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As we detailed earlier, in what appears to be the latest escalation in the UK government’s campaign to blame Russia for the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal, his daughter Yulia Skripal and three other seemingly random Britons (one of whom succumbed to the deadly Novichok nerve agent used in the attacks), British prosecutors are saying they have “sufficient evidence” to charge Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, both Russian nationals, with conspiracy to murder Skripal, as well as the attempted murder of his daughter and police detective Nick Bailey, according to Reuters.

The news comes nearly two months after investigators said they had identified the suspected perpetrators of the Novichok attack by crossing referencing CCTV feeds with records of people who entered the country around that time.

There’s just one thing… About that CCTV feed!

Authored by Craig Murray,

Russia has apparently developed an astonishing new technology enabling its secret agents to occupy precisely the same space at precisely the same time.

These CCTV images released by Scotland yard today allegedly show Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Borishov both occupying exactly the same space at Gatwick airport at precisely the same second. 16.22.43 on 2 March 2018. Note neither photo shows the other following less than a second behind.

There is no physically possible explanation for this. You can see ten yards behind each of them, and neither has anybody behind for at least ten yards. Yet they were both photographed in the same spot at the same second.

The only possible explanations are:

1) One of the two is traveling faster than Usain Bolt can sprint

2) Scotland Yard has issued doctored CCTV images/timeline.

Will any mainstream media organizations question this publicly?

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Featured image is from Zero Hedge.

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South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has said that the technical recession announced inside the country and internationally is only a transitional phase.

The ruling African National Congress (ANC) leader and head-of-state will be standing for elections in less than one year. Reports of an economic slump are being utilized by the opposition to cast aspersions on the continent’s oldest liberation movement turned political party.

Ramaphosa came into office from the deputy presidency with the resignation of former ANC leader and President Jacob Zuma in February. Both the domestic opposition to Zuma in and outside the ruling party, along with international interests, attributed the slump in economic performance prior to early 2018 to the atmosphere generated by allegations of corruption against the former president. 

With the assumption of the presidency by Ramaphosa the leading economic indicators improved. Nonetheless, Ramaphohsa, a co-founder and former Secretary General of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), a leading affiliate of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), sought to create an image that the political situation was stabilized and ripe for foreign investment. Ramaphosa knew that he had to unite the ANC internally and reinforce the strained relations between the ruling party and its allies within COSATU, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the South African National Civic Organizations (SANCO).

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete at swearing in ceremony, Feb. 15, 2018

Yet other long standing issues require addressing before the ANC can rest assured of not only recapturing the presidency and parliament in 2019, notwithstanding on a level which is approaching a two-thirds majority. Opposition parties remain far behind while the alliance of convenience between the right-wing Democratic Alliance and the putative “left” Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) appears to have imploded. (See this)

A resolution passed jointly from the EFF and the ANC by the National Assembly in late February called for the seizure of European settler-owned land absent of compensation. White farmers became nervous about the prospects of losing their ill-gotten wealth. This is obviously a key element in the recessionary spiral which is dominating the political landscape.

Stats SA reported on September 4 that there was -0.7% negative growth in the second quarter of 2018. In addition, a revised assessment of performance in the first quarter was placed at a 2.7% contraction. 

A recession under capitalism is declared when there is two consecutive quarters of negative growth within the national economy. Other aspects of the malaise are manifested through the more than 27% official unemployment rate in South Africa.

In the agricultural industry production fell by 29.2% in the second quarter right after an even larger drop of 33.6 in the first quarter. The causes behind this decline is said to be resulting from crop failures due to drought in the Western Cape and a hailstorm in Mpumalanga. 

On September 5 the value of the South African rand also went down with the realization of a renewed recession, said to be the first one since 2009. However, and surprising to many, there was a slight rebound by the following day with one rand being equal to $0.065 in United States dollars as financial publications said that the South African currency was too undervalued. 

South African Business Live online publication noted in a report about the currency situation that:

“The rand enjoyed something of a reprieve in mid-morning trade on Thursday (Sept. 6), strengthening slightly against the dollar while government borrowing costs climbed down from nine-month highs. The relief rally in local assets coincided with the Moody’s report, noting that SA is in a technical recession. The weaker-than-expected economic performance adds to the fiscal and monetary policy challenges posed by the 20% depreciation of the rand against the dollar so far this year, the ratings agency said in a statement.” (Sept. 6)

Who Controls South Africa?

The country became a key player in the supply of strategic minerals and other natural resources during the late 19^th and 20^th centuries. Even today there are some of the world’s largest reserves of gold, platinum, iron ore and coal in South Africa. 

However, within a national context, mining constitutes less than 7% of the economic output down from 21% during the 1970s. Mine owners point to lower prices and rising production costs for the problems within the industry.   

Since the 1990s, the economy has been dominated by the tertiary sector including wholesale and retail trade, tourism and communications, constituting 65% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Stats SA reveals that 20% of the economy is held by the financial sector.

It is the financial sector as well which is facing significant challenges. One firm which analyzes the banking industry explained that in recent years there has been decline in performance which has clearly contributed to the economic crisis.

Consultancy.co.za reported earlier in 2018 saying:

“The slump in South Africa’s GDP has affected most sectors of the country’s economy, but perhaps none more so than the banking sector. A new report from global professional services firm EY reveals that banking revenues in South Africa are currently growing at their slowest rate since the Global Financial Crisis.” (March 19)

This same article goes on further to emphasize:

“The country’s banking sector is dominated by four major banking institutions, namely Standard Bank, Barclays South Africa, Nedbank, and FirstRand. In order to cope with the regulatory and technological disruption, these banks were relying on the consulting industry to help with business transformation and IT architecture…. EY reveals that the banking sector had a frustrating year last year, having registered a relatively good performance in the first half of the year, but pointing back downwards by the second half. GDP growth in South Africa stood at 1.3% last year, which represents an increase from 0.5% in 2016, but a major dip from 2012 and 2013 levels of 2.5% and 1.8% respectively. Growth in headline earnings for the banking sector, however, fell by 0.9% from 6.6% in 2016 to 5.7% in 2017. These levels are extremely low when compared to the 2014 and 2015 levels of more than 16%, and represent the lowest rate of growth for the country’s banks since the Global Financial Crisis in 2009.” 

The Land Question and National Wealth

Overall since 1994 when the ANC came to power, the overwhelmingly majority African population controls only a small portion of the economy. As it relates to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in 2017, only 3% of shares were owned by the indigenous people.

South African economy by proportion of sectors in 2017.

Skilled and professional fields are continuing to be dominated by Europeans. Even after years of initiatives such as Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), only 14% of top management positions are held by Africans although they make up 78% of the labor force. (The Conversation, Jan. 31, 2017) 

Land ownership which was a key demand within the national liberation struggle has fallen far below of what is needed and desired. White-controlled mining firms, factories and agro-business enterprises represent the bulk of land usage. At the time of the end of apartheid 80% of the land was in the hands of the European settlers. Since 1994 land reform has been at a snail’s pace with the most optimistic estimates of some 10% being transferred to people within the African majority. 

The debate surrounding land reform is clearly a precipitating factor in the current economic crisis gripping South Africa. Imperialist states such as the U.S. have expresses concern over the redistribution of commercial farms.

Republican President Donald Trump stated during August that he was directing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to investigate the plight of white farmers as it relates to the violence directed against them and the impact on their status if the constitution is amended to nationalize the land without compensation.

South African political officials responded expeditiously by countering the tone of Trump’s comments emphasizing the right of self-determination and sovereignty of the country. This does not, however, shield South Africa from possible sanctions and other forms of intervention into their internal affairs by the West operating in conjunction with the white-dominated ruling class inside the country.

The lessons of neighboring Zimbabwe since 2000 remain vivid when the ruling ZANU-PF party passed legislation legalizing the expropriation of over 50% of farms controlled by the British settlers who had taken the land as part of the 19^th century colonial process. Draconian sanctions, the creation and financial backing of pro-Western opposition groupings, along with an intensive destabilization program through the corporate media and an aggressive diplomatic offensive could easily be enacted against the ANC government in South Africa. 

Mindful of the international balance of economic power, Ramaphosa has again sought to minimize the concerns of the whites and their international supporters. In a letter published as an opinion piece in the Financial Times on August 23, Ramaphosa said:

“This is no land grab. Nor is it an assault on the private ownership of property. The proposals will not erode property rights, but will instead ensure that the rights of all South Africans, and not just those who currently own land, are strengthened.”

Despite these proclamations by the president, the African masses of workers, farmers, rural proletarians and youth cannot move forward without radical economic transformation. The ANC and its allies must rely on the African majority to maintain its political authority in the event of a worsening economic crisis engendered by the crisis in capitalist production and exchange coupled with the desire to maintain the status quo.    

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

All images in this article are from the author.

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The “Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement Initiative” jointly proposed by Senators Marco Rubio and three others threatens the US’ partners with the downgrading of bilateral relations and possible suspension of aid if they dare to recognize Beijing as the legitimate government of China and join its One Belt One Road (OBOR) global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, desperately hoping that this financial blackmail will be enough to get Taiwan’s last 17 allies to remain loyal to it.

“Deep States” Join The Silk Road

Taiwan, and by extension the US, was recently dealt a string of defeats after El Salvador became the third country this year to switch its recognition from Taipei to Beijing as the legitimate government of China, which Washington believes was encouraged by the People’s Republic promising it and the other “defectors” generous economic aid and the opportunity to participate in its One Belt One Road (OBOR) global vision of New Silk Road connectivity. That explanation only scratches the surface of the story, however, because the deeper significance in these developments is that China didn’t just “bribe” the leaders of each of those countries like it may have done in the past when similar instances occurred, but actually managed to convince their permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep states”) of the wisdom of joining forces to revolutionize the world order through OBOR’s paradigm-changing potential.

Prior to the unveiling of this global series of megaprojects in 2013, there would probably be a lot of truth to the notion that China just paid off a foreign head of state and that was that, but with Beijing having dedicated itself to serving as the engine for gradually reforming the international system through its worldwide connectivity initiatives, “defections” such as the ones that happened earlier this year need to be understood in a completely different context. New Chinese partners like El Salvador are no longer just pocketing a few bucks and then turning back to Taiwan in a bid to squeeze more money out of it to reconsider its decision, but are committing themselves to Beijing’s alternative vision of International Relations and economic development, which poses an enormous threat to the US’ existing but progressively weakening hegemony, hence the need to make the public appearance of seeming to do something about it.

The TAIPEI Act

Flip-Flopping Across The World

China’s “Trans-Oceanic Railroad” (TORR), which the author extensively analyzed in one of the chapters of his book-length analysis on South American geopolitics, could also lead to Paraguay jumping on the “defection” bandwagon as well, especially if its latest decision to return its embassy in “Israel” to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem is any indication of which way the wind is blowing with its new government. As for Africa, eSwatini (formerly known as Swaziland), is functionally irrelevant in the diplomatic and economic domains except for its symbolic value as Taiwan’s last continental ally, so it wouldn’t matter whether China “poaches” it or not, to be honest. The Pacific Island countries also don’t matter much apart from their symbolism, but China’s alleged “weaponization of tourism” in Palau – one of Taipei’s last partners – might point to Beijing “playing hardball” to change the status quo there too.

Towards A “New Washington Consensus”?

Understanding these dynamics, it’ll take a lot more than the threat of financial blackmail to retain Taiwan’s last allies because Beijing could easy offer these tiny holdouts generous packages of aid to bide them over in the interim period between the US’ downscaling of ties with them and their upgrading of importance in OBOR. For this reason, the US might end up adding a “carrot” to the TAIPEI Act “stick” by offering these countries a role in the “New Washington Consensus” that the author wrote about earlier this summer in regards to North Korea , though these won’t be credible enough to their “deep states” unless there’s a high-profile example to prove the profitability of this concept. Barring that, it’s foreseeable that more countries might “defect” from Taiwan to China despite (or possibly even, with China’s urging, to spite) the TAIPEI Act, thus making it more symbolic than substantial in the grand scheme of things.

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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

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

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Featured image: Saudi Prince Ahmed engages with protesters

Signs of opposition to policies of Saudi King Salman and his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and potentially increased domestic polarization have in the past week spilled on to the streets of London while a just released report questioned the economic and political benefits of Britain’s relationship with the kingdom.

The London incidents, involving a brother of King Salman as well as an assault on a Saudi critic, suggest a long suspected greater degree of domestic questioning of Saudi Arabia’s 3.5-year-old ill-fated war in Yemen than has been publicly evident until now.

The Salmans have sought to crush dissent with mass arrests of activists, religious scholars, businessmen and members of the ruling Al Saud family; a power and asset grab last November under the mum of an anti-corruption campaign that targeted some of Saudi elite’s most prominent figures; and legal measures criminalizing criticism.

Although focused on British-Saudi economic and political relations, the report by King’s College London and the Oxford Research Group calls into question not only British but also by implication long-standing Western willingness to turn a blind eye to the kingdom’s violations of human rights and its conduct of the Yemen war that has produced one of the worst humanitarian crises in post-World War Two history.

The London incidents coupled with increasing European questioning of arms sales to Saudi Arabia, including this week’s cancellation by Spain of the sale of 400 laser-guided precision bombs, suggests that Saudi Arabia is finding it more difficult to keep domestic dissent and international criticism under wraps. Spain follows in the footsteps of Germany, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium who have suspended some military sales.

The Spanish cancellation came on the heels of last month’s Saudi-Canadian spat sparked by a call on Saudi Arabia by Canada’s ambassador to the kingdom, Dennis Horak, to release detained women activists, including Samar Badawi, the sister-in-law of a recently naturalized Canadian citizen, Ensaf Haidar.

Raif Badawi (Source: Change.org)

Ms. Haidar is married to Ms. Badawi’s brother, Raif Badawi, who was arrested in 2012 and sentenced to ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes for promoting freedom of expression and women’s rights.

It also came in the wake of the withdrawal of Malaysian troops from the 41-nation, Saudi-sponsored Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition (IMCTC) and the closure in Malaysia of the Saudi-backed King Salman Centre for International Peace (KSCIP).

In a rare public distancing from the Salmans, Saudi Prince Ahmed bin Abdelaziz – one of the few still living sons of the founder of Saudi Arabia and a younger brother of King Salman, asked anti-Saudi protesters on a London street chanting

“down, down Al Saud” and “Al Saud criminal family”: “What does the al-Saud family have to do with your chants? We have nothing to do with what is happening (in Yemen). Certain officials are responsible.”

Asked by protesters who he held responsible, Prince Ahmed, who served as deputy interior minister for 37 years and briefly as interior minister under King Salman’s predecessor, King Abdullah, said “the king and his heir apparent,” a reference to King Salman and Prince Mohammed.

The state-run Saudi News Agency subsequently quoted Prince Ahmed as seeking to roll back his comments captured on video by saying that he said that “the King and the Crown Prince are responsible for the state and its decisions. This is true for the security and stability of the country and the people.”

Meanwhile, video on social media showed Ghanem al-Dosari, who hosts a satirical show on YouTube critical of Saudi Arabia, being accosted by supporters of King Salman and Prince Mohammed.

In a bid to stymie criticism, Saudi prosecutors this week reportedly sought the death penalty against prominent cleric Salman Al-Odah who was detained a year ago.

“The Saudi attorney general accused my father @salman_alodah of 37 charges and asked for his execution,” his son Abdullah said in a tweet.

He said some of the charges were related to comments Mr. Al-Odah had posted on Twitter and membership in organizations associated with Qatar and Qatari-Egyptian Islamic scholar Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, who is close to the Muslim Brotherhood. Mr. Al-Odah has 14 million Twitter followers.

Prosecutors last month demanded the death sentence for five human rights activists, including Israa al-Ghomgham, a Shiite activist arrested with her husband in 2015. Ms. Al-Ghomgham is thought to be the first female Saudi campaigner to face execution.

Applying a cost-benefit analysis, The Kings College/Oxford Research Group report concluded that, contrary to the projections of the government of Prime Minister Theresa May and popular perception, Britain enjoyed limited economic benefit from its relationship with Saudi Arabia while suffering considerable reputational damage.

The report noted that Britain’s US$ 8 billion in exports to Saudi Arabia accounted for a mere one percent of total exports in 2016. The British Treasury reaped US$ 38.5 million in revenues from arms sales or a paltry 0.004 percent of the Treasury’s total income in 2016. Overall, Britain’s defense industry produced in 2010/11 only one percent of the country’s total output and created a meagre 0.6 percent of all jobs.

The analysis stroked with the conclusion of a 2016 study by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) that

“arms exports cannot be said to represent an important part of the UK economy, and even less so of the labour market, despite the prominence of the ‘jobs argument’ amongst politicians and industry figures seeking to promote and defend arms exports.”

The King’s College/Oxford Research report took issue with assertions by successive British governments that trade and weapons sales as well as support for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s reform programme enabled Britain to influence Saudi policy and introduce democratic and human rights values.

“There is little evidence, based on publicly available information, that the UK exerts either influence or leverage over Saudi Arabia. In fact, there is greater evidence that Saudi Arabia exerts influence over the UK. There is a contradiction between the UK presenting itself as a progressive, liberal country and defender of the international rules-based order, while at the same time providing diplomatic cover for a regime, which, based on our analysis, is undermining that rules-based order,” the report said.

It warned that

“the UK appears to be incurring reputational costs as a result of its relationship with Saudi Arabia, while the economic benefits to the UK are questionable.”

The report’s call on the British government to critically analyse its foreign policy and limit and be more selective and transparent in in its engagement with Saudi Arabia could constitute an approach that would appeal to other European governments.

It could also attract support from some members of the US Congress, despite US President Donald J. Trump’s backing of Saudi policies, with public criticism of the kingdom mounting in Europe and the United States as well as growing unease among some officials and politicians.

Saudi Arabia “is a case study in what happens when a country’s supposed economic interests come into conflict with its stated norms and values and its international obligations. The situation cannot carry on indefinitely,” said Armida van Rij, one of the report’s authors.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title and a co-authored volume, Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa as well as Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa and just published China and the Middle East: Venturing into the Maelstrom. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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image: Members of al Qaeda’s Nusra Front

All wars are unjustifiably justified by Big Lies, drowning out hard truths – perpetrators falsely pretending that military  aggression is about democracy building and/or humanitarian intervention.

They largely get away with it because major media stick to the official state-sponsored narrative, failing the test of what journalism is supposed to be all about.

The dirtiest open secrets about war in Syria are the following:

1. It’s Obama’s war (not civil as falsely claimed), now Trump’s, waged for regime change and isolating Iran – ahead of a similar campaign to replace its legitimate government with pro-Western puppet rule.

2. Washington, NATO, Israel, and their imperial allies actively aid ISIS and other terrorists in Syria and elsewhere, using them as imperial proxies – recruiting, funding, training, directing, and arming them, including with heavy weapons able to combat the armed forces of any nation earmarked for regime change.

Israeli military censorship prohibits publishing anything about IDF high crimes of war and against humanity, as well as daily persecution of Palestinians.

It bans or redacts countless thousands of articles, documents, and other material with vital information it wants suppressed.

Israeli military censorship has been around since establishment of the Jewish state. No press freedom exists the way it’s supposed to be.

Censorship authority has final say on what can and cannot be published on topics considered sensitive – a flagrant violation of speech and media freedoms just societies consider inviolable.

Project Censored founder Prof. Carl Jensen (1929 – 2015) defined censorship as follows:

“The suppression of information, whether purposeful or not, by any method – including bias, omission, underreporting or self-censorship – that prevents the public from fully knowing what is happening in its society.”

Unlike the common practice of suppressing information in Western societies, longstanding Israeli military censorship is the law of the land – transformed into a voluntary agreement between military authorities and the media.

Israel’s censor is empowered to examine all printed material prior to publication or broadcast – applying its authority only to what relates to military and security issues.

Its censorship decisions are subject to judicial control. Israel’s Supreme Court has final say on this matter. A 1989 ruling limited censorship to material posing “tangible…clear and present danger” to the state.

Nonetheless, Israel’s military censor has broad latitude in deciding what’s fit for publication or broadcast and what’s prohibited – by claiming military or security necessity.

On September 4, the Jerusalem Post headlined: “IDF CONFIRMS: ISRAEL PROVIDED LIGHT-WEAPONS TO SYRIAN REBELS,” saying:

“The Israeli army has admitted, for the first time, that it provided large amounts of cash, weapons and ammunition to Syrian rebels (sic) in the Golan Heights.”

“Reports first surfaced of Israel providing arms and cash to rebel groups several years ago, with the regime of Bashar Assad claiming that Israel had been providing arms to terror groups and its forces had regularly seized arms and munitions with inscriptions in Hebrew.”

“The army believes that the decision to provide weapons and cash to the rebel groups along the border with Israel’s Golan Heights was the right decision.”

“On Monday, the military announced that in the past year and half alone, (the IDF) carried out 202 strikes against (alleged) Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria.”

The Jerusalem Post said Israel’s military censor ordered the publication to remove its report, its managing editor David Brinn telling RT:

“We were told by the army’s military censor to remove that part of the story…for security reasons” – material relating to arming and otherwise aiding anti-government terrorists in Syria.

The report was removed hours after publication, preserved through Google cache  – a version of the article available online.

Cached version of the Jerusalem Post article

Here is the text of the removed Jerusalem Post article:

DF confirms: Israel provided light-weapons to Syrian rebels

Bashar Assad claimed that Israel had been providing arms to terror groups and its forces had regularly seized arms and munitions with inscriptions in Hebrew.

By Anna Ahronheim – September 4, 2018 – 18:00 The Israeli army has admitted, for the first time, that it provided large amounts of cash, weapons and ammunition to Syrian rebels in the Golan Heights.

While the IDF maintains that it was not intervening in Syria’s civil war, on Monday it confirmed that as part of Operation Good Neighbor Israel had been regularly supplying Syrian rebels near its border with light weapons and ammunition in order to defend themselves from attacks and a substantial amount of cash to buy additional arms.

Through Operation Good Neighbor, which was launched in 2016, the Israeli military had provided over 1,524 tons of food, 250 tons of clothes, 947,520 liters of fuel, 21 generators, 24,900 palettes of medical equipment and medicine.

Reports first surfaced of Israel providing arms and cash to rebel groups several years ago, with the regime of Bashar Assad claiming that Israel had been providing arms to terror groups and its forces had regularly seized arms and munitions with inscriptions in Hebrew.

According to reports Israel had been arming at least seven different rebel groups in Syria’s Golan Heights, including the Fursan al-Joulan rebel group which had around 400 fighters and had been given an estimated $5,000 per month by Israel.

“Israel stood by our side in a heroic way,” the group’s spokesperson, Moatasem al-Golani, told the The Wall Street Journalin a January 2017 report. “We wouldn’t have survived without Israel’s assistance.”

The army believes that the decision to provide weapons and cash to the rebel groups along the border with Israel’s Golan Heights was the right decision.

Israel’s aim in providing the weapons and cash to rebel groups throughout Operation Good Neighbor which shut down once the Assad regime retook control of the Golan Heights in July, was to keep troops belonging to Hezbollah and Iran away from Israel’s Golan Heights.

The Syrian army, backed by Russian air power and Iranian backed Shiite militia fighters, have been recapturing large swathes of territory and is now believed to have control over 70% of the war-torn country.

While Syrian troops have once again been deployed to the border with Israel, in order to prevent an escalation between the two enemy countries, Russian military police have been deployed along the Golan Heights border along with UN Peacekeepers.

Israel has warned against Iran’s entrenchment in Syria and has stressed time and again that Syrian soil can not serve as a forward operating base by Iran and that the war-torn country cannot be a waystation for arms smuggling to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

While Israel’s military had been carrying out operation against Iranian targets in Syria for several years, it’s extent only became public after an Israeli Air Force F-16 which was taking part in retaliatory strikes was downed by Syrian air defenses in February.

Last year Former Israel Air Force head Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amir Eshel stated that the IAF carried out 100 airstrikes in Syria over the past five years.

On Monday the military announced that in the past year and half alone, Israel has carried out 202 strikes against Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria.

September 2016. Netanyahu and wounded Al Qaeda rebel, at Hospital in Golan Heights (precise date unknown)

Israel is allied with Washington, NATO, the Saudis, and other regional regimes, waging war on Syria to replace its legitimate government with pro-Western puppet rule.

Russia’s intervention in September 2015 changed the dynamic on the ground, enabling Syrian forces to liberate most of the country from terrorists’ control.

What’s shaping up as the mother of all battles looms – liberating Idlib province from countless thousands of heavily armed US-supported terrorists, essential to eliminate, a vital step toward liberating the country entirely.

According to RT:

So al-Qaeda attacked the US on 9/11. The US then blew up Muslim countries to ‘seek and destroy’ al-Qaeda. Israel funds, feeds and arms al-Qaeda…

Get the picture now?*

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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This week, final stocks of emergency fuel will be delivered to critical facilities in the Gaza Strip, through the United Nations-Assisted Emergency Fuel Program. The Humanitarian Coordinator, Jamie McGoldrick, has written to the donor community requesting immediate support for the program, which provides life-saving emergency fuel to operate standby emergency power generators at critical health centers, and water and sanitation facilities in the Gaza Strip. Funds donated thus far in 2018 have been depleted.

Life-saving services in Gaza currently depend on the UN’s delivery of emergency fuel, due to an energy crisis that leaves the two million Palestinian residents of Gaza, over half of whom are children, with only 4-5 hours of electricity from the grid per day.  Based on the current electricity deficit in Gaza, a minimum of $4.5 million is required to sustain these essential services until the end of the year.

“If new funds are not received immediately, we will be facing a potentially catastrophic breakdown in essential service delivery,” said Mr. McGoldrick. “Services provided at hospitals, clinics, as well as sewage treatment, water and sanitation facilities will cease.  Some hospitals are already within a week of closing. The most vulnerable people of Gaza, who rely on public services and have limited income sources, will be the most negatively affected.”

Hospitals in the Gaza Strip only have enough fuel to support service provision just over two weeks, in total, with some facilities at greater risk: Al Aqsa Hospital in the Middle Area of the Gaza Strip, for example, only has enough emergency fuel to sustain services for just under a week, putting the lives of over 500 vulnerable patients at risk each day. These include patients being treated in intensive care; new-born babies in neonatal units; patients requiring emergency surgery; dialysis patients treated for kidney failure; and those needing emergency care. More than 4,800 patients in Gaza daily require access to lifesaving or life-sustaining health care that requires a constant supply of electricity. Of these, at least 300 are connected to life-saving medical machines such as ventilators, dialysis machines, incubators and anesthetic machines, where disruption or electricity cut-out puts patients at immediate risk of brain damage or death.

Without fuel, some 300,000 people will potentially be affected by serious public health concerns as sewage could overflow onto streets. Overall, water and wastewater services are dropping to less than 20 per cent of capacity and water availability is dropping below 50 litres per capita per day, less than half of the minimum requirement according to WHO. Additionally, some essential infrastructure risks significant damage due to lack of fuel to operate key parts, with potential loss of donor investments as a result.

“The situation in Gaza is desperate. Over a decade of blockade and unresolved internal political divisions have stripped people of their rights and left over two-thirds of the population dependent on humanitarian aid,” said Mr. McGoldrick. “We can prevent a further slide into catastrophe by ensuring that essential services continue, but we need the international community to step up immediately with support to do so.”

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A supposedly anonymous high-ranking member of the Trump Administration published an op-ed in the New York Times bragging about the existence of the so-called “steady state” that’s resisting the President’s policies from within, which is basically just a public rebranding of the “deep state” and therefore confirms everything that Trump spoke about over the years as being conspiracy facts instead of “conspiracy theories”.

The New York Times just ran an op-ed from a supposedly anonymous high-ranking member of the Trump Administration titled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration”, in which the author reveals the existence of the so-called “steady state” that’s resisting the President’s policies from within. As taken directly from the article itself:

“President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader. It’s not just that the special counsel looms large. Or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership. Or even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his downfall.

 The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.

 I would know. I am one of them.

To be clear, ours is not the popular “resistance” of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous. But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.

 That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.

…

 This isn’t the work of the so-called deep state. It’s the work of the steady state.”

In other words, the “steady state” is just the public rebranding of the “deep state”, which the Mainstream Media claimed for decades – and especially after Trump announced his candidacy – doesn’t exist and is nothing more than a “conspiracy theory”. There’s no difference between the “steady state” and the “deep state”, so “conspiracy theory” has just become conspiracy fact.

It’s at this point where one wonders what the entire purpose of revealing this actual conspiracy to the public is supposed to achieve, but the answer can be found in both the upcoming midterm elections this November and in Bob Woodward’s upcoming book about the Trump Administration, the latter of which pairs with the subsequent self-exposure of the “deep state” to form an infowar campaign designed to change voters’ perceptions about the President and his party.

Although Trump isn’t up for re-election until another two years, Americans know that he needs to retain the Republican majority in Congress in order to have any chance of passing his legislative proposals (notwithstanding “Republicans In Name Only” [RINOS] who joined the “Resistance” and are dedicated to opposing him), so the vote is basically a referendum on the President.

The very fact that something as explosive as the “deep state” was just voluntarily revealed to the American public by The Establishment itself in a bid to offset any potential Republican victory during the midterms speaks to how desperate Trump’s opponents are becoming after more and more Americans realize the success of his Presidency thus far, especially when it comes to the economy.

It also suggests that the “deep state” knows that its days are numbered if Americans vote to retain the Republican majority in Congress, hence why it’s resorting to such extreme measures. After all, there’s no other reason why they’d debunk the decades-long narrative that they built in the Mainstream Media denying their very existence and expose it as one of history’s biggest lies unless this truly was the case.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures”, as the saying goes, and this was indeed proven by what The Establishment just did by publishing the op-ed from a supposedly anonymous high-ranking source in the Trump Administration. Apparently, the “deep state” thinks that Americans are so stupid that they’ll forget their lifetime of brainwashing and embrace this shadowy cabal so long as it rebrands as the “steady state” instead.

The public’s collective intelligence hasn’t been this insulted since the same Mainstream Media told them that there’s a 99% chance that Hillary would win the 2016 presidential election, but just like back then, many of the same driving factors that propelled Trump into the White House are still present because the so-called “steady state” and its “Resistance” cohorts have deliberately sabotaged the President’s domestic agenda, which is why Americans might once again defy The Establishment this November, “deep state” be damned.

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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

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

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I am appalled and angry at the British government’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism following pressure by various Jewish Zionist groups for the same reason I am against another document the British government was pressured into adopting – the Balfour Declaration of 1917, “a short letter by Arthur Balfour to arguably one of the most influential Jewish families – the Rothschild’s.”

It is much shorter than the IHRA, and included this sentence in it:

“It being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of non-Jewish communities [in Palestine].”

As history records, everything possible has been done to “prejudice the civil and religious rights of non-Jewish communities” in Palestine, namely Palestinian non-Jewish Arabs, Christian and Muslim, who stand today without the right of self-determination in their own shrinking homeland, their material dispossession an ongoing Israeli project today.

In the White paper of 1922, while playing off Jew against Arab Palestinian, Winston Churchill attempted to mollify the latter by stating the Jewish immigration to Palestine would be controlled, that the rate of Jewish immigration would be determined by how much the economy of Palestine could absorb, adding,

it is contemplated that the status of all citizens of Palestine in the eyes of the law shall be Palestinian, and it has never been intended that they, or any section of them, should possess any other juridical status.

From then on, American Jews (in the form of the American Jewish Committee) joined their counterparts in Britain to do all they could to stir public opinion to demand a Jewish state in Palestine. For example, The New York Times described the following scene on Nov. 3 and 24, 1930:

In Madison Square Garden, twenty-five thousand people – with another twenty-five thousand outside – heard a roster of famous Jews, Zionist and non-Zionist, pillory the British Government. 

The Zionist forces that have succeeded in forcing both parties in the British government to adopt a definition of anti-Semitism that equates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism are the same forces that influenced the British government to acquiesce to the dismemberment of Palestine, a Nakba from which we continue to suffer.

As a Palestinian, I categorically reject both campaigns within the British government, the first to dispossess me, and the second to define as “anti-Semitism” my inalienable right to resist the Jewish state in Palestine that has colonized and usurped my homeland by force.

The issue of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of “antisemitism” revolves around whether that definition is in part racist itself, as the IHRA includes five points specifically focused on Israel that, in essence, equate anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism.

Many in the media take it for granted that the majority of Jews worldwide identify with Israel, a settler-colonial state in Palestine that is the bitter fruit of the Jewish Zionist movement.

Thus, whenever there is an issue having to do with Israel, you see many references in the media to the opinions and reactions of the “Jewish community” or “Jews” in the aggregate.

Writing in the Jewish Chronicle, Daniel Sugarman asks:

‘What is the IHRA definition of antisemitism? And why has Labour outraged Jews by rejecting it?’

Other articles, such as the Financial Times report (Labour’s Emily Thornberry endorses IHRA definition of anti-Semitism by Henry Mance and Jim Pickard in London, September 2, 2018), or the JP post “Outcry by UK Jewry as Labour adopts controversial antisemitism guidelines”, refer to the reaction of “UK Jewry” in the headline or in the body of the report.

Indeed, whenever Western governments talk about Israel in terms of protecting it, they mean they are protecting Jews from Palestinian Arabs and other “Arabs” generically.

They mean they are protecting Israel’s “right” to exist as an exclusivist, apartheid Jewish state in Palestine. They mean they are protecting Israel from Palestinian refugees demanding return to their homeland.

The world gets the equation that Jews/Judaism/Zionism = Israel, not simply from Israel itself and its co-option of the Holocaust, or from Western governments and their guilt over the anti-Semitism they themselves historically spawned, but also from Zionist thought, which is Jewish nationalist thought, history and culture.

In the U.S., the board of the Foundation for Jewish Studies, an independent organization whose mission is “to provide adults with high quality, in-depth encounters with Jewish thought, history, and culture”, deals with dissenting Jewish voices in the following way:

While we strongly support Israel, our programs focus only on what our mission designates, and what we have offered has been regarded as at the highest intellectual level… The Foundation does not support Professor Diner’s personal political statements, but we support free speech and civil discourse.

Squelching free speech rather than racist practices in Israel is what’s unacceptable in the statement of the FJS Board above, as it is often in discussions of BDS speech or attacks on IHRA.

Peter Cohen has this to say about the controversial IHRA points:

Under the IHRA definition – in which no less than 5 of the points are specifically focused on Israel – it is “antisemitic,” for example, to draw “comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” Thus, while it is clearly acceptable to compare Hamas to the Nazis (as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has done), Iran to the Nazis (as Netanyahu has also done) and BDS activists to the Nazis (as Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett has done), it is apparently racist to do so in the specific case of Israel. Presumably this extends to very specific and factually-grounded comparisons, such as the counting of calories going into Gaza to the counting of calories in concentration camps by the Nazis, or the Nazi policy of “concentrating” Jews into ghettos (and later into camps) with the Israel policy of concentrating Palestinians into sealed Gaza and West Bank towns that are encircled by a tightening matrix of walls, settlements, outposts, bypass roads, closed military zones and checkpoints, or the use of the “Dahiya Doctrine” in the Shujjaiya and Rafah neighborhoods of Gaza in 2014 to the collective punishments used by the Nazis in retaliation for Resistance attacks. Are such comparisons really more unacceptable than the practices that elicit them?

In July 2018, Jewish Voice for Peace spearheaded a joint statement by a worldwide coalition of Jewish groups condemning “attempts to stifle criticism of Israel with false accusations of antisemitism.”

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is increasingly being adopted or considered by western governments, is worded in such a way as to be easily adopted or considered by western governments to intentionally equate legitimate criticisms of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights with antisemitism, as a means to suppress the former.

This conflation undermines both the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality and the global struggle against antisemitism. It also serves to shield Israel from being held accountable to universal standards of human rights and international law.

These Jewish voices support “legitimate critiques of unjust Israeli policies” but still cannot decry and reject as unjust (i.e., delegitimize) the very existence of Israel as such.

But the Palestinian “Struggle for freedom, justice and equality” is, in fact, a struggle for decolonization. For us, it’s the existence of Israel, not simply its policies, that must be decried.

There are, of course, Jews who have always opposed the existence of Israel on religious grounds. And, at the beginning, there were also Jews in Israel who opposed it. In the UK when the Balfour Declaration was being cooked up, there were dissenting Jewish voices that got lost.

Today, anti-IHRA Jews in the U.K. have been swept away, once again, by the Zionist juggernaut.

As Jewish people in Manchester, England, we resent the despicable racism shown towards the Palestinians by Guardian stalwarts such as Jonathan Freedland, Polly Toynbee, Jessica Elgott, Eddie Izzard, Nick Cohen, Marina Hyde and Gaby Hinsliff among others, all saturating comment sections on mainstream news websites with attacks designed to bring down the UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and to protect Israel from accountability.

In commenting on the adoption in full of the IHRA by UK’S Labour Party, Tom Suarez marvels at Zionism’s conditioning of Jews and others to adopt its ideology:

There is no parallel to this on earth, no other political entity’s claim of ownership over people by virtue of their ethnicity. Any such claim would be universally condemned as outrageous, as abusive, and at best, laughable. But Zionism has conditioned us to believe one of the most repugnant of classic anti-Semitic tropes, that of Jews as a tribe, a ‘race’ apart, somehow distinct from the rest of humanity, and placed a pariah state in the Middle East as the tribal leader.

But today also, in the wake of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), we are beginning to hear Jewish voices, in mainstream media, pointing to Israel’s illegitimacy. Here is professor of philosophy Joseph Levine at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst saying just that:

“In fact, I claim you can’t find any genuine argument [against BDS] that isn’t guilty of breaching the limits of the reasonable in this way for the alleged right to establish the Jewish state in Palestine.”

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Note:  Much of the above was first published on Quora as answers to two questions.

Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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The Mainstream Media has been propagating the narrative that China’s only interest in “Global South” countries is to deviously ensnare them in so-called “debt traps” so that it can squeeze territorial concessions out of them afterwards such as was the case with Sri Lanka, but the fact that China is curtailing its investment in Ethiopia due to the latter’s debt issues isn’t being recognized as the “inconvenient” and contradictory fact that it is because of the peak level of cognitive dissonance that anti-Chinese forces are experiencing.

Reuters ran a story over the weekend titled “Trains delayed: Ethiopia debt woes curtail China funding”, in which the writers prove that Chinese investment in Africa’s second-most-populous country and its fastest-growing economy is slowing over concerns that Addis Ababa might have taken on too much debt over the years. The outlet also pointed to comments made by Chinese experts about the unexpected lack of profitability and sustainability of what the author has previously described as the “African CPEC”, the Chinese-funded Djibouti-Addis Ababa Railway (DAAR), though without mentioning the regional geopolitical context in which such a prognosis is being made.

Regional And Conceptual Background

To bring the reader up to speed, the UAE-facilitated Ethiopian-Eritrean rapprochement will see the landlocked giant diversify its access to the sea from its erstwhile dependence on Djibouti through a forthcoming corridor across its former rival’s territory to some of its ports on the Red Sea. Cynically speaking, there are grounds for speculating that some of the reasons why the UAE took the lead in this game-changing strategic realignment were to “pay China back” for CPEC (whose terminal port of Gwadar could one day rival and potentially surpass Dubai) and spite Djibouti for terminating its port contract in the country.

Whatever the origins behind these sudden regional developments may be, they certainly took China off guard, which explains why its experts are now revising their appraisal of DAAR’s long-term profitability and sustainability, leading to the knock-on effect of their country curtailing its investment in Ethiopia. There’s ordinarily nothing unusual about the dynamic of a foreign investor reevaluating their strategic interests in another country, but this takes on a completely different significance with China because it completely contradicts the narrative of the People’s Republic using predatory loans as a foreign policy instrument for luring “Global South” states into so-called “debt traps” prior to squeezing territorial concessions out of them afterwards.

