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The Federal Reserve’s recent undermining of the Volcker Rule brings depositors closer than ever to a Cyprus-style “bail-in” in another 2008 crash. And all signs indicate another is on the way. This time, however, many U.S. banks may confiscate deposits to stay solvent because the Dodd-Frank law bars them from touching taxpayers’ monies. Indeed, most major banks have been planning the “bail-in” tactic ever since Dodd-Frank. 

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What’s likely to happen to depositors’ money in a major commercial bank in another 2008 crash? And for months, financial pundits and experts such as William Cohen have been warning an even bigger one is on its way because nothing has essentially changed.  If it’s one of those giant too-big-to-fail types that caused that global catastrophe, chances are they’ve been planning what’s called a “bail-in” system to seize depositors’ money—temporarily, of course. But whether depositors want to withdraw $50 from the ATM for the weekend, write a cheque at the supermarket, or cash in a CD, they’ll be shut out by their banks.

And when the furious confront those banks, they’ll be told it’s an emergency and, until Monday, would they like to start procedures with the FDIC for a refund? Or accept the bank’s IOU (stocks) immediatelyfor it? (With a failing bank, stocks (aka “equities”) would be as worthless as a Confederate dollar after Appomattox.)

Forget joining fellow depositors armed with baseball bats and AK-16s to storm the banks and retrieve money on Monday. Banks will be closed. Probably ringed by paddy wagons and well-armed police with state-of-the-art equipment to handle any “disturbance.”

Worse, depositors relying on the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation), banking’s insurer since 1933 to protect their money, probably will get none in these times. Although the law permits it to borrow $100 billion from the Treasury in an economic crisis—and face taxpayer rage once again—at the end of March, the fund had $56 billion in its coffers. It’s also expected to cover deposits of at least $26 billion from both domestic and foreign customers, but also derivatives that were at $550 trillion by February.

But the new bank bill (S. 2155), also known as the “bank lobbyists’ bill”, just signed into law by president Trump says stress tests now would be “periodic” and not required for banks holding less than $100 billion.

As financial writer Dean Baker described the bill:

[It] rolls back major provisions of the Dodd-Frank financial regulations of 2010, allowing banks to engage in riskier investment strategies and to hide discriminatory practices.

Written to protect bank customers after the 2008 crash, the Dodd-FrankWall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was designed

To promote the financial stability of the United States by improving accountability and transparency in the financial system, to end “too big to fail” [banks], to protect the American taxpayer by ending bailouts, to protect consumers from abusive financial services practices, and for other purposes.

In other words, in a financial collapse serious enough to cause Great Depression II, banksare forbidden to use taxpayer revenues resting in the Treasury’s vaults because of public rage in 2009 over making $700 billion of their tax monies available to banks.

Banks were then required by the FDIC and the Federal Reserve Board to hold enough money in their vaults to cover a sudden major shortage. It was guaranteed and enforced by annual and semi-annual stress-test monitoring for solvency in a financial crisis to prevent another “2008.”

But banks grew restive about the expensive and onerous time and energy spent to comply in the years since, to say nothing about being hamstrung in investments—particularly derivatives. And so such protection was significantly compromised a few days ago by the Federal Reserve Board after “intensive pressure” by the banking lobby.

It voted unanimously to “loosen restrictions on high-risk trading (aka derivatives)” by the nation’s major banks. This involves speculation. Banks were forbidden to use depositors’ money under Dodd-Frank law (DFA). But as the Fed’s chairman defended this dangerous step: “Our goal is to replace overly complex and inefficient requirements with a more streamlined set of requirements.”

The FDIC, and four other regulatory agencies will have to approve the change by fall and will take public commentin the next 60 days.

That’s the scenario planned for depositors by the banking industry on how to handle “the next one.” It makes a bail-in possible with depositors’ money.

A little history on the bail-in is in order.

This tactic was first mentioned internationally in a 2010 report to the G-20 nations as a method to prevent bank insolvency. Because the U.S. is part of the G-20, it opened the vista of subverting DFA by any creative means, plainly the practicality of immediately seizing depositors’ funds in a crash and getting away with it.

Theory turned to practice in 2012 on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus to prevent the collapse of its banking system after heavy investments in Greek bonds went sour. A portionof a depositor’s account was “levied” supposedly once only at the start: 9.9% on deposits over €100,000, 6.7% under €100,000. The banks then closed for a brief “holiday.

News of this new “rescue” source instantly spread throughout the banking worldabout how to be solvent on the nextbusiness day after a failure.

One of the bail-in advantages pointed out was that unlike the lengthy timeframe of bankruptcy proceedings, solvency can be achieved that quickly because the depositors’ monies are at hand. Such speed would also prevent bank-run riots. And any lawsuits will be dealt with far down the road.

This fait accompli tactic was suggested in June 2013 by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s implemental plan for a bail-in:

…the bank can be closed promptly at any time of the day and on any day of the week, freezing in full all liabilities and preventing access by customers and counterparties to their accounts.

To say the least, American banking officials warmed to the bail-in. After all, once a deposit is made—checking, savings, CDs, and other financial deals—it’s legally the bank’s property. It’s used for making for loans, paying overhead—and investing in derivatives or other avenues to swell profits.

Legally, depositors are also considered an “unsecured creditor,” the last in line to get what’s left after a bankruptcy receiver doles out the remaining assets to several parties first. In the order of restitution priorities they are: administration, the government, employee wages/commissions, benefit/pension plans, general/senior liabilities, junior obligation managers, executive/directors’ salaries, shareholders, junior partners, and “other” equity holders. So a long, long line of creditors come before depositors.

In 2016, banks could only seize deposits that were more than the FDIC’s $250,000 protection levels per account. But if a bank is about to fold, past behavior of too many officials indicate these days they’ll confiscate alldeposits now and deal with consequences later. By then, of course, they might merge with a bigger bank as did 65 of them last year, among them community banks.

How could a bail-in be possible in the U.S. in view of one of the DFA Title II sections (203:2c) that seemed to consider the depositors’ plight? The law required

…a description of the effect that the default of the financial company would have on economic conditions or financial stability for low income, minority, or underserved communities.

But all that was asked involved a “description,” not protectionof the nation’s millions of depositors.

The answer is that bail-in designers—and those bankers—regarded depositors as ignorant, unable (or unwilling) to follow banking’s changing and complex laws, much less read or understand the “fine-print” on monthly banking statements. For instance, how many know about the new S. 2155 law or its implications to their lives? Or know the now-subverted Volcker rules in the Dodd-Frank law?

They don’t because information is too complicated for most depositors to understand. Too, the mainstream media and its advertisers obviously believe viewers aren’t interested even if they were to boil key points down for comprehension. Their audiences are mostly “plain folk,” including millions of bank depositors. The media rationale seems to be that it won’t adversely affect their advertisers despite a heavy loss of customers in a crash. Or they fear the wrath of ferocious banking lobbyists and lawyers if they make explanations simple for most depositors to understand.

For instance, back in 2013 did the mainstream media feature financial writer Ellen Brown, among other columnists, warning depositors that

… our deposits, our pensions, and our public investment funds will all be subject to confiscation in a bail-in… If your bank account or pension gets wiped out, you could wind up in the street or sharing food with your pets.

Fewer still were likely to watch C-Span for even one of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s three recent impassioned speeches begging Senate colleagues to vote “no” on passage of S. 2155, with its cynical title “Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act.” In the third one, she lamented:

Now, as the bill is on the verge of passing the Senate, I want to stop and just ask: why? Who is asking us to do this? Our constituents hate it—a recent poll showed that an overwhelming majority of Americans oppose this bill. So why is it that the only thing Washington can agree to do on a bipartisan basis in this Congress is to help out giant banks?

I’ll tell you why. Washington’s amnesia is legendary. We go through the same cycle like clockwork. When the economy is looking good, lobbyists flood Congress and tell politicians it’s perfectly safe to roll back the rules on the big banks.  It’s always the same arguments: America needs more lending for more economic growth; our country is losing ground to our competitors; banks have learned their lesson and don’t need the rules to behave responsibly.  And the kicker: What could possibly go wrong?

But that “bipartisan” bill seriously affecting depositors’ money passed both Houses: 67-31 in the Senate, aided by 15 Democrats, and 225-158 in the House, thanks to 33 Democrats. Those who voted “aye” knew that most depositors voting in the November mid-terms will never go to the trouble of finding out who in Congress made it possible for banks to seize their money in another crash. The roll-call vote is listed in the links of this paragraph for depositors who want to contact or confront members of their Congressional representatives.

Moreover, most depositors seem to be considered by bankers to be impotent because to sue a bank requires hiring an attorney to fight the institution’s legion of lawyers and endless court postponements. Even successful class-action suits not only have taken years to travel through the lower courts to settle, but a U.S. Supreme Court ruling for class-action plaintiffs against a corporation these days seems unlikely given 5-4 verdicts in cases as recent as Epic Systems v. Lewis forcing employees to settle issues by having signed pre-work arbitrations agreements rather than using post-hiring collective action against management.

Also, a favorable ruling would mean reimbursing depositors and require anothertaxpayer bailout, or set off a multitude of bank failures plunging the economy into that Great Depression II. Given that choice, the Supreme Court probably will let depositors take the fall in yet another 5-4 decision.

Up to the bail-in tactic, depositors’ monies have been considered a sacred trust offered by the banks. It’s not like, say, a home or car loan in which borrowers know they face the risk of repossession if they fail to meet payments.

By contrast, depositorshand the banks their money, trusting it’s safer than under the mattress. It also earns interest because the bankis the borrower. Interest currently is about 0.01% these days, provided it’s not wiped out by a $5 monthly maintenance fee for the usual mandated balance of $300 for passbook savings accounts.

By some twisted logic, however, bankers don’t want see the difference between a mortgage holder and depositor. “Let the buyer beware” still seems to be the governing philosophy. Either transaction means the bank owns the house and deposit. Despite big promotions (perhaps a toaster) lavished on the two different customers, the ultimate treatment is comes across as contempt—especially revealed in banks now considering use of the bail-in on depositors.

So what should depositors do to protect their money from a bail-in.

Both senators Warren and Jeff Merkley were contacted after Trump signed the bill into law and asked if they planned to hopper a stand-alone bill protecting depositors in the event of the next bank crash. So far, neither has responded.

The obvious solution for depositors is to move their money to a credit union, despite the hassle of having to notify direct-depositors for Social Security, pension funds, or other incoming sums. But most credit unions take care of such switches.

Deposits up to $250,000 have been insured since 1970 by the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund.  And as my Oregon credit union just pointed out to us members:

Credit unions might look like banks, but we’re very different. Other financial institutions are governed by stockholders who focus on making a profit. But not credit unions. We’re governed by members; we’re member focused. That means we’re focused on achieving more together, not making profits for stockholders. The difference is how we’re governed.

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Barbara G. Ellis, Ph.D., is the principal of a Portland (OR) writing/pr firm. A veteran professional writer and editor (LIFE magazine, Washington, D.C. Evening Star, Beirut Daily Star, Mideast Magazine), she also was a journalism professor (Oregon State University/Louisiana’s McNeese State University). Author of dozens of articles for magazines and online websites, she was a nominee for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in history (The Moving Appeal). Today, she contributes to Truthout and Counterpunch, as well as being a political and environmental activist.

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The “National Defense Strategy” document released at the beginning of this year declared bluntly that the nearly two-decade focus by the US military on the so-called “global war on terrorism” had come to an end. In its place, a new strategic orientation was being introduced based on preparing for “great power” confrontation, i.e., war with nuclear-armed Russia and China.

This was the first such defense strategy to be issued by the Pentagon in over a decade and expressed the urgency with which Washington views the preparations for a third world war.

A particularly crude and criminal outcome of this policy shift is becoming increasingly apparent in three major theaters where US forces are engaged in active combat operations. Reports from Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan provide firm evidence that the US and its local proxies are allying themselves with and employing the services of elements of ISIS and Al Qaeda in the pursuit of Washington’s broader strategic interests.

In Yemen, hundreds, if not thousands, of fighters from Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), branded by the US government as the “most dangerous” affiliate of the loose international Al Qaeda network, have been recruited by Washington’s closest allies in the Arab world, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to fight as foot soldiers in the near-genocidal US-backed war that these Persian Gulf oil monarchies have been waging against the impoverished country of Yemen since 2015.

According to an investigative report published Monday by the Associated Press, the Saudi-led coalition “cut secret deals with al-Qaida fighters, paying some to leave key cities and towns and letting others retreat with weapons, equipment and wads of looted cash… Hundreds more were recruited to join the coalition itself.”

It added that “Key participants in the pacts said the US was aware of the arrangements and held off on any drone strikes.”

“Elements of the US military are clearly aware that much of what the US is doing in Yemen is aiding AQAP and there is much angst about that,” Michael Horton, a senior analyst at the Jamestown Foundation, a CIA-connected Washington think tank, told the AP.

“However, supporting the UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia against what the US views as Iranian expansionism takes priority over battling AQAP and even stabilizing Yemen,” Horton added.

This is a gross understatement. Washington is providing indispensable military support for a war that has reduced millions of Yemenis to the brink of starvation. It is prepared to wipe out much of the country’s population in order to bolster its strategic position and that of the reactionary Arab regimes with which it is allied against the perceived threat of Iranian influence to US regional hegemony.

The war has escalated in recent days in the ongoing siege of the Yemeni Red Sea port of Hodeidah, which was green-lighted by the Trump administration. The UN has warned that a quarter of a million people could lose their lives in this operation, while millions more across the country may die of starvation if it shuts down the port, the sole lifeline for food, fuel and medicine for at least 70 percent of the population.

Recruiting Al Qaeda fighters to slaughter Yemenis in this immense and bloody war crime is entirely consistent with US policy.

In regard to Syria, meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry last Thursday issued a statement warning that ISIS has increasingly concentrated its forces in the area around al-Tanaf, near the Syrian-Iraqi border, where the US military maintains a military base and has unilaterally declared a 34-mile exclusion zone around it. US troops there have provided training to so-called “rebels” opposing the government of President Bashar al-Assad and appear to be providing a security screen for ISIS.

Launched on the pretext of carrying out the “annihilation” of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the illegal US military intervention in Syria has repeatedly seen the US and its local proxies facilitate the flight of ISIS from besieged cities. The most notorious incident was in Raqqa, where a column of vehicles carried 4,000 ISIS fighters and family members, along with their weapons, ammunition and explosives, into the eastern Syrian desert.

The goal was to turn these fighters against government troops and aid in the US operation to deprive Damascus of control over Syria’s oil and gas fields, which are vital for the reconstruction of the war-ravaged country. The US aims in Syria are bound up with wider preparations for war not only against Iran, but against Russia as well.

Finally, in regard to Afghanistan, where the US has waged war for nearly 17 years, the New York Times published an article Sunday titled, “Are ISIS Fighters Prisoners or Honored Guests of the Afghan Government?”

The article reported how two senior commanders of ISIS, along with 250 of their fighters, had surrendered to the US-backed Afghan National Army to avoid being routed by the Taliban in northern Afghanistan.

“If they were prisoners, however, it was hard to tell,” the Times reported. “The government arranged for them to stay in a guesthouse in the provincial capital of Sheberghan. Guards were posted around it not to keep the insurgents in, but to keep their potential enemies out, according to the provincial governor. Although the fighters were disarmed, they were allowed to keep their cell phones and other personal possessions.”

The Times added,

“The dubious nature of the Islamic State surrender has proved a propaganda bonanza for the Taliban.”

The newspaper does not provide any details on the nature of this “propaganda,” but it does report that the ISIS fighters “were ferried from the battlefield in Afghan Army helicopters, avoiding a potentially dangerous journey on the roads.”

The obvious conclusion from this account is that ISIS has functioned as a US asset in Afghanistan, attacking the Taliban and carrying out atrocities aimed at precluding any negotiated resolution of the conflict that does not serve US geo-strategic interests in the region.

This more or less open alliance between the Pentagon and ISIS, a supposed prime target in multiple US military interventions across three continents, is not so much a new policy as the revival of an old one that was never fully abandoned, despite the inflated rhetoric of that greatest of all “fake news” stories, the “global war on terrorism.”

Al Qaeda, the original supposed arch enemy in this unending war, was the direct product of CIA and US support for the Islamist mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviet-backed government in the 1980s. Since then, these elements have had a dual use for US imperialism, serving at one stage as proxy forces in wars for regime change, and at another as a pretext for US interventions in the name of fighting terror.

Under the mantle of the “war on terrorism,” successive US governments, Democratic and Republican alike, have not only conducted wars whose victims number in the millions, but also carried out an unrelenting attack on democratic rights, from domestic spying to censoring the Internet.

The emerging international alliance between the Pentagon and ISIS only serves to expose the real interests underlying these policies, which are bound up with the waging of war to offset US imperialism’s loss of economic preeminence and defend its crumbling global hegemony, and domestic repression to sustain a social order characterized by the most extreme inequality in modern American history.

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“I saw thousands who could’ve overcome the darkness, but for the love of a lousy buck I watched them die.” – Bob Dylan

Myth # 1: 

“The FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) tests all new psychiatric drugs”

False. Actually, the FDA only reviews studies that were designed, administered, secretly performed and paid for by profit-driven, multinational pharmaceutical companies or farmed out by those companies to private research firms, in whose interest it is to find positive results for their employers. Unsurprisingly, such collaborations virtually guarantee fraudulent results. 

Myth # 2: 

“FDA approval means that a psychotropic drug is effective long-term”

False. Actually, FDA approval doesn’t mean that psychiatric drugs have been proven to be either safe or effective – either short-term or long-term. Most psych drugs are never tested in clinical trials for longer than a few months, and most patients that are caught up in the psychiatric system take their drugs for years or decades. 

Psychopharmaceutical companies lavishly pay drug “researchers” who are often academic psychiatrists that have relatively easy access to compliant, already-drugged-up chronic patients. These psychiatrists often have financial or professional conflicts of interest – some of them even sitting on FDA or industry advisory committees that attempt to “fast track” drugs through the approval process. 

For each new drug application submitted by drug companies to the FDA for potential marketing approval, the agency only receives 1 or 2 of the most favorable studies that purport to show short-term safety and effectiveness. The negative studies are shelved and not revealed to the FDA – or any agency – unless subpoenaed for legal reasons by the court system. In the case of the SSRI drugs (the so-called Selective Serotonin Reuptake-pump Inhibitors), lab animal studies typically lasted only hours, days or weeks and the human clinical studies only lasted, on average, 4- 6 weeks, far too short to draw any valid conclusions about long-term “effectiveness” or safety!

Hence the FDA, prescribing physicians and their patients should not have been “surprised” by the eventual documented epidemic of SSRI drug-induced adverse reactions (including addiction, suicidality, homicidality, brain damage, dementia, etc) that have been disabling so many patients during the decades since Prozac was introduced in 1987. In actuality, many of the SSRI trials proved that those drugs were barely more effective – and certainly more dangerous – than placebo, with unaffordable economic costs and serious health consequences, some of which are life-threatening.

Myth # 3:

 “FDA approval means that a psychotropic drug is safe long-term”

False. Actually, the SSRIs the so-called “anti-psychotic” drugs (historically called “major” tranquilizers), the “minor” tranquilizers/anti-epileptics/sleeping pills and the amphetamine-based psychostimulants are usually only tested in human clinical trials for a couple of months before being granted marketing approval by the Big Pharma-conflicted FDA. The FDA does, on occasion, require the drug companies to post black box warnings on their drug information hand-outs which they hate to do because it reveals to  potential consumers of their drugs some of the reasons that they shouldn’t take the drug. Fortunately for everybody involved in the industry, the black box and fine print warnings are usually ignored by both customers and prescribers.

In our fast-paced corporate medical practices, where it is quicker and more profitable to write a prescription than to take a thorough history, we over-burdened physicians and our prescribing assistants have never been able to be fully aware of the multitude of dangerous, potentially lethal adverse psych drug effects that include addiction, mania, psychosis, suicidality, homicidality, worsening depression, worsening anxiety, insomnia, somnolence, obesity, diabetes, blood pressure abnormalities, akathisia, brain damage, dementia, violence, etc, etc. 

But when was the last time anybody heard the FDA or Big Pharma apologize for the drug-induced damage their medications have done? And when was the last time there were significant punishments (other than wrist slaps and multimillion dollar fines [chump change for Big Pharma]) or prison time for the CEOs of the guilty multibillion dollar drug companies? It never happens and so the scams continue apace.

Myth # 4:

 “Mental ‘illnesses’ are caused by ‘brain chemical imbalances’”

False. In actuality, neurotransmitter (brain chemical) imbalances have never been proven to exist except in the case of neurotransmitter depletions (particularly in the case of serotonin) that can be caused by the very psych drugs that Big Pharma has falsely promoted as being capable of correcting the mythical “imbalance”. 

Knowing that there are over 100 known neurotransmitter systems in the human brain, proposing a theoretical “brain chemical imbalance” is laughable and flies in the face of real neuroscience. Not only that, but if there was a theoretical imbalance between any two of those 100+ systems (which would be impossible to prove), no drug could ever be expected to re-balance it! And besides, no psychiatric drug has ever been tested on more than a small handful of the known brain neurotransmitter systems.

Such simplistic theories have been relentlessly promoted by Big Pharma upon a gullible public and a gullible medical industry because corporations that want to sell their dubious products know that they have to resort to propaganda to convince prospective patients and prescribers why they should be taking or prescribing synthetic, brain-altering drugs that haven’t been adequately tested either for safety of efficacy. 

Myth # 5:

“Antidepressant drugs work like insulin for diabetics”

False. This laughingly simplistic – and very anti-scientific – explanation for the use of dangerous and dependency-inducing/addictive synthetic drugs is patently absurd and physicians and patients who believe it should be ashamed of themselves for falling for it. There is such a thing as an insulin deficiency but only occurs in type 1 diabetes, which is an autoimmune disorder where the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas have been destroyed by a hyper-stimulated immune system that produced antibodies against its body’s own cells. 

Of course, it is obvious that there is no such thing as a Prozac deficiency. The so-called Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors have been deceptively mis-named by Big Pharma because those amphetamine molecule-based SSRI drugs do NOT mess only with serotonin neurotransmitter systems! In fact, they do not actually raise total brain serotonin levels as advertised. Actually, SSRI drugs deplete serotonin long-term while only “goosing” the release of serotonin at the synapse level while at the same time interfering with the storage, reuse and re-cycling functions of the serotonin synapses that, by the way, are far more abundant in the human intestinal tract than in the central nervous system. 

Parenthetically, the distorted “illogic” of the insulin/diabetes comparison above could legitimately be made in the case of the amino acid brain nutrient tryptophan, which is the precursor molecule of serotonin. If a serotonin deficiency (or “imbalance”) could be proven, the only logical treatment approach would be to supplement the diet with tryptophan rather than inflict upon the brain a synthetic chemical that actually depletes serotonin long-term! 

Myth # 6: 

“SSRI ‘discontinuation syndromes’ are different than ‘withdrawal syndromes’”

False. The so-called “antidepressant” drugs are indeed dependency-inducing (addictive) and the neurological and psychological symptoms that occur when these drugs are stopped or tapered down too quickly are not “relapses” into a previous ”mental disorder” as psychiatrists have tried to make us believe, but are actually drug withdrawal symptoms that are different from the symptoms that prompted the original mis-diagnosis. 

The term “discontinuation syndrome” is part of a cunningly-designed conspiracy that was secretly concocted between members of Big Pharma and psychiatric thought leaders in academia in order to deceive prescribing physicians into thinking that SSRIs are not addictive. (See the story about that conspiracy in Dr Joseph Glenmullen’s important book, “Prozac Backlash”.) The “discontinuation syndrome” deception has ever since been shamelessly promoted to distract attention from the fact that most psych drugs are actually dependency-inducing at the synapse levels of the brain and are therefore likely to cause withdrawal symptoms when the drugs are stopped or their dosages abruptly reduced. 

Myth # 7: 

“Ritalin is safe for children” 

False. In actuality, methylphenidate (= Ritalin, Concerta, Daytrana, Metadate and Methylin) is derogatively called “kiddie cocaine”, and it deserves the label. It is a dopamine reuptake pump inhibitor drug that functions exactly like cocaine on dopamine and other neurotransmitter systems, except that orally-dosed methylphenidate reaches the brain slower than does snortable or smoked cocaine. Therefore the oral form has less of an orgasmic “high” than cocaine. On the street, cocaine addicts actually prefer Ritalin if they can get it in a relatively pure powder form that can be snorted. 

Ritalin (a lab-manufactured synthetic drug that is therefore less easily metabolically-degraded than cocaine) has the same onset of action as cocaine. But, because of the resistance to metabolic denaturation Ritalin has a predictably longer lasting “high” than the natural cocaine molecule no matter the route it is administered which is why it is preferred by some addicts. The molecular structures of Ritalin and cocaine both have amphetamine-based molecular structures with ring-shaped side chains which, when examined side by side, are remarkably similar. The dopamine synapses in the brain (and the heart, the blood vessels, the lungs and the guts) can’t tell the difference between the two drugs, no matter if the individual’s brain is that of a 3 year-old inattentive or active toddler or a wasted, terminally-addicted adult dying on skid row.

Myth # 8: 

“Psychoactive drugs are totally safe for humans”

False. See Myth # 3 above. Actually all five classes of psychotropic drugs have, with long-term use, been found to be neurotoxic (ie, known to destroy or otherwise alter the physiology, chemistry, anatomy and viability of vital energy-producing mitochondria that are in every brain cell and nerve). They are therefore all capable of contributing to dementia, memory loss, confusion, sleep disorders as well as serious bowel dysfunction when used long-term. 

Any synthetic chemical or toxic metal (such as the aluminum and mercury that are in many vaccines) that is capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier into the brain (especially the immature, poorly-developed or immunocompromised brains of infants, toddlers, adolescents and young adults up to the age of 25) can alter, damage or otherwise disable the brain. Synthetic chemical drugs are NOT capable of healing brain dysfunction, curing malnutrition or reversing brain damage. Rather than curing anything, synthetic psychiatric drugs (that can’t be easily metabolized or excreted) are fully capable of masking symptoms while the abnormal emotional, neurological or malnutritional processes that mimic “mental illnesses” continue unabated.

Myth # 9: 

“Mental ‘illnesses’ have no known cause”

False. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) is published by the American Psychiatric Association and is pejoratively called “the psychiatric bible and billing book” for psychiatrists. Despite its name, it actually has no statistical data in it, and, of the 374 psychiatric labels/diagnoses in the fourth edition (DSM-IV) there seems to be only two that emphasize known root causes. Those two diagnoses are Posttraumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD) and Acute Stress Disorder. 

In my decade of work as an independent holistic mental health care practitioner, with enough hard work, I was always able to detect many of the multiple root causes for emotional and neurological dysfunction that easily explained the signs, symptoms and behaviors that had resulted in the perplexing number of mis-labels of “mental illnesses of unknown origin”. The most common root cause was psychological trauma in all its variations.

Many of my patients had been made worse by being hastily mis-diagnosed and then hastily over-drugged with cocktails of various brain-altering drugs that had never been tested for safety or efficacy in any combination of drugs, even in the rat lab. Many of my psychiatric-survivor patients had been bullied into being drugged, isolated, malnourished, incarcerated and even electroshocked, often against their wills without fully informed consent. The realities of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” haven’t changed much since the 1970s.

My over-drugged patients had usually been rendered unemployable or even permanently disabled as a result of the early resort to drugging, all because temporary, potentially reversible stressors had not been recognized at the outset. Because of the reliance on drugging as Plan A, many of my patients had been made virtually incurable by not being luck enough to have gone to healing practitioners who practiced high quality, non-drug-based, potentially curable psychotherapy coupled with good brain nutrition.

The root causes of my patient’s so-called mental illnesses (of supposedly unknown cause) typically began before adulthood. Acute or chronic psychologically-traumatizing experiences of neglect, abuse or other forms of violence, including sexual, physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual and military can cause an otherwise normally-developing individual to decompensate into a temporary, preventable, potentially curable, emotionally abnormal state that could  be tragically mis-interpreted – and mis-treated – as a mental illness of unknown cause. 

Most of my drugged-up patients also experienced hopelessness, sleep deprivation, serious emotional and physical neglect and brain nutrient deficiencies as well. It was only possible to obtain this essential patient information by carefully, compassionately and thoroughly obtaining the patient’s and family’s complete history, starting with prenatal, maternal, infant and childhood exposures to toxins when the patient’s brain was developing. Importantly, the information-gathering needed to include the known neurotoxins that are in childhood vaccines that are always administered in cocktails that have never been tested for safety even in the rat lab. 

My clinical experience proved to me that if enough high-quality time was spent with the patient and the patient’s loved ones and if enough hard work was exerted looking for root causes, the patient’s predicament could usually be clarified and the erroneous past labels (of “mental illnesses of unknown origin”) could be thrown out. 

My efforts at looking for root causes were often tremendously therapeutic for my patients, who up to that time had been made to feel guilty, ashamed or hopeless by previous exposures to therapists. In my experience, most mental ill health syndromes represented identifiable, often serious emotional de-compensation due to temporarily overwhelming crisis situations linked to traumatic, frightening, torturous, neglectful and soul-destroying life experiences. 

My practice consisted mostly of patients who knew for certain that they were being sickened by months or years of swallowing one or more brain-altering prescription drugs that they couldn’t get off of by themselves. I discovered that many of them could have been cured early on in their lives if they had only had access – and could afford – compassionate psychoeducational psychotherapy, proper brain nutrition and help with addressing issues of deprivation, family/societal neglect/abuse, poverty and other destructive psychosocial situations. 

It didn’t take me long to come to the sobering realization that many of my psychiatric-survivor patients could have been cured years earlier if it hadn’t been for the disabling effects of mis-diagnoses, mis-treatment, isolation/loneliness, punitive incarcerations, discrimination, malnutrition, and/or electroshock. The neurotoxic, brain-disabling drugs, vaccines and frankenfoods that most of my patients had been given early on, in combination with the adverse effects of un-acknowledged psychological trauma had started them on the road to chronicity and disability.

Myth # 10: 

“Psychotropic drugs have nothing to do with the huge increase in disabled and unemployable American psychiatric patients”

False. See Myths # 2 and # 3 above. In actuality, recent studies have shown that the major cause of permanent disability among the “mentally ill” is the long-term, high dosage and/or use of multiple neurotoxic psych drugs – any combination of which, as noted above, has never been adequately tested for safety even in the animal lab. Many commonly-prescribed drugs are fully capable of causing brain-damage long-term, especially the “major tranquilizers” like Thorazine, Haldol, Prolixin, Clozapine, Abilify, Clozapine, Fanapt, Geodon, Invega, Risperdal, Saphris, Seroquel and Zyprexa, any of which can cause brain shrinkage that is commonly seen on the MRI scans of drugged-up, so-called “schizophrenics” finding that are deceptively pointed out as “proof” that schizophrenia is an anatomic brain disorder that causes the brain to shrink! (Incidentally, non-psychiatric patients who had been on major tranquilizer drugs for reasons other than mental health have been known to experience withdrawal hallucinations and withdrawal psychoses when they quit the drug. 

Astonishingly, some of these unfortunate patients have been told by psychiatrists that their new schizophrenia was “uncovered” because of the drug – a ridiculous claim very similar to the one psychiatrists used to use when unipolarly depressed patients who had been on SSRI’s suddenly developed drug-induced mania and were then told that their real diagnosis of bipolar disorder was uncovered by the drug!)

Of course, highly addictive “minor” tranquilizers like Valium, Ativan, Klonopin, Librium, Tranxene and Xanax can cause withdrawal symptoms too. All tranquilizers, both major and minor, are dangerously dependency-inducing and very difficult to withdraw from. 

Tranquilizer drug withdrawal syndromes, especially caused by abrupt withdrawal, can easily cause difficult-to-treat rebound insomnia, panic attacks, agitation, violence, and seriously increased anxiety, and, after long-term use, memory loss, dementia, loss of IQ points and the high likelihood of being mis-diagnosed with the so-called “Alzheimer’s dementia” of “unknown etiology” instead of the real diagnosis: “iatrogenic dementia”).

Myth # 11: 

“So-called bipolar disorder can mysteriously ‘emerge’ in patients who have been taking stimulating antidepressants like the SSRIs”

False. Actually, alternating, erratic, crazy-making behaviors like mania, agitation and aggression are commonly caused by the so-called anti-depressant drugs like Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa, and Lexapro. The long list of adverse drug effects from these SSRIs includes a syndrome called akathisia, a severe, drug-induced, sometimes suicidality-inducing internal restlessness – like having restless legs syndrome over one’s entire body and brain. In the history of medicine, akathisia was once understood to only occur as a long-term adverse effect of antipsychotic drugs (See Myth # 10). So it was a shock to many psychiatrists to see that SSRIs could also cause that deadly problem. Because of this new reality, it is my considered opinion that SSRIs should be called “agitation-inducing” drugs rather than “anti-depressant” drugs. 

The important point to make is that SSRI-induced mania, SSRI-induced agitation, SSRI-induced akathisia and SSRI-induced aggression is NOT bipolar disorder “of unknown cause”, and that SSRI-induced psychosis is NOT schizophrenia. 

A more sobering realization, of course, is that all those disorders are iatrogenic (doctor-caused or drug-caused) and therefore preventable.

I urge readers to visit this site, to read some 6,000 mainstream media–documented stories of SSRI-induced aberrant behaviors, including numerous school shootings, numerous road rage incidents, numerous cases of postpartum depression, cases sexual misconduct among female school teachers, a multitude of murders, hundreds of murders-suicide and other acts of violence including workplace and school violence. These cases only represent a small fraction of the possible cases, since psych drug use by the perpetrators of newsworthy irrational violence is usually not reported in the mainstream media.

Myth # 12: 

“Antidepressant drugs can prevent suicides”

False. Actually, there are zero psychiatric drugs that are FDA-approved for the prevention of suicidality because psych drugs, especially the so-called antidepressants, actually INCREASE the incidence of suicidal thinking, suicide attempts and completed suicides. Over the past decades, drug companies have spent billions of dollars futilely trying to prove the effectiveness of various psychiatric drugs in suicide prevention. Even the most corrupted drug company trials have failed to accomplish that goal! The fact remains that every one of the so-called “antidepressant” drugs actually increase the risk of suicidality. 

The FDA requires black box warning labels to be published on drug handout materials when research has proved that a drug increase suicidality. Drug-makers, marketers and prescribers naturally did all they could to oppose the FDA’s action. Those, all of whom feared that such truth-telling would hurt their profits (it hasn’t). What can and does avert suicidality, of course, are not drugs. Instead, suicide prevention requires the interventions by caring, compassionate and thorough teams of care-givers that includes families, faith communities and friends as well as aware psychologists, counselors, social workers, relatives (especially wise grandmas!) and, obviously, the limited involvement of psychiatric drug prescribers.

Myth # 13: 

“America’s school shooters and other mass shooters are ‘untreated’ schizophrenics who should have been taking psych drugs”

False. Actually, 90% or more of the infamous homicidal and suicidal mass school shooters have, prior to the shootings, been under the “care” of psychiatrists (or other psych drug prescribers) and therefore they have typically been taking (or withdrawing from) cocktails of psychiatric drugs. SSRIs such as Prozac and psychostimulants (such as Ritalin) have been the most common classes of drugs involved in school shootings. Antipsychotics are too sedating, although any previously abused, disrespected and justifiably angry teen who is withdrawing from major or minor tranquilizers could easily become a school shooter if given access to lethal weapons. 

The 10% of school shooters whose drug history is not yet known, have typically had their medical files sealed by the authorities – probably in order to protect the drug companies and the medical professionals who were responsible for the shooters having the drugs. 

Every industry that is responsible for supplying the offending drugs to those who were involved in crimes such as mass school shootings have spent an enormous amount of advertising money to get the public to buy the notion that these adolescent, white male school shooters were mentally ill rather than under the influence of their crazy-making, impulse-altering, brain-altering psych drugs (or going through withdrawal from them). 

Parents often comment on how their children suddenly developed an “I-don’t-give-a -damn attitude” after going on psych drugs. Nothing good can ever come out of a situation where brain-altering psych drugs are prescribed for a teased, abused, isolated, disrespected, justifiably angry and understandably vengeful adolescent boy who has access to lethal weapons.

A CBS’s 60 Minutes television program several years ago made the outrageously false claim that “untreated schizophrenics” were responsible for “half of the mass shootings in America”. The four examples mentioned in the segment were, in fact, almost certainly patients who had been “made crazy” by their past “treatment” with brain-altering psychiatric drugs by unnamed psychiatrists and clinics who obviously were being protected by CBS from public identification or interrogation by the authorities as accomplices (or at least witnesses) to the crimes. 

Because of this secrecy, the public was being kept in the dark about exactly what crazy-making, homicidality-inducing, suicidality-inducing psych drugs could have been involved. The names of the drugs and the Big Pharma corporations that have falsely marketed them as safe are also being protected from scrutiny, and thus the chances of prevention of future drug-related shootings or suicides is being squandered. Such decisions by America’s corporate ruling elites represent public health policy at its worst, and it is a disservice to past and future shooting victims and their loved ones. 

The four most notorious mass shooters that were highlighted in the aforementioned 60 Minutes segment were the Virginia Tech shooter, the Tucson shooter, the Aurora shooter and the Sandy Hook shooter whose wild-eyed (actually “drugged-up”) photos had been carefully chosen for their dramatic “zombie-look” effect, so that most ill-informed, frightened, paranoid Americans could be convinced that it was a crazy “schizophrenic”, rather than a victim of another cocktail of inebriating, psychoactive, crazy-making drugs (or the withdrawal from those drugs) that likely made them perpetrate the otherwise irrational violence.

Parenthetically, it needs to be emphasized that all major media outlets profit handsomely from advertising revenues from various pharmaceutical and medical industries. Therefore, those outlets have a compelling financial incentive to protect the names of the drugs, the names of the drug companies, the names of the prescribing MDs and the names of the clinics and hospitals that could otherwise be linked to the crimes. 

Certainly if a methamphetamine-intoxicated person shot someone, the person who sold the intoxicating drug to the perpetrator would be considered an accomplice to the crime, just like the bartender who supplied the liquor to some inebriated customer who later killed someone in a car accident could be held accountable. A double standard obviously exists when it comes to powerful, respected and highly profitable corporations whose honorable drug dealers wear lab coats or three-piece suits and hobnob with the elites.

A thorough study of the scores of American school shooters, starting with the University of Texas tower shooter in 1966 and (temporarily) stopping at Sandy Hook, reveals that the overwhelming majority of them (if not all of them) were taking brain-altering, mesmerizing, inebriating, impulse-destroying, “I don’t give a damn” psych drugs that had been prescribed to them by well-meaning but too-busy psychiatrists, family physicians or physician assistants who somehow claimed to be unaware of or misinformed about the homicidal and suicidal risks to their equally unsuspecting patients.

Most practitioners who wrote the prescriptions for the mass shooters or for a patient who later suicided while under the influence of the drug, will probably defend themselves against the charge of being an accomplice to mass murder or suicide by saying that they didn’t know about the lethal dangers of these often cavalierly-prescribed drugs because they had been deceived by the drug companies that had convinced them of their benign nature. 

Such a defense is obviously weak simply because those lethal side effects have been widely published and have been listed in the prescribing information.

Myth # 14:

“If your patient hears voices it means he’s a schizophrenic”

False. Auditory hallucinations are known to occur in up to 10% of normal people; and up to 75% of normal people have had the experience of someone that isn’t there calling their name. (See this). Hearing voices does necessarily not mean you are crazy.

Vivid nighttime dreams, hearing voices while experiencing a nightmare and daytime flashbacks of past military traumas in combat veterans probably have similar origins to daytime visual, auditory and olfactory hallucinations, and many psychiatrists don’t think that they represent mental illnesses. Indeed, hallucinations are listed in the pharmaceutical literature as potential side effects (or represent withdrawal symptoms) of many drugs, especially psychiatric drugs. These syndromes are called substance-induced psychotic disorders which are, by definition, neither mental illnesses nor schizophrenia. Rather, substance-induced or withdrawal-caused psychotic disorders are temporary and directly caused by the intoxicating effects brain-altering drugs, malnourishing or toxic foods or other exposures to combinations of common substances such as alcohol, the neurotoxic aluminum and mercury in injectable vaccines, diet soda, chemical toxins, etc, etc. 

Psychotic symptoms, including hallucinations and delusions, can be caused by substances such as alcohol, marijuana, hallucinogens, sedatives, hypnotics, and anxiolytics, inhalants, opioids, PCP, and the many amphetamine-like drugs (like Phen-Fen, [fenfluramine]), cocaine, methamphetamine, Ecstasy, and, of course, agitation-inducing, psycho-stimulating drugs like the SSRIs).

Psychotic symptoms can also result from sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation and the withdrawal from certain drugs like alcohol, sedatives, hypnotics, anxiolytics and especially the many dopamine-suppressing, dependency-inducing, sedating, and zombifying so-called anti-psychotic drugs. 

Examples of other medications that may induce hallucinations and delusions include anesthetics, analgesics, anticholinergic agents, anticonvulsants, antihistamines, antihypertensive and cardiovascular medications, some antimicrobial medications, anti-parkinsonian drugs, some chemotherapeutic agents, corticosteroids, some gastrointestinal medications, muscle relaxants, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications, and Antabuse.

Summary

The very sobering information revealed above should cause any thinking person, patient, thought-leader or politician to ask: “how many otherwise normal or potentially curable victims of Big Pharma’s highly profitable psych drugs over the last half century have actually been mis-labeled as incurably mentally ill (and then tragically mis-treated as incurably mentally ill) and sent down the convoluted path of psychiatric therapeutic misadventures that often resulted in permanent disability?” 

In my mental health care practice, I treated hundreds of patients who had been given a series of confusing and contradictory mental illness labels, many of which had been one of the new “diseases of the month” for which there was a new “psych drug of the month” that was being heavily marketed on TV to potential patients and in clinics across America by thousands of Big Pharma’s drug sales representatives. 

Most of my patients had been victimized by unpredictable and unforseeable adverse drug-drug interactions (far too often drug-drug-drug interactions) which had then been erroneously mis-diagnosed as representing the symptoms of a new mental illness!

Extrapolating my 1200+ patient experience to what surely has been happening in the rest of America boggles my mind. There has been a massive iatrogenic (doctor- or drug-caused) epidemic going on right under our noses that has affected tens of millions of suffering victims who could have been cured if not for the drugs. 

A lyric from one of Bob Dylan’s songs comes to mind when I think about the massive amounts of human suffering caused by the un-ending search for profits that motivates the pro-drugging agendas of Big Pharma, Big Medicine, Big Psychiatry and fosters the willful ignorance of well-meaning, unaware healthcare practitioners that have victimized so many equally unaware, potentially curable patients. Dylan sang “I saw thousands who could’ve overcome the darkness, but for the love of a lousy buck I watched them die.”

A few of the many myths of mental illness are noted above. The time to act knowledge is long overdue.

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Partial Sources

(Authors and books that I used as background for the assertions in the above article) 

Toxic Psychiatry; Your Drug May Be Your Problem; Talking Back to Prozac; Medication Madness; by Peter Breggin; 

Prozac Backlash; and The Antidepressant Solution: A Step-by-Step Guide to Safely Overcoming Antidepressant Withdrawal, Dependence, and Addiction; by Joseph Glenmullen; 

Mad In America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill; and Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America; by Robert Whitaker; 

Soteria: Through Madness to Deliverance; by Loren Mosher and Voyce Hendrix; 

Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime: How Big Pharma has Corrupted Healthcare; by Peter Goetzsche; 

Rethinking Psychiatric Drugs: A Guide for Informed Consent; and Drug-Induced Dementia: A Perfect Crime; by Grace Jackson; 

The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to do About It; by Marcia Angell; 

Let Them Eat Prozac: The Unhealthy Relationship Between the Pharmaceutical Industry and Depression; and The Antidepressant Era; by David Healy; 

Blaming the Brain: The TRUTH About Drugs and Mental Health; by Elliot Valenstein; 

Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History; by Suzanne Humphries and Roman Bystrianyk

Madness, Heresy, and the Rumor of Angels,: The Revolt Against theMental Health System; by Seth Farber;

Excitotoxins: by Russell Blaylock;

The Myth of Mental Illness; by Thomas Szasz,

White Coat Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine; by Carl Elliott

Selling Sickness; How the World’s Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies are Turning Us All into Patients; by Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels; 

Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs; by Melody Petersen; 

The Crazy Makers: How the Food Industry is Destroying our Brains and Harming our Children; Carol Simontacchi

**

Dr. Kohls is a retired family physician who practiced holistic (non-drug) mental health care during the last decade of his professional life. His patients came to see him asking for help in getting off the psychotropic drugs to which they were addicted and which they knew had sickened and disabled them. He was successful in helping significant numbers of his patients get off or cut down on their drug dosages using a time-consuming program that was based on psychoeducational psychotherapy, brain nutrient therapy and a program of gradual, closely monitored drug withdrawal.

Many of his columns are archived at a variety of websites, including

http://duluthreader.com/search?search_term=Duty+to+Warn&p=2;

http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/gary-g-kohls; and

https://www.transcend.org/tms/search/?q=gary+kohls+articles

 

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The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allied local militias have kicked off an advance on ISIS positions in the eastern part of al-Suwayda province. It’s interesting to note that some former units of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which has reconciled with Damascus, are participating in the advance.

The SAA artillery and the Syrian Air Force carried out about 50 strikes on ISIS targets in the areas of al-Waer, Ard al-Karaa, Mazrea al-Hhatib, Sneim al-Ghirz and east of Dabatheh, Rabbet al-Hisn and Tel Razin.

The Syrian media says that ISIS suffered heavy casualties in these strikes, but no photos or videos to confirm these claims were released.

The goal of the ongoing operation is get rid of ISIS cells hiding in the desert. In July, these cells carried a series of sensitive attacks in the government-controlled areas thus triggering the decision to deal with them as soon as possible.

In early August, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) and Jabhat al-Wataniya lil-Tahrir, an alliance of militant groups created with Turkish assistance, started a wide-scale effort to crack down on supporters of reconciliation with the Damascus government in the province of Idlib.

According to local sources, militant groups have already arrested at least 60 civilians and local figures who support a deal with Damascus to put an end to hostilities.

These developments are an obvious attempt by militant groups to undermine a possible peace process in the Idlib de-esclation zone. According to some sources, Turkey, which is one of the guarantor states of the de-escalation zones deal reached in Astana, has behind the scenes been encouraging militants in their effort.

Recently, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) declared that they had established full control of the Syrian-Iraqi border on the eastern bank of the Euphrates defeating ISIS terrorists there. However, the SDF security situation is still ongoing in the area because a notable amount of ISIS cells are still in operation there.

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We deeply regret the re-imposition of sanctions by the US, due to the latter’s withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The JCPOA is working and delivering on its goal, namely to ensure that the Iranian programme remains exclusively peaceful, as confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 11 consecutive reports. It is a key element of the global nuclear non-proliferation architecture, crucial for the security of Europe, the region, and the entire world. We expect Iran to continue to fully implement all its nuclear commitments under the JCPOA.

The lifting of nuclear-related sanctions is an essential part of the deal – it aims at having a positive impact not only on trade and economic relations with Iran, but most importantly on the lives of the Iranian people. We are determined to protect European economic operators engaged in legitimate business with Iran, in accordance with EU law and with UN Security Council resolution 2231. This is why the European Union’s updated Blocking Statute enters into force on 7 August to protect EU companies doing legitimate business with Iran from the impact of US extra-territorial sanctions.

The remaining parties to the JCPOA have committed to work on, inter alia, the preservation and maintenance of effective financial channels with Iran, and the continuation of Iran’s export of oil and gas. On these, as on other topics, our work continues, including with third countries interested in supporting the JCPOA and maintaining economic relations with Iran. These efforts will be intensified and reviewed at Ministerial level in the coming weeks.

Preserving the nuclear deal with Iran is a matter of respecting international agreements and a matter of international security.

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

Michel Chossudovsky

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

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-6-0

Year: 2015

Pages: 240 Pages

List Price: $22.95

Special Price: $15.00

Click here to order.

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The US Congress has revived the so-called “NOPEC” bill for countering OPEC and OPEC+.

Officially called the “No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act”, NOPEC is the definition of so-called “lawfare” because it enables the US to extraterritorially impose its domestic legislation on others by giving the government the right to sue OPEC and OPEC+ countries like Russia because of their coordinated efforts to control oil prices. Lawsuits, however, are unenforceable, which is why the targeted states’ refusal to abide by the US courts’ likely predetermined judgement against them will probably be used to trigger sanctions under the worst-case scenario, with this chain of events being catalyzed in order to achieve several strategic objectives.

The first is that the US wants to break up the Russian-Saudi axis that forms the core of OPEC+, which leads to the second goal of then unravelling the entire OPEC structure and heralding in the free market liberalization of the global energy industry. This is decisively to the US’ advantage as it seeks to become an energy-exporting superpower, but it must neutralize its competition as much as possible before this happens, ergo the declaration of economic-hybrid war through NOPEC. How it would work in practice is that the US could threaten primary sanctions against the state companies involved in implementing OPEC and OPEC+ agreements, after which these could then be selectively expanded to secondary sanctions against other parties who continue to do business with them.

The purpose behind this approach is to intimidate the US’ European vassals into complying with its demands so as to make as much of the continent as possible a captive market of America’s energy exporters, which explains why Trump also wants to scrap LNG export licenses to the EU. If successful, this could further erode Europe’s shrinking strategic independence and also inflict long-term economic damage on the US’ energy rivals that could then be exploited for political purposes. At the same time, America’s recently unveiled “Power Africa” initiative to invest $175 billion in gas projects there could eventually see US companies in the emerging energy frontiers of Tanzania, Mozambique, and elsewhere become important suppliers to their country’s Chinese rival, which could make Beijing’s access to energy even more dependent on American goodwill than ever before.

If looked at as the opening salvo of a global energy war being waged in parallel with the trade one as opposed to being dismissed as the populist piece of legislation that it’s being portrayed as by the media, NOPEC can be seen as the strategic superweapon that it actually is, with its ultimate effectiveness being dependent of course on whether it’s properly wielded by American decision makers. It’s too earlier to call it a game-changer because it hasn’t even been promulgated yet, but in the event that it ever is, then it might go down in history as the most impactful energy-related development since OPEC, LNG, and fracking.

