“In the history of democracy… there isn’t one case in which a country has been attacked on so many different fronts … both from the internal power factors to foreign governments over such an extended period of time as in the case of Venezuela.” – Steve Ellner (from this week’s talk.)
This week’s Global Research News Hour features a radio version of an October 19 2018 Winnipeg talk, delivered by Steve Ellner.
The presentation, delivered at the historic Fort Garry Hotel to about 100 audience members was entitled What is Really Happening in Venezuela. The main sponsor of the talk was the Winnipeg-based Venezuela Peace Committee, a group which sprang up in 2017 in reaction to the hostile actions, including sanctions, taken by the U.S. and Canadian governments toward the Venezuelan government.
According to a recent report coordinated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN Refugee, the UN Refugee Agency, and the International Organization for Migration, the outflow in recent times of more than 3 million Venezuelans to neighbouring countries and beyond constitutes “the largest in the modern history of Latin America and the Caribbean.” The same report attributes this exodus to “the ongoing political, human rights and socio-economic developments in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.” Based on current trends, fully 5.3 million refugees and migrants will have left the country by the end of 2019. [1][2]
Further, a series of anti-Maduro protests have erupted inside Venezuela in the last four years with efforts to disrupt them being blamed for violence resulting in a death toll exceeding 170. [3]
Critics in the countries like the U.S. and Canada invariably use this crisis to bolster the claim that mismanagement on the part of the Maduro government and President Chavez before him. Nevertheless, such analyses conceivably ignore some of the recent historical and geopolitical context in which the Venezuelan people are now situated. [4]
Steve Ellner, who admits the Venezuelan situation is ‘complex’ attempts to provide that context in this Winnipeg presentation, recorded by Community videographer Paul Graham, and edited for radio by Global Research News Hour host / producer Michael Welch.
The complete unabridged presentation is included below.
Steve Ellner is Professor of Economics at the University of Oriente in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela. His published works include ‘Implications of Marxist State Theory and how they Play Out in Venezuela‘ and an upcoming volume – ‘The Pink Tide Experiences: Breakthroughs and Shortcomings in Twenty-First Century Latin America’ (Rowman and Littlefield, 2019). His blogsite is steveellnersblog.blogspot.com
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‘Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan for Refugees and Migrants in Venezuela: January – December 2019’ (pg. 11, 14), Response for Venezuelans: Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela; https://s3.amazonaws.com/unhcrsharedmedia/2018/RMRP_Venezuela_2019_OnlineVersion.pdf
All memorialised events, when passing into mythology, must be seen critically. In some cases, there should be more than a hint of suspicion. The Christmas Truce of 1914 remains one sentimentalised occasion, remembered less to scold the mad mechanised forces of death led by regressive castes than to reflect upon common humanity.
Common humanity, left to be butchered before the next grand stratagem, is the first casualty of the war room and, in many cases, parliaments. These are places where commemoration ceremonies are drafted and encouraged; they are also the places where the common soldier is left for ruin.
The Christmas Truce of the First World War arose out of a blood-bathed irony: the troops from both sides, Allies and German, were not meant to be slaughtering each other at that point. They should have been home to celebrate their respective victories or lick respective wounds. The diplomats and politicians could then celebrate what was meant to be a puerile skirmish waged in conditions more reminiscent of an old cavalry charge than mud-soaked death.
Pope Benedict XV, after his election on September 3, 1914, kept busy attempting to halt a war he deemed “the suicide of civilized Europe.” In December, he attempted, in vain, to persuade the belligerents to halt the murderous party, asking “that the guns may fall silent at least upon the night the angels sang.” This would be a prelude to discussions towards an honourable peace.
The sequence written about and recalled every year with the monotonous reflection of a prayer goes something like this: Stille nacht, heilige nacht comes from the German side of the trenches at the Ypres Salient. (The Hun proved troublingly festive and did not seem up for the killing.) The British, initially wary, show interest. Shots are not fired. The First Noel comes in reply. “Then,” remembered a British soldier, “we started up O Come All Ye Faithful and the Germans immediately joined in singing the same thing to the Latin words of Adeste Fideles.”
The gestures were repeated along the Western Front in pockets of small “truces”. British, German and French soldiers, in open defiance of orders, went to No Man’s Land in a spiritual reclamation of sorts under the pretext of burying the dead. An economy of gifting came to the fore: tobacco and chocolate; beer and pudding; sausage and Christmas trees; badges and buttons. The Allies were astonished by the goods they could receive in the exchange: the German armies were, at that point, better supplied.
Then came the football matches, though the legend here is inflated. Socks wrapping a tin of bully beef, for instance, were substitutes for soccer balls. The scores at these matches remain a subject of conjecture, as do the matches themselves.
Peter Stanley of the University of New South Wales, when asked about the record in 2014, suggested that such matches would have taken place behind the respective lines of the soldiers, if, in fact, they took place at all. The papers of the day ran “pictures of the truces, with lots of photos of men smoking but no photos of soccer matches. So what does that tell you?”
But Stanley’s insistence does not withstand the accounts of some subalterns, who describe scenes, not of 10-a-side but “a question of 70 Germans against 50 Englishmen” involving a ball with an adventurous fate. In January 1, 1915, The Times received a letter from an anonymous major that an English regiment “had a football match with the Saxons, who beat them 3-2.” (At least, mused historian Gerard DeGroot, “it did not end in penalties.”)
The legacy of the truce is somewhat estranged. While it might well have been the last gasp of civility in modern warfare – if you fall for that notion that civility was ever a part of the killing business – the truce has become a matter of commercialisation and celluloid. There are films such as the 2005 French film Joyeux Noel. Then come the commodities.
Supermarket chains such as Sainsbury’s have found the prospect of making money out of the memory irresistible. A 2014 ad, specifically, was reviled and yet admired by The Guardian for its “startling array of emotional depth within a few short minutes” marked by “breathtaking” cinematography. Slaughter might be futile, fought in the name of obscene abstractions, but making money is as clear enough a mission as any.
The truce compelled Arthur Conan Doyle to deem it “one human episode amid all the atrocities which have stained the memory of the war.” But it remains an episode celebrated with lessons to be ignored. The classroom of history troubles the demagogues and political practitioners, as it did those war planners in 1914 alarmed by the loss of faith in killing shown by the truce makers. Political figures and generals could not; soldiers could.
In many instances, the participating units in question were relieved by fresh men untainted by the temptation of mutual respect. As the war wore on in all its barbarity, such truces became infrequent. The enemy had to be hated. Common humanity, so goes that most salient lesson of all, remains a common mineral to be exploited and manipulated rather than revered.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]
Minister for Defence Elisabetta Trenta (5-Star Movement), on the mike of a musical radio station, sang « C’era un ragazzo che come me amava i Beatles e i Rolling Stones », and declared « This song makes me think about the value of peace, a priceless value that we must always preserve ».
Ten days later, in Afghanistan, the military-garbed Minister praised « our armed presence outside of the frontiers of Italy, guided by the values of our Constitution, on a fundamental mission for peace ».
The mission is Resolution Support, initiated by NATO in Afghanistan in 2015, after the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), a United Nations mission of which NATO had taken command by armed force in 2003.
So the US/NATO war continues in Afghanistan, now in its eighteenth year. It was launched by the USA on 7 October 2001 on the official motive of hunting down Osama Bin Laden, accused of the attacks of 11 September, who was supposedly hiding in an Afghani cave under the protection of the Taliban.
The true reasons were revealed by the Pentagon in a report published one week before the beginning of the war – « There is a possibility that a military rival is emerging in Asia with a formidable base of resources. Our armed forces must maintain the capacity to impose the will of the United States on any adversary, in order to change the régime of an enemy State or occupy a foreign territory until US strategic objectives are realised ».
In the period preceding 11 September 2001, there had been strong signals of a rapprochement between China and Russia, which were actualised when the two countries signed the « Treaty of Good Neighbourship and Friendly Cooperation » on 17 July 2001. Washington considered that this rapprochement between China and Russia was a challenge to US interests, at the critical moment when the USA were trying to fill the void left in Central Asia by the disintegration of the USSR – a region of capital importance both for its geostrategic position in terms of Russia and China, and for its border reserves of oil and natural gas in the Caspian. The key position for the control of this region is Afghanistan.
This explains the headstrong engagement in a war which has already cost the United States alone more than 1,000 billion dollars. The mission which is currently under way is presented by NATO as a « non-combat mission ». But on the basis of official data, in the first ten months of 2018, the US Air Force dropped approximately 6 thousand bombs and missiles on targets over Afghanistan. As well as fighters and armed drones, they used B-52 heavy bombers equipped with rotary launchers, which increase by two thirds the already enormous destructive capacities of the aircraft by enabling it to drop as many as 30 powerful precision-guided bombs in one mission.
Apart from this visible war there is another, hidden, waged by US and Allied Special Forces, with the mission to assassinate Taliban chieftains, or those presumed to be chieftains, and other people who are considered to be dangerous. The result is disastrous for NATO – as the number of civilian victims increases, so the Taliban gain ground.
Italy has been participating in the Afghanistan war for more than 15 years, under US command and in violation of Article 11 of the Constitution. Its contingent is ranked third out of 39 participants, after the United States and Germany. Italian officers are deployed in Tampa, Florida with the USA Command, and in Bahrein as liaison personnel with the US forces there.
And while the war continues to crush its victims, our Minister of Defence declares – at the Herat Orphanage – that Italian soldiers gave about two hundred winter outfits to « young and less fortunate children ».
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According to Bloomberg News, Trump is furious about Powell’s rate hikes while financial markets are slumping badly. More on this below.
In 2016, presidential aspirant Trump said Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen should be “ashamed” of herself for keeping short-term interest rates too low.
Months earlier, he said low rates are “the best thing going for us,” calling any increase “scary.” In December 2008, the Fed cut its benchmark interest rate to near-zero (a range of zero to 0.25%).
From then to December 2015, the Fed funds rate remained at near-zero. After seven years of unprecedented accommodative monetary policy, including a tsunami of quantitative easing (QE easy money) for years, an October 29, 2014 Fed press release said the following:
The Open Market Committee (FOMC) “decided to conclude its (QE) asset purchase program this month.”
It’s “maintaining its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its holdings of agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities in agency mortgage-backed securities and of rolling over maturing Treasury securities at auction.”
“This policy, by keeping the Committee’s holdings of longer-term securities at sizable levels, should help maintain accommodative financial conditions.”
Months earlier, former Reagan-era Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director David Stockman called QE “high grade monetary heroin,” adding “(o)ne day, it’ll “kill the patient,” adding:
Over the last quarter of a century,
“(w)hat has been growing is the wealth of the rich, the remit of the state, the girth of Wall Street, the debt burden of the people, the prosperity of the beltway, and the sway of the three great branches of government which are domiciled there – that is, the warfare state, the (corporate) welfare state and the central bank.”
“What is failing…is the vast expanse of the Main Street economy where the great majority has experienced stagnant living standards, rising job insecurity, failure to accumulate any material savings, rapidly approaching old age and the certainty of a Hobbesian future where, inexorably, taxes will rise and social benefits will be cut.”
“And what is positively falling is the lower ranks of society whose prospects for jobs, income and a decent living standard have been steadily darkening.”
The above remarks describe the dystopian new normal. Wall Street, other corporate favorites, and high-net-worth individuals never had things better – while ordinary Americans struggle to get by, a few missed paychecks from possible homelessness, hunger and despair, what years of thirdworldizing the nation is all about.
Monied interests run things. The president, Congress, and the courts serve them. Until rolling back QE began, along with raising interest rates, years of unrestrained monetary heroin showed how far off the rails the Fed strayed.
Money printing madness doesn’t stimulate growth or create jobs when used for speculative investments, mergers and acquisitions, high salaries, and big bonuses – while wages for ordinary Americans fail to keep pace with inflation and vital benefits erode.
Helicopter Ben Bernanke dropped lots of money on Wall Street and into the pockets of wealthy investors. Virtually none went to Main Street where it’s vitally needed.
When people have money they spend it. A virtuous cycle of prosperity follows. America once was sustainably prosperous growth. Today the nation is in decline. It’s heading for third world status. It’s more a kleptocracy than democracy.
America’s super-rich got fabulously richer by investing their wealth to create more of it. During the height of the 2008-09 financial crisis, a popular slogan was: “Banks got bailed out.” Ordinary people “got sold out.”
Fed chairmen Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke were maestros of misery, creating financial bubble conditions. America’s 1% profited hugely at the expense of the vast majority of ordinary people.
As Fed chairman, Bernanke handed speculators over $20 trillion, mostly interest-free, amounting to legalized bank robbery, creating unsustainable bubble conditions.
From December 2015 under Fed Chairwoman Yellen to December 19, 2018 under Jerome Powell, succeeding her on February 5, 2018, the Fed raised its benchmark short rate nine times.
It’s currently at 2.25 – 2.50%, historically low, no drag on economic growth. Powell signaled fewer hikes in 2019, perhaps two instead of four this year.
According to Bankrate’s chief financial analyst Greg McBride, “(t)he Fed downshifted (its) projections of 2019 economic growth, inflation, and interest rate hikes – not in a big way but enough to remove the urgency of repeated rate hikes.”
Powell signaled that future moves will be data-dependent. When economic contraction occurs, rates will be cut, perhaps along with resumption of QE.
Trump railed against Powell’s latest rate hike. According to Bloomberg News, he “discussed firing (him) as his frustration with the central bank chief intensified following this week’s interest-rate hike and months of stock-market losses, according to four people familiar with the matter,” adding:
“Advisers close to Trump aren’t convinced he would move against Powell and are hoping that the president’s latest bout of anger will dissipate over the holidays, the people said on condition of anonymity.”
“Some of Trump’s advisers have warned him that firing Powell would be a disastrous move. Yet (he) privately spoke about firing Powell many times in the past few days, said two of the people.”
What unfolds in the post-holiday period remains to be seen. Presidents, congressional members, their appointed bureaucrats, and the courts are servants of money power running America.
The Federal Reserve isn’t federal. It’s privately owned and controlled by major Wall Street bankers. They decide who runs it.
It’s been this way since enactment the 1913 Federal Reserve Act, creating the Fed, a coup d’etat by powerful Wall Street bankers. The same year’s Revenue Act imposed a federal income tax for the public to pay interest on the federal debt.
As long as giant Wall Street banka control the nation’s money, ordinary people will be entrapped in a “web of debt,” Ellen Brown explained – amounting to permanent debt bondage, the national wealth increasingly transferred from the public to private bankers, most people none the wiser.
If Congress controlled the nation’s money as mandated under the Constitution’s Article I, Section 8, none of this would have happened.
Bankers choose Fed chairmen and governors. It’s always been this way. Presidents have no say. They announce pre-selected choices while pretending otherwise.
Wall Street bankers chose Powell as Fed chairman. They’ll decide if he stays, goes, and who’ll replace him one day.
Longterm speculative excess is mainly behind current market turbulence, not current interest rates, still historically low, hugely benefitting investors at the expense of savers, the nation’s elderly harmed most.
It’s unclear whether sharp equity price declines signal a more protracted erosion of valuations, or if the current selloff is short-term – the fullness of time to tell.
What’s going on now will be best be understood in hindsight. Before his untimely passing in June 2012, International Forecaster owner and editor Bob Chapman said America is in terminal decline.
Powerful interests went too fair, and they know it, he stressed, adding they’re waging a losing rear guard action. It never worked before and won’t now.
Money printing madness assures bad endings. Chapman’s advice to investors was sound. He predicted a major day of reckoning ahead, its timing to be determined by events.
If the moment of truth arrived, Chapman’s warning will be borne out. If not now and coming later, the fullness of time will explain what’s only guesswork now.
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.”
Two recent reports from the United States strongly suggest the United States is planning a major war with Russia and China, but are far from certain that they could in fact succeed in such a war. The reports also provide insights into how the United States will meet the budgetary demands of such war preparations, but almost zero appreciation of the social and human costs of such policies.
The first of these reports is entitled “Providing for the Common Defence” (November 2018). It is the report prepared for the purpose of assessing the National Defence Strategy document released in early 2018.
It acknowledges that changes “at home and abroad are diminishing US military advantages,” and that this diminution of these “advantages” poses a threat to “vital United States interests.”
Geopolitical shifts in the regional power structures are “undermining deterrence of United States adversaries and confidence of United States allies, thus increasing the likelihood of military conflict”. Should such a conflict eventuate, the United States could “suffer unacceptably high casualties and a loss of major capital assets.”
The report says that “America is losing its advantage in key war fighting areas such as air and missile defence, cyber and space operations, anti-surface and anti- submarine warfare, long range ground-based fires, and electronic warfare”.
It further acknowledges that “America’s edge is diminishing or has disappeared in many key technologies that underpin US military superiority”.
Such frankness is not without precedent in US strategy papers and the implications of the above quotations are a probable reason why the report has received almost zero coverage in the western mainstream media.
Acknowledgements of technological deficiency and strategic disadvantage do not sit comfortably with the image of an all-powerful America willing and able to defeat any threat to its own global interests or those of its allies. The latter prefer the comfortable delusion of an omnipotent US “umbrella.”
The Commission’s strategy for addressing this perceived falling behind and consequent loss of military omnipotence is however itself fatally flawed. The proposed “solution” is to spend vastly greater sums of money at a rate of 3-5% above inflation.
That means that a significantly greater share of the federal budget would have to be devoted to military spending. The only way that could be achieved, given that the United States government already has a huge growing deficit ($22 trillion and counting) would have to come, the report acknowledges, by cuts to social spending such as pensions, Medicare and social security. The “trade-offs” the report acknowledges will be “difficult”, a statement that seriously under- estimates the social devastation that such cuts would bring about.
This argument is put forward in a society which already spends more on defence than that spent by the next eight national military budgets combined. United States national infrastructure, in everything from bridges to schools is already crumbling; and these proposals will only accelerate that downward trend.
It does not seem to occur to the report writers that the entire premise that the United States should maintain its attempt to control the world for the benefit of the United States is neither desirable nor wanted by the vast majority of the worlds nations as evidenced by multiple UN General Assembly resolutions.
The probable reason for this mainstream media reticence is because the GAO report actually details where the United States is lagging in military capability viz a viz its two perceived principal rivals: Russia and China.
The fact of relative military weakness is not new. Andrei Martyanov in his book Losing Military Supremacy (2018) provided a detailed analysis of why Russian military technology was superior to the United States in several important fields. What Martyanov said about Russia applies with equal validity to Chinese technology.
Martyanov’s argument was dramatically illustrated by President Putin’s 1st March 2018 address to the Russian Parliament. The initial American reaction was to discount Putin’s claims, although within days the military industrial complex was demanding more funds to counteract the superiority of Russian weaponry outlined in Putin’s speech.
The GAO Report now provides an authoritative acknowledgement that Putin was not bluffing. Under the section of the report headed “Weapons” it has this to say:
Hypersonic weapons. China and Russia are pursuing hypersonic weapons because their speed, altitude, and maneuverability may defeat most missile defence systems, and they may be used to improve long range conventional and nuclear strike capabilities. There are no existing countermeasures.
Missiles. Adversaries are developing missile technology to attack the United States in novel ways and challenge US missile defence, including conventional and nuclear ICBMs, sea launched land attack missiles, and space based missiles that could orbit the earth.
Aircraft. China and Russia are developing new aircraft, including stealth aircraft, which could fly faster, carry advanced weapons, and achieve greater ranges. Such aircraft could force US aircraft to operate at further distances and put more US targets at risk.
There is more in the same vein. The only caveat to add to those points is the use of the conditional tense. The use of such words as “may” or “could” is redundant. That technology is already operational (www.thesaker.is 1 March 2018).
A number of commentators have argued that the technology gap between Russian and Chinese systems and that of United States is now measured in decades. There is no evidence to suggest this gap could be bridged in the foreseeable future. A more likely scenario is that the technological gap could widen.
Although there are powerful voices in the United States administration and ‘deep state’ generally sufficiently delusional and frankly crazy enough to believe that the United States could “win” a nuclear war with Russia and/or China, the GAO report should act as a constraint on their wilder ambitions.
History demonstrates that it is unwise to underestimate the extent to which the United States will go to maintain its self appointed role is the world’s dominant hegemon, (see Michael Pembroke’s Korea (2018). The reality is that the era of United States dominance is now well past.
Rather than risk a nuclear war that would wreak unimaginable losses upon all the world’s peoples, including for the first time the United States, the more likely scenario will be an intensification of what Andrei Korybko calls ‘hybrid warfare.’ A current illustration of this is the campaign being waged against Huawei, ostensibly because of the potential for Chinese cyber espionage but in reality to weaken and undermine China’s 2025 program for leadership in artificial intelligence, quantum information and other sophisticated technologies, and enforce America’s allies to buy their inferior products.
Proxy wars in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America are also likely to increase exponentially.
These two reports demonstrate that the United States has lost its previous technological and military superiority, but equally, that it is willing to go to extraordinary lengths to prevent any further erosion of its world wide role and its replacement by the two emerging countervailing superpowers, Russia and China. Whether or not that American determination will tip the world into a catastrophic nuclear exchange will be one of the major questions for 2019.
James O’Neill, an Australian-based Barrister at Law, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
The US war against Syria was one that people almost stopped. President Obama was unable to get Congress to authorize the war in 2013, but the Pentagon and foreign policy establishment, who have long wanted to control Syria, pushed forward with war anyway.
It has been a disaster. The war has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and injuries as well six million people displaced within the country and five million people who have fled the country.
The people were right, and the military was wrong. The war on Syria never should have happened and now must end.
President Trump announced withdrawal from Syria this week. This creates an opportunity to end the war on Syria. We have work to do to make peace a reality.
Image: Peace Insurrection on Capitol Hill 2013, CODE PINK. Photo by Cool Revolution.
WSWS described how the war escalated under Obama, writing, “The illegal US occupation of Syria, begun under the Obama administration in October 2015 without authorization from either the United Nations or the Syrian government.” There was a shift from CIA support for Al Qaeda-linked militias to war to bring down the Assad government. US troops coordinated a campaign of airstrikes that reduced the city of Raqqa and other Syrian communities to rubble. Amnesty International, after conducting field investigations, reported the US has committed war crimes in Syria. Vijay Prashad described the US creating “hell on Earth” in Syria.
Despite this, the US was losing the war in Syria. With Russia coming to the aid of its ally, Assad was not going to be removed.
Early this year, the Trump administration was talking about having a permanent presence in one-third of Syria with 30,000 Syrian Kurds as the ground forces, US air support and eight new US bases. Protests continued against the bombing of Syria throughout the spring in the US and around the world.
Now, as Andre Vltchek describes, the Syrian people have prevailed and most of the country is liberated. People are returning and rebuilding.
Image: Boston Anti-War Protest: ‘Hands Off Syria! No War! Nov. 21 2016 by ShaunaDorothy in Socialist.
Trump Announces Withdrawal
President Trump’s announcement that he is withdrawing from Syria over the next 60 to 100 days has been met with a firestorm of opposition. Trump tweeted on Wednesday, “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.”
Russia is drawing down its military activities with Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu reporting Russia was carrying out 100 to 110 flights per day at its peak and now they do no more than two to four flights per week, chiefly for reconnaissance purposes. Putin agreed that ISIS had been defeated and supported Trump’s decision but cast doubt on Washington’s plans, saying, “We don’t see any signs of withdrawing US troops yet, but I concede that it is possible.”
Secretary of Defense Mattis resigned after Trump’s announcement. In his resignation, he expressed disagreements with Trump over foreign policy. The media is mourning the exit of Mattis, neglecting his history as a likely war criminal who targeted civilians. Ray McGovern reminds us Mattis was famous for quipping, “It’s fun to shoot some people.”
Mattis is the fourth of “My Generals,” as Trump called them, to leave the administration, e.g. Director of Homeland Security and then Chief of Staff, John Kelly, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, and National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. This leaves neocon extremist John Bolton and pro-militarist Mike Pompeo as the biggest influences on Trump’s foreign policy.
Popular Resistance supports the withdrawal of troops from Syria.
We are not alone in supporting Trump’s withdrawal announcement. Medea Benjamin of CODE PINK described the withdrawal as “a positive contribution to the peace process,” urging “all foreign powers that have been involved in Syria’s destruction, including the United States, take responsibility for rebuilding this nation and providing assistance to the Syrian people, including the refugees, who have suffered so tragically for over seven years.”
Veterans for Peace supports the withdrawal saying the US has “no legal right to be [there] in the first place” and describing the brutal destruction caused by US bombs.
Black Alliance for Peace supports the withdrawal writing the war”should have never been allowed in the first place.” They denounce the corporate press and members of the political duopoly for opposing the withdrawal. BAP also recognizes that the foreign policy establishment will fight this withdrawal and promises to work to end all US involvement in Syria and other nations.
Image: New York Times reports the coup which overthrew the country’s democratically elected government. Stephen J. Meade, the U.S. assistant military attaché was a CIA officer, worked with the Syrian chief of staff, Husni Zaim, to plan a coup. The US was concerned about Syria’s stance on Israel, border disputes with Turkey, and oil pipelines, and worried that the left was growing in power and that the government was growing friendlier to the Soviet Union.
Will the Long History Of US Regime Change In Syria End?
While the bulk of destruction of Syria occurred during the Obama administration, plans for the current war and overthrowing Assad date back to the George W. Bush administration. A State Department cable, “Influencing the SARG In The End Of 2006”, examines strategies to bring about regime change in Syria.
In response to Trump’s newest announcement, the Pentagon announced it will continue the air war in Syria. They would do so at least for as long as troops were on the ground, adding “As for anything post-US troops on the ground, we will not speculate on future operations.” The Pentagon has not given any details on a withdrawal timeline, citing “force protection and operational security reasons.”
The People Must Ensure the End of the War on Syria
The peace movement should do all it can to support Trump’ call for withdrawal because he needs allies. Patrick Lawrence describes the experience thus far during the Trump administration:
“As Trump finishes his second year in office, the pattern is plain: This president can have all the foreign policy ideas he wants, but the Pentagon, State, the intelligence apparatus, and the rest of what some call ‘the deep state’ will either reverse, delay, or never implement any policy not to its liking.”
We saw this scenario play out earlier this month when Trump complained about the Pentagon’s out-of-control budget and pledged to cut it. As Lawrence points out, just days later the president met with Mattis and the chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee and announced that the three had agreed on a 2020 defense budget of $750 billion, a 5 percent increase.
Trump has made no progress on North Korea since their first meeting and has been prevented from making progress on positive relations with Russia. The foreign policy establishment of the Pentagon, State Department, Intelligence Agencies, Weapons Makers and Congressional hawks are in control. Trump will need all the help he can get to overcome them and withdraw from Syria.
We should urge Trump to be clear that ALL troops are leaving Syria. This should include not only the troops on the ground but the air force as well as private contractors. The CIA should also stop its secret war on Syria. And the US should leave the military bases it has built in Syria. Similarly, the movement should support Trump’s calls to withdraw from Afghanistan.
The US has done incredible damage to Syria and owes restitution, which is needed to help bring Syria back to normalcy.
Syria and Afghanistan join the list of failed and counterproductive US wars. These are more signs of a failing empire. The people of the United States must rise up to finish the job we started in 2013 — stop the war on Syria, a war that never should have occurred.
Syrian government and pro-Iranian sources have increased their activity in the eastern part of Syria in response to the announced decision of the US administration to withdraw troops from the country.
On December 22, a spokesperson for Iraq’s Kata’ib Hezbollah, Jafar al-Husseini, told al-Mayadeen TV that the group is ready to coordinate with the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in order to protect Syrian Kurds.
He noted that the U.S. withdrawal had been expected and revealed that Kata’ib’ Hezbollah has “continuous and intensive communications” with Kurdish commanders in northeastern Syria. According to al-Husseini, the U.S. is planning to hand over its role in the country to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
On December 21, reports appeared that the SAA’s Tiger Forces were set to be redeployed from northern Hama to the government-held area on the western bank of the Euphrates. A source in the Tiger Forces confirmed this to SouthFront and said that the redeployment process will take several days. However, he declined to provide further information.
Reports indicate that the Tiger Forces as well as several other pro-government factions will be involved in further operations to eliminate ISIS cells in the Homs-Deir Ezzor desert.
On December 22, US President Donald Trump continued Twitter revelations and said that “ISIS is largely defeated and other local countries, including Turkey, should be able to easily take care of whatever remains. “ The interesting part is that the US president said that the US entered Syria 7 years ago. This contradicts with the official version of the previous US administration that the operation in the country started in 2014 as a campaign to defeat ISIS.
Trump’s decision to pull troops out of Syria has not found support among some members of his administration and US congress members. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and special envoy for the global coalition to defeat ISIS Brett McGurk are resigning as a result of this disagreement.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which mostly consist of Kurdish armed groups, are deeply concerned with a possible US withdrawal. The SDF already blamed Trump for the resumption of ISIS activity in the area of Hajin, called on France to establish a no-fly zone over northeastern Syria and even stated that it does not mind if the Assad government institutions return to Manbij in case if the self-administration is allowed. The SDF also revealed that it is currently engaged in talks with the Damascus government.
The SDF’s main concern that after the withdrawal of the main forces, a limited number of US Special Operations troops will not stop Turkey from launching its operation east of the Euphrates.
France is also going to keep its troops in Syria, but it has only about 200 servicemen and 3 CAESAR self-propelled howitzers deployed. This is not enough to keep the entire contact line between the SDF-held area and the Ankara-controlled territories.
Summing up, it appears clear that even a partial pullout of US troops from Syria will remain a vacuum, which all the sides involved in the conflict will try to fill with own influence.
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The “Gilets Jaunes” will not let go. Not even – or especially not – after Macron‘s half-hearted, rather cynical and grandstanding concessions – of “too little and too late” – which when analyzed constitute a new lie, especially regarding the increase of the minimum wage. It was clear from his face, these concessions, of a President who campaigned on the basis of “never make any concessions”, were fake, as fake as his fake attitude of an apologist could be. Even without listening to his words, his body language of arrogance gives him away.
This past weekend, on Saturday, 15 December, another more than 100,000 Yellow Vests were marching on Paris; countrywide some 200,000. The police to oppress them, as officially reported, was about the same as the weekend before, 8,000 in Paris, close to 90,000 throughout France. Military assistance was not missing. Besides, in a state of emergency, who distinguished between police and military?
Interestingly, the international press – the MSM – is taking it seriously. Why? They fear that this relentless movement may spread to other countries, even countries beyond Europe – like “Trump Land”, the United States of America. And why not. The same malaise of capital being shifted upwards to the detriment of the poor and middle class exists everywhere, may even be most pronounced in the US, but nobody talks about it and pays attention to it, lest the people would have awakened to the growing disparity long ago – and taken to the streets massively – within the inner circles of the Washington Belt Way.
Chapeau to the French. Although their forefathers were among the most vicious and miserable exploiters, in human history – when they ravaged for hundreds of years West Africa – and the elite still does, unbeknown even to (most) of the Yellow Vets.
Is this movement going to change the future – the future of Europe, the future of the values of the western world, that has been so adamant in propagating neofascist ideas – that they have become the new normal; in most people’s brains? There is a saying: “When fascism comes again, it will not come saying I’m the new Fascism; it will come saying, I’m the Anti-Fascism”.
Isn’t that already true when you look at todays Europe, what is called the EU – The European (non) Union (as I call it)? – And it includes even those countries – Switzerland and Norway – not EU members, but which are ever faster moving to the neoliberal right. Let alone those (still) 28 EU countries, like, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Germany, Holland, where political parties have been divided, splintered to pieces, so that the oddest combinations of ‘coalition’ governments have to govern, mostly in an ungovernable fashion. It’s a success for the over-arching elite, call it the world’s dark and deep state – that is behind it with priceless media lies and propaganda, social media, Cambridge Analytica and the like. Anybody with common sense has no saying, simply because the money is on the other side.
And that money is endless, as it still stems from the FED, or better even, from private banks, that produces it at random with every loan they make, new cash is created. There is enough liquidity, as needed for their purpose, i.e. the propaganda war machine. Though, not much longer. The dollar hegemony is on its last stretch. Yes, we have been saying this for a while – but what is a “while” in geopolitics and in geo-time spans? – A few years, are a few seconds. The alternative – the Eastern Block, SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), the Eurasian Economic Union, the newly created Caspian Sea Association of the five Caspian riparian nations (Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan). This association just signed an important deal under which they are sharing the tremendous wealth under the sea, i.e. 50 billion barrels of oil and just under 300 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
The Eastern Block allies are working on getting their solid act together, mostly based on the little mentioned (in the west) China’s President Xi’s initiative, the New Silk Road, or the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – a China-sponsored economic program that will encircle the globe with infrastructure, research, transport lines, industrial development, cultural exchange, education and friendly trade. But no offensive, war-like industries.
BRI advances are fast and solid. They are unstoppable. Once they are well established and many western countries are highly eager to join the initiative – the western economy will sing its Swan Song.
Seeing Macron from this perspective, he is just a little boy and a little full of himself, having been implanted by the foremost western banking clan, the Rothschild family, to help salvage what can be salvaged, i.e. milk to the bones the French and by association, the European Social system what’s left of it. Greece was a test case. And look at Greece – the Elite is still so greed-driven that they ‘d rather salvage their billions stashed away in Swiss banks, instead of showing some integrity and out of solidarity tell the EU and its fake currency the Euro, to go to hell. No, they won’t. Greece could have been an example for the rest of Europe.
Greece on her own, with their local currency the Drachma, local public banks for the development of the country, would today be on the way to prosperity, with jobs for most people, with an economy that could feed everybody and with a health care and education system that would bring up a new generation of Greek politicians – Greek politicians, who like after WWII displayed a solidarity that made them exemplary for many European countries.
With all the lying, miserably lying European statistics that Greece is now recovering and improving and that Greece is becoming autonomous and can borrow directly from the capital markets again – people are still dying from lack of medication, of medical care, of famine, of lack of shelter, especially in the winter – and of ever-increasing suicide rates. That’s Greece, the Troika’s (EU / EC; ECB, IMF) example of ‘salvation’.– Last Saturday, what looked like an endless crowd of ‘gilets jaunes’ was marching down Champs Elysees, in the front with a huge French flag. Stamped on the left on the blue strip of the flag was “1789”, in the middle white strip was “1968” and in the red strip to the right, was inscribed “2018”. An interesting – and indeed ambitious and bold allegation to the legendary 1789 storm of the Bastille, that changed world history. The current set-up of the EU certainly does not belong to anything called a “revolution”. It rather must be dismantled under a revolution.
These days simultaneous protests take place in Victor Orbán’s Hungary; in Belgium, with the Prime Minister, Charles Michel, having just resigned, leaving again a country without a government. In Germany, Merkel is slowly fading away – but who will follow? – In Italy, Deputy, PM Salvini, of the junior partner of the popular (not the derogatory ‘populist’) coalition, the extreme right-wing Lega Norte, is calling the shots – and they are clearly as anti-EU as can be. At issue is foremost Brussels unilateral meddling in Italy’s budget, while other countries, like France, who have been running budget deficits for years, are getting away with a soft call to attention (Macron naturally is Brussels Holy Child). – Will Italy succeed bringing and end to this unholy non-Union?
Then there is BREXIT, leaving Theresa May hanging on a cliff – of, say, no-return? She may not survive. Who will follow her. The madman Johnson? – The pressure of his rightwing supporters may be such that he has no choice than calling another referendum. And we can only guess with the propaganda of the Washington apologists and Atlantists how that will end. – Would a new no-Brexit vote, reversing the past two years of negotiating to zilch, cause an internal revolution? An internal collapse that could no longer stand up to the demands of Brussels, even with a manipulated “stay” vote?
The likely truth is that the Yellow Vests will mean the end of the very short-lived arrogant Macron era – and – who will replace him? – There is nobody prepared for it. The left-wing Mélenchon, good ideas, but conveys bitterness, has no charisma – and the right-wing Le Pen – is, though joining the left in extremis, aiming at getting out of the EU and of the Euro, but other than that, it’s outright fascism, ready for an alliance with Kiev. – Who else? – Chaos in the making, a good basis for a revolution, a revolution that may bring about more than meets the eye – a Europe-wide upheaval that brings back local sovereign states (whether Greece wants it or not!) with local money and local public banks that work for the public and for the local economy rather than for international profit and greed minded shareholders.
Wouldn’t that be a real revolution? – It would open the gate to Russia, Eurasia, China – the New Silk Road, a gate to a “New Deal” of the 21st Century, a New Deal of Inclusion from Europe throughout Asia and Africa. Think about it – the map surely shows a super Continent that hardly needs transatlantic relations, especially not those that the masters in Washington propagate – their rules, their guns, their dictate, their monetary hegemony. No thank you, West. And good riddens, Macron.
Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; TeleSUR; The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.
Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
Quale reazione ha suscitato in Italia l’avvertimento del presidente russo Putin che il mondo sottovaluta il pericolo di guerra nucleare e che tale tendenza si sta accentuando? Significativo il commento de La Repubblica che parla di «toni molto allarmistici». Eloquente il silenzio praticamente assoluto dell’intero arco parlamentare. Come se l’Italia non avesse niente a che fare con la corsa agli armamenti nucleari che, ha avvertito Putin nella conferenza stampa di fine anno, potrebbe portare alla «distruzione dell’intera civiltà o forse dell’intero pianeta». Scenario non allarmistico, ma previsto dagli scienziati che studiano gli effetti delle armi nucleari.
Un particolare pericolo – sottolinea Putin – è rappresentato dalla «tendenza ad abbassare la soglia per l’uso di armi nucleari, creando cariche nucleari tattiche a basso impatto che possono portare a un disastro nucleare globale». A tale categoria appartengono le nuove bombe nucleari B61-12 che gli Usa cominceranno a schierare in Italia, Germania, Belgio, Olanda e forse in altri paesi europei nella prima metà del 2020. «L’alta precisione e la possibilità di usare testate meno distruttive – avverte la Federazione degli Scienziati Americani – possono portare i comandanti militari a premere perché, in un attacco, si usi la bomba nucleare, sapendo che la ricaduta radioattiva e il danno collaterale sarebbero limitati». L’Italia è corresponsabile del crescente pericolo di guerra nucleare poiché, violando il Trattato di non-proliferazione e non aderendo al Trattato Onu per la proibizione delle armi nucleari, fornisce agli Stati uniti in funzione principalmente anti-Russia non solo basi, ma anche aerei e piloti per l’uso delle bombe nucleari. Ciò avviene con il consenso esplicito o implicito (attraverso la rinuncia a una reale opposizione) dell’intero arco parlamentare.
Conte, Di Maio e Salvini
L’altro pericolo – avverte Putin – è rappresentato dalla «disintegrazione del sistema internazionale di controllo degli armamenti», iniziata con il ritiro degli Stati uniti nel 2002 dal Trattato Abm.Stipulato nel 1972 da Usa e Urss, esso proibiva a ciascuna delle due parti di schierare missili intercettori che, neutralizzando la rappresaglia del paese attaccato, avrebbero favorito un first strike, ossia un attacco nucleare di sorpresa. Da allora gli Stati uniti hanno sviluppato lo «scudo anti-missili», estendendolo in Europa a ridosso della Russia: due installazioni terrestri in Romania e Polonia e quattro navi da guerra, che incrociano nel Baltico e Mar Nero, sono dotate di tubi di lancio che, oltre ai missili intercettori, possono lanciare missili da crociera a testata nucleare. Anche in questo caso l’Italia è corresponsabile: a Sigonella è installata la Jtags, stazione satellitare Usa dello «scudo anti-missili», una delle cinque nel mondo. La situazione è aggravata dal fatto che gli Usa vogliono ora ritirarsi anche dal Trattato Inf del 1987 (quello che eliminò i missili nucleari Usa schierati a Comiso), così da poter schierare in Europa contro la Russia missili nucleari a raggio intermedio con base a terra. Anche qui con la corresponsablità del governo italiano, che al Consiglio Nord Atlantico del 4 dicembre ha avallato tale piano ed è sicuramente disponibile all’installazione di tali missili in Italia. «Se arriveranno i missili in Europa, poi l’Occidente non strilli se noi reagiremo», ha detto Putin. Avvertimento ignorato da Conte, Di Maio e Salvini* che, mentre battono la grancassa sul «decreto sicurezza» anti-migranti, quando arrivano bombe e missili nucleari Usa mettendo a rischio la vera sicurezza dell’Italia, non vedono, non sentono e non parlano.
Manlio Dinucci
*Presidente del Consiglio e vicepresidenti dell’attuale governo itaiano.
On December 17, 2018, the UN General Assembly Plenary adopted a series of resolutions, many denounced for their double standards, with fierce official statements of protest against the “country-specific” resolutions, the most nefarious and hypocritical of all.
The voting on the morning resolutions is revealing:
Item 74(b) A/73/589/Add2. Draft Resolution VII “Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order.
The United States voted “No” against the Resolution. The DPRK voted “Yes,” in support of the Resolution.
Item 74(b) A/73/589/Add.2 Draft Resolution IX: “The Right to Food”
The United States voted “No” against the Resolution. The DPRK voted “Yes,” in support of the Resolution.
Item 74(b) A/73/589/Add.2 Draft Resolution VIII: “Promotion of Peace as a Vital Requirement For the Full Enjoyment of All Human Rights By All”:
The United States voted “No,” against the Resolution. The DPRK voted “Yes,” in support of the Resolution
Regarding Draft Resolution XI: “Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Including the Rights to Peaceful Assembly and Freedom of Association,” it is interesting to note that the United States voted “Yes,” despite its history of persecuting the millions of Americans who assembled, peacefully, to oppose the US war against Vietnam, the persecution, murder, destruction of families, and harassment of millions of American citizens for their political beliefs and associations during the infamous McCarthy witch hunts, and the criminal FBI Cointelpro program which secretly assassinated peaceful dissenters from official US Government policy and covertly destroyed the families and lives of others, forcing taxed American citizens to support the murderous regimes of Pinochet, Suharto, Geisel, Castelo-Branco, etc. etc,. whose human rights abuses and atrocities were among the most egregious in human history.
The afternoon of December 17 dramatically exposed the chicanery and double standards of the “country-specific” resolutions adopted by the Third Committee on “Human Rights.” Several nations opposed to these resolutions described the notorious methods by which “developed” countries (the US, UK, etc.) threatened and forced more vulnerable countries to support these resolutions, which were, in reality, a violation of the vulnerable country’s own interests. These threats included cutting funds for development and humanitarian aid to more vulnerable countries, and the weaponizing of food and medicine, which were threatened to be withheld from weaker nations unless they obeyed the commands of the imperial states.
The Resolutions, themselves, and their sponsors would be best described as clowns in a ribald comedy, except that the consequences of the political propaganda the resolutions served resulted in human tragedy, deaths from starvation, deaths from curable diseases, etc., in the nations victimized by this display of crocodile tears in the name of “human rights.”
The climax of absurdity was Japan’s sponsorship of the resolution condemning human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, ignoring the fact that Japan was responsible for the barbaric murder of at least 25 million Chinese citizens during their occupation of China, and had refined biological warfare methods tested on human prisoners, Chinese, Korean and American in their Unit 731, taken over by the United States; Japan had never fully compensated or taken responsibility for the regime of sexual slavery they enforced upon Korean and Chinese women, and the situation remains virulent today. Although it was announced that Resolution A/C.3/73/L.40* was adopted by “consensus,” this was a fraudulent “consensus,” as some of the most powerful and principled member states of the UN disassociated themselves from the “consensus,” and required that their statements explicitly stating their reasons for opposition to the resolution be entered into the permanent verbatim record of the General Assembly.
In the Third Committee, the DPRK could have requested a recorded vote on this Resolution, revealing which countries opposed the resolution, and which supported it. But the DPRK elegantly dismissed the entire travesty of “country-specific” resolutions, thereby trivializing the propaganda abuse of “human rights” and the entire grotesque performance, intended to hoodwink a gullible public.
Russia spoke first, denouncing the country-specific resolutions, opposing, in particular, the one against the DPRK, and emphatically disassociated Russia from any “consensus” on the Resolution.