Sri Lanka is commonly held up as the prime example of this supposed policy in action after China secured a 99-year lease over the Hambantota port following Colombo’s failure to repay its debt to Beijing. Critics of China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) vision of New Silk Road connectivity immediately concocted a conspiracy theory that Sri Lanka is the rule – not the exception – to this paradigm and that Beijing is sneakily planning to expand its global influence by replicating the Hambantota model all across the world. In turn, the US and India have been waging a coordinated infowar to convince countries to reconsider their economic relations with China.

Discrediting The “Debt Trap” Model  

Their efforts haven’t borne much fruit, though, as China just committed $60 billion in grants, loans, and investment to eager African recipients earlier this week during the triennial Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), and if the Ethiopian case is properly framed by Beijing, then it’s likely that the US and India’s infowar narrative will ultimately amount to nothing at all. Unlike what the Mainstream Media unsuccessfully tried to condition the global public to expect after decontextualizing and over-amplifying a weaponized misperception about Sri Lanka, China prudently decided to curtail its investment in Ethiopia over fears that Addis Ababa may not be able to sufficiently service its growing debt.

One should bear in mind that China’s first-ever military base is in neighboring Djibouti, so if the People’s Republic was really such an “aggressive neo-colonizing state” like it’s being made out to be by some forces, then it doesn’t make sense why it wouldn’t leverage that factor to its strategic economic advantage. Nor, for that matter, is China negotiating any sort of Hambantota-like territorial concession deal with Ethiopia in exchange for forgiving some of its debt. More and more, the truth is beginning to emerge that the Sri Lanka case study was a rare event that was maliciously exploited as a one-size-fits-all infowar model for attacking OBOR.

This realization is ironically lost on the same forces peddling the anti-OBOR narrative, however, because they’re instead more focused on sowing the seeds of doubt over China’s long-term commitment to Africa at precisely the moment that FOCAC was set to begin, with the publication of Reuters’ story just a few days before the monumental event kicked off being more than just an innocent coincidence. Another non-coincidence is that CNN all of a sudden ran a critical story about the Chinese-Ethiopian economic relationship and their political ties more generally, including accusations that Beijing bugged the Chinese-constructed African Union headquarters there.

The Shortcomings Of The New Infowar Storyline 

The previous infowar obsession over China’s so-called “debt traps” in the “Global South” has been discredited by the Ethiopian example that the Mainstream Media itself decided to popularize at this given point in time, driven to do so by the rapidly changing geostrategic situation in the Horn of Africa that’s thought to be disadvantageous to Beijing’s previous Silk Road blueprint there. This explains why a bait-and-switch is on full display in forgetting about that former narrative and moving on to a new one as needed, one which criticizes the long-term planning potential of Chinese investments and the strategic foresight that goes into them.

The Achilles’ heel of this storyline is that it presents everything through a zero-sum prism in pretending that the diversification of Ethiopia’s strategic partnerships and its renewed access to the Red Sea through Eritrea are somehow contrary to China’s interests, which is only the case if one is looking purely at the profitability of DAAR. Taking stock of the business parks and other real-sector economic investments that China has made in Ethiopia over the past decade, and recognizing that it’s to Beijing’s benefit for them to reach the global marketplace one way or another, then it actually doesn’t make much of a difference whether they use DAAR or an Eritrean-transiting corridor to do so.

The argument can surely be made that there would have been tacit strategic advantages to China’s planned monopolization of Ethiopia’s international trade through DAAR given that its African partner realistically had no other reliable outlet to the sea at that time, but that’s not the only reason why Beijing committed billions to the country, and if it was, then the People’s Republic might have reacted similar to how the infowar narrative attempted to condition the global public to expect. That hasn’t happened, however, which therefore disproves the accusations of China’s “aggressive neo-imperial ambitions” in Africa, or at least in Ethiopia.

Concluding Thoughts

While being presented as some kind of a “loss” for China, the country’s curtailed investment in Ethiopia that’s presumably due to the unexpectedly changed geostrategic situation in the Horn of Africa facilitated by the UAE isn’t anything of the kind, and it’s actually a “win” for Beijing because it shows the world that the Sri Lankan case was an exception to the rule given how it’s not being applied in any shape or form in the Ethiopian example.

This reality has already produced such cognitive dissonance in the Mainstream Media that they’re doing everything that they can to avoid it, either doubling down on their discredited narrative about the so-called Hambantota model or employing a quick bait-and-switch by all of a sudden switching the storyline to one about China’s lack of strategic foresight in order to continue piling criticism on Beijing in one way or another so as to keep the anti-OBOR infowar ongoing.

While it can’t be ruled that “another Sri Lanka” won’t ever happen, it’s equally possible that Chinese-indebted countries will go the way of Ethiopia without any territorial concessions, but a detailed study must be undertaken to determine exactly what the key differences between these two cases are and why China reacted differently to them under similar economic circumstances. Even so, the very fact that this happened proves that the US & India’s negative narratives about OBOR are off-base.

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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

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

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The time that “Boshirov and Petrov” were allegedly in Salisbury carrying out the attack is all entirely within the period the Skripals were universally reported to have left their home with their mobile phones switched off.

A key hole in the British government’s account of the Salisbury poisonings has been plugged – the lack of any actual suspects. And it has been plugged in a way that appears broadly convincing – these two men do appear to have traveled to Salisbury at the right time to have been involved.

But what has not been established is the men’s identity and that they are agents of the Russian state, or just what they did in Salisbury. If they are Russian agents, they are remarkably amateur assassins. Meanwhile the new evidence throws the previously reported timelines into confusion – and demolishes the theories put out by “experts” as to why the Novichok dose was not fatal.

This BBC report gives a very useful timeline summary of events.

At 09.15 on Sunday 4 March the Skripals’ car was seen on CCTV driving through three different locations in Salisbury. Both Skripals had switched off their mobile phones and they remained off for over four hours, which has baffled geo-location.

There is no CCTV footage that indicates the Skripals returning to their home. It has therefore always been assumed that they last touched the door handle around 9am.

CCTV4 = image of both suspects at Salisbury train station at 11:48hrs on 04 March 2018 (Source: Metropolitan Police)

But the Metropolitan Police state that Boshirov and Petrov did not arrive in Salisbury until 11.48 on the day of the poisoning. That means that they could not have applied a nerve agent to the Skripals’ doorknob before noon at the earliest. But there has never been any indication that the Skripals returned to their home after noon on Sunday 4 March. If they did so, they and/or their car somehow avoided all CCTV cameras. Remember they were caught by three CCTV cameras on leaving, and Borishov and Petrov were caught frequently on CCTV on arriving.

The Skripals were next seen on CCTV at 13.30, driving down Devizes road. After that their movements were clearly witnessed or recorded until their admission to hospital.

So even if the Skripals made an “invisible” trip home before being seen on Devizes Road, that means the very latest they could have touched the doorknob is 13.15. The longest possible gap between the novichok being placed on the doorknob and the Skripals touching it would have been one hour and 15 minutes. Do you recall all those “experts” leaping in to tell us that the “ten times deadlier than VX” nerve agent was not fatal because it had degraded overnight on the doorknob? Well that cannot be true. The time between application and contact was between a minute and (at most) just over an hour on this new timeline.

In general it is worth observing that the Skripals, and poor Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, all managed to achieve almost complete CCTV invisibility in their widespread movements around Salisbury at the key times, while in contrast “Petrov and Boshirov” managed to be frequently caught in high quality all the time during their brief visit.

This is especially remarkable in the case of the Skripals’ location around noon on 4 March. The government can only maintain that they returned home at this time, as they insist they got the nerve agent from the doorknob. But why was their car so frequently caught on CCTV leaving, but not at all returning? It appears very much more probable that they came into contact with the nerve agent somewhere else, while they were out.

“Boshirov and Petrov” plainly are of interest in this case. But only Theresa May stated they were Russian agents: the police did not, and stated that they expected those were not their real identities. We do not know who Boshirov and Petrov were. It appears very likely their appearance was to do with the Skripals on that day. But they may have been meeting them, outside the home. The evidence points to that, rather than doorknobs. Such a meeting might explain why the Skripals had turned off their mobile phones to attempt to avoid surveillance.

It is also telling the police have pressed no charges against them in the case of Dawn Sturgess, which would be manslaughter at least if the government version is true.

If “Boshirov and Petrov” are secret agents, their incompetence is astounding. They used public transport rather than a vehicle and left the clearest possible CCTV footprint. They failed in their assassination attempt. They left traces of novichok everywhere and could well have poisoned themselves, and left the “murder weapon” lying around to be found. Their timings in Salisbury were extremely tight – and British Sunday rail service dependent.

There are other possibilities of who “Boshirov and Petrov” really are, of which Ukrainian is the obvious one. One thing I discovered when British Ambassador to Uzbekistan was that there had been a large Ukrainian ethnic group of scientists working at the Soviet chemical weapon testing facility there at Nukus. There are many other possibilities.

Yesterday’s revelations certainly add to the amount we know about the Skripal event. But they raise as many new questions as they give answers.

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Featured image is from TruePublica.

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The cruel assassination of Alexander Zakharchenko, leader of the Donetsk Republic, in Donetsk on August 31 by elements of the Kiev regime’s forces backed by NATO, and the wounding of many others in the bomb blast that took his life, confirms what I wrote three years ago, that the Minsk 2 agreement signed in February 2015 to try to establish peace in Ukraine was a rotting corpse. Russia, ever more hopeful than I that reason and the desire for peace would prevail stuck to it nevertheless and consistently called for adherence to its terms despite facing obstruction at every turn. The murder of the leader of the Donetsk Republic confirms that not only has the corpse been rotting on the battle fields of the Donbass all this time, it is now picked apart by the carrion birds of prey that want war with the Donbass and with Russia and only its skeleton remains. It’s time to bury it.

Some NATO members such as Germany paid lip service to the Minsk agreement and insisted it be complied with but always complaining that it was Russia that was not pushing the Donbass Republics to bend to NATO’s will. But in fact the Donbass Republics tried as they could to comply with the terms under very difficult circumstances and constants provocations, attacks and assassinations of its leadership.

Poroshenko (image on the right) and his fascist allies instead refused to change the constitution as stipulated to accommodate the concerns of the Donbas republics, have tried to suppress the Communist Party and other parties in opposition, have refused to withdraw heavy weaponry from the line of contact, have maintained increasingly heavy artillery attacks on the civilian populations and areas and cut off routes for essential foodstuffs, medical aid and technical equipment. Rather than enjoying a ceasefire, the peoples of the Donbas are under a constant state of siege.

Poroshenko, the NATO puppet leader of the Kiev government in Ukraine openly calls for a military solution to the crisis and has increased the draft in and recently reorganized the Ukraine armed forces command structures to make them more effective in a coming offensive. The US and Canada and other NATO countries have been pouring in arms and ammunition and “advisers” and “mercenaries” in support of the fascist forces, putting additional pressure on Russia with multiple military exercises from the Baltic to Bulgaria, where more tanks have been recently dispatched to “send Russia a message.”

The reality of the situation was stated on the 18th of August 2015, when President Putin stated,

“It was the Donbas militias that suggested withdrawing all military equipment with calibre under 100mm. Unfortunately, the opposite side didn’t do that. On the contrary, according to the available data, it is concentrating its units there, including those reinforced with military hardware. As for the Minsk-2 agreement, I believe there is no alternative for resolving the situation and that peace will prevail in the long run… Our task is to minimize the losses with which we will come to this peace.”

There can be no doubt that the Minsk-2 agreements do provide the framework for a peaceful settlement of the impasse but there is also no doubt that the Kiev and NATO forces have no intention of abiding by its terms and are preparing for another offensive.

Putin also stated,

“I hope that it will not come to direct large scale clashes.”

Yet, the people of the Donbas would be surprised to be told that the thousands of shells raining down on them from the Kiev junta’s artillery in order to provoke those clashes do not count as large scale attacks.

Bu what is the purpose of this state of siege? Since the Donbas forces have proved their strength and resilience the Kiev regime has little hope of achieving the total destruction of those forces and imposing its will on the Donbas. Kiev and NATO also know that Russia does not want to be drawn into a direct clash with NATO that could lead to a general war. In consequence the Kiev-NATO axis have decided to engage in operations that have direct political repercussions designed to disrupt the Russian-Donbas alliance or to paralyze it and try to enlist new allies and it is noted that the western media immediately blamed Russia for the assassination to try to stir up trouble. At the same time they have decided to make the war more costly for the Donbas and Russia both in military and economic terms, and to try to bring about a gradual exhaustion of their physical and moral resistance.

We see this strategy being played out with the constant increase of economic warfare against Russia, which is clearly the ultimate target, the increasing use of propaganda including the planting in the media of the most absurd stories about Russia and its government, the use of the OSCE observes as intelligence agents for NATO as happened in the Yugoslav war, and, in the political sphere, attempts by the United States and Britain to humiliate Russia; from the Olympics to the downing of flight MH17, the Skripal affair, and the fantasies about Russian influence on western “democracies.”

Clausewitz said that

“war is a pulsation of violence, variable in strength and therefore, variable in the speed with which it explodes and discharges it energy’ and that, “If we keep in mind that war springs from some political purpose, it is natural that the prime cause of its existence will remain the supreme consideration in conducting it.”

Indeed we see in Ukraine the expression of the Anglo-American-German political purpose: the desire to force Russia to submit to their will. They failed in World War I. The attempt failed again in World War II. The so–called Cold War succeeded in bankrupting the socialist state but the capitalist state that rose from that sad decline is gathering its strength once again and refuses to submit to any one’s diktats. And so the NATO coup in Kiev, in order to take Ukraine away from Russian influence as the Nazis tried to do in World War II.

But the Kiev-NATO cabal cannot break the will of the peoples of the Donbas nor of Russia and so the constant attacks, the constant propaganda, the constant turning of the economic screws.

These actions are all illegal under international law and the laws of war. They are violations of the principles and articles of the UN Charter. They are violations of several Geneva Conventions and other international treaties. The attacks on civilians are war crimes. The use of prohibited weaponry, in these attacks, is a war crime. The collective punishment of entire populations is a war crime. The use of economic warfare is a war crime. Yet nothing is done by any western government to stop it nor does the International Criminal Court lay any charges where it can. Instead it stands by and condones these crimes by its inaction.

Article 6 of the Rome Statute that created the ICC states the actions of the NATO-Kiev axis constitute acts of genocide.

It states,

“For the purpose of this Statute, “genocide” means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;”

Article 7 states that, “crimes against humanity includes persecution of an identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic…grounds.”

Article 7-2(b) states that, “the crime of extermination includes the intentional infliction of conditions of life, inter alia, the deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population.”

Article 8 defining war crimes, states that,

“it includes willful killing, willfully causing great suffering, extensive destruction of property not justified by military necessity, and carried out unlawfully and wantonly, intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population not taking part in hostilities, intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, attacking or bombarding by whatever means towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives, declaring that no quarter will be given, using weapons designed to inflict unnecessary suffering or are indiscriminate, and intentionally using starvation as a method of warfare.”

The list goes on and is a compendium of the crimes being committed by the Kiev-NATO axis powers in Ukraine.

The Russian Foreign Minister reacted to this act of NATO supported international terrorism, for one of the aims of the assassination is to terrorise the peoples of the Donbass, by stating,

“It is a blatant provocation aimed at undermining the implementation of the Minsk Agreement in eastern Ukraine. Given the current situation, it’s impossible to talk about the nearest meetings in the Normandy format like many of our European partners would have wanted. It is a serious situation that must be analyzed. We are doing it right now.”

But it is not just a “provocation” for in concert with the assassination the Kiev regime has begun troop movements near Donbass lines. It also seems to be a prelude to further military action.

“After the terrorist act, we’ve registered the movements of troops along the Line of Contact,” said Eduard Basurin, a representative of the DPR Operations Command. “The Ukrainian forces were put on alert for combat training.

“We think this is the eventual goal in terms of destabilizing the situation in the areas near the Line of Contact – something the Ukrainian and US secret services have hoped to gain. We don’t rule out an offensive at one of the sections of the line. They also hope to push the situation in the entire republic off the balance.”

“This act of terror is aimed at destabilizing the situation in the republic and was carried out by Ukraine’s special services under the control of US special services. All military units have been put on the highest possible level of alert.”

When the Minsk Agreements were signed in 2015 it was doubtful that the Kiev-NATO axis had any intention of using it except as a means of pausing their operations in order to reorganise and prepare for the next offensive and so it seems to be.

The only way forward is to resolve the conflict at the political level on the basis of the recognition of the right to self-rule and autonomy for the Donbas republics, the creation of a federal state to assure ethnic stability, and the commitment by Ukraine that it will be a neutral state and not part of any plan to “contain” Russia, a plan that can only lead to world war. But the NATO puppets in charge of Ukraine do not act in the interests of Ukraine. They act in the interests of the masters of war who have no concern for humanity in general or Ukrainians in particular and if they continue their operations they will not succeed in uniting Ukraine but only in laying it waste. The assassination of Alexander Zakharchenko, a crime that should be condemned by the world, is a message from NATO to Russia, that instead of living in peace, as quietly flows the Don, to use the title of Sholokhov’s novel, the people of the Donbass can expect only more war, for a hero is dead, and bloody flows the Don.

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Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel “Beneath the Clouds. He writes essays on international law, politics and world events, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published.

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Brazil’s National Museum in Rio de Janeiro was gutted Sunday night by a massive fire that consumed not only the historic 19th century palace that housed the institution, but a vast and irreplaceable collection of what was by far the largest natural history and anthropology museum in Latin America. The majority of the 20 million items it contained were destroyed.

While the immediate cause of the blaze is still unknown, this catastrophe and the irreparable loss to human culture were the product of policies of austerity and the diversion of vast social resources to feed the profits of international finance capital and a rapacious and culturally backward Brazilian capitalist ruling class.

Starved for resources by the Brazilian government, the museum was a disaster waiting to happen. Firefighters who arrived to fight the blaze were ill-prepared thanks to relentless budget cuts, lacking necessary ladders and other equipment. They found that hydrants near the museum had no water and they were forced to try to pump water from a badly polluted lake nearby.

Museum workers and scientific researchers rushed into the burning building in a desperate attempt to save what little they could. Local residents brought water to the scene and did what they could to help. Many workers, devastated by the scene of destruction, were in tears and embracing each other.

Luiz Duarte, one of the museum’s vice-directors, told TV Globo:

“It is an unbearable catastrophe. It is 200 years of this country’s heritage. It is 200 years of memory. It is 200 years of science. It is 200 years of culture, of education.”

Destroyed by the fire was the oldest ancient Egyptian collection anywhere in the Americas, along with Greek artifacts and Roman frescoes that had survived the volcanic destruction of Pompeii.

The blaze also consumed what were the oldest human remains discovered in Latin America, those of “Luzia”, known as “the first Brazilian,” estimated at between 12,500 and 13,000 years old. Likewise destroyed was the 44-foot reconstructed skeleton of a Maxakalisaurus, a plant-eating dinosaur that lived in what is now Brazil 80 million years ago.

The museum also housed a priceless collection of some 100,000 pre-Columbian artifacts from Brazil and elsewhere in the Americas, including Andean mummies, textiles and ceramics.

Also contained in the museum were historic documents chronicling two centuries of Brazilian history. Burned remnants of these priceless papers were found as far as 3 kilometers from the museum after the fire.

The building that housed the museum, the São Cristóvão palace, is one of the most historic structures in Brazil. It became the residence of the royal family of Portugal, which had fled the invasion of Napoleon’s armies for Brazil. It was in the palace that Brazilian independence was declared in 1822, and in which the first Constituent Assembly of the Brazilian Republic convened in 1890, marking the end of the rule of the Portuguese emperor.

Under the management of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro since 1946, the museum was also a research facility in which Brazilian anthropologists conducted studies that derived from human remains evidence of migration from Polynesia to what is now Brazil. The museum also contained vast collections of flora and fauna specimens, including from extinct species.

The museum was also engaged in training scientists for an expedition to Antarctica to study fossils on the continent.

Professor Paulo Buckup, an expert in fish science at the museum, told the BBC that he was able to rescue a “tiny” part of the museum’s collection of thousands of specimens of mollusks.

“I don’t know how many tens of thousands of insects and crustaceans were lost,” he said. “I feel very sorry for my colleagues, some of whom have worked here for 30 or 40 years. Now all evidence of their work is lost, their lives have lost meaning, too.”

Demonstrators, most of them students from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, forced their way onto the site of the destroyed museum on Monday to protest the Brazilian government’s protracted cuts to funding for science and education that found their disastrous expression in the burning down of the museum. Police attacked the students with pepper spray, tear gas and stun grenades.

The burning down of a museum that contained a significant share of the heritage of humanity in the Americas and worldwide was the entirely predictable and preventable outcome of the policies pursued by Brazil’s governments in the face of the onset of the country’s economic crisis in 2014, both under the Workers Party (PT) administration of President Dilma Rousseff and, following her 2016 impeachment on trumped-up charges of budgetary malfeasance, her former right-wing vice president and successor, Michel Temer.

The museum went from receiving a budget of $310,000 in 2013 to just $132,000 in 2014. However, over the last three years it has received 60 percent or less of this amount. The cuts were first imposed under Rousseff’s PT government and then intensified under Temer.

The museum had submitted a report in 2015 saying that it needed 150 million reais (US$36 million) to repair the building, which lacked a sprinkler system and even any basic electrical wiring diagram for the centuries-old structure.

In 2015, the museum was forced to close its doors entirely because it lacked even the funding to pay staff or for minimum service from contractors. The closure had a lasting impact on attendance, which remained at record lows.

The museum marked its bicentenary in June under conditions in which massive budget cuts inflicted by successive governments had left it in a state of advanced decay, with a third of its exhibition halls closed, including some of its most popular, like the one containing the largest dinosaur discovered on Brazilian soil, its base having been eaten away by termites.

In an article on the bicentenary published by Folha de S. Paulo, the reporter noted that

“the physical decay of the building that houses the museum … is visible to visitors, who pay 8 reais [less than US$2] for a full-priced ticket. Many of its walls are peeling, there are electrical wires exposed and generalized poor maintenance.”

In the absence of even the most minimal budgetary allocations from the Brazilian government, the museum had launched an internet crowd-funding campaign to raise enough money to reopen its main exhibition hall.

Even as it starved the national museum for funding, the Brazilian government poured millions into structures for the World Cup and the Olympics, which generated lucrative contracts and kickbacks for the ruling PT and other sections of the ruling establishment.

The burning down of Brazil’s national museum and the obliteration of a significant share of the heritage of humanity stands as an indictment of a world capitalist system and a Brazilian national bourgeoisie that subordinates all questions of social policy to the imperative that a handful of individuals continues to accumulate immense riches.

In a country where the wealth of six men is equivalent to that of 50 percent the population, the destruction of culture is an inevitable byproduct of social inequality. Brazil’s super-rich have no interest in anything other than what they can own, pouring their money into helicopters that fly them over the country’s favelas to their offices in Rio and Sao Paulo and into Miami real estate and the global stock markets.

The destruction of the Brazilian National Museum stands as a stark warning to working people in Brazil and throughout the world. The defense of culture, history and the entire legacy of humanity depends upon the building of a mass movement of the international working class directed at putting an end to the irrational, destructive and selfish system of the capitalist ruling class.

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Israel plans to sell four boats seized while sailing towards the besieged Gaza Strip and distribute the funds among two settlers families.

Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported yesterday that the move came in response to the Israeli Central Court’s decision following a request filed by the families.

Israel has in recent weeks confiscated four boats coming from Europe in an effort to break the Israeli navy blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip.

According to the paper, the court has heard the opinion of senior navy and intelligence officials who said the boats’ ownership would have been transferred to Hamas if it had reached Gaza.

The Israeli army announced that it is holding the boats in the port of Ashdod in central Israel.

One of the two families, the Gavish family says three of its members were killed in a 2002 attack while they were in a house in the illegal settlement of Elon Moreh in the northern West Bank while the Feinstein family says one of its members was killed in an attack in Jerusalem in 2001.

The Israeli paper said the court found a direct link between the attacks and Hamas, adding that the money obtained from the sale of the boats will probably not exceed several thousand shekels, but the two families see the decision as important in principle.

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The politico-media tornado lifted by the confrontation between the “Europeanists” and the “Sovereignists” hides what the reality actually is – a Europeanism without Europe and a sovereignism without sovereignty.

The politician who is brandishing the banner of Europeism at the moment is President Emmanuel Macron, in an attempt to advance French power not only in Europe, but also in Africa. France, co-promoter with the USA of NATO’s war which in 2011 demolished the Libyan State (a war in which Italy played a major role), is trying by any means possible to control Libya and her rich resources – enormous reserves of oil, natural gas and fossil water – not to mention its territory, which is of great geostrategic importance.

For this purpose, Macron is supporting the militias who are fighting the “government” of Fayez al Serraj, also supported by Italy, which, with ENI (National Hydrocarbon Company) holds major interests in the country.

This is only one example of the way in which the European Union, founded on the interests of the economic and financial oligarchies of the great powers, is beginning to crumble under the assaults of its economic and political oppositions, of which the migrant question is only the tip of the iceberg.

Faced with the predominance of France and Germany, the Italian 5 Stars-League government has made a specific choice – to increase the weight of Italy by linking itself even more strongly to the United States. Thus the meeting between Prime Minister Guiseppe Conte and President Donald Trump, to which the media paid little attention. And yet in this meeting, a number of decisions were taken which have a notable influence on the international position of Italy.

Source: PandoraTV

Above all, it was decided to create a “permanent Italy-USA chamber of operations in the Greater Mediterranean”, in other words in the area which, in US / NATO strategy, stretches from the Atlantic to the Black Sea and, to the South, to the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.

In reality, this chamber of operations is in the hands of the USA, or more specifically, the Pentagon, while Italy is only awarded a secondary role as assistant, and generally, the role of extra.

According to Conte, on the contrary, “this is a strategic cooperation, almost a twin position, by which Italy becomes a pont of reference in Europe, and the privileged interlocutor of the United States for the main challenges we will have to face”. This announces a later reinforcement of the “strategic cooperation” with the United States, in other words, a “privileged role” for Italy as the launching point for US forces, including nuclear forces, to the East as well as the South.

“The American administration recognises that Italy has a leadership role as a nation which promotes the stabilisation of Libya”, declared Conte, implicitly announcing that Italy, and not France (less trustworthy in the eyes of Washington), had received from the White House the mission of “stabilising” Libya.

All we need now is to work out how to do that.

The International Conference on Libya will not be enough – this was supposed to be held in Italy in the autumn, before the Libyan “elections” sponsored by France, which should be held in December. It will also need a military engagement directly on the ground, and a cost in human lives and material as well as unexpected outcomes.

The “sovereignist” choice by the Conte government will therefore reduce national sovereignty, by making Italy even more dependent to what is decided in Washington, not only the White House, but the Pentagon and the Intelligance Community, composed of the 17 federal agencies which specialise inspying and secret operations.

The true sovereignist choice would be the genuine application of the constitutional principle according to which Italy repudiates war as an instrument of offense to the liberty of other peoples and as a means for the resolution of international conflicts.

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This article was originally published on Il Manifesto.

Translated by Pete Kimberley

Manlio Dinucci is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

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US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, has praised President Donald Trump’s administration for putting US-Israeli relations on “more solid [ground] than ever before”, reported the Jerusalem Post.

Speaking at a pre-Rosh Hashanah reception in his Herzliya residence, Friedman singled out for praise the US decision to relocate its embassy to Jerusalem.

“Now, the United States did not make Jerusalem the capital of Israel. That was done by King David some 3,000 years ago under God’s direction,” Friedman declared.

But, he added,

“it feels awfully good” that “the most powerful and moral nation on earth has made this important recognition of the primacy of Jerusalem to the State of Israel and the Jewish People.”

Friedman also said that the Trump administration has “slayed the sacred cow of the calcified thinking that has held back progress on the Palestinian front”.

“Since 1994, the United States has thrown more than $10 billion in humanitarian aid to Palestinians,” he said, adding: “we found that these expenditures were bringing the region no closer to peace or stability, not even by a millimetre.”

“To spend hard-earned taxpayer dollars to fund stipends to terrorists and their families, to expend funds to perpetuate rather than mitigate refugee status, and to finance hate-filled textbooks – I ask you, how does that provide value to the United States or the region?”

The US, Friedman stated, is “not in the business of, as they say, throwing good money after bad”.

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The next six months means little more than brace yourselves for the ride folks. There’s so much skullduggery, chicanery and backstabbing going on there’s sure to be a political bloodbath one way or the other and the outcome doesn’t look pretty.

Asked how chaotic the coming months could be in British politics, even battle-hardened veterans from both main parties struggle to find the words reports The Guardian:

“It could be utterly ghastly, with a complete breakdown in party discipline,” says one former Tory cabinet minister. “It is unprecedented in my 30 years.”

A Labour MP is similarly apocalyptic:

“This is probably the most dangerous, existentially dangerous, period for the Labour party since 1981. It’s not clear that the party will survive this time.”

Political Betting has Emily Thornberry at 5/1 as next leader of the Labour party and Jeremy Corbyn now a 2/1 bet he will lose his leadership alongside Theresa May at 1/3.

The Sunday Times is predicting a ‘double-coup’ with both leaders being ousted. That’s never happened before.

Did I mention that the SNP has more of a membership that the ruling party does or that Labour now has 20 per cent more members than all other parties combined or that they are now the biggest political membership party across the entire European Union?

And yet, Labour is on the brink of self-destruction.

Whiners and Diners

It is no secret that potential Tory leadership candidates have been dining with donors with some plotting to stop Boris from doing any more damage – just at the same time Labour MP’s are covertly discussing a split.

In the meantime, the whole Brexit fiasco from one side of the political spectrum to the other is now just toe-to-toe punch-up.

Theresa May has declared war on Boris Johnson after allies said they had rumbled a plot by her Election guru to install the former Foreign Secretary as the next Prime Minister. Senior figures at Tory HQ claim that Sir Lynton Crosby is behind plans to mount a nationwide campaign against Mrs May’s Chequers agreement on Brexit as the precursor to a Boris leadership challenge.

Showdown

Let’s not forget public opinion has now changed on Brexit as well. More people now want to stay in the EU as they have now decided that so many lies were thrown about that the best course of action would be to forget the whole thing and make friends with our neighbours who we’ve been trashing for the last two years. That could force a showdown between an angry electorate (well, half of them) and the government (about a third of them).

Then we have new constitutional boundaries where more Labour MP’s could lose their seats than Tories. But the Tory losses reduce the thin balance of power they currently have – so both sides have an axe to grind with each other and from within. There are 50 seats being sacrificed – how will the incumbents fight back one wonders? Then again, there could be a leadership battle and the Tories could lose more seats yet again – or not.

“If she presses ahead with Chequers or, more likely, a watered-down version, it’s hard to see how we avoid a decisive showdown before Christmas,” said one pro-Brexit MP.

We should not forget we have police investigations and electoral commission reports on how much illegal activity took place over the EU referendum in the first place. Not that I think either will have any impact whatsoever.

Will there be a second referendum? There’s a big campaign for its support building. I doubt it will happen – but it all adds more fuel to the fires springing up all over the political landscape and in this environment, anything could happen.

Most MPs expect a Commons vote on the final Brexit deal by the end of the year and that will be an interesting one to witness. It may well be interesting to see public reaction when there is an admission that no trade-deals have been signed and the ones with any real potential are years away. Britain may well have to use WTO regulations in a no-deal agreement just at the time that Donald Trump is pushing the organisation to extinction. Oh dear!

Should May lose that fight, few agree on what would follow: a leadership challenge, an election or a second referendum. And let’s be fair, it is not in the realms of fantasy that all three could happen in that order as well – one or all of which spells nothing but chaos for Britain.

The other option and just as likely is that Britain capitulates and agrees to the worst of all deals. That is, some sort of trade deal that existed before but with no seat at the top table to determine rules and regulations.

For the general public, there are huge concerns. A Lack of faith in politics/politicians/government generally has become a top ten issue for the country for the first time according to a new Ipsos Mori poll. I think Ipsos are way behind the curve of reality here.

“This month’s Issues Index shows public concern about Britain and Europe remaining at the same record level measured in July. Fifty-seven per cent see European issues as one of the biggest concerns and 44% name it as the single biggest worry, compared with 58% and 45% last month.”

The poll also highlights that the country has become more polarised as a result of Brexit. So there’s worse to come, especially as one half of the country loses, which it inevitably will.

The last six-month run-up to the expected March 2019 exit from the European Union is set up to be as explosive and unpredictable as ever.

I’m told there are lots of reason to be optimistic – I just can’t think of any!

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Over the past few months NATO member states have sharply increased their pressure on Russia. The Euro-Atlantic establishment is strengthening the image of Russia as a fierce enemy. It is very useful to have such a foe to justify your own reckless foreign and domestic policy.

The situation has already led to a recognizable deterioration of the relations between the two sides undermining problem-solving mechanisms, like the UN Security Council or the OPCW.

The most alarming result of these actions is a growing military escalation between NATO and Russia in the Black Sea region and in Eastern Europe overall. NATO member states have increased their airspace activity and the number of ground military exercises near Russia’s border.

A notable development of this escalation happened on August 23 when British jets launched from the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base near the Romanian city of Constanta aiming to intercept a Russian Be-12 maritime patrol aircraft heading over the Black Sea from Crimea. Earlier, on August 21, two British Typhoon jets from the same Romanian air base scrambled to intercept two alleged Russian Su-30 flanker aircraft launched from Crimea. On August 13, British jets intercepted Russian Su-24 warplanes over the Black Sea.

According to the British side, these interceptions were carried out “to deter Russian aggression” in the framework of “the NATO Enhanced Air Policing (EAP) mission”. In all these cases, the Russian jets were far away from any part of what could be described as NATO airspace. On August 25, the Russian embassy in the UK described these actions as “reckless and provocative”.

Meanwhile, multiple NATO exercises took place in Poland and the Baltic States in close proximity to the Russian border. During summer 2018, the most notable of these were:

• Saber Strike 18 took place in Poland and the Baltic States and involved 18,000 troops from 19 countries.
• Swift Response 2018 was staged across Germany, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia and involved thousands of soldiers from 10 different states.
• The naval drill Baltic Operations 2018 involved about 5,000 personnel, 60 aircraft and 42 ships and a submarine from 22 nations.

Additionally, NATO member states, led by the US and the UK, are carrying out a large-scale anti-Russian propaganda campaign accusing Russia of provocations – for example patrols in neutral airspace over the Black Sea, employing “chemical weapons” in Europe – the Salisbury and Amesbury cases, and intervening into European and US internal politics by various means. In the framework of this narrative, Russian military drills, which it carries out within its own territory, are described as signs of aggressive and obstructive behavior. All attempts by the Russian side to appeal to the voice of reason are denounced by the Euro-Atlantic diplomats and the MSM as propaganda.

Furthermore, the MSM and the NATO leadership are consistently fueling military hysteria among servicemen of the military bloc’s member states. According to experts, the current level of anti-Russian propaganda has reached that of the hottest days of the Cold War and in some cases even exceeded it.

The current tense situation as well as continued attempts by NATO member states to pressure Russia by military means contribute to the increased probability of incidents involving the two sides. In a worst-case scenario, these military incidents could lead to deaths on both sides, local hostilities and, if a de-escalation mechanism is not developed, to an open conflict.

This approach poses a direct security threat to Eastern Europe nations unwittingly involved in this dangerous game.

Another important fact is that recently Russia has changed its military doctrine. Earlier, the Russian military doctrine, as well as the Soviet one, was to allow the use of nuclear weapons only in response to an aggressive attack by nuclear strike carried out by the enemy. The modern Russian military doctrine allows the use of nuclear weapons as a defensive measure in case of a conventional attack on its territory.

Russia has the world’s second most powerful military, but its ground forces are still outmatched by the combined ground forces of NATO. This factor also contributes to the possibility of a nuclear response by Russia if a fully-fledged war starts. The question appears to be what do the US and British elites hope to achieve by fueling anti-Russian militarism?

Could it be that their goal is to provoke a big regional conflict in continental Europe? Indeed, this would allow them to achieve several goals. On the one hand, they would draw Moscow into a large-scale conflict far away from their own borders and put Russia in a situation where it could suffer irreparable damage. On the other hand, the same kind of irreversible damage would be caused to the continental industrial complex and the European economy in general.

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Author’s Note: The text of this article has been drawn from an online debate at Science for Peace, Department of Physics, University of Toronto, September 2018

There is a popular explanation for the world chaos now upon us, and many scientists and philosophers advocate it.  The form of this argument is that the rising global crisis we face traces back to human nature and genes to explain it.  

The now widespread scientific category of anthropocene to locate the global crisis expresses the same idea and manages the same diversion from the common cause. 

In fact, none can remotely explain the ongoing global system collapse nor the extreme climate destabilization which is the major known symptom of it. 

The all-fronts planetary life crisis is confined to a much more specific causal mechanism: the cumulative, mounting and unregulated assaults of private industrial destruction, pollution, exhaustion and consumer waste in one relatively short span of the anthro-era.  

But the ‘human-nature’ aka ’genetic’ argument obscures this fundamental fact. It does not come from stupid people, but it is a stupid explanation. 

The Ancient Fallacy of ‘Human Nature’ to Explain Life-Blind Institutions

More exactly, it is an enduring preconception which has been dominant from ancient times. It has been often disproved, but its return expresses in another way the instituted life-blindness of the neo-capitalist era.  

At this dangerous juncture of human evolution and history, it is one more ideological mind-lock to derail examination of the social-structural problem.   

We need to bear in mind that the same ‘human nature’ argument was long in place to explain slavery as a natural phenomenon. Socrates, Plato and, most trenchantly, Aristotle, all conceived slavery as natural to human beings, and so unchangeable. They were very intelligent men, but assumed this as a given fact of the human condition. 

Since first studying these philosophers, I have observed the argument reappearing in evil times to block people’s understanding of the actual social-structural cause of soluble problems. 

For example, the acceptance of both war and slavery over millennia has been based on a ‘human nature argument’. It is natural for some to rule and others to serve them – and wars decide which group is the more fit to rule. 

In fact, both institutions are not at all expressions of human nature, but pervasively enforced totalitarian institutions of mass murder and enslavement in particular social formations which serve the rich, non-working minority ruling them. 

Capitalism is not Natural or Gene-Determined

Money-sequence capitalism is an historical extension of these institutions which still rules. Its difference is that a de-regulated and hyper-aggressive financialized form has brought mass-killing trends which have been one-way pathogenic since the Reagan-Thatcher turn against life-protective public law and non-partisan  government. 

It still rampages on today. But the long-ignored cumulative damages have caught up. Planetary life organization is paying the price in degeneration and collapse at every level while still further enriching those leading the global catastrophe. 

They have dark reason to select for and quietly fund the argument of ‘genes’, ‘human nature’ and ‘anthropocene’ as the reason for the mounting chaos.    

Yet this clinically insane rule is absurdly attributed to ‘human nature’ and ‘genes’ by even those not benefitting from it. After all, far more numerous victims are ‘human nature’ too with ‘human genes’ in ‘the anthropocene’, and only a minority agree with the policies, and ever more abhor the leaders and system they steer which together produce such  inhuman character and eco-genocidal misrule.  

Yet still you will have the most eminent thinkers – even the inventor of the ecological footprint – argue that our current ecocidal system is based on a genetic character formed in our distant past. He thinks it is indicated by the massive disappearance of large animals by human hand, but this has since been expertly attributed to selection by altered environmental conditions. 

The ‘gene’ argument is very appealing, however, for its simplification into fixed one-cause ‘outcomes’. This is the theoretical essence of ‘sociobiology’ in general. It  has been dominant in the academy and the legacy media as a seemingly scientific rationalization of a clear social disorder. 

Yet as long as its cover story lasts, the rising crisis of life-blind private money-rule destroying the shared planetary life-ground need not be faced or solved.  

The Solution of Nicer People

One of the enfeebling consequences of human-nature-gene diversions from the reigning system disorder is that it puts the onus on individual human beings to solve the problem by being “nicer” to and “kinder” to each other.  