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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.

Featured image is from the author.

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In a key paper titled “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene“, published in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Science (6.8.2018), a group of 17 climate and environment scientists (Will Steffen, Johan Rockström, Katherine Richardson, Timothy M. Lenton, Carl Folke, Diana Liverman, Colin P. Summerhayes, Anthony D. Barnosky, Sarah E. Cornell, Michel Crucifix, Jonathan F. Donges, Ingo Fetzer, Steven J. Lade, Marten Scheffer, Ricarda Winkelmann, and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber) have issued a stern warning to humanity  with regard to the future of advanced life on Earth (See this) 

The paper states:

“We explore the risk that self-reinforcing feedbacks could push the Earth System toward a planetary threshold that, if crossed, could prevent stabilization of the climate at intermediate temperature rises and cause continued warming on a “Hothouse Earth” pathway even as human emissions are reduced. Crossing the threshold would lead to a much higher global average temperature than any interglacial in the past 1.2 million years and to sea levels significantly higher than at any time in the Holocene. We examine the evidence that such a threshold might exist and where it might be. If the threshold is crossed, the resulting trajectory would likely cause serious disruptions to ecosystems, society, and economies. Collective human action is required to steer the Earth System away from a potential threshold and stabilize it in a habitable interglacial-like state. Such action entails stewardship of the entire Earth System—biosphere, climate, and societies—and could include de-carbonization of the global economy, enhancement of biosphere carbon sinks, behavioral changes, technological innovations, new governance arrangements, and transformed social values.

In addition an essential requirement for down-draw of atmospheric CO₂ is needed if the other methods prove to be insufficient.

Key points reported by the ABC (Elise Pianegonda):

• The study found the climate is heading for a tipping point that could make the planet uninhabitable
• It could cause temperatures up to 5^oC higher than pre-industrial averages
• Current global efforts to curb emissions are “unlikely” to prevent the dangerous situation

It found the Earth was heading for a tipping point, known as a “hothouse” climate, which could lead to average temperatures up to 5^oC higher than pre-industrial temperatures and rises in sea  level of between 10 and 60 meters. Lead researcher Professor Will Steffen from the Australian National University (ANU) said at that point much of the earth would be uninhabitable. He explained that if human emissions raised global temperatures to 2^oC above pre-industrial temperatures it could trigger earth system processes, or feedbacks, that could then cause further  warming.

“The real concern is these tipping elements can act like a row of dominoes,” Professor Steffen said. “Once one is pushed over, it pushes Earth towards another.”

Professor Steffen said global average temperatures were currently just over 1^oC above pre-industrial temperatures and rising at 0.17C each decade. Current efforts ‘unlikely’ to help avoid tipping point” (See this).

However, according to the Berkeley Earth institute global temperature rise over the continents has reached about 1.5^oC.

“The authors of the study examined 10 feedback processes, some of which could cause “the uncontrollable release” of carbon back into the atmosphere, after it had been stored in the earth. Some of the processes also included permafrost thaw, Amazon rainforest dieback, a reduction of northern hemisphere snow cover, a loss of Arctic summer sea ice, and a reduction of Antarctic sea ice and polar ice sheets. The study did not lay down a timeframe for when such events would begin to occur, but theorized — if the threshold was crossed — it could be within a century or two.” (See this).

The time frame may be shorter in view of the extreme rise rate of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including CO₂ and methane.

These observations are consistent with those of Professor James Hansen, NASA’s former chief climate scientist, who stated (2012)

“Burning all fossil fuels would create a different planet than the one that humanity knows. The palaeoclimate record and ongoing climate change make it clear that the climate system would be pushed beyond tipping points, setting in motion irreversible changes, including ice sheet disintegration with a continually adjusting shoreline, extermination of a substantial fraction of species on the planet, and increasingly devastating regional climate extremes”.

These observations are also consistent with the 2010 statement by the present Prime Minister of Australia:

“We are as humans conducting a massive science experiment with this planet. It’s the only planet we’ve got …. We know that the consequences of unchecked global warming would be catastrophic …. We as a human species have a deep and abiding obligation to this planet and to the generations that will come after us”, 

Homo “sapiens” is at an advanced stage of destroying the habitability of planet Earth. 

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Dr Andrew Glikson, Earth and Paleo-climate science, Australia National University (ANU) School of Anthropology and Archaeology, ANU Planetary Science Institute, ANU Climate Change Institute, Honorary Associate Professor, Geothermal Energy Centre of Excellence, University of Queensland.

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On July 20, I was truly honoured to represent the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) at the International Deaf and Disabled People’s Solidarity Summit, in Stratford, east London that had been convened by one of our key allies in the UK, Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC). This powerful gathering was an important moment in the building of a resistance by disabled people as part of a broader international struggle against the forces of neoliberal austerity.

The Summit was called as a fitting response to an act of unbridled hypocrisy by the Tory Government of Theresa May. Two days later the Tories would be convening a “global disability summit” on the nearby Olympic Park site. This was a shameless attempt to pose as an international champion of disability rights, especially in poor and oppressed countries, when the Tory track record at home is one of abuse and outright abandonment of disabled people. The appalling legacy of death and despair that has been left through the implementation of the Work Capability Assessment, used to deny social benefits to disabled people living in poverty has become an international scandal. In 2016, the UN’s committee on the rights of persons with disabilities (CRPD) found the UK Tories to be guilty of “grave or systematic” violations of the international agreements it had entered into.

Solidarity Summit

With the determination and tactical skills we have come to expect of DPAC, the response to this exercise in duplicity was to bring together UK and international allies in a rival summit and to mobilize to confront the Tories at the official gathering. Held in the London Borough of Newham, the DPAC summit was addressed and welcomed by the Labour Party Mayor, Rokhsana Fiaz. Greetings were also brought by Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, who called out the Tories on their brutality and spoke of a Corbyn led Labour Government that would work with disabled people’s organizations to develop policies that challenged poverty and social exclusion.

A range of UK based groups addressed the struggles of disabled people against Tory austerity and a series of international delegates brought greetings to the summit. Feliza Ali Ramos and Alex Marcelo Vazquez Bracamonte, from New Hope in Bolivia, both wheelchair users, gave an astounding account of the struggles they had been part of. Two years ago, they were part of a trek of three hundred miles through the Andes by disabled people to place before the Government in La Paz the demand for a disability pension. Six of them died during this action and they faced riot cops with clubs and water cannons. Some of their demands were met but the fight for a pension continues.

Antonios Rellas, from Zero Tolerance in Greece, also a wheelchair user, told the summit how he took the stand in the trial of the Golden Dawn fascists and exposed how their ideology of hate had been directed against disabled people. He also gave an update on the challenge to the appalling conditions faced by disabled children in state run institutions and the important victories that have been won in this campaign.

Naziaty Yaacob, from Harapan OKU (Hope for Persons with Disabilities) in Malaysia brought greetings via Skype and an account of the struggle against systemic discrimination against disabled people. Rose Achayo, from the National Union of Women with Disabilities of Uganda, gave a powerful account of the fight for dignity and rights in her country and described conditions of abandonment and neglect, faced by disabled women and girls, that shocked the entire gathering. For OCAP, I was able to share struggles against austerity that have been taken up here (in Ontario) and to highlight the pivotal moment we are at with the taking of power by hard right Doug Ford Government. I also, expressed solidarity with the challenge to the UK Tories and pointed out that the legacy of Empire and present international role of Britain, made the May Government’s attempt to pose as a benefactor of disabled people in oppressed countries utterly disgraceful – “Truly, the sun never sets on their hypocrisy.”

UK Government Challenged

Two days, later our Bolivian comrades led us in a chant of “El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido,” as we arrived at the entrance to the official summit. Over the objections of the Olympic Park security officials, who insisted we were ‘not in the designated protest area,’ we rallied outside and speaker after speaker called out the May Government on its shameful record and its sickening hypocrisy. It was also a festive and cultural event, with some inspiring songs and poetry drawing on the spirit of resistance. Challenged in this way, with DPAC’s charges being echoed inside the official gathering, international development secretary, Penny Mordaunt, was forced to back away from the arrogant and false claim that the UK is a ‘global leader in disability rights’.

The DPAC summit took forward international solidarity and the struggle in the UK. It is as interesting as it is inspiring that an organization of disabled people plays such a leading role in the fight against austerity. Those who the Tories likely viewed as their most powerless victims have given a lead to the whole movement. It drives home the fact that we must build common fronts of resistance that defend past gains but leave no one behind.

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We have been seeing over the last few decades the birth of the non-university, an institution hollowed out of its seminal functions: teaching and scholarship.  Such an institution emphasises the functions of commerce and branding not dissimilar to the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company), dedicated to goods and services and the establishment of trading hubs.  In 2007, the Vice Chancellor of Griffith University would note how 11 Australian universities “including my own have 5 or more campuses.”

Pedagogical instruction has become a matter of popularity contests, fuelled by giddy grade inflations on the part of academics who are, let’s face it, often not doing the actual grading.  That part of the process is reserved for toiling sessional or casual workers who scrape, labour and hope, often in vain, that they will find a spot of middle-class security.  Their life is one of temporary contracts and elusive tenure, a true academic underclass seduced by the elusion of patronage.

The issue of research has also been hijacked by the circuitous nature of research grants.  The non-university specialises in workshops run by robotic consultants and endless sessions peppered by power points, preparing the unwise academic for an uncertain future where time is spent in a ceaseless drive for irrelevance.  When a grant is received, it is specifically tailor made for insipid trendiness, the latest pop sensation that creates pop-up industries and employment for minions.  Universities will, naturally, take a cut.  Importantly, getting one grant will mean getting another.  A family of sort crops up, and you are guaranteed a line of funding that does not necessarily need proof of use or evidence of worth.  Grants, in other words, displace scholarship.

Heading, controlling and asphyxiating the non-university is the layer of not infrequently venal officialdom known as managers.  Their impending influence across society was already given a good reading by James Burnham, whose The Managerial Revolution (1941) remains all too relevant.  Central to his thesis was the claim that capitalist society would ultimately transform into a managerial one, one where the masses would be told in no uncertain terms that the classless society was an illusion, with state institutions essentially becoming the “property” of management.

Central to the incidence of university management is the divorce between owning the means of production and the control of their distribution.  Adolf A. Berle and Gardiner C. Means supplied the relevant observations in The Modern Corporation and Private Property (1932).  With organisations becoming more complex, along with their varied methods of production, a new class of managers hired by capitalist owners came into existence.  Direct control was thereby relinquished.

The modern non-university is the very incarnation of this principle, one that sees the academic class forfeiting control over the means of production: their scholarship and teaching.  Academic labour, with its fruits of learning, is influenced, observed and ultimately controlled by management.  Management, in turn, burgeons with the self-justified rationale that more managers are needed.  Fictional projects drive this growth; more committees are deemed necessary, and, importantly, nothing is ever done.

The university manager is a born and dedicated philistine, and is one of the most important reasons why such institutions are not only failing students but failing staff.  It is managers who, untutored but entirely self-interested, feather their nests while stomping on the innovative and shutting out the novel.  The world of ideas is a world of offense, dangerous and to be avoided.

Within university management are the turncoats known as failed academics. Incapable of writing, researching and teaching, these people, unburdened by their banal resume move into a dreary world of paper clips, staplers and signatures, knowing that they can be promoted up a ladder filled with endless forms and bundles of paperwork.  One Australian university is even proud of having a Vice Chancellor who is rather light on education, not daring to even have a doctoral thesis to his name.  Such credentials would be an impediment in a non-university.

The fundamental goal of management is not merely to control, monitor and mediate performance on the part of the neutered academic, an insistence that thought is obscene.  (Thought, by its very act, cannot be managed.)  The academic must be restrained before the all-seeing-eyes of the brand label police and authoritarians.

Work-plans – because cerebral activity and inspiration can miraculously become the subject of a spreadsheet or the subject of itemisation – are designed in order to be used against academic staff.  Online Modules, fostered in the true Orwellian spirit, ensure a degree of disgruntled humility.  They are generally of no consequence, seeing as they will be breached by university managers with impunity, but these must be undertaken by staff.  Know the “values” of a university; appreciate “diversity”; know your place and worship the next dogma and, above all, do not criticise “hard working” management.  A module on hypocrisy would also be well worth taking, but irony and humour are the stuff of poison to a university manager.

A return to the university, one thriving with students and engaged scholarship would be a jolly thing. But the chances of that happening are glacial, remote and unpopular.  The non-university will only be killed off when the students stop coming, or when governments see fit to curb their funding.  The problem in the latter case, as it has been for decades, is that students and unions will protest, thereby inadvertently protecting the managers who influence them.  The fundamental truth is that most of these bodies run on the blood of those who pay them. Drying up the resources will see management cannibalise itself, a mortal competition to the finish. Now wouldn’t that be fun?

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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 and Asia-Pacific Research.  Email: [email protected]

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Featured image: Students in Marrakech, Morocco, planning change for their university community (photo by the High Atlas Foundation, 2018).

As a society, we have hopes and dreams for the future; for our children, our countries, and the global community. These aspirations rest on the shoulders of the youngest generation. August 12, 2018 marks the 18^th celebration of the U.N.’s annual International Youth Day. This awareness day is an unique opportunity to reflect on youth’s challenges and to celebrate and support the world’s future leaders. This year’s theme, “Safe Spaces for Youth,” marks the importance of youth’s engagement, participation, and freedom of thought.

Moroccan youth serve as an interesting case study to consider for this year’s Youth Day. The difficulties they confront are fairly representative of those that youth encounter globally. The U.N. 2016 World Youth Report outlines several issues that affect youth, such as high unemployment rates: youth are three times more likely than older adults to be unemployed. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is particularly impacted by youth unemployment, rising from 29.7 to 30.5 (2012 to 2014) in North Africa.  Morocco falls slightly below this average at 19.9 percent unemployment for people aged 15-24, affecting men slightly more than women. However, the youth unemployment rate still lies far above the national average (9.3 percent). Like many countries in the MENA region, nearly half the population is under the age of 30. Problems that affect youth should be of the highest priority, otherwise countries risk suffering economically and developmentally.

Unfortunately, on a worldwide level, economic barriers are often coupled with high political disillusionment and low traditional political participation. Voter turnout is low among young people worldwide; lowest in Africa and the United States. In Morocco, in the recent 2016 parliament election, voter turnout was 43 percent, remarkably low among urban and educated youth. Much of the pessimism youth experience stems from feeling that governments do not represent them and voting would not resolve this dilemma. One Moroccan youth said he had cast a blank vote considering it a message to the government. Another girl, still in high school, said she will not vote when she is older because she feels voting is not worthwhile.

When talking with two young Moroccan students, they cited pressing issues for youth as the difficulty to find jobs and the inability to freely express themselves, loosely confirming the National Democratic Institute’s findings in Youth Perceptions in Morocco: Political Parties and Reforms which reported youth’s priorities in Morocco as reforming the education system, addressing unemployment, and curbing corruption.

Both girls interviewed expressed frustration with the education system identifying it as the single most urgent concern, explaining that schools do not prepare them well for the job market. Issues that affect youth are deeply interconnected; an education system that poorly prepares for the job market precipitates high youth unemployment. A lack of visible change and economic irritation motivates political pessimism. The challenges youth deal with compound upon themselves.

Despite these frustrations, and low traditional political participation, youth are still highly active in their communities. The U.N. report emphasizes that instead of declining, youth participation and civic engagement are evolving. An excellent example of this in Morocco is the recent boycotts on Sidi Ali water, Centrale Danone dairy, and Afriquia gas, which gained a lot of popularity through social media sites like Facebook. One high school girl interviewed said she felt most comfortable expressing herself on Facebook, but her parents objected to her publicly sharing political views and made her take her account down. Both girls said they were disappointed by the mainstream media underplaying their concerns. These observations underscore the need for youth “Safe Spaces” where youth are welcomed to share their thoughts on needs and hopes for the future.

Safe Spaces include community dialogues, local meetings, workshops, and any forum for expanding viewpoints and encouraging vocalization. These settings both stimulate civic engagement and provide feedback to authorities. For Morocco, some of these opportunities have arisen from recent reforms attempting to resolve the same issues youth identified. One such initiative is devolution, increasing regional and local authority, affording more chances for community and youth engagement.

These kinds of improvements, along with methods such as participatory development–the identification and implementation of projects that directly address community identified needs–enable youth to be empowered. Youth benefit from remaining involved, active, and vocal in their communities, and in turn, governance systems can better support youth. Local “Safe Space” meetings are just one example of where youth can impact change in their communities. Other instances in Morocco include women’s empowerment workshops, such as the High Atlas Foundation’s Imagine Workshop, which educates women on their rights, and supports them in expressing and achieving their goals. This proposed program also involves young women from universities; they not only participate in the workshop but also are then qualified to lead it.

The celebration and promulgation of Safe Spaces for youth in Morocco and beyond is crucial in supporting what the world needs to ensure flourishing future generations. Moroccan youth face many of the same problems that youth around the world do, however, there is also a strong opportunity to effect change, making Morocco an excellent example for countries around the world. Youth are important to support, their passion is tangible – one Moroccan youth concluded her interview, “Morocco is my dad, my second dad. I want to give back to it.”

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Julia Payne is a student in her fourth year at the University of Virginia and she is currently interning with the High Atlas Foundation in Marrakech, Morocco.

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When is a terrorist group not a terrorist group? Apparently the answer is that it ceases to be terrorist when it terrorizes someone who is an enemy of the United States.

The most prominent recent example is the Mujaheddin e Khalq (MEK), a murderous Iranian cult which assassinated five Americans in the 1970s as part of its campaign against the Shah’s government. It was removed from the State Department terrorist list in 2012 by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after it had promised not to kill any more Americans but really because it had bought the support of prominent politicians to include Elaine Chao, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, and John Bolton.

It also had the behind the scenes endorsement of both the Israeli Mossad and CIA, both of whom have been using it in their operations to kill Iranians and damage the country’s infrastructure. Someone high up in the federal government, perhaps Hillary or even President Obama himself, must have decided that terrorists who kill only Iranians deserve a get out of jail free card from the State Department.

There are other examples of cynical doublespeak from the Syrian conflict, including labeling rebels against the Damascus government “freedom fighters” when in reality they were as often as not allied with the al-Qaeda affiliated group Al-Nusra or even with ISIS. Frequently they received training and weapons from Washington only to turn around and either join Al-Nusra and ISIS as volunteers or surrender their weapons to them.

But perhaps there is no bigger fraud making the rounds than the so-called White Helmets. The recent media coverage derives from the documentary The White Helmets, which was produced by the group itself and tells a very convincing tale promoted as “the story of real-life heroes and impossible hope.” It is a very impressive piece of propaganda, so much so that it has won numerous awards including the Oscar for Best Documentary Short last year and the White Helmets themselves were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

More to the point, however, is the undeniable fact that the documentary has helped shape the public understanding of what is going on in Syria, describing the government in Damascus in purely negative terms.

The fawning Hollywood and Congressional depictions of the group go something like this:

“the White Helmets are an ‘heroic’ impartial non-government humanitarian volunteer group that engages in ‘first response’ emergency rescue and medical treatment for all those who have been impacted by the fighting in Syria. The Syrian government hates the group because it assists victims of the fighting who are either rebels or living in rebel held areas. Recently, with the Syrian Army closing in on the last White Helmet affiliates still operating in the country, the Israeli government, assisted by the United States, staged an emergency humanitarian evacuation of the group’s members and their families to Israel and then on to Jordan.”

Virtually all the mainstream media coverage of the White Helmets is bogus, but by far the most ridiculous account of the Exodus from Syria came from the BBC. For those who are not familiar with it, the BBC, which once upon a time had a reputation for journalistic integrity, has become one of the worst pro-government propaganda shills of all time. Reading its articles is even worse that having a similar go at The Washington Post, which is the prime newspaper exemplar of fake news and phony journalism pretending to be a respectable news source in the United States. Let’s face it, Donald Trump has a point. Nearly all of the mainstream media lies persistently these days but some sources are worse than others. People complain about Fox, and rightly so, but CNN is the absolute pits when it comes to slanting its coverage, as is MSNBC.

BBC’s article is entitled Syria conflict: White Helmets evacuated by Israel. It makes the following statements, many coming directly from Israeli official sources, regarding the White Helmets, its activities and the group’s relationship to some governments, to include Britain:

• “The IDF said they had ‘completed a humanitarian effort to rescue members of a Syrian civil organization and their families’, saying there was an ‘immediate threat to their lives.’ The transfer of the displaced Syrians through Israel was an exceptional humanitarian gesture.”
• “Although Israel is not directly involved in the Syria conflict, the two countries have been in a state of war for decades. Despite the intervention, the IDF said that ‘Israel continues to maintain a non-intervention policy regarding the Syrian conflict.’”
• “A statement from Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt said: ‘White Helmets have been the target of attacks and, due to their high profile, we judged that, in these particular circumstances, the volunteers required immediate protection. We pay tribute to the brave and selfless work that White Helmet volunteers have done to save Syrians on all sides of the conflict.’”
• “Their official name is the Syrian Civil Defense and it began in early 2013 as an organization of volunteers from all walks of life, including electricians and builders. Its main task soon became to rescue civilians in war zones in the immediate aftermath of air strikes, and it says its volunteers have saved the lives of more than 100,000 people during the civil war.”

The BBC story could have been written by the White Helmets themselves or by their press department. Or alternatively by the Israeli Foreign Ministry. First of all, the Israelis do not do humanitarian gestures. They helped bail out the White Helmets at the request of the U.S. because capture by the Syrians would have produced embarrassing revelations about how the group was funded and what its affiliation with terrorists was all about. And Israel’s denial of involvement in Syria is nonsense, unless one considers demonstrated collaboration with the terrorist groups punctuated by nearly weekly bombing and missile attacks to be non-involvement.

The British too are into the deception up to their eyeballs. The comment by Hunt and Mordaunt is complete fabrication regarding what the White Helmets represent. The same goes for the BBC account of how the group developed, which comes directly from the White Helmet’s own propaganda division as amplified by Hollywood and the U.S. and U.K. governments.

Just as important as what is said about the White Helmets’ activities is the exclusion of a great deal of credible negative reporting on the group. The carefully edited scenes of heroism under fire that have been filmed and released worldwide conceal the White Helmets’ relationship with the al-Qaeda affiliated group Jabhat al-Nusra and its participation in the torture and execution of “rebel” opponents. Indeed, the White Helmets only operate in rebel held territory, which enables them to shape the narrative both regarding who they are and what is occurring on the ground.

Exploiting their access to the western media, the White Helmets thereby de factobecame a major source of “eyewitness” news regarding what was going on in those many parts of Syria where European and American journalists were quite rightly afraid to go. It was all part of a broader largely successful “rebel” effort to manufacture fake news that depicts the Damascus government as engaging in war crimes directed against civilians, an effort that led to several attacks on government forces and facilities by the U.S. military.

The White Helmets travel to bombing sites with their film crews trailing behind them. Once at the sites, with no independent observers, they are able to arrange or even stage what is filmed to conform to their selected narrative which consistently promotes tales of government atrocities against civilians to encourage outside military intervention in Syria and bring about regime change in Damascus. The White Helmets were, for example, the propagators of the totally false but propagandistically effective claims regarding the government use of so-called “barrel bombs” against civilians.

Peter Ford, British Ambassador in Damascus from 2003-2006, recently described the group in an audio interview saying,

“The White Helmets are jihadi auxiliaries. They are not, as claimed by themselves and by their supporters… simple rescuers. They are not volunteers. They are paid professionals of disinformation.”

He noted particularly the large size of the organization’s “press department”, saying,

“This gives us an idea what the priority is for this very dubious organization… All their activities are directed at mobilizing Western opinion behind the jihadis with whom they associate. They co-locate their centers with the Al-Qaeda organization known as Al-Nusra and with other militant groups such as Jaish al-Islam. They have in the past been shown associating with and waving the flags of ISIS.”

The group is currently largely funded by a number of non-government organizations (NGOs) as well as governments, including the United States, Britain and some European Union member states. The U.S. has directly provided $23 million through the USAID (US Agency for International Development) as of 2016 and almost certainly considerably more indirectly. Max Blumenthal has explored in some detail the various funding resources and relationships that the organization draws on, mostly in Europe and the United States.

Perhaps the most serious charge against the White Helmets consists of the evidence that they actively participated in the atrocities, to include torture and murder, carried out by their al-Nusra hosts. There have been numerous photos of the White Helmets operating directly with armed terrorists and also celebrating over the bodies of execution victims and murdered Iraqi soldiers. The group’s jihadi associates regard the White Helmets as fellow “mujahideen” and “soldiers of the revolution.”

So Israel’s celebrated rescue of the White Helmets was little more than a theatrical performance intended to perpetuate the myth that the al-Assad government was thwarted in an attempt to capture and possibly kill an honorable non-partisan group engaged in humanitarian relief for those caught up in a bloody conflict seeking to oust a ruthless dictator. The reality is quite different. The White Helmets were and are part and parcel of the attempt to overthrow a legitimate government and install a regime friendly to western, American and Israeli interests. For Israel in particular the ongoing chaos in Syria was and is part of its plan for dividing all of its neighbors into warring ethnicities and sects, making them less viable as threats to the Jewish state.

The 800 White Helmets rescued reportedly will be resettled in the U.S., Britain and Germany. One hopes those coming to America can end up in Los Angeles, where they would presumably mingle with Hollywood big shots and the usual snowflakes while working on their next documentary. As some of them are most certainly radical Jihadists, it will be interesting to observe exactly how that will play out.

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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].

Dr. Giraldi is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author.

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You can always count on the neocons in Congress to ignore reality, ignore evidence, and ignore common sense in their endless drive to get us involved in another war. Last week, for example, Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-NC), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), and others joined up to introduce what Senator Graham called “the sanctions bill from hell,” aimed at applying “crushing” sanctions on Russia.

Senator Graham bragged that the bill would include “everything but the kitchen sink” in its attempt to ratchet up tensions with Russia.

Sen Cory Gardner (R-CO) bragged that the new sanctions bill “includes my language requiring the State Department to determine whether Russia merits the designation of a State Sponsor of Terror.”

Does he even know what the word “terrorism” means?

Sen Ben Cardin (D-MD) warns that the bill must be passed to strengthen our resolve against “Vladimir Putin’s pattern of corroding democratic institutions and values around the world, a direct and growing threat to US national security.”

What has Russia done that warrants “kitchen sink” sanctions that will “crush” the country and possibly designate it as a sponsor of terrorism? Sen. Menendez tells us:

“The Kremlin continues to attack our democracy, support a war criminal in Syria, and violate Ukraine’s sovereignty.”

There is a big problem with these accusations on Russia: they’re based on outright lies and unproven accusations that continue to get more bizarre with each re-telling. How strange that when US Senators like Menendez demand that we stand by our NATO allies even if it means war, they attack Russia for doing the same in Syria. Is the Syrian president a “war criminal,” as he claims? We do know that his army is finally, with Russian and Iranian help, about to defeat ISIS and al-Qaeda, which with US backing for seven years have turned Syria into a smoking ruin. Does Menendez and his allies prefer ISIS in charge of Syria?

And how hypocritical for Menendez to talk about Russia violating Ukraine’s sovereignty. The unrest in Ukraine was started by the 2014 US-backed coup against an elected leader. We have that all on tape!

How is Russia “attacking our democracy”? We’re still waiting for any real evidence that Russia was involved in our 2016 elections and intends to become involved in our 2018 elections. But that doesn’t stop the propagandists, who claim with no proof that Russia was behind the election of Donald Trump.

These Senators claim that sanctions will bring the Russians to heel, but they are wrong. Sanctions are good at two things only: destroying the lives of innocent civilians and leading to war.

As I mentioned in an episode of my Liberty Report last week, even our own history shows that sanctions do lead to war and should not be taken lightly. In the run-up to US involvement in the War of 1812, the US was doing business with both France and the UK, which were at war with each other. When the UK decided that the US was favoring France in its commerce, it imposed sanctions on the US. What did Washington do in response? Declared war. Hence the War of 1812, which most Americans remember as that time when the British burned down the White House.

Recent polls show that the majority of Americans approve of President Trump’s recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Among Republicans, a vast majority support the meeting. Perhaps a good defeat in November will wake these neocon warmongers up. Let’s hope so!

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Featured image is from The Unz Review.

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US designs in Syria were made crystal clear by US Army General Joseph Votel – head of US Central Command (CENTCOM) – during a July 19th press briefing.

General Votel would state unequivocally when asked what the “arrangement” was regarding Syria, that:

Our mission is very, very clear: It is focusing on the defeat of ISIS and then helping our partners in both Iraq and Syria stabilize the situation and specifically in Iraq to help create a platform that can lead to a long-term political solution through the U.N. process.

Several aspects of this statement make it clear what the US was doing in Syria to begin with, and what it seeks to do now.

The US Created & Protects ISIS – Not Fights It 

General Votel echoes repeated claims by US policymakers and leadership that the US is dedicated to fighting and defeating the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS). Yet ISIS was admittedly created by the US and its partners in the region in the first place. It was a  2012  leaked Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) memo that revealed:

If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran). 

The DIA memo would also explicitly explain who these “supporting powers” are:

The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime.

ISIS would take shape precisely in eastern Syria where the DIA memo had said its “Salafist” (Islamic) “principality” (State) would. It would attempt to place pressure on Damascus and isolate it – particularly from Iranian logistical efforts traversing Iraq and entering Syria along the Euphrates River before moving deeper into Syrian territory itself.

While the US had invaded and occupied Syria openly since 2014, it wasn’t until the Russian Federation’s military intervention in 2015 that ISIS supply lines streaming out of NATO-member Turkey were targeted and destroyed. It was then and only then that ISIS positions across the nation began to collapse.

It is interesting to note that America’s multi-trillion dollar military machine has still failed to eliminate the few remaining pockets of ISIS in eastern Syria. These are pockets that for all intents and purposes are isolated from any of the outside support that allowed the group to flourish for as long as it did.

Elsewhere across Syria – government forces with the backing of Russia and Iran have eliminated ISIS almost entirely. Operations ongoing in southern Syria seek to dislodge the final remnants of this terrorist front – coincidentally sustaining itself directly on the border of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Why is the stretched resources of the Syrian military able to mount successful campaigns to eliminate ISIS west of the Eurphrates, but the US is unable to do so in the east?

ISIS Continues Attempts to “Isolate Damascus”

The largest pockets of ISIS remain in and around US occupied territory in Syria. It is from these pockets that ISIS militants have launched repeated attacks on Syrian forces along the Euphrates River, particularly near the Syrian-Iraqi border crossing where Iranian support flows into Syria.

This is also where Western airstikes in June hit Iraqi militias who were fighting ISIS in the area. The BBC would claim in their article, “Syria war: Iraqi militias blame US for deadly border strike,” that:

Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation said missiles hit one of its positions on the Iraqi-Syrian border overnight. The paramilitary force is led by Iran-backed Shia Muslim militias and is itself fighting IS.

While General Votel – when asked what the US was doing to “stop Iranian expansion into Syria,”  would claim the US was solely focused on fighting ISIS, it is the US’ occupation of eastern Syria that prevents Syrian forces from defeating ISIS there, and allows ISIS militants to attack and undermine Iranian support for the Syrian government. It is also the US occupation of eastern Syria that has provided a perpetual pretext to and foothold from which to strike at Syrian forces and their allies directly as they struggle to keep the Syrian-Iraqi border open.

The US Has No Legitimate Partners in Syria 

General Votel’s claim that the US seeks to work with its “partners” in Syria to “stabilize the situation,” ignores the fact that the US occupation of Syria is illegal and that its partners in Syria are neither the recognized representatives of the Syrian people, nor capable of stabilizing the situation.

The so-called “Syrian Democratic Forces” (SDF) are a primarily Kurdish front, overstretched and representing a fraction of the population in even the territory they now hold.

This has created tensions and even violence in areas the SDF is occupying. Their ability to hold eastern Syria is tenuous at best and any prospect of them expanding beyond its current boundaries is unlikely. Their current position politically and militarily is entirely dependent on the US which itself is occupying a tenuous position in eastern Syria based on an equally tenuous pretext.

Regime change in Syria has failed. The notion of balkanizing Syria would simply create a net burden on the US and its allies – clinging to territory through direct military occupation and through unpopular and/or indefensible proxies. Time, for now, is on Damascus’ side.

Shopping for a New Pretext

With this the case, and with the entire US-led proxy war on Syria launched as merely a stepping stone toward the further encirclement, subversion, and eventual overthrow of the Iranian government in the first place, the US is racing against the clock to shift the diminishing conflict in Syria to Iran.

Efforts to stir up violence in Iran’s streets are ongoing. Reuters would admit in its recent article, “U.S. launches campaign to erode support for Iran’s leaders,” that:

The Trump administration has launched an offensive of speeches and online communications meant to foment unrest and help pressure Iran to end its nuclear programme and its support of militant groups, U.S. officials familiar with the matter said.

US forces occupying nations along Iran’s periphery will be a key component to both supporting covert proxy violence inside Iran, and any direct military operations launched against Iran. US troops are currently in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. US forces are also stationed in the Persian Gulf.

The stage has been set – but attempts to light Syria on fire and have it blow into Iran has failed. The US will need a new pretext to both maintain its increasingly tenuous positions across the Middle East and Central Asia, and to further provoke and subvert Iran. As the “ISIS” pretext begins to beg belief, attempts to cite an Iranian threat or provocation on equal or greater footing than the diminished threat of ISIS is ongoing.

Thus, while Syria may see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel – with war-ravaged regions finally restored to stability and reconstruction beginning, the greater war the Syrian conflict was a part of is still being pursued by the US and its allies.

A dangerous period of fending off attempts by the US to rekindle the Syrian conflict in neighboring Iran and on a much larger scale has begun. It will require political, economic, and military measures from those involved in aiding Damascus, as well as allies and trade partners of Iran.

It should also be remembered that militant groups in Syria have not been entirely defeated. In northern Syria, most of the terrorists and their supporters have been consolidating their and could be used to plunge Syria back into war – especially if progress is made by the US in isolating Syria from Iranian support.

The US is behind schedule, exposed, and becoming increasingly desperate. But the threat the US constitutes should not be underestimated, nor should those overseeing Syria’s successful defense of its territory become overconfident.

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Tony Cartalucci is Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published.

Featured image is from the author.

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The news came a few days ago: “UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned member states that the organization is facing “troubling funding issues as a result of delayed dues payments that will force reductions in non-staff costs.”

But who really cares? Any Trump tweet or football result is more important to our media and politicians. The members of the UN still give the world’s military about 340 times more than the UN for its core budget.

You often hear people raising doubts about the  “the United Nations” and most people then think of the skyscraper in New York as “the UN”.

But there is no “UN” independent of what the 193 member states decide to make of it. That was already pointed out by its first Secretary-General, Norwegian Trygve Lie, in the late 1940s: The UN will never be stronger or better than the member states want it to be.

That is the essential – and in some sense also existential – truth about the world’s potentially most important and visionary organisation.

A second truth is that the UN is not, at least not predominantly, the power house in New York (which, in passing, ought to be moved out of the US given the decade-long contempt for the UN Charter shown by that member). The real UN is the family of UN agencies that do good around the world every day and without which the world would be a much worse place.

A third truth is that a few predominantly Western states – the U.S. in particular – have done their utmost at least since the 1990 wars in Yugoslavia (and some would say since Korea and Vietnam) to undermine and marginalise the world organisation.

Those and many other member states violate the UN Charter’s Article 1 which states that peace shall be established by peaceful means on a daily basis, misuse the organisation – the Five Permanent Members in particular with their nuclear weapons and repeated violations of international law. Think of all the wars fought since Yugoslavia without a UN Security Council mandate but have destroyed countries, peoples, economies and cultures.

And the UN too.

If they could, they would love to get rid of the UN once and for all. Because it is based on a Charter that is the most Gandhian governments have ever signed. Back in time, that is, when governments and peoples knew what war was and therefore stated in the Charter’s Preamble that war shall be abolished as a socially acceptable institution – to boil it down to essentials.

And where are we then today?

Well, did you hear any of these states – the UN Security Council members in particular – insist on the point that large, robust UN peacekeeping missions should be established in, say, Libya, Syria or Ukraine? No, it is Russia and the US that keep the “peace” in Syria, right? The truth is that the US has done nothing there but to support various other militant countries and terrorist organisations and to build some 15-20 bases there. The UN wouldn’t have done any of that!

And while Russia (and Iran) have certainly had a relatively positive influence on the Syrian battlefields fighting terrorism, it is still warfare and not peacemaking. And peace – mind you – is not the same as a war dying down.

Self-appointed peacekeeping countries that are happy to have demolished the finest global organisation on earth are now doing – with nothing but tragic results – what the UN could have done much better had the world’s governments wanted it to and had they built on the accumulated UN experience since 1945.

Rampant militarism, nationalism, interventionism and anti-intellectualism among national “security” elites and political decision-makers – even in historically peaceful and humane countries such as my native Denmark – for decades have fought a war on peace and thus – perfectly logically – on the UN.

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When Srebrenica happened and know-nothing people blamed it all on “the Serbs” and “the UN”, who bothered to investigate how the member states deliberately blurred mandates and caused mission creep? How leading NATO countries’ military strike projects (the stupid “peace enforcement” doctrine) was devastating for the UN peace-keeping?

Who in the media asked politicians in all leading UN member states why they dispatched far too few peacekeepers – and how countries had provided the UN peacekeeping missions in Yugoslavia with less than 5% of what the UN peacekeepers estimated to be a minimum at the time to prevent things like Srebrenica from happening in the five other “safe” zones?

The then top UN Commander Lars-Erik Wahlgren required 32,000 peacekeepers from the world community and got 1200 Turks to Bosnia. That is 3,75% of what was needed!

So yes! And how easy – just blame it all on the UN!

Start wars wherever you please and then call in the UN to break its neck on one Mission Impossible after the other. In the end, it will be finished as the peace organisation it is and was meant to be. (At the time I argued that the UN S-G ought to have a right to say when members want to set up a UN mission to look good: If that is all you member states give us here at the UN, we refuse to set up the mission!)

Had anybody bothered to investigate the UN’s situation, they would have found that members avoided paying their dues so that the UN was de facto bankrupt when Srebrenica happened and would then be sure to fail. Such investigative journalism would have required more free media and research and it would have prevented all fingers being pointed at “the Serbs” (whose leader, Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, had been called the mastermind of the massacre but was freed in two verdicts by the Hague Tribunal ten years after he died in his cell).

Another story not to be told? To cover up NATO countries’ remarkable ignorance coupled with a series of more or less law-violating efforts which all amounted to one thing: Peace prevention!

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And then the news came a few days ago: “UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned member states that the organization is facing “troubling” funding issues as a result of delayed dues payments that will force reductions in non-staff costs.”

Here is a longer, very good background from The Guardian. To quote:

“Letter sent to member states by António Guterres reveals $139m deficit in core budget…Guterres told member states that the UN’s core budget was in the red more deeply and earlier in its financial year than it had ever previously experienced…”

And then you may think: But the UN is also very expensive, isn’t it?

No, it is extremely cheap!

Read this paragraph in The Guardian article carefully:

“The UN general assembly budget committee agreed in December on a $5.4bn core UN budget for 2018-19, which US ambassador Nikki Haley said was a cut of $285m from 2016-17. UN peacekeeping is funded separately.”

112 of the 193 members have paid their dues. OK. Some are unable to. OK. But then there is the United States of America paying 22% of that UN budget. Ask why others let it dominate the world institution instead of paying more themselves so the U.S. cannot dominate.

So we arrive at the terrible truth about war and peace budgets in our crisis-ridden world: The UN member states, pooling all their resources to provide the world’s most important organisation for peace, human rights, development etc. with a decent core budget, cannot find a little more than US$ 5 billion!

What do the same member states spend on their military, on warfare, death and destruction? About US$ 1700 billion!! Of which the United States alone around 700. And did we ever hear of a war stopping because of “funding issues”, delayed payments or forced military staff reductions?

In summary: 340 times more is spent on “security” and war than on the world’s best, common peace organisation’s core budget!

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Until the world begins to seriously question the Present Perverse Priorities (PPP) and change them fast as hell – what hope would you see for humanity’s future?

Watch your prime time TV news tonight. Read the best newspapers you know of. Listen to the debate in your parliament – or to your next dinner table conversation. And write to me if you hear anyone bringing up this world priority issue with urgency and passion or states that she/he will lift a finger to change those PPP in concrete, radical ways.

No matter how many reforms the UN needs – and yes it does – it is the member states that prevent them from being implemented.

Tell you what?

No matter how weak the UN is made by these narrowminded, warfighting states and their elites, the UN – its Charter, its idea, its professional and committed staff (I have met hundreds of them, civilian and military, around the world and admire them greatly) – will have my 110% support. And dare you to demolish it further before humanity has something new and much much better to switch to.

As long as the war on peace is on, the UN will not change – not unless we finally make it the organisation for “We, the peoples” and kick out “Them, the governments.”

Pay your dues! Increase them at least 100% within the next five year.

Or your talk about a better world is empty and opportunistic cynicism.

Stand by the UN, its norms and Charter! And do it now!

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Featured image: The crew of the littoral combat ship USS Coronado performs a live-fire demonstration of a Kongsberg missile off Southern California. (Naval Warriors / Flickr Creative Commons)

On July 22, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressed a crowd of Iranian-Americans, giving voice to a new American policy on Iran that seeks to undermine the legitimacy of the Iranian government. It would also strangle Iran’s economy through the reimposition of economic sanctions that had been set aside when Iran and five other Western nations, including the United States, came to an agreement in 2015 over Iran’s nuclear program.

According to this agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, Iran accepted sanctions on its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. When President Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in May, he promised to reimpose sanctions that had been approved by Congress, including those targeting Iran’s sale of oil. The goal of the Trump administration, Pompeo told the crowd, was to “get [Iranian oil] imports as close to zero as possible” by this November.

Pompeo’s address did not go over well in Tehran. Addressing a gathering of Iranian diplomats, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani asked,

“Is it possible that everyone in the region sells their oil and we stand idly by and watch? Do not forget that we have maintained the security of this waterway [Strait of Hormuz] throughout history. We have historically secured the route of oil transit. Do not forget it.”

Approximately 18.5 million barrels of oil a day transit through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow channel of water separating Iran from Oman. The loss of this oil to the global economy would be devastating. On July 5, Rouhani commented on the American plan to shut down Iran’s oil imports, saying,

“The Americans say they want to reduce Iranian oil exports to zero. … It shows they have not thought about its consequences.”

While Rouhani had remained silent about what those consequences would be, Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, made it clear that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz to all oil traffic.

“America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, and war with Iran is the mother of all wars,” Rouhani said, warning the American president not to “play with the lion’s tail, this would only lead to regret.”

President Trump’s response, delivered via Twitter the next day, caught the attention of the world.

NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!

On July 24, the Iranian Armed Forces chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, responded to Trump’s threats.

“As the dominant power in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, [Iran] has been the guarantor of the security of shipping and the global economy in this vital waterway and has the strength to take action against any scheme in this region,” Bagheri said.

“As our president correctly pointed out, the enemies, particularly America, whose centers of interest are within reach of the visible and hidden defense forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran, should not play with the lion’s tail,” the Iranian general said, “because they will receive a strong, unimaginable and regrettable response of great magnitude in the region and the world.”

That same day, President Trump addressed a gathering of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, seemingly a perfect venue for offering a bellicose response to the Iranian threats of action. Instead, the president offered up a fig leaf of sorts.

“We’ll see what happens,” Trump said, “but we’re ready to make a real deal, not the deal that was done by the previous administration, which was a disaster.”

The seesawing rhetorical game of threat and counterthreat being played by Trump seems reminiscent of a similar approach taken late last year and early this year with North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Last August, responding to North Korean threats to test missiles capable of reaching the United States, Trump had declared that North Korea “best not make any more threats to the United States,” saying that if North Korea disregarded him, “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” Trump later went on to famously belittle North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, as “little rocket man,” while Kim in turn responded by calling Trump a “dotard” and a “warmonger” whose true nature was that of a “destroyer of the world peace and stability.”

In June, Trump and Kim held a summit in Singapore, where they discussed the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

Many observers believe that Trump is reaching back to his North Korean playbook in engaging in the current hostile exchange with Iran. Iran, however, is not North Korea.

What follows are major reasons why Trump is wrong if he thinks Iran will accede to his demands that it renegotiate a nuclear agreement with the United States to replace the JCPOA.

Reason One: Iran Isn’t Breaking the Law

North Korea was in open violation of numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions regarding its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and there was (and is) widespread concurrence that North Korea’s nuclear weapons program posed a clear and present threat to international peace and security. While Trump’s hostile rhetoric toward Kim Jong Un represented American policy only, he was backed up by a global consensus that the threat from North Korea’s nuclear arsenal was no longer acceptable. North Korea was on the wrong side of the law, and it knew it.

Iran, on the other hand, had successfully negotiated a nuclear agreement with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Germany and the European Union. Its nuclear program today operates in total conformity with the terms of that agreement. The Security Council had passed a resolution undoing the totality of the economic sanctions imposed on Iran because of its nuclear program. Trump withdrew from the JCPOA because of American domestic politics, not because Iran threatened international peace and security. As the United States moves to reimpose sanctions on Iran, one is struck by the number of nations rushing to its side to join in this endeavor: zero.

Simply put, there is no compelling narrative than can be crafted that has Iran walking away from the JCPOA.

Reason Two: Iran Doesn’t Have to Win to Win

A war between the United States and North Korea, while potentially devastating for the entire region, had only one sure outcome—total American victory (at a huge cost), and the absolute destruction of the North Korean regime. In short, if Kim Jong Un opted for war with the United States, he would be committing suicide—and taking millions of others down with him. Kim Jong Un is anything but suicidal. He built his arsenal of nuclear weapons for deterrence purposes, not to engage in a self-destructive acquisition of technology. North Korea’s ultimate goal has been to break free of the international isolation it has been subjected to; nuclear weapons were a way to secure that outcome. The Singapore Summit occurred  because of North Korean initiatives—the Olympic outreach, the meetings with South Korean leaders, and so on. Kim Jong Un was not compelled to go to Singapore—a meeting with an American president was always his ultimate objective.

The Iranian government does not trust the United States and has no desire to engage in diplomatic relations with the United States. This does not mean that the two nations cannot peacefully coexist—they can, and Iran desires as much. But throwing the possibility of a grand bargain with the United States on the table in exchange for Iran giving up its nuclear program is sheer fantasy. As such, any effort to compel Iran into diplomatic engagement by threatening it with war is doomed to fail. Iran learned the lessons of Hezbollah’s ongoing conflict with Israel, and in particular that of the 2006 war, all too well. To win the war, Hezbollah did not need to defeat Israel; it had only to make sure Israel did not defeat it. This is an ambition Iran readily aspires to—it can shut down the Strait of Hormuz, cripple the global economy and ride out any American military response. In the end, the United States will succumb to international pressure and search for a negotiated settlement, and Iran will emerge victorious simply because it survived. Iran would accept this outcome rather than surrender its hard-won diplomatic achievement regarding the JCPOA.

Reason Three: Religious Democracy

North Korea is an absolute dictatorship—Kim Jong Un need only gain the concurrence of his inner circle to move forward on ground-changing policy, such as improving relations with the United States. Even then, any voices of dissent can be—and indeed, have been—summarily silenced. Kim Jong Un has a constituency of one when it comes to getting his policies approved: himself.

Iran is a far more complex problem when it comes to making policy—an Islamic republic governed by a democratically elected executive and legislature whose decisions are subject to review by a theocracy that itself is governed by a constitution and held accountable, via elections, to the will of the people. While Iranian democracy has been openly mocked in the United States as a sham, the fact is that democratic processes have shaped the Islamic Republic of Iran since its founding. The current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has spoken of Iran as being a “religious democracy,” where the people’s participation in the government, expressed through the vehicle of elections, is indicative of the nation’s health (indeed, Iran’s 73.3 percent turnout in the presidential election of 2017, in which Hassan Rouhani won re-election, dwarfs the paltry 55.7 percent turnout in the U.S. presidential election of 2016 that put Donald Trump in office).

The JCPOA that was negotiated between Iran and the West was more than simply an expression of political will by the Iranian leadership—it was an expression of the will of the Iranian people, given voice through countless parliamentary debates and legitimized through repeated elections where the issue of Iran’s nuclear program factored in the balloting. The Iranian people would support its government refusing to bend a knee in the face of American threats; they would not support a government that surrendered their hard-won gains on the nuclear front, which the Iranian people suffered greatly to achieve.

Donald Trump lives in a transactional universe where everything can be dealt away. While this approach might work with New York City real estate and may even have limited application in international affairs, it fails where issues derived from intangible principles—something that cannot be monetized—are at stake. In Trump’s world, one can try to bribe North Korea with the promise of economic largesse or threaten NATO’s viability by placing a dollar value on continued membership. While the ulterior motives of North Korea agreeing—in principle, if not reality—to denuclearize, and NATO to increase its defense spending to 2 percent GDP per member, are probably far more complex than the zero-sum thinking that Trump’s transactional diplomacy suggests, the results are the same. But there can be no transactional diplomacy when the other side refuses to name a price, and Iran has made it clear that there is no price it is willing to accept to give up its nuclear program.

The danger here is that Trump doesn’t realize he is playing a losing hand. His bluff will be called by Iran (indeed, based upon Rouhani’s words, it has been called), but Trump will continue to throw chips into the pot until compelled to either reverse course and rejoin the JCPOA (unlikely), or force the issue and watch the United States enter a war with Iran it will not lose—but cannot win.

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Scott Ritter spent more than a dozen years in the intelligence field, beginning in 1985 as a ground intelligence officer with the US Marine Corps, where he served with the Marine Corps component of the Rapid Deployment Force at the Brigade and Battalion level.

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Among the most fascinating aspects of the brouhaha over supposed Russian meddling in America’s electoral system is the total silence in the U.S. mainstream press about U.S. meddling in the political affairs of other countries.