China next spoke against the “country-specific” resolutions, and again, disassociated China from any “consensus” on the resolution on the “Situation of Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”
Iran delivered a powerful and eloquent address detailing the criminally unethical methods by which the “developed” nations forced submission of the more vulnerable developing nations, compelling them to support the Resolution against the DPRK, and others. Iran disassociated itself, in particular, from any “consensus” on that resolution against the DPRK.
The Syrian Ambassador stated unequivocally that his country opposed the gross hypocrisy, and of course disassociated Syria from the ridiculous “consensus” on the Resolution against the DPRK.
The Cuban delegate stated, unequivocally, that Cuba is disassociated from this preposterous “consensus” on the DPRK resolution.
What kind of “consensus” is this, which is publicly and fiercely opposed by nations whose populations compose more than half of humanity?
The Report on the DPRK was based on the discredited UN “Commission of Inquiry,” headed Michael Kirby, who had never set foot in the DPRK, and made reference to the report by Rapporteur Tomas Quintana, who had also never set foot in the DPRK. (Quintana privately admitted to me that he was well aware that sanctions were deliberately targeting the most vulnerable, and their purpose is “regime change.”) The two reports were based exclusively on the highly paid, lucrative and subsequently acknowledged to be fabrications by defectors, whose incentive to juice-up their slanders with salacious details was heightened by lots of money paid for their “testimony,” (which, was recognized by Assistant Secretary-General Ivan Simonovic as failing to meet the threshold of proof required to be admitted as evidence in a court of law.)
Nevertheless, perpetrations of falsehoods as UN “Human Rights Resolutions” did not trouble the conscience – or lack of intellectual integrity of those sponsors of these resolutions. And with stupefying temerity, Saudi Arabia sponsored the resolution against Syria. This was breathtakingly arrogant: Saudi Arabia condemned journalist Raif Badawi to ten years in prison and 1000 lashes for his writings critical of the Saudi regime; Saudi Arabia is currently embroiled in the criminal investigation of the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Kashoggi, and Saudi Arabia is today responsible for, in the words of Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock, the worst humanitarian disaster in the world.
The impact of these defamatory resolutions cannot be overlooked: this week the DPRK issued a press release stating:
“ Recently, the U.S. is resorting to anti-DPRK human rights plot in such a way that it carries deliberate provocation by adding high-ranking government officials of the DPRK, a sovereign state, to its unilateral sanctions list, while taking issue with the non-existent “human rights issue.” ….If the high-ranking politicians within the US administration including the State Department had calculated that they could drive us into giving up nuclear weapons by way of increasing the anti-DPRK sanctions and pressure and human rights racket to an unprecedented level, which has nothing to do with confidence building, it will count as greatest miscalculation, and it will block the path to denuclearization on the Korean peninsula forever – a result desired by no one.”
In a recent article published on the India-based News18 site (CNN), prominent US biologist Nina Federoff was reported as saying it is time for India to grant farmers access to genetically modified (GM) crops. In an interview with the site, she says there is no evidence that GM crops are dangerous when consumed either by people in food or by animals in feed. Federoff says that the commercial release of various GM crops in India has been halted by the Indian government due to opposition from environmental activists.
She adds that we are rapidly moving out of the climate regime in which our primary crops were domesticated, arguing that that they do increasingly worse and will yield less as temperature extremes become common and pest and pathogen populations change. She says GM will become more or less essential in an era of climate change.
In recent weeks, aside from Federoff’s intervention, GM has been a hot topic in India. In late November, a paper appeared in the journal Current Science which argues that India doesn’t need GM crops and that the track record of GM agriculture is highly questionable. The paper is notable not just because of what it says but because of who is saying it: distinguished scientist P.C. Kesavan and M.S. Swaminathan, renowned agricultural scientist and geneticist and widely regarded as the father of the Green Revolution in India.
I recently spoke with prominent campaigner Aruna Rodrigues about developments surrounding the GM issue in India, particularly the views of Federoff. Rodrigues is lead petitioner in a case before India’s Supreme Court that is seeking a moratorium on GM crops and selective bans.
CT: What do you make of Nina Federoff’s recent comments advocating for GM in India?
AR: Nina Federoff is a long-time supporter of GMOs. The last time she offered advice to India (in her role as scientific advisor to Hilary Clinton) was when Bt brinjal (eggplant) was being pushed for commercialisation. She advised that Bt brinjal would be good for India!
CT: She is a high-profile scientist. Did government officials take her advice?
AR: Her advice was straightforwardly ignored by the then Minister of the Ministry of Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh. He instituted a unique four-month scientific enquiry and public hearings. His decision to reject the commercialisation of Bt brinjal was supported by advice he received from several renowned international scientists. Their collective appraisals demonstrated serious environmental and biosafety concerns, which included issues regarding the toxity of Bt proteins resulting from their mode of action on the human gut system.
CT: What were some of the other reasons they put forward for rejecting Bt brinjal?
AR: Genetic contamination was the outstanding concern. India is a centre of origin of brinjal with the greatest genetic diversity. Contamination was a certainty. In his summing-up of the unsustainability of Bt brinjal and of its implications if introduced, one of the experts involved, Professor Andow, said it posed several unique challenges because the likelihood of resistance evolving quickly is high. He added that without any management of resistance evolution, Bt brinjal is projected to fail in 4-12 years. Jairam Ramesh pronounced a moratorium on Bt brinjal in February 2010 founded on what he called “a cautious, precautionary principle-based approach.”
CT: So, it is clear that, despite Federoff’s claims, there are valid reasons why GM has not been commercialised in India, aside from cotton that is. Can you say something about the health safety aspects of GM crops? Federoff says GM crops are safe for human and animal consumption. Is she correct?
AR: She is wrong. There are numerous studies that indicate the possibility of harm. All the major scientific bodies of the world, including the US National Academies, the World Health Organisation and the American Medical Association, agree that the potential for adverse effect is real and that these crops, both existing, but especially any new ones, need to be tested more thoroughly than they have been in the past (for example, for long-term toxicity for cancer). Meanwhile, agroecology that minimises the use of pesticides and uses no GMO has a proven safety and nutritional record and out-yields GMOs at a fraction of the cost.
CT: Federoff makes a blanket claim about safety. But each genetic modification poses unique risks and as a technology, according to molecular geneticist Michael Antoniou, GM is fundamentally scientifically flawed. So, it is impossible to say up front that they are all safe – or in fact that the ones on the market have been rigorously tested because they have not. But a food crop isn’t just eaten. There are effects on the environment too.
AR: Federoff fails to address all the ways GM crops can be unsafe. Existing GM crops do not have a history of safe use in the environment. Even a cursory examination of the US cropping system is enough to prove that the legacy of pesticidal GM crops has fuelled the epidemics of herbicide- resistant weeds and emerging insecticide resistant pests. This proves that you cannot rescue scientifically flawed ways to farm by introducing GM technologies that only exacerbate the most damaging farming practices.
CT: Federoff claims that we need GM if we are to mitigate the effects of climate change and produce sufficient food.
AR: This is rubbish. Agroecology has demonstrated far more effectiveness already than even the best hypothetical hopes of GM crops. But more to the point: it is the machine we call industrial agriculture that is a major cause of climate change. Giving that machine more fuel in the form of GM crops is not a solution but a dangerous distraction from what is needed to halt climate change.
CT: The paper by Kesavan and Swaminathan coincided with a mass march by farmers in Delhi at the end of November. Farmers in India have a list of grievances, with the effects of Bt cotton being a prominent one. Surely, given the devastation caused by Bt cotton (which these two authors say “has failed in India”), to introduce more GM crops at this time would cause further hardship for farmers. The paper by these two eminent scientists could be seen as a timely intervention.
AR: It is certainly courageous of Nina Federoff, given the failure of Bt cotton and her earlier unfortunate advice, to indulge in yet another round of misconceived guidance to the Indian government. I must also express disquiet and surprise that a bold charge has been levelled against that paper by Prof Vijay Raghavan (Scientific Advisor to the PM), which he says is “deeply flawed”. It is expected that any such statement is buttressed with sound data and science, especially when addressing scientists of the stature of Swaminathan and Kesavan. Therefore, without substantiation, a specific response to Raghavan is not possible.
However, it is relevant to the context to state that Bt cotton has failed and within a time-scale of less than 12 years. We need only look at the work of Dr. K Kranthi, ex Director of the Central Institute for Cotton Research, and Prof Gutierrez et al in the paper ‘Deconstructing Indian cotton: weather, yields, and suicides’.
CT: It was predicted that Bt brinjal would fail within 4-12 years. It seems that’s precisely what has happened to Bt cotton in India. So, the last thing India needs is another ill thought out GM experiment pushed through without proper independent assessments that consider health and environmental outcomes or the effects on farmers’ livelihoods and rural communities. But isn’t this what is on the horizon? You have for many years been highlighting flawed regulatory mechanisms in India where GM is concerned. I have been following the current case concerning herbicide-tolerant (HT) GM mustard. It is disturbing to say the least to read about deep-rooted conflicts of interest across the entire regulatory framework and what you describe as ‘regulatory delinquency’ as well as scientific malfeasance on such a massive scale.
AR: Collective regulatory misadventures with Bt cotton must indict the regulators for ‘connected’ farmer suicides in rain-fed Bt cotton cultivation. They must take responsibility. Despite this history of regulatory adventurism with hybrid Bt cotton and Bt brinjal, this has not deterred our regulators as they attempt to introduce HT GM mustard. It is sobering that documents in the public domain reveal clear cover-up, invalid and even fraudulent field trials, the results of which were nevertheless accepted by the regulators. Perhaps, the greatest regulatory mystery surrounds the fact that the regulators themselves admit that there is no claim made by the government that HT (GMO) hybrid mustard out-performs non-GMO hybrids. Therefore, there is no ‘need’ for this GM Mustard. ‘Need’ must be established as a prior regulatory step in risk assessment.
CT: Nina Federoff says that what is preventing the widespread adoption of GM in India is political disagreement and activists. This is a well-worn tactic: try to cast valid criticisms of GM as ‘unscientific’ and politically motivated. But as you have outlined, there are valid reasons why the introduction of GM food crops is being prevented in India.
AR: It is proven in copious evidence in the Supreme Court in the last 13 years that our regulators are seriously conflicted: they promote GMOs openly, fund them (as with HT mustard and other public sector GMOs) and then regulate them. Truth is a massive casualty. This is not lightly stated. It would also be prudent to recognise that unsustainable HT and Bt crops (Bt maize in industrial systems in the West) and failed hybrid Bt cotton in India serve to put farmers on a pesticide treadmill as increasing levels of pest resistance becomes manifest. In fact, a new paper in the journal Pest Management Science based on research over a seven-year period shows progressive field-evolved resistance of pink bollworm to Bt cotton in India.
We also have a new paper by Prof Andrew Paul Gutierrez in which he concludes that extending implementation of the hybrid GM technology to other crops in India will only mirror the disastrous implementation of Bt cotton in the country, thereby tightening the economic noose on still more subsistence farmers for the sake of profits.
CT: Federoff and others are fond of making claims about what GM has or will achieve. GM crops have been on the market for over two decades. Do you see any validity in these types of claims?
AR: Most GMOs on the market now provide technological fixes to kill weeds or pests. They have no trait for yield. Together, they account for nearly 98% of all GMOs planted worldwide. 25 years of official US data on HT crops show they have led to intractable problems of super weeds, significant increases in herbicide use because of resistant weeds, higher farmer costs and no yield advantage. Claims made for GMOs with various traits, for example, drought or saline resistant or providing yield or nutritional enhancement, are futuristic. The few that have been tested for drought resistance and some other traits are according to prominent scientist Doug Gurian-Sherman out-performed by traditional breeding techniques hands-down.
Colin Todhunter is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Arun Rodrigues is lead petitioner in a case before India’s Supreme Court that is seeking a moratorium on GM crops and selective bans.
Financial accountability for the government is a cornerstone of a functioning representative democracy. The ability for the people to know where taxpayer money goes to is crucial to having an informed opinion regarding the actions of your representatives and to react accordingly.
Unfortunately, as we’ve discussed in previous articles, the current state of government accounting is far from ideal–often bordering on useless to the public.
This is largely due to lax enforcement of existing laws such as the CFO Act, but also stems from the very real tension between completely transparent government financial disclosure and national security interests. (see The U.S. Statutes Creating Modern Constitutional Financial Management and Reporting Requirements and the Government’s Failure to Follow Them, available here). As of the last few months, this tension has taken the future of government financial disclosure to the public to new levels of opacity. The Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) has released Statement of Federal Financing Accounting Standards 56 (Standard 56); taking government accounting practices from laxly enforced reporting standards to a new benchmark entirely–expressly approved obfuscation of reporting and, in some cases, outright concealing financials.
This sounds fairly alarmist at first blush but, simply put, Standard 56 creates a set of situations where government entities may move numbers around to conceal where money is actually spent or even not report spending outright. Many of the concepts in Standard 56 are not new and have been discussed in FASAB reports for nearly a decade. However, these new changes make a substantial portion of government financial reporting so unreliable as to not be a useful tool to the public. (see FASAB Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56, available here).
In order to fully understand Standard 56, we will be taking a fairly deep dive on the new accounting standards it creates. From the history leading up to the new rules, to summarizing the exact changes of Standard 56. We’ve said that Standard 56 isn’t new, and this is true, it has hundreds and hundreds of pages of memorandums and the like which came before it outlining the exact parameters of these new reporting rules. For that reason, a complete summary of what a government entity must report will not be possible–or likely even useful–in an article of this length. That being said, we will explore the role of FASAB itself, the functional changes of Standard 56 and how it will impact the ability of the U.S. taxpayer to see how their money is spent.
II. History of the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB)
FASAB came about as a response to the requirements of the CFO Act. We previously wrote about the CFO Act in (The U.S. Statutes Creating Modern Constitutional Financial Management and Reporting Requirements and the Government’s Failure to Follow Them, available here). Under the act, the individual Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) of covered federal agencies are responsible for preparing financing statements for regular audit in order to ensure accuracy in accounting. The CFOs also were tasked by the Act with integrating accounting and budget information into a form consistent with those used to make budgets, put together a uniform financial management system for their agency, and–perhaps most importantly–make sure that the system they put together allowed for actual useful measurement of the financial performance of the CFO’s agency.
However, the CFO Act was light on the details, and after the Act passed in 1990, there was a need to determine the actual details of the accounting standards required. Therefore, the Treasury, OMB, and Comptroller General signed a Memorandum jointly establishing the FASAB to “consider and recommend the appropriate accounting standards for the federal government.” (History of FASAB, available here). Until 1999, FASAB simply gave recommendations to those three sponsoring entities. Then, in 1999, FASAB was approved to set final generally acceptable accounting practices (GAAP) for the federal government, with only a 90 day review period by the sponsoring entities. In 2002, the Treasury was removed as a sponsoring entity, leaving the OMB and GAO as the only entities able to object to FASAB set standards. (see id.)
III. FASAB and Standard 56
As mentioned above, since 1999, FASAB sets the final GAAP for the federal government. These practices are then used throughout the federal government to determine the content and structure of the financial reports the CFO Act requires federal government agencies, departments, and the like to prepare. While the GAAP are not themselves literally binding law, they do show what the federal government considers to be compliance with the law. As long as an agency follows GAAP, there will generally be a presumption that it is also complying with the federal financial accounting requirements. Therefore, unless the underlying legislation is amended by Congress, FASAB essentially determines the extent of the federal government’s financial transparency. (see id.) With the official adoption of Standard 56 as of October 4, 2018–completely unchanged from the pre-comment period version from July of this year–FASAB has determined that national security concerns essentially trump the need for financial transparency to the public. So how does Standard 56 do this?
A. What does Standard 56 Do?
In the absolute most simple terms, Standard 56 allows federal entities to shift amounts from line item to line item and sometimes even omit spending altogether when reporting their financials in order to avoid the potential of revealing classified information.1 However, as with all laws, nearly every word in that sentence is a complicated concept to unpack. Who counts as a federal reporting entity? When and how can these entities conceal or remove financial information from their reports? What information can be removed? When does something count as confidential, and who makes that determination? All of these questions have enormous bodies of writing in FASAB memorandums addressing, and sometimes failing to address, their answers.
The simplest place to start with understanding Standard 56 is its scope. It applies to federal entities that issue unclassified general purpose federal financial reports (GPFFR), including where one entity is consolidated with another. This means it only applies to otherwise unclassified financial reports where there is a risk of revealing classified information; classified financial reports are their own can of worms. (see generally FASAB Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56, available here) Standard 56 also doesn’t remove the actual requirement to report, it just allows these entities to change their reports in ways that don’t reflect their actual spending. (see id.) However, for the purposes of government transparency, determining who is responsible for classifying information, and/or removing that information from unclassified reports, is quite opaque for the average interested citizen.
B. Reporting Entities Within the Scope of Standard 56
The actual reporting entities empowered by the standards of Standard 56 include organizations which are included in the government wide GPFFR. (see id.) This includes any entities that are (1) budgeted for by elected officials of the federal government, (2) owned by the federal government, or (3) controlled by the federal government with risk of loss or expectation of benefits.” (FASAB Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standard 47, pg. 1, available here).
However, many different departments, bureaus, and agencies prepare their own GPFFRs as well. The various entities that both prepare their own GPFFR, and are within a larger reporting entity are called Component Reporting Entities. This includes executive departments, independent agencies, government corporations, legislative agencies, and federal courts. (id at 7). Their GPFFRs are then consolidated into the government wide GPFFR.
Under the Component Reporting Entities and included in their GPFFRs, are various other organizations, from smaller departments, to government contractors, which are split into two categories: disclosure entities and consolidation entities. (see id.)
Consolidation entities are entities like agencies and departments. A consolidation entity is generally (1) financed through taxes and other non-exchange revenues, (2) is governed by the Congress and/or the President, (3) imposes or may impose risks and rewards to the federal government., and (4) provides goods and services on a non-market basis. (see id. at 16). For instance, a department or corporation established by Congress to perform a government function is a classic example of a consolidation entity. Consolidated entities are reported by a larger entity as part and parcel of their financial reporting–as if they were one economic entity. We will discuss this type of entity later in great depth, as it constitutes one of the largest potential loopholes of Standard 56. (see id.)
Disclosure entities are financially independent organizations. These organizations still need to be included in the government wide GPFFR, but do not fully meet the four characteristics of consolidated entities above. They includes quasi-governmental entities, organizations in receiverships and conservatorships, and organizations owned or controlled through federal government intervention actions. (see id. at 16). A good example would be a government established non-profit that has a significant portion of their board appointed by the President, but are entirely funded by their own activities.
Additionally, there are “related parties,” which are organizations where at least one of the parties involved have the ability to exercise significant influence over the policy decisions of the other party. This significant influence does not need to amount to control, but can include things such a representation on a board of directors, participation in policy making procedures, shared managerial personnel, and things along those lines. The existence of significant influence is generally determined through a full analysis of the particulars of each situation. This classification is usually applied to organizations that do not even rise to the level of a disclosure entity, but nonetheless would be misleading to exclude. Some common examples of related parties are some government sponsored enterprises and organizations governed by representatives from each of the governments that created the organization, including the United States, wherein the federal government has agreed to ongoing or contingent financial support to accomplish shared objectives. Related entities generally do not include government contractors, government vendors, some non-profits, organizations created by treaty, or special interest groups–although they can in the right circumstances. (see id. at 7 and 31-33)
However, there are also certain entities that would probably be consolidation or disclosure entities, but are expressly excluded from the government wide GPFFR: the Federal Reserve System, and bailout entities. (see Financial Report of the United States Government 2016, pg. 227, available here). In particular, this includes entities like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. (see id.) If the government obtains rights in another entity which would give them the sort of control that normally makes a disclosure entity, but gains those rights when it “guarantee[s] or pay[s] debt for a privately owned entity whose failure could have an adverse impact on the nation’s economy, commerce, national security, etc. . .” those rights don’t count for determining a reporting entity. (id).
This means that in addition to consolidation and disclosure entities. the scope of Standard 56 stretches to any organization which it would be misleading to exclude but isn’t otherwise incorporated into their list of covered entities. Because of this, although there is not a exhaustive list of who’s financial reporting is impacted by Standard 56, if you can think of an entity related to the government it is a safe bet they count as a covered reporting entity. This can include publicly traded corporations with significant funding and/or control from the federal government.
C. Changes to Disclosure Standards Under Standard 56
For these covered entities, Standard 56 offers financial reporting exceptions in a few situations for national security purposes. These reporting exceptions are the meat of Standard 56, three rules substantially modifying the reporting requirements of the above discussed entities to varying degrees. (see FASAB Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56, pg. 6, available here).
In general, disclosure entities are required to provide their financial reporting in a manner which is clear, concise, meaningful, and transparent (see FASAB Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standard 47, para 71-73,, available here). This is done through a single, integrated report of finances disclosing the relationship of the organization to the the government and related entities, the nature and magnitude of their activity and their financial balances, and a description of financial and non-financial risks, potential benefits and, if possible, the amount of the federal government’s exposure to gains and losses from the past or future operations of the disclosure entity or entities. (see id. At para 74) This generally includes how much control or influence over the entity is exercised, key terms in their contractual agreements, percentage ownership and voting rights, a summary of assets, liabilities, revenues, expenses, gains, and losses, key financial indicators, information on how their reports are stored and can be obtained, and quite a bit more. (see id.) Essentially what is required is a transparent summary of how money is spent to provide accountability to the public. Standard 56 creates three loopholes to this disclosure standard.
D. Modifications to Avoid Disclosure of Classified Information
The first new loophole allows disclosure entities to modify their financial reports to “prevent the disclosure of classified information in an unclassified GPFFR” so long as these modifications do not change the net results of operations and net position. (see FASAB Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56, pg. 6, available here).
This ultimately means that, when done to conceal confidential information, entities can–and are essentially required to under the terms of Standard 56–shift money from one line item to another so long as the totals stay consistent. The rule also allows entities to omit the line item entirely while retaining the amounts so as to maintain the same net results. This means that readers of these reports will never know if the amounts reported spent on specific projects or things is an accurate representation. (see id.) As you might expect given the rationale of this being a national security precaution, there will not be any narrative in these reports explaining or revealing where a modification has taken place. (see id.) If they can maintain net position in their reports, an entity can even omit a project entirely by folding it into another department or project within the same entity.
While it could obviously be worse for transparency purposes, the alternative would be that the amounts would just be omitted entirely. That brings us to the next two changes to accounting standards created by Standard 56.
E. Reporting on Consolidation Entities
We briefly discussed consolidation entities above as one of the larger loopholes to reporting within Standard 56. This is because the second change to reporting requirements of Standard 56 allows the reporting entity which the consolidation entity is consolidated with to modify reports to avoid disclosure of confidential information even if that modification changes net results of operations or net position. The reporting entity can move the financials of the consolidation entity or even choose not to include it in its report; full stop. (see FASAB Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56, pg. 6-7, available here).
The concept of consolidation entities being incorporated into the reports of a larger reporting entity is far from new. FASAB has memorandums detailing the rules regarding consolidation from as far back as 2012. (see FASAB Federal Reporting Entity Memorandom, November 29, 2012, available here). By itself, it is not a particularly problematic issue. Under FASAB rules, consolidation in financial reporting is appropriate for those organizations financed by the taxpayer, governed by elected or appointed officials, imposing risks and rewards on the taxpayer, and providing goods and services on a non-market basis. However, consolidation is not appropriate for organizations operating with a high degree of autonomy. (see id. At 7).
In general, where an organization is controlled by the federal government and stands to make or lose money, but doesn’t have enough independence for a disclosure entity, it is included somewhere as a consolidation entity. (see FASAB Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standard 47, pg 14-15,, available here). As you’ve seen, the determination of what sort of entity something is hinges a great deal on the level of autonomy of the entity–the greater the control the government has the more likely something will be classified as a consolidation entity. This control doesn’t mean the government has to actively manage on the day-to-day, but does require that an examination of–among other things–whether the government can do things like appoint a majority of board members, dissolve the organization, authorize or deny action within the organization on some or all issues, or direct the policies or use of assets within the organization, and/or direct investment decisions. Consolidation entities are only assigned to one component entity and, in general, where that sort of control exists for a consolidated entity the public would rely on the larger reporting entity for information on the consolidation entity’s financials. (see id.). Under the second accounting standard change within Standard 56, the public can’t even count on these financials being reported in the first place. (see FASAB Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56, pg. 6-7).
F. Interpretations Modifying Reporting Standards in the Future
The final change to accounting standards within Standard 56 doesn’t do much at the moment, but has the greatest potential to undermine financial transparency in the future. It allows FASAB to issue Interpretations of Standard 56 in the future which would allow other modifications to financial reports for the purpose of avoiding disclosure of classified information. FASAB can, and likely will, release these Interpretations over time. These Interpretations can allow modifications to reporting without regard for maintaining an entity’s net results or net position in their reporting. Those interpretations may even be classified themselves (Appendix A, A16), resulting in a portion of the federal government’s accountability standards being concealed from the public. (see FASAB Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56, pg. 6-7).
Looked at in the most optimistic light, this will allow FASAB to ensure that Standard 56 isn’t abused and issue rulings of when disclosure is necessary in situations not yet considered. Looked at in a less optimistic light, this means that the ability of the government to obfuscate financial records will continue to grow in the coming months and years, without public oversight, as Interpretations add to or clarify these existing loopholes.
IV. Administrative History of Statement 56
Statement 56, and its reporting exceptions, have been in the works within FASAB for months. When an issue is identified, FASAB performs preliminary deliberations, prepares the initial documents, and then releases a review version to the public for comment and public hearings. After the comment period, FASAB enters further deliberations to consider the comments, and make revisions. Then, the Board approves the proposed statement by a two-thirds majority vote, and submits it to the principles (the OMB and the GAO) for review. If neither principle objects to the proposal after 90 days, it is published by FASAB and is added to the GAAP for federal entities. (Definition: FASAB (Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board), available here).
For Standard 56, the exposure draft was published on July 12, 2018, with comments due by August 13, 2018. 17 comments were submitted by various departments, agencies, and accounting firms (see FASAB Classified Activities, available here). The final Statement 56 was published on October 4, 2018, with little if any change from the exposure draft. However, the comments on Statement 56 are themselves interesting and somewhat enlightening.
A. Commentary On Required Disclaimers
FASAB proposed two possible alternatives for disclosure/disclaimer requirements under Standard 56. Either reporting entities could be given a choice in whether or not to consistently disclose that certain presentations may have been modified, or all reporting entities must disclose the possibility that certain presentations may have been modified, regardless of actual modification. (see FASAB Exposure Draft Interpretation of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56: Classified Activities, available here).
The SEC gave a fairly entertaining comment on Standard 56. After answering “No Comment” to literally every preceding question, the SEC gave it’s thoughts on FASAB’s proposal for how component entities should disclose that they have modified their reports. The SEC, the nation’s foremost agency in the fight against financial fraud, doesn’t think that every component entity should have to disclose that modifications may have occurred, and especially the SEC shouldn’t have to. The reasoning the SEC gave for this position was that they “believe that this would be misleading and likely to cause confusion for financial statement readers, by implying that SEC is involved in classified activities. It’s likely that SEC, as well as other agencies, would receive numerous inquiries from the public and from the media by including such an unexpected disclaimer in its financial statements.” In other words, they’re worried it would look strange to the public if they disclosed that they had modified their financial reporting, despite no such modification. The public may think it odd that component entities such as the SEC would make such a, in their own words, “unexpected disclaimer.” (FASAB Exposure Draft: Classified Activities SEC Comment, available here).
Veterans Affairs and the Association of Government Accountants had a similar stance, and while they commented on other aspects of Standard 56 as well, they joined the SEC in criticizing a mandatory disclaimer, and suggested disclaimers would only be appropriate when GPFFRs were actually modified (see FASAB Classified Activities, available here).
Several other commenting parties had a different take on the required disclaimers. For instance, the Department of Defense’s Office of The Chief Financial Officer and the Department of the Interior, wanted agencies to have the option to give a disclaimer or not, irregardless of whether or not they made changes to classified information under the new standard (id). The Department of Energy’s Office of The Chief Financial Officer even felt it would be appropriate to have no disclaimers whatsoever, even if GPFFRs were materially modified (id).
B. Federal Commentary on Standard 56 Generally
Various government agencies commented on the “meat” of Standard 56, and most were in favor2 of FASABs proposals in general. For instance, Housing and Urban Development had fairly positive comments across the board, and deferred greatly to the need to classify information. The organization agreed with all of FASABs methodology and conclusions, and stated the new standards would strike a correct balance between protecting classified information and a commitment to open government.
However, oddly enough, the Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General was particularly concerned with the proposed Statement. They wrote “[t]his proposed guidance is a major shift in Federal accounting guidance and, in our view, the potential impact is so expansive that it represents another comprehensive basis of accounting.” (FASAB Exposure Draft: Classified Activities, Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General Comment, available here). They suggested already existing methods like redaction are sufficient to protect classified information, and stated the FASAB “should clarify whether this proposed standard, or subsequent Interpretations, could permit entities to record misstated amounts in the financial statements to mislead readers with the stated purpose of protecting classified information. We believe that no accounting guidance should allow this type of accounting entry” (id).
Additionally, while not quite as critical as the Inspector General, the Treasury expressed concerns about the modification of net results of operations and net position.
C. Concerns From Accounting Firms
The accounting firm Kearney & Company had a more critical take on the proposed standard as well. They worried that “[t]he FASAB’s proposed approach could result in material omissions in GPFFR. . . If GPFFR can be modified so material activity is no longer accurately presented to the reader of financial statements, its usefulness to public users is limited and subject to misinterpretation.” (FASAB Exposure Draft: Classified Activities, Kearney & Company Comment, available here)
The accounting firm KPMG was more concerned with clarity consistency, stating that because of potential classified interpretations, only some people with clearance will be able to understand the complete set of GAAP. Because of this, “[i]t is not clear how management of each federal entity will be able to assert that their GPFFR have been prepared in accordance with GAAP when management does not have access to all of GAAP.” (FASAB Exposure Draft: Classified Activities, KPMG Comment, available here)
V. The Results of Statement 56 For the Public
There is a legitimate existing tension between the need to protect confidential government information and the public’s interest in financial transparency and accountability. Standard 56 isn’t without possible justification. That being said, the concerns of both the accounting world and many within the federal government itself are extremely valid.
Statement 56 undercuts the reliability of government accounting standards and financial statements to such a degree as to render an already questionably valuable reporting tool virtually useless to the public. The possibility of false or omitted information renders the reports largely unreliable as to actual amounts, as does the fact that even an accurate report is rendered questionable by the very existence of modifications are not necessarily exposed. Classifying portions of the federal GAAP mystifies the process even further, and the fuzzy definitions of reporting entities leaves the potential for this to touch not only direct government entities, but government contractors other private (but federally entangled) entities. The general disclosure of the government–requiring all reporting entities to report the potential of modifications whether or not they actually exist in their report while simultaneously forbidding the actual disclosure of the actual existence of any modifications–is essentially a worst case in terms of transparency for the public.
VI. About Us
This article was written and edited by Michele Ferri and Jonathan Lurie of The Law Offices of Lurie and Ferri for use by the Solari Report. Michele Ferri and Jonathan Lurie and both practicing attorneys out of California. The Law Offices of Lurie and Ferri focus on working with start-up businesses as well as on intellectual property and business law issues. They can be found at http://www.lflawoffices.com/ or contacted at [email protected].
Our thanks to the Solari Report for having sent us this important article for posting on Global Research.
1 The extent of what qualifies as classified or confidential information is determined by Executive Order 13526 (the most recent standard set back in 2009), changes over time, and could fill a book by itself. (https://www.archives.gov/isoo/policy-documents/cnsi-eo.html).
2 The Departments of Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Energy, and The Interior, all had agreement with the proposed standard more or less across the board, with a few exceptions for disagreements about the disclaimers.
Shutdowns occur when Congress fails to pass a measure funding government operations or the president refuses to sign appropriations legislation.
When this happens, non-essential federal personnel are furloughed until the issue is resolved. Under Trump, it happened three times – from January 20 – 22, 2018, on February 9, and again post-midnight December 21.
With Dems controlling the House in January, further shutdowns over the next two years may happen. On Friday, Trump blamed Dems for what both sides of the aisle share blame, DLT most of all.
This time it’s over his fortress America demand along the US southern border with Mexico – wanting over $5 billion wasted on a wall, unable to stem the tide of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers from coming to America, no matter its length or height if fully built.
Walls don’t work. A previous article explained they’ll be breached, tunneled under, or gone around by water or air to reach America.
The only partially possible way to keep out unwanted aliens is by walling-in the entire country and putting an impenetrable roof over it. Even that won’t likely work. Trump’s scheme is hugely ill-conceived – solely for political reasons, nothing else.
Responsible legislators should overwhelmingly reject his scheme. If money poured down a black hole of waste, fraud, and abuse for walls, militarism, endless wars, and corporate handouts were used for vital homeland needs, especially healthcare, education, and other essentials, America would be safe and fit to live in.
Trump wants lots more than a border wall. He wants nationals from the wrong countries and religions banned from entering America.
He wants the nation more militarized.
He wants over a trillion dollars to upgrade America’s nuclear arsenal – instead of ordering vital denuclearization to save humanity from possible armageddon that may happen as long as these weapons exist, along with long-range ballistic missile delivery systems able to strike anywhere globally with pinpoint accuracy.
His belligerent agenda supported by the vast majority in Washington is polar opposite what just societies cherish. Partially shutting down federal operations is symptomatic of governance thumbing its nose to the citizenry.
Occurring during the holiday season makes Trump, other Republicans, and Dems a collective scrooge – a pox on them all.
The shutdown affects about one-fourth of federal operations. Congressional funding for 75% of the government was already approved.
Yet nine of 15 federal agencies began furloughing employees, hundreds of thousands of workers affected. Over 400,000 essential workers remain on the job.
They include FBI, CIA, NSA, and other intelligence community operatives, personnel involved in special counsel Mueller’s probe, air-traffic controllers, prison guards, weather service forecasters, food-safety inspectors, Forest Service firefighters, border patrol and TSA employees, the postal service, some national parks, federal courts – along with the Education, Health and Human Services, War Department and military forces, the Energy Department, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health.
Federal agencies affected by shutdown include the Treasury, State, Justice, Homeland Security, Commerce, Labor, Interior, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Agriculture Departments.
The IRS will largely shut down, a small percentage of its staff kept on the job.
Shutdown can end if Republicans and Dems agree on some kind of appropriations compromise, pass a continuing resolution to fund government at its current level, or a combination of the two for a stated period, providing more time for final resolution before Congress adjourns sine die.
Otherwise, things could be more uncertain under the new Congress in January – Republicans controlling the Senate, Dems with majority House control, a prescription for more intense wrangling than during Trump’s first two years in office.
As long as he insists on full funding for his border wall Dems reject, shutdown could extend through the holidays, potentially well into the new year.
The longest previous shutdown lasted 21 days in 1996. This one could be resolved quickly or drag on for weeks without compromise – the way most all disagreements are resolved.
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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.”
Viktor Orbán of Hungary is not to be hectored to. Arching with fury at the EU’s September motion to sanction Hungary for bad behaviour under the Article 7 process, he was resolved to ratchet things up. The motion, while getting 448 votes concerned about judicial independence, corruption, freedom of expression, academic freedom, the rights and migrants, amongst others did have 197 opponents. (48 abstained.) Spot, as it were, the east-west European divide.
There was a time when Hungary was known as the “merriest barracks in the socialist camp” dominated by more tempered form of “goulash communism”. The merriment, not to mention any gastronomic softness, has long soured, substituted by a more patriotic, state-centred sludge. Protesters are now being given the treatment that would not have been unseemly in the times of the Cold War.
A week-and-a-half of protests against the overtime law passed by the Fidesz majority yielded the police forces fifty arrests. Orbán’s ruling party could not see what the fuss was all about. The law in question increases the number of overtime hours employees can be made to work from 250 to 400, a calculation to be made after three years. Pity for those workers, given the exodus of Hungarian employees to western Europe.
Opposition members of Parliament keen to get more coverage from the state media on the protests have also been frogmarched out of the broadcaster’s headquarters. In future, they can expect even less in the way of discussion, given the decree of December 5 exempting the Central European Press and Media Foundation from regulatory oversight. That particular conglomerate is the result of a merger of some 480 pro-government media outlets.
All strong men need hearty, well-rounded enemies, and the Viktator’s latest efforts also feature a final decision on the subject of the Central European University. The university’s presence in Budapest offers Orbán a target of lightning rod value, given its link to the wily financier George Soros and US-accredited courses run at the university that has his backing.
In April 2017, a bill was passed imposing a requirement on foreign-funded universities to have a home country campus, and in the capital. But negotiations between the CEU and the government stuttered and stalled, prompting a move to Vienna effective from September 2019. “CEU has been forced out,” lamented the university’s president and rector Michael Ignatieff. “This is unprecedented. A US institution has been driven out of a country that is a NATO ally. A European institution has been ousted from a member state of the EU.”
The CEU-Orbán tussle illustrates the convoluted nature of central European politics and its association with US and European political forces. Fine for Ignatieff to complain about NATO and EU ties being ignored, but the Hungarian leader is a creature of confusing plumage happy to make the necessary, if costly sacrifices.
The confusion was given added succour with the remark made by Hungarian State Secretary Zoltán Kovács that, “The Soros university is leaving but staying. It’s common knowledge that a significant number of its courses will still be held in Budapest.” The CEU’s warnings were “nothing more than a Soros-style political bluff, which does not merit the attention of the government.”
While he speaks of a common heritage to be defended against the door banging barbarians from the east, Orbán is also very much the self-proclaimed leader of its protection, something that gives him bullyboy status in such matters as immigration.
Eyeing the Trump administration across the pond on how it would respond to the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, the Hungarian government followed suit and demonstrated cold indifference when the final draft was approved by all UN member states in July 2018. (In so doing, it also kept company with Israel, Austria, Poland, and Australia, all similarly reluctant to subscribe to its spirit.)
It says much that the GCM could cause such agitation, notwithstanding its non-binding nature. Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó went so far as to insist that, in exiting the adoption process related to the GCM, “the Global Compact is not binding with relation to Hungary.” Migration, he suggested, should not be organised but stopped. “Assistance must be taken to where the trouble is, and people in need must be given support to enable them to remain as close as possible to their homes, and return home at the earliest opportunity.”
It is convenient, more than anything, to assume that the Hungary that emerged from the Cold War thaw was somehow more liberal, hopeful for a caring state of mind open to consultation and deliberation. Authoritarianism was in retreat; the democrats could finally come out. More on all fours with reality, it always retained an authoritarian default position, one that makes an Orbán figure less incongruous than imagined.
The first post-communist government was more than accommodating to communists; subsequent political arrangements fed a more nationalist orientation. Orbán sold himself as the appropriate central force to deal with the lingering ailments of socialism while also curing the problems arising from the post-1989 transition. Now, he is proving what a certain type of European can do to that oft-misguided notion of “shared values”. Shared, yes, but by whom?
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
On an Air France flight from Paris to Latin America, the plane is full, mostly with working class Latinos, going home for Christmas to spend a few festive days with their families and friends. They have worked hard to save their money for the trip. The plane is old and decrepit. Has no properly working entertainment system – and that on a trajectory of over 12 hours without interruption.
Who cares. Management knows that the humble passengers won’t complain. Anyway, they are under-people. Let’s reserve the better and newer planes for classier people. They pay better, are better clients. Isn’t that the thinking behind such decisions? – Of course, it is. It’s the greed-driven maximizing profit scheme to the detriment of the population. It’s not just AF, it’s everywhere, everywhere you look and are touched by a corporate giant.
We the people, are not even sheeple anymore; we are silenced. We are not asked, not consulted, whether we agree to be photographed and face-read at every corner. It’s just the way it is. Its intimidation by control – by over-control, and by cattle treatment. In this, the French and the US TSA (Transportation Security Administration) are not far apart.
For airport security, you are pushed through what I call a “naked-machine” – Though they tell you that it’s not true, that nobody sees anything other than potential drugs or weapons hidden in human crevices – well if they see crevices, they must see you naked. Behind the scene hidden away in some dark room are the machine operators, they see every human passing through it naked, balls, vagina, breasts and all. Imagine, the absurdly obscene, pathological imagination of those operators – and those who command them!
A machine, a robot of sort, disposes over you. If you don’t conform, you are just left behind, or harassed no end – you may literally lose your plane or connection. Cases of the US TSA abound – some of them are violent and are brought before a court – but in most cases to no avail. The ‘system’ is always right. And mind you the system, is a private system, its not even state owned, its outsourcing and privatization “Über Alles”. But no protests à la Yellow Vests. We are conveniently silenced. It’s Macron “Über Alles” – sounds like déjà vu? – Well, yes. It is. – Neofascism is undeniable.
Yes, that’s the way the ordeal begins. Actually, it begins earlier – at the check in, for example. AF weigh your luggage by the kilo – and, while some agents are a bit more lenient than others, if you are unlucky it hits you having a kilo in excess. Either you somehow dispose of it or reshuffle it to hand luggage – which also has a limitation of weight, you are charged the fee for an extra luggage. What to do? – You are at the airport. They have a captive “market”, because this money-profit centered “market” system has the power over you. You are at the airport, you have to fly, you charge this horrendous extra fee to your credit card, or else you are left behind; no scruples. That’s Macron 101. No concessions. And the French employees are well trained, lest they may lose their bad paid, but nevertheless vital jobs. You want to survive – bend over. No solidarity, no empathy, just hardball. Le Roi Macron says so. And you better obey —- or else — but the ‘or else’ has now suddenly gotten a yellow face – the Yellow Vests. We can just hope that they will propel the finance-mafia dictator into his overdue abyss.
Next, boarding the plane – an elderly passenger visibly with a hurting leg, kindly asked the flight assistant, alias the “cattle guard”, whether he could go through with the privileged ‘frequent flyers’, those who have given the company enough money to justify an extra discriminatory favor. She refuses. He insists, she refuses – until a man behind tells her, for human’s sake, please let him through. She hesitantly nods, then lets him go through.
What does all that have to do with Macron? – Everything. The sort of de-humanized civil behavior is what he instills in people, in corporations. Greed first, everything else, like solidarity, is not even second, it’s of no value. The young who want so desperately cling to their slave-paid jobs, have to obey, or else, they may lose their employment. But now it’s gone too far. Enough is enough. The Yellow Vests represent every industry, every citizen, every abject Macron law; they want to reverse the wheel, à la French Revolution. Enough is enough. Enough privileges for the rich and powerful. Even on the planes.
In ‘economy’, where the cattle is herded, those who saved hard to afford a trip to see their families, rows are getting narrower and narrower. Over time your legs get cramped; an increased risk of thromboses that can be deadly, especially when it happens on 10,000 meters altitude – far from an airport, above the sea. This, of course is quite different for those on first, business or economy plus class, they have more space, sit comfortably, and their entertainment system works fine even on an old decrepit plane. Proper maintenance for the rich and beautiful, neglect for the “less beautiful” populace.
When I complain about the inoperable entertainment system (ES), the chief of cabin arrives. He promises to see what he can do. After a while he returns with a tablet-screen full of my previous AF flights. I’m a good customer. So, he discretely offers me to be placed on an economy-plus seat, where the ES works. He whispers, you are a good customer, so we will do something for you. Amazing in an overcrowded plane he finds an unoccupied seat. I go and look at it – and as soon as they – the flight attendants for the better people – see me, they say, “Sir, the bathrooms are in the rear”. When I tell them that the cabin chief offered me a seat in their section, their tone changes: “Sir, can we offer you a glass of Champaign?” – I’m disgusted, but politely decline, deciding to stay with my kind of ‘cattle’. I prefer reading and writing – like this little essay – among my same-sakes. And am happy about it.
