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On August 15, ISIS attacked several positions of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies in the southern part of the al-Taim oil field in the province of Deir Ezzor. According to pro-opposition sources, the following clashes resulted in minor casualties among the both sides but the terrorist group’s members were forced to retreat causing almost no damage to the government’s infrastructure in al-Taim.
In July and August, ISIS units carried several attacks on SAA positions in the Homs-Deir Ezzor desert. According to local sources, these attacks are an attempt to draw the SAA attention from ISIS cells hiding in the desert area at the administrative borders between the provinces of al-Suwayda and Rif Damashq.
The estimated manpower of the ISIS units operating in the Homs-Deir Ezzor desert, and according to some sources in the US zone of responsibility near the At-Tanf garrison, is about 1,000 members.
Abu al-Fath al-Farghaly, a senior commander of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda), warned Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that his group will “cut the feet” of any soldier, who would attack the so-called opposition in the province of Idlib.
“The Mujahedeen are in their strongest physical and moral status and their will won’t decline for a moment until the liberation of Damascus and beyond,” al-Farghaly said in an open letter to Lavrov, according to the HTS-linked news agency Iba’a.
This unprecedented open letter has been described by Syrian experts as a desperate attempt to boost morale of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its allies ahead of a possible SAA operation in the province of Idlib. Previously, militants groups have repeatedly claimed that they would never retreat from Aleppo city, Daraa, Quneitra and other key areas. However, all of them has been liberated by the Syrian-Iranian-Russian alliance. The history is about to repeat itself once again in Idlib.
Meanwhile, the SAA artillery has increased strikes on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham targets near the villages of Sarja and Umm Rajim and nearby areas in southern Idlib. Several members Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) and Jaysh al-Izza were reportedly killed in the shelling.
Artillery strikes as well as separate airstrikes by the Syrian military is aimed at destroying the militants’ defense infrastructure and weapon depots. This would help the SAA in case of a large-scale confrontation in this area.
While some pro-government sources have already claimed that the Idlib advance will be launched soon, many still depends on results of the ongoing behind the scenes negotiations between Russia and Turkey on the issue. The situation is developing.
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On Wednesday, Trump revoked the security clearance of former CIA director John Brennan, a White House statement saying:
“Historically, former heads of intelligence and law enforcement agencies have been allowed to retain access to classified information after their government service so that they can consult with their successors regarding matters about which they may have special insights and as a professional courtesy. Neither of these justifications supports Mr. Brennan’s continued access to classified information,” adding:
“(A)ny benefits that senior officials might glean from consultations with Mr. Brennan are now outweighed by the risks posed by his erratic conduct and behavior.”
After Trump revoked Brennan’s security clearance, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said other former US officials may lose theirs. Their status is under review. See below.
Have no sympathy for Brennan. He’s responsible for cooking up Russiagate – falsely claiming the Kremlin interfered in America’s political process, a bald-faced lie. .
DNC/John Podesta emails were leaked, not hacked – an indisputable fact media suppress to their disgrace.
The Big Lie alone matters when it’s the official narrative. The Russian meddling hoax and phony Kremlin threat to US security are central to maintaining adversarial relations with America’s “invented enemy”.
Russia and other invented enemies justify pouring countless trillions of dollars down a black hole of waste (military spending), fraud and abuse at the expense of eroding social justice and other vital homeland needs.
They’re pretexts for waging permanent wars of aggression against nations threatening no one – an endless cycle of slaughter and destruction, human misery inflicted on countless millions,.
Washington’s bipartisan class shares guilt for what’s going on, Trump the latest in a long line of US warrior presidents.
His regime placed the following individuals under review for possible revocation of their security clearances:
Former DNI James Clapper, former NSA and CIA head Michael Hayden,Sally Yates, Susan Rice, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Orr. Former FBI director James Comey’s security clearance was rescinded at the time of his sacking.
All of the above officials are undemocratic Dems. All are members of Washington’s elite, unaccountable for their abuses of power while in office.
That’s what matters most. Revoking their security clearances usually retained by former officials is inadequate, a slap on the wrist alone.
Security clearances of former GOP elite members aren’t under review by the Trump regime.
Washington’s current and former criminal class is bipartisan. The issue isn’t whether they retain or lose their security clearances.
It’s failure to address their past and ongoing high crimes against humanity at home and abroad.
Bill and Hillary Clinton, GW Bush, Cheney, Obama, and countless other members of Washington’s elite are legally, ethically and morally compromised beyond redemption.
Yet they’ve become super-rich from their disservice to the nation and humanity, from high crimes too egregious to ignore.
Brennan is an NBC News talking head last February.
,US broadcast and cable channel employ a virtual army of former government and military officials – paid to lie and otherwise deceive viewers, not responsibly inform them about vital world and national issues.
Virtually all undemocratic Dems are fierce Trump critics, most often for the wrong reasons – Brennan one of the worst, a despicable character belonging in prison, not profiting from his persona.
Following July Putin/Trump Helsinki summit talks, Brennan outrageously accused the US president of “treason,” along with suggesting Russia may be blackmailing him – scandalous remarks media scoundrels failed to denounce.
Washington’s political system is too debauched to fix. It’s on a slippery slope toward totalitarian rule the way things are heading – with support from the nation’s bipartisan criminal elite.
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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.”
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Israeli investigations when conducted virtually always whitewash high crimes.
Three times since December 2008, IDF forces waged preemptive naked aggression on Gaza, falsely claiming the Strip was attacked in self-defense.
Protective Edge in summer 2014 was Israel’s most devastating war since its 1948 transformation of historic Palestine into an apartheid Jewish state.
Over 2,200 Gazans were ruthlessly slaughtered, including entire families, over 11,000 injured.
Around 550 children were murdered in cold blood – two-thirds under age 12, another 3,400 injured, over 1,000 maimed for life.
Like Washington, Israel considers civilians legitimate targets. International law calls killing, injuring, and otherwise harming them grievously flagrant war crimes.
On 1 August 2014, Israel and Hamas agreed to a 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire.
The IDF ignored it. In Rafah bordering Egypt, Israeli soldiers preemptively attacked Hamas fighters, Israeli Lt. Hadar Goldin captured during the incident.
One of the deadliest episodes of the war followed, lasting four days, massacring over 200 civilians, countless others injured, hundreds of Palestinian homes and other civilian structures destroyed or heavily damaged – war crimes by any standard.
According to Israel’s military, over 2,000 bombs, missiles, rockets, and artillery shells were fired on Rafah, around 1,000 during a three-hour August 1 time frame – intense hellfire largely against civilians.
Overwhelming evidence showed Israeli forces attacked Rafah with disproportionate, indiscriminate ferocity – targeting civilians in their homes, others fleeing for safety, and anything seen moving.
What happened was savage revenge attacks for capturing an IDF soldier, collectively punishing the entire population of Rafah – flagrantly violating the UN Charter, Fourth Geneva, and other international law.
A UN Independent Commission of Inquiry accused Israel of disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks amounting to war crimes.
Around a year after Israeli aggression ended, IDF prosecutors found none of its forces guilty of war crimes, falsely claiming insufficient evidence, three soldiers alone indicted for looting.
No one was held accountable for the Rafah massacre, no proper investigation conducted.
On Wednesday, Israel’s military advocate general major general Sharon Afek formally closed the IDF whitewash probe into the Black Friday massacre, saying no military police inquiry was warranted.
No criminal or other proceedings will be pursued against anyone involved in what happened – case closed, the way Israel always absolves its forces of indisputable war crimes.
Justice for Palestinians is always denied, including from the international community, one-sidedly supporting Israel no matter how egregious its high crimes.
The August 1 – 4, 2014 Rafah massacre was carried out under Israel’s so-called Hannibal Directive.
It’s been official Israeli policy since 1986 – kept secret for many years.
It established live fire rules in cases of Israeli soldier abductions, stating:
“During an abduction, the major mission is to rescue our soldiers from the abductors even at the price of harming or wounding our soldiers.”
“Light-arms fire is to be used in order to bring the abductors to the ground or to stop them.”
“If the vehicle or the abductors do not stop, single-shot (sniper) fire should be aimed at them, deliberately, in order to hit the abductors, even if this means hitting our soldiers.”
“(E)verything will be done to stop the vehicle and not allow it to escape.”
Code-named “Hannibal,” the directive considers a dead IDF soldier better than a captured one.
The IDF wants soldiers taken alive avoided, concerned about political embarrassment, wanting enemies denied bargaining chips, along with being able to offer no concessions to secure abducted soldier releases.
The father of an Israeli soldier abducted years earlier perhaps spoke for others against Hannibal’s mandate, saying:
“It’s shocking to think that a soldier will execute his pal…I prefer a captive son to a dead son. That way I still have hope.”
Hannibal was revised several times. Its original mandate and spirit remain. Israeli has no qualms about killing its own.
It massacres Palestinians with impunity time and again. Cold-blooded murder is official Israeli policy, accountability never an issue.
A Final Comment
On Monday, Israeli war minister Avigdor Lieberman admitted another war on Gaza is coming, saying:
“The question we should ask is not whether another round of fighting will start, but when will it start,” adding:
“We are prepared, know what we should do and how to do it.”
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Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). 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.”
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There has been a dramatic shift in how the United States government carries out its business internationally. Admittedly, Washington has had a tendency to employ force to get what it has wanted ever since 9/11, but it also sometimes recognized that other countries had legitimate interests and accepted there was a place for diplomacy to resolve issues short of armed conflict. The Bush Administration reluctance to broaden its engagement in the Middle East after it recognized that it had blundered with Iraq followed by Obama’s relaxation of tensions with Cuba and his negotiation of a nuclear agreement with Iran demonstrated that sanity sometimes prevailed in the West Wing.
That willingness to be occasionally accommodating has changed dramatically, with the State Department under Mike Pompeo currently more prone to deliver threats than any suggestions that we all might try to get along. It would be reasonable enough to criticize such behavior because it is intrinsically wrong, but the truly frightening aspect of it would appear to be that it is based on the essentially neoconservative assumption that other countries will always back down when confronted with force majeure and that the use of violence as a tool in international relations is, ultimately, consequence free.
I am particularly disturbed with the consequence free part as it in turn is rooted in the belief that countries that have been threatened or even invaded have no collective memory of what occurred and will not respond vengefully when the situation changes. There have been a number of stunningly mindless acts of aggression over the past several weeks that are particularly troubling as they suggest that they will produce many more problems down the road than solutions.
The most recent is the new sanctioning of Russia over the Skripal poisoning in Salisbury England. For those not following developments, last week Washington abruptly and without any new evidence being presented, imposed additional trade sanctions on Russia in the belief that Moscow ordered and carried out the poisoning of Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia on March 4th. The report of the new sanctions was particularly surprising as Yulia Skripal has recently announced that she intends to return to her home in Russia, leading to the conclusion that even one of the alleged victims does not believe the narrative being promoted by the British and American governments.
Though Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded with restraint, avoiding a tit-for-tat, he is reported to be angry about the new move by the US government and now believes it to be an unreliable negotiating partner. Considering the friendly recent exchanges between Putin and Trump, the punishment of Russia has to be viewed as something of a surprise, suggesting that the president of the United States may not be in control of his own foreign policy.
Turkey is also feeling America’s wrath over the continued detention of an American Protestant Pastor Andrew Brunson by Ankara over charges that he was connected to the coup plotters of 2016, which were allegedly directed by Fetullah Gulen, a Muslim religious leader, who now resides in Pennsylvania. Donald Trump has made the detention the centerpiece of his Turkish policy, introducing sanctions and tariffs that have led in part to a collapse of the Turkish lira and a run on the banking system which could easily lead to default and grave damage to European banks that hold a large party of the country’s debt.
And then there is perennial favorite Iran, which was hit with reinstated sanctions last week and is confronting a ban on oil sales scheduled to go into effect on November 4th. The US has said it will sanction any country that buys Iranian oil after that date, though a number of governments including Turkey, India and China appear to be prepared to defy that demand. Several European countries are reportedly preparing mechanisms that will allow them to trade around US restrictions.
What do Russia, Turkey and Iran have in common? All are on the receiving end of punitive action by the United States over allegations of misbehavior that have not been demonstrated. Nobody has shown that Russia poisoned the Skripals, Turkey just might have a case that the Reverend Brunson was in contact with coup plotters, and Iran is in full compliance with the nuclear arms agreement signed in 2015. One has to conclude that the United States has now become the ultimate angry imperial power, lashing out with the only thing that seems to work – its ability to interfere in and control financial markets – to punish nations that do not play by its rules. Given Washington’s diminishing clout worldwide, it is a situation that is unsustainable and which will ultimately only really punish the American people as the United States becomes more isolated and its imperial overreach bankrupts the nation. As America weakens, Russia, Turkey, Iran and all the other countries that have been steamrolled by Washington will likely seek revenge. To avoid that, a dramatic course correction by the US is needed, but, unfortunately, is unlikely to take place.
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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].
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Brexit has brought out the worst in us much more than it has brought out the best in us. We have reasons to fear for our country. Our way of life is being seriously threatened and there’s not much we can do about it.
In a report out yesterday, “Brexit Poll – Have They All Gone Mad” we showed how one-third of the adult population of Britain would now put up with anything to leave the EU. And when I say anything, I mean literally that. This included forcing Northern Ireland out of the union and forced to join Southern Ireland within the EU.
The head of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) told a committee in the House of Commons that the new IRA have already themselves declared Brexit was an “opportunity” to kick-start the nationalist cause in Ireland and was demanding hundreds more officers to help quash the expected violence. Could the result of that be acts of terror including a bombing campaign to match the horrors of the IRA campaign in the 1970s, 80s and 90s?
Indeed, this same one-third would find the complete break-up of the union of Britain acceptable as well. Scotland, Ireland and or Wales.
Already, as a direct result of Brexit, we have many more racially motivated attacks in Britain. Speaking at the end of her mission to the UK, Prof Tendayi Achiume, UN special rapporteur on racism specifically highlighted the Brexit-related growth in “explicit racial, ethnic and religious intolerance”, including extreme views that have gained ground in mainstream political parties of the left and the right.
Nearly two-thirds of the electorate is so fed-up with Brexit, they don’t care what happens as long as ‘we get on with it’.
In the meantime, public opinion has also shifted against Brexit. We are now heading into dangerous waters filled with predators who were once beneath the surface now being given air.
Change of sentiment – Change of atmosphere
The 632 seats in England, Scotland and Wales that make up Britain’s parliament were examined for an extensive study. It found that 112 had switched from Leave to Remain. The new analysis suggests there are now 341 seats with majority Remain support, up from 229 seats at the referendum.
One seat has switched support in Scotland and 97 have switched in England, while 14 of the 40 seats in Wales have changed from Leave to Remain. Overall, the model puts Remain on 53% support, with 47% backing Leave.
Data scientists compiling the study used a technique known as multi-level regression and post-stratification, similar to that used by YouGov in its pre-election model, which proved far more accurate than conventional opinion polls.
Among the constituencies to switch from Leave to Remain is that of Boris Johnson, the former foreign secretary and face of the Leave campaign. Support for Remain in his Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency has risen from 43.6% to 51.4%, according to the new model.
Surrey Heath, the constituency of the other Leave figurehead, Michael Gove, also emerged as having a pro-Remain majority. Support for Remain increased from 48% in 2016 to 50.2%. There was also a 12.8-point swing to Remain in shadow chancellor John McDonnell’s seat of Hayes and Harlington.
The seats of three pro-Leave Labour MPs switched to Remain. Birkenhead, Frank Field’s constituency, now has a 58.4% majority in favour of Remain. Graham Stringer’s Blackley and Broughton constituency now has a 59% in favour of Remain. Kelvin Hopkins’s Luton North seat now has 53.1% backing Remain.
The point being made here is this. If one-third of the population, who are willing to go to any lengths to get Brexit no matter what the consequences – what will they do if the electorate want to change their minds and vote to stay. The change of sentiment will give fresh air to a much more toxic and extreme political atmosphere on both sides of the debate.
Demographic collapse
Extensive polling has continually confirmed that around 70 per cent of over-65s would accept a big economic hit – and half are willing for family members to lose their jobs. The social divide between young and old is not hard to fathom.
However, in just two years time, Britain, as far as Brexit is concerned will have a slightly different demographic to the one put forward in 2016. There will be 2.5 million fresh-faced, over-18-year-olds, who will be mostly remainers but 1.5 million over 65s, mostly Brexiters, freshly in their graves.
In 2016, 17.4 million voters went for Brexit, 16.1 million went for Remain. You can see the maths working against the original referendum result over time. In 10 years time, that swing in numbers, assuming no change in political sentiment, will be huge. Don’t forget, that swing has apparently already happened though.
Democratic failure – the spark
If ‘Brexit means Brexit’ but Theresa May gets her ‘Brexit in name only’ plan through (or some variation of it) democracy will have been seen to have failed. If sentiment towards Brexit changes and the country proceeds with Brexit, no matter how hard or soft – so have the principles of representative politics in Britain. No matter who wins, about half the population loses. In other words, Brexit is about as divisive and toxic as it gets and will be for years to come.
There are many that now believe the far-left and far-right in the Brexit debate will only get worse, not just now but a long way into the future.
Dr Paul Stocker is a historian and a research associate at Teesside University’s Centre for Fascist, Anti-Fascist and Post-Fascist Studies says:
“The descent of Britain’s political culture from one which learned the lessons of the past and was militant towards the consequences of nationalism has been a rapid one. Worryingly, it shows no sign of slowing down as Britain hurtles out of the European Union and into the unknown.”
Just over one-third (34%) of all Remainers believe that significant damage to the UK economy is a price worth paying to prove their point and bring the UK back into the EU. Of all Brexiters, 61% believe that significant damage to the economy is a price worth paying for leaving the EU.
Extremist views on both the left and right are rapidly rising and are now infecting mainstream politics in Britain – this is Britain’s new norm whether we like it not.
A prominent British politician addressing a far-right or militant left rally or making Islamophobic or racist comments just three years ago would have been an act of political suicide. Not today it seems.
Let us never forget – political extremism
We should not forget that NI’s terrible legacy is rippling on the surface once again. The power-sharing government that the NI agreement created is currently suspended and Brexit threatens to tear apart a key thread that binds the deal — the invisible border facilitated by the U.K. and Ireland’s membership of the European Union. One-third of the entire adult population agree that handing Northern Ireland to Southern Ireland would be acceptable – to England.
The ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland that spilled over into mainland Britain was an ethno-nationist conflict fuelled by historical events. Guerilla warfare lasted for three decades. More than 3,600 people were killed in the conflict, of whom 52% were civilians, 32% were members of the British security forces, and 16% were members of paramilitary groups. Tens of thousands were injured.
A key issue was the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. It wasn’t really a religious conflict, although often sold as one. The population of NI is less than 2 million. An estimated 30,000 went to prison for paramilitary offences for they believed in.
Does the NI conflict, as an example of a home-grown constitutional crisis not provide us with the possibilities of just how bad things could get in the years ahead? And what other acts by a civilian uprising could we see?
Think about that for a moment. Today, citizens of England are now in agreement that a low-level civil war and the breakup of the union is a price worth paying for fully leaving the EU, which may not happen and even if it does, may not happen to their liking. One wonders where this English uprising is eventually going to end up.
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The Israeli Occupation is once again testing a strange new and unknown weapons on civilians protesting the illegal siege on Gaza, at the separation barrier fence last Friday.
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Below is video footage of this new weapon technology. Have you seen anything like this before?
Also on Friday, a 14-year-old child inhaled an unknown neurotoxin that has left him in a coma.
The child’s father released this statement August 14th:
“I received a shocking call by the youth on Gaza borders, that my son was injured last Friday and it’s the third time that my son got injured during the Great Return March demonstrations on Gaza borders, but this time he has a very critical injury. My son inhaled a killer gas emitted from gas bombs, on the demonstrators and this gas was filled with a severe chemical which affected all my sons nervous system, leading him to convulse horrifically every 5 minutes. As you see my son is on the bed of the hospital and he has been convulsing violently with shock, since 4 days ago. All the Physician’s and Doctors tried their best to do analysis and diagnosis. But they can’t treat him because the Israel Occupation cut the supply of medications for my sons case (neurotoxin) and it’s going terribly uncontrolled. Doctors told me that my sons treatment as well as medications are available only in Israel or out of Gaza and I am wondering why Israel kills our kids and prevents us to treat them? Therefore, I ask all the humanitarian foundations around the world, all World governments, the PA president as well as Ismail Haniyeh and everyone with s soft heart to help my son get treatment out of Gaza urgently and to recover soon!”
Today, I received word from the child’s father that his son is still in a semi-coma, going in and out of consciousness, but mostly remaining comatose. He still convulses every 5 minutes.
The Great Return March demonstrations began on March 30th. There is documented footage of the Occupation’s usedChemical Weapons on protesters since April, yet no world government or international body has taken any action or sent a delegation to Gaza to investigate.
Arms manufacturers, primarily the US Israel and the UK, are using the Occupation’s Massacres in Gaza to test new technology.
More footage of the Occupation’s illegal testing of Chemical Weaponswas also released in May. Gaza Doctors have reported the symptoms are caused by a neurotoxin, an unknown chemical nerve agent in the form of gas, which targets the entire nervous system of the victims resulting in violent convulsions, extreme suffocation, coma and in some cases death.
The treatment for this child and other civilian victims of Chemical Warfare, is a simple medicine which Israel is now preventing from entering Gaza.
Already at the end of April, the ICSPR informed me that the Ministry of Health had reported that Gaza hospitals are completely depleted, having no supplies left to treat the injured. They are absent of absolutely everything and due to this, the hospitals are empty. Patients are being sent home, even with severe injuries, to await their fate because “we can do nothing to help them.”
The ICSPR also reported that 50 of Gaza’s top Doctors left the end of July, because they are unable to save lives in these conditions. It has also become impossible for the Ministry of Health to track the recovery process of wounded victims.
We must demand an investigation into Israel’s illegal use of chemical and banned weapons on civilians. We must demand that the borders to Gaza remain open for all necessary humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza.
Below are the latest statistics of casualties and wounded during the Great Return March.
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Ariyana Love is Founder of Occupy Palestine TV, TLB Director of Middle East Rising and Goodwill Ambassador to Palestine (ICSPR, Gaza). Ariyana is Chairwoman of Meta Nutrients Trust, a Human Rights Defender and Activist.
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The decision of the new Tory Government in Ontario to terminate the basic income (BI) pilot project that their Liberal predecessors had set in motion, confirms that the right is as divided as the left on this issue of social policy. The Doug Ford Tories form part of an international right wing opposition to BI that does not share the view of the Silicon Valley billionaire set, the World Bank and a range of others within the neoliberal order that this form of income support could serve the needs of capitalist exploitation.
The right wing skeptics are bothered by the element of reduced conditionality that basic income contains and Ford and his crew, as meat and potatoes reactionaries, are especially hostile to the notion of giving poor people income without keeping the boot firmly on their necks. It’s instructive to compare the reasoning of Ford’s Minister of Community and Social Services, Lisa MacLeod, with that of the UK Tory secretary for work and pensions, Esther McVey. Separated by an ocean but united in a commitment to war on the poor, the two Tories both view basic income as a ‘handout’ that prevents the corrective treatment they believe must be administered in order to create an industrious poor.
Left Opposition to Basic Income
The Ford Government’s decision to kill the BI pilot gives us little reason to celebrate because they are removing it only so as to clear the way for a brutal attack. I shall return to this point shortly but, first, for reasons that are very different to those of Poor Law fans, the idea of basic income should still be rejected by those on the left. A horribly fascinating dissenting voice was raised against the Ontario Tory rejection of basic income. Federal Tory Finance Critic, Pierre Poilievre, while dismissing the Liberal pilot as a model of hopeless generosity toward the poor, vigorously defends basic income as part of the arsenal of the right. Citing the writings of the late unlamented Milton Friedman, Poilievre advocates “a tiny survival stipend for all low-income people” paid for by “eliminating all other programs, including housing, drug plans, child care and the bureaucrats who administer it all.”
Of course, Poilievre wants to stick it to the Liberals but, in reality, their pilot, while it may have gone a little beyond the thin gruel he favours, did actually adhere to a model that served the neoliberal agenda. I have already taken up the nature of the pilot in more detail in an earlier Bullet but, fundamentally, it had little to do with the ‘universal basic income’ that progressive advocates talk of. As a small scale showpiece program, it paid an income that was significantly more than social assistance but that was still low enough to drive people into low waged work. Drawing its test subjects, for the most part, from among those who were employed, it functioned as an experiment in providing a subsidy to the most exploitative employers. Moreover, the loss of supports and benefits that those on social assistance who went on the program faced, took us exactly in the direction of Friedman’s goal of using BI to replace, rather than augment, other systems of social provision.
The end of the Ontario pilot is no reason for us to reconsider opposition to basic income as a neoliberal trap. However, this in no way means that the Ford Tories have moved in any positive direction. There is one hugely unjust immediate impact that flows from their decision and a truly dreadful impending result that we must consider.
The Doug Ford Poor Laws
However necessary it is to stress that basic income would be implemented across a major political jurisdiction in such a way as to further neoliberal objectives, it is also absolutely obligatory to express outrage at the way in which the 4,000 people receiving income through the Ontario pilot are having the rug pulled out from under them. Though still a sub-poverty income, the showpiece pilot meant a significant improvement for those who had been on Ontario Works (OW) or the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP). People had been promised this income would be maintained for three years and had planned their lives accordingly. The demand that the agreement should be lived up to by the new Government is an entirely just one that should be fully supported regardless of any disagreements on the broader implications of basic income.
The greatest threat that flows from the Tory decision to kill the pilot, however, lies in their glaringly obvious motive for doing so. Campaigning for office, they appeared ready to continue with the test run but, once they formed the Government, they realised that an experiment that involved easing up on the level of bureaucratic intrusion into the lives of people on income support could not be tolerated. This is because they intend to double down on such a Poor Law approach in the near future.
Tory Minister MacLeod held a press conference on July 31 in which she announced the end of the pilot and the killing of a series of positive measures that had been set to go into effect. She also revealed that the 3% increase in social assistance rates that had been due to take effect would be cut in half. The viciousness of this is apparent when you consider that, ever since the Mike Harris Tories cut the rates by 21.6% in 1995, there has never been a year when an increase has been provided above the rate of inflation. This would have been the first time in more than two decades that those on social assistance did not sink deeper into poverty. It was a brutal but well calculated move on the part of Doug Ford’s ‘Government for the People’. However, this is only a mean spirited down payment and the big attacks are still being prepared.
At her press conference, MacLeod made clear that the Tories would be conducting a 100 day review of the social assistance system that will produce a model of right wing ‘welfare reform’ that will take the war on the poor to a new level. She revealed that the Tories will intensify the policing of people on social assistance and launch a crackdown on so called ‘welfare fraud’. This will serve as a ‘ritual of degradation’ that makes the receipt of public assistance even more humiliating than it is at present. MacLeod focused her comments, however, on her Government’s goal of a system of sub-poverty income support that has been perfected as a mechanism for driving people into the lowest paying and most exploitative jobs on offer. This work gets underway even as the Tories target the minimum wage and basic workers’ rights. Obviously, not afraid to resort to right wing clichés, the Minister told those gathered for her announcement that “the best social program is a job.” She would not respond to media questions on whether a workfare forced labour approach would be part of her ‘reform’ package.
The objective here is clear. The degrading of social assistance in Ontario has contributed enormously to the proliferation of low wage precarious work. Benefits have been reduced and access to the system so restricted that a climate of sheer desperation has taken hold. The Ford Tories are not satisfied that this has gone far enough. They want a system that is even more inadequate, uncertain and punitive. The scramble for the worst jobs is to be made even more desperate and the Minister was careful to stress that disabled people would not be exempt from it. This is a war on the poor but, by extension, it is an attack on all workers, aimed at reducing bargaining power, depressing wages and weakening the capacity of trade unions to fight back.
Basic income has been taken off the table for now in Ontario but only to clear the way for the Doug Ford Poor Laws. As the fight against this Government grows, the Tory attack on the right to an income people can survive on must be seen as one of the main elements of their agenda and challenged accordingly.
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A recent report from the UN Security Council’s Sanctions Monitoring Team has found that many of the places in Syria where the terror group Daesh (ISIS) continues to operate, recuperate and extract oil for profit are in areas of the country occupied by the United States.
According to the report’s executive summary:
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), having been defeated militarily in Iraq and most of the Syrian Arab Republic during 2017, rallied in early 2018 [owing to] a loss of momentum by forces fighting it in the east of the Syrian Arab Republic, which prolonged access by ISIL to resources and gave it breathing space to prepare for the next phase of its evolution into a global covert network.”
While the text itself doesn’t explicitly state who controls these areas of Syrian territory, maps of eastern Syria make it clear that the pockets of Daesh within U.S.-controlled territory have remained unchanged in size since November 2017 while the Daesh pockets in the Syrian government-controlled portion of eastern Syria have shrunk considerably since last November.
A map of the territory held by ISIS (grey) at the Syrian-Iraqi border in the U.S. controlled zone north of the Euphrates (yellow). April 24, 2018. (Source: Syria Live Map)
Furthermore, the UN report states that the areas where Daesh has rallied since the year began are located in “pockets of territory in the Syrian Arab Republic on the Iraqi border” where the group has mounted “attacks, including across the border into Iraq.” Again, area maps clearly show that the Daesh-controlled areas in only the U.S.-occupied portion of eastern Syria are along the Syria-Iraq border.
Notably, in the sliver of Daesh-controlled land between U.S. and Syrian government-controlled areas in the border city of Abu Kamal, when the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has tried to attack Daesh positions in the area this year, they have been targeted by U.S. coalition airstrikes. U.S. coalition airstrikes have also attacked Syrian civilian villages in the government-controlled portion of Abu Kamal. Survivors of that attack claimed that their villages had been targeted for refusing the entry of the U.S.-backed opposition militias — such as the Qasad militia, which is largely composed of former Daesh fighters.
U.S. coalition airstrikes targeting the SAA in Abu Kamal and elsewhere in eastern Syria have also been the key cause of the “loss of momentum” of forces fighting Daesh that was cited in the UN report, as Syrian forces have declined to advance deep into U.S.-held territory in order to pursue Daesh after being bombednumerous times. In addition, the U.S.’ own bombing campaign against Daesh can hardly be called effective given that the U.S., along with their military proxy the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), frequently announceon social media when and where they will be bombing Daesh in eastern Syria days in advance.
#DeirEzzor – After a short surveillance tour by Gen. Funk, Gen. Jarrard and #SDF commander in Middle Euphrates River Valley heval Çiya yesterday, operation to liberate #Hajin to start today in the evening.#JazeeraStormpic.twitter.com/t9gqrNveVX
Beyond eastern Syria, the report also notes that another Daesh-infested area of concern is also located farther south in the area around the al-Tanf military base, which has been occupied by the United States since 2016. The UN report raises concerns about the Rukban refugee camp, which lies within the so-called “deconfliction” zone that the U.S. has imposed on a 55-kilometer radius around al-Tanf.
The report states:
The densely populated Rukban camp in southern Syrian Arab Republic contains some 80,000 internally displaced persons, including families of ISIL fighters, a situation which Member States fear might generate new ISIL cells.”
As with other Daesh-held areas under U.S. “protection,” the U.S. has attacked the SAA for attempting to enter the U.S.’ unilaterally-imposed “deconfliction” zone in an effort to attack Daesh militants.
Washington’s Daesh-dependent long-game
The evidence that the U.S. presence in Syria is actually helping to strengthen Daesh flies in the face of the Pentagon’s justification for the U.S.’ occupation of northeastern Syria as being necessary because the Syrian government is not strong enough to defeat Daesh on its own. However, as the recent UN report reveals, the Pentagon’s portrayal does not appear to be the reality of the situation.
As MintPresshas noted in the past, this finding is hardly surprising given that the Defense Intelligence Agency report from 2012 revealed that the U.S. willingly allowed Daesh to be formed in order to destabilize the Syrian government and partition Syria through foreign military intervention. Since then, the U.S. has adapted its justifications for its presence in Syria, particularly after the failure of Daesh and foreign-funded opposition groups to depose the current government of Syria.
By maintaining a Daesh pocket in the territory it occupies, the U.S. can continue to justify its illegal presence in the country for the long-term. Indeed, just last month, the Trump administration made it clear that the U.S. military plans to stay in Syria for the long haul, substituting Iran for Daesh as its new regional boogeyman.
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Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.
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Major developments related to internal and external relations are taking place in Horn of Africa states.
This is a region of East Africa which has been deeply fractured due to the legacy of colonialism and neo-colonialism since the 19th century. The area has been a focal point for interventions by the United States along with other NATO governments.
Prospects for making strides towards greater cooperation came with the reality of the newly-ascended Prime Minister of Ethiopia Abiy Ahmed visiting the capital of neighboring Eritrea on July 8-9 to meet with his counterpart President Isaias Afwerki. The two leaders signed agreements ending their dispute over the border territories around Badme, the reconnecting of direct communication links and a pledge to embark upon joint economic projects designed to benefit both nations.
Abiy, who came to power on April 2 amid widespread discontent with the previous administration of Hailemariam Desalegn, made the first gesture towards Eritrea when he announced in June that Ethiopia would withdraw its troops from the Badme border and revoke all claims to the territory. Later a delegation from the Eritrean foreign ministry paid a working visit to Addis Ababa setting tone for a reciprocal trip to Asmara.
Eritrea had been colonized by Italian imperialism after the failed attempt by Rome to conquer Abyssinia in 1896. Menelik II defeated the Italian army, however, allowed the imperialists to establish a base on the Red Sea restricting Addis Ababa’s access to the waterways so vital to national development.
Fascist Benito Mussolini held delusional notions of reclaiming the ancient Roman Empire and invaded Abyssinia in October 1935 killing thousands of Africans utilizing sophisticated armaments and chemical weapons. After the defeat of Italy during World War II in North Africa, Britain and later the Ethiopian monarchy under His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I designated Eritrea a protectorate under London and later incorporating the country into Ethiopia as a province.
A thirty-year war raged between Eritrean independence organizations and Ethiopia, under both the monarchy beginning in 1961 and continuing into the socialist-oriented government after 1974, until the time of its demise in 1991. Eritrea declared itself independent in 1991 and a United Nations sponsored plebiscite in 1993 won international recognition for the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) led government.
Even though the Workers Party of Ethiopia (WPE) headed by Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam collapsed amid intensive fighting with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) dominated Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and the EPLF, relations soon deteriorated between the new government in Addis Ababa and Asmara. In 1998 and 2000 an eruption of military clashes around Badme left an estimated 100,000 troops and civilians dead on both sides.
Algeria on behalf of the-then Organization of African Unity (OAU) negotiated a truce although tensions remained high for nearly two decades. The commitment of both Addis Ababa and Asmara for normalized relations has been warmly received from people in the region and internationally.
Other Internal Challenges in Ethiopia
After coming to power, Prime Minister Abiy lifted the state of emergency which had been imposed on several occasions over the last decade and a-half. Thousands of political prisoners were released from detention and exiled political leaders from the Oromia region of Ethiopia were allowed to return to the country. Abiy held talks with opposition party leaders while legalizing their peaceful activities inside Ethiopia.
However, on June 23 during a political rally in Addis Ababa, a grenade was thrown into a crowd in the immediate aftermath of an address delivered by Abiy. The prime minister was not injured although at least two people were killed in the explosion and dozens more were wounded.
There is speculation that elements within the TPLF wing of the ruling EPRDF are not enthusiastic about the bold moves taken by the prime minister. The assassination attempt did not at all halt the pace of national reconciliation which has become the hallmark of the new administration.
In the Somali-dominated Ogaden region of Ethiopia unrest flared up again based upon long-held grievances. The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) has been long suppressed by the Ethiopian state and declared as terrorists. In recent weeks this policy has been reversed with the release of ONLF prisoners and a suspension of hostilities between the two sides.
Also the Omoro Liberation Front (OLF) has joined in with its own gestures through the halting of hostilities with Addis Ababa. At present the country has moved further than ever in modern times towards ethnic reconciliation and social stability.
Somalia and Eritrea Hold Talks
For many years, the western-backed government in Mogadishu has accused Eritrea of supporting the al-Shabaab rebels who have fought both the Somalia national army and the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) troops which have occupied the country since 2007. Yet on July 28, Somalia President Mohamed Abdullahi Famarjo paid a state visit to Asmara in a joint effort to normalize relations.
Eritrea has been subjected to United Nations sanctions for a decade over allegations that it interfered in the Washington and European Union plans for the direction of the political system in Somalia. President Afwerki has continually denied any involvement in Somalian affairs.
With the pledge of Mogadishu and Asmara to refrain from any form of meddling in the affairs of each other’s respective states, pressure will mount on the UN to lift these punitive measures. Ethiopia as well has called for the lifting of the sanctions against Eritrea based on its commitment to realizing peace in the region.
The Horn of Africa and the Strategic Imperatives of Imperialism
Left on their own these states could move in a direction which could easily improve the living standards of the majority of people within all of the countries. Although Ethiopia has been cited as having phenomenal economic growth over the last few years at some ten percent annually, the distribution of the national wealth remains highly disproportionate.
Eritrea, Somalia, Ethiopia and Djibouti have tremendous potential for development considering their vast mineral, energy and shipping potentials. Somalia and Ethiopia have oil which is only now being extracted at critical levels while the strategic ports on the coasts of Eritrea and Djibouti place these states in a lucrative position.
Despite all of this, all four governments are bound by relationships with the imperialist states and their allies in the Middle East. Ethiopia has received significant military assistance from Washington along with business investments. Somalia is beholden to the Pentagon, Britain, Turkey and the EU for its security infrastructure aimed at preventing al-Shabaab from seizing power. Djibouti allows its ports and territory to be used as bases for the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), which has a military installation at Camp Lemonnier housing several thousand Pentagon soldiers.
Eritrea allows United Arab Emirates to build military base at the Port of Assab
Eritrea has close military relations with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia where the ports at Assab serves as a staging area for the war against neighboring Yemen where over ten thousand people have been killed through aerial bombardments and ground offensives against the Ansurallah since March 2015. Yemen has the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, with cholera, the lack of adequate water, food and medicine imperiling millions within this already least developed country in the Middle East.
It has been reported that the UAE played a significant role in the mediation talks which brought Asmara and Addis Ababa towards this historic agreement. At the same time the UAE has constructed a military base at Assab. The Eritrea-Ethiopia normalization will lead to the opening of Assab again for Ethiopian exports particularly in the textile industry. Ethiopia has relied on the port at Djibouti which could see a decline in activity from Addis Ababa with the opening of Assab.
Another major aspect of the rapprochement involving Asmara and Addis Ababa is the reports surfacing in early August that the UAE is slated to build an oil pipeline connecting Assab with the Ethiopian capital. Prime Minister Abiy’s government wants to begin a full-fledged oil drilling operation in the southeast.
To demonstrate its connection with Saudi Arabia, President Afwerki has taken sides in the diplomatic row which has erupted over alleged human rights policies with Canada. Eritrea is saying that Ottawa has no business commenting on the internal affairs of Riyadh.
These foreign policy questions expose the continuing neo-colonial character of international relations in the Horn of Africa. For there to be genuine development within the region where the masses of workers, farmers, youth and professionals are to enjoy the remunerations gained from the marketing of natural resources of all of the countries, a system of socialist construction must be adopted.
Socialism can unleash the productive capacity of the majority of people within this region of Africa as well as the continent as a whole. Sustainable peace is inevitably linked with people-centered economic growth and development. In the long term Washington and its principal allies among the Gulf monarchies will act in their own interests which are at variance with the people of the Horn of Africa.
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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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According to the Islamist Turkish newspaper Yeni Akit quoted by Ahvalnews,President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is ready for war.
“The secret to successful states is their readiness for war. We are ready with everything we have,” said Erdoğan on Monday in a meeting with ambassadors in Ankara.
According to reports, the US has instrumented a currency war targeted against the Turkish lira.
“Erdoğan’s comments come as the Turkish currency continues to slide against the U.S. dollar following Washington’s announcement of sanctions against Ankara this month”. Ahvalnews
The decline is indicated in the chart below (Bloomberg), from 4.85 Lira to the dollar on July 16 to approximately 5.94 Lira to the dollar on August 16.
“It is everyone’s observation that the developments in foreign currency exchange have no financial basis and they are an attack on our country,” Erdoğan said.
“On the one hand you are a strategic ally and the other you shoot (the country) in the foot. Is something like this acceptable?” he asked, in an apparent reference to sanctions on two ministers and increased steel and aluminium tariffs imposed by the United States.(Ahvalnews)
The US is involved in de facto acts of financial warfare directed against Turkey. According to Michel Chossudovsky, the Trump administration with the support of Wall Street institutional speculators seeks the collapse of the Turkish Lira.
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“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.” ― Benjamin Franklin
What a mess.
As America has become ever more polarized, and those polarized factions have become more militant and less inclined to listen to—or even allow for the existence of—other viewpoints, we are fast becoming a nation of people who just can’t get along.
Here’s the thing: if Americans don’t learn how to get along—at the very least, agreeing to disagree and respecting each other’s right to subscribe to beliefs and opinions that may be offensive, hateful, intolerant or merely different—then we’re going to soon find that we have no rights whatsoever (to speak, assemble, agree, disagree, protest, opt in, opt out, or forge our own paths as individuals).
In such an environment, when we can’t agree to disagree, the bullies (on both sides) win and freedom suffers.
Intolerance, once the domain of the politically correct and self-righteous, has been institutionalized, normalized and politicized.
Even those who dare to defend speech that may be unpopular or hateful as a constitutional right are now accused of “weaponizing the First Amendment.”
On college campuses across the country, speakers whose views are deemed “offensive” to some of the student body are having their invitations recalled or cancelled, being shouted down by hecklers, or forced to hire costly security details. As The Washington Postconcludes, “College students support free speech—unless it offends them.”
“The boycotters refused to engage a writer who would use such an offensive word. They hadn’t read the story; they wouldn’t lower themselves to that level. Here is what they missed: The story’s title refers to a lawn jockey, a once common ornament of a black man holding a lantern. The statue symbolizes the suffering of an entire group of people and looking at it bring a moment of insight to a racist old man.”
It’s not just college students who have lost their taste for diverse viewpoints and free speech.
In Charlottesville, Va., in the wake of a violent clash between the alt-right and alt-left over whether Confederate statues should remain standing in a community park, City Council meetings were routinely “punctuated with screaming matches, confrontations, calls to order, and even arrests,” making it all but impossible for attendees and councilors alike to speak their minds.
“The sad fact is that this fundamental freedom is on its heels across America,” concludes Ruger. “Politicians of both parties want to use the power of government to silence their foes. Some in the university community seek to drive it from their campuses. And an entire generation of Americans is being taught that free speech should be curtailed as soon as it makes someone else feel uncomfortable. On the current trajectory, our nation’s dynamic marketplace of ideas will soon be replaced by either disengaged intellectual silos or even a stagnant ideological conformity. Few things would be so disastrous for our nation and the well-being of our citizenry.”
Disastrous, indeed.
You see, tolerance cuts both ways.
This isn’t an easy pill to swallow, I know, but that’s the way free speech works, especially when it comes to tolerating speech that we hate.
The most controversial issues of our day—gay rights, abortion, race, religion, sexuality, political correctness, police brutality, et al.—have become battlegrounds for those who claim to believe in freedom of speech but only when it favors the views and positions they support.
This haphazard approach to the First Amendment has so muddied the waters that even First Amendment scholars are finding it hard to navigate at times.
It’s really not that hard.
The First Amendment affirms the right of the people to speak freely, worship freely, peaceably assemble, petition the government for a redress of grievances, and have a free press.
Nowhere in the First Amendment does it permit the government to limit speech in order to avoid causing offense, hurting someone’s feelings, safeguarding government secrets, protecting government officials, insulating judges from undue influence, discouraging bullying, penalizing hateful ideas and actions, eliminating terrorism, combatting prejudice and intolerance, and the like.
Unfortunately, in the war being waged between free speech purists who believe that free speech is an inalienable right and those who believe that free speech is a mere privilege to be granted only under certain conditions, the censors are winning.
We have entered into an egotistical, insulated, narcissistic era in which free speech has become regulated speech: to be celebrated when it reflects the values of the majority and tolerated otherwise, unless it moves so far beyond our political, religious and socio-economic comfort zones as to be rendered dangerous and unacceptable.
Protest laws, free speech zones, bubble zones, trespass zones, anti-bullying legislation, zero tolerance policies, hate crime laws and a host of other legalistic maladies dreamed up by politicians and prosecutors (and championed by those who want to suppress speech with which they might disagree) have conspired to corrode our core freedoms, purportedly for our own good.
On paper—at least according to the U.S. Constitution—we are technically free to speak.
In reality, however, we are only as free to speak as a government official—or corporate entities such as Facebook, Google or YouTube—may allow.
Emboldened by phrases such as “hate crimes,” “bullying,” “extremism” and “microaggressions,” the nation has been whittling away at free speech, confining it to carefully constructed “free speech zones,” criminalizing it when it skates too close to challenging the status quo, shaming it when it butts up against politically correct ideals, and muzzling it when it appears dangerous.
Free speech is no longer free.
The U.S. Supreme Court has long been the referee in the tug-of-war over the nation’s tolerance for free speech and other expressive activities protected by the First Amendment. Yet the Supreme Court’s role as arbiter of justice in these disputes is undergoing a sea change. Except in cases where it has no vested interest, the Court has begun to advocate for the government’s outsized interests, ruling in favor of the government in matters of war, national security, commerce and speech.
When asked to choose between the rule of law and government supremacy, the Supreme Court tends to side with the government.
If we no longer have the right to tell a Census Worker to get off our property, if we no longer have the right to tell a police officer to get a search warrant before they dare to walk through our door, if we no longer have the right to stand in front of the Supreme Court wearing a protest sign or approach an elected representative to share our views, if we no longer have the right to voice our opinions in public—no matter how misogynistic, hateful, prejudiced, intolerant, misguided or politically incorrect they might be—then we do not have free speech.
What we have instead is regulated, controlled speech, and that’s a whole other ballgame.
Just as surveillance has been shown to “stifle and smother dissent, keeping a populace cowed by fear,” government censorship gives rise to self-censorship, breeds compliance, makes independent thought all but impossible, and ultimately foments a seething discontent that has no outlet but violence.
The First Amendment is a steam valve. It allows people to speak their minds, air their grievances and contribute to a larger dialogue that hopefully results in a more just world.
When there is no steam valve—when there is no one to hear what the people have to say—frustration builds, anger grows and people become more volatile and desperate to force a conversation. By bottling up dissent, we have created a pressure cooker of stifled misery and discontent that is now bubbling over and fomenting even more hate, distrust and paranoia among portions of the populace.
Silencing unpopular viewpoints with which the majority might disagree—whether it’s by shouting them down, censoring them, muzzling them, or criminalizing them—only empowers the controllers of the Deep State.
Even when the motives behind this rigidly calibrated reorientation of societal language appear well-intentioned—discouraging racism, condemning violence, denouncing discrimination and hatred—inevitably, the end result is the same: intolerance, indoctrination and infantilism.
It’s political correctness disguised as tolerance, civility and love, but what it really amounts to is the chilling of free speech and the demonizing of viewpoints that run counter to the cultural elite.
We’ve allowed ourselves to be persuaded that we need someone else to think and speak for us. And we’ve allowed ourselves to become so timid in the face of offensive words and ideas that we’ve bought into the idea that we need the government to shield us from that which is ugly or upsetting or mean.
The result is a society in which we’ve stopped debating among ourselves, stopped thinking for ourselves, and stopped believing that we can fix our own problems and resolve our own differences.
In short, we have reduced ourselves to a largely silent, passive, polarized populace incapable of working through our own problems with each other and reliant on the government to protect us from our fears of each other.
So where does that leave us?
We’ve got to do the hard work of figuring out how to get along again.
Charlottesville, Va., is a good example of this.
It’s been a year since my hometown of Charlottesville, Va., became the poster child in a heated war of words—and actions—over racism, “sanitizing history,” extremism (both right and left), political correctness, hate speech, partisan politics, and a growing fear that violent words would end in violent actions.
Those fears were realized when what should have been an exercise in free speech quickly became a brawl that left one activist dead.
Yet lawful, peaceful, nonviolent First Amendment activity did not kill Heather Heyer. She was killed by a 20-year-old Neo-Nazi who drove his car into a crowd of pedestrians in Charlottesville, Va.
Words, no matter how distasteful or disagreeable, did not turn what should have been an exercise in free speech into a brawl. That was accomplished by militant protesters on both sides of the debate who arrived at what should have been a nonviolent protest armed with sticks and guns, bleach bottles, balloons filled with feces and urine and improvised flamethrowers, and by the law enforcement agencies who stood by and allowed it.
This is what happens when we turn our disagreements, even about critically and morally important issues, into lines in the sand.
If we can’t agree to disagree—and learn to live with each other in peace and speak with civility in order to change hearts and minds—then we’ve reached an impasse.
That way lies death, destruction and tyranny.