This certainly sounds good. Yet it track-switches critical attention from the life-blind corporate-market disorder to the personalities of individuals who normally have as such little or nothing to do with it, and are usually victims of its systematic stripping of public institutions, life-protective regulations and income bases.  

Indeed this system disorder has invaded so many levels of society’s evolution that citizen life insecurity has been normalized in all phases of work, environment, and future however nice we are to each other as individuals (which I for one love).

Yet it is not individual choices that are responsible for the system oppressing the majority’s livelihoods, their life conditions and their futures, including that of their children. To focus on them is an implicit form of blaming the victim. Their being nicer people is essentially beside the point of the problem. 

In logical terms, this is a fallacy of division. It falsely infers from the properties of a collective entity the properties of the individuals members of it, thereby making them responsible for its getting worse or better. “We are all responsible, each and every one of us for this human crisis” is a boring choral expression of this fallacy. 

Because it makes those saying this seem so, well, nice and kind, they can bask in virtuous-self reflection. Those in fact leading the crisis as its planners and executives, with obscenely high financial pay-offs and privileges for doing so, are meanwhile left blameless and off the hook. 

The cui bono question – who benefits and profits from this life-insane system? – is nullified a-priori. 

Those who argue this way are not so nice as they seem. They present as good people to others, ingratiate themselves to those in control, and avoid having to face the real problem. This is all certainly easier and safer.  In fact, it may bring top-down favor to the pacifiers and their ‘peace activism’ for side-tracking from the real evil and its lead agents.   

The Cover-Up Culture of the Omnicidal System

Self-centering avoidance of the omnicidal system also lies in perfect line with the atomic-agency metaphysics of ‘free-market choice’. It is the individual consumer who chooses the system. 

Again we revert to the individual human character as responsible for the system disorder – although, in fact, the consumer’s desires are operantly conditioned into prefernces (why far more money is spent on pervasive advertisements than on research or health); the conditions of production are ruled out of  trade regulations and rights (why ‘race to the bottom’ worker and environmental standards occur); and almost consumer or citizen remotely chooses that societies must compete to lower taxes to the rich, abolish public scrutiny and enforcement of environment and consumer thazards, and have their elected representatives decided by invisible corporate lobbies and money manipulators.   

Human nature? Genes? Consumer choice? The cover-up culture has many levels. 

All the argument forms analysed above share one feature. They locate responsibility in individual agency.  This is the dominant metaphysics of Western civilization, and why we have such a problem today recognizing the collective system derangement. 

In fact, we are continuously misled from understanding and knowing the collective causal mechanism of the Great Disorder as a central function of it – to divert blame, responsibility and social action from the inherited but cumulatively pathological misrule from the top which threatens life on Earth itself.

Only one diagnostic model fits all of the depredatory phenomena across organic, social and ecological life hosts.  It is not ‘human nature’ or ‘genes’ or ‘the anthropocene’, or too few ‘nice/kind’ individuals, or ‘consumer choice’. 

The true causal mechanism of all the one-way degenerate trends of this cumulatively omnicidal disorder is a highly invasive private financial cancer metastasizing across societies and global life organization.

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Prof. John McMurtry is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and author of the three-volume study, Philosophy and World Problems of UNESCO’s Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS). His works are translated across continents, and his last book is The Cancer Stage of Capitalism: from Crisis to Cure. 

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India’s impending purchase of the Russian S-400 missile system has come to be the leitmotif of the “2+2” dialogue of the foreign and defence ministers of India and the United States due to take place in New Delhi on September 6. However, the issue here is not about a single defence transaction, either. There are far wider geopolitical ramifications.

The heart of the matter is that the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which was signed into law by President Donald Trump in August 2017, endangers India’s long-standing defence relationship with Russia across the board for many defence goods. The cutting edge of the CAATSA lies in regard of Sections 231 and 235 of the law. Section 231 requires the US president to impose sanctions on any entity that “engages in a significant transaction” with Russia’s intelligence or defence sectors. Section 235 provides for prohibiting transactions in US dollar (which is the currency used in India-Russia arms deals.)

Now, the US Congress has given waiver authority to the president under certain highly constraining conditions – that is, if he can certify that the waiver is fundamentally in US national security interests, that the country concerned is taking “demonstrable steps” to reduce its defence dependence on Russia and that it is cooperating with the US in advancing critical strategic interests. In effect, the CAATSA provides an underpinning for the US’ global hegemony, which is far beyond its stated purpose of sanctioning Russia over the Crimea.

Given the above, what is the Trump administration’s actual game plan? At the broadest level, Washington estimates that India-Russia relationship is no longer what it used to be and this may be an opportune moment to weaken and undermine it from within. Thus, the opening gambit was to pile pressure on Delhi by flagging that the S-400 deal posed a serious risk to the strategic partnership between the US and India, which would be deeply disruptive at a juncture when China’s rise and growing assertiveness is throwing the Indo-Pacific region into an unsettling flux – and India, in particular.

In this narrative, the solution lies in Delhi scuttling the S-400 deal with Russia and instead opting for a US system. (This was what Washington had counseled Turkey, too.)

But then, there is nothing that the US can offer which is comparable to the S-400 with its long maximum slant range (~400 kms) and high maximum altitude (~98000 feet) that meet the Indian requirements for extended-range air defence to counter the threat from China across the Himalayas.

Curiously, the American side also acknowledges the reality that the S-400 is peerless in meeting the specific requirements of the Indian Air Force. To quote an American expert opinion at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,

“The United States does not currently possess any comparable system to the S-400. This is primarily because the country has not invested in strategic SAMs since the early Cold War… US surface-to-air weapons, accordingly, fall into two categories: long-range systems that are directed mainly toward ballistic missile defense, or shorter-range systems that are reserved mainly for use against surviving enemy aircraft that pose a threat to US ground forces. Therefore, none of the systems meet Indian requirements for extended-range air defense.”

So, why is the US pressuring India to give up on the S-400? The point is, defence sales constitute a vital tool in the US’s strategy to build a long-term relationship and interoperability with India as part of a new alliance system in the Indo-Pacific. Put differently, Delhi’s defence acquisitions with Russia (who is by far India’s number one partner) impacts the US strategy, which aims to align the Indian military with the US and its armed forces and with those of its allies in the Indo-Pacific. On the contrary, large-scale procurements such as the S-400 missile system will create relationships with Russia that will continue for generations even as the two militaries work together over the lifespan of the platform on training and maintenance.

Suffice to say, the US is pursuing a long-term strategy by creating shared platforms with the Indian armed forces that help build military interoperability. The intention here is that as the two armed forces get to use the same equipment, they also develop a shared understanding of doctrine, command and control dynamics and standard operating procedures through combined planning and training. Simply put, without India realizing it, a point will be reached when it gets “locked in” and becomes an ally of the US, playing second fiddle to Washington in its Indo-Pacific strategies.

However, all indications are that Washington senses that Modi government is unlikely to abandon the S-400 acquisition, no matter the US pressure tactic and blackmail. On its part, Delhi also understands that the US’ National Security Strategy brands Russia as a “revisionist” power and Washington’s underlying objective is to undermine the time-tested relationship between India and Russia.

Therefore, by his bold decision to go ahead with the S-400 missile deal with Russia, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given a big message to Washington. Modi’s decision augurs well for the country’s role in a “post-American century”. But issues remain.

Fundamentally, Delhi should firmly reject the US’ attempt to insert itself into the India-Russia relationship on the pretext of the CAATSA. The US lobbyists in India are lately proposing that India and the US should do some “creative thinking” to mitigate the “challenges” posed by CAATSA. But this is a ludicrous postulate.

India is not placing restrictions on the US’ market access or denying it a level playing field. Furthermore, the CAATSA is a US law, which it enacted patently for geopolitical purposes. What is there to negotiate with a matrix?

India will be on a slippery slope once it agrees to discuss with the US its defence relationship with Russia on a case-by-case basis. It will be an affront to India’s sovereignty and self-respect to allow the US to have a say in its relations with Russia.

*

M. K. Bhadrakumar is a former career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. Devoted much of his 3-decade long career to the Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran desks in the Ministry of External Affairs and in assignments on the territory of the former Soviet Union.  After leaving the diplomatic service, took to writing and contribute to The Asia Times, The Hindu and Deccan Herald. Lives in New Delhi.

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On September 4, Israel carried out a strike on targets in the provinces of Tartus and Hama, according to the Syrian state media. The Syrian Air Defense Forces intercepted at least five missiles. However, the rest of them hit a target in the area of Masyaf in the Hama countryside.

Pro-Israeli sources described the target as an Iranian weapons depot. However, no visual confirmation to confirm this claim was provided. According to the news agency SANA, at least one person was killed and 12 others were injured as a result of the attack. No further details were revealed.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military announced that it has carried out over 200 strikes on Iranian targets in Syria over the past year.

The September 4 Israeli strike came on the same day when the Syrian Air Fore increased number of airstrikes on terrorist targets – mostly Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra) and the Turkistan Islamic Party – in southern and southwestern Idlib. According to different sources, about 30-60 strikes were carried out. Pro-militant sources also claimed that the Russian Aerospace Forces were involved.

Earlier, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said that US threats to strike the war-torn country will not halt the liberation of Idlib.

“The intended aggression won’t affect our people’s morale nor will it sway our military plans to liberate Idlib,” Muallem told the Russian state media. “This is not the first time that the United States, Great Britain and France have cooked up a scheme for a chemical weapons incident,” he added.

Separately, the Syrian Foreign Ministry accused the US and its allies of supplying terrorists with weapons through Eastern European countries and the Balkan countries.

“It is obvious that the United States and its allies are supplying a huge amount of ammunition and weapons, using third countries such as the Eastern European countries, Ukraine, and the Balkan states, to fuel the Nusra Front [also known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham] and Daesh [ISIS],” Alaa Saeed Din Hamdan, the first secretary of the Syrian Foreign Ministry’s international relations department, said.

On September 7, Iranian, Turkey and Russian presidents will meet for new high level talks in Teheran. According to the Kremlin, the situation in Idlib will be among the key topics of the Syrian agenda.

The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) released a statement claiming that it had captured a key ISIS member responsible for the terrorist group’s intelligence activities in Raqqa, Aleppo, Hama and other areas.

Abu Kerem (real name Adil Musa Abdouljezar) was allegedly captured by the YPG’s Anti-Terror Units on August 11. The YPG also claimed that the captured terrorist had “provided a lot of important information about ISIS and how it has been strengthened and bolstered by the Turkish state.”

The YPG and its political wing, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), often accuse Turkey of war crimes and supporting terrorists. In turn, Ankara describes the YPG and the PYD as terrorist organizations, local affiliates of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

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

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On Sunday, September 2nd, 2018; thousands of the worlds’ invaluable and precious cultural and historical items at the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro burnt to ashes due to the budget cuts and the fragile state of neglected building. Unfortunately, this painful news in Brazil was an expected disaster waiting to happen. Signs of deterioration of the 200-year-old building were apparent; ten of the 30 rooms in the museum were closed. The building lacked a proper sprinkler system and was vulnerable to fire. Firefighters found out that both of the fire hydrants closest to the museum were not working after the museum was already in flame. Of course, this was not the first tragedy of the like.

“During the past decade, three museums (including Rio de Janeiro’s National Museum) have been destroyed by fire. Less than three years ago, a similar episode happened in São Paulo’s Portuguese Language Museum. A defective light bulb caused a short-circuit that sparked the fire, which destroyed the museum and the roof of the Luz Station, a historic railway station built in 1901 that housed it, killing one firefighter. Since the fire, on December 21, 2015, the institution has been closed.” (1)

The question is what kind of economic program does not consider a needed budget to protect the nation’s treasure as unique as the National Museum of Brazil? How is it possible that a country as vast as Brazil rich in resources with a population of 200 million cannot afford to allocate $36 million — the minimum budget needed — to preserve and maintain her significant cultural, historical and educational institution? The answer lies in the decades of implementation of devastating neoliberal economic policies. That is an economic system that strives to privatize all institutions and resources within a country in order to accumulate wealth for the elite and Wall Street, a system that threatens and assaults ALL aspects of the working people lives; a system that through its financial arm, International Monetary Fund (IMF), turns economic prosperity to poverty and sovereignty to subordination in the country after country. Today in 2018, the conditions of the working people in Brazil are as deplorable as the first neoliberal economic experiment which was introduced in Chile after Pinochet’s coup on September 11, 1973. Unemployment, poverty and homelessness are the direct results of the neoliberal policies.

“The name of the game is privatization” says Professor Michel Chossudovsky “and the objective is ultimately to be able to take control over major areas of Brazil’s economic development process through privatization, through the buy-up of Brazilian companies and so on and so forth. We’ve seen this developing in the course, I would say, of the last 20 years, that US dominant financial and economic corporate interests are appropriating large sectors of this wealthy economy. We’re talking about resources, mining, forestry but also industrial development.”(2)

In 2003, he also wrote that,

“We must understand the history of successive financial crises in Brazil. With Wall Street creditors in charge, the levels of external debt have continued to climb. The IMF has ‘come to the rescue’ with new multibillion dollar loans, which are always conditional upon the adoption of sweeping austerity measures and the privatization of State assets. The main difference is that this process is now being undertaken under a president, who claims to be opposed to neoliberalism.”(3)

There are many valuable lessons for working people around the world to learn from the Brazilian neoliberal model. It is important to know how Worker’s Party (PT) of Brazil with its deep roots in the impoverished communities became an instrument in hands of Wall Street and IMF in implementing the neoliberal economic policies in Brazil.

The economic crisis in the 1970s brought an end to the economic policies which were adopted after WWII. By mid 70’s, unemployment and inflation rates reached its peak. The interventionist role of the state involved in the welfare system was exhausted and had to be replaced. For Capitalists the idea of compromising with labor to curtail the potential growth of the mass movements no longer was necessary. To restore the elite power, a new economic policy was needed. Neolibralism was born out of this situation and meant to increase the inequality. Labor had to be pushed back harshly. Neoliberalism found its functionary characters in Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in 80’s and Bill Clinton in 90’s and so on. The social programs were cut off or reduced to the minimum. Schools, National Parks, Museums and those public institutions that were not suitable or profitable for privatization, became an individual or the community responsibility!

Source: the author

It was the blaze of neoliberalism that burned The National Museum of Brazil. Besides the financial elite are not interested in the culture like public museums that are not lucrative. As we all remember when the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad was gutted out by looters under the nose of American military occupiers in April 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld referring to the “Liberated” Iraqi people casually said:

“… free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes”, “Stuff happens!”

But for people who appreciate art and science, indeed, this was a severe loss. A Brazilian teacher standing at the gates with teary eyes said:

“They’re burning our history, and they’re burning our dreams.”

The Museum collections in part contained a painting by the Brazilian artist Candido Portinari and extensive paleontological, anthropological and biological specimens. It held a skull called Luzia that was among the oldest fossils ever found in the Americas as well as an Egyptian mummy and the largest meteorite ever discovered in Brazil — one of the few objects that officials could confirm had survived. But beside these collections, the building itself had a significant history. This Brazilian National Heritage once was the place that the prescribed declaration of Brazil’s Independence from Portugal in 1822 was signed by the young Prince Pedro who was born in 1800 in the same building — the São Cristóvão palace — his Royal family’s residence. Two decades later, King Don João VI, Prince Pedro’s father in order to save his kingship from the State Council – the Portuguese elite oppose to the monarchy – had to leave the Palace and rush back to Portugal. The King took every dime with him heading back to Lisbon and placed Prince Pedro as Emperor penniless.

“In January 1822, the State Council wanted the Prince to return to Portugal – which he disobeyed. On September 7, orders from Lisbon arrived declaring that Pedro was no longer regent and that all of his decrees were nullified. On that day, the Prince declared Brazil an independent country.” (4)

Also this building before being assigned to the use of the museum in 1892, it hosted the Republican Constituent Assembly from 1889 to 1891 which marked the end of the reign of the Portuguese empire.

*

Massoud Nayeri is a graphic designer and an independent peace activist based in the United States. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Notes

1. https://brazilian.report/guide-to-brazil/2017/10/15/brazil-independence-portugal-september-7/

2. https://www.globalresearch.ca/neoliberalism-and-the-new-world-order-imf-world-bank-reforms/5572157

3. ttps://www.globalresearch.ca/brazil-neoliberalism-with-a-human-face/374

4. https://brazilian.report/guide-to-brazil/2017/10/15/brazil-independence-portugal-september-7/

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White House and State Department officials are reiterating that they have no current interest in making a deal with North Korea that would involve a peace declaration ending the Korean War.

The State Department said on Wednesday that the US position is that “denuclearization has to take place before we get to other parts.” The administration has repeatedly said they believe Korean denuclearization will take years, and that they want “progress” before the 2020 election.

The Korean War began in 1950, and 68 years later, there has never been a formal peace treaty ending the conflict. North Korea has been seeking a peace treaty for decades, with the US always resisting such a deal.

But the Trump Administration had previously indicated that they were in favor of a peace deal, particularly since South Korea started talking up such a deal themselves. This was a big turnaround at the time, but they have spun on a dime again and once again are showing little interest in peace.

Raising it as at least a possibility, however, has made it more difficult for the Trump Administration to formally say they don’t want peace. Instead, they are trying to condition the start of the process to a long-term goal.

From the North Korean perspective, this is likely to be problematic, as they’ve long doubted US seriousness about the peace process, and had initially conditioned denuclearization on a peace deal. Now, the US envisions getting denuclearization and not accepting peace, which would boil down to North Korea getting nothing in return for giving up its nuclear program, and having nothing left to offer in return for peace, something the US clearly has little interest in in and of itself.

*

Jason Ditz is news editor of Antiwar.com. 

Featured image is from The Unz Review.

“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
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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   

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The article will examine the model for the creation of a Greater Croatia designed by a Croatian nobleman, publicist and historian Pavao Ritter Vitezović (1652–1713). The article will offer a new interpretation of the substance and significance of Vitezović’s political ideology. Many historians have viewed Vitezović’s political thought and his developed ideological framework of a united South Slavic state as part of a wider pan-Slavic world. According to the prevailing notion, Vitezović was a precursor of the idea of Yugoslavism (a united South Slavic nation-state) and even Pan-Slavism – a pan-Slavic cultural and political reciprocity. Yet a closer look at Vitezović and his contemporaries’ writings suggests an alternative model for outlining the borders of modern ethnic states among the South Slavs. P. R. Vitezović argued for the creation of a Croat national state, based on the integration of alleged Croat “ethnic territories” and their consolidation along ethnolinguistic lines. The analysis of Vitezović’s understanding of nationhood explains how the borders of an envisioned early modern Croat ethnic state had been perceived as including vast territories from the Adriatic Sea to Moscow and from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. In this respect, Vitezović’s views on the Lithuanians and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth will show that the argument used to substantiate his claims for a Croatian national state was based on an ethnolinguistic kinship.

This article will focus on the territorial and ideological mapping of the borders of an early modern Croatian state in the second half of the 17^th century. It will deal with three main issues:

1. It will explain how the borders of the areas populated by the Slavs were shaped and reshaped through the political ideas articulated in the writings of Vitezović and his contemporaries.
2. It will answer the question which arguments were used to claim a Pan-Slavic ethnolinguistic kinship and construct the concept of Pan-Croatianism?
3. The article will explain why Vitezović placed Lithuania on his mental map of a Croatian national state.

The analysis of P. R. Vitezović’s political writings, therefore, will show that in the 17^thcentury Croatian intellectuals constructed a model of a modern nation-state based on territory, ethnic origins and language, and excluding religion.

An ideological concept of the Pan Croatianism and a Greater Croatia

A Croatian nobleman of ethnic German origin from Senj, Pavao Ritter Vitezović (1652–1713), was the person who transformed old Dalmatian Pan-Slavic idea into the ideological concept of Pan-Croatianism that included all Slavic population into the membership of the Croatian nationality.

Dalmatian, and especially Ragusian (Dubrovnik) humanists, in the 16th century, accepted the old domestic popular tradition that all Slavs originated in fact in the Balkans and the south Danubian region. It means that according to this tradition and several historical sources, the South Slavs are autochthonous inhabitants at both the Balkan Peninsula and its neighboring south Danubian region. More precisely, the entire Slavonic population had its progenitors in the ancient Balkan Illyrians, Macedonians, and Thracians. Principally, the ancient Illyrians were considered as the real ancestors of the South, Eastern and Western Slavs who have been living in the central and western territories of the Balkans.

Consequently, according to this belief, the forefathers of present-day Eastern and Western Slavs emigrated from the Balkans and nearby Danubian lands and settled on the wider territory of Europe from the Elbe River on the West to the Volga River on the East.[1] However, the South Slavs remained in the Balkans – the peninsula that was considered as the motherland of all Slavonic people (Istorija naroda Jugoslavije 1960: 224–227). Subsequently, all famous historical actors who originated in the Balkans were appropriated as members of the Slavdom: Alexander the Great and his father Philip II of Macedon, Aristotle, St. Jerome (Hieronymus), Diocletian, Constantine the Great, SS. Cyril and Methodius, etc.[2] On the territory of present-day Serbia, for instance, eighteen Roman Emperors of the Illyrian (Slavic?) origin were born among whom Constantin the Great became most famous.

P. R. Vitezović, “plemeniti i hrabreni gospn hërvatski i senski vlastelin” (“noble and brave gentleman and feudal lord from Senj”) (Bogišić 1970: 143), a Senj’s delegate to the Hungarian feudal Parliament (Diet) in Sopron, a representative of the Croatian feudal Parliament (Sabor) at the Imperial Court in Vienna, developed its ideology of Pan-Croatianism in the following writings: Kronika, aliti szpomen vszega szvieta vikov(“Chronicle, or a Remembrance of all the Times of the World”), Zagreb, 1696; Anagrammaton, Sive Lauras auxiliatoribus Ungariae liber secundus (“The Second Book of Anagrams, or a Laurel to the Helpers of Hungary”), Vienna, 1689; Croatia rediviva: Regnante Leopoldo Magno Caesare (“Revived Croatia…”), Zagreb, 1700; and in Stemmatographia, sive Armorum Illyricorum delineatio, descriptio et restitutio(“Stemmatography, or the Delineation, Description, and Restoration of the Illyrian Coat of Arms”), Vienna, 1701.

Nevertheless, the fundamental political purpose of these four works was to indicate to the Habsburg Emperor Leopold I (1658–1705) the “Croatian” historical lands that should be united under the Habsburg imperial crown, but not to be divided between three Balkan superpowers: the Republic of San Marco (Venice), the Ottoman Sultanate and the Habsburg Monarchy (Bratulić 1994: 74; Istorija naroda Jugoslavije 1960: 948–949). Especially his Croatia rediviva… was a political protest against the Austro-Ottoman Peace Treaty of Sremski Karlovci, in present-day Serbia, (in German Karlowitz), which, according to Vitezović, deprived Croatia of her alleged ancient historical and ethnical territories (Ritter 1700; Šišić 1934: 44).

According to the Peace Treaty of Sremski Karlovci, the border between the Habsburg Monarchy and the Ottoman Sultanate was fixed on the Morish and Tisa Rivers. Therefore, Transylvania and Hungary became now parts of the Habsburg Monarchy, the Banat of Temeshvar of the Ottoman Sultanate while the region of Srem (Sirmium) was divided between these two empires. The state border of the Habsburg Monarchy became moved from the Kupa River to the Una River (in present-day Bosnia) and to Velebit Mt in Dalmatia. However, the European peace was established next year when on June 13th the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Sultanate signed a bilateral treaty in Istanbul (Constantinople) that was valid for the next thirty years. According to this treaty, Russia got Azov, stopped to pay annual tribute to the Tatar Han, received a right to freely visit the Christian holy places in Palestine and to have its own diplomatic representative in Istanbul (Dimić 1999: 266−267).

P. R. Vitezović clearly pointed out in his Kronika… that entire ex-Roman province of Illyricum should be understood as a land populated by the Slavs (Vitezovich 1696: 6). However, he implied the term Illyricum to the entire Balkan Peninsula that was settled by the Slavs including and the Albanians who were (wrongly) considered as direct descendants of the ancient Illyrians. Moreover, taking into consideration the fact that some of the South Slavic (Roman Catholic) Renaissance authors (wrongly) applied the name Illyrians and Illyricum to the Croats and Croatia, Vitezović, in fact, called all descendants (the Slavs and Albanians) of the Illyrians as Croats. Thus, the main portion of the Balkans, from the Istrian Peninsula and the Adriatic Sea to the Black Sea, the Danube River, and the Aegean Sea belonged exclusively to the Croatdom. Vitezović stressed that the idea of Illyrian-Slavic nationhood, or the Croatdom, was based on linguistic unity and community for the simple reason that all of these territories and their inhabitants spoke and wrote “szlavni nas (i.e., the Croatian) Illyrski aliti Szlovenski jezik” (“our glorious Illyrian or Slavic language”) (Vitezovich 1696: 199; Blažević 2000, see the map on p. 225).

Illyrian movement

The Roman province of Illyricum was established during the time of the Roman Emperor Augustus’ conquest of the Western Balkans in the years of 35 B.C. – A.D. 9. During the time of Emperor Constantine I (Great), one of (four) imperial praefecturas/prefectures (the largest administrative-territorial unites of the Roman Empire) was the Illyricum which covered almost the whole Balkans (except present-day Bulgaria and the European portion of Turkey) and the parts of present-day Hungary and Austria. The Preafectura Illyricum was divided into the following dioceses: Achaia, Thessalia, Macedonia, Dacia, Moesia Prima, Epirus Vetus, Epirus Nova, Praevalitana, Dalmatia, Pannonia Prima, Pannonia Secunda, Savia, Noricum Ripense and Noricum Mediterraneum (Westermann 1985: 38–39, 42–43). It partially covered the territories of modern Austria, Slovenia, and Hungary, but covered all present-day Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Greece (without the West Thrace) and Albania. Nevertheless, in his Anagrammaton…, Vitezović included the entire territory of the Balkans and a part of South-East Europe into the Illyricum that was later described in his Croatia rediviva… as South Croatia (Ritter 1689; Ritter 1700).

P. R. Vitezović actually divided the whole world into six ethnolinguistic, historical, cultural and geographical areas, civilizations and cultures as they are:

1. Germania, which embraced the whole German-speaking world: the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, headed by Austria, the Kingdom of Sweden (Sweden, Norway, Finland), Denmark, East Prussia, Curonian Isthmus (Kuršių Neria) with the Curonian Bay or the Courish Lagoon (Kuršių Marios), Memel (Klaipėda). However, Angliae regnum (Scotland, England, Wales, and Ireland) was included into Germania as well.
2. Italia cum parte Greciae (Italy with the part of Greece) referred to the Apennine Peninsula, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Attica, Peloponnesus (Morea) and the main number of the Aegean and the Ionian Islands, Malta, and Crete.
3. Illyricum that was the whole Balkans (except Attica and Peloponnesus with the adjoining islands), Wallachia (Dacia and Cumania), Transylvania, and Hungary.
4. Hispania, which was composed by Spain and Portugal and their European possessions and overseas colonies in Africa, Asia, Latin America with Florida and California.
5. Sarmatia that was composed by the territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (the Republic of Two Nations) with Moldavia and Muscovy (i.e., the Russian Empire).
6. Gallia that was France (Ritter 1689: 69–117).

The real ideological source for such division of the whole world was the Slavic idea which decisively influenced Vitezović who recognized that all Slavs belonged to a single ethnolinguistic community. Nevertheless, he metamorphosed this idea of Pan-Slavism eleven years later into the idea of a Pan-Croatianism and a Greater Croatia. In fact, Vitezović claimed that all Slavs are the Balkan Illyrians who were autochthonous inhabitants of Illyricum. However, for him, it was clear that ancient Illyrians were modern Croats and ancestors of all Slavs. This ideology of Croatian-Slavic ethnogenesis Vitezović developed in his work Croatia rediviva… that was an outline for a more ambitious general history of the Croats and Croatia, i.e. the entire Slavic population. In this work, Vitezović divided the total territory of ethnic, historical and linguistic Croatia into two parts: I) Croatia Septemtrionalis (North Croatia), and II) Croatia Meridionalis (South Croatia). The boundary between them was the Danube River. North Croatia encompassed the entire territories of Bohemia, Moravia, Lusatia (Łužica or Łužyca in East Saxony and South Brandenburg) (The Sorbs in Germany 1998: 5), Hungary, Transylvania, Wallachia, Muscovy, Poland, and Lithuania (Ritter 1700: 109). The people who were living in North Croatia were divided into two groups: North-West Croats, called the Venedicos (the Wends) and North-East Croats, named as the Sarmaticos (the Sarmatians). The Wends consisted of the Czechs, Moravians, and Sorbs (Sorabi, who lived in Lusatia), whereas the Sarmatians who were living in Muscovy, Poland and Lithuania (Ritter 1700: 10), i.e., were the Rus’, Poles and Lithuanians.

P. R. Vitezović found that the ancestors of all North Croats (the Wends and the Sarmatians) were the White Croats (Belohrobatoi, from the Byzantine historical sources) who lived in the early Middle Ages around the upper Dniester River and the upper Vistula River, i.e., Galicia and Little Poland (Engel 1979: 10–11; Westermann 1985: 50–51, 54–55; Macan 1992: 15–16; Klaić 1971: 18–22). A traditional name from the sources for White Croatia was a Greater Croatia or an Ancient Croatia (Ćorović 1993: 34; Klaić 1971: 21). At the time of Vitezović’s writing of Croatia rediviva… this territory was an integral part of the Republic of the Two Nations (the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth).

South Croatia, or Illyricum (the Balkans), was subdivided by Vitezović into two parts: Croatia Alba (White Croatia), and Croatia Rubea (Red Croatia). Croatia Alba was composed by Croatia Maritima (central and maritime Montenegro, Dalmatia and East Istria), Croatia Mediterranea (Croatia proper and Bosnia-Herzegovina), Croatia Alpestris (Slovenia and West Istria), and Croatia Interamnia (Slavonia with a part of Pannonia). Croatia Rubea consisted of Serbia, North-East Montenegro, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Epirus, Albania, Thessaly and Thrace (Vitezović’s Odrysia) (Ritter 1700: 32). Therefore, there have been Vitezović’s “limites totius Croatiae” (“borders of whole Croatia”) that was settled, according to him, by ethnolinguistic Croats (Vitezović 1699; Ritter 1699; Vitezović 1997: 188–215; Perković 1995: 225–236). However, Vitezović recognized the reality that his Greater (United) Croatia and a Pan-Croatian national identity was not a unified in whole. In other words, he acknowledged differences in borders, names, emblems, and customs: “cum propriis tamen singularum limitibus etymo, insignibus, rebusque ac magis memorabilibus populi moribus” (Ritter 1700: 32; Ritter 1701). After all, he believed that these distinctions were of lesser importance than the common Croatian nationhood of all of these people and lands. His apotheosis of the common Croat name especially for all South Slavs (the ancient Balkan Illyrians) with regional and historical differences was expressed in Vitezović’s heraldic manual Stemmatographia… where he presented all “Croatian” historical and ethnolinguistic lands in South-East Europe, like Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, etc. (Ritter 1701; Banac 1993: 223–227).

The sources of ideological background of P. R. Vitezović’s Pan-Croatianism

The ideological background of P. R. Vitezović’s Pan-Croatianism lies undoubtedly in the 16th–17th centuries developed a Pan-Slavic idea, which is presented in the first part of this article. Vitezović accepted the main point of this idea – all Slavs constitute a single ethnolinguistic community of kinship.[3]

The basic elements of this assumption he found in the well-known and widely-read East Slavonic Povest’ vremennyh let or Nestor’s Chronicle (“Primary Chronicle” – a compilation from the early 12th century, containing both oral and earlier written material), which main ideological construction, i.e., tradition of the three Slavic progenitors – brothers Czech, Lech and Rus’, who originated in the Balkans and Pannonian Plain around the Danube River (Povest’ vremennyh let 1884: 4; Conte 1986: 14–15). This source became further developed in the various medieval Dalmatian, Czech, and Polish chronicles and Renaissance-Baroque Slavic histories written by the South Slavic authors, especially by those living in Dalmatia.[4]

Constructing his own ideology of a Pan-Croatianism, P. R. Vitezović, on the first place, used information from the next four historical sources relating to the early history of the Slavs, their origin, ethnogenesis and their settlement at the Balkans:

1. Already mentioned above Povest’ vremennyh let.
2. Letopis Popa Dukljanina or Barski rodoslov (“Chronicle of the Priest from Dioclea” or “Bar’s Genealogy”). This is a mid-12^th-century chronicle, possibly originally written in the Slavic language, but surviving only in its Latin translation. The only survived copy of this manuscript can be found in the Manuscript Collection of Library of Vatican under the signature: Vat. Lat. 6958. The main part of this chronicle is based on oral tradition. It is the most detailed source for the early history of Montenegro and Herzegovina and important source on the history of Bosnia, Croatia, and Macedonia.
3. Historia Salonitana (“History of Split”). This is the most important, but a biased historical source for the history of the Dalmatian city of Split from the 7th to the 13th centuries. There is as well as an expanded version of this work from the 16th century that is known as Historia Salonitana maior by Thomas the Archdeacon of Split who died in 1268.
4. De Administrando Imperio (“On governing of the state”). This unfinished work is dealing with the foreign policy of the Byzantium, diplomatic techniques, and sketches of the neighboring Slavic and non-Slavic people. It is written by a Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, 913–959.

P. R. Vitezović, became ideologically influenced and by three specific South Slavic authors who were the principal South Slavic champions of a Pan-Slavic national and linguistic reciprocity: Vinko Pribojević, Mavro Orbin, and Juraj Križanić. In addition to them, a Central European writer, Georg Horn – the 17^th-century author who wrote in 1666 the so-called Georgii Horni, sive Historia imperiorum et regnorum, a conditio orbe ad nostra tempora – left as well a distinct ideological impression on Vitezović.

Surprisingly, P. R. Vitezović in his work reconciled, on one hand, the legend from Povest’ vremennyh let and information from Historia Salonitana that the Croats (called in this latter work as the Curetes) were living in the Balkans in the 1^st  century B.C. with, on another hand, the information about the Croat settlement in the Balkans that he found in Porphyrogenitus’ De Administrando Imperio. Actually, for Vitezović the most interesting part of Porphyrogenitus’ work was the chapter № 30 where the Byzantine Emperor pointed out that the Balkan Croats lived in former time “on the other side of Bavaria, where the White Croats can be found today” (Klaić 1972: 3). Vitezović from this information derived a conclusion that the Croats lived out from the Balkans too, and consequently, he divided all Croats (from the Balkans and outside the Balkans) into “Transdanubian” and “Cisdanubian” Croats. Furthermore, combining information from Povest’ vremennyh let and those from Orbin’s Il Regno degli Slavi, Vitezović concluded firstly that the brothers Czech, Lech and Rus’ (i.e., the Czechs, Moravians, Poles, Russians and entire population of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth including and the Lithuanians) were not only the natives of Illyricum (i.e., Croatia, according to him), but as well as that all of them were actually ethnolinguistic Croats. He used Porphyrogenitus’ text to claim and that the Serbs were of the Croat origin for the reason that the Emperor wrote that the Croats bordered themselves with the Slavic Serbs “who are called Croats” (Klaić 1972: 3; see as well as, Moravcsic 1949; Bury 1906). Finally, the name “Red Croatia” (Croatia Rubea) from Letopis Popa Dukljanina (Ljetopis Popa Dukljanina 1967, 196), which was related to the mediaeval Montenegro (called Duklja or Dioclea, Doclea), Herzegovina and North Albania, Vitezović extended to the whole territory of East Balkans populated by the Slavs (i.e., Illyrians or Croats in his opinion); whereas the name “White Croatia” (Croatia Alba) from the same source (Ljetopis Popa Dukljanina 1967, 194–195) that was related to East Adriatic littoral, he extended to the whole portion of West Balkans.

From the sentence “Clarius Constant. Porphyrogenitus Imper. …qui Sarmatas Belochrobatos, id est Albos, sive magnos, aut terram multam posidentes, appellat” is clear that Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus’ De Administrando Imperio served to Vitezović to claim that all Western and Eastern Slavs, i.e., the Czechs, Sorbs, Moravians and all inhabitants of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russia, originated in Belohrobatoi (White Croats) who are also called by Vitezović as the Sarmatians.

The author of Croatia rediviva… accepted an old idea of the Sarmatian origin of the Slavs, especially of the Poles, by reading at his lifetime very popular following four publications:

1. The Polish historian Matthew Miehowita’s Tractatus de duabus Sarmatiis Asiana et Europeana (“Treatise about two Sarmatias – Asian and European”), Cracow, 1517, for whom ancient Sarmatians were contemporary Russians.
2. The Polish poet Ian Kohanowski (1530–1584).
3. The Polish historian Martinu Kromer’s, De origine et rebus gestis Polonarum (Basel, 1555), who supported the idea of ethnic and linguistic Sarmatian-Slavic symbiosis telling that the Slavic Sarmatians came to Central and South-East Europe from “Asian Sarmatia” (north from the Black Sea) (Cromer 1555; Cynarski 1968, 6–17).
4. The Polish historian Matthew Stryjkowski’s Kronika Polska, Litewska, Žmudzka i wszystkiej Rusi (“Chronicle of Poland, Lithuania, Žemaitija/Samogitia, and all the lands of Rus’”), Königsberg, 1582. Vitezović became particularly affected with Stryjkowski’s association of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (the GDL) with the “Polish Sarmatian Empire”.

P. R. Vitezović accepted from these four works of the Polish Renaissance authors the notion that “European Sarmatia” encompassed Poland, Lithuania, Byelorussia, and Ukraine, i.e. the lands under the scepter of the “Polish” Jagiellonian royal dynasty, which was, in fact, of the Lithuanian origin (Bumblauskas 2007: 172−179; Zinkevičius 2013: 162−167).

The ideological principles that guided M. Stryjkowski’s chronicle undoubtedly strengthened both a Pan-Slavic ideology and the ideology of Sarmatism that dominated Poland at the second half of the 16th century and the first half of the 17th century, consolidating at the same time a Polish position within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Kiaupa et al. 2000: 292–293). The “Sarmatian myth” was transformed by the Poles from a geographic term to the ethnic dimension and became finally political program under the motto: “Polonia caput ac Regina totius Sarmatiae” (Conte 1986: 301).

P. R. Vitezović, in general, accepted old writings about the Slavs, or at least the peoples whom he believed to be the Slavs. For that reason, he accepted the Polish “Sarmatian ideology” based on the writings of the ancient Greek and Roman historians and geographers (for instance, Strabo 63 B.C. – 23 A.D., Ptolemy 100–168) who divided the territory of contemporary Poland into two parts: Germania (West Poland) and Sarmatia(East Poland) (Conte 1986: 292). Ptolemy named the whole territory of Central and East Europe as Sarmatia (Sulimirski 1945: 26). It should be emphasized that the Roman Empire succeeded to establish between the years of 16 B.C. and 9 A.D. three new provinces – Raetia, Noricum, and Pannonia – and to firm its own position along the Danube, only after the military victories over two Sarmatian peoples: Roxolanes and Iazyges. However, both of them were occupying the Roman province of Moesia Inferior (that is today Bulgaria) from 69 B.C. The region of Pannonia and North-East Balkans (i.e. “Hungary and Bulgaria”) are considered in Povest’ vremennyh let as the birth-places of the three brothers – Slavic progenitors (Povest’ vremennyh let 1884: 4). For Vitezović, it was quite logical to conclude that the Slavic progenitors from Povest’ vremennyh letoriginated in Pannonian-Danubian-Balkan Sarmatians, who are mentioned in the Roman annals.