Consider the mass outrage and indignation among the mainstream press that Russia would actually want to help a U.S. presidential candidate who favors normalizing relations with Russia over a candidate that was determined to do the opposite.

Why not the same outrage against the U.S. national-security establishment for helping its favorite people come to office in foreign countries?

By their silence regarding U.S. meddling in foreign countries, one could easily draw the conclusion that the U.S. mainstream press is saying the following: It’s wrong for Russia to meddle in the U.S. electoral system but it’s okay for the U.S. national-security establishment (i.e., the military, CIA, and NSA) to meddle in the electoral affairs of foreign countries.

But if that’s their position — and it certainly seems like that is their position based on their silence — then why don’t they explain it? Why is it considered okay for the U.S. national-security establishment to meddle but not okay for the Russian national-security establishment to meddle?

Or to put it another way, if it’s wrong in principle to meddle, then why is the U.S. government doing it, and why isn’t the U.S. mainstream press condemning both U.S. meddling and Russia meddling?

After all, even if Russian officials actually did do what they are accused of doing, it actually pales in comparison to what U.S. officials do when they meddle in foreign countries. After all, what’s a few Facebook ads and hacking into email accounts compared to murder, kidnapping, bribery, sanctions, embargoes, and coups?

In the 1970s, the U.S. government meddled in the Chilean presidential election, with bribery, kidnapping, murder, and a coup. Trying to prevent the democratically elected president, Salvador Allende, from taking office, the CIA attempted to bribe Chilean congressmen from confirming Allende as president.

But that was nothing compared to what happened after that. The CIA conspired to kidnap the commanding general of the Chilean armed forces. The reason? Gen. Rene Schneider refused to go along with the military coup that U.S. officials were demanding. Schneider was actually shot dead during the kidnapping attempt.

How’s that compared to some Facebook ads and email hacking?

Whether you call the kidnapping/murder of Rene Schneider “collusion” or “conspiracy,” there is no doubt that the plot originated in Washington and Virginia. There is no statue of limitations when it comes to felony-murder and conspiracy to commit felony-murder. Why not call for an official investigation to determine whether anyone involved in that collusion/conspiracy is still alive and should be brought to justice? Why the silence on the Schneider kidnapping/murder?

Once U.S. national-security state officials removed Schneider as an obstacle, that paved the way for the U.S. military coup, which brought U.S.-favored Gen. Augusto Pinochet to power, along with the rapes, torture, abuse, incarceration, disappearances, or executions of tens of thousands of innocent people, including two Americans, Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi. Why not criminally prosecute anyone who is still alive and who was involved in the collusion/conspiracy?

For that matter, let’s not forget the U.S. national-security establishment’s intentional destruction of the democratic systems in Guatemala and Iran in the 1950s.

For those who say that all that is ancient history, how about the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the one based on bogus fears of WMDs by U.S. officials? Or the U.S. regime-change operations in Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan, which  have left countless dead and the entire countries devastated? It’s hard to get better examples of meddling in the political affairs of other countries than those. Or how about the U.S. national-security establishment’s anti-democratic coup in Ukraine, which, along with NATO expansion into Eastern Europe, is the root of the Ukraine-Russia-U.S. crisis? Why aren’t those U.S. meddlers being charged with criminal meddling and conspiracy to criminally meddle?

For that matter, how about the decades-old U.S. embargo against Cuba, whose aim has always been regime change. The same, of course, applies to the US. sanctions against Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and, of course, Russia. Why not investigate and prosecute those meddlers?

The U.S. media helps to remind us of an old principle: When one points his finger at someone in an accusatory way, oftentimes there are three fingers pointing back at the accuser and his silence.

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Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics.

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PressTV – referring to the New Sanctions regime imposed by the US, as of 7 August 2018.

PressTV: How do you see this?

Peter Koenig: Thank you. First of all  – this is just another flagrant violation of international law, even of US law, after having ratified the Nuclear Deal. Any interference in another country’s economic affairs, including in a country’s trade sovereignty, is in derogation of international law, That’s precisely what Trump under the leadership of those who command him is doing. For example, Netanyahu, is largely calling the shots in Washington.

The idea is weakening Iran to the point – that a war would be easier. Although, I really do not believe that the US is daring to go to war with Iran. They know too well what’s at stake – with Russia and China firmly behind Iran.

They may send Israel as a forerunner to attack Iran – and wait for Iran’s reaction. But even that, I believe will be a losing proposition. The empire knows it’s on a descending course. This is fearmongering and warmongering, which will allow the war industrial complex to increase its profits as a last-ditch effort.

But Iran – in fact has nothing to fear if she plays her cards according to what she knows is best: Applying the principles of resistance economy, meaning foremost delinking from the dollar economy and becoming quickly food self-sufficient, with increased trading with the East, i.e. the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) countries.

PressTV: What are Iranian options to counter this?

PK: Well, as indicated before, Iran should gradually but ever so fast detach from the dollar economy. As a matter of fact, one of the sanctions prohibits Iran from dealing in dollars. All the better. Iran has other resources, or it must now look for other resources, like the Yuan and the Ruble – and other SCO currencies – and definitely do whatever is needed to hasten the pace towards full integration into the eastern economy. – And, realize her plan of creating her own crypto-currency, similar to Venezuela’s Petro, based on and backed by Iran’s immense reserves of hydrocarbon.

Let’s not forget, and I have said this many times before – the future is in the East.

Always remember what president Putin has come to tell The Ayatollah last November, namely that sanctions were the best thing that ever happened to Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union – it forced Russia to rebuild their economy towards self-sufficiency, especially agriculture – where in the 90s everything was imported from the EU. Now Russia is fully food self-sufficient, actually Russia has become the world’s largest exporter of wheat – by far, for the last two years, and this year also promises to be a record year.

Similarly, with renewing Russia’s industrial park. Russia today has a cutting-edge technology industry, and can compete everywhere in the world. Russia is immune to sanctions.

Iran can do the same. Mr. Rouhani a few weeks ago said something to this effect, namely that the course of moving away from the west – meaning also the EU / Europe – and the Euro – may hurt at the beginning for a short while, but once that hurdle is overcome, they will be independent, gained new political and economic sovereignty. – And that’s the way to go.

However, Iran has a strong Fifth Column which will not shy away from starting internal protests and upheavals, against the government. These are people trained by the US / CIA, NATO to do exactly that – bringing an internal conflict about – that the US and its vassals hope will eventually lead to Regime Change, forced from within.

This, I believe is the biggest challenge, confronting and combatting the Iranian Fifth Column.

Mind you Fifth Column are everywhere. They are also in Russia, China, Venezuela, North Korea…

His is the means the empire uses.
Fifth Columnists were largely responsible for the Araba Spring and for what was eventually called the ‘civil war’ (sic) in Syria.

PressTV: How will EU, Russia and China hold up to their side of the deal?

PK: Surely Russia and China will stand up for Iran. They are true allies.

I would not trust Brussels, i.e. the EU – not for an inch.

They say now they will stand up to the Nuclear Deal, respect it. But when it comes down to it, they will abandon it all the same.

I think their saying so now, is maybe just a ruse to incite Iran to trust them and to continue doing business with them. But you know, doing business with the EU, meaning with euro as trading currency, is the same as doing business in dollars. The euro is but a foster child of the US dollar, and therefore Iran would still be bound and linked to the US dollar hegemony. – And, worst, would continue being vulnerable to US sanctions.

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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 21^st 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.

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On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, followed three days later by an attack on Nagasaki. Tens of thousands perished within seconds. For some who died, the only evidence they existed was a radiation shadow found on a concrete wall. The stated justification for this horrific crime was the need to hasten the end of World War II. But not only was Japan already attempting to surrender, it made the final decision to do so because the Soviet Union declared war—Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not need to be bombed.

The United States is still the only nation to use an atomic weapon against human beings. Yet it reserves a self-declared right to determine which nations can and cannot develop the same capability. The international community has spoken out in opposition to that arrogant position by demanding the “denuclearization” of all nations that possess these inhumane weapons of mass destruction. After 72 years of agitation in favor and opposition from all nations that possess nuclear weapons, the United Nations General Assembly voted last July to adopt a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons.

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) supports this treaty, and calls on all peace and anti-war activists to publicize the existence of this treaty, as well as demand the United States join with the sentiments of the world and eliminate its nuclear arsenal.

Peace loving people around the world must be united in working for a nuclear-free world. Even Ronald Reagan declared after he and Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to significantly reduce their arsenals,

“A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

Yet presidents Obama and Trump have and are proposing to spend over $1 trillion on nuclear weapons “upgrades.”

The right to life is the ultimate human right with war being the ultimate violator of that right. Yet, contemporary policymakers in the Obama and Bush administrations who make the Dr. Strangelove character seem rational, were quietly engaged in discussions about the tactical feasibility of limited nuclear war, as if a nuclear war could possibly be contained. The need for peace, for a world free from the nuclear threat, has never been clearer. The somber anniversary of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are an opportunity to remind the world of the horror of nuclear war and to make sure opposition to war includes its most psychopathic expression—nuclear war!

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Monetary revolution in Venezuela

Venezuela has undergone many challenges in the last twenty years since Hugo Chavez was elected president and continued after his death in 2013. The main reason is that Venezuela has taken seriously the internationally recognized right to be sovereign and establish its own social model. Violence has never been part of the model. However, violence has been the reaction of those who do not want to change the status quo despite people’s majority democratic electoral choice.

The new social model chosen by Venezuela has been widely called the Bolivarian Revolution. It is a revolution that is still under construction. In fact, having defused the rampant rightwing violence, and with Nicolas Maduro as the reelected president last May 20, Venezuela continues building an unequivocal socialist anti-imperialist society by strengthening its Bolivarian Revolution. It is succeeding socially and politically by retaining a large popular support while it is struggling economically because of foreign induced hyperinflation, crippling sanctions and financial U.S. blockade.

Last July 25 President Maduro announced a series of economic measures that many were expecting following the creation on the crypto currency, the Petro, last March. [1] The most relevant announcement was that on August 20 Venezuela will put in circulation a new currency, the Sovereign Bolivar (Bolivar Soberano, BsS), that will reduce by five zeros the current value of the Strong Bolivar (Bolivar Fuerte, BsF). The referential value of the BsS will be linked to the Petro, whose value is pegged to the price of a barrel of oil. To give substance to this action, the state oil company PDVSA – with the largest oil reserves in the world – will transfer a large oil field in the Orinoco Belt, with almost 30,000 million barrels of oil, to the Venezuelan Central Bank.

Undoubtedly, this sent shockwaves to the world monetary and financial system in what may be dubbed a “monetary revolution” that signals the beginning of a possible trend to drop the U.S. dollar as a reference and the expansion of the use of crypto currencies. Iran has already suggested it might take a similar path. Also, Russia and China are already building their gold reserves to back up their currency and they may welcome Venezuela’s move since they have economic interests in Venezuelan oil.

It is still too soon to understand the full implications of this monetary revolution, also considering that we do not know the details of the monetary conversion. We do know its stated intentions, which are to stabilize the currency, stop capital flight, increase production and encourage international investment all leading to economic recovery. We also know that there was a pre-emptive reaction last March when the U.S. announced sanctions to forbid U.S. citizens and business from doing any transactions in Petros. [2]

But the difficulty of predicting any real impact on the Venezuelan economy is also due to a great extent to the level of trust from Venezuelans. Maduro was quite aware of this when he said:

“I ask for your confidence, I ask for your support, beyond ideologies and political positions, because Venezuela needs this change.” [1]

Surely, we do know the political reasons why “Venezuela needs this change.’ In a sentence, the U.S. is using all its power to produce another type of change in Venezuela – a regime change – in order to have imperial control over it by creating economic havoc.

U.S. financial system and economic sanctions

Military threats as the ones already used against Venezuela under the pretext of alleged humanitarian crisis can be quite a strong disincentive on the economy, however, even with its military might U.S. imperialism could not survive or spread without the financial system that keeps track of the global capital.

If the military industrial complex, armies and banking institutions can be seen as the hardware of the U.S. imperial machine, the U.S.-based financial system is the software that operates the day-to-day operations of policing trade, competitors and governments to ensure the generation and protection of wealth for the empire through financial monopoly.

The policing of all financial transactions by the U.S. was facilitated when the gold standard was dropped by the Nixon administration and the dollar became the new monetary standard. But we need to keep in mind that the dollar also has a psychological value based on the trust people put on it. We could say that it is largely a paper “crypto” currency, whose value is manipulated by the U.S. financial system and enforced by the military power.

In fact, part of the policing process is punishing all those deemed to challenge any aspect of U.S. power. And that’s when sanctions and financial blockade come into the picture. The U.S. has used sanctions and financial blockade regularly as instruments of intervention. 

A recent report titled “To whom and why does the United States impose sanctions?” about some of the countries affected by this perverse strategy states, “Beyond the rhetoric that justifies it in the name of “democracy”, sanctions are an instrument of war, designed to make people suffer in order to bend sovereign States.” [3]

The same report further states,

“In Latin America, during the post-war period, economic sanctions have been an instrument of intervention and interference, used to ‘punish’, extort and destabilize governments that posed some kind of obstacle to the expansion of U.S. interests.” [3]

To those who believe that this is an exaggeration we remind them of former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright reaction to the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children as a result of sanctions: “We think the price was worth it.” And paraphrasing Canadian author Stephen Gowans, “sanctions overall have killed more people than the nuclear bombs used by the U.S.” [4]

Another report, drafted by the People’s Power Ministry for Foreign Relations of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, titled “Sanctions and blockade: Aggression To The Bolivarian Republic Of Venezuela” refers more specifically to that country. The report presents “arguments and facts that demonstrate the existence – since 2014 – of a hostile and aggressive policy undertaken by the United States of North America towards Venezuela. This policy is expressed with particular intensity in the adoption of unilateral and coercive measures (sanctions) aiming at affecting the economic and political stability of Venezuelan democracy, within a framework that looks to achieve the overthrowing of the constitutional government.” [5]

Concluding remarks

At the time of writing a failed attempt on the life of president Nicolas Maduro was carried out on August 4 while he was delivering a speech to a gathering of the Bolivarian National Guard. Preliminary official information reports that the security forces immediately began the investigations and that several of the material authors of the attack have been captured together with part of the evidence of the attack. The effective initial investigation made it absolutely clear that this is a conspiracy against the life of the President employing an act qualified as terrorism.

The Government of Venezuela is convinced that this attack desperately sought to stop the implementation of the new measures for economic recovery announced by the Maduro administration and that are to be launched on August 20. These measures are meant to be effective responses to the country’s crisis that will bring stability, prosperity to all citizens and hopefully peace.

The Maduro government is doing everything possible to tackle the foreign induced economic crisis by announcing what can be called a “monetary revolution” with a new currency linked to a crypto currency pegged to the price of oil, while at the same time preserving its on-going revolution, the socialist Bolivarian Revolution.

We do not know what the ultimate impact will be on the economy because there are too many factors involved. Some observers are skeptical about a positive impact and even call on the government to implement other economic measures that might include a compromise of its socialist principles. Others consider any compromise as a myopic approach – no matter what the short-term intentions might be – that will play in the interests of the U.S.

We should not doubt for a moment that any attempt to liberalize the Venezuelan economy under the banner of Bolivarian Revolution will not be allowed to succeed, as more liberal policies are not allowed to succeed in Nicaragua under the banner of Sandinismo. The U.S. will never give up its goal of regime change. The almost 60-year-old blockade of Cuba is another point in case despite the recent cautious introduction of “market economy” elements in the country.

Disillusioned Venezuelans and the international community of experts, analysts, observers and activists – indeed all who care about a sovereign Venezuela and a more just world community – should turn their gaze on, and reject, the real intentions of the U.S. as the world power, and vociferously call on other nations to a more radical rebellion of the oppressed. The rapid success of this rebellion lies on the strength of unity and solidarity.

We do know the devastating impact of economic sanctions on the population, and stopping the human suffering needs to be the focus of our attention.

It is encouraging to see that a new campaign is taking shape “to end U.S. and Canada sanctions against Venezuela.” [6] An initial subscription to the campaign gathered dozens of signatures from the U.S. and Canada. 

This is precisely what Venezuela needs from the international community.

*

Nino Pagliccia is an activist and writer based in Vancouver, Canada. He is a Venezuelan-Canadian who writes about international relations with a focus on the Americas. He is editor of the book “Cuba Solidarity in Canada – Five Decades of People-to-People Foreign Relations” http://www.cubasolidarityincanada.ca. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Notes

[1] https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13967

[2] https://venezuelanalysis.com/News/13723

[3] Download full report from https://chicagoalbasolidarity.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/venezuela-reporte-5julio_ingles.pdf 

[4] http://peoplesvoice.ca/2018/06/25/peoples-voice-25th-anniversary-food-for-the-body-and-food-for-thought/ 

[5] Download full report from https://chicagoalbasolidarity.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/doc_sanctions_ver_-7_jun_-ingles.pdf 

[6] https://afgj.org/campaign-to-end-us-and-canada-sanctions-against-venezuela. For more information on the campaign, e-mail: [email protected]

Featured image is from Black Agenda Report.

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I live in France where from the avenue of the Champs Elysées to the tractors covered with flags in the alfalfa fields of Normandy, the French celebrated their victory at the World Cup held in Russia. The world event gave Russia the opportunity to show its good side and to my happy surprise, even English journalists stressed how well organized the Cup was and everyone reported on how open and welcoming the Russian people were. How much the Russians seem to long for recognition and sympathy; visitors praised the food, the lodgings, the cleanliness and the good timing of everything. The two problems seemed to be the huge distances to cover and the Russian language. The world seemed to discover that Russia is a real country full of ordinary likeable people, not the evil empire full of clones. 

I also live in my own little corner of internet. Through this small window, I try to find the truth because the mainstream media, while vociferously denouncing fake news, always tells the same story and the only difference between journalists at best is a slight change in wording – like so many actors giving their own take on the same script. I look for truth through debate and contradicting views. So, in the usual way of this alternative media, an email sends me a link: look at this before it is taken down! The link is a 2-hour long documentary entitled: The Magnitsky Act, Behind the scenes.  It is like being handed a Russian novel. You have to be brave enough to delve into a long, involved, intricate storyline full of unexpected twists and especially full of ambiguous characters none of whom, unlike American fiction, entirely fit the categories of good and bad – although some seem definitely much worse than others. 

Andrei Nekrasov, the film-maker, is a Russian who is very critical of his own government and of Putin. He set out to make a Hollywood style movie with Magnitsky in the role of the super good guy alone against the evil corrupt system based on violent repression. His script was Bill Browder’s story: once upon a time there was himself, the American businessman who made millions in profits in Russia, but whose companies were stolen from him by the Russian police. The main officer in this “theft” of his assets, goes by the mercifully simply name of Karpov (I used to read Tolstoi with a notecard to write names down). Browder calls on “the best lawyer in Russia”, Magnitsky to investigate and Magnitsky tells Browder that his companies have been stolen by the Russian police in order to take the tax money his companies owed the Russian State. Magnitsky becomes a whistleblower against this terribly corrupt system and is therefore thrown in prison where he dies after months of horrific conditions – torture, beatings (7 men with rubber batons ultimately beat him to death).  

Nekrasov, the film-maker, begins by making a very dark film – literally all the scenes take place in dingy poorly lit prison cells, rooms and corridors – the only sunny bright place seems to be the business offices of Browder’s companies, raided by policemen with black hood masks and machine guns. The light of truth is very dim and small at first and squeezes its way into the narrative through the smallest of cracks. Two of those cracks I recall here: when Nekrasov tries to film the beating of Magnitsky in his cell, he realizes that 7 + 1 men just cannot fit into a small Russian prison cell, much less wave their arms about hitting the same target. So he looks up the autopsy – in Russian. His props woman wants the text of Magnitsky’s denunciation of Karpov’s corrupt police theft (for that authentic look), so the crew get ahold of the original text – in Russian. 

Slowly but surely, before our eyes, the truth in its much more convoluted nature is revealed. Artistically, from a very poor imitation of an American style action film, the film becomes a very good documentary. There is a bit of genius in the way Nekrasov films himself as the film-maker who becomes the actor of a fiction that is mistaken. There is a scene where, having discovered that Browder and many of his associates are con men of the highest class, Nekrasov has himself filmed as the nervous wannabe film-maker of the enormous, outrageous lie that binds them all together, and that they are celebrating at yet another cocktail party. It is the film version of some of the best scenes from Dostoyevsky. The-truth-is-all-a-huge-lie paradox is the Russian version of the guy alone against the system; the realization is all there in his head as he looks powerless at the duplicitous crowd. 

A word about Russian fatalism. Whistleblowing isn’t really a Russian thing, most Russians seem incapable of being indignant, appalled or horrified by injustice or outright lies. Though they understand those concepts quite well (this is a nation of scientists, award winning mathematicians, champion chess players, great composers…), they don’t believe any principles will prevail among those who hold power. When Russians do appeal for change and justice, they tend to turn to foreign public opinion or institutions or historical models. The Russian population at large seems to most Westerners freakishly fatalistic.

Magnitsky’s mother whispers about the fatal neglect her son was the victim of, and then she just seems to go along with Browder’s heroic story about her son with little passion and possibly mitigated belief. Nekrasov himself does not seem to embrace passionate indignation as he discovers the truth, but rather sticks to intelligent analysis and soft-spoken dissent. Reality is imperfect, and something about the Slavic soul leads Russians to analyze reality correctly and then shrug their shoulders. It is like a long cold winter: what are you supposed to do about it? Strangely, Karpov, the villain of Browder’s story, the real-life investigator of Browder’s companies – not only for tax fraud but for illegal business dealings – rather than run some kind of public campaign to denounce the shenanigans of the businessman he was investigating for fraud, sells his house to go to London to bring a court case to a British judge to defend his own personal honor (how old regime is that?!). 

The whole Browder scam is like a slight of hand, it counts on people not looking closely enough and believing in the great evils of Russia. So the film-maker slows everything down – a slow motion replay of the scam to reveal it for what it was. You still can’t see everything – but the lie is as big as life. You can tell Browder is lying, from his total lack of emotion and the way he recites his lie very coldly – there are no hesitations, no reformulations… when you talk about a real thing that happened, you – anyone – will hesitate occasionally when looking for the words to correspond to the reality. Browder rattles out his fabricated lie because it was all worded in advance. One of the most astutely filmed scenes is the last interview Browder accepts to give Nekrasov: as he realizes that the Russian is on to him, this brazen American con artist dares stand up and threaten the film-maker. When the scam is over, Browder doesn’t feel he has to “know” anything anymore, he has pulled the whole thing off and just acts dumb. His American testimony contradicts what his company was saying in Russia and he is unable to tell the story of his own best-selling book. His whole fraud was based on everyone else’s prejudice and reluctance to investigate anything. The film-maker himself investigated things by accident… and because being Russian, despite his own critical position against his government, he needed the facts to be right. 

The bigger the lie, the more people fall for it and then the harder it is to reveal the truth because of the huge embarrassment caused to all those who didn’t do their job. 

The one person who investigated, a German member of the European institutions, didn’t read the Russian original documents because he didn’t know Russian, so he just trusted the English transcripts provided by… Browder. A multi-million dollar scam based on the fact that no-one will bother reading Russian! The Russian film-maker on the other hand speaks English, German… and of course reads the Russian originals. It is these simple, readily available documents that reveal that Magnitsky was not a lawyer called upon after the “theft”, but an accountant working for Browder since the companies began doing business. That is just one of the many basic facts easily verified that no-one bothered to check because Russian is just too difficult a language. The European institutions were so incompetent compared to how well they are payed, that I can only hail British Brexit conservatives who want their money back.

However, the main widespread flaw that Browder’s big-time sting relied on to succeed, was the hatred and suspicion for Russia abroad, and the active complicity of critical Russians at home such as Nekrasov himself. The scam counts on those prejudices and they served him colossally.

It is rather surprising how much Nekrasov not only goes along with Browder’s story but even makes things worse in his film at first. Even Browder tells the film-maker that the police raid was not carried out by masked men with guns but simply dozens of plain clothed men and women – and Nekrasov thinks that this exaggeration doesn’t matter for “a good cause”. Here we witness the ideological mechanics of a lie: the Russian State is inherently oppressive, therefore you can distort the facts… because they’re true anyway! In my opinion, this is a common mechanism of propaganda : the people distorting the facts know that they are exaggerating, but they think that is fair to make their point clear, that it is for a good cause. The fact is, gross exaggeration is the most common form of lie. You have to admit, the real Browder lie – a complete opposite of the truth – is much more rare.

The white-collar crime of the century (or the biggest global embezzlement scam to date) also relied on the very nebulous concept of Human Rights. Why nebulous? because they are principles. Like all principles, they need context. Example: as the film-maker points out, no-one should die in prison and Russian prisons are pretty terrible – how and why a prisoner dies is relevant however. Someone dies in an American prison, that’s bad. The culprits are the local cops, or other inmates, or bad doctors. Someone dies in a Russian prison and suddenly it’s “the Russian Sate” – almost Putin personally. A Human Rights issue in Russia becomes a diplomatic affair between States immediately, because this Nation State has been targeted by other Nation States as bad, oppressive, untrustworthy – disqualified in any case for international cooperation. The whole reason for the “human rights campaign” that Browder ran, was to prevent the Russian government from working with Interpol against his tax evasion (and suspected ill-gotten gains). It is flabbergasting that this American businessman’s crime has led to economic sanctions against Russia. An act of war based on a completely uninvestigated fraud! The US decides major diplomatic policies based on a fraud that counted specifically on the fact that no-one will bother to read Russian. 

Would the real Magnitsky please stand up? I can only speculate as to the real motives and character of Magnitsky based on the bits of information given in the documentary, but the hypothesis serves as an analogy to what Russia really is. Magnitsky worked for an American company as an accountant to make money because that’s what Americans are good at. He cooperated with a tax evasion scheme and was questioned by the police (evidence in the documentary points to a meeting between Magnitsky and three Russian mafia members who at some point become the “owners” of Browder’s companies allowing the embezzlement/tax fraud to take place – all three of the mafiosi are also murdered around the time of Magnitsky’s death). When he was brought in for questioning, Magnitsky refused to answer which is a legal right in Russia – yes like the American Fifth Amendment.

He was nevertheless put in prison, probably in the hope that he would break down and testify against Browder which he never did in the 9 months of his incarceration before his death. Browder must have been very grateful to him (after all another one of his employees, a woman, had previously denounced the fraud) and used Magnitsky’s death in prison as a starting point for his heroic fictional version of what happened. Magnitsky probably wanted to protect his wife and children and let them keep his ill-gotten gains which, as the Russian accountant in the scam, he must have benefitted from. To speculate even further, the neglect he died from in prison could have been motivated by a resentful doctor deciding to let him rot for helping a foreigner embezzle hundreds of millions of dollars of Russian tax money. Not ethical in the least, especially for a doctor (Magnitsky’s mother specifically accuses a doctor of neglect as he did of a heart condition) but the death rate of ordinary criminals, of which there are plenty in Russian prisons, is very high (alcoholism, violence) and the white-collar criminal can be seen as the scapegoat for all this misery. Interestingly, from his prison cell, Magnitsky wrote innumerable complaints about the treatment he and his cell mates were submitted to, as though he believed that some authority somewhere (Who? Where?)  would act upon those complaints that his riff raff cell mates didn’t even bother to write. A very imperfect incarceration system to be sure, but not a Gulag for masses of political opponents. 

Why not be as fatalistic as the Russians and just accept the fact that the Russian novel will not triumph over the mass media facile American fiction? Well as I’ve said, I live in France. That is one Old World country within what would definitely be the nuclear fallout zone of a major conflict between the US and Russia. Centuries of love, hate and wars shouldn’t make us fatalistic about principles but definitely skeptical about just wars. The mass hysteria in the US right now against Russia is a powder keg and it seems plausible that the US could end up going to war against Russia on the basis of some cockamamie story that no-one will bother to check… at all. 

So I thank Global Research for keeping information flowing, upholding contradiction to help reach the truth and trying to contribute to flicker the light of reason in a whirlwind of obscure passions. 

*

Elizabeth Altschull teaches history and geography in Paris.  She is author of two books, Le Voile contre L’École (Seuil,1995), and L’école des ego (Albin Michel, 2002).

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North Korea claims that it has shown, by concrete actions, its sincere desire to get rid of nuclear bombs and related facilities. But, the U.S. has done little in return; it is even adding sanctions against Pyongyang. Where does the Singapore Agreement go? It could go on  a long bumpy road. 

More than a month and half have passed since the historical Kim-Trump summit in Singapore. But in the eyes of many of the Washington elite group, the South Korean conservative politicians, the corporate media and some of the Korea experts of corporate funded think – tank establishments, the Singapore summit is a failure.

They claim that Trump has given too much to Kim Jong-un by treating him as equal and cancelling the U.S.-ROK joint military exercises. On the other hand, North Korea has dismantled the nuclear test facilities in Punggye-ri even before the Singapore summit; it has dismantled the ICBM assembly facilities near Pyongyang; there are also signs that missile launch site at Tongchong-ri are being removed.

Moreover, Kim Jong-un returned, on the 30th of July, to the U.S. fifty-five remains of UN soldiers – mainly US GIs- who died in North Korea during the Korean War.

Pyongyang thinks that it has done enough to deserve some concrete signs of Washington’s actions such as the declaration of the “End of the Korean War”. This is not a legal commitment. But, it is a precondition for a peace treaty. 

Unfortunately, it appears that the possible participation of China at the declaration is an important factor of delaying Washington’s final decision. Both Koreas hope that it will happen, at latest, during the coming UN general assembly.

I believe that North Korea really wishes to get rid of its nuclear weapons, if conditions are met. What Kim Jong-un wants after the launching of Hwasung-15 late last year is to make his country to become a “normal country” and let his people enjoy prosperity and live in peace. In fact, he has officially abandoned the “Byung-jin” strategy, that is, he is no longer interested in pursuing nuclear program so that he can focus on the economic development.

By contrast, Trump’s behaviour and his rhetoric since his handshake with Kim in Singapore make us to wonder if he really intends to respect the agreement.

Nevertheless, let us assume that he is really sincere in implementing the content and the spirit of the Singapore agreement. 

But, the real question is this: “Can he do it?” “Can he actually keep his promise to secure Kim’s regime, the security and the prosperity for the North Korean people, in exchange of CVID (Complete Verifiable Irreversible Denuclearization) carried out by Pyongyang?”

It seems that it is almost impossible for Trump to keep his promise, unless he is free from the “Washington Trap”.

President Donald J. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sign a joint statement | June 12, 2018 (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

By Washington Trap, I mean Washington’s anti-North Korea policy frame which is so deeply rooted in the minds of the majority of Americans that no US president can propose and apply policies favourable to Pyongyang. Trump is no exception; he is caught in the trap. Even he wants it, he may not be able to make significant concessions to Kim Jong-un without being free from the trap.

The purpose of the trap is to make North Korea the most undesirable entity in the word deserving to be destroyed. In fact, Trump along with John Bolton, National Security advisor, declared that North Korea deserves to be annihilated. To justify such drastic measure, Americans are made to dislike and mistrust North Korea. To achieve this, mainstream media and corporate funded research establishments are mobilized.

The trap is constructed in a very offensive logical sequence. 

First, North Korea is presented as threatening the U.S., South Korea and Japan. In other words, North Korea is dangerous.

During the global cold war era, North Korea was a part of the communist block and, as such, it could be considered as threatening to South Korea. But after the collapse of the Soviet block, North Korea neither had the intention of threatening South Korea nor had the capacity to do so.

North Korea has never threatened the U.S., nor had it the capacity to do so. North Korea was saying all along that if, and only, if the U.S. attacks it first, it will respond with nuclear arms.

In other words, since the 1990s, North Korea has never been a threat either to South Korea or the U.S. 

However, the South Korean conservative and American media have been highlighting the danger of North Korean threat so long and so hard that it is now accepted as a truth. It is especially so among conservatives in South Korea. The most conservative South Korean media which have faithfully devoted to the creation of such dreadful image of North Korea are the three largest daily papers: ChoselIlbo, Joong-Ang-Ilbo and Dong-Ah-Ilbo, called the Cho-Joong-Dong. 

Second, North Korea is labelled as delinquent state. North Korea has been made a “evil monster”. North Korea is given an overall label of “tyranny”, “rogue state”, “part of axis of evil”, and “corrupted”. These labels have been so often repeated in the media that Americans believe what they have read and heard.

It is true that these terrible images of North Korea and its people have been somewhat changed in positive way owing to the North-South Summit of April 27 and the Trump-Kim summit of June 12, but it is not easy to erase the image which has been deeply planted in the minds of many.

The third weapon in the tool bag of anti-North Korea propaganda is non-trustworthiness of Pyongyang.

There are politicians, government officials, media people and think -tank experts who have been saying that North Korea cannot be trusted.

At the end of 2017, that is, more than twenty years after the signing of Framework Agreement of 1994, the CNN stated: 

“The Clinton administration signed the Framework Agreement. But North Korea has violated the Agreement even before the ink dried“.(Juliette Morillot) and Dorian Malovic. Le monde selon Kim Jong-un: Guerre ou Paix-The Kim Jong-un’s World: War or Peace. Éditions, Robert Laffond, 2018).

Anthony Ruggiero, a proliferation expert who participated in the negotiations of 1994 observed:

“Pyongyang has violated the Agreement of 1994. One cannot trust   North Korea. No dialogue can resolve the problem. One must intensify the sanction against North Korea.”

Former CIA agent Bruce Klinger and Christopher Hill, former ambassador to South Korea who participated in the negotiation in 2007 and 2008 said that North Korea was a rogue country

President George W. Bush qualified North Korea as a part of the “axis of evil”.

The suspicion about the honesty of North Korea went even further. The U.S. accused Pyongyang for having violated the 1994 agreement for the activities which had nothing to do with the agreement.

For instance, in 1988, North Korea launched a satellite flying over Japan. This was interpreted as if it were violation of the agreement. The fact was that it had nothing to do with the agreement.

But, there are many witnesses who say otherwise. The IAEA confirmed in 1994 that North Korea stopped the production of plutonium. In 1988, the State Department of the George W. Bush government confirmed that there was no violation of the agreement. Colin Powell, former Secretary of State of the Bush government said that the 1994 agreement was solid..

In fact, in accordance with the Framework Agreement, Pyongyang stopped all the activities of the Yongbyon reactors as well as the construction of two reactors capable of producing many nuclear bombs.

Despite North Korea’s honest efforts to respect the agreement, the U.S. did not take any actions to implement the agreement. North Korea complained about the delay of the U.S. and its allies in taking any concrete actions. 

In fact, they failed to provide the funds to KEDO (Korea Energy Development Organization), a consortium of the U.S., South Korea and Japan. These funds were needed for the construction of the two Light-Water reactors promised in the agreement. The U.S. failed to provide the 500,000 tons of fuels promised in the agreement..

Who has violated the 1994 Agreement? It was not North Korea; it was the U.S. and its allies. Having realized that the agreement was of no use, North Korea begun to seek for military options

The behaviour of the U.S. after the 1994 agreement makes us to ask this question: What was the true intention of its North Korea policy? The denuclearization does not seem to be Washington’s true intention, because, if the agreement was implemented, North Korea would not have been possible to produce the nuclear bombs. In 1994, North Korea had no finished nuclear bombs.

Washington’s true objective of its North Korea policy could be something other than the denuclearization; it could be the regime change even through the use of military force. 

In fact, it is reported that President Bill Clinton, in the 1990s, tried to use force to destroy North Korea, but owing to the intervention of President Jimmy Carter, the war was avoided. 

Trump himself has mentioned often of military actions and, in fact, if the conservative government of Park Geun-hye were still in the Blue House (Korean White House) in 2017, the military attack against North Korea could have happened.

It is obvious that if the war breaks out against North Korea, hundreds of thousand Koreans and perhaps one hundred thousand Americans in South Korea and Japan could be killed. It could be the beginning of the third world war. But, some of American leaders did not seem to be much concerned. 

For instance, Senator of South Carolina, Lindsey Graham would have said that the war “will be terrible. But the war will take place in Korea. It will be bad for Japan, South Korea and even worse for North Korea. But the war will not touch America.” (Morillot-Malovic. Le monde selon Kim Jong-un: Guerre ou Paix, 2018)

I just cannot believe that such view can be made by a US senator.

It appears that, for the time being, Trump does not planning a war against North Korea. But, he has repeated saying that, unless North Korea carries out the CVID, the US would keep all options including the military one. 

The sanctions have become, over the years, more and more wide -ranged, more intensified and more efficient. They could have caused the collapse of the Juche regime, if North Korean people had not developed underground networks of trade and financial transaction. The courage, the patience, the imagination and the creativity of North Korean people were surely one of the factors of their survival under these terrible sanctions.

The joint U.S.-ROK joint military exercises have begun right after the Korean War. Over the years, they have become larger in size and more threatening in effects. This trend has been much more visible since 2008 when two of the most ardent anti-North Korea politicians, Shinzo Abe in Japan and Lee Myong-buk in South Korea took power.

These two politicians are the most conservative politicians in the region. And they have more than fully exploited the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula for their political and other personal interests.

What emerges from the above observations is clear; Washington’s North Korea policy is an integral part of the American imperialistic world domination. On this point, Stephen Lendman made an interesting analysis.

“Washington wants pro-western puppet regimes replacing all sovereign independent government. North Korea is very much included. Peace and stability on the Korean peninsula depends on its subservience to Washington interests”. (Trump Regime Remains Adversarial toward North Korea, Global Research, July 9, 2018)

To sum up, the American North Korea policy has had a logical frame in which North Korea is a threat to the U.S and South Korea; it is a rogue state; it cannot be trusted; a dialogue is not the best way to treat it. The only way to treat it is to change the regime either through a war or internal upheaval. Since the war is too expensive, the internal upheaval is the solution.

The Washington Trap is built by the military/security oligarchy in Washington in complicity with the conservatives in South Korea and Japan. It is marketed by media and conservative intellectuals. This trap is so well built and well presented that the American general public seems to accept it without knowing what is at stake. The American general public is simply cheated by the Washington elite and corporate media.

Stephen Lendman (The Russian US Election Meddling is Lie, Global Research July 10, 2018) made an interesting observation.

“Americans are easy to be fooled. No matter how many times they were deceived before, they are easily manipulated to believe most anything drummed into their mind by the power of repetitive propaganda- fed them through the major media megaphone- in lock step with official falsified narration.”

More than five weeks have passed since the Singapore Summit and Trump is facing a difficult challenge. He says that he is eager to speed up the CVID which are his concrete actions to show his good intention of fulfilling the Singapore agreement. But he has done little, so far.

By contrast, Pyongyang has done several things to show its sincere desire to keep the promise. As we saw above, its latest gesture was the transferring the remains of soldiers fallen in North Korea during the Korean War.

We are asking why Trump is not giving something in return. He is in dilemma; he is caught in the Washington Trap. If he gives too much in the eyes of Americans, he may have to find himself in a situation where the anti-Trump wind can blow even harder. 

If he does not give something corresponding to North Korea’s expectation, the process of CVID will be delayed or even stopped.

What can Trump do about it? What are the options available for him? 

There seem to be only one option. It is to be free from the Washington Trap by destroying all, or at least, some of the fabricated negative images of North Korea. This requires such measure as cultural, and sports exchanges; exchanges of academics and research establishment could be useful. 

If this is done, then, Trump could provide what Kim Jong-un wants in function of the progress of the denuclearization of North Korea.

If Trump fails to free himself from the trap, whatever he does to solve the North Korean problem, he will have to face the roadblock set by the conservative military/security group, mainstream media and, especially the general public. 

Thus Trump has a very narrow margin of actions in making concessions to Kim Jong-un. In this situation, the CVID will not be done or at best partially done. In such case, he will have to fact the political guillotine.

However, there could be one way out. It is the matter of convincing the hardliner and the general public in the U.S. that, even if North Korea is a rogue nation and has all the negative traits, it can be made pro-U.S. and an interesting tool for China containment policy. 

To do this, Trump has to tell those who are in the trap that North Korea is a docile vassal of Washington. 

North Korea will never accept this

Nevertheless, he must do something in response to Pyongyang’s gesture of denuclearization. Given the domestic situation, Trump may try to gain time; he asks Pyongyang to produce the list of all nuclear products.

Pyongyang may produce a list of nuclear arsenal and nuclear facilities, The trouble is this; it is more than probable that Washington would not accept it; it would say that there should be more hidden nuclear bombs and facilities. This is the inevitable outcome of fabricated mistrust of American about North Korea.

The Korea Times (August 3) quotes a Washington Post article which said:” North Korean officials have talked about how they plan to deceive the U.S. about the size of their arsenal of nuclear warheads and facilities.”

It is hard to believe that North Korea officials could be so stupid to publicize such plan; this episode shows how deep the mistrust about North Korea is rooted in the U.S.

The whole process of denuclearization could stop because of mistrust; the tension on the Korean peninsula will persist; this will make the military/security oligarchy in Washington and the South Korean conservatives happy. 

Trump will say that he has done his best; it is the fault of Pyongyang if the Singapore summit fails.

But, the world would not buy this; the U.S. will be more isolated and lose the authority of being the global super power. 

The Pax Americana will lose its true meaning.

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Professor Joseph H. Chung is currently associated professor of economics and co-director of the Observatory of East Asia (OAE) of the Study Center for Integration and Globalization (CEIM), Quebec University – Montreal Campus. He is a Research Associate of the Center for Research on Globalization.

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

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

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

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

Reviews

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

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

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

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Overnight on August 5, Aziz Asbar, the head of the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC), died after an IED had hit his car in the village of Masyaf in the western countryside of Hama. Asbar’s driver was also killed in the attack.

The SSRC is a Syrian government research agency, which is according to the US-Israeli-led bloc is actively involved in the development of missile and even chemical weapons.

The Damascus government has been strictly rejecting accusations of stocking, developing or using chemical weapons since it employed its agreement with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Initially, pro-government sources speculated that Israeli special services may have been behind the attack because, according to some sources, Asbar was involved in the missile program linked to activities of Hezbollah and Iran in the region.

Later, the radical rebel faction Saraya Abu Amara claimed responsibility for the attack. However, the Israeli trace cannot be excluded because Tel Aviv has repeatedly shown its ability to cooperate with various radical groups to achieve own political and military goals. An example of this is the situation in southern Syria where Israel had been tolerating presence of ISIS and other radicals for a long time until the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) defeated the terrorists.

A source in the SAA revealed to SouthFront that the Syrian military has redeployed several units armed with heavy military equipment and artillery from the southern provinces of the country to northern Latakia.

Considering information from other pro-government sources, this move could be a part of the ongoing preparations for a military operation against Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its allies in the area.

The SAA has continued its efforts aimed at combating ISIS cells in eastern al-Suwayda. In regards to this situation, General Commander of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), Siban Hamo, claimed that his group is ready to send forces to assist the SAA effort in the area. While this statement is another sign of a possible improvement of the relations between the YPG and Damascus, this scenario remains unlikely.

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Some time ago, I wrote a blog post about a hypothesis I had regarding President Truman and the decision to use the atomic bomb. My basic thesis then (and continues to be) is that there is good reason to think that Truman did not understand that Hiroshima was a city with a military base in it, and not merely some kind of military installation.

Truman’s confusion on this issue, I argue, came out of his discussions with Secretary of War Henry Stimson about the relative merits of Kyoto versus Hiroshima as a target: Stimson emphasized the civilian nature of Kyoto and paired it against the military-status of Hiroshima, and Truman read more into the contrast than was actually true.

I have kept poking around this issue for some time now, and written an article-length version of it (more on that in due time). I feel even more confident in it than before, having gone over the relevant documents very closely and talked about with many scholars (including at a conference in Hiroshima last summer), though there are some aspects of the original blog post that I would refine or revise.

But I thought I’d share one set of documents that I found extremely illuminating and interesting, and useful for thinking about how the “narrative” of Hiroshima changed over a very short period of time in August 1945. I have not seen any reference to these in the work of any other historians, not because they are slouches (they are not), but because you have to be asking very specific questions to think they are a possible source of the answers.¹

The press release sent out under Truman’s name after the bombing of Hiroshima was not written by him. It was largely written by Arthur Page, a Vice President at AT&T and the “father of modern corporate public relations,” at the request of the Interim Committee of the Manhattan Project. Page was an old friend of Henry Stimson, the Secretary of War, and Stimson wanted the first statement to be a very carefully-written document, as it was meant to credibly describe a new weapon and outline possible paths forward for the Japanese. Truman was shown the final version of it, but he didn’t add or remove anything from it. It is interesting (for my purposes) to note that if you did not know whether Hiroshima was a city or an isolated military base, the initial announcement would not clarify that for you, even if you were (like Truman) the one reading it aloud.

A far more interesting case is the second speech that Truman gave which mentioned the atomic bomb. This was a radio address given on the evening of August 9, 1945, not long after the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. The atomic bomb only occupies a small part of the overall speech — it is really a speech about what had happened at the Potsdam Conference the weeks previous. But the parts on the atomic bomb are fascinating to read. Here are the parts I’d like to draw your attention to in particular:

The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians. But that attack is only a warning of things to come. If Japan does not surrender, bombs will have to be dropped on her war industries and, unfortunately, thousands of civilian lives will be lost. I urge Japanese civilians to leave industrial cities immediately, and save themselves from destruction. […]

Having found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against  those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans.²

Two things interest me about the above. One is that the first paragraph emphasizes that Hiroshima was a “military base,” and that they wanted to avoid, “insofar as possible, the killing of civilians.” Now, Hiroshima was not, strictly speaking, a military base — it was a major city that contained a military base. There is a difference there, and fewer than 10% of the casualties were military.³ The paragraph further warns that bombing cities might occur — it doesn’t ‘fess up to having already done it, but puts it as a thing for the future.

The second paragraph quoted does something a bit different: it justifies the bombing, first by saying that the Japanese were awful and deserved it, then by saying that the use of the bomb was really a humane act, and using it would “shorten the agony of war,” and would save American lives.

We will come back to both of these in a minute. Let’s instead ask: who wrote this speech? Given the background of the first press release, one might be surprised to find that the answer is… Harry Truman. Well, he wrote the first draft. As he wrote in a note on August 10th:

“While all this has been going on, I’ve been trying to get ready a radio address to the nation on the Berlin conference. Made the first draft on the ship coming back. Discussed it with [James] Byrnes, [Samuel] Rosenman, Ben Cohen, [William] Leahy and Charlie Ross. Rewrote it four times and then the Japs offered to surrender and it had to be done again.”⁴

When Truman says he “made the first draft on the ship coming back,” he’s referring to his travel back from Europe aboard the USS Augusta. In fact, there is a photograph in the Truman Library that claims to be showing him writing this very draft:

Image on the right: “President Harry S. Truman at his desk aboard the U. S. S. Augusta, returning from the Potsdam Conference. He is preparing his “report to the nation.” August 6, 1945.” Source: Truman Library, 63-1453-47; scan from Wikimedia Commons

So, while many hands were no doubt involved, we can say with some reliability that Truman was very involved in the drafting process. How involved is a hard thing to say — but it gives us something to think about when looking at the specific language used, to question how much of it reflects the President’s own thoughts (something we cannot do with the original Hiroshima press release, which was written without Truman’s input).

I wrote the Truman Library awhile back and asked if they had any information about this statement, and they helpfully sent me a whole sheaf of papers taken from the papers of Samuel Rosenman, who was a Truman speechwriter and staffer. They included not only five different drafts of the radio address, but also many pieces of correspondence that helped contextualize it. For example, I was interested to find that the radio address as a means of communication was decided upon around July 20, 1945, as an alternative to giving Congress a full address, because Congress was going to be out of session when he got back.⁵

The drafts are of course themselves the most interesting part. There are, as noted, five in the folder. They are all typed, and numbered but not dated. The fifth draft is not exactly the same as the version that Truman delivered, so we can deduce that there was at least one last round of changes, perhaps by Truman himself, perhaps not. There are, as we will see, some ways to date some of the drafts, based on the relationship between their content and some of the other letters in the folder.

The first draft, presumably related to the version first developed by Truman while on the USS Augusta (August 2–7). The atomic bomb was only mentioned very briefly, and in no detail:

What we are doing to Japan now — even with the new atomic bomb — is only a small fraction of what would happen to the world in a third World War. […] We have laid down the general terms on which they can surrender. Since then they have seen what our atomic bomb can do. They can foresee what it will do. They would be wise if they would accept the inevitable before it is too late; otherwise their fate will be even worse than Germany’s.⁶

That’s it. I suspect this was written before Hiroshima, when Truman knew the bombing was scheduled to occur. What’s really interesting, though, is that underneath the final paragraph quoted above, someone has written in (by hand), the following: “Why we dropped bomb on Hiroshima.” So we can put some kind of boundary on when this draft was written: potentially before Hiroshima (as early as August 6th), but sometime soon after the bombing someone decided that there needed to be more on the atomic bomb in it.

How does this scrawl date it? Hiroshima was the preferred target for the first atomic bomb but it wasn’t until the mission was successful that anyone would have known it was the actual target. There were two backup targets as well (Kokura and Nagasaki); it is only on August 6th that it would have been talked about definitively as the bombing of Hiroshima. (Whose scrawl is it? I don’t know. Could it be Truman’s? Maybe. I am not a handwriting expert and it is not much to go by on itself.)

The second draft of the statement is much the same on the passages already quoted, but true to the penciled suggestion on the first draft, a new statement about the bombing of Hiroshima was added:

The world will note that the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima which is purely a military base. This was because we did not want to destroy the lives of women and children and innocent civilians in this first attack. But it is only a warning of things to come. If Japan does not surrender, bombs will have to be dropped on war industries and thousands of civilian lives will be lost. I urge the Japanese civilians to leave industrial cities and save themselves from destruction.⁷

This is not so dissimilar to the language in the final statement but the differences are important. Let’s put them side by side:

• Draft #2: The world will note that the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima which is purely a military base.
• Final: The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base.

First, we have a confusion about how many bombs (singular or plural) were dropped. I don’t read much into that other than as an indicator of how quickly this was probably written.

Second, the original language is even more emphatic about the military status of Hiroshima: here it was purely a military base. “Purely” is a very strong modifier. Ask yourself under what conditions you would describe a city as being “purely a military base” — it’s hard to come up with any that are honest, if you understood the target to be a city. It is interesting, as well, that in the final version, Hiroshima is still listed as a military base — but the “purely” has vanished. Still a misleading statement (again, it was a city with a base in it), but it’s not as egregious as the original draft.