Now, there’s a big difference between civility (treating others with consideration and respect) and civil disobedience (refusing to comply with certain laws as a means of peaceful protest), both of which Martin Luther King Jr. employed brilliantly, and I’m a champion of both tactics when used wisely.
Frankly, I agree with journalist Bret Stephens when he says that we’re failing at the art of disagreement.
As Stephens explains in a 2017 lecture, which should be required reading for every American:
What does it mean to not merely disagree but rather to disagree well?
According to Stephens,
“to disagree well you must first understand well. You have to read deeply, listen carefully, watch closely. You need to grant your adversary moral respect; give him the intellectual benefit of doubt; have sympathy for his motives and participate empathically with his line of reasoning. And you need to allow for the possibility that you might yet be persuaded of what he has to say.”
Instead of intelligent discourse, we’ve been saddled with identity politics, “a safe space from thought, rather than a safe space for thought.”
Safe spaces.
That’s what we’ve been reduced to on college campuses, in government-run forums, and now on public property and on previously open forums such as the internet.
The problem, as I make clear in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, is that the creation of so-called safe spaces—where offensive ideas and speech are prohibited—is just censorship by another name, and censorship breeds resentment, and resentment breeds conflict, and unresolved, festering conflict gives rise to violence.
Charlottesville is a prime example of this.
Anticipating the one-year anniversary of the riots in Charlottesville on August 12, the local city government, which bungled its response the first time around, is now attempting to ostensibly create a “safe space” by shutting the city down for the days surrounding the anniversary, all the while ramping up the presence of militarized police, in the hopes that no one else (meaning activists or protesters) will show up and nothing (meaning riots and brawls among activists) will happen.
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Featured image: The 4-day launch event in Quito included demonstrations of traditional face painting (Source: Selva Producciones)
Sarayaku is an indigenous Kichwa community from a remote part of Ecuador’s southern Amazon. A delegation has travelled to the capital city of Quito to present a bold and visionary proposal that aims not only to protect their own 135,000 hectares of pristine rainforest, but to protect indigenous territories worldwide.
The proposal, the Kawsak Sacha Declaration, also seeks to promote the indigenous worldview, which sees nature as a living entity, to be respected and coexisted with.
The Sarayaku believe that a shift towards this perspective could be the key to mitigating the unfolding global environmental crisis.
Living forest
The concept for the proposal came from the kawsak sacha, or living forest, itself and was transmitted to the community via their shamans (yachaks in the Kichwa language), who act as intermediaries between the rainforest and those who protect it.
The Kawsak Sacha Living Forest Declaration (LFD) is a counterproposal to the prevailing extractivist model that has already wrought untold damage in Ecuador’s northern Amazon and around the world.
Instead of seeing Sarayaku territory as an inert space to exploit for resources, the Declaration describes the rainforest as a living entity with consciousness, constituted by all the beings within it, including those from the animal, vegetable, mineral, spiritual and cosmic worlds.
The Declaration asserts that the territory is subject to legal rights and demands that these rights be upheld. It also declares that the area be free of any type of extractive activity such as oil exploitation, mining, logging and biopiracy.
Though it was born from the indigenous cosmovision, the Declaration is a concrete proposal based on existing national and international law.
Legal ratification
In 2008, Ecuador became the first country to award legal rights to nature in its constitution, which also states that any person, community or nationality can demand the State to uphold these rights.
Furthermore, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states that indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their spiritual relationship with their territories, and to conserve and protect these territories.
From deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon, the Kawsak Sacha Declaration was borne by canoe to Quito, where the Sarayaku delegation delivered it to representatives of the Ecuadorian State at a launch event on July 26.
The next step is to demand the legal ratification of the document via the National Assembly or the Constitutional Court. If the State refuses to recognise the Declaration, it will be defying its own constitution and international law.
The Sarayaku have called for international organisations and indigenous peoples to adopt the proposal and are planning to present it to the UN.
Global audience
It won’t be the first time the Declaration has been given a global audience.
After being adopted by the Assembly General of the Original People of Sarayaku in 2012, it was presented in Paris at the global climate change conference, COP21, and to the President of France, François Hollande, in 2015.
Earlier this month, it was well received at the international Fostering Community Conservation Conferencein Montreal.
The Declaration was inaugurated in Ecuador with a four-day exhibition and conference from 25 to 29 July that showcased Sarayaku’s way of life, culture, and vision, including exhibitions and demonstrations of ancestral medicines, ceramics, handicrafts, gastronomy, face painting, singing and dancing.
A Kichwa house was built in El Arbolito Park and will remain there, a gift to the city of Quito.
Violated rights
A series of panels were held to discuss extractivism and defence of the rainforest.
The events were attended by international NGOs Amazon Watch, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Women’s Earth & Climate Action Network (WECAN), as well as the Presidents of national indigenous organisations CONAIE and CONFENAIE.
The launch of the Declaration coincided with the 6th anniversary of the historic ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which found that the Ecuadorian Government violated the rights of the Sarayaku people by allowing an oil company to prospect in their territory without consultation.
In 1996 the Argentinian oil company CGC, accompanied by soldiers, carried out detonations, felled trees, dug more than 400 wells and buried more than 1.4 tons of high grade explosives in Sarayaku territory.
The community was unaware that their land had been concessioned to an oil company until armed men arrived in helicopters.
Key players
In 2018, Sarayaku is once again threatened by oil exploitation. The Ecuadorian Government are planning to auction 3 million hectares of largely virgin rainforest in the XI Oil Round, or Ronda Sur.
Three of the oil blocks cover nearly all the Sarayaku territory, the borders of which are being planted with flowering trees to symbolise the community’s peaceful resistance and defence of their territory via the Kawsak Sacha Declaration.
The Sarayaku people’s hopes for the Declaration go beyond the protection of the 135,000 hectares that lie within their borders.
The proposal was presented to the State on behalf of all indigenous peoples with the hopes that other nationalities will use it to uphold the legal rights of nature in their territories.
With indigenous peoples acting as stewards of 95 percent of the planet’s most threatened biodiverse regions and key players in the fight against climate change, the Declaration could have a global impact.
Leading resistance
It’s a bold vision for a village of 1400 people living deep in the Amazon, but, looking at their past achievements, it’s impossible not to take the Sarayaku proposal seriously.
Beyond their legal victory against the Ecuadorian State, this is a community that has launched a professional football team; sailed a canoe down the Seine; and created a documentary, Children of the Jaguar, which won Best Documentary at the National Geographic Film Festival.
The Sarayaku call themselves the People of the Zenith, referring to an ancient prophecy of their ancestors claiming that they would be a pillar of resistance after other communities had surrendered, a beacon of light as strong as the sun at noon.
When asked what drives his community to keep fighting to defend the Amazon, Sarayaku leader and former President José Gualinga referred to this prophecy:
“The Sarayaku resistance is based upon our deep connection with the rainforest, which even our young people still maintain, and our unity.
“The Sarayaku community functions as a single organism, like a human body. We resist in fulfilment of the ancient prophecy of our ancestors. We have seen what has happened to our brothers in the northern Amazon region, who have not only experienced the destruction of their territories by oil exploitation, but have suffered a spiritual impoverishment.
“They have been dominated, silenced, humiliated. They are alive but not alive. We, the people of Sarayaku, cannot allow that to happen to us.”
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Bethany Pitts has been working with indigenous communities in Ecuador since 2013, especially those defending their territories from extractivism. She is currently writing the Moon Guide to Ecuador & The Galapagos Islands (2019), which will be the first international guide book on Ecuador with a focus on eco- and community tourism.
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The US’ Hybrid War on OBOR doesn’t stop at the military phase but importantly continues into the informational domain in order to undermine China’s New Silk Roads through the planting of Trumpist “time bombs” in strategic transit states that can only be neutralized by a comprehensive perception management strategy that breaks from the centralized model that Beijing is known for.
Two of the top three global trends that the author analyzed in his latest piece for Eurasia Future are Hybrid War Balkanization and Trumpism vs. Globalism, both of which are weapons of asymmetrical warfare against China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) global vision of New Silk Road connectivity. The first actually contributes to the proliferation of the second, however, through the transition of a failed unconventional war to an indefinitely prolonged infowar that seeks to accomplish a pair of complementary objectives that will be explained in this analysis, the point of which is to draw attention to a little-known but very “politically incorrect” vulnerability afflicting the Silk Road. Simply put, China has a poor handle on perception management techniques outside of its borders, and it’s accordingly ill-equipped to confront the multitude of informational challenges that will inevitably confront its global OBOR ambitions.
The Phased Transition Of Anti-OBOR Operations
From Hybrid War…
To review the elementary basics of HybridWars, these are externally provoked identity conflicts that exploit preexisting fault lines within a society in order to pressure the targeted government through manufactured “grassroots” means to enact political concessions advantageous to the offensive party under pain of having the conflict escalated to the point of pursuing regime change and/or a regime reboot (forced constitutional reform). Nowadays, however, “Democratic Security” strategies can be relied upon to lessen the impact of this asymmetrical onslaught and keep it at the low-intensity level, if not snuff it out completely, but the aggressive party might not be thwarted by this defeat and could instead leverage it through infowar means by decontextualizing, misportraying, and then over-amplifying weaponized narratives that could be similarly destabilizing for the victimized state if they’re not contained.
To Infowars…
The US’ intentions are to masterfully craft the false perception that the targeted state is too dangerous for other countries’ companies to do business with, let alone transit through en route to China, which could then diminish its Silk Road potential and consequently impact on China’s economic security by denying it the markets that it needs to offload its excess capacity to. This could in turn imperil its national growth depending on the transit country involved (Pakistan being the most important in this context) and potentially lead to an economic downturn with time that might eventually trigger political destabilization at home. Resultantly, it would be natural for the targeted state to grow more dependent on Chinese assistance as other countries distance themselves from it after falling for the US’ infowar narrative, but therein lays the second phase of the Hybrid War on OBOR
And Finally “Trumpism”:
The US learned from the example of Myanmar in the 2000s that states that become disproportionately dependent on China are much more susceptible to weaponized populism (i.e. “Trumpism”), which can be timed to explode precisely at the moment when Beijing is inversely becoming dependent on their transit and market potentials through OBOR. “Nationalist” reactions naturally form under these conditions, but these sentiments can also be shaped and guided from abroad through NGOs and social media perception engineering operations. The US was still experimenting with its efforts to attain “scenario superiority” over the Myanmar-China relationship and therefore executed its plans imperfectly, but the lasting lesson that it learned was that countries can indeed be forced into China’s embrace, after which the dynamics that organically develop between them could make the two partners “too close for comfort” and thus open up a valuable window of narrative opportunity for the US to exploit.
Scenario Review
To rehash the infowar dimension of the US’ Hybrid War on OBOR, the targeted state’s suppression of the initial violent phase of the Hybrid War doesn’t mean that the destabilization operation against it has stopped, as any infrequent and low-intensity violence that still occurs could be manipulatively used by the US and its allies to attack the country’s international reputation. The purpose of doing this is to decrease investor and entrepreneur confidence in the said state’s security capabilities, which could therefore scare them away from doing business there and utilizing its Silk Road transit infrastructure for facilitating trade with China. The predictable result would be that the targeted country becomes more dependent on China, though this too can be manipulated from abroad because it naturally produces a “nationalist” (“Trumpist”) reaction with time that could be weaponized to undermine Beijing after it becomes entwined in a complex system of economic-strategic interdependency there.
An oversimplification of this process is as follows:
Hybrid War à Infowar à Trumpism
The Perception Management Solution
The only way that this phased scenario can be countered is through proper perception management strategies, though this has unfortunately proven itself to be China’s Achilles’ heel because of its hitherto inability to effectively influence how others perceive its international activities. Confucius Institutes are only useful when it comes to apolitical soft power and fostering civil society interactions, while the interconnected concepts of OBOR and win-win cooperation aren’t anything necessarily specific to China (apart, in the first case, from its financing). The “Global Times” information outlet has a purpose, albeit a limited one because it’s already recognized by most of the world that this platform is a means for the Communist Party to “indirectly” send certain messages into the mainstream. The rigidity involved in this messaging operation makes it insufficiently inflexible for responding to the multitude of rapidly adapting infowar narratives targeting China, its partners, and their OBOR interests.
The solution is for China to learn from existing Mainstream and Alternative Media structures and either create a brand-new one from scratch or partner one of its existing platforms such as CGTN with a variety of its counterparts in key Silk Road states such as Pakistan, Iran, Russia, Turkey (the four other members of the Golden Ring), and Ethiopia. It must, however, “let go of the reins”, “loosen its grip”, and grant its employees the “professional liberty” to proactively expose infowar narratives while simultaneously promoting defensive ones for protecting the Silk Road states, though this must absolutely be done in coordination with China continuing to deliver tangible benefits to its partners’ population and not “overstepping” in its interactions with them otherwise this effort might come off as “propagandistic” and counterproductively backfire.
Because of how “revolutionary” it would be for a Chinese-backed international media outlet to “decentralize” its information operations, the first cadre of employees must be vetted and trusted by the authorities. The key to this initiative succeeding is for competent experts to be placed in positions of influence from where they could instantly react to changing infowar narratives instead of having to wait for the central authorities in Beijing to formulate specific talking points. Furthermore, because it’ll be based abroad and won’t broadcast in China, these figures could even walk the line of “political correctness” as needed (or even cross it under exceptional circumstances) in order to more effectively produce and disseminate certain narratives as needed. Again, given the nature of the Chinese system, vetted and trusted individuals should be the only ones placed in these roles, but sooner than later, China will need to experiment with this model if it is to succeed.
Concluding Thoughts
The US’ Hybrid War on OBOR is evolving to the point where the violent phase of this strategy might more easily be defeated by China’s many Silk Road partners than ever before, but these targeted states could still be caught equally unaware by the secondary infowar phase of this destabilization campaign if they aren’t careful. China conceives of itself as being the torchbearer of economic globalization and consequently free trade, but ironically, this means that business have the choice whether or not to trade with it, and if so, via which means. The manufacturing of false narratives pertaining to the security of CPEC and China’s other Silk Road corridors is very dangerous because it could easily lead to investors and entrepreneurs choosing to continue trading with the People’s Republic through the Strait of Malacca and across the South China Sea, thereby nullifying the strategic reason for OBOR’s cross-Eurasian mainland connectivity projects that were always intended to avoid putting China under the blackmailing influence of the powerful US Navy.
The American plan is to have China commit hundreds of billions of dollars to Eastern Hemispheric infrastructure projects and then provoke low-intensity and cost-effective Hybrid Wars in its many Silk Road partners so that it can have the basis on which to build a prolonged infowar campaign against them. This in turn could cause international investors and entrepreneurs to stay away from the country and stick to using US Navy-controlled maritime routes through the Strait of Malacca and South China Sea to trade with China, thus making it more difficult for the host nation to service its Chinese debt. This would accordingly drive the country closer to China, though this relationship might become uncomfortable after a period of time just like Myanmar’s did in the 2000s and give rise to a US-encouraged populist/nationalist (“Trumpist”) movement.
The end result is that China might never receive a return on its investments in the regime-changed state if a new pro-American “Trumpist” government defaults because Beijing has no means to enforce payment compliance, and the cumulative effect of this could be macro-economically disastrous if it’s timed to coincide with other such happenings elsewhere in the world, especially the countries where China has invested the most. Not only that, but the “economic nationalism” component of “Trumpism” could lead to a situation where China loses its previous de-facto free trade privileges in the ports and other points of access that it helped finance, despite how mutually destructive of a policy this would be for its former “partner” to commence (though the EU’s US-influenced sanctions prove that vassals will enact self-inflicted damage in order to please the hegemon). It goes without saying that the aforementioned strategy could kill the Silk Road if it succeeds and possibly even cause domestic political problems in China, which is why the People’s Republic must urgently improve its perception management operations abroad in order to defend itself from this doomsday scenario.
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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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On August 14, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) released a statement providing a look at their operations in the area of Afrin against the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) and the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (TFSA).
According to the statement, Abdul Razzaq al-Bakr, a TFSA field commander, died on August 8 after being wounded in a bomb explosion in the district of Mabata. On August 11, YPG cells set off a motorcycle-bomb on the road to the village of Kafr Jannah in the district of Shera. The bombing reportedly hit a joint patrol of the TAF and the TFSA killing one Turkish soldier and wounding another. “A number” of TFSA members were allegedly killed.
YPG cells have been carrying out attacks on the TAF and the TFSA constantly since the fall of the city of Afrin into Turkish hands on March 18. These attacks show significant gaps in security efforts employed by the TAF and the TFSA in the area.
At the same time, the YPG and pro-YPG entities have tried to launch a large-scale international propaganda campaign to pressure Turkey over its actions in Afrin. They have accused Turkey-led forces of ethnic cleansing, civilian casualties and multiple war crimes. So far, these efforts have led to little result. However, if tensions between Washington and Ankara grow further, based on a growing rift in the economic and diplomatic spheres, the US may choose the Afrin issue as one of the options, which could be incorporated into its propaganda in the ongoing media standoff.
The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies have further advanced against ISIS cells in the Safa volcanic plateau area at the al-Suweida-Rif Dimashq administrative border. They have restored control of Arh Amirah, Rujm Mughrabah and Markadah. The advance is ongoing.
According to some sources, ISIS members already started withdrawing from the al-Safa area aiming to reach the desert area at the Syrian-Iraqi border. If this is true, government forces will soon restore control of al-Safa without significant resistance from ISIS.
Rumors once again appeared that (alleged) ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been injured. This time, he was allegedly severely wounded in June when an Iraqi airstrike targeted a meeting of ISIS top commanders in Syria. The source of these claims is Iraqi TV channel AlSumaria.
The media outlet went further claiming that al-Baghdadi is unable to assume his duties because of the injures and ISIS top commanders have chosen Abu Othman al-Tunisi to succeed him thus triggering a rift within the terrorist group.
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For a summary of Mary Ellsberg’s history of work with the US government agencies actively promoting regime change in Nicaragua, and her involvement with toxic elements advocating a similar destabilization campaign against Syria, see the editor’s note that follows this piece.
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There is so much misinformation in mainstream corporate media about recent events in Nicaragua that it is a pity that Mary Ellsberg’s article for Pulse has added to it with a seemingly leftish critique. Ellsberg claims that recent articles, including from this website, often “paint a picture of the crisis in Nicaragua that is dangerously misleading.”
Unfortunately, her own article does just that. It looks at the situation entirely from the perspective of those opposing Daniel Ortega’s government while whitewashing their malevolent behavior and downplaying the levels of US support they have relied on. Her piece is an incomplete depiction of what is happening on the ground, ignoring many salient facts that have come to light and which have been outdated by recent events.
The following is a brief response to Ellsberg’s main points from someone who lives in Nicaragua and has observed the situation directly and intimately.
First, Mary Ellsberg says that those who claim ‘the opposition has been defeated’ are wrong. She shows a photo of a large demonstration to prove her point. However, this demonstration occurred months ago, on May 30. It was taken at the peak of the opposition’s support. Subsequent demonstrations have seen numbers fall to levels that they must find embarrassingly low.
In contrast, while Ellsberg claims that Ortega and vice-president Murillo lack support, there were massive pro-government demonstrations throughout July, culminating in the biggest on July 19, not just in Managua but in towns and cities up and down the country. They have continued since.
The truth is that, in terms of demonstrations, strikes, and barricades on the streets, opposition support fell away rapidly once people began to see through its lies and the violence and chaos it caused.
Opposition protest numbers are rapidly dwindling. This puny march was observed in Managua on July 26.
Second, Ellsberg minimizes the importance of US money and right-wing support for the opposition. But the anti-Sandinista “Civic Alliance” gives little indication of its own political agenda for Nicaragua, beyond getting rid of the elected government, so it is perfectly legitimate to ask where its political support comes from.
Even Ortega critics, like Ben Waddell, have said that US agencies such as the National Endowment for Democracy have been laying the groundwork for insurrection by giving financial support to the Nicaraguan opposition.
In the middle of the crisis, its leaders traveled to Washington and Miami, funded by Freedom House, to meet right-wing Republicans like Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
Student leaders went on to seek support from the extreme right in El Salvador, meeting officials of the Arena party.
More recently, they appeared at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC, a bastion of right-wing militarism and pro-Israel extremism. What does all this tell us about their political intentions?
Victor Cuadras, the face and voice of Nicaragua’s coup plotting opposition students, finds a natural base at the Hudson Institute, a hyper-militarist neocon think tank funded by Likudnik and far-right foundations https://t.co/if9ZxqJAVIhttps://t.co/0bAstG79sN
Third, while the deaths in the protests are a major tragedy, calling them a “massacre” gives credence to the exaggerated and cynically manipulated numbers being used by the opposition. A detailed analysis of casualties in the first two months, which eliminated double-counted and incidents unrelated to the protests, found there had been 119 deaths, divided equally between both “sides.” A recent official count logs 197 deaths by late July.
Ellsberg cites higher figures from reports by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IACHR), but they lost any credibility they might have had by jumping to conclusions based on the work of the two local human rights bodies, which both have a long history of open bias against the Sandinista government. Paulo Abrāo, head of IACHR, far from being a neutral observer, openly declared his support for student protesters on May 19 when they had just violently held up a bus full of people returning from a peace demonstration, resulting in various injuries.
Fourth, like the opposition leaders themselves, Ellsberg refers to “peaceful” protesters and refuses to accept the violence which they perpetrated. This has included the murder of 22 police, plus many government officials and Sandinista supporters, the most recent a few days ago in Matagalpa. Several Sandinistas have endured gruesome torture.
She refers to the violent scenes when government forces managed to reopen access to the cities of Jinotepe and Diriamba, in which Sandinista supporters attacked priests and bishops. (Ironically, they were protected by a heavy police escort, the very police the bishops had earlier asked to be taken off the streets.) What she fails to say is how angry people were at the church being used as a place of sanctuary for armed protesters who terrorized these two cities for over a month, holding about 400 drivers and their vehicles hostage on the main highway.
The government would never have been able to remove the hundreds of barricades the opposition erected if they hadn’t had popular support to do so.
Now that the coup has been defeated, much more evidence of violence is coming to light, such as the testimony byDania Valeska, one of the student protesters, about the arming of the people who occupied one of the main universities (the UNAN).
Ellsberg shows a picture of Valeska in one of the video appeals (“Mama, forgive me…”) she made while allegedly under attack at the UNAN, later shown to be play-acting. That fake video was used by the opposition and their media friends all over the US and Europe.
Mary Ellsberg is right in one respect: the opposition has gained the support of international media, and of the US administration and the now mainly right-wing governments in the rest of Latin America. The opposition is clinging on to these allies, helped by the false picture painted by articles such as Ellsberg’s, while their support in Nicaragua itself is fading.
Since mid-July the country has been gradually returning to normal; Sandinista supporters have returned to the streets; the barricades have been dismantled (often by local people themselves); and the violence has largely stopped. The enormous damage done by protesters to public buildings, health centers, roads, and dozens of private houses is being repaired. Businesses and schools that were closed have reopened. Daily life has resumed and tourists have begun to reappear.
The coup has failed, but Mary Ellsberg and others still continue to try to persuade the rest of the world that Nicaragua’s crisis is ‘far from over’.
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Note from Grayzone Project’s editor
While downplaying the role of the US in the coup, Mary Ellsberg has worked for years with some of the main US government-backed organizations that have aimed at smashing the Sandinista movement, as well as European government NGO’s that have been active inside Nicaragua.
Ellsberg’s George Washington University CV indicates extensive work with USAID, which just committed $1.5 million in funding to opposition media and NGO’s Nicaragua. (Here is one USAID report that Ellsberg contributed to). Ellsberg has even been a member of a delegation organized by the US State Department, the governmental parent of USAID.
In her article, she not only failed to disclose her involvement with the US government’s regime change arm, she neglected to mention that USAID has spent over $5 million in the past four years “laying the groundwork for insurrection” in Nicaragua.
Meanwhile, Ellsberg’s son, Julio Martinez Ellsberg, has been an advisor to an opposition student group, whitewashing the opposition’s violence while actively lobbying “progressive groups…to publicly cut ties with the [Sandinista] party.”
Mary Ellsberg’s distortion-laden editorial was published at Pulse Media, one of the most active English-language platforms for promoting regime change in Syria, and for smearing public figures who dissent from the Washington consensus. Pulse’s creator, Idrees Ahmad, has been under a long-running investigation by his employers at the UK’s Stirling University for his serial online harassment of ideological foes. (Ellsberg would probably not appreciate Ahmad’s penchant for leveling misogynistic insultsagainst feminist activists with whom he disagrees.)
Before I published my factual two-part expose on the USAID-backed White Helmets organization, I received an unsolicited phone call from Ahmad. He unleashed a threatening tirade, seeking to intimidate me against publishing the article. I still do not know how he obtained my phone number or how he learned that I was going to publish, though I have my suspicions. (The audio is here.)
It is revealing that Ellsberg, one of the principal “progressive” voices in Washington calling for regime change in Nicaragua, has joined forces with the most malicious advocates for doing the same in Syria. Fortunately for people in both countries, their efforts have so far been a failure.
–Max Blumenthal
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Charles Redvers is a Canadian who has known and lived in Nicaragua at different times over the last three decades, currently in León. He is the author of ‘Nicaragua’s failed coup’.
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The Washington correspondent of Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, Amir Tibon, headlined on the night of Tuesday, August 14, “Trump Administration Wants to See a Gaza Cease-fire ‘With or Without the Palestinian Authority’,” and he reported that, “The Trump administration wants to see a long-term cease-fire in Gaza, with or without the support of the Palestinian Authority, a spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council told Haaretz on Monday.”
In other words: U.S. President Donald Trump is not angling for Palestinians to become ruled by the more moderate of the two political entities that are contesting for control over Palestine — he’s not favoring The Palestinain Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, over Hamas, Ismail Haniya. He is, instead, aiming for Jews inside Israel to conquer completely the non-Jews, not only inside Israel, but also in the adjoining areas, Palestine.
Trump has now officially placed the United States on the side of Israel’s Jews, for them to conquer and subdue Palestine, for Jews to rule over Palestinians, and for the residents in Palestine not to be allowed to participate in Israel’s elections.
This will be very good for American firms such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and General Dynamics, which depend wholly or primarily upon sales to the U.S. Government and to its allied governments, including Israel, for their profits and their net worths, their stock-market valuations. More war is essential for these firms, which sell only to these governments — governments which seek to control more land, regardless of what the residents there want, and which need to buy more weapons in order to do it.
Trump’s foreign policies have been very effective.
Trump’s biggest success, thus far into his Presidency, has been his sale of $400 billion (originally $350 billion) of U.S.-made weapons to the Saudi Arabian Government, which is owned by its royal family, after whom that nation is named. This sale alone is big enough to be called Trump’s “jobs plan” for Americans. It is also the biggest weapons-sale in all of history. It’s 400 billion dollars, not 400 million dollars; it is gigantic, and, by far, unprecedented in world-history. Consequently, anyone who would allege that he has been anything other than an extraordinary success for his constituency, the people who will be funding his 2020 re-election campaign, would be wrong. America is controlled by dollars, not by people; everything is geared to maximizing the return on investment, for the people who have invested in Trump. Increasing their net worths is his goal, and he has been stunningly successful at achieving it.
The individuals who control those corporations are also in control of those governments, via political corruption, such as the “revolving doors” between ‘government service’ and the private sector. If they can’t control those governments, then they can’t control their own finances. But if they do control those governments — and especially their own Government, the U.S. Government — then they control the very source of their own wealth. They are totally dependent upon the U.S. Government. Trump has, regarding U.S. military and diplomatic policies — the Pentagon and the State Department, and the intelligence agencies — been just as effective as the neoconservatives, the people who actually run both Parties on behalf of those firms, for those firms’ owners, could have hoped.
This does not mean that they won’t in 2020 back an opponent of Trump, but only that Trump is issuing as many IOUs to these people as he can, and as fast as he can, and that he has been remarkably successful (unprecedented, actually) at doing that. Whereas Democrats such as Joe Biden and Eric Swalwell might contest against him for their support, no one can reasonably say that Trump has been a disappointment to the proponents of American conquest and control over the entire world — the people commonly called “neoconservatives,” and all other agents of what Dwight Eisenhower called “the military-industrial complex.” While those people might criticize him in order to push him even farther to the right on foreign affairs than he has been, he has been very effective for them, and he clearly is hoping that, at least regarding military policies, in America’s militarized economy, those people will be satisfied for him to remain in power. That’s his hope. That’s his goal. It’s shown by his actions, not by his mere words.
America’s alliance with Israel is almost as important as America’s alliance with the owners of Saudi Arabia, the Saud family. Both of those allies want the Palestinians to be conquered. And so does Trump. And, of course, so too do the people who are rotating constantly through those revolving doors, the other agents for America’s rulers.
“the Israeli Air Force bombed Al-Meshal, one of the Gaza Strip’s most important cultural facilities. They claim that the building — which comprises two theaters, three large halls, and a department serving the Egyptian community living in the Strip — was being used by Hamas.”
“The two leaders discussed the easing of an Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza, rehabilitation of its infrastructure and terms for a ceasefire.”
Israel said that
“everything that will happen in Gaza will be done with Egyptian mediation and involvement.”
This means that the setting-up of Israel’s control over Gaza will “be done with Egyptian mediation and involvement,” but the operation of Israel’s control over Gaza won’t be — it’ll be 100% Israeli.
For example, Sisi might be able to get Netanyahu to agree to increase the current, 85 truckloads of food daily into Gaza so as to raise Gazans’ food-intake above its current “subsistence” level. Although he might try, Israel’s record of violating its international agreements is even stronger than America’s record for that is. But to serve PR purposes, Sisi might try. Ever since 2007, when Israel was allowing into Gaza 106 truckloads daily, that number was reduced down to this “subsistence” level.
On 1 January 2008, was secretly issued from Israel’s Ministry of Defense, a document “Food Consumption in the Gaza Strip – Red Lines”, in which the Ministry of Health informed them that the then-current 106 trucks daily was too much for “subsistence”:
“The Ministry of Health is conducting work for calculating the minimal subsistence basket based on the Arab sector in Israel. The ‘minimum basket’ allows nutrition that is sufficient for subsistence without the development of malnutrition.”
“The Ministry of Health estimates that the new basket will be 20% lower than the current basket [85 trucks instead of 106].”
Import of goods to Gaza also dropped significantly with the imposition of the blockade in mid-2007. By 2008, the monthly average of truckloads entering Gaza had decreased by 75%17. The amount of imports slowly increased as import restrictions were gradually relaxed, with the number of trucks entering in 2015 and 2016 reaching levels similar to those prior to 2007. It is difficult to draw a parallel between 2015/2016 and 2007 however, given that due to the vast needs for post-hostilities reconstruction as well as recovery of Gaza’s deteriorating infrastructure, coupled with rapid population growth, demand for import into Gaza was much higher in 2015/16 than it was prior to 2007.
The needs today are even higher than that.
Sisi might be able to win some voters if he can brag to them that he has gotten Israel to increase that number above whatever it currently has been, but it will be only for show, anyway.
Egypt is heavily committed both to the Saudi regime and to the American regime. To say that the fate of the Gazans is in the hands of Israel and of Egypt, would be to say that it’s in the hands of the rulers of America and of the rulers of Saudi Arabia (the Saud family, who own that country). The rulers of Israel won’t have any international backing, at all, if they don’t have America’s rulers supporting them. For Donald Trump to tell Benjamin Netanyahu that not only will Israel be allowed to ignore Hamas but it will even be allowed to ignore the Palestinian Authority, means that Netanyahu now has America’s support no matter what Israel might do to the Gazans — and to the non-Jewish inhabitants of the West Bank.
This is excellent news for the holders of U.S. ‘Defense’ stocks. The more that America’s ‘enemies’ suffer, the better it is for America’s owners. This is how capitalism actually functions. Inequality is natural. That’s true not only between nations, but within nations. In the natural world, losers get eaten. Justice doesn’t naturally occur anywhere. To the extent that it exists anywhere, it is imposed, by the public, against the aristocracy. Within nations, justice is almost non-existent. Between nations, it is entirely non-existent. For examples: were George W. Bush and Tony Blair executed for invading and destroying Iraq in 2003? Of course not. Neither of them was even imprisoned. Nor were Obama and Sarkozy and Cameron executed for invading and destroying Libya in 2011. Those are only examples, of the basic reality.
This news-report is written so as to place a news-event into its actual context, not divorced from that, as is normal. In other words: it’s news instead of propaganda (the latter of which, avoids the relevant context behind the reported event).
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Australia’s environment has been in precarious hands since European settlement found its lengthy and persistent way to the continent. It has been mined, mauled, drained, farmed, deforested and despoiled at a rate that was only restrained by the size of its small but rapacious populace. When environmental matters have made an appearance, they have done so with a veil of political opportunism. Few typify this more than Labor’s environment minister Senator Graham Richardson’s efforts regarding the Tasmanian forests. To win over the conservation-minded voter in marginal, city-based seats, it was good to go green – at least for a bit.
The Great Barrier Reef has not been exempt from the political tussles of a troubled environmental conscience. Its monumental size, and its status as an ecological wonder meant little in the late 1960s, when the appetite for development mattered most. In 1967, it seemed to be facing imminent destruction, another casualty of a predatory mining industry keen for new conquests. The state of Queensland had elected a National Party government hungry to exploit the environment’s wares.
As local tour operator Alistair Pikeexplained to the ABC,
“We had a fairly full-on development oriented government… and mate, if they couldn’t drill it, mine it, chop it down or whatever, they really didn’t want to know about it.”
It took characters such as that feted “rat bag” of an activist, rogue of action and Mission Beach artist John Büsst to bring angered but focused attention on threats to bulldoze Ellison Reef. An impeccably connected person, he had the ear of Australian prime minister and fellow diver Harold Holt. A cast of characters were duly mobilised: the CSIRO forester Len Webb, and president of the Queensland Wildlife Society Judith Wright became enthusiastic and un-phased recruits.
In the Australian environmental conscience, this gorgeously freakish wonder of ecology has been seen in isolation, its problems a local provenance and interest rather than a global phenomenon of ailing. As the earth continues is warming push, earthbound, and very terrestrially unimaginative politicians have been attempting to treat the Reef’s woes as separately resolvable from the broader challenges of climate change.
Little wonder, then, that a problem viewed in such limited terms could be duly remedied by donations without tender, lump sum payments without review. Narrowly viewed problems tend to lead to narrowly devised solutions. Such was the nature of the Turnbull government’s $444 million “rescue package” to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, one conceived and delivered in a haze.
The issue of who takes the reins and ensures study and conservation was never going to be free of a political push. While common sense suggests that the task be left to government organisations within the scientific community – CSIRO, the Australian Institute for Marine Science and the Marine Park Authority, other contenders have been stalking the scene.
The Great Barrier Reef Foundation was deemed the chosen one, but questions are circulating as to why that outfit got preferment for such largesse. For one thing, it seemed an oddly hasty move, given that it entailed an expenditure of almost the entire spending allocation for the 2050 Reef Partnership program.
Then came the organisation’s profile. Its chief executive Anna Marsden is married to Ben Myers, chief of staff to former Queensland premier Campbell Newman. (Newman can be counted, incidentally, as one of those durable environmental sceptics who prefers the bulldozer to reef hugging conservation.) One of the four founding businessmen behind the venture is the current chairman of the foundation, and former chairman of Esso Australia and the Commonwealth Bank. Advocates of barrier reef protection, beware.
That particular non-profit group had a revenue stream of less than $8 million in 2017, a humble outfit with six full time employees. Nothing suggests that those working for it had a clue that this staggering cash supply was coming their way.
“We didn’t have much time before the announcement to be prepared for it,” came the perplexed, albeit thrilled Marsden.
Easy to understand why Marsden considered this winning the lottery. Overnight, even given a spread of funding over six years, the Foundation has become one of the largest, if not largest NGO in Australia. By way of grim contrast, government employees connected with the science fraternity are facing skint measures to fund their projects.
The bungling has led to Josh Frydenberg, the environment and energy minister, asking the secretary of his department to urge the National Audit Office to give the funding arrangement serious consideration “as a priority”.
This piqued the interest of Tony Burke, Labor’s opposition spokesman, who claimed that it “was an extraordinary step for the secretary of the department to be sending a letter like that to the Auditor-General at the exact same time that Josh Frydenberg is standing up in Parliament saying there is no problem here”.
The outstanding feature of the funding spill to the foundation is its conspicuous absence of any reference to climate change. It is a hermetic form of deliverable rescue sans climate science, an approach that politically factors in the climate change sceptics within the Turnbull government. By all means try to preserve an Australian wonder; but ditch the climate science. The conclusion of one unnamed scientist to the Fairfax press about the nature of this arrangement was elementary and crude:
“Obviously this is political – it’s to head off Labor making a big issue of the Great Barrier Reef at the next election.”
Woe to the reef.
*
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge and lectures at RMIT University. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Email: [email protected]
First published by Global Research in March 2015, the following text was presented to the Public Forum on:
America’s War on Terror and the Urgency of World Peace,
Social Sciences, University of the Philippines (UP-Cebu), March 2, 2015
Introduction
America’s “war on terrorism” is a hegemonic project, under a fake counter-terrorism agenda which consists in going after al Qaeda entities which “threaten Western civilization”.
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.
Under a global military agenda, the actions undertaken by the Western military alliance (U.S.-NATO-Israel) in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, Ukraine, Syria and Iraq are coordinated at the highest levels of the military hierarchy.
We are not dealing with piecemeal military and intelligence operations. The July-August 2014 attack on Gaza by Israeli forces was undertaken in close consultation with the United States and NATO. The actions in Ukraine and their timing coincided with the onslaught of the attack on Gaza, Syria and Iraq.
In turn, military undertakings are closely coordinated with a process of economic warfare which consists not only in imposing sanctions on sovereign countries but also in deliberate acts of destabilization of financial and currencies markets, with a view to undermining the enemies’ national economies.
Our analysis in this article will largely be geared towards refuting the myth that the United States is waging “a Global War on Terrorism”. The evidence amply confirms that the the United States of America is a “State Sponsor of Terrorism” and that the campaign against the Islamic State is a smokescreen used by the US and its allies to justify in the eyes of public opinion its global war of conquest.
The Global War on Terrorism has become a consensus. It is part of war propaganda. It is also used by Western governments to justify and implement “anti-terrorist” legislation. It is the cornerstone of the West’s demonization campaign directed against Muslims.
It should also be understood that the “Global War on Terrorism” supports a process of “economic conquest”, whereby countries forego their sovereignty.
Their national economies are “taken over by foreign investors”.
Their assets are confiscated, austerity measures are imposed and a process of macro-economic restructuring under the helm of Wall Street and the Bretton Woods institutions are implemented.
US sponsored terrorism creates factional divisions within national societies.
Countries are impoverished and destabilized. National institutions are undermined as part of a US led war of conquest.
The evidence presented in this article, including the historical review, is intended to fully reveal the “Big Lie”.
Beyond doubt, the “Global War on Terrorism” is a fabrication. The United States of America is the “Number One” State Sponsor of Terrorism.
Public Forum on America’s War on Terror and the Urgency of World Peace: Its Ramification in the Philippines. University of the Philippines, UP-Cebu, March 2 2015
The Global War on Terrorism: Obama’s Crusade against the Islamic State (ISIS)
The U.S. airstrikes initiated in September 2014 directed against Iraq and Syria under the pretext of going after the Islamic State are part of a scenario of military escalation extending from North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean to Central and South Asia.
Since August 2014, the US Air Force with the support of a coalition of more than twenty countries has relentlessly waged an intensified air campaign against Syria and Iraq allegedly targeting the Islamic State brigades.
According to Defense News, over 16,000 airstrikes were carried out from August 2014 to mid January 2015. Sixty percent of the air strikes were conducted by the US Air Force using advanced jet fighter and bombing capabilities (Aaron Mehta, “A-10 Performing 11 Percent of Anti-ISIS Sorties”. Defense News, January 19, 2015.)
The airstrikes have been casually described by the media as part of a “soft” counter-terrorism operation, rather than an act of all out war directed against Syria and Iraq.
This large scale air campaign which has resulted in countless civilian casualties has been routinely misreported by the mainstream media. According to Max Boot, senior fellow in national security at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Obama’s strategy in Syria and Iraq is not working… [ because] the U.S. bombing campaign against ISIS has been remarkably restrained”. (Newsweek, February 17, 2015, emphasis added).
Americans are led to believe that the Islamic State constitutes a formidable force confronting the US military and threatening Western Civilization. The thrust of media reporting is that the US Air Force has failed and that “Obama should get his act together” in effectively confronting this “Outside Enemy” of America.
According to CFR Max Boot, military escalation is the answer: what is required is for the president “to dispatch more aircraft, military advisers, and special operations forces, while loosening the restrictions under which they operate.” (Ibid)
What kind of aircraft are involved in the air campaign? The F-16 Fighting Falcon,(above right), The F-15E Strike Eagle (image below) , The A-10 Warthog, not to mention Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor stealth tactical fighter aircraft.
Why has the US Air Force not been able to wipe out the Islamic State which at the outset was largely equipped with conventional small arms not to mention state of the art Toyota pickup trucks?
From the very outset, this air campaign has NOT been directed against ISIS. The evidence confirms that the Islamic State is not the target. Quite the opposite.
The air raids are intended to destroy the economic infrastructure of Iraq and Syria.
The USAF-15E Strike Eagle
We call on our readers to carefully reflect on the following image, which describes the Islamic State convoy of pickup trucks entering Iraq and crossing a 200 km span of open desert which separates the two countries.
This convoy entered Iraq in June 2014.
What would have been required from a military standpoint to wipe out a ISIS convoy with no effective anti-aircraft capabilities?
Without an understanding of military issues, common sense prevails.
If they had wanted to eliminate the Islamic State brigades, they could have “carpet” bombed their convoys of Toyota pickup trucks when they crossed the desert from Syria into Iraq in June.
The answer is pretty obvious, yet not a single mainstream media has acknowledged it.
The Syro-Arabian Desert is open territory (see map right). With state of the art jet fighter aircraft (F15, F22 Raptor, F16) it would have been –from a military standpoint– “a piece of cake”, a rapid and expedient surgical operation, which would have decimated the Islamic State convoys in a matter of hours.
Instead what we have witnessed is an ongoing drawn out six months of relentless air raids and bombings, and the terrorist enemy is apparently still intact.
(In comparison, the NATO bombing raids of Yugoslavia in 1999 lasted about three months (March 24-June 10, 1999).
And we are led to believe that the Islamic State cannot be defeated by a powerful US led military coalition of more than 20 countries.
The air campaign was not intended to decimate the Islamic State.
The counter-terrorism mandate is a fiction. America is the Number One “State Sponsor of Terrorism”.
The Islamic State is not only protected by the US and its allies, it is trained and financed by US-NATO, with the support of Israel and Washington’s Persian Gulf allies.
Al Qaeda Afiliated Entities are “Intelligence Assets. Instruments of US Intelligence
The Global War on Terrorism is a Fabrication used to justify a war of conquest. The Jihadist terrorists are “Made in America”. They are instruments of US intelligence, yet they are presented to public opinion as “enemies of America”.
The Islamic State (IS) militia, which is currently the alleged target of a US-NATO bombing campaign under a “counter-terrorism” mandate, continues to be supported covertly by the US. Washington and its allies continue to provide military aid to the Islamic State.
US and allied bombings are not targeting the ISIL, they are bombing the economic infrastructure of Iraq and Syria including factories and oil refineries.
The IS caliphate project is part of a longstanding US foreign policy agenda to carve up Iraq and Syria into separate territories: A Sunni Islamist Caliphate, an Arab Shia Republic, a Republic of Kurdistan.
These various affiliated Al Qaeda entities in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia are CIA sponsored “intelligence assets”. They are used by Washington to wreck havoc, create internal conflicts and destabilize sovereign countries.
The US is also supporting Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist organizations in the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region of China. The underlying objective is to trigger political instability in Western China.
“Advertisements, paid for from CIA funds, were placed in newspapers and newsletters around the world offering inducements and motivations to join the Jihad.”
Lest we forget, Osama bin Laden, America’s bogyman and founder of Al Qaedawas recruited by the CIA in 1979 at the very outset of the US sponsored jihadist war against Afghanistan . He was 22 years old and was indoctrinated in a CIA sponsored guerilla training camp. Al Qaeda was a creation of US intelligence, which was put together with the support of Pakistani and Saudi intelligence:
“[I]t was the government of the United States which supported Pakistani dictator General Zia-ul Haq in creating thousands of religious schools from which the germs of Taliban emerged.” (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), RAWA Statement on the Terrorist Attacks In the US, Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), http://globalresearch.ca/articles/RAW109A.html , 16 September 2001)
Since the Carter Administration, Washington has supported the Islamic terror network
Ronald Reagan called the terrorists “freedom fighters”. The US supplied weapons to the Islamic brigades. It was all for “a good cause”: fighting the Soviet Union and regime change, leading to the demise of a secular government in Afghanistan.
Ronald Reagan meets Afghan Mujahideen Commanders at the White House in 1985 (Reagan Archives)
Front row, from left: Major Gen. Hamid Gul, director general of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), Director of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Willian Webster; Deputy Director for Operations Clair George; an ISI colonel; and senior CIA official, Milt Bearden at a Mujahideen training camp in North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan in 1987. (source RAWA)
“We Created Al Qaeda to Fight the Soviets in Afghanistan”
“We know of their deep belief in god – that they’re confident that their struggle will succeed. – That land over-there is yours – and you’ll go back to it some day, because your fight will prevail, and you’ll have your homes, your mosques, back again, because your cause is right, and god is on your side.”
Under Reagan’s NSDD 166, US assistance to the Islamic brigades channelled through Pakistan was not limited to bona fide military aid. Washington also contributed –through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)– to financing the process of religious indoctrination, largely to secure the demise of secular institutions. (Michel Chossudovsky, 9/11 ANALYSIS: From Ronald Reagan and the Soviet-Afghan War to George W Bush and September 11, 2001, Global Research, September 09, 2010)
… the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation.
The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system’s core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books…
The White House defends the religious content, saying that Islamic principles permeate Afghan culture and that the books “are fully in compliance with US law and policy.” Legal experts, however, question whether the books violate a constitutional ban on using tax dollars to promote religion.
… AID officials said in interviews that they left the Islamic materials intact because they feared Afghan educators would reject books lacking a strong dose of Muslim thought. The agency removed its logo and any mention of the U.S. government from the religious texts, AID spokeswoman Kathryn Stratos said.
“It’s not AID’s policy to support religious instruction,” Stratos said. “But we went ahead with this project because the primary purpose . . . is to educate children, which is predominantly a secular activity.”
… Published in the dominant Afghan languages of Dari and Pashtun, the textbooks were developed in the early 1980s under an AID grant to the University of Nebraska -Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan Studies. The agency spent $ 51 million on the university’s education programs in Afghanistan from 1984 to 1994.” (Washington Post, 23 March 2002)
Picture above is translated as follows: “Jihad – Often many different wars and conflicts arise among people, which cause material damages and loss of human life. If these wars and disputes occur among people for the sake of community, nation, territory, or even because of verbal differences, and for the sake of progress…”
This page is from a third-grade language arts textbook dating from the mujahidin period. A copy of the book was purchased new in Kabul in May 2000.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations in the wake of the US 2001 invasion,”New madrassas sprouted, funded and supported by Saudi Arabia and U.S. Central Intelligence Agency,where students were encouragedto join the Afghan resistance.
Washington’s Agenda: Destabilize Secular Institutions. Install an Islamic State in Afghanistan. The Role of the Wahhabi Missions
US military intervention in Afghanistan in the 1980s was supported by the Wahhabi missionaries out of Saudi Arabia, which trained the Taliban (‘graduates”) in the US sponsored madrassas in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Wahhabi doctrine would not have spread in the way it did without the support of US intelligence.
Saudi Arabia worked closely with Washington in recruiting the Mujahideen (holy warriors) to fight against the Soviet Union. The Saudi monarchy enlisted the support of the religious authorities. Fatwas were issued;
“urging Saudi and non-Saudi youths to go to Afghanistan and carry out jihad there. And it praised those who sacrificed their lives for the sake of Islamic nation’s causes.” (Al-Quds al-Arabi, op cit)
Confirmed by the Afghan Project (http://nsarchive.chadwyck.com/afintro.htm ), which has collected hundreds of CIA and State Department documents, cables and memoranda, the CIA developed from the late 1970s, ties with a number of Islamic organizations. The objective was to use “Islamic fundamentalist” doctrine to unseat the secular pro-Soviet People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) government as well as unleash a war with the Soviet Union. The same strategy of supporting Islamic political movements was used by Washington in the post-Cold War era in the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union as well in Bosnia and Kosovo.
In the 1980s, Kabul was “a cosmopolitan city. Artists and hippies flocked to the capital. Women studied agriculture, engineering and business at the city’s university. Afghan women held government jobs.” There were female members of parliament, and women drove cars, and travelled and went on dates, without needing to ask a male guardian for permission. (Julie Levesque, Women Rights: From Afghanistan to Syria: Women’s Rights, War Propaganda and the CIA, Global Research, April 2014)
Al Qaeda and The Islamic State
“The Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT) is presented as a “Clash of Civilizations”, a war between competing values and religions, when in reality it is an outright war of conquest, guided by strategic and economic objectives.
