have been steadily losing ground to the government’s brazen power grabs, foisted upon us in the so-called name of national security.

The government has knocked us off our rightful throne. It has usurped our rightful authority. It has staged the ultimate coup. Its agents no longer even pretend that they answer to “we the people.”

So you see, the two incidents on June 17 were not hugely significant in and of themselves.

Trump’s plan to carry out mass arrests of anyone the government suspects might be an illegal immigrant, and the Supreme Court’s recognition that the government can sidestep the Constitution for the sake of expediency are merely more of the same abuses that have been heaped upon us in recent years.

Yet these incidents speak volumes about how far our republic has fallen and how desensitized “we the people” have become to this constant undermining of our freedoms.

How do we reconcile the Founders’ vision of our government as an entity whose only purpose is to serve the people with the police state’s insistence that the government is the supreme authority, that its power trumps that of the people themselves, and that it may exercise that power in any way it sees fit (that includes government agents crashing through doors, mass arrests, ethnic cleansing, racial profiling, indefinite detentions without due process, and internment camps)?

They cannot be reconciled. They are polar opposites.

We are fast approaching a moment of reckoning where we will be forced to choose between the vision of what America was intended to be (a model for self-governance where power is vested in the people) and the reality of what she has become (a police state where power is vested in the government).

This slide into totalitarianism—helped along by overcriminalization, government surveillance, militarized police, neighbors turning in neighbors, privatized prisons, and forced labor camps, to name just a few similarities—is tracking very closely with what happened in Germany in the years leading up to Hitler’s rise to power.

We are walking a dangerous path right now.

The horrors of the Nazi concentration camps weren’t kept secret from the German people. They were well-publicized. As The Guardian reports:

The mass of ordinary Germans did know about the evolving terror of Hitler’s Holocaust… They knew concentration camps were full of Jewish people who were stigmatised as sub-human and race-defilers. They knew that these, like other groups and minorities, were being killed out of hand. They knew that Adolf Hitler had repeatedly forecast the extermination of every Jew on German soil. They knew these details because they had read about them. They knew because the camps and the measures which led up to them had been prominently and proudly reported step by step in thousands of officially-inspired German media articles and posters… The reports, in newspapers and magazines all over the country were phases in a public process of “desensitisation” which worked all too well, culminating in the killing of 6m Jews….

Source: The Guardian

Likewise, the mass of ordinary Americans are fully aware of the Trump Administration’s efforts to stigmatize and dehumanize any and all who do not fit with the government’s plans for this country.

These mass arrests of anyone suspected of being an illegal immigrant may well be the shot across the bow.

You see, it’s a short hop, skip and a jump from allowing government agents to lock large swaths of the population up in detention centers unless or until they can prove that they are not only legally in the country to empowering government agents to subject anyone—citizen and noncitizen alike—to similar treatment unless or until they can prove that they are in compliance with every statute and regulation on the books, and not guilty of having committed some crime or other.

It’s no longer a matter of if, but when.

You may be innocent of wrongdoing now, but when the standard for innocence is set by the government, no one is safe. Everyone is a suspect, and anyone can be a criminal when it’s the government determining what is a crime.

Remember, the police state does not discriminate.

At some point, once the government has been given the power to do whatever it wants—the Constitution be damned—it will not matter whether you’re an illegal immigrant or a citizen by birth, a law-breaker or someone who marches in lockstep with the government’s dictates. Government jails will detain you just as easily whether you’ve obeyed every law or broken a dozen. And government agents will treat you like a suspect, whether or not you’ve done anything wrong, simply because they have been trained to view and treat everyone like potential criminals.

Eventually, all that will matter is whether some government agent—poorly trained, utterly ignorant of the Constitution, way too hyped up on the power of their badges, and authorized to detain, search, interrogate, threaten and generally harass anyone they see fit—chooses to single you out for special treatment.

We’ve been having this same debate about the perils of government overreach for the past 50-plus years, and still we don’t seem to learn, or if we learn, we learn too late.

All of the excessive, abusive tactics employed by the government today—warrantless surveillance, stop and frisk searches, SWAT team raids, roadside strip searches, asset forfeiture schemes, private prisons, indefinite detention, militarized police, etc.—started out as a seemingly well-meaning plan to address some problem in society that needed a little extra help.

Be careful what you wish for: you will get more than you bargained for, especially when the government’s involved.

Remember, nothing is ever as simple as the government claims it is.

The war on drugs turned out to be a war on the American people, waged with SWAT teams and militarized police.

The war on terror turned out to be a war on the American people, waged with warrantless surveillance and indefinite detention.

The war on immigration is turning out to be yet another war on the American people, waged with roving government agents demanding “papers, please.”

Whatever dangerous practices you allow the government to carry out now—whether it’s in the name of national security or protecting America’s borders or making America great again—rest assured, these same practices can and will be used against you when the government decides to set its sights on you.

If you’re inclined to advance this double standard because you believe you have done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide, beware: there’s always a boomerang effect.

As commentator Shaun Kenney observed:

What civil liberties are you willing to surrender in the apprehension of 12 million people? Knock and drags? Detention centers? Checkpoints? House-to-house searches? Papers, please? Will we be racially profiling folks to look for or are we talking about people of Chinese… Indian… Irish… Polish… Italian… people-who-might-look-like-you descent as well? If the federal government makes a 1% rounding error and accidentally deports an American citizen, that’s 120,000 Americans… what means will be used to restore their rights? Who will remunerate them for their financial loss? Restore their lost homes? Personal property? Families? … What happens when these means are turned against some other group of undesirables in America by a president who does not share your political persuasion, but can now justify the act based on previous justifications?

We are all at risk.

The law of reciprocity applies here. The flip side of that Golden Rule, which calls for us to treat others as we would have them treat us, is that we shouldn’t inflict on others what we wouldn’t want to suffer ourselves.

In other words, if you don’t want to be locked up in a prison cell or a detention camp—if you don’t want to be discriminated against because of the color of your race, religion, politics or anything else that sets you apart from the rest—if you don’t want your loved ones shot at, strip searched, tasered, beaten and treated like slaves—if you don’t want to have to be constantly on guard against government eyes watching what you do, where you go and what you say—if you don’t want to be tortured, waterboarded or forced to perform degrading acts—if you don’t want your children to be forcibly separated from you, caged and lost—then don’t allow these evils to be inflicted on anyone else, no matter how compelling a case the government makes for it or how fervently you believe in the cause.

You can’t have it both ways.

You can’t live in a constitutional republic if you allow the government to act like a police state.

You can’t claim to value freedom if you allow the government to operate like a dictatorship.

You can’t expect to have your rights respected if you allow the government to treat whomever it pleases with disrespect and an utter disregard for the rule of law.

Indeed, when the government is allowed to operate as a law unto itself, the rule of law itself becomes illegitimate. As Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail,

“everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal’ and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was ‘illegal.’ It was ‘illegal’ to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany.”

In other words, there comes a time when law and order are in direct opposition to justice.

Isn’t that what the American Revolution was all about?

Finally, if anyone suggests that the government’s mass immigration roundups and arrests are just the government doing its job to fight illegal immigration, don’t buy it.

This is not about illegal immigration. It’s about power and control.

It’s about testing the waters to see how far the American people will allow the government to go in re-shaping the country in the image of a totalitarian police state.

It’s about the rise of an “emergency state” that justifies all manner of government misconduct and power grabs in the so-called name of national security.

It’s about how much tyranny “we the people” will tolerate before we find our conscience and our voice.

It’s about how far we will allow the government to go in its efforts to distract and divide us and turn us into a fearful, easily controlled populace.

Ultimately, it’s about whether we believe—as the Founders did—that our freedoms are inherently ours and that the government is only as powerful as we allow it to be. Freedom does not flow from the government. It was not given to us, to be taken away at the will of the State. In the same way, the government’s appointed purpose is not to threaten or undermine our freedoms, but to safeguard them.

We must get back to this way of thinking if we are to ever stand our ground in the face of threats to those freedoms.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, it’s time to draw that line in the sand.

The treatment being meted out to anyone that looks like an illegal immigrant is only the beginning. Eventually we will all be in the government’s crosshairs for one reason or another.

This is the start of the slippery slope.

Martin Niemöller understood this. A Lutheran minister who was imprisoned and executed for opposing Hitler’s regime, Niemoller warned:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

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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].

Exposure to electromagnetic field (EMF) and radiofrequency (RF) radiation is an ever-growing health risk in the modern world. The Cellular Phone Task Force website¹ has a long list of governments and organizations that have issued warnings or banned wireless technologies of various kinds and under various circumstances, starting in 1993.

A long list of organizations representing doctors and scientists are also among them, including an appeal for protection from nonionizing EMF exposure by more than 230 international EMF scientists to the United Nations in 2015, which notes that:²

“Numerous recent scientific publications have shown that EMF affects living organisms at levels well below most international and national guidelines.

Effects include increased cancer risk, cellular stress, increase in harmful free radicals, genetic damages, structural and functional changes of the reproductive system,^3,4,5 learning and memory deficits, neurological disorders, and negative impacts on general well-being in humans. Damage goes well beyond the human race, as there is growing evidence of harmful effects to both plant and animal life.”

A call for a moratorium on 5G specifically was issued in September 2017 by more than 180 scientists and doctors from 35 countries,^6,7 “until potential hazards for human health and the environment have been fully investigated by scientists independent from industry,” noting that “RF-EMF has been proven to be harmful for humans and the environment,” and that “5G will substantially increase exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) on top of the 2G, 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi, etc. for telecommunications already in place.”

In an article⁸ on the Environmental Health Trust’s website, Ronald Powell, Ph.D., a retired Harvard scientist of applied physics, notes “there is NO SAFE WAY to implement 5G in our communities; rather there are only ‘bad ways’ and ‘worse ways,'” and rather than argue about who should have control over its deployment, we should focus on preventing its employment altogether.

Health Concerns Over 5G Abound

Wall Street analyst Sunil Rajgopal recently warned mounting health concerns may delay the implementation of 5G, Fortune magazine reports.⁹ Some countries have already taken steps to slow 5G deployment due to health risks, Rajgopal notes. The question is, can it be stopped?

5G testing was recently halted in Brussels, Belgium,¹⁰ and Switzerland is delaying its 5G rollout in order to create a system to monitor radiation.¹¹ Syracuse, New York, is also attempting to set up some safeguards and has “negotiated the right to conduct on-demand safety inspections of 5G antennas,” to allay public concerns.¹² According to Forbes:¹³

“In New Hampshire, lawmakers are considering establishing a commission to study the health impacts of 5G networks. And Mill Valley, Calif., near San Francisco, last year banned new 5G wireless cells.”

Many other areas, however, have chosen to trust the Federal Communications Commission and the wireless industry trade association, CTIA, which has created a “Cellphone Health Facts” website citing research showing no risk. However, if you believe the FCC is assessing health risks, you’d be wrong.

At a recent senate commerce hearing (above), the FCC admitted that no 5G safety studies have been conducted or funded by the agency or the telecom industry, and that none are planned.^14,15 In a speech given at the National Press Club in June 2016, Tom Wheeler, former FCC chairman and prior head of the wireless industry lobbying group, made the agency’s stance clear when he said:¹⁶

“Stay out of the way of technological development. Unlike some countries, we do not believe we should spend the next couple of years studying … Turning innovators loose is far preferable to letting committees and regulators define the future. We won’t wait for the standards … “

In light of the more than 2,000 studies showing a wide range of biological harm from EMFs, assurances from the FCC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that wireless radiation exposures, including 5G, is safe, seem disingenuous at best. As noted in a recent Counterpunch article:¹⁷

“Telecom lobbyists assure us that guidelines already in place are adequate to protect the public. Those safety guidelines, however, are based on a 1996 study of how much a cell phone heated the head of an adult-sized plastic mannequin. This is problematic, for at least three reasons:

• living organisms consist of highly complex and interdependent cells and tissue, not plastic.
• those being exposed to radiofrequency radiation include fetuses, children, plants, and wildlife – not just adult male humans.
• the frequencies used in the mannequin study were far lower than the exposures associated with 5G.”

What Level of EMF Can Humans Withstand? 

EMF exposure at many biological impacting frequencies, such as those that run cellphones and Wi-Fi, has increased about 1 quintillion times over the past 100 years.^18,19 Unfortunately, EMF exposure is so widespread these days, it’s virtually impossible to conduct controlled population studies anymore, as no population is truly unexposed or unaffected. This lack of a control group makes it very difficult to determine what the real-world effects are.

That said, one controlled exposure study has been done, revealing it’s nowhere near as harmless as people think. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were two populations in the United States — rural and urban. Urban areas were by and large electrified, while rural areas were not electrified until around 1950.

Dr. Sam Milham, an epidemiologist, painstakingly analyzed mortality statistics between these two populations over time, clearly showing there was a wide difference in mortality from heart disease, cancer and diabetes between these two groups. Then, as rural areas became electrified, the two curves merged.

Today, we not only live and work in electrified surroundings, we’re also surrounded by microwaves from wireless technologies. Soon, 5G may be added to the mix, making exposures all the more complex and potentially harmful. As noted by Counterpunch:²⁰

“5G radiofrequency (RF) radiation uses a ‘cocktail’ of three types of radiation, ranging from relatively low-energy radio waves, microwave radiation with far more energy, and millimeter waves with vastly more energy …

The extremely high frequencies in 5G are where the biggest danger lies. While 4G frequencies go as high as 6 GHz, 5G exposes biological life to pulsed signals in the 30 GHz to 100 GHz range. The general public has never before been exposed to such high frequencies for long periods of time.”

Health Concerns Linked to 5G Exposure

The added concern 5G brings is the addition of the millimeter wave (MMW). This bandwidth, which runs from 30 gigahertz (GHz) to 300GHz,²¹ is known to penetrate up to 2 millimeters into human skin tissue,^22,23 causing a burning sensation.

This is precisely why MMW was chosen for use in crowd control weapons (Active Denial Systems) by the U.S. Department of Defense.²⁴ MMW is also used in so-called “naked body scanners” at airports.²⁵

Research has shown sweat ducts in human skin act as receptors or antennae for 5G radiation, drawing the radiation into the body,^{26,27,28,29,30} thereby causing a rise in temperature. This in part helps explain the painful effect. As noted by Dr. Yael Stein — who has studied 5G MMW technology and its interaction with the human body — in a 2016 letter to the Federal Communications Commission:³¹

“Computer simulations have demonstrated that sweat glands concentrate sub-terahertz waves in human skin. Humans could sense these waves as heat. The use of sub-terahertz (millimeter wave) communications technology (cellphones, Wi-Fi, antennas) could cause humans to percept physical pain via nociceptors.

Potentially, if 5G Wi-Fi is spread in the public domain we may expect more of the health effects currently seen with RF/ microwave frequencies including many more cases of hypersensitivity (EHS), as well as many new complaints of physical pain and a yet unknown variety of neurologic disturbances.

It will be possible to show a causal relationship between G5 technology and these specific health effects. The affected individuals may be eligible for compensation.”

MMW has also been linked to:^{32,33,34,35,36}

• Eye problems such as lens opacity in rats, which is linked to the production of cataracts,³⁷ and eye damage in rabbits^38,39
• Impacted heart rate variability, an indicator of stress, in rats^40,41,42 and heart rate changes (arrhythmias) in frogs^43,44
• Pain⁴⁵
• Suppressed immune function⁴⁶
• Depressed growth and increased antibiotic resistance in bacteria⁴⁷

As noted in a recent Gaia.com article:⁴⁸

“Many scientists understand that the electromagnetic radiation leaking through the doors of our microwave ovens are carcinogenic, and therefore, can cause cancer. Most of these scientists also believe that these waves are mutagenic, meaning they change the DNA structure of living beings.⁴⁹

The launch of 5G will be similar to turning on your microwave, opening its door, and leaving it on for the rest of your life. There’s good reason why hundreds of scientists are taking action against the wireless industry.”

Understanding EMFs’ Mechanisms of Harm

As explained in my 2017 interview with Martin Pall, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of biochemistry and basic medical sciences at Washington State University, the primary danger of EMFs in general is that it causes excess oxidative stress that results in mitochondrial dysfunction.

According to Pall’s research,^50,51,52,53 radiofrequency microwave radiation such as that from your cellphone and wireless router activates the voltage-gated calcium channels (VGCCs) located in the outer membrane of your cells.

According to Pall, VGCCs are 7.2 million times more sensitive to microwave radiation than the charged particles inside and outside our cells, which means the safety standards for this exposure are off by a factor of 7.2 million.

Low-frequency microwave radiation opens your VGCCs, thereby allowing an abnormal influx of calcium ions into the cell, which in turn activates nitric oxide (NO) and superoxide which react nearly instantaneously to form peroxynitrite⁵⁴ that then causes carbonate free radicals, which are one of the most damaging reactive nitrogen species known and thought to be a root cause for many of today’s chronic diseases.

For an in-depth understanding of peroxynitrites and the harm they inflict, see “Nitric Oxide and Peroxynitrite in Health and Disease”⁵⁵ — a 140-page free access paper with 1,500 references written by Dr. Pal Pacher, Joseph Beckman and Dr. Lucas Liaudet.

One of its most significant hazards of peroxynitrite is that it damages DNA. The European REFLEX study published in 2004 revealed the nonthermal effects of 2G and 3G radiation are actually very similar to the effects of X-rays in terms of the genetic damage they cause.⁵⁶

Your body has the capacity to repair that damage through a family of 17 different enzymes collectively called poly ADP ribose polymerases (PARP). However, while PARP work well, they require NAD+ for fuel and when they run out of NAD+ they stop repairing your DNA.

This in turn can lead to premature cell death, since 100 to 150 NAD+ molecules are needed to repair a single DNA strand break. NAD+ is central to maintaining cellular and mitochondrial health, so the fact that PARP consumes NAD+ to counteract EMF damage is an important concern.

Cancer Is Not the Primary Health Risk of EMF

The voltage in your body appears to play a significant role in health and disease. Your body’s production of electricity allows your cells to communicate and perform basic biological functions necessary for your survival. However, your body is designed to operate at very specific levels and frequencies.

It seems logical that being surrounded by man-made EMFs that are 1 quintillion times higher than the natural EMF environment of the Earth may interfere with your DNA’s ability to receive and transmit biological signals.

While the controversy over EMF damage has centered around whether or not it can cause cancer, especially brain tumors, this actually isn’t your greatest concern. Since the damage is strongly linked to activation of your VGCCs, it stands to reason that areas where VGCCs are the densest would be most vulnerable to damage.

As it happens, the highest density of VGCCs are found in your nervous system, your brain, the pacemaker in your heart and in male testes. As a result, EMFs are likely to contribute to neurological and neuropsychiatric⁵⁷ problems, heart and reproductive problems.

This includes but is not limited to cardiac arrhythmias, anxiety, depression, autism, Alzheimer’s and infertility. Indeed, this is what researchers keep finding, and all of these health problems are far more prevalent and kill more people than brain cancer.

What’s more, seeing how many are already struggling with electromagnetic hypersensitivity, saturating cities and suburban areas with MMW radiation will undoubtedly make the problem more widespread, and make life unbearable for those already feeling the effects of wireless radiation.

Most Recent Media Ploy to Detract From 5G Concerns: Blame the Russians

In a recent Medium article,⁵⁸ Devra Davis, Ph.D. — a well-respected and credentialed researcher on the dangers of cellphone radiation — highlights a recent media trend: Write off scientists warning about 5G dangers as “untethered alarmists … linked to Russian propaganda.”

“Could it be a coincidence that following on the heels of the NY Times story, the Wall Street Journal and the UK Telegraph have echoed the same smear of guilt by association,” she writes,⁵⁹ adding:

“These otherwise credible media sources ignore the substantial body of science pinpointing hazards of wireless radiation and 5G detailed in independent journalistic investigations that have appeared extensively in media throughout Europe and been covered by major networks …

Could the failure to report these critical 5G issues and correct misleading information regarding health effects of wireless and 5G in the New York Times have anything to do with the their new joint venture with Verizon in 5G journalism, or the fact that the Times board of directors includes officials from Facebook, Verizon, Media Lab, and other stalwarts of the telecom industry, while Carlos Slim, head of some of the largest telecom firms in the world, has downsized and now owns just 15 percent of its stock?”

Davis also points out a clear difference between American and Russian scientific expertise with regard to EMF:

“The history of research on the environmental and public health impacts of radio frequency microwave radiation (‘wireless radiation’) reveals some uneasy parallels with that of tobacco.

In the 1950s and 1960s, scientists who showed the harmful impacts of tobacco found themselves struggling for serious attention and financial support. The validity of their views was only accepted after the toll of sickness and death had become undeniable.

For health impacts from wireless radiation, a similar pattern is emerging. Each time a U.S. government agency produced positive findings, research on health impacts was defunded.

The Office of Naval Research, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and the Environmental Protection Agency all once had vibrant research programs documenting dangers of wireless radiation. All found their programs scrapped, reflecting pressure from those who sought to suppress this work.

Russian’s 50 years of research on electromagnetic radiation since the Cold War has led to their clear understanding that this exposure does have biological effects. The Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection issued a 2011 Resolution⁶⁰recommending persons under 18 not use a cell phone.”

Brain Cancer Risk Is Likely Real

While heart disease, dementia and infertility overshadow the risk of brain cancer, the possibility of cancer still remains, and may be a far more significant concern for young children who are growing up surrounded by wireless technologies than we realize.

The fact is, we won’t know for sure whether in utero and early cellphone use will increase brain cancer rates until a decade or two from now when today’s youths have grown up. Mounting research suggests cellphone radiation certainly influences your risk, and there are a number of compelling anecdotal reports that are hard to ignore.

In her article,⁶¹ Davis mentions Robert C. Kane, a senior telecom engineer “had willingly served as a guinea pig for Motorola and other companies developing new wireless technologies in the 1980s.”

He developed a type of malignant brain cancer the National Toxicology Program later confirmed was a side effect of cellphone radiation exposure (see video above). The NTPs results were published in 2018. Before his death in 2002, Kane published the book, “Cellphone Radiation — Russian Roulette,”⁶² in which he stated that:⁶³

“Never in human history has there been such a practice as we now encounter with the marketing and distributing of products hostile to the human biological system by an industry with foreknowledge of those effects.”

FCC Is a Captured Agency That Cannot Be Trusted

Davis also highlights another crucial problem, namely the fact that the FCC has been captured by the telecom industry, which in turn has perfected the disinformation strategies employed by the tobacco industry before it. She writes:⁶⁴

“… [I]n 2015 a Harvard expose tracked the revolving door between the FCC and the telecom industry and concluded that the FCC is a captured agency and that ‘Consumer safety, health, and privacy, along with consumer wallets, have all been overlooked, sacrificed, or raided due to unchecked industry influence.'”

The book in question is “Captured Agency: How the Federal Communications Commission Is Dominated by the Industries It Presumably Regulates,” written by investigative journalist Norm Alster.⁶⁵

As just one example, before his role as FCC chairman, Wheeler headed up the CTIA, which is the lobbying group for the wireless industry, which explains his commentary on 5G and why the FCC doesn’t believe in studying its health risks and “won’t wait for the standards.”

The book also shows how the telecom industry is manipulating public opinion by undermining the credibility of scientists that speak of dangers, cutting funds for research, publishing manipulated studies showing no harm and claiming “scientific consensus” of no harm when no such consensus actually exists. Naturally, the telecom industry also spends millions of dollars lobbying the FCC on issues that might impact its bottom line.⁶⁶

5G Threatens Weather Prediction

Interestingly, aside from potential health ramifications, a global 5G network will also threaten our ability to predict weather which, in addition to putting civilians at risk will also jeopardize the Navy.⁶⁷According to a recent paper⁶⁸ in the journal Nature, widespread 5G coverage will prevent satellites from detecting changes in water vapor, which is how meteorologists predict weather changes and storms.

Davis quotes⁶⁹ Stephen English, meteorologist at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts: “This is the first time we’ve seen a threat to what I’d call the crown jewels of our frequencies  — the ones that we absolutely must defend come what may.”

Alas, the FCC ignores such concerns and, according to Davis, “weather experts within the U.S. government are being muzzled.” In a recent letter to the FCC, Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., urge the agency to rein in the expansion of wireless communications in the 24 GHz band for this reason.⁷⁰

*

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Notes

¹ The Cellular Phone Task Force, Governments and Organizations that Ban or Warn Against Wireless Technology

² EMFScientist.org International Appeal to the UN May 11, 2015, updated January 1, 2019

³ Environ Int. 2014 Sep; 70C:106-112

⁴ Central European Journal of Urology 2014; 67(1): 65–71

⁵ Fertility and Sterility January 2012; 97(1): 39-45.e2

⁶ Scientists Warn of Potential Serious Health Effects of 5G, September 13, 2017 (PDF)

^7, 29, 48 Gaia.com May 14, 2019

⁸ EHtrust.org, 5G and Its Small Cell Towers Threaten Public Health

^9, 13 Fortune May 22, 2019

¹⁰ The Inquirer April 15, 2019

¹¹ Reuters April 17, 2019

¹² Government Technology May 10, 2019

¹⁴ US Senate, Richard Blumenthal February 7, 2019

^15, 17, 20 Counterpunch May 3, 2019

¹⁶ Prepared Remarks of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler June 20, 2016 (PDF)

¹⁸ Electromagnetic Health January 11, 2014

¹⁹ Nourish Balance Thrive July 29, 2018

^21, 32 Electric Sense May 12, 2017

^{22, 27, 31, 45} Environmental Health Trust, Letter to the FCC From Dr. Yael Stein MD in Opposition to 5G Spectrum Frontiers

²³ Telecom Power Grab, 5G Fact Sheet

²⁴ Environmental Health Trust 20 Facts About 5G Wireless

²⁵ Science.howstuffworks.com, Difference Between Backscatter Machines and MMW Scanners

²⁶ Phys Med Biol. 2011 Mar 7;56(5):1329-39

²⁸ Principia-scientific.org April 2, 2019

³⁰ Endoftheamericandream.com May 19, 2019

³³ Eluxemagazine, Frightening Frequencies

³⁴ ElectricSense, The Dangers of 5G, May 30, 2018 (PDF)

^35, 41, 43 A 5G Wireless Future by Dr. Cindy Russell (PDF)

^36, 42, 44 References List to A 5G Wireless Future by Dr. Cindy Russell (PDF)

³⁷ Klin Oczna. 1994 Aug-Sep;96(8-9):257-9

³⁸ Health Phys. 2009 Sep;97(3):212-8

³⁹ Zhonghua Lao Dong Wei Sheng Zhi Ye Bing Za Zhi. 2003 Oct;21(5):346-9

⁴⁰ Fiziol Zh SSSR Im I M Sechenova. 1992 Jan;78(1):35-41

⁴⁶ Biofizika. 2002 Jan-Feb;47(1):71-7

⁴⁷ Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology June 2016; 100(11): 4761-4771

⁴⁹ Gaia.com December 3, 2018

⁵⁰ Rev Environ Health. 2015;30(2):99-116

⁵¹ International Journal of Innovative Research in Engineering and Management, September 2015; 2(5)

⁵² J Cell Mol Med. 2013 Aug;17(8):958-65

⁵³ Current Chemical Biology 2016; 10(1): 74-82

⁵⁴ American Journal of Physiology 1996 Nov;271(5 Pt 1):C1424-37

⁵⁵ Physiol Rev. 2007 Jan; 87(1): 315–424

⁵⁶ JRS.BV EU Reflex Study Shows DNA Damage

⁵⁷ Journal of Chemical Neuroanatomy September 2016; 75 Part B: 43-51

^{58, 59, 61, 63, 64, 69} Medium May 18, 2019

⁶⁰ Resolution of Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (PDF)

⁶² Cell Phone Radiation — Russian Roulette (PDF)

⁶⁵ Ehtrust.org, Harvard Press Book on Telecom Industry Influence to the US FCC — Captured Agency by Norm Alster

⁶⁶ Opensecrets.org January 23, 2018

^67, 70 ZDnet.com May 14, 2019

⁶⁸ Nature April 26, 2019

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“I don’t think we’re well prepared at all. And I don’t think the public is aware of what’s coming,” said the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He was discussing the rapid advance of synthesis technology. This new artificial intelligence capability allows competent programmers to create audio and video of anyone, saying absolutely anything.