The cabin chief was admittedly nice. He fulfilled his duty, keeping a relatively ‘good customer’ happy, I have to admit. I’m fodder for the ‘maximizing profit’ doctrine. Yet, due to his friendly smile and body language, I give him the benefit of the doubt. Hopefully, not all those who have to make a living off the neoliberal Macron and greed driven money machine, have lost their innermost identity. That’s the cloud’s silver lining. That’s the remaining hope to build on. Hope is the last glow that dies.
Food service, used to be decent with AF. No longer. They don’t have you pay for it yet, but it is almost inedible. – But then, I think of the millions of Yemenis who thanks to the western and Macron-supported killing machine are suffering and dying from famine. So, I eat my portion happily. As a parenthesis, according to the UN, about 85,000 children below age 5 perished through the satanical Saudi-US-UK-French led war of horror. Most of the children died from famine and cholera induced diseases. I was thinking of those big eyed- and skeleton-like bodies, too weak to stand, let alone walk, destroyed for life from famine.
What does that have to do with Macron? – Everything, of course. Macron’s Airforce helped the crime regime of the Saudis bombing Yemen, a poor but proud people, to bits and pieces; to kill possibly hundreds of thousands – nobody counts – mainly children and women. Macron, siding with the elite – he surely has no reason whatsoever to bomb Yemen – helped the ‘allies’ of crime, destroy an entire nation. He of course is not alone, but accompanied by the best and the brightest of the western allies, even Germany – which, according to their non-aggression treaty (remnant of the WWII Armistice arrangement) – is not allowed to participate in any conflict hostility emanating from her territory – except, of course, if the Master of the treaty orders it.
The Yellow Vests want Macron out. Macron has become the enemy of the people. Literally. He is probably proud of it, because that’s testimony enough that he works for the rich and powerful, that he accomplishes the tasks he has been slanted and put in office for, with less the 25% of eligible votes. He lied, promising change, but change that benefitted the people. Change to the detriment of the people is what he implemented. The result is an equation of dynamics, the right has not thought of. Well, thanks god for these dynamics; they brought about the storming of the Bastille in 1789, and a transformation of much of the world. Though, granted, not all that came out of the French Revolution has persevered. The rich and powerful have an unlimited and insatiable stock of wealth to draw upon. Never mind that it’s stolen wealth – as long as they dispose of it and are able to defend it with brute military and police power, they command.
And so, the merry-go-round continues. Air France will play the game; they have to. They are bound into the system, along with French corporatism. The name of the game is intimidation. “Inconvenient”, not-playing-by-the-rules staff are being dismissed. Of the face reading / passport machines, only one out of three is operable, causing long queues. Out of about 20 customs boots, only two are occupied by an agent. Macron saves at the cost of stressed passengers, who have to spend precious time in long lines, risking literally missing their connection planes.
But the Big shots don’t care. The populace’s time is worth peanuts – its like slave time. In any case – you have to go through ‘the system’ – if not, you remain stranded.
Good riddens Mr. Macron, very good riddens – to never appear again on the horizon. – Vivent les “gilets verts”!
Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; TeleSUR; The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.
Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
Pakistan is the virtual fulcrum around which much of the geopolitical, geostrategic and geo-economic future of the Afghanistan Pakistan Region, (APR), the South-Central Asian Region (SCAR) and largely the Greater Middle East Region (GMER) is now evolving. No power including the US, China or Russia can realistically hope to secure its national interests in these regions without the active and willing support of Pakistan. It now holds the key to peace (by the defeat of terrorism), interconnectivity (massive infrastructure creation across its territories) and economic development and interdependence (trade corridors, special industrial and economic zones) within and between these regions. Its centrality and absolute inevitability in most matters of import in these regions is now unquestionable.
The APR is currently under a massive, two-pronged diplomatic onslaught by the US and China. The US, the global military behemoth, wants to pacify Afghanistan prior to either leaving it or continuing its occupation in more peaceful environments, whereas China, the marauding economic powerhouse, wants to incorporate it into its economic juggernaut that is magnificently sweeping across Euro-Asia.
The moves by both the powers are simultaneous, aggressive and essentially conflicting in nature. If these moves could somehow be made to complement one another it would not only pacify the APR but also bless it with an enormous epoch-making economic bonanza. However, the conflicting nature of US and Chinese national interests precludes any such prospects, at the moment. Both powers have found the incorporation of Pakistan in their respective efforts inescapable.
Can Pakistan possibly help bridge this chasm between them? Or must it secure its interests by managing them simultaneously albeit independent of one another?
President Trump has made his move in Afghanistan. Swallowing his pride, he has requested PM Imran Khan to urge the TTA/HN
(The Taliban and the Haqqani Network)v onto the negotiating table. Pakistan has responded positively. Resultantly, the first two rounds between the US and the TTA/HN were held in Qatar while the next two were held in the UAE. The representatives of the National Unity Government (NUG) however remained on the side lines. Pakistan, the KSA and the UAE were in attendance. The US wanted the TTA/HN to announce a six – month ceasefire, join the NUG that is to be installed in the future and become a willing and proactive part of the political system of Afghanistan. The TTA/HN, on the other hand, demanded the release of all their prisoners, removal of the ban on the movement of their leaders and the announcement of a deadline for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan. The TTA/HN showed an inclination towards a ceasefire, provided Pakistan, KSA and the UAE became the guarantors and a future caretaker government in Kabul was headed by their nominee.
Although the demands of the US and the preconditions laid down by the TTA/HN appear mutually exclusive yet the parleys have produced an early thaw in the icy relations. President Trump has indicated the withdrawal of 7000 US troops from Afghanistan, while the NUG has released nine members of the TTA/HN including Anas Haqqani, Sirajuddin Haqqani’s younger brother. These confidence building measures will lessen the friction and augur well for future negotiations.
President Trump’s compulsion to egressing from Afghanistan needs to be analysed.
One, why does he really want to neutralise the TTA/HN at this point in time?
Two, does he want to get rid of the Afghan albatross around his neck before his re-election bid?
Three, or does he want to declare victory and egress from Afghanistan before the 2020 elections to claim a foreign policy success – the way the OBL drama helped President Obama?
Four, or is it that he just wants Pakistan to pacify and neutralise the TTA/HN by engaging them in unending and fruitless peace talks so that the US can perpetuate its occupation in relative peace? The latter point gains importance because the US stands to lose much more in geopolitical, geo-economic and geostrategic terms by egressing from Afghanistan than it gains by doing so!
On the other hand, China continues to pursue its CPEC – BRI Combine relentlessly. It has now adopted a trilateral approach to the APR by incorporating Afghanistan into the CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridor). To that end China needs to foster friendly, cooperative and mutually beneficial relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Terrorism in the APR has to be comprehensively defeated through their coordinated efforts and interconnectivity and economic interdependence enhanced. A Peshawar-Kabul motorway, a railway link from Chaman to Kandahar to Herat and onto Mashhad, Iran, potentially linking up Pakistan-Afghanistan (CPEC) with the Baayannur China – Alamty, Kazakhstan – Tashkent & Samarkand, Uzbekistan – Bayramali, Turkmenistan – Mashhad & Tehran/Chahbahar(?), Iran railway link may be on the cards. This would be interconnectivity at the SCAR-GMER level with enormous connotations for economic interdependency and development. Therefore, parleys between Afghanistan, China and Pakistan (Regional Economic Cooperation Conference in Afghanistan-RECCA) were held recently where it was resolved to fight terrorism together, create further infrastructure for Pak-Afghan connectivity and beyond. China clearly wants Pakistan and Afghanistan to become peaceful, mutually supporting and fully proactive participants in the manifestation and furtherance of its CPEC-BRI Combine.
As the inevitable lynchpin in the region Pakistan is in a very advantageous position. It has engaged the US and China through a sublime two-pronged diplomatic manoeuvre too, as they implement major policy decisions in its neighbourhood. The US needs Pakistan to facilitate its egress, (if required), and/or continuous engagement with the APR and surroundings. China needs Pakistan for its critical link to the Persian Gulf/Arabian Sea/Indian Ocean Region, GMER, Africa, Europe and beyond in furtherance of its CPEC-BRI Combine. However, both US and Chinese efforts are proceeding on parallel streams with no prospects of their ever converging. Pakistan, therefore, must secure its interests by dealing with both separately, albeit simultaneously, without one adversely affecting the other!
The APR is at the cusp of peace, tranquillity, massive foreign direct investments in infrastructure and economy, meaningful interconnectivity, development and genuine progress. The onus is on President Ashraf Ghani and PM Imran Khan now to exploit these opportunities to the abiding benefit of their and other peoples of the region at large.
Imran Malik is a retired Brigadier of the Pakistan Army and the frequent contributor to Global Research.
Members of the political corps of the U.S. writing about U.S. foreign policy have a particular insider viewpoint that can provide some good insights into how their diplomacy works along with the personal peculiarities of some of the actors involved. Ronan Farrow’s War on Peace – The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Power works quite well at presenting some of the personalities involved within the U.S. State Department, a perspective gained from his own role within the department. For how the department actually works the writing is somewhat poorly defined, and while not fully contradictory, does pose some problems with the rationale behind the actual work of the State Department.
The main idea behind the work is an exploration of the downfall of the State Department and its losing out to the military, the Pentagon, rather than continuing the use of diplomacy to solve global problems. According to Farrow the U.S. has lost “the kind of thoughtful, holistic foreign policy analysis, unshackled from exigencies, that diplomacy once provided America.” This is “the story of a transformation in the role of the United States among the nations of the world.”
Along with the missing links in the above rationale Farrow also – not surprisingly – maintains a standard U.S. centric view of events, as he indicates Vietnam was “the first modern attempt at counter-insurgency…securing vulnerable populations while winning its loyalty through social programs.” If removing peasants from their villages by force, or simply massacring them as in My Lai, and if the Phoenix Program is an example of the “social programs”, then modern counter-insurgency is understandably violent and militarized. But I cannot be sure if this was being used as a positive example for his argument or a counter indicator. If diplomacy had been used in Vietnam, the UN sanctioned vote would have been held and Vietnam would have settled into a peaceful socialist state – one that admired the U.S. constitution!
Military threats – the not so hidden fist
From these early positions the argument for the downfall of the State Department wends its way through the various international scenarios common to anyone who has followed the mainstream news. Richard Holbrooke dominates the first section of the book, and is credited with using strong diplomacy to solve the Yugoslavia mess with the Dayton Accords. However, “Holbrooke achieved in Dayton only with the backing of the White House and the threat of military strikes he could meaningfully direct.”
Further on, Farrow writes, that Holbrooke “often talked about using the period of greatest military pressure as leverage to bring parties to the table. It was a tactic he used to great success in the Balkans.” A logical conclusion to these two statements is that it was the military that provided the success and not the diplomacy. With an overwhelming preponderance of military force to call upon, Holbrooke’s “diplomacy” was essentially threats to use military force, not exactly diplomacy: “skill in managing international relations; adroitness in personal relations, tact.” [Oxford English dictionary].
While discussing relationships with Pakistan and the Taliban, Farrow argues that opposition to Holbrooke “may have squandered the United States’ period of maximum potential in the region. When U.S. troop deployment was high, both the Taliban and Pakistanis had incentives to come to the table and respond to tough talk.” Okay, once again the argument for diplomacy relies on military power rather than any “adroitness in personal relations.”
Foreign policy objectives?
When presenting his arguments about Trump’s full denial of diplomacy in favour of military solutions – essentially Trump capitulated responsibility to the military [hmm, much as Bush capitulated to Cheney and the neocons for government policy] – Farrow cites a State Department employee concerned that a military campaign in Syria was “at the expense of the longer term U.S. foreign policy objectives in the region.” Summarizing a few paragraphs later he argues, “these relationships [with foreign proxy militaries] invariably carry with them acute compromises to human rights and to broader strategic interests.”
What is undefined throughout the work are what are these “broader strategic interests”, what are the “foreign policy objectives in the region”? Democracy? Freedom? Rule of law? Modernization? Containing Russia? Protecting oil? Protecting the U.S. petrodollar? Global hegemony? Full spectrum dominance? From what you do speaking so loud I can’t hear what you are saying, I know which of the above would be the answer, yet they remain outside the arguments in the book.
A hint of these objectives is provided in the last chapter where Farrow presents a viewpoint on China’s rising diplomatic power, concluding that, “If China can mature as a diplomatic power as rapidly as it has as a force for economic development, America will have ceded one of the most important ways in which great powers shape the world.” It is an interesting argument in that it leaves out the military: China’s economic and diplomatic power across Asia, Africa, and into Latin America does not rely on a military backup as its military reach is only just now pushing back at the U.S. presence in the western Pacific.
State Department policy
When I think of those who have occupied the position of Secretary of State it seldom if ever falls under the rubric of diplomacy. Hillary Clinton’s diplomacy included a military coup in Honduras overthrowing a democratically elected government attempting land and social reform. Later she argued her way into Libya to get rid of Gaddafi not because of his lack of democracy or a supposed looming genocide, but in order to prevent the sale of Libya’s oil in other than U.S. dollars to the Chinese. U.S. diplomacy in Libya’s case was full on military.
The list extends on back. Condoleezza Rice oversaw the rejection of the democratic elections in Palestine in 2006, leading to Israel’s creation of the Gaza open air prison. Colin Powell is well known for his false presentation to the UN concerning Iraq and the ignoring of the best intelligence indicating Iraq did not have nuclear or other WMDs. Madeleine Albright’s brightest comment was her admission that the price of five hundred thousand deaths in Iraq was worth the price of sanctions against Saddam Hussein, a comment worthy of U.S. diplomacy. James Baker’s diplomacy included a threatened nuclear strike to eliminate Hussein and Iraq during the Kuwait crisis in 1991. Henry Kissinger played a role in U.S.- Soviet détente, but also supported Pinochet’s military coup against Allende, and supported Argentina’s ‘dirty war’ with its use of U.S. trained death squads.
But it is more than that. Yes, as Farrow argues, U.S. diplomacy has become weaker and the Pentagon has become dominant. The reality is that U.S. diplomacy has always relied on U.S. threats of military power, often spoken, often demonstrated. From its inception, the whole impulse of U.S. expansion has been based on military aggression. With current events, the façade of diplomacy has simply disappeared, unless one counts Trump’s “Rocket Man” threats as diplomacy, as “adroitness in personal relations”.
What is really happening is the overall loss of U.S. power in all aspects: economic, diplomatic, and military. The transformation is not just because the Pentagon has overridden the State Department although that is part of it. The full context of international relations is not discussed, omitting the rise of Russia as a military power, acting independently of U.S. interests, omitting the formal and informal economic and military/security ties between Russia/China and other Asian partners. It is also the rising awareness globally that U.S. intentions are entirely self centered for hegemonic control, along with the ability of countries to resist that control militarily and economically. When discussing U.S. diplomatic initiatives that all needs to be presented as context to the overall discussion, and it is not.
The initial premise of “War on Peace” is correct, but the missing contextual information implies that at some point diplomacy actually worked – as it did backed by military threats and actions as presented by Ronan Farrow. Apart from the logical flaws of the argument which I have dwelled on at length here, “War on Peace” is well enough written in an anecdotal manner that it does present a view of the infighting and manipulations occurring within the government.
Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research
China’s growth into the world’s second-largest economy is being evaluated by all the corporate media, reflecting debates in U.S. ruling circles and the U.S. top military command.
They are forced to admit that most of their hopes and dreams that the Chinese government could be easily overwhelmed, and that Wall Street would find an open road into China, are now dashed by the reality of a stable government that seems to have wide mass support and growing prosperity.
The New York Times Sunday edition ran a 20-page special supplement titled “China Rules” on Nov. 25. It begins with the admission: “The West was certain China would fail. Government-controlled economies stifle growth. Oppression smothers innovation. The Internet is an untamable force. A new middle class will demand a vote. None of these proved true. China is a superpower and it may soon surpass the United States. This is the story of how it got there.”
Of course the whole supplement is full of self-congratulatory myths about the “democracy and freedom” of imperialist countries. But there is also recognition of 40 years of uninterrupted growth in China and that the country is on track to become the world’s largest economy. “Economic growth in China has been 10 times faster than in the U.S. and it is still more than twice as fast,” the Times states.
It is an incredible accomplishment!
More than 800 million people have been pulled out of dire poverty. This is a measure without precedent in modern history. The rate of extreme poverty in China is now less than 1 percent, according to World Bank studies. Yet China remains a developing country, because its per capita income is still a fraction of that in “advanced” countries.
While opening the country to foreign capital investment, organized and centrally planned attention was focused on raising the economic level of the whole population, especially in rural and most underdeveloped areas.
From an illiteracy rate of more than 80 percent at the time of the Chinese Revolution in 1949, illiteracy is now totally eliminated. China today produces more graduates in science and engineering than the U.S., Japan, South Korea and Taiwan combined.
The billionaire deciders and power brokers of U.S. imperialism are totally hostile to the dramatic improvement in the lives of hundreds of millions of people in China.
Whether this stunning growth will continue, despite U.S. imperialism’s determined effort to stop it with tariffs, a trade war and military encirclement, is now debated in ruling circles. Can they stop China?
As the Washington Post explained: “The trade war isn’t about trade. The trade war is about the United States trying to contain China and counteract its rise.” (Sept. 24)
Every economy in the world will be impacted. The Nov. 16 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Papua New Guinea, with 10,000 delegates and guests, was so riled by the trade war, new tariffs and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s arrogant demands that diplomats could not even issue a closing statement. The Nov. 30 meeting of the Group of 20 in Argentina is under a cloud of uncertainty.
Remembering past Western domination and humiliation, China is determined to defend its national sovereignty, both economically and now militarily. China has imposed its own tariffs on U.S. products. Confrontations are accelerating with U.S. warships carrying out aggressive “freedom of navigation” exercises in the South China Sea.
The “pivot to Asia” is a major military reorientation of the Pentagon war machine to focus on China. Aircraft carriers with nuclear weapons, destroyers, nuclear submarines and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile batteries are being moved into place.
U.S. demands
Under the screen of diplomatic negotiations, just what are the fundamental changes in China’s policies that U.S. corporations and banks want?
The Trump administration — and other major imperialist powers — want to reverse China’s industrial and development policies. Their terms seem abstract: ease restrictions on market access, end forced technology transfers for corporations setting up factories in China, respect intellectual property and patents, and weaken currency controls.
For example, Trump accuses China of keeping its currency artificially low in order to boost its export industry. The value of Chinese currency, the yuan, is largely shut off to foreign speculators. Interest rates are set to help guide the economy.
The hostility is sharpening. It is an all-out effort to fundamentally overturn Chinese economic policies put in place starting in 1978.
Market socialism: a compromise
Market socialism, or “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” is the compromise of maintaining a planned economy while opening up a market economy. It is described in China as a primary stage of developing socialism in an underdeveloped country.
Since 1978 China has experimented with ways of attracting foreign investment and different forms of integration into the global capitalist market. They made deals with many Western corporations, while maintaining centralized control of the state apparatus. They also continued many forms of public, cooperative and social ownership.
Special economic zones were established to lure Western technology. These zones, with thousands of labor-intensive factories and millions of workers earning low wages, were centers of capitalist exploitation that reaped enormous profits for the U.S. and other global capitalists. Private minority stakes in state firms were sold. The communes were broken up and land was leased. Many forms of small businesses were allowed.
In recent years, through thousands of strikes and job actions, workers in China have won increased wages, social benefits and improved working conditions.
There are many different views of this process and its future dangers for the socialist organization of society. But in almost all the deals with Western capital, China has insisted on keeping the technology and blueprints and demanded that Chinese workers be trained in operating and running the enterprise. This was a radically different deal than other countries had previously required. And while Western technology and funding of factories were welcomed, Western-funded political ideas, organizations, oppositional political parties and media were tightly monitored by the state and by the Communist Party.
State-owned enterprises predominate
What frustrates the capitalist class, far more than China’s incredible growth, is that the top 12 Chinese companies on the Fortune 500 list are all state owned. They include massive oil, solar energy, telecommunications, engineering and construction companies, banks and the auto industry. They receive state support and subsidies. (fortune.com, July 22, 2015)
Chinese firms filled an unprecedented 115 places on the Fortune Global 500 list for 2017. There were only 10 Chinese firms on the list in 2000. The U.S. has trended in the other direction: from 179 firms in 2000, only 143 U.S. firms were in the top 500 in 2017.
The U.S. is opposed to subsidies to state-owned enterprises and declares the subsidies an “unfair advantage.” They consider SOEs to be squeezing out the profits the global capitalists feel are rightfully theirs. They are enraged that SOE profits are plowed into developing and modernizing China’s most underdeveloped regions. This “unfair advantage” granted to state-owned industries is the primary reason given by the Trump administration for new tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum. (industryweek.com, April 17)
Both the Obama and Trump administrations and the World Trade Organization have opposed subsidies to China’s SOEs.
This is sheer hypocrisy! The largest U.S. corporations are military contractors with billions in federal subsidies, but super-rich investors reap all the profits. Privately owned U.S. agribusiness has received decades of subsidies. Privately owned Wall Street banks received U.S. federal bailouts, a giant subsidy totaling $16 trillion, in the 2008 global financial crisis.
It was during the 2008 crisis that the difference in who controls the state stood out in sharpest contrast. China saved and further strengthened its state-owned enterprises, while letting the privately owned and foreign-owned corporations fend for themselves.
China’s internet is way ahead
An expectation of big capital globally was that the wide use of the internet would forcibly pry China open to Western pressure, ideas and propaganda. But China allowed Chinese innovators to compete in setting up privately owned but monitored internet companies. Today Alibaba, Tencent, Weibo, ByteDance, TikTok and Baidu rival Amazon, Google, Facebook and YouTube.
Tencent, with 647 million active users, is the world largest online community. Alibaba is the largest e-commerce platform in the world.
Smartphone payments in China are years ahead of those in the U.S. Chinese companies operate a cyberspace of creative short videos, podcasts, blogs and streaming TV. For example, WeChat has 889 million users who socialize, play games, pay bills and buy tickets all from the mobile messaging app.
National laws on sexual harassment, workers’ rights
The social gains in China are monumental, especially when compared to no rights, no education and no standing for women, and no rights for any workers or peasants, before the Chinese Revolution. As in every country, social gains, especially for women, are uneven and in continuing struggle.
In China, many gains have been codified into national laws, rather than through piece-by-piece struggles against every corporate boss or laws passed state by state.
The inclusion in China’s civil code of laws to curb sexual harassment in the workplace is ahead of what exists in the U.S. and most other countries.
Included in the draft of the new civil code, presented to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee on Aug. 27, management and employers are responsible to take measures to prevent, stop and deal with complaints about sexual harassment. Victims can demand perpetrators “assume civil liability” for committing sexual harassment through words or actions or by exploiting someone’s subordinate relationship. (reuters.com, Aug. 27)
The China Labour Bulletin states: “China has a comprehensive legal framework that gives workers a range of entitlements and protects them from exploitation by their employer. Workers have the right to be paid in full and on time, a formal employment contract, a 40-hour working week with fixed overtime rates, social insurance covering pensions, healthcare, unemployment, work injuries and maternity leave, severance pay in the event of contract termination, equal pay for equal work, and protection against workplace discrimination.
“Workers also have the right to form an enterprise trade union and the enterprise union committee has to be consulted by management before any major changes to workers’ pay and conditions.” (clb.org.hk)
Belt and Road Initiative threatens U.S. position
China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative provides infrastructure loans, equipment and training to countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America for a network of trade routes, with new rail lines, ports, highways, pipelines, telecommunications facilities and energy centers linking countries on four continents. It includes financing to promote urban planning, potable water, sanitation and food development. China is calling it the “plan of the century.” It is projected to be 12 times the size of the U.S. Marshall Plan, which rebuilt Western Europe after World War II.
Imperialism is worried that China’s huge, unfolding global infrastructure projects could challenge the U.S.-led world order.
Because the most powerful U.S. corporations are military industries, U.S. aid is built around enormous debt for military equipment purchases that are quickly obsolete. They are not able to match China’s development proposals. But U.S.-funded nongovernmental organizations and media outlets are waging widely publicized scare campaigns against these sorely needed development projects.
Meanwhile, China is reining in a number of projects by Chinese capitalists who were seeking ways to move their profits outside of Chinese government controls through exploitative foreign investment schemes.
Hands off China!
Big debates will continue within the progressive U.S. working-class movement on the social character of the Chinese experiment in “market socialism.”
It is valuable to study the impact of the global and internal capitalist market and a growing consumer society in China. The forms of socialist planning in the economy and in the culture hold lessons for the many developing countries.
The social weight, legal status and inheritance rights of the millionaire, and now even billionaire, capitalists in China should be evaluated.
The Chinese working class now numbers 623 million people. Its social weight and political consciousness are growing. Thousands of strikes and job actions have consolidated new gains in pay and working conditions. Its capacity to organize all future society will be decisive.
There is much we don’t know about the ownership of the productive forces in China — by the state, by Chinese and foreign capitalists, and about the many forms of collective ownership of small industries at the provincial, city and rural township levels. A lot is in rapid transition.
But in the final analysis, clarity and militant working-class solidarity are essential in opposing all threats to China from U.S. imperialism and its giant military machine.
Opposing sanctions, economic threats, trade wars, increasingly hostile media lies and military encirclement by U.S. imperialism is not open to debate.
It has become increasingly apparent throughout the past decade that the nation state, and the traditional notion that it represents a culturally cohesive citizen’s platform, is no longer a valid supposition.
In Europe, countries have been stripped of their status as individual nations overseen by elected governments. They have been turned into corporate fiefdoms having their own agendas and their own means of achieving them. The chief amongst these agendas is the domination of all spheres of the market place via overt influencing of government. And the method of achieving this end is extortion – buying one’s way into positions of leverage.
This would not be possible, of course, if parliamentarians refused to bend to the temptation of corruption. But as we now see on a virtually daily basis, the great majority of these ‘representatives of the people’ are themselves severely lacking in moral fiber and only too ready to do what is asked of them, in order to remain in power.
But the problem goes deeper. Other institutions with a remit to inform and educate, such as the media, leaders of national education programmes and the church also appear incapable of realizing a vision of any depth or purpose – equally allowing themselves to be led by the corporatist agenda.
An increasingly significant number of citizens now feel that there is no trust-worthy party to turn to at election time; whereas those who continue to place their faith in one or other party, allow themselves to be swayed by the ubiquitous nature of state propaganda – and not by their better instincts. This propaganda is corporation infused and is tied-into the deliberate promotion of an increasingly “me, me” agenda. Materialistically inclined consumers and many of those reacting to the dog eat dog political agenda of the day, appear to believe that any sort of resistance to the dominant trend is pointless, preferring to think only about their own needs and wishes and how to get the best out of a bad situation.
The corrosive effect of the top down stranglehold on society is undermining the moral fiber once characteristic of independent nations, leading to a state of permanent social unease and deprivation. Throughout Europe, North America and other westernized neoliberal capitalist countries, the corporate deep state driven solution to this widespread sense of dispossession – is war.
The constant hype surrounding war and ‘terrorism’ keeps people in a permanent state of anxiety and placates them into accepting unacceptable solutions to the continuing state of societal malaise. A malaise that goes under the deceptive misnomer of ‘peace’.
Leading the pugilistic charge is the USA. The rhetoric comes from the President, but the heavy guns in the background are the representatives of the military industrial complex with its headquarters in the Pentagon. Behind them, as more people are becoming aware, is the shadow government/deep state which ultimately calls all the shots and masterminds the timing and intensity of the war rhetoric. This war warning siren is at its loudest when there is some particularly unpleasant internal news to keep the issue of war out of the spotlight.
Presently the news is that the US has just run-up its highest trade deficit for a decade – $55.5 billion – and is in a third degree phase of bankruptcy. The economy is slowing. Manufacturing orders are falling and economic conditions are reported to be deteriorating for all but the top earners. The old US pugilistic empire building role is itself under threat and someone has to be blamed for this – so Russia is once again cranked-up as the number one villain.
Owing to the US’ vast military – and the equally vast costs of maintaining its more than 1,000 strategically positioned global military bases – a crisis is looming for The American Dream and the expectations that this dream which have unfolded for the past century. But a crisis for the US is, as we know, also a crisis for Europe, since their economies are strongly interlinked, with or without TTIP in place.
The ideological battle between capitalism and communism has historically played-out as a ‘cold war’, sucking-in all of Europe in its wake. Now the hidden hands of the shadow government driving the global political and economic agenda are working to ratchet-up the ‘cold war’ agenda, via pumping ever more funds into the propaganda machine whose open belligerence is directed at Putin. Here, we are all led to believe, is the number one threat to the planet and prima causa of the rapidly failing dominance of the neoliberal Western led economic and military agenda.
So important is it for those who pull the strings of world affairs to keep Western populations permanently biased against The Russian Federation – and Putin in particular – that a military strategy has been devised in which NATO has landed the star role as ‘Defender of the West’.
A role that it is hoped will be believed by those at home who worry about the US no longer properly fulfilling its job as the world’s number one despot – and as the global bringer of good tidings via its unsurpassed culinary ambassadors: Coca Cola, McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken.
With the US emphasis, backed by France and Britain, on a military solution to the long cold war, has come the strategic importance of ensuring the allegiance of Eastern Europe, as Eastern Europe is seen as the battle ground for the perpetually hyped ‘West versus East’ show-down. The ‘war theater’ as military strategists like to call it.
Over the past decade Poland, Romania and Lithuania have become front line nations in relation to what is described – by fake mainstream news – as ‘Russian aggression’ but which is in reality US/NATO hegemonic ambition to advance Eastwards.
Poland, from where I am now writing this article, has recently become the main base of NATO’s Eastern European Command and hundreds of US missiles – under NATO’s command – are stationed at various sites on Polish soil , as well as in Romania, ringing the Western boundary with Russia.
Continued attempts are being made , via the call for further Eastern EU expansion, to also gain a further Western style foothold in the Caucasus, so that yet more US/NATO missiles can be established there, to further encircle the Russian Federation as well as put pressure on China.
The EU plays a central part in the roll-out of this aggressive militaristic strategy – more on this later. But simultaneous to the implementation of its geopolitical role as chief player on behalf of the shadow government, the EU is itself showing evidence of ever deepening fissures in its attempt to hold together ‘the Union’ as the supposed one voice socio-economic unit it was supposed to be. Cracks are appearing everywhere as the European Commission is ever more exposed as the perpetuator of a policy expressly designed for the creation of a supranational superstate; a centralized control system (based in Brussels) established to be the European blueprint of The New World Order. The purveyor of a doctrine of taking unto itself command and control of every significant aspect of the workings of the countries under its flag.
Recent examples of this are the introduction of single point centralization of all member state fiscal arrangements; secret services; banking operations; police forces and now ‘EU military unification’. A programme announced by the head of the European Commission, Donald Tusk, in June 2018. ‘EU military unification’ involves the diverting of the autonomy of each EU nation state to maintain its own independent military – into a collectivized pool under the direct command of EU defence chiefs, with back-up from NATO.
The implications of this military centralization programme also suggest an equally sinister civilian lock-down. In a recent BBC TV interview, EU defence chief Federica Mogherini stated “We need to merge military and civilian policing functions.” This is a much more critical statement of intent that it might seem at first glance. A nation state without full control of its military and with its tax payers contributions being funneled into building an EU based military/police state – will not be able to defend itself without permission from Brussels. This is a key part of New World Order planning – and it is happening.
The fiasco called Brexit is at the centre of this political sell-out to the barely disguised fascistic ambitions of the EU superstate. Under the guise of negotiating an EU exit, the reality is that a covert form of high treason is being enacted right under the eyes of UK citizens. British Prime Minister Theresa May is overseeing a strategy whereby the country’s navy, air force and army are being rapidly run-down to unworkable levels, in lock-step with EU military unification being ramped up.
Britain’s military, the largest independent unit in Europe, is being sold to Brussels – and the price is being kept secret. At the helm of this new EU army will be either a French or German high command.
The ‘centralization of all strategically important elements into a one point control unit, has been given the name ‘The Fusion Doctrine’ by the UK Ministry of Defence. The Fusion Doctrine is supposedly being established in order to counter international terrorism – but actually it is to bring together different professional bodies under a war style footing so as to exert further draconian levels of control over the civilian population. Such strategic thinking comes from Chatham House, the Atlantic Council, the Bilderberger group and other similar secret society operatives.
The implications are, of course, far reaching, but completely in line with the ambitions of the deep state shadow government: all administrative functions key to ensuring the daily functioning of a nation state are to be ‘fused’ into one centralized totalitarian control system, to an agenda overseen by the 0.5% elite banking, military industrial, energy and telecommunication providers. Not forgetting pharmaceutical, agro-industrial behemoths, corporate infrastructure conglomerates, food giants and hypermarket chiefs.
The end result is to be a structure exactly in the mold of Hitler’s proposed Fourth Reich. The founding fathers of the EU always intended their project to be a ‘Federation’ – a supranational superstate run by unelected technocrats. And this is what we’ve got.
Pumping money in behind the scenes are the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, European Central Bank and – taking a leading role – the International Bank of Settlements, based in Basel.
In order for this totalitarian take-over to appear to be sanctioned by the public at large, non governmental organisations (NGO’s) are being enlisted to play an increasingly important role in smoothing the way. There are a plethora of such organisations at work in the UK, all receiving direct (but largely disguised) funding from government and industry. They are involved in military and civilian deception.
For example, UK NGO’s have been revealed to have helped indirectly fund the Middle East rogue ‘peace keepers’ known as the White Helmets, who act in support of ISIS terror squads and anti Assad dissidents. NGO’s have been conscripted to play the role of putting a positive propaganda spin on secret service backed attempts to bring about regime change and similar acts of covert interference in foreign countries, since it is believed that the public will never conceive of ‘charitable’ organisations acting as CIA/MI6 and Mossad sponsored operatives. But they do.
Within UK civilian circles a government and industry supported NGO called ‘Common Purpose’ * has taken on the remit of ‘educating’ various branches of government how to improve their public relations profiles (read: create more authentic spin) and a lot more besides. Common Purpose, like its cousins, is a propaganda machine working to undermine and destroy the traditional functions of national governments and the civil service, often on behalf of the political and economic agenda of super wealthy families and banking groups such as the Rothschilds, Goldman Sachs, Rockefellers. The British Civil Service, once a quite respected body in its own right, has shown signs of itself being corporatised and being open to the influence of major players with ‘an agenda’.
Social engineering has become a critically important tool in spreading disinformation, and mainstream media has become the chief outlet for its dissemination. The BBC, for example, has completely failed to live-up to its reputation as an independent broadcaster of merit, becoming one of the most frequent disseminators of fake news within a veritable hornet’s nest of bought-out media enterprises now towing the toxic globalist imperial agenda.
So tight is the lid being kept on ‘don’t step out of line’ political correctness – within a world of supposed freedom of speech – that transgressing the line can amount to a criminal act; especially if it is seen as ‘dissent’ from key government policies – such as the insistence that Putin is the evil harbinger of death and destruction to the Western World.
Greens can also be found being swept along by a tide of grandiose ‘solutions’ to climate change and other environmental crises. Many buying-in to the Agenda 21 plan of shifting large segments of the population into ‘smart cities’ so as to allow countryside areas to become ‘purified’ zones and wildernesses. What would be left of farming, in this scenario, would consist of vast genetically modified and agrichemical dependent monocultures, coupled to hydroponic and nanotech laboratory food production factories.
Such regimes would supply the ‘hygienic’ staple diets for smart city occupants. Such so called ‘sustainable solutions’ are actually quasi extensions of eugenics programmes popular with Hitler, and have nothing to do with actual solutions to the process of planetary ecocide still being moved forward under the central control system’s totalitarian agenda. Many ‘green’ organisations have also become dependent upon their wealthy financiers, who often harbor strong ulterior motives for supplying their financial support.
An outstanding example of a grandiose supposed ‘green’ initiative unleashed this year (2018), is the launching of the 5G WiFi and electromagnetic microwave network, by Elon Musk, the entrepreneur behind the electric car. This scheme will up the EMF rate of mobile phone towers and street transmission installations by a drastic magnitude, at huge cost to the health and welfare of peoples, animals and the environment. It will cover every city, town and village – that goes along with it – with thousands of new microwave spewing base stations at intervals of every 5 to 8 houses in urban landscapes.
There can be little doubt that the true role of this falsely touted ‘no lag internet’ is to exert a 100% effective monitoring programme over the entire population of this planet. Not just this, but to also increase the ability to use advanced mind control techniques within areas of mass population density.**
The ubiquitous spread of elctromagnetic microwave technologies over the past two decades provides an essential tool for social control. Closely allied are the extraordinary powers now being held by social media and internet giants like Google and Facebook. The fact that great swathes of the population are addicted to an almost continuous use of hand held ‘smart phone’ technologies has enabled the operatives of the central control system to exert a net like influence on the population from one end of the globe to another.
In very general terms, this provides a further string to the bow of a global dumbing down exercise. An exercise that continues to be applied via the dominance of toxic pharmaceuticals, processed, devitaminised – and genetically modified foods, chemically altered drinking water, sub standard air quality and atmospheric aerosol engineered nanoparticulates, to name a few. Coupled to these are the psychologically destabilising affects of TV fake news and so called ‘entertainment’ shows, general media hype and the huge number of war oriented and generally violent electronic computer games that cover the children’s toy market.
In the background to all this, is the constantly beating war drum, keeping society in a state of perpetual anxiety.
The Fusion Doctrine no doubt intends to take full advantage of artificial intelligence in its delivery of a fully functioning totalitarian take-over. The steady incremental growth of public addiction to electromagnetic microwave mobile phones, smart meters and associated smart technologies, has opened the way for upping the levels and range of control over the daily lives of millions, perhaps billions, of people. The advent of algorithyms in computer software coupled with the multiple neighbourhood transmitter boxes with their millimeter pulsed 5G microwaves, are clear signals of ‘human side-stepping’ and non-human advancement., both in the work place and at home.
The Fusion Doctrine is what stands behind ‘the internet of everything’ and the internet of everything will be powered by 5G and the 20,000 satellites its sponsors aim to launch during 2019/20 so as to cover “every square inch of the planet.”
The breadth of the agenda which I have attempted to encapsulate in this article, is far from complete. However, it is sufficient to reveal that our precious and precarious planet is in the hands of deeply disturbed individuals, exhibiting varying degrees of psychopathic compulsion. We also see, thanks to those at the forefront of exposing the horrific abuse of children by those in positions of power, that the world of politics, religion and other institutions of supposed ‘reputation’ is corrosively flawed. We see that, amongst those we have entrusted with power, are perpetrators of some of the worst crimes against humanity this planet has ever endured.
Given these facts, we cannot but reach the conclusion that, at the top end of the day to day management of this world, are a cabal of deeply psychotic criminals.
Crimes against humanity start with those in power.
Humanity is reaching a breaking point. A point that has come about through many millions, if not billions, of good people suffering untold torment at the hands of oppressors of all that constitutes love, unity, freedom and spiritual radiance. But at this darkest of darkest hours, a great change is in the air.
Those who have maintained a warm hearted humanitarian stance throughout this planetary crisis are rising. Rising more and more everyday.
Are we witnessing the beginning of the end of the materialistic world of cruelty?
We are approaching a major break-through of conscious awareness and actions that come from it.
The tipping point is close at hand as rebellion simmers. Rebellion of the indestructible human spirit.
Let us channel our energies into fully exposing the criminal perpetrators.
Let us get on with the work of celebrating the value of human life.
Let us be united in our determination to succeed, for the destiny of humanity.
*Thanks to UK Column News for bringing this to my attention.
Julian Rose is an international activist, writer, organic farming pioneer and actor. In 1987 and 1998, he led a campaign that saved unpasteurised milk from being banned in the UK; and, with Jadwiga Lopata, a ‘Say No to GMO’ campaign in Poland which led to a national ban of GM seeds and plants in that country in 2006. Julian is currently campaigning to ‘Stop 5G’ WiFi. He is the author of two acclaimed titles: Changing Course for Life and In Defence of Life and is a long time exponent of yoga/meditation. See Julian’s web site for more information and to purchase his books www.julianrose.info
Believe it or not, but not long ago, Cyprus used to be the only country in the European Union that was governed by a Communist Party. And it was not really too long ago – between 2008 and 2013.
Also, relatively recently, unification of the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish administered northern part of the island, appeared to be achievable.
And when Cyprus, like Greece, almost collapsed financially, it was Russia which offered to bail it out (before the EU did all it could to prevent this from happening).
Now it all seems like ancient history.
The city of Nicosia is still divided, with the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish immigration check-points located right in the middle of an old town. Graffiti painted in ‘no man’s land’ demand an immediate end to the conflict: ‘One country; one nation solution’.
The crossing is busy. And to make it all somehow more colorful, perhaps, there is a huge white Pitbull, phlegmatically hanging around the border area. It does not bark; it is just there. Nobody knows whether he belongs to the Turkish or the Greek side, but it appears that he spends more time with the Turks, as, I suppose, they feed him better.
The Greek-speaking side of Nicosia looks like a slightly run-down EU provincial town. On their flank, Turks are smoking shisha (traditional Middle Eastern waterpipe), and their cafes appear to be more traditional, and the old architecture more elegant. In the southern part, freshly brewed coffee is called ‘Greek’, while a few meters north, you have to order ‘Turkish’, or at least ‘Arabic coffee’. Needless to say, you get the same stuff on both sides.
Otherwise, it is one island, one history and one sad and unnecessary partition.
The division of the nation is not the only madness here. Before you get used to the idea, you may go mental, finding out that there are two British administered territories still engraved into the island.
If you drive around, you will never notice that you are actually leaving Cyprus, and entering the U.K. Some car license plates are different to those regular Cypriot ones, but that’s about it.
You cross an invisible line, and you are in the UK; historically the most aggressive (militarily and ideologically) nation on the face of the earth.
You drive through some agricultural fields, but soon you see something very eerie all around the road: a few kilometers after passing the historic Crusader’s Kolossi Castle, there is an ocean of masts of different heights and shapes, as well as concrete, fortified military installations. The masts are ‘decorated’ with strange looking wires. It all looks like some old Sci-Fi movie.
Of course, if you come ‘prepared’, you know what you are facing: tremendous installations of the BBC propaganda apparatus aimed at destabilizing and indoctrinating the Middle East. But that is not all. This entire enclave – ‘Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri’ (as well as Dhekelia a few dozens of miles to the east) – is here mostly in order to spy on the ‘neighborhood’ of the Middle East. While London is some 4 hours flight away, Syria is just a short distance across the water, and so is Lebanon.
Further south, after you leave the propaganda and spy installations behind, is a small village of Akrotiri; a typical picturesque Cypriot charming settlement, with an old church, narrow streets and humble local cafes. It sits on top of the hill. But you are, actually, inside the U.K. From here, you can see the blue sea, a salt lake and the city of Limassol; but you are on British turf. How come? Simple: after Cyprus achieved independence from the British Empire, in 1960, the Brits ‘were concerned’ that they could lose control over their military bases in Cyprus, and at least partially, influence over the Middle East. As this being unimaginable to the British imperialist mind, the U.K. arm-twisted the Cypriots into this bizarre arrangement which holds to this day.
One more kilometer further south, and you hit the wall and a gate, decorated with threatening warnings. You are at the perimeter of the RAF Akrotiri base. From here, since December 2015, the RAF is carrying out illegal (according to international law) airstrikes against the sovereign Syrian Arab Republic.
According to Jeffrey Richelson & Desmond Ball, The Ties the Bind: Intelligence Cooperation between the UKUSA Countries, (Unwin Hyman, Boston/London and others, 1990, p.194 note 145):
“As of 2010, around 3,000 troops of British Forces Cyprus are based at Akrotiri and Dhekelia. Ayios Nikolaos Station, in the ESBA, is an ELINT (electronic intelligence) listening station of the UKUSA Agreement intelligence network.”
That was then, but now things are getting even deadlier. Practically, the U.K. is at war with Syria. Many in Cyprus are deeply concerned that Syria could retaliate, sending missiles against the RAF bases, from which it is being bombed (legally, independent Syria has the full right to defend itself against the attacks from abroad). Such retaliation could endanger the lives of the inhabitants of Cyprus.