U.S. sponsored Al Qaeda terror brigades (covertly supported by Western intelligence since the 1980s) have been deployed in Mali, Niger, Nigeria, the Central African Republic, Somalia and Yemen. Al Qaeda affiliated organizations have also been deployed in several Asian countries including China and Indonesia.
The Islamic State (ISIS) was originally an Al Qaeda affiliated entity created by US intelligence with the support of Britain’s MI6, Israel’s Mossad, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Presidency (GIP), Ri’āsat Al-Istikhbārāt Al-’Āmah ( رئاسة الاستخبارات العامة).
In relation to the Syrian insurgency, the Islamic State fighters together with the Al Qaeda affiliated jihadist forces of the Al Nusrah Front are the foot soldiers of the Western military alliance. They are covertly supported by US-NATO-Israel. Their mandate is to wage a terrorist insurgency against the government of Bashar al-Assad. The atrocities committed by Islamic State fighters in Iraq are similar to those committed in Syria. Their unspoken mandate is to wreck havoc and destruction in Syria and Iraq, acting on behalf of their US sponsors.
The ISIS brigades were involved in the US-NATO supported insurgency in Syria directed against the government of Bashar al Assad. NATO and the Turkish High Command were responsible for the recruitment of ISIL and Al Nusrah mercenaries from the outset of the Syrian insurgency in March 2011.
According to Israeli intelligence sources, this initiative consisted in:
“a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011.)
There are Western Special Forces and Western intelligence operatives within the ranks of the ISIL. British Special Forces and MI6 have been involved in training jihadist rebels in Syria.
Western military specialists on contract to the Pentagon have trained the ISIS and Al Nusrah terrorists in the use of chemical weapons.
“The United States and some European allies are using defense contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria, a senior U.S. official and several senior diplomats told CNN Sunday. ( CNN Report, December 9, 2012)
The ISIS’s practice of beheadings is part of the US sponsored terrorist training programs implemented in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Yousaf al Salafi – allegedly the Pakistan commander of Islamic State (IS) or Daish – has confessed during investigations that he has been receiving funds through the United States.
Law enforcing agencies on January 22 claimed that they arrested al Salafi, along with his two companions, during a joint raid in Lahore. However, sources revealed that al Salafi was actually arrested sometimes in December last year and it was only disclosed on January 22.
“During the investigations, Yousaf al Salafi revealed that he was getting funding – routed through America – to run the organisation in Pakistan and recruit young people to fight in Syria,” a source privy to the investigations revealed to Daily Express on the condition of anonymity.
…[F]rom 2007 where the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel openly conspired to stand up, fund, and arm a terrorist army to fight a proxy war against Syria and Iran, to 2015 where this army has finally manifested itself as the “Islamic State” complete with funding, arms, and fighters streaming in from NATO members, the source cited by the Tribune claiming that “the US had to dispel the impression that it is financing the group for its own interests,” and thus must now feign to be interested in stopping the organization in Syria, is the most compelling and logical explanation available.
The State Sponsors of Terrorism: Who’s Who
George W. Bush and the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
The late Saudi King Abdullah was known to have supported and financed Al Qaeda in liaison with the Washington. Saudi intelligence played a key role in this regard.
The House of Saud provides financial aid to the terrorists. And so does the bin Laden family. According to The Washington based CATO Institute (November 2001) Saudi Arabia is a “prime sponsor of terrorism”
The U.S. government has warned that it will treat regimes that harbor or assist terrorist organizations the same way that it treats the organizations themselves. Yet if Washington is serious about that policy, it ought to regard Saudi Arabia as a State sponsor of international terrorism. Indeed, that country should have been included for years on the U.S. State Department’s annual list of governments guilty of sponsoring terrorism.
We recall that in the immediate wake of the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush stated in no uncertain terms that “State sponsors of terrorism” would be considered as “terrorists”.
“We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them”.
But there is always an “Exception that the Proves the Rule” and that is George W. Bush himself.
When George W. Bush respectfully kisses King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, does this mean that Dubya could –by some stretch of the imagination– be considered a “suspected terrorist”, who should never have been elected president of the United States of America?
The answer is negative: Kissing “State sponsors of terrorism” on the mouth is not defined by the FBI as “suspicious behavior”.
The Insidious Relationship between the Bush and bin Laden Families
Now let us turn our attention to the relationship between the Bush and bin Laden families.
The Bushes and bin Ladens are long-time friends. This relationship goes back to George H. W. Bush, who served as head of the CIA in the Ford administration, before becoming Vice President under the Reagan administration and President of the United States (1989-1993).
George W. Bush Junior had business dealings in the oil industry dating back to the late 1970s, at the time when his father Bush Senior was head of the CIA:
The wider bin Laden clan [was] closely tied to the Saudi royal family. According to Seymour Hersh … it is far from clear that the royal family, … has forsaken Muslim extremists. Indeed, some members of the royal family itself are said to bankroll Osama bin Laden. … The Saudi monarchy, Hersh reports, has also quietly resisted U.S. efforts to conduct background checks of Saudi suspects in the wake of September 11. While much remains to be learned about these shadowy connections, it is clear that any investigation of the bin Laden’s family’s U.S. investments will lead to some well-placed Texans.
Like George W. Bush, the fortune of Osama bin Laden is rooted in oil and his family’s government connections. Before his death in a 1968 plane crash, Osama’s father, Mohammed bin Laden, made a fortune off construction contracts awarded by the Saudi royal family. The $5 billion per year construction conglomerate, known as the Binladin Group (the company uses another spelling of the name) remains closely tied to the Saudi royal family.
After the death of Mohammed bin Laden, control of the company passed to Salem bin Laden, Osama’s half brother. The roots of the first known Bush-bin Laden convergence date back to the mid-1970s, when the two clans were linked by a Houston businessman named James R. Bath. … By 1976, when Gerald Ford appointed the elder George Bush as CIA director, Bath was acting as a business agent for Salem bin Laden’s interests in Texas. …
After W. lost a bid for Congress, he decided to launch an oil company in Midland in 1979. For $50,000, Bath bought a 5 percent stake in W.’s Arbusto (Spanish for “Bush”) partnerships. At the time, Bath also served as business agent for several prominent Saudis, including Salem bin Laden. In exchange for a percentage of the deals, Bath made U.S. investments for these clients in his own name, according to Time. Although Bath has said that he invested his own money in Arbusto, not Saudi money, the fact that he was Salem’s agent at the time has fueled speculation that Osama bin Laden’s eldest brother was an early investor in W.’s first oil venture. It was around the time of this investment, incidentally, that Osama bin Laden made his first trip to the Khyber Pass, where he would soon join the Mujaheddin and the CIA in the holy war that expelled the Soviets from Afghanistan. (Salem, for his part, owned a house in Marble Falls, and died in a 1988 plane crash near San Antonio.) Andrew Wheat, The Bush-bin Laden Connection, Texas Observer, November 9, 2001)
The Bush-bin Laden Relationship: Flash Forward to September 10, 2001
Despite his family ties and links to the Royal Saudi household, Osama bin Laden was officially considered “a disgrace” to members of the bin Laden family, who reluctantly provided him with “pocket money”, which was used to develop Al Qaeda (The Base). He was referred to as a “Black Sheep”.
Its all part of a “good guys project” of going after Osama, the “Black Sheep”, and waging the “Global War on Terrorism”.
There is nothing wrong, therefore, in socializing and doing business with family members of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, including the late Salem bin Laden and Shafiq bin Laden of the Carlyle Group.
Flash Forward to September 10, 2001. The Bush-bin Laden Relationship prevails. Confirmed by the Washington Post, “fellow investors” of the Carlyle Group Osama’s brother Shafiq bin Laden and former President H.G.W. Bush met at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on September 10, 2001, one day before 9/11, (see image below):
It didn’t help that as the World Trade Center burned on Sept. 11, 2001, the news interrupted a Carlyle business conference at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel here attended by a brother of Osama bin Laden [Shafiq bin Laden]. Former president Bush [senior, see image below], a fellow investor, had been with him at the conference the previous day. (Greg Schneider, Pairing the Powerful With the Rich, Washington Post, March 16, 2003)
Lest we forget, Osama bin Laden was the alleged architect of the 9/11 attacks, yet his brother Shafiq bin Laden was meeting up with the presidents’s dad, former president George H. W. Bush on September 10, 2001.
A day later, on the evening of September 11, 2001, president George W. Bush pronounced a historic speech in which he defined the relationship between “terrorists’ and “state sponsors of terrorism”:
The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I’ve directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.
Needless to say Osama’s brother Shafiq and members of the bin Laden family were flown out of Washington in government planes in the immediate wake of 9/11.
Where was Osama bin Laden on September 10, 2001
Ironically, on September 10th while brother Shafiq bin Laden and George Bush Senior were meeting at the Ritz Carleton, the alleged 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden was undergoing treatment for his kidney condition at the Urology War of Pakistan’s military hospital in Rawalpindi. (according to Dan Rather, CBS News Report).
Everyone remembers what happened on September 11. Here`s the story of what may have happened the night before. It is a tale as twisted as the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
CBS News has been told that the night before the September 11 terrorist attack, Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan. He was getting medical treatment with the support of the very military that days later pledged its backing for the U.S. war on terror in Afghanistan.
Pakistan intelligence sources tell CBS News that bin Laden was spirited into this military hospital in Rawalpindi for kidney dialysis treatment. On that night, says this medical worker who wanted her identity protected, they moved out all the regular staff in the urology department and sent in a secret team to replace them. She says it was treatment for a very special person. The special team was obviously up to no good.
“The military had him surrounded,” says this hospital employee who also wanted his identity masked, “and I saw the mysterious patient helped out of a car. Since that time,” he says, “I have seen many pictures of the man. He is the man we know as Osama bin Laden. I also heard two army officers talking to each other. They were saying that Osama bin Laden had to be watched carefully and looked after.” Those who know bin Laden say he suffers from numerous ailments, back and stomach problems. Ahmed Rashid, who has written extensively on the Taliban, says the military was often there to help before 9/11.
AHMED RASHID, TALIBAN EXPERT: There were reports that Pakistani intelligence had helped the Taliban buy dialysis machines. And the rumor was that these were wanted for Osama bin Laden.
PETERSEN (on camera): Doctors at the hospital told CBS News there was nothing special about that night, but they refused our request to see any records. Government officials tonight denied that bin Laden had any medical treatment on that night.
…
PETERSEN: The United States has no way of knowing who in Pakistan`s military or intelligence supported the Taliban or Osama bin Laden maybe up to the night before 9/11 by arranging dialysis to keep him alive. So the United States may not know if those same people might help him again perhaps to freedom.
Barry Petersen, CBS News, Islamabad. (CBS News quoted in Michel Chossudovsky, Where was bin Laden on 9/11, Global Research, November 16, 2003)
What this CBS report, which has largely been overlooked by analysts, suggests is that:
1) Pakistan’s Military Intelligence (ISI), which is in permanent liaison with the CIA, was complicit in protecting Osama bin Laden.
2) If the CBS report by Dan Rather is accurate and Osama had indeed been admitted to the Pakistani military hospital on September 10, 2001, courtesy of America’s ally, in all probability, his whereabouts were known to US officials.
3) The hospital was directly under the jurisdiction of the Pakistani Military, which has close links to the Pentagon. U.S. military advisers based in Rawalpindi. work closely with the Pakistani Armed Forces. Again, no attempt was made to arrest America’s best known fugitive, but then maybe bin Laden was serving another “better purpose”. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld claimed at the time that Osama’s whereabout were unknown: “Its like looking for a needle in a stack of hay”.
Needless to say, the CBS report was a crucial piece of information in the 9/11 jigsaw. It refuted the administration’s claim that the whereabouts of bin Laden were unknown. It pointed to a Pakistan connection, it also suggested a cover-up at the highest levels of the Bush administration.
Bush and the “State Sponsors of Terrorism”
Ironically, in a subsequent address to the joint session of the House of Representatives and the Senate on September 20, 2001, president George W. Bush stated unequivocally his administration’s intent to “pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism”, with no exceptions (e.g. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan)
Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make.
“We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make.
Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.)
From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime [state sponsor of terrorism]. President George W. Bush, 20 September 2001 (emphasis added)
What both presidents Bush and Obama have failed to acknowledge is that America’s staunched ally Saudi Arabia, not to mention Turkey and Israel are financing and supporting the terrorists, in liaison with Washington.
Both Bush and Obama seem to be caught up in the contradictions of their own political rhetoric, the “either you are with us or you are with the terrorists” conundrum:
“I am with myself and I am also with the terrorists”
Flash Forward to March 2011: “New Normal” and the War on Syria: Supporting “Moderate Terrorists”
With the war on Syria (2011- ), establishing political ties with “State sponsors of terrorism” is considered to be part of a “New Normal”, a humanitarian endeavor intent upon unseating the secular government of Bashar al Assad and spreading American democracy throughout the Middle East.
John Kerry concurs: financial aid to Syria’s Al Nusrah, an affiliate of Al Qaeda is part of an R2P mandate.
There are now “‘good guy terrorists” and “bad guy terrorists”. Financial aid is channeled to Al Qaeda “good guy terrorists” to protect Syrians against the terrorists (New York Times, April 20, 2013)
Barack Obama, John Kerry, John McCain: Are They “Terror Suspects”?
Now let us examine in more detail the Al Nusrah Front, which constitutes the main rebel fighting force in Syria. Al Nusrah is affiliated to Al Qaeda. The leader of Al Nusrah, Abu Mohammad al-Golani, has pledged his allegiance to Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who replaced Osama bin Laden after his death.
According to the State Department Bureau of Counter-terrorism, Jabhat al Nusrah, the main rebel force in Syria is a terrorist organization, an affiliate of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).
The State Department has issued a “prohibition against knowingly providing, or attempting or conspiring to provide, material support or resources to, or engaging in transactions with, al-Nusrah Front, and
the freezing of all property and interests in property of the organization that are in the United States, or come within the United States or the control of U.S. persons.” (emphasis added). It is understood that US State Department Counter-terrorism policy also applies to “state sponsors of terrorism”.
Al Nusrah is financed by Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Israel in close consultation with NATO and the Pentagon.
The Obama administration has openly confirmed its support for the Syrian rebels with most of this aid channeled to Al Nusrah.
US Senator John McCain is reported to have met up with jihadist terrorist leaders in Syria. (see picture right)
The Role of Israel: State Sponsor of Al Nusrah and the Islamic State (ISIS)
Jihadist fighters have met Israeli IDF officers as well as Prime Minister Netanyahu. The IDF top brass acknowledges that “global jihad elements inside Syria” [ISIL and Al Nusrah] are supported by State of Israel. See image below:
image. “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon next to a wounded mercenary, Israeli
military field hospital at the occupied Golan Heights’ border with Syria, 18 February 2014″.
Xenophobia: The Demonization of Muslims
The US president and his NATO allies, not to mention Bejamin Netanyahu, “R the Terrorists”, they are the “state sponsors of terrorism.”.
Obama’s “counter-terrorism” campaign against the Islamic State has contributed to the demonization of Muslims, who in the eyes of Western public opinion are increasingly associated with the jihadists.
Anybody who dares to question the validity of the “Global War on Terrorism” is branded a terrorist and subjected to the anti-terrorist laws.
The ultimate objective of the “Global War on Terrorism” is to subdue the citizens, totally depoliticize social life in America, prevent people from thinking and conceptualizing, from analyzing facts and challenging the legitimacy of the inquisitorial social order which rules America.
The Obama Administration has imposed a diabolical consensus with the support of its allies, not to mention the complicit role of the United Nations Security Council. The Western media has embraced the consensus; it has described the Islamic State as an independent entity, an outside enemy which threatens the Western World.
France has initiated a hate campaign against French Muslims, who represent approximately ten percent of France’s population.
While France mourns the victims of the Charlie Hebdo January 2015 attacks, the French government under the helm of president Francois Hollande is supporting as well as funding Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists in the Middle East and North Africa in liaison with the US, NATO and Israel:
With the recent attack in Paris likely the work of the very terrorists France has been arming and backing across North Africa and the Middle East, the French government itself stands responsible, guilty of the continued material support of a terrorist organization that has now killed French citizens, including two police officers, not only on French soil, but within the French capital itself. (Tony Cartalucci, Global Research, January 8, 2015)
Ironically, while the French media in chorus point to “Freedom of Expression” in journalism, not a single French media has had the courage of pointing to the issue of State sponsorship of terrorism by the French Republic.
The Urgency of World Peace
The antiwar movement in several Western countries is in crisis. Some of America’s wars are condemned outright, while others are heralded as “humanitarian interventions”. A significant segment of the US antiwar movement condemns the war but endorses the campaign against international terrorism, which constitutes the backbone of US military doctrine.
Historically, progressive social movements in Western countries (including the World Social Forum) have been infiltrated, their leaders co-opted and manipulated, through the corporate funding of non-governmental organizations, trade unions and political parties. The ultimate purpose of “funding dissent” is to prevent the protest movement from challenging the legitimacy of the capitalist elites.
The “Just War” theory (Jus Ad Bellum) has served to camouflage the nature of US foreign policy, while providing a human face to the invaders. The logic behind the “Global War on Terrorism” is that of a Just War. It is portrayed as a counter-terrorism initiative rather than outright military operation.
A large segment of “progressive” opinion in the US and Western Europe is supportive of NATO’s R2P “humanitarian” mandate (Responsibility to Protect) to the extent that these war plans are being carried out with the “rubber stamp” of civil society.
Prominent “progressive” authors as well independent media outlets have supported regime change and NATO sponsored humanitarian intervention in Libya. Similarly, many “progressive voices” rallied in support of the US-NATO sponsored opposition in Syria.
Let us be under no illusions: This pseudo-progressive discourse is an instrument of propaganda. Several prominent “left” intellectuals –who claim to be opposed to US imperialism– have supported the imposition of “no fly zones” and “humanitarian interventions” against sovereign countries.
“Progressives” are funded and co-opted by elite foundations including Ford, Rockefeller, et al. The corporate elites have sought to fragment the people’s movement into a vast “do it yourself” mosaic. War and globalization are no longer in the forefront of civil society activism. Activism tends to be piecemeal. There is no integrated anti-globalization anti-war movement. The economic crisis is not seen as having a relationship to the US led war.
Dissent has been compartmentalized. Separate “issue oriented” protest movements (e.g. environment, anti-globalization, peace, women’s rights, climate change) are encouraged and generously funded as opposed to a cohesive mass movement. This mosaic was already prevalent in the counter G7 summits and People’s Summits of the 1990s.
In numerous organizations including the trade union movement, the grassroots is betrayed by their leaders who are co-opted. The money trickles down from the corporate foundations, setting constraints on grassroots actions. Its called “manufacturing dissent”. Many of these NGO leaders are committed and well meaning individuals acting within a framework which sets the boundaries of dissent. The leaders of these movements are often co-opted, without even realizing that as a result of corporate funding their hands are tied.
In recent history, with the exception of Iraq, the so-called Western left namely “Progressives” have paid lip service to US-NATO military interventions in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. “Progressives” also support the official 9/11 version of events. They deny 9/11 Truth.
“Progressives” acknowledge that the US was under attack on 9/11 and that the war on Afghanistan was a “Just War”. In the case of Afghanistan, the “self-defense” argument was accepted at face value as a legitimate response to the 9/11 attacks, without examining the fact that the US administration had not only supported the “Islamic terror network”, it was also instrumental in the installation of the Taliban government in 1995-96. It was tacitly implied that by supporting al Qaeda, Afghanistan had attacked America on September 11, 2001.
In 2001, when Afghanistan was bombed and later invaded, “progressive” organizations largely upheld the administration’s “just cause” military doctrine. In the wake of 9/11, the antiwar movement against the illegal invasion of Afghanistan was isolated. The trade unions and civil society organizations had swallowed the media lies and government propaganda. They had accepted a war of retribution against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Media disinformation prevailed. People were misled as to the nature and objectives underlying the invasion of Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden and the Taliban were identified as the prime suspects of the 9/11 attacks, without a shred of evidence and without addressing the historical relationship between Al Qaeda and the US intelligence apparatus (as outlined above). In this regard, understanding 9/11 is crucial in formulating a consistent antiwar position. 9/11 is the pillar of US war propaganda; it sustains the illusion of an outside enemy, it justifies pre-emptive military intervention, it is the cornerstone of xenophobia and the hate campaign directed against Muslims.
With regard to Syria, from the outset in 2011, “progressives” and mainstream “antiwar” organizations have supported so-called opposition forces without acknowledging that the mainstay of these forces is composed of Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists, recruited, trained and financed by US-NATO and their allies including Israel, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
These antiwar groups, which previously supported NATO intervention in Libya, blame the Syrian government for the atrocities committed by the US sponsored Al Qaeda rebels.
Rebuilding the Antiwar Movement
What is required is to rebuild a mass movement. And this cannot be undertaken by organizations which are supported of corporate foundations and charities.
The social base as well as the organizational structure of the antiwar movement must be transformed. America’s “Long War” is an imperialist project which sustains the financial structures and institutional foundations of the capitalist World Order. Behind this military agenda are powerful corporate interests including an extensive propaganda apparatus.
War and the Economic Crisis are intimately related. The Worldwide imposition of neoliberal macro-economic policy measures is part of the broader imperial agenda. And consequently, the broader movement against neoliberalism must be integrated into the anti-war movement.
Breaking the “Big Lie” which presents war as a humanitarian undertaking, means breaking a criminal project of global destruction, in which the quest for profit is the overriding force. This profit-driven military agenda destroys human values and transforms people into unconscious zombies.
The holding of mass demonstrations and antiwar protests is not enough. What is required is the development of a broad and well-organized grassroots antiwar network, across the land, nationally and internationally, which challenges the structures of power and authority as well as the nature of the capitalist World order. People must mobilize not only against the military agenda – the authority of the state and its officials must also be challenged.
A meaningful anti-war movement requires breaking the “war on terrorism” consensus and upholding 9/11 Truth. To reverse the tide of war and globalization requires a massive campaign of networking and outreach to inform people across the land, nationally and internationally, in neighborhoods, workplaces, parishes, schools, universities and municipalities, on the nature of the imperial project, its military and economic dimensions, not to mention the dangers of a US sponsored nuclear war. This movement must also occur within the Armed Forces (including NATO) with a view to challenging the legitimacy of the military agenda.
The message should be loud and clear:
The US and its allies are behind the Al Qaeda and Islamic State terrorists who have committed countless atrocities against civilians on the specific instructions of the Western military alliance,
China and Russia are not a threat to Global Security. Neither are Syria, Iran or North Korea a threat to World Peace. Quite the opposite. The threat to Global Security emanates from the Pentagon and the US State Department.
What has to be achieved:
Reveal the criminal nature of this military project. War is a criminal undertaking under Nuremberg. It is the ultimate “Crime against the Peace”.
Undermine war propaganda, reveal the media lies, reverse the tide of disinformation, wage a consistent campaign against the corporate media. Bear in mind war propaganda is also considered a criminal act under the Nuremberg protocol
Break the legitimacy of the warmongers in high office. Indict political leaders for war crimes.
Dismantle the multibillion dollar national intelligence apparatus.
Dismantle the US-sponsored military adventure and its corporate sponsors. Bring home the troops.
Repeal the illusion that the state is committed to protecting its citizens.
Uphold 9/11 Truth. Reveal the falsehoods behind 9/11 which are used to justify the Middle East/Central Asian war under the banner of the “Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT).
Expose how a profit-driven war serves the vested interests of the banks, the defense contractors, the oil giants, the media giants and the biotech conglomerates.
Challenge the corporate media which deliberately obfuscates the causes and consequences of this war.
Reveal and take cognizance of the unspoken and tragic outcome of a war waged with nuclear weapons.
Call for the Dismantling of NATO.
Reorganize the system of international justice which protects the war criminals. Implement the prosecution of war criminals in high office.
Close down the weapons assembly plants and implement the foreclosure of major weapons producers.
Close down all US military bases in the US and around the world.
Develop an antiwar movement within the armed forces and establish bridges between the armed forces and the civilian antiwar movement.
Forcefully pressure governments of both NATO and non-NATO countries to withdraw from the US-led global military agenda.
Develop a consistent antiwar movement in Israel. Inform the citizens of Israel of the likely consequences of a US-NATO-Israeli attack on Iran.
Target the pro-war lobby groups including the pro-Israeli groups in the US.
Dismantle the homeland security state. Repeal the legitimacy of Obama’s extrajudicial assassinations. Repeal the drone wars directed against civilians.
Undermine the “militarization of law enforcement”.
Reverse the gamut of anti-terrorist legislation in Western countries which is intended to repeal fundamental civil rights.
These are no easy tasks. They require an understanding of the power structure, of hegemonic relations between the military, intelligence, the state structures and corporate powers which are promoting this destructive agenda.
Ultimately these power relations must be undermined with a view to changing the course of World history.
Without war propaganda and media disinformation, war criminals in high office do not have leg to stand on. Without the mainstream media’s lies and fabrications, the legitimacy of the “Global War on Terrorism” would collapse like a deck of cards.
This text was presented to the Forum on America’s War on Terror and the Urgency of World Peace: Its Ramification in the Philippines.
Social Sciences, University of the Philippines (UP-Cebu), in cooperation with Cebu Educators Forum (CEF), National Union of Students of the Philippines, (NUSP), National Commission on Muslim Filipinos, Visayas (NUSP), NUJP, Cebu Archdiocese, Peace Solidarity Movement, Cebu.
This incisive article was first published by UNZ review and Global Research in November 2018
The stars came out in Hollywood on November 2nd, or at least some of them did. The gala event celebrated the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and raised funds to support its mission in Israel itself and on the occupied West Bank. The organization being fêted was the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF), which has fourteen regional offices in the United States and operates under the slogan “Their job is to look after Israel. Our job is to look after them.” In attendance were Arnold Schwarzenegger and actor Gerald Butler. Entertainment was provided by the singer Seal.
Hollywood Jewish royalty was thick on the ground, the grub was strictly kosher and billionaires competed to see who could give the most to such a worthy cause. The 1,200 attendees at the Beverly Hilton Hotel donated a record $53.8 million, with Oracle founder Larry Ellison leading the pack with a contribution of $16.6 million. Israeli media mogul Haim Saban, Hillary Clinton’s most generous supporter, served as host of the event and donated $5 million. Two weeks ago, a similar gathering of 1,200 in New York City dubbed “A Night of Heroes,” attended by GOP major donor casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, raised $35 million, $7 million coming from Adelson personally. FIDF reportedly was sitting on $190 million in contributions for the year before the Hollywood and New York events.
Donations to FIDF are tax deductible as the organization is registered with the U.S. Treasury as a 501(c)3 educational and charitable non-profit foundation. One might well ask how it is possible that the American taxpayer should subsidize a foreign military organization that is regularly accused of war crimes in its ongoing brutal and genocidal occupation of the Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem? One might also wonder how an organization that continues a military occupation in opposition to multiple United Nations resolutions that have been endorsed by Washington gets any kind of tax break at all? And finally, one might reasonably ask why an organization that already gets in excess of $3.8 billion annually directly from the U.S. Treasury needs more money to allegedly provide creature comforts for its soldiers?
The answer to all of the above would be that Jewish power in the United States makes it happen. But more particularly, it is Jewish money that does the trick since cash on the table provides access both to the media and to the people that matter in Washington. A tight circle of billionaire oligarchs, including Saban, Ellison and Adelson as well as Paul Singer and Bernard Marcus directly support organizations like FIDF as well as major pro-Israel groups like the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the America Israel Political Action Committee, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. The billionaires are not shy about where their loyalty lies, boasting as does Saban, that he is a one issue guy and that issue is Israel. Adelson has stated that he wishes that he had served in the Israeli army instead of the U.S. military and wants his son to grow up to “be a sniper for the IDF.” Both have publicly advocated bombing Iran. In Adelson’s case, the bomb would be nuclear.
Sometimes both the Israel agenda and the financial support is deliberately hidden, as in the case of the recently launched “Christian engagement in the Middle East” anti-Iran Philos Project, which was funded by Singer. The billionaires also directly donate to the campaigns of politicians and support projects that engage in the message management that is used to justify pro-Israel policies in Congress and the media.
Much of the current agitation to “do something” about Iran comes, for example, from these groups and media assets. In truth, American aid to Israel has become virtually untouchable and is something like a goose that keeps on laying golden eggs. The operation of “The Lobby,” generally regarded as the most powerful voice on foreign policy in Washington, led Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer to ask,
“Why has the U.S. been willing to set aside its own security … in order to advance the interests of another state? [No] explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the U.S. provides.”
They observed that
“Other special interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. interests and those of the other country—in this case, Israel—are essentially identical.”
The money committed by the Jewish oligarchs on behalf of Israel has turned out to be a good investment, returning billions for millions spent. Since the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948, it has been “the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II,” according to the Congressional Research Service. The United States has provided Israel with $233.7 billion in adjusted for inflation aid between 1948 through the end of 2012, reports Haaretz.
The $38 billion over ten years in military assistance that the Obama recently promised to Israel is far less than what will actually be received from the United States Treasury and from other American sources, including handouts from Congress. To cite only one recent example, in September Congressman Alcee Hastings proposed a legislative amendment that would give $12 million to help settle Israel’s Ethiopian community. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), speaking in the most recent legislative discussion over Israeli aid, stated that the $38 billion should be regarded as a minimum amount, and that Congress should approve additional funds for Israeli defense as needed.
At its most recent meeting in March 2017, AIPAC announced the latest windfall from America, applauding “the U.S. House of Representatives for significantly bolstering its support of U.S.-Israel missile defense cooperation in the FY 2017 defense appropriations bill. The House appropriated $600.7 million for U.S.-Israel missile defense programs.” And there is a long history of such special funding for Israeli-connected projects. The Iron Dome missile-defense system was largely funded by the United States, to the tune of more than $1 billion. In the 1980s, the Israeli Lavi jet-fighter development program was funded by Washington, costing $2 billion to the U.S. taxpayer before it was terminated over technical and other problems, part of $5.45 billion in Pentagon funding of various Israeli weapons projects through 2002.
How Israel gets money from the United States Treasury is actually quite complex and not very transparent to the American public, going well beyond the check for $3.8 billion handed over at the beginning of the fiscal year on October 1st. Even that check, uniquely given to aid recipient Israel as one lump sum on the first day of the year, is manipulated to produce extra revenue. It is normally immediately redeposited with the U.S. Treasury, which then, because it operates on a deficit, borrows the money to pay interest on it as the Israelis draw it down. That interest payment costs the American taxpayer an estimated $100 million more per year. Israel has also been adept at using “loan guarantees,” an issue that may have contributed to the downfall of President George H.W. Bush. The reality is that the loans, totaling $42 billion, are never repaid by Israel, meaning that the United States Treasury picks up the tab on principle and interest, a form of additional assistance. The Bush-era loan amounted to $10 billion.
Department of Defense co-production projects, preferential contracting, “scrapping” or “surplusing” of usable equipment that is then turned over to the IDF, as well as the forward deployment of military hardware to an Israeli base, are considerable benefits to Tel Aviv’s bottom line. Much of this assistance is hidden from view.
In September 2012, Israel’s former commander-in-chief, Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, admitted at a conference that between 2009 and 2012 American taxpayers had paid for more of his country’s defense budget than had Israeli taxpayers. Those numbers have been disputed, but the fact remains that a considerable portion of the Israeli military spending comes from the United States. It currently is more than 20 percent of the total $16 billion budget, not counting special appropriations.
Through tax exemptions, the U.S. government also subsidizes the coordinated effort to provide additional assistance to Israel. Like FIDF, most organizations and foundations that might reasonably be considered active parts of the Israel Lobby are generally registered with the Department of the Treasury as tax-exempt foundations. Grant Smith, speaking at a conference on the U.S. and Israel on March 24th, explained how the broader Israel Lobby uses this legal framework:
“Key U.S. organizations include the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Hundreds more, including a small number of evangelical Christian organizations, play a role within a vast ecosystem that demands unconditional U.S. support for Israel. In the year 2012 the nonprofit wing of the Israel lobby raised $3.7 billion in revenue. They are on track to reach $6.3 billion by 2020. Collectively they employed 14,000 and claimed 350,000 volunteers.”
The $3.7 billion raised in 2012 does not include the billions in private donations that go directly to Israel, plus billions in contributions that are regarded as “religious exemptions” for groups that don’t file at all. There are also contributions sent straight to various Israeli-based foundations that are themselves often registered as charities. The Forward magazine investigated 3,600 Jewish tax-exempt charitable foundations in 2014 and determined that they had net assets of $26 billion, $12–14 billion in annual revenue, and “focuse[d] the largest share of [their] donor dollars on Israel.” The Forward added that it is “an apparatus that benefits massively from the U.S. federal government and many state and local governments, in the form of hundreds of millions of dollars in government grants, billions in tax-deductible donations and billions more in program fees paid for with government funds.”
Money being fungible, some American Jews have been surprised to learn that the donations that they had presumed were going to charitable causes in Israel have instead wound up in expanding the illegal settlements on the West Bank, an objective that they sometimes do not support. Donald Trump’s son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushnerhas a family foundation that has made donations to Israel, including funding of West Bank settlements, which is illegal under U.S. law, as has Ambassador David Friedman.
Israel also benefits in other ways, frequently due to legislative action by Congress. It enjoys free and even preferential trade status with the United States and runs a $9 billion trade surplusper annum. Its companies and parastatal organizations can, without any restrictions, bid on U.S. defense and homeland-security projects—a privilege normally only granted to NATO partners. It’s major defense contractor Elbit recently was awarded a multi-million dollar contract to apply technologies to defend American tanks. It was a prime example of U.S. aid subsidizing an Israeli industry that then competes directly with American companies, producing a loss of jobs in the United States.
And the transfer of public money to Israel is common even at state and local levels. Some state treasuries and pension funds have purchased Israel Bonds, which are a bad investment, putting retirees at risk, as they have to be held to maturity and therefore have no secondary market and lack liquidity. Most recently, the Ohio Treasurer’s office bought a record $61 million in Israel Bonds on April 3rd. Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel admitted the purchase was in response to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, meaning that Ohio taxpayers are unsuspecting participants in a risky investment scheme largely intended to punish critics of Israel. Mandel is, not surprisingly, hardly a disinterested party on the subject of Israel. He was a member of AIPAC while attending Ohio State University and spoke at its 2008 Policy Conference in Washington. After denouncing Iran, he said that “Israel is our best friend and ally in the Middle East and it’s important that we maintain a strong and lasting relationship with them.” Eighty other state and municipal public employee pension and treasury funds have also reportedly bought the bonds.
The U.S.-Israeli bilateral relationship has been an expensive proposition for Americans, yet another instance where the perceived needs of a U.S. “ally” take precedence over genuine national interests. Tens of billions of dollars need not necessarily be spent to placate a wealthy foreign country and its powerful domestic lobby or to satisfy the pretensions of the billionaires who grease the machinery to keep Israel’s money machine operating.
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].
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Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are demanding answers after Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai finally admitted last week that—as many cyber experts, digital rights advocates, and members of Congress had long suspected—the claim that the agency’s public comment system was targeted by a cyberattack during last year’s net neutrality debate was false.
Pai’s admission came just ahead of an FCC Inspector General’s report which shattered allegations that the system was targeted by multiple “distributed denial-of-service” (DDoS) attacks last summer after television host John Oliverencouraged his viewers to comment in favor of preserving the regulations, which were repealed in a party-line vote in December.
In a letter (pdf) to the chairman on Tuesday, Democratic Reps. Frank Pallone, Jr. (N.J.), Mike Doyle (Pa.), Jerry McNerney (Calif.), and Debbie Dingell (Mich.) wrote that they were “deeply disturbed” by the IG’s findings that “the FCC’s system simply was unprepared to handle the volume of pro-net neutrality commenters inspired by John Oliver’s report,” and that Pai “made a series of misrepresentations to Congress about the event.”
Especially considering that Democrats on the committee had requested that Pai provide additional proof of the alleged attacks, the letter states,
“it is troubling that you allowed the public myth created by the FCC to persist and your misrepresentations to remain uncorrected for over a year. …To the extent that you were aware of the misrepresentations prior to the release of the report and failed to correct them, such actions constitute a wanton disregard for Congress and the American people.”
The letter also notes that “given the significant media, public, and Congressional attention this alleged cyberattack received for over a year, it is hard to believe that the release of the IG’s report was the first time” that Pai was informed that no attacks occurred. “Such ignorance would signify a dereliction of your duty as head of the FCC,” the letter concludes.
“Therefore, we want to know when you and your staff first learned that the information the Commission shared about the alleged attack was false.”
The Democrats included a list of eight questions with the letter, and requested answers from Pai by Aug. 28. The chairman has not yet publicly responded to the letter, but he is expected to face similar scrutiny from Senate Democrats at an oversight committee hearing scheduled for Thursday.
A so-called cyberattack that disrupted the FCC's public comment system when Ajit Pai announced his plan to repeal #NetNeutrality wasn't a cyberattack after all: https://t.co/DsFTMiZEse Now, Pai will appear before a Senate oversight committee to answer why the FCC lied to Congress pic.twitter.com/6ZM8o4JccN
“His failure to acknowledge and fix a broken FCC comment system—and his vehemence in defending now disproven claims of a DDoS attack—seem part of a larger effort to duck accountability to internet users in his decision to kill net neutrality,” Tim Karr, Free Press’s senior director of strategy and communications, declared on Twitter.
“Ajit Pai is an embarrassment,” added Fight for the Future deputy director Evan Greer. “Lawmakers are rightly demanding answers. But they should also act immediately to overrule Ajit Pai’s corrupt gutting of net neutrality, by signing the discharge petition and passing the Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to reverse the repeal.”
Although the CRA resolution passed the Senate in May, so far only one House Republican has signed on to support the measure. Battle for the Net recently launched a scoreboard to let constituents know where their lawmakers stand on the matter.
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A pro-Brexit campaign group with ties to a neoliberal transatlantic network and climate science denial is emerging as a potentially influential player pushing for environmental deregulation and a “no deal” scenario.
Economists for Free Trade (EFT), formerly known as Economists for Brexit, has made the news recently following its report claiming that a cliff edge Brexit and adoption of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules would be “the very best” option for the UK.
The group claims to be a coalition of independent economists, but it has strong ties to Brexiteer Conservative MPs, right-leaning mainstream media and some well-known climate science deniers.
The group has long been pushing for a full break-up with the EU and has accused the Treasury and civil servants of misleading the public on the costs of Brexit and staying in the customs union.
Led by Patrick Minford, professor of economics at Cardiff Business School, a former advisor to Margaret Thatcher and supporter of the controversial poll tax, the EFT uses its strong connections with the mainstream right-wing media to push its agenda of deregulation while giving a platform to some of its members’ climate science denial views.
With a team of 18 members writing reports and about free-trade and Brexit and 13 advisors, the EFT is heavily male and only includes one woman, former trade negotiator Andrea Hosso.
Its members and advisors boast wide-ranging networks including across the political and media spheres while also including millionaire businessmen representing significant private interests.
It includes MPs such as chair of the European Research Group Jacob-Rees Mogg, member of the EU scrutiny committee and former minister of state for the department for exiting the EU David Jones, and the climate science denying former environment secretary, North Shropshire MP Owen Paterson.
Influential columnists such as the Sunday Telegraph’s Liam Halligan, founder of Conservative Home Tim Montgomerie and The Times’ Matt Ridley, a coal baron and prominent climate change denier, are also among the group’s ranks.
Climate change and deniers
The Brexit debate has provided climate science deniers with an influential space within neoliberal, free market and pro-Brexit organisations to push their agenda.
In 2014, Miller told DeSmog UK he was “proud” of his donations to the GWPF and “intended to continue to contribute”.
At the time, DeSmog UK also reported that Miller financed Ukip supporter Christopher Monckton, whose research has repeatedly denied global warming and climate science.
Meanwhile, two of the UK’s most prominent climate science deniers, former environment secretary Owen Paterson and Times columnist Matt Ridley, an advisor to the the GWPF, both advise the EFT.
EFT member Kevin Dowd, professor of finance and economics at Durham University, is also registered as an adjunct scholar for the Cato Institute, a libertarian thinktank based in Washington DC and funded by big fossil fuel lobby such as the Koch brothers.
Several EFT reports on issues regarding Brexit and deregulation include references to Colin Robinson’s book Climate Change Policy: Challenging the Activists, which was published by the Institute for Economic Affairs in 2008. In the book, Robinson challenges the scientific consensus that wide-ranging government intervention is necessary to combat the effects of climate change. He argues that there is uncertainty about the economics and climate science and that the free market economy will better deal with climate change than government-led regulation.
John Longworth, an EFT advisor, is the former director of the British Chamber of Commerce and the co-chairman and founder of hard-Brexit group Leave Means Leave, also based at 55 Tufton Street.
The EFT does not publicise its office address but the group shares the same telephone number as Leave Means Leave.
Last week, an undercover investigation by Greenpeace’s investigation unit Unearthed revealed potential US donors were being “offered ministerial access” to the likes of Michael Gove, Liam Foxand former ministers Steve Baker and Boris Johnson to push for free trade deals and a hard-Brexit in what IEA director Mark Lilltewood was caught on tape describing as a “Brexit influencing game”.
Michael Burrage, another advisor to the EFT, is a senior research fellow at Civitas, a registered educational charity specialising in health, education and economics.
At least 11 of the EFT members and advisors are regular contributors to the media platform Brexit Central.
Business interests
The EFT is also linked to businessmen representing private interests and who want to benefit from free trade deals.
This includes David Ord, co-owner of the Bristol Port Company and a member of the exclusive Bristol club the Society of Merchant Venturers. The co-owner of the Bristol Port Company, Terence Mordaunt, was last year announced as a Director of the climate science denial campaign group, the GWPF.
Ord is a major donor to the Tory party. Through his company, David Ord Ltd, he donated more than £1.2 million to the Conservative Party since 2005, according to data from the Electoral Commission.
Ord is also the vice chairman of Open Europe, a pan-European policy thinktank which claims to be “non-partisan and independent” and advocates a close relationship between the UK and the EU post-Brexit. Open Europe leases an office at 7 Tufton Street from the Church of England charity the Society of the Faith.
Media on side
Thanks to the support of right-wing columnists, the EFT has been able to disseminate its message for a “clean” cut off from the EU on the 29 March next year in the mainstream press.
EFT member Liam Halligan, columnist for the Sunday Telegraph, has worked to push the group’s message into the media writing in his last column on the subject “‘No deal’ is looking increasingly likely – and that’s just fine”.
Last year, the EFT’s convener Miller also penned a column for the Telegraph arguing that “we shouldn’t worry about the Brexit negotiations, no deal is better than what we have with the EU”.
Halligan has previously expressed sympathetic views towards climate science deniers. Reporting on Owen Paterson’s 2014 lecture to the GWPF during which the North Shropshire MP attacked the climate consensus and called for the repeal of the Climate Change Act, Halligan described his intervention as “a corker”.
Halligan is also the co-author of Clean Brexit – making the case for how the UK can make a success of Brexit – with EFT co-founder Gerard Lyon, former chief economic adviser to Boris Johnson during his time as mayor of London and chief economic adviser to the Policy Exchange.
EFT advisors also include hardline Brexiteer Tim Montgomerie, previously a columnist at The Times, now editor of commentary wesbite UnHerd and founder of ConservativeHome.
Times columnist Matt Ridley is also an advisor to the EFT. Ridley has repeatedly used his columns to spread disinformation about climate change and oppose government-led actions to prevent dangerous warming. In a recent column, he approvingly quoted figures from another EFT member, Michael Burrage, without declaring his own affiliation to the group.
The Economists for Free Trade did not respond to our request for comment.
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The framework for our panel this morning is “Unity against the Right: A historical approach.”
There are in fact many histories of such united resistance, each with its own lineage. We could talk of howLouis Riel united Métis, First Nations, and many colonial settlers to battle for democracy and aboriginal rights. Or of how women debated how to find allies in their liberation struggle and the trade-off with partnerships with the sectors of the elite or of the subaltern masses. But I will not speak of this. I will also set aside the struggle of colonized peoples for unity against imperialism, so central to the socialist movement of the last century.
Turin Factory Councils 1919-20
My topic relates to the origin of Fascism. It was born in Europe as an expression of the ideology of European supremacy, and my focus will thus necessarily be European as well. I’m going to speak of events in Italy a century ago, not simply because of their objective importance but because they carry great weight in our political memory and imagination.
Italy – Between the Wars
Italy then ranked as an imperialist power, although a weak and unstable one, the product of an incomplete bourgeois revolution in which owners of large estates and the Catholic Church held great power, while the majority of Italy’s immense peasantry were landless. A sizable industrial working class was largely socialist in conviction, and the Italian Socialist Party governed more than 2,000 municipalities.
Formally a winner in the First World War (28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918), the Italian ruling class had been weakened by the impact of great human and material destruction in this conflict. The war’s end brought economic crisis, the ruin of middle layers, a mass of discharged soldiers with no visible future, and a militant workers’ upsurge that for a moment seemed about to sweep all before it.
In September 1920 a great wave of factory occupations brought the country to the brink of revolution. However, the Socialists gave no leadership and the movement foundered, opening the gates to counterrevolution.
A wave of reaction was then sweeping across much of Europe. It brought many rightist dictatorial regimes to power, as in Hungary, where the regime executed 5,000 supposed Reds. The Hungarian regime was aristocratic in nature, a military dictatorship based on upper-class cadres. Italy was different: the reactionary movement seemed to emerge from among the masses themselves.
Commandos Right and Left
In Italy, after the war ended, the spearhead of reaction emerged: the Arditi, or “commandos,” a network of anti-labour mercenaries led mainly by former army officers. But the most successful such force, the Fascists, was plebeian. Its leader, Benito Mussolini, had been a left-wing Socialist; the group, founded in 1919, posed as supporters of strikes and workers’ management and of land to the peasants. Yet their ideology was pro-capitalist, rooted in worship of the state and the nation. They acted as murderous anti-labour militia, financed by elements of the ruling class and tolerated or supported by the police and army. The Fascists backed up violence with a forceful ideology rejecting reason and fact while appealing to mysticism and religious-like idolatry of the state and the “man from destiny.”
By mid-1921 Fascism was a menacing mass movement. How did its opponents respond?
The Socialist Party relied on the state to rein in the Fascists. Rejecting organized self-defense, it pressed the regime to take action against lawless Fascist gangs, while rejecting entry into government. At one point it signed a “truce” with the Fascists, which the latter quickly cast aside. (The Socialist refusal to join a bourgeois-dominated government, while consistent with Marxist principle, was out of step with the conduct of most Social Democratic parties in that period, which did often enter such governments.)
The democratic parliamentary parties did in fact pass laws and regulations aimed against the fascists. For example, guns were to be reregistered and seized if due cause for ownership was not produced. Barricades were to be erected on highways to block Fascist flying squads. However, implementation depended on police and judges mostly sympathetic to the far right. As a result, little was done to enforce such measures.
The Italian Communist Party, which separated from the Socialists early in 1921, did not perceive the distinction between fascism and the democratic forms of capitalist rule. The Communists were for self-defense against fascists, to be sure, but without alliances and only when attacked. In practice, the Communist Party as an organization largely stood aside from the struggle.
Meanwhile, a spontaneous rank-and-file self-defense organization the Arditi del Popolo (People’s commandos), sprang up and won wide support. Both the communists and socialists were hostile to the new organization, ordering their members to leave its ranks. Alone, the Arditi del popolo could not win against a fascist host financed and supported by the ruling class and aided by the regular army. Even so, the Arditi led and won pitched battles against the Fascists on several occasions, indicating the road by which a united working class could have got the upper hand.
At the end of 1922, the Fascists consummated their one-sided civil war with a parliamentary deal, in which they were appointed to government by the king and mainstream capitalist parties. During the half-decade that followed, the Fascist regime hardened into a totalitarian dictatorship that lasted until 1943.
Two conclusions jump out from this depressing story:
First, the Socialists were wrong to believe the bourgeois democratic state could provide effective protection from fascism.
Second, the Communists were wrong to believe that they could deal with fascism on their own.
During the years of Mussolini’s rise, however, the policy of the Communist International on alliances evolved greatly in a direction that, if applied in Italy, might well have changed the outcome. Five stages in this process should be noted:
First, in 1920, far-right generals in Germany carried out a coup against the republican government. Social-democratic trade union leaders called a general strike that swept the country, while workers in many areas took up arms and gained effective control. The coup lasted only four days. This outcome proved the power of united workers’ resistance to the far right.
After the coup collapsed, workers refused to end their strike and demanded effective protection against the far-right conspirators. The social-democratic trade-union leaders then came up with a novel proposal: a workers’ government including all workers’ parties and based on the unions. Although that government did not come to be, the idea behind it gained support and the Communist movement took note.
The next year, the Communist International (Comintern) adopted the policy that had found expression in resistance to the German putsch, calling on workers’ parties to unite in struggle against the far right and for basic demands they had in common. This policy was known as the “united front.” It was not applied in Italy. Internationally, it met with resistance from Social Democratic leaderships. Why was this policy not applied by the Italian Communists? Their failure to conform indicates that descriptions of the Comintern’s supposedly excessive “centralism” in that period are often exaggerated.
