Vladimir Putin, the President of the Russian Federation, has made several statements during the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, particularly concerning the use of Western-supplied long-range precision weapons. His remarks suggest that if NATO provides Ukraine with high-precision, long-range weapons and assists in their operation, it would amount to direct participation in military operations against Russia.
According to Putin, this would fundamentally change the nature of the conflict, elevating it from a regional war between Russia and Ukraine to a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia.
This article delves into Putin’s rationale behind these claims, the technological and geopolitical factors at play, and the broader implications for NATO-Russia relations and global security.
The Context: Ukraine’s Use of Western Weapons
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the West has increasingly supplied Ukraine with military aid, including advanced weapons systems, in response to Ukraine’s requests for support in defending itself. The types of military aid have evolved from anti-tank weapons and small arms to more sophisticated systems such as High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), long-range artillery, and drones.
However, one of the most sensitive aspects of this aid has been the potential delivery of long-range precision weapons, such as missile systems that could strike targets deep within Russian territory. Putin’s assertion that Ukraine lacks the indigenous capability to operate such weapons without direct NATO involvement centers around two key points:
1. Access to High-Precision Targeting Data: High-precision, long-range missile strikes typically require advanced satellite data for targeting. Putin has claimed that Ukraine does not have its own satellite reconnaissance infrastructure that is sophisticated enough to carry out precision strikes with long-range Western weapons. He suggests that NATO would have to provide Ukraine with real-time intelligence, including satellite imagery, in order to guide these strikes effectively.
2. Operational Expertise: Putin also argues that the complexity of using these advanced weapons, particularly in terms of setting flight paths and inputting targeting data, would necessitate NATO military personnel’s involvement. According to him, Ukrainian forces alone may not possess the capability to independently operate such advanced systems without NATO assistance.
NATO’s Involvement: An Escalation in Putin’s View
Putin’s statements underscore the Russian perspective that any direct assistance by NATO in terms of operational control, intelligence support, or targeting input crosses a critical threshold. If NATO becomes directly involved in conducting or facilitating military operations via these high-precision strikes, it would effectively mean that NATO forces are waging war against Russia, according to Putin. This would mark a significant escalation in the conflict, transforming it from a proxy war to a direct conflict between NATO and Russia, with far-reaching consequences.
In Putin’s words, if NATO helps Ukraine carry out such strikes, “it will change the very essence, the nature of the conflict, and it will mean that NATO countries are at war with Russia.” This claim taps into long-standing concerns about the expansion of the Ukraine conflict into a broader war that could potentially involve nuclear-armed NATO members and Russia.
NATO’s Stance and Western Military Aid
NATO has been careful to stress that its support to Ukraine is defensive in nature and designed to help Ukraine protect its territorial integrity. Western countries, particularly the United States, the United Kingdom, and several EU member states, have provided substantial amounts of military aid, but they have also emphasized that they are not directly involved in the war. Western leaders have generally framed their involvement as military assistance rather than direct participation in hostilities.
For example, U.S. and European officials have maintained that their military support is designed to help Ukraine defend itself against aggression, not to strike Russian territory. The Biden administration has been particularly cautious in limiting the types of weapons sent to Ukraine, often declining to supply systems that could easily strike deep into Russia, although this position has gradually evolved as the war has progressed.
However, many Western military systems, such as the HIMARS and long-range artillery, have been pivotal in allowing Ukraine to hit Russian military positions in occupied Ukrainian territories. Some of these strikes have targeted Russian logistics hubs, ammunition depots, and command centers far behind the frontlines, often using Western-provided intelligence.
Satellite Data and Intelligence Sharing
One of the more complex elements of Putin’s argument revolves around the issue of satellite data. It is well known that Western nations, particularly the United States, have provided Ukraine with satellite imagery and real-time intelligence to aid in their military operations. This has included tracking the movements of Russian troops and equipment, as well as identifying high-value targets for strikes.
Putin’s claim that Ukraine lacks the capacity to carry out precision strikes without NATO satellite data is a recognition of the role that Western intelligence plays in the conflict. Although Ukraine does not have its own satellite network capable of the level of surveillance that NATO’s assets can provide, Western nations have given Ukraine access to data from commercial and military satellites, as well as reconnaissance drones. While these intelligence-sharing activities stop short of direct involvement in military operations, they blur the lines between mere support and active participation.
Legal and Geopolitical Implications
Putin’s characterization of NATO’s involvement as “direct participation” is not just rhetoric. Under international law, direct military involvement by a state in another state’s conflict can trigger mutual defense obligations or escalate the conflict into a wider war. Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty states that an armed attack against one member is considered an attack against all members. If Russia were to interpret NATO’s involvement in the war as direct participation, it could theoretically respond by targeting NATO assets, risking a broader conflict.
For NATO, avoiding a direct war with Russia has been a key objective. While NATO members want to ensure that Ukraine is capable of defending itself, they also wish to avoid provoking Russia into a military response that could escalate into a direct confrontation between nuclear-armed powers. This has resulted in a delicate balancing act, with NATO providing substantial support to Ukraine while refraining from actions that could be interpreted as direct engagement in the war.
Conclusion
Vladimir Putin’s warnings about NATO’s involvement in Ukraine, specifically regarding the use of long-range precision weapons, highlight the delicate and dangerous nature of the conflict. While NATO has taken steps to support Ukraine, including the provision of advanced weaponry and intelligence, it has been careful to frame this assistance as indirect, defensive support rather than direct participation in the conflict.
Putin’s statements reflect both a recognition of NATO’s significant role in shaping the battlefield and an attempt to deter further escalation by signaling that any deeper involvement by NATO would change the conflict’s nature. His rhetoric also serves as a warning that Russia could respond forcefully if it believes NATO is moving beyond providing support to Ukraine and engaging in direct military operations against Russia.
As the conflict continues, the risk of miscalculation remains high, particularly as both sides escalate their rhetoric and military actions. The stakes are enormous, and any shift toward direct NATO involvement, even if unintended, could have profound consequences for European and global security.
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Prof. Ruel F. Pepa is a Filipino philosopher based in Madrid, Spain. A retired academic (Associate Professor IV), he taught Philosophy and Social Sciences for more than fifteen years at Trinity University of Asia, an Anglican university in the Philippines. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Sources
Putin’s Statements on NATO and Ukraine Conflict: “Putin warns Ukraine use of long-range arms will put NATO at war with Russia” (See this)
Western Military Support for Ukraine: “Western military aid to Ukraine – statistics & facts” (See this)
NATO’s Article 5 and Military Strategy: “Collective defence and Article 5” (See this)
State Duma, the lower house of parliamentarians, and the Federation Council, the upper chamber of legislators, voted to declare and approve the ‘special military operation’ in the Ukraine, which categorically aims at de-militarizing and de-nazifying the former Soviet republic. The Russia-Ukraine conflict began on 24 February 2022, and has shown explicit sign of endless militarized venture on Ukraine. It has, so far, had devastating implications and impacts, destabilized the global economic system, with majority of countries in the Global South calling for peaceful resolution to the conflict between these two former Soviet republics who, after the Soviet collapse, have attained their political independence.
In this interview, Professor Sergiu Mișcoiu at the Faculty of European Studies, Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca (Romania), where he also serves as a Director of the Centre for International Cooperation and as Director of the Centre for African Studies, discusses aspects of strategy and approach by the BRICS association (China, India and South Africa) in pursuing common, comprehensive and sustainable security, and most importantly how BRICS members can peacefully resolve the conflict differences between Russia and Ukraine through dialogue and consultation. Here are the interview excerpts.
Kester Kenn Klomegah (KKK): Russia-Ukraine conflict has raged on since late February 2022, and now the main question is why BRICS, an informal association, has not so far been successful in brokering peace?
Professor Sergiu Mișcoiu (PSM): BRICS is indeed an informal association of states. Its unity and its capacity to act collectively in order to impose an alternative international order to the one still led by the Western states has been repeatedly overestimated. It would be more accurate to portray BRICS as a heteroclite group made of states with different capabilities and interests, with different historical allies and foes. Between China, an autocratic state who has been trying since the 2010s to openly challenge the USA’s still quasi-hegemonic status in the global world, and Brazil, a semi-consolidated democracy aspiring to emerge as an important semi-peripheral power in the Southern hemisphere, there are definitely less resemblances than differences. Their exhibited anti-Westernism – which is only for the time being in the case of Brazil – can barely hide the fundamental differences between the world’s views of these two states, and the same can be said about almost all the other BRICS countries taken two by two.
For all these reasons, the BRICS states have initially regarded the Russian invasion of Ukraine in a rather different light – as an opportunity to vassalize Russia and to indisputably become the main counter-hegemon (by China), as a fait divers or as another war (by South Africa), as a historical revenge against the US-led order (by Brazil), as source of potential conflict and unrest (by India). It was only after the attempts of reconciliation that these states found a common position with regard to this conflict, mainly revolving around the idea of a negotiated peace. But the fact that Russia belongs to this international association is a major delegitimizing factor which prevents BRICS to look like an independent international peacemaker.
KKK: In its several declarations and communiques, BRICS has collective stated ‘political dialogue’ and ‘mechanism of diplomacy’ in resolving political crisis and conflicts. Are these methods, dialogue and diplomacy, working in the case of Russia-Ukraine conflict?
PSM: For such methods to work, it would be necessary that all the parties involved in the conflict genuinely believe that they could lose if the war continues, and that they cut a favorable deal if peace is achieved. None of these conditions if fulfilled, as Russia continues its advancement in Donbass and its attacks against the critical infrastructural system and Ukraine succeeded to occupy parts of the Russian territory and to strike deeper into the country. Under these circumstances, all the current attempts to make peace are rather show-offs meant to legitimize the peacemakers. China is the main champion of such attempts, sometimes more or less implicitly in the name of BRICS. But all these attempts of China (not only in the case of the Russian-Ukrainian war) were seen by the “beneficiaries” as being tactical moves of Beijing in the effort to reinforce its position of diplomatic actor rather than some genuine steps towards achieving peace. As a whole, BRICS lacks the degree of unity that could put enough pressure on the states in conflict to force them to search for peace and is perceived in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war as being too close to the interests of Russia in a more or less transparent way.
KKK: How do you assess efforts made by China, India and South Africa during these past two years? And what are your views and interpretations of the proposal, which underlined ‘constructive role’ in the process for another future Peace Summit by India?
PSM: Unlike China, India seems to play a different card, as it displays a much more subtle intention to legitimize itself as a major international actor and a more genuine concern for achieving peace, in a Gandhi-like claimed tradition. Criticized for his domestic national-populism, Prime-Minister Modi has recently succeeded to play a more convincing international role, especially thanks to his efforts to support the creation of the favorable conditions for the initiation of a dialogue between Ukraine and Russia. India has no interest to see a victorious Russia and a triumphing China, whose friendship with its rival, Pakistan, has been a constant concern for New Delhi. So, once again, BRICS do not act as a group. Instead, India’s more balanced attitude has created the premises for a more consensual environment of international negotiations around the Russian-Ukrainian war. Which doesn’t mean that peace is guaranteed. But which means that the individual efforts of some of the BRICS countries could be more efficient than the hesitant actions of the group as a whole.
KKK: Can BRICS use its boastful numerical strength (as more 40 countries have been listed awaiting ascension) and to stand tall with reverberating voices on the platform, particularly during the forthcoming XVII BRICS Summit in October, to attempt brokering peace between Russia and Ukraine?
PSM: Given their profiles and their international stances, the new members of BRICS who joined in 2024 (Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates) offer a wider global coverage to the association but also increase the potential disunion when critically important collective decisions will be needed. As the 2024 Summit will take place in Russia, which is even in its friends’ eyes the country which started the war against Ukraine, any attempt to issue a common declaration in favor of peace and reconciliation will be deprived of credibility. However, Russia will try to use the momentum to claim that there is international support for its actions. But this is precisely the opposite of today’s efforts of countries such as India or the Emirates, which will not appreciate the confiscation of the summit to push the individual agenda of the Kremlin.
In conclusion, BRICS could have worked as a peace broker if it was: (1) genuinely animated by the same universal values, (2) more united around some clear common goals, and (3) exterior to the conflicts it claims to mediate. As it is today, it only allows for the temporary advancement of some of its members’ agendas.
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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), Weekly Blitz and InDepthNews, is now a regular contributor to Global Research. He researches Eurasia, Russia, Africa and BRICS. His focused interest areas include geopolitical changes, foreign relations and economic development questions relating to Africa. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.
Are Washington’s Voting Rights on the UN Security Council at Risk? “…a party to a dispute shall abstain from voting.”
The main obstacle to a ceasefire in Gaza is not Israel or Hamas. It’s the United States. Here’s what you need to know: The Security Council approved the Biden-authored ceasefire deal on June 10, 2024. (Three months ago) US diplomats assured the other members of the Security Council that Israel supported the agreement. That claim turned out to be false. Israel does not back the deal and refuses to implement its provisions. Even so, the so-called Biden Plan passed the Council in the form of Resolution 2735. Here’s a summary of the agreement:
By resolution 2735 … the 15-member organ noted that the implementation of this proposal would enable the following outcomes to spread over three phases, the first of which would include an immediate, full and complete ceasefire with the release of hostages; the return of the remains of some hostages who have been killed; the exchange of Palestinian prisoners; withdrawal of Israeli forces from the populated areas in Gaza; the return of Palestinian civilians to their homes; and the safe and effective distribution of humanitarian assistance at scale throughout Gaza. Adopting Resolution 273 5, United Nations
There’s no ambiguity here, the Council’s demands are clear. Both parties to the conflict are required to implement the provisions of the resolution that are “binding” under international law.
Hamas has agreed to comply with resolution 2735 while Israel has refused. In short, the United States and Hamas are on the same side of the ceasefire issue.
In order to confuse the public about Israel’s refusal, the Biden administration has continued to oversee negotiations in Cairo and Doha (with Israel, Egypt, Qatar and the US) to create the impression that negotiations are ongoing. But they’re not ongoing. This is a farce that is being used to conceal Israel’s rejection of the UN-backed ceasefire. The US is an accomplice in that deception.
Presently, the public is convinced that if Israel and Hamas could hammer out a compromise on the Philedephi corridor, then a settlement would be possible.But this too is misleading because the ceasefire resolution has already been thoroughly debated and approved by the Council. Besides, the Philedephi corridor appears nowhere in the text of resolution 2735 which makes it a moot point. Russia’s envoy to the UN Security Council summed it up like this last week:
the Israeli leadership, unfortunately, continues to regard the negotiations merely as a “smoke screen”, which helps to distract the attention of the international community from Israel’s military solution to the Palestinian issue. This is evidenced not only by West Jerusalem’s actions on the ground, but also by the recent remarks of Prime Minister Netanyahu, who stated that he would not stop the military action in the Strip. We still see no indication that Israel’s military cabinet has any intention to change this policy Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the UN
This is an accurate account of what is currently taking place. The US is assisting Israel in pulling the wool over the eyes of the public to escape accountability for the ongoing rampage and to make it appear as though they have a genuine interest in resolving the 10-month-long dispute. But there is no interest in resolving the dispute, in fact, Netanyahu has stated repeatedly that Israel will not stop the hostilities and will not withdraw Israeli troops from Gaza. There is no gray area here. It is a blunt refusal to comply with the UN mandate.
Naturally, members of the Security Council have responded to these developments with frustration and anger. They can see now that they were misled by the Biden administration which hoped to put pressure on Israel by pushing their deal through the UNSC. Now that the plan has blown up in their faces, the US is back to its old tricks of providing cover for Israel regardless of the offense. Here’s more from the Russian envoy Dmitri Polyanskiy:
Colleagues, how much longer are we going to remain idle, while American would-be mediators continue putting on a show and feeding us empty promises that their diplomatic efforts “on the ground” will bring speedy results? The reality is that f or 10 months now, Washington has basically held the entire Council hostage, threatening to use their veto and preventing us from taking tough and unambiguous decisions either on the Palestinian issue and a ceasefire in Gaza, or on advancing the Middle East peace process as a whole…
If Resolution 2735 is not being implemented, let’s pass a new document, which would send an unequivocal message to the “spoilers” that they will definitely bear the consequences of what they are doing. And let us provide our resolution with a toolbox that would help stop violence, regardless of the whims of any party to the conflict. It is also of critical importance that Washington finally ceases its multi-billion-dollar military assistance to Israel, which is being used to annihilate Palestinian civilians.How many more victims are needed for the Council to act in line with its mandate and stop following blindly the lead of the United States and Israel? Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the UN
Dmitri Polyanskiy addresses the UN Security Council
So, you can see that the temperature is rising at the Security Council and that many of the members are at wit’s-end with Washington’s antics. Polyanskiy spoke for many of the members when he closed his statement with this blistering rebuke:
Everyone in this chamber is perfectly aware of the fact that it is the United States that bears the main responsibility for what is happening now in Gaza.
That sums it up perfectly.
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It’s worth noting, that US diplomats that have participated in recent negotiations in Cairo and Doha have not even kept Security Council members up-to-date on the details of those meetings. It’s a rogue operation headed by American officials who have no authority to modify the existing ceasefire agreement and who (shockingly) are conducting these gatherings without representatives from Hamas. The whole thing is a cynical fraud that bears a striking resemblance to Zelensky’s Peace confab in Switzerland that excluded Russia. One fake peace conference begets another.
Dmitri Polyanskiy again—While initially we discussed the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from the enclave, Israel now insists on maintaining its presence in the Philadelphi and Netzarim corridors.The Security Council gave its consent to completely different parameters of the agreements, which means that these demands are a direct violation of the provisions of the aforementioned Security Council resolution. The American mediators, unfortunately, are openly playing along with their ally in its consistent violation of UNSC resolutions
This is how the Biden administration is helping Israel dodge its obligations under the terms of the current UNSC-backed ceasefire. Blinken is conducting a masterclass in deception.
(To the broader issue) Israel’s 10-month-long bloodbath in Gaza has left many people wondering why the world needs a Security Council if it cannot provide security for the people who are most in need?
It’s a good question and one that challenges the credibility of an institution that aspires to be “the guarantor of global security” but is incapable of taking action even when a genocide is unfolding right under its nose.
Of course, the source of the problem is not hard to identify. It’s the same permanent member that repeatedly vetoed ceasefire proposals one-after-another until it pushed through its own hybrid version that had no chance of being implemented. We’re talking about the United States of Obstruction, the lone member of the Council that acts exclusively in the interest of its genocidal ally in Tel Aviv. The other members of the Council are faced with the daunting task of either removing the US from the Security Council altogether (so they can enforce their ceasefire resolution through sanctions, peacekeepers or other punitive measures) or finding a way to force the US to abstain from voting on issues related to the current conflict. But are either of these even possible?
Yes, they are, but they won’t be achieved easily. Even so, the Council cannot simply ignore its special role in international relations because one member consistently abuses the system by preventing the UN doing its job of preserving peace and security around the world.
The rules for expelling a member of the Security Council make it almost impossible to do so. So, while Chapter 18 of United Nation’s Charter says a member can be removed from UN Security Council if two thirds of the General Assembly vote against that member; the Security Council can prevent the matter from ever reaching the General Assembly. It’s a Catch 22.
Article 108
Amendments to the present Charter shall come into force for all Members of the United Nations when they have been adopted by a vote of two thirds of the members of the General Assembly and ratified in accordance with their respective constitutional processes by two thirds of the Members of the United Nations, including all the permanent members of the Security Council. United Nations Charter, Chapter XVIII: Amendments
Legal scholars have also argued that Article 6 of the UN Charter could be interpreted in a way that would allow a member to be removed, but, so far, it has not been used successfully in that regard.
Article 6—A Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.
The only member of the UN to ever be successfully removed was Taiwan in 1971, which ” was formally expelled from the United Nations by a vote of the General Assembly and replaced by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which had taken power in Beijing at the end of the country’s civil war in 1949.
The ROC government had fled to the island of Taiwan with millions of refugees as the communists took power but continued to hold the seat of “China” at the UN and was a permanent member of the Security Council with veto power. Despite being exiled, officials in Taipei had the support of the US thanks to fears in the West that communism might sweep through Asia….
The “Resolution on Admitting Peking,” also known as Resolution 2758, called for member states to “restore” the rights of the People’s Republic of China in Beijing as the “only lawful representatives of China to the United Nations.”After years of trying at the behest of Chinese ally Albania, the resolution finally passed in the General Assembly Taiwan taps on United Nations’ door, 50 years after departure,Aljazeera
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The removal of Taiwan is not at all comparable to the situation with the United States today. Besides, expulsion might not even be the preferred tool for dealing with the US problem. If the objective is simply to allow the Council the flexibility it needs to perform the tasks for which it was created, then the focus should be on ways to prevent US obstruction. It is US obstructionism that prevents the Security Council from doing its job, enforcing its resolutions, putting an end to this senseless war, and bringing justice to the Palestinian people. If that can be achieved while retaining Washington’s place on the Council, then that would be a desirable outcome. But is possible?
It is, according to board member of the UN Association-San Francisco chapter, Dan Becker. Here’s what he says:
In the United Nations Charter, the very sentence that establishes the Security Council’s permanent-five veto power ends — surprisingly — in these nine words: “. . . a party to a dispute shall abstain from voting.”
Let’s allow the phrase to sink in for a moment before acknowledging that there is indeed a host of conditions, requirements, litmus tests and hoops to jump through before the phrase can be invoked and applied to a resolution.
But at the same time, it’s also crucial and a bit remarkable to remember that the five permanent members (P5) of the Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — are not exempt. They must abstain as well. So, there it is, this little-known mechanism hiding in plain sight in Article 27 (3)….
An abridged history, according to Security Council Report, an independent publication, explains the requirements needed to invoke this clause:
“Abstentions under Article 27 (3) are mandatory only if all of the following conditions apply: the decision falls under Chapter VI or Article 52 (3) of Chapter VIII; the issue is considered a dispute; a Council member is considered a party to the dispute; and the decision is not procedural in nature.”
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Second is the claim that the U.S. is a “party to the dispute” in Gaza. This is usually invoked because of the sheer mass of arms provided to Israel by Washington… The issue is hotly debated. But some of the many studies regarding this topic are quite exhaustive and keep the claim quite reasonable….
it’s not an academic exercise. Any ability to force a P5 member to abstain should be examined carefully. All eyes are on the U.S. right now, and the suspense is palpable. …
The principle behind this mechanism is clear to any school child. It appeals to our ultimate common sense. If you’re involved in a dispute, under certain situations you should be required to abstain from voting for resolutions about the dispute….
It’s not as if the clause hasn’t been used in the past, most often in the early years of the U.N.
Further examination of the Security Council Report document above clearly shows 12 times that the mandate has been successfully invoked, and 14 times where it was raised or considered but failed. Nevertheless, at one time it was alive and kicking….
The power of digging into this issue has the potential to reap large rewards now and down the line. It could change the calculus in the Council. ….So let’s dust off this phrase in Article 27(3): ” . . . a party to a dispute shall abstain from voting,” carefully study its limits and restrictions, and then make a noise sooner rather than later. Gaza & UN Veto Power, Dan Becker, Consortium News
Let us acknowledge that no “knight in shining armor” is going to sweep into Gaza and save the Palestinians from Israel’s sadistic rampage. That’s not going to happen. The only way this conflict can be brought to a close is if the international community aggressively pursues a strategy in which Washington is sidelined while Israel is isolated, sanctioned and gradually coerced into compliance. UN Security Council Resolution 2735 has already been approved. Now it must be enforced.
Listen to the full speech of our executive director, Yuli Novak, yesterday at the UNSC.
"During this week, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets. They feel angry, desperate and betrayed by their government. They have understood, perhaps for the first time,… pic.twitter.com/aMRf9rTOD9
“Since Israel was founded, its guiding logic has been to promote Jewish supremacy over the entire territory under its control. Yuli Novak, executive Director of B’Tselem
It is an honor to address the Security Council today …. on the state of human rights in Israel-Palestine.
During this week, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets. They feel angry, desperate and betrayed by their government. They have understood, perhaps for the first time, that the Israeli government does not want to return the hostages in a deal, but to continue the war indefinitely.
To understand the Israeli government’s criminal conduct over the last 11 months, you have to understand the overall goal of this regime. Since Israel was founded, its guiding logic has been to promote Jewish supremacy over the entire territory under its control. The current government guidelines state: The Jewish people have an exclusive and unquestionable right to all parts of the land of Israel. In the criminal Hamas led attack on October 7, 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 were taken hostages. Since that day all Israelis have been living in great fear. Our government is cynically exploiting our collective trauma to violently advance its project of cementing Israeli control over the entire land. To do that, it is waging war on the entire Palestinian people – committing war crimes almost daily”.
In Gaza, this has taken the form of expulsion, starvation, killing and destruction on an unprecedented scale. This goes beyond revenge. Israel is using the opportunity to promote an ideological agenda making Gaza uninhabitableas this council has found repeatedly, a vast part of Gaza’s homes and infrastructure has been completely destroyed by driving Palestinians out of entire areas and displacing millions Israel is laying the groundwork for long-term control of Gaza. This could lead to the reestablishment of Israeli settlements there.
In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the government is exploiting the situation to make irreversible changes. Since October, Israel has killed 640 Palestinians including at least 140 minors. Settlers are attacking Palestinians and carrying out pogroms in broad daylight with the support of the government. …
Recently the military launched a huge operation aimed at damaging infrastructure that served hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank. The international community did not stop Israel’s policy of massive harm to civilians in Gaza. Now this cruel policy is spilling over to the West Bank. The war on Palestinians is also happening in prisons. Since October, Israel has arrested thousands of Palestinians and held them in inhumane conditions. Last month we published a report called “Welcome to Hell” which shows the shocking pattern of abuse that amounts to torture. The government of Israel has used the war to turn Israeli prisons into a network of torture camps for Palestinians. This violence is possible because Israel has enjoyed impunity for decades. As long as this impunity continues, the killing and destruction will continue and expand. and fear will continue to rule the land.
The international community has failed its duty to protect civilians. 4 UN Security Council resolutions on the Gaza conflict did not lead to a lasting ceasefire or free the hostages. The risk of regional escalation has grown. Diplomatic efforts did not stop the mass killing of civilians or end the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. The Council must acknowledge this failure and take effective action to compel Israel and Hamas to immediately and permanently cease all hostilities. But de-escalation is only the first step. It is time for the Council to address the opinion of the International Court of Justice on the illegality of Israel’s entire occupation and settlement project. Every day that this Council does not act on the call to end the occupation and apartheid, is another day you are abandoning us, the people of this land who are suffering and dying in tens of thousands needlessly under a cruel and unjust apartheid regime.
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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.
Michael Whitney is a renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace.
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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In commemoration of the 22nd anniversary of 9/11, we repost this article by Ted Walter and the late Prof. Graeme MacQueen, first published in 2020.
Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Editor’s Note
As of the publication of this article, Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth is awaiting a decision from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) regarding the request for correction that AE911Truth and ten family members of 9/11 victims submitted to NIST on April 15, 2020. The request seeks corrections to eight separate items of information in NIST’s 2008 report on the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7, any of which would effectively force NIST to reverse its conclusion that fires caused the building’s destruction.
NIST informed AE911Truth on June 12, 2020, that it was unable to meet its goal of responding within 60 days. Under the procedure governing such requests, NIST must provide a decision within 120 days of the submission, which would fall on August 13, 2020. If NIST elects not to take the corrective action being sought, AE911Truth and its fellow requesters would then have 30 days to file an appeal with NIST. Should NIST fail in any way to comply with the procedure governing requests or should it fail to rectify the information quality violations documented in the request, AE911Truth and its fellow requesters are prepared to take legal action.
In the meantime, AE911Truth is taking one further step toward correcting the record on the destruction of the Twin Towers with the publication of this article. This exhaustive review of 70 hours of 9/11 news coverage reveals that the hypothesis of explosions bringing down the Twin Towers was not only prevalent among reporters covering the events in New York City on 9/11 but was, in fact, the dominant hypothesis.
The widely held belief that the Twin Towers collapsed as a result of the airplane impacts and the resulting fires is, unbeknownst to most people, a revisionist theory. Among individuals who witnessed the event firsthand, the more prevalent hypothesis was that the Twin Towers had been brought down by massive explosions.
This observation was first made 14 years ago in the article, “118 Witnesses: The Firefighters’ Testimony to Explosions in the Twin Towers.” A review of interviews conducted with 503 members of the New York Fire Department (FDNY) in the weeks and months after 9/11 revealed that 118 of them described witnessing what they interpreted that day to be explosions. Only 10 FDNY members were found describing the destruction in ways supportive of the fire-induced collapse hypothesis.
The interviews of fire marshal John Coyle and firefighter Christopher Fenyo explicitly support this finding. Coyle remarked in his interview, “I thought it was exploding, actually. That’s what I thought for hours afterwards. . . . Everybody I think at that point still thought these things were blown up.” Similarly, Fenyo recalled in his interview, “At that point, a debate began to rage [about whether to continue rescue operations in the other, still-standing tower] because the perception was that the building looked like it had been taken out with charges.”
News reporters constitute another group of individuals who witnessed the event firsthand and whose accounts were publicly documented. While many people have seen a smattering of news clips on the internet in which reporters describe explosions, there has never been, as far as we know, a systematic attempt to collect these news clips and analyze them.
We decided to take on this task for two reasons. First, we wanted to know just how prevalent the explosion hypothesis was among reporters. Second, anticipating that this would be the more prevalent hypothesis, we wanted to determine exactly how it was supplanted by the hypothesis of fire-induced collapse.
In this article, we present our findings related to the first question. In a subsequent article, we will examine how the hypothesis of fire-induced collapse so quickly supplanted the originally dominant explosion hypothesis.
Television Coverage Compiled
To determine how prevalent the explosion hypothesis was among reporters, we set out to review as much continuous news coverage as we could find from the major television networks, cable news channels, and local network affiliates covering the events in New York.
Through internet searches, we found continuous news coverage from 11 different television networks, cable news channels, and local network affiliates. These included the networks ABC, CBS, and NBC; cable news channels CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and CNBC; and local network affiliates WABC, WCBS, and WNBC. We also incorporated coverage from New York One (NY1), a New York-based cable news channel owned by Time Warner (now Spectrum), which we grouped with the local network affiliates into a local channel category.
Unfortunately, we were not able to find coverage spanning most of the day for every channel. Thus, while the collection of news coverage we compiled is extensive, it is not comprehensive. To fill in the gaps where possible, we included excerpts of coverage that aired later in the day if we found that coverage to be relevant. We also included one excerpt from USA Today’s coverage that we found to be relevant and three excerpts from an afternoon press conference with Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Governor George Pataki that aired on almost every channel. In general, the times at which these excerpts aired are unknown, though in some cases we were able to identify an approximate time.
The news coverage we compiled and reviewed totaled approximately 70 hours.
Table 1: Television Coverage Compiled
Note: We invite anyone who has portions of the television coverage we were not able to find to send them to us at [email protected]. We will incorporate anything we receive and update this article accordingly. For anyone who wishes to replicate our work, the entire collection of footage can be downloaded here.
Criteria for Defining ‘Explosion’ Versus ‘Non-Explosion’ Reporters
We sought to answer one main question in our review of the news coverage: How many reporters described the occurrence of explosions — both the raw number of reporters and as a percentage of all reporters who covered the Twin Towers’ destruction — and what was the nature of their reporting? To answer this question, we needed to establish clear criteria for identifying what we will call “explosion reporters” and “non-explosion reporters.”
We should make clear that this article addresses the statements of reporters only and does not address the statements of anchors, except for in the case of one anchor (CNN’s Aaron Brown) who had a direct view of the Twin Towers. In our next article, we will address statements made by anchors, who were also interpreting the Twin Towers’ destruction but without having witnessed it firsthand.
Because the airplane impacts were often referred to as explosions, we were careful to exclude any instances where it was not absolutely clear that the reporter was referring only to the destruction of the Twin Towers.
As we studied the news coverage and began to recognize patterns in how the Twin Towers’ destruction was reported, we developed three separate categories of reporting that would classify someone as an “explosion reporter”: (1) eyewitness reporting, (2) narrative reporting, and (3) source-based reporting. Below we provide definitions of each.
Eyewitness Reporting
“Eyewitness reporting” is when a reporter is an eyewitness with a direct view of or in close proximity to the destruction of one or both of the Twin Towers and perceives an explosion or explosions in conjunction with the destruction — or perceives one or both of the towers as exploding, blowing up, blowing, or erupting. Although we usually excluded the word “boom,” which could apply either to an explosion or to a collapse, we included it in one case because the totality of what the reporter (Nina Pineda) described indicated that she viewed the event as being explosion-based.
We did not include reporters who described only a “shaking” or “trembling” of the ground. The perception of the ground shaking was widespread and constitutes important eyewitness evidence, but it does not necessarily reveal much about how the reporter interpreted what she or he was witnessing. Among reporters who mentioned demolition, we excluded the ones who merely compared the destruction to a demolition whenever it was clear that the reporter believed it to be a collapse caused by structural failure. We also excluded reporters who used the word “implode” or “implosion” whenever it was clear that the reporter used it to describe the building collapsing in on itself, as opposed to a demolition.
Here is an example of eyewitness reporting:
David Lee Miller, Fox News, 10:01 AM:
“Suddenly, while talking to an officer who was questioning me about my press credentials, we heard a very loud blast, an explosion. We looked up, and the building literally began to collapse before us. . . . Not clear now is why this explosion took place. Was it because of the planes that, uh, two planes, dual attacks this morning, or was there some other attack, which is — there has been talk of here on the street.”
Narrative Reporting
“Narrative reporting” is when a reporter refers to the Twin Towers’ destruction as an explosion-based event when speaking of it in the course of his or her reporting. This could be a reporter who was an eyewitness to the destruction or a reporter who otherwise understood the destruction to be an explosion-based event.
The main distinction between eyewitness reporting and narrative reporting is that eyewitness reporting involves an eyewitness describing his or her direct perceptions, often uttering them spontaneously, while narrative reporting involves interpretation and/or outside influence, either of which inform the reporter’s developing narrative of what took place. (In several cases, reporters go from engaging in eyewitness reporting around the time of the destruction to engaging in narrative reporting later on, with their direct perceptions informing their developing narrative).
This distinction is not meant to imply that one type of reporting is more valuable or reliable than another. In this analysis, eyewitness reporting tells us about what reporters perceived and immediately interpreted during, or shortly after, the event. It thus gives us more information about the actual event. Narrative reporting, by contrast, tells us how reporters interpreted the event after having more time to process their perceptions and to synthesize additional information from other sources. Narrative reporting thus tells us about the collective narrative that was developing among reporters covering the event.
Here is an example of narrative reporting:
George Stephanopoulos, ABC, 12:27 PM:
“Well, Peter, I’m going to give you kind of a pool report from several of our correspondents down here of basically what happened down here in downtown New York between 9:45 and 10:45 when the two explosions and the collapse of the World Trade Center happened. At the time, I was actually in the subway heading towards the World Trade Center right around Franklin Street. And after the first explosion the subway station started to fill with smoke. The subway cars started to fill with smoke, and the subways actually stopped. They then diverted us around the World Trade Center to Park Place, which is one stop beyond the World Trade Center. We got to that train station at around 10:35, Peter, and it was a scene unlike I’ve ever seen before in my entire life.”
Source-based Reporting
“Source-based reporting” is when a reporter reports on the possible use of explosives based on information from government officials who said they suspected that explosives were used to bring down the Twin Towers.
Source-based reporting is similar to narrative reporting in that it involves outside influence. The main distinction is that source-based reporting is based on information from government sources. Information from government sources inherently indicates how government agencies were interpreting the event and is sometimes given extra weight by reporters and viewers.
Here is an example of source-based reporting:
Pat Dawson, NBC, 11:55 AM:
“Just moments ago I spoke to the Chief of Safety for the New York City Fire Department . . . [He] told me that shortly after 9 o’clock he had roughly 10 alarms, roughly 200 men in the building trying to effect rescues of some of those civilians who were in there, and that basically he received word of a possibility of a secondary device— that is, another bomb going off. He tried to get his men out as quickly as he could, but he said that there was another explosion which took place. And then an hour after the first hit here, the first crash that took place, he said there was another explosion that took place in one of the towers here. So obviously, according to his theory, he thinks that there were actually devices that were planted in the building. . . . But the bottom line is that, according to the Chief of Safety of the New York City Fire Department, he says that he probably lost a great many men in those secondary explosions. And he said that there were literally hundreds if not thousands of people in those two towers when the explosions took place.”
Non-Explosion Reporters
The main criterion we developed for classifying someone as a “non-explosion reporter” was that she or he reported on the destruction of one or both of the Twin Towers and did not engage in any of the types of explosion reporting defined above. To qualify as a non-explosion reporter, it was not necessary for the reporter to explicitly articulate the fire-induced collapse hypothesis. The mere absence of explosion reporting was enough to classify someone as a non-explosion reporter.
The challenge here lay not in identifying the absence of explosion reporting but in defining what constituted “reporting on the destruction.” In the end, we decided this should mean that the reporter had to describe the event of the destruction and not simply mention it in passing.
We should note that a reporter’s use of the word “collapse” did not necessarily qualify that person as a non-explosion reporter. Many explosion reporters described the occurrence of an explosion followed by collapse and they used the word “collapse” in their reporting (David Lee Miller, quoted above, is a prime example). Thus, use of the word “collapse” is not incompatible with being an explosion reporter and did not qualify someone as a non-explosion reporter.
Also, if a reporter made a statement that qualified him or her as an explosion reporter and then subsequently made a statement explicitly supporting the fire-induced collapse hypothesis (which is the case for WABC’s Joe Torres), we classified this reporter as an explosion reporter because he or she engaged in some explosion reporting at some point during the day. In this analysis, being classified as an “explosion reporter” does not imply a permanent stance. Rather, it just means that at some point in the day he or she reported the occurrence of explosions or the possible use of explosives in relation to the Twin Towers’ destruction.
Before we move on to the next section, it is important to note that because non-explosion reporters had to describe the event of the destruction and not simply mention it in passing, the only way to make a valid numerical comparison between explosion reporters and non-explosion reporters is to include only those who engaged in eyewitness reporting. According to the criteria we developed, explosion reporters who engaged in narrative reporting were not describing the event of the destruction but rather were referring to it as an explosion-based event in the course of their reporting, i.e., in passing. A comparable classification does not exist for non-explosion reporters, because we excluded those who only mentioned the event in passing (most commonly using the word “collapse”).
Numerical Analysis of ‘Explosion’ and ‘Non-Explosion’ Reporters
In total, we identified 36 explosion reporters and four non-explosion reporters in the approximately 70 hours of news coverage we reviewed. The 36 explosion reporters and their statements are listed in Appendix A. The four non-explosion reporters and their statements are listed in Appendix B. In addition, there were three borderline cases that we determined could not be clearly classified as either explosion or non-explosion reporters. Those cases are listed in Appendix C.
Of the 36 explosion reporters, 21 of them engaged in eyewitness reporting, 22 of them engaged in narrative reporting, and three of them engaged in source-based reporting. Recalling our definitions from above, this means the following:
21 reporters witnessed what they perceived as an explosion or explosions during the destruction of the Twin Towers or they perceived the Twin Towers as exploding, blowing up, blowing, or erupting.
22 reporters (eight of whom also fall into the eyewitness reporting category) referred to the Twin Towers’ destruction as an explosion or an explosion-based event when speaking of it in the course of their reporting.
Three reporters (two of whom also fall into the narrative reporting category) reported on the possible use of explosives based on information from government officials who said they suspected that explosives were used to bring down the Twin Towers.
Four reporters reported on the destruction of the Twin Towers and did not report explosions in any way (either having witnessed explosions, having interpreted the destruction as being an explosion-based event, or having been informed by government officials about the possible use of explosives).
In terms of the percentage of explosion and non-explosion reporters, 21 of the 25 reporters who directly witnessed the destruction of the Twin Towers, or 84%, either perceived an explosion or explosions or they perceived the Twin Towers as exploding, blowing up, blowing, or erupting. In comparison, four of the 25 reporters who directly witnessed the destruction of the Twin Towers, or 16%, did not report explosions in any way.
The tables below list each reporter and each instance of reporting according to the time at which each report was made.
Table 2A: Eyewitness Reporting by Explosion Reporters
Table 2B: Narrative Reporting by Explosion Reporters
*These reporters also engaged in eyewitness reporting.
Table 2C: Source-based Reporting by Explosion Reporters
*These reporters also engaged in narrative reporting.
Table 2D: Non-Explosion Reporters
How Reporters Reported the Twin Towers’ Destruction
The picture that unmistakably emerges is that the great majority of reporters who witnessed the destruction of the Twin Towers either perceived an explosion or perceived the towers as exploding. This hypothesis of the Twin Towers’ destruction then continued to be prevalent among reporters covering the event, who essentially viewed the destruction of the towers as an explosion-based attack subsequent to the airplane strikes. We learn from the source-based reporting that the same hypothesis was also held by officials in the FDNY, the New York Police Department (NYPD), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) — three of the most important agencies involved in the response to the attacks. In particular, with regard to the FBI, we are told the explosion hypothesis was the agency’s “working theory” as of late in the afternoon on 9/11.
Unlike members of the FDNY, most of whom provided their accounts during interviews conducted weeks or months after the event, it was the job of reporters to spontaneously communicate their perception and interpretation of events. Thus, when their reporting is compiled into one record, we are left with a rich and largely unfiltered collective account of what took place. Considered alongside the FDNY oral histories, these reporters’ statements, in our view, constitute strong corroborating evidence that explosives were used to destroy the Twin Towers.
Regarding the four non-explosion reporters, in addition to the fact that there are so few of them, we find that their individual accounts add little support to the fire-induced collapse hypothesis.
Two of the reporters were quite far away from the Twin Towers at the time of their destruction relative to most of the explosion reporters: Drew Millhon was “about 10 to 12 blocks north of the World Trade Center,” at the intersection of Varick Street and Canal Street, while Bob Bazell was at St. Vincent’s hospital on West 12th Street, approximately two miles from the World Trade Center. Meanwhile, Don Dahler, the only reporter who explicitly articulated the fire-induced collapse hypothesis, nonetheless likened the South Tower’s destruction to a controlled demolition, saying: “The entire building has just collapsed as if a demolition team set off — when you see the old demolitions of these old buildings.” The fourth non-explosion reporter, John Zito, was quite close to the South Tower when it came down. He did not describe an explosion, but he also did not attribute the destruction to a fire-induced collapse. It is worth noting that Ron Insana, whom Zito was with, vividly described seeing the building “exploding” and “blowing” and hearing a “noise associated with an implosion.”
Conclusion
Returning to the first question posed at the top of this article, we conclude that the hypothesis of explosions bringing down the Twin Towers was not only prevalent among reporters but was, in fact, the dominant hypothesis.
Furthermore, the 21 instances of eyewitness reporting, all of which contain spontaneous descriptions of the phenomena the reporters witnessed, strongly corroborate the overwhelming scientific evidence that explosives were used to destroy the Twin Towers.
In a subsequent article, we will examine how the hypothesis of fire-induced collapse so quickly supplanted the originally dominant explosion hypothesis.
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Appendix A: Statements by 36 Explosion Reporters
These statements are organized by channel in the same order as presented in Table 1. Within each channel, they are organized chronologically based on the time of the first noted statement by each reporter.
1. George Stephanopoulos, ABC
12:27 PM, Narrative Reporting
“Well, Peter, I’m going to give you kind of a pool report from several of our correspondents down here of basically what happened down here in downtown New York between 9:45 and 10:45 when the two explosions and the collapse of the World Trade Center happened. At the time, I was actually in the subway heading towards the World Trade Center, right around Franklin Street. And after the first explosion the subway station started to fill with smoke. The subway cars started to fill with smoke, and the subways actually stopped. They then diverted us around the World Trade Center to Park Place, which is one stop beyond the World Trade Center. We got to that train station at around 10:35, Peter, and it was a scene unlike I’ve ever seen before in my entire life. As we tried to get out of the subway station and walk up into the street, it was pitch black, midnight black, snowing soot all down through downtown Manhattan. This was about two blocks from the World Trade Center. You couldn’t see a foot in front of your face at that time.”
2. Cynthia McFadden, ABC
5:56 PM, Narrative Reporting
“We’ve been told that all victims now who are taken out of the blast site are going to be taken here first. . . . Part of the problem initially was that when the first rescue workers went in — and we have talked to some of them, some of the second wave of rescue workers — the first wave of rescue workers who went in were trapped, many of them killed by the second blast. . . . There have been hundreds of people at area hospitals, as you note. But they don’t believe that anywhere near the full weight of this has yet been uncovered, that there are hundreds and thousands of people who have been injured in this blast, and that’s the people that they expect to bring here.”
3. Harold Dow, CBS
10:05 AM, Eyewitness Reporting
“Yes, I arrived on the scene about an hour and a half ago. Believe it or not, there was another major explosion. The building itself, literally the top of it came down, sending smoke and debris everywhere. I tried to run to get away from all of the debris. A number of other people here are trapped in the subway here in a shoe store, trying to get away from most of the debris. It’s just an incredible sight.”
4. Tom Flynn, CBS
11:03, Eyewitness Reporting
“At that time, maybe 45 minutes into the taping that we were doing, which was maybe a half hour after, there was — it was an explosion. It was way up where the fire was. And the whole building at that point bellied out in flames, and everybody ran.”
5. Mika Brzezinski, CBS
11:15 AM, Eyewitness Reporting
“Dan, we’re three blocks from the scene and we saw it all after the first two hits. We saw the explosion and also the collapse of the tower.”
6. Pat Dawson, NBC
11:55 AM, Source-based Reporting
“Just moments ago I spoke to the Chief of Safety for the New York City Fire Department, who was obviously one of the first people here on the scene after those two planes were crashed into the side — we assume — of the World Trade Center towers, which used to be behind me over there. Chief Albert Turi told me that he was here just literally 10 or 15 minutes after the events that took place this morning, that is, the first crash. . . . [He] told me that shortly after 9 o’clock he had roughly 10 alarms, roughly 200 men in the building trying to effect rescues of some of those civilians who were in there, and that basically he received word of a possibility of a secondary device — that is, another bomb going off. He tried to get his men out as quickly as he could, but he said that there was another explosion which took place. And then an hour after the first hit here, the first crash that took place, he said there was another explosion that took place in one of the towers here. So obviously, according to his theory, he thinks that there were actually devices that were planted in the building. One of the secondary devices he thinks, that took place after the initial impact, he thinks may have been on the plane that crashed into one of the towers. The second device he thinks, he speculates, was probably planted in the building. So that’s what we have been told by Albert Turi, who is the Chief of Safety for the New York City Fire Department. He told me that just moments ago. . . . But the bottom line is that, according to the Chief of Safety of the New York City Fire Department, he says that he probably lost a great many men in those secondary explosions. And he said that there were literally hundreds if not thousands of people in those two towers when the explosions took place.”
3:02 PM, Narrative Reporting
Dawson asks a police officer: “How would you describe your efforts to organize to the rescue effort now, given that we saw a sequence of events this morning? A sequence of crashes, then explosions, and then the collapses.”
7. Anne Thompson, NBC
12:43 PM, Eyewitness Reporting
“And I was walking on Broadway at Fulton, and suddenly we heard an explosion. It was the first tower coming down. And down Broadway you could just see this wall of debris flying at us. . . . It looked like a war zone. Debris, dust ankle deep, cars on fire, cars turned askew in the explosion. . . . Then at about 10:30 it looked like everything was all clear. I started to walk out. I walked down Broadway towards Canal. And we heard the second explosion. . . . At that point a fireman came into the building and said we all had to stay in one place. He then told us all to get out of the building because they felt if there was a third explosion that this building would be in danger.”
8. Aaron Brown, CNN
Note: Although Aaron Brown is a news anchor, we include him among the explosion reporters because he was positioned outside and witnessed the events directly, and his direct perception played a major role in his evolving interpretation of the event.
9:59 AM, Eyewitness Reporting
“Wow! Jamie. Jamie, I need you to stop for a second. There has just been a huge explosion. We can see a billowing smoke rising. And I can’t — I’ll tell you that I can’t see that second tower. But there was a cascade of sparks and fire and now this…it looks almost like a mushroom cloud, explosion, this huge, billowing smoke in the second tower. This was the second of the two towers hit. And I, you know, I cannot see behind that smoke obviously, as you can’t either. The first tower in front has not changed. And we see this extraordinarily (sic) and frightening scene behind us of this second tower now just encased in smoke. What is behind it…I cannot tell you. But just look at that. That is about as frightening a scene as you will ever see.”
10:02 AM, Eyewitness Reporting
“Again, there has been a second explosion here in Manhattan at the Trade Center. We are getting reports that a part of the tower, the second tower, the one a bit further to the south of us, has collapsed. We are checking on that. . . . What we can tell you is that just in the last several minutes here — two or three minutes — a second or third, I guess, technically, extraordinary event has happened here in lower Manhattan. You can see this extraordinary plume of smoke that is, or was at least, the second tower of the World Trade Center.”
9. Rose Arce, CNN
10:29 AM, Eyewitness Reporting
“I’m about a block away. And there were several people that were hanging out the windows right below where the plane crashed, when suddenly you saw the top of the building start to shake, and people began leaping from the windows in the north side of the building. You saw two people at first plummet and then a third one, and then the entire top of the building just blew up, and splinters of debris are falling on the street.”
10:50 AM, Narrative Reporting
“It looks like a large chunk of that debris has hit a building very close by, about two blocks away next to an elementary school, causing another explosion. . . . So as people are coming up the street running from the scene of this new explosion you can see them slipping on the ash and literally having to drag each other up the street.”
Note: We include Rose Arce’s statement at 10:50 AM as narrative reporting because it indicates that she initially perceived and then continued to interpret the destruction of the Twin Towers as explosions.
12:26 PM, Narrative Reporting
“As you walk through the ash you can see debris from inside the World Trade Center itself, a very eerie scene, pieces of paper from people’s desks, office supplies many, many blocks from the site the actual explosion where they now are fearing that there may be yet another explosion because of this potential gas leak.”
10:43 PM, Eyewitness Reporting
“People were rushing to the windows. They were taking clothes — one thing looked like a blanket that they were waving — and then suddenly there was another, an explosion, and you saw folks start to jump out the front window of the building and plunge. I saw at least six people do this. Folks were pushing each other. Some people were screaming for help and then just falling out.”
10. Patty Sabga, CNN
10:57 AM, Eyewitness Reporting
“About an hour ago I was on the corner of Broadway and Park Place — that’s about a thousand yards from the World Trade Center — when the first tower collapsed. It was a massive explosion. At the time the police were trying desperately to evacuate people from the area. When that explosion occurred it was like a scene out of a horror film.”
10:59 AM, Narrative Reporting
“The scene was like a ghost town in the Financial District. Very eerie. You saw people being wheeled on gurneys away from the site of the explosion. . . . Now, at the time I was back on the corner again of Broadway and Park Place. At that time, the police started running toward us telling everybody to move who was left on the street. I looked up and that’s when I heard the — [coughs] pardon me — that’s when I heard the explosion. That’s when the second tower came down.”
11. Alan Dodds Frank, CNN
11:07 AM, Narrative Reporting
“Aaron, just two or three minutes ago there was yet another collapse or explosion. . . . But at a quarter to 11:00 there was another collapse or explosion following the 10:30 collapse of the second Tower. And a firefighter who rushed by us estimated that 50 stories went down. The street filled with smoke. It was like a forest fire roaring down a canyon.”
Note: We include Alan Dodds Frank’s statement at 11:07 AM as narrative reporting because it indicates that he interpreted the destruction of the Twin Towers as possibly being an explosion-based event.
12. David Lee Miller, Fox News
10:01 AM, Eyewitness Reporting
“Jon, the scene is horrific. One of the two towers literally collapsed. I was making my way to the foot of the World Trade Center. Suddenly, while talking to an officer who was questioning me about my press credentials, we heard a very loud blast, an explosion. We looked up, and the building literally began to collapse before us. . . . And I am now standing in a black cloud of smoke. . . . I’m on a pay phone on the street right now and I literally cannot see more than quarter-block away. That’s how thick the smoke is. I’m on Murray Street and West Broadway for those who know Lower Manhattan. Not clear now is why this explosion took place. Was it because of the planes that, uh, two planes, dual attacks this morning, or was there some other attack which is — there has been talk of here on the street.”
10:32 AM, Eyewitness Reporting
“Jon, just seconds ago there was a huge explosion, and it appears right now the second World Trade tower has just collapsed.”
13. Rick Leventhal, Fox News
10:05 AM, Eyewitness Reporting
He asks a police officer: “Do you know if it was an explosion or if it was a building collapse?”
Then he asks: “How many people would you say were on the ground when the building exploded or collapsed?”
10:06 AM, Eyewitness Reporting
“When the building did collapse — or whatever it was that happened — it was a huge explosion, a huge rumbling cloud of smoke and fire came a cross Church Street and started billowing this way. . . The FBI is here, as you can see. They had roped this area off. They were taking photographs and securing this area just prior to that huge explosion that we all heard and felt.”
10:12 AM, Eyewitness Reporting
“And we were standing here when there was some sort of collapse or explosion and everyone started running in this direction.”
