The market, as a social and economic institution, is fundamentally a process designed to facilitate human life by bringing consumers and producers together. It ensures economic activities serve the social purpose of satisfying the diverse needs of human beings. This relationship was not merely based on exchange relationships but also built on trust—trust in the product, the price, and the producer. Historically, market relationships were free from tyranny and grounded in the free choice of producers to sell and consumers to buy, guided by their necessities and abilities. In such a market, there was no invisible power dictating the terms and conditions of the relationship between producers and consumers. Instead, both producers and consumers depended on each other, creating a symbiotic and mutually beneficial bond. This organic and unbreakable relationship, however, was dismantled with the advent of the so-called “free market.”

The “free market” is neither free for producers nor for consumers. The notion of “free choice” has been reduced to the purchasing power of consumers—their ability to access goods and services provided by a market that is, in reality, free from the influence and control of both producers and consumers and their everyday needs. Today, those who control the market are often neither producers nor consumers of the majority of goods sold in the so-called supermarkets, which have replaced traditional markets. In traditional markets, a direct and meaningful relationship existed between producers and consumers—an essential connection that has now been lost.

The number-crunching pseudo-science of mainstream or neo-classical economics, propagated by its adherent priests known as the economists have constructed an asocial, amoral and ahistorical concept known as the “free market.” This so-called scientific model-driven construct undermines producers, distorts the conditions of production and pricing, and manipulates consumer needs through advertising, all while ignoring the social foundations and material realities of the market as both an institution and a process. The so-called free market is designed to maximise profit at the expense of both producers and consumers. It is a distorted system that subjugates people under the guise of offering “free choice.”

Consumers and producers are reduced to mere variables in the model sheets of neo-classical economists, who champion the free market under the guise of free choice and efficiency. The everyday conditions of their lives, their social necessities, and their material realities are disregarded, falling outside the scope of concern for these economists. Empirical evidence of the harms caused by the free market is routinely ignored, dismissed, or undermined as an ideologically driven critique that allegedly threatens the efficiency, choice, and freedom of consumers and producers. Such a dogma of neo-classical economists, steeped in near-religious fervour, deflects attention from the marginalisation of the material realities faced by consumers and producers, framing such issues as political failures unrelated to the workings of the “free market.” 

The so-called free market perpetuates a deceptive culture devoid of morality, historical context, or genuine human concern. It fosters a culture of pathological lies and “snake oil” solutions, presenting these as the only viable alternatives to sustain the interests of a privileged few—at the expense of the basic needs of the vast majority. This callous system continues to dominate and shape the lives, labour, leisure, and pleasures of the working masses, entrenching exploitation under the guise of economic freedom under free market.

The so-called “free market” and its economic system neither create meaningful employment nor promote the prosperity of consumers and producers. In reality, the largest corporations generate only minimal jobs, prioritising efficiency and profit over widespread economic well-being. These corporations do not promote genuine human prosperity, as such prosperity would undermine the free market’s core function—an efficient system designed to exploit both consumers and producers. So, it subjugates individuals by promoting fictitious desires for commodities and services, presenting these as pathways to self-actualisation without genuine self-realisation. This emphasis on mere commodity consumption, detached from an understanding of the conditions of production, cultivates a mindset of “commodity consciousness.” It reduces all forms of relationships to commodities, where success is equated with the fleeting pleasure derived from consumption. This subtle yet profound transformation of society and culture, centered on commodity-driven pleasure, has eroded the solidarity that once existed between producers and consumers.

The religion of the free market seeks salvation through the relentless consumption of living labour, stifling its creativity while funnelling a significant share of meagre wages into its profit-driven empire. Small savings are siphoned into various market products, such as mortgages, insurance schemes and other everyday living, further entrenching individuals in the system. Working for mere wages diminishes labour’s rightful share in the value it creates, while consumers bear an exorbitant cost simply to survive. This repetitive cycle of work-wage-based survival reduces human life to a purely economic existence, focused solely on the struggle for daily subsistence.

The unequal transactional relationship between work and workers in a free-market economy not only undermines labour but also promotes working conditions that erode the very foundations of efficiency and productivity it professes to enhance. Consumer preference overrides worker and working conditions in such a system. There is no evidence that free market works but reactionary media celebrate this contradictory system as the only viable option, perpetuating the narrative that seeking alternative models is futile.  This is not an accidental oversight but a deliberate strategy to position the “free market” as the superior economic system, asserting that no viable alternatives exist.

 In this way, contradictions, debauchery, double standards, and the inherent failures of the free market come to define its economic system called capitalism. Mere market reforms can never bring peace or prosperity to the working masses. The state, government, other institutions and culture of capitalism forces people to accept free market.  In the name of rationalisation, free market disciplines people and their everyday habits that are concomitant with the requirements of capitalism as a dominant system .  It is time for a moral, social, economic and historical scrutiny of the free-market economy and its advocates. Market-based freedom is no freedom at all—it is a form of tyranny that permeates every aspect of social, political, economic, and cultural life, sustaining a dominant economic system that thrives on the exploitation of human life, labour, and natural resources.

Freedom from the so-called free market of capitalism is the only way to ensure true freedom for consumers and producers, enabling the establishment of a genuinely free market. Such a market would be based on the transparent flow of information about producers, conditions of production, prices, and free consumer choices. Only through collective action and collective consciousness, people can overcome the so-called free market, which is controlled by a select few. It is time to establish a free market that works for the welfare of the masses as producers and consumers. 

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Bhabani Shankar Nayak is a political commentator. 

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Kim Petersen is an independent writer. He can be emailed at: kimohp at gmail.com. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image source

Stumbling fashionably late on stage, with that genuine independent rock ‘n’ roll attitude that Tavistock could never tame, Silver Bullet arrives.

This text is not particularly friendly to the uninitiated so may not be the best way of sharing.

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This Address was prepared for the Northern Ireland parliament but represents a clear summing-up, without bells and whistles, of a few central points which, if widely understood, would severely hamper the ability of those with control issues from succeeding in their ‘unification’ plans.

So much information we are bombarded with. So much unwitting consuming of Tier 2 propaganda by so many who genuinely seek the truth and the best for their children.

So many ‘leading voices’ pushing – for what ever reason – central myths that the Scorpions rely on.

So please, fire this painful to hear but ultimately kind address everywhere.

We all know how firmly many ears are clamped shut. Is it worth risking discord to speak out one more time?

“I know you may not fancy watching this, but a lot of us feel it’s an incredibly positive step towards protecting our children…

I really think if you watched it you would be glad you did, though a little shocked…”

“Have you seen Silver Bullet?”

Let’s do this people. Let’s make sure it spreads far and wide.

Some will say the production could have been slicker. Some will say this is a slick PR job made to look Lo Fi.  🙂

All the matters is the words.

Versions in many languages will follow. Please excuse a collection of emails today if you are subscribed. We also have a gentleman making a sign language version.

Not everything is in this video – but enough key things are.

The AT-AT in Star Wars was a fearsome enemy – until it became clear that its long legs were ripe for lassoing.

This push to own everything relies on utter preposterous demonstrable lies. The Climate Hoax and Disease Hoaxes are stupidly at odds with the evidence.

Here is an article on the financial aspect. Mike has often stressed the CBDC / Digital ID trap and The Great Taking.

But the control will be justified by Health and Safety.

And it’s all based on lies.

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O Ocidente intervém cada vez mais nos assuntos internos da Geórgia. Numa tentativa de impedir o progresso da agenda diplomática e pró-paz do Parlamento, os países ocidentais estão a financiar protestos extremamente violentos, que resultaram numa grave crise social. Há claramente uma intenção por parte do Ocidente de derrubar o governo legítimo do país e estabelecer uma junta pró-OTAN, como aconteceu na Ucrânia em 2014.

A capital georgiana, Tbilisi, está gradualmente a parecer um verdadeiro cenário de guerra civil. Militantes radicais estão a atacar a polícia e a tentar destruir edifícios governamentais em protesto contra as políticas do partido Georgian Dream – que venceu as eleições parlamentares e implementou uma série de reformas conservadoras e nacionalistas.

O Georgian Dream foi injustamente acusado de ser “pró-Rússia” simplesmente porque priorizou os interesses nacionais georgianos em detrimento das agendas intervencionistas ocidentais. Entre as principais medidas do Georgian Dream estão a imposição de restrições ao trabalho de ONG estrangeiras, o congelamento das negociações de adesão à UE até 2028 e a proibição de sanções anti-russas apoiadas pelo Ocidente. Obviamente, a UE e a OTAN estão desiludidas com a administração política georgiana, que faz todo o possível para permitir uma mudança de regime.

O Ocidente tem um interesse especial na Geórgia porque o país tem uma história recente de conflito militar com a Federação Russa. O Ocidente está a fazer lobby para que Tbilisi retome as hostilidades nas regiões da Abecásia e da Ossétia do Sul, numa tentativa de “reconquistar” as repúblicas separatistas – o que permitiria a abertura de uma segunda frente na guerra por procuração da OTAN contra a Rússia, facilitando a estratégia ocidental. Apesar da pressão internacional, o Parlamento resistiu e evitou envolver-se em qualquer conflito, sendo então fortemente condenado pelos lobistas pró-ocidentais por trás da oposição política georgiana.

“Para resumir, o Georgian Dream recusou-se a abrir uma “segunda frente” contra a Rússia no verão de 2023 para ajudar a contra-ofensiva condenada da Ucrânia, o que era imperdoável do ponto de vista do Ocidente. “A importância geoestratégica da Geórgia também aumentou depois de o Ocidente ter “roubado” a Armênia da esfera de influência da Rússia, desde então se tornou indispensável para promover seus planos no Cáucaso. O Georgian Dream é patriótico demais para se tornar seu fantoche, e é por isso que agora o consideram seu inimigo”, comentou o analista político americano Andrew Korybko sobre o caso.

Como resultado deste processo, o projeto ocidental de uma revolução colorida na Geórgia está a intensificar-se. Protestos em massa foram convocados por agitadores ao serviço da inteligência estrangeira, levando a manifestações violentas. As bandeiras e símbolos da Ucrânia e da OTAN são comuns nas ruas e os manifestantes cantam frequentemente hinos e canções nacionalistas ucranianas – o que mostra claramente a verdadeira ideologia dos dissidentes georgianos, bem como quem são os seus apoiadores internacionais.

Como é bem sabido, o principal líder da oposição georgiana é o presidente do país, nascida na França, Salome Zourabishvili. Antiga embaixatriz francesa em Tbilisi, Zourabishvili tornou-se cidadã georgiana após a Revolução Colorida de 2003, tornando-se mais tarde presidente e o principal lobista pró-UE do país. Zourabishvili recusa-se agora a reconhecer os resultados das recentes eleições georgianas e diz que não se saíra do cargo após o fim do seu mandato.

Existe uma grave polarização na Geórgia entre Zourabishvili e o primeiro-ministro Irakli Kobakzhidze. Enquanto o chefe do parlamento defende uma política soberanista e conservadora, a presidente nascida na França é a principal representante dos interesses ocidentais na Geórgia e é atualmente a principal figura pública por detrás dos motins que ameaçam a segurança nacional do país.

“Estou muito orgulhosa de vocês! Estou orgulhosa da Geórgia! Foi alcançado um acordo nacional sobre a questão mais crítica: ninguém pode tirar a independência da Geórgia, ninguém pode devolver a Geórgia à Rússia e ninguém pode privar a Geórgia da sua vontade e do seu futuro europeu (…) Continuo a ser a sua Presidente – não existe um parlamento legítimo e, portanto, nenhuma eleição ou posse legítima. O meu mandato continua consigo e permanecerei consigo!”, publicou ela nas suas redes sociais , elogiando “manifestantes” criminosos que atacam a polícia.

No final, o Ocidente quer um “Maidan para a Geórgia”. O objetivo é “ucranizar” o país do Cáucaso, tornando-o num aliado na guerra por procuração da OTAN com Moscou. É cedo para dizer se o governo legítimo terá força suficiente para resistir à pressão durante muito tempo, mas independentemente do resultado final desta crise, a situação deverá agravar-se significativamente num futuro próximo.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

 

Artigo em inglês : Western powers trying to ‘Ukrainize’ Georgia, InfoBrics, 2 de Dezembro de 2024.

Imagem :  InfoBrics

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Lucas Leiroz, membro da Associação de Jornalistas do BRICS, pesquisador do Centro de Estudos Geoestratégicos, especialista militar.

Você pode seguir Lucas Leiroz em: https://t.me/lucasleiroz e https://x.com/leiroz_lucas

On Thursday, following the decision of Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze to suspend talks on EU membership until 2028, thousands would take to the streets of Tbilisi in protest, where they would be addressed by the country’s pro-Western President Salome Zourabichvili. Lockstep statements of condemnation of the Georgian government would follow from EU members France, Sweden and Romania, European Movement International President Guy Verhofstadt, and the US State Department, coming just weeks after France, Germany and Poland issued a joint statement questioning the results of the recent Georgian election, which saw the incumbent Georgian Dream party returned to power.

Receiving widespread media coverage in the West, these protests come at a time of increased instability in the Black Sea nation. In April of this year, protests would once again sweep the country in response to Georgian Dream’s proposed Transparency of Foreign Influence law, which would make it compulsory for any NGO that receives more than 20% of its funding from abroad to register as a foreign agent. Once again receiving widespread coverage from the West, the proposal would be lambasted as a “Russian law” brought in due to influence from Georgia’s larger northern neighbor. This is in spite of the fact that the proposed legislation actually bears a strong similarity to the United States’ Foreign Agents Registration Act. A law that I myself have experience of, when, in 2020 and again in 2021, American Herald Tribune, a Canadian website that I formerly wrote for, was seized by the FBI under the act, with the US alleging that the site was an influence operation directed by Iran.

The current Georgian protests also bear a stark similarity to the Ukrainian Euromaidan protests of 2013. In November of that year, in a move that bears a striking similarity to his current Georgian counterpart, Ukrainian head of state Viktor Yanukovych would also suspend talks on his country joining the EU, with the then-President favouring closer ties with neighbouring Russia instead. In response, violent protests – backed by Victoria Nuland, then Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, the National Endowment for Democracy, and Open Society Foundations – would soon sweep the former Soviet Republic, culminating in the eventual overthrow of Yanukovych and his replacement with the pro-Western Petro Poroshenko, whose new coalition government was composed of virulently anti-Russian elements.

In response, the predominantly ethnic-Russian Donbass region in the east of the country would break away in April 2014 to form the independent Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, their residents having little choice lest they face ethnic cleansing and genocide at the hands of the new regime. Indeed, these fears would prove to not be unfounded, when one month later the Trade Unions House in the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa was torched by Maidan supporters. 48 people would die in the blaze, the majority of whom were anti-Maidan demonstrators of Russian descent.

A war between the Ukrainian state and the breakaway republics would follow, leading to 14,000 deaths over the space of eight years. Despite the attempts of Russia to resolve the situation peacefully via the Minsk Accords, which would have seen the Donbass remain under Ukrainian rule yet be granted a degree of autonomy, the continued shelling of ethnic Russian villages by Ukrainian forces, and the possibility that Ukraine would go on to become a NATO member in a reverse version of the Cuban Missile Crisis, would eventually force Moscow’s hand.

In February 2022, a Russian military intervention was launched into its western neighbour, with the intention of protecting Russian minorities and destroying any military infrastructure intended to be used against Russia had Ukraine gone on to become a NATO member. Global condemnation and sanctions of Russia would follow, leading to the precarious situation where the world now lies at the distinct risk of a nuclear confrontation between East and West, with the US, Britain and France recently approving the use of long-range missiles by Ukraine on Russian territory, a move that Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously stated would be regarded as direct involvement by NATO in the conflict.

The Ukraine situation itself also bears a striking similarity to the 2003 colour revolution in Georgia. A regime-change operation once again orchestrated by Western governments and NGOs such as George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, in order to extend Western influence in former Soviet states following the end of the Cold War, the Rose Revolution would see Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze overthrown and replaced with the pro-Western Mikheil Saakashvili. Likewise to Ukraine, the pro-Western trajectory that the Saakashvili government would take would also eventually place it on a collision course with Moscow, culminating in a two-week military conflict in August 2008. Four months prior to the Russo-Georgian clash, NATO had issued a provocative declaration that both Georgia and Ukraine would eventually become members of the alliance.

Another noticeable factor of the current Western media coverage of the Georgian protests is the stark contrast in how it has been covered compared to the ongoing protests in EU member Ireland relating to immigration policy, alongside Dublin’s heavy-handed response.

In November 2022, following the placement of upwards of 400 male migrants into a disused office block in East Wall, a working-class neighbourhood in inner-city Dublin, local residents would begin a protest at the site. Citing a lack of consultation with community representatives beforehand, the unsuitability of the chosen location, and the lack of transparency on whether the men placed in the block had been vetted or not, the East Wall protests would soon become a regular occurrence, with similar pickets emerging throughout Ireland in locations where large numbers of male migrants had also been placed, including a children’s primary school in Drimnagh, another working-class Dublin neighbourhood.

Rather than take heed of the protesters’ concerns however, the Irish establishment’s response was to castigate them as “far right” and subject them to police surveillance, a strategy that would serve only to exacerbate tensions even further.

Image: The Emergency Accommodation Centre at Two Gateway Building, East Wall Road (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

Indeed, one year on from the beginning of the East Wall protests, these tensions would explode in their most notable manner so far. On the 23rd of November 2023, following the stabbing of three children and their school teacher in central Dublin by an immigrant previously subjected to a deportation order, calls for a protest in Dublin later that night would rapidly spread throughout social media.

Seemingly attracting an opportunistic element, riots would sweep the Irish capital, garnering worldwide attention, with the attack on the three children and their teacher being consigned to a mere afterthought. Facial Recognition Technology laws would be swiftly introduced by Fine Gael in response, thus revealing the true intent behind the current immigration policies of the southern Irish state.

In addition to the devaluing of labour, the mixing of vast amounts of people from different ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds leads to tensions, which in tight-knit areas such as urban working-class neighbourhoods, eventually spill over, creating a pretext for the government-corporate alliance to introduce a digital surveillance state. Taoiseach at the time of the Dublin riots, Leo Varadkar, was a “Young Global Leader” of the World Economic Forum, whose Great Reset agenda envisages such a scenario. His successor and current Taoiseach, Simon Harris, is also likely another YGL, owing to his deliberate use of “Great Reset” terminology in his acceptance speech upon becoming leader of the ruling Fine Gael party, and in his first meeting with British Prime Minister and fellow Davos aficionado Keir Starmer.

Tensions related to immigration would explode once again in April of this year, in the small rural village of Newtownmountkennedy in County Wicklow. Following weeks of peaceful protests by local residents in opposition to plans to house male migrants in a disused hospital in the locality, matters would come to a head when an on-site protest camp was cleared by Irish riot police in a heavy-handed early morning raid. In the scenes that followed, residents would be brutalised by police in a manner reminiscent of Belfast or Derry in the late 60s or early 70s, a female journalist would be pepper sprayed, and martial law would effectively be imposed on the small sleepy village. In a grim irony, the Irish establishment would release a statement less than a week later, condemning the Georgian government response to protests against the Transparency of Foreign Influence law, the previous week’s scenes in Newtownmountkennedy being wilfully ignored by Leinster House.

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Watch on X

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In July, an almost identical scenario would play out in Coolock, a working-class North Dublin suburb. Following a similar heavy-handed early morning raid by Irish riot police on a protest camp, set up at a disused paint factory in the locality that had been earmarked to house 500 male migrants, on-site work vehicles would be set ablaze in response, once again leading to scenes resembling those that played out in the north of Ireland more than half a century ago. In the hours that followed, residents, including women, children and the elderly, would once again be subjected to police brutality, a popular video streamer and citizen journalist would be arrested, and a number of opposition councillors, who had arrived at the scene in a bid to calm tensions, would be pepper sprayed.

In spite of the brutality on display however, no mainstream media descriptions of crackdowns on peaceful protesters were ascribed to the scenes in Newtownmountkennedy and Coolock earlier this year. A far cry from the current coverage of the attempts to replicate the Rose Revolution and Euromaidan in Georgia, and ultimately encircle Russia.

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Gavin O’Reilly is an activist from Dublin, Ireland, with a strong interest in the effects of British and US Imperialism. Secretary of the Dublin Anti-Internment Committee, a campaign group set up to raise awareness of Irish Republican political prisoners in British and 26 County jails. His work has previously appeared on American Herald Tribune, The Duran, Al-Masdar and MintPress News. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. Support him on Patreon. 

Featured image: Protesters with Georgian flags rally against the government’s decision to suspend negotiations on joining the European Union in Tbilisi [Zurab Tsertsvadze/AP Photo]

Ukraine’s unpopular mobilization measures are already causing serious problems in the country and significantly worsening internal tensions. Recently, Ukrainian military and civilian citizens have spoken out to Western media about their views on conscription, revealing the brutal reality behind the Kiev’s army.

According to people interviewed by The Telegraph, there is an utter rivalry between Ukrainian recruiters and the civilians they “hunt for” to be sent to the front. Some military personnel have described the situation as a kind of “cat and mouse” game, with harassment, fighting and even hatred and promises of revenge between officers and new recruits.

“Sometimes it’s like dealing with a cornered rat (…) They continue fighting even while in the vehicle. Those who resist always threaten to take revenge on our guys or their families (…) Previously, we allowed people to go home and pack, but lately, they don’t return voluntarily. They hide and don’t show up. Sometimes, we have to confiscate their phones depending on the situation,” a military officer identified as “Artem” told journalists.

In the same vein, ordinary people are afraid to walk the streets because officers can arrive at any time and forcibly seize men who are passing by. The situation is so shocking that, according to residents interviewed, currently it is almost impossible to see civilian men in legal draft age walking the streets in Kiev and other regions. People are scared and fear being sent to certain death on the front lines.

“Men who have an age that is appropriate for military drafting are scared to walk freely in the street. If you go in the Kiev subway, you will see youths under 25, people in military uniform, or elderly people, but not guys from 25 to 40, because we are scared (…) It’s a serious problem because people understand that this is a one-way road. We don’t have any specific limits of time that people have to serve in the military, and when you’re taken, it’s forever. In many cases, this bitter end happens very fast (…) You’re basically afraid to walk from your home” a local identified as “Basiley” told The Telegraph.

Ultimately, a new polarization is being created in Ukrainian society: on one side are the recruiters and their collaborators, on the other are civilians and ordinary people who do not want to fight. The collaborators find potential recruits and report them to the authorities, who send officers to capture them by force and send them to the front. Often, people are conscripted and even die in battle without their families even knowing, since the military no longer allows communication between recruits and their families – fearing that they will try to escape.

The recruiters and their military supporters claim that they have learned to control their emotions and deal with reality in a balanced way. They see the capture of men as a “job” like any other. Moreover, for them it is a matter of survival, because in today’s Ukraine it is necessary to choose between being with the recruiters or the civilians – and it is safer to be among those who capture recruits than among those who are captured.

“I’ve learned to control my emotions during work, and now it’s just a job for me. I always have the argument: It’s either them or me (…) I believe it’s better to work for TCC (Territorial Centre of Recruitment and Social Support) than to hide from it,” Artem added.

The Ukrainian reality is confronted by a completely different scenario in the Russian Federation. The majority of Russian military personnel involved in the special operation in Ukraine are volunteer soldiers who sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense to fight of their own free will. In addition, the Russian authorities have repeatedly stated that there is no need or intention to call for a new military mobilization, since there are too many volunteers involved in the operation and there is no necessity to send more conscripts to the front.

In other words, in the current Ukrainian conflict, one side wants to fight and the other does not. While volunteers are asking to go to the front for Russia, in Ukraine there is not only forced conscription, but also mass desertion, which shows the psychological collapse of the Kiev’s troops. In a war, the moral and psychological factor is as important as the military one. If there is no will to fight and belief in victory, it is impossible to carry out a war effort for long, which shows that the defeat of the neo-Nazi regime is only a matter of time.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Lucas Leiroz is a member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram.

Featured image is from Sputnik / Evgeny Kotenko

These incredible letters are just a sample of what’s flooded Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s Office in the past week.

Premier Danielle Smith’s staffers are trying to deny any involvement in this bizarre attempt to put me in prison.

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“Categorically false”

She’s doubling down and won’t stop until she puts me in prison.

Look at what she said recently about the Canadian Trucker protest at Coutts:

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Watch here

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But don’t worry.

I have a plan.

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See this rest here.

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

A new bloody phase has opened up in Syria, as if it was ever possible to contemplate another one in that tormented land. Silly terms such as “moderate” are being paired with “rebels”, a coupling that can also draw scorn.

What counts as news reporting on the subject in the Western press stable adopts a threadbare approach.  We read or hear almost nothing about the dominant backers in this latest round of bloodletting. 

“With little warning last Wednesday, a coalition of Syrian rebels launched a rapid assault that soon seized Aleppo as well as towns in the nearby Idlib and Hama provinces,” reported NBC News, drawing its material from the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

We are told about the advances of one organisation in particular: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an outgrowth of Jabhat al-Nusra, a former al-Qaeda affiliate.  While the urgent reporting stressed the suddenness of it all, HTS has been playing in the jihadi playground since 2017, suggesting that it is far from a neophyte organisation keen to get in on the kill.

From Al Jazeera, we get pulpier detail.  HTS is the biggest group in what is dubbed Operation Deterrence of Aggression.  HTS itself comprises Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, Liwa al-Haqq, Jabhat Ansar al-Din and Jaysh al-Sunna.  That umbrella group is drawn from the Fateh al-Mubin operations centre, which is responsible for overseeing the broader activities of the armed opposition in northwestern Syria under the control of the Syrian Salvation Government (SSG). It is through the offices of SSG that HTS delivers essential goods while running food and welfare programs.  Through that governance wing, civil documentation for some 3 million civilians, two-thirds of whom are internally displaced people, has been issued.

The group, headed by Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, himself an al-Qaeda recruit from 2003, then of Jabhat al-Nusra, has done much since its leader fell out with Islamic State and al-Qaeda.  For one, HTS has a series of goals.  It purports to be an indigenous movement keen on eliminating the Assad regime, establishing Islamic rule and expelling all Iranian militias from Syrian soil.  But megalomania among zealots will always out, and al-Jawlani has shown himself a convert to an even broader cause, evidenced by this remark:

“with this spirit… we will not only reach Damascus, but, Allah permitting, Jerusalem will be awaiting our arrival”.

All of these measures conform to the same Jihadi fundamentalism that would draw funding from any Western intelligence service, provided they are fighting the appropriate villain of the moment.  We should also expect routine beheadings, frequent atrocities and indulgent pillaging.  But no, the cognoscenti would have you believe otherwise.  We are dealing, supposedly, with a different beast, calmer, wiser, and cashed-up.

For one thing, HTS is said to be largely self-sufficient, exercising a monopoly through its control of the al-Sham Bank and the oil sector through the Watad Company.  It has also, in the words of Robin Yassin-Kassab, become a “greatly moderated and better organised reincarnation of Jabhat al-Nusra.”  This could hardly cause cheer, but Yassin-Kassab at least admits that the group remains “an authoritarian Islamist militia” though not in the eschatological fanatical mould of its forebears.  “It has a much more positive policy towards sectarian and ethnic minorities than ISIS.”  Fewer beheadings, perhaps.

A fascinating omission in much commentary on these advances is Turkey’s outsized role.  Turkey has been the stalking figure of much of the rebel resistance against the Assad regime, certainly over the last few years.  Of late, it has tried, without much purchase, to normalise ties with Assad.  In truth, such efforts stretch as far back as late 2022.  The topics of concern for Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoĝan are few: dealing with the Kurdish resistance fighters he sorely wishes to liquidate as alleged extensions of the PKK, and the Syrian refugee problem.  The Syrian leader has made any rapprochement between the two states contingent on the withdrawal of Turkish forces from Syria.

With Damascus proving icily dismissive, Ankara got irate.  Indeed, there is even a suggestion, if one is to believe the assessment by Ömer Özkizilcik of the Atlantic Council, that Turkey was instrumental in initially preventing the rebels from attacking as far back as seven weeks ago.

Much in the latest spray of analysis, along with unfolding events, will require much revisiting and revision.  There is the issue of lingering Turkish influence, and whether Erdoĝan’s words will mean much to the charges of HTS as they fatten themselves on the spoils of victory.  There is the behaviour of HTS, which is unlikely to remain restrained in a warring environment that seems to treat atrocities as mother’s milk.  (Al-Jawlani has not shown himself to be above the targeting and massacring of civilians.)  The retaliation from the Syrian government and Russian forces not otherwise deployed against Ukraine also promises to be pitilessly brutal.

Then there are the untold consequences of a Syria free of Assad, a fate longed for by the coarsened righteous in Western circles and emboldened al-Jawlani.  This is certainly not off the books, given that both Iran and Russia are preoccupied, respectively, with Israel and Ukraine.

Were the regime, bloodthirsty as it is, to collapse, yet another cataclysmic tide of holy book vengeance is bound to ripple through the region.  Never mind: the babble about God and theocracy will be happily supplemented by covert operations and arms sales, all overseen by a wickedly smiling Mammon.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University.  He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected] 

Featured image: Location of Syria. Source: CIA World Factbook.

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Author: Mark Taliano

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I bet you have never heard of a “non-crime hate incident.” So far as I know, this is an exclusively British perversion. Someone can denounce you for just thinking you said something rude about our usual pets – something entirely legal, by the way – and the police will come around and give you a stern warning. You can be written up and filed away as the perp of a “non-crime hate incident,” and you have no recourse and no appeal. This is supposed to keep real hate speech under control, but all it does is punish Brits who step out of line. Even children can be written up for “non-crime hate.”

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His Majesty’s government has an 11,000-word webpage explaining “Non-Crime Hate Incidents,” updated last June, that explains how this works.

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This sentence sets the tone:

“Freedom of expression is a qualified right which means that it can be restricted for certain purposes to the extent necessary in a democratic society.”

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You can get yourself written up if you do anything that “is perceived by a person other than the subject [that’s you] to be motivated – wholly or partly – by hostility or prejudice towards persons with a particular characteristic.”

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Hostility can be nothing more than “dislike” or “unfriendliness,” and the “characteristics” are the standard stuff: race, religion, sex orientation, disability. An officer can get creative: he can write up any kind of “dislike” or “unfriendliness” if he “deems it necessary to record an incident involving a different characteristic that is not covered by hate crime legislation.” And officers have.

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The alleged victim – or anyone else – can rat you out. It can be something you said or did, or just a tweet. If, and only if, the investigating officer determines there was no “dislike” or “unfriendliness,” then he needn’t write up the incident. If he thinks you are a nasty character who might do it again, at his discretion, he can put you into a database. If you apply for certain jobs, such as teaching, childcare, medicine, social work, a potential employer could find you out and decide not to hire you. For something that’s not a crime! There is no provision in the law to punish or even reprimand people who call in fake or ridiculous incidents.

And many are ridiculous. “Dirty pants on washing line recorded as non-crime hate incident by police.”

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Someone in North Wales complained that her neighbors hung “a very large soiled pair of underpants on their washing line” and left it there for two months. She said that it was because she has an Italian name.

The same article mentions a complaint against a man who refused to shake hands with someone he thought was transexual. A Russian-speaking man claimed that a barber gave him an “aggressive” haircut after they talked about the war in Ukraine. A nine-year-old girl was written up for calling a classmate a “retard,” and two secondary-school girls got the treatment for saying that another pupil smelled “like fish.” As I said, the police can be creative.

This article says that a vicar got a visit from the police because a homosexual was “alarmed and distressed” when the vicar said homosexuality is a sin.

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People get a knock on the door for “misgendering” someone. The manager of a pub got a writeup because he kicked out customers who were having sex in the restroom. The complaint claimed it was only because one of the frolickers was transgender. I guess nobody cares if normal people copulate in pubs.

The Home Office is supposed to have issued “common sense” rules to cut back on the foolishness so that write ups are reserved for “incidents ‘clearly motivated by intentional hostility’ where there is a real risk of escalation ‘causing significant harm or a criminal offence’.”

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All of this is utterly subjective.

A lot of people think the whole business should be scrapped. The Times of London, not exactly a hot-headed journal, is running a poll that asks, “Should police stop investigating non-crime hate incidents?” When I looked, 92 percent of people said “yes” and only 8 percent said “no.”

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The current Labour government is siding with the 8 percent. The Home Office says logging this stuff “help[s] the police to build an intelligence picture around community tensions in order to map trends and prevent escalation.”

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You never know when misgendering could escalate to murder.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper says tracking these incidents “can be a crucial tool to enable police and other authorities to track and warn of rising abuse against Jewish and Muslim communities.”

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Well. I guess that settles it.

Jewish and Muslim groups both say that “hate crimes recorded by the police relating to antisemitism and Islamophobia was a fraction of the true scale of the abuse.”

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You know what? I bet every “protected category” says exactly the same thing.

The whole idea of the police investigating non-crimes is absurd. The only consequence is that people get the word: Button your lip. Don’t upset Britain’s special people.

Last year police logged more than 13,000 cases of “non-crime hate.” Each took an estimated five hours of police time, and that works out to about 60,000 cop-hours.

Britain must be wonderfully crime-free to be able to send police out to dress people down if they won’t shake hands.

Let’s see. Here is a graph of violent crimes in Britain over the last 20 years.

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There has been a slight dip the last two years, but there is still well over twice as much violent crime as there was 10 years ago. What’s more, “Three in four burglaries unsolved in England and Wales last year.” That was 200,000 unsolved break-ins, and a suspect was charged in only 6 percent of cases.

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So far, all I’ve talked about is non-crime hate. Maybe I’ll make another video about sure-enough criminal “hate.” Apparently, there’s plenty of that, too. “Malicious communication” – and that can be just a tweet – can get you two years in the pokey and a fine for whatever the judge thinks he can squeeze out of you. You can spend seven years in the pokey for “inciting racial hatred,” and you don’t have to do anything, just say things.

These are sad times for a country that used to believe in personal liberty. Britain is a perfect example of what the great Sam Francis called “anarcho-tyranny.” Francis died in 2005, and for those who did not know him, Wikipedia helpfully explains that he was “an American white supremacist writer” – just what Wikipedia says about me.

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We get anarcho-tyranny when police can’t – or won’t – control crime. That’s the anarchy.

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Instead, police go after law-abiding people like you and me for “non-crime hate incidents,” “malicious communication,” praying in school, smoking in the wrong place, jaywalking, owning the wrong pistol magazine, not wearing a bicycle helmet, etc. etc. That’s the tyranny.

These are sad times for our country, too. And Francis saw it coming 30 years ago.

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America’s ‘Justice’ System Deserves Nothing But Total Ridicule

By Drago Bosnic, December 03, 2024

On June 11, the “First Crackhead”, as some more independent media like to style Hunter Biden, was convicted on all three felony gun charges, concluding that he violated laws meant to prevent drug addicts from owning firearms. The mainstream propaganda machine immediately resorted to damage control with laughable sob stories about Hunter Biden “battling addiction.”

The War on Gaza: A New Global Order in the Making? Part XIII-B

By Amir Nour, December 03, 2024

The existing world order is at an inflection point, and the times ahead will likely be radically different from those experienced in our lifetimes and will determine the course of decades to come. The last similar epochal circumstances in recent history occurred between 1930 and 1945 and between 1999 and 2008.

Georgia: A Second Front for Putin

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, December 03, 2024

President Putin faces the possibility of a second Ukraine, a second war front that could result from Washington’s success in staging a coup d’etat in Georgia with a color revolution.

Netanyahu’s Diabolical Undeclared War Objectives in Gaza

By Jamal Kanj, December 03, 2024

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared that Israel’s war on Gaza will continue until achieving what he terms “total victory.” Instead of critically examining Netanyahu’s vague and open-ended objectives, much of the Western media and many governments frame the onslaught as self-defense, and some even normalize the genocide as a “humane” attempt to “free” Israeli captives.

For Bibi, the Road to Tehran Goes Through Damascus. Mike Whitney

By Mike Whitney, December 03, 2024

Syria is an indispensable part of Israel’s ambitious plan to remake the Middle East. The country sits at the heart of the region and serves as both a critical landbridge for the transport of weaponry and foot-soldiers from Iran to its allies, as well as the geopolitical center of the armed resistance to Israeli expansion.

US Decline, APEC and Geo-Economics the Chinese Way

By Leonid Savin, December 03, 2024

The 35th summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, which consists of 21 countries from the Americas and Southeast Asia, held last week in Peru, showed that the balance of power is changing rapidly. It is noticeable that the U.S. is losing its influence, although it is trying various methods to retain its hegemony.

Video: “Wiping Gaza Off the Map”: Big Money Agenda. Confiscating Palestine’s Maritime Natural Gas Reserves

By Felicity Arbuthnot and Prof Michel Chossudovsky, December 03, 2024

In the current context, Israel’s “All Goes to Plan” option consists in bypassing Palestine and “Wiping Gaza off the Map”, as well confiscating ALL Gaza’s maritime offshore gas reserves, worth billions of dollars. 

Low magnesium levels, especially when combined with high homocysteine, significantly increase DNA damage in healthy adults, accelerating cellular aging and increasing the risk of chronic degenerative diseases

Magnesium plays a crucial role in DNA replication, repair and stability. It acts as a cofactor for enzymes involved in these processes and helps maintain the double helix structure

Magnesium is essential for brain health, regulating NMDA receptors, modulating immune responses and acting as an antioxidant. It also supports synaptic plasticity, learning and memory functions

Adequate magnesium levels are vital for blood sugar control, insulin sensitivity and cellular energy production. Magnesium deficiency leads to insulin resistance and metabolic disorders like Type 2 diabetes

To optimize magnesium levels, consider supplements like magnesium threonate, consume magnesium-rich foods and try alternative methods such as Epsom salt baths or topical application for better absorption

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There’s a critical link between magnesium levels and the integrity of your DNA, according to research published in the European Journal of Nutrition.¹ The study, conducted on healthy middle-aged Australians, revealed that low magnesium levels, especially when combined with high homocysteine, significantly increase DNA damage.

This finding underscores the vital role magnesium plays in maintaining your genetic health and staving off age-related diseases. As the fourth most abundant mineral in your body, magnesium is involved in over 600 enzymatic reactions, including those crucial for DNA replication and repair.

Ensuring adequate magnesium intake could be a key factor in protecting your genetic material and promoting healthy aging. In fact, by examining various biomarkers of DNA damage, researchers have shed light on how magnesium deficiency might accelerate cellular aging and increase your risk of developing chronic degenerative diseases.

The Hidden Dangers of Magnesium Deficiency

While magnesium’s importance for bone health and nerve function is well-known, its role in safeguarding your DNA is less recognized. The study found that participants with lower magnesium levels exhibited higher frequencies of micronuclei (MN) and nucleoplasmic bridges (NPBs) in their cells.² These are telltale signs of DNA damage and chromosomal instability.

Essentially, when your body lacks sufficient magnesium, it struggles to efficiently replicate and repair DNA, leaving your genetic material vulnerable to damage. This vulnerability manifests as increased oxidative stress and a higher likelihood of DNA strand breaks. Over time, these effects accumulate, leading to premature aging of your tissues and organs. 

The research suggests that chronic magnesium deficiency might create a state of persistent oxidative stress in your body, similar to the effects seen with deficiencies in other crucial micronutrients like zinc.³

The Homocysteine Connection: A Double-Edged Sword

The study didn’t just focus on magnesium; it also examined the interplay between magnesium levels and homocysteine, an amino acid linked to various health issues when present in high concentrations. Researchers discovered a significant negative correlation between magnesium and homocysteine levels. In other words, as magnesium levels decreased, homocysteine levels tended to increase.⁴

This relationship is noteworthy because elevated homocysteine is associated with an increased risk of neurodegenerative diseases, cardiovascular problems and pregnancy complications. Participants with both low magnesium and high homocysteine levels showed the highest frequency of DNA damage markers.

This synergistic effect suggests that the combination of magnesium deficiency and elevated homocysteine could be particularly detrimental to your genetic health, accelerating the aging process and increasing your susceptibility to age-related diseases.⁵

Unraveling the Mechanisms of Magnesium’s Protective Effects

To understand why magnesium is so crucial for your DNA’s integrity, it’s important to look at its role in various cellular processes. Magnesium acts as a cofactor for enzymes involved in DNA replication and repair, such as DNA polymerase and DNA ligases. When magnesium levels are low, these enzymes can’t function optimally, leading to errors in DNA replication and inefficient repair of damaged DNA.⁶

Additionally, magnesium plays a role in maintaining the stability of DNA and RNA structures. It helps neutralize the negative charges on DNA phosphate groups, contributing to the overall stability of the double helix structure.

The study also hints at magnesium’s involvement in epigenetic regulation and protein modification processes that are crucial for maintaining genomic integrity.⁷ By ensuring adequate magnesium levels, you’re providing your cells with the tools they need to protect and maintain your genetic material effectively. 

Magnesium’s Role in Protecting Your Brain’s Delicate Balance

Your brain’s health depends on a delicate balance of various processes, and magnesium plays a key role in maintaining this equilibrium. Recent research reveals how magnesium acts as a gatekeeper for N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors, which are vital for learning and memory.⁸ By regulating these receptors, magnesium helps prevent excessive glutamate activity, which leads to inflammation and neuronal damage.

Additionally, magnesium has been found to influence the production of substance P, a neuropeptide involved in pain perception and inflammatory responses. Low magnesium levels increase substance P, exacerbating neuroinflammation.⁹ Furthermore, magnesium’s interplay with calcium in your neurons is critical. By limiting calcium influx, magnesium helps prevent a cascade of events that could otherwise result in intensified inflammation and neuronal injury.