The creations are called “deepfakes” and however outrageous they may be, they’re virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.

No sooner had we adjusted to a world where our reality seemed fake, then things that are fake became our reality.

“We’re outgunned,” said a UC Berkeley digital-forensics expert, “The number of people now working on video-synthesis outnumber those working on detecting deepfakes by 100-1.”

Twitter suspended 4,779 accounts it believed are associated with Iran’s theocratic leaders. It republished every tweet sent by these accounts to help researchers analyze and spot behavioral patterns.  Already two-thirds of Americans say altered images and videos have become a major problem for understanding the basic facts of current events.

Misinformation researchers warn of growing “reality apathy” whereby it takes so much effort to distinguish between what’s real and fake that we simply give up and rely on our base instincts, tribal biases, impulses. Immersed in our leader’s deceits, we come to believe in nothing. Two oil tankers burst into flames, billowing smoke.

On cue, a suspicious Iranian Revolutionary Guard boat appeared on grainy video. Viral images flooded earth’s nine billion screens. Each side told a different story. No one quite knew who to trust. Conspiracy theories filled the void, as we each clung to what we most want to believe. And as truth slowly slipped away, we turned to market prices as our proxy for reality; oil prices fell, stocks rallied, volatility declined.

But of course, it is precisely because market prices still retain some reflection of reality that our policy makers and politicians work so desperately to manipulate them.

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In 2015, the United States, several other nations and the European Union signed an agreement with the government of Iran that limited Iran’s nuclear development program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions against Iran. During the final years of the Obama presidency, and the first year of the bizarre and erratic administration of Donald Trump, all parties were in compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). This was attested to by the United Nation International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which inspected Iran’s nuclear sites regularly, and the fact that many nations were now freely and profitably trading with Iran.

But as Trump attempted to undo everything his popular predecessor had accomplished, he violated the JCPOA by withdrawing from it completely. He reissued sanctions, and threatened the other signatories, including some of the U.S.’s oldest and closest allies, with sanctions if they continued trading with Iran. The deal collapsed, with all the parties except Iran in violation of it.

The U.S. violation was condemned around the world, by nearly every nation on the planet except apartheid Israel, whose racist prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had addressed the U.S. Congress before that body voted, urging its members to defeat the agreement; despite his efforts, Congress agreed to support the JCPOA.

Wanting out of the deal, Trump sought some rationale that he felt would pass muster with the public, to enable him to violate both domestic and international law. His minions located an article by one Heshmat Alavi, saying that the deal allowed Iran to increase its military budget, something to which the U.S. objected.

There are a few things worth exploring a bit more deeply in this. First, since the United States has a bloated military budget that is equal to the military budgets of the next eight countries with the largest such budgets, it is a bit disingenuous for the U.S. to criticize any other country’s military budget. And since Iran is surrounded by U.S. military bases, it is completely understandable for that nation to want to be sure it has what it needs to protect its people from U.S. aggression.

Next, let us look at the ‘journalist’ who wrote the article Trump cited, one Heshmat Alavi. His purported work has appeared in a wide variety of journals over the years. However, on closer scrutiny, we learn that Mr. Alavi simply doesn’t exist! He is a creation of the political wing of the terrorist organization known as Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), which exists for the sole purpose of overthrowing the government of Iran. From 1997 to 2012, the MEK was officially designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States.

Despite that fact that many articles have appeared under the name Heshmat Alavi, and there are active Faceook and Twitter accounts under that name, a Google search of that name today exposes the fact that there is no such person. Yet the MEK has successfully fooled many journals; for example, at least sixty-one articles under that name appear in Forbes magazine from April of 2017 to April of 2018.

This raises even more questions: why does the U.S. need invented ‘journalists’ to sell its anti-Iran story? Could it be, possibly, because the truth is nothing like the U.S. says, and so relying on a made-up writer for made-up stories is the best it can do?

And what about journalistic integrity? One can imagine Forbes falling for one, or even two articles by a bogus, non-existent journalist, but sixty-one in one year? Does no one question this?

Most journalists (this writer included), don’t hide from the public. In addition to writing, they speak at public forums, and their faces may be almost as well-known as their names. Where has the illusive Mr. Alavi been? Was he too busy writing all those articles for Forbes to crawl out of whatever hole he lived in to speak publicly about issues important to him? No, that is not the case; he was unable to speak at any conference, symposium, rally, etc., because he doesn’t exist.

This is the ‘writer’ whose ‘work’ Donald Trump cited to justify violating international law, and to bring the threat of a devastating war to an area of the world that his predecessor had made significant progress in calming. This is the ‘writer’ that not only Forbes, but The Hill, the Daily Caller, the Diplomat and other so-called responsible news outlets gave a platform to.

And what is MEK? It is a well-organized terrorist group, which gets support from the world’s foremost sponsor of terrorism, the United States, and seeks the overthrow of the Iranian government. It is described as “widely loathed”[1] among Iranians, yet one article ascribed to Alavi says it’s the “main Iranian opposition group”[2]. How ‘he’ purports to speak for Iranians, when ‘he’ heads a group hated by most of them, is beyond rational comprehension.

The MEK has gained influence in U.S. government circles and has paid prominent politicians to speak on its behalf.  The Intercept, on June 9 of this year, further reported that “…the MEK’s messaging has emphasized regime change – and attempted to present the MEK as a viable alternative to the Islamic Republic’s leadership….”[3] Articles under the name Alavi support these positions, and often put forward the name of Maryam Rajavi, MEK’s leader, as the future leader of Iran.

This indicates the level of credibility that the U.S. has. How can anyone take seriously the pronouncements of a government that uses a non-existent journalist to establish policy? How can the U.S. news media be seen as credible, when it publishes numerous articles under the name of a non-existent person?

This is, of course, hardly the first time that the U.S. has increased and justified its aggression and belligerency based on lies, lies that the media heartily endorses. Prior to the Gulf War (1990 – 1991), President George H. W. Bush cited the moving testimony given to the Congressional Human Rights Caucus by a young woman named Nariyah, who claimed to be a teenage volunteer at a Kuwaiti hospital. ‘Nariyah’ said this:

“While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators and left the children to die on the cold floor. It was horrifying.”[4]

Bush and members of Congress cited this testimony repeatedly to gain support for the war. News outlets readily parroted these words. Yet it was all a lie. ‘Nariyah’ was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador. She eventually admitted that she had once briefly visited the hospital in question. Her testimony was arranged by the Hill and Knowlton (H&K) public relations firm, hired by an organization called ‘Citizens for a Free Kuwait’, which was financed mainly by the Kuwaiti government.[5]

Will the MEK have the same success as ‘Citizens for a Free Kuwait’ had nearly thirty years ago? Will it be instrumental in starting yet another unjust war in which countless innocent men, women and children will die by the mighty U.S. war machine? One hopes that cooler heads prevail, but in the Trump White House, there don’t seem to be any. An invasion of Iran by the U.S. or Israel would have disastrous consequences throughout the world. Leaders of all other governments should be doing everything in their power to prevent it.

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Notes

[1] https://iran-interlink.org/wordpress/mek-cult-operatives-undermining-american-democracy/. Accessed on June 17, 2019

[2] https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/heshmat-alavi-fake-iran-mek/. Accessed on June 17.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Michael Kunczik, Images of Nations and International Public Relations (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997), 280.

[5] Ted Rowse, “Kuwaitgate,” The Washington Monthly, September 1992.

Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations Dr. Bashar Jaafari delivered yet another speech at the UNSC focussing on the  unfolding situation in Idlib,

The English transcript of his presentation is indicated below. 

The video includes the full statement in Arabic with English translation subtitles

.

.

English translation transcript of the Dr. Jaafari’s statement:

Thank you, Mr. President,

This meeting comes in a timely manner, in order to allow us and a number of other countries to put the Security Council in the picture of terrorist attacks by armed terrorist groups from Idlib against the neighboring towns and villages of Aleppo, Northern Hama, and the northern Latakia countrysides.

When I talk about the attacks, I would like to point out that the last of these attacks was the massacre carried out by these groups two days ago in the village of al-Wadihi in the southern countryside of Aleppo, a crime that resulted in the killing of 12 civilians and injuring more than 16 others while participating in a wedding in the village.

The lives of the inhabitants of this village, which was safe and lead a normal life, were transformed into a state of terror that can hardly be described by the fall of missiles launched by the terrorists of Nusra Front, who are supported by Erdogan’s Turkish regime… The bodies of the martyrs and the wounded, mostly women and children, were scattered in the alleys of the village. They also caused extensive damage to homes, private and public property, including the health center and the village mosque.

This barbaric crime comes as part of a series of crimes committed by these terrorist groups led by the HTS terrorist organization, which is Nusra Front organization, which is on the Security Council’s list of terrorist organizations and entities, being Al-Qaeda Organization in Syria, these crimes must be clearly and inexplicably condemned by the Security Council.

Mr president,

Here are some of the crimes that led to the death of dozens and injuring hundreds of innocent civilians, including many women and children, I will limit the talk here about the civilian victims and will not mention the military victims:

• The targeting of the town of al-Sakilibiya and the town of Ein al-Krum and the village of Bilhsein on May 25 with dozens of shells.
• The targeting of the cities of Silhib and al-Siklibiya on 26 May with more than 30 rockets.
• Targeting the town of Qamhani on 29 and 31 of May with a number of rockets.
• Targeting the towns of the Qalaat Al-Madiq, Karakat, and Shat-ha in the northern and northwest of Hama countryside with dozens of shells and missiles.
• Targeting multiple areas in the province of Aleppo and its countryside frequently with dozens of rockets and missiles.
• Targeting the city of Jablah with several missiles.
• The targeting of the city of Mhardeh frequently, and the most recent was the dawn of this day with dozens of rockets.

This is in addition to the continuous targeting of the positions of the Syrian Arab Army and the locations of the allied Russian forces, especially the Hmeimim airport, with rockets and booby-trapped drones.

As some like to ask questions, a good question arises for you and for all of us: Who provides these terrorists with all these weapons? Where do these weapons come from? By parachutes? from another planet? Or from member states of this Council and outside it? Who provides terrorists with rockets, tanks, missiles, and mines? Where does all this momentum of weapons and terrorists come from? Did not we get 100,000 foreign terrorists through our border with Turkey? How many times have we mentioned this in this Council and outside it? A subcommittee of the Security Council confirmed the validity of our statement that 101 Member States of this Organization are exporting pure terrorism to Syria.

Mr. President,

The statements we heard in this room today indicate that there is a common realization that there is a problem to be dealt with in Idlib, that’s what we understood from the talk of the colleagues that there is a problem in Idlib. The Syrian Idlib of course, I am not talking about an Idlib in Florida and I am not talking about an Idlib in Britain or about an Idlib in Germany. I am talking about the SYRIAN Idlib.

I explained to you earlier on May 17, last month, in detail that the problem was the continuation of the Turkish regime and its accomplices by providing various forms of support to terrorist groups and this (Turkish) regime’s abrogation of its commitments under the de-escalation agreement and the Understandings of Astana and Sochi.

This has allowed HTS terrorist organization (Nusra Front), which includes tens of thousands of foreign terrorists in its ranks, including of course more than 15 thousand Europeans, which allowed the HTS terrorist organization control completely on the city of Idlib and some of its neighboring areas in north-west Syria and create a terrorist outpost that blackmails the Syrian state and take hundreds of thousands Civilians as human shields, committing the most heinous crimes against them, spreading death and destruction, and confiscating civilian facilities, including hospitals and schools, and turning them into military barracks and centers for the detention, torture and killing of those who reject extremist Takfiri and its retard rulings.

By the way, when some colleagues are talking, Mr. Lowcock was unfortunately one of them, and Mrs. de Carlo, I do not know where they got their information, but when they said there were 27 medical facilities in Idlib that were targeted, actually they said hospitals, I would like to tell all of you that Damascus, the Syrian capital, where 8 million people live in has 8 public hospitals only, and 9 public hospitals in Damascus countryside, this means 9 + 8 = 17, meaning Damascus, the capital, where 8 million people live, has only 17 public hospitals, add to it 10 private hospitals, if you like, the number does not reach 30 hospitals. Aleppo has 11 public hospitals, add to them another 10 private hospitals: 21 hospitals in Aleppo, which is the second largest city in Syria, in which 5 million people live.

And when we come to talk about Idlib, Idlib has 4 public hospitals only, we add 4 more private hospitals, the total is 8 hospitals. Where do these figures come from that there are 27 hospitals targeted in Idlib? Let us know and give us the sources from which they draw this information.

I tell you here publicly that what has been said is misleading and false whatever the source that provides this information is a misguided source. There are no 27 hospitals in Idlib. Huh, now for our colleague the British Ambassador, if the White Helmets have opened a room in a cellar in a building, where it launches missiles and shells from, this is another thing, this is not a hospital. This is not a hospital, this is called a makeshift medical facility. This is a hallucination and a cinema on the ground when they call it a hospital. It is not a hospital. It is a room they open in a cellar in one of the buildings used for bombing civilians and the Syrian Arab army from.

Another scandal, as human feelings are overflowing today, do you know that after 8 years of imposing sanctions, or what they call unilateral coercive measures, because they are not imposed by you and are not legal, after 8 years, and with such overflowing human feelings we heard today, the United States and the European Union prohibit the export of medical devices such as the MRI and CT Scan to Syria until today, and the surgical procedures required by Syrian doctors for surgical operations? What is this overflowing human feeling that prevents the export of medical devices such as MRI and CT Scan and surgical thread for surgical operations? This is a blemish, it is a defect, the least what we can describe it, if not a crime, and OCHA does not see of course, and Ms. de Carlo does not see the Humanists pen carriers do not see this.

The Syrian government and its allies do NOT target hospitals or schools, at all, because these are our hospitals and our schools.

Mr president,

The implementation of the principles of international law, the provisions of the Charter and the decisions of this Council concerning the fight against terrorism requires, in this case, support the efforts of the Syrian State and its allies in combating terrorism and to build a partnership with it as the party concerned to end the existence of terrorism in Syria and improve the humanitarian situation in general, instead of calling for these show-off sessions, and spread misleading information and to charge accusations against my country and its allies, in order to rescue the terrorist groups and obstruct the legal measures taken by the Syrian government to protect its citizens and rid them of the control of terrorist organizations which use them as human shields.

What is required is a complete departure from attempts to undermine the sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic, and from any attempts to exploit the crisis to serve the destructive agendas of some States and their clients, and to desist from selective policies and systematically biased approaches that are unequivocally reflected in some Member States ignoring of the crimes the terrorist organizations are committing, and ignoring the role of the known countries that support terrorism, as well as the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the International Coalition in Raqqa, Deir Al-Zour, Alhajin and Al-Baghouz, which were mentioned by my dear colleague the Ambassador of the Russian Federation, and in other areas in my country as well as the detention of tens of thousands of Syrian civilians by the American occupation forces in Al-Rukban Camp. Al-Rukban camp, of course, is Syrian land. We repeat it for the 100th time: Al-Rukban camp is a Syrian land occupied by US forces, where it sponsors a terrorist group called Maghaweer Al-Thawra. This faction collects 100 thousand Syrian Lira from each Syrian civilian who wants to leave the Rukban camp, extortion money, with the knowledge of the US forces, of course. a father, his wife and five children have to pay 700,000 Syrian Liras, only to get out of the camp.

Mr. President,

Ending the suffering of the Syrians in Idlib and other Syrian areas requires:

First: Addressing the main causes of the suffering of the Syrians: the policies of the governments of the state sponsors of terrorism and the practices of their armed terrorist organizations and the continuing crimes committed by the so-called international coalition and its proxy militias, including the deliberate burning of wheat and barley crops.

Since we’re talking about the burning of agricultural crops of wheat and barley, two or three days ago an announcement was issued in Turkey in Arabic addressed to Syrian farmers indicates the willingness of the Turkish government to buy their wheat and barley in Turkish Lira, what is not burned is sold to Turkey at a quarter of its price. Then they tell us that we are falsely accusing Turkey of wrongdoingس, we are falsely accusing Erdogan’s regime of wrongdoings, no, it’s not false accusations, no.

The Turkish regime has absolutely no regards to the neighborhood value If it had an atom of political wisdom, this regime would have been thinking about the future, let alone the international law and the agreements governing our good neighborly relations with Turkey. This regime must look to the future. We and they are in this region by virtue of geography and history, the Erdogan regime should not open up its border with Syria for hundreds of thousands of foreign terrorists and the smuggling of all kinds of weapons into Syria, including the chemical weapon, which they brought from Benghazi (Libya) through Istanbul and then to Aleppo, Khan al-Asal, the story I told you about before, it was transferred by a Syrian terrorist working for The Turkish intelligence, his name is Haitham Kassar, all of this is mentioned in official letters with you, 800 official letters full of information we sent you, but some do not want to read.

Second: Ending the illegal presence of US and Turkish forces on the territories of the Syrian Arab Republic and ending the suffering of millions of civilians in the areas controlled by these forces.

Third: the immediate and unconditional lifting of the illegal unilateral coercive measures imposed on the Syrian people, which constitute economic terrorism and collective punishment for the Syrian people.

Fourth: To put an end to the deliberate and systematic politicization of humanitarian affairs and attempts to exploit it by some States for purposes that are in total contradiction with the principles of humanitarian action.

Fifth: Supporting the efforts of the Syrian state in the process of reconstruction, reconstruction of what has been destroyed by terrorism, which is opposed by the USA, Britain, France and some other countries, these countries are against the reconstruction of what has been destroyed by terrorism in Syria and I leave for you to figure out the reason behind that. To facilitate the safe and dignified return of the Syrian displaced to their homeland and to direct donor pledges to serve this objective.

In conclusion, Mr. President,

Despite the adoption by this Council of more than 46 resolutions on the combating terrorism, and the passing of nearly 9 years on the terrorist war waged against my country Syria and the exposure of the dimensions of this war and the role played by the governments of some countries to enrich and prolong it, in spite of all this, some members of this council, and outside of it, are still investing in terrorism and see in it a partner to target the Syrian state, instead of building a partnership with the Syrian state to combat terrorism. I also leave you the trouble to draw the conclusion from this.

I reiterate here that the Syrian Government will not bow down to the terrorist war imposed on it and will not allow the endangerment of the lives of its citizens.

The Syrian Government will continue to exercise its sovereign and constitutional right and to implement the provisions of the Charter and the principles of international law in defending its land and its citizens, combating terrorism and ending the illegal foreign presence on all the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic, and the Government of my country is committed to achieving a political solution in which the Syrians, alone, will decide their future and choices through the Syrian-Syrian dialogue and with Syria’s leadership without external interference and guaranteeing the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Syria.

Thank you, Mr. President.

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The passing of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi presents the perfect opportunity for reflecting on his controversial legacy and the real impact that this Muslim Brotherhood leader had on the region.

Former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi passed away on Monday due to what are largely thought to have been health complications arising from his poorly treated blood pressure and diabetes while in custody. The country’s brief leader was overthrown in a 2013 military coup by now-President Sisi in response to rising protests against his rule driven by many of his secular compatriots who were extremely uncomfortable with a member of the previously and once-again banned Muslim Brotherhood as their head of state. Morsi narrowly won the presidency by less than a one million vote margin in a country of over 90 million people, so his mandate was always questionable and gave rise to rumors about its legitimacy.

Importantly, Morsi shared the same ideology as both the Qatari and Turkish leaders, so his rise to power provoked fears among some regional security stakeholders that a new axis of influence was forming in the Mideast, one that could threaten both the remaining secular governments and the monarchic ones as well, both of whom shared little in common other than their agreement that the Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization. It’s due to this strategic consideration that many believe that the Gulf Kingdoms secretly played a role in Sisi’s 2013 coup, which led to the Brotherhood being banned once again and Morsi charged with a bevy of crimes that resulted in an overturned death sentence.

Supporters of the coup believe that it prevented the country from descending into civil war given the dangerous polarization that it entered into following the onset of the so-called “Arab Spring“. They also point to Morsi’s anti-Assad stance and believe that he was planning to play a leading role in the War of Terror on Syria had he not been stopped by the military. Critics of the coup, however, denounced it as a foreign-backed anti-democratic seizure of power that merely replicated the same Color Revolution tactics that brought Morsi himself into power in the first place. They’re also very unhappy with with Sisi’s presidency because they don’t see much of a difference between him and Mubarak.

Morsi’s alleged mistreatment and ultimate death in custody are also being interpreted by some as a message to Turkish President Erdogan of the fate that could befall him if he’s ever overthrown as well, such as what was unsuccessfully attempted during the summer 2016 coup events. The two leaders are ideological brothers-in-arms with a vision of Islamifying their decades-long officially secular societies, which Erdogan has already almost fully succeeded with whereas Morsi never really had much of a chance. Granted, there are serious differences between both societies that facilitated and impeded those leaders’ plans, but with Morsi out of the picture and Qatar largely “contained”, Erdogan’s Turkey is now the Muslim Brotherhood’s last main torchbearer.

Interestingly, although Russia officially regards the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization and wasn’t on good terms at all with Morsi, it nowadays has no problem with Erdogan and is actually in a fast-moving strategic partnership with his country. This seemingly contradictory stance can be explained by contemporary geopolitics and the prevailing fears around the time of the “Arab Spring”. Russian General Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov wrote in February 2013 that Moscow regards the aforementioned events as a series of Color Revolutions that catalyzed regional conflicts, whereas President Putin just praised Turkey the other day during the SCO Summit in Bishkek for contributing to Russia and Iran’s joint victory over Daesh in Syria.

Quite clearly, Russia doesn’t consider Erdogan’s embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood to be as threatening as Morsi’s was, most likely because Turkey nowadays cooperates real closely with Russia in Syria after its geopolitical volte-face since the failed summer 2016 coup attempt while Egypt was supposedly getting ready militantly export its model to Syria and elsewhere in the region before Sisi’s successful 2013 coup. The thought exercise of comparing and contrasting Morsi’s Egypt with Erdogan’s Turkey therefore reveals that geopolitical calculi were the main reason why Russia eventually came to treat these two very ideologically similar states differently in spite of their nearly identical regional visions.

With this in mind and reflecting on the rest of Morsi’s legacy, most observers would agree that this fallen leader elicits very strong partisan political reactions from the average person, who either strongly supports him as the best of Egypt’s post-independence leaders or vehemently opposes him as its worst, believing that he embodied a brief period of hope or epitomized the chaos of the times, respectively. Some will insist that he was brought to power by the people and taken down by a foreign plot, while others maintain that his rise was due to a foreign-influenced Color Revolution and only ended with a patriotic coup. Whichever way one looks at it, the myth will always overshadow the man, for better or for worse, making Morsi’s legacy all the more contentious.

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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.

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The War of Oil Tankers

By Dr. Elias Akleh, June 19, 2019

The economic war waged by Trump’s administration against Iran seems to have been escalated to involve false flag attacks against oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump Regime Planning War on Iran Based on Big Lies and Deception?

By Stephen Lendman, June 19, 2019

Iran remains the US/Israeli prime target for regime change, the Trump regime waging all-out war by other means, threatening to turn hot because sanctions and related hostile actions haven’t toppled its government for the past 40 years and won’t likely ahead.

Why Russia’s S-400 Is a More Formidable Threat to US Arms Industry than You Think

By Federico Pieraccini, June 19, 2019

Their deployment in Syria has slowed down the ability of such advanced air forces as those of the United States and Israel to target the country, increasing as it does the embarrassing possibility of having their fourth- or fifth-generation fighters shot down.

Who Are the Arsonists of the Petrol Tankers in the Gulf?

By Manlio Dinucci, June 19, 2019

While the United States prepares a new escalation of tension in the Middle East by accusing Iran of attacking petrol tankers in the Gulf of Oman, Italian vice-Prime Minister Matteo Salvini met with one of the artisans of this strategy in Washington, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, assuring him that “Italy wants to regain its place as the major partner on the European continent of the greatest Western democracy”.

“Heightened Tensions With Iran”: Provoking the Bear and the Dragon – And Hoping for the Best?

By Peter Koenig, June 19, 2019

Controlling Iran, means basically controlling not only the entire Middle East with all its riches, but it’s also contributing to the Chosen People’s – Israel, the Zionists’ – overall goal to exert hegemony over the world’s finances – controlling the globe’s economy.

False Identities Become the New Weapon: War with Iran Promoted by Fake Journalists

By Philip Giraldi, June 18, 2019

A prime example of a false internet persona has recently surfaced in the form of an alleged “activist” invented by the Iranian terrorist group Mojahedin e Khalq (MEK).

NATO Consolidation: The “Baltic Reassurance Act” Is a Ruse for Provoking Russia

By Andrew Korybko, June 18, 2019

The proposed “Baltic Reassurance Act” aims to more closely integrate the Baltic countries into NATO, but its most controversial clause is the suggestion that “the United States should lead a multilateral effort to develop a strategy to deepen joint capabilities with [those three countries], NATO allies, and other regional partners”, strongly implying that this legislation is a ruse for provoking Russia by facilitating non-NATO-members Finland and Sweden’s military interoperability with the bloc under the pretext of protecting the Baltics.

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Russia’s “Return to South Asia” was supposed to see it build the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline as a means of promoting peaceful multipolar regional integration, but the US is about to jeopardize this plan after it was disclosed just days before Pompeo’s upcoming visit to India that America has suddenly become the South Asian state’s top trading partner.

Regional integration processes are one of the defining features of the emerging Multipolar World Order, and in spite of India sabotaging the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), there was recently hope that Russia could play a pivotal “balancing” role in reviving this organization through the energy component of its “Return to South Asia“. The Eurasian Great Power envisaged building the long-discussed Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline after having already clinched memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with the first two-mentioned states for this $10 billion regional connectivity initiative , with negotiations currently ongoing with the Indian side to ensure their support as well. Therein lays the weak link in this vision, however, since India is unlikely to go along with Russia’s plans, or if it does unexpectedly end up signing a MOU in this respect, it would only be doing so to buy time and save face before eventually creating a pretext to pull out of the project.

It’s not that India doesn’t need reliable access to gas — it does, and urgently — but that the intense pressure being brought upon it by its new American military-strategic ally might make it impossible for it to seal a deal with Russia, let alone one that would see Moscow guaranteeing the export of Iranian resources to what is predicted to be the world’s most populous country before the end of the next decade. The US has imposed unilateral sanctions against both of those multipolar Great Powers, and India is already complying with the ones against the Islamic Republic. It’s very likely that it will soon do the same when it comes to purchasing Russia’s S-400s, especially if Pompeo’s upcoming trip sees his promised “surprise” being an official offer to place India on its International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) list as a reward for replacing those systems with THAADs, Patriots, and possibly even F-35s instead. Russia can’t offer India the treasure trove of high-tech military equipment that the US could through that arrangement, so it’s a no-brainer which of the two New Delhi will probably go with.