Another year passed, and the Comintern adopted the workers’ government approach broached during the great German general strike of 1920. Such a government would be sustained by the workers movement, not the state, and could serve as a transitional stage to revolution. A workers’ and peasants’ government of this general type was actually established by the October 1917 Russian revolution.
Finally, in 1923, the Comintern adopted a strategy for resisting fascism. It was elaborated and presented by Clara Zetkin, drawing on the experience above all of the German workers’ movement. Her plan consisted of four major propositions:
Workers self-defence against fascist violence: not through individual terror, but through “the power of the revolutionary organized proletarian class struggle.”
United front action against fascism “involving all working-class organizations and currents regardless of political differences.” By endorsing the Arditi del Popolo, the Comintern indicated willingness to join in anti-fascist struggle with non-working-class forces. They rejected, however, the perspective of a bloc with capitalist parties for government.
An ideological campaign to reach the best of the young people influenced by fascism who, in Zetkin’s words, “are seeking an escape from deep anguish of the soul. We must show them a solution that does not lead backward but rather forward to communism.”
Demonstration of “absolute determination to fight to take power out of the hands of the bourgeoisie in order to resolve capitalism’s social crisis,” including by “cementing the alliances necessary to do so.” Zetkin insisted that the perspective of a workers’ and peasants’ government “is virtually a requirement for the struggle to defeat fascism.”
Essence of Fascist Doctrine
There’s something missing here: an analysis of the racist and xenophobic essence of fascist doctrine. It was the reverse side of the fascists’ worship of an aggressive nationalism, which rested on plans for conquest of south Slavs, Greeks, Turks, Africans – all viewed as inferior peoples. In German fascism, such racial stereotyping became more explicit, maturing into a project of genocide against Jews, Poles, Russians, Roma, and other peoples.
Despite this weakness, Zetkin’s report and resolution, adopted by the Comintern in June 1923, stand as the outstanding exposition of a Marxist response to fascism during its heyday in the 1920s and 1930s. It theorized the lesson of the Italian Arditi del Popolo experience while fusing it with a perspective for workers’ power. Alternatively, the Comintern position can be seen, as Leon Trotsky later insisted, as an application of the Bolsheviks’ united front policies in the run-up to the Russian October revolution of 1917.
Given the strategic force of this position, it may seem surprising it was applied during only two brief periods of Comintern history. Comintern anti-fascist policy proved to be unstable, going through no less than six reversals up to the International’s dissolution in 1943. Two of these turnabouts were particularly significant:
In 1928 the Comintern reverted to the sectarian stance of Italian Communists during Mussolini’s rise, refusing to seek alliances with non-Communist workers’ organizations. The Social Democrats, for their part, refused of united action with the Communists. The absence of workers’ unity in action, opened the door to Hitler’s victory.
In 1935 the Comintern switched to a policy of unity with Social Democrats while adding two significant innovations: first, unity was now to embrace progressive forces in the imperialist ruling class and, second, the project was now basically parliamentary in nature: to form a progressive coalition encompassing bourgeois forces.
In my opinion, the 1935 policy, known as “popular frontism,” brought the Comintern into broad alignment with Social Democracy as regards the strategic alternative to fascism. The goal of socialist revolution was set aside in favour of a project for defense of democratic capitalism and alliance with forces within the imperialist ruling class.
This occurred at the height of Stalin’s murderous repression of Bolshevik cadres, and this witch-hunt also infected the Comintern and its “people’s front.”
To conclude, the responses of socialists to the first 15 years of fascism fall into three categories: sectarian isolation, an alliance for progressive reform, or a united front to bring working people to power. Despite the immense transformation in social structure and global geopolitics, these divergent impulses continue to find expression today, as we feel our way toward an effective defense against fascist dangers today.
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Merkel doesn’t really care whether Kosovo is partitioned or not, but by framing his actions as going against the German Chancellor’s position, Vucic is employing “reverse-psychology” in a bid to exploit Serbs’ predisposition to opposing Berlin on principle, which he consequently hopes will shore up support for his unpopular plan to sell out Kosovo.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic is at it again spinning another manufactured drama around himself in an attempt to score political points at home, this time publicly pouting about how German Chancellor Angela Merkel is supposedly opposed to his plan to partition Kosovo as part of a formal political settlement to the conflict and one of his country’s preconditions for joining the EU. Merkel doesn’t really care how the Kosovo issue is resolved so long as it results in Serbia’s official recognition of the NATO-backed breakaway territory as a so-called “independent country”, but she could very well just be putting on a show and playing along with Vucic because she understands how important it is to secure as much public support for his partition plot as possible.
As it stands, Serbs are firmly opposed to their leader’s unconstitutional scheme to surrender the cradle of their civilization and perhaps even three Albanian-inhabited but Belgrade-controlled border territories beyond the frontier of this separatist entity, but it can’t be ruled out that Vucic’s “obsession” with Kosovo could see him committing political suicide like he earlier foreshadowed if he takes unilateral anti-constitutional action to settle this dispute in NATO’s favor. Even so, for his ego’s sake, he’d prefer to perversely frame his actions in as “patriotic” of a light as possible so that his ruling party – which he envisions remaining the single most-powerful one for the indefinite future (whether by hook or by crook) – can enforce historical revisionism on the next generation and “absolve” him of his sins.
For that to happen, however, then he must stick to the weaponized infowar narrative that his government’s rolling out for use against its own people in order to make this perception engineering operation as convincing as possible, hence the elementary use of “reverse-psychology”. Vucic knows just how predisposed his people are to opposing Berlin on principle no matter what the issue is after having suffered under its fascist yoke in World War II and experienced the catastrophic fallout of its joint American plan to dismember the former Yugoslavia, which is why he’s condescendingly utilizing this approach in a bid to shore up support for his partition plan. That said, what Vucic is doing is so obvious that it might even backfire on him.
Nobody wants to feel like they’re being manipulated, especially about an issue as emotionally significant as Kosovo is to the Serbs, and sometimes it’s easier just to openly say what someone’s doing no matter how shocking it is than to go to great lengths to hide it. It wouldn’t make it any “better” but at least it would be the most “sincere” approach, though the Serbian President is so worried about his historical legacy if he succeeds with his sell-out scheme that he’s not willing to forever face the music for what he’s about to do. Instead, he wants to make it seem like he’s standing toe-to-toe with a geopolitical giant like Germany and spiting it in a 21st-century replay of David vs Goliath, notwithstanding the fact that he’s actually doing Germany’s bidding.
The EU leader, like its US master, wants to “legitimize” the brutal removal of Serbia’s civilizational heart from the rest of its national body, and that’s why both Berlin and Washington need Belgrade to finally get on board with what they did and openly endorse it, albeit after first receiving a tiny territorial “concession” that it can show off to its people as “proof” of a “diplomatic victory” in order to distract from the likely surrendering of three Albanian-inhabited border regions that will probably be linked to this foreign-imposed “deal”. Agreeing to this demand is akin to Serbia castrating itself by chopping off its most historically virile part even though it had already been rendered functionally impotent by NATO at the turn of the century.
Still, the symbolism of what Vucic is about to do is so strong that it will lead to the eternal humiliation of the Serbian people. They’re so experienced with his tricks that they can easily see through his charade, but sadly for them there isn’t much that they can do to stop what’s about to happen, with this entire process being completely out of their hands despite the smokescreen of a possible referendum that Vucic has proposed on the issue. Left without any realistic political recourse, the best that the Serbs might be able to do is resist the historical revisionism that Vucic is presently trying to advance by exposing his false narratives and ensuring that future generations correctly judge him for selling out Kosovo.
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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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A few short years ago Alex Gibney had an insightful documentary on Scientology, Going Clear. What really got to me was how utterly foolish and chronically masochistic many of those former members of this so called Church were. I have studied various cults, and even dabbled within one myself during my younger days. I have seen, firsthand through my own vulnerability, how the need to either belong to or feel needed by a group of others can drive one to enter into these cults. The sad reality is that few people, and this is key, ever realize that it is in fact a cult that they are joining.
What made me literally shout at my television screen while listening to some of those interviewed was ‘How much **** did you have to take for so many years before you finally saw the light?’
Watch the film and see for yourself how far people allow themselves to be manipulated and exploited and even tortured.
Mind you, my experience with cults like Scientology, including my brief visit with LifeSpring (an offshoot of EST), revealed to me the vast number of highly educated and (seemingly) intelligent people who allow themselves to be taken in. I myself was taken in too… all the way up to LifeSpring’s advanced training course which consisted of two weeks of intensive (and expensive) mind control. As I began to speak one on one with some of the others sharing this experience, I realized how many overly sensitive and ‘needy’ folks like myself (including many recovering addicts and alcoholics) that were there. The need to ‘belong’ and to ‘feel wanted’ can be so great.
Having gone through three years of intensive Freudian analysis in the early 80s I can see how cults like Scientology and EST and LifeSpring copied much from standard psychoanalysis, then tweaked it a bit and renamed it something else. Having studied how our own government has used various techniques of outright torture, especially in regard to this ongoing Orwellian ‘War of Terror’, I can see how cults copy those techniques and refine them a bit, all for the same heinous purpose: Control.
Having also spent over half my adult life studying the entire Nazi movement right through WW2, I can see how much of what Hitler’s gang did with their mass rallies and pomp and circumstance has and is being mirrored by cults like Scientology. Seeing the leaders of this cult and its top executives dressed in uniforms that resemble those worn by movie ushers from the 30s and 40s, one has to laugh at the audaciousness of it all. Yet, it is real! Thousands attend these spectacles and cheer and applaud… just like those fools did in 1930s Germany! Or, how about the overflowing crowds who follow those TV preachers and send their hard earned savings for ‘Prayer cloths’ and other nonsense?
Now, allow me to go one step further. In two years from now we will have our next Presidential Horserace. Check out the conventions they hold for these two major political parties. You will then realize why cults like Scientology have been so successful.
To this writer the two party system here in our dear America has been the longest lasting cult in our nation’s history. As with the inane British ‘Tory vs. Labor’ con job, our own ‘Republican vs. Democrat’ garbage has for so long scammed so many good, decent Americans.
Do the research and see how the really key issues and policy decisions that keep this American Empire going full speed always have the consensus of the two parties. It has to… or the wizards behind the curtain would do some pruning to make certain of it. Cults, any and all… “Suck”! Isn’t it time for more Americans to ‘connect the dots’?
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Philip A Farruggio is a son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC longshoremen. He has been a free lance columnist since 2001, with over 400 of his work posted on sites like Global Research, Greanville Post, Off Guardian, Consortium News, Information Clearing House, Nation of Change, World News Trust, Op Ed News, Dissident Voice, Activist Post, Sleuth Journal, Truthout and many others. His blog can be read in full on World News Trust, whereupon he writes a great deal on the need to cut military spending drastically and send the savings back to save our cities. Philip has a internet interview show, ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid’ with producer Chuck Gregory, and can be reached at [email protected]
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Looking at the article “Freedom and Loathing in Lethbridge” by Tadzio Richards for Alberta Views is a depressing undertaking. Dressed, apparently, in the clothing of serious investigation – the reality of its sham nature is disappointing … for there is no question that clear light needs to be shone on the Court of Star Chamber rape of procedure, fairness, and natural justice in the University of Lethbridge Academic Freedom case now nearly two years in operation.
As in many Mainstream Media pieces, this one seems – on the surface – to be written by someone wishing seriously to consider the long two years at the University of Lethbridge. But, writing from an Establishment point of view, the writer can only produce material which, in my judgement, violates fairness, balance, and an attempt at exact reporting. The article, in short, is – to me – hugely embarrassing.
Mr. Richards leap-frogs basic and fundamental material embarrassing to president Mahon and the University of Lethbridge Board of Governors.
The Academic Freedom case was propelled into prominence by a vicious, brutal, anti-semitic cartoon posted on the Facebook Page of a University of Lethbridge professor who was out of the country and unaware of the posting. That very strange action might be seen as a kind of fully-intended, mini-False Flag. Surprising, violent, apparently coming out of nowhere, immediately attributed to a false source, then falsely investigated … but, in fact, absolutely uninvestigated by primary authorities … the event was used as a basis, in effect (among other things) to vilify a professor, to further anti-Islamic propaganda, and to provide a basis to work for the suffocation of Freedom of Expression….
As if well prepared in advance, Israel government-connected organizations and people leapt on the August 26, 2016 event and they fell upon University of Lethbridge president Michael Mahon (if they were not already collaborating with him), and they fell upon every government office they could discover in order to vilify the absent (and innocent) professor and demand severe action against him … without a shred of evidence that he was involved. University officialdom became immediately involved as did the Police of Lethbridge who, apparently, had been contacted by B’nai Brith the day before the vicious posting and who set about “investigating” (without, apparently contacting Facebook authorities) Anthony Hall to learn if he had posted the evil cartoon.
That was August 26, 2016. One might be certain that within days president Mahon would have met and asked the returned University of Lethbridge senior Professor for his account – especially since he knew nothing of the vicious posting.
President Mahon did no such thing. But what did happen is that claims were made at the University against Professor Anthony Hall for anti-semitism. One was made by faculty member Goldie Morgentaler. It was made, apparently, after she met and spent time consulting with president Mahon.
The time in Lethbridge between the foul (August 26) posting on Professor Hall’s Facebook Page and the October 4 letter from president Mahon to Professor Hall asking Hall to meet and to hear why Hall shouldn’t be peremptorily, without any due process, suspended and removed from University of Lethbridge property… the time was full of (largely) invalid accusations from non-University organizations, an ostensible Lethbridge Police investigation of Hall’s role in the Facebook Posting, and other such negative ‘noise’ about which no action whatever has been taken and which Tadzio Richards treats (conveniently) as, apparently, not having existed.
He ignores all of those key happenings. And he accepts that the president of the University of Lethbridge suspending Professor Hall, terminating his salary, ordering him away from any University of Lethbridge property, even forbidding him to have access to his own office (without due process) could be described as “a precautionary” measure not a disciplinary or punitive one. Richards does not ask why the University of Lethbridge president, the Board of Governors, and Alberta government officials failed to ask Facebook who it was that posted the vicious cartoon. Instead, he opens his “story” with total Establishment “charm”. As follows:
The marvellously human, very acceptable president, Michael Mahon, is in his office wondering what to do about the totally savage and procedurally improper letter he sent to Professor Hall asking him to appear and say why he shouldn’t be treated contemptuously, viciously, and outside all university agreements and without regard to fundamental processes insuring justice. Hall did not appear. And so reasonable, thoughtful, sensitive Michael Mahon writes a letter unilaterally and improperly pitching Hall out of the University of Lethbridge [pending “a review of the matter”]. To that letter, as Tadzio Richards writes: “Mahon signed his name”.
Richards goes on to say what fine things Mahon has done for the University of Lethbridge. And he airs (at some length) the often unspoken differences about Freedom of Expression held by faculty through their Associations and the national Canadian Association of University Teachers and those held by presidents and the Presidents’ Club, called Universities Canada.
Presidents are frequently more dictatorially inclined than faculty are because presidents are chosen by Boards of Governors often staffed by self-made, no-nonsense, bullying Capitalists, and their like, who expect little back-chat from their inferiors. As one presidential candidate told me openness to ideas and to student action were not evident in any of the questions put by members of the Board to the candidate … who confided in me … and later became a celebrated university president.
The screaming, incendiary fact that Tadzio Richards appears to avoid at all cost to fair reporting and judicious commentary is that Rachel Notley, premier of Alberta, was drawn into the dispute with (embarrassingly) powerful members of Israel government-connected organizations involved; one was even standing by her side when she made her most outrageous [and ill-informed, I say] attack on Anthony Hall.
Indeed, at no point does Tadzio Richards so much as introduce the huge and heavy-handed involvement of Israel government-connected organizations in the whole story! But, on the other hand, he writes a great deal about Monika Schaefer and her brother – questioners of the Holocaust. And he dramatizes, in a way that almost ridicules, Anthony Hall’s questioning of attitudes to the murdered during and after the Second World War (and elsewhere in history). Who is it okay to murder … who not? What does the “selected” building of memorials to the dead mean?
Hall’s insistence upon many Holocausts (not the least being the extinction of whole bands and communities of Native Peoples in North America) appears (by the author’s style used) to amuse Tadzio Richards, and Richards’ style may well be intended to ridicule professor Hall – unless I cannot read what is printed in front of me.
Tadzio Richards finds nothing, ever, wrong with the actions of president Michael Mahon, and Richards does nothing whatever (that he makes evident) to learn of Mahon’s connections and meetings and deliberations with outside-University of Lethbridge forces determined to destroy Anthony Hall. The image of Michael Mahon is sacred, not to be questioned, even if fact has to be twisted and falsified. Even if the screaming failure of Alberta power to ask Facebook Authorities who posted the vicious, anti-semitic cartoon on Hall’s Facebook Page is an admission that Alberta power does not want known who did it (in typical False Flag fashion).
Tadzio Richards shows he has taken a side in his article – and no more clearly than when he ignores the central act: the vicious anti-semitic posting placed on Anthony Hall’s Facebook Page to launch the still unended attack upon him … and the strange and improper actions that have followed that event. To suggest that Michael Mahon’s outrageous actions taken to drive Professor Hall from the University Campus without a shred of acceptable process could be “cautionary” reveals (at least to me) that the writer has given up all independent thought and reasonable judgement … and will write down anything.
And… I would say … he does write down anything, anything that supports a fundamentally false picture of the real events and the real history of betrayal of the finest values that mark excellent universities. The effects of that betrayal will not easily pass, and the University of Lethbridge will become legendary as the University that seeks revenge before excellence, loyalty before truth, and brainless kow-towing to empty, Orwellian ‘authority’ before anything like bold and spirited investigation and research….
The University of Lethbridge will, I think, possess all the excellence that can be bestowed upon it by flashy Public Relations pamphlets… and by articles of the kind published in Alberta Views by Tadzio Richards.
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“The responsibility of the left is to build on Trump’s anti-NATO remarks – whatever his motivations – by offering a real critique of NATO.”
The decision by Democrat Party president Harry Truman to bomb the cities of Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on the 9th with the newly developed nuclear weapon signaled to the world that the U.S. was prepared to use military force to back up its new-found position as the leader of the Western colonial-capitalist powers, now referred to as the “Western alliance.” The main audience for that grotesque display of racist violence in 1945 was the Soviet Union but some 73 years later, militarism and war continue to be the central instruments of U.S. foreign policy.
This is the lesson we must stress continually as the public is being subjected to a constant barrage of incitements to support the use of military force by the U.S state against a growing array of enemies and potential enemies from Russia and China to Iran and the never-ending war on terror. Working-class and poor people must oppose war in part because they are the expendable cannon fodder used to advance ruling-class dominance under the banner of protecting the “national interests,” which are really only those of the economic elites. Fighting for those interests means killing poor and working-class people in other parts of the world.
“Working-class and poor people must oppose war in part because they are the expendable cannon fodder used to advance ruling-class dominance.”
In this era of economic warfare between competing capitalist nations and newly forming capitalist blocs, taking an anti-war position is a pro-working class, pro-poor, pro-displaced peasant/farmer, and internationalist position. The economic sanctions (a form of warfare) that the U.S. levies against various nations have nothing to do with concerns for human rights – official rationales notwithstanding – but everything to do with undermining economic competitors and non-compliant states and movements as in Venezuela.It should be clear that supporting U.S. aggression in the form of economic warfare, subversion, proxy war and direct military intervention is in fact supporting the interests of the U.S.-based transnational capitalist class. Yet many leftists have embraced a crude national chauvinism and joined liberals in demonizing various peoples and nations and thus objectively providing support to and political cover for the capitalist/imperialist system that they pretend to oppose.
The structural crisis of international capital is also a crisis of the nation-state, especially in the centers of global capital from London to New York. The imposition of neoliberal economic restructuring in the West generated a crisis of legitimacy for the neoliberal global architecture that was carefully crafted over the last four decades. The post-war compromise between capital and labor that was officially negated with the economic crisis of 1973-75 and the turn to neoliberalism produced the conditions and politics that produced Donald Trump in 2016.
“The economic sanctions have nothing to do with concerns for human rights, but everything to do with undermining economic competitors and non-compliant states and movements as in Venezuela.”
But the crisis of legitimacy also produced something else — a more pronounced dependency by the state on the use of force, be it in the Black and Brown colonized areas where the economically marginalized reside or in the Black and Brown areas of the world that are no longer accepting their suffering as an inevitable and unchanging condition of their existence.
The $717 billion military budget Congress passed that transfers public resources to the pockets of the military-industrial criminals who profit from war is not only a rip-off scheme but also a recognition on the part of the rulers that military might is their best and perhaps only means to hold onto the loot they stole from the peoples of the U.S. and the world. And it is also why taking an anti-war and an anti-imperialist position is such a political threat to the rulers at this specific moment in history.
In April the Trump administration called on all agencies to expedite the process for increased arms sales abroad . So when Trump raises questions about NATO, we know he is hustling for the military industrial complex. When he calls on NATO countries to increase their military spending, the beneficiaries of that spending will be the shareholders of Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics Corporation, United Technologies and Northrop Grumman. At the same time, his critique of NATO begs legitimate questions: Why does NATO still exist, and why are nations like Colombia being brought into its structure?
It is an absurd position for the left to bash the Trump administration for undermining the so-called Western alliance when he criticizes NATO. For oppressed people around the world, NATO is an instrument of Western capitalist dominance, a structure of European/U.S. colonial power that is an enemy of humanity. So the responsibility of the left is to build on Trump’s anti-NATO remarks – whatever his motivations – by offering a real critique of NATO.
“The $717 billion military budget is a recognition on the part of the rulers that military might is their best and perhaps only means to hold onto the loot they stole from the peoples of the U.S. and the world.”
When Trump meets with Kim Jong-Un, the anti-war and anti-imperialist position would be to support any de-escalation of tensions between the U.S. and North Korea. If it wasn’t for U.S. imperialism there would be no North and South Korea in the first place, so how can any self-respecting leftist not support at least the rhetoric of peaceful resolution, knowing full well that the U.S. is eventually going to have to be kicked out of Korea entirely?
The same thing goes with capitalist Russia. How can someone position themselves on the left and align with a fraction of the ruling class to agitate against Trump’s Russia policies? What do those policies have to do with the economic contradictions facing workers in the U.S., unless those policies lead to potential conflict that must be opposed?
The imperial left has entangled itself in all kinds of political and ideological contradictions. It finds itself in alignment with the neoliberal right because it desperately believes the neoliberal right that controls the state (don’t be confused — governments/administrations come and go, but the state endures until it is smashed) will somehow put the brakes on the more extreme right that is not even in power! The left’s embrace of bourgeois patriotism and support for liberal totalitarianism in the form of collusion between the state and big telecommunications firms to restrict and control speech and information provides a foundation for the legitimization and expansion of fascistic forms of rule.
“The imperial left has entangled itself in all kinds of political and ideological contradictions.”
Our analysis of the duopoly must be unsparing. Both parties are the enemies of the people. Both parties are committed to policies that deny human rights to the people of the U.S. but also the world. And both parties have never hesitated to support the use of military force to advance U.S. geostrategic interests.
When Trump demanded more spending by European governments on NATO, that demand was widely panned as an assault on the interests of working-class Europeans. Many correctly noted that more expenditures by European governments for NATO amounted to policies that would “plunder and loot their citizens through higher taxation to help pay for NATO’s exorbitant expenses.” But the Democrats join the Republicans in the wholesale plundering of the public with obscene levels of military expenditures, including the commitment of more than a trillion dollars to upgrade the U.S. nuclear arsenal over the next 10 years while claiming there are no resources for housing, universal child care, public transportation, services for elders and clean water for the working class.
Therefore, we must engage in unrelenting agitation against both parties while urgently developing independent non-state and non-electoral popular structures. While we do this, we must build an anti-war movement and embrace the position of the Black Alliance for Peace that says without equivocation: “not one drop of blood from the working class and poor to defend the interests of the capitalist oligarchy.”
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Dear Readers,
More than ever, Global Research needs your support. Our task as an independent media is to “Battle the Lie”.
“Lying” in mainstream journalism has become the “new normal”: mainstream journalists are pressured to comply. Some journalists refuse.
Lies, distortions and omissions are part of a multibillion dollar propaganda operation which sustains the “war narrative”.
While “Truth” is a powerful instrument, “the Lie” is generously funded by the lobby groups and corporate charities. And that is why we need the support of our readers.
The involvement of U.S. military intelligence in “fine-tuning” the targets of coalition airstrikes is likely the main factor explaining why the U.S. government has refused to condemn the strike and has refused to support an independent investigation into the atrocity.
A spokesman for the Saudi coalition called it “a legitimate military operation” in its campaign against Houthi rebels that operate in northern Yemen — a claim that was scoffed at by most of the rest of the world, alarmed at the growing humanitarian crisis in the region.
As atrocities and scandal begin to mount regarding the US-backed Saudi-led war on the impoverished nation of Yemen, the involvement and hypocrisy of the United States and other Western backers is coming to full light.
U.S. companies such as Raytheon, General Dynamics, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin have sold billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other countries in the Saudi-Emirati-led coalition which is attacking Yemen.
The U.S. military refuels Saudi and Emirati warplanes through midair exercises. And, the United States helps the Saudi coalition warmakers choose their targets.
The attack was but the latest of multiple incidents in which weddings, funerals and hospitals have been hit by coalition forces in a war that has gone badly wrong and demonstrates Saudi military ineptitude despite the fact that the kingdom’s armed forces operate some of the world’s most sophisticated weaponry, according to military sources.
Nearly half of US arms exports go to the Middle East, supplying about one-third of all arms worldwide, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Between 2013 and 2017, arms exports to the Middle East doubled, responsible for mass slaughter and destruction in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere.
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ISIS has increased its efforts in order to expand its influence in Afghanistan. The local ISIS branch is believed to have about 3,000-5,000 members, including local Afghans, Pakistanis and Uzbeks.
According to available data, most of the terrorists are in the province of Nangarhar. However, cells of the terrorist group operate across the entire country.
Over the past few months, ISIS members have carried a series of terrorist attacks against government targets as well as engaged members of the Taliban in separate clashes and hit-and-run operations.
The ISIS expansion is fueled by fighters and field commanders, whom had fled Syria and Iraq where the terrorist group’s self-proclaimed caliphate was recently defeated. Another factor contributing to growth of the ISIS influence is a poor humanitarian, economic and social situation in the country.
According to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the central government controls only about 56-57% of Afghanistan. About 29% of the country is contested. The rest is mostly controlled by the Taliban.
The Taliban is actively combating ISIS. On August 1, the movement carried out a large-scale operation against the terrorist group in the province of Jawzjan. According to the Taliban news agency Voice of Jihad, 153 ISIS members were killed and over 100 others were injured in the Taliban operation. 134 terrorists were captured.
A day later, the provincial authorities linked to the Kabul government said that 250 ISIS members had surrendered to the government. While these terrorists fled the Taliban operation, the MSM has already described this is a major success in the US-backed effort against ISIS.
A major part of the Afghan population dislikes intensely the ISIS ideology and its sectarian approaches. However, one of the problems of the Taliban is that the movement has not been able to improve the live conditions of the young population in the areas it controls. ISIS exploits this displeasure to recruit new members in the government-held, contested and even Taliban-held areas.
The Taliban has increased its attacks against the US-backed Kabul government aiming to strengthen its influence across the country and to gain additional support among the local population, which is in opposition to the US-led bloc and its “allies” in Kabul.
The previous ISIS attempt to entrench and expand in Afghanistan took place in 2015. Then, ISIS was exploiting its victories in Syria and Iraq to set up additional branches around the world. In 2018, the ISIS expansion in Afghanistan is based on the recent setbacks in the Middle East. However, this does not make the terrorist group less dangerous.
The complicated security situation concerns regional and global powers involved in the conflict. Thus, the administration of US President Donald Trump significantly increased the number of troops deployed in Afghanistan: from 8,500 in early 2017 to 14,000 in early 2018. The US military has also expanded its train and advice efforts to strengthen forces of the Kabul government. A number of strikes by the US air power was increased.
At the same time, Washington is attempting to stabilize the situation through negotiations with the Taliban. According to media leaks, the US wants the Taliban to find some peaceful solution with the Kabul government.
The course of the conflict has shown that the US and US-backed forces are unable to defeat the Taliban insurgency military without deployment of additional US forces and a full occupation of the country. So, the Trump administration is searching another way to declare a “victory” in the conflict – something President Trump has repeatedly promised to his supporters.
However, this situation remains unlikely. The Taliban has repeatedly stated that one of its key demands is a full withdrawal of US forces in Afghanistan.
Russia, China and as well as other Afghanistan’s neighborhoods are also concerned with the growing ISIS activity. According to experts, Beijing and Moscow, which play an important role in the region, are interested in stabilization of the situation in Afghanistan that would allow to the Kabul government, the US-led forces or the Taliban to deliver a decisive blow to ISIS.
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The investigation headed by Special Counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller into alleged “collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election has entered a new stage.
Mueller is seeking to substantiate the case he advanced last month—as part of the indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers—that Trump campaign insider Roger Stone and WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange were part of a conspiracy to hack and publish emails sent by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairperson John Podesta (see: “In run-up to Trump-Putin summit, Mueller charges 12 Russian officers with DNC email hack”).
At least eight alleged “associates” of Roger Stone have been questioned or subpoenaed by Mueller’s investigation. One, Kristin Davis, gave a voluntary interview last month and was instructed to give formal testimony again to a grand jury last Friday. Another, Andrew Miller, refused to appear the same day and has been ruled in contempt of court. Last Thursday, Mueller also subpoenaed radio commentator and WikiLeaks supporter Randy Credico to testify on September 7.
Credico’s lawyer stated last Friday that the Mueller investigation “probably want to talk to him about Roger Stone and Julian Assange.” Kristin Davis told CNN on Monday that the grand jury had questioned her “about whether or not any collusion happened with Russia.”
The purported evidence of a nefarious plot involving Russian intelligence, Stone and WikiLeaks is threadbare to the point of being ludicrous.
Julian Assange publicly revealed in an interview that WikiLeaks had information on the Democratic campaign in June 2016. It published the DNC leaks on July 22, 2016.
Roger Stone claimed to be “communicating” with Assange on August 8. His first alleged messages to Randy Credico, however, asking the radio host if he could use his connection with Assange to find out if WikiLeaks had more material, were not even sent until September.
Likewise, Stone’s tweets to alleged hacker “Guccifer 2”—whom American intelligence claims was a front for Russian agencies—were sent after WikiLeaks was in possession of the leaked emails and had already published the DNC files.
While WikiLeaks cannot and does not reveal its sources, a credible claim has been made by one of its supporters—British whistleblower Craig Murray—that the leaks were made by DNC insiders, not hackers.
In regard to the DNC and other Democratic Party emails, the source is irrelevant in any case. By any standard of journalism, they were newsworthy. They exposed the real conspiracy that had taken place in the course of the presidential election: a deliberate campaign by the ostensibly impartial DNC to undermine the campaign of Bernie Sanders and ensure Hillary Clinton won the nomination.
WikiLeaks published the DNC emails on the eve of the Democratic Party National Convention. The revelations provoked fury among many of the 13 million Americans who had voted for Sanders in the Democratic primaries, in large part due to their support for his denunciations of the “billionaire class” and populist vows to fight for greater social equality.
DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced to resign in disgrace before the convention. After it concluded, DNC CEO Amy Dacey, CFO Brad Marshall, and Communications Director Luis Miranda also resigned.
On October 7, 2016, WikiLeaks published a trove of emails sent by John Podesta, the chairman of the Clinton campaign. As with the DNC leaks, the information was highly newsworthy. The emails included transcripts of speeches given by Hillary Clinton to various bank and corporate forums, where she boasted of her support for Wall Street and commitment to the interests of the financial oligarchy.
The exposures made by WikiLeaks only served to underscore what millions of American workers and youth had already decided, faced with the choice between Trump and Clinton: neither big business candidate could be supported. Trump won the Electoral College and the presidency because, amid an overall fall in voter turnout, Clinton did not win sufficient support in a small number of key states, despite winning the overall national popular vote by more than three million. Russian “meddling,” even if it were taking place, had no significant role in the outcome.
The entire “Russian interference” conspiracy theory could be dismissed as absurd if it were not being so relentlessly pursued by powerful sections of the American establishment, and did not have such immense implications for both democratic rights in the US and world political relations.
The campaign has served deeply reactionary purposes. Firstly, it has been used to demand sweeping censorship of oppositional, primarily left-wing views from internet search engines, Facebook and other social media sites, on the pretext of purging “fake news.”
At the same time, it has played a significant role in the intensified persecution of Julian Assange himself. The WikiLeaks editor has been slandered as a Russian stooge, even as his communication with the outside world has been cut off and preparations made to force him out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he was granted political asylum in 2012. Assange faces the danger of being detained in Britain while American authorities file to extradite him to the US to stand trial on false charges of espionage.
Secondly, the hysteria over “meddling” has been used to pressure the Trump administration to maintain a bellicose foreign policy against Russia, threatening to trigger conflict in the Middle East and Europe.
Finally, the claim of collusion is clearly viewed as a possible means to force out or impeach Trump, ending his erratic presidency through a palace coup, and replacing him with his right-wing, Christian fundamentalist vice president Mike Pence.
The accusations against Roger Stone are central to this agenda. The unstated insinuation is that Trump, through his relations with Stone, was in some way aware of, and consented to, a plot to influence the election outcome.
On September 27, 2017, Stone faced down hostile questioning by the House Intelligence Committee. He specifically denied “the charge that I had advance knowledge of the timing, content and source of the WikiLeaks disclosures from the DNC.” He stated that his only communication with WikiLeaks had taken place through a “journalist” who served as a “go-between.” He later named Randy Credico.
Credico has indicated he will contradict Stone before the Mueller investigation, to the extent that he denies that exchanging some messages made him a “go-between” for the right-wing political operator with WikiLeaks. He has also indicated, however, that he will testify that he does not have any knowledge of a direct relationship between Stone and Assange.
WikiLeaks has repeatedly tweeted that it did not discuss the details or schedule of its publications with Stone.
The main consequence of Mueller’s subpoena of Credico, and ongoing pursuit of Stone, over alleged links to WikiLeaks is that it ensures that “Russian meddling” will remain prominent in the US media in the lead-up to the November congressional elections.
The forces that stand behind the hysteria appear to be calculating that the constant accusations that the Trump campaign engaged in collusion or even “treason” will help ensure the Democratic Party wins a majority in the House of Representatives. This would provide a new base of power for conducting investigations and otherwise putting pressure on the administration, as well as raising the possibility of impeachment.
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American weapons makers have dominated the global arms trade for decades. In any given year, they’ve accounted for somewhere between one-third and more than one-half the value of all international weapons sales. It’s hard to imagine things getting much worse — or better, if you happen to be an arms trader — but they could, and soon, if a new Trump rule on firearms exports goes through.
But let’s hold off a moment on that and assess just how bad it’s gotten before even worse hits the fan. Until recently, the Trump administration had focused its arms sales policies on the promotion of big-ticket items like fighter planes, tanks, and missile defense systems around the world. Trump himself has loudly touted U.S. weapons systems just about every time he’s had the chance, whether amid insults to allies at the recent NATO summit or at a chummy White House meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose brutal war in Yemen is fueled by U.S.-supplied arms.
A recent presidential export policy directive, in fact, specifically instructs American diplomats to put special effort into promoting arms sales, effectively turning them into agents for the country’s largest weapons makers. As an analysis by the Security Assistance Monitor at the Center for International Policy has noted, human rights and even national security concerns have taken a back seat to creating domestic jobs via such arms sales. Evidence of this can be found in, for example, the ending of Obama administration arms sales suspensions to Nigeria, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. The first of those had been imposed because of the way the Nigerian government repressed its own citizens; the second for Bahrain’s brutal crackdown on the democracy movement there; and the last for Saudi Arabia’s commission of acts that one member of Congress has said “look like war crimes” in its Yemeni intervention.
Fueling death and destruction, however, turns out not to be a particularly effective job creator. Such military spending actually generates significantly fewer jobs per dollar than almost any other kind of investment. In addition, many of those jobs will actually be located overseas, thanks to production-sharing deals with weapons-purchasing countries like Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and other U.S. allies. To cite an example, one of the goals of Saudi Arabia’s economic reform plan — unveiled in 2017 — is to ensure that, by 2030, half the value of the kingdom’s arms purchases will be produced in Saudi Arabia. U.S. firms have scrambled to comply, setting up affiliates in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and in the case of Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky unit, agreeing to begin assembling military helicopters there. McClatchy news service summed up the situation in this headline: “Trump’s Historic Arms Deal Is a Likely Jobs Creator — In Saudi Arabia.”
For most Americans, there should be serious questions about the economic benefits of overseas arms sales, but if you’re a weapons maker looking to pump up sales and profits, the Trump approach has already been a smashing success. According to the head of the Pentagon’s arms sales division, known euphemistically as the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the Department of Defense has brokered agreements for sales of major systems worth $46 billion in the first six months of 2018, more than the $41 billion in deals made during all of 2017.
And that, it seems, is just the beginning.
Slow Motion Weapons of Mass Destruction
Yes, those massive sales of tanks, helicopters, and fighter aircraft are indeed a grim wonder of the modern world and never receive the attention they truly deserve. However, a potentially deadlier aspect of the U.S. weapons trade receives even less attention than the sale of big-ticket items: the export of firearms, ammunition, and related equipment. Global arms control advocates have termed such small arms and light weaponry — rifles, automatic and semi-automatic weapons, and handguns — “slow motion weapons of mass destruction” because they’re the weapons of choice in the majority of the 40 armed conflicts now underway around the world. They and they alone have been responsible for nearly half of the roughly 200,000 violent deaths by weapon that have been occurring annually both in and outside of official war zones.
And the Trump administration is now moving to make it far easier for U.S. gun makers to push such wares around the world. Consider it an irony, if you will, but in doing so, the president who has staked his reputation on rejecting everything that seems to him tainted by Barack Obama is elaborating on a proposal originally developed in the Obama years.
The crucial element in the new plan: to move key decisions on whether or not to export guns and ammunition abroad from the State Department’s jurisdiction, where they would be vetted on both human rights and national security grounds, to the Commerce Department, whose primary mission is promoting national exports.
The Violence Policy Center, a research and advocacy organization that seeks to limit gun deaths, has indicated that such a move would ease the way for more exports of a long list of firearms. Those would include sniper rifles and AR-15s, the now-classic weapon in U.S. mass killings like the school shootings in Parkland, Florida, and Newtown, Connecticut. Under the new plan, the careful tracking of whose hands such gun exports could end up in will be yesterday’s news and, as a result, U.S. weapons are likely to become far more accessible to armed gangs, drug cartels, and terrorist operatives.
President Trump’s plan would even eliminate the requirement that Congress be notified in advance of major firearms deals, which would undoubtedly prove to be the arms loophole of all time. According to statistics gathered by the Security Assistance Monitor, which gathers comprehensive information on U.S. military and police aid programs, the State Department approved$662 million worth of firearms exports to 15 countries in 2017. The elimination of Congressional notifications and the other proposed changes will mean that countries like Mexico, the Philippines, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as various Central American nations, will have far easier access to a far wider range of U.S. firearms with far less Congressional oversight. And that, in turn, means that U.S.-supplied weapons will play even more crucial roles in vicious civil wars like the one in Yemen and are far more likely to make their way into the hands of local thugs, death squads, and drug cartels.
And mind you, it isn’t as if U.S. gun export policies were enlightened before the Trump era. They were already wreaking havoc in neighboring countries. According to a report from the Center for American Progress, an astonishing 50,000 U.S. guns were recovered in criminal investigations in 15 Western Hemisphere nations between 2014 and 2016. That report goes on to note that 70% of the guns recovered from crimes in Mexico are of U.S. origin. The comparable figures for Central America are 49% for El Salvador, 46% for Honduras, and 29% for Guatemala.
While Donald Trump rails — falsely — against a flood of criminals washing across the U.S.-Mexico border, he conveniently ignores this country’s export of violence in the other direction thanks to both legal and illegal transfers of guns to Mexico and Central America. The U.S. has, in short, already effectively weaponized both criminal networks and repressive security forces in those countries. In other words, it’s played a key role in the killing of significant numbers of innocent civilians there, ratcheting up the pressure on individuals, families, and tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors who have then headed for the United States looking for a safer, better life. Trump’s new proposal would potentially make this situation far worse and his “big, fat, beautiful wall” would have to grow larger still.
In the past, congressional awareness of foreign firearm deals has made a difference. In September 2017, under pressure from Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), the Trump administration reversed itself and blocked a sale of 1,600 semiautomatic pistols to Turkey because of abuses by the personal security forces of that country’s president, Recep Erdogan. (Those included what the New York Times described as “brutal attacks” on U.S. citizens during Erdogan’s May 2017 trip to Washington, D.C.) Similarly, Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) persuaded the Obama administration to halt a deal that would have sent 26,000 assault rifles to the Philippines, where security forces and private death squads, egged on by President Rodrigo Duterte, were gunning down thousands of people suspected of (but not charged with or convicted of) drug trafficking. As Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin has noted, under the new Trump rules, it will be nearly impossible for members of Congress to intervene in such a fashion to stop similar deals in the future.
On the implications of the deregulation of firearms exports, Cardin has spoken out strongly.
“The United States,” he said, “should never make it easier for foreign despots to slaughter their civilians or for American-made assault weapons to be readily available to paramilitary or terrorist groups… The administration’s proposal makes those scenarios even more possible. The United States is, and should be, better than this.”
The Trump plan is, however, good news for hire-a-gun successors to Blackwater, the defunct private contractor whose personnel killed 17 civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square in a notorious 2007 incident. Such firms would be able to train foreign military forces in the use of firearms without seeking licenses from the State Department, allowing them to operate in places like Libya that might otherwise have been off-limits.
Embracing the Gun Lobby
Not surprisingly, Trump’s proposal to make it easier for global gunrunners to operate from U.S. soil has been greeted with jubilation by the National Rifle Association and U.S.-based firearms manufacturers. The NRA has been a staunch opponent of efforts to place any kind of controls on the global trade in guns since at least the mid-1990s. That was when the United Nations first addressed the impact of the global trade in small arms and light weapons, which ultimately led to the passage of an international Arms Trade Treaty in 2014. Though the Obama administration signed it, the Senate refused to ratify it, in large part thanks to an NRA lobbying campaign.
Now, the NRA has an enthusiastic ally in the president. And that organization, which vigorously backed him in the 2016 election campaign, spending over $30 million on ads praising him or trashing Hillary Clinton, is backing his efforts to deregulate gun exports to the hilt. In a June 2018 letter from its Institute for Legislative Affairs, the NRA urged its supporters to weigh in favorably during the public-comment period on the new rules, describing them as “among the most important pro-gun initiatives by the Trump administration to date.” That’s no small claim, given the president’s enthusiastic embrace of virtually every element of the NRA’s anti-gun-control agenda.
The National Sports Shooting Federation (NSSF), the misleadingly named trade association for U.S. gun manufacturers, is also backing Trump’s efforts to boost firearms exports. The federation’s president, Lawrence Keane, has asserted that the administration proposal will be “a significant positive development for the industry that will allow members to reduce costs and compete in the global marketplace more effectively, all while not in any way hindering national security.”
Among the biggest threats posed by Trump’s approach to guns is his administration’s decision to settle a case with Defense Distributed, a Texas-based firm run by gun advocate Cody Wilson, and so usher in “the age of the downloadable gun.” Though a Seattle-based judge intervened to stop him for the time being, the government had green-lighted Wilson’s posting of designs on the Internet that could be used to produce plastic guns on 3-D printers. If it does happen, it will undoubtedly prove to be a global bonanza for anyone in need of a weapon and capable of purchasing such a printer anywhere in the world.
Arms control and human rights groups have joined domestic gun control organizations like the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Everytown for Gun Safety, and the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence in trying to block the change, which will dramatically undermine efforts to limit the proliferation of guns at home and abroad. If they fail, it will suddenly become much easier to produce untraceable plastic firearms — from handguns to AR-15s. The administration even agreed to pay Cody Wilson’s legal fees in the dispute, a move former congressman Steve Israel (D-NY) has described as “a particularly galling example of Mr. Trump’s obsequiousness to the most extreme fringe of the gun lobby.”
Congress could seek to blunt the most egregious aspects of the Trump administration’s deregulation of firearms exports by, for instance, ensuring that oversight of the most dangerous guns — like sniper rifles and AR-15 semiautomatic weapons — not be shifted away from the State Department. It could also continue to force the administration to notify Congress of any major firearms deals before they happen and pass legislation making it illegal to post instructions for producing untraceable guns via 3-D printing technology.
In a political climate dominated by an erratic president in the pocket of the NRA and a Congress with large numbers of members under the sway of the gun lobby, however, only a strong, persistent public outcry might make a difference.
In the meantime, welcome to the world of American gunrunning and start thinking of Donald Trump as our very own gunrunner-in-chief.
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The media coverage in the Western press went into fever pitch over this story, but no Western journalist actually investigated the story and reported it. Not one. It all emanated from a press release.
Woman arrested with daughter in Dubai over drinking wine is released gloated the Guardian’s headline. This story was written by one of their journalists and ‘agencies.’ In other words, The Guardian didn’t do anything except hash together their version of a press release without declaring who the ‘agency’ was. And they certainly didn’t check the facts.
The day earlier The Guardian reportedWoman held in Dubai with daughter after drinking wine on flight and that the Swedish dentist says she was detained and had her passport confiscated after having one glass of wine after it was offered by the airline’s own cabin crew.
The mainstream press dutifully followed – its a great story. Blonde, attractive Western woman unjustly arrested with her little daughter, locked up in harsh stinking conditions having been entrapped for having had a single glass of wine – how typical of those dastardly Arabs. The Telegraph, The Star, et al went off on one, became delirious as the story – one designed for click-baiting by a click-baiter, reached its summit of hysteria by quoting the distressed detainee: “My daughter is a happy, smiley girl, but now she was terrified.”
Perhaps Ellie Holman, 44, who arrived on an Emirates flight from London Gatwick on July 13 should have checked her passport which had expired 3 days earlier. One has to question why did the officials at Gatwick did not notice or that the computerised check-in system failed.
Missing from all these MSM reports is the fact that Ms Holman was, in fact, also curiously carrying an Iranian passport. When she produced that, the official at Dubai airport, quite rightly pointed out that she needed to pay for a short 96-hour visa as she had not got one. Many countries use these short visas to allow for transfer times in the airport and short breaks for long-haul flights. Ms Holman had neither a valid passport nor a visa. She was not legally allowed entry. The official offered a way out. Ms Holman got angry because her planned 5-day visit had to be shortened in order to comply with the rules.
According to a statement issued by the airport, Ms Holman “refused angrily to the additional payment fees that the process would require and proceeded to verbally insult the immigration officer and take photos of the officer via her phone”.
Again, it should be pointed out that in most airports people are not allowed to take photos at border control, border crossings or check-in areas for security reasons. These rules exist in all British airports for instance. In Britain, Holman would have been sent straight back to the country of origin at the expense of the airline.
It should also be pointed out that it is against the law to be publicly abusive in the UAE. Anyone who has lived and worked in the UAE knows this is the one thing that residents really do like. There is almost no such things as violence, thuggery, theft, drunkenness, swearing in public or vandalism – because the penalty is a few weeks in prison and deportation.
Ms Holman initially told the British media that her detention related to having a glass of wine on her flight to Dubai, which is not an offence nor a reason for her detention. And it never has been. People arriving in Dubai or Abu Dhabi will not be arrested for having a drink on an inbound flight. If you are visibly drunk and abusive at an airport, then maybe you’ll be arrested. But then you would be anywhere in the world.
Two other parts to this story are wrong as well.
The Telegraph, for instance, said:
“A mother was detained in Dubai for three days with her four-year-old daughter after a drinking a complimentary glass of wine on a flight from London.”
Holman was not detained for three days. She was apparently detained for less than 24 hours and then allowed to stay with friends whilst the authorities sorted out Holman’s situation.
The paper claimed Holman was made to clean toilets and then claimed they were denied access to toilets and that she didn’t realise it was illegal to drink alcohol heading to Dubai. None of these claims seem to be true. It is not illegal for Westerners to drink alcohol in Dubai.
Holman said that after three days in a hellhole prison:
“By now, Gary (her partner) knew something was wrong and had flown to Dubai to look for me. Friends had found out I was in jail and tried to visit. Nobody was allowed to see us.”
Dubai’s attorney general refuted claims that Ms Holman was not looked after and said:
“The woman and her child remained together in the airport security office for less than 24 hours while services were provided to them, taking into full account and consideration of her four-year-old daughter.”
You may choose not to believe that – after all – the Dubai authorities would say that.
However, one should not be confused with the central character in this case – that of ‘Detained in Dubai.’ Whilst not disputing that this organisation has indeed assisted some Westerners to get out of trouble – in this case, they are misleading the public.