This balancing act extends to magnesium’s role in modulating immune responses, particularly through its interaction with nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB), a key player in inflammatory processes. By inhibiting NF-κB activation, magnesium helps dampen the expression of proinflammatory genes, reducing overall brain inflammation.¹⁰

The Hidden Power of Magnesium as an Antioxidant

While not typically classified as an antioxidant, emerging research suggests that magnesium plays a role in your body’s defense against oxidative stress.¹¹ This is particularly important for your brain health, as oxidative stress is a significant contributor to cognitive decline and neurodegenerative diseases.

Studies have shown that magnesium deficiency is associated with increased markers of oxidative stress, including modified lipids, proteins and DNA. Importantly, magnesium appears to support your body’s antioxidant defense mechanisms. One key way it does this is by stabilizing superoxide dismutase (SOD), a critical enzyme that converts harmful superoxide radicals into less reactive molecules.¹²

This stabilization of SOD provides a unique link between magnesium and your antioxidant defense system. Magnesium’s involvement in various cellular processes, including mitochondrial function and fatty acid metabolism, further contributes to its role in managing oxidative stress.

By supporting these fundamental processes, magnesium helps maintain cellular health and resilience against oxidative damage. This antioxidant-like activity of magnesium adds another layer to its neuroprotective properties, helping to slow the progression of age-related cognitive decline and neurodegenerative disorders.¹³

Magnesium’s Impact on Your Brain’s Plasticity and Memory

Recent discoveries have also unveiled magnesium’s role in synaptic plasticity, your brain’s ability to form and reorganize connections between neurons.¹⁴ This process is fundamental to learning, memory and cognitive flexibility.

Research has shown that presynaptic intracellular magnesium is instrumental in mediating the transition between two crucial synaptic configurations: one involved in encoding new information and learning, and another responsible for storing and recalling memories.¹⁵ This insight highlights magnesium’s importance not just in maintaining neural health but in actively shaping your cognitive processes.

Studies on animal models of Alzheimer’s disease have demonstrated that magnesium supplementation enhances cognitive function and synaptic plasticity. Moreover, in a rat model of Alzheimer’s, magnesium sulfate supplementation improved cognitive function, synaptic plasticity and even the morphology of dendritic spines — the tiny protrusions on neurons that receive input from other neurons.¹⁶

These findings suggest that maintaining optimal magnesium levels could be crucial for preserving cognitive function as you age.¹⁷

Magnesium for Blood Sugar Control and Cellular Energy Production

Your body’s intricate blood sugar control system also relies on magnesium. This essential nutrient is involved in the function of your pancreatic beta cells, which produce insulin to regulate blood glucose levels.¹⁸ When you eat, these cells respond by releasing insulin to help your body store glucose as glycogen, primarily in your liver and muscle cells.

Magnesium is vital for this process, acting as a cofactor for enzymes involved in glucose metabolism and insulin signaling. If your magnesium levels are low, your beta cells may struggle to produce and release insulin effectively, leading to blood sugar imbalances. Furthermore, magnesium deficiency impairs the activity of glucokinase, an enzyme that acts as a glucose sensor in beta cells and controls the rate of glucose entry into these cells.¹⁹

Without adequate magnesium, your body’s ability to sense and respond to changes in blood glucose levels may be compromised, setting the stage for metabolic disorders like Type 2 diabetes. Low magnesium levels also contribute to insulin resistance by altering the activity of the insulin receptor and its downstream signaling pathways. Conversely, insulin resistance leads to increased urinary magnesium loss, further depleting your body’s magnesium stores.²⁰

This creates a self-perpetuating cycle that’s difficult to break. Studies have shown that individuals with Type 2 diabetes often have lower intracellular magnesium concentrations compared to those without diabetes.²¹

Beyond its effects on insulin and glucose metabolism, magnesium is essential for your cells’ energy production processes. It acts as a cofactor for numerous enzymes involved in glycolysis and the Krebs cycle, two key pathways in cellular energy generation. In the absence of sufficient magnesium, these enzymes may not function optimally, leading to reduced energy production and metabolic inefficiencies.²²

It’s important to remember that magnesium’s benefits are far-reaching. Adequate magnesium intake helps maintain healthy blood pressure, support proper muscle and nerve function and promote strong bones.

There are also positive correlations between magnesium levels and other important nutrients like folate and vitamin B12, suggesting that magnesium status is an indicator of overall nutritional health.²³ By prioritizing your magnesium intake, you’re not just protecting your DNA, brain or blood sugar; you’re supporting your body’s overall function and resilience.

How to Optimize Your Magnesium Levels

More than half of Americans don’t get enough magnesium daily,²⁴ and this deficiency is even more widespread in certain groups. Various health conditions and lifestyle choices increase magnesium loss from your body. For example, if you have diabetes or drink alcohol regularly, you’re at higher risk of magnesium deficiency.

Your magnesium levels are also affected by lack of sleep and stress. Even short periods of stress might lower your magnesium. When it comes to supplements, I prefer magnesium threonate because it’s particularly good at entering cells, including those in your brain and mitochondria.

However, if you’re new to magnesium supplements, it’s best to start slowly with magnesium citrate to find the right dose for you. This method, called “bowel tolerance,” helps you determine how much magnesium your body needs. Like vitamin C, excessive oral magnesium results in loose stools, indicating that you’ve surpassed your optimal intake. This natural safeguard makes magnesium toxicity highly unlikely.

Start with 200 milligrams (mg) of magnesium citrate per day and gradually increase until you notice your stools becoming slightly loose. This indicates you’ve found your ideal dose. From there, try other types of magnesium if you want.

Take magnesium threonate with or without food. If you’re also taking calcium supplements, it’s good to take them together. Fitness enthusiasts might benefit from a pre-workout regimen that includes calcium and magnesium in a 1:2 ratio. While a 1:1 ratio of magnesium to calcium is often recommended, most diets are already high in calcium. So, you might need two to three times more magnesium than calcium in your supplements to balance things out.

Remember, blood tests aren’t always reliable for checking your magnesium levels, especially in muscles and bones. Instead, tracking what you eat is a more practical way to make sure you’re getting enough magnesium. Foods that are high in magnesium include:

• Raw milk and homemade yogurt
• White rice
• Potato
• Dried seaweed or agar
• Broccoli
• Bok choy
• Turnip greens
• Brussels sprouts

Aside from food and oral supplements, alternative methods to increase your magnesium levels include:

As we continue to uncover the intricate ways in which nutrients interact with our genes and cellular processes, the importance of maintaining optimal magnesium levels becomes increasingly clear. To ensure healthy aging and disease prevention, prioritize getting an adequate intake of magnesium.

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Notes

^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 23} European Journal of Nutrition June 12, 2024

^{8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17} Front. Endocrinol., 25 September 2024 Sec. Cellular Endocrinology, Volume 15 – 2024

^{18, 19, 20, 21, 22} Front. Nutr., 25 September 2024 Sec. Nutritional Epidemiology, Volume 11 – 2024

²⁴ Oregon State University, “Micronutrient Inadequacies in the US Population: An Overview” Micronutrient Deficiencies and Inadequacies

Featured image is from NaturalNews.com

In less than a week of its supposed “ceasefire” agreement Israel has reportedly attacked targets in Lebanon around a hundred times, leading to a single retaliation from Hezbollah on Monday which resulted in zero casualties. As you might expect, Israel is now playing victim and shrieking bloody murder, vowing a major response against Hezbollah for daring to strike back while Israel violated its ceasefire agreement dozens of times.

Apparently this was the kind of ceasefire where only one side has to actually cease firing. This is such a perfect example of everything Israel is.

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Scrolling through Twitter this morning I saw an Al Jazeera clip documenting evidence that IDF drones have been playing the sounds of crying babies to lure civilians out of their hiding places so they can be shot and killed, and then I saw a photo that an IDF soldier reportedly uploaded to his own social media depicting himself masturbating while gazing at the destruction of Gaza.

I am not a religious person, so I don’t really resonate with words like “demonic” and “satanic” to describe Israeli criminality. But at the same time, I kind of get it. What adjectives are there to describe things like this? “Evil” is a pathetic understatement. Language fails.

They’re not just depraved, they’re creative and enthusiastic about constantly finding new and innovative ways in which to be depraved. I love words and language more than probably anyone I know, but words always fail me on this front.

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The “rebel” fighters in Syria are now reportedly telling Israeli media that they are grateful to Israel for bombing Syria and fighting Hezbollah, with The Times of Israel quoting an HTS fighter from Idlib as saying “We love Israel and we were never its enemies.”

So, I guess take that for whatever it’s worth.

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Imagine going back in time to 2002 and trying to explain to Americans that in a few years the US government is going to start giving weapons to Al-Qaeda in Syria, and then the world will find out about this and just kind of shrug and then completely forget that it happened.

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It’s annoying how many people I see interrupting adult conversations with infantile prattle about whether Assad is a “good guy” or a “bad guy”. We’re trying to have mature discussions about important world events; stop babbling about Good Guys and Bad Guys like children watching a cartoon show.

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Read on X

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Antisemitism simply is not a significant threat in our society. It used to be, but it isn’t anymore, because our society has changed. There was a time fairly recently when I would’ve been discriminated against for being divorced from the father of my children. This never happens to me in our present day, because we no longer have the kind of puritanical society where that sort of discrimination occurs. Some fringe religious kooks on the internet might tell me divorce is a sin, but they have no institutional support and normal people think they’re ridiculous.

In exactly the same way, the archaic superstitions and prejudices which drove the persecution of Jewish people in previous generations simply do not exist in the way they once did. What you see labeled as “antisemitism” today is 99 percent just people criticizing Israel or fighting back against the oppressive abuses of a genocidal apartheid state, with the remaining one percent being expressions of medieval prejudices against Jewish people from fringe assholes with no political power.

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The final word on Biden’s entire political career is his decision to spend his lame duck weeks backing a genocide and pardoning his son without doing anything at all to pardon real victims of injustice or make things better for normal human beings in any way whatsoever.

Apparently Hunter Biden has been pardoned not just of the crimes he’s been accused of, but any unspecified crimes he may have committed over the last eleven years. Which is a bit suspicious, to say the least.

Whatever. I don’t even care at this point. This is one of the least evil things this decrepit monster has done over the course of his presidency.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared that Israel’s war on Gaza will continue until achieving what he terms “total victory.” Instead of critically examining Netanyahu’s vague and open-ended objectives, much of the Western media and many governments frame the onslaught as self-defense, and some even normalize the genocide as a “humane” attempt to “free” Israeli captives.

At the same time, the same pundits decontextualized the Palestinian right to self-defense by ignoring that the October 7 revolt was a direct response to over two decades of Israel’s imposed “starvation diet” blockade on Gaza. Exactly, as the West turns a blind eye, and continues to enable Israel’s theft of Palestinian-occupied land in the West Bank to benefit Jewish-only colonies.

Meanwhile, these media outlets downplay or dismiss Israel’s treacherous undeclared war objectives, even to the detriment of Israeli captives and the immense civilian suffering in Gaza. 

For over a year, Netanyahu has prioritized an agenda to reoccupy and to ethnically cleanse northern Gaza rather than engage in negotiations for prisoner’s swap. Especially since the release of Israeli captives would undermine one of Netanyahu’s primary pretexts for pursuing his sinister objectives.

This is only possible in the wake of Western leaders embracing Netanyahu’s racist perspective, focusing only on the well-being of Israeli captives, while ignoring the over 10,000 Palestinian hostages held in Israeli jails, and the welfare of the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza. For instance, Joe Biden has expressed recently his concern over Netanyahu potentially delaying action to secure the release of Israeli captives until January 20, 2025, while expressing no sympathy for the suffering of Palestinians in 2024 and beyond. 

With the conspicuous silence or impotence of world bodies, the Israeli captives became a convenient fig leaf under which Netanyahu saw as an opportunity to reoccupy Gaza. It is worth recalling that in 2005, Netanyahu resigned from the Israeli government in protest against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s decision to “disengage” and remove the Jewish-only colonies from the Gaza strip. 

Immediately following October 7, Netanyahu launched a genocidal war, disregarding the Palestinian Resistance’s proposal for prisoner’s exchange. His decision to pursue war instead of negotiations was motivated by several factors:

a) Deflect responsibility for the intelligence failure under his watch.
b) Evade scrutiny of his role in facilitating external funding to Hamas.
d) Execute a campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing to reoccupy Gaza.

The strategy to ethnically cleanse Gaza was openly advocated by Israel’s racist Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who three months following October 7 called for Palestinians to leave Gaza. The scion of an Ukrainian immigrant repeated the century-old European Zionist myth of blooming the desert⎯a narrative that not only ignores historical and geographical realities but also contradicts his own Old Testament that once described Canaan, the land of the Filastin (Palestine), as the “land of milk and honey,” before the ancient Hebrews migrated from their original homes to Palestine.

Further, and on January 1, 2024, Smotrich’s fellow racist National Security Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, declared in a Knesset speech that Israel should never withdraw from any territory it occupies and explained that the establishment of new Jewish-only colonies in Gaza as “an important thing.” The following day, on January 2, Ben Gvir doubled down, stating that displacing “hundreds of thousands” of Palestinians from Gaza would help pave the way for the creation of the new Jewish-only colonies. 

More recently, on Monday, November 25, Smotrich declared to the Yesha Council, an umbrella group representing the Jewish-only colonies in the occupied West Bank, “We can and must conquer the Gaza Strip.” He claimed there is “a unique opportunity” with Donald Trump’s election to halve Gaza’s population—a veiled euphemism for ethnic cleansing. On Thursday, November 28, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir echoed similar calls to “reoccupy the Gaza Strip.”

On the ground inside Gaza, the tools of occupation were more explicit in defining the meaning of Netanyahu’s ostensible mantra: “total victory.” Israeli soldiers posed before an orange banner that read, “Only (Jewish-only) settlement (in Gaza) would be considered victory!” Notably, the orange color harkens back to the banners used by the settler movement in 2005 to protest Sharon’s decision to evacuate the Jewish-only colonies from Gaza.

To this end, and starting October 1^st, Israel initiated a new phase of targeted genocide by starvation, blocking food aid trucks from entering northern Gaza, particularly the towns of Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and camp Jabalia. And where trucks were allowed in, food aid was swapped with sand bags. Starvation has become so widespread in these areas, women and children are forced to scavenge through mounds of trash for food. 

On November 29, Ajith Sunghay, head of the U.N. Human Rights Office for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, stated after visiting Gaza that the “U.N. had been unable to deliver any aid to northern Gaza” due to “repeated impediments or outright rejections of humanitarian convoys by the Israeli authorities.”

Regarding the genocide by terror, U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Türk reported that residents of northern Gaza are subjected to “non-stop” bombing. Simultaneously, hundreds of thousands have been ordered to evacuate, likely to make way for new Jewish-only settlements.

As part of the forced depopulation of Gaza’s northern region—the most fertile land in the strip—Israel is constructing a topographic barrier to isolate this area from the rest of Gaza. Beginning in early October, Israel carried out extensive controlled explosions, demolishing multi-story buildings to clear a path for a 5.6-mile road cutting across the strip. This road divides Gaza City from the northern towns of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahia. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has characterized this widespread forced displacement as part of an official government policy amounting to “crimes against humanity.”

On November 30, former Defense Minister and IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon confirmed HRW findings, stating that Netanyahu and “far-right” (racist) elements are waging a war of “occupation, annexation, and ethnic cleansing.” He added, “There is no Beit Lahia, there is no Beit Hanoun.”

The live documented ethnic cleansing in Gaza, much like in 1948, alongside the expansion of Jewish-only colonies in the West Bank, underscores the true undeclared objectives in Israel’s ostensible “total victory.” In this contest, Netanyahu’s deliberate undermining of U.S.-led negotiations for prisoner’s swap exemplifies his quintessential diabolical persona: exploiting the predicament of his own Israeli captives to further his cynical undeclared agenda of slaughtering the “Amalek,” and ethnically cleansing Gaza to pave the way for new Jewish-only colonies.

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[Links to Parts I to XIII-A are provided at the bottom of this article.]

“If the United Nations once admits that international disputes can be settled by using force, then we will have destroyed the foundation of the organization and our best hope of establishing a world order.” (Dwight D. Eisenhower)

1. International Law or ‘Rules-based International Order’?

On 8 March 1992, The New York Times published excerpts from the Pentagon’s draft of the Defense Planning Guidance for the Fiscal Years 1994-1999. This important piece of archive addressed the “fundamentally new situation which has been created by the collapse of the Soviet Union, the disintegration of the internal as well as the external empire, and the discrediting of Communism as an ideology with global pretensions and influence”. The new international environment, it was explained, has “also been shaped by the victory of the United States and its coalition allies over Iraqi aggression – the first post-cold-war conflict and a defining event in U.S. global leadership.” 

The drafters of this “Guidance” stated that the United States’ first objective should be “to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and “requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia.” And the second objective is “to address sources of regional conflict and instability in such a way as to promote increasing respect for international law, limit international violence, and encourage the spread of democratic forms of government and open economic systems.” They also acknowledged that while the U.S. cannot become the world’s “policeman”, by assuming responsibility for righting every wrong, the U.S. will “retain the pre-eminent responsibility for addressing selectively those wrongs which threaten not only our interests, but those of our allies or friends, or which could seriously unsettle international relations”. They furthermore determined the various types of U.S. interests involved in such instances as being: access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil; proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles; threats to U.S. citizens from terrorism or regional or local conflict; and threats to U.S. society from narcotics trafficking.”

As a matter of fact, during the whole decade of the 1990s, as the tumultuous twentieth century shuddered toward its close, the global geopolitical landscape was overwhelmingly dominated by a much-heated American internal debate about a big question: will America strive to dominate the world, or lead it? 

This topic was the object of an influential book[1] written by Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor under President Jimmy Carter. In it, he reminded Americans that their might should not be confused with omnipotence, and their well-being and the world’s are entwined. He explained that panicky preoccupation with “solitary American security, an obsessively narrow focus on terrorism, and indifference to the concerns of a politically restless humanity neither enhance American security nor comport with the world’s real need for American leadership.” The conclusion Brzezinski then quite logically drew was that “unless it can harmonize its overwhelming power with its seductive but also unsettling social appeal, America could find itself alone and under assault in a setting of intensifying global chaos.” 

Such a conclusion was all the more logical, accurate and timely as America – and the world with it – found themselves at the turn of the new millennium in an unprecedented state of disarray in the wake of the 2001 September 11th attacks. These led, among other epochal events, to the American blunders of Afghanistan and Iraq invasions in 2001 and 2003 respectively whose adverse consequences the world at large is still suffering from.

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Amir Nour is an Algerian researcher in international relations, author of the books “L’Orient et l’Occident à l’heure d’un nouveau Sykes-Picot” (The Orient and the Occident in Time of a New Sykes-Picot) Editions Alem El Afkar, Algiers, 2014 and “L’Islam et l’ordre du monde” (Islam and the Order of the World),  Editions Alem El Afkar, Algiers, 2021. 

Notes

[1] Zbigniew Brzezinski, “The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership”, Basic Books, 2004.

[2] See this document which has been declassified under authority of the Interagency Security classification Appeal Panel https://www.archives.gov/files/declassification/iscap/pdf/2008-003-docs1-12.pdf

[3] Read the document on https://cryptome.org/rad.htm

[4] Zbigniew Brzezinski, “The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives”, Basic Books, 1997.

[5] Halford J. Mackinder, “Democratic Ideals and Reality”, Holt, New York, 1919.

[6] Twice UK Prime Minister (1855-58 and 1859-65) Lord Palmerston, also known as Henry John Temple, said before Parliament in 1848: “Therefore I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”

[7] Deepak Lal, “In Praise of Empires: Globalization and Order”, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2004.

[8] Robert D. Black will and Ashley J. Tellis, “Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China”, Council Special Report No. 72, March 2015.

[9] Joshua Cooper Ramo, “The Beijing Consensus”, The Foreign Policy Centre, 2004. Later on, in 2016, Ramo explained that the Beijing Consensus shows not that “every nation will follow China’s development model, but that it legitimizes the notion of particularity as opposed to the universality of a Washington model”. See Maurits Elen, “Interview: Joshua Cooper Ramo”, The Diplomat, August 2016.

[10] See Jhana Gottlieb, “The Beijing Consensus: A Threat of Our Own Creation”, Center for International Maritime Security, 22 April 2017.

[11] Stefan Hapler, “The Beijing Consensus: Legitimizing Authoritarianism in Our Time”, Basic Books, 2010.

[12] Alain Peyreffitte, “Quand la Chine s’éveillera… le monde tremblera” (When China Awakens… the World Will Tremble), Fayard, Paris, 1973. The essay’s main thesis is that given the size and growth of the Chinese population, it will inevitably end up imposing itself on the rest of the world as soon as it masters sufficient technology, and that “Today’s China only makes sense if we put it in perspective with yesterday’s China.” As for the title, it comes from a phrase attributed to Napoléon I: “Let China sleep, because when China awakens the whole world will tremble.”  Napoléon would have uttered this sentence in 1816 in Saint Helena after reading “Voyage en Chine et en Tartarie” (Journey to China and Tartary) written by Lord George Macartney, Great Britain’s first envoy to China.

[13] To read the Strategy: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/global-strategy-2021-an-allied-strategy-forchina/#:~:text=cooperating%20within%2C%20rather,Government%0AHarvard%20University

[14] United States, Italy, Japan, Germany, Australia, India, France, Canada, UK, and South Korea.

[15] Joseph S. Nye, “Soft Power”, Foreign Policy No. 80. 1990: “These trends suggest a second, more attractive way of exercising power than traditional means. A state may achieve the outcomes it prefers in world politics because other states want to follow it or have agreed to a situation that produces such effects. In this sense, it is just as important to set the agenda and structure the situations in world politics as to get others to change in particular cases. This second aspect of power – which occurs when one country gets other countries to want what it wants – might be called co-optive or soft power in contrast with the hard or command power of ordering others to do what it wants.”

[16] John Dugard, “The choice before us: International law or a ‘rules-based international order’?”, Cambridge University Press, 21 February 2023.

17] Joe R. Biden Jr., “How the US Is Willing to Help Ukraine”, The New York Times International Edition, 2 June 2022.

[18] The White House Briefing Room, “Remarks by President Biden in Press Conference (Madrid, Spain)”, The White House, 30 June 2022, available at: www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/06/30/remarks-by-president-biden-in-press-conference-madrid-spain.

[19] The White House, “National Security Strategy”, The White House, October 2022. Available at: www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Biden-Harris-Administrations-National-Security-Strategy-10.2022.pdf.

[20] See further, R. Falk, “‘Rules-based International-Order’: A New Metaphor for US Geo-Political Primacy”, Eurasia Review, 1 June 2021, available at” www.eurasiareview.com; G. Cross, “Rules-based Order: Hypocrisy Masquerading as Principle”, China Daily, 3 May 2022, available at: www.chinadailyhk.com/article/269894#Rules-based-order-masquerading-as-principle.

[21] S. Walt, “China Wants a ‘Rules Based International Order’ Too”, Foreign Policy, 31 March 2021, available at: www.belfercenter.org/publication/china-wants-rules-based-international-order-too. See also A. Tuygan, “The Rules-based International Order”, Diplomatic Opinion, 10 May 2021, available at: www.diplomaticopinion.com/2021/05/10/the-rules-based-international-order/.

[22] S. Talmon, “Rules-based Order v International Law?”, German Practice in International Law, 20 January 2019, available at: www.gpil.jura.uni-bonn.de/2019/01/rules-based-order-v-international-law.

[23] Among others: the 1977 Protocols to the Geneva Conventions on the Laws of War, the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the 1989 Rights of the Child Convention, the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the 2006 Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions. 

[24] The White House Briefing Room, “The Jerusalem US-Israel Strategic Partnership Joint Declaration”, The White House, 14 July 2022, available at: www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/07/14/the-jerusalem-u-s-israel-strategic-partnership-joint-declaration/.

[25] B. Samuels, “The US State Department Rejects Amnesty’s Apartheid Claim against Israel”, Haaretz, 1 February 2022.

[26] V. Gilinsky and H. Sokolski, “Biden Should End US Hypocrisy on Israeli Nukes”, Foreign Policy, 19 February 2022.

[27] Cited in A. N. Vylegzhanin et al., “The Term ‘Rules-Based Order in International Legal Discourse’”, Moscow Journal of International Law 35, 2021.

[28] K. K. Klomegah, “Russia Renews its Support to Mark Africa Day”, Modern Diplomacy, 27 May 2022, available at: www.moderndiplomacy.eu/2022/05/27/russia-renews-its-support-to-mark-africa-day/.

[29] State Councilor and Foreign Minister W. Yi, ‘Remarks by State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the United Nations Security Council High-level Meeting on the Theme ‘Maintenance of International Peace and Security: Upholding Multilateralism and the United Nations-centered International System”’, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, 8 May 2021, available at: www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjdt_665385/zyjh_665391/202105/t20210508_9170544.html.

[30] See Ray Dalio, “Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail”, Simon & Schuster, 2021.

[31] Jeffrey Sachs, “The West’s False Narrative about Russia and China”, 22 August 2022; available at:  https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles/h29g9k7l7fymxp39yhzwxc5f72ancr

[32] Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Richard Fontaine, “The Axis of Upheaval: How America’s Adversaries Are Uniting to Overturn the Global Order”, Center for a New American Security, 23 April 2024.

[33] Sarah Repucci and Amy Slipowitz, “Freedom in the World: Democracy under Siege”, Freedom House.

[34] Thomas Carothers and Benjamin Feldman, “Examining U.S. Relations With Authoritarian Countries”, The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 13 December 2023.

[35] To read the related declassified document: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early

[36] George F. Kennan, “A Fateful Error”, The New York Times, 5 February 1997.

[37] This document, which was revealed Wikileaks.org, is available at: https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html\

[38] Cited in Isaac Chotiner, “Why John Mearsheimer Blames the U.S. for the Crisis in Ukraine”, The New Yorker, 1 March 2022.

[39] Available at: https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=John+Mearsheimer+and+%e2%80%9cThe+Causes+and+Consequences+of+the+Ukraine+Crisis%e2%80%9d.&&view=riverview&mmscn=mtsc&mid=6A06B889A9A7C4BF722B6A06B889A9A7C4BF722B&&aps=132&FORM=VMSOVR

[40] Jeffrey Sachs, “The West’s False Narrative about Russia and China”, Op Cit.

[41] See United States Department of State’s Presentation of the Summit at: https://www.state.gov/summit-for-democracy-2023

[42] Kashif Anwar, “Xi Jinping’s Global Civilization Initiative”, 22 April 2023.

[43] To read “Full text of Xi Jinping’s keynote address at the CPC in Dialogue with World Political Parties High-level Meeting”, Xinhua, 16 March 2023: https://english.news.cn/20230316/31e80d5da3cd48bea63694cee5156d47/c.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

[44] Brahma Chellany, “The BRICS Effect”, Project Syndicate, 18 October 2024.

[45] Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, China, Cuba, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Mali, Nicaragua, the State of Palestine, the Russian Federation, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Syria, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.

[46] Tom O’Connor, “China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and More Join Forces ‘in Defense’ of U.N.”, 3 December 2021.

[47] Foreign Affairs, “The Nonaligned world: The West, the Rest, and the New Global Disorder”, May/June 2023.

[48] Tim Murithi, “Order of Oppression: Africa’s Quest for an International System”.

[49] Matias Spektor, “In Defense of the Fence Sitters: What the West Gets Wrong About Hedging”.

[50] Nirupama Rao, “The Upside of Rivalry: India’s Great-Power Opportunity”.

[51] David Miliband, “The World Beyond Ukraine: The Survival of the West and the Demands of the Rest”.

---

Links to Parts I to XIII-A:

The War on Gaza: Might vs. Right, and the Insanity of Western Power

By Amir Nour, December 01, 2023

 

The War on Gaza: How the West Is Losing. Accelerating the Transition to a Multipolar Global Order?

By Amir Nour, December 04, 2023

 

The War on Gaza: Debunking the Pro-Zionist Propaganda Machine

By Amir Nour, December 11, 2023

 

The War on Gaza: Why Does the “Free World” Condone Israel’s Occupation, Apartheid, and Genocide?

By Amir Nour, December 22, 2023

 

The War on Gaza: How We Got to the “Monstrosity of Our Century”

By Amir Nour, January 25, 2024

 

The War on Gaza: Towards Palestine’s Independence Despite the Doom and Gloom

By Amir Nour, February 02, 2024

 

The War on Gaza: Whither the “Jewish State”?

By Amir Nour, April 17, 2024

 

The Twilight of the Western Settler Colonialist Project in Palestine

By Amir Nour, August 17, 2024

 

The War on Gaza: Perpetual Falsehoods and Betrayals in the Service of Endless Deception. Amir Nour

By Amir Nour, August 25, 2024

 

The War on Gaza: Why the Sustainability of the Western-Zionist Colony Is Nigh on Impossible. Amir Nour

By Amir Nour, September 07, 2024

 

The War on Gaza: Requiem for the Deeply Held Two-State Delusion. Amir Nour

By Amir Nour, September 21, 2024

 

The War on Gaza: The Case for the Only Durable Solution: One Democratic State from the River to the Sea. Amir Nour

By Amir Nour, October 26, 2024

 

The War on Gaza: A New Global Order in the Making?

By Amir Nour, December 02, 2024

The US-led political West is known for its chest-thumping when it comes to buzzwords such as “freedom, democracy, the rule of law, nonpartisanship”, etc. To that end, thousands of major NGOs (and God knows how many smaller ones) are engaged in creating the image of the political West that “leads the world” in all of the above.

If you go to websites of organizations such as Transparency International or the likes of it, you’ll find the US, UK, EU and other vassals and satellite states to be in the “blue” or “green”, while the actual world is all “red” or “orange”. The key takeaway is – the “jungle” is “horribly corrupt”, while the “garden” is “something to look up to”. There’s just one “tiny” issue with this – it’s all lies aiming to create a particular narrative that can be used to enforce the US/NATO viewpoint on the entire world.

In reality, the political West is essentially just as corrupt as any other place in the world (if not more, particularly on the top level). The treatment of Donald Trump is a testament to that. His flaws notwithstanding, Trump (or anyone, for that matter) certainly doesn’t deserve to be treated as a criminal if he hadn’t committed a crime. However, that’s exactly what happened, with the US ‘Justice’ Department targeting him in what was obviously a political decision. Expectedly, the mainstream propaganda machine joined the witch-hunt, all the while not only ignoring, but outright suppressing information about the elephant in the room – Hunter Biden. The incumbent’s son is perhaps one of the most prominent criminals in the world, as he has been involved in all sorts of repulsive illicit activities all over the world.

It should be noted we’re not only talking about “good old” corruption, embezzlement, drug and sex scandals, but even more disturbing crimes such as financing terrorism, development of bioweapons and child trafficking. Hunter Biden’s “vibrant career” spans well over a decade and it has always been a sort of “open secret” in the halls of power in Washington DC. However, over the years, he became quite careless, resulting in the laptop scandal that the corrupt federal institutions, including the FBI, tried to cover up (although they somehow managed to be sloppier than Hunter himself while doing so). You can only imagine the extent of his crimes when not even his family could prevent the opening of several cases against him. However, they still used their political power to drastically reduce the scope of prosecution.

On June 11, the “First Crackhead”, as some more independent media like to style Hunter Biden, was convicted on all three felony gun charges, concluding that he violated laws meant to prevent drug addicts from owning firearms. The mainstream propaganda machine immediately resorted to damage control with laughable sob stories about Hunter Biden “battling addiction”, while the DoJ officials insisted that the verdict shows “no one in this country is above the law”. Now that you’re done laughing, let’s analyze whether this claim holds. Namely, while it could be said that at least “some justice was served” with this conviction, as previously mentioned, drug abuse and high-level corruption are the least of Hunter Biden’s wrongdoings. The victims of his sadistic and barbaric tendencies certainly found no comfort in this verdict.

In fact, it can be argued that it was carefully tailored to include the least gruesome of his crimes, meaning that he was already highly unlikely to serve a long-term prison sentence, which would be the least that he deserved. But more importantly for the Biden crime family, this verdict didn’t implicate anyone important, particularly not his father. However, the real imperative for the corrupt federal institutions was to perpetuate the illusion there’s any actual “rule of law” in the US. Just imagine what would’ve happened had anyone ever found any evidence about one of Trump’s sons using crack cocaine, to say nothing of the possibility of them having a firearm while using it. Not only would the mainstream propaganda machine “crucify” them, but the DoJ would surely expedite a long-term prison verdict.

We’re not even going to consider the possibility of them committing Hunter Biden’s other, far more serious crimes that even include “an unnatural obsession with minors” (a euphemism for the abomination the political West is trying to “normalize”). And yet, not even this pitiful sliver of “justice” will be served, as “daddy’s boy” has just been pardoned after years of lies and false promises that this wouldn’t happen. The incumbent’s decision comes ahead of Hunter Biden’s December 12 sentencing for his conviction on federal gun charges, as well as an upcoming December 16 sentencing in a separate criminal case in which he pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion charges. The “full and unconditional” pardon also covers offenses “which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in” over a nearly 11-year period (2014/1/1 to 2024/12/1).

It should be noted that this includes the Burisma scandal, which Donald Trump was impeached for asking about. To make things even more comical, the incumbent’s statement regarding the pardon says that “Hunter was treated differently by the DoJ” and that “the charges only came about after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election”. Joe Biden also lamented that “in trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me”, adding that “enough is enough”. Some analysts have been saying for years that the incumbent would pardon his son, although these claims were usually dismissed as “conspiracy theories” by the mainstream propaganda machine. Either way, the “justice” system in the US is a charade, as the corrupt federal institutions continue to protect criminals.

This includes not just the Biden crime family, but the entire “swamp” of warmongers, war criminals, kleptocrats and plutocrats in Washington DC. The oligarchy certainly doesn’t care about the “rule of law”, be it international or domestic. They’re solely concerned with controlling the narrative and presenting it in a way that protects and expands their agenda and interests. Needless to say, all this stands in stark contrast with the interests of the actual world. These truly Mephistophelian elites are conducting an all-encompassing global aggression that is affecting not only billions of people around the world, but also hundreds of millions of Americans and others who live in Western countries. Their two-tiered “justice” system is designed against all of us, as evidenced by its self-proclaimed exterritoriality. It’s truly a travesty they get to spread this “justice” across the globe.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: This caricature of Hunter Biden was adapted from in the public domain from the US Congress (PDF). The body was adapted from in the public domain from The White House’s Flickr photostream.

President Putin faces the possibility of a second Ukraine, a second war front that could result from Washington’s success in staging a coup d’etat in Georgia with a color revolution. Riots ongoing since the “Russian party” defeated the “Western party” by 54% to 34% have convinced the Prime Minister of Georgia that the West is in the process of launching a color revolution to overthrow, as was done in Ukraine, the democratically elected government.  Putin is silent and consequently could find himself fighting on two fronts.  Then the West will open a third front. This is what Putin can expect from consistently presenting himself as a non-interventionist unless Russia is attacked.  Russia, certainly the most powerful military entity on earth, carries no weight in Western councils.

Georgia, the country, became a part of Russia in early 1800. In 1917 Georgia became one of the provinces of the Soviet Union.  The country became independent in 1991 when the collapse of the Soviet Union gave Washington the opportunity to break up the Soviet Union. Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Central Asian provinces were turned into independent countries.

In 2003 Washington engineered the “Rose Revolution” in Georgia, which put a pro-Western government in office. In 2008  Washington  sent its US-trained and equipped Georgian army into South Ossetia, a disputed province that did not agree to leave Russia with Georgia. As Russian peacekeepers were killed in the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia, Putin sent in the Russian Army which quickly destroyed the American trained Georgian Army  and conquered Georgia in five days, which is what should have happened in Ukraine.

Failing to realize that Washington would continue to try to turn Georgia into a front against Russia, Putin turned Georgia loose and took his army home. Putin, a true believer in non-interference even when it is at Russia’s expense,  left Georgia to be subverted by Washington. Putin did not require that Georgia shut down Washington’s NGOs operating in the country or that Georgia subordinate itself in any way to Russia.

Consequently, Washington got a French-born woman installed as president of Georgia, and Washington’s propaganda and NGOs have convinced 34% of Georgians to prefer alignment with the West than with Russia. It is part of Washington’s intent to surround Russia with missile bases.

Washington’s EU puppet has threatened to impose sanctions on the democratically elected Georgian government for failure to void the election and put in office a pro-West government. The EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas took the side of the 34%, whom she declared to be the “Georgian people,” not the 54% who won the election. She promised that the EU would punish those who won and that sanctions against Georgia was one of the options for dealing with the Georgian people’s refusal to comply with EU rule.

Last Saturday the US State Department spokesman announced Washington’s suspension of its strategic partnership with Georgia, thus setting up Georgia for overthrow.

The Georgian President supports Washington’s NGO protesters and said the parliamentary elections are illegitimate.

There is no indication that the Russian government realizes that the overthrow of the pro-Russian government means trouble for Russia.  Fyodor Lukyanov, chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, writes nonsensically  about the attempt at “color revolution” as if it is merely an internal affair for Georgia. Instead of coming to Georgia’s support, Putin and Lavrov continue to cause massive misinformation in Russia by speaking of “our Western partners.”    

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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Sources

https://www.rt.com/news/608514-eu-kallas-georgia-sanctions/

https://www.globalresearch.ca/west-tries-stage-coup-detat-georgia/5874025

https://www.rt.com/russia/608470-georgia-pro-eu-protests-continue/

https://www.rt.com/russia/608467-georgian-president-refuse-leave-office/

https://www.rt.com/news/608491-us-suspend-strategic-partnership-georgia/ 

https://www.rt.com/russia/608470-georgia-pro-eu-protests-continue/

https://www.infowars.com/posts/georgia-pm-accuses-eu-of-launching-color-revolution-after-riots-erupt-in-wake-of-election 

Featured image is from FMM graphics studio

The involvement of Colombian mercenaries in the Ukrainian conflict highlights the structural roots of the paramilitary phenomenon that has plagued the Latin American country for decades. In this context, Colombia and Russia agreed to create a working group to address the issue, especially since hundreds of Colombian mercenaries have died fighting in the Ukraine conflict.

The meeting, led by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo, took place amid growing concern about the participation of former Colombian military personnel in international conflicts. The decision, announced after the meeting in Moscow in November, seeks to establish joint mechanisms to mitigate the impact of this problem, which threatens Colombia’s internal politics and global security.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro tweeted on November 27 that “mercenary work must be banned in Colombia,” adding that to prevent recruitment by private contractors, raising the “standard of living” of soldiers was necessary. He also called for “criminal punishment” for those using mercenaries in foreign conflicts, thereby supporting the bill his government introduced to the Colombian Congress in August to approve the United Nation’s International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries.

The creation of the Russian-Colombian working group reflects a necessary response to political pressure on Bogota due to increased military and ex-military personnel involved in conflicts abroad, especially in Ukraine. There is an alarming number of Colombian military and ex-military personnel captured or killed in combat against Russian military forces in Ukraine.

Nonetheless, the phenomenon is not limited to the crisis in Ukraine but is part of a broader trend in which former military personnel, paramilitaries, and guerrillas from the South American country are recruited to participate in conflicts in different parts of the world. Some media outlets, such as Cuestión Pública, estimate that around 4,000 former members of Colombia’s Public Force participate in foreign conflicts.

As mentioned, the bill will include measures to criminalize the use, hiring and training of mercenaries, an essential step considering the avalanche of Colombian mercenaries that affects not only Ukraine but also other countries in conflict, such as Libya and Sudan.

Another concern is, obviously, the ramifications in Latin America. For example, former members of the Colombian military are recruited by Mexican drug cartels not only for training but also for paramilitary operations on the ground.

Privatized war and military training in Colombia are rooted in the influence of Israel’s Mossad and American companies, such as Blackwater, and are linked to drug trafficking and extractive economies. In effect, Colombian mercenarism has been fueled by a system that perpetuates violence as a tool of control. The training that Colombian soldiers receive, based on American and British techniques, makes them ideal combatants for international conflicts and criminal activities.

Resolving the mercenary problem in Colombia lies in addressing both the structural causes and the regulations that allow its proliferation. Fully implementing the Peace Agreement signed in Havana in 2016 between the Colombian government and militant groups, which includes measures for substituting illicit crops and economic development in the areas most affected by the conflict, is critical.

The agreement between Colombia and Russia represents a significant step in controlling the export of mercenaries and their impacts. However, the problem transcends national borders. Colombia has a long tradition of internal conflict and a highly trained military that is poorly paid and vulnerable. The solution requires political will and a structural change in the power dynamics perpetuating violence. The only way to find peace is through dialogue and policies that dignify soldiers and deactivate patterns of war.

Until this occurs, though, Colombians will continue to be tempted to fight in Ukraine due to the promise of thousands of dollars a month. Although Colombians can earn more money fighting in Ukraine than having a conventional job at home, more than 300 of the 2,000 believed to have gone to the Eastern European warzone have been killed, while hundreds more have been wounded or deserted their positions.

Even if Colombian mercenaries survive unscathed, they still face other issues. Recently, two Colombian soldiers returning home were detained in Venezuela and sent to Russia, where they have been charged with mercenary activities.

