Global Research

The October 1 general election campaign in Quebec unfolded as two distinct contests. One was the competition between the Liberals and Coalition Avenir Québec for control of the government. The other was a battle between the Parti québécois and Québec solidaire for hegemony within the pro-sovereignty movement.

In the end, the CAQ replaced the Liberals in government on a platform that claimed to offer “change” but in substance promises even more of the same capitalist austerity inflicted on the Québécois under successive governments since the mid-1990s. PLQ support is now heavily concentrated in its minority Anglophone enclaves of western Quebec.

The real change, however, was registered in the surge of support for Québec solidaire, which more than doubled its share of the popular vote and elected 10 members to the National Assembly, one more than the PQ’s total under the vagaries of the first-past-the-post electoral system. Although the PQ received slightly more votes, it was a crushing defeat for the party founded 50 years ago by René Lévesque that as recently as 2014 had governed the province. Jean-François Lisée, defeated in his own riding by the QS candidate, immediately announced his resignation as PQ leader.

In part, this split in popular support reflected a generational shift; pre-election polling showed QS in advance of the PQ among voters under the age of 35. But it also reflected to some degree a class divide, a rejection among younger voters of the PQ’s record as itself a party of capitalist austerity and its regressive catering to white settler prejudice in sharp contrast with Quebec’s increasingly pluricultural composition, as well as a growing determination among many that Quebec sovereignty, to be meaningful, must be integrally connected with the quest for fundamental social change.

QS: A Political Force in Contention

Throughout the campaign, the mainstream media featured the argument that this was the first election in which Quebec sovereignty was not at issue. But they largely missed the significance of these shifts within the pro-sovereignty movement as it continues to radicalize.

For Québec solidaire, the election campaign was an opportunity to win support for the party’s ideas, recruit new members, and build its organization and influence, including in regions outside Montreal. On all counts, it appears to have been successful. On the eve of the election, political columnist Michel David, in the pro-PQ Le Devoir, had to admit that “the emergence of QS as a political force that is in contention from now on has been the outstanding feature of the campaign now closing.”

The party now has 20,000 members in a province of 8.3 million.¹ Just over half of its candidates in Quebec’s 125 constituencies, or ridings, were women, including a Muslim in a Montreal riding and an Inuit in a far-north riding. Two of its successful candidates are former leaders of Option nationale, another sovereigntist party which merged with QS last year. In Montréal’s Mercier riding, Québec solidaire’s first elected MNA, Amir Khadir, now retired, was replaced by Ruba Ghazal, a Palestinian-Québécoise.

In many ridings, dozens of members worked full-time during the campaign, while hundreds of others canvassed from door to door or staffed the phones to talk to voters. Party leaders toured the province in a specially chartered bus. In the months prior to the election and during the campaign, the party held mass assemblies, some drawing an audience of up to a thousand or more.

Image: “For the creation of the first country in the world founded with the indigenous.”

Party members were urged to design their own posters to illustrate major themes in the QS platform. The results (visible here) were audacious and astute, with a hint of the élan registered in the 2012 “maple spring” student upsurge. This is a party with some good ideas… and a sense of humour.

Building the QS

In televised debates between the leaders of the four major parties, QS co-spokesperson Manon Massé managed to publicize some key proposals in the party’s platform to a wide audience, even if she was not always successful in her explanations due to her inexperience and the time constraints. With her calm demeanour, a contrast to the loud and sometimes insulting exchanges between the three male leaders whose party programs differ little in neoliberal substance, she portrayed QS as a party that could legitimately sustain its claim to offer a radical progressive and feminist alternative to the capitalist parties. She was, as one media commentator said, the “real revelation” of this campaign.

Québec solidaire’s progress in the campaign marks a new advance in a process of rebuilding and recomposition of the left in Quebec that began about 20 years ago and proceeded through a series of fusions among different left parties and feminist and community activist movements: the formation of the Union des forces progressistes in 2002, the fusion of the UFP with Option Citoyenne in 2006 to form Québec solidaire, and the fusion of Option nationale with QS in 2017.²

Image: QS campaign bus, rear view: “In Quebec, we pass on the left to get ahead.”

For most of its history, QS has been swimming against the current in Quebec politics. Since the narrow defeat of the 1995 referendum on sovereignty, austerity programs and cutbacks in services implemented by PQ and Liberal governments have seriously weakened the trade unions and unravelled the social fabric of key Quebec institutions and facilities. The women’s movement is almost unique in maintaining a major presence in civil society. More recently, however, a burgeoning environmental movement has managed to stop (at least for now) the Energy East pipeline project and oil and gas fracking in the St. Lawrence river valley. (It will now have to contend with the CAQ’s pledge, as the new government, to resume fracking on Anticosti Island.)

The massive student upsurge that shook Quebec in 2012 may have marked a turning point in the anti-neoliberal resistance; one of the leaders of the movement for free post-secondary education, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, joined Québec solidaire early last year and is now the party’s co-spokesperson along with Manon Massé. When he joined, the party signed up 5,000 new members.

Québec solidaire had high hopes in this election. It began preparing for it last December. The same congress that voted to fuse with Option nationale debated and adopted proposed planks in its election platform, although shortage of time meant that large parts of the platform were adopted instead by the party’s National Committee in May of this year. The platform is derived from the party’s program, adopted over the past decade in successive congresses, each devoted to particular aspects.³ The election platform was assembled from parts of the program addressed to what were considered issues of prime importance and demanding the most urgent attention.

Meanwhile, QS activists worked hard to line up a strong slate of candidates and to develop the publicity and other materials that would help them in their campaign appearances. Nomination meetings in some cases saw real contests among potential candidates and were well-attended, especially in ridings with hundreds of QS members.

Quebec Politics in Context

The political context offered some openings. Quebec’s Liberal party, which has governed for 13 of the last 15 years, was deeply unpopular as a result of its extreme austerity, its treatment of healthcare – rampant burnout among nurses (but huge increases in doctors’ incomes) – abhorrent conditions of seniors in long-term care facilities, decrepit schools, poor infrastructure maintenance, and a succession of major corruption scandals.

The Parti québécois has lost faith in its founding idea, the creation of a sovereign but capitalist Quebec, now linked inextricably with the PQ’s record of “zero deficit” austerity during its terms in office since 1995; the party has put the quest for sovereignty on ice for at least the next four years. It lost the last election after its short-lived government initiated a deeply divisive Charter of Values that stigmatized ethnic minorities, especially Muslim women. Entering the election campaign as the third party in the polls, the PQ could no longer pose as a “lesser-evil” alternative government option.

The Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), a third capitalist party formed in recent years by right-wing dissident péquistes and former Liberals, was ranking ahead of the others in pre-election polling. But while it spoke of “change,” it soon was clear in the election debates that the party would, if anything, push Quebec further to the right. Its platform appealed to suburban voters with promises of wider highways and “strong” and “more efficient” government, with no mention of climate change, greenhouse gases or urban sprawl. Its leader François Legault, who personally appointed the party’s candidates – a majority were women, so as not to be outflanked by QS in this regard – campaigned most distinctly to lower by 20% Quebec’s quota for “economic immigrants”⁴ and impose mandatory tests on French language proficiency and knowledge of “Quebec values” on citizenship applicants; if they failed they would be “expelled,” he said, although he later retreated on that threat. PQ leader Jean-François Lisée said his party would admit mainly immigrants who already speak French.

This left Québec solidaire as the only party promising progressive change. What did it propose? As the party’s election materials are only in French, of course, I will summarize some major provisions.

Climate Crisis

Québec solidaire was the only party to put the climate crisis at the centre of its campaign.

“The fight against climate change is the biggest challenge of our century,” said the party in introducing its 86-page “Economic Transition Plan,” entitled Now or Never.⁵ Human activity is responsible for the increasing ecological imbalances and humanitarian disasters, so radical government action is needed. Many of the party’s proposals for action before 2030 cannot be implemented within Quebec’s jurisdiction under the Canadian constitution; in the present context, these necessary measures can only be implemented by a sovereign Quebec, it notes.

A scientific consensus, QS reminds us, dictates that by 2050 global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions must have declined by 80 to 95% from the 1990 level if climate warming is not to exceed the critical threshold of a 1.5^o C increase.

But in Quebec GHG emissions decreased by only 9 per cent between 1990 and 2015. There is no more time for half-measures, says QS. A QS government, it pledges, will by 2030 decrease these emissions to 48% of the 1990 level.⁶ “A colossal collective effort is needed,” it says. Quebec does not lack the necessary means or know-how. What’s missing is

“political will, blocked in part by the Canadian government’s obsession with petroleum and the lack of commitment of the provincial elites…. Our plan is conceived within the perspective of a Quebec that is marching toward its independence, to provide itself with the tools needed to carry out the transition. This is the real meaning of sovereignty, of a people who themselves direct their economy and its relationship to the territory.”

Transportation is responsible for 40% of GHG emissions in Quebec, and Québec solidaire proposes to expand public transit, to rapidly phase out petroleum-fueled vehicles and to reduce the carbon content in inter-city transport. Among its many specific measures, the platform proposes:

• Free public transit within 10 years; in its first term, a QS government would cut fares by 50%
• Nationalization of inter-city transportation and a big increase in service
• High-speed transportation (the technology to be determined) between Montréal and Quebec City, followed by links to other cities
• An $8-billion increase in transit infrastructure spending, and $20-billion more by 2030 with special attention to electrification of trucking (e.g. establishment of “electric highways”⁷)
• No further road construction projects other than for safety or linking remote regions.

Renewable Energy Development

Québec solidaire proposes a major increase in diversified renewable energy production through wind (to be placed under “public control”), solar (to be promoted by state-owned Hydro-Québec), and geothermal energy. Oil and coal are to be replaced for home heating purposes by production of “second generation biofuels” manufactured from non-food biomass (e.g. plant and animal waste). As well, the party would ban subsidies for fossil fuels and all exploration or exploitation of these energy sources on Quebec territory.

A novel proposal is QS’s plan to establish large-scale battery production under “public control,” taking advantage of Quebec’s extensive lithium deposits.

Proposals to improve land management and agriculture include restrictions on urban sprawl, promotion of food sovereignty and organic agriculture, and a tax reform to help municipalities fund an ecological transition, including possible replacement of property taxes with more equitable and regionally oriented funding provisions.

Building construction is another major source of GHG emissions in Quebec. QS would reform the building code to require energy efficiency ratings in every project. And it proposes to “repatriate” the Quebec portion of the federal “tax free savings account” program (currently valued at close to $80-billion), and replace it with a Quebec “sustainable housing” TFSA that would allow individual investors to use up to $50,000 of their tax-free investment on energy-efficient renovation of their residences, managed by Quebec’s energy transition agency.

The Quebec government’s existing environmental advisory agency, the BAPE,⁸ would be strengthened and mandated to insist on free and informed consent of indigenous communities for any development project on their lands.

In its 2018 election platform, QS proposes that communities be given a veto over mining permits, that mines be obliged to maintain reserve funding adequate to restore extraction sites, and that mining royalties be assessed at 5% of the gross value of output. At present, royalties on Quebec mines generate annual revenues of only $100-million on production valued at $8-billion. The other three parties propose no change in this arrangement, nor do they agree to the QS proposal to subject all mining projects to environmental assessment by the BAPE.

Development contracts would no longer award priority to the lowest bidder, ignoring environmental externalities.

Once independent, Quebec would review its refugee reception policy to provide for assistance to climate-change refugees.

Under the heading “Democratic Transition,” a QS government would adopt an annual carbon budget, setting an annual limit on GHG emissions. Every major investment project involving state financial participation must include a climate impact assessment. A transition program would fund retraining of affected workers in the petroleum and other affected sectors, with special provision for women and immigrants.

The party estimates that its climate change measures, taken as a whole, will create 300,000 new jobs. These in turn should increase state revenues by about $6.5-billion in income and direct taxes, but also municipal revenues by $9.7-billion, not to mention the one percentage point of the provincial sales tax a QS government would allocate to municipal governments. However, QS does not include these revenue sources in the costing of its transition plan because they do not involve direct government expenditures.⁹

Ecosocialist?

Despite these positive measures, the Quebec solidaire climate change proposals are open to criticism from an ecosocialist perspective. For example, the party’s election platform promises to retain Quebec’s current cap and trade emissions program which it operates together with California (and until recently with Ontario), even though it recognizes that its impact on GHG emissions is extremely limited – and the party’s program opposes both carbon trading and carbon taxes, the first described as a speculative tool for enriching multinational corporations, and the second as a regressive tax on the poorest.

The platform says cap and trade will be maintained for now since it will help to generate funding for the party’s proposed ecological transition. During its first term a QS government will design and implement a form of progressive taxation to replace cap and trade. However, its promised carbon price of $110 per ton by 2030 falls far short of constituting an effective price on pollution.

Also problematic is the QS platform’s lingering accommodation to the car culture. For example, it promises that by 2030 only hybrid or electric cars will be eligible for sale, and low-income consumers will be subsidized if they buy an electric car to replace a gasoline-powered vehicle that is more than 12 years old. In fairness, however, the platform does note that “once collective transportation within and between cities is in place, some old habits will have to be discouraged,” and it promises increased fuel taxes and bridge and highway tolls “adjusted to social and family situations” to be implemented in coming years. The transition plan concludes:

“Infinite growth in a finite world is not a viable or desirable projet de société. It is a dead-end, and we must abandon it…. We will not be content with improving a system that has shown over and over how flawed it is. Our government will orient the economy in terms of human needs, which are inseparable from the protection of ecosystems and biodiversity. By putting in place the conditions of a new relationship to the natural world and to human activity, we will lay the foundations of an environmentally friendly economy.”

“We also think,” it adds, “that beginning with our first term in office we must undertake a break with the Canadian federation in order to be able to carry out this plan…. To carry out a coherent ecological transition by affirming our sovereignty is the best way to proceed in solidarity with the peoples in the rest of the world.”

Equality, Not Austerity

Among the many other progressive measures listed in Québec solidaire’s 2018 election platform the emphasis was on reversing the harsh austerity regime enforced by successive PQ and Liberal governments since the mid-1990s and the need to expand social programs and benefits. These included proposals such as:

• Free and accessible public education from pre-school to university, to be implemented within five years. Promotion of local neighborhood schools. School curriculum to be determined by communities with input from teachers and parents. Education on sex, gender equality, history (the latter to incorporate contributions from indigenous and ethno-cultural communities). Improved French language teaching and cultural integration. No public funding of private schools. Increased pay for teachers, job security, and respect for their professional autonomy.
• Public medicare to include universal dental care. Establishment of pharmacare for group purchases and generic drugs, and creation of a public universal drug insurance plan. Local clinics (CSLCs) to include psychiatric care, mid-wife services, expanded home care support, with increased funding. Doctors to become employees with reduced wages. Environmental impact studies on the health of workers and communities in extractive industries.
• Equitable justice. Establish a universal legal aid plan. Raise small claims limits to $30,000. Support community legal clinics. Decriminalize simple possession of all drugs and treat drug dependency as a public health problem. Reduce the number of jail sentences of less than two years through establishment of alternative programs. Indigenous justice to be based on autonomy of their communities and practices. Recognize as fundamental the right to demonstrate, and the right of students to strike. Create an independent, impartial and transparent police oversight body.
• Food sovereignty. Encourage small producers. Protect seasonal workers. Protect supply management but ensure fair distribution of production quotas to assist second-generation family farmers. Support organic agriculture, local production. Prevent over-fishing. Protect farmlands from speculative purchases and free-trade agreements. Farmer union pluralism, eliminating the state-enforced monopoly of the agribusiness-dominated UPA.¹⁰
• Income and employment. Include self-employed and domestic labour in state pension plans. Defined benefits, not contributory, and indexed to the cost of living. Citizen representation on pension boards. Increased pension benefits for low-income and special-needs families. A $15 minimum wage, indexed annually. A pilot-project on basic income.
• Fair taxation. New tax brackets to account for differences in income, these brackets to be applied to all types of income with few exceptions. Increase corporate taxes. Fight tax evasion and avoidance. Restore the capital tax on financial corporations. Municipalities to be allowed to generate independent revenues and made less dependent on property taxes.
• Strengthened labour rights, including multi-employer union certification. Anti-scab legislation. Right to strike on social issues. Four weeks vacation after one year employment. Stronger protection for worker health and safety.
• Housing to be listed as a right in the Quebec Human Rights Charter. Construction of 50,000 eco-energy efficient homes per year, with special attention to fighting homelessness. A stronger rent-control board. A national housing rental registry. End legal victimization of the homeless, including the indigenous who are over-represented in this population.
• Electoral reform. Establish mixed proportional representation: 60% of seats awarded to candidates winning a plurality of votes, 40% to be distributed among parties and regions proportionate to their share of the popular vote. Preferential voting at the municipal level. Male-female parity among all party candidates and cabinet members. Institute direct democracy mechanisms, such as participative budgets. Organize an Estates General on funding of news media. Provisional government support for alternative and independent media.
• A feminist Quebec. Gender-differentiated analysis in designing programs and policies, taking into account other forms of domination and discrimination. LGBTQ recognition at all levels, including in seniors’ homes. Public education to combat stigmatization, harassment of sex workers. Public campaign against sexual violence.
• A plural Quebec. Increased funding to community agencies working with immigrants and cultural communities. Affirmative action for minorities in the public service and firms with 50 or more employees that benefit from government contracts and subsidies. Recognition of foreign diplomas. Foreign farm workers to have access to community social programs, francisation and integration. Allow them to unionize.
• Language rights. Apply Law 101 (Charter of the French Language) to firms with 10 or more employees. (The current threshold is 50 employees.)
• For a sovereign Quebec in solidarity with the indigenous peoples. In its first mandate, a QS government would provide for election of a Constituent Assembly to draft a constitution for an independent Quebec, which would then be put to a popular referendum for adoption. During the transition to independence, a QS government would keep the Canadian dollar but create a national currency and a public central bank at the appropriate time. A parliamentary committee would calculate the fair allocation of Quebec’s share of the federal debt. Quebec would adopt the UN Declaration on Indigenous rights, and would implement the 94 calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It would assist indigenous nations in their efforts to preserve their languages and traditional cultures.

Preparing for Independence, Then Implementing It

In many parts of its platform documents, Québec solidaire separates proposals realizable in the first term of a QS government, prior to independence, from longer-term measures in the party program; in its climate action platform, the longer term is 2018 to 2030. Where it does not do this, limiting its proposals to first-term provincial action within the constraints of the federal state, the proposed measures are comparatively modest.

For example, the section entitled “For an economy serving the common good” calls for redefining the mandate of the Caisse de Dépôt et Placement (the government pension-funds investment agency) to include social and environmental values and job creation, with more citizen representation on the board and more attention to regional and indigenous development projects. It would also redefine a “sharing economy” to include tighter controls on Uber, Airbnb, etc. A “public bank” is to be created to serve public institutions, households and firms.

However, the QS program, addressed to measures to be implemented in an independent Quebec, states that the party intends to “go beyond capitalism” and to “explore alternative economic systems.” It will no longer consider economic growth as an objective in itself and will assign less importance to the GDP and more to considering the “social and economic externalities caused by economic activity.” In the long run, it says, QS aims for “the socialization of economic activities.” Its proposal for “social transformation” will be based in particular on

“a strong public economy (public services, state enterprises and nationalization of major firms in certain strategic sectors) and on promotion and development of a social economy (cooperative, community sector, social enterprises). A certain place will be maintained for the private sector, particularly for small and medium enterprise.”

Moreover, nationalized firms will operate in a system of “national and democratic planning” and be placed under “decentralized management” by boards composed of “the workers, state representatives, elected regional officials, citizens’ groups and First Nations, etc.” And within these firms the organization of the work will be self-managed by the workers themselves.

The program also calls for establishment of a state bank either through creation of a new institution or “through partial nationalization of the banking system.” Banking will be considered a public service, with much tighter regulation of credit, currency and fees to clients.

A similar dichotomy between election platform and party program can be observed in the platform’s discussion of “international solidarity,” which is addressed in an essentially provincialist framework, notwithstanding some very progressive proposals on this topic in the QS program for the international policy of a sovereign Quebec.

Red-baiting

Naturally, the QS surge in campaign opinion polling provoked a closer scrutiny of its plans, and not only by sympathizers. Although the QS platform is not explicitly “anti-capitalist” or “socialist,” the party’s right-wing critics were quick to draw their own conclusions. Columnists and editorial writers dug out the QS program and cited some of its major propositions in order to warn voters that the party was much more dangerous than Manon Massé’s smiling disposition might suggest.

In Le Devoir, Paris-based columnist Christian Rioux drew attention to Québec solidaire’s links with European socialists. He pointed to parallels between the programs of QS and La France insoumise, the party led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. In a message to a QS congress last year, hadn’t Mélenchon referred to QS co-spokesman Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois as “a brother in struggle”? Both parties, moreover, had been founded with Communist party support.¹¹ Indeed, wasn’t QS very similar to those “far-left parties” rising almost everywhere, like Die Linke in Germany, Syriza in Greece, or Podemos in Spain? And hadn’t Manon Massé gone to Catalonia last year where she consorted with the CUP,¹² a “radically anticapitalist party”?

Less informative was columnist Denise Bombardier, writing in Le Journal de Montréal. “Manon Massé is making light of us by disguising the real nature of her party, which is nothing other than a copy of the Western communist parties that plunged the 20th century into the totalitarianism that collapsed with the Berlin wall.”

But it was Parti québécois leader Jean-François Lisée who led the attack. “Québec solidaire is anchored in Marxism and anti-capitalism and is controlled in secrecy by a dogmatic, sectarian current,” he said. In a televised leaders’ debate, where he was asked to outline the PQ approach to healthcare, Lisée instead turned on Manon Massé, asking who was the real leader of her party. Although most viewers probably recognized it as an attempt to belittle Massé’s leadership capacities, many péquistes and solidaires also recognized it as an expression of Lisée’s frustration over the QS membership’s rejection in a party congress last year of his proposal for an electoral alliance, initially supported by some QS leaders.¹³

Not to be outdone, former Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe chimed in with a personal attack on Massé. Among other allegations, he said her French is so poor that it disqualifies her from becoming prime inister. Referring to Massé’s self-acknowledged difficulties in English, as revealed in the English-language TV debate,¹⁴ he said sarcastically that her English is “as good as her French.”¹⁵

However, these attacks on QS may have backfired. They did not sit well even with other PQ leaders, and Lisée had to acknowledge that he was called to account by, among others, his deputy leader Véronique Hivon, who is reported to have refused to campaign with him for several days. Such incidents revealed the real panic that had seized the PQ as QS surged in the polls – as well as the elitist rancour of some nationalist protagonists grown accustomed to the bipartisan PQ-Liberal alternance in government.

Duceppe’s attacks on QS provoked the Bloc Québécois leadership in Quebec City to call on “all independentist voters” in the area to support QS candidates Catherine Dorion and Sol Zanetti. “Their unpretentious and refreshing discourse paves the way to a new generation of frank and determined MNAs,” the local BQ stated on its Facebook page. This prompted the Bloc’s parliamentary caucus in Ottawa to declare its adherence to the PQ, equating as always the “interests of Quebec,” which it claims to defend, with those of the PQ.

If most election coverage in the corporate media was hostile to Québec solidaire, it was a different – although mixed – story in the independent and alternate media. Presse-toi à gauche, an on-line weekly periodical that supports Québec solidaire, published many articles highlighting the QS campaign and its implications. Of particular interest was a series of profiles and interviews with QS candidates that appeared each week. Most were authored by Pierre Beaudet. They gave a perceptive view of what the campaign looked like “on the ground” and the diversity of the party’s candidates. Some examples:

• Andrés Fontecilla, a former QS president, contested Montreal’s Laurier-Dorion riding for the third time. The riding has many “cultural communities,” as multicultural environments are labelled in Quebec: in this case many Greeks and South Asians. Fontecilla himself is of Chilean origin. This year QS was joined by a small group of Indian and Pakistani youth with roots in the left in those countries and who are active in community groups. Working in Fontecilla’s campaign were more than 300 party members, eight of them full-time. He was even publicly endorsed by Pierre Céré, his PQ opponent in 2014. Andrés won election on October 1.
• Ève Torres, a mother of three wearing the Muslim hijab or headscarf, was the QS candidate in Mont-Royal-Outremont. The riding contains a large Anglophone population, relatively well-off. But there are also large communities coming from Asia, Africa and the Maghreb. In Outremont, 25% of the population are Hassidic Jews. A feminist and antiracist activist, Ève Torres was heavily involved in fighting Islamophobia during the controversy sparked by the PQ and Liberal attempts to dictate clothing codes to ethnic minorities. She reports that “little by little, we are shaking off the amalgam that many people make between the PQ, identitarianism, and sovereignty support…. I am not saying it is easy to explain the national question to people from Bangladesh, or even from the Maghreb, but when we manage to have a discussion, there is an opening.” And how does she deal with those uneasy about her headscarf?
  

  “I support secularism, although not the French version, which excludes those who are not part of the majority culture. The question of Islam, in any case, is not really posed in political terms. I am feminist, left-wing, I fight for gay rights. In my view, women’s rights are not negotiable in any society, including ours. Our rights cannot be bargained in the name of any religion whatsoever. I say that while not renouncing for a single second my adherence to the Islamic religion.”

• Several QS candidates were openly gay or lesbian. Simon Tremblay-Pepin, the party’s economics spokesperson, ran in the Montréal riding of Nelligan. He was profiled by Fugues, “the magazine of Quebec gays and lesbians,” as was Élisabeth Germain, the QS candidate in Charlesbourg riding in Quebec City. Divorced, aged 72, she was asked whether sexual orientation should be private only or “transparent.” Her answer:
  

  “I think it is important to be transparent when it is relevant, but I don’t think we need to take the initiative in announcing all of our characteristics. For my part, I emphasize why I am active; I think it is much more important to say I am a feminist, antiracist militant, for human rights and against poverty, than to say I am a lesbian, an ex-Catholic, mother of xchildren or a grandmother.”

• Another candidate outside of Montréal, the QS stronghold, was Christine Labrie, running in Sherbrooke. Once a major industrial centre, the city has a large student population. It is a milieu she knows well, as she teaches at the Université de Sherbrooke while completing her PhD in women’s studies at the University of Ottawa. She has three small children. She reports that more than 350 persons are in her campaign committee, and some of the party’s public meetings have drawn more than 1,000. Living in Sherbrooke are many people from the cultural communities, “newcomers from Syria and Afghanistan, Colombia, the Congo, even Nepal!” They encounter major problems in finding and using available programs and services, and many are receptive to QS’s proposal to establish centers to help immigrants become integrated in Quebec society, she reports. Christine was elected on October 1.
• Émilise Lessard-Therrien, aged 26, was the Québec solidaire candidate in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, a sprawling riding several hundred kilometres north of Montréal. Its QS membership of 600, more than the PQ’s 550, is the second highest outside of Montréal, exceeded only by Quebec City’s Taschereau riding. Some 200 were involved in the campaign, which has a budget of $40,000. QS is known in the area as the party that wants to nationalize the mines, an unpopular stance, although the party’s platform proposes only to raise mining royalties and to invest the new money in diversifying the economy, particularly in development of agriculture and forestry. Émilise was elected on October 1.

Ricochet is a Quebec-based on-line journal published in both French and English versions that tends to cover progressive causes and campaigns. Its French edition featured a number of videoed debates among candidates from five parties (including the Verts, or Greens). However, its English edition virtually ignored the election,¹⁶ while one of its cofounders, Ethan Cox, published an article in the U.S. magazine Jacobinlargely dismissive of the election’s importance and highly critical of Québec solidaire, especially for its support of independence which he characterized as a “millstone around the party’s neck.”

The progressive independent media in English Canada, such as rabble.ca, likewise ignored the Quebec election for the most part. Once again, it was a story of two solitudes.

Electoral Officer Tries to Chill Debate

As is usual in election campaigns, trade unions and other social movements attempted to inform their members about party positions on issues of particular importance to them. For example, Équiterre and a dozen or so ecology groups published the parties’ replies to a list of 23 proposals involving such issues as climate change, transportation, protection of biodiversity and agriculture. Likewise, the major union centrals posted on their web sites or in their newspapers a similar compilation of party positions on labour and related issues.¹⁷

To their consternation, midway through the campaign the Chief Electoral Officer (DGEQ) sent notices to all of these organizations warning them that publishing such inventories of party positions was a legal offense exposing each to a minimum fine of $10,000. The DGEQ claimed, with no basis in fact or law, that such publicity constituted illegal third-party “election spending.” The official letter sent to these groups claimed that they were prohibited from “publicizing, commenting on, comparing or otherwise illuminating, favourably or not, a political program, or acts or measures taken, advocated or opposed by any candidate or political party.”

The ecology groups – including Équiterre, the David Suzuki Foundation, Greenpeace, Nature Quebec, etc. – announced they would challenge the DGEQ ruling, even if it meant going to court. The union centrals threw their support behind them.

It appears that the DGEQ declined to follow through on its threat, and most if not all of the groups affected continued to publish their inventories of party positions on their web sites or in their print information. Strangely, the DGEQ made no further attempt to explain its bizarre and unprecedented interpretation of its own governing legislation.

Support for QS

In the end, a number of social movements indicated support for actions or proposals of Québec solidaire.

The Quebec women’s federation (FFQ), in a statement entitled “Beyond Parity,” noted not only that a majority of QS candidates were women, but that almost 20 per cent of QS candidates were from racialized or immigrant minorities, far more than candidates of the other parties (9%, 12% and 13% of the PQ, CAQ and Liberals, respectively).

Karel Mayrand, Quebec director of the Suzuki Foundation, praised QS’s climate change platform. “It is an ambitious, but very realistic plan,” he said. “To make the ecological transition at the speed we need to go now, it is what is necessary.”

Ghislain Picard, Chief of the Quebec-Labrador Assembly of First Nations, in a major statement, warned the next government “that they will have sovereignty on their political agenda: that of the First Nations.” He added:

“Only one party clearly recognizes the rights of our nations. Questioned about the borders of a sovereign Quebec, the co-spokesperson of Québec solidaire, Manon Massé, said ‘We are going to start from the present demarcations of Quebec, and then we are going to discuss with our indigenous brothers and sisters.’ […] Manon Massé is right: the territory of a future sovereign Quebec will have to be negotiated with the governments of the First Nations….

“Forget your discoveries and your conquests. Those colonial reflexes are over and serve to isolate Quebec in its past. Starting October 1, the sovereignty of the First Nations will indeed be on the order of the day.”

In a sign of the times, the widely read pro-PQ on-line and monthly print publication L’Aut’journal, which has consistently attacked QS for (among other things) dividing the independence movement, did not endorse the PQ as a party, but instead called for “voting for independentist and progressive candidates, and more particularly those who are best placed to win election.” Its editor, Pierre Dubuc, had earlier in the campaign praised QS for its call to end public funding of private schools, and Manon Massé for her denunciation of PQ leader Lisée who wanted to shunt pupils in difficulty off to the private schools – which as a rule do not admit such pupils.

The Challenges Ahead

The CAQ victory promises hard times ahead for the Québécois. This may well prove to be the most right-wing Quebec government in half a century. As it implements a new stage in neoliberal reaction, the Quebec left and social movements will be faced with huge challenges. Québec solidaire, with its new strength on the political scene, will come under a lot of pressure to defer, accommodate, compromise the principled positions that have brought it to this point.

Among these challenges, there are some we must begin to discuss, says prominent left activist and author Pierre Beaudet, writing on the eve of the election.

“The necessary transition that QS outlines will not only be difficult, it cannot be done without a formidable mobilization from below. Having 6 or 8 or 15 solidaires in the National Assembly will be a good thing, but the relationship of forces will not change without this mobilization. In this sense, the initiative must be taken up by the popular movements, which above all must not be content to await miracles on the parliamentary scene. The ‘real’ rulers are well aware of this, ensconced as they are in the back rooms of the state and the big corporations, and not just locally. They will continue to engage in a pitiless ‘war of position’ to organize and impose their reactionary policies.

“And these rulers are internationalized, not to say ‘internationalists,’ in their own way. That is all too clear here, a few kilometres from an empire that is dominant…. It was one of the most tragic errors of the PQ… to think for one second that we could ‘cajole’ the United States. To avoid this illusion, we will have to work with the rest of the world, including with the U.S. people themselves who are resisting Trump’s frenzies. Likewise, there are some interesting things happening in the rest of Canada, in particular in relation to struggles around environmental issues. These activists are our brothers and sisters, we must work with them.”

Richard Fidler is a member of Solidarity Ottawa and a member of Québec solidaire. He blogs at Life on the Left.

1. Transposed from Quebec to Canada, with five times the population, this 20,000 would be 100,000; to the United States, with 40 times the population, it would be 800,000.
2. For a detailed explanation of this initial process, see Richard Fidler, “Québec solidaire: A Québécois approach to building a broad left party,” Alternate Routes, Vol. 23 (2012).
3. The QS program is available here (in French only).
4. Under an agreement with Ottawa, signed in 1991, Quebec may determine its annual target for acceptance of most immigrants, while the federal government retains jurisdiction over refugees and family reunification cases.
5. Available in French only.
6. It should be noted that the platform’s target is substantially less than the 67% reduction in emissions by 2030 projected in the QS program. The party’s national committee in May reduced the platform target on the ground that it was now “unrealistic” given the delay to date. (See “Charting a path for Québec solidaire.”) In my view, however, the delay in reducing emissions would be better viewed as cause for greater urgency in tackling the climate crisis, not for a retreat taken out of narrow electoralist concerns.
7. An increasingly popular concept in the United States, an “electric highway” would include electric vehicle fast-charging stations at 25 to 50 mile intervals along major roadways.
8. Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement [Office of public environmental hearings].
9. This point seems to have eluded the author of a Le Devoir editorial attacking the party for its supposed financial irresponsibility. He noted that QS recognizes four actors in its concept of economic development: the non-profit social and community sector, household labour, the public sector, and the private sector, to which it assigns “a certain place, especially to small and medium enterprise.” But “QS proposes a host of generous measures while taking for granted that they will be financed by taxing only the fourth wheel of the coach, the private sector, since the other three pay no tax.” Somehow, he overlooked Québec solidaire’s fiscal framework, which provided a line-by-line breakdown of its projected revenue sources and savings. No matter: “In any event, in the long term QS ‘aims to socialize economic activities,’ the soft version of good old Chinese communism.” Jean-Robert Sansfaçon, “Québec solidaire: L’Avenir ou le passë?,” Le Devoir, September 25, 2018.
10. Union des Producteurs Agricoles, to which all farmers must pay dues.
11. The Quebec Communist party was until recently a recognized “collective” within QS. But it is now a supporter of the Parti québécois. See Guy Roy, “L’appui au PQ reste essentiel,” L’aut’journal, September 20, 2018.
12. Popular Unity Candidacy. Two CUP deputies were invited guests at the December 2017 QS congress. Rioux might have mentioned as well that Massé had earlier sailed on a boat to Gaza as part of the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which QS voted unanimously to endorse at its 2009 congress.
13. See “Québec solidaire: No to an electoral pact with the PQ, Yes to a united front against austerity, for energy transition and for independence,” Life on the Left, May 28, 2017. Another factor is the QS leadership structure, with male and female “co-spokespersons” in place of a “chef” or leader in the usual parliamentary custom. For the purpose of the election campaign and the party leaders’ debates, the QS national committee decided to designate Manon Massé as the party “leader” and “candidate for prime minister,” with Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois the deputy leader.
14. The English debate, unprecedented in Quebec elections, was an initiative of PQ leader Lisée who, like the CAQ and Liberal leaders, is proficient in English. The debate itself was widely questioned in nationalist circles. As former Le Devoir editor Lise Bissonnette said, it was like saying that to be prime minister of Quebec one has to pass an oral test in English. (And now Gilles Duceppe has proposed a French test as well!) Bissonnette noted that it put Manon Massé at a distinct disadvantage, and questioned the very appropriateness of a debate in English as it catered to the mistaken view of some Anglophones that they are second-class citizens. See Pierre Dubuc, “Débat en anglais: Bravo Lise Bissonnette!,” L’aut’journal, September 19, 2018.
15. In a televised CBC English-language interview, Massé was asked about Lisée’s allegations of anticapitalism and Marxism. Her answer: “I think that the revolution that Québec solidaire brings up, it’s a revolution [that] puts climate change and people at the centre…. If you call that socialism, of course we are. If you call it — what did you say, Marxism? — yes, it is.” Massé later said she had not clearly understood the question, and that Québec solidaire “is not Marxist, and no, Québec solidaire is not communist.” Steve Rukavina, CBC News, “Manon Massé misses the Marx.”
16. An exception was a lengthy article exposing the CAQ’s economics expert, running in Saint-Jérome, as a hack for oil interests and a client of the notorious Koch brothers and other U.S. and Canadian ultraright foundations and think tanks. The article was also published in its original French version in several independent media including Presse-toi à gauche.
17. Here, for example, is the four-page election supplement published in the Quebec Federation of Labour’s monthly newspaper Le Monde Ouvrier. Quebec unions do not have a tradition of endorsing or affiliating to political parties, which in any case is illegal under Quebec law.

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) has launched U.S. Out of Africa!: Shut Down AFRICOM, a campaign designed to end the U.S. invasion and occupation of Africa.

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of AFRICOM, short for U.S. Africa Command. Although U.S. leaders say AFRICOM is “fighting terrorism” on the continent, we believe geopolitical competition with China is the real reason behind AFRICOM’s existence. AFRICOM is a dangerous structure that has only increased militarism.

When AFRICOM was established in the months before Barack Obama assumed office as the first Black President of the United States, a majority of African nations—led by the Pan-Africanist government of Libya—rejected AFRICOM, forcing the new command to instead work out of Europe. But with the U.S. and NATO attack on Libya that led to the destruction of that country and the murder of its leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, corrupt African leaders began to allow AFRICOM forces to operate in their countries and establish military-to-military relations with the United States. Today, those efforts have resulted in 46 various forms of U.S. bases as well as military-to-military relations between 53 out of the 54 African countries and the United States. U.S. Special Forces troops now operate in more than a dozen African nations.

Vice Admiral Robert Moeller, first and former deputy of AFRICOM, declared in 2008,

“Protecting the free flow of natural resources from Africa to the global market is one of AFRICOM’s guiding principles.”

We say AFRICOM is the flip side of the domestic war being waged by the same repressive state structure against Black and poor people in the United States. In the U.S. Out of Africa!: Shut Down AFRICOM campaign, we link police violence and the domestic war waged on Black people to U.S. interventionism and militarism abroad.

“Not only does there need to be a mass movement in the U.S. to shut down AFRICOM, this mass movement needs to become inseparably bound with the movement that has swept this country to end murderous police brutality against Black and Brown people,” says Netfa Freeman, of Pan-African Community Action (PACA) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). Freeman represents PACA, a BAP member organization, on BAP’s Coordinating Committee. “The whole world must begin to see AFRICOM and the militarization of police departments as counterparts.”

It costs $267 million to fund AFRICOM in 2018, according to Vanessa Beck, BAP research team lead and Coordinating Committee member.

“That money is stolen from Africans/Black people in the U.S. to terrorize and steal resources from our sisters and brothers on the African continent,” Beck said. “Instead, that money should be put toward meeting our human needs in the U.S. and toward reparations for people in every African nation affected by U.S. imperialism.”

BAP makes the following demands:

1. the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Africa,
2. the demilitarization of the African continent,
3. the closure of U.S. bases throughout the world, and
4. the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) must oppose AFRICOM and conduct hearings on AFRICOM’s impact on the African continent.

We ask the public to join us in demanding an end to the U.S. invasion and occupation of the continent of our ancestors by signing this petition that we will deliver to CBC leaders.

This campaign is BAP’s effort to help shut down all U.S. foreign military bases as well as NATO bases. BAP is a founding member of the Coalition Against U.S Foreign Military Bases.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This letter was originally titled ‘Open letter from University of Sussex academics: The harsh sentencing of anti-fracking campaigners sets a dangerous precedent’. Although signers from other organisations have always been welcome, given the overwhelming support, we have officially opened it up to academics from across the country who wish to express their concern.

We the undersigned are writing to express our growing concern about the shrinking space for communities and environmental defenders to engage in civil opposition to fracking developments in the UK.

This week three non-violent campaigners opposing fracking were jailed for 15 to 16 months simply for ‘causing a public nuisance’ and for not expressing regret. This is the first time since 1932 that environmental defenders have been imprisoned for such long periods of time for staging a protest in the UK. It is also the first time ever that activists have been jailed for anti-fracking actions.

With fracking companies increasingly granted civil injunctions to prevent protest, the scope of protest is becoming more and more restricted, representing a threat to fundamental rights to freedom of expression and assembly.

Fracking is controversial in the UK. According to government surveys conducted in 2017, only 16% of people support fracking development. Given the grave environmental consequences of hydraulic fracturing and growing concerns about climate change, this is not surprising.

The ruling sets a worrying precedent, curtailing opportunities for the kind of public protests that have historically been effective in instituting the legal and policy changes that defend our environment for our future generations. We need more, not less, space for action to confront unsustainable industrial practices that harm our communities and perpetuate our reliance on fossil fuels.

We join calls for a judicial review of this absurdly harsh sentence, and an inquiry into the declining space for civil society protest that it represents.