The Stryjkowski’s chronicle strengthened the idea of Pan-Slavism in the eyes of J. Križanić, but in the eyes of P. R. Vitezović this Pan-Slavic ideology was converted into the Pan-Croatian one. Furthermore, Vitezović was familiar with the theory of the Sarmatian origin of all Slavs that was developed in 1606 in the short history De slowinis seu Sarmatis written by Dalmatian historian, inventor, philosopher and lexicographer from Šibenik – Faust Vrančić. The next step used by Vitezović was to identify Porphyrogenitus’ “White Croats” with the Slavi Vandali (the Vandalic Slavs), whose were divided in Georgii Horni’s Sive historia imperiorum et regnorum, a conditio orbe ad nostra tempora (1666) into Venedicos (the Wends) and Sarmaticos (the Sarmatians).[5]Finally, Vitezović was influenced at the great extent by the works of Juraj Križanić and Martin Cromer with regard to the Pan-Slavic unity and reciprocity, but he rejected their teaching that all Slavs originated in Rus’ (Cromer 1555; Križanić 1661–1667; Križanić 1859).[6] In sum, combining the works of Stryjkowski, Vrančić, Križanić, Cromer, and Horn, Pavao Ritter Vitezović effectively claimed all West, South and East Slavs to be of the Croat ethnolinguistic origin.

Ultimately, in dealing with the Balkan Croatia, he accepted an idea of the Croatian 17th –century historian from Dalmatia – Ivan Lučić – who divided a whole Croatia into three provinces: Maritima, Mediterranea, and Interamnensis sive Savia. However, Vitezović added additional two provinces of the Balkan Croatia: Citerior (Istria and Slovenia) and Ulterior (Serbia). These were further divided into “županije” (counties) and “comitatus” (judicial districts) (Vitezović 1997: 195).

To be continued…

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This article was originally published on Oriental Review.

Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is Associate University Professor, Founder & Editor of POLICRATICUS-Electronic Magazine On Global Politics Since 2014 (www.global-politics.eu). Contact: [email protected]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Notes

[1] About the western borders of Slavic extension in the early Middle Ages, see in (Engel 1979: 36).

[2] About the idea of Pan-Slavic ethnolinguistic kinship in Dalmatia and Croatia, see in (Sotirović 2014).

[3] Ideology, from a pure geopolitical perspective, as social phenomena is, in essence, a scope of meanings that practically “serves to create and/or to maintain relationships of domination and subordination, through symbolic forms such as texts, landscapes and spaces” (Cloke et al. 2009: 358). Therefore, it can be interpreted that P. R. Vitezović’s ideological concept of Pan-Croatianism was founded on a geopolitical idea of subordination of all Slavic people and their lands to the Croat national interest for the creation of a nation-state. A nation-state is a form of political organization that involves a framework of different institutions which has to govern the inhabitants within a particularly defined (state) territory. A nation-state, at any case, claims allegiance and legitimacy from its own inhabitants likewise from the other states, but on the fundamental basis that the government of the nation-state represents a group of people living on its controlled territory that they are defined in cultural, ethnolinguistic and political terms as a “nation”.

[4] Povest’ vremennyh let was finally written around the year of 1113 when a monk-chronographer Nestor finished the text as a compilation of several older chronicles and other texts. This chronicle is the fundamental source about the early history of the Kievan Rus’ and East Slavs but primarily of Russians and Russia (Anisimov: 46).

[5] About the problem of the homeland of the Venetae, see in (Darden 1997: 430–435)

[6] About the Slavic origin, see in (Gołąb 1991).

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Al-Qaeda affiliated Al-Nusra terrorists have the resources and ability to produce chlorine gas to use against the population, UN special envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura told a news conference on Tuesday.

“I have said and confirm my view that both the government and the [al-Nusra] Front – which is an organization declared as terrorist by the Security Council – have the ability to produce chlorine for armed use,” Staffan de Mistura told reporters.

The envoy stressed that chlorine has a “horrible and unique feature of being in the gray zone between what is considered a chemical attack or not.”

The Russian Defense Ministry has recently warned that the leader of the terrorist group Tahrir al-Sham, which is affiliated with the al-Nusra Front, is planning a chemical attack on civilians in Syria’s Idlib province, in order to provoke retaliation against Damascus.

Last week, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that terrorists carried eight cans of chlorine gas to a village southwest of Idlib. According to Konashenkov, a chemical attack would create a pretext for Western intervention in the case of an Idlib operation.

The question of chemical weapons is once again being raised as the Syrian Army makes final preparations to launch an operation to clear jihadist-held Idlib province of terrorist organizations.

All the elite units of the Syrian Army, including the Tiger Forces, the 4th Mechanized Units and the Republican Guards will participate in this operation. The defeat of terrorism in Idlib will mean that only small pockets of ISIS in eastern Syria and Kurdish-held regions in eastern and northern Syria will need to be dealt with so that Syria once again becomes a united and sovereign state.

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People in the Ukrainian city of Donetsk bid farewell to the pro-Russia forces’ leader, who was killed in a bomb blast Friday.

Mourners gathered in the streets paying their respects by throwing flowers at the casket of Alexander Zakharchenko. They honored Zakharchenko by calling him a hero.

The mourners also pledged to continue supporting the cause he was fighting for.

.

Interview with Michel Chossudovsky (1′ 30″)

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For almost 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.

Global Research has over 50,000 subscribers to our Newsletter.

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.

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

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9/11 Attacks: Thousands of 9/11 First Responders Have Cancer

By Derrick Broze, September 05, 2018

In early August the New York Post reported on newly released numbers of reported 9/11 related illnesses, including 9,795 total case of 9/11-related cancer. The numbers were released by the federally funded World Trade Center Health Program.

UK Complicity in Post-9/11 Torture and Rendition, We’re Still Waiting for the Truth

By Gracie Bradley, September 05, 2018

After 9/11, the USA engaged in an appalling programme of torture and rendition – all in the name of the so-called ‘war on terror’.

From 2002, UK intelligence and security agencies – hoping to prevent a similar attack on our soil – participated in an estimated 2 to 3,000 detainee interviews conducted by US authorities in locations including Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.

Trudeau Government Acknowledges Nazi Genocide Against Roma

By Suzanne Weiss, September 05, 2018

Roma shared a common fate with Jews in countries under Nazi rule. In A People Uncounted, a video on the Roma Holocaust (or Porajmos) a Jewish survivor recalls how Jews and Roma shared ties of mutual aid and respect. “Our ashes are mixed with theirs in the ovens.”

Cyber Risks, the Achilles’ Heel of Cashless Economies

By William Davis, September 05, 2018

Some are dissatisfied with this state of affairs. In this case, the classical tactic of intimidation becomes the main argument of champions of cashless society. Cash is used by criminals; our children can buy drugs with cash; cash supports the shadow economy and encourages tax evasion – these are just some of these loud statements.

Chemically Induced Frankenstein-Humans

By Robert Hunziker, September 05, 2018

One of the biggest open questions of the 21st century is whether 144,000 different chemicals swirling throughout the world are properly tested and analyzed for toxicity. By almost all accounts, the scale of toxic risk is unknown. This may be the biggest tragedy of all time, a black eye of enormous proportions.

Turkish and US Regimes Allied Against Syria

By Stephen Lendman, September 05, 2018

Putin once accused him of selling stolen “oil from ISIL-controlled territories…delivered to the territory of Turkey on an industrial scale.”

Ankara earlier supplied sarin gas to al-Nusra terrorists in Syria. He let anti-Syrian jihadists pass freely back and forth across Turkey’s border, granting them safe haven in its territory.

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It is a sobering fact of reality to appreciate that 95% of all pro-Israel supporters either in Britain or elsewhere who complain about Jeremy Corbyn’s concern for the Palestinian people, were not even born in 1947/8 when the Irgun and LEHI terrorists razed over 400 long-established Arab villages in Palestine and massacred many hundreds of their inhabitants including men, women and children. 

Most of today’s Zionists, whether Christian or Jewish, were not alive when the terrorists bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem containing the British Mandate HQ and killed 91 mainly civilians.

It is also a sobering fact to realise that the Muslim Arab had been the majority demographic of Palestine continuously for at least 1200 years and that throughout all of that millennium, there was only ever a minority Jewish presence.

These are documented facts in the public domain, not political propaganda, and easily verified in a few seconds by anyone with access to the internet, or a public library.   

It is also documented fact that there has been an army of occupation throughout former Palestine since 1967 and that there are now more than 600,000 illegal Israeli settlers on Palestinian land in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and also the Golan Heights, and that this illegal settlement has been declared to be in violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions on Human Rights and has been condemned by the United Nations Security Council in Resolution 2334.

What further evidence is needed to show beyond doubt that Jeremy Corbyn is vindicated in his view that a continuing crime is being committed against the Palestinian people?

The United Nations, (and its Security Council) is the only international body of recognised authority in the world to which over 195 nation states, including Israel, are members. It represents over 7 billion people worldwide.  Yet the state of Israel is apparently allowed (by Donald Trump) to treat the UN Security Council Resolution 2334 with contempt.  No wonder that Jeremy Corbyn is reluctant to be gagged by the CFI Israel Lobby at Westminster.

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Hans Stehling (pen name) is an analyst based in the UK. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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From the first moments Europeans landed on the shores of North America, a war was waged against the indigenous people who lived there. That war took the form of deceptive agreements, settlements, outright violence, genocide, and, after defeat on the battlefield, an attempt to erase Native American culture and history from the minds of the victims. This war on Native Americans has never ended. Instead, it has only intensified with the lessons learned from the indoctrination and police state techniques used on the majority American population via television, law enforcement brutality, austerity/dependency, and of course medical tyranny, psychiatric fascism, and DSS/CPS.

In this new phase of the war, DSS/CPS play an important role. The separation and destruction of the family unit has continued apace with both the Native American and American populations but, in the case of Native Americans, it not only functions as a way to remove children from their families, but also a way to remove them from their culture. In this sense, DSS/CPS now functions as the old Indian Boarding Schools of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries that were devised to “civilize” and forcibly assimilate Native American people into the dominant culture.

The South Dakota Department of Social Services is working with psychiatrists and Big Pharma to engage in what can only be described as “genocide-for-profit.” It is using techniques it has learned on the American population of using “social services,” police, and the courts to separate children from their families, creating a population of people who have grown up without a stable family upbringing or who simply disappear only to turn up later in sex slavery rings or are left to some other horrible fate.

What is known about this situation is that, in South Dakota, Lakota children are being forcibly removed from their homes, put into foster care or psychiatric facilities and then over-prescribed psychiatric drugs that often rival some of the heaviest doses given to psychotic adults.

Indeed, Lakota parents and grandparents are now reporting that it is routine for DSS to send police to their homes to forcibly remove their children.

Picture heavily armed men arriving to a home in the dead of night to wrench children from their beds to be taken away from their families and you most likely immediately go to images of Nazi Germany, Communist China or the Soviet Union. But this isn’t some historical aberration nor is it the practice of some foreign police state abroad, it’s the practice of the police state here at home.

After these children are removed from their families, psychiatric drugs are forced on the children without the consent of the parents, family, or the children themselves. After all, why would there be the need for consent? When the government views you as its property and when it can remove you or your children from your home, there really isn’t any reason it shouldn’t view psychiatric drugging as off limits.

Interestingly, both Federal Law and the Indian Child Welfare Act prohibit the practice of placing children in non-native homes, but that doesn’t stop the removal. It also doesn’t stop the practice of placing the children in non-native homes since it has been reported that around 90% of these children are placed in non-native homes.

As with the case of the Constitution, it seems rights really are “just a goddamn piece of paper.” When rights get in the way of agenda, then rights are ignored or erased from those very pieces of paper.

I highly encourage the reader to access the South Dakota ICWA Directors’ Special Report from 2012 entitled “Is South Dakota Over-Prescribing Drugs To Native American Foster Kids?” The findings of this report are absolutely horrifying. They show how spending for psychiatric medications for children in foster care has vastly increased, about eleven time over during the period of just a few years. These drugs include those like Zyprexa, Geodon, Prozac, and Abilify which even the FDA has prohibited from being used in children without consent of the parent or guardian. But, since the state has now assumed that role with little resistance from the population, children are being loaded up with these substances regardless. It is noteworthy that these anti-psychotic drugs are known to produce suicidal thoughts and actual suicides. It is also noteworthy that the rate for suicide for Lakota children is 12 times the average.

In addition, the Lakota Peoples’ Law Project has reported that over 63% of Lakota children who have been in the foster system are homeless, in prison, or dead by the time they reach 20 years old after being released from the system at age 18. In other words, after being locked in the foster system, 63% of them have two years of misery and struggle before their lives are over.

Daniel Sheehan, activist and attorney, investigated DSS and subsequently made a video entitled “South Dakota Exposed: Why The Department of Social Services Preys On Native Families,” where he reported that 53% of the South Dakota state budget is related to DSS. He also reported that the state receives $79,000 in federal funds annually for every child in foster care who is designated as “special needs.”

Sheehan says this DSS jihad began in earnest around 1996 when George Bush was governor of Texas and put in place “mandatory mental health screening” tests for all kids before they enter foster care. The Texas Medication Algorithm Project resulted in a number of lawsuits due to fraud and illegal payoffs between drug companies and individuals involved in the program.

But despite the bad reputation of the program, when Bush became President, he expanded the program of “mental screening” to apply to all states in order for them to receive funding in 2001.

While DSS terrorism is taking place all across the country and effecting every race and income bracket, few can deny that Native American children are being targeted. After all, 98% of Lakota kids test as “special needs,” which works out pretty well for a system desiring to steal children and a state looking for some extra cash. After all, it’s not just foster care facilities that get the money. In fact, those facilities only get a small portion of that money with most of it going to the state for “other purposes.” Also, as the Citizen’s Commission On Human Rights points out, “the increased psychiatric drugs sales keep the pharmaceutical companies in a happy frame of mind when it comes time to give campaign donations to South Dakota politicians running for re-election in the state government.”

Clearly, there is still an attempt to destroy the Native American population. But, what was once done through guns and warfare is now being done through policy and government directives. As Bruce Cockburn wrote in his song, “Indian Wars,”

“It’s not breach-loading rifles and wholesale slaughter/It’s kick backs and thugs and diverted water.”

But it is not only about setting up foster care as another Indian Boarding School, it’s also about erasing the most important human connections; i.e., that of a child to its parents. It is also about destroying the traditional family unit, an agenda that is marching full steam ahead on the rest of the American population as well.

Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies,Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria,and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 1,000 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.

Featured image is from The Indigenous American.

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Turkey’s alliance of convenience with Russia and Iran on resolving conflict in Syria was always suspect.

Erdogan is a ruthless despot. Moscow and Tehran know the risks of dealing with a figure concerned only about his own self-interest – with longstanding designs on annexing northern Syrian territory bordering Turkey.

Time and again, he proved he can never be trusted, earlier allying with ISIS against Assad.

Putin once accused him of selling stolen “oil from ISIL-controlled territories…delivered to the territory of Turkey on an industrial scale.”

Ankara earlier supplied sarin gas to al-Nusra terrorists in Syria. He let anti-Syrian jihadists pass freely back and forth across Turkey’s border, granting them safe haven in its territory.

He reportedly supplied al-Nusra terrorists with around 200 drones to use against Syrian forces in the upcoming ground offensive to liberate Idlib province, likely also supplying them with other weapons.

He’s no supporter of regional peace or Syria’s sovereign independence and territorial integrity.

On Tuesday, Mike Pompeo spoke to his Turkish counterpart Melvut Cavusoglu, discussion focusing largely on Idlib.

A joint statement by both officials called “any Assad military offensive (to liberate Idlib from terrorists controlling the province) unacceptable, (a) reckless escalation of the conflict in Syria.”

The statement shows Erdogan is allied with Washington and NATO against restoring peace and stability in Syria. On September 5, Iran’s Press TV reported the following:

“Idlib…hosts Turkish-backed militants fighting against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.”

Liberating Idlib and all of northern Syria foils Erdogan’s aim to annex its territory bordering Turkey.

He’s no “guarantor” of ceasefire in Syria along with Russia and Iran. Nor does he seek an end conflict in its 8th year with no prospect for resolution as long as Trump regime hardliners, NATO, Israel and Ankara want it continued endlessly for regime change.

Separately, the IDF admitted supplying weapons, munitions, cash, and other material support to terrorists operating along the Israeli/Syrian border.

An Israeli border area field hospital treats wounded jihadists, earlier visited by Netanyahu, showing support for these cutthroat killers.

On Tuesday, IDF chief of staff General Gadi Eisenkot told Netanyahu regime security cabinet officials and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee members that Israeli armed forces are maintaining full combat readiness for war.

Will Israel ally with Washington to try undermining the planned Syrian ground offensive to liberate Idlib, greatly aided by Russian air power?

According to Fars News on Tuesday,

“Israeli military leaders are telling the press that they intend to escalate their strikes against Syria (anywhere in the country), particularly against so-called Iranian-linked targets, in the days to come, and that they intend to do so even if they violate deals with Russia in some cases.”

On Friday, Security Council members will meet again on Syria, focusing mainly on Idlib.

When Russian, Turkish and Iranian presidents meet later this week in Tehran, Idlib will be one of the key issues discussed.

Ahead of the meeting, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the following:

“The situation in Idlib continues to be a subject of particular concern to Moscow, Damascus, Ankara, and Tehran.”

“The fact is that there is a hotbed of terrorism there, a fairly large group of terrorists has settled there. Of course, this leads to general destabilization.”

“This undermines attempts to re-introduce political and diplomatic regulation.”

“It’s undoubtedly necessary to deal with this problem (in Idlib). We know that the Syrian Armed Forces are preparing to solve this problem” – to be greatly aided by Russian airpower already involved.

Eliminating US-supported terrorists in Idlib and elsewhere in Syria is Damascus’ resolve, supported by Russia and Iran.

*

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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Washington is upping the ante in Ukraine. Kurt Volker, US Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations, said in an interview with the Guardian published on September 1 that “Washington is ready to expand arms supplies to Ukraine in order to build up the country’s naval and air defense forces in the face of continuing Russian support for eastern separatists.” According to him, the Trump administration was “absolutely” prepared to go further in supplying lethal weaponry to Ukrainian forces than the anti-tank missiles it delivered in April.

“They need lethal assistance,” he emphasized. Mr. Volker explained that “[t]hey need to rebuild a navy and they have very limited air capability as well. I think we’ll have to look at air defense.”

The diplomat believes Ukraine needs unmanned aerial vehicles, counter-battery radar systems, and anti-sniper systems. The issue of lethal arms purchases has been discussed at the highest level.

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 allocated $250m in military assistance to Ukraine, including lethal arms. The US has delivered Javelin anti-tank missile systems to Kiev but this time the ambassador talked about an incomparably larger deal. Former President Barack Obama had been unconvinced that granting Ukraine lethal defensive weapons would be the right decision, in view of the widespread corruption there. This policy has changed under President Trump, who — among other things — approved deliveries of anti-tank missiles to Kiev last December.

Ukraine has officially requested US air-defense systems. According to Valeriy Chaly (image on the right), Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, the Ukrainian military wants to purchase at least three air-defense systems. The cost of the deal is expected to exceed $2 billion, or about $750 million apiece. The system in question was not specified, but it’s generally believed to be the Patriot.

Volker’s statement was made at a time of rising tensions in the Sea of Azov, which is legally shared by Ukraine and Russia. It is connected to the Black Sea through the Kerch Strait. The rhetoric has heated up and ships have been placed under arrest as this territorial dispute turns the area into a flashpoint. Russia has slammed the US for backing Ukraine’s violations of international law in the area. According to a 2003 treaty, the Sea of Azov is a jointly controlled territory that both countries are allowed to use freely.

The US military already runs a maritime operations center located within Ukraine’s Ochakov naval base. The facility is an operational-level warfare command-and-control organization that is designed to deliver flexible maritime support throughout the full range of military operations. Hundreds of US and Canadian military instructors are training Ukrainian personnel at the Yavorov firing range.

NATO has granted Ukraine the status of an aspirant country — a step that is openly provocative toward Russia. Macedonia, Georgia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina are also aspirant nations. Last year, Ukraine’s parliament adopted a resolution recognizing full membership in NATO as a foreign policy goal. In 2008, NATO agreed that Ukraine along with Georgia should become a full-fledged member. In March, Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia announced the formation of an alliance to oppose Russia.

The US is to render substantial military assistance to a country with an economy in the doldrums, reforms that have foundered, a democracy that is in question, and corruption that is widespread. It will be no surprise if those weapons fall into the wrong hands and are used against the US military somewhere outside of Europe. lIt was the US State Department itself that issued a report this year slamming Ukraine’s human-rights record. The UN human-rights commissioner tells the same story. So do human-rights monitors all over the world.

By supplying the weapons that Special Representative Volker talked about in his interview, the US will become an accomplice to a conflict that has nothing to do with its national security or interests. The situation in the Donbas is being used by Kiev to distract public attention from the country’s worsening domestic problems. But to Washington Ukraine’s government is the apple of its eye, “a bastard but it’s our bastard” that is ready to do what it’s told.

The move is provocative and it may have consequences. For instance, Russia could supply the self-proclaimed republics in eastern Ukraine with up-to-date weapons systems in quantities sufficient to deter any military action on the part of Kiev. Once the Minsk accords are no longer functional and cannot command obediance, Moscow could recognize those republics as independent states that are eligible for military cooperation agreements, which would include stationing military bases on their soil. If their governments invited the Russian armed forces to be deployed inside their borders, it would be quite natural to agree to those requests. No international law would be breached. In a nutshell, if the US crosses that red line, Russia will act accordingly. Nobody seems to want a war raging in Ukraine, but that’s what the US weapons supplies would promote, egging the Ukrainian government on to seek a military solution. And what if it loses? Washington would be to blame for such a scenario. By the way, is it a coincidence that Mr. Volker’s interview appeared just as Alexander Zakharchenko, the leader of the Donetsk self-proclaimed republic, was assassinated? Just asking.

*

Peter Korzun is an expert on wars and conflicts.

Featured image is from the author.

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Reuters has just published an article titled Swiss watchdog to propose looser anti-money laundering rules for fintechs. (Fintech is short for “financial + technology” and it is about bringing technology into the financial sector. Switzerland’s move is, apparently:

part of a drive to boost innovation and shore up the country’s position as a leading money management hub.”

For the appropriate context for this, see a recent FT Alphaville column entitled Fintech as a gateway for criminal enterprise. It focuses on money transmission services, but it’s part of an Alphaville series examining the dark side of fintech, which is disturbingly large.

Equally disturbing, tax havens are rapidly jumping on the Fintech bandwagon.  Jersey has set up a “regulatory sandbox” to allow certain startups to operate “without the normal registration requirements and associated costs.” The Isle of Man, another tax havens, has “thrown its arms wide open” to cryptocurrencies. In the words of Appleby, the star of the Paradise Papers:

The Isle of Man Government appears keen not to suffocate this evolving area with onerous regulation.”

If that doesn’t set the warning lights flashing take a look at sleazier tax havens, like Malta, which is a “hotbed for fintech: and which has dived in with “Bitcoin ATMs.” Or try the Russian enclave and “Special Economic Zone” of Kaliningrad, where participants enthuse that

Whatever is not illegal is legal . . . there are no laws regarding cryptocurrency mining because it’s a new kind of business.”

And that gets to the nub of the issue with fintech. It is racing ahead of regulatory protections for consumers and wider society — and that can be a highly profitable place to be. Which is why it is so compatible with the offshore tax haven model: these places are in the business of offering escape routes from the rules.  As one of the boosters of this technology puts it — a booster with the fitting name of ‘escape artist’ — Cryptocurrency Is The New Tax Haven. 

The word “crypto” should offer a clue — in this case, secrecy. Bitcoin, the best know of these currencies, is not just a vehicle for secrecy and crime, but also a way for those running the system to abuse millions of poor mugs who thought they could get rich by buying into this once in a lifetime opportunity (a “fraud worse than tulip bulbs,” as a top banker put it.)

There’s a sucker born every second

And there’s this:

According to a working paper from the University of Luxembourg, lesser-known hubs like the British Virgin Islands, Gibraltar, and the Cayman Islands now count among the world’s top ten ICO [Initial Coin Offering] destinations, owing to their ease-of-ICO administration, laws, and tax benefits.”

Having made a business model of racing ahead of regulations, the best way to stay ahead is to be regulated in a tax havens.

For a dose of sanity on fintech, there’s plenty more here.

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The prohibition on torture is one of the few absolute rights. Its use can never be justified, regardless of the circumstances.

After 9/11, the USA engaged in an appalling programme of torture and rendition – all in the name of the so-called ‘war on terror’.

From 2002, UK intelligence and security agencies – hoping to prevent a similar attack on our soil – participated in an estimated 2 to 3,000 detainee interviews conducted by US authorities in locations including Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.

It’s long been known that the UK got its hands dirty in the process. But – 16 years on – the extent to which the UK was involved in US torture and rendition remains unknown.

Successive governments have repeatedly committed to holding a robust, independent inquiry – including former Prime Minister David Cameron who, in 2010, rightly said:

“The longer these questions remain unanswered, the bigger the stain on our reputation as a country”.

Cameron set up an inquiry, chaired by Sir Peter Gibson. But it was flawed – a secret internal inquiry with the Government in control – and barely got off its feet before being shelved due to ongoing criminal investigations.

In June this year, unjustified Government restrictions also stymied the most recent attempt to uncover the truth – by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC).

Liberty has always been clear in its position. Only an independent judicial inquiry can expose the truth and clear the stain on the UK’s reputation as an upholder of the rule of law and respecter of human rights.

Willful complicity

In June 2018, the ISC published a pair of damning reports documenting UK complicity in US torture and mistreatment. Their findings are shocking.

The committee found that, in 232 cases, UK personnel assisted with interrogations when they should have known that torture or inhuman treatment was taking place.

On 326 occasions, UK officers received intelligence from prisoners who they knew were being mistreated. In almost 40 cases, UK officials either witnessed or were told of mistreatment by foreign partners or detainees themselves.

As the ISC concluded, the UK’s involvement amounted to a “simple outsourcing of action which they were not allowed to undertake themselves”.

But this willful complicity in horrifying abuse amounts to a direct and inexcusable rights violation in itself.

The ISC’s findings go some way to revealing the extent of UK complicity – but restrictions placed on the committee by the Government prevented its members from carrying out a truly comprehensive investigation.

Crucially, they were prevented from interviewing key witnesses and including evidence about specific incidences.

Those restrictions led the ISC to reluctantly conclude that it couldn’t progress any further with its inquiry.

But its revelations show UK agencies were far more deeply and systematically involved in US torture and rendition than previously known.

No compromise

On 2 July, the Government announced it would respond to renewed calls for an independent judge-led inquiry into UK involvement in torture and rendition within 60 days – which means any day now.

Liberty has repeatedly called for such an inquiry since 2005 – and we’re far from alone. Following the publication of the ISC reports, politicians and public figures on all sides have called for the same.

Along with a coalition of partner organisations, we’ve set out five key tests any proposed inquiry must meet in order to meet baseline standards of independence and effectiveness.

It must:

1. Be established under the 2005 Inquiries Act and headed by a judge.
2. Have an independent, judicial mechanism for open proceedings and publication.
3. Have adequate legal powers to hold a full and effective investigation.
4. Be empowered to examine all relevant evidence and cases, including those which have yet to be properly examined – such as Abdulhakin Belhaj and Fatima Boudchar.
5. Ensure the meaningful involvement of torture survivors.

There can be no compromise when it comes to torture. Only by dragging this shameful episode out of the shadows and into the light will the UK be able to move forward – and make sure crucial lessons are learnt.

With every day the Government fails to launch a proper investigation, cover-up and official impunity persist.

Let’s hope they finally do the right thing this week.

*

Gracie came to Liberty in July 2017 and leads our work to oppose the Government’s “hostile environment” policies on immigration. Before joining Liberty, Gracie worked in casework, research and policy across several NGOs to support survivors of torture and working migrants to navigate the UK’s immigration system. She also trained public officials and third sector workers to use the Human Rights Act in their day-to-day work. She holds a Masters in Human Rights from the LSE and a degree in Philosophy & French from Oxford University.

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Featured image: Nir Barkat, the Israeli mayor of Jerusalem (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Israel’s Mayor of Jerusalem Nir Barkat has threatened to end the work of the UN Refuge Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the holy city, Israeli newspaper the Jerusalem Post reported yesterday.

The paper said that it was

“the first public statement by an Israeli official that called on the [Israeli] government to use its power to shut down the agency that services Palestinian refugees.”

Barakat said:

UNRWA is a foreign and unnecessary organisation that has failed miserably. I intend to expel it from Jerusalem.

He was speaking at a conference sponsored by Channel 2 held in Jerusalem. He said he had already instructed his municipal staff to come up with a plan to replace UNRWA.

UNRWA spokesman Sami Mshasha stressing that the organsiation’s work is still continuing in Jerusalem.

He said that the UNRWA offers services to thousands of Palestinian refugees in East Jerusalem, running schools, health centres and aid distribution programmes.

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Last week, several Turkish news sites published an article called “Washington Exploiting Christianity against Turkey” written by Adnan Cavusoglu. The author’s attention was drawn by the site christianpersecution.com, which covers the facts of Christian persecution all over the world.

The site was launched by the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle, an Orthodox organization defending the rights of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Order members, Archons, are civilians who “have been honored for their outstanding service to the Orthodox Church.” Archons hold conferences, have meetings with various politicians and lobby bills on religious freedom.

Cavusoglu claims that the only purpose of christianpersecution.com is to blacken Ankara’s image and that it is just a part of the Order’s information campaign against Turkey. Mostly, the pieces on the site are republished from other media with short remarks added. The posts are edited and approved by high ranked hierarchs of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the author writes.

According to Cavusoglu, one of the “editors” is Metropolitan Elpidophoros Lambriniadis of Bursa. In particular, the Al-Monitor article republished by christianpersecution.com on August 13, focused on the plight of Christians on the island of Heybeliada where the theological school headed by the Metropolitan is situated.

The actual situation, however, differs from the one depicted on the website.

“The government doesn’t impede the development of all religious minorities,” Cuvusoglu writes. “In May, talks began on the re-opening of the Heybeliada Theological School. In July, the Metropolitan of Ankara was appointed for the first time since 1922. There are no obstacles for Patriarch Bartholomew to develop an inter-faith dialogue, meet with international politicians. Orthodox churches and monuments in Turkey are being restored. That’s why the patriarch himself never criticized the state for the so-called Christian persecution.”

The Order of St. Andrew carries out an anti-Turkish policy. That’s why the organization’s National Commander Anthony Limberakis is said to constantly slam Turkey and president Erdogan.

The author also highlights the ties between the Order, the Greek American Archdiocese of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (GOArch) and the US Department of State.

“One of the Archons is Michael Karloutsos, a top State Department official, son of an influential GOArch hierarch Alexander Karloutsos. It’s no wonder then why the site publishes articles criticizing Ankara,” Cavusoglu states.

As noticed in the article, most posts of the website are about Pastor Andrew Brunson, who is under house arrest on terrorism and spying charges in Izmir. His detention became the pretext for Washington to impose sanctions against Turkey.

So, christianpersecution.com seems to be another tool of the United States to attack Ankara, concludes the author.

*

Gizem Akbash is currently taking up MA in International Relations at Cleveland State University.

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Featured image: A group of Romani prisoners in the Belzec concentration camp.

More then 50 people of all ages joined in Toronto August 2, 2018, in an international day of remembrance and recognition of the Romani Holocaust (Porajmos) in Europe. They heard Arif Virani, federal member of parliament for Toronto Parkdale-High Park, read a statement issued that day by Justin Trudeau’s government which said, in part:

“On Romani Genocide Remembrance Day, we honour the memory of over 500,000 Romani who were persecuted and murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators in Europe. This genocide and the unspeakable violence inflicted on the Romani people are not widely known by the public, making them the ignored victims of WWII.”

The statement is “the result of three years of work by the Roma (Gypsies) and their friends” according to Michael Butch, president of the Toronto Roma Community Centre and founder of the Gypsy Rebels band. It is a welcome shift, even if only implicit, from the pattern of discriminatory and defamatory actions by the federal government over the last two decades, particularly under the government of Stephen Harper (2006-15).

A Montreal-based group defending Roma human rights, “Romanipe,” laid out the statement’s deeper implication:

“At a time when acts of racism, hatred and violence against Romani continue to be normalized, preserving the memory of past atrocities and raising awareness about the dangers of impunity becomes not only a right but a duty… The lessons of this tragedy serve to advance the human rights situation of Romani communities at home and abroad.”

Porajmos Remembered

The Toronto event highlighted the 74th anniversary of Roma resistance in Auschwitz, when thousands of Roma prisoners fought back courageously against Nazi guards.

Roma shared a common fate with Jews in countries under Nazi rule. In A People Uncounted, a video on the Roma Holocaust (or Porajmos) a Jewish survivor recalls how Jews and Roma shared ties of mutual aid and respect. “Our ashes are mixed with theirs in the ovens.”

In Auschwitz the majority of Jewish arrivals were sent straight to their death. The Roma, by contrast, were confined at Auschwitz in a separate camp, the Zigeunerlager, marked down to die of starvation, disease, brutal treatment, and sinister medical experimentation.

On May 16, 1944, heavily armed guards assaulted the Roma camp under orders to deliver the 6,000 Roma prisoners to the gas chambers. Forewarned, the Roma put up a fierce resistance with improvised weapons. At the cost of many casualties, the Roma beat off the attack and lived to fight another day – a triumph with few parallels in the history of Nazi death camps.

On the morning of August 2, the Nazis tried again. First, they removed able-bodied men and dispersed them to other camps, where some survived. That evening, emboldened by this cowardly move, the guards attacked the 3,000 who remained – women, children, and the sick. “The inmates fought a fierce battle with sticks and rocks” before ultimately being herded to the gas chambers, recounts Lizzie Isaacs. “Witness accounts say that the Romanies fought to the very end…. That night over 3,000 were murdered and the bodies burnt in the pits.”

In all, Cynthia Levine-Rasky writes:

“Estimates of the total number of Roma killed between 1933 and 1945 range from 500,000 to 1.5 million. The variance is due not only to the lack of records for the geographically dispersed camps in which the Roma were detained but also to the way in which so many were killed in the fields, villages, and remote areas where they lived.”¹

The Nazis did not bother to catalogue the names and birth-places of the Roma as they often did for other “Untermenschen” (subhumans), including my Jewish mother. The Roma victims thus, remain “a people uncounted.”

Origins of the Roma

Erroneously called “Gypsies” in the English-speaking world by those who thought they came from Egypt, the Roma actually originated in North-Central India early in the 11th century.

About 400 years later, they moved into and across Europe, where they often faced persecution. Ronald Lee, a co-founder of the Toronto Romani Community Centre and historian, explains that the Roma’s strategy for survival was to “become part of the feudal system in Central/Eastern Europe and to become totally nomadic in Western Europe, able to move from one country to another as persecution waxed and waned.”²

Although scattered across Europe and divided into many communities, the Roma retained a common culture and a common language, based on speech in their original home in the north-west India sub-continent. Today Romani is spoken worldwide in many dialects.

Lee tracks the relentless mass killings (samudaripen) of Roma dating back to 15th century Europe.

“The Christian Popes and their clergy accused the Roma of having made the nails for the cross of Christ…. Because the majority of their people are dark-skinned, they were also accused of devil worship as ‘imps of Satan’…. The Protestant religions were equally hostile to the Roma and condemned them as work-shy parasites and immoral hedonists, the antithesis of Martin Luther’s hymn-singing, hard-working, joy-denying, witch-burning Puritans…”³

But the Roma Holocaust arose not from Mediaeval witch-hunts but from twentieth century social conflicts in Europe. Even before 1938, when Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler proclaimed the goal of subjecting the Roma to a “final solution” – that is, to extermination, a number of governments were taking steps against the Roma.

At the August 2 commemoration in Toronto, a Roma high-school student and recently arrived refugee recalled that in his country, Hungary, “anti-Romani laws were enacted beginning in 1928, making it very hard for Roma to get jobs and subjecting them to police discrimination and surveillance.”

“During the Second World War,” the student continued, “the Czechs rounded up the Roma and handed them over to the German occupiers.”

This procedure was similar to the situation in France, where I then lived; the French Vichy government took the initiative in rounding up the Jews and handing them to the Nazis.

“In Hungary,” he continued, “in the summer of 1944 the Romani were confined in ghettos and subjected to forced labour. Two of our young refugee’s family was sent to Auschwitz to die.”

The documentary A People Uncounted explains that in Austria, during the depression of the 1930s, mass unemployment hit the Roma the hardest, forcing them out of their traditional trades and onto the municipal social assistance rolls. Many local communities petitioned the Nazi government to ease their burden by removing the Roma, sometimes even paying for this service. But this did not happen in every case. “If a local community does not permit persecution,” the film tells us repeatedly, “it does not happen.”

Romani civilians in Asperg, Germany are rounded up for deportation by German authorities on 22 May 1940. (Source: CC BY-SA 3.0 de)

After the overthrow of Nazi rule, the surviving Roma in Eastern Europe came under Communist rule, which freed them from organized racism and discrimination while providing employment and economic security. Lee notes that Roma in Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union enjoyed a measure of cultural autonomy, but government policies across Eastern Europe as a whole aimed at assimilation of the Roma, which they strongly resented. Communist rule “was a two-edged sword,” Lee says.

Restored Capitalism Brings Racist Revival

Since the end of Communist rule in 1989-90, the Roma in Eastern Europe have again faced murderous persecution at the hands of racist groups.

When Communist rule ended, a shock-therapy transition to capitalism deprived many Roma of employment, while fueling a revival in several countries of the old racist and Nazi-era hatreds. Increasingly, rightist regimes encouraged resentment against the “other” – the Roma – who were victimized by heightened violence and xenophobia.

A video documenting such violent attacks against Roma in the Czech Republic was shown to the August 2 Toronto commemoration. In it, an anti-Roma activist declares, “We all hate the Roma together here.”

Ronald Lee told the Toronto meeting of a June 23 attack on a Roma camp near Lviv, Ukraine, by a gang of masked attackers suspected of membership in a far-right nationalist gang. David Popp, 23, was stabbed to death in his sleep, and several other Roma were wounded. Eight attackers were arrested. Three days later, a pro-Roma solidarity action in Lviv chanted, “Nazis are around and the state is protecting them.” ⁴

Lee echoed this thought, noting that Canada backs the Ukraine regime with soldiers and military aid.

“I have a photo of Ukrainian soldiers, armed by Canada, waiving Nazi flags,” he told the August 2 meeting.

There is a pattern of government complicity with these crimes in several countries, writes British anthropologist Michael Stewart:

“There are now elected official, parties and civic movements for whom “problems with the Gypsies” lie at the heart of their grievances. This is something wholly new on the European political scene. Traditional European anti-Gypsy politics talked of Roma as nuisance, as a “public scandal,” even as a plague descended on the hardworking citizens. But never, not even in the 1930s, as a fundamental source of national woe. Parties have now emerged in Bulgaria and Hungaria with significant public support [which] place “the Gypsy menace” at the absolute centre of their politics.”⁵

Conditions faced by Roma in several East European states now resemble what they experienced in the run-up to Nazi rule. A People Uncounted calls these conditions “pre-genocidal,” in the sense that they create conditions in which genocidal attack could take place.

In this context, it is not surprising that many thousands of Roma over the past three decades have sought to enter Canada as refugees.

Roma Seek Refuge in Canada

Roma have lived in Canada for more than 100 years, as what Ronald Lee terms an “unrecognized patch in the national quilt.” They now number about 100,000.

Between 1998 and 2015, Canada received roughly 20,000 refugee claims from Roma in Europe. The Roma made up only about 5% of the total refugee claimants – a barely perceptible bump in the flow of applicants that has was generally declining in those years. (Source: www.canada.ca). Nonetheless, this flow was sufficient to elicit the Canadian government’s first-ever response to Roma immigration. It was unfavourable. Ottawa erected legislative and policy barriers to Roma settlement.

“Our Centre was born in 1997, mostly to provide services to a large number of Roma refugees fleeing from persecution and tyranny in Czechoslovakia,” Michael Butch explained. “At present, most Roma refugees flee from Romania, Hungary and the Ukraine.”⁶

Between 2010 and 2012, 8,605 asylum seekers arrived in Canada from Hungary – most of them were Roma impelled to leave by a wave of violence and intimidation. The Harper government responded with measures that drove the “success rate” — acceptance of Hungarian refugee claimants during those years — below 10%.