14. Ashleigh Banfield, MSNBC
9:59 AM, Eyewitness Reporting
Chris Jansing (news anchor): “It does appear that there has been a third explosion in the area of the World Trade Center. There was first one plane that hit one of the Twin Towers. A second plane, each about one hour ago. And now a third explosion. Ashleigh Banfield is in Manhattan. Ashleigh, did you see or hear anything just moments ago?”
Ashleigh Banfield: “God. Oh my god, Chris, this is incredible. I’m looking right at it.”
Jansing: “What are you seeing, Ashleigh?”
Banfield: “Well, I saw the explosion, for one.”
Jansing: “Could you feel it?”
Banfield: “I can smell it. Everyone around screamed at the time it happened. It’s just unbelievable. I can’t see that it’s another building. It looks almost in the same position as the second bomb, or second explosion. It’s unbelievable.”
Jansing: “What’s the scene around you? What are people doing?
Banfield: “Most people, as I said earlier, are absolutely aghast.
Jansing: “Are they running?”
Banfield: “No one’s running. No, I’m not close enough at this point to be seeing that. I wouldn’t be showered with debris from my position here. I’m too far north of it. But I have a bird’s eye view of what’s happening. The route that I’m on is the emergency route right now, so all of the emergency vehicles are streaming past us. But as I was looking up I saw the entire explosion. It looked exactly like the first two. Unbelievable. And everyone who watched it around me screamed. It was just a chorus of “oh my gods” from everyone standing around. I’m walking, so what I’m hearing are a lot of people whose cars are parked, who’ve got their radios tuned to local news stations and trying to catch up on just exactly what’s happening. But now I’m seeing people running. But I really don’t think they’re running from the area. We’re too far away to be in the direct line of any debris. But we certainly had the most perfect vantage point for that explosion. It was unbelievable. And the smoke now is so thick. It’s just incredible.”
10:54 AM, Narrative Reporting
“Well, we just heard another explosion go off a couple minutes ago, Chris, and saw a bunch more people sort of running this way. A woman on her bike was screaming as it went off. And there was a New York City officer who was plain-clothed walking by with a radio. I tried to stop him to ask what happened. And all he said was ‘car bomb, car bomb.’ And then I couldn’t ask him for any information. He said, ‘I have no time for this.’ We haven’t seen anything since. But the cloud of smoke is still extremely thick right around the direct vicinity of the World Trade Center. I am now about, I’d say — what do you say, we’re about five or 10 blocks north of it now? About five or 10 blocks north of it, and just unbelievably the sun has come out. There’s blue sky above us. We started with sheer blackness. When that cloud of debris and of smoke came out, when the explosion happened, we couldn’t see anything, we couldn’t breathe. We tried to make our way a few blocks up and we’ve made contact with some other NBC crew here.”
10:55 AM, Narrative Reporting
“It’s terrifying here, Chris. When that last bomb — or when that last collapse happened, and the cloud came out, it was like something out of Hollywood. . . . It’s really eerie seeing the people who got caught in that blast, because everyone looks like a ghost.”
1:35 PM, Narrative Reporting
“What did you see in the epicenter when you came out of that explosion?”
1:36 PM, Narrative Reporting
“At the very start of the day when this happened, we were right in the epicenter where the explosion was. Right now I’m covered in the debris and the dust from the explosion itself. I was hit with a cloud of debris and smoke.”
1:37 PM, Narrative Reporting
“That is 7 World Trade Center. Apparently on the south side, that’s the side that’s not facing us, about halfway way up it’s still burning pretty badly, because it was rocked with a lot of the explosion from the force of the Twin World Trade Centers, when they came down. A large concern is what’s going to happen with that brown building now, which is why we keep getting moved further and further north. You can see people down on the street moving towards us. Even media who originally were allowed to have more sort of free rein to report this story, we’re being pushed out as well as, because there was some concern that there might be additional explosions, possibly other bombs.”
15. Rick Sanchez, MSNBC
10:52 AM, Narrative Reporting
“You have to understand that when this first happened, they certainly didn’t imagine that there would be second or tertiary explosions. So they parked some of their vehicles in those areas. And many of those vehicles — people in those vehicles have lost their lives.”
11:26 AM, Narrative Reporting
“Well, we’ve been told, as matter of fact moments ago, to try and get out of this area, because they’re moving everyone out. And the fear is, of course, that there are gas leaks, natural gas in this area that either fed into or out of the buildings that have exploded. And now those lines are open and may rupture.”
12:07 PM, Source-based Reporting
“Well, I’m in that area, if you’re familiar with this area of where West Broadway and Hudson come together, right at Chambers. That would put us about a block and a half away from the site of where the explosion was. That area has just been evacuated because police have found what they describe as a suspicious device. They fear that it might be something that could lead to another explosion. Obviously, there’s a real sense of caution here on the part of police. I spoke with some police officials moments ago, Chris. And they told me that they have reason to believe that one of the explosions at the World Trade Center — aside from the ones that may have been caused by the impact of the plane with the building — may have been caused by a van that was parked in the building that may have had some type of explosive device in it. So their fear is that there may have been explosive devices planted either in the building or in the adjacent area. And that’s why they’re being so cautious in this vicinity right now.”
12:09 PM, Narrative Reporting
“This is why it’s so difficult for them in this area where we are. Imagine, they came here originally to deal with a crisis. They set up some command centers, and they had many of their chiefs and many of their supervisors in the area of the building. The second and third explosions literally have wreaked havoc on those field forces and those command centers. So they’ve had to back up. And now they’re trying to see how they can approach it again.”
16. John Bussey, CNBC Contributor, Wall Street Journal Reporter
11:52 AM, Eyewitness Reporting
“I was getting ready to talk with Haines [inaudible], and the fire was raging in both buildings. I looked up at the south building, the second World Trade Center to be hit, and explosions were coming down the building. It looked as if charges had been set on each floor and they were in succession going off. Now, this is probably not what was happening. It just looked that way to me. The building just blew out floor by floor, and it probably had something to do with the structural damage that was done by the planes hitting it. When I saw the floor-by-floor explosions happening, I dove out of the office where I was because the windows looked directly over the World Trade Center. We are in the World Financial Center directly across West Street from the two Trade Centers. By the time I came up from under a desk where I sought shelter, the entire floor, the entire room where I was completely dense with cement and smoke. You could not see.”
Note: Here Bussey has started to interpret the phenomena he witnessed as the building simply collapsing. However, it is clear from this and from his other accounts of the event (Source 1, Source 2) that his initial interpretation was that explosives were destroying the building.
11:55 AM, Narrative Reporting
“We were so close to the building that you could feel it hitting your shoulder as it rained down. But we were on the safe side of the building — much, much safer than where the firefighters were on the other side of the building, exposed directly to the explosion.”
Note: Here Bussey has started to interpret the phenomena he witnessed as the building simply collapsing. However, it is clear from this and from his other accounts of the event (Source 1, Source 2) that his initial interpretation was that explosives were destroying the building.
11:55 AM, Narrative Reporting
“We were so close to the building that you could feel it hitting your shoulder as it rained down. But we were on the safe side of the building — much, much safer than where the firefighters were on the other side of the building, exposed directly to the explosion.”
17. Ron Insana, CNBC
12:41 PM, Eyewitness Reporting
“Well, I was heading down after we had learned of it, about 9:00 or 8:55 this morning, I had called in to see if we should go down and aid the coverage. And I was on my way down. We got fairly close to the building, and I ran into a camera man from MSNBC and we were trying to get across town past the World Trade Center to the Westside Highway, which is on the lower southwest corner of Manhattan to hook up with our colleagues from CNBC. And as we were going across one of the restricted zones, the building started to explode, I guess the only way I could describe it. It was hard to tell if it was an actual explosion, but the building began to come down. . . . We heard, we heard — I wouldn’t call it an explosion. We did notice that the building began to blow at the top, and that material began to come down. . . . And as we turned to run, material just began to fall. And like that scene in Independence Day, where wind was just whipping down the street in the wake of an explosion, that’s exactly what we experienced. It went down the street, curved around corners, and blew with a fair degree of intensity, again, Tyler, until the sky was completely black.”
1:08 PM, Eyewitness Reporting (appearing on NBC)
“As we were moving towards the building we saw the top begin to blow out in a plume of smoke. And we heard the noise associated with an implosion.”
18. Bob Pisani, CNBC
2:42 PM, Narrative Reporting
“And the real panic, I think in my mind, occurred, Maria, I was outside when you were when the second explosion occurred, because so many people had been attracted to what was going on. The explosion threw debris on top of a lot of people. That was when the real panic began.”
19. N.J. Burkett, WABC
9:59 AM (unknown air time), Eyewitness Reporting
“And you can see the two towers — a huge explosion now raining debris on all of us! We better get out of the way!”
20. Michelle Charlesworth, WABC
10:10 AM, Eyewitness and Narrative Reporting
“I can only hope that people got out of the area on the sidewalks below the South Tower before it came tumbling down. But it literally exploded and came down as though it had been hit. Plumes of smoke moving out into the harbor. . . . To give you some idea of where I am, I’m approximately 20, 30 blocks from where this latest explosion just happened.”
21. Nina Pineda, WABC
10:17 AM, Eyewitness Reporting
Bill Ritter: “Nina, I want you to describe one more time what it felt like when that tower collapsed. What did it feel like to you on the ground there?”
Nina Pineda: “We were standing probably about three blocks away advancing toward the scene to try and gather some photos and some videotape. And it felt like the entire ground shook. It felt like what it feels like to be in an earthquake. The ground was shaking followed by plumes and plumes of overwhelming smoke and flying debris, ash, and pieces of the building. As the ground was shaking . . .”
Lori Stokes: “Was there sound?”
Pineda: “There was a tremendous booming sound, and then it just felt like a rumbling. But it didn’t sound like an explosion. It sounded like a loud rumbling. And then the next thing we saw were the streets — the way the streets looked were just overcome by smoke, just plumes and plumes of smoke like a bomb had gone off, coming up the street as people were racing to get in front of these clouds of smoke, and not doing too good of a job.”
10:18 AM, Narrative Reporting
“And what were doing when the explosion happened was shooting pieces of the plane. There are pieces of the plane on Church Street.”
10:19 AM, Narrative Reporting
“Seconds before the explosion happened there was another kind of a renewed interest in really getting people away. Because, of course, out of curiosity everyone’s trying to get pictures of the World Trade Center on fire. They started screaming, ‘Get back! Get back! There’s another explosion happening.’ I guess they were being warned on their radios that the top was going to come down, because it was burning for the better part of half an hour. And they screamed to get people back. They started screaming, ‘Leave Manhattan if possible. Everybody leave Manhattan if possible.’”
Unknown time, Narrative Reporting
Pineda: “The ladies that are with me were in the World Trade Center in the first building and escaped through the lobby where they report that they believe there was a bomb in the lobby.”
Michelle Scott (witness): “And even the turnstile was burnt and it was sticking. And they just told us to run.”
Igarlow Sweezer (witness): “And we were coming out, we passed the lobby, there was no lobby. So I believe the bomb hit the lobby first, and a couple of seconds and the first plane hit.”
Unknown time, Narrative Reporting
“If you can see behind me, this a moment ago you could see all the way through. But from that last explosion that Jeff Rossen was telling us about, it is now again dark. It was strangely and eerily calm here in the Financial District because everything’s been evacuated.”
Unknown time, Narrative Reporting
“The only thing left in the street are people’s shoes as they ran out of their shoes to escape the fire bombs and the explosions.”
22. Cheryl Fiandaca, WABC
10:38 AM, Eyewitness Reporting
“I was right next to the South Tower. I was about two blocks away. It was just a small explosion, and then rocks and debris and everything started pouring down.”
Unknown time shortly after 10:38 AM, Eyewitness and Narrative Reporting
“Right, we were about two blocks away when the second explosion hit. And all we heard was just a small explosion. And then we saw a roar of an explosion, and all kinds smoke coming billowing out, debris falling down, people running, the firefighters and police screaming at everyone to run as the debris was coming down and hitting people.”
23. Joe Torres, WABC
Unknown Air Time, Eyewitness Reporting
“Ten o’clock this morning, photographer Glenn Mayrose and I, along with FBI agents, police officers, fire officials, we all thought for sure a bomb was set to explode underneath our feetoutside 7 World Trade Center. We took off running for our lives north on Church Street. We had no idea the top of one of the Twin Towers had just exploded. . . . As others looked back in shock and horror, we started another interview with a Port Authority engineer who worked at World Trade Center and spoke to us about the strength and integrity of the skyscrapers. Then, suddenly, the second tower erupted right before our eyes.”
24. Carol Marin, CBS Reporter appearing on WCBS
10:59 AM, Narrative Reporting
Carol Marin: “After the second tower went down, I was trying to make my way to a CBS crew or to try to help CBS crews if I could. And then, I don’t know what it was, John. But another explosion, a rolling blast of fire, a rolling column of fire towards us. My respect for fire and police already knew no bounds given the danger, it now exceeds what I thought it could, because a firefighter threw me into the wall of a building, covered me with his body as the flames approached us. And another police officer in New York named Brendan Duke, wherever he is, got me through smoke that neither one of us could see more than about a foot ahead of us. There are still people in there. Excuse me, I’ve breathed a fair amount of soot. The personnel, the police and the fire working in there are doing so against really dangerous odds. And they still don’t know if there’s something left to explode, John.”
John Slattery: “Where were you at the time?
Marin: “I was — not being a New Yorker, you’ll have to help me here. I came around Stuyvesant High School, and that street at the north end. And I came up and asked if anyone had seen a CBS crew. And I was directed by a firefighter who said, ‘Walk down the middle of the road, because you don’t know what’s going to come down.’ At which point, we heard a rumble like I’ve never heard before, and a firefighter ran towards me. We ran as fast as we could. I lost my shoes. I fell down. He picked me up and slammed me into a wall and covered me with him until we could make it more to safety.”
John Slattery: “Was this from the first rolling blast or the second?”
Carol Marin: “John, I looked at my watch. It was about 10:44, is what my watch said. So it was after the second tower, I think the second tower explosion.”
Note: The focus of Marin’s account is one of several widely corroborated explosions that occurred between 10:38 AM and 11:30 AM after both towers had come down. However, Marin’s reporting qualifies her as an explosion reporter in regard to the Twin Towers because she references “the second tower explosion,” and it is clear she interprets the towers’ destruction as an explosion-based event.
25. John Slattery, WCBS
11:44 AM, Narrative Reporting
“There were many tears. There was an awful lot of anguish. And then, with subsequent explosions, and when a portion of World Trade 1 hit the ground, there was an enormous burst, a cloud of smoke and debris that started moving north.”
26. Marcella Palmer, WCBS
Unknown time, Eyewitness Reporting
Marcella Palmer: “We heard another explosion. And I’m assuming that’s the one that came from the lower level, since there were two.”
Unidentified Anchor: “Right, because it was like 18 minutes apart?”
Palmer: “Well, this is — no, the first explosion, then there was a second explosion in the same building. There were two explosions.”
27. Vince DeMentri, WCBS
Unknown time, Narrative Reporting
“Very difficult to breathe, but look around. This must have been Ground Zero where this thing blew up. Car after car after car, buses, completely burned and obliterated straight down to the steel.”
28. Walter Perez, WNBC
9:59 AM, Eyewitness Reporting
“We’re not sure exactly what happened, but it was another explosion on the far side of one of the buildings from where we’re standing. The reverberation — and another explosion on the right-hand side! Another building has gone up on the right-hand side of the road. People are now running down the street. We’re not sure if that was another explosion or if that was advanced debris.”
10:00 AM, Eyewitness Reporting
“At this point, as you can tell, there’s absolute pandemonium in this area because of what has just happened. Exactly what, I can’t confirm. But on the far side of the building, there seemed to be another explosion and also on the right-hand side, there was also another explosion. We’re not sure if that was extra reverberation from what happened at the World Trade Center or if that was an added explosion. At this point, there’s a lot of smoke, massive plumes of smoke falling from the building across the street. People that were running down the street or walking are now running away. We don’t have any information as far as what the most recent reverberations were. But from two blocks away you could feel what happened.”
10:27 AM, Eyewitness Reporting
“As you can imagine, it was a pretty frenzied scene here. Just a few moments ago, I’d say about 20 minutes ago, we’re not sure exactly what it was, we have not confirmed it. But something either exploded or fell off the side of the one building that was attacked and caused a massive plume of smoke.”
29. Kristen Shaughnessy, NY1
9:59 AM, Eyewitness Reporting
“Oh, it is just coming down, Pat. It is just coming down. It’s exploding. It is billowing. Pat, the debris is flying. I’m going to run.”
10:42 AM, Narrative Reporting
“Good morning again, Pat. I am actually just across from City Hall, I don’t have to tell you. With that second explosion the dust did not seem as bad.”
10:43 AM, Narrative Reporting
“It’s unbelievable because you hear these explosions. In fact, I just heard another one — I don’t know if it was like an aftereffect or what not — just while you were on the phone talking about the school closings. It wasn’t as big, obviously, as the other ones. But it still sent a tremor all the way over here, and I’m obviously on the other side of the World Trade Center, on the other side of the city. And it’s just unbelievable.”
10:45 AM, Narrative Reporting
Kristen Shaughnessy: “I’m hearing another explosion, just so you know. I’m hearing another rumble. It’s not as bad as the other ones were. But, I don’t know if you have pictures.”
Sharon Dizenhuz: “We have a picture and we don’t see anything beyond the enormous billows of smoke that have been there. But no additional bursts from our vantage point.”
Shaughnessy: “Okay, didn’t mean to interrupt, Sharon. What you can feel when these tremors come is that it literally comes up under your feet. That’s what it feels like. That’s the best way I know to describe it.”
30. Andrew Siff, NY1
10:12 AM, Eyewitness Reporting
Sharon Dizenhuz: “Andrew, when you saw this happen, what did it look like to you at close range? Because to us it seemed almost like dominoes, you know, going floor by floor by floor.”
Andrew Siff: “It was a little difficult to tell at first to figure out what was happening. We heard an explosion. We heard either an explosion or the sound of something making impact. We were in the middle. I was with news assistant Jason Post, and we were walking down West Street. And when we heard the sound we whipped around and saw just a buckling of the tower. And it just looked like it collapsed within itself. You could just see the top of the tower collapse. We can’t tell what happened to the bottom half of the tower from here.”
31. John Schiumo, NY1
10:18 AM, Narrative Reporting
“There’s another explosion as we speak!”
Note: Although the phenomenon Schiumo describes occurs between the destruction of the two towers, which happened to the South Tower at 9:59 AM and the North Tower 10:28 AM, we classify him as an explosion reporter because he refers to it as “another explosion” — thus suggesting he understood the destruction of the South Tower to be an explosion-based event — and because the explosion he describes may have come from the North Tower and been related to its eventual destruction 11 minutes later.
32. Andrew Kirtzman, NY1
11:11 AM, Narrative Reporting
“Mayor Giuliani appeared about 45 minutes ago on Chambers Street near Church Street. We began walking up Church Street when the second building proceeded to collapse, and a huge plume of smoke flew up into the air, went up into the air, and the mayor and his party started running up 6th Avenue. A plainclothes detective threw his arm around Mayor Giuliani as we took off, not knowing what the repercussions of a second explosion would be.”
11:12 AM, Narrative Reporting
“And for about 10 minutes they tried to break into the fire station as the mayor stood by and the police commissioner stood by waiting to set up an operations center. That’s — kind of wanted to paint a picture of kind of the seat-of-the-pants operation that they’ve been forced to construct here because of the explosion downtown.”
33. Jack Kelley, USA Today
Unknown time apparently around 5:30 PM, Source-based Reporting
Jack Kelley: “Apparently, what appears to have happened is that at the same time two planes hit the building, that the FBI most likely thinks that there was a car or truck packed with explosives underneath the building which also exploded at the same time and brought both of them down.”
USA Today Anchor: “Now that’s the first time we’re hearing that. So two planes and explosives that were in the building, is that correct?”
Kelley: “That is the working theory at this point. That is still unconfirmed, but that is what the FBI is going on at this point.”
34. First Unidentified Reporter at Giuliani and Pataki Press Conference
2:43 PM, Narrative Reporting
“Do you know anything about the cause of the explosions that brought down the two buildings yet? Was it caused by the planes or by something else? Those second explosions.”
35. Marcia Kramer, WCBS, at Giuliani and Pataki Press Conference
2:44 PM, Narrative Reporting
“Mr. Mayor, could you tell us, do you expect any further attacks on New York? Is there anything to indicate that there could be more bombs, more planes out there? I know originally there was a report that eight planes had been hijacked. Four have only been accounted for. What about the remaining four? And is there any possibility that there could be bombs on the ground planted by someone?”
Note: Kramer was in the studio when the destruction of the Twin Towers occurred, but later went into the field to conduct reporting, including attending the afternoon press conference with Mayor Giuliani and Governor Pataki. While watching the destruction of the first tower from the studio in the morning, Kramer hypothesized that it was caused by an explosion or bomb, which explains the rationale for her questions during the press conference.
At 10:02 AM, three minutes after the destruction of the first tower, she stated, “Right now police have to determine if whether that explosion was caused from the initial impact of the plane or whether it was something that was exploded on the ground. Generally speaking, for a building to collapse in on itself like that, it would seem to indicate — obviously, this is just early speculation — but it would seem to indicate that there could have been an explosion, a bomb planted on the ground, that would make the building collapse within itself.” Then, at 10:14 AM, she stated, “Well, we have a number of updates. Number one: CNN is now reporting that there was a third explosion at the World Trade Center, probably an explosion from the ground that caused World Trade Center 1 to collapse on top of itself. Again, there was a third explosion. It is unclear what caused it, whether it was a bomb or whether the first plane that crashed into the tower had somehow been booby-trapped with a bomb that was timed to explode later after the crash had occurred. But CNN is reporting that there was a third explosion that caused World Trade Center 1 to collapse within itself and then collapse on other surrounding buildings.”
This is a brief glimpse at how CNN and one of the anchors at WCBS interpreted the destruction of the Twin Towers. In our next article, we will delve much deeper into how the anchors at each of networks interpreted destruction of the Twin Towers.
36. Second Unidentified Reporter at Giuliani and Pataki Press Conference
2:54 PM, Narrative Reporting
“So the only National Guard we’ll see will be in Lower Manhattan in the bomb site area, they won’t be patrolling the rest of Manhattan?”
Appendix B: Statements by Four Non-Explosion Reporters
1. Don Dahler, ABC
10:00 AM
Peter Jennings: “[Don] Dahler from ABC’s Good Morning America is down in the general vicinity. [Don], can you tell us what has just happened?”
Don Dahler: “Yes, Peter. It’s Don Dahler down here. I’m four blocks north of the World Trade Center. The second building that was hit by the plane has just completely collapsed. The entire building has just collapsed as if a demolition team set off — when you see the old demolitions of these old buildings. It folded down on itself and it is not there anymore.”
Jennings: “Thanks very much, [Don].”
Dahler: “It has completely collapsed.”
Jennings: “The whole side has collapsed?”
Dahler: “The whole building has collapsed!”
Jennings: “The whole building has collapsed?”
Dahler: “The building has collapsed.”
Jennings: “That’s the southern tower you’re talking about?”
Dahler: “Exactly. The second building that we witnessed the airplane enter has been — the top half had been fully involved in flame. It just collapsed. There is panic on the streets. Thousands of people running up Church Street, which is what I’m looking out on, trying to get away. But the entire — at least as far as I can see, the top half of the building — at least half of it, I can’t see below that — half of it just started with a gigantic rumble, folded in on itself, and collapsed in a huge plume of smoke and dust.”
10:02 AM
Jennings: “The southern tower, 10:00 eastern time this morning, just collapsing on itself. This is a place where thousands of people work. We have no idea what caused this. If you wish to bring — anybody who’s ever watched a building being demolished on purpose knows that if you’re going to do this you have to get at the under infrastructure of a building and bring it down.”
Dahler: “Peter?”
Jennings: “Yes, Dan.”
Dahler: “What appeared to happen from my vantage point, the top part of the building was totally involved in fire, and there appeared to be no effort possible to put that fire out. It looked like the top part of the building was so weakened by the fire the weight of it collapsed the rest of the building. That’s what appeared to happen. I did not see anything happening at the base of the building. It all appeared to start at the top and then just collapse the rest of the building by the sheer weight of it. There was no explosion or anything at the base part of it. But I did see that the top part of it started to collapse. The walls started to bulge out, glass things coming out. And then it collapsed down on itself. And then it appeared to just fold down from there, from the very top.”
Jennings: “Thanks, Don, very much.”
2. Drew Millhon, ABC
11:09 AM
“I was at the corner of Varick and Canal, which is about 10 to 12 blocks north of the World Trade Center, where roughly 300 to 400 people were gathered watching the flames and the smoke from both the World Trade Centers going through the air. And I began to cross the street and I heard a collective scream from this group of people. And I looked up and the first World Trade Center that collapsed was falling down. The shriek lasted for quite a long time. And then many of these people fell into tears, just crying and sobbing. ‘I don’t know where my mother is. I don’t know where my friends are.’ That sort of thing was heard all around this crowd.”
3. Bob Bazell, NBC
10:08 AM
“I was actually standing and saw that collapse. And everybody here [at St. Vincent’s hospital on West 12th Street] just gasped. Even the medical workers and the ambulance attendants when they saw that, people who are used to tragedy, grabbed each other and hugged each other. And some started to cry.”
4. John Zito, MSNBC
10:36 AM
Chris Jansing: “Were you able to feel the collapse of that second tower?”
John Zito: “The second tower, no. But the first tower that went down, I was very close, I’d say about five blocks away. And CNBC’s Ron Insana and I were trying to hook up with a truck or find any NBC contact down there. And we were very close to when that tower came down. And debris came showering down, and Ron and I both ran for cover. I managed to get inside an alcove of buildings. And all the scaffolding around collapse in front of me and broke the window next to me. And I climbed inside that and stayed in there for about 10 minutes. I couldn’t get out of there. It was pitch black outside.”
Appendix C: Borderline Cases
This appendix contains three borderline cases that we determined could not be clearly classified as explosion or non-explosion reporters.
1. Minah Kathuria, NBC
Kathuria is a borderline case because it is unclear whether she suspects the destruction of the South Tower to have been a demolition or whether she is merely likening the destruction to a demolition in its appearance. In the case of Don Dahler, who is included in Appendix B as a non-explosion reporter, it is clear that he ultimately interpreted the destruction as a fire-induced collapse even though he likened the destruction to a demolition in its appearance.
10:11 AM
“We’re on the corner of Duane and West Broadway walking down towards the Twin Towers, and it just collapsed. It looked like a — it looked sort of like the building just demolished. Smoke, clouds — I mean, clouds of smoke everywhere.”
2. Brian Palmer, CNN
Palmer is a borderline case because he is asked by CNN’s Aaron Brown if it sounded like an explosion or just the sound of the collapse itself, and he does not favor one interpretation over the other, and he describes the sound as a “boom,” which was not strong enough in our view to classify him as an explosion reporter. We view Palmer as being distinct from Alan Dodds Frank, who, although he did not commit to one interpretation over the other, readily asserted the possibility that the destruction of the towers was an explosion-based event.
10:41 AM
Aaron Brown: “Brian, did it sound like there was an explosion before the second collapse, or was the noise the collapse itself?”
Brian Palmer: “Well, from our distance, I was not able to distinguish between an explosion and the collapse. We were several hundred yards away. But we clearly saw the building come down. I heard your report of a fourth explosion: I can’t confirm that. But we heard some ‘boom’ and then the building fold in on itself.”
3. Maria Bartiromo, CNBC
Bartiromo is a borderline case because she repeatedly uses the word “explosion” and her description of what she witnessed corroborates the explosion hypothesis, but although she uses the word “explosion” to describe what she witnessed, she attributes it to the sound of the buildings collapsing.
10:14 AM
Maria Bartiromo: “Now I’m standing on the floor of the exchange. But I just came back from outside and I am covered with soot. Basically, I was outside when that third explosion occurred. . . . The whole area turned pitch black when that third explosion happened. . . . I don’t know if you can see my jacket and my shoes, but I’m completely covered in white smoke from that third explosion.”
Unidentified Anchor: “Maria, do you know what that explosion was?”
Bartiromo: “That was about 10 — I’d say 15 minutes ago.”
Unidentified Anchor: “But do you know what caused it?”
Bartiromo: “No, I don’t.”
Mark Haines: “At the moment, Maria — and for the people with you — at the moment there are eyewitnesses who feel that another plane, a third plane . . .”
Bartiromo: “Yes, some people are saying that . . .”
Haines: “. . . hit the base of the South Tower.”
Bartiromo: “I was under the impression that it was just the actual collapse of the building. But some people are speculating that. I didn’t want to say that because . . . .”
Haines: “We had — at the moment it happened — we had MSNBC’s feed up, and we could hear people shouting ‘a third plane, a third plane.’ And then there was an explosion — ‘another plane, another plane,’ and there was an explosion.”
Bartiromo: “That’s right. And I was outside during that explosion.”
10:49 AM
“The second explosion I witnessed was about 10:00 AM, and that was, in retrospect, the collapse of that tower. And again, debris came at us. The whole area turned pitch black. All we could see was smoke. We couldn’t even breathe practically. We were closing our eyes. I actually went under the building across the New York Stock Exchange.”
12:24 PM
“I walked outside a little while ago. There are dust, white dust, this thick on the floor. Debris and smoke just settling after the explosions. I mentioned to you earlier in the coverage that I myself witnessed two of the explosions. The first one that I witnessed was when the second plane went into the second tower. And truly it was out of a movie. This plane going right in, putting a hole into the second tower. The second thing that I myself witnessed, the further collapse of one of the towers. And this huge bang down on Wall Street. Everyone ran for their lives.”
1:01 PM
“I was outside a little while ago. It almost looks like there’s snow on the ground. There are piles, and really just a thick sheet of dust — white, white dust — from the explosion. . . . Then about 15 minutes later I went back outside, thinking that it was safe again. And lo and behold I witnessed the third explosion, which of course was the sound of the tower collapsing. And at that time, when I heard the tower collapsing — again, it was a huge, huge thump and explosion noise. You’re looking at the scene right now. And that’s what we were all watching. The building collapsed. We all ran for our lives. Metal and papers and debris were flying at us in the face.”
1:37 PM
“Then, 10 minutes or 15 minutes later, I walked out there again thinking that, you know, we had seen the worst. And, of course, then there was a third explosion. And that third explosion was the sound of the second tower collapsing.”
2:42 PM
“Bob and I took a walk together outside and we came back really, really covered with it earlier, when I witnessed that third explosion, the third explosion being the collapse of one of the towers.”
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World leaders will convene later this month in New York to discuss proposals that critics believe will enshrine global digital ID and online censorship and give the United Nations (U.N.) secretary-general unprecedented emergency powers.
Proposals to be discussed at the 79th U.N. General Assembly include the Pact for the Future, described by the U.N. as an “opportunity to create international mechanisms that better reflect the realities of the 21st century and can respond to today’s and tomorrow’s challenges and opportunities.”
Under these proposals, the secretary-general would have “standing authority” to declare “an Emergency Platform in the event of a future complex global shock of sufficient scale, severity and reach.”
Discussions for the Pact for the Future will take place under the auspices of the Summit of the Future, described as “a high-level event, bringing world leaders together to forge a new international consensus on how we deliver a better present and safeguard the future.”
The proposals are part of “Our Common Agenda,” an initiative described as “the Secretary-General’s vision for the future of global cooperation.”
‘Lack of Checks and Balances Is Very Worrying’
Critics of the proposals warned The Defender that they threaten personal and health freedom, will grant the U.N. unprecedented powers and may lead to an internationally binding treaty.
Dutch attorney Meike Terhorst said the U.N. is attempting to attain “more executive power.”
Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., professor of international law at the University of Illinois, told The Defender, “What the secretary-general is trying to do is an end run around the United Nations charter and delegate to himself all the powers he can possibly assume.”
“The lack of checks and balances is very worrying. The member states will have very little or no power,” Terhorst said, noting that these proposals are drawing increasing opposition as they threaten national sovereignty.
The emergency powers and other proposals contained in the pact may have ominous consequences for humanity, Boyle warned.
Other experts warned the U.N. is not being fully transparent.
According to independent journalist James Roguski, “The U.N. is not being fully transparent about the process leading up to the Summit of the Future. At this time, a consensus agreement has not been reached and the status of the three documents has not been honestly presented to the general public.”
And according to Dr. Meryl Nass, founder of Door to Freedom, the pact “puts the U.N. ‘at the center’ of international affairs, giving the U.N. unspecified powers.” It contains no definitions for the terms used, “allowing it to be interpreted later in ways citizens may not like.”
“In spirit, the Summit and Pact for the Future is a relaunch of the Great Reset,” said Tim Hinchliffe, publisher of The Sociable. “Both talk about reshaping our world, which includes a desire to transform the financial system and to implement global governance surrounding issues such as climate change, healthcare and all things related to the SDGs” (Sustainable Development Goals).
“While the WEF has no direct, authoritative or legislative power to carry out its agendas, the Pact for the Future would be signed by member states whose governments wield actual executive and legislative powers,” Hinchliffe said.
“What they are trying to do is to take the WEF agenda … and turn it into solid international law and from there into solid domestic law,” Boyle said.
Rectenwald said the proposals involve “accelerating the achievement of the SDGs” and represent the U.N.’s continued “attempt to establish a global socialist world system that is ‘inclusive’ and ‘equitable.’”
“‘Inclusion’ is achieved through such technological means as closing the ‘digital divide,’ which depends on the universal adoption of a digital identity system. Digital identity is the means by which one is ‘included’ and without which one essentially does not exist. Thus, there is to be nothing outside the system — i.e., totalitarian governance,” Rectenwald said.
Global Digital Compact Calls for Digital IDs, Vaccine Passports
Published May 2023, the proposed compact sets out “principles, objectives and actions for advancing an open, free, secure and human-centred digital future, one that is anchored in universal human rights and that enables the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals.”
“With digital ID, it is easier for governments to censor and threaten voices with a different opinion,” Terhorst said. “In the U.N. proposals, suppressing ‘disinformation’ or ‘hateful speech’ is mentioned. Who is to decide what information is right and what is wrong?”
“Information Integrity on Digital Platforms” policy brief goes further, specifically addressing “threats to information integrity,” such as so-called “misinformation” and “disinformation.” It also calls for “empirically-backed consensus around facts, science and knowledge,” but does not clarify how this “consensus” would be determined.
Similarly, a policy brief on “Transforming Education,” proposes “incorporating practices that strengthen the ability of learners and teachers to navigate the increasing flow of false and fake information.”
The compact also proposes “Novel platform-based vaccine technologies and smart vaccine manufacturing techniques … to produce greater numbers of higher-quality vaccines.”
Terhorst said the goal of digital ID is to introduce global vaccine passports that would “overrule the right of everyone to say no to a vaccination.”
Hinchliffe noted that the U.N. has “established principles for a ‘Code of Conduct‘ that calls on not just member states, but private groups such as stakeholders, digital platforms, advertisers, and news media to crush narratives that go against the U.N. and the SDGs.”
Secretary-general ‘Trying to Set Himself Up as the UN Dictator’
According to Boyle, the U.N. secretary-general is “supposed to function as a secretary in charge of the secretariat,” but these proposals are trying to “set himself up as the U.N. dictator.” He noted that the U.N. is composed of six independent organs, but said these proposals may usurp their independence.
“He would have authority over them and arguably could exert authority over U.N. specialized agencies like the World Health Organization. That ties in with the International Health Regulations and the Pandemic Treaty,” Boyle said.
Boyle argued that by specifically referring to the Pact for the Future as a “pact,” the U.N. is intentionally “trying to turn this into an international treaty that is binding” under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
“If you call it a pact … that would clearly fall within the terms of the Vienna Convention,” Boyle said.
“We’re in the fight of our lives here. The world has to be alerted to the dangers of this pact.”
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Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”
If I were to describe our present geopolitical situation in ten words or less it would be “Genocide in the foreground, world war looming in the background.”
While attention is justifiably focused on the present horrors in Gaza and the imminent possibility that it could spark another war in the middle east, the world’s power structures are once again dividing themselves up into two increasingly intimate alliance groups with an increasingly hostile and militaristic posture toward each other.
As Ukraine loses more and more territory and soldiers to Russia, both Washington and Kyiv are demonstrating an openness to ramping up attacks on a nuclear superpower in ways that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. Meanwhile, Russia and China are growing more and more intimate in preparation for future aggressions from the US power alliance.
“On Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken strongly hinted that the US was preparing to lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of US and NATO missiles to support long-range strikes inside Russian territory, which would mark a significant escalation of the proxy war.
“Speaking at a press conference in Kyiv alongside UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Blinken said he discussed the issue of ‘long-range fires’ with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky and said he would bring the discussion back to Washington. He said President Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will discuss the issue when they meet this Friday.
“Signaling the US is ready to support long-range strikes in Ukraine, Blinken said, ‘Speaking for the United States, from day one, as you’ve heard me say, we have adjusted and adapted as needs have changed, as the battlefield has changed, and I have no doubt that we’ll continue to do that.’”
DeCamp highlights new reports in the mainstream press that “there’s already been a decision made in private to allow Ukraine to use British-provided missiles inside Ukraine” and that “the White House is finalizing plans to expand the area where Ukraine can hit inside Russia using US and British-provided missiles,” as well as recent statements from House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul that the Biden administration appears poised to allow long-range strikes deep into Russian territory.
“Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday strongly warned the US against allowing Ukraine to use NATO missiles in long-range strikes inside Russian territory, saying the move would put the Western military alliance ‘at war with Russia.’
“Putin’s comments came after POLITICO reported that the White House was finalizing plans to expand the areas inside Russia where Ukraine can use US and British-provided missiles.
“‘This would in a significant way change the very nature of the conflict,’ Putin told a TV reporter, according to AFP. ‘It would mean that NATO countries, the US, European countries, are at war with Russia. If that’s the case, then taking into account the change of nature of the conflict, we will take the appropriate decisions based on the threats that we will face.’
“He added that supporting long-range Ukrainian strikes inside Russian territory is ‘a decision on whether NATO countries are directly involved in the military conflict or not.’”
And it is here worth noting another article DeCamp published earlier this month on comments made by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, who said that Russia is preparing to change its nuclear doctrine in response to western aggressions relating to the war in Ukraine.
“Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Wednesday that Russia’s partnership with China is not aimed at any third country, but the two countries could ‘combine’ to respond to threats from the US.
“‘I would like to remind you that Moscow and Beijing will respond to double containment by the United States with double counteraction,’ Zakharova said when asked about US plans to deploy a Typhon missile system to Japan for several months, according to Reuters.
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“‘It is clear that both Russia and China will react to the emergence of additional and very significant missile threats, and their reaction will be far from being political, which has also been repeatedly confirmed by the two countries,’ Zakharova said.
“Zakharova’s comments come amid large-scale Russian naval drills that the Russian military said involve over 90,000 personnel, 400 warships and submarines, and 120 aircraft. China is participating in the Pacific portion of the drill with three Chinese ships and 15 planes.
“Russia and China have increased their military cooperation in recent years directly in response to the similar pressure the two countries have been facing from the US and its allies. Zakharova insisted the relationship is defensive in nature.”
There’s so much going on in the world right now, and the US-centralized empire is doing so many terrible things, but every once in a while I think it’s important to highlight the fact that all these individually awful things are just the mundane daily manifestations of a power structure that has us on a trajectory toward a final global confrontation that would make them all look like a picnic in the park.
Status quo politics are quite literally driving us to armageddon. Freeing ourselves from these murderous tyrants is swiftly moving beyond the morally correct thing to do for the sake of the empire’s victims around the world, to an existentially urgent action we must take for our own self-preservation.
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In zwei Wochen will unsere Regierung einem globalen Pakt für Digitalzwang zustimmen
Am 22. und 23. September findet in New York ein von der deutschen und namibischen Regierung vorbereiteter UN-Zukunftsgipfel statt. Dabei soll ein Globaler Digitalpakt verabschiedet werden, der unter fast völligem Ausschluss der Öffentlichkeit und – soweit ich weiß – der Parlamente, bereits ausverhandelt wurde. Schiebt man die Floskelwatte beiseite, in die der Global Digital Compact gepackt wurde, so sieht man eine Vereinbarung, alle Menschen in eine von den Digitalkonzernen kontrollierte Welt zu zwingen.
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Wenn ich von Ausschluss der Öffentlichkeit schreibe, so meine ich damit nicht Geheimhaltung. Die Verhandlungen beim Gipfel finden zwar hinter verschlossenen Türen statt. Aber der Global Digital Compact in den Fassungen der 2. Revision und der 3. Revision ist auf der Netzseite der UN zum Summit of the Future veröffentlicht. Aber weder die UN, noch die in die Vorbereitung des Gipfels maßgeblich eingebundene deutsche Bundesregierung haben ernsthafte Bemühungen angestellt, die Öffentlichkeit über das Geplante zu informieren, oder dieses gar in Parlamenten und Medien diskutieren zu lassen. Auch ist nicht öffentlich, welche Konzerne, Stiftungen und handverlesenen Vertreter der sogenannten Zivilgesellschaft mit am Verhandlungstisch sitzen dürfen. Das Weltwirtschaftsforum wird ziemlich sicher dabei sein, der Club of Rome, wie berichtet, wohl auch.
Im Vertragstext erfahren wir einleitend, dass digitale Technologien „immense mögliche Vorteile für die menschliche Wohlfahrt und den Fortschritt der Gesellschaften bieten“, und dass wir deshalb jegliche digitale Kluft zwischen den Ländern und innerhalb der Länder beseitigen müssen. Das erklärte Ziel ist „eine digitale Zukunft für alle“.
Wichtig ist, was in dem Vertrag nicht steht. Das Wort freiwillig (voluntary) kommt nur im Zusammenhang mit dem Unterschreiben des Vertrags vor. Für die Bürger jedoch gibt es kein Recht, für sich selbst eine andere als die gänzlich durchdigitalisierte Zukunft zu wählen. Denn das würde ja eine digitale Kluft eröffnen, die es nicht mehr geben darf. Ein Recht darauf, viele seiner Angelegenheiten auf althergebrachte Weise im Umgang mit anderen Menschen statt mit Computern zu regeln, ist nicht vorgesehen. Niemand soll wählen dürfen, dass seine Kinder von Lehrern statt von Computern unterrichtet werden, oder dass Gespräche mit dem Arzt und Behandlungen ein Geheimnis bleiben, statt auf die Server der IT-Konzerne gepackt zu werden. Nichts in dem Vertrag deutet darauf hin, dass man ein solches Recht überhaupt in Betracht gezogen hat.
Risiken werden anerkannt, allerdings ohne dass der Text dabei konkret würde. Sie sollen „abgemildert werden“. Ebenso soll die menschliche Oberaufsicht über die neuen Technologien sichergestellt werden. Die internationale Zusammenarbeit müsse agil sein, und sich an die sich schnell verändernde Techniklandschaft anpassen. Dann gibt es noch sehr viel Blabla mit schönen Adjektiven wie nachhaltig, gerecht, offen, verantwortlich usw. Das klingt gut, hat aber dicke Pferdefüße.
Die Entwicklung der digitaltechnologischen „Landschaft“ wird damit als von oben kommend dargestellt, als etwas, an das sich die Bürger und sogar die Regierungen anzupassen haben. Dabei ist Landschaft nur ein anderes Wort für die Digitalkonzerne und das, was sie sich ausdenken. Damit wird eine Führungsrolle der Konzerne anerkannt. Diese ist, wie ich in einem früheren Beitrag bereits gezeigt habe, ein roter Faden des UN-Zukunftsgipfels und des Handelns der UN in den letzten zwei Jahrzehnten.
Risiken der Digitalisierung sollen in keinem Fall vermieden werden, sondern nur „abgemildert“. „Menschliche Oberaufsicht“ über die neuen Technologien ist etwas ganz anderes als demokratische Kontrolle und Entscheidungsautonomie der Nutzer. Wenn Elon Musk von X, Mark Zuckerberg von Meta, Sam Altman von OpenAI und die Chefs von Google die Oberhoheit über die neuen Technologien haben, ist diese Forderung des Vertrags erfüllt, aber die Interessen der Bürger sind alles andere als gewahrt. Der ganze Vertrag liest sich, als hätten die IT-Konzerne und ihre Stiftungen ihn formuliert, und das ist wahrscheinlich nicht weit von der Wahrheit. Schließlich ist die UN auf das Geld der Konzerne angewiesen, und die weltweit reichsten und mächtigsten Konzerne sind nun einmal die IT-Konzerne.
Fazit
Wenn auf internationaler Ebene, unter Führung einer von den IT-Konzernen stark beeinflussten UN, abseits von Öffentlichkeit und Parlamenten gekungelt wird, um die Digitalisierung zu fördern und alle Menschen – ob sie wollen oder nicht – zur umfassenden Nutzung digitaler Geräte und Programme zu bringen, wundert man sich nicht mehr, warum unsere Bundesregierung mit so viel Engagement die Bürger einem Digitalzwang unterwirft. Sei es durch Abschaffung der Möglichkeiten, bar zu bezahlen, sei es über das Staatsunternehmen Bahn oder die halbstaatliche DHL oder die willkürliche Verknüpfung von staatlichen Wohltaten wie Deutschlandticket, Kulturgutschein für 18-jährige und Energieeinmalzahlung für Studenten mit der Nutzung eines Smartphones. So holt sich unsere Regierung Fleißkärtchen bei der internationalen Evaluierung der Fortschritte bei der Digitalisierung.
Dass man damit die Bürger einer immer intensiveren digitalen Überwachung jedes ihrer Schritte und Äußerungen unterwirft, ist ein zusätzlicher Bonus für unsere überwachungshungrigen Regierenden, hat man zunehmend den Eindruck.
Nehmen Sie das nicht schweigend hin! Lassen Sie die Abgeordneten wissen, dass Sie von ihnen erwarten, das Recht der Bürger auf ein selbstbestimmtes Leben mit geschützter Privatsphäre zu verteidigen. Fragen Sie sie, warum in dem Digitalpakt kein individuelles Recht auf Verzicht auf Digitalisierung erwähnt wird und fragen Sie sie, was sie davon halten. Fragen Sie, ob sie nach der Maxime vorgehen, dass alles, was gut für die IT-Konzerne ist, auch gut für Deutschland ist. Prüfen Sie, ob sie Parteien wählen wollen, die die Interessen der IT-Industrie über diejenigen der Bürger stellen. Nach meiner auf diesem Blog wiederholt mit Beispielen unterlegten Einschätzung sind die Digitalzwangparteien zuvorderst die FDP, eng gefolgt von den Grünen und mit wenig Abstand CDU und SPD.
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A vida dos mercenários que lutam pela Ucrânia parece estar a tornar-se cada vez mais difícil. Além do risco de morte no campo de batalha, os cidadãos estrangeiros enfrentam problemas dentro da própria Ucrânia, pois são vítimas do racismo neonazista do regime de Kiev. Este cenário era esperado por todos os que conhecem a natureza da política ucraniana pós-2014, mas infelizmente muitos mercenários ocidentais são enganados pela propaganda e concordam em lutar pela Ucrânia acreditando que estão a fazer a coisa certa.
Recentemente, Alexander Ante e José Aron Medina Aranda, dois mercenários colombianos que se juntaram ao exército ucraniano, foram capturados pelas forças armadas russas. Ambos estão detidos na prisão na Rússia, aguardando uma audiência no tribunal. Numa entrevista aos meios de comunicação russos, Ante e Aranda deram detalhes interessantes sobre as razões pelas quais se juntaram a Kiev, bem como revelaram a realidade dos soldados estrangeiros nas fileiras ucranianas.
Afirmaram que há duas razões pelas quais os estrangeiros vão para a Ucrânia: dinheiro e propaganda. A promessa de salários elevados torna o alistamento uma opção atraente para muitas pessoas, especialmente em países pobres como a Colômbia e outras nações latino-americanas. Atualmente, as promessas são de salários em torno de 3 mil dólares mensais, o que é muito superior à média salarial dos países emergentes.
No mesmo sentido, a propaganda leva as pessoas comuns a acreditar que a Ucrânia é a vítima desta guerra e que juntar-se às fileiras de Kiev é uma espécie de ato de “coragem” e “bravura”. Assim, muitas pessoas ingressam na carreira mercenária com incentivos além da questão financeira, interessadas em serem reconhecidas como “heróis” e lutadores pela “liberdade e justiça”.
“Muitas [pessoas] são vítimas da propaganda (…) [Os estrangeiros vão] à guerra para proteger os ucranianos (…) No entanto, tudo isto é mentira (…) Tudo o que é dito não é verdade”, disseram eles aos jornalistas russos.
No entanto, a situação real na Ucrânia é muito diferente daquilo que a propaganda promete. Ao chegarem ao país, os estrangeiros são tratados com desdém pelos militares racistas locais. Os salários não são pagos conforme prometido e existem também várias diferenças de tratamento em comparação com os cidadãos ucranianos. Os estrangeiros não recebem atenção ou assistência. Quando precisam de resgate em situações de combate, muitas vezes são ignorados. Na prática, as tropas não-ucranianas são vistas como mera bucha de canhão pelo regime, que utiliza estrangeiros como escudos humanos nas linhas da frente para poupar as vidas dos ucranianos étnicos.
“Eles são racistas. Eles não nos tratam como se fossem seus (…) [Os ucranianos] não viriam em nosso auxílio se solicitados (…) Eles não prestam atenção em você. Pode-se sentir a sua indiferença (…) Não pagam o dinheiro prometido, tratam mal [as pessoas]” acrescentaram os reclusos.
Estes cidadãos colombianos serviam no Batalhão Sich dos Cárpatos, uma infame unidade de infantaria ucraniana conhecida por crimes de guerra na região de Donbass. Segundo a inteligência russa, os soldados do grupo estão ligados à milícia neonazista do Partido Svoboda. A mentalidade racista da unidade explica porque é que os estrangeiros são maltratados. O ódio racial e a xenofobia são aspectos vitais do neonazismo ucraniano. Embora os russos sejam as maiores vítimas destes sentimentos, os estrangeiros também são desprezados pelos militantes ultranacionalistas, razão pela qual a presença de mercenários internacionais culmina em crimes de ódio.
Deve-se enfatizar que não existem garantias legais para os mercenários. Ao contrário dos soldados comuns, que vão para a guerra sob a compulsão das autoridades, os mercenários não são protegidos pelo direito humanitário internacional e podem ser julgados e condenados como meros criminosos. Na Rússia, este crime pode resultar numa pena de até 15 anos de prisão. Se participarem em crimes de guerra, os mercenários podem até enfrentar prisão perpétua.
A Federação Russa afirmou repetidamente que a eliminação de mercenários estrangeiros é uma das suas prioridades no conflito, com vários ataques de alta precisão visando centros de treino para tropas não ucranianas. A razão para esta prioridade é facilmente compreensível, uma vez que Kiev depende fortemente da utilização destas tropas para manter a sua capacidade de combate. Ao eliminar os mercenários, a Rússia espera desencorajar o influxo de estrangeiros para o lado inimigo. Além disso, Moscou está preocupada com o retorno desses cidadãos aos seus países de origem, já que muitos deles sofrem lavagem cerebral neonazista na Ucrânia, além de ganharem experiência real de combate. Uma vez regressados aos seus países de origem, estes mercenários poderiam facilmente trabalhar como agentes desestabilizadores a serviço da OTAN.
O caso dos cidadãos colombianos mostra que a realidade é muito diferente da propaganda. Não há vantagem de servir Kiev e as probabilidades de ser morto ou capturado pelos russos são elevadas. Sem qualquer proteção internacional, os mercenários estrangeiros são meros criminosos que poderiam enfrentar graves punições na Rússia pelas suas “aventuras militares” na Ucrânia.
We are pleased to announce that the Journal of 9/11 Studies has published a new article by Dr. Piers Robinson and Kevin Ryan entitled “A Plausibility Probe of 9/11 and COVID-19 as ‘Structural Deep Events’.”
In this article, Robinson and Ryan develop a new framework for examining major crisis events. Using the “structural deep event” concept coined by Peter Dale Scott, they create an identifiable set of features that structural deep events exhibit. They then use that framework to evaluate the plausibility of the hypothesis that both 9/11 and COVID-19 were structural deep events involving manipulation and nefarious intent.
While the observations made and conclusions drawn by Robinson and Ryan will not be new to many 9/11 activists, the framework they set forth is a novel analytical tool that other academics and researchers can use to examine major crisis events and determine whether they have been instigated for the purpose of advancing political-economic agendas.
The article also usefully summarizes the key features of the 9/11 and COVID-19 events in a clear structure that can be more readily digested by readers who are less familiar with the particulars of each event.
We hope this paper will serve as a springboard for many more people to begin to critically examine the 9/11 and COVID-19 events. Popularizing analytical approaches like the one used by Robinson and Ryan will be fundamental to curbing the prevalence of deep events in the future and holding accountable the perpetrators of past crimes such as 9/11.
