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How could a country win her fight against Western imperialism, how could it become truly independent, if its people are fully conditioned, through the mass media and education, by the North American and European doctrines and world view?

Wherever I work and struggle in this world, I am always amazed, even shocked, by how powerful the Western tools of indoctrination are, how effective its propaganda is.

Even in such countries like Vietnam, where one would think, Communism won at a tremendous cost of millions of lives, people are now increasingly indoctrinated by the West. They are apathetic and progressively ignorant about the world. Yes, of course, officially the country is in solidarity with so many struggling and oppressed parts of the world, but ask common people on the streets of Hanoi what they know about the horrific things that are being done by multi-nationals in Africa or even in Indonesia; the great majority would say that they know close to nothing. And if you press harder, chances are that you will be told that they do not really care. It is because the Western official narrative has already infiltrated, entered everything here, from social media to NGOs. It also began influencing arts, television and education.

Ideological war is on, and it is real. It is tough, ruthless and often more destructive than a war fought by conventional weapons.

The victims of this war are human brains, human minds, culture, and sometimes entire political systems.

Your country loses an ‘ideological battle’, then another one, and soon you can find yourself living in a system which is totally foreign to you and to your people; to their history, traditions and desires.

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I am writing this essay in the city of Puebla, in Mexico. You know, the people of Mexico just recently voted, and overwhelmingly, they elected the left-wing Presidential candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

For three weeks I travelled all around the country. I spoke to hundreds of people. Most of them were hopeful; most of them were instinctively longing for socialism. Usually, they do not call it ‘socialism’, because for decades they were told not to use this word in any positive context, but what they describe when they dream, is clearly a form of socialism, nevertheless.

But how can they define the position of their country in the world, or even their own position inside their country? You turn on the television set, and all you see is CNN in Spanish (‘Mexican edition’), or the extreme right-wing FOX, or some corporate-owned local TV station. Almost all international news in Mexican newspapers is taken from the Western press agencies.

Can socialism be built like this, based on the Western indoctrination, disinformation system?

Telesur is not even available on most of the cable television systems, so how?

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Again, this is really nothing new. For instance, since the beginning of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, the mainstream media outlets were firmly in the hands of the right-wing individuals, and big business. Not all, but definitely most of them.

It used to be truly grotesque, and it still is: while most of the journalists supported Chavez, and later Maduro, they were too scared to write anything positive about the government, fearing that they would lose their jobs.

The insults (and lies) they were paid to regurgitate against the revolutionary system, would easily land them in jail in the United States and definitely in the UK – a country with draconic defamation laws. In Venezuela, most of them were allowed to write – to write garbage and outright lies. The more uncensored the hostile outburst were, the more ‘unfree’ the West called the Venezuelan media environment. The usual stuff, the usual logic of the propaganda: black is white, and cats are rats. Repeat it thousand times, and millions will believe it.

Revolutionary Bolivia is facing the same problems, and so was Ecuador during the previous, socialist administration (now, there, it is ‘business as usual’, with the Western media openly operating in the country, almost unopposed).

Brazil is living through the aftermath of something that could be loosely described as a ‘constitutional coup’ perpetrated by the right-wing establishment, against Dilma and her highly successful PT (socialist) government. The coup was only possible, because the mass media of Brazil, fully backed and fueled from abroad, consistently smeared all the great achievements of the left-of-center administration, putting individuals under a microscope, while describing as ‘corruption’ things that would be absolutely acceptable in Europe or the United States, not to speak about the right-wing countries all over the Latin America.

The smear campaign against Cristina in Argentina, is another example of the right-wing madness ‘which pays.

But how would people know all this, if almost all sources of information are coming exclusively from one – right-wing – camp?

They feel something is happening – they feel it intuitively – but they find it extremely difficult to formulate what they feel precisely.

I witness this all-over Latin America, all over Africa, Asia Pacific, India and the Middle East.

It is a confusion, an unhealthy confusion, manufactured somewhere else, somewhere far away.

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Let’s face it: this is a truly bizarre situation.

The Western public is ‘discovering’ new and powerful media outlets, which are coming from the non-Western countries. Many people in London or New York are now hooked on RT, CGTN, Press TV, or Telesur. Masses are reading magazines like NEO (New Eastern Outlook, edited in Russia), or Countercurrents (India).

But in those countries that are clearly victims of the Western interventions and brutal neo-colonialist policies, almost all information sources available come from the West – from the very centers of the present world order.

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What can be done?

Lately there was plenty of ‘poor us’, or ‘they are after all of us’ statements in the alternative press, at least in the West.

Of course, they are!

Well, Comrades, war is war, even an ideological one!

What did you expect? That, after we start attacking the system that has been literally raping the planet for several centuries the system would quietly die, or go away? That is not realistic.

The news that is actually lately coming our way is very good:

Many powerful media outlets that are opposed to the official Western narrative are already in place, or emerging.

In the non-Western world, there are above mentioned RT, PressTV, CGTN, Al-Mayadeen, Telesur. There is New Eastern Outlook (NEO), Sputnik, TASS, Countercurrents, and hopefully soon, Prensa Latina will rejuvenate itself.

They are all on air, already running, fully functional and counting on some of the best writers and thinkers on this Planet, as their contributors.

So, what is next?

We have to, and this is absolutely essential, to reach people in the non-Western countries.

Some new media, even if it is totally anti-imperialist and in support of the oppressed world, is still using ‘old methods’, like interviewing almost exclusively people with either British or US accents, as if this would be giving them some enhanced credibility.

Also, there is too much accent on covering the West, and too little on covering what is happening in Africa, Latin America, Asia or the Middle East.

The people of Africa have had enough of Europeans and North Americans telling them ‘what they really are’, and what they should do. They have plenty to say about their own lives and their own countries. The same goes for the Asians.

In order to reach Africans, we have to talk to the African thinkers, revolutionaries, and of course, to their common people; to talk to them “on the record”, not to listen to ourselves preaching to them.

Our media outlets should be different – truly global but above all, ‘internationalist’.

Chinese CGTN has adopted precisely this philosophy, and it works wonders. People are watching – all over Africa and all over Asia. RT did a tremendous job through their Spanish language broadcast. NEO’s greatest strength is in its in-depth coverage of Asia – the biggest continent on Earth.

Above all, we have to reach as many people in the entire occupied and oppressed word. If some big television stations with substantial budgets (like RT or CGTV) can afford to advertise, they should. And if they cannot convince the cable or satellite providers in Latin America, Asia or Africa to carry their broadcasts, they should concentrate on convincing millions of individuals to watch their programs online, through the internet, as I am doing right now, in Mexico.

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Things can be turned around, when there is dedication, enthusiasm and professionalism.

Russia, China and Iran are great examples. Soviet media during Gorbachev and Yeltsin eras was totally humiliated and forced into submission. For several dark years, all that the West was saying and writing was expected to be considered as pure gold by millions in both Russia and the former Soviet republics. But the West did not come to Russia with an olive branch. Dependency on the Western narrative was most likely one of the main reasons, why the Soviet Union, and then Russia itself, virtually collapsed. Western propaganda was aiming at bringing the Russian people to their knees. It was clearly a vehicle of hostility and destruction. 

But Russia soon regrouped. It got back to its feet. And its media has completely and brilliantly reinvented itself. Now, it is strong, brave and intellectually superb.

China also went through a period when ‘everyone educated’ was expected to parrot Western dogmas. Chinese universities and media outlets got infiltrated from abroad. Hostility towards Communism was steadily injected into Chinese students who were graduating from the European and North American universities. The main goal of the West has always been to derail the Chinese socialist system, and to make China subservient to the West. In the end, it did not happen. China quickly identified the subversion, and since then, has been taking appropriate measures. Its media, too, reformed. The once out-of-date CCTV changed into a sleek, attractive, informative one, a clearly left-wing CGTN. Its newspapers have improved as well.

Now Russian, Chinese, Venezuelan and Iranian international (and internationalist) media outlets are on the correct track. They are broadcasting in various languages, offering non-Western, anti-imperialist alternatives. The distribution of the messages is, however, still limping behind the quality of the news bulletins.

I am working all over the world, often in such ‘corners of the planet’ where hardly any journalist goes. And this is my friendly ‘warning’: our interpretation of events, our worldview, our coverage of the world events in not reaching many of the places, where such coverage is desperately needed.

Not everywhere, but often: the poorer the country, the more it is at the mercy of Western propaganda.

It is our obligation, our internationalist duty, to reach the people who are suffering the most.

We are slowly but surely winning the ideological war. Now let us reach out to our brothers and sisters in the poorest, most devastated, as well as the most indoctrinated parts of the world. If we don’t, then what are we fighting for? Therefore, we will.

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This article was originally published on New Eastern Outlook.

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism, a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter.

Polar opposites were on glaring display during the United Nations Security Council meeting “Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction,” on September 26, with the meeting chaired by President Donald Trump, representing the US Presidency of the Security Council for the month of September.

Trump had stated, during his General Assembly speech the previous day: 

“Virtually everywhere socialism or communism has been tried, it has produced suffering, corruption, and decay.  Socialism’s thirst for power leads to expansion, incursion, and oppression.  All the nations of the world should resist socialism and the misery that it brings to everyone.“  

The following day, at the September 26 Security Council meeting, President Obiang Nguema Mbasoso, of Equatorial Guinea gave a devastating description of the cost of capitalism, payment for which is extorted from the powerless citizens of capitalist behemoths: 

“The expenses incurred by the nuclear Powers to maintain and, in some cases, modernize their arsenals exceed the combined budgets of all the countries of the African Union and some other regions.” 

President Donald Trump’s opening statement at the September 26 Security Council meeting included a surprising accusation against China (Previously Russia was the whipping boy on which the result of US elections was blamed.): 

“Regrettably, we found that China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 elections, to be held in November, against my Administration.  They do not want me, or us, to win because I am the first President ever to challenge China on trade, and we are winning on trade.  We are winning at every level.  We do not want them to meddle or interfere in our upcoming elections.” 

Within the same statement Trump declares that working with Chinese President Xi Jinping has been a “pleasure and an honor.”  Clearly the vaunted US democracy and the electoral system of the most powerful country in the world is pathetically incompetent, if it is so vulnerable to alleged interference, first by Russia, and almost immediately after, China.

Having denounced Socialism, and inadvertently revealed the cupidity and incompetence of capitalism, Trump was confronted by the extraordinary intellectual and moral authority of Evo Morales, President of Bolivia. President Morales’ scathing critique of the capitalist “paradise” of the United States was a documented and incontestable list of the most atrocious series of aggressions and crimes committed by capitalist countries throughout the past 75 years:

“We are convinced that it is essential to discuss not only the effects, but above all the structural causes of armed conflicts and the real motivations for breaches of international peace, security and justice.  One example of that is Iran, a country that has already been referred to this morning.  In 1953 the United States financed, organized and executed a coup d’etat against a democratically elected Government, that, in exercise of its sovereignty, nationalized its oil from the hands of an Anglo-American company.  Then, for several decades, it supported an authoritarian Government that allowed oil profits to benefit transnational corporations.  That was the situation until the 1979 revolution…Now that Iran has regained control of its resources, it is once again a victim of a United States siege…….I would also point to the region of the Middle East, rich in natural resources but disproportionately affected by invasions, wars and situations of unjustified aggression that continue to produce pain and mourning among its peoples.  That region has been the scene of the three greatest aggressions committed in the twenty-first century.  The first was the illegal invasion of Iraq, based on the lie that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction.  That invasion resulted in more than 1 million deaths.  The second aggression was the overthrow of the Libyan government, with tens of thousands of dead, on the pretext of humanitarian motivations.  The serious political instability and humanitarian crisis it unleashed in North Africa are ongoing.….Every time the United States invades a country, launches missiles or finances regime-change, it does so together with a propaganda campaign that reiterates that such action is in the name of justice, freedom, democracy, human rights or for humanitarian reasons.  I would like to inform the Council that the United States is not interested in democracy, for if that were so it would not have financed coups d’etat and supported dictators.  It would not threaten democratically elected Governments with military interventions, as it has done with Venezuela.  It is not interested in human rights or justice.  If so, it would sign and ratify international human rights treaties.  It would not encourage the use of torture or withdraw from the Human Rights Council.  It would not separate migrant children from their families or put them in cages.  The United States is not interested in multilateralism.  If so, it would not have withdrawn from the Paris Agreement or renounced the global compact on migration…..  ….Such contempt for multilateralism is motivated by its desire for geopolitical control and to appropriate national resources.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov raised one of the most terrible issues confronting the Security Council, an issue inextricably linked to the criminal failure to comply with the humanitarian exemptions in the resolutions against the DPRK:  Biological warfare.  Lavrov stated: 

“Washington’s desire to preserve a free hand has also been apparent when the Convention’s regime has encountered additional issues with regard to the spread of military medical and biological activity, including in the post-Soviet space.  We urge everyone to reject the militarization of health care.”

One of the most criminal examples of the weaponization of medical care, specifically by withholding medical aid, is the Global Fund to Combat Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis’ recent decision to withhold funding for medical care to Tuberculosis patients in the DPRK.  Cutting medical care to Tuberculosis patients inevitably leads to development of multi-drug resistant strains of Tuberculosis, most often fatal, and resulting in an epidemic of MDRTB in the DPRK, with the potential to cause a pandemic.  This weaponization of medical care, by withholding aid, and thereby causing development of more deadly forms of the disease, killing huge number of people, must be described as a form of medical genocide of the people of the DPRK.

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Carla Stea is Global Research’s correspondent at the United Nations Headquarters, New York, N.Y.

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This address was delivered at the Wayne State University Labor Studies Center Conference “Workers in Solidarity and Education (WISE)” held on Saturday October 6, 2018 at the Greektown Casino Hotel in downtown Detroit. 

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One of the most important issues in the city of Detroit and throughout the United States is centered on what many progressive forces call the Housing Question.

This has been a major concern since the rise of industrial capitalism during the early decades of the 19^th century. 

Frederich Engels wrote extensively on the problems of the working class under the early phase of industrialization during the period from the mid-1840s through the 1880s in both England and the U.S. (See this)

With the dispersal of peasants and farmers from large agricultural estates in Europe and later in the U.S., particularly in the aftermath of the Civil War during 1861-1865 where four million enslaved Africans were dislocated from the system of human bondage, a fundamental problem has been the stabilization of people through gainful employment and settlement in decent living quarters. In modern times in the 20^th century when there was the advent of mass production of steel and automobiles after 1908, a larger crisis of migration into urban areas rendered many to the mercy of unscrupulous landlords and municipal administrations which oftentimes served the captains of industry and finance capital and not the workers, a situation which left millions in tenements and slums.

Detroit July 1967 Rebellion on Linwood at Hazelwood where the masses confronted the National Guard

It is important to consider what has been described as a “split labor market” in U.S. industry where in order to keep the proletariat divided institutional racism which grew out of the slave system was utilized to encourage the profitable functioning of the capitalist mode of production and social relations. In Detroit we saw the wave of housing patterns where the ruling class, which was exclusively European American, moving into an area, then followed by poor and working class populations of the same race, ending with African Americans.

After the deterioration and destruction of the inherited African American communities in the latter one-third of the 20^th century, a direct result of federally-supported housing policy, we are today living with the reality of the suburbanization of urban areas and the further marginalization of the Black poor and working people in the city. Of course, in the second decade of the 21^st century there is reversal of this process, where the wealthy and more affluent among the population, who are largely European American once again, are reclaiming some sections of the downtown and central city, where in effect the African Americans and working class in general are being once again dislocated. 

Origins of the Contemporary Crises of Housing, Water and Education

Many people are aware of the social movements of the 1950s and 1960s which led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. A coalition led by African Americans and supported by the labor movement was able to force these two major pieces of legislation through Congress. 

However, it is important to recognize that as early as 1866 there was the adoption by the U.S. Congress in the aftermath of Civil War and the demise of chattel slavery, a Civil Rights Act which provided for many of the same guarantees as the 1957 and 1964 legislation. In fact the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. Two years later the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution was passed by Congress ostensibly ending involuntary servitude except for those incarcerated, which has been a major problem for African Americans since the period of the latter 19^th century. 

There were additional Civil Rights Acts passed by Congress notwithstanding the 14^th Amendment purportedly guaranteeing the right to citizenship in 1868 and the 15^th Amendment upholding the right to vote after 1870. Finally there was the Civil Rights Act of 1875, the last of such legislation during the Reconstruction era, which was supposedly geared towards providing protection by the federal government to enforce existing Civil Rights legislation. 

This Civil Rights Act of 1875 signed into law by President Ulysses Grant, was largely rejected by the majority white population of the period. Only eightyears later, in the aftermath of the collapse of Federal Reconstruction, the law was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in an 8-1 ruling. One source described this ruling as following: “The Supreme Court, in an 8–1 decision, declared sections of the act unconstitutional in the Civil Rights Cases on October 15, 1883. Justice John Marshall Harlan provided the lone dissent. The Court held the Equal Protection Clause within the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits discrimination by the state and local government, but it does not give the federal government the power to prohibit discrimination by private individuals and organizations. The Court also held that the Thirteenth Amendment was meant to eliminate “the badge of slavery,” but not to prohibit racial discrimination in public accommodations. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was the last federal civil rights bill signed into law until the Civil Rights Act of 1957, enacted during the Civil Rights Movement.” (See this)

The Civil Rights Cases ruling of 1883 was a response to African Americans who had brought suit in the federal courts demanding the prohibition of legalized segregation in public accommodations. Moreover, some thirteen years later, the Supreme Court in the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson Case, ruled that separate but equal was legal under the Constitution, therefore making segregation or Jim Crow the highest law of the land.

It seems ironic in a minimal sense that these same forms of legislation in the area of Civil Rights law needed re-passage again beginning in 1957 and ending in 1968. It is important to point out where the reversal was initiated in the 20^th century being the failure of the Civil Rights Act of 1966 which was defeated by the Senate in an alliance of both Republican and Democratic politicians. 

According to the CQ Almanac, the Civil Rights Act of 1966 failed due to the reaction of the period to the pressure put forward by African Americans and their allies calling for the elimination of discrimination in housing policy. According to a summary of this legislative struggle:

“The Civil Rights Act of 1966 (HR 14765) was not a complicated measure, at least compared to its predecessors of 1964 and 1965. But in its Title IV–the open housing provision–lay the seeds of its own destruction. As introduced, Title IV barred racial discrimination in the sale and rental of all housing. The rest of the bill was far less controversial: as introduced, it barred racial discrimination in the selection of federal and state jurors, empowered the Attorney General to initiate desegregation suits and protected civil rights workers. The House added provisions empowering the Attorney General to enjoin actions depriving persons of their rights and prohibiting interstate travel for the purpose of inciting riot.” (See this)

The final portion of the above-mentioned clause reveals the underlying and obvious reason for its failure: the advent of urban rebellions in cities across the U.S. and increasing militancy on the part of the African American people. Although the Fair Housing Act of 1968 was passed in the days following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in April of that year, the clause related to prohibiting interstate travel aimed at causing rebellion was embedded in the legislation.

Moreover, as it relates to the actual history of the U.S. over the 50 years since the martyrdom of Dr. King, the federal government has failed to enforce the Fair Housing Act based upon the character of the crisis in the 21^st century. For it was the African American people who have since 2008 (the Great Recession) bore the brunt of the subprime mortgage debacle which led to millions of home foreclosures and the consequent theft of the majority of the limited wealth accrued by the Black people, i.e., home ownership. African Americans have not recovered from this bank-engineered collapse of the housing sector. We can see the residual effects of the housing crisis in Detroit with the de-population of the municipality and the destruction of communities the city.

Founding of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions

Our organization was formed in the midst of the housing crisis of 2008. We had taken up this issues in 2007 under the banner of the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI) when it was quite obvious that the city, state and federal governments were not willing to take on the banks for their systematic criminal conspiracies to make mega-profits at the expense of the working and poor masses.

Detroit Demonstration at Wayne County Treasurer on Sept. 5, 2017

The financial crisis in Detroit worsened after 2007 due to the state’s facilitation of the financial industry exploitative and racist policies. We demanded an immediate moratorium on foreclosures and evictions in order to keep people in their homes. If this measure had been adopted it would have gone a long way to preserving African American communities in Detroit and across the U.S. We cited that there was federal legal precedent for such action by municipal, state and federal governmental structures based upon the Supreme Court ruling Home Building and Loan v. Blaisdell of 1934 which originated in Minnesota which had adopted a Mortgage Moratorium Law to protect the rights of home owners and farmers during the Great Depression of the 1930s. 

Oyez website describes the historic character of the ruling as follows: “In an opinion authored by Justice Charles Hughes, the Court held that the law did not violate the Constitution. The court reasoned that there are limitations on the doctrine embedded in the Contracts Clause (Section 10 of Article I). There may be a public need to restrain private rights to further the public interest when there is an emergency. The Framers of the Constitution could not have foreseen all possible modern problems, so the Constitution should not be interpreted in too rigid a way to allow for responding to them. This statute met the relevant five-factor test because there was a genuine emergency, the legislation was designed to help the public in general, the relief was narrowly tailored to the problem, the mortgagor’s interests were not seriously undermined, and the legislation is temporary. Since the demands of the Great Depression were vital to all of the state’s citizens, the Court held the law was a legitimate use of Minnesota’s police power.” (See this) 

Since 2008, we have fought for the enforcement of this legal principle. However, the actual meaning of our work extends beyond legal precedent. We are challenging the notion of the inherent right of financial institutions to collect debt which they claim is owed by working people and the nationally oppressed. We begin with the premise that housing is a fundamental human and civil right irrespective of the interest of capital. This is a revolutionary idea within the capitalist system where the notion of private property for the ruling class is sacrosanct. Nevertheless, the “private property” of the workers and oppressed are not subject to this same principle under capitalism as evidenced by the loss of billions in real wealth by the African American people among others over the decades. 

This same contradiction was at the root of the imposition of emergency management and bankruptcy in Detroit, Flint, Inkster, Benton Harbor and other majority African American populated urban areas of Michigan in this present century. It was the public sector and its employees who were forced to compensate the wealthiest financial institutions in contravention to its own interests as a class. Today in the era of the “repurposing” of Detroit and other cities in Michigan, tax revenue which should go towards a second or perhaps third Reconstruction are funneled to the wealthiest in society for their prestige projects guaranteeing profitably and political power.

Alliance Building and Independent Self-Organization

Finally we are committed to building alliances around these important issues. We are willing to work with all honest forces in the struggle for genuine democracy, self-determination and full equality. 

Moreover, the Moratorium NOW! Coalition believes in self-reliance and independent organizational initiatives. We know that the ruling class and their agents are not going to finance our liberation struggle. Hence we have been far more successful in reaching our objectives than those who cannot conduct political work outside the framework of the parameters laid down by the ruling class and its surrogates in government.

Ultimately we want to transform society as a whole to reflect the interests of the majority of working and oppressive people. There must be guarantees related to housing, water rights, environmental justice, education and the right to organize.

Only under these conditions can there be the realization of a just existence for African Americans, people of color and the working class as a whole. 

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Author’s Note: This address was delivered at the Wayne State University Labor Studies Center Conference “Workers in Solidarity and Education (WISE)” held on Saturday October 6, 2018 at the Greektown Casino Hotel in downtown Detroit. Azikiwe discussed the role of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition in response to the housing crisis in the city since the Great Recession of a decade ago and its lingering aftermath. The author reviewed the historical legacy of national oppression and class exploitation which are at the base of the crises of housing instability along with other structural issues plaguing municipalities throughout the United States. According to its website: “The Labor Studies Center at Wayne State University has created the WISE conference series that is committed to the teaching and learning of workers through innovative and advanced labor education programs. Our WISE educational events focus on empowering workers by strengthening highly sought after skills including leadership, communication and strategic planning.  WISE@Wayne conferences will also provide the space for workers from various industries, occupations, experiences and backgrounds to connect through common struggles and identify effective strategies that build solidarity and power in their workplaces, unions and communities.” The panel in which Azikiwe spoke was entitled: “Building Bridges: Advancing Social Justice Unionism Through Labor History and Civil Rights Education.”

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

All images are from the author.

In an opinion paper published Thursday in the journal Science, the authors say the U.S. needs to provide greater justification for the peace-time purpose of its Insect Allies project to avoid being perceived as hostile to other countries. Other experts expressed ethical and security concerns with the research, which seeks to transmit protective traits to crops already growing in the field.

WaPo Scan,  October 4, 2018

That would mark a departure from the current widely used procedure of genetically modifying seeds for crops such as corn and soy, before they grow into plants.

The military research agency says its goal is to protect the nation’s food supply from threats like drought, crop disease and bioterrorism by using insects to infect plants with viruses that protect against such dangers.

“Food security is national security,” said Blake Bextine, who heads the 2-year-old project at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, an arm of the U.S. Department of Defense.

The State Department said the project is for peaceful purposes and does not violate the Biological Weapons Convention. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said its scientists are part of the research, which is being conducted in contained labs.

The technology could work in different ways. In the first phase, aphids—tiny bugs that feed by sucking sap from plants—infected plants with a virus that temporarily brought about a trait. But researchers are also trying to see if viruses can alter the plant’s genes themselves to be resistant to dangers throughout the plant’s life.

Still, the research is raising concerns.

“They’re talking about massive release of genetic modification by means of insects,” said Gregory Kaebnick, an ethicist at the Hastings Center bioethics research institute in Garrison, N.Y., who has studied genetic modification. He wasn’t part of the Science paper but said Insect Allies technology could end up being destructive.

Kaebnick questioned how well the viruses and insects carrying them could be controlled.

“When you are talking about very small things—insects and microbes—it might be impossible to remove them” once they are introduced into farmers’ fields, he said.

Dr. David Relman, a professor of medicine and microbiology at Stanford who has advised the Obama administration on bio-defense but is not part of the DARPA research, said the project could play into longstanding fears among countries that enemies might try to harm their crops.

Still, Relman said the technology could potentially help farmers fight a “bad plant virus moving across the plains” or protect crops from bioterrorism. Since insects often spread crop diseases, Relman said DARPA is trying to use the bugs’ own biology to “recruit them as allies” in spreading protective traits.

Though it’s not a household name, DARPA helped develop the Internet and its mission is to research potentially pivotal new technologies. The agency announced the Insect Allies project in 2016.

Guy Reeves, a co-author of the Science paper and a biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Germany, says the technology is more feasible as a weapon—to kill plants—than as an agricultural tool. As a result, he said DARPA could be sending an alarming message regardless of its intentions.

“It’s really about how it’s perceived,” he said.

The papers’ European authors say the mere announcement of the program may have motivated other countries to develop their own capabilities in the arena. They say the project also underscores the need for greater discussion of the regulatory and ethical concerns of such developing technologies.

Todd Kuiken, a senior research scholar at North Carolina State University, said he doesn’t think the military intends to attack another country with insects. But he said it looks bad that DARPA is funding the project.

“The pure fact that this is a military program would naturally raise these sorts of questions,” said Kuiken, who last year raised concerns similar to those published in Science.

Tom Inglesby, a professor of environmental health and engineering at Johns Hopkins, said the technology is being developed specifically to protect crops. But he acknowledged it could be misused.

Concerns that a new technology could be weaponized are to be expected, even if that’s not the intention, said Paul Thompson, a professor of agriculture and ethics at Michigan State University who is on an advisory board for DARPA.

“Once you make those kinds of breakthroughs, you are in a new world. It’s a morally ambiguous place. You wonder, ‘Is this something that we should never do?'” he said.

Some experts have questioned whether the project’s ambitious goals are even achievable.

North Carolina State University entomologist Fred Gould, who chaired a National Academy of Sciences panel on genetically modified food and is not part of the DARPA research, said too many biological interactions would need to be perfectly manipulated, so the chance of it working is “pretty close to zero.”

It may not ever work, but Relman said that’s DARPA’s role: Exploring the “bleeding edge of challenging work” to anticipate future threats.

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With Brett Kavanaugh confirmed as Supreme Court Justice, it means that five of the nine Supreme Court justices are members of the Federalist Society, a network of right-wing conservative lawyers that has become one of the most powerful groups in America today.

The most enduring legacy of the Trump administration may be its remaking of the courts: in addition to two Supreme Court appointees (Trump’s other pick, the conservative Neil Gorsuch was appointed last January), Trump inherited 107 other judicial vacancies. According to New York Times figures, President Ronald Reagan inherited 35 unfilled judgeships and President Barack Obama had 54.

Trump has effectively outsourced the task of filling these seats to the Federalist Society, and in particular to its executive vice-president, an ultra-conservative, devout Catholic named Leonard Leo, who has helped transform the lawyers network into, as the New Yorker describes it, a “conservative pipeline to the Supreme Court”.

So how did the Society, which began as a students’ group, become so powerful – and what does it stand for?

The Federalist Society was started in 1982 by conservative law students at Yale and the University of Chicago who wanted to create a counterbalance to what they saw as the liberal orthodoxy of law faculties around the country. Its first faculty advisers were Robert H. Bork at Yale (who was a Reagan nominee to the Supreme Court but who was rejected by the Senate) and Antonin Scalia (who served on the Supreme Court from 1986-2016, having been appointed by Reagan).

The organisation rapidly spread to campuses across the country, spurred by funding from wealthy conservative donors such as the Koch brothers, and later sprung professional chapters too. Today the Federalist Society has 70,000 members and a presence on almost every university campus and in every major city. It organises regular talks and events for law students and practicing lawyers, which provide an opportunity for conservative lawyers to network and build reputations.

That the Federalist Society has such an active student and professional body makes it different from many other interest groups, which tend to be dominated by Washington staff, says Steven Teles, the author of Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement: The Battle for Control of the Law. It means that Leo has a very “dense intelligence network”, Teles told me when we spoke on the phone.

As well as building links between conservative lawyers, the Federalist Society’s talks and events have provided a way for it to spread and develop its ideas and approach to judicial philosophy. The Society grew up with its first student members, as they began taking up senior jobs in government and the judiciary, providing the Federalist Society with a network of like-minded lawyers that extends right up to the Supreme Court and the President (the White House lawyer Don McGahn is a member of the Federalist Society) and across campuses, companies and local courts around the country.

As well as being well-organised and well-funded, the Federalist Society’s ideological purity makes it a formidable political force, Teles argues. Its members are united by their judicial philosophy rather than any partisan affiliation to the Republican Party.

On its website it describes these principles as “that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be”, which entails “reordering priorities within the legal system to place a premium on individual liberty, traditional values, and the rule of law”.

As this abstract wording suggests, the range of opinions held by members of the Federalist Society is quite broad though they share a similar approach to the law. The main tension within the group is between those who believe their primary function should be constraining the federal judiciary and those who believe their role is to empower the federal judiciary to enforce what they see as America’s founding principles, Teles says.

“In general they promote these kinds of ideas: they are in favour of small government as opposed to big government, they oppose most government regulation of business and property, their core value is private property and the ability of a private property owner to do what he or she wants with their private property, they are strong believers in American exceptionalism and believe the US has a special role to play in the world and that people in the US are somehow a special kind of people, they would rather have things done by the state than federal government and they are strong on religious freedom but religious freedom of a sometimes extreme nature – arguing, for example, that religion is an excuse for not complying with anti-discrimination laws,” says Michael Avery, the co-author with Danielle McLaughlin of the book, The Federalist Society: How Conservatives Took the Law Back from Liberals.

The Federalist Society’s influence rose with the presidency of George W Bush – all the federal judges that were appointed by Bush were either members of the Federalist Society or were approved by the group – but it has never been more powerful than it is today. Not only does the large number of judicial vacancies present them with an unprecedented opportunity to remake the courts, but Trump has also given Leo more power than any previous president over judicial nominations.

At the Trump administration’s request, Leo drew up a list of 25 potential Supreme Court nominees for the president’s consideration, which included Kavanaugh. At the same time, the influence exerted by the Senate on the nomination process has decreased.

“It used to be that Republican Senators played a much more important role in judicial selection than they do now, so ordinary party patronage mechanisms used to be more important. But I think this ideological network that we associated with the Federalist Society has clawed away more and more power from that senatorial role over time,” says Teles. “And it’s clearly the case that Trump… has been willing to completely subcontract this over to these conservative judicial networks.”

This may be, as Avery suggests, because Trump is “lazy” and by outsourcing his work to the Federalist Society he can be sure they will put forward people who appeal to the president’s conservative base. Or it may be, as Teles suggests, that Trump realises that such a transactional relationship is his best way of keeping social conservatives on his side.

One of the most effective checks on Trump has been the US courts, who have challenged some of the administration’s most egregious policies, from the Muslim ban, to child separations, the rescindment of DACA and environmental deregulation. In addition to the threat to women’s reproductive rights and LGBT rights, a judicial system dominated by right-wing libertarians might have responded very differently to Trump’s executive orders.

“It’s important for all Americans to understand that the extreme right wing, the extreme conservatives, are much better organised, much better financed, and have a much better idea of what they’re about than the liberals or progressives do. The liberals or progressives need to wake up and take a look at what’s happening at the other end of the ideological spectrum and figure out a way to get their own house in order, because liberals and progressives have been losing ground now for the last almost 40 years, and even to this day they have not come with either an effective set of ideas or an effective organising principle that allows them to make this a fair contest,” Avery tells me.

In the absence of an effective liberal alternative to the Federalist Society, the best hope for liberals is that they will win back control of Congress at the Midterms, he says.

“If the left-wing and progressives can’t capture the legislative branch and turn the popular will into their way of thinking, we’re in for a rough ride for the next several years if not decades.”

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Sophie McBain is North America correspondent for the New Statesman. She was previously an assistant editor at the New Statesman.

Installation of Russian S-300 air defense systems compromises Israel’s ability to continue waging naked aggression against Syrian targets.

Israeli officials claim the IDF is protecting the country’s security – despite no threat from Syria, Iran or any other countries.

It’s unclear whether F-35s are stealth enough to avoid being targeted. The 5th generation warplane is plagued with problems not so far overcome after over a decade of development.

According to the Pentagon last year, over 270 deficiencies remain to be overcome, including structural problems, perhaps the aircraft’s ability to operate undetected.

In simulated dogfights, the F-16 (in use since the 1970s) outclasses it. So far, the F-35 has been a multi-trillion dollar boondoggle, a white elephant if serious design flaws can’t be fixed.

Billions of dollars were wasted trying, cost overruns enormous. Depending on buyer specifications, each aircraft costs up to $300 million.

America’s war department plans call for producing over 2,400 F-35s for US use, hundreds more for foreign buyers.

While still in development, the plane is being produced, the US and Israel using them.

Unknown is whether Russian S-300s and/or S-400s can lock on to these planes and down them – the answer likely coming if Israel uses them to bomb Syrian targets as reported.

The Netanyahu regime reportedly bought 50 F-35s at a heavily discounted $125 million cost per plane, US taxpayer dollars making up the difference for producer Lockheed Martin.

Their money is spent on destructive militarism and warmaking, corporate handouts, and tax cuts for the rich – instead of for vital homeland needs, including fast-eroding social programs.

Eight F-35s were delivered to Israel so far, the rest scheduled to arrive in 2021.

According to IDF military intelligence-connected DEBKAfile, Trump “ordered additional F-35 stealth planes supplied forthwith to Israel in response to” S-300 air defense systems installed for Syrian use.

Will the aircraft’s design, software, radar, and other operational flaws make it vulnerable to S-300 detection and downing?

On Thursday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin warned Israel against attacking the S-300s.

On Wednesday, Vladimir Putin accused Washington of operating in Syria illegally, breaching UN Charter principles.

Foreign forces can operate abroad only in two ways legally, he stressed – either by invitation of the host government or with Security Council authorization.

He wants all foreign forces to leave Syria eventually, including Russian personnel, saying

“(w)e should strive to have no forces of foreign, third countries on the territory of Syria at all. We need to move towards this.”

As long as uninvited hostile ones and their terrorist foot soldiers remain, along with continued US-led NATO and Israeli terror-bombing, conflict resolution will remain unattainable.

Transferring additional numbers of F-35s for Israeli use indicates the Trump regime’s determination to help the IDF continue terror-bombing Syrian targets and perpetuate endless war – even with enhanced Syrian and Russian air defense capabilities installed.

Israeli national security expert Tzachi Hanegbi believes F-35 stealth capabilities make these planes undetectable.

If one is downed in Syrian airspace, the IDF’s ability to continue terror-bombing the country will be greatly compromised.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

President Trump has again raised the possibility of regime change in Venezuela, as talk of military intervention against its democratically elected government grows in the United States.

Speaking recently at the UN, he declared:

“It’s a regime that frankly could be toppled very quickly by the military, if the military decides to do that” and later added that “all options are on the table.”

This comes hot on the heels of Republican Senator Marco Rubio’s aggressive remarks in an interview in Miami, in August.

“For months and years, I wanted the solution in Venezuela to be a non-military and peaceful solution, simply to restore democracy,” Rubio argued, but he continued: “I believe that the armed forces of the United States are only used in the event of a threat to national security. I believe that there is a very strong argument that can be made at this time that Venezuela and the Maduro regime has become a threat to the region and even to the United States.”