As part of this program, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney took exceptional measures to deter Roma from seeking safety in Canada. During a diplomatic visit to Hungary on October 9, 2012, in an unmistakable reference to the Roma, Kenney declared that he would stop “the abuse of our system and generosity by bogus asylum claimants.” The minister backed up this gross insult with a $13,000 billboard and media campaign to let to Roma know that Canada’s refugee determination system had changed and was now unfriendly to Roma refugee claims.⁷

Jason Kenny’s approach, in Ronald Lee’s opinion, is reminiscent of the notorious statement of a Canadian immigration official in 1939 regarding potential Jewish immigration, “none is too many.”

Since Justin Trudeau replaced Harper as prime minister, “the refugee situation is much improved,” according to Michael Butch, but many barriers that obstruct Roma refugees remain in place, and the number of Roma claimants is much reduced.

Resilience and Optimism

As for those Roma refugees who managed to win acceptance in Canada, how have they fared? Levine-Rasky reports her findings, based on extensive interviews with Roma refugees in Toronto. in an article, “Determined Nation,” and her book, Writing the Roma.

Levine-Rasky’s interview subjects that have run into their share of obstacles, setbacks, and – especially from landlords – outright anti-Roma discrimination. Yet her Roma informants often stress that despite the challenges, Canada offers them freedom, possibilities to enjoy life, and a future for their children. Among their responses:

• “Here they treat you as a human being. They don’t treat you like an idiot, or someone who doesn’t know any thing. You can use your brain. They treat you like a normal person… They didn’t treat me like a Gipsy.” (Frank, arrived 2000) (“Determined Nation,” p. 58)
• “[A]t university … I just saw, Cynthia, oh my God the people. Every kind of people just working with each other and I have the same opportunity what they doing.” (Lylugyi, arrived 2000) (Writing the Roma, 156.)
• “[My children] they’re so happy, because the whole class loves them, they love them. But it’s not love, it’s just a normal treatment…. When I go outside, for walking and they [are] always asking … It’s like normal fashion. ‘Where is your baby ? How is your kid? How is your life?’ … Those kind of questions normal here in Canada.” (Katalin, arrived 2011), “Determined Nation,” p. 58.

In their own words, the refugees explain that it is hard to leave their past behind, and they are still wary of people who hated, abused, and physically hurt them. In Toronto, they learn that they “don’t have to be ready to fight” to defend themselves against the skinheads; there are no guards, no police, no harassment.” They begin to feel that they are “living in a free country.” (Writing the Roma, p. 155.)

Women think about broadening their scope with education. “I can do everything I want to do and I can be anybody.” They modify their traditional role as wife and mother: “Women should study … Cultural things are okay at home, but if they want to integrate, they have to let go of some things.” (Writing the Roma, p. 156.)

In reading these testimonies, I was reminded of an emphatic statement in A People Uncounted: “If a local community does not permit persecution, it does not happen.” The contrary is also true. When the local community reacts with simple human decency, a great deal can be achieved.

I owe my life to that concept: as a Jew I survived the Nazi holocaust thanks to the courageous humanity of a welcoming community in rural France.

We have much to learn from the Roma and other immigrants that make up patches in the quilt of Canadian life today. They help us decide whether we are going to do the humane thing for people who seek refuge. We will soon be facing many more needing a helping hand. Even within our own borders, the fires and floods of climate change will disrupt the lives of thousands.

Will the community mindset in Canada be to protect only our belongings and ourselves? Or will we reach out for an inclusive, loving, peaceful and better future for the entire planet? That is the ultimate challenge symbolized by our response to our new Roma neighbours.

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Suzanne Weiss is a Holocaust survivor based in Toronto, Canada. She is a member of the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA) and Not In Our Name: Jewish Voices Opposing Zionism. She blogs at suzanneberlinerweiss.wordpress.com.

Sources

Aaron Yeger (director) and Mark Swenker (producer), A People Uncounted: The Untold Story of the Roma, NFB, 2011.

Cynthia Levine-Rasky, Writing the Roma: Histories, Policies, and Communities in Canada, Toronto: Fernwood, 2016.

Cynthia Levine-Rasky, “‘They Didn’t Treat Me as a Gypsy’:Romani Refugees in Toronto,” Refuge, Canada’s Journal on Refugees, 32:3 (2016).

Cynthia Levine-Rasky, “Determined Nation,” Canada’s History, June-July 1918.

Ronald Lee, “Post-Communism Romani Migration in Canada,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 13:2 (2000).

Ronald Lee, “A New Look at Our Romani Origins and Diaspora,” Kopachi.

Lizzie Isaacs, “Remembering Zigeunernacht – The Night of the Gypsies, August 2, 1944,” Travellers Times, August 2018.

Michael Stewart, The Gypsy “Menace”: Populism and the New Anti-Gypsy Politics, London: Hurst, 2012.

1. Writing the Roma, p.71.

2. Interview with the author and John Riddell.

3. Ronald Lee, “Roma up to and during the Holocaust,” unpublished paper.

4. Al-Jazeera.

5. The Gypsy Menace xix.

6. Interview with author and John Riddell.

7. Levine-Rasky, “They Didn’t Treat Me as a Gypsy,” p. 6.

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As executives from Facebook and Twitter prepare to testify Wednesday on Capitol Hill, the social media monopolies are scrambling to demonstrate how far they have gone to implement censorship measures demanded by the intelligence agencies and dominant sections of the political establishment.

These actions are inevitably couched in the language of combatting “foreign interference” and “meddling” in “American democracy” via the promotion of “fake news.” However, the real target is the growth of social opposition among millions of workers and young people.

Throughout the United States, hundreds of thousands of workers are entering into struggle against low wages, the attack on social programs and the decay of social infrastructure. As the school year begins, teachers in the state of Washington have launched strike action, as the unions seek desperately to contain the anger of educators. There is overwhelming opposition among 370,000 US-based UPS workers to a new concessions contract demanded by their employers and the Teamsters union. The ruling class knows that any eruption of class struggle, in any sector, could set off a social explosion.

At the same time, popular support for socialism is growing. A recent Gallup poll showed that, for the first time, fewer than half of young people aged 18-29 have a positive view of capitalism, while more than half have a positive view of socialism.

To combat what they call “extreme” political views, the major technology companies have massively accelerated their efforts to monitor, police and control the flow of information online.

Samidh Chakrabarti, Facebook’s product manager of Civic Engagement, told NBC News Monday that the company is building a “war room” to monitor its users’ statements on the 2018 US elections, allowing the social media monopoly to “take quick and decisive action.”

“We’ve been building this war room, a physical war room,” Chakrabarti said. Continuing the military metaphor, Chakrabarti told NBC, “Every single corner of this company has mobilized” to remove what he called “fake accounts” and to stop the “spread of misinformation and fake news.”

What the company means by “fake news’ and “misinformation” is shown in practice. Among the pages removed by Facebook was the official event page for last month’s anniversary protest against a neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, South Carolina. The most recent batch of “fake” pages taken down by the company all expressed left-wing political views, including opposition to US and Israeli foreign policy and police violence.

The scope of the company’s enforcement actions is vast. The executive boasted that, over a six-month period, Facebook “detected, blocked and removed, over a billion fake accounts before they could do anything like spread fake news or misinformation.”

The company has doubled its security and enforcement team, from 10,000 people a year ago to 20,000 today, meaning that the majority of the company’s employees work to “police” its users’ statements. These include thousands of individuals with police and intelligence backgrounds.

“We basically have some of the best intelligence analysts from around the world,” Chakrabarti said.

Facebook is far from the only organization to use the analogy of “war” to describe the future of the internet. The cover story of this month’s edition of Foreign Affairs, the influential foreign policy magazine, is entitled “World War Web.” Its lead editorial argues that the “Internet open to all” is being transformed into something “different from, and in many ways worse than, what we have now.” The internet, as one article argues, “has turned into an active battlefield.”

By allowing “propagandists and extremists” to “push misleading or outright false content,” the internet is “robbing citizens of a basic understanding of reality,” claims Karen Kornbluh, a Senior Fellow for Digital Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. “It is hard to escape the conclusion that the technology that promised to give power to the powerless has ended up also hurting the very people it was supposed to help,” she writes.

The conclusion is clear. If the internet is “robbing citizens of a basic understanding of reality,” and “hurting the very people it was supposed to help,” wouldn’t they be better without it? Or, at the very least, aggressive measures must be taken by the state to enforce its own “basic understanding of reality”—that is, censorship.

The fundamental concern of the American ruling elite is not supposed campaigns originating in St. Petersburg or Tehran, but the growing political opposition by the working class, which is increasingly hungry for socialist politics.

And it is precisely left-wing, anti-war, and socialist organizations that have been the central targets of censorship by the technology giants.

In April of last year, Google announced measures to promote “authoritative content” over “alternative viewpoints,” leading to a massive drop in search traffic to left-wing websites. Search traffic to the World Socialist Web Site dropped 75 percent in the months following the changes, and has continued to trend downwards.

The US media has maintained almost total silence on Google’s censorship of left-wing political viewpoints. However, US President Trump’s claims last month that conservative news outlets were being silenced by Google has been met with a series of denials by Google, the print and broadcast media, and large sections of the US political establishment.

In responding to Trump’s claims, however, Senator Mark Warner, the leading figure in the Democrats’ drive to censor the internet, gave a Wired reporter a revealing response regarding how Google treats “extreme periodicals.”

“There are genuine concerns about some of the algorithms that almost create addiction tendencies, but those are generally about if you have a personal profile of searches, and you search a left-leaning story, they’re going to give you another, usually more extreme story, to keep feeding the beast.”

In other words, if people search for “social inequality” and “strike” on Google, they just might stumble onto “socialism” and the “extreme periodicals” on the left that advocate it.

What Warner is describing, in other words, is the exact method by which Google has targeted the World Socialist Web Site: by down-ranking its pages in searches on the topics it principally covers.

The growth of working class struggle also provides the way forward to defend the freedom of expression on the internet. As workers throughout the United States and internationally enter into struggle against the employers and their union lackeys they must take up the fight against internet censorship as a central political demand.

Can you help us keep up the work we do? Namely, bring you the important news overlooked or censored by the mainstream media and fight the corporate and government propaganda, the purpose of which is, more than ever, to “fabricate consent” and advocate war for profit.

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The Turkish military has boosted its naval group in the Eastern Mediterranean as the battle of Idlib is looming in Syria, Turkey’s pro-government daily Yeni Safak reported on September 2. According to the daily, “Turkey, which previously had 10 warships in the region, dispatched several more naval vessels to the region, the exact number of which is unknown.”

The daily also recalled multiple remarks by the Turkish authorities claiming that the Idlib offensive by the Syrian Army will be disaster and lead to a humanitarian catastrophe.

The report comes amid the ongoing Russian naval drills in the same area, which started on September 1 and will continue until September 8.

It should be noted that on August 31 Turkey finally designated Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a new brand of Jabhat al-Nusra – the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, as a terrorist group. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is the most powerful group in the militant stronghold of Idlib in northwestern Syria.

Ankara’s move followed a similar decision by the US State Department made on May 31. The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham brand was created by Jabhat al-Nusra in the framework of a series of efforts to hide the terrorist group’s essence, on February 8, 2017. So, both the US and Turkey needed more than a year to admit an open secret of the Syrian war. Most likely, this took such significant amount of time because these moves are an open admission that the so-called Idlib opposition is terrorists or allied with them.

On September 4, US President Donald Trump warned the Syrian government against combating terrorists in Idlib.

“President Bashar al-Assad of Syria must not recklessly attack Idlib Province. The Russians and Iranians would be making a grave humanitarian mistake to take part in this potential human tragedy. Hundreds of thousands of people could be killed. Don’t let that happen!” Trump wrote on his Twitter page.

This as well as previous threats by the US-led bloc to punish Syria for active actions against terrorist groups in west of the country are described by the Damascus government as rough efforts to prolong the war, to overthrow the country’s government and to defend Israeli interests.

“The Syrian people and the Syrian government want the crisis to end today. However, it is impossible because of external interference led by the US,” Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem recently said in an interview with the Russian state media adding that “this interference satisfies the interests of Israel and runs counter to those of the Syrian people.” He added that the US goal “is to prolong the crisis.”

The militant held areas in western Syria and the heavy influence of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other terrorist group in the area have become the main point of the attention in the conflict since liberation of southern Syria from militants by government forces this summer. The defeat of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Idlib will mark a de-facto victory of the Damascus government over al-Qaeda-like terrorist groups often described by the mainstream media and Western diplomats as opposition and will open way to a peaceful solution of the crisis. However, far from all foreign powers involved in the standoff are interested in this.

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Can you help us keep up the work we do? Namely, bring you the important news overlooked or censored by the mainstream media and fight the corporate and government propaganda, the purpose of which is, more than ever, to “fabricate consent” and advocate war for profit.

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Newspapers around the globe are telling us that contactless payments are thriving, cash is rapidly disappearing and cashless society is practically around the corner. 

You don’t need cash to pay for your groceries anymore, and don’t be afraid if you forgot to take your wallet with you – just use your smartphone. Carl Scheible, Managing Director of PayPal UK, summarizes [1] the current situation:

“We’ll see a huge change over the next few years in the way we shop and pay for things … you’ll be able to leave your wallet at home and use your mobile as the 21st century digital wallet.”

Some are dissatisfied with this state of affairs. In this case, the classical tactic of intimidation becomes the main argument of champions of cashless society. Cash is used by criminals; our children can buy drugs with cash; cash supports the shadow economy and encourages tax evasion – these are just some of these loud statements.

Ability to present control as protection is based on constant calls to think about an external enemy, that is terrorists or mafia. This element of moral panic is contrasted with friendly and unobtrusive advertising of digital payments. The newborn cashless society is emerging like the sunrise, washing away these dangerous dirty banknotes with the rays of hygienic and convenient digital salvation.

This rosy picture is completed by speeches of academicians, economists and futurists that live in green suburbs, fly business class and demonize bills and coins.

“Without cash, we would live in a much safer, less violent world with enhanced social cohesion, since the major incentive fueling all illegal activity [i.e. cash]… would disappear,” believes [2] Guillermo de la Dehesa, a Spanish economist and current international advisor to Banco Santander and Goldman Sachs.

And the trick is working. Cash is being excluded from the official economy, and tellers are watching with suspicion while you are fumbling for coins in your wallet. There is a sign on every other store: “No cash accepted“.

However, the same system that facilitates the unhampered flow of information and its use for commercial purposes, also provides technically dexterous criminals with almost limitless opportunities to capitalize on their neighbor. How is it possible? Let’s see.

Why it’s wise to be a little bit paranoid

It won’t take long to figure out why we have become vulnerable to cyber crooks: 

• In 2017, 2.73 billion people worldwide will use [3] a mobile phone to connect to the internet
• Among people under the age of 24, four in ten internet users were using [4] online banking, while over one in two internet users between the age of 65 and 74 were engaging in internet banking across the EU in 2016.
• Nearly two thirds of internet users in the European Union made [5] online purchases in 2015.

The online world is penetrating into all aspects of our everyday life, from paying taxes to hiring and changing the mailing address. And as commerce is turning digital, we are becoming increasingly defenseless against intruders. Steve Morgan, the founder and CEO at Cybersecurity Ventures, published [6] some figures regarding the issue:

• Cybercrime damage costs will hit $6 trillion annually by 2021
• About 6 billion people will become victims of cyber-attacks by 2022
• Global ransomware damage costs are predicted to exceed $5 billion in 2017

These are impressive figures – which is not surprising, because it’s profitable to be a cybercriminal. Trustwave claims spammers can earn [7] up to 90,000 euros a month. Price for various malicious software starts from 120 euros while the profit can grow ten times bigger.

It doesn’t get any easier with the fact that cybercriminals are incredibly difficult to catch. The world industry of cyber security is still not completely sure who stole the money from the bank of Bangladesh – and it’s been more than a year since then! 

Leo Taddeo, a former New York FBI special agent in charge of fighting cybercrime, explains [8]:

“Hackers use tools to disguise their IP address. Other technologies like Tor and encryption add other layers to make it difficult to identify them. These tools are widely available. They make it a resource-intensive and time-consuming task to find hackers.”

Worst of all, users remain unprotected, being subject to risks of theft. Fair and square, the bank should be held responsible regardless of guilt, since it carries out risk-based activities. However, this rarely happens in reality – the only exception is that the money will be returned in full when the creditor’s fault is proven. Yet, it is incredibly difficult to prove the guilt, because banks always provide themselves with a backdoor for cases like that. Simply put, nothing depends on you with non-cash payments, and there’s no adequate protection.

To be the sole owner of your money

Is it possible to avoid these risks? Perhaps it’s worth going back a bit and regaining responsibility for your own money – with help of cash.

Keeping a part of money in cash as a war chest allows us to rely on ourselves. If there is no public confidence in non-cash settlements, then no measures, even punitive ones, will help.

Partly for this reason, cash payments are still very popular. We need cash not only because of the lack of necessary infrastructure and logistics in remote geographic areas, but also due to growing crises in the politics and economy of many countries, distrust of banking and payment systems, cyber risks of cyber-attacks and cyber-fraud. Despite the ecstatic claims that cash is dead, the demand for cash is still climbing up [9] across the United States and Europe.

After all, if the cash is really “dying”, then why does its share in money turnover is growing, and why investments in improving cash circulation are so large? No one would waste huge sums on initially unpromising projects.

Source: techjury

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William Davis is a PhD student in Economics.

Notes

1. www.cgap.org/blog/allure-cashless-society
2. wolfstreet.com/2015/04/25/don-quijones-war-on-cash-quotes-to-cashless-society/
3. www.emarketer.com/content/emarketer-updates-worldwide-internet-and-mobile-user-figures
4. www.independent.ie/business/irish-above-eu-average-for-online-banking-but-lowest-for-news-35991299.html
5. ecommercenews.eu/65-internet-users-eu-shopped-online-2015/
6. www.csoonline.com/article/3153707/security/top-5-cybersecurity-facts-figures-and-statistics.html
7. www.sentryo.net/the-new-professional-cybercrime-industry-ever-more-lucrative-and-threatening/
8. www.raconteur.net/technology/catching-hackers-is-not-getting-easier
9. www.cashrepository.com/2017/03/myth-cash-demand-is-declining/ 

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This article was originally published in April 2013.

Considering the possibility of a truly proletarian art, the great English literary critic William Empson once wrote, “the reason an English audience can enjoy Russian propagandist films is that the propaganda is too remote to be annoying.” Perhaps this is why American artists and bohemians have so often taken to the political iconography of far-flung regimes, in ways both romantic and ironic. One nation’s tedious socialist realism is another’s radical exotica.

But do U.S. cultural exports have the same effect? One need only look at the success of our most banal branding overseas to answer in the affirmative. Yet no one would think to add Abstract Expressionist painting to a list that includes fast food and Walt Disney products. Nevertheless, the work of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning wound up as part of a secret CIA program during the height of the Cold War, aimed at promoting American ideals abroad.

The artists themselves were completely unaware that their work was being used as propaganda. On what agents called a “long leash,” they participated in several exhibitions secretly organized by the CIA, such as “The New American Painting” (see catalog cover at top), which visited major European cities in 1958-59 and included such modern primitive works as surrealist William Baziotes’ 1947 Dwarf (below) and 1951’s Tournament by Adolph Gottlieb above.

Of course what seems most bizarre about this turn of events is that avant-garde art in America has never been much appreciated by the average citizen, to put it mildly. American Main Streets harbor undercurrents of distrust or outright hatred for out-there, art-world experimentation, a trend that filters upward and periodically erupts in controversies over Congressional funding for the arts. A 1995 Independent article on the CIA’s role in promoting Abstract Expressionism describes these attitudes during the Cold War period:

In the 1950s and 1960s… the great majority of Americans disliked or even despised modern art—President Truman summed up the popular view when he said: “If that’s art, then I’m a Hottentot.” As for the artists themselves, many were ex-communists barely acceptable in the America of the McCarthyite era, and certainly not the sort of people normally likely to receive US government backing.

Why, then, did they receive such backing? One short answer:

This philistinism, combined with Joseph McCarthy’s hysterical denunciations of all that was avant-garde or unorthodox, was deeply embarrassing. It discredited the idea that America was a sophisticated, culturally rich democracy.

The one-way relationship between modernist painters and the CIA—only recently confirmed by former case officer Donald Jameson—supposedly enabled the agency to make the work of Soviet Socialist Realists appear, in Jameson’s words, “even more stylized and more rigid and confined than it was.” (See Evdokiya Usikova’s 1959 Lenin with Villagers below, for example). For a longer explanation, read the full article at The Independent. It’s the kind of story Don DeLillo would cook up.

William Empson goes on to say that “a Tory audience subjected to Tory propaganda of the same intensity” as Russian imports, “would be extremely bored.” If he is correct, it’s likely that the average true believer socialist in Europe was already bored silly by Soviet-approved art. What surprises in these revelations is that the avant-garde works that so radically altered the American art world and enraged the average congressman and taxpayer were co-opted and collected by suave U.S. intelligence officers like so many Shepard Fairey posters.

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All images in this article are from the author.

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The United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission alleged that Beijing is running a massive influence operation inside of America’s institutions.

The recently released report raises the alarm about what its authors claim are China’s clandestine efforts “to outsource its messaging in part because it believes foreigners are more likely to accept propaganda if it appears to come from non-Chinese sources”, which has supposedly taken the form of an extensive campaign to, as Josh Rogin from the Washington Post puts in the passage that he’s cited in, “influence the influencers” and “get Americans to carry [China’s] message to other Americans”. Some of the mentioned examples include its purported financing of various Beltway think tanks and also the creation of socio-cultural NGOs that are accused of being intelligence fronts.

Although not openly stated, it’s strongly alluded that China is partaking in a so-called “long march through the institutions” in order to change American policies and perceptions from within. This notion was infamously abused during the McCarthyite witch hunts when the US “deep state” publicly purged a rival faction and its suspected civil society supporters on the basis that they were treasonously plotting to undermine the country. Something similar might be happening nowadays as well if the Trump Administration uses the commission’s findings to take action against its institutional foes and simultaneously send a signal to Beijing during the ongoing so-called “trade war”.

Even in the event that the accusations levelled against the People’s Republic are true, whether in whole or in part, it wouldn’t really be anything groundbreaking because the US has been practicing these sorts of influence operations against other countries for decades now. That’s not to dismiss the potential significance of this through “whatabouttism”, but just to make the point that the US might be experiencing blowback after opening up Pandora’s Box and losing its erstwhile monopoly over these perception management tactics. In fact, the proactive desire to safeguard itself from this scenario might even explain why the country secretly started turning into a “national security state” years ago.

Today’s interconnected society provides fertile ground for influencing foreign audiences through the indirect means described in the report and previously mastered by the US, and the only way for the American “deep state” to protect its interests and retain control of the domestic narrative is to paradoxically go against its publicly stated values of openness, free speech, and the marketplace of ideas. Most countries such as Russia acknowledge taking preventative measures against these tactics, but the US is in a dilemma because one of the foundations of its soft power is that it would never do such a thing that it previously attacked others for.

Snowden exposed its double standards in this respect and the irreparable harm that his factual revelations inflicted on America’s reputational standing abroad is one of the reasons why he could be executed by his government if he was ever captured. Now, however, the US can attempt to “justify” the extensive surveillance that it carries out against its citizens on the grounds that it’s necessary for protecting them from shadowy influence operations. Should it opportunistically go forward with that narrative, then the stunning reversal on this issue could signal that the country is also prepared to shift its position on other soft power topics as Trump continues to lastingly redefine America’s global image.

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This article was originally published on Oriental Review.

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

Featured image is from the author.

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One of the biggest open questions of the 21st century is whether 144,000 different chemicals swirling throughout the world are properly tested and analyzed for toxicity. By almost all accounts, the scale of toxic risk is unknown. This may be the biggest tragedy of all time, a black eye of enormous proportions.

Correspondingly and very likely, not yet 100% proven but probably 99%, as a result of ubiquitous chemical presence, one hundred fifty million (150,000,000) Americans have chronic disease, including high cholesterol, high blood pressure, arthritis, heart disease, diabetes, fibromyalgia, cancer, stroke, asthma, cystic fibrosis, obesity, and osteoporosis.¹  Why?

According to Dr. Paul Winchester, who discovered the link between chemicals, like pesticides atrazine and glyphosate aka Roundup and epigenetic human alteration, the findings are:

The most important next discovery in all of medicine.²

Dr. Winchester was one of the researchers/authors of “Atrazine Induced Epigenetic Transgenerational Inheritance of Disease, Lean Phenotype and Sperm Epimutation Pathology Biomarkers,” PLOS, published September 20, 2017.

The grisly underlying message of that study is as clear as a bell: Chemicals found far and wide throughout America alter human hormones as well as human DNA, which passes along generation-to-generation known as transgenerational inheritance.

Frankly, nothing more should need to be said to spur outrage and pissed-off people all across the land because, if that seminal study is correct in its analysis that chemicals mess up/distort/disrupt human hormones and alter human DNA in a destructive manner, then the streets of America should be filled with people wielding pots and pans, probably pitchforks, and ready for the fight of a lifetime because, by any account, there has been massive failure of ethical standards and regulations of chemicals for decades and decades. Who’s to blame?

The primary targets are (1) the EPA and (2) FDA and (3) pesticide/chemical manufacturers, like Monsanto, and ultimately the U.S. Congress.

The chemicals in the aforementioned study include the herbicide atrazine, one of the most widely used herbicides in the country and commonly detected in drinking water. The study demonstrated that atrazine is an endocrine disruptor that negatively alters human hormonal systems, as chronic diseases overwhelm American society.

The European Union (EU) banned atrazine in 2003 because of persistent groundwater contamination. However, as for the EPA in America, it’s okay, no problem. But, doubtlessly one of those jurisdictions is dead wrong because it’s a black and white matter. Either toxic chemicals horribly messes up DNA and cause chronic diseases or not, no middle ground. As for America, chronic disease is at epidemic levels at 60% of the population. Where, why, and how if not from environmental sources?

Yet, the most disturbing issue is the epigenetic impact, meaning that environmental factors impact the health of people and also their descendants. It stays with and passes along the human genome generation-by-generation-by-generation.

According to Dr. Winchester:

This is a really important concept that is difficult to teach the public, and when I say the public, I include my clinical colleagues.³

Still, atrazine is not the only human hormone-altering chemical in the environment. Dr. Winchester tested nearly 20 different chemicals and all demonstrated epigenetic effects, for example, all of the chemicals reduced fertility, even in the 3rd generation.

Still, why do 150,000,000 Americans have chronic diseases?

Researchers believe that every adult disease extant is linked to epigenetic origins. If confirmed over time with additional research, the study is a blockbuster that goes to the heart of public health and attendant government regulations.

According to Dr. Winchester:

This is a huge thing that is going to change how we understand the origin of disease. But a big part of that is that it will change our interpretation of what chemicals are safe. In medicine I can’t give a drug to somebody unless it has gone through a huge amount of testing. But all these chemicals haven’t gone through anything like that. We’ve been experimented on for the last 70 years, and there’s not one study on multigenerational effects.⁴

The U.S. Congress passed a new chemical safety law for the first time in 40 years with the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act in 2016, but the provisions for regulation are totally overwhelmed by the tasks at hand.  For starters, more than 60,000 chemicals came to the market without safety testing, and the burden of proof for regulators previously was so burdensome that the EPA wasn’t able to ban asbestos when necessary.

As for the effectiveness of the new law, consider this statement in the following article, “It Could Take Centuries for EPA to Test all the Unregulated Chemicals Under a New Landmark Bill,” PBS SoCal, June 22, 2016:

The new law requires EPA to test tens of thousands of unregulated chemicals currently on the market, and the roughly 2,000 new chemicals introduced each year, but quite slowly. The EPA will review a minimum of 20 chemicals at a time, and each has a seven-year deadline. Industry may then have five years to comply after the new rule is made. At that pace it could take centuries for the agency to finish its review.

If that’s the best Congress can do to protect its citizens from toxic chemicals, they should be run out of town tarred and feathered on a rail. One more reason to abandon America’s socio-economic-politico scenario; maybe socialism would work better at protecting citizens.

Meantime, children are caught up smack dab in the middle of this 70-year experiment of untested and poorly/ill-tested chemicals.

Roundup (glyphosate) for breakfast? Yes, independent lab tests by Eurofins Analytical Laboratories found hefty doses of the weed-killer Roundup in oat cereals, oatmeal, granola, and snack bars:

EWG tested more than a dozen brands of oat-based foods to give Americans information about dietary exposures that government regulators are keeping secret. In April, internal emails obtained by the nonprofit US Right to Know revealed that the Food and Drug Administration has been testing food for glyphosate for two years and has found ‘a fair amount,’ but the FDA has not released the findings.⁵

California state scientists and the World Health Organization have linked glyphosate to cancer. Yet, the chemical is pervasively found in products. Yes, on regular ole grocery store shelves.

EWG found the chemical in several cereals such as Back to Nature Classic Granola, Quaker Simply Granola Oats, Honey, Raisins & Almonds, Great Value Original Instant Oatmeal, Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Barbara’s Multigrain Spoonfuls Original, Quaker Old Fashioned Oats, etc.

Ironically, they all sound so very very healthy.

Postscript:

Earth, and all life on it, are being saturated with man-made chemicals…For the first time in the Earth’s history a single species – ourselves – is poisoning the entire planet… It is arguably the most under-rated, under-investigated and poorly understood of all the existential threats that humans face in the twenty-first century.⁶

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Notes

1. Rand Corporation Review 2017. 
2. EcoWatch, August 16, 2018. 
3. EcoWatch. 
4. EcoWatch.
5. Alexis Temkin, Ph.D. Toxicologist, “Breakfast With a Dose of Roundup?” Environmental Working Group (EWG), August 15, 2018.
6. Julian Cribb, Surviving the 21st Century, Springer Publishing/Switzerland, p. 106. 

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The ferocious sense of enmity that existed between John McCain, the late US Senator, and Vladimir Putin, the President of the Russian Federation, was quite palpable. While McCain was never an occupant of the White House, he was nonetheless a very prominent and permanent feature in the Cold War which developed during the 2000s.  He was always an influential figure operating openly as well as covertly during the defining events which have shaped relations between both countries: Georgia, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, as well as the machinations involved in first prising Montenegro from Serbia and then removing it from the Russian orbit of influence. Where some saw McCain as a key advocate for the export of American liberty to areas of the world afflicted by tyranny, others see Putin as the central figure in trying to arrest the destructive attempts by the United States to impose a global imperium after the fall of the Soviet Union. An exploration of the rivalry between both men, one an avowed America patriot and the other a Russian nationalist, provides a key thread in charting, as well as understanding why the United States and Russia have become dangerously at loggerheads in recent times.

The deep-seated mutual loathing between John McCain and Vladimir Putin was a well known and played out over many years. It is perhaps correct to state that McCain’s malice often came out in a more forthright manner. For instance, soon after it was announced in 2011 that Putin would again be running for the office of President of the Russian Federation, McCain issued a tweet saying that Russia faced its own Arab Spring”. While many implied that McCain was forecasting that Putin would perish in a similar way to the former Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, Putin opined that McCain’s comment had been directed at Russia in general. But he could not resist retorting that McCain had evidently “lost his mind” while being held captive by the North Vietnamese. To that barb, McCain mockingly responded:

“Dear Vlad, is it something I said?”

By all accounts, both men only met once at the Munich Security Conference in 2007. But they often appeared to be at each other’s throats. And this was not limited to intermittent threats and diatribes issued on social media, in speeches or at news conferences. Their hostility was an almost permanent feature in the discourse associated with the series of geopolitical confrontations that have occured over the past decade between the United States and the Russian Federation. The conflicts in Georgia, Libya, Syria and Ukraine, as well as the accession of Montenegro to NATO, all reflected the fundamental ideological division between them.

McCain’s consistent support for American interventionism, predicated on a belief in its exceptionalism, had the objective of maintaining US global leadership, while Putin’s nationalism was consistent with his objective of reestablishing multi-polarity. While McCain’s stance is characterised in positive terms as an insistence that ‘freedom’ should prevail over ‘tyranny’, Putin’s position is often portrayed by his supporters as one that is boldly resisting the imposition of American hegemony and even what is referred to as a ‘globalist agenda’.

Both men accused each other of fomenting a new ‘Cold War’. To McCain, Putin was the leader of a revanchist Russian state intent on reclaiming the territories lost after the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. In 2008, during his acceptance speech after being nominated as presidential candidate at the Republican Party Convention, McCain lashed out at Putin and the Russian oligarchs who, “rich with oil wealth and corrupt with power … (are) reassembling the old Russian Empire.”

Putin had, after all, in a speech three years earlier, bemoaned the collapse of the USSR as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.” As John Bolton put it in the aftermath of the crisis sparked by the removal of Viktor Yanukovych from power in 2014:

“It’s clear (Putin) wants to re-establish Russian hegemony within the space of the former Soviet Union. Ukraine is the biggest prize, that’s what he’s after. The occupation of the Crimea is a step in that direction.”

Putin, on the other hand, considered McCain to be the promoter-in-chief of the American militarism that had germinated in the post-Cold War era. Those who support this view posit that American policy has, since the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, being informed by two specific geopolitical doctrines inspired respectively by Paul Wolfowitz and Zbigniew Brzeziński. The Wolfowitz Doctrine holds that in the aftermath of the demise of the Soviet Union, the United States must prevent the rise of another power capable of competing with it globally in the military and economic spheres, while the Brzeziński Doctrine provides that Russia should be intimidated while the US works towards its dismantling; the objective being to reduce Russia to a state of vassalage, with its role being restricted to that of supplying the energy needs of the West.

When McCain sneered at Russia for being, in his words, “a gas station masquerading as a country”, he was not merely referring to Russia’s dependence on its oil and gas revenues for most of its national revenue. He was also hinting at the outcome prescribed by Brzeziński: Russia’s has no valid role in the world other than to pliantly provide its energy resources. It had no business opposing the United States in its god-given right to dominate the world.

During an interview in which McCain’s anti-Russian animus was discussed, Putin acknowledged that Russia’s possession of nuclear weapons was the decisive factor which enabled it to “practise independent politics”. In other words, having a nuclear capability, unlike those countries that have been destroyed by American intervention, gave Russia the ability to resist what he believed to be the aggressive foreign policy championed by the likes of McCain.

From the Russian perspective, Western animosity towards Russia and the incessant campaign by the Western media to demonise Putin is not based on heartfelt concerns about human rights and democracy, but is predicated on the fact that he brought to an end the wholesale plunder of Russia’s resources by Western interests during the presidency of Boris Yeltsin. Putin is also reviled for having the temerity to obstruct the American programme of effecting regime change in Syria as it did in Iraq and Libya and hopes to finish off by with Iran. The conduct of John McCain, and his attitude towards Putin, has been emblematic of this animosity.

When war broke out between Russia and Georgia in 2008. Putin accused McCain of having instigated the conflict in order to bolster his chances during his presidential run against Barack Obama.

“The suspicion arises”, Putin said, “that someone in the United States especially created this conflict to make the situation tenser and create a competitive advantage for one of the candidates fighting for the post of US president.”

McCain’s comment that the conflict had been mistakenly instigated by Georgia’s then president, Mikheil Saakashvili, did not impress Putin whose reading of events was that Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia had been encouraged by NATO.

In other conflicts where Russian interests were at stake, McCain was at the forefront. While NATO’s 2011 intervention in Libya had been permitted by UNited Nations Resolution 1973, a decision based on the ‘Right to Protect’ doctrine, Putin, who at the time was serving as prime minister, bitterly regretted President Dmitri Medvedev’s decision to support the resolution. Referring to it as “a medieval call for a crusade”, Putin correctly sensed what would transpire because the resolution permitted the use of air strikes. Gaddafi was overthrown and in the process lynched by Islamist forces that had been trained and supported by NATO countries.

John McCain had been a key voice in calling for US-intervention. He had gone to the city of Benghazi, a stronghold of the anti-Gaddafi insurgents where he walked around the streets and referred to the rebels as “heroic”. A disgusted Putin complained that

“When the so-called civilised community, with all its might pounces on a small country, and ruins infrastructure that has been built over generations – well, I don’t know, is this good or bad? I do not like it.”

He was also mindful that Russia stood to lose $4 billion in arms contracts with the Gaddafi government, and would doubtless have concurred with the protest issued by the then serving ambassador in Tripoli that Medvedev’s inaction by not blocking the resolution and thereby endangering the military contracts had amounted to a “betrayal of Russia’s interests.”

A few years later, while Libya functioned as a failed state, McCain would make another visit during which he gave an honour to Abdel Hakim Belhaj, a prominent Islamist leader of the insurgency. [“former” Libya Islamic Fighting Group linked to Al Qaeda]

McCain was also a visible presence in Ukraine during the Maidan protests that led to the overthrow of the government of Viktor Yanukovytch in February 2014. As in Libya, he walked the streets of Kiev. He addressed crowds and declared that Ukraine’s destiny lay with Europe. It was of course a plea to Ukraine to jettison itself outside the orbit of Russia. And while McCain’s actions in Kiev were viewed by his supporters as being in keeping with his resolve to expand the frontiers of liberty, others offered a different interpretation. According to George Friedman, the founder and CEO of Strafor, an American geopolitical intelligence platform and publisher which has been referred to as “The Shadow CIA”, the removal of Yanukovych “was the most blatant coup in history.”

Using neo-Nazi and ultra-nationalist groups such as Pravy Sektor as ‘street muscle’, the American intelligence and the State Department facilitated a change of government, an enterprise that was captured in part by phone taps which revealed Victoria Nuland, the Under Secretary of State for Eastern European and Eurasian Affairs, naming those who would hold key offices of state after Yanukovych’s ouster.

McCain, like Nuland, had met with a range of anti-Russian Ukrainian figures including Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of the far right Svoboda Party, with whom he was photographed.

Meanwhile in Moscow, Putin calculated that the installation, by the Americans, of an ultra-nationalist and Russophobic regime on Russia’s doorstep imperilled Russia’s national security. So in order to secure its continued access to the Mediterranean Sea through one of its only warm water parts where its Black Sea Fleet resided, Putin set in motion the train of events which would lead to a referendum and the re-absorption of Crimea in Russia.

McCain denounced Putin’s action as illegal, and which was part of Putin’s objective of restoring Russia on the borders of the Soviet Union. In a BBC interview, he even compared Putin’s policy towards Crimea to those taken by Adolf Hitler.

He also led the calls for sanctions to be imposed on Russia. One of Putin’s responses was impose sanctions on McCain, an action to which he responded by tweeting:

“I’m proud to be sanctioned by Putin – I’ll never cease in my efforts (and) dedication to freedom (and) independence of Ukraine, which includes Crimea.”

McCain was active in another theatre where American and Russian interests collided. In Syria, he did not stop at calling for a more direct course of action from the United States aimed at overthrowing Bashar al-Assad. In December 2013, he visited insurgents -announced as belonging to the “Free Syrian Army”- who he described as “brave fighters who are risking their lives for freedom”. Both designations were untrue. The “freedom fighters”, more accurately defined by the Syrian government as “terrorists”, were like the rebels who McCain met in Benghazi: insurgents with an Islamist agenda.

The ‘Free Syrian Army’ was a largely non-existent militia formed by the Western powers which failed to grow into the large army that was envisaged. Moreover, many groups which met Western representatives such as McCain often announced themselves as being part of the ‘Free Syrian Army’, but reverted back to their true identities which more often than not were jihadist militias bearing an allegiance to al-Qaeda.

This modus operandi was alluded to by Putin in his speech to the UN General Assembly in September 2015 when announcing a more direct form of intervention in the Syrian conflict:

“First, they are armed and trained and then they defect to the so-called Islamic State. Besides, the Islamic State itself did not just come from nowhere. It was also initially forged as a tool against undesirable secular regimes.”