• Draft #2: This was because we did not want to destroy the lives of women and children and innocent civilians in this first attack.
•  Final: That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians.

This is another interesting and, I think, important juxtaposition. In the first one, it is claimed that “women and children and innocent civilians” were spared in the first attack. In the final version, this has been watered down quite a lot — only “civilians” (not even innocent!) are mentioned, the killing of which was only avoided “insofar as possible.”

Am I reading too much into language? I don’t think so. Because, strikingly, this language mirrors very closely another Truman passage, his Potsdam journal entry of July 25th, 1945, which he wrote just after making final decisions about the question of the bombing of Kyoto:

I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital or the new. He and I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one and we will issue a warning statement asking the Japs to surrender and save lives. I’m sure they will not do that, but we will have given them the chance.⁸

These two phrases are pretty distinct. Truman wants to avoid the killing of “women and children.” This is a phrase he uses again and again when talkig about the atomic bombs — first in talking about how his choices would avoid it, later to emphasize that this is what atomic bombs do. For example, in a speech he wrote in December 1945, Truman noted that the bomb would involve, “blotting out women and children and non-combatants.”⁹ In 1948, he told a group of advisors and generals that the atomic bomb was not a regular weapon of war, because, “it is used to wipe out women and children and unarmed people, and not for military uses.”¹⁰ I just point this out because Truman (like many people, including myself) has distinct turns of phrase that he deploys and redeploys repetitively, what at least one historian has called “Trumanisms.”

Even more striking is the repetition of the “purely military” phrase, which is much more extreme and particular to Truman. No one today would describe Hiroshima as “purely military,” and the scientists and military men who chose it as a target explicitly noted that it was not one. At the Target Committee Meeting at Los Alamos in May 1945, it was recommended that “pure military” targets not be considered: “It was agreed that for the initial use of the weapon any small and strictly military objective should be located in a much larger area subject to blast damage” — that is, a city, an urban area — “in order to avoid undue risks of the weapon being lost due to bad placing of the bomb.”¹¹

In my interpretation, the timeline so far looks something like this:

• Prior to the Hiroshima bombing (sometime between August 2 and sometime August 6), Truman drafts the radio address (little to no mention of atomic bomb)
• After the Hiroshima bombing (August 6), but before Truman knows the full extent of civilian casualties, Truman and others revise it to talk about Hiroshima
• Sometime before the final version is released (August 9), it is revised to indicate an awareness that Hiroshima was not “purely military” and that civilians were in fact killed in great numbers

On the second point — do we know that Truman himself modified the statement? We know he was (by his own account) involved in the revisions over the days. And the language is strikingly similar to his Potsdam journal. I suspect he was to some degree (even just in discussions) involved in forming that language, but the other possibility is that the Potsdam journal was used as “raw material” for writing that section (and it may have been why he kept the journal; Truman was not a diarist, and the Potsdam journal is unusual).¹²

Do the rest of the drafts help us refine this timeline and the shifts in language? A bit. By the third draft, the singular/plural nature of the bombing of Hiroshima was resolved (“the first atomic bomb was dropped”), but it is still “purely a military base.” Most importantly, though, is that someone has added a line to it (on page 5) indicating that the Soviet Union had declared war on Japan the day before, putting it at around August 8th or 9th in Washington (midnight in Tokyo is 10am the previousday in Washington, DC).¹³

The fourth draft moves the paragraphs about the atomic bomb towards the end (from page 6-7 to page 17), which is an interesting change by itself. But it otherwise does not change them.¹⁴

In the fifth draft, however, a change occurs. The language about Hiroshima as “purely” a military target still remains. But a new bit of text has been added:

Its production and use were not lightly undertaken by this Government. But we knew our enemies were on the search for it. We now know they were close to finding it. And we knew the disaster that would come to this nation, to all peaceful nations, to all civilization, if they found it first. […]

We won the race of discovery against the Germans.

Having found it we have used it. […] We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of Americans.¹⁵

This is an interesting addition: it is the justification for having made it (the Nazis were going to make one) and having used it (we wanted to save lives). That it takes until the fifth draft — the last one in the archival file — for this to appear is fascinating. It is almost as if the speech drafters realized, all of the sudden, that they were going to have to account for its use, to make a case for the manufacture and use of the bomb that went further beyond their original one.

So when and where did this language enter into this text? Fortunately, there is another piece of documentation in the file that helps us. The Assistant Secretary of State (and former Librarian of Congress) Archibald MacLeish sent a letter to Rosenman dated August 8th, with “a paragraph which has some ideas you might wish to use about the atomic bomb.” It is not an exact match for the fifth draft’s language but it is so close on many points as to be the obvious source: “Its production and its use were not lightly undertaken by this Government. … Only the certainty that the terrible destructiveness of this weapon will shorten the agony of the war and will save American lives has persuaded us to use it against our enemies.”¹⁶

So that indicates clearly that the fifth draft was finished sometime after MacLeish sent his memo on August 8th. What happened on August 8th that would provoke MacLeish and others to think they needed to justify the creation and use of the atomic bomb? On the morning of August 8th, the first damage reports came back from Japan. These included the famous aerial photograph of Hiroshima, which was shown to Truman by Stimson that morning:¹⁷

Damage map of Hiroshima, 8/8/1945. Source: National Archives and Records Administration / Fold3

The Japanese also began to talk about the bomb damage for the first time in their newspapers, as the survey team sent to Hiroshima by the Japanese high command had finally sent its report back. (Someday I will write something here on this — it is its own interesting topic.) American newspapers on August 8 and 9th were reporting huge casualties: “Atom Bomb Destroyed 60% of Hiroshima; Pictures Show 4 Square Miles of City Gone” (New York Herald Tribune, 8 August); “200,000 Believed Dead in Inferno That Vaporized City of Hiroshima” (Boston Globe, 9 August). This latter estimate of the dead too high — it was created by just assuming 60% of the Hiroshima population were killed, as opposed to 60% of the area destroyed. But this is the sort of estimate that would persist until full surveys, by the Japanese and Americans, were done in the postwar.

If Truman believed that Hiroshima was “purely” military, there is no way he could have continued to believe that after August 8th. So sometime between that final draft in the Rosenman files (the fifth draft) and the final version delivered, the language about Hiroshima’s military status, and the sparing of civilians, got significantly watered down.

Is this conclusive? Not at all! This is highly interpretive, based on a smattering of sources. But history is the work of interpretation, and if one wants to understand the interior mental states of the long dead, one has to engage in this kind of triangulation of sources. I think it is plausible that Truman did not understand the nature of Hiroshima, and was rudely surprised by it on August 8th. That another atomic bomb would be used on another city on August 9th, I suspect, came as a surprise to him (he was not given any immediate prior warning).

In my full paper, I discuss a bit what I think my conditions are for choosing one plausible interpretation over another. In this case, I think my interpretation solves some of these tricky questions about why Truman would persist in many ways to label Hiroshima as a “purely military” target. But more usefully, it also explains Truman’s sudden change in language after August 8th and 9th, in which he bluntly acknowledges that the atomic bomb was a killer of civilians. At his December 1945 speech mentioned earlier, he — in his own handwriting — refers to the atomic bomb as “the most terrible of all destructive forces for the wholesale slaughter of human beings.”¹⁸

This is not the language of a man who is under a misapprehension about what the bombings did. On August 10th, he told his cabinet that “he had given orders to stop atomic bombing” because, as Henry Wallace recorded in his diary, “the thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible. He didn’t like the idea of killing, as he said, ‘all those kids.’”¹⁹ This is a far cry from his initial reaction to hearing that the Hiroshima mission was successful: “This is the greatest thing in history!” I think something changed in him, and I think it was a horrible realization of his own misunderstanding of what this weapon would do.

We remember Truman primarily as the person who was president when the atomic bombs were first used. We should also remember him, as I have argued before, as the person who ordered that the atomic bombs stop being used. And the person who, over the course of his presidency, did the most to establish that atomic bombs were not weapons to be deployed lightly ever again. One might see this as irony, but in my interpretation, it is not: it the reaction of someone who realized he had been badly out of the loop once, and wore that on his conscience, and determined it would not happen again.

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Alex Wellerstein is a historian of science and nuclear weapons and a professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology. He is also the creator of the NUKEMAP.This blog began in 2011. For more, follow @wellerstein.

Notes

1. It is a general point that sometimes comes up when talking about the work of history: a lot of people think new work is driven exclusively or even primarily by access to new sources. New sources can play a role but usually it is new questions that drive historical innovation. The new questions can provoke re-reading of old sources, and can point towards overlooked sources as well. The hardest thing in any field of knowledge is coming up with a new, interesting question to ask — answers are much easier to find and deal with than new questions. 
2. Harry S. Truman, “Radio Report to the American People on the Potsdam Conference” (9 August 1945), Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, MO. 
3. Barton Bernstein, “Reconsidering the ‘Atomic General’: Leslie R. Groves,” Journal of Military History 67, no. 3 (July 2003), 889-920, esp. 904-905. 
4. Longhand note of Harry S. Truman (9/10 August 1945), transcript and copy available in Harry Truman Library.
5. Samuel Rosenman to Charles Ross (20 July 1945), Samuel Rosenman Papers, Harry Truman Library, “Report to the Nation (Potsdam).” 
6. “Draft of a Speech by President Truman on Berlin Conference,” (n.d., first draft), Papers of Samuel I. Rosenman, Harry Truman Library,  “Report to the Nation (Potsdam),” pages 2 and 6. 
7. “Draft of a Speech by President Truman on Berlin Conference,” (n.d., second draft), Papers of Samuel I. Rosenman, Harry Truman Library,  “Report to the Nation (Potsdam),”, page 5.
8. Harry Truman, Potsdam Journal entry for 25 July 1945, Harry Truman Library. 
9. Harry S. Truman, “Draft of the Gridiron Dinner Speech,” (15 December 1945), Harry Truman Library. 
10. Diary entry of 21 July 1948, in David E. Lilienthal, Journals of David E. Lilienthal, Volume II: The atomic energy years, 1945-1950 (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), 390-391. 
11. J.A. Derry and N.F. Ramsey to L.R. Groves, “Summary of Target Committee Meetings on 10 and 11 May 1945,” in Correspondence (“Top Secret”) of the Manhattan Engineer District, 1942-1946, microfilm publication M1109 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1980), Roll 1, Target 6, Folder 5D, “Selection of Targets.”
12. See Barton J. Bernstein, “Truman at Potsdam: His Secret Diary,” Foreign Service Journal (July/August 1980), 29-34.
13. “Draft of a Speech by President Truman on Berlin Conference,” (n.d., third draft), Papers of Samuel I. Rosenman, Harry Truman Library,  “Report to the Nation (Potsdam).” 
14. “Draft of a Speech by President Truman on Berlin Conference,” (n.d., fourth draft), Papers of Samuel I. Rosenman, Harry Truman Library,  “Report to the Nation (Potsdam).” 
15. “Draft of a Speech by President Truman on Berlin Conference,” (n.d., fifth draft), Papers of Samuel I. Rosenman, Harry Truman Library,  “Report to the Nation (Potsdam).” 
16. Archibald MacLeish to Samuel I. Rosenman (8 August 1945),Papers of Samuel I. Rosenman, Harry Truman Library,  “Report to the Nation (Potsdam).” 
17. “I showed the President the teletype report from Guam showing the extent of the damage; also, the Wire Service bulletin showing the damage as reported by Tokyo at nine A.M. August 8th. I showed him the photograph showing the total destruction and also the radius of damage which Dr. Lovett had brought me from the Air Corps just before I went. He mentioned the terrible responsibility that such destruction placed upon us here and himself.^” “Memorandum of Conference with the President” (8 August 1945), attached to Henry L. Stimson diary entry of 8 August 1945, in The Henry Lewis Stimson Diaries, microfilm edition retrieved from the Center for Research Libraries, original from Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, New Haven, Connecticut. 
18. See the “Gridiron Dinner” speech, previously cited. 
19. Henry A. Wallace diary entry of 10 August 1945, in Henry A. Wallace, The diary of Henry Agard Wallace, January 18, 1935-September 19, 1946 (Glen Rock, N.J.: Microfilming Corp. of America, 1977). 

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A little over a year ago, 122 countries – nearly two-thirds of the world’s total – made history by adopting the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).  Between 20 September 2017 and 3 August 2018, 60 of those countries took it a step further by signing the treaty.  On 31 July 2018, New Zealand became the 14^th country to take the final step by ratifying it.  With no deadline for signing and ratifying the treaty, it will become part of international law when 50 countries have ratified it.  

Countries opposed to the treaty include all nine countries with nuclear weapons and all 29 members of NATO.  That the treaty is viewed as controversial in some circles should come as no surprise, but it is worth noting that the treaty has overwhelming support from countries in Africa, Central America, and South America.  It is also supported by all of the countries in the Middle East (including Iran) except for Syria, Turkey, and Israel.  Syria participated in treaty negotiations but was absent for the vote to adopt on 7 July 2017.  Turkey, along with four other NATO-member countries (Germany, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands), allows the presence of U.S. nuclear weapons as part of a “nuclear sharing” agreement.  Israel has its own arsenal of nuclear weapons and has never signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).  The NPT was originally adopted in 1968 and includes 190 countries.  Palestine is among the 14 countries that have ratified the TPNW.

In 2017, a letter from over 3,000 scientists worldwide in support of the nuclear weapons ban treaty was delivered to the U.N. General Assembly during negotiations to adopt the treaty.  The letter begins:

“Nuclear arms are the only weapons of mass destruction not yet prohibited by an international convention, even though they are the most destructive and indiscriminate weapons ever created. We scientists bear a special responsibility for nuclear weapons, since it was scientists who invented them and discovered that their effects are even more horrific than first thought.”

Will the treaty, once it is ratified by 50 countries, guarantee a world free of nuclear weapons?  No, but it will be a tremendously important step toward that goal.  A September 2017 article from Human Rights Watch explains:

“Countries that have not signed the nuclear weapons ban treaty will, with time, face an uphill struggle in opposing the treaty. As with landmines and cluster munitions, one can expect that they will eventually be faced with a weapon so stigmatized that they will have no excuse but to give it up.”

Nuclear weapons aren’t the only threat to life on Earth, but they are the most unpredictable.  The very existence of nuclear weapons is a constant threat to the incredibly complex web that makes life on Earth possible.  Full ratification of the treaty cannot come too soon.  The website for Physicians for Social Responsibility includes this:

“Without the treaty, the nuclear-armed countries’ dangerous arms race has no end in sight.”

The treaty addresses victim assistance and nuclear contamination, as summarized by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons:

“Nations are obliged to provide assistance to all victims of the use and testing of nuclear weapons and to take measures for the remediation of contaminated environments.”

For anyone who argues that destroying the thousands of existing nuclear weapons would be prohibitively expensive, consider this from Global Zero:

“… maintaining vast arsenals of mass destruction – at a staggering cost of $1 trillion per decade globally – makes no sense, strategically or financially. Nuclear weapons undermine global stability.”

You can follow the progress of the treaty here.  Setsuko Thurlow, who survived the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, spoke at the U.N. in 2017 on the day that the nuclear weapons ban treaty was adopted.  You can listen to her speech here.

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Jerry Merriman is a writer with a strong interest in peace and justice issues.

This was one of the first reports revealing machine gun like holes in the fuselage

OSCE monitor Michael Bociurkiw mentions bullet holes in #MH17, not able to find any missile so far. According to the WSJ: 

Monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe reported that shrapnel-like holes were found in two separate pieces of the fuselage of the ill-fated Malaysia Airlines aircraft that was believed to have been downed by a missile in eastern Ukraine.

Michael Bociurkiw of the OSCE group of monitors at his daily briefing described part of the plane’s fuselage dotted with “shrapnel-like, almost machine gun-like holes.” He said the damage was inspected by Malaysian aviation-security officials .(Wall Street Journal, July 31, 2014)

 

 

In commemoration of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This interview with Yuki Oikawa was first published in August 2016.

The mantra that the bombings were conducted to force Japan into surrender and prevent further killing and destruction, and that it was a proportionate response to the Imperial Japanese Navy’s attack on Pearl Harbor is being disputed, and many strong arguments are being made in denial of that credence.

A Japanese political consultant tells Fars News Agency that the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a “human experiment to gather scientific data.”

“It was a human experiment to gather scientific data. It aimed to make mass experiments of the uranium bomb on Hiroshima and the plutonium bomb on Nagasaki to test humans and to obtain data for the development of nuclear weapons,” said Yuki Oikawa in an interview with Fars News Agency.

Mr. Oikawa believes that the Japanese were ready to surrender before the nuclear attacks took place, and historical evidence shows the American leaders were aware of Japan’s readiness to admit defeat unconditionally.

A political consultant and commentator, Yuki Oikawa has had a distinguished career with appointments in diverse financial, religious and political positions. He has commented and written on the Japanese politics, Japanese-American relations, China’s politics and human rights and environmental issues. He was recently named head of the Institute for Research in Human History (IRH), a think tank of modern history research.

He also serves as director of foreign affairs for the Happiness Realization Party (HRP) of Japan.

Q: Mr. Oikawa; as a political consultant, and more importantly, as a Japanese citizen, what’s your feeling towards what happened about 70 years ago to thousands of your fellow citizens? About 220,000 Japanese civilians were killed during the first use of atomic weapons in thehistory of warfare. How did that terrible incident affect the Japanese society, the psyche of the Japanese people and the mentality of the future generation?

A: Japan was occupied by the allied and US from 1945 to 1952. During the period, Japanese people were educated the history that Japan made a war of aggression and killed so many, and then the allied [and] US dropped the atomic bombs in order to stop the war; otherwise, much more Japanese would have died. This is what we learned at school. And this education created a biased mentality, which is called the “masochistic view of the own history.”

The masochistic view lost the love for the country and faith in God. In other words, people in this country became negative on Japan’s future. Instead, they focused on seeking the individual success.

Prime Minister Yoshida, at the time of the occupation of Japan, made a decision on simply developing the economy and totally depending upon US for protecting Japan. His policy led to the formation of one of the largest world’s economies.

However, because the people have been keeping a negative mentality on Japan’s future, they had not enjoyed the success of the economy. As Japan lost the success in the 1990s, the people are still suffering from more than 20 years of recession. It is said that Japanese people’s mentality is manifested in the form of a failure of economy.

Prior to the 70th anniversary of the World War II, the public was gradually realizing that the Japanese people had been brainwashed by the education system that was set up at the occupation, making them to be conservative.

Q: There have been many documents and memos confirming the unfair treatment of the Japanese soldiers and civilians by the invading American forces, including the raping of women, killing citizens and selling their skull for about $35 among merchant marines, verbally offending the children and adolescents being taken as captives, etc. The US Army General Jacob H. Smith ordered his soldiers upon the start of the Philippines War, “kill everyone over 10 years old.” Why did the American forces take such an attitude and treat the Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos and Vietnamese as second-rate creatures?

A: I have the experience of researching the troubles and accidents caused by the members of the US occupation army. It is true that as you said, there were much evidence of their brutal actions. I found that not all were real, and the Japanese left-wings such as socialists and communists fabricated them. But still there are many civilian victims who suffered from American’s violence.

I think that the Americans acted in these unacceptable ways in the Asian countries based on the Western idea of racial discrimination, and this is the underlying reason why Japan began the war against Europeans and Americans.

It is impossible for the advanced nations to order “kill them all,” because most of the Westerners are Christians. But it is possible if they accept the idea of white supremacy. That’s why US developed the first atomic bombs and then used them in Japan, not in Germany.

And I think that the Americans were very much afraid of the Japanese because they experienced the fiercest battle in their history against Japan.

Q: Some conservative American pundits and experts opine that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was necessary, and the killing of some 220,000 Japanese citizens was not something significant, because far more citizens were killed during such attacks as the US bombing of the German city of Dresden. Is it really that civilian lives are sometimes undervalued and taken too lightly by the US government during the wartime?

A: I am not the right person to answer this question because I am not the specialist of US politics but I can confirm that US government conducted a human experiment by using people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the purpose of the further development of the nuclear weapons.

Let me explain how the Japanese people view and understand US atomic bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki 70 years ago. Most of the Japanese people believe that the purpose of the atomic bombings is to force Japan to surrender, and US-Japan War – the Pacific War, was a bad war. Japan committed many war crimes during the war period. Japan must reflect on its own behaviors.

However, now as of the 70th anniversary, people ask themselves, “did the US need to drop atomic bombs on Japan?” The questions that remain, and can never be resolved, are whether the bombings were necessary or not. The new issue is whether the use of the bomb was necessary to force Japanese into surrender.

Since the new evidence of the history has become available, it’s clear that Japan was ready to surrender before the bombs were dropped. Japan had long ago decided to surrender unconditionally – and the Americans knew that. On July 20, 1945, General Eisenhower reported this to President Truman. It means that the US and Allied powers had some motivations behind the dropping of atomic bombs.

It was a human experiment to gather scientific data. It aimed to make mass experiments of the uranium bomb on Hiroshima and the plutonium bomb on Nagasaki to test humans and to obtain data for the development of nuclear weapons.

And, killing over 200,000 civilians, mainly elderly people, women and children, must be a war crime and a serious violation of international law. It wasn’t the atomic bombs which caused Japan to surrender. From the recent studies in Japan, one can say that it was the Soviet Union’s invasion of Japan that caused it.

Q: According to a Detroit Free Press survey, 85% of the American citizens in 1945 approved of the use of nuclear weapons against Japan. 60 years later, in 2005, a survey by the Pew Research Center indicated that this figure had declined sharply as 57% of the American citizens endorsed the use of atomic bombs. Is it that the mentality of the American public has shifted regarding what their government and army did to Japan at the final stages of the World War II and its legal and moral justifiability?

A: I just experienced what you said in this question in my joining US radio shows in this month. I talked with the radio show hosts in twelve radio stations just after the 70th anniversary of atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I made the comments in my answer to one of your previous questions in the shows and all hosts agreed. That was not my expectation. And I felt that they no longer kept closing their eyes to the historical facts even if it is not convenient for them.

I emphasized that we should avoid the emotional arguments and calmly analyze the facts of history in the radio shows and all of the hosts strongly agreed.

Q: There are conventions and treaties which ban the possession and deployment of chemical and biological weapons; however, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty doesn’t have any stipulation on disarmament, nor does it expressly ban the use of nuclear weapons. There are currently 9 countries that possess nuclear weapons, including four states that never ratified or signed the NPT. Is it possible to devise any legally binding framework to compel these nations to abandon their nuclear weapons?

A: As an individual of the only nation which experienced atomic bombing, the current legal frameworks of banning the nuclear weapons are not real.

US President Obama insisted “world without nuclear weapons” is not real. What his statement stands for is “world with less nuclear weapons,” and it is still not real. I don’t think it is possible.

My desire is that not only a legal framework, but a spiritual framework can pave the way for the decreasing of the nuclear weapons naturally by sharing the common values beyond nationalism, racism, and religion. I mean I cannot find any other ways, because the legal, political and social efforts have already failed.

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Effective Monday August 6, illegal US sanctions snap back on Iran’s automotive sector, trade in gold, and other key metals.

On November 4, further illegal Trump regime sanctions will be reimposed on Tehran’s energy sector, petroleum related products, and central bank transactions.

Iran’s currency is already adversely affected, falling from 65,000 rials to the dollar in late May to 120,000 currently.

It resulted in sharply higher prices for consumer goods and fuel, aggravating the nation’s worsening financial situation.

The Trump regime wants Iran isolated politically and economically, notably aiming to reduce its oil sales to zero – unattainable objectives.

Russia and China intend maintaining normal relations with the Islamic Republic, perhaps others as well.

Beijing turned down Washington’s request to cease purchasing Iranian oil. It’s Tehran’s largest trade partner.

The Trump regime warned it will impose sanctions on nation’s continuing trade relations with Iran after November 4, especially purchases of its oil. It ruled out broad exemptions or waivers – even to allies.

According to Bloomberg, citing ship-tracking data, China accounted for 35% of Iranian exports in July.

On Saturday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi denounced Washington’s breach of its international obligations, adding Tehran expects EU countries to preserve the JCPOA.

Iran wants guarantees from Brussels to maintain normal economic, financial and trade relations with the country, not forthcoming so far.

According to Russian political analyst Sergey Mikheyev,

“Iran and (the Kremlin) have developed cooperation…in many areas, including economy and industry, and this trend of relations will still progress forward” despite Trump’s JCPOA pullout and threatened sanctions on nations continuing normal relations with the Islamic Republic.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova earlier said:

“We have never supported and will not support the policy of unilateral sanctions, as we are convinced of their illegitimacy and are determined to move forward in our multifaceted cooperation with Iran.”

The European Commission has yet to follow through with specifics on its pledge to “continue and strengthen the ongoing sectoral cooperation with, and assistance to, Iran, including in the energy sector and with regard to small and medium-sized companies.”

Unilaterally imposed sanctions by one nation against others is flagrantly illegal. Washington uses them as weapons of political, economic, financial and trade war.

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Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the CRG, Correspondent of Global Research based in Chicago.

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In just over two months, from the beginning of May to 7 July 2018, B’Tselem documented 10 instances in which settlers destroyed a total of more than 2,000 trees and grapevines and burned down a barley field and bales of hay. In some places, the settlers left behind them graffiti slogans in Hebrew, reading “No to farmer terrorism” and “”There’s not place we won’t reach”. Some of the farmers had already suffered settler violence in recent years. 

While this high incidence of the assaults is unusual, the phenomenon itself has long since become routine in the West Bank. Settler violence and vandalism takes place with full backing by the Israeli authorities. Sometimes soldiers take part in the assault; at other times, they stand idly by. The police makes no substantial effort to investigate the incidents, nor takes measures to prevent them or stop them in real time.

Israel benefits from the repercussions, as settler violence has gradually dispossessed Palestinians of more and more areas in the West Bank, paving the way for a state takeover of land and resources. This occurs because Palestinians avoid entering areas in which they have been attacked, usually close to settlements. As a result, extensive Palestinian farmland near settlements has been vandalized and neglected to such an extent that it yields poor crops, making it not worthwhile for the owners to risk their safety to get there. This process has essentially erected invisible walls throughout the West Bank, which Palestinians know crossing will expose them to violence and even danger to their lives.

Some of the testimonies given to B’Tselem field researchers from the landowners whose property was vandalized follow.

Hebron area

Vines whose trunks were sawed off in the abu rajab brothers’ vineyard in the south hebron hills. Photo by Muhammad Abu Rajab, 27

South Hebron Hills, 26 May 2018, approx. 700 grapevines cut down: 

Muhammad Abu Rajab, 63, a resident of Hebron, is married and has three children. Along with his three siblings, he owns two vineyards with a total of about 700 grapevines in the area of al-Ballutah, south of the town of Yatta. In a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Musa Abu Hashhash on 27 May 2018, he related how he discovered the vines had been cut down:

We jointly own about 700 grapevines in two vineyards that we planted some seven years ago. Last year they yielded seven tons of grapes, which earned us about 100,000 shekels (USD 27,224) altogether. This year we were supposed to harvest double that. My brothers and I tended the land and cultivated it over the years. We plowed it and planted the vines. We were very happy. We go to the vineyards almost every day to tend to the vines, and that’s how we make a living.

On Thursday, 24 May 2018, I sprayed the vines and everything was normal. The next day I didn’t go because of Ramadan Friday prayers. On Saturday, the neighbors called me and said something looked off about the vines, and that they thought something had happened to them. I went to the land and was shocked at the sight. All the vines in both vineyards had been chopped down. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought, who could have done such a thing to the vines, which never harmed a soul? In a shed between the two vineyards, where we rest sometimes, I saw Hebrew graffiti sprayed on the floor. Later, someone told me they said “No to farmer terrorism” and “We’ll get you everywhere”. From the state of the vines, it looked like they’d been cut down with a power saw. Sawing off 700 vines takes a lot of time, and it’s an area where police cars and army patrols pass by once in a while. I guess the settlers weren’t afraid of them at all.

After I came to my senses, I called my brothers and told them what had happened. They immediately called the Palestinian DCO and came to the land. The DCO called the Israel Police, and police officers and forensic experts arrived. They took my testimony and I noticed that they found a mobile phone. Maybe it belonged to one of the offenders.

The losses we incurred from the damage to the vines can’t be measured in numbers. We invested seven years of work in those vineyards. Every grapevine cost us hundreds of shekels, in my estimation, by the time it grew and bore fruit. It’s also impossible to quantify the hours we put in and how tiring the work was. We cared for those vines like we care for our own children, and it all went down the drain in one moment. Now we’ll have to uproot the remaining trunks, which will be very costly, and plant new seedlings – although we have no guarantee they’ll be safe now.

‘Issa Idris next to a severed vine in his vineyard in Hebron. Photo by Manal Al-ja’bri, B’tselem, 18 June 2018

Hebron, 25 June 2018, 82 grapevines cut down: 

‘Issa Idris, 60, a resident of the Jaber neighborhood in Hebron, is married and has seven children. The family owns a third of a hectare in the area of Khalet a-Natsheh, which Idris cultivates with his brothers and sisters. The settlement of Qiryat Arba was established north of the plot. In a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Musa Abu Hashhash on 28 June 2018, Idris described the damage incurred by the destruction of 82 grapevines on the family land:

I’ve been growing grapes with my brothers and sisters on our family land for 35 years. Last Monday, 25 June 2018, my cousin called me and told me the vines in our vineyard had been cut down. I couldn’t go there immediately because I was at work. My siblings were also at work and couldn’t make it. I got to the land only around seven in the evening. I counted 82 vines that had been chopped down. From the look of them, they were cut with a power saw. The vineyard is about twenty meters off Route 60, where soldiers patrol all the time. There are also cameras nearby belonging to Qiryat Arba, and they cover the area of the vineyard.

We lost our entire crop for the year. That’s tens of thousands of shekels lost. But it’s more than that – it’s years upon years of tending the trees and caring for them down the drain. Now we’ll have to invest money in uprooting the trunks, preparing the soil and replanting the vines. But I don’t know, maybe we won’t replant because the police and army offer no protection. They can do this to us again. In 2010, settlers damaged dozens of trees on another of our plots. We filed a complaint but no one did anything about it. This time I didn’t file a complaint, because I don’t think there’s any point.

Severed vines in Haitham Jahshan’s vineyard in Halhul. Photo by Musa Abu Hashhash, B’tselem, 16 May 2018

Halhul, May 2018, approx. 880 grapevines cut down: 

Throughout the month of May, some 880 grapevines were cut down in five different plots in the area of Halhul. The testimonies of two of the landowners follow:

Halhul, 16 May 2018, 400 vines cut down: 

Haitham Jahshan, 42, is a resident of Halhul and a married father of four. He and his uncles own a 2.9-hectare plot by Route 60. There is a military watchtower directly overlooking the plot. In a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Musa Abu Hashhash on 16 May 2018, Jahshan related:

Most of the trees on our land were planted more than fifteen years ago. This morning at six o’clock, my uncles and I went there to continue spraying the soil, which we began yesterday. When we got there, we were shocked to see all the grapevines destroyed in four vineyards, which cover half a hectare. There were almost 400 fruit-bearing vines there. From what I could see, they were sawed off with a power saw at about 40-50 centimeters above ground. You can’t begin to comprehend what a disaster it is. They didn’t leave a single vine standing in all four vineyards. On one rock we found a slogan in Hebrew that said “We’ll reach every spot”. That’s how we understood that settlers were behind this.

There’s a military watchtower opposite the plot, manned by soldiers. I guess the settlers weren’t afraid of them. There are also military security cameras nearby, and they may have captured what happened.

We went to the Palestinian DCO, and they notified the Israel Police. Israeli police officers came the next morning at nine and took photos of the chopped vines, and then I went and filed a complaint at the Qiryat Arba police station.

We lost more than 50,000 shekels (USD 13,600), but it’s about more than money. We’re deeply attached to those vines. We grew and tended them with joy and happiness for years until they bore fruit.

Halhul, 22 May 2018, 180 grapevines cut down: 

Maher Karajah, 49, is a resident of Halhul and married father of five. He owns a quarter of a hectare on which he grew 180 grapevines. On 22 May 2018, at 8:00 A.M., he arrived at the vineyard as usual and found it entirely destroyed. In a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Musa Abu Hashhash on 24 May 2018, he detailed the repercussions:

I lost the season’s entire crop of grapes and vine leaves. I still can’t fully grasp the extent of this sudden blow. I’m in shock. I spent my youth in this vineyard. It’s part of my life and my family’s life. We cared for those vines as though they were our children. My father left me this land.

Now I have to uproot the vines, clean up the land and plant new ones. It will cost a lot of money and take a lot of work. I’ll have to bring in a bulldozer to remove all the trunks and trellises that were holding up the vines. It will take at least five or six years for the new vines to bear fruit, and they’ll yield a smaller crop than the ones we had. But I have no choice. It was my main source of income. To be honest, I feel like I lost one of my children, and I’m not exaggerating.

Bethlehem Area 

Al-Khader, early July 2018, 168 grapevines cut down: 

Hassan ‘Issa, 70, is a married father of eight who lives in the village of al-Khader. He owns almost half a hectare (0.45) off Route 60. The settlement of Elazar was established opposite his plot. On 7 July 2018, after not working the land for several days, he discovered that 168 of his 250 grapevines had been cut down. In a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Musa Abu Hashhash on 9 July 2018, ‘Issa described what happened:

During the month of Ramadan I worked the land every day, weeding, plowing, spraying and checking the grapevines. I’m in love with the earth and with my trees, and care for them the way I care for myself and for my children. Last Saturday afternoon I was next to a mosque close to my house when Abu Jbarah, who owns land next to mine, came up to me. He said he’d seen that my vines had been cut down. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I ran home and asked my son ‘Omar to drive me to the land in his car. When I got there, I saw the leaves all dry and collapsed. I sat down on the ground and burst out crying like a little boy. My son walked among the vines checking them, and then he drove me home because I couldn’t stand the sight.

When we got there, the DCO called ‘Omar and told us to go back to the land because people from the Civil Administration and police officers were about to arrive. I guess Abu Jbarah, who told me the vines had been cut down, let the DCO know, too. We went back and saw that the police had already started examining the trees and taking photos of them. They told me to go to the police station in the settlement of Betar Illit and file a complaint. The next day, Sunday, I went there. The officers had counted the vines that were cut and told me there were 168 of them. I’ve heard of similar incidents in our area.
Despite what happened, I’ll continue working the land. I’ll remove the severed trunks and plant new vines. That means I’ll have to wait several years until they bear fruit – if the settlers don’t destroy them too. It’s hard to protect my land because it’s far from my house. The army, the police and the Civil Administration are the ones that should be protecting it. My vineyard is right by Route 60, where there are frequent patrols. What happened to my vines feels like a terrible injustice, and I feel incredibly frustrated and deeply sad.

Destroyed vines in Islam Jaber’s vineyard in Al-khader. Photo by Musa Abu Hashhash, B’tselem 5 July 2018

Al-Khader, 5 July 2018, 170 grapevines cut down: 

Islam Jaber, 70, is a married father of four who lives in the village of al-Khader and works part-time at a computer store. He also owns 0.8 of a hectare off Route 60 near which the settlement of Neve Daniel was established. Jaber planted about 800 grapevines, olive trees and fig trees on his land. This is what he related in a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Musa Abu Hashhash on 9 July 2018:

In 2010, we invested about 200,000 shekels (USD 54,407) in our land to enhance the soil, and then we planted grapevines. Three years later they bore fruit and since then, every season they yielded seven to eight tons of grapes. We made an average of about 30,000 shekels (USD 8,161) a year. We cultivated the trees and the land – plowing, pruning and fertilizing – until they became our family’s main source of income. In the last few days we worked all day in the vineyard, preparing for the coming harvest. My mother picked vine leaves to sell almost every day. The last time I was at the vineyard was 1 July 2018. I felt delighted when I saw the clusters of grapes on the vines.

On 5 July, at about 5:30 in the morning, my mother went to pick leaves and noticed that some of the vines looked wilted. She checked closely and discovered they’d been cut. She called me at 6:00 and I came immediately. I was shocked when I saw what had been done to the vines. They were chopped off at the bottom and the leaves were wilted. It was very painful to see the clusters of grapes all dry. I called the Israel Police, the Civil Administration and the Palestinian DCO. About half an hour later, police, soldiers and Civil Administration people arrived. The police took photos and counted 170 chopped vines. They also found slogans on the cover of the well and on a plastic board reading “No to farmer terrorism” and “Revenge”. They collected tissue paper that was lying on the ground and took photos of shoe prints. They asked me to come give my testimony at the Betar Illit police station, and I did.

A severed olive sapling in Rabah Hazmah’s orchard in Turmusaya. Photo by Iyad Hadad, B’tselem, 10 June 2018

The Ramallah area

Turmusaya, 9 June 2018, some 130 olive trees broken: 

Rabah Hazmah, 21, is married and lives in the village of Turmusaya, near Ramallah. He owns about one and a half hectares east of the village. The settlement of Adei Ad was established about half a kilometer south of there. In 2014 and 2015, settlers vandalized hundreds of Hazmah’s trees in several incidents. Today, there are more than 300 olive trees in his grove. On 9 June 2018, settlers broke the branches on approximately 100 of his trees, and on some 30 other trees in nearby groves. Hazmah described what happened in a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad on 10 June 2018:

Yesterday – Saturday, 9 June – I went to my land. A relative of mine, ‘Azmi al-‘Araj, also came in his car. About 200 meters away we saw a group of about ten settlers breaking the olive trees. They were wearing black and white clothes and some had a yarmulka (kippa). We couldn’t see their faces from afar. We immediately stopped the cars and started walking towards them and shouting, in the hope that they would see us and run off. Instead, they ran towards us with stones. We ran back to the cars.

I immediately called Husam, who works at the Israeli DCO. He gave me his number after the last time I was attacked, in May 2015. Husam told me he’d come himself, and that he’d also notify the police. Then I called people from the village to come help me. The settlers kept on breaking branches and took no notice of us. Every now and then we tried to come close but they ran towards us, we fled, they went back to breaking the trees, and so on. They destroyed the trees with no compassion and no mercy. I felt like they were breaking my ribs.
About twenty minutes later, Husam arrived with some soldiers and police officers. Only then did the settlers stop and move away, but they stayed on my land. Husam, the soldiers and the police officers saw them but did nothing to them and didn’t even go up to them.

It was only after they arrived that I dared to go over to the trees to see what happened. At that stage, some people from the village also arrived. The soldiers and police officers were with me. I saw that about 100 of my trees had been broken, and about 30 trees in neighboring plots. The police officers took photos of the trees and one of them took my testimony. They told me to file a complaint at the Binyamin Region police station.

This isn’t the first time settlers have attacked our trees and land. It’s happened dozens of times and the villagers have filed dozens of complaints with the police, but there has never been a serious investigation and no settler has ever been arrested or punished. We also never received compensation. I can’t estimate the financial damage yet. Some trees die after their branches are snapped off, but sometimes they can be saved.

A cut vine in Nizam Ma’tan’s vineyard in Burqa. Photo by Iyad Hadad, 26 June 2018

Burqa, 25 June 2018, 48 grapevines and trees cut down

Nizam Ma’tan, 45, is a married father of seven and lives in the village of Burqa. He owns a third of a hectare about a kilometer from his house, and planted grapevines, olive trees and almond trees on the land. Over the years, Mu’tan has suffered many attacks by settlers. Most recently, in April , settlers assaulted him and his son and killed one of his sheep.

On 25 June 2018, Ma’tan discovered that settlers had chopped down 48 of his trees: 30 grapevines, 11 fig trees and seven almond trees. They also sprayed graffiti reading “No to farmer terrorism” and “We’ll reach every spot”. In a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad on 26 June 2018, he related:

I don’t feel like going to my land anymore. I’m frustrated and filled with despair from filing so many complaints with the police. The complaints go nowhere. They either chop down trees or burn cars or attack us or kill our sheep. They are free to attack and kill without paying a price. I don’t believe they will let us be and I don’t believe they’ll be punished.

Every one of the trees they cut down was like one of my children. I cared for them, watered them, plowed the land, pruned the branches, fertilized the earth, removed weeds, and they slowly grew – just like my sons Muhammad and ‘Omar. Suddenly, I lost them. I have no words to describe how awful it feels. You can only understand if you’ve been through it yourself.

It’s especially hard because this isn’t the first time. This has been going on for years. Every time I manage to plant trees instead of the ones they destroyed, and the trees grow, they come and destroy everything again. There is no one to help and protect us. We’ve done everything we can to prevent it except resort to violence. I’m not a violent man and all I want is to make sure my children have a safe and peaceful future.

Deir Jarir, 27 June 2018, barley field burned down: 

On Wednesday, 27 June 2018, settlers torched a 10-hectare barley field in the area of Deir Jarir. The field was cultivated by Muhammad Ka’abneh, 48, a married father of nine who leased the field from a family in the village. In a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad on 28 June 2018, Ka’abneh related:

Last night, at around nine, we saw that our field was going up in flames. I went there with my brothers and sons and other residents of the village, and we saw two settlers passing by near the field. We called the Palestinian fire brigade and DCO, and meanwhile started putting out the fire with dirt and stones. About twenty minutes later, a fire truck came and the firemen put out the remaining fires.

Then the Israeli DCO people arrived with soldiers and police officers. They did nothing. One of the officers walked around the area and saw there were also 15 broken olive trees in a nearby grove that belongs to another family. The officer who took photos of the damage caused by the fire claimed that it had occurred two or three days earlier and that there was nothing they could do about it. I said: “Can’t you see there’s still smoke rising from the earth?” He paid no attention and just told me to go to the Binyamin police station to file a complaint. If an officer who’s there on the ground doesn’t want to listen to us, it’s a waste of time to go to a police station and file a complaint.

The fire caused huge damage, especially because we were days away from the harvest. Now we have to buy animal feed for 50,000 or 60,000 shekels (USD 13,600-16,300). We may have to sell some of the flock or take out a loan to pay for the feed, because obviously we’re not going to get any compensation. All we can do is pray.

Kafr Malek, 28 May 2018, 60 grapevines cut down: 

On 28 May 2018, settlers cut down about 60 out of more than 100 grapevines in the vineyard of Iyad ‘Issa, 46, a married father of three and teacher from Kafr Malek, east of the village. The settlers sprayed the slogan “Regards from Esh Kodesh” on a nearby rock. See ‘Issa’s testimony in the above video.

The Nablus area: 

Burin, 23 June 2018, 150 olive trees burned down: 

On Saturday, 23 June 2018, settlers burned down 150 olive trees belonging to five families in the village of Burin. The settlement of Yitzhar was established some two kilometers from the village. The trees are on land that Palestinians cannot go to alone because it lies near the settlement, so they have to coordinate access with the Israeli DCO. When the villagers noticed the fire they called the Palestinian fire brigade, but it couldn’t get in until the DCO gave its okay.

Shadi Zaban, 37, a married father of two, is one of the firemen who arrived. Zaban also owns a quarter of a hectare with 180 trees, of which 70 burned down. He described what happened in a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Salma a-Deb’i on 26 June 2018:

On Saturday, 23 June 2018, at around 4:30 in the afternoon, I was at work at the Civil Defense unit in the Burin village center. I saw smoke rising in the southern part of the village, where my land is. I reported it immediately to my boss and asked him to call the DCO for authorization to send firemen there. That took about half an hour, and in the meantime I watched the fire devour the trees. After we got the okay, I went there with four other firemen.

There is no road to the site of the fire, so one guy stayed behind in the fire truck and the others and I continued on foot with fire extinguishers. We walked for about fifteen minutes. People from the village came and helped us put the fire out. It was a complete disaster. The hot weather made the fire spread quickly. Once the sun went down, the permission from the DCO to be on the land expired and we had to leave, for fear of the settlers. I saw about eight settlers watching us from the Yitzhar security road, standing next to the settlement security officer’s vehicle.

The olive oil and olives we get from the grove are used by my entire extended family. It’s an important part of our lives, and now we’ve lost 70 trees.

Akram ‘Imran, 49, a married father of seven who lives in Burin, lost seven of his roughly 110 olive trees in the fire. In a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Salma a-Deb’i on 26 June 2018, he stated:

On Saturday, 23 June 2018, at around four o’clock in the afternoon, I was at home. Suddenly I saw a fire spreading across the hill opposite my home, close to my land. I saw some eight to ten settlers about 1.5-2 kilometers from the land. I didn’t wait for coordination [with the DCO] and immediately drove there with my tractor. When I got close, near the road to Yitzhar, I saw that other people from the village had come because they had noticed the fire. By the time we got there, the settlers had already headed back towards Yitzhar and were watching us from afar, standing on the road to the settlement. The only thing we could do was use tree branches to try and put out the fire.

About fifteen minutes later, a fire truck from the village arrived, but they had to stop about a kilometer and a half away from the fire because there’s no road leading there. The firemen had to continue on foot, carrying fire extinguishers. The fire damaged about 150 trees, seven of them mine.

We want to go back to the land to evaluate the damage. Often a fire leaves no visible marks on trees but a few days later they dry up and die. Sometimes you can revive them by pruning them. We asked the head of the local council to speak with the Israeli DCO and organize urgent permission for us to access the land and save the trees that can still be saved.

*Update: Inquiries made by B’Tselem field researcher Salma a-Deb’i reveal that as of 17 July 2018, ‘Imran has been unable to receive coordination to access his land and tend to the salvageable trees. He was told he would be able to get coordination to access the land only during the harvest.

Burin, 8 June 2018, 86 bales of hay burned: 

Munir Qadus, 42, is a married father of one from Burin who leases a quarter of a hectare near the southern outskirts of the village. The settlement of Yitzhar was established about three kilometers from there. Qadus grows wheat and barley on the land to feed his livestock. He planted the barley in November 2017 and harvested it in May 2018, leaving it out in the sun to dry. Qadus stacked the hay in bales but as he couldn’t find hired help during Ramadan, was awaiting the end of the month to store it. A few days before he planned to do so, on 8 June 2018, settlers set fire to the bales.

Qadus described what happened in a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Salma a-Deb’i on 13 June 2018:

At 1:30 in the morning, I was praying at the mosque in the village center when my brother-in-law came in and told me my hay was on fire. I went to the land immediately with some young men who helped me put out the fire. We stayed there until 3:30. The settlers removed three bales of hay from the area they torched and sprayed graffiti on them. An official from the Israeli DCO who arrived said the slogans read “No to farmer terrorism”. I found that odd and asked him: Who is the victim of terrorism, us or the settlers?

I worked with my brother for a long time and we put a lot of money and effort into that field. In the end, the bales of hay went up in a whiff of smoke. I need the hay to feed my flock, because we don’t have enough pastureland in the village. We’re surrounded by settlements to the east and south and have nowhere to take our flocks to graze. In any case, what I grow isn’t enough for the whole year and I have to buy more, including nutritional supplements. Now I’ll have to buy a lot more than usual. I would say that every bale of hay was worth about 25 shekels, so all in all I lost 2,150 shekels (USD 585).

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This article was originally published in 2005.

A case can be made that the salt levels in our soils may be increasing from the deposition of atmospheric aerosol reactive metal salts over time¹. Numerous measurements of soil samples in the northern New Mexico region are showing relatively high levels of conductivity. Conductivity is a direct measure of the concentration of ions in solution. Reactive metal hydroxide salt forms, such as those that have now been documented at unexpectedly high levels in both the atmosphere and rainwater², are exactly the type of salt forms which will increase the conductivity (ion concentration) of the soil as well. The importance of this finding is that increased salt levels in the soils will lead to stress on the plant life, and if they are high enough, they will lead to reduced growth or eventual death of many species. The issues of soil salinity and salinity stress are quite serious, and they show that the effect of aerosol operations underway must be considered in their totality; with recent studies alone the impact upon the atmosphere, the water and the soils of this planet is increasingly apparent.^3,4

A continuous appeal for public pressure upon both international environmental and governmental agencies for determination of the health of the planet as it is affected by the aerosol operations is established. The unfortunate reality is that such groups in this country have failed to responsibly respond to public request, and most of the responses that have been made are branded with dishonesty and disingenousness. It is now required that not only should the environmental reporting occur in haste, but that such reports must be accompanied by independent audits that have no vested interest in the outcome of the results. It is a sad fact that many of the United States governmental agencies and authorities can no longer be trusted to be acting in the interest of the public welfare. Such patterns became evident at the onset of the aerosol operations that were commenced without public involvement or consent.

View of Santa Fe New Mexico – April 19, 2005 (Ideal Weather Conditions)

*

The initial particulars of the current report are as follows.

The best reference for expected conductivity levels in the soil on a nationwide basis found this far is a map issued by the Federal Communications Commission5. This effort was published in 1954 on a nationwide basis, as the conductivity of soils is a significant factor in AM radio propagation. Although general, the source nevertheless represents a major national effort that apparently has not been duplicated since. Conductivity maps and profiles are important as they are one of the best indicators of salt levels that are expected in the soil. There are numerous sources6,7,8,9 that describe the salt tolerances of the native flora, and there is a clear relationship between increased salt levels and decreased productivity of the soil. Increased salts in general, are certainly detrimental (and potentially fatal) to many plant species.

The current report is also precipitated in part by direct local observation. The first is the change that has been noticed in local grasslands in the rather severe and hostile environments of the drier southwest. A particular large field has been under observation since the aerosol operations began en masse near the beginning of 1999. This particular field at that time produced grass sufficient to support a couple of horses during the growing season without difficulty, and any changes reported are not a result of overgrazing. Over the years, it has been quietly observed that the grass production has steadily and continuously declined. It has been supposed that the primary cause of this decline has been the drought that affected this area for up to five years. However, as time progressed, it became evident that periods of increased rain did nothing to mitigate the changes. If a large storm or storms were to arrive at an optimum time for growth, the effect was increasingly minimal. It has now progressed to the point where even in the face of record levels of moisture during this last winter and spring, grass simply no longer will grow in that field. It has become a field of weeds (i.e., “an otherwise desirable plant in an undesirable location”) and the livestock has not been able to receive sustenance there for several years now.