Sincerely,

Andrea Brock, Lecturer, School of Global Studies
Dr Amber Huff, Institute of Development Studies
Lyla Mehta, Professorial Fellow, Institute of Development Studies
Lara Coleman, Senior Lecturer, School of Global Studies
Dinah Rajak, Reader in Anthropology and Development, School of Global Studies
Kamran Matin, Senior Lecturer, School of Global Studies
Lucila Newell, Lecturer, School of Global Studies
James Fairhead, Professor of Anthropology
Prof. Divya P. Tolia-Kelly (Geography, Sussex)
Alex Faulkner, Prof, Global Studies
Katy Joyce, Doctoral Researcher, School of Global Studies
Pedro Salgado, Associate Researcher, School of Global Studies
Evie Browne, Doctoral Researcher, School of Global Studies
Michael Hamilton, Doctoral Researcher, School of Global Studies
Yavuz Tuyloglu, Associate Tutor, University of Sussex
Anna Laing, Lecturer, School of Global Studies
Michelle Lefevre, Professor of Social Work, School of Education & Social Work
Charles Watters, Professor, School of Education and Social Work
Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner, Professor, School of Global Studies
Peter Newell, Professor of International Relations, School of Global Studies
Dr Nadya Ali, Lecturer in International Relations
Rachel Burr, Teaching Fellow, School of Education and Social Work
Amira Abdelhamid, Doctoral Researcher and Tutor, School of Global Studies, The University of Sussex
Liam Berriman, Lecturer, School of Education & Social Work
Ben Selwyn, Professor, School of Global Studies, University of Sussex
Kristine Hickle, Senior Lecturer, School of Education and Social Work
Donal Brown, Research Fellow, Leeds School of Earth and Environment (formally SPRU PhD)
Paul Gilbert, Lecturer in International Development, School of Global Studies
Jan Selby, Professor, School of Global Studies
Phil Johnstone, Research Fellow, SPRU
Professor Raphael Kaplinsky, Science Policy Research Unit and Institute of Development Studies
Catherine Will, Reader, School of Law, Politics and Sociology
Julian Germann, Lecturer, School of Global Studies, University of Sussex
Chris Chatwin, Professor, University of Sussex, Engineering
Samuel Solomon, Senior Lecturer in Creative and Critical Writing
Despoina Mantziari, Teaching Fellow in Film Studies, MFM, University of Sussex
Nicola Yuill, Prof, School of Psychology
John Maule, Senior Research Fellow, School of Psychology
Vivian Vignoles, Reader, School of Psychology
Dr Charlotte Skeet, Lecturer, School of Law, Politics, and Sociology.
Rob Fidler, Dyslexia Advisor and Assessor, University of Sussex
Paul Sparks, Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology
Daniel Hyndman, Technician, Psychology
Mari Martiskainen, Research Fellow, SPRU
Benno Teschke, Professor, School of Global Studies
Dr. Graham Hole, Senior Lecturer in Psychology
Divya Sharma, Research Fellow, Science Policy Research Unit
Will Lock, Doctoral Researcher, School of Global Studies
Zoltan Dienes Professor Psychology
Pamela Kea, Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, School of Global Studies
Kiron Ward, Teaching Fellow, School of English
Anne Crawford, Course Coordinator, School of English
Donald McGillivray, Professor of Environmental Law, Sussex Law School
Pam Thurschwell, Reader, School of English
Elaine Swan, Senior Lecturer, Future of Work
Rob Byrne, Lecturer, SPRU
Sarah Royston, Research Fellow, School of Global Studies
Mimi Haddon, Lecturer, School of Media, Film and Music
Dr Mika Peck, Senior lecturer, School of Life Sciences
Sarah King, Institute of Development Studies
Victor Court, Research Fellow, Science Policy Research Unit, Business School, University of Sussex
Lucy Baker, Senior Research Fellow, Science Policy Research Unit
Sandra Pointel, Doctoral Researcher, Science Policy Research Unit
Eleftheria Lekakis, Senior Lecturer, School of Media, Film and Music
Katy Oswald, Researcher, IDS
Dr Augusto Corrieri, School of English
Andreas Antoniades, Senior Lecturer, School of Global Studies
Natalia Cecire, Lecturer, School of English and Centre for American Studies
Mick Moore, Professorial Fellow, IDS
Arabella Stanger, School of English
John Thompson, Senior Fellow, Institute of Development Studies
Christopher Long, Teaching Fellow, School of Global Studies
Marius Trautmann, Doctoral Researcher, School of Global Studies
Earl Gammon, Lecturer in Global Political Economy, School of Global Studies
Rose Cairns, Research Fellow, Science Policy Research Unit
Simon Rees, Senior Project Officer, IDS
Michael Jonik, Senior Lecturer, School of English
Tom Bamford-Blake, Doctoral Tutor, School of English
Mark Leopold, Lecturer in Social Anthropology
Dai Stephens Emeritus Professor, Psychology
Dr Robert Snell, Psychological and Counselling Services (rtd)
Josie Coburn, Research Assistant, Science Policy Research Unit
Natalia Beloff, Senior Lecturer, Department of Informatics, University of Sussex
Tanya Palmer, Lecturer, Sussex Law School
Professor Keston Sutherland, School of English, University of Sussex
Rachel Thomson, Professor of Childhood & Youth Studies, School of Education & Social Work
Dr Sue Currell, American studies
Terry Cannon, Institute of Development Studies
Peter Luetchford, Senior Lecturer, School of Global Studies
Henry Neale, Library
Chang Hong Liu, Professor, Psychology
Prof Sir Richard Jolly, Research Associate, Institute of Development Studies
David Booth, Honorary Professor, School of Psychology
Stefania Lanza, Research Coordinator, Brighton and Sussex Medical School
Jack Lindsay, Doctoral Researcher, School of Global Studies
Adrian Smith, Professor of Technology and Society, Science Policy Research Unit
Sara Crangle, Professor, School of English
Eljee Javier, Teaching Fellow, Sussex Centre for Language Studies
Bernardo Caldarola, PhD Student/Doctoral tutor, Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex
Rosie McGee, Institute of Development Studies
Natnaphat Subtaweepollert, Doctoral Researcher, The School of Global Studies
Matthew McConkey, PhD student, School of English
Geoff Quilley, Professor of Art History, University of Sussex
Andrew Chitty, Senior Lecturer, School of History, Art History and Philosophy
Val Whittington, Doctoral Researcher and Tutor, History, Art History and Philosophy
Tim Jordan, Professor, School of Media, Film and Music
Professor Sally R Munt, Sussex Centre for Cultural Studies
Ian Scoones, Professor, IDS
Professor Jim Endersby, History
Cecile Chevalier, Lecturer, School of Media, Film & Music
Margaretta Jolly, Professor, School of Media, Film and Music
Arianne Shahvisi, Lecturer in Ethics, Brighton and Sussex Medical School
Hester Barron, Senior Lecturer in History
Ronan McKinney, Teaching Fellow, School of English
Ellen Thompson, Teaching Fellow, School of Psychology
Vinita Damodaran, Prof History, Art History and Philosophy
Tom Farsides, Lecturer, School of Psychology
John Drury, Professor of Social Psychology, School of Psychology
David Ockwell, Professor, University of Sussex
Rupert Young, Reader in Engineering
Stefan Elbe, Professor of International Relations
Simon Williams, Tutorial Fellow, SCLS
Natalia Lavrushkina, Research assistant, Faculty of Management
Nick Balfour, Lecturer, School of Life Sciences
Felix Buchwald, Doctoral Researcher, School of Global Studies
Izabela Delabre, Research Fellow, Business School, University of Sussex
Judith Verweijen, Lecturer, School of Global Studies
D-M Withers, School of Media, Film and Music
Ben Rogaly, Professor, School of Global Studies
Richard de Visser, Reader, Psychology
Dora Sampaio, Research Associate, School of Global Studies
Elizabeth Hill, Professor, School of Life Sciences
Frances Thomson, Doctoral Researcher, Global Studies
Louise Wise, Lecturer, Department of International Relations
James Andrews, Institute of Development Studies
Professor Dave Goulson, School of Life Sciences
Helen Dancer, Lecturer, School of Law, Politics and Sociology
Ezra Cohen, Associate Tutor, School of History, Art History and Philosophy
Jo Walton, postdoctoral fellow, School of Media, Film & Music
Phil Birch, Senior Lecturer, School of Engineering and Informatics
Dr Simon Peeters, Reader, Department of Physics and Astronomy
Elane Heffernan, Chair UCU disabled members committee
Anne-Sophie Jung, Doctoral Researcher, School of Global Studies
Barbara Van Dyck, Research fellow, Science and Policy Research Unit
Tommaso Ciarli, Senior Research Fellow, SPRU, University of Sussex Business School
Carol Watts, Professor, School of English
Dr Karis Jade Petty, Lecturer, Anthropology and International Relations, School of Global Studies
Luke Martell, Teaching Fellow, Department of Sociology
Darrow Schecter, Professor of Critical Theory, HAHP
Nicholas Gallie, Research Associate SPRU and Sussex Rights and Justice Research Centre
William McEvoy, Senior Lecturer, School of English
Nuno Ferreira, Professor of Law, Sussex Law School
Georgina Christou, Doctoral Researcher, School of Global Studies
Ioann Maria Stacewicz, Research Technician in Digital Humanities, Sussex Humanities Lab, School of Media, Film & Music
Jeanette Quarton, Institute of Development Studies
Mark Paget, Reader, School of Life Sciences
Anna Gumucio Ramberg, Doctoral Researcher, School of Law, Politics and Sociology
Cian O’Donovan, Research Fellow, Business School
Rachael Durrant, Research Fellow, Science Policy Research Unit
Anna Stavrianakis, Senior Lecturer, School of Global Studies
Gurminder K Bhambra, Professor, School of Global Studies
Dr Stuart Cartland, Teaching Fellow, School of Global Studies
Synne L. Dyvik (Senior Lecturer, International Relations)
Richard Lane, Research Associate, Global Studies
Peter Harris, Professor, School of Psychology
Santiago Ripoll, Research Officer, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex
Rebecca Prentice, Senior Lecturer, School of Global Studies
Jane K Cowan, Professor of Anthropology, School of Global Studies
Márcio Vilar, Visiting Research Fellow, School of Global Studies
Razan Ghazzawi, Doctoral Researcher, School of Media, Film and Music
Stefanie Ortmann, lecturer, School of Global Studies
Ian Lovering, Doctoral Researcher, School of Global Studies
Noam Bergman, Teaching Fellow, Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex
Roz Price, Research Officer, Institute of Development Studies
Steve Orchard, Researcher, Global Studies
Dr Bonnie Holligan, Lecturer in Property Law, School of Law, Politics and Sociology
Tarik Kochi, Senior Lecturer, School of Law, Politics and Sociology
Dr Lucy Welsh, Lecturer in Law, School of Law, Politics, and Sociology.
Richard Vogler, Professor, Sussex Law School
Olivia Taylor, Doctoral Researcher, School of Global Studies
James Hampshire, Reader in Politics
Caterina Mazzilli, Doctoral Researcher, School of Global Studies
Daniel Watson, Postdoctoral research fellow, School of Global Studies
Samuel Knafo, Senior Lecturer in International Relations
Gerhard Wolf, Senior Lecturer, School of History, Art History, Philosophy
Dorte Thorsen, Gender and Qualitative Research Lead, Migrating out of Poverty Research Consortium, School of Global Studies
Nikki Ostrand, Doctoral Researcher, School of Global Studies
Danielle Griffiths, Lecturer in Law, School of Law, Politics and Sociology
Mark Walters, Professor, School of Law, Politics and Sociology
Amir Paz-Fuchs, Senior Lecturer, School of Law, Politics and Sociology
Suraj Lakhani, Lecturer, School of Law, Politics and Sociology
Ashleigh Jackson, Doctoral Candidate, School of Global Studies
Becky Ayre, Senior Support Officer, STEPS Centre
John Pryor, Professor of Education and Social Research
Colin King, Reader in Law, Sussex Law School
Alice Wilson, Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, School of Global Studies
Liz James, Professor of Art History
Helen Drew, Teaching and Research Fellow, School of Psychology
Louiza Odysseos, Professor of International Relations, School of Global Studies
Lucy Finche-Maddock, Senior Lecturer in Law and Art, University of Sussex
Gemma Houldey, Doctoral Researcher, School of Global Studies
Fawzia Mazaderani, Teaching Fellow, School of Global Studies
Neil Dooley, Lecturer in Politics
Morgan Williams, Doctoral Researcher, School of Global Studies
Matthew Evans, Teaching Fellow, School of Law, Politics and Sociology
Karen Long, Lecturer, School of Psychology
Dr Aisling O’Sullivan, Lecturer, Sussex Law School
Mareike Beck, Doctoral Researcher, School of Global Studies
Gabrielle Daoust, Research Fellow, School of Global Studies
Helena Howe, Lecturer in Law, School of Law, Politics and Sociology
Dr Samantha Velluti, Reader in Law, School of Law, Politics and Sociology
Camilla Royle, Geography Dept, King’s College London,
Marian Mayer, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Media and Communication, Bournemouth University
Stephen Harper, Lecturer, Media School, Bournemouth University
Sofia Meacham, Lecturer, BU
Dr Steph Allen, Lecturer, Faculty of Media and Communication, Bournemouth University
Deepa Govindarajan Driver, Lecturer, Henley Business School, University of Reading
Jenny Hall, Senior Lecturer, Centre For Excellence in Learning, Bournemouth University
Sandra Cortijo, Postdoc, University of Cambridge
Ann Hemingway Prof Public Health BU
Professor Sara Ashencaen Crabtree, Faculty of Health & Social Sciences, Bournemouth University
Marion Winters, Heriot-Watt University
Alan Harrison, retired lecturer in employment relations, Brunel University
Judi Loach, Professor Emerita, School of History Archaeology and Religion, Cardiff University
Anne Alexander, Research Fellow, University of Cambridge
Dr Marion Hersh, Biomedical Engineering, University of Glasgow, UCU NEC
Waseem Yaqoob, Lecturer, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge
Patricia McManus, SL, University of Brighton
Bella Vivat, Principal Research Fellow, University College London
Steven French, Professor, University of Leeds
Jana Bacevic, University of Cambridge, Research Associate
Dr Karen Evans, Senior Lecturer, University of Liverpool
Prof Jonathan Parker, Dept of Social Sciences & Social Work, Bournemouth University
Michael Parker, senior lecturer, Kingston University
Adam Marshall, Associate Lecturer, Manchester Metropolitan University
Nat Raha, University of Sussex/ Edinburgh College of Art
Marina Papoutsi, Dr., Research Fellow at UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
Ann Kolodziejski, Senior Lecturer, University of Bolton
Dr David Kidner, Nottinghan Trent University (ret’d)
Dr Julia Steinberger, Associate Professor, Sustainability Research Institute, University of Leeds
Simon Pirani, Senior Visiting Research Fellow, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies
Chamkaur Ghag, Associate Professor, University College London
Andrew Sayer, Professor, Lancaster University
Dr Sara Thornton, Research Fellow, School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, University of Leicester
Noel Cass, Senior Research Associate, Lancaster University
David Harvie, Associate Professor, University of Leicester
Prof. Gavin Brown (School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, University of Leicester)
Daniel Bailey, Post-Doctoral Researcher, Political Economy Centre, University of Manchester
Kate Symons, Fellow, Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh
Andrew Kythreotis, Senior Lecturer, School of Geography, University of Lincoln
Dr Keith Halfacree, Dept of Geography, Swansea University
Hannah Fair, Postdoctoral Researcher, Brunel University
Jen Clements, PhD student, University of Exeter
Tessa Holland post doc researcher GPS Newcastle University
Dr Jill Payne, teaching fellow, University of Bristol, School of Sociology, Politics & International Studies
Ian R Lamond, Senior Lecturer, Event Studies
Dr Jessica Hope, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, University of Bristol
Kate Monson, Doctoral Candidate, University of Brighton
Ian Gough, Visiting Professor, LSE
Catherine Walker, Reserach Associate, University of Manchester
Dr Grietje Baars, Senior Lecturer, The City Law School, City, University of London
Morris Brodie, Teaching Assistant, Queen’s University Belfast
Dr Ian R Lamond, Senior Lecturer, Event Studies, Leeds Beckett University
Earl Harper, Doctoral Candidate, The University of Bristol
Susan Buckingham, Independent researcher, writer and advisor on gender & environmental issues
Owain Jones, Professor of Environmental Humanities, Bath Spa University
Ceylan Begüm Yıldız, PhD/Associate Tutor, Birkbeck College School of Law
Peter Dickens, Research Associate, Department of Sociology, Cambridge UK
Dr Pippa Marland, Research Fellow, University of Leeds
Dr Paul Reid-Bowen, Senior Lecturer, Bath Spa University
Kye Askins, Reader, Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow
Dr Helen Jarvis, Reader in Social Geography, Newcastle University
Nigel Thomas, Professor Emeritus of Childhood and Youth, School of Social Work, Care and Community, University of Central Lancashire
Dr John Bulaitis, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities, Canterbury Christ Church University
Dr Benjamin Franks (Senior Lecturer in Social and Political Philosophy, University of Glasgow)
Dr Helena Enright, Lecturer, Drama, Bath Spa University
Emily Jones, Lecturer in Law, University of Essex
Marie-PIerre Leroux, MA student, Hereford College of Art
Carissa Honeywell, Lecturer, Sheffield Hallam University
Catherine Oliver, PhD Student, University of Birmingham
Pat Devine, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Manchester
Rhys Williams, Research Fellow, University of Glasgow
Jane Hindley, Interdisciplinary Studies Centre, University of Essex
Sara Penrhyn Jones, Senior Lecturer in Media, Bath Spa University
Dorottya Szécsi, researcher, School of Physics and Astronomy, Universtiy of Birmingham
Kavita Ramakrishnan, Lecturer, University of East Anglia
Vanesa Castan Broto, Professorial Fellow, University of Sheffield
Katherine Lovell, Research Fellow, Science Policy Research Unit
Alice Welham, Lecturer in Clinical Psychology
Steffen Boehm, Professor of Organization and Sustainability, University of Exeter
Theo Reeves-Evison, Senior Lecturer, Birmingham School of Art
Marion Oveson, PhD Researcher, University of Sheffield
Edward Sewell, Mechanical Engineering Student, UCL
Dr Kerry Burton, Senior Research Fellow in Climate Justice, Glasgow Caledonian University
Phil Edwards, Senior Lecturer, Sociology, MMU
Natalie Fenton, Professor, Goldsmiths
Hilary Wainwright Fellow Transnational Institute Amsterdam
Dr David Watson, Lecturer in Organisational Behavior, University of East Anglia
Astrid Schrader, lecturer, University of Exeter
Prof Lynne Segal, Birkbeck, Univ of London
Tony Booth Professor of Education, visiting research fellow, University of Cambridge.
Dr Ersilia Verlinghieri, Research Associate, SoGE, University of Oxford
Dr Michael Paraskos, Art Historian, City and Guilds of London Art School
Colin Samos, Professor of Sociology, University of Essex
Sarah-Jane Phelan, Doctoral Researcher, School of Global Studies
Sofa Gradin, lecturer, King’s College London
Brian Klug, Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy, St Benet’s Hall, University of Oxford
Vanesa Castan Broto, Professorial Fellow, University of Sheffield
Dr Tom Greaves (Philosophy, University of East Anglia)
Patricia Brien, Associate Lecturer, Bath Spa University
Heike Schroeder, Senior Lecturer, University of East Anglia
Emeritus Prof. Donald Sassoon, Queen Mary, University of London
Rhiannon Firth, Senior Research Officer, Sociology, University of Essex
Mark Tebboth, Lecturer, School of International Development, University of East Anglia
Dr George Paizis, Senior Lecturer Retired, UCL
Dr Kate Bayliss, Senior Research Fellow, University of Leeds
Dr Michelle Rogerson, Applied Criminology and Policing Studies, University of Huddersfield
Mariya Ivancheva, Postdoc Fellow, University of Leeds
Andreas Bieler, Professor of Political Economy, Nottingham University
Patrick Holden, Reader, School of Law, Criminology and Government
Chris Hesketh, Senior Lecturer, Oxford Brookes
Gregory White, Research Associate, University of Kent
Nick Bernards, Assistant Professor, University of Warwick
Duncan Lindo, Research Fellow, Leeds University Business School
Dr Jon Berry. Senior Lecturer. University of Hertfordshire.
Caroline Metz, Lecturer, the University of Manchester
Dr Claire Hurley, University of Kent
Samuel Rogers, PhD candidate, University of Bristol
Barbara Sheehy, Learning Advier, University of Kent
Bob Carter Emeritus Professor Business School, University of Leicester
James Drew, Associate Tutor, Global Studies, University of Sussex
Philip G. Cerny, Professor Emeritus, University of Manchester
Ben Radley, PhD Researcher, International Institute of Social Studies
Ed Lord, PhD Fellow, Human and Health Sciences, Swansea University
Dennis Higgins, SUNY at Oneonta, Computer Science and Mathematics, retired
Dr. Graham Sharp. University of Brighton
Nick Clare, Assistant Professor, University of Nottingham
Professor Joachim Stoeber, University of Kent
Bill McKibben, Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies, Middlebury College
Daniela Peluso, Senior Lecturer, School of Anthropology & Conservation, University of Kentn
Robert Howarth, The D.R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
Dr Jaise Kuriakose, Lecturer, University of Manchester
Dr Elisa Greco, researcher,University of Leeds
Dr Jeremy Evans Centro de Estudios del Desarrollo Regional y Políticas Públicas, Universidad de Los Lagos
Willie Thompson, retired professor of contemporary history Glasgow Caledonian University
Dr Keith Baker, Researcher, Glasgow Caledonian University
LIam Campling, Reader, Queen Mary University of London
BARBARA HARRISS-WHITE Emeritus Fellow, Wolfson College, Oxford
Simon Lewis, Professor of Global Change Science, University College London
Joel Millward-Hopkins, Research Fellow, University of Leeds
Gareth Fearn, Doctoral Researcher, Newcastle University
Kai Heron – PhD Fellow, University of Manchester
David Smythe, Emeritus Professor of Geophysics, University of Glasgow
Samira Garcia-Freites, PhD Researcher, The University of Manchester
Dr Andy Lockhart, Research Associate, University of Sheffield
Dr. Lucy Ford, Senior Lecturer, Oxford Brookes University
Sneha Krishnan, Associate Professor in Human Geography, University of Oxford
Luci Gorell Barnes, Visiting Research Fellow, Bath Spa University and UWE
Gavin Bridge, Professor, Durham University
Dr. Michael Gorr, Professor of Philosophy, Wells College, Aurora, New York USA
Daniel Bearup, Lecturer, University of Kent
Dr Les Levidow, Senior Research Fellow, Open University
Professor Peter Lynn, Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex
Tim Rayner, Research Fellow, University of East Anglia
Karen Douglas, Professor, University of Kent
Ryan Bellinson, PhD Research Candidate, University of Sheffield
Ed Brown, Prof of Global Energy Challenges, Loughborough University
Helen Pallett, Lecturer, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia
Dominic Kelly, Lecturer, University of Warwick
Dr Mark Irwin, Dean of Learning, Teaching & Research, BIMM Institute
Dr Rupert Higham, Lecturer, UCL Institute of Education
Sage Brice, Doctoral candidate, University of Bristol
Harry Rajak, Emeritus Professor of Law, Sussex Law School, University of Sussex
Cordelia Freeman, Teaching Associate, School of Geography, University of Nottingham
Sally Brooks, Honorary Fellow, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York
Lukas Hardt, Research Fellow in Energy and Economy, University of Leeds
Christopher May, Professor, PPR, Lancaster University
The sentence is a blight on a democratic society, completeley and utterly reprehensible, draconian nonsense.
Kate Soper, Professor Emerita in Philosophy, London Metropolitan University
Sandra Steingraber, PhD, Distinguished Scholar in Residence, Ithaca College,, USA
Nira Yuval-Davis, Professor Emeritus, Centre for research on Migration, Refugges and Belonging, the University of East London
Ben Tippet, PhD student, University of Greenwich, Business Faculty
Dr Sam Clark, Lecturer, Lancaster University
Kathryn MacKay, Lecturer, Lancaster University
Matthew Paterson, Professor of International Politics, University of Manchester
Judith Butler, Affiliated Faculty, Psychosocial Program, Birkbeck College

[This list is updated periodically, so do not be alarmed if your name does not show immediately after signing below. You will be added!]

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is from OtherWords.org.

This brilliantly written book reads like a murder mystery; it’s been called gutsy, soulful, pyrotechnic, significant and transformative. I couldn’t agree more.

Bowden was a journalist with the Tucson Citizen who became fascinated by events around the U.S. – Mexico border in the early 1980s, a world where smuggling people and drugs was the norm. One of his articles in 1996 was for Harper’s Magazine about the devastating poverty, violence and gang life in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, the town across the river from El Paso Texas. He realized that Juárez’s troubles were the result of policies   “…of the fabled New World Order in which capital moves easily and labor is trapped by borders.”

After hearing of the 1995 senseless killing of a 27 year old man in El Paso, he looked into it, and then in 2002 he published Down by the River. The river is the Rio Grande, which in this area is the border with Mexico, a sluggish river and less than grand. Bruno Jordan was the man murdered, the brother of a Drug Enforcement Officer (DEA) who was up for promotion to head the local drug control office. The gangs wanted less enforcement and the murder appeared to be a message for him to take his job lightly. No one is sure; we can only guess.

While researching Jordan’s death, Bowden learned of one U.S. Customs officer who made $1,000,000 one night for simply not ‘seeing’ a single truck cross the border.

The export of drugs from Mexico to the U.S. had started to boom decades earlier, after alcohol prohibition was repealed and a new trade – drugs, emerged to take its place and it’s estimated at over $300 billion a year. Tragically, about 20,000 Mexicans are killed every year because of it.

Bowden wrote that “Mexico and the United States are partners in an unofficial economy called the drug business” and the war on drugs was a scam to increase profit from drug sales, not to reduce use. To understand the murder he had to look ‘at the dirty laundry of two nations.’

In the late 1960’s I had done research on marijuana in Canada because I was setting up the Legalize Marijuana committee and needed to know what I was talking about. Then forty year later, in 2002 the year Bowden’s book was published, I did renewed research to relearn the issues and update myself to attend a conference where I was a delegate for decriminalizing marijuana. I was stunned, as Down by River revealed, about how much larger and more dangerous the market had become.

Bowden showed the relationship between drugs and money, so let us follow the money.

Grand Cayman Island is the largest of three tiny Cayman Islands, about two hundred miles south of Cuba in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s a tropical paradise, where you can swim with stingrays in North Sound or take a submarine ride along the coral reef on the south.

It’s about an hour or so by plane south of Miami, about two hours north of Columbia and two hours east of Mexico – therefore, central to two drug producing nations and the huge drug consuming American market. Politically the islands are British Overseas Territories. They are not independent, not a country, and not truly British. They occupy a small area, one-quarter the size of New York City (102 vs. 468 sq. miles) with a small population of 57,000 who have the 12’Th highest standard of living in the world.

About half of those people live in George Town on Grand Cayman and this tiny town is the fifth-largest banking center in the world! There are 279 banks and 260 of them do no banking in the Caymans. With the Caymans’ unusual political structure, laws get strange and enforcement stranger. Drug lords can take a day trip to the Caymans, do some banking, avoid all taxes and be home for dinner. Money laundering and tax avoidance are the Caymans banking business.

Some people say that the war on drugs has been a failure, but they misunderstand its purpose. It has made billions of dollars for those in the market; it has fueled a private prison industry in the U.S., made money for the banks and has been used to politically control nations. Was it intended to control drugs, or to make them more profitable? The facts provide the answer; it has been enormously successful at making drugs more profitable, and a dismal failure at control.

Down by the River passionately brings the facts together.

Some of the material in this review is covered in my book An Insiders Memoir; How Economics Changed to Work Against Us, Chapter 3: Economic Lessons; marijuana, money, Kenya and aid.

Down by the River: Drugs, Money, Murder, and Family

Author: Charles Bowden

Publisher: Simon & Schuster (January 8, 2004)

ISBN-10: 0743244575

ISBN-13: 978-0743244572

Click here to order.

.

.

Rarely is US hypocrisy so cynical and overt as a recent US State Department investigation into ongoing violence in Myanmar, all while the US continues its full spectrum support of Saudi Arabia’s genocidal war on Yemen.

In addition to Washington’s role in Yemen, the US also occupies Afghanistan and Syria while carrying out drone strikes and covert military interventions in territory stretching from North Africa to Central Asia.

In Myanmar specifically, the US has openly and for decades funded and supported groups and individuals involved directly on both sides of ongoing ethnic violence. Now, it is leveraging that violence to single out obstacles to US influence in Southeast Asia and in Myanmar specifically.

Reuters in their article titled, “U.S. accuses Myanmar military of ‘planned and coordinated’ Rohingya atrocities,” would claim:

A U.S. government investigation has found that Myanmar’s military waged a “well-planned and coordinated” campaign of mass killings, gang rapes and other atrocities against the Southeast Asian nation’s Rohingya Muslim minority.

Reuters admits the US State Department’s report, titled “Documentation of Atrocities in Northern Rakhine State,” was in fact merely interviews conducted with alleged witnesses in neighbouring Bangladesh.

Was it Really an Investigation? 

Imagine a fight breaks out between two groups of people. The police are called in. But instead of arriving at the crime scene, the police instead interview only one group, and do so at their home before drawing their final conclusions. Would anyone honestly call this an “investigation?” The US State Department apparently would, because this is precisely what the State Department has done in regards to ongoing ethnic violence in Myanmar.

The full report, found here on the US State Department’s website, would admit:

The Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), with funding support from the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL), conducted a survey in spring 2018 of the firsthand experiences of 1,024 Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar District, Bangladesh. The goal of the survey was to document atrocities committed against residents in Burma’s northern Rakhine State during the course of violence in the previous two years.

No physical evidence was collected or presented in the report, because investigators never stepped foot in Myanmar itself where the violence allegedly took place. The report also failed to interview other parties allegedly involved in the violence.

While the witness accounts in the US State Department’s investigation were shocking, had investigators gone to Rakhine state and interviewed locals there, they would have heard similar stories told of Rohingya attacks on Buddhists and Hindus.

Both accounts require further and impartial investigation, however the US State Department, by exclusively interviewing only one party amid multiparty ethnic violence all but ensures nothing resembling a real, impartial investigation ever takes place. This, of course, assumes that the United States has any authority as arbiter in Myanmar’s internal affairs in the first place.

The US State Department investigation follows a similar UN report which mirrored and admittedly used similar claims made by US and European funded fronts posing as “nongovernmental organisations” (NGOs).

Together, these efforts represent a cycle of one-sided propaganda cynically aimed at leveraging ethnic violence within and along Myanmar’s borders to pressure and coerce the government of Myanmar, particularly in regards to its growing ties with China. This is a fact that even Reuters in its article concedes to, albeit buried deep within the body of the text.

Reuters, after describing how the US could use the investigation’s alleged findings to pressure Myanmar, would admit:

Any stiffer measures against Myanmar authorities could be tempered, though, by U.S. concerns about complicating relations between civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and the powerful military which might push Myanmar closer to China.

Myanmar, which borders China, seeks like the rest of Southeast Asia, closer ties to Beijing as the region collectively rises economically and politically on the global stage. Attempts by Western capitals to reassert and expand their former colonial influence has manifested itself in political meddling, subversion, the use of ethnic tensions to divide and weaken national unity and even terrorism.

It should be noted that the US and UK’s leveraging of ethnic violence in modern day Myanmar is a continuation of ethnic divisions intentionally cultivated by the British Empire to divide and rule Myanmar when it was a British colony.

It is worth repeating that Channel 4, one of Britain’s own public service broadcasters, in an article titled, “A Brief History of Burma,” aptly described the very source of Myanmar’s current ethnic divisions:

Throughout their Empire the British used a policy called ‘divide and rule’ where they played upon ethnic differences to establish their authority. This policy was applied rigorously in Burma. More than a million Indian and Chinese migrants were brought in to run the country’s affairs and thousands of Indian troops were used to crush Burmese resistance. In addition, hill tribes which had no strong Burmese affiliation, such as the Karen in the south-east, were recruited into ethnic regiments of the colonial army.

The article also admitted:

The British ‘divide and rule’ policy left a legacy of problems for Burma when it regained independence.

Not only has the British “divide and rule” policy left a legacy of problems for Myanmar since gaining its independence, these are problems Washington is now cynically exploiting in its own interpretation of “divide and rule.”

Washington’s Own Role in the Violence Goes Unreported 

Oft omitted in US-European media reports, Aung San Suu Kyi, defacto leader of Myanmar’s government, is the product of decades of US and British political and financial backing. Virtually every aspect of Aung San Suu Kyi’s government including high-level ministers, are the result of US-European training, funding and support.

The government’s minister of information, for example, received US-funded training in neighbouring Thailand before working his way up Aung San Suu Kyi’s US-backed opposition party.

Another aspect omitted by the US-European media is the fact that the most prominent so-called “pro-democracy” leaders supported by Washington, London and Brussels, have openly been involved in calling for, promoting and defending ethnic violence against Myanmar’s Rohingya minority, violence now being leveraged by Washington to place pressure on Myanmar and foil growing ties with China.

This includes NED Democracy Awardee Min Ko Naing who denied the Rohingya as an ethnic group in Myanmar, suggesting they were merely illegal immigrants. It also includes Ko Ko Gyi who openly vowed to take up arms against the Rohingya whom he called “foreign invaders.”

More telling of Washington’s lack of convictions in protecting the Rohingya and instead cynically exploiting Myanmar’s ethnic tensions is the fact that Ko Ko Gyi was invited to speak in Washington D.C. a year after pledging to take up arms against the Rohingya.

It should be pointed out that Ko Ko Gyi’s pro-genocide remarks were made in a US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funded publication, The Irrawaddy, and it was the US NED who would invit him to speak in Washington a year later, meaning that those in Washington were well aware of exactly who and what Ko Ko Gyi really was.

Founding member of Aung San Suu Kyi’s political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), U Win Tin, awarded “journalist of the year” by Reporters Without Borders in 2006, would suggest that the Rohingya be interned in camps.

It’s clear that at the very least, it is more than just Myanmar’s military involved in ethnic violence inside Myanmar. It is also clear that the US and its European partners and the virtual army of fronts posing as NGOs have selectively “investigated” and “reported” on Myanmar’s ethnic violence to single out and undermine the military alone, while providing impunity to others involved in the violence including extremists among the Rohingya population itself, as well as anti-Rohingya extremists backed for years by the US government.

The very fact that the US has backed those involved in ethnic violence in Myanmar, and that their role continuously goes unreported in various US government and US-funded NGO investigations illustrates an additional and major crisis of credibility regarding Washington’s self-appointed role as arbiter in Myanmar.

This US strategy of cultivating animosity on all sides, providing impunity to some while singling out others, ensures Myanmar remains divided and weak, while the US and its European partners can pick apart Myanmar’s military and any civilian politicians who refuse to tilt Myanmar away from Beijing, and back toward Anglo-American influence. It is another example of the American-dominated international human rights racket advancing Western interests merely behind pro-human rights rhetoric, often at the cost of undermining real human rights.

While supposed NGOs funded by the US, UK and European nations pose as dedicated to human rights in Myanmar, they are in fact foreign fronts meddling in Myanmar’s internal affairs, and because of the selective nature of their “investigations,” they are in fact enabling those involved in atrocities who are currently in Washington’s, London’s and Brussels’ good graces.

Genocidal Humanitarians? 

The final, and perhaps central reality that exposes the disingenuous and cynical nature of the US State Department’s “investigation” into Myanmar’s violence is the fact that concurrently, the United States is carrying out a war by proxy against the impoverished, war-torn Middle Eastern nation of Yemen.

There, the US has provided its partners in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia with weapons, intelligence and other forms of direct material support in carrying out the brutal and systematic destruction of the nation’s infrastructure, including the blockading and takeover of ports where essential food, medicine and other necessities are just barely trickling through.

The same UN the US has enlisted to coerce Myanmar’s military, has published far more substantiated claims regarding substantially worse human tolls amid the US proxy war in Yemen. A March 2018 report posted on the UN’s website titled, “UN renews push for political solution as Yemen marks three years of all-out conflict,” would admit that up to 22 million people were in dire need of humanitarian assistance. The report would also note the deaths of thousands of children along with the closure of some 2,500 schools.

Another report, by the UN high commission for human rights, noted that the US proxy war in Yemen has caused over 17,000 civilian casualties defining it in terms dwarfing accusations made by the US State Department regarding Myanmar. The US actively enables atrocities in Yemen while “investigating” atrocities in Myanmar based purely on US geopolitical objectives, not any sort of genuine or even semi-genuine concern for human life.

For the US-UK and European-funded fronts posing as NGOs and meddling in Myanmar under the pretence of defending human rights, the fact that they claim to fight for human rights while being funded by and working for the demonstrably worst human rights abusers on the planet eliminates whatever legitimacy remains after already taking into account their one-sided, bias investigations.

Joseph Thomas is chief editor of Thailand-based geopolitical journal, The New Atlas and contributor to the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Across the United States, under cover of darkness, the government is rounding up immigrant children and sending them to a desert concentration camp in Tornillo, Texas, near the US-Mexico border. In recent weeks, hundreds have been transferred from foster shelters to Tornillo, where they live in tents, 20 to a room.

The New York Times spoke with employees at shelters who described scenes that recall the most shameful episodes in American history, including the capture of fugitive slaves, the forced removal of Native Americans from their land, and the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War Two.

According to the Times, “In order to avoid escape attempts, the moves are carried out late at night because children will be less likely to try to run away. For the same reason, children are generally given little advance warning that they will be moved.”

With the children in a panic, some shelter employees reportedly cry when officials descend upon their facilities. Others protest and raise concerns about the safety of the children at the desert concentration camp, to no avail. Children beg to know whether they will be taken care of at their new location. Phone numbers for their emergency contacts are written on belts tied around the children’s waists.

Roughly 13,000 children are currently detained in shelters and immigration detention facilities nationwide, a record high. Conditions in immigration detention centers and shelters are deplorable, with children reporting cases of rape, sexual abuse and physical violence.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is expanding the size of the Tornillo tent city, which currently houses 1,600 immigrant youth, to 4,000. Starting in November and extending through March, the average daily low temperature will be below 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Trump administration will soon begin detaining children indefinitely, having pulled out of the Flores settlement, a court agreement that barred the government from detaining immigrant children for more than 20 days. The administration has also been arresting, detaining and deporting relatives of detained children who submitted official applications to sponsor the children.

The midnight Gestapo-style roundup of children has been treated as a non-event by the two big business parties and the corporate media. Instead, the entire political and media establishment is focused exclusively on the allegation that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford at a party in 1982, when they were both teenagers.

The Democratic Party’s focus on Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assault is a deliberate effort to distract from his record as a defender of indefinite detention and torture under the Bush administration. Democrats have covered up the fact that in 2017 Kavanaugh ruled to deny a detained 17-year-old immigrant the right to abort a pregnancy on the grounds that immigrants are not entitled to basic rights.

Speaking Saturday in Austin, Texas, Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi made revealing comments about the Democratic Party’s midterm election strategy. She advised candidates not to focus on Trump’s attacks on immigrants, explaining that calling for “shutting down ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]” merely “serves the president’s purpose.” According to the Texas Tribune, Pelosi said she has told Democratic candidates that focusing on the issue would “waste energy.”

Despite its claims to be an “anti-racist” party, the Democratic Party is orienting itself toward Trump’s anti-immigrant chauvinism. On September 26, nearly 70 percent of Democrats in the House of Representatives voted either “yes” or “present” on a resolution “recognizing that allowing illegal immigrants the right to vote devalues the franchise and diminishes the voting power of the United States citizens.” Keith Ellison, a leader of the “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party, was among those who voted in favor of the anti-immigrant resolution.

The same day as the congressional vote, Democratic California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a state bill that would have barred immigration officials from arresting immigrants at courthouses. Brown also extended the deployment of the state’s National Guard on the Mexican border.

Following the Democrats’ lead, many political groups that call themselves “socialist” but in reality function as factions of the Democratic Party, have dropped the defense of immigrants.

To read complete article on the WSWS.org click here

As Israel threatened to raid and demolish the Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar at any moment since the evacuation period ended, Israeli settlers stormed the village and flooded the area with wastewater, on Tuesday afternoon.

Locals said that Israeli settlers from the nearby illegal Israeli settlement of Kfar Adummim stormed the village and were confronted by international and local activists along with residents of Khan al-Ahmar.

Israeli settlers managed to flood the area with wastewater before activists and residents were able to stop them.

Following the Israeli High Court’s approval for the demolition, it had granted a deadline for the residents of Khan al-Ahmar to evacuate the village until October 1st.

Since the deadline has ended, the village is in danger of being demolished by Israeli forces at any moment, which would displace 181 people, half of whom are children.

Critics and human rights organizations argue that the demolition is part of an Israeli plan to expand the nearby illegal Israeli settlement of Kfar Adummim and to create a region of contiguous Israeli control from Jerusalem almost to the Dead Sea, which would make a contiguous Palestinian state impossible.

Israel has been constantly trying to uproot Bedouin communities from the east of Jerusalem area to allow settlement expansion in the area, which would later turn the entire eastern part of the West Bank into a settlement zone.

Although international humanitarian law prohibits the demolition of the village and illegal confiscation of private property, Israeli forces continue their planned expansion by forcing evictions and violating basic human rights of the people.

Israel, through its Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, is waving the flag of war in the face of Iran and Hezbollah, showing what is claimed to be a “secret nuclear facility in Iran and Hezbollah strategic missile warehouse in the heart of the capital Beirut”. The “secret nuclear facility” has been debunked by Iranians living in the area- the pictures were taken in front of what turned out to be a carpet factory. In Beirut, the AMAL movement led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri constructed a gate long ago, closing the visible path towards a boat repair hangar at Ouzai. The real question is: What Israel is trying to do or say?

No one in Lebanon can be certain whether a war is being prepared against Hezbollah, Iran’s partner which shares its ideology and objectives to “support the oppressed around the world”. Israel and the US may in fact be preparing war against Iran and Hezbollah, in which case the possibility of war against Lebanon is not far-fetched. I say against Lebanon because Hezbollah, along with the Shia society that protects and is part of the organisation, represents around 25 to 30 percent of the Lebanese population – not counting other religions and secular political parties who share Hezbollah’s goal to serve as a balancing power protecting Lebanon from Israel.

Commanders in Lebanon consider that Netanyahu made his show at the UN presenting specific objectives as sensitive targets because he doesn’t want to hit these “targets”. Had he been certain of the contents, why didn’t he bomb these Hezbollah warehouses as he claims he has been doing throughout the seven years of war in Syria?

According to sources in Beirut, strategic missiles can’t be located in residential areas like the capital Beirut or any other city or village. Missiles are ready to be launched in hundreds of places with a small reserve backup in each to avoid the total destruction that befell many warehouses during the second war on Lebanon in 2006. Moreover, launching ballistic long or media range missiles needs to take place very far away from population centres to avoid collateral damage in the case of a failed launch, always a possibility.

The reason why the Beirut airport has been targeted by Netanyahu’s satellite photos may be related to the intention to build a new airport – Qalay’aat – far from the suburbs of Beirut and close to an area which the US’s friends in Lebanon can use for many other purposes.

What is clear from Netanyahu’s presentation is that Hezbollah has achieved a “balance of fear” with its enemy. Israel can no longer damage Hezbollah and Lebanon’s infrastructure and get away with it with little damage to themselves, because the organisation will respond with strength through its advanced military capabilities. IRGC ballistic missiles and armed drones’ attacks against targets in Kurdistan Iraq and albu Kamal in Syria gives an idea of Hezbollah’s capabilities. However, there is one important difference: Hezbollah doesn’t need missiles with a range between 500 and 800 km, but much less than that. Iran has adapted Hezbollah missiles with a shorter range of 300 km and a more destructive warhead.

Moreover, Hezbollah has used relatively primitive armed drones in Syria, hiding the surprises – according to sources – for a possible war against Lebanon, or to target more distant enemies when needed.

In Syria, the rules of engagement will change again when Russia supplies the promised S-300. If Damascus decides to shoot down an Israeli jet, has Tel Aviv thought about the fate of the pilot if he is downed over Lebanon? Has the memory of Ron Arad disappeared? Hezbollah – according to the source – is not motivated to abduct Israeli soldiers as in 2006, because Israel does not currently hold Hezbollah hostages. However, a gift from the sky – said the source – will never be rejected. Thousands of Palestinians can be freed if an Israeli pilot falls into the hands of Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Such developments would only embarrass Netanyahu, who has subjected himself to ridicule by playing the investigative journalist around a football camp in Lebanon and a carpet factory in Iran. His public performances are not those of a serious prime minister.

The “Axis of the Resistance” was first hit in 2006 with the Israeli attack on Hezbollah, again in 2011 with the war on Syria, and in 2018 it is Iran’s turn. The first two plans failed dramatically, reinforcing the strength of Hezbollah, whose organisation has now become one of the strongest armies in the Middle East. In Iraq, it gave birth to al-Hashd al-Shaabi, an Iraqi security force with strong ideological convictions who are prepared to kick the US out of Mesopotamia. In Syria, President Assad has emerged stronger and his ministers are meeting Arab ministers in the corridors of the UN- indicating a serious shift in the Arab position towards the Levant.

With every war or tough western policy to defeat this “axis” using Saudi Arabian money and western intelligence services in the Levant and Iraq, this “axis” becomes stronger and increases the number of its supporters. Can the western warmongers finally learn that such a policy is, in fact, drastically weakening the West in the Middle East? I doubt it.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Elijah J. Magnier

Wall Street owns the country. That was the opening line of a fiery speech by populist leader Mary Ellen Lease in 1890. Franklin Roosevelt said it again in a letter to Colonel House in 1933, and Sen. Dick Durbin was still saying it in 2009. “The banks – hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created – are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill,” Durbin said in an interview. “And they frankly own the place.”

Wall Street banks triggered a credit crisis in 2008-09 that wiped out over $19 trillion in household wealth, turned some 10 million families out of their homes, and cost almost 9 million jobs in the US alone; yet the banks were bailed out without penalty, while defrauded homebuyers were left without recourse or compensation. The banks made a killing on interest rate swaps with cities and states across the country, after a compliant and accommodating Federal Reserve dropped interest rates nearly to zero. Attempts to renegotiate these deals have failed.

In Los Angeles, the City Council was forced to reduce the city’s budget by 19 percent following the banking crisis, slashing essential services, while Wall Street has not budged on the $4.9 million it claims annually from the city on its swaps. Wall Street banks are now collecting more from Los Angeles just in fees than it has available to fix its ailing roads.

Local governments have been in bondage to Wall Street ever since the 19^th century, despite multiple efforts to rein them in. Regulation has not worked. To break free, we need to divest our public funds from these banks and move them into our own publicly-owned banks.

L.A. Asks the Voters

Some cities and states have already moved forward with feasibility studies and business plans for forming their own banks. But the city of Los Angeles faces a barrier to entry that other cities don’t have. In 1913, the same year the Federal Reserve was formed to backstop the private banking industry, the city amended its charter to state that it had all the powers of a municipal corporation, “with the provision added that the city shall not engage in any purely commercial or industrial enterprise not now engaged in, except on the approval of the majority of electors voting thereon at an election.”

Under this provision, voter approval would apparently not be necessary for a city-owned bank that limited itself to taking the city’s deposits and refinancing municipal bonds as they came due, since that sort of bank would not be a “purely commercial or industrial enterprise” but would simply be a public utility that made more efficient use of public funds. But voter approval would evidently be required to allow the city to explore how public banks can benefit local economic development, rather than just finance public projects.

The L.A. City Council could have relied on this 1913 charter amendment to say “no” to the dynamic local movement led by millennial activists to divest from Wall Street and create a city-owned bank. But the City Council chose instead to jump that hurdle by putting the matter to the voters. In July 2018, it put Charter Amendment B on the November ballot. A “yes” vote will allow the creation of a city-owned bank that can partner with local banks to provide low-cost credit for the community, following the steller precedent of the century-old Bank of North Dakota, currently the nation’s only state-owned bank. By cutting out Wall Street middlemen, the Bank of North Dakota has been able to make below-market credit available to local businesses, farmers, and students while still being more profitable than some of Wall Street’s largest banks. Following that model would have substantial upside for both the small business and the local banking communities in Los Angeles.

Rebutting the Opposition

On September 20^th, the Los Angeles Times editorial board threw cold water on this effort, calling the amendment “half-baked” and “ill-conceived” and recommending a “no” vote. It is contended here that not only was the measure well conceived but that L.A. City Council President Herb Wesson has shown visionary leadership in recognizing its revolutionary potential. He sees the need to declare our independence from Wall Street. He has said that the country looks to California to lead, and that Los Angeles needs to lead California. The people deserve it, and the millennials whose future is in the balance have demanded it. The City Council recognizes that it’s going to be an uphill battle. Charter Amendment B just asks the voters, “Do you want us to proceed?” It is just an invitation to begin a dialogue, one on creating a new kind of bank geared to serving the people rather than Wall Street.

Amendment B does not give the City Council a blank check to create whatever bank it likes. It just jumps the first of many legal hurdles to obtaining a bank charter. The California Department of Business Oversight (DBO) will have the last word, and it grants bank charters only to applicants that are properly capitalized, collateralized, and protected against risk. Public banking experts have talked to the DBO at length and understand these requirements; and a detailed summary of a model business plan has been prepared, to be posted shortly.