Below is an excerpt from the article:
Major crisis events, such as the assassination of political leaders, terrorist attacks and public health emergencies, can be politically useful. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 helped the Roosevelt administration bring the US into WWII. The Reichstag fire in 1933 provided Hitler with the opportunity to suppress political opposition in Germany and paved the way for the rise of fascism. Unfortunately, critical discussion of whether such events are exploited or even instigated in order to enable particular policy agendas is all too often dismissed as ‘conspiracism’. This has been the case with both 9/11 and COVID-19 (the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2), both of which are argued by some to have been manipulated for political purposes. In the case of the former, some claim that the al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington were, in fact, a ‘false flag’ or ‘manufactured war trigger’, designed to enable military action in countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq. In the case of the latter, some argue, for example, that COVID-19 served to enable the ‘Great Reset’ political agenda. Meaningful discussion of these matters in mainstream settings is, however, nearly always suppressed by the pejorative use of the term ‘conspiracy theory’, which implies irrational, poorly evidenced, even pathological, argumentation. Even relatively limited criticism regarding the likely effectiveness of ‘lockdown’ policy in relation to COVID-19 by Oxford epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta was aggressively dismissed as ‘conspiracy theory’.
Fortunately, Peter Dale Scott’s structural deep event (SDE) and Lance deHaven-Smith’s state crime against democracy (SCAD) are concepts that provide a basis for critical exploration of major crisis events. This article builds upon these ideas, as well as that of propaganda and preliminary work by Kevin Ryan (2020), in order to develop a framework for identifying the key features, or ‘observable implications’, of a structural deep event. Utilizing the principles of a ‘structured focused comparison’ (George, 1979), the framework is then applied across two events — 9/11 and COVID-19 — claimed to have been manipulated for political purposes. This approach enables a conceptually grounded and empirically systematic analysis of these events and, in this study, provides a preliminary assessment, or ‘plausibility probe’ (Levy, 2008), of the hypothesis that both were structural deep events involving manipulation and nefarious intent.
The argument proceeds as follows. Section one briefly discusses the role of conspiracy and agency with respect to explaining political phenomena. Section two introduces the SDE and SCAD concepts, noting in particular their relationship to propaganda, before setting out the key features of an SDE and defining its observable implications. Section two draws in part upon preliminary work by Kevin Ryan (2020a&b). Sections three and four present empirical evidence from 9/11 and COVID-19. It will be argued that both events share key features associated with SDEs — a) major policy drives associated with structural transformation of society, b) involvement of deep state actors, and c) the manipulation of an event and public perceptions of it — and that further research is warranted into these events. The paper concludes by discussing key implications of this study and makes suggestions for further research.
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Kevin Ryan is a chemist, former laboratory director, and prominent voice in the 9/11 Truth movement. You can read more his work at his blog. You can also watch his testimony to the Toronto Hearings on 9/11 here, his video on the parallels between 9/11 and Covid here and his interview as part of our Covid19/11 series here.
His strong rhetoric leads to extreme dopamine bursts from those who think that he’s being sincere, but the rush will inevitably wear off once they realize that he’s not, and some might in turn think less of him afterwards.
Turkish President Erdogan has attempted over the years to present himself as the voice of the international Muslim community, or Ummah, most recently by calling for an Islamic alliance against Israel.
His strong rhetoric about the latest Israeli-Hamas war has earned him the praise of many and also resulted in sharp responses from Israelis, which in turn feed into the perception that he’s seeking to form. All his tough talk is just pure demagoguery, however, since he isn’t willing to go to war with Israel.
The Palestinians claim that over 40,000 of their own have been killed in this nearly year-long conflict that most of their supporters consider to be a genocide. The living conditions in Gaza are atrocious, almost all of the strip has been damaged or destroyed by Israeli bombs, and Egypt continues to keep its border closed to prevent the outflow of refugees into its territory. By all indications, it’s more than a little late for anyone to suggest forming a multilateral alliance against Israel, whether they’re really sincere or not.
Erdogan is a very clever politician and therefore predictably has a few tricks up his sleeve for proposing this so belatedly. First and foremost, he wants to reaffirm Turkiye’s image as the historical protector of the Ummah from back during its Ottoman days, hence why he’s calling so loudly for forming such an Islamic alliance. The second objective is to build upon the aforesaid in order to position Turkiye atop the regional military hierarchy in the minds of those who take his proposal seriously.
Third, he also knows very well that no Muslim country will voluntarily subordinate itself to Turkiye’s implied military hegemony, especially not the Gulf Kingdoms. Their rejection of his proposal or at least public indifference to it can then be spun as passing the buck along to them for supposedly “failing to save Palestine”. The fourth reason is related to the preceding one and concerns the public pressure that Turkiye is coming under from some to cut off Azerbaijan’s oil exports to Israel via Georgia and Turkiye.
Ankara owns neither the pipeline nor the oil that transits through it so any interference with these shipments would be a blatant violation of international law and a stab in its Azeri brother’s back. Its allied relations with Baku mean that Turkish officials can’t pressure their counterparts on this, let alone publicly condemn them for continuing to literally fuel the Israeli economy, but having the public see their lack of response to Erdogan’s proposed Islamic alliance might take some of the heat off of him on this.
And finally, the last goal that he’s seeking to advance is to wage psychological warfare on Israelis by making them fear the grand strategic consequences of continuing the conflict and thus ideally inspiring them to ramp up their protests to stop it, though this could also backfire. By exacerbating their existing siege mindset, he risks some reconsidering whether it’s worth ending the conflict now if all their country’s goals have yet to be achieved seeing as how this Islamic alliance is already forming anyhow.
Altogether, observers shouldn’t forget that Erdogan knows how to play to the Ummah’s crowds, so little of what he says about his plans against Israel should ever be taken seriously. There’s always an ulterior motive or several behind it like in this case as was explained. His strong rhetoric leads to extreme dopamine bursts from those who think that he’s being sincere, but the rush will inevitably wear off once they realize that he’s not, and some might in turn think less of him afterwards.
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Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Photo: Ramil Sitdikov / Sputnik
In early 2023, a private conference with pharmaceutical industry leaders and investors highlighted anti-obesity and Alzheimer’s drugs as the next big money-makers and had the FDA head as its keynote speaker
Since then, the FDA has taken questionable steps to promote these drugs, particularly Ozempic, an anti-obesity medication. There’s been a massive push to get everyone, including children, on Ozempic, using shockingly aggressive marketing tactics
This rush is eerily similar to the fen-phen craze, a temporary weight loss drug later pulled from the market for causing severe heart and lung issues
Worse, Ozempic comes with serious side effects, including paralyzing the digestive tract. This article will address the above controversy and explore the common causes of obesity, including those rarely discussed
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Most of the food in America comes from just a few crops like corn, wheat, soy, and canola, largely due to farming subsidies that force farmers to mass-produce these crops and sell them below cost. These cheap crops are then turned into the processed foods we eat every day. This is problematic because:
Health issues — These foods are unhealthy and contribute to major health problems like diabetes and obesity.
Natural aversion — Our bodies naturally resist these foods, making them hard to sell.
Addictive additives — To make them more appealing, addictive substances are added. In the 1980s, Big Tobacco bought the processed foods industry and, much like they did with cigarettes, focused on making these foods as addictive as possible.1
Chronic illness — The resulting health issues create lifelong customers for industries like Big Pharma.
For years, activists like Dr. Mercola have pushed for awareness of the importance of natural foods and the need to change farming subsidies to promote healthy eating. The current media climate, driven by skepticism of the COVID-19 response and the rise of independent media, has revealed the systematic failures in our food supply and allowed these long-cultivated ideas to begin bursting into public awareness.
For example, a few weeks ago, shortly after gaining the national spotlight and the need to make America Healthy Again by freeing us from pervasive regulatory corruption, RFK Jr. was invited onto Fox News to discuss the dangers of seed oils and artificial food colorings with a supportive newscaster — something I’d never before seen in the national media.
RFK was just invited to Fox to tell the nation about the dangers of Seed Oils, Food Dyes and Pesticides while exposing the immense corruption behind these products.
I never expected to see this in my lifetime and I now believe there's a real window to Make America Healthy Again pic.twitter.com/ACm3x1pXua
Today, the news reports that opposition leader Edmundo González has fled to Spain after an arrest warrant. A lot is being kept quiet about this.For example, the far-right – another ‘detail’ which the media modestly keep quiet about – González was the only one of the nine opposition candidates who refused in advance to recognize the results of the elections.
The area between Spencer Street Bridge and the Batman Park-Spencer Street tram stop. Heavily armed police, with glinting face coverings and shields, had seized and blocked the bridge over the course of the morning, preventing all traffic from transiting through it. Behind them stood second tier personnel, lightly armed. Then, barricades, followed by horse mounted police.
Following the 7 October attacks, European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen posted an image of the EC headquarters in Brussels lit up in the Israeli flag declaring ‘Israel has a right to defend itself – today and in the days to come. The European Union stands with Israel’. This signalled EU approval for Israel to begin its military campaign in Gaza. In the first 24 hours 400 Palestinians were killed.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told the press during his trip to Italy that “communication is number one, followed by a ceasefire, and only after that can we start talks about a peace agreement” between Russia and Ukraine.
Between September 4-6, African heads-of-state, foreign ministers, journalists and members of civil society engaged with their Chinese counterparts in following through on existing programs while creating new ones. A host of bilateral meetings involving Chinese President Xi Jinping and African leaders resulted in pledges of more than $US50 billion in investments.
The Bush and bin Laden families have a long history of business dealings, while Osama himself apparently did a complete about-face, as he once collected his paycheck from the CIA, working on behalf of the United States and their interests. While some of the following links between the Bushes and the bin Ladens are likely to be mere coincidences, they are intriguing, to say the very least.
Saudi Arabia’s industry and mineral resources minister said his country will “try new things”—including using the yuan in crude oil deals—as Riyadh seeks to incorporate Chinese products such as electric vehicles, the C919 passenger jet, and renewable energy infrastructure. This marks a major shift, considering Saudi Arabia’s close ties with the United States gave rise to the petrodollar.
“The petroyuan is not substantial to [the ministry], we believe Saudi Arabia will do what’s in its best interest … but I think Saudi Arabia will always try new things, and is open to new ideas, and we try not to mix politics with commerce,” minister of industry and mineral resources Bandar Alkhorayef said in an interview on September 7 in Hong Kong and published by the South China Morning Post.
The broader adoption of the petroyuan — shorthand for using the Chinese currency in cross-border crude oil settlements — is widely seen as the next step in internationalising the yuan and a challenge to the ubiquitous US dollar in global commodities markets.
Riyadh is China’s second-largest source of crude oil imports.
While the Saudi minister described positive sentiment in his country toward using the petroyuan in transactions, he did not give a timeline for when this would happen. He explained that from a commercial point of view, between a supplier and a customer, such an arrangement can happen with the freedom that they have and that it is not something Riyadh would look at from a political point of view.
At the same time, the Saudis have been seeking to diversify their economy and become a manufacturing hub in the Middle East under their Vision 2030 initiative, and Chinese companies are eager to explore alternative markets as a US-led containment effort broadens its scope. These complementary developments have led to closer relations between the two countries.
Alkhorayef said he welcomed Chinese companies to come and invest in electric vehicles and invited any solution provider to participate in Saudi Arabia’s Factories of the Future Initiative.
In the aviation sector, the Saudi aviation regulator, the General Authority of Civil Aviation, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) in May to explore the localisation of its aviation industry and develop the local supply chain. This is crucial since Saudi Arabia will be an aircraft buyer for the next 25 years, and with the rapid growth, they will look at multiple suppliers.
Saudi Arabia launched the Vision 2030 initiative in 2016 to free the country’s economy from dependence on oil by the end of the decade. These efforts include developing so-called “soft” sectors, such as tourism and service industries. All of this is anchored in economic principles that are driving the creation of industries that did not exist in the past, including projects related to culture, entertainment, and sport. China plays a critical role in all of these.
In fact, as the US and the European Union maneuver to reduce their economic exposure to China, it is recalled that Saudi Arabia’s Economy and Planning Minister, Faisal Alibrahim, said earlier this year that his country is looking to build stronger ties with the Asian powerhouse.
“We have a strong trade relationship with China. And we think it’s very wise to continue strengthening that relationship with China as well as our other partners,” the minister said in an interview with the Nikkei Asia newspaper.
At the same time, Alibrahim stressed that with China,
“we have a very strong relationship that includes investments and trade on both sides. There are lots of opportunities for China to invest in Saudi Arabia. At the same time, we are prioritising, investing all around the world, including China in terms of the opportunities.”
Saudi Arabia, along with fellow regional states Iran and the United Arab Emirates, has been selected as the newest members of BRICS. Analysts note that this apparent shift towards China, as well as Russia, risks weakening Riyadh’s traditionally favourable stance towards the US and the petrodollar dominance that emerged due to this relationship.
This is already coming to realisation considering Saudi Arabia joined the Central Bank Digital Currency revolution in June by becoming a full member of the mBridge project, a collaboration between Thailand, Hong Kong, China, and the UAE that will give the Arab country access to immediate, low-cost, cross-border currency transactions, which it will use to sell oil to China, and also challenge the dominance of SWIFT that Russia was banned from in February 2022.
In effect, Saudi Arabia helped give rise to the petrodollar, and it is now the very same country that is bringing the petroyuan to reality, which will inevitably lead to its slow decline.
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As European institutions begin another five-year term in Brussels, it’s worth highlighting the extent to which the EU is complicit in genocide.
Political Support
Following the 7 October attacks, European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen posted an image of the EC headquarters in Brussels lit up in the Israeli flag declaring ‘Israel has a right to defend itself – today and in the days to come. The European Union stands with Israel’. This signalled EU approval for Israel to begin its military campaign in Gaza. In the first 24 hours 400 Palestinians were killed.
On 11 October, Ursula von der Leyen joined European Parliament President, Roberta Metsola, European Council President, Charles Michel, and Haim Regev, Israel’s ambassador in Brussels, in a ‘solemn moment’ held in the forecourt of the European Parliament to commemorate Israeli victims only, even though by then 1100 Palestinians had been killed.
Two days later on 13 October von der Leyen and Metsola touched down in Israel for a photo-op with Israeli leaders telling them that Israel has ‘the right and duty to respond to Hamas’ act of war’.
For weeks, European leaders wrangled over semantics before eventually calling for ‘humanitarian corridors and pauses’ suggesting that genocide is fine as long as Israel takes a break every now and then. It took the bloc until 21 March to call for a ceasefire, a move that President Charles Michel claimed made the EU ‘a credible actor’. By then over 31,000 Palestinians had been killed, Gaza had been reduced to rubble and starvation had taken hold affecting the Strip’s 2.3 million people. The European Parliament was marginally faster having called for a ceasefire on 28 February but a day later it overwhelmingly rejected a resolution that called for an arms embargo.
Following the European elections in June, EU leaders returned von der Leyen and Metsola to their positions at the Commission and the Parliament, while Charles Michel still holds the presidency of the European Council. As recently as 13 August he held a phone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Material Support
Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza is possible only because of the arms supplied by Western states. While much attention is given to the US as Israel’s main arms supplier, EU member states come in second. Germany provided 30% of Israel’s arms between 2019-2023 and its exports to Israel in 2023 were worth €326.5 million having increased tenfold from the previous year with the vast majority of licences being approved after 7 October. Moreover, much of the weaponry supplied by the US is fitted out with European manufactured components. In addition, EU member states facilitate the transit of US arms shipments through their territory on the way to Israel.
For years Israeli entities have been given a free reign to access EU research funding, even though those in receipt of this money are often directly connected to Israel’s apartheid state and military apparatus. This has continued since 7 October with at least two research projects directly funding Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), one of Israel’s largest arms companies. As well as funding Israeli arms companies directly through research grants or from the purchase of military equipment such as drones, at least €426 million of European public money goes to European arms companies that arm Israel.
EU Complicity in Genocide Looks Set to Continue
Although EU Israel relations are underpinned by the Association Agreement, which contains a human rights clause, the EU has failed to invoke it, preferring instead to adopt a ‘business as usual’ approach to Israel as it commits a genocide. In doing so the Union has abandoned the façade of being concerned with human rights and the rule of law and has exposed its racist and imperialist core.
At every turn the EU has shown itself to be entirely unwilling to impose sanctions, an arms embargo or to prohibit the flow of US arms through Europe on their way to the Middle East. Considering the same genocidal warmongers have been returned to their positions in Brussels, it’s unlikely that the EU’s institutional support for genocide will change any time soon.
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Featured image: Israeli President Isaac Herzog (C) meets with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (R) and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola (L) in Tel Aviv, Israel on October 13, 2023. [IDF Spokesperson Unit – Anadolu Agency]
Once again, the Venezuelan opposition has refused to accept the electoral victory of Chavismo. Since the first victory of Hugo Chavez in 1999, the Venezuelan extreme right have used fascistic methods to try and break the Bolivarian Revolution. These include attempted coups, terrorist attacks against public health and education centres, attacks against the police and Chavistas. Thousands have been killed in fascist violence, with horrific violence including the burning of Chavistas alive on the street.
The opposition’s efforts are possible due to the backing of the United States and its local allies, with the US enlisting the support of drug traffickers from Colombia and other countries in their efforts to create chaos. Additionally, Bolivarian Venezuela has seen attempted assassination attempts against President Maduro, and mercenary invasions. Millions of dollars have been given to opposition groups through institutions such as the National Endowment for Democracy and USAID.
Arguably worst of all has been the economic warfare conducted by the United States, which has seen a blockade imposed on Venezuela since 2015, similar in scope and objectives as the blockade imposed on Revolutionary Cuba for over six decades. The impact of US economic warfare saw world-historic levels of inflation, food and medicine shortages, mass emigration, the collapse of the oil industry – upon which the Venezuelan economy is dependent – leading to a drop of $232bn. in oil revenue. Venezuelan state assets have been seized.
It is estimated that the economic warfare is responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people, according to a 2019 study from the Center for Economic and Policy Research. This has not stopped US lawmakers from continuing to pass blockade legislation, such as the Bolivar Act, passed in 2021.
Despite this, Chavismo remains in power, albeit fighting an uphill battle against imperialism and the local comprador bourgeoisie. Currently, Venezuela has endured and is showing signs of recovery. It is projected that the economy will grow between 5-8% by 2025. Inflation reached a peak of an astounding 130,060% in 2018 to a miraculous 0.7% in July, 2024. Oil output has more or less recovered, and, significantly, there has been increased development of production outside the oil industry, in such sectors as tourism.
Venezuela is now 95% self-sufficient in food, a major achievement, made necessary by the food shortages imposed by the economic war. In 2022, 77% of the state budget was allocated to social expenditure – including 23% for healthcare and 20% for education – to ensure that the impact of the blockade on the people is minimised, not an easy task.
The Venezuela Great Housing Mission was inaugrated by President Chavez in 2011, its aim is to provide free, or at least low-rent, housing for the people, in particular women and other marginalised sections of the people. In 2024, it reached 4.9 million homes built. The plan is to achieve 7 million homes built by 2030.
What is important to note is how these social programs are combined with grassroots participation with the masses. With communities themselves building the homes mentioned above, with finance from the state, communities being responsible for food distribution in the Local Supply and Production Committees, local communes, and indeed the local branches of the PSUV organised in the Bolivar Chavez Battle Units.
Venezuela has still not overcome capitalism and major problems and weaknesses remain present. Some of the measures taken in the Anti-Blockade Law of 2020, while perhaps necessary for kickstarting the economy, have not yet improved the lot of the poor, with the balance of forces largely unchanged since before the economic war began in 2015. The dominant comprador bourgeoisie is politically much weaker, but partly this is due to the rise of an industrial bourgeoisie which has not sought confrontation with the state; indeed, some elements of the government talk of a “revolutionary bourgeoisie”.
While the government has taken measures to tackle corruption, crack down on the black market, and allow a basic level of subsistence for the people, the Bolivarian Revolution faces an immense amount of challenges, including corruption, ideological stagnation, and slow recovery of workers’ purchasing power. The Presidential elections this year show that there has been a recovery in support among the people for Chavismo, with an increase of 1.2 million votes, while the opposition lost 2.5 million votes.
Additionally, Venezuela has not broken with its support for the Palestinian people, or with the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions. Despite the opposition being a base of pro-Zionist and gusano figures. Indeed, the pro-Israel and pro-US government of Argentina , is now facing its own issues with inflation. But no surprise that we have heard nothing about the authoritarian Javier Milei causing his people hardship.
This month, people participate in the National Popular Consultations of Communes, where residents decide on which initiatives will be prioritised in their community. The consultations are designed to be held quarterly, with the government funding the initiatives chosen by the local communes. President Maduro has stated that these consultations are part of a “revolutionary offensive”, something which the Venezuelan people deserve.
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An earlier version of this article was published in 2003
Author’s Note
Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts on September 10, 2001 were confirmed by a CBS News Report. Osama had been hospitalized on September 10th, 2001, one day before the 9/11 attacks.
How on earth could he have coordinated the attacks from his hospital bed in a heavily guarded Pakistani military hospital located in Rawalpindi.
Bear in mind that the Combined Military Hospital Rawalpindi (under the adminstration of the Pakistani military) exclusively “provides specialised treatment to Army personel and their immediate family”. Osama bin Laden must have had some connections in the Pakistani military or intelligence to be admitted to the hospital. He was, according to Dan Rather’s CBS report, provided with “treatment for a very special person”.
If the CBS report by Dan Rather is accurate and Osama had indeed been admitted to the Pakistani military hospital on September 10, 2001, courtesy of America’s ally, his whereabouts on September 11, were known.
Michel Chossudovsky, September 12, 2024
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“Going after bin Laden” has served, over a period of 10 years (2001-2011) to sustain the legend of the “world’s most wanted terrorist”, who “haunts Americans and millions of others around the world.”
Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly claimed in the wake of 9/11 that the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden remained unknown:
“It is like looking for a needle in a stack of hay”.
In November 2001, US B-52 bombers carpet bombed a network of caves in the Tora Bora mountains of eastern Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden and his followers were allegedly hiding. These caves were described as “Osama’s last stronghold”.
CIA “intelligence analysts” subsequently concluded that Osama had escaped from his Tora Bora cave in the first week of December 2001. And in January 2002, the Pentagon launched a Worldwide search for Osama and his top lieutenants, beyond the borders of Afghanistan. This operation, referred to by Secretary of State Colin Powell as a “hot pursuit”, was carried out with the support of the “international community” and America’s European allies. US intelligence authorities confirmed, in this regard, that
“while al Qaeda has been significantly shattered, … the most wanted man – bin Laden himself remains one step ahead of the United States, with the core of his worldwide terror network still in place. (Global News Wire – Asia Africa Intelligence Wire, InfoProd, January 20, 2002)
For ten years, the US military and intelligence apparatus (at considerable expense to US taxpayers) had been “searching for Osama”.
A CIA unit with a multimillion dollar budget was set up, with a mandate to find Osama. This unit was apparently disbanded in 2005. “Intelligence experts agree”, he is hiding in a remote area of Pakistan, but “we cannot find him”:
“Most intelligence analysts are convinced that Osama bin Laden is somewhere on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Lately, it has been said that he’s probably in the vicinity of the a 7700m Hindu Kush peak Tirich Mir in the tribal Chitral area of northwest Pakistan.” Hobart Mercury (Australia), September 9, 2006)
President Bush had repeatedly promised to “smoke him out” of his cave, capture him dead or alive, if necessary through ground assaults or missile strikes. According to a recent statement by president Bush, Osama is hiding in a remote area of Pakistan which “is extremely mountainous and very inaccessible, … with high mountains between 9,000 to 15,000 feet high….”. We cannot get him, because, according to the president, there is no communications infrastructure, which would enable us to effectively go after him. (quoted in Balochistan Times, 23 April 2006)
The pursuit of Osama became a highly ritualized process which fed the news chain on a daily basis. It was not only part of the media disinformation campaign, it also provided a justification for the arbitrary arrest, detention and torture of numerous “suspects”, “enemy combatants” and “accomplices”, who allegedly might be aware of Osama’s whereabouts. And that information is of course vital to “the security of Americans”.
The search for Osama served both military and political objectives. The Democrats and Republicans compete in their resolve to weed out “islamic terrorism”.
The Path to 9/11, a five-hour ABC series on “the search for Osama” –which made its debut in 2006 to mark the fifth anniversary of the attacks– casually accuses Bill Clinton of having been “too busy with the Monica Lewinsky scandal to fight terrorism.” The message of the movie is that the Democrats neglected the “war on terrorism”.
The fact of the matter is that every single administration, since Jimmy Carter have (covertly) supported and financed the “Islamic terror” network, created during the Carter administration at the outset of the Soviet-Afghan war. (See Michel Chossudovsky, Who is Osama bin Laden, 12 September 2001). Al Qaeda is an instrument of US intelligence: a US sponsored intelligence asset.
Where was Osama on September 11, 2001?
There is evidence that the whereabouts of Osama were known to both the Bush and Obama administrations.
On September 10. 2001, “Enemy Number One” was in a Pakistani military hospital in Rawalpindi, courtesy of America’s indefectible ally Pakistan, as confirmed by a report of Dan Rather, CBS News. (See our October 2003 article on this issue)
He could have been arrested at short notice which would have “saved us a lot of trouble”, but then we would not have had an Osama Legend, which has fed the news chain as well as George W’s speeches in the course of the last five years.
According to Dan Rather, CBS, Bin Laden was hospitalized in Rawalpindi. one day before the 9/11 attacks, on September 10, 2001.
“Pakistan. Pakistan’s Military Intelligence (ISI) told CBS that bin Laden had received dialysis treatment in Rawalpindi, at Pak Army’s headquarters.
DAN RATHER, CBS ANCHOR: As the United states and its allies in the war on terrorism press the hunt for Osama bin Laden, CBS News has exclusive information tonight about where bin Laden was and what he was doing in the last hours before his followers struck the United States September 11.
This is the result of hard-nosed investigative reporting by a team of CBS news journalists, and by one of the best foreign correspondents in the business, CBS`s Barry Petersen. Here is his report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BARRY PETERSEN, CBS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Everyone remembers what happened on September 11. Here`s the story of what may have happened the night before. It is a tale as twisted as the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
CBS News has been told that the night before the September 11 terrorist attack, Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan. He was getting medical treatment with the support of the very military that days later pledged its backing for the U.S. war on terror in Afghanistan.
Pakistan intelligence sources tell CBS News that bin Laden was spirited into this military hospital in Rawalpindi for kidney dialysis treatment. On that night, says this medical worker who wanted her identity protected, they moved out all the regular staff in the urology department and sent in a secret team to replace them. She says it was treatment for a very special person. The special team was obviously up to no good.
“The military had him surrounded,” says this hospital employee who also wanted his identity masked, “and I saw the mysterious patient helped out of a car. Since that time,” he says, “I have seen many pictures of the man. He is the man we know as Osama bin Laden. I also heard two army officers talking to each other. They were saying that Osama bin Laden had to be watched carefully and looked after.” Those who know bin Laden say he suffers from numerous ailments, back and stomach problems. Ahmed Rashid, who has written extensively on the Taliban, says the military was often there to help before 9/11.
(…)
PETERSEN (on camera): Doctors at the hospital told CBS News there was nothing special about that night, but they refused our request to see any records. Government officials tonight denied that bin Laden had any medical treatment on that night.
(voice-over): But it was Pakistan’s President Musharraf who said in public what many suspected, that bin Laden suffers from kidney disease, saying he thinks bin Laden may be near death. His evidence, watching this most recent video, showing a pale and haggard bin Laden, his left hand never moving. Bush administration officials admit they don`t know if bin Laden is sick or even dead.
DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: With respect to the issue of Osama bin Laden`s health, I just am — don`t have any knowledge.
PETERSEN: The United States has no way of knowing who in Pakistan`s military or intelligence supported the Taliban or Osama bin Laden maybe up to the night before 9/11 by arranging dialysis to keep him alive. So the United States may not know if those same people might help him again perhaps to freedom.
Barry Petersen, CBS News, Islamabad.
(END VIDEOTAPE) END, emphasis added.
(CBS News, 28 January 2002 emphasis added, the complete transcript of CBS report is contained in annex to this article)
It should be noted, that the hospital is under the jurisdiction of the Pakistani Armed Forces, which have close links to the Pentagon. U.S. military advisers based in Rawalpindi. work closely with their counterparts.
Again, no attempt was made to arrest America’s best known fugitive, but then maybe bin Laden was serving another “better purpose”. Rumsfeld claimed at the time that he had no knowledge regarding Osama’s health. (CBS News, 28 January 2002)
The CBS report is a crucial piece of information in our understanding of 9/11.
It refutes the administration’s claim that the whereabouts of bin Laden are unknown. It points to a Pakistan connection, it suggests a cover-up at the highest levels of the Bush administration.
Dan Rather and Barry Petersen fail to draw the implications of their January 2002 report. They suggest that the US had been deliberately misled by Pakistani intelligence officials. They fail to ask the question:
Why does the US administration state that they cannot find Osama?
If they are to stand by their report, the conclusion is obvious. The administration is lying. Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts were known.
If the CBS report is accurate and Osama had indeed been admitted to the Pakistani military hospital on September 10, courtesy of America’s ally, he was either still in hospital in Rawalpindi on the 11th of September, when the attacks occurred or he had been released from the hospital within the last hours before the attacks.
In other words, Osama’s whereabouts were known to US officials on the morning of September 12, when Secretary of State Colin Powell initiated negotiations with Pakistan, with a view to arresting and extraditing bin Laden. These negotiations, led by General Mahmoud Ahmad, head of Pakistan’s military intelligence, on behalf of the government of President Pervez Musharraf, took place on the 12th and 13th of September in Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage‘s office.
He could have been arrested at short notice on September 10th, 2001. But then we would not have been privileged to five years of Osama related media stories. The Bush administration desperately needs the fiction of an “outside enemy of America”.
Known and documented Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda is a construct of the US intelligence apparatus. His essential function is to give a face to the “war on terrorism”. The image must be vivid.
According to the White house,
“The greatest threat to us is this ideology of violent extremism, and its greatest public proponent is Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden remains the number one target, in terms of our efforts, but he’s not the only target.” (Recent Statement of White House Assistant for Homeland Security Frances Townsend, 5 September 2006).
The national security doctrine rests on the fiction of Islamic terrorists, led by Osama who are portrayed as a “threat to the civilized World”. In the words of President Bush,
“Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. The question is will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say? We are on the offensive. We will not rest. We will not retreat. And we will not withdraw from the fight until this threat to civilization has been removed.” (quoted by CNN, September 5, 2006)
The “hot pursuit” of Osama in the rugged mountainous areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan must continue, because without Osama, referred to ad nauseam in news reports and official statements, the fragile legitimacy of the US administration collapses like a house of cards.
Moreover, the search for Osama protects the real architects of the 9/11 attacks. While there is no evidence that Al Qaeda was behind the 911 attacks, as revealed by numerous studies and documents, there is mounting evidence of complicity and coverup at the highest levels of the State, Military and intelligence apparatus.
The continued arrest of alleged 911 accomplices and suspects has nothing to do with “national security”. It creates the illusion that Arabs and Muslims are behind the terror plots, while shunting the conduct of a real criminal investigation into the 911 attacks.
In the year 2000 the Scientific and Technological Options Assessment (STOA) panel of the European Parliament published a study entitled “Crowd Control Technologies” where it wrote:
“in October 1999 NATO announced a new policy on non-lethal weapons and their place in allied arsenals… The most controversial non-lethal crowd control and anti-materiel technology proposed by the US are so called Radio Frequency or Directed Energy Weapons that can allegedly manipulate human behaviour in a variety of unusual ways… the greatest concern is with systems which can directly interact with the human nervous system… The research undertaken to date both in the US and in Russia can be divided into two related areas: (i) individual mind control and (ii) crowd control” (pg.liii).
Directed energy system was further defined in the technical annex as „Directed energy weapon system designed to match radio frequency source to interfere with human brain activity at synapse level, with the note:
“Highly classified program and hard data is difficult to access” (pg. 67).
After the publication of the book, the European Parliament held a special hearing, where the co-author of the book Nick Begich was testifying. As a result of his testimony the European Parliament adopted a resolution, where it called “for an international convention introducing a global ban on all developments and deployments of weapons which might enable any form of manipulation of human beings“ (paragraph 30). Against possible expectations, the European media did not publish and explain this call. The evident reason was that weapon systems “designed to match radio frequency source to interfere with human brain activity at synapse level” were “highly classified” or in other words qualified as information related to national defense.
On December 9, 2023, 23 years after this publication, the press service of the European parliament informed about a “political deal with the Council on a bill to ensure AI in Europe is safe, respects fundamental human rights, while businesses can thrive and expand”. It stated:
“recognising the potential threat to citizens’ rights and democracy posed by certain applications of AI, the co-legislators agreed to prohibit: … AI systems that manipulate human behaviour to circumvent their free will”.
As well it declared:
“for AI systems classified as high-risk (due to their significant potential harm to health, safety, fundamental rights, environment, democracy and the rule of law), clear obligations were agreed“.
However so far the EU did not publish the fact that mass manipulation of the activity of human brains at distance is actually feasible. As well it did not ban the use of directed or radio frequency weapons to remotely manipulate the activity of nervous systems of individuals or masses of people.
In the meantime the competition between the USA, Russia and lately China for the control of brain activity of world population by means of those weapons went on. In June 2023 the Washington Times wrote:
“China’s People’s Liberation Army is developing high-technology weapons designed to disrupt brain functions and influence government leaders or entire populations, according to a report by three open-source intelligence analysts. The weapons can be used to directly attack or control brains using microwave or other directed energy weapons in handheld guns or larger weapons firing electromagnetic beams, adding that the danger of China’s brain warfare weapons prior to or during a conflict is no longer theoretical“.
Already in the year 1997 the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College wrote:
“Potential or possible supporters of the insurgency around the world were identified using the comprehensive Interagency Integrated Database. These were categorized as ‘potential’ or ‘active’, with sophisticated personality simulations used to develop, tailor and focus psychological campaigns for each.” (pg. 24-25).
In this text the technology of “personality simulations” was not disclosed, but from the text it is obvious that directed energy or radio frequency weapons are supposed to be used. Does not this publication propose establishment of the USA as a new totalitarian superpower, which will be hardly possible to defeat?
Commander Cornelis van der Klaauw from Royal Netherlands Navy, and Expert from Strategic Communications and Information Operations NATO Joint Warfare Centre, wrote in an article in 2023:
“The reason why cognitive attacks go unnoticed by their targets is that cognitive activities bypass the conscious mind and directly target the subconscious of a person… most of our decisions are made by our subconscious… Cognitive attacks are aimed at exploiting emotions rooted in our subconscious, bypassing our rational conscious mind”.
As a result we are living in the world, where democratic states base their ideology on the policy of human rights defence, but at the same time they keep in secret the weapons which can be used to eliminate human rights and abolish even the right to freedom of thought and consequently the democracy itself, since the voters behaviour can be controlled by governments at the time of elections. For as long as those weapons are not declassified, there will be no guarantee, that they will not be used against citizens and that democracy will remain a ruling political system in the western world.
Modern neurotechnologies have been applied to individuals since the 1990s. Already in the year 1999 the Russian politician Vladimir Lopatin wrote in the book “Psychotronic weapon and security of Russia”, that psychotronic war “is actually taking place without declaration of war” .
In the May 2024 the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security was holding a hearing entitled “Silent weapons: Examining foreign anomalous health incidents, targeting Americans in the homeland“, where classification of those weapons and their use against the U.S. diplomats, security officers and ordinary citizens (Havana syndrome) was discussed.
The world media did not fully inform the general public about this hearing. In this way they continue avoiding the subject of abuse of fundamental human rights and human freedom by modern neurotechnologies and cooperate on the liquidation of those democratic values in the future of this civilization.
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Mojmir Babacek was born in 1947 in Prague, Czech Republic. Graduated in 1972 at Charles University in Prague in philosophy and political economy. In 1978 signed the document defending human rights in communist Czechoslovakia „Charter 77“. Since 1981 until 1988 lived in emigration in the USA. Since 1996 he has published articles on different subjects mostly in the Czech and international alternative media.
In 2010, he published a book on the 9/11 attacks in the Czech language. Since the 1990‘s he has been striving to help to achieve the international ban of remote control of the activity of the human nervous system and human minds with the use of neurotechnology.
Media manipulation is not only about what is said, but also about what is covered and what is not. The recent events in Venezuela are a good illustration of this.
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Dear reader, do you know the president of Peru? Or the president of Ecuador? Perhaps not. However, the chances are pretty good that you do know the name of the Venezuelan president: Nicolas Maduro. That is remarkable, because there is at least as much to say about the presidents of Peru and Ecuador as there is about the president of Venezuela.
Image: President Dina Boluarte (Licensed under CC BY 2.0)
Let’s start with Dina Boluarte. She is the unelected president of Peru and came to power through a coup against the leftist president Castillo. This happened after a period of long-term instability, during which dozens of people were killed.
She released the former fascist dictator Alberto Fujimori from prison, after he had been convicted of crimes against humanity (genocide against the indigenous population). Her right-wing coup regime is rejected by more than 90 percent of the population. All facts that the mainstream finds little or not worthwhile.
Image: President Daniel Noboa (Licensed under CC0)
And then there is Daniel Noboa, the president of Ecuador. Under his rule, there have been almost 500 violent murders this year. The former president is exiled and is not allowed to participate in the elections.
Noboa ordered the storming of the Mexican embassy a few months ago to arrest the former vice president. The storming of an embassy is very exceptional and a particularly serious violation of international law. It should have been world news, but it was barely picked up by the mainstream media.
What Is Kept Silent About
Media manipulation is not only about what is said but also about what is covered and what is kept silent about. If there are deradicalization camps in Xinjiang, the western province of China, this is widely reported in the press. But if camps are built in the north of India to detain and deport up to two million ‘illegal immigrants’, then no one cares, except some specialized journalists.
When protests broke out in Iran in 2022 following the suspicious death of a young woman you could read entirely detailed reports about it in the mainstream media. But about Libya, which has been sinking into complete chaos after the 2011 Western military invasion and where slave camps are being set up, you hear next to nothing in the same press.
In Cuba, if once a few hundred people take to the streets it is world news. But in Argentina, when tens of thousands of people demonstrate week after week you don’t hear about it, except maybe on yet another page in a small article at the bottom.
We could go on like this for a while. If you want to approach the media critically, one of the first questions you have to ask yourself are: why is this being reported now, why is this being elevated to news and why is so much attention being paid to it? For the answer to those questions, your attention will very quickly be drawn to the geopolitical power game and you will see which side the media is on.
The ‘Brave’ González
Image: Edmundo González in 2024 (From the Public Domain)
Back to Venezuela. Today, the news reports that opposition leader Edmundo González has fled to Spain after an arrest warrant. A lot is being kept quiet about this.
For example, the far-right – another ‘detail’ which the media modestly keep quiet about – González was the only one of the nine opposition candidates who refused in advance to recognize the results of the elections. Nor do the media report that these elections were conducted according to a strict scenario with the intention of provoking a violent popular uprising and implementing a regime change in case the far-right lost.
By not recognizing the results and publishing fake results, González provoked riots the day after the elections. The media do not mention that these riots were particularly violent and caused dozens of deaths in a similar scenario in 2014 and 2017.
The media also fail to mention that Edmundo González was involved in the formation of death squads in El Salvador that slaughtered thousands of citizens and that in 2002 he signed a decree approving the coup against the democratically elected president Hugo Chávez. Someone with such a track record would very likely be behind bars in a western country.
The Contrast with Ecuador
For anyone who knows the region, the contrast with Ecuador is striking. Jorge Glas, vice president in a previous government, had fled to the Mexican embassy to avoid arrest. To no avail, the Ecuadorian army stormed the embassy, against all international rules, and took him into custody.
Edmundo González also sought shelter in an embassy (first the Dutch and then the Spanish) and applied for asylum in Spain. The Venezuelan government respected international law and, after negotiations with Madrid, allowed the man to leave freely for Spain.
This obvious contrast has apparently escaped the mainstream media. The framing is clear: Venezuela is the culprit and there is nothing wrong in Ecuador.
The reason for this framing is obvious. In Ecuador, a right-wing, Western-minded government is in power. In Venezuela, the opposite is the case.
The mainstream media claim to be ‘neutral’ and ‘objective’. Judge for yourself.
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Marc Vandepitte is a member of the Network of Intellectuals and Artists in Defense of Humanity and was an observer during the presidential elections in Venezuela. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
O regime de Kiev já não esconde as suas práticas militares anti-humanitárias. Numa declaração recente, o chefe das forças armadas ucranianas admitiu que soldados mal treinados são enviados para a linha da frente, o que aumenta claramente o risco de morte. Para servir os interesses do Ocidente e continuar a lutar, a Ucrânia tem recorrido ao recrutamento forçado e ao sacrifício em massa de jovens, o que gera uma grave crise social.
O general ucraniano Aleksandr Syrsky afirmou que Kiev está enviando tropas recém-recrutadas e mal treinadas para a frente contra a Rússia. Numa entrevista à CNN, Syrsky confirmou relatórios recentes sobre os problemas de mão-de-obra na Ucrânia, deixando claro que a mobilização forçada e a utilização de pessoas insuficientemente treinadas são medidas necessárias para manter o esforço de guerra.
Syrsky disse que os novos recrutas ucranianos recebem seu primeiro treinamento durante um programa de trinta dias, aprendendo táticas militares básicas. Após essas instruções, os soldados são encaminhados para unidades de treinamento especializadas, onde aprendem a manusear armas específicas para suas funções no exército. O tempo de treino é curto e absolutamente insuficiente para instruir adequadamente os recrutas, tornando os novos soldados ucranianos despreparados para situações reais de conflito armado.
O general esclareceu que a Ucrânia está a trabalhar para “melhorar” o nível de formação e tornar os seus recrutas mais capazes. O objetivo do país é realizar treinamentos militares de forma rápida e eficiente, transformando cidadãos comuns em verdadeiros combatentes em apenas algumas semanas.
“Em relação ao treinamento: é claro que todos desejam que o nível de treinamento seja o melhor, por isso formamos militares altamente qualificados e profissionais. Ao mesmo tempo, a dinâmica na frente exige que coloquemos em serviço os militares recrutados o mais rápido possível É por isso que costumamos realizar treinamento militar básico por pelo menos um mês, e treinamento qualificado de meio mês a um mês. Assim, nossos soldados são treinados por um mês ou mais – até dois meses (…) E agora nos concentramos principalmente no profissionalismo de nossos instrutores, na construção de nossa base de treinamento, em nossos centros de treinamento e no uso de escolas de treinamento onde os militares adquirem habilidades avançadas no domínio de armas e equipamentos relacionados”, disse ele.
Embora admitisse algumas práticas ucranianas, Syrsky tentou parecer otimista à opinião pública ocidental. Afirmou que as atuais políticas de mobilização estão a fazer o suficiente para compensar as perdas nas linhas da frente, elogiando o infame trabalho dos centros de recrutamento. Além disso, Syrsky afirmou que o moral das tropas ucranianas está elevado, especialmente após a invasão de Kursk. Ele afirmou que as manobras ucranianas na indiscutível região russa foram eficazes para “reforçar” os soldados e fortalecer o “desejo de vencer”.
“Em geral, conseguimos manter as nossas capacidades de mobilização ao nível adequado e garantir tanto a reposição das perdas como a formação de novas unidades. Ou seja, graças ao trabalho coordenado de todas as autoridades estatais, órgãos militares, principalmente centros de recrutamento territoriais, mantemos estes níveis de desempenho e garantimos o reabastecimento das nossas unidades militares (…) A questão do moral é uma área muito importante do nosso trabalho. E, claro, estamos novamente a falar da operação Kursk. Este foi um factor que melhorou significativamente o moral não só dos militares, mas de toda a população ucraniana. Ou seja, foi e ainda é um incentivo que elevou o moral dos nossos militares, o seu desejo de vencer.
É curioso ver como Syrsky mente a ponto de se contradizer. Há algumas semanas, noutra entrevista, afirmou que a operação Kursk não conseguiu atingir o seu objectivo principal, que era iniciar uma manobra diversiva para evacuar as forças russas de algumas cidades-chave do Donbass. Aparentemente, Syrsky está agora a tentar reverter o impacto negativo gerado pelo fracasso ucraniano em Kursk, alegando que foi uma operação bem sucedida no “elevamento do moral” das tropas.
Além disso, deve ser enfatizado que Syrsky está deliberadamente a tentar enganar o público. Não é possível que o moral ucraniano esteja a ser elevado por Kursk simplesmente porque a operação é uma catástrofe, com milhares de soldados ucranianos já tendo morrido em vão. Muitos desses soldados eram precisamente aqueles recrutas mal treinados que foram levados despreparadamente para o front.
Por mais que Syrsky tente disfarçar a situação de guerra, é pouco provável que a opinião pública ocidental acredite nas suas palavras falaciosas, uma vez que a realidade está cada vez mais acessível a todos através das redes sociais. O terror conduzido pelos centros de mobilização, com sequestros e tortura pública de cidadãos que não querem lutar, mostra que não há moral elevado entre os ucranianos e que um colapso nas fileiras do regime é iminente.
The authenticity of this interview remains to be confirmed. We were informed that It was available in recognized electronic news archives including BBC translation.
The interview tends to demystify the Osama bin Laden persona.
In the Unmat interview, Osama bin Laden categorically denies his involvement in the 9/11 attacks. Bin Laden’s statements in this interview are markedly different from those made in the alleged Osama video tapes.
In this interview, Osama bin Laden allegedly exhibits an understanding of US foreign policy. He expresses his views regarding the loss of life on 9/11. He focusses on CIA support to the narcotics trade.
He also makes statements as to who, in his opinion, might be the likely perpetrator of the September 11 attacks.
This is an important text which has not been brought to the attention of Western public opinion.
We have highlighted key sections of this interview.
It is our hope that the text of this interview, published on 28 September 2001 barely a week before the onset of the war on Afghanistan, will contribute to a better understanding of the history of Al Qaeda, the role of Osama bin Laden and the tragic events of September 11, 2001.
It should be noted that on the day preceding the 9/11 attacks, Osama Bin Laden had been admitted for treatment in a Military Hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
This was confirmed by Dan Rather in a CBS News Report.
This interview is published for informational purposes only.
Global Research does not in any way endorse the statements in this interview. Nor are we in a position to confirm its authenticity.
Michel Chossudovsky, September 2, 2023, September 11, 2024
Full text of September 2001 Pakistani paper’s “exclusive” interview with Usamah Bin-Ladin
translated from Urdu by the BBC World Monitoring Service
Karachi, 28 September 2001, pp. 1- 7.
Ummat’s introduction
Kabul: Prominent Arab mojahed holy warrior Usamah Bin-Ladin has said that he or his al-Qa’idah group has nothing to do with the 11 September suicidal attacks in Washington and New York. He said the US government should find the attackers within the country. In an exclusive interview with daily “Ummat”, he said these attacks could be the act of those who are part of the American system and are rebelling against it and working for some other system. Or, Usamah said, this could be the act of those who want to make the current century a century of conflict between Islam and Christianity. Or, the American Jews, who are opposed to President Bush ever since the Florida elections, might be the masterminds of this act. There is also a great possibility of the involvement of US intelligence agencies, which need billions of dollars worth of funds every year. He said there is a government within the government in the United States.
The secret agencies, he said, should be asked as to who are behind the attacks. Usamah said support for attack on Afghanistan was a matter of need for some Muslim countries and compulsion for others. However, he said, he was thankful to the courageous people of Pakistan who erected a bulwark before the wrong forces. He added that the Islamic world was attaching great expectations with Pakistan and, in time of need, “we will protect this bulwark by sacrificing of lives”.
Following is the interview in full detail:
Ummat: You have been accused of involvement in the attacks in New York and Washington. What do you want to say about this? If you are not involved, who might be?
Usamah [Osama bin Laden]: In the name of Allah, the most beneficent, the most merciful. Praise be to Allah, Who is the creator of the whole universe and Who made the earth as an abode for peace, for the whole mankind. Allah is the Sustainer, who sent Prophet Muhammad for our guidance. I am thankful to the Ummat Group of Publications, which gave me the opportunity to convey my viewpoint to the people, particularly the valiant and Momin true Muslim people of Pakistan who refused to believe in lie of the demon.
I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children, and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children, and other people.
Such a practice is forbidden ever in the course of a battle. It is the United States, which is perpetrating every maltreatment on women, children, and common people of other faiths, particularly the followers of Islam. All that is going on in Palestine for the last 11 months is sufficient to call the wrath of God upon the United States and Israel.
There is also a warning for those Muslim countries, which witnessed all these as a silent spectator. What had earlier been done to the innocent people of Iraq, Chechnya, and Bosnia?
Only one conclusion could be derived from the indifference of the United States and the West to these acts of terror and the patronage of the tyrants by these powers that America is an anti-Islamic power and it is patronizing the anti-Islamic forces. Its friendship with the Muslim countries is just a show, rather deceit. By enticing or intimidating these countries, the United States is forcing them to play a role of its choice. Put a glance all around and you will see that the slaves of the United States are either rulers or enemies of Muslims .
The US has no friends, nor does it want to keep any because the prerequisite of friendship is to come to the level of the friend or consider him at par with you. America does not want to see anyone equal to it. It expects slavery from others. Therefore, other countries are either its slaves or subordinates.
However, our case is different. We have pledged slavery to God Almighty alone and after this pledge there is no possibility to become the slave of someone else. If we do that, it will be disregardful to both our Sustainer and his fellow beings. Most of the world nations upholding their freedom are the religious ones, which are the enemies of United States, or the latter itself considers them as its enemies. Or the countries, which do not agree to become its slaves, such as China, Iran, Libya, Cuba, Syria, and the former Russia as received .
Whoever committed the act of 11 September are not the friends of the American people. I have already said that we are against the American system, not against its people, whereas in these attacks, the common American people have been killed.
According to my information, the death toll is much higher than what the US government has stated. But the Bush administration does not want the panic to spread. The United States should try to trace the perpetrators of these attacks within itself; the people who are a part of the US system, but are dissenting against it. Or those who are working for some other system; persons who want to make the present century as a century of conflict between Islam and Christianity so that their own civilization, nation, country, or ideology could survive. They can be any one, from Russia to Israel and from India to Serbia. In the US itself, there are dozens of well-organized and well-equipped groups, which are capable of causing a large-scale destruction. Then you cannot forget the American Jews, who are annoyed with President Bush ever since the elections in Florida and want to avenge him.
Then there are intelligence agencies in the US, which require billions of dollars worth of funds from the Congress and the government every year. This funding issue was not a big problem till the existence of the former Soviet Union but after that the budget of these agencies has been in danger.
They needed an enemy. So, they first started propaganda against Usamah and Taleban and then this incident happened. You see, the Bush administration approved a budget of 40bn dollars. Where will this huge amount go? It will be provided to the same agencies, which need huge funds and want to exert their importance.
Now they will spend the money for their expansion and for increasing their importance. I will give you an example. Drug smugglers from all over the world are in contact with the US secret agencies. These agencies do not want to eradicate narcotics cultivation and trafficking because their importance will be diminished. The people in the US Drug Enforcement Department are encouraging drug trade so that they could show performance and get millions of dollars worth of budget. General Noriega was made a drug baron by the CIA and, in need, he was made a scapegoat. In the same way, whether it is President Bush or any other US president, they cannot bring Israel to justice for its human rights abuses or to hold it accountable for such crimes. What is this? Is it not that there exists a government within the government in the United Sates? That secret government must be asked as to who made the attacks.
Ummat: A number of world countries have joined the call of the United States for launching an attack on Afghanistan. These also include a number of Muslim countries. Will Al-Qa’idah declare a jihad against these countries as well?
Usamah: I must say that my duty is just to awaken the Muslims; to tell them as to what is good for them and what is not. What does Islam says and what the enemies of Islam want?
Al-Qa’idah was set up to wage a jihad against infidelity, particularly to encounter the onslaught of the infidel countries against the Islamic states. Jihad is the sixth undeclared element of Islam. The first five being the basic holy words of Islam, prayers, fast, pilgrimage to Mecca, and giving alms Every anti-Islamic person is afraid of it. Al-Qa’idah wants to keep this element alive and active and make it part of the daily life of the Muslims. It wants to give it the status of worship. We are not against any Islamic country nor we consider a war against an Islamic country as jihad.
We are in favour of armed jihad only against those infidel countries, which are killing innocent Muslim men, women, and children just because they are Muslims. Supporting the US act is the need of some Muslim countries and the compulsion of others. However, they should think as to what will remain of their religious and moral position if they support the attack of the Christians and the Jews on a Muslim country like Afghanistan. The orders of Islamic shari’ah jurisprudence for such individuals, organizations, and countries are clear and all the scholars of the Muslim brotherhood are unanimous on them. We will do the same, which is being ordered by the Amir ol-Momenin the commander of the faithful Mola Omar and the Islamic scholars. The hearts of the people of Muslim countries are beating with the call of jihad. We are grateful to them.
Ummat: The losses caused in the attacks in New York and Washington have proved that giving an economic blow to the US is not too difficult. US experts admit that a few more such attacks can bring down the American economy. Why is al-Qa’idah not targeting their economic pillars?
Usamah: I have already said that we are not hostile to the United States. We are against the system, which makes other nations slaves of the United States, or forces them to mortgage their political and economic freedom.This system is totally in control of the American Jews, whose first priority is Israel, not the United States. It is simply that the American people are themselves the slaves of the Jews and are forced to live according to the principles and laws laid by them. So, the punishment should reach Israel. In fact, it is Israel, which is giving a blood bath to innocent Muslims and the US is not uttering a single word.