Former Agricultural Grass Land, Northern New Mexico
Invasive Species Now Dominate the Area – Grasses Are No Longer Supported
April 2005

The second observation considers a major die-off of the pinyon pine species in this area. This die-off is massive and it continues to present a major fire threat to this area. Many may recall the impact of the Los Alamos fire in this area several years ago, which came to national prominence due to the proximity of the National Laboratory. The community report that is circulated states that the past drought “led to stress” and that this stress in turn has allowed the infestation of a bark beetle that eventually has led to current devastation of the pinyon pine species. My interest in this report is to consider a second look at the so-called “stress factors” that may be at play.

Piñon Pine Die-Off
Santa Fe Region, New Mexico
April 2005

It has already been reported that the expected effect from the introduced aerosols is to heat up the lower atmosphere10, and not to cool it as many have attempted to promote under the guise of a secret but benevolent motive. Under the best of circumstances it can only be determined that the aerosols will aggravate the drought and warming problems, if not actually induce these very conditions. Reduced forage productivity is already expected in part from the specific heat and dessication properties of the aerosols.

Compounding the problem, we must now consider the effects of aerosols that eventually accumulate in salt forms within the soil from precipitation and gravity. This paper considers the effect of precipitation alone. Thirteen soil samples from widely varying habitats in the Santa Fe region have been investigated for conductivity results. These results indicate that seven of the thirteen samples indicate potential cases of salinity stress in the soil that may already be adversely affecting productivity. If proximity to vegetation is considered in the case of the pinyon die-off, (to be discussed in more detail), then six out of seven samples indicate the possibility of salinity stress. It is to be considered, therefore, that a harmful salinity problem with the soils may already be in place. The tests indicated here are only of preliminary nature, and they serve the purpose of simply raising the issue of salinity stress within our soils as a result of the aerosol campaign. This complication is in addition to the drought and heat injuries that have already been substantiated. The alarming alkaline results of numerous pH tests conducted by citizens across the country and presented on this site should also be recalled as the grander environmental alteration is assessed.

On a more ominous note, if the trends of this study are verified and continue to occur, it can be expected that the situation may deteriorate much further than is already indicated . The conifers and deciduous trees are generally much less salt tolerant than the grasses. The current work indicates that coniferous regions may already be subject to more salinity than they may be able to handle in the future. The recent large scale die-off of the pinyon pine species in this area may only be a harbinger of drastic changes in the future vitality of the forage. It would seem as though if international and national environmental organizations were truly concerned and heeded the signs of planetary change, then they would openly and publicly begin the investigation into the effects of the aerosol operations upon our air, our water, and soil -and all life upon this planet. The quickest way to remedy the problem, during the “investigation” period is to terminate or to force a moratorium upon the aerosol program.

*

Secondary particulars of this report:

Complete and proper testing of soil conductivity will require adequately funded laboratory resources and analysis. The current work attempts to assess conditions within the range of methods and resources available to this researcher. There appear to be two primary methods of soil conductivity analysis. The first of these uses a saturated paste method, and the second sample of soil that is resident within water, often at a ratio of approximately five to one. The EC (Electrical Conductivity) paste method will be preferred should the proper means ever become available. This paper uses the solution technique. The expected measurement scale of results is quite different for each method, and attention must be paid to the units of the results.

The method chosen has been to place a soil sample approximately 1cm deep within a clean glass jar (radius 4cm) and to cover it with distilled water to a depth of approximately 7cm. A conductivity reading is taken immediately after the mixing of the sample with the water with a calibrated conductivity meter that measures in uS. The conductivity of the solution is then measured with respect to time elapsed, usually involving a period of approximately 4 to 7 days. It has been found that conductivity in all cases increases considerably with this elapse of time, and it is difficult to reach any other conclusion than that a significant ion leaching condition is occurring. It is expected that the slow leaching of salts within the soil is the most likely producer of this effect. In the references found on soil conductivity testing, this phenomenon appears to be more of an anomaly than a universal result. The effect is significant and has been found to result in increases in conductivity levels on the order of up to 15 times the initial reading given sufficient time. The mixture always will reach a maximum conductivity level after which the elapse of time will not change the result; these are the readings accepted for reference in this study. This maximum has been reached within a week of collecting the sample in all cases. This observation alone may merit further study.

A broad range of local ecosystems have been investigated, including lower grasslands (~6500 ft. elev), pinyon pine and juniper forests (~6800 -7500ft.), ponderosa pine forests (~8000ft), and the upper portions of the local mountain range (10,500ft.). The FCC conductivity map has been examined at the highest resolution available to find the expected range of conductivity values for this region. These values range from 20uS in the mountain forested areas, to 40uS for the northwest region of Santa Fe, to 150uS in the lower plain areas to the south of Santa Fe. The maximum conductivity values shown on the conductivity map is 300uS. In general, the higher the conductivity level (i.e, salt level), the more difficult it becomes to support the higher forms of plant life. In general, the grasses will be found to be generally more salt tolerant, and deciduous tree forms relatively salt intolerant. Numerous references have been consulted to establish the expected salt tolerance levels for the variety of plant species in the southwest and for plant types in general across the country and world. There are some difficulties that emerge in equating measurements of the solution and paste methods; efforts have been made to bridge that gap in a conservative fashion.

The lowest initial reading in the soil samples taken is 11uS. The highest initial reading is 130uS. The highest reading of all samples, given sufficient time for ion leaching to occur, is 424uS. The best estimate that can be achieved at this time is that considering all samples taken in all locations, conductivity estimates are on the order of approximately 3 times greater than is expected. It is to be recalled that any increase in salinity levels of air, moisture and soil is to be taken seriously as salts will generally increase and accumulate in soils over time. They will be expected at some level to demonstrate interference with the vitality of the plant. This report makes the argument that such processes may already be in place.

The (former) grassland tests indicate that levels of conductivity may already be high enough to explain in part the failure of grasses to grow, even when blessed with sufficient or abnormally high rainfall. It may be that rainfall itself is no longer as beneficial as we would like to believe, especially as reactive metal hydroxide salts now seem to be a regular source of pollution within the rain or snow.

The high mountain soil test (not water) at this point has come out favorably. In addition, tests conducted some distance away from dominant vegetation such pinyon or juniper species has raises no undue concern.

The mid-level mountain test in the Ponderosa zone (~8000ft.) is not so favorable and does indicate a potential problem that could loom in our future. The extension of the pinyon pine die-off into the higher elevations of this area, to include ponderosa or other conifers at higher elevations, will be truly devastating to this region should it occur. Moisture, the composition of that moisture, and salts in the soil must all be considered as additional “stress factors” that may lead to very serious problems in our future.

The pinyon pine die-off region has been especially interesting to study, with some unanticipated results along the way. There remains much work to be done should sufficient interest and care arise. One of the surprising results that has been found is that there is tremendous variation in conductivity with respect to the distance from the bole, or trunk of the tree. Values of conductivity away from the vegetation, in the open, do not pose any special concern that I can determine at this time. Close to the tree itself, however, the results are dramatically different. Conductivity readings (and correspondingly, ion concentrations) seem especially high. This result was found after unexplained variations within the die-off region was occurring. Proximity to the trees in measurement does appear to be the primary factor that explains this variation.

Research was conducted to establish if distance from the vegetation is a known, common, important and expected factor within soil measurements. The answer appears to be no. It has been difficult thus far to find many references to this finding that is being discussed. One paper11 has been found that describes that such a phenomenon can occur, but the audience for the paper appears to be relatively restricted. The second paper12 does not refer to variation with respect to distance, but does explain the majority of conductivity variation from calcium and magnesium salt forms.

This question that is being asked here may be much more than academic. The conductivity levels in the immediate vicinity of the now dead trees appears to be unexpectedly high. Calcium and magnesium components are two of the primary ionic salt forms that now are being identified at high levels in rainwater tests. If ionic exchange and ion concentration processes are taking place in the roots and soil in the vicinity of the trees, it seems conceivable that a process of soil saline concentration and accumulation is occurring. If the levels are high enough, and the testing results at hand indicate that they are, then it is quite possible that saline stress is an active process – here and now. The sooner that the comprehensive nature of the die-off of the pinyon pine is established, the greater the chance that extensive and catastrophic larger scale events can be averted in the future.

There is no claim here that saline stress is the cause of all of our woes in the plant world. This paper, however, does raise some questions that deserve fair consideration with respect to the massive global effects from the aerosol operations. There is no doubt that global effects are occurring, and many of them have already been, and they continue to be, measured. It is only by being fair and honest with ourselves that we will find these truths. I continue to believe that infinite time is not a luxury you can afford to have at this point. You shall have to answer the question of “ownership” for the air that you breathe, the water that you drink, and for the life and the plants that provide your food. You will need to weigh that answer against that provided by any nation, government, agency, corporation or any other claimed source of power. You then will need to act accordingly.

*

Notes

1. Carnicom, Atmospheric Salt Confirmed, https://carnicominstitute.org/wp/atmospheric-salt-confirmed/, Oct 2000.
2. Carnicom, Calcium and Potassium, https://carnicominstitute.org/wp/calcium-and-potassium/, Mar 2005.
3. Carnicom, Drastic pH Changes, https://carnicominstitute.org/wp/drastic-ph-changes/, Sep 2000.
4. Carnicom, Conductivity : The Air, The Water, The Soil, https://carnicominstitute.org/wp/conductivity-the-air-the-water-and-the-land/ Apr 2005.
5. Federal Communications Commission, M3 Map of Effective Ground Conductivity in the USA, http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/m3/index.html
6. Utah State University, Salinity and Plant Tolerance, http://extension.usu.edu/publica/agpubs/salini.htm
7. Alberta Government, Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, Salt Tolerance of Plants, http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/agdex3303?opendocument
8. Department of Primary Industries,  Victoria, Australia, Salinity and the Growth of Forage Species, http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/DPI/nreninf.nsf/childdocs/
9. Colorado State University Cooperative Extension, Salt Tolerance of Various Temperate Zone Ornamental Plants, http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/CoopExt/TRA/PLANTS/stable.html
10. Carnicom, Drought Inducement, https://carnicominstitute.org/wp/drought-inducement/, Apr 2002.
11. Obradoor, Soil Nutrient Status and Forage Yield at Varying Distances from Trees in Four Dehesas in Extremadura, Spain, http://www.montpellier.inra.fr/safe/publications/papers/Soil%20nutrient%20status%20and%20forage%20yield%20at%20varying%20distances%20from%20trees%20in%20four%20dehesas%20in%20Extremadura,%20Spain.pdf
12.Harstock, Soil Electrical Conductivity Variability,http://www.bae.uky.edu/~precag/PrecisionAg/Reports/Soil_EC_Var/soil_electrical_conductivity_var.htm

All images in this article are from the author unless otherwise stated.

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The “Naya Pakistan” (New Pakistan) of Prime Minister-elect Imran Khan should build upon the foreign policy rebalancing of the previous administrations and apply to join the Russian-led Eurasian Development Bank.

Pakistan is on the cusp of such major changes following last month’s elections that many have begun speaking about a “Naya Pakistan” (New Pakistan) under the leadership of Prime Minister-elect Imran Khan, one which would naturally differentiate itself in the foreign policy realm just as much as the domestic one. Recognizing that this represents an exciting moment for Pakistan to build off of the regional rebalancing strategy begun by the previous administrations and take these moves to their next level, it’s fitting to revisit the author’s original proposal from December 2017 about how “It’s Time For Pakistan To Join The Eurasian Development Bank”, which takes on an increased importance in the present day.

Pakistan is expected to continue enhancing its strategic relations with Russia, but their expanding military, energy, and diplomatic cooperation is missing the crucial real-sector economic component that only membership in the Eurasian Development Bank can advance. Russia needs to become a stakeholder in Pakistan’s overall success, and providing multilateral financing solutions to its forthcoming developmental projects would be the fastest and most mutually beneficial way of achieving that. Although the process of joining the regional bank might take a few years, it would unprecedentedly signal the first time that a state outside of the former Soviet Union expressed a serious interest in membership.

This alone is bound to attract the attention of all manner of Russian decision makers who are already eager as it is to expand their country’s influence beyond its traditional spheres, and it might also appeal to their Pakistani counterparts who are keen to diversify their sources of future financing. Because of the bank’s focus on infrastructure, there’s a perfect complementarity between President Putin’s vision of Eurasian integration and Prime Minister-elect Khan’s of domestic development, and the corresponding membership talks could most immediately serve as a pivotal platform for bringing together both countries’ elite to discuss the prospects for further economic cooperation.

The “gateway effect” that this could gave might be an actual game-changer in the Russian-Pakistan rapprochement by showcasing the South Asian state’s investment potential and resultantly incentivizing its northern partner to make a tangible commitment to its success. In addition, the Eurasian Development Bank could also give Pakistan the opportunity to strengthen its relations with the organization’s three Central Asian members and lay the groundwork for the blossoming of ties with each of them that would naturally occur if a Russian-Pakistani trade corridor through the region was ever commenced. It’s therefore in Pakistan’s best interests that the incoming government seriously considers approaching the Eurasian Development Bank and exploring the possibility for membership.

*

This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

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

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The Satanic Nature of the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

By Prof. Edward Curtin, August 06, 2018

When on August 6 and 9, 1945 the United States killed 200-300 thousand innocent Japanese civilians with atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they did so intentionally.  It was an act of sinister state terrorism, unprecedented by the nature of the weapons but not by the slaughter. The American terror bombings of Japanese cities that preceded the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – led by the infamous Major General Curtis LeMay – were also intentionally aimed at Japanese civilians and killed hundreds of thousands of them. 

Hiroshima: A “Military Base” according to President Harry Truman

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, August 06, 2018

Did you know that  Hiroshima was a “military base”, and that when the first atomic bomb was dropped on two of Japan’s heavily populated area in August 1945, the objective was, according to president Truman was to save the lives of innocent civilians?

The Bombing of Nagasaki August 9, 1945: The Un-Censored Version

By Dr. Gary G. Kohls, August 06, 2018

73 years ago, at 11:02 am on August 9^th, 1945, an all-Christian bomber crew dropped a plutonium bomb, on Nagasaki, Japan. That bomb was the second and last atomic weapon that had as its target a civilian city. Somewhat ironically, as will be elaborated upon later in this essay, Nagasaki was the most Christian city in Japan and ground zero was the largest cathedral in the Orient.

The Real Reason America Used Nuclear Weapons Against Japan. It Was Not To End the War Or Save Lives.

By Washington’s Blog, August 06, 2018

Even military officers who favored use of nuclear weapons mainly favored using them on unpopulated areas or Japanese military targets … not cities.

For example, Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy Lewis Strauss proposed to Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal that a non-lethal demonstration of atomic weapons would be enough to convince the Japanese to surrender … and the Navy Secretary agreed.

Secret Meeting on the Privatization of Nuclear War Held on Hiroshima Day 2003

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, August 05, 2018

At no point since the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945, has humanity been closer to the unthinkable – a nuclear holocaust which could potentially spread in terms of radioactive fallout over a large part of the Middle East.

All the safeguards of the Cold War era, which categorized the nuclear bomb as “a weapon of last resort”, have been scrapped. “Offensive” military actions using nuclear warheads are now described as acts of “self-defense”.

Hiroshima Child

By Nazim Hikmet, August 06, 2018

All that I need is that for peace
You fight today you fight today
So that the children of this world
Can live and grow and laugh and play

The Lies and Crimes of Hiroshima

According to President Harry Truman, Hiroshima was a military base.

“The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base.

That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians”.

The lies of “collateral damage” underlying humanitarian warfare.

From Truman to Obama and Trump

I come and stand at every door
But none can hear my silent tread
I knock and yet remain unseen
For I am dead for I am dead

I’m only seven though I died
In Hiroshima long ago
I’m seven now as I was then
When children die they do not grow

My hair was scorched by swirling flame
My eyes grew dim my eyes grew blind
Death came and turned my bones to dust
And that was scattered by the wind

I need no fruit I need no rice
I need no sweets nor even bread
I ask for nothing for myself
For I am dead for I am dead

All that I need is that for peace
You fight today you fight today
So that the children of this world
Can live and grow and laugh and play

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Israel is Washington’s largest recipient of foreign aid. It’s mostly for militarism and belligerence – billions of dollars annually, far more than to any other nation.

The Jewish state’s imperial wars, occupation harshness, and apartheid high crimes don’t matter – nor its flagrant violations of international law, not even its abusive spying on US military and other operations.

The CIA earlier called Israel its main regional spy threat. The FBI once uncovered a large-scale US-based Israeli spy ring – still active the agency believes.

The Pentagon accused Israel of “actively engag(ing) in military and industrial espionage in the United States.”

Israel tries stealing everything it can get its hands on, including US military and industrial secrets, its main ally and benefactor.

The FY 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes $500 million for US-Israel missile defense cooperation, $50 million more for the Jewish state’s war on Gaza’s tunnel economy, wanting vital goods it supplies cut off, further strangling its beleaguered people.

The measure authorizes an additional billion dollars to stockpile US weapons in Israel – available for its killing machine, used to terrorize Palestinians, to terror-bomb Gaza and Syria, to partner in Washington’s imperial aggression.

Like America, Israel’s only enemies are invented ones, no others. Both nations wage endless wars without declaring them.

For the first time, the FY 2019 NDAA establishes a cooperative US/Israeli R&D program to enhance countering unmanned aerial vehicles.

On August 1, Senate members passed S. 2497: United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018 – unanimously without a roll call vote. Rubber-stamp House passage is certain.

The measure amends the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act and Arms Export Control Act. It authorizes additional funding for Israel’s killing machine, “and for other purposes” related to militarism and warmaking.

Congressional support for Israel is virtually unanimous. Both countries partner in each other’s high crimes.

New US funding for the Jewish state’s killing machine increases the Obama regime’s 2016 $38 billion package through 2026 – $3.8 billion annually, up from $3.1 billion a year earlier.

Most often, whatever Israel wants it gets – from the pockets of US taxpayers.

They’re largely unaware how their taxes are misused – for militarism, war-making and corporate handouts at the expense of social justice and other vital homeland needs.

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Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the CRG, Correspondent of Global Research based in Chicago.

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John Bolton, Trump’s veteran neocon national security adviser, told Fox News the US had nothing to do with the explosive drone attack during an appearance in Caracas that injured several people but left Maduro and his entourage untouched.

“I can say unequivocally there was no U.S. government involvement in this at all. If the government of Venezuela has hard information that they want to present to us that would show a potential violation of U.S. criminal law, we’ll take a serious look at it, but in the meantime I think what we really should focus on is the corruption and oppression in the Maduro regime in Venezuela,” said Bolton during an interview with Chris Wallace.

The Latest: President Donald Trump's national security adviser says the U.S. played no role in the apparent assassination attempt on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. https://t.co/l20pCum1GO

— The Associated Press (@AP) August 5, 2018

Only if you suffer from amnesia or lived under a rock for the last fifteen years would you believe this verified liar and terrorism conspirator. I’m not sure how many Americans believe Bolton’s denial, but considering the citizenry’s regrettable history of being taken in by lies and gross fabrications it is fair to say millions will believe their government wouldn’t do such a thing—never mind the obvious (if you bother to notice) Pilate stones strewn about in plain sight that tell a quite different story.

John Bolton can make such denials because the American people are ill-informed and many are quite frankly political retards. It’s more than intellectual laziness. Most Americans have been trained in government schools to accept unquestioningly a largely fictional history of the United States, especially in regard to foreign policy. Millions more wouldn’t be able to find Venezuela on a map.

After the people of Venezuela voted in the socialist Hugo Chávez in 1998, the US tried to foment a coup. This isn’t a secret. The coup attempt of 2002 was reported by The Guardian and other media outlets. It was revealed the US Navy had cooperated with the coup plotters and evidence emerged “of US financial backing for key participants in the coup,” Duncan Campbell wrote for the British newspaper.

“In Caracas, a congressman has accused the US ambassador to Venezuela, Charles Shapiro, and two US embassy military attaches of involvement in the coup,” Campbell continues.

“Roger Rondon claimed that the military officers, whom he named as (James) Rogers and (Ronald) MacCammon, had been at the Fuerte Tiuna military headquarters with the coup leaders during the night of April 11-12…

“In the past year [2001-2002], the United States has channeled hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to US and Venezuelan groups opposed to Mr Chavez, including the labor group whose protests sparked off the coup. The funds were provided by the National Endowment for Democracy [NED], a nonprofit agency created and financed by the US Congress.”

NED has specialized in overthrowing governments for over 30 years. It might be considered a CIA contractor.

“To maintain appearances, it has been agreed that, as a general rule, CIA agents and former agents could not be appointed to the board of directors,” writes Thierry Meyssan.

“Most high officials that have played a central role in the National Security Council have been NED directors. Such are the examples of Henry Kissinger, Franck Carlucci, Zbigniew Brzezinski, or even Paul Wolfowitz; personalities that will not remain in history as idealists of democracy, but as cynical strategists of violence.”

Former CIA boss and leading neocon James Woolsey admitted the US works to overthrow foreign governments. During an interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News, Woolsey laughed about overthrowing governments and killing people.  He said the US engages in subterfuge and murder “only for a very good cause.” 

There was another coup attempt in 2015 and this also failed.

After Donald Trump—who said during the presidential campaign he opposed interventionism—was elected his former oil corporation CEO secretary of state went down to Argentina and rallied South American countries—doubtless with the standard bribery technique—to support a coup in neighboring Venezuela, which coincidentally has the largest oil reserve in the world. It is estimated at more than 300 billion barrels. Venezuela also has an estimated 513 billion barrels locked up in the Orinoco Belt oil sands.

“Tillerson met with Argentine Foreign Minister Jorge Faurie. In a press conference, they both agreed on promoting regime change in Venezuela and declared that they were studying the possibility of sanctioning Venezuelan oil, prohibiting its sale or refining in the U.S., but feared that it would hurt citizens, as all other imposed sanctions already do,” the multi-state funded Telesur television network reported.

Within the last 12 months, US Vicepresident Mike Pence made 3 trips to Latin America to meet at least 8 presidents from whom he demanded support for a military intervention against our brother president of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro. Those are the Empire's coup attempts.

— Evo Morales Ayma (@evoespueblo) August 5, 2018

Due to falling oil prices and the inevitable failed policies of a socialist government, Venezuela is verging on the status of a failed state.

However, the situation has been made worse by sanctions denying access to US capital markets after Maduro was re-elected. Several executive orders were signed by Trump, including one designed to destroy a digital currency—appropriately titled the Petro—Venezuela engineered for oil transactions with Russian assistance. Iran and Russia are also designing cyber currencies to avoid US sanctions.

The latter is a direct and serious threat to the US-imposed international petro-dollar arrangement put into place after the Bretton Woods gold-backed dollar system was chucked by Nixon in the early 1970s.

“In order to ensure their economic hegemony, and thereby preserve an increasing demand for the dollar, the Washington elites needed a plan. In order for this plan to succeed, it would require that the artificial dollar that had been lost in the wake of the Bretton Woods collapse be replaced through some other mechanism,” writes Jerry Robinson.

Now that this artificial mechanism is under serious challenge, the United States is lashing out, primarily at oil producers not part of the neoliberal club—Russia, China, Iran, and Venezuela. Meanwhile, Trump has a soft spot for the war criminal head-choppers in Saudi Arabia.

The US will continue its efforts to unseat the democratically-elected Nicolás Maduro and grab control of the world’s largest bounty of petroleum. Trump has an assignment handed down from on-high by the elite—forget Obama’s softball approach, the US is moving to violently ensure its control over the global economy.

In Venezuela this will not be much of a problem.

However, it’s a different story with Russia and China. Both nations are bristling with nukes. Invasions and coups will prove to be a deadly fool’s errand and may result in a nuclear winter that will make who owns the international petro-based economic system irrelevant.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Another Day in the Empire.

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It is not skepticism that is at fault for science’s lack of movement into the future… It is fear, conservatism, and dogmatism. It is pseudoskepticism which clings to a scientifically disproved belief system, a triumvirate of ancient philosophies: materialism, rationalism and naturalism.”  — Ralph Abraham, Professor of Mathematics, University of California-Santa Cruz.

This article will challenge a relatively recent group of Skeptics that identify themselves as the advocates of Science-Based Medicine (SBM), which is not to be confused with the widely accepted approach to decision-making in medical practice known as Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM).  Although SBM’s most vocal leaders are physicians and medical researchers, the group’s origin is more properly found in the growing Skepticism movement, which advocates strict adherence to mainstream science and diligently criticizes alternative and traditional medical systems and therapies as pseudo-science, quackery and enemies of reason.

During the course of over forty-five years I have been an advocate for natural healing and have counselled numerous people in wellness, lifestyle and behavioral modification, nutrition and diet, physical exercise training, and mind-body therapies.  I have witnessed  numerous successes including remission from terminal cancers, reversal of illnesses otherwise assumed to be death sentences such AIDS and Alzheimer’s, autism, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, severe autoimmune and inflammatory conditions, etc.  There is nothing miraculous about any of this. In fact, it is nothing out of the ordinary. We too are skeptics (small “s”), not only concerning divine intervention of phenomena that portends to be miraculous but also the far-out New Age health practices that have never undergone any manner of clinical or scientific scrutiny. However we are also skeptical about what parades around in conventional medicine as being sound-evidence based therapeutic protocols is in our opinion controlled and dominated by private money interests. And we are deeply skeptical and concerned about the serious limitations in the 19th century Cartesian reductionist view of the human body, anatomy and biomolecular activity. This paradigm, which should have been abandoned decades ago, is the one fully endorsed by the Skeptic medical doctors and its small radical faction of Skeptic physicians who market themselves under the banner of Science Based Medicine (SBM).  And it is the same belief system endorsed and promulgated by Wikipedia’s co-founder Jimmy Wales.

What Skeptics criticize as magical thinking and placebo effects, particularly in the eradication of life-threatening diseases by alternative medical modalities or traditional healers, are in fact based upon laws of physics and biophysics that have yet to enter mainstream medical thinking. Much remains unknown or misunderstood with respect to human biology.  And there are certainly innumerable physical laws, for example the field of “quantum entanglement” between mind and matter or energy that have not been thoroughly theorized. Yet the evidence is conclusive that further research in biophysics to understand the principles behind alternative medical systems that Skeptics don’t and refuse to understand and appreciate is warranted. Unlike current medical science, even Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) strategies, quantum mechanics is a far more verifiable science. And this research is especially critical because conventional medicine continues to fail to meet its promises to patients; it is too costly for a growing number of people, and it is far too compromised by corporate profits and junk research to provide any assurances for a better future in healthcare and medical intervention. Nevertheless the positive results of nonconventional and traditional medical systems and Alternative and Complementary Medicine (CAM) cannot be debunked nor dismissed easily by Skeptic’s amateur and irrational arguments and biased assessment of their personal beliefs.

Although Skeptics repeatedly chant the mantra that reason should be the sole means to determine the efficacy or failure of a medical intervention, their arguments are in fact surprisingly irrational and often comical.  On the one hand, SBM followers acknowledge the health benefits of a wholesome diet; yet they oppose functional nutrition therapies, especially supplement and herbal regimens as a means to prevent and treat disease. Because they have completely bought into biotech agriculture, they see no benefit to consuming organic foods. Genetically modified crops are in their estimation superior or a least “substantially equivalent.” They argue that alternative medicine, particularly naturopathy and homeopathy, costs lives, either due to these natural therapies themselves or because these therapies divert people away from receiving conventional medical attention. At the same time Skeptics downplay and more often completely ignore the deaths of hundreds of thousands of patients annually from iatrogenic injuries due to their own profession’s overreliance upon pharmaceutical drugs, excessive radiation exposure and unnecessary surgery.

But perhaps our favorite is SBM’s incessant diatribe that the countless successful treatments from natural and alternative therapies, which has been used for several millennia, are nothing more than placebo effects. Worse, the placebo effect is framed as a terrible thing although it has been intrinsic to healing since humans first made efforts to treat disease and illnesses. In fact, the dichotomy lies in the fact that these same Skeptics oppose mind-body and energy therapies, which are anathema in organized Skepticism. Nevertheless integrative medicine follows psycho-physical principles analogous to the placebo effect. It follows the powers of the mind that have been shown repeatedly that health can be improved through beliefs, expectations, social relationships and even faith.  The importance of positive thinking and beliefs are the underpinnings of placebo effects.

And there is more.  Double-blind clinical trials are considered the gold standard, but here too scientific evidence shows that such trials are intrinsically biased as well. In one study, both doctors and patients were asked to guess whether they had received the real drug or the placebo. One would expect that responses would be 50 percent correct. However, 80 percent of patients and 87% of doctors answered correctly. This clearly indicates the presence of pre-conditioned biases play some kind of role in shaping clinical results, although the scientific mechanism involved is not fully understood. It may also explain disagreements between the results of clinical trials on the same drug. For example, some trials show the popular anti-depressant drug Prozac slightly better than placebo whereas several show Prozac is no more effective than placebo.  In the case of clinical trials for vaccines, no proper inert placebo is used at all. Rather a placebo is basically the vaccine minus the viral component.

Reality supersedes scientific verification and validation. Truths exist as such before any form of analysis is undertaken, even before we are capable of fully understanding the underlying principles of what is being investigated.  There may be varying opinions about the underlying psycho-biological mechanisms of the placebo effect and its opposite the nocebo effect. However, the fact that both placebo and nocebo effects exist is irrefutable. Multiple studies prove that when we are subjected to fear, terror, apprehension, sadness, depression, etc, it has an immediate negative impact upon our biochemistry.  Likewise, when we experience joy, happiness, comfort or bliss there is a positive biochemical response. Recently, a flurry of peer-reviewed studies have been published that measure the positive impact of Nature’s “greening effect” upon our physical health and mental well-being. Independent medical research is rapidly verifying these natural ways to rejuvenate and strengthen our health and immune systems. There is no financial incentive for federal health agencies and large pharmaceutical and medical device firms to fund research to better understand our inherent human capabilities to heal ourselves nor the positive effects the natural environment has upon physical, emotional and mental health. The scientific evidence proving these phenomena cannot be manufactured, bottled and sold. Yet as Dr. Rupert Sheldrake observes,

“it is important to remember that animals and plants have been regenerating after  damage, heal themselves and defending themselves against infections throughout the entire history of life on earth. All of us have descended from animal and human forebears that survived and reproduced for hundreds of millions of years before the advent of doctors. We would not be here if it were not for our ancestors’ innate capacities to heal and resist disease.”[1]

Researchers in the neurocognitive sciences and immunology have uncovered reproducible evidence that what we think and feel triggers biological changes. We no longer need further proof that this occurs. What we do need to explore are the underlying physical laws that contribute to these changes. However as Dr. John Ioannidis at Stanford University’s Prevention Research Center argues, it can take upwards to three decades for ground-breaking discoveries in the health sciences to eventually reach the attention of mainstream medicine. And most such discoveries are forgotten altogether.

For example, if an elderly person forgoes the influenza vaccine but lives a remarkably healthy life, eats plenty of fresh produce, takes supplements, exercises and daily meditations for stress reduction and doesn’t come down with the flu, Skeptics will argue that the person was lucky because she or he was not exposed to the virus. If the same person receives the flu shot and doesn’t become ill, then Skeptics say it is 100 percent due to the vaccine’s efficacy. Or, in recent years a gradual decline in cancer mortality rates has been observed. Simultaneously, more people than ever before take natural supplements daily, eat organic produce, visit alternative health practitioners and make positive steps to change lifestyle behaviors.  According to an earlier survey conducted by the federal National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, 69 percent of patients did not inform their primary doctors about their personal use of supplements and herbs nor receiving a nonconventional medical therapy. Therefore, is the falling mortality rate due to earlier clinical diagnosis, better chemo drugs and oncological medical intervention or is it because people are naturally strengthening their immune systems to fight cancerous cells? Skeptics can only answer these questions if they deny the healing capacity of our inherent mind-body relationship, which they categorically do.

The fundamental dichotomy underlying the entire SBM ideology is that prior scientific plausibility ultimately trumps scientific evidence. In an earlier essay we noted that SBM supports Evidence-Based Medicine while also correctly recognizing EBM’s shortcomings. For example, many Cochrane Collaboration reviews of certain prescription drugs or classifications of drugs, vaccines, supplements and herbs will conclude that the clinical evidence to support efficacy claims is weak or the clinical trials were not sufficiently robust and therefore further research is recommended. Rather, in the SBM universe, further research should be discarded altogether because “prior plausibility” and reason should dictate that there is nothing worth pursuing or funding. One criticism SBM’s founders Steven Novella (Yale neuroscientist specializing in botox injections) and David Gorsky (oncologist and professor of surgery at Wayne State University) have against randomized clinical tries is that “prior plausibility” is underemphasized.[2]  The fallacies in this line of thinking are numerous, but two stand out: 1) SBM’s belief that “prior plausibility is deeply “rooted in science” and 2) the dogmatic hubris that we can rely upon our rational faculties to make precognitive judgments about what is medically effective or not. In the Skeptics’ reinterpretation of human biology, there are no more mysteries to be solved and studied. All we need are better drugs and conventional therapies and more patients placing their complete faith in their physicians and their professional expertise dictated by the corporate medical establishment’s dominant paradigm.

In a damning Guardian opinion editorial critique about Richard Dawkin’s BBC special “Enemies of Reason,” a two-hour assault on religion and non-conventional medicine, Dan Hind lectures Dawkin’s about his hypocrisy in opining humanity’s entrance into an age of “endarkenment.” Dawkins is the principle architect of the New Atheism and arguably the leading outspoken voice within the global Skeptic movement. He believes that faith based practices, including alternative medical systems, are dangerous superstitions threatening civilization’s future and should be battled against diligently and immediately. He has even called for “guerrilla skeptics” to take faith-based practices to task. Instead, Hind states, Dawkins should put his attention on governments and corporations as the greater evil and the real enemies to human health. Dawkins fails to recognize the inherent darkness and destructive characteristics in the rationale behind the scientific paradigm he holds most dear. In effect, like pharmaceutical corporations who use perfectly rational means to promote irrationality to promote the effectiveness and safety of their products, so does Dawkin’s and his Skeptic followers rely on the illusions of their reason to convince people in accepting their irrational belief system.

A physicist is likely to acknowledge that the paradigm of radical materialism and elementary rationalism upon which SBM is founded is thoroughly false.  It is no longer a realistic nor reliable paradigm for the future prevention and treatment disease. Such a worldview can only call upon new drugs–hopefully a new blockbuster that has been a long time coming–and surgery. Otherwise it has nothing novel to offer.  It is antiquated and scientifically impoverished. It remains imprisoned in a mentality that emerged 400 years ago with Descartes and later Newton. However, SBM’s reliance upon a medieval atomist view of human biology and the etiology of disease (eg. solely the macroscopic scale of biomolecules that can be empirically observed or measured) is slowly being laid to rest with the advent of quantum theory. Looking at medicine from the vantage point of contemporary physics, conventional medicine is far behind the eight ball. Rather than being confined to biomolecular interactions, quantum mechanics has shown we need to start looking at biological functions in the more accurate and fundamental context of force fields, wave-particle dichotomies, and quanta (discrete, indivisible units of energy operating below the body’s cellular level). As biophysicist and neuroscientist Vincent Billock at Ohio State University’s Center for Cognitive and Brain Sciences states,

“Things that do not fit into the existing paradigm are hard to think about.”[3]

And it is with certainty that SBM’s leading voices are simply unable to wrap their minds around biophysical and quantum properties that support the efficacy of many alternative, natural medical systems, such as acupuncture, homeopathy and energy medicine. It is simply outside their profession’s paradigmatic way of thinking.

Quantum mechanics, pioneered by Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrodinger, Werner Heisenberg and others, should have ushered humanity into the post-materialist world. Unfortunately modern medicine, and other sciences hijacked by private corporate interests, have lagged dismally behind. And worse, the Skeptic proponents of SBM are determined to prevent medicine from evolving beyond its current reductionist, materialist perspective. For that reason followers of SBM adamantly oppose funding research that may someday explain why and how alternative healing modalities have been successful for countless people around the world. Consequently Skeptics are the strongest opponents of the growing trend in CAM therapies entering medical school curriculums.

SBM followers are adamant that only clinical research published in the more prestigious peer-reviewed journals should award credibility. However, according to Richard Horton, the editor-in-chief of The Lancet,

“much of scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue.”

Many notable physicians and professors of medicine have noted the dire state of clinical research appearing in professional journals, including former chief editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Marcia Angell (now at Harvard Medical School). In Angell’s estimation,

“It is simply not possible to believe much of the clinical evidence that is published.”[4]

She also worries about the enormous financial interests and influence drug companies have with medical school faculties.[5]  The integrity of medicine is being completely lost and SBM Skeptics’ denial and failure to put more attention towards this trend and simply continue with its witch hunts against natural health displays an arrogance that shows deep disregard towards public health.

The debate over the conflicts-of-interest between pharmaceutical corporations and clinical physicians, which jeopardize proper healthcare, has waged for decades. In a series of 1986 correspondences published in the journal Science, then chief editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Arnold Relman, debated Princeton economist Uwe Reinhardt about the crisis in medical ethics and how physicians’ values are being compromised within a profit-driven healthcare system. Reinhardt’s challenge to doctors, which is remarkably similar to the charges Skeptics level against CAM and natural health practitioners, is that doctors are and have always been businessmen.”[6]  Two decades later, Dr. Angell would concur since physicians are now completely dependent upon the Corporate Medical Complex. She writes,

“Drug companies are investor owned businesses with a responsibility to maximize profits for their shareholders. That is quite different from the mission of the medical profession, which is to provide the best care possible for patients.”[7]

The majority of clinical evidence published in the peer-review literature, according to a 2007 survey conducted by the British Medical Journal, is of “unknown effectiveness” or “likely to be ineffective.”  Only 15 percent of treatments approved by the UK’s Health Services were definitely “beneficial” and 22 percent were “likely to be beneficial,” leaving the remaining 63 percent as basically useless.[8]

Skeptics repeatedly argue that more evidence is necessary before they will accept the validity of a natural supplement or herb. Homeopathy and most acupuncture claims are rejected outright. But how much evidence is required. The SBM doctrine was founded in 2008, yet throughout the decade of its existence, the rhetoric has remained the same; more evidence and still more evidence is needed. And this is irrespective of the thousands of published peer-reviewed papers that accumulatively merits CAM and natural health therapies. Conversely, the mounting evidence against the safety and serious health threats of products SBM Skeptics support within their materialist paradigm are aggressively refuted. For example, at this moment, the carcinogenic risks due to exposure to Monsanto’s glyphosate herbicide is being reviewed and ruled in the European Union court. The evidence against the chemical’s safety is enormous, and the EU court has ruled that testimonies from farmers dying from glyphosate exposure will be heard. Is more evidence necessary? Skeptics argue it is because religious faith in a scientific paradigm prohibits them from budging an inch from coveted pseudo-scientific beliefs in the agro-chemical GMO paradigm. Is this not utterly irrational?

SBM Skeptics become religiously monotheistic when the only measure to determine the health of person is that which can be medically supervised and validated by clinical or cohort statistics.  Whether we follow a meat- or plant-based diet, eat organic or chemically laced foods, supplement our nutritional needs when we are deficient, or make concerted efforts to reduce life’s stresses, is irrelevant to Skeptics. Nevertheless, every positive choice we make has a positive result. The full measure of the scientific evidence shows that all these choices have a direct impact upon the state of our health and our longevity. Yet the only personal choice that matters to SBM Skeptics is the medical choice we make, whether to completely adhere to the full advice of our allopathic doctor or follow our magical thinking and become seduced into following an alternative health protocol or therapy. For Skeptics, such as Dawkins, Novella and Gorsky, and Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales redemption and salvation are only found in our conversion to the pharmaceutical regime that now dictates our destitute medical paradigm.

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Richard Gale is the Executive Producer of the Progressive Radio Network and a former Senior Research Analyst in the biotechnology and genomic industries.

Dr. Gary Null is the host of the nation’s longest running public radio program on alternative and nutritional health and a multi-award-winning documentary film director, including Poverty Inc and Deadly Deception.

They are frequent contributors to Global Research.

Notes

1  Sheldrake, Rupert.  Science Set Free: Ten Paths to New Discovery. Random House: New York, 2012

2  Gorski DH, Novella SP. “Clinical trials of integrative medicine: testing whether magic works?”  Trends Mol Med. 2014 Sep;20(9):473-6. 

3   Manzotti, Riccardo. The Spread Mind: Why Consciousness and the World are One. OR Books: New York, 2018

4   Novella, S. “Deconstructing Homeopathy Propaganda” August 17, 2016   https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/deconstructing-homeopathy-propaganda/

5  Angell, Marcia. The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It.  Random House: New York, 2004

6   Culliton BJ.  “Medicine as business: are doctors entrepreneurs.” Science. 1986 Sep 5;233(4768):1032-3.

7  D’Arcy, Moynihan R.  “Can the relationship between doctors and drug companies ever be a healthy one?”  PloSMed. 2009 Jul 21;6(7):e1000075. 

8  Kirsch I.  The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth. Bodley Head: London, 2009.

Featured image is from MedPage Today.

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On June 8, 1967, U.S. Navy Signalman Joe Meadors was standing watch on the USS Liberty off the coast of Gaza. In an aerial and sea attack on the USS Liberty that lasted 90 minutes, the Israeli military killed 34 U.S. sailors and wounded 174. Signalman Meadors watched the Israeli military almost sink the ship including Israeli forces machine gunning lifeboats.

Fifty-one years later, on July 29, 2018, U.S. military veteran Joe Meadors witnessed another brutal Israeli military action, the violent takeover of an unarmed civilian ship named Al Awda in international waters, 40 miles off Gaza. Al Awda is part of the four-boat 2018 Gaza Freedom Flotilla that began its voyage in mid-May from Scandinavia, and 75 days later arrived off the coast of Gaza. Al Awda arrived on July 29 followed by Freedom on August 3. The two other boats of the flotilla, the Filestine and Mairead Maguire, were unable to complete the voyage due to damages incurred during a storm off Sicily, and maintenance problems.

Meadors said that on July 29, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) appeared when the boat was 49 nautical miles off Gaza. He commented that there were six large patrol craft and four zodiac boats with storm troopers onboard. Meadors said one group of crew and passengers protected the pilot house. The IOF commandoes beat the Captain of the boat, hitting him and knocking his head against the sides of the ship and threatening him with execution if he did not restart the engine of the ship.

Photo of Delegates and Crew on Al Awda (Source: Gaza Freedom Flotilla Coalition)

Four crew members and delegates were tasered by IOF forces. One crew member was repeatedly tasered on the head and neck and a delegate was also tasered repeatedly. Both were in dangerous medical conditions after repeated tasering and only semi-conscious during the seven-hour trip to Ashdod.

Image on the right: Dr. Swee Ang (Source: Gaza Freedom Flotilla Coalition)

Renown orthopedic surgeon from the United Kingdom, Dr. Swee Ang, who is about 4 feet, 8 inches and weighs about 80 pounds was hit on the head and body and ended up with two broken ribs. Dr. Swee wrote that:

“After a while the boat engine started. I was told later by Gerd who was able to hear Captain Herman tell the story to the Norwegian Consul in prison that the Israelis wanted Herman to start the engine, and threatened to kill him if he would not do so. But what they did not understand was that with this boat, once the engine stopped it can only be restarted manually in the engine room in the cabin level below. Arne the engineer refused to restart the engine, so the Israelis brought Herman down and hit him in front of Arne making it clear that they will continue to hit Herman if Arne would not start the engine. Arne is 70 years old, and when he saw Herman’s face went ash colour, he gave in and started the engine manually. Gerd broke into tears when she was narrating this part of the story. The Israelis then took charge of the boat and drove it to Ashdod.

Image below: Larry Commodore on his arrival at the Toronto airport after his medical ordeals while in Israeli prison.
(Image by Photo by Audrey Huntley)

Indigenous leader from Canada Larry Commodore was thrown to the deck when he requested to have his passport back before the delegates left the ship and injuring his foot. As he told in The Real News Network interview… when he arrived in Toronto, after processing at the Ashdod dock, he was taken to a hospital where his foot was sewn up. He said he passed out several times during the process.

A few hours after his return to Givon prison, he developed bladder problems resulting from his injuries and had to be re-hospitalized as he could not pass urine. Prison guards did not believe he was injured and forced him to drink more water which resulted in a very uncomfortable bladder. He had to wait 10 hours for a doctor to come to the prison and order that he be taken to the hospital where a catheter was inserted. When he was deported and returned to Canada, he was taken to a Toronto hospital where he received further treatment.

Several delegates were not given their prescribed daily medicines creating dangerous personal health situations for each of them…

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu describes the Israeli military as the most “morale” military in the world. Crew and delegates on Al Awda found that the Israeli commandos and military administrative staff and prison staff were brutal and a bunch of thieves.

Already we have written reports from six delegates that cash, credit cards, clothing and personal items were taken from them and never returned. We estimate that at least $4,000 in cash and numerous credit cards were stolen from delegates. Delegates are cancelling their credit cards upon their return home and will be monitoring whether there are charges from July 29 onward as happened in 2010 when IOF soldiers used credit cards of passengers from the six ships of the 2010 Gaza Freedom Flotilla.

Crew & Delegates on Freedom Flotilla (Source: Freedom Flotilla Coalition)

On Friday, August 3, Israeli commandos stopped Freedom, the second ship in the 2018 Gaza Freedom Flotilla, 40 miles off Gaza. Twelve delegates and crew from five countries have been taken to Givon prison where lawyer and consular visits will take place on Sunday, August 5, postponed from Saturday due to religious observations.

Medical Supplies being loaded onto Al Awda and boxes painted by Naples, Italy artists (Source: Ann Wright)

The Gaza Freedom Flotilla Coalition continues its demand that the State of Israel send to Gaza the 13,000 euros of much needed medical supplies, primarily gauze and sutures, in 116 boxes onboard Al Awda and Freedom.

Why have 12 national campaigns organized the 2018 Gaza Freedom Flotilla? To bring attention to the Israeli blockade and attacks on Gaza.

As Dr. Swee wrote…

“In the week we were sailing to Gaza, they had shot dead seven Palestinians and wounded more than 90 with live bullets in Gaza. They had further shut down fuel and food to Gaza. Two million Palestinians in Gaza live without clean water, with only 2-4 hours of electricity, in homes destroyed by Israeli bombs, in a prison blockaded by land, air and sea for 12 years.”The hospitals of Gaza since the 30 March had treated more than 9,071 wounded persons, 4,348 shot by machine guns from a hundred Israeli snipers while they were mounting peaceful demonstrations inside the borders of Gaza on their own land. Most of the gun-shot wounds were to the lower limbs and with depleted treatment facilities the limbs will suffer amputation. In this period, more than 165 Palestinians had been shot dead by the same snipers, including medics and journalists, children and women.

“The chronic military blockade of Gaza has depleted the hospitals of all surgical and medical supplies. This massive attack on an unarmed Freedom Flotilla bringing friends and some medical relief is an attempt to crush all hope for Gaza.”

Joe Meadors, the U.S. delegate on the 2018 Gaza Freedom Flotilla, puts it plainly and simply:

“Rest assured, Freedom Flotillas will continue to sail. Humanity demands they do.”

Image on the right: Joe Meadors in Palermo, Sicily (Source: Ann Wright)

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Ann Wright is a 29-year US Army/Army Reserves veteran, a retired United States Army colonel and retired U.S. State Department official, known for her outspoken opposition to the Iraq War.

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In Naomi Klein’s framework, The Shock Doctrine is the well-worn strategy of capitalist development in the “shock” mode. Part of this framework contends that in the aftermath of disasters, capitalists will descend, purchasing land and other capital goods at basement bottom prices, using their deep pockets to undercut anything or anyone who would strive to relieve the hardship.  Why? Because disaster is a profit opportunity.  Today it would be difficult to imagine a more perfect example than Puerto Rico.  Triggered by Hurricane María, a Class 4 storm with winds over 155 mph, the disaster had been set in motion long before.

Starting in 1998, US companies operating on the island began leaving after the US Congress abolished section 936 of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, effectively removing Puerto Rico’s business incentives. The led to massive unemployment and depressed wages. Then the 2007 global financial crisis hit Puerto Rico—hard. The government’s solution was for Puerto Rico to fire one-third of the public workforce and sell off the telephone company, highways, and the main airport. Many Puerto Ricans left the island, reducing the tax base and further shrinking the economy.  Yet even this does not tell the whole story.  As Linda Backiel has pointed out, the crisis faced by Puerto Rico is not just due to the two hurricanes—Wall Street and Maria— this human misery is the logical result of five centuries of colonialism.

In 2017, the US Congress passed the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act—PROMESA (a cruelly ironic acronym) establishing the island’s non-elected Fiscal Control Board. Much like the emergency managers imposed on Detroit and other US cities in the throes of fiscal insolvency, PROMESA holds executive power over all of Puerto Rico’s elected officials.

Meanwhile, for years, the vultures known as hedge fund capitalists had been on a spree, purchasing Puerto Rican debt. They fully expected the US government to bail them out if Puerto Rico could not pay them back. PROMESA concluded that even by selling everything in Puerto Rico (schools, hospitals, energy, etc. . . . down to the last coconut), the hedge fund guys could only expect 22 cents on the dollar, maximum. Puerto Rico’s record-breaking insolvency ($120 billion in debt and pension liabilities) created the investment conditions that capitalist entrepreneurs crave.

Then, the worst storm in 80 years hit. Hurricane Maria caused over $95 billion in damages and led to 4,000 deaths. It quickly became an unprecedented human disaster because the destruction of Puerto Rican economy and society had long been underway. After the winds died, Puerto Ricans went days, then weeks, then months without electricity or water. FEMA acted inadequately as expected. Tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans chose to leave the island, if they could. Those remaining made due with many celebrated local efforts, much to the well-deserved acclaim of their amazing “self-sufficiency”. Yet, the devastation was palpable, and not to be relieved by inefficient bureaucracies.

The “shock” then was the US government’s imposition of PROMESA coupled with the physical reality of hurricane Maria. Once circling, the capitalist vultures then landed en masse. True, the beach-front property, land with golf course potential, and other potential profit centers were clear targets. But less noticed was an agricultural gold mine: Coffee.