Perhaps the most important factor, however, is that it was just disclosed days before the Secretary of State’s trip that the US is now India’s top trading partner, which Sputnik reports is due to the increase of American energy exports after New Delhi ditched Tehran. Part of the reason why the US wants to replace Russia as India’s preferred military partner just like it’s already succeeded in doing with Iran as regards its target’s energy needs is to more deeply entrench its comprehensive economic influence over the South Asian state so that it can more effectively weaponize the market access on which New Delhi is increasingly growing dependent, leveraging sanctions and tariff threats in order to completely control its new “Lead From Behind” “Indo-Pacific” proxy prior to clinching a forthcoming free trade deal with it to institutionalize this relationship. Seeing as how the US already got India to stop purchasing Iranian energy and might very well get it do to the same when it comes to Russia’s S-400s, it’s extremely unlikely that it would just sit back and accept its new vassal signing a regional pipeline deal with both Great Powers that are under its current international sanctions regime.

The scenario therefore arises that Russia might not be able to rely on India as the largest and final customer of its prospective IPI pipeline, thus compelling it to plan for the possibility of having this project either fully servicing the global pivot state of Pakistan or extending across the country to China via the energy corridor of E-CPEC+. Both solutions are economically and strategically viable, with the latter one understandably being much more expensive but ultimately resulting in the strengthening of the new Multipolar Trilateral between Russia, Pakistan, and China in the event that it’s ever completed. As such, Russia shouldn’t be too concerned about India possibly pulling out of the project or insincerely committing to it for the time being in order to buy time and save face before fully pivoting towards the US since the proverbial “silver lining” is that Moscow’s “Return to South Asia” will inevitably adapt to these changed circumstances and nevertheless still contribute to restoring “balance” to regional affairs in one way or another.

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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.

“Well, friends, that’s it for today. You have to live in uncertainty and get ahead no matter what it takes. A hug as always, full of dreams and hopes.” – Marta

With these words Marta Harnecker bade farewell to all her friends in her last mail on April 24th, after giving us her last brave report on the course of her illness. In these lines lies also her personal philosophy of life: even if we live in uncertainty, our steps must never stop because it is our duty to make this world full of dreams and hopes a reality, where peoples will finally reach justice, peace and full realization.

On Friday June 14, Marta, surely against her will, had to cross the threshold from this concrete plane to that of historical immortality. Her ideas, her tireless proposals for the construction of new worlds, her unshakable faith in the capacity of people to fight against the suffocating forces of the capitalist model and to make a real, substantive democracy prevail from an economic model, aimed at satisfying the material conditions of life for all without exception, are already part of the history of Our-American thought.

That was always the télos of her intellectual trajectory; a thought that was born from the oppressed South and was a forceful counter against the colonizing and exploiting forces of the North. That is why she tirelessly sought the keys to the new paths that would lead us to that world we must build: from her experience of decentralized participatory planning in Kerala, India, to participatory and protagonist democracy, proposed and activated by Hugo Chávez in Venezuela through 21st Century Socialism, and to which Marta Harnecker dedicated her years of greatest intellectual strength.

Along with her beloved companion, Michael Lebowitz, an equally brilliant intellectual mind, Marta managed to sketch to a great extent the coordinates of that world to which all thinkers committed to the struggles of our peoples aspire. In this struggle, we will always have the rich arsenal of ideas that Marta left embodied, even in her last days, in the great number of works she published (and those in preparation) several of which received international recognition through distinctions such as the Liberator Award for Critical Thinking in 2013.

For all these reasons, the Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity, of which Marta Harnecker is one of its founders and was an active participant in all its meetings, forums and public expressions, we honor her. And although today we feel her physical departure, greater is the feeling of being more committed to reinforce the passage that is in transit through the new roads marked by Marta towards that world that between all of us, together with the peoples, we are obliged to build as the only way to safeguard humanity and the planet.

Dear Marta, wherever you are, we join you in an embrace, one full of dreams and hopes.

In Our America, this June 16, 2019.

Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity

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A Political Instrument Appropriate for Each Reality

by Marta Harnecker

A. Why Is a Political Organization Necessary?

1. The recent mobilizations occurring in Latin America and in the world confirm what Lenin wrote in 1914¹: “Without organization the masses lack unity of will” and without that they cannot struggle against the “powerful terrorist military organization” of the Capitalist states.

2. In order for political action to be effective, so that protests, resistance and struggles are genuinely able to change things, to convert mass uprisings into revolutions, a political instrument capable of overcoming the dispersion and fragmentation of the exploited and the oppressed is required: one that can create spaces to bring together those who, in spite of their differences, have a common enemy; that is able to strengthen existing struggles and promote others by orientating their actions according to a thorough analysis of the political situation; that can act as an instrument for cohering the many expressions of resistance and struggle.

3. The history of triumphant revolutions clearly demonstrates what can be achieved when a political instrument exists that is capable of raising an alternative national program to unify the struggles of diverse social actors behind a common goal; that helps them to cohere and that elaborates a path forward for these actors based on an analysis of the existent balance of forces. Only in this manner can actions be carried out at the right place and the right time, always seeking out the weakest link in the enemy’s chain.

4. The political instrument is like a piston in a locomotive which transforms steam power into the motion that is transmitted to the wheels, driving the locomotive forward, and with it, the whole train. Strong organizational cohesion does not alone provide the major objective capacity for acting, but at the same time, it creates an internal climate that makes possible energetic interventions into events, profiting from the opportunities these offer. It must be remembered that in politics one does not only have to be right but one must also be timely and rely on strength to achieve success.

5. On the contrary, not having clear ideas of the reasons to struggle and the feeling of not relying on solid instruments that permit adopted decisions to be put into practice, has a negative influence, resulting in action being paralyzed.

ii) A Workshop for Strategic Thinking

6. A political instrument is required because we need a body that sets the scene for the first draft of a proposal, a program or national project that is an alternative to capitalism. This programme or project serves as a sea chart for finding the way, for making sure we don’t get lost, for putting the construction of socialism on the right road, for not confusing what has to be done now with what has to be done later, for knowing what steps to take and how to take them; in other words, we need a compass to ensure the ship doesn’t run adrift, but rather, reaches its destination safely.

7. This task needs time, research and knowledge of the national and international situation. It is not something that can be improvised overnight, much less so in the complex world in which we live. This project must be set out in a programme that serves as that sea chart we talked about earlier and that becomes something concrete in a national development plan.

8. The initial preparation will always have to be done by the political organization, but I believe we must be very mindful that, as it progresses, this project should be enriched and modified by social practice, with opinions and suggestions from the social actors because, as previously stated, socialism cannot be decreed from on high, it has to be built with the people.

9. Rosa Luxemburg never tired of repeating that the path to socialism was not laid down in advance and that neither were there predetermined formulas and blueprints, since the “modern proletarian class does not conduct its struggle according to any blueprint reproduced in a book or a theory. The modern workers’ struggle is a part of history, a part of social evolution and we learn how we should fight in the midst of history, in the midst of evolution, in the midst of the struggle.”²

10. The political instrument must stimulate a constant debate on the big national issues so that this plan, and the more concrete programs that stem from it, are constantly enriched. I agree with Farruco Sesto that these debates cannot be limited to a simple confrontation of ideas but should “lead to the collective construction of ideas and of answers to the problems […] Arguments added to or raised against other ideas will allow a shared truth to be created.”³

11. The political organization should be – according to Sesto – “a huge workshop for strategic thought, deployed all over the country.” I in particular think that the political instrument should not only encourage an internal debate but should also endeavour to facilitate active participation in spaces for public debate – such as those we have previously mentioned – on subjects of more general interest in which all concerned citizens can take part.

12. For this reason, I find myself once again in agreement with Farruco that since the party is not something apart from the people but rather has to make “its life within the people” the ideal place for this debate is “in the bosom of the popular movement.” Moreover, “if one of the strategic lines of the revolution is to transfer power to the people, that implies transferring not only the ability to take decisions but also that of working out the bases for that decision [because] producing ideas and making clear the road to take is the most important activity in the exercise of power.”

iii) A Guide that Details the Steps to be Followed

13. The political instrument is necessary, not only to coordinate the popular movement and promote theoretical thinking, but also for defining strategy. A political guide is needed that details the steps to be followed for implementing proposed theory, in conjunction with the analysis of the existing correlation of forces. Only in this way can actions be launched at the most opportune time and place, always seeking the weakest link in the opponent’s chain, taking advantage of the steam contained in the boiler at the decisive moment, converting it into an impelling force, and avoiding it being wasted. Of course, as Trotsky said, what moves things is not the piston, but the steam; that is the energy that surges from mobilized masses.

14. And if a political instrument is necessary for success in taking power, it is also fundamental in the construction of the new society, an alternative to Capitalism, as we spoke about before.

B. Overcoming the Subjective Block

15. We are aware that there are a number of apprehensions toward such ideas. There are many who are not even willing to discuss them. Such positions are adopted because they associate this idea with the anti-democratic, authoritarian, bureaucratic and manipulative political practices that have characterized many left-wing parties.

16. I believe that it is very important to overcome this subjective block because I am convinced, as I said earlier, that there can be no effective struggle against the current system of domination, nor can an alternative socialist society be built, without the existence of a body capable of bringing all the actors together and of unifying their will for action around the goals they set.

17. It is paradoxical that Hardt and Negri who admit that we live in a ‘global state of war’, that the full democracy we want has yet to be built, who justify the use of violence as self-defence against imperial power, who say that the multitude, “is a project of political organization and thus can be achieved only through political practices,”⁴ and that “the multitude must be able to make decisions and act in common,” do not accept the idea, however, that there should be a “central point of command and intelligence”⁵ and have no suggestions whatsoever of how to implement the decisions taken by common action.

C. Why a Political Instrument and not A Political Party

i) Lenin Against a Universal Vision

18. Owing to the growing disparagement of politics and politicians, many people tend to reject the term ‘party’. That is why I prefer to speak of the political instrument.

19. But this is not the only reason; there is a more fundamental reason that seeks to emphasize the instrumental character that all political revolutionary organizations have to have.

20. If what is at issue is the leading of the struggle of popular sectors, organizational questions cannot become the objective itself, just a tool that enables this objective to be reached.

21. And the form which this struggle takes depends on the reality of each country. One cannot have a single formula for the organization; it must be defined to fit the characteristics of each social reality.

22. Contrary to many of his followers in their first attempts to create a revolutionary party in Russia, Lenin was absolutely clear that it was not a question of developing a universal formula. He knew well how European social democracy, functioning under bourgeois democratic regimes, was organized: in order to fight electorally, it was organized into strong legal parties; therefore, their characteristics could not be transferred mechanically to czarist Russia, whose autocratic regime prevented all open revolutionary political organizations. And neither could the model of the old Russian clandestine revolutionary organizations be used, although it was necessary to learn from them about certain conspiracy techniques.

23. What was to be done to create a revolutionary party in Russia – a country in which a terrorist state existed, which relied on a very minimal, highly concentrated and very combative working class? According to the Bolshevik leader, what had to be done was to create a closed party of disciplined militants – true revolutionary groups – and with them go “in meeting with the spontaneous movements of popular sectors, or more precisely, the proletariat of the factories, to create an organization for this movement which was necessary for the conditions” of the country.⁶

ii) The Third International and the Communist Parties

24. For Lenin, it was absolutely clear that there is no universal formula. He always saw the party as the political subject par excellence of social transformation, as the instrument that would provide political direction to the class struggle – a struggle that always takes place under specific historical, political and social conditions. He therefore believed that the party’s organic structure should be adapted to the reality of each country, and modified according to the concrete demands of struggle.

25. These early ideas of Lenin were ratified at the 3rd Congress of the Communist International in 1921. In one of his works⁷ he argues the following: “There is no absolute form of organization which is correct for Communist Parties at all times. The conditions of the proletarian class struggle are constantly changing, and so, the proletarian vanguard has always to be looking for effective forms of organization. Equally, each Party must develop its own special forms of organization to meet the particular historically-determined conditions within the country.”

26. Nevertheless, in spite of the International’s instructions, communist parties in practice followed a single model in spite of the differences between the countries where they were founded.

27. That could be explained in some way if two criteria are taken into account that Lenin considered of universal application. The first referred to the concept of the revolutionary party as a party of the working class and the second, the demand that in order to belong to the Communist International, each one of these parties must necessarily adopt the name Communist Party.

28. Such assumptions were applied dogmatically by the Latin American section of the International, whose influence was extremely damaging. Their leaders devotedly copied formulas invented for an undifferentiated Third World and ignored the specificities of Latin American countries. We don’t have to go too far back to be reminded of the problems Mariátegui faced when he did not respect the International’s decision about the name of the working class party he founded; he called it the Socialist Party and not Communist Party, a prerequisite for joining the International.

iii) Important Popular Sectors are Ignored

29. The acritical emphasis placed on the working class led to Latin America parties ignoring the specific characteristics of that continent’s revolutionary social subject and to not understanding the role that indigenous people and Christians can play in revolutions in Latin American.

30. It is obvious that, at this time in our countries, the popular struggle is developing in very different circumstances from those of czarist Russia. But it is also obvious that Venezuela is not Cuba nor Nicaragua, nor is Bolivia the same as Ecuador. In each country, there are different circumstances that mediate the strategy and modify the forms of popular struggle. Consequently, I do not believe it is useful to propose a template with a formal structure that the revolutionary instrument would have to be.

31. The mistake of many parties and movements in Latin America is that they have prioritized the problem of organizational structure over the needs of the struggle, when it ought to be the reverse.

32. One way in which this can be seen has been the tendency to apply very sophisticated forms of organization that do not correspond to the development of the revolutionary movement itself, copying them from other experiences that very few see as their own. One extreme deviation of some groups of the Left in Latin America, defining themselves in favour of armed struggle, was that of creating structures and military rule without possessing any military force.

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Marta Harnecker (1937 – 2019) is originally from Chile, where she participated in the revolutionary process of 1970-1973. She has written extensively on the Cuban Revolution and on the nature of socialist democracy. She lived in Caracas and was a participant in the Venezuelan revolution. Her latest book is A World to Build: New Paths toward Twenty-First Century Socialism.

Notes

1. V. I. Lenin, “The Collapse of the Second International,” Ch. 6.
2. Rosa Luxemburg, “The Politics of Mass Strikes and Unions.”
3. Farruco Sesto, Que Viva el Debate!
4. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire, New York: Penguin, 2004, p.226.
5. Ibid p. 222.
6. V.I. Lenin, “Our Immediate Task,” 1899.
7. V.I. Lenin, “Thesis on the Structure, Methods and Action of Communist Parties,” in Alan Adler (ed.), Theses, Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congresses of the Third International.

Scientists say there is no acceptable dose to avoid brain damage. Its use is banned in several European countries. Yet its residues are found in fruit baskets, on dinner plates, and in human urine samples from all over Europe. Now producers are pushing for a renewed EU approval – perhaps in vain.

The name is chlorpyrifos. Here is why the chemical and its risks are almost unknown to the public.

Chlorpyrifos kills insects on growing vegetables and fruit.

Thomas Backhaus, professor for ecotoxicology and environmental science at the University of Gothenburg, says that the substance took a long time to be recognised as one of the “nasty” ones.

Image on the right: Philippe Grandjean, professor in environmental medicine at the University of Southern Denmark and Harvard School of Public Health in the US, notes that brain damage connected to chlorpyrifos have been found at the lowest detectable dose (Photo: Marcos Garcia Rey)

“In comparison with glyphosate, the active substance in Roundup, chlorpyrifos has been flying under the radar. When we talk of herbicides like glyphosate that kill weed humans can cope because we don’t have chlorophyll and don’t get directly affected. When we talk about insecticides, you have the problem that they affect all developing animals, including humans,” he says.

Backhaus’ concerns are well known in academic circles and shared by other researchers.

Philippe Grandjean, professor in environmental medicine at the University of Southern Denmark and Harvard School of Public Health in the US, notes that brain damage connected to chlorpyrifos have been found at the lowest detectable dose.

“That means by definition that you can’t define a dose tolerable for consumption – that dose must be zero,” he says.

The poisonous effect of chlorpyrifos on insects is not disputed.

The unresolved question is to what extent the usage of chlorpyrifos is dangerous to all living organisms like fish in nearby waters or farm workers in the fields, or to anybody eating the treated products.

The spread

Tests of food samples in all EU countries in 2016 show chlorpyrifos and chlorpyrifos-methyl in 5.5 percent of the 76,200 samples, as recorded by EU institution EFSA (European Food Safety Agency).

If we look only at randomly-sampled unprocessed plant based food products in EU, the percentage is 6.2 according to Pesticide Action Network Europe.

In the samples recorded by the EFSA, 847 contained chlorpyrifos or chlorpyrifos-methyl above the Maixmal Residue Limit (MRL).

However environmental scientists believe residue levels for chlorpyrifos should be zero.

In countries where the use of chlorpyrifos is banned the pesticide nevertheless reaches consumers through the free movement of goods in the internal market.

In 2013, Swedish researchers reported findings of chlorpyrifos and other pesticides in urine from middle-aged women, a group with a high intake of fruits and vegetables.

Chlorpyrifos has never been registered for agricultural use in Sweden.

In 2016, studies for the Danish ministry of environment found chlorpyrifos in the urine from nine out of ten children and their mothers.

The researchers suggested a possible connection between chlorpyrifos and development of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder).

In Wallonia, the French-speaking part of Belgium, the Public Service Scientific Institute in 2018 found residues of chlorpyrifos in 100 percent of urine samples from 258 schoolchildren aged 9-12.

A recent study in California connect autism and early brain damage in children with prenatal and infant exposure of chlorpyrifos.

A child’s risk of brain damage increases if its mother had been exposed to the pesticide by living nearby sprayed fields, the study found.

The Californian study published in March 2019 has triggered a ban of chlorpyrifos in the US’s largest agricultural state. Five other US states; Hawaii, Oregon, New York, Connecticut and New Jersey have announced or decided similar bans.

On a federal level a ban on chlorpyrifos has been blocked by the Trump administration since 2017.

In April 2019, a court ordered the US Environmental Protection Agency to decide by mid-July if it will permanently ban the chemical.

The European confusion

In Europe the scientific debate over chlorpyrifos is hardly known outside expert circles and the decision process about allowing or banning pesticides is difficult to track and to follow.

EU countries follow common decisions on whether to approve a substance like chlorpyrifos or not.

Chlorpyrifos has been approved on an EU-level since 2006 while decisions to allow products with the active substance, and the use of them, are up to the member states.

Eight member states have banned, or never authorised the use of chlorpyrifos products: Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia and Sweden.

The United Kingdom banned the use of chlorpyrifos, with one exception, in 2016. Chlorpyrios is not authorised in Norway, nor in Iceland. The Swiss government decided to withdraw permissions for 12 chlorpyrifos and chlorpyrifos-methyl products 12 June, according to newspaper Tagblatt.

As goods within the EU are supposed to move freely across national borders, treated food thus gets spread around. That’s why consumers might find vegetables and fruit treated with chlorpyrifos in their grocery stores even if such treatment has never been allowed in the country.

A pan-European alert system has been set up for national authorities to notify other authorities on findings of hazardous food. These alerts often come after suspicious products have been sold – and consumed.

How companies have a say

Evaluation of possible health and environmental hazards are primarily based on studies paid for by the producers.

In the case of chlorpyrifos the main producer has been Dow Chemicals, now Corteva Agriscience, the agricultural division of DowDuPont. Corteva Agriscience turned into a standalone company on 1 June 2019.

“The producers’ role is obvious and well known to the scientific community. The present EU assessment of chlorpyrifos is to a large extent based on hundreds of studies financed and submitted by Dow,” says Axel Mie, associate professor at the Karolinska Institute, Department of Clinical Science and Education, Stockholm.

With colleagues Christina Ruden and Philippe Grandjean, Mie has initiated a scientific debate.

The three environmental scientists claim that data from Dow Chemicals’ own research back in 2000 actually showed that chlorpyrifos has an impact of the development of cerebellum (‘little brain’) in rats. These findings had however not been recorded in the conclusions filed to the EU authorities.

The scientists behind the criticised studies reject these claims. They argue the loss of brain weight in rats can be explained by the brains’ fixation in formaldehyde before being measured, and that no pesticide control product has been more thoroughly evaluated.

In the debate published by scientific journal Environmental Health, where Grandjean is one of the editors-in-chief, the defenders of chlorpyrifos first stated they had no competing interests.

In a correction posted in May 2019, they declared that at the time of their submission to the journal, they were employed by Dow Chemicals, the primary registrant and manufacturer of chlorpyrifos.

Corteva Agriscience responds

We have asked Corteva Agriscience for comments on the allegations above specified in the following questions:

1. Is the description of the debate in Environmental Health accurate?

2. Was the hiding of the employment status of the scientists an intentional omission? Could it have been handled differently to minimise perceptions of impropriety?

3. How does Corteva see challenges with the current system where companies finance research that the US, EU and others base decision on?

4. Does Corteva have any other comments about criticism from environmental scientists and NGOs opposing its products, or comments you want to make on the benefits of protecting all kinds of crops.

From its headquarters in Johnston, Illinois, US, Corteva Agriscience chose to answer with two statements in writing:

“Chlorpyrifos is one of the most widely studied crop protection products in the world and is currently registered in roughly 100 countries, including the US, all major US trading partners and in the EU. Policy should be driven by sound science and data and follow a predictable and transparent regulatory review process.

“Labelled uses of chlorpyrifos rest on five decades of experience in use, health surveillance of manufacturing workers and applicators, and more than 4,000 studies and reports examining the product in terms of health, safety and the environment.”

Not for us to know

The present EU approval of chlorpyrifos expires on 31 January 2020. This could indicate the story of chlorpyrifos is coming to an end.

Yet that is not necessarily the case.

Market analysts project that the sale of chlorpyrifos will see significant growth in the next five years, according to Persistance Market Research which will release a new report in August.

Experts from EU member countries Spain and Poland have since May 2017 prepared a reassessment of chlorpyrifos and related chlorpyrifos-methyl for a possible new acceptance in the autumn, before the present approval ends.

There are five companies producing chlorpyrifos registered in Spain including Dow, now Corteva.

One of the five is FMC Corporation which until 2016 manufactured chlorpyrifos at its plant Cheminova in Denmark where chlorpyrifos is not allowed to use.

The bulk of a draft reassessment report has been open for comments. It consists of some thousand pages filling close to 90 megabits of data when downloaded from the homepage of EFSA (European Food Safety Agency).

Not all of it is readable though. The proposed decision by Spain and Poland is not accessible, as it has been redacted.

This redaction of central information is done by EFSA which has the job of preparing the forthcoming EU decision.

The redacted document

But is EFSA legally justified in keeping this information under wraps? The Aarhus convention, a pan-European UN-convention from 1998, has been binding EU-law since 2003.

This law says information related to emissions to the environment must not be withheld on the ground of protecting commercial interests.

This was underlined by the EU court in Luxembourg in March 2019. The court said information concerning the herbicide glyphosate, known under the product name Roundup, could not be held back by EFSA.

The anonymous lawmakers

On top of the known spread, the scientists’ warnings, the producers’ role, and the restricted public information there is one more aspect of chlorpyrifos to be decided; what the EU will decide – either to ban, or to approve, the future for the disputed pesticide.

Followers of EU politics will know the two legislative institutions are the EU Council, representing the member states, and the European Parliament representing the peoples of Europe. This does not apply for approval of pesticides.

Here the final decision will be taken by a committee of national experts on the suggestion of the European Commission, a non-elected body of civil servants.

Lithuanian Vytenis Andriukaitis is commissioner for health and food safety. Below him is the commission’s Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety headed by Anne Bucher, and below her the directorate for health and food audits and analysis, and so on.

The actual evaluation of chlorpyrifos will be done by the unit for pesticides and biocides, at the sixth level from the top in the hierarchy.

“But, other directorate-general will also be consulted before the final decision, ” says an EU commission spokesperson.

This committee can reject the commission’s proposal if its members can form the necessary majority. Should that happen the commissions can turn to an appeal committee for a re-assessment.

At the time of writing it is known when meetings are scheduled for the relevant committee. The agenda for these meetings is not.

We are not supposed to know who the participants in these meetings are. What suggestion they will be asked to consider is still unknown.

Nevertheless, a commission source indicates that “The commission won’t go forward with the renewal of the authorisation because the health concerns are very clear”.

The NGO Pan Europe told us: “We’ve heard in the corridor that chlorpyrifos doesn’t meet the approval criteria”.

EU system alerts consumers – after they have eaten

Documents released to us indicate that the EU-wide reporting system called RASFF (Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed) gives European consumers a weak protection, if any.

In April 2018, Austria notified 19 other countries of imported basmati rice from Pakistan that contained chlorpyrifos in a level deemed to pose a serious risk to human health.

The rice was withdrawn from the market by importers in Austria, Germany and the Netherlands.

In Switzerland, Sweden, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and parts of Italy, the rice was nevertheless reported sold – and most likely consumed – in spite of the alerts in the RASFF system. This was shown in a detailed RASFF report, not detectable in the public RASFF portal run by the European Commission.

Civil servants working with RASFF say the system is aimed to inform other EU-states of potential risks but not designed to detect shortcomings of control. The responsibility for safe products always lays with importers and resellers, we are told.

They also point out that alerts go to the national food safety authorities, while the work in the field like inspections often is done at the municipal level. This creates yet another time lag between alerts and consequences.

Ingunn Haarstad Gudmundsdottir, senior adviser at the Norwegian Food Agency, Mattilsynet, notes:

“When fresh fruit, berries and vegetables are tested randomly the batches are often already sold and consumed when we get the results from the laboratory analysis.”

This observation is echoed by Philippe Grandjean professor in environmental medicine:

“The sad thing about the Danish Food Authority’s control is that the food is eaten at the time the analysis is made, and if the three percent [of chlorpyrifos findings in food samples] in Denmark is representative, then it must mean that there is thus three percent of our products which are in fact unsuitable for human consumption, ” he says.

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Featured image: Spanish vegetable growing in El Ejido, Almeria province. Chlorpyrifos has been approved on an EU level since 2006 – but eight states have banned, or never authorised, its use: Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia and Sweden (Photo: Marcos Garcia Rey)

The political party of Juan Guaido — Voluntad Popular (Popular Will) — was never all that popular to begin with. The sixth largest political party in Venezuela, Popular Will is heavily financed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Now, a recently exposed embezzlement scandal in Colombia risks to further alienate the party from the Venezuelan people.

What was supposed to be Guaido’s watershed moment has instead turned out to be a public-relations failure far worse than his quickly quelled attempted military coup, which MintPress News reported caused even the New York Times to describe Guaido as “deflated.”

What happened in Colombia appears to be so damning that not only is the Colombian intelligence service leaking documents exposing wrongdoing by Popular Will representatives appointed by Guaido, but the Organization of American States (OAS) — which is typically just as pro-opposition as the Colombian government — has called for an investigation.

In a tweet issued June 14 at 10:47 p.m. Venezuela time, Guaido called on his ambassador to Colombia — whom he had shut out of the aid event — to formally request an investigation by Colombian authorities, whose already-existing investigation is the reason the story came out in the first place. That was more than four hours after Secretary General of the OAS Luis Almagro called for an investigation that would clarify the “serious charges,” identify those responsible and effectuate accountability.