The Times editorial board erroneously compares the failed Los Angeles Community Development Bank, which was founded in 1992 and was insolvent a decade later. That institution was not a true bank and did not have to meet the DBO’s stringent requirements for a bank charter. It was an unregulated, non-depository, nonprofit loan and equity fund, capitalized with funds that were basically a handout from the federal government to pacify the restless inner city after riots broke out in 1992; and its creation was actually supported by the L.A. Times.

The Times also erroneously cites a 2011 report by the Boston Federal Reserve, contending that a Massachusetts state-owned bank would require $3.6 billion in capitalization. That prohibitive sum is regularly cited by critics bent on shutting down the debate, without looking at the very questionable way in which it was derived. The Boston authors began with the $2 million used in 1919 to capitalize the Bank of North Dakota; multiplied that number up for inflation; multiplied it up again for the increase in GDP over a century; and multiplied it up again for the larger population of Massachusetts. This dubious triple-counting is cited as serious research, although economic growth and population size have nothing to do with how capital requirements are determined.

Bank capital is simply the money that is invested in a bank to leverage loans. The capital needed is based on the size of the loan portfolio. At a 10 percent capital requirement, $100 million is sufficient to capitalize $1 billion in loans, which would be plenty for a startup bank designed to prove the model. That sum is already more than three times the loan portfolio of the California Infrastructure and Development Bank, which makes below-market loans on behalf of the State. As profits increase the bank’s capital, more loans can be added. Bank capitalization is not an expenditure but an investment, which can come from existing pools of unused funds or from a bond issue to be repaid from the bank’s own profits.

Deposits will be needed to balance a $1 billion loan portfolio, but Los Angeles easily has them – now sitting in Wall Street banks having no fiduciary obligation to reinvest them in Los Angeles. The city’s latest Comprehensive Annual Financial Report shows a Government Net Position of over $8 billion in Cash and Investments (liquid assets), plus proprietary, fiduciary and other liquid funds. According to a 2014 study published by the Fix LA Coalition:

Together, the City of Los Angeles, its airport, seaport, utilities and pension funds control $106 billion that flows through financial institutions in the form of assets, payments and debt issuance. Wall Street profits from each of these flows of money not only through the multiple fees it charges, but also by lending or leveraging the city’s deposited funds and by structuring deals in unnecessarily complex ways that generate significant commissions.

Despite having slashed spending in the wake of revenue losses from the Wall Street-engineered financial crisis, Los Angeles is still being crushed by Wall Street financial fees, to the tune of nearly $300 million just in 2014. The savings in fees alone from cutting out Wall Street middlemen could thus be considerable, and substantially more could be saved in interest payments. These savings could then be applied to other city needs, including for affordable housing, transportation, schools, and other infrastructure.

In 2017, Los Angeles paid $1.1 billion in interest to bondholders, constituting the wealthiest 5% of the population. Refinancing that debt at just 1% below its current rate could save up to 25% on the cost of infrastructure, half the cost of which is typically financing. Consider, for example, Proposition 68, a water bond passed by California voters last summer. Although it was billed as a $4 billion bond, the total outlay over 40 years at 4 percent will actually be $8 billion. Refinancing the bond at 3 percent (the below-market rate charged by the California Infrastructure and Development Bank) would save taxpayers nearly $2 billion on the overall cost of the bond.

Finding the Political Will

The numbers are there to support the case for a city-owned bank, but a critical ingredient in effecting revolutionary change is finding the political will. Being first in any innovation is always the hardest. Reasons can easily be found for saying “no.” What is visionary and revolutionary is to say, “Yes, we can do this.”

As California goes, so goes the nation, and legislators around the country are watching to see how it goes in Los Angeles. Rather than criticism, Council President Wesson deserves high praise, for stepping forth in the face of predictable pushback and daunting legal hurdles to lead the country in breaking free from our centuries-old subjugation to Wall Street exploitation.

Previously posted on Web of Debt blog

First posted on Truthdig.com. Ellen Brown is an attorney, founder of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books including Web of Debt and The Public Bank Solution. A 13^th book titled Banking on the People: Democratizing Finance in the Digital Age is due out at the end of the year. She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 300+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com.

According to several reports citing U.S. military sources, the Lockheed Martin-manufactured F-35 jet – the most expensive U.S. fighter jet ever and the most expensive weapon system in the world – crashed spectacularly on Friday, just one day after its first-ever successful airstrike, resulting in the “total loss” of the aircraft.

The crashed plane, each of which costs U.S. taxpayers more than $100 million, was a U.S. Marine Corps F-35B and had taken off from a training squadron at the Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort, South Carolina. The pilot safely ejected from the plane prior to the crash and there were no civilian injuries.

The crash is the second “Class A mishap” – a military term for an incident resulting in at least $2 million in damages, the fatality or permanent total disability of the crew, or the total loss of the aircraft – to have occurred with an F-35 jet and marked the first time that a pilot ejected from the aircraft. However, the jets have also been the subject of other less serious incidents including other accidents and fires, such as when an F-35B burst into flames on a runway in 2016.

The military has yet to say what caused the crash, give any details about the pilot, or recount what occurred immediately prior to the crash. Despite the lack of details, the incident has led some to worry that the crash may indicate a wider, systemic problem with the aircraft, which could lead to the potential grounding of the entire F-35 fleet.

Military plane crash in Beaufort near Joe Allen Drive area. Appears to have crashed on a bluff/island owned by Clarendon Plantations. Not usually many people over there. Praying for the safety of all involved! pic.twitter.com/dM5a8v2lg1

— Sam Richardson (@SamRichardsonAM) September 28, 2018

Notably, the incident comes after the U.S. military used the plane for the first time in a U.S. airstrike, which was conducted in Afghanistan last Thursday against a “fixed Taliban target.” A CNN report on the recent F-35 airstrike praised the plane as “the future of military aviation” and called it “a lethal and versatile aircraft that combines stealth capabilities, supersonic speed, extreme agility, and state-of-the-art sensor fusion technology,” citing U.S. weapons giant Lockheed Martin – the plane’s primary manufacturer.

President Donald Trump has previously praised the plane for being “invisible,” given its reduced capacity to be detected by enemy radars, though the plane is not actually invisible.

Good money — lots of it — after bad

Yet, the recent crash of the F-35 jet has brought renewed scrutiny to the program, which has long been controversial not only for its high cost but for long-standing concerns about the jet’s effectiveness in combat. Indeed, the F-35 jet program has been called one of the most egregious cases of government waste in regards to defense spending, ever.

Furthermore, despite having been on the workbench for decades (its development began in 1992), the U.S.’ F-35 fleet is still not ready, though some F-35s were deployed abroad in 2015. However, the plane had never been used by the U.S. military for a combat mission until last Thursday.

Worse still, the Pentagon has admitted that the jets won’t have a chance in a real combat situation and a recent test run saw the jets outperformed by a 40-year-old F-16. Despite the clear failure of the program, the U.S. government has continued to pour money into the jet’s development, making it the most expensive weapons system in U.S. history. In total, the program is on track to cost U.S. taxpayers over $1 trillion.

Despite the setbacks of the F-35, the U.S. has continued to not only pour more money into the F-35 program itself but to award Lockheed Martin massive contracts in apparent ignorance of the terrible precedent set by the controversial fighter jet program. For instance, in August, the U.S. government awarded Lockheed Martin over $3 billion in new contracts in just two days after concerns were raised regarding missile system advances made by Russia and China.

With the U.S. government continuing to funnel money to Lockheed for the development of weapons and defense systems deemed critical to U.S. “national security,” it again appears that the U.S. corporate welfare, which is so characteristic of the country’s military-industrial complex, is in fact driving the U.S. military’s decline in competitiveness and ironically helping accelerate the U.S.’ loss of its former global hegemony.

Top Photo | President Donald Trump talks with Lockheed Martin president and CEO Marilyn Hewson, right, and director and chief test pilot Alan Norman in front of a F-35 as he participates in a “Made in America Product Showcase” at the White House, July 23, 2018, in Washington. Evan Vucci | AP

Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.

We expect 17-year-olds to have learned a great deal starting from infancy, and yet full-grown adults have proven incapable of knowing anything about Afghanistan during the course of 17 years of U.S.-NATO war. Despite war famously being the means of Americans learning geography, few can even identify Afghanistan on a map. What else have we failed to learn?

The war has not ended.

There are, as far as I know, no polls on the percentage of people in the United States who know that the war is still going on, but it seems to be pretty low. Polling Report lists no polls at all on Afghanistan in the past three years. For longer than most wars have lasted in total, this one has gone on with no public discussion of whether or not it should, just annual testimony before Congress that this next year is going to really be the charm. Things people don’t know are happening are not polled about, which contributes to nobody knowing they are happening.

Possible reasons for such ignorance include: there have been too many wars spawned by this one to keep track of them all; President Obama claimed to have “ended” the war while explicitly and actually not ending it, and pointing this out could be impolite; a war embraced by multiple presidents and both big political parties is not a useful topic for partisan politics; very few of the people suffering and dying are from the United States; very similar stories bore journalists and editors after 17 years of regurgitating them; when the war on Iraq became too unpopular in the United States, the war on Afghanistan was fashioned into a “good war” so that people could oppose one war while making clear their support for war in general, and it would be inconvenient to raise too many questions about the good war; it’s hard to tell the story of permanent imperial occupation without it sounding a little bit like permanent imperial occupation; and the only other story that could be developed would be the ending of the war — which nobody in power is proposing and which could raise the embarrassing question of why it wasn’t done 5, 10, or 17 years ago.

The war is not the longest U.S. war ever.

Among those who know the war exists, a group I take to include disproportionately those involved in fighting it and those trying to end it, a popular claim is that it is the longest U.S. war ever. But the United States has not formally declared a war since 1941. How one picks where a war starts and stops is controversial. There is certainly a strong case to be made that the never-ending war-sanctions/bombings-war assault on Iraq has been longer than the war on Afghanistan. There’s a stronger case that the U.S. war on Vietnam was also longer, depending on when you decide it began. The war on North (and South) Korea has yet to be ended, and ending it is the top demand of a united Korean people to their Western occupiers. The centuries-long war on the indigenous peoples of North America is generally ignored, I believe, principally because those people are not legally or politically thought of as actual real people but more as something resembling rodents. And yet it is important for us to recognize that none of the wars taught in U.S. school texts took even a tiny fraction of this length of time, and that even applying the same name (“war”) to (1) things that happened for limited and scheduled durations in empty fields between soldiers with primitive weapons *and* to (2) endless aerial and high-tech assaults on people’s towns and cities is questionable.

Military glory is to glory as military justice and military music are to justice and music.

For most of the duration of this war, participation in which is supposed to be called glorious, the top cause of death in the U.S. military has been suicide. What more powerful statement can someone make against glorifying what they have been engaged in than killing themselves? And sending more people off to kill and die in order not to disrespect the people who have already killed themselves, so that they not have killed themselves “in vain,” is the definition of insanity squared — it’s insanity gone insane. That it may be common sense doesn’t change that; it just gives us the task of causing our society to go sane.

Benjamin Franklin is still right: There has never been a good war.

When it became convenient for politicians and others to present Afghanistan as “the good war,” many began to imagine that whatever had been done wrong in Iraq had been done right in Afghanistan: the war had been U.N. authorized, civilians had not been targeted, nobody had been tortured, the occupation had been wisely planned; the war had been and was just and necessary and unavoidable and humanitarian; in fact all the good war needed was more of what it was, while the bad war in Iraq needed less. None of these fantasies was true. Each was and is blatantly false.

“They started it” is always a lie, because it’s always used to start something.

Most everyone supposes that the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and has stayed there ever since as a series of “last resorts,” even though the Taliban repeatedly offered to turn bin Laden over to a third country to stand trial, al Qaeda has had no significant presence in Afghanistan for most of the duration of the war, and withdrawal has been an option at any time. The United States, for three years prior to September 11, 2001, had been asking the Taliban to turn over Osama bin Laden. The Taliban had asked for evidence of his guilt of any crimes and a commitment to try him in a neutral third country without the death penalty. Those don’t seem like unreasonable demands. At the very least they don’t seem irrational or crazy. They seem like the demands of someone with whom negotiations might be continued. The Taliban also warned the United States that bin Laden was planning an attack on U.S. soil (this according to the BBC). Former Pakistani Foreign Secretary Niaz Naik told the BBC that senior U.S. officials told him at a U.N.-sponsored summit in Berlin in July 2001 that the United States would take action against the Taliban in mid-October. He said it was doubtful that surrendering bin Laden would change those plans. When the United States attacked Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, the Taliban asked to negotiate handing over bin Laden to a third country to be tried, dropping the demand to see any evidence of guilt. The United States rejected the offer and continued a war in Afghanistan for many years, not halting it when bin Laden was believed to have left that country, and not even halting it after announcing bin Laden’s death. Perhaps there were other reasons to keep the war going for a dozen years, but clearly the reason to begin it was not that no other means of resolving the dispute were available. Punishing a government that was willing to turn over an accused criminal, by spending 17 years bombing and killing that nation’s people (most of whom had never heard of the attacks of September 11, 2001, much less supported them, and most of whom hated the Taliban) doesn’t appear to be a significantly more civilized action than shooting a neighbor because his great-uncle stole your grandfather’s pig.

Tony Blair has a lot to answer for.

Blame is, contrary to popular opinion, not a finite quantity. I don’t deny an ounce of it to Bush or Cheney or every single member of the U.S. Congress except Barbara Lee, or just about every employee and owner of U.S. corporate media, or numerous profiteers and weapons dealers and death marketers of all variety. I blame history teachers, military recruiters, NATO, every member of NATO, the UN Security Council, the people who designed the UN Security Council, priests and preachers, Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Hillary Clinton, Steven Spielberg, Thomas Jefferson, Wolf Blitzer, flag manufacturers, any neighbor of Paul Wolfowitz who didn’t give him a talking to, and — I’m confident in saying — a lot more people than you blame. I don’t exclude them and I am not right now ranking them. But I would like permission to point out that Tony Blair belongs in this list and not on some panel discussing the principles of liberal humanitarian slaughter. Blair was willing to go along with Bush’s attack on Iraq if Bush attacked Afghanistan first. Attacking a country because it would make marketing an attack on another country easier is a particularly slimy thing to do.

Afghanistan is Obama’s war.

Barack Obama campaigned on escalating the war on Afghanistan. His supporters either agreed with that, avoided knowing it, or told themselves that in their hero’s heart of hearts he secretly opposed it — which was apparently sufficient compensation for many when he went ahead and did it. He tripled the U.S. forces and escalated the bombings and creating a campaign of drone murder. By every measure — death, destruction, financial expense, troop deployment — the war on Afghanistan is more Obama’s war than anyone else’s.

Trump lied.

Candidate Trump said: “Let’s get out of Afghanistan. Our troops are being killed by the Afghans we train and we waste billions there. Nonsense! Rebuild the USA.”

President Trump escalated and continued the war, albeit at a much smaller scale than Obama had. And he had lied about the amount of money being spent. The notion that it could all be spent on useful things in the United States either underestimates the amount of money or overestimates U.S. greed and powers of imagination. This amount of money is so vast that one would almost certainly have to spend it on more than one country if spending it on useful human and environmental needs.

The people in charge of the war don’t believe in it any more than the troops they order around.

The view that further war, in particular with drones, is counterproductive on its own terms is shared by:

—U.S. Lt. General Michael Flynn, who quit as head of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in August 2014: “The more weapons we give, the more bombs we drop, that just… fuels the conflict.”
—Former CIA Bin Laden Unit Chief Michael Scheuer, who says the more the United States fights terrorism the more it creates terrorism.
—The CIA, which finds its own drone program “counterproductive.”
—Admiral Dennis Blair, the former director of National Intelligence: While “drone attacks did help reduce the Qaeda leadership in Pakistan,” he wrote, “they also increased hatred of America.”
—Gen. James E. Cartwright, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: “We’re seeing that blowback. If you’re trying to kill your way to a solution, no matter how precise you are, you’re going to upset people even if they’re not targeted.”
—Sherard Cowper-Coles, Former U.K. Special Representative To Afghanistan: “For every dead Pashtun warrior, there will be 10 pledged to revenge.”
—Matthew Hoh, Former Marine Officer (Iraq), Former US Embassy Officer (Iraq and Afghanistan): “I believe it’s [the escalation of the war/military action] only going to fuel the insurgency. It’s only going to reinforce claims by our enemies that we are an occupying power, because we are an occupying power. And that will only fuel the insurgency. And that will only cause more people to fight us or those fighting us already to continue to fight us.” — Interview with PBS on Oct 29, 2009
—General Stanley McChrystal: “For every innocent person you kill, you create 10 new enemies.”
— Lt. Col. John W. Nicholson Jr.: This commander of the war who left that position last month, like most of the people above, pulled “an Eisenhower” and blurted out his opposition to what he’d been doing on his last day of doing it. The war should be ended, he said.

The Afghans have not benefitted

It’s much desired in the United States to imagine that wars benefit the people bombed, and then to lament and point to their ignorant inability to feel grateful as a sign that they are in need of more bombing. In reality, this war has taken a deeply troubled and impoverished country and made it 100 times worse, killing hundreds of thousands of peoplein the process, creating a refugee crisis being addressed courageously by Pakistan, and helping to destabilize half the globe.

The purposes have not been admirable.

Invading Afghanistan had little or nothing to do with bin Laden or 9-11. The motivations in 2001 were in fact related to fossil fuel pipelines, the positioning of weaponry, political posturing, geo-political posturing, maneuvering toward an invasion of Iraq, patriotic cover for power grabs and unpopular policies at home, and profiteering from war and its expected spoils. These are all either indefensible arguments or points that might have been negotiated or accomplished without bombs. During the course of the war its proponents have often been quite open about its actual purpose.

Permanent bases make war permanent and do not bring peace.

They just cut the ribbon for new construction at Camp Resolute Support. Can a ground breaking at Fort Over My Dead Body be far behind. It’s important that we understand that permanent peace-bringing bases are neither.

The U.S. has no responsibility to do something before it gets the hell out.

After the United States gets out, Afghanistan will continue to be one of the worst places on earth. It will be even worse, the longer the departure is delayed. Getting out is the principle responsibility. The United States has no responsibility to do anything else first, such as negotiating the future of the Afghan people with some of their war lords. If I break into your house and kill your family and smash your furniture, I don’t have a moral duty to spend the night and meet with a local gang to decide your fate. I have a moral and legal responsibility to get out of your house and turn myself in at the nearest police station.

The ICC is teasing, but what if it starts to enjoy the teasing?

The international criminal court has never prosecuted a non-African, but has claimed for years to be investigating U.S. crimes in Afghanistan. What if people began encouraging it to do its job. Not that I would suggest such a thing.

International Criminal Court
Post Office Box 19519
2500 CM The Hague
The Netherlands
[email protected]
Fax +31 70 515 8555

Too many wars is a reason to end them.

That there are too many wars to keep track of them all is a reason to end each one and to end the entire institution of war before it ends us, as it has spiraled far out of control.

The damage is unlimited.

The damage to Afghanistan is immeasurable. The natural environment has suffered severely. Cultures have been damaged. Children have been traumatized. U.S. culture has been poisoned and militarized and made more bigoted and paranoid. We’ve lost freedoms in the name of freedom. The financial tradeoff has been unfathomable. The complete case is overwhelming.

Peace is possible. Here’s one effort to “intervene.”

A letter you can sign.

Events you can attend.

Protecting Russian interests in Syria and the Mid-East was and is the driving force for Russian military and diplomatic activity, nothing else!

“The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world [….] No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity, much less dissent.”— Gore Vidal

“Those of us who are members of oppressed peoples and nations cannot depend on any bourgeois state to really care about our humanity – including Russia and China.”

One of the most amusing elements of the current anti-Russian hysteria produced by U.S. state/corporate propagandists is the notion that Russia is this bold, aggressive challenger to “U.S. and Western interests” when the reality has always been the opposite. In the tumultuous period after the Soviet Union disintegrated, the Russian Federation emerged under the leadership of the clownish BorisYeltsin.

The Russian capitalist oligarchy that developed during that period and expanded under the leadership of Vladimir Putin has always just wanted to be part of the global capitalist game. They had demonstrated on more than one occasion their willingness to cooperate with the agenda of Western powers. However, they wanted to be respected with their regional interests recognized.

“The Russian capitalist oligarchy has always just wanted to be part of the global capitalist game.”

But as result of greed, hubris and just plain incompetence, U.S. policy-makers, especially the amateurs running foreign policy during the Obama years, pushed the Russians out of their preferred zone of caution in international affairs, with Syria being exhibit A. Forcing the Russians’ hand in Syria was followed by the Ukraine when the U.S. sparked a coup in that nation as the second front against Russian “intervention” in Syria.

So it was quite comical to see how the announcement that Russia will deliver the S-300 air defense system to the Syrian government was met with feigned horror by U.S. and NATO forces . This decision was taken after the U.S. allowed or didn’t stop the Israeli Air Force from playing games that resulted in a Russia cargo plane being shot out of the air by Syrian ground defenses who mistook the Russia plane for an Israeli aircraft.

“The amateurs running foreign policy during the Obama years, pushed the Russians out of their preferred zone of caution in international affairs.”

Without an adequate air defense system capable of covering the entire nation and strategic territories within Syria, the Israeli Air Force has had almost unimpeded access to Syria air space during the Syrian war to attack military forces associated with the Syrian government, Hezbollah and the Iranian state.

Yet in their zeal to push out anti-Russian propaganda, the state/corporate propagandists in the U.S. exposed once again Russia’s conservatism and acquiescence to the global colonial U.S./EU/NATO agenda. While the headlines screamed traitor at Turkish President Erdogan for concluding a deal for the Russian S-400, the most advanced system the Russians are selling on the open market, very few seemed to have noticed that those wily, evil Russians that were propping up their partner in Syria hadn’t even delivered on the S-300 sale to the Syrian state that had been concluded five years ago!

“The Israeli Air Force has had almost unimpeded access to Syria air space during the Syrian war.”

The Russians said that they failed to deliver the system that the Syrians purchased due to a request from the Israeli government in 2013. This decision took place a year after the debacle of Geneva I, the United Nations sponsored conference to resolve the Syrian War, where the Russians appeared ready to abandon Assad as long as the Syrian state was maintained, and their interests protected. Getting rid of Assad but maintaining the Syrian state was also U.S. policy at the time.

However, instead of a negotiated settlement in which the Russians would play a role, the Obama administration rejected Geneva I believing that it could topple the government in Syria through its jihadist proxies. The U.S. knew that those elements were never going to be allowed to govern the entire nation but that was the point. The Syrian state was slated to be balkanized with its territory divided and a permanent presence by the U.S. directly on the ground. Those forces in Syria would be bolstered by the thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq that had been reintroduced as a result of the U.S. reinvasion supposedly to fight ISIS — that it helped to create.

“The Obama administration believed it could topple the government in Syria through its jihadist proxies.”

Although it’s old news that the Russian position on Assad came out just a year after the Chinese and Russians gave the green light to the U.S. and NATO to launch a vicious war on Libya, it points out how in the global game of power relations the peoples of the former colonial world continue to lose. The Russians, like the Chinese, have demonstrated repeatedly their willingness to collaborate with the U.S. and the “Western colonialist alliance,”even as successive U.S. administrations have singled them out, along with Iran and Venezuela, as geostrategic threats to U.S. global hegemony.

This observation is not meant to be another Russia and China bashing that plays into the hands of the reactionaries driving U.S. policies who see military conflict with those two nations as inevitable. Instead what is being argued here is the absolute necessity for African/Black people and oppressed peoples and nations to be clear about the international correlation and balance of forces and competing interests at play so that “we” the people are not confused regarding our objective interests.

Russian intervention in Syria was not as cynical as the U.S. and Western European powers, which knew from the beginning that “progressive” forces in Syria could not win a military conflict. Nevertheless, they encouraged those forces to engage in military opposition while the U.S. and its allies decided to back various Islamist forces – not for democratic change, but to destroy the Syrian state.

“The Russians, like the Chinese, have demonstrated repeatedly their willingness to collaborate with the U.S. and the ‘Western colonialist alliance.’”

Maintaining an independent, critical perspective on the national and global dispensation of social forces means not having any illusions about the world and the national, class and racial politics in play. We need to be clear that supporting Syria’s attempt to assert full sovereignty over its territory was only a secondary concern for the Russians. The back seat given to the Syrian government in the negotiations between Russia, Iran, and Turkey regarding Idlib confirms that. Protecting Russian interests in Syria and the Mid-East was and is the driving force for Russian military and diplomatic activity, nothing else!

The delivery of the S-300 anti-aircraft system to Syria resembles the Russia cooperation with the U.S., Israel and Turkey on the Turkish Afrin operation ,which was basically an invasion of Syria by Turkey in order to establish a “buffer zone.” These are all decisions based on the objective interests of Russia and secondarily the interests of the Syrian government.

It remains to be seen how the deployment of the S-300’s will alter the situation on the ground in Syria. It would not be surprising if the deployment was limited and only covered the territory around Latakia, the site of the Russian air base and close to its warm-water port. It may not be in Russia’s interests to allow the Syria government the means to block Israeli intrusions into Syrian air space. If the Syrian government had the ability to really ensure the security of its national territory from Israeli intrusions, it could mean that Russia would have less leverage over the Syrian government to force a withdrawal of Iranian forces from Syria. Additionally, the land corridor and security of the “Islamic pipeline” between Iran, Iraq and Syria could be secured that may not be necessarily conducive for maintaining Russia’s share of the energy market in Europe.

“Supporting Syria’s attempt to assert full sovereignty over its territory was only a secondary concern for the Russians.”

The U.S. and Israel overplayed their cards and made a strategic blunder by precipitating the shooting down of the Russian cargo plane. Although National Security Adviser John Bolton claims that the decision to supply Syrian forces with the S-300 is a “significant escalation,” the escalation really took place in 2012 when the Obama administration decided to allow U.S. vassal states to significantly increase military support for radical Islamic forces. Michael Flynn revealed this as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency – something the Obama forces never forgot.

Syria has been a difficult object lesson for the left that has had a devastating consequence for the people of that embattled nation. Hundreds of thousands have died, and millions have been displaced primarily because left and progressive forces lacked the organizational, but more importantly, the ideological, political, and moral clarity to mount an opposition to the machinations of their national bourgeoisie in Europe and the U.S. The very idea that the bourgeois leadership of their respective states might have some benevolent justifications for military intervention in Syria revealed a dangerous nationalist sentimentality that is driving the left version of white supremacist national chauvinism.

“It would not be surprising if the missile deployment was limited to the territory around Latakia, the site of the Russian air base and close to its warm-water port.”

Before the dramatic rightist turn of the left in the U.S. and Europe over the last two decades, the left – at least much of the Marxist-Leninist left – opposed Western imperialist intervention out of a theoretical and principled commitment to the national-colonial question in the global South. As citizens in “oppressor nations,” opposing their own bourgeoisie’s interventions into oppressed nations was seen as a responsibility for the left and indeed was a measurement of what was actually an authentic left position.

That stance has virtually disappeared.

The first response by the Western left to plans or actual interventions by their nation’s ruling class is a strange conversation regarding rather or not the intervention is justified or not based on the nature of the government being toppled by the intervention.

For those of us who are members of oppressed peoples and nations, it is quite obvious that without independent organizations and global solidarity structures buttressed by the few progressive states that exist on the planet, we cannot depend on any bourgeois state to really care about our humanity or on the radical or left forces in Northern nations to put a brake on repression and intervention against non-Europe states and peoples.

“The Left once opposed Western imperialist intervention out of a theoretical and principled commitment to the national-colonial question in the global South.”

The bloodletting will continue in Syria. Candidate Trump raised some serious questions about the wisdom of U.S. policies in Syria and indicated that he might be willing to reverse U.S. involvement. But President Trump surrendered to the pressure from the foreign policy establishment and the warmongering corporate press. Instead of extricating the U.S., the administration announced a few weeks ago that the U.S. will essentially engage in an illegal and indefinite occupation in Syria.

There is reasonable doubt that Israel and the U.S . will allow the deployment of the S-300s even if the Russians followed through with the delivery. Which means the possibility of another dangerous escalation in the conflict at any moment. It also means that, despite one’s opinion about the nature of any government’s internal situation, it is important to reaffirm and defend the principles of national sovereignty and international law in opposition to arbitrary and illegal interventions to effect a change in government by any outside forces.

The people’s movements for social justice and human rights around the world must not allow the people to be drawn into the machinations and contradictory struggles and conflicts between essentially capitalist blocs, which include the Russians and the state-capitalism of China. This is not to suggest a moral or political equalization between the emergence of capitalist Russia and China and the systematic degradation unleashed on the world by the Pan-European colonial/capitalist project that emerged in 1492 with the invasion of the “Americas.” That would be a perversion of history and divert us from the primary global contradiction and target: The Western capitalist alliance and the corporate and finance oligarchy at its center.

“Instead of extricating the U.S., the administration will essentially engage in an illegal and indefinite occupation in Syria.”

In the competition between blocs and the real possibility of global conflict, we must be vigilant not to repeat the tragic mistake made before the First World War when workers enthusiastically signed up as cannon fodder in the clash of capitalist empires. Imperialist war really is a class issue!

Totalitarian capitalist domination is not a figment of our imaginations, it is real. Penetrating the ideological mystifications that divert us away from the matrix of power that distorts consciousness and renders the people as collaborators in their own subjugation is the task of the moment.

The global order is changing, the only question is what will emerge. Will the new order be a multipolar one dominated by emerging capitalist states or will a new transitional order develop that is oriented toward an association of states and people’s movements moving toward authentic de-colonization, ecological rationality, and socialist construction?

There is still time for the people to choose.

This article was originally published on Black Agenda Report

Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the 2016 candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket. He is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and contributing columnist for Counterpunch. His latest publications include contributions to“Jackson Rising: The Struggle for Economic Democracy and Self-Determination in Jackson, Mississippi. He can be reached at: Ajamubaraka.com

Making his first visit to the United States as head-of-state, Republic of Cuba President Miguel Diaz-Canal Bermudez delivered an impassioned speech before the 73^rd Ordinary Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on September 26.

Defending the sovereignty of Cuba and other states throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, Diaz-Canal emphasized that the nations within the region had a right to adopt the political and economic system of their choice. 

The address appeared to be a refutation on the character of the speech given by U.S. President Donald Trump one day earlier. Trump launched a tirade against Venezuela and Cuba stating that socialism was a failed system. 

Nonetheless, the newly-elected Cuban leader recounted the advances of socialism and the specific exploitative character of capitalism. He noted the increasing gap between the rich and poor along with the human deprivation so widespread in the contemporary world where resources are horded by a small group of billionaires squandering precious material wealth on weapons of war and conquest.

Although relations between Cuba and the U.S. were restored on July 20, 2015 after the severing of ties at the aegis of Washington in 1961, the economic blockade against Havana remains intact. Although former U.S. President Barack Obama led the initiative to re-establish diplomatic ties, his predecessor Donald J. Trump has escalated hostile rhetoric towards Cuba.

This diplomatic break in 1961 took place amid numerous attempts by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to overthrow the revolutionary government then led by Prime Minister and later President Fidel Castro Ruz (1926-2016). Fidel handed over power to his younger brother Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Raul Castro in 2006. He had maintained control of the council of state and ministers until April 19 of this year. Raul remains First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC)).

Cuba President Miguel Diaz-Canal Bermudez speaking to over 2,000 people at Riverside Church in New York City on September 26, 2018.

In his address to the UNGA, Diaz-Canal spoke to the international delegations on the character of capitalism and imperialism. He cited statistics saying nearly half of the globe’s wealth is controlled by 0.7% of the population while 70% of the people can access only 2.7% of available resources leaving 3.4 billion impoverished, 815 million without adequate food, 758 million illiterate and 844 million lacking in basic services such as clean drinking water.   

He said that:

“These realities, Madam President, are not the result of socialism, like the President of the United States said yesterday here. They are the consequence of capitalism, especially imperialism and neoliberalism; of the selfishness and exclusion that is inherent to that system, and of an economic, political, social and cultural paradigm that privileges wealth accumulation in the hands of a few at the cost of the exploitation and dire poverty of the large majorities.” 

Drawing attention to the plight of the downtrodden who were the victims of enslavement and national oppression, while in its more developed form the western exploitative system resulted in ruthless dictatorships and near-apocalyptic world wars, the Cuban president continued noting:

“Capitalism consolidated colonialism. It gave birth to fascism, terrorism and apartheid and spread wars and conflicts; the breaches of sovereignty and self-determination of the peoples; repression of workers, minorities, refugees and migrants. Capitalism is the opposite of solidarity and democratic participation. The production and consumption patterns that characterize it, promote plundering, militarism, threats to peace; they generate violations of human rights and are the greatest danger to the ecological balance of the planet and the survival of the human being.”

Cuban President Addresses More Than 2,000 at Riverside Church

Later that same evening of September 26, a large diverse crowd of people gathered at the Historic Riverside Church on the upper west side of Manhattan. The audience lined up for two hours circling the religious institution having to go through stringent security checks to enter the building.

The event was entitled: “Cuba Speaks for Itself”, and was organized by a “welcoming committee” of numerous organizations including the Inter-religious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO)/ Pastors for Peace, National Jericho Movement, Venceremos Brigade, Communist Workers League (CWL), Black Panther Commemoration Committee, the Northeast Political Prisoner Coalition, among other groups. A program book was circulated with ads from some of the groups which were a part of the welcoming committee. 

A joint statement published by the welcoming committee on the first page of the program book recalled the firm decades-long bonds between progressive forces in the U.S. and the Cuban government, by noting how:

“We have been through many struggles together—from the fight to return Elian Gonzalez to his father and his country to the struggle to free the Cuban Five. We fought apartheid South Africa together. We will never forget the decisive part revolutionary Cuba, under Fidel’s internationalist leadership, in defending the independence of Angola, winning the independence of Namibia, and in the unraveling and defeat of the apartheid state. For these and many other reasons our bonds of solidarity are unbreakable!”

President Diaz-Canal received a standing ovation from the audience when he entered the sanctuary at Riverside Church. The Cuban leader recalled that Fidel had spoken at the same venue in September 2000 where he announced the creation of a scholarship program for students in the U.S. from oppressed communities to study free-of-charge at the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM). The project began in earnest in 2005 and has since graduated over 170 students from the U.S. who only requirement is that they work in underserved areas.

A delegation of ELAM graduates from the U.S. attended the gathering. Two of the graduates, Drs. Sitembile Sales and Joaquim Morante, addressed the audience during the program.

Cuba and Venezuela United in Anti-Imperialist Struggle

Only about five minutes after the beginning of the program, Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro Moros entered the Church. The crowd stood and applauded in amazement. Both presidents sat at the front of the sanctuary together.

Cuba and Venezuela Presidents Miguel Diaz-Canal Bermudez and Nicolas Maduro Moros at Riverside Church in New York City on September 26, 2018 (Photo by Johnnie Stevens)

Maduro in a brief talk at Riverside said he had made a last minute decision to come to New York to participate directly in the 73^rd Ordinary Session of the UN General Assembly. Prompted by the speech delivered by President Trump the previous day, Maduro flew to New York where he participated in the UN debate giving a 50 minute address which defended the right of Venezuela to self-determination and sovereignty.

President Diaz-Canal said during his remarks at Riverside that:

“For Maduro, for Venezuela, for the Cuban delegation, it is very emotive to be here with you, friends of Cuba and Venezuela here in New York. Miracles like these happen in this city only here, in the Riverside Church.

Fidel taught us that to cooperate with other exploited and poor peoples was always a political principle of the Revolution and a duty to humanity.” 

The leader of the Caribbean socialist state went on to reiterate:

“Cuba also owes a lot to international solidarity and to the help of many friends and activists here in the United States, among whom are many Cuban residents. The most recent demonstration of this was the fight for the return of the Five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters and, before that, the return of little Elian to Cuba.”

During his visit to New York, Diaz-Canal also met with members of the U.S. Congress and a group of people representing the agricultural sector. In addition he spoke before the Nelson Mandela Peace Summit held in honor of the centenary of the late African National Congress (ANC) leader and the first democratically-elected president of the Republic of South Africa from 1994-1999.  

Read here the full speech of President Bermudez.

Author’s Note: Abayomi Azikiwe was a member of the press corps which covered the visit of Republic of Cuba President Miguel Diaz-Canal Bermudez and Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro Moros at Riverside Church.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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

All images (except the featured) in this article are from the author.

The Russian leader’s upcoming trip to India places the prerogative for deciding the future course of their strategic partnership squarely in his host’s lap.

President Putin will visit India later this week to participate in the annual India-Russia Summit, though this year’s event is the most significant in recent memory. Both Great Powers have enjoyed a decades-long strategic partnership with one another, but the nature of their relations has notably changed with time. It used to be as rock-solid as the Chinese-Pakistani one still is, but it weakened after the end of the Old Cold War and subsequent dissolution of the USSR. Almost concurrently with one another, Russia and India began reaching out to their partner’s respective rival for reasons that had nothing to do with openly offending the other but nevertheless inadvertently contributed to the growing distrust between them.

The Roots Of Distrust

Some Indians view Russia’s relations with China through a “zero-sum” perspective that leads them to conclude that the strategic balance in shifting against them in Eurasia, especially because of Moscow’s membership in the New Silk Road, the flagship project of which runs through Pakistani-administered territory that New Delhi claims as its own. Even though Russia isn’t participating in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), some Indians suspect that their decades-old partner has decided to replace them with China in forging a game-changing strategic partnership that has increasingly defined the geostrategic gravity of the New Cold War.

Likewise, some Russians are very uncomfortable with India’s relations with the US because they fear that they’ll destabilize Eurasia by unnecessarily inviting America to meddle in regional affairs on New Delhi’s behalf. As proof of this, these voices point to the game-changing Logistics Exchange Memorandum Of Agreement (LEMOA) that the two sides signed two years ago and the recently concluded Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) that altogether turn India into the US’ de-facto military ally, made all the more substantive by India’s designation as the US’ only “Major Defense Partner” and America’s increasing shipment of arms to the South Asian state.

Explaining The Pivots

In defense of Russia’s relations with China, Moscow realized right after the end of the Old Cold War that it had to prioritize the resolution of its lingering border disputes with Beijing, which eventually grew into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) that India itself ultimately joined. It’s only natural that these neighboring Great Powers would combine their strategic synergies to energize the New Silk Road vision of connecting Western and Eastern Eurasia via Russian territory, which became all the more urgent of an impetus for Russia following the unofficial onset of the New Cold War in 2014 after the US and its EU allies imposed sanctions on Moscow.

From the Indian side of things, the country was already reformulating its relations with the US since the 1980s, but this process was jumpstarted in the early 2000s under the Bush Administration and eventually evolved into the fast-moving strategic partnership that it is today under the premiership of Narendra Modi, whose ultra-nationalist BJP believes that India must contribute to “containing” China. Apart from traditional geostrategic reasons stemming from their 1962 border war and subsequent suspicions of one another, India is fearful that a surge in Chinese imports would collapse its domestic industries in the event that the country joined the New Silk Road, hence one of the reasons why it’s so firmly opposed to it.

The Symbolism Of The S-400 Deal

The resultant state of affairs is that Russian-Indian relations came to be influenced by the shadow that China and the US are casting over their strategic partnership, but it should be noted that while China doesn’t attempt to pressure Russia to downgrade its relations with India, the US is threatening to sanction India if it goes forward with its planned S-400 purchase from Russia. Beijing’s official stance is that its Eurasian BRICS partners should work closely together with one another and not invite any third parties to meddle in their affairs, even if they enter into disagreements with one another. Washington, however, tacitly wants to tear the Eurasian BRICS trilateral apart and would love to see India isolate itself from Russia and China.

This contextual background makes the S-400s more than just a prospective military transaction and transforms New Delhi’s decision about their purchase into a moment of reckoning for the Russian-Indian Strategic Partnership. It’s indeed possible that the US might waive its sanctions against India if it goes through with this deal because of recently passed legislation in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2019 that provides for this option if the President deems India to have contributed to America’s strategic interests and/or to have reduced its overall purchase of Russian weaponry, but it can’t be known for certain whether it’ll actually do so, meaning that India is undoubtedly taking a risk if it goes through with this deal.

To Sanction Or Not To Sanction?

Therein lays the greater significance of President Putin’s trip to India later this week because some media reports claimed that Modi will finally commit to this purchase once and for all, although no official confirmation of this has emerged thus far. If this does in fact happen, however, then it would prove that India still desires to continue its so-called “multi-alignment” policy of attempting to “balance” between rival Great Powers in order to indefinitely remain the object of their competition, which it hopes to leverage to its benefit. Should the deal fall through, though, then it would signify that India’s “multi-alignment” gamble has failed because it counterproductively turned the country into an American “vassal’ instead of strengthened its strategic independence.

Another factor to be considered is whether the US will actually sanction India if it commits to the S-400 deal with Russia. Imposing economic punishments on it could ruin decades’ worth of progress in trying to groom India into becoming the US’ chief partner in an Asian-wide anti-Chinese “containment” coalition, while waiving the sanctions could signal weakness and a lack of resolve on America’s part. That said, if the agreement is signed, then America might actually not sanction India at all because the S-400s could unintentionally further its regional policy if New Delhi puts them to use against China and/or Pakistan, as is expected. Moreover, India might have hinted that it’ll drastically decrease its consumption of Iranian resources in exchange for an S-400 sanctions waiver.

Concluding Thoughts

It remains to be seen how all of this plays out, but there’s no question that the future contours of the Russian-Indian Strategic Partnership will be shaped during President Putin’s upcoming trip to India later this week. Modi has to decide whether to sign the S-400 deal during that time or not; doing so would take their ties further into the 21^stcentury and show that India’s policy of “multi-alignment” has been mildly successful, while delaying or outright cancelling the agreement would ruin their relationship. This week is therefore a moment of reckoning for both countries and will also importantly clarify India’s general geostrategic alignment in the New Cold War.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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, a advertência do Presidente da República sobre a 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

Artigo original em italiano :

Il potere politico delle armi

Il manifesto, 2 de Outubro de 2018

Tradutora: Maria Luísa de Vasconcellos

This article was first published in 2007

Part 1

James D. Mooney thrust his arm diagonally, watching its reflection in his hotel suite mirror. Not quite right. He tried once again. Still not right. Was it too stiff? Too slanted? Should his palm stretch perpendicular to the ceiling; should his arm bend at a severe angle? Or should the entire limb extend straight from shoulder to fingertips? Should his Sieg Heil project enthusiasm or declare obedience? Never mind, it was afternoon. Time to go see Hitler.

Just the day before, May 1, 1934, under a brilliant, cloudless sky, Mooney, president of the General Motors Overseas Corporation, climbed into his automobile and drove toward Tempelhof Field at the outskirts of Berlin to attend yet another hypnotic Nazi extravaganza. This one was the annual “May Day” festival.

Tempelhof Field was a sprawling, oblong-shaped airfield. But for May Day, the immense site was converted into parade grounds. Security was more than tense, it was paranoid. All cars entering the area were meticulously inspected for anti-Hitler pamphlets or other contraband. But not Mooney´s. The Fuhrer´s office had sent over a special windshield tag that granted the General Motors´ chief carte blanche to any area of Tempelhof. Mooney would be Hitler´s special guest.

As Mooney arrived at the airfield, about 3:30 in the afternoon, the spectacle dazzled him. Sweeping swastika banners stretching 33 feet wide and soaring 150 feet into the air fluttered from 43-ton steel towers. Each tower was anchored in 13 feet of concrete to resist the winds as steadfastly as the Third Reich resisted all efforts to moderate its program of rearmament and oppression.

Thousands of other Nazi flags fluttered across the grounds as dense column after column of Nazis, marching shoulder to shoulder in syncopation, flowed into rigid formation. Each of the 13 parade columns boasted between 30,000 and 90,000 storm troopers, army divisions, citizen brigades and blond-blue Hitler Youth enrollees. Finally, after four hours, the tightly packed assemblage totaled about 2 million marchers and attendees.

Hitler eventually arrived in an open-air automobile that cruised up and down the field amid the sea of devotees. Accompanied by cadres of SS guards, Hitler was ushered to the stage, stopping first to pat the head of a smiling boy. This would be yet another grandiose spectacle of Fuhrer-worship so emblematic of the Nazi regime.

When ready, Hitler launched into one of his enthralling speeches, made all the more mesmerizing by 142 loudspeakers sprinkled throughout the grounds. As the Fuhrer demanded hard work and discipline, and enunciated his vision of National Socialist destiny, the crisp sound of his voice traveled across an audience so vast that it took a moment or two for his words to reach the outer perimeter of the throng. Hence, the thunderous applause that greeted Hitler´s remarks arrived sequentially, creating an aural effect of continuous, overlapping waves of adulation.

General Motors World, the company house organ, covered the May Day event glowingly in a several-page cover story, stressing Hitler´s boundless affinity for children. “By nine, the streets were full of people waiting to see Herr Hitler go meet the children,” the publication reported.

The next day, May 2, 1934, after practicing his Sieg Heil in front of a mirror, Mooney and two other senior executives from General Motors and its German division, Adam Opel A.G., went to meet Hitler in his Chancellery office. Waiting with Hitler would be Nazi Party stalwart Joachim von Ribbentrop, who would later become foreign minister, and Reich economic adviser Wilhelm Keppler.

As Mooney traversed the long approach to Hitler´s desk, he began to pump his arm in a stern-faced Sieg Heil. But the Fuhrer surprised him by getting up from his desk and meeting Mooney halfway, not with a salute but a businesslike handshake.

This was, after all, a meeting about business — one of many contacts between the Nazis and GM officials that are spotlighted in this multipart JTA investigation that scoured and re-examined thousands of pages of little-known and restricted Nazi-era and New Deal-era documents.