Rubio is a longstanding opponent of the Venezuelan government.

In February this year, for example, he openly called for the military to overthrow President Maduro, saying:

“The world would support the armed forces in Venezuela if they decide to protect the people and restore democracy by removing a dictator.”

The US government, of course, is always willing to lend a hand to enable military coups to overthrow elected governments in Latin America and elsewhere. The New York Times (September 8 2018) has revealed that the Trump administration held a series of secret meetings with Venezuelan military officers to discuss a coup d’état.

Creating the right media backdrop for such a scenario is vital for its success in the court of world public opinion. Helping the narrative along, US ambassador to Colombia Kevin Whitaker said on September 16 that Colombia can count on US support in the event of “Venezuelan aggression against Colombia.”

Two days later, Colombia’s new ambassador to the US Francisco Santos, the brother of former president Santos, also said that “all options must be open to deal with the crisis in Venezuela.” This was tweeted approvingly by Senator Rubio.

In the previous week, at a rally held after a press conference in Cucuta, a Colombian town on the border with Venezuela, Organisation of American States (OAS) secretary general Luis Almagro said:

“With respect to a military intervention to overthrow Nicolas Maduro’s regime, I don’t think any option should be ruled out … Diplomatic action should be the first priority, but we shouldn’t rule out any action.”

This is effectively saying, supposedly on behalf of the organisation’s 35 member states, that the democratically elected government of President Nicolas Maduro should be overthrown, either by “diplomatic action” or “military intervention.”

Military intervention against a sovereign state would be illegal under international law without a UN security council mandate.

Mandate or not, such action would involve huge destruction and a massive loss of lives. For comparison, the illegal US invasion in 1989 of Panama, a country one-fifteenth the size of Venezuela led not only to the ousting of the government and enormous damage to infrastructure but to 3,000-5,000 civilians being killed.

Almagro’s statement is also shocking because calling for the violent overthrow of the government of an OAS member state violates key chapters of the OAS charter.

These all commit the OAS and its member states to the principles of respect for the territorial integrity of states, respect for national sovereignty, peaceful settlement of disputes, respect for the right to self-determination and non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states.

Almagro’s belligerent stance has been opposed by a group of 10 Latin American countries, which issued a statement rejecting violent regime change. This grouping represents the majority of the Lima Group, a set of Latin American and Caribbean nations, as well as Canada, convened in 2017 to put additional pressure on Venezuela.

Their statement was hailed by Bolivian President Evo Morales as a “defeat of Trump’s interventionism and a victory for dignity and courage of Venezuela and Latin America.”

Undeterred, the US has continued to ratchet up the pressure against Venezuela. The supposed threat by Venezuela to the US has been used again to justify yet more sanctions against the country. The new sanctions are to be enforced against four current or former officials of the Venezuelan government, including Vice President Delcy Rodriguez.

As a permanent observer to the OAS, the British government should condemn Almagro’s violation of international law and call for respect for the principles of OAS. Beyond that, opposition to US steps towards the violent overthrow of the elected government of President Maduro must be redoubled, if we wish not to see a repeat of the downfall of Allende’s Chile.

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Tim Young is a member of the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign executive committee. 

On the 2nd October 2018, a young woman’s life was brought to a brutal end by a bullet from an ISIS executioner’s hand-gun. Mrs Thoraya Um Ammar was executed on video by the terrorist group more than two months after she and twenty five other women and children were kidnapped from the Sweida countryside, south of Damascus on July 25th 2018. 

[Note: Numbers of kidnap victims do vary. While in Shbeki, I was told 32 were originally kidnapped but that a number of them managed to escape their captors and return to their village]

The images circulating of this execution are extremely distressing and we will not be sharing them in this article. During my recent visit to Syria, I visited three of the seven villages that came under attack in the eastern countryside of Sweida City on that fateful day in July 2018. The grief and anger was still very raw but civilians spoke to me of the bloodshed that was a result of the meticulously planned ISIS attack, unhindered by the US Coalition forces camped in Al Tanf, 330km to the East. ISIS entered the villages from the east and traversed vast areas of exposed desert to do so, apparently undetected by those who claim to wage war on ISIS inside Syria.

“The roads of Shrehi ran with blood” H Saab told me as we stood next to his family home in Shrehi where four of his relatives were murdered by the marauding ISIS gangs. He pointed to the still visible stains on the road in front of us and on the walls of the house and courtyard.

Road sign to Sweida. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

Our journey began in Damascus. We left early in the morning and headed due south before taking the road that brought us to the east of Sweida city and to the villages that form a chain north to south, only about 1km apart. As we entered the province of Sweida, we began to see the elaborate memorials to martyrs killed in Syria’s war against Western-sponsored terrorism. Our guide told us that these beautiful monuments are in honour of the soldiers who have given their lives in defence of their homeland. Many of these impressive structures are placed at the entrance to villages “so their names are remembered for eternity by all those who live because they died“.

We were told that some of these graves also date back to the 1925 ‘Great Syrian Revolt or ‘Great Druze Revolt’ against France. They are wonderful to behold, rising out of the dry desert plains, backdropped by the hills and trees that pepper the landscape stretching out in front of us.

Just one of the many stunning memorials to SAA martyrs from the Sweida region. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

On the drive down to the villlage of Shrehi, our guide H Saab told us that thirty-five members of his family had been killed in the ISIS attack that took place in the early hours of the 25th July 2018. I asked him what he believed to be behind this attack. He told me that he thought it was to reduce SAA pressure on the ISIS terrorists holding out in Yarmouk Basin at this time. Perhaps to give them an escape route to the US base at Al Tanf.

Leaving Shahba City by the East Gate. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

We entered Shahba City dating from Byzantine times and a city modelled on ancient Rome – “temples, triumphal arches, baths, a theatre, and a great wall surrounding the city were all built based on the plan of a typical Roman city”. We exited the ancient city through the remains of the East Gate and continued on to a number of towns and villages, some built during the Ottoman empire. H Saab told me that many of these village have labyrinths of caves that run underground beneath the houses.

At the entrance to Shrehi, one of the villages attacked by ISIS in July, we stopped the car to visit the poster that had been erected with the names of the martyrs killed during the attack. Young men, women, children, murdered by a terrorist group with a history of collusion with the US Coalition against Syria and the Syrian Arab Army. Acclaimed journalist, Elijah J. Magnier wrote at the time:

“ISIS knew it was possible for its convoy to drive under the eyes of a superpower state (the US) without being disturbed.” 

Video footage of entering Shrehi. Watch: 

We drove up to one of the highest points in the village of Shrehi to meet with the representatives of the village and the survivors of the attack. We entered the traditional “madafa”, the welcoming room in the Saab family home.

Steps leading down to the Madafa in Shrehi where I met with families of the martyrs and survivors of the attack. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

Once inside the Madafa the story of the attack was told by Khaled Saleh Saab.

“The terrorists entered the village at 4 am while most of us were still sleeping. We were awoken by the shooting and the cries of ‘Allah Akhbar’. They shot out the lights in the village and there was no moon that night so they worked under the cover of total darkness” 

On the way into Shrehi we had passed a house that had been one of the first to be targeted (see video), the mother, father and son were murdered by ISIS, the daughter was injured but survived. According to Khaled, 53 ISIS terrorists entered the village and all of them were eventually killed by the young men defending their families and their land:

“We defended our land and our homes because this land is mixed with the blood of generations of our people. We will not accept that people without morals or humanity can touch this land. We stay, we will stand and defend this land until we die. Our youth killed these terrorists even though they had very old weapons, very simple weapons. The ISIS fighters had modern, expensive equipment but we still defeated them.” said Khaled.

Khaled told us that the clashes continued from 4 am until 1pm. Between 4 and 5 am the ISIS fighters took advantage of the sleeping civilians and murdered many of them in their sleep before they had time to warn their neighbours.

“The attack was a well planned military operation. ISIS coordinated their attacks in order to paralyse all the villages. They positioned snipers around the villages and along the roads that connect the villages to prevent people moving between villages or coming to the help of neighbouring villages. They came from the south and moved north.” Khaled continued.

In one of the bloodiest massacres of the eight year war in Syria, 270 civilians were martyred during this attack, more than 300 injured.

“Many of our young men, women and children bled to death in the street. Nobody was able to get to them or to transport them to hospital. If they tried they would be sniped.” Khaled told us.

Khaled told us that, in his opinion, many of the ISIS fighters were on drugs, very likely to be Captagon. “We fired many bullets into them, but they kept fighting” he told us and this was confirmed by other family members in the madafa. In January 2017, “at least 137kg of Captagon, dubbed a “jihadist drug” and “the drug of the Syrian conflict,” was seized at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport in a first for France, customs officials said, adding that half of the illicit cargo was destined for Saudi Arabia.” Captagon is a psychostimulant that is used as a performance enhancer by the extremist gangs that have invaded Syria since 2011.

“After we killed the ISIS terrorists, we checked their IDs. They were Chechen, Saudi, Iraqi, Palestinian, Egyptian, Somalian. One was wearing a suicide belt, nothing remained of him after he had detonated it.”

In Shrehi alone there were 37 civilians martyred. These included Khaled’s mother, father, brother and cousin who were killed in the home we were talking in.

“These groups, all of them, are supported by the UK, US and Gulf States to target and destroy our peaceful towns. Throughout history Syria has sacrificed martyrs and we are ready to sacrifice our souls for our land despite more than 120 countries attacking us with the terrorist groups as their instrument. They should know we will stand and fight to defend our land and our  people” 

Just one of the countless heroes from Sweida countryside – Khaled’s brother, Iskandar Saab had served in the 102 “Batch” of the Syrian Arab Army which had been decommissioned just two months before the ISIS attack on his home village of Shrehi on the 25th July 2018.

Iskandar came face to face with the crazed ISIS terrorists as he attempted to scale the hill leading up to his family’s house. He was shot in his right leg, his hand and his back. A local graduate of trade and economy and a math teacher, Mr Mahran Radi Saab saved Iskandar and managed to take him to his brother Khaled Saab. After rescuing Iskandar, Mahran was shot and killed by an ISIS sniper.

Despite his life-threatening wounds, Iskandar managed to get into his car and drive 300m under fire from the ISIS snipers who had lined the roads joining the three villages of Rami, Shrehi and Shebki.

“This land, this property belongs to our blood. It belongs to us. We will never allow any super-power to steal our land or to control our lives, our future” Khaled Saab reinforced this message several times during our talk.

Image on the left: Entering the home of Ziad Saab and greeted by his daughter Kinda. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

After the meeting we went to the home of Ziad Saab for breakfast, which in Syria translates into “banquet”.

Ziad’s brother in law lived in one of the houses at the entrance of the village, one of the first to be attacked. As soon as the attack happened, Ziad’s brother in law managed to relay a warning to Ziad who lives with his wife and children deeper inside the village. Ziad took his simple hunting rifle and went to help. As he neared his brother in law’s home, he saw many ISIS terrorists firing randomly and fierce clashes between the ISIS fighters and civilians. It was still dark at this point. Ziad made the decision to return home to protect his own wife and children and to take his family to a safer place.

Then Ziad tried to call his brother in law. An ISIS fighter answered the phone and told Ziad his brother in law was dead, he told Ziad to call an ambulance for his own family members – they would be killed also “there will be no escape”. The ISIS terrorists also attacked the brother in law’s two daughters and their mother – 10 year old Hela and 13 year old Hala.

As we were eating breakfast, a 6 month old baby was brought into the room. Her name is Ghala. Her father was murdered just 100 meters from Ziad’s house, by the ISIS terrorists. Watching Ghala playing in the arms of H Saab, it is painful to comprehend the scale of devastation and loss that these villages have experienced. A recent Facebook post by Syrian, Wissam Sliman puts it into perspective:

“Imagine that this were your village, or your neighborhood! Imagine that one of those were your house! Imagine that the same thing happened to you! Imagine that you lost a family member, or maybe two, or maybe more! Imagine that your mother, sister, daughter or son is still kidnapped and now in the hands of the worst terrorist group ever which is ISIS!

And above all imagine that it didn’t mean anything to half of your brothers and sisters in humanity in this world,just because they are still sleeping, daydreaming and refusing to wake up! What hurts you is that if they did wake up 7 years ago, you would have had many of your beloved ones around you now, but they didn’t, cause they are still refusing to wake up!

In 2015, India’s internal intelligence agency wrote a report that depicted various campaigners and groups as working against the national interest. The report singled out environmental activists and NGOs that had been protesting against state-corporate policies. Those largely undemocratic and unconstitutional policies were endangering rivers, forests and local ecologies, destroying and oppressing marginalised communities, entrenching the corporatisation of agriculture and usurping land rights.

These issues are not unique to India. Resistance against similar practices and injustices is happening across the world. And for their efforts, campaigners are being abused, incarcerated and murdered. Whether people are campaigning for the land rights of tribal communities in India or for the rights of peasant farmers in Latin America or are campaigning against the fracking industry in the UK or against pipelines in the US, there is a common thread: non-violent protest to help bring about a more just and environmentally sustainable world.

What is ultimately fuelling the push towards the relentless plunder of land, peoples and the environment is a strident globalised capitalism, euphemistically termed ‘globalisation’, which is underpinned by increasing state surveillance, paramilitary-type law enforcement and a US-backed push towards militarism.

The deregulation of international capital movement (financial liberalisation) effectively turned the world into a free-for-all for global capital. The ramping up of this militarism comes at the back end of a deregulating/pro-privatising neoliberal agenda that has sacked public budgets, depressed wages, expanded credit to consumers and to governments (to sustain spending and consumption) and unbridled financial speculation. In effect, spending on war is in part a desperate attempt to boost a stagnant US economy.

We may read the writings of the likes of John Perkins (economic hitmen), Michel Chossudovsky (the globalisation of poverty), Michael Hudson (treasury bond super-imperialism) or Paul Craig Roberts (the US’s descent into militarism and mass surveillance) to understand the machinations of billionaire capitalists and the economic system and massive levels of exploitation and suffering they preside over.

Food activists are very much part of the global pushback and the struggle for peace, equality and justice and in one form or another are campaigning against violence, corruption and cronyism. There is a determination to question and to hold to account those with wealth and power, namely transnational agribusiness corporations and their cronies who hold political office.

There is sufficient evidence for us to know that these companies lie and cover up truth. And we also know that their bought politicians, academics, journalists and right-wing neoliberal backers and front groups smear critics and attempt to marginalise alternative visions of food and agriculture.

They are first to man the barricades when their interests are threatened. Those interests are tied to corporate power, neoliberal capitalism and the roll out of food for profit. These companies and their cheerleaders would be the last to speak up about the human rights abuses faced by environmentalists in various places across the world. They have little to say about the injustices of a global food regime that creates and perpetuates food surpluses in rich countries and food deficits elsewhere, resulting in a billion people with insufficient food for their daily needs. Instead all they have to offer are clichés about the need for more corporate freedom and deregulation if we are to ‘feed the world’.

And they attempt to gloss over or just plain ignore the land grabs and the marginalisation of peasant farmers across the world, the agrarian crisis in India or the harm done by agrochemicals because it is all tied to the neoliberal globalisation agenda which fuels corporate profit, lavish salaries or research grants.

It is the type of globalisation that has in the UK led to deindustrialisation, massive inequalities, the erosion of the welfare state and an increasing reliance on food banks. In South America, there has been the colonisation of lands and farmers to feed richer countries’ unsustainable, environment-destroying appetite for meat. In effect what Helena Paul once described in The Ecologist as genocide and ecocide.  From India to Argentina, we have witnessed (are witnessing) the destruction of indigenous practices and cultures under the guise of ‘development’.

And from various bilateral trade agreements and WTO policies to IMF and World Bank directives, we have seen the influence of transnational agricapital shaping and benefitting from ‘ease of doing business’ and ‘structural adjustment’ type strategies.

We also see the globalisation of bad food and illness and the deleterious impacts of chemical-intensive industrial agriculture on health, rivers, soils and oceans. The global food regime thrives on the degradation of health, environment, labour and communities and the narrowing of the range of crops grown resulting in increasingly monolithic, nutrient-deficient diets.

Whether it includes any or all of the above or the hollowing out of regulatory agencies and the range of human rights abuses we saw documented during The Monsanto Tribunal, what we see is the tacit acceptance of neoliberal policies and the perpetuation of structural (economic, social and political) violence by mainstream politicians and agricapital and its cheerleaders.

At the same time, however, what we are also witnessing is a loosely defined food movement becoming increasingly aware of the connection between these issues.

Of course, to insinuate that those campaigning for the labelling of GM food, the right to healthy food or access to farmers markets in the West and peasant movements involved with wider issues pertaining to food sovereignty, corporate imperialism and development in the Global South form part of a unified ‘movement’ in terms of material conditions or ideological outlook would be stretching a point.

After all, if you campaign for, say, healthy organic food in your supermarket, while overlooking the fact that the food in question derives from a cash crop which displaced traditional cropping systems and its introduction effectively destroyed largely food self-sufficient communities and turned them into food importing basket cases three thousand miles away, where is the unity?

However, despite the provisos, among an increasing number of food activists the struggle for healthy food in the West, wider issues related to the impact of geopolitical IMF-World Bank lending strategies and WTO policies and the securing of local community ownership of ‘the commons’ (land, water, seeds, research, technology, etc) are understood as being interconnected.

There is an emerging unity of purpose within the food movement and the embracing of a vision for a better, more just food system that can only deliver genuine solutions by challenging and replacing capitalism and its international relations of production and consumption.

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

Seeds of Destruction: Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

Author Name: F. William Engdahl

ISBN Number: 978-0-937147-2-2

Year: 2007

Pages: 341 pages with complete index

List Price: $25.95

Special Price: $18.00

This skilfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. “Control the food and you control the people.”

This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.

The author cogently reveals a diabolical world of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.

On Sunday 7th of October, the Brazilian people will go to the polls to elect their next president. There has never been such a dramatic election since January 15th 1985 when Brazil returned, the vote to the polls after twenty years of dictatorship (1964-1985) – although voting took place still within the electoral college system put in place during the dictatorship. Following the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff two years ago (which Saad-Filho described as a “coup”) and a chaotic interregnum led by the corrupted Michel Temer (PMDB) – who nonetheless was very effective in curbing workers’ rights by amending part of the famously pro-labour Labour Law (CLT), regularizing outsourcing and cutting workers’ pensions – the future of Brazilian democracy hangs in the balance. Much of it will be decided at the polls.

Thousand of people demonstrate against the Brazilian presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Source: The Bullet)

Leading with 32 per cent of vote intentions (Datafolha) is Jair Bolsonaro (PSL), a right-wing populist and evangelical Christian who is brilliantly taking advantage of the popular rage exploded against the political establishment after the Lava Jato (Car Wash) investigation which led to the imprisonment of the ex-leader of the PT Lula da Silva and the impeachment of Dilma, although on unrelated charges. Trailing behind him with 21% of is the candidate for the Workers’ Party (PT) Fernando Haddad.

The popularity of Bolsonaro is growing vertiginously despite or perhaps because, of his misogynist, homophobic and classist public outbursts – he famously said to prefer a dead son to a gay one and that people living in ex-slave settlements (quilombos) are fat and lazy. Running in parallel to Bolsonaro’s outbursts are those of General Hamilton Mourão (PRTB) (his vice-president candidate) who recently declared his intention to abolish the 13th month salary and scrap the 1988 Constitution (incidentally Haddad agrees with him on this) and famously described families without strong father figures “factories of outcasts.”

Bolsonaro – #NotHim

It’s easy to dismiss the Bolsonaro trend, as a form of “tropical Trumpism” (The Guardian, 6th of September) (recently Bolsonaro’s son boasted that Steve Bannon is their political consultant) and to point out the vast array of anti-Bolsonaro demonstrations sweeping across the country. Mirroring the anti-Trump women marches in the U.S. and abroad, millions of Brazilian women have joined an anti-Bolsonaro Facebook group and organized a very successful social media campaign, supported by Brazil’s top female singers, with the hashtag #EleNão (#NotHim).

But Bolsonaro’s new ground among poor constituencies is worrying. The big electoral swing in support of Bolsonaro happened only a few days ago, when the bishop of the ultra-powerful evangelical Universal Church of God, Edir Macedo, declared his support for him. Among the poorer evangelical constituencies Bolsonaro has 40% of intention of vote. A supporter of Cardoso in the 1998 elections, Macedo shifted his support to Lula in 2002, which allowed him to woo poor evangelical urban voters at the time suspicious of Lula’s left-wing liberalism – especially his take on abortion. This week Macedo and Jose Wellington Bazerra da Costa, the president of the Congregation of all Universal Church of God in Brazil openly declared their opposition to Haddad, exacerbated by the gathering momentum of the #EleNão (#NotHim) campaign. This development is pulling a big section of that vast Brazilian urban lumpen proletariat – the informal and illegal workers, unemployed or ‘criminals’ living in the shantytowns of big cities – away from the PT.

Lula da Silva, the self-declared ‘friend of the people” and “ex-poor”, had captured the loyalty of such marginal strata with generous programmes of poverty reduction, popular housing and the democratization of credit. Now the support among women and black – the grassroot force of evangelical churches) toward the PT is rapidly dwindling. For the first time in years, favelas are breeding their own right-wing candidates (Folha De Sao Paulo). It turns out that if middle-class women tend to back Haddad, the vast majority of women from poor background support Bolsonaro and on the whole more women than men support him (53% of women and 47% of men according to Valor Economico, 3rd October).

The second important form of empowerment for Bolsonaro came from the endorsement of Nabhan Garcia, the president of the Ruralist Democratic Union (Uniao Democratica Ruralista – UDR) and of the all-powerful Agro-pecuniary Parliamentary Front (Frente Parlamentar de Agropecuaria – FPA) that counts 261 MPs – 40% of the Congress. With Bolsonaro President and Garcia Minister of Agriculture, the government will pay homage to the powerful rural oligarchy and possibly also lure in Brazil’s rural masses which allowed Dilma to be re-elected with a strict margin in 2014 but were subsequently alienated by her austerity measures and the Car Wash corruption scandal. Bolsonaro is also making inroad into the bastions of rural support to Dilma in 2014 that is, into Brazil’s northern and north-eastern regions, where respectively 25.8% and 28.4% were recipient of the Bolsa Familia in 2017.

Such right-wing swing of marginal constituencies is worrying, especially in the light of Bolsonaro’s admiration for the dictatorship. He famously dedicated his vote to impeach Rousseff to the commander of a unit responsible for 500 cases of torture and 40 murders under the military regime and declared that his first measure as president will be to step up the war against “criminals” especially in favelas – a war that in 2016 led to more than 4000 killings by the police (The Economist, September 22nd.)

Bolsonaro and the Generals

If Bolsonaro becomes president, some Ministries will be run by generals. But his support in congress will be weak and he will not be able to impose any authoritarian rule. But there is a general feeling that at least on the cultural level, the dictatorship is coming back – whitewashed and bourgeoisified for popular consumption. And this is both ironical and tragic, in the light of the immense impact of the publication of a damming report on the atrocities committed under military rule in Brazil, back in 2014 when it was revealed that President Dilma herself had been persistently tortured. Signs of such comeback are all around. This week, the president of the supreme court (STF) Dias Toffoli, turned down the request by two journalists to interview the ex-president Lula da Silva in his cell in Curitiba, by appealing to a Press Law created in 1967 during dictatorship. On the 2th of October, at a symposium on the 1988 constitution organized by the prestigious Law Department of USP, lawyers and scholars were taken aback in hearing Toffoli describing the 1964 coup as a right-wing “social movement” coexisting with equally pernicious left-wing organizations.

The 150 eminent Brazilian artists and intellectuals who signed the Democraciasim “yes to democracy” collecting more than 180,000 signatures, are worried. In the manifesto it is said:

“It’s never too often to remember how throughout history and to this day fascist, Nazi leaders and many other autocratic regimes were first elected with the promise of rescuing the self-esteem and credibility of their nations, before submitting them to the most varied authoritarian excesses.”

Indeed, for the famous historian Boris Fausto – who survived Getulio Vargas’ Estado Novo and the military regime to become one of the world’s leading dependent development theorists – the other dark force lurking behind Bolsonaro’s authoritarianism is the authoritarianism of the Workers’ Party (PT), incarnated in the phenomenon of Lulismo. (Valor Economico, 2nd October).

What about the PT and Lulismo? What went wrong?

Soon after being elected president in 2002 Ignazio Lula da Silva, an ex-metalworker from the ABC industrial belt and leader of the Workers’ Party (PT), set up the massive programme of poverty reduction Bolsa Familiawhich today reaches 13 million families – one-quarter of the national population. As a result of the Bolsa Familia the population below the poverty line decreased from 36% in 2003 to 23% in 2008. With a buoyant global commodity market Lula managed to combine pro-labour policies – such as a stunning 50 per cent increase of the minimum wage; cheap credit and subsidized working-class housing – and exorbitant interest rates and currency overvaluation. Lula’s pro-labour and pro-finance policies alienated the industrialists, whom nonetheless had not enough political clout to catalyse anti-governmental forces.

In the second mandate, Lula cut welfare expenses and deregulated the labour market, which radically increased casualised work. Seeing their nominal wages increase, wage-workers turned to cheap credit to finance their new conspicuous consumption. With the end of the commodity boom the compass between financial profit and social redistribution became unsustainable. The industrialists and the financial and banking oligarchies now joined forces against the government. Advised by ministry of finance Joaquim Levy, a Chicago trained economist, Rousseff radically cut social spending and credit, privatized state assets and put together the proposal for Lei 4330, which if approved, will radically deregulate Brazil’s labour relations system. According to Perry Anderson (2016) the PT’s sudden fall from grace is due to the electorate feeling ‘cheated’ by Dilma suddenly embracing right-wing austerity policies.

On a basic level, Lulismo is simply the outcome of the charismatic leadership of Lula Da Silva, who was able to combine the diverse ‘moralities’ of grassroot catholic organizations, socialism and business-like pragmatism, and in so doing, capture diverse social constituencies – from the urban and rural poor to the financial and banking elites and the rural oligarchies – and in the process, alienating the grassroot constituencies that propelled the PT to power and the very base of the PT.

Or Lulismo can be seen be seen as part of a wider neo-extactivist consensus (Svampa, 2013) through which Latin-American left-wing parties in power combined financial speculation, commodity extraction and radical programmes of poverty reduction. Lulismo can also be interpreted as a failed “social neo-developmentalism” (Singer, 2016) whereby the Brazilian state morphed form being an agent of social redistribution to becoming the main force of capitalist expansion. Sociologist Ruy Braga describes Lulismo as the combination of the passive incorporation of the marginal working-class and the active incorporation of the top echelon of the trade-union strata who becoming pensions fund manager, “financialized themselves” and turned into a new state bourgeoisie. Besides, according to Braga, central to Lulismo is a schizophrenic attitude toward the working class, visible in the PT’s opposite economic policies of reduction of job precariousness and increase of formal employment for marginal constituencies especially poor black, young and women, and on the other hand, of mass tertiarization and flexibilization of productive activities leading to the massive increase labour turnover and work accidents and the sharp curtailment of social rights. (Braga 2016).

Or lastly, Lulismo can be seen as a variant of past presidentialist regimes, typically Vargas’ Estado Novo, whereby the failure of the bourgeois counter-revolution – the social contract between urban masses and urban bourgeoisie – (Fernandes) put democracy under constant threat by the dominant ancient oligarchies, and was kept alive through personal deals presidentes made across the political spectrum and with the logistical support of strong authoritarian bureaucracies.

Against the baroque equations of social neo-developmentalism, Paulo Guedes, Bolsonaro’s main economic adviser (who was educated at the University of Chicago) proposes simple recipes: free-market, extensive privatizations and further curbing of labour rights. Such Chicago style manifesto wooed the big capital and the financial sectors that, as the centrist candidate Geraldo Alckmin (PMDB) loses steam, are turning their support to Bolsonaro. But these recipes are unlikely to appeal to the urban precariat or the rural dispossessed or the unionized wage workers whom the election results ultimately rest on. Indeed, the 2013 June uprising – a series of anti-government which paralyzed the country – saw the re-articulation of the urban precariat and unionized workers around a newly radicalized Left, which included the Socialist Party (PSOL); the new trade union, the Homeless Movement (MTST) and a vast section of the radicalized youth.

In a famous book on the dictatorship Fernando Henrique Cardoso, at the time still a well-respected scholar of underdevelopment, argues that in Brazil the historical forces of authoritarianism never christallized into a political party, which meant that the interests of a restricted bourgeois and oligarchic elite had to be met through violence and political repression. Perhaps it is such lack of institutionalisation of authoritarianism that gives to the spectre of dictatorship its long-lasting aura. But Brazil’s unprecedented wave of grassroot mobilization will not necessarily be co-opted by another dictatorship or by yet another populist leader. It may be the case that instead of dictatorship redux, we will witness the coming together of a new revolutionary socialist coalition, one in which the role of women, the youth and the marginalized black population is central. The ascent to popularity of Marielle Franco, the feminist human-right activist (PSOL) who relentlessly campaigned against police brutality in the favelas in Rio de Janeiro – and her dramatic killing in March 2018, symbolizes both the enormous potential and the risks associated with this election.

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In recent developments, New Delhi on Friday October 4, 2018,  “Russia’s President Putin and India’s Prime Minister Modi signed a $5.4 billion agreement to purchase five S-400 air defense systems, delivery scheduled for 2020 – ignoring the threat of possible US sanctions.

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In the existing eventful world, the barely laying extremes of US foreign policies can be seen in its posture towards Turkey and India regarding the purchase of Russia’s S-400 defense system. India’s freedom to procure the defense system raises speculation over why Turkey is forbidden to do so. Despite being a NATO ally, Turkey is the latest and worst example for the US’s allies that self-interests know no border. But the US is not so tough on all its allies and India is one of them. Why?  

India is making gigantic strides in military and economic development. India’s dispute with China over territories as well as in the Indian Ocean are consistent with US interests in the region, including Washington’s “Pivot to Asia” and US-China relations.  Moreover, India and the US’s economic relationship has seen a tenfold increase in trade from US$ 5.6 billion in 1990 to US$ 140 billion in 2017 that cement its place in the eyes of the US lawmakers and policymakers.  “In 2016, India was the ninth largest trading partner of the US and one of the major countries with which America has had trade deficit of more than $30 billion.”

India has also warmed up to Israel and their leaders have inked multiple agreements to boost security cooperation. Moreover, India is challenging Chinese trade mainly in Africa.  

India purchases 60 percent of its military gear from Russia, or in other words, India is the largest purchaser of Russian arms. It has almost doubled the import of oil from heavily sanctioned Iran as well as another US adversary – Venezuela. In a joint press conference in May 2018 with Iranian foreign minister Jawad Zarif, Indian foreign minister Sushma Swaraj, in a reply to a journalist’s question regarding the US sanctions on Iranian exports, said that India doesn’t recognize the US’s sanctions and only support sanctions issued by the United Nations.  

On August 2, 2017, the US Congress passed the CAATSA bill that imposes sanctions on Iran, North Korea and Russia as main adversaries of the US. Under this law, other states are banned from dealing with these countries. The US Congressional representatives rushed to seek exemption for India. And now, India is negotiating the S-400 purchase deal with Russia despite US sanctions.  

Indian-Americans are the wealthiest ethnic group in the US. Although they make up just about 1 percent of the total American population, they are an influential group. With the professional success, financial resources and growing population, Indian-Americans launched lobbying through different networks and forums. Part of India’s efforts to influence the US Government has been inspired by its actions against Pakistan’s lobby group. 

A paramount force that pushes India to the heights in the US foreign policies and decision-making are the five Indian-Americans in the US Congress. Besides Senator-elect Harris, the Indian-American community now has four members of the US House of representatives. Ami Bera, Raja Krishnamurthi, Pramila Jayapal and Ro Khanna are Indian-American faces in the US legislature. 

These powerful figures have certainly used their influence in the amendment of CAATSA to include exceptional states like India. Just like Israeli lobbyists simply convincing the US officials to cut aid to Palestinians or changing the minds of the US officials towards regional issues in its favor, India too has gained weighty role in redirecting the US foreign policies. 

Looking for a silver bullet to ditch India of Russia’s S-400 defense system, the US said that it mulls over delivery of THAAD missiles for India, according to the Indian Economic Times report in June.  Currently, THAAD is deployed only in South Korea and Hawaii and the system is intended to be installed in Japan and Taiwan in the future. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have also reached a deal with the US to purchase the defense system. Reports say that Oman also offered to purchase THAAD, but received a red light. 

While the US is offering to equip India with THAAD, it is working to stop Turkey from possessing Russia’s S-400. 

After decades of proximity and closer cooperation during Syrian war, the two NATO-member states parted their ways particularly after mid-2016. After ISIS lost the ground to Russia-backed Syrian forces, the US decided to support the Syrian-Kurdish People’s Protections Unites (YPG), a militia with close ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a designated terrorist organization by Turkey and the US, as well as the European Union. 

Tensions between the US and Turkey over Syria climaxed in January 2018, as Turkey invaded the Afrin canton in northwestern Syria to remove the YPG. The Kurdish insurgent groups want separation from Turkey or create an independent Kurdistan to which Turkey is highly allergic. Turkey’s blocking of the US efforts to beef up YPG brought an end to viability of the conflict in Syria. The US might have YPG as the last resort option available for the time being to recover the loss in Syria, but Turkey’s opposition infuriated the US that opened fire at it which still rages.

More shocking events took place over this period of time. The coup attempt in July 15, 2016 in Turkey added further acrimony in the US-Turkey relationship. Andrei Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, was assassinated by a Turkish police officer in 19 December 2016. Turkey’s tourism industry was hit with a spate of bombings. All these were planned blow to Turkey.

The US waged an economic war on Turkey, allegedly for the detention of the American pastor in Turkey. Erdogan gave itself the right to avoid handover of the pastor to the US who has been held on charge of involvement in 2016 failed coup attempt, because the US did not listen to Turkey’s insistence on extraditing US-based Fethullah Gulen, the alleged mastermind of the coup.  

Turkey also stands hostile to Washington’s all-weather ally – Israel. It has repeatedly condemned Israel’s actions against Palestine. In May, Erdogan called the US Embassy move to Jerusalem a “huge mistake”. 

Intimacy to Russia, of course, worsened the mutual ties, but not to the extent to throw the entire weight behind it. 

As a consequence of Turkey-US strife, the Russia-Turkey rapprochement added up to the NATO members’ split. Whether for warming to Russia or abandoning the US “halfway” in Syrian war, Turkey was set to face a flurry of sanctions and shocks. In addition to lira crises, two Turkish senior officials have been sanctioned that led Turkey to take retaliatory action against two US officials. 

Turkey struck deals with Russia including construction of a new gas pipeline to Turkey and supply of S-400. Everyone was waiting to watch the US’s reaction at the latter deal. Although the US implied its discontentment with Turkey’s acquisition of Russian S-400, Ankara argued that the system is necessary to protect its airspace. Erdogan’s government also pointed out that Turkey originally approached the US to procure the Patriot missile defense system and only turned to Russia when it could not seal a deal. 

Moreover, Turkey contends that Greece, a NATO-member, purchased Russian S-300 defense system in 2015 that was not preceded or followed by any objection or outcry from other NATO members or the US. 

The US’s wrath at Turkey can also be seen in January 2018 when the presidents of two countries talked on telephone on the brink of Turkey’s military operation in Afrin in northwestern Syria controlled by YPG. According to reports, the White House released the transcript of the conversation, which asserted that Trump had expressed concern over escalating violence due to Turkey’s Afrin operation and about “destructive and false rhetoric coming from Turkey”. Turkish officials immediately claimed that the transcript did not reflect the true nature of the conversation. 

It indicates that Turkey’s military operation was a wholly unilateral move that stood in sharp contrast to the US’s agenda. 

The war of words will continue so long as either Turkey withdraw from NATO membership or appease the US with concession like allowing to support and arm YPG in a new Syrian war or turn its back to Russia. 

The decision to permit or prohibit a state from acquiring S-400 or issues of similar severity is taken based upon the level of expectation from a state due to its strategic location or other advantages. Greece or India might not have lived in a situation corresponding to Turkey’s. They are not under as much fire as Turkey for possessing a super offensive or defensive system.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan feared to lose the power to another contestant in June presidential election amid a meddlesome environment and frayed ties with the US and therefore availed every opportunity to rig the election in its favor. 

Turkey would go its way regardless of the US’s threats and install the defense system in the near future, as it has discovered that the US, especially after the recent row, will not agree to sell THAAD or Patriot Air-Defense system to it. 

In New Delhi on Friday October 4, 2018,  Russia’s President Putin and India’s Prime Minister Modi signed a $5.4 billion agreement to purchase five S-400 air defense systems, delivery scheduled for 2020 – ignoring the threat of possible US sanctions.

Asked if the deal was consummated, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded: “Yes, on the sidelines of the visit.”

Putin aide Yuri Ushakov said

“India will have a modern air defense system boasting parameters that surpass those of similar systems of other countries.”