But Guaido had already been well aware of the charges, having dismissed his appointees who appear to be ringleaders of the embezzlement scheme. According to the report, he was contacted by the journalist who exposed the scandal 30 days before the story was published.

What happened in Cúcuta isn’t staying in Cúcuta

There’s barely a peep about the scandal in the Western press. A Google News search for “Juan Guaido scandal” and “Popular Will scandal” turned up nothing of relevance at the time of this article’s writing. But on Latin America social media, everyone is buzzing about it. American journalist Dan Cohen appears to be the first to highlight the scandal to an English-speaking audience.

It started with a request from Juan Guaido to billionaire investor and regime-change enthusiast Richard Branson.

Associates of Venezuelan coup frontman Juan Guaidó embezzled funds raised in Cúcuta, Colombia for humanitarian aid and lavishly spent it on hotels, nightclubs and expensive clothes. This is a monumental scandal! Great work by @OrlvndoA. https://t.co/W8Rm3o306N

— Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) June 15, 2019

The stated purpose of the concert was to help raise funds for humanitarian aid and spotlight the economic crisis. At least that’s how it was billed to Americans. To Venezuela’s upper class, it was touted as the “trendiest concert of the decade.”

It was to be a congregation of the elite with the ostensible purpose of raising funds for the poor. One director of Popular Will told Vice News in 2014 that “the bulk of the opposition protesters are from the middle and upper classes and are led by Venezuela’s elite.” The class character of the opposition has not changed since.

Meanwhile, USAID was to coordinate the delivery of aid alongside Guaido; and Elliot Abrams, who in Guatemala used “humanitarian aid” as cover for the delivery of weapons into the country, is running the White House’s policies toward Venezuela. And so the aid was widely criticized, even by the International Red Cross, as politicized. By others, it was called a Trojan Horse.

The concert was held in Colombia across a bridge linking the country to Venezuela. International media had claimed Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro had the bridge shut down to prevent the delivery of aid, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanded that the “Maduro regime must LET THE AID REACH THE STARVING PEOPLE.” But the bridge, in fact, has never been opened for use.

Nonetheless, Richard Branson sought to raise $100 million and promised that Guiado “will be coming to the other side of the bridge with maybe a million of his supporters.” In the end, it was a little more than 200,000 who came.

Meanwhile, Guaido told the President of Colombia, Ivan Duque, that more than 1,450 soldiers had defected from the military to join them. But that figure was also inflated. A new report by PanAmPress, a Miami-based libertarian newspaper, reveals that it was just 700. “You can count on your fingers the number of decent soldiers who are there,” one local told the outlet.

Despite the low turnout, organizers lived it up in Colombia. Representatives from Popular Will, which rejects the socialist leadership of Venezuela, found themselves living like socialites across the border.

There were earlier signs of excess and debauchery. One Popular Will representative was hospitalized and his assistant found dead after overdosing while taking drugs with prostitutes, although Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) claims they were poisoned.

FyreFest walked so Richard Branson's aid concert could run. https://t.co/ZBaDaFq9Wm

— celine and julie go bowling 🌈 (@MissPavIichenko) June 15, 2019

The inflated soldier count meant more funds for the organizers, who were charged with putting them up in hotel rooms. Guaido’s “army was small but at this point it had left a very bad impression in Cucuta. Prostitutes, alcohol, and violence. They demanded and demanded,” the report said.

They also left a bad taste in the mouth of the authorities. The Colombian government was supposed to pay for some of the hotels, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees was to cover the costs of others, while Guaido’s people were only going to pony up the cash for two of the seven hotels.

But Popular Will never paid, leaving one hotel with a debt of $20,000. When the situation became completely untenable, the hotel kicked 65 soldiers and their families to the curb. One soldier anonymously told the outlet that the party was not taking care of their financial needs as promised.

Guaido’s ambassador to Colombia took money out of his own pocket to try to resolve the dispute, but the check bounced.

The responsibility of taking care of the needs of the defectors went to Popular Will militants Rossana Barrera and Kevin Rojas, as decreed by Juan Guaido in a signed statement. They were also charged with overseeing the humanitarian aid.

Barrera is the sister-in-law of Popular Will member of Congress Sergio Vargara, Guaido’s right-hand man. She and Rojas were managing all the funds.

But the pair started to live well outside their means, a Colombian intelligence source told the outlet.

“They gave me all the evidence,” writes PanAmPress reporter Orlando Avendano. “Receipts that show excesses, some strangely from different check books, signed the same day but with identical writing styles.”

Rojas and Berrera were spending nearly a thousand dollars at a time in the hotels and nightclubs. Similar amounts were spent at times on luxurious dinners and fancy drinks. They went on clothes shopping sprees at high-end retail outlets in the capital. They reportedly overcharged the fund on vehicle rentals and the hotels, making off with the extra cash. Berrera even told Popular Will that she was paying for all seven hotels, not just the two. And they provided Guaido with the fake figure of more than 1,450 military defectors that needed accommodation.

In order to keep the funds flowing, Rojas and Berrera pitched a benefit dinner for the soldiers to Guiado’s embassy in Colombia. But when the embassy refused to participate, Berrera created a fake email address posing as a representative of the embassy, sending invitations to Israeli and U.S. diplomats. They canceled the event after Guaido’s embassy grew wise to the scheme and alerted those invited.

“The whole government of Colombia knew about it: the intelligence community, the presidency, and the foreign ministry,” writes PanAmPress, calling it an “open secret” by the time Guaido dismissed the pair.

But that was after Guaido had been defending them staunchly, trying to avoid a firing by transferring responsibilities to the embassy.

Berrera was called to the embassy for a financial audit, represented by Luis Florido, a founding member of Popular Will. She turned in just a fraction of the records uncovered by Colombian intelligence, accounting for only $100,000 in expenditures. “The [real] amount is large,” the outlet reports, citing an intelligence agent who says far more was blown.

Meanwhile, “at least 60 percent of the food donated” by foreign governments “was damaged.”

“The food is rotten, they tell me,” the PanAmPress reporter said, adding that he was shown photographs. “They don’t know how to deal with it without causing a scandal. I suppose they will burn it.”

It isn’t yet known exactly how much was embezzled by Popular Will, but it is likely the truth will come out in due time, and more investigations are likely underway. On Monday, Venezuelan defectors said they will hold a press conference in Cucuta, showcasing more corruption by Popular Will. For now, however, the fallout remains to be seen.

Guaidone?

One thing is certain: the scandal threatens to end Juan Guaido’s 15 minutes of fame. The de facto opposition leader had little name recognition inside Venezuela and never won a political position with more than 100,000 votes behind him. But the overnight sensation never had a lengthy life expectancy anyway.

Though he received so few votes (Venezuela’s population is nearly 32 million), Guaido became the president of the National Assembly because the body is controlled by a coalition of opposition groups, despite President Nicolas Maduro’s PSUV Party being the largest in the country. That was in January, and the length of the term lasts only one year. In 2015, the opposition coalition decided that after each term, the seat would be rotated to a representative of a different opposition party. While there is no law barring Guaido from being appointed president of the National Assembly again, tradition runs counter to it and another party may want to seize on a chance to get into the limelight.

Supporters of the coup — and Guaido’s self-declaration as interim president — claim that Maduro is derelict of his duties, which justifies a transition of presidential power according to the constitution. But the article that allows for such a transition in certain cases stipulates that ”a new election by universal suffrage and direct ballot shall be held within 30 consecutive days.”

To date, Guaido has run 145 days past his deadline to have elections held, and the opposition has made it clear they are not willing to accept new elections if Maduro runs.

This, of course, makes little dent in Guaido’s legitimacy in the eyes of the U.S. and other countries that have recognized his presidency. U.S. allies in Latin America have shown over the past few years that they have little regard for the sanctity of their constitutions. In 2017, a U.S.-backed candidate in Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, ran for re-election in explicit violation of that country’s constitution and only wound up winning through fraud. Last week, Ecuador made the decision to allow the U.S. military to operate from an airfield in the Galapagos Islands despite a constitutional provision stating that the “establishment of foreign military bases or foreign facilities for military purposes shall not be allowed.”

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Alexander Rubinstein is a staff writer for MintPress News based in Washington, DC. He reports on police, prisons and protests in the United States and the United States’ policing of the world. He previously reported for RT and Sputnik News.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced so-called “emergency” approvals today to spray sulfoxaflor — an insecticide it considers “very highly toxic” to bees — on nearly 14 million acres of crops known to attract bees.

The approval includes 2019 crops of cotton and sorghum in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Ten of the 11 states have been granted the approvals for at least four consecutive years for the same “emergency.” Five have been given approvals for at least six consecutive years.

“The only emergency here is the Trump EPA’s reckless approval of this dangerous bee-killing pesticide,” said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s sickening that even amid the current insect apocalypse, the EPA’s priority is protecting pesticide industry profits.”

The approvals include 5.8 million acres in Texas, which is home to more than 800 species of native bees. Monarch butterflies and eight species of bumblebees, including the rare American bumblebee and variable cuckoo bumblebee, live in Texas counties where cotton or sorghum are grown.

The EPA may approve temporary emergency uses of pesticides, including unapproved pesticides, if it determines they are needed to prevent the spread of an unexpected outbreak of insects.

But the agency has routinely abused this authority, as chronicled in the Center’s report, Poisonous Process: How the EPA’s Chronic Misuse of ‘Emergency’ Pesticide Exemptions Increases Risks to Wildlife. The report found that the alleged “emergencies” cited are foreseeable occurrences.

Last year the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General released a report finding that the agency’s practice of routinely granting “emergency” approval for pesticides across millions of acres does not effectively measure risks to human health or the environment.

In response to a lawsuit by beekeepers, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the EPA’s original registration of sulfoxaflor in 2015. The EPA’s 2016 registration for sulfoxaflor — purportedly designed to ensure essentially no exposure to bees — excluded crops like cotton and sorghum that are attractive to bees.

“The Trump EPA is allowing potentially catastrophic harm to imperiled insect populations,” said Burd. “It’s hard to imagine how much more evidence could possibly be needed for the agency to wake up to the damage they are causing.”

A study published last year in Nature found that sulfoxaflor exposure even at low doses had severe consequences for bumblebee reproduction. The authors cautioned against the EPA’s current trajectory of replacing older neonicotinoids with nearly identical insecticides like sulfoxaflor. A major study published earlier this year found that more than 41 percent of the world’s insect species are on the fast track to extinction, and that a “serious reduction in pesticide usage” is key to preventing their extinction.

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In 1965 songwriter PF Sloan wrote the lyrics for ‘Eve of Destruction’. The most famous recording was by singer Barry McGuire in the summer of that same year. Some of the lyrics obviously address the issue of the Cold War between the US, Russia  and China, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and the thrust for integration in the South. Other of the song’s lyrics seem to be timeless:

Don’t you understand what I’m trying to say?
Can you feel the fears that I’m feeling today?
If the button is pushed there’s no running away
There’ll be no one to save with the world in a grave.
Take a look around you boy, it’s bound to scare you boy
And you tell me over and over again my friend
That you DON’T believe we’re on the eve of destruction.

 Yeah, my blood’s so mad, feels like coagulatin
I’m sittin here just contemplatin
I can’t twist the truth, it knows no regulation
Handful of Senators don’t pass legislation
When human respect is disintegratin
The whole crazy world is just too frustratin… 

The poundin of the drums, the pride and disgrace
You can bury your dead but don’t leave a trace
Hate your next door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace…
No, you don’t believe we’re on the EVE OF DESTRUCTION!

Since that song came out in the mid 60s this empire of ours has gotten more and more bold. The Vietnam debacle forced the movers and shakers of this republic, the economic and military predators, to take a pause to regroup.

Boy, did they ever?

By the time Bush Sr. took over a White House that he most likely ran for the eight years under Reagan, the Cold War seemed to be over. The infamous Berlin Wall came down and even the (controlled) mainstream media talked about a “Peace Dividend”. Imagine, money that usually went down the rabbit hole of Pentagon spending could now be redirected for things like better infrastructure, better schools and of course maybe even viable National Health Care for ALL. Sorry!

The bag of (dirty) tricks was opened up and whallah we had the “new Hitler”, Saddam Hussein, as villain number one. You see, he made the error of listening to Ambassador April Glaspie who assured him that the US does not get involved in disputes between two other nations. One must also think that Glaspie got Hussein to buy a piece of a bridge in Brooklyn.

Image Rumsfeld and Saddam (1980s)

Fast forward to 11 years later in 2002, when once again Saddam Hussein, with his (invisible) WMDs, had us all on another ‘Eve of Destruction’ watch list. Well, we all know how the Bush Jr./Cheney gang took care of that problem.

History then instructs us that from that phony war on Iraq, our illegal invasions and occupations of both Afghanistan and Iraq, our carpet bombing of Libya and now our intrusions into Syria, the tens of thousands of terrorists we helped create and nurture are here to stay. Thus, another ‘Eve of Destruction’ takes away our focus from what really ails our republic. Factor in the new (phony) threats from Iran and Venezuela and you have great fodder for the National Security State to chomp on.

Oh, did I forget the new Cold War with the same old players from bomb shelters past: The Russkies and the Chinks?

What better way to keep the suckers feeding on the pabulum of money for security and not for a better life for all Americans?

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

Featured image is from teleSUR

Food is not a commodity. It is not ‘stuff’ put together mechanically and artificially in labs and factories. Food is life.

Food holds the contributions of all beings that make the food web, and it holds the potential for maintaining and regenerating the web of life.

Food also holds the potential for health and disease, depending on how it was grown and processed. Food is therefore the living currency of the web of life. 

Industrial agriculture 

As an ancient Upanishad reminds us: “Everything is food, everything is something else’s food.” Good food is the basis for good health. But bad food, industrial food, fake food is the basis for disease.”

Hippocrates said: “Let food be thy medicine”. In Ayurveda, India’s ancient science of life, food is called ‘sarvausadha’ the medicine that cures all disease.

Industrial food systems have reduced food to a commodity, to ‘stuff’ that can then be constituted in the lab. In the process both the planet’s health and our health has been nearly destroyed.

As much as 75 percent of the planetary destruction of soil, water, biodiversity, and 50 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from industrial agriculture, which also contributes to 75 percent of food related chronic diseases.

Chemical agriculture does not return organic matter and fertility to the soil. Instead it is contributing to desertification and land degradation. It also demands more water since it destroys the soil’s natural water-holding capacity.

Food security

Industrial food systems have destroyed the biodiversity of the planet both through the spread of monocultures, and through the use of toxics and poisons that are killing bees, butterflies, insects, birds, and leading to the sixth mass extinction. 

Biodiversity-intensive and poison-free agriculture, on the other hand, produces more nutrition per acre while rejuvenating the planet. It shows the path to Zero Hunger in times of climate change. 

The industrial agriculture and toxic food model has been promoted as the only answer to economic and food security. However, globally, more than a billion people are hungry. More than three billion suffer from food-related chronic diseases. 

Industrial agriculture is based on fossil-fuel intensive, chemical-intensive monocultures, and produces only 30 percent of the food we eat despite using 75 percent of farmed land. Meanwhile, small, biodiverse farms using 25 percent of that land provides 70 percent of the food.

At this rate, if the share of industrial agriculture and industrial food in our diet is increased to 45 percent, we will have a dead planet. One with with no life and no food.

GM

The mad rush for fake food and fake meat is a recipe for accelerating the destruction of the planet and our health. It’s ignorant of the diversity of our foods and food cultures, and the role of biodiversity in maintaining the our health.

Pat Brown, CEO and founder of Impossible Foods, stated in a recent article, ‘How our commitment to consumers and our planet led us to use GM soy’, that: 

“We sought the safest and most environmentally responsible option that would allow us to scale our production and provide the Impossible Burger to consumers at a reasonable cost.” 

Using GMO soya is hardly an “environmentally responsible option” given the fact that 90 percent of monarch butterflies have disappeared due to pesticides including Roundup Ready Crops, and we are living through what scientists have called an ‘insectageddon’.

In writing this, Pat Brown reveals his total ignorance that weeds have evolved resistance to Roundup and have become superweeds now requiring more and more lethal herbicides.

Bill Gates and DARPA are even calling for the use of gene drives to exterminate amaranth, a sacred and nutritious food in India, because the Palmer Amaranth has become a superweed in the Roundup Ready soya fields of the USA.

At a time when the global movement to ban GMOs and Roundup is growing, promoting GMO soya as ‘fake meat’ is misleading the eater both in terms of the ontology of the burger, and on claims of safety.

Ontological confusion 

Recent court cases have showcased the links of Roundup to cancer. With the build up of liabilities related to cancer cases, the investments in Roundup Ready GMO soya is blindness to the market.

There is another ontological confusion related to fake food. Fake meat is about selling meat-like products.

Pat Brown declares: 

“We use genetically engineered yeast to produce heme, the ‘magic’ molecule that makes meat taste like meat — and makes the Impossible Burger the only plant-based product to deliver the delicious explosion of flavor and aroma that meat-eating consumers crave.”

I had thought that the plant based diet was for vegans and vegetarians, not meat lovers.

Indeed, the promotion of fake foods seems to have more to do with giving new life to the failing GMO agriculture and the Junk Food Industry, and the threat to it from our increasing awareness that organic, local, fresh food regenerates the planet and our health.

In consequence, investment in plant-based food companies has soared from near zero in 2009 to $600m by 2018. And these companies are looking for more.

Profits and control

Pat Brown declares:

 “If there’s one thing that we know, it’s that when an ancient unimprovable technology counters a better technology that is continuously improvable, it’s just a matter of time before the game is over. I think our investors see this as a $3 trillion opportunity.”

This is about profits and control. He, and those jumping on the Fake Food Goldrush, have no discernible knowledge, or consciousness about, or compassion for living beings, the web of life, nor the role of living food in weaving that web.

Their sudden awakening to ‘plant-based diets’, including GMO soya, is an ontological violation of food as a living system that connects us to the ecosystem and other beings, and indicates ignorance of the diversity of cultures that have used a diversity of plants in their diets.

Ecological sciences have been based on the recognition of the interconnections and interrelatedness between humans and nature, between diverse organisms, and within all living systems, including the human body. Ecology has thus evolved as a systems science, not a fragmented and reductionist pursuit of profit. 

Food imperialism

Diets have evolved according to climates and the local biodiversity the climate allows. The biodiversity of the soil, of the plants and our gut microbiome is one continuum.  

Technologies are tools. Tools need to be assessed on ethical, social and ecological criteria – they need to be deployed in service to our wellbeing. 

Through fake food, the web of life is being redefined as an “ancient unimprovable technology”. This view is ignorant of the sophisticated knowleges that have evolved in diverse agricultuaral and food cultures, and in diverse climate and ecosystems, to sustain and renew biodiversity and health.

The Eat forum which brought out a report that tried to impose a monoculture diet of chemically grown, hyperindustrially processed food on the world has a partnership through FrESH with the junk food industry, and Big Agriculture such as Bayer, BASF, Cargil, Pepsico amongst others.

Fake food is thus building on a century and a half of food imperialism and food colonisation of our diverse food knowledges and food cultures.

Food cultures

Big Food and Big Money is behind the fake food Industry. Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are funding startups.

We need to decolonise our food cultures and our minds. The industrial west has always been arrogant, and ignorant, of the cultures it has colonised. Fake Food is just the latest step in a history of food imperialism.

Soya is a gift of East Asia, where it has been a food for millennia. It was only eaten as fermented food to remove its anti-nutritive factors.

But recently, GMO soya has created a soya imperialism, destroying plant diversity. It continues the destruction of the diversity of rich edible oils and plant-based proteins of Indian dals that we have documented.

Women from India’s slums called on me to bring our mustard back when GMO soya oil started to be dumped on India, and local oils and cold press units in villages were made illegal.

That is when we started the ‘sarson (mustard) satyagraha’ to defend our healthy cold pressed oils from dumping of hexane-extracted GMO soya oil. Hexane is a neurotoxin.

Food sovereignty 

While Indian peasants knew that pulses fix nitrogen, the west was industrialising agriculture based on synthetic nitrogen which contributes to greenhous gases, dead zones in the ocean, and dead soils.

While we ate a diversity of dals in our daily dal roti, the British colonisers, who had no idea of the richness of the nutrition of pulses, reduced them to animal food. Chana became chick pea, gahat became horse gram, tur became pigeon pea. 

We stand at a precipice of a planetary emergency, a health emergency, a crisis of farmers livelihoods.

Fake Food will acclerate the rush to collapse. Real food gives us a chance to rejuvenate the earth, our food economies, food sovereignty and food cultures. Through real food we can decolonise our food cultures and our consciousness. We can remember that food is living and gives us life.

Boycott the GMO made Impossible Burger. Make tofu. Cook dal.

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Vandana Shiva is an Indian scholar, environmental activist, and food sovereignty advocate. Read a response from Impossible Food here.

Featured image is from News Ghana

The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is once again in the doghouse with the British media and the political establishment. 

His offence? Once again it’s for doing his job.

According to the political editor of the Sunday Times, Tim Shipman, Corbyn is speaking up for the “theocratic terrorists” of Tehran.

Common sense

According to Tory leadership candidate and home secretary, Sajid Javid, Corbyn is “never on the side of the country he seeks to lead”. Javid adds that Corbyn “wouldn’t even qualify for a Home Office building pass”.

Another leadership contender, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, called Corbyn “pathetic and predictable”. Hunt added:

“Why can he never bring himself to back British allies, British intelligence or British interests?”

The purpose of my column this week is to come to the defence of Jeremy Corbyn. I believe that he is doing his job as leader of the opposition by standing aside from the growing clamour for war against Iran.

Corbyn is right to challenge claims emanating from the White House about Iran. His call for Britain to “act to ease tensions in the Gulf, not fuel a military escalation,” is common sense.

A voice of caution

This is not the first time that the Labour leader has been the voice of caution when the British political class have rushed towards war. He took a brave and lonely stand when the British political establishment followed George W Bush into the Iraq disaster.

He was vindicated by events when he warned against the invasion of Afghanistan. He was one of only a dozen MPs who voted against David Cameron’s terribly misjudged intervention in Libya.

Remembering that, by contrast, Sajid Javid, Boris Johnson, Theresa May, Jeremy Hunt, Rory Stewart and others fully supported that foolish and disastrous adventure.

There is no question in my mind that Corbyn (and his shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry) are making important and urgent points.

It’s only in the UK that expressing alarm about the bellicose Iranian policy of Donald Trump is regarded as unpatriotic. Germany and Japan have both made it clear that they don’t regard the evidence of Iranian involvement produced so far as conclusive.

No appetite for war

Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, made similar remarks to Corbyn’s over the weekend.

She told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that Americans have “no appetite for conflict with Iran”, adding that President Trump was being provocative:

“He comes in and undoes [the nuclear deal] and inflames the US-Iranian issue. Why? What is the purpose? I am not going to accuse anybody of instigating anything, but for not having a policy that would smooth the waters.”

I detect no appetite for war here in Britain either. So why is the Tory party collectively determined to back Donald Trump and his national security adviser, John Bolton, at a time when it looks very much as if they are seeking to engineer a war in the Gulf?

Haven’t we learnt our lessons? We, in Britain, made a terrible mistake when we backed George W Bush over Iraq. I find it difficult to understand why we should be so determined to uncritically support Donald Trump as he embarks on his latest nightmarish experiment in the Gulf.

Of course, the British press is partly to blame. Tim Shipman, political editor of the Murdoch-owned Sunday Times, tweeted that Corbyn’s policy was to “blame America, speak up for theocratic terrorists and dismiss credible evidence from our Intel partners”.

This is a grotesquely unfair misrepresentation of what Corbyn actually said. The Labour leader was essentially urging caution.

Defying FCO

I am a Conservative, but I am afraid that this failing Conservative government is open to the charge that it has ceased to act in the British interest. Here is an important example: earlier this year, Hunt and Javid joined forces to designate the political wing of Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation.

I can reveal that Hunt made the designation in defiance of official FCO advice. According to senior sources inside the Foreign Office, officials warned Hunt that the decision would damage British interests and create difficulties for British diplomats serving in Lebanon.

It would reduce Britain’s influence. Hunt was reminded that Hezbollah form an important part of the elected Lebanese government.

Not only that. I can also reveal that officials in DFID say that their work has been made close to impossible. They say that you have to work with Hezbollah officials in the government if you want to get things done. They can’t any more.

As one close observer told me: “The situation wasn’t perfect but it reflected the reality on the ground because Hezbollah is a core part of the Lebanese system which cannot be ignored. If you cut off all ties to Hezbollah you cut all the ability to influence it or cajole it.”

The decision to designate the political wing of Hezbollah was therefore not in the British interest. It looks like it was made in order to please the United States as well as our allies in the region – above all the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.

No lessons learnt

The determination of parts of the Trump administration to launch a war against Iran may lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths and cause fresh chaos in an already vulnerable region.

War can potentially lead to the closure of the Straits of Hormuz, causing the oil price soaring to several hundred dollars or more and precipitating a depression in the West. Do we really want that? If Jeremy Hunt was doing his job properly he would be following the example of Corbyn by urging caution.

I do accept that Corbyn could have been more careful in his language. He should have expressed scepticism rather than hinting at disbelief at what the United States is saying.

But the fact remains that the only British politician who has issued a sensible word of warning against the rush to war against Iran is the Labour leader, and he is being pilloried as a result.

The Conservative government, like the Bourbons after the French Revolution, has forgotten nothing and learnt nothing from the Iraq invasion of 2003.

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Peter Oborne won best commentary/blogging in 2017 and was named freelancer of the year in 2016 at the Online Media Awards for articles he wrote for Middle East Eye. He also was British Press Awards Columnist of the Year 2013. He resigned as chief political columnist of the Daily Telegraph in 2015. His books include The Triumph of the Political Class, The Rise of Political Lying, and Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran.

The Persian Gulf region has turned into a new hot point in the Middle East.

On May 12, a supposed sabotage attack targeted very large crude carrier Amjad and crude tanker Al Marzoqah (both owned by Saudi shipping firm Bahri).  The UAE-flagged fuel bunker barge A Michel and Norwegian-registered oil products tanker MT Andrea Victory were also targeted, all off of UAE’s Fujairah. The attack did not cause any casualties or an oil spill.

Jaber Al Lamki, an executive director at the UAE’s National Media Council, claimed that the attack was “aimed at undermining global oil supplies and maritime security.” Mainstream media outlets came out with various speculations regarding the incident providing contradictory claims from ‘anonymous sources’. Most of these speculations were focused on supposed Iranian involvement in the situation.

The US de-facto blamed Iran for the situation with National Security Adviser John Bolton claiming that the attacks were the work of “naval mines almost certainly from Iran.” Adm. Michael Gilday, director of the Joint Staff, issued a statement saying that “the leadership of Iran at the highest level” ordered a spate of disruptive attacks in the region.

In its own turn, Iran stated that it played no part in the attacks and said that it was a false flag fabricated by the US. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif stressed that Iran “had previously predicted that such actions would occur to create tensions in the region.”

On June 12, a fire broke out on an Iranian oil platform of the South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf. The fire was subsequently contained and no fatalities were reported. State TV said the cause of the fire was under investigation.

On June 13, another suspicious incident took place in the Gulf of Oman. Marshall Islands-flagged Front Altair and Panama-flagged Kokuka Courageous oil tankers were rocked by explosions. This development also appeared to be surrounded by multiple speculations immediately after first reports about the situation. Initial versions varied from a torpedo attack to naval mines with the aforementioned tendency regarding supposed Iranian involvement. Nonetheless, once again, no casualties were reported in the supposed attack.