With Colombian nationals exposed to financial rewards in Ukraine, caveated with a likelihood of imprisonment, injury or death, Murillo also confirmed that peace efforts were part of his discussions with Lavrov: “We delivered a message of peace regarding the war between Russia and Ukraine, encouraging political and diplomatic dialogue.” Only through peace will Colombian lives stop being wasted in far-off Ukraine, but as it appears, the Kiev regime is still holding out from any negotiations with Moscow.  

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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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First published in September 17, 2023

*** 

Washington-led Empire’s criminal war on Syria is a war against civilization itself.

Empire, with its legacy media accomplices, hides behind veils of fabricated lies to commit crimes against children, women, men, Muslims, Christians, minorities, secularism, democracy, and the entire fabric of the sovereign nation of Syria itself.

Empire balkanizes, steals, loots, plunders, and supports terrorism of all kinds, even as it imposes colllective punishment in the form of unilateral coercive measures against those in government-secured areas.

“Crimes Against Syria” unmasks the war propaganda apparatus. It presents the evidence-based truth that the West and its agencies seek to obscure.

Big lies of “humanitarian warfare” and the “Global War on Terror” are exposed for all to see. 

Watch the trailer below. 

Watch the full documentary below.

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Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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. He writes on his website where this article was originally published.

Featured image is from Syria News

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

**Voices from Syria**

Author: Mark Taliano

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-9-1

Year: 2017

Product Type: PDF File

List Price: $6.50

Special Offer: $5.00 

Click to order.

To read translation into Arabic, scroll down  AI

فيديو: “محو غزة من الخريطة”: أجندة المال الكبير. مصادرة احتياطيات فلسطين من الغاز الطبيعي البحري

لقراءة الترجمة إلى اللغة العربية، قم بالتمرير لأسفل

 

Introduction

Israel has launched an invasion (October 7, 2023) of the Gaza Strip.

As outlined by Felicity Arbuthnot with foresight 10 years ago in a December, 30 2013 article: 

“Israel is set to become a major exporter of gas and some oil, “If All Goes to Plan”.

In the current context, Israel’s “All Goes to Plan” option consists in bypassing Palestine and “Wiping Gaza off the Map”,  as well confiscating ALL Gaza’s maritime offshore gas reserves, worth billions of dollars. 

The ultimate objective is not only to exclude Palestinians from their homeland, it consists in confiscating the multi-billion dollar Gaza offshore Natural Gas reserves, namely those pertaining to the BG (BG Group) in 1999, as well the Levant discoveries of 2013. 

Update. Israel’s Secret Intelligence Memorandum

An official “secret” memorandum authored by Israel’s  Ministry of Intelligence “is recommending the forcible and permanent transfer of the Gaza Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinian residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula”, namely to a refugee camp in Egyptian territory. There are indications of Israel-Egypt negotiations  as well as consultations with the U.S. 

The 10-page document, dated Oct. 13, 2023, bears the logo of the Intelligence Ministry … assesses three options regarding the future of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip … It recommends a full population transfer as its preferred course of action. … The document, whose authenticity was confirmed by the ministry, has been translated into English in full here on +972. See below, click here or below to access complete document (10 pages)

 

First published on October  22, 2023. Video added on October 27, 2023, Update, November 1, 2023

 

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Video: Michel Chossudovsky, Interview with Caroline Mailloux, Lux Media

 

To leave a comment and/or Access Rumble click to lower right hand corner

 

Felicity Arbuthnot’s 2013 Analysis 

“The Giant Leviathan natural gas field, in the eastern Mediterranean, discovered in December 2010, widely described [by governments and media] as “off the coast of Israel.”

These Levant reserves must be distinguished from those discovered in Gaza in 1999 by British Gas, which belong to Palestine. Felicity Arbuthnot’s analysis nonetheless confirms that “Part of the Leviathan Gas fields lie in Gazan territorial waters” (See Map Below). 

Whilst Israel claims them as her very own treasure trove, only a fraction of the sea’s wealth lies in Israel’s bailiwick as maps. Much is still unexplored, but currently Palestine’s Gaza and the West Bank between them show the greatest discoveries… (Felicity Arbuthnot, 2013) 

Flash Forward to October 2023

Netanyahu’s October 2023 declaration of war against 2.3 million people of the Gaza Strip is a continuation of its 2008-2009 invasion of Gaza under “Operation Cast Lead.” 

The underlying objective is the outright military occupation of Gaza by Israel’s IDF forces and the expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland.

.

The ultimate objective is not only to exclude Palestinians from their homeland, it consists in confiscating the multi-billion dollar Gaza offshore Natural Gas reserves, namely those pertaining to the BG (BG Group) in 1999, as well the Levant discoveries of 2013. 

Egypt-Israel “Secret Bilateral Talks” 

In 2021-22, Egypt and Israel were involved in “secret bilateral talks” regarding “the extraction of natural gas off the coast of the Gaza Strip. 

“Egypt succeeded in persuading Israel to start extracting natural gas off the coast of the Gaza Strip, after several months of secret bilateral talks.

This development … comes after years of Israeli objections to extract natural gas off the coast of Gaza on [alleged] security grounds, … 

British Gas (BG Group) has also been dealing with the Tel Aviv government.

What is significant is that the civilian arm of the Hamas Gaza government has been bypassed in regards to exploration and development rights over the gas fields: 

The field, which lies about 30 kilometers (19 miles) west of the Gaza coast, was discovered in 2000 by British Gas (currently BG Group) and is estimated to contain more than 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. 

The official in the Egyptian intelligence service told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “An Egyptian economic and security delegation discussed with the Israeli side for several months the issue of allowing the extraction of natural gas off the coast of Gaza. …Al-Monitor, October 22, 2022

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Egypt and Israel, which had the rubber-stamp of the Palestinian National Authority (PA):

“The Egyptian official explained that Israel required the start of practical measures to extract gas from the Gaza fields at the beginning of 2024, to ensure its own security. (Al-Monitor, October 22, 2022

Netanyahu’s Timeline: “Before The Beginning of 2024”

The timeline resulting from these bilateral Israel-Egypt “secret talks” i.e. confiscation of Palestine’s offshore Maritime Gas Reserves is “The Beginning of 2024”.

United Nations Assessment

An important United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) (2019) report describes Palestine’s predicament as follows: 

Geologists and natural resources economists have confirmed that the Occupied Palestinian Territory lies above sizeable reservoirs of oil and natural gas wealth, in Area C of the occupied West Bank and the Mediterranean coast off the Gaza Strip.

However, occupation continues to prevent Palestinians from developing their energy fields so as to exploit and benefit from such assets. As such, the Palestinian people have been denied the benefits of using this natural resource to finance socioeconomic development and meet their need for energy.

The accumulated losses are estimated in the billions of dollars. The longer Israel prevents Palestinians from exploiting their own oil and natural gas reserves, the greater the opportunity costs and the greater the total costs of the occupation borne by Palestinians become.

This study identifies and assesses existing and potential Palestinian oil and natural gas reserves that could be exploited for the benefit of the Palestinian people, which Israel is either preventing them from exploiting or is exploiting without due regard for international law. (UNCTAD, August 2019, emphasis added, download complete report)

Crimes against Humanity

In the words of Netanyahu who is on Record for Supporting and Financing a faction within Hamas:  

Crimes against humanity beyond description by the Netanyahu government against the People of Palestine,

Crimes also committed against the People of Israel who are the victims of the Hamas “False Flag Attack” carefully engineered by Mossad-IDF.

There are deep-seated divisions within Hamas. Our “False Flag” analysis pertains to a military-intelligence faction within Hamas which cooperates with Israeli and U.S. intelligence.  See:

Is the Gaza-Israel Fighting “A False Flag”? They Let it Happen? Their Objective Is “to Wipe Gaza Off the Map”?

By Philip Giraldi and Prof Michel Chossudovsky, October 20, 2023

 

Michel Chossudovsky,  Global Research, October 21, 2023

 

Below is the 2013 article by Felicity Arbuthnot

 

 

Israel Gas-Oil and Trouble in the Levant

by Felicity Arbuthnot 

Global Research, 

December 13, 2013

Israel is set to become a major exporter of gas and some oil, if all goes to plan. The giant Leviathan natural gas field, in the eastern Mediterranean, discovered in December 2010, is widely described as “off the coast of Israel.”

 At the time the gas field was:

“ … the most prominent field ever found in the sub-explored area of the Levantine Basin, which covers about 83,000 square kilometres of the eastern Mediterranean region.” (i)

Coupled with Tamar field, in the same location, discovered in 2009, the prospects are for an energy bonanza for Israel, for Houston, Texas based Noble Energy and partners Delek Drilling, Avner Oil Exploration and Ratio Oil Exploration.

Also involved is Perth, Australia-based Woodside Petroleum, which has signed a memorandum of understanding for a thirty percent stake in the project, in negotiations which have been described as “up and down.”

There is currently speculation that Woodside might pull out of the deal: “ …since the original plans to refrigerate the gas for export were pursued when relations between Israel and Turkey were strained. That has changed, more recently, which has opened the door for gas to be piped to Turkey.”

The spoils of the Leviathan field has already expanded from an estimated 16.7 trillion cubic feet (tcf ) of gas to nineteen trillion – and counting:

”We’ve discovered nearly 40 tcf of gas, and we have roughly 19 tcf of that gas that’s available for export to both regional and extra-regional markets. We see exports reaching 2 billion cubic feet a day in capacity in the next decade. And we continue to explore.”, stated Noble Vice Chairman Keith Elliot (ii) There are also estimated to be possibly six hundred million barrels of oil, according to Michael Economides of energytribune.com (“Eastern Mediterranean Energy – the next Great Game.”)

 However, even these estimates may prove modest. In their: “Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources of the Levant Basin Province, Eastern Mediterranean”, the US Department of the Interior’s US Geological Survey, wrote in 2010:

“We estimated a mean of 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil and a mean of 122 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas in this province using a geology based assessment methodology.”

Nevertheless, Woodside Petroleum, might also be hesitant to become involved in further disputes, since they are already embroiled, with the Australian government, in a protracted one in East Timor relating to the bonanaza of energy and minerals beneath the Timor Sea, which has even led to East Timor accusing Australia “of bugging East Timorese officials during the negotiations over the agreement.”(iii)

Woodside’s conflict in East Timor however, may well pale against what might well erupt over the Leviathan and Tamar fields. The area is not for nothing called the Levantine Basin.

Whilst Israel claims them as her very own treasure trove, only a fraction of the sea’s wealth lies in Israel’s bailiwick as maps (iv, v, see below) clearly show.

Much is still unexplored, but currently Palestine’s Gaza and the West Bank between them show the greatest discoveries, with anything found in Lebanon and Syria’s territorial waters sure to involve claims from both countries.

 

In a pre-emptive move, on Christmas Day, Syria announced a deal with Russia to explore 2,190 kilometres (850 Sq. miles) for oil and gas off its Mediterranean coast, to be: “… financed by Russia, and should oil and gas be discovered in commercial quantities, Moscow will recover the exploration costs.”

Syrian Oil Minister, Ali Abbas said during the signing ceremony that the contract covers “25 years, over several phases.”

Syria, increasingly crippled by international sanctions, has seen oil production plummet by ninety percent since the largely Western fermented unrest began in March 2011. Gas production has nearly halved, from thirty million cubic metres a day, to 16.7 cubic metres daily.

The agreement is reported to have resulted from “months of long negotiations” between the two countries. Russia, as one of the Syrian government’s main backers, looks set to also become a major player in the Levant Basin’s energy wealth. (vi)

Lebanon disputes Israel’s map of the Israeli-Lebanese maritime border, filing their own map and claims with the UN in 2010. Israel claims Lebanon is in the process of granting oil and gas exploration licenses in what Israel claims as its “exclusive economic zone.”

That the US in the guise of Vice President Joe Biden, as honest broker, acting peace negotiator in the maritime border dispute would be laughable, were it not potential for Israel to attack their neighbour again. In a visit to Israel in March 2010, Biden announced: “There is absolutely no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel’s security- none at all”, also announcing on arrival in Israel:”It’s good to be home.”

Given US decades of  “peace brokering” between Israel and Palestine, this is already a road of pitfalls, one sidedness and duplicity, well traveled. There is trouble ahead.

Oh, and in demonology, Leviathan is one of the seven princes of Hell.

Notes

i. http://www.offshore-technology.com/projects/leviathan-gas-field-levantine-israel/

ii. http://m.theage.com.au/business/options-widen-for-woodsides-leviathan-partners-20131219-2znu6.html

iii. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-04/east-timor-offers-funds-for-onshore- gas-processing/4933106

iv. http://www.offshore-technology.com/projects/leviathan-gas-field-levantine-israel/leviathan-gas-field-levantine-israel1.html

v. http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Leviathan+gas+project+Israel+map&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=ntC2UvO7IcPE7Ab7rIDYCQ&ved=0CEQQsAQ&biw=1017&bih=598

vi. http://www.phantomreport.com/syria-inks-oil-gas-deal-with-russia-firm#more-20238

****

 

Michel Chossudovsky’s

Video: War and Natural Gas: The Israeli Invasion and Gaza’s Offshore Gas Fields

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, April 25, 2024

 

Almost fifteen years ago in December 2008, Israel invaded Gaza under “Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009)”.

The following article was first published by Global Research in January 2009 at the height of the Israeli bombing and invasion under Operation Cast Lead.

War and Natural Gas:

The Israeli Invasion and Gaza’s Offshore Gas Fields

by Michel Chossudovsky

January 8, 2009

 

The December 2008 military invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves. 

This is a war of conquest. Discovered in 2000, there are extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline. 

British Gas (BG Group) and its partner, the Athens based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC) owned by Lebanon’s Sabbagh and Koury families, were granted oil and gas exploration rights in a 25 year agreement signed in November 1999 with the Palestinian Authority.

The rights to the offshore gas field are respectively British Gas (60 percent); Consolidated Contractors (CCC) (30 percent); and the Investment Fund of the Palestinian Authority (10 percent). (Haaretz, October 21,  2007).

The PA-BG-CCC agreement includes field development and the construction of a gas pipeline.(Middle East Economic Digest, Jan 5, 2001).

The BG licence covers the entire Gazan offshore marine area, which is contiguous to several Israeli offshore gas facilities. (See Map below). It should be noted that 60 percent of the gas reserves along the Gaza-Israel coastline belong to Palestine.

The BG Group drilled two wells in 2000: Gaza Marine-1 and Gaza Marine-2. Reserves are estimated by British Gas to be of the order of 1.4 trillion cubic feet, valued at approximately 4 billion dollars. These are the figures made public by British Gas. The size of Palestine’s gas reserves could be much larger.

Map 1

Map 2

Who Owns the Gas Fields

The issue of sovereignty over Gaza’s gas fields is crucial. From a legal standpoint, the gas reserves belong to Palestine.

The death of Yasser Arafat, the election of the Hamas government and the ruin of the Palestinian Authority have enabled Israel to establish de facto control over Gaza’s offshore gas reserves.

British Gas (BG Group) has been dealing with the Tel Aviv government. In turn, the Hamas government has been bypassed in regards to exploration and development rights over the gas fields.

The election of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001 was a major turning point. Palestine’s sovereignty over the offshore gas fields was challenged in the Israeli Supreme Court. Sharon stated unequivocally that “Israel would never buy gas from Palestine” intimating that Gaza’s offshore gas reserves belong to Israel.

In 2003, Ariel Sharon, vetoed an initial deal, which would allow British Gas to supply Israel with natural gas from Gaza’s offshore wells. (The Independent, August 19, 2003)

The election victory of Hamas in 2006 was conducive to the demise of the Palestinian Authority, which became confined to the West Bank, under the proxy regime of Mahmoud Abbas.

In 2006, British Gas “was close to signing a deal to pump the gas to Egypt.” (Times, May, 23, 2007). According to reports, British Prime Minister Tony Blair intervened on behalf of Israel with a view to shunting the agreement with Egypt.

The following year, in May 2007, the Israeli Cabinet approved a proposal by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert  “to buy gas from the Palestinian Authority.” The proposed contract was for $4 billion, with profits of the order of $2 billion of which one billion was to go the Palestinians.

Tel Aviv, however, had no intention on sharing the revenues with Palestine. An Israeli team of negotiators was set up by the Israeli Cabinet to thrash out a deal with the BG Group, bypassing both the Hamas government and the Palestinian Authority:

“Israeli defence authorities want the Palestinians to be paid in goods and services and insist that no money go to the Hamas-controlled Government.” (Ibid, emphasis added)

The objective was essentially to nullify the contract signed in 1999 between the BG Group and the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat.

Under the proposed 2007 agreement with BG, Palestinian gas from Gaza’s offshore wells was to be channeled by an undersea pipeline to the Israeli seaport of Ashkelon, thereby transferring control over the sale of the natural gas to Israel.

The deal fell through. The negotiations were suspended:

 “Mossad Chief Meir Dagan opposed the transaction on security grounds, that the proceeds would fund terror”. (Member of Knesset Gilad Erdan, Address to the Knesset on “The Intention of Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Purchase Gas from the Palestinians When Payment Will Serve Hamas,” March 1, 2006, quoted in Lt. Gen. (ret.) Moshe Yaalon, Does the Prospective Purchase of British Gas from Gaza’s Coastal Waters Threaten Israel’s National Security?  Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, October 2007)

Israel’s intent was to foreclose the possibility that royalties be paid to the Palestinians. In December 2007, The BG Group withdrew from the negotiations with Israel and in January 2008 they closed their office in Israel.(BG website).

Invasion Plan on The Drawing Board

The invasion plan of the Gaza Strip under “Operation Cast Lead” was set in motion in June 2008, according to Israeli military sources:

“Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago [June or before June] , even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.”(Barak Ravid, Operation “Cast Lead”: Israeli Air Force strike followed months of planning, Haaretz, December 27, 2008)

That very same month, the Israeli authorities contacted British Gas, with a view to resuming crucial negotiations pertaining to the purchase of Gaza’s natural gas:

“Both Ministry of Finance director general Yarom Ariav and Ministry of National Infrastructures director general Hezi Kugler agreed to inform BG of Israel’s wish to renew the talks.

The sources added that BG has not yet officially responded to Israel’s request, but that company executives would probably come to Israel in a few weeks to hold talks with government officials.” (Globes online- Israel’s Business Arena, June 23, 2008)

The decision to speed up negotiations with British Gas (BG Group) coincided, chronologically, with the planning of the invasion of Gaza initiated in June. It would appear that Israel was anxious to reach an agreement with the BG Group prior to the invasion, which was already in an advanced planning stage.

Moreover, these negotiations with British Gas were conducted by the Ehud Olmert government with the knowledge that a military invasion was on the drawing board. In all likelihood, a new “post war” political-territorial arrangement for the Gaza strip was also being contemplated by the Israeli government.

In fact, negotiations between British Gas and Israeli officials were ongoing in October 2008, 2-3 months prior to the commencement of the bombings on December 27th.

In November 2008, the Israeli Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of National Infrastructures instructed Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) to enter into negotiations with British Gas, on the purchase of natural gas from the BG’s offshore concession in Gaza. (Globes, November 13, 2008)

“Ministry of Finance director general Yarom Ariav and Ministry of National Infrastructures director general Hezi Kugler wrote to IEC CEO Amos Lasker recently, informing him of the government’s decision to allow negotiations to go forward, in line with the framework proposal it approved earlier this year.

The IEC board, headed by chairman Moti Friedman, approved the principles of the framework proposal a few weeks ago. The talks with BG Group will begin once the board approves the exemption from a tender.” (Globes Nov. 13, 2008)

Gaza and Energy Geopolitics 

The military occupation of Gaza is intent upon transferring the sovereignty of the gas fields to Israel in violation of international law.

What can we expect in the wake of the invasion?

What is the intent of Israel with regard to Palestine’s Natural Gas reserves?

A new territorial arrangement, with the stationing of Israeli and/or “peacekeeping” troops?

The militarization of the entire Gaza coastline, which is strategic for Israel?

The outright confiscation of Palestinian gas fields and the unilateral declaration of Israeli sovereignty over Gaza’s maritime areas?

If this were to occur, the Gaza gas fields would be integrated into Israel’s offshore installations, which are contiguous to those of the Gaza Strip. (See Map 1 above)

These various offshore installations are also linked up to Israel’s energy transport corridor, extending from the port of Eilat, which is an oil pipeline terminal, on the Red Sea to the seaport – pipeline terminal at Ashkelon, and northwards to Haifa, and eventually linking up through a proposed Israeli-Turkish pipeline with the Turkish port of Ceyhan.

Map 3

Ceyhan is the terminal of the Baku, Tblisi Ceyhan Trans Caspian pipeline.

“What is envisaged is to link the BTC pipeline to the Trans-Israel Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline, also known as Israel’s Tipline.” (See Michel Chossudovsky, The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil, Global Research, July 23, 2006)

 

Readers’ Thanks to Michel Chossudovsky

• Thank you for your continued activism and truth-telling. A thankless task but the right thing.

• You Sir are a Canadian hero. Thank you for your wonderful site and all the fine work you have done over the many years I have followed your work.

 

• Michel Chossudovsky, you are a voice of reason and understanding. Thank you for your awareness. I am a Syrian/American. I heard one voice during the bombing of Gaza of a child screaming for his father and his father could not reach him, but he cried out to him, “PUT YOUR HEART ON MY HEART.” Those humans who are putting your Heart on Palestine, thank you.

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[In view of the latest developments in Syria, we are reposting this important article by Shane Quinn, first published in April 2022.]

The United States, with occasional interruptions, has been interfering in the important Middle East nation of Syria for over 70 years, and today there are hundreds of American soldiers still present on Syrian soil. These realities are not well known.

US intrusion in Syrian affairs can be traced to the late 1940s, as outlined in 2016 by the American author Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The CIA, at the behest of Harry Truman’s government in Washington, started to destabilise Syria shortly after the country’s official independence in April 1946.

Kennedy Jr. wrote,

“The CIA began its active meddling in Syria in 1949 – barely a year after the agency’s creation. Syrian patriots had declared war on the Nazis, expelled their Vichy French colonial rulers, and crafted a fragile secularist democracy based on the American model”.

Syria at this time was governed by president Shukri al-Quwatli, a man aged in his 50s who had been elected through a democratic process in August 1943. Quwatli is a founding father of the modern Syrian state, and he is regarded by many Syrians as among the most renowned figures in the country’s 20th century history.

Image on the right: Quwatli declaring Syria’s independence from France, 17 April 1946 (Licensed under the public domain)

Quwatli had Syria’s interests at heart, and he was well acquainted with the methods of imperial powers. He repeatedly pressed for Syrian independence from its French master, often irritating politicians in France by what they perceived to be Quwatli’s stubbornness and disobedience.

It was inevitable these character traits would annoy the leaders of another major power. This time Quwatli was not dealing with a long-declining colonial state like France, but instead his country’s independence was standing in the way of the geopolitical designs of the world’s strongest country, America.

By the 1930s and 1940s, it was recognised in American political circles that the Middle East was the earth’s richest and most strategically important region, chiefly because it contains vast quantities of oil and gas. The waters beside Syria’s coastline are estimated to hold 122 trillion cubic feet of gas and around 107 billion barrels of oil.

The Truman administration wanted to construct extensive oil infrastructure, called the Trans-Arabian Pipeline, through the US ally and oil dictatorship Saudi Arabia, northwards into Syria and Lebanon. British author James Barr, a Middle East analyst, wrote, “By the fall of 1947, Syria had become as important to the United States as it had been to the Crusaders eight centuries earlier”.

The Trans-Arabian Pipeline was a venture of American corporations like Standard Oil of New Jersey (today ExxonMobil), which in the past had conducted business deals with the fascist regimes in Europe. Also involved in the Trans-Arabian Pipeline was Standard Oil of California (today Chevron) and Texaco (now part of Chevron). Texaco likewise pursued business operations with the far-right European powers, having for example constructed a large oil refinery in Nazi Germany at the city of Hamburg, which supplied fuel for the Luftwaffe.

The CIA itself had been founded in July 1947. Two months later, in September 1947 a 31-year-old CIA agent named Miles Copeland arrived in the Syrian capital Damascus. He thereafter gathered intelligence details on the country. Copeland was soon joined in Syria by another CIA agent, Stephen Meade.

Much to the Americans’ disapproval, president Quwatli was not keen on sanctioning the US-initiated oil pipeline across Syrian territory. As a consequence it was decided in Washington that he would have to go. The CIA agents in Syria, Copeland and Meade, would perform a central role in ousting Quwatli. The Truman administration gave its consent to the installation of a military dictatorship in Damascus, led by Brigadier-General Husni al-Zaim, someone who Kennedy Jr. described as “a convicted swindler”.

The CIA officers in Damascus advised and bribed Zaim, who was the chief-of-staff of the Syrian Army. Meade alone met with Zaim on at least 6 occasions, and they spoke about the possibility of an “army supported dictatorship”. Zaim informed Meade that the “only way to start the Syrian people along the road to progress and democracy” is “with the whip”. Bolstered by the CIA, Zaim overthrew Quwatli on 30 March 1949.

Brazilian historian Moniz Bandeira recognised the underlying reason was that the ousted Quwatli “had hesitated in approving the construction of the Trans-Arabian Pipeline, connecting the oil fields of Saudi Arabia to the ports of Lebanon, which the United States wanted to build through Syria”. Syria’s tentative democracy had been quickly smashed with US assistance.

The CIA-engineered overthrow of Quwatli was one of the first covert operations the intelligence service had undertaken. Zaim’s rule in Damascus was a brief and unpopular one, lasting for four and a half months until mid-August 1949. He was toppled and killed by disloyal military colleagues “with the help of the United States” Bandeira noted. A succession of short-lived and mostly military autocracies reigned in Syria, until the mid-1950s. In an unlikely return Quwatli reassumed power in early September 1955.

Now aged 64, Quwatli chose a foreign policy of non-alignment outside of the American and Soviet camps. With the Cold War between west and east intensifying, Quwatli’s independent strategy bothered the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration. Eisenhower, a famous US Army general who became president in January 1953, described the Middle East two years before as “the most strategically important area of the world”.

For president Eisenhower, the Middle East state of Syria was a valuable piece on the chess board. At this time around 1955 the CIA Director under Eisenhower, Allen Dulles, and his brother the US Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, began formulating a clandestine war against Arab nationalism; which they conveniently linked with communism, particularly when it threatened US hegemony over foreign oil sources. Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers already had leading parts in deposing democratic governments in oil rich Iran (August 1953) not far from Syria, and Guatemala (June 1954) in Central America.

Just as Quwatli was returning to power in Damascus, Eisenhower’s regime change policy towards Syria was taking shape. The CIA Director Allen Dulles considered Syria “ripe for a coup”. From 1955, the CIA worked in tandem with Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and also Turkish intelligence. Together these special services colluded with the conservatives of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, in the hope of removing Quwatli.

On 1 July 1956 the CIA officer Archibald Roosevelt Jr., grandson of former president Theodore Roosevelt, met in Damascus with Wilbur Crane Eveland, a US National Security Council member. Also present at this meeting was an ex-Syrian minister, Michail Bey Ilyan. Displeased with Quwatli’s government, the three men discussed an “anti-communist” takeover of Syria and its biggest cities, such as Damascus, Aleppo and Homs.

On 21 September 1956 – on the pretexts of containing Soviet communism and the influence of Egypt under its new left-wing leader Gamal Abdel Nasser – the Secretary of State John Foster Dulles informed America’s ambassador in Syria, James S. Moose, to continue “to seek means of assisting Western firms which are bidding for the contract for construction of the Syrian national oil refinery, in competition with bids from the Soviet bloc”.

In October 1956, the special services of America, Britain and Turkey gave the green light to what was titled Operation Straggle, a plan to eliminate Quwatli. Secret agents of the Anglo-American-Turkish powers instigated unrest along Syria’s frontiers, which would serve as the pretext for a putsch in Damascus.

The CIA-led Operation Straggle turned into a fiasco. Syria’s head of military intelligence, Colonel Abdel Hamid al-Sarraj, discovered the anti-government plot and arrested the principal Syrian conspirators. A CIA operative, Walter Snowdon, who was also the Second Secretary in the US Embassy in Damascus, was implicated and had to hastily leave Syria. As too did the US military attaché, Colonel Robert W. Molloy.

Operation Straggle was terminated on 29 October 1956, just when the so-called Suez Crisis was erupting nearby to the south-west, as president Nasser of Egypt in following days would get the better of his Western foes.

Undeterred by the setbacks, CIA subversive activities in Syria promptly resumed. In 1957 the CIA dispatched to Syria two of its agents, Howard “Rocky” Stone and Kermit Roosevelt Jr., another grandson of Theodore Roosevelt. Stone and Roosevelt Jr. had helped to organise the previously mentioned coups in Iran (Operation Ajax) and Guatemala (Operation Success), which led to such devastating results for those two countries.

Kennedy Jr. wrote,

“Flush from his Operation Ajax ‘success’ in Iran, Stone arrived in Damascus in April 1957 with $3 million to arm and incite Islamic militants, and to bribe Syrian military officers and politicians to overthrow al-Quwatli’s democratically elected secularist regime”.

Operation Straggle was reconstituted by the Americans under the new codename Operation Wappen. The CIA goals were to gather together right-wing elements in Syria’s officer corps, and bribe them with millions of dollars, along with ex-Syrian politicians exiled in neighbouring Lebanon.

The US Embassy in Damascus was now, however, under constant surveillance by anti-imperialist Syrian Army officers like Colonel Sarraj, who was an admirer of Nasser. Colonel Sarraj had prior knowledge of the coup’s development. The plan was further denounced by Syrian military personnel who refused to accept bribes to oust Quwatli. Stone, the CIA agent in Damascus, was arrested by Syria’s authorities and on television he confessed to the plot. US Ambassador Moose was expelled from Syria, with his tenure officially ending on 30 June 1957.

Eisenhower was seriously annoyed at this turn of events, as US-Syrian relations hit one of its all time lows in mid-1957. His administration in response sent the US Sixth Fleet to the Mediterranean Sea beside Syria. The Americans were contemplating a military attack against Syria, in order to install a Western-friendly leader.

Eisenhower considered the risks too great in the end. Following the failure of these latter coup attempts in Syria, Bandeira wrote,

“President Dwight Eisenhower and Allen Dulles had no alternative but to accept the defeat. An invasion in Syria could lead to a Soviet intervention in Turkey”.

American suspicions towards Syria did not abate in February 1958, when a union was formed that month between Syria and Egypt, called the United Arab Republic. Yet the alliance lasted for less than 4 years. It was undone on 28 September 1961, as a result of a section of the Syrian military being against subordination to Nasser in Cairo.

Following more instability in Syria and another succession of short-lived regimes, General Hafez-al Assad, tied to the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party, took power in March 1971. He was the father of the present day Syrian leader. Over ensuing years, General Assad would have a difficult relationship with the US, in part due to his uncompromising stance towards Israel, which Syria shares a southern border with.

At the beginning of his long reign in 1971, General Assad agreed that year to the Soviet Union establishing a naval base in the Syrian city of Tartus, resting on the strategically important Mediterranean Sea. In many ways, Syria is a link between the Middle East and Europe, and the Russians continue to use this vital base of operations at Tartus.

From the 1970s onward, Washington made continued efforts to erode General Assad’s position. There was the 1982 Hama revolt in western Syria, which resulted in a decisive victory for Assad’s Syrian Army. This blood-soaked rebellion may well have been encouraged by both the US and its NATO ally Turkey, according to Bandeira. The efforts to oust Assad continually floundered; on separate occasions he crushed with an iron fist revolts enacted by the right-wing Muslim Brotherhood.

Ongoing US hostility towards Assad predictably pushed him closer to the Soviet Union. David W. Lesch, an expert in Middle East affairs wrote,

“As a function of its [Syria’s] cold war alliance with the Soviet bloc, and its traditional position as the most vehemently anti-Israeli Arab state, Syria has been perceived by Washington as an implacable foe for most of the period since World War II”.

In October 1980, Syria and the Soviet Union signed a Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation, which was meant to last for 20 years. In November 1982, with the assumption to power of the 68-year-old Russian politician Yuri Andropov, the USSR shipped to Syria advanced missile systems and warned Israel “not to take any military action against Syria”. Russian military aid partly enabled the Syrians to defeat the US Expeditionary Force present in Lebanon.

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Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree. He is interested in writing primarily on foreign affairs, having been inspired by authors like Noam Chomsky. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Sources

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “Why the Arabs Don’t Want Us in Syria”, Politico Magazine, 22 February 2016

James Barr, “Once Upon a Time, America needed Syria”, Foreign Policy, 18 September 2018

Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira, The World Disorder: US Hegemony, Proxy Wars, Terrorism and Humanitarian Catastrophes (Springer; 1st ed., 4 Feb. 2019)

Adam Hochschild, “The Untold Story of the Texaco Oil Tycoon Who Loved Fascism”, The Nation, 21 March 2016

Office Of The Historian, Instruction From the Department of State to the Embassy in Syria, 21 September 1956

Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira, The Second Cold War: Geopolitics and the Strategic Dimensions of the USA (Springer 1st ed., 23 June 2017)

Olivia B. Waxman, “The U.S. Intervened in Syria in 1949. Here’s What Happened”, Time Magazine, 13 April 2017

David W. Lesch, When the Relationship Went Sour: Syria and the Eisenhower Administration, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Winter 1998, Published by: Wiley, Jstor

Fred H. Lawson, “Karsh, The Soviet Union and Syria”, Middle East Report, March/April 1990

Featured image is from Mideast Discourse

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

Voices from Syria 

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“The sun burned every day. It burned Time. The world rushed in a circle and turned on its axis and time was busy burning the years and the people anyway, without any help from him. So if he burned things with the firemen and the sun burned Time, that meant that everything burned!” —Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Annie Jacobson, in her book “Nuclear War: A Scenario,” describes the first few seconds of a one-megaton thermonuclear weapon detonating over an American city as beginning “with a flash of light and heat so tremendous it is impossible for the human mind to comprehend. 180 degrees Fahrenheit is four or five times hotter than the temperature that occurs at the center of the sun.” The fireball produced by this explosion is so intense “that concrete surfaces explode, metal objects melt or evaporate, stone shatters, humans instantaneously convert into combusting carbon.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin, addressing the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) at a meeting held in the Kazakh capital of Astana this past Thursday, declared that Russia’s new intermediate-range ballistic missile, Oreshnik, which was used to strike a Ukrainian military production facility near the city of Dnipropetrovsk, possessed destructive power comparable to that of a nuclear weapon.

“Dozens of warheads, self-guided units attack the target at a speed of 10 Mach (ten times the speed of sound),” Putin said. “This is about three kilometers per second. The temperature of the striking elements reaches 4000 degrees. If my memory serves me right,” Putin noted, “the temperature on the surface of the Sun is 5,500-6000 degrees. Therefore, everything that is in the epicenter of the explosion is divided into fractions, into elementary particles, everything turns essentially into dust.”

In short, the Russian President declared the use of several Oreshnik missiles in one strike would be comparable in destructive power to a nuclear weapon.

The imagery presented in Annie Jacobson’s book is so utterly horrific as to surpass the ability of most humans to comprehend, let alone apply real-life examples that allow for a modicum of intellectual comprehension. As such, when Vladimir Putin made his analogous claim regarding the comparative destructive power of a hydrogen bomb and the Oreshnik missiles conventional warhead, one’s brain is deflected away from the unthinkable and toward the practical.

The Oreshnik missile attack against the Yuzmash factory outside Dnipropetrovsk produced stunning visual images of six separate impact “events,” each comprised of six luminescent “rods” impacting the factory grounds. The Russian government had alluded to the destruction caused by this attack as being devastating; the Ukrainians, on the other hand, have minimized the damage done as negligible.

Click here to read the full article. 

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“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102

PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
–Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute

Story:

• This Alberta woman’s daughter who has Down Syndrome, was almost killed by Alberta Health Services (AHS) in 2022 when she was hospitalized with breathing problems, put on a ventilator and doctors wanted to start Remdesivir.
• Alberta Health Services would have undoubtedly killed her in 2022, if mom didn’t intervene and refuse Remdesivir.
• Now, both are sick with a respiratory infection.
• Mom is taking 40mg of Ivermectin a day and giving 30mg to daughter.

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Another Tool for Infections – Chlorine Dioxide 

• I had a bad flu a few months ago and it wasn’t going away with a few days of Ivermectin.
• I remember trying Chlorine Dioxide out of curiosity and it was gone in what seemed like 24 hours but may have been 2 days.
• This was a nasty flu (or COVID) that had lingered for a couple of weeks and it seemed Ivermectin was not bringing it down.

.

Chlorine Dioxide was used successfully in South America (Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador) for severe COVID-19.

.

.

Result

.

.

My Take…

Alberta Health Services has killed 10,000s of Albertans since the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

In 2023, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith ordered a review of the handling of the COVID-19 Pandemic by Dr.Gary Davidson (a promise she ran on) but his Committee was stonewalled as AHS lawyers refused to hand over crucial COVID-19 pandemic data.

To this day, no one at AHS has been held accountable for the patient deaths AHS caused. This includes COVID-19 Vaccine injuries & deaths, including pregnant women and children.

About 6000 Albertans were killed due to AHS blocking Early COVID-19 Treatments like Ivermectin or Hydroxychloroquine, or due to AHS putting patients on ventilators and Remdesivir (a discredited practice AHS continues to this day).

This young woman would have been one of AHS’s victims in 2022 had her mother not refused Remdesivir, saving her life.

She remains in danger any time she goes to the hospital, as AHS is liable to kill her if they get their hands on her and try to put her on Remdesivir again.

Albertans are avoiding AHS doctors and hospitals like the plague.

Cancer patients are not getting proper Cancer Care from AHS. No one is held responsible in this lawless province.

Avoid the hospitals if you can. Your life may depend on it.

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

Today, (November 30), the Syrian military said that the large number terrorists, who launched a broad attack from multiple axes on Aleppo and Idlib fronts using heavy weapons and large number of drones, and the multiple fronts of engagement have  forced the army to redeploy with the aim of strengthening the defense lines in to contain the attack, preserve the lives of civilians and soldiers, and prepare for a counterattack.

It added that  dozens of its armed forces were martyred and others were wounded during the battles, according to the statement issued by the Syrian General Command of the Army and Armed Forces, which was published by the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).

The statement affirmed that the redeployment is a temporary measure and the army will work by all possible means to ensure the security and safety of the people in the city of Aleppo, and will continue its operations and carry out its national duty in confronting terrorist organizations to expel them and re-control the entire city and its countryside.

It underlined that terrorist groups  had not been able to establish fixed positions in Aleppo city due to the army’s continued bombardment of their positions.

In this context, Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV channel reported today that Militants are deployed in about 60% of Aleppo’s area and are imposing a curfew on residents in their areas of deployment until further notice.

Yesterday, French humanitarian Pierre Le Corf, who has been in Aleppo for 9 years stressed that the large-scale attack, which started two days ago on Aleppo governorate, was launched by around 15-20 thousands terrorists of Syrian and foreign nationalities and foreign intelligence bodies.

He expects a street war in Aleppo as many terrorist groups infiltrated into the city of Aleppo and terrified people there.

”I saw many terrorists, who were trying to get within the city center.. I hope that they will not arrive to the center of Aleppo city… It will be a long night I think,” added Le Corf.

He indicated that the current terrorist attack has been very well-organized at a specific point of time.

Ahmad, who is living with his family in Aleppo city, told us that the people who live near the lines of engagement have left their homes and moved to other places. Meanwhile, many people in other areas in Aleppo got into their cars and fled, because the scenario was very similar to that of the fall of Idlib…. The infiltration of some terrorists from one side of the front due to betrayal was coincided with the awakening of sleeper cells in various places inside Aleppo. Videos were filmed for a few seconds and distributed, and the people of Aleppo believed them. So they left their homes.

Another citizen from Aleppo, Edward, said that a lot of people are awaiting for buses to pick them up to other governorate through safe road as the international highway is closed because of the terrorist attacks.

Today, the Syrian army announced that its forces successfully thwarted a large-scale attack by armed groups from the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in the rural regions of Aleppo and Idlib provinces in northern Syria.

In a statement, the army said the HTS — an al-Qaeda-linked extremist organization — has launched attacks using various heavy and medium weapons, including drones provided by its foreign allies.

“Our armed forces have inflicted heavy losses to the attacking groups, causing hundreds of deaths and injuries among the terrorists,” the statement said, adding, “We have destroyed dozens of vehicles and armored units and have downed 17 drones.”

The army is reinforcing its positions on various frontlines to prevent further breaches, the statement noted.

It also accused the HTS of disseminating misleading information and videos aimed at alarming the civilian population in Aleppo, urging citizens to rely solely on official national media for accurate information.

Four civilians were killed and several university students were injured on Friday (November 29) when the armed militant groups fired shells at a dormitory complex in Aleppo city, state news agency SANA reported.

For his part, Oleg Yegnasiyuk, Deputy Head of the Russian Reconciliation Center in Syria declared that at least 400 terrorist militants linked to Jabhat al-Nusra were killed during their attack on SAA positions in the Aleppo and Idlib countrysides on November 27.

In a press conference, Yegnasiyuk confirmed that the terrorist groups suffered heavy losses in both personnel and equipment while attacking the SAA. He noted that the Syrian army is “fighting fiercely, supported by the Russian Air Force.”

13 terrorist attacks were recorded against Syrian government forces (Syrian Army and allied units) in the Idlib “de-escalation zone,” including 12 in Idlib province and one in Aleppo province.