Ummat: Why is harm not caused to the enemies of Islam through other means, apart from the armed struggle? For instance, inciting the Muslims to boycott Western products, banks, shipping lines, and TV channels.
Usamah: The first thing is that Western products could only be boycotted when the Muslim fraternity is fully awakened and organized. Secondly, the Muslim companies should become self-sufficient in producing goods equal to the products of Western companies. Economic boycott of the West is not possible unless economic self-sufficiency is attained and substitute products are brought out. You see that wealth is scattered all across the Muslim world but not a single TV channel has been acquired which can preach Islamic injunctions according to modern requirements and attain an international influence. Muslim traders and philanthropists should make it a point that if the weapon of public opinion is to be used, it is to be kept in the hand. Today’s world is of public opinion and the fates of nations are determined through its pressure. Once the tools for building public opinion are obtained, everything that you asked for can be done.
Ummat: The entire propaganda about your struggle has so far been made by the Western media. But no information is being received from your sources about the network of Al-Qa’idah and its jihadi successes. Would you comment?
Usamah: In fact, the Western media is left with nothing else. It has no other theme to survive for a long time. Then we have many other things to do. The struggle for jihad and the successes are for the sake of Allah and not to annoy His bondsmen. Our silence is our real propaganda. Rejections, explanations, or corrigendum only waste your time and through them, the enemy wants you to engage in things which are not of use to you. These things are pulling you away from your cause.
The Western media is unleashing such a baseless propaganda, which make us surprise but it reflects on what is in their hearts and gradually they themselves become captive of this propaganda. They become afraid of it and begin to cause harm to themselves. Terror is the most dreaded weapon in modern age and the Western media is mercilessly using it against its own people. It can add fear and helplessness in the psyche of the people of Europe and the United States. It means that what the enemies of the United States cannot do, its media is doing that. You can understand as to what will be the performance of the nation in a war, which suffers from fear and helplessness.
Ummat: What will the impact of the freeze of al-Qa’idah accounts by the US?
Usamah: God opens up ways for those who work for Him. Freezing of accounts will not make any difference for Al-Qa’idah or other jihad groups. With the grace of Allah, al-Qa’idah has more than three such alternative financial systems, which are all separate and totally independent from each other. This system is operating under the patronage of those who love jihad. What to say of the United States, even the combined world cannot budge these people from their path.
These people are not in hundreds but in thousands and millions. Al-Qa’idah comprises of such modern educated youths who are aware of the cracks inside the Western financial system as they are aware of the lines in their hands. These are the very flaws of the Western fiscal system, which are becoming a noose for it and this system could not recuperate in spite of the passage of so many days.
Ummat: Are there other safe areas other than Afghanistan, where you can continue jihad?
Usamah: There are areas in all parts of the world where strong jihadi forces are present, from Indonesia to Algeria, from Kabul to Chechnya, from Bosnia to Sudan, and from Burma to Kashmir. Then it is not the problem of my person. I am helpless fellowman of God, constantly in the fear of my accountability before God. It is not the question of Usamah but of Islam and, in Islam too, of jihad. Thanks to God, those waging a jihad can walk today with their heads raised. Jihad was still present when there was no Usamah and it will remain as such even when Usamah is no longer there. Allah opens up ways and creates loves in the hearts of people for those who walk on the path of Allah with their lives, property, and children. Believe it, through jihad, a man gets everything he desires. And the biggest desire of a Muslim is the after life. Martyrdom is the shortest way of attaining an eternal life.
Ummat: What do you say about the Pakistan government policy on Afghanistan attack?
Usamah: We are thankful to the Momin and valiant people of Pakistan who erected a blockade in front of the wrong forces and stood in the first file of battle. Pakistan is a great hope for the Islamic brotherhood. Its people are awakened, organized, and rich in the spirit of faith. They backed Afghanistan in its war against the Soviet Union and extended every help to the mojahedin and the Afghan people. Then these are the same Pakistanis who are standing shoulder by shoulder with the Taleban. If such people emerge in just two countries, the domination of the West will diminish in a matter of days. Our hearts beat with Pakistan and, God forbid, if a difficult time comes we will protect it with our blood. Pakistan is sacred for us like a place of worship. We are the people of jihad and fighting for the defence of Pakistan is the best of all jihads to us. It does not matter for us as to who rules Pakistan. The important thing is that the spirit of jihad is alive and stronger in the hearts of the Pakistani people.
End of Interview
[Copyright Ummat in Urdu, BBC translation in English, 2001]
Read about Osama Bin Laden in Michel Chossudovsky’s international best-seller
According to Chossudovsky, the “war on terrorism” is a complete fabrication based on the illusion that one man, Osama bin Laden, outwitted the $40 billion-a-year American intelligence apparatus. The “war on terrorism” is a war of conquest. Globalisation is the final march to the “New World Order”, dominated by Wall Street and the U.S. military-industrial complex.
The evidence increasingly suggests that throughout the entire post-cold War period, agencies of the US government have harboured international terrorists.
The Islamic jihad has been abetted by the US government, and conversely the Islamic jihad has financed the flow of arms and mercenaries in US sponsored insurgencies in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union.
And behind this process is a multibillion dollar Golden Crescent drug trade including the laundering of large amounts of narco-dollars in the Western banking system.
“the bin Laden family has become acquainted with some of the biggest names in the Republican Party…”
The following article published by the Wall Street Journal confirms the links of the Bush family to the bin Laden business empire.
M. Chossudovsky, Global Research, October 2001
Ou thanks to the WSJ for having brought this article to our attention
Note: The Wall Street Journal in September 2001 acknowledged Osama’s “alleged terrorist activities” and the “Jump in Defense Spending”
In retrospect “the Jump in Defense Spending” has been allocated to America’s “alleged counter-terrorism operations” in the course of last 23 years.
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, September 11, 2024
Bin Laden Family Could Profit From a
Jump in Defense Spending Due to Ties to U.S. Bank
Wall Street Journal
September 27, 2001
If the U.S. boosts defense spending in its quest to stop Osama bin Laden’s alleged terrorist activities, there may be one unexpected beneficiary: Mr. bin Laden’s family.
Among its far-flung business interests, the well-heeled Saudi Arabian clan — which says it is estranged from Osama — is an investor in a fund established by Carlyle Group, a well-connected Washington merchant bank specializing in buyouts of defense and aerospace companies.
Through this investment and its ties to Saudi royalty, the bin Laden family has become acquainted with some of the biggest names in the Republican Party.
In recent years, former President Bush, ex-Secretary of State James Baker and ex-Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci have made the pilgrimage to the bin Laden family’s headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Mr. Bush makes speeches on behalf of Carlyle Group and is senior adviser to its Asian Partners fund, while Mr. Baker is its senior counselor. Mr. Carlucci is the group’s chairman.
Osama is one of more than 50 children ofMohammed bin Laden, who built the family’s $5 billion business, Saudi Binladin Group, largely with construction contracts from the Saudi government.
Osama worked briefly in the business and is believed to have inherited as much as $50 million from his father in cash and stock, although he doesn’t have access to the shares, a family spokesman says. Because his Saudi citizenship was revoked in 1994, Mr. bin Laden is ineligible to own assets in the kingdom, the spokesman added.
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Our thanks to the WSJ for having brought this article to our attention
See the CBC video below: a carefully researched and incisive report focussing on the bin Laden-Bush family connections:
Video
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Since alternative energies still need huge subsidies to be viable in developing countries, the practice of fracking (kind of universal panacea that will solve the energy problems of humanity), environmental concerns and the inertia of oil assets will not allow large companies to abandon their current equipment and infrastructure, it follows that the world economy will continue to gravitate towards oil dependence in the next decade.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), oil production in Russia reached its historic high (11.41 million barrels per day) in 1988 when it was still part of the Soviet Union, but after the decline caused by the economic crisis of 2008, production has been growing to reach 10.59 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2013 with a 20-year expiry date.
Russia and China have sealed a stratospheric oil contract that becomes one of the largest in the history of the energy industry by which the Russian company Rosneft, (the country’s largest oil company), will supply the Asian giant for 25 years with $270 billion.
This, together with the mega gas contract signed by Russia’s Gazprom and China’s CNPC, which will supply 38,000 cubic meters of natural gas to the Asian country for an amount of approximately $400 billion and with a duration of 30 years through the pipeline Sila Sibiri (The Siberian Force), would lay the economic foundations of the Euro-Asian Union that began its work on January 1, 2015 as an economic and military alternative to the US project of creating a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP for its acronym in English).
Regarding Venezuela, according to a report by OPEC, crude oil production in the first quarter of 2024 would have risen to almost 900,000 bpd (4.28% increase over 2023) and exports increased by 7.4% to reach 27.6 million barrels. Venezuela has reportedly signed an agreement whereby the Chinese state-owned petro-chemical company Sinopec will invest $14 billion to achieve a daily production of oil in 200,000 barrels per day of crude oil in the Orinoco Oil Strip, (considered the most abundant oil field in the world) and the national hydrocarbon company PDVSA would be in negotiations with Russian Rosneft, Italian Eni and Spanish Repsol to obtain the necessary credits to carry out new projects of crude oil and gas, with which Russia and China would already be “strategic partners of Venezuela”.
In the case of Iraq, the western oil companies’ commitment to a transition towards renewable energy sources would be, being exploited by Chinese and Russian state oil companies such as Lukoil and PetroChina, to acquire a larger portion of oil-related assets in Iraq. Thus, according to the Iraqi Oil Ministry, Inpex (Japan’s main oil company, a key ally of the US) was to sell its 40% stake in Block 10 at the Eridu field, one of the biggest oil discoveries of recent decades and which was taken over by Russian oil company Lukoil.
Likewise, US energy giant ExxonMobil has formally abandoned the West Qurna 1 oil field in southern Iraq, handing over its operations to PetroChina, that it retains a majority stake in one of the world’s largest oil fields. Thus, the West Qurna field would have reserves estimated at over 20 billion barrels and represents about 15 per cent of total Iraqi production estimated at over 4 million barrels per day, what would be a triumph of Chinese foreign policy in its strategy to increase its energy sources as well as a severe setback for the US geopolitical interests.
Iran, with the third largest proven reserves of oil and gas in the world after Saudi Arabia and Iraq, is the destination for 80% of Iranian exports of approximately 3 million barrels per day (3% of world production).
Iranian oil is cheap and of good quality so, according to a report by the Reuters agency of October 2023, China would have saved about 10,000 million dollars in the first nine months of 2023 through record purchases of oil from Iran, Russia and Venezuela, all of which are sold at a discounted price.
However, Iraq and Libya would be immersed in destructive internal processes as a result of the balkanization implemented by the US following its doctrine of ordered chaos, Russia and China would thus be the only powers capable of facilitating the export of petroleum products from Libya, Iraq and Iran.
Consequently, the birth of a new energy holding co-piloted by Russia and China, which would include Venezuela, Malaysia, Angola, Uganda and Mozambique as energy partners and that they would use the petroyuan in commercial transactions and then use them as a source of reserve accumulation and thus gain pre-eminence over the dollar in international financial operations, within the Putin and Xi offensive to end the role of the dollar as a global monetary standard.
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This year’s Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Summit was held in Beijing where decisions were made to strengthen already existing ties into a strategic partnership between the two geopolitical entities.
The People’s Republic of China has maintained close relations with African states since the 1950s as the struggle for national independence rose to world prominence.
FOCAC was convened under the theme of “Joining Hands to Advance Modernization and Build a High-Level China-Africa Community with a Shared Future.” Holding the Summit under this theme distinguishes FOCAC from other imperialist-dominated gatherings where calls for the expansion of NATO and its aggressive policies across the globe are common themes.
Today in the third decade of the 21st century, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) views Africa as a source for economic cooperation and joint development. Over the last five decades, China has been instrumental in providing assistance for infrastructural projects including the continental headquarters of the African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; the construction of railway lines in several areas of East Africa; solidarity efforts within the United Nations and other international agencies; along with myriads of important initiatives amid fostering multipolarity and greater unity within the Global South.
China-Africa Cooperation Mutually Beneficial to All
Between September 4-6, African heads-of-state, foreign ministers, journalists and members of civil society engaged with their Chinese counterparts in following through on existing programs while creating new ones. A host of bilateral meetings involving Chinese President Xi Jinping and African leaders resulted in pledges of more than $US50 billion in investments.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, pose for a photo with foreign dignitaries before a welcome banquet for the guests attending the 2024 Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, on September 4, 2024, in Beijing. Photo: Xinhua
FOCAC was formed in 2000 and since this time period economic and development cooperation between the AU member-states and China has resulted in concrete advancements for hundreds of millions within each geo-political region. Africa is in desperate need of alternative trading and infrastructural partners who view the continent from a shared perspective of reconstructing a post-colonial society.
Whereas China is seeking partners in its forward-looking strategic planning centered on the building of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), many African states are also seeking to expand their reach related to trade and investment on more favorable terms. At present the reemergence of an African debt crisis impacting Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, Egypt and other states, has fueled the search for development partners from China, Russia and particularly among others within the Global South.
It is quite obvious that the strategic orientation within Africa should be centered around the lifting of living standards coupled with an increasingly independent foreign policy. These goals of greater cooperation and enhanced development have challenged the hegemony of imperialism.
The gap in wealth and living standards which emerged from the historical advent of enslavement and colonization can only be corrected by waging a struggle against imperialism to ensure the empowerment of the majority of people within a society. The massive dislocation of geo-political regions within Africa, Asia and Latin America represents the abysmal failure of capitalism on a global scale.
“Having successfully lifted 800 million people out of poverty, China has acquired firsthand knowledge of the transformative impact of poverty alleviation on a country’s development and long-term stability. This experience has also strengthened China’s belief that eradicating poverty is not only a domestic priority but also a global imperative…. China’s victory in poverty reduction resonates particularly in Africa, where many nations view China’s efforts as a source of inspiration in their own quests to eradicate poverty and promote sustainable development.
One example of China’s commitment to helping African countries tackle poverty is the transfer of Juncao technology, often referred to as the Chinese hybrid grass technology. Originally developed in China, this innovative technology uses a type of hybrid grass to cultivate edible and medicinal mushrooms, while also serving as animal feed and a natural method for controlling soil erosion.”
Despite its vast deposits of natural resources, the profits generated by the multinational corporations are not adequately shared with the workers, farmers and youth of the AU member-states. Consequently, this paradigm has seriously hampered economic development on the African continent.
Anti-imperialism and Socialism Provides Alternatives to Western Hegemony
China through its socialist system has maintained control of the commanding heights of the national economy. Its policy of redirecting surpluses into planned projects outlined by the Communist Party and its leadership, has placed China in a position of potentially exceeding the size and capacity of the U.S. economy. Over the last few decades, the U.S. as forerunner of the world capitalist system has become dependent upon goods manufactured in China. In sectors such as environmental technology and electric vehicles, China has surpassed the manufacturing output of the U.S.
Therefore, in this national election year in the U.S., the question of the economic, political and military status of the PRC is often raised by both of the ruling class dominated parties. Democrats and Republicans fear China due to the fact that it provides a different social system which has proven its ability to grow exponentially.
The imperialist militarism of the U.S. drains trillions of dollars from the national treasury. Adventures in recent decades such as the occupations of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria along with the bombing of Yemen and the destruction of Libya precipitated a sharp rise in terrorist activity in Africa and West Asia. The escalation in warfare and the subsequent dislocation domestically and internationally is a direct by-product of imperialism.
Since the launching of a NATO proxy war against the Russian Federation, even more of the tax dollars of working people are being stolen by the defense industry. Instead of rebuilding the industrial base of the U.S. and reconstructing the educational, housing and service sectors of the economy, Washington and Wall Street are enriching the ruling class as the overall social conditions of the masses are worsening.
Not being burdened with an imperialist foreign policy, China is able to invest its time and resources into building institutions which contribute to the lessening of poverty. Such a program of action against impoverishment will liberate billions more from the clutches of imperialist domination and exploitation.
“Since the FOCAC was set up, Chinese companies have helped African countries build or upgrade more than 10,000 km of railways, nearly 100,000 km of highways, roughly 1,000 bridges, almost 100 ports and 66,000 km of power transmission and distribution lines, all of which have created arteries of connectivity across the continent…. According to a report released by Chinese authorities last week, China has remained Africa’s largest trading partner for 15 consecutive years, and the proportion of China-Africa trade in Africa’s total foreign trade has steadily increased. Infrastructure projects spearheaded by China-Africa cooperation are spread across the continent, which have helped improve connectivity and socio-economic conditions on the continent, and propelled African industrialization, modernization and integration.”
The sense of collaboration and shared respect among peoples have guided the success of the implementation of these plans advanced by FOCAC. On a much broader scale, Beijing has been a proponent of the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) Plus Summit which at its previous gathering in the Republic of South Africa expanded its membership to include Egypt, Ethiopia and other states in West Asia.
Reports indicate that the upcoming BRICS Summit will enjoy the participation of the Islamic Republic of Iran. These developments point to the rising tide of a reconfigured world system where unipolarity is on the decline.
In his keynote address to the FOCAC Summit on September 5, President Xi Jinping hailed the progress made by the China-Africa alliance emphasizing that the next phase in relations would achieve even greater heights:
“Thanks to nearly 70 years of tireless efforts from both sides, the China-Africa relationship is now at its best in history. With its future growth in mind, I propose that bilateral relations between China and all African countries having diplomatic ties with China be elevated to the level of strategic relations, and that the overall characterization of China-Africa relations be elevated to an all-weather China-Africa community with a shared future for the new era…. The Communist Party of China held in July the successful Third Plenary Session of its 20th Central Committee, laying out systematic plans for further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization. This will profoundly further transform China. It will also provide new opportunities and new driving forces for African countries and for our joint pursuit of modernization.”
These comments by Xi envision a profound transformation of the world economy aimed at improving access to science and technology. FOCAC can serve as a model for the forming of alliances among developing states which actively improve the stability and qualitative growth of these geopolitical regions.
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A cessation of hostilities is impossible so long as Ukraine continues occupying part of Kursk.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbantold the press during his trip to Italy that “communication is number one, followed by a ceasefire, and only after that can we start talks about a peace agreement” between Russia and Ukraine. He also added that the EU is against all three steps since it’s counterproductively pursuing a pro-war policy in that conflict. Here are three briefings about Orban’s peace trip over the summer for those who might have forgotten about it since then:
He’s therefore sincere with his ceasefire proposal, but it won’t amount to anything for now. A cessation of hostilities is completely out of the question for Russia so long as Ukraine continues occupying part of Kursk. Other “goodwill gestures” are still possible as is now known after Lavrov revealed that Russia was on the brink of reviving the grain deal this spring, but only because those are envisaged as costless means to the end of politically resolving this conflict. Here are three briefings on these calculations:
Considering this, the only chance for a ceasefire is if Ukraine agrees to the “goodwill gesture” of withdrawing from Kursk, though that’s unlikely after Zelensky confirmed prior speculation that his forces plan to indefinitely hold it. No progress on Orban’s proposal is therefore expected until Russia first pushes the Ukrainians out of Kursk, but there’s no telling how long that’ll take. Here are three briefings on this dimension of the conflict, which is now in its second month:
Russia’s capture of Pokrovsk could compel Ukraine to withdraw from Kursk so as to prevent the collapse of the front lines, but there’s no guarantee that it won’t turn that city into the next Artyomovsk (Bakhmut), Avdeevka, or Mariupol, which could lead to it holding Kursk for a little longer. This sequence of events could revive interest in a ceasefire, but it might not unfold, or one side might still refuse to silence the guns even if it does. For that reason, nobody should expect a ceasefire anytime soon.
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Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is from MTI/Prime Minister’s Press Office/Zoltán Fischer
September 11th, 2024 by Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović
The period in the world’s history from the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1815) to the beginning of the Great War (1914) is usually labeled as the “golden age” of the European imperialistic expansion and the making of the greater national states and overseas colonial empires in Africa and Asia.
Nevertheless, in 1815 huge territories of the world still have been unknown to Europeans, and millions of people in Africa and Asia were living their lives not influenced by European civilization.
Europeans even were not very familiar with China, one of the oldest, richest, and biggest civilizations globally.
However, only a century later, European explorers, colonists, missionaries, merchants, bankers, adventurists, soldiers, and administrators, penetrated almost all corners of the globe.
As a matter of fact, the people of Asia and especially Africa mainly were unable to resist colonists and to repulse the superior European technology, especially of armed forces. In Africa, for instance, on the eve of the Great War, there were only two territories free of European colonization: Liberia on the western African seacoast and Abyssinia in East Africa.
As a historical-political phenomenon, imperialism is understood as domination or control by one state or a group of people over others.
The new phase of imperialism started in the first half of the 19th century when occupational-colonial authorities were imposed by (West) European industrial states in their competition for the colonial partition of Asia and especially Africa. At least from the Marxist viewpoint (V. I. Lenin), imperialism was an economic necessity of the industrialized capitalist economies that had the aim to offset the declining tendency of the rate of profit by exporting capital investments. The others did not understand imperialism as necessary in economic terms as it was, for instance, the case with J. A. Schumpeter who defined this phenomenon as the non-rational tendency of the state to expend as much as its power and territory. From the psychological point of view, imperialism was rooted in the minds of rulers and ruling aristocracy for the grabbing of land to become richer and politically influential. Alternative views of imperialistic policies stress the outgrowth of popular nationalism or a method to underwrite the welfare state in order to pacify the working class, personal adventurism, civilizing mission, or finally as a consequence of international rivalry for political power and prestige. Nevertheless, the 19th-century neo-imperialism had clearly a Eurocentric focus (like the previous one too).
Actually, the process of making new imperialistic colonial empires, especially by the West European countries regarding Africa and South-East Asia including the Pacific aquatorium, occupied the time spent from 1871 to 1914.
As a matter of comparison, Africa was only under minimal (sea coast) West European colonial penetration in the years 1815−1870 as the immense portion of the continent was even not discovered by the European explorers.
The German unification in 1871 gave a new impetus to the colonization of Africa and Asia followed by the Italian desire (unified in 1861/1866) to take a part of the African colonial cake. In other words, up to 1871, the European possessions in Africa and Asia were mainly confined to trading posts and military strategic stations with the exceptions of the British possessions in (British) India, Australia, New Zealand, and Cape Colony in South Africa followed by those of Russia in Siberia, Portuguese in littoral Angola and Mozambique and of France in littoral Algeria, Senegal, and Indo-China.
Image: Human skulls and bones in Havana Harbor, 1898. An estimated 225,000 Cubans died in Spanish concentration camps. (From the Public Domain)
On one hand, the competition for colonial possessions by the Great European Powers played a very significant influence on international relations and global politics from the 16th to the 18th centuries but on the other hand at least up to the mid-19th century overseas empire building, in fact, lost its previous attraction. It is important to stress that several economic philosophers, like Adam Smith and those around the Manchester School, criticized the overseas empire buildings based on mercantilist justification as, for instance, in practice, British successful trade business with the USA or South America did not depend on political control and colonial politics as they were not necessary for commercial success. Furthermore, in 1852, Benjamin Disraeli (later twice British PM) thought that colonies had been millstones around the British neck. However, no one great European power after the Napoleonic Wars wanted to abandon any of their colonial possessions. Moreover, the First French Empire ceased to exist as the majority of the French pre-Napoleonic colonies became transferred to others, especially Brits. At the same time, both Spain and Portugal lost their American possessions due to the wars of independence as a consequence of their weakness at home. In other words, Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the Western hemisphere became formally independent which meant not recognizing anymore the colonial rule by Madrid and Lisbon (only Cuba remained under Spanish rule till 1898). In 1867 Russia sold to the USA its North American territory of Alaska.
However, in the 1830s, France, who had lost up to 1815 most of her first colonial empire started to gradually build up a new one firstly by the occupation of the littoral of Algeria (the rest of Algeria was occupied in the 1840s) followed by expanding her colony of Senegal in the 1850s, taking several Pacific islands and annexing Saigon in 1859. The French Indo-China was finally formed in 1893, French West Africa in 1876−1898, French Congo in 1875−1892 (part of French Equatorial Africa), Madagascar in 1895−1896, and Morocco in 1912. French Guiana was the only French colony in South America.
However, at the same time, Great Britain as well as one by one acquired new colonies and up to 1914 became the greatest Western colonial empire and the biggest one in the world’s history having territorial acquisitions from Canada to New Zealand – 35 mil. sq. km. compared to the Mongol Empire (20 mil. sq. km.) and the Roman Empire (13 mil. sq. km).
Having lost their political and colonial dominance in America since 1783 (the American Revolution and the War of Independence, 1776−1783), the British turned their colonial intentions to Asia and Africa.
After the Napoleonic Wars and the defeat of imperial France, the United Kingdom (Great Britain and Ireland) retained Cape Colony (the Cape of Good Hope) and the maritime provinces of Ceylon from the Netherlands (Holland), Malta from the Knights of St. John, Seychelles and Mauritius from France (while France retained neighboring Réunion), and some West Indian islands from France and Spain.
The UK in the 1830s, as feared a French influence in the region, extended its claim to sovereignty over Australia and in the 1840s over New Zealand. Indian subcontinent and the lands around were the most significant British colonial possessions.
By 1858, the frontiers of British India had been formed, and it lasted until the proclamation of India’s independence in 1947. The other British overseas colonies in Asia acquired in the 19th century include Singapore (1819), Malaca (1824), Hong Kong (1842), Natal (1843), Labuan (1846), Lower Burma (1852), Lagos (1861), and Sarawak (1888). All of them were, in fact, strategic points on the sea routes important for British trade, especially regarding the route to British India which was the most valuable British colonial possession. Such colonial policy of the British policymakers was grounded in the British attitude that their national prosperity depended primarily on trade within the global framework.
Areas of the world that were part of the British Empire with current British Overseas Territories underlined in red. Mandates and protected states are shown in a lighter shade. (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)
There were two methods that London used to safeguard British maritime trade lines: either by influence or by direct political/military intervention/occupation. In fact, the Brits transformed up to WWI the whole area of the Indian Ocean into the British Indian Ocean Empire controlling all the trade routes of the Indian Ocean from South Africa to Hong Kong and from Aden to West Australia.
Global history from 1871 to 1914 experienced European neo-imperialistic competition in Asia and Africa for grabbing land, natural resources, markets, and outlets to invest financial capital. Consequently, a huge portion of the globe passed under European control. However, many of the possible areas for colonization were already pre-empted. Furthermore, the 1823 Monroe Doctrine of “Americas to Americans” discouraged further (West) European military-political involvement within the framework of the Western hemisphere (from Canada to Patagonia including the islands from the Caribbean to North Brazil) that meant latecomers (Italy and Germany) had to build up their colonial empires in Africa, the Pacific, or China. The list was, however, entered with old imperialists like Great Britain, France, and Portugal, while the USA became one of the latest latecomers by taking Spanish colonies (Cuba, Philippines) or the Hawaiian Islands as a consequence of the 1898 Spanish-American War. A newly great Pacific power became Japan taking Formosa (Taiwan) in 1895 and Korea in 1910 but penetrating into the Chinese mainland as well. At the same time, the southern portion of Central Europe (Mittel Europa) together with the Balkans, experienced the creation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Therefore, Austria-Hungary and Russia were the only European empires which did not have any overseas colonies.
Almost among all the old great trading countries, the Netherlands remained content with its very prosperous and existing colonial empire in the East Indies (Indonesia). France, after the unification of Germany in 1871 up to the beginning of the Great War in 1914, built up its overseas colonial empire by growing around 6,5 million sq. km. heaving nearly 47 million inhabitants. The French new colonial empire, created after the Napoleonic Wars, was chiefly in North and West Africa and Indo-China, where Laos and Tongking were added to Cambodia and Cochin China. France, as well as occupied Madagascar and several Pacific islands.
Among all colonial latecomers, united Germany was the most successful in building up the overseas colonial empire (followed by the USA, Japan, Belgium, and Italy). Germany acquired an empire of 1,6 million sq. km. of territory with around 14 million colonial inhabitants in German Southwest Africa (1884), Togoland (1884), the Cameroons (1884), German East Africa (1886), and the Pacific islands (1882−1899). Italy took Eritrea (1889), Italian Somaliland (1893), and Libya (1912), but was abortive to take Abyssinia (The First Italo-Ethiopian War in 1895−1896). Italian colonies existed only in Africa. The Belgian king Leopold II (1865−1909) received international recognition for his own private colony named Congo Free State in 1885 (2,600,000 sq. km.) that in 1908 became Belgian Congo where Belgian occupation authorities committed terrible atrocities connected with the forced labor and brutal administration during the barbaric exploitation of the natural resources.
The old colonial power of Portugal extended her African colonial possessions in Angola and Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique), but did not succeed in including the land between them due to the British colonial penetration from South Africa which separated these two Portuguese possessions.
Great Britain, together with France, made the greatest territorial acquisitions in Africa controlling Lower and Upper Nigeria (1884), British East Africa (Kenya, 1886), South Rhodesia (1890), North Rhodesia (1891), Egypt (1882), and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1898). In the Pacific, Great Britain took Fiji (1874), parts of Borneo (Brunei, 1881 and Sarawak, 1888), Papua New Guinea (1906), and some islands. The British Empire added 88 million people and in 1914 exercised authority over a 1/5 of the global mass land and a ¼ of its inhabitants.
While the African continent was almost completely colonized and partitioned, China succeeded in avoiding classical colonization and partition nevertheless being under strong Western political, economic, and financial influence and even control. Russia joined the other (West) European great powers in competing for influence in Asia.
The Russian land empire in Central Asia and Siberia enormously grew since the 1860s.
It is estimated that over 7 million Russian citizens emigrated from the European parts of Russia across the Ural Mt. to Asiatic Russian possessions in the 19th century and up to WWI.
China experienced during the last quarter of the 19th century up to 1914 the policy of “soft imperialism” practiced by the Western colonial powers in the form of the “battle of the concessions” (similar to the Ottoman Empire as well) when the leading neo-imperialistic countries fought for commercial advantage followed by financial and railway concessions.
There was a proposal to divide the territory of China into three influential zones: northern (including Outer Mongolia) under Russian influence, central as neutral (buffer zone), and southern (including Tibet) under British influence. The same was done but realized into practice in 1907 concerning the territory of Persia. However, China as a state was stronger by having more centralized political-administrative power compared to the African case, and, therefore, Chinese central authorities succeeded in keeping the Western direct colonial influence at the seacoast, at least up to the Great War.
At the turn of the 20th century, undoubtedly the UK formed the largest empire ever seen. In the early 1890s in Great Britain, an idea of “imperial preference” was born rooted in a geopolitical vision of enduring a British overseas colonial empire. In other words, it was proposed that the UK and its colonial possessions should create a single autarkic economy imposing tariffs against the rest of the world while extending preferential rates to one another. This “imperial preference” system was partially applied to the self-governing dominions following the Ottawa Conference of 1932. However, the system gradually declined after WWII for the reason that changing trade patterns reduced the significance of intra-Commonwealth commerce and due to the British membership to the EFTA.
Nonetheless, after the Great War, regardless of the very fact that the overseas empire of the UK grew in size and number of inhabitants due to the addition of the pre-war African and Pacific colonies of the German Second Empire, the imperialistic land-grabbing was in principle no longer acceptable politics in the international relations as the global politics was at least supposed to be conducted within the security framework build-up by the League of Nations (which member was not the USA – a country that initiated that idea).
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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is a former university professor in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: A 1670 illustration of African slaves working in 17th-century colonial Virginia in British America (From the Public Domain)
Nearly all public polls in the USA today, and since the beginning of 2024, show that the number #1 issue for American voters is the condition of the economy. But listening to the debate this evening one would have heard little discussion about it—and even less about solutions—from either candidate.
As I see it, the 9/11 skeptics have won the argument many times over. They have repeatedly proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt, the official narrative of September 11, 2001, is not supported by the existing evidence in the public domain.
No waiting for the end of the UN Agenda 2030. The goals have conveniently been advanced. You – and me – will be confronted with cash elimination, already started in many European countries and to some extent in the US; and even in some “developing countries” like India, without people’s consent.
Lest we forget, one day before the 9/11 attacks, as well as on the morning of 9/11, the dad of the sitting President of the United States of America, George Herbert Walker Bush was meeting none other than Shafiq bin Laden, the brother of the alleged terror mastermind Osama bin Laden.
On September 11, 1973, Salvador Allende’s democratic government in Chile was ousted by United States-backed forces in one of the Cold War’s defining moments. Allende himself was killed during the coup while his presidential palace, La Moneda, was extensively bombed. Many thousands of Chileans were either murdered, “disappeared”, imprisoned, and coerced to emigrate or enter exile. Allende’s widow and family were forced to go into hiding in Mexico for many years.
During the event, Austin stated that “the meeting would address Ukraine’s most urgent needs”, namely the Kiev regime’s dwindling air defense capabilities and long-range strike platforms. Apart from Austin and Volodymyr Zelensky, the meeting was attended by the latter’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, as well as the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, USAF General Charles Q. Brown.
It is essential to emphasize that even though the creation of Israel in 1947-1948 was claimed to be a reaction to the WWII “Holocaust,” the decision to implant a Jewish national state in Palestine was made long before.
Somalia has warned governments in the Horn of Africa and corporations seeking to conduct business in the region that Mogadishu will not tolerate any contracts which do not recognize it as a unified state.
Although for decades two breakaway areas within Somalia–Somaliland and Puntland–have operated as independent states while largely ignoring the authority of the successive central administrations since 1991, every attempt at forming a unified government in the capital has excluded the recognition of these two enclaves as sovereign entities.
In recent months there has been a diplomatic row between Ethiopia and Somalia over the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between President Muse Bihi Abdi of Somaliland and the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in Addis Ababa. Ethiopia being a landlocked country has historically since the 19th century sought to have access to the Red Sea.
Somalian President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud signed a new bill into law in January nullifying the MOU between Somaliland and Ethiopia which would provide access to Addis Ababa of a section of the port of Berbera on the Red Sea. This MOU, which the Somalian government has strongly objected to, was signed in exchange for Ethiopian recognition of Somaliland as an independent state.
This is the first time that another state has accepted Somaliland as a separate government and territory not under the rule of Mogadishu. These developments between Ethiopia and Somalia have created an increasingly tense atmosphere in the larger Horn of Africa region.
These two states have a history of conflicts over territorial boundaries which were set during the onset of colonial rule in Somalia and the efforts to marginalize Ethiopia as an independent state. However, the breakaway of Somaliland and Puntland from Somalia proper further complicated any attempts aimed at the normalization of relations.
In late 2006 and early 2007, Ethiopia under the previous government led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), sent troops into Somalia at the aegis of the United States to prevent the consolidation of the political bases of the then Union of Islamic Courts. Soon the Kenyan Defense Forces (KDF) and the Ugandan People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) intervened in Somalia. Eventually these East African military forces were joined together as the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).
Funding and training for this multinational mission in Somalia was adopted as a United Nations project with the stated aim of defeating the Islamist rebels who remained in opposition against the transitional federal government backed by Washington and the UN. Since 2007, the AU-UN presence in Somalia has not resulted in the establishment of a unified and secure state.
Since 2007, the mission has gone from peacekeeping to transitional and now stabilization. However, as the titles of the AU-UN presence has shifted, new difficulties are arising which frustrate the objectives of peace and unity in Somalia. The divisions and ongoing clashes with al-Shabaab cannot be fully addressed as long as the internal fragmentation inside the country provides opportunities for imperialism to exploit the lack of a cohesive political framework within the administrative state.
Economic Implications of Divisions Within Somalia
What is Somalia willing and capable of doing in response to these initiatives involving Somaliland? With the government still being dependent on the AU and UN which are relying on material and monetary assistance from Washington and the European Union (EU), in practical terms the options of the government in Mogadishu will remain limited.
Ethiopia has played an integral role in the various AU-UN missions in Somalia making it extremely difficult for Mogadishu to lose this military support. Even with the recent pledge from the Egyptian government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to Somalia to provide military assistance, the enactment of such policies would necessitate the recruitment and deployment of additional Somalian forces on the ground.
Addis Ababa views this offer by Egypt as a security threat due to the continuing dispute over the full implementation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam project (GERD). The Egyptian government has said that the redirecting of the Blue Nile as envisioned through GERD would endanger its water supply.
Repeated attempts to negotiate an amicable solution to the disagreements over GERD have failed. The inability to achieve a diplomatic solution to the usage of water resources for hydro-electric power in the Horn of Africa region will undoubtedly impede development which could benefit all states involved. Somalia in its threats to corporate interests has raised the stakes in the overall efforts to foster unity and cooperation in the Horn of Africa.
In a report published by Business Insider Africa it notes that:
“Somalia had issued that by the 1st of September, all companies with operations in Somalia, should have revised any information they have on their platform which recognizes Somaliland as an independent territory. They warned that this would be taken seriously. The country advised that information put out by said organizations should permeate that Somaliland still remains a territory of Somalia, otherwise, punishments would follow. As seen in the East African, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI) in Somalia used the country’s provisional constitution to compel corporations into removing the name of Somaliland off their network information sites.”
Such restrictions being placed by the central government in Somalia on corporations could very easily force these business interests to formally take sides in the dispute. If they continue to sign separate agreements with Somaliland, these firms could be prohibited from carrying out operations with the Somalian administration which is recognized by the AU and the UN.
The origins of the Somaliland and Puntland crisis are to be found in the colonial partitioning of Africa between Italy and Britain. Another colonial power, France, had maintained control of the area now known as Djibouti and called it French Somaliland.
There are additional Somali populations in Kenya as well as Ethiopia. In 1960 at the time of independence, the areas of Somalia formerly controlled by Italy and Britain merged creating a united republic with Puntland, whose name is taken from the ancient kingdom which can be dated backed thousands of years and noted for its trade with Egypt, Sudan and other territories in the Horn of Africa, North Africa and West Asia.
However, the civil war in Somalia during the 1990s further aggravated already existing tensions among these regions of the country. Somaliland declared itself independent from the central government in 1991. Later in 1998, Puntland asserted its separateness while initially saying it would not seek recognition as an independent state. Nonetheless, in 2024, Puntland authorities said that it would be independent due to disagreements with the central administration in Mogadishu over constitutional issues.
As acknowledged in the above-mentioned article from Inside Business Africa, the current situation has implications for various corporations and governmental institutions seeking to conduct business with Somaliland. Various aspects of these disagreements include:
. “Paysii, Dahabshil Jubba Express and Ethiopian Airlines, are some of the companies that were called out, and asked to cease using the name Somaliland and instead go with Somalia. In the case of Ethiopian Airlines which flies from the capital city of Somalia; Mogadishu to the capital city of Somaliland; Hargeisa, Somalia asked that it should stop listing the Somaliland destination as a separate country.”
Unity Remains a Necessity in the Struggle Against Imperialism in Africa and West Asia
Even though these states of Somalia, Egypt and Ethiopia exist within close geographical proximity from one another, the absence of a guiding Pan-African foreign policy inevitably threatens the peace and security of the entire region. Considering the resources which exist in the Horn and North African regions, the people of these three states could make a historic contribution to the development of the continent along with ending the crisis in West Asia involving the struggle for the liberation of Palestine.
At present the genocidal onslaught by the State of Israel in Gaza, the West Bank and other neighboring states such as Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen cannot be ignored by the AU member-states in North and East Africa. Egypt has been essentially neutralized from resuming its rightful role as a leading force against settler-colonialism and Zionist occupation.
Since the late 1970s with the signing of the Camp David Accords, Egypt has become the second largest recipient of direct assistance from Washington trailing only the State of Israel. These arrangements have been placed under tremendous strain since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023.
Mass sentiment within the AU member-states is overwhelmingly in solidarity with the Palestinians and other oppressed people in the West Asia region. Unity within Somalia and between Mogadishu and other contiguous states in the Horn of Africa could make a tremendous contribution in the broader objectives of eliminating neo-colonialism and imperialist domination.
The divisions and conflicts in the Horn of Africa can only serve to benefit imperialism. The AU and other international bodies must consider the importance of resolving these contradictions as a precursor for the sustainable development of Africa and other neighboring regions.
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On September 7 of 2008, I delivered my first public presentation on 9/11, an event that had happened 7 years earlier. I had been invited to share a podium with Dr. Kevin Barrett, a witty and erudite Muslim convert with whom I would collaborate often in the years ahead. Kevin had lost his academic job in 2006 at the University of Wisconsin.
He was sacked from the faculty for incorporating into his curriculum material branded as heresy especially by his most zealous detractors at Fox News.
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When I mounted the stage of the Stanley Milner Public Library in downtown Edmonton Alberta, the copy ink still smelled fresh on the xeroxed manuscript I was carrying in my hand. My presentation was entitled, “The Lies and Crimes of 9/11.”
The following day that text was published by the University of Ottawa Economist, Michel Chossudovsky. Michel remains to this day at the helm of Global Research.ca where my 2008 essay remains the first article archived on my author’s page.
Much of the essay was composed of excerpts that I had added into a reworked draft of a very large manuscript.
This manuscript was subsequently published as Earth into Property: Colonization, Decolonization and Capitalism (Montreal: McGill Queen’s University Press, 2010). When it became clear to me that the official narrative of what had happened on 9/11 was not supported by the evidence, I incorporated this understanding into the volume.
Earth into Property can be seen as a survey of the history of globalization since 1492. It depicts the geopolitical strategy adopted on the basis of the specious interpretation of 9/11 as the purposeful outgrowth of a historical trajectory rooted in the Indian wars of North America. Many episodes of imperial expansion, including the transcontinental spread of the United States, have been justified based on variations of the ideal of civilization’s real or imaginary ascent over savagery.
The old imagery of imperialism as civilization’s conquest over savagery, deeply permeated many symbolic aspects of the US-led Global War on Terror. This supposed War on Terror was used to explain many US invasions of Muslim-majority countries. In retrospect we can now clearly see that these invasions were meant primarily to serve Likudnik Israel’s— Greater Israel’s— expansionary agenda in the Middle East.
The people who attended the Edmonton event to hear Kevin and I speak were in my view quite distinctive. There was almost a full auditorium holding about 300 people. Each one of them had paid $15 to be there. That is the one and only time I ever held forth at a presentation where average people paid to see me hold forth.
As far as I could see, except for Kevin and me, there were no faculty types in the audience. By then it seemed that lines had been drawn. Those academics with aspirations to get jobs, promotions, contracts, awards, media gigs and such should not be seen in the company of “9/11 truthers,” or “troofers” as we were sometimes contemptuously labelled.
Those who had paid to be there were in my estimation largely intelligent and independent-minded workers with good jobs building pipelines, handling oil rigs and such throughout resource-rich Alberta. Some had travelled long distances to be there. It was the first time I had seen a sampling of the intensity of interest shared by many practical people when it came to getting to the bottom of what had really happened on 9/11.
When Earth into Property did come out, it was sometimes described as one of only three peer-reviewed academic books that incorporated what was known at the time as 9/11 skepticism. The book was chosen in a year-end event as one of the best of 2010 by a reviewer assigned to make this judgment by the UK newspaper The Independent. I was able to visit the Oxford University-based reviewer and discuss with him Earth into Property at some length.
As I see it, the 9/11 skeptics have won the argument many times over. They have repeatedly proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt, the official narrative of September 11, 2001, is not supported by the existing evidence in the public domain. The 11 books by Prof. David Ray Griffen have been integral to a very large body of literature as well as of many hundreds of Internet documentaries devoted to showing the gross problems with the mainstream interpretation.
All that work, however, ran into a heavy wall of media and government stonewalling to protect the major vested interests that had much to lose if the bin Laden/al-Qaeda fairytale would have been dislodged to explain the identity and motivations of those really behind the events of 9/11. In 2006 a preppy young journalist named Tucker Carlson demonstrated the biases of the media establishment with his rude and dismissive treatment of Professor Griffin.
A colleague of mine, Emanuel Pastreich, has lamented the continuation of the lies and crimes of 9/11 twenty-three years after the debacle.
He reflects on the debilitating effect of the ongoing cover-up that so many go along with just to avoid the responsibility of facing up to the truth.
It is impossible to write any sound interpretation of global geopolitics in the twenty-first century while evading some reckoning with the lies and crimes of 9/11.
9.11 X Twenty-Three = Speechlessness
By
Emanuel Pastreich
September 11, 2023
I am left without words on the twenty-third anniversary of the 9.11 incident. I have already written so many speeches on this day over the last decade, and articles before then, that I have come to loath this loathsome day. But this day of reckoning still comes around anyway, as the Earth circles the Sun, and does so without respect for our fantasies and delusions, so as to remind us that we live in a dream, surrounded by zombified friends and family, coworkers and classmates.
We who prefer truth must work constantly with those who would rather cling to pleasant sounding fictions than face the truth.
On September 11, 2001, I honestly did not believe the fraud could drag on this long. And still, for all the burdens we drag, we still crawl forward (or is it backward?) as a nation, as a civilization.
But there is a terrible price to be paid for allowing a parasite class of criminals to remain in power, for looking the other way as those who stood for justice and truth are punished and those who stood for hypocrisy and treason are lauded and promoted.
The culture of the United States was permanently poisoned in by the ashes left from the twin towers.
Our best universities are but brand names today used to cover up criminality.Our justice department has become a weapon for rent to the highest bidder, and our military is a tool for money laundering and a weapon for mercenary actions to pursue profits for multinational banks.
Of course, the nightmare did not start with 9.11, but the system came apart at the core on that fateful date. Whereas the United States was followed around by a dark shadow for the last seventy years, and the shadow started to cover over our faces from the time of the Vietnam War, now literally every person in Congress, every person in the Executive, every person on TV, is in on one of the greatest crimes in history. No wonder it was so easy to pull off COVID.
Yes, there are some signs that we are moving a bit closer to truth. At the same time, we must admit that once the truth is out, nothing can be seen in the same light again. That is because 9.11 is not unlike incest. It is a terrible thing that we feel compelled to cover up because to allow this truth out will compromise everyone—many feel that there is no winner in such a culture of shame. So it is better to lie so one can at least enjoy a dinner out, or a vacation in Italy.
And yet, we can see the substantial consequences of 9.11 from the speech of Benjamin Netanyahu to the US Congress on July 25, 2024. Netanyahu was free to give the most fascistic, most militaristic, speech delivered in the history of Congress to over 50 rounds of applause. He could not have given such a speech in Israel, or in any other country. Only the United States is so morally and spiritually crippled as to allow his rampage—no! to sing hymns for his blasphemy.
That weird relationship between the elites in Israel and the United States speaks volumes about the invisible scars of 9.11 in the United States—the all-powerful nation that has lost its soul and become a complete slave at precisely the moment of its absolute domination.
That is precisely what John Quincy Adams wrote about the United States’ possible future if she were embroiled in foreign wars,
“She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.”
That sums up the sad state of the United States, limping with ever greater normalcy toward the apocalypse.
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Dr. Anthony Hall is currently Professor of Globalization Studies at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta Canada. He has been a teacher in the Canadian university system since 1982. Dr. Hall, has recently finished a big two-volume publishing project at McGill-Queen’s University Press entitled “The Bowl with One Spoon”. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
Emanuel Pastreich served as the president of the Asia Institute, a think tank with offices in Washington DC, Seoul, Tokyo and Hanoi. Pastreich also serves as director general of the Institute for Future Urban Environments. Pastreich declared his candidacy for president of the United States as an independent in February, 2020. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Nearly all public polls in the USA today, and since the beginning of 2024, show that the number #1 issue for American voters is the condition of the economy.
But listening to the debate this evening one would have heard little discussion about it—and even less about solutions—from either candidate.
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The ABC moderators started off the discussion with what one hoped would have set a positive tone for the debate in that regard.
They actually said the number 1 issue was the economy and cost of living and challenged both candidates with the appropriate phrase:
“Is the economy better off today than four years ago!”
In her initial response of the debate, Harris jumped onto the issue by citing several of her proposals: a $6k/year child care tax credit for newborns, a tax credit of $50k for new start up small businesses, and a $25k credit for first time homebuyers.
She then charged that Trump’s tax cut proposals provided $5 trillion for billionaires and businesses.
But that was the highlight of the evening in so far as actual economic issues were concerned.
It went downhill from there. …
Harris ended her first responses by saying Trump’s proposals for an increase in tariffs was a de facto sales tax on consumers amounting to $4k/yr. Trump replied it wasn’t sales tax and if tariffs were so bad why did the Biden administration continue his (Trump’s) first term tariffs that brought in hundreds of billions of dollars to the US Treasury. Those tariffs didn’t result in inflation in 2018-20, so why would his new tariffs do so now, he retorted?
Trump then dropped the economic ball altogether. Instead of informing the audience of his own economic proposals—like ending taxes on tips, ending taxing of seniors’ social security income (which was the practice before Reagan), or pointing out that he and JD Vance had already proposed a $5k child care credit—for all kids not just newborns—Trump just let it slide. He could have said Harris’s child care credit was a ‘me too’, announced after JD Vance had first raised the $5k credit. Even more surprising, Trump never mentioned throughout the debate his proposal to exempt social security benefits from income taxation, which would certainly have been popular to voters in swing states like Arizona and Pennsylvania with high populations of retirees.
Trump also failed to follow up on his own point that inflation the last three years ranged from 21% to 80%, depending on the item, and that grocery prices remains stuck at 35% higher compared to 2020 and gasoline 38%, according to the Wall St. Journal. He did mention egg prices in passing but didn’t say they were up 114%.
In other words, the phrase ‘are you better off today than four years ago’ disappeared at that point for the rest of the evening. Harris obviously not wanting to ‘go there’ and Trump strangely accommodating her.
Trump seemed to be fixated on the immigration issue, to which he returned again and again. But he spoke mostly in generalities and anecdotes and never cited the fact that more than 4 million illegal immigrants entered the country in 2022-23. Moreover, after declaring most of the illegals were criminals coming from all around the world, he turned ridiculous by saying in Minnesota the illegals were ‘eating cats’. Uh Oh!
At that point the moderators even jumped him citing the city manager of Minneapolis publicly said that was not true. No one ate cats in Minneapolis. One wonders how the moderators were so well prepared with that response, almost as if they were waiting for it to arise. Besides, that was not their job to add content via commentary.
At another point Trump correctly declared the Biden record on job creation was mostly ‘bounce back’ jobs as he put it that returned as the economy reopened in 2020-21. They therefore were not new jobs created under Biden. But if Trump had cited the net jobs created in 2017-2019 compared to Biden’s 2022-24 he may have been able to make a more convincing point.
Trump repeatedly declared Harris ‘had no plan’ for the economy. In a sense that was correct. Harris’s plan in the debate came down to three proposals: $6k child care credit, $50k start up business credit, and a one time reference she made to $25k assistance to 1st time homebuyers. These three hardly constitute a ‘plan’ but Trump said nothing to critique the points. For example, he could have pointed out that Harris’ proposals were applicable to only a partial segment of households in all three cases and that even together they would have a minimal impact on the economy. But he didn’t. Nor did he contrast his own measures to Harris—i.e. tariffs to bring jobs back to the US, no tax on tips, $5k child care credit, and no taxing of seniors’ social security checks. Nor did he elaborate on his tax proposals for business. Like Harris, not much of a plan either.
Neither candidate even remotely referred to the country’s current $2 trillion deficit this year, or the $35 trillion national debt, or the current interest payments to bondholders now more than $900 billion a year! Perhaps neither ‘wanted to go there’ since the cumulative deficits and debt under Biden so far is $7.2 trillion and under Trump was $7.8 trillion. Both know that would open a can of worms and perhaps lead to the likely logical consequence of the need in 2025 to engage in massive austerity cuts to social spending which is almost certainly coming after the election.
It might also have led to a more detailed discussion of tax proposals which, given their generosity to investors and businesses, neither candidate likely didn’t want to discuss in any detail.
At another point Harris declared that Trump’s first term trade deficit was a consequence of his selling out the US to China. Trump could have—but didn’t at that point—have cited Biden’s current trade deficit running at more than $100 billion/month and more than $1 trillion this year, the highest in US history.
Harris then went further re. China and said its president Xi was responsible for Covid, which also went unanswered by Trump.
Perhaps that would have sounded too much like he agreed with her since Trump has alleged that previously as well. That would be as far as either candidate discussed China for the evening. The centerpiece of Trump’s plan and solutions for the economy—the #1 issue—has been for months now more tax cuts, without spelling out who would actually benefit from the cuts, since it would benefit mostly rich investors and businesses. The Congressional Budget Office, by the way, estimated Trump’s tax proposals would cost the US budget $5 trillion more over the next decade by 2034—which was in addition to his $4.5 trillion cuts introduced in 2017. It’s not surprising so many big CEOs have been recently rallying to his campaign—as they did in response to the same tax cut promises in 2016. Déjà vu.
At this point of the debate it was becoming clear Trump was passing up a lot of opportunities to score on the Biden-Harris economic performance of the past four years or to present a convincing alternative vision of his own. It was a big lost opportunity by Trump. Trump never pressed the question: ‘Are you better off today than four years ago?” Then came the discussion about abortion.
It has to be said Harris scored points on this topic although she spoke mostly in terms of generalities that women have the right to choose what to do with their bodies. She was very much ‘Trump like’ in citing horrifying anecdotal examples of women denied abortion medical assistance. One almost thought it was a state of the union pitch, with the victims sitting in the Congressional rafters. Everything but the lemming like applause from the Congressional floor.