On June 14, Washington claimed that it had evidence confirming Iranian involvement in the June 13 incident. According to a statement by US Central Command, Iranian forces were spotted removing “a probable unexploded limpet mine” from Kokuka Courageous. Central Command also released photos supposed to confirm the claim regarding the non-exploded mine.

Iran denied involvement in the incident labeling it a provocation. The US version of the story was met with serious skepticism among more or less independent media outlets, and even by the owner and operator of the Kokuka Courageous and some European allies of the US.

Yutaka Katada, the president of Kokuka Sangyo, called reports of a mine attack “false”.

“A mine doesn’t damage a ship above sea level,” he said “We aren’t sure exactly what hit, but it was something flying towards the ship.”

He added that sailors on board the ship saw “flying objects” just before Kokuka Courageous was hit. This is further evidence suggesting the vessel wasn’t damaged by mines, but by objects that could have been fired from a distance.

On June 16, Central Command claimed that Iranian forces attempted to shoot down an MQ-9 Reaper drone in the Gulf of Oman hours before the attack on the tankers.

Such reporting is a logical continuation of earlier hysteria over supposed Iranian preparations to attack US forces and infrastructure in the Middle East. The “Iran is readying for an attack” propaganda campaign was used by the US to justify its ongoing military buildup in the region.

Taking into account the military and political situation established in the region, and the obvious loopholes in Washington’s version of the June 13 ‘attack’, it’s quite possible it was a pre-planned provocation. The main party standing to benefit from such a development is the US.

• Rising tensions in the Persian Gulf region allow the Trump administration to continue exploiting the “Iranian threat” to justify its internal and foreign policies. Inside the US, it allows Washington to increase military-industrial complex spending even further. In terms of foreign policy, it gives the US an additional justification to continue its hard-core anti-Iranian and pro-Israeli policy as well as to boost its military and diplomatic presence in the Middle East.
• The geo-economic goal of this provocation is to create tensions in the Persian Gulf region and near it (the western part of the Indian Ocean). The growing threat to maritime security would increase logistical costs for key oil consumers. DHT Holdings and Heidmar, two of the biggest oil tankers operators in the world, have suspended new bookings to the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. The oil price rose. Insurance rates for logistical operations in the region are also expected to increase. This situation directly impacts China, one of the key oil consumers, as well as European states with large industrial potential, such as Germany. The pressure on possible economic competitors through economic tariffs and sanctions, military and diplomatic means are the consistent policy of the Trump administration.

The recent escalation of the conflict in Yemen also plays a role in the current tensions. Over the past months, Ansar Allah (the Houthis) have drastically increased the number of missile and drone attacks on key infrastructure objects in Saudi Arabia, which still continues its military invasion of Yemen.

At the same time, the Iranian leadership uses the threat of an aggressive and artful enemy (the US-Israeli alliance) to justify its policies and boost influence on Shia armed groups and movements across the Greater Middle East.

Ansar Allah, supported by Iran, will likely continue these strident attacks on Saudi Arabia.  In the event of further escalation of the regional situation, it is conceivable that groups allied with Tehran could attack US forces or infrastructure objects. Despite this, the chances of a new open hot war in the region remains low.

Strategically, Iran will focus on developing asymmetric means and measures, including tactical missile forces and its mosquito-craft fleet. Any chosen asymmetric responses will be in line with Iran’s economic capabilities and designed to cause maximum damage in the event of military confrontation.

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The economic war waged by Trump’s administration against Iran seems to have been escalated to involve false flag attacks against oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz. Within a one-month period two terrorist attacks; Emirati Al Fujairah attack in May 12^th and the Gulf of Oman attack in June 13^th, were perpetrated against large oil tankers.

After an hour of each attack Trump’s administration and its Gulf stooge countries; Saudi Arabia and UAE, hastened to point their accusing fingers towards Iran without any evidence and even before any independent investigation of the attacks. Britain joined the US accusation of Iran through its Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, who accused Iran calling on it to stop all forms of destabilizing activities that pose serious danger to the region.  Jeremy Corbyn, the British Labour leader, warned Hunt not to fuel a military escalation that began with the US withdrawal from Iran nuclear deal without any credible evidence. Russia, China, Germany and the EU called for self-restrained and not to rush into conclusions and accusations of any party until the end of investigation.

Although the Gulf of Oman is the most guarded and monitored area by the most sophisticated surveillance equipment yet no strong evidence was produced to substantiate the American accusations. The footage that CENTCOM had produced to incriminate Iranian IRGC of removing an unexploded limpet mine; an alleged evidence of Iran’s involvement, is so blurry that one cannot distinguish whether it was really an Iranian boat or what its crew was doing. It is hard to believe that the sophisticated surveillance system could not produce a clear picture of the boat. Ambiguity is intentional here.

When Yutaka Katada, the president of Kokuka Sangyo, the owner of damaged Kokuka Courageous ship, explained that a mine does not damage a ship above the see level, and that his crew saw “flying objects” hitting the ship, CENTCOM produced other stories to divert attention away from the footage. Originally officials claimed that the USS Bainbridge, a guided missile destroyer, picked up the crew members of the oil tankers. When Iranian TV broadcasted all 44 crew members in its hospitality after rescuing them, American officials changed their story claiming that tanker crew was detained by Iran after first being rescued by “un-named” another vessel.

To gain more credibility to its accusations US officials told CNN that hours before the tankers attack on Thursday the Iranians spotted an American drone flying overhead and launched a surface-to-air missile but missed the drone, which reportedly observed Iranian vessels closing in on the tankers. Yet no video of this allegation was introduced to confirm that these boats had conducted any attack.

These unsubstantiated accusations reminded me of the lies of 1964 Tonkin Gulf incident, the lies of the 2003 Iraq war and the lies of Syrian Assad’s chemical attack against his own people among many other lies. In 1964 President Lyndon Johnson’s administration lied to the Congress that North Vietnamese forces attacked the USS Maddox boat in order to get the Congress authorization to wage war against innocent Vietnam. In 2003 the lies of “weapons of mass destruction” and “the mushroom cloud” lead to the destruction of a whole country; Iraq. In 2017 Assad was accused of using chemical weapons against civilians of his own people when he was winning the war against American/Israeli/Saudi ISIS terrorist groups. The US bombed Syrian bases in response.

The credibility of successive American administrations had long been lost, and their flagrant lies throughout their history had been clearly exposed. Mike Pompeo, the present US Secretary of State, has recently proudly confessed to this fact:

“I was the CIA director. We lied … we cheated … we stole. We had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.”

Yet this lying cheating thief had the audacity to face the whole world and to deceptively accuse Iran of attacking the oil tankers: 

“It is the assessment by the United States government that the Islamic Republic of Iran is responsible for the attacks that occurred in the Gulf of Oman today. This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping, and the fact that no proxy group operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication.”

The resources proficiency to act with high degree of sophistication Pompeo has mentioned are characteristics of the American and Zionist Israeli underground Special Forces.

The question of “who benefits” will lead us to the real perpetrators. It is highly unlikely and illogical for Iran to attack Japanese owned ships while the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, was visiting Iran in a mediating mission between the US and Iran.

Unlike the western powers it is not a character of the Iranian government to attack the ship, Front Altair, belonging to one of Iran’s closed allies and friend, John Frederiksen, the owner of the Frontline Tanker Company, who helped Iran deliver its oil to its destinations during the “tanker war” with Iraq in the 1980’s.

Iran seeks peace and security in the region, which explains it’s signing the 2015 nuclear agreement accepting the international monitoring of its nuclear facilities unlike nuclear Israel who has not signed the NPT agreement. Also Iran had given European countries ample time to comply with the nuclear deal after the American withdrawal. Peace and security in the Persian Gulf area, the heaviest oil traffic, is very important for Iran. Iran had approached all the Gulf States with a call to sign a non-aggression pact and a partnership to form a local unified security system in the Gulf.

To prove its innocence Iran had called for independent international investigation in the 12^th May Al-Fujairah attack against four oil tankers that must include all surveillance records of the area in order to expose the ‘state actor’ behind the attack. Fear of the results of such an investigation led UAE, Saudi Arabia, Britain and US to reject such call demanding the world to accept their accusations of Iran without any substantial evidence.

On the other hand we see Trump unilaterally withdrawing from the Iran nuclear agreement and imposing sanctions threatening the whole world not to buy Iranian oil in order to impose a new agreement; a mafia style technique. Iranian refusal to re-negotiate the deal and it’s brushing off all Trump’s direct and indirect invitation for negotiation gradually dropping off all pre-conditions, led Trump eventually to deploy the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf to increase the pressure on Iran.

Trump’s administration does not want war with Iran. Such a war would devastate the region as well as the whole world. In the case of a military war every country without exception in the Middle East would be severely affected. All the American military bases in the region would be an easy target for the Iranian missiles. All the American naval ships would also be easy targets to the many Iranian speed torpedo boats. The casualties and the destruction would be astronomical.

The real goal of the Trump’s administration is to increase tension and enmity between Iran and the Gulf States. This policy started in 1979 after the Islamic Revolution in Iran with the expulsion of the Shah regime, the American hostage crises, the closure of the Israeli embassy and turning its building over to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). This enmity developed when the US encouraged Iraqi Saddam Hussein to wage the eight years’ war against Iran with the financial support of the Gulf Arab States.

The spread of Iranophobia within the Gulf Arab oil producing states has become a priority in the American foreign policy since Iran had extended its financial aid and military expertise to Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian resistance groups against Israeli occupation, supported Syrian Assad regime against Israeli/American/Saudi created terrorist group ISIS, and supported Yemen against Saudi/Emirati military aggression.

This Iranophobia led the Gulf Sunni Arab States to open their countries to American military bases ostensibly to protect them from Shi’ites Persian threats, such as the alleged nuclear threat. These bases have also served to replenish Israeli weapons stockpiles used in its wars of aggression against Egypt, Lebanon and Palestinians. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are the biggest buyers of American weapons. It is estimated that between 35% – 40% of American weapons sale go to these two Gulf States; many of which had rusted in the desert in the past, others were diverted to terrorist groups in Syria, while others are being used to destroy Yemen. The American military industrial complex rakes hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons sales to these countries.

The oil tankers attack had also relieved Trump from Congressional pressure opposing the $400 billion weapons sale to Saudi Arabia. The sales deal would go through now under the justification of “exceptional security circumstances” in the Gulf.

Those Gulf Arab states are America’s milking cows as Trump had described Saudi Arabia many times. The proposed Iran’s Gulf non-Aggression Pact and Gulf Unified Security System would free these milking cows from the American grip. Thus no war against Iran but false flag attacks in and around the Persian Gulf would serve to increase Iranophobia and keep those milking cows in the American barn.

The US is recently extracting enough shale oil for local consumption. Yet the cost of this shale oil is more expensive than the Gulf oil and it is still not marketable. The attack incidents on the oil tankers have raised the price of oil. The price will go even higher in order to cover the expenses of American naval vessels escorting oil tankers for security reasons.   The price of Gulf oil barrel would match and at times may exceed the price of American shale oil barrel. Thus, American shale oil will become marketable.

There is another aggressive player in the region, who could be the perpetrator of false flag attacks besides the US; and that is Zionist Israel. Israeli military hegemony in the region extended from 1948 to 2000, a period were the Israeli terrorist army had accomplished one victory after the other against its poorly armed Arab neighbors. This had changed in 2000 when Hezbollah was able to expel Israeli forces from occupied Lebanese territories.

Prior to 2000 Israel was able to wage wars, whose victims were Arabs, and whose destructions were Arab cities and neighborhoods. The year 2000 ushered a rebirth of strong Arab resistance axis. After 2000 Israel was never able to achieve planned goals of its aggressive wars against Lebanon or even against besieged Gaza, let alone achieve complete victory. Israeli army faced defeats and more casualties than it can afford. Israeli major cities and colonies have become easy targets to accurate and more powerful Gaza’s and Hezbollah’s missiles.

Israel resorted to AIPAC and to 911 false flag attack to push the US to fight its wars against Arabs and to have American young troops die for Israel. After 911 attacks Islamophobia spread in the US, who waged war against Iraq, and created and armed ISIS groups to destroy Syria. Iraq and Syria were strong supporters to the Palestinian cause.

Iranian strong support to Arab resistance axis made it a big obstacle to the Zionist Greater Israel Project. Despite the fact that president Trump and many military officers in the Pentagon are opposed to war on Iran, some Zionist stooges in the White House such as Evangelical Vice President Pence, warmongering John Bolton, and secretary of state Mike Pompeo are pushing for war against Iran. Zionist Israelis as well as American Zionist Christians want a devastating war in the Middle East that would destroy or at least weaken all Arab countries allowing Zionists to accomplish their Greater Israel Project no matter who or what the casualties are.

Zionist Israelis are high suspects in the attacks on the oil tankers. They have “the resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication” to quote Pompeo.

The first Al Fujairah false flag attack hardly provoked any mentionable international reactions. The second Gulf of Oman false flag attack provoked some international reaction as well as calls for self-restrain and real investigation. A third false flag attack would be more intense and may take place within the Persian Gulf itself, and could provoke impulsive military reaction that could spark a larger military confrontation, especially now after the US is sending initially 3,000 additional troops as part of 13,000 to the Persian Gulf, while Britain is sending 100 more special forces marines to join their 500 soldier comrades in the new British naval base in Mina Salman in Bahrain.

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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: Smoke billows from a tanker said to have been attacked off the coast of Oman at un undisclosed location. The crews of two oil tankers were evacuated off the coast of Iran after they were reportedly attacked in the Gulf of Oman.
Image Credit: AFP

Fast-moving events suggest that an unthinkable US preemptive war on Iran is possible, a reckless act if launched — like all wars, based on Big Lies and deception. More on this below.

Years earlier, former NATO commander General Wesley Clark said the US underwent a post-9/11 transformation. A “policy coup” occurred.

With no public debate or acknowledgement, hardliners in Washington usurped power. Days after 9/11, Clark learned from Pentagon commanders that plans were made to “destroy the governments in seven countries.”

Besides Afghanistan, Yemen, and partnering with Israeli wars on Palestinians, they include Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.

Weeks after the Soviet Union’s December 1991 dissolution, the so-called Wolfowitz doctrine shaped US geopolitics, stating:

“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union.”

“This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”

His doctrine was a declaration of endless wars against all sovereign independent countries. The 1990s featured the Gulf War, followed by over a dozen years of genocidal sanctions on the Iraqi people, a decade of Balkan wars, culminating with the 1999 rape of Yugoslavia waged by the Clinton co-presidency.

The 9/11 mother of all false flags opened the gates of hell for wars of aggression against one nation after another.

Iran remains the US/Israeli prime target for regime change, the Trump regime waging all-out war by other means, threatening to turn hot because sanctions and related hostile actions haven’t toppled its government for the past 40 years and won’t likely ahead.

Plan B may be preemptive hot war on the country. Unfolding events bear close monitoring.

On Monday, acting US war secretary Patrick Shanahan said the following:

“In response to a request from the US Central Command (CENTCOM) for additional forces, and with the advice of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and in consultation with the White House, I have authorized approximately 1,000 additional troops for defensive purposes (sic) to address air, naval, and ground-based threats in the Middle East” — despite only invented ones exist, adding:

“The recent Iranian attacks (sic) validate the reliable, credible intelligence (sic) we have received on hostile behavior by Iranian forces and their proxy groups (sic) that threaten United States personnel and interests across the region (sic).”

Not a shred of credible evidence links Iran to May and June, or other regional hostile acts. Clearly its ruling authorities have nothing to gain from aggressive actions, everything to lose.

The US, NATO, Israel, and their imperial partners benefit greatly from the Gulf of Oman and weeks earlier incidents by falsely linking Iran to them.

Shanahan turned truth on its head claiming the US “does not seek conflict with Iran” while Trump regime war by other means against the country rages, along with hot wars in multiple theaters against nations threatening no one.

Deploying more Pentagon combat forces to an oil-rich part of the world US seeks unchallenged hegemony over has nothing to do with “ensur(ing) the safety and welfare of our military personnel working throughout the region,” everything to do with pursuing US imperial interests.

On Sunday, Netanyahu broke his near-silence on the Gulf of Oman incident, saying “(a)ll peace seeking nations need to support the efforts of the United States and President Trump to stop this dangerous (Iranian) aggression (sic) and to ensure freedom of navigation in international waterways” — despite nothing threatening them except defensive Tehran actions in response to US belligerence if occurs.

On Tuesday, Israeli military intelligence-connected DEBKAfile said the following:

“US intelligence learn(ed) from a highly credible source (sic) that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have completed preparations for a large-scale assault on an important Saudi oil facility within days (sic),” adding:

The Trump regime “is gearing up for a military response.” The Islamic Republic seeks confrontation with no other nations. It’s the region’s leading peace and stability proponent.

No credible evidence suggests it’s planning a preemptive attack against the Saudis or any other regional countries. False claims otherwise are part of the escalating propaganda war on the country.

They represent a dangerous development. Trump is being mislead by disinformation and Big Lies about nonexistent hostile Iranian intentions.

Preemptively attacking selective or more extensive targets in the country would virtually assure retaliation, risking full-scale war  on a nation able to hit back hard against belligerents and block the Strait of Hormuz, through which over a third of seaborne oil shipments pass en route to world markets.

Hostility toward Iran by Trump, Pompeo, Bolton, and their henchmen showed up clearly when the regime pulled out of the JCPOA nuclear deal, an international agreement adopted by Security Council members, making it binding international and US constitutional law under its Supremacy clause (Article VI, clause 2).

Withdrawal was a shot across the bow for hostile actions to follow, things perhaps coming to a head following May and June regional incidents with likely US, and perhaps Israeli, fingerprints all over them.

Clearly Iran had nothing to do with what happened. No credible evidence suggests it. Accusations without it are groundless.

On Monday, the Pentagon released new images of a small vessel approaching the Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous tanker, claimed to be Iranian, allegedly removing an unexploded limpet mine attached to the vessel, a statement saying:

“Iran is responsible for the attack based on video evidence and the resources and proficiency needed to quickly remove the unexploded limpet mine (sic).”

Videos and other images are easily doctored. It happened many times before to fake evidence, used as pretexts for unjustifiable hostile actions.

Last week, Trump lied claiming the Gulf of Oman incident had “Iran written all over it.” Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said the US was likely responsible for attacking two tankers in gulf waters, citing its tradition of staging “false flag(s)” to justify naked aggression against nonbelligerent countries, adding:

Accusations about May and June regional incidents and “are supplementary to economic sanctions because (the Trump regime) did not reach (its) goals through the sanctions.”

He mocked Pompeo’s statement about pursuing diplomacy with the Islamic Republic. “Is it diplomacy to start a face-off with a revolutionary nation with acts of economic terrorism, which they themselves call the toughest ever,” he asked?

“Is it diplomacy, Mr Pompeo, to renege on one’s promises in the nuclear agreement?”

Hostile US actions supported by Britain, Israel, the Saudis and UAE are advancing things perilously toward possible war on Iran.

Attacking the nation would risk having the region boil over more than already. If Russia intervenes as it did to combat US-supported terrorists in Syria, global war could follow.

These and related events are why today is the most perilous time in world history. The risk of possible US-launched nuclear war is real — able to destroy planet earth and all its life forms if happens in earnest.

While these dangerous events are unfolding, the US public is largely unaware and perhaps indifferent to what threatens their welfare, security and lives.

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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 TruePublica

The Pentagon announced on Monday that the US is sending 1,000 additional troops and other military resources to the Middle East amid belligerent threats against Iran by the Trump administration. The troop movement follows the previous deployment of the USS Lincoln aircraft carrier and its battle group to the Persian Gulf, along with a bomber strike group led by nuclear capable B-52s.

An article from the Israeli website Maariv Online, republished in the Jerusalem Post, reported that the Trump administration is actively preparing a “tactical assault” on Iran. The report, based on diplomatic sources at the UN in New York, stated that “since Friday, the White House has been holding incessant discussions involving senior military commanders, Pentagon representatives and advisers to President Donald Trump.”

According to Maariv Online, the unnamed officials said that “the military action under consideration would be an aerial bombardment of an Iranian facility linked to its nuclear program.” A Western diplomat commented: “The bombing will be massive but will be limited to one target.”

Announcing the troop deployment, acting US Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan stated:

“The recent Iranian attacks validate the reliable, credible intelligence we have received on hostile behaviour by Iranian forces and their proxy groups that threaten United States personnel and interests across the region.” He then absurdly added: “The United States does not seek conflict with Iran.”

In reality, the current explosive situation in the Persian Gulf is entirely of Washington’s manufacture. In breach of UN resolutions, the Trump administration unilaterally abrogated the 2015 deal between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany to limit its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.

The US subsequently re-imposed and strengthened its crippling sanctions on Iran aimed at cutting off all oil exports and collapsing the Iranian economy. It also threatened to take punitive economic measures against companies breaching its unilateral sanctions. Washington’s actions amount to an economic blockade of Iran and an act of war.

With US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the lead, the Trump administration is exploiting attacks on two tankers in the Persian Gulf last Thursday as the pretext for threatening to strike Iran. On Sunday, Pompeo declared that the US was “considering a full range of options,” including “a military response.”

The US Central Command, which would oversee any attack on Iran, released a video which it claims shows a small boat of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) approaching and removing an unexploded limpet mine from one of the damaged tankers—the Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous. It followed up yesterday with photos of the same alleged activity.

US officials have continued to blame Iran for the attacks despite a declaration from the tanker’s owner that the vessel was hit by a flying object according to its crew members. Both Japan and Germany have questioned Washington’s claims and called for further evidence, saying the video did not constitute sufficient proof. Iran has denied any involvement in the attacks.

The UN sources quoted in the Jerusalem Post article claimed that Trump himself had not been enthusiastic, but had lost his patience and given the green light to Pompeo, who has been pushing for action.

Pompeo is due to travel today to US Central Command (CENTCOM) headquarters in Florida. He will meet with two top military leaders—CENTCOM commander General Kenneth McKenzie and General Richard Clarke, head of the Special Operations Command—to “discuss regional security concerns and operations.”

CNN noted that the visit was “unusual” as Pompeo was not accompanied by acting US Defence Secretary Shanahan, who was remaining in Washington to “continue to develop options.”

The US has also seized on Iranian statements on Monday warning that its low-level enrichment of uranium will exceed the limit set under the 2015 agreement within 10 days to further wind up tensions. Speaking to the media on Monday, US National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis branded Iran’s actions as “nuclear blackmail” and insisted it must be met with “increasing international pressure.”

What staggering hypocrisy! The US has torn up the 2015 agreement, is crippling Iran’s economy and menacing war. Less than a month ago, Trump declared that if it came to conflict, it would be “the official end of Iran”—implying that the US would use its full arsenal including nuclear weapons to obliterate the Iranian population of more than 80 million. Yet when Tehran suggests that it will no longer be bound by the deal, it is declared to be “blackmail.”

Marquis also reiterated Trump’s lie that the US pulled out because “the horrible nuclear deal left their capabilities intact.” In fact, the 2015 agreement, which Iran only agreed to under the Obama administration’s threat of war, severely curtailed its nuclear programs, placing them under highly intrusive inspections. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly found Iran in compliance with the agreement’s stringent requirements.

Iran has only tentatively moved towards abrogating the agreement, even though it would be fully justified in doing so by Washington’s illegal actions. In early May, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani set a 60-day deadline for the other signatories—Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China—to put tangible measures in place to enable Iran to export oil and transact with international banks. The deadline expires on July 7.

The European powers have sought to save the agreement, but so far have taken little action. An alternative payment system, INSTEX, which that would circumvent the existing US-dominated international financial and banking system, has been launched but is not yet operational. Even if it were up and running, it would initially only apply to trade in food and medicine. A fully operational system would bring the European powers into open conflict with the United States, which would undoubtedly retaliate.

The Trump administration’s warmongering in the Persian Gulf is opening up divisions in Europe. While German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has openly questioned US “evidence” of Iranian involvement in last week’s tanker attacks, Britain has quickly fallen into line. On Monday, Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, leader of the fascist Lega, signalled Rome’s support for Washington’s war drive against Iran.

The Trump administration is recklessly preparing for a war against Iran. Any US airstrike on Iran, even if limited to one attack, would rapidly escalate into an all-out war that would not only involve other US regional allies such as Saudi Arabia and Israeli, but also threaten to drag in other major powers to defend their vital interests.

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Featured image: An American guided missile cruiser fires a tomahawk missile during the 2003 US invasion of Iraq [Credit: US Navy]

Generally, when discussing air-defense systems here, we are referring to Russian devices that have become famous in recent years, in particular the S-300 (and its variants) and the S-400. Their deployment in Syria has slowed down the ability of such advanced air forces as those of the United States and Israel to target the country, increasing as it does the embarrassing possibility of having their fourth- or fifth-generation fighters shot down.

Air-defense systems capable of bringing down fifth-generation aircraft would have a devastating effect on the marketability and sales of US military hardware, while simultaneously boosting the desirability and sales of Russian military hardware. As I have often pointed out in other analyses, Hollywood’s role in marketing to enemies and allies alike the belief that US military hardware is unbeatable (with allies being obliged to buy said hardware) is central to Washington’s strategies for war and power projection.

As clashes between countries in such global hot spots as the Middle East increase and intensify, Hollywood’s propaganda will increasingly struggle to convince the rest of the world of the continued efficacy and superiority of US weapons systems in the face of their unfolding shortcomings.

The US finds itself faced with a situation it has not found itself in over the last 50 years, namely, an environment where it does not expect to automatically enjoy air superiority. Whatever semblance of an air defense that may have hitherto been able to pose any conceivable threat to Uncle Sam’s war machine was rudely dismissed by a wave of cruise missiles. To give two prime examples that occurred in Syria in 2018, latest-generation missiles were intercepted and shot down by decades-old Russian and Syrian systems. While the S-400 system has never been employed in Syria, it is noteworthy that the Serbian S-125 systems succeeded in identifying and shooting down an American F-117 stealth aircraft during the war in the Balkans.

There is a more secret aspect of the S-400 that is little disclosed, either within Russia itself or without. It concerns the S-400’s ability to collect data through its radar systems. It is worth noting Department of Defense spokesman Eric Pahon’s alarm over Turkey’s planned purchase of the S-400:

“We have been clear that purchasing the S-400 would create an unacceptable risk because its radar system could provide the Russian military sensitive information on the F-35. Those concerns cannot be mitigated. The S-400 is a system built in Russia to try to shoot down aircraft like the F-35, and it is inconceivable to imagine.

Certainly, in the event of an armed conflict, the S-400’s ability to shoot down fifth-generation aircraft is a huge concern for the United States and her allies who have invested so heavily in such aircraft. Similarly, a NATO country preferring Russian to American systems is cause for alarm. This is leaving aside the fact that the S-400 is spreading around the world, from China to Belarus, with dozens of countries waiting in line for the ability to seal their skies from the benevolent bombs of freedom. It is an excellent stick with which to keep a prowling Washington at bay.

But these concerns are nothing when compared to the most serious threat that the S-400 poses to the US arms industry, namely, their ability to collect data on US stealth systems.

Theoretically, the last advantage that the US maintains over her opponents is in stealth technology. The effectiveness of stealth has been debated for a long time, given that their costs may actually outweigh their purported benefits. But, reading between the lines, what emerges from US concerns over the S-400 suggests that Moscow is already capable of detecting US stealth systems by combining the radars of the S-400 with those of air-based assets, as has been the case in Syria (despite Washington’s denials).