Meanwhile, Al Mayadeen’s correspondent in Syria reported that armed groups operating west of Aleppo have unveiled the use of an advanced drone, reportedly acquired from Kiev’s intelligence services.

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The rate of myopia progression among Chicago-area kids more than doubled during the COVID-19 lockdowns when compared to the same kids during the year before the lockdowns, according to a new peer-reviewed study.

Myopia, or nearsightedness, is growing more common among children, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology. Though estimates vary, nearly half of the world’s population is expected to have myopia by 2050.

The study authors — who published their findings on Nov. 18 in the British Journal of Ophthalmology— looked at eye exam results of 2,064 Chicago-area kids ages 2-17 from January 2019 through March 2021.

They compared the differences in exam results from 2019 to 2020 — before the COVID-19 lockdowns — with the differences in exam results from 2020 to 2021 when COVID-19 lockdowns were in effect.

Through statistical analyses, they found “a substantial worsening” of myopia progression “during the period of home confinement and online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Specifically, the change in myopia progression rates from 2020 to 2021 was more than double (2.2 times greater) the change from 2019 to 2020.

“The greatest increase in myopia prevalence was seen in younger elementary school-aged children, particularly in 8-year-olds, and also in 17-year-olds,” they said.

The authors said their findings align with prior research showing that kids who spend lots of time indoors reading and looking at screens tend to have worsening eyesight. They also cited prior research showing that spending time outdoors typically prevents and mitigates myopia.

The researchers concluded that COVID-19 pandemic policies — including school closures and cancellation of outdoor group sports — likely played a role in the uptick in myopia progression.

Online learning methods — and increased screen time and less outdoor time — have persisted despite the end of COVID-19 lockdowns, they said. Their evidence suggests that may be a problem when it comes to kids’ eye health.

The authors of the study called for a reduction in kids’ online learning because of its associated screen time and lack of outdoor activity.

8-year-olds and 17-year-olds Saw Biggest Jump

The new research adds weight to the argument that lockdowns harmed kids and teens. In September, University of Washington researchers found that COVID-19 lockdowns accelerated the aging of teenagers’ brains.

For this new study, researchers with Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago examined how lockdowns affected the eyesight of children and teens.

They looked at data from Chicago-area kids and teens who completed a cycloplegic refraction — a vision test using eye drops to relax the eye muscles — at a tertiary children’s hospital in 2019, 2020 and 2021.

They compared the differences in exam results between these years as a way of examining whether there was a heightened increase in the progression of myopia among children during the lockdowns.

They explained:

“Exams performed in January, February, and March of 2021 took place after the pediatric population experienced remote learning since city-wide public school closures began March 17, 2020.

“Exams from January, February, and March of 2019 and 2020 reflect data before the major lifestyle changes of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Thus, patients seen in the early months of 2019 and 2020 serve as ‘control’ patients, and patients seen in the same early months of 2021 serve as ‘behavior change experiment’ patients.”

They found that the rate of increased myopia from 2020 to 2021 was more than double that of the rate from 2019 to 2020.

From 2020 to 2021, kids ages 8 and 17 saw the greatest increase (25%).

The uptick stood in stark contrast to the year before the COVID-19 lockdowns during which both ages saw a decrease in myopia, they said. From 2019 to 2020, 8-year-olds saw a 1% decrease and 17-year-olds saw a 24% decrease.

Moreover, kids who were already myopic in 2019 were typically the ones who reported the greatest worsening of their eyesight.

The study authors also compared the kids’ exam results by education level. They looked at the myopia prevalence among elementary-level kids versus middle schoolers versus high schoolers.

Elementary-level kids had the greatest increase (10%) in prevalence during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

However, the authors noted that it’s not just young kids who are at risk. “The notable increase in myopia prevalence in 17-year-olds in 2021 is an unexpected finding,” they said, “as older children are thought to be less plastic.”

Their data suggest it’s important to reduce screen time and increase outdoor activity not only for younger children but older kids and adolescents, too.

They also called for more research on the long-term impact of increased screen time and decreased outdoor activities on kids’ vision.

The study authors noted a limitation of the study is that it lacked exact measurements of screen time hours and outdoor activity hours.

Instead, the authors used the timeline of official education guidelines to infer the extent to which kids shifted from in-person learning and normal outdoor activities to online learning and restricted outdoor activities.

“Given the lack of direct measurements, our interpretations and conclusions are made with caution,” they said.

The study was funded by a grant from the nonprofit Research to Prevent Blindness.

The Defender reached out to the study’s corresponding author but did not receive a response by the deadline.

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Donald Trump has repeatedly announced he is preparing a war against drug cartels, and James Bosworth, a global fellow at the Wilson Center’s Latin America Program, argues that Trump’s threats should be taken seriously.

There is in any case a larger context to Donald Trump’s “war on drugs” promises: he has after all vowed to employ the military for mass deportations (of illegal migrants) and to do so, he plans to declare “national emergency” – the plan does not rule out deporting whole families altogether. Several immigration “hard-liners” have been tapped by Trump to serve in his future administration (he will take the oath in January 2025). Such measures would be a great shift for the US military, normally not involved with domestic law enforcement matters. It has been tried before, though: the so-called Operation Wetback, under then President Eisenhower, in 1954, deported around 1 million Mexicans and even some US Americans of Mexican descent.

This might not be just about providing a very harsh answer to illegal migration and border problems (such as the Fentanyl crisis). Trump has at times even promised that thousands of American troops from overseas would be moved to the border. Think about it: mobilizing the military domestically and declaring a “national emergency” is a great way to increase one’s own power. And, as I wrote before, Trump’s war with part of the so-called “Deep State” is (to a large extent) all about that. It is about “taming” the intelligence services, expanding the Executive (as outlined in Project 2025) and boosting presidential powers.

Back to the border issues, in September 2023, Foreign Policy published a piece by Cato Institute’s researchers Justin Logan and Daniel Raisbeck about the (still ongoing) Fentanyl crisis. US Americans have long been facing an opioid crisis and a large share of the drug’s supply comes from Mexico. The issue fuels political tensions: for instance, American authorities have been vocally accusing Chinese companies of supplying Mexican cartels with the ingredients needed to manufacture fentanyl. In May 2023, Washington sanctioned 17 individuals and entities in China and Mexico over the issue. Amid American-Mexican tensions, increasingly heavy rhetoric against the Mexican cartels involved in this illegal trade has often included calls for “military solutions.”

Already in May 2024, Trump announced his plans to send “kill teams” to Mexico to “take out” cartel leaders. He is no lone voice on that, though. In August 2023, during the Republican Party presidential debate (before Donald Trump was made the party’s nominee), Florida Governor Ron DeSantis promised to send US Special Forces into neighboring Mexico to combat drug cartels if elected president. Bryan Griffin, his spokesperson, elaborated the promise thusly: “Ron DeSantis will declare the cartels to be narco-terrorists, and change the rules of engagement on the border.

The full force of the federal government will be utilized to ensure that illegal drug flow is stopped, and he will bring to bear every tool he has to this end.” DeSantis did not make it to become his party’s nominee, but his statements back then go to show that this kind of rhetoric (which fails to take into consideration Mexico’s sovereignty) goes beyond Trump, and, in fact, Mexico is (no surprise here) a big part of the US debate on foreign policy.

Newly-sworn Mexican President Claudio Sheinbaum appears to have taken a more aggressive approach domestically towards Mexican cartels, employing Mexico’s military to combat them. However, thus far she has refused US security assistance and has even limited cooperation and intelligence-sharing since she took office in October. Putting it mildly, bilateral relations are not good right now – again, no surprise here.

Such typical American aggressiveness can only further alienate the neighboring country and push it away towards Beijing, for instance: Chinese pragmatic diplomacy after all contrasts quite dramatically to American belligerency. Mexican civilian authorities are not the only actors who could object to any such US incursion on their territory: we are talking about a heavily militarized nation, and this includes sophisticated and tremendously wealthy and heavily armed paramilitary groups such as the drug cartels themselves.

Any such cross-border militarization (with potential for some degree of armed confrontation) could have escalating consequences and unpredictable repercussions in terms of diplomatic and economic impacts, gang violence, and domestic and cross-border inter-ethnic tensions: the two countries not only share a 2,000-mile border but are also very much integrated, with Mexican-Americans being 11.2% of the US population in 2022. In Texas, 31.6% of the local population has Mexican ancestry

Besides the military and diplomatic angles (taken together with mass deportation plans impacting millions of people which would cost billions of dollars), there is a potential for economic disaster, as the two countries complement each other in this realm as well: for one thing, in 2021 Mexico was the US second largest trading partner, with a total of $725.7 billion goods and services trade. By July 2023, Mexico had already surpassed China, becoming the top trading partner.

In addition to that, Trump’s plans are sure to trigger a legal battle at home, lawsuits from state governors and so on. It also opens the room for some level of armed conflict with different actors with a neighboring country. The aforementioned James Bosworth warns that the potential for a “Blackhawk Down scenario” in which US troops “end up pinned down in a violent standoff with criminal forces or even Mexican troops defending the country’s sovereignty from US intervention—is real”, for a “simple’ operation” could “rapidly escalate into something more complex and deadly.”

He adds that Washington should also consider “potential responses by the cartels”, because “some Mexican criminal groups may decide to fight back and even escalate violence by targeting US interests, businesses and citizens”. Moreover, according to Bosworth, they can do “plenty of damage to US forces operating in Mexico, and they have the capabilities, weapons and personnel to take the fight into US territory in a way that al-Qaida and the Islamic State could only dream of.”

As is the case with so many belligerent US policies and plans, the risk lies in the unpredictability of escalation scenarios. One may only wonder whether such risks will be worth it, even from Trump’s perspective.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Uriel Araujo, PhD, is an anthropology researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

The documentary “Into the Soil: The Wisdom of Regenerative Farming” introduces Brigid LeFevre, who grew up in an Irish Camphill community practicing biodynamic farming; families lived with individuals with special needs and operated without monetary transactions

The documentary advocates separating food from market economics, arguing that forcing farmers to compete financially undermines sustainable land management and community well-being

LeFevre runs a CSA in Sweden focusing on fermented foods, which support gut and mental health while preserving harvest throughout the year for community members

The film emphasizes biodiversity’s importance in farming, contrasting it with harmful monocultures that deplete soil nutrients and increase pest problems in modern agriculture

Regenerative farming is presented as an alternative to industrial agriculture, emphasizing holistic practices, community involvement and long-term environmental stewardship over short-term profits

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The documentary “Into the Soil: The Wisdom of Regenerative Farming” is a profound exploration of practices that not only restore our land but also enrich communities and personal well-being. This film explores the philosophies and methodologies that underpin regenerative farming, presenting a vision that starkly contrasts with the prevailing industrial agricultural models.

The documentary opens by introducing Brigid LeFevre, whose upbringing in Ireland forms the bedrock of her regenerative farming philosophy. “I grew up in a little oasis in Ireland,” LeFevre begins,¹ setting the stage for a narrative steeped in community and sustainability.

She was raised in a Camphill community — a village inspired by anthroposophical principles — where families lived together with individuals with special needs. This environment creates an inclusive and supportive atmosphere, emphasizing collective responsibility and mutual respect.

Life in the Camphill community was markedly different from conventional living. “My parents and everyone else worked voluntarily. There was no exchange of money at all,” LeFevre explains.²Instead of monetary transactions, the community relied on voluntary labor and a shared sense of responsibility.

This system not only reduced financial stress but also strengthened communal bonds, creating a self-sufficient and harmonious living environment. The community operated a biodynamic farm and a store, all maintained through collective effort and a deep respect for the land.

Embracing Biodynamic Farming and Self-Sufficiency

Biodynamic farming emphasizes holistic and sustainable agricultural practices that enhance soil fertility, increase biodiversity and promote ecological balance. Biodynamic methods go beyond organic farming by incorporating spiritual and holistic practices, aiming to create a self-sustaining ecosystem.

One of the most striking aspects of the Camphill community is its separation of food from the economic market. “The question of a market connected to food is completely … It was never part of my childhood, and it’s not part of the Camphill model,” LeFevre explains.³ By eliminating monetary transactions in favor of a system based on need and contribution, the community minimizes the pressures and distortions often introduced by market forces.

This radical approach creates a more authentic and sustainable relationship with the land. Without the constant drive for profit and efficiency, the community prioritizes long-term ecological health over short-term gains.

“Separating food from the market is definitely a lesson … to put pressure on the people who are maintaining land, providing food and habitat, forcing them to know about and engage in the economic market and competition, I think is crazy,” LeFevre asserts.⁴

This perspective challenges the conventional economic paradigms that often lead to environmental degradation and social inequities, advocating instead for a model that values sustainability and community well-being over financial profit.

The Camphill community exemplifies the strength of inclusive and collaborative living. The integration of individuals with special needs within the farming community is not just a matter of accommodation but a source of profound enrichment. By valuing every member’s contributions, the community builds resilient networks that support both personal well-being and collective environmental goals. 

Living with Complexity — Embracing the Interconnectedness of Life

A recurring theme throughout the documentary is the capacity to “stay with the trouble.” This concept involves acknowledging and embracing the inherent complexity and difficulty of our current environmental and social challenges. “We have to be able to stay with the trouble. Stay with it. It’s really hard, complicated and complex,” LeFevre emphasizes, advocating for a nuanced understanding of our interconnectedness with nature.⁵

Instead of seeking simplistic solutions or succumbing to despair, regenerative farming encourages a deep engagement with the multifaceted realities of life. The narrative highlights the beauty and complexity of existence — from the intricate structure of a flower to the processes that shape our cities and landscapes.

“The amazing beauty of a flower. The knowledge that cities are created out of destroyed mountains,” LeFevre reflects,⁶ underscoring the profound connections between human activity and the natural world. By holding space for these multifaceted realities, individuals can cultivate a deeper sense of connection and responsibility towards the environment.

Fermentation Is a Living Process for Health and Sustainability

LeFevre runs a community supported agriculture (CSA) operation in Järna, Sweden, named “Förädlad.” The CSA model is a cornerstone of regenerative farming, building a direct relationship between farmers and consumers. Members of the community invest in the farm by purchasing shares of the harvest, which in return receive fresh, locally grown produce.

An intriguing aspect explored in the documentary is the role of fermentation in regenerative farming and the CSA model. LeFevre’s focus on fermenting the harvest serves as a means to enrich food with nutritious lactic acid bacteria.

Fermented foods support a healthy gut microbiome, which is key for overall health. “Eating fermented food helps your physical and mental health. Because it makes your stomach happy and that makes your brain happy,” LeFevre notes, aligning with emerging scientific evidence that links gut health to overall well-being.

Fermented foods are depicted not just as dietary choices but as active engagements with the microbial world. “For me, the amazing thing with fermented food is that you’re so actively participating in the real world,” LeFevre explains,⁷ highlighting fermentation as a process that acknowledges and collaborates with countless microorganisms.

By creating environments conducive to beneficial microbes, regenerative farmers harness natural processes to enhance food quality and longevity, reducing the need for artificial preservatives and interventions. Fermentation also serves as a means of preserving the harvest, ensuring food availability throughout the year.

“We aim for everything to be ready in the autumn, so we can take care of it, and store it. And give to our members throughout the year,” LeFevre shares.⁸ This approach not only supports food security but also aligns with the principles of sustainability by minimizing waste and promoting resource efficiency.

Biodiversity — The Cornerstone of Resilient Farming

Biodiversity is a fundamental principle of regenerative agriculture, serving as the cornerstone for resilient and sustainable farming systems. The documentary contrasts the rich diversity found in regenerative farms with the detrimental effects of monocultures.

“Monocultures, where you have many of just one plant, is incredibly draining on soil,” LeFevre explains,⁹ pointing out how monocultures deplete soil nutrients and disrupt ecological balance.

Diverse crop systems support a wider range of wildlife, enhance soil fertility and reduce vulnerability to pests and diseases.

“There’s a huge problem with different insects that attack cabbage … due to the fact that nearby are many monocultures,” LeFevre notes, illustrating how monocultures exacerbate pest issues and undermine crop health.

By growing a variety of plants, regenerative farmers create ecosystems that are more resilient and self-sustaining, reducing the need for chemical interventions and promoting natural harmony. The loss of plant varieties over the last century is another concern highlighted in the documentary.

“We’ve minimized and lost so many varieties of plants. Just within the last 100 years,”¹⁰ LeFevre laments, underscoring the importance of preserving and cultivating diverse plant species to maintain ecological balance and ensure long-term agricultural viability.

The documentary positions regenerative agriculture as a necessary evolution in our approach to farming and environmental stewardship, involving not only crop diversification but also soil enrichment, water conservation and the integration of livestock in ways that support ecological balance.

Cultivating a Regenerative Future

The documentary does not shy away from critiquing the industrial farming model, highlighting its environmental and social repercussions. LeFevre articulates a somber view of the future under industrial agriculture: “There is no future for the large-scale industrial farming model. We all know it. Even though we’re forging on.”¹¹

Industrial farming’s emphasis on scale and efficiency often leads to environmental degradation, including deforestation, soil erosion and loss of biodiversity.

“We’ve already destroyed all of Europe. No, that was dramatic. We haven’t destroyed Europe. But we’ve done a lot of deforesting and degradation,” LeFevre clarifies, emphasizing the ongoing damage caused by industrial practices.

This critique serves as a stark warning about the unsustainable trajectory of current agricultural systems and underscores the urgent need to shift toward regenerative practices. While the documentary presents a hopeful vision for regenerative agriculture, it also acknowledges the complexity and uncertainty of the path forward.

“I hope the future is something beyond my capacity to imagine it. I hope it’s beautiful,” LeFevre shares,¹² expressing both hope and humility in the face of future challenges.

The future, as envisioned in the film, is one where regenerative practices become the norm, driven by a collective commitment to environmental stewardship and social equity. This requires reimagining our relationship with the land, embracing complexity and building communities that prioritize long-term well-being over short-term gains.

“Into the Soil: The Wisdom of Regenerative Farming” resonates deeply with the principles of holistic health and sustainable living that I advocate for, underscoring the interconnectedness of our health, our communities and our environment.

Embracing the wisdom of regenerative farming offers a pathway to a more balanced and harmonious existence. This documentary is not just an exploration of farming practices; it’s a reminder of our responsibility to nurture the Earth and each other, ensuring a thriving planet for generations to come.

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Notes

¹ YouTube, Campfire Stories, Into the Soil: The Wisdom of Regenerative Farming October 3, 2022, 2:54

² YouTube, Campfire Stories, Into the Soil: The Wisdom of Regenerative Farming October 3, 2022, 3:02

³ YouTube, Campfire Stories, Into the Soil: The Wisdom of Regenerative Farming October 3, 2022, 3:38

⁴ YouTube, Campfire Stories, Into the Soil: The Wisdom of Regenerative Farming October 3, 2022, 3:58

⁵ YouTube, Campfire Stories, Into the Soil: The Wisdom of Regenerative Farming October 3, 2022, 0:28

⁶ YouTube, Campfire Stories, Into the Soil: The Wisdom of Regenerative Farming October 3, 2022, 0:49

⁷ YouTube, Campfire Stories, Into the Soil: The Wisdom of Regenerative Farming October 3, 2022, 22:00

⁸ YouTube, Campfire Stories, Into the Soil: The Wisdom of Regenerative Farming October 3, 2022, 10:16

⁹ YouTube, Campfire Stories, Into the Soil: The Wisdom of Regenerative Farming October 3, 2022, 18:01

¹⁰ YouTube, Campfire Stories, Into the Soil: The Wisdom of Regenerative Farming October 3, 2022, 19:11

¹¹ YouTube, Campfire Stories, Into the Soil: The Wisdom of Regenerative Farming October 3, 2022, 19:48

¹² YouTube, Campfire Stories, Into the Soil: The Wisdom of Regenerative Farming October 3, 2022, 26:15

The topic of corruption in Ukraine is once again surfacing. According to a The Times story written by their Kyiv’s correspondent Maxim Tucker, the country has “failed to build bunkers for electricity substations that protect them from Russian airstrikes” thereby leaving “the country vulnerable before the winter.” To “prevent the collapse of its energy system,” Ukraine is for now having to rely on” British-supplied gabions — rudimentary rock-filled cages”, as well as “anti-air attack systems provided by its western partners.”

Tucker acknowledges the presence of British military and intelligence personnel (including engineers) operating in Ukraine, which, among other things, helped create concrete structures to protect energy grid locations against Russian attacks amid the ongoing conflict. According to the journalist, the British warned their Ukrainian “colleagues” that they should build extra structures, which has not happened: “nine months later, President Zelensky’s government has not done so, amid accusations that government corruption has stalled the work.” In fact, around 80 per cent of the country’s energy infrastructure is currently damaged or ruined.

The situation is so bad that even the head of Ukraine’s State Agency for Restoration and Infrastructure Development resigned. Mustafa Nayyem directed the government agency tasked with preserving strategic infrastructure, and he had requested €1.4 billion for “third-level protection” bunkers used in substations. The funds were blocked, due to (he claims) “vested interests” having to do with bribes no longer being paid to Kyiv’s officers:

“It was impossible to work. When you see that the leadership of the government is creating some artificial obstacles for you, it’s useless… They [the government] didn’t pay contractors; the contractors stopped all projects.”

Nayyem’s successor, Sergiy Sukhomlyn, is then quoted as saying that contractors had been expecting “too much profit” and so the Agency was renegotiating their contracts, redesigning some of the defence structures to cut costs. The Times news piece goes on to describe how contractors are allegedly harassed by Ukrainian officials:

“One of the leading Ukrainian building companies involved in the substation protection contracts has had its offices raided by officials who, it says, acted without a warrant, seizing computers, telephones and documents. The company also said the government had failed to release the funds needed for them to build the bunkers.”

In September, Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed Volodymyr Kudrytsky, the chief executive of Ukraine’s state energy company, over summer power cuts. This has only consolidated more power with Zelensky’s own Chief of Staff, Andriy Yermak and his own people. According to a Business Insider (BI) story, Yermak is Zelensky’s “right-hand man” as well as the country’s “real power broker”. He is described as having consolidated a new corrupt oligarchy under Ukrainian martial law.

The December 2023 piece then describes how Washington was demanding “numerous reforms the White House expected Kyiv to make in return for continued financial assistance from the United States”, including “ beefed-up supervision of state-owned enterprises in the energy sector”. None of it happened and the American money kept on flowing – but this could change pretty soon with the new US presidency.

Still according to BI, during the former Donald Trump administration in fact Yermak, “then an advisor to Zelensky, was dispatched to meet with Rudy Giuliani, who on Trump’s behalf was pushing Kyiv to investigate Hunter Biden’s ties to Burisma, the Ukrainian energy firm.” At the time Yermak did promise Zelensky would pledge to investigate Burisma (a holding  company for energy exploration that employed Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden). It never happened.

Corruption also plays a role in American geoeconomic interests in Eastern Europe and I wrote before about Joe Biden’s own family shady dealing in Ukraine. Back to Yermak, one of his lieutenants, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, is described as still being a kind of “gatekeeper” for government building projects – Tymoshenko was the President’s deputy head of office, but resigned last year under pressure amid an anti-corruption campaign. He remains a political force, however.

Far from being an isolated scandal, the systemic problem of corruption in Ukraine has been a pressing issue. As Tucker puts it, it has been one of the major obstacles to the country’s goal of joining the European Union. Corruption is far from being the only matter, though. The other obstacles include lack of democracy (with the opposition having been banned), and lack of transparency.

Another issue, as I wrote before, are the civil rights problems – which relegate minorities such as Russians to second-class status, according to scholars like Nicolai N. Petro, a professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island, who was a US Fulbright scholar in Ukraine in 2013-2014. This is a problem also acknowledged by the European Commission for Democracy through Law, better known as the Venice Commission. This European body, among other things, has recommended that Kyiv revise the State Language Law, and take “positive action” to enable ethnic “minorities to assert their specific identity” in order to comply with the ECHR human rights standards.

I’ve argued that the “Ukrainian Question” in fact is a challenge to the very idea of Europe (as it envisions itself).  It “short-circuits”, so to speak, some of the key values of the West itself: in other words, by welcoming post-Maidan Ukraine as “uno de noi”, the European bloc thereby denies much of the human-rights narrative that is supposed to be the core and even the raison d’être of its main institutions. It is true that the West is no stranger to hypocrisy, and thus has been more than willing to turn a blind to the fascist and neo-Nazi elements of Ukrainian nationalism (and even to whitewash it). With endemic corruption however, there lies a structural issue that impacts the economy and now is even sabotaging warfare efforts.

From Kyiv’s perspective, the situation of course should not get any better with a US Republican administration under Donald Trump curbing aid. With oligarchic corruption, chauvinistic nationalism, an unwinnable war pushed by the West, an energy crisis and the upcoming winter, things are not looking good for Ukrainian civilians who keep leaving the country in large numbers to escape the harsher news conscription laws.

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Uriel Araujo, PhD, is an anthropology researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image source

Describing Russia’s new Oreshnik hypersonic multiple non-nuclear warhead missile, which destroyed a Ukrainian military aerospace facility, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said:

“I think it’s like the ancient warriors who used to beat their swords against their shields to intimidate their adversaries. The missiles Putin is talking about were recently tested. They are old missiles. There is nothing new about them. They are retouched missiles, in short, they have retouched missiles that they had to try to frighten the Ukrainian adversary”.

It would therefore be, as Italian daily newspaper Il Tempo headlines, a ‘Putin bluff’. But the reality is described by an arms expert, Pietro Batacchi, editor of the Italian magazine Defence, in an article titled “Back to the Euromissiles and the darkest days of the Cold War”:

“Europe is suddenly back in the darkest days of the Cold War. The Russian ‘pre-nuclear’ demonstration strike – as we called it – demonstrated the availability in Moscow’s arsenal of a new intermediate-range missile equipped with multiple independent re-entry vehicle (MIRV) warheads’.”

To understand the seriousness of the situation that Mr. Tajani is trying to conceal by telling the Italians about “old missiles that have been repainted”, it’s first necessary to understand what Euromissiles are.  They are missiles with a range of between 499 km and 5,000 km that the United States deployed in Europe in the 1980s: Pershing 2 ballistic missiles in West Germany and Tomahawk cruise missiles in Italy (at Comiso), the United Kingdom, West Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, against which the Soviet Union countered with SS-20 ballistic missiles deployed on its territory in European Russia. This very dangerous category of nuclear weapons, designed for close nuclear combat, had been eliminated by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed in 1987 by Presidents Gorbachev and Reagan. In 2014, when the Maidan Square coup triggered NATO’s new confrontation with Russia, the Obama administration accused Moscow, without any evidence, of testing a cruise missile of the banned category, and in 2019 (during the Trump administration) the US withdrew from the INF Treaty.

Since then, the US has resumed production of intermediate-range missiles to be deployed in Europe close to Russia, disguising them as missiles intended to protect Europe from the ‘Russian nuclear threat’. Russia responded by producing missiles like the Oreshnik to be deployed in the European part of its territory. The fact remains that while US intermediate-range missiles deployed in Europe can hit Moscow within minutes of launch, similar missiles deployed by Russia in the European part of its territory can hit European capitals but not Washington.

Having understood this scenario, it is crucial to understand the destructive power of the arsenals of the two major nuclear powers, the US and Russia. This is shown to us in the documentary ‘The True Scale Of Modern Nuclear Weapons’ by the US channel Science Time which, based on precise scientific data, shows what the effects of a US nuclear attack on Moscow and Beijing and a Russian nuclear attack on San Francisco and New York would be.

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This article was originally published in Italian on Grandangolo, Byoblu TV.

Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).  

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“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102

PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
–Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute

Video: Say No to Nuclear War! Peace on the Planet

By Drago Bosnic and Prof Michel Chossudovsky, December 01, 2024

This interview of Drago Bosnic by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky focuses on the dangers of nuclear war. Bosnic, an independent geopolitical and military analyst, examines nuclear policies as well as the military dimensions and nature of these bombs.

When Is a Ceasefire Not a Ceasefire?

By Philip Giraldi, December 02, 2024

We are possibly witnessing another stealthy move by Washington and Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to enhance the Israeli position in a Middle East at war while pretending to do something else. 

The War on Gaza: A New Global Order in the Making?

By Amir Nour, December 02, 2024

With regard to the Middle East region, the U.S. envisions “A more integrated Middle East that empowers our allies and partners” and advance “regional peace and prosperity, while reducing the resource demands the region makes on the United States over the long term.”

Giving Peace a Chance? Trump’s Cabinet Picks Are Neocons, Warmongers, and Pro-Zionist Fanatics

By Timothy Alexander Guzman, December 02, 2024

Trump claims that he wants peace, but his cabinet choices says that he is planning a war against Iran.  So, with Trump resuming office in January, the world is heading into uncertain times. 

Who’s Cheating with Nuclear Power? Let’s Find Out About the Game Gates. Manlio Dinucci

By Manlio Dinucci, December 02, 2024

The US has resumed production of intermediate-range missiles to be deployed in Europe close to Russia, disguising them as missiles intended to protect Europe from the ‘Russian nuclear threat’. Russia responded by producing missiles like the Oreshnik to be deployed in the European part of its territory.

Simulation of World War III: Vigilant Shield 07 War Games Scenario (Declassified). The Four Enemies of America Are Ruebek, Churya, Irmingham, Nemazee

By William M Arkin, December 01, 2024

This important article by renowned geopolitical analyst William Arkin first published in 2006 (Washington Post blog)  reveals the details pertaining a declassified World War III scenario implemented by US Northern Command (USNORTHCOM).

Iraq War: How the U.S. Contaminated Iraq with Depleted Uranium

By Prof Souad N. Al-Azzawi, December 01, 2024

Hundreds of tons of (DU) expenditure have been fired & exploded on Iraqi highly populated areas like Basrah, Baghdad, Nasriya, Dewania, Samawa, and other cities. Exploration programs and site measurements by Iraqi and non-Iraqi researchers all proved the existence of (DU) related contamination over most Iraqi territories.

President-elect Donald J. Trump will hit the ground running on January 21^st, 2025.  Trump has made his choices for the top spots at the Department of State, the Pentagon and the CIA.  Let’s keep in mind that Trump can replace or fire any of his cabinet picks down the road if of course, they are confirmed by the senate.  So far, it seems that Trump has flushed his peace proposals down the toilet with his latest picks.

First and formost, for the state of Israel, it really did not matter who would have won the US Presidential elections, whether it was Donald J. Trump (which they preferred) or Kamala Harris who was just as Pro-Israel as most US politicians who are bought and paid by the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC). The majority of politicians, whether Democrat or Republican believe that Israel has a right to exist on what was once called Palestine, so the reality is that Israel won the election. The one person who is extremely happy that Trump won the election is no other than Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu who recently said that

“In the last few days, I spoke three times with President-Elect Donald Trump. These were very good and important conversations. Talks designed to further tighten the strong alliance between Israel and the USA. We see eye to eye on the Iranian threat, on all its components, and the danger posed by it.”

Trump claims that he wants peace, but his cabinet choices says that he is planning a war against Iran.  So, with Trump resuming office in January, the world is heading into uncertain times.  Iran is about to retaliate for Israel’s latest attack and government officials in Tel Aviv are very concerned. It is certain that Israel will prepare to retaliate once Trump is in office, but what will that look like?  We don’t know, but it is not just about Iran being in Washington’s hit list, because Russia, Belarus, China, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and the new BRICS alliance will most likely on that same list as well.

Peace is not on the agenda with Trump’s new cabinet picks because they want the US to be ultimate hegemon, the power that rules the world with an iron fist but the times have changed. Trump’s team will push for wars, regime change and economic sanctions, so in other words, nothing will change since his cabinet has been filled with neocons, warhawks and Pro-Israel extremists.

Meet Trump’s New Cabinet, Same as the Old Cabinet

Trump has selected several people for important cabinet positions related to US foreign policy and it does not look good for any sort of peace deal, especially in the Middle East.

Marco Rubio, Trump’s pick for Secretary of State is a senator from Florida and a neocon warmonger, Marco Rubio.  This pick suggests that Trump was looking for another Mike Pompeo and found him.  Rubio is a strong supporter of Israel, so much so that he has an Israeli flag next to the American flag outside of his office.  Rubio has supported Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank and other Palestinan territories.  Rubio has shamelessly defended Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and Lebanon.

In 2003, Rubio supported the US invasion of Iraq, and the US-NATO led war on Libya which was orchestrated by the Obama regime.  Rubio supports harsh sanctions and regime change in Iran and in Syria.  He also supported Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. Rubio seeks regime change or wars against several Latin American countries including Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia and whoever else opposes US influence on the continent.

Rubio is also a China hawk, so he supports sending more US troops in the Asia-Pacific region to send China a “message.” 

Rubio also got involved in the internal affairs of China.  A report by DW.com, ‘Could Marco Rubio champion human rights in Southeast Asia?’ said that in 2018, Rubio co-sponsored legislation based on “the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act, which seeks to deny entry into the United States to any Chinese officials who prohibit US citizens from entering Tibet, a territory claimed by China.”  Rubio also “introduced legislation sanctioning China for its repression of the minority Uyghur population and the crackdown on protests in Hong Kong. The Chinese government responded by blacklisting Rubio.”

The bottom line is that Senator Marco Rubio is a neocon warmonger that would advise Trump on going to war rather than seeking a constructive peace deal.  Rubio is a horrible choice that will likely be confirmed by his many friends from both sides of the aisle in the senate.

Elise Stefanik, another pro-Zionist neocon who was nominated by Trump to become US Ambassador to the United Nations. She is a clone of the last US ambassador, Nikki Haley. Stefanik once worked with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), a pro-Israel neocon think tank.

To understand Stefanik’s stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict, all you need to do is read her statement she posted on her website on September 23^rd, 2024 based on Israel’s “right to defend itself”:

“Last week, the United Nations overwhelmingly passed a disgraceful antisemitic resolution to demand that Israel surrender to barbaric terrorists who seek the destruction of both Israel and America. Once again, the UN’s antisemitic rot is on full display as it punishes Israel for defending itself and rewards Iranian-backed terrorists.

Instead of deplorably targeting the legitimacy of the state of Israel, the UN should be demanding that Hamas release every hostage and start enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1701 to stop Hezbollah’s endless Iranian-backed terrorist attacks. As the UN’s General Assembly occurs this week in New York, the Biden-Harris Administration must call out the UN’s extreme antisemitism and moral depravity and unequivocally support Israel’s right to defend itself against both brutal terrorists and biased international organizations”

We know where all of this is going.  Stefanik visited the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem in May and here is just part of what she said:

Today, I stand before you not just as a leader in the United States Congress, but as a lifelong admirer, supporter, and true friend of Israel and the Jewish people.  You see I am lucky enough to have had the privilege of traveling here many times before, but I must confess that this time feels different. 

The stakes are higher. Our sense of moral, patriotic duty feels heightened, renewed. 

226 days ago, we witnessed the most vicious, brutal attack on Israel and the Jewish people since the Holocaust, a barbaric terrorist attack that claimed more than 1,200 innocent lives. Civilian women, children, and the elderly were ripped from their homes and massacred. Raped — Beheaded — Jewish families were bound together and burned. Babies burned alive. Atrocities of humanity.  We must never forget, and we must never relent

Stefanik repeated Israeli talking points about how the elderly and children were massacred, raped and beheaded which all turned out to be lies. Stefanik is another Nikki Haley, there is no doubt about that, and she will be most likely confirmed by the senate.

Mike Huckabee is Trump’s pick for U.S. Ambassador to Israel is a non-Jewish candidate for the position, but that does not matter because Huckabee, a former Arkansas Governor is an evangelical Christian supporter of Israel and that’s all that matters.

This guy should be in an insane asylum.  The things that came out of this man’s mouth is a sign that the Palestinians will be a major target of the Trump regime.

The Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) “In 2008, Huckabee said:

“There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian. You have Arabs and Persians. And there’s such complexity in that. But there’s really no such thing. That’s been a political tool to try and force land away from Israel.”

Mike Huckabee sounded like what Golda Meir, the former Prime Minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974 who was interviewed by the London Sunday Times on June 15^th, 1969, and she said that

“There was no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either Southern Syria, before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine, including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country from them. They did not exist.”

Al Jazeera reported on what Trump said about Huckabee who has similar beliefs as his former US ambassador from Trump’s first term, David Friedman:

After his appointment, Trump released a statement in which he said Huckabee “loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him. Mike will work tirelessly to bring about Peace in the Middle East!”

His appointment demonstrates a “very hawkish, very pro-right-wing Israel” approach by the Trump administration, Yossi Mekelberg, an expert on Israel at the Chatham House think tank, told Al Jazeera.  He said Huckabee’s appointment is similar to that of David Friedman, who served as US Ambassador to Israel between 2017 and 2021 and supports Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank

Huckabee will also be most likely confirmed for the ambassadorship with the pro-Israel senate.

Rep. Mike Waltz from Florida is a nominee for Trump’s National Security Advisor who served more than 26 years in the Army as a Special Forces officer with tours in Afghanistan, Africa and the Middle East.  Waltz was a defense policy director for secretaries of defense under Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates who both served under former US President and war criminal, George W. Bush.  Walz also served as Dick Cheney’s counterterrorism advisor.

For Trump’s peace plan to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, here is what Waltz said

“I think a second Trump term will be energy policy and the fact is that sanctions haven’t been enforced on Russia. They’re selling more oil and gas through China and India than they ever did even before the war, their war machine is flush with cash. President Trump is, I think going to get him to the table very quickly because if he enforces those sanctions, the old adage, Russia is a little more than a gas station with nukes, absolutely holds true.”

So Waltz is for increasing sanctions on Russia which is a form of economic warfare.

Waltz has called for a “new Monroe Doctrine” to counter the rise of China in Latin America.  He suggests an active role by US officials to counter China’s economic and military presence in Latin America, so Walz wants a US military build-up to confront Beijing’s influence.  Not only does he want to increase US military presence in certain regions to send a message to China, he wants to arm Taiwan to defend itself from China.

Waltz is also a full-fledged supporter of Israel.  In an interview on FOX News, Waltz spoke about a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, and he said that the Biden regime is “focused on the wrong place,”meaning they should be focused on Iran.  Waltz also said that Iran is “flush with cash.”  He also said that neither Hamas nor Iran want peace.

Waltz repeats what other Pro-Israel politicians in Washington have said in the past regarding Israel’s security,

“So, the administration, Biden and Harris, have sold themselves is that once we get to a cease-fire and the hostages are released, which we all want, that everything will be fine,” Waltz said on Fox News’s America Reports. “No. Iran will continue to stoke unrest because they want to destroy Israel, and look, making concession after concession to Iran is actually what is destabilizing the situation.”

Waltz has criticized the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant on charges of intentional starvation of the Palestinian people, crimes against humanity and other charges.  Waltz responded with

“The ICC has no credibility, and these allegations have been refuted by the US government” and that “Israel has lawfully defended its people [and] borders from genocidal terrorists. You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC [and] UN come January.”

Mike Waltz part of the George W. Bush regime that was filled with neocons and that alone should be a concern for those who desire peace on earth.  Waltz has similar ideas as Trump’s former National Security advisor, John Bolton.

Pete Hegseth is Trump’s pick for US Secretary of Defense.  Now this guy is a loose cannon. A FOX News television host, author, and a former Army National Guard officer.  Listen to Pete Hegseth’s speech at the 2018 Arutz Sheva conference in Jerusalem:

What Hegseth said about Iran tells us that he is another Christian Zionist who supports Israel and that Iran is the evil regime that needs to be stopped:

The minister talked about the head of the octopus talked about Iran and the many tentacles that the Iranian regime has in the world today nefariously both for Israel and for the United States and just all you have to do is look at how the Obama Administration addressed the issue of Iran versus the Trump Administration and of course the Obama Administration did everything they could to strike a horrific deal that is creates an inevitable path to nuclear weapons, funding the tunes of billions of dollars the hateful terrorist is Iranian regime seeking death to America and death to Israel….

Pete Hegseth will push the Trump regime to go to war with Iran and its allies to protect Israel and its interests in the region, there is no other way to describe what he stands for.

Kristi Noem, the former Governor of South Dakota is Trump’s pick for the Secretary of Homeland Security.  As Governor, Kristi Noem presented a statement of support for Israel after the October 7^th attack on Israel by Hamas, and she did not disappoint her Israeli friends and lobbyists:

“Beloved people of Israel: your friends and allies in America stand with you. We support you in defending the homeland given to your people by God. These barbaric actions have shocked the conscience of the world. We share your anger at the viciousness of these attacks and the death, pain, and suffering it has caused, and we support your right to use all measures necessary to prevent future attacks. 

During my time on the House Armed Services Committee, I saw what regular violence perpetrated by Hamas terrorists against Israel looks like. This goes so far beyond that – this was an act of war, an invasion of your sacred home. 

We are praying for a swift resolution to this war; for safety and peace for the hostages taken by the Hamas terrorists; for comfort to the families who have lost loved ones or whose lives have otherwise been forever changed by this horrific day; for the first responders to act calmly and quickly in their work of healing and repair; for Prime Minister Netanyahu and his armed forces to strike swiftly, truly, and with justice; and for Hamas to be driven from the face of the Earth as a just consequence for their atrocities.  In the coming days, all Americans – and the whole world – must stand firm in our resolve to support the Israeli people. As Prime Minister Netanyahu said, ‘This war will take time. She will be hard. Challenging days are ahead. But… with the help of God… we will win.’ Godspeed to you, my friend Prime Minister Netanyahu, and to your people. You will win, and you have our support every step of the way.” 

Kristi Noem has also banned campus free speech zones in her home state so as Secretary of Homeland Security, will she target anti-Israel protesters on college campuses?