This documentation and other evidence reveals that GM and Opel were eager, willing and indispensable cogs in the Third Reich´s rearmament juggernaut, a rearmament that, as many feared during the 1930s would enable Hitler to conquer Europe and destroy millions of lives. The documentation also reveals that while General Motors was mobilizing the Third Reich and cooperating within Germany with Hitler´s Nazi revolution and economic recovery, GM and its president, Alfred P. Sloan, were undermining the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt and undermining America´s electric mass transit, and in doing so were helping addict the United States to oil.

For GM´s part, the company has repeatedly declined to comment when approached by this reporter. It has also steadfastly denied for decades — even in the halls of Congress — that it actively assisted the Nazi war effort or that it simultaneously subverted mass transit in the United States. It has also argued that its subsidiary was seized by the Reich during the war. The company even sponsored an eminent historian to investigate, and he later in his own book disputed many earlier findings about GM´s complicity with the Nazis. In that book, he concluded that assertions that GM had collaborated with the Nazis even after the United States and Germany were at war “have proved groundless.”

A fascination with four wheels

Hitler knew that the biggest auto and truck manufacturer in Germany was not Daimler or any other German carmaker. The biggest automotive manufacturer in Germany — indeed in all of Europe — was General Motors, which since 1929 had owned and operated the long-time German firm Opel. GM´s Opel, infused with millions in GM cash and assembly-line know-how, produced some 40 percent of the vehicles in Germany and about 65 percent of its exports. Indeed, Opel dominated Germany´s auto industry.

Impressive production statistics aside, the Fuhrer was fascinated with every aspect of the automobile, its history, its inherent liberating appeal and, of course, its application as a weapon of war. While German automotive engineers were famous for their engineering innovations, the lack of ready petroleum supplies and gas stations in Germany, coupled with the nation´s massive depression unemployment, kept autos out of reach for the common man in Nazi Germany. In 1928, just before the Depression hit, one in five Americans owned a car, while in Germany, ownership was one in 134.

In fact, just two months before Mooney´s meeting at the Chancellery, Hitler had commented at the Berlin International Automobile and Motor Cycle Show: “It can only be said with profound sadness that, in the present age of civilization, the ordinary hard-working citizen is still unable to afford a car, a means of up-to-date transport and a source of enjoyment in the leisure hours.”

Even if few Germans could afford cars — GM or otherwise — the company did provide many in the Third Reich with jobs. Hitler was keenly aware that GM, unlike German carmakers, used mass production techniques pioneered in Detroit, so-called “Fordism” or “American production.”

As the May 2, 1934, Chancellery meeting progressed, Hitler thanked Mooney and GM for being a major employer — some 17,000 jobs — in a Germany where Nazi success hinged on re-employment. Moreover, since Opel was responsible for some 65 percent of auto exports, the company also earned the foreign currency the Reich desperately needed to purchase raw materials for re-employment as well as for the regime´s crash rearmament program. Now, as Hitler embarked on a massive, threatening rearmament program, GM was in a position to make Germany´s military a powerful, modern and motorized marvel.

The quest for the ´people´s car´

During the meeting with Mooney, Hitler estimated that if Germany were to emulate American ratios, the Reich should possess some 12 million cars. But, Hitler added, 3 million cars was a more realistic target under the circumstances. Even this would be a vast improvement over the 104,000 vehicles manufactured in Germany in 1932.

Mooney told Hitler that GM was willing to mass produce a cheap car, costing just 1,400 marks, with the mass appeal of Henry Ford´s Model T, if the Nazi regime could guarantee 100,000 car sales annually, issue a decree limiting dealer commissions and control the price of raw materials. Many automotive concerns were vying for the chance to build Hitler´s dream, a people´s car or “volkswagen,” but GM was convinced it alone possessed the proven production know-how. An excited Hitler showered his GM guests with many questions.

Would the cost of garaging a car be prohibitive for the average man? Could vehicles parked outdoors be damaged by the elements? Mooney answered that the same vehicle built to withstand wind, dust and rain at 40 mph to 60 mph could stand up to overnight exposure outdoors. To promote automobile ownership Hitler even promised something as trivial as legalized street parking.

Of course, Hitler had already committed the Reich to expedite completion of the world´s first transnational network of auto highways, the Autobahn. Now, to further promote motorcar proliferation, Hitler suggested to Mooney that the German government could also reduce gasoline prices and gasoline taxes. Hitler even asked if Opel could advise him how to prudently reduce car insurance rates, thus lowering overall operating costs for average Germans.

The conference in Hitler´s Chancellery office, originally scheduled for a quarter hour, stretched to 90 minutes.

The next morning, May 3, 1934, an excited Hitler told Keppler, “I have been thinking all night about the many things that these Opel men told me.” He instructed Keppler, “Get in touch with them before they leave Berlin.” Hitler wanted to know still more. Mooney spent hours later that day ensconced in his hotel suite composing written answers to the Fuhrer´s many additional questions.

Clearly, Hitler saw the mass adoption of autos as part of Germany´s great destiny. No wonder Mooney and GM were optimistic about the prospects for a strategic relationship with Nazi Germany.

A few weeks after the prolonged Chancellery session, the company publication, General Motors World, effusively recounted the meeting, proclaiming, “Hitler is a strong man, well fitted to lead the German people out of their former economic distress… He is leading them, not by force or fear, but by intelligent planning and execution of fundamentally sound principles of government.”

Ironically, Hitler´s famous inability to follow up on ideas caused GM officials to wonder if they had been too revealing in their company publication´s coverage of the Chancellery meeting. Copies of General Motors World were seized by Opel company officials before they could circulate in Germany. Mooney later declared he would do nothing to make Adolf Hitler angry.

For Mooney, and for Germany´s branch of GM, the relationship with the Third Reich was first and foremost about making money — billions in 21st century dollars — off the Nazi desire to re-arm even though the world expected that Germany would plunge Europe and America into a devastating war.

Typical of news coverage of events at the time was an article in the March 26, 1933, edition of The New York Times, headlined “Hitler a Menace.”

The article, quoting former Princeton University President John Hibben, echoed the war fear spreading across both sides of the Atlantic. “Adolf Hitler is a menace to the world´s peace, and if his policies bring war to Europe, the United States cannot escape participating,” the article opened. This was one of dozens of such articles that ran in American newspapers of the day, complemented by continuous radio and newsreel coverage in the same vein.

However, the commanding, decision-making force at the carmaker was not Mooney, GM´s man in Nazi Germany, but rather the company´s cold and calculating president Alfred P. Sloan, who operated out of corporate headquarters in Detroit and New York.

Who was Sloan?

Mr. Big

Sloan lived for bigness. Slender and natty, attired in the latest collars and ties, Sloan commonly wore spats, even to the White House. He often out-dressed his former GM boss, billionaire Pierre du Pont. An electrical engineer by training, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate was a strategic thinker who was as driven by a compulsion to grow his company as he was compelled to breathe oxygen.

“Deliberately to stop growing is to suffocate,” Sloan wrote in his 1964 autobiography about his years at GM. “We do things in a big way in the United States. I have always believed in planning big, and I have always discovered after the fact that, if anything, we didn´t plan big enough. I put no ceiling on progress.”

For Sloan, motorizing the fascist regime that was expected to wage a bloody war in Europe was the next big thing and a spigot of limitless profits for GM. But unlike many commercial collaborators with the Nazis who were driven strictly by the icy quest for profits, Sloan also harbored a political motivation. Sloan despised the emerging American way of life being crafted by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Sloan hated Roosevelt´s New Deal, and admired the strength, irrepressible determination and sheer magnitude of Hitler´s vision.

For Sloan, the New Deal — with its Social Security program, government regulation and support for labor unions — clanged an unmistakable death knell for an America made great by great corporations guided by great corporate leaders.

In a 1934 letter to Roosevelt´s Industrial Advisory Board, Sloan complained bitterly that the New Deal was attempting to change the rules of business so “government and not industry [shall] constitute the final authority.” In Sloan´s view, GM was bigger than mere governments, and its corporate executives were vastly more suited to decision-making than “politicians” and bureaucrats who he felt were profoundly unqualified to run the country. Government officials, Sloan believed, merely catered to voters and prospered from backroom deals.

Sloan´s disdain for the American government went beyond ordinary political dissent. The GM chief so hated the president and his administration that he co-founded a virulently anti-Roosevelt organization, and donated to at least one other Roosevelt-bashing group. Moreover, Sloan actually pressured GM executives not to serve in government positions, although many disregarded his advice and loyally joined the government´s push for war preparedness.

At one point, Sloan´s senior officials at GM even threatened to launch a deliberate business slowdown to sabotage the administration´s recovery plan, according to papers unearthed by one historian. At the same time, Sloan and GM did not fail to express admiration for the stellar accomplishments of the Third Reich, and went the extra mile to advance German economic growth.

Indeed, Sloan felt that GM could — and should — create its own foreign policy, and back the Hitler regime even as America recoiled from it. “Industry must assume the role of enlightened industrial statesmanship,” Sloan declared in an April 1936 quarterly report to GM stockholders. “It can no longer confine its responsibilities to the mere physical production and distribution of goods and services. It must aggressively move forward and attune its thinking and its policies toward advancing the interest of the community at large, from which it receives a most valuable franchise.”

In ramping up auto production in the Nazi Reich, Sloan understood completely that he was not just manufacturing vehicles. Sloan and Hitler both knew that GM, by creating wealth and shrinking unemployment, was helping to prop up the Hitler regime.

When explaining his ideas of mass production to Opel car dealers, Sloan proudly declared what the enterprise would mean: “The motor car contributes more to the wealth of the United States than agriculture. The automobile industry is a wealth-creating industry.” What was true in America would become true in Germany. Ironically, GM chose the alliance with Hitler even though doing so threatened to imperil GM at home. Just days after Hitler came to power on Jan. 30, 1933, a worldwide anti-Nazi boycott erupted, led by the American Jewish Congress, the Jewish War Veterans and a coalition of anti-fascist, pro-labor, interfaith and American patriotic groups. Their objective was to fracture the German economy, not resurrect it.

The anti-Nazi protesters vowed not only to boycott German goods, but to picket and cross-boycott any American companies doing business with Germany. In the beginning, few understood that in boycotting Opel of Germany, they were actually boycotting GM of Detroit. Effectively, they were one and the same.

Part 2

Hitler’s Carmaker: As the Nazis Amassed Power, What Did GM Know and When?

By the spring of 1933, the world was beginning to learn about the lawlessness and savagery of the Nazi regime, and the Reich’s determination to crush its Jewish community and threaten its neighbors. On March 27, 1933, a million protesters jammed Madison Square Garden in New York, and millions more around the world joined in a coordinated show of protest against Nazi brutality. By May 10, 1933, Nazi-banned books were being torched in public bonfires across Germany. The corporate library at General Motors’ Opel in Germany was purged, as well, of Jewish-authored publications and other undesirable literature.

Beginning in the late spring of 1933, concentration camps such as Dachau were generating headlines reporting great brutality.

By June 1933, Jews everywhere in Germany were being banned from the professional, economic and cultural life of the country. As state-designated pariahs, they were forbidden to remain members of the German Automobile Association, the popular organization for the general German motorist. Hitler’s anti-Semitic demagoguery and the daily, semi-official, violent attacks against Jews were discussed in the American media almost daily.

GM’s president Alfred P. Sloan knew what was happening in Germany. Sloan and GM officials knew also that Hitler’s regime was expected to wage war from the outset. Headlines, radio broadcasts and newsreels made that fact apparent. America, it was feared, would once again be pulled in.

Nonetheless, GM and Germany began a strategic business relationship. That relationship is largely the focus of a JTA investigative series that re-examines the company’s conduct on both sides of the Atlantic before, during and immediately after World War II. GM has declined comment for this story. The company has steadfastly denied for decades that it actively assisted the Nazi war effort.

Unleashing the Blitzkrieg

Opel became an essential element of the German rearmament and modernization Hitler required to subjugate Europe. To accomplish that, Germany needed to rise above the horse-drawn divisions it deployed in World War I. It needed to motorize, to “blitz,” that is, to attack with lightning speed. Germany would later unleash a Blitzkrieg, a lightning war. Opel built the three-ton truck named “Blitz” — to support the German military. The Blitz truck became the mainstay of the Blitzkrieg.

Quickly, Sloan and James D. Mooney, GM’s overseas chief, realized that the Reich military machine was in fact the corporation’s best customer in Germany. Sales to the army yielded a greater per truck profit than civilian sales — a hefty 40 percent more. So GM preferred supplying the military, which never ceased its preparations to wage war against Europe.

In 1935, GM agreed to locate a new factory at Brandenburg, where it would be geographically less vulnerable to feared aerial bombardment by allied forces. In 1937, almost 17 percent of Opel’s Blitz trucks were sold directly to the Nazi military.

That military sales figure was increased to 29 percent in 1938 — totaling some 6,000 Blitz trucks that year alone. The Wehrmacht, the German military, soon became Opel’s No. 1 customer by far. Other important customers included major industries associated with the Hitler war machine.

Expanding its German workforce from 17,000 in 1934 to 27,000 in 1938 also made GM one of Germany’s leading employers. Unquestionably, GM’s Opel became an integral facet of Hitler’s Reich.

More than just an efficient manufacturer, Opel openly embraced the bizarre philosophy that powered the Nazi military-industrial complex. The German company participated in cultic Fuhrer worship as a part of its daily corporate ethic. After all, until GM purchased Opel in 1929 for $33.3 million, or about one-third of GM’s after-tax profit that year, Opel was an established carmaker with a respected German persona. The Opel family included several prominent Nazi Party members. This identity appealed to rank-and-file Nazis who condemned anything foreign-owned or foreign-made.

For all these reasons, during the Hitler years, Sloan and Mooney both made efforts to obscure Opel’s American ownership and control. As a result, the average storm trooper, Nazi Party member or German motorist accepted the company’s cars and trucks as the product of a purely Aryan firm that was working toward Hitler’s great destiny: “Deutschland uber alles.”

The masquerade

Opel became an early patron of the National Socialist Motor Corps, a rabid Nazi Party paramilitary auxiliary. Ironically, most of the members of Corps were not drivers, but Germans seeking to learn how to drive to increase national readiness. Opel employees were encouraged to maintain membership in the Motor Corps. Furthermore, Opel cars and trucks were loaned without charge to the local storm trooper contingents stationed near company headquarters at Russelsheim, Germany. As brownshirt thugs went about their business of intimidation and extortion, they often came and went in vehicles bearing prominent Opel advertisements, proud automobile sponsor of the storm troopers.

The Opel company publication, Der Opel Geist, or The Opel Spirit, became just another propagandistic tool of Fuhrer worship, edited with the help of Nazi officials. Hitler was frequently given credit in the publication for Opel’s achievements, and was frequently depicted in Der Opel Geist portraits as a fatherly or stately figure.

Hitler’s voice regularly echoed through the cavernous Opel complex. His hate speeches and pep rallies were routinely piped into the factory premises to inspire the workers. Great swastika-bedecked company events were commonplace, as Nazi gauleiters, or regional party leaders, and other party officials spurred gathered employees to work hard for the Fuhrer and his Thousand-Year Reich. Opel contributed large cash donations to all the right Nazi Party activities. For example, the company gave local storm troopers 75,000 reichsmarks to construct the gauleiter’s new office headquarters.

In the process, Opel became more than a mere carmaker. It became a stalwart of the Nazi community. Working hard and meeting exhausting production quotas were national duties. Employees who protested the intense working conditions, even if members of the Nazi Party, were sometimes visited by the Gestapo. SS officers worked as internal security throughout the plant. Order was kept.

Of course, GM’s subsidiary vigorously joined the anti-Jewish movement required of leading businesses serving the Reich. Jewish employees and suppliers became verboten. Established dealers with Jewish blood were terminated, including one of the largest serving the Frankfurt region. Even long-time executives were discharged if Jewish descent was detected. Those lower-level managers with Jewish wives or parentage who remained with the company did so stealthily, hiding and denying their background.

To conceal American ownership and reinforce the masquerade that Opel stood as a purely Aryan enterprise, Sloan and Mooney, beginning in 1934, concocted the concept of a “Directorate,” comprised of prominent German personalities, including several with Nazi Party membership. This created what GM officials variously termed a “camouflage” or “a false facade” of local management. But the decisions were made in America. GM as the sole stockholder controlled Opel’s board and the corporate votes.

Among the decisions made in America beginning in about 1935 was the one transferring to Germany the technology to produce the modern gasoline additive tetraethyl lead, commonly called “ethyl,” or leaded gasoline. This allowed the Reich to boost octane that provided better automotive performance by eliminating disruptive engine pings and jolts. Better performance meant a faster and more mobile fighting force — just what the Reich would ultimately need for its swift and mobile Blitzkrieg.

As early as 1934, however, America’s War Department was apprehensive about the transfer of such proprietary chemical processes. In late December 1934, as GM was considering building leaded gasoline plants for Hitler, DuPont Company board director Irenee du Pont wrote to Sloan: “Of course, we in the DuPont Company have always recognized the propriety and desirability of closely cooperating with the War Department of the United States. …In any case, I know that word has gone to the War Department and have the impression that they would be adverse to disclosure of knowledge which would aid Germany in preparing that chemical.” The profits were simply not worth it, argued du Pont.

Sloan had already bluntly told du Pont, “I do not agree with your reasoning to this question.” Days later, Sloan appended that GM’s commercial rights were “far more fundamental… than the question of making a little money out of lead in Germany.”

GM moved quickly — in conjunction with its close ally Standard Oil. Each company took a one-quarter share of the Reich ethyl operation, while I.G. Farben, the giant German chemical conglomerate, controlled the remaining 50 percent.

The plants were built. The Americans supplied the technical know-how. Captured German records reviewed decades later by a U.S. Senate investigating committee found this wartime admission by the Nazis: “Without lead-tetraethyl, the present method of warfare would be unthinkable.”

Years after the war, Nazi armaments chief Albert Speer told a congressional investigator that Germany could not have attempted its September 1939 Blitzkrieg of Poland without the performance-boosting additive.

Dwarfing the competition

Within a few years of partnering with the Hitler regime, Opel began to dwarf all competition. By 1937, GM’s subsidiary had grown to triple the size of Daimler-Benz and quadruple that of Ford’s fledgling German operation, known as Ford-Werke. By the end of the 1930s, Opel was valued at $86.7 million, which in 21st-century dollars, translates into roughly $1.1 billion.

In the meantime, GM was responsible for stunning growth in Germany’s economy. As most economists of the day knew, and as Sloan himself bragged, automobile manufacturing created thousands of factory jobs, hundreds of suppliers, numerous dealerships, widespread motorization and an attached oil industry.

Moreover, the growth of the highway network, from local roads to the Autobahn, spurred a construction boom that spawned thousands of additional jobs and necessitated hundreds of additional suppliers. Even GM’s own sponsored expert historian, who decades later examined Hitler-era documentation, concluded: “The auto industry spearheaded the remarkable recovery of the German economy that boosted the popularity of the Nazi regime by virtually eliminating within a few years the mass unemployment that had idled a quarter of the workforce and contributed so importantly to Hitler’s rise.”

But Reich currency restrictions obstructed the outflow of cash for profits or even the purchase of raw materials to build trucks. GM in America circumvented those regulations through the overseas sales of German pencils, sewing machines, Christmas tree ornaments and virtually any other exports that would earn foreign currency internationally. Those sales proceeds were then exchanged for profits or raw materials through complicated bank transfers.

On the homefront

Ironically, while GM’s Opel was a deferential corporate citizen in Nazi Germany, going the extra mile to comply with Reich requirements and making no waves, Sloan helped foment unrest at home as part of the company’s efforts to undermine the Roosevelt administration.

For example, the GM president was one of the central behind-the-scenes founders of the American Liberty League, a racist, anti-Semitic, pro-big business group bent on rallying Southern votes against Roosevelt to defeat him in the 1936 election. The American Liberty League arose out of a series of private gatherings organized in July 1934 by Sloan, du Pont and other businessmen. Some of those meetings were even held at GM’s office in New York.

The businessmen sought to create a well-financed, seemingly grass-roots coalition that du Pont declared should “include all property owners… the American Legion and even the Ku Klux Klan.” Sloan served on the American Liberty League’s national advisory board and was one of a number of wealthy businessmen who each quietly donated $10,000 to its activities. The American Liberty League, which raised more money in 1935 than the National Democratic Party, in turn, funded an array of even more fanatical, racist and anti-Jewish groups.

One such group funded by the American Liberty League was the Southern Committee to Uphold the Constitution. With help from the du Pont family fortune, the Southern Committee circulated what it called “nigger pictures” of Eleanor Roosevelt with African-Americans. Sloan sent a $1,000 check directly to the Southern Committee after those pictures were distributed, according to congressional testimony.

Racist diatribes found in Southern Committee literature included an anti-union screed that complained: “White women and white men will be forced into organizations with black African apes whom they will have to call ‘brother’ or lose their jobs.” The Southern Committee also jointly organized protest marches with the American Nazi “Silver Shirts.”

The American Liberty League also financed the Sentinels of the Republic. The Sentinels of the Republic, in turn, orchestrated incendiary, anti-Semitic letter-writing campaigns, and otherwise provoked a backlash against Roosevelt and what was sometimes derisively labeled his “Jew Deal.”

True, the Sentinels of the Republic bore all the earmarks of a rabble-rousing extremist group. But behind it were some of the nation’s most affluent and well-heeled, supplying the operating cash and direction. Among them: Sun Oil President Howard Pew, investment banker Alexander Lincoln who served as the group’s president, and the president of Pittsburgh Plate Glass, John Pitcairn. Sloan himself wrote a $1,000 check directly to the Sentinels of the Republic.

Only after an April 1936 congressional investigation was Sloan’s financial involvement in the Sentinels outed. Just days after the disclosure, Sloan issued a statement to an inquiring Jewish newspaper in Louisville, promising, “Under no circumstances will I further knowingly support the Sentinels of the Republic.” He added, ambiguously: “I have no desire to enter into any questions involving religious or political questions.”

Although Sloan backed away from further financing of the Sentinels, the GM chief continued to fund and fund raise for another anti-Roosevelt-agitation group, the National Association of Manufacturers. Founded in 1895 as a pro-business organization and still prominent more than 100 years later, NAM sowed anti-union and anti-New Deal discord among Americans in the 1930s through clandestinely owned and operated opinion-molding arms.

Roosevelt openly acknowledged that Sloan, GM, the du Ponts and other corporate giants hated him for his reforms and his efforts to relieve Depression-era inequities. In his final 1936 campaign speech, the president threw down the gauntlet, shouting to an overflow Madison Square Garden crowd, “They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred.”

Roosevelt added that he wanted his first four years to be remembered as an administration where “the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match.”

Fearing Roosevelt’s possible re-election, several of Sloan’s top executives at GM actually considered deliberately extending the financial woes of the Depression, presumably in retaliation against the entire nation. In the final days of the 1936 election campaign, several GM officials met with W.H. Swartz, a Lehman Brothers investment banker, according to a historian who studied the incident.

The GM officials apparently planned to stop investing in and expanding their company in the event of Roosevelt’s expected victory. Swartz’s Nov. 4, 1936, confidential memo about the GM meeting asserted, “Certain General Motors people also felt further capital expenditures could not be expected now, in view of Roosevelt’s possible re-election.” Based on their plans, Swartz predicted “a break in general business next year … mid-summer is the logical time to expect it,” adding, “I would suggest that the rather intense political emotions of certain of these men may have colored their thinking more than they themselves may have realized.”

Despite the lush opposition funding by Sloan and other affluent anti-New Deal nemeses, Roosevelt was re-elected by a landslide.

While no capital slow-down was actually implemented by GM, Sloan did continue to battle the administration. The conflict was not subtle. Washington knew that Sloan and GM were powerful adversaries. For example, in 1937, when Sloan telephoned Secretary of Labor Francis Perkins to renege on a promise made to meet with labor strikers, Perkins lashed out bitterly at the GM chief.

Shocked at the reversal, Perkins shouted into the phone, “You are a scoundrel and a skunk, Mr. Sloan. You don’t deserve to be counted among decent men…You’ll go to hell when you die… Are you a grown man, Mr. Sloan? Or are you a neurotic adolescent? Which are you? If you’re a grown man, stand up, and be a man for once.” A flabbergasted Sloan protested, “You can’t talk like that to me! You can’t talk like that to me! I’m worth 70 million dollars and I made it all myself! You can’t talk like that to me! I’m Alfred Sloan.”

Edwin Black is the author of the award-winning IBM and the Holocaust and the recently published Internal Combustion: How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil and Derailed the Alternatives.

US free trade deals are profoundly unfair. They facilitate offshoring of jobs to China and other low-wage countries. 

They empower corporate predators at the expense of ecosanity, worker pay, benefits and other rights. 

Countless numbers of US manufacturing and other jobs were lost since the neoliberal 90s – “destroy(ing) the careers and incomes of tens of millions of US citizens, the pension tax base for state and local governments, the federal tax base for Social Security and Medicare, and the opportunity society that once characterized the United States of America,” Paul Craig Roberts explained.

In August, Trump touted the US/Mexico trade deal, calling for Canada to join it. On September 30, the Trudeau government came aboard, agreeing to a renegotiated NAFTA.

It’s called the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). A joint statement by US trade representative Robert Lighthizer and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland called the deal a “new, modernized trade agreement,” turning truth on its head, adding:

“USMCA will give our workers, farmers, ranchers, and businesses a high-standard trade agreement that will result in freer markets, fairer trade and robust economic growth in our region.”

“It will strengthen the middle class, and create good, well-paying jobs and new opportunities for the nearly half billion people who call North America home.”

Fact: USMCA is a corporate coup d’etat, written by and agreed to by lawyers representing their interests.

It’s all about prioritizing profits and other interests at the expense of workers, consumers, and ecosanity in the three countries.

It’s a jobs-destroying neoliberal ripoff, a freedom and ecosystem destroying nightmare like all so-called US trade deals.

Global Trade Watch (GTW) director Lori Wallach addressed its investment chapter. A follow-up assessment will discuss USMCA’s full text.

Wallach noted investment chapter improvements, addressing key GTW demands, stressing more work is needed “to stop (USMCA’s) ongoing job outsourcing, downward pressure on our wages and environmental damage.”

Positive changes were made in NAFTA’s unacceptable corporate-run Investor State Dispute Settlement tribunals, consistently ruling for business at the expense of fairness.

Under NAFTA and similar US trade deals, corporate predators have been able to sue governments for virtually unlimited compensation before a rigged panel of three corporate lawyers – their ruling final, not subject to appeal.

Rulings in their favor could be gotten by claiming laws protecting public health or ecosanity violate their trade agreement rights.

Assets of nations refusing to pay could be seized. The so-called investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism incentivizes offshoring of jobs, providing special privileges and rights for firms relocating operations abroad – facilitating a global race to the bottom.

NAFTA 2.0 and similar deals aren’t about trade. They’re all about maximizing corporate profits. Offshoring jobs will continue unabated under what the US, Mexico and Canada agreed on.

Wallach:

“Unless there are strong labor and environmental standards that are subject to swift and certain enforcement, US firms will continue to outsource jobs to pay Mexican workers poverty wages, dump toxins and bring their products back here for sale, adding:

USMCA “maintains NAFTA’s waiver of Buy American rules that require the US government to procure US-made goods, which would mean more outsourced US tax dollars and jobs.”

“New monopoly privileges for pharmaceutical firms added to the deal could undermine reforms needed to make medicine more affordable here and increase prices in Mexico and Canada, limiting access to lifesaving medicines.”

Wallach stressed how failed deals like NAFTA and its slightly improved new version serve corporate interests at the expense of ordinary people and the environment.

What’s needed is “a complete transformation” of what’s gone on up to now, she stressed.

NAFTA alone was responsible for about a million lost manufacturing and other jobs, along with facilitating downward pressure on wages and benefits.

USMCA fails to address these vital issues.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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.

The revelation in this continuation of the history is the high degree to which these policies were officially planned and ready for action starting up to four years before the 1967 six day pre-emptive war against the Arab states.Do you value the reporting and in-depth analysis we provide, free of charge, on a daily basis? Do you think this resource should be maintained and preserved as a research tool for future generations? Bringing you 24/7 updates from all over the globe has real costs associated with it. Please give what you can to help us meet these costs! Click below to donate or click here to become a member of Global Research.

We are very grateful for the support we received over the past sixteen years. We hope that you remain with us in our journey towards a world without war.

*     *     *

“Unsafe and Unprofessional”: Chinese Warship Comes Within 45 Yards of US Destroyer in South China Sea

By Zero Hedge, October 02, 2018

If markets have been blissfully ignorant of potential fallout from the simmering US-China trade dispute (even if corporate executives are bracing for the worst), just imagine how they would react to the reality of a military confrontation.

One Click Closer to Nuclear Annihilation

By Philip Giraldi, October 02, 2018

The nuclear war doomsday clock maintained on the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists website has advanced to two minutes before midnight, the closest point to possible atomic apocalypse since the end of the Cold War. In 1995 the clock was at fourteen minutes to midnight, but the opportunity to set it back even further was lost as the United States and its European allies took advantage of a weakened Russia to advance NATO into Eastern Europe, setting the stage for a new cold war, which is now underway.

Palestine: The Biggest Prison on Earth – A History of the Occupied Territories

By Jim Miles, October 02, 2018

The revelation in this continuation of the history is the high degree to which these policies were officially planned and ready for action starting up to four years before the 1967 six day pre-emptive war against the Arab states.

Israeli Home Demolition Terrorism Targets Khan al-Ahmar Village

By Stephen Lendman, October 02, 2018

Israel wants their land for exclusive Jewish development. Displacing their residents and stealing their land will divide the West Bank in two, isolating one Palestinian part from the other – driving a final stake through the heart of a two-state solution Israel rejects despite falsely claiming otherwise.

Making the Arctic Safe for Neoliberalism

By Kurt Nimmo, October 02, 2018

The neoliberal economic order is based on natural resource and market dominance, so it’s no surprise when it reacts violently to efforts by others to map out resource acquisition. 

Everyone Washes Their Hands as Gaza’s Economy Goes into Freefall

By Jonathan Cook, October 02, 2018

The moment long feared is fast approaching in Gaza, according to a new report by the World Bank. After a decade-long Israeli blockade and a series of large-scale military assaults, the economy of the tiny coastal enclave is in “freefall”.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

A military parade in the regional capital of Ahvaz led by the country’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IGRC) to commemorate the Iran-Iraq War (also known as the First Gulf War) was ambushed by terrorists who ended up killing 25 people and injuring over twice as many, with a lot of the casualties being women and children. Tehran immediately blamed the US, Israel, and the Gulf Monarchies of involvement in this killing spree, and although they all denied any role in it, it didn’t help any that Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani spoke at the so-called “2018 Iranian Uprising Summit” alongside the co-leader of the MEK – which was previously listed as a terrorist organization by the US up until a few years ago – on the same day as the attack and bragged about wanting to carry out regime change against the Islamic Republic.

Nikki Haley immediately clarified that he wasn’t speaking in a professional capacity representative of the US government, though it’s hard to imagine that he wasn’t channeling the highest levels of strategic in the Trump Administration. Presuming that the US does indeed want to overthrow the Iranian government through a combination of sanctions, Color Revolutions, and military defections like Giuliani implied, then last weekend’s terrorist attack undoubtedly attempts to further those plans whether America had a direct hand in carrying it out or not. Khuzestan is a minority-Arab province abutting Iraq which previously experienced a Baghdad-supported terrorist-separatist campaign during the First Gulf War, which is why the recent attack was so symbolic because the so-called “Ahwaz National Resistance” also claimed responsibility for it, too.

Daesh said the same thing but the group is known for pretending to be much stronger and widespread than it is nowadays for public relations purposes, so its claims of responsibility aren’t credible.

Proceeding from the plausible presumption that the terrorists are more likely to be self-declared separatists than Daesh, then it’s probable that this attack was meant to catalyze identity conflict in Iran between the Persian majority mostly inhabiting the center of the country and one of its minority groups in the periphery, thereby following the Law of Hybrid War which states that external provocations could exacerbate preexisting identity fault lines. That doesn’t, however, mean that this attempt will be successful, though it’ll expectedly form part of the foreign infowar on the country designed to craft the international perception that people are “rising up against the regime”, especially coming as it did on the heels of a renewed upsurge in Kurdish terrorism inside of Iran, too.

Targeting Khuzestan was actually in hindsight a somewhat strategic action by the terrorists and their patrons because of the symbolic significance that could be extracted from this attack as it relates to perception management and infowars. A supplementary point is that it may have also been designed to provoke the security services into overreacting against the Arab minority there and thus falling into the typical anti-terrorist trap that afflicts all victimized countries in having to walk the fine line between kinetic and non-kinetic responses to these threats so as not to inadvertently catalyze the same reaction that they’re trying to suppress nor generate legitimate grievances that could then be exploited. Altogether, the recent terrorist attack was part of a devious Hybrid War strategy, but its prospects for success are limited.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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.

Featured image is from the author.

Der Regierungsvertrag, der im vergangenen Mai von der Fünf-Sterne-Bewegung und der Lega verabschiedet wurde, bestätigt, dass Italien die Vereinigten Staaten als “privilegierten Verbündeten” betrachtet. Eine Verbindung, die durch Premierminister Giuseppe Conte bekräftigt wurde, der bei seinem Treffen mit Präsident Donald Trump im Juli mit den USA “eine strategische Zusammenarbeit, fast eine Übung in Partnerschaft, kraft derer Italien zu einem privilegierten Gesprächspartner der Vereinigten Staaten für die wichtigsten Herausforderungen, denen es zu begegnen gilt, wird” festigte. Gleichzeitig unterzeichnete die neue Regierung jedoch einen Vertrag, in dem sie eine “Öffnung nach Russland, die nicht als Bedrohung, sondern als Wirtschaftspartner ” und sogar als “potenzieller Partner der NATO ” wahrgenommen werden sollte erklärte. Wie den Teufel davon zu überzeugen, das Weihwasser zu mögen.

Auf diese Weise können sowohl die Regierung als auch die Opposition die US-Strategie der Dämonisierung Russlands ignorieren, die darauf abzielt, das Bild eines gefährlichen Feindes zu schaffen, gegen den wir uns auf einen Kampf vorbereiten müssen.

Diese Strategie wurde in einer Anhörung im Senat von Wess Mitchell, stellvertretender Sekretär des Außenministeriums für europäische und eurasische Angelegenheiten, dargelegt. “Um der russischen Bedrohung standzuhalten, muss die US-Diplomatie durch eine Militärmacht unterstützt werden, die unübertroffen ist und vollständig in unsere Verbündeten und alle unsere Instrumentaliste integriert ist ” [1].

Mit der Erhöhung ihres Militärhaushalts begannen die Vereinigten Staaten, das „nukleare Arsenal zu rekapitalisieren“, einschließlich der neuen Atombomben B61-12, die ab 2020 in Italien und anderen europäischen Ländern gegen Russland stationiert werden sollen.

Die Vereinigten Staaten, so der Vize-Sekretär, haben seit 2015 11 Milliarden Dollar (2019 werden es 16 Milliarden sein) für die “European Dissuasion Initiative” ausgegeben, in anderen Worten, um ihre militärische Präsenz gegen Russland in Europa zu verstärken.

Innerhalb der NATO ist es ihnen gelungen, eine Erhöhung der Militärausgaben ihrer europäischen Verbündeten um mehr als 40 Milliarden Dollar zu erzwingen und zwei neue Kommandozentralen einzurichten, darunter eine in den USA für den Atlantik, um sich gegen die “Bedrohung durch russische U-Boote” zu verteidigen. In Europa unterstützen die Vereinigten Staaten “die Staaten an vorderster Front”, wie Polen und die baltischen Länder, und sie haben die Beschränkungen für die Lieferung von Waffen an Georgien und die Ukraine aufgehoben (d.h. die Staaten, die mit der Aggression gegen Südossetien und dem Maidanputsch die Eskalation von USA und NATO gegen Russland ausgelöst haben).

Der Vertreter des Außenministeriums warf Russland nicht nur militärische Aggression vor, sondern auch in den Vereinigten Staaten und in den europäischen Staaten, ” psychologische Massenkampagnen gegen die Bevölkerung durchzuführen, um die Gesellschaft und die Regierung zu destabilisieren “. Um diese Operationen durchzuführen, die Teil der “kontinuierlichen Bemühungen des Putin-Instrumentariums zur internationalen Vorherrschaft” sind, nutzt der Kreml die “Palette subversiver Politiken, die einst von den Bolschewiki und dem Sowjetstaat betrieben und für das digitale Zeitalter aktualisiert wurden”.

Wess Mitchell warf Russland Techniken vor, in denen sich die USA auszeichnen – sie haben 17 Bundesbehörden für Spionage und Subversion, darunter das Außenministerium. Es war dieselbe Organisation, die gerade einen neuen Posten geschaffen hat – ” Senior Advisor for Russian Malign Activities and Trends ” [2] – die mit der Entwicklung interregionaler Strategien beauftragt ist. Auf dieser Grundlage müssen die 49 diplomatischen US-Missionen in Europa und Eurasien in ihren jeweiligen Ländern konkrete Aktionspläne gegen den russischen Einfluss aufstellen.

Wir wissen noch nicht, wie der Aktionsplan der US-Botschaft in Italien aussehen könnte. Aber als der „privilegierte Gesprächspartner der Vereinigten Staaten“ muss Premierminister Conte es wissen. Er sollte dieses Wissen dem Parlament und der Nation vermitteln, bevor die ” bösen Aktivitäten ” Russlands Italien destabilisieren.

Manlio Dinucci
Übersetzung
K. R.

Quelle :Il Manifesto (Italien)

La strategia di demonizzazione della RussiaL’arte della guerra

VIDEO : Pandora/TV

Senhora Presidente da 73.ª Sessão da Assembleia Geral das Nações Unidas,

Gostaria de congratular, a Senhora e o seu país, o Equador, pela sua eleição como presidente da atual sessão da Assembleia Geral e desejo que seja bem-sucedida. Também gostaria de agradecer ao seu predecessor por presidir a Assembleia durante a sessão anterior.

Senhora  Presidente, Senhoras e Senhores,

Todos os anos chegamos a este fórum internacional fundamental, esperando que todos os cantos deste mundo se tenham tornado mais seguros, estáveis e prósperos. Hoje, a nossa esperança é mais forte do que nunca, assim como a confiança de que a vontade do nosso povo acabará por triunfar. A nossa esperança e confiança são o resultado de mais de sete anos de privações, durante os quais o nosso povo sofreu com o flagelo do terrorismo. No entanto, os sírios recusaram comprometer-se. Repudiaram sucumbir a grupos terroristas e aos seus apoiantes externos. Resistiram. Permaneceram desafiantes, totalmente convencidos de que era uma batalha pela sua existência, pela sua História e pelo seu futuro, e que no final, irão erguer-se vitoriosos.

Para descontentamento de alguns, aqui estamos hoje, passado mais de sete anos nesta guerra suja contra o meu país, a anunciar ao mundo que a situação no terreno se tornou mais segura e estável e que a nossa guerra ao terror está quase terminada, graças ao heroísmo, determinação e unidade do povo e do exército, e ao apoio dos nossos aliados e amigos. No entanto, não vamos ficar por aqui. Continuamos comprometidos em combater esta batalha sagrada até limpar todos os territórios sírios de grupos terroristas, independentemente dos seus nomes, e de qualquer presença estrangeira ilegal. Não daremos atenção aos ataques, pressões externas, mentiras ou alegações que nos desencorajem. Este é o nosso dever e um direito não negociável que temos exercido, desde o momento em que nos propusemos erradicar o terrorismo da nossa terra.

Senhora Presidente,

Os governos de certos países negaram-nos o direito e o dever nacional de combater o terrorismo, proteger o nosso povo no nosso território e dentro das nossas próprias fronteiras, de acordo com o Direito Internacional. Ao mesmo tempo, esses governos formaram uma coligação internacional ilegítima, liderada pelos Estados Unidos, sob o pretexto de combater o terrorismo na Síria. A denominada coligação internacional fez tudo menos combater o terrorismo. Tornou-se óbvio que os objectivos da coligação estavam em perfeito alinhamento com os dos grupos terroristas; semear o caos, a morte e a destruição no seu caminho. Essa coligação destruiu completamente a cidade síria de Raqqa; derrubou infraestruturas e serviços públicos nas áreas que alvejava; cometeu massacres contra civis, incluindo crianças e mulheres, que constituem crimes de guerra, segundo o Direito Internacional. Essa coligação também forneceu apoio militar directo aos terroristas, em inúmeras ocasiões, quando eles lutavam contra o exército sírio. Deveria mais apropriadamente ter sido designada como “A Coligação para Apoiar Terroristas e Crimes de Guerra”.

A situação na Síria não pode ser dissociada da batalha entre dois campos no cenário mundial: um dos campos promove a paz, a estabilidade e a prosperidade em todo o mundo, defende o diálogo e a compreensão mútua, respeita o Direito Internacional e defende o princípio da não-interferência nos assuntos internos dos outros Estados. O outro campo tenta criar o caos nas relações internacionais e emprega a colonização e a hegemonia como ferramentas para promover os seus interesses restritos, mesmo que isso signifique recorrer a métodos corruptos, como apoiar o terrorismo e impor um bloqueio económico, para subjugar povos e governos que rejeitam decisões unilaterais e insistem em tomar as suas próprias decisões.

O que aconteceu na Síria deveria ter sido uma lição para alguns países, mas esses países recusam-se a aprender. Em vez disso, escolhem enterrar a cabeça na areia. Por este motivo é que, senhoras e senhores, nós, os membros desta organização, devemos fazer uma escolha clara e inequívoca:

• Iremos defender o Direito Internacional e a Carta da ONU e permanecer do lado da justiça?
• Ou iremos submeter-nos a tendências hegemónicas e à lei da selva que alguns estão a tentar impor a esta organização e ao mundo?

Senhoras e Senhores,

Hoje, a situação no terreno é mais estável e segura graças aos progressos no combate ao terrorismo. O governo continua a reabilitar as áreas destruídas pelos terroristas para restaurar a normalidade. Estão agora presentes todas as condições para o regresso voluntário dos refugiados sírios ao país que eles tiveram de abandonar devido ao terrorismo e às medidas económicas unilaterais que visavam as suas vidas do dia-a-dia e os seus meios de subsistência. De facto, milhares de refugiados sírios no estrangeiro, iniciaram a viagem de regresso ao nosso país.

O regresso de todos os refugiados sírios é uma prioridade para o Estado sírio. As portas estão abertas para todos os sírios no estrangeiro, para regressar de forma voluntária e segura. E o que se aplica aos sírios dentro da Síria também se aplica aos sírios no estrangeiro. Ninguém está acima da lei. Graças à ajuda da Rússia, o governo sírio não poupará esforços para facilitar o retorno desses refugiados e atender às suas necessidades básicas. Foi criada recentemente, na Síria, uma comissão especial para coordenar a volta dos refugiados aos seus locais de origem e ajudá-los a recuperar as suas vidas.

Convocámos a comunidade internacional e as organizações humanitárias para facilitar esses regressos. No entanto, alguns países ocidentais e em conformidade com o seu comportamento desonesto desde o início da guerra contra a Síria, continuam a impedir a vinda dos refugiados. Eles estão a espalhar medos irracionais entre os refugiados; estão a politizar o que deveria ser uma questão puramente humanitária, usando os refugiados como moeda de troca para servir a sua agenda política e vinculando o regresso dos refugiados ao processo político.

Hoje, quando estamos prestes a fechar o último capítulo da crise, os sírios estão a unir-se para apagar os vestígios desta guerra terrorista e para reconstruir o país com as suas próprias mãos, tanto os que permaneceram na Síria, como os que foram forçados a sair. Agradecemos toda e qualquer ajuda na reconstrução, da parte dos países que não fizeram parte da agressão à Síria e daqueles que se colocaram, clara e explicitamente, contra o terrorismo. No entanto, a prioridade é para os nossos amigos que ficaram ao nosso lado, na nossa guerra contra o terror. Quanto aos países que oferecem apenas assistência condicional ou que continuam a apoiar o terrorismo, os mesmos não são convidados nem bem-vindos a ajudar.

Senhora Presidente,

À medida que avançamos no combate ao terrorismo, na reconstrução e no regresso dos refugiados, continuamos empenhados no processo político sem comprometer os nossos princípios nacionais.

Estes princípios incluem a preservação da soberania, da independência e da unidade territorial da República Árabe da Síria, protegendo o direito exclusivo dos sírios de determinar o futuro do seu país sem interferência externa e de erradicar o terrorismo do nosso país. Declarámos, muitas vezes, a nossa prontidão para responder a qualquer iniciativa que ajudasse os sírios a acabar a crise. Empenhámo-nos, positivamente, nas conversações de Genebra, no processo de Astana e no diálogo nacional sírio em Sochi. No entanto, foram sempre as outras partes que rejeitaram o diálogo e recorreram ao terrorismo e à interferência estrangeira para alcançar os seus objectivos.

No entanto, continuamos a concretizar os resultados do diálogo nacional sírio de Sochi, sobre a formação de uma comissão constitucional para reavaliar a Constituição actual. Apresentamos uma visão prática e abrangente sobre a composição, as prerrogativas e os métodos de trabalho da comissão e submetemos uma lista de representantes em nome do Estado sírio.