The ability of the S-400 to collect data on both the F-35 and F-22 – the crown jewels of the US military-industrial complex – is a cause for sleepless nights for US military planners. What in particular causes them nightmares is that, for the S-400 to function in Turkey, it will have to be integrated into Turkey’s current “identification friend or foe” (IFF) systems, which in turn are part of NATO’s military tactical data-link network, known as Link 16.

This system will need to be installed on the S-400 in order to integrate it into Turkey’s defensive network, which could potentially pass information strictly reserved for the Russians that would increase the S-400’s ability to function properly in a system not designed to host such a weapon system.

The final risk is that if Turkey were to fly its F-35s near the S-400, the Link 16 system would reveal a lot of real-time information about the US stealth system. Over time, Moscow would be able to recreate the stealth profile of the F-35 and F-22, thereby making pointless Washington’s plans to spend 1.16 trillion dollars to produce 3,000 F-35s.

What must be remembered in our technological age is that once the F-35’s radar waveform has been identified, it will be possible to practice the military deception of recreating fictitious signals of the F-35 so as to mask one’s own aircraft with this shape and prevent the enemy’s IFF systems from being able to distinguish between friend or foe.

Of particular note is the active cooperation between China and Russia in air-defense systems. The S-400 in particular has already been operational in China for several years now, and it should be assumed that there would be active information sharing going on between Moscow and Beijing regarding stealth technology.

It turns out that the S-400 is a weapon system with multiple purposes that is even more lethal than previously imagined. It would therefore not be surprising that, were S-400s to be found in Cuba and Venezuela, Washington’s bellicose rhetoric against these two countries would come to an abrupt halt.

But what US military planners fear more than the S-400 embarrassing their much-vaunted F35 and F22 is the doubts they could raise about the efficacy of these stealth aircraft in the minds of allies and potential buyers. This lack of confidence would deal a mortal blow to the US arms industry, a threat far more real and devastating for them than a risk of conflict with Moscow or Beijing.

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Federico Pieraccini is an independent freelance writer specialized in international affairs, conflicts, politics and strategies.

Featured image is from Sputnik/ Sergey Malgavko

While the United States prepares a new escalation of tension in the Middle East by accusing Iran of attacking petrol tankers in the Gulf of Oman, Italian vice-Prime Minister Matteo Salvini met with one of the artisans of this strategy in Washington, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, assuring him that “Italy wants to regain its place as the major partner on the European continent of the greatest Western democracy”. Thereby he has allied Italy with the operation launched by Washington. 

The “Gulf of Oman affair”, a casus belli against Iran, is a carbon copy of the “Gulf of Tonkin affair” of 4 August 1964, itself used as a casus belli to bomb North Vietnam, which was accused of having attacked a US torpedo boat (an accusation which was later proved to be false).

Today, a video released by Washington shows the crew of an alleged Iranian patrol boat removing an unexploded mine from the hull of a petrol tanker in order to conceal its origin (because the mine would allegedly have borne the inscription “Made in Iran”).

With this “proof” – a veritable insult to our intelligence – Washington is attempting to camouflage the goal of the operation. It is part of the strategy aimed at controlling the world’s reserves of oil and natural gas and their energy corridors [1].

It is no coincidence if Iran and Iraq are in US crosshairs. Their total oil reserves are greater than those of Saudi Arabia, and five times greater than those of the United States. Iranian reserves of natural gas are approximately 2.5 times those of the USA. Venezuela finds itself targeted by the USA for the same reason, since it is the country which owns the greatest oil reserves in the world. 

The control of the energy corridors is of strategic importance. By accusing Iran of attempting to “interrupt the flow of oil through the Straights of Hormuz”, Mike Pompeo announced that “the United States will defend freedom of navigation”.

In other words, he has announced that the United States wants to gain military control of this key area for energy supplies, including those for Europe, by preventing above all the transit of Iranian oil (to which Italy and other European countries cannot in any case enjoy free access because of the US embargo).

• Low-cost Iranian natural gas might also have reached Europe by way of a pipeline crossing Iraq and Syria. But the project, launched in 2011, was destroyed by the USA/NATO operation to demolish the Syrian state.
• Natural gas might also have arrived directly in Italy from Russia, and from there to be distributed to other European countries  with notable economical advantages, via the South Stream route through the Black Sea. But the pipeline, already in an advanced stage of construction, was blocked in 2014 by the pressure of the United States and European Union itself, with heavy prejudice for Italy.

In fact it was the reproduction of North Stream which continued, making Germany the centre of triage for Russian gas. Then, on the basis of the “USA/UE strategic cooperation in the energy field” agreement stipulated in July 2018, US exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the UE tripled. The triage centre is in Poland, from which the “Freedom Gas” will be distributed to Ukraine.

Washington’s objective is strategic – to hurt Russia by replacing Russian gas in Europe with US gas.

But we have no guarantees, neither on the price, nor on the time-scale for US gas extracted from the bituminous shale by the technique known as fracking (hydraulic fracturation), which is disastrous for the environment.

So what does Matteo Salvini have to say about all that?

When he arrived in the “greatest democracy in the Western world”, he proudly declared – “I am part of a government which in Europe is no longer satisfied with breadcrumbs”.

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

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

“We are urging all the sides to show restraint,” said President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, to avoid escalation in the Middle East after the US said it was deploying additional troops due to heightened tensions with Iran” 

“We would prefer not to see steps that could introduce additional tensions in the already unstable region.”

According to press reports:

 

The United States said Monday it has approved the deployment of 1,000 additional troops to the Middle East. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said the troops were being sent “for defensive purposes” as the US has blamed Iran for last week’s attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Tuesday that US plans to increase its troop presence in the Middle East were aimed at provoking armed conflict. Such actions “cannot be seen otherwise than as a deliberate course to provoke war,” … He said that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo while visiting in Russia last month had stated that US troops were in the region not to start war but prevent it.  Pompeo said at a news conference with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in Sochi on May 14 that “we fundamentally do not seek a war with Iran.” (AFP, June 18, 2019)

Sergei Ryabkov’s pointed response:

“If that’s the case, the US should refrain from further reinforcement of its presence and from other steps, including dragging and pushing its allies in various parts of the world into stepping up pressure on Iran,” 

In this Press TV interview geopolitical analyst Peter Koenig comments on the nature of US threats and the unfolding crisis.

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PressTV: Could you please comment on Moscow’s position and Sergei Ryabkov’s statement. 

Peter Koenig: What Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Tuesday that US plans to increase its troop presence in the Middle East were aimed at provoking armed conflict – is very true; and is very important to take note of.

To me it looks like the commando behind Trump has decided to put Venezuela on the backburner, that, for now, Iran is more important.

Controlling Iran, means basically controlling not only the entire Middle East with all its riches, but it’s also contributing to the Chosen People’s – Israel, the Zionists’ – overall goal to exert hegemony over the world’s finances – controlling the globe’s economy.

Domination of people by military power and domination of the economy by financial power, go hand in hand.

Let’s face it, to engage in war – or provoke war – were also the two ‘false flag’ attacks on the Norwegian and Japanese oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman. Only an absolute moron, or someone who has never lived on planet earth, would not understand that these were two flagrant “false flags”; and Pompeo’s immediate accusations without a shred of proof, were the usual “Pompeoisms” – lying, deceiving, stealing, – or as he said literally what they did at the CIA, “We lied, we cheated, we stole”. Well these people do not change.

By engaging Iran in a war, Washington knows they would also engage Russia and China – and that’s what they want. The two super powers are their last stronghold to conquer.

And people who are narcissistic and full of themselves, as are the characteristics of neoliberals and neofascists, who want to run the show, they do not see their own limits – they see only their own power with impunity.

Its like a drug for them. They act under addiction… addiction for power and dominance. They are even ready to destroy themselves for power and dominance.

If we analyze one particular incident on this globe, like the announcement to deploy a 1000 more troops to the Middle East – have they said where? – not that I know – then we always have to see the entire picture.

It’s part of a Chess game – a Chess game they – the US and the international handlers behind them – only are allowed to win. That’s why they never give up an objective. They may put it on the backburner for a while, like what they are likely doing with Venezuela, but in the long run, as the they see the Big Picture only, Full Spectrum Dominance, they will continue – until their collapse.

And why is the collapse the logical outcome? – Because such a war cannot be won. By nobody.

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

This incisive article by award winning author Manlio Dinucci was first published in May 2019

The decision by the United States to exit the Iranian nuclear agreement – signed in 2015 by Teheran with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany – causes a situation of extreme danger not only in the Middle East.

To understand the implications of such decision, taken under pressure by Israel that describes the agreement as “the surrender of the West to the axis of evil led by Iran”, we must start from a precise fact: Israel has the Bomb, not Iran.

For over fifty years, Israel has been producing nuclear weapons at the Dimona plant, built with the help mainly of France and the United States. It is not subject to inspections because Israel, the only nuclear power in the Middle East, does not adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Iran signed fifty years ago.

The evidence that Israel produces nuclear weapons was revealed more than thirty years ago by Mordechai Vanunu, who had worked in the Dimona plant: published by The Sunday Times on October 5, 1986, after being screened by leading nuclear weapons experts. Vanunu, kidnapped by the Mossad in Rome and transported to Israel, was sentenced to 18 years of hard jail time and, after being released in 2004, subject to severe restrictions.

Israel has today (though without admitting it) an arsenal estimated at 100-400 nuclear weapons, including new generation mini-nukes and neutron bombs, and produces plutonium and tritium in such quantities as to build hundreds more.

The Israeli nuclear warheads are ready to launch on ballistic missiles, such as the Jericho 3, and on F-15 and F-16 fighter bombers supplied by the USA, to which the F-35 are now added.

As confirmed by the numerous IAEA inspections, Iran has no nuclear weapons and commits not to produce them, according to the agreement under strict international control.

However – writes former US Secretary of State Colin Powell on March 3, 2015 in an email that has come to light –

“the boys in Tehran know Israel has 200 nuclear weapons, all targeted on Tehran, and we have thousands”.

The US European allies, which formally continue to support the agreement with Iran, are basically aligned with Israel. Germany supplied Israel with six Dolphin submarines, modified so as to launch nuclear cruise missiles, and approved the supply of three more.

Germany, France, Italy, Greece and Poland participated, with the USA, in the Blue Flag 2017, the largest international aerial warfare exercise in Israel’s history. Italy, linked to Israel by a military cooperation agreement (Law No. 94, 2005), participated in the exercise with Tornado fighters of the 6th Wing of Ghedi, assigned to carry US B-61 nuclear bombs (which will soon be replaced by B61-12). The US participated with F-16 fighters of the 31st Fighter Wing of Aviano, assigned to the same function.

The Israeli nuclear forces are integrated into the NATO electronic system, within the framework of the “Individual Cooperation Program” with Israel, a country which, although not a member of the Alliance, has a permanent mission to NATO headquarters in Brussels.

According to the plan tested in the US-Israel Juniper Cobra 2018 exercise, US and NATO forces would come from Europe (especially from the bases in Italy) to support Israel in a war against Iran. It could start with an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, like the one carried out in 1981 on Osiraq nuclear reactor in Iraq. In the event of Iranian retaliation, Israel could use a nuclear weapon by starting a chain reaction with unpredictable outcomes.

Source: PandoraTV

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This article was originally published by Il Manifesto.

Manlio Dinucci is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

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

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102
Print Edition: $10.25 (+ shipping and handling)
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Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

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

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

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

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

On Global Capitalist Crises: Systemic Changes and Challenges

By Dr. Jack Rasmus and Mohsen Abdelmoumen, June 09, 2019

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

By Dr. Jack Rasmus and Mohsen Abdelmoumen, June 13, 2019

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

By Dr. Jack Rasmus and Mohsen Abdelmoumen, June 14, 2019

***

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: You have worked on trade union issues and you have been a trade unionist yourself. In the face of the fierce neoliberal offensive, do we not have a vital need for a very strong trade union movement to defend the working class?

Jack Rasmus: Absolutely. One of the great tragedies in recent decades is the destruction and co-optation of what’s left of that trade union movement. The destruction was planned in the 1970s and the implementation of a strategy of union destruction began in earnest under Reagan and has not ceased ever since. One of the greatest and most successful union strike waves in the US occurred in 1969-71 (second in scope only to 1946). Workers won wage and benefit gains of 25% in the first year of contracts at that time (1970-71). First construction trades, then teamsters, then auto and steel, then port dockworkers. Employers could not stop them. They were too well organized and remembered how still to fight from the traditions left over from the 30s and 40s. That’s when a plan was developed first to destroy the building trades. That was implemented back in the late 1970s, even before Reagan. Under Reagan the attack was directed at manufacturing and transport unions. At its core was the offshoring of their jobs and the deregulation of their industries to intensify competition to drive down wages. The beginning of the ‘contingent’ labor transformation began in the 1980s as well, then accelerated. Free trade wiped out more jobs, especially under Clinton in the 1990s. Pensions were destroyed in the private sector in the 80s and 90s. Minimum wages were allowed to lag. Healthcare costs were privatized and shifted to workers. Some workers fought back, a rear-guard action.

But the explanation for the demise of unionization in America in the private sector cannot be understood as solely the result of capitalist offensives. That was important. But so was the lack of leadership by unions at the top. They thought it would temporary, under Reagan, and they could recoup losses thereafter in membership, wages, and benefits. But it was not temporary. It continued under Democrats in the 1990s. The problem was that unions, as they weakened, turned to the Democratic Party to save them. It didn’t. As they got weaker they pleaded with Democrats even more, but the latter simply took their support for granted and did little in return. The Democrat party insisted the Unions not embarrass them by strikes, especially under Clinton. The leadership abided by the party’s request. And got weaker still, losing more members. Then came NAFTA, China, and H1-B visas giving hundreds of thousands of jobs to skilled labor coming to the US. Millions of jobs were lost after 1997 to trade. Then came tax cuts for business that subsidized the replacement of labor by capital and machinery. That devastated at least as many jobs as free trade deals. Then came the collapse of housing markets and permanent loss of millions of construction jobs. Filling the gap of jobs were more low paid service employment and more contingent part time, temp work, at lower pay and no benefits. All the while the leaders of unions pleaded with Democrats to help them. Obama promised reforms to help unions organize new members in 2008, then buried the promise once elected and having received union members’ contributions in the millions for his campaign.

The problem of declining unions is a problem of capitalist restructuring and change, of capitalist offensives to de-unionize and weaken collective bargaining. But it’s also a consequence of wrong union strategies, especially becoming more dependent on Democratic party leaders who abandoned unions once they took their campaign contributions. If unions are to resurrect themselves, and I believe they will, it will have to be an independent union movement, not depending on either wings of the corporate party of America—aka the Democrats and the Republican wings of this single, essentially capitalist party. It will probably have to assume a new kind of organizational form as well. Not organized along lines of ‘smokestacks’, for this or that industry, and not placing contracts as its key objective but forming alliances and new organizations that include allies outside of work and pursuing political-legislative objectives as equally important strategies.

Having personally lived and worked in unions when they were at their peak, and then experienced and witnessed the decline, from within and from afar, it is clear union labor will have to undergo a major organizational and strategic restructuring of its own if it is to become a force it once was. But this is not the first time historically it has undergone such a transformation and arose to resume its critical economic and political role. I’m convinced it will do it again. But only if that resurrection attempt is done independently and it breaks as an appendage of either of the wings of the corporate party of America.

*

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Enquanto os Estados Unidos preparam uma nova escalada no Médio Oriente, acusando o Irão de atacar petroleiros no Golfo de Omã, o Vice-Primeiro Ministro,  Matteo Salvini, encontra, em Washington, o Secretário de Estado, Mike Pompeo, um dos arquitectos dessa estratégia, assegurando-lhe que a “A Itália quer voltar a ser, no continente europeu, o primeiro parceiro da maior democracia ocidental”. Liga, assim, a Itália à operação lançada por Washington.

O “incidente do Golfo de Omã”, casus belli contra o Irão, reproduz o “incidente do Golfo de Tonkin” de 4 de Agosto de 1964, usado como casus belli para bombardear o Vietnam do Norte, acusado de atacar um contra-torpedeiro dos EUA, (acusação que depois acabou, demonstrada como falsa).

Hoje, um vídeo divulgado em Washington mostra a tripulação de um pretenso barco-patrulha iraniano que, em plena luz do dia, remove do lado de um petroleiro, uma mina não explodida para esconder a sua origem (já que a mina tinha a inscrição “made in Iran”). Com essas “provas”, que constituem um verdadeiro insulto à inteligência, Washington tenta camuflar o objectivo da operação.

Faz parte da estratégia do controlo das reservas globais de petróleo e gás natural e dos corredores de energia relacionados. Não é por acaso que os Estados Unidos têm como alvo o Irão e o Iraque, cujas reservas totais de petróleo excedem as da Arábia Saudita e são cinco vezes maiores do que as dos EUA. As reservas de gás natural iranianas são cerca de 2,5 vezes superiores às dos Estados Unidos. Pela mesma razão, a Venezuela  está na mira USA – o país com as maiores reservas de petróleo do mundo. O controlo dos corredores energéticos é da maior importância.

Acusando o Irão de querer “interromper o fluxo de petróleo através do Estreito de Hormuz”, Mike Pompeo anuncia que “os Estados Unidos defenderão a liberdade da navegação”. Por outras palavras, anuncia que os Estados Unidos querem controlar militarmente esta zona fundamental para o aprivisionamento de energia da Europa, acima de tudo, impedindo o trânsito do petróleo iraniano (ao qual a Itália e outros países europeus não podem, entretanto, aceder livremente, devido à proibição dos EUA).

Do Irão, também teria podido chegar à Europa o gás natural a baixo preço por intermédio de um gasoducto através do Iraque e da Síria, mas o projecto, lançado em 2011, fracassou após a operação USA/NATO para destruir o Estado sírio.

Da Rússia, poderia ter chegado directamente à Itália, e daqui poderia ser distribuído por outros países europeus com vantagens económicas consideráveis, gás natural por meio do South Stream através do Mar Negro, mas o gasoducto, já em estágio avançado, foi bloqueado em 2014, sob pressão dos Estados Unidos e da própria União Europeia, com grandes prejuízos para a Itália. Em vez disso, foi avante a duplicação do Nord Stream, que faz da Alemanha o centro de distribuição do gás russo.

Posteriormente, com base no acordo de “Cooperação estratégica USA-UE”, assinado em Julho de 2018, triplicaram as exportações de gás natural liquefeito (GNL), dos EUA para a UE. O centro de distribuição é a Polónia, onde o “gás da liberdade” também chegará à Ucrânia. O objectivo de Washington é estratégico: atingir a Rússia, substituindo na Europa, o gás russo pelo gás dos EUA. No entanto, não há garantia nem sobre os preços, nem sobre a duração do fornecimento de gás dos EUA, extraído do xisto betuminoso por meio duma técnica ambientalmente desastrosa de fracking.

O que diz de tudo isto Matteo Salvini que, ao chegar à “maior democracia ocidental”, declarou orgulhosamente:  “Faço parte de um governo que, na Europa,  não se contenta mais com migalhas”?

Manlio Dinucci 

 

Artigo original em italiano :

Chi sono gli incendiari di petroliere

ilmanifesto.it

Tradutora: Maria Luísa de Vasconcellos

Mentre gli Stati uniti preparano una nuova escalation in Medio Oriente, accusando l’Iran di attaccare le petroliere nel Golfo di Oman, il vice-premier Matteo Salvini incontra a Washington il segretario di Stato Mike Pompeo, uno degli artefici di tale strategia, assicurandogli che «l’Italia vuole tornare a essere nel continente europeo il primo partner della più grande democrazia occidentale». Aggancia così l’Italia all’operazione lanciata da Washington.

L’«incidente del Golfo di Oman», casus belli contro l’Iran, ricalca «l’incidente del Golfo del Tonchino» del 4 agosto 1964, usato come casus belli per bombardare il Nord Vietnam, accusato di aver attaccato un cacciatorpediniere Usa (accusa risultata poi falsa).

Oggi, un video diffuso da Washington mostra l’equipaggio di una presunta motovedetta iraniana che, in pieno giorno, rimuove dalla fiancata di una petroliera una mina inesplosa per cancellare la sua provenienza (dato che la mina avrà avuto la scritta «made in Iran»). Con queste «prove», che costituiscono un vero e proprio insulto all’intelligenza, Washington cerca di camuffare lo scopo dell’operazione.

Essa rientra nella strategia per il controllo delle riserve mondiali di petrolio e gas naturale e dei relativi corridoi energetici. Non a caso nel mirino degli Stati uniti vi sono l’Iran e l’Iraq, le cui riserve petrolifere complessive superano quelle dell’Arabia Saudita e sono cinque volte superiori a quelle Usa. Le riserve iraniane di gas naturale sono circa 2,5 volte quelle statunitensi. Per la stessa ragione è nel mirino Usa il Venezuela, il paese con le maggiori riserve petrolifere del mondo.  Di primaria importanza è il controllo dei corridoi energetici.

Accusando l’Iran di voler «interrompere il flusso di petrolio attraverso lo Stretto di Hormuz», Mike Pompeo annuncia che «gli Stati uniti difenderanno la libertà di navigazione». In altre parole, annuncia che gli Stati uniti vogliono controllare militarmente questa zona chiave per l’approvvigionamento energetico anche dell’Europa, impedendo anzitutto il transito del petrolio iraniano (a cui l’Italia e altri paesi europei non possono comunque accedere liberamente a causa del divieto Usa).

Dall’Iran avrebbe potuto arrivare in Europa anche gas naturale a basso prezzo per mezzo di un gasdotto attraverso Iraq e Siria, ma il progetto, varato nel 2011, è saltato in seguito all’operazione Usa/Nato per demolire lo Stato siriano.

Dalla Russia avrebbe potuto arrivare direttamente in Italia, e da qui essere smistato in altri paesi europei con notevoli vantaggi economici, gas naturale per mezzo del South Stream attraverso il Mar Nero, ma il gasdotto, già in fase avanzata, è stato bloccato nel 2014 sotto pressione degli Stati uniti e della stessa Unione europea con grossi danni per l’Italia. E’ invece andato avanti il raddoppio del Nord Stream, che fa della Germania il centro di smistamento del gas russo.

Successivamente, in base all’accordo di «cooperazione strategica Usa-Ue in campo energetico» stipulato nel luglio 2018, le esportazioni Usa di gas naturale liquefatto (Lng) nella Ue sono triplicate.

Centro di smistamento è la Polonia, da dove il «gas della libertà» arriverà anche in Ucraina. L’obiettivo di Washington è strategico: colpire la Russia sostituendo in Europa al gas russo quello statunitense. Non c’è però alcuna garanzia né sui prezzi, né sulla durata delle forniture Usa di gas, estratto dagli scisti bituminosi con la tecnica del fracking ambientalmente disastrosa.

Che cosa dice di tutto questo Matteo Salvini che, arrivato nella «più grande democrazia occidentale», ha orgogliosamente dichiarato «faccio parte di un governo che in Europa non si accontenta più delle briciole»?

Manlio Dinucci

 

 

“Racism is one of the main engines and expressions of the current counter-revolution. In Venezuela the revolutionary struggle to end white supremacy and for self-determination is slow, and complicated by white elites, backed by US imperialism, and by the denial of many that racism persists.” Quote from Venezuelanalysis.com, “Racism Without Shame in the Venezuelan Counter-Revolution”

The US and Canada are not supporting “the return of democracy” in Venezuela as they claim. Instead, they are following in their histories of colonialism, imperialism, exploitation, illegal wars of aggression, and overthrowing governments. They are crushing democracy in Venezuela by exploiting class and race warfare, being carried out by an elite white-supremacist minority against the poor, Afro-Indigenous, and other Venezuelans of color.

A white-minority has dominated commerce and politics in Venezuela since the days of slavery in the 19th century. Venezuela had slavery, just as did the rest of the Caribbean and Latin America. Slavery went back to the early 16th century Spanish conquistadors. More abducted Africans were trafficked to the Caribbean and Latin America, than to the USA.

[Map, South African History online]

Slavery was officially abolished in all of the Americas in the 19th century. The history of slavery in the Caribbean and Latin America has left a legacy of prejudice, discrimination and class conflict, which has largely gone unresolved.

Different skin complexions of Latin Americans are due mostly to various mixtures of European, Spanish and Indigenous bloodlines. The darker the skin color, along with other ethnic features, the more there is of discrimination in education, employment, and opportunity. Discrimination against blacks and people of color perpetuates poverty and class conflict. In Venezuela, as elsewhere in the Caribbean and Latin America, political power, commerce and wealth is largely in the hands of a minority of upper-class elites, whom are mostly whiter and lighter than those with darker skin complexion.

One can get a sense of how much class and race affect Latin American society by watching Spanish language movies and soap operas. Here are just two examples below: the setting for the TV series “The White Slave” is 19th century Colombia; and the setting for “Teresa” is contemporary Mexico.

[One can get a sense of how much class and race affect Latin America society by watching Spanish language movies and soap operas. The setting for “La Esclava Blanca” is 19th century Colombia. The setting for “Teresa” is contemporary Mexico. Photos Wikipedia.]

Hugo Chavez and his successor Maduro are exuberantly despised by the elite white-supremacist minority. They still call Chavez negro, savage, monkey and ape. Maduro gets the same; and the media never fails to remind the public that he was a former bus driver, which is code for “low-class”. Maduro is proud of his humble beginning as a bus driver and his Afro-Indigenous ethnicity. Chavez was proud of his poor Afro-Indigenous background too, and his final resting place is in the barrio where he and Maduro came from.

In 1998 the elite white minority was voted out of the presidential residence Miraflores Palace. Instead of being purged by Chavez, as an authoritarian dictator would have done, the elites maintained their political power base, dominance in commerce, and control of the media. They have been trying to get back the Miraflores Palace, and indignantly consider it their birthright. They have used every means at their command, and even invited the US to invade the country, which would result in thousands of deaths.

In April 2002 the elite white minority tried a coup against Chavez, backed and financed by the US, which failed. In December 2002 they tried a strike by the management at the Venezuelan oil company Petróleos de Venezuela. They tried a recall referendum against Chavez in 2004, and lost at the polls. They tried to unify the opposition political parties with the sole purpose of defeating Maduro in 2013, and failed. They tried to delegitimize the 2018 presidential election by organizing a boycott. They tried to assassinate Maduro with a drone in 2018. Their attempts have failed.

The white elites have sabotaged the economy, used mass demonstrations, and organizeD violence. The self-appointed Juan Guaido declared himself the interim president, and called for a military coup d’etat, that failed miserably. Even with their control of the media and commerce they have failed to oust Maduro.

The elite upper class has millions of dollars of financial support from the US and Canada. Some of the EU countries, following pressure from the US, have thrown their support for the Guaido coup plotters too. The UK froze $1.2 billion of Venezuela’s much needed reserves for life-saving food and medicine. Spain turned its back on the people of Venezuela.

The above political caricature of Afro-Indigenous Hugo Chavez, is titled “Ape Commander”, an obvious racial slur. As the article Racism Without Shame in the Venezuelan Counter-Revolution from Venezuelanalysis explains:

”In Venezuela, the revolutionary struggle to end white supremacy and for self-determination is a slow slog, complicated by two forces: One, the white elites, backed by U.S. imperialism, and many of the middle class who support them, cling tenaciously to their power and privilege. Two, the denial by whites, and nearly everyone else that racism persists.”