There have been protests and demands for the British forces to return to Cyprus both of the ‘sovereign bases’, but the U.K. shows no interest in ceding what it controls.
As early as in 2008, former left-wing President Demetris Christofias (who was also the General Secretary of AKEL, the Communist Party of Cyprus) tried to remove all British forces from the island, calling them a “colonial bloodstain”. However, he did not succeed, and in 2013 he decided to step down and not to seek re-election.
Dhekelia Base is carved into the eastern part of Cyprus, bizarrely encircling both Turkish-controlled and Greek-speaking villages.
In the past, the Cypriots fought against the British presence. Nowadays, in the era of omnipresent surveillance, sabotages and resistance had been replaced by toothless protests. Still, hundreds of local people have been detained, demanding the departure of British troops from the island.
Cyprus is still divided, although reunification talks began, once again, in 2015. Now it is possible to walk between the Republic of Cyprus and Northern Cyprus (controlled by Turkey).
It was not always this way. As Papadakis Yiannis wrote:
“On 15 July 1974, the Greek military junta under Dimitrios Ioannides carried out a coup d’état in Cyprus, to unite the island with Greece.”
Thousands of Turkish residents were displaced, many killed. Turkey invaded and the island got divided. But inter-cultural violence dated even further back than 1974. The history can be felt on every corner of Nicosia, and in many villages of the island. Northern Cyprus was never recognized by any other country except Turkey, but the division is still there. There are still entire de-populated towns that used to belong to the displaced Turkish and Greek inhabitants.
One of the eeriest is Kofinou, in the south of the island, which suffered on at least two occasions, unprecedented ethnic violence, which could be defined as ‘cleansing’. Once inhabited mainly by the Turkish Cypriots, Kofinou is now a ghost town, dotted with collapsed houses and agricultural structures, with foreign guest workers and farm animals living in appalling conditions.
*
Cyprus has two faces. It is proud to be one of the famous European tourist destinations. It is an EU member.
Simultaneously, it is a symbol of division.
Border fences between the Republic of Cyprus and Northern Cyprus are scarring its beautiful countryside. Deadly British military installations, the air force bases, as well as propaganda warfare and disinformation campaigns are brutalizing, physically and morally, almost the entire Middle East.
Here, in Cyprus, European and Russian tourists coexist, uneasily. The ideological war between the West and the rest of the planet is clearly felt in Pathos and other historic areas of the island.
Some British residents (around 50,000 of them), as well as countless British tourists, often behave insultingly towards the generally humble Russian visitors. Here, the British Empire still appears to be ‘in charge’.
In the port of Pathos, I passed by an elderly Russian couple, who seemed to be simply admiring an old water castle. A British couple was passing by, then looked back and forged sarcastic, rude grimaces: “Those Russians,” uttered the man. This was not the only instance when I witnessed this sort of behavior.
In Cyprus, I drove exactly 750 kilometers, all around the island, trying to understand and define its present position, and its role in the ‘area’ and in the world.
I hoped to find reminiscences of at least some revolutionary spirit of the Communist (AKEL) government. But I almost exclusively found pragmatism, so typical for basically all European Union countries. Only questions like this were common: ‘Would Brexit be good or bad for Cyprus?’ Or: ‘Would the bombing of Syria be dangerous for the citizens of Cyprus?’
Symbolically, near the village of Kofinou, destroyed by the inter-cultural violence several decades ago, I found a tough-looking refugee camp, built mainly for the immigrants coming from the destabilized Middle East. It looks like a concentration camp. Locals call it, realistically, a ‘prison’. Most likely, it is.
As I was driving around the area, I spotted, just a few kilometers from the camp, in front of an eerie and semi-abandoned farm, a huge goat. It was on its side; dying, in agony, in the middle of the road.
Cyprus has become a divided island with some hedonistic resorts, but also with terribly marginalized communities, located all over its territory.
One could easily conclude: this former British colony is still allowing, for a fee, the tremendous presence of the British/NATO military forces, as well as various spy facilities and propaganda outlets. RAF Tornado jetfighters are presently flying their ‘missions’ against Syria. Missiles are being fired from Akrotiri. People fleeing from the destroyed countries of the Middle East, are then detained in Cyprus, like criminals, behind barbed wire.
In the meantime, the people of Cyprus are calculating, whether all this is truly feasible, or not; whether to be an outpost of the empire is a good business, for as long as it pays, they will do very little to change the situation. Despite of its complex past and present, as well as its proximity to the Middle East, Cyprus is, after all, an integral part of Europe, and therefore of the Western empire.
Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism, a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter.
There is a military rule that says: if you are facing defeat and want to cut your losses, the shortest way out is to declare victory and promptly retreat.
US President Donald Trump may not be familiar with this dictum, as his expertise is confined to business deals and property brokering. But some of his advisors are most definitely aware of it, as they are of the facts on the ground on the battlefronts where US forces are deployed, especially in the Middle East.
White House Spokeswoman Sarah Sanders announced on Wednesday that all US forces in Syria – comprising some 2,000 Special Forces troops – would be withdrawn within two or three months, while another American official said that all State Department personnel would be pulled out of Syria within 48 hours.
Trump justified this move in a tweet explaining that the war against terrorist groups, which was the only reason for the US forces’ presence in the first place, had achieved its aim with the defeat of the Islamic State (IS) group, so he had decided to bring them all home from Syria.
There is much that is unclear about this decision, in addition to the element of surprise. Just one week ago, the US envoy to the international anti-terror coalition in Syria, Brett McGurk, declared that US forces would be remaining in the country for while. Moreover, Secretary of Defense James Mattis (who recently resigned), has repeatedly warned over the past month against any premature US withdrawal from Syria, on the grounds that this would leave a vacuum which President Bashar al-Assad and his Iranian and Russian allies would fill. This has been reiterated by Trump’s ally Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.
The claim that US forces have eliminated IS, which maintains bases and a military presence in northeastern Syria, is false. The group remains strong, and it poses a threat to the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which the US has been supporting and arming. Two days ago it retook villages it had lost in earlier confrontations between the two sides. So it is hard to accept this explanation.
To understand why Trump took this decision to withdraw from Syria, and to vacate the Middle East conflict zone generally, a number of points need to be considered:
– First: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s repeated warnings over the past ten days to attack the SDF and wipe it out completely in north-eastern Syria, on the grounds that it is an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) — which Turkey designates as a terrorist organisation — and threatens the country’s national security.
– Second: Trump may have taken this decision after reaching a deal with Erdogan aimed at avoiding a military confrontation between their countries and reviving their previous strategic partnership. This is plausible. The two presidents have been in regular contact over the past few days, and Sanders indicated that Trump was considering Erdogan’s demand for the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, the US-based preacher accused of masterminding the failed coup in Turkey.
– Third: The Trump administration may be preparing to ignite a war with Iran, and is pulling its forces out of Syria so they do not become a target for retaliatory attacks by pro-Iranian Iraqi groups. The 5,200 American soldiers in Iraq may also be withdrawn for the same reason. Moreover, talks were held on Wednesday between the US and the Taliban in Abu Dhabi (not Doha), attended by the Pakistanis, Saudis, and Emiratis, about a prospective withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan.
– Fourth: Trump may have agreed with his allies in Saudi Arabia and the UAE – and perhaps Qatar too – to send forces from these countries to replace the US troops, prevent a vacuum from occurring, and bankroll and arm the SDF. News reports have revealed that military experts from these countries have visited the Eastern Euphrates in recent weeks. Saudi Minister of State Tamer as-Sabhan went there several months ago to prepare for the arrival and basing of these forces. Reports in the past few days have suggested that Sudanese troops may be deployed there as well, also in coordination with the US administration.
As usual, it is the Kurds – who banked on American protection, fought under the US banner against Syrian forces and then against IS, defeating the latter and capturing its capital city al-Raqqa – who stand to be the main victims of this American move. They have the most to lose, just like their counterparts in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The Kurds’ problem, especially in Syria, is that they failed to learn from the lessons of history and of their own previous experiences and put all their eggs in the American basket. They are separatists when they have US backing, and Syrians when the Americans let them down or the Turks attack them. This has happened more than once, mot recently last week when they appealed for support from the Syrian army in the face of Turkish threats and accused it of betraying them when it did not immediately comply – as though Damascus is at their beck and call.
It was no surprise to hear Kurdish spokeswoman Ilham Ahmad describe the US decision to withdraw from Syria as a stab in the back. It was a stab with a poisoned dagger, but it was not the first and will not be the last.
The approaching new year will be replete with violent bumps and tremors. We should brace ourselves, and try to read the Middle Eastern scene differently this time, for there is more to come.
The latest bid to keep Washington’s desperate Russiagate conspiracy theory alive has energized distilled segments of the public still convinced of Moscow’s global omniscience and its role in manipulating and undermining virtually every aspect of their daily lives.
But recent “revelations” are simply the same accusations made against a Russian-based click-bait farm, repackaged and respun.
The report, obtained by The Washington Post before its official release Monday, is the first to study the millions of posts provided by major technology firms to the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), its chairman, and Sen. Mark Warner (Va.), its ranking Democrat. The bipartisan panel also released a second independent report studying the 2016 election Monday. Lawmakers said the findings “do not necessarily represent the views” of the panel or its members.
The two reports were put out by Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Project and New Knowledge. No information is provided by the Washington Post as to what either of these organizations are, who runs them, or who funds them.
Both reports rehash allegations claiming the Russia-based Internet Research Agency (IRA) conducted an extensive influence campaign through social media during the 2016 US elections.
The total amount of money spent on such operations amounted to approximately $100,000 in Facebook ads. To put this amount in context, the very same Washington Post would report in April 2017 that the total amount spent on the 2016 elections amounted to $6.5 billion – in other words – the amount allegedly spent on Facebook ads by IRA was about 0.001% of total US campaign spending.
Both reports cited by the Washington Post and presented to US Congress did not dispute this. Instead, they attempted to claim the impact of IRA’s activities far exceeded this $100,000 in ads.
The New Knowledge report would claim:
The Instagram and Facebook engagement statistics belie the claim that this was a small operation — it was far more than only $100,000 of Facebook ads, as originally asserted by Facebook executives,” the New Knowledge white paper said. “The ad engagements were a minor factor in a much broader, organically driven influence operation.
And to unskeptical, untrained eyes, the figures presented by both Oxford and New Knowledge tabulating millions of views, shares, and likes do appear to “belie the claim that this was a small operation.”
Context is King
But organically driven influence simply means whatever was posted by IRA was picked up by ordinary people and spread by them, not IRA. And while the numbers presented by Oxford and New Knowledge may seem impressive, how do they compare to the “scale and sweep” of the 2016 candidates’ efforts on Facebook?
Since neither group of “researches” bothered to provide this important context, it is fortunate that the Western media itself has, albeit deeply buried in older articles.
It stands to reason that the $81 million US President Donald Trump and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spent on Facebook – according to TechCrunch – also translated into “organically driven influence.”
…the Russian content was just a tiny share of the 33 trillion posts Americans saw in their Facebook news feeds between 2015 and 2017. Any success the ads had in terms of reach seems attributable largely to the sheer doggedness of the effort, with 80,000 Facebook posts in total. Facebook reported that a quarter of the ads were never seen by anyone. And — with the average Facebook user sifting through 220 news-feed posts a day — many of the rest were simply glanced at, scrolled past and forgotten.
With $81 million spent on Facebook by the Trump and Clinton campaigns, mostly to mobilize core supporters to donate and volunteer, a low-six-figure buy is unlikely to have tipped the election.
In proper context, whatever IRA’s $100,000 bought them, Trump and Clinton’s $81 million bought them much more of.
So what is Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Project and why is it publishing a 47-page report (.pdf) claiming, “Russia’s IRA launched an extended attack on the United States by using computational propaganda to misinform and polarize US voters,” when freely available facts reported on by the Western media itself proves exactly the opposite?
And what is New Knowledge and why is it publishing a 101-page report (.pdf) claiming $100,000 in Facebook ads constitutes a, “long-running and broad influence operation” when the Washington Post itself has featured experts depicting it as anything but?
Who is Keeping Russiagate on Life Support?
Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Project is funded by the US National Science Foundation and the European Research Council as well as by Oxford University itself.
The fact that the former two sponsors are supposedly dedicated to funding scientific pursuits yet are funding the Project’s role in buttressing Western propaganda – specifically that aimed at Russia and China – is particularly troubling.
New Knowledge is more interesting still. It poses as a business claiming to provide the service of, “protecting brands from social media disinformation attacks.” It explains further on its “Our Company” page that:
New Knowledge is a team of national security, digital media and machine learning experts with decades of experience who are dedicated to defending public discourse and providing brands with disinformation protection.
New Knowledge claims it provides clients with a “dashboard” to track and alert them to “disinformation attacks” on their brands. It is difficult to believe anyone would pay New Knowledge for their “services” when most companies already have marketing teams more than capable of minding their brand.
Further down on the same page is New Knowledge’s “Leadership Team.”
It includes CEO Jonathon Morgan who boasts of contributing to corporate-financier funded Brookings Institution – a pro-war policy think tank. He also claims to have served as a “Special Advisor to the State Department.”
There is also COO Ryan Fox, who claims he spent 15 years at the National Security Agency (NSA) focusing on signals intelligence and before that as an analyst for the US Army.
Renee DiResta – New Knowledge’s director of research – also claims to have worked as an adviser to the US State Department as well as for Congress and other state and federal government institutions regarding “the spread of disinformation and propaganda.”
Both the Oxford operation and New Knowledge intentionally omitted context from their lengthy reports to deliberately portray a minuscule click-bait operation as a threat to American national security. If the $100,000 spent by IRA on Facebook ads was compared side-by-side to the gargantuan sums spent by Trump and Clinton during the 2016 campaign – and that fraction of 1% properly presented to the public – the Russiagate conspiracy theory would drop dead instantly.
No genuine researcher would have committed to reports of up to 100 pages long and failed to put IRA’s impact into proper context and provided a sense of proportion within the 2016 elections IRA supposedly attempted to influence.
But an Oxford-based team funded by the US government might. So might New Knowledge – lined by “advisers” to the US State Department and former employees of the NSA.
It is ironic that amid supposed efforts to expose Russia’s attempts to target the American public with propaganda, it is Oxford, New Knowledge, and the US Congress itself which requested and approved of deliberate propaganda – aimed at targeting the American public to keep the Russiagate conspiracy alive.
Why?
Because Russiagate serves as a central pillar in cultivating hatred across the West against Russia – serving as a pretext for continued expansion of NATO along Russia’s borders, creating leverage against Moscow regarding US wars of aggression across North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, and the undermining of Russia’s position in global energy markets.
There hasn’t been a conflict of confrontation the US has elected to pursue that hasn’t included crude, baseless propaganda aimed at manipulating the American public. Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction.” Now Russia has “Facebook ads of mass persuasion.”
Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.
A recent visit to Washington DC by former Brexit secretary, David Davis, was funded by US business interests that want the UK to weaken its food and environment standards after it leaves the EU, according to Unearthed.
Davis visited the US in November 2018, together with former environment secretary Owen Paterson and the Institute of Economic Affairs’ (IEA) controversial trade expert, Shanker Singham, to discuss a post-Brexit US trade deal with the Trump administration.
The group met with senior trade and agriculture officials before travelling to Oklahoma to meet with its Lieutenant Governor, Todd Lamb, and visit agricultural research facilities at Oklahoma State University.
According to the register of MPs interests, funding for the trip was provided by several organisations, including the Institute of Economic Affairs and an Oklahoma business group called the E Foundation.
Earlier this year an undercover investigation by Unearthed found that the E Foundation had agreed to provide tens of thousands of dollars in funding to the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), with the aim of influencing Brexit.
Davis’ entry in the register reveals that the E Foundation paid £5,362 to cover the cost of his flights, accommodation and other expenses; while the IEA paid £1,949. The Chickasaw Nation, a Native American nation whose secretary of commerce, Bill Lance, sits on the E Foundation board of directors, also paid £4,052 to cover the cost of Davis’ flights.
Some of the costs of Paterson’s trip were also covered by the E Foundation and IEA – but the majority came from the Chickasaw Nation (£4,052) and UK2020, a think tank of which Paterson is the sole director (£4,933).
Paterson has frequently used his think tank, which does not disclose its sources of funding, to cover the costs of foreign trips.
Responding to the news, shadow cabinet office minister Jon Trickett told Unearthed: “The public must be wondering why on earth prominent MPs are being funded by opaque ‘charities’ to visit the US to discuss extreme free-trade deals.”
“They are entitled to answers. But to get them we will need to overhaul the way politics in this country works. The rules and regulations on funding, lobbying and transparency are simply not adequate to deal with the increasing complexity and global nature of the relationship between politics and big business,” Trickett continued.
Davis, Paterson and the E Foundation did not respond to requests for comment when contacted last week.
It is at least the second time that Singham has met with US trade officials this year, according to documents obtained by Unearthed under US freedom of information rules.
A spokesperson for the IEA said: “Unearthed’s constant insinuation is that the IEA’s activities and publications only purport certain analysis and views because we are paid to. This is categorically untrue. If anyone really believes that IEA authors and spokespeople are socialist, tax-loving, big-state advocates at heart, who only advocate free-market economics for a pay check, then they are a) badly mistaken and b) we consider such accusations to be slanderous.”
E Foundation donations
During an undercover investigation by Unearthed earlier this year, the E Foundation’s CEO, Michael Carnuccio, said that its work with the IEA offered US businesses the opportunity to ‘get influence’ in the Brexit process.
“If you’re looking for a way to invest resources in the US, to where there’s a tax deduction for the resources and there’s anonymity between it, that will get the resources deployed in the United Kingdom in a way that gets as much influence as close as possible and at the same time, creates a conversation and groundswell, we have the system already set up, that’s what we’re doing,” Carnuccio said.
As part of the collaboration, the IEA arranged a meeting in London between representatives of the Oklahoma group and then Brexit minister Steve Baker. Singham also took them to a meeting of the influential European Research Group, where they addressed MPs and met Jacob Rees Mogg.
In a statement in July, an IEA spokeswoman said the charity takes “no corporate view” on Brexit. She added: “The prospective donors are businesses who stand to benefit from free and open trade in accordance with UK regulations which should be in line with sound science and democratic accountability. UK businesses and consumers will also benefit from this.”
Food standards
One of the key aims of the E Foundation was for the UK to weaken its food standards as part of a post-Brexit US trade deal.
Carnuccio said: “I mean, it’s strategic communications [by the EU] to say that cows are not happy in the United States because of their hormones or that chlorinated chicken is killing people all over the world or something,”
“We quickly figured out that we’re gonna have to have some level of marketing, advertising, communications strategy that is going to impact the consumer in the UK but also from more of a political pressure standpoint, it will challenge the narrative that the EU has always had,” he continued.
To help achieve this, Carnuccio said that a visit of Brexiteer MPs was being planned, which would involve a tour of Oklahoma agricultural facilities to help persuade British shoppers US products were safe to eat.
He claimed that then Brexit minister, Steve Baker, was working with Singham to identify which MPs to take.
Davis, Paterson and Singham’s trip to the US bears a close resemblance to the plan outlined by Carnuccio, involving a tour of agricultural facilities at Oklahoma State University, organised by E Foundation executive committee member and former cattle rancher, Tucker Link.
The two former ministers also met with Syngenta, a major agribusiness firm that manufactures neonicotinoid pesticides and genetically modified seeds.
Responding to a July request for comment by Unearthed, the E Foundation issued the following statement: “The conversations supported the E Foundation’s purpose to explore global business and research opportunities. The informal conversation enlightened us on possible mutually beneficial endeavours in the future between [the] United Kingdom and Oklahoma. Any suggestions the conversations were about something other than constructive business and research pursuits would be completely misguided.”
Charity Commission
The news comes after a Charity Commission investigation forced the IEA to withdraw a high-profile report on Brexit written by Singham and trumpeted by Davis and Paterson as an alternative to May’s Chequers deal.
The Charity Commission acted after opening up a compliance case looking into allegations of political campaigning by the IEA, which is an educational charity, following the Unearthed undercover investigation. The IEA has now said it will split into two with a new non-charitable arm.
The Charity Commission’s investigation into the IEA is ongoing.
“Canadians should be angry that these traitors are isolating Canada from China, from Russia, from Iran and their great cultures, and condemning Canada to be nothing more than an outpost of the American empire. For traitors they are as they betray the Canadian people by serving the interests of the Americans and their war machine.” – Christopher Black (Dec. 14, 2018) [1]
One of the most dramatic diplomatic ruptures in the history of Canada-China relations is taking place as we near the end of 2018. It revolves around Canada’s arrest and detention of Sabrina Meng Wanzhou, a top executive with the Chinese tech company Huawei, in response to an extradition request from the United States.
As explained in British Columbia Supreme Court, days after the December 1st arrest, Ms. Meng was wanted on charges of fraud, including the use of a Huawei subsidiary to conduct business with Iran, in violation of the sanctions the U.S. had imposed on that country.
Ms. Meng was released on a $10 million bail, with additional conditions that she live in one of her two Vancouver homes, restricted to that residence between the hours of 11pm and 6am local time, that she be monitored 24/7, that she surrender all of her passports, and that she wear an ankle bracelet around the clock. [2]
Chinese officials, upset by this state of affairs, threatened “revenge” and “unnecessary troubles” for Canada if it did not release the Chinese CFO. China has since arrested 2 Canadian nationals: entrepreneur Michael Spavor, and former diplomat Michael Korvig. [3]
Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland called these detentions “arbitrary” as opposed to what she called Canada’s “fair, unbiased and transparent legal proceeding with respect to Meng Wanzhou.” Adding that Canada “respects its international legal commitments, including by honouring its extradition treaty with the United States.” As of this writing, the Canadian government’s demand for the release of the two detained Canadians has the backing of both the U.S. State Department and the European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs.[4]
There is an interesting backdrop to this high profile diplomatic dispute getting ignored by most of the major press in Canada. The Australian Press exposed a meeting of the Five Eyes intelligence network with Prime Minister Trudeau at an undisclosed location in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia this past summer. The intelligence chiefs spoke of threats coming from China. Since the meeting, there has been an unprecedented campaign to ban Huawei technology from the emerging 5G networks in the Five Eyes countries, namely Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand. The argument is that Huawei would use advanced capabilities to provide intelligence to the Chinese government, making it a threat to national security.[5]
On this week’s Global Research News Hour, we explore the geopolitical, economic and legal dimensions of the stand-off between the U.S. and Canada and with the world’s most populous nation.
Starting off the discussion, Professor Michel Chossudovsky provides more background on the Western alliance’s concerns about Huawei technology and the stakes for Canada, the US and the world. Later in the program, esteemed international criminal lawyer Christopher Black details the problems with the Canadian government’s arguments that they are acting in accord with the rule of law in the Meng Wanzhou case. Finally, Ron Unz of the Unz review, elaborates on his thesis that there is an achilles heel within the U.S. power structure that the Chinese could easily exploit that would compel the release of Meng Wanzhou from the extradition order.
Professor Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor (Emeritus) of Economics at the University of Ottawa, and Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel “Beneath the Clouds. He writes essays on international law, politics and world events, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.” He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Trained as a theoretical physicist, Ron Unz has experience in the financial services industry and in politics and in public policy activities. He served as publisher of The American Conservative from 2006 to 2013, and currently serves as Editor-In-Chief and Publisher of the Unz Review.
It is also available on 93.9 FM cable in the communities of SFU, Burnaby, New Westminister, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey and Delta, in British Columbia, Canada. – Tune in at its new time – Wednesdays at 4pm PT.
Radio station CFUV 101.9FM based at the University of Victoria airs the Global Research News Hour every Sunday from 7 to 8am PT.
Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 10am.
Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday Morning from 8:00 to 9:00am. Find more details at www.caperradio.ca
Chris Uhlmann & Angus Grigg (Dec. 13, 2018), ‘How the ‘Five Eyes’ cooked up the campaign to kill Huawei’, Sydney Morning Herald; https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/how-the-five-eyes-cooked-up-the-campaign-to-kill-huawei-20181213-p50m24.html
“…and the ones who call the shots won’t be among the dead and lame; And on each end of the rifle we’re the same” — John McCutcheon
104 years ago this Christmas something happened near the beginning of the “War to End All Wars” that put a tiny little blip of hope in the historical timeline of the organized mass slaughter that is war.
The event was regarded by the professional military officer class to be so profound and so important (and so disturbing) that strategies were immediately put in place that would ensure that such an event could never happen again.
“Christian” Europe was in the fifth month of the war of 1914 – 1918, the so-called Great War that finally ground to a mutually suicidal halt after four years of exhausting trench warfare, with all of the original participants financially, spiritually and morally bankrupt.
British, Scottish, French, Belgian, Australian, New Zealand, Canadian, German, Austrian, Hungarian, Serbian and Russian clergymen from church pulpits in those Christian nations were doing their part in creating a decidedly un-Christ-like patriotic fervor that would result in a holocaust that destroyed four empires, killed upwards of 20 million soldiers and civilians, physically wounded hundreds of millions more and caused the psychological and spiritual decimation of an entire generation of young men whose spiritual care was supposed to be the responsibility of those clergymen.
Christianity, it should be remembered, began as a highly ethical pacifist religion based on the teachings and actions of the nonviolent Jesus of Nazareth (and his pacifist apostles and followers). Christianity survived and thrived despite persecutions until it became the largest religion in the Roman Empire by the time Constantine the Great became emperor (in 313 CE) and usurped the religion’s leaders into becoming OK with the homicidal violence of warfare. Ever since then, the nations that professed Christianity as their state religion have never allowed the mainline churches to truly exercise the radical peacemaking of the original form of Christianity as Jesus had taught.
So, contrary to the ethical teachings of Jesus, most modern Christian churches have refused to become active resisters to its particular nation’s militarist or imperial aspirations, its nation’s aggressive wars, its nation’s war-makers or its nation’s war profiteers. Instead, the church has, by and large, become a bloody instrument of the satanic in support of whatever sociopathic warmongers and sociopathic corporations are in power.
So, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to see that the religious leaders on both sides of World War I were convinced that God was on their particular side and therefore not on the side of those professed followers of Jesus that had been fingered as enemies by their nation’s political leaders. The incongruity of believing that the same god was blessing the lethal weapons and protecting the doomed sons on both sides of No-Man’s Land) failed to register with the vast majority of combatants and their spiritual counselors.
So, early in the war, pulpits and pews all over Europe reverberated with flag-waving fervor, sending clear messages to the millions of doomed warrior-sons that it was their Christian duty to march off to kill the equally doomed Christian soldiers on the other side of the line. And for the civilians back home, it was their Christian duty to “support the troops” who were destined to return home dead or wounded, psychologically and spiritually broken, disillusioned – and faithless.
A mere five months into this frustrating war (featuring trench warfare, artillery barrages, withering machine gun fire, and, soon to come, unstoppable armored tanks, aerial bombardment and poison gas), the first Christmas of the war on the Western Front offered a respite to the exhausted, freezing and demoralized troops.
Christmas was the holiest of Christian holidays and every soldier in the frozen trenches was slowly coming to the abrupt realization that war was NOT glorious (as they had been led to believe). After experiencing death, dying, hunger, frostbite, sleep deprivation, shell shock, traumatic brain injuries and homesickness, the traditional spirit of Christmas and its expectations of peace and love, had a special meaning for the troops.
Christmas reminded the soldiers of the good food, warm homes and beloved families and friends that they had left behind and which – they now suspected – they might never see again. The soldiers in the trenches desperately sought some respite from the misery of the rat, lice and corpse-infested trenches.
Some of the more thoughtful troops had begun to suspect that even if they survived the war physically, they might not survive it psychically or spiritually.
Trench Warfare in 1914
In the excitement leading up to the war, the frontline soldiers on either side had been convinced that God was on their particular side, that their nation was pre-destined to be victorious and that they would be “home before Christmas” where they would be celebrated as conquering heroes.
Instead, each frontline soldier found himself at the end of his emotional rope because of the unrelenting artillery barrages against which they were defenseless. If they weren’t killed or physically maimed by the artillery shells and bombs, they would eventually be emotionally destroyed by “shell-shock” (now known as combat-induced posttraumatic stress disorder – PTSD).
The soldier-victims that witnessed a multitude of examples of battlefield cruelty logically suffered various depths of depression, anxiety, suicidality, hyper-alertness, horrifying nightmares and flashbacks (which was usually misdiagnosed as a “hallucination of unknown cause”, a reality that would condemn millions of future soldiers to be mistakenly diagnosed with schizophrenia and thus mistakenly treated with addictive, brain-altering psych drugs).
Many World War I soldiers suffered any number of traumatic mental and/or neurological abnormalities, including traumatic brain injury (TBI), which only became a diagnosable affliction several wars later.
Among the other common war-induced “killers of the soul” were the starvation, the malnutrition, the dehydration, the infections (such as typhus and dysentery), the louse infestations, the trench foot, the frostbite and the gangrenous toes and fingers. If any of the tormented survivors got back home in one piece, they would not really appreciate being treated as military heroes in memorial day parades staged in their honor. They knew – if they were being totally honest with themselves – that they were not actual heroes, but rather they were victims of a sick, delusional, greedy, militarized culture that glorified war and killing and then abandoned the deceived, wounded survivors that made it home alive. Standard operating procedure in every war.
Poison gas attacks from both sides, albeit begun by the scientifically-superior Germans, began early in 1915, and Allied tank warfare – which was a humiliating disaster for the British innovators of that new technology – wouldn’t be operational until the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
One of the most stressful and lethal realities for the frontline soldiers was the suicidal, misbegotten, “over the top” infantry assaults against the opposition’s machine gun nests. Such assaults were complicated by the presence of shell holes and the rows of coiled barbed wire that often made them sitting ducks. Artillery barrages from both sides commonly resulted in tens of thousands of casualties in a single day.
The “over the top” infantry assaults sacrificed hundreds of thousands of obedient lower-echelon soldiers in the futile efforts to gain ground. Those assaults were stupidly and repeatedly ordered by senior officers such as Sir John French and his replacement as British Commander-in-Chief, Sir Douglas Haig. Most of the old-timer generals who had fought wars in the previous century refused to admit that their outdated “horse and sabre” cavalry charges across the muck of No-Man’s Land were both hopeless and suicidal.
The general staff planners of the various disastrous attempts to end the war quickly (or at least end the stalemate) were safely out of the range of enemy artillery barrages. The national war-planners were safely back in Parliament or hiding in their castles, and their aristocratic generals were comfortably billeted in warm and dry headquarters far from the hot war, eating well, being dressed by their orderlies, drinking their tea and claret – none of them at any risk of suffering the lethal consequences of war.
Screams of pain often came from the wounded soldiers who were helplessly hanging on the barbed wire or trapped and perhaps bleeding to death in the bomb craters between the trenches. Often the dying of the wounded would linger for days, and the effect on the troops in the trenches, who had to listen to the desperate, unanswerable cries for help was always psychologically distressing. By the time Christmas came and winter hit, troop morale on both sides of No Man’s Land had hit rock bottom.
Christmas in the Trenches
So on December 24, 1914, the exhausted troops settled down to their meager Christmas meal with, for the lucky ones, gifts from home, special food, special liquor, special chocolate bars and the hope for peace, if even for one night.
On the German side, a magnanimous (and deluded) Kaiser Wilhelm sent 100,000 Christmas trees with millions of ornamental candles to the front, expecting that such an act would boost German troop morale. Using the precious supply lines for such militarily unnecessary items was ridiculed by the most of the hardened officers, and nobody suspected that the Kaiser’s Christmas tree idea would backfire – instead becoming a catalyst for an unplanned-for and unauthorized cease-fire, orchestrated by non-officers and unheard of in the history of warfare. The mutiny was censored out of mainstream history books for most of the next century.
The Christmas Truce of 1914 was a spontaneous, unauthorized event that happened at a number of locations all along the 600 miles of triple trenches that stretched across Belgium and France, and it was an event that would never again be duplicated, thanks to the war-profiteers, professional militarists and saber-rattling wannabes in the media, parliament and Congress who glory in their nation’s “pseudo-patriotic” wars.
Twelve years ago, the movie “Joyeux Noel” (French for “Merry Christmas”) received a well-deserved Academy Award nomination for best foreign film of 2005. Joyeux Noel is the moving story that was adapted from the many surviving stories that had been told in letters from soldiers who had participated in the truce. It was almost a miracle that the truth of that remarkable event survived the powerful censorship.
As told in the movie, in the darkened battlefield, some German soldier started singing the beloved Christmas hymn “Stille Nacht”. Soon the British, French and Scots on the other side of No Man’s Land joined in with their versions of “Silent Night”. Other Christmas songs were sung, often as duets in two tongues. Before long, the spirit of peace and “goodwill towards men” prevailed over the demonic spirit of war, and the troops on both sides began to sense their common humanity. The natural human aversion to killing other humans broke through to consciousness and overcame the fear, patriotic fervor and pro-war brain-washing to which they had all been subjected.
Courageous German soldier Singing in No Man’s Land (image from Joyeux Noel)
Soldiers on both sides courageously dropped their weapons, came “over the top” in peace to meet their former foes face-to-face. To get to the neutral zone, they had to climb over barbed wire, walk around shell holes and over frozen corpses (which were later to be given respectful burials during an extension of the truce, with soldiers from both sides helping one another with the gruesome task of burying their comrades).
The spirit of retaliation had been replaced by a spirit of reconciliation and the desire for real peace. New friends shared chocolate bars, cigarettes, wine, schnapps, soccer games and pictures from home. Addresses were exchanged, photos were taken and every soldier who genuinely experienced the emotional drama was forever changed. Suddenly there was an aversion to killing young men who deserved to be treated as they had been taught in Sunday School: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
And the generals and the politicians back home were appalled at the unexpected Christ-like behavior of the front-soldiers.
Mutinous French, German and Scottish Lieutenants
Fostering Peace on Earth in Times of War Is an Act of Treason for Conscientious Soldiers
Fraternization with the enemy (as well as refusing to obey orders in time of war) is universally regarded by military commanders as an act of treason and a serious crime deserving of severe punishment. In most wars throughout history, such “crimes” were often dealt with by severe beatings and often firing squad. In the case of the Christmas Truce of 1914, most commanding officers feared mutiny if severe punishments were carried out so, instead, not wanting to draw public attention to an incident that was potentially contagious and could stop the war, they censored letters home and tried to ignore the episode.
War correspondents were forbidden to report the incident to their papers. Some commanding officers threatened courts martial if fraternization persisted. They understood that getting to know and befriend a supposed enemy was bad for the carefully-orchestrated killing spirit of war.
There were punishments that were carried out against some of the most conscientious soldiers who refused to fire their rifles. The troops of French Catholic and United Kingdom Protestant persuasion naturally began questioning the moral legitimacy of the decidedly un-Christlike war and so those troops were often re-assigned to different – and less desirable – regiments.
German troops were either Lutheran or Catholic, and the consciences of many of them had been revived by the truce. Refusing to obey their orders to kill, many of them were sent to the Eastern Front where there were much harsher conditions. Separated from their Western Front comrades who had also experienced the true spirit of Christmas, they had no choice but to fight and die in the equally suicidal battles against their Russian Orthodox Christian co-religionists. Very few Allied or German soldiers who experienced the Christmas Truce of 1914 survived the war.
If humanity is truly concerned with the barbaric nature of militarism, and if our modern-era false flag-generated wars of empire are to be effectively derailed, the story of the Christmas Truce of 1914 needs to be retold over and over again – and taken to heart.
The satanic nature of war became obvious to the ones who experienced the Christmas Truce in 1914, but war-mongers and war profiteers have been trying to cover it up ever since. Flag-waving patriotism and telling exaggerated stories of military heroism have worked well to glorify what is blatantly inglorious.
Both ancient and modern wars have been glorified in every nation’s history textbooks but, if civilization is to survive, war needs to be exposed as demonic. Violence begets violence. Wars are contagious, universally futile, and never truly end; and their extremely high costs always results in a very poor return on investment– except for the banks and the weapons-manufacturers.
Modern American wars are now being fought by thoroughly indoctrinated, post-adolescent, Call of Duty-type first person shooter gamers who liked the adrenalin high of killing virtual “bad guys” in a videogame. Sadly, unbeknownst to them, they are at high risk of having their emotional and spiritual lives negatively and permanently altered by the physical, mental and spiritual damage that always comes from participating in actual homicidal violence.
Combat war can easily doom its participants to a life overwhelmed by the wounds of war (PTSD, sociopathic personality disorder, suicidality, homicidality, loss of religious faith, traumatic brain injury, malnutrition from the highly processed military food, autoimmune disorders because of the military’s over-vaccination programs with neurotoxic aluminum-containing vaccines (especially the anthrax series) and addictive drug use [either legal or illegal]). What is most important to realize is that all those lethal effects are totally preventable.
Christian Church Leadership has an Ethical Duty to Warn it’s Prospective Cannon Fodder Soldiers About the Potential for Spiritual Suicide if They Participate in Combat
It seems to me that it would be helpful if moral leadership in America, especially its church leaders and its Christian parents, would discharge their duty to thoroughly warn the children and adolescents in their sphere of influence about all of the serious consequences of being in the killing professions. Jesus, who commanded his followers to “love your enemies”, would surely approve.
Without such countervailing truths being told by a nation’s moral leadership, war planners have an easy time keeping potential soldiers from recognizing the humanity of those that are accused of being enemies, whether they are Syrians, Iranians, Iraqis, Afghanis, Russians, Vietnamese, Chinese or North Koreans. I have been repeatedly told by military veteran friends of mine that military chaplains – who are supposed to be nurturers of the souls of the soldiers that are in their “care” – never bring up, in their counseling sessions, the Golden Rule, Jesus’ clear “love your enemies” commands, his many ethical teachings in the Sermon on the Mount or the biblical commandments that say “thou shalt not kill” or “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s oil”.
The Church’s Theological Blind Spots When the Pro-War Flag-waving Begins
One theological blind spot about war was nicely illustrated near the end of “Joyeux Noel” in a powerful scene depicting a confrontation between the Christ-like, altruistic, antiwar, lowly Scottish chaplain and his pro-war over-privileged Anglican bishop. As the humble chaplain was mercifully administering the “last rites” to a dying soldier, he was approached by the bishop, who had come to chastise the chaplain for fraternizing with the enemy during the Christmas Truce. The bishop summarily relieved the simple pastor of his chaplaincy duties because of his “treasonous and shameful” Christ-like behavior on the battlefield.
The authoritarian bishop refused to listen to the chaplain’s story about his having performed “the most important mass of my life” (with enemy troops participating in the celebration) or the fact that he wished to stay with the soldiers that needed him because they were losing their faith in God. The bishop angrily denied the chaplain’s request to remain with his men.
Christmas Eve Mass, France
The bishop then delivered a rousing pro-war, jingoistic sermon (which was taken word-for-word from a homily that had actually been delivered by an Anglican bishop later in the war). The sermon was addressed to the fresh troops that had to be brought in to replace the veteran soldiers who had suddenly become averse to killing, and were refusing to fire on the “enemy”.
The image of the dramatic but subtle response of the chaplain to his sacking should be a clarion call to the Christian church leadership – both clergy and lay – of every militarized, so-called “Christian” nation. This chaplain, after listening to the bishop’s sermon, simply hung up his cross and walked out of the door of the field hospital.
“Joyeux Noel” is an important film that deserves to be annual holiday viewing. It has ethical lessons far more powerful than the traditional fare of “It’s A Wonderful Life” or “A Christmas Carol”.
One of the lessons of the story is summarized in the concluding verse of John McCutcheon’s famous song about the event: “Christmas in the Trenches”:
“My name is Francis Tolliver, in Liverpool I dwell.
Each Christmas come since World War One, I’ve learned its lessons well:
That the ones who call the shots won’t be among the dead and lame
And on each end of the rifle we’re the same.”
Check out the video of McCutcheon singing his song below.
Here is a critical scene from the movie:
Additional scenes from the movie, with the narration of a letter from one of the soldiers involved can be viewed below.
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Dr Kohls is a retired physician from Duluth, MN, USA. In the decade prior to his retirement, he practiced what could best be described as “holistic (non-drug) and preventive mental health care”. Since his retirement, he has written a weekly column for the Duluth Reader, an alternative newsweekly magazine. His columns mostly deal with the dangers of American imperialism, friendly fascism, corporatism, militarism, racism, and the dangers of Big Pharma, psychiatric drugging, the over-vaccinating of children and other movements that threaten American democracy, civility, health and longevity and the future of the planet. Many of his columns are archived at
Out of all the crap that we ‘ Who know better’ have to endure with this empire, sometimes we catch a break. For years we had the famous ‘ Two Party Monte’ being played before us. You know, the liberal Democratic Party vs. the conservative Republicans.
Of course, the only consistent drama was about gay rights , abortion rights, entitlements ( of course only for the low class- oh sorry- lowest income and downright BROKE!), Medicaid and…. now this is key: whatever party was in the White House, then their president’s war was supported by his party and criticized severely by the opposition one.
Of course, both parties always voted, in great majorities, for increasingly higher military spending. So, although most Democrats criticized the ‘ War on Iraq’, mostly well after the fact, they always cast their votes for more military spending. Ditto for the Republicans re: The Clinton/ Obama war on Libya. Well, things have changed!
We always knew who the true Neo Cons were by their overt support of our military presence in every country we do NOT belong in. That was easy. Due to their dying support for globalization and trading with ‘ no such enemies ‘, the Neo Cons sucked up to China for a ‘ Back around to ya’ .
Russia, well that got mixed reviews within the Neo Con circles. However, when it came to the Middle East ( and of course Israel, their’ junkyard dog ‘ in that region) the Neo Cons ‘ Want In!!!’ Remember, the Neo Cons care NOT for which of the two parties to sleep with. No, they want a ‘ menage a trois’ ! So, when Trump outflanked the Democratic Left and non Neo Con Dems with his maneuver of pulling the troops out of Syria ( where they have been illegally since the outset) and pondering the same for Iraq and Afghanistan, now he becomes dangerous to the Neo Cons.
All you have to do folks, is sit back in front of your boob tube ( or read in your mainstream paper of choice) and observe the political discussions. Anyone, and I mean anyone, who is coming out in criticism of this policy of disengagement is simply a NEO CON at worst. At best, they are mouthpieces for those who pay them or keep them funded in office, who happen to be Neo Cons. Period!!
Philip A Farruggio is a son and grandson of Brooklyn , NYC longshoremen. He has been a free lance columnist since 2001, with over 400 of his work posted on sites like Global Research, Greanville Post, Off Guardian, Consortium News, Information Clearing House, ,Nation of Change, World News Trust, Op Ed News, Dissident Voice, , Activist Post, Sleuth Journal, Truthout and many others. His blog can be read in full on World News Trust., whereupon he writes a great deal on the need to cut military spending drastically and send the savings back to save our cities. Philip has a internet interview show, ‘ It’s the Empire… Stupid’ with producer Chuck Gregory, and can be reached at [email protected] )
In accordance with Kosovo not being a UN member state and the Serb position on UN Security Council Resolution 1244 (recognizing Kosovo as a continued part of Serbia), the disputed former Yugoslav territory wasn’t formally represented at the discussion as a nation. Kosovo’s leader, Hashim Thaci, sat with a nameplate having his name, as opposed to Kosovo. Countries recognizing Kosovo’s independence made it a point to state Thaci as the president of Kosovo and Aleksandar Vučić as president of Serbia. Nations not recognizing Kosovo’s independence referred to Thaci as either Mr. Thaci or Mr. Hashim Thaci and Vučić as the president of Serbia.
The UK was excessively biased against Serbia. Vučić noted the difference between the UK’s stance, versus a comparatively more objective approach among some other countries that recognized Kosovo’s independence. Kosovo’s independence is partly premised on a non-binding 2010 International Court of Justice advisory opinion, which said that Kosovo’s declaration of independence didn’t violate international law, while not saying whether Kosovo is properly independent, or should be independent. Having the right to declare independence doesn’t by itself mean that such a declaration should be fully recognized by others.