Detained in Dubai (DID) are described in all of the MSM as an NGO or ‘non-governmental-organisation. An NGO is officially defined as: a non-profit organization that operates independently of any government, typically one whose purpose is to address a social or political issue. Not a single journalist has checked this fact out.
Just to start, DID are located in London. They are registered as a limited company. It was incorporated only in March – 2018.
In 2017, Detained in Dubai was dissolved via a compulsory strike-off. The strike-off is a notice of intent to strike the company name off the Companies House register. This may be because the company has been dissolved. However, a compulsory strike-off action was threatened by Companies House and then discontinued in both 2016 and in 2015. There could very well be legitimate reasons for this, we do not know.
The listed director is Rahda Stirling who owns all the shares in the company and there are no other significant persons listed. Stirling’s listed occupation is not ‘solicitor’ or ‘lawyer’ but only as ‘MD’. The overview of the company activities is described as “Other professional, scientific and technical activities not elsewhere classified.”
Stirling, born in Florida, America is described by Wikipedia as having attended Australia’s Bond Law School. This is inaccurate. The university, which was only granted that status in 1989 is called simply Bond University. It, like many, does not specialise particularly in law as a subject and we cannot find Rahda Stirling as having achieved any academic qualifications in the subject of law. That does not say she has none, just that we have not dug deep enough yet to find any.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority in Britain does not list Stirling as a qualified practising member of the law community.
One of DID’s partners, David Haigh is described on their own website as “one of the most high profile human rights lawyers focusing on the Middle East today” – does not actually have a certificate to practise law in the UK. According to one report:
“He has not got a practising certificate at this time and has not had one since 2014, which means he cannot act as a solicitor carrying out any of the six reserved legal activities.” the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) spokesman said.
“We know that he has spent time in prison because we gather information on the regulated community. When an application is made we assess all admissible evidence, but obviously we cannot speculate what his intentions might be in the future.”
There is an interesting story HERE about Haigh, who was himself deported from the UAE for embezzlement, amongst other things. How true they are, is for you to decide as they were published in the press in the UAE.
Another partner in the firm is Shahid Bolsen, also not legally qualified from what we can ascertain, has a background in political science, economics, and journalism and “plays a key role in managing the mainstream and social media campaigns for Detained in Dubai” – according to the DID website.
It is important to note that the Swedish dentist, living in Britain, with an out of date EU passport but with an in-date Iranian passport and no visa – took her partner’s surname as if married – is not actually married. You can imagine any border control official anywhere in the world being somewhat suspicious of an individual presenting themselves as such. And let’s not forget, to complicate matters, the UAE is not friends with Iran – quite the opposite.
It is also important to note that Ellie Holman has complained publicly that the cost of her three-day detainment in Dubai was around £30,000. In fact, she describes this as all of her and her ‘husbands’ savings. No other firm has been referenced in this story and only Detained in Dubai has been named as representing her, one can only assume where their savings went.
Detained in Dubai actively state on their website that:
“We assist with case strategy, press, negotiating the legal system in the UAE and whatever it takes to achieve a positive outcome for you.”
Finally, we are not defaming the work of Detained in Dubai – and quite sure it does good work. But it is not an NGO as we have been misled to believe, is a for-profit limited company, not a charity and does not provide legal services because it, nor the people who work there are not qualified to do so.
This story was probably created in order to stir up a media frenzy to put pressure on the authorities in Dubai when it probably wasn’t required in the first place – for money. Many of the claims made by the MSM in this story are indeed, not true at all.
Here are some readers responses (screenshots) from the Independent who also reported the story. There were at the time only 19 responses, several were angry at the quality of reporting:
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The disconnect could not be greater. As wild-fires raged across the US last week, inflamed by climate change, Trump officials attended the America First Energy Conference, where delegates heard age-old fossil fuel arguments that, amongst others, carbon dioxide makes the planet greener and could not be creating a climate crisis.
The conference comes after an unprecedented heat wave in the Northern hemisphere. Scientists are warning that this summer’s heatwave is caused by climate change, which is turn has caused unprecedented temperatures and wild-fires from Canada, to Greece, Sweden and the US. Indeed this summer’s heatwave was made more than twice as likely by climate change, according to a rapid assessment by scientists.
Some scientists are even warning that we are descending into “hothouse earth”, where a series of positive feedback mechanisms could trigger even more extreme warming.
A record number of Americans now believe that humans are causing climate change, too. The latest survey by the University of Michigan Muhlenberg College revealed that “a record 60% of Americans now think that global warming is happening and that humans are at least partially responsible for the rising temperatures.”
These high temperatures continue to cause massive wildfires with over 100 major active blazes in the US right now. Some 30,000 personnel are battling wildfires that have devastated over 1.6m acres (648,000 hectares) of land.
Meanwhile the climate dinosaurs continue as if nothing is happening. They deny the science and evidence as the flames get ever closer.
The conference was organised by the leading climate denial think tank, Heartland Institute (picture is a screengrab of its website) which has been regurgitating the same climate denial old rubbish – what we now would now call “fake news” – for the last two decades. It has received significant funding from Exxon and the Koch Brothers to do so.
But all their climate denial friends were there too, according to Reuters, including speakers from JunkScience, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, and the Center For Industrial Progress and officials from the U.S. Department of Interior and the White House.
The panels included sessions on “Carbon Taxes, Cap & Trade, and Other Bad Ideas,” “Fiduciary Malpractice: The Sustainable Investment Movement,” and “Why CO2 Emissions Are Not Creating A Climate Crisis.”
Another one of the ludicrous conspiracy theories peddled at the conference was “that the United Nations puts out fake science about climate change to control the global energy market”. Oh and they hate renewable energy too, calling wind and solar energy “dumb”.
According to Reuters, the U.S. officials who attended included White House Special Assistant Brooke Rollins, Interior Department Assistant Secretary Joe Balash, and Jason Funes, an assistant in the office of external affairs at Interior. All “praised the administration’s moves to clear the way for oil industry activity”.
Tim Huelskamp, president and CEO of the Heartland Institute, closed the seminar by stating the person who had made the difference to the climate deniers was Donald Trump.
“We have a President who has kept his promises. It proves that one man can make a difference”. He called Trump “our last political chance at freedom.”
And in many ways he is right. Trump represents the last chance for the fossil fuel industry to wreck this planet. What they call freedom, we call wildfires. When they see freedom, we see sea-level rise.
“The leftist claims about sea level rise are overblown, overstated or frankly just wrong.”
Ironically the conference was held in New Orleans, which was once ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. As Reuters – not normally seen as left-wing conspiracy theorists – noted:
“Evidence of sea level rise, however, is strewn across the state that hosted the conference.”
The panel speakers are so blinkered in their climate denial they do not notice what is happening right now. They may look, but they cannot see. On the speaker’s lectern was the strapline “freedom rising”. Maybe someone should have just written “sea-level rising” instead.
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Featured image is a screengrab from the Heartland website.
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The past weeks have shown how part of the American establishment is weighing the pros and cons of the Trump administration’s strategies around the world. I have a strong feeling that in the coming weeks we will see the destabilizing effects of American politics, especially towards its closest allies.
A disastrous flip of events appears to be on its way, in case Trump were to lose the November midterm elections (the House and Senate elections). If this were to happen, the Trump administration would probably exploit the Russia gate conspiracy claiming that Moscow had now acted in favour of Democrats. Trump could argue that Moscow was disappointed by the lack of progress in softening US sanctions against Russia; indeed, by Trump’s measures against Russia (expulsions, sanctions, property seizures) and its allies (China, Iran and Syria).
Trump would not hesitate to claim Russian interference in the midterms to aid the Democrats, citing intelligence reports. He would say that Russia aims to create chaos in the US by placing roadblocks in the way of attempts to “Make America Great Again” and handing the House and Senate to the Democrats. He would use the electoral defeat to blame his accusers of getting aid from Russia. In doing so, he would be accelerating the implosion of his administration in an all-out war with the establishment. The mainstream media would dismiss Trump’s accusations against the Democrats of collusion with Russia as a conspiracy theory of an unravelling presidency. All this, summed up, would lead to the Democrats having majority in both houses, easily proceeding to the impeachment of Trump.
Italy is piggybacking on the US, operating side by side with Washington to expand its role in North Africa, especially in Libya. However, Rome will have to offer something in return to please Trump. Evidence points to the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) as the quid pro quo, the US encouraging Italy to complete it in order to put pressure on Germany’s North Stream II project and undermine Russian gas deliveries to the EU. I have the impression that the only card available for Italy to play (and which interests Trump) is an endorsement of Washington’s positions on Iran, given that Italy already shares in common with Washington differences with Paris and Berlin on many issues. In this sense, Conte’s words about US intelligence info on the JCPOA paves the way for further decisions:
“”I didn’t take a specific stand. I said we are willing to evaluate the necessity to take more rigorous stances if the (nuclear) accord is shown to be ineffective. We are waiting to have elements of intelligence, Italy would like to evaluate it with its EU partners”
As evidence of Washington’s failed strategy towards Iran, India continues to buy crude oil from Iran, increasing the amount in the last month by 52%. China is also increasing its importation from Iran. Meanwhile, Iran is working with other countries to circumvent the US dollar in order to sustain their mutual trade within a new framework of agreements. Washington is especially disappointment with New Delhi, with American officials continuing to reiterate that India’s intentions align with Washington’s. Since November, with the imposition of counter-sanctions on countries that continue to work with Iran, Washington’s bluff will become evident to everybody, much to the disappointment of the Trump administration.
In the meantime, relations between Canada and Saudi Arabia have almost completely broken down on account of human rights. Ambassadors have been expelled and there is a continuing war of words, with trade between the two countries being brought to a stop. This is the latest example of the divisions manifesting themselves within the Western elites, with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Trump administration being in opposition to the likes of France, Germany and Canada.
What is also clear is that the issue of energy is central to Washington’s strategy. Between criticism of the German Nord Stream II and invitations to Italy to finish the Trans Adriatic Pipeline, it is clear that both the Trump administration and the policy makers of the deep state are strongly concerned about what actions allies and enemies could take to overcome the pressure brought to bear by Washington on the issues of energy, Iran, and sanctions. This shows that the US is very fearful of de-dollarization, especially coming from its allies.
Bypassing sanctions with currencies other than US dollar, or creating creative finance structures that bypass the SWIFT payment system, are the only means of maintaining relations between countries in spite of Washington’s sanctions. The US strategy is limited in the short term and certainly harmful in the long term for US Dollar financial hegemony.
That Washington’s allies are even entertaining such possibilities places US financial hegemony at great risk in the long run. This worries the American deep state a great deal, even without Trump, who in any case will not be in charge past 2024 (should he be re-elected in 2020). One of the points of greatest tension is precisely this strategic difference between the Trump administration and the policy makers in the deep state (AKA Langley and Foggy Bottom). While the former can increase the pressure on allies (through NATO, the JCPOA, TTIP and TPP) to obtain immediate solutions and benefits, the latter must above all consider the effects in the medium and long term, which are often harmful for US interests. The imposition of sanctions on Iran, and the obligation of European allies to comply with this directive, is a prime example.
Another of Washington’s strategies revolves around the price of oil. The United States would have no problem seeing the price of crude oil skyrocket. Secretly, many in the administration hope that Iran will take the first false step by closing the Strait of Hormuz (Teheran will not make this move as things stand now); some even hope that the crisis between Canada and Saudi Arabia will have some impact on the cost of crude oil.
Even trade war and tariffs should be seen as part of Trump’s short-term strategy to demonstrate to his base that something is being done against countries that he thinks are taking advantage of the United States. In reality, Trump knows, or should know, that there is no way of stopping China’s growth, a result of globalization that has been the engine of free-market capitalism, making the western elite richer than ever before. Trump deceives his base with trade wars and tariffs, but in the long run the costs will be borne by American consumers, many of whom are Trump’s voters.
Trump thinks in the very short term, constantly aiming to present himself before his electors with a list of ticked boxes ( Peter Lavelle of Crosstalk gets trademark of this definition), confirming that he is fulfilling his electoral promises. In this way he hopes to win the midterms in November. To succeed in this endeavor, the economy must pick up to a gallop (for now this is happening thanks to a series of tax cuts and the continuous pumping of easy money from the Fed) and he must put pressure on his allies as well as aggressively confront Iran, Russia and China through sanctions, cutting energy supplies and forcing Tehran to negotiate once again the nuclear agreement.
What many analysts struggle with when trying to analyse Donald Trump is that there is no overarching strategy uniting his actions into a coherent policy. Trump acts extemporaneously, often with a very short strategic outlook and for internal political motivations.
Nevertheless, if there is something that worries the deep state, it is the long-term impact of tariffs, trade war, sanctions and impositions on allies; or, to put it most simply, de-dollarization. If there is anything that scares the Trump administration, it is remaining entangled in a destabilizing war with Iran that would lead to the early end of the Trump presidency and destroying its legacy, as Bush’s legacy was destroyed by Iraq.
In all this uncoordinated and inconsistent behaviour, there is the hope of a major rise in the price of oil that would help slow down China’s growth and transform the US shale-gas industry into an ultra-profitable business, further boosting the US economy and allowing Trump to present further evidence to his base of his ability to improve their lives.
The United States is in the terminal phase of its unipolar moment and is struggling to come to terms with the downsizing of its role in the world. Its ruling elite cannot accept the prospect of sharing power, preferring to oppose by all means possible the transition to a world order involving more powers. If this situation is already complex for any superpower enough to manage, a president has been elected who has little regard for compromise and mediation.
Ultimately, in addition to an obvious problem in defining Washington’s role in the world over the next few years, the United States finds itself with a president who is in almost open warfare with an important part of the US establishment. The deep state is still living on the hope of impeaching Trump to halt the loss of US influence, deluding themselves that things can return to how they were at the height of the unipolar moment in the 1990s.
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Federico Pieraccini is an independent freelance writer specialized in international affairs, conflicts, politics and strategies.
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Last Thursday’s horrific bombing of a bus full of school children in northern Yemen was carried out using a weapon sold to the Saudi Arabia-led coalition by the United States, photo evidence of the bomb site has revealed.
The photos taken at the scene by Ahmed AbdulKareem for MintPress News and by other local journalists indicate that a Mark 82 (MK-82) bomb, jointly manufactured by U.S. weapons companies Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, had been used in the attack.
The attack killed at least 50 and wounded over 60 others, the vast majority of whom were young children. Despite the fact that those targeted were civilians and mostly children, the Saudi-led coalition defended the strike, calling it a “legitimate military operation.”
MK-82 bombs, along with other “general purpose” MK series bombs, have been sold to the Saudi-led coalition by the U.S. through a series of contracts made in 2016 and 2017. In addition to last Thursday’s atrocity, the Saudi-led coalition has used the MK-82 bombs to target Yemeni civilians in the past, such as the coalition’s bombing of a funeral in 2016 that left over 140 dead and 525 wounded.
A close-up of a bomb fragment found at the scene of the airstrike on a Yemeni school bus last Thursday. Ahmed AbdulKareem | MintPress News
Over 10,000 MK-series bombs have been sold to the coalition since the war began, despite an international outcry over the coalition’s near-constant targeting of civilians and critical infrastructure. Overall, the U.S. has sold billions of dollars worth of bombs to the Saudis since the war in Yemen began in 2015, most recently approving over $110 billion in weapon sales to Saudi Arabia in May of last year.
The U.S. relies on “fog of war” excuse to avoid responsibility
Despite the fragments of U.S.-made munitions found at the strike site, the U.S. military has refused to acknowledge that the bomb used in the attack had been sold to the coalition by the United States. Army Maj. Josh Jacques — a spokesman for U.S. Central Command — told Vox that “We may never know if the munition [used] was one that the U.S. sold to them,” asserting as his reason the fact that the U.S. military doesn’t “have a lot of people on the ground.” Yet, the U.S. does have an unspecified number of ground troops active in Yemen who are involved with “intelligence sharing” and interrogations at UAE-run “black-site” prisons.
A child holds a fragment of the U.S.-made MK-82 bomb used in last Thursday’s massacre of Yemeni schoolchildren. Ahmed AbdulKareem | MintPress News
However, U.S. complicity in last Thursday’s bombing of a school bus goes far beyond merely providing the munitions used. Indeed, since this past June, the U.S. military has been providing the Saudi-led coalition “intelligence to fine-tune their [the coalition’s] list of airstrike targets” in Yemen — meaning that the U.S. military was either, at worst, involved in choosing the strike location, or at the very least aware of the coalition’s intention to target the school bus.
The involvement of U.S. military intelligence in “fine-tuning” the targets of coalition airstrikes is likely the main factor explaining why the U.S. government has refused to condemn the strike and has refused to support an independent investigation into the atrocity, instead supporting only a Saudi-led inquiry. Indeed, were the full extent of U.S. involvement in last week’s bombing made clear, the U.S. government could find itself in trouble, as certain government officials could be accused of complicity in coalition war crimes in Yemen.
However, the weapons companies themselves, regardless of the damage their products cause, continue to be free of any and all liability.
Fragments of the U.S.-made MK-82 bomb used in last Thursday’s massacre of Yemeni schoolchildren. Ahmed AbdulKareem | MintPress News
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Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.
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This year marks the hundredth anniversary since the death of Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) and Egon Schiele (1890-1918), two of Austria’s greatest artists. That same year, 1918, also saw the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire following its defeat in World War I – the end, that is, of an entire era, of a world.
Fin de siècle Vienna was a place of extraordinary innovation – in music (with Arnold Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School), in literature (with Modernists such as Robert Musil and Herman Broch), in science (with Sigmund Freud and the development of psychoanalysis), and, of course, the visual arts, with the founding of the Vienna Secession in 1897, whose first president was Gustav Klimt. In Vienna, the rupture caused by the war was total: the city became the archetype of “a doomed society, in which brilliant achievements glowed in the gathering twilight.”
Schiele’s Town among Greenery
The Neue Galerie in New York City is celebrating the centenary with a concise but captivating show highlighting the expressive and erotically charged draftsmanship of Klimt and Schiele. In his 1908 manifesto “Ornament and Crime”, Adolf Loos famously states that “All art is erotic.” Klimt was one of the main targets of Loos’ essay. Klimt’s drawings were sometimes ancillary works and preparatory studies for major portraits – but the drawings for which he is best known are independent studies of nude models. These were women, either solitary or in couples, in often explicitly erotic poses, postures and attitudes.
Klimt and Schiele
Klimt is the consummate painter of women. Men hardly seem to interest him at all: it is the female form that is the persistent theme throughout Klimt’s work. The painter was also a brilliant draughtsman and over three thousand drawings of his have survived. A small but suggestive handful of these have made their way to the Neue Galerie’s thrilling exhibition. As with Klimt’s Reclining Nude drawn in blue pencil, they are oftentimes engaged in autoeroticism – and while the pictures are usually minimal in the way of detail, Klimt’s graceful line is sufficient to give these works a delicate, genuine intimacy and wonderfully alluring quality.
Klimt’s Moving Water (1898) (image below) is a beautifully haunting oil painting; a dream-like vision featuring several slender female nudes who drift and glide within the water as though it were their native element. Indeed, they could be Richard Wagner’s Rhine-maidens – an association that is strengthened by the presence of a shadowy, menacing and wide-eyed figure in the bottom right corner: perhaps he is the spurned dwarf Alberich, who subsequently forswears love so he can obtain great power.
For Egon Schiele, Klimt was a friend and mentor. The story is that when they first met, the young artist showed Klimt some of his work and asked whether he had any talent. “Yes. Too much talent,” was the master’s reply. While there were critics in Vienna who shared this view, Schiele would still run afoul of the authorities, and in 1912 he was convicted of “infringing public morals” – specifically, allowing public accessibility to his nude studies – and sentenced to three days’ imprisonment. While in custody he would make over a dozen watercolor drawings.
For Schiele, art was a way of nurturing, and mending, a bruised and battered psyche. The Portrait of Painter Karl Zakovsek (1910) is, like so much of Schiele’s work, powerfully gripping, and nearly impossible to pull one’s eyes away from; while at the same time, a devastating work of art, it is almost physically painful to view. The subject was a friend and fellow student at Vienna’s Art Academy. It is a portrait of dire poverty – evident from the figures deathly thin body, and the fact that he wears no shirt under his vest. His eyes are large, lost in dreams, sunken with heavy red lids, and the look of mortality about them. The hands likewise suggest a cadaverous figure, whose end is near.
Reclining Semi-Nude (1911), a watercolor with gouache and pencil, presents us with a female figure seen from the rear (in fact, her butt occupies the center of the picture), nude below the waist and cut off below the knees. Schiele will often paint his subjects, including himself, in a kind of mutilated fashion – with missing hands or feet. The artist’s engagement with the body is sometimes, mistakenly, labeled as pornographic – in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Schiele is profoundly interested in sexuality and does not shy away from genitalia and other erogenous zones – but he does not aim to be titillating. He gives us the body unidealized: he glories in the real, the truth of the flesh – the redness of the nipples, the swollen and exaggerated labia, and pubic hair – all are depicted with an almost obsessive attention to detail. Indeed, sometimes it seems that each wiry, spindly hair of the body is all-important to Schiele. “Even the most erotic work of art has holiness!”
Several of Schiele’s self-portraits have been included in the show, highlighting how important it was for him to look at himself with the mercilessly honest eye which he brought to all his subjects. Schiele painted himself with a frequency, and more importantly, with an unflinching candidness and directness that was unprecedented, and to this day virtually without parallel. To be sure, many of these works, being as uninhibited and revealing as they are, invariably generate a measure of discomfort in the viewer who really looks at them. How many of us truly looks at ourselves in this way, without pretense, without the safety of those comforting illusions that make living so much easier?
T.S. Eliot once observed that nothing dies harder than the desire to think well of oneself: I am reminded of this when I consider the fearlessness of Schiele’s brush, and how completely he exposes himself – not simply in terms of his physical nudity, but in terms of his emotional nakedness. Schiele lays it all out: painting becomes for him a mode of self-revelation, a kind of metaphysical analysis of the self. His self-portraits can indeed be frightening at times – and this is because what he sees is not always pretty, not always easy to confront: one finds shame, anger, narcissism; as well as pride and self-loathing; a paradoxical mixture of innocence and lasciviousness.
Ultimately, even when Schiele paints himself in a mutilated and dismembered mode – footless, for example – he is doing so to restore himself to wholeness and to health. Few modern painters have observed and depicted with such intensity the alienation of the self under conditions of modernity. Though he can be extremely disturbing in his exploration of psychic depths, as he remarked
“I want to tear into myself, so that I may create again a new thing which I, in spite of myself, have perceived.”
The public has an opportunity to deepen their appreciation of these remarkable artists by visiting the Met Breuer, which is currently presenting “Obsession: Nudes by Klimt, Schiele, and Picasso”. The show offers a generous selection of Schiele, devoting several rooms to his drawings and watercolors, including some of his most explicitly erotic works – such as “Observed in a Dream” (1911). A “Woman Buttoning Her Shoes” (1915), a charcoal on paper drawing, is one of many such works which demonstrate Schiele’s mastery of the long unbroken line. This particular drawing is noteworthy because the model is Edith Harms, who in 1915 married Schiele.
The day after Gustav Klimt died, in February of 1918, Schiele made three drawings of him as his body lay in the hospital mortuary. In the autumn of that year, the pandemic of Spanish influenza reached Vienna and Schiele’s pregnant wife, Edith, died in October. Three days later it took the artist: “The war is over, and I must go.” Schiele’s last words bring together the historical and the personal, the social and the individual. The end of the war also marked the end of the world to which he and Klimt belonged. Ultimately, the exhibition reveals two artists for whom the human form was the key to exploring the great mystery of being – or as Schiele stated: “The figure is after all the most essential, what gives me the greatest satisfaction, the human body.”
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Sam Ben-Meir is a professor of philosophy and world religions at Mercy College in New York City. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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Hypocrisy and contradictory policies have never been so rife in the US and Western ‘democracies’.
For reasons of length and complexity, let’s not consider either Israel nor China in this piece. The thought of either sends me into a spin!
Has the world become a mass of contradictions and gone mad? Yes. For example America partners Her supposed archenemy, Al Qaeda in several countries engaged in ‘regime change’ wars; the Burka ban controversy, in UK and Europe, is another example of the contrarian and hypocritical nature of western democratic countries, whilst they diplomatically and militarily support the despotic and murderous Saudi Arabian regime, where women, who wear full Burkas, predominantly come from.
These contradictions and inconsistencies by the West also cause the polarization within their societies and is the cause of the rise of extreme nationalism, even far-right, fascist trends in their counties.
Why does the West bait Russia, with talk of war when the outcome of such a war would mean the total destruction of the Earth? What madness is this?
Simultaneously to these contradictions and illogical behavior, the fact is that a contributing factor is the rise of unbridled capitalism which is omnipresent in US and Europe.
This acceptance of the making of money without any principles whatsoever; gangster criminal tactics, mafia activities, have been made acceptable, even admired, including drug trafficking. It’s even glamorized in mainstream Hollywood movies and in successful TV series.
These are just some of the collective factors creating the environment for a new world of chaos, or disorder.
Populism and Nationalism permeates throughout almost all countries. Its triggered by leaders wanting to embrace the type of politics espoused by Trump of a ‘me first’ philosophy – in his case ‘America First.
You see it throughout the world. It happened most recently in Italy, Hungary.
Saudi Arabia engaged in genocide in Yemen, public beheadings in their country etc, in a reaction to a relatively mild human rights tweet by the Canadian Foreign Ministry, in the name of Saudi sovereign rights, broke relations with Canada.
Few if any country speaks up for Canada. Has the world gone mad?
That said the following quote puts Saudis behavior into greater perspective
“It’s pretty clear that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is using Canada to send a message to the rest of the world that if you want to trade with Saudi Arabia, then you need to shut up on human rights,” said Nader Hashemi, director of the University of Denver’s Centre for Middle East Studies.
Popularism & Nationalism are the political future for all. In Britain there is Brexit and ‘the Tommy Robinson Phenomenon’ which is consistent with this overall trend, projecting the nationalistic message, ‘Britain First’.
So get used to it; nationalism and popularism are the future, no longer groups of countries, organized by the UN or EU agreeing in a consensual way, on an issue.
A predicted consequence will be the demise of both the United Nations and the EU.
Such is the new reality of the 21st century; a very old idea revived, reshaped, triggered by Trump’s simplistic view of the world.
Today’s new crop of countries leaders see popularism, wrapped themselves in their flag, getting them and keeping them in power. And they are correct; today it will.
We must also accept as a reality that the main problem today is also the clash of civilizations, which is really a religious one, much like the Crusades, returned to confront essentially Christianity.
Another problem is the mistake that multiculturalism works. The amoral Tony Blair’s insatiable lust for power and money and his dream, started in the 1990s (of multiculturalism) has become the world’s nightmare! The blame of much of the world’s problems today can be laid on his doorstep.
Yet another factor contributing to this world chaos is ‘Political correctness’ and the granting of unwarranted and illogical political rights for fringe groups. Imposed by a sort of new wave of political thinking that might best be called Liberal Fascism.
What is the solution to this emerging global chaos and madness?
It won’t come from unregulated capitalism. Nor from communism, socialism etc those relics of the 20th Century.
We need to find a new social justice principle; a new ‘ism’, a system that is more akin to what many Scandinavian counties used to have decades ago.
True and genuine morality must be the sole driver for country’s policies. Nationally and individually we must develop a moral compass not imposed, not through religion but because of our recognition of our common humanity. Importantly the word integrity must return to our vocabulary.
The Libertarian movement is the closest political concept that comes to mind. Philosophically we must evolve to a higher state of moral driven principles and consciousness. Buddhism also espouses such thoughtful empathetic thinking. Taoism also does. You may say its unrealistically idealistic; but what are the alternatives? More of the same?
The biggest problem of all is American militarism, which mimics the British Empire of the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries. If pursued it will ultimately fail and cause America to implode or result in WW111.
The US Senators and Congressmen, many of whom are octogenarians
need to understand that Imperialism is totally unacceptable in the 21st Century. It’s a dead concept.
The cynics amongst us will say all this is impossible; though I tend to agree, I retain hope that common sense will prevail; because if not this will surely be the last century for the human race.
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Richard Galustian is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
State-run television warned in a primetime broadcast that foreign agents could turn legitimate protests stemming from domestic anger at the government’s mismanagement of the economy and corruption into “incendiary calls for regime change” by inciting violence that would provoke a crackdown by security forces and give the United States fodder to tackle Iran.
“The ordinary protesting worker would be hapless in the face of such schemes, uncertain how to stop his protest from spiralling into something bigger, more radical, that he wasn’t calling for,” journalist Azadeh Moaveniquoted in a series of tweets the broadcast as saying.
The warning stroked with the Trump administration’s strategy to escalate the protests that have been continuing for months and generate the kind of domestic pressure that would force Iran to concede by squeezing it economically with the imposition of harsh sanctions.
US officials, including President Donald J. Trump’s national security advisor John Bolton, a long-time proponent of Iranian regime change, have shied away from declaring that they were seeking a change of government, but have indicated that they hoped sanctions would fuel economic discontent.
“The pressure on the Iranian economy is significant… We continue to see demonstrations and riots in cities and towns all around Iran showing the dissatisfaction the people feel because of the strained economy.” Mr. Bolton said as the first round of sanctions took effect.
Mr. Bolton insisted that US policy was to put “unprecedented pressure” on Iran to change its behaviour”, not change the regime.
The implication of his remarks resembled Israeli attitudes three decades ago when officials argued that if the Palestine Liberation Organization were to recognize Israel it would no longer be the PLO but the PPLO, Part of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
In other words, the kind of policy changes the Trump administration is demanding, including an end to its ballistic program and support for regional proxies, by implication would have to involve regime change.
A string of recent, possibly unrelated incidents involving Iran’s ethnic minorities coupled with various other events could suggest that the United States and Saudi Arabia covertly are also playing with separate plans developed in Washington and Riyadh to destabilize Iran by stirring unrest among non-Persian segments of the Islamic republic’s population.
Mr. Bolton last year before assuming office drafted at the request of Mr. Trump’s then strategic advisor, Steve Bannon, a plan that envisioned US support “for the democratic Iranian opposition,” “Kurdish national aspirations in Iran, Iraq and Syria,” and assistance for Baloch in the Pakistani province of Balochistan and Iran’s neighbouring Sistan and Balochistan province as well as Iranian Arabs in the oil-rich Iranian province of Khuzestan.
Pakistani militants have claimed that Saudi Arabia has stepped up funding of militant madrassas or religious seminaries in Balochistan that allegedly serve as havens for anti-Iranian fighters.
“A well-equipped terrorist group … intending to infiltrate the country from the border area of Oshnavieh to foment insecurity and carry out acts of sabotage was ambushed and at least 10 terrorists were killed in a heavy clash,” the Guards said.
Similarly, this weekend’s ethnic soccer protests are rooted in a history of football unrest in the Iranian provinces of East Azerbaijan and Khuzestan that reflect long-standing economic and environmental grievances but also at times at least in oil-rich Khuzestan potentially had Saudi fingerprints on them.
Video clips of Azeri supporters of Tabriz-based Traktor Sazi FC chanting ‘Death to the Dictator” in Tehran’s Azadi stadium during a match against Esteghlal FC went viral on social media after a live broadcast on state television was muted to drown the protest out. A sports commentator blamed the loss of sound on a network disruption.
A day earlier, Iranian Arab fans clashed with security forces in a stadium in the Khuzestan capital of Ahwaz during a match between local team Foolad Khuzestan FC and Tehran’s Persepolis FC. The fans reportedly shouted slogans reaffirming their Arab identity.
Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arabs have a long history of encouraging Iranian Arab opposition and troubling the minority’s relations with the government.
Iranian distrust of the country’s Arab minority has been further fuelled by the fact that the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran or Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MeK), a controversial exiled opposition group that enjoys the support of prominent serving and former Western officials, including some in the Trump administration, has taken credit for a number of the protests in Khuzestan. The group advocates the violent overthrow of the regime in Tehran.
“The mullahs must go, the ayatollah must go, and they must be replaced by a democratic government which Madam Rajavi represents. Freedom is right around the corner … Next year I want to have this convention in Tehran,” Mr. Giuliani told this year’s rally, referring to Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the Mujahedeen who is a cult figure to the group.
The “globalization of war” is a hegemonic project. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.
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The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has gone about its annual business of releasing its World’s Most Liveable City index, the sort of flotsam that matters less to urban planners than hedge-fund managers. The previous seven time winner had been Melbourne, whose supposed ascendancy had been threatened, at points, by Vancouver and Vienna. Now, the Austrian capital has assumed the mantle, and various notes of despair and qualifications are noted.
Like any other index, a false plausibility can be gained from reading its findings. The indicators are all measures of corporate mobility and comfort, rather than urban sensibility and civic value. Companies must be assured that their employees will be able to live and work in suitably salubrious surrounds, with a degree of safety. Bottom lines and share prices are fundamental in these calculations.
The EIU makes no bones about it, its historical mission sounding much like an advisory role to rampant mercantilism.
“Created in 1946,” the unit notes in its 2018 liveability index report, “we have over 70 years’ experience in helping businesses, financial firms and governments to understand how the world is changing and how that creates opportunities to be seized and risks to be managed.”
The EIU, goes a summarising paragraph of its goals, “helps business leaders prepare for opportunity, empowering them to act with confidence when making strategic decisions.” The unit aspires to analytical sharpness, “uncompromising integrity, relentless rigour and precise communication”. All this, in the name of suitably gathered “business intelligence”.
The scores confirm this impression. Last year, Melbourne attained a score of 97.5: 95.1 for culture and environment and scores of 100 for healthcare, education and infrastructure. This replicated the results of 2016. What pushed Vienna to the top was its improvement in the “stability category”.
“The two cities,” goes the unit’s analytical tone, “are now separated by 0.7 of a percentage point, with Vienna scoring a near-ideal 99.1 out of 100 and Melbourne scoring 98.4.”
Through the report, the same themes for the corporate manager and financial planner are emphasised. “Upwards movement in the top ranked cities is a reflection of improvements seen in stability and safety across most regions in the past year.” Much cheer could be had for the “return to normalcy” in Europe, given past concerns of a “perceived threat to terrorism in the region”.
Such essentially fluffy titles serve one purpose: to confer a sort of abysmal complacency that suggests smugness. Former Lord Mayor Robert Doylesuggested in a media release last year that those taking issue with these accolades were the party pooping “naysayers and whingers”. To be deemed the most liveable city for a seventh straight year was not merely a “world record” but “an amazing feat that all Melburnians should be extremely proud of.”
The competitive edge to such rankings is also illusory at best. Cities are treated like race horses, where “gaps” are closed and contenders overtaken at the last turn.
“Vienna shot up the Economist Intelligence Unit’s chart,” went the ABC. Osaka, goes the 2018 report, “stands out especially, having climbed six positions, to third place, over the past six months, closing the gap with Melbourne.”
But Melbourne could still claim to have an edge over the crowned city in other areas, with the ABC making a weak effort to convince readers of the finer points of living down under. Winters, for instance, were milder than those in Vienna (this ignores the lack of central heating and poor design of Melbourne’s structures in coping with its milder winter). Melbourne boasted better street art (the premise is dubious), even if Vienna was a thriving “open air museum” aged in culture; and Melbourne’s variant of the classic Wiener schnitzel was “more evolved”, with additions of sauce, ham and parmesan.
A relevant point with such labels is whether they are even necessary. In April, as if with a premonition, Gay Alcorn would note that the city was “weighed own by its gong as the ‘world’s most liveable city’; it was “uneasy about where it’s going, uncertain whether it wants to be a global megacity doubling its population to eight million by mid-century, or hang on to its charms.”
Melbourne was already a city floating on illusions and letting go of what charms it might have had. Its legendary tram network has excellent coverage centrally, but falters in the suburban areas, which are sprawling and continue to grow. Its metropolitan train system is creaky. Promised train lines to various outer suburbs remain the stuff of fantasy. Outside the sacred inner ring of public transport is darkness, where the automobile remains not only supreme but necessary. Access to the main airport remains marred by an absence of a train connection.
For the urban watchers, the fall of Melbourne was nothing short of a relief. Clay Lucasnoted indifference from many readers of the local paper, The Age, when the city first topped the liveability tag. On its seventh top ranking, seething anger was noted.
“Tell a Doreen or Point Cook resident, trapped on arterial feeder roads morning and night, that this city is as good as it gets.”
Realities in the business of ranking cities vary accordingly. If one were to consult the findings of the engineering outfit Arcadis, Melbourne comes in at 21st in terms of being most expensive for building new infrastructure, while ranking at a lowly 55th for sustainable transport. But such analysis is bound to be dismissed by Victoria’s political chatterboxes as inconsequential in the battle of meaningless titles. The corporate classes come first.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Email: [email protected]
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One of the most gifted politicians in the Democratic Party — and fastest-rising — is the 37-year-old Eric Swalwell, whose first elective office was as a member of the Dublin, California, City Council in 2010, and who stepped up from there to his current seat in the US Congress, in 2013. His main financial backers are the military industries, including Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Wall Street — and the nonprofits and service-firms that represent them.
On Sunday, August 12th, Political Wire, which is the main news-aggregator for Democratic Party activists, headlined “Swalwell Travels to Iowa” and reported that,
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) — who was born in Iowa — told the San Jose Mercury News that his visit to Iowa “was focused on helping Democrats retake the House in 2018, including by winning competitive races,” but he also said he isn’t ruling out a presidential run in 2020.
Said Swalwell:
“Right now my focus is to win at home, earn my way back to Washington to represent my constituents, help other candidates win so we can change the country, and then I’ll make decisions after November about my future.”
Swalwell is movie-star handsome; furthermore, his five-year record in Congress has shown him to be an extraordinarily resourceful career-builder and self-promoter, whose special leadership in the Party has been in their effort to impeach the Republican Party President Donald Trump and (though unmentioned) to replace Trump by the Republican Party Vice President Mike Pence, who is even more conservative than is Trump.
Typical in this effort to place Pence into the White House, is an MSNBC youtube titled “Rep. Eric Swalwell: President Donald Trump Is ‘Perilously Close’ To Obstruction Charge | MSNBC”, in which the issue of whom the President would be if Trump gets impeached is very skillfully ignored entirely, both by the interviewer and by the interviewee. Billionaires control both Parties; and the ones who control the Democratic Party (and MSNBC) are apparently convinced (perhaps by private polling) that the Democratic nominee in 2020 will have a much better chance of winning the White House if Pence is the President, than if Trump is. For whatever reason, almost all of the discussions about impeaching Trump, on Democratic Party sites, avoid even mentioning Pence.
But the same is true also on Republican Party sites. Swalwell is being heavily pumped by virtually all media that cover national politics. For example, on 21 May 2018, Fox News posted to YouTube “Calif. lawmaker makes his case for Russian collusion”, where Tucker Carlson debated Swalwell for 9 minutes, and though the actual subject was whether Trump should be impeached, none of the consequences of impeaching him (such as Pence replacing Trump) were even so much as mentioned. The billionaires in both Parties are apparently very taken with Swalwell, not only because he’s phenomenally gifted (as is clear from his ability to hold his own even against the formidable Carlson in that tough debate), but because if any Democrat replaces Trump in 2020, Swalwell would seem to be their dream for achieving that — and he’d probably be preferred by more of them in the general election than Trump would be.
Of course, both Parties claim to represent the public and not the billionaires; and, in this regard, while the standard Republican Party tactic to appeal to the ‘populist’ vote is to promise to “reduce waste, fraud, and abuse,” by eliminating or weakening the regulatory agencies (which the billionaires are determined to shrink or else eliminate if they can’t outright control them), the standard Democratic Party tactic to appeal to the ‘populists’ is to try to build a coalition of feminists, LGBT, Blacks, Hispanics, and other groups whom Republicans treat as being inferior to themselves. Consequently, in order to win the White House as a Democrat, Swalwell has joined the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, and the Congressional LGBT Caucus, neither of which minority-groups includes himself. Unknown, as of yet, is whether he has applied for membership in the Congressional Black Caucus, but according to Fact Check, as posted in 2008 and never since revised, the Congressional Black Caucus “has never had a white member in its 36-year history” (and, today, that would be never in its 46-year history), so that if he were to apply to join and then be turned down by them, and this were to become public, then the resultant bad publicity for that Caucus would likely reduce, instead of increase, Swalwell’s support by black voters. Consequently, he probably won’t apply to join that Caucus. But perhaps he will seek to join the Bipartisan Congressional Women’s Caucus. They have never had any men, but, between 1981 and 1995, their official policy was to invite male Representatives to join; so, if he were to give it a try, then perhaps they would allow him in, and he then would be able to say that he’s the first-ever man to join the Women’s Caucus. (In 2015, a Men For Women Caucus was formed in the House, but it still hasn’t announced an agenda, and it has done nothing.)
A prominent article on Swalwell’s House website is “Russia: Not Our Friend”, in which is provided a timeline, since 2007, of 13 events that he summarizes outside their context (so his brief accounts there constitute propaganda instead of history), events in which the Russian Government did or was accused of having done allegedly bad things. Typical is the most recent event listed, which is
“Based on the prevailing Russian strategy of hybrid influence and destabilization, which we have observed over time and for which we have facts, the government, officials and some political parties have become sensitized to this form of conflict,” said Wilfried Jilge, an expert on Ukraine and Eastern Europe with the German Council on Foreign Relations.
“Such suspicions are the result of observation and experience over the past year and a half,” Mr. Jilge said.
“The association was founded in 1955 in Bonn. The model for the foundation was in many respects the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and the Chatham House in London.”
If Rep. Swalwell does enter the 2020 Democratic Party primaries for the Presidency, the distinction between himself and Joe Biden would be his youth, handsomeness, and giftedness as a debater, versus Biden’s experience; but, otherwise, they both would be splitting the Democratic “centrist” vote in the primaries, since these two men would be competing for the same segments of the Party’s electorate — the segments who had voted in 2016 for Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. Whereas Trump might be able to defeat Biden, I think that his defeating Swalwell would be considerably less likely. So: Republican operatives would probably prefer for Democrats to nominate Biden, over Swalwell.
Swalwell is the biggest rising star in the Democratic Party since Obama in 2004. Four years later, Obama became elected President. Swalwell’s prominence now is comparable to Obama’s in 2004, but 2020 is only two years away, not four. I think that as a public speaker, Swalwell is less skilled than Obama, but that as a debater, he’s more skilled than Obama. Perhaps billionaires will buy-off Biden to not enter the primary contests, so as to help ease the way for Swalwell to become the Democratic nominee. Maybe Swalwell’s challenge would motivate Trump to try even harder to please them. From the billionaires’ standpoint, Swalwell v. Trump would be just as much a win-win situation as was Clinton v. Trump.
Republican operative Bill Whalen, writing at The Hill, on May 23rd, listed 7 California Democrats who might be serious contenders to win the 2020 Democratic Party nomination, and Swalwell wasn’t on the list, which was: Kamala Harris, Eric Garcetti, Gavin Newsom, Tom Steyer, Ro Khanna, Oprah Winfrey, and Jerry Brown. Whalen titled his article“What’s wrong with the Democratic Party? Just look at California.” He closed: “Isn’t that what America expects from California? Entertainment?” Maybe he excluded Swalwell as being not sufficiently “entertaining” (even if better-looking than those he did list).
On 15 January 2016, early in the Republican primaries, Whalen, then writing at Fox News, had analyzed the contenders, and he said that the choice would ultimately come down to Trump versus Cruz, and: “A word of caution here for the Cruz Crew: Jeb Bush tangled with Trump; his candidacy cratered. The same is true of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Thursday’s lone debate holdout. Like falling into a black hole or marrying a Kardashian, the contact sport that is extended sparring with The Donald is a ticket to oblivion.” That was Whalen’s veiled endorsement of Trump. Whalen still prefers Trump.
Does Whalen not know that Swalwell is one of the top Democrats pushing for Trump to be replaced by Pence, and so belongs on his list of leading contenders from California? Likelier is: Whalen fears that Swalwell could handle the challenge of beating Trump — and thus of transferring control of America away from Republican Party billionaires, and toward Democratic Party ones. It’s all really just a feud amongst the aristocracy. It’s a bipartisan aristocracy, who fight ferociously between themselves. Everybody else is merely ‘collateral damage’; they don’t actually count.
The idea that Swalwell and his ilk peddle, that what has ended American democracy is ‘the Russians’ instead of America’s own aristocrats, isn’t merely false; it is proven false, as the former Democratic US President Jimmy Carter has acknowledged.
Anything will be done to sell more weapons. Apparently, that’s the bottom line.
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A network of 187 organizations has come together to urge a mass protest against the military parade in November called for by President Trump. The military parade is widely opposed. Army Times conducted a poll of its readers; 51,000 responded and 89 percent said, “No, It’s a waste of money and troops are too busy.” A Quinnipiac University poll found 61 percent of voters disapprove of the military parade, while only 26 percent support the idea. The national consensus is there should not be a military parade.
The organizations signed on to a letter that calls for the parade to be stopped, “We reject this gross display of power and violence. We call on you to stop the military parade.” If the parade goes forward, the organizations will urge their members to come to Washington, DC to protest the parade or to organize sister-protests in their communities. Urge organizations you are a member of to sign on. This is an issue that impacts the economy, jobs, the environment, as well as wars and militarism. Sign on here.
The groups call on the nation to divest from war and invest in peace. The United States’ military budget is growing, now constituting 57% of federal discretionary spending, while programs for domestic needs such as food, education, housing and health care are being cut and US militarization is impacting most of the countries of the world, as well as our schools and communities.
President Trump plans to spend more than $10 million dollars to parade troops and military vehicles and weapons through the streets of Washington, DC on Veterans Day, which this year is the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day. Armistice Day used to be a day to reflect on the impacts of war and to build toward war no longer being an instrument of foreign policy, not a day to glorify war with a military parade. Veterans and military families are organizing a solemn march in DC on November 11 to remember those who have been killed, both soldiers and civilians, and the 20 veterans who commit suicide every day and to reclaim Armistice Day.
While it is President Trump who is calling for the parade, both major political parties are responsible for escalating US militarization and aggression throughout the world and in the US. Members of Congress voted nearly unanimously to give the Pentagon a record $716 billion budget and are complicit in escalating tensions with Russia, North Korea, Iran, Nicaragua and Venezuela, among others.
Many groups are organizing to stop this parade, reclaim Veteran’s Day as Armistice Day and call for demilitarization and investment in programs that protect and support our communities in positive ways. The people of the United States need to show the world that we do not support never-ending war and aggression by our country. We urge people around the world to create sister-protests at US embassies to show their opposition to US militarism.
The US military is the largest carbon emitter in the world and in this era of climate change, there should no longer be wars for oil. This is one example of many of how militarism impacts other issues. Opposition to war spending and military activity needs to unite movements for a transformational change in US foreign policy.
The organizations intend to make the response in opposition to President Trump’s military parade bigger than the parade itself. Events for the weekend include a “Peace Rocks” Concert organized by CODEPINK on Friday, Nov. 9; along with Catharsis on the Mall, a Burning Man-like vigil for healing. The protest of the military parade will be on Nov. 10. This will be followed by the veteran and military family-led solemn march through the war monuments on the mall on Nov. 11 at 11:00 am to recognize the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day.
The Anti-war Autumn will be kicked off by the Women’s March on the Pentagon on October 20 and 21, followed by a daily vigil at the Pentagon to connect the Women’s March to the protest against the military parade.
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A jury trial in California has resulted in a guilty verdict against the agrichemical and GMO giant, Monsanto, now Bayer/Monsanto. The judge has ordered Monsanto to pay damages of USD 289 Million to former school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson, who has non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. His lawyer argued it was caused by Monsanto’s glyphosate-based weed-killer Roundup. Not surprisingly Monsanto plans to appeal the verdict. The impact of the ruling, regardless the outcome of the appeal, will unleash worldwide consequences that spell huge problems for the entire GMO agrochemicals business model.
The Johnson trial, Dewayne Johnson v. Monsanto Co., CGC-16-550128, in California Superior Court in San Francisco, is the first of more than 5,000 such cases across the United States awaiting trial for claims that Roundup ingredients cause cancer.
Johnson, age 46, is a former pest control manager for a California county school system, where he applied Roundup and Monsanto’s Ranger Pro on school grounds across the county up to 30 times per year for more than two and a half years.
According to the magazine Insurance Journal, the guilty verdict could influence the outcome of thousands of similar cases against Monsanto glyphosate-based Roundup. Notably, the same law firm, California-based Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman, PC is involved as part of the legal team in many of the other cases awaiting trial.
Monsanto Exposed in Trial
Robert Kennedy Jr, co-counsel in the case against Monsanto wrote a summary of the court cross-examinations by plaintiff lawyers as well as Monsanto lawyers. It revealed a devastating pattern of Monsanto suppression of negative carcinogenic test results, lies and huge payments to their “expert” scientific witnesses to support unproven Monsanto safety claims that Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide was allegedly no carcinogen.