The destruction of Syria sought by McCain was predicated on the neoconservative policy of removing the leaders of those Arab states, most of them secular, who were resistant to Israel’s regional hegemony. The refusal of Assad to participate in building a gas pipeline supplying energy from pro-Western states in the Gulf also played a part in the decision of the United States to arm Islamist proxies.

But Russian intervention, in concert with the efforts of Iran and Hezbollah, has enabled the Syrian Army to reclaim most of the Syrian territory that had been taken by groups such as the ‘al Nusra Front’ and the ‘Islamic State’. It was a turn of events which angered and frustrated McCain who referred to President Barack Obama’s policy as “toothless”. He advocated a strategy of creating “safe zones”, ostensibly to protect Syrian civilians from what he termed “violations by Mr. Assad, Mr. Putin and extremist forces”. The strategy of ‘safe zones’, a technique used by NATO when confronting and destroying the Libyan army in 2011, was acknowledged by a declassified Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document as a technique through which the creation of independent territorial entities could be created, in the case of Syria, a Salafist emirate in its eastern region.

But if the goal of regime change in Syria, so vigorously encouraged by McCain, was frustrated by Putin, his efforts in enabling the state of Montenegro to be first prised from Serbia and then granted NATO membership status doubtlessly succeeded in doing the same to Putin.

McCain’s actions in helping to enable the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska to buy up Montenegro’s aluminium industry, perplexed observers who accused him of hypocrisy in allowing a man, who at the time was dubbed ‘Putin’s Oligarch’, to control the aluminum-dependent Montenigrin economy. Deripaska’s supposed closeness to Putin at the time convinced some that McCain was actually working for his arch-enemy.

But nothing could be further from the truth. Montenegro was being bought up en masse by Western financiers such as Nathaniel Rothschild and many of its leaders were being paid off to seek independence from Serbia as a prelude to it joining the Atlantic Alliance. When Senator Rand Paul blocked the initial Senate conferment on ratification of Montenigrin accession, McCain took the floor and furiously accused Paul of being an agent of Vladimir Putin.

Repeatedly invoking the name of Putin, McCain warned:

“If there is objection, you are achieving the objectives of Vladimir Putin… I have no idea why anyone would object to this, except that I will say, if they object: they are now carrying out the desires and ambitions of Vladimir Putin.”

McCain had played his part in an elaborate plot aimed at checking Russian interests. Placing Montenegro into the Western sphere succeeded in denting Russian influence in an area which is traditionally linked to Russia because of the Christian Orthodox faith of its Slav inhabitants. The subsequent drilling for oil off the pristine Adriatic coast is calculated to nullify Russian designs on a South Stream pipeline.

McCain revelled in the news that a coup, allegedly planned to occur on the day of parliamentary elections in October 2016, had been foiled. Its participants were claimed to have been Kremlin-backed Serbian and Russian nationalists who were acting in a last ditch attempt to prevent the country’s accession to NATO. McCain took to the senate floor to make a speech (which he later converted into a newspaper column) to denounce Putin.

Claiming that “Vladimir Putin’s Russia is on the offensive against Western democracy”, McCain linked the Montenigrin plot to the alleged Russian interference in the last American presidential elections and others by writing that it was “just one phase of Putin’s long-term campaign to weaken the United States, to destabilise Europe, to break the NATO alliance, to undermine confidence in Western values, and to erode any and all resistance to his dangerous view of the world.”

While doubts have been raised concerning the existence of a serious plot because the alleged ring appeared to be composed of a motley band emanating from disparate and innocuous trades and professions -some of whom were elderly and others who reneged on their confessions- Montenegrin accession remains a blow to Russian interests.

McCain often placed the blame of a US-Russian Cold War squarely on Putin’s shoulders. When in 2007, Putin complained that the US was seeking to establish a “uni-polar” world, it was McCain who led the Western retort by accusing Putin of presiding over an autocratic regime whose “actions at home and abroad conflict so fundamentally with the core values of Euro-Atlantic democracies.” After the conference, the BBC reported that “in the corridors there were dark mutterings by some about a new Cold War”.

If there is any truth to John McCain’s assertion that Vladimir Putin was treating global politics as a “Cold War Chessboard”, then his involvement in the Montenigrin intrigue demonstrated that he was a willing player in this ‘Great Game’ of international brinkmanship. Further, McCain’s repeated accusation of Putin being the initiator of the disharmonious state of relations between Russia and the United States is disputed by experts such as Stephen Cohen, a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton. Cohen convincingly argues that Putin’s actions on the world stage in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria have been reactive and not proactive.

We have the word of McCain himself to confirm this about the Russo-Georgian conflict which he claimed had been “a mistake” initiated by Mikheil Saakashvili. And Putin’s withdrawal of Russian forces from Georgian territory, which had long been a province of both Russian and Soviet empires, presents evidence that he is not working towards a ‘Tanaka Memorial’-style plan of territorial expansion.

The same may be said of Ukraine, in regard to which Putin refused the pleas of Russian ultranationalists to invade and annexe the Russian-speaking eastern part of the country. His refusal led to allegations of ‘weakness’ from hardliners. The Russian armed forces, of course, had the capability of invading and conquering the whole of Ukraine. Putin’s measured response in limiting his response to American actions such as reabsorbing Crimea also applies to Syria where Russian intervention came after much prevarication by a chief of state who unsurprisingly worried about sending the Russian military into a quagmire of the sort which the Soviet Union became embroiled in the 1980s.

McCain, on the other hand, supported the idea of US military intervention across the globe. He is on record as supporting virtually every US-led or US-backed overt or covert military action before and after the events of September 11th 2001. His support for American militarism and his prominence as a high-ranking US senator intimately involved in national security affairs made his rivalry with Vladimir Putin something of an inevitability. In many ways, McCain embodies the American half of the new Cold War because his longevity as a senator provided the basis for his continuous presence in the realm of national security and foreign policy. Presidents came and contended with Vladimir Putin, but McCain remained an ever present figure until his death.

McCain appeared to be as convinced about the ineluctable force of evil Vladimir Putin represented as he was of the sanctity of the wars he made in the cause of spreading American liberty. When Donald Trump responded to an interviewer’s allegation that Putin murdered his political adversaries by inquiring whether the interviewer thought “our country’s so innocent”, McCain exploded on the senate floor and insisted that there was no moral equivalence between the United States and “Putin’s Russia”. Loudly tapping on the lectern he boomed:

“I repeat, there is no moral equivalence between that butcher and thug and KGB colonel and the United States of America.”

Putin’s feelings about McCain are no less gentle. He once specifically alluded to McCain having “civilian blood on his hands” during his time of service in the Vietnam War. And he made clear that he held McCain, alongside other American political leaders, responsible for the murder of Muammar Gaddafi, once asking whether McCain was unable “to live without such horrible and disgusting sights as the butchering of Gaddafi”. It is clear that Putin, like many of McCain’s critics who accused him of being a perpetual warmonger, hold him jointly culpable for the millions of deaths that have flowed from American backed military interventions.

Indeed, when during his 2015 UN speech, Putin criticised “policies based on self-conceit and belief in one’s exceptionality”, he might have had McCain in mind. Far from pushing the frontiers of liberty and order, the wars that McCain supported in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria were marked by failure. As Putin put it,

“Rather than bringing about reforms, an aggressive foreign interference has resulted in a brazen destruction of national institutions and the lifestyle itself. Instead of the triumph of democracy and progress, we got violence, poverty and social disaster. Nobody cares a bit about human rights, including the right to life.”

While Putin would concede to ‘liking’ McCain “to a certain extent..because of his patriotism…and…his consistency in fighting for the interests of his own country”, McCain never put on record any qualities that he felt Putin possessed. He died taking his anti-Putin animus to the grave. First he arranged for a Russian dissident named Vladimir Kara-Murza to serve as one of the dignitaries to carry his coffin to the front of the Washington National Cathedral at a memorial service. Then in another parting shot at his nemesis, McCain specifically requested for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg to be seated beside each other during the ceremony.

These gestures were the last of what must surely rank as one of the bitterest international political rivalries of recent times.

*

This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Adeyinka Makinde.

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Il polverone politico-mediatico sollevato dallo scontro tra «europeisti» e «sovranisti» nasconde quella che invece è la realtà: un europeismo senza Europa e un sovranismo senza sovranità.

A innalzare strumentalmente la bandiera dell’europeismo è in questo momento il presidente Macron, per far avanzare la potenza francese non solo in Europa ma in Africa.

La Francia, promotrice con gli USA della guerra NATO che nel 2011 demolì lo Stato libico (nella quale l’Italia svolse un ruolo di primo piano), cerca con tutti i mezzi di controllare la Libia:

·         le sue ricche risorse – enormi riserve di petrolio, gas naturale, acqua fossile
·         lo stesso territorio libico di grande importanza geostrategica.

A tal fine Macron appoggia le milizie che combattono il «governo» di Fayez al-Serraj, sostenuto dall’Italia che con l’ENI mantiene grossi interessi nel paese. Questo è solo uno degli esempi di come l’Unione europea, fondata sugli interessi delle oligarchie economiche e finanziarie delle maggiori potenze, si stia sgretolando per contrasti di natura economica e politica, di cui la questione dei migranti è solo la punta dell’iceberg.

Di fronte al predominio di Francia e Germania, il governo 5 Stelle-Lega ha fatto una precisa scelta: accrescere il peso dell’Italia legandola ancora più strettamente agli Stati uniti. Da qui l’incontro del presidente Conte col presidente Trump, a cui i media italiani hanno dato scarso rilievo. Eppure in quell’incontro sono state prese decisioni che influiscono notevolmente sulla collocazione internazionale dell’Italia.

È stato anzitutto deciso di creare «una cabina di regia permanente Italia-USA nel Mediterraneo allargato», ossia nell’area che, nella strategia USA/NATO, si estende dall’Atlantico al Mar Nero e, a sud, fino al Golfo Persico e all’Oceano Indiano.

La regia in realtà è in mano agli USA, in specifico al Pentagono, mentre all’Italia spetta qualche compito secondario di assistente alla regia e genericamente il ruolo di comparsa.

Secondo Conte, invece, «è una cooperazione strategica, quasi un gemellaggio, in virtù del quale l’Italia diventa punto di riferimento in Europa e interlocutore privilegiato degli Stati uniti per le principali sfide da affrontare». Si annuncia così un ulteriore rafforzamento della «cooperazione strategica» con gli Stati uniti, ossia del ruolo «privilegiato» dell’Italia quale ponte di lancio delle forze statunitensi, anche nucleari, sia verso Sud che verso Est.

«All’Italia l’amministrazione americana riconosce un ruolo di leadership come paese promotore della stabilizzazione della Libia», dichiara Conte, annunciando implicitamente che l’Italia, e non la Francia (meno affidabile agli occhi di Washington), ha avuto dalla Casa Bianca l’incarico di «stabilizzare» la Libia. Si tratta di vedere come.

Non basterà la Conferenza internazionale sulla Libia, che dovrebbe svolgersi in autunno in Italia, prima delle «elezioni» libiche sponsorizzate dalla Francia che dovrebbero tenersi in dicembre. Occorrerà da parte italiana un impegno militare direttamente sul campo, dai costi umani e materiali e dagli esiti imprevedibili.

La scelta «sovranista» del governo Conte riduce quindi ulteriormente la sovranità nazionale, rendendo l’Italia ancora più dipendente da ciò che decidono a Washington, non solo alla Casa Bianca, ma al Pentagono e alla Comunità di intelligence, composta da 17 agenzie federali specializzate in spionaggio e operazioni segrete.

La vera scelta sovranista è l’attuazione reale del principio costituzionale che l’Italia ripudia la guerra come strumento di offesa alla liberta degli altri popoli e come mezzo di risoluzione delle controversie internazionali.

Manlio Dinucci

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Just after September 11^th 2001, many governments began investigations into possible insider trading related to the terrorist attacks of that day.  Such investigations were initiated by the governments of Belgium, Cyprus, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Monte Carlo, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United States, and others.  Although the investigators were clearly concerned about insider trading, and considerable evidence did exist, none of the investigations resulted in a single indictment.  That’s because the people identified as having been involved in the suspicious trades were seen as unlikely to have been associated with those alleged to have committed the 9/11 crimes.

That’s basically what the 9/11 Commission told us.  The Commission concluded that “exhaustive investigations” by the SEC and the FBI “uncovered no evidence that anyone with advance knowledge of the attacks profited through securities transactions.”  What they meant was that someone did profit through securities transactions but, based on the Commission’s assumptions of guilt, those who profited were not associated with those who were guilty of conducting the attacks.  In a footnote, the Commission report acknowledged “highly suspicious trading on its face,” but said that this trading on United Airlines was traced back to “A single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda.”[1]

With respect to insider trading, or what is more technically called informed trading, the Commission report was itself suspect for several reasons.  First, the informed trades relating to 9/11 covered far more than just airline company stock.  The stocks of financial and reinsurance companies, as well as other financial vehicles, were identified as being associated with suspicious trades.  Huge credit card transactions, completed just before the attacks, were also involved.  The Commission ultimately tried to frame all of this highly suspicious trading in terms of a series of misunderstandings.  However, the possibility that so many leading financial experts were so completely wrong is doubtful at best and, if true, would constitute another unbelievable scenario in the already highly improbable sequence of events represented by the official story of 9/11.

In the last few years, new evidence has come to light on these matters.  In 2006 and 2010, financial experts at a number of universities have established new evidence, through statistical analyses, that informed trades did occur with respect to the 9/11 attacks.  Additionally, in 2007, the 911 Commission released a memorandum summary of the FBI investigations on which its report was based.[2] A careful review of this memorandum indicates that some of the people who were briefly investigated by the FBI, and then acquitted without due diligence, had links to al Qaeda and to US intelligence agencies.  Although the elapsed time between the informed trades and these new confirmations might prevent legal action against the guilty, the facts of the matter can help lead us to the truth about 9/11.

Early signs

Within a week of the attacks, Germany’s stock market regulator, BAWe, began looking into claims of suspicious trading.[3] That same week, Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Martino, made it clear that he had concerns by issuing this public statement:

“I think that there are terrorist states and organisations behind speculation on the international markets.”[4]

Within two weeks of the attacks, CNN reported that regulators were seeing “ever-clearer signs” that someone “manipulated financial markets ahead of the terror attack in the hope of profiting from it.”  Belgian Finance Minister, Didier Reynders, said that there were strong suspicions that British markets were used for transactions.[5] The CIA was reported to have asked the British regulators to investigate some of the trades.[6] Unfortunately, the British regulator, The Financial Services Authority, wrote off its investigation by simply clearing “bin Laden and his henchmen of insider trading.”[7]

The extent of the 9/11-related informed trading was unprecedented.  An ABC News Consultant, Jonathan Winer, said,

“it’s absolutely unprecedented to see cases of insider trading covering the entire world from Japan to the US to North America to Europe.”[10]

By October 2001, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and the four other options exchanges in the US had joined forces with the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to investigate a list of 38 stocks, as well as multiple options  and Treasury bonds, that were flagged in relation to potential informed trades.  SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt gave testimony to the House Financial Services Committee at the time, saying,

“We will do everything in our power to track those people down and bring them to justice.”[11]

Mary Bender, chief regulatory officer at the CBOE, stated

“We’ve never really had anything like this, [the option exchanges are] using the same investigative tools as we would in an insider-trading case. The point is to find people who are connected to these heinous crimes.”

The people ultimately found included an unnamed customer of Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown (DBAB).  This involved a trade on United Airlines (UAL) stock consisting of a 2,500-contract order that was, for some reason, split into chunks of 500 contracts each and then directed to multiple exchanges around the country simultaneously.[12] When the 9/11 Commission report pointed to a “single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda,” it was referring to either DBAB or its customer in that questionable trade.

The late Michael Ruppert had written about DBAB, noting that the company had previously been a financier of The Carlyle Group and also of Brown Brothers Harriman, both of which are companies closely related to the Bush family.  Ruppert also noted that Alex. Brown, the company purchased by Deutsche Bank to become DBAB, was managed by A.B. (Buzzy) Krongard, who left the firm in 1998 to join the CIA as counsel to director George Tenet.[13] Krongard had been a consultant to CIA director James Woolsey in the mid 1990s and, on September 11^th, he was the Executive Director of the CIA, the third highest position in the agency.

Stock and Treasury bonds traded

In 2002, investigator Kyle Hence wrote about the stocks involved in the SEC’s target list.  Those that had the highest examples of trade volume over the average were UAL [285 times over average], Marsh & McLennan (Marsh) [93 times over average], American Airlines (AMR) [60 times over average], and Citigroup [45 times over average].[14] Other stocks flagged included financial firms, defense-related companies, and the reinsurance firms Munich Re, Swiss Re and the AXA Group.  Put options for these reinsurance firms, or bets that the stock would drop, were placed at double the normal levels in the few days before the attacks.  Regulators were concerned about “large block trades” on these stocks because the three firms were liable for billions in insurance payouts due to the damage inflicted on 9/11.[15]

The four highest-volume suspect stocks — UAL, Marsh, AMR and Citigroup — were closely linked to the attacks of 9/11.  The two airline companies each had two planes hijacked and destroyed.  Marsh was located in the exact 8 floors out of 110 in the north tower of the WTC where Flight 11 impacted and the fires occurred.  Citigroup was the parent of Travelers Insurance, which was expected to see $500 million in claims, and also Salomon Smith Barney, which occupied all but ten floors in World Trade Center (WTC) building 7.  Oddly enough, Salomon Smith Barney had both Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney on its advisory board until January 2001.

Marsh occupied a number of floors in the south tower as well.  This is where the office of Marsh executive, L. Paul Bremer, was located.  Bremer was a former managing director at Kissinger Associates and had just completed leading a national terrorism commission in 2000.  The San Francisco Chronicle noted that Bremer was a source of early claims that rich Arabs were financing Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network.  In an article on the 9/11 informed trades, the Chronicle reported that

“The former chairman of the State Department’s National Commission on Terrorism, L. Paul Bremer, said he obtained classified government analyses early last year of bin Laden’s finances confirming the assistance of affluent Middle Easterners.”[16]

On the day of 9/11, Bremer was interviewed by NBC News and stated that he believed Osama bin Laden was responsible and that possibly Iraq and Iran were involved too, and he called for the most severe military response possible.  For unknown reasons, Google removed the interview video from its servers three times, and blocked it once.[17]

The trading of Treasury bonds just before 9/11 was also flagged as being suspicious.  Reporters from The Wall street Journal wrote that the

“U.S. Secret Service contacted a number of bond traders regarding large purchases of five-year Treasury notes before the attacks, according to people familiar with the probe. The investigators, acting on a tip from traders, are examining whether terrorists, or people affiliated with terrorist organizations, bought five-year notes, including a single $5 billion trade.”[18]

Some reports claimed that the 9/11 informed trades were such that millions of dollars were made, and some of that went unclaimed. [19] Others suggested that the trades resulted in the winning of billions of dollars in profits.  One such suggestion was made by the former German Minister of Technology, Andreas von Buelow, who said that the value of the informed trades was on the order of $15 billion.[20]

The FBI Investigations

In May 2007, a 9/11 Commission document that summarized the FBI investigations into potential 9/11-related informed trading was declassified. [21] This document was redacted to remove the names of two FBI agents from the New York office, and to remove the names of select suspects in the informed trading investigations.  The names of other FBI agents and suspects were left in.  Regardless, some information can be gleaned from the document to help reveal the trades and traders investigated.

On September 21, 2001, the SEC referred two specific transactions to the FBI for criminal investigation as potential informed trades.  One of those trades was a September 6, 2001 purchase of 56,000 shares of a company called Stratesec, which in the few years before 9/11 was a security contractor for several of the facilities that were compromised on 9/11.  These facilities included the WTC buildings, Dulles airport, where American Airlines Flight 77 took off, and also United Airlines, which owned two of the other three ill-fated planes.

The affected 56,000 shares of Stratesec stock were purchased by a director of the company, Wirt D. Walker III, and his wife Sally Walker.  This is clear from the memorandum generated to record the FBI summary of the trades investigated.[22] The Stratesec stock that the Walkers purchased doubled in value in the one trading day between September 11th and when the stock market reopened on September 17th.  The Commission memorandum suggests that the trade generated a profit of $50,000 for the Walkers.  Unfortunately, the FBI did not interview either of the Walkers and they were both cleared of any wrongdoing because they were said to have “no ties to terrorism or other negative information.” [23]

However, Wirt Walker was connected to people who had connections to al Qaeda.  For example, Stratesec director James Abrahamson was the business partner of Mansoor Ijaz, who claimed on several occasions to be able to contact Osama bin Laden.[24] Additionally, Walker hired a number of Stratesec employees away from a subsidiary of The Carlyle Group called BDM International, which ran secret (black) projects for government agencies.  The Carlyle Group was partly financed by members of the bin Laden family.[25] Mr. Walker ran a number of suspicious companies that went bankrupt, including Stratesec, some of which were underwritten by a company run by a first cousin of former CIA director (and President) George H.W. Bush.  Additionally, Walker was the child of a CIA employee and his first job was at an investment firm run by former US intelligence guru, James “Russ” Forgan, where he worked with another former CIA director, William Casey.[26] Of course, Osama bin Laden had links to the CIA as well.[27]

Another trade investigated by the FBI, on request from the SEC, focused on Amir Ibrahim Elgindy, an Egyptian-born, San Diego stock advisor who on the day before 9/11 had allegedly attempted to liquidate $300,000 in assets through his broker at Salomon Smith Barney.  During the attempted liquidation, Elgindy was said to have “predicted that the Dow Jones industrial average, which at the time stood at about 9,600, would soon crash to below 3,000.”[28]

The 9/11 Commission memorandum suggests that the FBI never interviewed Mr. Elgindy either, and had planned to exonerate him because there was “no evidence he was seeking to establish a position whereby he would profit from the terrorist attacks.”  Apparently, the prediction of a precipitous drop in the stock market, centered on the events of 9/11, was not sufficient cause for the FBI to interview the suspect.

In late May 2002, Elgindy was arrested along with four others, including an FBI agent and a former FBI agent, and charged with conspiracy to manipulate stock prices and extort money from companies.  The FBI agents, Jeffrey A Royer and Lynn Wingate, were said to have “used their access to F.B.I. databases to monitor the progress of the criminal investigation against Mr. Elgindy.”[29] A federal prosecutor later accused Elgindy, who also went by several aliases, of having prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks.  Although the judge in that case did not agree with the prosecutor on the 9/11 informed trading accusation, Mr. Elgindy was eventually convicted, in 2005, of multiple crimes including racketeering, securities fraud, and making false statements.

The Boston office of the FBI investigated stock trades related to two companies.  The first was Viisage Technologies, a facial recognition company that stood to benefit from an increase in terrorism legislation.  The Viisage purchase, made by a former employee of the Saudi American Bank, “revealed no connection with 9/11.”  However, the Saudi American Bank was named in a lawsuit brought by the 9/11 victims’ families due to the bank having — “financed development projects in Sudan benefiting bin Laden in the early 1990s.”[30]

The second company investigated by the Boston FBI office was Wellington Management, a company that allegedly held a large account for Osama bin Laden.  The FBI found that Wellington Management maintained an account for “members of the bin Laden family” but dropped the investigation because it could not link this to “Osama, al Qaeda, or terrorism.”[31]

Although the connections to al Qaeda in three of these cases (Walker, the Viisage trader, and Wellington Management) can be seen as circumstantial, the amount of such evidence is considerable.  The quality of the FBI investigations, considering the suspects were not even interviewed, was therefore much less than “exhaustive”, as the 9/11 Commission characterized it.

The summary of FBI investigations released by the 9/11 Commission also described how the Commission questioned the FBI about damaged computer hard drives that might have been recovered from the WTC.  This questioning was the result of “press reports [contending] that large volumes of suspicious transactions flowed through the computers housed in the WTC on the morning of 9/11 as part of some illicit but ill-defined effort to profit from the attacks.”[32] The Commission came to the conclusion that no such activity occurred because “the assembled agents expressed no knowledge of the reported hard-drive recovery effort” and “everything at the WTC was pulverized to near powder, making it extremely unlikely that any hard-drives survived.”

The truth, however, is that many such hard-drives were recovered from the WTC and were sent to specialist companies to be cleaned and have data recovered.  A German company named Convar did a good deal of the recovery work.

In December 2001, Reuters reported that

“Convar has recovered information from 32 computers that support assumptions of dirty doomsday dealings.”

Richard Wagner, a data retrieval expert at Convar, testified that

“There is a suspicion that some people had advance knowledge of the approximate time of the plane crashes in order to move out amounts exceeding $100 million.  They thought that the records of their transactions could not be traced after the main frames were destroyed.”

Director of Convar, Peter Henschel, said that it was “not only the volume, but the size of the transactions [that] was far higher than usual for a day like that.”[33]

By late December 2001, Convar had completed processing 39 out of 81 drives, and expected to receive 20 more WTC hard drives the next month.  Obviously, the 911 Commission memorandum drafted in August 2003 was not particularly reliable considering it reported that the FBI and the 911 Commission had no knowledge of any of this.

Statistical confirmations

Considering that the FBI and 9/11 Commission overlooked the suspicious connections of informed trading suspects like Wirt Walker, and also claimed in 2003 to have no knowledge of hard drive recoveries publicly reported in 2001, we must assume that they did a poor job of investigating.  Today, however, we know that several peer-reviewed academic papers have reported solid evidence that informed trades did occur.  That is, the conclusions reached by the official investigations have now been shown, through scientific analysis, to be quite wrong.

In 2006, a professor of Finance from the University of Illinois named Allen Poteshman published an analysis of the airline stock option trades preceding the attacks.  This study came to the conclusion that an indicator of long put volume was “unusually high which is consistent with informed investors having traded in the option market in advance of the attacks.”[34] Long puts are bets that a stock or option will fall in price.

The unusually high volume of long puts, purchased on UAL and AMR stock before these stocks declined dramatically due to the 9/11 attacks, are evidence that the traders knew that the stocks would decline.  Using statistical techniques to evaluate conditional and unconditional distributions of historical stock option activity, Professor Poteshman showed that the data indicate that informed trading did occur.

In January 2010, a team of financial experts from Switzerland published evidence for at least thirteen informed trades in which the investors appeared to have had foreknowledge of the attacks.  This study focused again on a limited number of companies but, of those, the informed trades centered on five airline companies and four financial companies.  The airline companies were American Airlines, United Airlines and Boeing.  Three of the financial companies involved were located in the WTC towers and the fourth was Citigroup, which stood to lose doubly as the parent of both Travelers Insurance and the WTC 7 tenant, Salomon Smith Barney.[35]

More recently, in April 2010, an international team of experts examined trading activities of options on the Standard & Poors 500 index, as well as a volatility index of the CBOE called VIX.  These researchers showed that there was a significant abnormal increase in trading volume in the option market just before the 9/11 attacks, and they demonstrated that this was in contrast to the absence of abnormal trading volume over periods long before the attacks.  The study also showed that the relevant abnormal increase in trading volume was not simply due to a declining market.[36] Their findings were “consistent with insiders anticipating the 9-11 attacks.”

Conclusion

In the early days just after 9/11, financial regulators around the world gave testimony to unprecedented evidence for informed trading related to the terrorist attacks of that day.  One central bank president (Welteke) said there was irrefutable proof of such trading.  This evidence led US regulators to vow, in Congressional testimony, to bring those responsible to justice.  Those vows were not fulfilled, as the people in charge of the investigations let the suspects off the hook by conducting weak inquiries and concluding that informed trading could not have occurred if it was not done directly by Osama bin Laden or al Qaeda.

The “exhaustive investigations” conducted by the FBI, on which the 9/11 Commission report was based, were clearly bogus.  The FBI did not interview the suspects and did not appear to compare notes with the 9/11 Commission to help make a determination if any of the people being investigated might have had ties to al Qaeda.  The Commission’s memorandum summary suggests that the FBI simply made decisions on its own regarding the possible connections of the suspects and the alleged terrorist organizations.  Those unilateral decisions were not appropriate, as at least three of the suspected informed trades (those of Walker, the Viisage trader, and Wellington Management) involved reasonably suspicious links to Osama bin Laden or his family.  Another suspect (Elgindy) was a soon-to-be convicted criminal who had direct links to FBI employees who were later arrested for securities-related crimes.

The FBI also claimed in August 2003 that it had no knowledge of hard drives recovered from the WTC, which were publicly reported in 2001.  According to the people who retrieved the associated data, the hard drives gave evidence for “dirty doomsday dealings.”

The evidence for informed trading on 9/11 includes many financial vehicles, from stock options to Treasury bonds to credit card transactions made at the WTC just before it was destroyed.  Today we know that financial experts from around the world have provided strong evidence, through established and reliable statistical techniques, that the early expert suspicions were correct, and that 9/11 informed trading did occur.

People knew in advance about the crimes of 9/11, and they profited from that knowledge.  Those people are among us today, and our families and communities are at risk of future terrorist attacks and further criminal profiteering if we do not respond to the evidence.  It is time for an independent, international investigation into the informed trades and the traders who benefited from the terrorist acts of September 11^th.

*

Kevin Ryan is a frequent contributor to Global Research. 

This article was originally published on Foreign Policy Journal.

Notes

[1] National Commission on the Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, July 2004, p 172, and Chapter 5, footnote 130, http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdf

[2] 9/11 Commission memorandum entitled “FBI Briefing on Trading”, prepared by Doug Greenburg, 18 August 2003, http://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t-0148-911MFR-00269.pdf

[3] Dave Carpenter, Exchange examines odd jump: Before attack: Many put options of hijacked planes’ parent companies purchased , The Associated Press, 18 September 2001, http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/sept11/cjonline_oddjump.html

[4] BBC News, Bin Laden ‘share gains’ probe, 18 September 2001, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1548118.stm

[5] Tom Bogdanowicz and Brooks Jackson, Probes into ‘suspicious’ trading, CNN, 24 September 2001, http://web.archive.org/web/20011114023845/http://fyi.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/09/24/gen.europe.shortselling/

[6] James Doran, Insider Trading Apparently Based on Foreknowledge of 9/11 Attacks, The London Times, 18 September 2001, http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/sept11/londontimes_insidertrading.html

[7] David Brancaccio, Marketplace Public Radio: News Archives, 17 October 2001, http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2001/10/17_mpp.html

[8] Paul Thompson and The Center for Cooperative Research, Terror Timeline: Year by Year, Day by Day, Minute by Minute:  A Comprehensive Chronicle of the Road to 9/11 – and America’s Response, Harper Collins, 2004.  Also found at History Commons, Complete 9/11 Timeline, Insider Trading and Other Foreknowledge http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&before_9/11=insidertrading

[9] Associated Press, EU Searches for Suspicious Trading , 22 September 2001, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,34910,00.html

[10] World News Tonight, 20 September 2001

[11] Erin E. Arvedlund, Follow The Money: Terrorist Conspirators Could Have Profited More From Fall Of Entire Market Than Single Stocks, Barron’s (Dow Jones and Company), 6 October 2001

[12] Ibid

[13] Michael C. Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon: the decline of the American empire at the end of the age of oil, New Society Publishers, 2004

[14] Kyle F. Hence, Massive pre-attack ‘insider trading’ offer authorities hottest trail to accomplices, Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), 21 April 2002, http://globalresearch.ca/articles/HEN204B.html

[15] Grant Ringshaw, Profits of doom, The London Telegraph, 23 September 2001, http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/sept11/telegraph_profitsofdoom.html

[16] Christian Berthelsen and Scott Winokur,  Suspicious profits sit uncollected:  Airline investors seem to be lying low, San Francisco Chronicle, 29 September 2001, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=%2Fchronicle%2Farchive%2F2001%2F09%2F29%2FMN186128.DTL#ixzz14XPGwh6e

[17] Lewis Paul Bremer III on Washington, DC, NBC4 TV, 11 September 2001, Vehmgericht http://vehme.blogspot.com/2007/08/lewis-paul-bremer-iii-on-washington-dc.html

[18] Charles Gasparino and Gregory Zuckerman, Treasury Bonds Enter Purview of U.S. Inquiry Into Attack Gains, The Wall Street Journal, 2 October 2001, http://s3.amazonaws.com/911timeline/2001/wallstreetjournal100201.html

[19] Christian Berthelsen and Scott Winokur

[20] Tagesspiegel, Former German Cabinet Minister Attacks Official Brainwashing On September 11 Issue Points at “Mad Dog” Zbig and Huntington, 13 January 2002, http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/VonBuelow.html

[21] 9/11 Commission memorandum

[22] The 9/11 Commission memorandum that summarized the FBI investigations refers to the traders involved in the Stratesec purchase.  From the references in the document, we can make out that the two people had the same last name and were related.  This fits the description of Wirt and Sally Walker, who are known to be stock holders in Stratesec.  Additionally, one (Wirt) was a director at the company, a director at a publicly traded company in Oklahoma (Aviation General), and chairman of an investment firm in Washington, DC (Kuwam Corp).

[23] 9/11 Commission memorandum

[24] Sourcewatch, Mansoor Ijaz/Sudan, http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mansoor_Ijaz/Sudan

[25] History Commons, Complete 911 Timeline, Bin Laden Family, http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?financing_of_al-qaeda:_a_more_detailed_look=binladenFamily&timeline=complete_911_timeline

[26] Kevin R. Ryan, The History of Wirt Dexter Walker: Russell & Co, the CIA and 9/11, 911blogger.com, 3 September 2010, http://911blogger.com/news/2010-09-03/history-wirt-dexter-walker-russell-company-cia-and-911

[27] Michael Moran, Bin Laden comes home to roost : His CIA ties are only the beginning of a woeful story, MSNBC, 24 August 1998, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3340101

[28] Alex Berenson, U.S. Suggests, Without Proof, Stock Adviser Knew of 9/11, The New York Times, 25 May 2002, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E4DB143BF936A15756C0A9649C8B63

[29] Alex Berenson, Five, Including F.B.I. Agents, Are Named In a Conspiracy, The New York Times, 23 May 2002

[30] History Commons, Complete 911 Timeline, Saudi American Bank,http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=saudi_american_bank

[31] 9/11 Commission memorandum

[32] 9/11 Commission memorandum

[33] Erik Kirschbaum, German Firm Probes Final World Trade Center Deals, Reuters, 16 December 2001, http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/sept11/reuters_wtc_drives.html

[34] Allen M. Poteshman, Unusual Option Market Activity and the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, The Journal of Business, 2006, vol. 79, no. 4, http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/503645

[35] Marc Chesney, et al, Detecting Informed Trading Activities in the Options Markets, Social Sciences Research Network, 13 January 2010, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1522157

[36] Wing-Keung Wong, et al, Was there Abnormal Trading in the S&P 500 Index Options Prior to the September 11 Attacks?, Social Sciences Research Network, April 2010, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1588523

A confusão político-mediática originada pelo choque entre “europeístas” e “soberanistas” esconde aquela que, pelo contrário, é a realidade: um europeísmo sem Europa e um soberanismo sem soberania.

A erguer prontamente a bandeira do europeísmo está, neste momento, o Presidente Macron, para fazer avançar o poder francês não somente na Europa, mas também em África.

A França, juntamente com os EUA, promotora da guerra NATO que, em 2011, destruiu o Estado líbio (na qual a Itália desempenhou um papel de primeiro plano), procura por todos os meios, controlar a Líbia:

• os seus ricos recursos – enormes reservas de petróleo, gás natural, água fóssil
•    o próprio território líbio, de grande importância geoestratégica.

Para este fim, Macron colabora com as milícias que combatem o “governo” de Fayez al-Serraj, apoiado pela Itália, que, juntamente com a ENI, mantém grandes interesses no país. Este é só um dos exemplos de como a União Europeia, construída sobre os interesses das oligarquias económicas e financeiras das grandes potências, está a desmoronar-se devido a contradições de natureza económica e política, dos quais a questão dos migrantes é apenas a ponta do iceberg.

Perante o predomínio da França e da Alemanha, o Governo 5 Stelle-Lega fez uma escolha vital: aumentar o peso da Itália, ligando-a ainda mais estreitamente aos Estados Unidos. Daí a reunião do Presidente Conte com o Presidente Trump, ao qual os media italianos deram pouca importância. No entanto, nesse encontro foram tomadas decisões que influem notavelmente no posicionamento internacional da Itália.

Em primeiro lugar, decidiu criar-se “um lugar permanente onde se concentram os poderes de comando Itália-USA, no Mediterrâneo Alargado”, ou seja, na área que, na estratégia USA/NATO,  se estende do Atlântico ao Mar Negro e, a sul, até ao Golfo Pérsico e ao Oceano Índico.

O comando está realmente nas mãos dos USA, especificamente do Pentágono, enquanto a Itália tem algumas funções secundárias como assistente de gestão e, genericamente, o papel de comparsa.

Segundo Conte, “é uma cooperação estratégica, quase uma geminação, em virtude da qual a Itália se torna um ponto de referência na Europa e um interlocutor privilegiado dos Estados Unidos para os principais desafios a enfrentar”. Anuncia-se, assim, mais um reforço de “cooperação estratégica” com os Estados Unidos, ou seja, o papel “privilegiado” da Itália como ponte de lançamento das forças USA, incluindo as forças nucleares, tanto para Sul como para Leste.

“A Administração americana reconhece à Itália, uma função de liderança como país promotor da estabilização da Líbia», declara Conte, anunciando, implicitamente, que a Itália, e não a França (menos confiável aos olhos de Washington), foi incumbida pela Casa Branca da tarefa de “estabilizar” a Líbia.  É necessário investigar de que maneira.

Não bastará a Conferência Internacional sobre a Líbia, que deverá ocorrer no Outono, em Itália, antes das “eleições” líbias patrocinadas pela França, que devem ser realizadas em Dezembro. Acontecerá do lado italiano um compromisso militar directamente no terreno, de custos humanos, materiais e resultados imprevisíveis.

A escolha “soberanista” do Governo Conte reduz ainda mais a soberania nacional, tornando a Itália ainda mais dependente do que decidem em Washington, não apenas na Casa Branca, mas no Pentágono e na Comunidade dos Serviços Secretos/Inteligência(br.), composta por 17 agências federais especializadas em espionagem e operações secretas.

A verdadeira escolha soberana é a concretização real do princípio constitucional de que a Itália repudia a guerra como instrumento de ataque à liberdade de outros povos e como meio de resolver disputas internacionais.

Manlio Dinucci

il manifesto, 4 de Setembro de 2018

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Referring to Israel during an interview in August 1983, U.S. Navy Admiral and former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Thomas Moorer said: 

“I’ve never seen a President — I don’t care who he is — stand up to them. It just boggles the mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all the time. I got to the point where I wasn’t writing anything down. If the American people understood what a grip these people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens certainly don’t have any idea what goes on.”

Moorer was speaking generally but he had something specific in mind, namely the June 8, 1967, Israeli attack on the American intelligence ship, U.S.S. Liberty, which killed 34 American crewmen and wounded 173 more. The ship was operating in international waters and was displaying a huge stars and stripes but Israeli warplanes, which had identified the vessel as American, even strafed the life rafts to kill those who were fleeing the sinking ship. It was the bloodiest attack on a U.S. Naval vessel ever outside of wartime and the crew deservedly received the most medals every awarded to a single ship based on one action. Yes, it is one hell of a story of courage under fire, but don’t hold your breath waiting for Hollywood to make a movie out of it.

President Lyndon B. Johnson, had ordered the recall of U.S. carrier planes sent to aid the stricken vessel, saying that he would prefer the ship go to the bottom rather than embarrass his good friend Israel.

Then came the cover-up from inside the U.S. government. A hastily convened and summarily executed board of inquiry headed by Admiral John McCain, father of the senator, deliberately interviewed only a handful of crewmen before determining that it was all an accident. The sailors who had survived the attack as well as crewmen from Navy ships that arrived eventually to provide assistance were held incommunicado in Malta before being threatened and sworn to secrecy. Since that time, repeated attempts to convene another genuine inquiry have been rebuffed by congress, the White House and the Pentagon. Recently deceased Senator John McCain was particularly active in rejecting overtures from the Liberty survivors.