She also probably scored points by saying Trump supported a national abortion ban, which he denied. However, she supported her allegation by citing actions by some of the states now deciding on the issue that have come close to just that, an outright ban. Trump defended his position of giving the decision on abortion to the states, codified with the US Supreme Court’s recent decision turning over abortion policy to the states.
At this point the ABC moderators came down on Harris’s side, threw a hardball at Trump and asked if he would veto a Congressional bill banning abortion. He prevaricated unconvincingly and without saying yes or no, said it would never come to a Congressional bill because now the Court had turned the decision over to the states.
Harris scored another point on this issue by alleging Trump was even against IVF for families, which he outright denied. Then Trump pulled another ‘eating cats’ faux pas by saying doctors in Virginia were deciding on whether to kill newborns. The ABC moderator jumped in on Harris’ side at that point again and said that wasn’t so. So much for neutrality. Moderators walked a fine line at times throughout the evening, and at times injecting commentary contra Trump and often to Harris’ advantage.
In the key swing state of Pennsylvania energy jobs from fracking are a big issue in the election. Harris was asked why she apparently changed her position recently on the issue and now did not oppose fracking. Her response was to deny she had ever changed. There was a lot Trump could have said to pin her down at that point but didn’t. Nor did he say anything about her about face recently on issues like lowering the corporate income tax even below Biden’s 37% proposal to her own now 28% (Trump proposed lowering from current 20% to 15%). Both candidates obviously have been courting big business campaign contributions as they race to see who gives more tax cuts to big donors.
With rising deficits and debt, and likely social program austerity cuts coming in 2025, clarifying their positions on the tax issue was important for voters. Who will pay to lower the runaway annual budget deficits? Will taxes be raised on business and wealthy? Spending programs cut? For the average voter how that is answered means a lot for their take home pay and perhaps even for many if they even have a job next year—since the US economy of late is showing clear signs of slowing as manufacturing, construction, industrial activity and trade have all been contracting and the jobs market is softening rapidly in recent months. But nothing was addressed by either candidate about these emerging worrisome trends.
Throughout the debate Harris kept referring to the need not to look at the past but to the future. However, she more than agreed with moderators resurrecting a number of topics ‘out of the past’. Most were directed specifically at Trump, in what were clearly ‘hard ball’, as they say.
January 6 events came up, with the moderators posing the question to Trump whether he regretted what he did on January 6 and would he accept a peaceful transition of power again. Zing! The cameras turned to Harris on that one, as she smiled widely. Trump fumbled for a while, settling on blaming Pelosi for not accepting his offer on January 6 to provide 10,000 national guardsmen for the Capitol’s defense.
Trump then tried to explain how January 6 and the felony convictions were all about ‘lawfare’ waged by the Democrats after him as a candidate, a first in US political history and a low point in US democracy. He could have taken it further, however, and challenged Harris to explain why the Democrats were also spending millions to prevent third parties like the Greens or RFKjr getting on the ballot or receiving public campaign funds. But again he didn’t and lost the opportunity to show how the Democrats were trampling democracy in the election no less than they were charging him.
Harris pressed the charge of Trump’s threat to Democracy, raising Trump’s alleged recent public statements if the election was stolen again there would be a political ‘bloodbath’ in the country. Trump once again—as throughout the evening—was put on the defensive responding to Harris. He neither explicitly denied or explained the accusation.
Toward the end of the debate foreign policy finally came up and was revealing. Both competed to show who was more pro-Israel. Harris more or less repeated the Biden position: Israel was horribly attacked. Women were raped by Hamas. It has the right to defend itself. There should be a ceasefire and in the end a two state solution—which appears about as likely as Boeing rescuing US astronauts in the Space Station. And Iran is the big bogeyman. The US should continue to give Netanyahu all he asks for.
Trump’s position was October 7 would not have happened on his watch. Trump scored a point in the ‘I’m more holy than thou’ Israel support debate by saying Harris refused to meet with Netanyahu when he came to the US recently. She went to a sorority meeting instead. Trump added Iran was broke when he was president but now has $300 billion due to Democrat policies lifting sanctions and Iran is running amuck in the middle east funding Israel’s enemies. Not a mention by either candidate of the 40,000 civilians or 17,000 children dead. Trump missed another opportunity at this point. He could have pressed Harris on why her position of a ceasefire and two state solution sounds good but has failed miserably thus far with no success in sight. What would she do differently if president to make it succeed? Again, no follow up.
The Ukraine war was more interesting. As in the middle east, Harris again parroted the Biden position: Russia was the invader, Ukraine was the epitome of democracy, the US will continue to give them more money and weapons, and if we don’t Putin will invade Europe. She even mentioned Poland, obviously pandering to the large Polish vote in Pennsylvania.
Trump came out hard in reply saying more than a million have needlessly died in the war and it was not in the US’s interest. The war should not have happened and would not have on his watch. US policy of Biden and Harris has cost the US taxpayer $250 billion so far and only $100 billion by the Europeans. They should pay their share. In other words, the USA continues to subsidize NATO and Europe, one of Trump’s long term issues.
Trump then dropped what should have been a bombshell accusation followed up by the moderators who ignored it and went on to ask unrelated questions: Trump accused Biden and his son Hunter of taking money from Ukraine and even receiving $3.5 million from the wife of the mayor of Moscow! The moderators moved on as if nothing was said.
In another hardball tossed his way by the moderators Trump was asked specifically “Do you want Ukraine to win?” At first he stepped around the query but the moderators tossed it his way a second time. Trump’s answer was he would end the Ukraine war even before being sworn in as president next January. The moderators didn’t ask Harris in turn what she would do to end the war. Perhaps they knew it would be answered with the current Biden policy of let’s continue sending money and weapons until Putin concedes?
Trump did score on this exchange by challenging Harris to explain why Biden in 2021 refused to even talk to Putin and said that Harris visited Kiev just three days before the war in Ukraine broke out—i.e. evidence according to Trump she was a weak negotiator and not respected by either Zelensky or Putin. The moderators got Harris off the hook by asking her if she ever met Putin, which was obviously not part of the debate script but made it appear Trump’s accusation was not relevant.
Trump warned that Biden-Harris policy in general has been a mess for four years, from the very beginning with Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan retreat that ended with US servicemen killed; but also today in Yemen, Ukraine, Israel, Iran. Trump added it was all leading the US toward a possible World War 3 with Russia.
Now nearing the end of the debate, the moderators asked both candidates how they would deal with Putin? (But apparently not how they would deal with Zelensky who has resisted all efforts to negotiate). It was at this point that Harris sounded like an honorary US neocon saying Putin’s agenda is not just to take Ukraine but to continue beyond into Europe. Tony Blinken, Jake Sullivan and Victoria Nuland would have been proud. The absurd ‘Dominoes Theory’ lives!
What is especially noteworthy in the entire foreign policy discussion was that neither candidate said a word about what is perhaps the greatest threat to US global hegemony and economy: the current rapid rise and expansion of the BRICS and their accelerating development of alternative global financial institutions that will almost certainly undermine US global dominance, and consequence its domestic economic stability next four years. But perhaps that was expecting too much from the moderators; and certainly would have been flubbed by the candidates neither of whom have any idea what’s going on in that regard and how tenuous a hold the USA has on its increasingly unstable global empire now.
At the close, the ABC moderators confronted Trump with their last hardball on his public statements that he doubted Harris was ‘black’. Now things got very personal. But it was a perfect opening for Harris who quickly attacked Trump as racist and accused him of always trying to divide the country. To prove her point she dredged up incidents that occurred decades ago accusing him of refusing to rent to blacks in New York, calling for the execution of the ‘Central Park 5’ murders in NY at that time, and denying Obama’s US birth.
This was truly a deep dumpster dive into the past to resurrect issues which contradicted her central debate message of ‘let’s look to the future not the past’. If one of the ground rules of the debate was not to attack one’s opponent personally, Trump surprisingly adhered to the rule throughout the debate. It was not the old Trump of 2016. The ABC moderators set up Harris with cover to do a personal trip on Trump. The Democrat strategy has always been to portray Trump as an unstable and unsavory character. The structure of questions and timing of the discussions enabled Harris to deliver that message. In terms of personalities, Harris thus came off the ‘winner’ in the debate as a result.
Summarizing the Second 1st Presidential Debate one might conclude:
Both candidates hardly addressed the voters’ central issue of the economy
Trump was repeatedly on the defensive and lost numerous opportunities to score points
The ABC moderators threw softball questions at Harris and several hardballs at Trump
Both candidates differed little on policy on the middle east
Neither candidate said anything about the current economic war with China or Taiwan
Trump and Harris did differ sharply on policy toward the Ukraine war
Trump over-emphasized the immigration issue turning to it perhaps too often
Harris policy on NATO, Ukraine & Israel remains Biden’s
No one offered solutions how to lower prices, how to prevent the emerging US economic slowdown or how the US might respond to global challenges by the BRICS
In general one would have to conclude that Harris probably ‘won’ the debate, especially given the low bar set in initial expectations of her performance. She remained calm and didn’t get flustered. Trump on occasion appeared to come close to being thrown off balance, by the moderators questions in particular.
The American voters are of course the big losers. I doubt anyone can come away from the debate with a clear understanding what either candidate’s comprehensive plan is for the US economy—or the various pressing issues of millions of American households’ declining real income, affordability of basics like food and shelter, their ever-growing burden of consumer debt, intensifying global wars, chronically rising global warming, the growing likelihood of recession in 2025, or the spectre of renewed US political instability also on the horizon.
It’s doubtful the US mainstream media will say anything about all that but will focus on the personalities, how they appeared, and their media performance.
However, in the end the debate will likely matter little to the election outcome. Only seven or so states matter in the election outcome, given the US archaic electoral college system. As this writer has already said, four of the seven swing states are likely locked up by Trump (AZ, NV, GA, NC) and he only needs to win one of the remaining three (PA, MI, WI). Harris needs to win all three of the latter if she loses the former four which is likelier than not. So has the ‘Second 1st Presidential Debate’ moved the needle, as they say? Probably not. But hell! It ain’t over until the fat lady sings and she’s still waiting in the wings!
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This article was originally published on the author’s blogsite, Jack Rasmus.
Dr. Rasmus is author of the books, ‘Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes’, Clarity Press, 2017 and ‘Alexander Hamilton and the Origins of the Fed’, Lexington Books, 2020. Follow his commentary on the emerging banking crisis on his blog, https://jackrasmus.com; on twitter daily @drjackrasmus; and his weekly radio show, Alternative Visions on the Progressive Radio Network every Friday at 2pm eastern and at https://alternativevisions.podbean.com.
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is a screenshot from the WSJ video
Alexander Hamilton and the Origins of the Fed
By Jack Rasmus
Publisher: Lexington Books (February 28, 2019)
Hardcover: 146 pages
ISBN-10: 1498582842
ISBN-13: 978-1498582841
Alexander Hamilton and the Origins of the Fed describes how US federal governments, often in cooperation with the largest US private banks, introduced and expanded central banking functions from 1781 through the creation of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Based on an analysis of the evolution of the US banking system – from pre-1781, through the 1787 US Constitutional Convention, Congressional debates on Hamilton’s reports to Congress, the rise and fall of the 1st and 2nd Banks of the United States, and through the long period of the National Banking System form 1862-1913, the book shows how central banking in the US evolved out of the private banking system, and how following the financial crash of 1907 big New York banks pushed through Congress the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, creating a central bank which they then managed for their interests.
When the name bin Laden is mentioned today, the first thing that comes to most people’s minds would be terrorism—particularly against the United States. Similarly, the name George Bush (the father or the son) evokes images of each man’s time as president of the United States. In the case of George W. Bush, his time in the White House came during the 9/11 attacks.
However, there are many connections other than the obvious one mentioned above. The Bush and bin Laden families have a long history of business dealings, while Osama himself apparently did a complete about-face, as he once collected his paycheck from the CIA, working on behalf of the United States and their interests. While some of the following links between the Bushes and the bin Ladens are likely to be mere coincidences, they are intriguing, to say the very least.
Here are ten examples of connections, be they direct or through mutual associates, between two of the most famous families on the planet.
10. Oil Business Connections
The connections between the bin Laden and Bush families go back decades. Perhaps the first time of note that their paths crossed would be in 1978, when George W. Bush and Salem bin Laden (brother of Osama) set up Arbusto Energy in Texas.[1]
The business was far from a success, however, and by the mid-1980s, it (having since merged with Spectrum 7) was taken over by a company called Harken Energy. As we will see later on, this takeover raised suspicions in itself—suspicions that would be proven correct when examination of the company underwriting the takeover to the tune of millions of dollars exposed various corruption scandals.
There were other wealthy Saudi investors connected to Arbusto. The person largely seen as being responsible for many of the introductions between the Bush family and these wealthy investors is our next entry on this list.
9. Jim Bath
Jim Bath was seen as a “CIA asset” around the same time that Bush Jr. was venturing into the oil business (at a time when the CIA was under the direction of Bush Sr.).[2] He also had connections going in all directions outside the United States, particularly with rich Middle Eastern businessmen looking for opportunities with the American dollar. Many of these were members of the royal family and rich class of Saudi Arabia, including the bin Ladens.
In fact, so deep was the trust between Bath and the bin Laden family that Bath had entered into an agreement with them to be their representative for business ventures in America. This agreement would also lead to Bath representing the interests of [the late] Khalid bin Mahfuz, a person whose name comes up time and again in connection to Bush and bin Laden business ventures and someone deeply connected to the National Commercial Bank of the Saudi royal family.
Bath had been close friends with Bush Jr. since their time together at the Texas Air National Guard—a placement that, rightly or wrongly, would keep an otherwise eligible Bush Jr. out of the Vietnam War.
8. BCCI And Harken Energy
When Harken Energy took over the collapsed Arbusto oil company in 1986, it was underwritten for $25 million by the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, better known as BCCI. Coincidentally or not, BCCI also had many of the same rich Middle Eastern businessmen involved in its operations as Arbusto had.
In early 1991, the BCCI was shut down due to investigations revealing money laundering activities that were connected to the movement of weapons, as well as “funneling money to the Mujahideen” to aid in their conflict against the Soviet Union. (As we shall see later, this money was essentially being funneled to Osama bin Laden.) Another longtime Bush–bin Laden associate, the previously mentioned Khalid bin Mahfuz, had a controlling interest in BCCI. In short, BCCI has been called “the most corrupt financial institution in history.”[3]
Although there were no proven direct links between the Bush family and BCCI, there were definite indirect links to be investigated. There were also similar connections between another group the Bush and bin Laden families were involved with, which was directly involved with the BCCI, and it is the next entry on our list.
7. The Carlyle Group
In the book House of Bush, House of Saud, researcher and writer Craig Unger explored accusations of secret political agendas between the Bush family (and, in turn, the Bush administrations), several rich Saudi businessmen (including Saudi royals and bin Ladens), and a gathering of specific people known as the Carlyle Group. To say the content of the publication was explosive would be an understatement, with some publishing houses suddenly pulling the book from their available titles due to increasing risks of libel.
Needless to say, many people viewed this as an attempt to threaten such publishers and writers in order to suppress information. One of the publishers, Simon Master of Random House, would even claim that libel lawyers were “stifling free speech.”[4] To others, it wasn’t the lawyers doing the stifling but rather those who were the subject of such book’s content.
In short, the Carlyle Group, while being a fully transparent private equity company, had many of the same Saudi businessmen and Bush Jr. and his associates, who were connected to the highly questionable aforementioned BCCI scandals, as well as various other companies stretching back years. Perhaps because of this, they are viewed by some with suspicion. Our next entry does nothing to temper that suspicion.
6. Bush Sr.’s 9/11 Meeting
While George W. Bush was reading a book about goats in a school in Florida at the time the 9/11 attacks were unfolding, George H. W. Bush was involved in a meeting representing the aforementioned Carlyle Group in Washington, DC, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, and he was with one of the brothers of America’s soon-to-be most wanted man, Osama bin Laden.[5]
Whether or not the meeting was purely coincidence or not is up for debate—and there are many who have done just that. In his film Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore, for example, would cite these links between the two families, not least the meeting on September 11. While both families insist the relationship between the Bushes and the bin Ladens is purely down to business interests, others believe it to have a covert political agenda.
So, while it doesn’t prove anything untoward in its own right, it is perhaps a coincidence too far, even for the most ardent skeptic to such conspiracy notions, maybe even more so, given the actions and details of the next entry on our list.
5. Bin Ladens Allowed To Leave The US
It is certainly no secret that in the aftermath of the Twin Tower attacks, prominent members of the bin Laden family were allowed to leave the United States.[6] Not only that, but they were given safe passage courtesy of the US government at a time when every aircraft over US airspace was otherwise grounded.
Although it’s easy to jump straight on the conspiracy train with this one, when viewed clinically, it would most likely be a case of protecting longtime associates from the unjust attacks they would likely experience due to their relative having committed a terrible atrocity. As one of Osama’s brothers, Yeslam bin Laden, stated, since the 9/11 attacks, “the name bin Laden is synonymous with terror.”
It wasn’t just the fact that bin Laden family members were allowed to leave, though. Many reports would eventually surface from various military and government officials that Osama bin Laden could have been caught soon after 9/11. Perhaps most notably, CIA field commander Gary Berntsen claimed there was a distinct lack of foot soldiers and effort to hunt down and capture bin Laden, despite his location apparently being known in the immediate months following the attacks. Berntsen talks extensively about this in his book Jawbreaker, in which he ultimately states that the United States “let Osama bin Laden get away.” Of course, whether bin Laden was “taken out,” as the world was told in 2011, is a conspiracy in itself. While interesting, it is not one that we will look into here.
4. Osama’s CIA Connections
Of course, in the 1970s and predominantly in the 1980s, Osama bin Laden was not only considered friendly to the United States; he was considered to be a CIA asset.[7]
While most of the bin Laden family were astute and successful businessmen, Osama’s talents were seemingly more hands-on and best applied “in the field.” During the 1980s, Osama led militia groups against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. His group was essentially armed, trained, and backed by the CIA.
Once that conflict was over is where things begin to get murky. Many conspiracy theorists contend that Osama bin Laden maintained his links to the CIA, although in a more covert way. It should be noted there is no absolute proof of this, with many of the people making these claims using past CIA actions to back up their current theories.
Officially, Osama bin Laden believed the US influence in the Middle East was too great, and he eventually left his native country and began on the road that would ultimately lead to the 9/11 attacks. This type of action in intelligence circles is called “blowback.” Perhaps the fact that such actions are common enough for intelligence agencies to have a name for them should be telling in itself.
3. 9/11 And Saudi Arabia
Although there is indeed a lot of murkiness surrounding just about every aspect of the 9/11 attacks, another “coincidence” was an apparent Saudi involvement in the attacks.[8] Of course, Saudi Arabia is the bin Ladens’ home country, to boot.
Official records state that of the 19 hijackers involved in the 9/11 incident, 15 of them were Saudi Arabian. Also, the alleged mastermind, Khalid Shaykh Mohammed, was free to travel in and out of the United States throughout much of 2001. This was in spite of alleged warnings to the Bush administration from their own intelligence services of his suspected involvement in terrorist activity. Further warnings were issued only weeks prior to the attacks, in August 2001, even mentioning Osama bin Laden and other Saudi sponsors.
It is strange, then, at least to some people’s reckoning, that the US military didn’t immediately turn their attention to Saudi Arabia. Instead, they opted to invade Afghanistan. Officially, they claimed this to be the place Osama bin Laden was residing. We examine the possible “other” reasons why in the next entries on our list.
2. The Afghan Pipeline
In 1997, California company Unocal (which had numerous past connections to Dick Cheney) began preparations for the Afghanistan Oil Pipeline, which would run from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan, and to the Arabian Sea (and into the hands of US-run corporations). Both the Taliban and anti-Taliban groups supported the deal—so much so that US-led training was provided to potential workers to assist in laying the pipeline.
However, many activist groups, particularly feminist groups, intensely protested any project involving the Taliban due to their genuinely horrendous stance on human rights, particularly the lack of rights for women. The pressure proved too much, and Unocal was forced to pull out of the deal.
After the 9/11 attacks (which now made Osama bin Laden public enemy number one), the Bush administration would bomb key locations in Afghanistan, eventually invading the country in order to track down their culprit. Coincidentally or not, by the end of 2002, (with the aforementioned Dick Cheney high up in the Bush administration), the pipeline deal was back on. With the Taliban now the enemy, their approval was no longer needed.[9]
Whether these events were manipulated, taken advantage of, or merely coincidental, so many researchers and critics have highlighted them in numerous books and writings that they really shouldn’t be ignored completely.
1. Heroin
Perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of the Bush–bin Laden connection is the drug trafficking accusations following the invasion of Afghanistan, claims that have hounded the Bush family in particular for decades (and many would suggest rightly so).[10]
Whereas the Taliban had expressed support for the aforementioned pipeline, they weren’t so supportive, and in fact were completely against, the producing and trafficking of heroin from the vast supplies of opium in the country. While the CIA, and, in turn, other intelligence agencies, would look the other way and essentially allow the opium trade to flourish, the Taliban were actively attempting to shut down such activities.
When US forces entered Afghanistan, accusing the Taliban of providing a haven to Osama bin Laden, some noted how heroin production not only returned to pre-Taliban times but positively exploded to an all-time high. Perhaps it was purely coincidence, then, that these opium fields had been seized by the US military shortly after the invasion and remained in their control in the years following?
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Marcus Lowth is a writer with a passion for anything interesting, be it UFOs, the Ancient Astronaut Theory, the paranormal or conspiracies. He also has a liking for the NFL, film and music.
A new poll from the Council on American-Islamic Relations has Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein beating Kamala Harris among American Muslims in three key battleground states, with an especially large lead in Michigan.
Among Muslims, Stein leads Harris 35 percent to 29 percent in Arizona, 44 percent to 39 percent in Wisconsin, and a whopping 40 percent to 12 percent in Michigan.
The fact that there's such a massive, MASSIVE gap between Muslim voters and white liberals right now suggests liberals have decided they're simply not going to listen to Muslim voices this election cycle. Which they already demonstrated when they shut Palestinians out of the DNC. pic.twitter.com/YFwgCxrIcF
To call this a night and day difference would be a severe understatement. Clearly Muslim Americans are seeing something they care deeply about this election season which the rest of the population has decided doesn’t matter very much.
That something is of course the US-backed genocide in Gaza, which the Biden-Harris administration has been forcefully supporting for nearly a year. Stein opposes these atrocities, while Harris is currently serving in the administration that’s making them possible. Activist campaigns like the Uncommitted National Movement have been rallying pro-Palestinian voters to pressure Biden and Harris to stop the slaughter in Gaza under the threat of losing their votes, and now polls show that those votes are hemorrhaging into the Green Party among Muslims.
And I just think it says a lot that American liberals have decided to simply ignore this. Not just the leadership of the Democratic Party — who famously refused to allow any Palestinian Americans to even speak at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last month — but ordinary members of the public as well.
White non-Muslim liberals, who would normally claim to stand with Muslim Americans and support listening to black and brown voices, have decided to simply turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to what their Muslim neighbors are saying this election cycle.
DNC attendees cover their ears as the names of dead Palestinian children are read as they leave the convention pic.twitter.com/9bueCbFeEr
Everything this particular marginalized community is saying gets met with fingers in the ears. Any other minority group on any other issue at any other time and it would be “I hear you, I see you,” but when it comes to this particular religious minority group with regard to ending an actual genocide, they are saying the exact opposite.
Which, just like the destruction of Gaza itself, says so much about where the real values of mainstream western liberalism actually lie. It’s not about being good, it’s about feeling good. It’s not about being moral, it’s about feeling moral. It’s not about fighting for justice and equality, it’s about fighting for electoral wins and emotional comfort. While people who actually care are trying to wake everyone up to the reality of the nightmare in Gaza, American liberals are trying to get everyone to shut up and stop shaking the bed so everyone can go back to sleep.
What’s happening in Gaza should radicalize you against status quo politics, and if you are a good person, it will. The fact that Democrats of all levels are so completely incurious and indifferent toward what Muslims in their country have been saying since October shows they are not good people, and shows they are not what they pretend to be.
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Today, September 11, 2024. The anniversary of the tragic events of 9/11. 23 years laters, are we any closerto the truth about what really happened on that fateful day?
George Szamuely’s incisive article published more than 22 years ago raises some “uncomfortable questions” regarding Air Force Preparedness in the case of a national emergency: “Why were no fighter planes launched until after the Pentagon was hit?”
“Talk about a lack of urgency! Assuming Otis Air National Guard Base is about 180 miles away from Manhattan it should have taken the F-15s less than six minutes to get here. Moreover, since Washington, DC, is little more than 200 miles from New York, the two F-15 fighters would have had time to get to DC, intercept Flight 77 and grab breakfast on the way.”
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, September 11, 2024
Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), globalresearch.ca, 15 February 2002
Let’s revisit the curious lack of military action on the morning of September 11.
That morning, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard B. Myers, was having a routine meeting on Capitol Hill with Sen. Max Cleland. While the two men chatted away, a hijacked jet plowed into the World Trade Center’s north tower, another one plowed into the south tower and a third one into the Pentagon. And still they went on with their meeting. “[W]hen we came out,” Myers recounted to American Forces Radio and Television Service, “somebody said the Pentagon had been hit.” Myers claims no one had bothered to inform him about the attacks on the World Trade Center. Meanwhile, in Florida, just as President Bush was about to leave his hotel he was told about the attack on the first WTC tower. He was asked by a reporter if he knew what was going on in New York. He said he did, and then went to an elementary school in Sarasota to read to children.
No urgency. Why should there be? Who could possibly have realized then the calamitous nature of the events of that day? Besides, the hijackers had switched the transponders off. So how could anyone know what was going on?
Passenger jet hijackings are not uncommon and the U.S. government has prepared detailed plans to handle them. On Sept. 11 these plans were ignored in their entirety. According to The New York Times, air traffic controllers knew at 8:20 a.m. “that American Airlines Flight 11, bound from Boston to Los Angeles, had probably been hijacked. When the first news report was made at 8:48 a.m. that a plane might have hit the World Trade Center, they knew it was Flight 11.” There was little ambiguity on the matter. The pilot had pushed a button on the aircraft yoke that allowed controllers to hear the hijacker giving orders. Here are the FAA regulations concerning hijackings: “The FAA hijack coordinator…on duty at Washington headquarters will request the military to provide an escort aircraft for a confirmed hijacked aircraft… The escort service will be requested by the FAA hijack coordinator by direct contact with the National Military Command Center (NMCC).” Here are the instructions issued by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on June 1, 2001: “In the event of a hijacking, the NMCC will be notified by the most expeditious means by the FAA. The NMCC will…forward requests for DOD assistance to the Secretary of Defense for approval.”
In addition, as Vice President Cheney explained on Meet the Press on Sept. 16, only the president has the authority to order the shooting down of a civilian airliner.
The U.S. is supposed to scramble military aircraft the moment a hijacking is confirmed. Myers’ revelation to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Sept. 13 that no fighter planes had been launched until after the Pentagon was hit was therefore surprising. Senators and even some tv commentators were a little incredulous. Dan Rather asked: “These hijacked aircraft were in the air for quite a while… Why doesn’t the Pentagon have the kind of protection that they can get a fighter-interceptor aircraft up, and if someone is going to plow an aircraft into the Pentagon, that we have at least some…line of defense?”
Good question. Clearly another, more comforting, story was needed, and on the evening of Sept. 14 CBS launched it by revealing that the FAA had indeed alerted U.S. air defense units of a possible hijacking at 8:38 a.m. on Tuesday, that six minutes later two F-15s received a scramble order at Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod and that by 8:56 the F-15s were racing toward New York. Unfortunately, the fighters were still 70 miles away when the second jet hit the south tower. Meanwhile, at 9:30 a.m., three F-16s were launched from Langley Air Force base, 150 miles south of Washington. But just seven minutes later, at 9:37 a.m., Flight 77 smashed into the Pentagon. The F-16s arrived in Washington just before 10 a.m.
This story, which has now become the “official” version, raises more questions than it answers. F-15s can travel at speeds of 1875 mph while F-16s can travel at 1500 mph. If it took the F-16s half an hour to cover 150 miles, they could not have been traveling at more than 300 mph–at 20 percent capability. Boeing 767s and 757s have cruising speeds of 530 mph. Talk about a lack of urgency! Assuming Otis Air National Guard Base is about 180 miles away from Manhattan it should have taken the F-15s less than six minutes to get here. Moreover, since Washington, DC, is little more than 200 miles from New York, the two F-15 fighters would have had time to get to DC, intercept Flight 77 and grab breakfast on the way.
Ah, but of course the transponders were turned off. So no one could keep track of the planes. If it were true that the moment a transponder is turned off a plane becomes invisible there would be no defense against enemy aircraft. Normal radar echo return from the metal surface of an aircraft would still identify it on the radar scope.
Luckily, we still have first-rate establishment media to make sure that we retain confidence in our government.
This article was first published on March 31, 2017. An earlier version was published in 2015.
Today, we are commemorating the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11.
There are many contradictions which have been casually ignored, one of which is relationship between the Bush and Bin Laden families.
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Lest we forget, one day before the 9/11 attacks, as well as on the morning of 9/11, the dad of the sitting President of the United States of America, George Herbert Walker Bush was meeting none other than Shafiq bin Laden, the brother of the alleged terror mastermind Osama bin Laden.
It was a routine business meeting on September 10-11, no conflict of interest, no relationship to the 9/11 attacks which allegedly were carried out on the orders of Shafiq’s brother Osama, no FBI investigation into the links between the Bush and bin Laden families.
What is presented below is a factual account. Confirmed by the Washington Post, “fellow investors” of the Carlyle Group including Osama’s brother Shafiq bin Laden and GWB’s dad former President George H. W. Bush (and former CIA director) met in the plush surroundings of New York’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel on September 10-11, 2001. Their business encounter under the auspices of the Carlyle Group was unfortunately interrupted on September 11 by the 9/11 attacks.
It didn’t help that as the World Trade Center burned on Sept. 11, 2001, the news interrupted a Carlyle business conference at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel here attended by a brother of Osama bin Laden [Shafiq bin Laden]. Former president Bush [senior], a fellow investor, had been with him at the conference the previous day. (Greg Schneider, Pairing the Powerful With the Rich, Washington Post, March 16, 2003)
screenshot Washington Post, March 16, 2003
A timely business meeting on September 10-11 at the Ritz Carlton with Osama’s brother disrupted by the 9/11 attacks: pure coincidence, totally unrelated to the 9/11 attacks.
What was GWB’s Dad “Poppy” doing with Osama’s brother Shafiq on September 10?
Media coverup: the WP report came out 18 months later in March 2003. There was no media coverage of the Shafiq bin Laden – G. Herbert W. Bush meeting in September 2001. The event was known, yet mainstream media editors decided not to provide coverage of this timely 9/11 encounter at the Ritz Carleton.
A day later, on the evening of September 11, 2001, president George W. Bush pronounced a historic speech in which he defined the relationship between “terrorists’ and “state sponsors of terrorism”:
The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I’ve directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them. (emphasis added)
Let’s be clear as to what happened: the Dad of the sitting president of the US was “harboring” (to use GWB’s expression) the brother of the alleged terror mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.
Should the President have not instructed the “law enforcement communities” to at least question his Dad?
Why was Poppy Bush’s meeting with Osama bin Laden’s brother Shafiq not subject to the normal rules of police investigation:
Question: “What were you doing with Osama’s brother”?
Why was this not the object of investigative media reporting or US Congressional enquiry?
Also in attendance at the Ritz Carlton meetings were former secretary of defense Frank Carlucci, former secretary of state James Baker III, and other unnamed members of the bin Laden family.
The bin Laden – Bush Carlyle Group meeting was also confirmed by The Economist in a June 2003 article entitled C- for Capitalism (see screenshot below):
“ON the day Osama bin Laden’s men attacked America, Shafiq bin Laden, described as an estranged brother of the terrorist, was at an investment conference in Washington, DC, along with two people who are close to President George Bush: his father, the first President Bush, and James Baker, the former secretary of state who masterminded the legal campaign that secured Dubya’s move to the White House. The conference was hosted by the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm that manages billions of dollars, including, at the time, some bin Laden family wealth. It also employs Messrs Bush and Baker.
In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, when no one was being allowed in or out of the United States, many members of the bin Laden family in America were spirited home to Saudi Arabia. The revival of defence spending that followed greatly increased the value of the Carlyle Group’s investments in defence companies.
The Carlyle Group is embroiled with the defense and intelligence establishment. “It is widely regarded as an extension of the US government, or at least the National Security Agency, the CIA, and the Pentagon.” (The Economist June 26, 2003, emphasis added)
‘
screenshot of Economist report
Double standards in anti-terrorism legislation?
Double standards in police and law enforcement?
Double standards in media coverage.
No questions asked.
No police investigation or interrogation of Osama’s brother Shafiq.
Normally, under established rules of police investigation, both Shafiq bin Laden and the president’s Dad George Herbert Walker Bush would have been remanded in custody for police questioning and in all likelihood, Shafiq bin Laden would have been arrested as a potential suspect. But that did not happen.
In 2003, the CBC brought out a carefully investigated report which focusses on the bin Laden-Bush family connections:
Video
No Travel Ban for the Bin Ladens
The presence of members of the bin Laden family meeting up with the father of the president of the United States was hushed up and 13 members of the bin Ladens including Shafiq were flown out of the US on September 19, 2001 in a plane chartered by the White House.
Meanwhile, suspected Muslims are routinelyarrested on a mere suspicion, –e.g. [author’s paraphrase] that they have an old school friend, who’s cousin’s 86 year old grandmother is an alleged sympathizer of the “jihad”.
The Global War on Terrorism is Born
On the day following the departure of the bin Ladens, President Bush delivered an address to a joint session of the House and the Senate (September 20, 2001), in which he stated unequivocally his administration’s intent to “pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism”, with no exceptions (e.g. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan)
“We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make.
Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.)
From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime [state sponsor of terrorism]. President George W. Bush, 20 September 2001 (emphasis added)
The Bushes and the bin Ladens, they’re with us and with the terrorists.
An earlier version of this article was published in 2015.
In this new and expanded edition of Michel Chossudovsky’s 2002 best seller, the author blows away the smokescreen put up by the mainstream media, that 9/11 was an attack on America by “Islamic terrorists”. Through meticulous research, the author uncovers a military-intelligence ploy behind the September 11 attacks, and the cover-up and complicity of key members of the Bush Administration.
The expanded edition, which includes twelve new chapters focuses on the use of 9/11 as a pretext for the invasion and illegal occupation of Iraq, the militarisation of justice and law enforcement and the repeal of democracy.
According to Chossudovsky, the “war on terrorism” is a complete fabrication based on the illusion that one man, Osama bin Laden, outwitted the $40 billion-a-year American intelligence apparatus. The “war on terrorism” is a war of conquest. Globalisation is the final march to the “New World Order”, dominated by Wall Street and the U.S. military-industrial complex.
September 11, 2001 provides a justification for waging a war without borders. Washington’s agenda consists in extending the frontiers of the American Empire to facilitate complete U.S. corporate control, while installing within America the institutions of the Homeland Security State.
In the course of the month of September, Global Research will be featuring a selection of articles by prominent authors, which indelibly reveal the lies and fabrications underlying the official 9/11 story.
The following article entitled “Who is Osama bin Laden by Michel Chossudovsky was first published on September 12, 2001
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Author’s Note
It was 23 years ago: I started writing on the evening of September 11, 2001, late into the night, going through piles of research notes, which I had previously collected on the history of Al Qaeda. This first text on 9/11 entitled “Who is Osama bin Laden?” was completed and first published on September 12, 2001.
From the very outset, I questioned the official story, which described nineteen Al Qaeda sponsored hijackers involved in a highly sophisticated and organized operation.
Something was not quite right: Al Qaeda was a creation of the CIA. Osama bin Laden had been recruited by the CIA. Yet barely a few hours after the attacks, CIA Director George Tenetwas pointing his finger at Al Qaeda.
My first objective was to reveal the true nature of this illusive “Enemy of America”, who was “threatening the Homeland”.
Afghanistan was identified as a “state sponsor of terror”. The 9/11 attacks were categorized as an act of war, an attack on America by a foreign power.
The right to self-defense was put forth. The US-NATO aggressor was portrayed as the victim.
On September 12, 2001, less than 24 hours after the attacks, at a meeting of the Atlantic Council in Brussels, NATO invoked for the first time in its history “Article 5 of the Washington Treaty – its collective defence clause” declaring the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) and the Pentagon “to be an attack against all NATO members.”
The tragic death of thousands of Americans on 9/11 allegedly instrumented by Al Qaeda (with the support of an unnamed foreign power) was used as a pretext and a justification for launching the first phase of the Middle East Central Asian War, which consisted in the bombing and occupation of Afghanistan.
This invasion of Afghanistan launched four weeks later on October 7, 2001 was heralded as “A Just War”. The media was complicit.
Military analysts failed to mention that the planning of a major theater war thousands of miles away would require several months of preparation and coordination. (You cannot do it in 28 days!)
September 11, 2001 marked the onslaught of the “Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT) which was heralded by the media as a humanitarian endeavour.
This was achieved by sustaining the myth that Muslim terrorists supported by the Taliban had attacked the WTC and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. The evidence –including the subsequent studies on controlled demolition–have confirmed that this was an outright lie.
The concluding paragraph of my September 12, 2001 article states the following:
‘In the wake of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the truth must prevail to prevent the Bush Adminstration together with its NATO partners from embarking upon a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity.”
Global Research was launched on September 9, 2001, two days before 9/11. My article on Bin Laden was among the first articles featured on our website.
Ironically, it was not the object of censorship. It was ranked by Google as one of the most widely read articles on Osama bin Laden.
(No changes or edits to the original September 12, 2001 text have been made, images added)
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, September 8, 2024
***
Who Is Osama Bin Laden?
by
Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, September 12, 2001
A few hours after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the Bush administration concluded without supporting evidence, that “Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organisation were prime suspects”.
CIA Director George Tenet stated that bin Laden has the capacity to plan “multiple attacks with little or no warning.”
Image (right). George Tenet with G. W. Bush and Dick Cheney
Secretary of State Colin Powell called the attacks “an act of war” and President Bush confirmed in an evening televised address to the Nation that he would “make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them”.
Former CIA Director James Woolsey pointed his finger at “state sponsorship,” implying the complicity of one or more foreign governments. In the words of former National Security Adviser, Lawrence Eagleburger, “I think we will show when we get attacked like this, we are terrible in our strength and in our retribution.”
Meanwhile, parroting official statements, the Western media mantra has approved the launching of “punitive actions” directed against civilian targets in the Middle East. In the words of William Saffire writing in the New York Times:
“When we reasonably determine our attackers’ bases and camps, we must pulverize them — minimizing but accepting the risk of collateral damage” — and act overtly or covertly to destabilize terror’s national hosts”.
The following text outlines the history of Osama Bin Laden and the links of the Islamic “Jihad” to the formulation of US foreign policy during the Cold War and its aftermath.
Prime suspect in the New York and Washington terrorists attacks, branded by the FBI as an “international terrorist” for his role in the African US embassy bombings, Saudi born Osama bin Laden was recruited during the Soviet-Afghan war “ironically under the auspices of the CIA, to fight Soviet invaders”. [1]
In 1979 “the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA” was launched in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in support of the pro-Communist government of Babrak Kamal. [2]:
With the active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI [Inter Services Intelligence], who wanted to turn the Afghan jihad into a global war waged by all Muslim states against the Soviet Union, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 40 Islamic countries joined Afghanistan’s fight between 1982 and 1992. Tens of thousands more came to study in Pakistani madrasahs. Eventually more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghan jihad.[3]
The Islamic “jihad” was supported by the United States and Saudi Arabia with a significant part of the funding generated from the Golden Crescent drug trade:
In March 1985, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 166,…[which] authorize[d] stepped-up covert military aid to the mujahideen, and it made clear that the secret Afghan war had a new goal: to defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan through covert action and encourage a Soviet withdrawal. The new covert U.S. assistance began with a dramatic increase in arms supplies — a steady rise to 65,000 tons annually by 1987, … as well as a “ceaseless stream” of CIA and Pentagon specialists who traveled to the secret headquarters of Pakistan’s ISI on the main road near Rawalpindi, Pakistan. There the CIA specialists met with Pakistani intelligence officers to help plan operations for the Afghan rebels.[4]
President Ronald Reagan meets leaders of the Mujahideen “Freedom Fighters” at the White House (1980s)
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) using Pakistan’s military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) played a key role in training the Mujahideen. In turn, the CIA sponsored guerrilla training was integrated with the teachings of Islam:
“Predominant themes were that Islam was a complete socio-political ideology, that holy Islam was being violated by the atheistic Soviet troops, and that the Islamic people of Afghanistan should reassert their independence by overthrowing the leftist Afghan regime propped up by Moscow.”[5]
Pakistan’s Intelligence Apparatus
Pakistan’s ISI was used as a “go-between”. The CIA covert support to the “jihad” operated indirectly through the Pakistani ISI, –i.e. the CIA did not channel its support directly to the Mujahideen. In other words, for these covert operations to be “successful”, Washington was careful not to reveal the ultimate objective of the “jihad”, which consisted in destroying the Soviet Union.
In the words of CIA’s Milton Beardman “We didn’t train Arabs”. Yet according to Abdel Monam Saidali, of the Al-aram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo, bin Laden and the “Afghan Arabs” had been imparted “with very sophisticated types of training that was allowed to them by the CIA” [6]
CIA’s Beardman confirmed, in this regard, that Osama bin Laden was not aware of the role he was playing on behalf of Washington. In the words of bin Laden (quoted by Beardman):
“neither I, nor my brothers saw evidence of American help”. [7]
Motivated by nationalism and religious fervor, the Islamic warriors were unaware that they were fighting the Soviet Army on behalf of Uncle Sam. While there were contacts at the upper levels of the intelligence hierarchy, Islamic rebel leaders in [the war] theatre had no contacts with Washington or the CIA.
With CIA backing and the funneling of massive amounts of US military aid, the Pakistani ISI had developed into a “parallel structure wielding enormous power over all aspects of government”. [8] The ISI had a staff composed of military and intelligence officers, bureaucrats, undercover agents and informers, estimated at 150,000. [9]
Meanwhile, CIA operations had also reinforced the Pakistani military regime led by General Zia Ul Haq:
‘Relations between the CIA and the ISI [Pakistan’s military intelligence] had grown increasingly warm following [General] Zia’s ouster of Bhutto and the advent of the military regime,’…
During most of the Afghan war, Pakistan was more aggressively anti-Soviet than even the United States. Soon after the Soviet military invaded Afghanistan in 1980, Zia [ul Haq] sent his ISI chief to destabilize the Soviet Central Asian states. The CIA only agreed to this plan in October 1984…. `the CIA was more cautious than the Pakistanis.’ Both Pakistan and the United States took the line of deception on Afghanistan with a public posture of negotiating a settlement while privately agreeing that military escalation was the best course.[10]
The Golden Crescent Drug Triangle
The history of the drug trade in Central Asia is intimately related to the CIA’s covert operations. Prior to the Soviet-Afghan war, opium production in Afghanistan and Pakistan was directed to small regional markets. There was no local production of heroin. [11] In this regard, Alfred McCoy’s study confirms that within two years of the onslaught of the CIA operation in Afghanistan, “the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the world’s top heroin producer, supplying 60 percent of U.S. demand. In Pakistan, the heroin-addict population went from near zero in 1979… to 1.2 million by 1985 — a much steeper rise than in any other nation”:[12]
CIA assets again controlled this heroin trade. As the Mujahideen guerrillas seized territory inside Afghanistan, they ordered peasants to plant opium as a revolutionary tax. Across the border in Pakistan, Afghan leaders and local syndicates under the protection of Pakistan Intelligence operated hundreds of heroin laboratories.
During this decade of wide-open drug-dealing, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Islamabad failed to instigate major seizures or arrests … U.S. officials had refused to investigate charges of heroin dealing by its Afghan allies `because U.S. narcotics policy in Afghanistan has been subordinated to the war against Soviet influence there.’ In 1995, the former CIA director of the Afghan operation, Charles Cogan, admitted the CIA had indeed sacrificed the drug war to fight the Cold War. `Our main mission was to do as much damage as possible to the Soviets. We didn’t really have the resources or the time to devote to an investigation of the drug trade,’… `I don’t think that we need to apologize for this. Every situation has its fallout…. There was fallout in terms of drugs, yes. But the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan.'[13]
In the Wake of the Cold War
In the wake of the Cold War, the Central Asian region is not only strategic for its extensive oil reserves, it also produces three quarters of the World’s opium representing multibillion dollar revenues of business syndicates, financial institutions, intelligence agencies and organized crime. The annual proceeds of the Golden Crescent drug trade (between 100 and 200 billion dollars) represents approximately one third of the Worldwide annual turnover of narcotics, estimated by the United Nations to be of the order of $500 billion.[14]
With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, a new surge in opium production has unfolded. (According to UN estimates, the production of opium in Afghanistan in 1998-99 — coinciding with the build up of armed insurgencies in the former Soviet republics– reached a record high of 4600 metric tons.[15] Powerful business syndicates in the former Soviet Union allied with organized crime are competing for the strategic control over the heroin routes.
The ISI’s extensive intelligence military-network was not dismantled in the wake of the Cold War. The CIA continued to support the Islamic “jihad” out of Pakistan. New undercover initiatives were set in motion in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans. Pakistan’s military and intelligence apparatus essentially “served as a catalyst for the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of six new Muslim republics in Central Asia.”[16]
Meanwhile, Islamic missionaries of the Wahhabi sect from Saudi Arabia had established themselves in the Muslim republics as well as within the Russian federation encroaching upon the institutions of the secular State. Despite its anti-American ideology, Islamic fundamentalism was largely serving Washington’s strategic interests in the former Soviet Union.
Following the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, the civil war in Afghanistan continued unabated. The Taliban were being supported by the Pakistani Deobandis and their political party the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI). In 1993, JUI entered the government coalition of Prime Minister Benazzir Bhutto. Ties between JUI, the Army and ISI were established. In 1995, with the downfall of the Hezb-I-Islami Hektmatyar government in Kabul, the Taliban not only instated a hardline Islamic government, they also “handed control of training camps in Afghanistan over to JUI factions…”[17]
And the JUI with the support of the Saudi Wahhabi movements played a key role in recruiting volunteers to fight in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union.
Jane Defense Weekly confirms in this regard that “half of Taliban manpower and equipment originate[d] in Pakistan under the ISI”[18]
In fact, it would appear that following the Soviet withdrawal both sides in the Afghan civil war continued to receive covert support through Pakistan’s ISI.[19]
In other words, backed by Pakistan’s military intelligence (ISI) which in turn was controlled by the CIA, the Taliban Islamic State was largely serving American geopolitical interests. The Golden Crescent drug trade was also being used to finance and equip the Bosnian Muslim Army (starting in the early 1990s) and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In last few months there is evidence that Mujahideen mercenaries are fighting in the ranks of KLA-NLA terrorists in their assaults into Macedonia.
No doubt, this explains why Washington has closed its eyes on the reign of terror imposed by the Taliban including the blatant derogation of women’s rights, the closing down of schools for girls, the dismissal of women employees from government offices and the enforcement of “the Sharia laws of punishment”.[20]
The War in Chechnya
With regard to Chechnya, the main rebel leaders Shamil Basayev and Al Khattab were trained and indoctrinated in CIA sponsored camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Basayev and Al Khattab (image left
According to Yossef Bodansky, director of the U.S. Congress’s Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, the war in Chechnya had been planned during a secret summit of HizbAllah International held in 1996 in Mogadishu, Somalia. [21] The summit, was attended by Osama bin Laden and high-ranking Iranian and Pakistani intelligence officers. In this regard, the involvement of Pakistan’s ISI in Chechnya “goes far beyond supplying the Chechens with weapons and expertise: the ISI and its radical Islamic proxies are actually calling the shots in this war”. [22]
Russia’s main pipeline route transits through Chechnya and Dagestan. Despite Washington’s perfunctory condemnation of Islamic terrorism, the indirect beneficiaries of the Chechen war are the Anglo-American oil conglomerates which are vying for control over oil resources and pipeline corridors out of the Caspian Sea basin.
The two main Chechen rebel armies (respectively led by Commander Shamil Basayev and Emir Khattab) estimated at 35,000 strong were supported by Pakistan’s ISI, which also played a key role in organizing and training the Chechen rebel army:
[In 1994] the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence arranged for Basayev and his trusted lieutenants to undergo intensive Islamic indoctrination and training in guerrilla warfare in the Khost province of Afghanistan at Amir Muawia camp, set up in the early 1980s by the CIA and ISI and run by famous Afghani warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. In July 1994, upon graduating from Amir Muawia, Basayev was transferred to Markaz-i-Dawar camp in Pakistan to undergo training in advanced guerrilla tactics. In Pakistan, Basayev met the highest ranking Pakistani military and intelligence officers: Minister of Defense General Aftab Shahban Mirani, Minister of Interior General Naserullah Babar, and the head of the ISI branch in charge of supporting Islamic causes, General Javed Ashraf, (all now retired). High-level connections soon proved very useful to Basayev.[23]
Following his training and indoctrination stint, Basayev was assigned to lead the assault against Russian federal troops in the first Chechen war in 1995. His organization had also developed extensive links to criminal syndicates in Moscow as well as ties to Albanian organized crime and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In 1997-98, according to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) “Chechen warlords started buying up real estate in Kosovo… through several real estate firms registered as a cover in Yugoslavia” [24]
Basayev’s organisation has also been involved in a number of rackets including narcotics, illegal tapping and sabotage of Russia’s oil pipelines, kidnapping, prostitution, trade in counterfeit dollars and the smuggling of nuclear materials (See Mafia linked to Albania’s collapsed pyramids, [25] Alongside the extensive laundering of drug money, the proceeds of various illicit activities have been funneled towards the recruitment of mercenaries and the purchase of weapons.
During his training in Afghanistan, Shamil Basayev linked up with Saudi born veteran Mujahideen Commander “Al Khattab” who had fought as a volunteer in Afghanistan. Barely a few months after Basayev’s return to Grozny, Khattab was invited (early 1995) to set up an army base in Chechnya for the training of Mujahideen fighters. According to the BBC, Khattab’s posting to Chechnya had been “arranged through the Saudi-Arabian based [International] Islamic Relief Organisation, a militant religious organisation, funded by mosques and rich individuals which channeled funds into Chechnya”.[26]
Concluding Remarks
Since the Cold War era, Washington has consciously supported Osama bin Laden, while at same time placing him on the FBI’s “most wanted list” as the World’s foremost terrorist.
While the Mujahideen are busy fighting America’s war in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union, the FBI –operating as a US based Police Force- is waging a domestic war against terrorism, operating in some respects independently of the CIA which has –since the Soviet-Afghan war– supported international terrorism through its covert operations.
In a cruel irony, while the Islamic jihad –featured by the Bush Administration as “a threat to America”– is blamed for the terrorist assaults on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, these same Islamic organisations constitute a key instrument of US military-intelligence operations in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union.
In the wake of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the truth must prevail to prevent the Bush Adminstration together with its NATO partners from embarking upon a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity.
*
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Notes
Hugh Davies, International: `Informers’ point the finger at bin Laden; Washington on alert for suicide bombers, The Daily Telegraph, London, 24 August 1998.
See Fred Halliday, “The Un-great game: the Country that lost the Cold War, Afghanistan, New Republic, 25 March 1996):
Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban: Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs, November-December 1999.
Steve Coll, Washington Post, July 19, 1992.
Dilip Hiro, Fallout from the Afghan Jihad, Inter Press Services, 21 November 1995.
Weekend Sunday (NPR); Eric Weiner, Ted Clark; 16 August 1998.
Ibid.
Dipankar Banerjee; Possible Connection of ISI With Drug Industry, India Abroad, 2 December 1994.
Ibid
See Diego Cordovez and Selig Harrison, Out of Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal, Oxford university Press, New York, 1995. See also the review of Cordovez and Harrison in International Press Services, 22 August 1995.
Alfred McCoy, Drug fallout: the CIA’s Forty Year Complicity in the Narcotics Trade. The Progressive; 1 August 1997.
Ibid
Ibid.
Douglas Keh, Drug Money in a changing World, Technical document no 4, 1998, Vienna UNDCP, p. 4. See also Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 1999, E/INCB/1999/1 United Nations Publication, Vienna 1999, p 49-51, And Richard Lapper, UN Fears Growth of Heroin Trade, Financial Times, 24 February 2000.
Report of the International Narcotics Control Board, op cit, p 49-51, see also Richard Lapper, op. cit.
International Press Services, 22 August 1995.
Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban: Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs, November- December, 1999, p. 22.
Quoted in the Christian Science Monitor, 3 September 1998)
Tim McGirk, Kabul learns to live with its bearded conquerors, The Independent, London, 6 November1996.
See K. Subrahmanyam, Pakistan is Pursuing Asian Goals, India Abroad, 3 November 1995.
Levon Sevunts, Who’s calling the shots?: Chechen conflict finds Islamic roots in Afghanistan and Pakistan,
The Gazette, Montreal, 26 October 1999..