Salientamos que o mandato da comissão limita-se a rever os artigos da Constituição actual, através de um processo liderado pela Síria e de propriedade da Síria, que pode ser facilitado pelo Enviado Especial do Secretário Geral para a Síria. Não devem ser impostas à comissão nenhumas condições prévias, nem as suas recomendações devem ser julgadas antecipadamente. A comissão deve ser independente, já que a Constituição é uma questão síria a ser decidida pelos próprios sírios. Portanto, não aceitaremos nenhuma proposta que constitua uma interferência nos assuntos internos da Síria ou que conduza a tal interferência. O povo sírio deve ter a palavra final sobre qualquer assunto constitucional ou soberano. Estamos prontos para trabalhar activamente com nossos amigos para reunir a comissão em conformidade com os parâmetros que acabei de mencionar.

Além destas iniciativas internacionais, a reconciliação local está bem encaminhada. Acordos de reconciliação permitiram-nos estancatar o derramamento de sangue e evitar a destruição em muitas áreas ao redor da Síria. Eles restauraram a estabilidade e uma vida normal nessas áreas e permitiram que as pessoas regressassem às casas que foram forçados a deixar por causa do terrorismo. Portanto, a reconciliação continuará a ser a nossa prioridade.

Senhoras e Senhores,

A batalha que travámos na Síria contra o terrorismo, não era apenas uma batalha militar. Foi também uma batalha ideológica entre a cultura da destruição, do extremismo e da morte, e a cultura da construção, da tolerância e da vida. Por esta razão, faço um apelo a esta tribuna, apelando à luta contra a ideologia do terrorismo e do extremismo violento, esgotando o seu apoio e os seus recursos financeiros, concretizando resoluções relevantes do Conselho de Segurança, nomeadamente a resolução 2253. Embora importante, a batalha militar contra o terrorismo é insuficiente. O terrorismo é como uma epidemia. Ele regressará, espalhar-se-á rapidamente e ameaçará todos sem excepção.

Senhora Presidente, Senhoras e Senhores,

Condenamos e rejeitamos totalmente, o uso de armas químicas em quaisquer circunstâncias, sempre, onde quer que seja e independentemente do alvo. Por esse motivo é que a Síria eliminou completamente o seu programa de produtos químicos e cumpriu todos os seus compromissos como membro da Organização para a Proibição de Armas Químicas (OPAQ/OPCW), conforme foi confirmado por numerosos relatórios dessa organização.

Embora alguns países ocidentais estejam constantemente a tentar politizar o trabalho da mesma, cooperamos sempre com a OPAQ/OPCW na mais ampla medida possível. Infelizmente, sempre que manifestamos a nossa disposição para receber equipas de investigação objectivas e profissionais para investigar o suposto uso de armas químicas, esses países bloqueiam esses esforços porque sabem que as conclusões das investigações não satisfazem as más intenções que eles têm contra a Síria.

Estes países têm acusações e cenários preparados para justificar uma agressão à Síria.

Foi o que aconteceu, quando os Estados Unidos, a França e o Reino Unido lançaram uma agressão injustificada contra a Síria, no passado mês de Abril, alegando que foram usadas armas químicas, sem ter havido qualquer investigação ou evidência e em flagrante violação da soberania da Síria, do Direito Internacional e da Carta das Nações Unidas.

Entretanto, esses mesmos países desconsideraram todas as informações credíveis que fornecemos sobre as armas químicas na posse de grupos terroristas, que as usaram em inúmeras ocasiões para culpar o governo sírio e justificar um ataque contra ele. A organização terrorista conhecida como os “Capacetes Brancos” foi a principal ferramenta usada para enganar a opinião pública, fabricar acusações e inventar mentiras sobre o uso de armas químicas na Síria. Os Capacetes Brancos foram criados pelos serviços secretos britânicos, sob a capa de serem uma organização humanitária. No entanto, está provado que esta organização faz parte da Frente Nosra, afiliada à Al-Qaeda. Apesar de todas as alegações, continuamos empenhados em libertar todo o nosso território sem nos preocuparmos com as bandeiras negras dos terroristas ou as palhaçadas dos Capacetes Brancos.

Senhoras e Senhores,

Noutro episódio da guerra terrorista contra a Síria, desde 2011, os atentados suicidas orquestrados pelo ISIL desorganizaram a província de Suwayda, no sul da Síria, em Julho passado. Vale a pena notar que os terroristas por trás desse ataque vieram da área de Tanf, onde permanecem forças dos EUA. A área tornou-se um refúgio seguro para os remanescentes do ISIL que agora estão escondidos no campo de refugiados de Rukban, na fronteira com a Jordânia, sob a proteção das forças dos EUA. Os Estados Unidos também procuraram prolongar a crise na Síria, libertando terroristas de Guantánamo e enviando-os para a Síria, onde se tornaram os líderes eficientes da Frente de Nosra e de outros grupos terroristas.

Entretanto, o regime turco continua a apoiar os terroristas, na Síria. Desde o primeiro dia da guerra contra a Síria, o regime turco treinou e armou terroristas, transformando a Turquia num centro e num corredor para os terroristas a caminho da Síria. Quando os terroristas deixaram de cumprir a sua agenda (programa), o regime turco recorreu à agressão militar directa, atacando cidades e vilarejos no norte da Síria. No entanto, todas essas acções que comprometem a soberania, a unidade e a integridade territorial da Síria e violam o Direito Internacional, não nos impedirão de exercer os nossos direitos e de cumprir os nossos deveres de recuperar nossa terra e libertá-la dos terroristas, seja através de acção militar ou por intermédio de acordos de reconciliação. Estivemos sempre abertos a qualquer iniciativa que evite novas mortes e restaure a protecção e a segurança em áreas afectadas pelo terrorismo. Por esta razão, é que saudamos o acordo sobre o Idlib, obtido em Sochi, em 17 de Setembro. O acordo foi o resultado de consultas intensas e de total coordenação entre a Síria e a Rússia. O acordo é por prazo determinado, inclui datas precisas e cumpre os acordos sobre as zonas de redução progressiva da guerra, conseguidas em Astana. Esperamos que, quando o acordo for concretizado, a Frente Nosra e outros grupos terroristas sejam destruídos, eliminando assim os últimos remanescentes do terrorismo na Síria.

Qualquer presença estrangeira em território sírio, sem o consentimento do governo sírio, é ilegal e constitui uma violação flagrante do Direito Internacional e da Carta das Nações Unidas. É um assalto à nossa soberania, que arruina os esforços contra o terrorismo e ameaça a paz e a segurança da região. Portanto, consideramos quaisquer forças que operam em território sírio, sem ter havido um pedido explícito da parte do governo sírio, incluindo as forças norte-americanas, francesas e turcas, como forças de ocupação, e serão tratadas de acordo com a nossa avaliação. Elas devem retirar-se imediatamente e sem condições.

Senhoras e Senhores,

Israel continua a ocupar uma boa parte do nosso território no Golã Sírio e o nosso povo, nessa região, continua a sofrer devido às políticas opressivas e agressivas desse país. Israel até apoiou grupos terroristas que operavam no sul da Síria, protegendo-os através de intervenção militar directa e lançando repetidos ataques à Síria. Mas, tal como libertamos o sul da Síria dos terroristas, estamos determinados a libertar totalmente o Golã sírio ocupado até às fronteiras vigentes em 4 de Junho de 1967. A Síria exige que a comunidade internacional ponha fim a todas essas práticas e obrigue Israel a concretizar as resoluções relevantes da ONU, nomeadamente a resolução 497 sobre o Golã sírio ocupado. A comunidade internacional também deve ajudar o povo palestiniano a estabelecer o seu próprio Estado independente, considerando Jerusalém como sendo a sua capital, e facilitar o regresso dos refugiados da Palestina à sua terra, de acordo com resoluções internacionais. Quaisquer acções que prejudiquem esses direitos são nulas e sem efeito e ameaçam a paz e segurança regionais, especialmente a lei racista israelita conhecida como “a Lei do Estado-Nação” e a decisão do governo dos EUA, de transferir a embaixada dos EUA para Jerusalém e interromper o financiamento ao UNRWA.

Senhora Presidente,

A Síria condena veementemente a decisão da Administração dos EUA de se retirar do acordo nuclear com o Irão, o que prova mais uma vez a desconsideração dos Estados Unidos por tratados e convenções internacionais. Declaramos mais uma vez a nossa solidariedade com os líderes e com o povo da República Islâmica do Irão e confiamos que eles superarão os efeitos dessa decisão irresponsável. Também alinhamos com o governo e o povo da Venezuela diante das tentativas de interferência dos EUA, nos seus assuntos internos. Apelamos, mais uma vez, para que sejam levantadas as sanções económicas unilaterais contra o povo sírio e contra todos os povos independentes, em todo o mundo, especialmente os povos da RPDC, Cuba e Belarus.

Senhora Presidente,

Senhoras e Senhores,

Com a ajuda dos nossos aliados e amigos, a Síria derrotará o terrorismo. O mundo não deve esquecê-lo e deve tratar-nos de acordo. Chegou o momento daqueles que perderam o contacto com a situação real, acordarem e abandonarem as suas fantasias, de começarem a pensar racionalmente. Eles devem perceber que não conseguirão politicamente aquilo que não conseguiram alcançar pela força. Nunca comprometemos os nossos princípios nacionais, mesmo quando a guerra estava no auge. Claro que não o faremos hoje.

Ao mesmo tempo, queremos a paz para todos os povos do mundo porque queremos a paz para o nosso povo. Nunca atacamos os outros. Nunca interferimos nos assuntos dos outros. Nunca exportamos terroristas para outras partes do mundo. Mantivemos sempre as melhores relações com os outros países. Hoje, enquanto procuramos derrotar o terrorismo, continuamos a advogar o diálogo e a compreensão mútua para servir os interesses do nosso povo e para alcançar segurança,  estabilidade e prosperidade para todos.

Walid al-Mouallem

29/09/2018

Fonte original em arabe : [ vidéo / Al-Akhbariya]

https://www.facebook.com/Alikhbaria.Sy/videos/321054541782218/

Artigo em francés :

Syrie / Il est temps pour certains de sortir de leur déni de la réalité

Tradutora: Maria Luísa de Vasconcellos

Publicado inicialmente por Réseau Voltaire

Propaganda war precedes and accompanies all conflicts – notably when US-led NATO and Israel wage naked aggression.

The so-called US coalition in Syria and other countries is largely a Pentagon operation with a little help from Washington’s imperial friends, mainly Britain and France.

The US partners directly or indirectly in all Israeli wars of aggression against neighboring countries and Palestinians.

Civilian casualties are inevitable in all wars. US-led NATO and Israel terror-bomb targeted countries and communities indiscriminately.

Israel openly admits it, collective punishment its official policy. The IDF’s Dahiya doctrine reflects it, named after the Beirut suburb Israeli forces destroyed in 2006.

The doctrine applies to all Israeli aggressive attacks, notably against Gaza. Earlier IDF Northern Commander, current chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot originated the doctrine, earlier saying:

“What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on.”

“We will apply disproportionate force at the heart of the enemy’s weak spot (civilians) and cause great damage and destruction.”

“From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages (towns or cities). They are military bases. This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved.”

The same strategy applies to Gaza and other Israeli aggressive attacks. It’s how US-led NATO operates – why millions of casualties occurred post-9/11 from war, related violence, untreated wounds and diseases, starvation, and overall deprivation.

In Syria alone, US-led NATO, Israel, and their terrorist foot soldiers are responsible for hundreds of thousands of casualties, the toll mounting daily.

Russian and Syrian aerial operations are targeted, not indiscriminate, to minimize civilian casualties as much as possible.

Claims otherwise are fabricated by Washington, its imperial partners, and the so-called UK-based and funded Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

The one-man propaganda operation is run by Rami Abdulraham from his Coventry, UK home – earlier admitting he hadn’t visited Syria in over 15 years.

His operation is all about producing material fed him by his handlers, distributed to Western and other media outlets.

SOHR wages information war, one-sidedly reporting on Syria. On September 30, it headlined “Russia kills 18,000 in Syria since 2015,” saying:

“(N)early half of them (are) civilians,” claiming the noncombatant toll from Russian airstrikes is “7,988,” adding:

“Another 5,233 Daesh fighters were also killed in Russian strikes, with the rest of the dead including other rebels, Islamists, and extremists.”

So-called “human rights groups (sic) and Western governments have criticized Russia’s air war in Syria, saying it bombs indiscriminately and targets civilian infrastructure including hospitals.”

“…US-led coalition fighting Daesh have also been carrying out bombing raids on Syria since September 2014.”

Facts:

• No one has a precise death and injury toll, at best a close approximation.
• SOHR’s numbers have no credibility. Its dubious “sources” are unnamed.
• Not a shred of evidence suggests Russian and Syrian aerial operations indiscriminately bomb civilian communities, hospitals and infrastructure – a US-led NATO/Israeli specialty in all their wars of aggression.
• Washington and its imperial partners pretend to be combating the scourge of ISIS they arm, fund, train, direct, and otherwise support – along with other terrorist groups in Syria and elsewhere.

In August,  Russia’s Defense Ministry said its aerial operations killed over “86,000 militants” and “830 gang leaders” in Syria since intervening in September 2015 at the request of Bashar al-Assad, adding:

“As a result of the operation, the Syrian troops, supported by Russian forces, liberated from terrorists more than 1,400 settlements. Over 96 percent of the territory is under the control of government troops and militia units.”

Russian intervention turned the tide of battle from likely defeat of Syrian forces to hoped for eventual triumph.

It’s unattainable with Idlib province controlled by US-supported terrorists, along with Pentagon occupation of northeast and southwest areas, and Turkey controlling Syrian territory bordering its country.

Months of US-led terror-bombing of Mosul, Iraq and Raqqa, Syria alone massacred tens of thousands of defenseless civilians.

Throughout the Syrian conflict since March 2011, its Foreign Ministry sent numerous letters to the UN secretary-general and Security Council president, condemning US-led terror-bombing of civilian communities and infrastructure – to no avail.

US-led support for ISIS and other terrorists, along with aggression in Syria continues endlessly. Washington came to the country to stay.

Conflict resolution remains unattainable so far because the US and its imperial partners reject it – pursuing their goal of regime change, no matter the growing human toll.

A Final Comment

Since intervening in September 2015, Russia has been falsely accused of indiscriminately killing civilians in Syria numerous times.

Its Defense Ministry and Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov strongly deny the fabricated claims.

Months earlier, Peskov called accusations “unfounded. It’s unclear what they are based on. No particular data has been provided, and we assess these accusations in this way” – rejecting them.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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.

Relations between Russia and Israel have been those of an estranged couple punctuated by occasional breakouts of tense understanding.  As with other such couples, a public row does not necessarily reflect the more placid, if stern discussion that might happen behind closed doors. 

On the public side of things, Russia’s decision to deploy the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system to Syria has made Israeli officials apoplectic.  That said, Israel’s security establishment were privy to prospects of a possible Russian deployment of the modern, more discriminating air-defence system.  The former head of the Israeli Defence Force’s Strategic Division, Brigadier General Assaf Orion at the Institution for National Security Studies, was reflective. 

“However one may keep in mind that for the last twenty years Israel was preparing for this to appear in theatre.” 

In April, Amos Yadlin, the country’s retired Military Intelligence chief stuck his head out to issue a warning: should Russia supply Syria with S-300 anti-aircraft missiles, Israel’s air force would retaliate.  Israel Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman also upped the ante, suggesting that Israel would destroy any S-300 targeting Israeli aircraft.  Would Russia call’s Israel’s bluff?

Any indecision on Russia’s part evaporated in the aftermath of the downing of a Russian Il-20 surveillance plane by Syrian government forces on September 17, leading to the death of 15 personnel.  The Syrian action had been prompted by attacks from Israeli F-16 jets on facilities in the province of Latakia.   

In the words of Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem,

“It is a system which is defensive in nature rather than offensive, and is intended for the defence of the Syrian airspace.”

Russian Defence  Minister Sergei Shoigu has only praise for the batteries, which are “capable of intercepting aerial attacks at the distance of over 250 kilometres, and simultaneously countering several targets”. Deploying it was a necessary “retaliatory” measure. 

The tone, at this point, has become far more reserved on Israel’s part.  While Moscow “made a move, the playing field is very large,” came an unnamed Israeli official’s view.  Israel was “dealing” with the aftermath of the decision made by President Vladimir Putin, but would “not necessarily” attempt “to prevent the delivery” of the anti-aircraft system.  This stands to reason: the presence of other Russian missile systems in the Syrian conflict – the S-400, for instance – did not deter Israel’s previous strikes; nor did it cause much by way of open remonstration. Symbolism is everything. 

Gideon Levy, writing in Haaretz, was impressed by Moscow’s move.  Israel’s regional bullying would finally, at least in some fashion, be contained. 

“For the first time in years another state is making it clear to Israel that there are restrictions to its power, that it’s not okay for it to do whatever it wants, that it’s not alone in the game, that America can’t always cover for it and there’s a limit to the harm that it can do.”

Like other players, Russia and Israel will continue to be careful in avoiding any undue engagements.  Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu has made various utterances to that effect, though the deployment has put him on notice that the Israeli action in Syria can no longer take place with brazen impunity.  

Then comes the issue as to which outfits will be manning the batteries.  Netanyahu, pushing the familiar line that certain weapons systems are only appropriate in the right hands, sees the S-300 finding its way to “irresponsible players”.  Orion fears those “incompetent and reckless” hands fidgeting and firing.  On that score, it is unlikely that the Russians intend giving their Syrian recipients full leverage in using the system.  At this stage of the conflict, it is clear that Moscow is calling many of the shots in the field, having, for instance, restrained Syrian government forces in launching a blood-soaked offensive on rebel forces in Idlib in favour of an accord with Turkey.

Moves such as the S-300 announcement say less about a conflict that has killed with remorseless drive than it does about the pieces of furniture that keep being moved in one of the most atrocious wars in recent memory.  A weapons system is deployed in one place to discourage another “player” from overconfidence and bellicosity; airstrikes are undertaken against the forces of another group or state to nip any growing influence.  Brief agreements are brokered, short-term understandings reached.  Israel gazes wide-eyed upon the influence of Iran and any umbilical cord to Hezbollah; Turkey watches warily the influence of the Kurds and any overly patriotic tendencies. Syrian soil becomes the staging ground for amoral plays of power.

The critics and observers add to this, using sterile terms that give the impression that states are participants in a robust conversation free of blood, a gentlemen’s dispute rather than a murderous fight to the finish.  Syria remains a carcass swarmed over by various enthusiasts, pecking it into cruel oblivion.    

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Email: [email protected]. 

If markets have been blissfully ignorant of potential fallout from the simmering US-China trade dispute (even if corporate executives are bracing for the worst), just imagine how they would react to the reality of a military confrontation.

Which brings us to an ABC News report published Monday evening detailing just how close Chinese ships came to actively confronting the USS Decatur while the US ship was carrying out yet another in a series of “freedom of navigation” operations – or “freeops” – in the South China Sea. The Navy destroyer had to maneuver to avoid a Chinese ship that came within 45 yards of its bow while the Decatur was sailing through the Spratley Islands on Sunday in what was the closest direct confrontation between US and Chinese ships since Trump’s inauguration (after which the Navy began conducting these freeops with increasing frequency).

The encounter, which comes at a time of strained relations between the world’s two largest economies driven largely by Trump’s aggressive trade policy, was characterized as “unsafe and unprofessional” by Navy officials.

“At approximately 0830 local time on September 30, a PRC LUYANG destroyer approached USS DECATUR in an unsafe and unprofessional maneuver in the vicinity of Gaven Reef in the South China Sea,” said Capt. Charlie Brown, a U.S. Pacific Fleet Spokesman.

Gaven Reef is located in the Spratly Islands chain in the South China Sea where China claims seven man-made islands as its own.

The close encounter with the Chinese warship occurred as the American destroyer was carrying out a freedom of navigation operation (FONOPs) in the Spratlys, the U.S. said.

The U.S. Navy routinely undertakes FONOP missions worldwide to challenge excessive territorial claims of international shipping lanes.

USS Decatur had sailed within 12 nautical miles of Gaven and Johnson Reefs in the Spratly Islands when it was approached by the Chinese destroyer.

During the brief encounter, the Chinese destroyer’s aggressive maneuvers were accompanied by demands that the Decatur leave the area.

The Chinese Navy “destroyer conducted a series of increasingly aggressive maneuvers accompanied by warnings for DECATUR to depart the area,” Brown added.

“The PRC destroyer approached within 45 yards of DECATUR’s bow, after which DECATUR maneuvered to prevent a collision,” said Brown.

A U.S. defense official characterized the close encounter as having been of short duration.

Chinese vessels have approached U.S. Navy ships during previous FONOPs in the South China Sea, but Sunday’s encounter appears to the be the closest one yet.

“U.S. Navy ships and aircraft operate throughout the Indo-Pacific routinely, including in the South China Sea,” said Brown. “As we have for decades, our forces will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows.”

Earlier Monday, reports surfaced that China had called off a security conference with US officials. The cancellation was later confirmed by the US. This latest sign of a deteriorating relationship came after the US Air Force flew a B-52 bomber on a mission through the East China Sea while two other B-52 flights were carried out through the South China Sea.

While the the notion of a shooting war between the US and China may seem remote to casual observers, some market observers have noted the time honored progression of economic tensions like trade wars and currency wars eventually leading to a full-on hot war.

At the very least, it’s a risk that certainly deserves attention.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is from Zero Hedge.

The nuclear war doomsday clock maintained on the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists website has advanced to two minutes before midnight, the closest point to possible atomic apocalypse since the end of the Cold War. In 1995 the clock was at fourteen minutes to midnight, but the opportunity to set it back even further was lost as the United States and its European allies took advantage of a weakened Russia to advance NATO into Eastern Europe, setting the stage for a new cold war, which is now underway.

It is difficult to imagine how the United States might avoid a new war in the Middle East given the recent statements that have come out of Washington, and, given that the Russians are also active in the region, a rapid and massive escalation of something that starts out as a minor incident should not be ruled out.

President Donald Trump set the tone when he harangued the United Nations last Tuesday, warning that the United States would go it alone in defense of its perceived interests, with no regard for international bodies that exist to limit armed conflict and punish those who commit war crimes.

Trump’s 35-minute speech featured an anticipated long section targeting Iran. He commented that:

“Iran’s leaders sow chaos, death, and destruction. They do not respect their neighbors or borders, or the sovereign rights of nations. Instead, Iran’s leaders plunder the nation’s resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond… We cannot allow the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism to possess the planet’s most dangerous weapons. We cannot allow a regime that chants ‘Death to America,’ and that threatens Israel with annihilation, to possess the means to deliver a nuclear warhead to any city on Earth.”

There are a number of things exaggerated or incorrect in Trump’s description of Iran as well as in the conclusions he draws. The Middle East and other adjacent Muslim countries are in chaos because the United States has destabilized the region starting with the empowering of the Islamist Mujadeddin in the war against Soviet Afghanistan in the 1980s. It then invaded Afghanistan in 2001 followed by Iraq in 2003, enabling the rise of ISIS and giving local al-Qaeda affiliates a new lease on life, before turning on Damascus with the Syria Accountability Act later in the same year and then destroying the Libyan government under Barack Obama. These were, not coincidentally, policies promoted by Israel that received, as a result, bipartisan support in Congress.

The emotional description of disrespecting “neighbors, borders and sovereign rights” fits the U.S. and Israel to a “T” rather than Iran. The U.S. has soldiers stationed illegally in Syria while Israel bombs the country on an almost daily basis, so who is doing the disrespecting? Washington and Tel Aviv are also the principal supporters of terrorists in the Middle East, not Iran, – arming them, training them, hospitalizing them when they are injured, and making sure that they continue their work in attacking Syria’s legitimate government.

And as for “most dangerous weapons,” Iran doesn’t have any and is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Israel and the U.S. have not signed. Nor would Iran have any such weapons in the future but for the fact that Trump has backed out of the agreement to monitor and inspect Iranian nuclear research and development, which will, if anything, motivate Tehran to develop weapons to protect itself.

Trump also elaborated on the following day regarding Iran’s alleged but demonstrably non-existent nuclear program when he indicated to the Security Council that Washington would go after countries that violate the rules on nuclear proliferation. He clearly meant Iran but the comment was ironic in the extreme, as Israel is the world’s leading nuclear rogue nation with an arsenal of two hundred nuclear devices, having stolen the uranium and key elements of the technology from the United States in the 1960s.

Trump’s new appraisal of the state of the Middle East is somewhat a turnaround. Five months ago he said that he wanted to “get out” of Syria and bring the soldiers home. But in early September, the secretary of state’s special representative for Syria engagement, James Jeffrey, indicated that the U.S. would stay to counter Iranian activities.

And John Bolton has also recently had a lot to say about Iran, Syria and Russia. Last Monday he confirmed that Washington intends to keep a military presence in Syria until Iran withdraws all its forces from the country. “We’re not going to leave as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders, and that includes Iranian proxies and militias.” On the following day, speaking at a Sheldon Adelson funded United Against Nuclear Iran Summit, he said the “murderous regime” of “mullahs in Tehran” would face serious consequences if they persist in their willingness to “lie, cheat and deceive. If you cross us, our allies, or our partners; if you harm our citizens there will indeed be hell to pay. Let my message today be clear: We are watching, and we will come after you.”

John Bolton also warned the Russians about their decision to upgrade the air defenses in Syria in the wake of the recent Israeli bombing raid that led to the shooting down of a Russian intelligence plane. He said absurdly and inaccurately “The Israelis have a legitimate right to self-defense against this Iranian aggressive behavior, and what we’re all trying to do is reduce tensions, reduce the possibility of major new hostilities. That’s why the president has spoken to this issue and why we would regard introducing the S-300 as a major mistake.”

Bolton then elaborated that “We think introducing the S-300s to the Syrian government would be a significant escalation by the Russians and something that we hope, if these press reports are accurate, they would reconsider.” And regarding who was responsible for the deaths of the Russian airmen, Bolton also has a suitable explanation “There shouldn’t be any misunderstanding here… The party responsible for the attacks in Syria and Lebanon and really the party responsible for the shooting down of the Russian plane is Iran.”

Bolton’s desire to exonerate Israel and always blame Iran is inevitably on display. He is curiously objecting to the placement of missiles that are defensive in nature, presumably because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked him to do so. The only way one can be threatened by the S-300 is if you are attacking Syria, but that might be a fine point that Bolton fails to grasp as he was a draft dodger during the Vietnam War and has since that time not placed himself personally at risk in support of any of the wars he has been promoting.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis also spoke on Monday, at the Pentagon. His spin on Iran was slightly different but his message was the same. “As part of this overarching problem, we have to address Iran. Everywhere you go in the Middle East where there’s instability you will find Iran. So in terms of getting to the end state of the Geneva [negotiations] process, Iran, too, has a role to play, which is to stop fomenting trouble.”

To complete the onslaught, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking at the same United Against Nuclear Iran Summit as Bolton, accused European nations seeking to avoid U.S. sanctions over the purchase of Iranian oil as “solidifying Iran’s ranking as the number-one state sponsor of terrorism. I imagine the corrupt ayatollahs and IGRC [Revolutionary Guards] were laughing this morning.”

Even the U.S. Congress has figured out that something is afoot. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators, who were carefully briefed on what to think by the Israeli government, warned after a trip to the Middle East that war between the United States and Iranian proxies is “imminent.”

Iran is fun to kick around but China has also been on the receiving end of late. Last Wednesday the U.N. Security Council meeting was presided over by Donald Trump, who warned that Beijing is “meddling” in U.S. elections against him personally. It is a bizarre claim, particularly as the only country up until now demonstrated as having actually interfered in American politics in any serious way is Israel. The accusation comes on top of Washington’s latest foray into the world of sanctions, directed against the Chinese government-run Equipment Development Department of the Chinese Central Military Commission and its director Li Shangfu for “engaging in significant transactions” with a Russian weapons manufacturer that is on a list of U.S. sanctioned companies.

The Chinese sanctions are serious business as they forbid conducting any transactions that go through the U.S. financial system. It is the most powerful weapon Washington has at its disposal. As most international transactions are conducted in dollars and pass through American banks that means that it will be impossible for the Chinese government to make weapons purchases from many foreign sources. If foreign banks attempt to collaborate with China to evade the restrictions, they too will be sanctioned.

So if you’re paying attention to Trump, Bolton, Mattis, Pompeo and Haley you are probably digging a new bomb shelter right now. We have told Iran that it cannot send its soldiers and “proxies” outside its own borders while Syria cannot have advanced missiles to defend its airspace, which Russia is “on notice” for providing. China also cannot buy weapons from Russia while Venezuela is also being threatened because it has what is generally believed to be a terrible government. Meanwhile, America is in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan to stay while nearly all agree a war with Iran is coming soon. Everyone is the enemy and everyone hates the United States, mostly for good reasons. If this is Making America Great Again, I think I would settle for just making America “good” so we could possibly have that doomsday clock go back a couple of minutes.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author.

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

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102
Print Edition: $10.25 (+ shipping and handling)
PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

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

Reviews

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

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

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

The history of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine is continued with Ilan Pappe’s recent work, The Biggest Prison on Earth. For those who have read Pappe’s earlier histories, it is clear the original Zionists recognized the existence of the Palestinian population and the resistance most likely to rise from it. Also recognized are the actions taken throughout the occupation and settlement that the Jewish settlers were intent on marginalizing, displacing, and cleansing as much of Palestine as they could of its residents.

The revelation in this continuation of the history is the high degree to which these policies were officially planned and ready for action starting up to four years before the 1967 six day pre-emptive war against the Arab states. The details of control, the laws and institutions necessary to contain the Palestinian population and to try and force it into exile were developed before the war started – and implemented immediately afterward. These rules and regulations essentially made all occupied areas into large open air prisons.

Pappe argues that the term “occupation” is invalid for two main reasons: first, it is not a temporary situation; and it denies 80 per cent of the Palestinian Mandate. I understood the latter to recognize that in reality all of the British controlled Mandate is occupied by Jewish settlers. Israel is in its entirety a colonial settler society and not an occupying power: it is permanent and it practices ethnic cleansing.

Demographics above all plays a major role in Palestine. With the 1967 war about to start, the Israeli’s recognized they were absorbing an even larger demographic deficit by acquiring the new territories. The means to control the situation domestically and with foreign countries was important, and most importantly was the support of the U.S. politically, militarily, and financially. The goal, apart from completely eliminating the Palestinians, was to hold territory without annexing it and preventing any contiguous Palestinian control. The book works through the political discussions before and after the war, and then through the different periods leading up to the Oslo Accords.

The Oslo Accords fit perfectly into the Israeli plans of never intending to create a Palestinian state. Domestically, the PLO and Fatah were not only sidelined, but with the creation of the Palestinian Authority and the three zones of control in the West Bank, essentially became partners in crime. Internationally, the politicians talked, and talked some more while more and more settlements were established in the newly occupied zones…and the international community accepted the ploy.

Pappe also takes the reader through the two Intifadas and the various onslaughts/punishments handed out to Gaza. In sum, Gaza has served as a maximum security prison, without recourse to any international recognition except for a few moments when the assaults killed large numbers of women and children. It has served in some respects as a training ground and munitions testing site for the Israeli army highlighting mostly what the world should know about its complete lack of morality and its general lack of on ground fighting efficiency.

Israel never intended from the start to do more than nod their collective heads and continue on with their well planned zones of military control. The Biggest Prison on Earth – A History of the Occupied Territories is essential reading in order to help complete the overall picture of Israeli intransigence in regards to international law and international human rights standards and their callous subjugation of the Palestinian people.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories

Author: Ilan Pappe

Publisher: Oneworld Publications (August 10, 2017)

ISBN-10: 1851685871

ISBN-13: 978-1851685875

Click here to order.

.

.

Iraq’s ministry of oil has published a very optimistic report on the country’s capability to ramp up production, but internal political issues could lead to a new crisis after this weekend.

At the same time that a new Iraqi government is forming, a government that is increasing Iranian influence within Iraq, another election is threatening the country’s stability.

On Sunday, Kurdistan is voting for a new KRG parliament, a vote that may result in new power brokers in Erbil. The Kurdish elections are hugely significant for the region, as they not only decide who is going to be put forward as the potential president of Iraq, but also reshape the KRG as an entity and its relations not only with Baghdad, but also with Iran and Turkey. A further destabilization of Iraq would be an outcome that most regional players aim to avoid, with the war in Syria and the imminent Iranian sanctions already causing uncertainty.

Oil and gas analysts have been keenly watching OPEC’s efforts to find a solution for its production and export problems, with the Iranian sanctions looming. Due to this supra-regional development, not a lot of attention has been given to the ongoing clashes within Iraq, a leading member of OPEC.

Optimistic statements made by Iraqi oil officials have normally been taken with a grain of salt, but now it seems that the media accepting the narrative without question. While protests in the Basra Province have been well covered, almost no attention has been given to the dramatic shifts going on in Baghdad. After a short period of anti-Iranian political rhetoric and even a highly publicized visit to Saudi Arabia, Muqtada Al Sadr, the leader of the strongest Iraqi Shi’ite party, seems to have done an about turn politically. This is important because the outcome of the current Iraqi power struggle will have an effect in the coming months on the possible revamp or expansion of the oil production capacity. With this in mind, the Kurdish election become increasingly important.

Iraq’s oil ministry has said that oil production from its northern Qayara oil field, which until last year was shut-in due to Daesh/IS, is currently ramping up production, aiming to reach a level of 60,000 bpd by the end of 2018. Current production is slated to be around 30,000 bpd. Officials have claimed that this oil is already being exported by Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO). The crude is being marketed at present to Iran or Turkey. According to Iraqi sources, the field, which is located south of the Ninewa province in northern Iraq, still holds 1.52 billion barrels in proven reserves of very heavy oil of around 15-18 API degrees. Since a force majeure, the current operator of the license, Angola’s Sonangol, has not been producing. In June 2014, IS/Daesh took the field and held it for two year. Sonangol eventually resumed work at the end of 2017, drilling more wells and increasing production to around 30,000 bpd.

Al Sadr changed his political affiliations after a meeting in Beirut with Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah and Iran’s Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani. The three are reported to have agreed on a compromise candidate for Iraq’s next prime minister. Araba news media indicated that the likely candidate for Iraq’s premiership is Adel Abdul Mahdi, the former head of the Ministry of Oil and Ministry of Finance and a one-time vice president of the country. He seems to have been given the support of the Sairoon Alliance of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and the Fatah Alliance of Hadi Al Amiri. The latter is of great concern to international observers and Western-Arab governments. Al Amiri leads Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units currently, which have Iran’s backing.

If this alliance of convenience is going to appoint the new PM, reaction from the U.S. and Arab countries could be harsh. At present, Washington still favors the current PM, Haider Al Abadi – who has come under severe pressure due to allegations of fraud and misconduct. At the same time, Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt, will be worried about the Muqtada Al Sadr move to support the Iranian-Hezbollah backed Adel Abdul Mahdi. The direct connections with the Iranian backed militias and the ongoing power struggle between the Arab Alliance and Iran could lead to a possible confrontation. At present, Tehran seems to have the upper-hand in the Shi’a led country, able to pursue its goal of further integrating the Iranian and Iraqi economy, and building up a Shi’a power base in the region, linked with Syria and Lebanon. The fact that this new alliance has come after a meeting with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and Iranian hardliner Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s special forces unit, Quds Force, is worrying. It seems that Iraq’s moderate but supreme religious leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has also given his blessing to the new alliance. The significance of this blessing for relations in the region remains unclear. Some have said that it is an obvious Shi’a move to block U.S. interest in Iraq, and also to counter possible actions by Washington or the Riyadh-led Arab Alliance against Iran.

A deepening cooperation between a possible new Iraqi government and Iranian hard-liners will not only affect the regional constellation but will also have repercussions for Iran’s position within OPEC. Based on current developments, Iraq will not be blocking any Iranian attempts to circumvent U.S. sanctions or support OPEC-Russian moves to fill supply gaps after the full implementation of sanctions on Iran. Tehran could even set up a framework in which Iraqi volumes would be swapped internally with Iranian exports to Baghdad. This strategy would only become clear if there is a sudden export increase from Iraqi parties in the coming months. At present, Baghdad is able to export around 3.583 million bpd from the south, aiming to reach 4 million bpd the coming months.

It is unclear if Iran and Iraq have considered the possible negative reactions of anti-Iranian forces if a closer relationship between the two comes to fruition. The still simmering anti-Iranian feelings in major regions of the Shi’a provinces in Iraq, combined with a possible re-emergence of Kurdish power, is a real threat to Iraqi oil production. On top of all this, the continuing malpractices and misconduct of Shi’a militias, corruption in the government, and the overwhelming presence of Iran in Iraq is driving unrest in the Sunni controlled areas again. Sunni extremism has already been shown to have a fertile breeding ground in Iraq, with Al Qaeda and Daesh the most recent examples. Continuing division and religious cronyism will only lead to a re-emergence of violence in the south and instability in the north. Oil production and exports on both sides of this geopolitical chasm could be significantly impacted, especially if U.S. sanctions on Iran spread to include Iraq.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Dr. Cyril Widdershoven is a long-time observer of the global energy market. Presently, he holds several advisory positions with international think tanks in the Middle East and energy sectors in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Featured image is from the author.

While the full text of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) needs to be thoroughly analyzed, a preliminary review raises numerous concerns.

Mainstream media coverage this morning has focused on the implications of the deal on the automotive and dairy markets and to some extent the Chapter 19 dispute settlement provision.

Plainly stated, this agreement will not bring back well-paying jobs for auto workers in Detroit, it will hurt Canadian farmers (given U.S. exports of dairy into this country will increase), and the Chapter 19 dispute settlement provision is still a weak protection against unfairly imposed tariffs.

Furthermore, the key issues of climate change, Indigenous rights, and pharmacare are left unaddressed.

It’s not surprising that the words “climate change” do not appear in the text, but that doesn’t make that reality any less unacceptable. There is nothing in this agreement that constrains the power of Big Oil or that keeps carbon emissions from exceeding the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit.

Nor do the words “free, prior and informed consent” for Indigenous nations appear in the agreement. This fundamental right is ignored.

And the patents for transnational pharmaceutical corporations will be extended — for biologics from eight years to 10 years. That means more profit for Big Pharma corporations and higher drug prices for people.

What about specific language?

USMCA’s environment chapter states,

“Each Party affirms its commitment to implement the multilateral environmental agreements to which it is a party.”

Given Trump has already announced that the U.S. is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, and the Trudeau government just bought a carbon-intensive pipeline, these words carry little meaning.

On Indigenous rights, the text states,

“The Parties recognize that the environment plays an important role in the economic, social and cultural well-being of Indigenous peoples and local communities, and acknowledge the importance of engaging with such groups in the long-term conservation of our environment.”

There is no reference to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

On pharmaceuticals with biologics, the text states,

“a Party shall … provide effective market protection … for a period of at least 10 years from the date of first marketing approval of that product…”

This two-year increase will serve only to profit Big Pharma and make pharmacare that much more expensive to implement.

On regulatory cooperation, the agreement says,

“The Parties are committed to expanding their cooperative relationship on environmental matters, recognizing it will help them achieve their shared environmental goals and objectives, including the development and improvement of environmental protection, practices, and technologies.”

Given both Trudeau and Trump support the dangerous practice of offshore oil and gas drilling, this language is pure spin.

This is not the “progressive” trade agreement that the Trudeau government had promised (even if that was also largely spin on its part).

We can celebrate the phasing out of the Chapter 11 investor-state provision, a controversial provision previously defended by Trudeau, and the energy proportionality provision, though the deal reportedly does not allow limiting exports or imports, but these are disciplines that should never have existed in the first place.

And now after months of the Trudeau government stating that it would not negotiate in public, we are left with a finalized text that it has a parliamentary majority, secured with just 39.47 per cent of the popular vote, to pass the USMCA as is.

The people of the United States, Mexico, Canada, Quebec and Indigenous nations have every right to expect better.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Brent Patterson is a political activist and writer.

Featured image is from Jim Winstead/Flickr

Khan al-Ahmar and Abu Nuwar villages are home to around 2,000 Bedouin residents.

Israel wants their land for exclusive Jewish development. Displacing their residents and stealing their land will divide the West Bank in two, isolating one Palestinian part from the other – driving a final stake through the heart of a two-state solution Israel rejects despite falsely claiming otherwise.

Both villages are targeted for destruction and displacement of their residents. On September 5, Israel’s High Court approved Khan al-Ahmar’s demolition after earlier suspending it.

The village connects East Jerusalem to the Jordan Valley. It’s located between Maale Adumim and Kfar Adumim settlements Israel intends expanding by stealing Palestinian land.

It’s how the West Bank and East Jerusalem have been colonized since June 1967 – after Israel stole 78% of historic Palestine in 1948.

In response to the ruling, Joint (Arab) List MK Ahmed Tibi tweeted:

“The High Court of Justice, that approved almost all the injustices of the occupation since 1967, has surpassed itself this time and decided to evict Khan Al-Ahmar.”

“A blatantly immoral decision, submissive but definitely in the spirit of the new commander: Ayelet (“little snakes”) Shaked” – Israel’s so-called justice minister.

B’Tselem slammed the ruling, saying it “described…an imaginary world with an egalitarian planning system that takes into account the needs of the Palestinians as if there had never been an occupation,” adding:

“The reality is diametrically opposed to this fantasy…Palestinians cannot build legally and are excluded from the decision-making mechanisms that determine how their lives will look.”

“The planning systems are intended solely for the benefit of the settlers. This ruling shows once again that those under occupation cannot seek justice in the occupier’s courts.”

Israel wants Khan al-Ahmar and Abu a-Nuwar residents forcibly moved about seven miles from their villages – intending to relocate them adjacent to a landfill, the area unsafe for human habitation.

On September 27, the Netanyahu regime declared Khan al-Ahmar a closed military zone, one of many ways it uses to steal Palestinian land.

Soldiers prevent Palestinian activists, journalists, and human rights workers from entering the village.

Days earlier, Israel’s Civil Administration ordered village residents to demolish their own homes and other structures, demanding they leave by October 1.

An Israeli Defense Ministry statement said the following:

“Pursuant to a Supreme Court ruling, residents of Khan al-Ahmar received a notice today requiring them to demolish all the structures on the site by October 1st, 2018,” adding:

“If you refuse, the authorities will enforce demolition orders as per a court decision and the law.”

In late September, village spokesman Eid Abu Khamis said “(n)o one will leave (voluntarily). We will have to be expelled by force.”

Destroying Khan al-Ahmar village is an Israel high crime of war and against humanity, repeated countless times before since the Nakba.

Forcibly displacing Palestinians to make way for exclusive Jewish development violates international humanitarian law Rule 129, stating:

“A. Parties to an international armed conflict may not deport or forcibly transfer the civilian population of an occupied territory, in whole or in part, unless the security of the civilians involved or imperative military reasons so demand.

B. Parties to a non-international armed conflict may not order the displacement of the civilian population, in whole or in part, for reasons related to the conflict, unless the security of the civilians involved or imperative military reasons so demand.”

Nuremberg Principles and Fourth Geneva (Article 49) prohibit forcible displacement of civilians from occupied territory, calling the action a war crime.

Israel does what it pleases because of full US support and encouragement.

It regimes intend confiscating all valued parts of historic Palestine they want for exclusive Jewish development.

The international community is doing nothing to challenge its ruthless policies.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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.

If we’ve learned anything about President Donald Trump it’s that for him words have no meaning, or at least not their obvious meaning. Because he’s a performer/salesman, he loves being on stage, knowing that the things he says will get a reaction.  In many instances he’ll say something to shock, knowing that it will cause a distraction that can divert attention from something else. As a result, when I hear Trump make some outrageous remark at a rally or in a tweet, or appear to break new ground at a press conference—instead of taking it at face value—I first ask the question, “Why did he say that?”

This being the case, when I heard Trump this past week twice make reference to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I didn’t get excited, as did some Israeli commentators on the right and the left. I took it with a grain of salt, trying to figure out what game was being played.

His first mention of two states came during remarks that accompanied his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In answer to a question as to whether or not he supported a two-state solution, he responded

“I like the two-state solution. I like the two-state solution,” repeating it twice, as if for emphasis.

Then looking at Netanyahu he again said,

“I like the two-state solution. Yeah, that’s what I think works best. I don’t even have to talk to anybody, that’s my feeling. Now, you may have a different feeling—I don’t think so—but I think two-state solution works best.”

Later, at another press event, in remarks that were rambling and at times incoherent, he said,

I think we’re going to go down the two-state road, and I’m glad I got it out… You know what I did today? By saying that I put it out and if you ask most people in Israel, they agree with that, but nobody wanted to say it. It is a big thing that I put it out. Now the bottom line, if the Israelis and Palestinians want one state, that’s okay with me. If they want two states, that’s okay with me. I’m happy if they’re happy. I’m a facilitator… I think probably two states is more likely…

I think it is in one way more difficult because it is a real estate deal because you need metes and bounds and you need lots of carve-outs and everything. It’s actually a little tougher deal, but another way it works better because you have people governing themselves.

What, you may rightly ask, was he trying to say? On the one hand, nothing earth shattering. Trump gave no indication that what he was supporting could be construed as fulfilling the Palestinians’ minimum requirement of an independent sovereign state based on the 1967 borders with its capital in East Jerusalem.

As Netanyahu made clear, shortly after Trump’s remarks,

“Everyone defines the term ‘state’ differently. I am willing for the Palestinians to have the authority to rule themselves without the authority to harm us.”