Coffee contains a drug called caffeine and for this reason alone will forever be in world-wide demand – indeed the recent surge of coffee drinking in China has the major coffee companies ecstatic.  Puerto Rican agriculture is grounded—so to speak—by coffee (second only to sugar, historically). The Coca Cola Company moved on this resource many years ago, purchasing classic Puerto Rican brands of coffee and establishing the “Puerto Rico Coffee Company” which is not a Puerto Rican company at all, but rather a wholly owned entity of the Coca Cola Company.  Furthermore, in a previous time, Puerto Rican coffee was coffee grown and processed in Puerto Rico. But no more.  Coca Cola proudly announces that on the back of their packages that their coffee is made with “café puro de Puerto Rico y puro importado” (pure coffee from Puerto and pure imported coffee), whatever that means.

The current situation is critical for most of the more than 3000 coffee farms in Puerto Rico. PROMESA made their costs higher and their profits lower. Maria destroyed many of their farms. Many coffee growers are elderly farmers with children who see little potential in farming.  They largely live in the island’s mountainous central region. Many of them speak of giving up. The combined pressure of PROMESA and Maria are simply too much to bear. The general population of Puerto Rico is in the same situation, trying to make ends meet before taking the gut-wrenching decision to abandon the island for the US. The situation corresponds almost perfectly to Naomi Klein’s framing of the shock doctrine. Not just waiting in the wings, but actively engaged in taking over the coffee industry, the Coca Cola Company has the deep pockets required to scoop up those farms at bargain basement prices, further expanding their control of coffee production in Puerto Rico.

PROMESA made their costs higher and their profits lower. Maria destroyed many of their farms. Many coffee growers are elderly farmers with children who see little potential in farming… Many of them speak of giving up.

There is something of a beacon in this storm. A rejuvenated, largely young population has taken up the banner of agroecology—both its productive philosophy and political perspective. From the new farms springing up in pockets across the island, to urban spaces converted to gardens, to school gardens, alternative and organic production is spreading.  Also, the small farmer organization Boricúa takes on agroecology’s political position that the transformative goal is not just promoting rational agriculture, but additionally challenging the practice and organization of the irrational industrial model. This means both an active penetration into the coffee sector by the new agriculturalists and a vigorous challenge to the increasing dominance of the Coca Cola Company.

     What new forms of organization are needed to make the new farmers into the next generation of coffee producers?

Struggling, mainly elder, traditional coffee producers need to get together with the new generation of farmers in the celebrated farmer-to-farmer framework to discuss why coffee farmers are losing their land and why the new farmers can’t get land.  Why is the culturally important activity of coffee production, processing, and marketing being taken over by a mega agroindustry without Puerto Rican roots?  They need to collectively ask how new forms of land ownership, harvesting technology, and marketing can benefit the small-scale producers. Indeed, what new forms of organization are needed to make the new farmers into the next generation of coffee producers? If not, Puerto Rico’s most significant agricultural product, both in terms of the potential for markets to support the growth of the new and independent agricultural sector, and in terms of its cultural significance, will be lost to one of the worst players in the industrial agrifoods complex.

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Featured image is from the authors.

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A new chapter in the history of the South African working class was opened in Soweto on 21-22 July 2018, when representatives from over 147 South African working-class formations represented by 1000 delegates assembled to unite workplace and community struggles.

It made huge strides forward to lay the foundations for building a new, independent, democratic and militant mass working-class movement to turn the tide against the attacks on jobs and living standards which are pushing more and more South Africans into poverty and despair.

This assembly of the working class, rural poor, the downtrodden and marginalized brought together formations that have never met under the same roof before. It was historic and unprecedented that 147 formations of the working class would meet as equals with mutual respect of one another and in search of a common ground.

This Working Class Summit (WCS) was characterized by a commitment to unite working class formations, the employed and unemployed workers, those in the informal sector and in more secure work, the students and the landless, the homeless and those fighting against the water crisis and the scourge of violence against women and children, into mass campaigns to struggle for a truly free, just, democratic and equal society.

As SAFTU President Mac Chavalala said in his rousing keynote speech:

“As the working class we have been on a junk status for far too long. We are not here to moan but to announce a radical and revolutionary programme that will unite ourselves behind common demands and mass programme of mobilization.

“Our warning to all those who seek to keep the status quo is simple – the holiday is over! From now going forward, we will engage you in the streets and the boardrooms.”

Capitalism is the Common Cause of Our Misery

The Working Class Summit not only endorsed the binding principles around which it will unite such as anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-patriarchy and anti-xenophobia, but unanimously agreed that capitalism is the common cause of the misery experienced by the majority.

There was unanimous agreement that the working class movement must be independent and adopt a bottom up approach to democracy. In that regard the Working Class Summit agreed to build the working class power in every workplace, in every community and society in general to defeat the logic of capitalist accumulation that has not only pauperized workers across the continent but it has caused the widest inequality and deepest poverty ever recorded in the history of humankind.

It was resolved to convene working class assemblies across the country, in cities and towns, factories and farms, townships and informal settlements to deliberate on how to unite struggles of the poor. South Africa is the protest capital of the world but these struggles have tended to remain localized and movements fragmented. A special appeal was made for trade unionists to become active in these struggles because they are members of communities before they are unionists. In this way, the foundations of the all-important unity of the working class can be established.

The Working Class Summit recognized that the crisis of the system, in which the working class and poor are the primary victims, is caused by capitalism and the policies implemented by the ANC government since 1994. The working class and poor do not have representatives in government. In the 2019 elections, we must have alternatives to the existing parties who govern on behalf of the ruling class. The working class and poor need their own representatives.

The Summit broke into commissions, which debated all the main issues affecting the lives of the majority of our people and adopted a programme to take the struggle forward.

The leadership of all 147 formations who formed part of the Working Class Summit will be convened soon to finalize a programme that will carry forward the decisions of the Summit.

These are the main points from each commission.

1. The Economy, Jobs, Poverty, Inequality and Corruption

The capitalist crisis has deepened since 2008. This marks the failure of neoliberalism implemented since 1980s, including privatization, casualization attacks on labour. Deindustrialization, especially in labour intensive sectors such as textiles, proves that capitalism is not capable of solving the plight of the working class.

Africa has been consigned to the periphery of the international economy, as a provider of primary products – minerals and food.

Thus solidarity across the continent and global south, including BRICS, is essential. But we should not be uncritical in our engagement with BRICS, especially where sub-imperialism is manifest. The Chinese model of development cannot be followed uncritically.

Working-class unity is essential if we are to fight back against this crisis. This unity should be on four main planes of struggle: workplace, ideology, political and social.

Neoliberalism divides workers, which should be overcome through working class solidarity.

It was agreed that we must draw on experiences of the 1980s and work hard to overcome divisions within the revolutionary left, accept unity in diversity and acknowledge existence of different tendencies.

Unemployment is the most pressing condition of the working class. In the short-term we demand:

• Reduction of working hours to share work (possibly a 35hr working week).
• Endorse support for the creation of 5 million jobs over next 5 years.
• Five million young people to be placed in education institutions or internships.
• Oppose recent poverty minimum wage and amendments to labour laws.
• Support the three-day general strike and mass occupation of the main cities.
• Strengthen community struggles.
• Reintroduce the demand for Basic Income Grant.
• Social ownership of land.

2. Free, Quality and Decolonized Education

Education is in crisis. The death of a schoolchild who fell into a pit latrine epitomizes this neglect. Access to education for the working class is not guaranteed.

Thousands of students still cannot register at universities despite the policy of so-called free education.

Quality education remains unequally distributed along social class, racial and spatial lines. Private schools are better resourced and managed. Public schools do not even receive the same amount of resources from the state across provinces, areas and schools.

There is a strong legacy of colonialism in the South African education system, a problem which was highlighted by the #FeesMustFall and #OutsourcingMustFall movements at the universities in 2015 and 2016. The content, curriculum and methods still reflect a past we want to leave behind.

Privatization is not the solution to the crisis of the public education system. We see the proliferation of ‘affordable’ or ‘low cost’ private schools, but the control of education by business or the adoption of business principles in state education leads to the commodification of education. Education must be accessible to all not just to those with the money to pay.

We demand that the state release all students in jail (amnesty) and drop all charges aimed at the #FeesMustFall movement. These students were fighting for free, quality decolonized education for all. This is a legitimate struggle. They are not criminals, they are heroes.

Our fight must go beyond reforms. We must build revolutionary educational institutions run by the working class and informed by a working class pedagogy and not by the capitalist state. We must point to the future by preparing for it and giving a glimpse of what it will look like.

3. The National Health Crisis

The Summit acknowledged the collapse of the public health system and the crisis in the private health system. The commission calls for the immediate strengthening of the public health system so that it meets the accreditation criteria of the NHI and warns against further privatization of the health system. The priority focus should be on primary levels of care from households, to clinics to district hospitals in a district health system.

The meeting demanded one single-tier health system based on the principle of social solidarity delivering equitable health care for all. Social solidarity means that those who can pay, contribute to the NHI fund based on their ability to pay though a progressive tax system while health care is provided to all according to need. The commission supports the principle of the single-payer system for efficiency, transparency and strategic purchasing.

It was resolved that community health workers and nurses should be employed in sufficient numbers to provide primary care of a good standard without being overstressed. They should be recognized, accredited and employed formally by the health system for fair conditions of service and remuneration. The commission noted that the CHW and nurses have a critical and fundamental role in the functioning of the NHI and therefore their participation in the decision making on NHI implementation is crucial.

4. Land, affordable housing and service delivery

There must be expropriation without compensation of land, both commercial and farming land, and it must include minerals and agricultural land.

The Summit agreed to mobilize and agitate community members to take up their struggles, with the working class movement playing a leading role.

A militant radical minimum program of action is needed to link all these class struggles, which includes:

• Demand a moratorium on farm evictions.
• An audit on land occupation must continue.
• All evictions that have taken place over the past 25 years should be audited as much as Government delivered houses are audited.
• Trade unions should play a pivotal role in community struggles.
• Decent housing and demand better houses than the RDP.

5. Equality – the struggle for an egalitarian society

We agree that discrimination on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, nationality or identity emanates from the unfolding crisis of capitalism in the country and globally and that the struggle for an egalitarian society is a struggle to overturn capitalism and all its oppressive manifestations and for a socialist society.

The unity of the working class is the best possible way of fighting against entrenched norms of patriarchy and violence against women, children and the LGBTIQ community.

There is a need to coordinate the struggles of marginalized communities and groups so that they become part of the struggles of the working class. We must unite the struggles of all sections of the working class in the country and not just the workers organized in the trade unions.

The Summit declared:

1. Its unreserved solidarity with the Total Shutdown Campaign and adopted as its own the programs, campaign and demands of the campaign.
2. Its full and active support to the campaign through all available channels platforms and resources and pledges its support to mobilizing for the campaign in other working class formations such as trade unions, urban and rural communities so as to expand its reach.
3. Working class organizations such as trade unions and community organizations must take decisive steps to ensure that there is equitable gender representation in their structures and programmes and to establish an action network or a steering committee to take up a concerted campaign against Gender Based Violence and struggles of the marginalized communities.
4. Such a campaign must ensure that women and men fight together side by side against gender based violence and rape, and for gender equality in every sphere of society on a broad range of working class issues such as access to jobs, housing and land.
5. It must organize toward eradicating entirely all forms of cultural or religious practices that perpetuate discrimination and violence against women and the LGBTI community. It must identify the struggles of the LGBTIQ community and other marginalized communities and pledge its solidarity or take up its own campaigns in support.
6. The demands of the campaign must include the campaign for free and unlimited access to sanitary pads for women and girls.
7. The campaign must unite existing movements and working class demands being carried out elsewhere under one banner against patriarchy and violence.

6. Climate and the Environment

The meaning of “a just transition” to a clean environment will be a product of struggle, and it is important for the working class to actively pursue our interests and shape the transition. Capitalist accumulation is the underlying cause of excessive greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.

We are mobilizing for a deep transformation of the current economic system, while at the same time raising workers’ shop-floor concerns. As a united working class, we must stand behind workers on their issues as we transition to a low-carbon economy. Unity of the working class, nationally and internationally, is key to a just transition.

We must create an economy where poverty and inequality are eliminated, and issues of environmental sustainability are addressed. Climate change will destroy any development we have achieved. Indeed the working class already pays the price.

If we are to solve climate change, we must phase out fossil fuels and other high-emitting industries. We have to find a way of reconciling the interests of workers in these and related industries and those of the working class facing the impacts of climate change. Indeed, they are the same people. It does not help us to not have this hard discussion. We can remain defensive and see these workers left behind, or we can take charge of a way forward for them.

There is much work to be done in mine rehabilitation. The WCS support the Million Climate Jobs campaign – to create jobs that assist with climate solutions. We do not endorse “green growth”, which is merely a new opportunity for capitalist expansion. New jobs created must be decent jobs and permanent jobs.

EPWP should be permanent jobs, absorbed into the public sector.

Public goods must not be turned into commodities to be bought and sold. We resist privatization, and call for social ownership and control of our water, electricity supply and natural resources. We could pursue court cases to keep our water out of privatization.

South Africa is already a water-scarce country and climate change is having an impact on our natural water systems: changed rainfall patterns, droughts and floods, and evaporation of water as temperatures rise. This has an impact on all living beings, because water is essential to life.

Electricity supply must be socially owned. The REIPPP programme currently puts electricity supply in private hands, mainly from foreign companies.

We need to solve a low-carbon transport system, which gives the working class affordable, reliable, convenient and safe mobility and access to economic opportunities and must plan for what happens to workers and communities as the fossil fuel sector shrinks.

We need people-centred food production, support smallholder farming for food and not commercial agriculture just growing crops, which are not necessarily for food.

Besides schools feeding schemes, schools should also have food gardens growing healthy, nutritious food.

Pesticides and fertilizers are both a human health hazard and environmentally damaging. They are also made from fossil fuels and create emissions in that process.

7. Mining Industry and Mining-Affected Communities

Mining in South Africa was based on cheap migrant labour, and to a large extent this continues to this day. A racial capitalist system was evolved in which a landless African majority was left with nothing other than their ability to work on white-owned farms, mines and industries.

Working class communities want the nationalization of the commanding heights of the economy including mining. Mines should be expropriated without compensation and co-managed by mine workers and near mine communities as part of a working class revolution. In this process no company should be allowed to do asset stripping in order to subvert or spite the revolutionary process.

Central to our struggle is the impact and effects of capitalist mining exploitation of women workers and women in rural and working class communities and due attention must be paid to their plight so as to effect equal pay for equal work of all workers. If CEOs in South Africa can earn equal salaries with their Australian and Canadian counterparts, there is no good reason for paying South African mine workers less than their Australian and Canadian counterparts – a living wage for all, and equal safe working conditions for all regardless of gender.

There can be no radical revolutionary transformation of society in the interest of the working class if water is polluted and soil and land is poisoned, and only toxic air to breath. It is therefore important to slow down mining so as to minimise its negative impacts, and to preserve our mineral and natural resources for future generations of the working class. It is essential that we insist on water and food sovereignty and security.

We are demanding much more than a just transition, we are demanding a revolutionary transition of society under the control and management of the working class.

We fully support the fourth industrial revolution toward alternative energy and artificial intelligence on condition that this revolution occurs under the leadership, control and management of the working class. In the short term reformist demands as part of mobilizing and educating working class and rural mine affected and impacted communities toward revolution:

1. The right of communities to continuous free, prior and informed consent and the right to say no to mining, and any aspects of the development of a mine throughout its life must be respected.
2. Communities must be provided with a variety of development options, unlike the current situation where the government colluding with mine bosses only offers mining as a development option.
3. Mining is destructive of the environment, of self-sustaining small agriculture, of rural communities and is not environmentally, socially or economically sustainable and compromises community and worker health and safety, given that minerals are finite and therefore mining as route for development should always be the last option, and not the first.
4. Communities must have access to all relevant documents of mine developments affecting and impacting on them must be respected. This includes access to Environmental Impact Assessments, Environmental Management Plans, Social and Labour Plans, Disaster Management Plans, Annual Reports, Tax Documents, Revenue Flow Accounts, Export Figures, diagrams and maps of underground tunnels etc.
5. Communities that have to make way for mining need to be compensated in terms of harvests lost not only for one season’s crops, but for harvests forfeited across the life of mine.
6. Mine affected and impacted communities demand that minerals be processed and turned into manufactured goods locally rather than minerals being exported in raw form.
7. Women mineworkers want the workplace, mine safety gear and clothing as well as technology to be reengineered to make mining safe for women workers. Women workers also want their deployment to be properly thought through with their safety from predatory male behaviour to be guaranteed. Women in the mining workspace should not be particularized. It was further demanded that women should have equal rights to mining jobs rather than there being a minimum quota for women workers as per the current mining charter.

The community struggle against capitalist mining is a class struggle. The government and mine bosses use tribalism and patriarchy to divide and control workers and communities the commission calls for the diminution of the role of chiefs in community consultations and negotiations around mining. A revolutionary society is one of equals without elites, bosses, chiefs or patriarchs.

Managers of mining operations must be held criminally liable for the death of either community members, mine workers, and community livestock due to managerial negligence.

Survival, micro, small and medium scale mining operations must be properly supported, regulated and legislated for by the state. The state must be the sole buyer of minerals produced by such operations so as to eliminate criminal syndicates.

Mine owners and management of mining operations must be held criminally liable for negative and destructive environmental impacts on air, water and soil and community health and safety and for any damage to life and property of communities, including cracked housing, and be forced to pay compensation for such damage.

Abandoned mine dumps and waste should be brought under the control of workers and mine affected and impacted communities for re-mining and rehabilitation purposes thereby addressing the problem of unemployment in such communities.

Communities and mine workers must engage with the South African Police Union (SAPU) and all other progressive unions to understand that capitalist mine managers are frequently in breach of labour law, environmental law and the current bourgeois liberal Constitution and that they should be acted against and arrested. The police too often execute the wishes of mine bosses unquestioningly.

There are on average three community protests a day against capitalist mining in communities and frequent mining strikes. These actions must be coordinated by the revolutionary leadership of the working class.

The revolutionary leadership of the working class must adopt a programme of action with defined time frames to mobilize workers and mine affected and impacted communities around these demands. This must include transitional plans and frameworks toward obtaining these objectives.

8. The Informal Economy

There are two categories of informal workers:

1. Those who have an employer but who are employed informally – like taxi workers
2. Those who are self employed, otherwise known as “own-account”. Where unemployment is high, millions of people turn to own account work to make a livelihood.

Own-account workers are often criminalized or discriminated against, including through confiscation of goods, and eviction from where they work. Their contribution to the economy is not recognized, and they are not treated as people who can think for themselves and come up with solutions to the way our cities work. They are not consulted and end up being forced to go to court to challenge decisions of local government that negatively impact on their livelihoods.

Informal workers have been self-organized for many years, including in other countries. For an example, the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) of India has 1.5 million members. Informal workers demand the recognition of democratic membership based organization, including of own account workers. In South Africa we have two national organizations of informal workers – SAWPA for waste pickers and SAITA for street traders, as well as many local organizations of different sectors.

We also have international organizations fighting for recognition of informal workers. These are StreetNet International and WIEGO. StreetNet International’s slogan is “Nothing for us without us.”

The demands of informal workers that have come up in many different forums in the past are:

1. Full and productive decent jobs for all, including creating socially useful jobs e.g. building school toilets, and an end to the so-called “job creation programmes” that destroy existing work
2. Full and equal participation in planning the economy, housing and services
3. Productive use of public spaces to improve the lives of the users of these spaces – including pavements and parks as places of work
4. Recognition of the multiple taxes paid by informal workers
5. Informal worker organizations to be recognized as stakeholders in negotiations all levels of government, but especially at local government level
6. Urban development must be people centred – not selective “regeneration” for a middle class minority to the exclusion of the majority

The following suggestions were made on steps for formalizing informal work:

1. Registration must be made easier so that own account workers have access to various support programmes
2. Taxes that own account workers pay must be recognized and they must get something back from their contribution to the government budget
3. Informal workers must have access to skills training
4. Where informal workers already have an employer, like taxi workers, and are in fact covered by an existing labour law, this law must be implemented.

It was agreed that:

1. There should be a national Summit of informal worker organizations, supported by SAFTU and this working class movement as a whole.
2. Alliances should be built from local communities upwards. Members of communities are the users of the services that informal workers provide. For an example, there was recently a civil society march in Durban in support of the demands of the street traders.
3. Alliances between formal and informal workers should be built concretely within value chains, e.g. alliances between food factory workers and food vendors, and between chemical workers and waste pickers.
4. Alliances can also be built with municipal workers and other public sector workers e.g. going together to engage IDP processes, and approaching municipal police together.
5. We should have formalized engagements between SAFTU and informal workers as SAFTU is building its provincial, regional and local structures.

9. Conclusion

Our message to hundreds of working class activists across the length and breath of our country is that the time has come to fight for the second liberation to win economic liberation for the working class and unshackle ourselves from the chains and our bondages under which we suffer.

The workers united will never be defeated!

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The United States is going in the wrong direction on a wide range of social, economic and foreign policy issues and people are justifiably upset and angry. One question we are regularly asked is: “What should I do?” In our last two newsletters, we examined the stages of successful social movements to show how movements can progress toward victories. This week, we attempt to answer the question by describing the fifth class of the Popular Resistance School,  “The Roles of Individuals and Movements” and how to be effective at them.

There are many necessary roles in the popular movement at this time, which means there is something for everyone to do. We are at a critical moment when the fifteen core issues of the movement for economic, racial and environmental justice as well as peace are in crisis and people are organizing to solve them.

As we wrote in 2011, during the preparations to occupy Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, on a broad range of issues from taxing the rich to getting money out of politics to strengthening the social safety net and more, there is already majority support. In 2014, Josh Sager demonstrated that while in electoral politics the US appears to be center-right (and shifting ever rightward), the people’s positions are center-left. National consensus for solutions to the crises is growing despite the lack of commercial media coverage.

The necessary ingredients for winning major social changes – national consensus on issues and a mobilized ‘movement of movements’ – are developing, but these ingredients merely create the conditions for change. To realize those changes, we need to understand what the various roles are that people need to take on and how to be effective in those roles by avoiding the pitfalls that could undermine our work toward the society we desire to create.

Four Essential Roles In The Movement

There are four basic roles in a movement and each one is needed. Some people can play more than one role or can move from one to another and some will be most comfortable focusing on one role.  The prominence of each role changes throughout the development of a successful social movement, as the tasks of each stage, differ. People often gravitate toward one role and that can be seen early in life in the way they respond to challenges. Review this list and consider which roles resonate with you.

1. The Advocate or Reformer: The advocate is most drawn to working with those in authority to create change, perhaps through educating legislators, writing policy or using the courts. The movement role played by the advocate is to translate the demands of the people’s movement for the power structure and to act as a watchdog for the movement.
2. The Organizer or Change Agent:  The organizer works to bring people together to solve problems, especially in a way that is empowering such as using horizontal, democratic processes for making decisions. The movement role played by the organizer is to grow the movement and to facilitate coordinated strategic activities.
3. The Helper or Citizen: The helper is typically a more mainstream person who is drawn to providing direct aid to solve problems.  If a neighbor can’t shovel the snow off their sidewalk, the helper will do it. The role that the helper plays in the movement is to show that there is widespread support for the aims of the movement and to bring greater legitimacy to the movement.
4. The Rebel: The rebel is one who is most likely to make a lot of noise about an injustice. When something bad happens, the rebel wants everyone to know and will confront the power holders about it. The role that the rebel plays is to highlight injustice and to take direct action in order to create the tension required for changes to occur.

To be effective, the roles need to be handled in ways that achieve the grand strategy of the movement, i.e. (1) To grow the movement by pulling people toward it, especially people in the power structure. (2) To create unity in the movement so solidarity is strengthened and people work together for common objectives. And, (3) To deepen our understanding of the issues and the solutions to injustices and crisis situations that are needed.

Each of these roles can be played in ways that achieve these strategies or, if done poorly, can undermine the movement. For example, an effective advocate will be accountable to the people in the movement and will represent their views, while an ineffective advocate may start to ally more with the power holders than with the people and might try to convince the movement to compromise in ways that violate their fundamental goals.

An organizer will ideally provide the tools and support that empower people to be creative and to make decisions and take actions that are strategic, while an ineffective organizer will behave in a way that is hierarchical, ordering people to take action and excluding diverse views instead of building consensus for the action. The heads of some non-governmental organizations may come to believe they are the movement, rather than recognizing their power comes from the movement.

The rebel can create conflicts with police or others that repel people and push them away from the movement. Using overly strident tactics can actually empower the police or those in power to crack down on the movement. Done well, the rebel shows courage that becomes contagious. We discussed this and more with George Lakey, an activist who has been involved in many social movements and has trained many activists, on the Clearing the FOG podcast, available here on Mondays.

In particular, Lakey admonishes people to avoid being drawn into conflict by right-wing white supremacists because this will legitimize state suppression of the movement and repel people who are unpersuaded from the movement. There will be a white supremacist rally in front of the White House in Washington, DC on August 12. In response, a coalition of organizations from DC and surrounding states are organizing a celebration of diversity in Freedom Plaza from noon to 5:00 pm. It is our hope that this effort will show support for the movement’s goals without being confrontational in a counterproductive way.

Source: Popular Resistance

We Must Work Together & Use Conflict To Become Stronger

Successful movements are diverse in many ways, including the roles that different people and organizations play. Sometimes people will fail to recognize the value of people who play roles different from theirs in the movement and may, as a result, weaken the movement by attacking allies. A rebel may view an advocate as too supportive of the power structure. An advocate may view a rebel as too radical.

If the people and organizations that play different roles within the movement develop trust and a collaborative relationship, then there will be space to discuss whether the advocate is getting too close to the power holders or the rebel’s actions might be isolating rather than drawing people into the movement. Without that collaboration, the movement may weaken itself through discord.

That said, even the best collaborations will encounter internal conflict. Lakey describes how conflict can be constructive for a movement rather than destructive. Conflict may take a movement that is stagnating and bring it to a deeper level of collaboration. It can bring new energy to the movement when simmering concerns are aired and resolved. Lakey writes:

“People who face strategic hard choices are more likely to come up with creative and wise next moves when the four roles fight it out — fighting fairly while acknowledging differences. The research is clear: Over time, diversity actually does produce the best outcomes. Or at least diversity works when everyone agrees on the bottom line: The role the group plays in the larger movement.”

The most successful tactic of those in power is to divide a movement. So it is essential for a movement to find ways to confront conflict in a constructive way that builds unity rather than sowing division.

A current example of this is the coalition of peace and justice movements that are organizing to oppose President Trump’s military parade in Washington, DC in November, which happens to be the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day (changed to Veteran’s Day in 1954). A number of different groups were organizing responses to the parade. In February, those groups came together to organize in a collaborative way that has space for a variety of actions under a common theme of divesting from war and investing in peace. The website is NoTrumpMilitaryParade.us. You can sign on as an organization or an individual there.

The coalition has written a statement and is asking other organizations to sign on in support. The statement acknowledges the many ways that militarism causes harm at home and abroad. At home, militarism normalizes violence, which results in violence in our communities. Spending on the Pentagon is consuming an increasing proportion of our federal discretionary budget, now almost two-thirds, when those dollars are needed for housing, education, health care, jobs and more. The military is the biggest polluter and user of fossil fuels in the world, contributing to environmental destruction and climate change. All organizations who agree with the statement are invited to sign on. This will be published on August 8, but sign-ons will continue after that. Read the statement and sign-on here.

When we create a movement of movements, which is essential for ultimate victory, we are bringing diverse people and organizations into a coalition together. A coalition adds strength to the movement as people united by a common goal emphasize communication and coordination while respecting each other. Coalitions allow organizations and individuals to participate in ways that are consistent with their unique strengths.

Understanding the roles of individuals and different organizations in a movement is a key to building a successful social movement. One organization or network of individuals cannot do everything. One individual cannot play every role. Organizations and individuals supporting each other, developing strategy and tactics together after listening to different views, creates unity. Solidarity of vision and purpose is what creates a powerful movement.

To answer the question, “What do I do?”: Find your role and find your issue, then get involved either locally or at the state, national or international level. If you are already involved, then understanding how the roles contribute to the goals of the movement may make your work more effective. And whatever you do, know that you are part of a growing movement of movements that has the power to create transformational change.

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Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers are co-directors of Popular Resistance where this article was originally published.

Flowers is also a co-chair of the Green Party of the United States. 

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Cuba is committed to the safe, democratic, and responsible use of the internet, while the government, and in particular Fidel, have continued to promote the development of new technologies and full access to the internet for all citizens.

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In this modern era of cell phones, the internet, and social networks, it is easy to forget that the U.S. has been using communications technologies to attack Cuba ever since the age of shortwave radios and the emergence of television.

The U.S. State Department’s announcement this past January, of the creation of a Cuba Internet Task Force is, therefore, just another scheme in a long saga of Washington’s subversive plans to overthrow the Cuban Revolution.

From psychological warfare propagated by the mass media to unconventional warfare, which has been adapted to the internet age, Cuba has been a test site for U.S. schemes designed to overthrow governments which do not respond to its interests.

However, the competence of Cuban authorities and support of the entire population for the Revolution has meant that these plans were doomed to failure.

March 17, 1960:

Then U.S. President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, approved the so-called Program of Covert Action, designed to destroy the Cuban Revolution. Among other aspects, the CIA was tasked with setting up a radio station broadcasting political propaganda. On May 17, 1960, 1160 khz frequency Radio Cuba Libre (Radio Swan) was picked up for the first time on the island.

September 22, 1981:

President Ronald Reagan signed executive order 12323, establishing the “Presidential Commission on Broadcasting to Cuba,” tasked with developing a recommended plan for radio broadcasting intended for transmission to Cuba, such as Radio Martí.

May 20, 1985:

Radio Martí hits the airwaves for the first time, as part of a plan by the staunchly anti-Cuban Ronald Reagan administration, to launch an illegal radio station able to reach the island and incite a popular uprising against the Revolution.

March 27, 1990:

Following the failure of subversive radio schemes, TV Martí was launched, costing the U.S. taxpayer millions of dollars and violating international norms. Dubbed “the TV no one watches,” the signal was effectively blocked by Cuban authorities across the entire island.

2004:

The Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba or Plan Bush is created by the George W. Bush administration to identify additional ways to hasten an overthrow of the “Cuban regime.”

Regarding technology, the plan proposes, among other things to “Encourage willing third-country governments to create public access Internet facilities in their missions in Cuba.”

Other initiatives included expanding “the distribution of information and facilitate pro-democracy activities,” and “Greater access to these types of equipment” in order to do so.

2006:

The Cuba Fund for a Democratic Future was created, providing 24 million USD worth of funding for anti-Cuban propaganda, including online initiatives.

February 2006:

The U.S. Department of State, headed by Condoleezza Rice, creates the Global Internet Freedom Task Force, specifically aimed at “maximizing freedom of expression and free flow of information and ideas” in China, Iran and Cuba.

July 2007:

President Bush announces the creation of a fourth ‘cyberspace’ army at the Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, designed to maintain the U.S. military’s competitive advantage in this new theater of operations.

December 2009:

U.S. citizen Alan Phillip Gross arrested for bringing illegal communication devices into Cuba as part of a USAID program. In March 2011 Gross was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for “Acts Against the Independence or the Territorial Integrity of the State,” in the Courtroom for Crimes Against State Security of the People’s Provincial Court of Havana. Gross returned to the United States following the announcement of a process of rapprochement between the two countries on December 17, 2014.

March 2011:

Operation Surf, unmasked by State Security agent Raúl – Dalexi González Madruga – consisted of smuggling equipment and software into the country to install illegal antennas to access the internet.

2011:

At the request of Senator Richard Lugar, the most prominent Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Carl Meacham, director of Latin America on the Senator’s political team, met with staff from the State Department, senior foreign diplomats and industry representatives over several months to investigate how social medial and technologies could be used to promote and strengthen what they consider to be democracy in Latin America. In his report Meacham shamelessly praises subversive actions and plan by the U.S. government against Cuba.

March 21, 2012:

The ultra conservative Heritage Foundation attended an event sponsored by Google Ideas, and entitled “How the internet can unfreeze an island frozen in time.”

April 2014:

The ZunZuneo initiative, financed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is launched. The platform was designed as a messaging network similar to Twitter through which thousands of Cubans would receive “non-controversial content” like news messages on soccer, music, weather reports and announcements. However, later subscribers would begin to receive political content aimed at inspiring Cubans to organize mass demonstrations akin to “smart mobs” to destabilize the country.

The Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB) which oversees Radio and TV Martí, launched a service similar to ZunZuneo called Piramideo, an SMS-based social network that would offer the possibility of sending a massive message to members of a “pyramid” at the cost of a single SMS. The objective was to prepare a platform for subversion.

Commotion: A tool developed by the Washington-based New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute (OTI), which was originally intended for military use, to create independent wireless networks. Although there is little to no information on its functioning in Cuba, U.S. government sources speaking to the New York Times noted that millions of dollars had been dedicated to the project.

September 12-13, 2016:

The U.S. government organized the “First Cuba Internet Freedom Conference” headed by the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB) which oversees illegal anti-Cuban radio and television broadcasts. The event brought together “independent” journalists from the island and digital innovators and activists who support the use of new technologies to bring about a regime change in Cuba.

January 2018:

The Trump administration announces the creation of a new Internet Task Force designed to subvert Cuba’s internal order. Composed of government and independent officials tasked with promoting the free flow in information on the island, the initiative is Washington’s most recent attempt to disguise its plans to destabilize Cuba through the use of new technologies.

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Featured image is from Radio Granma.

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A video was revealed on Sunday showing former Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe, telling a group of listeners that Venezuelan soldiers need to “remove” President Nicolas Maduro from office.

The recording was released just 24 hours after two air drones carrying explosives were detonated above President Maduro and several members of his administration on Saturday as the head of state addressed a large crowd at the 81st anniversary of the Bolivarian National Guard in Caracas. Maduro and other Venezuelan officials are saying that right-wing factions in the United States, Venezuelan and Colombia are behind the drone bombs.

In the video the former president and current Congress member says in English:

“I have said this in public, I have said that the Venezuelan soldiers need to remove that government (of Nicolas Maduro), not to establish a military government, but to call for a rapid transition, with democratic and transparent elections.

“When I say that the United States should help promote that decision, it is in private, for us,” Uribe tells the small group of U.S. business leaders at his home in the Rio Negro, Antioquia on Saturday, hours before the failed attack on Venezuela’s head of state.

Soldados de Venezuela en mora de remover a Maduro y su régimen, y que haya elecciones transparentes.

Un nuevo Gbno democrático para que frene la profundización de la crisis humanitaria y evite el terrorismo y el riesgo de más violencia

— Álvaro Uribe Vélez (@AlvaroUribeVel) August 5, 2018

Later on Sunday, Uribe repeated what he said at his home over his Twitter account:

“Venezuelan soldiers need to remove a Maduro and his regimen and hold transparent elections.” He added in his tweet, “a new democratic gov in order to stop the deepening of the humanitarian crisis and avoid terrorism and the risk of more violence.”

It is not the first time that the right-wing Colombian politician has sought military intervention to overthrow Maduro from his presidential post.

In August 2017 during a congressional session Uribe told his fellow lawmakers:

“We think that the Armed Forces of Venezuela, instead of continuing to assassinate the people, they should demand that the ‘tyrant’ step aside. Some say that would be a coup, is not it?”

Uribe is himself under investigation by Colombia’s Supreme Court for bribery and witness tampering in a case against him for allegedly masterminding a violent paramilitary group in his home department of Antioquia while he served there a governor between 1995 and 1997.

The former president has politically groomed incoming president, Ivan Duque, also of the Democratic Center party. The two have long been opposed to the 2016 peace accords reached by FARC and outgoing president Manuel Santos. Duque will be sworn in on Tuesday, August 7.

Colombian media added that the Congress member intends to hold another private meeting at home with US lawmakers attending the this week’s inauguration in Bogota.

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The people of Kosovo were and still are cheering for joy. The European Commission (EC) recently decided that Kosovars won’t need visas any more to visit EU countries. Up to now, getting such visas was a horrendously complicated and bureaucratic procedure, especially hurtful, since Kosovo, with a population of about 1.8 million Kosovars living in Kosovo, has a diaspora estimated at 800,000 to a million, most of them in western Europe. For Kosovars, with close-knit families, 90+ percent Albanian Muslims, being able to visit their relatives and friends is a priority. So, this sudden EU opening up, was a great “gift” and a tremendous relief. – But, at what price? What happened? Why did it happen this turnabout by the treacherous EU?

Let’s go back to a bit of history.

Kosovo, a strategic pivot in the center of the Balkans; a landlocked country surrounded by Montenegro, Albania, Serbia and Macedonia. Kosovo, carved out from Serbia during or after the Clinton Administration invoked war – the infamous 69 days of NATO bombing of Kosovo, following a ten-year period of systematic US-NATO- European vassals’ destruction of Yugoslavia, arguably the most prosperous country in Europe at the time.

You may want to recall, the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, started with the “Ten Days War” on Slovenia in 1991, followed by the Croatian War (1991-95); then the Bosnia War (1992-95); and the Kosovo War (1998-99), culminating with the Clinton induced 69-day NATO bombing of Kosovo, under the leadership of Wesley Clark, head of NATO in Europe. The latter under the pretext of freeing the Kosovo Albanians from Serbian Milosevic’s atrocities.

Of course, how Milosevic was used by the West as a pretext to literally slaughter Yugoslavia, so far hardly anybody has dared to analyze and write about. He was on trial by the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. He was actually awaiting a court decision on his request to subpoena former President Clinton, as a witness, when he was suddenly found dead in his cell on 11 March 2006. The Dutch court coroner immediately certified that Milosevic died a natural death. Strangely, his death came less than a week after the star witness in his trial, former Croatian Serb leader, Milan Babic, was found dead in the same prison. Babic’s testimony in 2002 described a behind the scene political and military command structure headed by Milosevic. Babic served a 13-year prison sentence. His sudden death was said to be a suicide.

Too many Serbs die suddenly in The Hague to be called ‘coincidences’. In October 2015, Dusan Dunjic, a forensic pathologist, was found dead in his hotel room, just hours before he was due to testify as a key defense witness in the trial of the Bosnian Serb and genocidal general Ratko Mladic, who was on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Dutch police said, “we have no reason to suspect that a crime had been committed”. They gave no further detail. Case closed.

This is just to make the point that the murderous and atrocious Balkan wars were western instigated from the very preparation – including through decades long Fifth Column type – infiltration in Yugoslavia’s institutions.

Today, Kosovo lacks recognition from sufficient countries to be considered a “real country”. Kosovo is not member of the UN, because she has only been recognized by 114 of the current 193 UN members. It needs two thirds of UN members recognition to apply for UN membership. Kosovo is, of course, not a member of the EU either, only 23 of the 28 EU countries recognize her as a country. The reasons for it are multiple and complex. But Kosovo, with a surface of 10,900 km2, and less than 2 million inhabitants, prides herself with having already two military bases, one US – a huge one, and a “subordinate” NATO base – what else.

Like all the Balkans, Kosovo wants to get into the EU as fast as possible. But, they are far from even getting onto the “accession” path – which is like the runway to fly into the EU. When you get to accession status, you have pretty much fulfilled all or most of the EU conditions and are now accepted to negotiate. And ‘accession’ is a privilege that, aside from some rather ridiculous EU conditions, depends pretty much on Washington’s use for a country, once it has become part of the overall EU vassalage. Kosovo is no priority. The US military is already there and NATO has a base – so what more is needed for right now? The EU today in many countries is considered identical with NATO.

Kosovo is hungry though, to get into the EU, so hungry, it can be easily blackmailed – and bribed – into accepting almost anything, in order to gain kudos with Brussels. The best blackmail object is visas, or the waiver of visas, particularly to western Europe, where most of the Kosovar diaspora lives – an estimated 800,000 to one million people.

Montenegro, an EU candidate on fast track, NATO member since 2017, is building or expanding a NATO base right at the border to Kosovo. In fact, it requires Kosovo to give up some 8,200 ha of her land to Montenegro, the new ‘demarcation line’ (see map – red areas are Kosovo concessions to Montenegro). According to “Prishtina Insight”, the Kosovo Parliament ratified a few weeks ago the “land concession”, also called the “Demarcation Deal with Montenegro” with 80 votes against 11 opposition. And this amidst several teargas canister explosion episodes initiated by the opposition in Parliament.

This was the deal: Kosovo give up a stretch of 8,200 ha of your land to Montenegro and you will get visa-free entry to all of Europe. Blackmail only the west in its greed and hegemonic drive is capable of exercising over countries. Identifying their weak spots – in the case of Kosovo, the desire to get easy access to their relatives and friends living in Europe, and then hitting them with an “offer” they can’t refuse.

In fact, going by the strict rules of the EU, which can only slightly be bent to accelerate access, lest more ‘honest’ EU members might protest, none of the Balkan countries are complying with the EU access regulation – most of them are far from doing so, for multiple reasons, i.e. drug dealing, high crimes in human and organ trafficking, as well as more down-to-earth environmental conditions.

However, the EU and Washington are pushing for the pretty arbitrary target of 2025, simply because they are afraid that the Balkans may drift eastwards into the realm of Russia and on a larger scale, China. – Most educated Kosovars are much more “awake” than the average European. While intellectually they may know that east is where the future lays, their trauma of being persecuted and killed by the Serbs is still strong and they are leaning towards the west. Ideally, though, what they want is full independence, being able to choose their allies that best suit them, as every sovereign nation should be able to do. Not having to confront the dilemma, ‘you are either our friend or our enemy’ – which is how the west attempts to buy the Balkans’ politicians.

The western push to prepare and forge these former Yugoslav republics into EU-NATO vassals is enormous. Every military base the Balkans allow to be built in return for being integrated into Europe, is for the west a step closer to Moscow – an increased threat for the Kremlin, so the western empire believes. If these new Balkan nations play their cards right, they may have it both ways – becoming EU members, benefitting from EU subsidies and trade advantages, while leaning eastwards to Russia and China, and eventually the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the new Silk Road, China’s One Belt Initiative (OBI), the multi-trillion-dollar equivalent economic development plan, on course to span the world.

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This article was originally published on New Eastern Outlook.

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 21^st 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. 

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In 2015, the UK Government’s Air Quality Expert Group (AQEG) wrote a report citing the increase of national pollution emissions that would be caused by proposed shale development in Britain.

Before the report was finally published this week, Public Health England, UK’s official body for the improvement of the nation’s health and wellbeing, always concluded that “the risks to public health from exposure to emissions from shale gas extraction are low if operations are properly run and regulated.”

Now, the AQEG report warns that

“Impacts on local and regional air quality have the potential to be substantially higher than the national level impacts, as extraction activities are likely to be highly clustered. Studies in the US have shown significant impacts on both local air quality and regional ozone formation, but similar studies have not yet been undertaken for the UK.“

In response, Food & Water Watch and Food & Water Europe Executive Director Wenonah Hauter issued the following statement:

“The apparent suppression of this important report has helped the fossil fuel industry’s plans to turn communities into sacrifice zones. This inevitable industrialisation that goes along with shale development and the need to take the cumulative impacts into account was clearly highlighted in several formal comments against fracking plans in the UK.

“However, the UK Government chose to ignore the known risks and instead, gave companies like Cuadrilla and Ineos the go-ahead for their plans to frack – mostly for plastics.

“The public knows the dangers fracking poses to our clean air and water, and its direct connection to plastic production and waste. Communities in Pennsylvania have already experienced dangerous air and water pollution linked to fracking and plastic production. And now, activists in the UK are taking bold action to protect their communities against these threats.

“Companies like Cuadrilla and Ineos would like to stifle this movement, and the current UK Government has chosen to oppose those advocating for a healthy climate and a livable world. It’s time for the government to do the right thing and revoke Cuadrilla’s and Ineos’s permits in light of the now published evidence.”

Food & Water Watch champions healthy food and clean water for all. We stand up to corporations that put profits before people, and advocate for a democracy that improves people’s lives and protects our environment. Food & Water Europe is the European programme of Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit organisation based in the United States.

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Featured image is from TruePublica.

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Due to the rising trade tension between China and the United States, the trading arm of Chinese state oil major Sinopec has suspended imports of crude oil from the United States, Reuters reported on Friday, citing sources familiar with the plans.

Sinopec’s trading unit, Unipec, has not booked new purchases of U.S. crude oil at least until October, one of Reuters’ sources said. Yet it was not immediately clear how long the suspension of U.S. oil imports would last.

Earlier this year, Unipec had planned to trade up to 300,000 bpd of U.S. crude oil by the end of 2018, which would have been triple the volume of U.S. crude oil that it traded last year.

Amid the ongoing trade war between the United States and China, however, Chinese buyers have scaled down purchases of American oil after China threatened to impose a 25-percent import tax on U.S. energy imports if the United States imposed additional tariffs on more Chinese products.

U.S. energy exports to China may suffer if Beijing follows through with its threat to slap tariffs on U.S. oil and oil product imports.

China has, in recent years, become a key export market for growing U.S. energy exports. In fact, China is America’s second-largest crude oil customer after Canada. Chinese imports of U.S. crude oil in May, for example, averaged 427,000 bpd, more than any other destination and surpassing Canada’s 289,000 bpd imports, EIA data shows.

The possible Chinese import tariff, which would slap nearly $18 a barrel to crude priced at $70 per barrel, has deterred other Chinese companies, including PetroChina, state-run Zhenhua Oil, and independent refiners from importing U.S. crude, Reuters’ sources say.

According to trade flow data by Thomson Reuters Eikon, Chinese imports of U.S. crude oil averaged 334,880 bpd between January and August this year. Yet, only three supertankers are currently sailing to China, carrying a total of just 197,515 bpd of U.S. oil to arrive in September, the trade flow data showed.

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Featured image is from OilPrice.com.

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A Different Demography

The UAE­-Saudi­-led economic and diplomatic boycott of Qatar complicates the Gulf state’s preparations to host the 2022 World Cup, but in no way has the event been derailed. The importation of construction materials needed to build eight stadiums, lay dozens of miles of rail work and erect a brand new city may become more expensive or may take longer to arrive as a result of the boycott, but this should not impair the Gulf state’s ability to complete infrastructures on time.1 “The goods from new supply chains are often more expensive and a lot of contractors are already operating on quite low margins… There’s no doubt that the boycott will put an additional premium on what was already going to be a very expensive World Cup”, cautioned Allison Wood, a Middle East and North Africa analyst with strategy firm Control Risks.2

Deep pockets filled by revenues from gas exports, a $335 billion war chest invested in blue chips, and a remaining four­-year lead time have prevented Qatar’s dream of hosting the tournament from turning into a boycott­-battered nightmare. “There’s a solution for every challenge that presents itself. We work with our contractors to ensure that we can deliver long­-term supply chain solutions and alternatives”, said Hassan al­-Thawadi, the Secretary General of the Qatar World Cup Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy.3

In some ways, if the Gulf crisis were to last another four years until the World Cup, attendance may prove to be a more important issue, and not because Qatar would still be involved in a dispute with its neighbours. The crisis has already become the new normal. Even if it were resolved today, regional relationships will never return to the status quo of before. “This is a wound that has been created for a generation. This will never be forgotten”, noted Qatar Airways CEO Akbar al­-Baker.4

The reason attendance could be an issue is that the demography of fans attending the World Cup in Qatar may very well differ from that of past tournaments. Qatar is likely to attract a far greater number of fans from the Middle East, Africa and Asia whose interests, demands and expectations of experience could differ from those of Europeans and Latin Americans.

Governments in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain, if they were still insistent on maintaining their boycott that involves a ban on travel and the cutting off of all land, sea and air links with Qatar, could find themselves in a sensitive position if they deprived their nationals the opportunity to attend the first ever World Cup held not only in the region but also in an Arab country. How those governments choose to handle this question would have consequences for the nature of the boycott and the status of the complete travel injunction. Qatar has urged the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt to allow their nationals to attend the World Cup. “We separate politics from sports”, Al­-Thawadi said, ignoring the fact that Qatar’s sports strategy is a key part of its soft power policy.5

Sensitivity to fans undoubtedly played a role in the UAE’s decision – within weeks of the declaration of the boycott – to exempt beIN Sports, the Al Jazeera television network’s sports franchise, from the blocking of all Qatari television channels in the country.6 The shuttering of Al Jazeera was one of the UAE­-Saudi­-led alliance’s key pre­-conditions for lifting the boycott on Qatar. beIN holds broadcasting rights for major soccer competitions, including England’s Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, the Champions League, the AFC Champions League, the Asian Cup, the CAF Champions League, and the Africa Cup of Nations. The ban deprived fans of access to broadcasts of the world’s major tournaments. The lifting of the ban came days after Qatar won more than a symbolic victory with a decision by the European soccer body UEFA to award beIN Middle Eastern and North African broadcasting rights for the Champions League and grant it rights for the UEFA Europa League.7

Putting Governance to the Test

The lifting of the ban also served to pre­-empt criticism by soccer fans as well as possible punitive measures by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). The AFC alongside world soccer body FIFA’s African affiliate, the Confederation of African Football (CAF), insisted in June 2017 on almost identical statements with respect to upholding the separation of politics and football. They called on football stakeholders to adhere to the principles of neutrality and independence in politics as “part of the statutory missions” of FIFA and its affiliates “as well as the obligations of member associations”.8 The CAF went on to say that it would be “particularly vigilant as regards respect for these principles of neutrality and independence in all future games played under its aegis”. The federation warned that its committees would monitor developments and take punitive action where necessary. Adherence to the policy proved to be perfunctory at times and unevenly enforced. It suggested that the Gulf crisis was putting already sorely battered global and regional soccer governance to the test.

FIFA set the tone for global and regional soccer governance’s chequered adherence to its own principles by contradicting itself within hours in its response to the Gulf crisis. Asked days after the crisis erupted whether the Saudi­-UAE­-led boycott would impact the 2022 World Cup, FIFA president Gianni Infantino insisted that

“the essential role of FIFA, as I understand it, is to deal with football and not to interfere in geopolitics”.9

Yet, speaking hours later, Infantino waded into the crisis by removing a Qatari referee from a 2018 World Cup qualifier following a request from the United Arab Emirates.10

FIFA, beyond declaring that the decision was taken “in view of the current geopolitical situation”, appeared to be saying by implication that a Qatari by definition of his nationality could not be an honest arbiter of a soccer match involving one of his country’s detractors. The statement amounted to an admission that sports and politics were not separate but indeed inextricably intertwined. On an even slipperier slope, FIFA also appeared to be judging the referee’s level of professionalism based solely on his nationality.