Ibid
Ibid.
See Vitaly Romanov and Viktor Yadukha, Chechen Front Moves To Kosovo Segodnia, Moscow, 23 Feb 2000.
The European, 13 February 1997, See also Itar-Tass, 4-5 January 2000.
In this new and expanded edition of Michel Chossudovsky’s 2002 best seller, the author blows away the smokescreen put up by the mainstream media, that 9/11 was an attack on America by “Islamic terrorists”. Through meticulous research, the author uncovers a military-intelligence ploy behind the September 11 attacks, and the cover-up and complicity of key members of the Bush Administration.
The expanded edition, which includes twelve new chapters focuses on the use of 9/11 as a pretext for the invasion and illegal occupation of Iraq, the militarisation of justice and law enforcement and the repeal of democracy.
According to Chossudovsky, the “war on terrorism” is a complete fabrication based on the illusion that one man, Osama bin Laden, outwitted the $40 billion-a-year American intelligence apparatus. The “war on terrorism” is a war of conquest. Globalisation is the final march to the “New World Order”, dominated by Wall Street and the U.S. military-industrial complex.
September 11, 2001 provides a justification for waging a war without borders. Washington’s agenda consists in extending the frontiers of the American Empire to facilitate complete U.S. corporate control, while installing within America the institutions of the Homeland Security State.
We are commemorating September 11, 2001 as well as September 11, 1973 (Fifty-three years ago)
***
Half a century ago on September 11, 1973, the Chilean military led by General Augusto Pinochet, crushed the democratically elected Unidad Popular government of Salvador Allende.
The objective was to replace a progressive, democratically elected government by a brutal military dictatorship.
The military coup was supported by the CIA. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger played a direct role in the military plot.1
In the weeks leading up to the coup, US Ambassador Nathaniel Davis and members of the CIA held meetings with Chile’s top military brass together with the leaders of the National Party and the ultra-right nationalist front Patria y Libertad. While the undercover role of the Nixon administration is amply documented, what is rarely mentioned in media reports is the fact that the military coup was also supported by a sector of the Christian Democratic Party.
Patricio Aylwin, who was elected Chile’s president in 1989-90, became head of the DC party in the months leading up to the September 1973 military coup (March through September 1973). Aylwin was largely instrumental in the break down of the “Dialogue” between the Unidad Popular government and the Christian Democrats. His predecessor Renan Fuentealba, who represented the moderate wing of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC), was firmly against military intervention. Fuentealba favored a dialogue with Allende (la salida democratica). He was displaced from the leadership of the Party in May 1973 in favor of Patricio Aylwin.
The DC Party was split down the middle, between those who favored “the salida democratica”, and the dominant Aylwin-Frei faction, which favored “a military solution”. 2
On 23 August, the Chilean Camera de Diputados drafted a motion, to the effect that the Allende government “sought to impose a totalitarian regime”. Patricio Aylwin was a member of the drafting team of this motion. Patricio Aylwin believed that a temporary military dictatorship was “the lesser of two evils.”3
This motion was adopted almost unanimously by the opposition parties, including the PDC, and the Partido Nacional.
The leadership of the Christian Democratic Party including former Chilean president Eduardo Frei, had given a green light to the Military. Unquestionably, US intelligence must have played an undercover role in the change of leadership in the PDC.
And continuity in the “Chilean Model” heralded as an “economic success story” was ensured when, 16 years later, Patricio Aylwin was elected president of Chile in the so-called transition to democracy in 1989.
At the time of the September 11 coup, I was Visiting Professor of Economics at the Catholic University of Chile (Instituto de Economia, Universidad Catolica de Chile). In the hours following the bombing of the Presidential Palace of La Moneda, the new military rulers imposed a 72-hour curfew.
When the university reopened several days later, I started patching together the history of the coup from written notes. I had lived through the tragic events of September 11, 1973 as well as the failed June 29, 1973 coup. Several of my students at the Universidad Catolica had been arrested by the military Junta.
In the days following the military takeover, I started going through piles of documents and newspaper clippings, which I had collected on a daily basis since my arrival in Chile in early 1973. A large part of this material, however, was lost and destroyed by my research assistant, fearing political reprisals in the days following the coup.
This unpublished article (below) was written 51 years ago (see below). It was drafted on an old typewriter in the weeks following September 11, 1973.
This original draft article plus a few carbon copies were circulated among close friends and colleagues at the Catholic University. It was never published. For 30 years it lay in a box of documents at the bottom of a filing cabinet.
I have transcribed the text from the yellowed carbon copy draft [in 2003]. Apart from minor editing, I have made no changes to the original article.
The history of this period has since then been amply documented including the role of the Nixon administration and of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the plot to assassinate Allende and install a military regime.
Chicago Economics: Neoliberal Dress Rehearsal of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP)
The main objective of the US-supported military coup in Chile was ultimately to impose the neoliberal economic agenda. The latter, in the case of Chile, was not imposed by external creditors under the guidance of the IMF. “Regime change” was enforced through a covert military intelligence operation, which laid the groundwork for the military coup. Sweeping macro-economic reforms (including privatization, price liberalization and the freeze of wages) were implemented in early October 1973.
Barely a few weeks after the military takeover, the military Junta headed by General Augusto Pinochet ordered a hike in the price of bread from 11 to 40 escudos, a hefty overnight increase of 264%. This “economic shock treatment” had been designed by a group of economists called the “Chicago Boys.”
While food prices had skyrocketed, wages had been frozen to ensure “economic stability and stave off inflationary pressures.”
From one day to the next, an entire country had been precipitated into abysmal poverty;in less than a year the price of bread in Chile increased thirty-six fold (3700%). Eighty-five percent of the Chilean population had been driven below the poverty line.
I completed my work on the “unpublished paper’ entitled “The Ingredients of a Military Coup” (scroll down) in late September 1973.
In October and November 1973, following the dramatic hikes in the price of food, I drafted in Spanish an initial “technical” assessment of the Junta’s deadly macro-economic reforms, largely focussing on an engineered process of impoverishment.
Fearing censorship, I limited my analysis to the collapse of living standards in the wake of the Junta’s reforms, resulting from the price hikes of food and fuel, without making any kind of political analysis.
The Economics Institute of the Catholic University was initially reluctant to publish the report. They sent it to the Military Junta for its approval prior to its release.
I left Chile for Peru in December 1973. The report was released as a working paper (200 copies) by the Catholic University of Chile a few days after my departure.
In Peru, where I joined the Economics Department of the Catholic University of Peru, I was able to write up a more detailed study of the Junta’s neoliberal reforms and its ideological underpinnings. This study was published in 1975 in Spanish. (Trimestre Economico, No. 166) and subsequently in English.
Needless to say, the events of September 11, 1973 also marked me profoundly in my work as an economist.
Through the tampering of prices, wages and interest rates, people’s lives had been destroyed; an entire national economy had been destabilized. Macro-economic reform was neither “neutral” –as claimed by the academic mainstream– nor separate from the broader process of social and political transformation.
I also started to understand the role of military-intelligence operations in support of what is usually described as a process of “economic restructuring”.
In my earlier writings on the Chilean military Junta, I looked upon the so-called “free market” reforms as a well-organized instrument of “economic repression.”
The Argentina March 1976 Coup d’Etat
Two years later, after spending almost a year in Venezuela as advisor to the Minister of Planning (CORDIPLAN) (Government of Carlos Andres Perez), I was invited to Argentina as Visiting professor at the National University of Cordoba in the northern industrial heartland of Argentina under the auspices of an ILO project.
My stay coincided with the March 1976 military coup d’État. It was “The Dirty War”. “La Guerra Sucia”. Tens of thousands of people were arrested; the “Desaparecidos” were assassinated. The military takeover in Argentina was in some regards “a carbon copy” of the CIA-led coup in Chile.
Henry Kissinger and General Jorge Videla
And behind the massacres and human rights violations, “free market” reforms had also been prescribed, this time under the supervision of Argentina’s New York creditors.
The IMF’s deadly economic prescriptions under the “structural adjustment program” had not yet been officially launched. The experience of Chile and Argentina under the “Chicago boys” was “a dress rehearsal” of things to come.
David Rockefeller (Centre) meets up with General Jorge Videla and Finance Minister Martinez de Hoz
In due course, the economic bullets of the “free market system” were hitting country after country.
Since the onslaught of the debt crisis of the 1980s, the same IMF “economic medicine” has routinely been applied in more than 150 developing countries.
From my earlier work in Chile, Argentina and Peru, I started to investigate the global impacts of these “shock treatment reforms“. Relentlessly feeding on poverty and economic dislocation, a New World Order was taking shape.
The transition to a right-wing military regime in Chile on September 11 [1973] has resulted after a lengthy and drawn-out process of economic boycott, subversion within the Armed Forces and political opposition to Allende’s Popular unity government.
In October 1970, General René Schneider was assassinated in a plot of the ultra-right together with seditious elements of the Armed Forces led by General Roberto Viaux. The assassination of General Schneider was part of a coordinated plan to prevent Parliament from ratifying Allende’s victory in the September 1970 presidential elections.
Last year’s [1972] October strike which paralyzed the economy for over a month, was organized by the gremios (employers’ organizations together with opposition labor and self employed organizations), the Partido Nacional and the ultra-right nationalist front Patria y Libertad. Some sectors of the Christian Democratic Party were also involved.
The October Strike had initially been planned for September 1972. “Plan Septiembre” was apparently postponed due to the sudden dismissal of General Alfredo Canales from the Armed Forces.
Canales together with Air Force General Herrera Latoja had earlier been in touch with Miguel Ubilla Torrealba of the nationalist front Patria y Libertad.
Ubilla Torrealba was said to have been closely connected to the CIA.
Despite General Canales premature retirement from the Armed Forces, Plan Septiembre was implemented in October [1972] beginning with a transport strike. The Right was hoping that those elements of the Armed forces, which had been inspired by General Canales would intervene against Allende. The October “Patronal” strike (employers and self-employed) failed due to the support of the Armed Forces headed by General Carlos Prats, who had integrated Allende’s cabinet as Minister of the Interior.
Unpublished draft, September 1973
The June Failed Coup
On June 29, 1973, Coronal Roberto Souper led his tank division in an isolated attack on La Moneda, the Presidential Palace, in the hope that other units of the armed forces would join in. The June coup had initially been planned for the morning of September 27 by Patria y Libertad as well as by several high ranking military officers.
The plans were found out by Military Intelligence and the coup was called off at 6pm on the 26th. A warrant for the arrest of Coronal Souper had been issued.
Confronted with knowledge of his impending arrest, Colonel Souper in consultation with the officers under his command, decided to act in a most improvised fashion. At 9 am, amidst morning rush hour traffic, Tank Division Number Two drove down Bernardo O’Higgins, Santiago’s main down-town avenue towards the Presidential Palace.
While the aborted June Coup had the appearance of an insolated and uncoordinated initiative, there was evidence of considerable support in various sectors of the Navy as well as from Air Force General Gustovo Leigh, now [September 1973] member of the military junta [on 11 September General Leigh integrated the military Junta headed by General Pinochet]. According to well-informed sources, several high ranking officers in the aero-naval base of Quintero near Valparaiso had proposed the bombing of State enterprises controlled by militant left wing groups, as well as the setting up of an air corridor to transport navy troops. The latter were slated to join up with the forces of Colonel Souper in Santiago.
The June trial coup was «useful» indicating to the seditious elements within the Chilean Armed Forces that an isolated and uncoordinated effort would fail. After June 29, the right-wing elements in the Navy and the Air Force were involved in a process of consolidation aimed at gaining political support among officers and sub-officers. The Army, however, was still under the control of Commander in Chief General Carols Prats, who had previously integrated Allende’s cabinet and who was a firm supporter of constitutional government.
Meanwhile in the political arena, the Christian Democrats were pressuring Allende to bring in members of the Military into the Cabinet as well as significantly revising the programme and platform of the Unidad Popular.
Party leaders of the government coalition considered this alternative [proposed by the Christian democrats] as a « legalized military coup» (golpe legal) and advised Allende to turn it down.
Carlos Altamirano, leader of the Socialist Party had demanded that an endorsement of the programme of the Popular Unity coalition by the military be a sina qua non condition for their entry into the Cabinet. Upon the impossibility of bringing in the Military into the Cabinet on acceptable terms, Allende envisaged the formation of a so-called “Cabinet of Consolidation” composed of well known personalities. Fernando Castillo, rector of the Catholic University and a member of the Christian Democratic Party, Felipe Herrera, President of the Inter-|American Development Bank and other prominent personalities were approached but declined.
“The Dialogue”
Pressured by economic deadlock and the transport strike, inflation of more than 15 percent per month and mounting political opposition, Allende sought in the course of July [1973] to resume the political dialogue with the Christian Democratic Party. After the March [1973] parliamentary elections, Patricio Aylwin had replaced Renan Fuentealba [May 1973] as leader of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC). Fuentealba, who represented the progressive wing of the Christian Democratic (PDC), was known to be in favor of a rapprochement with Allende.
In other words, this rightward shift and hardening of the Christian Democrats in relation to the Unidad Popular, contributed to reinforcing their tacit alliance with the ring wing National Party. This alliance was initially intended as an electoral pact in the March [1973] parliamentary elections in which the Unidad Popular obtained 43 percent of the popular vote.
The Dialogue between Allende and Alwyin was a failure. Aylwin stated :
“I have no trust in the democratic loyalty of the Marxist parties because they do not believe in Democracy. They have an inherent totalitarian conception. We are convinced that the democratic path will not solve the underlying economic problems…”
The Communist Party Senator and prominent intellectual Volodia Teitelbaum response was:
“The Christian Democrats are not that innocent. Basically they are in favor of a coup d’Etat because it constitutes a means to conveniently obtaining political power. The Christian Democrats have moved to the Right. They are not interested a Dialogue which implies a consolidation of revolutionary changes”
While the Right was becoming more cohesive, a political split of the Left was imminent. The Communist Part sided with Allende’s constitutional strategy while a section of the Socialist Party (Allende’s own Party) led by Carlos Altamirano and the MAPU (Movimiento de Accion Popular Unitaria -initially a group of Christian Democrats which joined the Unidad Popular in 1969) led by Oscar Garreton, signified their distrust in “bourgeois legality” and the constitutional process and moved increasingly closer to the leftist revolutionary front Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR). MIR maintained ideological and strategic relations with Cuban revolutionary groups as well as with the Bolivian and Uruguayan Tupamaros. While endorsing many features of the programme of the Unidad Popular, the MIR rejected Allende’s “Chilean Road to Socialism” :
“We must create popular power (poder popular) based on the industrial belts (cordones industriales)” .
The cordones industriales were organized and politicized labor groups. Together with MAPU, MIR was in the process of developing the Grupos de Accion Urbana (Urban Action Groups), with the task of educating and preparing the masses for armed resistance in the case of a military coup.
Purges in the Armed Forces
In August [1973], the Armed forces initiated a series of violent search and arrests directed against the MIR and state enterprises integrated by the industrial belts (cordones industriales). These searches were conducted in accordance with the Fire Arms control Act, adopted by [the Chilean] Congress after the October [1992 employers] strike and which empowered the Armed Forces [bypassing the civilian police authorities] to implement (by Military Law) the control of fire arms. [The objective of this measure was to confiscate automatic weapons of the members of the industrial belts and curb armed resistance by civilians to a military coup].
Meanwhile, right-wing elements in the Navy and Air Force were involved in actively eliminating Allende supporters by a well organized operation of anti-government propaganda, purges and torture. On August 7 [1973], the Navy announced that a “subversive left wing group” integrated by MIR had been found out. Meanwhile, according to reliable sources, a seditious plan of the Right with the intent to bring down Allende’s government, using the Navy to control the entry of supplies into the country, had been discovered. Sailors and officers [within the Navy], who knew about these plans, were tortured and beaten.
The Role of the Political Right
[In August 1973], high ranking military officers and members of Patria y Libertad, met with Senator Bulnes Sanfuentes of the National Party. Admiral Merino now [September 1973] a member of the Junta participated in meetings with members of National Party, senators of the Christian Democratic Party and staff of the US embassy. In fact towards mid-August [1973], a motion declaring US ambassador Nathaniel Davis as persona non grata was drafted by a parliamentary committee of the Unidad Popular. Furthermore, the Armed Forces were colluding with the Ultra-Right by setting up a so-called Base operacional de Fuerzas especiales (BOFE) (Operational Base of Special Forces). BOFE units were integrated by member of the nationalist front Patria y Libertad.
BOFE units were paramilitary divisions receiving material and financial support from the Armed forces. They were intended to undertake subversive and terrorist activities, which the Armed Forces could not openly undertake. BOFE was responsible for the many bomb attacks on pipelines, bridges and electric installations in the months preceding the military coup of September 11 [1973].
General Prats’ Resignation from the Armed Forces
On August 9, Allende reorganized his cabinet and brought in the three joint chiefs of staff, Carlos Prats (Army), Cesar Ruis Danyau (Air force) and Raul Montero (Navy) into a so-called “National Security Cabinet”. Allende was only intent upon resolving the Transport Strike, which was paralyzing the country’s economy, he was anxious to gain whatever support was left within the Armed Forces.
The situation was not ripe for a military coup as long as General Carlos Prats was member of the cabinet, commander in Chief of the Army and Chairman of the Council of Generals.
Towards mid-August, the armed forces pressured Allende and demanded Prats’ resignation and retirement ” due to basic disagreements between Prats and the Council of Generals”. Allende made a final attempt to retain Prats and invited General Prats, Pinochet (now [September 1973] head of the Military Junta), Bonilla now Minister of the Interior), and others for dinner at his private residence. Prats resigned officially on August 23, both from the Cabinet and from the Armed Forces:
“I did not want to be a factor which would threaten institutional discipline… or serve as a pretext to those who want to overthrow the constitutional government”
The Generals’ Secret Meeting
With General Carlos Prats out of the way, the road was clear for a consolidated action by the Army, Navy and Air Force. Prats successor General Augusto Pinochet convened the Council of 24 generals in a secret meeting on August 28. The purpose and discussion of this meeting were not made public. In all likelihood, it was instrumental in the planning of the September 11 military coup.
The reshuffle of Allende’s National Security Cabinet took place on the same day (28 August). It resulted after drawn out discussions with party leaders of the Unidad Popular coalition, and in particular with Socialist Party leader Carlos Altamirano.
The following day, August 29, Altamirano in a major policy speech made the following statement:
“We hope that our Armed Forces have not abandoned their historical tradition, the Schneider Doctrine … and that they could follow a course leading to the installation of a reactionary Brazilian style [military] dictatorship … We are convinced that our armed forces are not prepared to be instrumental in the restoration of the privileges of the financial and industrial elites and landed aristocracy. We are convinced that if the Right wing golpe (coup) were to succeed, Chile would become a new Vietnam.”
On the weekend preceding the military coup, leaders of the National Party and Christian Democratic Party made major political statements, declaring Allende’s government illegal and unconstitutional. Sergio Onofre Jarpa of the National Party declared:
“After the Marxist downfall, the rebirth of Chile! … We will continue our struggle until we see out of office those who failed to fulfill their obligations. From this struggle, a new solidarity and a new institutional framework (institucionalidad) will emerge.”
A few days later, the Presidential Palace was bombed and Allende was assassinated. The rebirth of Chile, and a new institutional framework had emerged.
Michel Chossudovsky
Universidad Católica de Chile,
Santiago de Chile, September 1973 [written in the days following the coup]
Selected References on the Role of Henry Kissinger in the 1973 military coup
USA Regrets Role in Chile’s September 11 Tragedy: US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, admitted Washington’s participation in Chile coup of 1973, Pravda, 17 March 2003, http://english.pravda.ru/world/20/91/368/9766_chile.html [this statement was made barely a week after the military occupation of Iraq by US and British troops.]
Michel Chossudovsky’s Writings on the Chilean Military Junta’s Economic Reforms
Capital Accumulation in Chile and Latin America”, Yale University Lecture Series on Post-Allende Chile, North South, Canadian Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. IV, vol. XIII, no. 23, 1978, also published in Economic and Political Weekly.
“Acumulación de Capital en Chile”, Comercio Exterior, vol. 28, no. 2, 1978 (Spanish version of above article)
“Chicago Economics, Chilean Style”, Monthly Review, vol. 26, no. 11, 1975, in Spanish in a book published in Lima, Peru,
“Hacia el Nuevo Modelo Economico Chileno, Inflación y Redistribución del Ingreso, 1973-1974”, Cuadernos de CISEPA, no. 19, Catholic University of Peru, 1974, Trimestre Economico, no. 166, 1975, 311-347.
“The Neo-Liberal Model and the Mechanisms of Economic Repression: The Chilean Case”, Co-existence, vol. 12, no. 1, 1975, 34-57.
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To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the other “9/11” —the 1973 Chilean coup, we repost his article by Shane Quinn which was originally published in September 2017.
On September 11, 1973, Salvador Allende’s democratic government in Chile was ousted by United States-backed forces in one of the Cold War’s defining moments. Allende himself was killed during the coup while his presidential palace, La Moneda, was extensively bombed. Many thousands of Chileans were either murdered, “disappeared”, imprisoned, and coerced to emigrate or enter exile. Allende’s widow and family were forced to go into hiding in Mexico for many years.
In replacing Allende the Americans installed General Augusto Pinochet, one of the most notorious of the post-Second World War dictators. During the next 17 years of Pinochet’s dictatorship around 40,000 Chileans were tortured – often under the most sadistic fashion and overseen by doctors in the Josef Mengele style (the Nazi doctor at Auschwitz). The doctors would ensure the victims would remain alive for as long as possible, administer medication to resuscitate them, so the torture could then recommence.
A Chilean who suffered such treatment in these chambers, but survived and later became an international lawyer, was asked where these doctors are today? He replied, “they’re practicing in Santiago”. There have been a number of Mengele-style doctors not only walking free in Chile, but resuming employment unhindered.
There have been no calls from the United States or Israel to bring these Nazi-style physicians to justice. Indeed, the Pinochet regime was already protecting Nazi war criminals such as SS Colonel Walter Rauff, creator of the gas chambers, and Mengele himself.
As the US’s population is approximately 18 times bigger than Chile’s, with an infinitely bigger landmass, the Chilean 9/11 was felt on a far greater scale. Indeed, it was also more destructive. In the US’s 9/11, the White House was not bombed, the President (George W. Bush) was not killed, its people were not imprisoned and tortured en masse after the initial crimes were committed, a brutal dictator and his death squads were not imposed.
Before the Chilean coup in 1973, the country had been a lively, vibrant place where people were welcoming and cheerful. The Pinochet years afflicted upon the population persistent feelings of terror and suspicion.
A few days after the coup was implemented National Security Adviser Henry Kissingerdescribed the situation in Chile as,
Except to the people of Chile that is. Following Allende’s election three years before, Kissinger told CIA director Richard Helms over the phone,
“We will not let Chile go down the drain”, to which Helms responded, “I am with you”.
Kissinger, a future Nobel Peace Prize winner, had been implicated in other war crimes such as an open call for genocide in Cambodia in 1969, “Anything that flies on everything that moves”.
Disturbed by Allende’s election victory in early September 1970, US President Richard Nixon ordered the CIA to, “prevent Allende from coming to power or to unseat him”. Allende was not due to take office until two months later. The US State Department suggested to, “let Allende come in and see what we can work out”, – the words “work out” denoting a sinister undertone judging by the record books.
However, President Nixon rejected the State Department’s proposal, protesting the possibility of,
“Like another Castro? Like in Czechoslovakia? The same people said the same thing. Don’t let them do that”.
President Nixon expressed caution saying that,
“We don’t want a big story leaking out that we are trying to overthrow the government”, before warning Kissinger “to be sure the paper record doesn’t look bad”.
Kissinger forwarded to Secretary of State William Rogers that,
“The President’s view is to do the maximum possible to prevent an Allende takeover”.
The aim of the Nixon administration in attempting to overthrow Allende’s incoming government was to destroy independent nationalism, or what was called a “virus” that might “infect” others – the domino effect. After all Henry Stimson, the US Secretary of War during World War II, described Latin America as “our little region over here which has never bothered anybody”.
Chile obviously came under the auspices of “our little region”, despite the fact its capital Santiago is over 8,000 km from Washington. The rights of nations to manage their own affairs is an unacceptable prospect to US planners. We see examples of this to the present day.
In the meantime, “the maximum possible to prevent an Allende takeover” failed as the former physician successfully assumed office in November 1970. The CIA had been sent to work in building support for Allende’s rival, former President Jorge Alessandri, but to no avail. Instead the CIA exerted covert pressure, including paying millions of dollars to opposition groups to speed up Allende’s ousting.
The four-week tour of Chile by Cuban leader Fidel Castro in late 1971 further alarmed policymakers in the US. Allende himself had visited Cuba about a decade before, and had been impressed by the progress made by Castro’s revolution, before again visiting the island nation in 1972.
By the following year Allende was ousted and killed, with crucial CIA input, as Pinochet went about privatising the Chilean economy to suit American corporate requirements. The “Chicago boys”, neoliberal Chilean economists trained at University of Chicago, were welcomed into the government – and were supported by the IMF and the World Bank.
The Chicago boys’ policies had a disastrous effect on the population as unemployment more than doubled between 1974 and 1975, to over 18%. By 1983 unemployment further rocketed to 34.6%, far worse than the Great Depression in the US.
The population revolted at various stages but this is where Pinochet’s brutal methods of repression came in useful, and was no doubt welcomed by the US government, IMF, and so on. Furthermore, Pinochet was a major drug trafficker who sold cocaine to the US and Europe in the 1980s, amassing a personal fortune in the process, along with his cronies. Pinochet, who also had links to Colombian drug dealers, said
“Not a leaf moves in Chile if I don’t move it – let that be clear”.
Meanwhile, the population continued to slide into poverty and desolation.
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Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree. He is interested in writing primarily on foreign affairs, having been inspired by authors like Noam Chomsky. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
As agências de inteligência ocidentais estão aparentemente a preparar-se para enfrentar “sérias ameaças globais” devido às atuais mudanças geopolíticas. Num artigo recente para o Financial Times, os chefes da CIA e do MI6 – os principais serviços secretos americanos e britânicos – deixaram claro que os seus países veem o atual processo de reconfiguração geopolítica como uma ameaça, tendo um grande esforço por parte dos estes serviços de segurança para neutralizar possíveis “inimigos”.
Bill Burns e Richard Moore afirmaram que Londres e Washington estão a trabalhar em conjunto para manter a ordem mundial contemporânea, apesar das atuais tendências geopolíticas favorecerem mudanças radicais no sistema global. Segundo eles, alguns “atores estatais” estão tentando reconfigurar o cenário geopolítico, sendo necessário um esforço conjunto por parte dos países liberais para evitar essas mudanças.
Os autores apontam o início da operação militar especial da Rússia na Ucrânia como um ponto crucial neste processo de transição geopolítica, reconhecendo como os países emergentes começaram a desafiar a hegemonia ocidental após a iniciativa da Rússia. Os líderes das nações emergentes em todos os continentes abraçaram a agenda multipolar, encorajando uma série de reformas para diminuir a influência ocidental sobre os seus países – o que é obviamente visto como trágico e perigoso pelos políticos ocidentais.
Neste sentido, Burns e Moore deixam claro que os países ocidentais devem cooperar para neutralizar qualquer ameaça ao “status quo” global. Eles acreditam que a hegemonia liberal era o único sistema global capaz de trazer “paz e estabilidade” às relações internacionais, razão pela qual deveriam ser feitos esforços para protegê-la. Ao mesmo tempo, os autores sublinham que as suas agências – a CIA e o MI6 – já se estão a preparar para enfrentar estas novas ameaças.
“Não há dúvida de que a ordem mundial internacional – o sistema equilibrado que conduziu a relativa paz e estabilidade e proporcionou padrões de vida, oportunidades e prosperidade crescentes – está sob ameaça de uma forma que não víamos desde a guerra fria (.. .) Hoje, cooperamos num sistema internacional contestado, onde os nossos dois países enfrentam uma série de ameaças sem precedentes”, afirmaram os principais espiões no seu artigo conjunto.
Burns e Moore não identificam a Rússia como a única ameaça ao Ocidente, mas também a China. Enfatizam a “necessidade” de manter esforços conjuntos para enfrentar Pequim, endossando assim o tema central dos últimos documentos de estratégia de segurança dos EUA, que nomeiam a Rússia e a China como os principais inimigos – o que se deve ao papel proeminente que estes estados eurasianos desempenham na o atual processo de transição geopolítica.
“No século XXI, as crises não surgem sequencialmente. Embora estejam a ser mobilizados recursos e atenção significativos contra a Rússia, estamos a agir em conjunto noutros locais e espaços para combater o risco de instabilidade global. Tanto para a CIA como para o SIS, o aumento da China é o principal desafio geopolítico e de inteligência do século XXI, e reorganizamos os nossos serviços para refletir essa prioridade”, acrescentaram.
É curioso ver como o desespero ocidental está a levar os seus responsáveis a agir de forma irracional. As estratégias de inteligência tendem a ser mantidas em segredo, dada a natureza sensível deste tipo de informação. A posição política de um país já deixa claro quais estados são identificados como ameaças pelas suas agências de inteligência, não havendo necessidade de expor publicamente esse conteúdo. Ao fazê-lo, Washington e Londres estão apenas a demonstrar desespero e falta de mentalidade estratégica, e estão também a dizer aos seus “inimigos” que devem esperar ainda mais manobras no futuro – dando assim à Rússia e à China uma oportunidade de se prepararem adequadamente na esfera de contrainteligência.
Além disso, é evidente que os ocidentais ainda não compreenderam adequadamente a nova realidade geopolítica. O mundo multipolar não está prestes a ser estabelecido – ele já existe. Os países emergentes já têm a oportunidade de agir soberanamente em oposição às potências ocidentais. Em África, na Ásia, nas Américas e até na Europa, cresce o número de Estados que tomam decisões que contradizem os interesses americanos, sem que Washington possa “punir” todos estes países ao mesmo tempo.
Ainda falta um tratado internacional que reconheça formalmente estas novas circunstâncias, reconfigurando as organizações internacionais e a arquitetura de segurança global, adaptando-as a um mundo policêntrico. No entanto, a transição geopolítica precede a ratificação de um tratado. A multipolaridade já existe e a perda de influência por parte do Ocidente não pode mais ser revertida.
Ao contrário de Burns e Moore, os responsáveis dos países emergentes já não acreditam no mito liberal de um mundo “estável e pacífico”. A hegemonia dos EUA pós-Guerra Fria, mais do que uma utopia democrática global, foi um período de conflitos, intervencionismo, golpes de estado e genocídios no mundo emergente – razão pela qual há uma pressa por parte da maioria global para acabar com esta situação. era. As agências de inteligência poderão tentar sabotar esta transição, mas tais esforços irão certamente falhar.
Bangladesh, once celebrated as an economic success story in the Indian subcontinent, is now navigating turbulent waters following a dramatic political crisis in August 2024. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s resignation, her subsequent flight to India, and the installation of an interim government with US and Pakistan backing have sent ripples of uncertainty through the nation and beyond.
In August 2024, Bangladesh faced a major political upheaval as student protests over government job quotas escalated into widespread violence, resulting in over 130 deaths and a coup, with Hasina forced to resign and flee to India preceding protesters storming her residence and government offices.
Even before the political crisis erupted, Bangladesh grappled with several economic challenges that threatened to undermine its progress, such as declining exports and dwindling foreign exchange reserves. The country’s export-driven economy faced severe disruptions, particularly its crucial garment sector. Foreign exchange reserves had declined sharply, with gross reserves standing at $21.8 billion in June 2024, 35% lower than in June 2022, covering just over three months of current account payments.
At the same time, inflation hit a decade-high of 9.7% year-on-year in April 2024, putting immense pressure on the cost of living for average Bangladeshis. The IMF reported the debt-to-GDP ratio as 41% for 2024, raising concerns among local economists, especially given the stagnant revenue growth. Two-fifths of Bangladesh’s young population lacks reliable employment, contributing to social unrest. In the first quarter of 2024, unemployment increased by 3.51% compared to the last quarter of 2023, with the total unemployment count growing to 2.59 million. Stagnating between 8% and 9% over the past decade, the low revenue-to-GDP ratio is significantly lower than in neighbouring countries like India (20.2%), limiting the government’s fiscal capacity.
These factors led to S&P Global Ratings on July 30 to downgrade Bangladesh’s long-term foreign and local currency credit ratings to ‘B+’ from ‘BB-‘
The political upheaval has exacerbated existing economic issues and created new challenges that threaten to derail Bangladesh’s economic progress and severely impact trade relations, which reached $13 billion in the 2023-24 fiscal year. The political uncertainty has led to a slowdown in trade activities and investments, such as in the garment industry, which accounts for 85% of the country’s exports. Garment factories have remained closed, leaving workers struggling with unpaid wages and unable to cover basic expenses.
Due to the declining economy, there are concerns about increased extremism and regional instability. The political vacuum created by Hasina’s departure has raised fears about the potential resurgence of extremist groups within Bangladesh, with possible spillover effects on regional security.
Not only are there concerns about rising extremism, but the crisis has complicated Bangladesh’s relationships with key allies, such as India, which can affect diplomatic and economic ties. One such concern is the creation of uncertainty surrounding foreign aid and investment. The taka, the national currency, has dropped sharply against the dollar, worsening economic instability and increasing import costs. This comes as the banking sector shows signs of stress, contributing to the overall fragility of the economic environment.
Despite the current turmoil, it’s crucial to acknowledge the significant economic progress made under Sheikh Hasina’s leadership. Under her watch, Bangladesh experienced steady GDP growth ranging from 6% to 8% from the end of the global financial crisis to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This consistent growth helped elevate the country’s economic status.
Bangladesh also undertook several emblematic megaprojects, boosting infrastructure and development. However, the loans associated with these projects are now falling, adding to the economic stress.
Hasina also helped oversee the reduction in the poverty rate from 44% in 1991 to 18.7% in 2022, marking a substantial improvement in the living standards of millions of Bangladeshis, while the country’s economy quadrupled from $102 billion in 2009 to $437 billion in 2023, making it the second-largest economy in the region after India. This culminated in the highest per capita GDP in the Indian subcontinent, reaching $2,529 in 2023, surpassing that of its neighbours, reflecting the country’s economic progress.
It cannot be overlooked that the ongoing political turmoil in Bangladesh could also have significant implications for Indian businesses and investors with interests in the country. Indian companies, particularly those in the textile sector, may face challenges due to possible disruptions in trade and delayed payments. Given that Indian firms own approximately a quarter of textile manufacturing units in Bangladesh, the instability could prompt some to consider relocating their operations back to India.
Bangladesh stands at a critical crossroads, facing the dual challenge of political instability and economic uncertainty. The achievements made under Hasina’s leadership, including sustained economic growth and poverty reduction, are now at risk. The interim government faces the daunting task of addressing immediate economic concerns while laying the groundwork for long-term stability and growth.
The country’s heavy reliance on the garment industry, low tax-to-GDP ratio, and rising debt levels present significant vulnerabilities. Additionally, the potential loss of investor confidence and international support could further complicate economic recovery efforts. The projected decrease in GDP growth to below 6% for the next two years reflects the challenging road ahead.
With the interim government under Muhammad Yunus recently stating that attacks on Hindus were an “exaggeration” and that the attacks were not communal in nature, it is unclear whether he was justifying the attacks and whether the violence will continue. If violence continues, stability in Bangladesh will turn into a distant dream. This will ultimately affect the economy and the people as a whole. It remains to be seen how the interim government tackles all the issues at hand.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: The mother of an 18-year-old missing worker, Rina, waits for her lost daughter in front of a barricade in Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 24 July 2013. (Credit: Taslima Akhter)
During the event, Austin stated that “the meeting would address Ukraine’s most urgent needs”, namely the Kiev regime’s dwindling air defense capabilities and long-range strike platforms. Apart from Austin and Volodymyr Zelensky, the meeting was attended by the latter’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, as well as the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, USAF General Charles Q. Brown.
Zelensky formally thanked NATO for its so-called “military aid” deliveries, but still didn’t miss the opportunity to complain about the “need for more”, insisting that many of the pledged SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems are yet to be handed over to the Kiev regime forces.
However, according to the mainstream propaganda machine, the package didn’t include the longer-range missiles that Zelensky has been “begmanding” intensively for the last several months. It did include the “standard” HIMARS munitions (although it’s not entirely clear what that entails), air defense systems and SAMs, artillery rounds, as well as handheld systems such as the “Stinger” MANPADS, among other things. The package was pushed through by the so-called “Presidential Drawdown Authority” (PDA), which allows the troubled Biden administration to draw weapons from US military stockpiles. This is part of the highly controversial $95 billion “military aid” deal that went into effect back in April. Nearly 65% of it (or $61 billion) went to the Kiev regime, with the rest going to Israel and Taiwan.
Strangely enough, Austin showed some restraint when it comes to the Kiev regime’s requests for these NATO-sourced weapons to be used against targets deeper within Russia. Namely, when asked if the US would support this, Austin responded that “no single capability would be a game changer” in the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict.
“I don’t believe that one specific capability is going to be decisive. Our approach to integrating things and to making sure that they have the right skill sets to employ those capabilities and those capabilities are linked to specific objectives,” he said, adding: “I think Ukraine has a pretty significant capability of its own to address targets that are well beyond the range of ATACMS or even ‘Storm Shadow’ for that matter. There are a lot of targets in Russia, a big country, obviously. And there’s a lot of capability that Ukraine has in terms of UAVs and other things to address those targets.”
“We need to have this long-range capability, not only on the divided territory of Ukraine, but also on the Russian territory, so that Russia is motivated to seek peace,” he said, adding: “We need to make Russian cities and even Russian soldiers think about what they need: peace or Putin.”
Obviously, such a threat cannot be ignored and Moscow simply wants to make it clear to the US-led political West that they would also feel the consequences of such attacks. Just like the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) sent their superfast, high-flying MiG-31BM interceptors to disrupt NATO ISR operations over the Black Sea, (launched in support of terrorist attacks on Russian civilians), the Kremlin will surely repeat the same with any other similar attempt that may lead to consequences for its people and leadership.
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The United States believes this could give it the best first-strike capabilities and possibly even put Moscow, Beijing and Pyongyang into a checkmate position.
The latter can hit targets at ranges of approximately 1,600 km. Their ability to carry the W80 thermonuclear warheads means that the old GLCM (Ground Launched Cruise Missile, officially designated as the BGM-109G “Gryphon”) is effectively resurrected, while the very usage of the name “Typhon” indicates that the system is a successor to the “Gryphon”. The multipurpose SM-6 missiles have a range of up to 500 km and effectively play the role of SRBMs (short-range ballistic missiles). On September 4, US Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth said that America informed Japan it will be deploying the “Typhon” missile systems there. According to her statement during a Defense News conference in Virginia, “[the US] made the interest in this clear with the Japanese Self-Defense Forces”.
Secretary Wormuth also said that the US wants to keep these missiles in Japan “for several months”, adding that the US Army’s goal is to “really try to have as much combat-credible capability forward in the Indo-Pacific west of the international dateline”.
She insisted that the deployment “strengthens deterrence in the region” and that the “Typhon” missile system “has gotten the attention of China”. Wormuth also added that “there is a lot of potential for moving US troops and equipment around Japan’s southwestern islands”, which are close to Taiwan. These could certainly be used to jeopardize Chinese naval forces, particularly as the SM-6’s capabilities include the role of an anti-ship missile. And while Washington DC insists that these troops are there to supposedly “deter” Beijing, the truth is that these are highly offensive forces that China certainly sees as a direct threat to the full restoration of its territorial integrity.
Worse yet, foreign troops stationed so close to the Asian giant’s shores are jeopardizing both its sovereignty and basic national security interests. Despite US claims that it would like to “avoid war”, its actions suggest the complete opposite, as they’re actually increasing the likelihood of a conflict exponentially. It would seem that’s exactly the goal, as Washington DC is determined to deploy a “dragon trap” against Beijing, just like it did to Russia with a “bear trap” in Ukraine. This is designed to force a reaction, which the US could then present as “proof” of how supposedly “aggressive” the targeted country is. However, while this usually didn’t have consequences of global proportions when used against relatively small and helpless countries, it’s a whole different story when it comes to superpowers such as China and Russia. Poking the “Bear” and the “Dragon”, simultaneously, mind you (among others), is a really great way to start WW3.
Needless to say, given how heavily armed top military superpowers are, such a confrontation would surely turn into a global thermonuclear annihilation. Unfortunately, Washington DC doesn’t really care about that. Last year, Secretary Wormuth herself stated that “the US is preparing to fight and win a war with China”, adding that “[she] personally is not of the view that an amphibious invasion of Taiwan is imminent”, but that “[America] obviously has to [be] prepared”. This is certainly not the first time that top-ranking US officials are calling for war with China. In addition, late last year, Washington DC made a similar “Typhon” deployment to the Philippines, where the missile system likely remains to this day. The move was also conducted under the guise of “deterrence”. The latest announcement about the imminent deployment to Japan would mean that the US is capable of targeting mainland China from both the East and South China Sea.
In addition, the very usage of the name “Typhon” has more symbolism than just the similarity to the word “Gryphon”. Namely, the term could also be seen as a wordplay, as it’s quite close to “typhoon”, revealing that its primary purpose is to devastate targets along Beijing’s Asia-Pacific shoreline. To that end, the Pentagon has also been expanding its military presence in the Philippines, Guam and elsewhere in the region. This includes the deployment of similar “Tomahawk” launchers by the US Marine Corps (USMC), while the US Navy already has numerous sea-based “Tomahawk” launch platforms. As previously noted, all this clearly indicates a concerted effort to surround China with hostile military bases and infrastructure that would force it to respond accordingly. And while Beijing might prioritize peace talks and detente, it will not do so at all costs, particularly if it concludes that the US simply doesn’t respect civilized and diplomatic solutions.
Beijing certainly doesn’t desire war, but the barbarism of the Washington DC warmongers and war criminals is a harsh reality that the world needs to take into account. The Asia-Pacific is an increasingly contested region and its busy sea lanes are of vital importance to the Asian giant’s heavily export-oriented economy. Any sort of dangerous deployments that could jeopardize them will not be tolerated or left unanswered, particularly as Chinese hypersonic capabilities far eclipse that of the US. The same goes for Russia and its positions in Europe, where the political West is also conducting a crawling aggression, including with the deployment of the exact same weapons systems. This has already prompted Moscow to respond, resulting in the return to a dangerous ’80s-era standoff that could’ve easily ended in the destruction of Europe and the world. Unfortunately, the US-led political West is replicating the same scenario everywhere.
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28 year old Madeleine Danielle Petite was a teacher and also coached volleyball and basketball at Elberta High School and Foley Middle School
She was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lung Cancer while 24 weeks pregnant and at age 28.
As a teacher, she was mandated COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines in late 2021 at age 25.
“Early 2024, Madeleine was diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic lung cancer at 24 weeks pregnant.”
“The cancer had spread to her liver, lymph nodes, adrenal gland, bones and her brain.”
“She underwent radiation treatments for 15 tumors in her brain”.
“The cancer had spread rapidly in just a short time without her even knowing it.”
My Take…
Stage 4 lung cancer at age 28 is unheard of.
The only thing that makes any of these stories possible, and there are thousands of them, is mandating COVID-19 mRNA vaccines on young, healthy people.
This is a very typical example, you could say “textbook example” of turbo cancer. Features include:
Teachers were mandated COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines to keep their job
Stage 4 Presentation at age 28
Diagnosed during pregnancy (risk factor)
Extremely aggressive spread
No response to chemotherapy or radiation therapy
Death within months
When the reckoning comes for doctors who denied this phenomenon and lied about it, it’s not going to be pretty.
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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
After being released on bail from a French prison, Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov made several statements which indicate that he is labouring under grave illusions about the nature of his predicament. He described the action of the French authorities, which resulted in his arrest and detention on French territory, as “surprising and misguided.” He then went on to question the legal premise of his detention and subsequent indictment, which is that he could be held “personally responsible for other people’s illegal use of Telegram.”
It is disappointing to see a 39 years old sophisticated cosmopolitan adult, traumatised as he must be by his recent experiences, reasoning like a child. One should have expected a person of Durov’s wealth to secure competent legal assistance to help him understand the legal “facts of life” pertaining to his case.
There are two basic facts that the lawyer selected by Durov to represent him should have explained to his client. Incidentally, that lawyer is extremely well wired into the French establishment and the judicial system which is persecuting his bewildered protégé. It would not be uncharitable to say that his loyalties are dubious.
The first and most fundamental of these facts is the political nature of the case. Durov’s predicament cannot be properly understood apart from that reality. Recognition of that fact does not exclude entirely the effective use of legal arguments and remedies but it marginalises their practical impact. The second important fact that a conscientious legal professional already in the first interview would have made clear to his client is that in the real world in which Durov is facing grave criminal charges, indulging intuitive notions of justice, including the premise that a person cannot be held criminally liable for third-party acts, is a naïve and utterly misguided approach.
Pavel Durov is a highly intelligent and, in his field, very accomplished individual. But on another level he is just a computer nerd and his incoherent actions and statements are proof of that. Contrary to what he seems to think possible, and as incompatible as that may appear to be with the concept of natural justice, under specific circumstances an individual can be criminally charged for the acts of third parties. Mechanisms that make that possible already are firmly in place. We would not necessarily be wrong to characterise those mechanisms as repugnant to the natural sense of justice, or even as quasi-legal. But formally they are well established and are integral components of criminal law. Tyrannical political systems are free to invoke those instruments whenever they decide to target a bothersome non-conformist such as Pavel Durov.
Whilst on the one track relentless pressure is undoubtedly being applied to the conditionally released but still closely supervised Durov to accede to the demands of deep state structures and turn Telegram’s encryption keys over to security agencies, on a parallel track the legal case against him is being constructed. It will be based on some variant or derivative of the theory of strict liability. The exact contours of that variant are yet to be defined as the case proceeds, and everything will depend on how the defendant responds to the combination of carrots and sticks that are now being put in front of him. Since no evidence is being offered to prove that acting personally in his capacity as Telegram CEO Durov was complicit in any of the incriminating activities listed in the charge sheet, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that some version of strict liability will be the vehicle of choice to make the accusations stick. Unless he capitulates, the objective is to put him away for a long time, or at least to threaten him credibly with such an outcome in order to exact his cooperation. Strict liability is a convenient tool because it offers many shortcuts to the Prosecution. It achieves the desired effect in the absence of proof of specific intent and regardless of the defendant’s mental state, thus eliminating major evidentiary hurdles for the prosecution.
Furthermore, from the beginning of the Durov case groundwork was notably being laid for the application of the Joint Criminal Enterprise [JCE] doctrine as developed by the Hague Tribunal, its category III to be precise. Even seasoned lawyers practicing at the Hague Tribunal were at a loss what to make of that legal improvisation. But their incomprehension did not prevent successive chambers from sentencing defendants to decades of prison, wholly or in part based on it.
Durov is being charged on 12 counts, including complicity in distributing child pornography, drug dealing and money laundering. It should again be recalled that it is not even alleged that Durov personally committed or intentionally participated in the commission of any of those offences. The charges stem from the accusation that Telegram’s lax moderation rules allow for the widespread criminal use of the platform by others, with whom it is not claimed that Durov entertained any direct personal link or that he was even aware of their existence.
But the marvellous feature of the category III JCE doctrine, specially invented by the chambers of the Hague Tribunal to accommodate the Prosecution in situations in which it could not contrive even the semblance of a nexus between the defendant and the crimes being imputed to him, is that it does not require any of those things. A vaguely inferred commonality of purpose, coupled with the assumption that the defendant should have been able to foresee but failed to prevent the illicit conduct of the third parties with whom he is being associated by the Prosecution, and with whom he needn’t have had direct communication or even personal acquaintance, serves as a sufficient link. If in the chambers’ considered judgment the defendant contributed substantially to generating conditions conducive to third-party unlawful conduct, that is enough. Proof that the third parties had committed the charged acts is sufficient basis to convict and no disavowal of criminal liability is practically possible.
If in relation to the third parties the defendant is situated in a position that the court deems culpable, nothing more is needed for liability for their conduct to be imputed to him.
The system’s prosecutors are eager to make those and perhaps some even more ingenious arguments to sympathetic judges. Woe to the person sitting in the dock.
That is precisely the general direction in which the Durov case is moving. In an ominous but highly indicative development, the French prosecutors are highlighting the alleged paedophile offences of an individual user of Telegram, who for the moment is identified cryptically only as “X,” or “person unknown,” and who is suspected of having committed crimes against children. The prosecution’s objective is to individualise and dramatise Durov’s guilt by connecting him to a specific paedophile case, the details of which can be disclosed later. If that sticks, some or all of the remaining charges in due course may even be dropped, without prejudice to the prosecution’s overarching goal of incarcerating Durov for a long period of time, unless he compromises. Paedophilia and child abuse alone merit a very lengthy prison sentence, without the necessity of combining them with other nasty charges.
In that regard, equally ominous for Durov is the activation, as it were on cue, of his ex-whatever in Switzerland, with whom he is alleged to have sired at least three out-of-wedlock children. Prior to his detention in France, Durov had capriciously terminated her 150,000-euro monthly apanage. This was a financial blow which naturally left her disgruntled and receptive to the suggestion of the investigative organs to come up with something to take revenge on her former companion. The woman is now accusing Durov of having molested one of the children that he had conceived with her. That is an independent and serious new charge whose potential for further mischief should not be underestimated.
Pavel Durov should stop wasting his time attempting to lecture his French captors on the wrongfulness of the persecution to which they are subjecting him. They are completely uninterested in the philosophical and legal principles to which Durov is referring. Like their transatlantic colleagues, who display juridical virtuosity by indicting ham sandwiches, with equal facility and with as little professional remorse French prosecutors are prepared to indict bœuf bourguignon, if that is what the system they serve demands of them. Far more than a legal strategy, Durov now needs an effective negotiating position (and perhaps also a crash course in poker) to preserve the integrity of his enterprise and to fully regain his freedom without sacrificing honour. For an excellent introduction to the Western rules based order, Durov need look no further than the woeful predicament of Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, the German-American lawyer who for months has been languishing in a German prison after being targeted on trumped-up charges for exposing the fraud of the recent “health emergency” that we all vividly recall.
Properly understood, the Durov affair should come as a sobering lesson not only for its principal but more importantly for the edification of the frivolous Russian intelligentsia who still entertain adolescent illusions about where the grass is greener and continue to nourish a petulant disdain for their own country, its way of life, and culture.
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Stephen Karganovic is president of “Srebrenica Historical Project,” an NGO registered in the Netherlands to investigate the factual matrix and background of events that took place in Srebrenica in July of 1995. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Rethinking Srebrenica examines the forensic evidence of the alleged Srebrenica “massacre” possessed by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. Even though the ICTY created more than 3,500 autopsy reports, many of these autopsy reports were based on bone fragments, which do not represent complete bodies. An examination of the matching femur bones found reveals that there were only about 1,900 complete bodies that were exhumed. Of these, some 1,500 autopsy reports indicated a cause of death consistent with battlefield casualties. Only about 400 autopsy reports indicated execution as a cause of death, as revealed by ligatures and blindfolds. This forensic evidence does not warrant the conclusion of a genocide having taken place.
Karganovic examines the events that took place in Srebrenica in July 1995 in a wholistic manner instead of restricting it to a three-day event. The ten chapters cover:
1) Srebrenica: A Critical Overview;
2) Demilitarization of the UN Safe Zone of Srebrenica;
3) Genocide or Blowback?;
4) General Presentation and Interpretation of Srebrenica Forensic Data (Pattern of Injury Breakdown);
5) An Analysis of the Srebrenica Forensic Reports Prepared by the ICTY Prosecution Experts;
6) An Analysis of Muslim Column Losses Attributable to Minefields, Combat Activity, and Other Causes;
7) The Genocide Issue: Was there a Demonstrable Intent to Exterminate All Muslims?;
We cannot understand the present dilemma without reference to history. This was why I wrote my most recent book, Our Country, Then and Now. Encompassing American history from the first Puritan settlers, with extensive reference to Native Americans and blacks brought first as slaves, the story focuses on the gradual descent from various peoples’ search for freedom to today’s growing submission to the globalists and the financial oligarchy. This oligarchy derives its power from the 500-year course of Western fractional reserve banking and the reign of usury.
The following narrative is based on the section of the book which begins in the late 19th and early 20th century, when the U.S. succumbed to greed in becoming a major component of the Anglo-American-Zionist Empire.
Characteristics of the Empire
The Empire embodied the convergence of two major historical currents:
1) the transformation of the British Empire into a larger global enterprise knit together at first by British maritime power until this expanded by the mid-20th century into a gigantic naval/air power managed primarily by the U.S. military; and
2) the development of a nihilist social-political construct exemplified by the Terror of the French Revolution, the appearance and growth of Communist internationalism after Marx’s publication in 1867 of Das Kapital, the conquest of Tsarist Russia aka, the “Russian Revolution”; and the subversion of American consciousness by the commercialism and philistinism of a social, educational, medical, and media system controlled by the Rockefellers and other Western oligarchs.