In line with that, Netanyahu insisted that Israel would never surrender security control of all the territories “west of the Jordan River”—a concern, Netanyahu said was understood by the US president. Speaking the next day, US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, added

“Where Palestinian autonomy and Israeli security intersect, we err on the side of Israeli security.”

If anything, what Trump’s vague two-state framework suggests is more reminiscent of Menachem Begin’s Camp David plan for Palestinian Autonomy—a situation in which self-governance meant that Palestinians would control themselves and their domestic needs, but would not control land, resources, or borders and security. These are reserved for the Israelis.

Seen in this light, Trump’s intention was not to break new ground, but rather to resurface and try to breathe new life into an old and discredited approach by calling it a “two-state solution.” If it meant so little, then why did President Trump throw out these words at this time and in this way?

In the first place, it was not an inadvertent slip of the tongue. This was deliberate. Since he repeated it over and over again, the phrase was obviously in his talking points. And because he boasted that saying it “is a big thing”, he clearly wanted it to be noticed and cause a reaction.

Calling for “two states” was not intended to embarrass Netanyahu or push him to make concessions to the Palestinians. Nothing in Trump’s body language or in the rest of his love-fest with the Israeli leader would lead to that conclusion. And nothing in recent US policy actions (moving the Embassy to Jerusalem, cutting aid to UNWRA and the Palestinian Authority, and their announced intention to redefine who is a Palestinian refugee, and efforts to delegitimize the PLO) or inaction (refusal to speak out against massive settlement construction and the demolitions of Palestinian homes and villages) would suggest that this Administration was tilting in a pro-Palestinian direction.

It seems safe to say that the mention of two-states, at this time, was said more for affect than as a serious recognition of Palestinian rights. But toward what end?

It might have been intended to make it appear that the long awaited (but no longer highly anticipated)  “ultimate deal” was still worth waiting for. Or it might have been designed to deflect from the anticipated lambasting that the Trump administration was sure to get (and, in fact, did get) in PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ speech before the General Assembly. And it might also have been hoped that by throwing out this mention of “two states” he might calm nervous Arab allies, all of whom Trump acknowledged at his press conference had repeatedly told him that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was key to establishing regional peace.

And so, always the master of deflection and using a salesman’s “pitch” to create attention, Trump used the lure of the two-state solution in an attempt to make news. In this, however, he didn’t succeed. His words were condemned by the Palestinians and ignored by most Arabs. It appears that the “threat of two states” only really created a bit of a sensation in Israel where one of Netanyahu’s governing partners threatened to bolt if a Palestinian state came into existence. He was quickly calmed by Netanyahu’s reassurances.

In the end, it appears that the news that Trump hoped he’d get, turned out to be no news at all.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

James J. Zogby is the president of the Arab American Institute.

Featured image is from the author.

In 2012, the US State Department would delist anti-Iranian terrorist group – Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) – from its Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list. Yet years later, MEK has demonstrated an eager desire to carry out political violence on a scale that eclipses the previous atrocities that had it designated a terrorist organization in the first place.

In the US State Department’s official statement published in September 2012, the rationale for delisting MEK would be as follows (emphasis added):

With today’s actions, the Department does not overlook or forget the MEK’s past acts of terrorism, including its involvement in the killing of U.S. citizens in Iran in the 1970s and an attack on U.S. soil in 1992. The Department also has serious concerns about the MEK as an organization, particularly with regard to allegations of abuse committed against its own members. 

The Secretary’s decision today took into account the MEK’s public renunciation of violence, the absence of confirmed acts of terrorism by the MEK for more than a decade, and their cooperation in the peaceful closure of Camp Ashraf, their historic paramilitary base.

Yet US policy before the State Department’s delisting, and events ever since, have proven this rationale for removing MEK as an FTO to be an intentional fabrication – that MEK was and still is committed to political violence against the Iranian people, and envisions a Libya-Syrian-style conflict to likewise divide and destroy the Iranian nation.

However, facts regarding the true nature of MEK is not derived from Iranian state media, or accusations made by MEK’s opponents in Tehran, but by MEK’s own US sponsors and even MEK’s senior leadership itself.

“Undeniably” MEK “Conducted Terrorist Attacks”

By the admissions of the United States and the United Kingdom, MEK is undeniably a terrorist organization guilty of self-admitted acts of terrorism. The UK House of Commons in a briefing paper titled, “The People’s Mujahiddeen of Iran (PMOI),” it  cites the UK Foreign Office which states explicitly that:

The Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK) is proscribed in the UK under the Terrorism Act 2000. It has a long history of involvement in terrorism in Iran and elsewhere and is, by its own admission, responsible for violent attacks that have resulted in many deaths. 

The briefing paper makes mention of “assiduous” lobbying efforts by MEK to have itself removed from terrorist lists around the globe.

The MEK is Still Committed to Violence Today 

During the “2018 Iran Uprising Summit” Giuliani would vow the overthrow of the Iranian government.

Today, the ruling mullahs’ fear is amplified by the role of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) and resistance units in leading and continuing the uprisings. Regime analysts say: “The definitive element in relation to the December 2017 riots is the organization of rioters. So-called Units of Rebellion have been created, which have both the ability to increase their forces and the potential to replace leaders on the spot.” 

The roadmap for freedom reveals itself in these very uprisings, in ceaseless protests, and in the struggle of the Resistance Units.

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

Last week the UN halls have been the battlefields of aggressive speeches by world leaders. 

My interest is in the speeches concerning the Middle East; a very dangerous and volatile area, whose unfolding battles are affecting the whole world. The warriors of these battles were American Donald Trump, Zionist Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas, Iranian Hassan Rouhani, and Syrian Walid Al-Moualem.

In a monotonous voice, that drags one to sleep, Trump started his speech bragging about himself and the accomplishment of his administration “that has accomplished more than almost any administrations in the history of our country”; adding $10 trillion to American wealth, high stock-market, low jobless claims in 50 years, added half a million jobs, tax cuts, record military funding of $700 billion this year and $716 billion next year, and starting the construction of border wall with Mexico that made US “stronger, safer and richer.”

One cannot but explode in laughing about these narcissistic false claims as the whole audience had done. The American people have not seen those $10 trillion, that were paid to military corporations, stock-market prices have been artificially raised, unemployment is record high with the majority of people living from one pay check to the next, homelessness has become epidemic, tax cuts went only to the wealthy, educational budgets were severely cut, medical coverage are not affordable by the millions, crime rates and police violence are on the rise, record military funding for perpetual wars and border walls are shame to brag about.

Trump stated that “We”; his administration, stand up for the American people and for the world and “… that is why America will always choose independence and cooperation over global governance, control and domination.”

Politicians excel in camouflaging their dubious behaviors into the exact opposite, and Trump is the master in this. History has proven that the choice of these pro-Zionst American administrations has always been perpetual wars, terrorism, intimidation, bullying, blackmail, control and dominance without any respect for the rights and well-being of other nations and not even for their own citizens.

Recent administrations have felt emboldened even to confess that they create, finance and arm terrorist groups to wage American as well as Israeli proxy wars around the globe. Strong historical evidence prove that the US had toppled many democratically elected governments; e.g. 1953 Iranian democratically elected Mosaddeq’s regime, created al-Qaeda in Afghanistan,  ISIS and al-Nusra in Syria, and waged proxy war against Yemen among many other documented examples around the globe. The American administrations have used, and are still using, financial resources and armies of other states such as Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt to wage its proxy wars against other states in the region.

As NATO members are beginning to free themselves from the American warmongering whims Trump has assigned CIA director Mike Pompeo to work “with the Gulf Cooperation Council, Jordan, and Egypt to establish a regional strategic alliance so that Middle Eastern nations can advance prosperity, stability, and security across their home region.” This is actually an Arab NATO-like alliance similar to the 1990 anti-Iraq Gulf War Coalition, whose main function is to wage American/Israeli proxy wars in the region specifically against Iran.

Iran has become a painful thorn in the Israeli and American rears after spoiling their plan to destroy and fragment Syria as they had done to Iraq and Libya. Thus, Iran has to be demonized in order to weaken and contain it if not toppling its regime and destroying it. So, Trump called for “Every solution to the humanitarian crisis in Syria must also include a strategy to address the brutal regime that has fueled and financed it: the corrupt dictatorship in Iran.”

Trump demonized Iran’s leaders stating “Iran’s leaders sow chaos, death, and destruction, they do not respect their neighbors or borders or the sovereign rights of nation” Actually, Iran’s leaders sow respect, cooperation, security and humanity that gained them popularity and respect in the region. They fought American/Israel/Saudi terrorists, sheltered and secured refugees, and donated aid to disaster areas.

Trump continued

“Iran’s leaders plunder the nation’s resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond” and “have embezzled billions of dollars from Iran’s treasury, seized valuable portions of the economy, and looted the people’s religious endowments, all to line their own pockets and send their proxies to wage war.”

He is, here, actually describing his own administration, Wall Street, Federal Reserve and banking system, and American mega corporations, who are perpetrating these crimes.

Trump warned that

“We cannot allow the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism to possess the planet’s most dangerous weapons. We cannot allow a regime that chants “Death to America,” and that threatens Israel with annihilation, to possess the means to deliver a nuclear warhead to any city on Earth.”

It is the USA that possess the most dangerous weapons, bully other nations, call for regime change and destruction of countries and is advancing its nuclear warheads to make them “so strong & so powerful.”

As soon as Israeli Netanyahu started his speech he immediately accused Iran of having a secret nuclear program, again using his silly drawings, “Disclosing for the first time that Iran has another nuclear facility, a secret warehouse for material for secret Iran’s nuclear program” where Iran is storing at least 15 gigantic ship containers full of 300 tons of nuclear equipment and materials hidden in nuclear compounds in “Turqusabad”. Iranians could not but explode in laughter when Netanyahu mentioned Turqusabad, because in their folklore stories Turqusabad is a non-existent fictional place. Yet this did not stop Netanyahu from urging IAEA to inspect this imaginary location.

Netanyahu accused Iran

“Last year Iran attacked Kurds in Iraq, slaughtered Sunnis in Syria, armed Hezbollah in Lebanon, financed Hamas in Gaza, fired missiles into Saudi Arabia, and threatened freedom of navigation in the straights of Hurmuz and straights of Bab el-Mandab.”   

Using scare tactics, he warned UN members that “Iranian aggression will not be confined to the Middle East” citing alleged arrested Iranian agents plotting terror attacks in the US and in the heart of Europe.

Justifying Israel’s 210 air raids against Syria, Netanyahu accused Iran of building military bases in Syria, launching missiles and drones in Israeli territory, arming Gaza Palestinians to rain rockets onto Israeli cities, directing Lebanese Hezbollah to build secret sites to manufacture precision guided missiles to target Israel, and use Lebanese as human shields when placing these missile sites along Beirut’s international airport. His proof is a kiddy drawing he claimed to be “worth a thousand missiles”

Netanyahu implicitly insulted UN members’ intelligence when he stated

“while US is confronting Iran with new sanctions Europe and others are appeasing Iran by trying to help it bypass these sanctions… While Iran was caught red handed plotting against Europe, European leaders are rolling the red carpet for Iranian leader; president Rouhani, promising to give Iran even more money … have these European leaders learned nothing from history, will they wake up?”

Netanyahu urged UN countries to stop cuddling Iran’s dictators and to join Trump’s sanctions against Iran because companies would abandon Iran and do business with US, whose GDP is 50 times the size of Iran’s GDP, Iran’s economy is destined to collapse, it’s currency is plummeting, inflation and unemployment are souring and most important when next patch of economic sanctions are imposed in November Iranian people will rally against the regime rather than around it, and will chant “death to the dictator rather than death to America”, and instead of chanting to export the Islamic revolution they will demand to leave Syria and Lebanon and Gaza and to take care of us.

One cannot help but be amazed by Netanyahu’s wide unrealistic imagination and lying creativity. Maybe he thinks people are so stupid that he can outsmart them. Really, will the world learn lessons from Netanyahu’s perpetual lying episodes?

Due to the myths of America’s manifest destiny, and god’s chosen people, both Trump’s administration and Israel seem to feel privileged and entitled to dictate their will, to violate international laws and conventions and to undermine international organization using bullying, intimidation and economic and financial sanctions. Trump’s administration has withdrawn from climate accord, from NAFTA, from Transpacific Partnership, from JCPOA in violation of UNSC resolution 2231, undermined World Trade Organization to impose unreasonable tariffs and sanctions on other countries, undermined and withdrew from UN Human Rights Council after Nikki Haley threatened to take names of its members, undermined International Criminal Court (ICC), pulled out of UNESCO, cut down US contribution to UN peacekeeping budget, and stopped funds to UNRWA.

Israel has never implemented any related UN resolution since its illegal establishment. Since 1947 there have been 705 UN resolutions and 86 Security Council resolutions related to the Arab/Israeli conflict. Emboldened and supported by American policies and VETO power Israel has never implemented any of these resolutions. Israel has also violated all agreements and accords it signed with the Palestinians.

While praising warmongering butchers king Salman and crown prince; Muhammad bin Salman (MBS), for their alleged bold new reforms, discarding their on-going genocide in Yemen, and celebrating Israel’s 70^thanniversary and genocide of Palestinians as a thriving democracy in the Holy Land, Trump did not mention Palestine, but claimed that he took significant steps forward in the Middle East by acknowledging obvious facts and moving US embassy to Jerusalem. Palestinians for Trump are nobody to be concerned about.

Netanyahu expressed Israel’s appreciation to Trump and Haley

“for their unwavering support they provided Israel at the UN “, and for pulling out of “history-denied UNESCO in the morally bankrupt UN Human Rights Council, who have more resolutions about Israel than the whole world combined and tenfold compared to Iran or Syria.”

In itself, this is a confession that this international human rights organization has recognized that Israeli terror is the utmost danger.

Emboldened by the unwavering but unethical American support Netanyahu diverted blame from Israel by accusing “… unreformed UNRWA; an organization instead of solving the Palestinian problem perpetuate it.” UNRWA is a humanitarian organization, whose job is to aid Palestinian refugees and not solving Palestinian political problem.

Answering accusation of Israel as a racist apartheid state by Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas because Israel adopted the racist law of “Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people”, Netanyahu reminded Abbas that he wrote a dissertation denying the holocaust, and accused him of paying Palestinians to attack Israelis and to impose death sentence on Palestinians, who sell land to Israelis. He shamelessly and flagrantly defended adopting the racist Jewish nation law by criticizing what he called the “specialty of the UN; slandering Israel” and accused the UN of the old exhausted cliché of anti-semitism, whose “foul stench still clinches to these halls.” He also described UN accusing Israel of racism, apartheid and of ethnic cleansing as “this is the same old anti-semitism with a brand-new face.”

Ignoring the fact that Israel is brutally usurping Palestinian land, destroying their towns and homes, murdering their women and children, locking their teen agers in prisons for years, desecrating their Muslim and Christian holy places, and having armed Jewish religious fanatics routinely attack Palestinian neighborhoods (midnight Sunday 9/30 was the latest), and not  mentioning racist Jewish Israelis attacking black African Ethiopian Jews for their color, Netanyahu still insists that Israel is “both Jewish and democratic with guaranteed equal rights to all.”

Resorting to his distorted religious beliefs (the opium of the people), and ignoring the existence of the indigenous owners of Palestine, he told the mythical story of Abraham, Sara and other Judaic figures, who immigrated to Palestine and signed an eternal covenant with god; a contract with a racist real estate broker, who choses one small group of people over the billions of other people and promises them a piece of land. He concluded his speech with the historical distortion and his disillusioned poetic assertion that Palestine is the land “from which we were exiled and to which we return, rebuilding our ancient and eternal capital Jerusalem. The nation state of Israel is the only place where Jewish people proudly can exercise our collective right of self-determination” – on the expense of indigenous Palestinians.

Mahmoud Abbas’ speech came as a whimpering sick dog begging for help rather than demanding justice. In between sick coughing and throat clearing he complained about Israeli violation of all agreements and accords, and of not implementing even one of the many UN resolutions. He criticized Israel’s nation law describing it an apartheid law. He complained about Israeli oppressive measures against Palestinians and desecration of Palestinian holy places. He complained about Israel’s intention of demolishing the village of Khan El-Ahmar to divide the Palestinian territories into two halves.

He rejected Trump’s unjust actions of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the American embassy there. He also complained that Trump had cut funds to the PA, to Palestinian hospitals in Jerusalem, of cutting funds to the UNRWA, and of closing the Palestinian office in Washington. He expressed his disappointment of Trump’s administration and asked Trump to retract all these measures.

Abbas considered the US to have become biased in favor of Israel rather than an honest broker of the peace process, and asked other nations including the Quartet to become brokers for peace instead. He objected to the fact that although the PLO is considered and is recognized by the UN as the only representative of the Palestinian people the American Congress still considers it a terrorist organization.

He reiterated PA’s commitment to peace, readiness as always to sit at the negotiating table with Israel, renouncing violence and armed resistance but following what he called peaceful popular resistance vis a vie the armed settlers’ aggression. Then he asked what else do you want us to do after we had already given up almost everything.

He confessed that the PA is not able to protect itself nor its Palestinian people and blamed the UN for not protecting Palestinians after they promised to do so. He also requested UN members, who did not recognize Palestinian state to join those who did and recognize the Palestinian state.

Although the UN is not the correct place to do this, Abbas claimed that he is exerting every effort for reconciliation with Hamas in Gaza to re-unite Palestinians, yet he threatened Hamas that he will not take any responsibility if they refused his conditions. Hamas was the democratically elected government in 2007 as certified by international observers.

Abbas, whose term expired in 2007, has been a huge disappointment to Palestinians. Instead of protecting his people, he, and his so-called security forces, has functioned as Israeli proxy police force protecting Israelis and oppressing his people. He instructed his security forces to arrest hundreds of Palestinian activists the night before his speech.

Syrian Deputy PM Walid Al-Moualem and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani defended Palestine better than pathetic Abbas. Rouhani considered the Palestinian question as “the most pressing crisis in the Middle East”, and that the passage of time must not and cannot justify Israeli occupation. He accused the US to be a complete partner to Israeli crimes when he stated that “the innumerable crimes of Israel against the Palestinians would not have been possible without the material and military assistance and political propaganda support of the US.”

He considered the US decision to transfer its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and the Israeli enactment of the racist Jewish state law as flagrant violations of international law and clear manifestation of apartheid.

“Israel equipped with nuclear arsenal and blatantly threaten others with nuclear annihilation presents the most daunting threat to regional and global peace and stability” he emphasized.

Al-Moualem summed up his defense as such:

“The international community must also help the Palestinian people to establish their own independent state with Jerusalem as its capital, and facilitate the return of Palestinian refugees to their land pursuing to international resolutions according to international legitimacy. Any action that undermine these rights are null and void and threaten regional peace and security especially the Israeli racist law known as the nation state law, and the decision of the US administration to move the US embassy to Jerusalem and stop funding UNRWA.”

Both Rouhani and Al-Moualem criticized US administration for its withdrawal from the JPCOA in violation of UNSC 2231and imposing sanctions although IAEA had issued 12 reports indicating that Iran is compliant with the agreement. They considered these sanctions as economic war and warned that US bullying other nations to violate and undermining international laws and conventions will endanger world peace and security.

“The US understanding of international relations is authoritarian. In its estimation might is right. Its understanding of power not of legal legitimate authority is reflected in bullying and in imposition. No nation can be brought to negotiating table by force” accused Rouhani.

Rouhani accused Trump of withdrawing from the JPCOA because it is the legacy of his previous domestic rivals; Obama’s administration, and warned that Trump is threatening international security as a way of escaping from domestic policy problems and scandals in his administration. He asked Trump just to fulfill America’s international obligations explaining that Iran’s proposal is clear: “commitment for commitment, violation for violation, threat for threat, and step for step”

Rouhani explained that Iran is against nuclear weapons yet for nuclear knowledge. Similar to the US and other countries Iran has the right to develop defensive weapons, such as ballistic missiles that have been used only twice against terrorist groups; ISIS, who attacked the Iranian Parliament and a number of cities in the Iranian Kurdish region.

Rouhani accused US of supporting terrorist groups despite its claims of fighting them. Referring to the terrorist attack on Iranian military parade in Ahwaz Saturday 9/22 he questioned “why can the leaders of these terrorist operations, including the organization that had publicly claimed responsibility for the Saturday crime, live and operate freely in western countries and even openly solicit funds?”

In the Syrian crisis Rouhani explained that Iran had warned against any foreign intervention in the internal affairs of Syria, and that the crisis can only be resolved thorough intra-Syrian dialogue. He explained that the presence of Iranian military advisers in Syria has been at the request of the Syrian government, and consistent with the international law, and aimed at assisting the Syrian government in combating terrorists. Through the Astana Process Iran had helped preventing escalation in blood shed in Idlib region.

Syrian Deputy Prime minister Al-Moualem explained that the battle in Syria could be a lesson to other countries because it is the battle of ideologies, a struggle between two global camps; one promotes peace while the other promotes terrorism and hegemony. He accused the US of leading an illegitimate international coalition to destroy Syria under the pretext of combating terrorism, while they are providing military support to the terrorists.

He accused the US of releasing terrorists from Guantanamo prison and sending them to Syria where they became leaders of al-Nusra and other terrorist groups. He explained that US forces present in the Tanaf area in south Syria had created a safe haven for ISIS terrorists, who perpetrated suicide attacks against the governate of Suwayda.

Al-Moualem warned that “Any foreign presence on Syrian territories without the consent of Syrian government is illegal and constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and the UN charter. It is an assault on our sovereign nationality” considering US, French and Turkish forces operating on Syrian territories without explicit request from Syrian government as occupying forces and threatening to deal with them as such. He advised that these forces must immediately withdraw without any conditions.

He also explained that Israel, too, has been supporting and protecting terrorist groups attacking Syria. He further stated that Israel continues to occupy Syrian Golan and aggressively oppress Syrian citizens there. He demanded the international community to compel Israel to implement UN resolution 497 on the occupied Golan and expressing his government determination to liberate the Golan to the lines of June 4^th 1967 the same way they liberated southern Syria from terrorists.

He defended Syria against accusation of chemical weapons use by reiterating that Syria rejects the use of chemical weapons and reminding that Syria had completely eliminated all its chemical weapons as confirmed by international organizations, and had always cooperated with Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to investigate all alleged accusations. He condemned the tripartite aggression perpetrated by US, France and UK against Syria last April claiming that chemical weapons were used without any investigation or evidence, and in flagrant violation of Syrian sovereignty, the international law and the UN charter. He accused the White Helmet group, created by British intelligence, as a terrorist organization, who orchestrated and fabricated accusations of chemical weapons attacks.

Al-Moualem concluded his speech expressing solidarity with Palestinians against Israeli occupation and American late illegal measures, solidarity with Venezuela in the face of American interference in its internal affairs, and a call for lifting all unilateral economic sanctions imposed on all countries including Syria, Iran, DPRK, Cuba and Belarus.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Mercati e Unione europea in allarme, opposizione all’attacco, richiamo del presidente della Repubblica alla Costituzione, perché l’annunciata manovra finanziaria del governo comporterebbe un deficit di circa 27 miliardi di euro. Silenzio assoluto invece, sia nel governo che nell’opposizione, sul fatto che l’Italia spende in un anno una somma analoga a scopo militare. Quella del 2018 è di circa 25 miliardi di euro, cui si aggiungono altre voci di carattere militare portandola a oltre 27 miliardi. Sono oltre 70 milioni di euro al giorno, in aumento poiché l’Italia si è impegnata nella Nato a portarli a circa 100 milioni al giorno.

Perché nessuno mette in discussione il crescente esborso di denaro pubblico per armi, forze armate e interventi militari?

Perché vorrebbe dire mettersi contro gli Stati uniti, l’«alleato privilegiato» (ossia dominante), che ci richiede un continuo aumento della spesa militare.

Quella statunitense per l’anno fiscale 2019 (iniziato il 1° ottobre 2018) supera i 700 miliardi di dollari, cui si aggiungono altre voci di carattere militare, compresi quasi 200 miliardi per i militari a riposo. La spesa militare complessiva degli Stati uniti sale così a oltre 1.000 miliardi di dollari annui, ossia a un quarto della spesa federale. Un crescente investimento nella guerra, che permette agli Stati uniti (secondo la motivazione ufficiale del Pentagono) di «rimanere la preminente potenza militare nel mondo, assicurare che i rapporti di potenza restino a nostro favore e far avanzare un ordine internazionale che favorisca al massimo la nostra prosperità». La spesa militare provocherà però nel budget federale, nell’anno fiscale 2019, un deficit di quasi 1.000 miliardi.

Questo farà aumentare ulteriormente il debito del governo federale USA, salito a circa 21.500 miliardi di dollari. Esso viene scaricato all’interno con tagli alle spese sociali e, all’estero, stampando dollari, usati quale principale moneta delle riserve valutarie mondiali e delle quotazioni delle materie prime. C’è però chi guadagna dalla crescente spesa militare. Sono i colossi dell’industria bellica. Tra le dieci maggiori produttrici mondiali di armamenti, sei sono statunitensi:

• Lockheed Martin,
• Boeing,
• Raytheon Company,
• Northrop Grumman,
• General Dynamics,
• L3 Technologies.

Seguono:

• la britannica BAE Systems,
• la franco-olandese Airbus,
• l’italiana Leonardo (già Finmeccanica) salita al nono posto,
• la francese Thales.

Non sono Non sono solo gigantesche aziende produttrici di armamenti. Esse formano il complesso militare-industriale, strettamente integrato con istituzioni e partiti, in un esteso e profondo intreccio di interessi. Ciò crea un vero e proprio establishment delle armi, i cui profitti e poteri aumentano nella misura in cui aumentano tensioni e guerre.

La Leonardo, che ricava l’85% del suo fatturato dalla vendita di armi, è integrata nel complesso militare-industriale statunitense: fornisce prodotti e servizi non solo alle Forze armate e alle aziende del Pentagono, ma anche alle agenzie d’intelligence, mentre in Italia gestisce l’impianto di Cameri dei caccia F-35 della Lockheed Martin. In settembre la Leonardo è stata scelta dal Pentagono, con la Boeing prima contrattista, per fornire alla US Air Force l’elicottero da attacco AW139. In agosto, Fincantieri (controllata dalla società finanziaria del Ministero dell’Economia e delle Finanze) ha consegnato alla US Navy, con la Lockheed Martin, altre due navi da combattimento litorale.

Tutto questo va tenuto presente quando ci si chiede perché, negli organi parlamentari e istituzionali italiani, c’è uno schiacciante consenso multipartisan a non tagliare ma ad aumentare la spesa militare. 

Manlio Dinucci

il manifesto, 02 ottobre 2018

In late September, Israel expanded its anti-Iranian propaganda efforts in order to consolidate the US-Israeli-led bloc and to justify further anti-Iranian actions by the Washington establishment.

On September 27, during a speech to the UN General Assembly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Iran has a secret “atomic warehouse” near Tehran, which has contained as much as whopping 300 tons of “nuclear-related material.”

Netanyahu also stated that Hezbollah has established three precision missile sites near the Beirut airport.

“In Lebanon, Iran is directing Hezbollah to build secret sites to convert inaccurate projectiles into precision-guided missiles, missiles that can target deep inside Israel within an accuracy of 10 meters,” he stated.

He claimed the first site was in the Ouzai neighborhood, “on the water’s edge, a few blocks away from the runway.” The second site, he said, was under the Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium, and the third site was “adjacent to the airport itself, right next to it.”

“So I have a message for Hezbollah today, Israel also knows what you’re doing, Israel knows where you’re doing it, and Israel will not let you get away with it.”

According to Netanyahu, these missiles are capable of striking with 10m of their given target. Hezbollah is believed to have an arsenal of between 100,000 and 150,000 rockets and missiles, however, a majority of them lacks the precision technology.

Following the statement, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) released photos showing alleged Hezbollah sites in Beirut that the IDF said are being used to hide underground precision missile production facilities. The IDF claimed that these sites are currently being constructed with Iranian assistance.

According to the Israeli version, Hezbollah began working on these surface-to-surface missile facilities last year.

During the UN speech, Netanyahu vowed that Israel would act in Syria, Lebanon and even Iraq “to defend against Iran’s aggression”.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif slammed Netanyahu’s claims on the secret nuclear site in Twitter. He decribed the speech as “arts and craft show” and noted that it’s time for Israel “to fess up and open its illegal nuclear weapons program to international inspectors”.

Speaking to IRNA, the Iranian foreign minister added that

“Netanyahu must explain how Israel, as the only possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East region, can put itself in a position to level such brazen accusations against a country whose [nuclear] program has been repeatedly declared peaceful by the International Atomic Energy Agency”.

Earlier, the deputy head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned the U.S. and Israel to expect a “devastating” response from Iran, accusing them of involvement in a September 22 terrorist attack on a military parade in the city of Ahvaz that killed 25 people. While ISIS claimed responsibility for this attack, the Iranian side says that the terrorists involved were funded and trained by foreign powers.

With the formal defeat of ISIS in the Middle East, the standoff between the Israeli-US bloc and Iran has started becoming one of the main issues shaping the situation in the region.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Let’s put aside for a moment the nonsense about Russia hijacking the vote with Facebook ads and focus on the endgame.

The neoliberal economic order is based on natural resource and market dominance, so it’s no surprise when it reacts violently to efforts by others to map out resource acquisition. 

UK Sending 800 Troops to Arctic Citing Russian Threat https://t.co/CurkzVkV9f pic.twitter.com/Zw2AUWflCn

— Russia Insider (@RussiaInsider) October 1, 2018

Case it point: US partner in global crime the United Kingdom is sending 800 commandos to the frozen wasteland that is the North Pole to confront Russia as it searches the large expanse of ice and snow for natural resources. Russian energy titans Gazprom and Rosneft were granted rights to develop hydrocarbon deposits in the region. The British Royal Marine commandos will operate alongside their US, Dutch, and Norwegian counterparts. 

It’s believed 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered natural gas and 15 percent of its oil lies beneath the frigid waters of the Arctic. 

Russia will not be allowed to tap this immense reservoir if the US and its partners have anything to say about it. Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the US control territory in the Arctic, but not Britain, which absurdly declares the region is its “backyard.” 

NATO is in on the effort to prevent Russia from tapping additional hydrocarbons. It participated in a Norwegian-led Cold Response exercise in the Arctic earlier this year. The ultimate objective is to militarize the Arctic and prevent Russia or any country not part of the neoliberal economic arrangement from staking out territory and developing its natural resources. 

“The United States is anxious to militarize the Arctic Ocean. It has to do it via its relations with Canada and it is also seeking to do it via NATO, through the participation of Norway and Denmark in NATO. And now it is calling upon Sweden and Finland to essentially join NATO with a view to establishing a NATO agenda in the Arctic,” Michel Chossudovsky of the Center for Research on Globalization told RT, the Russian news network recently forced to register as a foreign agent in the United States. 

In September, Russia announced it will maintain a long-term stay in the Arctic after its military presence there came to an end with the fall of the Soviet Union. A Russian task group departed the port of Severomorsk. 

“The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation will fully implement the task of permanent military presence in the Arctic to secure the legal access of the country to resources and spaces of this region. This will be a constant presence,” Commander Admiral Viktor Chirkov said. 

In 2016, the Pentagon told Congress locking down Arctic resources for the exclusive use by transnational energy corporations is part of the US national security policy. 

“It is also in the DoD’s interest to shape military activity in the Arctic region to avoid conflict while improving its capability to operate safely and sustain forces in a harsh, remote environment in anticipation of increasing accessibility and activity in the Arctic in the coming years,” the Pentagon’s Strategy to Protect United States National Security Interests in the Arctic Region report states. 

In addition to blocking Russia from developing this bounty of hydrocarbons, the US and its partners are working on multiple fronts to degrade the Russian economy and pile up military forces along its western border. Sanctions were imposed after the Russian-speaking people of Crimea voted to separate from the Ukrainian fascists who took over the country with direct assistance from the State Department. The US calls this vote by the people of Ukraine annexation. 

The US exploited the bogus UK poisoning of the Skirpals to further impose sanctions. From the State Department, dated September 27 and posted to the Federal Register:

“The Department of State, acting under authority delegated to the Secretary of State pursuant to Executive Order 12851, has determined pursuant to Section 306(a) of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 that the Government of the Russian Federation has used chemical weapons in violation of international law or lethal chemical weapons against its own nationals.” 

The State Department sanctions, masquerading as an attempt to protect the innocent, are directly aimed at the Russian economy and its national security. 

“A State Department official said the main impact of the new measures will be on access by Russian state-owned and state-funded enterprises to goods and technology with national security value. The official said the move would hit key parts of Russia’s aviation and oil and gas sectors, among others,” reports Bloomberg. 

In other words, the US and its partners want to make certain Russia cannot realize its national security objectives, thus softening it up for the endgame—a “color revolution” that will bring it back into the neoliberal fold, as it was during the disastrous rule of Boris Yeltsin, basically a useful idiot for the West and neoliberalism. 

In early September, Russia and China announced joint military exercises and additional bilateral relations. In the lead-up to the Moscow International Security Conference in April, China said it has Russia’s back. Chinese Defense Minister Wei Feng declared “the Chinese side has come to show Americans the close ties between the armed forces of China and Russia.” 

Before annexing Crimea in 2014, Russia viewed China’s demographic advantage and rising influence in Central Asia with apprehension. Then, when Western sanctions hit, Moscow increasingly turned to Beijing for trade and financial support.https://t.co/ewQbgBfeHD

— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) October 1, 2018

Now, in addition to accusations Russia is involved cyber attacks, annexation, physical attacks (the Skripals) and thus endangering “democracy,” we have the prospect of war over hydrocarbons in the frozen Arctic. 

If the US continues to push its economic warfare scheme against Russian and China (sanctions, a trade war), eventually the Chinese and Russians will react. The three largest militaries in the world are now edging closer to a final thermonuclear showdown. Meanwhile, the US is racing to reignite the Cold War, which was mostly national security state theater. 

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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 United Nations has declared Sept. 12 the International Day for South-South Cooperation. This year’s celebration marks the 40th anniversary of the adoption of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action for technical cooperation among developing countries. The adoption of this action plan highlights the importance of cooperation and solidarity among countries of the South. 

South-South Cooperation (SSC) in international development initially was shaped by the “global South” countries’ shared experience of colonialism, underdevelopment and oppression. Helping each other has been perceived as a way to convey solidarity among the countries in question and to alter asymmetrical relations dominated by the global North. Recent development shows a new direction of SSC that is not only driven by the aspect of solidarity but has become more pragmatic and strategic for emerging southern powers. 

Through the SSC initiatives, southern donors desire to improve their regional and global reputation, to garner support from other South countries in international forums and to pursue their own broader economic agenda.

As a pioneer of South-South solidarity in 1950s that has delivered overseas aid since 1967, Indonesia is also part of the Southern donors contributing to South-South Cooperation. Hosting the Bandung Conference of 1955, where representatives from 29 governments of Asian and African nations gathered to discuss the role of the developing countries in the Cold War, Indonesia clearly played a crucial role in the emergence of SSC.

Decades later, in 2018, Indonesia allocated Rp 1 trillion (US$67 million) in endowment funds for its overseas aid activities, according to 2017 data from the Foreign Ministry. This figure has grown significantly from $15.8 million disbursed in 2016. For comparison, Indonesia spent only $57.4 million for its SSC programs between 2000 and 2015. This shows that SSC plays an increasingly important role in   Indonesia’s foreign policy under President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo. 

As part of its efforts to advance its role in SSC, Indonesia introduced a significant reform of SSC policies in 2010 that restructured overseas aid institutions, aligned SSC with national development and foreign policy goals and increased funding for SSC initiatives. This includes the establishment of a National Coordination Team of South-South and Triangular Cooperation (NCT) involving the National Development Planning Ministry (Bappenas), the Foreign Ministry, the Finance Ministry and the State Secretariat. 

Yet, NCT is only the first step for Jakarta in achieving its main objective to strengthen Indonesia’s global new role.  To improve coordination and overcome fragmented authority in Indonesia’s SSC policies, the government has begun to develop a single, specialized agency to plan, manage and monitor Indonesia’s SSC. The centralized agency was expected to be established by last year, but consensus among the SSC key stakeholders regarding such coordination is still pending.  

Furthermore, questions remain several years after the establishment of the NCT.  These include how to deal with domestic resistance despite growing international demand for Indonesia’s new global role; and whose interests should be served to advance Indonesia’s role under the SSC framework? How can programs be effectively carried out while securing domestic support at the same time?   

To generate domestic support, it is urgent to design the SSC framework in line with domestic objectives. The ministries stress that SSC is crucial to enhancing Indonesia’s profile, protecting its sovereignty and facilitating access to non-traditional markets.

Indonesia may also utilize its SSC framework in its efforts to cope with the rise of protectionism, as reflected in the United States’ new tendency to focus on domestic issues and with stricter environmental and quality standards, which currently cannot be met by Indonesian producers in its traditional markets. 

Improving its role through the SSC framework is an alternative way for Indonesia to expose itself for possible economic cooperation outside other means. Strengthening SSC can also be a way to divert Indonesia’s exports away from its traditional export markets to developing countries.

Domestic support for Indonesia’s global role through the SSC framework can be generated through the engagement of the private sector and civil society, which is still minimal. The government also projects SSC as a platform to facilitate access of Indonesia’s private sector to other developing countries’ markets. 

Jakarta needs to focus on what it does best in delivering programs under the SSC framework. Indonesia is regarded quite successful in dealing with some crucial issues faced by many developing countries, including curbing population growth through family planning, managing foreign aid and establishing democratic governance.

“Asia has no alternative but to become truly multilateral, pan-continentally. This is impossible without its champions of multilateralism – India, Indonesia and Japan…“ is a famous claim of professor Anis H. Bajrektarevic, restated in his ‘Indonesia – Pivot to Asia’ lectures. “South-south cooperation – as launched in Bandung 1955 – is an indispensable to this quest to ‘Asian century’” – professor reminds us – “south-south is not a choice but necessity, more survival than a policy option”. 

Hence, let us conclude: Indonesia can also provide technical assistance and capacity-building on these critical issues. Indonesia’s rich historio-political and socio-cultural experience in dealing with economic development and democratization are modalities that should be fully exploited in advancing South-South cooperation. 

In short, discovering and achieving a consensus among the agencies responsible for the national coordination team of south-south and triangular cooperation can be an entry point in improving Indonesia’s standing in global politics.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Early version of the text appeared in Jakarta Po.

Poppy S. Winanti is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of International Relations, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia/Jogjakarta.

Rizky Alif Alfian is a Researcher at the Institute of International Studies, Department of International Relations, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia/Jogjakarta.

The moment long feared is fast approaching in Gaza, according to a new report by the World Bank. After a decade-long Israeli blockade and a series of large-scale military assaults, the economy of the tiny coastal enclave is in “freefall”.

At a meeting of international donors in New York on Thursday, coinciding with the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, the World Bank painted an alarming picture of Gaza’s crisis. Unemployment now stands at close to 70 per cent and the economy is contracting at an ever faster rate.

While the West Bank’s plight is not yet as severe, it is not far behind, countries attending the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee were told. Gaza’s collapse could bring down the entire Palestinian banking sector.

In response, Europe hurriedly put together a €40 million aid package, but that will chiefly address Gaza’s separate humanitarian crisis – not the economic one – by improving supplies of electricity and potable water.

No one doubts the inevitable fallout from the economic and humanitarian crises gripping Gaza. The four parties to the Quartet charged with overseeing negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians – the United States, Russia, the European Union and the UN – issued a statement warning that it was vital to prevent what they termed “further escalation” in Gaza.

The Israeli military shares these concerns. It has reported growing unrest among the enclave’s two million inhabitants and believes Hamas will be forced into a confrontation to break out of the straightjacket imposed by the blockade.

In recent weeks, mass protests along Gaza’s perimeter fence have been revived and expanded after a summer lull. On Friday, seven Palestinian demonstrators, including two children, were killed by Israeli sniper fire. Hundreds more were wounded.

Nonetheless, the political will to remedy the situation looks as atrophied as ever. No one is prepared to take meaningful responsibility for the time-bomb that is Gaza.

In fact, the main parties that could make a difference appear intent on allowing the deterioration to continue.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ignored repeated warnings of a threatened explosion in Gaza from his own military.

Instead, Israel is upholding the blockade as tightly as ever, preventing the flow of goods in and out of the enclave. Fishing is limited to three miles off the coast rather than the 20-mile zone agreed in the Oslo accords. Hundreds of companies are reported to have folded over the summer.

Intensifying the enclave’s troubles is the Trump administration’s recent decision to cut aid to the Palestinians, including to the United Nation’s refugee agency, UNRWA. It plays a critical role in Gaza, providing food, education and health services to nearly two-thirds of the population.

The food budget is due to run out in December, and the schools budget by the end of this month. Hundreds of thousands of hungry children with nowhere to spend their days can only fuel the protests – and the deaths.

The Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas, headquartered in the West Bank, has no incentive to help. Gaza’s slowly unfolding catastrophe is his leverage to make Hamas submit to his rule. That is why the Palestinian Authority has cut transfers to Gaza by $30 million a month.

But even if Abbas wished to help, he largely lacks the means. The US cuts were imposed primarily to punish him for refusing to play ball with US President Donald Trump’s supposed “deal of the century” peace plan.

Israel, the World Bank notes, has added to Abbas’s difficulties by refusing to transfer taxes and customs duties it collects on the PA’s behalf.

And the final implicated party, Egypt, is reticent to loosen its own chokehold on its short border with Gaza. President Abdel Fattah El Sisi opposes giving any succour either to his domestic Islamist opponents or to Hamas.

The impasse is possible only because none of the parties is prepared to make a priority of Gaza’s welfare.

That was starkly illustrated earlier in the summer when Cairo, supported by the UN, opened a back channel between Israel and Hamas in the hope of ending their mounting friction.

Hamas wanted the blockade lifted to reverse Gaza’s economic decline, while Israel wanted an end to the weekly protests and the damaging images of snipers killing unarmed demonstrators.

In addition, Netanyahu has an interest in keeping Hamas in power in Gaza, if barely, as a way to cement the geographic split with the West Bank and an ideological one with Abbas.

The talks, however, collapsed quietly in early September after Abbas objected to the Egyptians. He insisted that the Palestinian Authority be the only address for discussions of Gaza’s future. So, Cairo is yet again channelling its energies into a futile attempt at reconciling Abbas and Hamas.

At the UN General Assembly, Trump promised his peace plan would be unveiled in the next two to three months, and made explicit for the first time his support for a two-state solution, saying it would “work best”.

Netanyahu vaguely concurred, while pointing out: “Everyone defines the term ‘state’ differently.” His definition, he added, required that not one of the illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank be removed and that any future Palestinian state be under complete Israeli security control.

Abbas is widely reported to have conceded over the summer that a Palestinian state – should it ever come into being – would be demilitarised. In other words, it would not be recognisable as a sovereign state.

Hamas has made notable compromises to its original doctrine of military resistance to secure all of historic Palestine. But it is hard to imagine it agreeing to peace on those terms. This makes a reconciliation between Hamas and Abbas currently inconceivable – and respite for the people of Gaza as far off as ever.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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

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

Rare award winning CIA documentary, On Company Business painfully restored from VHS.

“Inside the CIA: On Company Business” PARTS I, II & III (1980) is a gripping and penetrating look inside the world’s most powerful secret institutionalized conspiracy organization.

This rare, long suppressed, award-winning documentary series by the late Great American Allan Francovich is an absolute must for anyone studying the activities of the CIA 1950-1980.

This Complete Series includes:

• PART I: THE HISTORY
• PART II: ASSASSINATION
• PART III: SUBVERSION

Ex-CIA Spies Phillip Agee and John Stockwell risk all to expose the CIA Frankenstein in full relief, its perfidy and anti-democratic, anti-union methodologies.

Understand how elite New York-London financiers were able to successfully subvert the American System by using the CIA as one in a bag of fascist, bloody tools to transform the USA into a tyrannical Empire the Founding Fathers flatly rejected. Don’t expect any stands for human rights or one man one vote from these amoral operatives. See Richard Helms, William Colby, David Atlee Phillips, James Wilcott, Victor Marchetti, Joseph B. Smith, and other key players in a uniquely American tragedy of truly historic proportions.

“Inside the CIA: On Company Business”, one of the most important American films ever made, is a vital and dramatic examination of the CIA and US foreign policy.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This effort seems to be a bit of camping out on the part of director Bruce Beresford, whose list of cinematic achievements include Driving Miss Daisy and Breaker Morant.  There are many smiles, a few distributed tears and occasional sighs of regret, but generally speaking, little by way of controversial stings.  Ladies in Black, in other words, is all entertainment punctuated by the enthusiastic retelling of sun-drenched stories that afflict the lives of women working in a Sydney department store.  

The film, based upon the 1993 novel Women in Black by Beresford’s University of Sydney contemporary Madeleine St John, takes its audience to the Sydney of 1959, distant from the world and on the cusp of change.  An insular Anglo-Celtic civilisation has become the home to various “reffos” (refugees, as they are locally termed), which becomes the shorthanded reference to all those of “Continental” background.

The scenes are charmingly executed, and beneath the shimmering and the handsome shine are those tensions that lay bare minor prejudices and major faults.  This does not impress some of the critics, with Rebecca Harkins-Cross less charitable than most.  “Beresford,” she writes stingingly in The  Monthly, “is flogging a delusion of the egalitarian land o’plenty, where masculine cruelty is unconsciously writ by bumbling blokes, and xenophobia can be fixed by the discovery that salami is, of course, delicious.”  But the film’s purpose is not to chide or reproach, nor plough the depths of sociological insight.  It shows both the efforts on the part of those who found love and safe living away from conflict and the pains of post-war Europe and the response of careful, cautious accommodation on the part of Australians.