In one of the more damning admissions, Monsanto toxicologist, Donna Farmer, was forced to admit, when confronted with an internal Monsanto e-mail, that her primary concern was regulatory compliance rather than public health. Farmer was also forced to admit that she orchestrated the ghostwriting of articles for supposedly independent scientists who agreed to defend glyphosate. Her reply: “There’s nothing wrong with that…”
Another paid Monsanto witness, Dr. Warren Foster, was forced to admit he had never done study of glyphosate or its carcinogenity before Monsanto paid him to testify against the animal studies used by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a WHO agency, which determined glyphosate a “probable carcinogen” in 2015. The IARC ruling was a major blow against Monsanto’s claims that its Roundup, with some 31% glyphosate, was not harmful to animals or humans.
Another Monsanto toxicologist, Dr. Mark Martens, was asked why Monsanto dropped research by an independent toxicologist, Dr. James Parry, in 1999, after praising him as a top expert. When Parry’s research concluded that the complex and non-disclosed formulation of Roundup could cause genetic mutations, a potential cancer precursor, Monsanto dropped him and refused to let independent scientists review Parry’s studies, nor did Monsanto give the Parry studies to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Another Monsanto “expert witness,” Dr. Lorelei Mucci, a cancer epidemiologist and associate professor at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), admitted that Monsanto paid her $100,000 for her testimony.
When Monsanto attorneys attempted to discredit toxicology expert, Dr. Christopher Portier, by confronting Portier with the statement that the EPA had concluded, contrary to the IARC, that glyphosate was “not likely” carcinogenic to humans, Portier, under oath, declared that both the EPA in the USA and the EU’s European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) missed 15 tumors in various rodent studies on glyphosate because the agency used the wrong methodology. He said:“
My entire career been about using scientific evidence to make decisions, primarily about the carcinogenicity of compounds, and we’ve worked for years and years to do that appropriately. This was just so amazingly wrong in the way they were doing it.”
In testimony from Dr Charles Benbrook, the point was made that the insistence of the EPA to only discuss glyphosate, separate from the adjuvants or surfactants added to glyphosate to compose Roundup, was a fraud designed to cover up the more pressing question of, “whether the Roundup formulation itself, not just a single ingredient, is toxic and carcinogenic.”
In sum, what came out in the trial in San Francisco was a documented pattern of lies, coverup, a secret war to discredit independent toxicologists whose researches contradicted Monsanto safety claims for Roundup.
Seralini rat study
In a peer-reviewed scientific paper published on February 26, 2016 in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, a team of toxicologists led by Gilles-Eric Séralini of the Institute of Biology, University of Caen in France and AndrásSzékács, Director of the Agro-Environmental Research Institute of Hungary’s National Agricultural Research and Innovation Centre, tested the most commonly used glyphosate-based herbicides including Monsanto Roundup. They tested the complete cocktail, including the co-formulants and formulations used in combination with glyphosate.
Their tests concluded among other things that the compounded herbicides using glyphosate as base, but including undisclosed “formulations” or surfactants, were vastly more toxic than glyphosate when tested alone, up to 2000 times more toxic to cells than glyphosate alone.Monsanto has never revealed its trade secret co-formulants, neither to the US Government as it is compelled to by law, nor to the public.
The results of the latest San Francisco court ruling against Monsanto are clearly but the beginning of a groundswell of opposition to toxic and carcinogenic agrochemicals, most sold by Monsanto and now, Bayer/Monsanto. Concerned citizens around the world are beginning to connect the dots and to realize we are being played not only for fools but played in a play with potentially deadly consequences.
In Argentina, in a just-published study, scientists determined that “exposure to environmentally relevant doses of a glyphosate-based herbicide during pregnancy has been found not only to impair female fertility in rats, but to induce foetal growth retardation and malformations, including abnormally developed limbs, in their second-generation offspring.” The study was done after people living in an Argentine town in the heart of the GMO soy and maize growing area, where glyphosate-based herbicides are sprayed in large amounts, were documented to suffer birth defects at twice the national average rate.
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F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is from the author.
Seeds of Destruction: Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation
Author Name: F. William Engdahl
ISBN Number: 978-0-937147-2-2
Year: 2007
Pages: 341 pages with complete index
List Price: $25.95
Special Price: $18.00
This skilfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. “Control the food and you control the people.”
This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.
The author cogently reveals a diabolical world of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.
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The global economy is again becoming financially fragile. Financial fragility is an indicator of increasing likelihood of the eruption of a major financial instability event–i.e. stock crash, bond market implosion, housing-commercial property price deflation, sovereign debt defaults, etc.
The current case of Turkey’s economy is at the center of this process, its currency having plummeted 40% to the dollar just this year. (It has temporarily stabilized this week, but the decline will soon continue once again).
But Turkey isn’t the only indicator, other EME currencies are also in sharp decline at various stages: Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, and India. Russia’s Ruble is deflating and China’s Yuan, the strongest, nonetheless pushes against its lower band within which it too has deflated by 6-10%, prevented from falling further only due to China’s central bank massive intervention in money markets to prop up the value of its currency to prevent further devaluation.
Rising global financial fragility is rising due to obvious increasing contagion effects. The Turkish LIRA crisis is spilling over to other EME currencies, causing a further decline in those currencies in addition to the already significant forces driving down those currencies. Turkish dollarized debt payment obligations to Italian, EU and US banks are being noted in the business press. Italian bank debt is especially exposed, when Italian banks already sit on $500 billion in non-performing bank loans.
The transmission mechanism to a broader European bank crisis might easily occur from Turkey to Italian banks to the general banking system. US banks like Citibank are also exposed to Turkish debt.
Other indicators of growing potential contagion from the Turkish fallout are the global currency speculators (hedge funds, vulture investors, etc.) now plowing into short selling of the LIRA, further depressing its price, the rising interest rates on Turkey government and private bonds. The response of other EME central banks in raising their interest rates to try to stem the outflow of capital as their currencies follow the LIRA down. (Argentina being the worst case, as its central bank raises rates to 45%–thus ensuring that country’s current recession will collapse into an even more serious contraction, perhaps even depression). The first phase of the general contagion effects of the LIRA collapse have now occurred. A second ‘shoe’ will inevitably fall within weeks. Financial fragility is rising in the global economy–and will eventually impact the US economy in 2019, thus further ensuring a US recession sometime in 2019 that this writer has been predicting.
The Global Economic Crisis
The Great Depression of the XXI Century
Global Research
Each of the authors in this timely collection digs beneath the gilded surface to reveal a complex web of deceit and media distortion which serves to conceal the workings of the global economic system and its devastating impacts on people’s lives.
In all major regions of the world, the economic recession is deep-seated, resulting in mass unemployment, the collapse of state social programs and the impoverishment of millions of people. The meltdown of financial markets was the result of institutionalized fraud and financial manipulation.
The economic crisis is accompanied by a worldwide process of militarization, a “war without borders” led by the U.S. and its NATO allies.
This book takes the reader through the corridors of the Federal Reserve, into the plush corporate boardrooms on Wall Street where far-reaching financial transactions are routinely undertaken.
“This important collection offers the reader a most comprehensive analysis of the various facets – especially the financial, social and military ramifications – from an outstanding list of world-class social thinkers.”
-Mario Seccareccia, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa
“In-depth investigations of the inner workings of the plutocracy in crisis, presented by some of our best politico-economic analysts. This book should help put to rest the hallucinations of ‘free market’ ideology.”
-Michael Parenti, author of God and His Demons and Contrary Notions
“Provides a very readable exposé of a global economic system, manipulated by a handful of extremely powerful economic actors for their own benefit, to enrich a few at the expense of an ever-growing majority.”
-David Ray Griffin, author of The New Pearl Harbor Revisited
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro survived an assassination attempt after several explosives-laden drones were shot down right in front of him during a speech on live TV, and he’s since taken to accusing the US of masterminding this dramatic attempt on his life. His nemesis is infamous for killing its enemies with targeted drone strikes in Afghanistan and other war-torn countries, but its speculated involvement in this latest attack would be an unprecedented development. It appears, however, that any US hand in this happening has remained hidden because the country itself denied any role in this event and the so-called “Flannel Soldiers” who carried out last year’s helicopter attack in the capital already claimed responsibility.
Even so, Maduro said that the real conspirators are hiding out Miami and neighboring Colombia, the first-mentioned of which hosts a large anti-government diaspora community while the latter just recently elected a right-wing leader who vowed to take a tough stand against Venezuela. Bolivian President Evo Morales tweeted public statements from then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo earlier this week proving that the American spymaster openly bragged about his plans for a so-called “transition” in the Bolivarian Republic, and he also shared reports from last month alleging that Trump was seriously considered invading Venezuela last year. No matter the degree of possible US involvement, however, it’s clear that some domestic actors were also involved as well.
The authorities arrested six individuals so far who they claim are connected with this attempted crime, and while details are forthcoming, it’s highly likely that they’re linked in one way or another with the militant far-right opposition movement that’s been provoking Color Revolution chaos over the past couple of years and partaking in sprees of urban terrorism. The failed drone strike against Maduro could also be rightly classified as urban terrorism too, and beyond the implications that it has for the country’s ongoing and externally provoked political crisis, it also represents the crossing of a dangerous threshold where publicly available drone technology has been used for the first time to try and kill a head of state.
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Andrew Korybko:How likely is it that the US is connected in one way or another to the failed drone strike against Maduro, and what would its potential involvement in this plot say about the desperate lengths that it’ll go to in carrying out regime change in Venezuela? Is it correct to claim that the Color Revolution has failed so now the CIA’s going back to its Old Cold War-era tricks of trying to assassinate Latin American leaders?
Nino Pagliccia:If this was a criminal investigation and we would be looking for who carried out the crime, we would look at clues such as motive and prior convictions. The US government has certainly motive and a very long list of priors all over Latin America and other regions. I would say the US is the prime suspect as the brain behind the action facilitated by Colombia.
In fact, this attack is a desperate action by a desperate US. If Venezuela succeeds in bypassing all the sanctions with the new monetary measures recently announced, and produces a much welcome economic recovery, the US will be weakened considerably.
As for the Old Cold War-era tricks, we cannot believe in the least that the CIA had shelved those tricks. We must remember that progressive popular changes in Latin America in the last 20 years or so have occurred via the electoral process primarily, including in Venezuela. But the reaction to those left-leaning gains has been a series of regressive parliamentary or real coups.
Venezuela has been a unique tough case for the US empire. It survived a failed coup in 2002, then a failed parliamentary coup with a recall referendum in 2004. It has repeatedly won election after election with few exceptions. It has survived violent counter-revolutions, but the Bolivarian Revolution has shown resilience to regime change all within open and acceptable constitutional process.
In an ideal world this is a signal that the majority of Venezuelans have made a decision. But the US Empire does not operate in an ideal world. So, if new tricks are not working, it’s time to use old tricks from the arsenal.
AK: What do you know about these so-called “Flannel Soldiers” who claimed responsibility for the assassination attempt, and what role are they currently playing in the country’s crisis?
NP: Based on their own information, this group was created in 2014. Their Twitter banner that portrays people with their faces covered with a t-shirt – which also explains their name, t-shirt is called “franela” in Venezuela – seems to be a reference to their involvement in street violence called “guarimbas” in Venezuela.
I have not seen any serious position analysis from them except rants against the Maduro government. It appears to be an extremely radical opposition group by their own postings.
In one of their latest tweets the group claims that it is a “military” movement. Certainly this is not true – maybe militant but not military.
However, their claim may well be part of creating the false impression that the armed forces in Venezuela are divided. The attack has already been hailed in Miami as being done by Venezuelan military and police “rebels” in Venezuela.
The group has absolutely no role in Venezuelan politics. However, this may be precisely the kind of group that can be easily exploited by some “desperate” foreign government for regime change purposes.
I am reminded of the events that created the Free Syrian Army versus the official government Syrian Armed Forces in Syria. Even symbolically, this radical opposition group in Venezuela uses the old Venezuelan flag with 7 stars of the 4th republic, as opposed to the official current flag with 8 stars.
We need to watch very carefully if this group is co-opted into something bigger and more dangerous.
AK: Some media outlets are speculating that Maduro will launch a so-called “crackdown” against the opposition after what happened, which might have been what the drone strike organizers were expecting if they failed, so how would the state’s forthcoming security operations have to be conducted in order to avoid falling into a US-made trap designed to escalate the crisis once more?
NP: You just described a perfect catch22. You’re damn if you do and you’re damn if you don’t. But first, I find it quite appalling that those media outlets would speculate on a so-called “crackdown” before condemning the assassination attempt, if not in defense of Maduro, in defense of the democratic process they are so fond of defending. That is tragic, really.
An attempt on the life of a president and officials of the armed forces of a nation cannot be taken lightly. What would the media call the reaction to a similar attempt in the US? What would that reaction be?
Following August 4, so far we can see that the Venezuelan state security operations have been swift and open with regular televised updates to keep the population informed.
No suspect has been snatched in the middle of the night and disappeared in a secret prison. No one is under threat of being tortured. All suspects have been publicly identified for all to know.
Even a member of the National Assembly, who has parliamentary immunity, accused of being involved in the attack, is being legally processed under his rights granted by article 200 of the constitution.
Rightly so, the Maduro government has announced that the law will severely punish those responsible. But I do not think for a second that this is the kind of “crackdown” the media wants to make it sound like.
*
Nino Pagliccia is an activist and writer based in Vancouver, Canada. He is a Venezuelan-Canadian who writes about international relations with a focus on the Americas. He is editor of the book “Cuba Solidarity in Canada – Five Decades of People-to-People Foreign Relations” http://www.cubasolidarityincanada.ca.
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.
Both authors are frequent contributors to Global Research.
At least 29 people — according to the International Committee of the Red Cross — and quite possibly 40 or 50, according to Yemeni estimates, were killed in the airstrike by jets in the Saudi-led coalition that’s been waging a brutal war against the Saudis’ next-door neighbor on the Arabian Peninsula for the last four years.
A spokesman for the Saudi coalition called it “a legitimate military operation” in its campaign against Houthi rebels that operate in northern Yemen — a claim that was scoffed at by most of the rest of the world, alarmed at the growing humanitarian crisis in the region.
“Does the world really need more innocent children’s lives to stop the cruel war on children in Yemen?” asked Geert Cappalaere, the regional director for the Middle East and Northern Africa of the aid group UNICEF. Many of the kids killed or wounded in the attack were carrying bright blue UNICEF school bags, now shredded and burned.
America offers the Saudis and its allies in the region the intelligence used to carry out the nonstop airstrikes and other military operations. The planes that conduct the bombing runs are refueled by American forces in the region. And many of the bombs that have been dropped on Yemen — including those that have struck hospitals and other civilian targets — were manufactured and supplied by the United States.
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Are President Trump’s senior cabinet members working against him? It’s hard not to conclude that many of the more hawkish neocons that Trump has (mistakenly, in my view) appointed to top jobs are actively working to undermine the president’s stated agenda. Especially when it seems Trump is trying to seek dialogue with countries the neocons see as adversaries needing to be regime-changed.
Remember just as President Trump was organizing an historic summit meeting with Kim Jong-Un, his National Security Advisor, John Bolton, nearly blew the whole thing up by making repeated references to the “Libya model” and how it should be applied to North Korea. As if Kim would jump at the chance to be bombed, overthrown, and murdered at the hands of a US-backed mob!
It seems that Trump’s appointees are again working at cross-purposes to him. Last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that he was invoking a 1991 US law against the use of chemical weapons to announce yet another round of sanctions on Russia over what he claims is Putin’s involvement in the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in the UK.
The alleged poisoning took place in March and only now did the State Department make its determination that Russia was behind it and thus subject to the 1991 sanction law. Was there new information that came to light that pointed to Russian involvement? According to a State Department briefing there was none. The State Department just decided to take the British government’s word for it.
Where do we get authority to prosecute Russia for an alleged crime committed in the UK, by the way?
President Trump’s own Administration is forcing him to accept the State Department determination and agree to sanctions that may well include, according to the 1991 law, a complete break of diplomatic relations with Russia. This would be a de facto declaration of war. Over unproven allegations.
Trump has authority to reject the imposition of new sanctions, but with his Democrat opponents continuing to charge that he is in league with the Russian president, how could he waive sanctions just before the November US Congressional elections? That would be a windfall for the Democrats seeking to take control of the House and Senate.
The only way Russia could avoid the second, most extreme round of these sanctions in November is to promise not to use chemical weapons again and open its doors to international inspections. What government would accept such a demand when no proof has been presented that they used chemical weapons in the first place?
Certainly it is possible that President Trump is fully aware of the maneuverings of Bolton and Pompeo and that he approves. Perhaps he likes to play “good cop, bad cop” with the rest of the world, at the same time making peace overtures while imposing sanctions and threatening war. But it certainly looks like some of his cabinet members are getting the best of him.
If President Trump is to be taken at his word, that he welcomes dialogue “without pre-conditions” with leaders of Russia, North Korea, Iran, and elsewhere, he would be wise to reconsider those in his employ who are undermining him every step of the way. Otherwise, it is hard to believe the president is sincere. Let’s hope he does choose dialogue over conflict and clips the wings of those under him attempting to push him in the other direction.
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On Thursday August 9th, the Israeli airforce dropped ten missiles on a building in Gaza City, turning the five-story building into rubble. Was this a Hamas training center, or somehow associated with the Palestinian armed resistance? No. Like the building targeted by Israeli forces two weeks earlier, when two teen boys were killed taking a selfie, this was a cultural center aimed at preserving the history and culture of the Palestinian people of Gaza.
The Said Al-Mashal Foundation for Arts and Culture was a place where cultural heritage was preserved and maintained. The Palestinian traditional dance known as dabke was taught and practiced there, poets would gather to share their latest works, and musicians would come together for jam sessions and performances.
Two weeks earlier, the Israeli airforce dropped another bomb on the Arts and Crafts Museum in Gaza City.
Why is Israel so focused on destroying Palestinian cultural artifacts, museums, arts and crafts? Is it because resistance fighters are hidden inside these centers? That is a laughable claim that is easily disproved by looking at the evidence – no fighters, weapons or rockets in the rubble that remains of what had been beautiful and well-loved cultural centers.
Source: Yeni Safak
Nor is it true that these centers were somehow ‘collateral damage’, and the bombs were targeting some other, nearby place. No, Israeli forces directly targeted these centers – and in fact, after the fact, declared the strikes a ‘success’ and claimed that they hit their targets directly.
No, the reality is that the centers that preserve the Palestinian people’s identity, culture and history are somehow seen as a threat to Israel, and Israeli authorities have implemented a policy that such centers must be destroyed.
Video showing the destruction of the Said al-Mashal Center:
The Middle East Eye interviewed some of the artists involved with the center.
Edrees Taleb, 27, one of the centre’s well-known theatre directors, was quoted in the paper as saying,
“You know what it means to have been working in a place for more than eight years, so you know every tile like the back of your hand and suddenly, in the blink of an eye, everything is gone? For the past couple of months, we have been preparing for a new play entitled ‘Anesthesia Syringe’, to be played during the Eid al-Adha break, and we had installed the decoration a few hours before the building was targeted.”
Taleb could not believe that the building was razed until he went to see it for himself.
“We spent the whole day on Thursday preparing for Saturday’s rehearsal. The decoration cost us a lot, but we hoped it would pay back,” he said.
“We finished the preparations at about 3:30pm, and I went home to have some rest. When I came back at around 6pm, the building was gone. I am shocked and suffocated.”
A young artist identified as Taleb told the paper that he has been attending events at the center for eight years, since he was 18. He said,
“Israel says its forces targeted the building because part of it was used by Hamas. But I have been there for more than eight years, there has never been anything related to any political party. Not in the past, and not recently.”
Hanin al-Holy, 23, stated,
“Al-Meshal centre was a symbol of culture, something that reinforced our Palestinian identity. They targeted it because art is, too, a form of resistance.”
He aired a free block of programming over public airways in 2014 in Eastern Europe. Who does that? Who does that at the very beginning stages of like a new Cold War run up? … And, you know, that sounds very similar to the way that the BBC and Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty operated is broadcasting content adversarial against Russia and Eastern Europe. – Robbie Martin, from this week’s interview.
The neocon architects behind George Bush’s War on Terrorism did not rely solely on the shock of the 9/11 attacks to galvanize public opinion and support.
Largely forgotten now is the dissemination in the days following the World Trade Center attacks, of letters containing deadly anthrax spores to media outlets and two U.S. Democratic Senators. The anthrax letters played a crucial role not only in galvanizing support for the military offensive against Saddam Hussein and his supposed ‘weapons of mass destruction,’ but also in helping propel the passage of the U.S.A. Patriot Act. Interestingly, the U.S. Senators targeted in the anthrax mailings, Patrick Leahy and Tom Daschle, were both Democrats, and stalling passage of the Patriot Act.
Another critical accomplice in enabling the neocon agenda right through the Obama years has been a compliant media. However, this does not just include the mainstream giants that a broad section of the public has begun to distrust, but supposedly edgy, and hipsterish media like Vice. All pretenses aside, as with Democracy Now in its coverage of the Syrian conflict, Vice appears to be aligning its news coverage with the goals and aims of U.S. foreign policy agendas.
As journalist and film-maker Robbie Martin has addressed in his documentary film series A Very Heavy Agenda, the neocons largely faded from public view in the post Bush era, but have remained influential in shaping the media narratives enabling war, militarism and the decline of American civil liberties.
In the conclusion of a special two part interview by Global Research News Hour guest contributor Scott Price, Robbie Martin explores the anthrax attacks in the context of the larger neocon agenda, he exposes the charismatic media outlet Vice as a tool of the neocons’ foreign policy agenda, and he offers advice on how the public can confront the cynical agenda and disinformation being directed at them without being paralyzed by it.
Following this discussion, we hear a repeat broadcast of a December 2017 interview with the recently deceased award-winning investigative journalist Robert Parry. In one of his last interviews before his untimely death at the age of 68, Parry describes how and why journalistic standards have declined since he first started in the field in the mid-70s, he discusses the consequences for democracy, and briefly explains the importance of reader-financed news outlets, such as Consortiumnews.com
Robbie Martin is a journalist, musician and documentary film-maker. He is co-host with his sister Abby Martin of Media Roots Radio. A Very Heavy Agenda can be streamed or purchased here. Soundtrack for Film and music for these series from Fluorescent Grey (Robbie Martin).
The late Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. He founded consortiumnews.com in 1995 and served as the online investigative news outlet’s editor until his death in January of 2018.
Transcript – Interview with Robbie Martin, July 2018
Global Research: (INTRO) Through the late 20th and early 21st century, the neoconservatives loomed large in American foreign policy…the war on terror, the war in Iraq, the Bush administration. In 2018, it may seem that their power and influence has waned, but in fact, many of these neoconservatives still hold influence, and their legacy has had a much larger impact on politics and society.
In this Global Research News Hour special, we talk with journalist, filmmaker, and musician Robbie Martin on his 3-part documentary, A Very Heavy Agenda. This film series covers the rise and continued influence of the neoconservatives. In Part 2 of his Global Research News Hour special, Robbie Martin talks about the anthrax attacks and how they were used to frame the war on terror and how Vice became the conduit for US foreign policy propaganda.
Global Research: The second thing I want to talk about is those anthrax attacks and of course that’s a whole can of worms also in and of itself. And I believe you have a whole documentary specifically on this, correct?
Robbie Martin: I do yeah. It’s much shorter. I made it before A Very Heavy Agenda but it’s about a 45-minute documentary.
GR: Right, but the other thing too is, when I was watching this, how it was used in a way to justify kind of a war in Iraq in a way because then that connects with WMDs. And, you know, so, could you just …and again, big can of worms here, but could you just kind of like explain this a little bit about what happened there with the anthrax attacks? Because also, just as a comment, I totally forgot about that. Completely. And then when watching the documentary and then hear you talk about it like on your podcast and stuff, all this stuff kept flooding back and I was oh, right, that was… Early on in that period, that was a huge talking point and I was like how did I…how did I… this is odd to me that I would have…I somehow totally forgot about this. But anyways just kind of explain that a little bit.
RM:Well, first I just wanted to say I’m really happy to hear you say it all came flooding back for you because that was kind of one of my intentions. It wasn’t even really an artistic choice, it was… I’m a believer in the idea of like state-dependent memory… And most of the time you hear that has to do with drugs or psychedelics, but when it comes to traumatic incidents, I think it’s also very important and key.
So I went into this documentary after I made American Anthrax. When I made A Very Heavy Agenda, I knew that most of the people don’t even remember the anthrax attacks, that I just randomly encounter. So, my goal was, if I put a chronological timeline of it and sort of re-immerse the viewer into this memory that they probably lived through and watched on TV but don’t even remember it, then maybe some of those memories will come flooding back. So I’m really glad to hear if it had that kind of effect on you.
Because I feel that that’s something that if you just expose people to just video clips of the anthrax attacks and sort of show them how it linked to Iraq and these things, then it would really shock most people, but they would also not just be shocked but it would… they would anchor them back to a different part of their life where they’re remember, and they’d be like, oh, wow, now I remember that trauma and sort of that fear, that heightened experience.
And you brought up Iraq. I’m a personal believer, and this is something that Glenn Greenwald and other journalists have also posited, the idea that the Iraq War wouldn’t have been possible to sell to the American public if it was not for the anthrax attacks. I am a strong believer in that being the reality. I see anthrax, the anthrax attacks, as the knockout punch.
9/11 was an isolated incident, sorry, well it took place in two… multiple cities, but it was mostly on the east coast in a very small relative geographical area. It happened on a single day, but it wasn’t just the 9/11 attacks themselves that enabled the hysterical climate for the Iraq War… The idea that terrorism would keep happening, that terrorists would try to use biological weapons, you know because Al-Qaeda was so crazy, they said, that they’re going to try to kill us using bio weapons and chemical weapons.
And the anthrax attack essentially provided that, provided that narrative. Because if 9/11 just happened by itself, and nothing else happened after that, the Bush Administration and the rest of the Homeland Security Department and the media class wouldn’t have been able to really sell us on the idea that terrorism was going to be a regularly occurring thing.
Having the anthrax attacks happen, and I should mention also it wasn’t just a single anthrax letter that was sent in the mail, there were four letters that were found, there were five deceased, and there were also dozens infected, but that’s…that’s…that might sound small, and it might sound like I’m exaggerating this idea that there was this much hysteria and fear over it, but if you actually read…there are some actual interesting stats in… and I can’t remember the title of it but it was an anthrax book that I just read…one of the last ones I managed to pick up a copy of…actually goes through, it does a statistical analysis of all the copycat anthrax letters that were sent to the country at the time. And there was something like thousands of cases of this happening. So what you had on top of the real letters was piggybacking of all these hoaxers and pranksters and people all across the country sending copycat letters too.
So the climate at the time was so amped up, so heightened, that it appeared that a terrorist or a group of terrorists was sending hundreds of letters through the mail. And this is maybe in a 3 or 4-month period starting in October.
It was discovered later that there were really only four letters found that actually contained anthrax. And they were sent to media and government figures. The two government figures that they were sent to, oddly, were two of the only people who were delaying the passage of the USA Patriot Act during the Bush Administration: Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy. That’s a very odd… two people to be selected for that attack, I think. And other people have speculated that perhaps this was actually the work of someone in the Bush Administration who desperately wanted to pass the Patriot Act, to strip us all of civil rights…it’s even hard to quantify how much our civil rights were stripped with that Patriot Act.
So, in terms of how it got us to the Iraq War, I should stress that if you look at every other Iraq WMDs hoax story, because all of them were either cooked up intelligence, doctored intelligence, orleaked lies of omission to the media about aluminum tubes, about Mohammed Atta’s meeting with Iraqi officials in Iraq or Baghdad or Hamburg… I forgot where they said they met.
If you look at all the other…connect the other things that connect Iraq to Al-Qaeda, where this idea of WMDs, they had a nuclear program, you know, they had chemical weapons, they had sarin, none of these things actually turn out to be true. And none of them actually had any effect over here. But one of the remaining Iraq war WMD narratives that stuck was that Iraq had a biological weapons program. They had anthrax stockpiles. That was something you heard the Bush Administration say. Colin Powell even held up the vial at the UN. And that was about 2 years after the anthrax, or less maybe two and a half years after. But in between that period where Colin Powell held up the vial and the anthrax being sent through the mail, there was an ongoing anthrax attack happening in the country.
So when you had the Bush Administration all of a sudden going out saying Saddam has WMDs, anthrax stockpiles, he doesn’t have to spell it out a hundred percent, because this is how the Bush Administration was so clever about it. They never directly blamed Saddam Hussein for the attacks. What they did was, they continually put out propaganda about how Saddam has anthrax stockpiles during the attacks. Without actually telling the American public who was behind them. And, actually, Bush speculated that it was probably Al-Qaeda.
But it’s very important because everyone really forgets, I think, how this 3-way connection was created between Saddam Hussein, Al-Qaeda, and 9/11. How did they manage to get that to sink in? It wasn’t just because the Bush Administration lied about the meetings and all that stuff. None of that stuff ended up having any real concrete proof. The only thing that really affected us here were the anthrax attacks. Psychologically speaking, without spelling it out, that’s how the Bush Administration got that idea to sink in. WMDs was a real thing. It wasn’t just a talk of foreign policy makers, it was because it was being sent to the mail and killing us at the time.
So, then, and of course, there are people leaking to media figures like Brian Ross on ABC, that it had hallmarks of Saddam Hussein’s biological weapons. So you had that propaganda coming out too, but the neocons and Bush were clever enough to not spell it out a hundred percent. And Bush had neocons like Robert Kagan and Bill Kristol and people who were running the administration kind of connecting the rest of the dots in the media, like Charles Krauthammer, other people, alleging that this is probably the work of Saddam Hussein.
GR:And on to sort of the re-branding of the neoconservative hawkish positions. I think, to me, your political analysis on Vice news is one of the sharpest and useful there is. I mean, there’s a lot of people who’ve talked about Vice, but I think you have, you base it in like a political analysis, and basically how now Vice pretty much echoes US foreign policy positions. You look at Vice coverage of Ukraine, Venezuela, Russia, North Korea, they’ve all pretty much taken, like full-blown hawkish positions, but they hide it under layers of irony and feigning that they are non-ideological just in the style that they produce these things.
So could you talk about that shift with Vice? I mean, I think there was always a reactionary political bent to it, but I mean now it’s just, over the last several years, it’s just full-blown hawkish positions. So how does that happen, and why is Vice the perfect vehicle for US foreign policy propaganda?
RM: Well, it’s… they’re all very valid questions, and I guess I’ll just start with something that… I don’t know if I…I think it’s revealed in Part 3 of A Very Heavy Agenda, but it’s something that’s been well known for a while, is that the founder of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol, Bill Kristol’s father, was actually the editor, co-editor, for a magazine that was popular in Europe called The Counter. It was made for liberal intellectuals. It wasn’t a super popular magazine, it wasn’t meant for people on the right side of the spectrum. It was meant for like artists and intellectuals and stuff like that in Europe.
And it turned out that this magazine was being primarily fronted by the CIA. And Irving kristol said he didn’t know it was being funded by the CIA, that he was annoyed when he found out. I don’t believe any of that. I think he was actually part of a…. part of working for the CIA. I think that was actually his job. I didn’t put that in my movie because that’s more speculation on my part, but, that being said, I think that this type of thing has been done by American foreign policy propagandists and information war types and intelligence agencies for a very long time.
This was a magazine that was being printed and distributed in the 1960s. So you go all the way to now, something like Vice magazine is almost kind of the perfect conduit to pass the threshold of the young cynical mind, and to get them basically to believe whatever they’re telling them. Because it’s, you know, Vice magazine started as edgy, sex positive, drug positive… You know, really edgy sort of culture magazine, and people fell in love with it. I mean it became a big thing.
In the United States, I remember, even in the early aughts, it was very, very popular. It was also free, freely distributed, which I’m still kind of confused about how they afforded to do that, just getting enough advertising money to print it for free. I think that needs to be closer examined.
But just that aside, they eventually started their own HBO show. I think it was around… it was around when Obama got in office, maybe it was around 2010 or a little later. So Vice actually started their own TV show on HBO, and it started just like Shane Smith himself, the owner of Vice, doing this sort of adrenaline junkie adventure tourism, going around all these places in the world that seemed really dangerous. And, like, the one I remember most is them going to Haiti, and then him just talking about all the s*** on the beach in Haiti. And that was like a Vicenews segment.
It was a very popular, sort of edgy show at the time. But what I didn’t know about it is that it was being co-produced by, and their main consultant was Fareed Zakaria of the Council on Foreign Relations and also CNN guys, you know he’s one of these neoliberal think tank quasi journalists, and Bill Maher you know famous politically correct comedian he has Real Time with Bill Maher, and he actually produced it and helps fund it. So he helped bring this Vice news show to HBO.
And Bill Maher has always sort of been this guy who pretends to be some kind of libertarian free speech, you know, real liberal guy, but he’s quite the bigot. I mean he’s quite an Islamophobe, he seems to subscribe to a lot of terrible foreign policy platforms. What I noticed is, even just with already knowing that, that Bill Maher was involved and all that kind of stuff, the part that really started to bother me was seeing their dishonest coverage of the Sochi Olympics and the Ukraine Civil War essentially. And from there I was kind of like well I’m just going to start looking at this more closely, and really try to figure out what their narrative is.
Like what is the narrative they’re putting out? Because as you said, they act like they don’t have an editorial slant on this show. It’s usually a younger reporter who’s just going out, you know, kind of seemingly naively covering a story and just along for the ride. A lot of it’s just kind of fly on the wall. The reporters aren’t asking very adversarial questions. It’s mostly just like a documentary kind of thing. But I started noticing something very specific, very early on when I started looking at this. It’s …their foreign policy slant seem to be almost identical to the Obama Administration and the US State Department foreign policy slant.
And once I started noticing that and how consistently true that was for Vice, I started noticing other strange things such as the BBG. The Broadcasting Board of Governors is the US State media arm that we have all these branches all around the world putting out US State sponsored content, similar to RT Russia. I noticed that the BBG seemed like they were especially excited about Vice, running a lot of their content in their reports, and on their Vice news segments. And you could actually see this on the BBG’s auditing reports from the years 2014 two around 2016. They seem particularly proud of Vice and the eagerness that Vice had to share their content. So that’s not just Vice mirroring the content of this Obama State Department. It’s Vice literally using stories and segments from literally US State funded State Department produced media. And that State Department produced media arm posting on their own website, on their government website, about how excited they are about Vice for using all their content.
So that was something else I noticed, and I thought that’s awfully strange that this supposedly edgy millennial news outlet that’s just started their own show not too long ago is this eager to use all this US State funded media content. And that’s similarly that branch of the US state government was very excited about that relationship as well. So, you know, that was the second thing I noticed that was really strange. And then I just started noticing that Obama seemed to be giving all this exclusive access to Vice, which says something in and of itself. There’s definitely ways that you can perceive what kind of favouritism is given to certain media figures. I mean just look at Trump, you know, only giving these long interviews to people like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson and no other people from… no other household name media figures.
Obama was giving exclusive access to Biden and different people from his cabinet to Shane Smith of Vice! Seemingly more than …he was giving to other media networks. And, you know, you could look at this and say, oh, well the Obama Administration, their people have traditionally always been good at tapping into this millennial hipster media circuit. I mean look at Obama going on Marc Maron. Look at him going on Between Two Ferns. But what I saw with Vice was much deeper than that, where it was the Obama Administration not only giving them extremely good access but also trying to put out these narratives on Vice news.
And this all sort of culminated with the strange final Vice news special with Obama… It wasn’t actually the final one. I think it was the second to last one they did with him… where Obama was literally the host of the segment, and Obama takes Shane Smith to a prison, a maximum-security prison to talk to prisoners about how deplorable prison life is. And I don’t know what to make of that other than it being a White House sponsored Vice news segment. If you watch it you can understand what I’m saying, but it’s very surreal because what other media network, especially one marketed towards millennials, would get away with doing something like that? You know, have the President of the United States host a segment. I mean it just looks bad, it looks funny, it smells funny.
So the fact that they would do that so nakedly, it really showed me that they actually don’t care, and that maybe in some ways they’re trying to rebrand this idea of a liberal government being linked arm-in-arm with this hipster media outlet, and that’s actually a good thing. It’s cool. It’s not something bad.
And then, I guess I’ll, the last thing I’ll mention is that Alyssa Mastromonaco, one of the people who spent the most time with Obama in the White House, she was with them on Air Force 1 taking his notes, constantly shadowing him, becomes the COO of Vice after she leaves her White House spot. It’s a very strange transition there. So, there’s more I can go in to. I mean Rupert Murdoch own something like 15 per cent of Vice now, Disney owns a large chunk. But there’s a lot more strange stuff with it. I mean, Simon Ostrowski, the host of Russian Roulette, they’re serious about Ukraine actually whitewashes Azov Battalion’s Neo-Nazi ties multiple times throughout the series, and we now know how brutally and openly Neo-Nazi they are. There’s no hiding it anymore. So, Vice was trying to hide that. And I’ve been accused of being paranoid and crazy for even pointing this out.
GR: Yeah…
RM: I mean…And it’s interesting… I’ve actually tried to talk to people who’ve left Vice about this and they’re kind of like, yeah, you know…I can see what you’re saying, but I didn’t notice while I was there. It’s like… I just don’t see how they didn’t notice it. I mean, to me it was just so obvious from the very beginning that something smelled funny about their foreign policy coverage but there were just other things they found during the making of my film, Scott, that like, Shane Smith says on video that they aired a free block of programming over public airwaves in 2014 in Eastern Europe. Who does that? Who does that at the very beginning stages of like a new Cold War run up? What – what media company does that? And you know, that sounds very similar to the way that the BBC and Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty operated is broadcasting content adversarial against Russia in Eastern Europe. That’s what they already do.
GR:Yeah
RM: So I found that very odd. That he would admit to doing that and just act like, and just say it in passing. You know like that was one of their marketing is tragedies. And also, they have branches in over a hundred, something like 120 countries. I mean they are embedded all over the world now. I mean they have so many stringers and freelancers, there are giant operation. So if someone wanted to use them like an intelligence network even, or for surveillance or whatever,…they seem like they’re kind of… It’s kind of a perfect setup actually in a way. Even just for… in terms of their reach and their amount of translators they have for Intelligence.
GR: Yeah, and so… and then kind of talking like the second part about Vice and sort of their position like we were just talking about, the access that they get and their kind of lines that they pushed through their media empire basically what they have now, this is one thing I was thinking. Do you think there’s a connection between the lack of an anti-war movement and news outlets like Vice, who speak and do really well with younger audiences? Do you think like this is, I don’t know, I don’t know how intentional it is, but it seems like it’s really good in neutralizing principled anti-war positions because of what we were just sort of talking about.
RM:No, I think it’s absolutely…you just hit on something totally true that’s happening. There’s all these…people won’t seek out…They believe that they have all these alternative voices in places like Vice or BuzzFeed or Daily Beast, but in fact if you look at all three of those outlets’ slant on US foreign policy, it’s virtually always the same, they’re almost always towing US foreign policy line, at least during the Obama Administration. Things have changed since Trump got an office. That’s a whole other can of worms.
But yeah, I think that you’re, it’s completely true to say is that the anti-war movement, at least in any mainstream sense, has been pretty much completely neutralized. And even like the sub mainstream anti-war movement, that you know you used to hear about anti-war protests, I mean I think the last one was a large group of people protesting the White House when Obama threatened to bomb Syria because they crossed the red line. That was one of the last major groundswell protests that the anti-war movement was really a part of. That like I think kind of penetrated at least partly to the mainstream.
Since then though, I think that it has been largely neutralized. Even the idea that we are perpetually bombing ISIS in Syria, even people on the anti-war left who were journalists who do work in that area, they don’t even really write about how that’s, you know, part of the endless war on terror. It’s kind of like just accepted that we need to eradicate ISIS and keep bombing Syria and Iraq over and over again until you know, killing unknown scores of civilians.
So, I think that unfortunately, the anti-war movement is largely disappeared. The drone wars have increased under Trump, more civilians are being killed, more bombs are being dropped under Trump than were under Obama, he’s doing it at a higher rate. You don’t really hear much outcry really. It just seems like mostly the consensus, even from the, I don’t want to say the left, but the liberal side of the spectrum, is calling for world war and how we should overthrow Assad, how maybe we should squeeze Putin more, maybe we should sanction North Korea and starve North Koreans more.
That’s sort of the rhetoric from the left right now. Unfortunately, there’s not, I mean the anti-war stuff, saying that we should keep our hands off of those countries and maybe not sanction Venezuela or talk about overthrowing them. It’s very few voices out there saying that kind of stuff right now. Even shows like Democracy Now in the United States have shifted more towards a regime change perspective in countries like Syria. Which is really shocking. But that’s where we are now.
– Intermission –
GR:I guess one of the last things… kind of one of the last things about A Very Heavy Agenda is that one of the major takeaways that I really got from the film and what I really appreciate it is that you kind of show that there aren’t really secret conspiracies and that many of these elites and these sorts of people are very open about what they want and what they want to do. And you show that through their own words, and you kind of let these people, you give them, you know, you use the own rope that they have to kind of hang themselves with in a way.
But, yet, people are still really attracted to the more cartoonish kind of conspiracy theory kind of things. And I think about that, and I also think about, at the same time, we are really living and one of the most propagandized times. And it is becoming harder and harder to discern what is happening in the world because you know these neocons, they don’t actually, like, as you kind of establish in the film and what we talked about, they don’t really care about what the facts are. It’s just whatever they can bend, whatever they can rewrite history into.
And we just talked about, like Vice and how they portray things. So, I mean, I’m just wondering about someone who is really kind of like yourself, who’s tuned into this. How do you stay focused on what matters, and how do you kind of keep sanity and a sort of decent mental health? I mean, what are your thoughts about this? Because it seems we’re getting… things are getting more surreal and even more propagandized than I even thought, you know, in the lead up to the Iraq War. I think, we’re in a way, we’re staged now.
RM: Yeah that’s a really hard one. I mean, gosh. I mean, I think just for myself, I try to make the world smaller in terms of my, what I focus on. If I tried to look at everything at once that bothered me, and tried to make sense of it, and tried to address it and fight against it, I think I would… there’d be no way to do it. I mean I would just probably be a depressed mess all the time. I wouldn’t be able to do anything. I’d be paralysed by it. So, I guess just for my own personal strategy is…and the work that I do is to narrow things down to where I think I can do the most damage, I guess.
GR: Right.
RM: Other than fighting against it. For me, I’ve chosen some, you know, very specific areas. So I will continue to do work and dig the subject of the 2001 anthrax attacks, but you know, in terms of just charting what the neocons are doing and what their plans are, like you said, a lot of this stuff is being talked about out in the open. I mean, you know, even if, you know, it depended on… you don’t have to be a Truther to think it’s valuable information, but the fact that the Project for the New American Century in the year 2000 talked about their eagerness for needing a new Pearl Harbor, perhaps tracking that back then might have prepared you better for the era to come in terms of, you know, what their propaganda was going to be like after 9/11 and things like that, and where it was going to go.
You know, because a lot of this stuff, at least for me, it used to be playing catch-up. I would be looking at documents that were written very, a while ago, you know, years ago, to try to understand the present. So, for me I try to read documents as they come out in the present to understand what’s going to happen in the future, and to try to at least, you know, get a better handle on what that might be so that when it happens, I can be better prepared to address it, I guess. And one of those ways that shaping up now is this build-up to what seems like Trump’s Administration beating the drums for war with Iran. And that’s something that, you know, I’ve been looking at very closely for the last couple of years.
So, it hasn’t been a surprise to me I guess is partly what I’m trying to say. But I think for regular people out there, I don’t blame people for wanting to unplug and not being able to follow what’s going on, because I agree with you that it’s one of the most challenging and intense propaganda eras in human history. And so, I don’t want to leave people with a cynical note or suggestion on my part, but if you want to do this kind of work, and you want to pay attention to it, I would try to narrow it down to something. Because otherwise it is going to drive you crazy.
GR: You have been listening to the Global Research News Hour special with journalist, filmmaker, and musician, Robbie Martin, on his documentary series, A Very Heavy Agenda that explores the rise and continued influence of the neoconservatives on US foreign policy and society. You can buy or stream A Very Heavy Agenda at averyheavyagenda.com. Music for this special provided by Fluorescent Gray, AKA, Robbie Martin. For The Global Research News Hour, I’m Scott Price.
– end of transcript –
Global Research News Hour Summer 2018 Series Part 6
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Seventy-three years ago (August 9, 1945) an all-Christian bomber crew dropped a plutonium bomb over Nagasaki City, Japan, instantly vaporizing, incinerating or otherwise annihilating tens of thousands of innocent civilians, a disproportionately large number of them Japanese Christians. The explosion mortally wounded uncountable thousands of other victims who succumbed to the blast, the intense heat and/or the radiation.
In 1945, the US was regarded as the most Christian nation in the world (that is, if you can label as truly Christian a nation whose churches are proponents of eye-for-an-eye retaliation, are supportive of America’s military and economic exploitation of other nations or otherwise fail to sincerely teach or adhere to the ethics of Jesus as taught in the Sermon on the Mount).
Ironically, prior to the bomb exploding nearly directly over the Urakami Cathedral at 11:02 AM, Nagasaki was the most Christian city in Japan, and the massive cathedral was the largest Christian church in the Orient.
An irradiated crucifix lies in the ruins of the Urakami Cathedral Following the Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki
Those baptized and confirmed Christian airmen, following their wartime orders to the letter, did their job efficiently, and they accomplished the mission with military pride, albeit with an astonishing number of near-fatal glitches in the mission. Most of us Americans would have done what the crew did if we had been in the shoes of the Bock’s Car crew. And, if we had never seen, heard or smelled the suffering humanity that the bomb caused on the ground, and if we had been treated as heroes in the aftermath, most of us would have experienced no remorse for our participation in what was retrospectively universally regarded as a war crime.
Indeed, the use of the most monstrous weapons of mass destruction in the history of warfare, was later defined by the Nuremberg Tribunal as an international war crime and a crime against humanity.
Of course, there was no way that the crew members knew that at the time of the mission. Some of the crew did admit that they had had some doubts about what they had participated in after the bomb actually detonated. But none of them actually witnessed the horrific suffering of the victims up close and personal. “Orders are orders” and disobedience in wartime is severely punishable, even by summary execution, so the crew obeyed the orders.
Making it Hard for Japan to Surrender
It had been only 3 days since the August 6th bomb had incinerated Hiroshima. The Nagasaki bomb was dropped amidst massive chaos and confusion in Tokyo, where the fascist military command was just beginning a meeting with the Emperor to discuss how to surrender with honor. The military and civilian leadership of both nations had known for months that Japan had lost the war.
The only obstacle to ending the war had been the Allied Powers insistence on unconditional surrender, which meant that the Emperor Hirohito would have been removed from his figurehead position in Japan and perhaps even subjected to war crime trials. That demand was intolerable for the Japanese, who regarded the Emperor as a deity.
The USSR had declared war against Japan the day before (August 8), hoping to regain territories lost to Japan in the humiliating (for Russia) Russo-Japanese War 40 years earlier, and Stalin’s army was now advancing across Manchuria. Russia’s entry into the war had been encouraged by President Truman before he knew of the success of the atom bomb test in New Mexico on July 16.
But now, Truman and his strategists knew that the bomb could elicit Japan’s surrender without Stalin’s help. So, not wanting to divide any of the spoils of war with the USSR, and because the US wanted to send an early cold war message to Russia that the US was the new planetary superpower, Truman ordered bomber command to proceed with using the atomic bombs as weather permitted and as they became available (although no more fissionable material was actually available to make a fourth bomb).
The Decision to Target Nagasaki
August 1, 1945 was the earliest deployment date for the Japanese bombing missions, and the Target Committee in Washington, D.C. had already developed a list of relatively un-damaged Japanese cities that were to be excluded from the conventional USAAF (US Army Air Force) fire-bombing campaigns (that, during the first half of 1945, had used napalm to burn to the ground over 60 essentially defenseless Japanese cities).
President Harry Truman (left)
The list of protected cities included Hiroshima, Niigata, Kokura, Kyoto and Nagasaki. Those five cities were to be off-limits to the terror bombings that the other cities were being subjected to. They were to be preserved as potential targets for the new “gimmick” weapon that had been researched and developed in labs and manufacturing plants all across America over the several years since the Manhattan Project had begun.
Ironically, prior to August 6 and 9, the residents of those five cities considered themselves lucky for not having been bombed as had the other large cities. Little did the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki know that they were only being temporarily spared from an even worse carnage in an experiment with a new weapon that could cause the mass destruction of entire cities that were populated with hundreds of thousands of live human guinea pigs.
The Trinity Test
The first and only field test of an atomic bomb had been blasphemously code-named “Trinity” (a distinctly Christian term). That experiment had occurred in secrecy 3 weeks earlier at Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945. The results were impressively destructive, but the blast had just killed a few hapless coyotes, rabbits, snakes and some other desert varmints. That plutonium bomb at Alamogordo had been identical to the Nagasaki bomb.
Trinity also produced huge amounts of an entirely new type of rock that was later called “Trinitite”. Trinitite was a radioactive molten lava rock that had been created from an intense heat that was twice the temperature of the sun.
At 3 am on the morning of August 9, 1945, a B-29 Superfortress bomber (that had been “christened” Bock’s Car) took off from Tinian Island in the South Pacific, with the prayers and blessings of the crew’s Lutheran and Catholic chaplains.