During a Friday press conference, Modi said

“India and Russia believe that it is necessary to consolidate the multipolar world and multipolar relations,” adding:

between both countries and others.

Last July, Indian Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that New Delhi and Moscow reached the final stage in talks on the S-400 purchase.

It’s able to destroy multiple hostile aircraft, ballistic missiles, and other aerial targets up to 250 miles away. No other nations match the its capability.

The deal is one of more to come. India contracted with Russia to build six nuclear power plants, Russia’s Rosatom to construct the new facilities, a press release by the company saying:

“The parties plan…to develop the project on construction of six Russia-designed nuclear power plant units in India at the new site, to expand cooperation in third countries, and cooperate in new promising areas in the nuclear power industry.”

Rosatom CEO Aleksey Likhachev and Indian Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Kamlesh Nilkanth Vyas signed the deal on Friday – plants reportedly to be built in southeast India’s Andhra Pradesh.

Russia and India are key nuclear energy partners. In 1988, Soviet Union and New Delhi officials agreed to build the country’s largest nuclear power facility.

Construction began in 2002, completed in 2013, since then the plant expanded, further expansion planned.

On Friday, Putin said

“(w)e are ready to consider the possibility of cooperation in the framework of such programs as Far East LNG, Arctic LNG-2, as well as other projects for the development of natural resources of Siberia, Yamal and the continental shelf in the Russian Federation,” adding:

Both countries intend expanding trade to $30 billion by 2025, threefold the current level, Putin saying the following on Friday:

“We set out to boost trade turnover to $30 billion by 2025 and mutual investments to $15 billion some time ago.”

“In this regard, we were satisfied to note that last year mutual trade turnover went up by 21% exceeding $9 billion, and gained another 20% in seven months of this year.”

“If we continue at this pace, not only will we meet the targets but we’ll reach them earlier than expected and (will) continue onward.”

Documents signed on Friday are all about “longterm expansion of bilateral ties in various areas.”

On Thursday, India’s Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) approved the purchase of four Russian-made frigates, costing around $2 billion – two built in Russia, two others in India.

On Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert “urg(ed) all of our allies and partners to forgo transactions with Russia that would trigger sanctions under CAATSA (Washington’s Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act).”

A New Delhi statement said it’s devising ways to circumvent potential US sanctions. It may trade with other countries in local currencies, avoiding dollar transactions, possibly trading Indian products for foreign ones purchased.

A Final Comment

On Thursday, Reuters reported that Indian purchases of US oil are “down 75 percent from a record high of 347,000 barrels in June,” adding:

Last month (September), “Indian buyers lifted purchases of Iranian crude to 502,000 bpd, up 111,000 bpd over August.”

The country is one of the two top buyers of Iranian crude. According to OilPrice.com,

“India will buy a total of 9 million barrels of oil from Iran in November” – despite imposition of new US sanctions on the 4th, aiming to halt all Iranian oil exports, a scheme doomed to fail.

“India wants to keep importing oil from Iran, because Tehran offers some discounts and incentives for Indian buyers at a time when the Indian government is struggling with higher oil prices and a weakening local currency that additionally weighs on its oil import bill,” OilPrice.com added.

It’s unclear how much Iranian oil India intends to keep buying. New Delhi is one of America’s largest trading partners, bilateral dealings totaling $140 billion in 2017.

Will the Trump regime jeopardize relations by imposing sanctions for the country’s trade with Russia and Iran?

Reportedly it’s considering waivers for India and other countries, likely including Japan and South Korea.

Last month, Pompeo said the US is “prepared to work with countries that are reducing their imports (from Iran and Russia) on a case-by-case basis.

On Thursday, Bolton stressed there’d be no waivers while admitting the aim to block all Iranian oil exports is unattainable. The same goes for Russian exports.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

The Russian Defence Minister has announced that the promised S-300 air defence system has been delivered to Syria with the Karushka 4 radar systems jammer and other related military equipment, to boost the safety of Russia’s military personnel and facilities. The system will be in place by 20^th October. Syrian Army personnel will, meanwhile, be brought up to speed in three months to operate the system which has the combined effect of effectively closing the Syrian airspace to unfriendly air crafts.

There is then no room for doubt that Russia’s promise to bolster the security of her interests in Syria is about accomplishing a no-fly zone over most of Syria, if not all of it.

Israel, on her part, even while sending condolences to Moscow, is remorselessly threatening to carry on attacking what Tel Aviv claims are Iranian targets in Syria, regardless of the S-300s and the jammers; there only because her fighter jets’ cynical manoeuvres resulted in the recent downing of Russia’s EW aircraft IL-20 shot by friendly fire killing all 15 crewmen on board. The Israeli fighters were attacking Latakia province at the time and the detailed data of the incident as captured by the S-400 on Russia’s Hmeymim air base proved this in no uncertain terms: Israeli jets were using the IL-20 as cover.

Russia’s Defence Minister’s anger left no room for speculation but President Putin appeared to be initially looking for a non-confrontational way out. In the end, irrespective of how one reads meanings into his words the outcome is, indisputably, a no-fly zone over Syria.

For Israel, this will mean a substantial crippling of her formerly undisputed air superiority over the region. However, even as is, without Russia’s forbearance — the deconfliction measures agreed to between her and Russia, as is true of the agreement between Russia and the US — the skies over Syria already invited caution because in place is a combination of Syria’s S-200, and Russia’s S-400 and S-300, the latter two to guarantee the safety of her air base, Hmeymim, and her naval base, Tartus. In short, it is fair to assume that had the deconfliction measures been in place the 200 attacks carried out by Israel on Syrian territory over the past year, which Tel Aviv recently boasted of, could not have been so easily achieved.

Thus far this triangular power configuration has been as if playing at war. The aim is to free Syria of terrorists. For as long as the deaths of civilians and damage to infrastructure caused by US allied bombings can be classified as necessary collateral damage there is very little Russia can do without escalating tensions between the major “players”. But the IL-20 tragedy is without doubt a pre-meditated move by Israel, which resulted in the loss of a valuable Russian military asset and 15 highly specialised airmen.

John Bolton, the White House National Security Advisor, has warned Moscow that this Russian move is considered an escalation. But of what? If at all there is a war it is with the terrorists. Is Washington admitting that these are not terrorists but rather mercenaries of an American proxy army?

Israel promises to keep attacking Syria. President Putin since intervening in Syria has, on many occasions, gone out of his way to prevent the outbreak of war with NATO that could bring the world to the brink. Unfortunately, this is perceived of as a weakness waiting to be exploited.

But much as Putin might want to avoid a war with another nuclear power whose  total disregard for civilian lives is beyond dispute, what pretext can there now be which will not appear to the Russian people as a betrayal of the 15 airmen, crew of the IL-20? Russian lives have been lost in what to many is a foreign war. 

Then, too, what about the prestige Russia has built over the recent years that helped restore her position as a superpower and, necessarily, the Cold War balance of terror that afforded the world a measure of security. And, what about the threatening and callous actions of the US and her allies, which makes discounting a nuclear war impossible. Subservience to Washington is, therefore, not an option.

That the US and her allies are pushing for war is difficult to ignore and Israel’s security is a good enough excuse for them. Placing Iran squarely in their cross-hairs to secure Israel’s safety facilitates this. But can they find a way of undermining the no-fly zone, militarily, now that Russia has lost all goodwill for compromises? Or, has Russia really lost all goodwill for her adversaries?

Apparently the deconfliction agreement is still operational. But are the gloves now irretrievably off such that one false step will witness “enemy” fighters dropping from the skies over Syria? Israel’s belligerence is unrelenting. Washington though, while no less so, is more circumspect.

Are the US and her allies, including the ever vacillating Turkey, virtually checkmated in Syria? Will a crushing defeat of the Jihadists in Idlib be possible without civilians being sacrificed? After all, without their backers the proxy army of assorted terrorists will be crippled as has been demonstrated time and time again.

Of course, this assumes that reason will prevail. But what if reason, already so elusive in certain quarters, cannot prevail? Can a surprise attack on Syria and her allies be on the cards and low yield nuclear weapons be used by the US in the belief that it is a feasible option in a first strike strategy? 

That is the clear and present danger which the world is now facing. To the neoconservatives and the Deep State this is the best opportunity they have for obliterating the challenger once and for all and global hegemony be achieved. Will they chance it?

Bearing in mind America’s Nuclear Doctrine of pre-emptive nuclear war this is not as far fetched as it may seem. And, while Russia is way ahead in terms of military capability has she the means to counter this suicidal desperation successfully? For, according to the experts in a nuclear war, no matter how limited, the one who makes the first strike cannot but be victorious. 

And then there is the theological doctrine that the goyims (non-Jews) are  dispensable when they serve no purpose. What more when they are obstacles. To the apartheid Jewish state this has serious political consequences. Therefore, most logically, a nuclear armed Israel gone rogue would be the biggest threat to the world.

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Askiah Adam is Executive Director of International Movement for a JUST World.

Police in America nearly always have virtual carte blanche authority to operate with impunity.

Chicago long ago earned a reputation as the police repression capital of America. A Gitmo-type operation on the city’s west side is Exhibit A – operating off-the-books in a nondescript Homan Square warehouse, the domestic equivalent of a CIA or Pentagon black site.

Inner city communities across America are battlegrounds. Blacks in Chicago and elsewhere nationwide are unlawfully arrested, detained, brutally treated, and too often lethally shot unaccountably – a shocking indictment of a racist society.

An Illinois Better Government Association study, covering the period 2010 – 2014, called Chicago tops among America’s largest cities in fatal shootings by police, most often targeting defenseless Black males.

The right-wing Chicago Tribune earlier said

“it’s common knowledge that Chicago’s system of investigating shootings by officers is flawed…at so many levels…by design…”

On October 14, 2014, Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke lethally shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald – even though he committed no crime and threatened no one.

He was shot twice in the back, another 14 times as he lay dying on the ground. Coverup and denial followed. Police authorities at first called the brutal execution justifiable self-defense.

In November 2015, a seven-minute dashcam video surfaced, showing Van Dyke extrajudicially executed McDonald. City authorities lost a 13-month Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit battle to prevent release of the video – indictable evidence of what happened.

A knife planted on McDonald’s body was exposed as a Big Lie. Video evidence showed him moving away from Van Dyke unarmed when lethally shot from behind.

Police chief Garry McCarthy was sacked over the incident. So was chief of detectives Dean Andrews. Three Chicago police officers were indicted for involvement in covering up McDonald’s murder.

They lied to investigators in the aftermath of the shooting, withheld damning information, filed false police reports, failed to interview eyewitnesses, and destroyed evidence.

America’s criminal justice system nationwide is shamefully racist. So is the nation’s gulag prison system. Two-thirds of inmates are Blacks and Latinos – mostly for nonviolent offenses, over half on illicit drug charges.

A badge in America is a license for anything goes, especially in exerting authority over people of color by any means. Jim Crow never died. It evolved to its present form.

Nearly always nationwide, when cops lethally shoot Blacks or Latinos, victims are blamed for state-sponsored criminality.

Rare exceptions prove the rule. On Friday October 4, after a month-long trial, justice delayed was served for McDonald’s family members.

Jurors convicted Van Dyke on 2nd degree murder and 16 aggravated battery counts for each shot fired. Damning video evidence proved guilt.

An overflow Cook County courtroom heard the verdict – after which Van Dyke was handcuffed and taken into custody, awaiting sentence by what one prominent Chicago attorney called “tough but fair” Judge Vincent Gaughan, saying he faces 15 – 30 years imprisonment.

The Chicago Tribune believes a six-year sentence is likely, calling court proceedings “one of the most closely watched trials in Chicago’s history.”

Downtown city streets were heavily patrolled before and after the verdict, continuing all night in case protests erupted and turned disruptive.

Van Dyke was the first city cop in half a century to be convicted of murder for an off-duty shooting. He was acquitted of a single count of official misconduct.

Juror speaking to reporters said they were split over whether to convict him for first or second-degree murder. After deliberating for over seven hours, they agreed on the latter verdict.

Once announced, crowds around City Hall cheered. City organizer Keena Carson said she was overwhelmed by emotion, adding:

“It just felt like all those years of work from the time the video came out was worth it. Like all the organizing and being out in the streets, it was worth it. It was worth it — for once.”

Prosecutor Joseph McMahon said Van Dyke “now stands before this court a convicted felon,” adding:

“This is a difficult day for Tina Hunter,” McDonald’s mother. “She has to continue to relive the worst moment of her life over and over…I don’t think Tina will ever heal from this wound.”

Sentencing is scheduled for October 31. Van Dyke’s lawyers said they’ll appeal over Judge Gaughan refusal to move the trial outside Cook County because of pre-trial publicity, adversely affecting Van Dyke.

The landmark case will long be remembered in city history, the final chapter yet to be written.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Tensions between the US and China are rising in the economic, diplomatic and military spheres. The economic policy of the administration of US President Donald Trump as well as the US strategy aimed at deterring growing Chinese military capabilities in the Asia-Pacific region and Chinese influence around the world in general have led to an open economic and diplomatic conflict between the two states.

Since the start of 2018, the US has imposed a series of tariffs on a wide range of Chinese goods and, according to President Trump, is ready to make further steps in order to defend US national interests.

On January 22, 2018, the US officially announced their decision to impose duties of as much as 30% on solar equipment made abroad, mostly in China. On July 6, the Trump administration kicked off 25% tariffs targeting $34 billion worth of Chinese goods. These tariffs affected water boilers, X-ray machine components, airplane tires and various other industrial parts. China immediately implemented retaliatory tariffs on its $34 billion list of US goods including soybeans, pork and electric vehicles. At that time, Beijing called the situation the “biggest trade war in economic history.” However, the situation continued to develop.

On August 23, the US imposed additional 25% tariffs on $16 billion worth of Chinese imports targeting such goods as electronic parts, plastics, chemicals, batteries, and railway cars. Beijing retaliated with its own fresh tariffs on $16 billion worth of additional imports from the US including fuel, steel products, cars and medical equipment.

On September 24, Washington imposed 10% tariffs on about $200 billion worth of imports from China, and threatened duties on about $257 billion more if China retaliated against the action. The Chinese Commerce Ministry answered that it had no choice but to retaliate against new US trade tariffs. Beijing hit back announcing 10% tariffs on $60 billion of US imports.

According to the Trump administration the tariffs are needed to protect US businesses, especially industry and intellectual property, and to reduce the trade deficit with China. Since the start of the “trade war”, US and Chinese top officials have held a series of meetings but have found no options to resolve the existing differences.

Furthermore, on September 20, the US sanctioned a Chinese defence agency and its director for purchasing Russian combat aircraft and S-400 surface-to-air missiles. On the same day, sanctions were imposed on 33 Russian individuals and entities. The State Department claimed that its actions weren’t intended to undermine the military capabilities or combat readiness of any country, but rather to punish Russia in response to its alleged interference in the US election process. In response, China’s Foreign Ministry said the action was unjustifiable and demanded the US withdraw the penalties or “bear the consequences.”

Thus, the conflict expanded into the military and political field. Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting on September 26, President Trump accused China of “attempting to interfere” in the upcoming 2018 election in the US against his administration. Nonetheless, the US president provided no evidence for his claims. Additionally, the Trump administration approved the sale of $330 million of military equipment to Taiwan. This move caused another round of tensions with China.

“We urge the US side … to immediately cancel this deal and cut off military ties with Taiwan to avoid doing serious damage to China-US relations, peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and cooperation between the US and China in important areas,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang stated, commenting on the issue.

The Taiwan issue has been a focal point of US-Chinese tensions since the very start of the Trump presidency. For example, on December 2, 2016, shortly after his election win, Trump spoke with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen by phone discussing politics, economy, and security in the Asia-Pacific region. This was the first time since 1979 that a US President or President-elect had directly spoken to his Taiwanese counterpart. Trump openly declared that his administration would use the Taiwan issue as a bargaining chip to get a better trade deal with Beijing. The idea that China and Taiwan are part of the same country also known as The One-China policy has been the basis of US-China dialogue concerning the island since the 1970s.

The balance of power in Asia Pacific in general and particularly in the South China Sea and East China Sea are also a hot point in US-China relations. The US is actively working to deter the growing Chinese influence on military and diplomatic levels. The US Armed Forces send warships and jets close to Chinese military facilities built on artificial islands, and hold drills near the contested area. The Chinese side is not going to abandon its South China Strategy and responds in a similar manner.

In late September the US sent its nuclear capable B-52 bombers to the South China Sea as well as to the East China Sea.

On September 26, the US consulate in Hong Kong stated that China had denied a request for a port call from the U.S. Navy’s amphibious assault ship the USS Wasp.

On September 30, the Arleigh Burke guided-missile destroyer USS Decatur had an encounter with a Chinese warship, with the two vessels being as close as 45 yards to each other, according to US Navy officials. The US warship was conducting freedom of navigation operations in the vicinity of Gaven Reef in the South China Sea when the incident occurred.

In early October, the New York Times reported, citing a US official that China had canceled an annual meeting with US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis planned for mid-October in Beijing.

The relations between the US and China appear to be tense and preconditions exist which may cause them to worsen in the near future. Currently, there are two main directions in which the current situation might develop: an escalation scenario and a deconfliction scenario.

In case of the escalation scenario, US-Chinese relations would deteriorate rapidly with the Trump administration taking further steps in the framework of its “trade war” against Beijing. If China were able to resist this pressure more or less successfully, the diplomatic and economic pressure imposed would give a boost to the further regionalization of the world. China, Russia and other powers affected would have to contribute additional effort to develop an economic model, which would allow them to counter pressure from the US. This system would actively rely on regional economic ties and trade in national currencies. China, Russia, the EU, Iran, Turkey are already actively working to develop such mechanisms. On September 24, the EU, Russia and China agreed with Iran on a new payment system to trade despite the US sanctions. The joint statement said that they were determined “to protect the freedom of their economic operators to pursue legitimate business with Iran.”

At the same time, Turkey, China, Russia and India have openly moved to make payments on key contracts, especially in the military industrial cooperation field, in their national currencies as well as boosting their regional cooperation. Thus, the US sanctions policy became a factor undermining the current global economic model guaranteeing its dominance.

If the increase of the US pressure on China were to succeed and Beijing and its key partner Moscow were isolated, this would deepen significantly the economic crisis in China, which is expected by some analysts in the upcoming years. Chinese economic development would be stopped or even thrown back. In turn, the US thanks to its industry and postindustrial sector of the economy would make a leap forward maintaining its economic hegemony.

Nevertheless, this scenario would be possible only if the Chinese-Russian economic, military and diplomatic cooperation were to be undermined as a result of the smart policy pursued by Washington or for some other reason. Symptoms of this US soft power policy designed to undermine Russia-China cooperation can be observed in the Russian and Chinese media sphere. Multiple Russian experts more or less affiliated with the US ideologically or economically, through grants and funding, promote the idea that Russia should limit its allegedly “unprofitable” cooperation with China and even put effort into deterring Chinese economic and diplomatic policy in the region. On the other hand, some Chinese experts promote an idea that Russia is a weak state and should not be seen as an equal partner.

It should be noted that China employing its foreign diplomatic and economic policies does not show any kind of altruism. In fact, it pursues its economic and political goals in the most profitable way. However, this approach is common for any world power defending its national interests. And currently, it’s in Chinese national interests to maintain a mutually beneficial co-operation with Russia and other independent powers.

The de-escalation scenario in US-Chinese relations is possible if the Trump administration were to reshape its policy towards Beijing and strike a new political economic deal with the Chinese leadership. So, Washington would have to lift a part, if not all, of the imposed restrictions and maybe soften its policy on China in some points. China would accept such a deal, but would not abandon its goal to dominate in the Asia-Pacific region and then become a superpower. Thus, Beijing would be using this deal to strengthen its economic and political positions in Eurasia and around the world.

In turn, the Washington establishment would seek to employ a divide and rule approach to undermine ties between Moscow and Beijing. If this approach were to succeed, the US would be able to deal with its key competitors one at a time.

In any of these scenarios, military, diplomatic and economic tensions would grow around the world. The main reason for this is the approach of the Washington establishment, which is steadily undermining the global order established after World War 2. On the other hand, the actions of the Trump administration have their own logic. It seeks to stop the economic development and to limit the influence of their key global and regional competitors, like China, Russia and Iran. In light of the existing mid and long term threats to US dominance, Washington seems to be determined to use the current complicated situation around the world to strengthen the US national economy, in particular its industry, to solve the social and economic problems caused by previous US administrations and to deal with its geopolitical opponents using all existing means and measures.

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The Afghan government has outlawed and denounced as ‘destructive and divisive’ a proposal by the founder of private military contractor Blackwater, to privatize the 17-year-old war in the Asian country.

Erik Prince promoted his proposal on Kabul last week for the government to allow foreign contractors to support Afghan forces in the fight against the Taliban, claiming it could end the war in “six months.”

“In no manner does the government of Afghanistan condone this destructive and divisive debate,” a statement from the Afghan Office of the National Security Council (NSC) said on Thursday.

The statement said the Afghan government and people would never “allow the counter-terrorism fight to become a private, for-profit business.”

It further said that the addition of “new foreign and unaccountable elements” would undermine the right to self-determination of the Afghan people.

“Afghan security and defense forces, under the framework of all applicable laws of the country, have the primary responsibility and authority for safeguarding the noble values of Islam, our national sovereignty, and the independence and territorial integrity of our beloved country and people,” the statement read.

Blackwater founder’s idea, which first surfaced last year during US President Donald Trump’s review of the Afghanistan strategy, has already raised ethical and security concerns among US military officials as well as key lawmakers in Congress and members of Trump’s national security team.

In August, US Defense Secretary James Mattis rejected the plan saying the move was not a “wise idea”.

However, the frustration of the US war in Afghanistan and the US president’s purported unhappiness about the 17-year-long battle is raising fears that he might finally agree with the plan.

Trump’s advisers are worried his unhappiness about the Afghanistan conflict would cause him to seriously consider proposals like Prince’s or abruptly order a complete US withdrawal, officials said.

On Tuesday, US-based Human Rights Watch warned against US efforts to outsource the war arguing that the move could endanger civilian lives.

“Prince’s company, Academi, formerly known as Blackwater, has been implicated in serious crimes in Iraq,” said HRW.

The employees of the notorious private military company had been charged with killing 14 Iraqi civilians and wounding 18 others using gunfire and grenades at a busy Baghdad intersection on September 16, 2007. An FBI agent once described the atrocity as the “My Lai massacre of Iraq.”

The United States now has about 16,000 troops based in Afghanistan.

The war in Afghanistan is the longest in US history with a cost of about $1 trillion. More than 2,400 Americans have died and another 20,000 have been wounded in the country since the invasion in 2001.

Afghanistan is still suffering from insecurity and violence years after the US and its allies invaded the country as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror. The military invasion removed the Taliban from power, but their militancy continues to this day.

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Featured image is from Alwaght.

The growth of Bolsonarian fascism in the final stretch of the election campaign, turbo charged by an avalanche of fake news disseminated on the internet, is not surprising. It is an old tactic developed by American and British intelligence agencies, with the goal of manipulating public opinion and influencing political processes and elections. It was used in the Ukraine, in the Arab Spring and in Brazil during 2013.

There is science behind this manipulation.

Some people think that elections are won or lost only in rigorously rational debates about policies and proposals. But things don’t really work that way. In reality, as Emory University Psychology Professor Drew Weston says in his book “The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation”, feelings are commonly more decisive in defining the vote.

Weston says that, based on recent studies in neuroscience on the theme, contrary to what is commonly understood, The voters strongly base their choices on emotional perceptions about parties and candidates. Rational analysis and empirical data normally plays a secondary role in this process.

This is why there is great manipulative power in the production of information with strong emotional content and fake news.

The documents revealed by Edward Snowden suggest that the US and UK intelligence services have specialized and sophisticated departments that are dedicated to manipulating information that circulates on the internet to change the direction of public opinion. For example, the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a British intelligence agency, has a mission and scope that includes the use of “dirty tricks” to destroy, negate, degrade and run over its enemies.

The tactics are, in short:

1) To disseminate all kinds of false information on the internet to destroy the reputation of its targets; and

2) Use social sciences and other psycho-social techniques to manipulate the online discourse and activism, with the goal of generating desirable results.

But this isn’t just any type of information. The information is chosen to cause great emotional impact, not to promote debate or rebut concrete information. One of the most common techniques is the manipulation of photos and videos, which has a strong and immediate emotional effect and tends to quickly go viral. Vice Presidential candidate Manuela D’Àvila, for example, has been the constant target of these manipulations. Fernando Haddad has also been a constant victim of absolutely false declarations and manipulated images and discourse.

The abject manipulation of images of “erotic baby bottles” that were supposedly distributed to toddlers in the São Paulo public pre-school system by the PT, is an example of how low a campaign of the kind of dirty tricks recommended by the North American and British intelligence agencies can sink.

Although this manipulation can seem very low and, to the eyes of a rational person, unbelievable, its has a great and strong penetration of the emotional political brain of vast segments of the population.

Nothing is done by accident. Before they are produced and disseminated, these crude manipulations are studied in order to provoke the greatest damage possible. They are specifically directed to internet groups which, in having little or no fact checking apparatus and strong conservatism, tend to be shocked by and believe in these grotesque manipulations.

The truth is that what is happening in Brazil today reveals a sophisticated level of manipulation, which requires training and larges sums of money. Where did all of this come from? National capital? Or could there be financial, technical and logistical resources also coming from abroad?

It is obvious that this issue requires a serious investigation that will, apparently, not happen.

National and international financial capital, as well as sectors of the productive business class, have already sided with Bolsonaro in the second round. A large part of the media oligarchies have backed him as well. The poorly denominated “center”, which is, in truth, a group of angry, coup-mongering conservatives faced with the threat of political disappearance have also started to partially adhere to Brazilian fascism, trying to survive from the political crumbs it can obtain if Bolsonaro, or “the Thing” as he is known, and Mourão, the “Aryan”, win the election.

This can be viewed as the definitive suicide of Brazilian democracy and a bet on conflict, confrontation, authoritarianism and fascism, which will cause a profound deepening of the Brazilian political and economic crises.

However, the aggravation of the political-institutional and economic crisis, which will inevitably be brought about by the victory of the proto-fascist Bolsonaro, could be useful for those who want to take over Brazil’s strategic resources and companies.

Chaos and insurgency can be useful, mainly to those who are from the outside. We see this frequently in the Middle East. Taken to its farthest extension the coup can be deepened to a “solution of power”, supported by the military and the judiciary. In this manner the door will be opened for much greater rollbacks than those achieved by Michel Temer, mainly from the point of view of national sovereignty.

From the point of view of geopolitical strategy, the promoted automatic alignment between Bolsonaro and Trump would be of great interest to the USA in the region. As we know, one current strategic priority of the USA is a great power game against China and Russia. Bolsonaro, who has already promised to donate the Alacantara rocket launching base to the Americans and to privatize everything, could serve as a focal point of US interests in the region, intervening in Venezuela and countering Russian and Chinese interests in South America.

For this reason, it seems obvious that there is a finger – or an entire hand – of foreign intelligence agencies at work, mainly North American, in the Brazilian elections. The modus operandi shown in this final stretch is identical to that used in other countries and requires technical and financial resources and a level of manipulative sophistication that the Bolsonaro campaign does not seem to have on its own.

The CIA and other agencies are here, acting in an extensive manner.

The progressive forces have to now coordinate to counter this manipulative process. The response cannot merely be to use rational argument to counter manipulative hatred. The response in the dispute for the political brain has to also be emotional.

The anti-PT, anti-left, anti-democratic, anti-human rights, and anti-equality that drives Bolsonaro and was created by coup agents and their fake media, has to be fought through a project of antagonistic feelings like hope, love, solidarity and happiness.

They are projecting a past of exclusion, violence and suffering. We have to project a future of security and realization.

Faced with a sordid campaign of defamation and manipulation, guided from abroad, our strategy should be the same as Adlai Stevenson, the great Democratic politician of the US, who said to the Republicans, “you stop lying about the Democrats and I’ll stop telling the truth about you.”

Bolsonaro, his running mate and his followers communicate through shocking statements and hate speech. This is not fake news, its easy to confirm. Therefore, all we have to do is expose them for what they are and they will melt like vampires in sunlight.

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Marcelo Zero is a sociologist, international relations specialist and technical advisor to the PT Senatorial leadership.

Jerusalem’s mayor has said he plans to remove a UN agency for Palestinian refugees from the city, accusing the body of operating illegally and promoting incitement against Israel.

Nir Barkat said on Thursday schools, clinics and sports centres, among other services operated by UNRWA in occupied East Jerusalem, will be transferred to Israeli authorities.

The municipality did not provide an exact timeline but it said schools serving 1,800 students would be closed by the end of the current school year, the AP news agency reported.

Barkat, who is set to step down following municipal elections at the end of the month, said the US decision at the end of August to cut $300 million in aid to the agency prompted the move.

Seen by the Palestinians and most of the international community as providing a valuable safety net, the European Union has called on Washington to reconsider its ending of funding to UNRWA.

“The US decision has created a rare opportunity to replace UNRWA’s services with services of the Jerusalem municipality,” Barkat said in a statement, claiming the schools and clinics were illegal and operate without an Israeli license.

“We are putting an end to the lie of the ‘Palestinian refugee problem’ and the attempts at creating a false sovereignty within a sovereignty.”

Jerusalem’s municipality said the move was coordinated with the Israeli government.

UNRWA did not immediately respond to a request for comment, AP said.

Founded in 1948, UNWRA was established to deal with the mass displacement of approximately 700,000 Palestinians, following the establishment of the state of Israel, to Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt.

Since then, the descendants of those Palestinians who continue to be displaced have benefited from several UNRWA initiatives, including educational facilities.

‘Political attack’

Last month, Israeli news outlet Channel Two reported that the Trump administration wanted to redefine the status of the agency, as well as the definition of Palestinian refugees, with the ultimate aim of eventually closing down the agency.

Officials familiar with the decision told the Washington Post that the new definition would exclude the descendants of those originally displaced, reducing the current five million figure to fewer than a tenth of that number.

Palestinian groups continue to demand the right of return for refugees and their descendents who were displaced since 1948.

In the absence of a solution, the UN General Assembly has repeatedly renewed UNRWA’s mandate.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said UNRWA should be abolished and its responsibilities taken over by the main UN refugee agency.

Last month, UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said the US funding cuts were a “political attack” on the Palestinian people and the agency, but that only the UN could change the status of refugees and UNWRA’s mandate.

“You cannot airbrush out of history 5.4 million people who belong to a UN-protected community, you cannot wish away their rights, their right to education, their rights to health and their rights to self determination,” he said.

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If one studies many of Alfred Hitchcock‘s films, there is a consistent observation by the director about the public in general. Whether it be in Foreign Correspondent (1940), Saboteur (1942), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) or North by North west (1959) to name but a few,

Hitchcock’s essential characters to the plot moved amidst a general public that seemed oblivious to what was going on. In reality, the majority of the public was engulfed in their own thing to be too aware of anything else around them. One scene that really resonates on this is a moment in the film Saboteur. The main two characters, played by Robert Cummings and Priscilla Lane, are on the run from a Nazi spy and sabotage ring working in the United States in 1941.

By that time, and this is pertinent to things, the American public already knew of the threat from the Nazis. War with Germany seemed imminent as Europe was already besieged by the German blitzkrieg. In this scene from Saboteur  Cummings and Lane are in a New York mansion owned by this Nazi front group while a fundraising party is ongoing.

Cummings is trying desperately to alert partygoers as to what is transpiring. He approaches a couple who are enjoying the swing music and really ‘into it’. He very seriously tells the man that “We’re right in the middle of the biggest bunch of Fifth Columnists.” The guy looks at him while snapping his fingers to the beat of the music and says “Are you kidding, what’s the gag?” The woman with the guy, also deep into the swing music says “Ah, he’s throwing ya a curve!”

As it was in films like Hitchcock’s, it seems that our general public has always been, to a great extent, oblivious to our Military Industrial Empire. The only time the majority of our fellow Americans seems to wake up from their self imposed slumber is when they feel threatened… personally threatened.

As Goebbels did so masterfully from the 1930s-early 40s in Germany, propaganda can and will coerce the masses to march along with the empire into battle. This has always been the case throughout history, as our US ‘foreign entanglements’ can surely attest to. The cement that keeps this the public in place is their oblivious nature to facts and outright truth. A con man can only be successful if his pigeons are not focused enough. When the overwhelming majority of the mainstream media falls in line with the empire, well, the lemmings follow.

The Soviet Union sacrificed 25+ million of its people to defeat the German onslaught and turn the tide of WW2, only to become our enemy in the Cold War not more than a year or two later. Think of how many of our citizens followed the drumbeat of this empire’s minions and believed ‘Better Dead than Red’. And it goes on and on through the Korean and Vietnam debacles that they called wars, right into Iraq Wars 1 and 2 and this Goebbels-like War on Terror….

This empire spends over half or your and my federal taxes on military spending, for close to two decades. How many out there care? Just shoot them up with the ‘legal narcotics’ of 24/7 sports, electronic gadgets and excessive consumerism, daily ‘breaking news’ on sex scandals, Republican vs. Democrat ‘food fights’, and the natives won’t get too restless. Meanwhile, the empire’s corporate sponsors suck out the very air from the lungs of we working stiffs…

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Philip A Farruggio is a son and grandson of Brooklyn , NYC longshoremen. He has been a free lance columnist since 2001, with over 400 of his work posted on sites like Global Research, Greanville Post, Off Guardian, Consortium News, Information Clearing House, Nation of Change, World News Trust, Op Ed News, Dissident Voice, Activist Post, Sleuth Journal, Truthout and many others. His blog can be read in full on World News Trust, whereupon he writes a great deal on the need to cut military spending drastically and send the savings back to save our cities. Philip has a internet interview show, ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid’ with producer Chuck Gregory, and can be reached at [email protected].

“We must remember that in time of war what is said on the enemy’s side of the front is always propaganda, and what is said on our side of the front is truth and righteousness, the cause of humanity and a crusade for peace.”

-Walter Lippmann [1]

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Propaganda is an essential tool by which the elite factions within a society are able to capture the imaginations of the people and mesmerize the general public with messaging as to the essential goodness of a policy action for the nation.

When it comes to foreign policy, national myths are on the front line of that public relations battlefield.

The Americans, of course, have their ‘exceptionalist’ mythology, about its unique commitment to the ideals of democracy, liberty, personal freedom and individualism, and that it is America’s duty to export these exceptional qualities to less enlightened regions of the world. [2]

Most Canadians may regard with bemusement this self-aggrandizing legend of their geographic neighbours, however they would seem to be blissfully unaware of how an equally insidious mythology has penetrated their own national consciousness.

Canadians like to see themselves as a ‘force for good’ on the world stage, ‘peacekeepers not warriors’ and such. Canadian author Yves Engler has, for more than a decade, debunked that view as out of touch with reality. In several books and articles published over the last decade, Engler has diligently documented Canada’s historic role of upholding racism, exploitation and empire, from Haiti, to Congo, Palestine, Afghanistan, Libya, Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela, and the Global South generally. [3]

In a previous book, A Propaganda System — How Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Exploitation, Engler examined the architecture of Canada’s public relations scheme which disguises the true role of Canada internationally, describing an interlocking network of academic institutions, government departments, think tanks, and media heavyweights which have worked to conceal the true nature of Canadian power.

His latest book Left, Right — Marching to the Beat of Imperial Canada, builds on this analysis, revealing how and why prominent left wing organizations who traditionally challenge corporate power domestically, including labour organizations, and the left of centre New Democratic Party (NDP) have apparently become complicit in reinfrcing this misleading portrait of Canada as ‘The Peaceable Kingdom.’

This week’s Global Research News Hour radio program devotes most of the hour to an overview of Engler’s thesis as he begins his cross-Canada book tour. (Tour dates can be found below.) This week’s special guest interviewer is Winnipeg-based videographer, citizen journalist and GRTV associate Paul Graham.

Yves Engler is a Montreal based political activist and writer specializing in dissident perspectives on Canadian foreign policy. He has been referred to as Canada’s Noam Chomsky, and has authored close to a dozen books over the last decade. His most recent book is Left, Right — Marching to the Beat of Imperial Canada. More of Engler’s articles and information about his 2018 cross-Canada book tour can be found at the site yvesengler.com.