Moreover, FIFA and the AFC were silent when Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain refused to compete in the Gulf Cup, scheduled to be held in Qatar in 2017. The boycott persuaded Qatar to transfer its hosting rights to Kuwait. FIFA President Gianni Infantino, rather than chastising the three Gulf states for involving the sport in politics, commended Qatar for its “honourable gesture” and attended the tournament’s opening match.11 But the world soccer body was silent when on political grounds the Saudi, Emirati and Bahraini squads refused to participate in news conferences in Kuwait in which Qatari media were present.12

The CAF appeared to be somewhat more assertive than the AFC. It warned Egypt’s two top clubs, arch­-rivals Al Ahli FC and Al Zamalek SC, that they could be penalized if they went through with a declared boycott of beIN Sports,13 in response to a statement by the Egyptian Football Association (EFA) supporting Egypt’s participation in the UAE­-Saudi­-led boycott of Qatar.14 Al Ahli and Al Zamalek said they were barring beIN from their premises and news conferences as part of Egypt’s participation in the Saudi­-UAE led diplomatic and economic embargo on the Gulf state.

“The Egyptian FA fully supports the long­-awaited decisions of the political administration against an entity that has repeatedly tried to harm our country. In agreement we call on all Egyptian clubs and their personnel to suspend all activities with the Qatari sports channels on all contracts or in programming in rejection of the Qatari attitude”, the statement said. Acting on its warning, the Cairo­-based African group subsequently suspended and imposed a $10,000 fine on Al Ahli coach Hossam El Badry for first refusing to address a news conference at which beIN reporters were present, then refusing to give beIN an interview, and finally covering beIN’s microphone and trying to prevent it from recording the press conference.15

The incidents in Egypt and Kuwait suggested that the Gulf crisis was likely to leave deep scars, even after Qatar and its detractors ultimately paper over their differences and end the crisis. The likelihood was that Saudi Arabia and/or the UAE would mount a challenge to Qatar’s commercial grip on the Middle East and North Africa’s sports broadcasting market. It would be both a political and commercial challenge, rooted in a fundamental rift that is likely to play out on the soccer pitch as well as in other arenas long after the Gulf crisis is resolved.

Economically dependent on Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Egypt appeared set to play an important role in the creation of a Saudi competitor to beIN. Saudi Media City chairman Muflih Al­-Hafatah said the new network was being established together with Egypt and that its 11 high­-definition (HD) channels were “Egyptian with a 100 percent Saudi capital”.16 Al­-Hafatah said the channels would charge a fee only if forced to do so because of encryption but would ensure that it was affordable. beIN has suffered in countries like Egypt from the fact that many subscribers could not afford its cost.

Getting Sucked in

FIFA would likely be an arbitrator in the battle between beIN and the new Saudi network, with the kingdom attempting to convince the world soccer body that Qatar could not be allowed to have a monopoly in regional soccer broadcasting rights.17 The underlying message was that FIFA and several of its regional associations would be dragged into the Gulf crisis by hook or by crook even if the issue of Qatar’s World Cup hosting rights was not directly addressed. The more soccer associations involved in the dispute, the more difficult it will be for them to maintain that sports and politics have nothing to do with one another.

FIFA was also likely to be pulled into the dispute by the UAE’s covert and overt efforts predating the crisis18 to convince the world body to deprive Qatar of its hosting rights. It is doubtful that the World Cup is at the core of the Gulf crisis, despite a declaration by Dubai’s top security official, Lt. General Khalfan, that the crisis would be resolved if Qatar surrendered its hosting rights.19Nonetheless, for Qatar’s detractors (and the UAE in particular), the World Cup is quite an important symbol to target, especially given its position as a vehicle for reputational capital.

That is evident from documents from an email account of Youssef al­-Otaiba, the UAE Ambassador to the United States, who was either hacked or the victim of a leak by an insider.20 Al­-Otaiba had devised a complex financial manoeuvre to undermine Qatar’s currency and deprive the Gulf state of its hosting rights. The effort to deprive Qatar of the World Cup stood in stark contrast to Qatar’s failure to adopt a similar tactic by targeting the 2020 World Expo in Dubai, for example.

Nothing is too outlandish, expensive, or ‘down and dirty’ in the Gulf competition to undermine one’s rival, buy influence, garner soft power, or try to win the hearts and minds of the populace. It is a battle that is fought primarily by the UAE and Qatar, the Gulf’s two megalomaniac states, and played out on European soccer pitches, in the board rooms of Western think tanks and universities, and in the media. Character assassination is fair game. Qatar and the UAE stunned European soccer as the window closed in the fall of 2017 for the buying and selling of players by driving prices through the roof and calling into question European soccer body UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules.

Qatar­-owned French club Paris Saint­-Germain (PSG) spent $476 million on two players: FC Barcelona’s Neymar and Monaco’s Kylian Sanmi Mbappé,21 no mean feat for a country of 300,000 citizens locked in an existential battle with its Gulf detractors. The expenditure of $203 million by Abu Dhabi­-owned Manchester City was similarly stratospheric but paled in comparison.22

The Qatari­-UAE competition for jaw­-dropping headlines was about far more than trophy acquisitions and performance on the soccer pitch. By driving the price of soccer players into the stratosphere, Qatar was showing a finger to its Gulf detractors, saying it could shake off their boycott like it would swat a fly. That was priceless in an environment in which the UAE­-Saudi­-led alliance has failed to garner widespread support for its boycott in both the Muslim world and the broader international community.

For Qatar, the soccer acquisitions were part of a far broader soft power strategy that in many ways might be the most strategic and thought­-through approach in the Gulf. It envisioned sports as much as a pillar of national identity as it was a key leg of its effort to amass soft power. The 2022 World Cup was the strategy’s crown jewel. Yet, the strategy has produced only mixed results. Performance on the pitch has not offered the Qatari government the kind of success that various other Arab autocrats have been able to exploit in their bid to boost their image. Qatar is the first World Cup host in almost a century not to qualify for the World Cup on its own merit.23

Fragile Success

Potential success of the Saudi­-UAE effort depends in part on garnering support for the two states’ position. So far, only a few nations (mostly politically and/or financially dependent countries) have joined the boycott. Soccer suggests that even that support is fragile. Take the Maldives as an example. A target of massive Saudi investment, the Maldives severed diplomatic relations with Qatar hours after Saudi Arabia and the UAE declared the boycott.24 However, that did not stop the Football Federation of the Maldives from signing a cooperation agreement with its Qatari counterpart five months later.25

Saudi Arabia and the UAE hoped to create an environment conducive to a withdrawal of Qatar’s hosting rights by publicly pushing the notion that Qatar was supporting tourism. German26 and Austrian27 media both reported that a German campaign to stop extremism28 by persuading the European Union to take regulatory and punitive action against funders of extremism was funded by the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The campaign, which targets left­- and right­-wing as well as Islamic militancy, identified Qatar, together with Turkey, as the main funders of extremism in Europe.29 Supported by prominent Germans and Austrians, many with an immigrant background, the campaign has denied funding by Qatar’s detractors. Businessmen with Qatari interests suspect, however, that the campaign will target Qatar’s hosting rights once it has garnered its targeted one million signatures on a petition demanding tougher EU policies on the funding of extremism. “This initiative is to align with the other German Qatar detractors by next year to agitate for a withdrawal of the hosting rights”, one businessman said.30

All of which makes the Maldives soccer federation’s forging of closer ties to Qatar the more remarkable. The move followed not only the government’s breaking off of diplomatic relations with Qatar but also Saudi efforts to squash criticism of controversial potential investments in the island republic as well as assertions that massive Saudi funding of Sunni Muslim ultra­-conservative educational and cultural activities has put the Maldives’ traditional adherence to Sufism, a more mystical strand of Islam, on the defensive.31 Journalists reporting on a potential $10 billion Saudi­-funded real estate project that media reports asserted could involve the acquisition by the kingdom of Faafu, a collection of 19 low­-lying islands 120 kilometres south of the Maldives capital of Male, were handed cash­-filled envelopes during an event at the Saudi embassy in Male to counter the assertion.32 The project would allegedly involve the building of seaports, airports, high­-end housing and resorts and the creation of special economic zones.

The Saudis “have had a good run of propagating their world view to the people of the Maldives and they’ve done that for the last three decades. They’ve now, I think, come to the view that they have enough sympathy to get a foothold”, said exiled former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed, who lost power in 2012 following protests over rising commodity prices and the nation’s poor economy.33

If soccer is anything to go by, Saudi Arabia’s grip on the Maldives may either be fraying or has been overstated by critics like Nasheed. Speaking in Qatar at the signing of the cooperation agreement, Maldives soccer federation President Bassam Adeel Jaleel insisted that the government, on which the football body is financially dependent, was “happy” with the forging of closer ties despite the boycott of the Gulf state.34 Maintaining that the Maldives could learn from Qatari preparations for the World Cup, Jaleel attempted to shield the government by noting that it adhered to the principle of a “separation of politics from football”, a fiction that governments and sports associations uphold because it gives them license to exploit the incestuous relationship between the two to their advantage. In the Maldives, that appeared to amountto hedging the government’s bets as Qatar resists Saudi and UAE pressure.

The Saudi­-UAE World Cup effort also sought to exploit continued questions about the integrity of the Qatari bid. That integrity remains in question with legal proceedings in New York and Zurich involving corruption in FIFA and potential wrongdoing in the awarding of World Cups. With legal proceedings likely to drag on for a considerable period of time, Qatar’s more immediate problem is the reputational damage it has suffered as a result of the integrity issue and international criticism of its labour regime. In reputational terms, Qatar has benefitted from reform of the regime as well as perception of the Gulf crisis of one pitting David against Goliath, in which Saudi Arabia and the UAE were attempting to bully their smaller brother into submission. Qatar has emerged, despite continued questions about its relationship with militants, as the resilient underdog defending its independence and its right as a small state to chart its own course.

Qatar’s reforms of its controversial kafala, or labour sponsorship system35that put employees at the mercy of their employers, were likely to become a model for the region. With the reforms, Qatar cemented the 2022 World Cup as one of the few mega­-events with a real potential for leaving a legacy of change. Qatar started laying the foundations for that change by early on becoming the first and only Gulf state to engage with its critics, international human rights groups and trade unions. In a rare kudo, Qatar’s fiercest labour critic, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), hailed a Qatari announcement in October 2017 that it was introducing far­-reaching reforms as a “breakthrough”.36 The ITUC and human rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have campaigned for labour reform and abolition of kafala since FIFA awarded Qatar the hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup in December 2010.

Breaking Taboos

The successful Qatari bid has also made a mark by cautiously making taboo issues discussable and potentially initiating a process of change in a country in which concerns that stem from a demographic deficit have long prevented the country from confronting intractable issues head on and stalled progress towards proper rule of law. The pressures to which Qatar was exposed sparked tacit discussion on issues such as citizenship and naturalization of foreigners, ones which had long been unmentionable.

To field an Olympic team that would earn Qatar its first ever Olympic medal, Qatar, a tiny state with a population of 2.3 million of which only 300,000 are citizens, granted 23 athletes from 17 countries citizenship in advance of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games. They constituted the majority of the Gulf state’s 39­-member team. The athletes’ naturalization, their success notwithstanding, sparked debate about the principle of granting citizenship and who should be awarded the right in a country in which Qatari nationals account for a mere 12 percent of the population.37 Naturalization was long a taboo subject given Qatari fear that it, like any kind of social or political change, could cost the citizenry loss of control of their state and society. Those fears were enhanced by the fact that Qataris realized that there were no easy solutions to a demographic deficit that would prove unsustainable in the long term.

The Qatari debate was echoed in the UAE where Sultan Sooud al­-Qassemi, an erudite intellectual, businessman, art collector and member of the ruling family of Sharjah, provoked controversy in articles that advocated a rethinking of restrictive citizenship policies that were likely to exacerbate rather than alleviate long­-term problems associated with the demographic deficit. Echoing a sentiment that is gaining traction among Internet­-savvy youth who are exposed to a world beyond the confines of the Gulf, Al­-Qassemi noted that foreigners with no rights had, over decades, contributed to the UAE’s success. “Perhaps it is time to consider a path to citizenship for them that will open the door to entrepreneurs, scientists, academics and other hardworking individuals who have come to support and care for the country as though it was their own”, he argued.38

Fears of loss of control were fuelled by the fact that the naturalization of athletes for the Olympic teams sparked questions among non­-Qataris who have been resident in the Gulf state and whose children were born there but who have no real path to citizenship even though their skills and expertise are and will be needed as the country streamlines and diversifies its economy. Qatari naturalization law stipulates that foreigners who speak Arabic and have resided in the country (of which the majority is non­-Arabic speaking even though Arabic is the official language) for 25 years can be considered for citizenship on a case­-by­-case basis.

Limited opportunity for citizenship puts many of the country’s non­-Qatari residents in an emotional bind. They do not want to “rock the boat” for themselves and their families, yet their existence remains precarious. “This is where I was born, this is my home. I accept things as they are, but it does sting”, said a South Asian professional who was born and grew up in Qatar.39

Ironically, one positive social and political fallout of Qatar’s sports strategy was that the South Asian’s sentiment is beginning to be reflected among some Qatari youth who were more willing to openly discuss sensitive issues. Referring to Qatar’s 14­-member Olympic handball team, 11 of whom are naturalized citizens, public sector employee Hamed Al­-Khater asked on Twitter: “If these guys get naturalized then what about doctors, scientists, engineers, academics and artists? Don’t they add more value to society?”40

In another taboo­-breaking incident, Doha News, against the backdrop of persistent questions in the Western soccer fan community about how Qatar would deal with gays attending its World Cup, published an article entitled: “What it’s like to be gay and Qatari?”. Written by a man using the pseudonym Majid Al­-Qatari (Majid the Qatari), the article asserted that gay Qataris disguised their sexuality by being publicly homophobic, but travelled abroad to be themselves. Majid suggested that gays often got married and raised families in what amounted to putting “a Band­-Aid on a wound. The wife will get conjugal visits and the men will just go their own way”.41

Al­-Khater’s question and Al­-Qatari’s exposé are noteworthy in a country where public discussion of these issues has long been taboo even if they likely constitute a minority view. A majority of Qataris see homosexuality as banned by Islam and question whether foreigners can ever become true nationals. They also fear that it would jeopardize national identity, conservative culture and deep­-rooted tribal values.

Integrity vs Leverage

The integrity issue is likely to prove a tougher nut to crack than the labour controversy. On the principle of where there is smoke, there is fire, Qatar is in a bind. Testimony of a star witness, Alejandro Burzaco, a co­-defendant and the former head of Argentine sports marketing company Torneos y Competencias, in a New York courtroom revealed new allegations of Qatari wrongdoing in its successful bid for the 2022 World Cup hosting rights.42 Burzaco is one of more than 40 officials, business executives and entities that have been indicted in the United States since Swiss police accompanied by FBI agents in 2015 raided a hotel in Zurich where senior FIFA members were gathered for a congress of the world soccer body. Burzaco asserted that the first three defendants to stand trial in the warren of FIFA­-related cases – former South American soccer confederation CONMEBOL President Juan Angel Napout and past heads of the Brazilian and Peruvian soccer federations, Juan Maria Marin and Manuel Burga – were among several senior Latin American soccer officials who had been paid tens of millions of dollars in bribes for their votes in favour of the Qatari World Cup.43

Qatar’s sports­-related financial dealings were also under scrutiny on other fronts. Swiss prosecutors opened criminal proceedings against Qatari national, beIN chief executive and chairman of French soccer club Paris St­-Germain Nasser al­-Khelaifi.44 The proceedings were centred on the allegation that Al­-Khelaifi had bribed disgraced former FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke to ensure that beIN was awarded the broadcasting rights for the 2026 and 2030 World Cups. Qatar as well as Al­-Khelaifi have consistently denied any wrongdoing.

A French investigation into possible corruption45 in business deals related to Qatar’s hosting rights links former French President Nicolas Sarkozy to millions of euros involved in business deals that were allegedly part of a three­-way deal to ensure French support for Qatar’s World Cup bid46 as well as the vote of one­-time French star Michel Platini, who headed UEFA and was a member of FIFA’s executive committee before being banned from involvement in soccer on corruption charges.

France’s interference in the FIFA vote on the Qatari World Cup bid was documented in a lengthy exposé in French soccer magazine, France Football.47 The magazine detailed a meeting engineered by then President Sarkozy in 2010 between Platini, then Qatari Crown Prince and current Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Haman Al­-Thani, and a representative of PSG. The three­-way deal cut at that meeting allegedly involved Platini agreeing to vote for the Qatari bid in exchange for Qatar acquiring the French club, creating a French sports television channel, and investing in France.

Britain’s The Daily Telegraph48 reported that French investigators were examining whether Sarkozy may have received funds from deals linked to the 2010 meeting, including the sale to Qatar of a five percent stake in French water management company Veolia as well as the purchase in 2010 of PSG by Oryx Qatar Sports Investments, believed to be a Qatari government investment vehicle.49 The British paper, quoting French sources, reported that $247 million “may have been siphoned off the side lines” of the deals and also used for payments to World Cup officials. A spokeswoman for the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office in Paris said they were “carrying out two separate preliminary inquiries” into Veolia and the World Cup bid. She said there was no established link between the two inquiries and Sarkozy was not “formally and personally targeted at this stage”.50

For activist critics of Qatar, there are two questions. Who do they want to get in bed with? Qatar’s detractors, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia hardly have stellar human and labour rights records. If anything, their records are worse than that of Qatar, which admittedly does not glow.

The second question critics have to ask themselves is how best to leverage the World Cup, irrespective of whether the Qatari bid was compromised or not. On the assumption that it may have been compromised, the question is less how to exact retribution for a wrong doing that was common practice in global football governance. Leveraging should focus on how to achieve a fundamental reform of global sports governance that has yet to emerge six years into a crisis that was in part sparked by the Qatar World Cup. This goes to the heart of the fact that untouched in the governance crisis is the corrupting, ungoverned, and incestuous relationship between sports and politics.

Sports is Politics by Definition

The future of the Qatar World Cup and the Gulf crisis speaks to the pervasiveness of politics in sports. The World Cup is political by definition. Retaining Qatar’s hosting rights or depriving the Gulf state of the right to host the tournament is ultimately a choice with political consequences. As long as the crisis continues, retaining rights is a testimony to Qatar’s resilience, deprival would be a victory for its detractors.

The real yardstick in the debate about the Qatari World Cup should be how the sport and the integrity of the sport benefit most. And even then, politics is never far from what the outcome of that debate is. Obviously, instinctively, the optics of no retribution raises the question of how that benefits integrity.

Yet, the potential legacy of social and economic change that is already evident with the Qatar World Cup is more important than the feel -good effect of having done the right thing with retribution or the notion of setting an example. Add to that the fact that in current circumstances, a withdrawal of hosting rights would not only be interpreted as a victory of one side over the other, but would also further divide the Arab and Muslim world and enhance a sense among many Muslims of being on the defensive and under attack.

To be clear, the rot in sports governance goes far beyond financial and performance corruption. That is evident in the way that the Gulf crisis, the Saudi -Iranian rivalry, and the Israeli -Palestinian conflict increasingly permeate soccer with a mounting number of decisions that upend the notion of a separation of sports and politics and the resignation from FIFA’s Council of Kuwaiti Sheikh Ahmad Al -Fahad Al -Sabah, long seen as one of the three most powerful men in international sports. Ahmad, a pony -tailed member of Kuwait’s ruling family, and former minister and head of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), is the living denial of a separation between sport and politics.

A statement by the US Attorney’s Office in New York’s Eastern District did not refer to Mr. Ahmad by name.51 The statement asserted however that Richard Lai, a member of FIFA’s Audit and Compliance Committee and President of the Guam Football Association, had received more than $850,000 in bribes between 2009 and 2014 “from a faction of soccer officials in the AFC region” to help “officials in that faction identify other officials in the AFC to whom they should offer bribes. The goal of this scheme was for the faction to gain control of the AFC and influence FIFA”, the statement said.

Ahmad is believed to be one of four co­-conspirators listed in Lai’s indictment that include a Kuwaiti official of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), which has been headed by Ahmad for the past 26 years. Ahmad’s resignation constitutes the first instance in which US legal proceedings against corruption in global soccer governance have touched Asia. Ahmad denied the assertions made by Lai,52 who pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy in the United States, as well as past allegations that the OCA had offered bribes to influence past elections in the Asian Football Confederation.

Ahmad’s decision to resign and not to run for re­-election at this month’s FIFA congress in Bahrain put an end to his effort to exploit his international sports stature to further his political ambitions in a bitter power struggle within Kuwait’s ruling family. To be fair, both parties within the family played politics with sports. Ahmad’s position, however, allowed him to persuade the International Olympic Committee (IOC), of which he is a member, as well as virtually all international sports associations, to suspend Kuwaiti membership as part of the Kuwaiti politician’s bid for power.53 Ahmad long used his position to put his own men in office. The IOC lifted the 18­-month suspension in December 2017 in time for the Gulf Cup.

Men like Ahmad and his long -time protégé, AFC president Sheikh Salman Bin Ibrahim Al -Khalifa, a Bahraini national, symbolize the intertwining of sports and politics. They are imperious, ambitious, power -hungry products of autocracies who have worked assiduously to concentrate power in their hands and side -line critics clamouring for real reform. Hailing from countries governed by autocratic, hereditary leaders, they have been accused of being willing to occupy their seats of power at whatever price. Ambition, alleged corruption, and greed is their potential Achilles’ heel. That is what caused the demise in 2012 of Mohammed Bin Hammam, a Qatari national who headed the AFC and was a member of FIFA’s governing council. Bin Hammam was banned for life by FIFA from involvement in soccer on charges of ‘conflict of interest’that related to both Qatar’s World Cup and his own campaign in 2010 -2011 to become FIFA president.

If the Qatar World Cup – given the controversy swirling around it and the fact that the World Cup has become a geopolitical football – ultimately leads to an honest and open debate about the relationship of politics and sports, Qatar, unwittingly rather than deliberately, will have made a fundamental contribution to a healthier governance of sports in general, and soccer in particular.

*

This article was originally published on journals.openedition.org.

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

Notes

1 James M. Dorsey, “Gulf Crisis Creates Opportunity for Asian Nations”, Pragati, 28 November 2017. Accessed on 29.11.2017, at https://www.thinkpragati.com/opinion/2772/gulf-crisis-creates-opportunity-asian-nations/.

2 Zainab Fattah, “Qatar Says Boycott Won’t Affect 2022 World Cup Preparation”, Bloomberg, 30 July 2017. Accessed on 30.07.2017, at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-30/soccer-world-cup-host-scrambles-to-bypass-saudi-led-boycott.

3 Interview with the author, 26 November 2017.

4 Andrew Simmons, “Akbar al-Baker on the Gulf Crisis and Qatar Airways”, Al Jazeera, 14 June 2017. Accessed on 14.06.2017, at https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/talktojazeera/2017/06/akbar-al-baker-qatar-airways-170613020759574.html.

5 Interview with the author, 26 November 2017.

6 Steven McCombe and Roberta Pennington, “BeIN Sports Back on TV in the UAE”, The National, 22 July 2017. Accessed on 22.07.2017, at https://www.thenational.ae/uae/bein-sports-back-on-tv-in-the-uae-1.613012.

7 Al Jazeera, “beIN Signs New Contract to Broadcast UEFA Matches”, 20 July 2017. Accessed on 20.07.2017, at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/07/bein-signs-contract-broadcast-uefa-matches-170720173329310.html.

8 Asian Football Confederation, “AFC Upholds Principles of Political Neutrality”, 23 June 2017. Accessed on 23.06.2017, at http://www.the-afc.com/media/afc-upholds-principles-of-political-neutrality-37612.

9 Reuters, “FIFA President Says Qatar World Cup Not Under Threat”, 11 June 2017. Accessed on 11.06.2017, at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gulf-qatar-fifa/fifa-president-says-qatar-world-cup-not-under-threat-idUSKBN1920T2?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=593d6a3004d30154541f7820&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter.

10 Rob Harris, “FIFA Removes Qatari Match Officials Due to Diplomatic Crisis”, Associated Press, 11 June 2017. Accessed on 11.06.2017, at https://apnews.com/632e19b93aa54bb29e58462d80d91127.

11 The New Arab, “FIFA Commends Qatar for Transferring Boycotted Gulf Cup to Kuwait”, 10 December 2017. Accessed on 10.12.2017, at https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2017/12/10/fifa-commends-qatar-for-transferring-gulf-cup-to-kuwait.

12 Al Arabiya English, “Saudi, Emirati Football Teams Withdraw from Press Conferences ahead of Gulf Cup”, 21 December 2017. Accessed on 21.12.2017, at https://english.alarabiya.net/en/sports/2017/12/21/Saudi-Emirati-football-teams-withdraw-from-press-conferences-ahead-of-Gulf-Cup.html.

13 Robert Malit, “CAF Issues Veiled threat over beIN Sports Boycott”, KingFut.com, 22.06.2017. Accessed on 22.06.2017, at https://www.kingfut.com/2017/06/22/caf-issues-veiled-threat-over-bein-sports-boycott/?utm_content=buffer5588e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer.

14 Ahram Online, “Egyptian Football Association, Clubs to Boycott beIN Sports after Severing Ties with Qatar”, 5 June 2017. Accessed on 05.06.2017, at http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/6/51/270325/Sports/Egyptian-Football/Egyptian-Football-Association,-clubs-to-boycott-be.aspx.

15 Associated Press, “Al Ahly Coach Fined and Suspended as Row over Qatar Reaches Egyptian Football”, The National, 14 July 2017. Accessed on 14.07.2017, at https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/al-ahly-coach-fined-and-suspended-as-row-over-qatar-reaches-egyptian-football-1.608783.

16 Lulwa Shalhoub, “Saudi-Egyptian Sports Alliance to Replace Blocked Qatari beIN Sports”, Arab News, 20 June 2017. Accessed on 20.06.2017, at http://www.arabnews.com/node/1117646/media.

17 TradeArabia, “Saudi Plans New Arab Channel to End Qatar Monopoly”, 14 June 2017. Accessed on 14.06.2017, at http://www.tradearabia.com/news/MEDIA_326338.html.

18 James M. Dorsey (2018), Shifting Sands: Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa. Singapore: World Scientific, 323­-350.

19 Jon Gambrell, “Official Says Qatar Giving Up World Cup May End ‘Crisis’”, Associated Press, 9 October 2017. Accessed on 09.10.2017, at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-09/uae-official-urges-qatar-to-give-up-world-cup-to-end-crisis.

20 Ryan Grim and Ben Walsh, “Leaked Documents Expose Stunning Plan to Wage Financial War on Qatar – And Steal the World Cup”, The Intercept, 9 November 2017. Accessed on 09.11.2017, at https://theintercept.com/2017/11/09/uae-qatar-oitaba-rowland-banque-havilland-world-cup/.

21 Motez Bishara, “European Soccer Feels Force of PSG and Qatar’s ‘Soft Power’”, CNN, 1 September 2017. Accessed on 01.09.2017, at http://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/01/football/soft-power-and-football-mega-transfers-psg-neymar-mbappe-qatar/index.html.

22 Evan Bartlett, “Manchester City’s Annual Defence Spending Exceeds that of 47 Actual Countries”, i News, 25 July 2017. Accessed on 25.07.2017, at https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/manchester-city-defence-spending-countries/.

23 FourFourTwo, “Qatar Fail to Qualify for 2018 World Cup, Bringing to Light Eye-Opening Fact”, 31 August 2017. Accessed on 31.08.2017, at https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/qatar-fail-qualify-2018-world-cup-bringing-light-eye-opening-fact.

24 Maldives Independent, “Maldives Severs Diplomatic Ties with Qatar”, 5 June 2017. Accessed on 05.06.2017, at http://maldivesindependent.com/politics/maldives-severs-diplomatic-ties-with-qatar-131067.

25 MenaFn, “Qatar and Maldives Join Hands to Uplift Football”, 1 November 2017. Accessed on 01.11.2017, at http://menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.aspx?storyid=1096027194&title=Qatar-and-Maldives-join-hands-to-uplift-football.

26 Daniel Bax, “Der Feind meines Feindes [The Enemy of my Enemy]”, Tageszeitung, 30 October 2017. Accessed on 30.10.2017, at https://www.taz.de/!5456830/.

27 Michael Voelker, “Plattform ‘Stop Extremism’: Unklare Finanzflüsse um Efgani Dönmez [‘Stop Extremism’ Platform: Unclear flow of funds to Efgani Doenmez]”, Der Standard, 8 October 2017. Accessed on 08.10.2017, at https://derstandard.at/2000065560659/Plattform-Stop-Extremism-Unklare-Finanzfluesse-um-Efgani-Doenmez.

28 Stop Extremism, accessed on 08.10.2017, at https://www.en.stopextremism.eu/.

29 Stop Extremism, accessed on 08.10.2017, at https://www.stopextremism.eu/demands.

30 Interview with the author, 31 October 2017.

31 James M. Dorsey, “Why Saudi Arabia, China and the Islamic State Are Courting the Maldives (JMD in SCMP)”, blog The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 13 March 2017. Accessed on 13.03.2017, at https://mideastsoccer.blogspot.sg/2017/03/why-saudi-arabia-china-and-islamic.html.

32 Avas Online, “Saudi’s Cash ‘Gift’ to Maldives Journos Sparks Concern”, 20 February 2017. Accessed on 20.02.2017, at https://avas.mv/en/29796.

33 Karl Mathiesen and Megan Darby, “Saudis Make Maldives Land Grab to Secure Oil Routes to China”, Climate Home News, 5 March 2017. Accessed on 05.03.2017, at http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/03/05/saudis-make-maldives-land-grab-secure-oil-routes-china/.

34 Gulf Times, “Politics and Sports Don’t Mix: Maldives Football Chief”, 1 November 2017. Accessed on 01.11.2017, at http://www.gulf-times.com/story/569629/Politics-and-sports-don-t-mix-Maldives-football-ch.

35 James M. Dorsey, “Activists and Gulf Crisis Turn Qatar into Potential Model of Social Change”, blog The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 26 October 2017. Accessed on 26.10.2017, at https://mideastsoccer.blogspot.pt/2017/10/activists-and-gulf-crisis-turn-qatar.html.

36 BBC News, “Qatar Introduces Minimum Wage for First Time”, 25 October 2017. Accessed on 25.10.2017, at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-41752490.

37 Tom Finn, “Qatar’s Recruited Athletes Stir Debate on Citizenship”, Reuters, 25 August 2016. Accessed on 25.08.2016, at http://www.reuters.com/article/us-qatar-olympics-nationality-idUSKCN11015P.

38 Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, “Give Expats an Opportunity to Earn UAE Citizenship”, Gulf News, 22 September 2013. Accessed on 22.09.2013, at http://gulfnews.com/opinion/thinkers/give-expats-an-opportunity-to-earn-uae-citizenship-1.1234167.

39 Interview with the author, 18 March 2016.

40 Hamed al­-Khater, Twitter, 10 August 2016. Accessed on 10.08.2016, at https://twitter.com/HamadK7/status/763351422167556097

41 Majid Al­-Qatari, “What It’s Like to Be Gay and Qatari”, Doha News, 5 August 2016. Accessed on 05.08.2016, at http://dohanews.co/what-its-like-to-be-gay-and-qatari/.

42 Graham Dunbar and Rob Harris, “World Cup Bribes, Death Threats: Corrupt World of FIFA”, Associated Press, 20 November 2017. Accessed on 20.11.2017, at https://apnews.com/4c704914a9d244e580cc26192d289d86?utm_content=buffer9a48f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer.

43 Tom Hays, “FIFA Official Demanded $80 Million in Bribes from Qatar for World Cup Vote, Trial Hears”, Associated Press, 15 November 2017. Accessed on 15.11.2017, at https://www.thestar.com/sports/soccer/2017/11/15/fifa-official-demanded-80-million-in-bribes-from-qatar-for-world-cup-vote-trial-hears.html.

44 Aimee Lewis, “Swiss Prosecutors Open Investigation into Paris Saint­-Germain’s Qatari Chairman Nasser Al­-Khelaifi”, CNN, 13 October 2017. Accessed on 13.10.2017 at https://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/12/football/nasser-al-khelaifi-paris-st-germain-fifa-criminal-proceedings/index.html.

45 Seth Jacobson, “Sarkozy Probed over Qatar 2022 Graft Claims”, The National, 4 August 2017. Accessed on 04.08.2017, at https://www.thenational.ae/world/europe/sarkozy-probed-over-qatar-2022-graft-claims-1.616804.

46 James M. Dorsey, “FIFA’s Blatter Unwittingly Pinpoints Soccer Governance’s Prime Issues”, blog The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 5 July 2015. Accessed on 05.07.2015, at https://mideastsoccer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/fifas-blatter-unwittingly-pinpoints.html.

47 Richard Morgan, “Qatargate 2022: Outlining the Evidence that Suggests Qatar Cheated to Win Bid”, Bleacher Report, 6 February 2013. Accessed on 06.02.2013, at https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1518079-qatargate-2022-outlining-the-evidence-that-suggests-qatar-cheated-to-win-bid.

48 Claire Newell, Edward Malnick, Luke Heighton and Rory Mulholland, “Nicolas Sarkozy Under Scrutiny in Prosecutors’ Probe into Qatar World Cup Vote­-Buying”, The Telegraph, 4 August 2017. Accessed on 04.08.2017, at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/03/nicolas-sarkozy-scrutiny-prosecutors-probe-qatar-world-cup-vote/.

49 Saj Chowdhury, “Neymar: How Can PSG Afford to Pay £198m for the Barcelona Forward?”, BBC Sport, 22 July 2017. Accessed on 22.07.2017, at http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/40690701.

50 Caroline Mortimer, “Nicolas Sarkozy ‘Under Scrutiny as Part of French Probe into Qatar World Cup Scandal’”, Independent, 4 August 2017. Accessed on 04.08.2017, at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/fifa-qatar-world-cup-nicolas-sarkozy-investigation-veolia-paris-saint-germain-a7876041.html.

51 The United States Attorney’s Office – Eastern District of New York, “Fifa Audit and Compliance Committee Member Pleads Guilty to Corruption Charges”, 27 April 2017. Accessed on 27.04.2017, at https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/fifa-audit-and-compliance-committee-member-pleads-guilty-corruption-charges.

52 Simon Evans, “Asia Olympic Chief Quits FIFA Role over Bribery Scandal”, Reuters, 30 April 2017. Accessed on 30.04.2017, at https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-soccer-fifa-asia/asia-olympic-chief-quits-fifa-role-over-bribery-scandal-idUKKBN17W0EC.

53 James M. Dorsey, “Kuwaiti Rulers Fight their Internal Battles on the Sports Field”, blog The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 19 June 2016. Accessed on 19.06.2016, at https://mideastsoccer.blogspot.sg/2016/06/kuwaiti-rulers-fight-their-internal.html.

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What to call someone who claims to oppose racism, except for that directed against Palestinians?

Judge someone by what they have done and continue to do. Consider the source. These thoughts ran through my mind as I struggled to write about Bernie Farber’s standing among some Left/liberals.

After Israel recently solidified its apartheid regime, a Facebook friend posted an opinion by illustrious pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim titled “Today, I Am Ashamed to Be an Israeli.” While expressing opposition to its recent entrenchment of Jewish supremacism, the story effectively denied the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by claiming,

“the founding fathers of the State of Israel who signed the Declaration [of independence] considered the principle of equality as the bedrock of the society they were building.”

More than this sop to colonial history, my leftist Facebook friend’s post piqued my ire because it highlighted that the article came from Farber, who worked at the now defunct Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) between 1984 and 2011. In response to my complaint about citing the former CJC CEO approvingly, Farber wrote,

“I will continue to work for mutual understanding and do my best to see all sides. You will of course see what you wish from your one-sided pedestal and be critical of anyone who remains a progressive Zionist which I am.”

From the “pedestal” on which I observe Farber, I see an individual who has repeatedly labelled supporters of Palestinian rights as racist. After the Canadian Union of Public Employees (Ontario) passed a 2009 motion in support of the Palestinian led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement Farber claimed, “anti-semitism is once again amongst us.” For Farber the resolution was “bigoted and discriminatory and anti-Jewish” because only one country was targeted. “The sole target is Jews, is Israel,” he said.

In a 2010 letter to the Toronto Star denouncing Israeli Apartheid Week CJC’s CEO wrote,

“Anything that promotes the destruction, demonization and delegitimization of Israel, the world’s only Jewish state, is inherently anti-Semitic. To falsely accuse Israel, and by extension the vast majority of the world’s Jews who support the Jewish state, of ‘apartheid,’ is a form of anti-Semitic bullying.”

When the Israeli military killed 1,400 Palestinians (including 345 children) over 22 days in 2008-09 Farber denounced those protesting the slaughter across the country for their purported “vile, disgusting, hateful rhetoric of the kind that should be absolutely frightening to Canadians.” Further stoking anti-Arab/Muslim sentiment, he labeled the protests “uncivil, un-Canadian, that demonize Jews and Israelis.” Farber called on the police to investigate the burning of an Israeli flag and a small number of individuals with signs deemed “pro-Hamas” or comparing Israel’s actions to the Nazis.

In 2003 Farber lobbied for noted Islamophobe and anti-Palestinian activist Daniel Pipes to speak at York University.

“It would have set a very, very unacceptable precedent to cancel it because of students who didn’t like or what he had to say,” said the then executive director of CJC Ontario.

In 1996 Pipes asserted that Islam “would seem to have nothing functional to offer” and six years earlier said:

“Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene … All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most.”

The year before speaking at York University Pipes launched Campus Watch, which created “dossiers” on professors and academic institutions viewed as critical of Israel and more recently, wrote a piece titled “How 99 Percent of ‘Palestine Refugees’ Are Fake.”

Farber certainly didn’t support Pipes as a principled defender of free speech. In fact, Farber repeatedly promoted hate speech restrictions and a few years later the CJC pressured the York administration against holding an academic conference entitled Israel/Palestine: Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to Peace. Farber also applauded the Stephen Harper government’s 2009 move to block former British MP George Galloway from speaking in Canada, writing: “George Galloway enables terrorism.”

After Adbusters juxtaposed photos of the World War II Warsaw Ghetto with images of Gaza, Farber penned a National Post op-ed titled “Selling anti-Semitism in the book stores”. It urged people to complain to stores selling the Vancouver-based magazine and a week later Shoppers Drug Mart told Adbusters it would no longer sell its magazine.

Aligning himself with Doug and Rob Ford, in 2010 Farber called on Toronto Pride to ban Queers Against Israeli Apartheid from its parade. In an over-the-top Toronto Star opinion piece he (co)wrote,

“you’ve got to hand it to the organizers of Toronto’s annual gay pride parade. With their cowardly volte face in allowing Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) to march, organizers have pulled off the PR nightmare hat-trick: bowing to the bullying of political correctness; violating their own core philosophy by readmitting a group rooted in hate and demonization; and shifting media focus off their main objective.”

As executive director of CJC Ontario Farber joined US Jewish groups’ campaign to suppress the 1998 publication of A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth, which was a rebuttal of Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s widely distributed Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. The Norman Finkelstein-led project included an expanded version of an article by Ruth Bettina Birn, chief historian for Canada’s Nazi war crimes unit. Farber claimed that Birn was lending her name to Finkelstein’s “anti-Israel outbursts“, which were “an insult” to Jews. The CJC tried to intimidate the longstanding Nazi hunter through her government employer.

In another attempt to punish those in any way associated with Finkelstein, Farber threatened to take the York Region education board to the human-rights commission if it did not dismiss a Palestinian-Canadian from its race relations committee. Farber was angry that Bader Abu Zahra distributed a review of Finkelstein’s The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering at a teachers’ conference to discuss including “Holocaust and Anti-racist education in History, English and Social Science courses.”

When former Assembly of First Nations (AFN) head David Ahenakew made anti-Semitic comments in 2002 Farber (correctly) criticized them. But he also used Ahenakew’s abhorrent comments to smear Palestine solidarity activists. Alluding to the September 2002 protest against Benjamin Netanyahu at Concordia University and support for the second Palestinian intifada, Farber claimed Ahenakew “felt comfortable at the time to say what he’s been thinking for a long time.” Farber then used Ahenakew’s anti-Semitic comments to push AFN leaders to support a state stealing indigenous Palestinians’ land. As part of AFN/CJC rapprochement Grand Chief Phil Fontaine participated in a CJC organize tour to Israel.

Farber attacked the United Church of Canada for supporting Palestinian rights and Independent Jewish Voices (IJV).

“It almost sends shivers down our spine that the United Church of Canada won’t speak out against documents which on their face are anti-Semitic,” said Farber, regarding a number of Palestine solidarity resolutions submitted to its 2009 national meeting.

Amidst an aggressive campaign targeting the United Church, the CJC head opined, “that a mainstream Christian faith group would provide funding to create an anti-Zionist, and anti-Jewish group is absolutely astounding.”

Farber has repeatedly denigrated IJV, which supports the Palestinian civil society’s call to put economic and diplomatic pressure on Israel. He called IJV a “small, radical rump group”, “a rump on the edge of Jewish society”, a “fringe group” that spews “vile, anti-Zionist” rhetoric, “a minuscule, fringe group” that backs the “anti-Semitic” claim that Israel practices apartheid, etc.

At the same time that he disparaged IJV, Farber gave political cover to the Jewish Defence League (JDL), which recruited in Jewish high schools and participated in Toronto’s Annual Israel Walk. According to Andy Lehrer, JDL head Meir Weinstein spoke glowingly of Farber. After being asked to do so for years, Farber finally distanced himself and the CJC from the JDL in 2011. Highlighting the tension between those who back its anti-Palestinian posture, but oppose the JDL’s alliances with fascist/white supremacist organizations, Farber denounced the group after it rallied in support of Britain’s extremist English Defence League.

In response to my posting some of the above information on Facebook Farber complained that,

“I haven’t worked at the CJC for over 7 years. And you have no idea of my work since then.”

While Farber is no longer a leading proponent of the idea that expressing support for Palestinians is “anti-Semitism”, now challenges some of the Islamophobia he previously stoked and is offside with the JDL, it would be a stretch to say he’s broken from his CJC past. In 2015 Farber’s Mosaic Institute co-hosted an event with the Consulate of Israel in Toronto and last year he supported the exclusion of IJV and the United Jewish People’s Order from an Ontario anti-Semitism committee he co-led. In February Farber was a spokesperson for a JSpace Canada press release callingon the NDP convention to oppose a resolution that called for boycotting products from illegal Israeli settlements.

Despite this anti-Palestinian activity, many left/liberals partner with him. Alt weekly Toronto Now regularly publishes Farber’s articles; anti-racist journalist/activist Desmond Cole spoke with him at a recent forum put on by Farber’s Mosaic Institute; Judy Rebick, Sandy Hudson, Jerry Dias and others co-authored an op-ed with Farber calling on “Progressive Voters To Rally Around Andrea Horwath”; A slew of individuals have supported the new Farber-chaired Canadian Anti-Hate Network; the Treyf podcast interviewed him twice last year; the Torontoist quoted him in an article titled “Toronto’s Jewish Left is Alive and Well and Resisting Extremism.”

Of course, one could argue there is nothing wrong with interviewing someone you disagree with, partnering on an issue even if you differ on other subjects or citing a former pro-Israel activist to highlight that country’s eroding support.

But, ask yourself this: Would a pro-union publication give voice to a prominent union-basher? And if that union-basher claimed to have changed, wouldn’t the pro-union publication question him/her about the reasons for the change and their current opinion regarding unions?

It seems to me that supporters of Palestinian rights must, at a minimum, ask Farber similar questions before giving him voice as a “progressive” and “anti-racist”.

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Bolivia’s Evo Morales was among the first to comment, posting on Twitter: “Now the empire and its servants threaten his life.”

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For the second year in a row, the US state of California is the scene of death and destruction, as wildfires surge throughout the state and drive thousands from their homes. In July alone, wildfires have killed nine people and burned over one thousand homes, forcing tens of thousands to evacuate.

The number of horrific tragedies is multiplying. On Thursday, Ed Bledsoe, 76, left his wife Melody, 70, and two great-grandchildren Emily and James, 4 and 5, to go to a doctor’s appointment. The Carr Fire had been burning for four days near his Shasta County home, but they were not under an evacuation order.

After a panicked call from his wife saying she could see the fire approaching, Bledsoe raced back, but was blocked by traffic and the encroaching fire. Unable to make it home, he managed to reach his family by cell phone as they huddled under wet blankets and the fire overtook them.

Their tragic deaths are part of the social catastrophe that surrounds every natural disaster. The stage is set by forces beyond mankind’s control, but these intersect with and are compounded by a social and political system in which everything is subordinated to the wealth accumulation of the corporate and financial elite.

At the same time as fires rage in California, the death toll from fires last week in Greece has risen to 91, with 25 still missing. While the immediate cause of these fires is still being investigated, there is no doubt that the austerity measures carried out by the Syriza government, dictated by European banks, are to blame for the massive death toll. They include cuts of 20 percent from the fire service, along with other cuts to utilities that contributed to electricity and water supply failures.

In California, prolonged drought conditions have dried out large sections of the state and provided large amounts of fuel for the ongoing fires. Of the ten most destructive wildfires on record in California, four have happened within the last ten months.

Last year, 43 people were killed in California fires, nearly 10,000 buildings were destroyed and a quarter-million people were evacuated. An investigation released last month found that a dozen of the fires that killed nine people in Northern California in October were caused by power lines operated by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, highlighting the impact of decayed infrastructure in causing the blazes.

Among the factors contributing to the greater frequency and intensity of fires is climate change. Studies at the National Center for Atmospheric Research show that increased global temperatures have created warmer winters, shortening the amount of time needed for snowpack to melt, consequently also shortening the time for the newly created water to evaporate.

The Guardian cited University of California professor Anthony LeRoy Westerling, who noted that the impact of climate change “will probably accelerate. There won’t be a new normal in our lifetimes.” The Carr fire is only one of “a bunch of large fires which have behaved in uncharacteristic ways,” including “firenados” that have rapidly destroyed homes.

Similar trends are occurring in Europe and across the globe. Data from the Suomi NPP, Terra and Aqua satellites show Europe’s landscape turning from green to brown over the past month as a result of record long droughts in Armenia, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland and Norway. Approximately fifty forest fires, which have burned down 62,000 acres of land, were blazing in Sweden in mid-July.

Despite increasingly dire warnings from scientists about the consequences of climate change, the capitalist states—riven by national conflicts and each subordinate to the profits of giant corporations—have been incapable of taking any serious measures to do anything about it.

There are many factors that contribute to the spread of fires, and measures that could be taken to mitigate their impact. The US Forest Service estimates that in California’s wilderness there are an unusually high number of dead trees, 129 million, killed by drought and beetle infestations. That immense volume of fuel, reaching high into the canopy, intensifies and helps spread the fires that break out.

Residential building is carried out wherever individual developers can turn a profit. They carry no liability for long-term risks. Moreover, soaring housing costs have driven people to seek lower rents outside the cities in smaller towns and suburbs with greater risks. Cal Fire identified more than 1,300 communities in California “at high risk of damage from wildfire.” But that list was compiled from the 1990 census data and published in 2001. It has not been updated since.

Then there is the impact of perpetually underfunded and under-resourced fire departments, which have faced a series of budget cuts since the 2008 economic crisis. A full quarter of California’s wilderness firefighters are prison inmates who are paid $1 an hour when actively fighting fires and $2 a day when doing preventive work. Two of these workers died in the 2017 fires.

As for the impact of the fires, as with other natural disasters, those who have had their lives upended are left at the mercy of insurance companies, if they even have insurance. Bledsoe, who lost his family, was a renter without insurance. The only thing he has left after the fire is his truck and the clothes on his back. Only a GoFundMe page set up by a family friend separates him from complete destitution.

Resources exist to take emergency measures to address the conditions that produce such disasters. California’s current emergency fund for wildfires is $442.8 million, and a full quarter of it was spent since July 1, $114.7 million. In contrast, every two days in 2018 Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon and richest man in the world, made more than that, $510 million. The entire budget of Cal Fire, which manages the 31 million acres of California’s wilderness, is roughly what Bezos makes in a week.

In a socialist and planned economy, billions would be allocated to implement scientific fire prevention and controlled burning methods. Resources would be devoted to construct advanced warning systems and evacuation routes. Everyone would have access to modern housing in developments planned from the start to avoid wildfires. Those who, despite all these precautions, lost their homes would be made whole with new housing. And emergency measures would be taken, on a global scale, to halt and reverse climate change.

Every natural disaster exposes the social and political reality. As the California fires rage, the Trump administration is plotting new ways to hand out billions in tax cuts to the rich. The Democrats, who control the state of California, are focusing all their efforts on denouncing Trump for being insufficiently aggressive against Russia, while ensuring that the military is funded with a gargantuan $716 billion budget.

The entire political establishment, indifferent and hostile to the interests of the vast majority of the population, merely exposes its own bankruptcy and the irrationality of the capitalist system over which the ruling class presides.

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Featured image is from Mashable.

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In an event largely overlooked by the U.S. media, the Senate passed a bill on Wednesday that would provide Israel with $3.3 billion in military aid along with over $500 million for missile defense over the course of the next year. The bill, officially titled the “United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018,” is expected to be voted on by the House within the week. If approved and signed into law by President Trump, it would represent the “single largest military aid package in American history.”

The massive amount of funding being allocated to Israel’s military is ultimately the result of the 2016 U.S.-Israel Memorandum of Understanding on security assistance between the Israeli and U.S. governments, which called for $3.8 billion in funding for Israel on an annual basis over the next ten years.

Though this startling figure — which translates into $23,000 for every Jewish family living in Israel — was supposed to be the limit for U.S. military aid to Israel, the figure is actually set to be higher this year, given Congress’ recent passage of a massive $716 billion defense bill that provides an additional $550 million in U.S. aid for Israeli missile defense systems. The defense bill also authorizes an additional $1 billion for U.S. weapons stockpiles in Israel.