The U.S. Navy electronic reconnaissance gathering ship USS Liberty (AGTR-5) receives assistance from units of the U.S. Sixth Fleet, after she was attacked and seriously damaged by Israeli forces off the Sinai Peninsula on 8 June 1967. (Source: Public Domain)

The Liberty story demonstrates how Israel’s ability to make the United States government act against its own interests has been around for a long time. Grant Smith of IRMEP, cites how Israeli spying carried out by AIPAC in Washington back in the mid-1980s resulted in a lopsided trade agreement that currently benefits Israel by more than $10 billion per year on the top of direct grants from the U.S. Treasury and billions in tax exempt “charitable” donations by American Jews.

If Admiral Moorer were still alive, I would have to tell him that the situation vis-à-vis Israeli power is much worse now than it was in 1983. He would be very interested in reading a remarkable bit of research recently completed by Smith demonstrating exactly how Israel and its friends work from inside the system to corrupt our political process and make the American government work in support of Jewish state interests. He describes in some detail how the Israel Lobby has been able to manipulate the law enforcement community to protect and promote Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s agenda.

A key component in the Israeli penetration of the U. S. government has been President George W. Bush’s 2004 signing off on the creation of the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (OTFI) within the Department of the Treasury. The group’s website proclaims that it is responsible for “safeguarding the financial system against illicit use and combating rogue nations, terrorist facilitators, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferators, money launderers, drug kingpins, and other national security threats,” but it has from its founding been really all about safeguarding Israel’s perceived interests. Grant Smith notes however, how “the secretive office has a special blind spot for major terrorism generators, such as tax-exempt money laundering from the United States into illegal Israeli settlements and proliferation financing and weapons technology smuggling into Israel’s clandestine nuclear weapons complex.”

The first head of the office was Undersecretary of Treasury Stuart Levey, who operated secretly within the Treasury itself while also coordinating regularly both with the Israeli government as well as with pro-Israel organizations like AIPAC, WINEP and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD). Levey also traveled regularly to Israel on the taxpayer’s dime, as did his three successors in office.

Levey left OTFI in 2011 and was replaced by David Cohen. It was reported then and subsequently that counterterrorism position at OTFI were all filled by individuals who were both Jewish and Zionist. Cohen continued the Levey tradition of resisting any transparency regarding what the office was up to. Smith reports how, on September 12, 2012, he refused to answer reporter questions “about Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons, and whether sanctioning Iran, a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, over its internationally-inspected civilian nuclear program was an example of endemic double standards at OTFI.”

Cohen was in turn succeeded in 2015 by Adam Szubin who was then replaced in 2017 by Sigal Pearl Mandelker, a former and possibly current Israeli citizen. All of the heads of OTFI have therefore been Jewish and Zionist. All work closely with the Israeli government, all travel to Israel frequently on “official business” and they all are in close liaison with the Jewish groups most often described as part of the Israel Lobby. And the result has been that many of the victims of OTFI have been generally enemies of Israel, as defined by Israel and America’s Jewish lobbyists. OTFI’s Specially Designated Nationals And Blocked Persons List (SDN), which includes sanctions and enforcement options, features many Middle Eastern Muslim and Christian names and companies but nothing in any way comparable relating to Israel and Israelis, many of whom are well known to law enforcement otherwise as weapons traffickers and money launderers. And once placed on the SDN there is no transparent way to be removed, even if the entry was clearly in error.

Here in the United States, action by OTFI has meant that Islamic charities have been shut down and individuals exercising their right to free speech through criticism of the Jewish state have been imprisoned. If the Israel Anti-Boycott Act succeeds in making its way through congress the OTFI model will presumably become the law of the land when it comes to curtailing free speech whenever Israel is involved.

The OTFI story is outrageous, but it is far from unique. There is a history of American Jews closely attached to Israel being promoted by powerful and cash rich domestic lobbies to act on behalf of the Jewish state. To be sure, Jews who are Zionists are vastly overrepresented in all government agencies that have anything at all to do with the Middle East and one can reasonably argue that the Republican and Democratic Parties are in the pockets of Jewish billionaires named Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban.

Neoconservatives, most of whom are Jewish, infiltrated the Pentagon under the Reagan Administration and they and their heirs in government and media (Doug Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby, Richard Perle, Bill Kristol) were major players in the catastrophic war with Iraq, which, one of the architects of that war, Philip Zelikow, described in 2004 as being all about Israel. The same people are now in the forefront of urging war with Iran.

American policy towards the Middle East is largely being managed by a small circle of Orthodox Jews working for presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner. One of them, David Friedman, is currently U.S. Ambassador to Israel. Friedman, a bankruptcy lawyer who has no diplomatic or foreign policy credentials, is a Zionist Jew who is also a supporter of the illegal settlements on the West Bank and a harsh critic of other Jews who in any way disagree with the Israeli government. He has contributed money to settlement construction, which would be illegal if OTFI were doing its job, and has consistently defended the settlers while condemning the Palestinians in speeches in Israel. He endlessly and ignorantly repeats Israeli government talking points and has tried to change the wording of State Department communications, seeking to delete the word “occupied” when describing Israel’s control of the West Bank. His humanity does not extend beyond his Jewishness, defending the Israeli shooting thousands of unarmed Gazan protesters and the bombing of schools, hospitals and cultural centers. How he represents the United States and its citizens who are not dual nationals must be considered a mystery.

Friedman’s top adviser is Rabbi Aryeh Lightstone, who is described by the Embassy as an expert in “Jewish education and pro-Israel advocacy.” Once upon a time, in an apparently more enlightened mood, Lightstone described Donald Trump as posing “an existential danger both to the Republican Party and to the U.S.” and even accused him of pandering to Jewish audiences. Apparently when opportunity knocked he changed his mind about his new boss. Pre-government in 2014, Lightstone founded and headed Silent City, a Jewish advocacy group supported by extreme right-wing money that opposed the Iran nuclear agreement and also worked to combat the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. He is reportedly still connected financially with anti BDS groups, which might be construed as a conflict of interest. As the Senior Adviser to Friedman he is paid in excess of $200,000 plus free housing, additional cash benefits to include a 25% cost of living allowance and a 10% hardship differential, medical insurance and eligibility for a pension.

So, what’s in it all for Joe and Jill American Citizens? Not much. And for Israel? Anything, it wants, apparently. Sink a U.S. warship? Okay. Tap the U.S. Treasury? Sure, just wait a minute and we’ll draft some legislation that will give you even more money. Create a treasury department agency run exclusively by Jews that operates secretly to punish critics of the Jewish state? No brainer. Meanwhile a bunch of dudes at the Pentagon are dreaming of new wars for Israel and the White House sends an ignorant ambassador and top aide overseas to represent the interests of the foreign government in the country where they are posted. Which just happens to be Israel. Will it ever end?

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation 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.

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Something is brewing after a relatively quiet period. According to a Kiev military source named Karapinka on Ukrainian television last month, the country’s forces are planning to attack Donbass at an unspecified time ahead, saying:

“I think that in the near future there will be an assault. Because the army is rebuilding. It is being reformed. The tactics and strategy of fighting are changing. In the near future, the assault is more than likely,” adding:

“But this will not be so simple. Everyone must understand that this is not an easy thing. It is not at all easy to take fortifications, which for four years only strengthened.”

“Without a confident military and good operation and…a tactical operation, it is very difficult.”

Was assassinating Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) President Aleksandr Zakharchenko in late August prelude for what may be coming?

According to DPR Deputy Commander-In-Chief Eduard Basurin

, “(o)ur intelligence (indicates) that subdivisions of (Kiev’s) 128th Brigade are on full alert. Main attack force was deployed on the Mariupol direction” near Donbass. An offensive could start any time.

On Sunday, DPR spokesman Daniil Bezsonov said large numbers of US and Canadian military personnel arrived in Ukraine ahead of what may be a major offensive in Donbass, saying:

“Our intelligence noticed the arrival of a large number of foreign servicemen to the 56th motorized infantry and 406th artillery brigades near Urzuf.”

“The arrival of a group of high-ranking military officials from the US and Canadian armed forces to the headquarters of (Kiev’s) Operational Command East was also noticed.”

“We think it is possible that those who arrived may take part in planning and carrying out an offensive operation.”

Bezsonov said Ukrainian forces include the infamous Nazi-infested Azov battalion, notorious for espousing racist, anti-Semitic extremism, along with openly displaying swastikas, Nazi flags, SS insignias, and other extremist symbols.

They’re mobilizing for a likely attack on Donbass – led by (US and other) foreign elements, he stressed.

The Donetsk News Agency quoted Bezsonov explaining the following:

“(I)t seems that the command of Ukraine’s ‘unified forces operation’ allocates the central role in an offensive to the 36th marines brigade, 56th mechanized infantry and 79th assault airborne brigades.”

“Nazis from the Azov group will be tasked to back the offensive in the rear. All these operations will be commanded by the military from the United States and Canada, or, in other words, by NATO military.”

“We don’t rule out that foreign servicemen will take part in the planned offensive,” he added.

Kiev’s aggression in Donbass began in April 2014, supported and encouraged by Washington. Conflict continued on-and-off, now in its fifth year with no prospect for resolution.

Pentagon and CIA arms and munitions to Washington’s puppet Kiev regime began straightaway after the Obama’s February 2014 coup.

US and UK special forces began training Ukraine’s military after Donetsk and Lugansk broke away, wanting democratic governance, refusing to accept illegitimate Nazi-infested putschist rule.

The State Department admitted that US special forces are training Ukrainian troops – despite  Kiev having no enemies except invented ones.

Last March, Trump regime officials told Congress that Ukraine will be supplied with heavy weapons, including portable anti-tank missiles – on the phony pretext of helping the country defend its territory from (nonexistent) “Russian aggression.”

US weapons and munitions have been supplied to the country since 2014, much of it covertly without congressional authorization – all of it for naked aggression on Donbass.

Escalating war on Donetsk and Lugansk may be imminent, likely coming when ordered by Trump regime hardliners.

Washington and Kiev undermined Minsk I and II conflict resolution agreements, effectively rendering them dead-on-arrival.

Both regimes want endless conflict to eliminate democratic governance in Donbass, wanting it replaced with illegitimate fascist rule.

Kiev never observed Minsk ceasefire terms. Heavy weapons were repositioned, not withdrawn from the 500 km contact/disengagement line, separating Ukrainian and Donbass forces. Intermittent shelling never ended, civilians left in harm’s way.

Washington bears full responsibility for what’s gone on since late 2013 – replacing democratic governance in Ukraine with illegitimate putschist rule, Kiev forces used to wage naked aggression on Donbass, its people wanting freedom from fascism.

Conflict escalation may be imminent. Along with Syria, Donbass is a hugely dangerous  flashpoint, risking East/West confrontation – unthinkable US belligerence on Russia by accident or design.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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The NDP hierarchy’s response to noted war hawk John McCain’s death is shameful. Even worse, it reflects a general hostility towards the victims of Western imperialism.

After the U.S. Senator died over the weekend federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh tweeted:

John McCain had the courage not to stoop to divisive politics. He showed us that we can disagree in a way that creates dialogue and discussion, not fear and division. Rest In peace.

Rachel Notley also praised a US politician who never met a war he didn’t like.

“As @BarackObama wrote today”, the leader of Alberta’s NDP Government noted, “all of us can aspire to the courage to put the greater good above our own. At John’s best, he showed us what that means.”

In a follow-up tweet Notley called McCain “a true public servant.”

Even purportedly progressive Saskatchewan NDP leader Ryan Meili praised McCain on Twitter, saying

“sad to hear of the passing of Sen. John McCain – a principled man who served his country with honour in difficult times.” (Meili at least had the sense to delete his tweet.)

Anyone who has any doubt about celebrating McCain should watch Rania Khalek’s video and, as Ben Saucier noted in a succinct rejoinder to Singh:

McCain heavily promoted the lies that led to the Iraq war. He championed the NATO bombing of Libya. He supported and armed the jihadists destroying Syria. He played a role in bringing neo-Nazis to power in Ukraine and backed Saudi Arabia’s genocide in Yemen. He was no hero.

But, praising a man who rose to public attention by dropping bombs on civilian targets (a war crime) in North Vietnam is only part of the leadership’s whitewash of Western militarism. At the end of last month Singh published a statement on Korean War Veterans Day “honouring the brave veterans of the Canadian army who fought valiantly during the Korean War, so that today, South Koreans can live in peace and prosperity.”

It’s absurd to imply the 1950–53 Korean War was designed to secure “peace and prosperity” for South Koreans. About 27,000 Canadian troops and numerous warships expanded and internationalized a civil war that left as many as four million dead. They fought in support of Syngman Rhee’s brutal regime, which had killed tens of thousands in what Canadian diplomats in Washington described, in an internal cable to External Affairs at the time, as “a fair amountof repression by the Military Government of left-wing groups.” The understated diplomats added, “liberal social legislation had been definitely resisted.”

At the end of World War II the Soviets occupied the northern part of Korea, which borders Russia. US troops controlled the southern part of the country. According to Noam Chomsky:

When US forces entered Korea in 1945, they dispersed the local popular government, consisting primarily of antifascists who resisted the Japanese, and inaugurated a brutal repression, using Japanese fascist police and Koreans who had collaborated with them during the Japanese occupation. About 100,000 people were murdered in South Korea prior to what we call the Korean War, including 30-40,000 killed during the suppression of a peasant revolt in one small region, Cheju Island.

Singh’s Korean War Veterans Day statement concluded with a flourish of martial patriotism.

On this Korean War Veterans Day, let us also remember our current military personnel, and their families, who continue to fight every day to ensure that the values of peace, freedom, and democracy are defended around the world.

Were 385 Canadians sent to Sudan in 1884 to defend “peace, freedom, and democracy” or to beat back indigenous forces seeking to wrest control of Khartoum from famed English General Charles Gordon? Or how about the 7,000 Canadians who fought in southern Africa between 1899 and 1902? Was that war about advancing Cecil Rhodes’ mining interests and strengthening Britain’s position in the region or “peace, freedom and democracy”?

World War I had no clear and compelling purpose other than rivalry between up-and-coming Germany and the lead imperial powers of the day, Britain and France. And 20,000 Iraqi troops and tens of thousands of civilians were killed during the 1990–91 Gulf War to deepen the US foothold in the region.

The 18 Canadian fighter jets that participated in NATO’s illegal bombing of Serbia in 1999 didn’t bring “peace, freedom, and democracy” there. Nor did the 40,000 Canadians who fought in Afghanistan, which remains wracked by violence. Seven years after Canada participated in NATO’s war in Libya that country remains divided into various warring factions and hundreds of militias operate in the country of six million. (Canadian “peacekeepers” also helped overthrow Jean Bertrand Aristide’s elected government in Haiti and Congolese independence leader Patricia Lumumba.)

Canadian soldiers have only fought in one morally justifiable war: World War II. But, the historical record shows that Nazi expansionism’s threat to British interests, not opposition to fascism or anti-Semitism, led Ottawa to join WWII. (Only two years before the war Prime Minister Mackenzie King visited Hitler and in his diary King repeatedly expressed sympathy towards the Nazis.) As Jack Granatstein and Desmond Morton explain, “Canada went to war in September 1939 for the same reason as in 1914: because Britain went to war.”

Somebody should buy Jagmeet Singh a T-shirt that says:

“I pissed on the world’s downtrodden to ingratiate myself with the mainstream establishment but all I got was this lousy shirt.”

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Human rights advocates and health officials estimate that 17,000 to 18,000 residents of Basra province have been poisoned by heavily polluted and salty drinking water. On Aug. 26, hundreds of residents stormed the Basra Health Directorate to protest the poor health services provided to those made ill, but relief is not in sight.

Basra hospitals have been struggling since Aug. 12 to treat patients suffering from intestinal and skin diseases. Some hospitals have been so overwhelmed by the sheer number of patients and lack of medicines that were unable to provide assistance in thousands of cases.

The Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights documented 7,000 cases in just two days, Aug. 25-26. In an Aug. 25 report, the organization said, “The health services provided by the Basra hospitals can hardly cater to the needs of 15% of the cases. Some patients were left to lie on the floor as they failed to receive any treatment.”

The number of people sickened continues to increase, with Abu Al-Khasib General Hospital alone receiving 400 patients a day. Statistics compiled by the provincial health directorate for Aug. 12-28 revealed close to 2,000 cases each day throughout the province. Those affected are presenting with colic, diarrhea and poisoning due to water contamination.

According to statistics from the health directorate, Basra’s water pollution is staggering. Chemical contamination stands at 100% and the bacterial pollution at 50%, including in water from household taps. The High Commission for Human Rights noted,

“[Residents] are drinking water from tank cars, most of which transport sewage waste.”

In a video posted to YouTube on Aug. 23, a man in Basra can be heard laughing about the foul water running from a hose. The black liquid is obviously unsuitable for human consumption or use. “How can Iraqis survive when this is the water they drink?” one person says.

When shown the video, one local man, Ruaa al-Furaiji, asked Al-Monitor,

“Is this the water we were drinking?”

Basra gets its water from the Shatt al-Arab, the waterway formed by the juncture of the Euphrates and Tigris. In an Aug. 28 statement, the High Commission for Human Rights said it has found high levels of salinity in the water feeding the Shatt al-Arab, a decline in water levels in the rivers feeding residential areas and an increase in chemical and biological contaminants in the Shatt al-Arab from sewage and industrial waste.

The commission has also noted the lack of water treatment plants capable of helping resolve the problem.

“Most of the small stations are not operational due to their low capacity and lack of maintenance,” the commission reported.

Basra’s water has long been known to be high in salinity and heavily polluted.

On Aug. 28, Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi said at his weekly press conference,

“We have tasked a high-level government team with examining Basra’s water needs and pollution levels, and we have made important decisions in this regard.”

He offered no details, but his statement made it clear that whatever actions the government has in mind, they will not end Basra’s suffering anytime soon. There are apparently no emergency plans for responding effectively to such circumstances.

Basra Governor Asaad al-Eidani asserted in an Aug. 25 statement to the press,

“Basra’s water is not suitable for human use, and the services and funds that Abadi promised … have yet to be provided.”

He added,

“The water network in Basra province hasn’t been upgraded in 30 years, and it overlaps with the sewage networks, which are also old and whose water flows into the Shatt al-Arab.”

On Aug. 17, activists from the province posted a video on YouTube of water from a residential water pipe containing unidentified insects. Some residents have also used their cell phones to record examples of polluted water. For the moment, bottled water appears to be the only truly safe drinking water in Basra, but even when it is available it is often unaffordable.

Fatima al-Zarkani, a former parliament member who represented Basra province, told Al-Monitor,

“There are [thousands of] cases of poisoning, and people are suffering from very difficult conditions due to water pollution. The government should carry out its responsibilities as soon as possible.”

She added,

“People have been drinking water containing toxins due to government neglect and a lack of solutions to their suffering, which has been ongoing for years now, and [the conditions are] degenerating. … The situation in Basra is tragic.”

Iraqi Health Minister Adila Hammoud has tried to downplay the severity of the situation, claiming that only 1,500 people have been affected, ignoring the much higher figures issued by the Basra Health Directorate and the High Commission for Human Rights.

Education officials have voiced concerns about the possible spread of disease among students at the start of the new school year. Meanwhile, the widespread illness in Basra has led to a lull in one of the largest protest movements in Iraq in years over public services, but the dire situation might ultimately be the catalyst for mobilizing an even bigger movement.

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Mustafa Saadoun is an Iraqi journalist covering human rights and also the founder and director of the Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights. He formerly worked as a reporter for the Iraqi Council of Representatives. On Twitter: @SaadoonMustafa

Featured image is from GuideStar.

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I am one of very few journalists on the left to have covered the Labour Party’s supposed “anti-Semitism crisis” from its beginning three years ago, if not the the only one. I am also one of a handful of people who have even questioned the dominant media narrative of a “crisis”.

In my extensive reporting for The Electronic intifada, and in some of my MEMO columns, I have shown how the story is almost entirely a media fabrication. What we are witnessing from the British press right now is a form of collective hysteria; a McCarthyite witch hunt, in which black is white and up is down. This represents a sustained attempt to gaslight the entire left into believing that the Labour leader – a life-long opponent of racism in all its ugly forms, with a strong track record of combatting anti-Semitism — is actually some sort of closet racist.

As I have stated repeatedly, neither the left nor Labour are immune from the reality of anti-Semitism. However, all available statistical evidence shows that the level of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party is far less than such racism on the right. Anti-Jewish hatred extends across society, but is most prevalent amongst right-wingers, and especially so on the far-right.

Why, then, has there been nearly daily headlines over the summer about an “anti-Semitism crisis” in the Labour Party and nowhere else? The answer is clear for anyone who has eyes to see: this is an attempt to assassinate Jeremy Corbyn politically and break up the popular political movement that is close to taking him through that famous door in Downing Street.

Moreover — and let’s be clear about this — the state of Israel is at the forefront of this smear campaign. Corbyn is a lifelong supporter of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, and so a concerted effort is on to smear him and the popular movements that he represents.

One of the pro-Israel Lobby’s most important bodies was quite frank about that fact this week. In a long, boring and arrogant letter to Labour’s General Secretary Jennie Formby (another strong supporter of Palestinian rights), the Jewish Leadership Council stated quite openly that it will continue with its campaign to smear Labour as “anti-Semitic” until the party commits to a “deep cultural change” towards “Zionism and Israel”. That is the reality of the situation.

This is what it is all about and what it has been about all along: protecting Israel and its war crimes from any loss of political support in the West. The prospect of a veteran Palestine solidarity campaigner entering Number 10 as Prime Minister represents the pro-Israel Lobby’s worst nightmare. It would confirm the thinking of the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs that “Europe is lost” and that there is no hope of regaining its support.

The people are increasingly against Israel, so all that remains is to translate that loss of popular support into a loss of top-level political support. Jeremy Corbyn represents hope for that to happen.

The “Labour anti-Semitism” story started in earnest in February 2016 as a complete and total fabrication invented out of thin air by Alex Chalmers, a former intern with the pro-Israel Lobby group BICOM (Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre). He claimed that almost the entire student Labour left in Oxford University was anti-Semitic. There was no real evidence for this, but the mainstream media ran with the story anyway.

Aside from some unspecific slurs (which tellingly named no culprits), Chalmers’ only “evidence” was the fact that the student Labour Society had endorsed Israeli Apartheid Week. This is an annual global initiative by pro-Palestinian activists to educate and inform about the realities of Israel’s racist apartheid regime in Palestine.

Chalmers, in fact, was part of Progress, the Blairite desiccated corporate faction of Labour. He and his co-conspirator exited the Labour Party soon after quitting the club, and joined the Liberal Democrats, but the damage was done in the minds of the hysterical and deluded mainstream media; Corbyn’s Labour has been “anti-Semitic” ever since.

The sad reality, though, is that Corbyn and his team have indeed made mistakes, in that they have indulged this media fantasy far too much. Instead of hitting back strongly and calling out his accusers as the bad-faith smear merchants that they are, Corbyn has instead apologised, backed down and pandered to them, even when he has absolutely nothing to apologise for.

One of the worst mistakes in this regard was to apologise for appearing on a platform with Hajo Meyer, a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust. Meyer had compared the situation of Palestinians trapped under Israeli occupation and bombardment with Jews caged by the Nazis in places like the infamous Warsaw ghetto.

Perhaps it was not a comparison that everybody would feel able to make, but Meyer lived under the brutal reality of the genocidal anti-Semitism of the Nazis. He was perfectly within his rights to make it, and those smearing him as anti-Semitic should be ashamed of themselves, but I doubt that they ever will.

Thankfully, in more recent weeks, Corbyn’s office has shown some tentative signs of fighting back, and getting up off their knees. When Benjamin Netanyahu intervened directly via Twitter two weeks ago, for example, Corbyn hit back by insisting that the Israeli Prime Minister’s claims were false, and slammed him for his army’s killing of more than 160 unarmed protesters in the Gaza Strip since the end of March.

This week, Corbyn’s spokespeople put out a good response to the media after former Chief Rabbi of the United Synagogue in Britain, Lord Jonathan Sacks, made a disgusting claim that the Labour leader is a racist. They stated that his “comparison with the race-baiting Enoch Powell is absurd and offensive.”

The more Corbyn sticks up for himself, the more his supporters will rally around him. The more he concedes to the pro-Israel Lobby, the more his critics will sense weakness, and will continue the smears, character assassinations and even open incitement to murder him.

Appeasement is a doomed strategy, as the last three years have proven decisively. The Labour “anti-Semitism crisis” smear campaign will only end in one of two ways: either it will have Corbyn deposed, or it will be defeated. The latter is only possible if Corbyn fights back strongly enough.

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When Michael Crick embarrassed Theresa May by quizzing her on her non-existent opposition to apartheid as she visited Mandela’s old cell, the response of New Labour was to defend May by claiming the Tories had opposed apartheid all along. Progress and Labour Friends of Israel rushed immediately to the defence of the person they truly adore, who sits higher still in their Pantheon than Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. They rushed to defend the memory of Margaret Thatcher.

Ex-Labour MP Tom Harris and Blair’s former Political Director John McTernan (who now write for the Tory Spectator and Telegraph) led the suicide charge of the Labour Thatcherites.

The person here quoted with approval is Paul Staines, aka Guido Fawkes, far right blogger who has stated that he never wore a “Hang Nelson Mandela” badge personally, but used to hang out with people who did.

Blair-loving ex-MP Tom Harris went one further by claiming that Jeremy Corbyn’s own anti-apartheid opposition was connected to a “rape-cult”, a stupefying bit of “guilt by association” propaganda.

Here we have Liz Kendall supporter and occasional Guardian columnist Sarah Hayward – possibly the most obscure individual to get themselves a blue tick on Twitter, as though she were worth impersonating – making the absolutely ludicrous claim that when arrested, Corbyn was supporting Thatcher’s anti-apartheid policy.

I could go on, but for a last example here is Blairite house journal the New Statesman, pretending to wrap a scholarly respectability around the Thatcher revisionism. It is worth noting that the Blairites repeatedly call in evidence the claims by another right-wing Blairite and former Ambassador in Pretoria, Lord Renwick (who resigned from the Labour Whip when Blair ceased to be Prime Minister). Renwick wrote an entirely tendentious and self-serving book on his and Thatcher’s “role in ending apartheid”.

The truth is not hard to find. Professor Patrick Salmon, the FCO’s official historian, last year published the monumental volume of official documents “The Challenge of Apartheid”. It details with mounds of evidence Thatcher’s stern resistance to any sanctions against apartheid and, repeatedly, her insistence that the ANC was “a terrorist organisation”. Here is a quote from Salmon’s synthesis of Thatcher’s views from the official history (I can’t give a page number as I received the final draft, as standard FCO practice as I feature in the book, and I quote from the draft):

“Mrs Thatcher was relentlessly hostile to all those who sought to overthrow the apartheid regime by force or undermine it through economic sanctions. The ANC was unacceptable not only because of its association with communism… but above all because of its refusal to renounce the use of violence… which inevitably meant that she regarded it as a terrorist organisation of the same stamp as the PLO or the IRA. Mrs Thatcher adamantly opposed the imposition of further economic sanctions…

South Africa’s role as a bulwark of the West against Soviet expansion was not just a rhetorical ploy but was believed implicitly by Ronald Reagan as well as by Mrs Thatcher.”

I was, to my intense frustration, banned from communicating with the ANC. Professor Salmon details at great length the sharp disagreement between Thatcher and Geoffrey Howe, Malcolm Rifkind and Lynda Chalker over South Africa. There were indeed genuinely anti-apartheid Tories. But Thatcher was not one of them. All of her instincts on this were with the pro-Apartheid right of the party, as Salmon notes explicitly.

In real life, Thatcher was not a dictator. She had to carry her Cabinet with her. Her relationship with Howe in particular was crucial to her political base, as illustrated by the fact that he more than anybody precipitated her ultimate political downfall. It is true that Thatcher did in private meetings tell P W Botha to release Mandela – but that was at Howe’s insistence, not of her own volition.

Thatcher’s 1984 meeting with P W Botha at Chequers is worth noting. There was a massive demonstration against it, on which I took part just before joining the FCO, as did Jeremy Corbyn, Peter Hain and children of both Geoffrey Howe and our then Ambassador to South Africa. At this meeting Thatcher’s briefing provided by the FCO was to call for Mandela’s release. But she did not do so in the official meetings. A minute from her Private Secretary Charles Powell (brother of Blair’s Chief of Staff) claimed that Thatcher had pressed Botha to release Mandela in a private conversation over canapes with no witnesses. It is fair to say the nature of this “pressing”, if it happened, was ever after a subject of some scepticism in the FCO. If anyone knows what the South African records say…

For two years I, among other responsibilities, wrote briefings, speeches and parliamentary answers on South Africa, cleared them through FCO ministers before being sent over to No. 10, where they would get “toned down” by Charles Powell to reflect Thatcher’s views. I cherish my first ever conversation with Powell. I called Number 10 to discuss a draft, and asked;

“Hello, is that Charles Powell?”.
“Actually, it’s Pole”, he replied.
“Oh I am sorry”, I said in genuine innocence, “It’s spelt Powell in my directory”.

I had not yet got used to posh twats.

The truth is very easy to discover, and it is not what the Blairites now claim in their deluded Thatcher worship. Sir Patrick Wright, former Head of the Diplomatic Service, was absolutely correct in observing that Thatcher supported a “Whites-only” state:

It should be noted this comes from Patrick Wright’s diary written at the time, and not a subsequent self-serving account. I can confirm it is absolutely true, from my position as the South Africa (Political) desk officer 1984-6.

What Thatcher favoured was P W Botha’s “Bantustans” or “Homelands policy”, under which an ethnically defined, whites only state possessing all of South Africa’s wealthy cities and ports and the best mineral and agricultural resources, would exist alongside a number of impoverished “independent states” housing different tribes, from which a low paid workforce could commute daily to white areas (or live there temporarily under passes). That was the planned endgame of apartheid, and a number of such “states” were created – South Africa actually declared four “Bantustans” as independent countries. Thatcher hankered after their recognition, particularly Boputhatswana.

The “Homelands policy” is of course identical to the “two state solution” which the neo-cons propose for Palestine, with an apartheid ethnically defined Israel holding all the main resources next to impoverished pockets of Palestinians in an “independent state” commuting in to provide a cheap labour force.

Not only does Patrick Wright affirm in his diaries Thatcher’s support for the “Homelands Policy”, Professor Salmon confirms it too “Mrs Thatcher was talking about a return to pre-1910 South Africa, with a white mini-state partitioned from their neighbouring black states”.

Last year I published more on my recollections of my own role at that period.

As a final rebuke to Thatcher’s New Labour acolytes, I quote Peter Hain:

[Hain] criticised Norman Tebbit, a minister under Margaret Thatcher, and Charles Moore, her biographer, for trying to rewrite history.

“If Nelson Mandela can forgive his oppressors without forgetting their crimes, who am I not to do the same to our opponents in the long decades of the anti-apartheid struggle,” he added.

“But it really does stick in the craw when Lord Tebbit, Charles Moore and others similar tried over recent days to claim that their complicity with apartheid – and that’s what I think it was – somehow brought about its end. Even, to my utter incredulity, when Lord Tebbit told BBC World, in a debate with me, that they had brought about Mandela’s freedom. I know for a fact that Nelson Mandela did not think so.”

But there is a question here of great urgency today. Why do New Labour leap in to deny what Hain called the Tories “craven indulgence of apartheid”, to defend Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May, and to criticise Jeremy Corbyn for his anti-apartheid activity?

Together with reaction to the quitting the party of Frank Field, an open Thatcher and Enoch Powell reminder, I conclude that the Blairite MPs would prefer to be led by Margaret Thatcher or Theresa May than Jeremy Corbyn. Their psychology is deeply troubling:

I support Scottish Independence, so I am in a different position to voters in England. But, despite the fact large numbers of my friends have joined the Labour Party to support Jeremy Corbyn, I could not vote Labour in most of England. Could I advise somebody to vote for Wes Streeting, John Mann, Jess Phillips, Stephen Kinnock or their ilk? No, under no circumstances.

Labour party members need to bite the bullet on reselection. Being a Labour MP cannot be a sinecure granted for life irrespective of behaviour. The party is plainly dysfunctional, and it is so because the large majority of MPs are totally removed from the views of the membership. There are only two ways to resolve this. Either the MPs will have to leave parliament or the members will have to leave the party. There is no coherent party at present.

The Blairite Labour MPs have painted themselves into a corner by their decision to brand Jeremy Corbyn as personally a racist and an anti-semite. If I was in a party led by a racist and anti-semite, I would leave the party. The idea that they can continue as members of parliament for the party while expressing such views about the leader is a nonsense. But they do not wish to leave, because they would lose their comfy jobs. All of the right wing Labour MPs realise they would never win an election on their own account, without Labour Party support. It would be hilarious if not so serious, that they claim Frank Field can resign the Labour whip but this does not mean leave the party, and that he must still be the Labour Party candidate at the next election!

Their hope is twofold. Firstly, that the charges of anti-semitism against Corbyn will be widely believed and lead to a drastic drop in public support which will force Corbyn out. This is not happening. The public realise that the charges of anti-semitism are false and based on a definition of the word which simply means critic of Israel. Other than the normal polling malaise which follows any split in a party, there is no drastic plunge in support for Labour of the kind which would definitely follow if the public thought the party were led by an anti-semite.

To put it another way, either 40% of the public are anti-semites, or the public do not take these accusations seriously.

The Blairites other hope is that, by the Labour Party adopting the IHRA’s malicious definition of anti-semitism as embracing criticism of Israel, they will manage through legal action to force Jeremy Corbyn’s expulsion from the Labour Party. This attempt to use the British Establishment to circumvent party democracy is extraordinary.

By bringing things to this pitch, the Blairites have made compromise impossible. Either Corbyn and most of the members will have to go, or the Blairite MPs will.

Something must give. That is why I urge everybody who is in the Labour Party to take action today to push for mandatory reselection of MPs. The matter is urgent, and no party can resist the united force of its members for long.

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The past is not dead; it is people who are sleeping.  The current night and daymares that we are having arise out of murders lodged deep in our past that have continued into the present.  No amount of feigned amnesia will erase the bloody truth of American history, the cheap grace we bestow upon ourselves.  We have, as Harold Pinter said in his Nobel address, been feeding on “a vast tapestry of lies” that surrounds us, lies uttered by nihilistic leaders and their media mouthpieces for a very long time.  We have, or should have, bad consciences for not acknowledging being active or silent accomplices in the suppression of truth and the vicious murdering of millions at home and abroad.

But, as Pinter said,

“I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.”

No one is more emblematic of this noble effort than David Ray Griffin, who, in book after book since the attacks of 11 September 2001, has meticulously exposed the underside of the American empire and its evil masters.  His persistence in trying to reach people and to warn them of the horrors that have resulted is extraordinary.  Excluding his philosophical and theological works, this is his fifteenth book since 2004 on these grave issues of life and death and the future of the world.

In this masterful book, he provides a powerful historical argument that right from the start with the arrival of the first European settlers, this country, despite all the rhetoric about it having been divinely founded and guided, has been “more malign that benign, more demonic than divine.”  He chronologically presents this history, supported by meticulous documentation, to prove his thesis.  In his previous book, Bush and Cheney: How They Ruined America and the World, Griffin cataloged the evil actions that flowed from the inside job/false flag attacks of September 11^th, while in this one – a prequel – he offers a lesson in American history going back centuries, and he shows that one would be correct in calling the United States a “false flag empire.”  

The attacks of 11 September 2001 are the false flag fulcrum upon which his two books pivot. Their importance cannot be overestimated, not just for their inherent cruelty that resulted in thousands of innocent American deaths, but since they became the justification for the United States’ ongoing murderous campaigns termed “the war on terror” that have brought death to millions of people around the world.  An international array of expendable people.  Terrifying as they were, and were meant to be, they have many precedents, although much of this history is hidden in the shadows.  Griffin shines a bright light on them, with most of his analysis focused on the years 1850-2018.  

As a theological and philosophical scholar, he is well aware of the great importance of society’s need for religious legitimation for its secular authority, a way to offer its people a shield against terror and life’s myriad fears through a protective myth that has been used successfully by the United States to terrorize others.  He shows how the terms by which the U.S. has been legitimated as God’s “chosen nation” and Americans as God’s “chosen people” have changed over the years as secularization and pluralism have made inroads.  The names have changed, but the meaning has not. God is on our side, and when that is so, the other side is cursed and can be killed by God’s people, who are always battling el diabalo.   

He exemplifies this by opening with a quote from George Washington’s first Inaugural Address where Washington speaks of “the Invisible Hand” and “Providential agency” guiding the country, and by ending with Obama saying “I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being.”  In between we hear Andrew Jackson say that “Providence has showered on this favored land blessings without number” and Henry Cabot Lodge in 1900 characterize America’s divine mission as “manifest destiny.”  The American religion today is American Exceptionalism, an updated euphemism for the old-fashioned “God’s New Israel” or the “Redeemer Nation.” 

At the core of this verbiage lies the delusion that the United States, as a blessed and good country, has a divine mission to spread “democracy” and “freedom” throughout the world, as Hilary Clinton declared during the 2016 presidential campaign when she said that “we are great because we are good,” and in 2004 when George W. Bush said, “Like generations before us, we have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom.”   Such sentiments could only be received with sardonic laughter by the countless victims made “free” by America’s violent leaders, now and then, as Griffin documents.

Having established the fact of America’s claim to divine status, he then walks the reader through various thinkers who have taken sides on the issue of the United States being benign or malign.  This is all preliminary to the heart of the book, which is a history lesson documenting the malignancy at the core of the American trajectory.

“American imperialism is often said to have begun in 1898, when Cuba and the Philippines were the main prizes,” he begins.  “What was new at this time, however, was only that America took control of countries beyond the North American continent.” 

The “divine right” to seize others’ lands and kill them started long before, and although no seas were crossed in the usual understanding of imperialism, the genocide of Native Americans long preceded 1898.  So too did the “manifest destiny” that impelled war with Mexico and the seizure of its land and the expansion west to the Pacific.  This period of empire building depended heavily on the “other great crime against humanity” that was the slave trade, wherein it is estimated that 10 million Africans died, in addition to the sick brutality of slavery itself.  “No matter how brutal the methods, Americans were instruments of divine purposes,” writes Griffin.  And, he correctly adds, it is not even true that America’s overseas imperialistic ventures only started in 1898, for in the 1850s Commodore Perry forced “the haughty Japanese” to open their ports to American commerce through gunboat diplomacy.  

Then in 1898 the pace of overseas imperial expansion picked up dramatically with what has been called “The Spanish-American War” that resulted in the seizure of Cuba and the Philippines and the annexing of Hawaii.  Griffin says these wars could more accurately be termed “the wars to take Spanish colonies.”  His analysis of the brutality and arrogance of these actions makes the reader realize that My Lai and other more recent atrocities have a long pedigree that is part of an institutional structure, and while Filipinos and Cubans and so many others were being slaughtered, Griffin writes, “Anticipating Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s declaration that ‘we don’t do empire,’ [President] McKinley said that imperialism is ‘foreign to the temper and genius of this free and generous people.’”  

Then as now, perhaps mad laughter is the only response to such unadulterated bullshit, as Griffin quotes Mark Twain saying that it would be easy creating a flag for the Philippines: 

We can have just our usual flag, with the white stripes painted black and the stars replaced by the skull and cross-bones. 

That would have also worked for Columbia, Panama, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Nicaragua, and other countries subjugated under the ideology of the Monroe Doctrine; wherever freedom  and national independence raised its ugly head, the United States was quick to intervene with its powerful anti-revolutionary military and its financial bullying.  In the Far East the “Open Door” policy was used to loot China, Japan, and other countries.

But all this was just the beginning.  Griffin shows how Woodrow Wilson, the quintessentially devious and treacherous liberal Democrat, who claimed he wanted to keep America out of WW I, did  just the opposite to make sure the U.S. would come to dominate the foreign markets his capitalist masters demanded.  Thus Griffin explores how Wilson conspired with Winston Churchill to use the sinking of the Lusitania as a casus belli and how the Treaty of Versailles’s harsh treatment of Germany set the stage for WW II.