Barely making it off the runway before the heavily loaded plane went into the ocean (the bomb weighed 10,000 pounds), it headed north for Kokura, the primary target. Bock’s Car’s bomb was code-named “Fat Man,” partly because of its shape and partly to honor the rotund Winston Churchill. “Little Boy”, first called “Thin Man” (after President Roosevelt) was the code name of the uranium bomb that had been dropped on Hiroshima three days earlier.
Nagasaki was Being Incinerated as the Japan’s War Council was Again Debating Surrender Terms
Japan’s Supreme War Council in Tokyo, scheduled to convene their next meeting at 11 am on August 9, had absolutely no comprehension of what had really happened at Hiroshima. So the members were not inclined to heighten their sense of urgency concerning the issue of surrendering. The council was mostly concerned about Russia’s declaration of war than what was happening – as they were meeting – at Nagasaki.
But it was already too late, because by the time the War Council members were arising and heading to the meeting with the emperor, there was no chance to alter the course of history. Bock’s Car – flying under radio silence – was already approaching the southern islands of Japan, heading for Kokura, the primary target. The crew was hoping to beat an anticipated typhoon and the clouds that would have caused the mission to be delayed.
The Bock’s Car crew had instructions to drop the bomb only on visual sighting. But Kokura was clouded over. So after making three failed bomb runs over the clouded-over city and experiencing engine trouble on one of the four engines – using up valuable fuel all the while – the plane headed for its secondary target, Nagasaki.
The History of Nagasaki Christianity
Nagasaki is famous in the history of Japanese Christianity. The city had the largest concentration of Christians in all of Japan. St. Mary’s Cathedral was the megachurch of its time, with 12,000 baptized members.
Nagasaki was the community where the legendary Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier planted a mission church in 1549. The Catholic community at Nagasaki grew and eventually prospered over the next several generations. However it eventually became clear to the Japanese that the Catholic Portuguese and Spanish commercial interests were exploiting Japan. It only took a couple of generations before all Europeans – and their foreign religion – were expelled from the country.
From 1600 until 1850, being a Christian in Japan was a capital crime. In the early 1600s, Japanese Christians who refused to recant of their faith were subject to unspeakable tortures – including crucifixion. But after a mass crucifixion occurred, the reign of terror expired, and it appeared to all observers that Japanese Christianity was extinct.
However, 250 years later, after the gunboat diplomacy of US Commodore Matthew Perry forced open an offshore island for American trade purposes, it was discovered that there were thousands of baptized Christians in Nagasaki, living their faith in secret in a catacomb-like existence, completely unknown to the government.
With this revelation, the Japanese government started another purge; but because of international pressure, the persecutions were stopped and Nagasaki Christianity came up from the underground. By 1917, with no financial help from the government, the re-vitalized Christian community had built the massive St. Mary’s Cathedral in the Urakami River district of Nagasaki.
Christians Killing Christians in the Name of Christ
So it was the height of irony that the massive Cathedral – one of only two Nagasaki landmarks that could be positively identified from 31,000 feet up (the other one was the Mitsubishi armaments factory complex, which had run out of raw materials because of the Allied naval blockade) became Ground Zero for Fat Man.
At 11:02 am, during Thursday morning mass, hundreds of Nagasaki Christians were boiled, evaporated, carbonized or otherwise disappeared in a scorching, radioactive fireball that exploded 500 meters above the cathedral. The black rain that soon came down from the mushroom cloud contained the mingled cellular remains of many Nagasaki Shintoists, Buddhists and Christians. The theological implications of Nagasaki’s Black Rain surely should boggle the minds of theologians of all denominations.
The Nagasaki Christian Body Count
Most Nagasaki Christians did not survive the blast. 6,000 of them died instantly, including all who were at confession that morning. Of the 12,000 church members, 8,500 of them eventually died as a result of the bomb. Many of the others were seriously sickened with a highly lethal entirely new disease: radiation sickness.
Three orders of nuns and a Christian girl’s school nearby disappeared into black smoke or became chunks of charcoal. Tens of thousands of other innocent, non-Christian non-combatants also died instantly, and many more were mortally or incurably wounded. Some of the victim’s progeny are still suffering from the trans-generational malignancies and immune deficiencies caused by the deadly plutonium and other radioactive isotopes produced by the bomb.
And here is one of the most important ironic points of this article: What the Japanese Imperial government could not do in 250 years of persecution (ie, to destroy Japanese Christianity) American Christians did in mere seconds.
Even after a slow revival of Christianity since WWII, membership in Japanese churches still represents a small fraction of 1% of the general population, and the average attendance at Christian worship services across the nation reported to be only 30 per Sunday. Surely the decimation of Nagasaki at the end of the war crippled what at one time was a vibrant church.
George Zabelka, the Catholic Chaplain for the 509th Composite Group
Father George Zabelka was the Catholic chaplain for the 509th Composite Group (the 1500 man United States Army Air Force group whose only mission was to successfully deliver atomic bombs to their Japanese targets). Zabelka was one of the few Christian leaders who eventually came to recognize the serious contradictions between what his modern church had taught him and what the early pacifist church believed concerning homicidal violence.
Several decades after Zabelka was discharged from the military chaplaincy, he finally concluded that both he and his church had made serious ethical and theological errors in religiously legitimating the organized mass slaughter that is modern war. He eventually came to understand that (as he articulated it) “the enemy of me and the enemy of my nation is not an enemy of God. Rather my enemy and my nation’s enemy is a child of God who is loved by God and who therefore is to be loved (and not to be killed) by me as a follower of a loving God.”
Father Zabelka’s sudden conversion away from the standardized violence-tolerant Christianity changed his Detroit, Michigan ministry around 180 degrees. His absolute commitment to the truth of gospel nonviolence – just like Martin Luther King – inspired him to devote the remaining decades of his life to speaking out against violence in all its forms, including the violence of militarism, racism and economic exploitation. Zabelka travelled to Nagasaki on the 50th anniversary of the bombing, tearfully repenting and asking for forgiveness for the part he had played in the crime.
Likewise, the Lutheran chaplain for the 509th, Pastor William Downey (formerly of Hope Evangelical Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, MN), in his counseling of soldiers who had become troubled by their participation in making murder for the state, later denounced all killing, whether by a single bullet or by weapons of mass destruction.
Why Should Combat Veterans Embrace a Religion that Blessed the Wars that Ruined Their Souls?
In Daniel Hallock’s important book, Hell, Healing and Resistance, the author described a 1997 Buddhist retreat that was led by the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. The retreat involved a number of combat-traumatized Vietnam War veterans who had left the Christianity of their birth. The veterans had responded positively to Nhat Hanh’s ministrations. Hallock wrote, “Clearly, Buddhism offers something that cannot be found in institutional Christianity. But then why should veterans embrace a religion that has blessed the wars that ruined their souls? It is no wonder that they turn to a gentle Buddhist monk to hear what are, in large part, the truths of Christ.”
Hallock’s comment should be a sobering wake-up call to Christian leaders who seem to regard as important both the recruitment of new members and the retention of old ones. The fact that the US is a highly militarized nation makes the truths of gospel nonviolence difficult to teach and preach, especially to military veterans (particularly the homeless ones) who may have lost their faith because of spiritually-traumatic horrors experienced on the battlefield.
I am a retired physician who has dealt with hundreds of psychologically traumatized patients (including combat-traumatized war veterans), and I know that violence, in all its forms, can irretrievably damage the mind, body, brain, and spirit. But the fact that the combat-traumatized type is totally preventable – and oftentimes virtually impossible to fully cure – makes prevention work really important.
An ounce of prevention is indeed worth a pound of cure when it comes to combat-induced PTSD. And where Christian churches should and could be instrumental in the prevention of homicidal violence (and the soul-destroying combat PTSD) is by counseling their members to not participate in it, as the ethics of the nonviolent Jesus surely guided the pacifist church in the first 3 centuries of its existence.
Experiencing violence can be deadly and sometimes it is even contagious. I have seen violence, neglect, abuse and the resultant traumatic illnesses spread through both military and non-military families – even involving the 3rd and 4th generations after the initial victimizations. And that has been the experience of the hibakusha (the long-suffering atomic bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and their progeny and it has been the experience of the warrior-perpetrators (and their victims) who experienced the acts of killing in any war, not just WWII.
What Should be the Church’s Role in the Mass Slaughter of War?
Years ago I saw an unpublished Veteran’s Administration study that showed that, whereas most Vietnam War-era soldiers were active members of Christian churches before they went off to war, if they came home with PTSD, the percentage returning to their faith community approached zero. Daniel Hallock’s sobering message above helps explain why that is so.
Therefore the church – at least by its silence on the issue of war – seems to be promoting homicidal violence, contrary to the ethical teachings of Jesus, by failing to teach what the primitive church understood was one of the core teachings of Jesus, who said, in effect, that “violence is forbidden for those who wish to follow me”.
Therefore, by refraining from warning their adolescent members about the faith- and soul-destroying realities of war, the church is directly undermining the “retention” strategies in which all churches engage. The hidden history of Nagasaki has valuable lessons for American Christianity.
The Bock’s Car Crew and the Chain of Command
The Bock’s Car bomber crew, as are conscripted or enlisted men in any war, was at the bottom of a long, complex, and very anonymous chain of command whose superiors demand unconditional obedience from those below them in the chain. The Bock’s Car crew had been ordered to “pull the trigger” of the lethal weapon that had been conceptualized, designed, funded, manufactured and armed by other entities, none of whom would feel morally responsible for doing the dirty deed. As is true in all wars, the soldier trigger-pullers are usually the ones blamed for the killing and therefore they often feel the post-war guilt that is a large part of combat-induced PTSD. However their religious chaplains who are responsible for the morals of their soldiers, may share their guilt feelings. Both groups are down at the bottom of the chain of command, but neither group knows exactly who they are trying to kill the “enemy” – or why.
Hopefully this essay will promote needed discussions about the ethics of making murder for the state while simultaneously – and illogically – professing allegiance to the teachings of the nonviolent Jesus.
The early church leaders, who knew the teachings and actions of Jesus best, rejected the nationalist, racist and militarist agendas of the national security agencies, the military-industrial complex, the war-profiteering corporations and the pre-Christian eye-for-an-eye retaliation doctrines that have, over the past 1700 years, enabled baptized Christians to willingly kill other Christians (not to mention non-Christians) in the name of Christ.
The hidden history of Nagasaki should be instructive for a struggling American Christianity.
Dr Kohls is a retired physician who practiced holistic mental health care for the last decade of his career. In his practice he often dealt with the horrific psychological consequences of veterans (and civilians) who had suffered psychological, neurological and/or spiritual trauma during incidents of violence (including basic training and combat).
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Earlier this month, bringing in foreign workers by some oil companies in Iraq was seen by the local labour as a grave threat to their livelihood. Despite the high unemployment rates among Iraqis, the government has allowed the foreign firms and agencies to recruit approximately 200,000 foreign workers so far. Many of these are employed illegally in Iraq. The fervour of Iraqis reached its peak when Iran, one of its biggest trading partners, cut electricity supply due to Iraq’s unpaid bills of around $1 billion on July 9, exacerbating country’s electricity crisis amid the suffocating heat waves of more than 50 degrees Celsius. While few Iraqis could afford fleeing the country, others are outraged at power cuts and blame the government for corruption and mismanagement.
Hundreds of Iraqis took to the streets, demanding actions to tackle corruption, to bolster the weak economy and to improve the provision of basic services. Since employment is their major demand, the protestors mostly targeted economic sites such as Umm Qasr port, Zubayr oil field and Shiba gas field in Basra. In a matter of days, the protest that resonated in Basra, quickly spread like a copious cloud to other provinces like Maysan, Karbala, Najaf, Babel, and Dhi Qar, taking the government by surprise.
This massive movement, with the potential to reshape Iraq was simmering with sulking water security that worsened after Turkey threatened to construct a dam, reducing the flow from the Tigris River into the Mosul Dam Lake. It was followed by Iran’s announcement in June that its massive new water project, which would divert the waters from west to the parched parts of east in the country, is at its edge of completion. In other words, it means diversion the waters of the little Zab and Sirwan rivers, both of which flow into Iraqi Kurdistan. The Middle East is already grappling with a crippling water shortage that shows few signs of abating. This year, rain too has failed them. Under these circumstances, the competition over shared water resources between these three countries is all set to intensify. Without an effective working mechanism, water conflict could potentially become a serious challenge to Iraq’s bilateral relationship with Iran and Turkey.
Instead of addressing the water disputes however, the Iraqi government has set its priority in resolving reports of frauds, vote rigging and political interference that took place during the 12 May elections. In the post-ISIS era, politics in Iraq has become livelihood of the Iraqi judiciary, bureaucrats, and the political elites who are thoroughly engaged in the manual recount of ballots. Few of them are also insisting on re-election and are willing to go at any such lengths to secure few of additional seats in the parliament. The political infighting among the Iraqi parties is not only delaying the formation of the new government but also has proven to be an impediment in the governance of the country. As a result, Iraqi’s trust in government and political parties has reached a historical low. It appears that they like the idea of democracy but loathe the reality.
The Iraq government’s failure to address water shortage has also widened the tribal dispute in the southern Dhi Qar province. According to Mayor Hussein Ali Raddadof the Isah district alone, there were nearly 20 clashes over water scarcity in recent months. The effect of drought has also provided a pretext for the revival of ISIS.The affiliates of the Islamic State is trying to tap the grievances of farmers, who feel abandoned by their leaders and were ripe for recruitment. Already battered with the government’s shoddy policies which hobbled agriculture and impoverished its dependents, these farmers were in no state to navigate the extra challenges caused due to lack of basic services and necessity.
While few villages emerged as some of the deep-pocketed jihadists foremost recruiting ground, others decided to move into urban cities to find an alternate jobs to sustain their families’ livelihood. But, the situation there was not any more different than the rural areas. The unemployment ratio is about twice as high, especially among the poorest households and governates mostly affected by ISIS-related violence. As per the World Bank reports of April 2018, the poverty rate in Iraq had increased from 18.9 % in 2012 to an estimated 22.5% in 2014. It has gone further up in the later years. The recent labour market statistics suggest further deterioration of the poverty situation due to the markedly dropping participation rate of youths (ages 15-24) since the onset of the crisis in 2014, from 32.5% to 27.4%.
Left with nowhere to go, these young and old peasants, men and women are on the streets, halting along the roads, calling for a revolution against their leaders. These protestors least concerned about the consequences, are suffering because of unpayable debts, water-energy scarcity and zero government relief.Even though the Iraqi government keeps chanting that farmers are the backbone of the economy, no one seems to care about them in actuality. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has alternated between trying to suppress the protest by shutting the internet service and, more ominously had redeployed counterterrorism force who were given orders to arrest all demonstrators, and forcibly break the protest. Apparently, the Iraqi security force had beaten and fired on the protestors, killing and wounding more than 800.
Moreover, the government crackdown featuring multiple arrests of organizers, activists, and journalists is an attempt to diminish the size and scope of the protest. Abadi even tried to appease the protestors by suspending his electricity minister, Qassim al-Fahdawi, while his government investigates the ministry and the poor state of electricity service in Iraq. He also offered nearly $3 billion (3.5 trillion Iraqi dinars) for new utility-related projects in Basra. However, the offer is a long-term project and will not address the current need of the protestors. Also considering Abadi’s rhetoric dishonesties, one cannot trust his commitment especially when there is a slim chance of regaining his premiership with the next government.
On the other side, Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of Iraq’s largest party (Sairoon) in the recent elections, expressed support for the protestors and called for the formation of Iraq’s next government to be further delayed until their demands have been addressed. Here, the problem is that these demand cannot be resolved overnight. In order to pay attention to the emerging crisis and demands that embody them, transformation and formation of the government is must. A government with structural and normative change with a systematic body is necessary to address past and present needs of Iraqi citizens. While others ignored this fact, Iraq’s top Shi’a leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, recognized the importance of a new functional and effective government. He delivered a sermon that called for political factions to get over their differences and form a new government which can tackle the endemic corruption that’s triggered the protests across the country. Sistani is not a political actor but he is immensely influential and his words carry enormous weight amongst the Iraqi Shi’a.
Along with the grand leader, the neighbouring countries especially Kuwait is concerned about brewing instability which has the potential to push Iraqi refugees into the country. As a result, Kuwait decided to help Iraq by supplying fuel for its power plants and has also expressed its willingness to help with desalination effort to improve Iraq’s water supply. Amidst the anti-Iranian and anti-Turkish sentiment amongst Iraqis, Saudi Arabia has also suggested that it will build a solar power plant and sell its electricity to Baghdad for around quarter of what Iran was charging. While the Iraqis say that they are still evaluating this proposal, which would obviously be a way for Riyadh to undermine Iran’s influence in Iraq, Iranian have not yet commented on this alleged offer. However, the Iranians have reportedly reached an agreement with Iraq to block heavily polluted and salty water from Tehran’s Karun River from reaching Bagdad’s Shatt al-Arab waterway, the river formed by the joining of the Tigris and Euphrates. Salty water in the Shatt al-Arab has become a major issue in terms of both irrigation and drinking water in southern Iraq. While these external factors ticked down the protest, Iraq and its government is still in a mess.
It has been a year since Iraqis achieved liberation from ISIS, yet the situation remains unlivable. So far, the international community/allies have contributed $30billion dollar to rebuild areas damaged during the war against ISIS. But, the reconstruction project has been hampered by corruption, mismanagement and dysfunctional governance. Apparently, hundreds of billions in oil revenues have been syphoned out of the country by the elites. Even if Iraq is rebuilt, lingering distrust and ongoing sectarian-ethnic violence will continue to ruin Iraq in the post-ISIS era. Shia and Kurd forces who participated in the operation against ISIS are reluctant to allow Sunni Arabs to return home due to unjustified fears that they might have a link to ISIS. And it is the Iraqi government’s inability to provide security assurances that contribute to such fear. Thus, it is significant to Iraq to form a new government which ought to take charge of the situation in terms of addressing energy, water and security crisis, followed by corruption and unemployment. If they dwell further on the electoral frauds, other pertinent issues of governance would remain to be languishing without being adequately addressed.
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Nagapushpa Devendra is a researcher at the Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses, New Delhi. She can be reached at [email protected].
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On August 13, Russian air defense forces intercepted and destroyed 5 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) near Khmeimim Air Base in the province of Latakia. According to the head of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the opposing sides in Syria, Maj. Gen. Alexei Tsygankov, the UAVs were launched by militants from the Idlib de-escalation zone.
Over the past month, UAV attacks on Russia’s airbase have turned into an almost everyday occurrence. On August 12, Russian forces intercepted 2 UAVs and on August 11, one. UAV attacks on the airbase also took place on August 10, July 30 and July 21. All of them were repelled.
The UAV attacks from the Idlib de-escalation zone on Russian military facilities have increased as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) and other militant groups are seeing them as one of the very few options to deliver damage to Russian forces and to deliver a PR blow to the Russian military presence in the country.
On the other hand, these attacks show that the de-escalation agreement does not work. Terrorist groups operating in the area are not seeking to join a peace process or surrender. The only thing stopping them from a direct advance on government positions surrounding the militant-held part of the provinces of Latakia, Idlib and Aleppo is the open secret that they will be defeated in any face-to-face battle with the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).
The SAA and its allies have retaken Abu Ghanim Mount and secured the Ruhba area in the province of Rif Dimash in the framework of their security operation against ISIS cells. Additionally, government troops advanced on ISIS cells’ positions in the areas of Ardh Al-Banat, Durs, Shir Tur Al-Hawiyah and Rujm Mughrabah.
At least 17 airstrikes by the Russian Aerospace Forces and the Syrian Air Force on ISIS targets in the Safa area were reported.
Considering the speed of the ongoing SAA advance in Safa, the ISIS presence in the area will be eliminated soon. However, this does not mean that ISIS will no longer pose a threat to the government-controlled area.
According to a UN report released on August 13, there are still from 20,000 to 30,000 ISIS members in Syria and Iraq.
The media wing of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) released an official statement commenting on rumors disseminated by the Turkish media that 1,300 members of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) may participate in the expected SAA operation in Idlib.
The SDF media wing claimed that these reports are untrue and further stated that there are no negotiations or coordination with “the Syrian regime”. While there is nothing new in the fact that the SDF will not be involved in the expected Idlib advance, there are two interesting moments in this statement:
In the August 13 statement, the SDF directly described itself as an entity created as another brand for the YPG and the PKK in Syria. Turkish media had referred to these very groups in its rumors, but a response came from the SDF.
The SDF’s claims about no coordination and negotiations with the Assad government are false. For example, in late July, a high profile delegation of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) – the political wing of the SDF – visited Damascus for negotiations with the Syrian government. After this, SDF-, SDC- and YPG-linked public figures have made a series of statements confirming the existing negotiations and coordination with Damascus in the political sphere and a possible cooperation in the military sphere.
This situation shows that there is at least a hidden rift within the US-backed group. On the official level, the Kurdish-dominated SDF seeks to maintain its image as a reliable “proxy” of the US in Syria and provides an official media policy based on the MSM text book. This approach, especially when it’s employed roughly, creates the situation that the SDF’s official statements contradict the actions of the SDF and the most influential groups within it, like the YPG, on the ground.
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For the first time since the beginning of the Syrian crisis in 2011 a significant number of international experts, political analysts, and journalists have reported about the near conclusion of the war. The military operation of the Syrian Arab Army on the liberation of the rest part of the country from various terrorist organizations is currently in the final stage. Peace and stability gradually return to the liberated areas.
The return of refugees to their homes is a key priority in the restoration of the whole country. At the same time, the creation of the Centre for Refugee Reception, Distribution and Accommodation that is ready to accommodate more than 360,000 people in various cities has also become an additional impetus. The Syrian President Bashar Assad highly appreciated the efforts of Russia on the return of the refugees to their homeland, adding that Damascus is ready to accept back all its citizens.
It’s worth noting that Syrian refugees have gradually started to return home. According to the Russian center, the total number of people returned from Lebanon to Syria since July 18, 2018, has reached 4174, and this number keeps growing. Only for the past several days, due to the efforts of the Syrian government, more than 900 people have returned home from Lebanon. Muhammad Deeb, a returning refugee, says,
“We fled to Lebanon because of terrorism, but my life has been full of indignity and misery since I left Zabadani in 2011. I’m very thankful that Syria is again as safe as ever, so we can go back to our homeland.”
At the same time, refugees started to return from Jordan. Thus, hundreds of civilians have already passed through the al-Nasib crossing point in the first days of its operation. There is no doubt that the number of refugees will continue growing, as the Jordanian authorities intend to cooperate actively with the Syrian government on this issue.
Source: author
It’s not a secret that a considerable number of the Syrian refugees remain in Europe. Moreover, it is surprising to witness the inactivity of European officials who continuously declare about the increase in crime level and economic problems associated with the influx of migrants.
Most likely, they decided to ignore the problems of Syria, pretending that this does not concern them.
In doing so, the European authorities forget that thousands of people separated from their family members and dreaming of returning home still remain in their states. Perhaps, the Western countries are still not ready to accept the fact that Bashar al-Assad remains the head of the state. That’s why the statement of France’s Permanent Representative to the UN Francois Delattre that France won’t take part in the restoration of the humanitarian situation in Syria until the political changes, looks quite cynical.
It’s high time for the West to acknowledge that the Syrian Arab Army and the allied forces are the only power that succeeded in fighting international terrorism and bringing peace and stability. The resolution of the crisis is quite close, but the European leaders must realize that the full settlement of the Syrian crisis is impossible without resolving some humanitarian issues. In particular, the return of refugees. Both the Syrians and Europeans are interested in this.
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Sophie Mangal is a special investigative writer and contributor, monitoring the refugee crisis in Europe and drawing parallels between the Syrian conflict and the Balkan problem. She has visited Syria on several occasions and can be reached at [email protected]
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To understand how screwed-up America is, consider that patriotism is now associated with the suppression of dissent.
Rich football team owners, who know nothing of the hard lives of most Americans, and the police, who routinely shoot down black people in the streets and in their homes without accountability or due process, are incensed that three Miami Dolphin players kneeled last week during the national anthem to protest the unaccountable police murders of black US citizens.
The Broward County Police Benevolent Association rushed to cut off its nose to spite its face by announcing that it will no longer be part of the Dolphin’s discount ticket program. Now if a cop wants to go to a game, he has to pay full price.
Those who rule us want all protests to occur on an isolated street corner where police can taser and beat the protester without any public notice. They do not want protests at football games where there are tens of thousands of people watching in the stands and millions on television. In such a visible venue, the police cannot taser and beat the protesters.
Moveover, the protests get noticed and cause Americans to wonder what has happened that is so disturbing that black professional athletes risk their highly paid livelihoods for the sake of a public protest. Colin Kaepernick, who originated the protests was fired as quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers for exercising his constitutional rights and has been blacklisted by rich NFL team owners.
Those who protest the protesters are the unAmericans. They are the stupid agents of those who have turned America into a police/warfare state that neglects the needs of its own people in order to serve the greed of the military/security complex and global exploitative corporations.
I am always discouraged when ordinary Americans, themselves victims of the system, say, “well, they can protest but not during the anthem or at a public event.” Those who say this have no idea what an American is.
As Americans themselves no longer know what it means to be an American, little wonder they have lost their country.
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V. S. Naipaul, the Nobel winning author who just died, was, like so many people, an enigma, at least in his writing.Lauded for his prose style and exquisite way with words, he was seriously criticized for his demeaning of Islam, women, Africans, and others in post-colonial countries, including the Caribbean from whence he came.Such criticism was amply justified.He seems also to have been bigoted and irascible personally, while charming when he wished.A strange character, many of whose political and cultural views I find abhorrent.
Nevertheless, if one only looked for beauty and truth in writers whose politics one agreed with, one would miss out on a lot.For sometimes, despite themselves, writers pen words that come from a place where art and inspiration and personal anguish subvert their worst inclinations.As Leonard Cohen has written:
“There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”
This is true for Naipaul.
He once said that fiction never lies, and while this may or may not be true, it is true that writers whose politics one may find repulsive can also, despite their conscious intentions, write books that glow with an extraordinary prose luminescence that mesmerizes and reveals deep insights.
This is the case with Naipaul’s The Enigma ofArrival, a work he calls a novel but that reads like an autobiography.While his novel, A House for Mr Biswas, is considered his finest work and the book that made him famous, I think The Enigma of Arrival is a masterpiece. Deeply melancholic, it allows Naipaul’s shadow side to reveal truths that go far beyond the man himself.
The prototype for all journeys is life itself.This being so, it follows that every destination prefigures death and of necessity poses an enigma.For although one travels in part to arrive, at the same time one’s anticipation of arrival harbors the fear of cessation.It is because every elsewhere contains the worm of death that some people never embark on the voyage, while others go from “place” to “place” in search of paradise.
Naipaul cast anchor at the age of 18, leaving Trinidad for a scholarship at Oxford in England where – aside from numerous travels, especially in the Third World – he lived most of his life.Setting out with a wish not “so much to go to Oxford as a wish to get out of Trinidad and see the great world and make myself a writer,” this young man of Indian ancestry, a child of crumbling colonialism, took with him a temperament “to see the possibility, the certainty, of ruin, even at the moment of creation.”In other words, a true writer’s temperament, the sensibility of one who knows intuitively that the journey into the unknown never ends; “that,” as he would gradually learn, “to be a writer was not (as I had imagined) a state – of competence, or achievement, or fame, or content – at which one arrived and where one stayed…It was always necessary to pick oneself up and start again.”
Outwardly at least, the story Naipaul tells in The Enigma of Arrival isimpersonal, slow-paced and almost boring in its progression (much like ordinary life).After twenty years in England – “savorless and much of it mean” – having failed in his effort to leave England with its history of colonial exploitation and become “a free man,” his spirit broken and his nerves shattered, he settles in a “cottage of a half-neglected estate, an estate full of reminders of its Edwardian past” on the Salisbury Plain near Stonehenge.
There, in a part of England renowned for its historical and religious past – “a vast sacred burial ground” – he finds in his solitude and daily walks “a second chance, a new life, richer and fuller than any I had had anywhere else.”He learns to see nature with new eyes and to take solace in “the child’s dream of a safe house in the wood.”In the garden of a local man – “Jack’s Garden,” the book’s opening section – he comes to see a celebration of “something like religion.”Jack, in his way of life, “had sensed that life and man were the true mysteries.”
But Jack dies; the estate’s slow decay precipitates; the deadly sounds from the nearby army training grounds echo in the author’s ears; a fellow writer, one who suffered, like Naipaul, from a “too-literary approach to his experience,” kills himself; a woman is murdered.In short, into his natural paradise, albeit a ruinous and derelict one (its appeal for Naipaul, the unanchored, dispossessed outsider), the snake of death and destruction crawls.Having stayed too long in this place that he loved, Naipaul falls ill; his “second childhood of seeing and learning” comes to an end.He moves, but just a few miles away, to a few old agricultural cottages that he converts into a house.A mistake, he later realizes.“I should have made a clean break, gone elsewhere.”
But where?For at the heart of his pilgrimage is an image from which his book’s title derives.It is a painting by Giorgio de Chirico, “The Enigma of Arrival,” so named by the poet Apollinaire.It is a scene of a wharf; in the background rises the mast of an antique sailing ship; in the foreground stand two figures, muffled and mysterious.In his fascination with this painting, Naipaul imagined a story of a man who arrived at this port, enters the city, has encounters and adventures, but gradually has the feeling that he is getting nowhere.In his lostness and panic, he miraculously finds his way back to the quayside in order to escape.
But to where?And how?In the concluding section of this moving book – “The Ceremony of Farewell” – Naipaul’s sister dies of a brain hemorrhage.He returns to Trinidad to be with his family.During a Hindu ceremony for his sister, her husband says to the Hindu pundit conducting the rites, “ ‘I would like to see her again.’“There were tears in his eyes.“The pundit didn’t give a straight reply….Sati’s son asked, ‘Will she come back?’Sati’s husband asked, ‘Will we be together again?’The pundit said, ‘But you wouldn’t know it is her.’ “
“It was,” writes Naipaul, “the pundit’s interpretation of the idea of reincarnation.And it was no comfort at all.It reduced Sati’s husband to despair.”
And with that recollected dialogue, with its abstract commentary on everyone’s last port of call, Naipaul reveals the anguish at the heart of his journey.“There was no ship of antique shape now to take us back,” he sadly notes.The old sanctities, the sacred world had vanished.He concludes:
Every generation now was to take us further away from those sanctities.But we remade the world for ourselves; every generation does that, as we found when we came together for the death of this sister and felt the need to honor and remember.It forced us to look on death.It forced me to face the death I had been contemplating at night, in my sleep; it fitted a real grief where melancholy had created a vacancy, as if to prepare me for the moment.It showed me life and man as the mystery, the true religion of men, the grief and the glory.
And it brought Naipaul to begin writing this book and to discover in the end that one arrives at oneself or not at all.Whether he did or not, no one can say.Is he still sailing?No one can say?Has he arrived?No one can say.But he left us with this deeply evocative meditation on life and death in the modern world, a world in which, despite science and technology, the old questions remain to haunt us –the enigmas.
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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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Donald Trump’s biggest success, thus far into his Presidency, has been his sale of $400 billion (originally $350 billion) of U.S.-made weapons to the Saudi Arabian Government, which is owned by its royal family, after whom that nation is named. This sale alone is big enough to be called Trump’s “jobs plan” for Americans. It is also the biggest weapons-sale in all of history. It’s 400 billion dollars, not 400 million dollars; it is gigantic, and, by far, unprecedented in world-history.
The weapons that the Sauds and their friends, the 7 monarchies that constitute the United Arab Emirates, are using right now, in order to conquer and subdue Yemen, are almost entirely made in America. That’s terrific business for America.
Not only are Americans employed, in strategically important congressional districts (that is, politically important congressional districts), to manufacture this equipment for mass-murdering in foreign lands that never threatened (much less invaded) America, but the countries that purchase this equipment are thereby made dependent upon the services of those American manufacturers, and of the taxpayer-funded U.S. ‘Defense’ Department and its private military contractors such as Lockheed Martin, to maintain this equipment, and to train the local military enforcers, on how to operate these weapons. Consequently, foreign customers of U.S. military firms are buying not only U.S. weapons, but the U.S. Government’s protection — the protection by the U.S. military, of those monarchs.
They are buying the label of being an “American ally” so that the U.S. news media can say that this is in defense of American allies (regardless of whether it’s even that).
American weapons are way overpriced for what they can do, but they are a bargain for what they can extract out of America’s taxpayers, who fund the U.S. ‘Defense’ Department and thus fund the protection of those monarchs: these kings and other dictators get U.S. taxpayers to fund their protection. It’s an international protection-racket funded by American taxpayers and those rulers, in order to protect those rulers; and the victims aren’t only the people who get slaughtered in countries such as Afghanistan, and Iraq, and Libya, and Syria, and Yemen, and Palestine, but also (though only financially) are the American public, who get fleeced by it — the American public provide the bulk of the real funding for this operation to expand the lands where America’s allies rule, and so to serve both America’s aristocracy and the aristocracies that are America’s allies.
This is how today’s America enforces its ‘democracy’ around the world, so that America can spread this ‘democracy’, at gunpoint, and at bomb-point, like America’s allies, those Kings and Emirs, and the apartheid regime in Israel, are doing, to the people whom they kill and conquer, with help from the taxpayer-funded American military — funded to protect those aristocrats, against their respective publics, and to further enrich America’s own aristocrats, at the expense of America’s own public.
The global ‘aggressor’ has been identified by America’s previous President, Barack Obama, who won office like Trump did, by promising ‘a reset’ in relations with post-communist Russia, and by mocking Obama’s opponent (Mitt Romney) for having called Russia “the number one geopolitical foe” — which America’s aristocracy has historically considered Russia to be, ever since the aristocracy in Russia fled and were killed in 1917, which caused America’s and other aristocracies to fear and hate Russia and Russians, for having ousted its aristocracy, this being an act that aristocrats everywhere are determined to avenge, regardless of ‘ideology’. (Similarly, America and its pro-aristocracy foreign allies, seek to avenge Iran’s 1979 overthrow of the Shah.) As Obama’s own actions during his subsequent Presidency made clear, and as he already had started in 2011 (if not from day one of his Presidency) secretly to implement, he privately agreed with what Romney said on that occasion, but he was intelligent enough (which his opponent obviously was not) to recognize that the American public, at that time, did not agree with it but instead believed that Islamic terrorists and aristocrats such as the Sauds who finance them are that); and Obama took full advantage of his opponent’s blunder there, which helped Obama to win a second term in the White House (after having skillfully hidden from the public during his first term, his intention to weaken Russia by eliminating leaders who were friends or even allies of Russia, such as in Syria, and Ukraine).
This is American ‘democracy’, after all (rule by deceit, lies), and that’s the reason why, when Russia, in 2014, responded to the U.S. coup in Ukraine (a coup under the cover of anti-corruption demonstrations) which coup was taking over this large country next-door to Russia and thus constituted a deadly threat to Russia’s national security, Obama declared Russia to be the world’s top ‘aggressor’. Obama overthrew Ukraine and then damned Russia’s leader Putin for responding to Obama’s aggressive threat against Russia from this coup in neighboring Ukraine. Russia was supposedly the ‘aggressor’ because it allowed the residents of Crimea — which had been part of Russia until the Soviet dictator in 1954 had arbitrarily handed Crimea to Ukraine — to become Russian citizens again, Russians like 90% of them felt they still were, despite Khrushchev’s transfer of them to Ukraine in 1954. The vast majority of Crimeans felt themselves still to be Russians. But Obama and allies of the U.S. Government insisted that the newly installed Government of Ukraine must rule those people; those people must not be permitted to rule (or be ruled) by people they’ve participated in choosing.
p.14:
“If Ukraine was able to enter only one international economic union, which entity should it be with?”
53% “Customs Union with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan”
17% “The European Union”
p.15:
“How would you evaluate your attitude to the following entities?”
“Russia”: 68% “Warm”; 5% “Cold”
“USA”: 6% “Warm”; 24% “Cold”
p.17:
“In your opinion, what should the status of Crimea be?”
“Autonomy in Ukraine (as today [under Crimea’s 1992 Constitution and as subsequently celebrated by RFE/RL on 20 January 2011] )”: 53%.
“Common oblast of Ukraine [ruled under Ukraine’s 1991 Constitution]”: 2%.
“Crimea should be separated and given to Russia”: 23%.
In other words: prior to the U.S. State Department and CIA operation to steal Ukraine’s government from Ukraine’s citizens — including especially from the residents of the sole autonomously governed region in Ukraine, which was Crimea — 53% of Crimeans wanted continued autonomy, 23% wanted not only a total break away from the Ukrainian Government but their becoming again citizens of Russia, such as had existed until 1954; and only 2% wanted restoration of the situation in 1991 when Crimea was briefly a “common oblast” or regular region within Ukraine, a federal state within Ukraine just like all the other states within Ukraine were. And, obviously, after America’s coup in Ukraine, the percentage who wanted a total break away from Ukraine rose even higher than it had been before.
Consequently, the U.S. demand that the newly imposed Ukrainian regime, which Obama’s coup created, made upon Crimea subsequent to the coup, and which demand both Obama and his successor Trump insist must be imposed upon and obeyed by Crimeans if the anti-Russia sanctions are even possibly to end, is the demand that Crimeans, in that May 2013 poll, even prior to the bloody Obama coup and the takeover of Ukraine by rabidly anti-Crimean Ukrainian nazis, had supported by only 2% (it was demanding reimposition of the brief 1991 Ukrainian relationship, which Crimeans had rejected in 1991), as compared to the 53% of Crimeans who favored continuation of Crimean “autonomy,” and the 23% who favored becoming Russians again.
Furthermore, the May 2013 poll showed that only 17% of Crimeans favored becoming part of the EU, whereas 53% preferred to be part of the “Customs Union with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan”; so, clearly, Crimeans, prior to the democratically elected Ukrainian Government’s having declined the EU’s offer, overwhelmingly wanted Ukraine’s democratically elected Government to do precisely what it did — to turn down the EU’s offer.
During the U.S. coup, and immediately after it, until the 16 March 2014 Crimean referendum on what to do about it, Crimeans saw and heard on television and via the other Ukrainian media, reports that could only have terrified them about the new Government’s intentions. Clearly the U.S. regime had no objection to placing nazis in charge, and Crimeans are intensely anti-nazi — not only anti-Nazi during Hitler’s time, but against nazism, the racist-fascist ideology, itself, regardless of which group it’s targeting; but, in their case, it targets Crimeans, and, more broadly, Russians.
A January 2015 poll of Crimeans was financed by rabidly anti-Russian Ukrainians in Canada and released in early February, and it found (probably to their enormous disappointment) that 93% of respondents did “endorse Russia’s annexation of Crimea” and 4% did not. On 16 March 2015, the U.S. State Department issued a statement: “On this one year anniversary of the sham ‘referendum’ in Crimea, held in clear violation of Ukrainian law and the Ukrainian constitution, the United States reiterates its condemnation of a vote that was not voluntary, transparent, or democratic.” No evidence was provided for any of that assertion, simply the allegation. Four days later, the far more honest Kenneth Rapoza at Forbes headlined “One Year After Russia Annexed Crimea,” and he opened:
The U.S and European Union may want to save Crimeans from themselves. But the Crimeans are happy right where they are. One year after the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula in the Black Sea, poll after poll shows that the locals there — be they Ukrainians, ethnic Russians or Tatars are mostly all in agreement: life with Russia is better than life with Ukraine.
Little has changed over the last 12 months. Despite huge efforts on the part of Kiev, Brussels, Washington and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the bulk of humanity living on the Black Sea peninsula believe the referendum to secede from Ukraine was legit. At some point, the West will have to recognize Crimea’s right to self rule.
The U.S. and its allies have a different idea than that. They reject Rapoza’s view.
The United States claims to support ‘democracy’. But it demands imposition upon Crimeans of a rabidly anti-Crimean Government. What kind of ‘democracy’ does the United States actually support? Has the U.S. Government answered that question in Crimea — and, in Ukraine — by its actions there? Obama supported this kind of ‘democracy’, and this kind. He wanted this kind of treatment of Crimeans. Trump hasn’t yet made clear whether he does, too; but his official representatives have made clear that they do.
This is today’s American ‘democracy’. Is it also ‘democracy’ in America’s allied countries? (Obviously, they are more democratic than America regarding just the incarceration-rate; but what about generally?) Almost all of those countries continue to say that America is a democracy (despite the proof that it is not), and that they are likewise. Are they correct in both? Are they allied with a ‘democracy’ against democracy? Or, are they, in fact, phonies as democracies? These are serious questions, and bumper-sticker answers to them won’t suffice anymore — not after invading Iraq in 2003, and Libya in 2011, and Syria right afterward, and Ukraine in 2014, and Yemen today, etc.
Please send this article along to friends, and ask for their thoughts about this. Because, in any actual democracy, everyone should be discussing these issues, under the prevailing circumstances. Taxpayer-funded mass-slaughter is now routine and goes on year after year. After a few decades of this, shouldn’t people start discussing the matter? Why haven’t they been? Isn’t this the time to start? Or is America so much of a dictatorship that it simply won’t happen? We’ll see.
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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.
However, there is no consensus regarding the timeframe in which this climate catastrophe will cause human extinction. This lack of consensus is primarily due to the global elite controlling the public perception of this timeframe with frequent talk of ‘the end of the century’ designed to allow ongoing profit maximization through ‘business as usual’ for as long as possible. Why has this happened?
When evidence of the climate catastrophe (including the pivotal role of burning fossil fuels) became incontrovertible, which meant that the fossil fuel industry’s long-standing efforts to prevent action on the climate catastrophe had finally ended, the industry shifted its focus to arguing that the timeframe, which it presented as ‘end of the century’, meant that we could defer action (and thus profit-maximization through business as usual could continue indefinitely). Consequently, like the tobacco, sugar and junk food industries, the fossil fuel industry has employed a range of tactics to deflect attention from their primary responsibility for a problem and to delay action on it.
These well-worn tactics include suggesting that the research is incomplete and more research needs to be done, funding ‘research’ to come up with ‘evidence’ to counter the climate science, employing scholars to present this ‘research’, discrediting honest climate scientists, infiltrating regulatory bodies to water down (or reverse) decisions and recommendations that would adversely impact profits, setting up ‘concerned’ groups to act as ‘fronts’ for the industry, making generous political donations to individuals and political parties as well as employing lobbyists.
As a result of its enormous power too, the global elite has been able to control much of the funding available for climate science research and a great deal of the information about it that is made widely available to the public, particularly through its corporate media. For this reason, the elite wields enormous power to shape the dialogue in relation to both the climate science and the timeframe.
Therefore, and despite the overwhelming consensus noted above, many climate scientists are reluctant to be fully truthful about the state of the world’s climate or they are just conservative in their assessments of the climate catastrophe. For example, eminent climate scientist Professor James Hansen referred to ‘scientific reticence’ in his article ‘Scientific reticence and sea level rise’, scientists might be conservative in their research – for example, dependence upon historical records leads to missing about one-fifth of global warming since the 1860s as explained in ‘Reconciled climate response estimates from climate models and the energy budget of Earth’ – and, in some cases, governments muzzle scientists outright. See ‘Scientist silencing continues for federally-funded research’. But many of the forces working against full exposure of the truth are explained in Professor Guy McPherson’s article ‘Climate-Change Summary and Update’.
However, in contrast to the elite-managed mainstream narrative regarding the climate timeframe, there is a group of courageous and prominent climate scientists who offer compelling climate science evidence that human beings, along with millions of other species, will be extinct by 2026 (and perhaps as early as 2021) in response to a projected 10 degree celsius increase in global temperatures above the pre-industrial level by that date. See ‘Will humans be extinct by 2026?’
Before outlining the essence of this article, it is worth noting that the website on which it is posted is ‘Arctic News’ and the editors of this site post vital articles on the world’s climate by highly prominent climate scientists, such as Professor Peter Wadhams (Emeritus Professor of Polar Ocean Physics at Cambridge University and author of A Farewell to Ice: A Report from the Arctic), Dr Andrew Glikson (an Earth and paleoclimate scientist who is a visiting fellow at the Australian National University), Professor Guy McPherson who has written extensively and lectures all over the world on the subject, and ‘Sam Carana’, the pseudonym used by a group of climate scientists concerned to avoid too many adverse impacts on their research, careers and funding by declaring themselves publicly but nevertheless committed to making the truth available for those who seek it.
The Climate Science of Destruction of the Biosphere
In the Arctic, there is a vast amount of carbon stored in soils that are now still largely frozen; this frozen soil is called permafrost. But as Arctic temperatures continue to rise and the permafrost thaws, in response to the warming that has occurred already (and is ongoing) by burning fossil fuels and farming animals for human consumption, much of this carbon will be converted into carbon dioxide or methane and released into the atmosphere. There is also a vast amount of methane – in the form of methane hydrates and free gas – stored in sediments under the Arctic Ocean seafloor. As temperatures rise, these sediments are being destabilized and will soon result in massive eruptions of methane from the ocean floor. ‘Due to the abrupt character of such releases and the fact that many seas in the Arctic Ocean are shallow, much of the methane will then enter the atmosphere without getting broken down in the water.’
Adversely impacting this circumstance is that the sea ice continues to retreat as the polar ice cap melts in response to the ongoing temperature increases. Because sea ice reflects sunlight back into Space, as the ice retreats more sunlight hits the (dark-colored) ocean (which absorbs the sunlight) and warms the ocean even more. This causes even more ice melt in what becomes an ongoing self-reinforcing feedback loop that ultimately impacts worldwide, such as triggering huge firestorms in forests and peatlands in North America and Russia.
More importantly, however, without sea ice, storms develop more easily and because they mix warm surface waters with the colder water at the bottom of shallow seas, reaching cracks in sediments filled with ice which acts as a glue holding the sediment together, the ice melt destabilizes the sediments, which are vulnerable to even small differences in temperature and pressure that are triggered by earthquakes, undersea landslides or changes in ocean currents.
As a result, huge amounts of methane can erupt from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean and once this occurs, it will further raise temperatures, especially over the Arctic, thus acting as another self-reinforcing feedback loop that again makes the situation even worse in the Arctic, with higher temperatures causing even further methane releases, contributing to the vicious cycle that precipitates ‘runaway global warming’.
‘These developments can take place at such a speed that adaptation will be futile. More extreme weather events can hit the same area with a succession of droughts, cold snaps, floods, heat waves and wildfires that follow each other up rapidly. Within just one decade [from 2016], the combined impact of extreme weather, falls in soil quality and air quality, habitat loss and shortages of food, water, shelter and just about all the basic things needed to sustain life can threaten most, if not all life on Earth with extinction.’
The article goes on to outline how the 10 degree increase (above the pre-industrial level) by 2026 is likely to occur. It will involve further carbon dioxide and methane releases from human activity (particularly driving cars and other vehicles, flying in aircraft and eating animal products, as well as military violence), ongoing reduction of snow and ice cover around the world (thus reflecting less sunlight back into Space), an increase in the amount of water vapor (a greenhouse gas) in the atmosphere, a falling away of ‘aerosol masking’ (which has helped reduce the impact of emissions so far) as emissions decline, as well as methane eruptions from the ocean floor. If you would like to read more about this and see the graphs and substantial documentation, you can do so in the article cited above: ‘Will humans be extinct by 2026?’
The Ecology of Destruction of the Biosphere
Not that these scientists, who focus on the climate, discuss it but there are other human activities adversely impacting Earth’s biosphere which also threaten near-term extinction for humans, particularly given their synergistic impacts.
For example, recent research has drawn attention to the fact that the ‘alarming loss of insects will likely take down humanity before global warming hits maximum velocity…. The worldwide loss of insects is simply staggering with some reports of 75% up to 90%, happening much faster than the paleoclimate record rate of the past five major extinction events’. Without insects ‘burrowing, forming new soil, aerating soil, pollinating food crops…’ and providing food for many bird species, the biosphere simply collapses. See ‘Insect Decimation Upstages Global Warming’.
Separately from all of this, we live under the unending threat of nuclear war.
This is because insane political and corporate elites are still authorizing and manufacturing more of these highly profitable weapons rather than dismantling them all (as well as conventional weapons) and redirecting the vast resources devoted to ongoing military killing (US$1.7 trillion annually: see ‘Global military spending remains high at $1.7 trillion’) to environmental restoration and programs of social uplift.
By the way, if you think the risk of nuclear war can be ignored, you might find this recent observation sobering. In a review of (former US nuclear war planner) Daniel Ellsberg’s recent book The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, Earth and paleoclimate scientist Dr Andrew Glikson summarized the book as follows: ‘This, then, is the doomsday machine. Not simply the existence of fission weapons or unspeakably destructive hydrogen bombs, but the whole network rigged together: thousands of them on hair-trigger alert, command and control equipment built in the 1970s and ’80s, millions of lines of antique code sitting on reels of magnetic tape or shuffled around on floppy discs even now. An architecture tended by fallible and deeply institutionalized human beings.’ See ‘Two Minutes To Mid-Night: The Global Nuclear Suicide Machine’.