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Global Research News Hour Episode 231

Wednesday, Oct. 10, 7 pm
Ottawa
25 One Community, 251 Bank St (2nd floor)
Sponsor: Octopus Books
http://octopusbooks.ca/event/left-right-—-marching-to-the-beat-of-imperial-canada-book-launch-with-yves-engler

Wednesday, Oct. 17, 7 pm
Winnipeg
Université de Saint-Boniface, 200 Avenue de la Cathedrale, Room 2322
Sponsor: Peace Alliance Winnipeg
https://www.facebook.com/events/968363916703546/
Sponsor: Peace Alliance Winnipeg

Thursday, Oct. 18, 5 pm
Regina
Knox-Met United Church,
2340 Victoria Ave, Room 105
Sponsor: Regina Peace Council

Saturday, Oct. 20, 1 pm
Prince Albert
The Mann Art Gallery
Sponsor: Council of Canadians Prince Albert

Sunday,Oct. 21, 2 pm
Saskatoon
615 Main Street
Sponsor: Turning the Tide Bookstore (turning.ca) & Council of Canadians Saskatoon

Monday, Oct. 22, 7 pm
Edmonton
University of Alberta Education Centre South,
Room 158
Sponsor: Palestine Solidarity Network

Tuesday, Oct. 23, 7 pm
Calgary
Community Wise Resource Centre (Old Y Building) 223 12 Ave SW
Sponsor: Justice for Palestinians
https://www.facebook.com/events/2062566467100837/

Wednesday, Oct. 24 7 pm
Calgary
Mount Royal University Jenkins Theatre
(A debate on Canada’s Israel policy)
Sponsor: Rational Space

Thursday, Oct. 25
Nelson
Location TBD
Sponsor: Mir Centre for Peace & Council of Canadians Nelson

Friday, Oct. 26
Kelowna
Okanagan College, 1000 K.L.O. Road
Sponsor: Kelowna Peace Group

Saturday, Oct. 27.12:30 pm
(A discussion of Canadian mining policy)
Vancouver
Location TBD

Tuesday, Oct. 30 6 pm
Vancouver
SFU Harbour Centre (515 West Hastings Street) room 7000
Sponsor: SFU Institute for the Humanities & Lawyers Rights Watch Canada
https://www.facebook.com/events/562967147452951/

Thursday,Nov. 1, 7 pm
Victoria
University of Victoria, Harry Hickman Bldg Room 105
Sponsor: Social Justice Studies & Victoria Peace Coalition

November 2
Victoria
(A discussion of NDP Palestine policy)
Location TBD

Monday, Nov. 5, 6 pm
Courtenay
Library, 300 6th St

Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2:30 pm
Nanaimo
Sponsor:  Vancouver Island University
Sponsor: Political Science Department

The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca . Excerpts of the show have begun airing on Rabble Radio and appear as podcasts at rabble.ca.

The Global Research News Hour now airs Fridays at 6pm PST, 8pm CST and 9pm EST on Alternative Current Radio (alternativecurrentradio.com)

Community Radio Stations carrying the Global Research News Hour:

CHLY 101.7fm in Nanaimo, B.C – Thursdays at 1pm PT

Boston College Radio WZBC 90.3FM NEWTONS  during the Truth and Justice Radio Programming slot -Sundays at 7am ET.

Port Perry Radio in Port Perry, Ontario –1  Thursdays at 1pm ET

Burnaby Radio Station CJSF out of Simon Fraser University. 90.1FM to most of Greater Vancouver, from Langley to Point Grey and from the North Shore to the US Border.

It is also available on 93.9 FM cable in the communities of SFU, Burnaby, New Westminister, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey and Delta, in British Columbia, Canada. – Tune in  at its new time – Wednesdays at 4pm PT.

Radio station CFUV 101.9FM based at the University of Victoria airs the Global Research News Hour every Sunday from 7 to 8am PT.

CORTES COMMUNITY RADIO CKTZ  89.5 out of Manson’s Landing, B.C airs the show Tuesday mornings at 10am Pacific time.

Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 6am pacific time.

Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in  Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 10am.

Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday Morning from 8:00 to 9:00am. Find more details at www.caperradio.ca

RIOT RADIO, the visual radio station based out of Durham College in Oshawa, Ontario has begun airing the Global Research News Hour on an occasional basis. Tune in at dcstudentsinc.ca/services/riot-radio/

Radio Fanshawe: Fanshawe’s 106.9 The X (CIXX-FM) out of London, Ontario airs the Global Research News Hour Sundays at 6am with an encore at 4pm.

Los Angeles, California based Thepowerofvoices.com airs the Global Research News Hour every Monday from 6-7pm Pacific time. 

Notes:

1. Shah, Anup. “War and the Media”; www.globalissues.org/article/157/war-propaganda-and-the-media
2. Ridenour, Ron, “The Russian Peace Threat: Pentagon on Alert”, p. 489, Punto Press Publishing, Brewster, NY
3. https://yvesengler.com/yves-books/

President Assad is not a “brutal dictator”.[1]  He never was. In fact Syrians have dubbed him “Mr. Soft Heart.”[2]

Western demonization campaigns against him are not and never were evidence-based.

Syrians themselves are not “stock” characters either.  Certainly, they can not accurately be defined according to religious or any other labels. Such “orientalist” projections serve imperial, “supremacist” agendas, but again, they are not reality-based.

Syrian voices are conspicuously absent from colonial media, since a realistic depiction of who they are and are not would necessarily frustrate the media’s criminal, warmongering agenda.

Syrian voices are important for Truth and Peace.

Camelia Dona has lived in Latakia, Syria, since 1989, where she worked as a pharmacist. Her story is particularly poignant since the pharmaceutical industry — like so many other industries in Syria — has resisted the invasive tentacles of Transnational Monopolies[3], and their pursuit of profits to the detriment of humanity.

Dona’s explanation is an indictment of Western imperialism in Syria:

“Many Syrians can tell you stories about the life before the war…before and after 2011… I’ll choose to speak about my profession, how good it was and how clever was the strategy in drug production and administration. 

I m a pharmacist and I came to Syria in 1989.There were only a few Syrian drugs, most of them were imported from other countries. Gradually things changed. Many drug factories were built and before 2011, Syria was almost independent in the production of the drugs … 95%or more of the drugs were made in Syria, meaning 1. jobs for Syrians 2. low prices for the drugs. Even insulin was produced in Aleppo (I visited that factory 10 years ago … destroyed by ISIS). In general, only infant formula milk and some hormones products were imported.

Many factories bought the license from international brands like Novartis, Pfizer… etc.

Many of these factories were destroyed…people who worked there were killed or kidnapped or jobless….and many of the drugs disappeared from the market…

Now, because it is much better in Aleppo and Damascus, many drug factories have been rebuilt. You know, between 1989 when I came to Syria and 2011 1$=5o Syrian pounds ( 48-51)…. Such stability was not pleasing to Syria’s enemies.”

Meanwhile, the testimony from the two Syrian ladies below explodes the “humanitarian” myth about Canada’s criminal foreign policies.  

Source: Vanessa Beeley

All Canadians should be asking the same questions of their elected “representatives”. Evidence-based information, rather than war propaganda, should be informing Canada’s foreign policy.

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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017.

Notes

1. Prof. Tim Anderson, “Watchdogs to Attack Dogs: Western Liberal Media Failures on Syria.” Global Research, 25 March, 2016. (https://www.globalresearch.ca/watchdogs-to-attack-dogs-western-liberal-media-failures-on-syria/5516530) Accessed 10 May, 2018. 

2. Prof. Tim Anderson, “Mr. Soft Heart or Brutal Tyrant? Anti-Assad Narrative Falls Apart at Seams.” Sputnik, 11 March, 2015.( https://sputniknews.com/politics/201511031029549034-assad-high-public-support-syria-elections/) Accessed 5 October, 2018.

3. Mark Taliano, “Permanent State Versus The People. The Regime Change War against Syria.” Global Research, 03 June, 2018. (https://www.globalresearch.ca/permanent-state-versus-the-people-the-regime-change-war-against-syria/5642817) Accessed 5 October, 2018.

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

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

Voices from Syria 

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-1-6

Author: Mark Taliano

Year: 2017

Pages: 128 (Expanded edition: 1 new chapter)

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In recent months Western media and the Washington Administration have begun to raise a hue and cry over alleged mass internment camps in China’s northwestern Xinjiang where supposedly up to one million ethnic Uyghur Chinese are being detained and submitted to various forms of “re-education.” Several things about the charges are notable, not the least that all originate from Western media or “democracy” NGOs such as Human Rights Watch whose record for veracity leaves something to be desired.

In August Reuters published an article under the headline, “UN says it has credible reports that China holds million Uighurs in secret camps.” A closer look at the article reveals no official UN policy statement, but rather a quote from one American member of an independent committee that does not speak for the UN, a member with no background in China. The source of the claim it turns out is a UN independent advisory NGO called Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The sole person making the charge, American committee member Gay McDougall, stated she was “deeply concerned” about “credible reports.” McDougall cited no source for the dramatic charge.

Reuters in their article boosts its claim by citing a Washington DC based NGO, the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD). In an excellent background investigation, researchers at the Grayzone Project found that the CHRD gets hundreds of thousands of dollars from unnamed governments. The notorious US government NGO, National Endowment for Democracy, is high on the list of usual suspects. Notably, the CHRD official address is that of the Human Rights Watch which gets funds also from the Soros Open Society foundation.

The ‘Uyghur Problem’

The true state of affairs in China’s Xinjiang Province regarding Uyghurs is not possible to independently verify, whether such camps exist and if so who is there and under what conditions. What is known, however, is the fact that NATO intelligence agencies, including that of Turkey and of the US, along with Saudi Arabia, have been involved in recruiting and deploying thousands of Chinese Uyghur Muslims to join Al Qaeda and other terror groups in Syria in recent years. This side of the equation warrants a closer look, the side omitted by Reuters or UN Ambassador Haley.

According to Syrian media cited in Voltaire.net, there are presently an estimated 18,000 ethnic Uyghurs in Syria most concentrated in a village on the Turkish border to Syria. Since 2013 such Uyghur soldiers have gone from combat alongside Al Qaeda in Syria and returned to China’s Xinjiang where they have carried out various terrorist acts. This is the tip of a nasty NATO-linked project to plant the seeds of terror and unrest in China. Xinjiang is a lynchpin of China’s Belt Road Initiative, the crossroads of strategic oil and gas pipelines from Kazakhstan, Russia and a prime target of CIA intrigue since decades.

Since at least 2011 at the start of the NATO war against Bashar al Assad’s Syria, Turkey had played a key role in facilitating the flow of Chinese Uyghur people to become Jihadists in Syria. I deliberately use “had” tense to give benefit of the doubt if it still is the case today or if it has become an embarrassment for Erdogan and Turkish intelligence. In any case it seems that thousands of Uyghurs are holed up in Syria, most around Idlib, the reported last outpost of anti-regime terrorists.

Washington and ETIM

In an excellent analysis of China’s Uyghur terror history, Steven Sahiounie, a Syrian journalist with 21st Century Wire, notes that a key organization behind the radicalization of Chinese Uyghur youth is the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and its political front, the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), which is also known as “Katibat Turkistani.” He cites a speech in Istanbul in 1995 by Turkey’s Erdogan, then Mayor, who declared, “Eastern Turkestan is not only the home of the Turkic peoples but also the cradle of Turkic history, civilization and culture…” Eastern Turkestan is Xinjiang.

ETIM today is headed by Anwar Yusuf Turani, self-proclaimed Prime Minister of a government in exile which notably is based in Washington DC. ETIM moved to Washington at a time the US State Department listed it as a terrorist organization, curiously enough. According to a report in a Turkish investigative magazine, Turk Pulse, Turani’s organization’s “activities for the government in exile are based on a report entitled ‘The Xinjiang Project.’ That was written by former senior CIA officer Graham E. Fuller in 1998 for the Rand Corporation and revised in 2003 under the title ‘The Xinjiang Problem.’”

I have written extensively in my book, The Lost Hegemon, about career senior CIA operative Graham Fuller. Former Istanbul CIA station chief, Fuller was one of the architects of the Reagan-Bush Iran-Contra affair, and a prime CIA sponsor or handler of Gülen who facilitated Gülen’s USA exile. He was also by his own admission, in Istanbul the night of the failed 2016 coup. In 1999 during the end of the Russian Yelstin era, Fuller declared,

“The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries worked marvelously well in Afghanistan against the Russians. The same doctrines can still be used to destabilize what remains of Russian power, and especially to counter the Chinese influence in Central Asia.”

This is what the covert US weaponization of ETIM is aimed at. Like most radical Sunni Jihadist groups, Turani’s ETIM got funding as most radical Sunni Jihadist groups from Saudi Arabia.

In the late 1990s, Hasan Mahsum, also known as Abu-Muhammad al-Turkestani, founder of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, moved ETIM’s headquarters to Kabul, taking shelter under Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, ETIM leaders met with Osama bin Laden and other leaders of the CIA-trained Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan to coordinate actions across Central Asia. When the Pakistani military assassinated al-Turkestani in 2003 Turani became head of ETIM, and took his roadshow to Washington.

In his own study of Xinjiang, the CIA’s Graham E. Fuller noted that Saudi Arabian groups had disseminated extremist Wahhabi religious literature and possibly small arms through sympathizers in Xinjiang, and that young Turkic Muslims had been recruited to study at madrasas in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. He adds that Uyghurs from Xinjiang also fought alongside Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Fuller noted,

“Uyghurs are indeed in touch with Muslim groups outside Xinjiang, some of them have been radicalized into broader jihadist politics in the process, a handful were earlier involved in guerrilla or terrorist training in Afghanistan, and some are in touch with international Muslim mujahideen struggling for Muslim causes of independence worldwide.”

The January 2018 Pentagon National Defense Strategy policy document explicitly named China along with Russia as main strategic “threats” to continued US supremacy. It states, “Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in US national security.”

Explicitly, and this is new, the Pentagon paper does not cite a military threat but an economic one. It states, “China and Russia are now undermining the international order from within the system by exploiting its benefits while simultaneously undercutting its principles and ‘rules of the road.’” The escalating trade war against China, threats of sanctions over allegations of Uyghur detention camps in Xinjiang, threats of sanctions if China buys Russian defense equipment, all is aimed at disruption of the sole emerging threat to a Washington global order, one that is not based on freedom or justice but rather on fear and tyranny. How China’s authorities are trying to deal with this full assault is another issue. The context of events in Xinjiang however needs to be made clear. The West and especially Washington is engaged in full-scale irregular war against the stability of China.

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F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author.

Seeds of Destruction: Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

Author Name: F. William Engdahl

ISBN Number: 978-0-937147-2-2

Year: 2007

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This skilfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. “Control the food and you control the people.”

This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.

The author cogently reveals a diabolical world of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.

It’s not heavily emphasized within the text, but there are more than enough keywords and innuendo to conclude that the US’ National Strategy for Counterterrorism is very problematic for Pakistan because it’ll likely be wielded as a Hybrid War weapon for eventually sanctioning CPEC.

The US just unveiled its new National Strategy for Counterterrorism (NSCT), and while most news reports on this policy-guiding document tend to emphasize America’s claims that Iran is “the most prominent state sponsor of terrorism”, there are plenty of reasons why observers should pay attention to its relevant Pakistani component too.

Without summarizing the entire strategy and focusing solely on its pertinence to Pakistan, the US specifically calls out the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Lashkar-e Tayyiba (LeT), and Babbar Khalsa International (BKI), which operate in Pakistan, Indian-occupied Kashmir, and the Sikh-inhabited regions of Indian Punjab respectively. The US has previously claimed (although importantly not within this document itself) that all three of them are linked to Pakistan in one way or another, with the country being either a victim or an accomplice of these organizations. By inference, this makes Pakistan the proverbial “elephant in the room” when talking about the US’ NSCT.

India is only talked about twice in the same sentence describing the BKI’s attacks against the country’s civilian population, but the part of the document describing the US’ intentions to partner with likeminded victims of terrorism strongly implies that the US-Indian Strategic Partnership could begin to be reframed through an “anti-terrorist” narrative.  Relatedly, the US might justify the intensification of its military relations with the country on an “anti-terrorist” basis, especially related to what the US and its newfound Indian partner regard as the “Pakistani-backed terrorist insurgency” in Indian-occupied Kashmir, in order to deflect from their true anti-Chinese and –Pakistani motivations for upsetting the delicate balance of power in South Asia. This is strongly hinted in the part where the authors write that America will “support (the) counterterrorism capabilities of key foreign partners”, with India being the US’ “Lead From Behind” partner in South Asia for dealing with two of the three mentioned groups.

The reason why none of this is as explicitly stated as the anti-Iranian passages are is because the US intends to employ its NSCT against Pakistan as a tool for pressuring its leadership into making “concessions” regarding the War on Afghanistan and CPEC. Even in the unlikely event that Pakistan cuts a clandestine deal with the US on either or both of these topics of grand strategic interest for America, it’s unlikely that Islamabad will save itself from Washington’s Hybrid War wrath because the US needs to scapegoat Pakistan for its failures in Afghanistan and ensure that China isn’t able to reliably use CPEC as its game-changing shortcut to the Afro-Asian Ocean. That’s why the most probable scenario is that the NSCT is weaponized in order to qualitatively enhance the effectiveness of the US’ ongoing fake news infowar campaign against Pakistan prior to imposing “anti-terrorist” sanctions against it that are really aimed against CPEC.

The whole point in doing so would be to decrease the international attractiveness of this corridor by scaring foreign investors away and increasing the odds that it becomes dominated solely by China, which would thus diminish its prospects for turning Pakistan into the Zipper of Eurasia and Convergence of Civilizations. That could also impede the project’s overall economic viability as well, especially if the US dares to carry out “anti-terrorist” drone strikes against targets along this route in order to reinforce the artificial narrative that conducting business with China through CPEC is “dangerous”. This “reverse-engineered” conclusion that the US is working to guide the global public towards is predicated on inflicting major strategic damage to China’s future economic interests and therefore improving the chances that it’ll enter into the desired “compromises” necessary for ending the so-called “trade war” in America’s favor. For these reasons, the US’ NSCT is just as much about South Asia and Pakistan as it is about the Mideast and Iran.

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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

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

Os mercados e a União Europeia estão em alarme, a oposição está ao ataque, o apelo do Presidente da República à Constituição, tudo porque a anunciada manobra financeira do governo resultaria num déficit de cerca de 27 biliões de euros. No entanto, silêncio absoluto, tanto no governo como na oposição, sobre o facto de que a Itália gasta num ano uma quantia análoga para fins militares. A verba de 2018, é de cerca de 25 biliões de euros, à qual se junta outros elementos de carácter militar, elevando-a para mais de 27 biliões. São mais de 70 milhões de euros por dia, em expansão visto que a Itália se comprometeu com a NATO a elevar essa despesa até cerca de 100 milhões por dia.

Por que razão é que ninguém questiona a crescente despesa de dinheiro público com armas, com as forças armadas e com intervenções militares?

Porque isso significaria ficar contra os Estados Unidos, o “aliado privilegiado” (ou seja, dominante), que exige um aumento contínuo da despesa militar.

A despesa dos EUA para o ano fiscal de 2019 (iniciado em 1 de Outubro de 2018), ultrapassa 700 biliões de dólares, além de outros itens militares, incluindo quase 200 biliões para os militares aposentados. A despesa militar total dos Estados Unidos sobe para mais de 1 trilião de dólares por ano, ou um quarto da despesa federal. Um investimento progressivo na guerra, que permite aos Estados Unidos (segundo a motivação oficial do Pentágono) “permanecer a potência militar predominante no mundo, assegurar que as relações de poder permaneçam a nosso favor e fazer avançar uma ordem internacional que favoreça ao máximo, a nossa prosperidade”. No entanto, a despesa militar provocará um déficit de quase 1 trilião no orçamento federal, no ano fiscal de 2019.

Isso aumentará ainda mais a dívida do Governo Federal USA, que subiu para cerca de 21,5 triliões de dólares. Essa despesa incide no valor atribuído ao orçamento interno, com cortes nas despesas sociais e no orçamento externo, imprimindo dólares, usados como principal moeda das reservas globais e das quotizações das matérias primas. Mas há os que ganham com o aumento crescente da despesa militar. São os colossos da indústria bélica. Entre as dez maiores empresas fabricantes de armas do mundo, seis são americanas: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon Company, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, L3 Technologies. Seguem-se: BAE Systems – britânica, Airbus – franco-holandesa, Leonardo (ex-Finmeccanica) – italiana que subiu para o nono lugar, e Thales – francesa.

Não são, apenas, empresas gigantescas de fabrico de armas. Elas formam o complexo militar-industrial, estreitamente integrado nas instituições e nos partidos, num extenso e profundo entrelaçamento de interesses. Isto cria um verdadeiro ‘establishment’ das armas, cujos lucros e poderes aumentam, à medida que se expandem as tensões e as guerras.

A Leonardo, que recebe 85% da sua faturação com a venda de armas, está integrada no complexo militar-industrial USA: fornece produtos e serviços não apenas às Forças Armadas e às empresas do Pentágono, mas também para as agências de serviços secretos (br. Inteligência), enquanto, na Itália, admninistra as instalações da Cameri, dos caças F-35 da Lockheed Martin. Em Setembro, a Leonardo foi escolhida pelo Pentágono, como a primeira empresa contratante da Boeing, para fornecer à Força Aérea dos EUA o helicóptero de ataque AW139. Em Agosto, a Fincantieri (controlada pela sociedade financeira do Ministério da Economia e Finanças) entregou à US Navy, com a Lockheed Martin, mais dois navios de combate costeiro.

Tudo isto deve estar presente quando se pergunta por que motivo, nos órgãos parlamentares e institucionais italianos, há um acordo multipartidário esmagador em relação a não cortar, mas para aumentar, a despesa militar.

Manlio Dinucci

Video por PandoraTV :

Tradução e subtitulo : Luisa Vasconcelos

Europäische Märkte und Union in Alarmbereitschaft, Opposition im Angriff, eine Erinnerung an die Verfassung durch den Präsidenten der Republik, all dies, weil das von der Regierung geplante und bereits angekündigte Finanzmanöver zu einem Defizit von etwa 27 Milliarden Euro führen würde. Auf der anderen Seite, absolutes Schweigen von Regierung und Opposition zu der Tatsache, dass Italien jedes Jahr einen vergleichbaren Betrag für seinen Militärhaushalt ausgibt.

Die Militärausgaben für 2018 belaufen sich auf rund 25 Milliarden Euro, zu denen noch weitere Posten mit militärischem Charakter hinzukommen müssen, so dass die Gesamtausgaben auf mehr als 27 Milliarden Euro steigen. Das bedeutet mehr als 70 Millionen Euro pro Tag, was noch mehr wird, da Italien der NATO versprochen hat, auf etwa 100 Millionen pro Tag zu erhöhen.

Warum spricht niemand von den steigenden Ausgaben öffentlicher Gelder für Waffen, Streitkräfte und militärische Interventionen? Denn das würde bedeuten, dass man sich den Vereinigten Staaten, dem “privilegierten Verbündeten” (“betont” gelesen), widersetzt, der eine kontinuierliche Erhöhung dieser Ausgaben verlangt.

Die Ausgaben der USA für ihre Streitkräfte im Geschäftsjahr 2019 (das am 1. Oktober 2018 begann) übersteigen 700 Milliarden Dollar, zu denen weitere militärische Kosten hinzukommen, darunter fast 200 Milliarden für pensioniertes Militärpersonal. Die gesamten Militärausgaben der Vereinigten Staaten sind damit auf mehr als 1.000 Milliarden Dollar jährlich angestiegen, ein Viertel aller Bundesausgaben. Eine zunehmende Investition in den Krieg, die es den Vereinigten Staaten (gemäß der offiziellen Zielsetzung des Pentagons) ermöglicht, “die führende Militärmacht in der Welt zu bleiben, um sicherzustellen, dass das Kräfteverhältnis zu unseren Gunsten bleibt, und um eine internationale Ordnung voranzubringen, die unseren Wohlstand auf das Maximum fördert”.

Aber im Geschäftsjahr 2019 werden die Militärausgaben ein Defizit von fast 1.000 Milliarden Dollar im Bundeshaushalt verursachen. Später wird dies zu einem Anstieg der Schulden der US-Regierung auf rund 21.500 Milliarden Dollar führen. Dies wird im Inneren durch Kürzungen der Sozialausgaben und im Außen durch den Druck von mehr Dollar absorbiert, die als Hauptwährung der Weltwährungsreserven und der Notierungen für Rohstoffe dienen.

Von den erhöhten Militärausgaben profitiert jedoch niemand. Wir haben es hier mit den Giganten der Rüstungsindustrie zu tun. Von den zehn größten Waffenherstellern der Welt sind sechs US-Unternehmen: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon Company, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics und L3 Technologies. Es folgen das britische Unternehmen BAE Systems, das französisch-niederländische Unternehmen Airbus, das italienische Unternehmen Leonardo (ex-Finmeccanica), das nun auf Platz neun liegt, und das französische Unternehmen Thales.

Das sind nicht nur riesige Fabriken, die Waffen produzieren. Zusammen bilden sie einen militärisch-industriellen Komplex, der eng mit Institutionen und Parteien verbunden ist und tiefe und weitreichende Auswirkungen hat. Dies schafft eine echte Rüstungsindustrie, deren Gewinne und Mächte mit zunehmender internationaler Spannung und Krieg zunehmen.

Leonardo, das 85 % seiner Gewinne aus Waffenverkäufen erzielt hat, ist in den militärisch-industriellen Komplex der USA integriert – es liefert Produkte und Dienstleistungen nicht nur an die Streitkräfte und Agenturen des Pentagons, sondern auch an US-Geheimdienste, während es in Italien den Standort Cameri für die F-35 von Lockheed Martin verwaltet.

Im September wurde Leonardo vom Pentagon mit Boeing als Hauptauftragnehmer ausgewählt, um die US-Luftwaffe mit AW139-Angriffshubschraubern zu versorgen. Im August lieferten Fincantieri (kontrolliert von der Finanzgesellschaft des Wirtschafts- und Finanzministers) und Lockheed Martin zwei weitere Küstenkampfschiffe an die US Navy.

All das müssen wir im Hinterkopf behalten, wenn wir uns fragen, warum es in den italienischen parlamentarischen Organisationen und Institutionen einen so überwältigenden, parteiübergreifenden Konsens gibt – nicht für die Kürzung des Haushalts, sondern für die Erhöhung der Militärausgaben.

Manlio Dinucci
Quelle : Il Manifesto (Italien)

Übersetzung: K.R.

While the independent and alternative media (including Global Research) are accused without evidence of publishing “fake news”, the routine publication of  “fake news” by the corporate media is invariably overlooked. 

While those who criticize the mainstream media are tagged as “conspiracy theorists”, the evidence amply confirms that the corporate media is involved in the publication of “fake images” and “fake video footage.”

And now the European Union is contemplating the adoption of laws which criminalize “fake news”: 

“Is criminalizing fake news the way forward? German lawmakers have called for legal action against the production and distribution of fake news. But digital rights groups warned of the harrowing effects it could have online, including censorship.” (Deutsche Welle, December 14, 2016)

This proposed legal action is largely intended to “go after” the independent online media and social media which is challenging mainstream media reports. 

In this article we will focus on the news coverage pertaining to a selection of important events including the March 2016 Brussels terror attacks in which fake videos and/or fake images were used by the corporate media with a view to deliberately misleading public opinion. 

1. The Brussels Terrorist Attacks, March 2016

The First Fake Surveillance Video Footage at Brussels Airport

The Second Fake Surveillance Video at Brussels Maelbeek Metro Station 

The terror attack in the afternoon of March 22 at Brussels Maelbeek Metro station was reported by mainstream media including CNN.

In these reports, video footage from a 2011 terror attack in Minsk, Belarus was used by network TV and online media to describe what was happening in the metro station at the time of the attacks.

Comparisons: Brussels, 22 March 2016 versus Minsk, 11 April 2011. Same video footage

Here is a screenshot of  video footage broadcast on network TV and on the internet depicting the explosion in the Metro in Brussels, March 22, 2016

Here is the alleged video footage of the CCTV surveillance camera, Brussel Maelbeek Metro Station.  The CC surveillance camera is under control of the Metro security authorities.

Now Compare the above to the screenshot of  the Minsk April 2011 attacks followed by full-length video.

 Full video of the Minsk Attack

The Mainstream media’s response

According to the Independent:

CCTV footage that was shared after the Brussels attacks, believed to show video from inside Maelbeek Metro station, has been proven fake.

As news emerged of the third explosion in the Belgian capital, which targeted the station situated near EU offices, many began sharing what they believed to be footage of the bombing.

However it was soon discovered that the video in fact came from the Minsk Metro bombing of 2011 that killed 15 and injured over 200 people.

The Independent’s report is based on a fallacy.

It was the mainstream media that published the Moscow and Minsk video footages.

It was thanks to incisive social media blog reports that the use of fake videos by the mainstream media was revealed.

The more fundamental question: Two cases of fake videos on the same day. A coincidence? 

Can we trust the mainstream media reports concerning the Brussels terror attacks?

Read Complete article on Brussels Fake Videos

2. Coverage of Syria War: BBC Switches Images

According to Sifty News

“The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has been slammed for mistakenly using a photo taken in Iraq in 2003 to illustrate the Syria 2012 massacre, in which over 100 people, including 32 children, were brutally killed.

The picture, taken on March 27, 2003, showed a young Iraqi child jumping over dozens of white body bags containing skeletons found in a desert south of Baghdad.

It was posted on the BBC news website under the heading “Syria massacre in Houla condemned as outrage grows”.

According to The Telegraph, the caption stated the photograph was provided by an activist and cannot be independently verified, but said it is “believed to show the bodies of children in Houla awaiting burial”.

Screenshot from the Telegraph, May 27, 2012

We’re Sorry Says the BBC (this is one among many cases of switched images and media manipulation (not to mention the white helmets) pertaining to the war in Syria.

A BBC spokesman said the image has now been removed from the website.

“We were aware of this image being widely circulated on the internet in the early hours of this morning following the most recent atrocities in Syria. We used it with a clear disclaimer saying it could not be independently verified,” the spokesman said.

Meanwhile, a professional photographer, Marco di Lauro, said he nearly “fell off his chair” when he saw the image being used, and said he was “astonished” at the failure of the corporation to check their sources.

“What I am really astonished by is that a news organization like the BBC doesn’t check the sources and it’s willing to publish any picture sent it by anyone activist, citizen journalist or whatever. That’s all,” the paper quoted him, as saying. ( Sifty News)

3. NATO’s “Liberation” of  Tripoli, September 2011

September 2011: The international community, we are told,  is waging a “humanitarian war”. And the people of Libya are rejoicing. “NATO has liberated Libya from the tyranny of Muammar Ghadaffi” 

Green Square Tripoli. Libyans are seen celebrating the victory of rebel forces (affiliated to Al Qaeda) over Ghadaffi in this BBC News Report (see below)

Examine the footage:.

It’s not Green Square and it’s not the King Idris Flag (red, black green) of the Rebels.  

Its the Indian flag (orange, white and green) and the people at the rally are Indians.

Perhaps you did not even notice it.

And if you did notice, “it was probably a mistake”.

Sloppy journalism at the BBC or outright Lies and Fabrications? Recognize the flags?

Indian Flag  (see right)

Libya’s Rebel Flag (King Idris)

This is not the first time images have been manipulated or switched.

In fact it seems to be a routine practice of the mainstream media

Terrorists “celebrating” in Green Square

There is no celebration. It is a NATO sponsored massacre which has resulted in several thousand deaths.

But the truth cannot be shown on network television. The impacts of NATO bombings have been obfuscated.

The rebels are heralded as “liberators”.

Screenshot of the above video

NATO bombing is intended to save civilian lives under The Alliance’s R2P mandate.  But the realities are otherwise: the civilian population is being terrorized by the NATO sponsored rebels.

The images must be switched to conform to the “NATO consensus”.

Death and destruction is replaced by fabricated images of celebration and liberation.

4. The Lhasa Riots, Tibet. March 14, 2008

On the day of the Lhasa Riots (March 14, 2008), the videotape presented by CNN in its News Report on the 14th of March (1.00pm EST) was manipulated.

The message to be conveyed is that Chinese cops were involved in brutally repressing a civilian protest movement including Budhist monks in Tibet’s capital city: Lhasa.

VIDEO: Tibet monks protest against Chinese rulers (CNN, March 14, 2008)

The video footage, which accompanied CNN’s John Vause’s report, had nothing to do with China.

The police were not Chinese, but Indian cops in khaki uniforms from the North-eastern State of Himachal Pradesh, India.

Viewers were led to believe that demonstrations inside China were peaceful and that people were being arrested and brutalised by Chinese cops.

Chinese Cops in Khaki Uniforms

1′.27-1′.44″ video footage of “Chinese cops” and demonstrators including Buddhist monks. Chinese cops are shown next to Tibetan monks.

Are these Chinese Cops from Gansu Province or Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, as suggested by CNN’s John Vause’s Report?

REPORT ON CHINA, MARCH 14

Alleged Chinese cops repressing Tibet demonstrators in China , CNN, March 14, 2008  1′.36”

Alleged Chinese cops in khaki uniforms repressing Tibet demonstrators in China, CNN, March 14, 2008  1’40”

Their khaki uniforms with berets seem to bear the imprint of the British colonial period.

Khaki colored uniforms were first introduced in the British cavalry in India in 1846.

Khaki means “dust” in Hindi and Persian.

Moreover, the cops with khaki uniforms and mustache do not look Chinese.

Look carefully.

They are Indian cops.

The videotape shown on March 14 by CNN is not from China (Gansu Province or Lhasa, Tibet’s Capital). The video was taken in the State of Himachal Pradesh, India. The videotape of the Tibet protest movement in India was used in the CNN report on the Tibet protest movement within China.

In a March 13 Report by CNN, demonstrators are being arrested by Indian police in khaki uniforms during a protest march at Dehra, about 50 km from Dharamsala in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh.

VIDEO; Tibet Protest movement in India, CNN, March 13, 2008

“Indian police arrested around 100 Tibetans on Thursday, dragging them into waiting police vans, as they tried to march to the Chinese border to press claims for independence and protest the Beijing Olympics.” (REUTERS/Abhishek Madhukar (INDIA))

Below are images from the CNN’s report on March 13, on the protest movement in Himachal Pradesh, India:

Compare these images to those in the March 14 CNN report. Same cops, same uniforms, same Indian style moustache

CNN MARCH 13 REPORT ON INDIA

Indian cops repressing Tibetan demonstrators in Himachal Pradesh, India CNN, March 13, 2008  0′.53″

Indian cops repressing Tibet demonstrators in Himachal Pradesh, India CNN, March 13, 2008  1′.02″

Indian cops repressing Tibet demonstrators in Himachal Pradesh, India CNN, March 13, 2008, 1′.18″

Indian cops repressing Tibetan demonstrators in Himachal Pradesh, India CNN, March 13, 2008  2.04″

The CNN’s March 14 report on the Tibet Protest movement in China shows Chinese cops in khaki uniforms, yellow lapels and berets.

While the videotape is not identical to that of March 13 in India , CNN’s coverage of the events in China on March 14 used a videotape taken from the coverage of the Tibet Protest movement in India on March 13, with Indian cops in khaki uniforms.

The protest movement in India on March 13 was “peaceful”. It was organised by the Dalai Lama’s “government in exile”. It took place within 50 km of the headquarters of the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala.

The Western media was invited in to film the event, and take pictures of Buddhist monks involved in a peaceful, nonviolent march. These are the pictures which circled the World.

So what has occurred is that CNN  has copied and pasted its own videotape of the Tibet Protest movement in India and has fabricated a Gansu Province/ Lhasa, China “peaceful” protest movement with Chinese cops in khaki British colonial style uniforms.

The Chinese never adopted the British style khaki uniform and beret.

The uniforms of the alleged (fake) Chinese cops displayed in the CNN report do not correspond to those used by the police in China. (See photograph below, real Chinese cops)

No khaki uniforms in China. These are the uniforms of China’s “Armed Police”.

The foregoing are selected illustrations of “fake news”, which we have been able to corroborate.

They are but the tip of the iceberg in the barrage of daily media disinformation, distortion and omission.

The evidence is compelling. Should the media be held accountable?

Please forward this article and post on social media.

This interview with Canada’s CTV preceded Michel Chossudovsky’s public lectures in Winnipeg, Vancouver (January 2018) and Seoul South Korea at the ROK National Assembly in February 2018. 

Michel  Chossudovsky’s latest article (September 2018) on the Korea Peace Initiative and the Inter-Korean Dialogue

Does the DPRK Constitute a Security Threat to the USA?

The American people should, in the words of Vietnam War Veteran Brian Willson  “place themselves in the position of people living in targeted countries.”

What most people in America do not know –and which is particularly relevant when assessing the alleged “threats” of the DPRK to World peace– is that North Korea lost nearly thirty percent of its population as a result of  US led bombings in the 1950s

Every single family in North Korea has lost a loved one in the course of the Korean War (1950-53).

Britain’s domestic security service MI5 has been operating under a secret policy that allows its agents to commit serious crimes during counter-terrorism operations in the UK, a court in London has heard.

The limits on that policy remain secret, with the result that it is unclear whether agents have sheltered under it while committing murder or acts of torture, the court was told.

The policy began to be scrutinised by a senior judge in 2012, but that oversight was also kept secret and David Cameron, then the British prime minister, instructed the judge that he was to examine only the operation of the policy, and offer no opinion on whether or not it was lawful.