The Serb and Kosovo leaders expressed differences of opinion on the conflict in Kosovo over the years. Vučić was the more even handed. Not mentioned was the casualty figure in Kosovo before the 1999 Clinton administration led NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia (then consisting of Serbia and Montenegro). In that period, the Serbs had the disproportionately greater casualty number. Within a 18 to 24 month period before the NATO action, 1,500-2,000 were killed out of a Kosovo population put at about 2 million. Serb casualties were in the 500-600 range. At the time, Kosovo had an Albanian population that was listed as high as 90%, with Serbs being somewhere around 10%. Serb sources note that their proportionate number in Kosovo has dwindled over the decades for several reasons, which include Albanian nationalist terrorism, some Serbs finding better opportunities elsewhere, a comparatively higher Albanian birthrate and a migration of Albanians from Albania to Kosovo.
Thaci stated a wildly unproven figure of 20,000 raped in Kosovo by Serb forces. In the former Yugoslav wars, the purpose of number trumping casualties was for the losing party/parties to make the suffering look worse than reality, for the purpose of goading foreign military support for their side. In addition to Kosovo, this tactic was evident in the earlier Bosnian Civil War.
In that Bosnian conflict, I very much recall the claims of a 200,000-350,000 casualty figure range, as well as some far fetched rape figures, said without meaning to diminish the seriousness of such a crime, regardless of the ethnicity of the perpetrator and victim. At the end of the Bosnian Civil War, others like myself, deduced that the actual fatality number was somewhere between 75,000-125,000. Years later, there has been a universal acknowledgement that the Bosnian Civil War death toll was in the area of 100,000. Those who wrongly hedged on the higher 200,000-350,000 figure, are nevertheless more likely to get greater Western mass media access, than the ones that got it right from the get go. (A related Bosnian Civil War fatality issue, concerns the different numerical takes of summary executions in and near Srebrenica.)
“As I said, I think the Russians had every right to be suspicious of the intent of the Ukrainian vessels. The Ukrainians know that these are Russian territorial waters. They know that the only way to go through the Kerch Strait is by making use of a Russian pilot. They refused to allow the Russians to pilot the ships through the strait. Whatever the Ukrainians’ ultimate intent was—whether it was to carry out an act of sabotage, to provoke the Russians into overreaction and then to demand help from NATO, or simply to go through the strait without a Russian pilot in order to enable President Poroshenko to proclaim the strait as non-Russian—whatever Kiev’s intent was, the Russians were entitled to respond. The force the Russians used was hardly excessive. In similar circumstances, the US would have destroyed all of the ships and killed everyone on board. Recall, incidentally, Israel has seized Gaza flotilla boats and arrested everyone on board. In 2010, the Israeli Navy shot nine activists dead during a flotilla boat seizure, and wounded one who died after four years in a coma.”
I’m not so sure about the aforementioned US hypothetical. The Israeli example underscores that Russia acted in a peacefully responsible way, followed by some hypocrisy against it at the UN. Nikki Haley is right about a biased element at the UN. The likes of her don’t acknowledge their contribution to some of the unfair biases.
This excerpt from the Consortium News feature brings into play the matter of Kosovo –
“During the recent incident, the Ukrainian Navy acted provocatively, deliberately challenging the Russians. As for what the UNSC accepts, how would NATO respond if Serbia entered Kosovo on some pretext or other?”
The last thought hits home on a point I repeatedly make on how the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia has served to impress Russia that pious BS aside, might essentially makes right. BTW, Kosovo doesn’t stand out as being socioeconomically and multi-ethnically better off than Crimea.
At 10:00 PM on 15 December 2013 shooting broke out in the barracks of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) Presidential Guard in Juba, capital of the fledgling state of South Sudan, after Nuer soldiers resisted being disarmed by their Dinka colleagues.
Dozens of soldiers were killed before the Nuer soldiers retreated, after which Mathiang Anyoor, a militia loyal to President Salva Kiir made up entirely of Dinka from his home area, began systematically slaughtering unarmed Nuer civilians in the capital.
The number of people killed is unknown because Hilde Johnson, the head of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), the only organization in the country capable of gathering such figures, made an executive decision not to count the dead, although she subsequently said they numbered in the ‘thousands’. The same forces also attacked the house of the country’s Nuer vice president, Dr Riek Machar, who was accused of attempting to carry out a coup and for being responsible for the ensuing killing spree. This was not only belied by the fact that he and his wife, Angelina, were forced to flee the assault in their pyjamas and eight members of their household were killed, but also by an African Union Commission of Inquiry which subsequently concluded that ‘the evidence does not point to a coup’. Instead, the evidence suggested that Riek was the target of an assassination attempt by forces loyal to the president.
Through cell phones and social media knowledge of the Juba killings quickly spread to the global Nuer community and to Greater Upper Nile, where most of the Nuer lived. Thousands of Nuer youth self-organized as a white army mobilized and were joined by Nuer soldiers who had defected from the SPLA. On 18 December – only three days after the Juba killings commenced – they captured the Jonglei state capital of Bor and began marching on Juba. Fearing a humanitarian disaster when the ill-disciplined and revenge-seeking Nuer youth reached Juba, the US and other Western states warned Riek to stop the attack or face charges before the International Criminal Court.
The US also endorsed Ugandan President Yowri Museveni’s decision to send his army to Juba to protect the inhabitants and the government. Later, these forces were deployed to government towns across Greater Upper Nile where they fought the rebels. In fact, Museveni was more concerned with ensuring that, given its influence over the Salva-led government, the Islamist government in Sudan did not take advantage of the rapidly deteriorating situation to exert control over the government and pose a threat to Uganda. But Museveni’s fears were overcome when Riek convinced the regular forces under General Peter Gadet to temporarily stop their attack and that of the white army. Museveni’s role in the defence of the Juba regime, the politics surrounding the peace process, and the advance of Uganda’s interests while supposedly playing the cat’s paw for his US sponsors, show a man adept at political manoeuvres in the region.
Based on the mistaken assumption that Riek was in full control of the various forces that launched the largely spontaneous attacks against government positions across Great Upper Nile, the Western sponsored regional security organization, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), invited him and Salva to participate in a peace process which focused on re-dividing state power among the SPLM elites that caused the war. Instead, the appeal of the common Nuer, which neither IGAD nor its Western backers ever responded to, was the answer to the question of why their people were attacked in Juba. As a result, those who fought the insurgency were never represented in the negotiations and the reason they took up arms against the government – the Juba massacre – was never considered.
For the US, which Secretary of State John Kerry said had ‘midwifed’ the independence of South Sudan only two years previously, after supporting a long peace process and spending enormous amounts of money in the country, the war was both shocking and humiliating. The US had claimed the peace agreement that ended the war in Sudan and granted independence to South Sudan in 2011 was a major foreign policy success at a time when its various political and military involvements in the Greater Middle East had been failures.
Over the next five years almost half of the country’s 11 million people were displaced or made refugees in neighbouring countries, tens of thousands were killed, the towns of Greater Upper Nile were destroyed as they repeatedly changed hands, and the largely oil-based economy all but collapsed. The first IGAD initiative failed in March 2015, but a second expanded initiative produced an agreement in August 2015 between Riek, who again became the First Vice President, and Salva, who retained his position as president. However, Salva made clear he had only accepted the agreement under duress and threw up numerous obstacles to its implementation which the international peace-makers did nothing to overcome. A resumption of the war was entirely predictable and on 8 July 2016 fighting broke out between government soldiers and the handful of Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement – In Opposition (SPLM-IO) fighters in Juba, after which the SPLA attempted to kill Riek, slaughtered many more Nuer civilians in the capital, and forced thousands into UN camps.
Riek and his soldiers were forced to evacuate the capital and began what became a 30-day march to the Congo and safety. Meanwhile, Salva appointed the SPLM-IO’s defecting Taban Deng Gai first vice-president in breach of the peace agreement. And with US support it attempted to isolate Riek in the region and achieve an internal peace. Instead the war intensified and spread from Nuer-inhabited Greater Upper Nile to Western Bahr al Ghazel and the Equatorial states where it increasingly took the form of genocidal attacks by government forces against civilians who in turn launched similar attacks on Dinka civilians.
But behind a tale that could be understood as another African tribal conflict and failed efforts by the US government to stop the killing was a tragedy that was the result of long US support for the SPLM and the Juba government. This despite overwhelming evidence of its administrative incompetence, massive corruption, and systemic abuse of human rights. The US government and various academics and researchers also perpetuated the false narrative that Riek Machar was a militarist and the primary cause of the conflict. The negative US role in the conflict reached its peak after it gave up on a peace agreement that it had devoted two years to reaching and another year to implementing in favour of giving tacit support to the Juba SPLM government’s campaign to defeat the rebels militarily, which resulted in the killing of thousands of innocent civilians and the displacement of hundreds of thousands more.
But US hopes that the Salva government could militarily defeat its enemies proved misplaced, the war continued and spread, and Riek remained the leader of the largest opposition faction. For the US government the descent of the SPLM regime into war was both an embarrassment and a refutation of the analyses and assumptions upon which Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama based their policies on Sudan and South Sudan. It also represented the collapse of an illusion perpetuated by a host of largely American lobbyists as to the character of the SPLM, the state it dominated, and the conviction that Western liberalism could develop roots in South Sudan.
Christmas is a time of traditions. If you have found time in the rush before Christmas to decorate a tree, you are sharing in a relatively new tradition. Although the Christmas tree has ancient roots, at the beginning of the 20th century only 1 in 5 American families put up a tree. It was 1920 before the Christmas tree became the hallmark of the season. Calvin Coolidge was the first President to light a national Christmas tree on the White House lawn.
Gifts are another shared custom. This tradition comes from the wise men or three kings who brought gifts to baby Jesus. When I was a kid, gifts were more modest than they are now, but even then people were complaining about the commercialization of Christmas. We have grown accustomed to the commercialization. Christmas sales are the backbone of many businesses. Gift giving causes us to remember others and to take time from our harried lives to give them thought.
The decorations and gifts of Christmas are one of our connections to a Christian culture that has held Western civilization together for 2,000 years.
In our culture the individual counts. This permits an individual person to put his or her foot down, to take a stand on principle, to become a reformer and to take on injustice.
This empowerment of the individual is unique to Western civilization. It has made the individual a citizen equal in rights to all other citizens, protected from tyrannical government by the rule of law and free speech. These achievements are the products of centuries of struggle, but they all flow from the teaching that God so values the individual’s soul that he sent his son to die so we might live. By so elevating the individual, Christianity gave him a voice.
Formerly only those with power had a voice. But in Western civilization people with integrity have a voice. So do people with a sense of justice, of honor, of duty, of fair play. Reformers can reform, investors can invest, and entrepreneurs can create commercial enterprises, new products and new occupations.
The result was a land of opportunity. The United States attracted immigrants who shared our values and reflected them in their own lives. Our culture was absorbed by a diverse people who became one.
In recent decades we have lost sight of the historic achievement that empowered the individual. The religious, legal and political roots of this great achievement are no longer reverently taught in high schools, colleges and universities or respected by our government. The voices that reach us through the millennia and connect us to our culture are being silenced by “Identity Politics,” “political correctness” and “the war on terror.” Prayer has been driven from schools and Christian religious symbols from public life. Constitutional protections have been diminished by hegemonic political ambitions. Indefinite detention, torture, and murder are now acknowledged practices of the United States government. The historic achievement of due process has been rolled back. Tyranny has re-emerged.
Diversity at home and hegemony abroad are consuming values and are dismantling the culture and the rule of law. There is plenty of room for cultural diversity in the world, but not within a single country. A Tower of Babel has no culture. A person cannot be a Christian one day, a pagan the next and a Muslim the day after. A hodgepodge of cultural and religious values provides no basis for law – except the raw power of the pre-Christian past.
All Americans have a huge stake in Christianity. Whether or not we are individually believers in Christ, we are beneficiaries of the moral doctrine that has curbed power and protected the weak.
Power is the horse ridden by evil. In the 20th century the horse was ridden hard, and the 21st century shows an increase in pace. Millions of people were exterminated in the 20th century by National Socialists in Germany and by Soviet and Chinese communists simply because they were members of a race or class that had been demonized by intellectuals and political authority. In the beginning years of the 21st century, hundreds of thousands of Muslims in seven countries have been murdered and millions displaced in order to extend Washington’s hegemony.
Power that is secularized and cut free of civilizing traditions is not limited by moral and religious scruples. V.I. Lenin made this clear when he defined the meaning of his dictatorship as “unlimited power, resting directly on force, not limited by anything.” Washington’s drive for hegemony over US citizens and the rest of the world is based entirely on the exercise of force and is resurrecting unaccountable power.
Christianity’s emphasis on the worth of the individual makes such power as Lenin claimed, and Washington now claims, unthinkable. Be we religious or be we not, our celebration of Christ’s birthday celebrates a religion that made us masters of our souls and of our political life on Earth. Such a religion as this is worth holding on to even by atheists.
As we enter into 2019, Western civilization, the product of thousands of years of striving, is in decline. Degeneracy is everywhere before our eyes. As the West sinks into tyranny, will Western peoples defend their liberty and their souls, or will they sink into the tyranny, which again has raised its ugly and all devouring head?
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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), one of the world’s biggest conservation organizations, is breaking the law in its backing of a conservation zone in the Congo Basin, according to letters released today.
The letters demonstrate that the new protected area, known as Messok Dja, is being created without the free, prior and informed consent of the people who rely on that land for survival, members of the Baka and Bakwele tribes.
A map showing the planned conservation zone, Messok Dja, on land that the Baka and Bakwele tribes rely on for survival (Copyright WWF)
According to national and international law, indigenous people must give consent for any project affecting their lands, territories, and resources. Without the consent of the people who rely on the land for survival, the establishment of Messok Dja park is illegal.
Over a hundred people from six villages in Republic of Congo have signed the letters, which also describe horrific violence and abuse by ecoguards funded and supported by WWF.
A Baka woman explains what her community must endure because of the proposed national park, Messok Dja, in Republic of Congo.
One letter states:
“WWF came to tell us that they are going to make a new national park and that we will no longer have the right to go in it. But that is our forest and we do not want this park. We know that it means destruction for us and that ecoguards will come and beat people and burn down houses. Many of us have been beaten with machetes and guns by the ecoguards.”
The ecoguard unit in Sembe was set up with the help of WWF and continues to receive financial and logistical support from WWF.
The letters from the Baka people were released today by Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples. Director Stephen Corry said:
“WWF must withdraw its support for Messok Dja immediately. It claims the government is responsible for assigning protected area status to the Baka’s land, but this excuse will not wash: WWF’s own policy (and international human rights norms) say it cannot support a project that the local indigenous people do not want.”
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Quite a few journalists and analysts in the world emphasize the wealth of political candidates, the millions of dollars required for getting elected, and additional candidates’ and elected Congresspersons’ revenues from lobbying, corruption and the cutthroat rivalry between the two parties. However, almost everyone in the world, including in the U.S., knows this. Why is it harmful to cultivate the notions of candidates rolling in millions of dollars, involvement in corruption and the discredited internecine party squabbling as issues for the people to be concerned about?
By emphasizing these features, the main characteristics of the American political system (which are so important that they constitute a crucial part of its political culture) are covered up. By political culture, I mean the thinking, outlook and activities, in this case regarding the political system, as pursued and propagated by the ruling elites.
What are some of these features that people the world over should be aware of? Regarding money, the more subtle marketing through the media is far more important. For example, the recent mid-term election campaign and the results are presented by the elite media in the North, and in many cases copied in the South, as a battle of the good against the evils represented by Trump. However, how did Trumpism come about? By March 2016, corporate media (especially CNN), under the cover of reports, interviews and endless panels featuring pro-Trump panellists, had already given Trump’s GOP takeover gambit $2 billion in free media.
This accounted for more free “ads” than all the other candidates from the Democratic Party and the GOP combined. By the end of the 2016 presidential general election campaign, corporate media had provided a total of $5 billion in free exposure for Trump. One could not watch CNN at the time without hearing the name “Trump.” Thus, the elite media created Trump and, in the process, increased the number of ads from businesses as well as the rates of these ads.
Given the all-encompassing and overbearing predominance of anti-Trumpism, what better source of revenue for CNN than the Obamas playing the role of the de facto alternative to Trump? Just one week after the October mid-term elections, CNN aired on prime time two of its recent documentaries, one featuring Michelle Obama and the other Barack Obama. The latter documentary is geared to nostalgia focusing on Barack Obama’s last hours in the White House. Thus, in turn, CNN is the non-official spokesperson and promoter of the Democratic Party, fielding Barack Obama as the de facto next president, irrespective of who the actual presidential and vice-presidential candidates will be for 2020.
The two-party system and the lesser of two evils are ingrained in the consciousness of many Americans and others in the West and the South, such as in Latin America, who are inundated with this feature of U.S. political culture. All the American corporate media are united in the ongoing daily cacophony to present one wing of the two-party system as “left” (the Democratic Party) and the other as “right” (the Republicans).
There are not merely a few journalists and analysts who succumb to this. This is being highlighted right now in the wake of the resignation of General Mattis. In his letter to President Trump, he disagrees with the U.S. pulling out of Syria and what Mattis calls Trump’s conciliatory attitude toward China and Russia. This resulted in the Democrats, CNN and the other liberal media gushing over Mattis as an iconic hero of the U.S. and, among other things, as a symbol of stability. Together, they expanded the “left” to include a four-star Army General: another plank in the Democratic Party 2020 presidential elections platform. This example, among many others going beyond the scope of this article, shows that there is basically no difference between the two parties on domestic and foreign affairs.
Electoral fetishism is a hallmark of official American political culture. We are overwhelmed with a virtual international media-imposed “non-stop election campaign.” Just to take the most recent example of the mid-terms, it is in the common political domain that the summer/fall 2018 campaign and the TV ops the night and following days of the results – all combined and accumulated – are considered merely a warm-up and first step toward the 2020 presidential elections. At present, the 2020 campaign is already in full gear.
The main spinoff effect of this does not just mean being burdened and bored. The outcome of this fetish is the daily anti-status quo and progressive (not the self-proclaimed Democratic “progressivism”) actions in the streets, workplaces and educational institutions by the people who are substantially dampened if not virtually smothered. If not so, the corporate media quite deftly coopt many of these grassroots activities into the electoral hype. This is facilitated by some cases wherein these actions – consciously or not – are designed for electoral consumption.
As a direct outcome of this situation lies another feature of American political culture: cooptation. And the powerful role of the media, at once cultivating and profiting from naiveté, is a poison that cannot be underestimated. There are so many examples of how revolutionary or progressive movements in the U.S. are coopted into the dead-end of the two-party system. One key example is dealt with below.
This issue of cooptation leads us to the overriding issue of racist violence against African Americans and Native Americans. This feature of reactionary political culture goes all the way back to the very founding of the Thirteen Colonies in the 17th century and into the 18th century. In fact, history and current events indicate that the American state constitutes a vestige of slavery and genocide against the Native Americans. This realistic appreciation of the state must – or should – permeate the evaluation of the American elites’ imposed political culture. This is far more complex than the superficial corporate news outlets themes concerning financing, corruption and inter-party jungle warfare in the electoral system, the full measure of which is all too evident to the extent that it is normalized: anything goes to cover up the American state as a vestige of slavery and genocide.
African Americans have always been – and are today – at the forefront of revolutionary opposition to the status quo political culture as a necessary and inevitable outcome of their historical condition steeped in revolutionary and Marxist ideologies. To discuss the American electoral process such as the mid-terms without dealing with this historical contradiction of the American state, as a vestige of slavery and genocide as a cornerstone of the dominant political culture, is tantamount to analyzing a long-term political process for example in a Latin American country while refusing to take into account the effects of European colonialism and then U.S. imperialism and their servile local oligarchies in the region.
What then is the current situation of African Americans and Native Americans regarding their historical vocation yet to be fulfilled? African Americans areat the forefront of opposition to the dominant political culture. However, one would never know it by reading and listening to most of the elite journalism and analysis.
Nonetheless, the cruel reality of the two-party system confronting the Black counteroffensive’s journalistic and other activities is that their own movement is blunted and limited by the ability of the Democratic Party to coopt a small section of African Americans into its ranks as it does with other progressive mass movements. Thus, an essential part of the ruling circles’ political culture is that the Democratic Party, far from being left-leaning or at least more progressive than the modern Republican Party, as it is made out to be, is in fact the graveyard for progress and a real left alternative.
The most stunning current example consists in how the Democratic Party and CNN are jumping onto General Mattis’s resignation so as to herd any section of the progressive left that opposes Trump for the right reasons into the Democratic Party. The cruel twist of fate is that, as we see today on the Mattis issue, it confirms what many of us have always claimed: the Democratic Party since World War II is the real party of war and aggression.
Regarding the Democratic Party earning its living as the graveyard for progress and a real left alternative, left-wing revolutionary forces in the U.S. are very familiar with this phenomenon: they have and are suffering tragically and enormously from this grave-digging role of the Democratic Party, especially since World War II.
*This article was originally published in Spanish for the Cuban political/cultural website La Jirabilla in November 2018 (Jirabillano. 850, 22 de noviembre al 27 de diciembre del 2018). It enjoyed unexpectedly wide interest in Cuba and was reproduced on many websites in North America, Ecuador, Venezuela and Europe, including in Global Research. This version in English has been updated, modified and adapted from the original Spanish-language variant for an English-speaking audience.
Veterans For Peace is pleased to hear that President Trump has ordered a total withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, where they had no legal right to be in the first place. Whatever the reasoning, withdrawing U.S. troops is the right thing to do.
It is incorrect to characterize the U.S. military intervention in Syria as “fighting terrorism,” as much of the media is doing. Although the U.S. fought against the ISIL Caliphate (aka “ISIS”), it also armed and trained Islamist groups, including al-Qaeda aligned forces, who are seeking to destroy the secular, multi-religious Syrian state and establish a harsh fundamentalist order of their own.
Furthermore, the U.S. aerial bombardment of the city of Raqqa, Syria, similar to its bombardment of Mosul, Iraq, was itself terror in the extreme, causing the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. These are huge war crimes.
A continued U.S. presence in Syria would only prolong a policy that has been disastrous for all the peoples of the region, who have already suffered way too much as a result of years of U.S. intervention and occupation on their soil.
It would also be a disaster for the troops who are being asked to carry out this impossible burden. In these moments when those in power advocate for remaining at war, Veterans For Peace will continue holding true to our mission and understanding that war is not the answer.
We sincerely hope that the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria will be total, and will be soon. We hope this will also lead to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, where the U.S. government is currently in talks with the Taliban and an end to U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen, which is causing the death by starvation of tens of thousands of innocent children.
Veterans For Peace knows that the U.S. is a nation ADDICTED To WAR. At this time of uncertainty, it is critically important that we, as veterans, continue to be clear and concise that our nation must turn from war to diplomacy and peace.
It is high time to unwind all these tragic, failed and unnecessary wars of aggression, domination and plunder. It is time to turn a page in history and to build a new world based on human rights, equality and mutual respect for all. We must build momentum toward real and lasting peace. Nothing less than the survival of human civilization is at stake.
Jeremy Shakun, a paleoclimatologist at Boston College, told Science that the large increase in the loss of ice mass in Antarctica in the last decade or two could already be the beginning stage of the process of collapse of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet.
Ice loss in the Antarctic has tripled in just the last decade alone, and is currently losing 219 billion metric tons of ice annually. That number is up from 73 billion metric tons per year as of a decade ago.
“The big uptick in mass loss observed there in the past decade or two is perhaps the start of” the larger-scale collapse of the glaciers, Shakun told Science.
If that is the case, the world must begin preparations immediately for sea levels that will rise far more abruptly than previously expected, with ocean waters rising as fast as 2.5 meters every one hundred years.
The aforementioned discovery presented at the annual meeting of scientists also revealed that during the last brief warm period between Earth’s ice ages, which took place 125,000 years ago and when global temperatures were barely higher than they are today in our greenhouse-warmed planet, sea levels were six to nine meters (20 to 30 feet) higher than they are right now.
That amount of sea level rise means that New York, Boston, Miami, Tampa, New Orleans, Jakarta, Singapore, Osaka, Tokyo, Mumbai, Kolkata, Dhaka and Ho Chi Minh City are among the many cities that will, sooner or later, have to be moved or abandoned entirely to the sea.
However, recent data has shown that a group of glaciers covering 13 percent of the coastline of that side of the frozen continent are melting from below due to warming oceans.
It is already known that the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet is experiencing serious retreat with a three-fold increase in acceleration having been reported in recent years. But NASA scientist Catherine Walker used measurements of ocean temperatures and computer modeling to show that the heat being delivered to certain glaciers in the Eastern Antarctic was coming from warming oceans.
“The finding has very serious repercussions for climate change and particularly sea-level rise,” Chris Fogwill, a professor at Keele University in England told The Guardian. “It has the potential to mean that our sea-level projections could be [in] an order of magnitude higher than we’re anticipating.”
Given the remoteness of the Eastern part of Antarctica, it hasn’t been studied nearly as much as the rest of the Antarctic.
Hence, since there is little data on it thus far, we should expect more bad news of melting as more studies are published on the region.
The NASA data, coupled with the study mentioned at the American Geophysical Union, show that the speed of sea level rise from melting Antarctic glaciers is consistently increasing each year.
At the current trajectory, 17.7 trillion metric tons of ice will be shed in the Antarctic by 2100. This assumes the current rate of loss will remain linear — an unrealistic assumption given that the rate is increasing annually.
A real panic among the militarists and flunkeys of the military-industrial complex: They are concerned the U.S. president has gone completely off the ruling-class imperialist script. We find that hard to believe, since a move away from militarism and violence would indicate a fundamental departure from the very essence of the methods and strategy that created the United States. We are on land violently stolen from Indigenous peoples that was then used to execute a brutal super-exploitation of enslaved African labor to amass imperialist wealth. That wealth was used to elevate the United States to a world power after the second imperialist war in 1945.
But with Trump announcing U.S. troops will be pulled out of Syria and troop strength will be reduced in the never-ending war in Afghanistan, the ruling-class propagandists pretending to be journalists at CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the rest, have sounded the alarm of pending doom for the empire. These hacks feign concern that the president is abandoning the bipartisan commitment to international gangsterism.
We in the Black Alliance for Peace don’t praise a U.S. president for ending the illegal subversion, invasion and occupation of a sovereign state that should have never been allowed in the first place by the theoretical representatives of the people who now sit in the U.S. Congress. If the Trump administration is serious about the “full and rapid” withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria, we say it’s about time. We demand a full withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Syria, including the mercenary components referred to as “contractors.” We also say troop reduction is not enough—end the war in Afghanistan with a complete and total withdrawal of U.S. forces.
We denounce those elements in the corporate press, the establishment voices in the duopoly, and liberal and left acolytes of the warmongering ruling class who have taken upon themselves to confuse and manipulate the public into believing that permanent war is both rational and inevitable. The $6 trillion of public resources transferred from the pockets of the people to the military-industrial complex over the last two decades to execute wars and occupations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, have also caused the destruction of ancient cities, unspeakable misery for millions of people that includes but is not limited to the displacement of millions of people and the so-called “refugee crisis”—not to mention the millions of lives that have been eliminated by U.S. bombs, missiles, chemicals and bullets. All who have remained silent or have given direct or even indirect support to these bipartisan war policies are morally culpable.
We are extremely skeptical about the administration’s announcement—we know from painful experience and from our understanding of the history of this state, that the United States has never voluntarily withdrawn from one of its imperialist adventures. Therefore, the Black Alliance for Peace will continue to demand that the United States withdraw from Syria until every U.S. asset is out of the country.
The final resolution of the U.S.-led war in Syria must be determined by Syrians themselves. All foreign forces must recognize and respect the sovereignty of the Syrian people and their legal representatives.
If peace is a real possibility for the people of Syria, it is only the most cynical who would undermine that possibility for partisan political purposes. But we know that the lives of people of color mean nothing for some of the loudest critics of Trump’s decision. Many of those same critics don’t see any contradiction in condemning Putin and the Russians while embracing Netanyahu and the Israeli apartheid state that fires live ammunition into the bodies of unarmed Palestinians.
But in the tradition of our ancestors who understood the infinite connection of all of humanity and who resisted systematic degradation, the Black Alliance for Peace will continue to raise our voice in support of peace. Yet, we know that without justice there can be no peace. We must struggle to obtain justice.
U.S. out of Syria! U.S. out of Africa! Shut down AFRICOM and all NATO bases! Reallocate the people’s resources from funding war to realizing the human rights of all people, not just the 1 percent!
104 years ago this month, one of the most unusual aberrations in the bloody history of warfare – never allowed to be repeated again – occurred. Europe was in the fifth month of the 52 month-long World War (the one that was supposed “to end all wars”) that was to end with the armistice four years later on November 11, 1918.
British, Scottish, French, Belgian, Australian, Canadian, German, Austrian, Hungarian, Serbian and Russian pulpits in those overwhelmingly Christian nations back home (far from the satanic carnage in the trenches) were doing their part in contributing to the un-Christ-like patriotic fervor that was destined to result in a holocaust that destroyed four empires, killed upwards of 20 million soldiers and resulted in the psychological and physical decimation of an entire generation of young men in France, Germany and England.
Tragically, Christianity, which began as a pacifist religion because of the pacifist teachings and actions of the nonviolent Jesus of Nazareth (and his nonviolent apostles), has, for the past 1700 years, been anything but a peacemaking church that follows Jesus by actively resisting its nation’s imperial aspirations, its nation’s wars, its nation’s war-makers and its nation’s war profiteers.
So, it wasn’t any surprise to note that the religious leaders on every side of that war were convinced that God was on their particular side – and, therefore not on the side of the Christians that they were trying to kill. The obvious contradiction – that both sides were praying to the same god – escaped most of them.
Pulpits and pews all over Europe – with few exceptions – reverberated with flag-waving fervor, sending clear messages to their doomed and baptized warrior-sons that it was their Christian duty to march off to kill, maim and even torture – if necessary – the equally doomed Christian soldiers on the other side.
Five months into the mass destruction of the perpetually stale-mated war (featuring the indiscriminate slaughter via artillery, machine gun and, eventually, poison gas), the first Christmas of the war on the Western Front was upon the exhausted and demoralized troops.
Christmas was the holiest of Christian holidays for all sides, and in this time of hunger, thirst, sleep deprivation, shell shock, TBIs, mortal wounds and homesickness, Christmas 1914 had special meaning. Christmas reminded the soldiers of the good food, safety, warm homes and beloved families that they had left behind and which they now suspected they might never see again. The physically exhausted, spiritually deadened and combat-traumatized soldiers on both sides of the battle lines desperately sought some respite from the misery of the water-logged, putrid, rat-infested, louse-infested, corpse-infested and increasingly frozen trenches.
The cold reality of trench warfare in 1914
By this time, the frontline soldiers on both sides were probably wondering how they could possibly have believed the ridiculous propaganda from their leaders that had convinced them that their side was pre-destined to be victorious and “home before Christmas” – where they would be celebrated as conquering heroes.
Instead every soldier was at the end of their emotional ropes because of the unrelenting artillery barrages against which they were defenseless. If they weren’t killed or physically maimed by the artillery shells and bombs, they would eventually be emotionally destroyed by “shell-shock” (now known as posttraumatic stress disorder – PTSD), suffering horrifying nightmares, sleep deprivation, suicidality, depression, hyper-alertness and any number of other mental and neurological abnormalities. Other common “killers of the soul” included perpetual hunger, malnutrition, infections such as typhus and dysentery, louse infestations, trench foot, frostbite and gangrenous toes and fingers.
Poison gas attacks wouldn’t appear until 1915, but both British and Germans scientists were working hard to perfect that new technology. Tank warfare – which proved to be a humiliating disaster for the British – wouldn’t be operational until the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
One of the most stressful realities for the frontline soldiers was the suicidal “over the top” infantry assaults against German machine gun nests and the rows of coiled barbed wire that stopped them in their tracks and made them sitting ducks. Artillery barrages commonly resulted in tens of thousands of casualties in a single day.
Over the top infantry assaults were stupidly and repeatedly ordered by senior officers like Sir John French and his replacement as British Commander-in-Chief Sir Douglas Haig (apparently preparing for the classical but hopelessly out-dated horse and sabre cavalry charges across the muck of No-Man’s Land). The general staff planners of those uniformly disastrous attempts to end the war quickly or at least end the stalemate were safely out of the range of enemy artillery barrages. As they made their plans they were comfortably back at headquarters, eating well, being dressed by their orderlies, drinking their tea, none of them at any risk of experiencing the lethality of war themselves.
The frequent shoveling to improve the comfort of the trenches was frequently interrupted by preparations for attack. Screams of pain would often came from the trapped soldiers out in No-Man’s Land who had been wounded by machine gun fire but who were helplessly hanging on the barbed wire or bleeding to death in the bomb craters – their deaths often lingering for days. The effect on the troops in the trenches who had to listen to the desperate, unanswerable pleas for help was psychologically devastating for the troops back in the trenches. By Christmas, the morale of the troops on both sides of No Man’s Land had hit rock bottom.
Christmas in the Trenches
So on December 24, 1914, the exhausted troops settled down to Christmas with gifts from home, special food, special liquor and special rest. A magnanimous (and deluded) Kaiser Wilhelm had ordered 100,000 Christmas trees with millions of ornamental candles to be sent up to the front, expecting that such an act would boost troop morale. Using the supply lines for such militarily unnecessary items was ridiculed by the most hardened military officers, but nobody suspected that the Kaiser’s Christmas tree idea would backfire and instead be a catalyst for an unplanned-for cease-fire, a singular event previously unheard of in the history of warfare and one that was ultimately censored out of mainstream histories, especially military histories, for most of the last century.
The Christmas Truce of 1914 was a spontaneous event that happened at a multitude of locations all along the 600 miles of trenches that stretched across Belgium and France, and it was an event that would never again be duplicated although an attempt at a Christmas Truce in 1915 was quickly put down by the authorities. Malcolm Brown and Shirley Seaton have written an important book about the 1914 event entitled “Christmas Truce: The Western Front, December 1914”.
The movie Joyeux Noel” (French for Merry Christmas) received an Academy Award nomination in 2005 for best foreign film. It tells the moving tale that has been adapted from the many surviving stories revealed in letters from soldiers who had been there.
One of the stories that emerged from the event was that, in the quiet of Christmas Eve night, some young German started singing “Stille Nacht”. Soon the British, French and Scots on the other side of No Man’s Land (oftentimes measuring only a hundred yards wide) joined in in their own tongues. Before long, the spirit of peace and “goodwill towards men” prevailed over the demonic spirit of war, and the troops on both sides sensed their common humanity. The natural human aversion to killing broke through to consciousness and overcame the patriotic fervor and brain-washing to which they had been subjected.
Once the spirit of peace was felt, soldiers on both sides dropped their weapons and came out of their trenches to meet their former foes face-to-face. To get through to the other side they had to step around shell holes and over frozen corpses (which were soon given respectful burials, soldiers from both sides helping one another with the gruesome task).
The spirit of retaliation had dissipated and the desire for peace on earth emerged. New friends shared chocolate bars, cigarettes, beer, wine, schnapps, soccer games and pictures from home. Addresses were exchanged, photos were taken and every soldier who genuinely experienced the emotional drama was forever changed – and the generals and the gung-ho politicians were appalled.
Fostering Peace on Earth in times of war is treason
Fraternization with the enemy (as in refusing to obey orders in time of war) has historically been regarded by military commanders and politicians as an act of treason, severely punishable, even with death by summary execution. In the case of the Christmas Truce of 1914, most officers tried hard not to draw public attention to the rather wide-spread and therefore potentially contagious incident. Some commanding officers even threatened courts martial if fraternization persisted (it was considered bad for the killing spirit) but relatively few executions took place.
There were still punishments however, including the re-assignment of many of the German “traitors” to the Eastern Front to kill and die on the Eastern Front in the equally suicidal battles against their Orthodox Christian co-religionists from Russia.
This unique story of war resistance needs to be retold over and over again if our modern-era false flag-generated wars of empire are to be effectively de-railed. These futile, unaffordable wars are being fought by thoroughly indoctrinated, macho, pro-war, World of Warcraft expert gamers who, unbeknownst to them, are at high risk of having their lives permanently altered by the physical, mental and spiritual damage from participating in war and violence, after which they might be doomed to a life overwhelmed by the realities of PTSD, sociopathic personality disorder, suicidality, homicidality, loss of religious faith, traumatic brain injury (shell shock), neurotoxic, addictive drug use (from either legal or illegal drugs) and a host of other nearly impossible-to-cure problems that were preventable.
Society’s ethical duty to warn
It seems to me that it would be helpful if moral leadership in America, especially Christian leaders, would discharge their duty to warn the adolescents that are in their spheres of influence about all of the serious consequences that participation in the killing professions can have on their souls and psyches.
War planners do whatever it takes to keep soldiers from experiencing the humanity of their enemies, whether they are Iranians, Iraqis, Afghanis, Pakistanis, Yemenis, Vietnamese, Chinese or North Koreans. I have been told by many military veterans that military chaplains, who are supposed to be nurturers of the souls of the soldiers who are in their “care”, never seem to bring up, in their counseling sessions, Jesus’ Golden Rule, his clear “love your enemies” commands or his ethical teachings in the Sermon on the Mount.
Military chaplains seem to just be another cog in the apparatus of making war maximally effective. Christian chaplains seem to not pay much attention to the Ten Commandments either, especially the ones that say “thou shalt not kill” or “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s oil”. In their defense, military chaplains, in their seminary training and perhaps even in their Sunday School upbringings, may have never been schooled adequately in the profoundly important gospel truths about humility, mercy, non-violence, non-domination, non-retaliation, unconditional love and the rejection of enmity.
Theological blind spots of war
These theological blind spots are illustrated near the end of the “Joyeux Noel” movie in a powerful scene depicting a confrontation between the Christ-like, antiwar Scottish chaplain and his pro-war bishop, just as the chaplain was mercifully administering the “last rites” to a dying soldier. The bishop had come to chastise the chaplain for having been merciful to a wounded soldier in No Man’s Land and for fraternizing with the enemy. The bishop was relieving the chaplain of his duties because of such “treasonous and shameful” behavior on the battlefield.
The authoritarian, German-hating bishop refused to listen to the chaplain’s story about his having performed “the most important mass of my life” (with German troops scandalously participating in the celebration) and that he wished to stay with the troops that needed him because they were losing their faith. The bishop angrily denied the chaplain’s request to remain with his men.
The bishop then delivered a rousing pro-war sermon, taken word-for-word from a homily that had actually been delivered by an Anglican bishop from England later in the war. The sermon was addressed to the fresh troops that had to be brought in to replace the veterans who, because of their consciences having been awakened, had suddenly become averse to killing, and were refusing to shoot their weapons.
The image of the dramatic but subtle response of the chaplain to his sacking should be a clarion call to the Christian church leadership of our militarized, so-called “Christian” America – both clergy and lay. This good man of God hung up his cross and walked out of the field hospital.
“Joyeux Noel” is an important film that deserves to be annual holiday fare. It has ethical lessons far more powerful than “It’s A Wonderful Life” or “A Christmas Carol”.
One of the lessons of the Christmas Truce story is summarized in the concluding verse of John McCutcheon’s famous song about the event, “Christmas in the Trenches”:
“My name is Francis Tolliver, in Liverpool I dwell.
Each Christmas come since World War I – I’ve learned its lessons well:
That the ones who call the shots won’t be among the dead and lame
And on each end of the rifle we’re the same.”
Check out the video of McCutcheon singing his song at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJi41RWaTCs and, for a good pictorial history of the reality of WWI’s trench warfare, check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTXhZ4uR6rs
The official trailer of “Joyeux Noel” is available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXcseNVZGRM
Prominent academic and author Dr Michel Chossudovsky warned that the so-called war on terrorism is a front to propagate America’s global hegemony and create a New World Order.
Dr Chossudovsky said terrorism is made in the US and that terrorists are not the product of the Muslim world.
According to him, the US global war on terrorism was used to enact anti-terrorism laws that demonised Muslims in the Western world and created Islamophobia.
Elaborating on his argument, Dr Chossudovsky said that NATO was responsible for recruiting members of the Islamic state while Israel is funding “global jihad elements inside Syria”.
Dr Chossudovsky, who is also the founder of the Centre for Research and Globalisation, further emphasised that the global war on terrorism is a fabrication, a big lie and a crime against humanity.
Echoing Dr Chossudovsky’s arguments, Malaysia’s prominent political scientist, Islamic reformist and activist Dr Chandra Muzaffar said that the US has always manipulated religion to further its global hegemony on sovereign states.
“The Globalization of War is undoubtedly one of the most important books on the contemporary global situation produced in recent years.
In his latest masterpiece, Professor Michel Chossudovsky shows how the various conflicts we are witnessing today in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq and Palestine are in fact inter-linked and inter-locked through a single-minded agenda in pursuit of global hegemony helmed by the United States and buttressed by its allies in the West and in other regions of the world.” Dr Chandra Muzaffar, President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST)
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” — H. L. Mencken
Cultural Marxism is a strange catch-all term being thrown around a lot these days. Why is it strange? Because if you scratch below its surface all that seems logical melts into air.
The term ‘cultural Marxism’ is used to cover feminism, multiculturalism, identity politics, civil rights, postmodernism and globalism. It has also been used recently to describe multiculturalist curricula in the education system.
Let’s take a look at these concepts in a little more detail:
Feminism
Marxist ideas about women covered ideas of equality and examined the historical and contemporary position and exploitation of women. Marx and Engels wrote about death from overwork, cheap labour, women and children in the mills, etc. They appear to have had a low opinion of feminism. In a letter from Engels to Paul Ernst, Engels writes:
“Furthermore, I am not at all acquainted with what you call the feminist movement in Scandinavia; I only know some of Ibsen’s dramas and have not the slightest idea whether or to what extent Ibsen can be considered responsible for the more or less hysterical effusions of bourgeois and petty bourgeois women careerists.”
Therefore, the inclusion of feminism into the meaning of cultural Marxism is odd.
Multiculturalism
Marxist ideas are based on the idea of citizenship and the state, that all citizens should be treated equally under the law with the common identity of “citizen”. However, it seems that the deeper the political and financial crises of the state and the subsequent whittling down of the rights of the citizen, the more emphasis is put on multicultural policies, as if to provoke the majority population into negative reactions. Marxist ideology was reflected in Article Two of the constitution of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic of 1918 whereby citizenship was held:
“(22) The Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic, recognizing the equal rights of all citizens, irrespective of their racial or national connections, proclaims all privileges on this ground, as well as oppression of national minorities, to be contrary to the fundamental laws of the Republic.”
One description of multiculturalism in Western countries, notes that multiculturalism “was seen to combat racism, to protect minority communities of all types, and to undo policies that had prevented minorities from having full access to the opportunities for freedom and equality promised by the liberalism that has been the hallmark of Western societies since the Age of Enlightenment.”
If it was necessary for minority groups to fight for rights, “to protect minority communities”, “to undo policies that had prevented minorities from having full access” to opportunities then it seems that this too also has very little to do with Marxist ideology. Being involved in the struggle for basic rights does not necessarily mean you are a Marxist.
Identity politics and civil rights
The same can be said for identity politics whereby people of a particular religion or race form exclusive political alliances and move away from traditional broad-based party politics. It is true that minority cultural groups have experienced exclusion in the past and today, and fight for their rights but Marxist ideas focus on the concept of class, not race, religion or ethnic group. Marxist politics is formulated on the basis of class struggle not the political objectives of individuals or minority groups.
Postmodernism
Strangest of all is the inclusion of postmodernism in descriptions of Cultural Marxism. Postmodernism is a movement characterised by an attitude of rejection of metanarratives such as Marxism. A metanarrative (or grand narrative) is a theory that tries to give a totalizing, comprehensive account of history, culture etc based upon the appeal to universal truth. Postmodernism calls into question various assumptions of Enlightenment rationality, the idea of man free from Church-run society. Yet such Enlightenment ideas form the basis of Marxist philosophy and socialist ideology.