So, irrespective of whether elites or their agents or even we acknowledge it, Earth’s biosphere is under siege on many fronts and, very soon now, Earth will not support life. Any honest news source routinely reports one or another aspect of the way in which humans are destroying the Earth and perhaps suggests courses of action to respond powerfully to it. This, of course, does not include the insane global elite’s corporate media, which functions to distract us from any semblance of the truth.
How did all this happen?
How did human beings end up in a situation that human extinction is likely to occur within eight years (even assuming we can avert nuclear war)? And is there any prospect of doing enough about it now to avert this extinction?
To answer the first question briefly: We arrived at this juncture in our history because of a long sequence of decisions, essentially made by elites to expand their profit, power and privilege, and which they then imposed on us and which we did not resist powerfully enough. For a fuller explanation, see ‘Strategy and Conscience: Subverting Elite Power So We End Human Violence’.
In any case, the key questions now are simply these: Is it too late to avert our own extinction? And, if not, what must we do?
Well, I am not going to dwell on it but some scientists believe it is too late: we have already passed the point of no return. Professor Guy McPherson is one of these scientists, with a comprehensive explanation and a great deal of evidence to support it in his long and heavily documented article ‘Climate-Change Summary and Update’.
So, the fundamental question is this: If we assume (highly problematically I acknowledge) that it is possible to avert our own extinction by 2026, what must we do?
Because we need to address, in a strategic manner, the interrelated underlying causes that are driving the rush to extinction, let me first identify one important symptom of these underlying causes and then the underlying structural and behavioral causes themselves. Finally, let me invite your participation in (one or more aspects of) a comprehensive strategy designed to address all of this.
As in the past, at least initially, the vast bulk of the human population is not going to respond to this crisis in any way. We need to be aware of this but not let it get in our way. There is a straightforward explanation for it.
Fear or, far more accurately, unconscious terror will ensure that the bulk of the human population will not investigate or seriously consider the scientific evidence in relation to the ongoing climate catastrophe, despite its implications for them personally and humanity generally (not to mention other species and the biosphere). Moreover, given that climate science is not an easy subject with which to grapple, elite control of most media in relation to it (including, most of the time, by simply excluding mention of key learning from the climate scientists) ensures that public awareness, while reasonably high, is not matched by knowledge, which is negligible.
As a result, most people will fearfully, unintelligently and powerlessly accept the delusions, distractions and denial that are promulgated by the insane global elite through its various propaganda channels including the corporate media, public relations and entertainment industries, as well as educational institutions. This propaganda always includes the implicit message that people can’t (and shouldn’t) do anything in response to the climate catastrophe (invariably and inaccurately, benignly described as ‘climate change’).
A primary way in which the corporate media reports the issue but frames it for a powerless response is to simply distribute ‘news’ about each climate-related event without connecting it either with other climate-related events or even mentioning it as yet another symptom of the climate catastrophe. Even if they do mention these connections, they reliably mention distant dates for phenomena like ‘heatwaves’ repeating themselves and an overall ‘end of century’ timeframe to preclude the likelihood that any sense of urgency will arise.
The net outcome of all this, as I stated above, is that the bulk of the human population will not respond to the crisis in the short term (as it hasn’t so far) with most of what limited response there is confined to powerlessly lobbying elite-controlled governments.
However, as long as you consider responding – and by responding, I mean responding strategically – and then do respond, you become a powerful agent of change, including by recruiting others through your example.
But before I present the strategy, let me identify the major structural and behavioral causes that are driving the climate catastrophe and destruction of the biosphere, and explain why some key elements of this strategy are focused on tackling these underlying causes.
The Political Economy of Destruction of the Biosphere
The global elite ensures that it has political control of the biosphere as well as Space by using various systems, structures and processes that it largely created (over the past few centuries) and now controls, including the major institutions of governance in the world such as national governments and key international organizations like the United Nations. For further information, see ‘Strategy and Conscience: Subverting Elite Power So We End Human Violence’.
It does this, for example, so that it can economically utilize, via the exploitative mechanisms of capitalism and its corporations (which the elite also created), domains of the biosphere rich in resources, particularly fossil fuels, strategic minerals and fresh water. The elite will use any means – including psychological manipulation, propaganda issued by its corporate media, national educational institutions, legal systems and extraordinary military violence – to achieve this outcome whatever the cost to life on Earth. See ‘Profit Maximization Is Easy: Invest In Violence’.
In short, the global elite is so insane that its members believe that killing and exploiting fellow human beings and destroying the biosphere are simply good ways to make a profit. Of course, they do not perceive us as fellow human beings; they perceive and treat us as a great deal less. This is why, for example, the elite routinely uses its military forces to attack impoverished and militarily primitive countries so that they can steal their resources. See ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’.
Anyway, because of elite control of governments, it is a waste of time lobbying politicians if we want action on virtually all issues that concern us, particularly the ‘big issues’ that threaten extinction, such as the climate catastrophe, environmental destruction and war (especially the threat of nuclear war). While in very limited (and usually social) contexts (such as issues in relation to the right of women to abortions or rights for the LGBTQIA communities), when it doesn’t significantly adversely impact elite priorities, gains are sometimes made (at least temporarily) by mobilizing sufficient people to pressure politicians. This has two beneficial outcomes for elites: it keeps many people busy on ‘secondary issues’ (from the elite perspective) that do not impact elite profit, power and privilege; and it reinforces the delusion that democracy ‘works’.
However, in the contexts that directly impact elite concerns (such as their unbridled exploitation of the biosphere for profit), politicians serve their elite masters, even to the extent that any laws that might appear to have been designed to impede elite excesses (such as pollution generated by their activities) are readily ignored if necessary, with legal penalties too insignificant to deter phenomenally wealthy corporations. See ‘The Rule of Law: Unjust and Violent’.
How does the elite maintain this control over political, economic, military, legal and social structures and processes?
The Sociology of Destruction of the Biosphere
As explained in the literature on the sociology of knowledge, reality is socially constructed. See the classic work The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. That is, if an individual is born or introduced into a society in which particular institutions are in control and behaviors such as chronic over-consumption, unlimited profit-making, rampant exploitation of the environment and grotesque violence against (at least some) people are practiced, then the typical individual will accept the existence of these institutions and adopt the behaviors of the people around them even though the institutions and behaviors are dysfunctional and violent.
But while the sociology of knowledge literature recognizes that children ‘must be “taught to behave” and, once taught, must be “kept in line”’ to maintain the institutional order, this literature clearly has no understanding of the nature and extent of the violence to which each child is actually subjected in order to achieve the desired ‘socialization’. This terrorization, as I label it, is so comprehensive that the typical child quickly becomes incapable of using their own intellectual and emotional capacities, including conscience and courage, to actually evaluate any institution or behavior before accepting/adopting it themselves. Obviously then, they quickly become too terrified to overtly challenge dysfunctional institutions and behaviors as well.
Moreover, as a result of this ongoing terrorization, inflicted by the significant adults (and particularly the parents) in the child’s life, the child soon becomes too (unconsciously) afraid to resist the behavioral violence that is inflicted on them personally in many forms, as outlined briefly in the next section, so that they are ‘taught to behave’ and are ‘kept in line’.
In response to elite-driven imperatives then, such as ‘you are what you own’ to encourage very profitable over-consumption, most people are delusionarily ‘happy’ while utterly trapped behaving exactly as elites manipulate them – they are devoid of the psychological capacity to critique and resist – and the elite-preferred behavior quickly acquires the status of being ‘the only and the right way to behave’, irrespective of its dysfunctionality.
In essence: virtually all humans fearfully adopt dysfunctional social behaviors such as over-consumption and profit-making at the expense of the biosphere, rather than intelligently, conscientiously and courageously analyzing the total situation (including the moral and ecological dimensions of it) and behaving appropriately in the context.
Given the pervasiveness and power of elite institutions, ranging from those mentioned above to the corporate media and psychiatry – see ‘Defeating the Violence of Psychiatry’ – resistance to violent socialization (of both children and adults) requires considerable awareness, not to mention courage.
And so our fear makes virtually all of us succumb to the socialization pressure (that is, violence) to accept existing institutions and participate in widespread social behaviors (such as over-consumption) that are dysfunctional and violent.
The Psychology of Destruction of the Biosphere
This happens because each child, from birth, is terrorized (again: what we like to call ‘socialized’) until they become a slave willing to work and, in industrialized countries at least, to over-consume as directed.
Under an unrelenting regime of ‘visible’, ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence, each child unconsciously surrenders their search in pursuit of their own unique and powerful destiny and succumbs to the obedience that every adult demands. Why do adults demand this? Because the idea of a powerful child who courageously follows their own Self-will terrifies adults. So how does this happen?
Unfortunately, far too easily and, strange though it may seem, it is not just the ‘visible’ violence (such as hitting, screaming at and sexually abusing) that we normally label ‘violence’ that causes the main damage, although this is extremely damaging. The largest component of damage arises from the ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence that we adults unconsciously inflict on children during the ordinary course of the day. Tragically, the bulk of this violence occurs in the family home and at school. See ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.
So what is ‘invisible’ violence? It is the ‘little things’ we do every day, partly because we are just ‘too busy’. For example, when we do not allow time to listen to, and value, a child’s thoughts and feelings, the child learns to not listen to themSelf thus destroying their internal communication system. When we do not let a child say what they want (or ignore them when they do), the child develops communication and behavioral dysfunctionalities as they keep trying to meet their own needs (which, as a basic survival strategy, they are genetically programmed to do).
When we blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie to, bribe, blackmail, moralize with and/or judge a child, we both undermine their sense of Self-worth and teach them to blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie, bribe, blackmail, moralize and/or judge.
The fundamental outcome of being bombarded throughout their childhood by this ‘invisible’ violence is that the child is utterly overwhelmed by feelings of fear, pain, anger and sadness (among many others). However, mothers, fathers, teachers, religious figures and other adults also actively interfere with the expression of these feelings and the behavioral responses that are naturally generated by them and it is this ‘utterly invisible’ violence that explains why the dysfunctional behavioral outcomes actually occur.
For example, by ignoring a child when they express their feelings, by comforting, reassuring or distracting a child when they express their feelings, by laughing at or ridiculing their feelings, by terrorizing a child into not expressing their feelings (for instance, by screaming at them when they cry or get angry), and/or by violently controlling a behavior that is generated by their feelings (for example, by hitting them, restraining them or locking them into a room), the child has no choice but to unconsciously suppress their awareness of these feelings.
However, once a child has been terrorized into suppressing their awareness of their feelings (rather than being allowed to have their feelings and to act on them) the child has also unconsciously suppressed their awareness of the reality that caused these feelings. This has many outcomes that are disastrous for the individual, for society and for the biosphere because the individual will now easily suppress their awareness of the feelings that would tell them how to act most functionally in any given circumstance and they will progressively acquire a phenomenal variety of dysfunctional behaviors, including some that are violent towards themself, others and/or the Earth.
Moreover, terrorizing the child has many flow-on effects. For example, once you terrorise a child into accepting certain information about themself, other people or the state of the world, the child becomes unconsciously fearful of dealing with new information, especially if this information is contradictory to what they have been terrorized into believing. As a result, the child will unconsciously dismiss new information out of hand.
In short, the child has been terrorized in such a way that they are no longer capable of learning (or their learning capacity is seriously diminished by excluding any information that is not a simple extension of what they already ‘know’). This is one important explanation why some people are ‘climate deniers’ and most others do nothing in response to the climate catastrophe. See ‘The Psychology of Denial’.
Consequently, under this onslaught of terror and violence, the child surrenders their own unique Self and takes on their socially constructed delusional identity which gives them relief from being terrorized while securing the approval they crave to survive.
So if we want to end violence against the biosphere, we must tackle this fundamental cause. Primarily, this means giving everyone, child and adult alike, all of the space they need to feel, deeply, what they want to do, and to then let them do it (or to have the emotional responses they naturally have if they are prevented from doing so).
For some insight into the critical role that school plays in reducing virtually all children to wage slaves for employment in some menial or ‘professional’ role or as ‘cannon fodder’ for the military, while stripping them of the capacity to ask penetrating questions about the very nature of society and their own role in it, see ‘Do We Want School or Education?’
In summary, given that human society is so dysfunctional, beginning with the fact that human beings do not know how to parent or educate their children to nurture their unique and extraordinary potential, humans face a monumental challenge, in an incredibly short timeframe, to have any chance of survival.
And we are going to have to fix a lot more things than just our destruction of the biosphere if we are to succeed, given that ecologically destructive behavior and institutions have their origin in dysfunctional psychology, societies and political economy.
To reiterate however, it is our (often unconscious) fear that underpins every problem. Whether it is the fear getting in the way of our capacity to intelligently analyze the various structures and behaviors that generate the interrelated crises in which we now find ourselves or the fear undermining our courage to act powerfully in response to these crises, acknowledging and dealing with our fear is the core of any strategy for survival.
So what’s the plan?
Let’s start with you. If you consider the evidence in relation to destruction of our biosphere, essentially one of two things will happen. Either you will be powerful enough, both emotionally and intellectually, to grapple with this evidence and you will take strategic action that has ongoing positive impact on the crisis or your (unconscious) fear will simply use one of its lifelong mechanisms to remove awareness of what you have just read from your mind or otherwise delude you, such as by making you believe you are powerless to act differently or that you are ‘doing enough already’. This immobilizing fear, whether or not you experience it consciously, is a primary outcome of the terrorization to which you were subjected as a child.
So, if you sense that improving your own functionality – so that you can fully access your emotional responses, conscience and courage – is a priority, try ‘Putting Feelings First’.
If you already feel able to act powerfully in response to this multi-faceted crisis, in a way that will have strategic impact, you are invited to consider joining those participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’, which outlines a simple plan for people to systematically reduce their consumption, by at least 80%, involving both energy and resources of every kind – water, household energy, transport fuels, metals, meat, paper and plastic – while dramatically expanding their individual and community self-reliance in 16 areas, so that all environmental concerns are effectively addressed. You might also consider signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’.
If you are interested in nurturing children to live by their conscience and to gain the courage necessary to resist elite violence fearlessly, while living sustainably despite the entreaties of capitalism to over-consume, then you are welcome to make ‘My Promise to Children’. To reiterate: capitalism and other dysfunctional political, economic, military, legal and social structures only thrive because our dysfunctional parenting robs children of their conscience and courage, among many other qualities, while actively teaching them to over-consume as compensation for having vital emotional needs denied. See ‘Love Denied: The Psychology of Materialism, Violence and War’.
If you are interested in conducting or participating in a campaign to halt our destruction of the biosphere (or any other manifestation of violence for that matter) you are welcome to consider acting strategically in the way that the extraordinary activist Mohandas K. Gandhi did. Whether you are engaged in a peace, climate, environment or social justice campaign, the 12-point strategic framework and principles are the same. See Nonviolent Campaign Strategy.
The two strategic aims and a core list of strategic goals to end war and to end the climate catastrophe, for example, are identified in ‘Campaign Strategic Aims’ and, using these examples, it is a straightforward task to identify an appropriate set of strategic goals for your local environment campaign. As an aside, the strategic framework to defend against a foreign invading power or a political/military coup, to liberate your country from a dictatorship or a foreign occupation, or to defeat a genocidal assault is explained in ‘Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy’.
Finally, if you are going to do nothing in response to this crisis, make it a conscious decision to do nothing. This is far preferable to unconsciously and powerlessly doing nothing by never even considering the evidence or by simply deluding yourself. It also allows you to consciously revise your decision at some point in future if you so wish.
Conclusion
The evidence in relation to destruction of the Earth’s biosphere, leading to ongoing and rapid degradation of all ecosystems and their services, is readily available and overwhelming. The many and varied forms of destruction are having synergistic impact. An insignificant amount of the vast evidence in relation to this destruction is sampled above.
There is a notable group of prominent climate scientists who present compelling evidence that human extinction will occur by 2026 as a result of a projected 10 degree celsius increase in global temperatures above the pre-industrial level by this date. The primary document for this is noted above and this document, together with the evidence it cites, is readily available to be read and analyzed by anyone.
Largely separately from the climate catastrophe (although now increasingly complicated by it), Earth’s sixth mass extinction is already advancing rapidly as we destroy habitat and, on our current trajectory, all species will soon enter the fossil record.
Why? Because we live in a world in which the political, economic, military, legal and social structures and processes of human society are utterly incapable of producing either functional human beings or governance mechanisms that take into account, and respect, the ecological realities of Earth’s biosphere.
So, to reiterate: We are on the fast-track to extinction. On the current trajectory, assuming we can avert nuclear war, some time between 2021 and 2026 the last human will take their final breath.
Our only prospect of survival, and it still has only a remote chance of succeeding, is that a great number of us respond powerfully now and keep mobilizing more people to do so.
If you do absolutely nothing else, consider rearranging your life to exclude all meat from your diet, stop traveling by car and aircraft, substantially reduce your water consumption by scaling down your ownership of electronic devices (which require massive amounts of water to manufacture), and only eat biodynamically or organically grown whole food.
And tell people why you are doing so.
This might give those of us who fight strategically, which can include you if you so choose, a little more time to overturn the structural and remaining behavioral drivers of extinction which will require a profound change in the very nature of human society, including all of its major political, economic, military, legal and social institutions and processes (most of which will need to be abolished).
If this sounds ‘radical’, remember that they are about to vanish anyway. Our strategy must be to replace them with functional equivalents, all of which are readily available (with some briefly outlined in the various documents mentioned in the plan above).
‘It won’t happen’, you might say? And, to be candid, I sincerely believe that you are highly probably right. I have spent a lifetime observing, analyzing, writing about and acting to heal dysfunctional and violent human behavior and, for that reason, I am not going to delude myself that anything less than what I have outlined above will achieve the outcome that I seek: to avert human extinction. But I am realistic.
The insane individuals who control the institutions that are driving extinction will never act to avert it. If they were sane enough to do so, they would have been directing and coordinating these institutions in taking action for the past 40 years. This is why we must resist them strategically. Moreover, I am only too well aware that the bulk of the human population has been terrorized into powerlessness and won’t even act. But our best chance lies in offering them our personal example, and giving them simple and various options for responding effectively.
It is going to be a tough fight for human survival, particularly this late in the ‘game’. Nevertheless, I intend to fight until my last breath. I hope that you will too.
*
Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is [email protected] and his website is here. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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I am often asked why I have this “thing” about Israel, with friends suggesting that I would be much more respected as a pundit if I were to instead concentrate on national security and political corruption. The problem with that formulation is that the so-called “special relationship” with Israel is itself the result of terrible national security and foreign policy choices that is sustained by pervasive political and media corruption, so any honest attempt to examine the one inevitably leads to the other. Most talking heads in the media avoid that dilemma by choosing to completely ignore the dark side of Israel.
Israel – not Russia – is the one foreign country that can interfere with impunity with the political processes in the United States yet it is immune from criticism. It is also the single most significant threat to genuine national security as it and its powerful domestic lobby have been major advocates for the continuation of America’s interventionist warfare state. The decision to go to war on false pretenses against Iraq, largely promoted by a cabal of prominent American Jews in the Pentagon and in the media, killed 4,424 Americans as well as hundreds of thousands Iraqis and will wind up costing the American taxpayer $7 trillion dollars when all the bills are paid. That same group of mostly Jewish neocons more-or-less is now agitating to go to war with Iran using a game plan for escalation prepared by Israel which will, if anything, prove even more catastrophic.
And I can go on from there. According to the FBI, Israel runs the most aggressive spying operations against the U.S. among ostensibly “friendly” nations, frequently stealing our military technology for resale by its own arms merchants. Its notable successes in espionage have included the most devastating spy in U.S. history Jonathan Pollard, while it has also penetrated American communications systems and illegally obtained both the fuel and the triggers for its own secret nuclear weapons arsenal.
Israel cares little for American sovereignty. It’s prime ministersAriel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu have both boasted how they control the United States. In 2001, Israel was running a massive secret spying operation directed against Arabs in the U.S. Many in the intelligence and law enforcement communities suspect that it had considerable prior intelligence regarding the 9/11 plot but did not share it with Washington. There was the spectacle of the “dancing Shlomos,” Israeli “movers” from a company in New Jersey who apparently had advanced knowledge of the terrorist attack and danced and celebrated as they watched the Twin Towers go down.
Jewish power, both in terms of money and of access to people and mechanisms that really matter, is what allows Israel to act with impunity, making the United States both poorer and more insecure. A well-funded massive lobbying effort involving hundreds of groups and thousands of individuals in the U.S. has worked to the detriment of actual American interests, in part by creating a permanent annual gift of billions of dollars to Israel for no other reason but that it is Israel and can get anything it wants from a servile Congress and White House without any objection from a controlled media.
Israel has also obtained carte blanche political protection from the U.S. in fora like the United Nations, which is damaging to America’s reputation and its actual interests. This protection now extends to the basing of U.S. troops in Israel to serve as a tripwire, guaranteeing that Washington will become involved if Israel is ever attacked or even if Israel itself starts a war. The current U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley is little more than a shill for Israel while America’s Ambassador in Israel David Friedman is an open supporter of Israel’s illegal settlements, which the U.S. opposes, who spends much of his time defending Israeli war crimes.
And here on the home front Israel is doing damage that might be viewed as even more grave in Senator Ben Cardin’s attempt to destroy First Amendment rights by making any criticism of Israel illegal. The non-violent Israel Boycott movement (BDS) has already been sanctioned in many states, the result of intensive and successful lobbying by the Israeli government and its powerful friends.
So if there is a real enemy of the United States in terms of the actual damage being inflicted by a foreign power, it is Israel. In the recent Russiagate investigations it was revealed that it was Israel, not Russia, that sought favors from Michael Flynn and the incoming Trump Administration yet Special Counsel Robert Mueller has evidently not chosen to go down that road with his investigations, which should surprise no one.
Noam Chomsky, iconic progressive intellectual, has finally come around on the issue of Israel and what it means. He has always argued somewhat incoherently that Israeli misbehavior has been due to its role as a tool of American imperialism and capitalism. At age 89, he has finally figured out that it is actually all about what a parasitic Israel wants without any regard for its American host, observing on “Democracy Now” that
..take, say, the huge issue of interference in our pristine elections. Did the Russians interfere in our elections? An issue of overwhelming concern in the media. I mean, in most of the world, that’s almost a joke. First of all, if you’re interested in foreign interference in our elections, whatever the Russians may have done barely counts or weighs in the balance as compared with what another state does, openly, brazenly and with enormous support. Israeli intervention in U.S. elections vastly overwhelms anything the Russians may have done… I mean, even to the point where the prime minister of Israel, Netanyahu, goes directly to Congress, without even informing the president, and speaks to Congress, with overwhelming applause, to try to undermine the president’s policies – what happened with Obama and Netanyahu in 2015….
Politicians are terrified of crossing the Jewish lobby by saying anything negative about Israel, which means that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu always gets a pass from the American government, even when he starves civilians and bombs hospitals and schools. Netanyahu uses snipers to shoot dead scores of unarmed demonstrators and the snipers themselves joke about their kills without a peep from Washington, which styles itself the “leader of the free world.”
Just recently, Israel has declared itself a Jewish State with all that implies. To be sure, Israeli Christians and Muslims were already subject to a battery of laws and regulations that empowered Jews at their expense but now it is the guiding principle that Israel will be run for the benefit of Jews and Jews alone. And it still likes to call itself a “democracy.”
A recent television program illustrates just how far the subjugation of America’s elected leaders by Israel has gone. British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen is featured on a new show called “Who is America?” in which he uses disguises and aliases to engage politicians and other luminaries in unscripted interviews that reveal just how ignorant or mendacious they actually are. Several recent episodes remind one of a February 2013 Saturday Night Live skit on the impending confirmation of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense. A Senator asks Hagel. “It is vital to Israel’s security for you to go on national television and perform oral sex on a donkey… Would you do THAT for Israel?” A “yes” answer was, of course, expected from Hagel. The skit was never aired after objections from the usual suspects.
Baron Cohen, who confronted several GOP notables in the guise of Colonel Erran Morad, an Israeli security specialist, provided a number of clues that his interview was a sham but none of the victims were smart enough to pick up on them. Cohen, wearing an Israeli military uniform and calling himself a colonel, clearly displayed sergeant’s stripes. Hinting that he might actually be a Mossad agent, Cohen also sported a T-shirt on which the Hebrew text was printed backwards and he claimed that the Israeli spy agency’s motto was “if you want to win, show some skin.”
Cohen set up Dick Cheney by complimenting him on being the “the king of terrorist killers” before commenting that “my neighbor in Tel Aviv is in jail for murder, or, as we call it, enhanced tickling.” Morad went on to tell Cheney that he once waterboarded his wife to check for infidelity and then convinced the former Vice President to sign a “waterboarding kit” that “already had” the signatures of Benjamin Netanyahu, Ariel Sharon and Demi Lovato.
Another more spectacular sketch included a Georgia state senator Jason Spencer who was convinced to shout out the n-word as part of an alleged video being made to fight terrorism. After Cohen told Spencer that it was necessary to incite fear in homophobic jihadists, Spencer dropped his pants and underwear, before backing up with his exposed rear end while shouting “USA!” and “America!” Spencer also spoke with a phony Asian accent while simulating using a selfie-stick to secretly insert a camera phone inside a Muslim woman’s burqa.
In another series of encounters, Cohen as Morad managed to convince current and ex-Republican members of Congress — to include former Senate majority leader Trent Lott — to endorse a fictional Israeli program to arm grade school children for self-defense.
Cohen’s footage included a former Illinois congressman and talk radio host named Joe Walshsaying:
“The intensive three-week ‘Kinderguardian’ course introduces specially selected children from 12 to 4 years old to pistols, rifles, semiautomatics and a rudimentary knowledge of mortars. In less than a month — less than a month — a first-grader can become a first grenade-er.”
Both controversial Alabama judge Roy Moore and Walsh were fooled into meeting Cohen to attend a non-existent pro-Israel conference to accept an award for “significant contributions to the state of Israel.” Representative Dana Rohrabacher, meanwhile, also was interviewed and he commented that,
“Maybe having young people trained and understand how to defend themselves and their school might actually make us safer here.”
And Congressman Joe Wilson observed that
“A 3-year-old cannot defend itself from an assault rifle by throwing a ‘Hello Kitty’ pencil case at it.”
Cohen’s performance is instructive. A man shows up in Israeli uniform, claims to be a terrorism expert or even a Mossad agent, and he gains access to powerful Americans who are willing to do anything he says. How Cohen did it says a lot about the reflexive and completely uncritical support for Israel that many American politicians — particularly Republicans — now embrace. This, in a nutshell, is the damage that Israel and its Lobby have done to the United States. Israel is always right for many policymakers and even palpably phony Jews like Colonel Morad are instantly perceived as smarter than the rest of us so we’d better do what they say. That kind of thinking has brought us Iraq, Libya, Syria and the possibility of something far worse with Iran.
Israel routinely interferes in American politics and corrupts our institutions without any cost to itself and that is why I write and speak frequently regarding the danger to our Republic that it poses. It is past time to change the essentially phony narrative. Israel is nothing but trouble. It has the right to defend itself and protect its interests but that should not involve the United States. One can only hope that eventually a majority of my fellow American citizens will also figure things out. It might take a while, but the ruthless way Israel openly operates with no concern for anyone but itself provides a measure of optimism that that day is surely coming.
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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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Comedy, Boris Johnson, and the Tories – these three share a certain comforting, if chaotic affinity, lobbed together in some nightmarish union that risks consuming itself. But times are serious – profoundly so, we are told: Brexit exercises the nerves as if Britannia were a patient about to expire, and there is the cultural irritation posed by those naughty elements who refuse to do the good thing and integrate themselves into the land of her Britannic majesty.
Thus far, Britain has resisted the moves of other states in Europe to impose public bans on such religious coverings as the burka and some of its more expansive cognates. But there is a prevailing appetite for such measures in a climate suffused with notions of civilisation, irate outsiders and insecure insiders. France was a pioneer in that regard, initiating a ban in 2004. In Denmark, rough measures have been implemented punishing those who don such headdress in public spaces.
A perfect chance for Johnson, who remains a smouldering menace to Prime Minister Theresa May, to strike form, even if only to rile critics and keep the blogosphere busy.
“In Britain today there is only a tiny, tiny minority of women who wear these odd bits of headgear,” he noted in his regular Daily Telegraph column last week. Confidently, he claimed that, “One day, I am sure, they will go.”
His has little time for assuming that women have any choice in the matter.
“If you say that it is weird and bullying to expect women to cover their faces, then I totally agree – and I would add that I can find no scriptural authority for the practice in the Koran.”
Nothing is spared. The whole show is given, and any social or academic nicety is given over to a populist punchiness.
“I would go further and say that it is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes.”
But Johnson returns to a traditional stance taken to such articles of wear: they should not be banned. The only resort, then, is to mock.
It becomes clear what this exercise was about. The burka, and Islamic dress, might well have found themselves objects of pure, unalloyed opportunism for yet another push for recognition from fellow Tories that Johnson remains a relevant contender for high office. He might have resigned from the front bench in an act of calculated sabotage, but he glows.
The Conservative Party has found itself in a bind. Something needed to be done, as the current wisdom goes, but what? An investigation is currently being taken, a fairly pointless exercise that serves to supply valuable oxygen to Johnson’s flame of embellished martyrdom. Communities and Local Government Secretary James Brokenshiretold BBC Breakfast that an investigation into complaints made about Johnson’s comments was taking place and “that’s the right approach”.
If the investigation – being conducted by an individual officer – finds justification for the complaints, an independent panel will be convened (independence being in the eye of the beholders), which might decide to refer Johnson to the party’s board. From there, the power of expulsion can come into play.
At this stage, these are meaningless hypothetical points, and expelling Johnson will add a few streaks of popularity to him. If that ever unreliable metric called polling can be drawn upon, Johnson has allies on the score of whether he should receive some form of disciplinary action. The Sunday Express, noting the findings of its ComRes poll, found 53 percent of respondents did not feel any such action should be taken.
The Muslim Council of Britain has also added to the exercise of giving Johnson form and profile, sending a letter to Prime Minister May that “no-one should be allowed to victimise minorities with impunity.” The Council was “hopeful” that the Tories “will not allow any whitewashing of this specific inquiry currently in process”.
A few murmurings of support have aired. That ever reliable period-piece Tory prop and member for North East Somerset Jacob Rees-Moggis certain that the whole exercise against Johnson – a “show trial” no less – is tactical, a measure to protect May and see off a rival. There is envy in the leadership at his “many successes, popularity with voters and charisma”. He speculates:
“Could it be that there is a nervousness that a once and probably future leadership contender is becoming too popular and needs to be stopped?”
Another element is the comedy line, suggesting the view that Johnson remains the permanent, immutable joke of British reaction. To censure Johnson would be to censure a certain type of eccentric, if indecent Britain. Rowan Atkinson, the genius behind Mr Bean and a range of comic adaptations, took the freedom-to-joke line in a letter to The Times.
“As a lifelong beneficiary of the freedom to make jokes about religion, I do think that Boris Johnson’s joke about wearers of the burka resembling letterboxes is a pretty good one.”
Pity that it has been a standard one for some time – was Atkinson perhaps referring to Johnson himself, the joke in harness?
It is all well and good to accept the necessary function of comedy to puncture, deflate and generally mock the role of faith, credulous attitudes and the devout.
“All jokes about religion cause offence,” says Atkinson accurately, “so it’s pointless apologising for them.”
But Johnson has never been the font of sincerity in that regard, and his effusion was hardly intended as one of pure humour. He wishes to remain politically relevant, and persists sniping through his columns and from the back bench in the hope that he won’t be forgotten. As Britain leaves its awkward EU marriage, Johnson may well find himself presiding over the ruins of his own handiwork.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Email: [email protected]
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As atrocities and scandal begin to mount regarding the US-backed Saudi-led war on the impoverished nation of Yemen, the involvement and hypocrisy of the United States and other Western backers is coming to full light.
Global condemnation of Saudi airstrikes on civilian targets has brought public attention to Washington’s role in the conflict – a role the Western media has attempted to downplay for years. It is ironic, or perhaps telling, that alternative media outlets targeted as “Russian influence” are leading coverage of Yemen’s growing humanitarian catastrophe.
US Denies Role in Proxy War That Couldn’t be Fought Without It
In a recent press conference, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis – when asked about the US role in the Yemeni conflict in regards to Saudi atrocities – would claim:
We are not engaged in the civil war. We will help to prevent, you know, the killing of innocent people.
Yet nothing could be further from the truth.
Mattis himself would lobby US Congress earlier this year to continue US support for Saudi-led operations in Yemen.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis made a personal appeal to Congress on Wednesday not to restrict the United States’ support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen, as the sponsors of a privileged resolution to end Washington’s involvement announced that the Senate would vote on the matter next week.
Support includes US intelligence gathering for Saudi operations, the sale of of US weapons to the Saudi regime, and even US aerial refueling for US-made Saudi warplanes dropping US-made munitions on Yemeni targets selected with the aid of US planners.
In essence, the US is all but directly fighting the “civil war” itself.
Abetting War Crimes, Sponsoring Terrorists to What End?
As to why the US believes it must continue supporting a proxy war Saudi Arabia is fighting on its behalf – beginning under US President Barack Obama and continuing in earnest under current US President Donald Trump – the Washington Post could conclude (emphasis added):
The war in Yemen has inspired much controversy in Congress, as lawmakers have questioned why the United States has involved itself so closely on the Saudi-backed side of a civil war against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebel forces. Successive presidential administrations have presented the campaign as a necessary component of the fight against terrorism and to preserve stability in the region. As Mattis put it in his letter to congressional leaders Wednesday, “withdrawing US support would embolden Iran to increase its support to the Houthis, enabling further ballistic missile strikes on Saudi Arabia and threatening vital shipping lanes in the Red Sea, thereby raising the risk of a regional conflict.”
However, Mattis, his colleagues, and his predecessors have categorically failed to explain how Iran constitutes a greater threat to either US or global security than Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia is a nation admittedly sponsoring Al-Qaeda worldwide, including in Yemen as revealed by a recent Associated Press investigation, and the nation which both radicalized the supposed perpetrators of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on New York City and Washington D.C. and from which most of the supposed hijackers originated from.
If Iran is indeed waging war against Saudi Arabia and its terrorist proxies in Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, the real question is – why isn’t the United States backing Tehran instead?
The obvious answer to this question reveals the crumbling moral authority of the United States as the principled facade it has used for decades falls away from its hegemony-driven agenda worldwide.
The US and its allies created the “War on Terror” and intentionally perpetuated it as a pretext to expand militarily around the globe in an attempt to preserve its post-Cold War primacy and prevent the rise of a multipolar alternative to its unipolar “international order.” It has done this not only at the cost of hundreds of thousands of human lives across the Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, it has done it at the cost of trillions of taxpayers’ dollars and the lives of thousands of America’s own soldiers, sailors, aviators, and Marines.
Canada Too
A recent row between Canada and Saudi Arabia over supposed “human rights” concerns appears to be a vain attempt to salvage the credibility of at least some nations involved in the now 7 year long war – the last 3 years of which has seen direct military intervention by Saudi Arabia, its partners, and its backers – including Canada.
The spat appeared to have been sparked last week when Canada’s foreign ministry expressed its concern over the arrest of Saudi civil society and women’s rights activists, in a tweet that echoed concerns previously voiced by the United Nations.
Saudi Arabia swiftly shot back, making plans to remove thousands of Saudi students and medical patients from Canada, and suspending the state airline’s flights to and from Canada, among other actions.
The Guardian would also claim:
…the US said it would remain on the sidelines while Saudi officials lashed out at Canada over its call to release jailed civil rights activists.
Canada’s feigned concern for “human rights” in Saudi Arabia comes at a time when the Canadian government continues approving of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of arms sales to Riyadh. This includes small arms and armored personnel carriers Saudi forces are using in their ongoing invasion and occupation of neighboring Yemen.
The feigned divide between Ottawa and Washington over Saudi human rights violations is overshadowed by years of commitment by both North American nations in propping up the Saudi regime, and aiding and abetting the very worst of Riyadh’s human rights abuses unfolding amid the Yemeni conflict.
Canada’s apparent role is to help compartmentalize the worst of the West’s decaying moral authority, containing it with the US, and taking up a more prominent role in the West’s industrialized “human rights” and “democracy” leveraging racket.
While Canadian armaments help fuel genocide in Yemen – Canadian diplomats around the world fund agitators and directly meddle in the internal political affairs of foreign nations predicated on promoting “human rights” and “democracy.”
In Thailand for example, the US has receded into the shadows, allowing Canada, the UK, and other European nations to openly engage in political meddling on their behalf. US funding and support continues, but the public face of Western “outrage” is increasingly becoming Canadian, British, and Northern European.
However, Canada faces the same problem that has permanently eroded American credibility. And as its role in perpetuating real human rights abuses worldwide continues to be exposed, its feigned concern over token or even manufactured human rights concerns will increasingly appear hypocritical and hollow, undermining the West’s collective ability to leverage and hide behind human rights and democracy to advance their self-serving agendas.
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Tony Cartalucci is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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The head of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff Valery Gerasimov asked his closest American counterpart Joseph Dunford to assist his country in jointly stabilizing Syria.
Reuters reported that the proposal to cooperate on the repatriation of refugees and reconstruction projects in the Arab Republic was met with an “icy reception” by US decision makers, though this could have been expected considering that Washington had previously said that any assistance that it might provide to the government-controlled areas of Syria would be tied to the implementation of UNSC 2254’s constitutional reform and new elections. Furthermore, President Assad declared in late June that his government wouldn’t accept reconstruction funds from the same countries that contributed to destroying his own, though if the leaked details of Gerasimov’s message to Dunford are to be believed, then Russia’s assessment is that Damascus “lacks the equipment, fuel, other material, and funding needed to rebuild the country in order to accept refugee returns”, hence the reason for reaching out to the US.
While there were high hopes that Presidents Putin and Trump might have reached an understanding on Syria during last month’s Helsinki Summit, it appears as though expectations might be dashed after this latest setback. The US veritably has an interest in focusing its reconstruction efforts and post-war development projects on the Kurdish-controlled proxy state in the northeastern agriculturally and energy-rich corner of the country that it’s already deployed roughly two thousand troops to, so there’s a certain logic to rebuffing the latest Russian offer. Even though the Kurds and Damascus have reportedly entered into talks with one another, this is unlikely to lead to the dissolution of the US’ protectorate and will probably find a way to “formalize” it through mutually acceptable “compromises” that figure into the ongoing constitutional reform process.
Although the leaking of Gerasimov’s proposal to Dunford was probably done by Trump’s “deep state” enemies in a desperate attempt to undermine what they may have feared was the President’s “secret deal” with Putin, it inadvertently harms the US’ soft power standing because it confirms that America doesn’t really care about the welfare of the Syrian people or the return of refugees from the region and beyond in spite of its repeated statements to the contrary over the years. Making humanitarian and developmental assistance conditional on political factors is Machiavellian to the core but unsurprising to those who have a solid understanding of the cynicism behind American strategic planning. It’s also proof that the US is indirectly weaponizing refugees and developmental assistance in order to advance its objectives, something that its supporters have always denied but which is now undebatable.
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Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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Stories about corruption and internally government-generated violence concerning most unaligned countries abound in the MSM. These lies fuel hatred. And the public at large start a malicious rumor circuit. Which, in turn is taken over by the MSM, so that their lies are pushing in open doors. The war drums start beating. The populace wants foreign imposed order, they want blood and ‘regime change’. The consensus for war has once more worked. And the blood may flow. Instigated by outside forces, such as the NED (National Endowment for Democracy) and USAID, which train and fund nationals clandestinely in-and outside the country where eventually they have to operate. They are commandeered by Washington and other western powers and act so as to blame the “non-obedient” governments, whose regime must be changed. They constitute part of the Fifth Column.
A Fifth Column is a group of people, who undermine the government of a country in support of the enemy. They can be both covert and open. The term Fifth Column originates from the Spanish Civil War, when in October 1936 nationalist rebel General Mola initiated the coup d’état against the legitimate Republican Government. This marked the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. General Mola besieged Madrid with four “columns” of troops and claimed he had a “Fifth Column”, hiding inside the city. The term was henceforth used for infiltrated enemies within a legitimate government. Mola, the mastermind behind the coup died in a 1937 plane crash, and General Francisco Franco became Spain’s dictator for the next almost 40 years. He prevailed over the Republican resistance thanks to Hitler’s and Mussolini’s air support.
Now what’s the true story behind the violence-plagued Nicaragua and Venezuela, and the treacherous new Moreno government in Ecuador?
Take Nicaragua– it all started with the Board of Directors of the Nicaragua Social Security Institute (INSS) on 16 April 2018 approving an IMF-imposed social security reform, modified and then supported by President Ortega. The reform maintained social security at its current level, but would increasing employer contributions by 3.5% to pension and health funds, while only slightly increasing worker contributions by 0.75% and shifting 5% of pensioners’ cash transfer into their healthcare fund. These reforms triggered the coup attempt initiated by the business lobby and backed by the Nicaraguan oligarchy.
Student protests were already ongoing in different university cities in connection with university elections. These protests were re-directed against the Ortega government with the help of US-funded NGOs and the Catholic Church, an ally of the wealthy in most of Latin America. Some of the students involved in ‘re-directing’ the protests were brought to the US for training by the Freedom House, a long-time associate of the CIA. USAID announced an additional US$ 1.5 million to build opposition to the Ortega Government. These funds along with financing from the NED will be channeled to NGOs to support anti-government protests. For more details, see this also.
Summarizing, in the course of the weeks following the coup, violence increased leaving a total of more than 300 dead by early August. Even though Ortega reversed the pension measures, unrests continued, now demanding the resignation of the President and Vice-President, his wife Rosario Murillo Zambrana. Daniel Ortega, a Sandinista and former guerilla leader, was first elected President in 1985. It is clear that the US and the dark forces behind the empire were preparing Fifth Column-type groups to intervene and take advantage of any social upheaval in the country to bring about regime change. What could have and would have been contained, continued as US inspired violent protests eventually aiming at the overthrow of Ortega’s government. That would bring Central America, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua – and Panama – in line with US policies. Will Washington succeed?
On Venezuela – In mid-June 2018, I was privileged to be invited to Caracas as one of several international economists to participate in a Presidential Economic Advisory Commission – to discuss internal and external economic issues. Without going into details of the commission’s deliberations – it is absolutely clear who is behind the food and medicine boycotts (empty supermarket shelves), and the induced internal violence. It is a carbon copy of what the CIA under Kissinger’s command did in Chile in 1973 which led to the murder of the legitimate and democratically elected President Allende and to the Pinochet military coup; except, Venezuela has 19 years of revolutionary experience, and built up some tough resistance.
To understand the context ‘Venezuela’, we may have to look a bit at the country’s history.
Before the fully democratically and internationally observed election of Hugo Chavez in 1998, Venezuela was governed for at least 100 years by dictators and violent despots which were directed by and served only the United States. The country, extremely rich in natural resources, was exploited by the US and Venezuelan oligarchs to the point that the population of one of the richest Latin-American countries remained poor instead of improving its standard of living according to the country’s natural riches. The people were literally enslaved by Washington controlled regimes.
A first coup attempt by Comandante Hugo Chavez in 1992 was oppressed by the Government of Carlos Andrés Pérez and Chavez was sent to prison along with his co-golpistas. After two years, he was freed by the Government of Rafael Caldera.
During Peréz’ first term in office (1974-1979) and his predecessors, Venezuela attained a high economic growth based almost exclusively on oil exports. Though, hardly anything of this growth stayed in the country and was distributed to the people. The situation was pretty much the same as it is in today’s Peru which before the 2008 crisis and shortly thereafter had phenomenal growth rates – between 5% and 8% – of which 80% went to 5% of the population, oligarchs and foreign investors, and 20% was to be distributed to 95% of the population – and that on a very uneven keel. The result was and is a growing gap between rich and poor, increasing unemployment and delinquency.
Venezuela before Chavez lived practically on a monoculture economy based on petrol. There was no effort towards economic diversification. To the contrary, diversification could eventually help free Venezuela from the despot’s fangs, as the US was the key recipient of Venezuela’s petrol and other riches. Influenced by the 1989 Washington Consensus, Peréz made a drastic turn in his second mandate (1989-1993) towards neoliberal reforms, i.e. privatization of public services, restructuring the little social safety benefits laborers had achieved, and contracting debt by the IMF and the World Bank. He became a model child of neoliberalism, to the detriment of Venezuelans. Resulting protests under Peréz’ successor, Rafael Caldera, became unmanageable. New elections were called and Hugo Chavez won in a first round with more than 56%. Despite an ugly Washington inspired coup attempt (“The Revolution will Not be Televised”, 2003 documentary about the attempted 2002 coup), Hugo Chavez stayed in power until his untimely death 2013. Comandante Chavez and his Government reached spectacular social achievements for his country.
Washington will not let go easily – or at all, to re-conquer Venezuela into the new Monroe Doctrine, i.e. becoming re-integrated into Washington’s backyard. Imagine this oil-rich country, with the world’s largest hydrocarbon reserves, on the doorsteps of the United Sates’ key refineries in Texas, just about 3 to 4 days away for a tanker from Venezuela, as compared to 40 to 45 days from the Gulf, where the US currently gets about 60% of its petrol imports. An enormous difference in costs and risks, i.e. each shipment has to sail through the Iran-controlled Strait of Hormuz.
In addition, another socialist revolution as one of Washington’s southern neighbor – in addition to Cuba – is not convenient. Therefore, the US and her secret forces will do everything to bring about regime change, by constant economic aggressions, blockades, sanctions, boycotts of imports and their internal distribution – as well as outrights military threats. The recent assassination attempt of President Maduro falls into the same category.
And let’s not forget, Venezuela’s neighbor Colombia, fully under Washington’s control, has just recently become a NATO country. How absurd, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, stationed in a South American country. But then, NATO is also in Afghanistan, Syria, in the Balkans and wherever US-instigated conflicts need to be fought. Colombian and Venezuela share a border of some 2,200 km of which about 1,500 are difficult to control ‘porous’ jungle, from where clandestine as well as overt military infiltrations are relatively easy. They may also spread to other South American countries. It’s already happening into countries with open doors for US military, like Peru, Brazil, Argentina and Chile.
Less than 5 years ago, 80% of Latin American populations lived under democratically elected, left-leaning governments. It took South America some 20-25 years to free themselves from the fangs of the Monroe Doctrine. Now in the course of a few years the trend has been reversed, through US intervention with election manipulations – Argentina, Ecuador, Chile – and parliamentary coups – Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay. – Venezuela, together with Bolivia and Cuba, today is Latin America’s last holdout and hope.
Back to the present – Washington’s goal is “regime change” with the help of a strong Fifth Column, infiltrated in key financial institutions and all the support that comes with it, NED, CIA et al. However, President Maduro has a solid block of 6 million voters behind him, and is embarking with full integrity on a path of “Resistance Economy”. In fact, the recent introduction of the hydrocarbon-backed Petro, and the new just announced Petro-backed Bolivar – are first steps in the right direction; an attempt to de-dollarize Venezuela’s economy. Other measures, like massive efforts to become autonomous in food and industrial goods, à la Russia, rebuild the agricultural sector and industrial parks, are measures to regain economic sovereignty.
On Ecuador – President Rafael Correa has worked with Lenin Moreno, who was his Vice-President and close ally during many years. It is therefore a bit strange that Correa apparently did not know Moreno is a traitor, what he clearly has become soon after taking office. Correa’s internal support was still strong, despite his decline among indigenous people after his (US forced) Amazon petroleum concessions. Though incited by many of the people at large to change the Constitution and run for a third term, he was warned by Washington not to do so, and instead, to promote Moreno as his successor. Correa knows what such warnings mean. He was almost killed in a 2010 Washington inspired police coup, widely thought being linked to his attempt to abandon the US dollar as the Ecuadorian currency and return to the Sucre; and Correa’s memory is still fresh enough to recall the ‘accidental airplane’ death of one of his predecessor’s, President Roldo, who changed the rules for (mostly US) hydrocarbon corporations in 1981.
What lays ahead for Ecuador does not look bright. Several IMF inspired reforms – yes, Ecuador returned to the IMF and World Bank – might reverse social gains achieved under the Correa Regime for the working and indigenous people. Also, a breach on free speech by Moreno is imminent: He announced already a while ago that Julian Assange’s (Wikileaks) days in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London are counted. If and when Assange has to leave the Embassy, he will likely be arrested by UK police and eventually handed over to the US – where he may expect a very uncertain, but possibly violent future.
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Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; TeleSUR; The Vineyard of The Saker Blog; and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.
From the very outset, this air campaign has NOT been directed against ISIS. The evidence confirms that the Islamic State is not the target. Quite the opposite.
Now let us examine in more detail the Al Nusrah Front, which constitutes the main rebel fighting force in Syria. Al Nusrah is affiliated to Al Qaeda. The leader of Al Nusrah, Abu Mohammad al-Golani, has pledged his allegiance to Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who replaced Osama bin Laden after his death.
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ations – from an outstanding list of world-class social thinkers.”