The existence of the secret policy, referred to in court as the “third direction”, emerged by chance earlier this year during litigation that challenged the British government’s domestic surveillance powers.

It allows MI5 officers to permit their agents – people from outside the agency whom they have recruited – to commit crimes in order to secure or maintain access to information that could be used to prevent other offences from being committed.

The order was first issued in 2014 and consists of just three sentences. It was renewed in 2017 and signed off by Theresa May, the current prime minister.

That policy is itself now being challenged, in a case that opened on Thursday at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, a court that provides legal oversight of MI5, its overseas intelligence counterpart MI6, and the UK’s signals intelligence agency GCHQ.

The challenge is being brought by two London-based NGOs, Reprieve and Privacy International, and two in Northern Ireland, the Pat Finucane Centre and the Committee on the Administration of Justice. They argue that the policy is unlawful.

Their legal counsel, Ben Jaffey, told the tribunal that different versions of the policy had been operating since the 1990s; that it is still in place today; and that “the police and prosecutors will never be able to know when it is being activated”.

A heavily-redacted copy of the policy document that was disclosed in court says there are circumstances in which “it may sometimes be necessary and proportionate for agents to participate in criminality” in the interests of national security.

‘Long-standing policy’

The tribunal heard that David Cameron wrote to the judge who was tasked with providing legal oversight of the intelligence agencies, Sir Mark Waller, in November 2012, to inform him that “the Security Service has a long-standing policy for their agent handlers to agree to agents participating in crime”.

He added that “for the avoidance of doubt”, Waller’s oversight “would not provide endorsement of the legality of the policy”, and would not offer an opinion on the prosecution of any agents.

Cameron wrote the letter one month before he informed the UK’s parliament that an official inquiry into the 1989 murder of a Northern Ireland lawyer, Pat Finucane, had discovered what he described as “shocking levels of State collusion” between the loyalist paramilitary killers on the one hand, and MI5, the police and military intelligence on the other.

Finucane was shot 14 times by gunmen who burst into his home while he was having Sunday dinner with his wife and young children.

The case before the tribunal is expected to last many months, or even years. It will be watched closely in Northern Ireland, where evidence has begun to emerge showing that agents of the police and intelligence agencies committed enormous numbers of serious crimes during the 30-year conflict between the late 1960s and 1990s known as the Troubles, without being brought to justice.

Jaffey, the lawyer, raised the Finucane murder and also the case of Freddie Scappaticci, who was said to have been involved in kidnap, torture and murder while he was on the payroll of the British government at the same time as being a member of the IRA. Scappaticci, now in his seventies, was also known as “Stakeknife”.

There is less secrecy surrounding the manner in which British intelligence officers are authorised to commit crimes outside of the UK. Section 7 of the Intelligence Services Act, a piece of legislation dating back to 1994, is said to “disapply” UK criminal and civil law, as long as a senior government minister has signed a written authorisation.

The section is sometimes known as the “James Bond clause”.

Maya Foa, the director of Reprieve, said following Thursday’s hearing:

“We want to know if it’s government policy to let MI5 agents get away with serious crimes such as torture and murder.

“While our intelligence agencies have an important role in keeping this country safe, it does not follow that agents can be permitted to break the law without limits.

“If this is indeed the government’s position it must inform MPs and the public, and open the policy to legal and parliamentary scrutiny.”

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For seventeen years, Global Research, together with partner independent media organizations, has sought Truth in Media with a view to eventually “disarming” the corporate media’s disinformation crusade.

With over 50,000 existing subscribers to our Newsletter, our objective is to recruit one thousand committed “volunteers” among our subscribers to support the distribution of Global Research articles (email lists, social media, crossposts). 

Do not send us money. Under Plan A, we call upon our readers to donate 5 minutes a day to Global Research.

Global Research Volunteer Members can contact us at [email protected] for consultations and guidelines.

If, however, you are pressed for time in the course of a busy day, consider Plan B, Consider Making a Donation and/or becoming a Global Research Member. 

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Video: The Political Power of Weapons

By Manlio Dinucci, October 05, 2018

Military spending for 2018 is approximately 25 billion Euros, to which must be added other posts of a military character, bringing the total to more than 27 billion. This means more than 70 million Euros per day, which is on the increase because Italy has promised NATO to bring it up to about 100 million per day.

Venezuela and the United States – Contrasting Worldviews at the UN General Assembly

By Nino Pagliccia, October 05, 2018

Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro stated the intention of his presence at the UNGA in order “to bring the truth of a people that struggles”. And as such he spoke frankly, directly and forcefully. His words were explicit and compelling about Venezuela’s principles and the issues affecting Venezuela vis-à-vis the United States. His speech had a lot to say about the U.S. referring to Donald Trump five times by name, and no less than eleven times as the “President of the United States”.

Illegal Sanctions: Pompeo Arranges Mass Starvation of Iranian People

By Kurt Nimmo, October 05, 2018

On Wednesday, Pompeo said the US will terminate a treaty with Iran put into place in 1955, two years after the CIA engineered a coup ousting the democratically elected leader Mohammad Mosaddegh.

Targeted in the Balkans: Russia’s Tiny Ally Republic of Srpska

By Stephen Karganovic, October 05, 2018

USAID and other outfits tied to the US and British governments make no secret of the fact that they are injecting funds into the Republic of Srpska, particularly the media and political groups friendly to their agenda, in order to tip the balance in their favor and detach the Republic of Srpska from “malign Russian influence.”

“China’s Big Hack”: The US Has Its Own Reasons For “Saving the World” From China’s Supposed Big Tech Spying

By Andrew Korybko, October 05, 2018

Bloomberg took over the global news cycle earlier today after it published an extensive report titled “The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies”, which alleges that Chinese intelligence compromised the integrity of the global supply chain on which the country’s economy is dependent by clandestinely inserting hardware spying devices in tens of thousands of motherboards that eventually infected the likes of Amazon, Apple, the CIA, and many others.

The US Presidency of the United Nations Security Council’s Attempt to Demonize Nicaragua

By Carla Stea, October 04, 2018

On September 5, Ambassador Haley called a meeting on Nicaragua, and this meeting was fiercely opposed by numerous members of the Security Council, who stated that Nicaragua is not a threat to international peace and security, which is the mandate of the Security Council, and objected that the US was using the meeting in an attempt to manipulate the Security Council to gain authorization for intervention in the internal affairs of Nicaragua, as the US had done with Libya.

The United States has threatened to launch a preemptive military strike against Russia if it does not halt developing a banned cruise missile system.

Washington claims Moscow is violating a Cold War treaty and developing a ground-launched cruise missile which could empower Russia to launch a nuclear strike on Europe at short notice. Russia has repeatedly denied any such violation.

“At that point, we would be looking at the capability to take out a (Russian) missile that could hit any of our countries,” US ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison said at a news conference on Tuesday in Brussels.

“Counter measures (by the United States) would be to take out the missiles that are in development by Russia in violation of the treaty,” she added. “They are on notice.”

Russia has not so far made any comment on the unprecedented threat issued by the top US official permanently stationed in the NATO headquarters.

In the past, Moscow has said it is ready for talks with Washington to preserve the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and would comply with its rules and regulations if the United States did.

In 2017, the US State Department accused Russia of violating its obligations “not to possess, produce, or flight-test” a ground-launched cruise missile with a range capability of 500 km to 5,500 km (310-3,417 miles).

A US official in the same year said that the United States would consider its own system if Russia continued its covert development of the banned system.

The three-decade-old arms control treaty bans the development of medium-range missiles capable of hitting Europe or Alaska.

“We have been trying to send a message to Russia for several years that we know they are violating the treaty, we have shown Russia the evidence that we have that they are violating the treaty,” Hutchison said.

“We are laying down the markers so that our allies will help us bring Russia to the table,” she added.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said he would raise the issue with his NATO counterparts in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday.

“I cannot forecast where it will go, it is a decision for the president, but I can tell you that both on Capitol Hill and in State Department, there is a lot of concern about this situation and I’ll return with the advice of our allies and engage in that discussion to determine the way ahead,” he told reporters in Paris on Tuesday following his meeting with French Defense Minister Florence Parly.

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Introduction

The leading financial publications have misled their political and investor subscribers of emerging crises and military defeats which have precipitated catastrophic political and economic losses.

The most egregious example is the Financial Times (FT) a publication which is widely read by the business and financial elite.

In this essay we will proceed by outlining the larger political context that sets the framework for the transformation of the FT from a relatively objective purveyor of world news into a propagator of wars and failed economic policies.

In part two we will discuss several case studies which illustrate the dramatic shifts from a prudent business publication to a rabid military advocate, from a well-researched analyst of economic policies to an ideologue of the worst speculative investors.

The decay of the quality of its reportage is accompanied by the bastardization of language.  Concepts are distorted; meanings are emptied of their cognitive sense; and vitriol covers crimes and misdemeanors.

We will conclude by discussing how and why the ‘respectable’ media have affected real world political and market outcomes for citizens and investors.

Political and Economic Context 

The decay of the FT cannot be separated from the global political and economic transformations in which it publishes and circulates.  The demise of the Soviet Union, the pillage of Russia’s economy throughout the 1990’s and the US declaration of a unipolar world were celebrated by the FT as great success stories for ‘western values’.  The US and EU annexation of Eastern Europe, the Balkan and Baltic states led to the deep corruption and decay of journalistic narratives.

The FT willing embraced every violation of the Gorbachev-Reagan agreements and NATO’s march to the borders of Russia. The militarization of US foreign policy was accompanied by the FT conversion to a military interpreter of what it dubbed the ‘transition to democratization’.

The language of the FT reportage combined democratic rhetoric with an embrace of military practices.  This became the hallmark for all future coverage and editorializing.  The FT military policies extended from Europe to the Middle East, the Caucasus, North Africa and the Gulf States.

The FT joined the yellow press in describing military power grabs, including the overthrow of political adversaries, as ‘transitions to democracy’ and the creation of ‘open societies’.

The unanimity of the liberal and rightwing publications in support of western imperialism precluded any understanding of the enormous political and economic costs which ensued.

To protect itself from its most egregious ideological foibles, the FT included ‘insurance clauses’, to cover for catastrophic authoritarian outcomes. For example they advised western political leaders to promote military interventions and, by the way ,with ‘democratic transitions’.

When it became evident that US-NATO wars did not lead to happy endings but turned into prolonged insurgencies, or when western clients turned into corrupt tyrants, the FT claimed that this was not what they meant by a ‘democratic transition’ – this was not their version of  “free markets and free votes”.

The Financial and Military Times (?)

The militarization of the FT led it to embrace a military definition of political reality.  The human and especially the economic costs, the lost markets, investments and resources were subordinated to the military outcomes of ‘wars against terrorism’ and ‘Russian authoritarianism’.

Each and every Financial Times report and editorial promoting western military interventions over the past two decades resulted in large scale, long-term economic losses.

The FT supported the US war against Iraq which led to the ending of important billion-dollar oil deals (oil for food) signed off with President Saddam Hussein.  The subsequent US occupation precluded a subsequent revival of the oil industry.  The US appointed client regime pillaged the multi-billion dollar reconstruction programs – costing US and EU taxpayers and depriving Iraqis of basic necessities.

Insurgent militias, including ISIS, gained control over half the country and precluded the entry of any new investment.  

The US and FT backed western client regimes organized rigged election outcomes and looted the treasury of oil revenues, arousing the wrath of the population lacking electricity, potable water and other necessities.

The FT backed war, occupation and control of Iraq was an unmitigated disaster.

Similar outcomes resulted from the FT support for the invasions of Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Yemen. 

For example the FT propagated the story that the Taliban was providing sanctuary for bin Laden’s planning the terror assault in the US (9/11).

In fact, the Afghan leaders offered to turn over the US suspect, if they were offered evidence.  Washington rejected the offer, invaded Kabul and the FT joined the chorus backing the so-called ‘war on terrorism which led to an unending, one trillion-dollar war.

Libya signed off to a disarmament and multi-billion-dollar oil agreement with the US in 2003.  In 2011 the US and its western allies bombed Libya, murdered Gadhafi, totally destroyed civil society and undermined the US/EU oil agreements.  The FT backed the war but decried the outcome.  The FT followed a familiar ploy; promoting military invasions and then, after the fact, criticizing the economic disasters.

The FT led the media charge in favor of the western proxy war against Syria:  savaging the legitimate government and praising the mercenary terrorists, which it dubbed ‘rebels’ and ‘militants’ – dubious terms for US and EU financed operatives.

Millions of refugees, resulting from western wars in Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq fled to Europe seeking refuge.  FT described the imperial holocaust – the ‘dilemmas of Europe’.  The FT bemoaned the rise of the anti-immigrant parties but never assumed responsibility for the wars which forced the millions to flee to the west.

The FT columnists prattle about ‘western values’ and criticize the ‘far right’ but abjured any sustained attack of Israel’s daily massacre of Palestinians.  Instead readers get a dose of weekly puff pieces concerning Israeli politics with nary a mention of Zionist power over US foreign policy.

FT: Sanctions, Plots and Crises:  Russia, China and Iran

The FT like all the prestigious media propaganda sheets have taken a leading role in US conflicts with Russia, China and Iran.

For years the scribes in the FT stable have discovered (or invented) “crises” in China’s economy- always claiming it was on the verge of an economic doomsday.  Contrary to the FT, China has been growing at four times the rate of the US; ignoring the critics it built a global infrastructure system instead of the multi-wars backed by the journalist war mongers. 

When China innovates, the FT harps on techno theft – ignoring US economic decline.

The FT boasts it writes “without fear and without favor” which translates into serving imperial powers voluntarily.

When the US sanctions China we are told by the FT that Washington is correcting China’s abusive statist policies.  Because China does not impose military outposts to match the eight hundred US military bases on five continents, the FT invents what it calls ‘debt colonialism” apparently describing Beijing’s financing large-scale productive infrastructure projects.

The perverse logic of the FT extends to Russia. To cover up for the US financed coup in the Ukraine it converted a separatist movement in Donbass into a Russian land grab. In the same way a free election in Crimea is described as Kremlin annexation.  

The FT provides the language of the declining western imperial empires.

Independent, democratic Russia, free of western pillage and electoral meddling is labelled “authoritarian”; social welfare which serves to decrease inequality is denigrated as ‘populism’ —linked to the far right.  Without evidence or independent verification, the FT fabricates Putinesque poison plots in England and Bashar Assad poison gas conspiracies in Syria. 

Conclusion

The FT has chosen to adopt a military line which has led to a long series of financially disastrous wars. The FT support of sanctions has cost oil companies billions of dollars, euros and pounds. The sanctions, it backed, have broken global networks.

The FT has adopted ideological postures that threaten supply chains between the West, China, Iran and Russia.  The FT writes in many tongues but it has failed to inform its financial readers that it bears some responsibility for markets which are under siege.

There is unquestionably a need to overhaul the name and purpose of the FT.  One journalist who was close to the editors suggests it should be called the “Military Times” – the voice of a declining empire.

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Award winning author Prof. James Petras is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

There is a very real possibility that Donald Trump will start a new war in the Middle East. If that’s not his intention, then his administration is doing a damn good job of faking it.

In July, in a late-night tweet from the White House, President Trump threatened Iran, in all caps, with

“CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED.”

Since that rant, Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seem to be taking pages from the Iraq War playbook. They are cherry-picking intelligence and inflating threats. They’re making specious connections between Iran and terrorists, including al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. And they’re ratcheting up their rhetoric.

Trump himself used his speech before the United Nations on September 25 to, as Mitchell Plitnick noted on this site, “build the case for aggression against Iran and even to add more obstacles to a peaceful resolution of tensions between the United States and the Islamic Republic.” These tensions are about to get worse. In early November, the administration will hit countries doing business with Iran with a new round of harsh sanctions. The likelihood that this pressure will explode into military conflict is rising dramatically.

Counterproductive Strategy

War with Iran would be a painful and pointless disaster. It would make the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan look like warm-up acts. It would cost trillions of dollars, kill tens of thousands of people and destabilize an already volatile region. It would trigger a global recession as oil prices spike and uncertainty collapses markets. It would also drive the spread of nuclear weapons and increase the risk of nuclear weapons use.

War would not in any conceivable scenario lead to the establishment of a popular, democratic, and pro-Western government in Iran. With war would come chaos. If the current regime were to fall, the power would pass not to demonstrators in the streets but to those with the guns—the Revolutionary Guard. In all likelihood, war would bring to power a more virulent, more dictatorial, and more anti-American regime than the current one in Iran.

“The Administration’s emphasis on coercion and threats of military action without diplomatic engagement provides no exit ramp to avoid collision,” wrote 53 top national security former officials and experts in an open statement on September 23 assessing the Trump administration’s Iran strategy.

I was proud to join Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Ambassador Ryan Crocker, Ambassador Carla Hills, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, President of the National Defense University General Robert Gard, and the others in this bipartisan appeal to reverse course before these reckless policies drag us into war.

Our warnings fell on deaf ears. The very next day, September 24, National Security Advisor John Bolton dramatically expanded the mission of U.S. combat forces in Syria, announcing that they would stay in that war-torn nation “as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders and that includes Iranian proxies and militias.” This approach risks bringing the 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria into direct conflict with the estimated 10,000 Revolutionary Guard forces there.

On October 3, Bolton commandeered the White House podium to announce that the administration is cutting diplomatic ties even further. The United States has terminated, he said, the 1955 Treaty of Amity—a basic diplomatic accord that regulates economic and consular ties between America and Iran—blaming Iran directly for attacks on a now-closed U.S. consulate in Basra, Iraq even though an Iranian consulate was similarly attacked by an angry crowd. He called Iran a “rogue regime” and “the central banker for international terrorism” and countered reporters’ concerns that the United States was closing paths for diplomatic resolution with the assertion that U.S. actions “were closing doors that shouldn’t be opened.” He also claimed without evidence that “Iran is increasing its nuclear program.”

This is all part of a steady, coordinated drumbeat of anti-Iran activities. It began with the U.S. violation and withdrawal from the successful anti-nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. This agreement reduced Iran’s nuclear program to a fraction of its former size, froze it for at least 15 years, and put it under the most intrusive inspection regime ever negotiated. But Bolton saw it as an obstacle to a regime-change strategy. Trump, obsessed with demolishing all that President Barack Obama achieved, was only too happy to raze the agreement.

This created a door that Bolton did want opened. The day Trump abandoned the Iran anti-nuclear accord, Bolton signaled that “what comes next” would be “a much broader resolution of the malign behavior that we see from Iran.” He quickly established an Iran Action Group to coordinate activities across agencies. The operation appears modeled on the White House Iraq Group created by the Bush administration to sell the public on the invasion of Iraq.

It is not clear if Trump actually wants a war, but Bolton and Pompeo certainly seem to. They were crystal clear speaking before an Iran hate group summit sponsored by United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) on September 25 in New York. Bolton threatened, “Let my message today be clear: We are watching, and we will come after you…There will indeed be hell to pay.”

Pompeo piled on, saying:

Has Iran lived together with other nations in peace? Has it been a good neighbor? Has it contributed to the maintenance of international peace and security by fully abiding by the decisions of the Security Council? Let’s take a little walk around the world, and you’ll see the answer is a deafening “no.”

Iran in Comparison

Iran is guilty of many atrocities. The government oppresses women, fills its jails with political prisoners, and has one of the highest execution rates in the world.

Such behavior is not unique to Iran, however. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Trump’s strongest supporters in the region and Jared Kushner’s business partners, also oppress their people and have terrible human rights records. One outrageous example is the war the two are waging against Yemen that has led to the death of at least 16,200 Yemeni civilians and the starvation of 8.4 million. The leaders of these countries also have jails full of political prisoners, impose sharia law on their people, and much more. Americans would not enjoy living under the rule of either Saudi, UAE or Iranian governments.

American policy should be to change the behavior of these autocratic regimes, not to wage war on them.

Even if one agrees with the president’s objectives, the Bolton-Trump-Pompeo strategy won’t achieve them. That is why I joined with the other national security leaders in our plea for a more effective policy:

Applying pressure and unilateral sanctions without viable diplomatic options is highly unlikely to produce the desired outcome and could lead to a more dangerous, destructive and enduring regional conflict with Iran. A more balanced strategy that couples pressure with effective diplomacy, coming not just from the U.S. but from around the world, will be necessary to achieve U.S. objectives while showing an Iran without nuclear weapons a way forward to integration into the region.

If reasoned statements won’t work, maybe congressional action will. On September 26, eight senators, lead by Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) introduced legislation to prevent Trump from launching an unconstitutional war with Iran. “The administration’s approach to Iran is ripped straight out of the same playbook that launched us into the failed invasion of Iraq, and Congress needs to assert its constitutional authority and halt the march to war,” said Udall, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) added:

With the White House and Iran seemingly on a collision course, every effort must be made to avoid war. We should be ratcheting down the rhetoric, opening up channels of communication, and reducing the chance of igniting another armed conflict in a region where the consequences could be catastrophic.

These senators deserve widespread public support. Just like the Kavanaugh nomination, the administration is trying to push through its Iran policy before anyone can stop it. It’s urgent to do everything possible to slow down this war wagon.

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Joe Cirincione is the president of Ploughshares Fund and the author of Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World Before It Is Too Late. 

Featured image is from Shutterstock.

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

Michel Chossudovsky

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

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Year: 2015

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“By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest,  adversed  to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community” – James Madison, Federalist Paper 10 

Despite the historic stakes of the ram-through appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States of a serial liar and alleged early rapist, who loudly denounces his Senate questioners as a “left-wing conspiracy” – sniffing all the time as his habit – there has been no legal analysis of his abetted crimes of persistent false statements and declarations, and factional subversion of the rule of law and the US Constitution itself. 

As law and moral philosophy professors writing just as the White-House-counsel controlled FBI ‘investigation’ is hidden under cover from citizens and the press, we are moved by duty to explain what has so far been lost in media melodrama, political cover-up at the highest levels, he-says-she-says reductions, and the politics of effectively usurping the rule of law in the United States.

As a branch of government it is unique from the other two branches of government – the legislative. and executive branches – in that the supreme Justices are arbiters of what is allowed or prevented by the US Constitution as  the ultimate source of the rule of law in America.  

All life-long appointees of the Supreme Court of the United States have a duty to exercise this supreme power, granted them by the people of the United States to protect and defend the rights of its citizens under the Constitution. As such, they are obliged to demonstrate legal impartiality and moral competence at the highest level in moral practise and public conduct.  

Supreme Court appointment of Kavanaugh resembles the operations of a hardened criminal gang

Yet what if the entire process is led by a long train of proved false declarations, persistently intentional misdirection, and perjury under oath with no restraint?

What if in both candidate for office and his Senate and White-House-counsel managers fix an obstruction of truth and justice and refusal to answer questions throughout, and level non-stop attacks and slanderous accusations of anyone stepping in the way? What if all the while intimidation of all resistance up to threats of death against the testifying victim rise in the background and the US President himself reverses his endorsement of the credibility of the witness against Kavanaugh and uses his bully pulpit to mock her in a televised public speech at a political rally? What if the FBI itself is used as a covertly operating instrument whose report is manipulated and made secret to the public and the press? 

 What if in all evident respects the process and appointment to the highest judicial office of the land operates like a criminal conspiracy with a vice-grip on all three branches of government – in the words of Madison, the very definition of ‘tyranny’ – with now the Supreme Court itself fixed to ignore and override basic issues of justice and morality for the next generation in a situation of cumulatively unprecedented social and environmental crisis?  

We have already seen the unraveling of even the need to appear objective, disinterested, above the political mob mentality and thuggery of this ruling faction in one long train of abuses, false statements and lying with impunity under oath. The reckless and grasping nature of the Kavanaugh appointment, in short, shows an unbound faction of power treating its position of tyrannical rule as its personal property and right.  

Step-by-step overthrow of the rule of law 

What has happened in Washington DC with the Kavanaugh hearings is of grave concern to anyone who believes in the democratic rule of law over a moneyed faction fixing all legal process. What this hearing and FBI investigation now controlled by the White House Counsel and ranking Senate Republicans shows is a series of non-stop false statements and actions that attack the very heart of our system of laws and poison the soul of the nation. 

In our considered legal and moral opinion, Kavanaugh’s continual false declarations and prevarications are grounds for impeachment in even his current position of Federal Court Judge.  In our judgement, with which many will agree, Trump’s candidate Kavanaugh has incontestably demonstrated unfitness for any judicial or public office.  His speech and actions under oath, to the US Senate, is enough to be disbarred and lose his law license.  

Kavanaugh has been so continuously coached from the highest offices of the land to act above the law in every regard that this corrupt appointment reaches into the depths of a ‘tyrannical faction’ now in control of our federal government and institutions. It has so overreached in lawless and naked abuse of power that only keeping the public in ignorance can allow it to continue into the mid-term elections this November – the acid test of US democracy which is now before us.   

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Matthew Stanton is a long practising Chicago attorney  and law professor, and John McMurtry is a moral philosopher and author whose work has been translated across the world. 

Since 2004, the US government has attacked thousands of targets in tribal areas along the Afghan border in Northwest Pakistan. It used unmanned aerial vehicles operated by the US Air Force under the operational control of the CIA’s Special Activities Division. Attacks increased substantially under Bush’s successor, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama.

A non-violent campaign in Pakistan against drone strikes by the Tehreek-e-Insaf party, led by Imran Khan, involved blocking the route to pressure Washington to stop targeting armed groups in the region bordering Afghanistan. NATO supply containers to and from Afghanistan via Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were stopped at border points until US drone attacks stop and a formal apology was later given to the government for the killings in Pakistan. It ended in 2014.

Imran Khan attacks those countrymen who support NATO’s war on the Taliban:

*“They have absolutely no idea. They sit in the drawing room. They read the English-language newspapers, which bear very little resemblance to what is real Pakistan. I promise you, they would be lost in our villages . . .

Khan believes the US are responsible for the rise of the Pakistani Taliban, allies of the Afghan Taliban.

“We ended up sending our army into our tribal areas at the request of the Americans. And our areas got devastated. We had, more or less, a civil-war situation there. The aid was minuscule compared to the loss of billions and billions and the blood our country spilt.”

A leaked document confirmed that 81 civilians including children died in this 2006 CIA drone strike

He adheres to the Sufi tradition of egalitarianism and the acceptance of all creeds and beliefs in society and believes:

“All terrorism is politics. All this nonsense of religious terrorism. There’s no such thing as religious terrorism. It’s politics behind it. The political injustice. Perceived injustice is why people pick up arms — throughout history.”

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Note

*Direct quotations from a hostile account in the Times

Images in this article are from Drone Warfare.

If Bloomberg’s bombshell report is to be believed, then the US just blew the whistle on what might be the world’s most expansive espionage operation of all time, but America is exposing China at this specific moment three years after its hardware spying devices might have infected tens of thousands of motherboards in some of the main Big Tech companies because it hopes to leverage this jaw-dropping revelation to its favor in the global “trade war”.

Bloomberg took over the global news cycle earlier today after it published an extensive report titled “The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies”, which alleges that Chinese intelligence compromised the integrity of the global supply chain on which the country’s economy is dependent by clandestinely inserting hardware spying devices in tens of thousands of motherboards that eventually infected the likes of Amazon, Apple, the CIA, and many others. The piece deserves to be read in full in order to grasp the magnitude of what China’s being accused of and ultimately draw one’s own conclusions about the matter, but while it can’t be known for sure whether everything contained within it is true or not, it’s unquestionable that its publication at this point in time serves a tacit strategic purpose for the Trump Administration in its global “trade war” with the People’s Republic.

Uncovering The Conspiracy

Before getting to that, a concise summary of the report is in order. Basically, Bloomberg alleges that American intelligence became aware of what might be the world’s most expansive espionage operation in history sometime in 2015, after which it spent the next three years tracing the source of these hardware plants and uncovering the entire network. The outlet asserts that China inserted these miniscule rice grain-sized devices inside of motherboards being built in the country by Supermicro’s subcontractors, which in turn provided equipment to a company called Elemental that then sold its wares to Big Tech companies and some of the US’ military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”). Throughout the course of their investigation, the US security services secretly intercepted communications and relied on informants within the same supply chain that China had allegedly compromised, therefore compromising it yet again in its own way.

Screengrab from Bloomberg

It should have already been taken for granted that intelligence agencies were operating within the global supply chain, but the scale at which China supposedly was is unprecedented in terms of anything that had hitherto been made public, though one might cynically imagine that “another Snowden” might one day reveal much worse activity carried out by the US. That’s only in the realm of speculation for now, though, and not even the US’ enemies have accused it of doing what America is now saying that China is guilty of, though it’s probably not for a lack of trying. To be blunt, the US doesn’t have the opportunity to do what it says China did because it no longer builds much of the world’s technological products like the People’s Republic does, which means that the entire world is hypothetically at risk of being spied upon through these secret motherboard hardware devices.

The World’s Most Wide-Ranging Espionage Operation?

According to the report, Chinese intelligence wasn’t doing this to check out people’s iCloud pictures but to actively penetrate the world’s most influential Big Tech companies in order to steal their trade secrets. This narrative aligns with what the Trump Administration had previously warned about when it came to China’s 2025 policy of becoming the world’s economic superpower through its focus on high-tech industrial gains. In essence, the actual conspiracy being asserted is that China took advantage of its role as the “world’s factory” to plant spying devices inside of the hardware that some companies within its territory produced so as to informally advance a “Build-Operate-Transfer” (BOT) model whereby foreign firms built factories inside of the country, operated them as they liked, but unknowingly had their trade secrets transferred to China. According to this interpretation, China’s 2025 policy would be achieved by stolen intellectual property.

It’s impossible for anyone to independently corroborate this theory, but the very fact that Bloomberg’s piece was released at this particular point in time points to this being a “weaponized leak” by the US “deep state”. The report itself even says that the Pentagon invited a handful of Big Tech executives to a low-key gathering where they were encouraged to pursue commercial products for detecting hardware implants, which if true is proof of the close relationship between the “deep state” and the private sector that wouldn’t inconceivably also extend to the mass media too (as the coordinated attacks against Trump by the faction of the “deep state” opposed to him strongly suggest). Taken to its relevant conclusion, the same “deep state” that supposedly investigated this wide-ranging Chinese espionage operation might have ‘encouraged’ Bloomberg to run this piece after feeding it the relevant information needed to put it all together.

Mixing The Trade War With Infowar

That shouldn’t be taken to mean that everything contained within it is false, but just that the US has a self-interested reason for possibly “saving the world” from China’s Big Tech spying (however hypocritical it is to do so given its own extensive espionage operations) because of the grand strategic economic impact that it could have on the “trade war” dimension of the New Cold War between these two Great Powers. The innuendo is that none of the tech companies producing their wares in China are safe from this menace, thus meaning that the only “responsible solution” is for them to either re-shore their operations back to the US or whatever their home country may be or re-offshore them to any other cheap-labor country besides China. In parallel, there’s also a hint that China’s rapid economic rise might have been the result of earlier undetected espionage operations over the decades.

That second-mentioned narrative suggests that there’s nothing inherent in China’s communist economic model that predisposed it to success, which furthers one of Trump’s main ideological points that socialism supposedly always fails wherever it’s attempted. In this instance, China’s unofficial adaptation of what mostly relates to “state capitalism” in the production sense but might have “socialist” applications in the socio-cultural one combined with its unprecedentedly massive espionage operations over the years to build this Great Power behemoth, implying that the country is actually just a “paper tiger” that’s much more vulnerable to the US’ tariffs and the multilateral solution that America would prefer in leading a global exodus from China than many observers might have initially thought. That’s a very powerful weapon in the US’ infowar armory and one that’s sure to be used repeatedly in the coming months as Washington seeks to force Beijing into agreeing to new trade terms.

Concluding Thoughts

It evidently took three years for the US to uncover, trace, and neutralize what Bloomberg claims was China’s unrivalled Big Tech espionage operation before it felt safe enough having its “deep state” “leak” the details to the public as part of its Hybrid War on China. The strategic purpose is to malign the reputation of the People’s Republic by making it seem like Chinese intelligence is clandestinely spying on every company in the country in order to steal their trade secrets and then use them to crush its foreign “partners” through the China 2025 strategy of high-tech development. Not only that, but anyone who believes that this narrative is plausible would also naturally suspect China of doing the same with the New Silk Road, thus dealing a double whammy to the economic underpinnings of the People’s Republic if it contributes to a large-scale exodus of factories out of the country and a slowing down of the Silk Road.

The overarching objective that the US wants to attain is to cripple the economic structures on which China depends – namely its role as the “world’s factory” at the heart of the global supply chain and its export-driven economic growth through the Silk Road – so as to facilitate the clinching of a new trade deal with it that works out heavily to America’s favor. This is seen by the Trump Administration as being the easiest and fastest way to offset the paradigm-changing geostrategic challenges of the New Cold War that threaten to otherwise eventually unravel its unipolar hegemony. It’s therefore imperative for the US to press home the talking points mentioned in this analysis in order to pressure some of the Big Tech companies to take the lead in this hoped-for exodus, potentially coercing them under the threat of forthcoming sanctions imposed upon Chinese-built high-tech wares for national security reasons.

Should it succeed with this strategy, and it’ll admittedly take time to play out even in any substantial part because of how deeply embedded the world’s tech industry is in the Chinese-centric global supply chain, then the US might even be able to put an end to the New Cold War a lot sooner and peacefully than anyone could have thought. That said, it would be resolved in America’s supreme favor in this scenario because of how swiftly it could bring China to its knees, though it needs to be mentioned that this is simply the US’ plan and doesn’t mean that it’ll actually happen. In any case, what’s important to focus on is the intent that the US’ “deep state” had in obviously playing a role in the release of Bloomberg’s report at this exact moment, and whichever way naysayers or supporters want to spin it, this undoubtedly had to do with winning the “trade war”.

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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

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

According to the Toronto Star, the reason why the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) is in such a lackluster state is because of “politics trumping sound transit planning.” Wouldn’t it be great, the Globe and Mail asks us to wonder, “if we could get politics out of public transit?” Yes, answers the Torontoist, it really would be great: “Politics should be removed from transit planning.” So, follows up the activist group Scarborough Transit Action, “How do we get the politics out of transit planning?”

The sway of politics in transit policy is blamed for incentivizing vote-chasing behavior. Instead of relying on expertise and evidence to arrive at decisions about transit infrastructure, those who occupy Toronto City Hall and Queen’s Park base their decisions on the need to attract voters. This is why everyone from the Ford brothers to Kathleen Wynne and John Tory eventually got behind the $3.35-billion 1-stop Scarborough subway. Even the federal government agreed to help fund the wasteful project.

It’s no surprise, then, that transit activists are being won over to the idea that politics should be sidelined in transit policy discussions. Many have come to believe that if only transit experts were allowed to do their jobs without interference from vote-seeking politicians, an evidence-driven transit policy could be adopted and Toronto could build the kind of world-class transit system it deserves.

Evidence-Based Decision Making

Attractive as such an outlook may seem, transit activists should be wary of buying into it. The truth is we need more politics, not less, in order to address Toronto’s transit woes. That political elites can toy with transit policy for the purpose of vote-seeking is not an indication that the issue of public transit is burdened by an excess of politics. Rather, it shows that there is a lack of substantive political engagement with the issue, including a lack of an informed citizenry that has the opportunity and capacity to participate in transit policy discussions.

Far from being a hindrance to evidence-based decision making, politics is the best means to achieve it. A lively political sphere can bring together expert advice, data and scientific projections, as well as discussion on the needs and experiences of residents to arrive at informed transit policy decisions. This is, anyhow, what historical experience shows.

Consider, for instance, the case of 1970s Bologna, a city in northern Italy, where substantive political engagement helped to bring about radical reforms to public transit. Over the course of a two-year period, neighborhood “traffic committees” brought together residents, transit experts, and political representatives to design and implement reforms to the city’s public transit:

“In spring 1972, hardly an evening passed without debates in some assembly hall somewhere between workers and students, shop owners and housewives, on Bologna’s traffic future… Scientific surveys of the volume of traffic in the city and of the behavior of the people involved in traffic, measuring of noise levels and air pollution played an equal part in the process.”¹

The result was the creation of an urban environment far less dominated by the private automobile, meaning there was less congestion, less pollution, and fewer accidents. On streets where children played, car traffic was limited or banned completely. What’s more, a partially-free, wide-reaching public transit network was put into place.

In Bologna, it was openly recognized that “every traffic question has a political side too.”² Transit issues were seen as inherently political not only in the sense that they required active public engagement, but also because transit policy was seen as a terrain of political contestation. It was understood, for instance, that car manufacturers had an interest in derailing the creation of a well-functioning public transit system.

No Politics-Free Zone

In Toronto, those who say that politics has no place in transit planning seem to have dreamed away the contested nature of transit policy. If we’re serious about reforming transit in this city, we don’t have the luxury to engage in this sort of dreaming. There’s no politics-free zone where beautiful, picturesque, evidence-based transit policy roams and thrives.