Globalism
Globalism is a word associated with with world-systems or other global trends. The term is associated with “post-war debates debates of the 1940s in the United States. In their position of unprecedented power, US planners formulated policies to shape the kind of postwar world they wanted, which, in economic terms, meant a globe-spanning capitalist order centered exclusively upon the United States.” Again, not very Marxist concepts, cultural or otherwise. You are more likely to find Marxist ideas in anti-globalisation movements.
It can be seen from all of the above that the basic ideas associated with cultural Marxism have more in common with crises of neo-liberalism and international capitalism than with Marxism. It may be true that the origins of ‘cultural Marxism’ lie in the Frankfurt school of the 1930s in the attempts of critics like Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse and Walter Benjamin to mix Marxist ideas with Freud to break down the effects of the church and state on revolutionary consciousness but it seems that later anything not associated with the conservative values of the nationalist “white” Christian became ascribed to cultural Marxism.
Monolithism
While the neo-nationalist right ascribes many different ideas and movements to cultural Marxism it can be shown that in the main they all actually benefit the political right. This is through monolithism (something having a uniform or inflexible quality or character), an approach that can be used as a sleight of hand to implement other agendas. Below are three different ways monolithism can be used to stifle dissent.
It is in the education system that we can begin to see monolithism being used to appear progressive and concerned with minority issues (multiculturalism) while at the same time implementing a right wing agenda. For example, recent changes in the French education system have been criticised for devoting more time to a 14th century Malian king, Mansa Kankan Mussa, (who was also a great scholar, an economist as well as an art lover!) compared to the study of Napoleon or even replacing French revolution lessons. By treating French history as monolithic (i.e. for the political right the threatening (revolutionary) and non-threatening elements can be treated as one), the baby can be thrown out with the bathwater, and the revolutionary tradition of the French people can be safely removed from the education system. Therefore the progressive parts of French history can be removed while appearing to be concerned about minority history. The added bonus is that non-threatening ethnic historical figures can be chosen too. (A more subtle approach than in Ireland where the study of History is being made optional at junior cycle in the secondary schools)
The second way dissent can be silenced using monolithism is to portray minority groups as being made up of similar people all sharing similar views. As Kenan Malikwrites:
“Multiculturalists tend to treat minority communities as if each was a distinct, singular, homogenous, authentic whole, each composed of people all speaking with a single voice, each defined primarily by a singular view of culture and faith. In so doing, they all too often ignore conflicts within those communities. All the dissent and diversity gets washed out. As a result, the most progressive voices often gets silenced as not being truly of that community or truly authentic, while the most conservative voices get celebrated as community leaders, the authentic voices of minority groups.”
The ‘authentic’ conservative gets privileged over the dissenting critic, once again serving the political right.
A third way monolithism works is in the change from the Marxist idea of class struggle (the proletariat vs the bourgeoisie) to categories of the oppressed vs the oppressor (a postmodern non-class concept). Yet again, we see a non-Marxist idea being ascribed to cultural Marxism. The oppressor is changed from the bourgeoisie to all privileged people. So for example, white people become the ‘oppressor’ and black people become the ‘oppressed’, the privileged vs the underprivileged, despite the fact that white people can have very varied economic backgrounds from very poor to ultra-rich. This way of grouping people (colour, creed, ethnicity) creates identities which are not class-based and therefore, from the perspective of the political right, also non-threatening.
Moving targets
It is ironic that what the main targets described by the term cultural Marxism all have in common is the removal of the class (or individual) dissenting elements, or simply have no connection with Marxist ideology at all. The overriding concern, then, is that politics will be reduced to competing groups realigned along specific cultural boundaries, all blind to clever elite manipulation. Firing the term cultural Marxism at any divergent social, cultural or political activity will not enlighten people about what is really happening under their noses but will send them off tilting at windmills instead.
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Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country here. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
Myriad agencies, funded by Western governments, foundations, and NATO, continue to erect barriers to freedom of thought and expression in the West’s post-democratic, New Fascist, societies.
The totalitarianism implicit in these restrictions means that colonial media is monochromatic, tightly framed, and ubiquitous. There is no “free exchange” of ideas, a necessary foundation of democratic societies. Hence, messaging that promotes wars of aggression, and dysfunctional economic ideologies remains ascendant in the public sphere.
The public is led to believe that never-ending criminal wars and vast outflows of public monies to the military industrial complex are normal and necessary. Similarly, publicly bailed-out, predatory, diseconomies are presented as the only viable economic models. Socially-oriented, (democratic) political economies, we are told, “do not work”. The public remains unaware that Empire wages criminal economic and “kinetic”, terrorist-supporting warfare, against societies that seek to determine their own political economies. Socially-oriented political-economies in countries such as Libya, Iraq, Syria, Nicaragua, Venezuela and on and on, are constantly under attack, and not allowed to thrive. Empire targets these countries criminally, aggressively, and perpetually.
The covert barriers which create bounded, framed restrictions on freedoms of expression create a “chilling effect” that promotes self-censorship, and disappears evidence-based truths which would otherwise counter-balance narratives from media conglomerates, all of which are unduly impacted, and subservient to “establishment” pressures from Big Oil, Banking, Military Industrial Complex, Big Pharmaceutical, and other monopolies.
Thought leaders who step outside of the confines of Establishment narratives are targeted. The University of Sydney’s warrantless suspension of best-selling author and Senior lecturer, Prof. Tim Anderson[1], from his teaching duties, is a case in point. Not only does his suspension create a “chilling effect”, and a culture of academic self-censorship, but it also restricts the amount of evidence-based research that reaches the public arena.
Military/Intelligence fronts, such as the Integrity Initiative[2]– well-funded by state agencies and even NATO[3]– add to the oppression, not only by targeting individuals for smear campaigns, but also by guaranteeing a non-stop flow of war propaganda.
Time and again, policymakers use Private Intelligence Contractors (PICS) as sources of fake intelligence that they wrap around previously planned policies, to give an air of credibility to war propaganda. Have we forgotten already the lies used to justify the West’s supremely criminal destruction of Iraq? All of the post-9/11 wars (and beyond) were sold to gullible domestic populations by means of well-planned strategies of deception.
It is an unequal battle, but the broad-based public must first free itself from foundational war lies if we are to make transformative changes. Foremost amongst these lies is “The War On Terrorism”. The public needs to understand that this War on Terror myth is cover for criminal wars of conquest. Our governments and their agencies support the terrorists. Pretending that the West is fighting ISIS and other terrorists (i.e al Qaeda) prolongs the suffering of its victims, past, present, and future. It is not a war against ISIS. It never was. The West and its allies support all of the terrorists in Syria, (and beyond), including ISIS.
If the public can be disabused of the “War on Terrorism” myth, then it will be ready for mass social unrest and mobilizations for fundamental reforms. Incremental reforms only bolster Establishment positions by providing illusions of democratic policymaking.
For starters, Canada needs to leave NATO, cut its military budget, end its “neoliberal” diseconomy, instate a socially-oriented economy, and regain its sovereignty and democracy.
Given all of the structural barriers that we face, these goals may never be achieved, but we still “win” when we at least struggle for justice.
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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017.
Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.
Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes the mainstream media narratives on Syria.
Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir made a historical visit to Syria, the first for an Arab leader since war was imposed on Syria in 2011. El-Bashir landed onboard a Russian airplane at Damascus airport, an indication of Moscow’s efforts to bring Syria back into the Arab – and international – fold. During seven years of war, Sudan never closed its embassy in Damascus.
El-Bashir was not travelling alone. Sudan would not take such a huge step without the support of its allies. The Sudanese president is a close partner of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates in their destructive war on Yemen. The purpose of his visit is to lay down the road to Damascus for more Arab leaders, who are expected to pay tribute to president Bashar al-Assad in 2019. Their goal is to elbow aside the Islamic Republic of Iran, the only Islamic country omnipresent with friendly forces on the Damascus scene.
This is not the first contact between Arab countries and Syria since 2011: Egypt maintained its close diplomatic-political-security relationship with Syria throughout the years of war. Bahrain, the Emirates, Oman, Lebanon and Jordan are present today in Syria. On the western front, Italy is preparing to re-open its embassy, while Germany and France were not absent in recent years.
The arrival of el-Bashir onboard a Russian plane indicates the determination of President Vladimir Putin to sew a spider’s web of relationships between the Middle East, the West and Syria. Putin aims to see Syria resume diplomatic relations with Arab and other countries. Russia and Syria dismiss the conditions the US is seeking to impose for reconstruction of the country and would like to see its unwelcome forces leave the Levant.
El-Bashir came to Syria at a time when the Middle Eastern countries acknowledge that their plan to create a failed state in the Levant has failed. Their goal was a failed state, not a new regime; their unlimited support to the Takfiree groups (i.e. the “Islamic State” ISIS and al-Qaeda) was pushing Syria towards total chaos, posing significant dangers to neighbouring countries with the exception of Israel. Tel Aviv welcomed both extremist religious groups, embraced them, and supported their presence on its border throughout the years of war in Syria.
After many years of war, the Syrian president is today harsher in his approach towards Israel, although he does not necessarily intend to initiate an attack to regain Syrian territory occupied by Israel in the Golan heights. Assad is happy to see a local Syrian resistance, similar to the Lebanese Hezbollah, developing along the borders and in other parts of the country.
Assad has not changed his stand towards Iran. On the contrary, years of war taught him to rely on those, like Iran, who offered billions of dollars to support the Syrian economy and sent tons of weapons and thousands of men to protect Syria’s integrity.
The Syrian president has never flagged in support of Hezbollah. Since 1982 and until today, the Lebanese group received weapons and financial support through Syria. But today the bond is stronger than ever, particularly as Hezbollah offered hundreds of men killed in the battlefield and thousands of wounded for the unity of the Levant.
But yes, Assad’s position towards Hamas has changed. He rejects any mediation from the secretary general of Hezbollah Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and from Iran to bring back Hamas into the “axis of the resistance”. Assad considers the time is not ripe to reconcile with the Palestinian group because hundreds of its members fought within the ranks of ISIS and al-Qaeda and were responsible for the killing of Syrians.
The position of the Syrian president was firm throughout the war, notwithstanding the reach of ISIS (called Jabhat al-Nusra in 2013 before Joulani, its leader, declared loyalty to Ayman Zawaheri) to al-Abbaseyeen square in Damascus, threatening the government and the presidency. Saudi Arabia and the US offered to recognise Assad as the legitimate president of Syria in return for abandoning Hezbollah, Iran, and Hamas. Well aware of the treachery of his interlocutors, Assad refused and instead relied on trustworthy partners, i.e. Hezbollah and Iran (and Russia later on in 2015), to help him win the war imposed on his country.
El-Bashir’s visit expresses the will of his sponsors to recognise Assad’s victory and his leadership of Syria for fear of leaving him in the hands of Russia and Iran, who are reaping the rewards of their victory in Syria.
The young Bashar who became president at the age of 35 is today 53 years old with unparalleled political and war experience. Assad is pragmatic and by no means an ideologue. He will have no problems dealing with Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the US, the countries which spearheaded the war against Syria and caused its destruction. Even more, Assad is ready to welcome these countries and invite them to have a piece of reconstruction even if trust will be absent. That is called the art of the impossible.
Recognition of Assad as president of Syria by the countries responsible for years of war will open the doors of investment for anyone willing to participate even if the US occupies northeast Syria for decades and if Turkey maintains its occupation of north-west of Syria.
El-Bashir wants Damascus to return to the Arab League – who expelled Syria in 2012 – when he is recognised by the Arabs as the legitimate president of the country. Syria is a state and will behave as such, not seeking revenge but offering a part of the Damascene cake to share with everyone prepared to help rebuild the country.
The visit of the Sudanese president was planned for more than a year and was blessed by the countries who took the most radical stand against Assad; these countries have accepted their defeat and recognize that Syria shall not fall. Turkey is also reconsidering its position, as evident from the recent statement of foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu: “if the [Syrian] elections are democratic and trustworthy, we will consider all possibilities [to cooperate with Assad in case of his re-election]”. The Turkish-Syrian relationship is much more complicated than the Arab-Syria relationship. Ankara’s troops occupy a part of Syria and are protecting al-Qaeda and its allies in Idlib, but President Erdogan shares a common goal with Damascus: both seek the withdrawal of the US occupation forces and to prevent the Kurds from protecting US forces and imposing their enclave in north-east Syria.
The door to recognising Assad as the president of Syria is open to all Arabs without exception, along with their investment to rebuild the country. It is time to bury the Arab axe of war in the Levant.
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James Perloff: Cece, I’m so delighted to have a chance to interview you. I should probably start by letting my readers know how I found out about you. The local paper in my town (Burlington, Mass.) had reported that Verizon was planning to build seven new wireless transmitters on utility poles in our neighborhoods. I wrote a letter opposing it to the newspaper and to the town selectmen. Then an “awake” person in Burlington, who had read my letter, alerted me that you would be speaking at the Burlington Public Library on October 16 about the hazards of wireless microwave radiation and how people can protect themselves from it. I attended; you gave an outstanding, science-based talk, and I’m going to embed it at the end of this interview so people can watch for themselves.
Cece Doucette: Thanks, Jim, it’s an honor to do this interview with you.
As you mention, another Burlington resident reached out to see if I could help educate about the risks of today’s wireless technology. She had been to a screening of the new film Generation Zapped earlier this year. It won Best Documentary at the D.C. Independent Film Festival and is a great way to learn about the health effects of wireless technology directly from leading world scientists, doctors, public health experts and patients.
There wasn’t time to schedule in a screening of Generation Zapped at the Burlington Public Library as their sponsored films are set months in advance. So, I agreed to give a talk at the library instead. It was a pleasure to meet you there after reading your letter to the Burlington Small Cell Committee.
JP: Please tell my readers a little about your background, and how you became an activist and educator on the hazards of wireless technologies.
CD: I used to help lead our local education foundation in Ashland, Massachusetts. We kept hearing about the 21st Century Classroom and all the technology that would be needed. Our town doesn’t have budget for that, so I helped run seven campaigns to bring this technology into our schools, and much of it was wireless. Following that, I went to work directly for our schools as our district grant coordinator. In that role I helped secure many grants that also brought wireless technology into our classrooms.
Then, at book group one night, a girlfriend who is an electrical engineer mentioned there could be something up with wireless technology and health. So, I asked our IT director about it, and he didn’t know anything but said he’d check it out. He came back and said the FCC says it’s fine.
However, by that point I’d already begun my own investigation and found, literally, thousands of peer-reviewed published studies from all over the world showing wireless technology is biologically hazardous.
I began sharing my findings with our school administrators and upon reading the legal fine print that comes with wireless devices, they started taking precautions. Little did we know at the time in 2014, Ashland became the first public school district in the U.S. to do so.
JP: You know, Cece, before doing this interview, I downloaded and watched Generation Zapped. And I have to say that, one of the things that really struck me about that film is the number of credentialed scientists, from around the world, who are speaking out about these issues. This really puts it out of the realm of what some might call “tin foil hat conspiracy theories.”
CD: Indeed, the industry would prefer that we keep this issue on the fringe using terms like “tin foil hat conspiracy” so the public won’t take it seriously. Once you hear there is harm from wireless though, you can find the credible science very easily. All you have to do is look. The BioInitiative Report is a compendium of the studies, and shows what the harm is. If you’re more of an audio/visual learner, Generation Zapped allows you to hear directly from some of the world’s leading researchers, doctors and public health experts.
JP: In fact, one of the things that impressed me during your live presentation was how professional it was. It was the sort of talk I would expect at a corporate executive briefing—and by that I don’t mean dull, I mean professional. You are in fact a tech writer by trade, are you not?
CD: Thank you, Jim. Yes, I earned a Master of Technical and Professional Writing from Northeastern University, as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Communication.
JP: When I was watching Generation Zapped, I asked myself why these scientists were willing to be so outspoken, and my own conclusion is this: the risk of harm from wireless radiation not only threatens humanity, these scientists know it threatens their own health and that of their families. And what’s that compared to perhaps a little ridicule from a few mercenary quarters of the media? No one wants to get sick, period. And that’s a consideration that overrides politics, theology, or anything else that might divide us. Microwave radiation doesn’t discriminate.
CD: Indeed, our scientists take a significant risk in speaking out about the harm from wireless radiation as the industry has been known to makes large donations to their research institutions, and then their research labs are closed down if they report negative findings. However, many scientists have courageously banded together and authored international appeals to protect the public. More than 240 experts from around the world have submitted the International EMF Scientists Appeal to the United Nations, World Health Organization, and all its member states calling for public protections.
JP: When people go online, and find reports that say wireless technology is harmless or “there is no evidence of harm,” they are normally looking at industry-sponsored studies, isn’t that correct? Not unlike the studies that the cigarette industry once funded saying there was no link between smoking and cancer.
JP: Actually, Cece, before we go any further, I’d like to define some of our terms: “microwave,” “electromagnetic field (EMF),” and “radiation,” because some people, myself included, feel challenged when trying to understand phenomena that are not visible to the naked eye. So, if you would, please define these terms on a lay level, and let us know if there is any distinction between the microwaves used by Wi-Fi and those used by microwave ovens.
CD: I was initially confused too. All of our digital technology sends data packets back and forth using invisible microwave radiation signals. These are also known as radiofrequency radiation (RF) signals or electromagnetic fields (EMFs). With a microwave oven, you have very high power for a short amount of time. With today’s wireless technology, you have lower power but it’s pulsing all the time unless you know to turn it off when not in use. Otherwise every device, router, access point and cell tower sits there pulsing radiation at you whether you need to communicate with it or not.
The science now shows that it is the nature of the signal that is harming us. Wireless antennas send a spiked, erratic pulse that is disrupting our own biological signals at billions of cycles per second. Over time, the cumulative effects add up, so it is best to reduce wireless exposures and choose hard-wired technology.
JP: Now in your talk you referred to the vast number of peer-reviewed scientific studies that have documented the health issues being caused by wireless technologies. Could you give us a sampling of some of these health problems, and identify some of the major studies that have shed light on them?
CD: In November 2018, the U.S. National Toxicology Program’s $30M study found clear evidence that wireless radiation causes tumors in the Schwann cells lining the hearts of male rats. They also found some evidence of brain tumors and DNA damage among other findings. Another large 2018 study at the Ramazzini Institute in Italy also reported similar cancer and DNA findings.
This is just the tip of the iceberg though. Other studies link wireless radiation to infertility, autism, Alzheimer’s, neurotoxicity, genotoxicity and more.
In the short-term, many adults and children experience symptoms that neither they nor their doctors have been educated to recognize as microwave sickness. This might include insomnia, headaches, nose/ear bleeds, dizziness, fainting, seizures, skin heating/rashes/tingling, nausea, anger, anxiety, depression, fatigue, cognitive impairment, suicidal ideation, addiction and more.
JP: And it’s my understanding that even some insurance companies are starting to recognize these risks and refusing to insure against illness induced by Wi-Fi?
CD: Yes, Lloyd’s of London, Swiss Re and others recognize wireless radiation as a leading risk and have put exclusions in their policies. The industry is not insured so they pass those liabilities onto the consumer in their fine print warnings, or onto our states and towns in the contracts they sign for equipment installations.
JP: You have put together a huge online information repository so that people can readily access facts about wireless dangers. Would you please give us that link?
JP: During your presentation, one of the things that jumped out at me—perhaps because I’m not a smartphone user—is that these devices don’t merely receive EMFs, they transmit EMFs. So it’s a two-edged sword—it’s not just the radiation people are absorbing from cell towers, it’s the devices that they carry on them. You mentioned that these phones usually have multiple transmitter antennae—can you identify some of these by function?
CD: That’s right, our devices are two-way transmitters. They are sending out signals to make a handshake with the nearest cell tower or router, and are receiving data from those outside antennas.
A cell phone has multiple antennas. There are separate ones for cell calls, data, Bluetooth, wi-fi, locator and by now a public hotspot antenna as the industry is using us as their network. Each independently pulses radiation all the time unless we know to turn them off when not in use. If we don’t, we risk harming ourselves by using and storing them on our bodies.
In Generation Zapped, we see a woman who developed several different cancer tumors in the footprint of where she carried the cell phone in her bra for years.
We also know our sperm counts as a nation are down 50%, and the science shows wireless radiation mutates the DNA of sperm, causes fewer sperm to be viable, and slows the motility of the sperm in just four hours.
The American Cancer Society reports colon and rectal cancers are doubling and quadrupling among our young adults.
JP: As a matter of fact, during my service as a registered nurse, I helped take care of a popular young man who died from a brain tumor, which originated right next to where he chronically held his cell phone on his job. And then, of course, the same thing happened to Senator Ted Kennedy, who came from our home state.
CD: Yes, and Senator John McCain too. He died of a brain tumor on the left side of his head. He was left-handed and that’s where he held the cell phone to his head. He’d already had other types of tumors removed from that side of his neck and throat too.
JP: Also, a certain small percentage of the public has developed personal sensitivity to EMFs, have they not? I think a medical analogy might be when an individual develops an allergic reaction to a particular antibiotic. Even though most people don’t get the same reaction, for that person it’s very real. And unfortunately, when people develop the symptoms of EMF sensitivity, they are often dismissed as imagining things and having a “psychological” problem.
CD: It’s like where we were with Lyme Disease a decade ago. Doctors haven’t been trained on electrical sensitivities, so some will infer that it’s all in the patient’s mind when in fact it is caused by environmental triggers of wireless radiation. Environmental health doctors, however, are aware and treating patients for this. The American Academy of Environmental Medicine, in fact, put out a position statement to school superintendents indicating our schools should use hard-wired technology and not expose children to wireless radiation.
Another group, Physicians for Safe Technology, offers A Clinical Approach to Electrohypersensitivity including insurance codes. See this.
JP: There seems to be an assumption amongst the public that if a product is on the market, it must be safe. In the case of wireless devices, I was shocked to learn from you that the industry did only one very limited safety test.
CD: There was no safety testing done. They used an untested theory that you must have heat from a device to have harm, and they simply put gel into a mannequin’s head to see how much heat it would take to raise the temperature of the gel. The FCC set the public radiation exposure limits based on that heat model, with no regard for the thousands of studies that show harm at the non-thermal level. They never tested their exposure limits to see if they cause biological harm.
JP: I think we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention Smart Meters. What can you tell us about these devices?
CD: These are digital devices replacing the mechanical analog devices we have at our homes and offices to measure consumption of electricity, gas, water and solar power. They have a wireless transmitter to capture usage data and send it off to the utility company, thereby eliminating the need to pay a meter-reader to walk the neighborhoods.
While only one reading a month is needed for billing, the “smart” meters actually pulse radiation all day and night with no informed consent by the consumer. That can be very dangerous if someone is sleeping right on the other side of the wall, or if the utility company installs a bank of these on a multi-unit dwelling.
The “smart” meters usually aren’t grounded either, so the radiation can hop onto the home’s electrical wiring and water pipes, in essence turning the home into a toxic radiation antenna.
Some utility companies offer an opt-out so you can retain the safer analog meters, but others don’t.
JP: You know, I get the impression that the word “smart” has been hit upon as a way to market wireless devices, similar to when, decades ago, Madison Avenue discovered they could sell products more easily by using the phrase “new and improved.” Naturally, everyone wants to be “smart.” But putting one’s health at risk is not smart at all.
CD: No, it’s not, but marketing influences are very strong, so it’s up to each of us to learn about this and make truly smart choices for ourselves and our loved ones.
JP: Now we have 5G being planned for, which is a radically different form of wireless, and yet—surprise, surprise—no safety testing has been done on it. Could you break down for us just what 5G is, and how they plan to implement it?
CD: 5G means fifth generation technology. Even though the NTP and Ramazzini studies determined in 2018 that wireless causes cancer and DNA damage, the industry and the FCC are pushing hard and fast to put in toxic infrastructure throughout our towns for 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT).
They’ve maximized profits in the portion of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum that carries 4G and the earlier generations’ data signals (2G, 3G). What’s left of the spectrum is poor quality short millimeter waves that can’t carry signals very far.
So their solution is to put up more infrastructure for shorter data hops to connect to. That means more cell towers at closer range, every 2 to 12 houses, inside our neighborhoods, right on poles in the public access right of way outside our bedrooms. This will severely harm our children, making it very difficult to be able to focus at school.
As happens to some when “smart” meters go in, many near these new 5G “small cell” installations may begin to experience headaches, insomnia, skin abnormalities, irregular heartbeats, nosebleeds, anxiety, depression, anger, cognitive impairment and more.
The 5G little waves can’t go through buildings very well, so 5G will also incorporate the signals from the many cell towers and antennas we currently have for the earlier generations of technology. All so they can put toxic radiation antennas in everything you own and connect it to your phone: your appliances, games, baby diapers, etc., to gather your data and sell it to product manufacturers.
The industry and FCC are pushing right now at the federal and state levels to take away home rule rights from our towns so they can force in this toxic infrastructure.
They have already submitted applications for “small cell distributed antenna systems” in many of our communities, so it would behoove us to educate our towns quickly in hopes of establishing local by-laws to forbid any kind of wireless communication facility anywhere near our homes or schools. Your readers should feel free to share the pages from my research repository with their town leaders, who likely have no idea this is happening: For Municipal Leaders; 5G & IoT; Cell Towers. Once they learn, many begin to push back on industry as your town did in Burlington, Massachusetts.
JP: OK, next I’d like to talk about what people can do to protect themselves, their families and their communities. Let’s start on a personal level—what can folks do right in their homes to reduce wireless risks?
CD: I’d suggest folks get ahold of a wireless radiation detection meter; otherwise it’s easy to miss signals.
In my home, we use hard-wired computers, mice and keyboards. Our printer is hard-wired too with an Ethernet cable, and we simply turn off the antennas in each device once we’re hooked up with Ethernet.
We swapped out the DECT cordless phones for regular phones. We bought a TV that has an Ethernet jack, and hard-wired that too, then turned off the wireless signals in the settings.
We figured out how to hard-wire my daughter’s iPhone too with an adapter. She was very excited to have the faster speeds, and was especially happy to realize that by using hard-wiring, it isn’t eating into her data plan – which we make her pay for out of pocket if she goes over her monthly allocation of minutes.
JP: A friend of mine called my attention to a website called Antenna Search which enables people to locate cell towers and antennae that are in the proximity of any address. This could help people who, for example, are making decisions on buying a home. Any thoughts on this site?
CD: Yes, it is a good resource to know what is near you. That said, there is no guarantee the industry won’t put up a new one near you, especially if the town allows 5G antennas to be put up inside our neighborhoods. So, it’s best to educate yourself and your town administrators on the risks of wireless.
JP: When you gave your presentation, you had an Acoustimeter with you. Could you briefly explain what these are, and how they are useful?
CD: The Acoustimeter is a wireless radiation detection device that shows with green/yellow/red light indicators what your levels of exposure are. I use it to ensure my home is as safe as I can make it, and to teach others with.
JP: I have to admit, I had long resisted buying an Acoustimeter, partly because of the expense, and partly from resistance to having to learn how to use another tech device. But after your talk, I did purchase one. They can be on the expensive side—please tell us what Ashland has done to make these freely accessible.
CD: It took me three tries, but eventually, after I educated our Selectmen and our Library Trustees on wireless risks, I was awarded a $400 grant by our town to put an Acoustimeter on loan in our public library for our residents to borrow.
Our local cable station, WACA-TV, was kind to help me do a public service video to teach people how to use it to identify common exposures in our homes and suggestions for remediation.
JP: That is such a great idea. And what is the Ashland public school system doing to help safeguard its students?
CD: When our schools learned about the fine print warnings that come with each device and tell us not to use them on our bodies, we became the first in the nation to begin taking precautions.
We have a sign hanging in our classrooms with guidance to turn off the wi-fi when not in use, to turn off the devices when not in use, and to never use a device on one’s body. Our administrators are waiting for higher authorities, however, to tell them to turn off the wi-fi and choose hard-wired connections instead.
JP: It’s my understanding that the Massachusetts State Legislature now has as many as nine bills concerning wireless safety under consideration, and that you’ve played a role in generating some of them. Please tell us about some of these bills, and how they came about, because I think it would be an inspiration to some of my readers.
CD: When I realized our schools were not actually turning off the wireless and that the children are still exposed, I met with my State Senator Karen Spilka. I educated her and measured her cell phone and her district director’s laptop. Both devices went off the charts with radiation exposure.
Senator Spilka introduced a bill on my behalf to form a commission to get the right bright minds together at the state level to address wireless radiation and public health. Others around the state have done the same and we have bills to give people a choice for safer utility meters, provide safe technology in schools, raise the fine print and give the public the right to know wireless is hazardous at the point of sale, label wireless products with warnings, train our medical community, and protect the public from high voltage power lines (another form of toxic man-made radiation). Your readers can see the bills here, and perhaps share them with their own legislators to emulate.
Residents are working with their legislators on proactive bills in Michigan, Maryland and New Hampshire too, so others should be encouraged to follow suit.
JP: Cece, I’d like to mention a recent victory we had over a wireless threat in my own hometown, something you and I both contributed something to. It’s an example of how local action and networking can succeed.
As I mentioned at the top, our local paper had reported Verizon was planning to build seven new wireless transmitters in our neighborhoods. This seemed to be moving us in the direction of 5G. One was slated to go up just a couple of blocks from my home, right by a preschool. I wrote a letter opposing it to the newspaper and to the town selectmen. Then an “awake” person in Burlington, who had read my letter, alerted me that you would be speaking at the town library on the hazards of microwave radiation. I attended, and so did one of the town selectmen.
On the following Monday, the selectmen met to decide on the proposal; Verizon had their attorney there. The selectmen announced they had just received what amounted to an ultimatum from the FCC, basically ordering them to accept the transmitters.
I think at this point I should make reference to the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which states:
“No State or local government or instrumentality thereof may regulate the placement, construction, and modification of personal wireless service facilities on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions to the extent that such facilities comply with the Commission’s regulations concerning such emissions.”
Cece, the telecommunications industry is using this law as a gun to the head of local governments, forcing them to accept wireless installations regardless of any safety concerns, just so long as the installations conform to the standards of 1996. That was back when cell phones were “2G.” But as we know, wireless technology has vastly evolved since 1996, and thousands of new studies have documented the harm being done by wireless. Clearly, the safety standards of 1996 are an outdated dinosaur. Would you comment?
CD: I agree. In 2012 the U.S. Government Accountability Office instructed the FCC to “formally reassess the current RF energy exposure limit, including its effects on human health.” Although hundreds of expert testimonies were submitted, the FCC has failed to respond.
We need to be calling and/or writing to our federal legislators to let them know that is not okay, and remind them it is their duty to protect public health over corporate profits.
Connecticut’s Senator Blumenthal recently asked the FCC to substantiate their claim that 5G is safe, and we should encourage each of our legislators to do the same: provide the studies they say indicate wireless radiation is safe.
JP: Getting back to what happened in my hometown, Verizon’s attorney spoke. Then the public was heard. The only citizens at the meeting who spoke against the proposal were myself and this one other “awake” person. After we commented, we shook our heads and looked down, as we were sure we had no chance against Verizon.
However, the selectmen informed the attorney that they would comply and accept the transmitters provided Verizon met certain conditions, such as annual recertification of the devices. The Verizon attorney then said he had no choice but to withdraw the proposal. Apparently he didn’t want a precedent set where Verizon could be regulated by a town.
Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point Verizon returns with the proposal, perhaps armed with some ruling that the town’s actions were illegal—but in the meantime we were rejoicing; we literally hugged the selectman who stymied Verizon. I think the selectman who attended your talk had gotten the word out. I hope I haven’t misrepresented anything, so I’m going to link to a local article about the meeting.
CD: That is a great example of how civic involvement is important. I suspect the Selectmen had already drafted their small cell policy before I spoke at the library since they had been meeting on this for the better part of a year, but perhaps they also benefited by learning from my talk what the biological risks are.
JP: Well, in any event, I think the make-break point here was that our local officials had become educated about wireless hazards. You found this to be vital in your own dealings with the Massachusetts legislature, did you not?
CD: I did. The industry has been so effective at promoting the benefits of technology and suppressing evidence of harm, that it is not reasonable to expect that anyone would know there are serious risks. So, it takes education to bring them up to speed before we can expect them to take action to protect their constituents.
When the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure learned about this issue, they assigned a research analyst to investigate. After reading the published science showing biological effects, they wrote their own bill in April to address wireless radiation.
JP: Looking at this more globally, I learned from your presentation that the European Parliament is taking these issues very seriously.
CD: Yes, the film Generation Zapped indicates this too. Several countries are way ahead of us on this issue. France has a national law banning wireless around small children, and in the upper grades, the default is that wireless is turned off except when needed. Cell phones are banned from schools.
The Mediterranean country of Cyprus has issued an EMF Declaration with a 16-point fact sheet to educate and protect the public.
JP: And you also mentioned that India has reduced the limits on EMFs astronomically below the levels allowable in the U.S.
CD: Yes, their limits used to be where ours still are in the U.S., and they have set new limits with a 90% reduction.
JP: Would you say that American citizens should be urging their representatives in Congress to revise the 1996 Telecommunications Act, so that it conforms to current scientific safety research?
CD: Definitely. There is a government website that makes it easy to contact your elected officials at all levels: local, state and federal. A simple phone call by many can make a difference as the offices log in how many calls they are getting on different issues and respond accordingly.
JP: Another encouraging thing I learned from your talk is that in 2018 the United States Conference of Mayors issued a statement strongly opposing the FCC’s allowing the telecommunications industry to intrude on the rights of local government.
CD: That’s true. The FCC and industry are trying to take away local home rule rights from our towns so they can force in toxic infrastructure for 5G. They are also looking to low-ball our towns with a cap on how much a municipality can charge the industry for rental space to put up the antennas. As municipalities catch on, they are fighting back as the Conference of Mayors did.
JP: Earlier you mentioned a Harvard study called “Captured Agency” that documented how the FCC is dominated by the telecommunications industry. As a medical professional, it reminds me of the CDC and FDA, some of whose top personnel have had “revolving door” relationships with Big Pharma corporations.
CD: Unfortunately, that is true. The Environmental Health Trust has documentation that shows the CDC and FDA have acted in less than honorable fashion with wireless radiation too.
JP: Before we wrap up, Cece, any last thoughts?
CD: We are fortunate to have quick ways today to come up to speed on this issue. Folks can now purchase Generation Zapped on-line, and the non-profit Wireless Education has half-hour on-line training courses that quickly distill the science, risks, what other countries are doing, and medically recommended best practices for safe technology use.
There is a Schools & Families Course, as well as a Corporate Induction Safety Course. Each provides a handy tip sheet at the end, and are ready to train entire schools and workforces for a small licensing fee to help cover overhead expenses.
I recommend folks get educated, then educate loved ones and colleagues before going to public servants for policy changes. If you go it alone, you may be easily dismissed. A group of well-informed citizens, however, can help bring important change.
JP: Cece, I want to thank you for a very informative interview, and for the time you generously gave me. It’s been a delight to speak with you.
CD: You’re very welcome, Jim; thank you for learning about the risks of wireless radiation and encouraging others to do the same. I realize this issue will be new to many of your readers, but I hope they won’t take too long before investigating and taking action. We are all at risk of serious harm from wireless radiation and the sooner we use our voices for change, the safer our world will be for our children and theirs.
Here is Cece Doucette’s October 2018 talk at the Burlington, Massachusetts Public Library, where I first made her acquaintance. It was recorded by BCAT, the local public television station. The talk was followed by an informative Q & A session, which was unfortunately not recorded:
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According to various news reports, the validity of which is always questionable, US President Donald Trump has ordered the withdrawal of all US troops from the portion of Syria illegally occupied by US troops.
This report is surprising as only a few days ago the US Department of Defense declared that any Syrian, Russian, or Iranian action against ISIS in the part of Syria occupied by US troops was “unacceptable.” See this.
In other words, the Pentagon declared that the part of Syria still in ISIS’s hands was under US protection and was not to be attacked by Syria and its allies.
The question before us: Is Trump’s reported order of withdrawal going to happen?
It is too soon to say. As I write no support for Trump’s withdrawal order has been reported in the media. Even the official statement by the White House’s own spokesperson, Sarah Sanders, is unclear:
“We have started returning United States troops home as we transition to the next phase of this campaign.” See this.
In other words, the campaign against Syria is not over, but “the next phase” apparently doesn’t need US troops. What is the next phase? Until we know the answer, we do not know whether Washington’s campaign against Assad is over.
Perhaps a decision has been made to bypass Syria for now and to knock out Iran before the Russians can intervene there.
The presstitutes, at home and abroad, who serve Israel and the Military/Security Complex and never the Truth, are opposed to ending the campaign against Syria.
The Guardian, once a legitimate working class newspaper, but now to all appearances a CIA asset, writes that Trump’s “walking away now is a remarkable gift for ISIS.”
Bloomberg, continuing its campaign against Trump, reported that Trump’s withdrawal order “left Washington’s Kurdish allies in the lunch,” subject to Turkey’s disposal. Even worse, according to Bloomberg, Trump’s withdrawal “leaves Syria’s future in the hands of Moscow and Tehran, allies of President Bashar al-Assad whose intervention in the conflict averted his potential defeat.”
Warmonger US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a total disgrace to the electorate who put and keeps this fool in office, quickly demurred from Trump’s sensible decision. War forever is Graham’s policy. It proves he is a tough guy who stands up for America.
Mark Dubowitz, chief exercutive officer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (an extinct political species in the West), who “has closely advised the Trump administration,” said that “pulling U.S. troops out of Syria would be a gift to Putin and to the mullahs in Tehran. And it would be a disastrous gift for the region.” See this.
Brett McGurk, Trump’s special envoy to the fake “global coalition to defeat ISIS,” an organization created and financed to create deceptive cover for the support of ISIS, disavowed Trump’s reported decision:
“Enduring defeat of a group like this means you can’t just defeat their physical space and then leave.”
Israel, which has reduced the President of the United States to a two-bit Israeli puppet, as it intends to do also to President Putin of Russia, is unlikely to permit Trump to withdraw US troops from Syria.
Why? The answer is that Syria and Iran, which is also on the Trump/Israeli hit list, support the only army in Lebanon worthy of the name—the Hezbollah militia that prevents Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanan.
Israel’s goal of occupying southern Lebanon is part of the Zionist plan for Greater Israel—from the Nile to the Euphrates. There is also the issue of the water resources in southern Lebanan, which Israel covets. If Syria and Iran can be reduced to the chaos, death, and destruction that Israel has caused in the Middle East through their neoconservative agents in Washington, Hezbollah would be left without any financial and military support, enabling Israel to seize southern Lebanon.
Many in the Western world have never heard of Israel’s interest in Lebanon. With the extraordinary control that the elite have established over communications and explanations, people are unaware that the American assault on the Middle East began with the neoconservatives’ published agenda of overthrowing the Middle East including Saudi Arabia, whose leadership saw the writing on the wall and went over to the Israeli side. The neoconservative agenda, as General Wesley Clark made clear, was handed to the Pentagon and became official US policy.
Israel operating through their neoconservative agents successfully used the United States to destroy Iraq, Libya, Somalia, almost Syria until the Russians intervened, and to demonize Iran and set Iran up for attack. The cost to the US taxpayers runs in the trillions of dollars. Americans also paid the costs in the deaths and maiming of relatives and loved ones, and in the sullied reputation of their country, now widely regarded as a war criminal government.
Despite these massive blows Israel has delivered against the United States, blows unmatched by those of any enemy, Israel has gone on to compromise the independence of 26 US state governments, with another 13 up for grabs. See this.
How do we explain the capture of the mighty United States by a tiny numerically insignificant people who are isolated in the world?
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The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) makes the point in their most recent report that trade deals outside of the EU are unlikely to make Brexit worth it on economic terms. Trade agreements with countries from the U.S. to China would only mitigate Brexit’s impact on U.K. GDP by 0.2 percentage points.
However, the trade deal that the Brexiteers want is achieved through a hard Brexit. This means predominantly doing a deal with America. From the statistics we do have, there’s no point in signing a trade deal with Donald Trump’s finger lickin chlorine soaked chick’n arrangement. Britain exports £100 billion to the USA annually. We import about £60 billion from the USA. Donald Trump will demand a halt to the USA/UK trade deficit of £40 billion (as he has with other trading partners) and whatever deal is done, it has no way to fill the void left by the reduction of GDP with the current Brexit plan, let alone a hard Brexit.
The scenarios being published as we get closer to the 29th March are starting to point in one direction and one direction only – to a recession. The depth of that recession will be a point of discussion over the coming years. And as our article says in “The real cost of Brexit” the numbers look absolutely horrific – worse than expected on all fronts.
The NIESR report makes no statistical reference to what might happen under a scenario that sees Britain crashing out the EU without a deal, which the Bank of England said could be as bad as a 7.7 per cent hit to GDP. To put that in context, assuming this fall in economic activity as predicted by the BoE, Britain would face the pound dropping by about 25 per cent – forcing a spike in inflation, property prices would plunge probably by about the same and unemployment would rise to 7.5 per cent or thereabouts.
In recent days, four very specific reports evaluating the long-term economic impact of Brexit have been published. The interesting point to note here is that they all agree on two key points, that
A) Theresa May’s deal will definitely hurt the economy over the next decade or longer, and
B) exiting with no deal would be significantly worse.
To make matters worse, the U.K. government’s own study, also published last week, found that GDP would be as much as 10.7 per cent lower in 15 years in the worst-case scenario. But that would still be in excess of 7 per cent over 10 years, which falls in line with the other reports including the BoE.
From parliament.uk comes a report dated 11th December from the Treasury Committee that clearly states the government is at best concealing the truth about the outcomes of Brexit by simply not modelling the obvious.
Commenting on the Report, Nicky Morgan MP, Chair of the Treasury Committee, said:
“Despite differing views on Brexit between members of the Treasury Committee, our report on the economic analysis of the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration has been agreed unanimously.
“The aim of this report is not to recommend how MPs should vote, but to ensure that MPs are as informed as possible when it comes to choosing a division lobby.
“Yet the Government has made this difficult to achieve. The Committee is disappointed that the Government has modelled its White Paper, which represents the most optimistic reading of the Political Declaration, rather than a more realistic scenario.
“The Committee is also disappointed that the Treasury has not analysed the backstop and fails to include short-term analysis of any of the scenarios, including impacts on public finances and on regional and sectoral job losses or gains.
In other words, the government are not providing statistics based on realistic outcomes, only those that make the government argument for Theresa May’s Brexit look more optimistic. There are no estimates provided for a disorderly or unmanaged no-deal scenario.
In the meantime, Bloomberg reports that British hopes for a sweeping post-Brexit trade deal with the U.S. are nothing more than a pipe dream, a senior U.K. official said, dismissing a key argument put forward by supporters for leaving the European Union. If this is the case, Liam Fox who said signing these deals would the easiest thing in the world is also hiding the truth.
“Even Prime Minister Theresa May’s closest allies realize any agreement with Donald Trump’s administration will be lopsided and prioritize the interests of the world’s biggest economy, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because a U.S. trade accord remains a top government priority.”
Bloomberg reported last October that the U.S. is threatening to block Britain from joining a 46-nation public procurement agreement when it leaves the EU in March, a move that would deny British companies access to a near $2 trillion marketplace in order to force Britain into a deal it does not want.
The idea that a protectionist Trump administration would offer the U.K. anything other than unfavourable terms is completely unrealistic, the senior British official said. The government would be forced into accepting U.S. demands on agriculture, completely open up the NHS and other markets such as chemicals, cosmetics and the like.
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While the White House has still provided no comprehensive details on the real form of the so-called US troops withdrawal from Syria, the move has already had impact on the development of the conflict.
Early on December 20, Turkish media released several reports several reports and a video claiming that about 150 US trucks with weapons and equipment had been moved from Syria to Iraq late on December 19.