The reverse is only lightly touched upon: Australians yearning for cultural nourishment away from stifling wowserism, the tyranny of the dull and the pro-British apologetics of Prime Minister Robert Menzies.  The latter particularly irritated historian Manning Clark, who described Menzies as “a tragedy writ large” in the service of “alien gods”.

This did not, as Gerard Henderson defensively wrote in 2011, trouble those immigrants who saw the Australia of the 1950s as far from boring.  This, he suggested, was a confection of “the middle-class left-wing intelligentsia” and those irritating stone throwing academics tenured at tax payer’s expense.

Central to the cast is Angourie Rice’s Lesley (who prefers to go by the name of the unambiguously feminine Lisa), a voracious reader who takes time during the school holidays to be an temp at the fashion store Goode’s.  Her encounter with Julia Ormond’s Magda leads to tender enlightenment.  Being Slovenian, Magda wears her knowledge of fashion heavily on the subject of high end gowns, ultimately hoping to establish her own shop.

There are a few barbs directed at relations between the sexes.  The Hungarian Rudi (Ryan Corr) is seeking an Australian flame to build his life with (she must be “strong and healthy”) and is happy to do his bit as a European Henry Higgins, educating any ignorant partner he might meet.  Australian men are seen as gormless and bound to dash down to the pub after work for a brew while European men – the continental ones, that is – cook and have more than a passing acquaintance with music. Magda, for her part, is not impressed by Australian women, whom she regards as essentially untutored, the good ones having done the sensible thing in fleeing to London or Paris.

The cultural depictions are also delightfully striking.  How an Australian Christmas is celebrated varies among the groups: such sweets as the lamington feature for the Anglo-Australians who spend time in the scorching outdoors; the Hungarian feast, held indoors, is replete with dishes of the old country paired with matching wines.

There are moments of incongruity wrapped inside a certain, sympathetic nostalgia.  Lisa’s father (Shane Jacobsen), who labours in the printing presses of the Sydney Morning Herald, is congratulated by a crowd of fellow male workers about having a gifted daughter.  (Her grades, being exemplary, do not quite sink into his conservative head.)  One fellow worker professes to having two of his girls going to the University of Sydney and loving it.  Lisa’s father, for his part, remains conventional, seeing tertiary education as fairly needless to a member of the fairer sex.

The general sentiment on refugees is a salutary reminder in the film that echoes Australia’s dramatically violent approach to certain new arrivals since the late 1990s.  The policy of the Australian government during the 1950s, still governed by White Australia strictures, was to permit refugees from Europe, notably from southern and central Europe, from entering en masse. These, in time, formed a resilient backbone of industrial development. The modern approach stresses the penal over the constructive, the discriminatory over the progressive.  While the film stresses the merits of those “reffos”, an alert audience will note the jarring contrast.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Email: [email protected]

Facebook and the National Endowment for Democracy have agreed to stop the spread of what the United States government and its corporate media denounce as misinformation, that is to say information in conflict with the establishment narrative.

.

.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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.

Iraqi politicians have agreed on a new prime minister, Adel Abdel Mahdi, to replace Haidar al-Abadi, after over four months of difficult work. Adel Abdel Mahdi is an experienced politician who almost became prime minister in the 2000s when Moqtada al-Sadr suddenly turned against him and, overnight, promoted Nuri al-Maliki for his first term in office.

The choice of Abdel Mahdi comes despite the fact that, according to sources close to the Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, the US envoy Brett McGurk “did everything in his power to discourage Iraqi politicians, Sunni, Shia and Kurds, from adopting a candidate in harmony with Iran”.

Up to this day, the Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani has not approved Barham Saleh for the presidency, a position allocated for Kurds (Speaker for Sunni and prime minister for Shia).

The choice of Barham Saleh is contested by the many in the Talbani entourage and the Barzani clan who support Fouad Hussein for the Presidency. This office is the most vexing for all camps, including Iran and the US as they attempt to shape the new government. Barham Saleh has been promoted by Brett McGurk (during his last visit to the late Jalal Talabani’s wife) and by General Qassem Soleimani according to the source. Nevertheless, Iran and the Hezbollah envoy to Iraq are both trying to avoid upsetting Masoud Barzani.

The relationship is complicated. Despite the presence of US intelligence HQ, a US base in Kurdistan, and the Israeli relationship with Iraqi Kurdistan, Iran still hopes for some influence with Barzani. This is why a marathon of negotiations is ongoing to convince the Kurdish leader to accept an important ministry, in return for accepting Barham Saleh as President, so that Iraq’s leadership may constitute a harmonious team accepted by all players.

The future President will most likely be elected by the parliament, as was the case for the speaker, as happens when there is no previous agreement on one single name. There are seven candidates so far but only three are expected to enjoy support unless Barham is agreed upon at the last minute by all Kurds.

Contrary to what US-linked politicians in Iraq maintain, Iran is not trying to impose on Iraq a candidate who is totally on its side and an enemy of the US. It did work against the US candidate Haidar Abadi. Soleimani and Hezbollah aimed to promote Adel Abdel Mahdi who is accepted by the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, by Iraqi politicians (even if Nuri al-Maliki refused to support him until a couple of days ago), by Iran and by the US.

“Officials from the United Nations, diplomats and many Iraqi politicians were carrying various indirect messages from the US to Soleimani in Iraq that the US is not aiming to cripple Iran from Mesopotamia but is willing to allow a smooth Iraqi government”, said a source within Soleimani’s inner circle.

On the other hand the same source said that Iraqi politicians

“were threatened by the US diplomats in Iraq to be scheduled on a blacklist, to halt all financial and humanitarian support and collaboration, to confiscate their wealth abroad or even to lift US protection from some provinces so the Shia of PMU can kill you all”.

All this if they would not support Abadi or the list he was leading. Top US official in Iraq who asked anonymity denied the claim.

The source close to Soleimani believes “the US envoy to Iraq has failed in his attempt to twist the Iraqi politicians’ arms and legs to promote a candidate hostile to Iran. Abadi placed all his cards in the US basket. That brought him down like a rock. He tried to pull Moqtada onto his side but he was left with his only ally Sayyed Ammar al-Hakim, the man who already choose the US-Gulf camp long ago”, said the source.

Sayyed Moqtada al-Sadr took a hostile position against Qassem Soleimani even though he met him just after the parliamentary election results were reported. He has suffered from seeing his group – that he inherited from his late father – divided (Asaeb Ahl al-Haq, Kataeb Sayyed al-Shuhada’, Harakat al-Nujabaa and others) and financed by Iran. Nevertheless, he is not against Iran in favour of the US or any other country of the Middle Eastern region. Indeed, there are ongoing efforts and future plans to reconcile Moqtada with Iran soon, particularly after the beginning of US president Donald Trump’s full embargo on Iran next November. The situation in the Middle East requires that Iraqi politicians no longer be divided and rebuild the country stronger for the benefit of its regional allies. Iran’s aim was the selection of a new prime minister who enjoys good relationships with France and Europe and is accepted by the US.

Abdel Mahdi is known to be faithful to his country and will maintain a balanced relationship between Iran and the USA. Abdel Mahdi is expected to ask the parliament to decide regarding the US unilateral sanctions on Iran, one of the main pending decisions that has prevented Abadi from winning a second term when he supported the US unilateral embargo against Iran.

A few years ago, I spent an evening with the Vice President of Iraq Abdel Mahdi on a private occasion in Karbala on the 15^thof Shaaban, in the presence of a very few top Iraqi politicians, including the late Sayyed Abdel Aziz al-Hakim. He was very critical of the way al-Maliki was running the government and said: “We are better off reopening our offices in Damascus because Iraqi politicians today don’t know how to rule but are good at playing the opposition”.

Abdel Mahdi’s election is not contested by the Marjaiya in Najaf with whom he maintains an excellent relationship. As an economist, he has once saved the former Iraqi Finance Minister Rafi al-Issawi who told me over a dinner:

“Al-Maliki called me asking for few billion dollars to be immediately under his disposal in forthcoming days at the latest. I told him it is impossible because I don’t have a bank with money to pull out a couple of billions for you, nor do I have a pocket big enough to contain this much money”, al-Issawi told me.

When no further reasoning was possible, al-Issawi sought help from Adel Abdel Mahdi. Abdel Mahdi explained to al-Maliki the long procedure entailed in presenting an approved budget, not a matter of a few days or weeks.

“Adel saved my life. Al-Maliki didn’t understand anything, I bet, but at least he is off my back now”, said Rafei.

It looks like the US won’t finally put pressure on Iraq, and it is unlikely that Trump will impose sanctions on the Iraqi government in November in parallel with the Iran sanctions set to begin in November. Trump, or rather his team, don’t want to lose Iraq completely to Iran and thus is expected to allow Iran to trade with Iraq the trade exchange has reached $4bn 165 million for the first six months this year). This is already a weakness in Trump’s plans for sanctions!

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is from the author.

In my September 24 column, “Truth Is Evaporating Before Our Eyes,” I used the destruction of the CBS news team that broke the Abu Ghraib story and the story of President George W. Bush’s non-performance of his Texas Air Force National Guard duties to demonstrate how accusations alone could destroy a Peabody Award winning, 26 year veteran producer of CBS News, Mary Mapes, and the established news anchor Dan Rather.

I have many times written that it was President Bill Clinton who destroyed the independent US media when he permitted 90 percent of the US media to be concentrated in six mega-corporations that were in the entertainment and other businesses and not in the news business. This unprecedented concentration of media was against all American tradition and destroyed the reliance that our Founding Fathers placed on a free press to keep government accountable to the people.

Until I read Mary Mapes book, Truth and Duty (St. Martin’s Press, 2005), I was unaware of how this monopolization of the media in violation of the Sherman Anti-trust Act and American tradition had proceeded to destroy honest reporting.

Here is what happened. The Texas Air National Guard was a place the elite placed their sons to avoid the Vietnam War draft. Copies of documents written by Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian describing George W. Bush’s ability to jump the large waiting list hoping to avoid the war, Bush’s non-compliance with National Guard requirements and Bush’s unauthorized departure to another state were given to CBS. The CBS team worked for many months to confirm or discredit the documents. The information in the documents proved to be consistent with the interviews of people acquainted with George W. Bush’s time in the Texas National Guard.

It was a carefully prepared story, not a rushed one, and it fits all the information we now have of Bush’s non-performance.

The problem for the CBS news team, which might not have been realized at the time, was that the documents were copies, not originals that experts could authenicate as real beyond question. Therefore, although the documents were consistent with the testimony of others, no expert could validate the documents as they could originals.

The Republicans seized on this chink in the armor to turn the issue away from the truthfulness of the CBS 60 Minutes report to whether or not the copies were fakes.

CBS had two other problems. One was that Viacom, its owner, was not in the news business, but in the lobbying business in Washington wanting to enrich the company with legislative perks and regulatory permissions. Truthful news from CBS, exposing US torture in the face of the Bush regime’s denials and showing that Bush was too privileged to be held accountable by the Texas National Guard, was damaging Viacom’s highly paid lobbying effort.

When the right-wing bloggers took after CBS, the Viacom executives saw how to get rid of the troublesome CBS news team. Viacom executives refused to support their reporters and convened a kangeroo count consisting of Republicans to “investigate” the 60 Minutes story of Bush’s failure to comply with his obligations to the Texas National Guard.

Viacom wanted to get rid of the independent news constraint on its lobbying success, but Mary Mapes and her lawyers thought truth meant something and would prevail. Therefore, she subjected herself to the destructive process of watching the orchestrated destruction of her career and her integrity.

CBS’ other problem was that, with or without justification, CBS and Dan Rather were regarded in conservative Republican circles as liberal, a designation equivalent to a communist. For millions of Americans the controversy was about liberal CBS trying to harm George W. Bush and leave us exposed to Muslim Terrorism. In right-wing minds, Bush was trying to protect America from Muslim terrorists who blew up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and CBS was trying to smear President Bush.

Mary Mapes, Dan Rather, and the CBS news team were too focused on news to take into account the dangerous situation in which they were operating. Therefore, they walked into a trap that served Dick Cheney’s Middle Eastern wars, which served Halliburton and Israel, and into a trap that served conservative hatred of “liberal” news.

Why didn’t the American media defend CBS’ careful reporting? The answer is that this was a time when TV news media was dying. The Internet was taking over. The rest of the media saw in the demise of CBS a chance to gain that market and have a longer life.

So the rest of the media took up the fake news that 60 Minutes had presented a report based on fake documents. The media did not realize that they were signing their own death warants. Neither did the right-wing bloggers that the Republicans had sicced on CBS. Today, these bloggers are themselves shut off from being able to express any truth.

Truth in America is being exterminated, and the destruction of CBS news was the starting point. As Mary Mapes reports in her book, as soon as Viacom was entirely rid of 60 Minutes with the firing of the entire staff, on the very next day Viacom held a triumphant annual investor meeting. Chairman Sumner Redstone was awarded a a $56 million paycheck for 2004. Chief operating officers, Les Moonves and Tom Freston “each pocketed a whoopping fifty-two million for the year.”

And the CBS news team went without mortgage, car, or health insurance payments.

Mapes writes:

“Just a few years ago, this kind of corporate executive largesse was unherd of. Now, these media Masters of the Universe have taken over the public airwares and they have one obligation: making a profit.”

Ever a larger one, which requires protecting the government and the corporate advertisers from investigative reporting.

The consequence today is that the American media is totally unreliable. No reader can rely on any report, not even on a New York Times obituary.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The annual meeting between defense officials of both countries was scheduled for mid-October, a sign of heightened bilateral tensions.

In response to illegally imposed US sanctions on Beijing over its purchase of Russian SU-35 combat aircraft and S-400 missile defense systems,the deputy head of China’s Central Ministry Commission (CMC) summoned the US embassy’s acting military attache. He called US sanctions a breach of international rules and standards, a hegemonic action harming bilateral military relations.

Beijing recalled naval commander Shen Jinlong. He was participating in the 23rd International Seapower Symposium – co-hosted by the US Chief of Naval Operations and the White House at the US Naval War College in Newport, RI.

According to Chinese media, Beijing demands that the US “immediately redress its wrongs and withdraw related sanctions.” Huang said China’s military reserves the right to take further countermeasures.

Its National Defense Ministry spokesperson Wu Qian said

“(w)e demand the US side immediately correct its wrongdoing and withdraw the so-called sanctions. Otherwise, the US side must bear the consequences caused by this act.”

On Friday, China’s Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang summoned US Ambassador Terry Branstad, demanding the rollback of unacceptable Trump regime actions.

In his Friday General Assembly address, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed strong support for multilateralism, criticizing US policies, saying:

“What we see today is that international rules and multilateral mechanisms are under attack, and the international landscape is filled with uncertainties and destabilizing factors,” adding:

“China’s answer is clear-cut. All along, China has upheld the international order and pursued multilateralism.”

Addressing Trump’s hostile General Assembly address, he stressed that “(m)ultilateralism is under fire precisely when we need it most.” It’s vital in dealing with geopolitical challenges.

He warned that Beijing won’t be blackmailed on trade. In his UN address, Trump shamefully accused China of meddling in US November midterm elections, citing no evidence because there is none.

Yi stressed four principles:

• replacing confrontation with mutual cooperation on all major issues;

• upholding international rules, norms and standards, especially honoring international treaties, conventions, and other agreements;

• upholding, defending and preserving fairness and justice in international affairs; and

• working together to deliver real results, according to UN Charter and World Trade Organization principles.

Yi stressed that China pursues peaceful, cooperative development. He called for denuclearizing the Korean peninsula, along with fully observing and implementing the JCPOA Iran nuclear deal.

Beijing will continue defending its sovereign rights and interests, he said. It “will open still wider to the world.”

Yi claimed his country’s Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation is “the largest platform for international cooperation.”

It calls for over $1 trillion in longterm investment. Chairman of China’s largest construction machinery manufacturer XCMG said

“One Belt, One Road makes our internationalization strategy like a tiger with wings added.”

It conflicts with Trump’s America First agenda, including Pompeo’s Indo-Pacific Economic Vision, announced in July to compete with China regionally.

Bilateral relations are greatly strained politically, economically and militarily, notably over Trump’s trade war.

Washington demands all other countries bend to its will, a hostile agenda risking greater war than already.

Its provocative military buildup close to Sino/Russian borders could lead to devastating confrontation. Catastrophic nuclear war is possible by accident or design.

Washington’s hell bent rage for unchallenged dominance is the greatest threat to world peace.

A Final Comment

US war secretary Mattis cancelled a China trip scheduled for later this month to meet with his counterpart General Wei Fenghe, a further sign of strained relations.

Late Sunday, an unnamed US official said the trip is off. The State Department, along with China’s defense and foreign ministries issued no comments. Nor did the US embassy in Beijing.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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’s ‘trade war’ with allies, including Mexico-Canada, was and remains a phony trade war. A war of words for the purpose of consumption of Trump’s domestic political base before the November midterm elections. Trump has been playing his ‘economic nationalism’ card that helped win him his election once again. The US-Canada deal will be announced this week as well. Trump will exaggerate and lie about both to his domestic political base, but the terms of both the Mexican and Canadian trade deals will show hardly any change.

US-Mexico Trade Details Before Final Document

As with So. Korea, an early look at the Mexico-US deal late last week showed token changes on autos and steel. No tariffs, just phony quotas on car imports to US. (Trump has recently also quietly exempted other big steel importers to the US (Brazil, etc. from the 25% tariffs he announced last March). Mexico deal details will show few if any tariffs, some quotas well above current actual levels so they have no effect, and the US-Trump backing off the threat to change how disputes are resolved over trade issues. Trump essentially agreeing to the Mexico (and Canada) positions that no changes should be made to the past process.

Mexico has apparently not agreed to slow imports of autos and steel to the US. Just to raise North American auto parts content to 75% from 62.5%, and to raise Mexican auto workers wages to $16/hr. (but only on 40% of Mexican auto workers)!

Mexico is also bragging of a ‘side deal’ with US also just signed, outside NAFTA, in which current tariffs get locked in for years to come.

In other words, the US-Mexico agreement is A PHONY TRADE DEAL–just like So. Korea! (Canada will now fall into the same deal. All the talk about separate agreements for Mexico and Canada has collapsed. It has always been just a smokescreen by Trump).

Canada-US Deal Early Look

Late in the day news for Sunday, Sept. 30, is that US and Canada just agreed to a trade deal, with Canada remaining with Mexico in NAFTA. No change in the NAFTA dispute settlement mechanism.Canada agrees to let US diary farmers access a whopping 3.5% of its market (offset by Canadian price subsidies to them for the 3.5%).

On Autos, Canada agrees to not export more than 2.6 million cars to the US. But Canada only importing 2 million now, so it raise imports another 600,000. Moreover, the 2.6m quota takes effect only if US imposes 25% auto tariffs on Canada and globally as well in the future–which it will never do.So no tariffs on autos or steel from Canada. ANd the auto quotas are fictitious.

According to Reuters news service,

“The quota (2.6m) would allow for significant growth in tariff-free automotive exports from Canada above current production levels of about 2 million units”.

And apparently no change in Canada steel and aluminum imports to the US:

“the deal failed to resolve US tariffs on Canada’s steel and aluminum exports, the Canadian Sources said”.

What that means is that Canada keeps importing steel and aluminum to US as before.

Deals show that Trump is desperate to sign something before the November elections, as a show of his ‘economic nationalism’ and ‘America First’ themes. So now So. Korea, Mexico and Canada have agreed to softball deals with the US to changes in their free trade agreements with the US. (Meanwhile Trump backs off threats to Europe and quietly exempts other economies like Brazil from his previously announced steel and aluminum tariffs last March).

Canada and Mexico stock markets surging on the news, and the currencies are rising in the wake of the news of deals reached on trade with both by Trump.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Jack Rasmus is author of the book, ‘Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression’, Clarity Press, August 2017, and the forthcoming book, ‘The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US policy from Reagan to Trump’, 2019, also by Clarity Press. He blogs at jackrasmus.com, hosts the weekly radio show, Alternative Visions, on the Progressive Radio network, and tweets at @drjackrasmus. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The United States, along with its allies, will implement a “strategy of isolation” in Syria if President Bashar Assad maintains the political process aimed at ending the war in Syria, an American diplomat was quoted as saying.

US Special Representative for Syria Jim Jeffrey said Washington would work with countries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East to impose tough international sanctions on Syria if Damascus did not want to cooperate to change the constitution before the elections.

“If the regime does that, we believe that then we can go after it the way we went after Iran before 2015 – with really tough international sanctions,” Jeffrey said, referring to secondary sanctions against Tehran for its nuclear program.

In addition, the diplomat assured that not even the UN Security Council could contain this plan of the United States.

“Even if the U.N. Security Council won’t pass them we will just do it through the European Union, we will do it through our Asian allies, and then we will make it our business to make life as miserable as possible for that flopping cadaver of a regime and let the Russians and Iranians, who made this mess, get out of it,” Jeffrey said, quoted by Reuters.

However, it is highly questionable of the United States has enough pull on the whole of the EU to make such a threat a reality. As the global economy constitutes a complex network of trading partners, it will be only moderately difficult to get around any embargos masquerading as sanctions. Syrian goods can be sold through intermediaries who are critical to US allied countries, and goods produced around the world will not have much difficulty arriving in Syria.

The Syrian authorities consider the United States military presence in its territory to be illegal, and consensus interpretation of international law confirms this view.

Despite this, then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced last January that US forces will remain in the Arab country and that in the future there will be no place for President Bashar Assad. In the same speech, Tillerson stated that the US and its allies do not intend to cooperate in rebuilding the Syrian-controlled areas of Damascus.

Assad’s allies Russia and Iran, as well as China, have made some investments in the country, but they want other countries to share the burden.

Western countries have said they will not approve reconstruction funding for Syria, or drop sanctions, without a political settlement. U.S. sanctions are already making it hard for foreign companies to work there.

One of the odd points in all of this, is the fact that Syria today is a largely war ravaged country, the issue of ‘sanctions’ seems moot. Sanctions have been on Syria for more than 7 years, and it was these sanctions in part which then worsened the situation, giving some element of credibility to the western sponsored ‘opposition’ in the early stage of the conflict.

Among the most important facts that history will have to hold fast to, is that there was never a legitimate opposition that waved or used the seditionary and colonial flag of the French Mandate – the Green/white/black tri-color. There has always been a civil society and electoral opposition in Syria, ranging from free market liberals, to communists, moderate Sunni groups, to the Syriac nationalists of the SSNP. Given that Syria is a typical ‘developmental state’, it is expected that the weakness of a sovereign civil society gives rise to harsher police and regulatory methods over civil society.

Assad ushered in a series of civil society reforms six years ago, and these met the demands of the legitimate opposition, who have long since been brought back into the fold of Syrian civil and political society and structures. What we have seen ever since is a coordinated mercenary, sectarian, and Salafist invasion force orchestrated by Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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.

“A reminder that the Trump administration is diverting money away from Head Start, the National Cancer Institute, the HIV/AIDS programs, maternal and child health programs, and the CDC to pay for these human rights abuses.”

With detention facilities overflowing due to President Donald Trump‘s monstrous immigration policies—which have sent the number of children detained by the U.S. government soaring to a record 12,800—the Trump administration is reportedly carrying out dead-of-night “mass transfers” of children from foster homes and shelters to a crowded Texas tent camp, where they have no schooling and limited access to legal services.

According to the New York Times, more than 1,600 “migrant children have been roused in the middle of the night in recent weeks and loaded onto buses with backpacks and snacks for a cross-country journey to their new home: a barren tent city on a sprawling patch of desert in South Texas.”

The Times continued:

Until now, most undocumented children being held by federal immigration authorities had been housed in private foster homes or shelters, sleeping two or three to a room. They received formal schooling and regular visits with legal representatives assigned to their immigration cases.

But in the rows of sand-colored tents in Tornillo, Tex., children in groups of 20, separated by gender, sleep lined up in bunks. There is no school: The children are given workbooks that they have no obligation to complete. Access to legal services is limited.

While the Tornillo tent camp was originally opened for just a short period in June to accommodate the growing number of children the Trump administration was ripping from their parents’ arms and locking up, the “pop-up city” was expanded last month to be able to hold 3,800 children.

“A reminder that the Trump administration is diverting money away from Head Start, the National Cancer Institute, the HIV/AIDS programs, maternal and child health programs, and the CDC to pay for these human rights abuses,” Melissa Boteach of the Center for American Progress pointed out, citing a recent Yahoo News report that found the White House is taking hundreds of millions of dollars from key programs to fund its mass detention and deportation policies.

Citing shelter workers who requested anonymity for fear of being fired, the Times reported on Sunday that the transfers from shelters throughout the country to the Tornillo tent camp “are carried out late at night because children will be less likely to try to run away. For the same reason, children are generally given little advance warning that they will be moved.”

“Obviously we have concerns about kids falling through the cracks, not getting sufficient attention if they need attention, not getting the emotional or mental health care that they need,” said Leah Chavla, a lawyer with the Women’s Refugee Commission, told the Times in an interview. This cannot be the right solution. We need to focus on making sure that kids can get placed with sponsors and get out of custody.”

On waking children up and whisking them away on “midnight voyages” to military tent camps:

“In order to avoid escape attempts, the moves are carried out late at night because the children will be less likely to try to run away.”

Haunting.https://t.co/KmN6tuZ3pO

— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) September 30, 2018

Horrific. Migrant children being moved to *tent camps* in the middle of the night. No schooling. 2018 in the richest country on Earth. https://t.co/GNZI6xGUqn

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) September 30, 2018

While the Trump administration’s mass separation and detention of immigrant families sparked outrage at home and throughout the world earlier this year, the fact that hundreds of children remain separated from their families months after the White House’s “zero tolerance” policy supposedly ended has slipped from the headlines amid the day-to-day chaos of the Trump era.

“Please remember there are 13,000 migrant children in detention. We can’t forget about them,” immigrant rights activist Julissa Arce wrote in response to the Times report.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Featured image is from Creative Commons.

This week we witnessed the horrible spectacle of Nikki Haley, President Trump’s Ambassador to the United Nations, joining a protest outside the UN building and calling for the people of Venezuela to overthrow their government.

“We are going to fight for Venezuela,” she shouted through a megaphone, “we are going to continue doing it until Maduro is gone.”

This is the neocon mindset: that somehow the US has the authority to tell the rest of the world how to live and who may hold political power regardless of elections.

After more than a year of Washington being crippled by evidence-free claims that the Russians have influenced our elections, we have a senior US Administration official openly calling for the overturning of elections overseas.

Imagine if President Putin’s national security advisor had grabbed a megaphone in New York and called for the people of the United States to overthrow their government by force!

At the UN, Venezuela’s President Maduro accused the Western media of hyping up the crisis in his country to push the cause for another “humanitarian intervention.” Some may laugh at such a claim, but recent history shows that interventionists lie to push regime change, and the media goes right along with the lies.

Remember the lies about Gaddafi giving Viagra to his troops to help them rape their way through Libya? Remember the “babies thrown from incubators” and “mobile chemical labs” in Iraq? Judging from past practice, there is probably some truth in Maduro’s claims.

We know socialism does not work. It is an economic system based on the use of force rather than economic freedom of choice. But while many Americans seem to be in a panic over the failures of socialism in Venezuela, they don’t seem all that concerned that right here at home President Trump just signed a massive $1.3 trillion dollar spending bill that delivers socialism on a scale that Venezuelans couldn’t even imagine. In fact this one spending bill is three times Venezuela’s entire gross domestic product!

Did I miss all the Americans protesting this warfare-welfare state socialism?

Why all the neocon and humanitarian-interventionist “concern” for the people of Venezuela? One clue might be the fact that Venezuela happens to be sitting on the world’s largest oil reserves. More even than Saudi Arabia. There are plenty of countries pursuing dumb economic policies that result in plenty of suffering, but Nikki and the neocons are nowhere to be found when it comes to “concern” for these people. Might it be a bit about this oil?

Don’t believe this feigned interest in helping the Venezuelan people. If Washington really cared about Venezuelans they would not be plotting regime change for the country, considering that each such “liberation” elsewhere has ended with the people being worse off than before!

No, if Washington – and the rest of us – really cared about Venezuelans we would demand an end to the terrible US economic sanctions on the country – which only make a bad situation worse – and would push for far more engagement and trade. And maybe we’d even lead by example, by opposing the real, existing socialism here at home before seeking socialist monsters to slay abroad.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

As a settler-colonial country, Israel has industriously sought to erase the existence of the people indigenous to the land it occupies, so as to better appropriate aspects of their culture that make it “local”, rather than implanted. 

Since food is historically a place-based cultural production, Israeli cuisine prides itself not on bagels, lox or gefilte fish – all European in origin – but rather on falafel, hummus, olive oil and the modest but delicious tomato and cucumber salad that accompanies most Palestinian meals.

More recently, Israel has expanded the reach of its cultural theft beyond the historic borders of Palestine, to various Arab countries around it. This theft, arrogantly acknowledged as such, was on display in July in Tel Aviv, where a startup gallery opened its first exhibition, brazenly entitled “Stolen Arabic Art”.

The gallery explained:

“We are showing the works in the exhibition in Israel without the artists’ knowledge or consent, acutely aware of this act of expropriation. By delineating these political and geographic boundaries we wish to call attention to Israel’s exclusion from the Middle East family.”

Holding artworks hostage

Organisers claim this “exclusion” is in part due to the success of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, which calls for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel until it stops violating international law and the human rights of Palestinians.

“We wish to promote a shared reality marked by open dialogue and exchange throughout the Middle East, without wars, occupation, or any borders,” the exhibit description says.

In an interview with Hyperallergic, a New York-based website devoted to discussions of art and culture, exhibition curator Omer Krieger said the goal was to take the artwork “hostage,” thus forcing the artists to “negotiate”.

“We want to break the boycott … I hope that the artists will appreciate the sophistication of this action, that they will understand its purpose and create contact with us,” Krieger said.

Krieger is best known for his work from 2011 to 2015 as the artistic director of the Under the Mountain art festival in Jerusalem. According to Hyperallergic, that project, funded by right-wing patrons and the Israeli government, was criticised for art-washing the city’s violent reality, including the ethnic cleansing of its Palestinian population.

Exhibit organisers clearly fail to understand that they cannot endear themselves to “the Middle East family” by violating artists’ rights to their own intellectual work. Indeed, it is precisely Israel’s history of theft, dispossession and appropriation that has led to its exclusion. More of the same crimes cannot help.

Yet, more of the same is happening in another artistic realm, as one Israeli publishing house, recently published an anthology of short stories by 45 women from various Arab countries and the global Arab diaspora without their consent. The anthology, entitled Hurriya(“Freedom”), was not advertised as a book of “stolen stories”, even as the publisher reportedly later acknowledged that many of the authors had never been asked permission to include their work.

‘We take it as their salvation’

Palestinian writer Khulud Khamis, who lives in Haifa, says she first became aware of the theft when she was invited to participate in a panel discussion of the book. As she browsed its table of contents, she suspected that the included authors had not been informed that their work would be translated, and reached out to them.

Among the authors are renowned writers such as Tunisia’s Farah el-Tunisi, Algeria’s Ahlam Mosteghanemi and Kuwait’s Buthaina al-Issa. The book cover also reportedly featured stolen art by Lebanese artist Hussein Bleibel.

Khamis used her Facebook page to expose this appropriation, and many of the authors included in the anthology expressed extreme displeasure at the theft of their intellectual property. The publishing house has since removed the title from its online catalogue.

As Khamis was organising online, reaching out to the included authors, activist Roni Felsen said she contacted the publishers – only to be told that the editor believed they were doing these women a favour; indeed, saving them!

Felsen posted details of her conversation with the publishers, who apparently told her:

“These women are putting a call out to the world … Who will hear the cries of these women? In the past, these women could cry out in their kitchen … or in the field, heard only by God maybe? Now somebody is taking these cries, translates them and voices them here in Israel … It’s important to us that the voices of these women are heard …We take it as their salvation.”

How exactly does stealing women’s stories and translating them – poorly, according to Khamis, who is fluent in Hebrew – without consulting them, “save” these women’s lives?

As Khamis told Hyperallergic:

“These writers are not screaming in their kitchens or in the fields, and they are definitely not waiting for the white male saviour to ‘save’ them. These are all strong women – activists, human rights defenders, many of whom hold advanced degrees in various fields. Their creative works have been recognised both nationally and internationally.

“Taking the writers’ words and creations, translating and publishing them into Hebrew – without their knowledge or consent – is the very opposite of ‘saving’ them. They [the publishing house] have robbed these women of their agency, silenced them, and disregarded their right to make a choice regarding their works.”

The heart of colonialism

Theft is at the core of every colonial enterprise. The museums of the former imperial powers are full of art stolen from former colonies, from Africa to Asia and beyond.

By stealing from various Arab countries, Israel is confirming what it is: an outsider with no respect for cultural boundaries and a start-up colonial nation with aspirations to imperial grandeur, rather than what it so desperately wants to be seen as: just one of the “locals”.

The publication of an anthology of Arab women’s writing, edited and translated without their permission, displays a particularly offensive aspect of imperial hubris. This attitude was most aptly described by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, a classic essay in postcolonial studies that references “white men saving brown women from brown men”.

The included authors – the standard term, “contributors”, would be wrong in this context – are taking effective action, as opposed to “crying out” in their kitchens. The only thing they may be screaming about is the theft of their intellectual property.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Nada Elia is a diaspora Palestinian writer and political commentator, currently working on her second book, Who You Callin’ ‘Demographic Threat?’ Notes from the Global Intifada. A professor of gender and global studies (retired), she is a member of the steering collective of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI).

Featured image is from Flickr.

Two weeks ago the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) gave a landmark ruling against the UK government’s mass surveillance program, stating that it violated human rights and offered “no real safeguards” to the public.  This surveillance programme, according to the Strasbourg court, allowed the British intelligence agencies’ to violate the right to a private and family life with “insufficient oversight” over which communications were chosen for examination. Of equal importance the ECHR found that the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA), also known as the Snoopers’ Charter, did not give enough protection to journalistic sources which would violate the rights to freedom of expression guaranteed in UK and EU laws and would discourage whistle-blowing.   In its judgment of the case, Big Brother Watch and Others v. the United Kingdom (applications nos. 58170/13, 62322/14 and 24960/15), the court concluded that police and security services had breached citizens’ right to privacy by intercepting communications data in bulk, with little oversight of when these powers could be used, just as NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden had revealed.

In its judgment, the ECHR expressed concern that “intelligence services can search and examine ‘related communications data’ apparently without restriction’ – data that identifies senders and recipients of communications, their location, email headers, web browsing information, IP addresses, and more.” This means that Internet service providers must store details of everything we do online for twelve months and render it accessible to dozens of public bodies to include everything from browsing records to data on private citizens, search engine activity, to every phone call to text message and geographical location we have held in any of our electronic devices.  The IPA also requires that tech companies hand over the data that they possess to intelligence agencies.

Yet, what does this mean for those of us who just use our computers for work and our mobiles for texting friends to meet up for drinks? Surely, this does not affect us, right?  Wrong.

The catch is that we are all implicated, to include the simple text message to confirm dinner plans. Do you use a social media account? Do you have photos on your mobile and laptop that you have or have not posted online? Did you rate a restaurant on Google? All this information to include your list of Facebook friends are being mined by the government along with all the tracking information that your many apps provide, your bank, credit card and financial details, biographical information, your resume, your medical records, and all the information in the world that you store on these devices which you might even deem harmless. In this day and age there is no such thing as harmless information. At that, there is no such thing as privacy when the government believes it has already rewritten the IPA in measure with the previous court’s instruction.

As many are concerned with the interception of personal data and parents are reading online privacy and safety guide for kids, the government’s secret interception, processing and storing data of millions of people’s private communications, should alarm each and every one of us.  The current form of the IPA means that any information that you have in the UK can be shared with secret intelligence agencies like the CIA, and well beyond. With which other countries does the US also share information under similar secret legal frameworks?  Also important to consider here are the impediments to tech development that are under threat such as when then Prime Minister David Cameron threatened to ban Snapchat, WhatsApp, and any other encrypted messaging services unless these companies provided the government with backdoor access to user data. Such measures actually deter technology since most tech companies are aware that the minute they undermine their users’ privacy, their company will not last.

In short, by stripping away our privacy, the government is undermining everything that keeps us free: our expression, our right to protest and to fair trials, our legal and patient confidentiality, our free press. And one can argue our individuality is at stake whereby everything we do, consume, record, and say is potentially up for monitoring and scrutiny, as are those with whom we interact.  As Edward Snowden stated, “Because privacy isn’t about something to hide. Privacy is about something to protect. That’s who you are.”

We need to prize our privacy and human right not to be spied upon in this day and age where governments are pulling out the “terrorism” card in order to goad its citizens into surrendering one of the qualities which makes us most human.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Julian Vigo is a scholar, film-maker and human rights consultant. Her latest book is Earthquake in Haiti: The Pornography of Poverty and the Politics of Development (2015). She can be reached at: [email protected]. Read other articles by Julian.

Tory-supporting media have been portraying Britain’s socialist Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn as a Soviet fellow-traveller. Meanwhile, Hilary Wainwright notes, Labour’s shadow chancellor and close Corbyn ally sets out a vision that breaks with the old bureaucratic state model.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell can usually barely breathe a word about nationalisation without setting off a media frenzy, so it’s strange that his most interesting comments yet on the subject passed with so little comment.

Speaking in February about the Labour Party’s proposed new economics, McDonnell said:

“We should not try to recreate the nationalised industries of the past … We cannot be nostalgic for a model whose management was often too distant, too bureaucratic.”

Instead, he said, a new kind of public ownership would be based on the principle that “nobody knows better how to run these industries than those who spend their lives with them”.

Democratic vision

Maybe the media’s silence on this profoundly democratic vision of public ownership is not so surprising. It directly contradicts the attempt to warm up Cold War scares of a secretly pro‑Soviet Labour leadership, whose public ownership plans are the first step towards imposing a command economy onto the unsuspecting British people.

This new thinking about public ownership opens up a rich seam of new economic thinking: beyond both neoliberalism and the post-war social-democratic settlement.

Neoliberalism says the market knows best, but the Fabian-inspired model of the 1945 welfare state — for all its considerable merits — still left workers with no role in the management of Britain’s newly nationalised industries. Beatrice Webb, one of the leading Fabians, declared her lack of faith in the “average sensual man”, who can “describe his grievances” but not “prescribe his remedies”. She wanted public industries to be run by “the professional expert”.

In practice, this often meant the same old bosses from the private firms being brought back to run the public version, along with an ex‑general or two.

Underlying Labour’s “new politics” is a new and very different understanding of knowledge — even of what counts as knowledge — in public administration, and hence of whose knowledge matters.

For industries to be run by “those who spend their lives with them” means recognising the knowledge drawn from practical experience, which is often tacit rather than codified: an understanding of expertise that opens decision-making to wider popular participation, beyond the private boss or the state bureaucrat.

As McDonnell put it, we need to “learn from the everyday experiences of those who know how to run railway stations, utilities and postal services, and what’s needed by their users”.

Preston model                                        

McDonnell’s speech was preceded by an equally innovative conference in Preston, driven by a desire to learn directly from the work of Preston Council and local co‑ops and trade unions. His commitment to this politics, like Corbyn’s, comes from a lifetime of seeing the mostly untapped wisdom at the base of the labour movement.

There is an extraordinary wealth of knowledge that ordinary trade union members hold about their work, and their ideas about better ways to organise it.

There are echoes here of past struggles, such as the Lucas Aerospace workers’ plan for socially useful production in the 1970s and its follow up in the London industrial strategy of the Greater London Council, just before it was abolished by Margaret Thatcher.

There are echoes too of a forgotten phrase in Labour’s old Clause Four, which was committed not only to common ownership but to “the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service”.

It was a phrase that mostly gathered dust even before the whole clause was scrapped in the mid-1990s. But now we have a Labour leadership that truly believes in the people’s capacity for “popular administration”.

Of course, it will not be easy devising new forms of participatory public ownership capable of drawing not only on workers’ knowhow in any given industry, but on the knowledge of users, customers and surrounding communities as well. But Labour is now throwing open the doors to those who would like to put forward their own ideas about public ownership that is very much not in the old style. Instead it involves a redefinition of what “the public” means.

Trade unions, local authorities and social movements of different kinds are being invited to lend their creative intelligence to this end. The Preston model is just one example of this.

The failures of privatisation and the intensity of social need, together with issues such as the urgency of climate change, have led a new generation to devise new strategies and find allies: not only to protest, but to collaborate on real alternatives that can exist here and now.

Trade unions are generally weaker than in the past, so local groups of Momentum (which help organise supporters of Corbyn’s project) and Labour branches can go some way to filling the gap by developing practical alternatives at local level.

Cooperating for transformation

The co-operative movement, for example, is undergoing a new lease of life as private enterprise fails to meet social and environmental needs. Unemployed people — especially young people – increasingly see collaboration as the only way to ethically make a living.

They are finding that the same technologies that have been used by big tech firms to fragment work can be redesigned as tools of social collaboration.

These experiments, born of necessity, can be the basis of a transformative force that could both help Labour to win the next election and form the basis of a new democratic economic order when Labour takes office.

This recognition of workers as not simply an interest to be defended but as knowledgeable, creative allies in the process of production of social wealth, considerably strengthens Labour’s claim to be the party with which voters can best entrust the economy.

It enables today’s Labour Party to break from the implicit pact that private enterprise should be allowed to run production, while the state looks after redistribution — the one supposedly efficient, the other supposedly fair. This foundation stone of the post-war consensus effectively left Labour one-handed and vulnerable to attack as the party of spending, rather than creating wealth.

And as questions of organising production were left to capitalist owners, it undermined Labour’s strong claim, as the party of labour, to be the real party of wealth creation. After all, money (capital) without labour is unproductive. Labour, on the other hand, can be productive without private capital, through co-labouring (i.e. cooperation) and through public funds and co‑ordination.

A new socialism?

When the Tories ask whether Labour can be “trusted with the economy”, this new economics answers: Labour is not another set of experts to be trusted, the commissars of a central plan or the champions of a special interest. Rather it rests on the active support of, and trust in, those on whom the wealth and social well-being of society depends. For the many, by the many.

And the party of business can no longer claim to have a monopoly of wisdom on creating social wealth, nor can it credibly dismiss Corbyn’s Labour as simply the revival of old-style state socialism. The leadership’s vision is of a radically democratic government sharing power with knowledgeable and productive supporters.

This opens up the possibility of developing a “new socialism” based on self-government rather than rule from above. Now that, surely, is a story for a media genuinely curious about where a Corbyn-led government will lead.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Slightly abridged from Red Pepper.

Hilary Wainwright is a member of Red Pepper’s editorial collective and a fellow of the Transnational Institute. Her latest book, A New Politics from the Left, is out now, published by Polity Press.

Featured image is from the author.

The opposition pulled off a surprise win in the Maldives’ presidential elections last weekend.

Ibrahim Mohamed Solih trounced President Abdulla Yameen by a 16-point margin even though the US, India, and many Western countries fearmongered that the incumbent would resort to vote rigging in order to remain in power. It’s for this reason why many of them refused to send election observers because they felt that this would “legitimize” the fraudulent activity that they wrongly assumed would occur, but the infowar concerning this unrealized scenario didn’t stop there. In fact, the US and India also appeared to have meddled in the election through provocative statements that could have contributed to shaping the ultimate outcome.

For instance, the US threatened to sanction Maldivian officials if any suspected fraud occurred, which could have been interpreted by the population as a signal that further economic restrictions might thenceforth be imposed more broadly upon them, too. Not only that, but an influential member of India’s ruling BJP, Subramanian Swamy, channeled the spirit of the late John McCain by publicly appealing for his country to invade its much smaller southern neighbor in the name of “democracy” and “human rights”. This undoubtedly had an effect on the electorate, many of whom were already dissatisfied with Yameen as it was, and the consequences will probably be far-reaching.

The US and India seem to have worked in tandem to shape the international conditions in which the Maldivian election occurred, just as they did three and a half years prior in January 2015 when Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa was unexpectedly deposed in a scenario just like this one. Similarly to Sri Lanka at the time, the strategic situation surrounding the Maldives is much larger than the small island state because of its New Cold War implications concerning the Chinese-Indian competition over the Indian Ocean. Yameen was regarded as a close Chinese partner and committed his country to the Silk Road, something that drew India’s ire to no end given the Maldives’ strategic location “right on its doorstep” and astride some of the world’s most important Sea Lines Of Communication (SLOC).

The new government will probably move swiftly to pardon former president and notorious critic of China Mohamed Nasheed as it pivots towards India, though it shouldn’t be taken for granted that the Maldives will automatically turn into an “Indian satellite” as a result. China avoided this outcome with Sri Lanka by shrewdly engaging with the post-Rajapaksa government of President Sirisena, so it’s possible that it could pull off the same diplomatic feat with the post-Yameen Maldives too. Another point is that the Maldives’ security services were considered to be very closely aligned with the incumbent, so it’s unclear whether the country’s “deep state” will go along with any pivot that subjugates them to their larger northern neighbor.

Through a combination of what might be “deep state” wars and deft Chinese diplomacy, the Maldives might avoid losing its strategic independence after this shock electoral upset and the country’s seemingly impending consequent pivot towards India, but as with everything in International Relations, nothing can be entirely assured.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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.