John Ratcliffe is Trump’s choice as the new Director for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).  This former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) is another China Hawk and of course, a Pro-Israel supporter.

As DNI, Ratcliffe focused on China’s growing influence on a global scale. Ratcliffe’s commentary for the Wall Street Journal said it all, ‘China Is National Security Threat No. 1’:

“The intelligence is clear: Beijing intends to dominate the U.S. and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically. Many of China’s major public initiatives and prominent companies offer only a layer of camouflage to the activities of the Chinese Communist Party”

Ratcliffe is also a longtime supporter of Israel who helped establish the U.S.-Israel partnership in cyber defense through the US-Israel Advanced Research Partnership Act in 2016.

Ratcliffe who praised Israel’s strikes on Iran told Maria Bartiromo of Sunday Morning Futures on FOX News,

“What Israel has done is essentially employ ‘the Trump doctrine’: a maximum-pressure campaign, understanding the only way to deter terrorists like Iran and their proxies is to put your foot on their throat. Israel has done that; we should be assisting Israel in doing so.”

Ratcliffe is a Trump loyalist, a China hawk and a Pro-Israel supporter which means that he is a qualified candidate, so the US Senate should have no problem confirming John Ratcliffe as the new Director of the CIA.

Tulsi Gabbard is Trump’s choice for the Director of National Intelligence (DIA).  Now this pick is quite interesting, but she has a couple of serious problems.  I know there are people in the alternative media that say Gabbard is “Pro-Peace,” to an extent, is partially true.

So, let’s start with the idea that Tulsi Gabbard is a peace activist.   Tulsi Gabbard is a former Democrat representative from Hawaii who in January 2017 went on a “fact-finding mission” to Syria to investigate if President Bashar al-Assad’s had ordered his forces to use chemical weapons on civilians which turned out to be a false accusation by the West. She also found out that the Syrian opposition were made up of members from Al-Qaeda and ISIS.  Gabbard spoke out against US politicians who accused Russia of invading Ukraine for no apparent reason, only to expand its already vast territory. She is also opposed to US military support for Ukraine.

Gabbard had accused the US government and its NATO allies of being responsible for the war in the first place since one of the reasons was for the possibility of allowing Ukraine to join NATO which is a direct threat to Russia.  She also spoke out on the US government operating secret bioweapons labs in Ukraine.

Yes, Tulsi Gabbard has done great things in efforts to end current wars by investigating the facts of what really happened. She was after the truth which is commendable.

However, there is another side to Tulsi Gabbard when it comes to Israel. You can’t be for peace on one side of the world and then call for war on the other side, it’s hypocritical. Many people portray Gabbard as some sort of anti-war hero, but she has been vocally supportive of Israel’s wars on Gaza and Lebanon.

Gabbard is seen by Trump and his MAGA base as “anti-establishment” but her support for Israel is aligned with both sides of the political circus in Washington D.C.  Gabbard has even criticized pro-Palestine protesters in the US by calling them “puppets” of Hamas.

Gabbard also opposes a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas just like Trump who called on Netanyahu to finish the job before he enters office in January. Gabbard also believes that Israel should continue the war on Gaza “as long as Hamas is in power, the people of Israel will not be secure and cannot live in peace.”

This video was produced by Breakthrough News which exposes Tulsi Gabbard’s position on Israel when it comes to Hamas and the Palestinians:

Tulsi Gabbard said all the right things for Israel and that’s why she was picked by Trump.  Will she get confirmed by the Senate?  It’s hard to say since many Democrats believe she works for Syria and Russia as some sort of agent, so we will see what happens during the confirmation hearings.   

Pam Bondi is Trump’s pick for US Attorney General who happens to be another pro-Israel supporter after the US Representative from Florida, Matt Gaetz withdrew his nomination over past legal issues involving a minor had resurfaced.  Matt Gaetz also faced criticism because he invited a Holocaust denier to a State of the Union address which is something that can destroy your political career in United States:

In 2018, the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Anti-Defamation League both criticized Gaetz, then in his first term, for inviting a Holocaust denier as his guest at the State of the Union address. The guest, Charles Johnson, had publicly doubted that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust and suggested falsely that only 250,000 had died of illness

According to Jewish groups and the ADL, Gaetz is an Antisemite:

This past spring, Gaetz, alongside Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, opposed a bill that would codify an official definition of antisemitism because it classified the view that Jews killed Jesus — which Gaetz endorsed — as antisemitic.

“The Gospel itself would meet the definition of antisemitism under the terms of this bill!” Gaetz wrote on X, adding, “The Bible is clear. There is no myth or controversy on this”

It seemed obvious that Matt Gaetz was not going to be part of Trump’s team right from the start since most Democrats and Republicans are in the pockets of the Israeli lobby.  Pam Bondi is on a different level; she believes that university students who protest Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians and others in the Middle East are ignorant people who should be deported. 

The Jerusalem Post headlined with ‘Trump’s new A-G nominee calls Palestine supporters “ignorant children.’  The article mentioned “In an interview this year with news host Chris Salcedo, Bondi addressed the pro-Palestinian protests on US college campuses, saying, “The students who protest against our Jewish friends and support Hamas – they should be deported from our country, they are ignorant children.”

The Jerusalem Post article also mentioned that in 2018, Bondi was interviewed by FOX News, and was asked about the Israel-Palestine conflict:

“Israel is one of our greatest allies in the world, if not the greatest,” Bondi said as part of an interview about concerns of escalation in the Middle East. “I visited Israel twice as Attorney-General, and Jerusalem is Israel’s capital”

So, Trump’s pick for Attorney General satisfies the Israeli lobby who wants to stifle free speech or in other words, end free speech when it comes to criticizing the state of Israel.  In fact, Trump did say that those who protest Israel and their genocidal policies should be deported.  The Telegraph headlined with a title that says it all, ‘Pam Bondi: Pick to replace Matt Gaetz wants to deport pro-Palestine protestors’:

The former prosecutor is a firm supporter of Israel and called for a crackdown on pro-Hamas demonstrations that erupted at college campuses last year.

“The thing that’s really the most troubling to me [are] these students in universities in our country, whether they’re here as Americans or if they’re here on student visas, and they’re out there saying ‘I support Hamas.’” she continued, “Frankly they need to be taken out of our country, or the FBI needs to be interviewing them right away” 

Will Pam Bondi work with Noem Kristi to deport anti-Israel, anti-genocide Protesters on university campuses?

Trump also picked another far-right neocon, a NewsMax TV host of the The Gorka Reality Check, Sebastian Gorka for the positions of deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism. Gorka was part of the first Trump administration and was appointed Deputy Assistant to the President and a strategist in the White House team which was known as the Strategic Initiatives Group.

On an interview with Times Radio, Gorka claims what will Trump say to Putin “I’ll give one tip away that the president has mentioned, he will say to that murderous former KGB Colonel that thug who runs the Russian Federation, you will negotiate now or the aid that we have given to Ukraine thus far will look like peanuts.” So Trump’s claim that he will end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours is not a reality with people such as Sebastian Gorka in his cabinet.

There are other Trump nominees such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr who supports Israel, if confirmed, he will be the Secretary of Health & Human Services (HHS) and there will be others with the same ideologies as mentioned above that will be in Trump’s future cabinet because as we all know, Trump can replace any of his picks on a whim.    

What is certain in an uncertain world is that President-Elect, Donald Trump and his choices for his top positions is a recipe for a world war, not peace.  China, Iran, Russia and other countries who are on the US hit list will face a regime full of warmongering extremists and that is not a good start.  For the looks of it, it seems that war is on the agenda once again.   

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Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his own blog site, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from SCN

[Links to Parts I to XII are provided at the bottom of this article.]

“For the Romans I set no boundaries of time and space; I have granted them empire without end.” (Publius Vergilius Maro)[1]

1. In the Beginning Was Westphalia

In my abovementioned book, which I wrote in the wake of the 2014 Gaza war, also known as “Operation Protective Edge”, I posited that:

• The end of the Cold War had the effect of making two major international realities more evident: the consecration of the position of the United States of America as the dominant world power, due to its military, political, economic and technological weight; and the shift of the global economic and commercial center of gravity from the Old Continent to the Pacific region as a result, in particular, of the prodigious development achieved by the Chinese dragon. And despite its relative decline caused by the economic and financial crisis of 2007/2008, the United States, being precisely a nation that is both Atlantic and Indo-Pacific, will continue to play a leading role during the 21st century;
• The vicissitudes of the “Arab Spring”, the politico-military maneuvers in the East and South China Sea, and the developments of the Ukrainian crisis, far from constituting epiphenomena of turbulent current affairs, are in fact the most telling manifestations of a geostrategic upheaval, in a globalized world entering a phase of accelerated reconfiguration. Obviously, this development, which is gradually taking the form of a multipolar world, is not to the taste of those in favor of the perpetuation of Western domination of the world, more than ever symbolized by the power of the American leader;
• The history of the 21st century, particularly its first half, seems to revolve around two contradictory struggles. The first will consist of attempts by secondary powers to form coalitions to try to contain the hegemonism of the United States. The second will encompass preventive actions on the part of this country aimed at preventing the formation of such coalitions that could endanger its strategic interests in the world;
• Regardless of the real sponsors of September 11 attacks and their true motives, this historic event provided the United States with the opportunity to implement its strategy of domination over a Muslim world considered – despite its present state of asthenia – as a potential adversary that must be continually weakened, while exploiting its significant natural resources, especially energy. Since the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, a new “Sykes-Picot” seems to be taking shape in the region. But while the secret Franco-British agreements of 1916 aimed to “facilitate the creation of a State or a Confederation of Arab States”, the current process aims to dismantle existing States. This strategy of “mass disintegration” would allow the United States to achieve a triple objective: guaranteeing the preservation of its strategic interests in the region; strengthening the position of its Israeli ally, thereby ensuring its survival as a Jewish state; and redirecting most of U.S. efforts and resources toward the most important region of the world: the Pacific region.”

Since then, and fundamentally, the U.S. geostrategic vision has not changed one iota, as clearly evidenced by the October 2022 Biden-Harris Administration’s National Security Strategy.[2] Indeed, the document states that

“The Strategy is rooted in our national interests: to protect the security of the American people, to expand economic opportunity, and to realize and defend the democratic values at the heart of the American way of life. In pursuit of these objectives, we will: Invest in the underlying sources and tools of American power and influence; build the strongest possible coalition of nations to enhance our collective influence to shape the global strategic environment and to solve shared challenges; and modernize and strengthen our military so it is equipped for the era of strategic competition.”

It also stresses that

“The most pressing strategic challenges we face as we pursue a free, open, prosperous, and secure world are from powers that layer authoritarian governance with a revisionist foreign policy. We will effectively compete with the People’s Republic of China, which is the only competitor with both the intent and, increasingly, the capability to reshape the international order, while constraining a dangerous Russia.”

With regard to the Middle East region, the U.S. envisions “A more integrated Middle East that empowers our allies and partners” and advance “regional peace and prosperity, while reducing the resource demands the region makes on the United States over the long term.”

What has crucially changed, however, is the very world the U.S. has relentlessly strived to dominate since the end of WWII, and even more so after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which, as history will record, was only a temporary “freezing” of the Cold War.

The outbreak of the Ukraine War in 2022 and, to a greater degree, the ongoing round of the War on Gaza have brought Israel, Ukraine, and the West closer to each other[3], and by the same token have further distanced them from the rest of the world, all the while accelerating the transition to a multipolar global order.

At this point, it is both appropriate and warranted to emphasize, with John Ikenberry once again, that

“the world’s most powerful state has begun to sabotage the order it created. A hostile and revisionist power has indeed arrived on the scene, but it sits in the Oval Office, the beating heart of the Free world.”

The French Academy dictionary defines order as “an arrangement, a regular layout of things in relation to one another; a necessary relationship which regulates the organization of a whole into its parts”. In reality, the notions of order and disorder are part of a practical, ethical, political, even mythical and religious discourse. From a philosophical point of view, according to Professor Bertrand Piettre[4], these two notions seem to be more normative than descriptive and have more value than reality. Thus, the term “order” is understood at least in two contradictory senses: either the order is thought of as finalized, as carrying out a purpose, pursuing a direction, thence making sense; disorder is then defined by the absence of an intelligent design. Or, the order is thought of as a stable or recurring structure and, thereby, recognizable and locatable, as a constant and necessary arrangement; but as such, it can appear totally devoid of finality and purpose. Disorder, then, is not thought of as what is devoid of a finality, but as what appears to be devoid of necessity. These two meanings, he further explains, refer to two philosophically different visions of the world: finalist or mechanist, and their combination, in a play of contingency and necessity, produces the diversity of the material and living world that we know.

In the realm of international relations, order is commonly understood to mean the set of rules and institutions that govern relations between the key players in the international environment. Such an order is distinguished from chaos, or random relationships, by a certain degree of stability in terms of structure and organization.

Perhaps, one of the best studies ever done on this topic is the one published by the Rand Corporation in 2016 under the title “Understanding the Current International Order.”[5] The main aim of this study was to understand the workings of the existing international order, assess current challenges and threats to the order, and accordingly, recommend future policies deemed sound to U.S. decision-makers.

The report says that in the modern era the foundation of the international order was built on the bedrock principles of the Westphalian system, which reflected fairly conservative conceptions of order while relying on pure balance-of-power politics in order to uphold the sovereign equality and territorial inviolability of States.

This Westphalian system led to the development of the territorial integrity norm, considered to this day as a cardinal norm against outright aggression toward neighbors with the aim of seizing their lands, resources or citizens, which was once a common practice in world politics. Thus defined in its main elements, this system has continued to prevail, especially since the Concert of Europe, also known as the Vienna Congress system, which from 1815 to 1914 established a whole series of principles, rules and practices having greatly contributed, after the Napoleonic wars, to maintaining a balance between European powers and shielding the Old Continent from a new all-out conflict. It stood fast until the outbreak of World War I.

At the close of the horrific hostilities of the Great War, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson spent several months of 1919 in Europe, working closely with British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, and other leaders to build a more peaceful postwar order. Together, they brought to life the League of Nations. Unfortunately, the League was dealt an early and deadly blow when the U.S. Senate rejected U.S. membership in it, refusing to participate in an international legal system that it deemed would encroach on the country’s sovereignty. The League’s failure to provide an effective response to the nationalism and militarism in Europe and Asia during the 1930s further damaged its credibility and precipitated its demise. Yet, this innovative burst of order-building left an important imprint on global affairs and was akin to a general dress rehearsal for the international architecture, later decided by world plenipotentiaries gathered in San Francisco in 1945, in the shape of the United Nations Organization.

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The League to Enforce Peace published this full-page promotion in The New York Times on Christmas Day 1918. (From the Public Domain)

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In sum, even if it took different forms in practice, the Westphalian order continued to be a permanent feature of the relations between the great world powers during all the aforementioned periods, thus allowing, to the greatest possible extent, the prevalence of structured relations designed to forswear territorial conquest and curtail any global disorder susceptible of generating wars or large-scale violence in their midst.

The RAND report indicates that since 1945, the United States, which was the greatest beneficiary of the restored peace, has pursued its global interests through the creation and maintenance of international economic institutions, bilateral and regional security organizations, and liberal political norms and standards. These ordering mechanisms are often collectively referred to as the “international order”. However, in recent years, rising powers have begun to challenge the sustainability and legitimacy of some aspects of this order, which is clearly seen by the U.S. as a major challenge to its global leadership and vital strategic interests. Three broad categories of potential risks and threats likely to jeopardize this order have thus been identified by the writers of the report:

• some leading states consider that many components of the existing order are designed to restrict their power and perpetuate American hegemony;
• volatility due to failed states or economic crises;
• shifting domestic politics at a time of slow growth and growing inequality.

Two years before the publication of this study, Henry Kissinger, the veteran of American diplomacy credited with having officially introduced “Realpolitik” (realistic foreign policy based on the calculation of forces and the national interest) in the White House while serving as Secretary of State under Richard Nixon’s administration, had further explored the theme of world order in a landmark book.[6]

From the outset, Mr. Kissinger asserts that no truly global “world order” has ever existed. The order as defined by our times was devised in Western Europe four centuries ago, on the occasion of a peace conference held in Westphalia “without the involvement or even the awareness of most other continents or civilizations”. This conference, it should be remembered, followed a century of sectarian conflict and political upheavals across Central Europe, which ended up provoking the “Thirty Years’ War” (1618-1648), an appalling and pointless “total war” where a quarter of the population of Central Europe died from combat, disease, and starvation.

Nevertheless, the negotiators of this peace of Westphalia did not think of laying the foundations of a system applicable to the whole world. How could they have thought so when then, as always before, every other civilization or geographic region, seeing itself as the center of the world and viewing its principles and values ​​as universally relevant, defined its own conception of order? In the absence of possibilities for prolonged interaction and of any framework for measuring the respective power of the different regions, Henry Kissinger rightly observed, each of these regions viewed its own order as unique and defined the others as “barbarians” which were “governed in a manner incomprehensible to the established system, and irrelevant to its designs except as a threat”.

Subsequently, thanks to Western colonial expansion, the Westphalian system spread around the world and imposed the structure of a state-based international order, while failing, of course, to apply the concepts of sovereignty to colonies and colonized peoples. It is these same principles and other Westphalian ideas that were put forward when the colonized peoples began to demand their independence. Sovereign state, national independence, national interest, noninterference in domestic affairs and respect for international law and human rights have thus asserted themselves as effective arguments against the colonizers during armed or political struggles, both to regain independence and, afterwards, to protect the newly formed states in the 1950s and 1960s in particular.

At the end of his reflection combining historical analysis and geopolitical prospective, Kissinger draws important conclusions about the current international order and asks essential questions about its future. The universal relevance of the Westphalian system, he said, derived from its procedural nature, that is value-neutral, which made its rules accessible to any country. Its weakness had been the flip side of its strength: designed by states exhausted from the bloodletting they inflicted on each other, it offered no sense of direction; it proposed methods of allocating and preserving power, without indicating how to generate legitimacy.

More fundamentally, Kissinger argued that in building a world order, a key question inevitably concerns the substance of its unifying principles, which represents a cardinal distinction between Western and non-Western approaches to order. Quite aptly, he pointed out that since the Renaissance, the West has widely adopted the idea that the real world is external to the observer, that knowledge consists in recording and classifying data with the greatest possible precision, and that the success of a foreign policy depends on the assessment of existing realities and trends. Therefore, the “Peace of Westphalia” embodied a judgment of reality and more particularly of realities of power and territory – in the form of a concept of secular order supplanting the demands of religion.

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The historic town hall of Münster where the treaty was signed (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

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In contrast, other great contemporary civilizations conceived of reality as internal to the observer and defined by psychological, philosophical or religious convictions. Consequently, Kissinger was of the opinion that sooner or later, any international order must face the consequences of two trends that compromise its cohesion: either a redefinition of legitimacy or a significant shift in the balance of power. In such circumstances, upheavals could emerge, the essence of which being that “while they are usually underpinned by force, their overriding thrust is psychological. Those under assault are challenged to defend not only their territory, but the basic assumptions of their way of life, their moral right to exist and to act in a manner that until the challenge, had been treated as beyond question”.

Like many other thinkers, political scientists and strategists, especially Westerners, the American stateman considered that the multifaceted developments underway in the world are fraught with threats and risks that could lead to a sharp rise in tensions, and chaos threatens “side by side with unprecedented interdependence: in the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the disintegration of states, the impact of environmental depredations, the persistence of genocidal practices, and the spread of new technologies threatening to drive conflict beyond human control or comprehension.”

This is the main reason why he thought that our age is insistently engaged in an obstinate search, sometimes almost desperately, of a concept of world order, not without expressing his concern, which takes on the appearance of a warning. In our time, he said, “a reconstruction of the international system is the ultimate challenge to government. And in the event of failure, the penalty will be not so much a major war between States (though in some regions this is not foreclosed) as an evolution into spheres of influence identified with particular domestic structures and forms of governance, for example the Westphalian model as against the radical Islamist version” with the risk that “at its edges each sphere would be tempted to test its strength against other entities of order deemed illegitimate.”

The major conclusion of this scholarly book which concerns us in the context of our theme is this:

“The mystery to be overcome is one all peoples share: how divergent historical experiences and values can be shaped into a common order”.

2. Worldviews and World Orders: The “Individual and Secular” Vs. the “Collective and Sacred”

All civilizations try to balance themselves between the individual and the collective, between the temporal and the spiritual, and between this-worldliness and otherworldliness. Shifts between the relative importance given to the one at the expense of the others is what gives the different civilizations their distinctive identity and coloring; and critical disjunctions in human history occur when the individual paradigm is overturned or tilted toward the collective, or vice versa.

In modern Western societies, especially within the Anglosphere, it is an indisputable fact that since the Renaissance, which was at the origin of the Enlightenment movement and thought, there has been a gradual and probably decisive and irreversible shift away from the collective and the sacred toward the individual and the secular.

This being the case, in the self-image of Western or Westernized societies, the individual is ennobled and endowed with the power and tools to determine, alone, the course of his personal development and fulfillment as well as those of society, through the idiom – which is then erected into absolute dogma – of rights and the practice of a democracy based on laws and rules. The primacy of the individual over collective rights thus gradually paved the way for the dismantling of the post-war welfare state, making the dividing line between the public and private domains increasingly blurred, and providing wide-open avenues to an unbridled individualism.

In the following paragraphs, I shall attempt to explain why and how the 500-year long global dominance of the “Western civilization” is coming to an end – a fate first and most significantly epitomized and signaled by the West’s self-immolation during the bloodbath of the two Western civil wars, also known as the two World Wars it ignited in a span of only 30 years and led to the loss of 100 million lives. One good way of doing so is by surveying the writings of seven authors who have had a profound influence on Western Man’s thinking, and seven other authors who have predicted and warned against an impending twilight of this Western predominance. Indeed, what we take to be the ethical, social, economic, and ideological bedrock of Western thought has, far and away, been laid down in seven landmark references put forward since the beginning of the European Renaissance and the Age of the Enlightenment.

Thus, in his 1513 book “The Prince”, Italian Niccolò Machiavelli described methods – including through deliberate deceit, hypocrisy and perjury – that an aspiring prince can use to acquire the throne, or an existing prince can resort to in order to maintain his reign. English Pastor Thomas Robert Malthus claimed in his 1798 “Essay on the Principle of Population” that population tends to grow faster than the food supply. He also posited that the planet would be unable to support more than one billion inhabitants, and advocated therefore for a limitation on the number of poor people as a better controlling device. English Charles Darwin’s 1859 seminal book “The Origins of Species” promoted a theory of evolution by natural selection through the notion of “survival of the fittest”, thus so profoundly challenging Victorian-era ideas about the role of humans in the universe. English philosopher/sociologist Herbert Spencer’s 1864 “Principles of Biology” transferred Darwin’s theory from the realm of nature to society. He believed that the strongest or fittest would and should dominate the poor and the weak who should ultimately disappear. This meant that certain races – in particular European Protestants – individuals and nations were entitled to dominate others because of their “superiority” in the natural order. German Karl Marx’s 1867 “Capital” is the foundational theoretical text in materialist philosophy, economics and politics. Belief in some of its teachings led to communism and caused millions of deaths in the hope (or utopia) of bringing about an egalitarian society. In his most celebrated book “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” (1883-1885) German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche elaborates on ideas like eternal recurrence of the same, death of God, and the prophecy of the “Übermensch” (Overman), that is the ideal superior man of the future who could rise above conventional Christian morality to create and impose his own values. Finally, Austrian Sigmund Freud’s theories, although subject to a lot of criticism, were enormously influential. His best-known 1930 book “Civilization and Its Discontents”, analyzes what he sees as the fundamental tensions between civilization and the individual. The primary friction, he asserts, stems from the fact that the immutable individual’s quest for instinctive freedom (notably desires for sex) are at odds with what is best for society (civilization) as a whole, which is why laws are created to prohibit killing, rape, and adultery, and implement severe punishments if they are broken. The result is an ongoing feeling of discontent among the citizens of that civilization.

Beyond shadow of a doubt, Western Man’s mindset, worldview, and behavior have been considerably influenced by the presuppositions of the “seven deadly sins’ embodied in this literature. This led to such calamities for the world as materialism, individualism, scientism, unbridled pursuit of profit, nationalism, racial supremacy, excessive will to power, wars, colonization, imperialism, and eventually, nihilism[7], civilizational decadence and decline of the Western world. 

As a result of this irreversible process, especially following the moral wreckage and colossal human and material cost of the Great War, prominent thinkers and philosophers started to voice their concern about the coming demise of the West. Chiefly among those are seven authors whose books argue that while it is true that the West is in decline, there’s still time to mitigate it or even to reverse it and preserve it for posterity. Those books are: Oswald Spengler’s “The Decline of the West” (1926); Arnold Toynbee’s “Civilization on Trial” (1958); Eric Voegelin’s “Order and History” (1956-1987); Francis Fukuyama’s “The End of History and the Last Man” (1992); Samuel Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order” (1996); Niall Ferguson’s “Civilization: The West and the Rest” (2012); and Michel Onfray’s “Décadence: Vie et mort du judéo-christianisme”[8]. Emmanuel Todd’s recently published book “La Défaite de l’Occident”[9] also deserves just as much to be added to this selective collection.

Another stated or implied common feature of these books is the belief that the “Western Christian civilization” has to be defended anew both from internal decay and threats arising externally, mainly Islam, or even worse, an alliance of “Islamic” and “Sinic (Chinese)” civilizations. This fear of Islam is by no means new; it’s deep-rooted in the Western psyche. Today, however, it is being exacerbated to such an unprecedented extent that the debate on the resurgence of Islam has become, more often than not, inextricably intertwined with the talk about the decline of the Western civilization.

Back in 1940 already, when there was no question yet of the so-called Islamist or Islamic threat, and even less so of a “clash of civilizations” that are plaguing our current world, then French Colonel Charles de Gaulle – although on full combat against Nazi Germany’s Wehrmacht – gave the following response to his chaplain who questioned him about the situation on the battlefield and rumors of an armistice:

“Mr. Chaplain, this war is only one episode in a clash of peoples and civilizations. It will be long. And when the clash with China, this very great people, arises (…) what will we be and what will we do? But I have confidence. The last word will be given to the highest and most disinterested civilization, ours, the Christian civilization (…) But the greatest and most immediate danger can come from the Muslim transversal, which ranges from Tangier to the Indies. If it were to come under Russian communist obedience, or what would be worse, Chinese, we are doomed. And believe me, Mr. Chaplain, there will no longer be a possible Battle of Poitiers.”[10]

The same refrain was famously repeated by none other than Samuel Huntington in his no less celebrated book[11], written in response to his former student Francis Fukuyama’s 1992 highly controversial best-seller[12] in which, following the collapse of communism leading to a metamorphosis of world politics, Fukuyama addressed a question that has for time immemorial engaged the minds of great philosophers and thinkers: Is there a direction to the history of mankind? And if it is directional, to what end is it moving?

Fukuyama argues that a remarkable consensus concerning the legitimacy of “liberal democracy” as a system of government has emerged throughout the world. Thus, liberal democracy may constitute the “end point of mankind’s ideological evolution”, and the “final form of government”; and as such constituted the “end of history”. The other great question that follows then becomes: Can political and economic liberty and equality characterizing the state of affairs at the presumed “end of history” bring about a stable society in which man may be said to be, at last, completely satisfied? Or will the spiritual condition of this “last man” in history, “deprived of outlets for his striving for mastery”, inevitably lead him to plunge himself and the world into the chaos and bloodshed of history?

With regard to Huntington, it is important, first of all, to clarify with Professor of History at the prestigious Columbia University Richard Bulliet[13] that the phrase “Clash of Civilizations” was not invented by Huntington; it was most probably coined, for the first time, by Basil Mathews in his 1926 book titled “Young Islam on Trek: A Study in the Clash of Civilizations”.[14]  Yet, by wielding the “clash of civilizations” phraseology at a propitious moment, the Harvard professor significantly, shrewdly but maliciously shifted the discourse of Middle East confrontation that had until then been dominated by nationalist and Cold War rhetoric since the days of Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1950s and 1960s. Bulliet rightly observed that this new formulation “took on almost cosmic proportions: the Islamic religion, or more precisely the world Muslim community that professes that religion, versus contemporary Western culture, with its Christian, Jewish, and secular humanist shadings.”[15]

Huntington also wrote that:

“Islam and China embody great cultural traditions very different from and in their eyes infinitely superior to that of the West. The power and assertiveness of both in relation to the West are increasing, and the conflicts between their values and interests and those of the West are multiplying and becoming more intense (…) Underlying the differences on specific issues is the fundamental question of the role these civilizations will play relative to the West in shaping the future of the world. Will the global institutions, the distribution of power, and the politics and economies of nations in the twenty-first century primarily reflect Western values and interests or will they be shaped primarily by those of Islam and China? (…) Islamic and Sinic societies which see the West as their antagonist thus have reason to cooperate with each other against the West (…) This cooperation occurs on a variety of issues, including human rights, economics, and most notably the efforts by societies in both civilizations to develop their military capabilities, particularly weapons of mass destruction and the missiles for delivering them, so as to counter the conventional military superiority of the West.”

More recently, in his latest book[16], French historian and Sinologist Emmanuel Lincot retraces the geopolitical stakes of Sino-Muslim relations. He believes that, at the dawn of the new century, China and the Muslim world intend to put an end to a world dominated by the West through the ghastly prospect of a multifaceted alliance between them. Such an alliance obviously encompasses the revitalization of the mythical and once greatest trade route in history – the Silk Road – that linked and mutually enriched the two civilizations for centuries, before it was eclipsed by the Western-dominated maritime trade. The Chinese “Belt and Road Initiative”, which aims to develop both land and maritime corridors, is the main means to achieve such a strategic objective. 

On closer inspection, we may argue that throughout the Western colonial period, the Cold War and until after “Les Trente Glorieuses” (The Glorious Thirty)[17], the West was somewhat indifferent if not condescending to Islam as a religion. The overwrought fear of Islam has followed the demise of social democracy in the West, especially since the events of “May 68”, and the decay of progressive and socially-centered movements in the Third World. The Iranian revolution of 1979, itself begotten by this historical development, and the attacks of 11 September 2001 radically changed the geostrategic situation in the eyes of Western countries. Islam is increasingly at the center of their concerns today and a rampant Islamophobia has naturally, and dangerously, ensued. 

As Mr. Allawi so rightly put it in his insightful book[18], Islam’s religion, cultures, civilization, nations and peoples have become the subject of meticulous scrutiny by a wide array of analysts, “from the most thoughtful to the most incendiary, from the most illustrious to the most obscure, from the most sympathetic to the most bigoted”.

If truth be said, for centuries the civilization of Islam has often been shaken by powerful opposing currents. The crusades, the Mongol invasion, Western colonization and imperialism, and today, the intense movement of globalization have been the most striking ones. It has just as often bent under their blows, but has never broken. Far from it; its contribution to universal civilization and to the construction of the “old” and “new” worlds is undeniable. 

The chronicle of this role, especially during the period of the Ottoman Empire, has been the subject of a remarkable book written by Professor of history and Chair of the Department of History at American Yale University, Alan Mikhail.[19] In the introduction to his narrative presenting a new and holistic picture of the last five centuries and demonstrating Islam’s constituent role in the forming of some of the most fundamental aspects of the history of Europe, the Americas, and the United States, he declares that: “If we do not place Islam at the center of our grasp of world history, we will never understand why the Moor-slayers (Matamoros)[20] are memorialized on the Texas-Mexico border or, more generally, why we have blindly, and repeatedly, narrated histories that miss major features of our shared past. 

Richard Bulliet, before Mikhail, made a similar observation, saying:

“The past and future of the West cannot be fully comprehended without appreciation of the twinned relationship it has had with Islam over some fourteen centuries. The same is true of the Islamic world.”

He went as far as to speak of an “Islamo-Christian Civilization”, a term never used before he did so, and went on to make another fundamental remark: “The question confronting the United States is whether the tragedy of September 11 should be an occasion for indulging in the Islamophobia embodied in slogans like “Clash of Civilizations” or an occasion for affirming the principle of inclusion that represents the best in the American tradition” (…) “Clash of Civilizations” must be retired from public discourse before the people who like to use it actually begin to believe it”.

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Amir Nour is an Algerian researcher in international relations, author of the books “L’Orient et l’Occident à l’heure d’un nouveau Sykes-Picot” (The Orient and the Occident in Time of a New Sykes-Picot) Editions Alem El Afkar, Algiers, 2014 and “L’Islam et l’ordre du monde” (Islam and the Order of the World),  Editions Alem El Afkar, Algiers, 2021. 

Notes

[1] Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid. The 12-book Latin poem tells the story of Aeneas, son of the goddess Venus, a royal refugee from war-torn Troy, and a legendary ancestor of the emperor, as he is driven by fate to Italy, where he is to settle and where, centuries later, his descendant Romulus is to build Rome. The epigraph, where Jupiter addresses the Romans, is from the first book: Aeneid I, 278-9. of the poem.

[2] To read the document: 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/10/12/fact-sheet-the-biden-harris-administrations-national-security-strategy/#:~:text=The%20Strategy%20is,of%20strategic%20competition.

[3] Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has spoken strongly in favor of Israel after the surprise assault by Hamas on 7 October 2023. He called on world leaders to show solidarity and unity in supporting Israel and condemning the “terrorist attack”. Zelensky, who is also Jewish, said that Israel had an unquestionable right to defend itself from attacks by Hamas and controversially compared it to Russia’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine, saying Hamas and Moscow were “the same evil, and the only difference is that there is a terrorist organization that attacked Israel, and here is a terrorist state that attacked Ukraine”. Israeli reports also said that Zelensky wanted to make a solidarity visit to Israel but was told “now is not the time”.

[4] Bertrand Piettre, “Ordre et désordre : Le point de vue philosophique” (Order and disorder: The philosophical point of view), 1995.

[5] RAND Corporation, “Understanding the Current International Order”, 2016. This study was sponsored by the Office of the United States Secretary of Defense’s Office of Net Assessment, and conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute.

[6] Henry Kissinger, “World Order”, Penguin Press, New York, 2014.

[7] For more on this subject read Alan Pratt, “Nihilism”, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy; available at: Nihilism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

[8] Michel Onfray, “Décadence: Vie et mort du judéo-christianisme” (Decadence: Life and Death of Judeo-Christianity), Flammarion, 2017.

[9] Emmanuel Todd, “La Défaite de l’Occident”, (The Defeat of the West), Gallimard, 2024.

[10] Quoted in Marc Ferro’s book titled “De Gaulle expliqué aujourd’hui” (De Gaulle Explained Today), Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 2010. The Battle of Poitiers, also called the Battle of Tours, occurred in France on 10 October 732. It resulted in victory of the Frankish and Aquitainian forces led by Charles Martel over the Umayyad forces led by the governor of al-Andalus (Muslim-ruled Spain and Portugal) Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi. The issue of the battle was a decisive factor in curtailing the spread of Islam in Western Europe.

[11] Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order”, 1996.

[12] Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History and the Last Man”, The Free Press, New York, 1992.

[13] Richard Bulliet, “The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization”, Columbia University Press, New York, 2004.

[14] Basil Mathews, “Young Islam on Trek: A Study in the Clash of Civilizations”, Friendship Press, New York, 1926. Mathews was an American Protestant missionary. He worked as a secretary in the World’s Alliance of YMCA’s.

[15] Richard Bulliet, op cit.

[16] Emmanuel Lincot, “Chine et Terres d’islam : un millénaire de géopolitique” (China and the Lands of Islam : A Millennium of Geopolitics), Presses Universitaires de France, 2021.

[17] The Glorious Thirty is a term coined by French Jean Fourastié in his 1979 book “Les Trente Glorieuses, ou la révolution invisible de 1946 a 1975” (The Glorious Thirty, or the Invisible Revolution from 1946 to 1975) to characterize a thirty-year period of great economic growth in France (as well as in the West in general) following the end of WWII. This same period was also marked by a “Baby boom” in most of the world, particularly the United States and Canada in North America and France and Austria in Europe.

[18] Ali A. Allawi, “The Crisis of Islamic Civilization”, Yale University Press, 2009.

[19] Alan Mikhail, “God’s Shadow: The Ottoman Sultan who shaped the modern world”, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 2020.

[20] “Matamoros” is the name of a city located in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas across the border from Brownsville, Texas, in the United States. It was coined by Catholic Spaniards for whom it was the duty of every Christian soldier to be a Moor-slayer.

Featured image is from the author

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Links to Parts I to XII:

The War on Gaza: Might vs. Right, and the Insanity of Western Power

By Amir Nour, December 01, 2023

The War on Gaza: How the West Is Losing. Accelerating the Transition to a Multipolar Global Order?

By Amir Nour, December 04, 2023

The War on Gaza: Debunking the Pro-Zionist Propaganda Machine

By Amir Nour, December 11, 2023

The War on Gaza: Why Does the “Free World” Condone Israel’s Occupation, Apartheid, and Genocide?

By Amir Nour, December 22, 2023

The War on Gaza: How We Got to the “Monstrosity of Our Century”

By Amir Nour, January 25, 2024

The War on Gaza: Towards Palestine’s Independence Despite the Doom and Gloom

By Amir Nour, February 02, 2024

The War on Gaza: Whither the “Jewish State”?

By Amir Nour, April 17, 2024

The Twilight of the Western Settler Colonialist Project in Palestine

By Amir Nour, August 17, 2024

The War on Gaza: Perpetual Falsehoods and Betrayals in the Service of Endless Deception. Amir Nour

By Amir Nour, August 25, 2024

The War on Gaza: Why the Sustainability of the Western-Zionist Colony Is Nigh on Impossible. Amir Nour

By Amir Nour, September 07, 2024

The War on Gaza: Requiem for the Deeply Held Two-State Delusion. Amir Nour

By Amir Nour, September 21, 2024

The War on Gaza: The Case for the Only Durable Solution: One Democratic State from the River to the Sea. Amir Nour

By Amir Nour, October 26, 2024

We are possibly witnessing another stealthy move by Washington and Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to enhance the Israeli position in a Middle East at war while pretending to do something else. President Joe Biden and his cast of know-nothings have been bleating for months about their desire to arrange a “humanitarian” ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon while also alternatively whining about the Jewish state’s “right to defend itself,” but somehow the arrangements proposed have never quite satisfied Netanyahu.

Bibi has repeatedly declared that he will not accept any halt to the fighting, presumably until all the Palestinians are dead, but would accept some kind of suspension of the conflicts as long as he has the option to return to unleashing the mass murder whenever it suits him. He deceptively labels that “making sure that the bad guy ‘terrorists’ abide by the agreement.” In that context of everyone lying to everyone else, Genocide Joe has managed to drag his sorry ass over the finish line with a “whereas laced” US endorsed temporary peace formula for Lebanon that suits Bibi just fine. In fact, it suited him so well that he could not resist renewing his attacking the Lebanese last Thursday even before the ink was dry on the ceasefire documents.

Image source

The ceasefire, arranged largely by Amos Hochstein, an Israeli who served in the Israeli army and is now Biden’s roving negotiator, was agreed to on November 27^th. Its written provisions include 60 days for Hezbollah to withdraw to the Litani River, 18 miles north of the border, while Israel withdraws from all of south Lebanon that it has occupied. The Lebanese army will occupy the area vacated by Hezbollah and will work with the UNIFIL soldiers to monitor the process and maintain the peace in what will be designated as a weapons free zone. Complicating the agreement, there is a side letter from the United States to Israel confirming American support for Israel to “act in self-defense,” a term that Israel can exploit to reintervene in Lebanon. In the letter, the US also commits itself to share with Israel intelligence on Iran providing any support for Hezbollah. Israel is to be permitted to act “in self-defense” if Hezbollah violates the ceasefire in the area south of the Litani and it is also allowed to conduct reconnaissance flights over Lebanon to monitor developments. As usual, Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed a “win,” stating that he had reached an understanding with the US that Israel would “maintain full military freedom of action” in southern Lebanon. “If Hezbollah violates the agreement and tries to arm itself, we will attack. If it tries to renew terrorist infrastructure near the border, we will attack. If it launches a rocket, if it digs a tunnel, if it brings in a truck with missiles, we will attack.” As 35,000 Hezbollah militants actually live in the disarmed zone and presumably will try to return home, Israel will always have an excuse to resume its offensive.

To be sure, Lebanon was happy to accept any reprieve from the destruction wrought by Israeli bombs and artillery rounds, even if Israeli ground forces had been less than successful. Lebanon’s war losses have been calculated to be upwards of $8.5 billion dollars, together with thousands of civilians killed and injured. That includes Israel’s destruction of 100,000 homes and substantial impacts on health, education, and agriculture, according to the World Bank. But there is nevertheless, of course, a lot of speculation as to why any agreement was reached at all given Netanyahu’s unrelenting demand that he have a free hand to punish his neighbors and Biden’s usual cowardice whenever he is confronted by the Israeli gauleiter. The most interesting theory regarding why Israel has agreed to the US drafted ceasefire with Lebanon is that the Israeli government has finally figured out that it is not exactly winning its two little wars even though it has killed tens of thousands, or possibly even hundreds of thousands, Arabs.