Reports in the mainstream media citing various sources suggest that the US-led coalition is also going to evacuate its base in the area of al-Tanf and to halt an aerial campaign in the country. If these reports are confirmed, militant groups operating in the area could find themselves abandoned in face of superior forces of the Damascus government.
According to pro-government sources, the Syrian Arab Army and Iranian-backed militias are currently deploying reinforcements to eastern Syria. Earlier reports appeared that the Russian military had set up several positions near the al-Tanf zone.
The so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which are now the main US proxy in northeastern Syria, condemned Trump’s decision to reduce the US military involvement in an official statement. The statement claimed that the decision would have “dangerous consequences” to international security and that it is “disappointing the hopes of the peoples of the region for security and stability.”
The SDF still hopes that if the US withdraws, France and the UK, two other countries that have special forces deployed in the war-torn country, would help it to keep the seized territories under control. However, its representatives have already initiated negotiations with Damascus.
According to the existing data, one of the suggestions is that the SDF would transfer control over oil and gas fields on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River to the Damascus government. In response, the Syrian Arab Army would have to set up a network of checkpoints on the border between Turkey and the SDF-held part of Syria.
Meanwhile, the security situation continues to remain complicated in the Idlib demilitarization zone where members of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other militant groups have carried out several attacks on SAA positions.
If the situation, by some reason, escalates in eastern Syria, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its allies will likely use it to increase military pressure on the SAA in northern Hama and northern Latakia.
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Did Mattis quit or was he pushed? He once said he wouldn’t resign as war secretary. He’d have to be sacked.
According to major media reports, he clashed with Trump over his announced pullout of US forces from Syria and Afghanistan.
On Thursday, the NYT, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and other US media reported that President Trump ordered around half of the 14,000 US forces in Afghanistan to return home in the coming weeks – on top of his announced pullout of US forces from Syria.
Whether what’s coming sticks to what he announced remains very much in question. More on this below.
In his “resignation” letter, Mattis said
“(b)ecause (Trump has) the right to have a secretary of (war) whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position.”
“The end date for my tenure is February 28, 2019, a date that should allow sufficient time for a successor to be nominated and confirmed…”
Mattis turned truth on its head claiming “the US remains the indispensable nation in the free world…”
Freedom, other democratic values, and rule of law principles are rejected by bipartisan US hardliners. Comprising a dominant majority of America’s ruling class, their goal is achieving and maintaining control over all other nations, premeditated war their favorite strategy.
Mattis lied pretending Pentagon forces are used “for the common defense.” Washington’s only enemies are invented ones. No real existed since WW II ended.
Yet endless US wars rage, notably post-the 9/11 mother of all false flags, a pretext for maintaining a permanent war footing at home and abroad.
Police state laws target ordinary Americans, increasingly enforcing totalitarian rule. Invented enemies unjustifiably justify smashing one nation after another, wanting all sovereign independent governments eliminated, risking nuclear war with Russia, China, and/or Iran.
Ruling authorities in NATO member states oppose what democratic governance is supposed to be all about, what’s true about the US most of all. Mattis lied pretending otherwise.
He lied claiming Washington aims to defeat ISIS – the scourge it created and supports, along with al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, and other terrorist groups in the Middle East and elsewhere.
They’re used as proxy US forces, supported by Pentagon-led terror-bombing, massacring civilians most of all, along with destroying vital infrastructure – what Mattis directed as US war secretary.
His predecessors operated the same way. So will his successor. Peacemakers aren’t considered for the job. Advancing America’s imperium prioritizes waging endless wars of aggression.
All political and military officials involved in US warmaking are unindicted war criminals, including congressional members for authorizing naked aggression funding – most of all US presidents as commander-in-chief of the nation’s armed forces.
Mattis lied claiming “China and Russia…want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model (sic) — gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic, and security decisions — to promote their own interests at the expense of their neighbors, America and our allies.”
All of the above claims apply to the USA most of all, along with its key NATO allies and partnered countries, including Israel, the Saudis, Egypt, Japan, South Korea, and many others.
The “common defense” Mattis referred to involves endless wars of aggression against one sovereign independent nation after another, what he signed on to as war secretary, the way he operated when heading field commands – the highest of high crimes gone unpunished.
Advancing America’s imperium through endless wars of aggression and other hostile actions won’t change under his successor.
Nor will Trump’s announced troop pullouts from Syria and Afghanistan change a thing. French European Affairs Minister Nathalie Loiseau said “we are staying in Syria” to fight ISIS, the Macron regime supports along with Washington, Britain, Israel, the Saudis, Turkey, and other key US imperial partners.
French Defense Minister Florence Parly tweeted:
“ISIS has been weakened more than ever, but it has not been wiped from the map nor has its roots. It is necessary that the last pockets of this terrorist organization be definitively defeated militarily,” – a pretext for continuing endless war in Syria for regime change, using ISIS jihadists, not combatting them.
Will troops from France and perhaps other US allies replace Pentagon forces in Syria and Afghanistan, leaving the status quo in both countries unchanged?
Will Trump about-face on his announced pullouts from both countries? Time and again, he says one thing and does another.
Jack Kennedy’s announced pullout of US forces from Vietnam by end of 1965 led to his state-sponsored assassination.
Will a sinister plot be hatched against Trump if he follows through on withdrawing all Pentagon forces from Syria, Afghanistan, and perhaps other US war theaters?
Reportedly he wants aerial operations in Syria ended along with withdrawing US forces on the ground from northern and southern parts of the country.
According to USCENTCOM (the command Mattis earlier headed),
“(a)s long as there are US troops (in Syria), we will conduct air and artillery strikes in support of our forces. We will not speculate on future operations.”
Separately, so-called Syrian Democratic Forces, largely comprised of Kurdish YPG fighters, may relinquish control of northern parts of the country they hold in return for military help from Damascus against a Turkish offensive on their positions.
Assad officials have yet to comment on this issue. On Thursday, Syrian UN envoy Bashar al-Jaafari dismissed Trump’s pullout announcement unless and until “we…see if this decision is genuine or not.”
Despite earlier announced US troop pullouts, Pentagon forces remain in all countries Washington attacked post-9/11.
If past is prologue, expect no change in Washington’s imperial agenda ahead, including where US forces are deployed.
At most, perhaps a change in tactics alone may follow Trump’s announcements – in pursuit of longstanding objectives for unchallenged global dominance.
A Final Comment
At his annual marathon Q&A session on Thursday, Putin responded to a question on whether Russia aims to achieve control over other countries, saying:
“When it comes to ruling the world, we know very well where those who are trying to do exactly that have their headquarters,” adding “it’s not in Moscow.”
There’s no ambiguity about Washington’s aim, what Putin clearly meant, what everyone everywhere paying attention understands.
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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.”
The loss-averse President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a platform to “defeat ISIS, sought to uphold his election-season slogan by declaring “historic victories against ISIS” as a reason for his Wednesday decision to end US military presence in Syria.
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We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.
Amidst the steady gains of the Syrian army, which has reclaimed land from ISIS and various rebel factions since 2016, Trump has sought to market the destabilization of Syria as a success in his presidency.
Though US military withdrawal is always a cause to celebrate, a steady geopolitical undercurrent shows that the move only represents a shift in strategy in loss minimization for the Gulf-Israel-US axis in the Middle East.
The decision was decried byright wing war hawks, such as Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio–as well as many Hollywood liberalspinning it as evidence of alleged Putin-Trump collusion.
As Trump pulls troops out of Syria, we must acknowledge the enormity of the world’s failure to halt a humanitarian catastrophe . U.S exit benefits Russia, ISIS – still active, Iran & Assad. Was this agreed to during Putin/Trump’s 2 hour Helsinki meeting- without witnesses?
The Syria Democratic Forces urgedthe U.S. to not withdraw, warning that the cessation of support and presence will have “serious repercussions” that will “create a vacuum” in the region.
The withdrawal represents a loss in regime change objectives from the US and its allies, something the US envoy to Syria James Jeffrey explicitly has saidthe country is no longer interested in, coming soon after Syria regained over90 percent of its territory.
In September, it was revealed that Israel, in cutting its losses, stoppedarming and funding rebel groups that reports disclosed they were secretly supporting for years. Like its Zionist ally, the US too has decided to cut its losses and not further rock the boat between itself and Turkey.
Military failures and excessive expenditures have made direct war campaigns highly unpopular for the US following Iraq and Afghanistan. Since then, the US’s strategy post-war on terror has been to pursue more covert strategies.
These have been carried out through proxy wars, support of Western-backed rebel groups, media censorship and manipulation, and maintaining or increasing support and funding to NATO and GCC allies and Israel.
The US has supported the YPG in hopes of utilizing the separatist faction as a proxy and reliable alternative to other rebel groups , helping it gain territory and grounding against ISIS in Syria. This has put it in conflict with Turkey, who considers the YPG a “terrorist” group. While the US has more faith and assurance in the group as a reliable and long-term proxy ally, Turkey has long harbored deep antagonisms to the groups separatist ambitions.
The disagreement has prompted a dealby Turkey demanding that the US withdraw SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) presence, an alliance led by the YPG, from the Manbij by the end of 2018.
Both the US and Turkey hope that the tides will turn in NATO favor, Turkey plans to launch an operationagainst the Kurdish group soon, forestalling a complete territorial liberation and victory for Syria, and expected to prolong at least some US military presence in the country.
The second condition for US presence in the country, aside from the pretext of ISIS activity, is the stronger subtext of countering Iran’s allies.
Meanwhile, the ceasefire over Yemen has garnered similar reactions that applaud the US for supposedly pulling back on its campaigns of violence in yet another part of the world.
When the US Senate voted last week to end US support of the war in Yemen, passing 56 to 41, a buried provision of the House and Rules Committee’s “Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 would blockany vote or further discussion of the US involvement in the war in Yemen.
“6. Section 2 provides the provisions of section 7 of the War Powers Resolution (50 U.S.C. 1546) shall not apply during the remainder of the One Hundred Fifteenth Congress to a concurrent resolution introduced pursuant to section 5 of the War Powers Resolution (50 U.S.C. 1544) with respect to Yemen.”
On Thursday, President Trump signed the bill into law.
The US push for a UN brokered ceasefire in Yemen, like its withdrawal in Syria, comes after 4 years of incurred losses by the US-backed Saudi coalition after a devastating siege and blockade beginning in March 2015.
The ceasefire is pushed amidst continued aggression against Ansarullah forces in the past few days, including the US-Saudi launch of warplane raids against the Sana’a international airport.
Attempts at holding to the ceasefire continue to be impeded diplomaticallyand militarily by Saudi Arabia and the US, continuously reneging upon the agreement that it only hopes will disarm Yemeni forces, and thus, wage an easier final offensive against.
The U.S. and Saudi Arabia also hope to malign the terms of the truce to specify condemnation of Iran as allegedly playing a role in prolonging the conflict. The draft resolution, under US pressure, now condemns both Iranian support and “unmanned aerial vehicle attacks by the Houthis against neighbouring countries.”
Russia has rejected the draft resolution on these terms.
Despite the language, the Yemeni popular forces agreed to respect the terms of the ceasefire, responding only to foil the aggression launched by the Western supported Gulf coalition.
Yahya Saree, brigadier of the Yemeni armed forces, said that the Yemeni army and popular committees are “committed to the cease-fire in Hodeidah,” complicated by the recurrent US and Saudi violations.
The army spokesman added that more than mortar shells have been fired at Hodeidah’s residential areas in violation ofthe ceasefire, including the US-Saudi launch of 26 airstrikes across various locations in 24 hours.
Meanwhile, the US has refocused its efforts on both confronting Iran directly via soft power through sanctions and dealing with Israeli pressure to take action against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Last week, the US rejected Israel’s request to sanction Lebanon after the Zionist state began operations to destroy cross border tunnels on its side off the border.
Though Saudi Arabia and Israel have been intensely pressuring Lebanon to target Hezbollah in Lebanon, the US is reluctant to take further action, as a supplier of foreign and military aid to the country and its armed forces.
On Tuesday, the US expressed its ‘deep concerns” over its supposed growing political as well as military influence, condemning its allies in Lebanon’s government for giving it “cover” and “a veer of legitimacy.”
Across the Middle East, the US is reluctant to expend much more effort in direct involvement or combat–yet it does not signal willingness to stop its support of its allies in the region.
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Even the neo-con warmongers’ house journal The Guardian, furious at Trump’s attempts to pull US troops out of Syria, in producing a map to illustrate its point, could only produce one single, uncertain, very short pen stroke to describe the minute strip of territory it claims ISIS still controls on the Iraqi border.
Of course, the Guardian produces the argument that continued US military presence is necessary to ensure that ISIS does not spring back to life in Syria. The fallacy of that argument can be easily demonstrated. In Afghanistan, the USA has managed to drag out the long process of humiliating defeat in war even further than it did in Vietnam. It is plain as a pikestaff that the presence of US occupation troops is itself the best recruiting sergeant for resistance. In Sikunder Burnes I trace how the battle lines of tribal alliances there today are precisely the same ones the British faced in 1841. We just attach labels like Taliban to hide the fact that invaders face national resistance.
The secret to ending the strength of ISIS in Syria is not the continued presence of American troops. It is for America’s ever closer allies in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf to cut off the major artery of money and arms, which we should never forget in origin and for a long time had a strong US component. The US/Saudi/Israeli alliance against Iran is the most important geo-political factor in the region today. It is high time this alliance stopped both funding ISIS and pretending to fight it; schizophrenia is not a foreign policy stance.
There has been no significant Shia Islamic terrorist or other threat against the West in recent years. 9/11 was carried out by Saudi Sunni militants. Al Qaida, ISIS, Al Nusra, Boko Haram, these are all Sunni groups, and all Saudi sponsored. It is a matter of lunacy that the West has adopted the posture that it is Iran – which has sponsored not one attack on the West in recent memory – which is the threat in the Middle East.
The origin of this stance appears to lie in the fact that the Shia group Hezbollah proved to have the only military force among Israel’s neighbours capable of halting an Israeli invasion. After the disastrous invasion of Iraq resulted in an Iran friendly regime in Baghdad, the US decided for balance of power reasons to back Saudi regional power plays, only for Saudi Arabia to fall into the hands of the psychopathic warmonger Mohammed Bin Salman who escalated an already flawed policy to breaking point.
The chaos of this incoherent and counterproductive strategy is, peculiarly enough, what the neocons actually want. Perpetual war and destabilisation in the Middle East is their goal. One of the findings I had not expected to discover in writing Sikunder Burnes was that the British had been deliberately exploiting and exacerbating the Shia/Sunni divide as early as 1836 to the Imperial purpose. Today, by keeping Arab populations poor and politically divided, the neo-cons believe that they enhance the security of Israel, and they certainly do facilitate the access of western companies to the oil and gas of the region, as we see in destabilised Iraq and Libya.
The Clintons and Blair were the apotheosis of the capture of the mainstream “left” political parties by this neo-con Imperialist agenda in the Middle East. Sanders, Trump and Corbyn were the first politicians with any chance of power for many decades who did not pay lip-service to the neo-con agenda. Trump’s lack of enthusiasm for Cold War politics has been neutralised from any possible action on his part by the ludicrous lie that Russia hacked his election. Furthermore his greed has led to deals with Saudi Arabia which have largely undercut his declared preference for non-interventionism. And now in Syria, the very hint that Trump may not be fully committed to the pursuit of perpetual war has the entire neo-con establishment, political media and NGO, screaming in unison, both sides of the Atlantic.
I have written before that Trump may be a rotten President for Americans, but at least he has not initiated a major war; and I am quite sure Hillary would have done by now. For a non-American, the choice between Hillary and Trump ended up in balancing on one side of the scale the evil of millions more killed and maimed in the Middle East and the launching of a full on, unreserved new Cold War, against on the other side of the scale poorer Americans having very bad healthcare and social provision and America adopting racist immigration policies. I do hope that the neo-con barrage today arguing for more American troops in the Middle East, will help people remember just how very unattractive also is the Hillary side of the equation.
It is also very helpful in revealing the startling unanimity of our bought and paid for political, media and NGO class here in the UK.
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Following Wednesday’s unexpected and dramatic full and “immediate” withdrawal of all US forces from Syria, Turkey has announced it will not play ball on Iran sanctions. According to a translation of the Turkish president’s words on Thursday during a previously planned summit with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Ankara, journalist Abdullah Bozkurtreports,
“Turkish president Erdogan says Turkey won’t support US sanctions on Iran which he claims puts regional security and stability at risk, vows to take all measures to minimize impact of sanctions on trade between the two countries, pledges support to Iran in difficult times.”
This is huge given that the complete USreversal in policy comes following a phone call last week between President Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, wherein Erdogan is reported to have pressed the Kurdish problem and presence of US troops. The United States needs Turkey as a key regional economy if it hopes to effectively strangle Iran through sanctions. Without Erdogan, analysts believe, Iran will be able to weather the storm long term.
Turkish president #Erdogan says #Turkey won't support US sanctions on #Iran which he claims puts regional security and stability at risk, vows to take all measures to minimise impact of sanctions on trade between the two countries, pledges support to Iran in difficult times. pic.twitter.com/1wyMgyXEnu
For the past week Erdogan has threatened to launch a full-scale cross border assault on US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria, which Turkey has long considered a terrorist extension of the outlawed PKK. Currently Turkey’s military is reportedly mustering forces and tanks along deployment points at the Syrian border. Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar has said the military is “intensely” preparing for a major operation against Syrian Kurds in Manbij, Aleppo Governorate, and to the east of the Euphrates. Turkish Anadolu Agency reported the defense minister promised to “bury” the Syrian Kurds.
Prior to Trump’s announced Syria pullout, the promised large-scale assault and ongoing future operations would have eventually brought American troops and advisers under fire, who’ve found themselves in the awkward position since entering Syria of training Syrian Kurdish militias on the one hand, and coordinating broadly with NATO ally Turkey on the other.
However, Trump’s announced troop withdrawal has defused the crisis of American troops being caught in the middle, and along with it the possibility of a US-Turkey clash. Thus the US withdrawal is considered a major concession for Erdogan, which no doubt Trump was hoping to maintain as a key ally against Iran. That hope has now been dashed with Erdogan’s speech Thursday.
Turkey has undermined US policy of confronting Iran. Why? B/c US attacked Turkey by arming & training YPG/Kurds. Erdogan's drip, drip Khashoggi strategy brilliant. Kicked legs out fr under Trump's Saudi policy. Congress is voting against Saudi. US needs TR on board to hurt Iran.
This also comes a day after the US approved the sale of $3.5bn in missiles to Turkey amid negotiations for Ankara to buy anti-air defense missiles from Russia. On Wednesday the State Department informed Congress that the plan includes transfer of 80 Patriot missiles, 60 PAC-3 missile interceptors and related equipment. A number of analysts were quick to note the deal had been firmed up immediately prior to Trump’s announced Syria pullout.
But despite the multi-billion dollar weapons sale, hawks in Congress and in the president’s own administration will use Erdogan’s Thursday announcement to “stand by Iran” as fodder for arguing against bringing the troops home, and continuing Syria ground operations in order to counter Iranian expansion.
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“The President announced an apparently impulsive decision that shook the world, showed little sign of nuanced consideration, confounded top advisers and by the end of the day left Washington in chaos and confusion.” So goes a typical contribution from CNN, this time byStephen Collinson, pooh-poohing President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out some 2,000 US troops based in Syria.
Trump had, whether intentionally or otherwise, touched a sentiment that has seethed underneath the US character at stages of the imperium’s muddled history. “Torn between nostalgia for a pristine past and yearning for a perfect future,” scribbled that self-important sage and practitioner of US foreign relations, Henry Kissinger, “American thought has oscillated between isolationism and commitment.”
Isolationism has become a pejorative used to scold and denigrate any movement that supposedly moves the US imperial machine away from its policing role. Cheered on from the international relations galleries, the US as an international sergeant has hardly bettered the world, often finding its clay feet in countries it needlessly deployed forces to. (It’s all in the name of national security, of course.) Nor can it ever have been said to be truly isolationist in any strict sense.
Between the War of 1812 against Great Britain and the Spanish-American War of 1898, the US maintained a posture of intervention, interference and influence at the regional level, thus designating it an assertive “hemispheric” power. “Security,” suggested historian John Lewis Gaddis, “could best be assured… by making certain that no other great power gained sovereignty within geographic proximity of the United States.”
It also proved a violation of that keen injunction made by the all too intelligent President John Quincy Adams in his July 4th address in 1821, one that still sums up the US mission in all its doomed sanctimonious glamour. “Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will be her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.” But be wary of going abroad “in search of monsters to destroy”; to do so might make the US “dictatress of the world” while no longer being “the ruler of her own spirit”.
Trumpland is a tense, manic place, one where chiding allies and high-fiving authoritarian figures might be permissible; but it is also one that eschews the stifling nature of relationships that entangle. Alliances, like love affairs, can cloy after awhile. Accusations of infidelity and poor bedroom performance are bound to follow.
Such an approach is bound to leave powers collaborating with Washington in the lurch, a point exemplified by the latest Syria announcement. “Does the USA,” tweeted Trump on Thursday, “want to be the Policeman of the Middle East, getting NOTHING but spending precious lives and trillions of dollars protecting others who, in almost all cases, do not appreciate what we are doing? Do we want to be there forever? Time for others to finally fight…”
For Trump, no one should have raised an eyebrow, or had a complaint. “Getting out of Syria was no surprise. I’ve been campaigning on it for years, and six months now, when I very publicly wanted to do it, I agreed to stay longer.” In what was a classic deferral of authority in the Syrian campaign, a backhanded admission of sorts, he noted how “Russia, Iran, Syria & others are the local enemy of ISIS.” Why do their blood shedding work? “Time to come home & rebuild.”
Where Trump reverts to full throttle idiosyncrasy (his critics would term it immodest derangement) is his novel assessment of attitudes of those three states at imminent US withdrawal. “Russia, Iran, Syria & many others are not happy about the US leaving, despite what the Fake News says, because now they will have to fight ISIS and others, who they hate, without us.” The focus, rather, was on the US “building by far the most powerful military in the world. ISIS hits us they are doomed!”
To round off the announcement, one of the last stalwarts resisting the fever of resignation and sacking that has afflicted the administration, announced his departure. US Defence Secretary General Jim Mattis added his name to a pre-Christmas evacuation party that has made the Trump tenure one of the most eventful in US history. His view on leaving remained that of the more orthodox defenders of the US imperium, with its umbrella of “alliances”.
“While the US remains the indispensable nation in the free world,” he banally enunciated in his resignation letter, “we cannot protect our interests or serve that role effectively without maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies.”
Other politicians keen to keep the US brand in foreign military theatres were also dismayed at the move. House Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi was “shaken by the news because of the patriot that Secretary Mattis is.” The general had proven to be “a comfort to many of us as a voice of stability in the Trump administration.”
Senator Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), having argued that the US troops stationed in Syria were “vital to our national security interests” (he never coherently articulated how) seemed personally stung by the announcement. “I’m going to give you an honest evaluation. I am willing to support a Democrat if he followed sound military advice. I’m willing to fight a Republican if you don’t.”
After reading Mattis’ resignation letter, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) felt that the US was “headed towards a series of grave policy errors which will endanger our nation, damage our alliances & empower our adversaries.” For Rubio and his extensively spread ilk in the foreign interventionist complex, Adams’ warning of 1821, given an awkward Trump twist in 2018, is not just history but another, very distant country. Empire is its own global and lengthy commitment; to withdraw from any theatre is an admission that it is running out of gas and giving cheer to rivals.
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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]
An apparent order by US President Donald Trump for the withdrawal of all 2,000 US troops deployed in Syria over the next 60 to 100 days has sparked consternation and sharp opposition from the Pentagon, top Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill as well as Washington’s NATO allies.
The withdrawal order, which was leaked to the media by senior officials within the administration and the military, was given what apparently constituted a confirmation by a brief tweet from Trump Wednesday declaring,
“We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.”
This was followed later in the day by a statement from White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders, declaring,
“We have started returning United States troops home as we transition to the next phase of this campaign,” adding, “The United States and our allies stand ready to re-engage at all levels to defend American interests whenever necessary.”
The White House announcement was followed by yet another statement from the Pentagon, whose spokeswoman Dana White flatly contradicted the US president, declaring that “the coalition has liberated ISIS-held territory, but the campaign against ISIS is not over.” ISIS is an acronym for the Islamic State terror group.
“We will continue working with our partners and allies to defeat ISIS wherever it operates,” she said, giving no details as to a timeline, noting “force protection and operational security reasons.”
Meanwhile, Reuters quoted an unnamed US official as stating Wednesday that all US State Department personnel operating inside Syria were being evacuated from the country within 24 hours.
The official also said that the withdrawal plans flowed directly from an agreement reached between Trump and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a telephone conversation last Friday.
“Everything that has followed is implementing the agreement that was made in that call,” the official said.
The call was reportedly made to discuss Turkey’s concerns over the presence of the Syrian Kurdish separatist YPG militia near the Syrian-Turkish border. The YPG is the main element of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the proxy ground force that the US has backed in northeastern Syria. Erdogan, whose government views the YPG as an extension of the Turkish Kurdish separatist PKK, against which Ankara has waged a decades-long counterinsurgency campaign, has repeatedly threatened that a Turkish intervention against the YPG is imminent. Turkish forces, including armor, have reportedly been deployed to the border.
While Washington is no doubt anxious to avoid a potential military confrontation with Turkey, a member of the NATO alliance, the Trump White House has taken other measures aimed at restoring US-Turkish relations, which have been strained since the abortive July 2016 military coup, which enjoyed covert backing from Washington.
Just hours before the withdrawal announcement, the State Department informed Congress of a proposed $3.5 billion dollar deal to sell Turkey Patriot anti-ballistic missile systems, manufactured by Raytheon. Ankara had previously signaled its intention to buy S-400 surface-to-air missile systems from Russia. Such a purchase would have precluded Turkey’s purchase of US F-35 warplanes, and would have brought the country’s relations with NATO to a breaking point.
The announced withdrawal of US troops may signal a green light to the Erdogan government to launch its threatened invasion of eastern Syria and drive Kurdish forces from the border. In the absence of US troops, the YPG may seek to reach an accommodation with Damascus, restoring control of the region to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.
The illegal US occupation of Syria, begun under the Obama administration in October 2015 without authorization from either the United Nations or the Syrian government, was expanded under Trump, with at least 2,000 US troops deployed in northeastern Syria as well as special forces near the borders with Iraq and Jordan in the south.
The launching of the so-called war on ISIS in Syria signaled a shift from the failed US strategy of “regime change” based upon CIA support for Al Qaeda-linked militias in a bloody war to bring down the Assad government. US troops on the ground in Syria coordinated a savage campaign of airstrikes and bombardments that reduced the city of Raqqa and other towns controlled by ISIS to rubble.
While during the presidential campaign of 2016 Trump had vowed to withdraw US troops from Syria, Pentagon, intelligence and other national security officials had dissuaded him against acting on the promise.
Figures like Defense Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis,National Security Advisor John Bolton and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford have reiterated—including just weeks ago—a strategy based on an open-ended US military presence in Syria aimed at rolling back both Iranian and Russian influence and ultimately securing Washington’s original aim of overthrowing Assad and imposing a more pliant puppet regime in Damascus.
For his part, Dunford stated earlier this month that the US military was only one-fifth of the way towards its goal of training and arming a force of 35,000 to 40,000 proxy troops in northeastern Syria to provide “security” over what would effectively be a US protectorate carved out of the Middle Eastern country.
In occupying northeastern Syria, the US military and its proxies have seized control over roughly a third of the country, including, most crucially, Syria’s oil and natural gas fields as well as its eastern border with Iraq. By maintaining this domination, Washington’s aim was to preclude any reunification and reconstruction of the war-ravaged country and continue the murderous conflict until the US achieved its strategic aims.
The announcement of the planned withdrawal drew sharp criticism from leading Republicans in Congress, who appeared to have been blindsided by the shift in policy.
Senator Lindsey Graham described the withdrawal as “a huge Obama-like mistake,” invoking previous Republican criticisms of Obama for withdrawing US troops from Iraq in 2011.
“The decision to pull out of Syria was made despite overwhelming military advice against it,” Republican Senator Marco Rubio tweeted. “It is a major blunder. It [sic] it isn’t reversed it will haunt this administration & America for years to come.”
Also apparently caught unawares by the apparent shift in US policy in Syria was Washington’s closest NATO ally. British Defense Minister Tobias Ellwood issued a statement declaring that he “strongly disagreed” with Trump’s decision. “It [ISIS] has morphed into other forms of extremism and the threat is very much alive,” he said in a tweet.
Among those who did receive an advance warning was Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The US administration has told me that it was the president’s intention to pull out their troops from Syria. They clarified that they have other ways to wield their influence in that arena,” he told the Israeli daily Haaretz.
The main instrument of US “influence” has been devastating US airstrikes, which have been launched from bases in Qatar and elsewhere in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the US maintains a force of at least 5,000 troops across the border in Iraq, capable of delivering artillery fire into eastern Syria.
The announced withdrawal of US troops from Syria will undoubtedly intensify the internecine conflicts within the US ruling establishment and state, while at the same time increasing tensions within the Middle East. It is not a harbinger of any deescalation of the armed conflicts in the region. With or without “boots on the ground” in Syria, Washington’s military aggression against Iran and Russia will only intensify.
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It is worth starting by noting that a high percentage of the Integrity Initiative archive has been authenticated. The scheme has been admitted by the FCO and defended as legitimate government activity. Individual items like the minutes of the meeting with David Leask are authenticated. Not one of the documents has so far been disproven, or even denied.
Which tends to obscure some of the difficulties with the material. There is no metadata showing when each document was created, as opposed to when Anonymous made it into a PDF. Anonymous have released it in tranches and made plain there is more to come. The reason for this methodology is left obscure.
Most frustratingly, Anonymous’ comments on the releases indicate that they have vital information which is not, so far, revealed. The most important document of all appears to be a simple contact list, of a particular group within the hundreds of contacts revealed in the papers overall. This is it in full:
Tantalisingly, Anonymous describe this as a list of people who attended a meeting with the White Helmets. But there is no evidence of that in the document itself, nor does any other document released so far refer to this meeting. There is very little in the documents released so far about the White Helmets at all. But there is a huge amount about the Skripal case. With the greatest of respect to Anonymous and pending any release of further evidence, I want you to consider whether this might be a document related to the Skripal incident.
The list is headed CND gen list 2. CND is Christopher Nigel Donnelly, Director of the Institute for Statecraft and the Integrity Initiative and a very senior career Military Intelligence Officer.
The first name on the list caught my eye. Duncan Allan was the young FCO Research Analyst who, as detailed in Murder in Samarkand, appears in my Ambassadorial office in Tashkent, telling me of the FCO staff who had been left in tears by the pressure put on them to sign up to Blair’s dodgy dossier on Iraqi WMD. During the process of clearing the manuscript with the FCO, I was told (though not by him) that he denied having ever said it. It was one of a very few instances where I refused to make the changes requested to the text, because I had no doubt whatsoever of what had been said.
If Duncan did lie about having told me, it did his career no harm as he is now Deputy Head of FCO Research Analysts and, most importantly, the FCO’s lead analyst on Russia and the Former Soviet Union.
Now let us tie that in with the notorious name further down the list; Pablo Miller, the long-term MI6 handler of Sergei Skripal, who lived in Salisbury with Skripal. Miller is the man who was, within 24 hours of the Skripal attack, protected by a D(SMA) notice banning the media from mentioning him. Here Pablo Miller is actively involved, alongside serving FCO and MOD staff, in a government funded organisation whose avowed intention is to spread disinformation about Russia. The story that Miller is in an inactive retirement is immediately and spectacularly exploded.
Now look at another name on this list. Howard Body. Assistant Head of Science Support at Porton Down chemical weapon research laboratory, just six miles away from Salisbury and the Skripal attack, a role he took up in December 2017. He combines this role with Assistant Head of Strategic Analysis at MOD London. “Science Support” at Porton Down is a euphemism for political direction to the scientists – Body has no scientific qualifications.
Another element brought into this group is the state broadcaster, through Helen Boaden, the former Head of BBC News and Current Affairs.
In all there are six serving MOD staff on the list, all either in Intelligence or in PR. Intriguingly one of them, Ian Cohen, has email addresses both at the MOD and at the notoriously corrupt HSBC bank. The other FCO name besides Duncan Allan, Adam Rutland, is also on the PR side.
Zachary Harkenrider is the Political Counsellor at the US Embassy in London. There are normally at least two Political Counsellors at an Embassy this size, one of whom will normally be the CIA Head of Station. I do not know if Harkenrider is CIA but it seems highly likely.
So what do we have here? We have a programme, the Integrity Initiative, whose entire purpose is to pump out covert disinformation against Russia, through social media and news stories secretly paid for by the British government. And we have the Skripals’ MI6 handler, the BBC, Porton Down, the FCO, the MOD and the US Embassy, working together in a group under the auspices of the Integrity Initiative. The Skripal Case happened to occur shortly after a massive increase in the Integrity Initiative’s budget and activity, which itself was a small part of a British Government decision to ramp up a major information war against Russia.
I find that very interesting indeed.
With a hat-tip to members of the Working Group on Syria, Media, and the Propaganda, who are preparing a major and important publication which is imminent. UPDATE Their extremely important briefing note on the Integrity Initiative is now online, prepared to the highest standards of academic discipline. I shall be drawing on and extrapolating from it further next week.
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December 21st, 2018 by American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
A federal court has again blocked the Trump administration’s new asylum ban.
The American Civil Liberties Union, Southern Poverty Law Center, and Center for Constitutional Rights were in court earlier today successfully seeking the preliminary injunction in this case, East Bay Sanctuary v. Trump. The groups previously obtained a temporary restraining order that expired today.
Below is reaction to the ruling issued today by Judge Jon Tigar of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco:
ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, who argued the case, said:
“The court has once again made clear that the Trump administration cannot do an end-run around the decision by Congress to provide protection to vulnerable individuals regardless of where they seek asylum. This ruling will save lives.”
Baher Azmy, CCR legal director, said:
“This administration continues to try to govern without the most elementary understanding of the roles of the three branches of our government, that Congress makes laws and the courts are there to act as a check on both Congress and the president. So today, as before, the court made clear that the president does not have the power to overturn decades-old asylum law and the international law obligation to permit individuals to seek asylum from terrifying persecution at home.”
Melissa Crow, SPLC senior supervising attorney with the SPLC’s Immigrant Justice Project:
“Today’s ruling provides some hope that the Trump administration will be forced to reconsider its inhumane policies concerning asylum seekers. These policies and related practices have created the crisis at our southern border and can and will have tragic consequences until they are ended. In addition to fighting these policies in our courts, Congress should continue to expand its oversight in these areas and use its power to ensure federal agencies are in compliance with the law.”
The case, East Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. Trump, was brought on behalf of East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, Al Otro Lado, Innovation Law Lab, and the Central American Resource Center in Los Angeles.
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The Trump administration has closed the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Havana, as of December 10, requiring Cubans to travel to the office in Mexico City to acquire visas to the U.S.
Cuba has, for years now, been a recurrent theme on the agenda of the many U.S. administrations that have passed through the White House. The same phrases are repeated and the rhetoric is the same, and while bilateral relations had improved briefly, the Trump government has done away with that progress, almost entirely.
One of the latest moves took place on International Human Rights Day, which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “celebrated” by announcing that he had sent a letter to Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez – that reached the press before its recipient – in which he expresses his “concern” for human rights in Cuba.
Despite the fact that Cuba’s commitment to human rights has been demonstrated time and time again, and noted by representatives of multilateral organizations who have visited the island, U.S. attacks have not ceased. Immediately after the Pompeo letter was published, many Cuban figures and leaders responded through various media:
The President of Cuba’s Councils of State and Ministers, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, tweeted,
“The U.S. has no moral authority to talk about human rights; its discourse is hypocritical, dishonest, and reflects double standards. Does anyone know of a more cruel violation of human rights than the economic, commercial and financial blockade of Cuba?”
Also on Twitter, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez addressed Pompeo, demanding:
“Lift the blockade. Reestablish the issuing of visas for Cubans. Stop the repression of immigrants, minorities, and the poor.”
Likewise, the Foreign Ministry’s General Director for the United States Carlos Fernández de Cossío stated,
“If the United States were truly interested in the human rights of Cubans, it would not impose a criminal economic blockade that punishes the entire country, nor create more obstacles to orderly emigration and consular services, on which tens of thousands of Cubans depend.”
Fernández de Cossío was referring to the Trump administration’s decision to close the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office in Havana, as of December 10, requiring Cubans to make the journey to the USCIS office in Mexico City, which has assumed jurisdiction over immigration and travel to the United States previously addressed here.
It should be recalled that as of November last year, the majority of USCIS services in Cuba were transferred to U.S. consulates in other countries, but now, with the closure of the office in Havana, permanent residents in that country will be also affected. If while in Cuba, they lose their “green card” which serves as a re-entry permit to the United States, these individuals are obliged to rearrange their papers elsewhere.The decision will also affect the Family Reunification Program.
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Washington negotiates in bad faith, consistently making unacceptable demands, offering nothing in return but empty promises to be broken.
A key sticking point in US/Pyongyang talks is the Trump regime’s refusal to ease sanctions – nor offer any good faith guarantees, failing to yield anything on issues mattering most to the DPRK.
Last week, Russia’s UN and other international organizations in Vienna representative Mikhail Ulyanov noted that Pyongyang took “a number of important steps towards denuclearization,” expressing support for its actions.
He called on the Trump regime to respond “by similar steps toward easing sanctions pressure (and providing) security guarantees…in line with” Security Council Resolution 2375, provision 32, adding:
“Reliable international security mechanisms are necessary in the region to prevent recurrence of the situation which has developed around the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on the Iranian nuclear program.”
Resolution 2375, supported by Russia and China, imposed unacceptable sanctions on the DPRK after its sixth nuclear test – its program pursued solely for self-defense because of the threat of US aggression on the country.
Provision 32 calls for “keep(ing) the DPRK’s actions under continuous review…prepar(ing) to strengthen, modify, suspend or lift the measures as may be needed in light of the DPRK’s compliance, and, in this regard, expresses its determination to take further significant measures in the event of a further DPRK nuclear test or launch.”
No “international security mechanisms” and guarantees are good enough in dealing with the US, consistently breaching international treaties, conventions, and bilateral agreements unaccountably.
Since Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un met in Singapore last June, his regime failed to observe mutually agreed on principles.
Hardliners Pompeo and Bolton in charge of Trumps geopolitical agenda have treated the DPRK disdainfully, the way they conduct themselves in relations with all sovereign independent states.
Things began unravelling straightaway after June summit talks. Washington continues to maintain maximum pressure for full denuclearization and compliance with other US demands before agreeing to ease unjustifiable restrictions on Pyongyang.
North Korea’s Foreign Ministry slammed the Trump regime earlier, saying its government is still waiting for Washington to begin instituting what was agreed on during Kim Jong-un/Trump June 12 summit talks.
“(T)he US responded to our expectation by inciting international sanctions and pressure against the DPRK,” it stressed, “attempting to invent a pretext for increased sanctions against the DPRK.”
“As long as the US denies even the basic decorum for its dialogue partner and clings to the outdated acting script which the previous administrations have all tried and failed, one cannot expect any progress in the implementation of the DPRK-US joint statement, including the denuclearization.”
The DPRK showed good faith by ceasing its nuclear and ballistic missile tests, along with dismantling its nuclear test site.
In return, the Trump regime offered nothing but unacceptable hardline demands – proving it has no intention of observing summit principles agreed on, further proof it can never be trusted.
On Sunday, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry accused the Trump regime of “bringing the DPRK-US relations back to the status of last year, which was marked by exchanges of fire,” adding:
If Trump officials “believed that heightened sanctions and pressure would force Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons, it would count as (its) greatest miscalculation, and it will block the path to denuclearization on the Korean peninsula forever – a result desired by no one.”
Trump hardliners imposed “sanctions (on various) companies, individuals and ships of not only the DPRK but also Russia, China and other third countries…”
The Trump regime is repeating the unacceptable way its predecessors dealt with Pyongyang, maintaining hostile relations instead of taking steps to restore peace and stability on the peninsula, an objective it opposes, clear from its actions.
They show hardliners in charge of Trump’s geopolitical agena reject normalization with Pyongyang, choosing brinksmanship instead.
The Korean peninsula remains a hugely dangerous tinderbox because of their unacceptable actions. They risk a return to “fire and fury” rhetoric in the new year turning hot.
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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.”
On December 19, President Donald Trump once again used Twitter to announce that the US had defeated ISIS and that the US would be withdrawing its troops from Syria.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders confirmed that the US has started returning troops home and transiting to “the next phase of this campaign”. She recalled that “the United States and our allies stand ready to re-engage at all levels to defend American interests whenever necessary, and we will continue to work together to deny radical Islamist terrorists’ territory, funding, support and many means of infiltrating our borders”.
No further details were provided officially. According to media reports, State Department personnel were set to be evacuated from Syria within 24 hours. The alleged timeframe for troops pull-out, there are at least 2,000 US service members, is 60-100 days.
However, taking into account the wording of the statement and the US experience of “troops withdrawal” from Afghanistan and Iraq, it can be expected that the US will reduce the number of personnel deployed on the ground, but will not withdraw fully.
US Special Operations Forces will likely remain on the ground and additional forces of US-linked private military companies will be deployed to “defend American interests”.
The US announcement caused hysteria on social media among opponents of the Damascus government, Russia and Iran as well as among supporters of Kurdish armed groups – the YPG, YPJ and the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) clamed said that the SDF leadership was “shocked” and described the decision as a “stab in the back”.
Aldar Khalil, co-president of the executive body of the Movement for a Democratic Society (TEV-DEM), even came up with the statement that the SDF had never placed their hopes on foreign troops.
The TEV-DEM is a coalition of several Kurdish parties, the most powerful of them is the Democratic Union Party (PYD). Representatives of these parties lead the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), which is the political wing of the SDF.
It’s interesting to observe how every time when Washington announces a possible withdrawal from Syria the SDF political attitude moves from “the US is our only partner” to “we are ready for negotiations” and then returns back if the withdrawal does not happen.
If the withdrawal really does take place, it will open a window of opportunity for the SDF to negotiate a possible political deal with the Damascus government. On the other hand, if the SDF continues to pursue an anti-Damascus policy and to release unsustainable demands, the group may run out of time and face another Turkish military operation, like has happened in Afrin.
The war of words between Tony Blair and Theresa May over the last few days is quite revealing – not of Blair’s known position regarding the Brexit mess, but because the Prime Minister’s rant showed her weakness. Her position is unsustainable and the last thing she wanted was unwelcome comments from an ex-Prime Minister.
She had, after all, just come back from Brussels yet again, carrying no hope from the EU negotiators, but then she had offered no new ideas to put on the table. The agreed withdrawal text was ‘the best deal’ she could get, and Parliament had been refused the chance to vote against it – a vote she had promised then taken away.
The spat started with Tony Blair speaking on BBC’s Today programme* prior to a speech he was due to make later that day. His predecessor John Major, had already publicly given his support for 2 options: another referendum (the Peoples Vote) and revoking the Article 50 withdrawal. Blair had also backed the People’s Vote.
Screengrab from The Guardian
There is currently no majority in Parliament for May’s deal or any other, including crashing out of the EU with no deal at all, Blair said there could be majority support among MPs for a new EU poll if Parliament ended up “gridlocked”, and certainly more MPs are saying so. He added that
“he admired Mrs May’s determination but suggested that, with so many MPs opposed to the backstop and other parts of the deal, this was becoming a weakness and she must realise she was “in a hole… and there is literally no point in carrying on digging”.
All very reasonable but this did not please Theresa May. She issued an explosive statement, demonstrating just how touchy and vulnerable she’s feeling. She said the ex-PM’s backing for a second referendum was deliberately sabotaging her bid to make EU leaders compromise on the Irish backstop. To quote:
“There are too many people who want to subvert the process for their own political interests rather than act in the national interest. For Tony Blair to go to Brussels and seek to undermine our negotiations by advocating a second referendum is an insult to the office he once held and the people he once served. We cannot, as he would, abdicate responsibility for this decision.”