To believe that there is means falling for a trap the political elite have set for us. According to them, there is such a politics-free zone: it’s called the market. The impoverishment of the political sphere in Toronto is such that even our politicians want to pretend that they’d rather not engage in politics. And selling off our transit assets and services to profiteering firms is, apparently, the most apolitical of all possible things.

Rather than trying to depoliticize transit policy, transit activists have to push for the opposite. We have to take up the task of building an active political sphere in which rational discussion can take place and evidence-based decision making can happen. This means that transit activists have to become organizers. We have to build institutions that allow regular people to engage with transit issues and develop their capacities. And, ultimately, we have to organize to win power in City Hall and Queen’s Park – because if the political elite would rather not engage in politics, we’ll have to do it instead.

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1. Max Jaggi, “Bologna’s Traffic Policy: ‘Free Fares Were Just the Beginning,’” in Free Public Transit: And Why We Don’t Pay To Ride Elevators, ed. Judith Dellheim and Jason Prince (Montréal: Black Rose Books, 2018), 32-33.

2. Mauro Formaglini, Bologna’s Traffic Counsellor, quoted in Ibid., 31.

All images in this article are from the author.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to sign an order extending the secrecy of the information stored in the security services’ archives from 70 to 90 years, including the Deir Yassin massacre carried out by Zionist gangs in the Nakba.

This came at the request of security agencies and other bodies to extend the confidentiality of this information to prevent the publication of part of the information during the current year.

US Ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison is a highly placed diplomat. Her words, whatever they may be, are official, which includes the ultimatums and threats that have become the language increasingly used by US diplomats to implement the policy of forceful persuasion or coercive diplomacy. Bellicose declarations are being used this way as a tool.

On Oct. 2, the ambassador proved it again. According to her statement, Washington is ready to use force against Russia. Actually, she presented an ultimatum — Moscow must stop the development of a missile that the US believes to be in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty). If not, the American military will destroy it before the weapon becomes operational.

“At that point, we would be looking at the capability to take out a (Russian) missile that could hit any of our countries,” Hutchison stated at a news conference. “Counter measures (by the United States) would be to take out the missiles that are in development by Russia in violation of the treaty,” she added. “They are on notice.”

This is nothing other than a direct warning of a preemptive strike.

It is true that compliance with the INF Treaty is a controversial issue. Moscow has many times claimed that Washington was in violation, and that position has been substantiated. For instance, the Aegis Ashore system, which has been installed in Romania and is to be deployed in Poland, uses the Mk-41 launcher that is capable of firing intermediate-range Tomahawk missiles. This is a flagrant breach of the INF Treaty. The fact is undeniable. The US accuses Moscow of possessing and testing a ground-launched cruise missile with a range capability of 500 km to 5,500 km (310-3,417 miles), but there has never been any proof to support this claim. Russia has consistently denied the charges. It says the missile in question — the 9M729 — is in compliance with the provisions of the treaty and has never been upgraded or tested for the prohibited range.

This is a reasonable assertion. After all, there is no way to prevent such tests from being detected and monitored by satellites. The US could raise the issue with the Special Verification Commission (SVC). Instead it threatens to start a war.

This is momentous, because the ambassador’s words were not a botched statement or an offhand comment, but in fact followed another “warning” made by a US official recently.

Speaking on Sept. 28 at an industry event in Pennsylvania hosted by the Consumer Energy Alliance, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke suggested that the US Navy could be used to impose a blockade to restrict Russia’s energy trade.

“The United States has that ability, with our Navy, to make sure the sea lanes are open, and, if necessary, to blockade… to make sure that their energy does not go to market,” he said, revealing that this was an option.

The Interior Department has nothing to do with foreign policy, but Mr. Zinke is a high-ranking member of the administration.

Two bellicose statements made one after another and both are just short of a declaration of war! A blockade is a hostile act that would be countered with force, and the US is well aware of this. It is also well aware that Russia will defend itself. It’s important to note that no comments or explanations have come from the White House. This confirms the fact that what the officials have said reflects the administration’s position.

This brings to mind the fact that the Interdiction and Modernization of Sanctions Act has passed the House of Representatives. The legislation includes the authority to inspect Chinese, Iranian, Syrian, and Russian ports. Among the latter are the ports of Nakhodka, Vanino, and Vladivostok. This is an openly hostile act and a blatant violation of international law. If the bill becomes law, it will likely  start a war with the US acting as the aggressor.

Trident Juncture, the largest training event held by NATO since 2002, kicks off on October 25 and will last until November 7, 2018. It will take place in close proximity to Russia’s borders. Russia’s Vostok-2018 exercise in September was the biggest seen there since the Cold War, but it was held in the Far East, far from NATO’s area of responsibility. It’s NATO, not Russia, who is escalating the already tense situation in Europe by holding such a large-scale exercise adjacent to Russia’s borders.

Russia is not the only country to be threatened with war. Attempts are being made to intimidate China as well. Tensions are running high in the South China Sea, where US and Chinese ships had an “unsafe” interaction with each other on Sept. 30. A collision was barely avoided. As a result, US Defense Secretary James Mattis had to suspend his visit to China when it was called off by Beijing. The security dialog between the two nations has stalled.

Perhaps the only thing left to do is to give up on having a normal relationship with the United States. Ambassador Hutchison’s statement is sending a clear message of: “forget about diplomacy, we’re back to the Stone Age,” with Washington leading the way. This is the new reality, so get used to it. Just shrug it off and try to live without the US, but be vigilant and ready to repel an attack that is very likely on the way.

It should be noted that Moscow has never threatened the US with military action. It has never deployed military forces in proximity to America’s shores. It did not start all those unending sanctions and trade wars. When exposing the US violations of international agreements, it has never claimed that the use of force was an option. It has tried hard to revive the dialog on arms control and to coordinate operations in Syria. But it has also had to issue warnings about consequences, in case it were provoked to respond to a hostile act. If the worst happens, we’ll all know who is to blame. Washington bears the responsibility for pushing the world to the brink of war.

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Peter Korzun is an expert on wars and conflicts.

Featured image is from the author.

The Republic of Srpska, one of the two constituent self-governing regions of the dysfunctional state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, will hold elections on October 7. The electoral process will take place under the long shadow of Western political manipulation designed to influence its outcome. On the one hand, there is the unsolved murder back in March of this year of a politically insignificant young man, causing widespread agitation with vague and, so far, totally unsubstantiated allegations of government complicity in the crime.

On the other, credible claims have been made that Republic of Srpska’s main opposition coalition alliance is being funded by the US and UK. Both developments, of course, are right out of Gene Sharp’s manual of political warfare by other means, known as “orange revolution”.

The mysterious demise of 21-year-old David Dragičević, a student with no apparent political links, which has been clumsily mishandled by investigative authorities, has been used for months as a convenient rallying cry by anti-government activists. As for the under-the-table financial and logistical support extended to opponents of Russia-friendly President Milorad Dodik, these are not just casual political claims disseminated for campaign purposes. 

Image on the right: President Milorad Dodik and President Vladimir Putin

USAID and other outfits tied to the US and British governments make no secret of the fact that they are injecting funds into the Republic of Srpska, particularly the media and political groups friendly to their agenda, in order to tip the balance in their favor and detach the Republic of Srpska from “malign Russian influence.” Rules of electoral non-interference boldly asserted for the benefit of hegemonic countries apparently do not apply to the behavior of the hegemons. As a result, the Republic of Srpska is in the throes of the second round of the color revolution which was originally attempted and failed four years ago at the time of the previous general elections in 2014. 

The threat is acute, not just to Dodik’s leadership but more importantly to the existence of the Republic of Srpska. Western minions are being funded and covertly supported because they have agreed to revise the 1995 Dayton agreement and to accept the concept of a unitary Bosnian state that would eliminate or eviscerate the Republic of Srpska. They have also agreed to drop Srpska’s veto to NATO membership for Bosnia. 

But while Dodik’s position on these key issues is sound, his rule has been undermined significantly by the corruption and incompetence of his government. These shortcomings have given the pro-NATO and anti-Russian opposition legitimate issues on which to focus and draw votes that they would otherwise not get based on the flawed fundamental policies that they are hired to advocate. Unfortunately, as has happened so many times in the past, the Serbian people do not have a real choice between good and bad options, but mostly between different shades of bad.

New and dynamic political forces, such as the “Successful Srpska” movement, for instance, which consists of young, patriotic professionals untainted by corruption or scandal, are short on resources and media coverage. It is not a level playing field. Fresh, honest faces are at a disadvantage compared to the corrupt political dinosaurs from the past who have nothing to offer but empty rhetoric and, in some cases, also extremely bad policies.

Bosnia is a failed state. It was set up as an international protectorate on permanent artificial respiration and that is what it has been ever since the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement in 1995, ending the civil war. President Dodik has hinted at organizing an independence referendum or joining Serbia if Kosovo’s illegal secession from Serbia receives international recognition. But the real question is what all three constituent communities in Bosnia, not just the Serbs, would do after Bosnia’s inevitable demise.

There is scant evidence that Dodik ever actually gave serious thought to secession. Rather, he has been using that card for political and electoral leverage, and with considerable effect on the domestic level. With regard to greater autonomy for the Republic of Srpska, to be precise, what he has urged was going back to the confederal arrangement set up in Dayton, which provides for an extremely limited central government and broad and virtually unfettered self-government for the Republic of Srpska as well as the other entity. It is not a question of pleading for a devolution of powers but of reinstituting the original system where most powers were vested in the constituent units, or entities as they are called, to begin with. It mirrored the status of the states in relation to the Federal Government under the original US Constitution, but that system was continuously diluted over the years by imperious decisions of dubious legality issued by EU’s viceroy in Bosnia, known as the High Representative. The single-minded thrust of those imposed decisions was to derogate the self-governing powers of the Republic of Srpska and centralize decision-making in the capital of Sarajevo. 

While there is no enthusiasm among Serbs for remaining part of the Bosnian state on any terms, for the moment the restoration of the loose confederal arrangement originally envisaged and agreed upon in Dayton would be regarded by them as satisfactory. Such a system would leave them with an ample degree of self-government in their own virtually independent state. They could largely ignore the unpalatable government in Sarajevo, and that government would have little effective control over them. Until the geopolitical balance of forces in the world changes sufficiently to allow more fundamental restructuring, such a system would be just fine with the Serbs. 

But, of course, it is a concept that clashes with the designs of NATO, EU, and the major players in the Western alliance. That is why they will have none of it and are staging another color revolution to install in the Republic of Srpska their own bought and paid for set of collaborators, committed to do their bidding.

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Stephen Karganovic is President of the Srebrenica Historical Project. 

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general’s office released a report this week detailing the inhumane conditions prevailing at the Adelanto Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Processing Center in California’s Mojave Desert. The report was the product of an unannounced visit by inspectors this past May, nearly one year after three deaths occurred within a three-month period at the facility.

The report outlined numerous horrors, including denial of medical and dental care, the use of punishing confinement prior to conclusive rulings on allegations of inmate infractions and the terrible revelation that nooses fashioned out of bed sheets hung in at least 15 of the 20 inspected cells.

Inspectors were met with lackadaisical responses from guards,

“When we [DHS] asked two contract guards who oversaw the housing units why they did not remove the bed sheets, they echoed it was not a high priority,” the report states.

The report noted that the guard escorting the inspectors through the facility had initially attempted to remove the nooses, but eventually stopped upon realizing how many there were.

At least seven suicide attempts were reported at the Adelanto Center from December 2016 to October 2017, but the number is believed to be far higher. Guards told investigators “the nooses are a daily issue and very widespread.”

In March 2017, Osmar Epifanio Gonzalez-Gadba, 32, a Nicaraguan, was found hanging from bed sheets in his cell and later died on life support. Gonzalez-Gadba was facing his second deportation and had previously been deported in April 2016 to Nicaragua, the poorest country in Central America.

Just days before Gonzalez-Gadba’s suicide, he reported having been sexually assaulted, but medical staff ignored his claim and never bothered examining him. At the ICE facility, inmates are subjected to daily physical, mental and sexual violence.

As of August 2017, there had been at least five attempted suicides at the facility in less than one year, according to 911 calls. One detainee told inspectors he witnessed “a few attempted suicides using the braided sheets by the vents. … The guards laugh at them and call them ‘suicide failures’ once they are back from medical.” The callousness exhibited by ICE’s contract employees mimics that of Border Patrol agents, who tend to treat immigrants with ruthless inhumanity.

Earlier this year, a report issued by humanitarian aid organizations found that border patrol agents had routinely destroyed at least 3,586 gallons of water and lifesaving aid along the border. Border patrol unofficially depends on the scorching heat of the Sonoran desert, which routinely exceeds 40°C (104°F), and often reaches 48°C (118°F), to whittle away groups of migrants whose survival often depends upon finding aid over the week-long journey.

Adelanto is owned and operated by the GEO Group, which runs close to 50 private prisons and detention centers around the country. Adelanto was a state prison for adult males for nearly two decades, before it was purchased by GEO Group in 2010.

Since then, tens of thousands of immigrant detainees have passed through the Adelanto facility. Some of them have been detained crossing the border, while others have lived in the US for years and decades before being swept up in ICE raids across the country.

The report also indicated that there were numerous deaths that could have been prevented with proper medical care. Inmates are often denied medical and dental treatment, waiting on lists for months and sometimes years with reports of tooth rot and loss due to lack of care.

One detainee reported multiple teeth falling out while waiting more than two years for cavities to be filled.

A November 2011 review found that “medical officials were not conducting detainee health appraisals within 14 days of arrival” and included revelations that nurses without proper certification and training were performing health assessments.

Many deaths, including that of detainee Fernando Dominguez Valdivia in March 2012, could have been prevented had it not been for “egregious errors” by medical staff according to ICE’s own Office of Detention Oversight. The Mexican national died of pneumonia, and was one of 141 people to die in ICE custody between 2003 and 2013, according to ICE.

A 2015 report by the same body concluded that the death of Raul Ernesto Morales-Ramos was due to a lack of timely and comprehensive medical care when the 44-year-old Salvadoran man died from intestinal cancer that went untreated.

Investigators also noted that detainees were improperly and prematurely placed in disciplinary segregation for alleged misbehavior, prior to any attempt to determine whether they had committed the alleged infractions.

“During our visit to the Adelanto Center, there were 14 detainees in disciplinary segregation. Through our file review, we found that the Adelanto Center inappropriately placed all 14 detainees in disciplinary segregation before they were found guilty of a prohibited act or rule violation.”

In addition, efforts were rarely made for translation or communication services for inmates to assist non-English speakers with an explanation of what was happening to them.

Investigators reported encountering “a blind, limited English proficient detainee in disciplinary segregation but found the center had no auxiliary aids or translated materials for the detainee to read or understand documents he was given. In addition, file reviews of the 14 detainees in disciplinary segregation…revealed that none of the segregation orders or information provided to detainees while in segregation was translated or otherwise communicated to ensure the detainee’s understanding.”

Daily atrocities against immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers are the status quo of Washington, DHS, the Border Patrol and ICE. The appalling revelations at Adelanto further underscore the reactionary Democratic Party-led political charade being conducted over the Kavanaugh hearings. The country is littered with private, for-profit prisons, supported by both parties. Where are the public hearings on the physical, sexual and mental abuses committed against immigrants, refugees and inmates alike across America’s vast prison system? No such abuses will ever make media headlines, as it does not serve the interests of the ruling elite as it carries out its reactionary in-fighting in the run-up to the November midterm elections.

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Featured image: A cell at the Adelanto detention facility with a noose hanging in it (Credit: Office of Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security)

Hypothetical post-Maduro planning has been discussed “at many levels”, Governor Rossello claimed. His comments follow Trump’s endorsement of a military coup d’état in Venezuela.

Puerto Rico’s governor joined regional voices backing the overthrow of the Venezuelan government Tuesday, following the visit of the fugitive ex-Mayor of Caracas, Antonio Ledezma, to the US protectorate.

Governor Ricardo Rossello called for the “elimination” of President Maduro, who was democratically re-elected in May for a second term with 67.7 percent of the vote in elections qualified as transparent, free, and fair.

“What should happen is that the dictatorship should be eliminated. We are defining what will happen afterwards, and what steps are to be taken,” stated Rossello in a press conference following the meeting with Ledezma.

He went on to claim that such “steps” have “already been discussed at many levels” and that they point towards “concrete results.”

As part of the announcements, Rossello invited Venezuela’s opposition leaders to a summit this October 20 and 21, to be held in San Juan, Puerto Rico, which will look to establish a ‘Commission for the Reconstruction of Venezuela’, with Puerto Rico acting as “the headquarters” for “logistical support” to a “transition” government in Venezuela.

“We want to be ready for the day after, so that Venezuela counts on a government and an ordered and adequate transition. So that you know that you have friends across the world, Puerto Rico is going to be this connector for the coordination of all of this help,” Rossello added.

In front of press, the Governor signed an agreement which includes hypothetical land, maritime, and air supply corridors to Venezuela.

Rossello’s comments follow controversial declarations by US President Donald Trump, as well as Florida Senator Marco Rubio, Organisation of American States (OAS) Secretary-General Luis Almagro, and others, which have backed a coup d’état, military intervention, or other forced rupture of democracy in Venezuela.

The New York Times recently reported that Washington had held meetings with “rebel” Venezuelan military commanders to discuss the logistics of organising a coup d’état.

Puerto Rico continues to form part of the United States of America, and is the closest US-controlled territory to Venezuela, with only 1000 kilometers of sea separating the two. It was acquired by the US in the Paris Treaty ─ alongside Guam and the Philippines ─ which culminated the 1898 Spanish-US war. As such, the island is subject to US foreign and military policy, including housing numerous US military bases.

The recent agreement between the Puerto Rican government and Ledezma has already been communicated to Washington, as well as to the OAS, authorities informed.

For his part, Ledezma told press in San Juan that “a logistical operation will be launched from this Antillean Island.” He has previously gone on record calling for a foreign-led “intervention” into Venezuela.

From exile, the ex-Mayor and longtime anti-government leader heads the ‘I Am Venezuela’ (Soy Venezuela) movement, just one of the numerous fragmented anti-Chavista groups. His movement boycotted the recent presidential elections, and publicly opposed opposition groupings which decided to participate. Soy Venezuela, which Ledezma leads alongside outspoken government critic Maria Corina Machado, receives substantialcriticism from other anti-government forces who claim that, operating from Madrid, Paris, or Washington, it is disconnected from the local reality.

Ledezma is currently fleeing charges of conspiracy and criminal association in Venezuela for his role in the 2014 violent street protests which looked to oust the government through force. He was arrested in 2015, and his sentence was later commuted to house arrest, before dramatically fleeing authorities in November 2017. Since, he has toured Europe, the US, and Latin America rallying support for his efforts.

Caracas is yet to react to the latest statements of the Puerto Rican authorities, but President Maduro has offered firm backing to the independence struggle of the Puerto Rican people in the past. Recently released political prisoner and independence leader Oscar Lopez Rivera has been hosted by Caracas, with Maduro calling on Puerto Ricans to break the shackles of colonialism. Maduro’s position has put him at heads with that of Governor Rossello, who favours full US statehood.

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Featured image: Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rossello (C) alongside his State Secretary Roberto Vilella (L) and Venezuelan fugitive opposition leader Antonio Ledezma (R) signing an agreement in San Juan, Puerto Rico. (Antonio Ledezma Press)

The Trump regime’s DOJ falsely claimed seven alleged Russian intelligence officers hacked the OPCW and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

Assistant AG for national security John Demers announced the indictment “for malicious cyber activities against the United States and its allies” along with cyberattacking a Swiss lab and other charges.

US Attorney for Western Pennsylvania Scott Brady claimed

“(t)hey targeted Westinghouse, a nuclear power company based in Pittsburgh…that supplie(s) nuclear fuel to the Ukraine.”

Demers and Brady presented no evidence backing their accusations. None exists to reveal. Charges without it are baseless.

Fabricated accusations against Russian nationals include cyberattacks, fraud, theft of personal data, and money laundering, Demers adding:

“This indictment alleges a conspiracy to use computer hacking to obtain non-public, personal health information about athletes and others in the files of anti-doping agencies and sporting federations in multiple countries.”

Canada joined the latest Russia bashing chorus, falsely claiming “a series of malicious cyber operations by the Russian military” was exposed…part of a broader pattern of activities by the Russian government (occurring) outside the bounds of appropriate behavior, (demonstrating) a disregard for international law…undermining the rules-based international order.”

The Netherlands earlier expelled four Russian nationals for allegedly targeting the OPCW.

On Thursday, Dutch Defense Minister Ank Bijleveld claimed the alleged operation was foiled last April, further claiming the alleged suspects photographed areas around the OPCW in the Hague with intent to hack the organization’s wifi network for information pertaining to its Skripal incident investigation.

UK envoy to the Netherlands Peter Wilson claimed Moscow targeted Britain’s Foreign Office and Porton Down Defense and Science Laboratory.

UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt accused Moscow of “reckless and indiscriminate” cyberattacks globally, suggesting more (unlawful) sanctions on the Kremlin are coming.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said

Western “spy mania is gaining momentum. Russia’s official commentary will follow soon.”

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called the new accusations “(a) new wave of fake news, accusations and statements at different levels,” adding:

“(T)he British Foreign Office, which as it turns out now is specializing on security issues in the sphere of IT technologies, recently came up with a series of mind-boggling statements in their ‘highly-likely’ fashion on the involvement of the so-called GRU (Military Intelligence Service) in cyber attacks around the globe, even against WADA’s servers.”

“Without any analysis whatsoever we see that everything – the GRU, cyber spies, Kremlin hackers, WADA – has been poured and mixed into a single bottle of perfume, perhaps in a Nina Ricci bottle of perfume.”

“It is simply a hellish perfume mixture. Our British colleagues (sic) have a rich imagination that knows no boundaries.”

“I wish I can have a look at the one making all this up. They are simply the ‘Andersens’ (referring to Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales).

“Perhaps they judge by themselves and describe what they themselves do, but this is totally unbecoming of a country, which claims to be playing one of the leading roles in the world.”

Russia’s embassy in London called UK accusations “crude disinformation in the eyes of British and world public opinion,” adding:

“As usual…irresponsible (accusations fail) to be substantiated by any evidence and is another element in the anti-Russian crusade executed by the British government” – in cahoots with Trump regime hardliners.

This not by chance that it coincides with the meeting of NATO defense chiefs in Brussels and the announcement of the creation of cyber units in the armed forces of some Western countries.”

US-installed NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance “stand(s) in solidarity with the decision by the (US), Dutch and British governments to call out Russia on its blatant attempts to undermine international law and institutions” – despite no evidence suggesting it.

On October 3 and 4, NATO defense ministers met in Brussels. Russia was falsely accused of “continued instability, (posing) a serious risk to our security.”

Alleged threats facing alliance member are invented.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Prior to George W. Bush illegally rolling into Iraq based on a passel of lies, Bill Clinton oversaw Papa Bush’s medieval sanctions on the country. The sanctions were not intended to stop Saddam Hussein from building WMDs as we were told by The New York Times and The Washington Post.

They were put in place to starve the Iraqi people, deny basic medical supplies, and turn the country into a failed state. The process resulted in the death of half a million Iraqi children.

Madeline Albright, Clinton’s Secretary of State, went on national television and said the murder of 500,000 Iraqi children was a price worth paying.

Now we have Mike Pompeo, Trump’s secretary of state, demanding similar sanctions imposed on Iran.

On Wednesday, Pompeo said the US will terminate a treaty with Iran put into place in 1955, two years after the CIA engineered a coup ousting the democratically elected leader Mohammad Mosaddegh.

The long forgotten Treaty of Amity was brought up by the International Court of Justice when it ruled the US must lift sanctions that affect the import of humanitarian goods and products.

The Hague said in a preliminary decision the US must “remove, by means of its choosing, any impediments arising from” sanctions that affect exports to Iran of medicine, medical devices, food, agricultural commodities and equipment necessary to ensure the safety of civil aviation, according to a report at Fox News.

The ICJ’s attempt to prevent the Trump administration from engaging in massive crimes against humanity, according to Pompeo, is “meritless” and he accused the international court of “attempting to interfere with the sovereign rights of the United States to take lawful actions necessary to protect our national security and abusing the ICJ for political and propaganda purposes.”

Trump and his top neocon adviser John Bolton insist the International Criminal Court has no authority.

“As far as America is concerned, the ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority,” Trump told the General Assembly at the United Nations. “The ICC claims near-universal jurisdiction over the citizens of every country, violating all principles of justice, fairness, and due process. We will never surrender America’s sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy.”

The US is not a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statue in 2000, but it wasn’t sent to the Senate to be ratified. The Bush administration sent a note informing the Secretary-General that it would not ratify the Rome Statute and did not recognize any obligation toward it. Like the Trump administration, the Bush administration openly demonstrated hostility toward the idea of holding nations accountable for war crimes.

The US backed up this defiance by passing the American Service Members Protection Act in 2002 ahead of the Iraq invasion. The law includes a provision to “use all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court.” Additionally, the act permits the president to order military action against the Court, which resulted in critics calling it the “Hague Invasion Act.”

However, the Bush administration and its neocons decided the ICC would be of use on a selective basis—against its official roster of enemies.

The former Bush UN ambassador (by recess appointment) and current top Trump administration neocon John Bolton declared war on the ICC after it announced it would investigate war crimes in Afghanistan. Bolton said the US will level sanctions against the international organization if it proceeds.

Trump and Bolton are clearing the decks in preparation of military action against Iran. They would like to see a return of brutal sanctions used for over a decade in Iraq.

Iran understands what this means: rapid deterioration of health, targeting water purification (a primary objective in Iraq), communications, agriculture, and medical infrastructure.

The US stated sanctions would remain in place even if Saddam Hussein decided to cooperate with the United Nations, thus demonstrating the sanctions and subsequent second invasion were not about WMDs and unfounded threats to America. The objective was to destroy Iraq, kill its people, and reduce the country to failed state status.

Neocon “creative destruction” is focused on making certain Iran does not pose a challenge to the hegemonic rule of the United States and Israel. Both Israel and the fossilized Sunni-Wahhabi emirates in the Persian Gulf avidly support destroying Iran and killing millions of its people.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Another Day in the Empire.

Kurt Nimmo is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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

Michel Chossudovsky

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

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-6-0

Year: 2015

Pages: 240 Pages

List Price: $22.95

Special Price: $15.00

Click here to order.

The 73^rd United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) that kicked off last September 25 brought together the presidents, heads of governments and high-ranking representatives of the 193 UN member states. The General Assembly is the main deliberative and policymaking organ of the UN. It is the only UN body with equal representation, where each country has one vote.

However, it is the general debate that takes place during the first five days that draws most of the attention. That is when heads of state take turns to speak about their countries achievements and challenges, and make statements of commitments and political position. It is an occasion to tell the world where they stand on many issues. It is a great opportunity for all those who want to see and hear the speeches of the world leaders direct on the UN live stream videos.

There is usually a lot of anticipation.

One country out of the 193, with a few exceptions, elicits the expectations of all the others for its geopolitical implications and impact. It is the United States of America. The reactions range from diplomatic rebuttals or concurrence, to expressions of defiance.

In our region of the Americas, I would like to focus on the speeches of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, and the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro Moros. Understanding the position of the two countries today is key to understanding the future of Latin America.

We have seen a great deal of confrontation between the two countries over the years. Venezuela is trying to consolidate its socialist Bolivarian Revolution initiated by Hugo Chavez in 1999, and the U.S. is overtly attempting to stop it by provoking a regime change and establish a pro-neoliberal government that Venezuela openly and vehemently rejects.

Can we foresee any compromise in their position from their speeches at the UN?

How far or how close are the ideologies and relationships between the two countries as far as we can tell from what was said or not said at the UN? The speeches can be downloaded from the UN website. [1] [2]

Donald Trump’s speech

Donald Trump started out with what seems to be his trademark, praising himself for the best administration in the history of the United States. That caused laughs from the audience. Trump was caught off guard by the unexpected reaction and off-script said, “but it is OK”. I mention this only to highlight the contrast in the reactions from the audience to the two presidents. President Maduro received several rounds of applauses and a standing ovation at the end.

Having put that comment out of the way for the benefit of those who have not had the chance to watch the speakers on video, what did Trump really say?

Overall, in term of U.S. foreign policy, Trump dedicated almost a quarter of his speech to issues related to the Middle East. While praising the “advances” that the U.S. has made against terrorism, surprisingly he did not make a single reference to Russia’s important balancing contribution to de-escalating conflicts in the region.

On the other hand, only four short paragraphs were dedicated to Venezuela. I quote them in full:

“Currently, we are witnessing a human tragedy, as an example, in Venezuela. More than 2 million people have fled the anguish inflicted by the socialist Maduro regime and its Cuban sponsors. 

Not long ago, Venezuela was one of the richest countries on Earth. Today, socialism has bankrupted the oil-rich nation and driven its people into abject poverty.

Virtually everywhere socialism or communism has been tried, it has produced suffering, corruption, and decay. Socialism’s thirst for power leads to expansion, incursion, and oppression. All nations of the world should resist socialism and the misery that it brings to everyone.

In that spirit, we ask the nations gathered here to join us in calling for the restoration of democracy in Venezuela. Today, we are announcing additional sanctions against the repressive regime, targeting Maduro’s inner circle and close advisors.”

That short reference to Venezuela understates the U.S. determination, the drive and the actions to delegitimize and destabilize the democratically elected and therefore legitimate Venezuelan government. It does so by using old Cold War language like “socialism”, “communism”, “misery” they bring “, and “repressive regime”. We will never know how Trump reconciles his contradiction apparent in another statement in his speech, “We believe that when nations respect the rights of their neighbors, and defend the interests of their people, they can better work together to secure the blessings of safety, prosperity, and peace.” 

But that old language addressed at Venezuela may well be aimed at China as well with his call to “resist socialism” and its “thirst for power”. In fact, when Trump’s language is put together with other keywords in his speech like militarism (“Our military will soon be more powerful than it has ever been before”), sovereignty (“We will never surrender America’s sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy”), protectionism (“The United States has just announced tariffs on another $200 billion in Chinese-made goods for a total, so far, of $250 billion.), and patriotism (“We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism.”), we notice an affirmation of what political analyst Andrew Korybko called the “Trump World Order” and Trump’s “alternative model to what is now the Chinese-led Liberal-Globalist order.” [3] 

Those same words, though, together with a practice of intolerance for diversity, could also suggest a desperate transition and indicate that the “alternative model” is one of ultra-nationalism. We know from the history of the 20^th Century that ultra-nationalism was a disastrous social experiment for the world.

The U.S. new strategy includes a retreat from many of the international commitments such as the Commission on Human Rights and the International Criminal Court among others in the name of “patriotism” and for the sake of “sovereignty”. However, U.S. interventionism in the affairs of other sovereign states is to continue making more evident the U.S. doctrine of exceptionalism.

Nicolas Maduro’s speech

Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro stated the intention of his presence at the UNGA in order “to bring the truth of a people that struggles”. And as such he spoke frankly, directly and forcefully. His words were explicit and compelling about Venezuela’s principles and the issues affecting Venezuela vis-à-vis the United States. His speech had a lot to say about the U.S. referring to Donald Trump five times by name, and no less than eleven times as the “President of the United States”.

Here are some of his quotes categorized by relevant topics. No further comments are necessary.

On U.S. withdrawing from international commitments showing exceptionalism 

“The President of the United States yesterday, from this podium, threatened the governments of the world to submit to his designs, to his orders and to collaborate with his policies in the United Nations system, or they [the U.S.] would act accordingly.”

On U.S. sanctions

“Yesterday the president of the United States, from this very podium, announced new sanctions, pretentious economic and financial sanctions against our country, precisely in the sanctuary of the law, in the sanctuary of international legality. Does the United Nations System know that unilateral sanctions, using domination, the favorable currency, and financial persecution, are considered illegal from the point of view of international law?”

On U.S. interventions

“Venezuela is the victim of permanent aggression in economic, political, diplomatic and media aspects by those who govern the United States of North America.”

“Economically, Venezuela has been subjected to a series of illegal, unilateral measures of economic persecution in the past two years.”

“Yesterday in this same place the President of the United States of America attacked, once again, the noble people of Venezuela, [with] its interventionist role, its pretentious role as judge, party and police of the world.” This was a reference to Trump’s announcement of new sanctions against Venezuela.

On U.S. – Venezuela discrepancies

“It is a historical conflict, we have said it many times to the world, our people know it very well, it is the conflict between the interventionist imperial doctrine, Monroe’s neo-colonialism, versus historical doctrine of rebellion for independence, dignity, justice, freedom, and republican [democratic] equality.” 

“Do we have differences, President Donald Trump? Of course we do. But it is people who have differences who must dialogue; it is those who have differences in this world that have to put on the table their goodwill and their ability to speak.” 

On Venezuela’s worldview

“Venezuela is a country that advocates and commits itself to the construction of a multipolar, pluripolar and multicentric world. There isn’t just one economic model. We cannot allow a unique economic model, a single ideology to be imposed.”

“We believe in a different world, our generation saw the so-called bipolar, two-bloc world go by, what was then called Cold War, which some seem to want to bring back in their attacks to China, to Russia and to humble countries like Venezuela. To initiate a struggle and a fight against countries like Russia and China is a contradiction against what must be a human international policy that recognizes the emergence of new poles of power and the need to build a multipolar world.”

On Venezuela today

“Today, Venezuela is stronger than ever, we have learned how to resist, we are standing and ready to continue advancing in the construction of a social model of our own, that of the socialist revolution of the 21st century, we say it to the world.”

On dialogue

“I am willing to speak with an open agenda on all the issues that the government of the United States wants to speak, with humility, with frankness, with sincerity.”

“Despite the immense historical differences, despite the immense ideological differences, despite the immense social differences, … I would be willing to shake the hand of the President of the United States and to sit down to talk about bilateral and regional issues.”

Conclusion

Despite the awareness that back channel conversations can take place between conflicting countries, this possibility is quite remote first and foremost because this is a one-way “conflict”.  It is the U.S. that is interfering with Venezuela and not the other way around. U.S. sanctions and military threats are unilateral and the Venezuelan government has responded only in the form of official statements of rejection and denunciation without threats nor retaliation.

Having said that, after a long-standing confrontation, imposed sanctions and threats against the DPRK, we never imagined Trump thanking Chairman Kim Jong Un, “for his courage and for the steps he has taken” – around withholding development of nuclear weapons – as he did at the UNGA. We can only hope.

Trump did not refer extensively to Venezuela in his speech but his message was precise and unequivocal. I paraphrase: we will continue imposing sanctions and socialism is very-very bad, all nations should oppose it. He did not utter any military threats at the UNGA. Even then, several heads of State rejected the notion of interventions, military or otherwise.

What Trump did not say about Venezuela, he did say about Syria and “the corrupt dictatorship in Iran” and the “chaos, death, and destruction” its leaders have caused together with “mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond.” Strong words.

Perhaps Trump’s real message was his geopolitical view of the world and the U.S. position in it. He put it very concisely and explicitly in one sentence, “We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism.” It was a reference to pulling out from obligations of international responsibilities and commitments, at the same time that it does not rule out U.S. offshore intrusion in order to disrupt any perceived threat to its power and interests. China and Russia are seen as such a threat.

Aside from the political ideology, it is possibly in the geopolitical view of the world where lies the greatest divide between the U.S. and Venezuela.

The U.S. is increasingly defending itself from a developing multi polar world with China, Russia, Iran, and other nations – including Venezuela. The Trump administration seems to have adopted a daring, and possibly dangerous, redesign of U.S. geopolitical strategy in order to avoid being pulled in by the sheer force of attraction, and consequently lose the unipolar exclusive power that has been its historically persistent strategic drive. 

Beyond the obvious defense of independence and rejection of the economic war on Venezuela, Maduro has clearly stated his belief in a multipolar world that recognizes and includes China and Russia. Venezuela is wholeheartedly accepting the inevitable reality and is embracing the opportunities that it brings.

Those worldviews are too far apart to even conceive a point of contact. But Venezuela, with the international law on its side, continues to call for a dialogue with the opposition, the U.S. and the international community.

I think it was unfortunate that Trump did not take the occasion of the UNGA to meet face-to-face with Maduro. Without a dialogue there cannot be any possibility of compromise in their positions. And without compromise, continued divisions in Latin America, potentially escalating to more serious confrontations, can devastate the whole region.

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Nino Pagliccia is an activist and writer based in Vancouver, Canada. He is a Venezuelan-Canadian who writes about international relations with a focus on the Americas. He is editor of the book “Cuba Solidarity in Canada – Five Decades of People-to-People Foreign Relations” http://www.cubasolidarityincanada.ca. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Notes

[1] https://gadebate.un.org/en/73/united-states-america 

[2] https://gadebate.un.org/en/73/venezuela-bolivarian-republic 

[3] https://eurasiafuture.com/2018/09/26/the-kraken-killed-the-liberal-globalist-new-world-order-at-the-un/

[“A concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO), as defined by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is an animal feeding operation (AFO)—a farm in which animals are raised in confinement—that has over 1000 “animal units” confined for over 45 days a year.”]