Regarding Israel’s own casualties, one assumes that the US Defense Department knows roughly or even in detail the numbers of dead and wounded that the Israel Occupation Force (IOF) is sustaining in its unconventional warfare in both Gaza and south Lebanon. Some credible analysts even have concluded that the Israeli military is under considerable pressure due to a high casualty rate in ground fighting involving its best soldiers, overreliance on reservists, and shortages of equipment and weapons in spite of the Biden airlifts occurring on an almost daily basis. There are reports that even the Pentagon is now running out of certain types of weapons, including artillery shells and smart bombs. A respite in the fighting against the still formidable Hezbollah enemy would be welcome both to the Israeli government and to the military planners particularly as the ceasefire is drafted to favor Israel, which can intervene in Lebanon at will just by alleging a Lebanese failure to enforce the agreement. Netanyahu may also be looking forward to the Trump factor in seven weeks. Donald Trump has always been a consequence free supporter of Israel and his cabinet is composed of hardcore Zionists. So, there is every reason for Netanyahu to believe that with Trump in power he will be able to manipulate circumstances involving both Gazans and Lebanese to enable a US supported move towards the large-scale attack on Iran that Bibi has wanted for decades.

“Victory” has also become elusive as fighting drags on well into its second year on all fronts and Israel’s “freeing of the hostages” has not only failed to materialize, it has resulted in the actual killing of some prisoners of Hamas by Israeli bombs and gunfire. Israel has failed to establish any of the “realities” it wanted to create by invading Lebanon: there is no buffer zone and instead a full IOF retreat, no Hezbollah disarmament, no Hezbollah withdrawal, and no Hezbollah removal from political power in Lebanon. Publicly, Israel got a decoupling between Gaza and Lebanon, but it also was punished with an international arrest warrant for multiple war crimes and genocide being issued against Israel’s Prime Minister and former Defense Minister. Even though the US has rallied around in defense of Israel, the demands for isolating Israel worldwide due to its clearly demonstrated ongoing genocide will intensify.

The disruption and sinking of the Israeli economy due to the evacuation of the northern tier of the country under Hezbollah pressure, an increasing number of international boycotts, and the closure of many businesses, has been widely observed, as has also been the actual departure of many more educated Jewish Israelis holding US and European passports. There is considerable talk among antiwar Israeli Jews in the diaspora and even in liberal newspapers like Haaretz that Israel is in a very real sense self-destructing.

This all derives from the growing belief that the Israeli leadership has begun to realize that it does not have an effective military solution either to end the war in its favor nor to extend it to include the US as an ally in attacking Iran. If Netanyahu and his generals thought they could continue the carnage for another ninety days until the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House, they almost certainly would have gone in that direction without any talk of ceasefire. Instead, leaked reports suggest that the generals themselves are complaining that the government of Netanyahu “has no plan” and have demanding a cutback due to heavy losses.

There are, to be sure, other theories to explain the surprise development of the so-called ceasefire, particularly as it so closely involves the United States and Israel, neither which can be trusted. The lull in the fighting certainly gives the IOF a break during which time it can regroup and re-equip with the help of Washington. And, as noted above, the concession to Israel that it can re-engage if it determines that Lebanon is not abiding by the ceasefire will be easy to manipulate as Israel is, if anything, a master of deception. So the agreement to down arms benefits Israel with Netanyahu, backed by the US, continuing to be able to call the shots on what comes next on the Hezbollah front.

So will the ceasefire hold or is it another gimmick by the US and Israel? In fact, as noted above, the uneasy truce between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah was violated by Israel on its second day in Lebanon on Thursday, by an airstrike that it inevitably claimed targeted militants violating terms of the cease-fire deal. The Israeli strike was the first of its kind since the US backed ceasefire went into effect before dawn on the day before. In spite of the clear violation, neither of the war’s combatants, Israel or Hezbollah, seemed keen to immediately return to full-scale fighting. The Israeli military said the incident, near the border in southern Lebanon, had targeted two militants entering a Hezbollah rocket facility that had been used to fire into Israel. Lebanon’s army, which is set to play a major role in enforcing the truce, also accused Israel of violating the ceasefire “several more times” on Thursday afternoon. The Israeli military claimed that its soldiers had in fact interdicted other militants attempting to enter into southern Lebanon. “With the same power we used to secure the agreement, we will now enforce it no less so,” Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, the Israeli military’s chief of staff, said in a subsequent video. It is no doubt precisely how Israel will behave in the future and how little the US, as a guarantor of the agreement together with France, will be tempted to intervene to maintain the peace contrary to Netanyahu’s wishes. That partisanship by Washington is precisely the problem and it suggests that the both the integrity and viability of the ceasefire might reasonably be questioned.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from TUR

Dr. Reiner Fuellmich is a German lawyer who created in 2020 the German Corona Investigative Committee to investigate the Corona fraud not only in Germany but around the world. He had top medical doctors, virologists and other medical scientists on his program, people in pursuit of the truth and to propagate the truth among people who have been negatively affected by Covid measures and later having been coerced to receive the poisonous “vaxx” which was never a vaccination, by an often-deadly injection.

During his program Reiner helped thousands of people freeing them from fear and anxieties, allowing them living a more normal life again.

This, the German Government did not like, and through infiltration in his team, the Corona Committee was demolished.

Reiner eventually was falsely accused of financial wrongdoing and is since more than 14 months in pretrial detention in one of Germany’s high-security prisons in Rosdorf, near Göttingen. He is a political prisoner in the so-called democracy of Germany, he is a prisoner of war – in our times of war silent war of the Globalists against Us, the People.

Reiner has dedicated his life to defend the interests of the people. Reiner is a hero.

Following is a transcript of my speech at the demo in Geneva on 30 November 2024.

***

Friends of Reiner Fuellmich!

What we are witnessing through the trial against Dr. Reiner Fuellmich is a scandal without precedent! It is likely unparalleled in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany since 1949 that a German public prosecutor would act with such disproportion and disregard for the rule of law.

To say it bluntly the way it is: Reiner Fuellmich is a political prisoner of Germany.

Yes, a political prisoner in a so-called Democracy of Europe.

In 2020, at the outset of the Covid hysteria, Reiner created the German Corona Investigative Committee (CIC) – a TV program in which he interviewed medical specialists, virologists, and many other scientists, helping thousands of fearful and stressed people, by divulging the truth about covid.

Germany and the current Globalist tyranny in which many of us are living, does not want the truth to be known. They needed a reason to stop him. Ms. Vivian Fischer, lawyer and Reiner’s partner in the CIC, eventually denounced Reiner for unlawfully deviating donation funds destined for the CIC.

Deviation of money was an abject lie in the first place.

However, others, former colleagues and co-workers, including a renowned doctor and scientist Dr. Wodarg, in the Corona Investigative Committee, jumped on the bandwagon of the traitors to accuse Reiner.

In the lawless “rules-based” system we are confronted with for at least the past four years, it would be no surprise, if Reiner’s turncoats were all coerced, or paid, blackmailed –  or all of the above – by those who pretend to control “THE GLOBALIST SYSTEM”, for giving false testimony.

The cowardice of these people was sufficient to collapse the German Corona Committee.

Reiner is licensed to practice Law in California and had a ranch in California. He tried to move with his wife to California. By strange coincidence – or by coordination between the German and US secret services— Reiner was not allowed entering the US.

So, he established himself temporarily in Mexico, where he created the ICIC (International Crime Investigation Committee), from where he invited numerous guests to talk about crimes committed in the name of the globalist elite, those who created the “rules-based order.”

This “rules-based order” is devoid of any international law and can be changed and shifted around as it suits the political elite’s necessities.

Case in point is Germany which has been getting away with a political crime – Human Rights infractions, on Reiner, an honest citizen, who was telling and publishing the truth – the truth about Corona, the truth about crimes committed against humanity by the very Governments that are paid to serve the people.

The German system did not like Reiner’s ICIC in Mexico either. In October 2023, they lured him into the German Consulate in Tijuana, Mexico, where he was immediately arrested by German agents – coming from Germany to literally kidnap Reiner.

They handcuffed him, and took him right away, as is, without a change of clothing, or even a toothbrush, to the airport, where he was flown, squeezed between two armed secret service agents, back to Frankfurt.

Immediately after landing, he was arrested and sent to the maximum-security prison in Rosdorf, Göttingen, for what they call “preventive detention”.

This is called kidnapping.

Illegal – I repeat kidnapping by all standards is ILLEGAL.

The German Government resembles increasingly the Third Reich. The alleged and unproven financial delict he is accused of, is not a criminal act, extradition orders cannot be issued outside of the Schengen area. So, Mexico did not deport Reiner. He had to be kidnapped by the German Secret Service, obviously with the collaboration of Mexico and the US Secret Services.

Reiner’s fight against the Covid lie was a fight against a worldwide military program. The covid scam is Pentagon / NATO project. And so is the “Climate Change” fraud, made believable to the people, by geoengineering the weather, the climate to bring about extreme weather conditions, floods, droughts, hurricanes, destruction of infrastructure, housing, food, creating famine, misery and ultimately death.

Reiner’s case should never have been put before a Criminal Court, but at the most a Civil Court.

In summary, Reiner has been illegally kidnapped and arrested as a political prisoner. Considering the Globalist war we are living, he is also a Prisoner of War.

Reiner is incarcerated for telling the inconvenient truth and – that is important – he has been arrested and is being tortured to dissuade others from talking TRUTH against the Globalists lies and tyranny.

Reiner’s case resembles ever more Julian Assange’s odyssey.

Torture for silence and for dissuasion.

That is the story in brief.

While there are no laws, per se, against “political prisoners”, there is the UN Declaration of Human Rights: Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

All prisoners must be held under conditions that correspond to basic Human Rights.

Like the United Nations itself, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) rose from the ashes of World War II. It was adopted in 1948, by then 50 UN member countries.

By now, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been signed by all 193 UN member countries, including Germany.

In abbreviated form, there are 30 basic Human Rights.

In the case of Reiner, Germany is in violation of 7 of the 30 Human Rights:

• 5 Freedom from Torture and Degrading Treatment
• 8 Right to Remedy by a Competent Tribunal
• 9 Freedom from Arbitrary Arrest and Exile
• 10 Right to Fair Public Hearing
• 11 Right to be Considered Innocent until Proven Guilty
• 19 Freedom of Opinion and Information
• 30 Freedom from State or Personal Interference in the above Rights

Below are the 30 abbreviated Articles of Human Rights.

Friends of Reiner’s,

Free Reiner!

Free Reiner!

Free Reiner!

Here is how Reiner is being tortured:

He has been for almost 15 months in “preventive detention” with an endless trial – up to now 39 trial sessions – but still without a judgement. The maximum preventive detention normally tolerated in Germany is 6 months.

During the last five and a half months, Reiner has been detained in solitary confinement.

He is in full isolation and cannot even talk to his fellow prisoners.

He can receive visits only once a month.

He is kept in almost total isolation.

Every time he leaves his cell he is being handcuffed, foot-shackled and accompanied by two heavily armed policemen – to where he must go, most of the times to Court.

He is being treated like a mass murderer.

At every Court interruption and before he is brought back to his cell, he is being stripped and body-searched.

Imagine this extreme humiliation!

The latest happenings date from three days ago, 27 November, the last Court date.

Reiner has been sick for days and asked to see a medical doctor of his choice, and to postpone the Court date.

He was denied both.

The judge said he was fine and healthy enough to attend the Court session.

In addition, Reiner was not only denied to see his dying mother before she passed away, but two days ago he was denied to attend her funeral.

Psychological torture. Absolute cruelty.

Here are the messages from Reiner (audio) and Katja Wörner (his lawyer), they sent to the manifestation in Geneva.

Friends of Reiner’s,

We are in Geneva, where the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is located, Mr. Volker Türk.

Dear Mr. Türk,

We call on you – we plead you – to intervene without delay with the German Government to free Dr. Reiner Fuellmich immediately.

Reiner is arrested and tortured for a financial “irregularity” he has NOT committed.

I repeat, he has NOT committed.

Several of his Human Rights are regularly violated.

Reiner’s German Government kidnapping, arrest and torture serves just as a pretext, to silence him and to keep him as a political prisoner in the maximum-security prison “Rosdorf” in Göttingen, northern Germany.

He has been in preventive detainment for almost 15 months, a third of which in solitary confinement. A fierce Human Rights violation.

Mr. Türk, we request you to do whatever is in your power as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, to intervene with the German Government to free Reiner Fuellmich at once.

Thank you.

Free Reiner!

Free Reiner!

Free Reiner!

*

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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

Featured image: Foto: Kerstin Heusinger

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Annex: The 30 Articles of Human Rights – in abbreviated format

1 Right to Equality

2 Freedom from Discrimination

3 Right to Life, Liberty, Personal Security

4 Freedom from Slavery

5 Freedom from Torture and Degrading Treatment

6 Right to Recognition as a Person before the Law

7 Right to Equality before the Law

8 Right to Remedy by Competent Tribunal

9 Freedom from Arbitrary Arrest and Exile

10 Right to Fair Public Hearing

11 Right to be Considered Innocent until Proven Guilty

12 Freedom from Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, and Correspondence

13 Right to Free Movement in and out of the Country

14 Right to Asylum in other Countries from Persecution

15 Right to a Nationality and the Freedom to Change It

16 Right to Marriage and Family

17 Right to Own Property

18 Freedom of Belief and Religion

19 Freedom of Opinion and Information

20 Right of Peaceful Assembly and Association

21 Right to Participate in Government and in Free Elections

22 Right to Social Security

23 Right to Desirable Work and to Join Trade Unions

24 Right to Rest and Leisure

25 Right to Adequate Living Standard

26 Right to Education

27 Right to Participate in the Cultural Life of Community

28 Right to a Social Order that Articulates this Document

29 Community Duties Essential to Free and Full Development

30 Freedom from State or Personal Interference in the above Rights

Those listed in bold are violated by Germany against Dr. Reiner Fuellmich.

Introduction

The video below produced in 2006 by the Union of Concerned Scientists in collaboration with the Pentagon reveals the consequence of the use of a  Nuclear Earth Penetration Bomb in an attack on Iran.

This is an important video production, carefully documented by the UCS. 

I should mention that the option to use bunker buster bombs against Iran is currently on the drawing board of the Pentagon, despite the fact that there is no evidence that Iran has stockpiled Weapons of Mass destruction in so-called bunkers, as conveyed in the video.

Implied in the video-montage is that Iran constitutes a WMD threat,  when in fact there is no evidence to that effect.

The Nuclear Earth Penetrating Bomb (NEPB) should be distinguished from the so-called tactical nuclear weapons (mini-nukes) which are low yield.

“The simulation in the Flash Animation pertains to a one megaton bunker buster thermonuclear bomb with an explosive capacity of 60 times a Hiroshima bomb. Its use would result in millions of deaths and radioactive fallout extending eastwards into Pakistan and India.  

The earth penetrating technology is similar. The explosive capacity of the B61-11 and 12 series  which are deployed in Western Europe have an explosive capacity from one third to 12 times a Hiroshima bomb.

“the B61-11 has several “available yields”, ranging from  “low yields” of  less than one kiloton, to mid-range and up to the 1000 kiloton bomb. In all cases, the radioactive fallout is devastating.  Moreover, the B61 series of thermonuclear weapons includes several models with distinct specifications: the B61-11, the B61-3, B61- 4, B61-7 and B61-10. Each of these bombs has several “available yields”.

What is contemplated for theater use [against Iran] is the “low yield” 10 kt bomb, two thirds of a Hiroshima bomb”. 

In the simulation based on a model of the Pentagon pertaining to the RNEP (image below) “more than three million would be killed and more than thirty five million people would  be exposed by cancer causing radiation.”

 

B61-11 and 12 Low Yield Bunker Buster Bombs

The UCS  (based on the Pentagon Model) also examined the likely impacts of the use of the low yield B61-11 and 12 bombs (which is deployed in the UK, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Belgium, Netherlands) 

The B61-11 and 12 series are contemplated for use in the conventional war theater.  According to the Simulation of a B61-11 attack on Iran: 

“this would result in radioactive contamination over a large part of the Middle East – Central Asian region, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths, including US troops stationed in Iraq” (UCS)

See map below

 

It should be noted that Joe Biden’s 1.3 trillion dollars nuclear weapons program is slated to increase to 2 trillion by 2030 allegedly as a means to safeguarding peace and national security at taxpayers expense.

Does a Two Trillion dollars ($2000 billion) budget allocated to the development of nuclear weapons not suggest that America is intent upon using nuclear weapons? 

B61-12 (right)

How many schools and hospitals could you finance with 2 trillion dollars?

A nuclear attack against Iran is currently on the drawing board of the Pentagon.

IWe are at a dangerous crossroads in our history. 

The use of the low Yield B61-11 and 12 so-called mini-nukes (tactical nuclear weapons) which are CATEGORIZED AS CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS WOULD ALSO precipitate WWIII

This is an important video and it’s real.

AND WE MUST CONFRONT OUR GOVERNMENTS AND PREVENT IT FROM OCCURRING

.

.

—Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, November 2, 2024

---

Video: The Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator to be Used Against Iran 

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/nuclear_weapons/nuclear-bunker-buster-rnep-animation.html

Text and Analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)

The simulation in the Flash Animation pertains to a one megaton bunker buster thermonuclear bomb with an explosive capacity of 60 times a Hiroshima bomb.

Military documents distinguish between the NEP as in the case of the simulation, and the “mini-nuke” which are nuclear weapons with a yield of less than 10 kilotons (two thirds of a Hiroshima bomb). The NEP can have a yield of up to a 1000 kilotons, or 60 times a Hiroshima bomb.

In the showdown with Tehran over its alleged nuclear weapons program, the Pentagon is contemplating the launching of punitive bombings using “mini-nukes” or tactical thermonuclear weapons. While the “guidelines” do not exclude other (more deadly) categories of nukes in the US and/or Israeli nuclear arsenal, as envisaged in the simulation, Pentagon “scenarios” in the Middle East tend to favor the use of tactical nuclear weapons including the B61-11 bunker buster bomb with a yield of 10 kt.

This distinction between mini-nukes and larger NEPs is in many regard misleading. In practice there is no dividing line.

We are broadly dealing with the same type of weaponry:  the B61-11 has several “available yields”, ranging from  “low yields” of  less than one kiloton, to mid-range and up to the 1000 kiloton bomb. In all cases, the radioactive fallout is devastating.  Moreover, the B61 series of thermonuclear weapons includes several models with distinct specifications: the B61-11, the B61-3, B61- 4, B61-7 and B61-10. Each of these bombs has several “available yields”.

What is contemplated for theater use is the “low yield” 10 kt bomb, two thirds of a Hiroshima bomb. The impacts in terms of deaths and radioactive fallout would be less dramatic than that contemplated in the simulation. It would nonetheless result in the deaths of tens of thousands of men, women and children

“The earth-penetrating capability of the B61-11 is fairly limited. …  Tests show it penetrates only 20 feet or so into dry earth when dropped from an altitude of 40,000 feet. … Any attempt to use it in an urban environment would result in massive civilian casualties. Even at the low end of its 0.3-300 kiloton yield range, the nuclear blast will simply blow out a huge crater of radioactive material, creating a lethal gamma-radiation field over a large area “ (Low-Yield Earth-Penetrating Nuclear Weapons by Robert W. Nelson,Federation of American Scientists, 2001 ).

According to GlobalSecurity.org , the use of the B61-11 against North Korea would result in extensive radioactive fallout over nearby countries, thereby triggering a nuclear holocaust.

“… In tests the bomb penetrates only 20 feet into dry earth,… But even this shallow penetration before detonation allows a much higher proportion of the explosion to be transferred into ground shock relative to a surface burst. It is not able to counter targets deeply buried under granite rock. Moreover, it has a high yield, in the hundreds of kilotons. If used in North Korea, the radioactive fallout could drift over nearby countries such as Japan” (http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/b61.htm )

If it were to be launched against Iran, it would result in radioactive contamination over a large part of the Middle East – Central Asian region, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths, including US troops stationed in Iraq:

“The use of any nuclear weapon capable of destroying a buried target that is otherwise immune to conventional attack will necessarily produce enormous numbers of civilian casualties. No earth-burrowing missile can penetrate deep enough into the earth to contain an explosion with a nuclear yield [of a low yield B61-11] even as small as 1 percent of the 15 kiloton Hiroshima weapon. The explosion simply blows out a massive crater of radioactive dirt, which rains down on the local region with an especially intense and deadly fallout.”(Low-Yield Earth-Penetrating Nuclear Weapons, by Robert W. Nelson, op cit )

At present, the B61-11 is slated for use in war theaters together with conventional weapons. (Congressional Report“ Bunker Busters”: Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator Issues , Congressional Research Service March 2005). (Other versions of the B61, namely mod 3, 4,  7 and 10, which are part of the US arsenal, involve nuclear bunker buster bombs with a lower yield to that of B61-11).

For further details, see
The Dangers of a Middle East Nuclear War

New Pentagon Doctrine: Mini-Nukes are “Safe for the Surrounding Civilian Population”
by Michel Chossudovsky

---

“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102

PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
–Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute   

Simulations of World War III are conducted regularly by the Pentagon. Invariably they are classified. 

This important article by renowned geopolitical analyst William Arkin first published in 2006 (Washington Post blog)  reveals the details pertaining a declassified World War III scenario implemented by US Northern Command (USNORTHCOM)

 

.

In this simulation, Four Countries are identified as enemies of America. The Entire Scenario in the form of a chronology is outlined. Scroll Down. Read carefully. (Emphasis added)

Irmingham = Iran
Nemazee = North Korea
Ruebek = Russia
Churya = China 

Exercise Vigilant Shield 07, currently scheduled to culminate December 4-14, is described in this year’s “Exercise Plan” (thanks PR for providing the documents) as an opportunity to “train and exercise” NORTHCOM and U.S.-Canadian NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) components in all aspects of homeland defense.

The exercise run concurrently with

“Terminal Fury 07,” a Pacific Command (PACOM) exercise focused on North Korea;

“Global Lightning 07,” a Strategic Command (STRATCOM) exercise focused on command and control of U.S. nuclear and conventional forces, and, 

“Positive Response 07-1,” a national-level continuity of operations exercise of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) is also participating in the “maritime defense” portions of the exercise, and other U.S. government agencies such as the Department of Energy are involved in the nuclear weapons aspects.

I wrote last year about Vigilant Shield 06, which involved World War III with “Slomonia,” a thinly veiled Russia adopted a more aggressive foreign policy towards the west and eventually attacked the United States.

This year’s Vigilant Shield stars Nemazee, a thinly veiled North Korea; Irmingham, which is Iran; Ruebek, which is Russia; and Churya, which is China.  According to briefing documents from the Vigilant Shield planning conference:

• “Nemazee continues to develop nuclear and missile capabilities
• Southwest Asian country of Irmingham intent on uranium enrichment program
• Western countries and United States seeking U.N. assistance to halt Irmingham’s enrichment program
• Eurasian country of Ruebek attempts to mediate Irmingham crisis by offering nuclear oversight while secretly supporting enrichment program
• Asian country of Churya will become concerned at increasing level of Ruebek-U.S. hostility”

Evidently endeavoring to be more “relevant” to the world scene, NORTHCOM focused this year’s Vigilant Shield on continuing North Korean development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.  There’s nothing wrong with that.

But North Korea just isn’t a big enough threat to justify the homeland security edifice back home, particularly not missile defense or other technological favorites.

According to the NORTHCOM exercise scenario (published separately), when it is all over, a “limited” nuclear war takes place between the United States and Russia. 

They fire first, hitting U.S. command centers and forces, we retaliate. 

As part of the concurrent Positive Response exercise of the JCS, a one kiloton “terrorist” nuclear weapon just happens to detonate at the Pentagon. 

Cheyenne Mountain and the underground Raven Rock bunker in Maryland are hit with Russian nuclear weapons, but no “cities” are hit and other than the attack on the Pentagon — which briefing documents say only kills 6,000 — the country survives.

With the Pentagon gone — someone at least has a sense of humor — the military can “practice” its alternate command structures, its truck mounted mobile command centers, and its redundant communications. 

“Consequence management” organizations can stage to pockets of great destruction, led still by a federal government that miraculously survives nuclear war.  Officials who need to be are evacuated nicely, the “stressed” system chugs forward.
 
The “road to war” as described in exercise briefing documents gives no political context for why Russia would want to go to war with the United States, and then if they did, why they would attack in such limited numbers and not go for victory.  I guess the answer is buried somewhere in the minds of exercise scenario writers who needed limited war to make it all fun and workable; or is the product of nuclear warfare theory that posits “limited” attacks away from really valuable things as a way of “controlling” the outcome.

In either case, on the nuclear side the two core assumptions are clear:

First, nuclear warfare can break out for no particular reason at any particular time, hence not only the need for U.S. nuclear weapons but ballistic missile defenses. 

Second, small nuclear weapons, while bad, don’t really kill that many people, hence the demand for new “mini-nukes” to attack the bad guys: They are useful.

Adm. Timothy Keating, the commander of U.S. Northern Command, spoke at a Homeland Defense Symposium yesterday in Colorado saying that he doubted scenarios that posit another mega-terrorist in the United States.

“I do not think it’s inevitable,” Keating said.

(See Tom Roeder, “NORTHCOM Chief Says Attack Not Inevitable,” Colorado Springs Gazette, October 6, 2006)

I’m sure no one in the audience of 1,500 industry types who feed at the trough of homeland security was particularly thrilled with Keating’s remark.

Not to worry though the Admiral said that NORTHCOM was still working aggressively on disaster preparedness

“If we do this right,” he said, “you’re just going to get aid.” Financial aid that is.

***

The Vigilant Shield 07 Exercise Scenario

Supplement to Early Warning blog posting for October 6, 2006

From the Vigilant Shield 07 exercise scenario, taken from U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) briefing documents dated August 2006.  The material in brackets is added by the author to explain acronyms.

Irmingham = Iran
Nemazee = North Korea
Ruebek = Russia
Churya = China

• Road to Conflict (RTC): 11 Sep – 15 Oct 06

 – Initial Irmingham Enrichment I&W [indications and warning]
 – Initial Ruebeki & Irmingham Involvement
 – Ruebek I&W, PACFLT [U.S. Pacific Fleet] Sub Deployments
 – Initial Nemazee ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] I&W
 – Initial MHLD [homeland defense?] I&W
 – Strategic IO [information operations (cyber warfare)] operations (Ruebek & Churya)
 – Ruebek & Irmingham Conduct Joint AD [air defense] Exercise

• Phase 1 / Deployment: 4 – 8 Dec 06

 – Rogue LRA [Russian long-range aviation] w/CALCM [conventional air launched cruise missile] Launch
 – Continue Monitoring Strategic Situation
 – Continue Monitoring Nemazee Situation

  • Possible Nuclear Testing
  • Probable ICBM Preparation
 
 – Continue Monitoring MHLD Situation
 
  • Five VOIs [vessels of interest]
  • Churya Flagged VOI into Dutch Harbor Supports BMDS [ballistic missile defense system] Threat to Ft Greely

 – Continue Monitoring IO Activities
 – Nemazee Conducts SLV [space launch vehicle] Launch – 8 Dec 06

• Phase 2 Minus 42 Days:

 • Additional Nemazee ICBM Shipments to Launch Facilities
 • RMOB [Russian main operating bases] Acft Conduct LR Navigation Flights
 • AS-15 [nuclear armed cruise missile] Handling at RMOBs

 – Minus 41 Days:
  • Additional Nemazee ICBM Preps at Launch Pad # 2
 – Minus 40 Days:
  • Activity at Nemazee Nuclear Test Facilities
 – Minus 35 Days:
  • DOS [Department of State] Travel Warning
 – Minus 30 Days:
  • Ruebek LRA Deploys Acft to Anadyr & Vorkuta

• Phase 2 Minus 30 Days:

 • Growing International Condemnation of Ruebek
 • Ruebek Deploys Submarines

 – Minus 20 Days:
  • Nemazee Recalls Reservists
 – Minus 14 Days:
  • DOS Draw-down Sequencing
 – Minus 13 Days:
  • Ruebek Closes US Embassy in Washington DC
 – Minus 11 Days:
  • Nemazee Conducts Fueling of Additional ICBMs
  • Ruebeki Presidential Statement on Possible US Attack

• Phase 2 Minus 10 Days:

 • POTUS Addresses Congress on War Powers Act

 – Minus 6 Days:
  • Ruebek President Calls “Situation Grave”
 – Minus 5 Days:
  • CALCM Activity at Anadyr, Vorkuta, and Tiksi
  • Ruebeki SS-25 [nuclear armed mobile ICBMs] Conduct out of Garrison Deployments
  • Nemazee Assembling ICBM for Probable Launch
 – Minus 4 Days:
  • Ruebek Closes US Embassy in Washington DC
  • Ruebek Acft Conduct Outer ADIZ [air defense identification zone] Pentrations
  • Mid-Air Collison w/NORAD Acft During ADIZ Penetration

• Phase 2 Minus 4 Days:

 • Nemazee ICBM Launch Azimuth Threatens US

 – Minus 3 Days:
 • NATO Diplomatic Efforts Fail to Diffuse Crisis
 • USAMB to Ruebek Recalled for Consultation
 • POTUS Addresses Nation
 – Minus 2 Days:
 • Nemazee Leadership Movement
 – Minus 1 Day:
 • Ruebek Expels US Mission

• Phase 2 / Execution: 10 – 14 Dec 06

 – Pre-Attack I & W
 – Imminent Terrorist Attack on Pentagon Suggests Pentagon COOP [continuity of operations plan]
 – Nemazee Conducts 2 x ICBM Combat Launches Against United States
 – Ruebek Conducts Limited Strategic Attack on United States
  • Wave 1 – 8 x Bear H Defense Suppression w/CALCM
  • Wave 2 – Limited ICBM & SLBM Attack
 – 2 x ICBM Launched (1 impacts CMOC [Cheyenne Mountain], 1 malfunctions)
 – 2 x SLBM Launched Pierside (1 impacts SITE-R [“Raven Rock” bunker on the Maryland-Pennsylvania border], 1 malfunctions)
 – 3 x Bear H from Dispersal Bases w/ALCM (Eielson AFB, CANR, Cold Lake)
 – US Conducts Limited Retaliatory Attack on Ruebek
  • 1 x ICBM C2 Facility
  • 1 x ICBM Against ICBM Launch Location
  • Phase 2 / Execution:
 – Ruebek Prepares Additional Attack on United States
  • Wave 3 – Prepares for Additional Strategic Attacks
  – 1 x ICBM Movement, NO Launch
  – 3 x SLBM PACFLT Pierside Missile Handling Activity (NO Launch)
  – 6 x BEAR H (launch & RTB [return to base]) w/6 x ALCM (NO launch)”

 

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First published on April 8, 2022

***

Abstract

The decades following World War II witnessed massive investments in large dams and water reservoirs. The number of large dams increased globally from 5,000 dams in 1950 to around 50,000 in 2017, and irrigated areas doubled from 140 million hectares to 280 million hectares.

The development of public irrigation and hydropower energy, and their associated dams, was central to Cold War geopolitics and national state policies. Throughout the Cold War, water became more involved in both building up and demolishing regimes, supporting, and undermining political legitimacy, and empowering and disempowering social groups.

Today, over 263 international watercourses generate about 60% of global freshwater flow, cross the territories of 145 countries, and are home to around 40% of the world’s population. Conflicts over shared river waters cannot be interpreted without understanding the political power relations and the significance of upstream-downstream positioning of the competing or conflicting states.

For thousands of years being Mesopotamia (the land between two rivers), today’s Iraq faces water scarcity and desertification due to the continued reduction of the Tigris and Euphrates water flow into Iraqi territory. This is largely due to upstream developments on their headwaters in Turkey and Iran, and the steepening effects of climate change. In 2018, the UN Environment Program warned that Iraq was losing around 25,000 hectares of arable land.

The construction and operation of about 100 large dams and reservoirs on the Tigris and Euphrates headwaters in both Turkey and Iran in less than four decades, has drastically impaired the flow of the two rivers and caused severe land and environmental degradation including the desiccation of wetlands in Iraq.

In this article, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers mean annual flow rate records from the Ministry of Water Resources in Iraq (1960-2018) have been analyzed in correlation with dates of upstream dams filling and operation of tens of large dams in Turkey.

Conclusions indicate significant correlation that caused serious impacts including the desiccation of about 65% of the marshland’s areas in southern Iraq since the seventies to date, with continues degradation of valuable agriculture land into desertification, and other related environmental and socioeconomical aspects.

Introduction

About 96.3% of water on earth is saline. Freshwater including ice caps, lakes, rivers, groundwater, soil moisture, and atmosphere vapors covers only 2.7% of the Earth’s surface. River’s freshwater is only 0.0002 of total water on earth [1]. Rivers are important natural corridors for the flows of energy, matter, and species, and are often key elements in the regulation and maintenance of landscape biodiversity [2]. With time and population explosion and drought, fresh water becomes a critical asset to meet food, water demands, development, and national security of nations.

The decades following World War II witnessed massive investments in large dams and water reservoirs. The number of large dams increased globally from 5000 in 1950 to around 50 000 in 2017. Irrigated areas also doubled from 140 million ha. to 280 million hectares. The development of public irrigation and hydro energy and associated dams was central to Cold War geopolitics as well as to wider national state policies. [3].

As a strategic asset, water is no longer linked only to environmental issues and food security issue’s but also plays a critical role in regional security arrangements. States view water as a means for political leverage and as a source of power.

There are over 263 international watercourses generating about 60% of global freshwater flow which cover almost half the earth’s land surface. They cross the territories of 145 countries and are home to around 40% of the world’s population.[4]

Shared rivers between two or more riparian states poses different levels of disputes over river water shares. Conflicts over shared rivers waters cannot be interpreted without understanding the power relations and the significance of upstream-downstream positioning of the competing or conflicting states [ 5]. In arid and semi-arid regions like the Middle East water represents a source of state power, and water scarcity is highly impacting development and national security [5].

Today Iraq faces water scarcity and desertification after continuous reduction of Tigris and Euphrates water inflows due to upstream damming of their headwaters in Turkey, Iran.

Water shortages are further aggravated by the steepening effects of climate change. The UN Environment Program reported in 2018 that Iraq is  losing around 25,000 hectares of arable land annually.[6].

The construction and operation of more than 100 large dams, reservoirs, and hydroelectric power plant (HEPP) in less than four decades on Tigris and Euphrates headwaters in Turkey, Iran, has impaired the flow of the two rivers and caused sever land and environmental degradation in Iraq.

Since the 1970s, Turkey has pursued an ambitious Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP), or “Guneydogu Anadolu Projesi” (Turkish). The project involves the construction of 90 dams, and 60 hydro-electrical power stations [7 ], water diversion tunnels, and irrigation infrastructure on Tigris and Euphrates headwaters, with storage capacity exceeding 114 BCM. Full implementation of (GAP) facilities will harness nearly 70-80 percent of the Euphrates River water flow into Iraq and Syria [8].

Throughout the Cold War, water has become more involved in both building and demolishing regimes, supporting, and undermining political legitimacy, and empowering and disempowering social groups [9].

This paper presents an overview of how Cold War politics after World War II evolved to create tensions and potential conflicting situations between riparian countries within the Tigris and Euphrates basins.

As a NATO active member, Turkey received political, financial, and technical support to accelerate the construction of GAP mega dams without negotiating protocols with downstream riparian countries or conducting comprehensive environmental impact assessments to define the effects of these dams on them, as required by international water laws [10].

Tigris and Euphrates rivers mean annual flow rate (MAFR) records from the ministry of water resources in Iraq (MoWRI), Appendix A, table I, [14] [16], have been analyzed in correlation with dates of upstream dams filling and operation in Turkey and Iran, to identify the real impacts of these developments on the acceleration of the desiccation of the marshlands southern Iraq through the nineties to date.

With partial implementation of the GAP project, Iraq is already going through significant water scarcity, desertification [6], and the desiccation of about 65% of major areas of the marshlands after the diminishing of flood waves, major water recharge of these wetlands [11].  It’s been predicted that both Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq might diminish by the year of 2040’s [12].

Water resources status of Iraq

Before the 1970s the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq were considered semi-natural [8]]. Both rivers are international rivers shared mainly by four countries (Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran). Most headwaters of both rivers are in Turkey and Iran’s highlands. Tables 1 and 2 pertain to the major hydrological parameters of both Tigris and Euphrates drainage basins.

Since about 79% of water resources of the two rivers in Iraq originate mainly from Turkey and Iran’s highlands [8], a significant decline in total annual inflow of Euphrates in Iraq started in the mid-1970s, right after the construction and the operation of the Keban dam in Turkey and Tabqa dam in Syria.

Table 1: Main Hydrological parameters of Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq.

Figure 1: Tigris and Euphrates River basins across riparian states [15].

Early 1980s to the present the total annual water inflow of both Tigris and Euphrates in Iraq have been going through continuous decline (figure 2), due mainly to the construction of the Southeast Anatolia Project, and other water developments in Iran, Syria, and Iraq.

The first stage of GAP project includes the building of 22 mega and large dams and 19 hydropower plants with storage capacity of (>114 BCM) on the Euphrates and Tigris (Table 3), which exceeds the natural annual flow volume of the two rivers [8].

Figure 2: Decline of mean annual flow of both Tigris and Euphrates water last five decades. Source of data MoWRI in references [14][16].

Another important source of surface water in Iraq is Shatt al Arab River. This river forms from the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers near the city of Qurna in southern Iraq, figure 3 . Downstream of Qurna city to the Arabian Gulf, the length of the river is 192 Km [17]. The area draining to the Shatt al Arab river is shared between Iran and Iraq. In addition to the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, the Karkheh and the Karun tributaries originate from the Zagros highlands in Iran contribute water to Shatt al Arab main channel in Iraq [8].

Mean annual inflow of Shatt Al Arab during (1947-1960) from Tigris and Euphrates was about 23 BCM in Maqal (Makal) district close to Basra city center (figure 3 )[18], increases to about 37.5 BCM further south after Karun tributary discharges about 14.4 BCM of its water into the river [18].

Last two decades, the contribution of Tigris, Euphrates, and Karun rivers inflow into Shatt Al Arab have been gradually declining. The flow rate of the river dropped to historical level of 45 CMS (Cubic Meter Per Second) reported in (2011), compared to 919 cms in (1977-1978) [19]. Shatt Al Arab annual flow rate decline is also related to the construction of large dams and reservoirs upstream in Turkey and Iran on both Tigris and Euphrates headwaters [8] figure 4.

Figure 3: Shatt Al Arab River through Basra city [17]

Figure 4: Shatt Al-Arab mean annual flow rate at Makal district in Basra.[18]

Iran on other hand constructed 37 dams on Tigris tributaries, Karun, and Karkha rivers originating from the Zagros and Touros highlands in Iran since the seventies [20] [21].

Syria also constructed three large dams on Euphrates since mid-seventies [8]. Iraq built 5 large dams at same period [8] , in addition to the construction of 17 dams last decade on Tigris tributaries within Kurdistan Region of Iraq ( KRI) last decade, with 24 more dams under construction currently [22 ]. Mean annual water inflow of both Tigris and Euphrates in Iraq during the sixties was around 83 BCM, figure 2. In four decades, mean water inflow dropped to 47 BCM. With climate changes, and full implementation of GAP project, further reduction is expected to the depletion of both rivers in Iraq around 2040’s according to (UN-IAU Interagency information and analysis unit) (Report, 2010 [12].

The Southeastern Anatolia Development Project

The Southeastern Anatolia Development (GAP) is part of a more comprehensive project intends to build 1,783 dams and hydro-electric power plants (HEPP) in Turkey by 2023 in addition to over 2,000 existing ones, which will affect millions of people [23] inside Turkey, and more than 30 million people downstream in Syria and Iraq.

The following section is a general historical review of the politics accelerated the development of the GAP project last four decades, starting from the construction of Keban dam, first mega dam constructed on Euphrates River headwaters in Turkey.

1. Keban dam

In 1962 the Turkish parliament allocated funds for a feasibility study for the construction of a dam at Keban city on the headwaters of the Euphrates River. That same year, a contract was signed with EBASCO Services Inc., an American engineering firm founded by the General Electric Company in 1905 [24].

The project Feasibility report released in October 1963.” EBASCO recommended the construction of the dam at Keban in a 350-page “economic feasibility” report. The project technical document supposed to come with technical details about the proposed design and the cost of the dam, but, the report was more as a political document [24]. It was an analysis of the whole Turkish economy and society. It offered a technocratic vision for the country’s future rather than the project region only. The study was produced as a prospectus for international capital, it was less about the development of Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia and more about the social and economic development of Turkey’s largest cities in the west [24].

In 1965, Turkey began construction of the Keban dam. Ankara obtained funding for the dam from the United States and several West European countries led by West Germany and the contracted consortium of West European companies to complete the dam.

The total aid for the project totaled some $135 million US Dollars [24]. Keban and Al-Tabqa dam in Syria were both completed and started filling the reservoirs (1973-1974) [25]. Filling the (31 BCM) storage capacity reservoirs of Keban and Tabqa dam reservoir (11.6BCM) during (1973,1974, 1975) caused significant decline of (MAFR) of Euphrates river in Iraq to (15.31, 9.02, 9.42 BCM)( MoWRI in Table I, Appendix A). Comparing these records to Euphrates average annual flow rate (1930-1970) of 30 BCM (Appendix A, Table I) before the construction of Keban and Tabqa dams. This decline caused serious damages to downstream riparian countries (Syria and Iraq) at the time, but the damages in Iraq were more severe.

Permanent Impacts of operating Keban dam is about 25% reduction of the annual inflow rate of the Euphrates in Iraq [26]. This reduction and control of the river flow ended most of the spring season flood waves [8].