Over the past several years, U.S. military aid to Israel has ballooned, with U.S. funding of Israeli missile defense alone quadrupling since 2009. Ironically, many of those missile defense systems, besides being clumsy and costly, frequently malfunction, including the “Iron Dome” defense system — jointly developed by Raytheon and Israeli defense company Rafael — and the “Arrow-3” system — jointly developed by Israel Aerospace Industries and Boeing.

“Largest aid package ever” to be given to Israel despite jarring human-rights abuses

The massive amount of aid the U.S. government is set to give to Israel comes during Israel’s unprecedented crackdown on unarmed protesters and a looming Israeli military operation aimed at “conquering” the Palestinian enclave. Indeed, since March 30, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) — the very forces set to receive billions in U.S. taxpayer funding — have killed 164 Palestinians, including 26 children as well as journalists and medics.

In addition, over that same time frame, the IDF has injured upwards of 17,000 Palestinians living in Gaza, over half of whom had to be hospitalized for their injuries — including more than 1,400 children. All of those killed and injured were unarmed. In contrast, there has been a single Israeli death and nine Israeli injuries over that same time period.

Such grave violations of human rights would normally prevent the U.S. government from providing aid to Israel, given that the Leahy Laws enable the U.S. to withhold military assistance from units and individuals in foreign security forces if they have committed a gross violation of human rights (GVHR). GVHR offenses include: extrajudicial killings; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; prolonged detention without charges and trial; causing the disappearance of persons by the abduction and clandestine detention of those persons; and other flagrant denials of the right to life, liberty, or the security of person.

However, given that Israel has been engaged in gross violations of human rights since its founding in 1948, and yet has received over $133 billion in aid from the U.S. during that time, the U.S. government has made it clear time and again that it is willing to bend the rules when it comes to Israel.

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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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Recent Iranian trade figures suggest that the United Arab Emirates, a strong backer of US efforts to squeeze Iran economically, could emerge alongside China as the Islamic republic’s foremost lifeline in seeking to blunt the impact of harsh sanctions. Russia and Oman rather than Europe are emerging as runners-up in possibly enabling Iran to circumvent sanctions.

Casting further doubt on Europe’s ability and will to stand-up to US secondary sanctions, despite its vocal support for the embattled 2015 international agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear program, are new German financial rules scheduled to take effect this month. The rules could delay or prevent crisis-ridden Iran from repatriating Euros 300 million (US$347 million) deposited in an Iranian-controlled bank in Hamburg.

Figures for Iranian trade in the period from 21 March to 22 July of this year, compiled by Iranian energy and economics analyst Faezeh Foroutan, show China and the UAE jointly accounting for 39.8 percent of Iranian imports and 37.8 percent of its exports. By comparison, nine members of the European Union, including heavyweights Germany, France and Britain shouldered only 15.5 percent of imports and 7.93 percent of exports.

Source: Faezeh Forouzan

Iranian leaders have said that the future of the nuclear agreement, officially dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in the wake of the US withdrawal would depend on the ability of Europe, China and Russia to ensure that the impact of US sanctions would be substantially blunted.

Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif insisted earlier this week that China’s role was key.

“The role of China in the implementation of JCPOA, in achieving JCPOA, and now in sustaining JCPOA, will be pivotal,” Mr. Zarif said.

China, a signatory to the nuclear agreement alongside Europe, Russia and the United States that withdrew from the accord in May, has rejected US requests to cut Iranian oil exports even it reportedly promised not to increase them. China is Iran’s top energy export market.

China’s refusal to cut back on Iranian oil purchases threatens to render the Trump administration’s goal of reducing Iranian exports to zero unachievable and means that its November 4 deadline to do so is unrealistic.

Acting out of self-interest, China, moreover, appeared to be willing to strengthen the Islamic republic in other ways, including by supporting militarily the Iranian-backed Syrian government of president Bashar al-Assad in its quest to gain control of Syria’s last major [Al Qaeda affiliated] rebel stronghold in the northern region of Idlib.

Speaking to Syrian pro-government daily Al-Watan, China’s ambassador to Syria, Qi Qianjin, said that China was ‘following the situation in Syria, in particular after the victory in southern (Syria), and its military is willing to participate in some way alongside the Syrian army that is fighting the terrorists in Idlib and in any other part of Syria.” The ambassador was referring to recent Syrian victories against rebel forces in southern Syria and on the Golan Heights.

Chinese participation in a campaign in Idlib, the dumping ground for rebels evacuated from elsewhere in Syria, including Uyghur [Al Qaeda affiliated] fighters from the north-western province of Xinjiang, would be China’s fist major engagement in foreign battle in decades. China worries that Uyghur fighters may want to return to Xinjiang.

The UAE’s potential role in helping Iran deflect US sanctions may not be surprising given the fact that Dubai has long functioned as a key transhipment point for Iran with trade in the year ending at the end of March topping US$16.8 billion but is notable given Emirati backing for the US sanctions.

Iran, nonetheless, in response to a series of UAE measures against Iranian financial networks, has sought to shift its export hubs to Qatar and Oman and strengthen economic ties  with Russia.

The UAE “has been Iran’s no. 1 trade partners for years. The point is the growing role of Russia and Oman,” Ms. Foroutan said, expressing doubt that Oman could replace the UAE in the short term.

Russia advised Iran during a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that his country was willing to invest US$ 50 billion in the Islamic republic’s oil and gas sector. The two men met days before Mr. Putin’s summit last month in Helsinki with president Donald J, Trump.

Mr. Velayati said a Russian oil company had already signed a US$4 billion deal with Iran that “will be implemented soon” and that “two other major Russian oil companies, Rosneft and Gazprom, have started talks with Iran’s oil ministry to sign contracts worth up to US$10 billion.”

Iran and Russia signed preliminary agreements for up to US$30 billion in investments in Iran’s oil industry months before the Trump administration said it would re-impose sanctions.

Europe’s ability and willingness to play its part in salvaging the nuclear deal was called into question by the new German financial rules and could depend on whether the Brussels-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) bows to US threats if it fails to exclude by November Iranian banks from its global financial transfer system.

European officials suggest that a SWIFT concurrence with US sanctions would put to bed any hope of salvaging the nuclear deal. Europe appears, however, to be banking on the fact that the US may not follow through on its threats, at least not against the society as such, because that would undermine the global financial system that empowers it.

However, the new German central bank rules that create additional powers to block transactions if their execution could threaten “to end important relationships with central banks and financial institutions of third countries” appear to constitute a nod towards the US sanctions.

Coming into effect on August 25, the rules could allow the bank to reject an Iranian request that it authorize the withdrawal of U$S300 million from the Europäisch-Iranische Handelsbank AG, a Hamburg-based financial institution owned by Iranian banks, including state-owned Bank of Industry and Mine. Iran wants to physically ship the money to Tehran to evade potential US efforts to block a transfer.

Iranian officials told the German government that the foreign currency was needed to enable Iranians who travel abroad but don’t have acceptable credit cards because of sanctions to be able to pay their travel expenses.

US and Israeli officials pressured Germany to block the withdrawal, arguing that Iran might use the funds to finance operations in Syria, Yemen, Iraq or Afghanistan. Said controversial US ambassador to Germany Richard A. Grenell:

“We are very concerned about the reports that the Iranian regime is trying to move hundreds of millions of euros to Iran from a German bank.”

It’s a concern Germany seemingly shares. A German decision to block the transfer of the funds would however influence Iranian perceptions of Europe’s resolve. That in turn would focus attention on Iran’s major trading partners. China and Russia have been relatively clear where they stand while the UAE may find it more difficult to evade measures that would severely curb what has long been a lucrative business.

An oped in the Khaleej Times, the UAE’s oldest English-language newspaper that was co-founded the UAE government, published days before the US withdrawal from the nuclear agreement argued nonetheless that the UAE would gain whether or not sanctions were re-imposed.

“The UAE could gain from sanctions because it has previously served as a valuable intermediary during similar periods. Goods that could not be sold to Iran directly due to sanctions were routed through the UAE,” the oped said.

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

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

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

Michel Chossudovsky

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

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-6-0

Year: 2015

Pages: 240 Pages

List Price: $22.95

Special Price: $15.00

Click here to order.

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Judicial Watch announced today the FBI turned over 70 pages of heavily redacted records about Christopher Steele, the former British spy, hired with Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee funds, who authored the infamous Dossier targeting President Trump during last year’s presidential campaign.  The documents show that Steele was cut off as a “Confidential Human Source” (CHS) after he disclosed his relationship with the FBI to a third party.  The documents show at least 11 FBI payments to Steele in 2016 and document that he was admonished for unknown reasons in February, 2016.  The documents were turned over in response to Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for records of communications and payments between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele and his private firm, Orbis Business Intelligence (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:17-cv-00916)).

The documents include a “source closing communication” that states that Steele (referred to as “CHS” or Confidential Human Source) “is being closed” because:

CHS confirmed to an outside third party that CHS has a confidential relationship with the FBI. CHS was used as a source for an online article. In the article, CHS revealed CHS’ relationship with the FBI as well as information that CHS obtained and provided to FBI. On November 1, 2016, CHS confirmed all of this to the handling agent. At that time, handling agent advised CHS that the nature of the relationship between the FBI and CHS would change completely and that it was unlikely that the FBI would continue a relationship with the CHS. Additionally, handling agent advised that CHS was not to operate to obtain any intelligence whatsoever on behalf of the FBI.

The documents also show that Steele was paid repeatedly by the FBI and was “admonished” for some unknown misconduct in February, 2016.  The documents include:

1. Fifteen (15) FD-1023, Source Reports.
2. Thirteen (13) FD-209a, Contact Reports.
3. Eleven (11) FD-794b, Payment Requests.  (It appears Steele was paid money eleven of the thirteen times he met with the FBI and gave them information.)
4. An Electronic Communication (EC) documenting that on February 2, 2016, Steele was admonished in accordance with the Justice Department guidelines and the FBI CHS Policy Manual.

The documents were obtained as a result of a lawsuit was filed after the Department of Justice failed to respond to a March 8, 2017, FOIA request seeking:

• All records of communications between any official, employee, or representative of the FBI and Mr. Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer and the owner of the private firm Orbis Business Intelligence.

• All records related to the proposed, planned, or actual payment of any funds to Mr. Steele and/or Orbis Business Intelligence.

• All records produced in preparation for, during, or pursuant to any meetings or telephonic conversations between any official, employee, or representative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Mr. Christopher Steele and/or any employee or representative of Orbis Business Intelligence.

“These new docs show the shady, cash-based relationship the Obama FBI had with Clinton operative Christopher Steele,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The anti-Trump Russia ‘investigation’ had Christopher Steele at its center and his misconduct was no impediment to using information from his Russia intelligence collaborators to spy on the Trump team. The corruption and abuse is astonishing.”

Last week, a separate Judicial Watch lawsuit uncovered the FISA warrant documents used to justify spying on Carter Page. The warrants are controversial because the FISA court was never told that the key information justifying the requests came from a “dossier” that was created by Fusion GPS, a paid agent of the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee.  Fusion GPS hired Steele to create the Dossier and Steele is referenced repeatedly as “Source #1” in the warrants. The initial Carter Page warrant was granted just weeks before the 2016 election. Steele and his “minimally corroborated” Clinton-DNC dossier was an essential part of the FBI and DOJ’s applications for surveillance warrants to spy on Page.

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

To reverse the tide, we call upon our readers to participate in an important endeavor.

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

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

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

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

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

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Dictatorship of the “Free” Market

By Mark Taliano, August 05, 2018

North America is subsisting beneath the bars of a publicly bailed-out “free-market” dictatorship that is killing us all. 

The system requires lies to survive, since it only (temporarily) benefits a tiny, parasitical oligarch class, to the detriment of global Life itself.

Secret Meeting on the Privatization of Nuclear War Held on Hiroshima Day 2003

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, August 05, 2018

What seems to have escaped the numerous media reports on the 2018 NPR is that the development of “more usable nuclear weapons” had already been put forth in George W. Bush’s 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, which was adopted by the US Senate in late 2002. In this regard, Senator Edward Kennedy had accused the Bush Administration for having developed “a generation of more useable nuclear weapons.” namely tactical nuclear weapons (B61-11 mini-nukes) with an explosive capacity between one third and 6 times times a Hiroshima bomb.

Why West Fears ‘Made in China: 2025’

By F. William Engdahl, August 05, 2018

The Trump administration has made the Chinese industrial transformation strategy, “Made in China: 2025,” or simply China 2025 the explicit target of its current trade war offensive against the Peoples’ Republic. Western industrial leading countries, including Germany, are understandably alarmed. Only they are ten years late, and until now have foolishly refused to collaborate with China in key developments, including of the new economic Silk Road or Belt Road Initiative.

Toxic Silence: Public Officials, Monsanto and the Media

By Colin Todhunter, August 05, 2018

The document discusses the lawsuits that have recently been brought against agrochemical and seed giant Monsanto, issues surrounding the renewal of the licence for glyphosate (key ingredient in Monsanto’s multi-billion-dollar, money-spinning herbicide Roundup) in the EU, rising rates of illness and disease (linked to glyphosate and other agrochemicals), the increasing use of pesticides and the lack of adequate testing and epidemiological studies pertaining to the cocktail of chemicals sprayed on crops.

An Account From a Doctor on Board the Freedom Flotilla Which Was Hijacked by the Israeli Navy

By Dr. Swee Ang, August 05, 2018

The last leg of the journey of al-Awda (the boat of return) was scheduled to reach Gaza on 29 July 2018. We were on target to reach Gaza that evening. There are 22 on board including crew with USD 15,000 of antibiotics and bandages for Gaza. At 12.31 pm we received a missed call from a number beginning with +81… Mikkel was steering the boat at that time. The phone rang again with the message that we were trespassing into Israeli waters.

The Rise and Continued Influence of the Neocons. The Project for the New American Century (PNAC)

By Michael Welch, Robbie Martin, Scott Price, and Mark Robinowitz, August 04, 2018

Politically, the neocons favour a world in which the United States adopts a much more aggressive military posture, and utilizes its military might to not only contain terrorist and related threats to its security, but force regime change in regions like the Middle East. They further take on the task of ‘nation-building’ all in the name of creating a safer world for ‘democracy.’ It was the neocons who promoted the stratagem of pre-emptive military action.

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Donald Trump met Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte last week and both emphasised their common values, standing firmly side-by-side at a White House joint press conference.

Trump stated that he and Italy’s Giuseppe Conte were “both outsiders to politics”.

When I read the newspapers of all the major US media outlets, including the New York Times, that ran with the headline Italian Premier: US, Italy Are ‘Almost Twin Countries’, it was a clear signal for me of a rapidly budding special relationship between the two countries, not seen since the WW11 cooperation with Sicilian partisans.

It finally puts to bed the jostling for who is America’s best friend in Europe; and it ain’t the EU, Britain, France or Germany.

Italy, I would argue, has now become the go to, point of contact for America for European, Middle Eastern and African matters, of that there is now no question, and also it is from Italy that the US will pressurise Brussels on a number of subjects especially immigration.

One could argue that no more evidence is required than Trump’s acknowledgement of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s description that the U.S. and Italy as “almost twin countries.”

Italy: A U.S. Proxy?

Let’s look back. Italy has a long history with America. Particularly Her present status as a NATO ally fighting with U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq but also potentially Italy could become more directly involved, on America’s behalf, in Libya.

One might anticipate a Russian-French-German “relationship” to counter balance America’s new special relationship with Italy that, by the way, leaves Britain out in the cold militarily and diplomatically.

 

A respected Italian political commentator, Riccardo Puglisi, from the University of Pavia, last week gave a rather more nuanced view on Conte’s visit to Washington.

“Italy’s close relationship with the United States is a two-edged sword. The best-case scenario for Italy is that it can use this relationship to take a seat alongside France and Germany as one of the European Union’s decision-makers.” adding “Prestige from having close ties to Washington might give the government more power in domestic areas, like passing the 2019 budget in September and October and it is also possible that Italy could act as the main liaison [as a political proxy] between the EU and the United States, or hopefully as the country that represents Europe’s priorities in the United States.”

I mention all this in the hope to dispel the notion that Italy is an unimportant insignificant country. [But at the same time, this suggests that Italy’s national sovereignty is affected by this so-called special relationship, M. Ch, GR Editor]

The other side of the sword is I guess, that it could leave Italy isolated from the rest of the EU.

But if, as I believe, the EU and the crooked Brussels bureaucracy are going through their final death throes, then what does it matter?

This also triggers the question of the future of NATO, also based in Brussels, but that is a whole other subject, of  huge importance.

To conclude we should all watch closely over the coming months these evolving relationships between the US and UK and European countries.

Central to this is the hope of an end to the almost intolerable Russia baiting by the US and UK.

Also the sooner the UK has a clean break with the EU, the sooner one can assess the UK’s future role with America (and for that matter, Russia) and Her future influence or otherwise in world affairs.

For now what is clear is that it is Italy that has a ‘Special Relationship’ with America not Britain. That said, given Trump’s unpredictability, who knows how long that will last.

*

Richard Galustian is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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The words ‘hope’ and ‘Pakistan’ do not often appear together.  Pakistan, a sprawling nation of 205 million, is hard to govern, even harder to finance, and seething with tribal or religious violence and discord.

But Pakistan, which for me is one of the most interesting and important nations on earth, is by far the leading nation of the Muslim world and a redoubtable military power.  Created in 1947 from former British India as a haven for oppressed Muslims, Pakistan has been ruled ever since by military juntas or by slippery and often corrupt civilian politicians.

After decades of dynastic politics under the Bhutto and Sharif families, there is suddenly hope that  newly elected cricket star Imran Khan and his Tehreek-e-Insaf Party (PTI) may – just may – tackle Pakistan’s four biggest problems: endemic corruption, military interference, political tribalism, and a half-dead economy.

Former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, appears to be headed for jail over a corruption scandal unless he is allowed to go into exile in London. The exiled former military dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is hiding out in Dubai awaiting charges of treason.

I spent a good deal of time with Pakistan’s former leaders, Gen. Zia-ul-Haq and his bitter foe, Benazir Bhutto, both of whom were later murdered.  Neither Musharraf nor Nawaz measured up to these colorful personalities in political skills, vision, or personality.

Imran Khan is sometimes called ‘Pakistan’s Jack Kennedy’ for his movie-star good looks, charisma and zesty love life.  He no longer plays professional cricket though he is still idolized in Pakistan and, interestingly, bitter foe India.

Khan (who is of Pashtun tribal blood) is also a philanthropist and respected thinker.  He says he is determined to begin rooting corruption out of Pakistan and to revivify its ailing economy.  Pakistan’s GDP is only $1,641 per person compared to India’s $2,134.  The illiteracy rate is about 40%, notably among women who are the primary teachers of the young.

As Imran Khan is about to take office, Pakistan’s coffers are almost empty.  Islamabad has had to take 12 loans from the International Monetary Fund in the last 40 years, in part to pay for its oil imports.

Now, Islamabad is negotiating yet another loan of $57 billion from its most important ally, China, whose vast belt and road project covering transportation, ports and infrastructure seeks to modernize Pakistan and turn it into a primary conduit to the Arabian Sea.

But Donald Trump’s Washington is angry over China’s dollar diplomacy, formerly a preserve of US foreign policy.  US State Secretary Mike Pompeo, who plays bad cop to Trump’s bad cop, lambastes Pakistan for the Chinese loan.

The White House is obviously dismayed by China’s growing influence over Pakistan caused, in large part, by the US decision to cut aid to Pakistan and favor its old enemy, India.  President George Bush aided India’s military nuclear program, alarming China and Pakistan.  Now, Trump is working to mobilize India against China.  So far, India has been too smart to act as an American strategic proxy.

Imran Khan will now have a chance to resolve the Indo-Pakistani dispute over contested Kashmir that has flared since 1947.  India keeps one million soldiers and police there to repress the rebellious majority Muslim population that seeks to join Pakistan or create an independent state.  The UN mandated a referendum to determine Kashmir’s future but India ignores it.

The new Khan government must also try to find a way to get the US out of the giant hole it has dug in Afghanistan.  Imran has been a vocal critic of the stalemated US war in Afghanistan. Soon, he will control the major supply lines to US forces there.

India and Pakistan are important nuclear-armed powers.  Their nuclear forces are on a hair-trigger alert of less than 5 minutes.  There is frequent fighting on the Kashmir cease-fire line between the two sides.  India’s vastly larger forces are poised to invade Pakistan.  Islamabad says it must have tactical nuclear weapons to deter such an overwhelming Indian attack.

The Kashmir border is the world’s most dangerous flash point.

Imran Khan may be able to calm tensions over Kashmir and open meaningful talks with India where he is very popular.  In the 1980’s, Gen. Zia ul Haq headed off an invasion by India by flying to Delhi on the spur of the moment to attend a cricket match.  This writer expects Imran Khan to similarly appear in India for his ultimate diplomatic test match.

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Featured image: A Monsanto facility in Stonington, Ill., on May 19, 2015. (Darrell Hoemann/Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting)

As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency prepared to make label changes for the herbicide dicamba after it caused widespread crop damage, the agency depended on the herbicide’s maker for guidance, documents produced in a federal lawsuit show.

A review of more than 800 pages of documents from a lawsuit filed against the U.S. EPA in January 2017 highlight the process behind how the agency made the label changes.

The lawsuit was filed by the Center for Food Safety, the Center for Biological Diversity, the National Family Farm Coalition and the Pesticide Action Network North America in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

The lawsuit alleges the agency unlawfully approved a version of dicamba made by Monsanto. It spent a year in discovery before plaintiffs’ filed a brief in February outlining their argument. Oral arguments are scheduled August 29 in Seattle, Washington.

“Like I said, no surprises,” wrote Reuben Baris, acting chief of the Herbicide Branch of the EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs, to Thomas Marvin, a Monsanto lawyer, hours before the new label was announced, according to an email dated October 10 obtained in the lawsuit.

The email came during a week of exchanges between the EPA and agribusiness Monsanto in 2017 about the terms and conditions that Monsanto would have to agree to for the label change.

Monsanto is an intervenor in the case, meaning it joined the case to help defend the registration.

“The EPA approved XtendiMax herbicide after a long and careful review process, including years of analysis and a thorough evaluation of data regarding volatility,” said Charla Lord, a spokeswoman from Monsanto, in an emailed statement. “This lawsuit is nothing more than an attempt by NGOs to take a valuable tool out of the hands of American farmers. We will stand with farmers who need this technology to control weeds and ensure that they have the training and support for an even more successful 2018 season.”

Dicamba is a traditional herbicide that has been used on corn and other crops, and the EPA approved its use for genetically modified soybeans and cotton crops in late 2016.

Monsanto had touted the new dicamba-resistant soybean and cotton seeds as its biggest biotech launch in company history. The company also made its own version of dicamba, touted to be less volatile.

But in 2017, the herbicide damaged more than 3.6 million acres of soybeans and other crops in 25 states, according to expert estimates. Dozens of farmers have sued Monsanto over the damage and loss in crop revenue.

In October, the EPA restricted the use of dicamba, making it a restricted use pesticide and limiting the conditions under which it could be applied.

But while making the changes, the EPA ignored state officials’ recommendations, did not use any new data or analysis to back up its new restrictions and allowed the herbicide’s maker to dictate the label’s terms and conditions, according to documents filed in the suit.

This year, despite the new changes, more than one million acres of soybeans are estimated to have been damaged by dicamba as of July 15, according to Kevin Bradley, a University of Missouri weed scientist.

A pesticide applicator sprays soybeans in rural McLean County in Illinois on July 26, 2017. (Darrell Hoemann/Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting)

Monsanto: Process ‘long and careful’ 

In June, pharmaceutical giant Bayer bought Monsanto for more than $60 billion. The transition is expected to take two months, after which Bayer will drop Monsanto’s name. Until then, Monsanto continues to operate as an independent company, according to a company news release.

In response to comment for this story, Monsanto spokeswoman Lord pointed out the benefits that farmers got from dicamba, saying that 97 percent of customers were satisfied and had a 5.7 bushel per acre advantage over other soybeans in its field trials.

Lord also said,

“We expect the acres of dicamba-tolerant soybean and corn to double this year to nearly 50 million acres, and early reports from the field are encouraging.”

BASF, which makes another version of the herbicide, is not a party to the case but its version of dicamba is covered under a “me-too” approval, meaning that the pesticide is similar or identical in its uses or formulations.

In a response filed in April, the agency said it followed all regular procedures in approving the new registration of the herbicide, as well in changes to the label following widespread damage.

“Facing uncertainty as to what caused the incidents and limited regulatory authority, EPA took a quick but protective approach by working with the registrant to strengthen the label instructions for the 2018 growing season,” the agency wrote in its April response. “The added restrictions could only have the effect of limiting the potential for off-site movement and unreasonable adverse effects on the environment.”

The EPA said the label change process was “the most environmentally responsible and protective approach that could be implemented in time for the 2018 growing season.

“EPA’s approval of the 2017 Amended Label was a careful but swift response to complaints about off-field movement,” the agency wrote in its response.

Additionally, Monsanto, which has the lead registration with the EPA and created the new seeds, continued to influence changes to the label, even after the herbicide led to a record number of pesticide misuse complaints in 2017, documents show.

Documents from the lawsuit include email communications between government officials and Monsanto officials, news reports, scientific studies and draft documents of proposed registration.

In one exchange, Monsanto stated what changes it found acceptable, and even attached a word document, crossing out sections it did not agree to.

“We accepted a number of the proposed changes, but did not incorporate all the iterative communications with retailers proposed in the last draft. In particular, we are concerned that those iterative communications might require a potentially significant period of time to complete,” wrote Philip Perry, a lawyer for Monsanto, to the EPA, in an October 10 email.

In its April response, the EPA said that Monsanto’s changes were the best approach to take before the new growing season.

“After entering into discussions with the registrant, EPA accepted Monsanto’s voluntary label change to further minimize the potential for off-field movement.”

Lawsuit: EPA did not follow FIFRA, Endangered Species Act

In November 2016, the EPA approved Monsanto’s version of dicamba for a two-year trial period.

The lawsuit alleges the EPA did not follow the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, which regulates pesticides in the United States, by applying the wrong legal standard, failing to analyze the “significant socioeconomic and agronomic costs to farmers” of drift and relied on “legally inadequate data.”

The February brief also alleges that the EPA violated the Endangered Species Act by overstepping its bounds and approving the herbicide without letting the wildlife agencies determine whether dicamba would have an impact on species protected by the act.

The pesticide law requires companies to conduct research about pesticides in order to save taxpayers money, though the company paying for the research also raises questions about the validity of the research, said George Kimbrell, a lawyer for the Center for Food Safety.

Additionally, the EPA did not incorporate “any new data or analysis” in changing the label, instead relying on the data from November 2016, despite a year of the pesticide being used in the field, according to the February brief.

The EPA responded that it found that dicamba “would not generally cause unreasonable adverse effects, which was more than sufficient to meet FIFRA’s conditional registration.”

“The conditions on this registration enabled EPA to strike an optimal balance—based on the information available in 2016—between making promising new pesticide uses available and minimizing the likelihood of unreasonable adverse effects on the environment,” the agency wrote. “Accordingly, EPA’s cost-benefit balancing was reasonable and supported by substantial evidence.”

Multiple meetings

Between August and September 2017, EPA officials met with Monsanto four times, according to the lawsuit.

On an August 23 call with state officials, the EPA said it was discussing label changes for dicamba with Monsanto, BASF and DuPont, which has a registration for a branded version of Monsanto’s dicamba.

EPA officials said the agency was considering changing wind speed and tractor speed, limiting the timing of application, requiring more training and classifying the product as restricted use, which requires applicators to be registered and more keep records about application.

During the call, state officials warned the EPA that the proposed label changes only addressed physical drift and not volatility, which caused many of the issues, according to meeting notes.

Jason Norsworthy, a weed scientist at the University of Arkansas, said

“there’s nothing we can do for a volatile product as far as label changes,” notes show.

“Acreage is going to be much higher in 2018, and these solutions won’t address that,” he said.

Several other officials then said that a cutoff date to limit when the herbicide could be sprayed could be effective, although soybean planting dates in the South are much earlier than in farther north areas.

Monsanto opposed the cutoff date, according to its comments to multiple news agencies.

In October 2017, the EPA imposed restrictions on the herbicide for 2018, although officials did not implement a cutoff date. However, Arkansas imposed a cutoff date of April 15 for the spraying of dicamba. Additionally, several other states imposed restrictions on top of the EPA’s label changes.

The EPA also wrote that it considered the benefits of dicamba to farmers.

“Further, Petitioners unreasonably downplay the benefits of these new uses. Herbicides like Xtendimax are an important element of modern agriculture, and EPA recognized that Xtendimax could offer advantages over other registered pesticides, particularly the ability to apply it throughout the growing season to combat new flushes of weeds,” the EPA wrote.

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It seems a distant reality, or nightmare now: a company that was near defunct in 1996, now finding itself at the imperial pinnacle of the corporate ladder.  Then, publications were mournful and reflective about the corporation that gave us the Apple Computer.  An icon had fallen into disrepair.  Then came the renovations, the Steve Jobs retooling and sexed-up products of convenience.

Apple’s valuation last Thursday came in at $1 trillion and may well make it the first trillion dollar company on the planet.  That its assets are worth more than a slew of countries is surely something to be questioned rather than cheered.  This un-elected entity, with employees versed in evading, as far as possible, the burdens of public accountability, poses a troubling minder about how concentrated financial power rarely squares with democratic governance.

Chalking up such a mark is only impressive for those keeping an eye on the trillion dollar line.  China’s state-owned PetroChina is another muscular contender for getting there first, while the Saudi Arabian energy company Aramco, which produces a far from negligible 10 percent of the world’s oil, could well scoot past Apple should it go public.

Cheering was exactly what was demanded by James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute, whose piece in The Week suggests that Apple reached that mark “the right way”.  The critics of such concentrated power, technology company or otherwise, were simply wrong.  “For them, superbig is automatically superbad.”

Praise for Apple, an abstract being, is warranted in the way that its ally, modern capitalism, should be. “The story of Apple is really the story of modern capitalism doing what it does best: turning imagination into reality.”  The author prefers to see Apple, and Amazon, as products of US genius in the capitalist context.

The New York Times is similarly impressed, linking individual gargantuan successes to the broader American effort in the economy.  A small gaggle of US companies commanding “a larger share of total corporate profits” than at any time since the 1970s, is not necessarily something to snort at. The nine-year bull market has, essentially, been powered by the four technology giants.  “Their successes are also propelling the broader economy, which is on track for its fastest growth rate in a decade.”

To its credit, the paper does pay lip service to concerns that such “superstar firms” are doing their bit to stifle wage growth, shrink an already struggling, barely breathing middle class, while jolting income inequality.

This is where the trouble lies: a seemingly blind understanding of capitalism’s inner quirks and unstable manifestations. The paradox behind the tech giant phenomenon does not lie in the wisdom that innovation comes from competition. The converse is claimed to be true: that concentration, oligopolistic power, and strings pulled by a few players is the way to keep innovation alive.  This was Microsoft’s vain argument during the 1990s, something that did not sit well with the antitrust denizens.

The fraternity of economists, rarely capable in agreeing on broader trends, has become abuzz with literature focused on one unsettling topic: the continuing, and accelerating concentration of US industry.  Gustavo Grullon, Yelena Larkin and Roni Michaely noted in April last year that government policies encouraging competition in industry had been “drastically reversed in the US” with a 75 percent increase in the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI) measuring market concentration.  (Antitrust regulators beware.)  The authors observe how, “Lax enforcement of antitrust regulations and increasingly technological barriers to entry appear to be important factors behind this trend.”

Marketing professor from NYU, Scott Galloway, is one who has supped from the cup of the tech giants. He has written about their exploits (The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google), his addresses having become something of a viral phenomenon with analyses of the companies at the DLD Conference in Munich.  Initially seduced by the bling and the product, he enjoyed the magic mushroom inducements the tech giants supplied, relished in their success and stock options, extolled their alteration of human behaviour. “This started as a love affair.  I want to be clear.  I love these companies.”

This year, a change of heart took place.  Galloway, after spending “the majority of the last two years” of his life “really trying to understand them and the relationship with the ecosystem” is convinced that these behemoths must be broken up.  The big four, striving all powerful deities, sources of mass adoration, have become “our consumptive gods”.  “And as a result of their ability to tap into these very basic instincts, they’ve aggregated more market cap than the majority of nation’s GDP”.

Power and influence has shifted.  Political leaders have little of these relatively speaking, certainly over the behavioural consistency and content of subjects and citizens.  Someone like Mark Zuckerberg, distinctly outside a political process he can still control, does.  “He can turn off or on your mood. He can take any product up or down. He can pretty much kill any company in the tech space.”  And that’s just Facebook.

What Galloway points out with a forceful relevance is that liberties and freedoms are not the preserve of estranged markets and their bullish actors. Regulation and oversight are required.  A return to competition would only be possible through some form of intervention and coaxing, perhaps even economic violence.  The memory of the great financial crisis initially stimulated an appetite for regulation.  In recent years, such urgings have been satiated.  The tech giants, fully aware of this, continue to burgeon.

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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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North America is subsisting beneath the bars of a publicly bailed-out “free-market” dictatorship that is killing us all. 

The system requires lies to survive, since it only (temporarily) benefits a tiny, parasitical oligarch class, to the detriment of global Life itself.

The supremacy of the falsely-labelled “free market” is made palpable by its remnants.  Huge swaths of society – disappeared by monopoly media – are increasingly thirdworldized. This is the “freedom” of the “market”.

It is a mindless political economy wherein people operating its levers claim ignorance of or blindly extol the virtues of, its impacts.

It is a driver beneath the destruction of national sovereignties and the rule of international law in its  constant search for new “free” markets.  Sovereign countries such as Syria, that resist this external dictatorship, feel the heel of Empire’s jackboots, most visibly in the form of Western-supported ISIS and al Qaeda terrorists who lay siege to the country, protected by their benefactors both militarily and politically.

The expanding free market of “neoliberal” predatory capitalism destroys the freedom of “prey” countries to determine their own political economy.  Hence, Syria, which is defeating Empire’s terrorists and restoring the rule of international law, as it regains its sovereignty and territorial integrity, is more free and self-determining than a country like Canada.

Canada’s servitude to transnational policymakers couldn’t be more palpable than it is now, with the announcement that the Trudeau government intends to welcome White Helmets terrorists to our shores.

We are the dustbin for Empire’s failed project in Syria – and most Canadians are, and will likely remain, blissfully unaware. 

One of the few remaining beacons of hope stands defiantly on the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean, where Christianity and civilizations were born, where civilizing forces are re-emerging with every victory over the West’s hideous foot soldiers.

Empire’s anti-Life, megalomaniacal designs for a totalitarian “World Order” of chaos, death, and poverty, are being frustrated on ancient Syrian soils.  Thank God. 

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

Featured image is from Strategic Culture Foundation.

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

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Year: 2017

Pages: 128 (Expanded edition: 1 new chapter)

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“The Facebook intervention is a qualitative escalation of the McCarthyite offensive.”

Facebook has assumed additional political police powers, disrupting a planned counter-demonstration against white supremacists, set for August 12th in Washington, on the grounds that it was initiated and inspired by “Russians” as part of a Kremlin campaign to “sow dissention” in the U.S. The Facebook intervention is a qualitative escalation of the McCarthyite offensive launched by the Democrat Party and elements of the national security state, and backed by most of the corporate media, initially to blame Hillary Clinton’s 2016 defeat on “collusion” between Wikileaks, “the Russians” and the Trump campaign to steal and publicize embarrassing Clinton campaign emails.

After failing to produce one shred of hard evidence to support their conspiracy theory, the anti-Russia hysteria mongers switched gears, focusing on the alleged purchase of about $100,000 in Facebook ads by the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a St. Petersburg-based Russian company, over a multi-year period. The problem was, most of the ads had no direct connection to the presidential contest, or were posted after the election was over, and many had no political content, at all. The messages were all over the place, politically, with the alleged Russian operatives posing as Christian activists, pro- and anti-immigration activists, and supporters of the Black Lives Matter Movement. Special prosecutor Robert Mueller was forced to flip the script, indicting 13 Russians for promoting general “discord” and undermining “public confidence in democracy” in the United States – thus creating a political crime that has not previously been codified in the United States.

“Mueller was forced to flip the script.”

In doubling down on an unraveling conspiracy tale, the Mueller probe empowered itself to tar and feather all controversial speech that can be associated with utterances by “Russians,” even if the alleged “Russians” are, in fact, mimicking the normal speech of left- or right-wing Americans — a descent, not into Orwell’s world, but that of Kafka (Beyond the Law) and Heller (Catch-22).

Facebook this week announced that it had taken down 32 pages and accounts that had engaged in “coordinated and inauthentic behavior” in promoting the August 12 counter-demonstration against the same white supremacists that staged the fatal “Unite the Right” demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, a year ago. Hundreds of anti-racists had indicated their intention to rally against “Unite the Right 2.0” under the banner of Shut It Down DC, which includes D.C. Antifascist Collective, Black Lives Matter D.C., Hoods4Justice, Resist This, and other local groups.

Facebook did not contend that these anti-racists’ behavior was “inauthentic,” but that the first ad for the event was purchased by a group calling itself “Resisters” that Facebook believes were behaving much like the Internet Research Agency.

“At this point in our investigation, we do not have enough technical evidence to state definitively who is behind it,” said Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy . “But we can say that these accounts engaged in some similar activity and have connected with known I.R.A accounts.”

“The Mueller probe empowered itself to tar and feather all controversial speech that can be associated with utterances by ‘Russians,’ even if the alleged ‘Russians’ are, in fact, mimicking the normal speech of left- or right-wing Americans.”

Chelsea Manning, whose prison sentence for sending secret documents to Wikileaks was commuted by President Obama, said the counter-protest was “organic and authentic”and that activists had begun organizing several months ago.

“Folks from D.C. and Charlottesville have been talking about this since at least February,” Manning told The New York Times.

“This was a legitimate Facebook event that was being organized by Washington, D.C. locals,” says Dylan Petrohilos, of Resist This. Petrohilos was one of the defendants in the Trump inauguration “riot” prosecutions. He protested Facebook’s disruption of legitimate free speech and assembly. “DC organizers had controlled the messaging on the no UTR fb page and now FB made it harder for grassroots people to organize,” he tweeted. The organizers insist the August 12 counter-demonstration — “No Unite the Right 2 – DC” — is still a go, as is the white supremacist rally.

Whoever was first to buy a Facebook ad — the suspected Russian “Resisters,” or Workers Against Racism, who told the Daily Beast they decided to host their own anti-“Unite the Right 2.0” event because they thought “Resisters” was an “inexperienced liberal organizer” – there was no doubt whatsoever that the white supremacists would be confronted by much larger numbers of counter-demonstrators, in Washington. Nobody in Russia needed to tell U.S. anti-racists to shut the white supremacists down, or vice versa. The Russians didn’t invent American white supremacy, or the native opposition to it. Even if Mueller, Facebook, the Democratic Party and the howling corporate media mob are to be believed, the “Russians” are simply mimicking U.S. political rhetoric and sloganeeriing – and weakly, at that. The Workers Against Racism thought the “Resisters” weren’t worth partnering with, but that the racist rally must be countered. The Shut It Down DC coalition didn’t need the “Resisters” to crystallize their thinking on white supremacism.

“Chelsea Manning said the counter-protest was ‘organic and authentic.”

The Democratic Party and corporate media, speaking for most of the U.S. ruling class — and actually bullying one of its top oligarchs, Mark Zuckerberg — is on its own bizarre and twisted road to fascism. (Donald Trump’s proto-fascism is the old fashioned, all-American type that the white supremacists want to celebrate on August 12.) With former FBI Director Robert Mueller at the head of the pack, they have created a pseudo legal doctrine whereby “Russians” (or U.S. spooks pretending to be Russians) can be indicted for launching a #MeToo campaign of mimicry, echoing the rhetoric and memes indigenous to U.S. political struggles, while the genuine, “authentic” American political voices — the people who are being mimicked — are labeled co-conspirators in a foreign-based “plot,” and their rights to speech and assembly are trashed.

That’s truly crazy, but devilishly clever, too. If “Russian” mimics (or cloaked spooks) can reproduce the vocabulary and political program of U.S. dissent, then all of us actual U.S. lefties can be dismissed as “dupes of the Russians” or “co-conspirators” in the speech crimes of our mimics — for sounding like ourselves.

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BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at [email protected].

Featured image is from the author.

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On May 18^th 2017, 27 Syrian army vehicles drove within 18 miles of al-Tanf, which breached the U.S.-declared 34-mile radius of the army convoy’s operations resulting  in the U.S. forces striking the Syrian Army. It should be noted that al-Tanf (an American military base) operated by U.S. special forces trains a number of rebel groups referred to by the U.S. as Vetted Syrian Opposition (VSO) also known as the Southern front which includes over 50 militant groups such as the Revolutionary Commando Army (RCA). When the U.S struck the Syrian army, Wall Street Journal’s Yaroslav Trofimov reported that “The U.S. attack at al Tanf is significant not because the U.S. has once again struck Assad’s forces, but because it did so in defense of Syrian rebels”. It is important to remember these past events because on June 24^th 2018, the U.S. announced that it will not be backing its proxies on the ground with air force – in contrast to last year. This event highlights that the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies have made substantial geostrategic gains in the past year.

While the Battle of Daraa is symbolically important – since it is the province where the Syrian (foreign) intervention by proxy first took place in 2011 with the help of Former U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert S. Ford – the Battle for southern Syria should not be analyzed as the “final” battle simply because the U.S. announced “that it will not back up its anti-government proxies in the south”. The SAA and its allies still have a long way to go in liberating areas located in Northern and Eastern Syria which remain under the control of the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) and extremist rebel factions – funded and trained by American officers. This is by no means an overstatement considering Major General Igor Konashenkov saying that Russia has intelligence that the Free Syrian Army is going to stage a “chemical attack” in the village of Haql al-Jafara and accuse the Syrian government of conducting it.

According to Syrian government military sources, almost a year ago in July 2017 a group of Israeli military and intelligence personnel travelled to Syria’s West Daraa countryside with the objective of meeting rebel commanders from the Southern Front such as Liwa Jaydour, Jaysh al-Ababil, and the Revolutionary Commando Army (RAC) to discuss future cooperation and collaboration in battles. Another meeting also took place on September 2017 in the Quneitra border town of Rafid between Israeli intelligence personnel and militia commanders concerning the establishment of a 50km buffer zone stretching east of Golan Heights into Syrian (Southern) territory – absorbing Quneitara, As Suwayda and Daraa. The Times of Israel on July 6^th 2017 notes “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday as part of ongoing Israeli efforts to convince Russia and the United States to establish a demilitarized buffer zone in southern Syria…Israel is pushing for an agreement that would prevent “Hezbollah or other Iranian-backed militias” from operating in the area, which would extend some 30 miles (48 kilometers) beyond the Israeli-Syrian border on the Golan Heights”.

On June 26^th 2018 Russia declared the ceasefire it brokered on July 2017 between Jordan, Israel, and U.S in Southern Syria (de-confliction/de-escalation zone i.e No Fly Zone) as null since Israel targeted an Iranian weapon depot around Damascus Airport, and mercenaries also targeted a Syrian military command post in Suwayda (southernmost province in Syria). The Russian defense ministry took both of these events as clear action in violation of the agreement. With the ceasefire no longer in place, a Syrian-Russo offensive has begun regaining the southern geographical space of Syria. Recent reports reveal that some rebels are surrendering and that the SAA is making substantive gains in Izraa, Nahitah, Sama Al Hadeidat in Daraa and ongoing advancements are underway to take Busra al sham in East Daraa. Questions that remain unanswered concern how long will the IDF “turn a blind eye” to the SAA regaining southern provinces such as quneitara bordered with Israel and the Golan Heights?; and will the U.S. redraw from its base in Al Tanf base which Al Muallem and Al Assad have vehemently opposed and categorized as colonialism?.

It should be highlighted that with the U.S. abandoning its proxies in Southern Syria, we can deduce that Israel will have to “pause” its “Greater Israel” ambitions in wanting to absorb Southern Syrian territory, and la pièce de résistance – claim the Golan Heights as Sovereign Israeli territory. During a visit to Israel’s northern border according to the Jerusalem Post (JP) on July 4th 2018, General Eisenkot discussed the readiness of the Northern Command with its commander Maj. Gen. Yoel Strick and the 366th Division’s commander Brig. Gen. Amit Fisher. “The IDF is monitoring the situation in Syria and is prepared for a variety of scenarios to preserve the security on Israel’s border,” read a statement given by the IDF’s Spokesperson’s Unit. On July 1st 2018 the Israeli government reinforced its border with the Golan Heights by positioning armored and artillery forces near the border with Syria in light of a situational assessment by the Northern Command.

Benjamin Netanyahu is seen during a security tour in the Golan Heights, near Israel’s northern border with Syria

The SAA territorial advancements in the past year highlight that the SAA has the upper hand on the battle field. However, we should also remember that the southern battle is not the final battle, even though it is a vital battle since it includes an offensive that will be combating over 15000 mercenaries. Contrary to Mr. Robert Fisk’s article in the Independent on June 26th 2018, I think it is too early to state that the battle for southern Syria will go down in history as a moment where “the US has given up on the overthrow of Assad in Syria” because it “abandoned its proxies in southern Syria”. Another battle that should be increasing in intensity in the next few weeks and/or after the southern battle is concluded is the battle to reclaim Northern (East) Syria – a territory under the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and U.S. rebel factions.

The Syrian government including Liwa al-Baqir convened a major meeting of tribal notables from across Syria on June 2 in order to build support for operations against the U.S. in Eastern Syria. Syrian state media claimed the meeting included representatives from seventy clans from Aleppo, Ar-Raqqa, Hasakah, Daraa, and Deir ez-Zor Provinces. According to the Institute for the Study of War unconfirmed reports suggest that the SDF arrested dozens of additional tribal representatives traveling to the meeting from SDF-held Hasaka Province in Northern Syria. Tribal representatives at the meeting denounced the presence of the U.S., France, and Turkey in Syria and called for tribal mobilization to fight them on behalf of Assad. Multiple new pro-regime militia units of unclear size and capability reportedly formed subsequent to the meeting. These units may have joined Liwa al-Baqir with support from Russia and Iran. Not to mention reports released the week of July 15^th 2018 highlighting that rebels in Southern Syria are being transported to the Northern part of Syria.

More recent news on July 29^th 2018 highlights that the Syrian Democratic Council [the SDF political arm] held a two day meeting with the Syrian government headed by President Bashar Al Assad. Officials belonging to the SDF, which hold large swathes of land in northern Syria discussed the future of the autonomous regions it set up in northern and northeastern Syria. The SDF has made a series of deals with Damascus in recent years, notably in Aleppo when the SAA decimated Syrian Arab rebel groups making a final stand to hold the city. The SDF also came to an agreement with the Syrian government during the Turkish incursion into the then-Kurdish-held Afrin canton in Syria’s north-west corner, allowing Kurdish fighters to cross regime-held territory in a doomed bid to repel Turkish troops and their allies. The SDF, whose military is largely funded by the US as a counter-IS initiative, holds more than 27 percent of the country’s territory, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.  It is still not clear whether rebel troops in northern Syria will be in accord with the SDF and SAA in relinquishing land they have usurped in the past 7 years and have it under the control of Damascus headed by President Bashar Al Assad. Also, According to a statement by SDF spokesperson Leilwa al-Abdullah, SDF forces pushed IS fighters into retreat from an area of ​​3,100 square-kilometers to a small slither of territory close to the strategic border town of Abu Kamal. A local SDF commander, speaking to Syria Direct said that the “crackdown on the border area” had gone ahead in coordination with Iraqi forces and international coalition airpower.

Still, recent territorial gains by the SDF may have little bearing on talks with the Syrian government, which could be unwilling to actually cede territorial control or administrative authority to Kurdish-majority forces. Sihanouk Dibo, from the majority-Kurdish leftist Democratic Union Party (PYD), acknowledged that any future talks could be “long and arduous because the Damascus regime is very centralized.” Whether centralized or not, the Syrian Government has historically been committed to the modality of Greater Syria with Damascus being the locus in decision making and autonomous regions conducting provincial policies relating to their provincial preferences. As stated by President Al Assad “Despite the ethnic diversity within each nation, the social fabric of the region by and large is one”. In other words, a region of the historical Bilad Al Sham/Greater Syria space will not be relinquished since the Levant possesses a unified social fabric and most importantly because the Barzani Clan in Iraq is a dangerous example of how U.S. imperialism with its allies can defend decentralization for the sake of geostrategic interest.

Therefore, in regards to the Syrian peace process, peace cannot be implemented when the UNSC resolution 2254 adopted in 2015 – including the P5 – continues to be violated. The delegates meeting at the June 13^th U.N-led peace process in Geneva reiterated the importance of the clauses in the resolution which included that a nationwide ceasefire can only occur when member states are serious in halting the funding and training of mercenary entities. The members also reiterated the basis for a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition in order to end the conflict in Syria. The meeting in Geneva did not highlight anything novel that the meetings in Astana or Sochi didn’t already outline. The meeting laid out the so-called four “baskets of reform” for a political settlement of the crisis. They include the drafting of a new constitution, parliamentary elections, the creation of a non-sectarian transitional government and the fight against mercenaries and terrorists. But the talks have made little progress so far as opposition members have failed to find an agreement over the fate of President Bashar al-Assad – a condition that the opposition has long wanted to include in the draft.

It is quite ironic that the Syrian Opposition is adamant in wanting to include a clause that stipulates that the current Syrian president is not allowed to run for president after 2020 and/or practice politics in Syria…it is ironic because while some opposition members discuss the importance of democracy being the foundation for peace in Syria, it is precisely democracy which re-elected President Bashar Al Assad in 2014.

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Khaled Al-Kassimi is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at McMaster University in Canada. His research interest relates to the fields and approaches contoured by Critical Security Studies, Development Studies, International Relations, and Decolonial Studies.

All images in this article are from the author.