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Hurricane Florence’s torrential rains pelted areas of North Carolina that are home to more than 1,500 industrial animal operations with more than 1,000 nearby animal waste storage cesspools. These operations have the potential to annually produce as much as four billion gallons of wet swine waste and 400,000 tons of dry poultry waste, according to an exclusive analysis by EWG and Waterkeeper Alliance.

The organizations overlaid locations of concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, with government rainfall estimates to produce an interactive map that details Florence’s potential impact on vulnerable operations in the state. Clicking and zooming in on a location shows the estimated amount of rain each CAFO received from Sept. 14, when Florence made landfall, through Sept. 16, and the potential amount of waste produced or stored at each site.

View the interactive map here.

The groups calculated the potential waste stored at each site by using North Carolina permit data, the Agricultural Census from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and manure-production-rate data from the North Carolina Agricultural Chemicals Manual. A link to the methodology is here.

Among our findings:

• There are 926 concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, housing more than 3.8 million hogs and 578 poultry CAFOs holding an estimated 35 million fowl in areas where the National Weather Service said flooding was “occurring or imminent” after Florence. Livestock at those 1,504 concentrated animal feeding operations are capable of producing four billion gallons of wet waste and more than 400,000 tons of dry poultry waste each year. More than a third of those sites received an estimated 15 to 19 inches of rain, and more than one-fourth saw more than 20 inches.
• There are 123 industrial hog operations and 40 industrial poultry operations in or within 500 feet of the 100-year floodplain that received at least 15 inches of rain. Livestock at those 163 sites are capable of producing more than 395 million gallons of liquid waste and more than 27,000 tons of dry waste a year.
• Federal standards require waste pits in North Carolina to be designed to withstand a so-called 24-hour/25-year rain event without releasing manure. In areas where the National Weather Service said flooding was occurring or imminent, more than 1,000 waste pits received more rain than the 24-hour/25-year rain event defined for that location. Of those, an estimated 35 pits are in the 100-year floodplain and received over 15 inches of rain. Those pits alone are capable of holding more than 129 million gallons of animal waste.
• The map below shows colored bands of estimated rainfall amounts in North Carolina’s coastal plain from Sept. 14-16. The dark diagonal lines show the zones of rainfall expected during a 24-hour/25-year rain event. In all of the zones except for the one with the lowest expected rainfall (in blue), the total estimated rainfall was well in excess of what the waste pits were designed to withstand.

Source: EWG, from National Weather Service data

“It’s just a matter of time until another massive rain event happens again in the floodplain,” said Soren Rundquist, EWG’s director of spatial analysis. “How many scenes of swamped animal barns and breached manure pits do state leaders and the factory farm industry need to see before they realize producing and storing billions of pounds of animal waste in flood-prone areas is disastrously bad policy?”

“Waste mismanagement at industrial animal agriculture operations threatens public health and environmental quality even under sunny skies,” said Will Hendrick, staff attorney and manager of the Pure Farms, Pure Waters campaign at Waterkeeper Alliance. “That threat is disproportionately borne by communities of color or low wealth and it is exacerbated, given the concentration of production in the coastal plain, by increasingly frequent and severe storms like Hurricanes Matthew and Florence.”

EWG and Waterkeeper Alliance will continue our analysis of Hurricane Florence’s impact on CAFOs in North Carolina’s coastal plain.

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Featured image is from EWG.

European Markets and Union on alert, opposition on the attack, a reminder about the Constitution by the President of the Republic, all this because the government-planned financial manoeuvre, which has already been announced, would lead to a deficit of about 27 billion Euros. On the other hand, absolute silence from the government and the opposition about the fact that every year, Italy spends a similar sum for its military budget.

Military spending for 2018 is approximately 25 billion Euros, to which must be added other posts of a military character, bringing the total to more than 27 billion. This means more than 70 million Euros per day, which is on the increase because Italy has promised NATO to bring it up to about 100 million per day.

Why is no-one talking about the growing expenditure of public money for weapons, armed forces and military interventions? Because that would entail opposing the United States, the “privileged ally” (read ‘dominant’), which is demanding a continual increase of this spending.

US spending for its armed forces in fiscal year 2019 (which began on 1 October 2018) exceeds 700 billion dollars, to which must be added other military costs, including almost 200 billion for retired military personnel. The total military spending of the United States has thus grown to more than 1,000 billion dollars annually, a quarter of all federal expenditure. An increasing investment in war which permits the United States (according to the Pentagon’s official motivation) to “remain the pre-eminent military power in the world, to ensure that the balance of power stays in our favour, and to advance an international order which favours our prosperity to the maximum”.

Source: PandoraTV

But in fiscal year 2019, military spending will create a deficit of almost 1,000 billion dollars in the federal budget. Later, this will cause an increase of the US government’s debt, rising to about 21,500 billion dollars. This will be absorbed in the interior by cuts in social spending, and, in the exterior, by printing more dollars, used as the principal currency of world monetary reserves and the quotations for prime materials.

However, nobody benefits from increased military spending. We are dealing here with the giants of the war industries. Of the ten largest world producers of weaponry, six are US companies – Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon Company, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and L3 Technologies. They are followed by the British company BAE Systems, the French/Dutch company Airbus, the Italian company Leonardo (ex-Finmeccanica), now running ninth, and the French company Thales.

These are not simply huge factories which produce weapons. Together, they form a military-industrial complex, closely integrated with institutions and parties, with deep and wide-reaching ramifications. This creates a true arms establishment, whose profits and powers increase as international tension and war increase.

Leonardo, which earned 85 % of its profits from arms sales, is integrated with the US military-industrial complex – it supplies products and services not only to the armed forces and agencies of the Pentagon, but also to US intelligences agencies, while in Italy it manages the Cameri site for Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighters.

In September, Leonardo was chosen by the Pentagon, with Boeing as its primary contract employee, to supply the US Air Force with AW139 attack helicopters. In August, Fincantieri (controlled by the financial company of the Minister of the Economy and Finance) and Lockheed Martin, delivered two more littoral combat ships to the US Navy.

We need to keep all that in mind when we ask ourselves why, in Italian parliamentary organisations and institutions, there is such an overwhelming multi-partisan consensus – not for cutting into the budget, but for increasing military spending.

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This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.

Translated by Pete Kimberley

Manlio Dinucci is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

This October 3, 2016 article is of relevance to the current debate on fake news

A controversial foreign PR firm known for representing unsavory characters was paid millions by the Pentagon to create fake terrorist videos.

The Pentagon gave a controversial UK PR firm over half a billion dollars to run a top secret propaganda program in Iraq, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism can reveal.

Bell Pottinger’s output included short TV segments made in the style of Arabic news networks and fake insurgent videos which could be used to track the people who watched them, according to a former employee.

The agency’s staff worked alongside high-ranking U.S. military officers in their Baghdad Camp Victory headquarters as the insurgency raged outside.

Bell Pottinger’s former chairman Lord Tim Bell confirmed to the Sunday Times, which has worked with the Bureau on this story, that his firm had worked on a “covert” military operation “covered by various secrecy documents.”

Bell Pottinger reported to the Pentagon, the CIA and the National Security Council on its work in Iraq, he said.

Bell, one of Britain’s most successful public relations executives, is credited with honing Margaret Thatcher’s steely image and helping the Conservative party win three elections. The agency he co-founded has had a roster of clients including repressive regimes and Asma al-Assad, the wife of the Syrian president.

In the first media interview any Bell Pottinger employee has given about the work for the U.S. military in Iraq, video editor Martin Wells told the Bureau his time in Camp Victory was “shocking, eye-opening, life-changing.”

The firm’s output was signed off by former General David Petraeus – then commander of the coalition forces in Iraq – and on occasion by the White House, he said.

Bell Pottinger produced reams of material for the Pentagon, some of it going far beyond standard communications work.

The Bureau traced the firm’s Iraq work through US army contracting censuses, reports by the Defense Department’s Inspector General and federal procurement transaction records, as well as Bell Pottinger’s corporate filings and specialist publications on military propaganda. We interviewed half a dozen former officials and contractors involved in information operations in Iraq.

There were three types of media operations commonly used in Iraq at the time, said a military contractor familiar with Bell Pottinger’s work there.

“White is attributed, it says who produced it on the label,” the contractor said. “Grey is unattributed and black is falsely attributed. These types of black ops, used for tracking who is watching a certain thing, were a pretty standard part of the industry toolkit.”

Bell Pottinger’s work in Iraq was a huge media operation which cost over a hundred million dollars a year on average. A document unearthed by the Bureau shows the company was employing almost 300 British and Iraqi staff at one point.

The London-based PR agency was brought into Iraq soon after the U.S. invasion. In March 2004 it was tasked by the country’s temporary administration with the “promotion of democratic elections” -a “high-profile activity” which it trumpeted in its annual report.

The firm soon switched to less high-profile activities, however. The Bureau has identified transactions worth $540 million between the Pentagon and Bell Pottinger for information operations and psychological operations on a series of contracts issued from May 2007 to December 2011. A similar contract at around the same annual rate-$120 million-was in force in 2006, we have been told.

The bulk of the money was for costs such as production and distribution, Lord Bell told the Sunday Times, but the firm would have made around £15m a year in fees.

Martin Wells, the ex-employee, told the Bureau he had no idea what he was getting into when he was interviewed for the Bell Pottinger job in May 2006.

He had been working as a freelance video editor and got a call from his agency suggesting he go to London for an interview for a potential new gig. “You’ll be doing new stuff that’ll be coming out of the Middle East,” he was told.

“I thought ‘That sounds interesting’,” Wells recalled. “So I go along and go into this building, get escorted up to the sixth floor in a lift, come out and there’s guards up there. I thought what on earth is going on here? And it turns out it was a Navy post, basically. So from what I could work out it was a media intelligence gathering unit.”

After a brief chat Wells asked when he would find out about the job, and was surprised by the response.

“You’ve already got it,” he was told. “We’ve already done our background checks into you.”

He would be flying out on Monday, Wells was told. It was Friday afternoon. He asked where he would be going and got a surprising answer: Baghdad.

“So I literally had 48 hours to gather everything I needed to live in a desert,” Wells said.

Days later, Wells’s plane executed a corkscrew landing to avoid insurgent fire at Baghdad airport. He assumed he would be taken to somewhere in the Green Zone, from which coalition officials were administering Iraq. Instead he found himself in Camp Victory, a military base.

It turned out that the British PR firm which had hired him was working at the heart of a U.S. military intelligence operation.

A tide of violence was engulfing the Iraqi capital as Wells began his contract. The same month he arrived there were five suicide bomb attacks in the city, including one a suicide car bomb attack near Camp Victory which killed 14 people and wounded six others.

Describing his first impressions, Wells said he was struck by a working environment very unlike what he was used to. “It was a very secure building,” he recalled, with “signs outside saying ‘Do not come in, it’s a classified area, if you’re not cleared, you can’t come in.'”

Inside were two or three rooms with lots of desks in, said Wells, with one section for Bell Pottinger staff and the other for the US military.

“I made the mistake of walking into one of the [U.S. military] areas, and having a very stern American military guy basically drag me out saying you are not allowed in here under any circumstances, this is highly classified, get out-whilst his hand was on his gun, which was a nice introduction,” said Wells.

It soon became apparent he would be doing much more than just editing news footage.

The work consisted of three types of products. The first was television commercials portraying al Qaeda in a negative light. The second was news items which were made to look as if they had been “created by Arabic TV”, Wells said. Bell Pottinger would send teams out to film low-definition video of al Qaeda bombings and then edit it like a piece of news footage. It would be voiced in Arabic and distributed to TV stations across the region, according to Wells.

The American origins of the news items were sometimes kept hidden. Revelations in 2005 that PR contractor the Lincoln Group had helped the Pentagon place articles in Iraqi newspapers, sometimes presented as unbiased news, led to a Department of Defense investigation.

The third and most sensitive program described by Wells was the production of fake al Qaeda propaganda films. He told the Bureau how the videos were made. He was given precise instructions: “We need to make this style of video and we’ve got to use al Qaeda’s footage,” he was told. “We need it to be 10 minutes long, and it needs to be in this file format, and we need to encode it in this manner.”

US marines would take the CDs on patrol and drop them in the chaos when they raided targets. Wells said: “If they’re raiding a house and they’re going to make a mess of it looking for stuff anyway, they’d just drop an odd CD there.”

The CDs were set up to use Real Player, a popular media streaming application which connects to the internet to run. Wells explained how the team embedded a code into the CDs which linked to a Google Analytics account, giving a list of IP addresses where the CDs had been played.

The tracking account had a very restricted circulation list, according to Wells: the data went to him, a senior member of the Bell Pottinger management team, and one of the U.S. military commanders.

Wells explained their intelligence value. “If one is looked at in the middle of Baghdad…you know there’s a hit there,” he said. “If one, 48 hours or a week later shows up in another part of the world, then that’s the more interesting one, and that’s what they’re looking for more, because that gives you a trail.”

The CDs turned up in some interesting places, Wells recalled, including Iran, Syria, and even America.

“I would do a print-out for the day and, if anything interesting popped up, hand it over to the bosses and then it would be dealt with from there,” he said.

The Pentagon confirmed that Bell Pottinger did work for them as a contractor in Iraq under the Information Operations Task Force (IOTF), producing some material that was openly sourced to coalition forces, and some which was not. They insisted that all material put out by IOTF was “truthful”.

IOTF was not the only mission Bell Pottinger worked on however. Wells said some Bell Pottinger work was carried out under the Joint Psychological Operations Task Force (JPOTF), which a US defense official confirmed.

The official said he could not comment in detail on JPOTF activities, adding “We do not discuss intelligence gathering methods for operations past and present.”

Lord Bell, who stood down as chairman of Bell Pottinger earlier this year, told the Sunday Times that the deployment of tracking devices described by Wells was “perfectly possible”, but he was personally unaware of it.

Bell Pottinger’s output was signed off by the commander of coalition forces in Iraq. Wells recalled: “We’d get the two colonels in to look at the things we’d done that day, they’d be fine with it, it would then go to General Petraeus”.

Some of the projects went even higher up the chain of command. “If [Petraeus] couldn’t sign off on it, it would go on up the line to the White House, and it was signed off up there, and the answer would come back down the line’.

Petraeus went on to become director of the CIA in 2011 before resigning in the wake of an affair with a journalist.

The awarding of such a large contract to a British company created resentment among the American communications firms jostling for Iraq work, according to a former employee of one of Bell Pottinger’s rivals.

“Nobody could work out how a British company could get hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. funding when there were equally capable U.S. companies who could have done it,” said Andrew Garfield, an ex-employee of the Lincoln Group who is now a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “The American companies were pissed.”

Ian Tunnicliffe, a former British soldier, was the head of a three person panel from the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)-the transitional government in Iraq following the 2003 invasion-which awarded Bell Pottinger their 2004 contract to promote democratic elections.

According to Tunnicliffe, the contract, which totaled $5.8m, was awarded after the CPA realized its own in-house efforts to make people aware of the transitional legal framework ahead of elections were not working.

“We held a relatively hasty but still competitive bid for communications companies to come in,” recalls Tunnicliffe.

Tunnicliffe said that Bell Pottinger’s consortium was one of three bidders for the contract, and simply put in a more convincing proposal than their rivals.

Iraq was a lucrative opportunity for many communications firms. The Bureau has discovered that between 2006 and 2008 more than 40 companies were being paid for services such as TV and radio placement, video production, billboards, advertising and opinion polls. These included US companies like Lincoln Group, Leonie Industries and SOS International as well as Iraq-based firms such as Cradle of New Civilization Media, Babylon Media and Iraqi Dream.

But the largest sums the Bureau was able to trace went to Bell Pottinger.

According to Glen Segell, who worked in an information operations task force in Iraq in 2006, contractors were used partly because the military didn’t have the in-house expertise, and partly because they were operating in a legal “grey area”.

In his 2011 article Covert Intelligence Provision in Iraq, Segell notes that U.S. law prevented the government from using propaganda on the domestic population of the U.S. In a globalized media environment, the Iraq operations could theoretically have been seen back home, therefore “it was prudent legally for the military not to undertake all the…activities,” Segell wrote.

Segell maintains that information operations programs did make a difference on the ground in Iraq. Some experts question this however.

A 2015 study by the Rand Corporation, a military think tank, concluded that “generating assessments of efforts to inform, influence, and persuade has proven to be challenging across the government and DoD.”

Bell Pottinger’s operations on behalf of the U.S. government stopped in 2011 as American troops withdrew from Iraq.

Bell Pottinger changed ownership after a management buyout in 2012 and its current structure has no connections with the unit Wells worked for, which closed in 2011. It is understood the key principals who were involved in this unit deny any involvement with tracking software as described by Wells.

Wells left Iraq after less than two years, having had enough of the stress of working in a war zone and having to watch graphic videos of atrocities day after day.

Looking back at his time creating propaganda for the US military, Wells is ambivalent. The aim of Bell Pottinger’s work in Iraq was to highlight al Qaeda’s senseless violence, he said-publicity which at the time he thought must be doing some good. “But then, somewhere in my conscience I wondered whether this was the right thing to do,” he added.

Lord Bell told the Sunday Times he was “proud” of Bell Pottinger’s work in Iraq. “We did a lot to help resolve the situation,” he said. “Not enough. We did not stop the mess which emerged, but it was part of the American propaganda machinery.”

Whether the material achieved its goals, no one would ever really know, said Wells. “I mean if you look at the situation now, it wouldn’t appear to have worked. But at the time, who knows, if it saved one life it [was] a good thing to do.”

For those of us who watched with innocence, then passion, then consternation, the results of the 1991 senate hearing for supreme court nominee Clarence Thomas; for those who championed film stars, then ordinary women daring, finally, to call out Harvey Weinstein and a stream of male predators; for those who watched with confidence the rise of #MeToo; for those of us who wrote poems and songs and opinions hailing a real cultural shift in female-male dynamics; for those of us still unable to admit being sexually abused; for those of us who finally confessed some discomforts to our lovers; for those of us who overcame difficulties to tell our sons and our daughters about those endemic secrets; for those of us who believe openness and dialogue are healthy and transformative — we now fear we were misguided.

The misogynist and white culture of privilege in the U.S.A. was again evident during the recent senate hearing to evaluate Brett Kavanaugh for the U.S. Supreme Court.

The end of Friday’s senate hearing suggests accommodation was reached by committee members. But to do what — demonstrate a real solution was found to test the veracity of the parties involved and affirm that senate confirmation is a noble process? The delay (to call in the FBI) may allow more time for Americans to debate and for our infotainment industry to distract us from the urgent, decisive elections just weeks away. (This while a narrowly circumscribed FBI investigation is conducted in secret.)

Committee senators have cast their vote; the number in Kavanaugh’s (and Trump’s) favor suggests the nominee’s success. Whether confirmation would drive outraged citizens (Democrats and others) on Election Day to determinedly ouster stalwart Republican office-holders remains to be seen. If Kavanaugh is rejected, there will be a lot of satisfied women and men on one side, but maybe many more recalcitrants on the other. Again, how this will manifest on November 6^th is uncertain.

Simply from the way these hearings evolved – a spectacle of unmatched raw politicizing, as Lorraine Ali writes — I wonder if the process we have witnessed actually reinforces how deeply misogynist and white male-privileged American culture is. From the arrival of nominee-Dad with teenage daughter, his awesome welcome into the hearing, adorned by senate sycophants, proceeding through rumors, press reports, to a face-off– testimonies by the ‘injured woman’ and the defending nominee—wrapped up with theatrical declarations by the candidate’s partisans and a phony compromise to bring the curtain down on Friday’s performance, America remains far, far from gender equity and open democratic processes.

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This article was originally published on the author’s webpage: www.radiotahrir.org.

Aziz is a veteran anthropologist and radio journalist, also author of Heir to A Silent Song: Two Rebel Women of Nepal, published by Tribhuvan University, Nepal, and available through Barnes and Noble in the USA. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research.

May 10, 1984 . The Hague, Netherlands—In a historic ruling against the United States, the World Court (International Court of Justice) ordered the Reagan administration to stop mining Nicaraguan harbors and giving military aid to anti-Sandinista rebels. 

‘The United States of America should immediately cease and refrain from any action restricting, blocking or endangering access to or from Nicaraguan ports, and in particular, the laying of mines,’” Judge President Taslim Olawale Elias of Nigeria in a ruling accepted by all the ICJ’s 15 judges, May 10, 1984.

“The International Court of Justice ruled today that the Reagan Administration had broken international law and violated Nicaraguan sovereignty by aiding the anti-Government rebels.  The Court, the judicial arm of the United Nations, ordered Washington to halt the ‘arming and training’ of the insurgents and to pay Nicaragua for damages caused by military attacks, some of which it said had been carried out by the United States itself.” Paul Lewis, Special to The New York Times, June 28, 1986

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The Presidency of the United Nations Security Council is held on a rotating basis, permitting each of the 15 members of the Security Council to hold the Presidency, in alphabetical order, for one month.

September 2018 was the turn of the United States to hold the Presidency, and this was presided over by US Ambassador Nikki Haley.(image right)

On September 5, Ambassador Haley called a meeting on Nicaragua, and this meeting was fiercely opposed by numerous members of the Security Council, who stated that Nicaragua is not a threat to international peace and security, which is the mandate of the Security Council, and objected that the US was using the meeting in an attempt to manipulate the Security Council to gain authorization for intervention in the internal affairs of Nicaragua, as the US had done with Libya.

Within the historical context of US interventions in Nicaragua, this was a major concern and fear expressed by several delegations, quoted below, and I am providing the historic judgements of the World Court and the International Court of Justice, pronounced decades ago, which ruled that the United States was in violation of international law in their prior illegal interventions in the internal affairs of Nicaragua.

Reminiscent of the crocodile tears shed by Libyan diplomats in the Security Council in 2011, tearfully pleading with the Security Council to intervene in the internal affairs of Libya, a sovereign member of the United Nations, a military intervention which led to the complete destruction of the Libyan state, and the extrajudicial murder of Gaddafi ;  and consistent with the United States’ chronic practice of manipulating the UN Security Council to compel support for its geopolitical agenda, the US Ambassador on September  5  trotted out Mr. Gonzalo Koncke of the OAS, and Mr. Felix Maradiaga, Nicaraguan civil society “leader” to shed crocodile tears pleading with the Security Council for intervention in the internal affairs of Nicaragua, in an almost identical performance to that of the Libyan diplomats in 2011, which led to universally recognized disaster, including the subsequent murder of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens, and torching of the US Embassy in Tripoli.

Russian Ambassador Nebenzia  (image above left) stated: 

“We have major concerns about the invited briefers.  ..Does the Council’s mandate really include putting pressure on the authorities of a sovereign State to force it to make changes, whatever they may be, and thereby conniving with anti-Government forces?  After today’s discussion, the polarization in Nicaragua can only worsen.  It is difficult not to believe that that is what the ringleaders of today’s meeting had in mind…I want to say it once again.  It is obvious to us that the issue of Nicaragua has no place on the Security Council’s agenda.  The Council is responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security, and the domestic political situation in Nicaragua does not pose those kinds of threats.  Rather, it is a vivid, sad example of destructive outside interference….and since the American presidency of the Council has used a regional rationale in order to shovel the Nicaraguan issue onto the Security Council’s agenda, we should not fail to mention some examples of Washington’s interference in the internal affairs of other Latin American states as well….The peoples of Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Pacific also have some things to say about this issue.  Against the backdrop of this dictatorial policy, which you do not even bother to disguise, Madam President, your accusations about third countries’ mythical interference in American domestic political life with the supposed goal of undermining America’s great democracy look particularly clumsy.”

Seared into the historic memory of the Latin American peoples is the tragic and terrifying pattern of the United States, throughout the 1950’s to the 1990’s, methodically and scientifically destabilizing the economies of Guatemala, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, etc., etc.,  (countries who had democratically elected Presidents committed to using their countries’ resources for the benefit of their own people,) and ultimately fomenting military coups which installed US backed dictatorships which institutionalized torture, terror and every conceivable form of human rights abuses.   These bitter and horrifying memories of what, collectively, amounts to the genocide of every progressive element in the populations of the Latin American countries are ineradicable memories which cannot be consigned to historic archives, but are virulent to this very day.

Bolivia’s Ambassador  Mr. Llorentty Soliz stated, with his classic eloquence: 

“Interventionism, interference and the financing of opposition groups constitute the big elephant in the room that is not discussed in this Chamber.  The real interest of the United States is not the defence of democracy;  were it so it would not employ double standards or give speeches about defending democracy while at the same time financing coups d’etat and destabilizing democratically elected Governments.  The real interest is not in defending human rights;  otherwise States claiming to do so would sign all the international agreements under our system on defending and promoting human rights.  If human rights were the real reason, the United States would not have abandoned the Human Rights Council, one of the greatest achievements of our system.  If it were really about human rights, torture would not be promoted and asylum seekers would not be put in jail, giving rise to the inhumane separation of parents from their children.  The recent history of interventionism is a long one.  We need only consider what happened in regions such as the Middle East.  As we have said on many occasions, in Libya, Syria and in Iraq these policies have created the worst situations in this century.  What is the true interest?  The true interest is to promote situations of instability and to exploit them to change regimes and to control natural resources.  That is the key objective.”

Truth and fact are incontestable in this context, and the hypocrisy and double standards denounced by Ambassador Nebenzia and Ambassador Llorenty Soliz and by Mr. Suarez Moreno of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (among others) are themes repeatedly highlighted throughout the 72 United General Assembly which followed this Security Council meeting on Nicaragua.

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Carla Stea is Global Research’s correspondent at the United Nations Headquarters, New York, N.Y.

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Is Trump being held captive by political operatives within his Cabinet – notably Pompeo, Bolton and Haley on geopolitical issues?  They’re  hostile to world peace,  democratic values, and respect for international law. 

On Wednesday, John Bolton announced the Trump regime’s withdrawal from the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (VCDR) optional protocol.

The 1961 international treaty defines the legal way diplomatic relations between countries are supposed to be conducted.

It codifies basic rules of diplomatic law, enabling diplomatic missions to operate without fear of coercion or harassment where they’re located.

According to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), its success depends on observance of international law.

Its optional protocol on settling international disputes permits  ICJ adjudication when petitioned by a VCDR member state.

It’s charged with settling disputes between member states, along with providing advisory opinions when asked.

Chapter XIV of the UN Charter authorizes the Security Council to enforce its rulings – compromised by veto power of the five permanent members – America, Britain, China, France, and Russia.

On Wednesday, John Bolton issued a statement, saying

Trump  “decided that the United States will withdraw from the optional protocol and dispute resolution to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.”

“This is in connection with a case brought by” the Palestinian Authority (PA) – petitioning the ICJ to compel Washington to shut its Jerusalem embassy, adding its move from Tel Aviv violated the Vienna Convention, requiring embassies to be located in host countries.

Jerusalem is a UN-established international city – Resolution 181, 1947, designating the city a “separate entity” under a world body protectorate.

Unanimously passed Security Council Resolution 476 (June 1980) declared “all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, the occupying Power, which purport to alter the character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal validity and constitute a flagrant (Fourth Geneva) violation.”

Israel claiming the city, “complete and united, as (its) capital” has no legal standing. East Jerusalem is illegally occupied territory. So is historic Palestine.

Security Council Resolution 478 (1980) “call(ed) upon all States to refrain from the establishment of diplomatic missions in the Holy City of Jerusalem.”

It “demand(ed) that all states comply with Security Council resolutions regarding the Holy City of Jerusalem, and not to recognize any actions or measures contrary to those resolutions.”

Security Council Resolution 2334 (December 2016, adopted 14 – 0 with the US abstaining) said settlements have “no legal validity and constitute a flagrant violation under international law.”

It demanded “Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.”

It recognized no territorial changes “to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations.”

It “(c)alled upon all States, to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.”

It “(c)alled for immediate steps to prevent all acts of violence against civilians, including acts of terror, as well as all acts of provocation and destruction, calls for accountability in this regard…”

The US and Israel consistently ignore SC resolutions and other international laws opposing their imperial agenda.

Israel unlawfully considers Jerusalem its exclusive capital. Under international law, it was illegally annexed.

On September 28, the PA petitioned the ICJ, stating:

“The relocation of the United States embassy in Israel to the Holy City of Jerusalem constitutes a breach of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 18 April 1961” – as well as UN resolutions discussed above.

The PA called on the ICJ to declare moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem a violation of international diplomatic law – demanding it be withdrawn.

In 2012, Palestine was granted non-member UN observer status. Law Professor Francis Boyle earlier said:

“The world had inflicted a terrible injustice upon the Palestinian people in 1947-1948.

There would be no peace in the Middle East until this injustice was somehow rectified; and

The Palestinian people were certainly entitled to an independent nation state of their own.”

Diplomatic recognition by over two-thirds of UN member states affords Palestine de facto membership in the world body – de jure status “only a matter of time,” said Boyle.

Withdrawing from the Vienna Convention protocol is all about the Trump regime’s unwillingness to accept lawfully binding ICJ rulings – including its decision for Iran, saying certain US sanctions on the country violated the 1955 US-Iran Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations, and Consular Rights, the ruling discussed in a same-day article.

Bolton said the Trump regime “will commence a review of all international agreements that may still expose the United States to purported binding jurisdiction dispute resolution (sic) in the International Court of Justice.”

US aggression against one non-threatening country after another, along with countless other hostile actions, clearly shows it’s an international outlaw, a pariah state, under Republicans and undemocratic Dems.

Neocon extremists in charge of Trump’s geopolitical agenda match or exceed the unlawful actions of their predecessors – their policies further isolating the US from the world community.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Trump supposedly made an imaginative suggestion to Spain that it build a wall across the Sahara desert to keep out illegal immigrants.

The Spanish Foreign Minister revealed that the American President even remarked that “the Sahara border can’t be bigger than our border with Mexico”, which drew much mockery in the Liberal-Globalist Mainstream Media because the peninsular country only has two very small enclaves in Africa that are located near northern Morocco’s mountains and not anywhere close to the Sahara desert. Instead of the gaffe that it’s being presented as, it could also be that Trump was deliberately drawing attention to a “politically incorrect” problem in his characteristically dramatic way. Spain’s new socialist government doesn’t really consider the country to be in any sort of Migrant Crisis, even though its geography makes it forever susceptible to this scenario.

The EU as a whole has finally gotten around to realizing that sub-Saharan Africa presents an immigration challenge many magnitudes greater than anything that Syria ever did, but it’s conflicted over how to preemptively address this and doesn’t seem to have any clear-cut plan. A few countries have dispatched military forces to transit states Mali and Niger for anti-terrorist purposes, while some are also considering paying these states and other regional ones to incentivize their governments to stop illegal immigrants at their borders instead of letting them cross through to North Africa and thenceforth Europe. A “hybrid solution” of sorts is for the EU to cut a Turkish-like migrant deal that includes a combination of so-called “disembarkation centers” and de-facto bribes, but it’s unclear how successful that would be if it’s ever even implemented.

What Trump’s suggestion seemed to imply is that more stringent border measures need to be in place as far away from Europe as possible in order to most successfully thwart these future immigrant waves, which would basically make Mali, Niger, and possibly also Mauritania, Chad, and Sudan the EU’s so-called “frontline states” instead of Spain, Italy, Malta, and Greece, but getting them to cooperate with any such plans will entail having to overcompensate them for the socio-political and financial costs that they’ll  have to undertake in that case. This is a serious burden upon states that could ordinarily care less about dealing with this problem, and they’re also prone to resort to heavy-handed measures that contradict the EU’s “human rights” “gospel” if they even do choose to respond.

Ironically, the end result might be that the EU’s “democracy” and “human rights” “utopia” is ultimately upheld by Brussels bribing “anti-democratic” states to carry out “humanitarian crimes” against migrants.

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This article was originally published on Oriental Review.

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

On September 20, 2018 the White House released the US National Cyber Strategy, which was signed by President Donald Trump.

It probably delighted both hawks and Democrats. The former were pleased that the strategy includes new components that clearly indicate an expansionist momentum.  And the latter were gratified by the Trump administration’s renewed interest in the subject of cyberspace, since Donald Trump eliminated the position of White House cybersecurity coordinator after his election and significantly reduced spending in this area. But the president now seems to have reconsidered, as indicated by the fact that the 40-page document is in many respects a rehash of efforts from the Obama era.

US Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen (image above) noted in her statement that

“[t]oday’s National Cyber Strategy — the first in fifteen years — strengthens the government’s commitment to work in partnership with industry to combat those threats and secure our critical infrastructure.”

Her press release went on to say,

“With respect to securing federal networks, for example, we have used our authorities to ensure agencies are updating and patching systems, strengthening their email security, and removing Kaspersky antivirus products from their systems.”

Was this reference to the Russian company just a coincidence? Of course not. Even a cursory glance at this strategy drives home the point that Russia is being singled out as a militant enemy of the United States, and Washington is ready to start leaning hard on it.

It is also telling that several days before this document was released, an updated version of the US Department of Defense’s cyber strategy was published, which suggests that the Pentagon and the Trump administration are working in tandem to a certain extent. Their mutual interests are also evident from a comparison of statements from the summary of the two documents.

Here is the Pentagon’s strategy in a nutshell:

“We are engaged in a long-term strategic competition with China and Russia. These States have expanded that competition to include persistent campaigns in and through cyberspace that pose long-term strategic risk to the Nation as well as to our allies and partners. China is eroding U.S. military overmatch and the Nation’s economic vitality by persistently exfiltrating sensitive information from U.S. public and private sector institutions. Russia has used cyber-enabled information operations to influence our population and challenge our democratic processes. Other actors, such as North Korea and Iran, have similarly employed malicious cyber activities to harm U.S. citizens and threaten U.S. interests. Globally, the scope and pace of malicious cyber activity continue to rise. The United States’ growing dependence on the cyberspace domain for nearly every essential civilian and military function makes this an urgent and unacceptable risk to the Nation.”

And the introduction of the US National Cyber Strategy states:

“Russia, Iran, and North Korea conducted reckless cyber attacks that harmed American and international national businesses and our allies and partners … China engaged in cyber-enabled economic espionage and trillions of dollars of intellectual property theft … The Administration recognizes that the United States is engaged in a continuous competition against strategic adversaries, rogue states, and terrorist and criminal networks. Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea all use cyberspace as a means to challenge the United States, its allies, and partners … These adversaries use cyber tools to undermine our economy and democracy, steal our intellectual property, and sow discord in our democratic processes. We are vulnerable to peacetime cyber attacks against critical infrastructure, and the risk is growing that these countries will conduct cyber attacks against the United States during a crisis short of war. These adversaries are continually developing new and more effective cyber weapons.” (emphasis added)

So, Russia is now being singled out in this very official way as an enemy of the US!

President Donald Trump walks to Air Force One on Sept. 19, 2018, at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. (Source: author)

And in order to combat these threats, both real and fictitious, the leaders of the US intend to embark upon a course of risk management, by introducing new information technologies, establishing priorities in business projects, and funneling government funds to cybersecurity contractors.

On pages 9 and 10 of the strategy, there are two subsections that refer to the global cybersecurity of maritime transportation and outer space. Since free and unfettered access to the sea, skies, and outer space is closely tied to America’s economic and national security, US control over those domains and the use of various technical means — from ships to future satellite systems — is listed as one of the priorities.

The tasks enumerated also include updates to electronic surveillance, which will enable intelligence agencies to monitor streams of data, the transfer of new powers to investigative and prosecuting agencies, and the development of new ways to prosecute individuals outside the United States (i.e., the citizens of foreign countries), as well as other active measures:

“All instruments of national power are available to prevent, respond to, and deter malicious cyber activity against the United States.  This includes diplomatic, information, military (both kinetic and cyber), financial, intelligence, public attribution, and law enforcement capabilities.”

In other words, responses to a cyberattack can now include the imposition of sanctions, the coordination of a propaganda campaign in the puppet media, or a missile launch.

Speaking at a press conference in Washington, the US president’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton, noted specifically that the White House had

“authorized offensive cyber operations… not because we want more offensive operations in cyberspace, but precisely to create the structures of deterrence that will demonstrate to adversaries that the cost of their engaging in operations against us is higher than they want to bear.” (emphasis added)

However, America’s historical approach to geopolitical (and military) deterrence is rife with interference in the affairs of other countries, including the orchestration of bloody coups and overt intervention under contrived pretexts (Haiti in 1993 springs to mind), which are precisely the ways in which the US operates.

By shifting these tactics into cyberspace, we can assume that DDoS attacks and the introduction of malware and spyware, as well as a variety of assaults against vulnerable “enemy” sites (and those could be anything from the servers belonging to banks and cellular service providers to databases belonging to private citizens, manufacturing infrastructure, or the various systems that provide essential social services), are the least of what we can expect from the Pentagon. It is possible that a few countries that have suitable experience in cybersecurity will manage to fend off such attacks.  But it is more than likely that some states will be unable to effectively and painlessly deflect them.

And even a kinetic response is mentioned! And that is solely a military prerogative. This is why we are quoting an excerpt from the US Department of Defense’s strategy.