He tells us how in the intervening years between the world wars the demonization of Russia and the new Soviet Union was started. This deprecation of Russia, which is roaring at full-throttle today, is a theme that recurs throughout The American Trajectory.  Its importance cannot be overemphasized.  Wilson called the Bolshevik government “a government by terror,” and in 1918 “sent thousands of troops into northern and eastern Russia, leaving them there until 1920.”  

That the U. S. invaded Russia is a fact rarely mentioned and even barely known to Americans.  Perhaps awareness of it and the century-long demonizing of the U.S.S.R./Russia would enlighten those who buy the current anti-Russia propaganda called “Russiagate.” 

To match that “divine” act of imperial intervention abroad, Wilson fomented the Red Scare at home, which, as Griffin says, had lasting and incalculable importance because it created the American fear of radical thought and revolution that exists to this very day and serves as a justification for supporting brutal dictators around the world and crackdowns on freedom at home (as is happening today).  

He gives us brief summaries of some dictators the U.S has supported, and reminds us of the saying of that other liberal Democrat, Franklin Roosevelt, who famously said of the brutal Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, that “he may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he’s our son-of-a-bitch.”  And thus Somoza would terrorize his own people for 43 years.  The same took place in Cuba, Chile, Iran, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, etc.  The U.S. also supported Mussolini, did nothing to prevent Franco’s fascist toppling of the Spanish Republic, and supported the right-wing government of Chiang-Kai Shek in its efforts to dominate China.

It is a very dark and ugly history that confirms the demonic nature of American actions around the world.

Then Griffin explodes the many myths about the so-called “Good War” – WW II.  He explains the lies told about the Japanese “surprise” attack on Pearl Harbor; how Roosevelt wished to get the U.S. into the war, both in the Pacific and in Europe; and how much American economic self-interest lay behind it.  He critiques the myth that America selflessly wished to defend freedom loving people in their battles with brutal, fascist regimes.  That, he tells us, is but a small part of the story:

This, however, is not an accurate picture of American policies during the Second World War.  Many people were, to be sure, liberated from terrible tyrannies by the Allied victories.  But the fact that these people benefited was an incidental outcome, not a motive of American policies.  These policies, as [Andrew] Bacevich discovered, were based on ‘unflagging self-interest.’

Then there are the conventional and atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Nothing could be more demonic, as Griffin shows.  If these cold-blooded mass massacres of civilians and the lies told to justify them don’t convince a reader that there has long been something radically evil at the heart of American history, nothing will.  Griffin shows how Truman and his advisers and top generals, including Dwight Eisenhower and Admiral William D. Leahy, Truman’s Chief of Staff, knew the dropping of the atomic bombs were unnecessary to end the war, but they did so anyway.  

He reminds us of Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeline Albright’s response to the question whether she thought the deaths of more than 500, 000 Iraqi children as a result of Clinton’s crippling economic sanctions were worth it: “But, yes, we think the price is worth it.”  (Notice the “is,” the ongoing nature of these war crimes, as she spoke.)  But this is the woman who also said, “We are the indispensable nation.  We stand tall…”

Griffin devotes other chapters to the creation of the Cold War, American imperialism during the Cold War, Post-Cold War interventions, the Vietnam War, the drive for global dominance, and false flag operations, among other topics.  

As for false flag operations, he says, “Indeed, the trajectory of the American Empire has relied so heavily on these types of attacks that one could describe it as a false flag empire.”  In the false flag chapter and throughout the book, he discusses many of the false flags the U.S. has engaged in, including Operation Gladio, the U.S./NATO terrorist operation throughout Europe that Swiss historian Daniele Ganser has extensively documented, an operation meant to discredit communists and socialists.  Such operations were directly connected to the OSS, the CIA and its director Allen Dulles, his henchman James Jesus Angleton, and their Nazi accomplices, such as General Reinhard Gehlen.  In one such attack in 1980 at the Bologna, Italy railway station, these U.S. terrorists killed 85 people and wounded 20 others.  As with the bombs dropped by Saudi Arabia today on Yemeni school children, the explosive used was made for the U.S. military.  About these documented U.S. atrocities, Griffin says:

These revelations show the falsity of an assumption widely held by Americans.  While recognizing that the US military sometimes does terrible things to their enemies, most Americans have assumed that US military leaders would not order the killing of innocent civilians in allied countries for political purposes.  Operation Gladio showed this assumption to be false.

He is right, but I would add that the leaders behind this were civilian, as much as, or more than military.  

In the case of “Operation Northwoods,” it was the Joint Chiefs of Staff who presented to President Kennedy this false flag proposal that would provide justification for a U.S. invasion of Cuba.  It would have involved the killing of American citizens on American soil, bombings, plane hijacking, etc.  President Kennedy considered such people and such plans insane, and he rejected it as such.  His doing so tells us much, for many other presidents would have approved it.  And again, how many Americans are aware of this depraved proposal that is documented and easily available?  How many even want to contemplate it?  For the need to remain in denial of the facts of history and believe in the essential goodness of America’s rulers is a very hard nut to crack.  Griffin has written a dozen books about 11 September 2001, trying to do exactly that.

If one is willing to embrace historical facts, however, then this outstanding book will open one’s eyes to the long-standing demonic nature of the actions of America’s rulers.  A reader cannot come away from its lucidly presented history unaffected, unless one lives in a self-imposed fantasy world.  The record is clear, and Griffin lays it out in all its graphic horror. Which is not to say that the U.S. has not “done both good and bad things, so it could not sensibly be called purely divine or purely demonic.” Questions of purity are meant to obfuscate basic truths. And the question he asks in his subtitle – Divine or Demonic? – is really a rhetorical question, and when it comes to the “trajectory” of American history, the demonic wins hands down.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out one place where Griffin fails the reader.  In his long chapter on Vietnam, which is replete with excellent facts and analyses, he makes a crucial mistake, which is unusual for him.  This mistake appears in a four page section on President Kennedy’s policies on Vietnam.  In those pages, Griffin relies on Noam Chomsky’s terrible book – Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and US Political Culture (1993), a book wherein Chomsky shows no regard for evidence or facts – to paint Kennedy as being in accord with his advisers, the CIA, and the military regarding Vietnam.  This is factually false. Griffin should have been more careful and have understood this.  The truth is that Kennedy was besieged and surrounded by these demonic people, who were intent on isolating him, disregarding his instructions, and murdering him to achieve their goals in Vietnam.  In the last year of his life, JFK had taken a radical turn toward peace-making, not only in Vietnam, but with the Soviet Union, Cuba, and around the globe.  Such a turn was anathema to the war lovers. Thus he had to die.  Contrary to Chomsky’s deceptions, motivated by his hatred of Kennedy and perhaps something more sinister (he also backs the Warren Commission, thinks JFK’s assassination was no big deal, and accepts the patently false official version of the attacks of 11 September 2001), Griffin should have emphatically asserted that Kennedy had issued NSAM 263 on October 11, 1963 calling for the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam, and that after he was assassinated a month later, Lyndon Johnson reversed that withdrawal order with NSAM 273.  Chomsky notwithstanding, all the best scholarship and documentary evidence proves this.  And for Griffin, a wonderful scholar, to write that with the change from Kennedy to Johnson that “this change of presidents would bring no basic change in policy” is so shockingly wrong that I imagine Griffin, a man passionate about truth, simply slipped up and got sloppy here.  For nothing could be further from the truth.  

Ironically, Griffin makes a masterful case for his thesis, while forgetting the one pivotal man, President John Kennedy, who sacrificed his life in an effort to change the trajectory of American history from its demonic course.

It is one mistake in an otherwise very important and excellent book that should be required reading for anyone who doubts the evil nature of this country’s continuing foreign policy.  Those who are already convinced should also read it, for it provides a needed historical resource and impetus to help change the trajectory that is transporting the world toward nuclear oblivion, if continued. 

 If – a fantastic wish! – The American Trajectory: Divine or Demonic? were required reading in American schools and colleges, perhaps a new generation would arise to change our devils into angels, the arc of America’s future moral universe toward justice, and away from being the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, as it has been for so very long.

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Edward Curtin is a writer whose work has appeared widely. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. He teaches sociology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. His website is http://edwardcurtin.com/.

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Assad was supposed to be gone already. President Obama thought it would be just another “regime change” operation and perhaps Assad would end up like Saddam Hussein or Yanukovych. Or maybe even Gaddafi. But he was supposed to be gone. The US spent billions to get rid of him and even provided weapons and training to the kinds of radicals that attacked the United States on 9/11.

But with the help of his allies, Assad has nearly defeated this foreign-sponsored insurgency.

The US fought him every step of the way. Each time the Syrian military approached another occupied city or province, Washington and its obedient allies issued the usual warnings that Assad was not liberating territory but was actually seeking to kill more of his own people.

Remember Aleppo, where the US claimed Assad was planning mass slaughter once he regained control? As usual the neocons and the media were completely wrong. Even the UN has admitted that with Aleppo back in the hands of the Syrian government hundreds of thousands of Syrians have actually moved back. We are supposed to believe they willingly returned so that Assad could kill them?

The truth is Aleppo is being rebuilt. Christians celebrated Easter there this spring for the first time in years. There has been no slaughter once al-Qaeda and ISIS’ hold was broken. Believe me, if there was a slaughter we would have heard about it in the media!

So now, with the Syrian military and its allies prepare to liberate the final Syrian province of Idlib, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo again warns the Syrian government against re-taking its own territory. He Tweeted on Friday that: “The three million Syrians, who have already been forced out of their homes and are now in Idlib, will suffer from this aggression. Not good. The world is watching.”

President Trump’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton, has also warned the Syrian government that the US will attack if it uses gas in Idlib. Of course, that warning serves as an open invitation to rebels currently holding Idlib to set off another false flag and enjoy US air support.

Bolton and Pompeo are painting Idlib as a peaceful province resisting the violence of an Assad who they claim just enjoys killing his own people. But who controls Idlib province? President Trump’s own Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS, Brett McGurk, said in Washington just last year that, “Idlib province is the largest al-Qaeda safe-haven since 9/11, tied to directly to Ayman al Zawahiri, this is a huge problem.”

Could someone please remind Pompeo and Bolton that al-Qaeda are the bad guys?

After six years of a foreign-backed regime-change operation in Syria, where hundreds of thousands have been killed and the country nearly fell into the hands of ISIS and al-Qaeda, the Syrian government is on the verge of victory. Assad is hardly a saint, but does anyone really think al-Qaeda and ISIS are preferable? After all, how many Syrians fled the country when Assad was in charge versus when the US-backed “rebels” started taking over?

Americans should be outraged that Pompeo and Bolton are defending al-Qaeda in Idlib. It’s time for the neocons to admit they lost. It is time to give Syria back to the Syrians. It is time to pull the US troops from Syria. It is time to just leave Syria alone!

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Background

UNRWA is confronted with an increased demand for services resulting from a growth in the number of registered Palestine refugees, the extent of their vulnerability and their deepening poverty. UNRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions and financial support has been outpaced by the growth in needs. As a result, the UNRWA programme budget, which supports the delivery of core essential services, operates with a large shortfall. UNRWA encourages all Member States to work collectively to exert all possible efforts to fully fund the Agency’s programme budget. UNRWA emergency programmes and key projects, also operating with large shortfalls, are funded through separate funding portals.

UNRWA is a United Nations agency established by the General Assembly in 1949 and mandated to provide assistance and protection to some 5.4 million Palestine refugees registered with UNRWA across its five fields of operation. Its mission is to help Palestine refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip achieve their full human development potential, pending a just and lasting solution to their plight. UNRWA services encompass education, health care, relief and social services, camp infrastructure and improvement, protection and microfinance.

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On 31 August, the United States announced that it will provide no additional funding to UNRWA. I express deep regret and disappointment at the nature of the US decision – which affects one of the most robust and rewarding partnerships in the humanitarian and development fields – and unreservedly reject its accompanying narrative.

At the outset, I wish to convey – with confidence and steadfast determination – to Palestine refugees in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, that our operations will continue and our Agency prevail. At the heart of our mission lie the dignity and rights of a very anguished and profoundly unsettled community. The funding decision of an individual member state – albeit our historically most generous and consistent donor – will not modify or impact the energy and passion with which we approach our role and responsibility towards Palestine refugees. It will only strengthen our resolve.

To my colleagues – both Palestinian and international – I confirm that we will apply ourselves with every shred of energy and creativity to continue meeting the needs of the community and preserve our vital services. All staff will be at their duty stations, and will keep our installations open and safe. It is crucial to project the strongest sense of unity and purpose.

UNRWA’s remarkable history is made up of millions of acts of selflessness and courage in one the world’s most polarized and emotionally charged regions of the planet. I am proud and honored to lead this dynamic agency and wish to pay tribute to the dozens of colleagues whose lives were lost in recent years, in particular in Gaza, Syria and the West Bank.

We were created in 1949 to provide assistance and protection of rights of Palestine refugees, pending a just and lasting solution to their plight. This was – and firmly remains – the expression of the collective will of the international community and the General Assembly of the United Nations has consistently praised the human development results achieved by the Agency and extended its mandate. The World Bank has called our education system a “global public good”.

The need for humanitarian action arises from the extreme violence, pain, suffering and injustice caused by war. In the case of Palestine refugees, this was caused by forced displacement, dispossession, loss of homes and livelihoods, as well as by statelessness and occupation. No matter how often attempts are made to minimize or delegitimize the individual and collective experiences of Palestine refugees, the undeniable fact remains that they have rights under international law and represent a community of 5.4 Million men, women and children who cannot simply be wished away.

The responsibility for the protracted nature of the Palestine refugee-hood, the growing number of refugees and the growth in needs, lies squarely with the parties and in the international community’s lack of will or utter inability to bring about a negotiated and peaceful resolution of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. The attempt to make UNRWA somehow responsible for perpetuating the crisis is disingenuous at best.

There is sadly nothing unique in the protracted nature of the Palestine refugee crisis. Refugees in places like Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, Congo and beyond have also experienced decades of displacement and lack of resolution. Their children and grand-children are similarly recognized as refugees and assisted by UNHCR. Enshrined in the principle of humanity and the international law norm of family unity is the commitment to continue serving communities affected by war until a political solution has been found. It is the failure to end conflicts that prolongs refugee situations and denies refugees the choice to define a dignified future of their own.

In January 2018, the US announced that its annual contribution to UNRWA would be $60 M. We acknowledged this important funding at the time but also highlighted the fact that it represented a $300 M reduction in income, which confronted our organization with an existential crisis. At no time over the past eight months were we notified of the specific reasons for the dramatic cut.

It appeared clearly related however to the tensions between the United States and the Palestinian leadership following the US announcement on Jerusalem and not to UNRWA’s performance. It therefore represented an evident politicization of humanitarian aid. The announcement made yesterday further challenges the notion that humanitarian funding should be depoliticized. It risks undermining the foundations of the international multi-lateral and humanitarian systems.

It is a radical departure from almost 7 decades of genuine – if at times critical – US support to our Agency and is inconsistent with the cooperation agreement signed in early December 2017 between the United States and UNRWA, in which the US recognized the robustness and integrity of our management of the organization and its resources and how we address our multiple operational, security and financial challenges.

Our commitment to accountability, strict and sound financial discipline, to setting priorities and acting decisively when the Agency’s neutrality is challenged, are matters of public record. In 2018, UNRWA introduced stringent management measures as its own necessary contribution to overcoming the financial crisis.

We have also achieved remarkable results in terms of diversification and expanding partnerships. I want here to acknowledge with deep appreciation the over 25 countries that advanced their expected annual contributions to earlier in the year to help us sustain operations. I wish also to express immense gratitude to the 30 donors who have provided additional contributions to UNRWA’s core and emergency activities this year and those who have signed new multi-year agreements with us.

I wish to highlight with particular emphasis the generous donations made by Gulf countries, specifically the State of Qatar, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, as well as the historic support from the State of Kuwait.

We are still in critical need of over $200 M to survive this year’s crisis and call on donors to sustain the collective mobilization to succeed in this crucial endeavor.

I am indebted to the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, for his trust and leadership in mobilizing support for our Agency. I wish to sincerely thank all host countries for their tireless efforts, as illustrated with particular vigor and dedication by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and by Palestine. The commitment shown respectively by Egypt and by Turkey as successive chairs of UNRWA’s Advisory Commission is also recognized.

When we opened the school year on time this week – with the admirable support of our partners – and 526’000 girls and boys returned to classrooms in our 711 schools in the region, it was a moment of celebration, pride and hope.

UNRWA does not pay lip service when it comes to the right to education, to empowering young girls, to developing critical thinking and teaching tolerance and human rights. There is nothing artificial in our commitment to the preservation of opportunities and rights. We act concretely on these difficult front-lines, committed to upholding the integrity of our mandate and striving for high standards in our education, health, relief and social services and emergency response.

I say again to all Palestine refugees: we will not fail you. Our partnership with you is stronger than ever. Your Dignity is Priceless.

With my sincere regards,

Pierre Krähenbühl

Commissioner-General

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Featured image: Bridge along Afghan- Tajik border (Source: TruePublica)

Russia, the United States and Tajikistan have all denied that they were behind a series of mystery airstrikes that took place along the Tajik-Afghan border on Sunday, while the identity of the targets also remains unknown. The 800-mile border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan consists of mountainous terrain. Unlike the Afghan-Pakistani border, which is rife with skirmishes and firefights, the Afghan-Tajik border is usually peaceful and sparsely guarded. But on Sunday, August 26, local officials from both sides of the Afghan-Tajik border reported that fighter jets conducted a series of airstrikes. News media in Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe said that Tajik border guards exchanged fire with Taliban fighters, killing as many as eight, but losing two officers in the process. However, on Monday a Tajik border police official denied media reports and said that the border incident involved Tajik lumberjacks who were attacked by unknown assailants from Afghanistan.

Adding to the mystery, Afghan officials said on Sunday that fighter jets bombed Afghan territory adjacent to the Tajik border. They added that they did not know if the fighter jets were Russian or Tajik. However, Tajikistan has a nominal air force consisting of no more than four Czech-made light-attack aircraft, which have not been used in over a decade. That leaves Russia, which maintains an air base in the suburbs of Dushanbe, 100 miles from the Afghan border. But on Monday, Moscow denied any involvement in the incident, as did Tajikistan. Russian officials placed the blame on the US, saying that the American-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) force in Afghanistan is known to regularly launch airstrikes throughout Afghanistan. But US Pentagon officials said that they were not involved. When asked by reporters in Kabul, Afghan government representatives said that Afghanistan lacked the ability to monitor its airspace due to a lack of radar equipment. They called on the US-led NATO force to investigate Sunday’s incident.

Meanwhile, the identity of the persons targeted in the alleged airstrikes is also in doubt. On Monday, the Taliban denied that they had engaged with either Afghan or Tajik government forces along Afghanistan’s northern borderlands, saying that they had not authorized their fighters to operate in the area. Additionally, the Taliban have not been known to engage Tajik government troops in the past. Some observers have opined that the border skirmish may have been caused by drug smugglers who regularly transport drugs from Afghanistan to Russia or the Caspian Sea region through Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. However, there are no prior reported incidents of Russian, American or Tajik fighter jets having been deployed along the Afghan-Tajik border to combat drug traffickers.

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Idlib province, Syria is controlled by US-supported Al-Nusra and other Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists.

So-called “rebels” or “opposition forces” are mercenary hired guns – used by Washington, NATO, Israel and regional regimes hostile to Syrian sovereign independence.

Sergey Lavrov called terrorists infesting Idlib an “abscess” essential to eliminate. Iran called for “clean(ing) (them) out” of the province, their last major stronghold in the country.

Secretary of State Pompeo and other Trump regime officials called the upcoming Syrian offensive to liberate Idlib an escalation of war. It’s just the opposite!

Meeting with his Syrian counterpart in Damascus Walid al-Muallem on Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif minced no words, saying:

“All of Syrian territory must be preserved, and all the sects and groups should start the round of reconstruction as one collective and the displaced should return to their families,” adding:

“And the remaining terrorists in the remaining parts of Idlib must be cleaned out, and the region should be placed back under the control of the Syrian people.”

A statement from Assad’s office said Syria’s government and its allies “asserted that the pressures from some Western states on Syria and Tehran will not deter the two countries from continuing to defend their principles.”

Ahead of the offensive by Syrian forces to liberate Idlib from US-supported terrorists, Sergey Lavrov said these elements in Idlib and elsewhere in Syria “suffer no shortage of weapons and munitions.”

“(T)hey use state-of-the-art weapons, such as unmanned aerial vehicles. Evidently, it would be impossible without foreign sponsors.”

“The counter-terrorist operation in Syria has exposed numerous evidence of supplies of various weapons and hardware to terrorists by bogus companies via third countries” – indicating Washington, NATO, and Israel as key suppliers.

Lavrov called for ending the bogus practice of dividing terrorists into “good” and “bad” ones. They’re all cutthroat killers recruited by Washington and its imperial partners from scores of countries – deployed to Syria as mercenary foot soldiers, aiding the US aim to forcefully topple Assad.

On Monday, Trump warned Assad “not (to) recklessly attack Idlib Province. The Russians and Iranians would be making a grave humanitarian mistake to take part in this potential human tragedy. Hundreds of thousands of people could be killed. Don’t let that happen!”

They’re threatened by US/NATO/Israeli/Saudi-supported terrorists, holding many Idlib civilians hostage as human shields – not by Syrian forces, intending to liberate them from brutal US-supported bondage.

Separately, Nikki Haley tweeted:

“All eyes on the actions of Assad, Russia, and Iran in Idlib #chemicalweapons.”

Russia has hard evidence of a planned CW incident coming in Idlib to be falsely blamed on Damascus – to be followed by US, UK, French terror-bombing of Syrian sites like last April, escalating conflict more than already, a scheme the Kremlin is going all-out trying to stop by exposing it.

Over the weekend, Trump regime officials James Jeffrey (US special representative for Syria engagement) and Joel Rayburn (US special envoy for Syria) met with Israeli officials in Jerusalem on the upcoming Syrian offensive to liberate Idlib, plotting their counter-strategy.

On Monday, Israeli war minister Avigdor Lieberman warned Tehran, saying:

“We will handle any Iranian threat, no matter where. As for the threat from Iran, we are not limiting ourselves to Syria. That should be clear.”

“I’m saying we will handle any Iranian threat, no matter where it comes from. We are maintaining the right to act…and any threat or anything else that comes up is dealt with.”

Lieberman warned that Israeli warplanes will continue striking Iran’s presence in Syria, along with alleged missiles installed in Iraq, the claim denied by Tehran.

“The lie disseminated by some media on shipment of Iran-made missiles to Iraq is totally irrelevant and unfounded,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi stressed, adding:

“Such news comes merely to cause panic among countries in the region and is in line with their policy to spread Iranophobia.”

Iran only has military advisors in Syria, posing no threat to Israel or any other countries. The Netanyahu regime’s phony claim otherwise risks escalating conflict more than already.

So do Trump regime threats against Damascus. In the upcoming battle to liberate Idlib from US-supported terrorists, if US/NATO/Israeli intervention kills or otherwise harms Russian personnel in Syria, Moscow will surely go all-out to protect them, including by retaliating against hostile forces.

It’s unclear how far the Trump regime, NATO, and Israel will go to counter Syria’s upcoming offensive to liberate Idlib.

If they intervene directly against government forces, threatening or harming Russian personnel aiding them, a US/Russian clash could follow.

Will Idlib prove a flashpoint, igniting greater conflict in Syria than already? Is US/Russian confrontation inevitable in the country?

Moscow supports Syrian sovereign independence, its territorial integrity, and right of its people to choose their own leadership and governance – free from foreign interference. It wants terrorists in the country eliminated.

Washington wants Syria transformed into another US vassal state, the country partitioned, its resources looted, its people exploited, and Iran isolated – ahead of a similar scheme to topple its legitimate government.

It’s using terrorists to advance its imperium. Will opposing US/Russian aims in Syria result in direct confrontation between the world’s dominant nuclear powers?

Is unthinkable WW III possible with nuclear weapons, risking humanity’s survival?

*

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 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

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This Labor Day 2018 marks yet another year of declining living standards for American workers. If one were to believe the media and press, rising wages belie that statement.  The Wall St. Journal, August 1, 2018 trumpeted ‘US Workers Get Biggest Pay Raise in Nearly Ten Years’.

But here’s why that media spin is a misrepresentation of reality.

Labor’s Falling Income Share  

If wages were rising, why is it that labor’s share of total national income has continued to fall for nearly 20 years, including this past year?  At about 64% of total national income in 2000, it has steadily plummeted to around 56% of today’s roughly $16 trillion national income. That decline has not just been a result of the 2008-09 great recession; half of it occurred between 2000 and 2008. So it is a long term secular trend, rooted in today’s 21^st century US capitalist system and not a recent phenomenon.

A drop of 8% in income share for Labor might not seem much in simple percent terms. But 8% of $16 trillion is just short of $1.5 trillion a year. In other words, workers have come up short $1.5 trillion in 2017-18; if their share had remained at 64% they would have $1.5 trillion more in their pockets today than they actually have.  That $1.5 trillion of Labor Share decline represents a loss, at minimum, of $8,000 a year or more per worker. But the $1.5 is also an underestimation.

‘Labor’s Share’ as defined by the government (Labor Dept. and Congressional Budget Office) includes the salaries of managers and senior executives, year-end bonuses of bankers, lump sum payments to executives, and other forms of non-wage income.  True wages income—i.e. of non-management, non-supervisory worker—is a subset of this expanded official definition of Labor’s Share. But if executives, managers and bankers’ forms of salary and pay categories of Labor’s Share have been rising rapidly—which they have—in net terms then true wage incomes have fallen even more than the $1.5 trillion.  Take out the executives’ and managers’ share of the Labor Share of national income, and the lost per year per worker likely exceeds $10,000.

But that’s not all.  Even when considering true wage incomes of non-management, non-supervisory workers (about 82% of the total labor force), wage gains that have occurred have been skewed strongly to the top 10% of the remaining working class households—i.e. professionals in tech, health care and finance, those with advanced college degrees, etc.  By averaging in the wage gains of the top 10% of the working class with the rest, the wage gains of the 10% offset the wage stagnation of the rest. The true negative wage stagnation and decline for the ‘bottom’ 90% wage earners is thus even greater. That’s about 133 million of the 162 million labor force. In other words, the wage incomes of the 133 million have lost even more than the $1.5 trillion of Labor’s Share decline, when excluding the net wage gains of the top 10% of the working class. That means the 133 million have lost even more than $10,000 a year per worker.

Weekly Earnings v. Wages 

Actual wages of the 133 million have therefore fared worse than the Labor Share decline suggests—and even after adjusting for executives-managers and for the top 10% tier (professionals, higher educated, etc.) of the working class. Wages are far less than Labor’s Share data.

Nor are wages the same as ‘workers weekly earnings’, which the media often refers to as wages in order to overstate wage gains.  Official government sources indicate weekly earnings have been rising at 2.7% annual rate.  But weekly earnings are volatile and upswing widely with the business cycle, reflecting hours worked and second jobs. And business cycle upswings since 2001 have been short and shallow. Nevertheless, the press and media often, and purposely, confuse wages with weekly earnings (or with household personal income) in order to make it appear that gains for America’s working class are greater than they are in fact. US Labor Dept. data as of mid-year estimated wage gains at 2.5% over the preceding 17 months to July 2018, according to the Wall St. Journal, and therefore less than the 2.7% figure for weekly earnings.

Wages: The Real Numbers 

Even when properly considering just wages for non-management and non-supervisory workers, official government stats still distort to the upside the true picture with regard wages as well. This upside overestimation is due largely to five causes

1) reporting wages for full time employed workers only;

2) reporting nominal wages instead of real wages;

3) ignoring the claims on future wage payments due to rising worker household debt in the present and therefore future interest payments;

4) not considering the decline in ‘deferred wages’ which are represented in pension and retirement benefit payments decline;

5) disregarding declines in ‘social wages’ represented in falling real social security benefits payments;

1) While official government data report that wages are now rising at a 2.5% annual rate, what that stat fails to mention is that the 2.5% is for full time permanent workers only.  It thus leaves out the lower, if any, wage increases for the current 40-50 million workers who are not full time and are employed in what is sometimes called ‘contingent’ or ‘precarious’ work.

Their lower wage gains would reduce the 2.5% for the total wage earning labor force to less than 2.5%. A similar adjustment should be made for the 8 million or full time workers who have become unemployed and whose “wages”, in the form of unemployment benefits and food stamps, are certainly not rising or being cut.  Add the millions more of undocumented workers, and still millions more youth and others working in the ‘underground’ economy (estimated now at 12% of US GDP)—neither of whom whose wages are estimated accurately by official government wage stats—and the wage gains are still further reduced from the official 2.5%.  When adjustments are made to include these latter categories of wage earners, and consider contingent workers’ wages, it is this writer’s estimate that the true net rise in nominal wages the past year is no more than 1.7% to 2.0% overall and closer to 1% for the 133 million and the ‘bottom’ 90% of the wage earning labor force.

To sum up thus far, when excluding salaries of executives and managers, exempting the top 10% of the wage earning labor force, adding in the wage-less unemployed, and correcting for undocumented and underground economy labor force—the net result for even nominal wages is far less than the official 2.5%.

Nominal wage gains for 133 million are thus no more than 1.5%; that is, or one percent less than the official 2.5%.

2) The 2.5% official wage gain stat reported by the government is what’s called the nominal wage, not the real wage. The real wage—or what workers have actually to spend—is the nominal wage adjusted for the rate of inflation. So what has been the inflation rate? And how accurate is it?

There are various price indices against which wage gains may be adjusted: the consumer price index (CPI), the personal consumption expenditures index (PCE), GDP deflator index, and others. However, most often reported by the media is the CPI. The CPI at mid-year had officially risen 2.9% over the previous year.  So if one applied the CPI to the official hourly wage gain of 2.5%, it would mean that workers’ real wages declined by- 0.4% over the past year. (Or fell by    -1.4% if the above adjustments to the nominal wage are considered).

But both the -0.4% and -1.4% are also underestimations. Here’s why:  The CPI purposely underestimates the true rate of inflation. (And the higher the rate of inflation, the lower the real wage).  First, it smooths out year to year inflation by averaging annual inflation rates by means of what is called ‘chained indexing’.  Furthermore, the CPI does not look at all prices, but at a ‘basket’ of the most likely purchases of goods and services by households.  It then assigns ‘weights’ to the items in this basket.  For working class households, the weights should be greater for housing, healthcare, education, insurance and other basics but they’re not. The weights therefore do not reflect the true impact of inflation on reducing real wages.  There’s another problem. The Labor Dept. arbitrarily assumes increases in quality of a particular good or service in the basket reduces the price for that product. The price for the product in the CPI is often far lower than what a household actually pays for it in the market place. For example, a student may pay $800 for a computer laptop for back to school use, but the Labor Dept. reports it in the CPI as only $500 since it assumes the quality of that laptop is greater than an $800 laptop three years ago.  But this is a distortion of the actual price paid in the market by the working class household. Inflation is under-estimated. Another problem in the CPI is the government’s bias toward underestimating prices for online ecommerce goods purchases by households.

These arbitrary assumptions baked into the CPI serve to reduce the actual rate of CPI inflation. And if the CPI is underestimated, the real wage gain is estimated higher than it actually is. The true inflation rate is therefore undoubtedly well above the official 2.9% and real wages consequently even lower than officially reported.

While mainstream economists typically argue households don’t really know how much inflation is really rising, the truth is they know far better than the economists who rely on faulty, arbitrary government statistical estimations of consumer inflation.  Ask any median working class worker if their household costs have been increasing by only 2.9% the past year—when rent costs are escalating rapidly (often at double digit rates), health insurance premiums and doctor-hospital deductible and copay costs rising 20%-50%, auto insurance, gasoline costs per gallon up sharply over the past year, education & utility and transport costs, etc.  And in the last six months, prices have begun to rise even more broadly, as a large array of goods prices are being hiked by US businesses in anticipation of Trump’s tariff wars starting to bite.

With official CPI inflation at 2.9% and official nominal wages at 2.5%, the government real wage adjustment is only -0.4%.  But if the real CPI were around 3.5%, and nominal wages still assumed at the official 2.5%, then the real wage gain would be only 1.5%.

But that 1.5% real wage still does not factor in the corrections to the nominal wage noted in 1) above—i.e. for excluding executive-managers’ salaries as wages, for including contingent part time and temp workers’ wages, including the lost wages of the unemployed, and correcting for the undocumented and underground economy labor force, etc. Those adjustments reduced the nominal wage from 2.5% to 1.5%.

When these downward adjustments are made to the official 2.5% nominal wage (reducing it to 1.5%), combined with an upward adjustment of the CPI inflation rate to 3.5% (from 2.9%), what results is a real wage decline of -2.0% for the 133 million wage earners in the labor force. 

The media and the press consistently report that real wages have stagnated this past year. The nominal wage gains have been roughly equal to the rate of inflation. But by properly estimating nominal wages (with the adjustments) and properly estimating a somewhat higher CPI rate, real wages have not been stagnating but have continued to decline—at least for the 133 million.

But the ‘wage story’ is still not complete, even when properly defining and adjusting for nominal wages, inflation, and real wages. Neither the media or government give any consideration in their calculations of wage changes to deferred wages or social wages or to the impact of interest and debt on future wages.

3) Future Wages represent a category never considered by official government statistics. What’s ‘future wages’?  They represent nominal and real wages adjusted downward to reflect the cost of credit, and thus interest payments on debt, incurred in the present but due to impact wages in the future as the interest on debt is repaid.  It is no secret that US working class households are increasingly in debt since 2000, as they take on credit in order to finance household consumption as their real wages and incomes have steadily stagnated or declined. Credit, and therefore debt, has been a primary way they have tried to maintain their standard of living the past two decades. (Before that it was adding more hours of work to the family income by having spouses enter the workforce. But this leveled off by 1999). Adding second and third jobs has been another way to add wage income to the household, as wages for  primary worker in the household have declined.

But interest on debt is a claim on wages to be paid in the future. It is spending future wage income in the present. And US capital is more than glad to finance household consumption by extending more and more credit and debt to households in lieu of paying more wages. Another method by which wage decline has been ‘offset’ is to provide cheap imports of basic goods like clothing, household items, even some food categories. But the cheap imports come at the cost of lost high paying manufacturing jobs.  So lack of wage gains is in part offset by cheap imports and a massive increase in available credit to households.  US household debt is now at historic levels, higher than in 2007.  More than $13 trillion in debt, including $1.5 trillion in student debt, more than $1 trillion in credit cards, $1.2 trillion in auto debt, and the rest in mortgage debt. The average household credit card debt interest payments alone are estimated at no less than $1,300 per year. Debt costs, moreover, are rising rapidly as the US central bank continues to steadily hikes its rates.

The debt-interest to wage change relationship has become a vicious cycle, moreover. Employers give little in the way of wage hikes and households resort to more credit-debt and in turn demand less wage increases.  This cycle appears in some areas to be breaking down, however, as teachers, minimum wage service workers, and others agitate for higher wages. But he overall problem will likely continue, as the vehicle for achieving wage gains in good economic times—i.e. Unions—decline further and no longer play their historic role. Knowing this, and burying households in credit card offers and other credit, businesses refuse to grant wage hikes except in isolated cases.

4) and 5): Another area that should be considered ‘wage’ but is not by government agencies reporting on wage changes is pensions and social security benefits.  These too are in effect ‘wages’.  Pensions are deferred wage payments. Workers forego actual wage increases in order to have employers provide contributions, in lieu of actual wages, into their pension plans. Upon retirement, they are then paid these ‘deferred wages’ from their pension plans.

But true pension plans, called defined benefit pensions, have been steadily destroyed—with the assistance of the government run by both Republican and Democrat parties—by employers since the 1980s. The destruction has accelerated since 2001 and continues in its final stages. Defined benefit pensions have been progressively replaced with privatized, ‘401k’ and ‘IRA’ plans—reducing employer costs and liabilities dramatically.  401k plan substitutes have proven a disaster and grossly insufficient for providing ‘deferred wages’ for retirees. Workers within 10 years of retirement on average have barely $50k in 401ks with which to retire on. The average 401k balance for all households is less than $18k. Not surprising, the fastest segment of US labor force growth is workers over age 67 having to re-enter the work force in order to survive. And retiree bankruptcy filing rates are at record levels and rising rapidly. Before 2000, only 2.1% of the over 65 age group filed for bankruptcy; today the rate is 12.2%, a more than fivefold increase even as their population share has risen by only 2.3%. Median household indebtedness for retirees is now $101,000.

Much of the rising debt for retirees is due to the collapse of the ‘wage’ in the form of monthly pension benefit payments, as defined benefit plans have been destroyed by employers and government in collusion and replaced by lower benefit 401k privatized pensions.  Bankruptcies, rise of part time contingent work by retirees, and senior citizen poverty rate escalation have been the consequences.  None of this deferred wage decline has been accounted for in the general wage statistics by US government agencies, however.

A similar retirement household wage decline is associated with monthly social security benefit payments—i.e. what might be called a ‘social wage’ similar to private pension deferred wage. It is ‘financed’ by employer (and worker) payroll tax payments into the social security trust fund from which monthly money benefits upon retirement are paid. Also deferred, like private pension benefit payments, the social wage represents employer payroll tax contributions to social security that are made in lieu of direct wages that might be paid to workers were there no payroll tax. The payroll tax represents workers’ deductions from wages they do not otherwise receive and instead have redirected to the social security trust fund. Both employer and worker wages are thus deferred and deposited to the trust fund, to be paid out in the future in wages in the form of social security benefit payments. Social security benefits are thus  a form of ‘social wage’. And to the extent social security benefits are reduced, the social (deferred) wage is reduced.  The wage reduction has been implemented by the government raising the retirement age to 67 at which to receive social security retirement benefits. Suspending or failing to enact cost of living adjustments to monthly payments. Cuts to SSDI benefits, i.e. social security disability insurance—all represent de facto cuts to the social wage. Rising annual deductibles and copays for Medicare are another form of social wage cut. Moreover, Trump plans to reduce Medicare in his latest budget represents yet another pending social wage cut.

Like defined benefit pension deferred wages, reductions in the social wage in the form of social security payments also represent appropriate wage categories affecting 50 million retired workers that US government agencies responsible for estimating wage changes do not include in their calculations of wage changes.

Summary Comments 

Contrary to media ‘spin’, business press misrepresentations, and US government agencies’ ‘statistical legerdemain’, real wages for the vast majority of the US labor force—i.e. the 133 million— are not even close to rising in the US under Trump. Nor did they under Obama, Bush, or Clinton.  Since 1980 and the advent of neoliberal capitalist restructuring of the US and global economy, a key element of neoliberal policies has been to compress wages—for all but the roughly 10% that US Capital considers essential to its further expansion and for, of course, the salaries of executives and managers. The rest of the US workforce has undergone constant wage stagnation and decline over the long term. The pace has accelerated or abated at different times, but the long term direction of decline and stagnation has not.

When wage change is not limited to considering only permanent, full time employees or averaged out, when conveniently excluded categories of workers are considered, when wages are adjusted for true inflation rates, when interest and debt effects are accounted for, and when ‘deferred’ and ‘social’ wage payments are factored into wage totals in general—it is overwhelmingly the case that US wages have been declining for some time and that decline continues in 2018 despite the media-government spin that wages are rising in America.

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Dr. Rasmus is author of the most recently published book, ‘Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression’, Clarity Press, August 2017, and the forthcoming ‘The Scourge of Neoliberalism: Economic Policy from Reagan to Trump’, Clarity Press, 2019. He blogs at jackrasmus.com and his twitter handle is @drjackrasmus. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Central Bankers at the End of Their Rope?: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression

Author: Dr. Jack Rasmus

Publisher: Clarity Press (August 1, 2017)

ISBN-10: 0986085391

ISBN-13: 978-0986085390

Click here to order.

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