The net effect of these developments was today’s reign of the billionaires, combined with the complete and absolute subservience of the individual to the power of a state/corporatist apparatus whose primary purpose is violent world-conquest and massive larceny of all planetary resources. The best literary depiction of this apparatus remains the epochal novel 1984.
These developments merged by around 1905, and through the agency of the British “clubs” and the monetary power of Cecil Rhodes and Nathaniel Rothschild and their “Round Table,” the Empire that had come into existence set out:
1) in Rhodes’s words, “to recover American for the British Empire”; and
2) to annihilate Britain’s main continental rival; namely Germany.
Side-by-side with these measures was the growth of Zionism, which began to influence world events after the Balfour Declaration issued by the British government in 1917 granted the region of Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire, to the Jews as a perpetual “homeland.”
It is essential to emphasize that even though the creation of Israel in 1947-1948 was claimed to be a reaction to the WWII “Holocaust,” the decision to implant a Jewish national state in Palestine was made long before.
Among the reasons the British brought the U.S. into World War I was to free a large portion of the British army stationed on the Western Front to be sent to seize Palestine from the Ottomans, with the intention of future Jewish occupation.
Later, during World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill made a secret deal with Hitler, whereby Germany would recall its North African army poised to seize the Suez Canal and Palestine, in exchange for British acquiescence in Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union. The bringing about of this invasion with full knowledge that Germany would thereby be destroyed, was the cornerstone of Churchill’s World War II strategy. These historical facts have been explained in Guido Giacomo Preparata’s masterful Conjuring Hitler: How Great Britain and America Created the Third Reich and Destroyed Europe.
It was the destruction of Christian Europe, with the German-speaking world at its core, that became the overriding objective of the Anglo-American-Zionist Empire and has remained so to this day. An early key to this strategy was the so-called “Russian Revolution,” carried out by Jewish forces controlled by Rabbinic Talmudism whose primary front was the Zionist movement. Again, the best source on this aspect of the world conspiracy is British journalist Douglas Reed’s The Controversy of Zion.
We can also observe that the creation of an oligarchical anti-Christian state based on banking and finance—usury—was at the core of a long-term project of transferring priorities and practices from the Italian city-state of Venice throughout the rest of Western Europe that began to influence England around the year 1520. For more detail see Francis Leader’s Substack of September 3, 2024, based on a lecture by Gerry Rose entitled The Venetian Takeover of England. Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice around 1596-1598 based on Italian sources.
Shakespeare was wired into the highest echelons of English society, and we may take his drama as a warning of what was going on at a time when usury was becoming widespread. Many aristocratic youth were falling victim to both Jewish and gentile money-lenders operating freely in Renaissance London. Shylock’s “pound of flesh” is an effective symbol of the deadly stakes of the game.
Dollar Hegemony
In the field of economics, the Empire’s program is to secure economic, social, and political control of the world through dollar hegemony, based, as stated above, on fractional reserve banking and usury. This system, originating in Venice and now over 500 years in the making, was intended to assure the constant flow of all money (spending power/liquidity/means of exchange) into the hands of the Western bankers. The door was opened to this historical disaster when the Papacy rescinded its centuries-long prohibition on usury under pressure from the wealthy class.
The money thence stolen from society would be valued in terms of gold. Fractional reserve banking would multiply the amount of paper money—credit—released into circulation. The gold would be held by the bankers in their vaults. Every weekday morning a group of the wealthiest men in England would meet at the Rothschild Bank in the City of London to set the price of gold during the upcoming day’s trading. They thus controlled the monetary value of every article bought or sold in the world.
The London Gold Fix was first held on September 12, 1919, to kick-start London’s gold market after the end of the First World War. For 85 years until 2004 the five member banks of the London Gold Fix would meet face-to-face at the offices of N.M. Rothschild, erstwhile chairman of the Gold Fix, on St. Swithins Lane in the City of London.
The money thus accumulated as bankers’ profits would be selectively doled out to proxies, eventually including the mass media, to first control the minds of the masses, then their incomes, living conditions, health care, food supply, etc.
A key part of population control would become the manufacture and distribution of addictive drugs by the CIA and other Deep State agencies. Closely related was the prescription drug regime of Big Pharma. The profits from both legal and illegal drug sales today support the Deep State’s “black” agenda, enrich the monetary centers, especially the City of London and Wall Street, and prop up the global financial system, always on the verge of over-extension and collapse as happened with the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009.
Targeting of Germany
Germany was the original target of the Empire. Germany was targeted not only because, as everyone knows, the German Empire, formed in 1870, was Britain’s chief naval and commercial rival, but also because Germany, during the 19th century, had become the focal point within Europe of numerous profound spiritual currents related to Europe’s Christian heritage.
These currents not only promised to revitalize Christianity, but also hoped to attain breakthroughs in spiritual fields related to study of Eastern religions, including those of India, China, and Japan, tolerance and unity with Islam sheltered by a budding alliance between Germany and the Ottomans, and the appearance of advanced teachings of comparative spirituality.
The latter were exemplified, for instance, by the discourses of Rudolf Steiner and the even more important teachings of Bô Yin Râ (Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken, 1876-1943), whose books garnered over a million readers in the German-speaking world.
The way had been paved by the rich traditions of German music, culminating in the works of composer Richard Wagner, German literature exemplified by Goethe, Schiller, Schopenhauer, and the Grimm Brothers, and scientist/historians like Leibnitz and those he influenced.
Further back were the treasures of medieval and Renaissance mysticism, exemplified by Meister Eckhart and religious reformers like Martin Luther and the German Anabaptists. Thousands of German artists, musicians, and writers carried these teachings forward around the world, with special impact in Japan and America. The brilliant fiction of America’s greatest woman writer, Willa Cather, testifies to this movement with her persistent motifs of Germany thought and spirit, especially regarding Wagner.
It took World Wars I & II to reduce Germany to ashes, but the German economic miracle of the 1950s and 1960s showed that nation’s irrepressible spirit. Once again, the Empire has targeted Germany by forcing it to buy into Project Ukraine at the cost of its own cheap energy sources from Russia. But the failure of the Empire’s assault on Russia in Ukraine may also lead to the liberation of Germany and the rest of the E.U. from the shackles the Empire so painstakingly forged through the wars of the 20th century.
Role of Wagner
The great German composer Richard Wagner, persecuted in his youth as a social radical, had figured out the bankers’ tricks. In the Ring of the Nibelung, Wagner portrayed the evil dwarf that sought to control the world through the power of the ring made of gold he stole from the safekeeping of the Rhine Maidens. This ring gave power over everything in the world. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is the English-language version of the story.
The British bankers knew they were the evil dwarves Wagner had discovered and that the Germans now knew it too. So Germany had to go. Wagner had also discovered, through his production of Parsifal, that there existed in the world an order of high spiritual guardians who kept the secret of the Holy Grail—Christ’s path to the Spirit. The path to the Grail’s power had been interrupted by human failings, but a new community of innocents was discovering it, so Wagner had to be eliminated on those grounds too. Young people especially were not to be allowed to realize that a new spiritual age was dawning.
Of course, today’s money masters have attempted to scare people away from Wagner by harping on the fact that Hitler liked to listen to his music. But so have millions of people around the world for almost two centuries now.
Similarly, the Empire felt compelled to destroy Russian culture along with the German. A quick look at Netflix tells you what they replaced them with and why a majority of people today are without fundamental values.
[This is Part II of a seven-part series.]
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Richard C. Cook is a co-founder and lead investigator for the American Geopolitical Institute. Mr. Cook is a retired U.S. federal analyst with extensive experience across various government agencies, including the U.S. Civil Service Commission, FDA, the Carter White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury. As a whistleblower at the time of the Challenger disaster, he exposed the flawed O-ring joints that destroyed the Shuttle, documenting the event in his book “Challenger Revealed.” After serving at Treasury, he became a vocal critic of the private finance-controlled monetary system, detailing his analysis in “We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform.” He served as an advisor to the American Monetary Institute and worked with Congressman Dennis Kucinich to advocate for replacing the Federal Reserve with a genuine national currency. See his new book giving a revisionist view of U.S. history: Our Country, Then and Now, Clarity Press, 2023.
A talk by Yossef Ben-Meir, President of the High Atlas Foundation in Morocco, at the Integrated Management of Cultural Tourism Conference on 11 June 2024hosted by Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiques and the United States Agency for International Development
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The High Atlas Foundation (HAF) has initiated a positive intercultural and development project that is now gaining scale, and we have been able to secure domestic and international public and private investment for it.
How, in the community’s determination of development priorities, can we simultaneously interject matters of interfaith partnerships and cultural preservation? It begins with human development and participatory planning among the beneficiaries.
HAF, a U.S.-Moroccan nonprofit organization, is dedicated to community development and supports the projects that local people identify as most important to them. So naturally, as agriculture in Morocco accounts for 80 percent of rural incomes, we focus heavily on that sector. Clean drinking water also continues to remain a priority of the people, along with irrigation systems, family literacy, and cultural preservation.
Based on our expertise in assisting communities to identify and discover what they want most of all in their lives, HAF initiates programs based on the specific priorities expressed by community members and then builds partnerships to achieve them. We launch this process with a four-day empowerment exploration process that brings about a sense of priorities and an action plan reflecting the will of what local communities want to achieve in their futures.
However revelatory, this process is also an intense emotional experience that brings the people to that outcome. Participants look at the social relationships in their lives and the things they feel doubt and fear about. They look at their inner emotions and outlooks about money and work, all things that bear upon people’s ability and determination in knowing what they want and pursuing what they most seek.
The conditions of rural life in Morocco underscore the necessity of growing fruit trees. The contribution of land is what prevents farming families across the nation from building community nurseries for cultivating young trees. They cannot set aside a portion of their land normally used for growing barley and corn in order to grow a seed into a sapling. They must harvest every year.
HAF seeks the contribution of land from public and civil agencies. In doing the kind of process described, we found land available next to an historic Moroccan Jewish cemetery, about 30 minutes outside of Marrakech, and we asked the Moroccan Jewish community for permission to use the land to build a people’s tree nursery.
That inquiry began what is now a heritage initiative gaining broader and broader scale, called our House of Life program. We were not necessarily seeking heritage and an intercultural partnership but rather pursuing the will of the people first: the people wanted trees most of all.
The Moroccan Jewish community said yes to the land, which happens to be adjacent to a 700-year-old cemetery. In this case, the nursery now generates over 70,000 trees (olive, fig, and pomegranate) each year, and it has been an ongoing project for about ten years. The USAID Farmer-to-Farmer Program was very important in this pilot in building local people’s technical skills in nursery management.
As the nursery began to take hold, HAF engaged not just with those immediately surrounding the nursery but with communities in the region. Similarly, the four-day empowerment experience began with women’s groups in the nearest villages, supported by the the U.S. Department of States Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund.
These communities identified, based on their tradition and the skills that they have gained from their previous generations, the desire to make carpets and other clothing articles derived from their cultural history and as symbols of their cultural past. They dye wool from their sheep using medicinal plants that grow endemically in the area.
Now, in the interim, the engagement with communities has continued and expanded. The nursery serves a broader region, and the community dialogue around new priorities and implementation of their dreams is ongoing.
Of course, a pervasive issue that we have in rural Morocco is clean drinking water. We have municipalities where many girls fetch water instead of going to middle school. We have a terrible prevalence of water-borne diseases. We have higher infant mortality in rural places.
To address the widespread priority of clean drinking water with partners, in this case Yves Saint Laurent Fashion, we implemented clean drinking water initiatives and integration of irrigation infrastructure utilizing clean energy, including a solar water pump system for the nursery financed by the Moroccan company, FENELEC. From these projects, the community is in a position to enable even greater tree planting.
The other investment that we secured was connecting the 700-year-old cemetery with a road, about a kilometer in length, to the women’s co-op so that visitors of the cemetery can also visit the cooperative. Again, there are layers to this process. It began with an intercultural partnership for community planning and then moved towards cooperative building driven by women making carpets of local materials and designs based on their heritage.
This empowerment then allowed for developments in clean drinking water, irrigation, and fruit tree planting. HAF with Reforest is now in the process of supporting the community’s planting of 23,000 olive trees.
The High Atlas Foundation, with a full-time staff of nearly 100 people, is currently supporting nine nurseries in Morocco that house over 3.2 million trees. Just this season, we have transplanted 800,000 and we have monitored about 820,000, including trees from prior years. This is a pilot within a broader program, including the newly added overlay of tree monitoring for carbon offset credits. Now, in addition to receiving land from the Moroccan Jewish community, we have also received land from the Moroccan government and the National Agency of Waters and Forests for tree nurseries.
From this pilot creating these layers of human development with a cultural gateway, the number of visitors has grown beyond what we could have imagined. Since the start of 2023, visitors from some 40 universities (Moroccan, U.S., and European) have toured this pilot site and engaged in intercultural dialogues with the community members. Starting in 2021, HAF administered the USAID Dakira program for cultural preservation in Morocco, and these dialogues meet this initiative’s goals.
We have been visited by dozens of tourist groups, because, if people have half a day and have not had the experience of a genuine rural community visit to learn about rural life conditions, here lies this pilot just outside of Marrakech where they can see and internalize Moroccan culture, Moroccan agriculture, matters of public health related to water, and school infrastructure. In a single location, visitors can see all of these different dimensions of broad-based community development. The more people that are drawn to this experience, the more advocacy and public awareness that comes about, encouraging even more to visit.
Income generated by the Achbarou Women’s Cooperative from selling carpets and other goods to visitors keeps their families financially afloat. The European Union funded Achbarou’s family literacy program and other essential skills-building activities. In some cases, the women’s supplemental income has more than doubled the overall household income for the families. With some further investment by the Moroccan government’s National Initiative for Human Development (NIHD) and Planeterra, the cooperative has been able to reinvest revenue from their entrepreneurial efforts into the purchase of land to build a new workplace and storefront facility. Without the scores of visitors from universities and tourism, this would not have been possible.
The Moroccan government, which for generations has prioritized Moroccan multiculturalism, saw this opportunity. Now, every time we replicate—we are currently building the fourth of such intercultural tree nurseries—the Moroccan government, through the NIHD, puts $50,000 into that nursery. In short, the Moroccan government funds a tree nursery on Moroccan Jewish community land for the greater public of that region.
The regions and areas described are not ones that are typically visited by outside groups. Through this process, it brings people to places where visitors are not going.
There may be pilgrims to the Jewish cemeteries, but they will not typically go into the surrounding villages and meet the members of cooperatives or initiatives. Their visits are limited to the cemeteries and typically at only at certain times of the year such as the anniversary of the passing of some of the recognized saints in Moroccan Jewish-Muslim-Amazigh culture. These are also very rare visits, and so what we have to do is expand the desired travel destinations of those coming to Morocco.
The policy context of Morocco has created the opportunity for organizations like the High Atlas Foundation and cooperatives like Achbarou to learn and pursue local hopes, with the support of all sectors and tiers, and in pursuit of scale. Even still, the actual achievement comes with an enormity of expended energy and time, withstanding trials such as the 2023 earthquake, and with the loving heart of the Moroccan people to unite across their diversity of identities as they have done for centuries.
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Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir is President of the High Atlas Foundation in Morocco. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: The Akrich tree nursery (located in Morocco’s Al Haouz province) that benefits farming communities of the region, built on land lent without cost by the Moroccan Jewish Community (photo by HAF, 2024).
September 10th, 2024 by US Senate Republican Policy Committee
In the course of the next few weeks, Global Research will be publishing several important articles and documents pertaining to the 9/11 attacks.
9/11 analysis: An important document of the US Senate
The following 1997 document of the Senate Republican Policy Committee reveals that the Clinton administration had supported operatives of “The Military Islamic Network” in Bosnia.
What this document confirms is that:
1. The US Administration did not cease its support of Al Qaeda in the wake of the Cold War. 2. On record, both the Democratic and Republican administrations had consistently supported Al Qaeda prior to 9/11.
The document is no longer available in the Archives of the US Senate, office of (former) Senator Larry Craig. It was published by Pars Times in 1997
MILITANT ISLAMIC BASE Congressional Press Releases January 16, 1997, Thursday
U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee – Larry E. Craig, Chairman – Jade West, Staff Director
Extended Bosnia Mission Endangers U.S. Troops
Clinton-Approved Iranian Arms Transfers Help Turn Bosnia into Militant Islamic Base
BYLINE: LARRY CRAIG , SENATOR [representing Idaho from 1991 to 2009] U.S SENATE
CLINTON-APPROVED IRANIAN ARMS TRANSFERS HELP TURN BOSNIA INTO A MILITANT ISLAMIC BASE
January 16, 1997
Copyright, Federal Document Clearing House, Congressional Press Releases, 1997. For fair use only.
Since the Soviet-Afghan war, recruiting Mujahideen (“holy warriors”) to fight covert wars on Washington’s behest has become an integral part of US foreign policy.
A 1997 document of the US Senate reveals how the Clinton administration –under advice from the National Security Council headed by Anthony Lake– had “helped turn Bosnia into a militant Islamic base” leading to the recruitment through the so-called “Militant Islamic Network,” of thousands of Mujahedin from the Muslim world.
The “Bosnian pattern” has since been replicated in Kosovo, Southern Serbia and Macedonia.
Among the foreign mercenaries now [1999] fighting with the Kosovo Liberation Army(KLA) in Macedonia are Mujahideen from the Middle East and the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union.
Also within the ranks of the Kosovo Liberation Army are senior US military advisers from a private mercenary outfit on contract to the Pentagon as well as “soldiers of fortune” from Britain, Holland and Germany.
“Americans have many questions tonight. Americans are asking, ‘Who attacked our country?'” said George W. Bush in his address to the US Congress on 20 September 2001.
“This group and its leader, a person named Osama bin Laden are linked to many other organizations in different countries.”
What the President failed to mention in his speech was the complicity of agencies of the US government in supporting and abetting Al Qaida and its alleged leader Osama bin Laden.
The Bush Administration has misled the American people.
What is the hidden agenda? The largest military operation since the Vietnam War is being launched against Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network, when the evidence amply confirms that Osama had been “harbored” since the Soviet-Afghan war by agencies of the US government.
We are reproducing below the 1997 Senate Press release, whichprovides detailed evidence from official sources ofthe links between the Islamic Jihad and the US government during the Clinton Administration.
The CRG does not necessarily share or endorse the conclusions of the document which emanates from the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee
Michel Chossudovsky, 21 September 2001
Washington Post quotation
“TWRA is believed to be connected with such fixtures of the Islamic terror network as Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman (the convicted mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) and Osama Bin laden, a wealthy Saudi emigre believed to bankroll numerous militant groups.” [WP, 9/22/96]
Clinton-Approved Iranian Arms Transfers
Help Turn Bosnia into Militant Islamic Base
Congressional Press Release, US Congress, 16 January 1997
Posted at globalresearch.ca 21 September 2001
Note:
The [ … ] brackets are in the original Senate document, indicating the source of quotations.
The emphasis is not in the original text. (Added)
Help Turn Bosnia into Militant Islamic Base
“‘There is no question that the policy of getting arms into Bosnia was of great assistance in allowing the Iranians to dig in and create good relations with the Bosnian government,’ a senior CIA officer told Congress in a classified deposition. ‘And it is a thing we will live to regret because when they blow up some Americans, as they no doubt will before this … thing is over, it will be in part because the Iranians were able to have the time and contacts to establish themselves well in Bosnia.”‘ “Iran Gave Bosnia Leader $ [“Iran Gave Bosnia Leader $ 500,000, CIA Alleges: Classified Report Says Izetbegovic Has Been ‘Co-Opted,’ Contradicting U.S. Public Assertion of Rift,” Los Angeles Times, 12/31/96. Ellipses in original. Alija Izetbegovic is the Muslim president of Bosnia.]
“‘If you read President Izetbegovk’s writings, as I have, there is no doubt that he is an Islamic fundamentalist,’ said a senior Western diplomat with long experience in the region. ‘He is a very nice fundamentalist, but he is still a fundamentalist. This has not changed. His goal is to establish a Muslim state in Bosnia, and the Serbs and Croats understand this better than the rest of us.”‘ [“Bosnian Leader Hails Islam at Election Rallies,” New York Times, 9/2/96]
Introduction and Summary
In late 1995, President Bill Clinton dispatched some 20,000 U.S. troops to Bosnia-Hercegovina as part of a NATO-led “implementation force” (IFOR) to ensure that the warning Muslim, Serbian, and Croatian factions complied with provisions of the Dayton peace plan. [NOTE: This paper assumes the reader is acquainted with the basic facts of the Bosnian war leading to the IFOR deployment. For background, see RPC’s “Clinton Administration Ready to Send U.S. Troops to Bosnia, “9/28/95,” and Legislative Notice No. 60, “Senate to Consider Several Resolutions on Bosnia,” 12/12/95] Through statements by Administration spokesmen, notably Defense Secretary Perry and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Shalikashvili, the president firmly assured Congress and the American people that U S. personnel would be out of Bosnia at the end of one year.Predictably, as soon as the November 1996 election was safely behind him, President Clinton announced that approximately 8,500 U.S. troops would be remaining for another 18 months as part of a restructured and scaled down contingent, the “stabilization force” (SFOR), officially established on December 20, 1996.
SFOR begins its mission in Bosnia under a serious cloud both as to the nature of its mission and the dangers it will face. While IFOR had successfully accomplished its basic military task – separating the factions’ armed forces – there has been very little progress toward other stated goals of the Dayton agreement, including political and economic reintegration of Bosnia, return of refugees to their homes, and apprehension and prosecution of accused war criminals. It is far from certain that the cease-fire that has held through the past year will continue for much longer, in light of such unresolved issues as the status of the cities of Brcko (claimed by Muslims but held by the Serbs) and Mostar (divided between nominal Muslim and Croat allies, both of which are currently being armed by the Clinton Administration). Moreover, at a strength approximately one-third that of its predecessor, SFOR may not be in as strong a position to deter attacks by one or another of the Bosnian factions or to avoid attempts to involve it in renewed fighting: “IFOR forces, despite having suffered few casualties, have been vulnerable to attacks from all of the contending sides over the year of the Dayton mandate. As a second mandate [Dayton mandate. As a second mandate [i.e., SFOR] evolves, presumably maintaining a smaller force on the ground, the deterrent effect which has existed may well become less compelling and vulnerabilities of the troops will increase.” [“Military Security in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Present and Future,” Bulletin of the Atlantic Council of the United States, 12/18/96]
The Iranian Connection
Perhaps most threatening to the SFOR mission – and more importantly, to the safety of the American personnel serving in Bosnia – is the unwillingness of the Clinton Administration to come clean with the Congress and with the American people about its complicity in the delivery of weapons from Iran to the Muslim government in Sarajevo. That policy, personally approved by Bill Clinton in April 1994 at the urging of CIA Director-designate (and then-NSC chief) Anthony Lake and the U.S. ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith, has, according to the Los Angeles Times (citing classified intelligence community sources), “played a central role in the dramatic increase in Iranian influence in Bosnia.” Further, according to the Times, in September 1995 National Security Agency analysts contradicted Clinton Administration claims of declining Iranian influence, insisting instead that “Iranian Revolutionary Guard personnel remain active throughout Bosnia.” Likewise, “CIA analysts noted that the Iranian presence was expanding last fall,” with some ostensible cultural and humanitarian activities “known to be fronts” for the Revolutionary Guard and Iran’s intelligence service, known as VEVAK, the Islamic revolutionary successor to the Shah’s SAVAK. [[LAT, 12/31/96] At a time when there is evidence of increased willingness by pro-Iranian Islamic militants to target American assets abroad – as illustrated by the June 1996 car-bombing at the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, that killed 19 American airmen, in which the Iranian government or pro-Iranian terrorist organizations are suspected [“U.S. Focuses Bomb Probe on Iran, Saudi Dissident,” Chicago Tribune, 11/4/96] – it is irresponsible in the extreme for the Clinton Administration to gloss over the extent to which its policies have put American personnel in an increasingly vulnerable position while performing an increasingly questionable mission.
Three Key Issues for Examination
This paper will examine the Clinton policy of giving the green light to Iranian arms shipments to the Bosnian Muslims, with serious implications for the safety of U.S. troops deployed there. (In addition, RPC will release a general analysis of the SFOR mission and the Clinton Administration’s request for supplemental appropriations to fund it in the near future.) Specifically, the balance of this paper will examine in detail the three issues summarized below:
The Clinton Green Light to Iranian Arms Shipments (page 3): In April 1995, President Clinton gave the government of Croatia what has been described by Congressional committees as a “green light” for shipments of weapons from Iran and other Muslim countries to the Muslim-led government of Bosnia. The policy was approved at the urging of NSC chief Anthony Lake and the U.S. ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith. The CIA and the Departments of State and Defense were kept in the dark until after the decision was made.
The Militant Islamic Network (page 5): Along with the weapons, Iranian Revolutionary Guards and VEVAK intelligence operatives entered Bosnia in large numbers, along with thousands of mujahedin (“holy warriors”) from across the Muslim world. Also engaged in the effort were several other Muslim countries (including Brunei, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Turkey) and a number of radical Muslim organizations. For example, the role of one Sudan-based “humanitarian organization,” called the Third World Relief Agency, has been well documented. The Clinton Administration’s “hands-on” involvement with the Islamic network’s arms pipeline included inspections of missiles from Iran by U.S. government officials.
The Radical Islamic Character of the Sarajevo Regime (page 8): Underlying the Clinton Administration’s misguided green light policy is a complete misreading of its main beneficiary, the Bosnian Muslim government of Alija Izetbegovic. Rather than being the tolerant, multiethnic democratic government it pretends to be, there is clear evidence that the ruling circle of Izetbegovic’s party, the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), has long been guided by the principles of radical Islam. This Islamist orientation is illustrated by profiles of three important officials, including President Izetbegovic himself; the progressive Islamization of the Bosnian army, including creation of native Bosnian mujahedin units; credible claims that major atrocities against civilians in Sarajevo were staged for propaganda purposes by operatives of the Izetbegovic government; and suppression of enemies, both non-Muslim and Muslim.
The Clinton Green Light to Iranian Arms Shipments
Both the Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Select Subcommittee to Investigate the United States Role in Iranian Arms Transfers to Croatia and Bosnia issued reports late last year. (The Senate report, dated November 1996, is unclassified. The House report is classified, with the exception of the final section of conclusions, which was released on October 8, 1996; a declassified version of the full report is expected to be released soon.) The reports, consistent with numerous press accounts, confirm that on April 27, 1994, President Clinton directed Ambassador Galbraith to inform the government of Croatia that he had “no instructions” regarding Croatia’s decision whether or not to permit weapons, primarily from Iran, to be transshipped to Bosnia through Croatia. (The purpose was to facilitate the acquisition of arms by the Muslim-led government in Sarajevo despite the arms embargo imposed on Yugoslavia by the U.N. Security Council.) Clinton Administration officials took that course despite their awareness of the source of the weapons and despite the fact that the Croats (who were themselves divided on whether to permit arms deliveries to the Muslims) would take anything short of a U.S. statement that they should not facilitate the flow of Iranian arms to Bosnia as a “green light.”
The green light policy was decided upon and implemented with unusual secrecy, with the CIA and the Departments of State and Defense only informed after the fact. [“U.S. Had Options to Let Bosnia Get Arms, Avoid Iran,” Los Angeles Times, 7/14/96] Among the key conclusions of the House Subcommittee were the following (taken from the unclassified section released on October 8):
“The President and the American people were poorly served by the Administration officials who rushed the green light decision without due deliberation. full information and an adequate consideration of the consequences.” (page 202)
“The Administration’s efforts to keep even senior US officials from seeing its ‘fingerprints’ on the green light policy led to confusion and disarray within the government.” (page 203)
“The Administration repeatedly deceived the American people about its Iranian green light policy.” (page 204)
Clinton, Lake, and Galbraith Responsible
Who is ultimately accountable for the results of his decision – two Clinton Administration officials bear particular responsibility: Ambassador Galbraith and then-NSC Director Anthony Lake, against both of whom the House of Representatives has referred criminal charges to the Justice Department. Mr. Lake, who personally presented the proposal to Bill Clinton for approval, played a central role in preventing the responsible congressional committees from knowing about the Administration’s fateful decision to acquiesce in radical Islamic Iran’s effort to penetrate the European continent through arms shipments and military cooperation with the Bosnian government.” [“‘In Lake We Trust’? Confirmation Make-Over Exacerbates Senate Concerns About D.C.I.-Desipate’s Candor, Reliability,” Center for Security Policy, Washington, D.C., 1/8/97] His responsibility for the operation is certain to be a major hurdle in his effort to be confirmed as CIA Director: “The fact that Lake was one of the authors of the duplicitous policy in Bosnia, which is very controversial and which has probably helped strengthen the hand of the Iranians, doesn’t play well,” stated Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Shelby. [“Lake to be asked about donation,” Washington Times, 1/2/97]
For his part, Ambassador Galbraith was the key person both in conceiving the policy and in serving as the link between the Clinton Administration and the Croatian government; he also met with Imam Sevko Omerbasic, the top Muslim cleric in Croatia, “who the CIA says was an intermediary for Iran.” [“Fingerprints: Arms to Bosnia, the real story,” The New Republic, 10/28/96; see also LAT 12/23/96] As the House Subcommittee concluded (page 206):
“There is evidence that Ambassador Galbraith may have engaged in activities that could be characterized as unauthorized covert action.” The Senate Committee (pages 19 and 20 of the report) was unable to agree on the specific legal issue of whether Galbraith’s actions constituted a “covert action” within the definition of section 503(e) of the National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. Sec. 413(e)), as amended, defined as “an activity or activities … to influence political, economic, or military conditions abroad, where it is intended that the role of the United States Government will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly.”
The Militant Islamic Network
The House Subcommittee report also concluded (page 2):
“The Administration’s Iranian green light policy gave Iran an unprecedented foothold in Europe and has recklessly endangered American lives and US strategic interests.” Further – ” … The Iranian presence and influence [” … The Iranian presence and influence [in Bosnia] jumped radically in the months following the green light. Iranian elements infiltrated the Bosnian government and established close ties with the current leadership in Bosnia and the next generation of leaders. Iranian Revolutionary Guards accompanied Iranian weapons into Bosnia and soon were integrated in the Bosnian military structure from top to bottom as well as operating in independent units throughout Bosnia.
The Iranian intelligence service [intelligence service [VEVAK] ran wild through the area developing intelligence networks, setting up terrorist support systems, recruiting terrorist ‘sleeper’ agents and agents of influence, and insinuating itself with the Bosnian political leadership to a remarkable degree. The Iranians effectively annexed large portions of the Bosnian security apparatus [known as the Agency for Information and Documentation (AID)] to act as their intelligence and terrorist surrogates. This extended to the point of jointly planning terrorist activities. The Iranian embassy became the largest in Bosnia and its officers were given unparalleled privileges and access at every level of the Bosnian government.” (page 201)
Not Just the Iranians
To understand how the Clinton green light would lead to this degree of Iranian influence, it is necessary to remember that the policy was adopted in the context of extensive and growing radical Islamic activity in Bosnia. That is, the Iranians and other Muslim militants had long been active in Bosnia; the American green light was an important political signal to both Sarajevo and the militants that the United States was unable or unwilling to present an obstacle to those activities – and, to a certain extent, was willing to cooperate with them. In short, the Clinton Administration’s policy of facilitating the delivery of arms to the Bosnian Muslims made it the de facto partner of an ongoing international network of governments and organizations pursuing their own agenda in Bosnia: the promotion of Islamic revolution in Europe. That network involves not only Iran but Brunei, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan (a key ally of Iran), and Turkey, together with front groups supposedly pursuing humanitarian and cultural activities.
For example, one such group about which details have come to light is the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), a Sudan-based, phoney humanitarian organization which has been a major link in the arms pipeline to Bosnia. [“How Bosnia’s Muslims Dodged Arms Embargo: Relief Agency Brokered Aid From Nations, Radical Groups,” Washington Post, 9/22/96; see also “Saudis Funded Weapons For Bosnia, Official Says: $ 300 Million Program Had U.S. ‘Stealth Cooperation’,” Washington Post, 2/2/96]
TWRA is believed to be connected with such fixtures of the Islamic terror network as Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman (the convicted mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) and Osama Bin laden, a wealthy Saudi emigre believed to bankroll numerous militant groups. [WP, 9/22/96] (Sheik Rahman, a native of Egypt, is currently in prison in the United States; letter bombs addressed to targets in Washington and London, apparently from Alexandria, Egypt, are believed connected with his case. Binladen was a resident in Khartoum, Sudan, until last year; he is now believed to be in Afghanistan, “where he has issued statements calling for attacks on U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf.” [on U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf.” [WP, 9/22/96])
The Clinton Administration ‘s “Hands-On ” Help
The extent to which Clinton Administration officials, notably Ambassador Galbraith, knowingly or negligently, cooperated with the efforts of such front organizations is unclear. For example, according to one intelligence account seen by an unnamed U.S. official in the Balkans, “Galbraith ‘talked with representatives of Muslim countries on payment for arms that would be sent to Bosnia,’ … [would be sent to Bosnia,’ … [T]he dollar amount mentioned in the report was $ 500 million-$ 800 million. The U.S. official said he also saw subsequent ‘operational reports’ in 1995 on almost weekly arms shipments of automatic weapons, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, anti-armor rockets and TOW missiles.” [TNR, 10/28/96] The United States played a disturbingly “hands-on” role, with, according to the Senate report (page 19), U.S. government personnel twice conducting inspections in Croatia of missiles en route to Bosnia. Further — “The U.S. decision to send personnel to Croatia to inspect rockets bound for Bosnia is … subject to varying interpretations. It may have been simply a straightforward effort to determine whether chemical weapons were being shipped into Bosnia. It was certainly, at least in part, an opportunity to examine a rocket in which the United States had some interest. But it may also have been designed to ensure that Croatia would not shut down the pipeline.” (page 21)
The account in The New Republic points sharply to the latter explanation: “Enraged at Iran’s apparent attempt to slip super weapons past Croat monitors, the Croatian defense minister nonetheless sent the missiles on to Bosnia ‘just as Peter [i.e., Ambassador Galbraith] told us to do,‘ sources familiar with the episode said.” [episode said.” [TNR, 10/28/96] In short, the Clinton Administration’s connection with the various players that made up the arms network seems to have been direct and intimate.
The Mujahedin Threat
In addition to (and working closely with) the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and VEVAK intelligence are members of numerous radical groups known for their anti-Western orientation, along with thousands of volunteer mujahedin (“holy warriors”) from across the Islamic world. From the beginning of the NATO- led deployment, the Clinton Administration has given insufficient weight to military concerns regarding the mujahedin presence in Bosnia as well as the danger they pose to American personnel. Many of the fighters are concentrated in the so-called “green triangle” (the color green symbolizes Islam) centered on the town of Zenica in the American IFOR/SFOR zone but are also found throughout the country.
The Clinton Administration has been willing to accept Sarajevo’s transparently false assurances of the departure of the foreign fighters based on the contention that they have married Bosnian women and have acquired Bosnian citizenship — and thus are no longer “foreign”! or, having left overt military units to join “humanitarian,” “cultural,” or “charitable” organizations, are no longer “fighters.” [See “Foreign Muslims Fighting in Bosnia Considered ‘Threat’ to U.S. Troops,” Washington Post, 11/30/95; “Outsiders Bring Islamic Fervor To the Balkans,” New York Times, 9/23/96; “Islamic Alien Fighters Settle in Bosnia,” Pittsburgh PostGazette, 9/23/96; “Mujahideen rule Bosnian villages: Threaten NATO forces, non-Muslims,” Washington Times, 9/23/96; and Yossef Bodansky, Offensive in the Balkans (November 1995) and Some Call It Peace (August 1996), International Media Corporation, Ltd., London. Bodansky, an analyst with the House Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, is an internationally recognized authority on Islamic terrorism.] The methods employed to qualify for Bosnian citizenship are themselves problematic: “Islamic militants from Iran and other foreign countries are employing techniques such as forced marriages, kidnappings and the occupation of apartments and houses to remain in Bosnia in violation of the Dayton peace accord and may be a threat to U.S. forces.” [“Mujaheddin Remaining in Bosnia: Islamic Militants Strongarm Civilians, Defy Dayton Plan,” Washington Post, 7/8/96]
The threat presented by the mujahedin to IFOR (and now, to SFOR) – contingent only upon the precise time their commanders in Tehran or Sarajevo should choose to activate them has been evident from the beginning of the NATO-led deployment. For example, in February 1996 NATO forces raided a terrorist training camp near the town of Fojnica, taking into custody 11 men (8 Bosnian citizens – two of whom may have been naturalized foreign mujahedin and three Iranian instructors); also seized were explosives “built into small children’s plastic toys, including a car, a helicopter and an ice cream cone,” plus other weapons such as handguns, sniper rifles, grenade launchers, etc. The Sarajevo government denounced the raid, claiming the facility was an “intelligence service school”; the detainees were released promptly after NATO turned them over to local authorities. [“NATO Captures Terrorist Training Camp, Claims Iranian Involvement,” Associated Press, 2/16/96; “Bosnian government denies camp was for terrorists,” Reuters, 2/16/96; Bodansky Some Call It Peace, page 56] In May 1996, a previously unknown group called “Bosnian Islamic Jihad” (Jihad means “holy war”,) threatened attacks on NATO troops by suicide bombers, similar to those that had recently been launched in Israel. [“Jihad Threat in Bosnia Alarms NATO,” The European, 5/9/96]
Stepping-Stone to Europe
The intended targets of the mujahedin network in Bosnia are not limited to that country but extend to Western Europe. For example, in August 1995, the conservative Paris daily Le Figaro reported that French security services believe that ,Islamic fundamentalists from Algeria have set up a security network across Europe with fighters trained in Afghan gerrilla camps and [[in] southern France while some have been tested in Bosnia.” [[(London) Daily Telegraph, 8/17/95] Also, in April 1996, Beligan security arrested a number of Islamic militants, including two native Bosnians, smuggling weapons to Algerian guerrillas active in France. [in France. [Intelligence Newsletter, Paris, 5/9/96 (No. 287)] Finally, also in April 1996, a meeting of radicals aligned with HizbAllah (“Party of God”), a pro-Iran group based in Lebanon, set plans for stepping up attacks on U.S. assets on all continents; among those participating was an Egyptian, Ayman al- Zawahiri, who “runs the Islamist terrorist operations in Bosnia- Herzegovina from a special headquarters in Sofia, Bulgaria. His forces are already deployed throughout Bosnia, ready to attack US and other I-FOR (NATO Implementation Force) targets.” [“States- Sponsored Terrorism and The Rise of the HizbAllah International,” Defense and Foreign Affairs and Strategic Policy, London, 8/31/96 Finally, in December 1996, French and Belgain security arrested several would-be terrorists trained at Iranian-run camps in Bosnia.[“Terrorism: The Bosnian Connection,” (Paris) L’Express, 12/26/96]
The Radical Islamic Character of the Sarajevo Regime
Underlying the Clinton Administration’s misguided policy toward Iranian influence in Bosnia is a fundamental misreading of the true nature of the Muslim regime that benefited from the Iran/Bosnia arms policy.
“The most dubious of all Bosniac [i.e., Bosnian Muslim] claims pertains to the self-serving commercial that the government hopes to eventually establish a multiethnic liberal democratic society. Such ideals may appeal to a few members of Bosnia’s ruling circles as well as to a generally secular populace, but President Izethbegovic and his cabal appear to harbor much different private intentions and goals.” [“Selling the Bosnia Myth to America: Buyer Beware,” Lieutenant Colonel John E. Sray, USA, U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office, Fort Leavenworth, KS, October 1995]
The evidence that the leadership of the ruling Party of Democratic Action (SDA), and consequently, the Sarajevo-based government, has long been motivated by the principles of radical Islam is inescapable. The following three profiles are instructive:
Alija Izetbegovic: Alija Izetbegovic, current Bosnian president and head of the SDA, in 1970 authored the radical “Islamic Declaration,” which calls for “the Islamic movement” to start to take power as soon as it can Overturn “the existing non- Muslim government…[Muslim government…[and] build up a new Islamic one,” to destroy non-Islamic institutions (“There can be neither peace nor coexistence between the Islamic religion and non-Islamic social institutions’), and to create an international federation of Islamic states. [The Islamic Declaration: A Programme for the Islamization of Muslims and the Muslim Peoples, Sarajevo, in English, 19901 Izetbegovic’s radical pro-Iran associations go back decades: “At the center of the Iranian system in Europe is Bosnia-Hercegovina.”
President, Alija Izetbegovic, . . . who is committed to the establishment Of an Islamic Republic in Bosnia- Hercegovina.” [“Iran’s European Springboard?”, House Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, 9/1/92 The Task Force report further describes Izetbegovic’s contacts with Iran and Libya in 1991, before the Bosnian war began; he is also noted as a “fundamentalist Muslim” and a member of the “Fedayeen of Islam” organization, an Iran-based radical group dating to the 1930s and which by the late 1960s had recognized the leadership of the Ayatollah Khomeini (then in exile from the Shah).
Following Khomeini’s accession to power in 1979, Izetbegovic stepped-up his efforts to establish Islamic power in Bosnia and was jailed by the communists in 1983. Today, he is open and unapologetic about his links to Iran: “Perhaps the most telling detail of the [detail of the [SDA’s September 1, 1996] campaign rally … was the presence of the Iranian Ambassador and his Bosnian and Iranian bodyguards, who sat in the shadow of the huge birchwood platform…. As the only foreign diplomat [platform…. As the only foreign diplomat [present], indeed the only foreigner traveling in the President’s [only foreigner traveling in the President’s [i.e., Izetbegovic’s] heavily guarded motorcade of bulky four-wheel drive jeeps, he lent a silent Islamic imprimatur to the event, one that many American and European supporters of the Bosnian Government are trying hard to ignore or dismiss.” [trying hard to ignore or dismiss.” [NYT, 9/2/96] During the summer 1996 election campaign, the Iranians delivered to him, in two suitcases, $ 500,000 in cash; Izetbegovic “is now ‘literally on their [on their [i.e., the Iranians’] payroll,’ according to a classified report based on the CIA’s analysis of the issue.” LAT, 12/31/96. See also “Iran Contributed $ [LAT, 12/31/96. See also “Iran Contributed $ 500,000 to Bosnian President’s Election Effort, U.S. Says,” New York Times, 1/l/97, and Washington Times, 1/2/97] Adil Zulfikarpasic, a Muslim co- founder of the SDA, broke with Izetbegovic in late 1990 due to the increasingly overt fundamentalist and pro-Iranian direction of the party. [See Milovan Djilas, Bosnjak: Adil Zulfikarpasic, Zurich, 1994]
Hassan (or Hasan) Cengic: Until recently, deputy defense minister (and now cosmetically reassigned to a potentially even more dangerous job in refugee resettlement at the behest of the Clinton Administration), Cengic, a member of a powerful clan headed by his father, Halid Cengic, is an Islamic cleric who has traveled frequently to Tehran and is deeply involved in the arms pipeline. [“Bosnian Officials Involved in Arms Trade Tied to Radical States,” Washington Post, 9/22/96] Cengic was identified by Austrian police as a member of TWRA’s supervisory board, “a fact confirmed by its Sudanese director, Elfatih Hassanein, in a 1994 interview with (lazi Husrev Beg, an Islamic affairs magazine. Cengic later became the key Bosnian official involved in setting up a weapons pipeline from Iran…. Cengic … is a longtime associate of Izetbegovic’s. He was one of the co- defendants in Izetbegovic’s 1983 trial for fomenting Muslim nationalism in what was then Yugoslavia. Cengic was given a 10- year prison term, most of which he did not serve. In trial testimony Cengic was said to have been traveling to Iran since 1983. Cengic lived in Tehran and Istanbul during much of the war, arranging for weapons to be smuggled into Bosnia.” [WP, 9/22/961 According to a Bosnian Croat radio profile: “Hasan’s father, Halid Cengic … is the main logistic expert in the Muslim army. All petrodollar donations from the Islamic world and the procurement of arms and military technology for Muslim units went through him. He made so much money out of this business that he is one of the richest Muslims today. Halid Cengic and his two sons, of whom Hasan has been more in the public spotlight, also control the Islamic wing of the intelligence agency AID [Agency for Information and Documentation]. Well informed sources in Sarajevo claim that only Hasan addresses Izetbegovic with ‘ti’ [second person singular, used as an informal form of address] while all the others address him as ‘Mr. President,”‘ a sign of his extraordinary degree of intimacy with the president. [BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 10/28/96, “Radio elaborates on Iranian connection of Bosnian deputy defense minister,” from Croat Radio Herceg-Bosna, Mostar, in Serbo-Croatian, 10/25/96, bracketed text in original] In late 1996, at the insistence of the Clinton Administration, Hassan Cengic was reassigned to refugee affairs. However, in his new capacity he may present an even greater hazard to NATO forces in Bosnia, in light of past incidents such as the one that took place near the village of Celic in November 1996. At that time, in what NATO officers called part of a pattern of “military operations in disguise,” American and Russian IFOR troops were caught between Muslims and Serbs as the Muslims, some of them armed, attempted to encroach on the cease-fire line established by Dayton; commented a NATO spokesman: “We believe this to be a deliberate, orchestrated and provocative move to circumvent established procedures for the return of refugees.” [“Gunfire Erupts as Muslims Return Home,” Washington Post, 11/13/96]
Dzemal Merdan: “The office of Brig. Gen. Dzemal Merdan is an ornate affair, equipped with an elaborately carved wooden gazebo ringed with red velvet couches and slippers for his guests. A sheepskin prayer mat lies in the comer, pointing toward Mecca. The most striking thing in the chamber is a large flag. It is not the flag of Bosnia, but of Iran. Pinned with a button of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s late Islamic leader, the flag occupies pride of place in Merdan’s digs — displayed in the middle of the gazebo for every visitor to see. Next to it hangs another pennant that of the Democratic Action Party, the increasingly nationalist Islamic organization of President Alija Izetbegovic that dominates Bosnia’s Muslim region…. Merdan’s position highlights the American dilemma. As head of the office of training and development of the Bosnian army, he is a key liaison figure in the U.S. [liaison figure in the U.S. [arm and train] program…. But Merdan, Western sources say, also has another job — as liaison with foreign Islamic fighters here since 1992 and promoter of the Islamic faith among Bosnia’s recruits. Sources identified Merdan as being instrumental in the creation of a brigade of Bosnian soldiers, called the 7th Muslim Brigade, that is heavily influenced by Islam and trained by fighters from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. He has also launched a program, these sources say, to build mosques on military training grounds to teach Islam to Bosnian recruits. In addition, he helped establish training camps in Bosnia where Revolutionary Guards carried out their work.” [“Arming the Bosnians: U.S. Program Would Aid Force Increasingly Linked to Iran,” Washington Post, 1/26/96, emphasis added] General Merdan is a close associate of both Izetbegovic and Cengic; the central region around Zenica, which was “completely militarized in the first two years of the war” under the control of Merdan’s mujahedin, is “under total control of the Cengic family.” [“Who Rules Bosnia and Which Way,” (Sarajevo) Slobodna Bosna, 11/17/96, FBIS translation; Slobodna Bosna is one of the few publications in Muslim-held areas that dares to criticize the policies and personal corruption of the ruling SDA clique.] Merdan’s mujahedin were accused by their erstwhile Croat allies of massacring more than 100 Croats near Zenica in late 1993. [“Bosnian Croats vow to probe war crimes by Moslems,” Agence France Presse, 5/12/95]
The Islamization of the Bosnian Army
In cooperation with the foreign Islamic presence, the Izetbegovic regime has revamped its security and military apparatus to reflect its Islamic revolutionary outlook, including the creation of mujahedin units throughout the army; some members of these units have assumed the guise of a shaheed (a “martyr,” the Arabic term commonly used to describe suicide bombers), marked by their white garb, representing a shroud. While these units include foreign fighters naturalized in Bosnia, most of the personnel are now Bosnian Muslims trained and indoctrinated by Iranian and other foreign militants – which also makes it easier for the Clinton Administration to minimize the mujahedin threat, because few of them are “foreigners.”
Prior to 1996, there were three principal mujahedin units in the Bosnian army, the first two of which are headquartered in the American IFOR/SFOR zone: (1) the 7th Muslim Liberation Brigade of the 3rd Corps, headquartered in Zenica; (2) the 9th Muslim Liberation Brigade of the 2nd Corps, headquartered in Travnik (the 2nd Corps is based in Tuzla); and (3) the 4th Muslim Liberation Brigade of the 4th Corps, headquartered in Konjic (in the French zone). [Bodansky, Some Call It Peace, page 401 Particularly ominous, many members of these units have donned the guise of martyrs, indicating their willingness to sacrifice themselves in the cause of Islam. Commenting on an appearance of soldiers from the 7th Liberation Brigade, in Zenica in December 1995, Bodansky writes: “Many of the fighters … were dressed in white coveralls over their uniforms. Officially, these were ‘white winter camouflage,’ but the green headbands [bearing Koranic verses] these warriors were wearing left no doubt that these were actually Shaheeds’ shrouds.” [Some Call It Peace, page 12] The same demonstration was staged before the admiring Iranian ambassador and President Izethbegovic in September 1996, when white winter garb could only be symbolic, not functional. [[NYT, 9/2/96] By June 1996, ten more mujahedin brigades had been established, along with numerous smaller “special units’ dedicated to covert and terrorist operations; while foreigners are present in all of these units, most of the soldiers are now native Bosnian Muslims. [native Bosnian Muslims. [Some Call It Peace, pages 42-46]
In addition to these units, there exists another group known as the Handzar (“dagger” or 94 scimitar”) Division, described by Bodansky as a “praetorian guard” for President Izetbegovic. “Up to 6000-strong, the Handzar division glories in a fascist culture. They see themselves as the heirs of the SS Handzar division, formed by Bosnian Muslims in 1943 to fight for the Nazis. Their spiritual model was Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who sided with Hitler. According to LJN officers, surprisingly few of those in charge of the Handzars … seem to speak good Serbo-Croatian. ‘Many of them are Albanian, whether from Kosovo [the Serb province where Albanians are the majority] or from Albania itself.’ They are trained and led by veterans from Afghanistan and Pakistan, say LTN sources.” [“Albanians and Afghans fight for the heirs to Bosnia’s SS past,” (London) Daily Telegraph, 12/29/93, bracketed text in original]
Self-Inflicted Atrocities
Almost since the beginning of the Bosnian war in the spring of 1992, there have been persistent reports — readily found in the European media but little reported in the United States — that civilian deaths in Muslim-held Sarajevo attributed to the Bosnian Serb Army were in some cases actually inflicted by operatives of the Izetbegovic regime in an (ultimately successful) effort to secure American intervention on Sarajevo’s behalf. These allegations include instances of sniping at civilians as well as three major explosions, attributed to Serbian mortar fire, that claimed the lives of dozens of people and, in each case, resulted in the international community’s taking measures against the Muslims’ Serb enemies. (The three explosions were: (1) the May 27, 1992, “breadline massacre.” which was reported to have killed 16 people and which resulted in economic sanctions on the Bosnian Serbs and rump Yugoslavia; (2) the February 5, 1994, Markale “market massacre,” killing 68 and resulting in selective NATO air strikes and an ultimatum to the Serbs to withdraw their heavy weapons from the area near Sarajevo; and (3) the August 28, 1995 “second market massacre,” killing 37 and resulting in large-scale NATO air strikes, eventually leading to the Dayton agreement and the deployment of IFOR.) When she was asked about such allegations (with respect to the February 1994 explosion) then-U.N. Ambassador and current Secretary of State-designate Madeleine Albright, in a stunning non sequitur, said: “It’s very hard to believe any country would do this to their own people, and therefore, although we do not exactly know what the facts are, it would seem to us that the Serbs are the ones that probably have a great deal of responsibility.” [“Senior official admits to secret U.N. report on Sarajevo massacre,” Deutsch Presse-Agentur, 6/6/96, emphasis added]
The fact that such a contention is difficult to believe does not mean it is not true. Not only did the incidents lead to the result desired by Sarajevo (Western action against the Bosnian Serbs), their staging by the Muslims would be entirely in keeping with the moral outlook of Islamic radicalism, which has long accepted the deaths of innocent (including Muslim) bystanders killed in terrorist actions. According to a noted analyst: “The dictum that the end justifies the means is adopted by all fundamentalist organizations in their strategies for achieving political power and imposing on society their own view of Islam. What is important in every action is its niy ‘yah, its motive. No means need be spared in the service of Islam as long as one takes action with a pure niy’ Yah.” [Amir Taheri, Holy Terror, Bethesda, MD, 1987] With the evidence that the Sarajevo leadership does in fact have a fundamentalist outlook, it is unwarranted to dismiss cavaliery the possibility of Muslim responsibility. Among some of the reports:
Sniping: “French peacekeeping troops in the United Nations unit trying to curtail Bosnian Serb sniping at civilians in Sarajevo have concluded that until mid-June some gunfire also came from Government soldiers deliberately shooting at their own civilians. After what it called a ‘definitive’ investigation, a French marine unit that patrols against snipers said it traced sniper fire to a building normally occupied by Bosnian [i.e., Muslim] soldiers and other security forces. A senior French officer said, ‘We find it almost impossible to believe, but we are sure that it is true.”‘ [“Investigation Concludes Bosnian Government Snipers Shot at Civilians,” New York Times, 8/l/951
The 1992 “Breadline Massacre”: “United Nations officials and senior Western military officers believe some of the worst killings in Sarajevo, including the massacre of at least 16 people in a bread queue, were carried out by the city’s mainly Muslim defenders — not Serb besiegers — as a propaganda ploy to win world sympathy and military intervention…. Classified reports to the UN force commander, General Satish Nambiar, concluded … that Bosnian forces loyal to President Alija Izetbegovic may have detonated a bomb. ‘We believe it was a command-detonated explosion, probably in a can,’ a UN official said then. ‘The large impact which is there now is not necessarily similar or anywhere near as large as we came to expect with a mortar round landing on a paved surface.” [“Muslims ‘slaughter their own people’,” (London) The Independent, 8/22/92] “Our people tell us there were a number of things that didn’t fit. The street had been blocked off just before the incident. Once the crowd was let in and had lined up, the media appeared but kept their distance. The attack took place, and the media were immediately on the scene.” [Major General Lewis MacKenzie, Peacekeeper: The Road to Sarajevo, Vancouver, BC, 1993, pages 193-4; Gen. MacKenzie, a Canadian, had been commander of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Sarajevo.]