The Pentagon’s document clearly states how this strategy will be carried out.

“Our strategic approach is based on mutually reinforcing lines of effort to build a more lethal force; compete and deter in cyberspace; expand alliances and partnerships; reform the Department; and cultivate talent.”

The first item openly attests to these aggressive military intentions: “Our focus will be on fielding capabilities that are scalable, adaptable, and diverse to provide maximum flexibility to Joint Force commanders. The Joint Force will be capable of employing cyberspace operations throughout the spectrum of conflict, from day-to-day operations to wartime, in order to advance U.S. interests.”

To put it more simply, the US military is now literally getting a green light to launch cyberattacks and other cyber operations around the world.  You can even forget about any formal declaration of war, because that is a rather complex procedure in the US, and for many recent years American soldiers have been sent to various destinations abroad as part of military operations that do not officially meet the criteria for either war or stabilization campaigns. But the US is up to all kinds of legal shenanigans. And given that no clear definition exists of what constitutes “malicious acts in cyberspace” and the fact that that label could thus be used to snare anyone or anything, this trend in the US military and political establishment might set a sobering precedent.

What’s more, this is a clear signal for Washington to begin applying pressure through international organizations, primarily via the UN.  Since the United Nations has for many years served as a platform for debates over the regulation of global cyberspace, and the US has clearly been on the losing side in numerous high-level discussions about national jurisdiction, sovereignty, and responsibility, Washington seems to be trying to take its revenge — now resorting to accusations and the techniques of preemptive diplomacy (i.e., threats and blackmail — the proven tools of US foreign policy).

In this regard, it is no coincidence that the Global Security website highlighted one point from that strategy, which reads:

“ADVANCING AMERICAN INFLUENCE: The National Cyber Strategy will preserve the long-term openness of the internet [sic], which supports and reinforces American interests.”

But how can the openness of the Internet promote US interests? Obviously that can only happen when the Americans set the rules of the game in cyberspace, like those the US has established that govern world trade through American control over banking transactions, stock exchanges, and other tools of the globalized economy. And if some countries refuse to follow Washington’s orders, they will be once again be labeled as pariahs and accused of acting maliciously. The refusal to adopt US standards will be treated as an act of war by other means against American citizens. This is as serious as the statement made by George W. Bush after the terrorist attacks in New York in September 2001, at which time he declared, “whoever is not with us is against us.”

And unsubstantiated allegations about the interference of “Russian hackers” in the US presidential election and about China’s industrial espionage against American companies might someday look like a naive example of much ado about nothing, compared with what Washington is about to plunge into.

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Leonid Savin is a geopolitical analyst, Chief editor of Geopolitica.ru, founder and chief editor of Journal of Eurasian Affairs; head of the administration of International Eurasian Movement.

All unilateral sanctions by one country against others are flagrantly illegal. Under international law, Security Council members alone may impose them.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ-World Court) preliminary ruling against the US is positive. It didn’t go far enough because on July 16, 2018, the Islamic Republic petitioned the ICJ for sanctions relief, claiming the Trump regime violated terms of their 1955 US-Iran Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations, and Consular Rights.

Below are key relevant parts of the ICJ’s ruling:

The Court ruled that “it has jurisdiction pursuant to Article XXI, paragraph 2, of the 1955 Treaty to deal with the case, to the extent that the dispute between the Parties relates to the ‘interpretation or application” of the said Treaty.”

“The power of the Court to indicate provisional measures under Article 41 of the Statute has as its object the preservation of the respective rights of the parties in a given case, pending its final decision.”

The 1955 treaty “prohibits the United States from imposing restrictions or prohibitions on the import of any Iranian product or on the export of any product to Iran, unless the import or export of the like product from or to all third countries is similarly restricted or prohibited.”

“(T)he Court concludes that, at the present stage of the proceedings, some of the rights asserted by Iran under the 1955 Treaty are plausible in so far as they relate to the importation and purchase of goods required for humanitarian needs, such as (i) medicines and medical devices; and (ii) foodstuffs and agricultural commodities; as well as goods and services required for the safety of civil aviation, such as (iii) spare parts, equipment and associated services (including warranty, maintenance, repair services and safety-related inspections) necessary for civil aircraft.”

“The Court is of the view that a prejudice can be considered as irreparable when the persons concerned are exposed to danger to health and life.”

“In its opinion, the measures adopted by the United States have the potential to endanger civil aviation safety in Iran and the lives of its users to the extent that they prevent Iranian airlines from acquiring spare parts and other necessary equipment, as well as from accessing associated services (including warranty, maintenance, repair services and safety-related inspections) necessary for civil aircraft.”

“The Court further considers that restrictions on the importation and purchase of goods required for humanitarian needs, such as foodstuffs and medicines, including life-saving medicines, treatment for chronic disease or preventive care, and medical equipment may have a serious detrimental impact on the health and lives of individuals on the territory of Iran.”

The Court concluded that there is “little prospect of improvement,” based on harsh US behavior toward Iran.

“(T)he Court considers that there is urgency, taking into account the imminent implementation by the United States of an additional set of measures scheduled for after 4 November 2018.”

“It is therefore necessary, pending its final decision, for the Court to indicate certain measures in order to protect the rights claimed by Iran…”

“THE COURT,

Indicates the following provisional measures:

(1) Unanimously,

The United States of America, in accordance with its obligations under the 1955 Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations, and Consular Rights, shall remove, by means of its choosing, any impediments arising from the measures announced on 8 May 2018 to the free exportation to the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran of

(i) medicines and medical devices;

(ii) foodstuffs and agricultural commodities; and

(iii) spare parts, equipment and associated services (including warranty, maintenance, repair services and inspections) necessary for the safety of civil aviation;

(2) Unanimously,

The United States of America shall ensure that licenses and necessary authorizations are granted and that payments and other transfers of funds are not subject to any restriction in so far as they relate to the goods and services referred to in point (1);

(3) Unanimously,

Both Parties shall refrain from any action which might aggravate or extend the dispute before the Court or make it more difficult to resolve.”

The ICJ’s ruling is positive for all countries abused by unjust and unilaterally imposed sanctions against them.

Washington weaponized them to wage political and economic war on targeted nations – notably Iran, Syria, Russia, North Korea and Venezuela.

Sanctions imposed for these reasons lack legitimacy. Unilaterally imposed ones are flagrantly illegal.

Following the ICJ’s ruling, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the following:

“The Islamic Republic of Iran welcomes the decision made by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as the only major judicial body of the UN and the tribunal’s issuing of an injunction against the US administration’s illegal move to restore unilateral sanctions which came upon the country’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal,” adding:

“(T)he court’s unanimous decision (is a) clear testament to the truthfulness of Iran and the illegitimacy and unfairness of the United States’ sanctions against our country’s people and citizens.”

Though the Court’s ruling is binding, Washington notoriously flouts what conflicts with its interests.

The Trump regime is highly unlikely to change its hostile agenda toward Iran. It’s most unlikely to abide by the Court’s ruling. What’s most important is how the world community reacts.

Rejecting unilaterally imposed US sanctions against Iran would be a major triumph for the Islamic Republic – especially ones imposed by the Trump regime and GOP-dominated Congress under the so-called Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).

It directs Trump to impose sanctions on Iran’s legitimate ballistic missile program – intended solely for defense.

It falsely accuses Iran of having or developing weapons of mass destruction – meaning nukes it doesn’t have, deplores, and wants eliminated everywhere.

It prohibits the sale or transfer of military and related equipment to Iran, as well as technical and financial aid.

On August 6, the Trump regime reimposed nuclear-related sanctions on Iran. Stiffer  JCPOA-related sanctions will be reimposed on November 4 – targeting Tehran’s energy sector, petroleum related products, and central bank transactions.

Its policy is all about isolating Iran politically and economically, notably attempting to block its oil sales, access to hard currencies and foreign investments, along with harsh sanctions and overall financial hardships – part of a regime change plot.

Nations continuing normal trade relations with Iran face possible US sanctions, especially ones purchasing its oil.

The strategy is unlikely to work. The ICJ ruling makes it tougher, giving credence to Iran’s claims about illegal US actions against the country.

The Trump regime no doubt will ignore the ruling, further isolating itself. It’s up to the world community to use the ICJ ruling to break from its hostile agenda against the Islamic Republic, rendering it useless.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called the ICJ decision another defeat for the “sanctions-addicted” US, a “victory for the rule of law,” making it “imperative for the international community to collectively counter US unilateralism,” adding:

The ruling showed “Iran is right, and that US sanctions against people and citizens of our country are illegitimate and cruel.”

“(T)he US government is growing more isolated day by day due to its wrong and extremist policies and as a result of its own excessive demands on other countries.”

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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Venezuela: President Nicolas Maduro’s Risks His Life with Surprise Appearance at the United Nations General Assembly

By Carla Stea, October 04, 2018

He denounced increased US sanctions imposed on Venezuela, and denounced the August 4 assassination attempt against his own life, calling for an impartial investigation to identify the perpetrators.  He also stated his willingness to meet with President Trump, whom, he mentioned had also signaled willingness to meet with him.

Seven Days in September. Insider Moves to Oust a Constitutionally Elected President Made Public

By Joe Lauria, October 04, 2018

What unfolded appears reminiscent of the novel and film Seven Days in May: the story of an attempted military coup against a U.S. president who sought better relations with Russia. The fictional president was based on the real one, John F. Kennedy, who opened the White House in 1963 to director John Frankenheimer to film the only scenes of a Hollywood movie ever made there.

Best Government Money Can Buy

By Philip Giraldi, October 04, 2018

Adelson’s recent successes in translating his political donations into policy favorable to Israel have included shifting the US Embassy to Jerusalem, cutting aid to Palestinians, ending the Iranian nuclear monitoring agreement and closing the Palestine Liberation Organization’s diplomatic office in Washington.

Anthrax False Flag Redux?

By Kurt Nimmo, October 03, 2018

Immediately after the anthrax attacks in 2001, Bush neocons put pressure on FBI Director Robert Mueller to prove the mysterious attack was the work of al-Qaeda, a fantasy on par with Saddam’s WMDs. This story—the essence of fake news—left out something important: it takes complex equipment to prepare anthrax spores for weaponization and it was highly unlikely if not impossible forOsama bin Laden and al-Qaeda to produce the substance in a remote Afghan cave. 

History of World War II: Hitler’s Favorite Commando and Committed Nazi: Otto Skorzeny

By Shane Quinn, October 03, 2018

In his book published 30 years after the war, Skorzeny writes that after a discussion in early 1943 with the rocket engineer Wernher von Braun, Hitler predicted mankind would be able to venture into space.

Eighty Years On: The Shame and Tragedy of the 1938 Munich Agreement

By Marcus Papadopoulos, October 03, 2018

Following Hitler’s demands for the Sudetenland to be handed to Germany on the spurious claims of discrimination against ethnic Germans residing in this region by the Czech authorities, Britain and France decided to enter into negotiations with Hitler, in a policy known as appeasement.

Syrians Matter: They have Chosen NOT to be Occupied by the West’s Al Qaeda Terrorists

By Mark Taliano, October 03, 2018

Colonial politicians mirror this agenda. They are fronts for the warmongers who are committing an overseas holocaust, as they thirdworldize North America. They propagate the Lie that the wars are “humanitarian”.

On September 14, in an address to the far right American organisation called The Heritage Foundation,  the NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, described NATO in effect to be a world government prepared for eternal war. He declared NATO to be the “guarantor of peace and stability in Europe since 1949,” when in fact it has only succeeded in bringing war and catastrophe, for the only real guarantor of peace and stability in Europe until 1991 was the Red Army, the withdrawal of which allowed the NATO war machine to move right up to Russia’s borders.

For Stoltenberg the Warsaw pact didn’t exist. Yet it was the necessary counter to the continuous NATO threats against Eastern Europe and the USSR. Without the Warsaw Pact, without the Red Army, the Americans and their lieutenants would have swept across Europe long ago, on behalf of the captains of free enterprise, with the same resulting misery for the masses as they have caused since. The United Nations does not even figure in Mr. Stoltenberg’s universe. It might as well not exist, nor the Non-Aligned Movement, which also played a significant role in trying to establish the principles of non-interference, of national sovereignty, respect for different social and economic systems, and adherence to international legal principles.

The support of national liberation movements by the USSR that succeeded in liberating the peoples of the third world from colonialism was one of the most important advances of democracy in world history. Yet according to Mr. Stoltenberg this liberation of the colonial peoples was “aggression from the Soviet Union” while NATO is “an alliance seeking a stable rules-based international climate where all nations can prosper,” when in fact he meant that the NATO nations can prosper.

He confessed this when he stated that NATO has helped to “spread democratic values, free enterprise and stability” to millions of people in the eastern part of Europe when in fact NATO has only replaced socialist democracy with capitalist democracy, the democracy of the working people, with the democracy of capital, by capital and for capital and in nations such as Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and numerous countries in Africa has acted to crush local democracies that oppose NATO’s interests.

To advance “free enterprise” that is to ensure the complete freedom of movement of capital of the NATO nations against the wishes of the peoples of the world, he proudly boasted of their nuclear arms and readiness to use them and admitted that the twenty-eight American bases in Europe are “not only for Europe, they enable the US to project military power across the wider Middle East and Africa.” He happily pointed out that the US Africa Command, one is tempted to use the Nazi Wehrmacht term Afrika Korps, is based, not in Africa, but in Stuttgart, Germany and that the US 6th Fleet that patrols from the Barents Sea to Antarctica is based in Naples while its jackboot troopers wounded while wreaking havoc in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan are treated in Ramstein, Germany.

He then repeated the US-NATO claim that the invasion of Afghanistan was a collective defence action under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty when Afghanistan had nothing whatsoever to do with the incident in New York and when invocation of that section of the NATO Treaty was in violation of Article 1 that requires the NATO powers to adhere to the UN Charter which forbids military action against a nation unless approved by the Security Council.

He claimed that NATO’s agreed to increase in military spending is “real progress” and that “we are moving in the right direction” and congratulated Donald Trump for his leadership. In response to a question he stated that the US and its allies intend to occupy Afghanistan forever. He stated,

“We have to remember that the reason we are in Afghanistan is to prevent Afghanistan from ever again becoming a safe haven for international terrorists.”

This is a double lie of course since Afghanistan was never a base for terrorists attacks on any NATO country and instead was used by the US to launch terrorist attacks on Soviet forces and the Afghan government in the 1980’s leading to the rise of the Taliban, and that it is the NATO powers that have themselves terrorised the Afghan people for 17 years. But this will continue to serve as their pretext for the continued occupation of central Asia, a dagger thrust at the bodies of Russia, Iran and China.

Since that speech the nations of the world addressed the General Assembly with the NATO boss, President Trump, reprising George Bush’s “you are either with us or against us” threat to the world. We can imagine him going back to his office afterwards, pleased with himself and there, in homage to Charlie Chaplin’s portrayal of Hitler, tossing the world globe around as if it were his personal toy.

In support of the American claim to rule the world the 2019 US Defence Budget increases spending to new heights with an emphasis on nuclear weapons at the same time as it commits crimes against humanity by squeezing the economy of North Korea to force that small but proud nation to render itself defenceless against a US attack by abandoning its nuclear weapons, while saying nothing about Israeli nuclear weapons or Israel’s occupation of Palestine or its constant attacks on Syria on behalf of its US patrons.

The US Defence Budget of 1.3 trillion dollars not only staggers the mind with the amount of money to be wasted that could be spent on better things for the citizens of the US, it reads as if the group that wrote it were high on mind altering drugs. On the second page of the Overview it is stated,

“Today, the United States is emerging from a period of strategic atrophy in which the Department’s competitive military advantage has been eroding. The United States is facing increased global disorder, characterized by decline in the long-standing rules-based international order—creating a security environment more complex and volatile than any the United States has experienced in recent memory. Major power competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security.

“The costs of not implementing this strategy are clear. Failure to meet the DoD’s objectives will result in decreasing U.S. global influence, eroding cohesion among allies and partners, and reduced access to markets that will contribute to a decline in U.S. prosperity and standard of living.”

The first lie in this statement is that the US military advantage is eroding. Perhaps one can say that in terms of technical advances they lag Russia and perhaps China but in terms of men and material, bases, ships, aircraft, submarines and nuclear weapons it has never been more of a threat to world peace.

The second lie is that the US faces increased global disorder, as if it had nothing to do with it, for the global disorder we now face is entirely due to their invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, their overthrow of the government of Ukraine and support of Nazis there, their attempts to overthrow the governments of Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, Yemen, the US backed Georgian invasion of Ossetia, the support of Chechens attacking Russia security forces, their support of the so-called colour “revolutions” in North Africa, their destruction of Libya, of Yugoslavia, their constant aggression against Russia, North Korean and China using military, economic, and propaganda warfare, their backing of a coup against the government of Turkey and even disturbing otherwise compliant relations with its loyal vassal, Canada.

The US and its NATO allies treat international law with contempt, use intense propaganda on their own peoples to brainwash them to support this criminality, and try to intimidate them with their “war on terror” as they savaged civil liberties. Law means nothing to the psychopaths who rule these nations and whose slogan is “peace through strength” or, to penetrate the euphemism, “peace through war.”

But they reveal their real purpose with the line that they fear “reduced access to markets that will contribute to a decline in U.S. prosperity and standard of living.” In other words, American capitalists fears loss of profit and their standard of living. They could not care less about the constant decline in living standards of the masses caused by their military spending to support the living standards of the rich.

But just as the US provoked war with Japan in 1941 with its oil blockade preventing Japan from access to energy supplies, the US has now signaled that it is contemplating a naval blockade of Russia but in this case to prevent it from marketing its energy supplies. The American Interior Minister, Ryan Zinke, stated on September 28, in relation to Russia that,

“The United States has that ability, with our Navy, to make sure the sea lanes are open, and, if necessary, to blockade … to make sure that their energy does not go to market.”

The statement makes little sense on the face of it since most of Russia’s energy exports are through pipelines to Europe and China not by sea and so a naval blockade would seem to be an empty threat, even an absurd one. However, Russia is sending increasing amounts of liquefied natural gas by ship to China, India and Venezuela and even the northeast USA from its recently completed Yamal LNG plant on the Arctic Ocean in Siberia which has a huge capacity to refine and export gas drilled in northern Russia. The US is intent on cornering the rapidly growing Chinese and Indian markets and wants to prevent exports of gas to Venezuela and of course it is unhappy that Russian gas appeared in the US market to meet demand that US producers could not satisfy. So the threat of a blockade is real one and if attempted would be an act of war, just as their threats to try to shut in Iranian energy exports constitute an act of war.

So, once again the world is on the brink of war over the division of resources and markets, a war that has been going on for centuries while we the people suffer the consequences. And what is it all about but profit, profit for them, but misery for us as they prepare for the next act in what seems their eternal war.

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Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel “Beneath the Clouds. He writes essays on international law, politics and world events, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

Featured image is from the author.

“The United States seems destined to plague all of the Americas with misery in the name of liberty.”  Simon Bolivar, 1829

On Wednesday, September 19, 2018, the Chief of Staff of former President Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, affirmed that: 

“Donald Trump’s government could eventually be considering taking military action in Venezuela to avoid domestic legal and political pressures facing the mid-term elections scheduled to take place in October.”

On September 3, 2018 the Permanent Representative of the USA to the OAS, Ambassador Carlos Trujillo, threatened Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro Moros, and said that he was putting himself at risk if he decided to travel to New York to participate in the General Debate of the 73 Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations.  Trujillo further stated that a conflict is being planned involving the Governments of Brazil, Colombia, Chile and Peru, to launch an attack against Venezuela.  On September 21, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News that the US government is preparing a “series of actions” in coming days to increase pressure on the Venezuelan government.”

Despite threats to President Maduro’s life, including the August 4 assassination attempt  during which seven people were injured when “drone-like” devices exploded suspiciously close to President Maduro, and which Maduro attributed to a homicidal intent by political enemies such as Columbian President Juan Manuel Santos,  President Maduro himself arrived at the United Nations General Assembly, and spoke there on September 26.  He denounced increased US sanctions imposed on Venezuela, and denounced the August 4 assassination attempt against his own life, calling for an impartial investigation to identify the perpetrators.  He also stated his willingness to meet with President Trump, whom, he mentioned had also signaled willingness to meet with him.

The list of actions contemplated and threatened against the Venezuelan government of Nicholas Maduro Moro is very long and alarming, and follows the classic regime change blueprint of destabilization and intervention by which progressive governments have been weakened and eventually overthrown in Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.  The methods were partially enumerated by Venezuelan Ambassador Mr. Suarez Moreno during the September 5 meeting of the UN Security Council:

“We sound the alarm that the external aggression is continuing, including through interventionist initiatives imposed by the Organization of American States, an authority that, as expressed in the budget legislation allocating funds for the United States Department of State for the 2018 fiscal year, responds to the strategic interests of that country….

Is it not true that the United States officials threaten OAS member countries to vote against Venezuela and Nicaragua in that regional forum? 

Is it not true that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the Director of the United States CIA at that time, said in July 2017 that he had worked with the Governments of Colombia and Mexico to promote a transition in Venezuela? 

Is it not true that former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in August 2017 that he was creating the conditions for a change of government in Venezuela?  Is it not true that in August 2017 President Donald Trump threatened Venezuela with a military intervention? 

Is it not true that in August of 2017 Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that the Government of the United States is doing everything possible to harm Venezuela economically?  Is it not true that in February, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson openly called for a military revolt in Venezuela?…

Is it not true that in Brazil, in June, Vice-President Mike Pence said that the time had come to take firmer and additional actions to isolate Venezuela? 

Is it not true that in July, the USAID in Caracas was encouraging the Venezuelan opposition?  Is it not true that in August, following a meeting on Venezuela with National Security Adviser John Bolton, Senator Marco Rubio declared that the time had come for military intervention?……Venezuela reiterates its rejection of the manner in which some countries invoke the humanitarian pretext to use the Security Council as a tool to promote their policy of regime change that has caused so much damage to the peoples of Africa and the Middle East, while leading to a humanitarian crisis of previously unimaginable proportions…”

“Lastly, since Ambassador Nikki Haley invoked his memory, in 1829 the liberator Simon Bolivar said that the United States seemed to be destined to plague all of the Americas with misery in the name of liberty.  History has shown the judiciousness of his premonition.”

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Carla Stea is Global Research’s correspondent at the United Nations Headquarters, New York, N.Y.

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A new book, an anonymous Op-Ed and an Obama speech in the first seven days of September appeared to reveal dangerous insider moves against a dangerous, but constitutionally elected president, writes Joe Lauria.

In the first seven days of September efforts to manage and perhaps oust a constitutionally elected president were stunningly made public,  raising complex questions about America’s vaunted democratic system.

What unfolded appears reminiscent of the novel and film Seven Days in May: the story of an attempted military coup against a U.S. president who sought better relations with Russia. The fictional president was based on the real one, John F. Kennedy, who opened the White House in 1963 to director John Frankenheimer to film the only scenes of a Hollywood movie ever made there.

Kennedy was well aware of the Pentagon brass’ political fury after his refusal to proceed with a full-scale assault against Cuba in the Bay of Pigs operation. It was compounded by his desire for detente with Moscow after the Cuban Missile Crisis, which Kennedy expressed forcefully in his seminal American University address, five months before his death.

This is the essential (must watch) scene in the film, a brilliant 2:25 minutes of screen history:

The key quote from the character playing Kennedy is:

“You have such a fervent, passionate, evangelical affection for your country, why in the name of God don’t you have any faith in the system of government you’re so hellbent to protect?”

You didn’t have to know Jack Kennedy to know that Donald Trump is no Jack Kennedy. Trump has staked out a raft of positions dangerous to the interests of most Americans and people around the world: on climate, billionaire tax breaks, health insurance, drone warfare, torture, immigration, Iran, Palestine and more.

But Trump has ostensibly tried to improve relations with Russia and North Korea to defuse the most sensitive nuclear trigger points on earth.  And for that he at least appears to be getting the pre-1963 Kennedy treatment.

Circumstantial 

Until the first seven days of September there was only circumstantial evidence that intelligence agencies worked with the party in power to undermine the opposition party candidate before the election and the president afterward.

These included:

• a series of anonymous leaks to undermine the president from Obama’s intelligence officials, one admitted to by then FBI Director James Comey;
• a series of anti-Trump political messages between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, including one that admits to there being “no there, there” regarding Trump-Russia collusion, even though Strzok joined Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team precisely to look for a “there, there;”
• the use of a Democratic Party paid-for opposition research dossier  (not an intelligence agency vetted report) to be later used to obtain a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign and form a basis for the Mueller probe;
• a CIA and FBI operative, linked to the firm that produced the dossier, who had infiltrated Jimmy Carter’s 1980 campaign, and in 2016 courted Trump campaign operatives in a possible sting operation to connect Trump to Moscow.

This created a picture of the Democrats, the ruling party in the executive branch, using its intelligence agencies to undermine first a candidate and then a constitutionally elected president. Most of the corporate media buried or dismissed these leads as a “conspiracy theory,” while relentlessly pushing the so-far unproven conspiracy theory that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the election.

The effort appeared to be classic projection onto Russia to deflect attention from Hillary Clinton’s self-made defeat and, in centuries-old political tradition, to falsely blame a hostile foreign power for rising domestic unrest resulting instead from bi-partisan, unjust policies, which have indeed “undermined our democracy” and “sowed social divisions.” It was that unrest that helped elect Trump.

As much of a danger as he may be to the republic, Trump will be gone in two or six years. The greater danger may well have been out-of-control, unelected intelligence officials inserting themselves into the electoral process and now, allied with Trump administration officials, into the governing process. A saying at the National Security Agency is: “Administrations come and go, but we will still be here.”

Long-time Suspicions 

There have always been suspicions of forces behind the scenes holding the real power over American presidents. We only occasionally get glimpses of this.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter openly defied President Barack Obama when he sabotaged a plan to cooperate militarily with Russia against extremists in Syria by killing dozens of Syrian Arab Army soldiers just as Secretary of State John Kerry was nailing down the details of the agreement, which was then abandoned. This came as unelected officials pressured Obama to directly intervene in Syria.

Most of the time we are left to speculate about the unseen forces controlling a president.

But in September’s first seven days we had three unusually public indications of unelected people trying to undermine an elected president:  the revelations in Bob Woodward’s new book; the anonymous op-ed in The New York Times and an unusual speech by Barack Obama about Trump.

Masha Gessen, a strong critic of Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, explained the danger this way in The New Yorker: 

“Having this state of affairs described in print further establishes that an unelected body, or bodies, are overruling and actively undermining the elected leader. While this may be the country’s salvation in the short run, it also plainly signals the demise of some of its most cherished ideals and constitutional norms. An anonymous person or persons cannot govern for the people, because the people do not know who is governing.”

Real Evidence Emerges 

On Sept. 5, The New York Times took the highly unusual decision to publish an anonymous op-ed article. Titled, “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,” it had the subtitle: “I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.”

The official, who has yet to be unmasked, provides clear evidence of unelected officials trying to control a less-than aware president:  “The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda…”

But here is the key.  This behind-the-throne power has a distinct political agenda. They’re not really concerned about “rising above politics, reaching across the aisle and resolving to shed the labels in favor of a single one: Americans” as the writer professes. Their concern is  determining policy.

For instance this cabal has no problem with some of the most regressive parts of Trump’s program. The writer celebrates them.  “Don’t get me wrong,” he writes. “There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.”

Deregulation to let the private sector run roughshod over workers. Deregulation to worsen climate change. Tax reform to put millions more into billionaire’s pockets while average Americans remain mired in debt. And a more robust military to multiply human suffering around the world.

This, instead, seems like the real problem the insiders have with Trump: “On Russia, for instance, the president was reluctant to expel so many of Mr. Putin’s spies as punishment for the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain. He complained for weeks about senior staff members letting him get boxed into further confrontation with Russia, and he expressed frustration that the United States continued to impose sanctions on the country for its malign behavior. But his national security team knew better — such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable.”

It is Trump’s Russia policy–the only rational part of his agenda–that is their problem, not unlike the generals in Frankenheimer’s masterpiece.

Obama Slams Trump

On Sept. 7, Obama broke with the tradition of former presidents and criticized his successor in a speech at the University of Illinois. It’s an unwritten rule in Washington then when you leave the White House you don’t look back. Of course it’s been broken before. Teddy Roosevelt called Taft a “puzzlewit” and a “fathead.”  But the idea is that when you are no longer an elected president you shouldn’t undermine the one who is.

“How hard can that be, saying that Nazis are bad?” Obama said, referring to Trump’s reluctance to condemn neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, VA last year.

As Obama was still president when his intelligence agencies apparently went to work on Trump, it was a bit rich for him to say: “”It should not be Democratic or Republican, it should not be partisan to say that we don’t pressure the Department of Justice or the FBI to use the criminal justice system as a cudgel to punish our political opponents.”

Evidently recalling his own battles with administration officials who pressured him, Obama however recognized that it is undemocratic for a president’s team to try to undermine him.  “The idea that everything will turn out OK because there are people inside the White House who secretly aren’t following the President’s orders,” Obama said of the anonymous op-ed, “… is not a check. I am being serious here. That is not how our democracy is supposed to work.”

Fear Over Fear

The most alarming revelations about the effort to control a president come from Woodward’s book, Fear: Trump in the White House, which first appeared in the media during the first seven days of September on Sept. 4. Woodward said in an interview that he “looked hard for evidence of collusion with Russia, but didn’t find any.”

That did not stop members of Team Trump from interfering in his duties as chief executive, going well beyond the role of counseling the president.

Much of Woodward’s reporting is from anonymous and second hand sources.  Assuming that what he writes is true he reported that former White House economic adviser Gary Cohn “stole a letter off Trump’s desk.”  Had Trump signed it, the U.S. would have withdrawn from a free trade agreement with South Korea.  Woodward quotes Cohn in the words of an unnamed official as saying, “I stole it off his desk….I wouldn’t let him see it. He’s never going to see that document. Got to protect the country.”

That would appear to cross the line.

However it then becomes a lot more complicated than Seven Days in May. 

“He drafts a tweet saying, ‘We are going to pull out dependents from South Korea … Family members of the 28,000 people there,’” Woodward told CBS News.

According to CBS:

That tweet was never sent, because of a back channel message from North Korea that it would regard a pullout of dependents as a sign the U.S. was preparing to attack. “At that moment there was a sense of profound alarm in the Pentagon leadership that, ‘My God, one tweet and we have reliable information that the North Koreans are going to read this as an attack is imminent,’” Woodward said.

According to the book, Trump also told Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to assassinate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after the April 2017 chemical attack.  “Let’s fucking kill him! Let’s go in. Let’s kill the fucking lot of them,” Trump said, according to Woodward. (That would not please the Kremlin, his supposed master, but whatever) .

Mattis supposedly told Trump he’d “get right on it” but ignored the order.  Mattis devised pin prick strikes instead.

Is that insubordination? Or was that saving the U.S., the Middle East and perhaps the world from a major war?

It certainly sets up an excruciating dilemma. This time it may be the generals preserving the peace.

Seven Days in September may indeed be the reverse of Seven Days in May.

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Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Sunday Times of London and numerous other newspapers. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @unjoe .

S-300 air defense systems can detect and target enemy aircraft, missiles, and other aerial objects as distant as 250 km (155 miles) away.

They can lock on to up to six targets simultaneously, able to fire two missiles at each one, downing what’s targeted at 4 to 8.5 mach speed, depending on which system is installed.

Evasive targets can’t escape detection, targeting and downing, including low-flying objects approaching from different directions.

S-300 ground-to-air missiles can be fired in three seconds after detecting a threat, effectively countering it, why Washington and Israel object to Russia supplying this capability to Syrian forces.

On Wednesday, Trump’s State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert called their installation “a serious escalation.”

It’s precisely the opposite, a purely defensive system, not an offensive one, intended solely to protect Syrian security and Russian ground personnel in the country.

It only threatens attacking aircraft and other aggressive aerial objects. That’s what it’s designed for, a security system, not an aggressive one.

On Tuesday, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said the following:

“In conformity with the presidential decision, we have begun to carry out a number of measures to reinforce Syria’s air defense systems in order to ensure better protection for our servicemen,” adding:

“We have completed the delivery of S-300 systems. It included 49 pieces of equipment, including radars, control vehicles and four launchers.”

Additional launchers and equipment will likely be delivered if needed. S-300s being installed are equipped with automated control systems – up to now only available to Russian military personnel in Syria.

The sophisticated air defense system can suppress satellite navigation, radars and communications systems of attacking warplanes and missiles well before they reach intended targets.

Installation will be completed by October 20, Syrian crews trained to operate S-300s within three months.

Russian personnel will likely be jointly involved in their operation at least for a period of time – US/Israeli warplanes and missiles unlikely to create a greater provocation than already by endangering them.

The installation will be unified with Russia’s system to receive its friend or foe ID signals, reportedly including its homeland C3 command, control, and communications system, though unclear whether fully or partly.

Is the installation a game-changer on the ground in Syria? Is US/Israeli stealth capability rendered useless?

Answers to these and related questions depend on whether and how both countries may try to challenge what’s being installed.

Russia’s Defense Ministry claims S-300s and related equipment being installed for Syrian use can overcome stealth technology, medium-range ballistic missiles, tactical and cruise missiles, as well as airborne early warning and control (AWACS/AEW&C) aircraft, along with reconnaissance and strike systems.

Clearly, the Pentagon and IDF face a challenge not previously encountered in Syria – the ability of government forces to counter hostile aerial attacks much more effectively than so far once the new installation is completed an operating.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

In the 9th largest economy in the world, the financial markets are crashing, and in the 21st largest economy in the world the central bank just raised interest rates to 65 percent to support a currency that is completely imploding.  While the mainstream media in the United States continues to be obsessed with all things Kavanaugh, an international financial crisis threatens to spiral out of control. 

Stock prices are falling and currencies are collapsing all over the planet, but because the U.S. has been largely unaffected so far the mainstream media is mostly choosing to ignore what is happening.  But the truth is that this is serious.  The financial crisis in Italy threatens to literally tear the EU apart, and South America has become an economic horror show.  The situation in Brazil continues to get worse, the central bank of Argentina has just raised interest rates to 65 percent, and in Venezuela starving people are literally eating cats and dogs in order to survive.  How bad do things have to get before people will start paying attention?

On Friday, Italian stocks had their worst day in more than two years, and it was the big financial stocks that were on the cutting edge of the carnage…

Shares in Italian banks .FTIT8300, whose big sovereign bond portfolios makes them sensitive to political risk, bore the brunt of selling pressure, sinking 7.3 percent as government bonds sold off and the focus turned to rating agencies.

Along with the main Italian stock index .FTMIB, the banks had their worst day since the June 2016 Brexit vote triggered a selloff across markets.

Italian bonds got hit extremely hard too.  The following comes from Business Insider…

Bond markets are also suffering. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Italian bond jumped in Friday morning trading. Yields move inversely to price, with a higher yield reflecting an increased premium to hold the bond. The 10-year yield hit 3.22% in early morning trade, an increase of more than 10%.

So what sparked the sudden selloff?

Well, the new Italian government and the EU are at odds with one another, and the European elite were greatly displeased when Italy approved a new budget that was far larger than anticipated…

On Thursday night, six months after the government’s ascent to power, Italy’s populist coalition government of the Five Star Movement and the Northern League finally agreed on the key tenets of its first budget.

The coalition said in a statement they had agreed to set Italy’s budget deficit at 2.4% of GDP, an increase on the current level and far above the 1.6% that technocratic finance minister Giovanni Tria had lobbied for.

It is easy to criticize Italy, but what we are doing here in the United States is just as bad if not worse.

A new 854 billion dollar spending bill just got pushed through in D.C., and it is going to continue to explode the size of our national debt.  We are going down the exact same path that all of these other nations have gone down, and in the process we are literally committing national suicide.

Just look at what is happening in Argentina.  Years of wild spending have resulted in an economy that is deep in recession.  The Argentine peso has lost approximately 50 percent of its value so far in 2018, and in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding the central bank of Argentina just panic-raised interest rates to 65 percent.

When interest rates are at 65 percent, you don’t really have an economy anymore.

What you have is an endless nightmare.

In an emergency move, the International Monetary Fund has agreed to increase the size of Argentina’s bailout to 57 billion dollars…

The International Monetary Fund and Argentina announced Wednesday an arrangement to increase resources available to the South American country by $19 billion.

The agreement, pending IMF Executive Board approval, would bring the total amount available under the program to $57.4 billion by the end of 2021, up from $50 billion.

That won’t be nearly enough to turn the situation around in Argentina, and the IMF probably knows that.

For a long time many of us have been warning of a coming global financial crisis, and now that day has arrived.

For a long time many of us have been telling you to keep a close eye on Italy, and now a day of reckoning for that very troubled nation is here.

And big problems are coming for the U.S. too.  Signs of imminent economic trouble just keep popping up, and it isn’t going to take much to push us into a new financial crisis that will be much worse than what we witnessed in 2008.

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Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.