There are three points to note here. First, ‘her bid to make EU leaders compromise…’ After all this time and months of negotiation, her government has not abandoned its arrogant and self-important attitude towards the EU, something many of us find embarrassing. How many more times does the EU have to say ‘no more negotiations’ before they will be believed?
Secondly, her government’s ‘responsibility for this decision’. The decision is no decision. Brexit MPs and supporters have never produced a genuine plan for Brexit. It has been about nothing but leave the EU and its regulations. What happens then is not their problem. On May’s side there has been a complete failure to enable Parliament to come up with any ‘decision’. That is her problem, and indeed her responsibility.
Thirdly, according to the Independent, ‘Mr Blair is understood not to have visited Brussels for several months, and it is unclear what prompted the timing of Ms May’s attack.’ Blair, of course, defended his position, being somewhat better at that than May (he’s had a lot of practice), saying that if Parliament cannot come to a clear decision, it is logical to go back to the people.
May suggests that Blair’s latest comments are in his own interests. It is true that Blair has relentlessly popped up to pontificate about the current state of affairs, and that most of those occasions could be seen as self-advertisement and very much in his personal interest. (On the other hand, the Prime Minister may not be doing all this in her personal interest, but it’s certainly focussed on the interests of the Conservative Party and its survival.)
Blair ignored the people and the national interest when he joined President Bush’s military games. I and millions of others will find it difficult to ever forgive him for the damage done to Afghanistan and Iraq and their citizens** (and, Mr Blair, please don’t forget that somewhere in the dusty back rooms of the International Criminal Court is a case still to be heard against you for war crimes).
Word has it that whenever he criticises Jeremy Corbyn or suggests a more ‘centrist’ party, Labour membership increases. Sadly, that is now probably balanced by the number of members leaving because of Labour’s very weak position on Brexit. People joined Labour because of the social reforms promised in the Labour manifesto. They saw an end to the disastrous Tory ‘austerity’ ideology. How on earth Labour thinks it can deal with Brexit and deliver on its pledges is beyond me – and anyone else. Nor would the EU be willing to start negotiations all over again, regardless of Corbyn’s internationalism and negotiating skills.
So, where Brexit and the national interest are concerned, I have to admit Blair is right, and I never thought I would say that. But then, over the last two years I have had to revise my opinion about several, mostly rightwing, MPs who are doing their best to protect the UK from Brexit and the chaos that May’s predecessor David Cameron and her government have caused.
Blair and his predecessor John Major (who sensibly kept out of politics until Brexit reared its head) were largely responsible for the Good Friday Agreement, which not only brought an end to most of the violence in Northern Ireland; it resulted in the open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. For trade, traffic and people that border has become almost invisible. It is in the national interests of both the UK and the RoI to keep it that way, regardless of what Brexiters and Northern Ireland’s DUP MPs claim. The border issue is the very large and unavoidable hole in the Brexit road.
For Blair and Major, their legacy will include the Good Friday Agreement. For the politicians of that time, it is something to be proud of, something worth protecting. And if the negotiators could achieve that, then surely peace could be made between Leavers and Remainers without trashing the UK in the process.
Theresa May’s legacy, on the other hand, will be ‘the hostile environment’, a policy that shames this nation and its people. And the last two years under her leadership, with her ministers’ inability to negotiate in any real sense with the EU, is also deeply shaming. Even worse, they have blamed the EU for their failures, accusing them of bullying (Brexit Minister No. 1, David Davis, and blackmailing and bullying (Brexit Minister No. 2, Dominic Raab) while Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to the Soviet Union. This is no way to negotiate your way out of one of the biggest threats to this country’s stability.
Shame, embarrassment, humiliation and unwise rants against a former Prime Minister – what more could Theresa may add to her ‘legacy’ and its place in our history?
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Notes
*You can hear the whole interview here, starting at 2:19:52
**An estimate of 2.4 million Iraqi deaths from the invasion and the following years of violence and unrest.
With what Naomi Klein calls “galloping momentum,” the “Green New Deal” promoted by newly-elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) appears to be forging a political pathway for solving all of the ills of society and the planet in one fell swoop. It would give a House Select Committee “a mandate that connects the dots between energy, transportation, housing, as well as healthcare, living wages, a jobs guarantee” and more. But to critics even on the left it is just political theater, since “everyone knows” a program of that scope cannot be funded without a massive redistribution of wealth and slashing of other programs (notably the military), which is not politically feasible.
Perhaps, but Ocasio-Cortez and the 22 representatives joining her in calling for a Select Committee are also proposing a novel way to fund the program, one which could actually work. The resolution says funding will primarily come from the federal government, “using a combination of the Federal Reserve, a new public bank or system of regional and specialized public banks, public venture funds and such other vehicles or structures that the select committee deems appropriate, in order to ensure that interest and other investment returns generated from public investments made in connection with the Plan will be returned to the treasury, reduce taxpayer burden and allow for more investment.”
A network of public banks could fund the Green New Deal in the same way President Franklin Roosevelt funded the original New Deal. At a time when the banks were bankrupt, he used the publicly-owned Reconstruction Finance Corporation as a public infrastructure bank. The Federal Reserve could also fund any program Congress wanted, if mandated to do it. Congress wrote the Federal Reserve Act and can amend it. Or the Treasury itself could do it, without the need even to change any laws. The Constitution authorizes Congress to “coin money” and “regulate the value thereof,” and that power has been delegated to the Treasury. It could mint a few trillion dollar platinum coins, put them in its bank account, and start writing checks against them. What stops legislators from exercising those constitutional powers is simply that “everyone knows” Zimbabwe-style hyperinflation will result. But will it? Compelling historical precedent shows that this need not be the case.
Michael Hudson, professor of economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, has studied the hyperinflation question extensively. He writes that those disasters were not due to government money-printing to stimulate the economy. Rather,
“Every hyperinflation in history has been caused by foreign debt service collapsing the exchange rate. The problem almost always has resulted from wartime foreign currency strains, not domestic spending.”
As long as workers and materials are available and the money is added in a way that reaches consumers, adding money will create the demand necessary to prompt producers to create more supply. Supply and demand will rise together and prices will remain stable. The reverse is also true. If demand (money) is not increased, supply and GDP will not go up. New demand needs to precede new supply.
The Public Bank Option: The Precedent of Roosevelt’s New Deal
Infrastructure projects of the sort proposed in the Green New Deal are “self-funding,” generating resources and fees that can repay the loans. For these loans, advancing funds through a network of publicly-owned banks will not require taxpayer money and can actually generate a profit for the government. That was how the original New Deal rebuilt the country in the 1930s at a time when the economy was desperately short of money.
The publicly-owned Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) was a remarkable publicly-owned cedit machine that allowed the government to finance the New Deal and World War II without turning to Congress or the taxpayers for appropriations. First instituted in 1932 by President Herbert Hoover, the RFC was not called an infrastructure bank and was not even a bank, but it served the same basic functions. It was continually enlarged and modified by President Roosevelt to meet the crisis of the times, until it became America’s largest corporation and the world’s largest financial organization. Its semi-independent status let it work quickly, allowing New Deal agencies to be financed as the need arose.
The RFC Act of 1932 provided the RFC with capital stock of $500 million and the authority to extend credit up to $1.5 billion (subsequently increased several times). The initial capital came from a stock sale to the US Treasury. With those resources, from 1932 to 1957 the RFC loaned or invested more than $40 billion. A small part of this came from its initial capitalization. The rest was borrowed, chiefly from the government itself. Bonds were sold to the Treasury, some of which were then sold to the public; but most were held by the Treasury. The RFC ended up borrowing a total of $51.3 billion from the Treasury and $3.1 billion from the public.
Thus the Treasury was the lender, not the borrower, in this arrangement. As the self-funding loans were repaid, so were the bonds that were sold to the Treasury, leaving the RFC with a net profit. The RFC was the lender for thousands of infrastructure and small business projects that revitalized the economy, and these loans produced a total net income of $690,017,232 on the RFC’s “normal” lending functions (omitting such things as extraordinary grants for wartime). The RFC financed roads, bridges, dams, post offices, universities, electrical power, mortgages, farms, and much more; and it funded all this while generating income for the government.
The Central Bank Option: How Japan Is Funding Abenomics with Quantitative Easing
The Federal Reserve is another funding option before the Green New Deal. The Fed showed what it can do with “quantitative easing” when it created the funds to buy $2.46 trillion in federal debt and $1.77 trillion in mortgage-backed securities, all without inflating consumer prices. The Fed could use the same tool to buy bonds ear-marked for a Green New Deal; and since it returns its profits to the Treasury after deducting its costs, the bonds would be nearly interest-free. If they were rolled over from year to year, the government would in effect be issuing new money.
This is not just theory. Japan is actually doing it, without creating even the modest 2 percent inflation the government is aiming for. “Abenomics,” the economic agenda of Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, combines central bank quantitative easing with fiscal stimulus (large-scale increases in government spending). Since Abe came into power in 2012, Japan has seen steady economic growth, and its unemployment rate has fallen by nearly half; yet inflation remains very low, at 0.7 percent. Social Security-related expenses accounted for 55 percent of general expenditure in the 2018 federal budget, and a universal healthcare insurance system is maintained for all citizens. Nominal GDP is up 11 percent since the end of the first quarter of 2013, a much better record than during the prior two decades of Japanese stagnation; and the Nikkei stock market is at levels not seen since the early 1990s, driven by improved company earnings. Growth remains below targeted levels, but according to the Financial Times in May 2018, this is because fiscal stimulus has actually been too small. While spending with the left hand, the government has been taking the money back with the right, increasing the sales tax from 5 percent to 8 percent.
Abenomics has been declared a success even by the once-critical International Monetary Fund. After Prime Minister Shinzo Abe crushed his opponents in October 2017, Noah Smith wrote in Bloomberg,
“Japan’s long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party has figured out a novel and interesting way to stay in power – govern pragmatically, focus on the economy and give people what they want.”
He said everyone who wanted a job had one; small and midsized businesses were doing well; and the BOJ’s unprecedented program of monetary easing had provided easy credit for corporate restructuring without generating inflation. Abe had also vowed to make both preschool and college free.
Not that all is idyllic in Japan. Forty percent of Japanese workers lack secure full-time employment and adequate pensions. But the point underscored here is that large-scale digital money-printing by the central bank to buy back the government’s debt combined with fiscal stimulus by the government (spending on “what the people want”) has not inflated Japanese prices, the alleged concern preventing other countries from doing it.
Abe’s novel economic program has achieved more than just stimulating growth. By selling its debt to its own central bank, which returns the interest to the government, the Japanese government has in effect been canceling its debt; and until recently, it was doing this at the rate of a whopping $720 billion (¥80tn) per year. According to fund manager Eric Lonergan in a February 2017 article:
The Bank of Japan is in the process of owning most of the outstanding government debt of Japan (it currently owns around 40%). BOJ holdings are part of the consolidated government balance sheet. So its holdings are in fact the accounting equivalent of a debt cancellation. If I buy back my own mortgage, I don’t have a mortgage.
If the Federal Reserve followed suit and bought 40 percent of the US national debt, it would be holding $8 trillion in federal securities, three times its current holdings from its quantitative easing programs. Yet liquidating a full 40 percent of Japan’s government debt has not triggered price inflation.
Filling the Gap Between Wages, Debt and GDP
Rather than stepping up its bond-buying, the Federal Reserve is now bent on “quantitative tightening,” raising interest rates and reducing the money supply by selling its bonds into the market in anticipation of “full employment” driving up prices. “Full employment” is considered to be 4.7 percent unemployment, taking into account the “natural rate of unemployment” of people between jobs or voluntarily out of work. But the economy has now hit that level and prices are not in the danger zone, despite nearly 10 years of “accommodative” monetary policy. In fact, the economy is not near either true full employment or full productive capacity, with Gross Domestic Product remaining well below both the long-run trend and the level predicted by forecasters a decade ago. In 2016, real per capita GDP was 10 percent below the 2006 forecast of the Congressional Budget Office, and it shows no signs of returning to the predicted level.
In 2017, US gross domestic product was $19.4 trillion. Assuming that sum is 10 percent below full productive capacity, the money circulating in the economy needs to be increased by another $2 trillion to create the demand to bring it up to full capacity. That means $2 trillion could be injected into the economy every year without creating price inflation. New supply would just be generated to meet the new demand, bringing GDP to full capacity while keeping prices stable.
This annual injection of new money not only can be done without creating price inflation; it actually needs to be done to reverse the massive debt bubble now threatening to propel the economy into another Great Recession. Moreover, the money can be added in such a way that the net effect will not be to increase the money supply. Virtually our entire money supply is created by banks as loans, and any money used to pay down those loans will be extinguished along with the debt. Other money will be extinguished when it returns to the government in the form of taxes. The mechanics of that process, and what could be done with another $2 trillion injected directly into the economy yearly, will be explored in Part 2 of this article.
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Ellen Brown is an attorney, founder of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books including Web of Debt and The Public Bank Solution. A 13th book titled Banking on the People: Democratizing Finance in the Digital Age is due out early next year. She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 300+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com.
The following article confirms HuaWei’s lead in 5G telecommunications technology. In this regard, the campaign against Huawei including the arrest of CFO Meng Wanzhou is intent upon undermining China’s strategic lead in 5G including Huawei’s “All Bands Go to 5G.
At Global Mobile Broadband Forum 2018, Huawei released the “All Bands Go to 5G” strategy for the evolution towards a 5G-oriented wireless target network. This strategy provides suggestions for future development of the wireless network in three key aspects: simplified site, simplified network, and automation.
China is not only the largest producer of cellphones Worldwide, it is a leader in wireless technology. According to an August 2018 report by Deloitte Consulting: “China is winning the race against the United States to build a faster nationwide wireless network that uses 5G technology”
The US dirty tricks campaign (supported by Canada) indelibly seeks to prevent China from taking the lead:
Unless the U.S. moves more quickly, it will be at a major disadvantage when it comes to creating dominant new companies in the emerging space….
Accordingly, countries that adopt 5G first are expected to experience disproportionate gains in macroeconomic impact compared to those that lag,” the report’s authors said.
U.S. companies have been sounding the alarm over a purported race against China over 5G, perhaps playing to the fears and strategic desires of the Trump White House. (Fortune, August 7, 2018)
The following article reviews the evolution of 5G technology and China’s role.
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 20 December 2018
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I. Global commercial use of 5G networks has now entered the fast lane. Massive wireless connectivity has become an inevitable trend.
Data traffic of global mobile broadband (MBB) increases rapidly. By H1 2018, the data of usage (DOU) for a number of global operators has exceeded 10 GB, and that in certain Middle East regions has even reached 70 GB. Data traffic is becoming a necessity following air, water, and food in our daily lives. Releasing data traffic helps to promote positive MBB business cycle in the global wireless industry and ushers in a new era of traffic operation.
New connections based on wireless technologies rapidly develop and are realized among individuals, families, and industries. By October 2018, new fixed wireless access (FWA) services have been put into commercial use on about 230 networks. About 75 million families can now enjoy the benefits of FWA-based home broadband (HBB) services. In the future, the larger bandwidth capability of 5G will provide fiber-like HBB user experience and enable diverse home entertainment applications such as 4K/8K UHD video and AR/VR. At the same time, new IoT connections are becoming a new source of potential growth for operators. LTE NB-IoT is undergoing rapid development and has seen 58 commercial networks around the world, with industry applications providing millions of connections such as smart gas, water, white goods, firefighting, and electric vehicle tracking. 5G technologies will offer more reliable connection capabilities with shorter latency. Massive wireless connectivity has become an inevitable trend.
In 2018, the development of the global 5G industry is accelerating. According to the 5G spectrum report published by GSA, the UK, Spain, Latvia, Korea, and Ireland have officially released spectrum resources dedicated for 5G by August 2018. In addition, 35 countries have scheduled related plans. The 5G industry chain is steadily growing more and more mature. Huawei has released 5G commercial CPEs in 2018, and multiple 5G smartphones will be launched in 2019. According to the report released by GSMA in November 2018, 182 global operators are conducting tests on 5G technologies and 74 operators have announced plans for 5G commercial deployment. Global commercial use of 5G networks has now entered the fast lane.
5G development will enable more commercial application scenarios and promote the continuous development of a digital society. Under such circumstances, Huawei has proposed a new eMBB industry vision for Cloud X featuring smart terminals, broad pipes, and cloud applications. For example, Huawei has shifted the most complex processes of rendering, real-time computing, and service content to the cloud. Thanks to transmission data streams using large bandwidth and ultra-low latency on the 5G network, as well as encoding and decoding technologies that match the cloud and terminals, applications such as Cloud AR/VR can be deployed anywhere anytime.
In 1956, John McCarthy organized the Dartmouth Conference and officially proposed the definition of “artificial intelligence” (AI) for the first time. After 60 years, machine learning and deep learning are now undergoing rapid development. AI technologies can be adopted in the communication industry. AI-based automation of network planning, deployment, optimization, and service provisioning will enable network O&M to be simplified, unleash network potential, and make networks more intelligent.
II. “LTE Evolution+5G NR” is gaining industry’s consensus for 5G wireless target networks.
In the 5G era, wireless spectrum evolution is divided into two phases:
Phase 1: Sub-3 GHz spectrum resources evolve to LTE and 5G NR high frequency bands are introduced.
Phase 2: Sub-3 GHz spectrum resources evolve to 5G NR. “LTE Evo+NR” is realized on the target network.
Therefore, target network evolution in the 5G era can be summarized as “LTE Evolution+5G NR”. In the process of achieving this goal, the global wireless network faces the following challenges:
OPEX increases year by year. From 2005 to 2017, global operators’ OPEX/revenue percentage is increased from 62% to 75%. In the future, the coexistence of 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G will increase the complexity of network O&M. In particular, site TCO is high. Site deployment still faces several issues such as difficult site acquisition, high engineering costs, and high site rentals.
4G basic services fall back to 2G or 3G. Generally, insufficient 4G network coverage causes VoLTE services to fall back to 2G or 3G, deteriorating voice experience. NB-IoT/eMTC services also require better 4G network coverage. As a result, it is difficult for operators to shut down 2G and 3G networks. The coexistence of four RATs leads to more complex network operation and presents difficulties in reducing OPEX.
III. 5G-oriented simplified networks are built to effectively meet challenges and promote 5G business success.
Peter Zhou, CMO of Huawei Wireless Network Product Line, illustrated the evolution strategy for 5G-oriented wireless target network. This strategy aims to help operators resolve the preceding challenges and commercialize 5G. The evolution strategy includes three key aspects: simplified site, simplified network, and automation.
Source: Huawei
Simplified site enables full outdoor base stations and facilitates site acquisition, deployment, and TCO saving.
Along with the development of Moore’s Law, the 7 nm technology has enjoyed widespread commercial adoption throughout the chip manufacturing industry, and BBUs are becoming more and more integrated. In recent years, lithium battery technology has seen rapid development, and the energy density of lithium batteries is far more superior to that of lead-acid batteries. The development of new technologies makes full outdoor wireless base stations a reality. Peter Zhou pointed out, “Using componentized outdoor BBUs, blade power modules, and blade batteries, full outdoor macro base stations can be deployed on poles without shelters or cabinets. This greatly reduces the upgrade cost of existing sites, decreases the difficulty and cost of obtaining new sites, and helps operators reduce TCO by 30% and above.”
Antenna reconstruction is required for 5G deployment on the C-band. Currently, 70% urban sites cannot deploy new antennas due to insufficient antenna space. In order to resolve this problem, Huawei proposes the “1+1” antenna solution. That is, one multi-band antenna is used to support all sub-3 GHz bands, and one Massive MIMO AAU is used to support C-band NR. In total, two antennas are able to support all operator’s frequency bands. This solution greatly simplifies site space, reduces site OPEX, and realizes 5G NR deployment with insufficient antenna space.
Simplified network realizes the construction of an LTE full-service foundation network and ensures “Zero Fallback” for three basic services.
In the 5G era, the coexistence of multiple RATs (2G/3G/4G/5G) results in complex networks and high O&M costs. Therefore, basic voice, IoT, and data services need to be migrated to the LTE network so that the LTE network becomes the bearer network for basic services and 2G and 3G networks enter the life cycle development phase. Peter Zhou emphasized that, “The LTE network needs to be built as a full-service foundation network to achieve ‘Zero Fallback’ for basic services such as voice, IoT, and data. Therefore, LTE must be planned based on the coverage of basic services rather than the traditional population coverage.”
Aiming to help operators achieve the goal of “Zero Fallback” for three basic services, Huawei has launched the innovative CloudAIR solution to implement cost-efficient and fast LTE coverage on low frequency bands. About 100 networks have deployed CloudAIR. Additionally, Huawei’s innovative RuralStar solution designed for suburban and rural areas effectively satisfies operators’ requirements for low-cost MBB networks, further bridging the digital divide, and allowing more people to enjoy the convenience brought by wireless communications and MBB. RuralStar has been put into commercial use on 35 networks across the world.
AI-based automation is implemented for customers’ work flows to fully unleash network potential.
In the past few years, telecom networks have made many attempts in O&M automation. However, automation for all scenarios and all service processes requires systematic thinking and innovation in terms of architecture and key technologies. Peter Zhou claimed that, “The architecture of AI-based MBB network automation consists of three layers: Cloud AI, network AI, and site AI. Hierarchical automation is performed among these layers. Site AI focuses on single-site automation and embeds AI capabilities into site devices to build smart base stations. Network AI focuses on O&M closed loop and single-domain automation to implement unified management and control in a single domain. Cloud AI provides smart model training, enables cross-domain automation, and supports automatic closed-loop operation for all scenarios and the entire life cycle covering planning & design, deployment, optimization & maintenance, and service provisioning.”
Based on the preceding architecture, two shifts and one capability building need to be completed to enable risk prediction and intelligent identification on networks and automated management and control of mobile networks.
A shift from network element-centric O&M to scenario-centric O&M: In the past, automation mainly focuses on network element O&M. In comparison, AI-based automaton provides functions based on customers’ operation scenarios to implement full-process automation (covering planning & design, deployment, optimization & maintenance, and service provisioning) and full-scenario automation.
A shift from network management to the convergence of control and management: If network management and control cannot be fully converged, configuration management as well as performance monitoring and control cannot effectively form a closed loop. In the future, MAE (Mobile Automation Engine) will implement management and control convergence, effectively handle all tasks in a single domain, and realize single-domain automation.
Building the AI capability at sites: Based on the AI chipset and neural network algorithm, AI capability is implemented in base stations to support automatic feature deployment, performance monitoring, and parameter self-optimization and realize single-site automation.
Peter Zhou said:
“Simplified site, simplified network, and automation help operators reduce TCO, simplify the network architecture, reduce operation costs, and fully unleash the network potential. This lays a solid foundation for the successful commercial use of 5G networks and helps the industry to identify the goal and direction for future network evolution. Huawei also wishes to work more closely with industry partners to innovate continuously, build a 5G business ecosystem, and finally achieve a better connected digital society.”
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The “humanitarian” tragedy in Yemen has been in the news a lot recently. What most media and NGOs fail to clarify is that this is not some mysterious “famine” that has organically transpired as a result of a war – the Yemeni people are being deliberately starved and that starvation is aided and abetted by the UN and a number of its agencies via the illegitimate Resolution 2216 that should never have been adopted in the first place.
Many have applauded the recent senate vote that appeared to favour debate over the potential U.S withdrawl from Yemen but more astute observers and analysts picked up on the cynical use of the “Farm Bill” to obfuscate and bury the real intention to remain in Yemen:
UN chief, Antonio Guterres has been congratulating himself on “progress made” in the recent Yemeni peace talks in Sweden. An alleged ceasefire was negotiated between Ansarullah (Popular Resistance movement) and the Saudi-backed “rebels”. However, a recent tweet from Yemeni journalist, Hussain Albukhaiti, has revealed that this claim by the U.N is another red herring:
Since Sweden agreement&ceasefire More than 40 #Saudi#UAE strikes on #Hodeidah#Yemen&hundreds of coalition backd forces artillery shells on – Police station in 7July street – killo16 road – Kamaran cigarettes factory – Alshaab City – Nana factory Also cluster bombs injurd 3kids
On Friday 14th December I put some questions to the Yemen Minstry of Health speaker, Dr Yousef Al-Haderi.
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Vanessa Beeley: Thank you so much for giving your time to answer my questions. The first must be, in your opinion, what is the war in Yemen about and where will it end?
Dr Yousef Al-Haderi: Since the first revolution in Yemen on 26 September 1962, these great powers in the world have managed to contain the Yemeni people politically, intellectually and economically so they did not fight us as they have during this ugly war. They enslaved us and ruled us through their puppet presidents.
Yemen’s geographical location, the third best in the world, and Yemen’s rich resources, oil, gas, rock, agricultural and fishing abundance and diversity of landscape should make Yemen one of the world’s wealthiest countries but this has not happened because of this policy of “making us poor to keep us under control”.
The movement that originated in norther Yemen, Saada, called Ansar Allah or as western media like to say, the Houthis, rose out of the poorest societies and it identified the root cause of Yemen’s poverty – the American system and that is why they adopted the slogan “death to the American regime. Their revolution which succeeded on 21st September 2014 then provoked American agents in the region, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, to try to persuade the new government in Yemen, represented by Ansar Allah,to continue the mercenary path of dependence upon the U.S that had been taken by former presidents in Yemen. The Ansar Allah movement and leadership rejected this move completely.
When the global powers, represented by the American, British and Saudi regimes saw that the Ansar Allah movement was able to eradicate all the terrorist entities in Yemen, such as Al Qaeda, which previous Yemeni regimes had been unable to achieve, they sensed the threat that the Ansar Allah movement represented for their colonial projects which had been supported by the deliberate planting of these terrorist groups and they launched the aggression against Yemen on 26th March 2015.
The Saudi-led “Operation Decisive Storm” was launched by the former Saudi Ambassador to Washington (current Saudi Foreign Minister) Adil Al-Jubair from inside the White House. On the first day terrible massacres were carried out among the children of Yemen, one of them in the north of the capital, Sana’a (Bani Hawat) and in the middle of the capital. The same night, children and civilians were deliberately targeted in their homes as they were sleeping. Twenty three days later on the 20th April 2015, a powerful neutron bomb was used in Sanaa and every area of the city was bombarded. Thousands of homes were destroyed. All of these crimes were committed with U.S endorsement and support.
The endgame is clear. After the Saudi coalition was able to bring down a number of Yemen’s provinces in the south – a campaign that was characterised by chaos, murder, assassinations, terror and fear – as witnessed by international NGOs and journalists. We witnessed the establishment of dozens of secret torture and detention centers, similar to those established by the U.S in Iraq, the Abu Ghraib prisons. Even those who support the U.S and its Saudi coalition could not return to Aden, they were refused entry by the U.S Saudi Emirates. The Island of Socotra and the province of Hadramaut were occupied by the U.S. The provinces to the east of Yemen on the border with Oman were occupied by Saudi proxies and forces to open a channel for its oil to the Arabian Sea in the south of the Arabian Peninsula. The Yemeni people living there experienced deepening hunger, poverty and disease, they received no benefits from this occupation.
Today, we are nearing the end of the fourth year of this aggression, which has been mobilised by all the most powerful countries of this world, all the resources of this world and all the armies of this world using all the weapons at their disposal. Weapons that are internationally probhibited like U.S and U.K supplied cluster bombs. We can say that the war will not end until the alliance of aggression breaks down and the Saudi regime collapses. The alliance has attempted to weaken us with every weapon in their arsenal – bombing, starvation, disease, cholera, terrorism, diptheria, malnutrition, malaria – but they do not understand that we will not yield until Yemen is free, we will never surrender even if they occupy our homes and lands.
The cessation of this aggression depends entirely upon the vigilance and humanity of the peoples of this world, not upon their criminal governments who profit from our suffering.
VB: Do you have any hope in the current peace talks in Sweden?
Dr YaH: There is no hope in the current peace conversation, and the reason is that the other side did not come to dialogue with us, but sent their mercenaries who not have the ability to make decisions. They do not even have the right to return to their country while they claim they “liberated” which translates as an occupation. When we have American, Saudi Arabian and the UAE government representatives at the same table with Ansar Allah, we will be able to say there is hope.
VB: Most people in the West have been sold the idea that fugitive/resigned former President Mansour Hadi is the head of the interationally recognised government in Yemen.You are the Health Minister of the current, constitutionally elected Yemeni government.Please describe the government in situ. Does it have popular support? Why will the international community not recognise this government?
Dr YaH: I am the official spokesman of the Ministry of Health in the Yemeni capital Sana’a, which was formed constitutionally through the Constitutional Council of Representatives, which is still in Sana’a, which is more than the quorum. I believe that the continuation of the international recognition of the Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi as president of Yemen is due to American and Saudi money and the ruling of the United Nations. Hadi presented his resignation on January 19th 2015 and that was preceded by the end of his presidency of consensus on 21st February 2014. His presidencey was extended by one year but he was never constitutionally elected. For me, there is no legitimacy for those who will murder their own people, besiege and starve their own people. He destroys his own people upon instruction from the U.S and the Saudi coalition.
Everyone can see that the entities that promote American hegemony are effectively besieging or killing their own people or putting economic pressure upon their people or simply ensuring the spread of chaos in their country. We see this in Yemen, Syria, potentially in Iran and North Korea among many others. Unfortunately most of the world is subjected to the devastation brought about by American hegemony in varying degrees. The U.S believes, it alone can determine who or what is legitimate or illegal. “Legitimacy” must be determined by the people of sovereign nations not by external and predatory forces.
Hadi’s internationally recognised government has been living, for four years, in the luxury hotels of Riyadh, Dubai, Cairo and Istanbul. It does not exist in Yemen, even in those areas it claims to have “liberated”. It can never go back to Yemen. Our government in Sana’a is recognised by the people of Yemen. It brings stability, freedom and justice. There is no suppression of doctrinal, sectarian or partisan considerations at all.
The number of people living in the areas of Yemen occupied by the Saudi coalition does not exceed 25% of the 27 million Yemenis. 75% live in the areas controlled by the Sana’a’s government and the popularity of this coalition government is evident in the fighting fronts and popular support. They are supported by religious and national factions alike and there is a marked absence of public rejection or uprising against them – something which is a common occurrence in the provinces of the coalition-occupied south.
VB: Does Iran recognise the Yemeni government? Why has Iran not taken a more active role in defending the rights of Yemenis diplomatically?
Dr YaH: Unfortunately the Iranian government has not done enough against the injustice that is the aggression against Yemen. We find more popular support from the American people than from the Iranian government. They refuse to recognise the Sana’a government in terms of diplomatic support and to be honest Iran’s inaction effectively supports the humiliation of Yemen by the International Community. The Iranian media support covers only economic or humanitarian aspects of the conflict and never addresses the root causes. We have never received any support from Iran even though we would always maintain that the Iranian people are just as humane as the American people and all peoples who stand with the Yemeni people against their global oppressors.
[For further insight into the lack of Iranian and Russian support, listen to Vanessa Beeley’s interview with historian, Dr Isa Blumi – here ]
VB: Has Russia played a role in Yemen since the Saudi coalition aggression began in March 2015?
Dr YaH: The Russian regime, like the American regime, has special objectives in Yemen and in the Middle East in general. There is an exchange of roles between the two superpowers in the world, in Syria and in Yemen. Russia adopted resolution 2216 without using the veto. This reflects the extent of its complicity. Russia welcomed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the 20th summit in Argentina despite the discovery of his crimes against Yemen and against the Saudi journalist Martyr Jamal Khashoggi.
VB: How many children have died of preventable diseases since the conflict began, because of the blockade on food and medicine?
Dr YaH: The statistics that I will list for child mortality are not complete as the Ministry of Health is unable to record accurate figures due to specific issues. There are many children who die silently – they die in their homes after their parents were unable to provide them with hospital because of poverty, siege and lack of money, just for example.
Malnutrition: – 2,300,000 children (less than 5 years) with 1:3 suffering from a type of malnutrition, including 400 thousand children with severe acute malnutrition, one child dies every ten minutes (according to UN reports And the World Health Organization).
2890 Yemeni people have been infected with diphtheria since its re-emergence (October 2017 to date), of whom 169 died, children represent 90% of these statistics.
Cholera and associated diarrhea: – About 1357,998 Yemeni people have been affected during the period 27 April 2017 to date, of whom 2678 died, children represent 70% of those deaths.
Malaria and dengue: – There are about half a million Yemeni people suffering from malaria and 30 thousand died from the disease, the majority are children.
130 medicines needed to treat chronic diseases and life saving medicines are not available in the Ministry of Health because of the economic blockade and the closure of Sana’a airport since 8 August 2016 until today. These drugs include kidneys, renal dialysis, cancer, diabetes, thalassemia, heart, epilepsy. Tens of thousands have died as a result of the lack of these medicines, the majority are children.
Since the closure of Sana’a airport on August 8th 2016 until today, some 200,000 Yemenis have been unable to travel abroad to receive appropriate medical treatment that is not available in Yemen. So far, 28,000 patients have died, 40% are children.
A 12 years-old Abdullah is 11 kilogram little more than the average one year old, despite his family is too poor but they spent the little money they have trying to save him. Millions of #Yemen's children can't be treated because their families in desperately poor#YemenCantWaitpic.twitter.com/8aHmnQEu0Z
VB: Have attempts to import necessary lifesaving items been delayed or denied entry and by whom? Could you give an example of those items?
Dr YaH: Oil and basic foodstuffs and 120 pharmaceuticals have been banned from entering Yemen except through very complex conditions and only by the sea not through Sana’a airport which is closed. Because of the U.N Verification and Inspection mechanism imposed on ships entering Djibouti port, medicines remain blockaded there for months and many medicines will have perished by the time they finally enter Yemen, if at all. Wheat, for example, will be rendered inedible after storage in high temperatures. The procedures do nothing more than add cost onto the items for the already poverty-stricken civilians. The closure of Sana’a airport and the transferral of the National Bank to Aden (from Sana’a) also have a negative effect. For kidney treatment, for example, Sirolims, Ticrolims, Brucraf, Salsypt, Kidney Dialysis, Insulin etc we can only provide enough for 5% of patients through international organisations.
VB: How are the 5000 (or more) kidney patients coping bearing in mind they are unable to receive the necessary dialysis?
Dr YaH: Eight thousand dialysis patients receive the lowest weekly washings (2 washings each week), although it should be minimum 3 washings per week, and instead of 5 hours per wash, we do only 3 hours (to create time for the rest of the patients) Where dialysis machines work 24 hours / 7 days – 4 dialysis centers have been closed by the Saudi bombardment. 27 centers are still functioning but we are unable to provide equipment or to repair devices thanks to the blockade. We struggle to have enough of the washing solutions. If we did not have the cooperation of some international organisations and the help of Yemeni society, we would have witnessed another humanitarian catastrophe. Even so, we cannot cover all needs and 1200 patients have died of renal failure as a direct consequence of the blockade.
VB: Does it still apply that any surgeries for cancer will be performed free of charge?
Dr YaH: In Yemen, there is no health insurance for citizens at all. Health care is charged for even in public hospitals although the payment is less than in private hospitals. This was one of the main reasons for the uprising in September 2014. The new Minister of Health, appointed in June 2018, introduced a policy to reduce the pain and suffering of patients, especially those with cancer and they have access to free procedures in public hospitals in Sana’a. A new law has also been introduced which will enter into legislation in 2019 – the Fund for the care and treatment of cancer. We hope that this will go some way to relieving the suffering of cancer patients.
VB: How many hospitals remain operational across Yemen?
Dr YaH: In areas governed by the Sana’a government, 79 hospitals provide health services to 75% of Yemenis (24 million Yemenis out of 27-30 million) and 2,000 health centers throughout Yemen.The Saudi coalition air force destroyed 345 health center hospitals completely destroyed or partially destroyed. Of these, 4 hospitals are run by Doctors Without Borders and about 45% of hospitals and health centers have stopped working because of the blockade. Health work in Yemen is only 55% operational and they are overwhelmed by the spread of epidemiological, psychological and physical diseases.
VB: Right before the talks in Sweden, some injured Yemenis were reported to have been allowed to fly out. How many were able to fly out?
Dr YaH: The 200,000 people who suffer from these physical diseases, such as cancer, heart, kidneys, bone etc have been collectively punished by the coalition of aggression’s refusal to allow them to travel. 28,000 have died as a result. The World Health Organisation and the UN expressed a willingness to conduct two trips per month, 100 patients each trip. Those who managed to travel before the peace talks are the war wounded, whether fighters from the frontlines or the civilians injured in Saudi bombing raids. No more than 50 such patients have been able to leave for treatment and one trip was organised as a prerequisite for the Sana’a delegation to participate in the “peace” talks. 50,000 injured are still waiting for permission to travel for treatment, thousands of them with permanent disabilities.
VB: What is needed most in terms of Humanitarian Aid? What is actually being given in adequate quantities?
Dr YaH: The Yemeni people do not require any assistance actually. They only require that the blockade and siege is lifted and the aggression stopped and that they be allowed to live in peace. We will regulate our own problems peacefully and easily. This is the most important demand from the Yemeni people.
VB: Who is ultimately responsible for the genocide in Yemen?
Dr YaH: Those who are officially responsible for the genocide in Yemen are those who own the money of mass destruction with which they buy weapons of mass destruction from the countries of mass destruction endorsed by the United Nations of mass destruction and met with global silence while Yemen is being destroyed. The American regime is mainly responsible, the UN and the Security Council follow closely as legal cover for the crimes committed by the US and its Saudi and UAE partners enabling them to commit the atrocities against the Yemeni people. Saudi Arabia and UAE are number three in the responsibility league table and then you have, as number four, the fugitive, illegitimate President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and his political team at the UN or working as ambassadors in other countries.
Finally, I always welcome you and your questions at any time and whatever the questions without reservation, and thank you deeply for your constant solidarity with us. People are two types (either your brother in religion or your counterpart in creation) and we live in one land and one race and live one life and our destiny is one … all respect to you and the people of the world.
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Vanessa Beeley is an independent journalist, peace activist, photographer and associate editor at 21st Century Wire. Vanessa was a finalist for one of the most prestigious journalism awards – the 2017 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism – whose winners have included the likes of Robert Parry in 2017, Patrick Cockburn, Robert Fisk, Nick Davies and the Bureau for Investigative Journalism team. Please support her work at her Patreon account.
Featured image: Sara, a 10-year-old at al Thawra hospital in Hodeidah, Yemen, is half paralyzed by diphtheria, an illness that can be prevented by vaccination. She subsequently had to leave the hospital because of the violence. UNICEF/Touma/Yemen/2018
Imagine, for a moment, a foreign government spying on U.S. citizens, using the most sophisticated cyber-intelligence software available. This government particularly targets students and, through the use of fake Facebook accounts and other means, smears those that criticize its policies. Consider a government that, in addition to these activities, provides U.S. members of Congress with elaborate, all-expenses-paid trips to beautiful resorts, in addition to very generously funding their election and re-election campaigns. It then writes legislation favorable to it, that these members of Congress introduce and vote on.
Currently, Washington, D.C. is all agog over allegations that Russia attempted to influence the 2016 presidential election that brought the incompetent, unstable and erratic Donald Trump to the White House. The investigation into possible collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign makes almost daily headlines. Politicians of all stripes invoke it in one way or another to get favorable sound bytes on the evening news.
Yet no one is investigating, or even talking about, the other country whose government is spying on U.S. citizens, and which is, for all intents and purposes, buying member of Congress and writing U.S. legislation. That country, of course, is Israel.
For years, the U.S. has had a ‘special’ relationship with Israel. This includes providing Israel, a wealthy, prosperous, First World nation, with more foreign aid than it gives to all other nations combines. It means vetoing in the United Nations any resolution criticizing Israel for its many war crimes and crimes against humanity. It means basing U.S. foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, not on what is best for the U.S., but what is best for the Israel.
Although the nature of this ‘special’, albeit dysfunctional relationship has long been known, a documentary recently made by Al-Jazeera clearly exposes it.
In ‘The Lobby’, a pro-Palestinian Jewish man goes undercover as a pro-Israeli lobbyist. He is able to gain the trust and confidence of some of the key players in the pro-Israel lobby network. Among the things exposed by this film are the following:
Pro-Israel lobbies work to counter the growing BDS movement on campus through lies, distortions and half-truths;
AIPAC (American Israel Political Affairs Committee) has a very close relationship with the editorial board of the influential Washington Post;
There is a structured method used by pro-Israel lobbies to get journalists to ask the questions the lobbyists want asked;
Intimidation of BDS activists includes threats of assassination;
Information on BDS activists and activities is collected and used against them, if possible.
What, one wonders, would the reaction be if Russia, for example, was working closely with a prominent U.S. newspaper to assure that its point of view was reflected? How would members of Congress react if the government of Iran were found to be spying on U.S. students? Yet, due to the ‘special relationship’ that the U.S. has with Israel, violation of U.S. laws are overlooked; the privacy of U.S. citizens can be illegally invaded, they can be threatened with bodily harm by representatives of a foreign government, and the U.S. government will simply look the other way.
It would be one thing if some ragtag groups attempted, even successfully, to commit the crimes against U.S. citizens that Israel commits. But these organizations are well-financed and are affiliated with, and have the complete support of, the Israeli government.
In the movie, the director-general of the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs discusses Israel’s close association with the so-called ‘Foundation for Defense of Democracies’, a Washington, D.C.-based neo-conservative think tank. Sima Vaknin-Gil says this, when discussing Israel’s efforts to track BDS activists: “Data gathering, information analysis, working on activist organizations, money trail. This is something that only a country, with its resources, can do the best. We have FDD. We have others working on this.” Included in FDD’s very pro-Israel bias are frequent criticisms of Iran’s charitable organization EIKO, ‘Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order’, whose mission is to increase the number of schools and other services to the people of Iran.
Why is this allowed? Why does the U.S. allow a foreign government to spy on its citizens for the sole purpose of discrediting them, influence its newspapers and otherwise interfere in its workings? It is certainly a cyclical pattern.
Pro-Israel lobbies ‘donate’ to the campaigns of members of Congress, who, in turn rely on those very generous donations. In order to keep them flowing in future campaigns, the Congress men and women must then do their master’s bidding. As they do so, the rewards, in the form of contributions and ‘fact-finding’ or ‘educational’ trips, for themselves and their spouses to exclusive Israeli resorts, are provided. With these contributions, the Congress members are re-elected, and they, in turn, reward their benefactors. Any close look at those benefactors’ illegal activities in the U.S., or internationally, simply won’t do.
As a result, apartheid is supported, since any nation with separate laws depending on the ethnicity of the citizen must be considered apartheid. Genocide is also supported and financed, every time Israel bombs the Gaza Strip. Violations of international law are condoned with each new illegal settlement.
The maneuverings of pro-Israeli lobbies which operate far outside of U.S. laws are exposed in this documentary. The way money is laundered, campaign contribution laws are violated, and all the attending corruption are on clear view, often vocalized by the very people committing these crimes.
‘The Lobby – USA’ is an amazing and important film, one that has been marginalized by the U.S. media, much like ‘My Name is Rachel’, the story of Rachel Corrie, a young woman from the U.S. who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer, was repressed short years ago. But the Internet now is far stronger and more ubiquitous then it was when Rachel Corrie’s movie was made. Israel is learning that it can’t hide forever, and ‘The Lobby – USA’ is an important tool in exposing its crimes in the U.S. Its international crimes are well-known, in part due to social media (despite Facebook’s censorship of much information about Israel’s crimes). It is a multi-part film, and is available on Youtube.
It is vitally important for anyone who believes in democracy and justice, and sees those hallmarks of society being violated. A major violator of them on the international stage is Israel. ‘The Lobby – USA’ points this out, with clear, irrefutable facts.