The 1994 Markale “Market Massacre”: “French television reported last night that the United Nations investigation into the market-place bombing in Sarajevo two weeks ago had established beyond doubt that the mortar shell that killed 68 people was fired from inside Bosnian [Muslim lines.” [people was fired from inside Bosnian [Muslim] lines.” [“UN tracks source of fatal shell,” (London) The Times, 2/19/94] “For the first time, a senior U.N. official has admitted the existence of a secret U.N. report that blames the Bosnian Moslems for the February 1994 massacre of Moslems at a Sarajevo market…. After studying the crater left by the mortar shell and the distribution of shrapnel, the report concluded that the shell was fired from behind Moslem lines.” The report, however, was kept secret; the context of the wire story implies that U.S. Ambasador Albright may have been involved in its suppression. [DPA, 6/6/961 For a fuller discussion of the conflicting claims, see “Anatomy of a massacre,” Foreign Policy, 12/22/94, by David Binder; Binder, a veteran New York Times reporter in Yugoslavia, had access to the suppressed report. Bodansky categorically states that the bomb “was actually a special charge designed and built with help from HizbAllah [“Party of God,” a Beirut-based pro-Iranian terror group] experts and then most likely dropped from a nearby rooftop onto the crowd of shoppers. Video cameras at the ready recorded this expertly-staged spectacle of gore, while dozens of corpses of Bosnian Muslim troops killed in action (exchanged the day before in a ‘body swap’ with the Serbs) were paraded in front of cameras to raise the casualty counts.” [Offensive in the Balkans, page 62]
The 1995 “Second Market Massacre”: “British ammunition experts serving with the United Nations in Sarajevo have challenged key ‘evidence’ of the Serbian atrocity that triggered the devastating Nato bombing campaign which turned the tide of the Bosnian war.” The Britons’ analysis was confirmed by French analysts but their findings were “dismissed” by “a senior American officer” at U.N. headquarters in Sarajevo. [“Serbs ‘not guilty’ of massacre: Experts warned US that mortar was Bosnian,” (London) The Times, 10/i/95 A “crucial U.N. report [(London) The Times, 10/i/95] A “crucial U.N. report [stating Serb responsibility for] the market massacre is a classified secret, but four specialists – a Russian, a Canadian and two Americans – have raised serious doubts about its conclusion, suggesting instead that the mortar was fired not by the Serbs but by Bosnian government forces.” A Canadian officer “added that he and fellow Canadian officers in Bosnia were ‘convinced that the Muslim government dropped both the February 5, 1994, and the August 28, 1995, mortar shells on the Sarajevo markets.”‘ An unidentified U.S. official “contends that the available evidence suggests either ‘the shell was fired at a very low trajectory, which means a range of a few hundred yards – therefore under [a range of a few hundred yards – therefore under [Sarajevo] government control,’ or ‘a mortar shell converted into a bomb was dropped from a nearby roof into the crowd.”‘ [“Bosnia’s bombers,” The Nation, 10/2/95 ]. At least some high-ranking French and perhaps other Western officials believed the Muslims responsible; after having received that account from government ministers and two generals, French magazine editor Jean Daniel put the question directly to Prime Minister Edouard Balladur: “‘They [i.e., the Muslims] have committed this carnage on their own people?’ I exclaimed in consternation. ‘Yes,’ confirmed the Prime Minister without hesitation, ‘but at least they have forced NATO to intervene. “‘ [“No more lies about Bosnia,” Le Nouvel Observateur, 8/31/95, translated in Chronicles – A Magazine of American Culture, January 1997]
Suppression of Enemies
As might be expected, one manifestation of the radical Islamic orientation of the Izetbegovic government is increasing curtailment of the freedoms of the remaining non-Muslims (Croats and Serbs) in the Muslim-held zone. While there are similar pressures on minorities in the Serb- and Croat-held parts of Bosnia, in the Muslim zone they have a distinct Islamic flavor. For example, during the 1996-1997 Christmas and New Year holiday season, Muslim militants attempted to intimidate not only Muslims but Christians from engaging in what had become common holiday practices, such as gift-giving, putting up Christmas or New Year’s trees, and playing the local Santa Claus figure, Grandfather Frost (Deda Mraz). [“The Holiday, All Wrapped Up; Bosnian Muslims Take Sides Over Santa,” Washington Post, 12/26/96] hi general: “Even in Sarajevo itself, always portrayed as the most prominent multi-national community in Bosnia, pressure, both psychological and real, is impelling non-Bosniaks [i.e., non- Muslims] to leave. Some measures are indirect, such as attempts to ban the sale of pork and the growing predominance of [to ban the sale of pork and the growing predominance of [Bosniak] street names. Other measures are deliberate efforts to apply pressure. Examples include various means to make nonBosniaks leave the city. Similar pressures, often with more violent expression and occasionally with overt official participation, are being used throughout Bosnia.” [“Bosnia’s Security and U.S. Policy in the Next Phase A Policy Paper, International Research and Exchanges Board, November 1996]
In addition, President Izetbegovic’s party, the SDA, has launched politically-motivated attacks on moderate Muslims both within the SDA and in rival parties. For example, in the summer of 1996 former Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic. (a Muslim, and son of the former imam at the main Sarajevo mosque) was set upon and beaten by SDA militants. Silajdzic claimed Izetbegovic himself was behind the attacks. [was behind the attacks. [NYT, 9/2/96] h-fan Mustafic, a Muslim who cofounded the SDA, is a member of the Bosnian parliament and was president of the SDA’s executive council in Srebrenica when it fell to Bosnian Serb forces; he was taken prisoner but later released. Because of several policy disagreements with Izetbegovic and his close associates, Mustafic was shot and seriously wounded in Srebrenica by Izetbegovic loyalists. [[(Sarajevo) Slobodna Bosna, 7/14/96] Finally, one incident sums up both the ruthlessness of the Sarajevo establishment in dealing with their enemies as well as their international radical links: “A special Bosnian army unit headed by Bakir Izetbegovic, the Bosnian president’s son, murdered a Bosnian general found shot to death in Belgium last week, a Croatian newspaper reported … citing well-informed sources. The Vjesnik newspaper, controlled by the government, said the assassination of Yusuf Prazina was carried out by five members of a commando unit called ‘Delta’ and headed by Ismet Bajramovic also known as Celo. The paper said that three members of the Syrian-backed Palestinian movement Saika had Prazina under surveillance for three weeks before one of them, acting as an arms dealer, lured him into a trap in a car park along the main highway between Liege in eastern Belgium and the German border town of Aachen. Prazina, 30, nicknamed Yuka, went missing early last month. He was found Saturday with two bullet holes to the head. ‘The necessary logistical means to carry out the operation were provided by Bakir Izetbegovic, son of Alija Izetbegovic,, who left Sarajevo more than six months ago,’ Vjesnik said. It added that Bakir Izetbegovic ‘often travels between Brussels, Paris, Frankfurt, Baghdad, Tehran and Ankara, by using Iraqi and Pakistani passports,’ and was in Belgium at the time of the assassination. Hasan Cengic, head of logistics for the army in Bosnia- Hercegovina, was ‘personally involved in the assassination of Yuka Prazina,’ the paper said.” [Yuka Prazina,’ the paper said.” [Agence France Presse, 1/5/94]
Conclusion
The Clinton Administration’s blunder in giving the green light to the Iranian arms pipeline was based, among other errors, on a gross misreading of the true nature and goals of the Izetbegovic regime in Sarajevo. It calls to mind the similar mistake of the Carter Administration, which in 1979 began lavish aid to the new Sandinista government in Nicaragua in the hopes that (if the United States were friendly enough) the nine comandantes would turn out to be democrats, not communists, despite abundant evidence to the contrary. By the time the Reagan Administration finally cut off the dollar spigot in 198 1, the comandantes — or the “nine little Castros,” as they were known locally — had fully entrenched themselves in power.
To state that the Clinton Administration erred in facilitating the penetration of the Iranians and other radical elements into Europe would be a breathtaking understatement. A thorough reexamination of U.S. policy and goals in the region is essential. In particular, addressing the immediate threat to U.S. troops in Bosnia, exacerbated by the extention of the IFOR/SFOR mission, should be a major priority of the of the 105th Congress.
Up to a million Ukrainians are now killed or wounded in the futile war. The 20 year long attack on Ukraine by the West, overturning elected governments, using the country as a battering ram to bring about “regime change in Moscow” and “break up Russia” has been a catastrophe for the people of Ukraine.
The Ukrainian armed forces are not only armed and trained by the US and NATO, but that US-NATO military companies and special forces operate directly in the theatre of war in command and management roles of sophisticated weaponry, such as long-range missiles and drones, for the use of which military satellite networks are needed, which Ukraine does not have.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi Rebels attacked two oil tankers in the Red Sea on Monday with ballistic missiles and a one-way attack drone, according to U.S. Central Command, which characterized the strikes as “reckless acts of terrorism.”
There’s growing interest in magnesium, and the discourse about it has skyrocketed in recent years. An article published in Vogue says that social media is partly responsible for the renewed interest in this nutrient, with various videos promoting it as a “miracle mineral” with a wide array of health benefits.
We have seen many dire warnings that the crises in Ukraine and the Middle East risk escalation into World War III, a war between the U.S. and its “allies” vs. Russia, Iran, and China (RIC), three nations labeled officially by U.S. military propaganda as “threats” or “adversaries.” Not far behind on the hit list are North Korea, Venezuela, and a host of fence-sitting nations from the “Global South.”
The Ukrainian Armed Forces are in the midst of converging crises caused by the failed counteroffensive, the forcible conscription policy, and Zelensky’s Kursk blunder, which are leading to more desertions, defeats, and ultimately more desperation.
More than 60 years ago, Africa gained supposedly her independence from the different Western colonial powers. However, Africa is to this day not free. Africa continues to be colonized by the same Western colonizers, plus all the different so-called development institutions they have created after WWII – just before the so-called liberation movement.
The degree of comfort US liberals have with men like Cheney is more evidence that they don’t view people in the global south as fully human. If they did, his endorsement would be rejected with the same revulsion they’d show endorsements from NAMBLA or neo-Nazis. The emotional comfort they receive from all this warm cozy talk about “unity” between Democrats and Bush-era war criminals matters more to them than the lives of millions of Iraqis.
Any political worldview that’s worth a damn necessarily includes a deep and visceral hatred of Dick Cheney, and an abhorrence toward any ideology which sympathizes with him.
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American democracy means getting to choose between genocide wearing a MAGA hat and genocide waving a rainbow flag.
Mark my words: the same people telling you Harris is the better vote to save Gaza will make all kinds of excuses for her when she becomes president and you point out that she isn’t saving Gaza. Happened with Trump, happened with Obama. Same schtick over and over again.
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New rule: I’m just going to ignore anyone who tries to tell me Trump will do things if re-elected that he didn’t do the first time he was president. If you say he’s going to End The Wars and fight the Deep State, I’m ignoring that. If you say he’s going to turn America into a Nazi dictatorship where LGBT people are kept in concentration camps, I’m ignoring that. If he was going to do those things he would have done them.
Trump said a lot of offensive things and received a lot of incendiary coverage, but in terms of actual policy and governance he was a standard shitty Republican. His actual administration was very similar to that of his predecessors, and was evil not in some new way but in all the same ways those prior administrations were evil. If you need to concoct some weird fantasy that goes against all the evidence of his previous term in office to defend your position, your position is too weak to deserve attention.
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I talk about the US election not because I think it matters but to stress the fact that it doesn’t. This fake charade that consumes all political oxygen every four years will result in no meaningful changes to the behavior of the globe-spanning empire centralized around Washington.
So long as Americans are looking to their electoral system to address the murderousness, tyranny and injustice of their government, that murderousness, tyranny and injustice will continue. The first step to escaping from a burning building is to stop pushing on the fake fire exit that’s been painted on the wall. These fake elections are there to keep you trapped in the burning building. The real exit lies elsewhere.
The existence of Donald Trump allows both Republicans AND Democrats to drag the political spectrum far to the right of where it used to be. Now instead of "healthcare please" Americans are arguing over which genocidal tyrant might murder fewer people. https://t.co/71gtSbBBKV
Next month will mark the one-year anniversary October 7th, that terrible day when more than a thousand people were brutally massacred in southern Israel by Israeli helicopters and Israeli tanks and also by Hamas a bit.
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A new poll says 70 percent of Jewish Israelis think it should be forbidden to express any sympathy for civilians in Gaza on social media platforms. Israelis will murder, oppress and steal from an ethnic group they’ve designated as less than human for 75 years, cry victim when that group retaliates, commit genocide in response to the retaliation, and then say you should be forcefully banned from criticizing them for this.
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Can’t wait til things calm down in the middle east so I can stop getting accused of being an antisemite and go back to the old wholesome accusations of being a Russian agent.
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Washington has been deepening its ties with the so-called pro-democracy forces in Myanmar, and, amid today’s New Cold War, this has prompted Beijing to warn against “external interference” in the country. China has been leading mediation efforts in the neighboring country, including talks between the ruling military junta and armed groups related to ethnic factions. Amid this delicate situation, the United States intentions in the nation are seen with suspicion.
The average Western person may have never heard of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, also known as Burma, but it is the largest country (by area) in Mainland Southeast Asia, with a population of about 55 million. It is a Dialogue Partner of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, and ASEAN, but is not a Commonwealth of Nations member, even though it used to be part of the British Empire. Although very rich in natural resources, (including oil, natural gas, and minerals), it is one of the least developed countries in the region. It is bordered by India and Bangladesh to its northwest, and by China to its northeast, while also sharing borders with Thailand and Laos.
Due to geography, the nation has historical links to China and India, and it also has a history of colonial exploitation and ethnic tensions, which helps explain why it faces today one of the planet’s longest-running civil wars, with the corruption, instability and poor infrastructure one can expect amid such a scenario. The military is involved in major sectors of the economy, including oil production, transportation, and even tourism.
The main ethnic group, the Bamars (about 68% of the population) is a Sino-Tibetan speaking group, their native language Burmese being the official language. It is also spoken in China, in parts of the Yunnan province (Dehong), which borders Myanmar.
Some history here might be pertinent. The country was once the largest Southeast Asia empire for a while, in the 16th century (under the Taungoo dynasty), but it was taken over by the British East India Company, after the three Anglo-Burmese wars, thus becoming a British colony in the 19th century. It was also later occupied by the Japanese, and then reconquered by the Allies, to become independent in 1948 – its post-independence history has also been marked by conflict, with a Burma Socialist Programme Party military dictatorship, then a 1988 transition to a multi-party system in name only (with a military council refusing it and governing the nation to this day). There was a controversial 2010 general election after which the military junta was officially dissolved in 2011, with a (nominally) civilian government taking power. In 2020 however the military once again seized power in what has been described by a coup d’état, followed by demonstrations.
One needs to remember that under Western (British) rule, the Burmese were placed at the very bottom of the social hierarchy, with White Europeans at the very top and some Christian minorities in the middle. Moreover, under the spirit of laissez-faire free-market, the British rules had the country open up to massive migration to the point of making Rangoon (now called Yangon, the country’s largest city and its former capital) the world’s greatest immigration port in the 1920, even exceeding New York City.
Indian immigrants suddenly became a majority of the population in largest cities, such as Rangoon itself, Moulnein, Bassein, and Akyab. According to historian Thant Myint-U: “This was out of a total population of only 13 million; it was equivalent to the United Kingdom today taking 2 million people a year”. In that context part of the oppressed Burmese population predictably reacted with a “racism that combined feelings of superiority and fear”, writes Thant Myint-U, in his 2006 classic “The River of Lost Footsteps” (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
With such a history, it is no wonder then that Myanmar is plagued with ethnic conflicts to this very day, which account for most human rights problems. Historically, the United States and the European Union have imposed sanctions on the country (over the issue of human rights violations), while foreign investment comes mainly from China, India, Thailand, and Singapore. It is not hard to see how any further engagement with the US-led West has the potential to further polarize the country.
One may recall Washington passed the 2022 BURMA Act, which authorized nonlethal aid to pro-democracy rebel groups plus sanctions against the ruling junta. It even allowed Myanmar’s opposition, the so-called National Unity Government (NUG) to set up a liaison office in Washington, even though it has not even been formally recognized as the country’s legitimate government by the US itself. In April, Michael Haack (an expert in Myanmar who has conducted research on its politics for the Yale University MacMillan Center) wrote that the American “nonlethal” aid to Myanmar ethnic rebels could backfire: “the terms on which Washngton is offering nonlethal aid in Myanmar risk creating the outcome it has been seeking to avoid.”
In a rather underreported development, the US Congress earlier this year amazingly passed a $1.2 trillion funding package. According to Haack: “Washington has been here before. The language used in the appropriation was taken from a previous funding authorization relating to Syria, where nonlethal aid included body armor and intelligence about enemy troop positions. That appropriation led eventually to the covert deployment of lethal equipment. The immediate impact of the U.S. move will be to irritate Myanmar’s neighbors, who will see it as an intensification of American involvement in the conflict.”
China certainly has stakes in the neighboring country, which it has made large economic investments in – it is also seen as a pathway for the Indian Ocean. The US is largely seen as an “outside” player, which does not have a full grasp of the complexities of the region. One might thus see yet another focal point for tensions unfolding in a global situation which already has plenty.
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The Forward Observations Group, a private military company based in the United States, published a photo of its war professionals in the Russian region of Kursk, a presence confirmed by a video showing the destruction by the Russian armed forces of Forward Observations Group armoured vehicles and commandos in Kursk. This US military company, whose role is described by the authoritative Military Watch magazine as ‘very obscure’ (evidently, it is linked to US intelligence services), has been engaged for more than two years with Ukrainian forces against Russia with the task of carrying out special operations, including preparing attacks with toxic chemicals.
There is documented evidence that Ukraine is involved in the preparation of attacks with chemical and biological weapons. This US military company is not the only one operating covertly in the theatre of war against Russia. Based on precise documentation Military Watch writes:
‘Numerous facts have emerged about the role of military personnel from NATO member states (including Royal Marines and British SAS commandos) in supporting Ukrainian war operations against Russia. Military advisers, both logisticians and combatants, and other personnel have been operating since 2022 in the theatre of war with a range of newly delivered complex weaponry.’
This confirms that the Ukrainian armed forces are not only armed and trained by the US and NATO, but that US-NATO military companies and special forces operate directly in the theatre of war in command and management roles of sophisticated weaponry, such as long-range missiles and drones, for the use of which military satellite networks are needed, which Ukraine does not have.
At the same time, the US is deploying nuclear weapons (bombs and missiles) at intermediate range in Europe, increasingly close to Russia.Even the missile defence systems, which they deploy in Europe on the official grounds of protecting European populations from the ‘Russian nuclear threat’, are in fact prepared for nuclear attack. The two US Aegis Ashore sites in Poland and Romania and the US Navy destroyers operating in the Baltic and Black Sea are equipped with Lockheed Martin’s MK-41 vertical launch systems, which, as the manufacturer itself documents, can be used for any warfare mission, including nuclear attack on land targets.
Italy actively contributes to the preparation of nuclear war. Violating the Non-Proliferation Treaty, it hosts US nuclear weapons (the new B61-12 bombs), which the Italian Air Force is trained to use, and through Leonardo it manufactures nuclear weapons. Now Italy has pledged to build – together with France, Germany and Poland – ground-launched cruise missiles with a range of more than 500 km, i.e. a more advanced version of the US intermediate-range nuclear missiles deployed at Comiso in the 1980s, which were eliminated by the 1987 INF Treaty, a treaty that the US tore up in 2019.
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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).
Featured image: “Plans love silence. There’ll be no announcement of the start.” Photo credit: Ukraine Defense Ministry
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi Rebels attacked two oil tankers in the Red Sea on Monday with ballistic missiles and a one-way attack drone, according to U.S. Central Command, which characterized the strikes as “reckless acts of terrorism.”
The U.S. responded on Tuesday with an airstrike on a “Houthi missile system” that the U.S. claimed “presented an imminent threat to U.S. and coalition forces, and merchant vessels in the region.”
The Saudi-flagged Amjad and the Panama-flagged Blue Lagoon 1 struck on Monday are just the latest ships to be damaged by the Houthi rebels, who have attacked more than 80 merchant vessels since the war in Gaza began in October 2023, and have said the attacks will continue until Israel’s war on Gaza ends.
The Houthi campaign has led to a 90 percent decline in shipping activity through the Red Sea, according to a report from the Defense Intelligence Agency, and shows little sign of stopping, even though two U.S. aircraft carriers are now deployed in the region.
For more than two decades, the United States has been at war in Yemen. In these years, U.S. leaders have talked endlessly about fostering peace, stability, and prosperity in that Middle Eastern nation.
“Ultimately, peace in Yemen serves the interest of all Yemenis, just as it does those of our regional partners,” said U.S. Special Envoy for Yemen Timothy A. Lenderking earlier this year. “The United States stands ready to support.”
Despite the rhetoric, the Yemeni people have suffered immensely — and the central target of U.S. military action in the country, the Houthi rebel group, is exerting more influence on the world stage than ever before.
One of the original battlegrounds in the U.S. war on terror, Yemen is just one of many majority-Muslim nations — from Afghanistan and Iraq to Niger and Somalia — ravaged in the forever wars. More than 940,000 people have died in America’s collection of post-9/11 conflicts due to direct violence, almost 4 million have died indirectly from causes like food insecurity and battered infrastructure, and as many as 60 million people have been displaced, according to Brown University’s Costs of War Project.
For years, the U.S. employed a low-profile proxy force to conduct secret counterterrorism missions in Yemen. America also provided weapons, combat training, and “logistical and intelligence support” for the Saudi Arabia-led coalition’s war in Yemen — launched in support of Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who was overthrown by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels — from 2015 until 2021.
A recent investigation by The Intercept revealed that the kingdom of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly stiffed the Defense Department on a bill for support of that Saudi war that killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and sparked a humanitarian catastrophe. For months — up to and since publication — the Pentagon has ducked The Intercept’s requests for comment on the unpaid bill.
Despite the unpaid debt of $15 million — the remaining balance of a $300 million bill for aerial refueling missions which the Pentagon has repeatedly attempted to collect — the Biden administration recently lifted its ban on selling offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia, authorizing an initial shipment of air-to-ground munitions to the kingdom. The restriction did not apply to sales of so-called defensive arms and military services. Those sales have amounted to almost $10 billion over the past four years.
“For decades the United States has supported and partnered with autocrats in the region, arguing that these security relationships and assistance would lead to regional security and stability,” said Seth Binder of the Washington-based Middle East Democracy Center. “Instead, as we’ve seen in Yemen, it has too often brought conflict and immense suffering.” While Binder stressed that the U.S. does not bear most of the blame for the toll suffered by Yemenis, he said “it is undeniable that its policies have had a significant and destabilizing effect.”
The long-running humanitarian crisis in Yemen, despite a cessation in the conflict between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia, is growing worse. Yemen now finds itself on the edge of socioeconomic collapse, its health care system barely functions, and it’s beset by climate shocks and outbreaks of preventable diseases. The Fund for Peace ranks Yemen sixth out of 179 nations on its Fragile States Index, second only to Syria in the Middle East.
Fears of a wider regional conflict, stemming from the Gaza war, threaten to worsen an already catastrophic situation.
“The regional dimension of the conflict in Yemen is getting more and more pronounced,” Hans Grundberg, U.N. special envoy for that country, advised the U.N. Security Council in July. “I reiterate my warning to the Council that we risk a return to full-scale war and all the predictable human suffering and regional implications this entails.”
Since November 2023, the Houthis have attacked U.S. military forces in the Middle East, including ships and aircraft, as well as commercial shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in reaction to the U.S.-supported Israeli war in Gaza. In response, the U.S. has carried out many strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, reportedly killing civilians.
Israel and the Houthis have also engaged in tit-for-tat attacks, further widening the Gaza war. Israel is already fighting Hamas on its southern front in Gaza and is regularly trading fire with Hezbollah, another Iran-backed militia, in Lebanon to the north.
After a Houthi one-way drone hit Tel Aviv in late July, the Israeli military attacked Yemen — with U.S.-made F-15 and F-35 fighter jets — hitting the Red Sea port city of Hudaydah and reportedly killing three people and injuring 87. A local official said the attack — the first ever by Israel in Yemen — caused at least $20 million in damage to a port that serves as a key entry point for food, fuel, and aid to already impoverished northern Yemen.
“Yemenis have suffered from war and conflict for far too long,” Binder told The Intercept. “Moments of optimism and hope have often been short lived and sadly, the Houthi response to the Gaza war again risks putting Yemenis through more violence and suffering.”
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This just happened on Saturday, Sep. 7, 2024, apparently 21-year-old Zachary Bourassa, hockey player from Quebec, suffered a cardiac arrest at the start of a tournament game.
I strongly suspect he had been forced or mandated to take COVID-19 mRNA vaccines in late 2021 at the age of 18 (as all Canadian athletes ages 12 and up were).
Drops dead without warning 3 years later at age 21.
I have been warning about the long-term effects of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines.
For my fellow Albertans, remember, the politicians know this is happening and they are allowing this to happen.
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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
Magnesium is essential for over 80% of metabolic functions, but more than 50% of the U.S. population fail to meet the estimated average requirement, potentially leading to various health issues
Magnesium deficiency is linked to multiple diseases, including cardiovascular issues, diabetes, respiratory problems and neurological disorders. It’s crucial for calcium regulation and overall cellular health
Studies suggest magnesium may help ease anxiety and depression. Research indicates potential mental health benefits when combined with vitamin D3
Magnesium plays a vital role in brain health, potentially reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease by curbing neuroinflammation and supporting cognitive functions
Adequate magnesium intake is important for heart health, bone strength and muscle function. It can be obtained through diet or supplements, with various forms available
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There’s growing interest in magnesium, and the discourse about it has skyrocketed in recent years. An article published in Vogue1 says that social media is partly responsible for the renewed interest in this nutrient, with various videos promoting it as a “miracle mineral” with a wide array of health benefits.
However, many people are still not getting enough magnesium to reap its positive effects. In the U.S., more than 50% of the population fail to meet the estimated average requirement (EAR) for this vital nutrient.2
With that being said, let’s take a closer look at the myriad benefits magnesium offers so you’ll understand why it’s garnering so much attention, and why optimizing your levels is so important for your health.
Mighty Magnesium — How Does It Work in Your Body?
Dubbed “the MVP of minerals,”3 magnesium is the fourth most abundant mineral in the human body (after calcium, potassium and sodium),4 and is involved in 80% of metabolic functions.5 This macronutrient is needed for biological processes such as muscle contraction, maintaining your heartbeat, creating energy and activating nerves to send and receive messages.
According to an article in Bulletproof, magnesium is a “helper molecule,” or a cofactor.6 It assists around 600 enzymes required for cell metabolism and other processes,7 such as:8,9,10
Magnesium is found in almost every single cell in your body, which is why you simply cannot function without it. Carolyn Dean, author of “The Magnesium Miracle,” highlights the importance of this nutrient, saying, “All these minerals are essential but magnesium seems to do the most — it acts as a cell mineral ion gatekeeper, allowing the appropriate amount of the other minerals to enter the cells.”11
Magnesium Deficiency Puts You at Risk of Various Diseases
As mentioned above, magnesium acts as a gatekeeper for other nutrients, playing a significant role in transporting calcium and potassium across your cell membranes, which is crucial for “nerve impulse conduction, muscle contraction, vasomotor tone, and normal heart rhythm.”12
In addition, magnesium acts as a calcium channel blocker. According to Dr. Thomas Levy, a cardiologist who wrote the book “Magnesium: Reversing Disease,” excess calcium inside your cells is a primary contributor to most diseases, saying:
“[M]agnesium was the No. 1 calcium antagonist and general metabolic calcium function inhibitor. It mirrored everything. More calcium increased your chance of death by all causes, less decreased it. More magnesium decreased it, less magnesium increased it …”
Hence, it makes sense that having insufficient magnesium in your system can put you at high-risk of chronic pathologies. According to a 2023 study published in Nutrients,13 “Habitually low intakes of magnesium and in general the deficiency of this micronutrient induce changes in biochemical pathways that can increase the risk of illness and, in particular, chronic degenerative diseases.”
To give you an overview of just how instrumental magnesium is to your overall well-being, here are some of the potential diseases and health conditions associated with magnesium deficiency:14
In healthy individuals, it’s uncommon to be deficient in magnesium, since when you have low levels, your kidneys will simply regulate the amount that is excreted in the urine, helping conserve this nutrient.
However, deficiency can occur if you’re not getting the optimal amount from your diet (or through supplements) for prolonged periods. Taking certain medications like diuretics or having a medical condition like Type 2 diabetes can also cause you to become deficient.15
Some of the symptoms of magnesium deficiency16 are listed below — if you’re experiencing any of these, it’s best to evaluate your diet and increase your intake:
Magnesium May Help Ease Anxiety and Promote Mental Health
One of the reasons why magnesium’s popularity on social media has skyrocketed recently may be related to its effects on mental health. According to research, magnesium impacts your mental well-being, as having insufficient levels of this nutrient may lead to depression, anxiety and panic attacks.17
In July 2023, a photographer named Tyler Wesley posted a Tiktok video18 on how taking 500 milligrams of magnesium glycinate supplement, combined with vitamin D3, helped ease his anxiety. As of this writing, Wesley’s video has over 2.1 million likes and over 19.2K comments, many of whom say the supplement also worked for them. In an article published in The Guardian,19 Katie Holton, a nutritional neuroscientist at American University, further explains:
“Magnesium seems to have an overall calming effect. It may inhibit stress responses by preventing over-excitation through a neurotransmitter called glutamate. Too much glutamate can disrupt brain processes and has been associated with multiple mental health conditions.”20
There are many studies supporting the positive effects that magnesium has on mood and mental health. A 2020 systematic review published in the journal Nutrients looked at the efficacy of magnesium and its role in neurological and psychiatric diseases. The researchers noted that “magnesium could be considered a hallmark of pathology or could represent a biomarker of response to drug treatment in patients with mood disorders.”21
A systematic meta-analysis published in the Frontiers in Psychiatry also highlighted magnesium’s potential effects on depression.22 After reviewing seven clinical trials, they found that taking supplemental magnesium led to a significant decline in depression scores among adults with depressive disorder.
As Wesley mentioned in his video, he took a combination of vitamin D3 and magnesium to ease his anxiety. In fact, these two nutrients work harmoniously to help boost your mental well-being. You need magnesium to activate vitamin D, and deficiency may hamper your ability to convert vitamin D from sun exposure and/or oral supplementation. For more about this topic, I recommend reading my article “Can This Dynamic Duo Curb Your Anxiety and Depression?”
Magnesium Helps Reduce Risk of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease
Having low levels of magnesium may influence how your brain works, as it is crucial in the proper transmission of nerve signals and in preserving the integrity of the blood-brain barrier. This nutrient acts as a buffer between neuron synapses, particularly those involved with cognitive functions (learning and memory).
Magnesium also plays a role in curbing neuroinflammation. One review23 published in the Journal of Molecular Sciences gives insight into how an imbalance in magnesium levels is associated with multiple sclerosis (MS), Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, all of which are rooted in neuroinflammation.
“Neuroinflammation drives tissue damage in neurodegeneration. Solid evidence suggests a role of Mg [magnesium] in taming neuroinflammation and in retarding some neurodegenerative diseases.
Therefore, a correct and, if possible, personalized dietary intake of Mg might represent a preventive measure, whereas supplementing Mg might be an adjunct option in neurodegeneration,” the researchers said.24
Some of their review’s highlights include:25
A meta-analysis of 21 studies26 published in the last 20 years found that Alzheimer’s patients had significantly lower levels of magnesium compared to healthy individuals
A multicenter case-control study27 conducted in Japan found that people who ate more magnesium-rich foods had a lower chance of developing Parkinson’s disease
Magnesium increases brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF),28 a neurotransmitter that is essential for dopamine production; this hormone is necessary for pleasure, memory and learning
Studies also stress the importance of both vitamin D and magnesium, and how improving your levels of both nutrients can play a significant role in cognitive function, especially among the elderly. One study, published in the European Journal of Nutrition, notes:29
“[O]ur findings suggest that participants who had high intake of magnesium or those with optimal vitamin D status ranging from 81-98 nmol/l are associated with better cognitive function.
In particular, among those who had sufficient vitamin D status (≥50 nmol/l), daily total magnesium intake meeting the RDA was related to better cognitive performance, indicating that both optimal levels of serum 25(OH)D and adequate magnesium intake may be required to protect against cognitive decline in older adults.”
Magnesium Helps Protect Against Cardiovascular Diseases
Magnesium is also particularly important for your heart health, as it helps maintain normal blood pressure levels and protect against stroke. According to an article in Everyday Health:30
“Magnesium is central to a healthy heart rhythm because it’s involved in transporting other electrolytes, such as calcium and potassium, into cells. Electrolytes are all important for nerve signals and the muscle contractions of a normal heartbeat … [M]agnesium also helps with muscle contraction or pumping of the heart.”
One study published in Antioxidants31 notes that “having low levels of this nutrient is a predictor for cardiovascular and all-cause mortality,” and that addressing deficiency may help protect against these health conditions.
A separate study, published in Nutrients,32 also notes that being deficient in magnesium not only causes severe muscle cramps but also increases the risk of irregular heartbeats (arrhythmia).
“[H]igh magnesium intake is related to lower probability of major CV risk factors (such as hypertension and diabetes), stroke, and total CVD. In addition, a reduced risk of ischemic and coronary heart disease is related to higher levels of circulating magnesium,” the authors comment.33
Magnesium Is Essential for Healthy Bones and Muscles
Elderly populations have a higher tendency to be chronically deficient in magnesium, mainly due to a reduction in both dietary intake and intestinal absorption.34 This can be detrimental, as magnesium significantly impacts bone and muscular health.
In the human body, magnesium is mostly stored in the bones, along with calcium and phosphorus — this is why this nutrient is vital to maintaining optimal bone health. Having low magnesium levels has been associated with lower bone mineral density, which can increase the risk of fractures, especially among older individuals.35,36
A comprehensive review37 published in 2023 looked at the effects of magnesium on skeletal muscle health, particularly its impact on muscle aging and integrity. Based on their analysis, the researchers found that supplementation enhances “muscle power, torque, exercise performance, lean body mass and handgrip strength.” They also noted a reduction in muscle soreness and markers of muscle damage.
“Magnesium plays multifaceted roles in muscle function, including its roles in contraction, electrolyte balance, energy provision, and anti-inflammatory and antioxidant defense, and has emerged as a critical mineral in preserving muscle health and functionality,” they conclude.38
Are You Getting Enough Magnesium?
The recommended dietary allowances (RDA) for magnesium depend on your age and gender. Below are the recommended RDAs, according to the National Institutes of Health:39
As mentioned above, elderly groups are more likely to be deficient, so they are advised to increase their intake of this nutrient. Pregnant and breastfeeding mothers also have slightly higher requirements.
Most of the magnesium in your system is stored in your cells (99%), mostly in your bones (50% to 65%), and soft tissues, muscle and organs (34% to 39%). Only 1% to 2% is stored in the blood and other fluids40 — this is why blood tests are not a reliable tool to determine if you’re meeting the recommended levels.
Hence, it would be wise to increase your intake of this nutrient through your diet. Some of the foods that are high in magnesium include:41,42
Oral Supplementation and Other Ways to Boost Your Levels
Ideally, it’s best to buy organic and unprocessed varieties of the foods above to ensure that you’re getting enough magnesium. However, some factors may affect your ability to absorb magnesium from these healthy choices.
For example, fruits and vegetables, even organic varieties, will have poor levels of this nutrient if they’re grown in magnesium-depleted soil. Herbicides like glyphosate also act as agricultural chelators, which can effectively obstruct the uptake of minerals from the soil in many foods. Cooking and processing can deplete magnesium levels in foods as well.
In this case, you may benefit from oral supplementation. My personal preference is magnesium threonate, as it appears to be the most efficient at penetrating cell membranes, including your mitochondria and blood-brain barrier.
You can take magnesium threonate with or without food. If you’re also taking calcium, I advise taking them together. If you exercise regularly, consider taking your calcium and magnesium in a ratio of one part calcium to two parts magnesium with your pre-workout meal.
While the ideal magnesium-to-calcium ratio is thought to be 1-to-1, take note that most people get far more calcium than magnesium from their diet. Hence, your need for supplemental magnesium may be two to three times greater than calcium.
It’s virtually impossible to overdose on magnesium, since your body has a built-in mechanism to prevent toxicity. Similar to vitamin C, when you consume too much oral magnesium, your body will simply excrete it in the form of loose stools — this is a sign that you’ve exceeded your ideal dose. Aside from oral supplements, there are other easy and inexpensive ways to get higher dosages of magnesium without having to deal with its laxative effects:
Take Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) baths — The magnesium will effectively absorb through your skin.
Use a topical solution — I prepare a supersaturated solution of Epsom salt by dissolving 7 tablespoons of the salt into 6 ounces of water and heating it until all the salt has dissolved. I pour it into a dropper bottle and then apply it to my skin and rub fresh aloe leaves over it to dissolve it.
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Now that the election is closer and the Democrats have switched out Biden for Harris, I feel like I should reiterate my position that you’re not actually punishing the Democrats if you refuse to vote for them in November. I often see people talking about making the Democratic Party pay a price for Gaza and for ignoring calls from progressives to end the genocide, but it doesn’t actually work that way. They don’t care.
They don’t care if you don’t vote for them. They don’t care if they lose. Their political careers will be fine either way.
It’s entirely okay and legitimate to not vote for Democrats, but don’t let that act dupe you into thinking your vote matters. It doesn’t matter how you vote, and it doesn’t matter how you don’t vote. The US power structure is set up to be completely unaffected by voters. Acting like you could teach the Democrats a lesson by refusing to vote for them only feeds into the illusion that voting matters inside a power structure that has been deemed too important to be left to the hands of the voters.
There’s a viral tweet from Glenn Greenwald going around that says “The US has no functional president and has not had one for months, and it’s barely noticeable and barely matters because there’s a permanent unelected machine that runs the government.”
Greenwald is correct. Nobody with any real power cares all that much who the president is. The president doesn’t even need to have a functioning brain. This whole show is being run by people who don’t ultimately care all that much whether Democrats or Republicans are in office, including the party leadership of the Democrats and the Republicans.
You think Democrats have enjoyed playing the face of the evil empire these last few years? You think they’ve enjoyed having their political rallies interrupted by anti-genocide protesters and having their feel-good progressive image completely discredited in front of everyone? They’d all be having a lot more fun if the terrible things being perpetrated by the Biden administration were being done by Trump instead, so they could go back to playing the good guys.
They’re happy to lose, which is why they’re acting like they’re happy to lose. They’re doing absolutely nothing to appeal to progressives or energize their base. They’re not articulating any real policies besides more of the same. They’re not changing anything about any of the stuff that makes normal people hate Democrats in the year 2024, and if they lose again in November they will continue to not change anything.
Americans don’t live in the kind of country where votes matter. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is. Vote or don’t vote however you want, but don’t make the mistake of believing you’ll be teaching the Democrats any kind of lesson that they will actually learn by doing so.
If real change comes to the United States, it won’t be because of how any Americans chose to vote or not vote in any of their fake elections. There are no solutions to these problems in electoral politics. Other solutions are needed.
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“Conspiracy theory” is anything other people believe that you don’t.
A term invented by the CIA.
The terms “conspiracy theory” and “conspiracy theorist” were created by the Central Intelligence Agency following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy as a way of discrediting people who doubted the government’s official reports.
Joe Uscinski, a professor of political science at the University of Miami and an expert in conspiracism, confirmed the “conspiracy theory” label wasn’t created by the CIA. He said that allegation “doesn’t make any sense on its own.”
“One thing that conspiracy theorists say is that the term was either created or deployed to make people who questioned the Kennedy assassination look bad,” he told The Associated Press.
But the phrase “conspiracy theory” doesn’t automatically have a negative connotation, he said. “That’s what we have to attach to it, right? The CIA can’t control how language is used, or how we interpret language over time.”
Unsupported theories about Kennedy’s assassination remain very popular, Uscinski added. “So if there was some etymology game that the CIA was playing to tamp down those beliefs, it didn’t work.” (AP, January 6, 2023)
Whatever lies outside the bubble called reality that your information providers blow for your consciousness to inhabit, you are instructed to call conspiracy theory.
When you lose an election, you explain it by fantasizing a conspiracy.
When you steal an election and others complain, they are conspiracy theorists.
Everyone knows conspiracies run the world, but to acknowledge it would disempower you and undermine your sense of innocence and agency in a world of your own imagining.
You take refuge in a theory of chaos, of blind chance, of disconnected events, of nothing making sense, of a narrative in your hands only, and all else is conspiracy theory.
You take part unconsciously in a conspiracy to delegitimize “the other party” by dismissing its followers as conspiracy theorists.
When your party conspires for power, it’s justified by the mission of “saving democracy.” When the other side conspires for power, it’s an impeachable offense, an act of terrorism.
Whatever the other side believes, however grounded in evidence and testimony, is out of bounds: thus “baseless” conspiracy theory.
Whatever your side believes—however cynical and far-fetched, however amplified to serve an agenda—is protected speech, denial of which is grounds for prosecution, cancellation, termination.
Anything that challenges the official narrative is conspiracy theory.
Anything the regime declares misinformation, disinformation, malinformation: conspiracy theory.
There can be only one official story, only one accredited college of experts, only one consortium of trusted media channels, only one code of ethics and politically correct behavior, only one sanctioned set of guidelines for acceptable speech. Anyone who questions the legitimacy of the above, or dares to uncover the documented origins, motives, and agenda of the above, is a conspiracy theorist.
Those who want to be in the in-group, who want to belong, who want to be one of us, who want to succeed and enjoy the perks of conformity, who want to enjoy the spoils of rapacious empire guilt-free, sign here with just a drop of your DNA-rich blood, and we will wipe your mind clean of any latent conspiracy theories.
When our side conspires for the greater good, it’s not conspiracy, it’s democracy.
When the other side conspires against the greater good, it’s not conspiracy theory, it’s a threat to national security.
When you accuse our side of conspiracy, that’s a baseless conspiracy theory.
When we claim your side has conspired, it’s not conspiracy theory, it’s justice.
The opposite of conspiracy theory is cognitive dissonance: to keep you safe and secure.
To be without conspiracy theory is to own nothing, to know nothing, and to be happy.
Without conspiracy theory we have freedom to believe…
– that all assassinations are done by lone nuts.
– that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
– that the vax saved us from a deadly plague.
– that all wars are just wars, fought for honor and glory and self–defense.
– that we live in the best of all possible worlds, like it or not.
– that our country, right or wrong, is always right.
– that Joe Biden was sharp as a tack, until the day he wasn’t.
– that Kamala Harris was unelectable, until the day she was installed to lead the Party.
– that if the other side wins it will be the end of democracy, again.
– that our free economy is booming, thanks to our open borders.
– that all weather events are caused by manmade carbon dioxide.
– that all the world’s electricity can come from (we’ll think of something…).
– that humans are destined to discard obsolete notions of gender, family, nation and race.
– that with our party in power, all our needs and desires will be fulfilled.
– that if you vote for our party, all your needs and desires will be fulfilled too.
– that everything we claim to be true, must be true, by definition. For proof, it can be fact–checked in our updated dictionary, our expert–edited wikipedia page, our scrupulously scrubbed social media account, and our revised authoritative history.
Any questions? Please submit them in writing to our Bureau of Suspicious Inquiries, along with all applicable personal identification and tracking data.
We look forward to your compliance!
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Nowick Gray is a writer, editor, and researcher from British Columbia, Canada. This article first appeared on his Substack channel, New World Dreaming. Nowick is the author of a new book of essays, Covid Narrative Freedom: Two Years of Dissent. Visit his website at NowickGray.com. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Up to a million Ukrainians are now killed or wounded in the futile war. The 20 year long attack on Ukraine by the West, overturning elected governments, using the country as a battering ram to bring about “regime change in Moscow” and “break up Russia” has been a catastrophe for the people of Ukraine.
The country’s infrastructure and energy installations are largely destroyed, the valuable minerals and industrial base in the East have been lost, millions have fled the country, the youth is being destroyed on the battlefields, the birth rate is catastrophic and corruption is rife. In the history books this period should be known as “the Ukraine Sacrifice”. A sacrifice on the altar of US neocon imperial ideas, German Europe’s “Push to the East” and a decadent British political class (without public support) surrendering to Russophobia and leading the rhetorical charge.
On September 1st, the 500,000th Ukrainian soldier’s obituary was published in Ukraine. At least that number have in addition been wounded or are missing. The battlefields are notoriously covered with un-retrieved corpses, images of which never of course appear in western media, although recently the American Washington Post reporting on a video from a cemetery in Kharkov, quoted a Polish journalist:
“It seems that there are twice as many graves of killed soldiers as there were… exactly a year ago.”
In recent days there have been reports of two catastrophic bombings of Ukraine training and deployment centres, one in Poltava where there were 200 dead and 340 wounded and a troop and military equipment concentration near Sumy where 80 died.
(These deaths contrast with 26th August Russian missile and drone attack on the whole of Ukraine – the biggest of the war so far – with BBC reporting only 4 killed! The targets were electricity substations, gas storage facilities and airfields.)
At the Poltava training centre two missiles hit the Poltava Institute of Military Communications—which housed not only a vital drone-technical program, and (according to the commander of the Ukrainian intelligence unit, Denis Yaroslavsky, young pilots) but valuable Swedish instructors for the forthcoming transfer of Swedish AWACS planes.
The Swedish connection will not be lost on Russians who celebrate the famous battle of Poltava where Peter the Great defeated the Swedish army in 1709, ending Sweden’s imperial power in the region. A comment from Encyclopedia Britannicaseems ironically to echo the position of Ukraine today: “The Swedish invasion of Russia had already failed the previous winter, with the loss of their major supply column to the Russians and their failure to receive expected reinforcements. Despite the severe shortages of troops, artillery, and powder, Charles continued the war and besieged Poltava in May 1709”. The desperate Swedish strategy failed and they were defeated. For Charles then read Zelensky now!
War Going Badly for Ukraine
The Ukraine invasion of Russia in the Kursk region (it has been compared to Nazi Germany’s last desperate campaign, the Battle of the Bulge in 1944) was a high risk tactic to force the Russians to withdraw forces from the battlegrounds of Donetsk and Luhansk and thus resist the very large advances into Ukraine held territory. It has not worked, not least because ammunition, troops and equipment were withdrawn to reinforce the Kursk invasion forces in which new recruits and foreign troops (including Americans, Polish and British) are taking part.
The Financial Times reports that the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ defence in Donbas was left without shells and soldiers after the offensive on the Kursk region, thus accelerating Russia’s breakthrough.
The initial attempt to reach Kursk and perhaps capture the Kursk nuclear power plant (as a future bargaining chip) failed and now Russian forces are pushing back.
The American Institute for the Study of War reports that Ukrainian friendly fire incidents have increased 400% due to poor training and severe fatigue and depletion of the forces. The Ukraine Armed forces chief Syrsky confirmed that new conscripts receive only 2 months training before being sent to the front line and others confirm that they are no match for the hardened professional Russian military.
Desertion and the Cost of Avoiding Conscription
According to a CNN report desertion and insubordination are becoming the main problem for the Ukrainian Armed Forces
“They go to their positions once, and if they survive, they never come back. They either abandon their positions, or refuse to go into battle, or try to find a way to leave the army.”
In the first four months of 2024 alone, Ukrainian prosecutors opened criminal cases against nearly 19,000 soldiers who either abandoned their posts or deserted.
The desperate Ukrianian search for more conscripts as losses reach catastrophic levels is indicated by the rising price of the “White ticket” which has risen from $5,000 to $37,000, according to the MP Yurchenko. This is the cost now of the conscription exemption certificate charged by the corrupt Ukrainian TCC (Conscription Office) which daily captures men off the streets to send to the front. For some mobilization is a profitable business!
In general the war is going very badly for Ukraine as the Kursk advance is halted, Russia begins recapturing territory and large losses continue in the east. As the pro Ukrainian German journalist Julian Roepke of Bild Zeitung reports “The Ukrainian military is already mentally preparing to defend the Dnieper,” – in other words abandoning the Eastern provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporozhia.
While the Ukrainian army was able to take control of only one small Russian town of Sudzha with an official population of 6,000 people, the Russian army captured five Ukrainian settlements with a total population of more than 53,000 residents in August alone – including Novogrodovka, Krasnogorovka, Druzhba, Severnoye and New York. Krasnogorovka has fallen and Ukrainsk and Toretsk are about to fall and the strategic town of Pokrovsk (a critical rail and road communications node) is under grave threat. The populations of Pokrovsk and Kramatorsk are being evacuated. Roepke writes
“The Ukrainian soldiers I speak to can barely comprehend the catastrophe that is unfolding. Territory is sometimes being lost so quickly it is as if a retreat order had been given. They also consider the rotations that have already been carried out and planned to be dangerous for holding the front.”
Boris Johnson’s Catastrophic Legacy
In a recent interview the politician who sabotaged the Russian Ukrainian peace agreement at Istanbul in March 2022, Boris Johnson, (confirmed by the parliamentary leader of Zelensky’s own party David Arakhamia at the time) has just called for Ukraine conscription down to the age of 18 and long range weapon attacks on Russia. His deranged language included his assertion that “If I were a general I could lead the foreign troops against Russia”
The Johnson argument for more Ukrainian cannon fodder has been taken up by Zelensky who has urged Western leaders to help bring refugee men of fighting age back to Ukraine according to Bloomberg. There are some 650,000 Ukrainian men of conscription age in other countries. But there is a strange twist to this problem:
“Politicians from Poland to Hungary have said they will not send refugees back as long as the war continues,” and “much of Central and Eastern Europe is experiencing a labour shortage, and countries like Poland and the Czech Republic do not want to lose people.”
Russian Troop Build Up
The number of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine will reach 800,000 people by the end of the year, Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Gavrylyuk has said.
At the beginning of the year, this figure amounted to 440,000 military personnel, while now the Ukrainian Defense Ministry estimates the Russian Armed Forces grouping at 600,000 people.
Ukraine War Crimes in Kursk Attack
Ukrainian Armed Forces shot dead a Monk at the Gornalsky Monastery during their invasion of the Kursk region. Archpriest Oleg Chebanov witnessed the shooting:
“The first thing they bombed and what was in their sights was the temple of the Gornalsky Monastery. It was not some administrative building and at that time, a service was going on there, and when the monks were hiding, and when they left, one of the novices was simply shot in the back.”
The Kiev government has for several years been running a campaign of harassment against the Russian Orthodox Church and its affiliated Ukrainian Orthodox Church whose members it has attacked and accused of treason. Two weeks ago the UOC was banned.
The Patrick Lancaster Channel has reported how Ukrainian soldiers in the Kursk region murdered a pregnant woman.
I investigate reports of civilians being targeted and killed by Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region of Russia. I found a man who says his pregnant wife was killed by a Ukrainian soldier while she was trying to protect her 1 year old son. The son was also injured. He asks the USA to make Ukraine give a Humanitarian corridor so he can retrieve his wife and unborn Child’s bodies and so other civilians can get to safety. He says Ukraine is making a genocide of Russians in the Kursk region. I show you what eyewitnesses say.
Kursk Residents Abducted: 83 of the hundreds of abducted residents of the Kursk region, who were taken by Ukrainian soldiers to the territory of Ukraine, received $25,000 for renouncing Russian citizenship.
Will we see the International Criminal Court issuing arrest warrants for Kiev politicians for these abductions?
Britain Main Driver of Kursk Invasion
Although, according to some reports, the USA was surprised by the Kursk invasion, The New York Times reported that the USA and Britain provided Ukraine with satellite images and other information about the Kursk region after the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ invasion in order to track the transfer of Russian reinforcements and
to enable the command staff to better monitor the movement of Russian reinforcements that could attack Ukrainian troops or cut off their possible escape route to Ukraine.
The UK has just restricted arms sales to Israel in case the government could be accused by the International Criminal Court of aiding war crimes. Might there not be scruples about supplying Kiev for its invasion of Russia?
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