Featured image: Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen and Chinese President Xi Jinping

Adelson’s massive expenditures in federal elections this cycle are being made because he believes that Republican control of the House and the Senate is vital to maintaining right-wing and pro-Zionist policies and his influence in Washington and at the White House.

According to publicly available campaign finance data, Sheldon Adelson – the conservative, Zionist, casino billionaire –is now the biggest spender on federal elections in all of American politics. Adelson, who was the top donor to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the Republican Party in 2016, has cemented his role as the top political donor in the country after giving $55 million in recent months to Republicans in an effort to help the party keep its majority in both houses of Congress.

Adelson’s willingness to help the GOP stay in power is likely born out of his desire to protect the massive investment he placed in the party last election cycle. In 2016, the Republican mega-donor gave heavily to the Trump campaign and Republicans, donating $35 million to the former and $55 million to the top two Republican Super PACs — the Congressional Leadership Fund and the Senate Leadership Fund — during that election cycle.

Adelson’s decision to again donate tens of millions of dollars to Republican efforts to stay in power is a direct consequence of how successfully Adelson has been able to influence U.S. policy since Trump and the GOP rode to victory in the last election cycle.

A New York Times article on Adelson, titled “Sheldon Adelson Sees a Lot to Like in Trump’s Washington,” notes that Adelson “enjoys a direct line to the president.” Furthermore, Adelson and Trump regularly meet once a month “in private in-person meetings and phone conversations” that Adelson has used to push major changes to U.S. policy that Trump has made reality — such as moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and cutting aid to Palestinian refugees, among others.

Adelson’s new title as the top spender in all U.S. elections shows that he, along with his wife, is willing to spend big to keep that direct line open in the months and years ahead. Citing sources close to the Adelsons, the Times writes that the Adelsons’ massive expenditures in federal elections this cycle are being made because he and his wife believe that “Republican control of the House and the Senate is so vital to maintaining these [right-wing and pro-Zionist] policies” and their influence in Washington and at the White House.

“Pleased as punch”

The fact that Adelson is “pleased-as-punch” with Trump’s performance as president should hardly come as a surprise, given that the president has fulfilled his campaign promises that were of prime importance to Adelson, while many of his other campaign promises – namely those that were populist or anti-war in nature – have rung hollow.

These Adelson-promoted policies include the moving of the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which Adelson had aggressively promoted and even helped to finance, as well as removing the U.S. from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran nuclear deal. Another recent policy move bearing Adelson’s fingerprints is the U.S. decision to withdraw its funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), as Adelson once infamously stated that “there’s no such thing as a Palestinian.”

As previously mentioned, The New York Times recently noted that the cutting of aid to Palestinians, the U.S.’ removal from JCPOA, and the Jerusalem embassy move all resulted from private in-person meetings and phone conversations between Adelson and Trump.

Adelson has also been successful in stocking the Trump administration with politicians he has long supported as well as his confidantes. Adelson-supported appointees include Nikki Haley, long-time recipient of Adelson campaign funds who now serves as U.S. ambassador to the UN; Mike Pompeo, former CIA director who has advocated for bombing Iran and now serves as secretary of state; and John Bolton, a close confidante of Adelson, who is now national security adviser.

Adelson was also instrumental in removing Pompeo and Bolton’s predecessors, Rex Tillerson and H.R. McMaster, from their respective posts, owing to their support for JCPOA and their alleged “anti-Israel” positions. Speculation has recently grown that Secretary of Defense James Mattis may share their fate for similarly opposing Adelson’s positions.

Yet, upon closer examination, these Adelson-driven personnel and policy moves enacted by Trump seem to merely be the foundation for the so-called “Adelson agenda,” a set of convergent goals that could potentially result in thousands of deaths in the Middle East and embroil the U.S. in yet another regime-change war.

To show that “we mean business”

While Adelson’s top-donor status has allowed him unprecedented access to the Trump administration and has resulted in dramatic changes to U.S. policy, there is every indication that the worst is yet to come. This is because, while the Adelson’s past efforts to influence Trump administration policy have had undeniably negative effects, they have yet to embroil the U.S. in another regime-change war or lead to the destruction of entire nations.

Yet, the current path the administration is treading at Adelson’s behest — particularly regarding Iran, Syria and Palestine — has the potential to unleash havoc in the Middle East and beyond, in a way not yet seen during Trump’s young presidency.

Indeed, one need only look at Adelson’s past statements on Iran to understand just how dangerous this man’s influence is to any prospect of peace in the Middle East.

As an example, during the negotiations that eventually led to the Iran nuclear deal, Adelson publicly advocated for a U.S. nuclear attack on Iran without provocation, so the U.S. could “impose its demands [on Iran] from a position of strength.”

More specifically, Adelson’s “negotiation” plan involved the U.S. dropping a nuclear bomb in the middle of the Iranian desert and then threatening to drop “the next one […] in the middle of Tehran” to show that “we mean business.” Tehran, Iran’s capital, is home to nearly 9 million people with 15 million more in its suburbs. Were Tehran to be attacked with nuclear weapons, an estimated 7 million would die within moments.

Furthermore, any sort of diplomatic engagement with Iran, according to Adelson, is “the worst negotiating tactic I could ever imagine.”

In other words, Adelson’s vision for engaging Iran considers the dropping of nuclear weapons on a country, including its heavily populated capital city — for no reason other than to show that the U.S. “means business” — a reasonable tactic.

With the Trump administration now applying “maximum pressure” to Iran, Adelson’s vision for engaging the Islamic Republic is of critical importance. For instance, if this “maximum pressure” campaign — currently a combination of draconian sanctions, bullying Iran’s trading partners, and covert CIA-driven regime-change operations — ultimately fails, Adelson is likely to push Trump towards more drastic “negotiation” tactics in order to force Iran into a “new treaty” designed by and for pro-Israel interests that seek to eliminate Iran as a regional player. Given that many entities– including Europe, China and Turkey — are rejecting U.S. calls to isolate Iran, this is a likely scenario that must be considered.

As his past statements make clear, Adelson — in such a case — is likely to pressure Trump to use military tactics, such as preemptive bombings, to force Iran to yield. Even though such a move would likely embroil Iran, the U.S. and potentially other important nations in a major war, Trump has shown that he has so far been willing to take Adelson’s “advice” regardless of consequences, including international backlash or even war.

Meet your new overlord: Adelson driving both US and Israeli policy behind the scenes

Beyond the fact that Adelson’s unprecedented influence on U.S. politics is set to create much more instability than past policies he has promoted, lies another unsettling truth: for less than $150 million — pocket change for such a plutocrat — Adelson has effectively bought the presidency and Congress. His role as top political donor has given him a “direct line” to the president and unprecedented access to the Republican party, who are beholden to his desires and whims as their paymaster.

Indeed, crossing Adelson — as shown by the high-profile firings of McMaster and Tillerson — has its steep price, and obeying Adelson now seems to be the most essential step that Trump and other Republicans must follow to stay in power.

Furthermore, Adelson is also the primary driver behind Israeli policy, given his role as a key donor to and long-time backer of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his role as owner and funder of Israel’s most widely circulated Hebrew-language newspaper, Israel Hayom. Thus, when considering critiques of U.S. politics as unduly influenced by Israel, Adelson’s role is again clear as day. If Israel is driving the U.S.’s foreign policy, it is not only because Adelson wills it but because Adelson is personally driving the policies of both the U.S. and Israel.

In 2014, a Princeton University study demonstrated that — beyond any doubt — the U.S. is an oligarchy, beholden to the interests of the rich and the powerful, not the interests of the majority of its citizens. Though the presence and power of the oligarchy is nothing new, what is notable is that a massive chunk of it is now under the control of a single individual — a man who has repeatedly shown that he has no empathy or respect for human life and is entirely on board  with totalitarianism. Indeed, Adelson has made it clear time and again that he is no fan of democracy.

Americans, meet your new, unelected overlord — Sheldon Adelson — because, as long as the U.S. political system is “hostage to his fortune,” he’s not going anywhere.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.

Bipartisan hardliners in Washington oppose these countries and all other sovereign independent states.

Peace and cooperative relations with them defeat US imperial interests – served by endless wars, instability and chaos.

In his UNGA address, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem affirmed his country’s commitment to eliminate US-supported terrorists, along with ending foreign occupation of northeast and southwest areas.

Things have come a long way from Syria’s darkest days, most of the country liberated. Much remains to be accomplished before its long-suffering people can breathe free again, Washington aiming to prevent it, bent on regime change.

Al-Moallem blasted nations hostile to his country’s liberating struggle, notably the US, NATO, Israel and the Saudis.

The so-called US coalition “has fought everything but terrorism,” he explained.

“Instead, it has proved that its goals are almost the same as those of terrorist groups, mainly fostering chaos, death and destruction.”

It raped and destroyed Raqqa, massacring countless thousands of defenseless civilians on the phony pretext of combating ISIS it supports.

It’s terror-bombing is all about wanting pro-Western puppet rule replacing Syrian sovereign independence, using cutthroat killer terrorists as imperial foot soldiers.

Syria’s liberating struggle replicates what’s gone on in other US war theaters, wanting sovereign states colonized and controlled.

Their governments seek peace, stability, and normalized relations with other nations, unattainable objectives as long as Washington wages endless wars of aggression.

Syria today “is safer and more stable, thanks to the achievements against terrorism, and given the government’s unrelenting efforts to rehabilitate areas destroyed by terrorism and bring back normalcy,” al-Moellem explained, adding:

“The situation (in much of the country) is now suitable for the voluntary return of the Syrian refugees to their homeland which they fled due to terrorism and the unilateral coercive economic measures which targeted them in their livelihoods.”

Damascus prioritizes the safe return of all internally and externally displaced refugees.

Al-Moallem said nations uninvolved in aggression against Syria are welcome to participate in its reconstruction. Others are “not welcomed and not invited…”

Syrians alone have “final stay in any matter related to the Constitution and any other sovereign affair” – free from foreign interference not easily achieved.

Damascus condemns use of CWs, terrorists and their sponsors alone guilty of using them many times, Assad and government forces falsely blamed for their high crimes.

‘’Every time Syria declared willingness to receive professional and objective teams to conduct investigations into chemical weapons allegations, these countries would place hindrances because they already knew that the findings will not be compatible with their vicious goals and intentions,” al-Moallem stressed.

Syria supports the right of people everywhere to be free from aggression and foreign domination.

In his USGA address, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said his country’s nuclear disarmament depends on guaranteeing its security, along with reciprocal good faith steps by Washington not forthcoming so far.

He rejected hollow US promises, mixed signals, and unacceptable pressure, hoping for a second Kim/Trump summit.

“(D)eadlock” with Washington persists because Trump regime hardliners rely on “coercive methods that prevent trust building,” holding Pyongyang hostage to its unacceptable demands along with “slandering” its government, said Ri.

Believing “sanctions can bring us (to) our knees is a pipe dream of people who don’t know us,” he stressed.

Measures taken since Kim/Trump June summit talks have been one-way, good faith shown by Pyongyang along, not Washington.

Ri called on the Trump regime to follow through on promises made in June summit talks.

In October, Pompeo will visit Pyongyang to prepare for a second summit. He and Bolton are the problem – systematically unraveling things both leaders agreed on.

Hostility and betrayal defined US policy toward North Korea throughout its post-WW II history.

Washington breached earlier agreements, not Pyongyang – eager for rapprochement and normalized relations, what the US consistently rejected.

Is this time different with the most extremist ever US regime in power? Since June, US relations with North Korea deteriorated badly.

Instead of stepping back from the brink on the peninsula, Trump regime hardliners show intractable bad faith – pressing their demands in return for hollow promises sure to be broken like every time before.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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.

‘When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it – always.’ M.K. Gandhi

As we remember Gandhi Jayanti on 2 October, the Mahatma’s 149^th birthday and the International Day of Nonviolence, there is plenty of room for despair.

Never before has the Earth and its many inhabitants been under siege as they are now, more than 100 years after Gandhi started warning us of the predicament in which we are embroiled and presenting his strategy for addressing it before it spiraled out of control.

Whether it is the threat of nuclear war, the ongoing wars in many parts of the world and particularly the Middle East, the multiple and synergistic threats to the global environment or the ongoing climate catastrophe, the Earth is under assault on all fronts and its precious lifeforms (human and otherwise) are being killed outright in vast numbers and driven to extinction at the rate of 200 species daily. And the evidence is rapidly accumulating that humans themselves will be extinct by 2026 as well. See ‘Human Extinction by 2026? A Last Ditch Strategy to Fight for Human Survival’.

Moreover, unlike the tyrants to which Gandhi was referring, the current ‘tyrant’ is a global elite that has acquired extraordinary power to kill and destroy as they pursue their insane compulsion to accumulate and control resources at the expense of life. See ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’.

So are we to give up in despair? To quit without a fight? Or even delude ourselves that nothing needs to be done? Obviously, these were not ways that Gandhi would contemplate because, as noted in his words cited above: ‘the ways of truth and love have always won’. Although, as Gandhi did not bother to add: we must struggle, relentlessly, to ensure that truth and love prevail.

And, fortunately, there are many people around the world who agree with him.

Tackling the pervasive violence in our world requires a comprehensive strategy involving many campaigns focused on a wide range of peace, justice and environmental issues, and substantial mobilization. There is no single or simple path. Let me tell you about some of the people engaged in this effort and the nature of their commitment, together with what connects their involvement.

Remarkable activist and progressive journalist Abby Martin, based in the USA, was formerly creator and presenter of the investigative news program ‘Breaking the Set’ and is now creator and presenter of its successor program ‘The Empire Files’. With the support of her fine team, Abby researches and presents reports from ‘inside history’s biggest empire… recording a world shaped by war & inequality’ so that the truth is exposed for all to see. Abby, who is also an artist, interviews a wide range of people from ‘ordinary’ activists to progressive intellectuals to political leaders to penetrate the veil of obscurity cast by the global elite’s corporate media. You can watch Abby’s terrific programs, providing insight into how our incredibly violent world works, on her website ‘The Empire Files’. You can also read about the latest attack on her work and how you can help in the article ‘US Sanctions Shut Down “The Empire Files” with Abby Martin’. Keep fighting Abby! We are with you all the way.

Ina Curic in Romania writes illustrated children’s books designed to teach children a variety of lessons for living an empowered, socially and environmentally conscious life. Her book Queen Rain, King Wind: The Practice of Heart Gardening was published in May and Anagrania’s Challenge: Turning Conflict into Opportunity has just been published. Anagrania’s Challenge is a beautifully created story that offers clear and simple guidance on three subjects vital to our shared future on Earth: what we need to be ourselves, what we need to be healthy, and that acceptance of uniqueness and creatively dealing with conflict are essential if we are to live together and celebrate the benefits and advantages of our differences. If you are looking for children’s books that promote nonviolent living and conflict resolution, you will have trouble finding better books than those by Ina. You can read about Ina, as well as how to obtain her books, on her website Imagine Creatively.

Pakistani Canadian Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja is a scholar who writes searing critiques of international relations exposing the deep conflicts driving global events. Two of his recent articles are ‘World Affairs and Insanity as Entertainment: Are We at the End of Human Morality?’ and ‘Mankind Must Know: The UNO and Global Leaders are a Menace to Peace and Problem-Solving’.

Moreover, in support of his son Momin, a computer science graduate and IT entrepreneur, who has been unjustly imprisoned since 2004 on terrorism charges (and facing a sentence of life plus 24 years), Mahboob has created a website to raise awareness of Momin’s struggle for justice and freedom, and organized a petition for those who wish to express their support for him.

Edith Rubinstein in Belgium is definitely an ‘activist senior’. Now 86 and in a center of recuperation following a severe depression and bout of unconsciousness earlier this year, Edith still has her computer and continues her work as an activist.

‘Because I am an activist since a very long time, a feminist, a woman in Black, and I translated free Ecofeminism from Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva…. Since many years, I have translated alternative articles and finally it made me sick.’ In fact, Edith admits, ‘I am completely “abnormal”. Somebody who feels bad to live in a world where hundreds of thousand people are killed or die … because they have nothing to eat anymore and nobody seems to care…. I feel very bad to live in this kind of world. Yes, terrible what is happening in the Congo! But unfortunately it is not the only case. And I am very scandalized by the behavior of the Western World!!!!’

Zakia Haddouch in Morocco continues to report the extraordinarily difficult circumstances of people in that country as she and other activists continue their various struggles to bring some semblance of justice to Moroccan affairs. One prominent issue is the ongoing debate in relation to ‘the forced military service (for both young female and male subjects and I don’t say citizens). It was lately decreed by the king.’ Another struggle is taking place in the wake of the death of Mohcine Fikri on 28 October 2016, who was crushed to death in a rubbish truck trying to recover merchandise confiscated by a policeman. Following this event, Hirak (literally ‘The Movement’) was born and it quickly mobilized widespread support for its vigorous protests. While most of Hirak’s concerns are about local issues, it draws upon a national repertory of nonviolent actions fueled by the experiences of activists around the country. Between October 2016 and May 2017, and faced with social unrest of an unprecedented vitality which increasingly challenged him personally, Mohamed VI remained silent. However, when Hirak leader Nasser Zefzazi – who has never failed to stress nonviolence and advocate self-restraint – interrupted a sermon on 26 May 2017 in which an imam claimed the social movement was tantamount to a ‘fratricidal struggle or even civil war within Islam’, the government took this pretext to clamp down on Hirak. Many activists were jailed – over 200 so far – and demonstrations are now systematically broken up. Zefzazi was among those arrested (on 29 May 2017) and, along with other members of Hirak, subsequently jailed for 20 years. The repression has nipped in the bud any hopes for resolving the crisis quickly. But this doesn’t mean that Zakia and other activists have been intimidated into silence or inaction.

Daniel Dalai reports modestly about his visionary initiative Earthgardens in Guatemala. Earthgardens provides opportunities for girls to realize and practice their inherent leadership potential, particularly as part of Eco-Teams in preserving natural biodiversity.

‘More and more 3rd world governments are proving to be a colossal waste of money as corrupt politicians get rich without addressing local needs. The Sembradores’ model of Girl Power is gaining acceptance as people realize girls are more efficient, more concerned, and less corruptible in solving the simple problems of local needs. Clean water, cheap electricity, food production, and tourist development are urgent needs in many parts of the globe. You may become a volunteer working with children or an Eco-Team assessor in Latin America or Africa.’ Please contact Kate Teggins <[email protected]> The beautiful Earthgardens website has just been updated and the stunning photos alone will tell you much about what these remarkable girls are doing. See Earthgardens.

Young Nigerian Idowu Jawando has been reflecting deeply on the shocking state of our world and his own role in fixing that.

‘Over here in Lagos civilization advances steadily with all its domination and exploitation, squeezing the juice out of all of us. But yet here and there, traces of a smile, the fragrance of love releases its perfume… things seem bearable for a while. The big question on my mind is this: Can civilization be deconstructed? A part of me thinks: Yes of course, it is the actions of individuals that create this world, these same individuals also have the power to take everything down. But how about the police, the armies, the nuclear weapons and what-have you? Things are the way they are because of force. And most especially the threat of starvation too. It forces us into activities and relationships not of our choosing. Civilization uses and discards the people, over and over, squeezing them like lemons.

‘Will the global leaders who are driven to this insane struggle for power and profit suddenly grow a compassionate nature, one that has no doubt been lost a long time ago? You and I know they won’t. With all the disasters that go on, we still see them stripping the earth bare of its life, still forcing people into precarious situations. We find ourselves at a quandary. I personally find myself in a very stifling situation, but I try my best not to let it define, instead I study it as one would study a dangerous toy….

‘Indeed I have found that tenderness impacts strength and courage in others, this is something I have seen in my own existence. But can one be tender to an oppressor? I guess if there was a mass refusal of this world and all its mechanisms, there will be a lot of headway. Such a situation in my own thinking, won’t be one of making demands to any government, but collectively and individually deciding how we want to live our beautiful mortal lives and what we want the world around us to reflect: the ugliness of mindless profit-seeking or co-creative play with earthly life.

‘Many just go through life unquestioningly, accepting the state of things as normal; as well, the walls that prevent us from truly connecting with one another, is one major obstacle. The education, religious systems only encourage people to be followers, never masters of themselves…. I will keep thinking about this. I realize it might take my whole life and then more, to tackle the evils of the world. But it would please me if I am moving inch by inch and encouraging others to do the same. The torch of freedom must never be extinguished. But must pass from generation to generation.’

Each of the inspiring individuals mentioned above is a signatory of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’. If you feel inclined to join this worldwide movement to end violence in all of its manifestations, you are welcome to sign the Charter pledge too.

Like those individuals mentioned above, signatories of the Nonviolence Charter come from a diverse range of backgrounds. They live all over the world (in 105 countries). They represent a wide range of genders, races, religions, classes and abilities. And they work on a phenomenal variety of issues with an increasing number recognizing the need to work on ending violence against children. As Gandhi noted:

‘If we are to reach real peace in this world and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with children.’

This requires us to understand the cause of violence, including violence against children – see ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’ – and to consider making ‘My Promise to Children’. In some cases, it means undertaking the personal healing necessary to nurture children powerfully. See ‘Putting Feelings First’.

Recognizing, as Gandhi put it, that ‘Earth provides enough to satisfy every [person’s] needs, but not every [person’s] greed’, others are tackling the full range of environmental and climate challenges by participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’.

And given the elite insanity that drives violence in many contexts, still other signatories are engaged in nonviolent struggles – see Nonviolent Campaign Strategy – or national liberation struggles – see Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy – to tackle violence in these contexts.

So if you are inclined to ponder the meaning of Gandhi’s life, you just need to picture a man dressed simply in khadi, walking to the sea to collect salt in defiance of the law of the British occupying power.

The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. once noted:

‘The enemy is violence.’ But for Gandhi: ‘The enemy is fear.’

This is because it is fear that drives violence but also fear that prevents us responding strategically and nonviolently to the violence in our world. As Gandhi observed: ‘You may never know what results come of your actions, but if you do nothing there will be no results.’

So as humans are beckoned to extinction within the next few years, Gandhi would remind us that ‘The future depends on what we do in the present.’

What will you do?

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is [email protected] and his website is here.

Who exactly is the NDP making friends with in Israel?

In refusing to heed a call from 200 well-known musicians, academics, trade unionists and NDP members to withdraw from the Canada-Israel Interparliamentary Group (CIIG) the party leadership cites the need for “dialogue”. But, when Jagmeet Singh, Hélène Laverdière, Murray Rankin and others call for “dialogue” they don’t specify who they are talking to.

A quick Google search of CIIG’s Israeli partner — the Israel-Canada Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group — shows that all 13 of its members have expressed views or proposed laws that most NDP members would consider odious. Below is a snapshot of the Israel-Canada Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group members — none of whom are from parties that represent Palestinian citizens of Israel — that Canadian MPs are creating relationships with:

Robert Ilatov proposed a bill in May to stop “harassment by left-wing operatives of Israeli soldiers” by criminalizing those who film Israeli troops repressing Palestinians. The bill states: “Anyone who filmed, photographed, and/or recorded soldiers in the course of their duties, with the intention of undermining the spirit of IDF soldiers and residents of Israel, shall be liable to five years imprisonment.” Born and raised in the former Soviet Union, Ilatov also sponsored a bill to strictly limit the call to prayer from mosques and, in another attack against the 20-25% of Muslim and Christian Israelis, said it should be mandatory for judges to sing Israel’s national anthem and adhere to “the idea of the State of Israel as a Jewish state.”

Yisrael Eichler called the assimilation of US Jews a “quiet Holocaust” and labelled criticism of men who refuse to sit next to women on El Al flights “anti-Semitic” and a form of “terrorism”. In 2009 Eichler demanded a “stop [to] this wave that is turning Israel into a refuge for Russian and African non-Jews as well as criminals who flee from their native countries.” In an anti-Jewish outburst, Eichler called a fellow Knesset member “a Jewboy who tattles on his fellow Jews.”

Yoav Ben Tzur told the Knesset in 2017: “it is time to stop being afraid. It is time to apply the law to Judea and Samaria [illegally occupied Palestinian West Bank] as an inseparable part of the state of Israel.” In a stunt that required a major military mobilization and led to a Palestinian being killed, Tzur was part of a mass prayer at Joseph’s Tomb near the occupied Palestinian city of Nablus.

Yitzchak Vaknin told the Centre for Israel and Jewish affairs in 2013: “I do not support negotiations on Jerusalem at all. Jerusalem is our capital and of course we are forbidden to speak on Jerusalem because if we speak about Jerusalem then we can discuss any other city in Israel.” In 2011 Vaknin co-sponsored a bill to annex the illegal Jewish settlements of Beitar Illit, Ma’ale Adumim, Giv’at Ze’ev, Gush Etzion and Efrat to the municipality of Jerusalem. Vaknin also co-sponsored two bills  to forbid gay pride parades and in 2014 Vaknin called South Africa’s Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein “erev rav”, a derogatory term translated as “mixed multitude” or “mixed mob” of non-Jews who followed the Biblical Hebrews from Egypt and made their lives miserable.

Elazar Stern told Belgian newspaper L’Echo in January that “all embassies should be” in Jerusalem and that Europe should “stop supporting Palestinian terrorism.” Stern co-sponsored a recent bill calling on Israel to withhold some Palestinian customs duties it gathers as the occupying power.

Nachman Shai repeatedly justified the killing of Palestinians during his time as the Israeli military’s chief spokesman between 1988 and 1991. In 2015 he ran to chair the explicitly racist Jewish National Fund/Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael and called the term leftist “a stain.”

Tali Ploskov proposed a bill to deter Israeli human rights groups that give tours detailing the mistreatment of Palestinians by increasing the penalty on unlicensed tour guides. She also co-sponsored a bill designed to fight the “legal intifada” by raising the fees for Palestinians to petition Israel’s top court and another law empowering the Minister of the Interior to revoke the residency status of Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem for “Breach of Allegiance”.

Mickey Levy, then commander of the Jerusalem police, ordered the 2002 execution of a Palestinian who had been captured and disarmed before he could detonate a suicide vest. Levy said Israel should stop returning the bodies of Palestinians they kill in acts of resistance and that their families should be expelled to Gaza “if they have relatives there.” When Arab Knesset member Hanin Zoabi called Israeli soldiers “murderers” in 2016, reports the Jerusalem Post, Levy “rushed at Zoabi, nearly reaching her before he was stopped by Knesset ushers, shouting ‘You are filth!’ several times.”

Oded Forer initiated the April impeachment of Haneen Zoabi from the Knesset and legislation to disqualify Arab Knesset candidates for “calling Israel racist and calling upon countries to boycott and sanction it.” Saying “the [Arab] Joint List continues to prove that its MKs do not belong in the Knesset,” Forer claimed “the Knesset has become a place for terrorists and their supporters to sit in without fear.” Forer also submitted a bill — largely targeting tenured professors — that could impose up to 10 years in prison for those who incite violence against the state.Forer said: “the expansion of incitement to public events has become a real danger. Calls for incitement and for harm to be caused to the State of Israel should not be heard among the masses and certainly not in events and places financed with the money of Israeli taxpayers.”

Meirav Ben-Ari said the government should “help” Jews living in a Tel Aviv neighbourhood with many Africans. “You go to the south of Tel Aviv, it’s a different state,” Ben-Ari said. “It’s like Sudan mixed with Eritrea mixed with Darfur.” Ben-Ari added that she doesn’t go there because it’s too dangerous. In 2015 she called for the prosecution of an Arab member of the Knesset. “A member of Knesset who acts against the Knesset and the State of Israel, his immunity should be reconsidered.”

Sharren Haskel wrote recently about “Palestinians’ desire to obliterate the Jewish future in the Middle East” and told CBC she “would love to see Canada move its embassy” to Jerusalem. In July Haskel initiated a government program “to prevent miscegenation” (romantic relationships between Jews and non-Jews). Using a Hebrew word that literally translates as “assimilation,” but is commonly used as a euphemism for miscegenation, she told Israel Hayom paper: “Young [Jewish] men and women from all over the world will arrive and form relationships with local young men and women, in order to prevent assimilation and strengthen the connection to Judaism.”

In this article I detail some of the views of the two chairs of the Israel-Canada Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group. The more openly racist and anti-Palestinian of the two, Anat Berko just put forward a bill to jail individuals who display Palestinian flags at demonstrations and expressed support for a former soldier who shot and killed a wounded Palestinian in Hebron in 2016.

Which is the best way for the NDP to promote justice and peace? To accept and normalize such views and policies by making friends with these politicians? Or to withdraw from the CIIG to send a message that the State of Israel is currently on a path that is unacceptable to the NDP and its members?

Please ask [email protected],murray. [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected] to withdraw from the Canada–Israel Interparliamentary Group.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This book is a personal account of a US American professor about his volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) against the Israeli occupation in Palestine in the summer of 2014. His eyewitness report tells the story about oppression, subjugation and the daily sufferings and injustices of the Palestinians People under the Israeli occupation regime.

Right from the outset, Richard Hardigan, a University professor from California, sets the record straight: There can’t be a balanced or neutral point of view concerning the Israeli/Palestine conflict. When helpless children are beaten up, or a civilian population is crushed by military might, “neutrality is not an option.” Quoting Bishop Desmond Tutu said: 

“if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”

Having taught at different universities in Egypt, the author traveled by bus to Israel visiting the occupied territories. What he saw was a shock and made a deep impression on him. He visited Hebron where a few hundred settlers guarded by more than 3 000 heavily armed soldiers make the life over the original inhabitants a living hell. He traveled to Qalqilia, a city surrounded by an Apartheid Wall that destroyed economic growth. He saw the ghetto wall surrounding Bethlehem. He also had to experience waiting in line in the blistering sun crossing Qualandya checkpoint experiencing himself the arrogance and the sense of superiority of young Israeli soldiers that the Palestinians have to endure daily.

This book gives daily accounts, starting on 17 June till 26 July 2014. His visit coincides with the events before the military onslaught on the Gaza Strip where 2 000 people were killed. The author experienced the daily humiliations ant the brutality of the occupation at first hand. His report corrects the illusions way too many have about “beautiful Israel,” its intentions, policies, and practices. Despite the rampant injustices and hardship the People of Palestine have to suffer on a daily basis, Hardigan can see no sign of surrender; on the contrary, their resistance and determination to fight for their rights are resilient. The mere existence of the Palestinian People disapproves David Ben-Gurion‘s saying:

The old will die and the young will forget.  

The daily reports reveal a depressing and inhumane reality of which the Western readers, especially the American ones, have not the faintest idea. For Hardigan, to end the occupation is to convince Israel’s benefactor, the US government. The people in the US have to be informed of what is going on with American help and sufficient financial support. But under the Trump administration, this is a hopeless cause. Hardcore Zionist has hijacked US Middle Eastern policy and to try to blackmail the Palestinian leadership into submission to sign a document of unconditional surrender. Despite their collaboration with the Israeli occupier, not even Mahmud Abbas is willing to sign such a document.

To understand the described unbelievable sufferings of the Palestinians, one can’t understand the ignorance of Western societies and their dance attendance on Israeli politicians who come on state visits. Especially Netanyahu and his security establishment have to be shown the red card. 

The book is excellently written. It gives a different view then the mainstream media. It should be widely spread. It has to get to the ordinary folks in the US. If Americans knew about the misuse of their Dollars, change might come about in Palestine.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Dr. Ludwig Watzal is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The Other Side of the Wall: An Eyewitness Account of the Occupation in Palestine

Author: Richard Hardigan

Publisher: Cune (January 8, 2018)

ISBN-10: 1614572038

ISBN-13: 978-1614572039

Click here to order.

.

.

“We are dealing with a criminal undertaking at a global level … and there is an ongoing war, it is led by the United States, it may be carried out by a number of proxy countries, which are obeying orders from Washington … The global war on terrorism is a US undertaking, which is fake, it’s based on fake premises. It tells us that somehow America and the Western world are going after a fictitious enemy, the Islamic state, when in fact the Islamic state is fully supported and financed by the Western military alliance and America’s allies in the Persian Gulf. … They say Muslims are terrorists, but it just so happens that terrorists are Made in America. They’re not the product of Muslim society, and that should be abundantly clear to everyone on this floor. … The global war on terrorism is a fabrication, a big lie and a crime against humanity.” (source) (source)

The quote above comes from prominent author and Canadian economist Dr. Michel Chossudovsky, who is Professor emeritus of Economics at the University of Ottawa’s Emeritus Professor of Economics, at the International Conference on the New World Order in Kuala Lumpur (2015), organized and sponsored by the Perdana Global Peace Foundation. You can find a full video of that conference at the end of this article.

“What is at stake is more than one small country; it is a big idea, a new world order, where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind: peace, and security, freedom, and the rule of law.” – George Bush Sr. (source)

“I think his (Obama’s) task will be to develop an overall strategy for America in this period, when really a New World Order can be created.” – Henry Kissinger, CNBC

The conference featured numerous speakers, such as Dr. Thomas PM Barnett, an American military geostrategist and Chief Analyst at Wikistrat. He has also held numerous insider positions, one of them being adviser to former Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld. President of the International Movement for A Just World, Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, and Former Editor of the Japan Times, Yoichi Shimatsu, were also in attendance, and the event was headed by Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, who was the fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia (for 22 years) and is currently the President of Perdana Global Peace Foundation. [currently the Prime Minister of Malaysia]

It’s great to see a number of academics and professionals come together to create awareness about what seems to be a global military agenda towards a massive surveillance state and a new world order — more specifically, a one world government.

The New World Order 

Prior to ‘credible’ people coming forward in an attempt to create awareness about the New World Order agenda, it was considered a conspiracy by most. It’s quite disturbing that a conference like this does not receive any mainstream media attention, and it’s even more disturbing that it would need to be aired on mainstream television in order to be taken seriously by the masses. The grip that corporate media has on the minds of the masses is strong, and it does a great job at keeping the world ignorant and oblivious to events and concerns being raised by many experts, in various fields, from all over the world.

The New World order is the supposed goal of a handful of global elitists who are pushing for a one world government and a heightened national security state. In order to accomplish this goal, this group uses false flag terrorism and the fear of global threats to impose increased security measures on domestic populations (like Bill C-51) to justify the invasion of other countries (like Iraq and 9/11, for example).

False flag terrorism is run by covert operations designed to deceive and manipulate in such a way as to appear as though they had been carried out by groups, nations, or entities other than those who actually planned and executed them.

“All three buildings were destroyed by carefully planned, orchestrated and executed controlled demolition.” – Professor Lynn Margulis, Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts at Amherst and National Academy of Science member, one of many academics who has been very outspoken regarding 9/11 (source) (source)

“The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al-Qaeda, and any informed intelligence officer knows this. But, there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an intensified entity representing the ‘devil’ only in order to drive TV watchers to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the United States.” – Former British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook

This ‘group’ has been using foreign threats to heighten security, take away our rights, and invade other countries. Virtually the  entire world is now covered with United States military bases, with the exception of Russia and a few other countries. And we’ve been warned about this before; Eisenhower warned us to guard against the rise of misplaced power and the acquisition of unwarranted influence by the military industrial complex. President Kennedy warned us about a group that thrives off of the potential of an increased need for security, and how it would be seized upon by those “anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment.”

“Al Qaeda and the Al Qaeda affiliated organizations, including the Islamic State, are not independent organizations, they are sponsored, and they are sponsored by the United States and its allies. It is documented that prior to 2011, there was a process of recruitment of mujahideen to fight in Syria, and this was coordinated by NATO and the Turkish high command. This report is confirmed by Israeli news sources and unequivocally, we are dealing with a state-sponsorship of terrorism, the recruitment of mercenaries, the training and the financing of terrorism.” – Dr. Michel Chossudovsky (source)

Are we seeing the same thing with ISIS? It seems the path towards a New World Order isn’t really possible without a constant threat of war and terrorism.

Who is this group? Well, Dr. Chossudovsky believes it originates with those who control the US, Israel, and other allies, but who is controlling these countries and this massive global agenda?

“A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many, and various, and powerful interests, combined into one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in the banks.” – John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President of the United States, from 1825-1832. He was also a political theorist during the first half of the 19th century. (source)

You can view more statements like the one above from various presidents and politicians HERE.

The New World order also deals with legislation that we never really hear about. For example, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad stated that the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) was strategically aimed at dominating the world economy, and marks another step closer to the global dominance of those who orchestrated it.

Think about it for a moment, if there is a group of people using various governments to force their will upon the world, heighten the national security state by means of manufactured false flag threats and more, what are we dealing with here? If the same people who are portrayed as patriotic — men and women defending their land and fighting for their country — are actually pursuing terrorists that were created and funded by their own government, what is really going on here? And why do so many politicians, academics and professionals spend their time trying to notify the world, without a peep from mainstream media?

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

The tragic episode that caused the death of 15 Russian air force personnel has had immediate repercussions on the situation in Syria and the Middle East. On September 24, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu informed allies and opponents that the delivery of the S-300 air-defense systems to the Syrian Arab Republic had been approved by President Vladimir Putin. The delivery had been delayed and then suspended as a result of Israeli pressure back in 2013.

In one sense, the delivery of S-300 batteries to Syria is cause for concern more for Washington than for Tel Aviv. Israel has several F-35 and has claimed to have used them in Syria to strike alleged Iranian weapons transfers to Hezbollah. With the S-300 systems deployed in an updated version and incorporated into the Russian command, control and communications (C3) system, there is a serious risk (for Washington) that Israel, now incapable of changing the course of events in Syria, could attempt a desperate maneuver.

It is no secret that Greece purchased S-300s from Russia years ago, and that NATO and Israel have trained numerous times against the Russian air-defense system. Senior IDF officials have often insisted that they are capable taking out the S-300s, having apparently discovered their weaknesses.

Tel Aviv’s warning that it will attack and destroy the S-300 battery should not be taken as an idle threat. It is enough to look at the recent downing of Russia’s Il-20 surveillance aircraft to understand how reckless a desperate Israel is prepared to be. Moreover, more than one IDF commander has over the years reiterated that a Syrian S-300 would be considered a legitimate target if threatening Israeli aircraft.

At this point, it is necessary to add some additional information and clarify some points. Greece’s S-300s are old, out of maintenance, and have not had their electronics updated. Such modern and complex systems as the S-300s and S-400s require maintenance, upgrades, and often replacement of parts to improve hardware. All this is missing from the Greek batteries. Secondly, it is the operator who uses the system (using radar, targeting, aiming, locking and so forth) that often makes the difference in terms of overall effectiveness. Furthermore, the system is fully integrated into the Russian C3 system, something that renders useless any previous experience gleaned from wargaming the Greek S-300s. No Western country knows the real capabilities and capacity of Syrian air defense when augmented and integrated with Russian systems. This is a secret that Damascus and Moscow will continue to keep well guarded. Yet two years ago, during the operations to free Aleppo, a senior Russian military officer warned (presumably alluding to fifth-generation stealth aircraft like the F-35 and F-22) that the range and effectiveness of the Russian systems may come as a surprise.

The following are the words of Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu concerning the deployment of the S-300 to Syria and its integration with other Russian systems:

“Russia will jam satellite navigation, onboard radars and communication systems of combat aircraft, which attack targets in the Syrian territory, in the Mediterranean Sea bordering with Syria. We are convinced that the implementation of these measures will cool hotheads and prevent ill-considered actions threatening our servicemen. Otherwise, we will respond in line with the current situation. Syrian troops and military air defense units will be equipped with automatic control systems, which have been supplied to the Russian Armed Forces. This will ensure the centralized management of the Syrian air defense forces and facilities, monitoring the situation in the airspace and prompt target designation. Most importantly, it will be used to identify the Russian aircraft by the Syrian air defense forces.”

If the Israelis will follow through with their reckless attempts to eliminate the S-300 (if they can find them in the first place, given that they are mobile), they will risk their F-35s being brought down. The US military-industrial complex would suffer irreparable damage. This would also explain why Israel (and probably the US) has for more than five years put enormous pressure on Moscow not to deliver the S-300 to Syria and Iran. The US State Department’s reaction over the future purchase by Turkey and India of the S-400 confirms the anxiety that US senior officials as well as generals are experiencing over the prospect of allies opting for the Russian systems. This would allow for a comparison with weapons these allies purchased from the US, leading to the discovery of vulnerabilities and the realization of the US weapons’ relative inferiority.

Given Tel Aviv’s tendency to place its own interests above all others, it would not be surprising to find them using the possibility of attacking the S-300 with their F-35s as a weapon to blackmail Washington into getting more involved in the conflict. For the United States, there are two scenarios to avoid. The first is a direct involvement in the conflict with Russia in Syria, which is now unthinkable and impractical. The second – much more worrying for military planners – concerns the possibility of the F-35’s capabilities and secrets being compromised or even being shown not to be a match against air-defense systems nearly half a century old.

An illuminating example of how the United States operates its most advanced aircraft in the region was given in eastern Syria around Deir ez-Zor. In this part of Syria, there is no threat from any advanced air-defense systems, so the US is often free to employ its F-22 in certain circumstances. The Russian military has repeatedly shown radar evidence that unequivocally shows that when Russian Su-35s appear in the same skies as the F-22, the US Air Force simply avoids any confrontation and quickly withdraws such fifth-generation assets as the F-22. The F-35 is not even ready in its naval variant, and has yet to be deployed on a US aircraft carrier near the Middle Eastern theater or the Persian Gulf; nor is it present in any US military base in the region. The US simply does not even consider using the F-35 in Syria, nor would it risk its use against Russian air defenses. Israel is the only country that so far may have already used these aircraft in Syria; but this was before the S-300 came onto the scene.

The F-35 program has already cost hundreds of billions of dollars and will soon reach the exorbitant and surreal figure of over 1 trillion dollars. It has already been sold to dozens of countries bound by decades-long agreements. The F-35 has been developed as a multi-role fighter and is expected to be the future backbone of NATO and her allies. Its development began more than 10 years ago and, despite the countless problems that still exist, it is already airborne and combat-ready, as the Israelis insist. From the US point of view, its employment in operations is played down and otherwise concealed. The less data available to opponents, the better; though the real reason may lie in a strong fear of any revelation of potential weaknesses of the aircraft damaging future sales. At this time, the Pentagon’s marketing of the F-35 is based on the evaluations provided by Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer, and on the tests carried out by the military who commissioned it to Lockheed Martin. Obviously, both Lockheed Martin and the US Air Force have no interest in revealing any weaknesses or shortcomings, especially publicly. Corruption is a big thing in Washington, contrary to common assumptions.

The combination of Israel’s ego, its inability to change the course of events in Syria, coupled with the loss of its ability to fly throughout the Middle East with impunity due to Syria now being equipped with a superior air defense – all these factors could push Israel into acting desperately by using the F-35 to take out the S-300 battery. Washington finds itself in the unenviable position of probably having no leverage with Israel over the matter ever since losing any ability to steer events in Syria.

With the Russian air-defense systems potentially being spread out to the four corners of the world, including China, India, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and who knows how many other countries waiting in the queue, Russia continues to increase its export capacity and military prestige as it demonstrates its control of most of the Syria’s skies. With the introduction of the the S-500 pending, one can imagine the sleepless nights being spent by those in the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin’s headquarters worrying about the possibility of an F-35 being taken down by an S-300 system manufactured in 1969.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Federico Pieraccini is an independent freelance writer specialized in international affairs, conflicts, politics and strategies. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author.

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.

To reverse the tide, we call upon our readers to participate in an important endeavor.

Our objective is to recruit one thousand committed “volunteers” among our 50,000 Newsletter 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.

In Plan B, Consider Making a Donation and/or becoming a Global Research Member. 

*     *     *

Trump’s Middle East Policy Takes a Kicking at UN Assembly

By James Reinl, October 01, 2018

At one of several events about Iran’s missile-building and support for foreign militias, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was heckled by a woman audience member who was expelled after yelling: “We’re sick of you killing these Iranians.”

Donald Trump, The Manchurian Candidate and The Russia Probe. The Rosenstein Comey Mueller Intrigue

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, September 30, 2018

The outcome of the Rosenstein affair is uncertain. It is intimately related to the history of Russia-Gate which was launched prior to the November 2016 elections. Russia-Gate consisted in presenting Trump as a Manchurian candidate controlled by the Kremlin.

Mass Murder, Violence and the U.S. Social Structure

By Vince Montes, September 30, 2018

C. Wright Mills had warned about the excessive bureaucratization in the social sciences during his time, but he could not have envisioned the tremendous amount of fragmented analyses that occurs when attempts to understand the structure of U.S. society.

Global Wealth Concentration: The Global Power Elite Drive Amazon Share Value to a Trillion Dollars 

By Peter Phillips, September 30, 2018

Exciting news for capitalism was the recent achievement of trillion-dollar value for both Amazon and Apple, making them the first corporations to obtain such a lofty status. Amazon’s skyrocketing growth makes its CEO, Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person with an $160 billion net worth.

Security, Safety, Security! Dictatorship by Democracy

By Peter Koenig, September 30, 2018

Does anybody have an idea on what this security and safety industry – the machines and apparatuses, and ever newly invented security gadgets – cost? – And the profit they bring to the war and security industry – and their shareholders, many of whom are former high-ranking US and other western government officials? – The airport security business alone is estimated at between US$ 25 and 30 billion per year.  

Bombing Libya: The Origins of Europe’s Immigration Crisis

By William Blum, September 30, 2018

The world will long remember the present immigrant crisis in Europe, which has negatively affected countless people there, and almost all countries. History will certainly record it as a major tragedy. Could it have been averted? Or kept within much more reasonable humane bounds?

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.