Amidist most critical conflicts of the Cold War, right after filling of Keban dam, with the world’s oil crises early seventies of last century, the nationalization of Iraqi oil in 1973 [27], EBASCO report recommendation for Turkey’s economic development , and total political, technical, and financial support of the NATO countries during the construction of  Keban dam,  all opened the door widely for Turkey to further extend the development of Southeastern Anatolia region through  what today called the Southeastern Anatolia project (GAP).

2. Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP) was launched in 1977 and introduced by Turkey’s State hydraulic works (DSİ) through bringing together various programs on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, creating a regional project that covers nine provinces of an area about 74,000 km² [28]. The completed project aims to have built a total of 90 dams and 60 hydroelectric power plants, generating 27 billion kilowatt hours of electricity and irrigate 1.7 million hectares of surface area to grow cash crops and promote agro-industries such as food processing for export [28].

Phase one of the Southeastern Anatolia project include the construction of twenty-two large and mega dams, nineteen hydraulic power plants, and huge water conversion tunnels, figure 5 shows the locations of main GAP dams [29]. Without environmental impact assessment, planning, design, and construction of the project were singly decided by Turkey without negotiations with other downstream riparian states (Syria and Iraq) [10] as required by 1997 United Nations Convention on the Law of Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses, and other related water laws [30].

Turkey’s stand on this issue is based on the principle of the Harmon Doctrine, whereby the upstream riparian country owns the water and controls its distribution, [31]. The problem with the Harmon Doctrine, “not only do the vast number of water treaties bear witness against this Doctrine, but all the international and federal judicial tribunals that have experience with international water problems have rejected it; all the learned associations, institutes, and other bodies which have studied these problems have rejected it in their statements of principles”, [32, page 142].

The International water law (IWL) as a process dismantled absolute sovereignty theories Including: Absolute territorial sovereignty theory; Absolute territorial integrity theory. As McCarthy, 1996, stated “The Harmon Doctrine … buried, not praised”)[32].

The three foundation pillars of IWL:

• The equitable and reasonable utilization principle;
• The no-harm rule; and
• The principle of co-operation [32 ].

Hence the GAP project stands against all these principals in every single step of its planning, design, construction, and operation.

While the decision to build a dam is often seen as a sovereign decision, the decision of external agencies to support a dam depends on whether the proposed project complies with that agency’s policies and guidelines”. Such policies, argues by the world commission on dams (WCD), “should incorporate aspects of notification to riparian States, the desirability of ‘consent’ or ‘no objection’ from riparian States and independent expert assessment of social, ecological, and heritage and cultural impacts on downstream riparian states[10].

Figure 5: Major GAP constructed dams and their distribution along Tigris and Euphrates headwater in Turkey [29].

The world commission on dams (WCD) Policy Principle 7.5, Strategic Priority 7, states: “Where a government agency plans or facilitates the construction of a dam on a shared river in contravention of the principle of good faith negotiations between riparian’s’.  [10].

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund refused to fund any part of the GAP after funding the construction of the Karakaya Dam (1983-1988) due to concerns over social and environmental impacts, as well as protests from governments in Iraq and Syria [10].

During the eighties, Initial Goals of GAP projects were mainly limited to developing irrigation and industrial zones. In 1989, Turkish state officially established the Southeast Anatolia Regional Development Administration.

The law governing the Administration demonstrated how the Turkish government saw this project as involving more than simply economic development. The GAP scheme engaged the entire landscape of Southeast Anatolia, including political, social, cultural, and environmental spheres.

Law decree 388 (1989) defined the Administration’s duties. GAP Regional Development Administration published the goals of the project as: 1. generation of hydroelectric power; 2. development of regional agriculture through irrigation. 3. development of a regional agro-industrial base; and 4. formulation of a mid- to long-term solution to Kurdish ethnic separatism [24] [ stahle page 228].

To Europe and America, the GAP mega dams project was not about safeguarding foreign policy interests, such as containment of the Soviet Union and the extension of communist ideology in the middle east only, rather, the dams were a key component in producing a particular economic order, and opening overseas markets to exports, maintaining a specific technical and industrial base in the donor country (like Turkey) [24].

In a report titled “THE EUPHRATES TRIANGLE, Security Implications of the Southeastern Anatolia Project” of the U.S. National Defense University ,1999 [31], statements clearly defined the U.S.-NATO stance on the construction of GAP project, such us;

“A secure and stable Turkey is in the U.S. national interest. Turkey is the southern bastion of NATO, and it borders on three states that may pose a threat  to the United States–Iraq, Syria, and Iran.”

Also, that;

“the NATO southern flank, with Turkey in particular, still faced severe regional instability. For this reason, SACEUR designated southeastern Turkey as one of several areas within Allied Command Europe that would continue to receive priority military planning efforts.”

In the recommendation section of the same report:

” U.S. policy in the region has been to maintain close ties to Turkey, shaping the environment with international assistance, arms control, nonproliferation initiatives, and isolation of rogue states that support terrorism or violate international law.”

These states were previously identified in the same article as( Syria, Iraq, and Iran) [31].

Water in such context should not be considered as a source of conflict only, but as a mean that can be used during the conflict. Turkey have been using water to serve political aims, causing significant threat to riparian countries and the population’s human security [9] (Laura Meijer).

To the US and NATO powers, supporting the construction of GAP projects politically and financially with their negative impacts on Turkey’s downstream riparian countries (Syria, Iraq,) was more of goal and political strategy to isolate and end their social regimes. Even if that support means the destruction of river’s basins ecological, cultural, and socioeconomical systems.

As Kibaroglu, 2014 stated;

“While the Cold War deepened the tensions over water, Turkey joined NATO whilst Syria and Iraq kept close ties with the USSR” [33]. Other political issues are related to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and the territorial dispute between Turkey and Syria over the Hatay province which was a major source of tension between the two countries until 2005.” [34].

Reconstruction of the project never stopped, with no environmental or social impact assessments at local or regional levels [10].

Environmental Impact assessments are an international requirement for such strategic projects. They are usually conducted to define the impacts of the (dams in this case) on the whole river basin including hydrological, geomorphological, ecological, connected wetlands, and socioeconomic status of all cities   downstream in riparian countries and the suggested alternatives to eliminate these impacts.

To earn back international funds after the controversial (Ataturk) dam had been built and start filling the reservoir in 1990, the Turkish government further developed the project into a new international interest called “sustainable human development”.

The original design was expanded to include schools, roads, health care centers, housing, women’s projects, and tourism. This way the project earned back the international funding including the World Bank, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations Development (UNDP) ,table 3 shows the countries and organizations financially supported GAP project.

Table 3: Foreign Countries and organizations financially supported the GAP projects till 2002 [35 ][36].

Entities of the United Nations  supported and funded parts the project, table 3, knowing that sustainability of a river basin including human development is determined by whether the river system can support the long-term ecological and socioeconomic functions of the river basin as a whole [37], and not only part of the basin within the Turkish territories.

No detailed technical reports from these organizations or Turkey exploring the impacts of GAP mega dams on whole rivers basin including ecological and socioeconomic impacts on downstream riparian countries before constructing them [10].

UNEP and other UN organizations dealt with what they called (drying marshlands issue for security reasons) in southern Iraq with many studies during the 1990s. Most of these studies were local, not regional to cover the impacts of constructing all these dams and hydropower stations on the whole Tigris and Euphrates basins including wetlands.

Other related research conclusions built on processing enhanced Landsat and other remote sensing images without enough ground truth data and rate of flow records.

The GAP project created international conflicts regarding water sharing and escalated tensions among Turkey, Syria and Iraq as the three riparian states of the Euphrates and Tigris basins.

Turkey has for a long time rejected the notion of sharing rivers in an equitable and fair manner as stipulated by international law. It was one out of three countries voting against the 1997 UN Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses which establishes the principles of equitable and reasonable utilization, of not doing harm, of cooperation between riparian countries, and of notification and consultation [38].

According to international law experts, these principles form part of the customary law also binding those countries that have not ratified the relevant conventions. The obligation to inform and consult with riparian countries at an early stage and to conclude an agreement before a project is realized is also part of the World Bank Safeguard Policies [23].

Impacts of GAP Projects on the Desiccation of Wetland in Southern Iraq

[Desiccation is defined as the “Removal of Moisture”]

Marshlands are mainly located in southern Iraq and are directly connected to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, figure 6 [39]. They are in Nasiriya, Basra, Diwaniya, and Umara governorates.

Before the intensive construction of dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers headwaters in Turkey highlands early seventies of last century, area of the marshes (Ahwar) was highly variable annually and seasonally, ranged from (8000-20000 Km²) [40]. In summer (June-October) and dry years, the area become only 25% of the area in flood season (3500 Km²) [41] due to decline of the two rivers MAFR and high evaporation rate. Many marshes in the area are seasonal and disappear in summer. Others are permeant like the following:

The Euphrates river Marshes: including Al Hammar permanent largest marsh with many other small seasonal marshes. In flooding season, they were all look connected, and are recharged mainly from Euphrates River and flowing water from central marsh westward in dry season. Al Hammar marsh area range between (1250-2500) Km² [40]. The American company T.A.M.S.(Tippet-Abbott-McCarthy, Stratton) estimated area of Al Hammar in 1954 about (1250) Km² [40].

The central marshlands: located between Tigris and Euphrates rivers including Abi Zarak and Chibayeesh marshes. Extending from Shaikh Saad city in Missan to Qurna in Basra, with an area of 4000 Km² in flood season to less than 1920 Km² in dry season, recharged from west Tigris and east Euphrates distributaries [41].

Hawaiza marsh extends from Iranian to Iraqi territories. Area of Hawaiza inside Iraq is about (2500-3000 Km²) in flooding time, to about (950 Km²) in summer, and (650 Km²) in dry years[19]. Inside Iran  the extension of Hawaiza is called (Hoor Alazim) , with an area of (  1250  Km²) in flood season [42 ]. Major recharge of Huwaiza in Iran was from Karkha river until 1998, before operating Karkha2 dam with an annual flow of 3.2BCM [42 ]. From Iraqi side recharge of Hawaiza is from Tigris River distributaries during flood seasons [40].

1. Impacts of GAP Development on the Desiccation of Marshlands in Iraq:

Streams and rivers are hydrologically connected to downstream water features like wetlands and floodplains via channels that convey surface and subsurface water either year-round in perennial flow or seasonally [43]. Water structures like dams on any river affect the frequency, duration, magnitude, timing, and rate of change of connections between headwater streams, and downstream water.

They cause fragmentation of longitudinal connections between headwater streams and downstream waters, including the deltaic wetlands. The impacts of changing streamflow are numerous, including altered flow regime, stream geomorphology, habitat, and ecology [43]. Wetlands in southern Iraq have been subjected to serious stresses after the building of tens of dams on both Tigris and Euphrates within three decades. These dams altered their hydrological, ecological, geomorphological, socioeconomical, and environmental systems due to the elimination of seasonal flood waves major water recharge of the marshlands, and the significant decline of Tigris and Euphrates mean annual flow rate (MAFR). This alteration was more profound after the construction and operation of the GAPS dams in Turkey since the seventies of last century to date [44].

  Figure 6: Marshlands and diversion canals in southern Iraq, modified after (Abdullah, A. 2016)[39].

One of the important impacts of this flow impairments is the desiccation of marshlands in southern Iraq [26]. Acceleration of this desiccation occurred during the nineties, when Turkey filled and operated 22 dams and hydroelectrical power stations on Tigris and Euphrates rivers headwaters in one decade only, (Appendix B, table II) [45].

As a result the MAFR of both rivers dropped drastically (Appendix A), figure 2.  At that time, Iraq was under the economic sanctions, facing severe shortages of food and necessary chemicals for water purification plants, Iraq considered Turkey’s action (being a NATO member) as an assault to deprive Iraqi population access to fresh water for domestic and agriculture uses [10]. Such an action would raise the already high economic sanctions human casualties to a genocide level [46]. As a result, mid-nineties the Iraqi government constructed four freshwater diversion canals through the marshlands to supply potable water for Nasiriya and Basra cities population. These canals caused further dissection of the marshlands as will be explained later in this article.

In the next section the Tigris and Euphrates rivers mean annual flow rate (MAFR) records from the ministry of water resources in Iraq (MoWRI), Appendix A, table I, [14] [16], have been analyzed in correlation with dates of upstream dams filling and operation in Turkey and Iran, to figure out the real impacts of upstream developments on the acceleration of the desiccation of the marshlands through the nineties to date.

2. Desiccation of Hammar and Central Marshlands during the nineties of last century: Early seventies to 2002, Turkey constructed, and operated 32 dams and hydroelectrical power stations on Tigris and Euphrates headwaters with total storage capacity of (99.520 BCM) [45]. Twenty-two of these developments including Ataturk mega dam, with collective storage capacity of (56.969BCM) started filling and operating during the nineties of last century, Appendix B [45]. Thirteen of them with storage capacity (51.664 BCM) were filled and operated on Euphrates River, the other 9 with storage capacity of (4.55BCM) were on Tigris River, Appendix B, table II.

Hammar and Central marshlands are mainly connected and recharge from the Euphrates River and some of Tigris distributaries in case of central marshes [40] . To maintain an area of about 7000 Km² as before the construction of GAP projects, about (14-15 BCM) of water inflow is needed annually to recharge them from Euphrates River in Nasiriya city, the entrance to these marshes [11] [41] [47]. This amount historically was available from seasonal (March-May) flood waves of the river [47], figure 7.

These flood waves disappeared after controlling river flow by the dams on headwaters [11].  The relatively high flow water release from dams on headwaters in Turkey shifted from spring to summer season (June – September) to meet peak electricity demands [11]. Highest evaporation rate in Iraq is during summer [41].

Figure 7: Elimination of spring high flow (flood waves) of Euphrates River in Nasiriya City the entrance to Marshlands. (Flow records from ref. 11).

Mean Annual Flow of Euphrates measured in Husaiba station on Syrian/Iraqi borders before building the dams (1930-1973) is about 30 BCM [14]. During the filling and operating of Ataturk dam (1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994), and six other smaller dams on Euphrates, Appendix B, table II. The reservoir level of Ataturk dam reached 535m a.s.l in March 1994 [48]. Mean annual flow of Euphrates River at Husaiba city on the Syrian/Iraqi borders during these years were (8.9, 12.4, 12.15, 12.37, and 15.29 BCM) [MoWRI), Appendix A, table I [14], figure 8.

It is well documented that until the seventies, the Euphrates river was losing about 50% of its mean annual flow rate or about (14-15) BCM of between Heet city close to Syrian/ Iraqi borders to Nasiriya city (Entrance to Marshlands) [40], mainly to meet domestic and agricultural demands for all cities along Euphrates river banks [11].

The Euphrates annual flow rate less than 15 BCM on Iraq/Syrian borders means that there is not enough water to recharge the Hammar and Central Marshlands in southern Iraq for five years (1990-1994), figure 8.

The situation further deteriorated with an annual evaporation rate of 2895 mm/year in Nasiriya [49], which means annual water losses of about (8.26 BCM) from both marshlands water surfaces.

Figure 8: Euphrates River mean annual flow rate in Iraq (1990-2003), showing periods of no recharge to Hammar and Central marshlands during the nineties (Water records, Appendix A)  

Estimations of changes of Hammar and Central marshlands areas through the period (1973-2018) are shown in Figure 9 .

Data of the graph are taken from remote sensing interpretations in published articles and reports listed in table 4. From the graph we notice that from 1973-1990, Hammar and Central marshlands lost about 2000 Km² of its area, after the construction and operation of (Keban, 1973; Karakaya, 1986; Hancagiz, 1988; Hecihider,1989) on the Euphrates headwaters in Turkey (table); Qadisya dam in Iraq, 1986; Tabqa dam,1973 and Baath dam,1988 in Syria[8][45].

From table II, Appendix B, between 1998- 2002, other seven GAP dams and hydro electrical power stations on Euphrates River headwaters were filled and operated (Kahta, Camgazi, Gayt, Ozluc, Karkamis, and Berecik)[45 ] , with operating Tishreen dam in Syria 1999, figure 8. Euphrates MAFR measured on Iraqi/Syrian borders during the years of (1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002) were (27.9, 18.61. 17.23, 9.59, 10.67 BCM) consecutively (Appendix A, table I). For the reason mentioned previously, throughout this period and from figure 9, Hammar and Central marshlands lost an extra 600 Km² from its area and  ends up to about  750 Km² in 2002 [26].Mid-nineties the Iraqi government constructed and operated four freshwater diversion canals (al EZZ, Taj al Marek, Wafaa al Qaed, and Um al Marek canals) within the marshlands area. Most of these canals started operating from 1994-1998 [55]. The construction of these fresh water diversion canals caused further 1300 Km² reduction of the area of Hammar and Central marshlands, figure 9, as explained in the next section.

Figure 9: Desiccation of Hammar and Central marshes due to continues decline of Euphrates and Tigris annual flow rate after the construction and operation of GAP dams.

3. Desiccation of Hawaiza marsh: this marsh is located east of Amara city southern Iraq on Tigris River. It extends from Iranian territories (called Howr Al-Zim) to Iraqi territories [42].  During the seventies extension of this marsh in Iraq was about (2435Km²) in flood seasons [Nomas, 19 ] and about 950 Km² in summer and 650 Km² in dry years [Nomas, 19], in Iran its area was about (641-1250 Km² ), figure 3 , but both parts are one hydrological and ecological unit [40].

Until 1998 the Karkha river was the major source of water that recharged the Hawaiza marsh from the Iranian side. From the Iraqi side the marsh is recharged by Tigris distributaries Kahala, Musharah, and Majaria canals mainly during floods time [21].

Hawaiza marsh was also affected by the construction and operation of 9 dams and hydroelectrical power stations with total storage capacity of (6.383 BCM)  on Tigris river headwaters in Turkey during the nineties, Appendix B, table II.  Five of them were filled and operated from (1997-2000) [45 ].  Iraq filled and operated the Udhaim dam (1.5 BCM) in 1999[9]. Iran filled and operated two dams, one of them is the Karkha2 dam in 1998, with storage capacity (5.6 BCM) [56].

Tigris river MAFR measured in Kut city (180 Km) south of Baghdad, during the period of (1998, 1999, 2000, 2001), were ( 39.85, 18.88, 18.85, 21.13 BCM) Appendix A, table I. Historical mean annual flow rate of Tigris in Kut city from records of the Ministry of Water Resources in Iraq for the period (1933-1973) is about (49.20 BCM) Appendix A. During the seventies, more than 10 BCM out of the 49 BCM was recharging Hawaiza and central marshes during flood season [57].

Karkha2 dam in Iran was constructed during (1992-1998) on Karkha river, a tributary of Tigris River originates from west Iranian highlands and ends up in Hawaiza marsh in Iran ( Al Azim marsh), figure. The dam reservoir capacity is 5.9 BCM [42].

Starting from 1998-2000, filling then operating the dam from Karkha river cut off an annual recharge to Al Azim /Hawaiza marsh [42]. Mohsen Saeedi et al, in a published an article [42 ] wrote; “Hoor-Al-Azim/Al-Havizeh reached its minimum surface area at year 2000 and lost ~84% of its area following the exploitation of Karkheh dam in 1998”.  He proceeded that “ by disturbing the water inflow to the Hoor-Al-Azim, Karkheh dam exploitation is  the  main  parameter  which caused surface  area  reduction in  Al-Azim/Al-Havizeh wetland[58 ]”.

From 2000 to 2014 a sign of revival is observable over the wetland area so that its area augmented to 1714 km2, but still the total loss of wetland is ~55% from 1973 to 2017[42]. Hawaiza marsh lost about 2000 Km² from its area within Iraqi territories mainly due to dams filling and operations all during the nineties.

4. Impacts of constructing freshwater diversion canals southern Iraq (1994 -1998) on further desiccation of marshlands

After the military operations of Gulf war 1, 1991, with the intended destruction of the public services and the civil infrastructure by American coalition including electricity, water supply and wastewater treatment plants, Irrigation and drainage pumping stations, bridges, food storages [59] [60].

Economic Sanctions imposed on Iraq prevented repairing all the destroyed infrastructure specifically those required spare parts like pumps and chemical reagents, including electricity installations, water purification and sewage treatment plants, and water networks [59]. Harvard Study Team in their visit to Iraq observed that; “people collecting water from broken pipes surrounded by pools of murky water or even directly from drainage ditches”[60]. Loss of electricity had also caused Baghdad’s two sewage treatment plants to stop working and spilling raw sewage into the Tigris River. In neighborhoods in both Basra and Baghdad, whole streets were blocked by pools of foul-smelling water [60] [Starving Iraq].

Without public potable water supply, people had to use raw water directly from rivers for a while. About (50000) mostly under five children died in 1991 only [60]. The impacts of economic sanctions were severe specifically among population in south of Iraq [60]. Because of lack of clean water, food, and medicine, WHO supported data indicated that “Mortality in under-fives had risen 600% between 1990 -94, while there has been a 500% rise in low-birth-weight infants, and a doubling of the infant mortality rate of Baghdad over the same period”. Former UN official Denis Halliday resigned his job in Iraq because he considered sanctions against Iraq amount to ‘genocide’ [46].

During this period only about 40% of Euphrates River MAFR entered the Iraqi territories because of the filling and operation of Ataturk and eleven other dams in Turkey, Appendix B, table II. The release of sewage water discharges to the river caused further deterioration of water quality.  Large areas of marshlands connected to Euphrates River were desiccated due to decline in MAFR with serious deterioration of their water quality, figure 10. In 1994, Al-Imara and Jawad from Marin science Centre in Basra University published a paper presents the results of Physio-chemical properties of water sampling program conducted in December of 1991 [61] (during the filling of Ataturk dam [62].  The sampling program were conducted before the construction of any freshwater conversion canals through the marshlands by the Iraqi state companies, and covered water courses from Qurna to Arabian Gulf [61]. Measured salinity of Euphrates water samples at Qurna before confluence with Tigris River and after flowing through marshlands was (5280) part per million (ppm). According to WHO water quality standards, this salinity value is not suitable for human use [63], also not acceptable for agriculture, animal, or industrial uses. Salinity values from Tigris- Swaib canal (after exiting Huwaiza marsh) was 5020 ppm; Hartha, 6200 ppm; Garmat Ali, 6500 ppm; Basra, 6370 ppm [61 ]. Al these and other water parameters values give clear indication of what southern Iraqi cities were going through with the continues deterioration of surface water quality to meet population water demands through the economic sanctions.

Figure 10: Correlation of filling and operating GAP project dams on decline of Euphrates River MAFR and the dissection of marshlands southern Iraq. [ 45].

To prevent further casualties because of the inability to purify and supply clean water, four artificial water diversion canals were constructed by Iraqi state companies and operated from (1994-1998) [55]. The canals were designed to prevent mixing of what remained of Tigris and Euphrates fresh water with polluted and saline marshlands water, and to convert some of Tigris flood water to Euphrates River south Basra city to supply potable and irrigation water to highly populated villages and cities of Nasiriya, Shatra, and Basra. These projects are:

1. Al- Ezz river: Recommended by American’s consultants (Tippets Abbott McCarthy Stratton),1958 [64].  This artificial canal was constructed mid-1993 and operation started 1994-1995 [65]. Its an open channel designed to transfer fresh water from Beterra’a and Great Majar distributaries of Tigris river south western Omara city to Euphrates river main channel south of Qurna city with mean flow rate of 256 cms [65] ,figure 3 . Main function of the project was to prevents mixing of Tigris distributaries fresh water with saline water of the central marshlands, and to transfer more fresh water to Euphrates River south of Nasiriya city to meet water demands of tens of populated Basra villages after four years of drastic decline.
2. Wafaa Al Qaed Canal: after the American occupation of Iraq in 2003, the under occupation assigned government changed the name of this canal to (al Bada’a Canal), figure 5. An Italian company designed this canal during the eighties [66], and the construction were executed by state Iraqi companies and took three years during economic sanctions. The canal operated in 1997 [64]. The length of this open channel is 238.5 Km, built to transfer (21 cms) fresh water from Tigris (Gharaf) distributary to Nasiriya and south of Basra cities [66].

This canal is still supplying fresh water to the cities of Nasiriya, Shatra, and Basra till this day. Practically it is the only source of fresh water currently in Basra after the shutdown of ten water purification plants on Shatt Al Arab waterway due to sea water intrusion last decade [67].

After all criticism and accusations of the American’s propaganda during the economic sanctions that these canals are constructed to dry up the marshlands for security reasons, the occupation assigned Iraqi government after 2003 had to keep these canals to supply fresh water to about 2.5 million of Basra and Nasiriya population [67][68]. For Eighteen years the authorities couldn’t solve the problem of supplying potable water to villages of Nasiriya and Basra residents other than this canal. In 2018, about 118000 of Basra residents were hospitalized from drinking polluted water supplied from Shatt Al Arab water purification plants [68].  The minister of water resources in July 16, 2020 [69] announced that PM council approved turning al Bada’a (Wafaa Al Qaed) open canal into more efficient closed conduit canal for water supply! One should ask; Why keep this canal if it was constructed to dry up the marshlands???

1. Taj Al Marek Canal (Saad Canal): is an open channel constructed in 1993 and start operating in 1994 after closing Musandeck Weir which converts water to central marshlands [ 70]. Located east of Tigris River, about 5 Km away from Omara city. The canal length is (36.5 Km), transfer 400 cms of Tigris flood water to Sanaf marsh which is connected to Huwaiza marsh [70]. From south Hawaiza marsh water flows to Shatt Al Arab through two small canals (Swaib and Kasara) [40].
2. Um Al Marek Canal: constructed in 1994, west of Euphrates 10 Km from Nasiriya city [70]. The canal is 108 Km length, built to transfer what remained of Euphrates fresh water to supply potable and irrigation water to all villages along the way to Rumaila city east of Basra [70].

It’s worth mentioning that all these diversion canals except the Ezz canal, are still operating currently because there are no other alternatives to supply fresh water for tens of populated villages of Basra, Omara, and Nasiriya cities.

The construction and operation of these four canals also caused further desiccation of about 1300 Km³ of central marshlands between 1994-1998, table 5, figure 9.

From previous data we conclude that about 4200 Km² of the marshlands southern Iraq desiccated due to the decline of the mean annual flow of Euphrates and Tigris after the construction and operation of more than 31 of GAP dams and HEPP from 1973-2002. The construction of four freshwater diversion canals through the marshlands in Iraq caused further desiccation of about 1300 Km² during the nineties of last century. Also, the filling operating of Karkha dam in Iran caused the desiccation of about (1500 Km²) of Hawaiza marshland between 1998-2001. Total desiccated marshland areas by end of Nineties were (7000 Km²) out of original area 8350 [ 16] Km². Remaining of the marshland area was (1350 Km²). After 2003, elimination of Ezz canal passing through central marshlands recovered only about 1000 Km².  Studying all scenarios of recovery and flooding last two decades, still the current area of the marshlands is only (2500 -3000 Km²), figure 11 , simply because there is no enough water to revive them.

Figure 11: Recovered marshlands areas from 2009-2018.

5. Construction of the Third River in Iraq: The Main Outfall Drain (MOD) is considered one of the largest water development projects in Iraq. Its an open channel extends 565 Km between Tigris and Euphrates rivers from north of Baghdad to Shatt Al Basra canal west of Basra city [FAO 2008[47]. From Shatt Al Basra canal, through Khour al Zubair estuary the MOD water final destiny is discharged to the Arabian Gulf (figure 5 ).  The MOD main functions is to collect drainage water from irrigated agricultural lands between Tigris and Euphrates Rivers to minimize water logging and soil salinity, and to protect water quality of the two rivers through receiving polluted agriculture and municipalities waste water effluents of all cities along the project (Baghdad, Al Anbar, Wasit, Diwaniya, Hella, Karbala, Najaf, Nasiriya, and Basra) [71] .It’s also designed to act as a barrier against the expansion of sand dunes towards cities and irrigated land. Southern part of the project designed to serve as a navigation waterway for inland transportation to the Arabian Gulf [71] Figure (5). Kolars, 1994 wrote about MOD “This Impressive canal is intended to remove excess drainage water from area between twin rivers into the Gulf near FAO peninsula after transferring it by siphon across the Euphrates River near Nasiriya” [72].

History of Great Outfall Drain project

After Gulf war 1 in 1991, and during the economic sanctions, the American media, researchers, and UN organizations waged an aggressive campaign against Iraq after the special rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights in Iraq, addressed the U.N. secretary general to charge Iraq of violating the rights of people in southern Iraq, whom the U. S. called Violation of Marsh Arabs rights by building the third river [73]. In an article published in EIR, 1992, Marcia Merry in November 20.1992[73]  criticized the UN special rapporteur charges document about the MOD and wrote: “ In this document, no mention was made of the major hydrological problem aggravating the Iraqi marshlands, namely that Turkey has been holding back a large volume of the flow of the Euphrates River, by operation of the Keban and Karakaya dams, and the filling of the huge reservoir behind the new Ataturk Dam.”[73].

It was clear later that this whole campaign, like others related to false claims of WMD and nuclear activities of Iraq, all associated with the American administration decision to invade and occupy Iraq in 2003.

The MOD project was suggested and designed by American and British consulting firms since the fifties of last century [73]. Most stages of the project were executed by other foreign companies over four decades before the economic sanctions, and that it has nothing to do with intentional desiccation of marshlands or the force migration of Marsh Arabs!

Historical review of planning and construction (MOD) in Iraq [73] [74] [75] [76]:

1913: British engineer William Wilcox studied problems of Mesopotamia water resources under Ottoman Empire rules and suggested the construction of whole drainage network discharge its water into a main drain 160 Km length discharge its water close to Dalmaj Marsh [73].

1952 & 1958: The American consultants Tippet Appet McCarthy proposed solutions for problems of soil salination, and water logging related to irrigation and proposed drainage network corresponding to Tigris and Euphrates irrigation network, including a main drain collecting excessive irrigation water starts from Balad northern of Baghdad to Nasiriyah (the path of the current MOD), and discharge the drainage water in the marshlands [74].

1963: United Kingdom consultants (Sir M. McDonald and Associates) approved the construction of the (MOD) to collect drainage discharges from agriculture land between Tigris and Euphrates starts from Mussaaib main drain to west Shatra, then further south the main drain discharges drainage water into Hammar marsh [74].

1965: Main contracting company from Holland built 60 Km drain from Shatra city to Hammar marsh.

1970: decision was made by Iraqi government to extend the (MOD) to the Arabian Gulf.

1971: establishment of the (Construction of Third river state organization).

1973-1977: The construction of first stage of (MOD) from great Mussaaib drainage network to Shatra Drain, 156 Km length, 60 m width, under the consultation and machinery supplies of (USSR Sulkhozprom Exports) [73]

1977-1981: Construction of the second stage of the MOD by (USSR Sulkhozprom Exports).

1980-1982: Contract with USSR Sulkhozprom Company to restudy middle part of (MOD). This part is 187Km from north Dalmaj lake to Nasiriya to use it for navigation.

1981-1983: contract with Holland Nedeco consulting to study north part of MOD [75].

1982-1986: contract with German companies Philip Holtzman and Polonsky to construct middle part of MOD from north Dalmaj lake to Shat al Basra canal [74].

1984: Contract with Brazilian company Mandis Josior   to construct southern part MOD infra structures (main pumping station and related buildings, the Siphon under Euphrates River to prevent mixing MOD water with Euphrates water, emergency spillway, new Euphrates cross section above the Syphon, railroad, six car bridges and navigation spaces. The company couldn’t finish the projects on time and left in 1990 with the start of economic sanctions on Iraq.

1987: Contract with Yugoslavian Arco project to construct the navigation Lock on Shatt al Basra. The project stopped in 1990.

25/ 5/1992: Iraqi national campaign to finish connecting the MOD by state construction companies during economic sanction [74]. Even though most literature state that 1992 is the construction of MOD project were done [47], the actual date was end of 1993[74][76]. The construction of the siphon with the pumping station near Nasiriyah City caused about one and half year delay in operating the project. This siphon is designed to isolate MOD drainage water from Euphrates River with pumping station. Because of economic sanctions, Iraq couldn’t import these pumps [71]. Design modifications was necessary to allow gravitational flow through MOD intersection with Euphrates River to bypasses maximum discharge of (80-110 cms) instead of the designed discharge of 220 cms [71].

7/12/1993: Construction were done, and the project started partially operating [74] [76] about early 1994. That’s why FAO stated that MOD carried about 17 million ton of salts to the Arabic Gulf in 1995[47] and not in 1993.

After the American occupation of Iraq in 2003, with the new assigned government, the whole attitude towards the MOD have changed. In 2008, Noori al Maliki, the under-occupation PM of Iraq gave short speech during the inauguration of MOD siphon pumping station at Nasiriyah city emphasized that “MOD project represents an inflection point in building the new Iraq!!”, and that “Iraqis efforts from all parties, NGO’s, tribes, and armed forces all worked together to accomplish this murical!!” [77].

The same MOD was a criminal act committed by Iraqi government during the Nineties [78 ], turned into a miracle development after regime change under the American occupation of Iraq. Since 2010, MOD water have been used to save Hammar marshland from drying [73].

Final Remarks

 From the data presented in this article and related references we conclude that:

• The (GAP) is a water-based development on the headwaters of the two international rivers  Tigris and Euphrates in Turkey shared by four riparian states. The project was planned and partially constructed through the cold war period without consultation or negotiation with downstream riparian countries sharing the same river basin. American and NATO countries financially and technically supported the project even though it goes against major environmental and international water laws principles.
• With its mega-dams, the project design serves Turkey’s local and regional political interests including the formulation of a mid- to long-term solution to Kurdish ethnic separatism, and as part of NATOs ‘interest to destabilizing downstream riparian’s regimes (Iraq and Sirya)) through controlling their water, food security, and the socioeconomic development. Since early seventies more than 40 dams and HEEP stations have been constructed and the planed target number is close to 90 dams and 60 HEEP.  currently the project is drawing up to about 60% of natural flow of Euphrates in Iraq, and 50% of the natural flow of the Tigris River [ESCWA 2013, page 79 [8]. Full operation of the project expect to withdraw about 80% of Euphrates and 60 of Tigris.
• In planning and constructing the GAP- mega dams, Turkey have not taken into consideration the fact that the wetlands in southern Iraq are an integrated feature of the whole basins, as much as any other wetland withing the Turkish territories. Hydrological, ecological, and geomorphological preservation of wetlands connected to Tigris and Euphrates rivers (as required by RAMSAR protocol Turkey signed in 1994 [23] is the responsibility of all riparian countries sharing the two rivers’ basins. Harnessing about two third of the two rivers water inflow into Iraqi territories reduced total area of the marshes by same proportion of water inflow reduction.
• The whole situation concerning the desiccated marshlands in southern Iraq during the nineties presented to the whole world with most misleading and data manipulation by the American and western media and researchers. In facts same countries helped planning, financially and technically supported the construction of the GAP mega dams responsible of desiccation of about 65% of southern Iraq marshlands areas since the seventies till now. The campaign was part of the political agenda related to the preparations of invading and the occupation of Iraq.
• In the western media campaign, the area of the marshlands during the nineties were considered (10000-20000 Km²) to exaggerate (the crime that have been committed) against this natural feature by Iraq [78]. In the report submitted by Iraqi government after occupation to include these marshlands as a site under the UNESCO, with help of the IUCN, 2015, total area of marshlands is considered only (5260 Km²)[54 ]. This way when the media write that more than 50% of the marshlands were recovered after Iraq’s occupation [78], in reality recovered marshland area last eighteen year is not more than 30-35% of the early seventies area, which was (8300 Km²) [16], table 6 and figure 11. The situation is expected to get worse after the full implementation of the whole GAP projects [26].
• The high interest in the marshlands issue in Iraq during the economic sanctions is not strictly related to persevering these natural water bodies, knowing that in the Mississippi River coastlands delta in USA, large areas of wetlands have been destroyed because of oil and gas exploration and production with land use changes [79]. More than 25% of the 3.8 million hectare coastland wetlands have and still being lost last few decades [79]. Major interest in the Marshlands in southern Iraq is also related to the fact that most of Iraq’s huge oil reservoirs and reserves are under these lands, figure 12  [80]. In fact many environmental groups in Iraq published many news reports warned that foreign oil companies are drying large areas of the marshlands in 2015, and polluting its fresh water in the oil exploration and production operations [81 ] [82 ] [83] , yet we didn’t notice same outrage by western governments and media.

Figure 12: Oil reservoirs under marshlands southern Iraq [78].

• Concerning the migrating  of Marsh Arabs issue [73], It is interesting to know that those (Marshlands Arabs) kept migrating since the eighties to date due to war operations and the continuous decline of marshlands water areas, depth, and quality [84] [85].The International Organization on Migration (IOM) in 2019 published a report with numbers of families migrated from marshlands in Nasiriya, Umara, and Basra [84]. The report cleared out that as of January 2019, 100 locations were identified as facing water scarcity, 58 locations in Missan Governorate, 22 in Muthanna, 11 in Basra and 9 in Thi-Qar. And that 5,347 families were displaced from the four governorates of Missan, Muthanna, Thi-Qar and Basra [85].  Figures of the report show that most of these migration locations are within Marshland areas and villages, figure. These migration waves never stopped specially through the nineties (when Turkey filled and operated 13 dams and HEPP of GAP project in one decade, including Ataturk mega dam). This migration continued after 2003, according to published reports of their suffering from lack of services and increase of marshes water salinity to more than (6000- 10000) ppm [87]. Water salinity more than 5000 ppm kills their animals (buffalos or Jamose), major source of their living [86]. After 2003, the Americans and UN organizations switched the cause of migrations from force migration by Iraqi government into (migration from drought related water scarcity).
• Serious environmental impacts have resulted from impairment of downstream natural flow of Tigris and Euphrates rivers by GAP projects including the increase of losing about 250 Km² of Iraq’s fertile land annually to desertification [87], that means about 750000 Hectare of good agriculture land have already been lost to desertification last three decades. In addition to other serious ecological and socioeconomic impacts.
• Iraq is facing higher frequency of dust and sandstorms from 24 day/year in (1950-1990) to 200-220 day/year in (2008-2009) [87].
• The destruction of thousands of years old date palm forests along Tigris and Euphrates floodplains with major reduction of the numbers of date palm trees from about 32 million during the sixties to only 13.9 million in 2011 [88].  Main reason is the recession of the Mesopotamian floodplain area associated with the decline of the two rivers main annual water flow  in Iraq, and the elimination of seasonal flood waves by dams controlled flow. These seasonal flood waves used to wash the soil from accumulated salts and recharge floodplains shallow ground water aquifers necessary to maintain dates growth in certain time span.
• The amount of surface water share available per person annually in Iraq fell from (1540) to (870.8) m³/year [16] in only less than one decade, figure 13.

Figure 13: Decline of surface water share/ person /year from (2009- 2018)[16]

*

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Prof Souad N. Al-Azzawi, award-winning Iraqi engineer and environmentalist, distinguished scholar, (former) professor of environmental engineering at the University of Baghdad.

She is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Notes

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[52] Kadhim S. N., Abdul Karim I. K., and Gatea H. H. 2011. Use of Unified Remote Sensing Data with GIS to Monitor Change in Marshlands Environment in Southern Iraq. Journal of Mustansiriya Sciences. Vol.22, No.4. (130-142). Page 140. In Arabic.

[53] CRIM, 2012. Auditing Report. Duties of Center of Recovery of Iraqi Marshlands (CRIM) in Managing, Coordinating, and Monitoring the Execution of the Recovery of Marshlands. 21 pages report.https://www.environmental-auditing.org/media/4073/iraq_f_ar_center-for-restoration-of-marshes.pdf.

[54] IUCN, 2016. WORLD HERITAGE NOMINATION – IUCN TECHNICAL EVALUATION THE AHWAR OF SOUTHERN IRAQ: REFUGE OF BIODIVERSITY AND THE RELICT LANDSCAPE OF THE MESOPOTAMIAN CITIES (IRAQ) – ID No. 1481.

[55] Manssory F., 2009.The Ezz River and Its Effect on Shatt Al Arab Sediment Discharge. University of Thi-Qar Journal, 2009, Volume 4, Issue 4, pages (113-121). Thi-Qar, Iraq. Page.117.

[56] FAO’s Global Information System on Water and Agriculture, 2008. Country Profile – Iran (Islamic Republic of Iran.). https://www.fao.org/aquastat/en/countries-and-basins/country-profiles/country/IRN.

[57] Al-Asadi S. A.  and Al-Maatouq S. S. 2013.Utilization of Hawaiza marsh potential for natural Protectorates. Basra Literature Journal. No. 64. University of Basra. Basra, Iraq. Page 271.

[58] Fouladavand S. and Sayyad G. A. 2015. The Impact of Karkheh Dam Construction on Reducing the Extent of Wetlands of Hoor-Alazim. Journal of Water Resources and Ocean Science. Volume 4, Issue 2, April 2015, Pages: 33-38.

[59] WHO/EHA/96.1, 1996. The Health Conditions of The Population in Iraq Since the Gulf Crises. Impact on the environment because of increased agricultural activities. https://apps.who.int/disasters/repo/5249.html. 

[60] James Rubin, 1999. Starving Iraq: one humanitarian disaster we can stop. US Department of State spokesman, daily press briefing, December 1, 1997. Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.  March 1999. http://www.casi.org.uk/briefing/pamp_ed1.html.

[61] Al-Imara F.J.M. and Jawad A. M., 1994. Physico-Chemical Parameters of Southern Iraq Water, Northwest Arabian Gulf. Marina Mesopotanica, Vol.9 (1): Pages 1-12. Basra Marin Center. Basra, Iraq. Page 4.