Above is a caricature of Nicolas Maduro as a donkey, which is a racist slur. Animalization of black and brown people is a common theme in the white media. Maduro is pictured as a dumb animal being driven by a white Cuban. Ironically, one of the early achievements of the Cuban Revolution was to pass strong antidiscrimination laws, and largely end the racial divide in Cuba.

The US and Canada have opposed the government of Venezuela since the election of Hugo Chavez in 1998. Chavez won the election by a landslide on his platform of participatory democracy, local governance, frequent elections, rewriting the constitution, social reforms, healthcare for all, free education, adult literacy programs, and other basic economic freedoms. He called his platform the Bolivarian Revolution, his movement is called Chavismo, his followers are called Chavistas and they are fiercely loyal to Maduro. Maduro is fiercely loyal to Chavez’s memory, and the Bolivarian process. The country is renamed The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, after el libertador Simon Bolivar.

The Bolivarian process has had dramatic success in reducing inequality, cutting poverty in half, providing adequate housing, fighting child malnutrition, improving public education, practically eliminating adult illiteracy, reducing unemployment, and providing social security. (See appendix A for economic charts of the success of the Bolivarian Revolution, or click the link HERE.) The US and Canada are trying to destroy the successes of the Bolivarian process with an illegal economic blockade and violent subversion.

Before his death, Chavez endorsed his Vice President Nicolas Maduro as his successor. Chavez died in March of 2013, and a new election as required by the constitution was held in April. Maduro won by a surprisingly small margin of 1.5% against the pro-business opponent Henrique Capriles. The opposition cried foul as they always do when they lose.

Venezuela has a voting system with both an electronic ballot and a hard copy, which Jimmy Carter called the best voting technology in the world in 2012. In that election, which Carter monitored, Chavez beat Capriles by a landslide, 55.1% to 44.3%. Still, the US and the mainstream media called Chavez a dictator. Now they call Maduro a dictator.

In the 2018 presidential election Maduro won easily with 67.8% of the vote against his two opponents Henri Falcón and Javier Bertucci. Maduro had invited the United Nations to send election observers, but the UN declined because the opposition told the UN not to come. Why would the opposition disinvite the UN if they thought the election was going to be rigged? Answer, because they have given up on democratic elections. They are outnumbered by the politically awakened poor, Afro-Indigenous, and people of color who live in the barrios.

Barrio de Caracas (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The US and Canada are violating international law and the UN Charter by interfering in the internal affairs of Venezuela. The fact that Venezuela has tremendous wealth in oil, gold, precious earth, minerals and abundant natural and human resources is the obvious lure in whetting their greed.

The killer economic blockade that the US and members of the Lima Group (a US-controlled international cabal designed as a propaganda prop to legitimate attacks on Venezuela’s government) have imposed is causing tens of thousands of deaths, needless suffering, and is destroying Venezuela’s economy. The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) estimates that 40,000 Venezuelans have died as a direct result of the economic blockade. Since the blockade is intentionally targeting civilians, it is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, and a crime against humanity.

The CEPR disputes the US, Canadian, and mainstream media narrative that Nicolas Maduro is the blame for the current economic crisis. Mark Weisbrot of CEPR says that denying that the blockade is the cause of Venezuela’s economic crisis is like “climate change denial”.

The US and the mainstream media blame Maduro for “wrecking” the economy. They blame the Bolivarian process for having spent too much on social programs for the poor, not diversifying the economy, not fighting crime, and not putting away reserves in anticipation of low oil prices. The problem is that it is not true. Watch the 17-minute interview of Mark Weisbrot below:

Denying Impact of Venezuela Sanctions is ‘Like Climate Denial’

According to a United Nation’s analysis, and 150 experts and activists, the economic slump from falling oil prices was exacerbated by Obama’s economic sanctions in 2015. The blockade imposed by Trump and the Lima Group in 2017 has sent the economy into crisis. That is what economic sanctions are intended to do, as is well-known (e.g. “make the economy scream.”).

Other oil dependent countries in the region are struggling through the depression in oil prices. Venezuela could have too, except for the economic blockade, confiscation of Venezuela’s US oil company Citgo, and the freezing of assets by the US, Canada, and the EU countries. The constant threat of a US invasion diverts needed resources to increased defense spending, which is another drain on the economy.

What the US and Canada are doing to Venezuela meets the definition of terrorism. They are using violence against civilians, starving them to death and preventing life-saving medicine from getting through, for political and economic purposes. It is robbery in plain sight, but many people believe the mainstream media propaganda, rather than their own “lying eyes”. The blindness is caused by “blockade denial”.

The elite white minority of Venezuelans want control of the vast wealth of Venezuela’s natural resources, and the US and Canada are helping for their own imperial designs. It is a historical pattern. The US and Canada have long supported dictators and opposed anti-colonial and democratic movements in the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa and Asia. Before the rise of the US Empire, Canada backed the British Empire in the Caribbean, and even considered annexing its own colonies in the West Indies. Now the UK and Canada are the US Empire’s junior imperial partners.

After the 1898 Spanish-American war the US colonized Cuba and Puerto Rico, as well as the Philippines. The US invaded Mexico in 1914 to support the oligarchy against the nationalists. The US refused to recognize Haiti’s government until 1862, even though it had gained independence from France in 1804. The US militarily occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. During the Spanish Civil War, the US supported the fascist dictator Franco.

Some of the most notorious dictators that the US has backed are Batista in Cuba, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Pinochet in Chile, Noriega in Panama, and “Papa Doc” and “Baby Doc” Duvalier in Haiti. During the 1980’s the US sponsored death squads in Central America. The US backed the French in Indochina and Africa, the British in the Middle East and the 1982 colonial Falkland Island War. The US backed Suharto of Indonesia in his genocidal invasion of East Timor. The US backed apartheid South Africa, and had Nelson Mandela on its terrorist list until 2008. Is this the picture of a country that loves democracy and human rights?

Just as the US overthrew a democratic government in Guatemala in 1954 for United Fruit Company, the US is now trying to overthrow a democratic government in Venezuela for the benefit of US oil companies, and Canadian mining companies. And just as neocon Elliot Abrams was in charge of the death-squads in Central America during the 1980’s, he is now Trump’s special envoy for Venezuela. To believe that the US wants to “restore democracy” in Venezuela takes cognitive dissonance.

The US is supporting a cabal of elite white supremacists in Venezuelan to push the Washington Consensus of IMF loans, privatization of state-owned enterprises, invasion of foreign capital, Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP) by the IMF, neoliberal debt slavery and austerity for the poor, Afro-Indigenous, and people of color. Even Monsanto is behind the coup because Venezuela is one of the few countries that bans cancer causing Roundup and GMO seeds.

An article in the Journal of the US Army from 2005 laid out in detail the US’s objections against the Bolivarian process. Even when there was no question about the legitimacy of the elections and the economy was doing great, the US was planning a coup d‘etat. One reason is oil, and the US Army article is blunt about it:

So, the US and Venezuela disagree on their “preference” for “this strategic asset”. The Venezuelan people want to use their oil wealth for the benefit of Venezuelans, and the US objects? Of course, Canada’s “preference” is for Canadian mining companies to control Venezuela’s gold too.

Venezuela is a sovereign country, a member of the United Nations, and Maduro is the internationally recognized president. (A status the US and its vassals and allies in crime continually work to undermine).  Venezuela has the right to choose its own preferences. What the article calls “this strategic asset” is not up for grabs. The US and Canada don’t have a right to vote on it. The fact that the US and Canada even think that they can dictate ownership of “this strategic asset”, shows how arrogant and bullying they are. This is the 21st century, the Monroe Doctrine should be dead, and the Caribbean and Latin America ain’t nobody’s “backyard”.

The US Army article further whines that Chavez and Maduro encouraged the unity of South America, challenging US hegemony. Venezuela has a right to its own foreign relations. Other invented crimes are that Venezuela backed a stronger OPEC, and opposed the illegal Invasion of Iraq, and the Worldwide War on Terror. Venezuela has good relations with Cuba and Nicaragua, thus irritating the US further.

Strangely, the US Army article finds the Bolivarian process of “participatory democracy” rather than “representative democracy” to be nefarious? It’s odd that the US would object to the Venezuelan people having more democracy and local control, rather than less. Try explaining to Chavistas how Trump became president even though he got fewer votes than Clinton, and they will laugh in your face about “representative democracy”.

What is depressing is that most of the North American public is still fooled by the US propaganda that it is motivated by democracy and human rights. The historical evidence is to the contrary. The US is a serial predator of illegal wars of aggression, which have killed millions of people, and Canada has been right there side-by-side. They have invaded at least a half-dozen countries in the past few decades, and they are threatening a half-dozen more. The US has imposed illegal economic sanctions on Russia, Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Venezuela. The US State Department has bragged that the sanctions are “working” because civilians are dying. That is not concern for human rights. It is coercion, hostage taking and demands for ransom.

The US often violates international law, reneges on treaties, ignores the United Nations, defies the International Criminal Court, and breaks domestic laws. It conducts illegal wars of aggression, drone assassinations, night raids, and covert operations . The US supplies weapons, logistics and ammunition that are used by Israel and Saudi Arabia to kill civilians. The US supports 70% of the world’s dictators. Does any of that fit with a country that is concerned about democracy and human rights? The US and Canada are recklessly instigating a bloody civil war in Venezuela.

A State Department official named Brian Hook in a leaked memo disabused his boss at that time, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, about the actual aims of US foreign policy. The memo tutored Tillerson that the US is only interested in weaponizing democracy and human rights to destabilize adversaries. The US should treat friendly dictatorships, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Honduras, “different and better”, according to Hook.

As Hook explains, agitating countries about democracy and human rights is destabilizing, and the US does not want to do that to friendly dictators. With adversaries though, the US wants to destabilize them even if they are democracies, like Venezuela. For adversaries, they are never democratic enough to please the US. They should be destabilized and kept off balance, according to Hook.

It is false that US foreign policy objectives are for the benefit of the US public. US foreign policy is for the benefit of corporations, special interest groups and oligarchs. The beneficiaries of US foreign policy are the elites, and they grease US foreign policy with campaign contributions, bribes and other perks to government officials.

What drives US foreign policy is the quest for absolute military superiority, preservation of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency, maintaining the capitalist world order, controlling the world’s natural and human resources, promoting a stable business-friendly environment for Western transnational corporations, and seeking opportunities for windfall profits for cronies.

In other words, the US wants to control the whole world. If that means overthrowing non-compliant democratically elected governments and supporting military coups and dictators, killing millions of people, then as far as the US is concerned, so be it. That is criminally insane.

It is the US public that pays for US foreign policy and wars, either through taxes or by the lack of government programs, such as universal healthcare, education, mass transit and a “Green New Deal”. US foreign policy does not keep the American people safer. Wars and the threat of wars make the American people less safe.

The foreign policy elites, also called the “power elite”, which is a phrase coined by C. Wright Mills in his book The Power Elite, are a closely knit alliance of “military, government, and corporate officials perceived as the center of wealth and political power in the US”. The power elite usually come from wealthy families. They all went to Ivy League schools, they belong to the same country clubs, they are members of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderberg group. They sit on the boards of corporations, the media, banks, foundations, universities, and think tanks; and they become Senators and Presidents.

The power elite is a clique. The members all go to the same cocktail parties, their spouses are friends, and their children go to private schools together. Those not born into the power elite have to earn admission by being faithful servants, and climb to the top while they gain experience, power and influence. The power elite is the Deep State. The Deep State makes US foreign policy and declares war; not the American people. The American people pay, but do not get to “play”.
The Deep State, and those that serve it, such as John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, have no moral and legal restraints.

Humanitarian interventionists, the right to protect (R2P), American values, democracy and human rights are weaponized, as Hook explained to Tillerson. It is all about US hegemony and world domination. Under three US presidents, Bush, Obama and Trump, the US has been trying to overthrow the government of Venezuela.

Twenty years ago, the democratically elected president of Venezuela became a target of the US. There was no question that the election was fair, democratic and it was declared so by international observers, including the Carter Center. Hugo Chavez won the presidency by a landslide. Instead of cheering for democracy at work, the US and Canada soon started plotting to overthrow the elected government.

In 2002 the US backed an unsuccessful military coup d’etat. The US immediately endorsed the coup government, and the mainstream media cheered. The coup failed because the people demanded a return of their kidnapped president. Within 48 hours Hugo Chavez was back in the Miraflores Palace.

Below is a 15-minute documentary on the 2002 coup attempt and the US involvement. The video features Eva Golinger. Golinger is a US attorney who has followed events in Venezuela for decades, she was a legal advisor to Hugo Chavez, and she has written several books. The most well-known is The Chavez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela.

How America Overthrew The Venezuelan Government

So, how does the US square what it now says is its concern for democracy, when the US tried to overthrow the government in 2002, regardless of it being a democratically elected government? The US’s fallback argument is that an adversary is never democratic enough, as Hook explained.

It is the same answer the US gave in 1954 when it overthrew the democratically elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Árbenz. It is the same answer the US gave in 1973 when it overthrew and assassinated Chile’s democratically elected president, Salvador Allende. It is the same answer it gave in the 1980’s when it was backing the Contras in Nicaragua. It is the same answer the US gave when it overthrew the democratically elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti in 1994, and then overthrew him again when he was elected in 2004. It is the same answer that the US gave when it backed the military coup in Honduras in 2009. For the US, an adversary is never democratic enough, and it must go.

Maduro must go because he is costing US and Canadian corporations and banks money. He challenges the Washington Consensus. Maduro threatens US hegemony in Latin America and the Caribbean. Those are unforgiveable sins in the eyes of the US. It is like putting a great big bull’s eye on your back. Being a US target has nothing to do with democracy and human rights.

Vice President Pence and Prime Minister Trudeau met in Ottawa at the end of May. In their joint statement they spoke about many issues that the US and Canada share. They chitchatted about their peaceful borders, joked about basketball rivalry, and spared about trade. One issue that they agreed on was Venezuela. Both said that President Nicolas Maduro must go. When the US says “must go”, it includes assassination.

Here is what Trudeau had to say on Venezuela:

“This afternoon, the Vice President and I spoke about the concerning situation in Venezuela. Our government remains committed to the importance of finding a peaceful return to democracy and stability for Venezuelans.”

Pence followed with his statement on Venezuela:

“Canada has imposed sanctions on 113 of the dictator’s cronies. You’ve promoted the cause of freedom and a free Venezuela inside the Lima Group and the OAS. And the two of us have said, with one voice, that Nicolás Maduro is a dictator with no legitimate claim to power, and Nicolás Maduro must go.”

Restoring democracy in Venezuela is a red herring. The US and Canadian foreign policies are not concerned about democracy. It is lip service for the home folks. US foreign policy has always preferred strong dictators and puppet governments in their “back yard”. The US and Canada have historically exploited their backyard for its natural resources, tropical monocrops, cheap labor, and schemes to get rich. Those that have opposed the US and Canada can be found in mass graves all over the Caribbean and Latin American.

Trump is refreshingly crude, compared to the smooth-talking Obama. Reportedly when Trump first took office, one of his first questions was why is the US not at war with Venezuela, since they have all that oil and they are right in our backyard?

International law is meaningless to the US, and that is not new with Trump. The US has a long history of ignoring international law. Both Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Trump’s national security advisor John Bolton have a vision of the world as the wild west, with no international law, just anarchy. It is the cynical view that might-makes-right, and that the US is above the law.

It was the Bill Clinton administration that injected new currency into the phrases American exceptionalism and the indispensable nation. That was the polite way to say that the US is above the law. It is just that Trump, Bolton, Pompeo, and Abrams do not have good manners. That is not a policy change, it’s Trump stepping into an imperial presidency that was left to him by Bush and Obama.

Oh, the Trump administration still speaks out of both sides of its mouth with platitudes that the US is a force for good in the world, and that its values are democracy and human rights. Only fools believe that anymore.

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Appendix

Venezuelan Economic and Social Performance Under Hugo Chávez, in Graphs

1. Growth (Average Annual Percent)

Source: Banco Central de Venezuela

This graph shows overall GDP growth as well as per-capita growth in the pre-Chávez (1986-1999) era and the Chávez presidency.

From 1999-2003, the government did not control the state oil company; in fact, it was controlled by his opponents, who used it to try to overthrow the government, including the devastating oil strike of 2002–2003. For that reason, a better measure of economic growth under the Chávez government would start after it got control over the state oil company, and therefore the economy.

Above you can see this growth both measured from 2004, and for the 1999-2012 period. We use 2004 because to start with 2003, a depressed year due to the oil strike, would exaggerate GDP growth during this period; by 2004, the economy had caught up with its pre-strike level of output. Growth after the government got control of the state oil company was much faster.

2. Public vs. Private Growth – 1999-2012 (Average Annual Percent)

Source: Banco Central de Venezuela

This graph shows the growth of the private sector versus the public sector during the Chávez years.

3. Inflation: Pre-Chávez vs. Chávez Years

Source: Banco Central de Venezuela, INEC / Inflation in Venezuela, consumer price index.

4. Unemployment Rate: Before and After Oil Strike

After the oil strike (and the deep recession that it caused) ended in 2003, unemployment dropped drastically, following many years of increases before Chávez was elected. In 1999, when Chávez took office, unemployment was 14.5 percent; for 2011 it was 7.8 percent.

5. Poverty and Extreme Poverty Rate

Source: INEC

Poverty has decreased significantly, dropping by nearly 50 percent since the oil strike, with extreme poverty dropping by over 70 percent.

6. Gini Coefficient, 2001-2003 – Latin America

Source: Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean

The Gini coefficient, measuring income inequality, fell from 0.5 to 0.397, the lowest Gini coefficient in the region.

7. Social Spending as a Percent of GDP

Source: SISOV

Social spending doubled from 11.3 percent of GDP in 1998 to 22.8 percent of GDP in 2011.

8. Education: Net Enrollment

Source: SISOV

9. Graduates from Higher Education

Source: Ministerio del P.P. para la Educación Universitaria

10. Child Malnutrition- Age 5 and Under

Source: Instituto Nacional de Nutrición

11. Venezuelans Receiving Pensions

Source: Instituto Venezuela de los Seguros Sociales

The number of Venezuelans receiving pensions has increased from less than 500,000 in 1999 to nearly 2 million in 2011.

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This article was originally published on The Greanville Post.

David William Pear is a columnist writing on U.S. foreign policy, economic and political issues, human rights and social issues. David is a Senior Contributing Editor of The Greanville Post (TGP) and a prior Senior Editor for OpEdNews (OEN). David has been writing for The Real News Network (TRNN) and other publications for over 10 years. David is a member of Veterans for Peace, Saint Pete (Florida) for Peace, CodePink, and the Palestinian-led non-violent organization International Solidarity Movement.

One of the claims made about alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election was that Kremlin-controlled entities were using fake identities to create dissension and confusion on social network sites. This should surprise no one, if it is true, as intelligence operatives have been using false names since Sumerian times.

The concern over fake identities no doubt comes from the deception involved, meaning that if you are dealing with a real person you at least have some handle on making as assessment of what something means and what is likely to occur. A false persona, however, can pretend to be anything and can advocate or do something without any yardstick to measure what is actually taking place. In other words, if Mike Pompeo says something you know that he is a liar and can judge his words accordingly but if it is someone otherwise unknown named Qwert Uiop you have to wonder if he or she just might be telling the truth. You might even give them the benefit of the doubt.

A prime example of a false internet persona has recently surfaced in the form of an alleged “activist” invented by the Iranian terrorist group Mojahedin e Khalq (MEK). MEK is a curious hybrid creature in any event in that it pretends to be an alternative government option for Iran even though it is despised by nearly all Iranians. At the same time, it is greatly loved by the Washington Establishment which would like to see the Mullahs deposed and replaced by something more amenable to western and Israeli worldviews.

MEK is run like a cult by its leader Maryam Rajavi, with a number of rules that restrict and control the behavior of its members. One commentary likens membership in MEK to a modern day equivalent of slavery. The group currently operates out of a secretive, heavily guarded 84 acre compound in Albania that is covertly supported by the United States, as well as through a “political wing” front office in Paris, where it refers to itself as the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

MEK, which is financially supported by Saudi Arabia, stages events in the United States in Europe where it generously pays politicians like John Bolton, Rudy Giuliani and Elaine Chao to make fifteen-minute speeches praising the organization and everything it does. It’s paying of inside the Beltway power brokers proved so successful that it was removed from the State Department terrorist list in 2012 by Hillary Clinton even though it had killed Americans in the 1970s. MEK also finds favor in Washington because it is used by Israel as a resource for anti-Iranian terrorism acts currently, including assassinations carried out in Tehran.

MEK’s fake journalist, who has recently been exposed by The Intercept, is named Heshmat Alavi. He, or if you prefer “it,” has very successfully gained access to a considerable body of generally conservative mainstream western media, including Forbes, The Hill, the Daily Beast and The Federalist. Alavi has placed scores of articles as “an activist with a passion for human rights,” aimed at discrediting Iran and its government while also subtly praising MEK as an alternative to the current regime. His bona fides have never been questioned, even by Forbes, which placed no less than 61 articles under the name between April 2017 and April 2018. The pieces appearing allegedly by Alavi are reportedly composed at a “troll factory” as a so-called “group account” in Albania where MEK members who belong to the organization’s “political wing” toil under tight security.

Alavi’s contribution to the damning of Iran has not been insignificant. An article written by him/it that appeared in Forbes claiming that the Mullahs had been able to increase their military budget due to having money freed up by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement. The article reached the White House and reportedly helped convince the Trump Administration to withdraw from the pact.

*(MEK members working in the ‘Twitter troll factory’ in Manez Camp, Albania)

To supplement the Alavi propaganda effort, MEK’s Albania operation uses banks of computers manned by followers, some of whom are fluent in English, who serve as bots unleashing scores of comments supporting regime change in Iran while also directing waves of criticism against any pro-Iranian pieces that appear on social media, to include Facebook and Twitter. By one account,more than a thousand MEK supporters manage thousands of accounts on social media simultaneously. The objective of all the chatter is to convince the mostly English-speaking audience that there is a large body of Iranians who are hostile to the regime and supportive of MEK as a replacement.

While the Iranian government and MEK might well be regarded by most Americans as a far-away problem, there was considerable shock expressed even by congress and the media when it was learned shortly before The Intercept’s revelations that the United States government had been funding a so-called Iran Disinformation Project that was employing tactics remarkably similar to those of MEK in an attempt to control the discussion over Iran policy.

Hooshang Amirahmadi, @tparsi's former boss, told @AbdolrezaDavari:
"Yes, Zarif put together NIAC – honestly, sincerely – and gave it strong support, politically and non-politically."
Amazing that no journalist asks Amirahmadi & Parsi & writes about this. https://t.co/3s1PPyrKBu

— Saeed Ghasseminejad (@SGhasseminejad) May 31, 2019

The project, run by the State Department’s global engagement center, consisted of a trolling campaign which targeted online American citizens critical of the government’s Iran policy, labeling them as disloyal to the United States and tools of the Iranian government. It used, for example, the website IranDisInfo.org and the hashtag #NIACLobbies4Mullahs. Iranian-American activist and long-time State Department contractor Mariam Memarsadeghi headed the program, receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars to “relentlessly attack critics of the Iran policy on social media…accusing them of being paid operatives of the regime in Tehran.” In all, the “Iran Disinfo” operation received over $1.5 million through the Memarsadeghi contract entity the oddly named E-Collaborative for Civic Education.

“Constant studying & constant reading”—how @nikkihaley tells @CliffordDMay she got herself so very ready & able to take on everything, not least the tyrants, represented at the UN. So much respect for her. @FDD #FDDSummit pic.twitter.com/TJFGo00Ffl

— Mariam Memarsadeghi (@memarsadeghi) August 28, 2018

The investigation of Iran Disinfo also revealed that the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), which has been leading the charge for war with Iran, had at least one employee working with E-Collaborative. FDD, which has been advising the Trump White House on a more aggressive policy towards Iran, has also been actively involved in the State Department effort and cross-posting material from the Disinfo campaign.

FDD has long been targeting Iran. It received $3.63 million in 2017 from Bernard Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot. Marcus is a hard-core Zionist who hates Iran and once referred to that nation as “the devil.” FDD has also received billions from Las Vegas casino mega billionaire Sheldon Adelson, the GOP’s largest individual donor, who has advocated dropping a nuclear bomb on Iran to send a message. The link between major Republican donors supporting FDD and an increase in FDD quasi-overt cooperation with the Trump Administration in demonizing Iran should not surprise anyone.

Even though the State Department operation was relatively insignificant compared to similar initiatives undertaken by Israel, the idea that an ostensibly democratic government should propagate lies to defend its own policies was definitely unsettling. Some might think that disinformation on Iran is of little importance, that it has little impact on actual policy, but they would be wrong. Bad information that is allowed to circulate freely creates its own reality. Most Americans believe that Iran actually threatens the United States, though they would be at a loss to explain exactly how that could be the case. Dubious stories that originated with Reuters about corruption in Iran have been used by Mike Pompeo to justify sanctions against the regime on humanitarian grounds, measures which have ironically hurt average Iranians disproportionately. The same story was also used in at least four books to discredit the Iranian leadership.

To be sure, the mainstream media is itself largely at fault, as it was with Heshmat Alavi, for not vetting their sources more carefully, particularly when a story is clearly providing unique information or representing a point of view that might be considered controversial. In some cases, of course, the news outlet wants the story to be perceived as true even when it knows that it is not, so it becomes an accomplice in the propaganda effort. A recent attempt to create a mechanism to establish standards by determining the reliability of online news content has, in fact, been little more than a neoconservative scheme to discredit sites that do not support the neocon point of view.

Since governments and various non-governmental constituencies now, by their own admission, are heavily into the game of providing false information and discrediting critics, most Americans will completely tune out of the process, meaning that there will be little or no measurable difference between truth and lies. One already hears complaints from all across the political spectrum that most news is fake. When one reaches the point where such skepticism becomes the consensus, both elections and democracy itself will be rendered pretty much meaningless.

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This article was originally published on American Herald Tribune.

Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in December 2001. Phil is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

In the spring of 2018, teachers and school staff across the United States fought back and won. By walking out for better pay and school funding, hundreds of thousands of educators etched their imprint onto the course of history. The strike wave sparked by West Virginia produced a range of major victories. It also produced some great stories. While interviewing school employees during and after the walkouts, I’d always make sure to ask about their favorite moment of the struggle so far.

Some recounted the exhilaration of personally confronting a conservative politician. Many emphasized how proud they were of having become an organizer. Others told me about the joy of their first day back at school, when students thanked and high-fived them for taking a stand. More than a few were just relieved that they could now pay the rent.

I was particularly moved by stories about small acts of support from strangers. Abby Broome, a teacher in Putnam County, West Virginia, wrote to me about one such experience. Her letter poignantly describes how the strike imbued routine interactions with a spirit of solidarity:

“I was walking to my car probably 4 or 5 blocks from the state capitol. I was alone, have to admit kind of insecure as I’m a young woman and I was alone in unfamiliar territory and it was getting late. I was wearing my strike sign around my neck, had on my red bandana and red strike shirt. I passed a bus stop where a couple people were waiting for the shelter. Under different circumstances, I don’t think any of us would have acknowledged each other. (We should have.) But this time one of the men spoke and said, ‘I support you. It’s awesome what you all are doing. Keep fighting.’