[62] Kliot, N., Water Resources and Conflict in the Middle East, London: Routledge, 1994, p. 118

[63] WHO, 2011. Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality FOURTH EDITION. World Health Organization. ISBN 978 92 4 154815 1.

[64] Tippet-Abbett-Mccarthy, Stratton Engineering, Inc. 1958. Summary of Definite Project Reports for Basrah Vicinity.Irrigation and Drainage Projects. Ministry of Development, Development Board. Government of Iraq. Baghdad. PII.I-II-7, III-I-III-2and Plate I.

[65] Nomas H. B. and Ramadan B. Y., 1998. Evaluation of Ezz River in Preserving and Develop Water Resource in southern Iraq. Journal of Education College. Mustansiriya University. Number 1. Baghdad. Iraq.

[66] Nomas H. B. and Hashim A. A. 2021. The Al Bada Canal water project: Its Construction Aspects and importance for Drinking water Supply projects of Basra Province. Journal of Education college, Wasit University. Vol. 1. No.44. Aug.2021. Pp. (205-235). In Arabic. https://doi.org/10.31185/eduj.Vol1.Iss44.2288. https://eduj.uowasit.edu.iq/index.php/eduj/article/view/2288.

[67] Almukhtar S., Hamdan A.N.A., and Scholz M. 2020. Assessment of the Effluents of Basra City Main Water Treatment Plants for Drinking and Irrigation Purposes. Water, 12 (12) , e3334. doi:10.3390/w12123334. file:///C:/Users/souad/Downloads/water-12-03334-v2%20(5).pdf.

[68] Al-Rubaie A., Mason M., and Mehdi Z. 2021. Failing Flows: Water Management in Southern Iraq. LSE Middle East Centre Paper Series | 52. July 2021. Middle East Centre. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/110973/.

[69] Minister of Water Resources Received the Approval of PM Counsel to Convert Bada Canal from Open Canal to Closed one. Water Resources Ministry Website, July 20, 2020. In Arabic. https://mowr.gov.iq/2020/07/22/%D9%88%D8%B2%D9%8A%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%A6%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D9%8A%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%AD%D8%B5%D9%84-%D9%85%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%81%D9%82%D8%A9-%D9%85%D8%ACز

[70] Nomas H. B., 2005.  The potential water supply for the Rehabilitation in the Southern marshes of Iraq. Marina Mesopotamica, 20(1): 105-126. University of Basra, Basra, Iraq. In Arabic.

[71] AL- MALLAH, I. A. 2014. Assessment of the Environmental, Hydrological and Hydrogeological changes of the Main Drain, Iraq. PhD Thesis. College of Science. University of Basra. Basra, Iraq. 280 pages.

[72] Biswas, A.K. edit. 2014. Middle East from Euphrates-Tigris to Nile. Water Resources Management Series. OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1994. Page 84.

[73] Merry, M. (1992), ‘Iraq builds Third River Project despite no-fly zone’, EIR, 19:46, November, http://www.oalib.com/references/14621588.

[74] Al-Jabari M.H. and Al-Nofel B. F. (2001).  Saddam River (The Miracle River). General Cultural Affairs House, Baghdad, Iraq.156 pages (In Arabic).

[75] NEDCO. 1983. Tigris Euphrates Main Outfall Drain Project (North of Hor Dalmaj). Netherland Engineering Consultants Final Report, submitted to Ministry of Irrigation. Republic of Iraq.

[76] AL-Amar H. A. S. 2017.  A Study the Concentration of Heavy Metals in Water of the Al-Massab Al-Aam Channel (Middle Sector) in Iraq. International Journal of Chem Tech Research. Vol.10 No.2, pp 594-603, 2017. ISSN: 0974-4290, ISSN(Online):2455-9555. Page 595.

[77] Prim Minister Inaugurates the MOD pumping Station in Nasiriya. Press release, from the Cabinet Media Office. Monday Dec.1^st. 2008. http://cabinet.iq/ArticleShow.aspx?ID=737.

[78] Dellapenna J. W., 2007. Ecocide and genocide in the Iraqi Marshlands. WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment, Vol 104, © 2007 WIT Press. www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3541 (on-line). doi:10.2495/RM07038.

[79] Koa J.Y. and Daya J. W. 2004. Impacts of Oil  and Gas Activities on Coastal Wetland Loss in The Mississippi Delta. Ocean & Coastal Management 47 (2004) 597–623. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237565471_IMPACTS_OF_OIL_AND_GAS_ACTIVITIES_ON_COASTAL_WETLAND_LOSS_IN_THE_MISSISSIPPI_DELTA.

[80] Fanak/ Water, 2017. Marshlands in Twenty’s Century. May 30, 2017. In Arabic. Online. https://water.fanack.com/ar/specials/iraqi-marshes/marshes-20th-century.

[81] Majed Al-Brekan, 2012. “Oil Projects Drying the Marshlands”. Al Hurrah News. May 17. 2012. [In Arabic]. Online. https://www.alhurra.com/iraq/2012/05/17/%D9%85%D8%B3%D8%A4%D9%88%D9%84-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B4%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%B9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D9%81%D8%B7%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%A3%D8%AF%D8%AA-%D8%AA%D8%AC%D9%81%D9%8A%D9%81-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%87%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%B1.

[82] Al MADA PAPER, 2015. Jasim Al Asadi: Deduction of Areas from Marshlands for Oil Explorations. Online, Dec. 17. 2015. 12:01:00. AM. https://almadapaper.net/view.php?cat=141113. [ In Arabic].

[83] Alsamaraie, 2014: Scientific Study Warns from Further Environmental Pollution in Basra Marshlands Because of Oil Projects. [In Arabic]. Online.

دراسة علمية تحذر من تفاقم التلوث البيئي في أهوار البصرة نتيجة المشاريع النفطية | محليات (alsumaria.tv)

[84] IOM, 2019. Water Quantity and Water Quality in Center and South Iraq: A PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF DISPLACEMENT RISK I. International Migration Organization.

[85] UN-IOM, 2019. ASSESSING WATER SHORTAGE-INDUCED DISPLACEMENT IN MISSAN, MUTHANNA, THI-QAR AND BASRA. International Migration Organization.

[86] Hussain al Amel, 2021. Environmental Organization Suggests Solutions for Increase of Marshlands Water Salinity. Al MADA Paper. Online, Aug. 03, 2021, 11:35:32. Thee Qar. Iraq.. https://almadapaper.net/view.php?cat=243559.

[87] Ministry of Environment , 2016. State of Environment in Iraq. Report 282 pages. Page 4. Republic of Iraq.https://moen.gov.iq/Portals/0/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%82%D8%B9%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A6%D9%8A/%D8%AD%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A9%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A6%D8%A9%20%D9%81%D9%8A%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%82%20%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%A7%D9%85%202016.pdf.

[88] Al Ogaidy K. H. 2011. Towards Better Future for Dates and Palms in Iraq. www.iraqi-datepalms.net.

Featured image: Painting by Abdul-Qadir al-Rassam depicting a scene in Southern Iraq

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Appendices

Appendix A: Table I

Appendix B: Table II [45]

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The Pentagon confirmed Wednesday [September 2023] that the U.S. will send depleted uranium ammunition to Ukraine as part of a new $175 million military aid package, drawing outrage from progressive foreign policy advocates who have warned against such a move and noted the horrific impact such weapons have had in Iraq and elsewhere.

A byproduct of natural uranium enrichment, depleted uranium is highly dense and often used for projectiles designed to pierce tanks and other armored vehicles. On impact, depleted uranium weapons produce a cloud of particles that can be inhaled by soldiers and nearby civilians.

The Pentagon said it is sending Ukraine 120mm depleted uranium rounds that can be fired from the Abrams tanks the U.S. is also set to begin delivering.

The announcement came weeks after the U.S. shipped widely banned cluster munitions to Ukraine, ignoring human rights groups’ warnings about the potentially devastating consequences for civilians in the present and years into the future.

“It wasn’t enough for the U.S. to send cluster bombs that will kill children for generations to Ukraine,” Aída Chávez, communications director for the progressive anti-war group Just Foreign Policy, wrote on social media. “Now, the Biden admin is sending depleted uranium—which will cause babies to be born with severe deformities and cancer.”

“To this day,” Chávez added, “children in places like Fallujah are being born with gruesome birth defects due to the U.S. military’s use of depleted uranium.”

The U.S.-led coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003 used thousands of tonnes of depleted uranium bombs and shells over just a three-week period that year.

Research suggests the lasting health effects for Iraqis have been severe.

According to a study published in the journal Environmental Pollution in 2020, proximity to a U.S. military base in Iraq was linked to “higher levels of uranium and thorium” and a greater risk of birth defects, including heart problems and missing limbs.

The study notes that thorium is “a radioactive compound and a direct depleted uranium decay product.”

A 2021 study published in BMJ Public Health also found “possible associations between exposure to depleted uranium and adverse health outcomes among the Iraqi population,” though the authors noted that “U.S. sanctions on Iraq may have played a role in limiting research and publication on the health impacts of weaponized uranium.”

“Biden’s decision to send tanks with depleted uranium to Ukraine has been made possible in large part because Britain led the way.”

The U.S. is not the first country to send depleted uranium to Ukraine as it fights invading Russian forces. The United Kingdom announced in March that it would deliver thousands of rounds of depleted uranium ammunition to the Ukrainian military.

Moscow decried the U.S. decision to arm Ukrainian forces with depleted uranium as “an indicator of inhumanity” and has threatened to use its own stockpile of depleted uranium.

Phil Miller, chief reporter for Declassified UK, said in a Democracy Now! appearance on Wednesday that “Biden’s decision to send tanks with depleted uranium to Ukraine has been made possible in large part because Britain led the way on this.”

Earlier this week, Miller reported that a U.K. tank capable of firing depleted uranium rounds was destroyed in Ukraine, prompting contamination fears.

“What we’ve seen in other conflicts, notably in Iraq, is that these tank hulls litter the battlefield for many years after the conflict,” Miller said Wednesday. “Children go and play on them, thinking they’re some kind of climbing frame, and they can become contaminated with depleted uranium, leading to very rare forms of cancer.”

“It really is quite alarming to now think that this is going to be used or is being used in Ukraine in areas where, you know, we want Ukrainian civilians to be able to live after the conflict,” Miller added. “On top of dealing with unexploded cluster munitions, they’re also going to have this huge hazard of depleted uranium to contend with, as well.”

[From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.]

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Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.

Featured image is from Morning Star

The following text was presented to the Kuala Lumpur International Conference to Criminalise War, Putra World Trade Centre, 28-31 October 2009.

For more than three decades [since 1991], the United States of America and the United Kingdom have been waging continuous wars on Iraq to occupy this oil rich country.

The armed forces of those two countries attacked civilians with different kinds of conventional, non-conventional, and banned weapons such as cluster bombs ammunitions, napalm bombs, white phosphorous weapons and depleted Uranium weapons.

Depleted Uranium (DU) is a radioactive and chemically toxic heavy metal. If ingested, inhaled, or it enters the human body through wounds or skin, it remains there for decades.

Within the human body the (DU) particles would be a continuous source for emitting alpha particles. With its toxic effects, published research & epidemiological studies have proved that it causes serious health damages to the human body. Some of the damage to the human body is to lymph tissue, kidneys, developing fetuses, neurological system, the bones, lung fibrosis, and an increase in the risk of many types of cancer and malignancies.

Hundreds of tons of (DU) expenditure have been fired & exploded on Iraqi highly populated areas like Basrah, Baghdad, Nasriya, Dewania, Samawa, and other cities.

Exploration programs and site measurements by Iraqi and non-Iraqi researchers all proved the existence of (DU) related contamination over most Iraqi territories.

Iraq’s Minister of Environment admitted in July 23, 2007 in Cairo that “at least 350 sites in Iraq are contaminated with (DU)”. She added that the nation is facing a tremendous number of cancer cases and called for the international community to help Iraq cope with this problem.

A few years after exposure to (DU) contamination, multifold increase of malignancies, congenital malformations, miscarriages, children leukemia, and sterility cases have been registered in suburb areas of Basrah and other surrounding areas. Similar problems appeared in Falluja, where illegal weapons were also used intensively in the 2004 attack of occupation forces on the city. More than two million of the Iraqi population died since 1991 because of the synergic multiple impact of using (DU) weapons, economical sanctions, and the destruction of the health care systems.

The economical sanction that were also imposed by USA and UK administrations deprived the children and people of Iraq their rights in food,  potable water, health care, sanitation and other life supporting necessities.

The USA and UK administrations have subjected the whole nation of Iraq for two decades to torture and slow death through the intentional use of radioactive weapons and the sanctions. The continuous and intentional use of radioactive weapons is a crime against humanity due to its undifferentiating harmful health effects on civilians in contaminated areas tens of years to come after the military engagements. The existence of (DU) radioactive contamination in the surrounding environment is a continuous source of exposure to low level radiation. This exposure can be considered as a systematic attack on Iraqi civilians in an armed conflict, according to Article 4 of the official regulations and Article 7 of the ICC.

This paper is submitted to present the facts and scientific evidence regarding the intentional use by the USA and UK of depleted uranium weapons against the people and environment of Iraq, in addition to the health consequences that have been result from them.

Introduction

The administrations of the United States of America and the United Kingdom have been continuously waging wars against Iraq since 1991.

The armed forces of these two administrations have been using different kinds and new generations of conventional, nonconventional, and illegal weapons like Napalm, cluster bombs, white phosphorous, microwave, and Depleted Uranium weapons [1][2][3][4] against the human population and the environment of Iraq. Invasion and occupation of Iraq proved to the world that oil flow is the main reason behind these criminal attacks.

As a result of using these weapons, with the economical sanctions that were also imposed on Iraq by the same administration more than two million Iraqi people died and the count continues.

In this paper, we present the consequences and damage resulting from the use of Depleted Uranium weaponry against Iraq, backed by scientific fact and research.

What is Depleted Uranium?

Depleted Uranium (DU) is a man-made, radioactive, heavy metal extracted from Uranium ore. Since (DU) is a byproduct of the Uranium enrichment process to produce spent fuel for nuclear reactors. Natural Uranium has an isotopic content of 99.274% of U-238 by weight, 0.072% of U-235, & 0.0057% of U-234 [5].

Due to its highly pyrophoric and spontaneously ignitable properties, the DU penetrator ignites on impact generating extremely high temperatures. As the projectile pierces, it leaves its jacket behind dispersing DU dust into the environment during the impact. The quantity of the aerosol production is proportional to DU mass within the projectile and the hardness of the impact.

It is estimated that up to 70%of DU in the projectiles to be aerosolized when on the impact DU catches fire [6]. The explosion generates high temperatures of (3000-6000) °C. The aerosols particles are smaller than 5µm in size [6]. These nano-particles act more like a gas than a particle. The DU aerosols remain windborne for an extended time and this is the most dangerous pathway on civilian population around the battlefield areas.

Depleted Uranium within the human body

There is empirical documentation that suggests that DU aerosols can travel up to 26 miles [5], others suggest even further distances. The full radiation effect of DU occurs six months after production [6]. One milligram of U-238 can give of 1, 07, 000 alpha particles in one day. Each alpha particle releases over 4 MeV (million-electron-volts) of energy. If swallowed or inhaled, this much energy will hit up to 6 nearby cells away in the organ [6]. Just 6-10ev (electron volt) is needed to cleave the nuclear DNA strand in the cell.

Dr. Rosalie Bertell, an epidemiologist with 30-years experience in the field of low level radiation explains DU potential harm to the human body [6]:

After inhalation (DU) nano-particle aerosols cross the lung-blood barrier and gain entrance to the cells. They create free radicals. As a heavy metal, DU toxicity attacks the proteins in the cell which normally fight the free radicals, and creates extra free radicals. This amount of free radicals creates total oxidative stress in the human body. This stress causes failure to protective enzymes, leaving cells vulnerable to viruses and mycoplasmas, damage to cellular communication system and the mitochondria.

As a heavy metal, DU replaces the magnesium in the organ’s molecules that normally function as antioxidants, and causes the destruction of the body’s repair mechanisms. Consequences of this destruction are chronic diseases and tumors. Free radicals can also totally disrupt the folding process and manufacturing of the molecule proteins which is sequenced by DNA and manufactured by the RNA. Some of the diseases resulted from misrouted proteins include cystic fibrosis, diabetes insipidus and cancer. [6]

Amassing and accumulation of misfolded proteins leads to neurodegenerative diseases, Parkinson’s Diseases and early onset Alzheimer’s disease. In these diseases, amyloids are formed from protein fragments and dysfunctional proteins and that “Misfolded proteins” are the central pathogenic mechanism.

Gulf War veterans have manifested many of the symptoms of these neurodegenerative diseases.[6]

Other health effects of DU within the human body are:

–           Lou Gehrig’s disease is twice as commonly diagnosed in Gulf War veterans as expected.

–           Immune and Hormonal system damage

–           Disturbance of thyroid function

–           Mycoplasmas invasion into human cells.

–           Initiation or promotion of cancer

–           Tetratogenic toxicity which causes mental retardation, congenital malformations.

–           GW veterans were twice-three times as likely to report children with birth defects as their counter partner who did not serve in the first Gulf War.

–           Miscarriages

Dr. Hari Sharma, formerly of the University of Waterloo, tested the urine of some US, UK and Canadian veterans as well as Iraqi civilians from Basra and Baghdad.

Using 24hr urine samples, his isotopic analysis revealed a range of DU in the sample of (81-1,340) nanogram. Results showed that two of the three Iraqis from Al Basra had 147 – 426 nanograms respectively in their urine. Also it showed that 2 out of 5 Iraqis from Baghdad have DU in their urine

Other Important Scientific Evidence:

•           Dr Alexandra C. Miller and her team at the Armed Forces Radiological Research Institute, Bethesda, MD and the University of Paris, France used human cell models (the human Osteoblast cell HOS) to evaluate the carcinogenic potential of DU in vitro through assessing morphological transformation, genotoxicity [7] (chromosomal aberration), mutagenic (HRRT Ioci) and genomic instability.

Published data of the results have demonstrated that DU exposure in vitro to immortalized HOS cells is neoplatically transforming, mutagenic, genotoxic, and induces genomic instability. Other results showed:

–           Exposure to embedded DU pellets could induce leukemia in mice.

–           Internalized DU resulted in significant increases in the mutagenic frequency in the Lac gene in the tests of the exposed mice.

–           Internalized DU resulted in the development of bladder carcinoma in 75% of all animal exposed within 90 days of initial DU exposure.

As we can see all these results suggest that long-term exposure to internalized DU could be critical to the development of neoplastic disease in humans.

•           Pub. Radiation Protection Dosimetry Schroder, Heike 2003. A molecular biologist conducted research about the chromosomal aberration on white blood cells of 16 British Gulf War veterans of 1991. The veterans have suffered from symptoms ranging from headache, to chronic fatigue, depression, muscle and joint pains, impaired short-term memory and other cognitive defects. [8]

The results showed that the mean frequency of their blood cells chromosomal aberrations is 5-fold elevation higher than the control blood samples. This strongly indicated previous exposure to ionizing radiations.

The intercellular distribution of the Dicentric and  Centric ring chromosomes indicates significant over dispersion on the group level for the veterans who served in the Gulf War. Dic and CR are a known consequence of non uniform irradiation on the human body. [8]

•           Dr. Huda Ammash, Professor of Molecular Biology in Baghdad University and her team [9] conducted and published the results of genetic hematological analysis for a group of individuals living in DU contaminated areas in southern Iraq. Blood tests for the (47) individuals who lived in Basrah contaminated areas and another 30 as a control group. The control group individuals lived in Baghdad.

–           Blood tests showed that 21% of the studied individuals in Basrah group suffered a reduction in hemoglobin concentration of (9-13) g/d.

–           The blood packed cell volume (PCV) test results showed that 25.5% of Basrah studied group showed abnormal (PCV) rates of (30-39)% less than the normal rate.

–           Total white Blood Cells count (WBC) results showed that 8% of the individuals in the Basrah study group with (WBC) less than normal which is (4000)c/ml or higher than normal rate (1100)c/ml.

–           Compound chromosomal changes in the lymphocytes of periphal blood of the individuals of Basrah studied group had been found at a ratio of (0.1118)% which is significantly higher than that of the control group.

–           The ratio of dicentric and ring centric chromosomal abnormality fraction was found to be (0.04479) which is higher than ordinary ratio chromosomal damages where mostly in male veteran individuals. One case was for a 13 year old young boy at the time of the exposure in Al-Zubair contaminated area.

•           Rita Hindin, et al [5] published a paper “Teratogenicity of Depleted Uranium aerosols: A review from an epidemiological perspective” in which they stated that animal studies firmly support the possibility that DU is a teratogen. They also concluded that the human epidemiological evidence is consistent with the increased risk of birth defects in offspring of persons exposed to DU.

•           For further scientific evidences by Iraqi researchers, check: ”Depleted Uranium Contamination: Iraq: An overview” (Global Research)

Contaminating Iraq with Depleted Uranium

The USA and UK armed forces used Depleted Uranium ammunition for the first time in the history of their wars during the Gulf War of 1991. About one million bullets, projectiles, and missiles were fired along the highway from Kuwait to Basrah then up to Nasriya and other Iraqi cities. About 60-65% of this ammunition and expenditure were fired within Iraqi territories, Figure 1 shows areas where DU expenditure have been used in the Gulf War of 1991 [11].

Figure 1 areas where DU expenditure have been used in Gulf War 1991.

Figure 2 represents a photo of the Iraqi army artilleries and vehicles destroyed on that highway by (DU) weaponry [12].

Figure 2: Iraqi army artilleries that have destroyed using DU on Highway

As stated previously, as soon as DU projectiles hit the target, it will ignite with a huge explosion that generates Depleted Uranium oxide aerosols. Mixing height of the aerosols in the atmosphere gets to 250m [13]. Area of Basrah War Zone and highway warzone [10] [14] were calculated to be around 2400km2. This area was the major continuous source of DU aerosols and contaminants to surrounding areas years to come.

Types of Depleted Uranium contaminants in the studied areas were:

1.         Destroyed tanks and artilleries.

2.         DU projectiles shells (exploded and unexploded)

3.         DU shrapnel’s (different sizes)

4.         Deposited DU particles

5.         Deposited DU oxide aerosols

Modeling mechanisms of spreading of DU pollutants from the source to surrounding populated areas were done by the Environmental Engineering department of Baghdad University [10] [14] [15]. The results of modeling spreading of pollutants through different environmental pathways to human population suggested that total calculated annual body dose received from DU aerosols inhalation pathway for the period from 1991-1996 in Basrah warzone was between 0.1768 Sv and 0.2309 Sv [10] (for a person both in normal or active duty respectively). Compared to normal background annual effective dose people should receive of 2.4 mSv only. In the highway warzone, these values came up to 0.4425 Sv and 0.577 Sv [14] respectively.

DU Contaminated Dust Storms In Iraq

Spreading and dispersion of DU contamination to surrounding areas also occurs through wind storms, dust storms, sandstorms, and rainstorms. Mechanisms of surface migration of DU radionuclide’s in soil include [16]:

–           Siltation, creeping, and suspension from contaminated soil to atmosphere.

–           Suspension and re-suspension of deposited DU aerosols are the most dangerous and critical pathway of transfer and spreading from source to the human population.

DU nano-particles through this mechanism stay suspended in the atmosphere for tens of days. With each dust storm a new DU attack on the civilians within populated cities occurs. Published data indicate a significant increase in the frequency of annual dust storms in both Iraq and Kuwait areas [17]. The first 8 months of 2009 witnessed 20 dust storms, as declared by the Iraqi Minister of Health [18]. Figures (3) and (4) show sites of these dust storms.

DU contaminated dust storms can be considered as new systematic attacks by USA armed forces, on civilians, since it adds an extra harmful radioactive dose received by the people internally and externally.

The USA and UK administrations should be held responsible for exposing a whole nation to the risk of continually receiving high radioactive and toxic persistent contaminants such as DU.

Cumulative effects of these additional doses add additional risk to residents of these areas. Intentional denial and cover up of the types, locations and amounts of DU ammunitions by the US and UK armed forces prevent Iraq from taking any precautionary measures to reduce exposure to additional radioactive doses.

To understand how persistent these pollutants are; Soil and dust samples from areas near NL Industries site in Colonie, NY, USA proved containing DU after more than 20 years of the closure of these DU manufacturing industries [19].

A total of 5 to 10 metric tons of DU dust and aerosols settled from air on soil, rooftops, and other surfaces near the plant during its operation. The plant was closed in 1984 and contaminated soil was removed. In 2006, twenty-two years later, dust samples that had been collected from residents in the area proved the existence of DU significantly above the clean up standard. People working near NL Industries also tested positive for DU in their bodies. Results of these tests are being published in the international journal “Science of the Total Environment” [20].

If we compare this case study with Basra DU contamination where (320 tons of DU * 0.65 in Iraqi territories * 0.6 aerosolized) we end up with about 114.80 metric tons of DU aerosols spreading through winds to huge inside Iraq and the Gulf countries’ areas, then pre-suspension of these contaminants to larger areas with each dust and sand storm that hits the area.

In 2003, it is estimated the US & UK armed forces used about (700-800) tons of DU [21]. The aerosolized portion of this amount is about 420 metric tons, a quantity large enough to cover the soil of the whole country after the dispersion of plumes with the previously mentioned mechanisms.

DU Contamination Casualties in Iraq:

Epidemiological studies in contaminated areas indicated a drastic rise in the incidences rate of malignancies amongst children to be far more noticeable from 1995 onward, namely a four times increase than prior to 1991, the distribution of this increase specifically in contaminated areas west of Basra City [22].

Moreover, the shift in Leukemia to younger children supports the criteria of biological plausibility specificity and is consistent with findings of correlating such incidents to exposure to ionized radiations [23].

Also a six fold increase in congenital malformations among births in Basra City since 1995 onward, have been registered [24]. Congenital heart diseases and chromosomal aberrations have been also reported.

Another crime of the occupation forces is the destruction of the evidence targeting the Iraqi research centers related to this issue.

Two decades of suffering, pain, and human life losses, the Minister of Environment in Iraq finally announced in 2007 the disaster of DU contamination in Iraq. She pointed out that more than 300 sites have been contaminated with these radioactive weapons [25]. She also called for the Japanese authorities and the international community to help Iraq with coping with the drastic increase of cancer incident rates [26].

To prove our case: Kuwait DU waste & wreckage from Gulf wars are shipped back to be dumped in USA.

After 18 years, Kuwait required US dept. of defense to remove the DU contaminated wreckage from their land [21]. Over 6,700 tons of contaminated soil, sand and other residues were collected and shipped back to the USA for burial by American Ecology at Bios, Idaho.

The US administration and pentagon officials still insist that DU has no significant health hazards, if so, why would they have to ship back their dirty radioactive wreckage back home from Kuwait?

Stand of the International Community on DU Weaponry

The Hague and Geneva conventions and its protocols and subsequent treaties clearly declare that weapons which cannot discriminate between civilians and military or combatants are prohibited from not only use but also from manufacture and sale [27].

The Nuremberg principles were incorporated into the Charter of the UN, a treaty which is supposed to be “Supreme Law” in the USA. When the American Administration ratified it, the 7th principle declares that “Complicity with a crime against Humanity is a war crime”.

UN resolutions since 1996 called DU weaponry “incompatible” (i.e. illegal) under existing humanitarian law and human rights [UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1997/27 and additions; E/CN.4/Sub.2/2002/38 and E/CN.4/Sub.2/2003/35] [28].

Uranium radiation hazards are covered up and misrepresented through the obsolete models of risk and derived standards of allowable exposure set by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP).

This model was derived from invalid assumptions due to secrecy and cover up about the health effects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs then, around the cold war developments of nuclear power and weapons [28].

The ICRP risk model was built from studies of the atomic bomb survivors, which overlooked the effects from the internal radiation source and ignored cancer that in some cases takes decades to appear.

It was certainly developed before the DNA and the human genome knowledge existed the way it does to date.

Cover-ups and deception are expected from American and UK administrations the perpetrators of all radiological wars and illegal weapons, which should face liability for war crimes, military and civilian casualties, as well as contamination of the environment.

The US has refused to disclose information about DU during the invasion military operations of Iraq in 2003, and did not let UNEP team study DU contamination Iraq [29].

With the great efforts of anti-nuclear weapons groups, NGO, peace organizations and international figures, the call of these organizations to ban the all Uranium weapons, including DU, have earned very good momentum especially among the NATO countries.

–           On March 23rd, 2007, the Belgian Chamber Commission on National Defense voted unanimously in favor of banning the use of DU ammunitions and armor plates [30].

–           On November 1, 2008, a UN committee passed a resolution with an overwhelming majority, highlighting concerns over the military use of Uranium. The resolution entitled “Effects of the use of armaments and ammunitions containing Depleted Uranium 1” urges the UN member states to re-examine the health hazards posted by the use of Uranium weapons [31].

–           Another historic sentence was pronounced on January 13, 2009 by a court in Florence, Italy asking the Italian Ministry of Defense to compensate Gianbattista Marica with Euro 545,061, a parachutist who was deployed in Somalia for eight months in 1993. The sentence is very important because it states “the casual link between the presence of depleted uranium and the illness (cancer) of the Soldier” [32]. The courts statement includes the report of technical consultant who maintains that there is a causal link between the Hodgkin Lymphoma developed by the soldier and the exposure to DU.

–           In September 2009, a British jury at Smethwick Council House ruled that DU was likely cause of death of Gulf War veteran Stuart Dysan in June 2008. Dyson had been a Lance Corporal with the Royal Pioneer Corps and had cleaned tanks after the 1991 Gulf War. He developed colon cancer that killed him last year [33].

The European Parliament on 22nd of May 2008 passed its fourth resolution against the use Uranium weapons. MEP’s have called for EU and NATO-wide moratorium and global ban [29].

Concluding Remarks:

1. The US and UK administrations have been using Depleted Uranium weapons against the civilian population and the environment of Iraq since 1991.

2. Laboratory studies and scientific evidence prove the link and causal relationship between exposure to Depleted Uranium and the increased risk of inducing neurodegenerative diseases, immune and hormonal system damage, initiation or promotion of cancer, Tetratogenic Toxicity which causes mental retardation and congenital malformations, miscarriages, and sterility.

3. Intentional denial and refusal of the US and UK administrations to release any information about the types, locations, and amounts of DU weapons that have been used against Iraq have caused additional radioactive doses, and health damages to the people in contaminated areas. Both administrations should be held responsible for this crime.

4. The drastic increase of cancer incidences in Iraq since 1995 to date and the DU related diseases like congenital malformation, miscarriages, etc, are all attributed to the use of prohibited weapons including Depleted Uranium.

5. DU contaminated areas all over the country are continuous source of radioactive pollution. Without cleaning and other measures, resuspension of these contaminants with each dust and sand storm can be considered as systematic attacks by the US and UK armies on civilians in an armed conflict.

This is a crime against humanity to its undifferentiated harmful health impacts on civilians long times to come after the military operations (Article 4 of the official regulations and Article 7 of ICC).

Notes

1. Simon Helweg-Larsen, “Irregular Weapons Used against Iraq”. ZNET http://www.znet.org/welser.htm ,April 2003

2. Sarah Meyer. “What Kind of Incendiary Bomb Was Used Against People in Iraq” http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1226  November 14, 2005.

3. Steven D. “US Army Admits Use of White Phosphorus as Weapon”. Daily KOS.

4. Scott Peterson Remains of Toxic Bullets Litter Iraq, May 18, 2003, Christian Science Monitor.

5. Rita Hindin, Doug Brugge, and Bindu Panikkar, “Teratogenicity of Depleted Uranium aerosols: A review from an epidemiological perspective ” Environmental Health: A Global Access Science Source 2005. http://www.ehjournal.net/info/instructions/

6. Rosali Bertell “Depleted Uranium: All the questions about DU and Gulf War Syndrome are not yet answered”. International Journal of Health Service 36(3), 503-520, 2006

7. Alexandra C. Miller, Mike Stewart, Rafael Rivas, Robert Marlot, and Paul Lison, “Depleted Uranium” internal contamination: Carcinogenisis and Leukeinogenisis in Vivo. Proc. Am Assoc Cancer Res. Volume 46, 2005.

8. Chroder, H. et al. “Chromosome aberration analysis in peripheral lymphocytes of Gulf War and Balkans War veterans”. Radiation Prot. Dosimetry. Vol. 103(3) 2003 (PP. 211-219).

9. Ammash, H., Alwan, L., and Maarouf, B.,”Genetic hematological study for a selected population from DU contaminated areas in Basra.” Proceeding of the conference on the effects of the use of DU weapons on human and environment in Iraq, Baghdad, Iraq 2002.

10. Al-Azzawi, S. N. and Al-Naemi, A. “Assessment of radiological doses and risks resulted from DU contamination in Basrah war zone.” Proceeding of the conference on the effects of the use of DU

11. Gulf War Resource Center “Primary Areas of DU Expenditure”, USA, 1999.

12. Turnley, P.; News Week Magazine; (January-20), 1992.

13. Neboysha, L. “Environmental Impact on Humans During the Gulf War”, Communications between Professor Neboysha and Professor Sharma, 1999.

14. Al-Azzawi, S., and Al Naemi, A., 2002, “Assessment of radiological doses and risks resulted from DU contamination in the highway war zone in Al-Basra governorate”, proceedings of the conference on the effects of the use of DU weaponry on human and environment in Iraq, March 26-27 2002, Baghdad, Iraq.

15. Al-Azzawi, S. et al, “ Environmental Pollution Resulting from the Use of Depleted Uranium Weaponry Against Iraq During 1991, World International Conference on DU, Hamburg, Germany, 2003 http://www.grassrootspeace.org/wuwc_reader2_science.pdf  – p.41

16. Al-Heli, W.M. “Effects of DU Weapons on Air and Soil Pollution in Southern Iraq”, M.Sc. Thesis in Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Baghdad, Iraq. 1998.

17. Draxler R. R., et al, “Estimating PM10 Air concentrations from Dust storms in Iraq, Kuwait and Kingdom Saudi Arabia. Atmospheric Environment” vol35:4115-4330.

18. Middle East Online, “Draught steals Iraqi’s nutrition”, September 1st 2009

19. ICBUW, “Robert shows New Yorkers Contaminated with DU over 20 years after exposure” http://www.banddepleteduranium.org/

20. William, D. “Hazards of Uranium Weapons in the Proposed War on Iraq” full report.. The Eos life resources center. Oct, 2002.

21. ICBUW, “Statement by the DU positive testees” http://www.banddepleteduranium.org/

22. Yaqoub, A., et.al., 1999, “Depleted Uranium and health of people in Basrah: an epidemiological evidence; 1-The incidence and pattern of malignant diseases among children in Basrah with specific reference to leukemia during the period of 1990-1998”, the medical journal of Basrah University (MJBU), vol.17, no.1&2, 1999, Basrah, Iraq.

23. Yaqoub, A., Ajeel, N., and Al-Wiswasy, M., 1998, “Incidence and pattern of malignant diseases (excluding leukemia) during 1990-1997”, Proceeding of the conference on health and environmental consequences of DU used by U.S. and British forces in the 1991 Gulf War, Dec. 2-3, 1998, Baghdad, Iraq. http://www.irak.be/ned/archief/Depleted%20Uranium_bestanden/DEPLETED%20URANIUM-3-%20INCIDENCE.htm

24. Al-Sadoon, I., Hassan, J., and Yaqoub, A., 1998, “Incidence and pattern of congenital anomalies among birth in Basrah during the period 1990-1998”, Proceeding of the conference on health and environmental consequences of DU used by U.S. and British forces in the 1991 Gulf War, Dec. 2-3, 1998. http://www.irak.be/ned/archief/Depleted%20Uranium_bestanden/DEPLETED%20URANIUM-1-%20INCIDENCE.htm

25.  RIA Novoski “Iraqis blame US depleted Uranium for surge in cancer”

26.  Tokyo Newspapers “Iraqi Minister of Environment Appeals to Japanese Government for Assistance in Dealing with DU contmination”. September 10th 2008 http://www.tokyo-np.co.jp

27. Proceeding of World Uranium weapons conference 2003, Hamburg, Germany. Page 192

28. Protr Bein “Uranium Weapons cover-ups in our midst”. Proceedings of world Uranium Weapons conference, 2003, Hamburg, Germany.

29. David Goliath “The Adversary’s Tactics and Effectiveness”. Proceedings of world conference, 2003 Hamburg, Germany, Page 204.

30. William Van Den Panhuysen. “Belgium Bans Uranium Weapons and Armor”. ISBUW, March 24, 2007.

31. ICBUW, “UN First Committee Passes DU Resolution in Landslide Vote” Nov. , 2007 http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/

32. Stefania Divertito “Historic sentence in Florence, Italian court recognizes the link between cancer and Depleted Uranium”. 13th Jan. 2009 http://www.peaclink.it

33. ICBUW, DU was a likely cause of dead Gulf Veteran’s cancer”. Sept. 11, 2009 http://www.bandepleteduranium.org

34. ICBUW “European Parliament passes far reaching DU resolution in landslide vote”, May 22, 2008. http://www.bandepleteduranium.org

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Pour la Paix à l’échelle planétaire, Towards Peace at the Level of the entire Planet, На пути к миру на уровне всей планеты, На шляху до миру на рівні всієї планети, Por la paz a escala planetaria, من أجل السلام على نطاق عالمي, 世界規模での平和のために, Auf dem Weg zum Frieden auf der Ebene des gesamten Planeten, 为了全球规模的和平, สู่สันติภาพในระดับโลกทั้งใบ, 전체 비행기 수준의 평화를 향하여, Rumo à paz no nível de todo o planeta

 

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The West is trying to stage a coup d’état in Georgia by organizing a colour revolution, inciting mass protests and internal conflicts in the former Soviet republic, but protests by the Georgian opposition against allegedly rigged parliamentary elections will ultimately fail. The West has been desperately trying to avoid losing its control over Georgia since the ruling government began a process of reconciliation with Moscow.

Parliamentary elections were held on October 26, and the ruling party, Georgian Dream, won, receiving about 54% of the vote. The pro-European opposition alliance received about 37% of the vote and started protests, demanding the election’s cancellation since it was “illegitimate and counterfeit” and accused Russia of interference, something Moscow categorically denied.

The elections in Georgia, a country of only 3.6 million inhabitants, are considered the most important in the last twenty years, among other things, because of the country’s foreign policy orientation.

After the so-called Rose Revolution of 2003, Georgia turned towards the West, and then President Mikheil Saakashvili outlined the country’s membership in the EU and NATO as goals. However, after two decades, an unsuccessful war against Russia in 2008 and a change of government four years later, Tbilisi is still far from full membership, and Georgian Dream has for years been leading a measured policy by trying to balance between East and West.

Saakashvili wanted Georgia, as a Black Sea country, to become a NATO member and serve the alliance’s geostrategic goal of surrounding Russia. The Western course he set was initiated by Western powers that oppose Georgia’s orientation towards non-confrontation with Russia.

The Georgian Dream won the sympathy of voters thanks to its policy of economic recovery aimed at independence from external sources of financing and building natural ties with Russia, with which it shares a common history, culture and other close ties.

For this reason, the pro-Western president of Georgia, Salome Zourabichvili, who supported the opposition, did not recognize the election results, saying they were “completely falsified” and that Georgians had become victims of “Russian special operations.” Although the constitutional position of the President of Georgia is largely ceremonial, as a public and media figure, Zourabichvili acts as a spokesperson for the opposition and those who want to preserve the Western-oriented course first set by Saakashvili.

Brussels suspended Georgia’s EU accession process indefinitely in June after parliament passed a law on “foreign agents” that obliges non-governmental organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power.” In addition, Tbilisi adopted the law banning LGBT propaganda and gender reassignment, all of which the EU saw as Georgia’s deviation from the European path.

The adoption of such laws signals that Tbilisi does not fully obey the West, and for this reason, Washington and Brussels are reacting extremely negatively. Although the Georgian Dream does not give up on Euro-Atlantic integration – at least officially, the ruling party also wants to develop relations with Moscow, with which it has strong trade ties given that Russia is the Caucasian country’s second-largest trading partner.

Critics accuse the Georgian Dream of leaning increasingly towards Moscow. They are particularly bothered by the fact that, after the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine, Tbilisi refused to impose sanctions on Russia, which is why Georgia was not on the Russian list of enemy states even if some anti-Russian resolutions were adopted. If Georgia accepts a policy oriented toward national interests rather than Western interests, the country will have no choice but to cooperate with Russia for geopolitical, economic, and social reasons.

Georgia’s presidential elections are scheduled for December, and the opposition protests, orchestrated by the West, are expected to continue on the eve of them because the West does not want to lose influence over the country. The opposition will make every effort to make the president the candidate needed to preserve their orientation in international politics.

However, there are doubts that Zourabichvili will be able to keep the pro-Western position. There are a lot of political shortcomings, such as the fact that, apart from her origin, she has no strong ties to Georgia as a country. Zourabichvili, born in Paris as a child of Georgian immigrants, worked for a long time in French diplomacy.

Georgia’s presidential elections will be held in the parliament building on December 14. The second round of elections, if necessary, will be held on the same day. Also, for the first time, the president of Georgia will be chosen by the Electoral College instead of the citizens. The president’s inauguration will occur on December 29, and it appears that Zourabichvili will not be the one inaugurated as Georgia’s Western liberalization and orientation project is failing.

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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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