“Honestly, I was shocked. For weeks we had been ridiculed by some of our elected officials, the media, our own governor. But I learned that night that we had the support of hardworking people who know the struggle, working people probably having to take the city bus to work, people who fight every day to make ends meet, people who truly cared about what we were doing. It really changed things for me. I was tired like everyone else. I wanted things to get back to normal. But I felt energized and respected like I never had. I was proud. We were doing something bigger than ourselves. I think we were giving other people a little hope.”

Giving Hope

West Virginia’s walkout gave hope to working-class people well past state lines. Inspired by the Mountain State strikers, school employees in Oklahoma, Arizona, and beyond followed suit. Confounding all expectations, these actions erupted in Republican-dominated regions (‘red states’) with relatively weak labor unions, bans on public sector strikes, and electorates that voted for Donald Trump in 2016. And considering the fall 2018 work stoppages in Washington and a looming strike in Los Angeles, there is no sign that this militant educator upsurge will be short lived – nor confined to so-called red states.

This is a book [Red State Revolt] about the power of strikes. It tells the story of the thousands of educators like Abby Broome who took workplace action for the first time and were profoundly transformed in the process. It’s also a behind-the-scenes account of how militant teacher-organizers – most of them young radicals inspired by the 2016 Bernie Sanders presidential campaign – initiated these illegal rank-and-file rebellions and guided them to victory in alliance with their trade unions.

Finally, this book is an attempt to extract the main political lessons of the 2018 upsurge, the first wave of U.S. work stoppages in multiple generations. Our side doesn’t win very often; for decades, workers, organized labor, and the Left have been losing a one-sided class war waged by billionaires and their apologists. If we want to build an effective alternative to Trump and the Far Right, we can’t afford to ignore the experience of the red state revolt.

A Historic Upsurge

At most times and in most places, the norm is working-class resignation, rather than resistance. But the first few months of 2018 were one of those rare instances in U.S. history when ordinary people forced their way into the political arena, seeking to take their destinies into their own hands. In so doing, they transformed themselves just as much as they shaped their workplaces and society.

To quote Oklahoma teacher Gabrielle Price, educators “took a crash course in politics and government and will never be able to unsee what they have seen.” There is more than a little poetic justice in the fact that many strikers belonged to the “white working class” that liberal elites blamed for Trump’s election.

Teacher after teacher recounted to me epiphanies produced in the heat of struggle, ranging from disillusionment in Republican politicians to a newfound sense of individual and collective power. In the words of one Arizona educator: “Rallying at the capitol was one of few moments in my lifetime where I felt I stood exactly where one ought to – it was unequivocally purposeful, courageous and joyful.”

Teachers and support staff were not the only ones to reach new political conclusions. Millions of workers in each of these states witnessed a major social battle in which workers, for once, came out on top. A whole generation of young people, in particular, just learned firsthand that mass action is both legitimate and effective. To quote Oklahoma high school student Ravi Patel, “Our teachers are setting an example of bravery by standing up to ignorance and inaction … Our teachers are setting a better example than our legislators have for the past decade.”

Stepping Up and Rocking the Boat

To make these strikes a success, rank-and-file educators were obliged to step up in dozens of ways. Though labor unions played an important role in the walkouts, movement activities were often improvised from below, with all the strengths and limitations that this entailed. Their contributions included unglamorous tasks like making signs, collecting food for students, reading up on legislation, speaking with confused parents, texting a coworker to remind them to participate in the strike vote, or driving a group of peers to the capitol. Other actions required a bigger leap; for many teachers, this was the first time they’d made a speech at a rally, convinced coworkers to participate in a political action, spoken to the press, chaired a mass meeting, or confronted a politician.

In the span of a few months, tens of thousands of educators confronted and overcame personal fears, physical exhaustion, Republican bullying, and employer disciplinary intimidation. Initially, most doubted that a work stoppage was possible, because public sector strikes are prohibited in each of these states. As teacher Rebecca Garelli recalls, “People in Arizona were scared to rock the boat – and then West Virginia happened. All of a sudden, the catalyst was there. ‘They’re doing it, why can’t we?’”

Though breaking the law was not a decision easily undertaken, teachers eventually embraced their defiance. Highlighting the long tradition of taking illegal action to win a righteous cause, many strikers made homemade signs that read, “Rosa Parks was not wrong.” One West Virginia teacher posted the following to Facebook: “The way I look at it, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. took a stand, I’d be in great company [if the state tries to throw us in jail].”

Legal threats were not the only ordeals they faced. In West Virginia, educators rallied for hours in the frigid rain; in Arizona, they marched and demonstrated in ninety-five-degree heat. Many also stressed the emotional turmoil associated with their participation in such a political rollercoaster. According to Azareen Mullins: “Our feelings were extreme from one minute to the next because of things that were happening inside the capitol doors. You’d feel exhilarated next to your chanting coworkers, but the very next moment you’d be crushed because of disappointing news from the Legislature. And then it’d start all over again.”

Specter of Labor Unrest

The Supreme Court’s anti-union Janus decision in June 2018 – throwing all public employees back into the open shop era – has given the red state revolt an added degree of momentousness. Pundits across the political spectrum announced that Janus would be the nail in organized labor’s coffin. But the walkouts clearly showed the potential for the revitalization of trade unions, even in the face of “right to work” laws and legal bans on strikes.

In fact, if the walkouts in Arizona, Oklahoma, and West Virginia are any indication, this Republican offensive may prove to be counterproductive for the ruling rich: by destroying the last remnants of public sector union security, the Supreme Court decision may thereby make militant workplace actions more likely. As a union lawyer for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) warned the court on February 26, Janus risked raising “an untold specter of labor unrest throughout the country.”

Though not all of their demands were met, striking educators in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona achieved more in the span of two months than had been won over the previous two decades. That they wrested these concessions from intransigent Republican administrations – who for years prior stubbornly insisted that there was no money available to meet the teachers’ demands – made their achievements all the more significant. Both Oklahoma and Arizona, moreover, require legislative supermajorities to pass new taxes. Mass strikes have a remarkable knack for helping employers cough up concessions.

In West Virginia, the push for a work stoppage forced the state to freeze healthcare costs, cancel the imposition of invasive mandatory medical trackers, and drop both pro-charter school and anti-union legislation. Then, after almost two weeks of shuttered schools, West Virginia’s legislature caved to the strikers and granted a 5 per cent raise to all public employees – not only teachers. When I spoke with teacher leader Jay O’Neal in Charleston a few hours after victory was announced, he was ecstatic: “I’m thrilled, I feel like my life won’t ever be the same again. It sounds like hyperbole, but it’s not.”

The gains won in Arizona were also impressive. Through two months of mobilization and six school days of strikes, the ‘Red for Ed’ movement put sufficient pressure on the legislature to stop new proposed tax cuts, keep an anti-voucher referendum on the 2018 ballot, and win hundreds of millions of dollars in additional school funding. Teachers, moreover, obliged the state to grant them an immediate raise of roughly 10 per cent, with the promise of another similar increase a few years down the line. No less importantly, Arizona’s strike reversed Governor Doug Ducey’s attempt to tie any funding increase to cuts from Medicaid, the arts, and students with disabilities.

The achievements of the red state walkouts were not limited to the formal policy arena. Even more important than gains in pay and funding were the advances toward revitalizing the trade unions and rebuilding a militant workers’ movement. The illegal strikes in West Virginia and Arizona reflected, and spurred, a dramatic increase in working-class consciousness and organization, setting the stage for the conquest of further victories in the months and years ahead. To quote Garelli: “The movement and the walkout really increased people’s political awareness and our level of grassroots organization. Fifty per cent of the win here has been that we now have a strong, organized mass movement. And we’re not going away. People now have the courage to fight.”

In a marked reversal of fortunes for West Virginian organized labor, over 2,000 educators joined the unions in early 2018. Arizona – in which the union represented only 25 per cent of school employees before the strike – experienced an even deeper sea change. Roughly 2,500 new members have joined. On a Facebook thread concerning the lessons of the strike, a teacher explained: “The word ‘union’ does not scare me anymore. I joined [the Arizona Education Association] and plan on continuing to fight for what is right for educators and students. I feel the most empowered I have ever felt as an educator and now do believe that change is possible.”

Reversal of Trends?

This revolt shares important similarities with the last great round of rank-and-file radicalism in the United States, the strike wave of the late 1960s and early 1970s. But there are some critical differences. Whereas labor struggles four decades ago came in the wake of a postwar economic boom and the inspiring successes of the civil rights movement, this labor upheaval has erupted in a period of virtually uninterrupted working-class defeats and neoliberal austerity. As such, political scientist Corey Robin was right to call 2018’s educator upsurge the “most profound and deepest attack on the basic assumptions of the contemporary governing order.”¹

The stakes are high. Public education remains one of the few remaining democratically distributed public goods in the United States. For that very reason, corporate politicians have done everything they can to dismantle and privatize the school system. As political economist Gordon Lafer documents in his book The One Percent Solution, this isn’t only about immediate profits. Big corporations, he writes, are trying “to avoid a populist backlash” against neoliberalism “by lowering everybody’s expectations of what we have a right to demand as citizens”:

“When you think about what Americans think we have a right to, just by living here, it’s really pretty little. Most people don’t think you have a right to healthcare or a house. You don’t necessarily have a right to food and water. But people think you have a right to have your kids get a decent education.”²

Struggles to defend public education, in other words, have political implications that reach far beyond the schools themselves. Each of the teacher strikes raised the question of whether the tremendous resources of the richest country on earth should be used for meeting human needs or for deepening corporate profits. In a context marked by deepening social crisis and widespread popular anger, we should not underestimate the urgency of this issue. To counter the racist fearmongering of Trump and his supporters, moral condemnations are not enough. A credible political alternative must be provided.

Since West Virginia’s strike erupted in February 2018, it’s become clear that a new labor movement is not only necessary, but possible. To quote Arizonan music teacher and Red for Ed organizer Noah Karvelis: “The types of attacks we’ve seen in Arizona are common to the working class across the whole country. If educators in Arizona could stand up and fight back, anybody can stand up and do the same.”

To the surprise of all, this frontal challenge to austerity and neoliberalism came in the form of illegal statewide strikes in Republican “right to work” bastions. Since unions in these states were relatively weak and collective bargaining virtually nonexistent, the strikes took on an unusually volcanic and unruly form. In an unprecedented historical development, much of the organizing for these actions took place in secret Facebook groups where teachers could share their fears, hopes, personal stories, and action proposals (as well as countless silly memes). And with union officials reluctant to call for illegal mass action, rank and filers stepped into the leadership vacuum and filled it to the best of their abilities.

Lessons Learned

One of the main lessons from the red state revolt is that the Left needs labor just as much as labor needs the Left. Fortunately, socialists and the labor movement are beginning to overcome their decades-long divorce. In an interview conducted over celebratory beers, an hour after West Virginia strikers won their demands, Emily Comer – a socialist teacher, union member, and strike leader in Charleston – put it well: “If you have enough working people who are pushed to the breaking point, and who are angry about a specific grievance, then it’s the duty of activists to let them know that they deserve better – and that their lives can get better if they take action on that issue. If you lead the way, people will respond.”

This book describes the development of the strike wave through the words and perspectives not only of its rank-and-file participants, but also those of its main grassroots organizers. For both diplomatic and tactical reasons, activists in 2018 were reticent to publically speak about the internal conflicts that drove these movements forward. As such, the full story of their development has not yet been made public.

To understand how I was able to get this insider’s take, some background information might be helpful. Last spring, Jacobin magazine sent me to be its on-the-ground correspondent for the strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona. Truth be told, my journalistic credentials at that point were nonexistent. My parents are both union activists, and I was a high school teacher – and leftist public education organizer – in the Bay Area until 2017. Like so many of my colleagues, my meager teacher wages pushed me to go back to school; the strike wave popped off during my second semester as a doctoral student in sociology at New York University.

Upon arriving in each of the strike states, I’d immediately explain my personal-political background to the local organizers. I told them the truth, which was something to the effect of: “I’ve got to write some articles about what’s going on, but, mostly, I want you all to win – so, please, put to me work if you can.” Ultimately, I spent the bulk of my time organizing national solidarity for the strikers and talking politics with the core teacher activists over nightly beers.

The upshot was that, although I missed more than a few article deadlines for Jacobin, I ended up earning the trust of key rank-and-file leaders. They gave me access to their internal meetings, their secret Facebook groups, and even many of their personal texts. Without that inside information, there’s no way this book would have been possible.

To supplement these personal observations and the abundant primary sources embodied in the Facebook groups, I scoured the local press and also interviewed over one hundred teachers, service personnel, organizers, students, union staffers and top officials, and superintendents. Politically, these individuals ranged from Trump supporters, to liberal trade unionists, to socialist cadre – and I suspect that each will agree and disagree with aspects of my analysis. Though this is an unabashedly partisan account, I’ve tried hard to remain scrupulously committed to the facts, fair to those I criticize, and critical of those I support.

And one final note on geography: this book deals with the West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona strikes, which were by far the most important actions of the spring 2018 red state movement. The strikes in these three states were multiday work stoppages, unlike the one-day, mostly symbolic walkouts that took place in Kentucky, North Carolina, and Colorado. Likewise, I don’t delve into the recent work stoppages in Washington and other blue states – these actions, developing as they did in Democratic-run regions where strikes are not illegal, merit their own separate study.

It’s a welcome complication that by the time this book hits the shelves, there could very well be new educator struggles erupting in unexpected places throughout the United States. In the same way that teachers in West Virginia and Arizona learned from the successes of Chicago’s 2012 school strike, the 2018 experience should be of considerable use to public education workers and their allies in these battles to come.

From Trump’s vicious scapegoating to the looming threat of climate catastrophe, rays of political hope are few and far between. At this dangerous and volatile juncture in U.S. history, it’s easy to fall into despair. But the 2018 education strikes not only underscore the immense potential for mass working-class politics; they also provide important insights into how this latent power can be tapped.

Working people are angry and looking for alternatives to business as usual. In the least likely of circumstances, school employees in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona rose up and dealt a serious blow to the forces of reaction. For everyone across the country who is eager to do the same, there’s no better place to start than by learning about the red state revolt.

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This article is an excerpt from the book Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics, Verso (2019).

Eric Blanc is an activist and historian based in Oakland, California. He is the author of Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics. Follow his tweets at @_ericblanc.

Notes

1. Corey Robin, “Striking Teachers Are ‘Real Resistance’ to ‘Incoherent’ Republicans and ‘Gutted’ Dems,” interview by Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!, April 12, 2018.
2. Cited in Lynn Parramore, “The Corporate Plan to Groom U.S. Kids for Servitude by Wiping Out Public Schools,” Institute for New Economic Thinking, April 6, 2018.

The proposed “Baltic Reassurance Act” aims to more closely integrate the Baltic countries into NATO, but its most controversial clause is the suggestion that “the United States should lead a multilateral effort to develop a strategy to deepen joint capabilities with [those three countries], NATO allies, and other regional partners”, strongly implying that this legislation is a ruse for provoking Russia by facilitating non-NATO-members Finland and Sweden’s military interoperability with the bloc under the pretext of protecting the Baltics.

Texas Republican Congressman Michael Conaway introduced the so-called “Baltic Reassurance Act” into the House earlier this month, which recently drew the attention of Russian Chairman of the Committee on International Affairs Leonid Slutsky who alleged that its true purpose is to push American arms onto the countries abutting Russia’s borders. While that’s certainly true, there might actually be a bit more of an anti-Russian provocation brewing if this bill ultimately enters into law judging by its ultra-controversial clause that “the United States should lead a multilateral effort to develop a strategy to deepen joint capabilities with Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, NATO allies, and other regional partners”, with a key emphasis being placed on the last-mentioned “regional partners”.

The only realistic countries that this could refer to are non-NATO-members Finland and Sweden, making it suspiciously seem like this legislation is a ruse for facilitating those countries’ military interoperability with the bloc under the pretext of protecting the Baltics from so-called “Russian aggression”. The case being made in the text is that these former Soviet Republics are supposedly vulnerable to a lightning-fast military attack from their neighbor, one which might be so quick that it overwhelms NATO’s troops there and succeeds before the bloc can call in reinforcements. In the extremely unlikely chance that this fringe scenario comes to pass, the only real recourse that the US believes it can have is to rely on its its nearby “NATO allies, and other regional partners” to buy time before its own forces can arrive en masse to the area of operations.

It’s here where Poland (the US’ top NATO ally), Finland, and Sweden are envisaged as having a role to play. The first-mentioned country used to be part of the same historical Great Power as Lithuania during the centuries of their Commonwealth, so it naturally has an interest in expanding its growing “sphere of influence” into the Baltic region. Being the most populous country and best-performing economy out of all the former communist satellites, it makes sense for the US to consider Poland as its “Lead From Behind” ally in the Central European space and use it as its hub for military activity in the broader region, as it’s now planning to do following the latest US-Polish military deal that was clinched last week during President Duda’s visit to DC.

As for the other two countries — Finland and Sweden — the former has close cultural connections to Estonia while the latter used to be the one-time hegemon over the aforementioned two and Latvia prior to Russia’s victories in the Great Northern and Napoleonic Wars spelling the end of its regional dominance. Finland shares a very long land border with Russia while Sweden has been involved in phantom Russian sub hunts invented solely for the purpose of preconditioning its public into accepting eventual NATO membership on this basis. The US’ grand strategic vision in the Baltics is to form the so-called “Viking Bloc” of “Greater Scandinavian” states (traditional Scandinavia plus Finland and the Baltics) aimed at “containing” Russia, which is exactly what Conaway’s clause about “deepening (NATO’s) joint capabilities with…other regional partners” is aimed at.

At this point, there’s no telling whether or not the so-called “Baltic Reassurance Act” will pass, but its importance nevertheless lies in the intent that it conveys. Not only is it all about selling more American arms to the Baltic countries, but it’s a veiled attempt to strengthen Finland and Sweden’s military interoperability with NATO under the pretext of defending the three countries that jointly form part of their combined historical “spheres of influence” in coordination with regional leader Poland. It’s difficult to predict how Russia would respond to this latest provocation if it ultimately ends up happening, but it could of course always continue its military buildup in the Kaliningrad exclave and improve the snap preparedness of its Baltic Fleet and the forces of its Western Military District.

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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.

One country, two systems. One event, two interpretations. The crisis in Hong Kong was sparked by chief executive Carrie Lam’s efforts to champion an extradition bill that would allow both residents and visitors to be sent to China for trial.

It backfired. Beijing is furious for two reasons. First the massive demonstrations it ignited and secondly the central government insists it gave no instruction or order concerning this issue. It looked, Beijing officials insist privately, that Lam was trying to curry favour and had overstepped the mark. This was not a prime example, according to this narrative, of Beijing again trying to stamp its authority on Hong Kong.

The mountains are high and the emperor is far away. This is an old saying in southern China. But the reverse is also true. From Beijing, Hong Kong is far away. Antigovernment protests in the former British colony are not a cause for emergency meetings though Lam’s future is under serious discussion.

At the time of the rain-drenched handover in the summer of 1997, Hong Kong accounted for about 20 percent of China’s GDP. Today it accounts for 3 percent.

This statistic does not cause sleepless nights in Zhongnanhai, the leadership compound off Tiananmen Square. If anything, it provides reason for a good night’s sleep. It proves, from Beijing’s perspective, not Hong Kong’s decline, but the healthy development of the national economy. The Hong Kong economy has grown since the handover but China’s growth has been supercharged.

This is the crux. China’s economy has to keep growing, not just for the betterment of the people but to ensure stability.
Human rights are viewed through a different prism in China than in the West. The imposition of, and here it gets complicated, what China considers the West considers as human rights, is feared. Support for the corrupt regimes of South Vietnam, the Philippines under Marcos and the so-called War on Terror are a small but telling sample and proof, in Beijing’s eyes, of a less than fully altruistic approach to human rights by Washington.

Many in China believe that without strong central government the country would descend to mass violence and disintegration. This does not let the government off the hook. Chinese people want corruption to be tackled with greater determination and focus. They want to be rid of the scourge of pollution, linked to corruption through the bribing of officials. They want the ruling party to be more accountable. What they do want from the West is teachers, engineers, specialists and trade.

The unwritten deal between the government and the people is you will be better off, leave the politics to us.

With 10 percent of the world’s arable land, China feeds 20 percent of the planet.

But the Ministry of Agriculture admits that 40 percent of this land is poisoned by pollution and the decline of nutrient rich top spoil.

If it keeps on industrializing food security could be further eroded. This is one of the reasons China is trying to turn to green energy, not to lessen dependency on fossil fuels but to protect its food sources. China is in pole position globally in renewable energy production. The world’s largest producer of wind and solar energy, China is also the largest domestic and outbound investor in renewable energy.

But now for the great contradiction. It has not turned its back on cheap coal. Beijing plans to build at least two large coal power stations a month for the next 12 years. This translates to between 300 and 500 new coal power plants by 2030. Beijing needs an energy source it can rely on. Oil imports must navigate maritime chokepoints, the Strait of Hormuz and the Malacca Strait. Green energy is not yet up to the task. King Coal is economically cheap but it comes at a political cost.

About 1,000 “mass incidents” (protests involving more than 100 people) take place every day in China. Many of these are pollution or climate related.

The economy is stuttering and facing the possibility of a sharp downturn as trade with the US is ruptured. Such a downturn would see these mass incidents rising sharply, endangering the basic structures of the country. More coal-fired power stations, more mass incidents. Hong Kong is not the burning issue for Beijing. Pollution and a faltering economy is what is keeping those who reside in the leadership compound awake at night.

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Tom Clifford is an Irish journalist based in China.

Over a hundred groups and more than 800 individuals from Pennsylvania signed onto a letter to Governor Tom Wolf calling for an official investigation into recent reports of rare cancers in counties heavily impacted by shale gas development over the last decade. The letter also calls for the governor to suspend all gas drilling permits until the investigation shows that fracking is not the cause of this emerging public health crisis.

The letter was prompted by an investigation by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which documented at least 46 children in four counties in southwest Pennsylvania who have suffered from rare forms of cancer since 2008– including at least 27 cases of Ewing sarcoma, a form of bone cancer that only affects between 200 and 250 people across the entire country each year.

“The Wolf administration’s approach to the impacts of shale gas development has been ‘If you don’t want to see something, don’t look,'” said Karen Feridun, co-founder of the Better Path Coalition. “There’s no better evidence of that than the fact that it took reporters to identify 46 children diagnosed with rare cancers in just four counties at the epicenter of the shale gas boom. It’s time for Governor Wolf to remove his blinders and get on top of this unfolding public health crisis.”

The letter was signed by five state representatives—Elizabeth Fiedler, Danielle Friel Otten, Sara Innamorato, Summer Lee and Chris Rabb—and national leaders in the fight against fracking, including actor Mark Ruffalo, Gasland director Josh Fox, Dr. Sandra Steingraber, actress Shailene Woodley, and 350.org founder Bill McKibben.

“We have known for years that fracking presents clear threats to our drinking water, our air quality, and to the health and safety of residents in these sacrifice zones,” said Emily Wurth, Organizing Co-Director of Food & Water Watch. “But this investigative reporting points to an even more serious and heartbreaking toll on Pennsylvanians. Governor Wolf must take immediate action to protect the health and safety of his state.”

As the letter states,

“Scientific evidence about the harmful toxic chemicals used in gas drilling and fracking activities strongly suggest a connection. Many of the chemicals used in these activities are known carcinogens and many pose a particularly high risk to children and at-risk populations. Numerous peer-reviewed public health studies have found gas drilling and fracking activities associated with low birth weight babies, birth defects, asthma and other respiratory issues, increased rates of hospitalization, and various other health impacts.”

The letter also states:

 “This is a public health crisis that requires immediate and significant action.”

The organizations signing the letter include 350.org, Berks Gas Truth, Better Path Coalition, Delaware Riverkeeper Network, Food & Water Watch, Frack Action, Physicians for Social Responsibility and Southwest Environmental Health Project.

The letter will be delivered in person to Governor Wolf on Wednesday after a briefing in Harrisburg on new reports assessing the health and climate impacts of shale gas development, which will include a recap of a public meeting on the spike in cancer diagnoses in the Canon-McMillan school district.

The letter was previewed in a report today in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

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The US is planning to include India on its International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) list in order to place it at par with its NATO allies, “Israel”, and a few others for the export of high-level military technologies, which could be the perfect carrot for Pompeo to dangle in front of Modi’s mouth during his visit to the South Asian state next week in order to get him to ditch Russia, and it might actually end up being part of the “surprise” that he recently hinted he has in store for his hosts.

The Indian press is full of reports about the country’s possibly forthcoming inclusion on the US’ International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) list after two senators inserted the relevant amendments into a draft of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 2020. Should it pass into law by the end of the year, then India would be legally at par with America’s NATO allies, “Israel“, and a few others for the export of twenty categories of high-level military technologies including ballistic missiles, drones, spacecraft systems, nuclear weapons simulation tools, and directed energy weapons, et al. This could be a real game-changer for its military capabilities and help it to more confidently “contain” China at the US’ behest per their shared “Indo-Pacific” vision, though the Pentagon probably won’t allow India to have this privilege so long as it retains its military partnership with Russia.

Alice Wells, the head of the State Department’s South and Central Asia bureau, implied as much last week in a testimony to lawmakers about the possible consequences of India’s refusal to reconsider its S-400 deal with Russia, which she said could include both CAATSA sanctions and the imposition of severe limits on the country’s military interoperability with the US. If India bends to American pressure and ditches Russia in exchange for THAADs, Patriots, and possibly even F-35s like its Ambassador to the US strongly hinted New Delhi is deliberating doing, then it can avoid this self-inflicted harm to its new military-strategic alliance with Washington though at the expense of its old one with Moscow. The “surprise” that Pompeo suggested that he has in store for his hosts during his upcoming visit to the South Asian state next week might be a formal offer to put India on the ITAR list if it decisively pivots away from Russia.

Truth be told, that would be a pretty attractive carrot for Pompeo to dangle in front of Modi’s mouth and might even get the re-elected leader to finally bite the bait. India is obsessed with China and the global pivot state of Pakistan, and it’s the excessive fearmongering about the latter in response to the suspicious Pulwama incident and subsequent Bollywood-like “surgical strike” that’s largely believed to have been responsible for Modi receiving such a huge mandate at the polls last month, so it can’t be underestimated just how important New Delhi would regard this unprecedented expansion of its military-strategic alliance with Washington. Russia can’t provide India with the game-changing capabilities that it’s seeking in its quest to “contain” China and “punish” Pakistan, ergo why it began its pro-American pivot in the first place because the US is more than eager to meet New Delhi’s needs in order to advance their shared strategic objectives.

Even though the two allied Great Powers are presently in the midst of what the Mainstream and Alternative Medias are misinterpreting (and in some cases, deliberately misreporting) to be a so-called “trade war”, their economic disagreements with one another are completely separate from their military-strategic commonalities. It’s therefore very likely that Modi would be extremely receptive to Pompeo’s possibly proposed offer to place India on the ITAR list in exchange for it pulling out of the S-400 deal with Russia, especially since the US’ unique “Major Defense Partner” already clinched the LEMOA and COMCASA interoperability pacts with it, so the next natural step is to prepare it for receiving high-level military technologies in order to take their alliance to the next level. India’s playing “hard to get” in order to receive the best terms possible, but it seems to have already made up its mind about the necessity of agreeing to a deal, so all that’s left is to finalize the details.

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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.